Rajesh Kumar's Weblog on Internet, social media optimization, ebusiness, CMS, Meditation

THE NEED TO BE SPECIAL

2009-01-25T20:28:00.000-08:00

That is a way to remain the same...that is a trick of the mind. Rather than understanding, the energy starts moving into condemnation...and the change comes through understanding, not through condemnation. So the mind is very cunning: the moment you start seeing some fact, the mind jumps upon it and starts condemning it. Now the whole energy becomes condemnation, so understanding is forgotten, put aside, and your energy is moving into condemnation...and condemnation cannot help.

It can make you depressed, it can make you angry, but depressed and angry, you never change. You remain the same and you move in the same vicious circle again and again.

Understanding is liberating, so when you see a certain fact there is no need to condemn, there is no need to be worried about it. The only need is to look into it deeply and to understand it.

If I say something and it hits you — and that’s my whole purpose: that it should hit you somewhere — then you have to look at why it hits and where it hits and what is the problem; you have to look into it. Looking into it, trying to move around it, looking at it from every angle...If you condemn, you cannot look, you cannot approach it from all the angles. You have already decided that it is bad; without giving it a chance you have already judged.

Listen to the fact, go into it, contemplate on it, sleep over it, and the more you are able to observe it, the more you will become capable of getting out of it. The ability to understand and the ability to get out of it, are just two names for the same phenomenon.

If I understand a certain thing, I am capable of getting out of it, going beyond it. If I don’t understand a certain thing, I cannot get out of it. So the mind goes on doing that to everybody; it is not only with you. Immediately you jump and you say, ‘This is wrong, this should not be in me. I am not worthy, my relationship is wrong and this is wrong and that is wrong,’ and you become guilty. Now the whole energy is moving into guilt, and my work here is to make you as unguilty as possible.

So whatsoever you see, don’t take it in a personal way. It has nothing to do with you particularly; it is just the way the mind functions. If there is jealousy, if there is possessiveness, if there is anger, this is how the mind works...everybody’s mind more or less; the differences are only of degrees.

The mind has another mechanism: either it wants to praise or it wants to condemn. It is never in the middle Through praise you become special and the ego is fulfilled; through condemnation also you become special. Look at the trick: both ways you become special! [She] is special: either she is a saint, a great saint, or she is the greatest sinner, but in every way the ego is fulfilled. Every way you say one thing — that you are special. The mind does not want to hear that it is just ordinary. The jealousy, this anger, these problems of relationship and being. They are ordinary, everyone is in them. They are as ordinary as hair. Maybe somebody has a few more, somebody has a few less, somebody has black and somebody has red, but that doesn’t matter much — they are ordinary, all problems are ordinary. All sins are ordinary and all virtues are ordinary, but the ego wants to feel special. It either says that you are the greatest or you are the worst.

So just look...these are all ordinary problems. What problems are there, tell me? What problems do you feel? Just name them.

I’ve got pain here, in my forehead.

It is paining because you are not trying to understand it — then it pains. You are condemning it; you are saying [to yourself] ‘You should not be depressed. This is not you this is not right for your image, this goes against your image, this becomes a blemish on you, and you are such a beautiful girl! Why are you depressed?’ — rather than understanding why you are depressed.

Depression means that somehow anger is in you in a negative state: depression is a negative state of anger. The very word is meaningful — it says something is being pressed; that is the meaning of depressed. You are pressing something inside, and when anger is pressed too much it becomes sadness. Sadness is a negative way of being angry, the feminine way of being angry.

If you remove the pressure on it, it will become anger. You must have been angry about certain things from your childhood but you have not expressed them, hence the depression. Try to understand it! And the problem is that depression cannot be solved, because it is not the real problem. The real problem is anger — and you go on condemning depression, so you are fighting with shadows.

First look at why you are depressed...look deep into it and you will find anger. Great anger is in you...maybe towards your mother, towards your father, towards the world, towards yourself, that is not the point. You are very angry inside, and from the very childhood you have tried to be smiling, not to be angry. That is not good. You have been taught and you have learned it well. So on the surface you look happy, on the surface you go on smiling, and all those smiles are false. Deep down you are holding great rage. Now, you cannot express it so you are sitting upon it — that is what depression is; then you feel depressed.

Let it flow, let anger come. Once anger comes up your depression will go. Have you not watched and observed it? — that sometimes after real anger one feels so good, alive? Start doing something at home. Mm? do an anger meditation every day...twenty minutes will do. After the third day you will enjoy the exercise so much that it will be difficult for you to wait for it. It will give you such great release and you will see that your depression is disappearing. For the first time you will really smile...because with this depression you cannot smile, you pretend.

One cannot live without smiles so one has to pretend, but a pretended smile hurts very much... It does not make you happy; it simply reminds you of how unhappy you are.

But you have become aware of it — it is good. Whenever something hurts, it helps. Man is so ill that whenever something is helpful, it hurts, it touches some wound somewhere. But it has been good....

OSHO

Your body has its own wisdom — it carries the wisdom of the centuries in its cells.

2009-01-18T19:56:00.000-08:00

Your body is feeling hungry and you are on a fast, because your religion says that this day you have to fast — and your body is feeling hungry. You don’t trust your organism, you trust a dead scripture, because in some book somebody has written that this day you have to go on a fast, so you go on a fast.

Listen to your body. Yes, there are days when the body says, “Go on a fast!” — then go. But there is no need to listen to the scriptures. The man who wrote that scripture has not written it with you in his mind, not at all. He could not have conceived of you. You were not present to him, he was not writing about you. It is as if you fall ill and you go to a dead doctor’s house and look into his prescriptions, and find a prescription and start following the prescription. That prescription was made for somebody else, for some other disease, in some other situation.

Remember to trust your own organism. When you feel that the body is saying don’t eat, stop immediately. When the body is saying eat, then don’t bother whether the scriptures say to fast or not. If your body says eat three times a day, perfectly good. If it says eat one time a day, perfectly good.

Start learning how to listen to your body, because it is your body.

You are in it; you have to respect it, and you have to trust it.

It is your temple; it is sacrilegious to impose things on your body. For no other motive should anything be imposed! And this will not only teach you trust in your body, this will teach you, by and by, a trust in existence too — because your body is part of existence. Then your trust will grow, and you will trust the trees and the stars and the moon and the sun and the oceans: you will trust people.

But the beginning of the trust has to be trust in your own organism.

Trust your heart.

A sannyasin is one who trusts in his own organism, and that trust helps him to relax into his being, and helps him to relax into the totality of existence. It brings a general acceptance of oneself and others.

Trust gives a kind of rootedness, centering. Then there is great strength and power, because you are centered in your own body, in your own being. You have roots in the soil.

Trust gives a kind of rootedness, centering. Then there is great strength and power, because you are centered in your own body, in your own being. You have roots in the soil.

Otherwise you see people uprooted, like trees that have been pulled up from the soil. They are simply dying, they are not living. That’s why there is not much joy in life. You don’t see the quality of laughter; the celebration is missing.

In your very body, in your very being, this very moment, the divine is there — and you have not celebrated it. You cannot celebrate.

Celebration has to happen first in your own home, at close quarters.

Then it becomes a great tidal wave and spreads all over existence.

The Heart Sutra

OSHO

Confronting oneself in aloneness is fearful and it is painful

2009-01-18T19:52:00.000-08:00

Confronting oneself in aloneness is fearful and it is painful, and one has to suffer it. Nothing should be done to avoid it, nothing should be done to divert the mind and nothing should be done to escape from it. One has to suffer it and go through it. This suffering and this pain is just a good sign that you are near a new birth, because every birth is preceded by pain. It cannot be avoided and it should not be avoided because it is part of your growth.

But why is this pain there?

This should be understood because understanding will help you to go through it, and if you go through it knowingly you will come out of it more easily and sooner.

Why is there pain when you are alone? The first thing is that your ego gets ill. Your ego can exist only with others. It has grown in relationship, it cannot exist alone. So if the situation is one in which it can exist no more, it feels suffocated; it feels just on the verge of death. This is the deepest suffering. You feel as if you are dying. But it is not you who is dying, only the ego, which you have taken to be yourself, with which you have become identified. It cannot exist because it has been given to you by others. It is a contribution. When you leave others you cannot carry it with you.

So in aloneness all that you know about yourself will fall; by and by it will disappear. You can prolong your ego for a certain period — and that too you will have to do through imagination — but you cannot prolong it for long. Without society you are uprooted; the soil is not there from where to get food. This is the basic pain.

You are no longer sure who you are: you are just a dispersing personality, a dissolving personality. But this is good, because unless this false you disappears the real cannot emerge. Unless you are completely washed and become clean again the real cannot emerge.

This false you is occupying the throne. It must be dethroned. By living in solitude all that is false can go. And all that is given by society is false. Really, all that is given is false; all that is born with you is real. All that is you by yourself, not contributed by someone else, is real, authentic. But the false must go and the false is a great investment. You have invested so much in it; you have been looking after it so much; all your hopes hang on it. So when it starts dissolving you will feel fearful, afraid and trembling: “What are you doing to yourself? You are destroying your whole life, the whole structure.”

There will be fear. But you have to go through this fear; only then will you become fearless. I don’t say you will become brave, no. I say you will become fearless.

Bravery is just part of fear. Howsoever brave you are, the fear is hidden behind. I say “fearless.” You will not be brave; there is no need to be brave when there is no fear. Both bravery and fear become irrelevant. They are aspects of the same coin. So your brave men are nothing but you standing on your head. Your bravery is hidden within you and your fear is on the surface; their fear is hidden within and their bravery is on the surface. So when you are alone you are very brave. When you think about something you are very brave, but when a real situation comes you are fearful.

One becomes fearless only when one has gone through the deepest fear of all — that is the dissolving of the ego, the dissolving of the image and the dissolving of the personality.

This is death because you don’t know if a new life is going to emerge from it. During the process you will know only death. Only when you are dead as you are, as the false entity, only then will you know that death was just a door to immortality. But that will be at the end; during the process you are simply dying.

Everything that you cherished so much is being taken away from you — your personality, your ideas, all that you thought was beautiful. All is leaving you. You are being denuded. All the roles and robes are being taken away. In the process fear will be there, but this fear is basic, necessary and inevitable — one has to pass through it. You should understand it but don’t try to avoid it, don’t try to escape from it because every escape will bring you back again. You will move back into the personality.

Those who go into deep silence and solitude, they always ask me, “There will be fear, so what to do?” I tell them not to do anything, just to live the fear.

If trembling comes, tremble. Why prevent it? If an inner fear is there and you are shaking with it, shake with it. Don’t do anything. Allow it to happen. It will go by itself. If you avoid it ...and you can avoid it. You can start chanting “Ram, Ram, Ram”; you can cling to a mantra so that your mind is diverted. You will be pacified and the fear will not be there; you have pushed it into the unconscious. It was coming out — which was good, you were going to be free from it — it was leaving you and when it leaves you, you will tremble.

That is natural because from every cell of the body and of the mind, some energy that has always been there pushed down is leaving. There will be a shaking and a trembling; it will be just like an earthquake. The whole soul will be disturbed by it. But let it be. Don’t do anything. That is my advice. Don’t even chant. Don’t try to do anything with it because all that you can do will again be suppression. Just by allowing it to be, by letting it be, it will leave you — and when it has left, you will be altogether a different man.

OSHO

Too much concern about yourself is the greatest disease possible

2009-01-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

Too much concern about yourself is the greatest disease possible. You cannot be happy, you cannot enjoy yourself. How can you enjoy? So many problems inside! Problems and problems and problems and nothing else! — and there seems to be no solution. What to do? You go crazy. Everybody, inside, is crazy.

You also need to become mad now and then — that’s how anger happens: anger is a temporary madness. If you don’t allow a leakage now and then you will gather so much you will explode, you will go nuts. But if you are continuously concerned with this you are already nuts.

This has been my observation, that people who meditate, pray, seek and search for the truth are more prone to neurosis than other people. And the reason is: they are concerned with themselves too much, too egocentric, just continuously thinking of this and that, this block, that block, this anger, that sadness, headache, backache, stomach, legs...they are continuously moving inside. They are never okay, they cannot be, because the body is a vast phenomenon and many things go on.

If nothing is happening then too they are worried: why is nothing happening? And immediately they have to create something because that has become their constant business, occupation; otherwise they feel lost. What to do? Nothing is happening! How is it possible that nothing is happening to me? They feel their ego only when something is happening — maybe it is depression, sadness, anger, an illness, but if something is happening they are okay, they can feel themselves.

Have you seen children? They pinch themselves to feel that they are. The child remains in you — you would like to pinch and see whether you are or not. They say a brave man dies once and cowards die millions of times — because they go on pinching and feeling whether they are dead yet or not.

Your diseases help you to retain your ego.

You feel that something is happening — of course not bliss, not ecstasy, but sadness and “Nobody is as sad as I am,” and “Nobody is as blocked as I am,” and “Nobody has such a migraine as I have got.” You feel superior there, everybody else is inferior.

If you are concerned too much with yourself, remember, you will not attain. This over-concern will enclose you, and the way is right before your eyes. You have to open your eyes, not close them.

And the Flowers Showered

Source OSHOTIMES

ONLY CREATIVITY BRINGS HAPPINESS

2009-01-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

Bliss is a bi product of creativity. People who are creative are always happy. Uncreative people find it almost impossible to be happy and blissful, at the most they feel pleasure and gratification. Sharing His insight, Osho says "If you create something bliss arises, it is a by-product. What you create does not matter -- painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture, it doesn't matter. But if you can create something in life and you can feel joyous for its own sake, for no other end, for no other purpose -- just for its sake you feel beautiful and happy that you have sung your song -- there will be joy."

All great artists have been aware that they are possessed by some unknown force while creating. Osho explains "It is nothing but your own depth -- but you are unaware of it. The whole effect of meditation is to throw you back to your original depth so that something new arises. Then for the first time you will feel happy and blissful -- because there is no other bliss than to be creative."

Bringing out the difference between a creative and uncreative individual, Osho says "When you are in a kind of rage you become murderers or you become suicidal; when you are in a kind of gratitude you write a song or you paint a picture -- you do something creative. Creativity comes out of happiness; destruction comes OUt of unhappiness." Read more…..

Let this sink deep in your heart: only creative people are happy. Happiness is a by-product of creativity. Create something, and you will be happy. Create a garden, let the garden bloom, and something will bloom in you. Create a painting, and something starts growing in you with the growing painting. As the painting comes to the finish, as you are giving the last touches to the painting, you will see you are no more the same person. You are giving the last touches to something that is very new in you.
Write a poem, sing a song, dance a dance, and see: you start becoming happy. That's why in my commune creativity is going to be our prayer to God. This commune is not going to be of those sad, long faces who are not doing anything, just sitting under trees or in their huts, vegetating. This commune is going to be a commune of artists, painters, poets, sculptors, dancers, musicians -- and so many things are there to be done!
God has only given you an opportunity to be creative: life is an opportunity to be creative. If you are creative you will be happy. Have you seen the joy in the eyes of a mother when the child starts growing in her womb? Have you seen the change that happens to the woman when she becomes pregnant? What is happening? Something is flowering in her, she is being creative, she is going to give birth to a new life. She is utterly happy, tremendously joyous, a song is in her heart.
When the child is born and the woman sees the child for the first time, see the depth of her eyes, the joy of her being. She has gone through much pain for this joy, but she has not gone into this pain for the pain's sake. She has suffered, but her suffering is tremendously valuable; it is not ascetic, it is creative. She has suffered to create more joy.
When you want to climb to the highest peak of the mountains, it is arduous. And when you have reached the peak and you lie down, whispering with the clouds, looking at the sky, the joy that fills your heart -- that joy always comes whenever you reach any peak of creativity.
It needs intelligence to be happy, and people are taught to remain unintelligent. The society does not want intelligence to flower. The society does not need intelligence; in fact it is very much afraid of intelligence. The society needs stupid people. Why? -- because stupid people are manageable. Intelligent people are not necessarily obedient -- they may obey, they may not obey. But the stupid person cannot disobey; he is always ready to be commanded. The stupid person needs somebody to command him, because he has no intelligence to live on his own. He wants somebody to direct him; he seeks and searches his own tyrants.
Politicians don't want intelligence to happen in the world, priests don't want intelligence to happen in the world, generals don't want intelligence to happen in the world. Nobody really wants it. People want everybody to remain stupid, then everybody is obedient, conformist, never goes outside the fold, remains always part of the mob, is controllable, manipulatable, manageable.
The intelligent person is rebellious. Intelligence is rebellion. The intelligent person decides on his own whether to say no or yes. The intelligent person cannot be traditional, he cannot go on worshipping the past; there is nothing to worship in the past. The intelligent person wants to create a future, wants to live in the present. His living in the present is his way of creating the future.
The intelligent person does not cling to the dead past, does not carry corpses. Howsoever beautiful they have been, howsoever precious, he does not carry the corpses. He is finished with the past; it is gone, and it is gone forever.
But the foolish person is traditional. He is ready to follow the priest, ready to follow any stupid politician, ready to follow any order -- anybody with authority and he is ready to fall at his feet. Without intelligence there can be no happiness. Man can only be happy if he is intelligent, utterly intelligent.
Meditation is a device to release your intelligence. The more meditative you become, the more intelligent you become. But remember, by intelligence I don't mean intellectuality. Intellectuality is part of stupidity.
Intelligence is a totally different phenomenon, it has nothing to do with the head. Intelligence is something that comes from your very center. It wells up in you, and with it many things start growing in you. You become happy, you become creative, you become rebellious, you become adventurous, you start loving insecurity, you start moving into the unknown. You start living dangerously, because that is the only way to live.
To be a sannyasin means to decide that "I will live my life intelligently," that "I will not be just an imitator," that "I will live within my own being, I will not be directed and commanded from without," that "I will risk all to be myself, but I will not be part of a mob psychology," that "I will walk alone," that "I will find my own path," that "I will make my own path in the world of truth." Just by walking into the unknown you create the path. The path is not already there; just by walking, you create it.
For stupid people there are superhighways where crowds move. And for centuries and centuries they have been moving -- and going nowhere, going in circles. Then you have the comfort that you are with many people, you are not alone.
Intelligence gives you the courage to be alone, and intelligence gives you the vision to be creative. A great urge, a great hunger arises to be creative. And only then, as a consequence, you can be happy, you can be blissful.

Osho - The Book of Wisdom,
# 20, Diogenes and the Dog, Q-1

EATING IS A GREAT ART

2009-01-11T20:55:00.000-08:00

How much care do we take while eating? Eating is a part of our lives without which we cannot survive. Yet have you ever thought that eating is an art? Osho says eating could become meditation. "Be total in your acts, and if you are total you have to be aware; nobody can be total without being aware. Being total means no other thinking. If you are eating, you are simply eating; you are totally here-now. The eating is all: you are not only stuffing, you are enjoying it. Body, mind, soul all are in tune while you are eating: there is a harmony, a deep rhythm, between all three layers of your being. Then eating becomes meditation."

Osho's vision of eating is a great aesthetic experience. Explains Osho, "A real lover of the body eats only to the point where body feels perfectly quiet, balanced, tranquil; where body feels to be neither leaning to the left nor to the right, but just in the middle. It is an art to understand the language of the body, to understand the language of your stomach, to understand what is needed, to give only that which is needed, and to give that in an artistic way, in an aesthetic way."
Read on to discover the artistic way of eating through the words of enlightened mystic Osho…..

There are two types of food. One is that which you like, which you have a fancy for, about which you fantasize. There is nothing wrong in it, but you will have to learn a small trick for it. There are foods which have a tremendous appeal. The appeal is not because you see that the food is available. You go into a hotel, into a restaurant, and you see certain foods -- the smell coming from the backroom, the colour and the aroma of the food. You were not thinking about the food and suddenly you are interested in it -- this is not going to help. This is not your real desire. You can eat this thing -- it will not satisfy you. You will eat and eat and nothing will come out of it; no satisfaction will come out of it. And satisfaction is the most important thing. It is the dissatisfaction that creates the obsession.

Simply meditate every day before you take food. Close your eyes and just feel what your body needs -- whatsoever it is! You have not seen any food -- no food is available; you are simply feeling your own being, what your body needs, what you feel like, what you hanker for.
Dr. Leonard Pearson calls this, 'humming food' -- food that hums to you. Go and eat as much of it as you want, but stick to it. The other food he calls, 'beckoning food': when it becomes available, you become interested in it. Then it is a mind thing and it is not your need. If you listen to your humming food, you can eat as much as you want and you will never suffer, because it will satisfy you. The body simply desires that which it needs; it never desires anything else. That will be satisfactory, and once there is satisfaction, one never eats more. The problem arises only if you are eating foods which are beckoning foods: you see them available and you become interested and you eat. They cannot satisfy you because there is no need in the body for them. When they don't satisfy you, you feel unsatisfied. Feeling unsatisfied, you eat more, but howsoever much you eat, it is not going to satisfy because there is no need in the first place.

The first type of desire has to be fulfilled, then the second will disappear. What people are doing is that they never listen to the first, so the second becomes a problem. If you listen to the hum-ming food, the beckoning food will disappear. The second is a problem only because you have completely forgotten that you have to listen to your inner desire, and people have been taught not to listen to it. They have been taught, 'Eat this -- don't eat that' -- fixed rules. The body knows no fixed rules.

They have found that if small children are left alone with food, they will eat only that which is needed for their body, and they were surprised. Many psychological findings are available now; they were simply surprised. If a child is suffering from some disease, and if apple is good for that disease, the child will choose the apple. All other foods are available but the child will go to the apple.

That's what all animals are doing; only man has forgotten the language. You bring a buffalo and leave her in the garden. The whole garden is there -- all the greenery is available; she will not bother. The flowers and the trees may be beckoning but she won't bother with them. She will go to the grass that hums to her, and she will choose only certain grass that is her need. You cannot deceive a buffalo; you can only deceive man.

Man has fallen even below buffaloes. You cannot befool a donkey -- he will eat his food. Man is befooled. Everywhere through advertisements, coloured pictures, TV, movies, you are being attracted and distracted from your humming body. Some company is interested in selling something to you. That is in the favour of the company, it is beneficial to the company, not to you.

Some Coca Cola company is interested in selling Coca Cola to you. It has nothing to do with your body; it allures you. Wherever you go, there is Coca Cola; Coca Cola seems to be one of the most universal things. Even in Soviet Russia -- nothing else american is allowed, but Coca Cola is there. From everywhere the bottle is calling you, beckoning, 'Come here.' And suddenly you start feeling thirsty. That thirst is false. I'm not saying don't drink Coca Cola -- but let it hum; make it a point.

It will take a few days, even a few weeks for you to come to feel what appeals to you. Eat as much as you want of what appeals to you. Don't bother about what others say. If ice-cream appeals to you, eat ice-cream. Eat to your satisfaction, to your heart's desire, and then suddenly you will see that there is satisfaction. And when you feel satisfied, the desire to stuff disappears. It is an unsatisfied state that makes you stuff yourself more and more and still to no purpose. You feel full and still unsatisfied, so the problem arises.

So first start learning something which is natural and which will come, mm? because we have only forgotten; it is there in the body. When you are going to take your breakfast, close your eyes and see what you want; what your desire really is. Don't think about what is available; simply think what your desire is, and then go and find that thing and eat it. Eat as much as you want. For a few days just go with it. By and by you will see that now no food beckons you.
The second thing: when you eat, chew it well. Don't swallow it in a hurry, because if it is oral, you enjoy it in the mouth, so why not chew it more? If you take ten bites of something you can enjoy one bite, chew it ten times more. It will almost be like taking ten bites if your enjoyment is only of the taste.

It happened once that a man drank some hot coffee somewhere in Japan and he burned his throat inside. Some complication arose and his throat was completely cut from inside; the passage had to be closed otherwise the man was going to die. The doctors fixed a pipe into his stomach so he had to chew the food, throw it into the pipe, and the pipe would take it into the stomach.

The man was surprised because he continued to enjoy his food as much as before. And even the doctors were surprised.

They were at first feeling very sympathetic towards him because the poor man would no longer enjoy his food. But the man continued to enjoy it. In fact he started to enjoy it more because now he would chew it and if he did not want to take it into the stomach, he would simply throw it out. Now he could eat as much as he wanted. There was no need to take it into the stomach; the mouth and the stomach were completely separate.

So whenever you are eating, chew more, because the enjoyment is just above the throat. Below the throat there is no taste -- nothing of the sort -- so why be in a hurry? Just chew it more, taste it more. And to make this taste more intense, do all that can be done. When you are eating something, first smell it. Enjoy the smell of it because half the taste consists of smell.

Many experiments have been done. If your nose is completely closed and then something is given to you, you cannot taste it. Then you will understand that the taste was more smell than taste. If your eyes are closed, you cannot taste it even that much, because the colour, the appeal to the eyes, is no more there. They have done beautiful experiments: eyes closed, nose completely closed, and then they give you something; you cannot even tell what it is. They may give you onion and you cannot say that it is onion because much depends on the smell. That's why when you have a cold you cannot enjoy food, because the smell is not there, the taste is not there. When people are suffering from a cold they start eating spicy food because only then can they feel a little tingling.

So smell the food, look at the food. There is no hurry... take time. Make it a meditation. Even if people think you have gone mad, don't be worried. Just look at it from all sides. Touch it with closed eyes, touch it with your cheek. Feel it in every way; smell it again and again. Then take a small bite and chew it, enjoy it; let it be a meditation. A very small quantity of food will be enough and will give you more satisfaction.

The Shadow of the Whip,
# 3, When the dance dances itself.

Any greed either material or spiritual is simply greed.

2009-01-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

reed means the accumulation of everything that helps one to remain fearless. It is the fear of being empty that one wants more and more and never stops running after more. Sharing His vision on greed Osho says "Greed and mind are not two things, greed is the nature of mind. Mind is greedy because it wants to accumulate more and more. It may be money, it may be power, it may be knowledge, it may be good deeds, virtue, but whatsoever it is, mind is greed. It wants to accumulate more and more, it is afraid of being empty, because in emptiness mind disappears, evaporates."

So whether one is in search of more spirituality or more money or more power, it does not matter, it is simply greed.

GREED is an effort to stuff yourself with something -- it may be sex, it may be food, it may be money, it may be power. Greed is the fear of inner emptiness. One is afraid of being empty and one wants somehow to possess more and more things. One wants to go on stuffing things inside so one can forget one's emptiness.

But to forget one's emptiness is to forget one's real self. To forget one's emptiness is to forget the way to God. To forget one's emptiness is the most stupid act in the world that a man is capable of.

But why do people want to forget? We are carrying an idea given to us by others that emptiness is death. It is not! It is a false notion perpetuated by the society. Society has a deep investment in the idea, because if people are not greedy THIS society cannot exist. If people are not greedy then who is going to be mad after money, after power? Then the whole structure of this power-oriented society will collapse. If people are not greedy, who is going to call Alexander 'the Great'? Alexander will be called 'the ridiculous' not 'the Great', 'the stupid' not 'the Great'. Then who is going to call the people who go on and on possessing things respectable? Who is going to give them respect? They will be the laughing-stock! They are mad, they are wasting their lives. Then who is going to pay respects to the prime ministers and the presidents of the countries? Then people will think that they are neurotic.

And the world will be really beautiful when Adolf Hitler and Mussolini and Churchill and people like these are thought to be neurotic, when nobody pays any attention to them. The whole structure of politics will fall, because the politician is there only to get more and more attention. The politician is a child, he has not grown up. He wants everybody to be at his disposal, he wants everybody to look up to him, he wants everybody to go on being attentive, to pay attention to him.

Attention gives one intoxication; it is the greatest drug in the world. Just think of yourself passing through the whole town and nobody paying any attention, not even a dog barking at you; everybody ignoring you, even dogs; nobody taking any note, everybody thinking you are not! How will you feel? You will feel very bad -- nobody saying "Hi! Hello, good morning. Where are you going? How are you?" -- people simply not looking at you. If you become invisible and you walk around, and nobody looks at you because nobody can see you, and nobody says "Hello!", nobody pays any attention, how are you going to feel? You will feel like a non-entity, a nobody, reduced to nothingness. It will look like death.

Hence people are in search of more and more attention. If you cannot get attention by being famous then at least you can get attention by becoming notorious. If you cannot get attention by being a saint you can get attention by being a murderer.

And psychologists say that basically many murderers commit murder not for any reason other than to get attention. When they murder their photos are on the front pages of newspapers, with their names in block letters. They are on the TV, on the radio, everywhere; they become somebody. At least for a few days they can enjoy that they are also famous; the whole world knows about them, they are not non-entities any more.

Just think of a world where people are not greedy -- then the rich person will be thought neurotic, the politician will be thought neurotic. Then the people who are constantly hankering for attention will be thought retarded. And if people are not greedy we will have a totally different world, more beautiful. There will be fewer possessions certainly, but more joy, more music, more dance, more love. People may not have many gadgets in their houses, but people will be more alive. Right now we go on selling our life energies for gadgets. Gadgets go on accumulating and the soul goes on disappearing; machines go on growing and man goes on disappearing.

When the world is non-greedy, people will be playing on the guitar, on the flute. People may be sitting silently under trees, meditating. Yes, people will be doing things but only to the extent that is absolutely necessary. People will be fulfilling their needs, but needs are not desires; desires are unnecessary, needs are necessary. And desires never end. Needs are simple and can be fulfilled, but desires go on asking for more and more. They-go on desiring for even more of the same thing that you have. You have one car, the desire says have two; unless you have a two-car garage you are nobody. You have one house, desire says have two -- at least one in the hills. And when you have two the desire says have three, one in the hills, one on the seashore, and so on, so forth.

Paddy was digging his garden one day, when he saw a little creature at his feet. He lifted his shovel up to kill it, but to his surprise it spoke.

"Paddy, I'm a leprechaun. Spare my life and I will grant ye three wishes."

"Three wishes? Done!" said Paddy, then thought: "Well, I am thirsty from all this digging. I would like a bottle of cold Guinness."

The leprechaun snapped his fingers and Paddy found he was holding a bottle of Guinness.

"That there," said the leprechaun, "is a magic bottle. It will never empty -- it will pour forever." Paddy took a swig. Lovely. "What are your next two wishes, Paddy?" asked the leprechaun

Paddy thought, "I think I would like two more of these, please."

Now it is of no use, but that's how it goes on.... You have a million dollars -- already you have more than you can use but you are asking for more, and it is never ending. Needs are small: yes, you need food, shelter, you need a few things. Everybody's needs can be provided for; the world has enough to fulfill everybody's needs; but desires... it is impossible. Desires cannot be fulfilled. And because people are fulfilling their desires millions of people's needs are not fulfilled.

But basically greed is a spiritual problem. You have been taught that if you don't have many things you are nobody, and you are also afraid. So people go on stuffing themselves. It does not help; at the most it gives you a temporary relief, but sooner or later you start feeling the emptiness again. Then you fill it again.

And the inner emptiness is the door to God. But you have been told that the empty mind is the devil's mind or the devil's workshop; that is absolute nonsense that has been told to people. The empty mind is the door to God. How can the empty mind be the devil's workshop? It is in the empty mind that the devil dies completely. The devil means the mind, the empty mind means no-mind.

And greed is one of the most fundamental problems to be encountered. You have to see why you are greedy: because you want to keep yourself occupied with things. Possessing more and more you remain occupied, engaged. You can forget all about your inner world, you can go on saying to it, "Wait! Let me have this much more, and then I am going to turn towards you."

And it is always death that comes before your desires are fulfilled. Even if you live for a thousand years your desires are not going to be fulfilled.

In India we have a very beautiful story.

A great king, Yayati, was going to die. Death came.... It is an ancient story; in those days things were simple and the other world was not so far away. Death came and knocked on the door. Yayati opened the door and he said, "What? I have lived for only a hundred years, and here you are -- and with no notice! At least some time should be given. I have not fulfilled my real desires yet. I have been postponing: tomorrow, tomorrow; and now you are here, and there will be no tomorrow. This is cruel! Be kind!"

Death said, "I have to take somebody, I cannot go empty-handed. But seeing your misery, your old age, I will grant you a hundred years more. But then one of your sons has to go with me."

Yayati had one hundred sons -- he had one hundred wives -- so he said, "That is simple!"

It was not so simple as he had thought. He called his hundred sons and asked one to go. "Save your old father's life! Many times you have said, 'Father, we can die for you.' Now the time has come to prove it!"

But these things are always said; they are polite nothings. The sons started looking at each other. Somebody was seventy, somebody was seventy-five, somebody was sixty; they themselves were getting very old. The youngest was just twenty.

The youngest son stood up and he said, "I am ready to go." Nobody could believe it! His ninety-nine brothers could not believe it; they thought he was a fool. And he had not lived yet, not at all. He was only twenty, just on the threshold of the beginning. Even Death felt compassion.

Death took the young man aside, whispered in his ear, "Are you a fool? Your older brothers are not ready, they have lived long. Seventy-five years somebody has lived -- he is not ready. And you are ready? Your father does not want to die. He is a hundred years old, and you are only twenty."

The young man said something very beautiful, something of tremendous import. He said, "Seeing this, that my father has lived one hundred years and he has ALL that one can have, and he is still not satisfied, I see the futility of life. What is the point? I may live one hundred years and the situation will be the same. And if it was only my father then I would have thought, 'Maybe he is an exception.' But my brothers -- seventy-five, seventy, sixty-five, sixty -- have also lived long. They have enjoyed every kind of thing; now what else is there to enjoy? They are getting old and they are not satisfied. So one thing is certain: this is not the way to become satisfied. Hence I am ready, and I am coming with you, not in any despair but in tremendous understanding. I am coming with you with great cheerfulness that I have not to pass through this torture, these one hundred years of torture which my father has had to suffer. He has not yet become able enough to go with you."

And the story continues. One hundred years again passed; they came and were gone, nothing was noticed. Again Death knocked. When Death knocked, only then did Yayati become aware again that one hundred years had passed. He said, "But I am not ready!"

And this went on happening, and each time a son went with Death, and for one thousand years Yayati lived. This is really a symbolic story. After one thousand years Death came, and Death said, "What do you think now?"

Yayati said, "I am coming. Enough is enough! I have seen that nothing can ever be fulfilled here. Desires go on growing; you fulfill one desire and ten others arise. It is a process ad infinitum. Now I am coming willingly, and now I can say that my first son who went with you and was only twenty years old had intelligence. I was stupid. It took one thousand years for me to see it and he could see it when he was only twenty. That is intelligence! "

If you are intelligent you will see the futility of greed. If you are intelligent you will start living rather than preparing to live. Greed is preparing to live. And you can go on preparing, and the time to live will never come. If you are intelligent you will not miss today for tomorrow. You will not sacrifice this moment for another moment, you will live this moment in its totality. You will squeeze the whole juice out of this moment.

Jesus says to his disciples, "Think not of the morrow." He is simply saying, "Don't be greedy" -- because whenever you think of the morrow you become greedy. It is greed that thinks of the morrow. Jesus says to his disciples: Look at the lily flowers in the field. What is their secret? Why are they so beautiful? Even Solomon attired in all his grandeur was not so beautiful. What is their secret? Their secret is simple: they think not of the morrow, they live in the moment. This moment is all and all. There is nothing behind, nothing ahead. They enjoy this moment with their total being.

Greed means postponing your life for tomorrow.

Try to see your greed. It can take so many forms: it can be worldly, it can be other-worldly. Beware! It may take the form of: "This life is not worth living so I will prepare for another life. This earth is not worth living on, I will prepare for paradise." But this is greed!

Of your so-called saints ninety-nine percent are greedy people, far more greedy than the people you will find in the marketplace. The greed of the people who live in the marketplace is not that great, their greed is very ordinary. They are asking for more money -- that is very ordinary. Your saints, your mahatmas say, "This is temporary. We ask for something permanent, we want something eternal. We will sacrifice the temporal for the eternal." There is a great motivation; out of the corner of their eyes they are waiting for paradise. There they will enjoy and there they will show these fools who were rushing in the marketplace, "Look, we had told you before, we had warned you. Now you have to suffer in hell, and we will enjoy all the heavenly joys." But this is greed, and wherever greed is, there is no heaven. Greed is hell; it may be worldly, it may be otherworldly.

See the stupidity of greed. I am not saying "Renounce" -- watch my words -- I am saying see the stupidity of greed. In that very seeing it disappears, and your energy is free. Your consciousness is no longer entangled, entrapped, by things -- money, power, prestige. Your consciousness is free. And the freedom of consciousness is the greatest rejoicing.

Osho - The Guest
#2, The Time Has Come to be Free
Q-3

CRY AND WEEP AND LAUGH

2009-01-11T20:48:00.000-08:00

Laughter and tears go together. They are not opposites but the two extremes of the same spectrum. If one is not capable of tears, he will be incapable of laughter too. Suppression of tears leads to suppression of laughter. Osho says, "If you really want to laugh you will have to learn how to weep. If you cannot weep and if you are not capable of tears, you will become incapable of laughter. A man of laughter is also a man of tears -- then a man is balanced."
Sharing His insight, Osho says that tears and laughter can be more prayerful than words because they come deep down from the heart.

"One should laugh and one should weep also. Laughter and weeping are two banks -- balance is needed. If you really laugh, you will also weep. And what is wrong with weeping? Tears are beautiful. If you have laughed, if you have laughed deeply, tears become very, very beautiful. They carry... they carry something of the laughter, because deep down the banks are one, they are not two. On one pole laughter, on another pole tears; one pole smiles, another pole cries, but deep down they are joined together. If you have laughed totally, you will weep totally, and both are beautiful. Totality is beautiful. But if you cling, then you can never be total. When you weep, you cling to the laughter; you try to smile, you try to force a smile because you don't want this weeping and crying. 'This is bad, this is ugly,' and you force a smile. Tears are in the eyes and you force a smile. This smile is false -- this is neurosis. When the body wants to weep and you are smiling, this is schizophrenia. This is how the split starts, how a person becomes two. Totality is lost. Then remember, when you laugh it can never be total.

If you cling to one pole, you become afraid of totality. You cannot weep totally, how can you laugh totally? That's why the belly laugh has simply disappeared from the world. You don't know what a belly laugh is -- when you not only laugh, but the belly laughs. The whole body vibrates, not only you, but from head to toe everything laughs. That laughter is mad because you are totally in it.

Look at the absurdity of the world: only a madman can be total. You are afraid, because you know well that you have suppressed tears so if you laugh deeply, tears may come. And it happens. You may have noticed many times, if you start laughing deeply immediately you feel tears are coming. You feel confused -- why are tears coming? Tears are coming because you have been suppressing them, and you have never allowed a totality. And now you laugh totally: the suppressed needs expression, the suppressed flows, the suppressed seeks a moment; the door is open -- it flows."

OSHO

The Four Pillars of Health

2009-01-11T20:36:00.001-08:00

Health is not only a physical phenomenon. That is only one of its dimensions, and one of the most superficial dimensions because basically the body is going to die — healthy or unhealthy, it is momentary.

Real health has to happen somewhere inside you, in your subjectivity, in your consciousness, because consciousness knows no birth, no death. It is eternal.

To be healthy in consciousness means: first, to be awake; second, to be harmonious; third, to be ecstatic; and fourth, to be compassionate. If these four things are fulfilled, one is inwardly healthy. And sannyas can fulfill all these four things. It can make you more aware, because all the meditation techniques are methods to make you more aware, devices to pull you out of your metaphysical sleep. And dancing, singing, rejoicing, can make you more harmonious.

There is a moment when the dancer disappears and only the dance remains. In that rare space one feels harmony. When the singer is completely forgotten and only the song remains, when there is no center functioning and only the song remains, when there is no center functioning as I — the I is absolutely absent — and you are in a flow, that flowing consciousness is harmonious.

To be awake and harmonious creates the possibility for ecstasy to happen. Ecstasy means the ultimate joy, inexpressible; no words are adequate to say anything about it.

And when one has attained to ecstasy, when one has known the ultimate peak of joy, compassion comes as a consequence.

When you have that joy, you like to share it; you cannot avoid sharing, sharing is inevitable. It is a logical consequence of having. It starts overflowing; you need not do anything. It starts happening of its own accord.

These four are the four pillars of inner health. Attain to it. It is our birthright; we just have to claim it.

Don’t Let Yourself Be Upset By the Sutra, Rather Upset the Sutra Itself.

OSHOTimes

I feel depressed and self-condemnatory, although I don’t really know why....

2009-01-11T20:25:00.000-08:00

That is a way to remain the same...that is a trick of the mind. Rather than understanding, the energy starts moving into condemnation...and the change comes through understanding, not through condemnation. So the mind is very cunning: the moment you start seeing some fact, the mind jumps upon it and starts condemning it. Now the whole energy becomes condemnation, so understanding is forgotten, put aside, and your energy is moving into condemnation...and condemnation cannot help.

It can make you depressed, it can make you angry, but depressed and angry, you never change. You remain the same and you move in the same vicious circle again and again.

Understanding is liberating, so when you see a certain fact there is no need to condemn, there is no need to be worried about it. The only need is to look into it deeply and to understand it.

If I say something and it hits you — and that’s my whole purpose: that it should hit you somewhere — then you have to look at why it hits and where it hits and what is the problem; you have to look into it. Looking into it, trying to move around it, looking at it from every angle...If you condemn, you cannot look, you cannot approach it from all the angles. You have already decided that it is bad; without giving it a chance you have already judged.

Listen to the fact, go into it, contemplate on it, sleep over it, and the more you are able to observe it, the more you will become capable of getting out of it. The ability to understand and the ability to get out of it, are just two names for the same phenomenon.

If I understand a certain thing, I am capable of getting out of it, going beyond it. If I don’t understand a certain thing, I cannot get out of it. So the mind goes on doing that to everybody; it is not only with you. Immediately you jump and you say, ‘This is wrong, this should not be in me. I am not worthy, my relationship is wrong and this is wrong and that is wrong,’ and you become guilty. Now the whole energy is moving into guilt, and my work here is to make you as unguilty as possible.

So whatsoever you see, don’t take it in a personal way. It has nothing to do with you particularly; it is just the way the mind functions. If there is jealousy, if there is possessiveness, if there is anger, this is how the mind works...everybody’s mind more or less; the differences are only of degrees.

The mind has another mechanism: either it wants to praise or it wants to condemn. It is never in the middle Through praise you become special and the ego is fulfilled; through condemnation also you become special. Look at the trick: both ways you become special! [She] is special: either she is a saint, a great saint, or she is the greatest sinner, but in every way the ego is fulfilled. Every way you say one thing — that you are special. The mind does not want to hear that it is just ordinary. The jealousy, this anger, these problems of relationship and being. They are ordinary, everyone is in them. They are as ordinary as hair. Maybe somebody has a few more, somebody has a few less, somebody has black and somebody has red, but that doesn’t matter much — they are ordinary, all problems are ordinary. All sins are ordinary and all virtues are ordinary, but the ego wants to feel special. It either says that you are the greatest or you are the worst.

So just look...these are all ordinary problems. What problems are there, tell me? What problems do you feel? Just name them.

I’ve got pain here, in my forehead.

It is paining because you are not trying to understand it — then it pains. You are condemning it; you are saying [to yourself] ‘You should not be depressed. This is not you this is not right for your image, this goes against your image, this becomes a blemish on you, and you are such a beautiful girl! Why are you depressed?’ — rather than understanding why you are depressed.

Depression means that somehow anger is in you in a negative state: depression is a negative state of anger. The very word is meaningful — it says something is being pressed; that is the meaning of depressed. You are pressing something inside, and when anger is pressed too much it becomes sadness. Sadness is a negative way of being angry, the feminine way of being angry.

If you remove the pressure on it, it will become anger. You must have been angry about certain things from your childhood but you have not expressed them, hence the depression. Try to understand it! And the problem is that depression cannot be solved, because it is not the real problem. The real problem is anger — and you go on condemning depression, so you are fighting with shadows.

First look at why you are depressed...look deep into it and you will find anger. Great anger is in you...maybe towards your mother, towards your father, towards the world, towards yourself, that is not the point. You are very angry inside, and from the very childhood you have tried to be smiling, not to be angry. That is not good. You have been taught and you have learned it well. So on the surface you look happy, on the surface you go on smiling, and all those smiles are false. Deep down you are holding great rage. Now, you cannot express it so you are sitting upon it — that is what depression is; then you feel depressed.

Let it flow, let anger come. Once anger comes up your depression will go. Have you not watched and observed it? — that sometimes after real anger one feels so good, alive? Start doing something at home. Mm? do an anger meditation every day...twenty minutes will do. After the third day you will enjoy the exercise so much that it will be difficult for you to wait for it. It will give you such great release and you will see that your depression is disappearing. For the first time you will really smile...because with this depression you cannot smile, you pretend.

One cannot live without smiles so one has to pretend, but a pretended smile hurts very much... It does not make you happy; it simply reminds you of how unhappy you are.

But you have become aware of it — it is good. Whenever something hurts, it helps. Man is so ill that whenever something is helpful, it hurts, it touches some wound somewhere. But it has been good....

Source: OSHOTIMES

Never be afraid of tears

2009-01-11T20:11:00.000-08:00

Never be afraid of tears. The so-called civilization has made you very afraid of tears. It has created a kind of guilt in you. When tears come you start feeling embarrassed. You start feeling, “What will others think? I am a man and I am crying! It looks so feminine and childish. It should not be so.” You stop those tears...and you kill something that was growing in you.

Tears are far more beautiful than anything that you have with you, because tears come from the overflow of your being. Tears are not necessarily of sadness; sometimes they come out of great joy and sometimes they come out of great peace and sometimes they come out of ecstasy and love. In fact they have nothing to do with sadness or happiness. Anything that stirs your heart too much, anything that takes possession of you, anything that is too much, that you cannot contain and it starts overflowing — that brings tears.

Accept them with great joy, relish them, nourish them, welcome them, and through tears you will know how to pray.

Source: Osho

The 11 pitfalls of health

2009-01-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

A super remedy for stuffed guts

By: Dr BANCHOB JUNHASAVASDIKUL

Published: 8/01/2009 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: Mylife

We've talked about the three pitfalls in the past weeks: The more you drink water the better, sleep at anytime is alright as long as the hours are enough and quit eggs and take milk instead.

Now we come to the fourth pitfall: Yoghurt plus honey plus lemon - a super remedy for stuffed guts.

Constipation is one of the most common health problems. Many people try the aforementioned formula to relieve such compliant. Sure such formula works in more than 80 per cent of the people who try it. But to be honest, it also has too many pitfalls, which is actually not worth trying.

First, yoghurt which is once believed to be friendly for health, has to be re-evaluated. Yoghurt is a kind of dairy product. More and more evidences proved that milk and dairy products bring many diseases to consumers.

Milk has high cholesterol and saturated fatty acid. In the past we avoid taking lard because of lard is animal fat which has plenty of "bad oil".

So, how unreasonable we are, to quit from lard but take milk which means that we are taking such kind of bad oil. Even though somebody may take low fat milk, may not avoid its bad effect because low fat milk still has one half of the bad oil existed in the full formula. The content of oil in yoghurt is still the same as milk.

Milk has been proved to be the most common cause of allergy, mentioned in many scientific papers for decades like: Sami L Bahna in Advance of Paediatrics, 1978, P.D. Buisseret in Lancet 1978, A.B. Murrey in Lancet 1971 etc.

The last conference presented at the "World Allergy Congress 2007" held from December 2 to 6, 2007 in Bangkok, scientists from many countries like Dr David J Hill a prominent on allergic diseases from the Research Institute of Mardoch, Australia, including Dr Orapan Pochnukul, the Thamasat Medical School and Dr Pantipa Chatchatri, the Allergy unit of Chulalongkorn Medical School all mentioned the most common allergen is cow milk yoghurt, digested by yeast or bacteria, still cannot obliterate the allergen property.

On the contrary, the loose stool effect from yoghurt consuming is just the effect of allergic reaction occurs at the intestinal mucosa. It is the same effect like the watery eyes occurs from conjunctiva allergic reaction.

We can imagine how terrific auto-immune diseases may occur after such prolong effect of chronic yoghurt inducing intestinal reaction.

Milk had also been proved as a substance which may induce cancer. The epidemiologic research The Impact of Westernisation on the Nutrition of Japan held by Kagawa published in Prevention 1978 compared the food consumed by Japanese during 1950 to 1975, revealed that 25 years after World War Two Japanese took milk 15 times and meat 7.5 times than the previous days. Such change in diet leads Japanese women to suffer from breast cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer 300 per cent of the previous year.

The World Cancer Research Fund in Association with American Institute for Cancer Research, mentioned that "Milk is the probable factor for breast cancer, ovarian cancer and prostatic cancer."

These three major downsides of milk indicate that taking yoghurt, which is derived from milk is not worth enough for us to take risk.

Now come to honey. Even though honey is a natural sweetener, but it does not indicate that it is save. The sucrose in honey will be digested into glucose and being absorbed into the blood stream like many other sugars. One should know that over supply of glucose, the excess sugar in blood stream will be turned into aldehyde, which is a chemical substance like formaldehyde.

Formaldehyde or formalin is a substance for preserving corps, because of its dehydrating effect can dry up any animal tissue.

In ancient times, Chinese warriors used honey to preserve the head of a defeated warrior and sent it to his emperor as evidence of victory.

So too much intake honey may harden our blood vessel, like those of diabetic patients, who suffer from the harden artery or degenerated eye grounds, in case of uncontrolled DM.

Actually, Chinese traditional medicine and Thai traditional medicine suggest that more than one teaspoonful of honey per day should not be consumed. And usually, they prefer to use honey to mix up with herbal remedies instead of consuming it in its pure form.

Hence, by the analysis of such a formula, a mixture of yoghurt, honey and lemon may induce loose stools. But it occurs because of the allergic reaction from yoghurt mixed with the waxy effect of honey. But the consumer may take too much health risks from yoghurt and honey, far more compatible than the good result.

The natural way to heal constipation is simply eating brown rice and vegetables.

The dragon fruit is also recommended. It has plenty of fructo-oligo-saccharide, which will be a good nutrient for bacteria in the blood stream.

One big dragon fruit at sunset, get one big smile at sun-rise!

http://www.bangkokpost.com/life/family/9364/the-11-pitfalls-of-health

Why can’t I stop eating? But that’s not the question; there is something behind that, something else. It sounds ridiculous....

2009-01-06T00:53:00.000-08:00

No, don’t judge. If you say ridiculous, you have already condemned it, and that may be part of the problem. That is not the way to get out of any problem. don’t call things names — try to understand.

If a person is eating more it is a symptom of a certain undercurrent.

Food is always a substitute for love. People who don’t love, who somehow miss a life of love, start eating more; it is a love-substitute.

When a child is born, his first love and his first food are the same thing — the mother. So there is a deep association between food and love; in fact food comes first and then love follows. First the child eats the mother, then by and by he becomes aware that the mother is not just food; she loves him too. But of course for that a certain Growth is necessary. The first day the child cannot understand love. He understands the language of food, the natural primitive language of all animals. The child is born with hunger; food is needed immediately. Love will not be needed until long after; it is not so much of an emergency. One can live without love one’s whole life, but one cannot live without food — that’s the trouble.

So the child becomes aware of the association of food and love. By and by he feels too, that whenever the mother is very loving, she gives her breast in a different way. When she is not loving, but angry, sad, she gives the breast very reluctantly, or does not give it at all. So the child becomes aware that whenever the mother is loving, whenever food is available, love is available. Whenever food is not available, the child feels love is not available, and vice versa. This is in the unconscious.

Somewhere you are missing a life of love so you eat more — that’s a substitute. You go on filling yourself with food and leave no space inside. So there is no question of love, because there is no space left. And with food things are simple because food is dead. You can go on eating as much as you want — food cannot say no. If you stop eating, the food cannot say that you are offending it. One remains a master with food.

But in love you are no longer the master. Another being enters into your life, a dependency enters into your life. You are no longer independent, and that’s the fear.

Ego wants to be independent and ego won’t allow you to love; it will only allow you to eat more. If you want to love then the ego has to be dropped.

It is not a question of food; food is simply symptomatic. So I will not say anything about food, about dieting or doing anything. Because that won’t help you, you won’t succeed. You can try a thousand and one ways; that won’t help. Rather, I will say forget about food, go on eating as much as you want.

Start a life of love, fall in love, find somebody who you can love, and immediately you will see you are not eating so much.

Have you watched? — if you are happy you don’t eat too much. If you are sad you eat too much. People think that when they are happy they eat too much, but that is absolute nonsense. A happy person feels so fulfilled that he feels no space inside. An unhappy man goes on throwing food into himself.

So I won’t touch on food at all...and you continue as you are, but find a lover.

Above All, Don’t Wobble

Only a tree that has lived wholly will flower

2008-12-30T21:04:00.000-08:00

New man, homo novus. The old concept of man was of either/or; materialist or spiritualist, moral or immoral, sinner or saint. It was based on division, split. It created a schizophrenic humanity. The whole past of humanity has been sick, unhealthy, insane. In three thousand years, five thousand wars have been fought. This is just utterly mad; it is unbelievable. It is stupid, unintelligent, inhuman.

Once you divide man in two, you create misery and hell for him. He can never be healthy and can never be whole, the other half that has been denied will go on taking revenge. It will go on finding ways and means to overcome the part that you have imposed upon yourself. You will become a battle-ground, a civil war. That's what has been the case in the past.

In the past we were not able to create real human beings, but humanoids. A humanoid is one who looks like a human being but is utterly crippled, paralysed. He has not been allowed to bloom in his totality. He is half, and because he is half he is always in anguish and tension; he cannot celebrate. Only a whole man can celebrate. Celebration is the fragrance of being whole.

Only a tree that has lived wholly will flower. Man has not flowered yet.

The past has been very dark and dismal. It has been a dark night of the soul. And because it was repressive, it was bound to become aggressive. If something is repressed, man becomes aggressive, he loses all soft qualities. It was always so up to now. We have come to a point where the old has to be dropped and the new has to be heralded.

The new man will not be either/or; he will be both/and. The new man will be earthy and divine, worldly and other-worldly. The new man will accept his totality and he will live it without any inner division, he will not be split. His god will not be opposed to the devil, his morality will not be opposed to immorality; he will know no opposition. He will transcend duality, he will not be schizophrenic. With the new man there will come a new world, because the new man will perceive in a qualitatively different way and he will live a totally different life which has not been lived yet. He will be a mystic, a poet, a scientist, all together. He will not choose: he will be choicelessly himself.

That's what I teach: homo novus, a new man, not a humanoid. The humanoid is not a natural phenomenon. The humanoid is created by the society -- by the priest, the politician, the pedagogue. The humanoid is created, it is manufactured. Each child comes as a human being: total, whole, alive, without any split. Immediately the society starts suffocating him, stifling him, cutting him into fragments, telling him what to do and what not to do, what to be and what not to be. His wholeness is soon lost. He becomes guilty about his whole being. He denies much that is natural, and in that very denial he becomes uncreative. Now he will be only a fragment, and a fragment cannot dance, a fragment cannot sing, and a fragment is always suicidal because the fragment cannot know what life is. The humanoid cannot will on his own. Others have been willing for him -- his parents, the teachers, the leaders, the priests; they have taken all his willing. They will, they order; he simply follows. The humanoid is a slave.

I teach freedom. Now man has to destroy all kinds of bondages and he has to come out of all prisons -- no more slavery. Man has to become individual. He has to become rebellious. And whenever a man has become rebellious.... Once in a while a few people have escaped from the tyranny of the past, but only once in a while -- a Jesus here and there, a Buddha here and there. They are exceptions. And even these people, Buddha and Jesus, could not live totally. They tried, but the whole society was against it.

My concept of the new man is that he will be Zorba the Greek and he will also be Gautam the Buddha: the new man will be Zorba the Buddha. He will be sensuous and spiritual, physical, utterly physical, in the body, in the senses, enjoying the body and all that the body makes possible, and still a great consciousness, a great witnessing will be there. He will be Christ and Epicurus together.

The old man's ideal was renunciation; the new man's ideal will be rejoicing. And this new man is coming every day, he is arriving every day. People have not yet become aware of him. In fact he has already dawned. The old is dying, the old is on its death-bed. I don't mourn for it and I say please don't mourn for it. It is good that it dies, because out of its death the new will assert. The death of the old will be the beginning of the new. The new can come only when the old has died utterly.

Help the old to die and help the new to be born! And remember, the old has all the respectability, the whole past will be in his support; and the new will be a very strange phenomenon. The new will be so new that he will not be respected. Every effort will be made to destroy the new. The new cannot be respectable, but with the new is the future of the whole of humanity. The new has to be brought in.

My work consists in creating a Buddhafield, an energy-field, where the new can be born. I am only a midwife helping the new to come into a world which will not be accepting of it. The new will need much support from those who understand, from those who want some revolution to happen. And the time is ripe, it has never been so ripe. The time is right, it has never been so right. The new can assert itself, the break-through has become possible.

The old is so rotten that even with all support it cannot survive; it is doomed! We can delay, we can go on worshipping the old; that will be just delaying the process. The new has to come: at the most, we can help it to come sooner, or we can hinder it and delay its coming. It is good to help it. If it comes sooner, humanity can still have a future, and a great future: a future of freedom, a future of love, a future of joy.

I teach a new religion. This religion will not be Christianity and will not be Judaism and will not be Hinduism. This religion will not have any adjective to it. This religion will be purely a religious quality of being whole.

My sannyasins have to become the first rays of the sun that is going to come on the horizon. It is a tremendous task, it is an almost impossible task, but because it is impossible it is going to seduce all those who have any soul left in them. It is going to create a great longing in all those people who have some adventure hidden in their beings, who are courageous, brave, because it is really going to create a brave new world.

I talk of Buddha, I talk of Christ, I talk of Krishna, I talk of Zarathustra, so that all that is best and all that is good in the past can be preserved. But these are only a few exceptions. The whole humanity has lived in great slavery, chained, split, insane.

I say my message is simple, but it will be very hard, difficult, to make it happen. But the harder, the more impossible, it is, the greater is the challenge. And the time is right because religion has failed. science has failed. The time is right because the East has failed, the West has failed. Something of a higher synthesis is needed in which East and West can have a meeting, in which religion and science can have a meeting.

Religion failed because it was other-worldly and it neglected this world. And you cannot neglect this world; to neglect this world is to neglect your own roots. Science has failed because it neglected the other world, the inner, and you cannot neglect the flowers. Once you neglect the flowers, the innermost core of being, life loses all meaning. The tree needs roots, so man needs roots, and the roots can only be in the earth. The tree needs an open sky to grow, to come to a great foliage and to have thousands of flowers. Then only is the tree fulfilled, then only does the tree feel significance and meaning and life becomes relevant.

Man is a tree. Religion has failed because it is talking only of the flowers. Those flowers remain philosophical, abstract; they never materialise. They could not materialise because they were not supported by the earth. And science has failed because it cares only about the roots. The roots are ugly and there seems to be no flowering.

The West is suffering from too much science; the East has suffered from too much religion. Now we need a new humanity in which religion and science become two aspects of one man. And the bridge is going to be art. That's why I say that the new man will be a mystic, a poet and a scientist.

Between science and religion only art can be the bridge -- poetry, music, sculpture. Once we have brought this new man into existence, the earth can become for the first time what it is meant to become. It can become a paradise: this very body the Buddha, this very earth the paradise!

Osho, from: "Zorba The Buddha"

IIJS-Signature 2009 to be Held in Goa

2008-12-19T22:58:00.000-08:00

Mumbai, 2008: The Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council will host the second edition of IIJS Signature to be held Feb. 20-23, 2009 at Kala Academy (pictured) in Goa.

Despite worldwide economic issues, GJEPC has decided to keep up with its promotional plans for the year, beginning with IIJS Signature.

This show serves as a platform to forge partnerships with India’s foremost jewelry manufacturers who will display fine jewelry collections with contemporary design and flair. The emphasis of the show is on design and innovation in products. IIJS Signature reiterates India’s growing stature as a jewelry production center.

The seaside resort city of Goa will serve as a place for attendees to mix business with pleasure. The show itself serves as a premium niche event for select attendees only, high on experiential quotient with maximum buyer-seller interface, and on-line pre-scheduled appointments.

“IIJS Signature promises to highlight India’s capabilities to manufacture jewelry in terms of design, craftsmanship and quality at par with International centers in the world,” said Vasant Mehta, GJEPC chairman. “The event is by invitation only, and will showcase products from country’s top manufacturers. The show will focus on select markets such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Gulf, and Russia, where the recession's effects are not felt at such great extent.”

http://www.jckonline.com/article/CA6624287.html?desc=topstory

IS INDIA A POOR COUNTRY?

2008-12-18T19:38:00.000-08:00

by M R Venkatesh
Revelation of Swiss bank accounts

This is so shocking.... ...If black money deposits was an Olympics event.... India would have won a gold medal hands down. The second best Russia has 4 times lesser deposit. U.S. is not even there in the counting in top five! India has more money in Swiss banks than all the other countries combined!

Recently, due to international pressure, the Swiss government agreed to disclose the names of the account holders only if the respective governments formally asked for it. Indian government is not asking for the details..... ..no marks for guessing why?

We need to start a movement to pressurise the government to do so! This is perhaps the only way, and a golden opportunity, to expose the high and mighty and weed out corruption!

Please read on......and forward to all the honest Indians to.....like somebody is forwarding to you.......and build a ground-swell of support for action!

Is India poor, who says? Ask the Swiss banks. With personal account deposit bank of $1,500 billion in foreign reserve which have been misappropriated, an amount 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is a poor country?

DISHONEST INDUSTRIALISTS, scandalous politicians and corrupt IAS, IRS, IPS officers have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt. With this amount 45 crore poor people can get Rs 1,00,000 each. This huge amount has been appropriated from the people of India by exploiting and betraying them. Once this huge amount of black money and property comes back to India , the entire foreign debt can be repaid in 24 hours. After paying the entire foreign debt, we will have surplus amount, almost 12 times larger than the foreign debt. If this surplus amount is invested in earning interest, the amount of interest will be more than the annual budget of the Central government. So even if all the taxes are abolished, then also the Central government will be able to maintain the country very comfortably.

Some 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently. 'Obviously, these people won't be tourists. They must be travelling there for some other reason,' believes an official involved in tracking illegal money. And, clearly, he isn't referring to the commerce ministry bureaucrats who've been flitting in and out of Geneva ever since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations went into a tailspin!

Just read the following details and note how these dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, corrupt officers, cricketers, film actors, illegal sex trade and protected wildlife operators, to name just a few, sucked this country's wealth and prosperity. This may be the picture of deposits in Swiss banks only. What about other international banks?

Black money in Swiss banks -- Swiss Banking Association report, 2006 details bank deposits in the territory of Switzerland by nationals of following countries:

TOP FIVE

INDIA $1,456 BILLION

RUSSIA $470 BILLION

U.K. $390 BILLION

UKRAINE $100 BILLION

CHINA $96 BILLION

Now do the math's - India with $1,456 billion or $1.4 trillion has more money in Swiss banks than rest of the world combined. Public loot since 1947:

Can we bring back our money? It is one of the biggest loots witnessed by mankind -- the loot of the Aam Aadmi (common man) since 1947, by his brethren occupying public office. It has been orchestrated by politicians, bureaucrats and some businessmen.

The list is almost all-encompassing. No wonder, everyone in India loots with impunity and without any fear. What is even more depressing in that this ill-gotten wealth of ours has been stashed away abroad into secret bank accounts located in some of the world's best known tax havens. And to that extent the Indian economy has been stripped of its wealth. Ordinary Indians may not be exactly aware of how such secret accounts operate and what are the rules and regulations that go on to govern such tax havens. However, one may well be aware of 'Swiss bank accounts,' the shorthand for murky dealings, secrecy and of course pilferage from developing countries into rich developed ones.

In fact, some finance experts and economists believe tax havens to be a conspiracy of the western world against the poor countries. By allowing the proliferation of tax havens in the twentieth century, the western world explicitly encourages the movement of scarce capital from the developing countries to the rich. In March 2005, the Tax Justice Network (TJN) published a research finding demonstrating that $11.5 trillion of personal wealth was held offshore by rich individuals across the globe.

The findings estimated that a large proportion of this wealth was managed from some 70 tax havens. Further, augmenting these studies of TJN, Raymond Baker -- in his widely celebrated book titled 'Capitalism' s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free Market System' -- estimates that at least $5 trillion have been shifted out of poorer countries to the West since the mid-1970.

It is further estimated by experts that one per cent of the world's population holds more than 57 per cent of total global wealth, routing it invariably through these tax havens. How much of this is from India is anybody's guess.

What is to be noted here is that most of the wealth of Indians parked in these tax havens is illegitimate money acquired through corrupt means. Naturally, the secrecy associated with the bank accounts in such places is central to the issue, not their low tax rates as the term 'tax havens' suggests. Remember Bofors and how India could not trace the ultimate beneficiary of those transactions because of the secrecy associated with these bank accounts?

IS THERE ANYONE WHO CAN SAVE INDIA?

Thanks

Lt Kevin Kishore Kaul (Retd) Indian Navy
Chairman
FOSAAC
www.fosaac.com

Red meat, cow's milk and low-fiber diets increase risk of lymphatic cancer, says new research

2008-12-15T22:29:00.001-08:00

New research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology shows that diets high in animal protein (red meat), saturated fat, eggs and dairy products (cow's milk) leads to an increased risk of lymphatic cancer (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or NHL). Simultaneously, the study concluded that diets high in plant fiber -- from broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables -- resulted in a 40% decrease in the risk of lymphatic cancer. It's an interesting study, but here's the real story:

This study brings new scientific support to some of the dietary suggestions I've been sharing with readers for quite some time. Namely, red meat is bad for you, cow's milk and dairy products are bad for you, saturated animal fat is bad for you, and vegetables and dietary fiber and good for you. I realize that's an oversimplification of the research, but it's also a valid summary of it.

Red meat and cow's milk are unhealthy for human consumption for several reasons, most notably because cows are raised in an extremely unhealthy environment by the ranching industry. They're pumped full of illegal hormones, they are actually fed chicken litter and ground up diseased animals as part of their daily meals, and they are raised on feed that's typically laced with heavy metals (cadmium and lead) as well as pesticide residues. When you eat beef, you're eating all this, second-hand style. The cow ate it first, stored it in its tissues, and then you ate it. Many of these chemicals, by the way, tend to concentrate in animal fat tissues, so the juicier your hamburger, the more toxic substances it's likely to contain.

On the dairy side, cow's milk and other dairy products and bad for humans for a much simpler reason: cow's milk is food for baby cows, not for adult human beings. The substance is simply nutritionally imbalanced for humans. It lacks gamma-linolenic acid, it doesn't have much magnesium, and it is very high in difficult-to-digest proteins, among other problems. Baby cows do very well with it, but human beings don't.

This study is simply highlighting the results of consuming these unhealthy animal products on a regular basis. And you can bet that lymphatic cancer is just the tip of the iceberg here: the same foods probably also contribute to colon cancer, nerve disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. It all adds up to yet one more reason to consider avoiding red meat entirely. Even if you don't go vegetarian, you can replace all your red meat with chicken or turkey (that's what I do when I feel the need to eat meat). Or, at the very least, greatly limit your consumption of red meat. For dairy products, I highly recommend you try the 30-day "no dairy diet," meaning that you avoid all dairy products for 30 days and see how you feel. Most people notice a tremendous difference in their energy, their digestion, and they typically see a strong improvement in sinus conditions or asthma. You see, milk tends to aggravate all these problems, and sadly, many people haven't lived a single day without consuming cow's milk. Try 30 days, dairy free, and see how you feel. If you feel better, quit milk for good. I wouldn't touch cow's milk, personally.

For those of you worried about getting calcium in a dairy-free diet, don't believe the milk industry hype. There are far better choices for dietary calcium. One cup of cooked quinoa (a supergrain) has more calcium than a cup of milk. A cup of broccoli juice does, too. You can get calcium from coral calcium supplements or from superfoods like chlorella and spirulina. If you're concerned about not getting enough protein in your diet without red meat, just look to the same foods: quinoa is very high in protein, and it's a complete protein, too (all eight amino acids). Spirulina has twelve times the digestible protein of beef, ounce per ounce, making it a far superior source of protein than cow flesh. Whey protein, even though derived from dairy, is also a good choice because it is isolated from the other problems typical of dairy products.

Reality check: I'm a strength trainer. I've put on maybe 10 pounds of solid muscle mass in the past year without touching a single piece of red meat. I get all my protein from spirulina, quinoa and soy products, with a piece of chicken or seafood from time to time. You don't need beef to get protein, and you sure don't need milk to get calcium. And, of course, if you avoid red meat and dairy products, you will also reduce your risk of lymphatic cancer.

http://www.naturalnews.com/000983.html

6 P’s in helping you to make your own personal brand alive:

2008-12-13T21:48:00.000-08:00

1. Personal

Like any other good marketing plan, you must begin by understanding your true self. Remember you are an original – there is no one else quite like you. What do you stand for? What are your beliefs? Jot down a few phrases that describe your unique value, vision, purpose and passion. Take some time to discover your strengths, weaknesses and hidden talents. Ask yourself what impacts you the most and what drives you.

2. Perception
It is imperative that you must be aware of how you are communicating yourself to those around you. In this area, you will need to know your attributes and how others perceive you as an individual. Develop a focus group comprising of close friends, colleagues and family members to ask, collate responses and consolidate their perceptions about you. For example, are you seen as reliable, trustworthy or adventurous with a natural instinct for business?

3. Position

You must know your target audience, business or job competitors. How can you stand out unless you know whom you are standing among? When people see your name or face consistently over a period of time they assume that you have something special and that you must be successful. Having your own brand keeps you visible within your marketplace as it sends out a clear message about you that makes you worth contacting.

4. Performance

Establish yourself as an expert in your field because expertise can bring you increased recognition and therefore you can position yourself well in the hearts and minds of your target audience. Get good testimonials from your satisfied customers and for employees, create outstanding portfolios of your past accomplishments. Create a personal mission statement and tagline. Do seek out new and challenging assignments that will build your brand. Write articles to showcase your knowledge and get them published, or better, give speeches or presentations to share your expertise and your past achievements.

5. Promoting

You can have an amazing brand, but if no one knows about it, you are not going ahead. Nothing in marketing is more powerful than a promotion tool called word of mouth. What your network of friends, colleagues, clients and customers say about your brand is what the market will ultimately gauge as the value of the brand. If you do not have a personal website, now is the time to buy a domain (such as myname.com) and the let the world know. Take your personal image seriously because your appearance is the packaging of your own brand. Remember, YOU are the product and your packaging will either attract or detract from your product.

6. Planning

Make an appointment with yourself at least twice a year to re-evaluate your personal brand statement. Also, obtain honest and helpful feedback from your focus group on your brand performance, value and growth.

Source: http://tickledbylife.com/index.php/success-through-personal-branding/

Social media optimization (SMO)

2008-12-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

Social media are distinct from industrial media, such as newspapers, television, and film. While social media are relatively cheap tools that enable anyone (even private individuals) to publish or access information, industrial media are relatively expensive tools that generally require significant financial capital to publish information (which often limits their use to commercial purposes). Examples of industrial media include a printing press or a government-granted spectrum license.

"Industrial media" are commonly referred to as "traditional", "broadcast" or "mass" media.

One characteristic shared by both social media and industrial media is the capability to reach small or large audiences; for example, either a blog post or a television show may reach zero people or millions of people. "Reach" describes one of four properties which help describe the differences between social media and industrial media:

1. Reach - both industrial and social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.
2. Accessibility - the means of production for industrial media are typically exclusively controlled by for-profit enterprises; social media tools are generally available to anyone at little or no cost.
3. Usability industrial media production typically requires specialized skills and training. Most social media simplify those processes, or in some cases reinvent them, so anyone can operate the means of production.
4. Recency the time lag between communications produced by industrial media is relatively long (days, weeks, or even months) compared to social media (which can be capable of virtually instantaneous responses; only the participants determine any delay in response).

In his 2006 book The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Yochai Benkler analyzed many of these distinctions and their implications in terms of both economics and political liberty. However, Benkler, like many academics, uses the neologism Network Economy or "network information economy" to describe the underlying economic, social, and technological characteristics of what has come to be known as "social media."

Information outputs and human interaction

Primarily, social media depend on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words to build shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit.

Social media utilities create opportunities for the use of both inductive and deductive logic by their users. Claims or warrants are quickly transitioned into generalizations due to the manner in which shared statements are posted and viewed by all. The speed of communication, breadth, and depth, and ability to see how the words build a case solicits the use of rhetoric. Induction is frequently used as a means to validate or authenticate different users' statements and words. Rhetoric is an important part of today’s language in social media.

Social media is not finite: there is not a set number of pages or hours. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments,instant messaging or even editing the stories themselves.

Social media marketing

"Social media" signifies a broad spectrum of topics and has several different connotations. In the context of Internet marketing, Social Media refers to a collective group of web properties whose content is primarily published by users, not direct employees of the property (e.g. the vast majority of video on YouTube is published by non-YouTube employees). Social media optimization (SMO) is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites

Social media marketing has two important aspects. The first, SMO, refers to on-page tactics through which a webmaster can improve a website for the age of social media. Such optimization includes adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us so that their pages can be easily 'saved and submitted' to and for these services.

Social media marketing, on the other hand, is about building ways that fans of a brand or company can promote it themselves in multiple online social media venues.

Some social media marketers offer to write content that is remarkable, unique, and newsworthy. This content can then be marketed by popularizing it or even by creating a viral video on YouTube and other video sites, including getting involved in blogs, forums, and niche communities. Others in the social media world consider this form of social media marketing Astroturfing or "fake grass roots".

According to Lloyd Salmons, first chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau social media council "Social media isn't just about big networks like Facebook and MySpace, it's about brands having conversations.In fact, most individuals who study the space believe social media is about _people_ having conversations, not brands.

What is not Social Media Marketing

It is important to highlight in social media's case of what is does not stand for. Most individuals confuse it with advertising on social networking sites. It is anything but that. Advertising that appears on these social networking sites there is more in the form of context or social action based. Networks monitor what the users are doing and place relevant ads next to them with the assumption that they will be clicked.

Social Media Marketing is not about spamming. It is not about copying certain links and spamming it in discussion groups and forums. It is important to create value for the people with whom you are dialoguing. Refer to Cluetrain Manifesto that sets up the premise for social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing is all about collaboration between people. It is about participating with everyone and sharing information. It is as much about giving as it is about receiving from the group. The premise of social media marketing is engaging with the consumer and providing value. It is important to maintain the sanctity of conversational economy

Examples

Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), Youmeo (social network aggregation), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging) and other microblogs such as Jaiku and Pownce. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.

Social media software applications

Examples of social media applications include:

Communication

* Blogs: Blogger (service), Livejournal, TypePad, Wordpress, Vox,
* Microblogs / Presence apps: Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
* Social networking: Avatars United, Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Skyrock, Netlog
* Social network aggregation: FriendFeed, Youmeo
* Events: Upcoming.org, Eventful, Meetup.com

Collaboration

* Wikis: Wikipedia, PBwiki, wetpaint
* Social bookmarking: Delicious, StumbleUpon
* Social News Sites: Digg, Mixx, Reddit
* Opinion sites: epinions, Yelp

Multimedia

* Photo sharing: Flickr, Zooomr, Photobucket, SmugMug
* Video sharing: YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Revver
* Livecasting: Ustream, Justin.tv, Mogulus
* Audio and Music Sharing: imeem, The Hype Machine, Last.fm, ccMixter

Entertainment

* Virtual worlds: Second Life, The Sims Online
* Online gaming: World of Warcraft, Everquest, Age of Conan
* Game sharing: Miniclip.com

Social Media Monitoring

* BuzzMetrics by AC Nielsen
* SocialRadar by Infegy

5 Powerful Reasons to Eat Slower

2008-11-18T02:14:00.000-08:00

Every Friday is Health Tip Day at Zen Habits.

One of the problems in our daily lives is that many of us rush through the day, with no time for anything … and when we have time to get a bite to eat, we gobble it down.

That leads to stressful, unhealthy living.

And with the simple but powerful act of eating slower, we can begin to reverse that lifestyle immediately. How hard is it? You take smaller bites, you chew each bite slower and longer, and you enjoy your meal longer.

It takes a few minutes extra each meal, and yet it can have profound effects.

You may have already heard of the Slow Food Movement, started in Italy almost two decades ago to counter the fast food movement. Everything that fast food is, Slow Food isn’t.

If you read the Slow Food Manifesto, you’ll see that it’s not just about health — it’s about a lifestyle. And whether you want to adopt that lifestyle or not, there are some reasons you should consider the simple act of eating slower:

Lose weight. A growing number of studies confirm that just by eating slower, you’ll consume fewer calories — in fact, enough to lose 20 pounds a year without doing anything different or eating anything different. The reason is that it takes about 20 minutes for our brains to register that we’re full. If we eat fast, we can continue eating past the point where we’re full. If we eat slowly, we have time to realize we’re full, and stop on time. Now, I would still recommend that you eat healthier foods, but if you’re looking to lose weight, eating slowly should be a part of your new lifestyle.
Enjoy your food. This reason is just as powerful, in my opinion. It’s hard to enjoy your food if it goes by too quickly. In fact, I think it’s fine to eat sinful foods, if you eat a small amount slowly. Think about it: you want to eat sinful foods (desserts, fried foods, pizza, etc.) because they taste good. But if you eat them fast, what’s the point? If you eat them slowly, you can get the same amount of great taste, but with less going into your stomach. That’s math that works for me. And that argument aside, I think you are just happier by tasting great food and enjoying it fully, by eating slowly. Make your meals a gastronomic pleasure, not a thing you do rushed, between stressful events.
Better digestion. If you eat slower, you’ll chew your food better, which leads to better digestion. Digestion actually starts in the mouth, so the more work you do up there, the less you’ll have to do in your stomach. This can help lead to fewer digestive problems.
Less stress. Eating slowly, and paying attention to our eating, can be a great form of mindfulness exercise. Be in the moment, rather than rushing through a meal thinking about what you need to do next. When you eat, you should eat. This kind of mindfulness, I believe, will lead to a less stressful life, and long-term happiness. Give it a try.
Rebel against fast food and fast life. Our hectic, fast-paced, stressful, chaotic lives — the Fast Life — leads to eating Fast Food, and eating it quickly. This is a lifestyle that is dehumanizing us, making us unhealthy, stressed out, and unhappy. We rush through our day, doing one mindless task after another, without taking the time to live life, to enjoy life, to relate to each other, to be human. That’s not a good thing in my book. Instead, rebel against that entire lifestyle and philosophy … with the small act of eating slower. Don’t eat Fast Food. Eat at a good restaurant, or better yet, cook your own food and enjoy it fully. Taste life itself.

White Poison: The Horrors of Milk

2008-08-26T05:13:00.000-07:00

Got milk? If not, then thank your lucky stars. Because if you do, medical research shows that you are likely to be plagued by anemia, migraine, bloating, gas, indigestion, asthma, prostate cancer, and a host of potentially fatal allergies -- especially if you are a person of color.

Ignoring this, the government declares that milk is essential to good health, subsidizes the milk industry to the tune of billions of dollars, and requires milk in its public school lunch programs. And celebrity shills sporting milk mustaches tell us that milk is rich in proteins, calcium, and vitamins -- and very cool to boot.

They forget to tell you about the dangers lurking in that innocuous-looking glass of white. Once criticized only by naturopaths and vegans, now the health effects of milk are being decried by many mainstream doctors. The supposedly hip milk mustache is actually a creamy layer of mucus, live bacteria, and pus.

Former Chairman of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, Frank Oski, M.D. even has a book called Don't Drink Your Milk which blames every second health problem kids suffer on hormone-ridden commercial milk. Sixty percent of ear infections in kids under six years of age are milk-induced, and milk consumption is the number one cause of iron-deficiency anemia in infants today according to the American Association of Pediatrics.

But milk is also a racial issue. Almost 90 percent of African Americans and most Latinos, Asians, and Southern Europeans lack the genes necessary to digest lactose, the primary sugar in milk. The milk industry's response is classic: they have launched new campaigns arguing that non-whites can digest milk if they take in small sips during the day. There is a burgeoning industry worth $450 million a year churning out products designed to minimize lactose intolerance.

Lactose intolerance is the most common "food allergy," but to call it an allergy is to take a white-centric view that trivializes the fact that most of the world's people are not biologically designed to digest milk.

Milk does no body good, but for the vast majority of the world's people -- people of color -- it is a public health disaster.

No other animal drinks cow's milk, not even calves once they are weaned. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, the U.S.'s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding "cow's glue" to children, saying it can cause anemia, allergies, and diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease, the number one cause of death in this country.

Most of milk's much-vaunted protein is contained in casein -- which is also a raw material for commercial glue. Undigested, it simply sticks to the intestinal walls and blocks nutrient absorption.

The mainstream media and the government ignore the medical studies showing that milk is a serious health threat, in part because people of color are the main victims. The institutionalization of racism is highlighted by U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson Eilene Kennedy's statement on milk, that the government's recommended food pyramid is intended for "the majority of Americans. It doesn't communicate to all Americans."

The USDA continues to require that school lunch programs include milk with every meal, and recommends that we glug milk for calcium, even though Harvard studies show an increase in osteoporosis and bone-breakage in people who consume milk. It says we should drink milk to prevent heart disease (and is echoed by Larry King) even though saturated fat constitutes 55 percent of milk solids.

The dairy lobby perpetrates lies to ensure its profits. It benefits directly from the exaggerated support prices the government shells out for this "health food." The government pays over a billion dollars a year for surplus butter. A General Accounting Office (GAO) study concluded that a reduction in the government price support system would have netted consumers savings of $10.4 billion from 1986 to 2001. And the USDA pays inflated prices to purchase dairy products for both the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and federal school lunch programs -- milking the taxpayers and actually getting them to pay for poisoning 26 million school kids.

The milk lobby has whipsawed its way into the highest echelons of power. Staffers under Richard Nixon were indicted for accepting $300,000 from the dairy lobby for making milk part of the school lunch program.

Dr. Robert Cohen of the Dairy Education Board, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exposing the milk lobby, contends that the dramatic 52 percent rise in asthma deaths among minority kids in New York coincided with the surplus milk, cheese, and butter pumped into them under the USDA's free school lunch and breakfast giveaway programs. The incidence of asthma deaths may be even higher since asthma is not a reportable disease, and asthma deaths are sometimes certified as cardiovascular disease.

There is also a direct link between milk consumption and prostate cancer among African Americans, who have the highest incidence of this disease in the world. A study in Cancer has shown that men who reported drinking three or more glasses of whole milk daily had a higher risk for prostate cancer than men who reported never drinking whole milk.

The controversial Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) -- banned in most countries -- is pumped into U.S. milch cows to increase annual yield (50,000 pounds of milk per cow today compared to 2,000 pounds in 1959). Milk from cows treated with BGH is likely to contain pus from their udders since the hormone leads to mastitis, or udder infection. BGH use results in a tumor-promoting chemical (IGF-I) that has been implicated in an explosive increase of cancer of the colon, smooth muscle, and breast.

The antibiotics dairy farmers use to treat BGH-caused infections in cows appear in their milk and greatly hasten human tolerance to most antibiotics, a potentially life-threatening state of affairs. The Center for Science in the Public Interest reports that 38 percent of milk samples in 10 cities were contaminated with sulfa drugs and other antibiotics.

A fightback is beginning. Protesters picketed New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's planned milk promotion campaign with a photo of the mayor wearing a milk mustache over the caption, "Got Prostate Cancer?" Giuliani (who, like his father, has prostate cancer) dropped the campaign. And doctors from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) persuaded Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams not to declare May 11 as "Drink Chocolate Milk Day" by presenting evidence that milk is harmful, especially to people of color.

The PCRM -- composed of some of the leading doctors in the U.S. -- has campaigned extensively in the health and consumer press and led a successful legal effort in 1999 to make dairy products optional in the federal food guidelines. The campaign was supported by a number of prominent civil rights organizations and leaders, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, Martin Luther King, III, Jesse Jackson, Jr., the National Hispanic Medical Association, and former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

The dairy lobby remains cozy with most medical practitioners to perpetrate its "drink milk" propaganda. However, not one of the 1,500 papers listed in Medicine that deal with milk points to its goodness -- only to the pus, blood, antibiotics, and carcinogens in milk, and the chronic fatigue, anemia, asthma, and autoimmune disorders milk consumption causes.

The time has come for the milk industry to face the kind of scrutiny that the tobacco companies face today. Meanwhile, discard the moo juice.

This article appeared originally in ColorLines

Shanti Rangwani is an allopathic doctor and a columnist for the Times of India.

http://www.purewatergazette.net/whitepoison.htm

Only a loving person — one who is already loving — can find the right partner.

2008-08-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

Only happy people are attracted towards happy people.

The same attracts the same. Intelligent people are attracted towards intelligent people; stupid people are attracted towards stupid people.

You meet people of the same plane. So the first thing to remember is: a relationship is bound to be bitter if it has grown out of unhappiness. First be happy, be joyful, be celebrating, and then you will find some other soul celebrating and there will be a meeting of two dancing souls and a great dance will arise out of it.

Don’t ask for a relationship out of loneliness, no. Then you are moving in a wrong direction. Then the other will be used as a means and the other will use you as a means. And nobody wants to be used as a means! Every single individual is an end unto himself. It is immoral to use anybody as a means.

First learn how to be alone. Meditation is a way of being alone.

If you can be happy when you are alone, you have learned the secret of being happy. Now you can be happy together. If you are happy, then you have something to share, to give. And when you give you get; it is not the other way. Then a need arises to love somebody.

Ordinarily the need is to be loved by somebody. It is a wrong need. It is a childish need; you are not mature. It is a child’s attitude.

A child is born. Of course, the child cannot love the mother; he does not know what love is and he does not know who is the mother and who is the father. He is totally helpless. His being is still to be integrated; he is not one piece; he is not together yet. He is just a possibility. The mother has to love, the father has to love, the family has to shower love on the child. Now he learns one thing: that everybody has to love him. He never learns that he has to love. Now the child will grow, and if he remains stuck with this attitude that everybody has to love him, he will suffer his whole life. His body has grown, but his mind has remained immature.

A mature person is one who comes to know the other need: that now I have to love somebody.

The need to be loved is childish, immature. The need to love is mature.

And when you are ready to love somebody, a beautiful relationship will arise; otherwise not.

“Is it possible for two people in a relationship to be bad for each other?” Yes, that’s what is happening all over the world. To be good is very difficult. You are not good even to yourself. How can you be good to somebody else?

You don’t even love yourself! How can you love somebody else? Love yourself, be good to yourself.

Your so-called religious saints have been teaching you never to love yourself, never to be good to yourself. Be hard on yourself! They have been teaching you be soft towards others and hard towards yourself. This is absurd.

I teach you that the first and foremost thing is to be loving towards yourself. Don’t be hard; be soft. Care about yourself. Learn how to forgive yourself — again and again and again — seven times, seventy-seven times, seven hundred seventy-seven times. Learn how to forgive yourself. Don’t be hard; don’t be antagonistic towards yourself. Then you will flower.

In that flowering you will attract some other flower. It is natural. Stones attract stones; flowers attract flowers. Then there is a relationship which has grace, which has beauty, which has a benediction in it. If you can find such a relationship, your relationship will grow into prayer;your love will become an ecstasy and through love you will know what the divine is.

Ecstasy: The Forgotten Language

Source: Osho Times

MILK: A DEADLY POISON

2008-07-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 1994 the average American ate 586 pounds of milk and dairy products, 394 pounds of vegetables, 121 pounds of fresh fruit, 199 pounds of meat and 193 pounds of products containing flour and cereal. That totals to over four pounds of food per day per person and nearly forty percent of that is milk and dairy, one very lopsided food pyramid!

Each sip of milk provides you with:

Pituitary hormones (PRL, GH, TSH, FSH, LH ACTH Oxytocin)

Steroid hormones (Estradiol, Estriol, Progesterone, Testosterone,

17-Ketosteroids, Corticosterone, Vitamine D)

Hypothalamic hormones (TRH, LHRH, Somatostatin, PRL-inhibiting

factor, PRL-releasing factor, GnRH, GRH)

Thyroid and Parathyroid hormones (T3, T4, rT3, Calcitonin,

Parathormone, PTH peptide)

gastrointestinal peptides (Vasoactive intestinal peptide, Bombesin,

Cholecystokinin, Gastrin, Gastrin inhibitory peptide, Pancreatic

peptide, Y peptide, Substance P and Neurotensin)

Growth Factors (IGF's (I and II), IGF binding proteins, Nerve growth

factor, Epidermal growth factor and TGF alpha, TGF beta, Growth

Inhibitors MDGI and MAF, and Platelet derived growth factor

Others... (PGE, PGF2 alpha, cAMP, cGMP, Delta sleep inducing

peptide, Transferrin, Lactoferrin, Casomorphin and Erythropoietin

In Short...

Growth hormones, fat, cholesterol, allergenic proteins, blood, pus, antibiotics, bacteria, virus and more as it is sponsored, in part, by Monsanto, WestAgro, and Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc..

Did you know that...

* Milk is the foundation of heart disease and the explanation for America's number one killer.

Milk is the reason that one out of six American women will develop cancer of the breast.
Twenty-five million American women over the age of forty have been diagnosed with bone crippling arthritis and osteoporosis. These females have been drinking in excess of two pounds of milk per day for their entire adult lives. Why are their doctors blind to the fact that drinking milk does not prevent osteoporosis?

Calcium in milk is not adequately absorbed and milk consumption is the probable cause of osteoporosis.
Milk is responsible for allergies, colic, colitis, earaches, colds and congestion in young children. Research indicates that one bovine protein in milk destroys theinsulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas, causing diabetes.

Sixty Percent of America's dairy cows have leukemia virus. Is it wise to eat the flesh or drink body fluids from diseased animals?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used to allow a small amount of antibiotics in milk. FDA scientists recognized that consumers should not be drinking a fluid containing antibiotics. In 1990, the one part per hundred-million antibiotic residue in milk standardwas increased by one-hundred times to one part per million. As a result, new strains of bacteria developed, immune to the 52 different antibiotics found in milk. Antibiotics no longer work because Americans have been drinking milk and eating dairy productscontaining increased amounts of these powerful drugs and, in addition, new strains of emerging diseases.

Beer bellies are indeed making a comeback in America. According to the Food Consumption, Prices and Expenditures, 1996, Statistical Bulletin Number 928, published by the USDA, the average American consumed 24 gallons of beer in 1994. That works out to less than 8 1/2 ounces of beer per day. Total milk and dairy products consumed per capita in 1994 equaled 26 ounces per day, more than triple the amount of beer. One 12 ounce glass of beer contains 144 calories and no fat. On the other hand, a 12 ounce glass of milk contains 300 calories and 16 grams of fat. It seems that beer is taking a bad rap. Protruding stomachs on overweight people should be called milk bellies, not beer bellies.

When we drink milk we are taking in the most powerful growth hormone naturally produced in our own bodies. However, this growth hormone in milk is safeguarded by naturally occurring mechanisms unique to milk. That hormone is called Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and it is identical (70 amino acids, same gene sequence) in cows and humans

(Milk: The Deadly Poison by Robert Cohen 317 pages containing 336 references

ISBN 0-9659-196-0-9)

.NATURE'S PERFECT FOOD? A SECOND OPINION!

Julian Whitaker, MD, is the founder and editor of the largest read health newsletter in the world, Health & Healing. This month his lead topic is MILK and the ANTIDAIRY Coalition. Here are pages 1-4 of Dr. Whitaker's 8-page newsletter. I heartily recommend that you consider subscribing. Whitaker's alternative medicine advice is right on the money and 532,000+ monthly readers have benefited from his brilliant recommendations. Call 1-800-539-8219 to subscribe! (12 issues - $39.95 per year)

(REPRINTED: PERMISSION OF JULIAN WHITAKER, MD)

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Dr. Julian Whitaker's

Health & Healing

TOMORROW'S MEDICINE TODAY October 1998 Vol. 8, No. 10

Dear Reader,

In the movie Men in Black, the character played by Tommy Lee Jones draws the distinction between a "person" and the mass of "people." He states, "A person is smart, but people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it." In other words, we do a whole lot of things as "people" we would never do as "persons. "Health & Healing readers are "persons." You are making the effort to educate youself, refusing to buy the prepackaged party line dished out by the conventional medical establishment and media. You think for yourself and take control of your own health. Yet there are some area that are so ingrained that we all revert to "people" thinking. Let's discuss one of them in this first story.

FOOD SAFETY

MILK IS "UDDER" NONSENSE

Is cow's milk an appropriate food for humans? The "people" answer is "of course," but the "person" answer is "no, it is not good for humans." Cow's milk is species-specific food for calves. It is no more appropriate to drink the milk of cows than it is to drink the milk of other mammals. We do it because we've always done it. It's a "people" thing, and on close inspection, you'll see that all our beliefs about milk are "udder" nonsense.

Milk Myth #1: Milk Helps Build Strong Bones

American parents pass this myth on to their children, and misguided nutritionists reinforce it. Actually, milk and other dairy products weaken the bones and accelerate osteoporosis. That's right, consumption of milk causes the very condition it's advertised to prevent.

As I'll explain in the next story, osteoporosis results from calcium loss, not insufficient calcium intake. And dairy products, because of their high protein content, promote calcium loss. Studies examining the incidence of osteoporosis have found that high consumption of dairy products is associated with high rates of osteoporosis. If you want strong bones, don't drink milk.

Milk Myth #2: Milk is the Ultimate Health Drink

The notion that milk is healthy for you is, again, "udder" nonsense. While eating fruits, vegetables and whole grains has been documented to lower the risk of heart attack, high blood pressure and cancer, the widely touted health benefits of dairy products are questionable at best. In fact, dairy products are clearly liked as a cause of osteoporosis, heart disease, obesity, cancer, allergies and diabetes. Dairy products are anything but "health" foods. The association with heart disease is particularly strong. While we've always known that high-fat dairy products, such as whole milk and cheese, are significant contributors to high cholesterol levels and heart disease, William B. Grant, Ph.D., summarizes the mounting evidence that nonfat milk is also a major player in bringing on heart disease.

Writing in Alternative Medicine Review, Dr. Grant points out that nonfat milk, which contains substantial amounts of dairy protein, is very low in B vitamins. The metabolism of all this protein in the absence of B vitamins contributes to the buildup of homocysteine, a marker for heart disease.

Milk Myth #3: Milk is Necessary for Growing Children

Oh really? Here are three reasons kids and milk don't mix. First, milk is the leading cause of iron-deficiency anemia in infants, and, in fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics now discourages giving children milk before their first birthday. Second, it has been shown that milk consumption in childhood contributes to the development of Type-I diabetes. Certain proteins in milk resemble molecules on the beta cells of the pancreas that secrete insulin. In some cases, the immune system makes antibodies to the milk protein that mistakenly attack and destroy the beta cells.

Third, milk allergies are very common in children and cause sinus problems, diarrhea, constipation and fatigue. They are a leading cause of the chronic ear infections that plague up to 40% of all children under the age of six. Milk allergies are also linked to behavior problems in children and to the disturbing rise of childhood asthma.

(Milk allergies are equally common in adults and produce similar symptoms.) Even so august an authority on children as the late Dr. Benjamin Spock changed his recommendations in his later years and discouraged giving children milk.

MILK MYTH #4: Milk is Pure and Wholesome

As if milk weren't bad enough already, the chemical giant, Monsanto Company, and the FDA have made it far worse. In 1994 the FDA approved the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rbST), a genetically engineered hormone from Monsanto that increases milk production in cows by 10-25%. Milk from cows treated with rbST contains elevated levels of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), one of the most powerful growth factors ever identified.

IGF-I occurs naturally in both cows and humans and, in a fluke of nature, is identical between these two species. While IGF-I doesn't cause cancer, it definitely stimulates its growth. Recent studies have found a seven-fold increase in the risk of breast cancer in women with the highest IGF-I levels, and a four-fold increase in prostate cancer in men with the highest levels. Not only does rbST elevate your exposure to these growth factors, it also increases infections of the cow's udders. Therefore, cows treated with rbST are given more antibiotics, so higher traces of these drugs, as well as pus and bacteria from infected udders, are found in their milk.

In his recent book, MILK - The Deadly Poison (Argus Publishing, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1998), Robert Cohen, a tenacious investigative reporter, describes a level of corruption between Monsanto, the FDA and the Department of Agriculture that, in my opinion, warrants formal investigation and action against several individuals involved. This book documents how data were falsified and studies fabricated, and tells how the scientific community and public have been misled regarding rbST, its effects on our health, and the amounts of this hormone present in milk. Folks, you won't believe this book.

Robert Cohen gives names, dates and document numbers that are irrefutable.

As you would expect, Monsanto is playing rough. In Florida, they put pressure on a FOX television station, which then fired two award- winning journalists with over 20 years experience for attempting to report on the dark side of bovine growth hormone. These two reporters are now suing the network. Monsanto has vigorously attacked those who simply want to label their dairy product as "hormone free." This whole mess is disgusting. It shouldn't surprise you that all of Europe and Canada have banned this hormone and we are the only major industrial country espousing and using it. To get a copy of the June/July 1998 issue of SunCoast Eco report, in which this story is reported, send a check for $3 to Editor-SunCoast Eco Report, P.O. Box 35500, Sarasota, FL, 34278. If you have access to the Internet, for more information on the suit, go to www.foxBGHsuit.com.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR LIMITING YOUR DAIRY INTAKE

* To start with, knock off drinking milk altogether. Fluid milk is likely to be the most highly concentrated, easily absorbed source of growth hormones. Instead use soy milk or rice milk in your coffee, cereal and cooking. You'll find dairy-free cheeses, ice cream and drinks in your health food store.

Use all dairy products sparingly, and be sure to avoid products from hormone-treated cows. A growing number of dairies offer organic or hormone-free dairy products.
For a list of those studies discussed in this article, send a self- addressed stamped article to: CF/Phillips Publishing, 7811 Montrose Road, Potomac, MD 20854.
A few months ago I joined Robert Cohen as a board member of his newly formed AntiDairy Coalition. I strongly recommend that you get more information on the dangers of dairy products by reading Cohen's book, available from the AntiDairy Coalition, 1-888-NOTMILK (888-668-6455).
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That, my friends, represents half of the October Health & Healing digest. Dr. Whitaker dedicates the remainder of this issue of his newsletter to osteoporosis and heart disease. I would like to quote just a portion of Whitaker's comments about bone disease:

"In only two generations, the rate of hip fractures in the U.S. has quadrupled, and it is currently one of the highest rates in the world. Americans are also near the top of the chart for dairy consumption. Would someone out there please tell me why we keep telling our children that dairy foods strengthen their bones? Excess protein intake-not only from milk but all animal protein sources-increases the need for calcium to neutralize acidic protein breakdown products, destroying bone in the process. A lifetime of a high-protein diet usually eats away at your bones. Lower protein vegetarian diets are associated with significantly higher bone mineral density. So the first and most important dietary step is to eat less protein. This generally means cutting down on milk Although dairy products contain calcium, little of it is deposited in the bones-instead the calcium is used to neutralize the acidity brought on by milk protein."

I conclude today's column by echoing the advertising slogan of the national fluid processors, the marketing arm of America's dairy industry:

MILK? WHAT A SURPRISE!

Robert Cohen

Executive Director

ANTIDAIRY Coalition

http://www.notmilk.com

http://www.antidairycoalition.com

For you, good to know!

Calcium content in various foods.

* Dairy products are promoted as a source of calcium, but many vegetable-quality foods are rich in this element. Calcium needs vary with age and other factors. The U.S. RDA. varies from 800-1200 mg/day. (Figures per 100 grams, unit mg. 1009=3.5 ounces, an average serving unless otherwise noted.)

Examples Vegetables: Broccoli 246, Dandelion greens 74, Mustard greens 97,

Parsley 61, Kale 74, Spinach 83, Watercress 90 .

Beans/products: Chickpeas 75 , Soybeans 131 , Kidney beans 70, Tofu 128 ,Tempeh 142 .

Sea Vegetables: Agar Agar 400 , Hijiki 1400, Kombu 800, Nori 400 , Wakame 1300.

Seeds/nuts: Sesame seeds 331, Sun flower seeds 40 , Hazel nuts 60.

Dairy food: Cow milk 28, Eggs 27, Cheese 100/350 .

Grains: Buckwheat 57.

(Source: U.S. Dep. of Agriculture and Japan Nutritionist Association)

Sourec: http://home.iae.nl/users/lightnet/health/messages/milk/milk.html

The Fear of Commitment

2008-07-15T01:30:00.000-07:00

Only through decisions do you become more and more conscious, only through decisions do you become more and more crystallized, only through decisions do you become sharp. Otherwise one becomes dull.

People go on from one guru to another, from one master to another, from one temple to another — not because they are great seekers but because they are incapable of decision. So they go from one to another. This is their way to avoid commitment.

The same happens in other human relationships: a man goes from one woman to another, goes on changing. People think he is a great lover; he is not a lover at all. He is avoiding, he is trying to avoid any deep involvement because with deep involvement problems have to be faced, and much pain has to be gone through. So one simply plays safe; one makes it a point never to go too deeply into somebody. If you go too deep you may not be able to come back easily. And if you go deeply into somebody, somebody else will go deeply into you also; it is always proportionate. If I go very deep in you the only way is to allow you also to go that deep in me. It is a give and take, it is a sharing. Then one may get entangled too much, and it will be difficult to escape and the pain may be much. So people learn how to play safe: just let surfaces meet — hit-and-run love affairs. Before you are caught, run.

This is what is happening in the modern world. People have become so juvenile, so childish; they are losing all maturity.

Maturity comes only when you are ready to face the pain of your being; maturity comes only when you are ready to take the challenge. And there is no greater challenge than love.

To live happily with another person is the greatest challenge in the world. It is very easy to live peacefully alone, it is very difficult to live peacefully with somebody else, because two worlds collide, two worlds meet...totally different worlds. How are they attracted to each other? Because they are totally different, almost opposite, polar opposites.

It is very difficult to be peaceful in a relationship, but that is the challenge. If you escape from that, you escape from maturity. If you go into it with all the pain, and still continue going into it, then by and by the pain becomes a blessing, the curse becomes a blessing.

By and by, through the conflict, the friction, crystallization arises. Through the struggle you become more alert, more aware.

The other becomes like a mirror to you. You can see your ugliness in the other. The other provokes your unconscious, brings it to the surface.

You will have to know all hidden parts of your being and the easiest way is to be mirrored, reflected, in a relationship.

Easier, I call it, because there is no other way — but it is hard. It is hard, arduous, because you will have to change through it.

When you come to a Master an even greater challenge exists before you: you have to decide, and the decision is for the unknown, and the decision has to be total and absolute, irreversible. It is not a child’s game; it is a point of no return. So much conflict arises. But don’t go on continuously changing, because this is the way to avoid yourself. And you will remain soft, you will remain babyish. Maturity will not happen to you.

Only the unknown should have a call for you because that you have not yet lived; you have not moved in that territory. Move! Something new may happen there.

Always decide for the unknown, whatsoever the risk, and you will grow continuously.

But go on deciding for the known and you move in a circle with the past again and again. You go on repeating it; you have become a gramophone record.

And decide. The sooner you can do so, the better. Postponement is simply stupid. Tomorrow you will also have to decide, so why not today? And do you think that tomorrow you will be wiser than today? Do you think that tomorrow you will be livelier than today? Do you think that tomorrow you will be younger than today, fresher than today?

Tomorrow you will be older, your courage will be less; tomorrow you will be more experienced, your cunningness will be more; tomorrow death will come closer; you will start wavering and being more afraid. Never postpone for the tomorrow. And who knows? Tomorrow may come or may not come. If you have to decide you have to decide right now.

SOURCE: OSHOTIMES

Only through decisions do you become more and more conscious

2008-07-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

The Fear of Commitment ...

Only through decisions do you become more and more conscious, only through decisions do you become more and more crystallized, only through decisions do you become sharp. Otherwise one becomes dull.

People go on from one guru to another, from one master to another, from one temple to another — not because they are great seekers but because they are incapable of decision. So they go from one to another. This is their way to avoid commitment.

The same happens in other human relationships: a man goes from one woman to another, goes on changing. People think he is a great lover; he is not a lover at all. He is avoiding, he is trying to avoid any deep involvement because with deep involvement problems have to be faced, and much pain has to be gone through. So one simply plays safe; one makes it a point never to go too deeply into somebody. If you go too deep you may not be able to come back easily. And if you go deeply into somebody, somebody else will go deeply into you also; it is always proportionate. If I go very deep in you the only way is to allow you also to go that deep in me. It is a give and take, it is a sharing. Then one may get entangled too much, and it will be difficult to escape and the pain may be much. So people learn how to play safe: just let surfaces meet — hit-and-run love affairs. Before you are caught, run.

This is what is happening in the modern world. People have become so juvenile, so childish; they are losing all maturity.

Maturity comes only when you are ready to face the pain of your being; maturity comes only when you are ready to take the challenge. And there is no greater challenge than love.

To live happily with another person is the greatest challenge in the world. It is very easy to live peacefully alone, it is very difficult to live peacefully with somebody else, because two worlds collide, two worlds meet...totally different worlds. How are they attracted to each other? Because they are totally different, almost opposite, polar opposites.

It is very difficult to be peaceful in a relationship, but that is the challenge. If you escape from that, you escape from maturity. If you go into it with all the pain, and still continue going into it, then by and by the pain becomes a blessing, the curse becomes a blessing.

Source: osho.com

The Constant Struggle

2008-06-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

Each fragment of your mind wants to become the most powerful one. There is constant inner politics. You cannot find bliss in this constant inner war.

The mind is a chooser – it always chooses something against something else. It creates opposition, it creates contradiction in life. It creates extremes, and through extremes there is a constant inner war, a civil war. Don't choose, remain choiceless.

If you repress sex you will be in a constant war, and you can never win. Failure is absolutely certain because the more you fight with sex, the more you give energy to it. The same is the case with anger, jealousy, greed. Fighting is not the way of wisdom; it is the fool's path. The stupid and the mediocre fight. The intelligent ones transform; they absorb.

It is man's freedom to choose. We can live an integrated life, we can become an organic unity – that's the whole purpose of meditation. Or we can remain a crowd – many minds, many fragments, no unity. When there are many minds there is conflict, discord, a constant civil war. When you are at war within yourself you are at war with existence too; as within, so without.

Deep down you are one person, pretending on the surface to be somebody else. There is a constant conflict between the real and the false. The false is appreciated by society, valued, respected, and the real is condemned. You have to learn ways to be two persons; you have to be constantly on guard. That creates hypocrisy, and you cannot forgive yourself; you feel guilty.

I don't want the peace of the cemetery. All the graves are silent – no fight, no struggle, no quarrel. I want the peace of a garden in the early morning when birds are singing, flowers are opening, the sun is rising. There is music in it; it is not without sound. There are sounds, but the sounds and the silences together create peace.

Rejection is suppressive; it is cutting your intrinsic parts. It leaves you bleeding; it leaves you half-alive; it leaves you lukewarm. It takes all your energy away from you, and it creates a conflict and inner war.

My understanding about peacefulness is that it is not a question of being peaceful with anybody. The basic question is being at peace with yourself. Out of that, peace arises for everybody.

Where is the devil? It is some condemned part of you. You cannot cut it out because it is so deeply a part of you that there is no possibility of separating it from your self. You can go on fighting, but you will never win. You cannot fight against the devil, you can only play with him. That's what I am teaching you here: be playful, non-serious.

Man has been conditioned always to be in conflict: the body is fighting with the mind, the mind is fighting with the body. The whole past of humanity has been a constant conditioning to make man a split personality; and it has succeeded.

Peace is not a political strategy. Two parties peaceful in themselves cannot create any hostility. There is no question of being peaceful with somebody. The basic question is being peaceful.

Society is violent, politics is violent, nations are violent. The state is violent, the church is violent, because they are political games. Even religion is political. Every religion is trying to defeat other religions. There is a constant struggle going on, a cold war. How long can you go on fighting a cold war? Sooner or later it becomes heated, then a hot war erupts.

Society needs soldiers, violent people, murderous people; and a blissful person cannot be that. He would rather die himself than kill anybody. He would be ready to die willingly because he has tasted something of immortality, so he does not care about death. But he will not destroy anything.

Man has been going through three kinds of wars. One is with nature, another is with other people, and the third is with himself. The first war has become science: the war with nature. The second war has become politics: the war with other people. And the third war, unfortunately, has become religion: the war with yourself.

Source: Osho.com

Petrol Prices in India

2008-06-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

Petrol in China: Rs 31.30 per litre
Petrol in Pakistan is Rs 44.80 per litr
Malaysia Rs 25.40 per litre
In India it's Rs 56.00 per litre

Why this difference in Asia itself ? World Market CRUDE Oil is not the reason for this. It's all Gain for private owners? As we are the general public, or Common Man as R.K.Laxman wud hv said, we have to raise our voice, let's raise thru Emails.

Forward this to all Indians who care.

IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF PETROL FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.

AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.

How many times have you heard yourself say "my pleasure" or “just be happy"? What do these words really mean?

2007-11-22T23:27:00.000-08:00

How many times have you heard yourself say "my pleasure" or “just be happy"? What do these words really mean?

"Pleasure is physical, physiological. Pleasure is the most superficial thing in life; it is titillation. It can be sexual, it can be of other senses, it can become an obsession with food, but it is rooted in the body. The body is your periphery, your circumference; it is not your center. And to live on the circumference is to live on the mercy of all kinds of things that go on happening around you.

The man who seeks pleasure remains at the mercy of accidents. It is like the waves in the ocean; they are at the mercy of the winds. When strong winds come, they are there; when winds disappear, they disappear. They don't have an independent existence; they are dependent, and anything that is dependent on the other brings bondage. Pleasure is dependent on the other. If you love a woman, if that is your pleasure, then that woman becomes your master. If you love a man, if that is your pleasure and you feel unhappy, in despair, sad, without him, then you have created a bondage for yourself. You have created a prison, you are no more in freedom. If you are a seeker after money and power, then you will be dependent on money and power.

The man who goes on accumulating money, if it is his pleasure to have more and more money, will become more and more miserable -- because the more he has, the more he wants, and the more he has, the more he is afraid to lose it. A double-edged sword: the more he wants... the first edge of the sword. Hence he becomes more and more miserable.

The more you demand, desire, the more you feel yourself lacking something, the more hollow, empty, you appear to yourself. On the other hand -- the other edge of the sword -- is that the more you have, the more you are afraid it can be taken away; it can be stolen. The bank can go bankrupt, the political situation in the country can change, the country can go communist. There are a thousand and one things upon which your money depends. Your money does not make you a master, it makes you a slave. Pleasure is peripheral; hence it is bound to depend on the outer circumstances. And it is only titillation. If food is pleasure, what actually is being enjoyed? -- just the taste! For a moment, when the food passes your taste buds on the tongue, you feel a sensation which you interpret as pleasure. It is your interpretation. Today it may look like pleasure and tomorrow it may not look like pleasure. If you go on eating the same food every day your buds on the tongue will become nonresponsive to it. Soon you will be fed up with it -- that's how people become fed up.

One day you are running after a man or a woman and the next day you are trying to find an excuse to get rid of the other. The same person, nothing has changed! What has happened meanwhile? You are bored with the other, because the whole pleasure was in knowing the new. Now the other is no longer new; you are acquainted with the territory of the other. You are acquainted with the body of the other, the curves of the body, the feel of the body. Now the mind is hankering for something new. The mind is always hankering for something new. That's how mind keeps you always tethered somewhere in the future. It keeps you hoping, but it never delivers the goods -- it cannot. It can only create new hopes, new desires. Just as leaves grow on the trees, desires and hopes grow in the mind. You wanted a new house and now you have it -- and where is the pleasure? Just for the moment it was there, when you achieved your goal. Once you have achieved your goal, your mind is no longer interested in it; it has already started spinning new webs of desire. It has already started thinking of other, bigger houses. And this is so about everything.

Pleasure keeps you in a neurotic state, restless, always in turmoil. So many desires, and every desire unquenchable, clamoring for attention. You remain a victim of a crowd of insane desires -- insane because they are unfulfillable -- and they go on dragging you into different directions. You become a contradiction. One desire takes you to the left, another towards the right, and simultaneously you go on nourishing both the desires. And then you feel a split, then you feel divided, then you feel torn apart, then you feel like you are falling into pieces. Nobody is responsible. It is the whole stupidity of desiring pleasure that creates this. And it is a complex phenomenon. You are not the only one who is seeking pleasure; millions of people just like you are seeking the same pleasures. Hence there is great struggle, competition, violence, war. All have become enemies to each other because they are all seeking the same goal, and they all can't have it; hence the struggle has to be total. You have to risk all -- for nothing, because when you gain, you gain nothing, and your whole life is wasted in this struggle. A life which might have been a celebration becomes a long, drawn out, unnecessary struggle.

When you are so much after pleasure you cannot love, because the man who seeks pleasure uses the other as a means. And to use the other as a means is one of the most immoral acts possible, because each being is an end unto himself, you cannot use the other as a means. But in pleasure-seeking you have to use the other as a means. You become cunning because it is such a struggle. If you are not cunning you will be deceived, and before others deceive you, you have to deceive them.

Machiavelli has advised pleasure-seekers that the best way of defense is to attack. Never wait for the other to attack you; that may be too late. Before the other attacks you, you attack him! That is the best way of defense. And this is being followed, whether you know Machiavelli or not. This is something very strange: people know about Christ, about Buddha, about Mohammed, about Krishna; nobody follows them. People don't know much about Chanakya and Machiavelli, but people follow them -- as if Machiavelli and Chanakya are very close to your heart!

You need not read them, you are already following them. Your whole society is based on Machiavellian principles; that's what the whole political game is all about. Before somebody snatches anything from you, snatch it from the other. Be always on guard. Naturally, if you are always on guard you will be tense, anxious, worried. And the struggle is such and it is constant. You are one, and the enemies are millions. For example, if in India you want to become the prime minister, then millions of people, who also want to become the prime minister, are your enemies. And who does not want to become the prime minister? One may say, one may not say. So everyone is against you and you are against everybody else. This small life of seventy, eighty years, will be wasted into some utterly futile effort. Pleasure is not and cannot be the goal of life. The second word to be understood is happiness.

Happiness is psychological, pleasure is physiological. Happiness is a little better, a little more refined, a little higher, but not very much different from pleasure. You can say that pleasure is a lower kind of happiness and happiness is a little higher kind of pleasure -- two sides of the same coin. Pleasure is a little primitive, animal; happiness is a little more cultured, a little more human -- but it is the same game played in the world of the mind. You are not so much concerned with physiological sensations; you are much more concerned with psychological sensations. But basically they are not different; hence Buddha has not talked about four words, he has talked about only two.

The third is joy; joy is spiritual. It is different, totally different from pleasure, happiness. It has nothing to do with the other; it is inner. It is not dependent on circumstances; it is your own. It is not a titillation produced by things; it is a state of peace, of silence, a meditative state. It is spiritual. But Buddha has not talked about joy either, because there is still one thing that goes beyond joy. He calls it bliss.

Bliss is total. It is neither physiological nor psychological nor spiritual. It knows no division, it is indivisible. It is total in one sense and transcendental in another sense. Buddha only talks about two words. The first is pleasure; it includes happiness. The second is bliss; it includes joy. Bliss means you have reached to the very innermost core of your being. It belongs to the ultimate depth of your being where even the ego is no more, where only silence prevails; you have disappeared. In joy you are a little bit, but in bliss you are not. The ego has dissolved; it is a state of nonbeing. Buddha calls it nirvana. Nirvana means you have ceased to be; you are just an infinite emptiness like the sky. And the moment you are that infinity, you become full of the stars, and a totally new life begins. You are reborn.

Pleasure is momentary, of time, for the time being; bliss is nontemporal, timeless. Pleasure begins and ends; bliss abides forever. Pleasure comes and goes; bliss never comes, never goes -- it is already there in the innermost core of your being. Pleasure has to be snatched away from the other; you become either a beggar or a thief. Bliss makes you a master. Bliss is not something that you invent but something that you discover. Bliss is your innermost nature. It has been there since the very beginning, you just have not looked at it, you have taken it for granted. You don't look inwards. This is the only misery of man: that he goes on looking outwards, seeking and searching. And you cannot find it in the outside because it is not there."

When we feel emotionally wounded

2007-11-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

When we feel emotionally wounded, memories can pop up that most of us automatically want to throw in the basement of our unconscious. We think that time will take care of them, but they keep coming back. Here’s a much more effective way to heal your emotional wounds:

"If you are feeling miserable, let it become a meditation. Sit silently, close the doors. First feel the misery with as much intensity as possible. Feel the hurt. Somebody has insulted you: now, the best way to avoid the hurt is to go and insult him, so that you become occupied with him. That is not meditation.

If somebody has insulted you, feel thankful to him that he has given you an opportunity to feel a deep wound. He has opened a wound in you. The wound may be created by many many insults that you have suffered in your whole life; he may not be the cause of all the suffering, but he has triggered a process.

Just close your room, sit silently, with no anger for the person but with total awareness of the feeling that is arising in you -- the hurt feeling that you have been rejected, that you have been insulted. And then you will be surprised that not only is this man there: all the men and all the women and all the people that have ever insulted you will start moving in your memory.

You will start not only remembering them, you will start reliving them. You will be going into a kind of primal. Feel the hurt, feel the pain, don't avoid it. That's why in many therapies the patient is told not to take any drugs before the therapy begins, for the simple reason that drugs are a way to escape from your inner misery. They don't allow you to see your wounds, they repress them. They don't allow you to go into your suffering and unless you go into your suffering, you cannot be released from the imprisonment of it.

It is perfectly scientific to drop all drugs before going into therapy -- if possible even drugs like coffee, tea, smoking, because these are all ways to escape. Have you watched? Whenever you feel nervous you immediately start smoking. It is a way to avoid nervousness; you become occupied with smoking. Really it is a regression. Smoking makes you again feel like a child -- unworried, non-responsible -- because smoking is nothing but a symbolic breast. The hot smoke going in simply takes you back to the days when you were feeding on the mother's breast and the warm milk was going in: the nipple has now become the cigarette. The cigarette is a symbolic nipple. Through regression you avoid the responsibilities and the pains of being adult. And that's what goes on through many many drugs.

Modern man is drugged as never before, because Modern man is living in great suffering. Without drugs it will be impossible to live in so much suffering. Those drugs create a barrier; they keep you drugged they don't allow you enough sensitivity to know your pain. The first thing to do is close your doors and stop any kind of occupation -- looking at the TV, listening to the radio, reading a book.

Stop all occupation, because that too is a subtle drug. Just be silent, utterly alone. Don't even pray, because that again is a drug, you are becoming occupied, you start talking to God, you start praying, you escape from yourself. Atisha is saying: Just be yourself. Whatsoever the pain of it and whatsoever the suffering of it, let it be so. First experience it in its total intensity. It will be difficult, it will be heart-rending: you may start crying like a child, you may start rolling on the ground in deep pain, your body may go through contortions. You may suddenly become aware that the pain is not only in the heart, it is all over the body -- that it is aching all over, that it is painful all over, that your whole body is nothing but pain. If you can experience it -- this is of tremendous importance -- then start absorbing it.

Don't throw it away. It is such a valuable energy, don't throw it away. Absorb it, drink it, accept it, welcome it, feel grateful to it. And say to yourself "This time I'm not going to avoid it, this time I'm not going to reject it, this time I'm not going to throw it away. This time I will drink it and receive it like a guest. This time I will digest it." It may take a few days for you to be able to digest it, but the day it happens, you have stumbled upon a door which will take you really far far away.

A new journey has started in your life, you are moving into a new kind of being -- because immediately, the moment you accept the pain with no rejection anywhere, its energy and its quality changes. It is no longer pain. In fact one is simply surprised, one cannot believe it, it is so incredible. One cannot believe that suffering can be transformed into ecstasy, that pain can become joy. Whenever anything is total it turns into its opposite.

This is a great secret to be remembered. Whenever something is total it changes into its opposite, because there is no way to go any further; the cul-de-sac has arrived. Watch an old clock with a pendulum. It goes on and on: the pendulum goes to the left, to the extreme left, and then there is a point beyond which it cannot go, then it starts moving towards the right. Opposites are complementaries. If you can suffer your suffering in totality, in great intensity, you will be surprised...you will not be able to believe it when it happens for the first time, that your own suffering absorbed willingly, welcomingly, becomes a great blessing. The same energy that becomes hate becomes love, the same energy that becomes pain becomes pleasure, the same energy that becomes suffering becomes bliss."

Osho, excerpted from The Book of Wisdom, Chapter 5

Hierarchy of Prices Locality - wise?

2006-06-10T21:09:00.000-07:00

This seems a new concept, where you must pay a life-long price if you are situated in a posh locality. For example Eggs which are normally RS. 20-22/dozen elsewhere are sold at RS. 30/dozen in places like Korengaon Park or Kalyani Nagar. It is not possible to shop for everyday needs far away from residence, so one ends up paying higher prices each. Why this lack in equilibrium? Why aren't these retailers questioned for such hierarchy? Can they do just what they like? Talk about MRP which is more known as "Multiple Retail Pricing" rather than "Maximum Retail Price" You all must have read articles in newspaper and seen commercials on TV highlight the matter. PRINTED MRP on products differ location wise, let alone products like EGGS, RICE, DAL (Pulses) which don't carry MRP on them and can be called an any price by the different retailers.

When there is no longer control on PRINTED MRP, what can anyone say to these small locality retailers?
Are we consumers being taken for a ride? Are we losing the original concept of MRP which was made to protect us consumers from being over priced or cheated by different retailers? Please stop by and drop in your comments on the issues. It is high time we together put a stop to this hierarchy.

Community Portal Pages a powerful outreach strategy

2006-04-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Touching your state, city, town or region

Community pages are an amazing strategy for online outreach which very few people are yet using. The concept is to create a site based on the local community – town, local area/county, state, even a small country. The site must offer the best secular links for the community in a range of categories. It must be a genuinely useful resource at this level. But it also contains appropriate local links in various categories. The more comprehensive it is, the more that people in the area will use it as their one-stop local neighborhood site, maybe setting it as a 'start page' in their browsers, and become frequent return visitors. This portal concept can also be applied to other subjects.

Use a search engine to check on your town name – you will probably be surprised at how many local organizations and groups have sites which could be part of a Community Portal.

A community site can offer links, news and features, in categories such as:

local shops and businesses
local entertainment
restaurants
schools and education
tourism
weather
local organisations
transport timetables and information
women and teens areas
health
sport
spirituality
local Temples
religion

There are many other creative ways that a Community Portal could genuinely serve people in its catchment area and build popularity:

Feature short stories from local writers
Showcase work of local photographers
childrends and competitions
Online Games
Chat rooms and bulletin boards on specified topics
Host announcement pages for local organizations if they don't have their own pages
Sales, wants, and swaps bulletin board
Local news – though don't overlap with local newspapers if you want their co-operation
Two-way email discussion lists on matters of local interest
So please send your feedback in http://www.bangkokscoop.com

Society cannot tolerate somebody who is rebellious, because he will destroy the whole structure

2005-01-17T08:58:00.000-08:00

Society cannot tolerate somebody who is rebellious, because he will destroy the whole structure.
He may be right: Athens could not tolerate Socrates, not because he was wrong -- he was absolutely right -- but Athens could not tolerate him because if he had been tolerated then the whole structure of the society would have gone, been thrown to the dogs; then the society could not have existed. So Socrates had to be sacrificed to society.

And Jesus was crucified, not because whatsoever he was saying was wrong -- never have such true words been asserted on this earth -- but he was sacrificed to the society because the way he was talking, the way he was behaving, was dangerous to the structure.

Society cannot tolerate this so it will punish you.

But it also rationalizes: it says this is just to put you right, it punishes you for your own good.
And nobody ever bothers whether that good is ever achieved or not. We have been punishing criminals for thousands of years, but nobody bothers whether those criminals are ever transformed through our punishment or not.

Criminals go on increasing: as prisons increase, prisoners increase; the more laws, the more criminals; the more courts, the more punishments.

The result is absolutely absurd -- more criminality.

What is the problem? The criminal can also feel that it is a rationalization, that he is punished for doing wrong -- really he is punished because he has been caught.

So he also has his rationalization: next time he has to be more cunning and more clever, that's all.
This time he has been caught because he was not alert, not because he has done wrong.
Society proved more clever than him, so next time he will see -- he is going to prove himself more cunning, clever, intelligent, and then he will not be caught. A prisoner, a criminal who is punished always thinks that he is punished, not for the thing he has committed, but because he has been caught.

So the only thing he is going to learn from the punishment is not to be caught again. So whenever a prisoner comes out of prison he is a better criminal than ever: he has lived with experienced people inside the prison, with more advanced adepts who know much, who have been punished much and who have suffered long -- who have been caught -- and who have been deceiving in many, many ways; who are very advanced on the path of crime. Living with them, serving them, becoming a disciple to them, he learns; he learns through experience that next time he is not to be caught.
Then he is a better criminal.

Nobody is stopped by punishment, but society goes on thinking that it is because the wrong has to be stopped that we punish. Both are wrong: society has some other reason -- it takes revenge.
And the criminal, he also understands -- because egos understand each other's language very easily, howsoever unconscious -- the criminal also thinks, "Okay, I will take revenge when my time comes, I will see." Then a conflict exists between the criminal's ego and society's ego.

OshO


INDIA	$1,456 BILLION
RUSSIA	$470 BILLION
U.K.	$390 BILLION
UKRAINE	$100 BILLION
CHINA	$96 BILLION