Crazy, Rebel, Misfit, Troublemaker

Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who
see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.


About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they
change things.
They invent.
They imagine.
They heal.
They explore.
They create.
They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that has never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do.

(Steve Jobs, late C.E.O. of Apple; 1955 - 2011)

2 comments. What do you feel?

...Even the fear of going in a wrong direction is an ego trip.
Why are you so afraid of being in a wrong situation? -- because the wrong situation is very ego shattering and the right situation is very ego enhancing. In fact to think of the future is to think in terms of the ego. So remain with the moment if it is needed for your growth -- that you should go in a wrong direction -- it will happen. And you cannot avoid it, because avoiding it will be avoiding your own growth. You cannot avoid anything.

So whatsoever is available, enjoy it to your total capacity; respond to it totally.
Let this moment give all that it can give to you. And the next moment is going to be born out of this moment. If this moment has been rightly lived, from where will the next moment come? It will grow out of this moment. It is going to take on the same quality.
It is going to be a continuity with this moment. The next moment is not coming out of the blue. It grows out of you like a leaf grows out of the tree. It comes from your roots... it is nourished by your life juice.
So if this moment is lived rightly.... And when I use the word 'rightly', I don't mean in the sense puritans use it; I don't mean the meaning that moralists will like to enforce on it.

To live rightly means to live totally. It is not being virtuous; it is just being whole. The right is not against wrong or against sin. The right is only against being partial. Don't be partial, don't be fragmentary. And the right has nothing to do with any goal, any perfectionist's ideal. The right has something to do with the feel of this moment If you feel good, it is right. Easy is right. Happiness is right.

So celebrate this moment, enjoy this moment, delight in this moment -- and the tomorrow will take care of itself.
Think not of the morrow. The moment you start thinking that you may go wrong, that you have to go right, the ego has entered.
It is the ego that is worried about its decoration -- morality, good, virtue, respectability... some shoulds. So just remain with the moment, as much as possible and everything will go right. If this moment is right, everything is going to be right.

This is the definition of being right if you are happy in this moment nothing is going to be wrong. Happiness is a sure indication that things are flowing with the total; you are one with the universal.

Happiness arises only when there is a harmony between you and the whole... when there is no conflict, when there is no pain. Then there is sheer joy -- and the joy is incredible because you cannot even find any cause to it. You cannot explain why it is there.
It is there unexplained, and it is utterly there, for no reason at all; it is simply there. It is there like a mystery. So live in the moment and by and by start dropping these tensions of the future. If you go wrong, you go wrong; nothing is wrong in it. Don't be a coward -- be courageous. In life a few wrong things happen. In fact they are part of life.

You cannot weave a cloth unless the thread is put in such a way that each thread is crossed by another thread, the vertical is crossed by the horizontal; otherwise the cloth will not exist. A good man is simply good. He is a heap of thread; he is not a cloth. A bad man is simply bad. He is again a heap of thread; not a cloth. A whole man is both. He accepts God and devil both, day and night both.
And in that acceptance is transcendence. In the very acceptance you are neither good nor bad. You have gone beyond both; you become a witness. And that's what real sanctity is.

So don't try to be good and don't try to be right. Don't try to avoid the wrong and don't try to avoid the bad, because then your life will lose all salt. You will become tasteless. Saints are tasteless -- at least so-called saints. A real saint has tremendous contradictions in him; he is paradoxical. He is both sweet and bitter. He is as dark as the darkest night and as full of light as the noontime. He's simple like a child. You can almost call him a fool. That's what Saint Francis used to call himself -- and he is as wise as there is the possibility to be.

This is how it goes -- exploding, imploding, exhaling, inhaling. This is how it goes -- happiness, unhappiness; good and bad, right and wrong. So don't be worried about it. Simply trust life. I teach you trust -- trust in life. So if sometimes life leads you into some wrong ways, go. Don't resist that moment; just go totally so whatsoever life wants you to learn from that experience is learned, and you can come out again.

(Osho)

'God is not For Sale' - chapter 21, Darshan Diary, Monday, 1. November 1976

1 comment. What do you feel?

Jeff Foster's 'Welcome Home' non-duality essay.

No teachers, no students. No awakened beings, no unawakened beings.
No path nor absence of a path. No gurus, no disciples. Simply life making love to itself, dancing as all of this, appearing as something we call 'world', as all that you see and all that you cannot see, arising and falling back into the barest emptiness, timelessly and forever...

And the emptiness is not a cold, dark, empty emptiness - but a rich, full, alive emptiness, pregnant with infinite possibility, saturated with this... incomprehensible intimacy that should, by all accounts, be impossible -
and yet, undeniably, is.

Nothing is not nothing , not the absence of all things, but also the presence of them, so that nothing is really everything.... and so it all ends not in nihilism, but in wonder, in fascination, in the kind of gratitude that breaks your heart.

Yes, all that is left is a radical simplicity that cannot be taught, cannot be formulated, reified, systematized, and ultimately cannot even be named - but still, it is all there is, and all there has ever been, and all there needs to be, because only a separate mind would ever want more.

It's right here and right now. It's there in and as the cup of coffee on the table in front of you, in each and every breath, in the wrinkles on your father's face, in the feeling of the wind on your cheeks as you walk to the supermarket, in the pain in the chest as the body dies - and you've been seeking it your entire life without knowing it.

It's beyond 'awareness' and 'contents of awareness' - it's not pure consciousness (a blank space devoid of the personal) because blankness needs content to be known and experienced as blankness, just as emptiness needs form to be known and experienced as emptiness and vice versa - it's not the witness behind the world because it's also the world in its entirety which nothing can separate itself from in the first place and call itself a 'witness' -

it's not Absolute as opposed to relative or vice versa because that very division never existed in the first place - it's not 'nobody here' or 'there is no person', although those very personal viewpoints are allowed to arise and fall away naturally - it's not 'advaita' as opposed to 'neo-advaita' or 'neo-advaita' as opposed to 'advaita' but it allows these man-made, mind-made divisions to play themselves out -

it's not opposed to anything because it is everything including all opposition, even opposition to opposition -
it's not mine or yours but it does not deny the possibility of mine and yours and relationship between them -
it's not pure absence as opposed to presence or vice versa, but those concepts are allowed to arise too -
it's not a teaching, but perhaps, and only perhaps, it can formulate itself as a self-destructing teaching, a kind of teaching which annihilates itself in the end, a temporary language which has no authority but that which you give it, and in the end (and there is no end), has no authority at all.

Because in the end, which is also the beginning, life is the only authority, and all the teachings of the world burn up in the fire of this unbounded freedom...

When you try to put this into words, you always fail.
Thank goodness it doesn't need to be put into words.

And so, once again, beyond words or lack of them, welcome Home to what you really are.

(Jeff Foster)

(Photo: 'Butterfly on Pink-Violet Flower' by h.r.fox @ ultrafeel.tv)

Jeff Foster is a young advaita (non-duality) teacher who lives in the UK. He attempts to articulate the timeless message of nonduality, something that is ultimately impossible to put into words, in a simple, human and down-to-earth way, avoiding as much as possible the arcane, heavy, outdated and often self-righteous spiritual language of the past. He believes that the truth - that which is present and alive - is absolutely free and cannot be captured by any religion, ideology, philosophy, belief system or person. Jeff presently conducts meetings and retreats in the UK and around the world. Lots of free information on advaita can be found on his website, including essays, talk transcripts, books, CDs and DVDs, audio and video: Lifewithoutacentre.com

2 comments. What do you feel?

Sehnsucht ist ganz, ganz wichtig,
sie muss keine Leidensfalle sein.
Der Fehler ist nur diese Sehnsucht an irgendetwas zu binden, das Herzfeuer auf irgendetwas zu richten.

Lass Sehnsucht in sich selbst brennen, binde das Feuer deines Herzens nicht. Lass das Feuer frei.

Gib diese ganze Energie deinem Hiersein ohne Grund, sei grundlos damit.

Lass die Sehnsucht selbst in Flammen aufgehen. Es ist dein göttlicher Ursprung der brennt. Es ist nicht irgendwo, es ist hier, das was du bist.

Lass dich nicht täuschen und brenne einfach ohne Grund.

Kannst du denn wirklich so lieben ohne anzuhaften?
Kann das ein Mensch überhaupt, oder ist man dann nicht mehr menschlich? Menschen sind fähig zu lieben und fähig anzuhaften. Sich auf jemanden tief einzulassen wird immer Anhaftung erzeugen. Dies ist in Beziehungen nicht zu umgehen.

Nur Liebe welche sich auf Liebe einlässt haftet nicht an.
Liebe ist das was wir in der Tiefe unseres Wesens sind. Liebe kennt keine Anhaftung. Wenn Anhaftung geschieht, muss ein Ich im Namen der Liebe eine Beziehung daraus gemacht haben.

Sich zu beziehen ist vielleicht aus dem Bedürfnis nach Nähe, Zuneigung und Verbundenheit entstanden.
Sicherlich ist es sehr wichtig Nähe, Zuneigung und Verbundenheit zu pflegen und sich darauf einzulassen, nicht wahr?

Sich zu beziehen ist vielleicht auch aus Gewohnheit, Kompensation und Ablenkung entstanden.
Sicherlich ist es sehr wichtig die Sucht zu spüren die darin wirkt und die Abhängigkeiten und Abgründe in unserer Psyche zu erkennen und sich damit auseinanderzusetzen. Auch ist es sehr hilfreich sich bei Gelegenheit daran zu erinnern, dass auf jede Art von Anhaftung Leiden folgen wird und bei einer Loslösung Schmerzen unausweichlich in unserem Wesen ihren Tribut fordern werden. Auf Beziehung folgt irgendwann Entziehung und Entzug, dem Gesetz der Wandlung hier auf Erden kann niemand entkommen.

Nach Loslösungen folgt meistens ein vielschichtiger schmerzhafter Prozess der Integration, doch die Art und Weise der Loslösung kann unser Wesen zusätzlich noch sehr verletzen und belasten. Wir sollten daher immer sehr aufmerksam damit sein, wie wir in einen Loslösungsprozess eines Menschen hineinwirken. Es ist jedoch nicht möglich Anhaftung in einem Menschenleben zu umgehen.

Anhaftung ist nicht etwas "an dem man ja schließlich selbst Schuld ist“. Anhaftung ist nicht etwas Schlechtes, das es loszuwerden gilt. Wir sollten nicht versuchen Anhaftung zu vermeiden, zu tabuisieren, oder vor ihr davonzurennen. Anhaftung ist eine Herausforderung die Mut braucht und auf die wir auch entschlossen zugehen können. Anhaftung beinhaltet Täuschung und Enttäuschung und dadurch den Weg zu uns selbst.

Liebe ist nicht Mein oder Dein
Liebe ist Eins.
So wie der Mond Einer ist für die ganze Erde,
so ist die Liebe Eine für alle Wesen.
So wie der Mond sich in allen Teichen reflektiert,
so reflektiert sich die Liebe in allen Herzen.
Wenn das Wasser sich bewegt
zerfällt mein und dein Mond
in tausend Stücke.

(Saajid Zandolini)

Artwork: 'Longing' by Sugargrl

Saajid Zandolini ist spiritueller Lehrer und Künstler aus Basel in der Schweiz. Er lehrt Meditation als Lebensweise, unabhängig von spirituellen Traditionen und Dogmen, ohne Trennung in ein spirituelles Leben und ein materielles Leben. Er ist den Meistern Ramana Maharshi, Osho und dem Zen verbunden.

Seine Vision ist eine zu ihrer Wesensnatur erwachte Menschheit, welche sich ungetrennt, als Ganzes – als das Leben selbst – entfaltet.

Saajid bietet Satsangs ('Zusammensein in Wahrheit') und 'Sitzen in Stille' sowie Meditations-Sonntage in Zürich, Bern und Basel an.

Mehr über Saajid Zandolini: Herzundstille.ch

1 comment. What do you feel?