Interpreting the interpretation of the interpretation

Curious people sometimes get a big doses of information, particularly when it comes to religion.   

Once again I was being imposed on with more heat than light about the magnificence of a gentleman's religion. The greatness of  his 'Holy Book.'

After listening to much confusing talk, I asked him, how often did he read the holy book? He replied sheepishly that he never read the book, because, the script was in another language, and the words were rather difficult. 

However he knew the messages and their meanings thanks to his elders and the preacher. I asked myself how could a person who never read the book nor understood the language quote so confidently from it? Looking at my wanting to know more he offered to take me to the local preacher.

The preacher was excited by the opportunities of my joining the fold. He was better able to explain about the holy books and the message better than my acquaintance. 

He had spent some years in learning the ropes to becoming a priest. He spoke confidently, sprinkling his sermon with quotes from the holy book. I could understand little as he prattled on delivering his standard pitch, perfected by its repeated delivery.

Yes the book was not easy to understand, the language, the context, challenged him, but the senior preacher knew so much more and he had taught him and was often guided by him. 

Here I was receiving a sermon and explanations delivered by someone, who acquired it from a paid preacher who got it from an older paid preacher. The text that was quoted so frequently, may or may not have been understood by any of us but we were all  simply regurgitating the same thing without experiencing anything. 

_________

This is exactly how dogma grows. No one understanding what they say, but just parroting it. To show loyalty to a group, society, community, religion, to exercise dominance over others based on our knowledge. 

The followers increase in numbers and and more adherents are pulled in by lure or coercion. Even the greatest edifice built will collapse sooner or later if the foundation is weak.  

As long as no one asks a question everything is fine. Like the Chinese whisper effect a message finally delivered something vastly different from the original message. It is shallow because it does not stand on original truth, often being tainted by the biases of the communicator. Worse, it is a pure textbook exercise, with no one having experienced anything.

Believers are certainly guilty of this lapse, but so are opponents, who seek to condemn a faith or a people without trying to truly understand what it means and how it is relevant.

_______________

Next time you are lectured on the good or the evil of an individual, people or a faith, it might be a good idea to understand what the person giving the message really understands and has experienced.

All religious knowledge is invalid unless it is experienced. It does not belong to us. It can be ours only after experiencing it. Then and only then can it blossom into spiritual wisdom and an awakening. 

Lust and happiness.

All humanity seems to be on a quest to be happy. Yet happiness eludes us, why?

The answer probably lies in lust and sexual repression.

To have sexual desire is the most natural of our traits. To condemn this itself is so sinister that man is condemned to be unhappy.  

What greater punishment we inflict on ourselves?

No matter what we try, eventually nature always triumphs. Yet we force ourselves to  try and live in unnatural ways. That is why humans have become cruel and violent. Rape, abuse, exploitation of the weak, violence, war, etc., are the products of a repressed sexuality. 

Priests quoting from their respective holy books of organised religion, inform us that, lust means the desire for sex. They  say that sex is taboo and even in marriage sex is regrettable. 

Priests preach to us, to abandon the lust for power money and sex which is forbidden, which we can term as 'bad lust'. They instruct us to deactivate our minds, ignore our hearts and surrender much of our wealth to their religious institutions, so that we may properly chase religion and God. This is what could be termed as 'good lust'.

It is true that Prophets, Messiahs and the Gurus advised us not to lust. There is great depth and relevant meaning behind these statements. Unfortunately priests have twisted this statement to assume lust means only sexual lust.

As per the priests, to crave for sex and wealth is bad but to crave for religion and God is good.  In reality there is no difference between the lust for power, sex, wealth, and lust for religion and God. 

Lust, is an intense craving. Lust means to desire, and to desire something passionately if not desperately. Desperation and passion are both blinding. 

Only a heart and mind which is at peace and calm can progress on the spiritual journey. But a heart possessed by a craving, any craving is always unsettled and in turmoil. Turmoil occupies and ties us down, calmness releases us.



Imagine our individual being, as a pond. 
Any object thrown into the water will cause ripples. 
Similarly a craving thrown into our being will also causes ripples and hence turmoil. 

It matters not, whether we throw an ordinary stone, gold nugget or even a diamond into the calm waters of the pond. All objects cast into the water will always cause ripples.

Our lust, our craving constantly creates ripples in our mind and therefore our mind is always in turbulence. How can we ever achieve peace and divinity with a  turbulent mind and spirit?

It matters little, whether we crave sex, wealth, power, enlightenment or God, all craving is lust. To crave or to lust means to be dissatisfied with what we already have and to desire something else. We crave for something more and therefore we live, not in the present but in the future. That is what causes turmoil and unhappiness.

Thus after many years of rituals, discussions with sages, searching endlessly for answers Gautam Buddha got enlightened. 
What did he achieve, when we say, "Siddhartha got enlightened"? 
Lord Buddha discovered that there is no need to crave for anything, he just had to be. To merely accept existence, and that is a state of Godliness.

Lord Buddha discovered that to be blissful, no answers are needed. Existence is not a problem that needs to be solved, nor a challenge that must be overcome, but a mystery that simply needs to be experienced.


The greatest gift is to be at peace with ourselves. This can happen in three phases. 
First, to live life naturally, fulfilling our biological needs and then transcending our sexual and hunger desires. 
Next to evolve from body to mind by reflection and intellectual nourishment to attain wisdom. 
Finally, by meditating, transcend both body and mind to become truly spiritual. Eventually we will come to know both ourselves and existence . 

The wisdom, the power, the energy of the universe, and all the bliss is ours for the receiving, if only we were not so blinded by lust for these gifts.


* This article is based on the talks of the Master, Osho.

Forgive me, for I have sinned

A river is a source of life, nurturing people, vegetation, and animals living on the lands through which it flows.  The river is only doing its duty, following it's nature or what people in the East call as 'Dharma'.


Similarly humans are true to their nature. Our lives are akin to a river, alive and full of character. All humans possess their natural qualities of lust, anger, greed, ego and attachments to people and things. We need these qualities to survive. As long as they remain within reasonable limits, these qualities will help us to live healthy and happy lives.

Lust is essential for us to procreate, that is to produce children and live healthy lives. Ego permits us to give confidence to others so that they cooperate and support our endeavours. Anger is necessary to prevent being run over by one and all. Reasonable greed compels us to go out and acquire food, shelter, security and comfort for ourselves and our dependants. Attachment is necessary for us to preserve what we have acquired with so much effort.

Nature is all about balance. As long as there is balance there is tranquility. Sometimes we develop insatiable lust or greed, unlimited anger, undue attachment or get blinded by our ego our lives get imbalanced. The imbalance always causes disharmony, inconvenience and sometimes even agony to ourselves and others. Life becomes a living hell.

Life as can be seen in every facet of nature, is about balance. As long as there is balance there is tranquility. Sometimes we develop insatiable lust or greed, unlimited anger, undue attachment or get blinded by our ego our lives get imbalanced. The imbalance causes agony and inconvenience to ourselves and others.

Awakening and wisdom lies in each individual understanding of who and what they are and what is reasonable and necessary for themselves. People who flow with nature are at peace with themselves, are compassionate, peaceful, happy and useful to themselves and others.




Over the ages and from time to time, Gurus, masters, prophets, messiahs and teachers have come, awoken and guided humanity.  They made people realise that they were all spiritual beings.

Soon after the masters and Gurus left this earth, many clever but not necessarily good people have interpreted the teachings to suit their own convenience. They use organised religion not to liberate or make people spiritual but  to manipulate and control them. for their own purposes





Priests and custodians of all organised religions, in league with political leaders and rulers, have discovered a powerful approach to manipulate and exploit the masses. Messing up minds they inflict on them a terrible sense of guilt, and the masses will do whatever the priests want. Guilt is mostly manufactured. They make people feel guilty not only of having these natural human qualities but even for thinking about them.

This is the reason why in the name of religion, more blood has been shed and more misery caused than all other reasons combined.




'Guilty', people feel they have sinned, and sinners need to be unburdened of their guilt. The priests can demand whatever they like of the guilty and the sinner will gladly pay the price just to feel liberated.






People will repeatedly behave true to their human nature. This will always be considered as a 'sin' by the priests. There are two choices behave unnaturally or to 'sin'. The dilemma is that both choices are bad.

This sets people up to be continuously exploited by the priests. This in turn results in a perpetual  and ever increasing empowerment and enrichment of the priests and the religious bodies. Little  wonder that all organised religious bodies and their caretakers are immensely wealthy and powerful and that there is a constant struggle to control religious bodies.

Many 'religious' people themselves are full of the same human qualities and 'sins' for which they ask us to atone.

Next time ask yourself if you really are a sinner before you ask for forgiveness.

Old man goes to church.

One Sunday morning an old man entered a church just before services were to begin. Though his clothes were spotlessly clean they were old, worn and quite a bit ragged. In his hand he carried a worn out old hat and an equally well read Bible.

The church he entered was in a very upscale and exclusive part of the city. It was the largest and most beautiful church the old man had ever seen. The people of the congregation were all dressed with expensive clothes and jewellery.

As the old man took a seat, the others moved away from him. No one greeted, spoke to, or welcomed him. They were all appalled by his appearance and did not attempt to hide it.

As the old man was leaving the church, the preacher approached him and asked the man to do him a favour. 'Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship in church.' The old man assured the preacher he would.

The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged clothes and hat. Once again he  was completely shunned and ignored. The preacher approached the man and said, 'I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church.'

'I did,' replied the old man.

'If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping in here?' asked the preacher.

'Well, sir, God told me that He didn't have a clue what I should wear. He said He'd never been in this church.'

My thanks to Trilok Singh Anand and Sanmeet Singh Anand for this wonderful article.

Must I live in fear?

The other day our friends accompanied by an intelligent and deeply religious man dropped in at our home. He spoke authoritatively on God, and religious practices and morality, which sounded more like a recording of the priestly class. The monologue was heavy and made worse by the lack of life in his lecture. My son whispered a question to me  "why does he never smile and why does he look so weary?"  

It soon dawned on us that the visitor misguidedly believed that  that religious people are not supposed to be joyful. God and religion was a heavy burden to be carried only by the   privileged few such as our visitor. To be joyful was taboo because being happy was considered frivolous. Lost deep in his religious dungeon he refused to enjoy the food, the beautiful weather, the lovely company of the people present.  The man might as well have been a totem pole for all the life he demonstrated.

We saw the light when he uttered the words "I am God fearing". That was it, the man lived in dread. He was consumed by fear that God would smite him down if he made an error, expressed a desire or to have wants.  To be happy was a sin in his belief system.

This belief system is not unique to our guest, for this fear is widespread. This malaise has afflicted a large chunk of humanity and many of them occupy high and exalted position in our society. All they do is spread the gloom. They have surrendered not to God but to priests who have evolved a self serving distorted message of God and the path to reach Him.

More hate has been spread, more blood has been shed in the name of God than in any other name or cause by these peddlers of organised religion. The continuous and ever increasing focus on fear gives rise to even more dread and then society begins to decay from within while maintaining a superficial sheen. This approach by Aurangzeb  is what caused the end of the Mogul empire in India.

God who created everything can only be found by love and compassion. He who creates need not destroy, He merely takes it away. Why would He want to harm insignificant creatures of cosmic dust like you and me?  He who protects and nurtures us looks after us like a loving parent, He would never harm us.

Many of the holy texts have been written by people long after the messenger of God has left this world in their physical form. To build their armies of followers, the leaders of organized religion only want compliance and rigidity, they care not for your spiritual development or growth. 

Compliance from the masses can only come from fear. That is why they advocate fear. Fear of God, fear of living, dying, loving and just being human.

Fear not God, nor tyrants who claim divine right to have the right rule over us by their terrible ways. Do not be God fearing but God loving.

Embrace God and love Him as a child loves the parent. Only the Creator can give you all you  need. Surrender to His will and live each moment as if it is your last, and you will live happily and die blissfully.