Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Serve your wife, children, father, and mother, and treat them as if they are very dear to you, but know in your heart that they do not belong to you.

- Ramakrishna

PRABHUPADA'S QUOTE OF THE DAY

"When there is suffering given by Krishna, a devotee does not take seriously suffering. A. devotee thinks, "It is the favor of Krishna that he has put me into suffering." They never see suffering as suffering. It is favor of Krishna. That is devotee's vision. It is exactly like a son who knows his father well. If the father slaps, the son never protests. He knows that "It is good for me." Similarly, a devotee is never disturbed when there is suffering given by Krishna."


Bombay, May 2, 1974

In India we have one thousand names of God; one whole scripture is devoted just only to the names.
Nothing else is written in that scripture: Vishnu Sahasranam -- One Thousand Names of God.
Just names are counted from one to one thousand.
The most beautiful name that I love is Hari;
Hari means the ultimate thief.

Just two days ago I was giving sannyas to a beautiful sannyasin.
I have given her the name Haridasi --
surrendered to the ultimate thief And when I told her that,
"Your heart is stolen,"
for a moment she was transported into another world.
Her hand suddenly went on her heart and I said,
"It is not there!"
And she understood the point immediately.
She lost few heartbeats; tears of joy came to her eyes.
She could not speak a single word; her voice was choked.
It is bound to happen when your heart is gone!
I go on doing things in my own way. And with you, I am not worried.
You are on fire, your heart is stolen long before.
And I am pushing you,
and I am absolutely certain that the thing that you are all here for
is going to happen to you.

OSHO

Love should be a passion. It should be passionate, alive, vital. Only then you attract somebody to fall towards you. If you become a boring phenomenon, a boredom. All around you, you carry such dirt of boredom, that anybody who comes across you will feel that it is a misfortune.

Be loving, vital, unafraid -- and move. Life has much to give to you if you are unafraid. And love has to give you more than life can give, because love is the very center of this life, and from that very center you can pass to the other shore.

I call these three steps: life, love and light. Life is already there. Love you have to attain. You can miss it because it is not given; one has to create. Life is a given phenomenon; you are already alive. There stops natural evolution. Love you have to find. Of course there are dangers, hazards, but they all make it beautiful.

You have to find love. And when you find love, only then you can find light. Then the prayer arises. In fact, deeply in love, the persons, the lovers, by and by start moving unconsciously towards prayer. Because the highest moments of love are the lowest moments of prayer. Just near the boundary is prayer.

It has happened to many lovers. But lovers are very rare that while they are deep in love, suddenly they have started praying. Just sitting by each other's side in silence, holding each other's hand, or lying together on a beach, suddenly they have felt an urge, an urge to move beyond.

So don't pay much attention to fear, because that is dangerous. If you pay much attention to fear you are feeding it, and it will grow. Turn your back to the fear and move towards love.

OSHO

If you remain alert and aware that this is how life is -- days and nights come and go, suffering and happiness -- you just witness. There is no clinging to happiness, no hankering for happiness, and no escape from suffering. You remain in yourself -- centered, rooted. This is what bliss is.

So remember, bliss is not something opposite to suffering. Don't think that when you become blissful there will be no suffering -- nonsense. Suffering is part of life. It ceases only when you are not. When you completely disappear from the body, suffering ceases. When there is no birth, suffering ceases. But then you are lost in the totality, then you are no more -- just a drop has fallen into the ocean and is no more.

While you are, suffering will continue. It is part of life. But you can become aware: then suffering happens somewhere around you, but it never happens to you. But then happiness also never happens to you. Don't think that happiness will go on happening to you and suffering will not happen -- both will not happen to you. They will just happen around, just on the periphery, and you will be centered in yourself. You will see them happening, you will enjoy them happening, but they will happen around you; they will not happen to you.

This becomes possible if you don't choose. That's why I said this is delicate, subtle. Because of the paradoxical life, you choose happiness and you fall in suffering. You try to escape from suffering, and more and more suffering is invited. So you can take it as an ultimate law: whatsoever you choose, the opposite will be your fate. say it as an ultimate law: whatsoever you choose, the opposite will be your fate.

So whatsoever is your fate, remember, you have chosen it by choosing the opposite. If you are suffering, you have chosen your suffering by choosing happiness. Don't choose happiness and suffering disappears. Don't choose at all. Then nothing can happen to you, and everything is a flux except you. That has to be understood very deeply.

Only you are the constant factor in existence, nothing else. Only you are the eternity, nothing else. Your awareness is never a flux. Suffering comes, you witness it. Then happiness comes, you witness it. Then nothing comes, you witness it. Only one thing remains constant -- witnessing -- and witnessing is you.

OSHO
The moment we become attached to anything, misery arises. Attachment is against life, hence it creates misery. Attachment means that we will hinder any possibility of change. Life is change, constant change, and the moment we start hindering change we start pushing the river. Then we are becoming enemies of life -- and the natural outcome is misery; we are automatically punished. To remain unattached is the secret of remaining blissful forever and forever.

Enjoy, live, love. But when things change, let them change; when things move, don't stop their movement. Always remain with the changing flux of existence, never be against it, and then nobody can create misery for you.

Then whatsoever is, brings bliss, because you never expect it to be otherwise. Whatsoever is, is welcome. Whatsoever is gone you say good-bye to; you feel thankful that it has been there, and you feel thankful that now it is no more there, so space is created for something new to happen. Then life remains an adventure, unhindered, unattached. It remains the flow of a river. And then the ocean is not far away -- it comes closer and closer every moment.

The whole secret of sannyas is to live life in totality, but without any attachment. It is a difficult phenomenon. There are people who can live life but they cannot remain unattached. Then there are people who can remain unattached but they cannot live life. These are simple things. That's why in the past there were worldly and other-worldly people. The worldly lives life and becomes attached and suffers. The monk escapes from life; afraid of becoming attached, he stops living life. He remains unattached but there is nothing to remain attached to, there is no life.
My sannyasin has to create a new phenomenon in the world.'

He will be in the market-place and yet not of it. He will live everything from the ordinary to the extraordinary with joy, with celebration, with gusto, yet he will remain unattached. When it goes he will not cling to it, he will let it go. He will be able to welcome and he will be able, in the same way, to say good-bye. That is the highest pinnacle that is possible to human consciousness. Only such a person is liberated.

OSHO

Dr. Singh. Srila Prabhupada, I came across a statement in the Bhagavad-gita to the effect that all 8,400,000 species of living entities are created simultaneously. Is that correct?

Srila Prabhupada. Yes.

Dr. Singh. Does that mean that there are some living entities who come directly to the human species without undergoing the evolutionary process?

Srila Prabhupada. Yes. Living beings move from one bodily form to another. The forms already exist. The living entity simply transfers himself, just as a man transfers himself from one apartment to another. One apartment is first class, another is second class and another is third class. Suppose a person comes from a lower-class apartment to a first-class apartment. The person is the same, but now, according to his capacity for payment, or karma,[13] he is able to occupy a higher-class apartment. Real evolution does not mean physical development, but development of consciousness. Do you follow?

Dr. Singh. I think so. Do you mean that if one falls to one of the lower stages of life, he must evolve step by step up to the higher stages?

Srila Prabhupada. Yes. As you get more money you can move to a better apartment. The apartment already exists, however. It is not that the lower-class apartment becomes the higher-class apartment. That is Darwin's nonsensical theory. He would say that the apartment has become high class. Modern scientists think that life has come from matter. They say that millions and millions of years ago there was simply matter, but no life. We do not accept that. Of the two energies -- life and matter -- life, or spirit, is the original, superior energy, and matter is the resultant inferior energy.

Dr. Singh. Do they exist simultaneously?

Srila Prabhupada. Yes, but spirit is independent, and matter is dependent. For example, I can live even without my hands or legs. If they were amputated, I could survive. Therefore I am not dependent on my hands and legs; my hands and legs are dependent on me, the spirit soul within my body.

>>> Ref. VedaBase => The Evolution of Consciousness

"...Krsna did not need any friends to play with Him, nor did He desire a single wife. We take on a wife because we have some desire to fulfill, but Krsna is complete in Himself (purnam). A poor man may desire to have a thousand dollars in the bank, but a rich man who has millions has no such desire. If Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, why should He have desires? Rather, He fulfills the desires of others. Man proposes and God disposes. If Krsna had any desire, He would be imperfect, for He would be lacking something. Therefore He says that He has no desire to fulfill. As Yogesvara, or as master of all yogis, whatever He wills is immediately realized. There is no question of desire. He becomes a husband or lover or friend just to fulfill the desires of His devotees. If we accept Krsna as friend, master, son or lover, we will never be frustrated. Every living entity has a specific relationship with Krsna, but at present this relationship is covered. As we advance in Krsna consciousness, it will be revealed...."