One love One heart

You may not be her first, her last, or her only. 
She loved before she may love again. 
But if she loves you now, what else matters? 
She's not perfect - you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.

The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.

- BOB MARLEY

You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought is a tree rooted deep in the soil of tradition and whose branches grow in the power of continuity.
My thought is a cloud moving in the space.  It turns into drops which, as they fall, form a brook that sings its way into the sea.  Then it rises as vapor into the sky.
Your thought is a fortress that neither gale nor the lightning can shake.
My thought is a tender leaf that sways in every direction and finds pleasure in its swaying.
Your thought is an ancient dogma that cannot change you nor can you change it.
My thought is new, and it tests me and I test it morn and eve.
 
You have your thought and I have mine.
 
Your thought allows you to believe in the unequal contest of the strong against the weak, and in the tricking of the simple by the subtle ones.
My thought creates in me the desire to till the earth with my hoe, and harvest the crops with my sickle, and build my home with stones and mortar, and weave my raiment with woolen and linen threads.
Your thought urges you to marry wealth and notability.
Mine commends self-reliance.
Your thought advocates fame and show.
Mine counsels me and implores me to cast aside notoriety and treat it like a grain of sand cast upon the shore of eternity.
Your thought instils in your heart arrogance and superiority.
Mine plants within me love for peace and the desire for independence.
Your thought begets dreams of palaces with furniture of sandalwood studded with jewels, and beds made of twisted silk threads.
My thought speaks softly in my ears, “Be clean in body and spirit even if you have nowhere to lay your head.”
Your thought makes you aspire to titles and offices.
Mine exhorts me to humble service.
 
You have your thought and I have mine.
 
Your thought is social science, a religious and political dictionary.
Mine is simple axiom.
Your thought speaks of the beautiful woman, the ugly, the virtuous, the prostitute, the intelligent, and the stupid.
Mine sees in every woman a mother, a sister, or a daughter of every man.
The subjects of your thought are thieves, criminals, and assassins.
Mine declares that thieves are the creatures of monopoly, criminals are the offspring of tyrants, and assassins are akin to the slain.
Your thought describes laws, courts, judges, punishments.
Mine explains that when man makes a law, he either violates it or obeys it.  If there is a basic law, we are all one before it.  He who disdains the mean is himself mean.  He who vaunts his scorn of the sinful vaunts his disdain of all humanity.
Your thought concerns the skilled, the artist, the intellectual, the philosopher, the priest.
Mine speaks of the loving and the affectionate, the sincere, the honest, the forthright, the kindly, and the martyr.
Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being.
In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared.
My thought holds that there are no riches but life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself.
 
You have your thought and I have mine.
According to your thought, the greatness of nations lies in their politics, their parties, their conferences, their alliances and treaties.
But mine proclaims that the importance of nations lies in work – work in the field, work in the vineyards, work with the loom, work in the tannery, work in the quarry, work in the timber yard, work in the office and in the press.
Your thought holds that the glory of the nations is in their heroes.  It sings the praises of Rameses, Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, and Napoleon.
But mine claims that the real heroes are Confucius, Lao-Tse, Socrates, Plato, Abi Taleb, El Gazali, Jalal Ed-din-el Roumy, Copernicus, and Pasteur.
Your thought sees power in armies, cannons, battleships, submarines, aeroplanes, and poison gas.
But mine asserts that power lies in reason, resolution, and truth.  No matter how long the tyrant endures, he will be the loser at the end.
Your thought differentiates between pragmatist and idealist, between the part and the whole, between the mystic and materialist.
Mine realizes that life is one and its weights, measures and tables do not coincide with your weights, measures and tables.  He whom you suppose an idealist may be a practical man.
 
You have your thought and I have mine.
 
Your thought is interested in ruins and museums, mummies and petrified objects.
But mine hovers in the ever-renewed haze and clouds.
Your thought is enthroned on skulls.  Since you take pride in it, you glorify it too.
My thought wanders in the obscure and distant valleys.
Your thought trumpets while you dance.
Mine prefers the anguish of death to your music and dancing.
Your thought is the thought of gossip and false pleasure.
Mine is the thought of him who is lost in his own country, of the alien in his own nation, of the solitary among his kinfolk and friends.
 
You have your thought and I have mine.

-Khalil Gibran 

HOW TO DROP THE FEAR

Go into your fear. Silently enter into it, so you can find its depth. And many a times it happens that it is not very deep.

Fear is non substantial as your shadow. But the shadow can have a great impact on you. On a lonely path when the night is approaching, you can be frightened of your own shadow and start running. Your running will be real, your escaping will be real, but the cause will be non substantial.

People are more afraid of fear than any thing else, because the very existence of fear shakes your foundations.

What is fear made of?

Fear is made of ignorance of one’s own self. There is only one fear; it manifests in many ways. There may be a thousand manifestations to it but basic fear is just one and that is “Deep inside, I may not be.” Fear is the shadow of “I.” Because the “I” is always alert somewhere deep down it will have to disappear in death… The basic fear is of death; all other fear only reflects the basic one.

Where does fear come from?

All our fears are by-product of identification.You love a person and with the love, in the same parcel, come fear that the person may leave you. They have already left somebody else and come with you, so there is a precedent; perhaps they will do the same to you. You get so attached to that person that you cannot grasp a simple fact: you have come alone in the world. You have been here yesterday too with out this person. And you were doing perfectly well. Tomorrow if this person goes what is the need to fear. You already know how to be with out the person, and you will be able to live alone again.

The fear that things may change tomorrow, some body may die, you may go bankrupt, and your job may be taken away. There are a thousand and one things that might change. You are burdened with fear and fear, and none of them are valid. Things may have changed but you are still alive. And believe me people have an immense capacity to adjust themselves to any situation. If you just look around the earth you will see man lives in thousands of different climates, geographical situations, political situations, sociological situation, religious situation, but he manage to live. And he has lived for centuries. Things go on changing but he goes on adjusting himself.

The fact remains though that every body is full of fear. Everybody has a kind of armor, and there are reasons for it. First the child is born so utterly helpless, into a world he knows nothing of. Naturally he is afraid of the unknown that faces him. He has not yet forgotten those nine months of absolute security, safety, when there was no problem, no responsibility, and no worries for tomorrow.

To us those are nine months, but to the child it is eternity. He knows nothing of the calendar, he knows nothing of time. He has lived an eternity in absolute safety and security, without any responsibility, and then suddenly he is thrown into a world unknown, where he is depended for everything on others. Everybody is bigger and more powerful. It is natural that he will feel afraid.

A child is weak, vulnerable, and insecure. Automatically he starts creating armor, a protection for himself in different ways. For example he has to sleep alone. It is dark and he is afraid, but he has his teddy bear and he convinces himself that he is not alone his friend is with him. You will see children dragging their teddy bear at airport, at railway stations. Do you think it is just a toy? To you it is, but to the child it is a friend. A friend when no body else is there to help him. In the darkness of the night alone in the bed, still the teddy bear is with him.

He will create psychological teddy bear. And remember that although a grown up man may think that he has no teddy bears, he is wrong. What is his god? Just a teddy bear. Out of his childhood fear, man has created a father figure who knows all, who is all powerful, who is present everywhere. If you have enough faith in him he will protect you. But the very idea of protection, the very idea that a protector is needed is childish. Then you learn prayers, these are just parts of your psychological armor. Prayers is to remind God that you are here, alone in the night.

Our prayers, chanting, mantras, our scriptures, our gods, our priests, are all part of psychological armor. It is very subtle. A Christian believes that he will be saved and nobody else. Now that is defensive arrangement; everybody is going to fall into hell except him, because he is Christian. But every religion believes, in the same way, that only they will be saved. It is not the question of the religion; it is a question of fear and being saved from fear. So it is natural in a way- but at certain point in your maturity, intelligence demands that it should be dropped. As a child it was good but as an adult you have to drop the teddy bear. Finally, the day you drop your armor, it means you have dropped living out of fear. Once the armor is dropped you can live out of love, you can live in a mature way. The fully mature person has no fear, no defense; he is psychologically open and vulnerable.

At a point, the armor may be necessity- perhaps it is. But as you grow-if you are not only growing old but also growing up, growing is maturity-then you will start seeing what you are carrying with you. Look closely and you will find fear behind so many things.

A mature person should disconnect himself from anything that is connected with fear. That’s how maturity comes.Just watch all your acts, all your beliefs, and find out whether they are based in reality, in experience, or based in fear. Anything based in fear has to be dropped immediately, without a second thought. It is your armor.

We go on living out of fear. That’s why we go on poisoning every other experience. We love somebody but when our love comes out of fear it is spoiled, poisoned. We seek truth, but if the search is out of fear then you are not going to find it. What ever you do, remember one thing: out of fear you are not going to grow. You will also shrink and die, fear is in the service of death.

A fearless person has everything that life wants to give to you as a gift. Now there is no barrier. You will be showered with gifts, and whatever you do you will have strength, a power, a certainty, a tremendous feeling of authority.

A person living out of fear is always trembling inside. He is continuously on the point of going insane, because life is big, and if you are continuously in fear… and fear of all kinds are available. You can make a big list, and you will be surprised how many fears are there- still you are alive! There are infections all around, diseases, dangers, kidnapping, terrorists… and such a small life! And finally there is death, which you cannot avoid. Your whole life will become dark.

Drop the fear- the fear was taken up by you in your childhood unconsciously; now consciously drop it and be mature. Then life can be a light that goes on deepening as you go on growing.

FEAR Understanding and Accepting the Insecurities of life
-OSHO

When you meet your friend

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, 

let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
 

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
 

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
 

When the color is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

~Kahlil Gibran

Yakeen aa gaya

Pighle neelam sa behta ye sama, 

neeli neeli si khamoshiyan,
 

na kahin hai zameen na kahin aasmaan, 

sarsaraati hui tehniyaan pattiyaan,
 

keh raheen hai bas ek tum ho yahan,
bas main hoon,
 

meri saansein hain aur meri dhadkanein,
aisi gehraiyaan, aisi tanhaiyaan,
 

aur main… sirf main.
 

Apne hone par mujhko yakeen aa gaya.

- Javed Akhtar

English Translation
The moment seems to flow like a molten sapphire and there’s deep blue silence,
Neither there is earth below, nor sky above,
The rustling branches, leaves are saying that only you are here,
Only me, my breath and my heartbeat,
Such deepness, such loneliness and me…only me,
It all makes me believe in my existence.

LOVE

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the season less world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.


--KAHLIL GIBRAN 

The man in the mirror

When you get what you want in your struggle for self

And the world makes you king for a day,

Just go to a mirror and look at yourself,

And see what that man has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or wife,

Who judgment upon you must pass;

The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the one starring back from the glass.

He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest.

For he's with you clear up to the end,

And you've passed the most dangerous, difficult test

If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,

And think you're a wonderful guy,

But the man in the glass says you're only a bum

If you can't look him straight in the eye.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years.

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be the heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the man in the glass.

Dale Wimbrow (c) 1934

1895-1954