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Author Topic:   From Agony to Ecstasy!!!!!!!!!!
Solane Star
Knowflake

Posts: 5378
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2005

posted October 18, 2007 02:34 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Solane Star     Edit/Delete Message
From Agony to Ecstasy


Joy is to enter into your own self. In the beginning it is difficult arduous. In the beginning you will have to face misery; the path is very mountainous. But the more you enter into it, the greater is the reward.

Understanding is The Key

You have to understand one thing; that enlightenment is not an escape from pain but an understanding of pain, an understanding of your anguish, an understanding of misery--not a cover-up, not a substitute, but a deep insight; " why am I miserable, why is there so much anxiety, why is there so much anguish, what are the causes in me that are creating it?" And to see those causes clearly is to be free from them.

Just an insight into your misery brings a freedom from misery. And what remains is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that comes to you. It is when pain and misery and anguish and anxiety have been understood perfectly well and they have evaporated because now they have no cause to exist in you---that state is enlightenment. It will bring you, for the first time, real contentment, real blissfulness, authentic ecstasy. And only then can you compare.

What you needed to call " contentment " before was not contentment. What you used to call " happiness" before was not happiness.

Once enlightenment gives you a taste of the real, you will see that all pleasures, all your happiness, were simply the stuff dreams are made of; they were not real. And what has come now, has come forever.

That is the definition of the real: A contentment that comes and never leaves you again is real contentment. a contentment that comes and goes again is not contentment, it is simply a gap between two miseries. Just as we call gap between two wars " peacetime"----it is not a peaceful time, it is simply preparation for another war. If the war is a positive war, the time between two wars is a negative war, a cold war. It goes on underground, you are getting ready for a hot war.

Anything that comes and goes is a dream. Let that be the definition. Anything that comes and never goes is reality.

Try to understand your misery. Live it, go to the very depth of it, find out the cause, why it is there. Let understanding be your medittion.

And try to understand your contentment also, your happiness also, and you will see their superficiality. Once you know that your happiness is superficial and your anguish is very deep---and it is in your hands---you can change your whole being; not even a small space is left for discontentment.

Your love becomes your very life. And it remains. Time passes, but what you have achieved goes on deepening. More and more flowers, more and more songs are born out of it. Thats what we call " enlightenment " The word is Eastern, but the experience has nothing to do with East or West.

By Osho

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SattvicMoon
Knowflake

Posts: 2282
From:
Registered: May 2007

posted October 18, 2007 02:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for SattvicMoon     Edit/Delete Message
quote:
Joy is to enter into your own self. In the beginning it is difficult arduous. In the beginning you will have to face misery; the path is very mountainous. But the more you enter into it, the greater is the reward.


How true! Absolutely true!

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Mirandee
Knowflake

Posts: 4812
From: South of the Thumb - Taurus, Pisces, Cancer
Registered: Sep 2004

posted October 18, 2007 07:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Mirandee     Edit/Delete Message
You are reading my mind again, Star

So weird. I was talking to Butch today about this exact same thing.

I love Osho. So many times he has confirmed my thoughts for me.

It doesn't matter what your spirituality is, where you learned it, what religion you follow or what religion you don't follow. Wherever your spirituality may come from, if it doesn't bring you this contentment about life, about yourself and everything and if it isn't a sustained contentment that sees you through the hard times with hope and an optimistic outlook on life then it probably is neither the right form of spirituality for you or true spirituality.

It happens so gradually too. That when it finally comes to you and your whole outlook changes, you wonder where it came from. It surprises you time after time.

quote:
Try to understand your misery. Live it, go to the very depth of it, find out the cause, why it is there. Let understanding be your medittion.

So true!!! And I always knew this. You have jump into your pain and misery, wallow around in it ( go to the depth of it as Osho says) in order to ever understand it. That is the way I always described it. Thank you Osho for once again confirming I am at least in the ballpark.

Thank you too, Star. You amaze me!

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Dervish
Knowflake

Posts: 328
From: California
Registered: Nov 2006

posted October 18, 2007 09:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Dervish     Edit/Delete Message
I know that often as I'm about to eat a treat, I'll think back to when I was a homeless teen on the streets or when Mom blew the child support on her addictions leaving no food in the house, which helps me savor the warmth, money, and food more.


As for meditation, one thing I found helpful that I'll share. I have PTSD, especially bad in October. Part of it is when I have a nightmare back to bad times and get up all freaked out, or otherwise feel irrationally afraid and powerless, I couldn't understand why. I've had years of martial arts and self-defense training, and it's been tried and true in real life experiences. I'm good with a gun, too. I'm not a child anymore. So why the feeling?

I realized after awhile that it's because the part of me that felt that way was still a child. This would also explain like why in a nightmare, if I could even find my gun, it wouldn't work: because back then guns were not part of my reality. Nor were any of my other skills or abilities, so they were equally useless. I couldn't lock people out, being a child, so locks don't work in those nightmares either. When I was awake, it translated into a general feeling of powerlessness, just like back when I was a child and such.

What I took to doing was meditating on taking myself as a child and teaching her various self defense techniques, showing that we can use locks now, and how to use a gun. I also took to visualizing myself as a child growing up as she learned. And it's helped A LOT. This month, I'm still struggling with the PTSD, but it's been the least turbulent EVER.

So maybe others with traumatic pasts that hate how they're still haunted by feelings of powerlessness and such can also try the same thing that worked for me.

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Solane Star
Knowflake

Posts: 5378
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2005

posted October 18, 2007 09:43 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Solane Star     Edit/Delete Message

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