Rumi: Say I Am You (Sufi poem)

Rumi's poems elegantly and consistently touch our inner being and inspire us to go beyond our limitations towards the Divine.

The music: The credits do appear at the end of this video, but it is by the composer, Eleni Karaindrou, and is the theme music called "Eternity and a Day" from the movie, Aggelopoulos.

A note on the music: This entire video was constructed in silence-only the poem and the images were put together without my knowing what music would be the right one. The music is so important to the interpretation of these poems. Rather than reading them, the music is my voice. When I 'laid' this beautiful piece of music over the video it fit perfectly. Few edits were made to accomodate the images to fit the music. They seem to be made for each other.

Note for those who overlook the message and want to 'claim' Rumi as their own (country, nationality, language) they've missed the point completely and these comments will be deleted.

For more Sufi-inspired Islamic art, go to
http://www.starsonadarknight.homestead.com

Only experience can help you - Osho

OSHO, I FEEL AND REALIZE THE FUTILITY OF DESIRING. THERE SEEMS TO BE NO AMBITION IN ME. BUT YET THERE IS A THIRST, A YEARNING, AND AN INNER SENSE OF UNFULFILLMENT. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHETHER THIS TOO IS A PART OF DESIRING.

- Yes, this too is a part of desiring -- the negative part. Everything has two parts, the positive and the negative. The positive part of desiring is to desire something, to be ambitious. To be aware of the object of desire is a positive desire. The negative desire is: one is not aware of the object of desire, but one is aware only of the thirst of desire -- of the yearning.

These are the two parts. The subjective feeling of unfulfillment is the negative part of ambition and being obsessed with an object of desire is the positive part of ambition. Both are ambition. And if you intellectually understand that desire is futile, the negative part will remain with you -- if you INTELLECTUALLY understand that desire is futile and this is not an existential experience.

You have been hearing things, you have been listening and you have been reading. And Buddhas and Christs have been talking to the world and they have been saying that you are in misery because of desire, that you are in suffering because of desire -- and they say they are in bliss because of desirelessness. And you have seen them: you have seen their eyes, you have seen their faces, you have seen the grace, the bliss, the ecstasy that just moves around them. Even in their shadow the ecstasy, the dance is there. You have seen them and you have heard them and they say if you desire you will be in suffering, if you do not desire you will be in ecstasy and bliss.

Now intellectually you can understand this, because desire creates tension, because desire creates the future, because desire creates expectations, and when it is not fulfilled you are in misery. Or even when it is fulfilled you are not in bliss. When it is fulfilled you feel that this is nothing -- that this is nothing compared to the dream, compared to the hope. You fall in love with a person, a girl or a boy, you fall in love with a house, you fall in love with a car, and you think, "If this woman is achieved I will be in absolute bliss." But this is your dream; no woman can fulfill it.

This is just fantasy; no real woman can fulfill it. Every real woman will be just a faint thing compared to it. But there is no fault on the woman's part. This is your mind which goes on fantasizing. You create a fantasy, a romance, and you move high in the heavens. Then you meet the woman. If you cannot achieve her, if you cannot get possession of her, you will be in misery, because you had a dream and the dream remained unfulfilled. You will feel a constant pain in the heart.

But I tell you, if you meet her, if you can get her, you will be in a deeper misery, because at least the dream remains intact if you have not met her -- you can go on dreaming. But if you meet her you will see that no woman lives in heaven. As you live on earth, she lives on earth. She is as earthly as you -- even more. Woman is more earthly than man. She will shatter all your dreams. And when you awake from your dreaming, you will be in misery. Whether your dream is fulfilled or not, misery will be the result. Out of dreaming only misery results.

This you can understand. Your experience can also be helpful. Intellectually you can understand and then you can come to conclude that it is futile to desire -- to be ambitious is futile; it leads to misery and hell. But this will stop only the positive desiring; the negative will remain. Really, you are still desiring -- now desirelessness. You are now desiring a state of NON-DESIRE. Now desirelessness has become the object of desire. You will feel a yearning, a search, a thirst and an unfulfillment.

What is to be done now? What can be done? Intellectually nothing will happen to you: you will go on changing the object of desire and the negative part will go on pushing you into new desires. Live it. Do not believe in Buddha, do not believe in Jesus, do not believe in me. Live it. Desire and live, and experience desire in its totality. And do not hurry, do not make any haste to conclude. Your misery is because you make such hurried conclusions.

You are so susceptible to believing in anything because you do not want to go through experience. Experience may be painful -- let it be. But only experience can help you. 

...

Experience! Be authentic to your experience and allow the conclusions to come only through your own individual particular search. The truth will happen to you but it will not happen to you if you go on borrowing it from others. That becomes a substitute truth. It creates more problems than it solves.

...

Please don't you conclude; allow life itself to come to its conclusion. And when life comes to its conclusion, desire falls without any substitute desire being created there. It simply falls down. Just like dead leaves fall from a tree, desire falls from you -- total desire. Then there is no negative part hidden behind it. And when you are in the state of nondesiring, all that is blissful happens to you, all that is ecstatic happens to you. You flower for the first time. And when there is no unfulfillment, you are fulfilled AS YOU ARE.

But before that happens, if you go on borrowing it will be difficult: you are creating unnecessary barriers for yourself. The conclusions may appeal to you but that appeal is of no meaning. I can convince you about something but that conviction carries no meaning because it has been forced by me. I can argue, I can convince, and you may feel this is right. But that feeling will not help unless your life energy concludes it, unless it is an inner conviction which arises within you and is not forced from without.

That is why I say buddhas are dangerous -- because they are so convincing. When you move around them there is every possibility that you will become a victim, every possibility that you will get convinced. Their very being is convincing. That is why so many religions are created, so many sects are there. Whenever a buddha happens, an enlightened one, necessarily you get convinced, you become hypnotized -- and you borrow conclusions. And then for lives together you go on with those borrowed conclusions and they become a burden.

Die to that burden! Be authentic to yourself and try to find out where you are. Even if it is hell, accept that "I am in hell." The very acceptance that you are in hell will create the situation where you can move out of it. But you live in hell and you go on believing that you are in heaven. This is sheer nonsense and nothing can come out of it.

The Supreme Doctrine

Chapter #11

Chapter title: Truth or Trick?

Freedom from time, freedom from mind, freedom from desire - Osho

Freedom is the goal of life. Without freedom, life has no meaning at all. By "freedom" is not meant any political, social or economic freedom. By "freedom" is meant freedom from time, freedom from mind, freedom from desire. The moment mind is no more, you are one with the universe, you are as vast as the universe itself.

It is the mind that is the barrier between you and the reality, and because of this barrier you remain confined in a dark cell where no light ever reaches and where no joy can ever penetrate. You live in misery because you are not meant to live in such a small, confined space. Your being wants to expand to the very ultimate source of existence. Your being longs to be oceanic, and you have become a dewdrop. 

How can you be happy? How can you be blissful? Man lives in misery because man lives imprisoned.

And Gautama the Buddha says that tanha -- desire -- is the root cause of all our misery, because desire creates the mind. Desire means creating future, projecting yourself in the future, bringing tomorrow in. Bring the tomorrow in and the today disappears, you cannot see it anymore; your eyes are clouded by the tomorrow. Bring the tomorrow in and you will have to carry the load of all your yesterdays, because the tomorrow can only be there if the yesterdays go on nourishing it.

Each desire is born out of the past and each desire is projected in the future. The past and the future, they constitute your whole mind. Analyze the mind, dissect it, and you will find only two things: the past and the future. You will not find even an iota of the present, not even a single atom. And the present is the only reality, the only existence, the only dance there is.

The present can be found only when mind has ceased utterly. When the past no more overpowers you and the future no more possesses you, when you are disconnected from the memories and the imaginations, in that moment where are you? who are you? In that moment you are a nobody. And nobody can hurt you when you are a nobody, you cannot be wounded -- because the ego is very ready to receive wounds. The ego is almost seeking and searching to be wounded; it exists through wounds. Its whole existence depends on misery, pain.

When you are a nobody, anguish is impossible, anxiety simply unbelievable. When you are a nobody there is great silence, stillness, no noise inside. Past gone, future disappeared, what is there to create noise? And the silence that is heard is celestial, is sacred. For the first time, in those spaces of no-mind, you become aware of the eternal celebration that goes on and on. That's what the existence is made of.

Except man, the whole existence is blissful. Only man has fallen out of it, has gone astray. Only man can do it because only man has consciousness.

Now, consciousness has two possibilities: either it can become a bright light in you, so bright that even the sun will look pale compared to it.... Buddha says it is as if a thousand suns have risen suddenly -- when you look within with no mind it is all light, eternal light. It is all joy, pure, uncontaminated, unpolluted. It is simple bliss, innocent. It is wonder. Its majesty is indescribable, its beauty inexpressible, and its benediction inexhaustible. Aes dhammo sanantano: so is the ultimate law.

If you can only put your mind aside you will become aware of the cosmic play. Then you are only energy, and the energy is always herenow, it never leaves the herenow. That is one possibility: if you become pure consciousness.

The other possibility is: you can become self-consciousness. Then you fall. Then you become a separate entity from the world. Then you become an island, defined, well defined. Then you are confined, because all definitions confine. Then you are in a prison cell, and the prison cell is dark, utterly dark. There is no light, no possibility of light. And the prison cell cripples you, paralyzes you.

Self-consciousness becomes a bondage; the self is the bondage. And just consciousness becomes freedom.

Drop the self and be conscious! That is the whole message -- the message of all the buddhas of all the ages, past, present, future. The essential core of the message is very simple: drop the self, the ego, the mind, and be.

Just this moment when this silence pervades...who are you? A nobody, a nonentity. You don't have a name, you don't have a form. You are neither man nor woman, neither Hindu nor Mohammedan. You don't belong to any country, to any nation, to any race. You are not the body and you are not the mind.

Then what are you? In this silence, what is your taste? How does it taste to be? Just a peace, just a silence...and out of that peace and silence a great joy starts surfacing, welling up, for no reason at all. It is your spontaneous nature.

Osho

Beloved Rumi on mind, love and soul...

The rational mind says "I`ll win him with my logic." Love says "I`ll win him with my silence." The Soul says "How can I ever hope to win him when I`m already his?"

- RUMI (k.s.)

You can be no one but who you are - So Relax! - OSHO

"You are here because this existence needs you as you are. Otherwise somebody else would have been here! – the existence would not have helped you to be here, would not have created you. You are fulfilling something very essential, something very fundamental, AS YOU ARE.

And your so-called mahatmas go on teaching you, ”Become a Buddha, become a Christ, become a Krishna.” Nobody tells you just to be yourself. Why should you become a Buddha? If God wanted a Buddha he could have produced as many Buddhas as he wanted. He produced only one Buddha, and that was enough. And he was satisfied to his heart’s desire, utterly satisfied. Since then he has not produced another Buddha or another Christ. He has created you instead. Just think of the
respect that the universe has given to you. You have been chosen! – not Buddha, not Christ, not Krishna.

You will be needed more, that’s why. YOU fit more now. Their work is done, they contributed their fragrance to existence. Now you have to contribute YOUR fragrance. But the moralists, the puritans, the priests, they go on teaching you, they go on driving you crazy. They say to the rose, ”Become a lotus.” And they say to the lotus, ”What are you doing here? You have to become something else.” They drive the whole garden crazy, everything starts dying – because nobody can be anybody else, that is not possible. The rose is a rose and the lotus is a lotus. And the lotus is good as a lotus, it can live only as a lotus. If it tries to be a rose it will die, it will become paralyzed – that is not possible because that is not intrinsic to it; that cannot arise.
And if the lotus really becomes a victim of the priests and starts trying to be a rose, or the rose tries to be a lotus, what is going to happen? The lotus will become pseudo; as a lotus it will start dying, and as a rose it will pretend.

That’s what has happened to humanity. Everybody is pretending. Authenticity is lost, truth is lost, everybody is trying to show that he is somebody else. Just look at yourself: you are pretending to be somebody else. And you can be only yourself – there is no other way, there has never been, there is no possibility that you can be anybody else. You will remain yourself. You can enjoy it and bloom, or you can wither away if you condemn it."

Osho
Take it Easy, volume 2

Growth needs a very selective life - OSHO

People live accidentally. They don't have any sense of direction, they don't have an inner discipline for growing, they don't have a certain target. They simply go on, not knowing why. Maybe just because they are restless they go on doing this and that. Restlessness needs some kind of occupation, any kind of occupation will do. But any kind of occupation is not going to help you to grow. Growth needs a very selective life.

Life is short, time is very short, but people are so stupid that they will be playing cards and chess and if you ask them "What are you doing?", they say they are killing time -- as if they have too much time with them. Time is killing you!

Each moment you are less and less and less. Each moment you have died a little more, each moment death is coming closer. Time is not something to be killed, time is something to be used. Time is a great opportunity -- it has not to be wasted. But if you look at people you will be surprised: ninety-nine point nine per cent of people are wasting their time for the simple reason that they have never given a second thought to what they are doing and why. Others may be doing it so they are just imitating. People are almost living the life of sleepwalkers.

I have heard: two drunkards were sitting in a car and the car was going as far as it could. One drunkard said to the other, 'Now from the next cross-road you have to turn left and then you have to turn right.' And the other said, 'Why do you go on telling these things to me -- you are driving!'

But nobody is conscious, nobody knows who is driving, who is not driving and why people are going in a certain direction. Why is everybody interested in money? -- because all others are interested. Why is everybody interested in fame? -- because all other fools are interested. And you have to be in tune with the fools because you are surrounded by them.

An intelligent person moves consciously moment to moment. Whatsoever he is doing he is doing for a certain reason. He has an intrinsic value system. He lives according to a certain inner discipline -- not imposed by others but by his own awareness.

In the beginning it is groping, but soon one becomes more and more clear. Soon one goes astray less and less. Soon things settle and one starts following the right path towards inner growth. And then one thing becomes clear, that as you are moving closer to your nature, as things are less and less chaotic in your life and they start becoming harmonious, you will feel more and more bliss, more and more peace. That is a clear-cut indication that you are on the right track.

If you are feeling miserable in life that means you are going astray.

Misery is an indicator, so is bliss. They are real indicators: if people are miserable that simply shows they are upside-down; if they are blissful that (few words missing) into an organic unity. They are no more a crowd. They have created a certain integration. They now have a centre, they are rooted, grounded... And then bliss starts happening, naturally, simply. It does not come from anywhere else, it simply arises out of your own inner being in an accord.

It is just like a beautiful car's engine humming. An alert driver knows exactly... if something goes wrong he immediately becomes aware because the engine is no more humming the same way; some disturbing note is there. Nobody else sitting in the car will be aware, but the driver will become aware, immediately alert: something is wrong, something has gone astray, something is not functioning well, something is not in tune.

And that's how a conscious person is: he immediately comes to know that something has gone wrong and he puts it right.

Osho,
The Imprisoned Splendor
Chapter #4

Intelligent lovers - Osho

I am bringing you a new message. The message is no more to choose -- remain choicelessly alert in your life, and become intelligent rather than changing circumstances. Change your psychology, become more intelligent. More intelligence is needed to be blissful! And then you can have aloneness together with relationship.

Make your woman or your man also alert to the rhythm. People should be taught that nobody can love twenty-four hours a day; rest periods are needed. And nobody can love on order. Love is a spontaneous phenomenon: whenever it happens, it happens, and whenever it doesn't happen it doesn't happen . Nothing can be done about it. If you DO anything, you will create a pseudo phenomenon, an acting.

Real lovers, intelligent lovers, will make each other alert to the phenomenon: "When I want to be alone that does not mean that I am rejecting you. In fact, it is because of your love that you have made it possible for me to be alone." And if your woman wants to be left alone for one night, for a few days, you will not feel hurt. You will not say that you have been rejected, that your love has not been received and welcomed. You will respect her decision to be alone for a few days. In fact, you will be happy! Your love was so much that she is feeling empty; now she needs rest to become full again.
This is intelligence.

Ordinarily, you think you are rejected. You go to your woman, and if she is not willing to be with you, or not very loving to you, you feel great rejection. Your ego is hurt. This ego is not a very intelligent thing. All egos are idiotic. Intelligence knows no ego; intelligence simply sees the phenomenon, tries to understand why the woman does not want to be with you. Not that she is rejecting you -- you know she has loved you so much, she loves you so much -- but this is a moment she wants to be alone. And if you love her, you will leave her alone; you will not torture her, you will not force her to make love to you.

And if the man wants to be alone, the woman will not think, "He is no more interested in me -- maybe he has become interested in some other woman." An intelligent woman will leave the man alone, so he can again gather together his being, so that again he has energy to share. And this rhythm is like day and night, summer and winter; it goes on changing.
And if two persons are really respectful -- and love is always respectful, it reveres the other; it is a very worshipful, prayerful state -- then slowly slowly you will understand each other more and more. And you will become aware of the other's rhythm and your rhythm. And soon you will find that out of love, out of respect, your rhythm is coming closer and closer: when you feel loving, she feels loving. This settles. This settles on its own. k is a synchronicity.

Have you watched ever? If you come across two real lovers, you will see many things similar in them. Real lovers become as if they are brothers and sisters. You will be surprised -- even brothers and sisters are not so alike. Their expression, their way of walking, their way of talking, their gestures -- two lovers become alike, and yet so different. This naturally starts happening. Just being together, slowly slowly, they become attuned to each other. Real lovers need not say anything to the other -- the other immediately understands, intuitively understands.
If the woman is sad, she may not say it is so, but the man understands and leaves her alone. If the man is sad, the woman understands and leaves him alone -- finds some excuse to leave him alone. Stupid people do just the opposite: they never leave each other alone -- they are constantly with each other, tiring and boring each other; never leaving any space for the other to be.

Love gives freedom and love helps the other to be himself or herself. Love is a very paradoxical phenomenon. In one way it makes you one soul in two bodies; in another way it gives you individuality, uniqueness. It helps you to drop your small selves, but it also helps you to attain to the supreme self. Then there is no problem: love and meditation are two wings, and they balance each other. And between the two you grow, between the two you reach to God.

Osho,
Philosophia Perennis, Vol 1
Chapter #5
Chapter title: Beep Beep!