Finder: Miss L.S. Littlewood
Found: Outside Sainsburys, Cheadle, Manchester, UK.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
We can't change the past. But we can change the future.
Somehow your story reminds me of the relationship I had with Josh, which was right before I met you. He made $250,000 a year at a big corporation, used to brag about "getting people fired." Mean alcoholic who skiied and worked out all the time. alternately charming and ingratiating - and very cold. Controlling. Not a team player at all.
He had zero imagination and no sense of humor. My friends and family always hated him. He is the one person I have left who I never, never spoke to again. I ended up being "friends" on Facebook, only to perversely spy on him, but I get satisfaction in knowing he is still exactly the same as he ever was, just older now, and looking rather sad -- and I'd still be trapped there, being an arm decoration.
Your story reminds me so much of the woman my friend Jeffrey married (a younger, blonde, gorgeous, perfect smart achieving fashion designer from a blue blood family who, after the wedding, replaced him with her obsession with thoroughbred horseback riding, criticized and castrated him and moved to a city that was great for her career, but made it very difficult for him to succeed in his own career. Wives are supposed to build a man up. She tore him down. It's a partnership, not a competition. Jeffrey's career finally thrived after the divorce.
I think we both have something in common -- (in the past) that we both
may have a tendency to fall for "narcissists" who demean us and cut us
down--or use us for their own egoic advancement. Dig back into your
childhood for the roots of that (probably a narcissicic parent who
either ignored/neglected you or never was satisfied with your
accomplishments) ... and sever those roots. Cut the chords that are
pulling you and manipulating your life to this day.
Don't let that wounded little boy make the decisions for your adult life
anymore.
The idea that life is a struggle in the middle may be your own spin on
it.
When you get away from the incessant striving for perfection, it's
not a struggle anymore. You were obviously spending your last 7 years
with a major achiever/striver, and that (or her grand expectations of
YOU) may have colored your perception of what's an acceptable happiness
quotient ... a bit.
Seeing my ex "before" and "after" that relationship, I wonder if that woman hammered your
self esteem and identity. Would anything you did make her
happy? Did she ever love you for your essence -- or for the outward the
image you gave her?
Ask yourself that before you blame the end of your marriage on yourself.
Was this a relationship where you could comfortably be your own
authentic self?
I really do feel that you need to separate yourself from her as much as
possible (hard to do with a kid, I know) and develop your OWN identity
and worth again. Keep distance. Build your own life and friendships.
Don't look back. It's got to be brutal watching her exhausting pursuit
of perfection.
Eventually it might implode -- or it might continue forever. Until she loves herself she--or her partner--will never be "good enough." I don't know her, but I can imagine the kind of ghosts of self loathing and the deep insecurity that haunts her, as I've been
there myself.
It usually takes some kind of major life trauma to compel women to rise
to the top of the corporate ladder. I used to always feel like nobody
would take care of me.
By the way, if we get back into the MOMENT of now, and are present, I
realize that you/I have a good 20 years ahead of us...
...in which either of us could write a best seller, have a fantastic
relationship, have a great family, start a thriving business, join a hot
startup or flip another fixer upper.
I'm trying to focus on that possibility, and avoid looking back, because
the past is so painful sometimes, so filled with regrets....and because
we can't change the past, but we can change the future.
So focus there. Present. Forward. Don't look back.
What do you want those next 20 years to be? (And don't blame the
potential on the government or whatever--times are always in flux and
often challenging. It's what we make of them that matters.
I appreciate the busting -- I'm not here to hang out with a yes man. And
I'm not a yes girl. I enjoy the stimulation and the challenge of hanging
out with you on many levels...
He had zero imagination and no sense of humor. My friends and family always hated him. He is the one person I have left who I never, never spoke to again. I ended up being "friends" on Facebook, only to perversely spy on him, but I get satisfaction in knowing he is still exactly the same as he ever was, just older now, and looking rather sad -- and I'd still be trapped there, being an arm decoration.
Your story reminds me so much of the woman my friend Jeffrey married (a younger, blonde, gorgeous, perfect smart achieving fashion designer from a blue blood family who, after the wedding, replaced him with her obsession with thoroughbred horseback riding, criticized and castrated him and moved to a city that was great for her career, but made it very difficult for him to succeed in his own career. Wives are supposed to build a man up. She tore him down. It's a partnership, not a competition. Jeffrey's career finally thrived after the divorce.
I think we both have something in common -- (in the past) that we both
may have a tendency to fall for "narcissists" who demean us and cut us
down--or use us for their own egoic advancement. Dig back into your
childhood for the roots of that (probably a narcissicic parent who
either ignored/neglected you or never was satisfied with your
accomplishments) ... and sever those roots. Cut the chords that are
pulling you and manipulating your life to this day.
Don't let that wounded little boy make the decisions for your adult life
anymore.
The idea that life is a struggle in the middle may be your own spin on
it.
When you get away from the incessant striving for perfection, it's
not a struggle anymore. You were obviously spending your last 7 years
with a major achiever/striver, and that (or her grand expectations of
YOU) may have colored your perception of what's an acceptable happiness
quotient ... a bit.
Seeing my ex "before" and "after" that relationship, I wonder if that woman hammered your
self esteem and identity. Would anything you did make her
happy? Did she ever love you for your essence -- or for the outward the
image you gave her?
Ask yourself that before you blame the end of your marriage on yourself.
Was this a relationship where you could comfortably be your own
authentic self?
I really do feel that you need to separate yourself from her as much as
possible (hard to do with a kid, I know) and develop your OWN identity
and worth again. Keep distance. Build your own life and friendships.
Don't look back. It's got to be brutal watching her exhausting pursuit
of perfection.
Eventually it might implode -- or it might continue forever. Until she loves herself she--or her partner--will never be "good enough." I don't know her, but I can imagine the kind of ghosts of self loathing and the deep insecurity that haunts her, as I've been
there myself.
It usually takes some kind of major life trauma to compel women to rise
to the top of the corporate ladder. I used to always feel like nobody
would take care of me.
By the way, if we get back into the MOMENT of now, and are present, I
realize that you/I have a good 20 years ahead of us...
...in which either of us could write a best seller, have a fantastic
relationship, have a great family, start a thriving business, join a hot
startup or flip another fixer upper.
I'm trying to focus on that possibility, and avoid looking back, because
the past is so painful sometimes, so filled with regrets....and because
we can't change the past, but we can change the future.
So focus there. Present. Forward. Don't look back.
What do you want those next 20 years to be? (And don't blame the
potential on the government or whatever--times are always in flux and
often challenging. It's what we make of them that matters.
I appreciate the busting -- I'm not here to hang out with a yes man. And
I'm not a yes girl. I enjoy the stimulation and the challenge of hanging
out with you on many levels...
Why is love such a chore sometimes?
Like, why can't people just hang out and enjoy each other and not let
all their baggage get in the way?
Like, we could probably be doing that
right now, but, you know, it's so much of a commitment, and it would
then "mean something," and there would be all kinds of "expectation"...
And why is everybody so busy all the time that they don't have time in
life for the "best things in life that are free"?
Really, i think all these "issues" around "relationship" are just
another way that "they" can control us and ruin all of the fun we could
be having. It's just another way, now that sex before marriage is no
longer a big taboo, to turn the most precious things in life into yet
another commodity that can be controlled and manipulated and people can
make a profit from.
All worthwhile spiritual issues to consider, as long as you're on that
topic.
What I want - relationship New Year's Resolutions for 2010
It's time to let go of the '00s.
Good riddance!
I call it the Double Zero Decade. That is more or less what this decade summed up to for me in my relationships, career and just about every other metric except money, in which it got off to a roaring start, and then, as it has for all of us, fizzled out.
After an incredible relationship and engagement to the man who stands out as The Love of My Life, my late 30s to 40s...whizzed by. A few "why did I let that nice guy slip away?" and a long list of users, losers, slippery liars and one or two men who could probably qualify
as outright con artists and sociopaths. (I think at least one appeared on "America's Most Wanted," and there were two guys I dated briefly who bragged that they'd been: "Kicked out of Burning Man," and several who had been banned from the wildest, most swinging nude hot spring on the West Coast for blatant attempts to hit on women repeatedly. Not a good sign.
How did another decade of life experience lead to so many poor choices?
I think that can be summed up in one word: "Insecurity."
As I got older, I started believing the societal programming that says "you're too old" and started demanding less, and getting more...desperate. Desperate choices lead to a life as a Desperate Housewife. Or an aging hottie on the prowl in Cougar Town.
Or so it's Seen on TV.
Ah hah! Unless we get realistic about the men we choose and actually start to date in our own age range, and perhaps lower our societal programming standards while raising our standards for the real qualities that matter -- like heart.
This is the list of intentions I wrote a few months ago. Shortly after that, they started to materialize in my life. One thing that helped is just making this very clear to me, and stating my intention out loud, to the current men I was dating. (It made them run like hell. That's what you want the America's Most Wanted types to do.)
I released the "society tells me I shoulds" -- and have started following my heart. I also listen, carefully, to the impressions of friends and family, and I watch how other people in community react and respond to a man I am dating when he is introduced. If they recoil in horror, I no longer take that as a bias, and I actually pay attention.
Here is my list of New Year's Relationship Resolutions for 2010 and beyond. It's a new decade.
I want to make love every morning and every night, to be touched and held.
I want to eat healthy, clean, vibrant food.
I do not want to be pressured into drinking hard booze, doing hard drugs, breathing smoke, or eating meat just because my partner has a junk diet. I am not going to slip back into addictions just so I can be "loved."
I want to be with a man who is radiant and who respects his body like a temple.
I want to be surrounded by aesthetic beauty, gardens, nature, clean air.
I want community, live music, art, shared meals and extended tribal family around. Maybe children and pets too.
I want to have a healthy body and to feel beautiful.
I want to finish writing my books some day -- have a relationship/partnership that grounds me with someone supportive of that, who is not threatened by the fact that I have some ambition to make a difference in the world...and who sees how that ambition can benefit US as an interdependent team/partnership.
I want financial abundance -- there is nothing wrong with having money to buy nice things, travel and eat well. Or the abundance that is created from the land and community around you.
I want fulfilling work that does not require commuting to work in traffic and smog and sitting in a cubicle in a sealed room under florescent lights.
If I work for a corporation, they have values I believe in and products that are making the world a better place, and I own a share of it.
Dream business - create multiple internet revenue streams (with a partner). Work all summer traveling the world on festival circuit, then spend winters in a nice funky small town on land, build simple, eco-type green home, off grid.
I am looking for someone to team up with, who is a "together we are greater than the sum of our parts" kind of guy.
Good riddance!
I call it the Double Zero Decade. That is more or less what this decade summed up to for me in my relationships, career and just about every other metric except money, in which it got off to a roaring start, and then, as it has for all of us, fizzled out.
After an incredible relationship and engagement to the man who stands out as The Love of My Life, my late 30s to 40s...whizzed by. A few "why did I let that nice guy slip away?" and a long list of users, losers, slippery liars and one or two men who could probably qualify
as outright con artists and sociopaths. (I think at least one appeared on "America's Most Wanted," and there were two guys I dated briefly who bragged that they'd been: "Kicked out of Burning Man," and several who had been banned from the wildest, most swinging nude hot spring on the West Coast for blatant attempts to hit on women repeatedly. Not a good sign.
How did another decade of life experience lead to so many poor choices?
I think that can be summed up in one word: "Insecurity."
As I got older, I started believing the societal programming that says "you're too old" and started demanding less, and getting more...desperate. Desperate choices lead to a life as a Desperate Housewife. Or an aging hottie on the prowl in Cougar Town.
Or so it's Seen on TV.
Ah hah! Unless we get realistic about the men we choose and actually start to date in our own age range, and perhaps lower our societal programming standards while raising our standards for the real qualities that matter -- like heart.
This is the list of intentions I wrote a few months ago. Shortly after that, they started to materialize in my life. One thing that helped is just making this very clear to me, and stating my intention out loud, to the current men I was dating. (It made them run like hell. That's what you want the America's Most Wanted types to do.)
I released the "society tells me I shoulds" -- and have started following my heart. I also listen, carefully, to the impressions of friends and family, and I watch how other people in community react and respond to a man I am dating when he is introduced. If they recoil in horror, I no longer take that as a bias, and I actually pay attention.
Here is my list of New Year's Relationship Resolutions for 2010 and beyond. It's a new decade.
I want to make love every morning and every night, to be touched and held.
I want to eat healthy, clean, vibrant food.
I do not want to be pressured into drinking hard booze, doing hard drugs, breathing smoke, or eating meat just because my partner has a junk diet. I am not going to slip back into addictions just so I can be "loved."
I want to be with a man who is radiant and who respects his body like a temple.
I want to be surrounded by aesthetic beauty, gardens, nature, clean air.
I want community, live music, art, shared meals and extended tribal family around. Maybe children and pets too.
I want to have a healthy body and to feel beautiful.
I want to finish writing my books some day -- have a relationship/partnership that grounds me with someone supportive of that, who is not threatened by the fact that I have some ambition to make a difference in the world...and who sees how that ambition can benefit US as an interdependent team/partnership.
I want financial abundance -- there is nothing wrong with having money to buy nice things, travel and eat well. Or the abundance that is created from the land and community around you.
I want fulfilling work that does not require commuting to work in traffic and smog and sitting in a cubicle in a sealed room under florescent lights.
If I work for a corporation, they have values I believe in and products that are making the world a better place, and I own a share of it.
Dream business - create multiple internet revenue streams (with a partner). Work all summer traveling the world on festival circuit, then spend winters in a nice funky small town on land, build simple, eco-type green home, off grid.
I am looking for someone to team up with, who is a "together we are greater than the sum of our parts" kind of guy.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
Facebook or Flirtbook? Social nets eclipse online dating sites for hooking up
This isn't verified by any of the major news sources, but in my own life, Facebook totally rocks for dating. Most of the dates I've had in the past year have emerged from the gradual, 'get to know you' that happens on this social network. I can learn more about a guy's friendships, sleep habits, likes, dislikes, interests and politics from Facebook than he'd ever reveal in a Match.com ad. It's also braindead obvious when a guy is married or dating someone (she'll post obsessively and posessively!)
Flirtbook indeed!
Flirtbook indeed!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Dest. Wasser
Finder: Miss A. Kornher
Found: Pedestrian underpass, Breslauer Strasse, Wertheim, Germany
Monday, October 5, 2009
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Friday, October 2, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Toilet Thing
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Finder: Master E. Attwater
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Found: Outside Fulham Potteries, Burlington Road, Fulham, London
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Monday, June 29, 2009
Get back into the now. Don't look back.
Dig back into your childhood for the roots of that (probably a narcissicic parent who
either ignored/neglected you or never was satisfied with your
accomplishments) ... and sever those roots.
Cut the chords that are pulling you and manipulating your life to this day.
Don't let that wounded little boy make the decisions for your adult life
anymore.
By the way, if we get back into the MOMENT of now, and are present, I
realize that you/I have a good 20 years ahead of us...
...in which either of us could write a best seller, have a fantastic
relationship, have a great family, start a thriving business, join a hot
startup or flip another fixer upper.
I'm trying to focus on that possibility, and avoid looking back, because
the past is so painful sometimes, so filled with regrets....and because
we can't change the past, but we can change the future.
So focus there.
What do you want those next 20 years to be? (And don't blame the
potential on the government or whatever--times are always in flux and
often challenging. It's what we make of them that matters.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Love needs two.
Love and awareness - the highest form of polarity
Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity -- just like man/woman, life/death, darkness/light, summer/winter, outer/ inner, yin/yang, the body and the soul, the creation and the creator. Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity, the last polarity, at which transcendence happens.
Love needs two. It is a relationship, it is outgoing, it is energy moving outwards. There is an object: the beloved. The object becomes more important than yourself. Your joy is in the object. If your beloved is happy, you are happy; you become part of the object. There is a kind of dependence, and the other is needed. Without the other you will feel lonely.
Awareness is just being with yourself in utter aloneness, just being alert. It is not a relationship, the other is not needed at all. It is not outgoing, it is ingoing.
...
Love is very essential. You have to lose yourself to gain yourself. Love is the only possibility of losing yourself totally. When you are lost totally, then you will be able to remember what you have done.
It is like a fish which has always lived in the ocean. It will never become aware of the ocean and the benediction of it. It has to be caught in a net, a fisherman has to come to take it out, throw it on the shore. Only on the shore, in the hot sun, will it remember for the first time. Although it lived for years in the ocean, it was oblivious, completely oblivious, of the ocean. Now the thirst, the heat, makes it mindful of the ocean. A great longing arises to go back to the ocean. It makes every effort to jump back into the ocean.
That is the state of a seeker: thirsty to be back at the original source. And if this fish can enter the ocean again... can't you imagine the celebration! And the fish has lived in the ocean forever but there was no celebration. Now there is the possibility of celebration. Now it will feel so delighted, so blessed.
Love is a must for spiritual growth. And, moreover, love functions as a mirror. It is very difficult to know yourself unless you have looked at your face in the eyes of someone who loves you. Just as you have to look into the mirror to see your physical face, you have to look in the mirror of love to see your spiritual face. Love is a spiritual mirror. It nourishes you, it integrates you, it makes you ready for the inner journey, it reminds you of your original face.
In moments of deep love there are glimpses of the original face, although those glimpses are coming as reflections. Just as on a full moon night you see the moon reflected in the lake, in the silent lake, so love functions as a lake. The moon reflected in the lake is the beginning of the search for the real moon. If you have never seen the moon reflected in the lake you may never search for the real moon. You will go again and again into the lake to search for the moon because in the beginning you will think, 'This is where the real moon is, somewhere deep down at the bottom of the lake.' You will dive again and again and you will come up empty-handed; you will not find the moon there.
Then one day it will dawn on you that maybe this moon is just a reflection. That is a great insight. Then you can look upwards. Then where is the moon if this is a reflection? If it is a reflection you have to look in the opposite direction. The reflection was there, deep in the lake -- the real must be somewhere above the lake. For the first time you look upwards and the journey has started.
Love gives you glimpses of meditation, reflections of the moon in the lake -- although they are reflections, not true. So love can never satisfy you. In fact, love will make you more and more dissatisfied, discontented. Love will make you more and more aware of what is possible, but it will not deliver the goods. It will frustrate you; and only in deep frustration -- the possibility of turning back to your own being. Only lovers know the joy of meditation. Those who have never loved and have never been frustrated in love, those who have never dived into the lake of love in search of the moon and are never frustrated, will never look up to the real moon in the sky; they will never become aware of it.
Love is not as valuable as freedom is. Love is a great value, but not higher than freedom. So one would like to be loving, but one would not like to be imprisoned by love. Hence, sooner or later you become frustrated. You try to possess, and the more you try to possess, the more impossible love becomes and the more the other starts going away from you. The less you possess, the closer you feel to the other. If you don't possess at all, if there is freedom flowing between the lovers, there is great love.
Firstly, the effort to possess a person is bound to fail: in that frustration you will be thrown back on yourself. Secondly, if you have learned not to possess the person, if you have learned that freedom is a higher value than love, a far more superior value than love, then sooner or later you will see: freedom will bring you to yourself, freedom will become your awareness, meditation.
Freedom is another aspect of meditation. Either start with freedom and you will become aware, or start with awareness and you will become free. They go together. Love is a kind of subtle bondage -- they go together -- but it is an essential experience, very essential for maturity.
...
Love makes you real; otherwise you remain just a fantasy, a dream, with no substance in it. Love gives you substance, love gives you integrity, loves makes you centred. But it is only half of the journey; the other half has to be completed in meditation, in awareness. But love prepares you for the other half. Love is the beginning half and awareness is the ending half. Between these two you attain to God. Between love and awareness, between these two banks, the river of being flows.
Don't avoid love. Go through it, with all its pains. Yes, it hurts, but if you are in love it doesn't matter. In fact, all those hurts strengthen you. Sometimes it really hurts badly, terribly, but all those wounds are necessary to provoke you, to challenge you, to make you less sleepy. All those dangerous situations are necessary to make you alert. Love prepares the ground, and in the soil of love the seed of meditation can grow -- and only in the soil of love.
So those who escape from the world out of fear will never attain to meditation. They can sit in the Himalayan caves for lives together, they will not attain to meditation. It is not possible -- they have not earned it. First it has to be earned in the world; first they have to prepare the soil. And it is only love that prepares the soil.
Hence my insistence for my sannyasins not to renounce the world. Be in it, take its challenge, accept its dangers, its hurts, wounds. Go through it. Don't avoid it, don't try to find a short-cut because there is none. It is a struggle, it is arduous, it is an uphill task, but that is how one reaches the peak.
And the joy will be more, far more, than if you were dropped on the peak by a helicopter, because you will have reached there ungrown; you will not be able to enjoy it.
The journey creates the goal. The goal is not sitting there at the end of the journey, the journey creates it at each step. The journey is the goal. The journey and the goal are not separate, they are not two things. The end and the means are not two things. The end is spread over all the way; all the means contain the end in them.
So never miss any opportunity of living, of being alive, of being responsible, of being committed, of getting involved. Don't be a coward. Face life, encounter it. And then slowly slowly something inside you will crystallize.
Yes, it takes time. The Skin Horse is right: 'Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are REAL, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... Once you are REAL, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.' It is forever.
But one has to earn it. Let me repeat it: in life you cannot get anything free. And if you do get it, it is useless. You have to pay, and the more you pay for it the more you will get out of it. If you can risk your whole life in love, great will be your attainment. Love will send you back to yourself; it will give you a few reflections of meditation. The first glimpses of meditation happen in love. And then a great desire arises in you to attain to those glimpses, not only as glimpses but as states, so that you can live in those states forever and forever. Love gives you the taste of meditation.
A loving orgasmic experience is the first experience of SAMADHI, of ecstasy. It will make you more thirsty. Now you will know what is possible and now you cannot be satisfied with the mundane. The sacred has penetrated you, the sacred has reached your heart. God has touched your heart, you have felt that touch. Now you would like to live in that moment forever, you would like that moment to become your whole life. It does become -- and unless it becomes man remains discontented.
Love on the one hand will give you great joy and on the other hand will give you a thirst for eternal joy.
Osho
Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity -- just like man/woman, life/death, darkness/light, summer/winter, outer/ inner, yin/yang, the body and the soul, the creation and the creator. Love and awareness is the highest form of polarity, the last polarity, at which transcendence happens.
Love needs two. It is a relationship, it is outgoing, it is energy moving outwards. There is an object: the beloved. The object becomes more important than yourself. Your joy is in the object. If your beloved is happy, you are happy; you become part of the object. There is a kind of dependence, and the other is needed. Without the other you will feel lonely.
Awareness is just being with yourself in utter aloneness, just being alert. It is not a relationship, the other is not needed at all. It is not outgoing, it is ingoing.
...
Love is very essential. You have to lose yourself to gain yourself. Love is the only possibility of losing yourself totally. When you are lost totally, then you will be able to remember what you have done.
It is like a fish which has always lived in the ocean. It will never become aware of the ocean and the benediction of it. It has to be caught in a net, a fisherman has to come to take it out, throw it on the shore. Only on the shore, in the hot sun, will it remember for the first time. Although it lived for years in the ocean, it was oblivious, completely oblivious, of the ocean. Now the thirst, the heat, makes it mindful of the ocean. A great longing arises to go back to the ocean. It makes every effort to jump back into the ocean.
That is the state of a seeker: thirsty to be back at the original source. And if this fish can enter the ocean again... can't you imagine the celebration! And the fish has lived in the ocean forever but there was no celebration. Now there is the possibility of celebration. Now it will feel so delighted, so blessed.
Love is a must for spiritual growth. And, moreover, love functions as a mirror. It is very difficult to know yourself unless you have looked at your face in the eyes of someone who loves you. Just as you have to look into the mirror to see your physical face, you have to look in the mirror of love to see your spiritual face. Love is a spiritual mirror. It nourishes you, it integrates you, it makes you ready for the inner journey, it reminds you of your original face.
In moments of deep love there are glimpses of the original face, although those glimpses are coming as reflections. Just as on a full moon night you see the moon reflected in the lake, in the silent lake, so love functions as a lake. The moon reflected in the lake is the beginning of the search for the real moon. If you have never seen the moon reflected in the lake you may never search for the real moon. You will go again and again into the lake to search for the moon because in the beginning you will think, 'This is where the real moon is, somewhere deep down at the bottom of the lake.' You will dive again and again and you will come up empty-handed; you will not find the moon there.
Then one day it will dawn on you that maybe this moon is just a reflection. That is a great insight. Then you can look upwards. Then where is the moon if this is a reflection? If it is a reflection you have to look in the opposite direction. The reflection was there, deep in the lake -- the real must be somewhere above the lake. For the first time you look upwards and the journey has started.
Love gives you glimpses of meditation, reflections of the moon in the lake -- although they are reflections, not true. So love can never satisfy you. In fact, love will make you more and more dissatisfied, discontented. Love will make you more and more aware of what is possible, but it will not deliver the goods. It will frustrate you; and only in deep frustration -- the possibility of turning back to your own being. Only lovers know the joy of meditation. Those who have never loved and have never been frustrated in love, those who have never dived into the lake of love in search of the moon and are never frustrated, will never look up to the real moon in the sky; they will never become aware of it.
Love is not as valuable as freedom is. Love is a great value, but not higher than freedom. So one would like to be loving, but one would not like to be imprisoned by love. Hence, sooner or later you become frustrated. You try to possess, and the more you try to possess, the more impossible love becomes and the more the other starts going away from you. The less you possess, the closer you feel to the other. If you don't possess at all, if there is freedom flowing between the lovers, there is great love.
Firstly, the effort to possess a person is bound to fail: in that frustration you will be thrown back on yourself. Secondly, if you have learned not to possess the person, if you have learned that freedom is a higher value than love, a far more superior value than love, then sooner or later you will see: freedom will bring you to yourself, freedom will become your awareness, meditation.
Freedom is another aspect of meditation. Either start with freedom and you will become aware, or start with awareness and you will become free. They go together. Love is a kind of subtle bondage -- they go together -- but it is an essential experience, very essential for maturity.
...
Love makes you real; otherwise you remain just a fantasy, a dream, with no substance in it. Love gives you substance, love gives you integrity, loves makes you centred. But it is only half of the journey; the other half has to be completed in meditation, in awareness. But love prepares you for the other half. Love is the beginning half and awareness is the ending half. Between these two you attain to God. Between love and awareness, between these two banks, the river of being flows.
Don't avoid love. Go through it, with all its pains. Yes, it hurts, but if you are in love it doesn't matter. In fact, all those hurts strengthen you. Sometimes it really hurts badly, terribly, but all those wounds are necessary to provoke you, to challenge you, to make you less sleepy. All those dangerous situations are necessary to make you alert. Love prepares the ground, and in the soil of love the seed of meditation can grow -- and only in the soil of love.
So those who escape from the world out of fear will never attain to meditation. They can sit in the Himalayan caves for lives together, they will not attain to meditation. It is not possible -- they have not earned it. First it has to be earned in the world; first they have to prepare the soil. And it is only love that prepares the soil.
Hence my insistence for my sannyasins not to renounce the world. Be in it, take its challenge, accept its dangers, its hurts, wounds. Go through it. Don't avoid it, don't try to find a short-cut because there is none. It is a struggle, it is arduous, it is an uphill task, but that is how one reaches the peak.
And the joy will be more, far more, than if you were dropped on the peak by a helicopter, because you will have reached there ungrown; you will not be able to enjoy it.
The journey creates the goal. The goal is not sitting there at the end of the journey, the journey creates it at each step. The journey is the goal. The journey and the goal are not separate, they are not two things. The end and the means are not two things. The end is spread over all the way; all the means contain the end in them.
So never miss any opportunity of living, of being alive, of being responsible, of being committed, of getting involved. Don't be a coward. Face life, encounter it. And then slowly slowly something inside you will crystallize.
Yes, it takes time. The Skin Horse is right: 'Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are REAL, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand... Once you are REAL, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.' It is forever.
But one has to earn it. Let me repeat it: in life you cannot get anything free. And if you do get it, it is useless. You have to pay, and the more you pay for it the more you will get out of it. If you can risk your whole life in love, great will be your attainment. Love will send you back to yourself; it will give you a few reflections of meditation. The first glimpses of meditation happen in love. And then a great desire arises in you to attain to those glimpses, not only as glimpses but as states, so that you can live in those states forever and forever. Love gives you the taste of meditation.
A loving orgasmic experience is the first experience of SAMADHI, of ecstasy. It will make you more thirsty. Now you will know what is possible and now you cannot be satisfied with the mundane. The sacred has penetrated you, the sacred has reached your heart. God has touched your heart, you have felt that touch. Now you would like to live in that moment forever, you would like that moment to become your whole life. It does become -- and unless it becomes man remains discontented.
Love on the one hand will give you great joy and on the other hand will give you a thirst for eternal joy.
Osho
Monday, June 8, 2009
Getting hugged by the great one
If, after love shopping on the internet, you're still not getting enough (love, that is), you can always wait in line for a free hug from Amma, the "Hugging Guru" from India.
Amma is like the rock star of hugging. For 30 years, Indian spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi, to give her her real name, has been hugging people, and is said to have hugged people 26 million times. She was visiting on tour in our area, so some friends and I decided to get our first-ever hug from the greatest hugger on earth.
We were on the edge of suburbia in America, but it was like stepping into a time machine and landing in India. Her temple even smelled and sounded like India.
Welcome to the Amma shopping mall, from the moment you enter the village, made of little wooden kiosks exactly like you'd see on the street in Mumbai. All kinds of "Ammabilia" foe sale here -- Amma keychains, Amma gold jewelery (blessed by Amma), Amma diamonds (worn by Amma), Amma food, Amma chai, Amma photos, Amma cards, Amma altar items. Most of her most devoted followers are dressed in simple, modest, flowing white clothes. Others are walking around barefoot.
There are clothes from India, and all sort of spiritualabilia and quasi religious tchotchkes. (Sort of like what you find at Lourdes in France, or around any temple in India, only Indian temples are devoted to deities and not living saints.)
You can buy roses or fruit to give as an offering to Amma, and what's funny is, after someone gives her these things, an assistant whisks them away into a basin of water, and they are brought back to the cash register again so they can be given to her, recycled over and over and over again.
She is laughing and conducting business, reading notes, and signing documents and running hundreds of charities and this
huge global operation while she hugs people, often hugging for 23 hours at a time without ever even getting up to use the bathroom. (My friends and I whisper to each other, "How does she do it? Is it a spiritual power? Or does she wear Depends?) Amazingly, she is said to run more than 20,000 global charities while hugging people.
Since it was my first time, I checked in at reception and was given a green dot to wear and told that this would enable me to sit in front and meditate near her. "This is the only time in your life you will get the green dot," the assistant told me. I was also handed a little ticket, like you'd get at the DMV, with a "darshan number". You can shop around and browse the kiosks while you wait for your number to be called.
(Imagine how fast the state of California could solve its budget woes if the DMV took a lesson from Amma, and not only sold useful items for your car like mud flaps and designer license plate frames that you could browse and shop for while waiting in the "DMV mall", but then had DMV employees who greeted you with: "That will be $583 and you need a smog certificate first before you can get registered. Awwwww, you look so disappointed -- can I give you a big hug?").
Waiting for a hug from the great mother is more like waiting to see Santa Claus than the DMV or an emergency room. The air is ripe with anticipation.
There were assistants busily wrapping Hershey kisses in rose petals and handing them to Amma, a fascinating act of cooperation that kept the line flowing quickly and smoothly. Patiently, nodding off from time to time as it was already well past 1 am, I waited in a long line of beige folding metal chairs, moving forward from one chair to the next.
I tried to snap a photograph of the line, but her assistants ripped my cellphone away from my hands off when I tried to take a photograph. The fact is, like most celebrities, (and yes, even Santa) Amma's photos are either very old, or heavily retouched. Hugging tens of thousands of people a year is wearing on her. Her hair is gray, she's quite overweight, and she has wierd dark blotches on her face, and deep dark circles under her eyes. She has a big, sparkling diamond pierced lotus blossom in her nose. (Presumably to soon be placed in the case of jewels "worn by Amma.")
(It reminded me of when I was a little girl, and my great grandmother would tuck little rosaries, cards with angels on them, and handmade doilies and handkerchiefs blessed by the priest into the jars of cookies she sent at Christmas.)
Amma's face lights up and she absolutely glows when she smiles, and beauty radiates from her. It is a beauty unlike any other, the beauty of pure love. Despite the fatigue, she seems to enjoy giving hugs, very very much.
I could feel the energy from the doorway to the temple, and as I got closer and closer, inching up chair by folding metal chair, I could feel this bright, white energy radiating out of her. It was almost hard to get near, kind of like a force field.
Finally, I arrived at a little red stool where someone motioned me to kneel. The energy now was radiating in a way that made me feel a bit disoriented.
When it was my turn for a hug, she grabbed me (or someone pushed me) forward and buried me in her enormous breasts, which smelled like rose petals. There were assistants and her entourage buzzing all around me, everyone dressed in white, and the energy was confusing and i was dazed, maybe from the waiting, the fatigue, the chanting...and then she started shouting this gibberish in my ear, and it sounded angry, it sounded like "MURDER." but it was, i guess, in her language, and more like: "murrrrrbeulash" and she repeated quickly it over and over again. What did it mean? Was it a mantra for me? A secret message?
Then she thrust a Hershey kiss wrapped in a rose petal in my hand, and something, a force, (one of her assistants?) pushed me away, and I reeled backward. Amma then used the manual clicker in her hand to record my hug, and before I could sit down, she was on to the next. You can't expect a lot of personal attention from the hugging saint. You have to share her.
When I tried to stand up, I was dizzy and almost fell over. I fell into a deep meditative trance, and stayed that way until the chanting stopped, and someone nudged me and said the darshan was over. It was well past 2 am by then and the crowd started to trickle outside into the gardens. I guess even Amma needs to pee and get some sleep.
When I told this story to my friend, he quipped:
"I hear they sell Amma's pee there as well, but it's really, really expensive. You have to know the right people. It's called, "gurine" as in "guru urine." The black market on this stuff is phenomenal. It's said that her golden essence will sprout roses in winter."
Uh, I think I'll pass on the pre-owned altar items, thank you. The hug will stay with me for a long time.
Why can't we just have fun?
Why is just making love and having fun such a chore sometimes?
Like, why can't people just hang out and enjoy each other and not let
all their baggage get in the way?
We could probably be doing that right now, but, you know, it's so much of a commitment, and it would
then "mean something," and there would be all kinds of "expectation"...
Why is everybody so busy all the time that they don't have time in
life for the "best things in life that are free"?
Really, i think all these "issues" around "relationship" are just
another way that "they" can control us and ruin all of the fun we could
be having.
It's just another way, now that sex before marriage is no
longer a big taboo, to turn the most precious things in life into yet
another commodity that can be controlled and manipulated and people can
make a profit from.
Like, why can't people just hang out and enjoy each other and not let
all their baggage get in the way?
We could probably be doing that right now, but, you know, it's so much of a commitment, and it would
then "mean something," and there would be all kinds of "expectation"...
Why is everybody so busy all the time that they don't have time in
life for the "best things in life that are free"?
Really, i think all these "issues" around "relationship" are just
another way that "they" can control us and ruin all of the fun we could
be having.
It's just another way, now that sex before marriage is no
longer a big taboo, to turn the most precious things in life into yet
another commodity that can be controlled and manipulated and people can
make a profit from.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Is it ok to smoke... if he's smoking hot?
Isn't it funny that we can insist on non smokers in the online world, but when we meet in real life, where chemistry overrules the logical brain, we suddenly end up falling head over heels for the Marlboro Man?
After all, we think..."Maybe if I kiss him enough I can get him to quit."
There's an interesting discussion about this over at Blogher:
http://www.blogher.com/node/15289
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Shut up and let him drive
The other day I reunited with an old flame. We haven't seen each other, physically, for at least seven years. He took me to lunch at a Chinese restaurant.
At first I was shocked to see how he'd gone from dark hair to gray. But what was more jarring was how he'd mellowed out -- from a trendy mysterious bad boy full of hubris, ego and attitude, to a stable father, a responsible, caring, loving adult.
Having a child cracked his once guarded heart wide open.
Last time we were together, I was a hard driving corporate executive and focused most of my energy on my career and acquiring stuff, including a house worth almost a million dollars. I was living an inauthentic life that was about materialism and doing the things society tell you to do, rather than following my heart.
I was stuck deep in my masculine, and it was turning men off.
Like most women, I longed so much to be in love, to surrender to love, but something inside me didn't trust that a man would ever be able to provide and take care of me. Basically, I was trapped in the lonely paradox of modern feminism -- the modern myth that I was better off on my own than wasting any time daydreaming that some knight on a white horse would scoop me up and whisk me away to a happy family and a picket fence.
I always wondered, "wasn't there something in between these extremes? A partnership where a man and woman could team up and co-create a business or work of art together? Why did the woman always get stuck in backseat, as the woman behind the man.
There was a powerful attraction from the minute we met -- and I ran from it because a lot of the things he was into at that time (from alternative music to astrology and metaphysics) were just way too out there for me to understand. I took off on a trip overseas for the summer.
While I was gone, he married the next woman he met -- and not long after that, here was one of the baddest bad boys I've ever known, holding down a corporate executive job, raising a child, and buying a house.
For most of those 7 years, I've been in and out of relationships. One lasted a few years and we got engaged. But the relationships that followed were painful, hurtful and even abusive experiences that left me with thick layers of scar tissue and an ever-growing distrust of men.
Seeking the love inside that I wasn't finding outside, I delved deep into a spiritual journey that has involved tantric healing work, workshops and therapy, shamanic journeying, the artistic underground, yoga, meditation, raw food... I focused on the external too--paying thousands of dollars for skin treatments and the best hairstylists, new clothes and makeup.
I went way out on the edge, just about as far as you can go in search of erradicating whatever it was inside me that was making me so unlovable. Little did I know that it was my aggressive, competitive inner masculine that was turning the guys off. Once all about material striving and black pinstripe suits, I dove deep into the murky waters of the sacred feminine mysteries.
I started dressing like a goddess. I learned to dance, sing, perform, give a massage, move energy, surrender to bliss. Some people called me a Dakini. Some people thought I'd lost my mind. But sometimes you have to get lost in order to find yourself.
As I sat across the table over lunch, he cracked open a fortune cookie.
It said: "A good friend is the best mirror."
It struck me as painfully ironic -- now, here we were, 7 years later - strangely closer to each other and with more common ground than we had when the journey began. My rock found a kite, and started to fly. His kite found a rock, and became more stable.
Sadly, his marriage was destroyed, to a large extent, by his wife's ardent feminism and controlling behavior -- which included her insisting on driving all the time, working while he stayed home and cared for the kid as a house husband, competing as an athlete, and finally, spending most of her free time on a spiritual path that severed their last thread of common ground.
We might also say that perhaps my friend also lost his core masculine essence as he took on the feminine role, and that his wife overcompensated with her growing masculinity and competitiveness.
It is especially ironic that such a physically large and strong man, a man who is like the very essence of masculine, ended up so "pussy whipped". And it's ironic that a woman would knowingly choose a radical iconoclast as her partner and then try to suck the life out of him and turn him into a striving conformist.
The other day I wrote to him:
"I think it is very sad that women so often cage the wild creature they were first attracted to. And then once they have him in their lair, subdued, emasculated, slaving away to the domicile, firmly tied to the bed with velvet ropes, they start complaining: "What happened to the man I fell in love with?""
He wrote back: "I am pinching myself."
As a hard driving career chick who was comfortable in the company of Ivy league CEOs and sitting in board meetings, I lived in the world of men all day long. In relationship, I tended to choose very soft, physically small and efeminite men, or men with long flowing hair, earrings and peacock wardrobes.
Often I picked men who were weaker than me financially. I didn't see that my own feminine defecit was forcing me to be with feminized men in order to find that natural yin/yang balance that all relationships seek (including g`y ones). For example, there's usually a "butch" and a "femme" in most lesbian partnerships, and a more financially or sexually dominant and submissive partner in gay male couples.
Now that my journey had softened me up, healed the wounds that made me mistrust and thus need to control men, made me more comfortable with my divine feminine essence, I could relate more to the wisdom in allowing the yin/yang of masculine / feminine polarity take over -- much as Ginger Rogers let Fred Astaire lead her in the dance.
"I did everything he did," Ginger said, "Only backwards and in heels." If Ginger didn't follow so gracefully, she wouldn't be supporting Fred, and neither of them would succeed in the dance.
I was feeling more comfortable with the idea of being with a masculine, powerful man, and letting him set the pace of the relationship, letting him pursue and lead. And with the idea, eventually, of relinquishing my lonely independence and allowing myself to be interdependent someday.
Writer and relationship guru David Deida talks about striving, ideally, for "interdependent" (rather
than co-dependent) relationship between men and women, and the balance
of masculine / feminine energy. Interdependent relationships the next step in the evolution of relationship. Deida says they are extremely rare.
Along that theme, Laura Doyle wrote a controversial book, "The Surrendered Wife" a few years ago that advises women to let go, become more feminine, and let the man drive, make the financial decisions and take charge.
I'm looking forward to relaxing and seeing where that takes me on the road to the interdependent relationship that I know I'll find someday, if I can just learn how to shut up, surrender and let him drive.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Craigslist killer strikes again
Thank God I haven't met the Craigslist panty raider yet. He's not just a lingerie thief--he's a killer. He pursued women who were living somewhat on life's margins, so that he could dominate them and abuse them.
Sounds like some of the creepy men I've unfortunately been too trusting with at times in my life -- and sadly, these are "real" guys I've met in "real" life, not stalkers on the web.
One reason not to be needy, or to convince yourself that you're not worthy of asking for some information about a guy, up front. If he balks, he's probably got something to hide. Next!
One more reason to screen anyone carefully with LOTS of questions, and absolutely do not ever, ever, ever let a someone you've met in a personal ad know your real address, your home number, and girls, don't go on a hike or a kayak ride on your first date, and do not let him, no matter how charming, into your apartment.
If anyone raises a red flag in your BS detector, Google him profusely, do a search on Intellius (well worth the $14.99), and check his wallet for an ID when he's out of the room so you can confirm his name. One of my girlfriends sprang for the full $40 search and discovered that her new beau not only lived in another state -- but he was married.
Sorry if this sounds paranoid and mistrusting -- but it's better to be safe than end up in some guy's box, next to his gun and a copy of Gray's Anatomy.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/04/sources_craigsl.html
An intellectual love hostage?
It's incredible how many men will take your personal ad post -- no matter what you say -- and twist it around into a kinky sex fantasy.
Here is the most ridiculous response I've received this week from a personal ad I posted. I swear I am not making this up!
I'd like to try to impress you so much that you'll agree to surrender into my sensual/intellectual "hostage" for a day or two and will help me to put everything together before release... i am not looking to get laid - "satisfied man cannot create", but i'd love to enhance my creative process by sharing what i know (as input), so you could "output" an enhanced version, or your interpretation of my original information + your vision/ ideas /experiences...
Why "hostage"?
Because
- trust is probably the most stimulating /erotic thing that is out there...
- it might be an interesting/new experience for you;
- it will be a really empowering for me;
- it is probably the easiest way to define boundaries of our connection;
I am younger and age difference will automatically put you in the position of authority - you have more life experience. If you'll decide to submit voluntarily allowing me to make decisions about form of information exchange, then you 'll become an inspirational goddess-alike... Stronger individuals do not need to control because they could afford things to "happen"
The main idea of my project is to stop wars in the world through non-violent "terror" - voluntary human shields.. in every military conflict there is no "right"/"wrong" sides. Somehow it happened that human life lost its value - we get one war after another.... There must be a force that will stop killing...
Using social networking it will be possible to consolidate human rights/antiwar movements... Monetizing web traffic will help to pay for 7-10K tickets for volunteers, who will decide to become a "human shields".
Spreading the knowledge about original intentions of all major religions will allow to melt together people's believes and will also help to save lives... people of the same faith are less likely to kill each other.
i interpret religions as "mental games" and right now it might be a good time to transform institution of the Church.
Human shields force will be equipped with devices allowing to blog in real time.. Each shield will have at least 5 people who will be waiting him/her back... 10k x 5=50K people will be providing info about conflict.
Both sides involved into conflict will have to deal with either
mini-holocaust of foreigners broadcasted live on the Web (which is not likely)
submission to shields' demands to start peaceful communication.
There is no way to arrest and place into prison so many people at once. Interference with every military conflict will discourage people to invest into weaponry.
there is a lot more to this project. In order to get attention to the project i will release few interesting journalist investigations ....
I wasnt trying to offend with indecent part of this offer- i just like the idea of finding equilibrium between a business and pleasure, plus i thought that you might like to have a creative/entertaining younger friend..
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