MILK: A DEADLY POISON

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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