Stress happens when you work constantly, without a break. This creates tension and panic. As a student, you need to avoid lastminute study; it is better to prepare in advance to avoid confusion and stress. From the start of the academic year, devote some time to study so that at the end, when exams have to be taken, there is no undue panic. This way, there will be time for revision.
    A healthy diet, regular exercise and playing games are all important in your life. Practice of Vipassana is good for the memory. Pranayama or deep breathing and meditation contribute to physical and mental health; practitioners will find that they are mentally and spiritually fit and alert and equipped to overcome stress and are able to banish negative thoughts.
    As a student, i would spend three hours daily during the last two months prior to final exams in solving five-to-seven-year-old question papers on related subjects as though i was in fact appearing for the finals. Thereby i not only gained confidence but also cultivated a positive attitude and appeared in the examination relaxed.
    It is good to spend more time on difficult and important topics. The best time to do this is during the early hours of the morning when the mind is rested and fresh. Positive thinking not only provides us with new aspirations and hope but also gives us courage. Why get frustrated by failure? See it as an opportunity to do better the next time.
    Anxiety should be avoided as it could lead to depression, poor memory and lack of attention. When you are full of fear, then even good preparation will not help. Before the exams, you need to stay calm to be able to perform well.
    Worry, anxiety, confusion and lack of clarity lead to fear. However, poor performance ought not to make you feel inferior nor force you to blame others. Tell yourself that you can and will do your best, whatever the circumstances. You can overcome hurdles because you are not the only one facing problems, everybody is! Just will yourself to rise and accomplish whatever is within your capacity.
    Parents need to ensure that their children are not overburdened with their expectations. Parents need to give moral support to their children and help maintain calmness and cultivate the art of listening. Kindly listen to your children and please avoid undue criticism. Parents could try to maintain serenity in the home and create a healthy atmosphere that engenders focus, concentration and study. Students need to resist the temptation to watch TV programmes as well as minimise use of computers so as to not get distracted. In fact, till such time when the children finish with their final examination, they should wrap up televisions and computers and give children moral support.
Students need to also remember that there are numerous examples of people who have, by sheer strength of character, taken themselves to heights through knowledge and experience gained by self-propelled efforts, despite handicaps or lack of formal education. In the words of Montaigne, “To compose our character is our duty, not to compose books and to win, not battles and provinces but order and tranquillity in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live appropriately. All other things, ruling, hoarding, building are only little appendages and props, at most.”

    Vedanta as a philosophy of non-duality has no place for an extra-cosmic God or for anything supernatural. Close your eyes, you see Brahmn; open your eyes, you see the same Brahmn in names and forms around you. The Upanishads offer this as the highest truth. Nothing higher than that can be, when you come to unity. That universal unity is what the Indian sages discovered, by investigating the depth dimension of the human being and discovering the infinite, imperishable, and non-dual dimension of what we experience as our Self. Viewed by the senses, it is finite; on penetrating deeper, it reveals its infinite dimension; above the water level, we see the tip of a rock; but below, we realise its immense dimension. That is what you find in the Upanishads as a momentous search and discovery, conveyed in a few crisp and ‘great utterances’, known as mahavakyas. Now, this truth about the One behind the many, the One in the many, is not the product of intellectual speculation, but of actual realisation by sages, both during the time of the Upanishads and in subsequent centuries. These truths have also been verified by a luminous succession of sages who had the capacity to rise to that level.
    About a thousand years after the Upanishads, we had Gautama, who realised this truth. He became Buddha, the ‘enlightened’. He achieved jnana or bodhi, the highest jnana – the non-dual or advaita jnana. A little over a thousand years later, he was followed by Sankara. More recently, we had Rama-krishna, Vivekananda, and few others attaining realisation of Atman as the non-dual Brahmn.
    Brahmn is of the nature of not only Sat, Being, and Cit, Consciousness, but also of Ananda, Bliss. Sensual joys are only trickles of this infinite bliss of Brahmn, proclaims Vedanta. Says the Brihadarnyaka Upanishad, ‘This is its supreme Bliss. On a particle of this very bliss alone other beings live.’
    This truth is verified in the life of Sri Ramakrishna in a unique experience of his. When he witnessed in the Dakshineswar temple compound the joy being experienced by a couple of dogs who were together, he saw the bliss of Brahmn through it.
    The Self in every one of us is also the Self of the universe. There cannot be two Selves, because it is of the nature of consciousness, which cannot be divided. It is akhanda, says Vedanta. Consciousness is like space, an indivisible whole; by putting up four walls, we do not really divide space. What else can divide consciousness? Consciousness can divide other things, but it remains undivided. As the Gita puts it ‘In all these separate divided things of the world, Pure Consciousness is undivided but looks apparently divided.’ In its fullness, it is there in everything. Vedanta refers to it as Akhanda Sachidananda, undivided Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss.
    This truth is corroborated by nuclear physicist Erwin Schrodinger, in an epilogue to ‘What is Life?’: ‘Consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular… Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception, which in India is called Maya.’

 From Practical Vedanta and the Science of Values by Swami Ranganathananda.

    As a child growing up in an environment of mostly Christian families, a big question prior to the season of Lent was “What will you ‘give up’?”
    Part of Lenten observances, prior to the Easter celebration 40 days ahead, included the cleansing aspects of prayer, restriction, sacrifice and generosity. ‘Giving up’ often translated into abstaining from individual indulgences like chocolate, alcohol, fast food and television.
    Lent, in the days of the early church, was a time for those new to the faith to prepare themselves for baptism and full acceptance into the church, which then happened only once a year, on the day before Easter.
    Later, all members of the church joined in the same practices, and it became an official season of the church calendar. It recalled Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness, praying and battling temptations, before his active role of preaching and teaching; and also the time of suffering he endured on the Cross. It was, therefore, a time to realign with the deeper aspects of his teachings and rededicate oneself to actually living them.
    As an intense young person, like others around me, i took the ‘giving up’ very seriously. I tried hard to fill up the little ‘Mite Box’ given to us at Sunday School, with as much of my saved up pocket money, to be used for less fortunate children at some orphanage. Year after year, i actually made it through all 40 days with no chocolate, cake, sweets or ice cream – and a satisfyingly filled box – feeling piously wonderful over the accomplishment.
    But like most others, right after Easter, i began eating sweets again. Perhaps more than before; there was no long-lasting benefit from the abstinence. And it was not only the children who behaved this way.
    The trouble is, we hardly ever consider the deeper spiritual meanings of outer physical actions. Most of us do not seem to be aware that Lent can also be a time for expansion, rededication, and connection with others; either replacing the somewhat reluctant ‘Giving Up’ with a more positive ‘Taking On’, or doing a bit of both.
    At one level, self-denial, whether of small or addictive things, is good for character building; yet giving something up for Lent, and a smug piety over doing this, can too easily replace a commitment to live this way at other times too, blocking us from taking a good look at what else God really wants us to be doing in the world. Lent is a time for travelling inward, in order to continue to live our outward lives in consonance with sacred teachings. Along with more time for prayer and alms-giving, we can mindfully take on a variety of things – actively volunteering our time and resources befriending the lonely; feeding the hungry; listening more deeply and caringly; speaking more kindly; reducing our nonecological habits.
    Hopefully, these will last far longer than the day after the designated period is ‘over’. Taking on can lead to a more positive and lasting change for most of us. Rather than making Lent a time of denial bordering on self-punishment, we can make it a time of exploring new ways of constructing our days, new ways of thinking about people and things, new practices that build up one’s spirit.
    And this way, we make a commitment not to simply ‘endure’ Lent, but to understand and mindfully live its message.

    Children enjoy playing with masks. And the more grotesque the mask, the greater is the thrill. Their amusement springs from knowing that the masks are different from them. They are immune to aberrations of masks.
    Body, mind and intellect are matter. That which breathes life into the inert matter is spirit, the real You. Layers of matter make up the mask. Ignorant of your true nature, you wrongly attribute limitations of body, mind and intellect to yourself and so you suffer. Matter is susceptible to external influences. But you are spirit. Nothing in the world has power to affect you. Yet, you are weak and powerless, at the mercy of your environment.
    The mask of body, mind and intellect is provided so that you enjoy the playground of the world. Instead, you’ve made it the source of stress and distress, anguish and agony.
    Once you understand the difference bet-ween matter and spirit, you are empowered, happy and unaffected by fluctuations in the world. Krishna epitomises this state. Masked, he was endearing, charming, charismatic, adored by all, as the gopis adored him despite his mischievous ways. They couldn’t stay angry with him for long. Divested of the mask, however,Krishna was awesome.
    Know the distinction between the mask and the real you. Then distortions in body, mind and intellect will only entertain you. You won’t agonise over them. Your interface with the world will be perfect, evoking laurels and accolades. You will be full of grace, happiness and power. And when the time comes, the spirit will inspire you to discard the mask.
    The Gita’s Chapter 13 begins with Arjuna asking Krishna, “What is the difference bet-ween matter and spirit, field and knower of the field, knowledge and thatwhich is to be known?”
    Krishna, “The body is the ksetra, field. Know me as the ksetrajna,knower-of-field in all fields.’’ He divides field (matter), into 31 segments. The spirit is different from them.
    Verses 8 to 12 describe knowledge as the 20 qualities of a jnani, person of knowledge. He says, “This is knowledge. All else is ignorance. While spirit is one, matter undergoes changes and is born in good or bad circumstances according to gunas or qualities.’’
    Spirit expresses itself differently in different people. In the wrong-doer it is mere witness. As you get purified, spirit becomes approver; it becomes protector and fulfils your endeavours. You become more unselfish. Spirit enables you to enjoy the world and wield power. In the end when all obstacles are removed, the spirit reveals itself as the supreme Self. Krishna assures that once you know Purusa and prakrti and the qualities, you are not born again, for you become spirit.
    Gain moksha, liberation by divesting desires through action. Subtler desires are sublimated through knowledge and the last traces overcome by meditation. The ignorant, incapable of this path, can still evolve and go beyond death by surrender to the wise. You become spirit when you see the one unifying force in everything.
    Spirit neither acts nor is tainted by actions; it is untouched like space and lights up creation as the sun illumines the world. To perceive the difference between spirit and matter, perceive with jnana caksu, eye-of-wisdom.

Shivaratri is taking refuge in Shiva. And Shiva is peace, infinity, beauty and the non-dual one. You take refuge in Shiva for your true nature is Shiva as he is the meditative aspect of the entire Universe.
Albert Einstein proved that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be changed from one form to another. That energy, which changes from one form to another, is called Shiva.
Shiva is that blissful and innocent consciousness which exists in every atom of the universe and also in us. Celebrating the Shiva tattva in oneself is called Shivaratri. ‘Ratri’ means night, the time for rest and comfort. When all activities stop and everything becomes quiet and peaceful, the body goes to sleep. Shivaratri is a rest not only for the body, but also for the mind, intellect and ego.
Paradoxically, ‘Shiva Tattva’ also means to be awakened. Shivaratri is thus an occasion to awaken from all sorts of slumber. It is not a night to be slept through but one to remain awake in. It signifies being aware of everything you have and being grateful for it. Be grateful for the happiness which has led to growth and also for sadness which gives depth to life. This is the right way of observing Shivaratri.
The meaning of Kailasa, the abode of Shiva, is celebration. Whether in sanyasa or samsara, you cannot escape Shiva for wherever there is celebration there is Shiva. Feeling his presence all the time is the essence of Shivaratri. That is the real sanyasa. No worship is complete without offering something to the deity. Shiva is very simple; he is innocent, hence he is called Bholanath. One just needs to offer bel-patra to him. There’s a deep message here. Bel-patra offerings signify the surrender of all three aspects of one’s nature – tamas, rajas and sattva. You have to surrender the positives and negatives of your life to Shiva and become carefree.
The greatest offering is yourself. To do so is the key to happiness in life. After all, why do you get sad? It is mainly because you are not able to achieve something in life. At such times you should surrender everything to the all-knowing God. The greatest power is in surrender to the Divine. It is like a drop owning the ocean. If a drop remains separate, it will perish. But when it becomes the ocean, it is eternal.
Shivam, Shantam, Advaitam: Shiva means your very Self, your innermost core, the purest Self. Shanta is quiet, peaceful, very innocent. Advaita is non-dual, where there is only One. So, Shiva means good and benevolent and Ratri means that which gives rest, which takes you into its lap and gives comfort.
Shivaratri is a rest which is so deep that the mind rests with the Divine.
Any meditation we do on this day has a manifold effect, for this is the day when spirit touches the earth. If you meditate on Shivaratri then the power of meditation is 100 times more. So, that which is always, nitya and which is, shashwat, that is Shiva Tattva.
It’s said beautifully in the shloka: “Namamishamishaan nirvana rupam, vibhumvyapakam brahma vedaswaroopam.”
Shivaratri is the transcendental, divine peace which brings solace to all layers of existence. Resting in Shiva Tattva is called Shivaratri. There are certain days and time frames in a year that enhance one’s mental and spiritual faculties. In such times whatever one wishes, materialises. Shivaratri is one such precious day.

    In the mechanical sphere, knowing, or the functional side of knowledge, occurs with the perception of special types of reflections and refractions. But in the psychic sphere, it occurs as a result of the subjectivisation of objectivity or objectivities. For example, if a particular type of vibration hits an object or plate it meets with some resistance and may get reflected or refracted, as in the case of an echo; or a certain portion of the vibration may pass through the plate. In the mechanical stratum, knowledge, or the faculty of knowledge, is thus attained. But in the psychic stratum, knowledge involves the subjectivisation of any external objectivity or objectivities.
    We take an external object inside ourselves, be it an elephant, a horse, a vocalised word, a touch, or anything else with which we come in contact in the outer world, and assimilate it in our psychic existential “i” feeling. This is the process of knowing – it is something related to the psychic sphere. So, knowledge has two aspects – first, the aspect of reflection and refraction and, secondly, the psychic aspect; that is, the process of attaining knowledge in the psychic sphere.
    Those who learned the science of Tantra Yoga and Raja Yoga from Shiva cultivated the physical and psychic aspects of knowledge – expressions and waves of vibrations. Consequently, Shaivites became followers of gyana marga, the cult of knowledge, whereas others became the followers of the cult of prapatti marga, devotion, and it is interesting to know the difference between the two.
    The first question that the gyana margi poses on seeing an object, whether psychic or spiritual, is invariably, “What is this?” Their next question is, “What is its source or origin?” Then they proceed further along that line to another source of knowledge where both reflection and refraction end. That is, the mind of the inquirer reaches a point where it fails to comprehend the plate on which the processes of reflection and refraction operate. The point where the mind loses its capacity to analyse or compare further is the Supreme Point; and this is the Shaiva cult of knowledge.
    Ananda Marga philosophy also supports the Shaiva cult as it strives for enrichment and advancement of the cult of knowledge. It encourages the development of intellect and wisdom, and motivates people to acquire more and more knowledge. And the constant pursuit of intellectuality leads one to its furthest point, the place where intuition begins, so helpful in
    spiritual practice.
    The seeker’s path is not devoid of intellect or intuition; rather it is based on intuition. It facilitates maximum all-round progress of humanity and manifestation of highest human excellence. Those who follow bhakti marga could face certain hurdles in evolution due to the concept of submission to Cosmic Will – without which not even a single blade of grass can move. This doctrine is called prapattivada.
    A gyana margi might say in refutation, “Well, it is hundred per cent true that nothing in this universe, not even a blade of grass, can move without His will. This is exactly what we wish to discover in gyana marga: that He desired it, and then the blade of grass moved. So why not find out how His desire causes everything to happen?” And here lies the difference between the two cults.

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     At our Ananda community in America, we once set a trap for a raccoon. The next morning, we found the raccoon, but it hadn’t entered the trap. It had reached through the bars of the trap and was still grasping the food. It was so attached to the food that it wouldn’t let go, even when we carried it away, trap and all. It was as trapped by its own greed as if we’d actually caught it. It was absurd to cling to a small piece of food that you couldn’t even eat, in exchange for your freedom. But because of the raccoon’s attachment, it was caught.
    We don’t have to be attached to this world. Yet we cling, and so we get caught. We can’t truly ever have anything through the senses. We aren’t really eating food, our body is eating food. It’s not our real Self. The same is true for every human satisfaction. As long as it’s through the senses, it’s vicarious.
    Real joy is inside us. When i first heard the sound of AUM, i was so thrilled as if it were the only sound i had ever heard that i could listen to for all eternity and never get tired of it. All music, even the most beautiful, is still out there, but AUM is your own Self. It’s the music of your own being, playing on the heartstrings of your consciousness. As you meditate, you feel joy and you realise that that’s the only reality. You come to the point where it’s a choice between the superior world of spirit inside and the false world outside – finally you just don’t want the other.
    There is this constant struggle between your desires, and knowing what you ought to do – not because the scriptures say so, but because you know that this alone will give you true joy. These opposing choices are in constant conflict with one another. While a part of you is saying, “I want freedom, i want joy, i want the higher Self,” the other part is saying, “Oh, no, please let me hang onto this!” And so the struggle goes on.
    Anything that limits consciousness causes pain. Anything that expands it causes joy. Anything that we do that goes against our higher nature causes our consciousness to shrink, and to suffer.
    While you’re fighting a battle, you don’t have time to introspect, but afterwards you stop and think, “Who won? How did it go?” The two sides are ranged against one another, the good and the bad; and after every battle with greed, with anger, or with passion, for example, you look back and say, “Well, i wonder how i did? Which side won?” If the good side won, you feel good; and if the bad side won, you feel dejected.
Those who have transmuted their desires are more human; they are more alive. That same energy that went towards greed has become redirected towards non-attachment and joy, towards an affirmation of completeness in the Self, towards the practice of contentment. Krishna, in saying that a person who dies in this form merely gets born into a new form, means that the energy you commit into one particular mental trait becomes ‘‘born again’’ in a new mental trait. You won’t kill anything in yourself by getting rid of your bad qualities.
    This is what you need to tell yourself when you are on the battlefield of inner conflict between your worldly desires and your spiritual aspirations.

The other day i recorded in my diary: One day less of my life Have i lived it well Yes. Then i reflected on the sentence that by living a day,i have shortened my life by one day.  How strange, i reflected.By living i am devouring my lifeuntil nothing will be left of it.Is it what we call life i asked myself.
This has been a strange turn in my thinking that by living i am slowly eating away the substance of my life.Is it a revelation or some kind of macabre discovery of the truth that we would rather not know
I have always thought of life as a torch of fire,burning bright,until it stops.But this perspective entails some disturbing consequences also.If life is a torch burning bright,then,after every day,what is left of the past day are the ashes.Because the torch burning bright is NOW.The next day,it moves to the next day.And what is left of this burning fire,inevitably,must be ashesor memories.But memories are the ashes of yesterday and yesteryear.
Is giving meaning to your life one of the illusions of life Hmmeven if it is so,it is a good illusion.  But the matter is deeper,and it has to do with the nature of the universe.German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer,a professional pessimist,has claimed that life is dismal,and it would have been better not to be born.  And if you were born,the best thing would be to die instantly.  He was brilliant; deep at times but ultimately not deep enough.
He somewhat overlooked the Miracle of the Universe, that what exists is not only the individual miseries of Schopenhauer, but the dazzling splendour of all creation.Stars and their constellations were created to dazzle and perplex us.  Thus life was created this incredible force continually expanding and transcending.  Human thought was created to bring forth the flowers of art and poetry to delight,to soothe,to inspire.  Thus the brilliant Schopenhauer was created to surprise,to agitate,to make us anxious.
Now,what is one Schopenhauer against the glory of trillions of stars and plethora of exquisite forms of life Yet,Schopenhauer matters.  Not as a frustrated individual,but as a part of the richness of the whole.
What do you say when you hear that the present human world is dancing to the tune of Schopenhauers gloom You say that it is only superficially so.  The truth is that one Schopenhauer does not make the world gloomy.  But one ecstatic poet does make the world ecstatic.  How This is so because of the Splendid Asymmetry of the Universe.  The universe is ecstatic because some chosen people of ecstatic minds mainly poets and philosophers have made it so.  From this point on,the universe has ceased to be dreary and gloomy.  If and when,even once,you have seen,in your mind and soul,the radiance of Light,you cannot return to primordial darkness,to gloom and fear.  Gloom is for antediluvian people,who are not fully human and who are thus unable to sing with us the hymn to Joy.
What of my earlier assertion that at the end of the day,my life is shortened I choose to look at it differently.  Every day signifies the consummation of my love affair with Life.  I am awed and exulted that i lived a day in the incredible Cosmos,amidst hardships and miraculous vicissitudes of life.

 
    Life is caught in samsara. Therefore, Adishankara says, you will be caught in this whole cycle of birth and death endlessly. Therefore, to end this journey, you have to discover wholesomeness to become really centred and in that centre, the quality of life becomes very different.
    Krishna says in the Gita, everybody is seeking me alone. Whether you are a believer or a non-believer. You may say, I am not seeking the Lord.” When Krishna refers to “me”, he is not referring to the physical body, but to the Self which is full, complete. A seeker is a conscious person; a person who is not a sadhaka is unconscious, and so he is still seeking but in the wrong direction. Every one of us passing that way saw these two people searching, and thought, “Let me help them” and also started searching. A youngster asked, “What are you searching for?” The person said, “I do not know, he is searching, so i am also searching.” He found out from the woman that she was searching for a coin she lost in her hut, and was looking for it here as it was bright here; her hut was dark.
    The Kathopanishad says, those people who are always searching outwards and outwards – they are destroyed because they have not gone into themselves. And, therefore, the search has to be within. Christ says, “The Kingdom of heaven is within you.” Krishna in the Gita says, “Antah sukham,” happiness is within your own self. And, therefore, you have to learn to look within.
    Every one of us is a seeker, searching for this fullness. Krishna represents this fullness. Everybody is seeking this fullness and this fullness is discovered by the sangama of three important dimensions. Once this discovery is made, you are overwhelmed with the fullness. Krishna says, such a person is unruffled, in the most miserable set-up also he is unshaken. In the most pleasurable setup also he is unshaken, because he is so centred. Why is he centred – because, he says, “he has discovered his own Self ’’. Therefore, it is our great responsibility to discover it; transformation or enlightenment can never take place otherwise. And once it takes place, such a person is unruffled in the world, wherever that person may be.
    Krishna points out, when you are so centred that when, in that state of centring, you start living in the world, you will be experiencing the world, but you will not be upset by it. To experience disappointment is different from being upset by disappointment. To experience failure is different from being unhappy about failure.
When one discovers this wholesomeness of one’s being, in that discovery of wholesomeness there is a certain centring which takes place, and in that centring fullness happens. Only in such a state of living can one experience a sense of joy, a sense of happiness; therefore, it is a great responsibility for us, irrespective of what life we are living, to learn to dis-cover this state of consciousness. Therefore, the whole focus of Krishna in the Gita is to shift the state of being and he is trying to teach that to Arjuna. Irrespective of what your life may be, even in the battlefield you can discover this state of consciousness.
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How can i know that a woman loves me in reality, and is not playing
games?
    This is difficult! Nobody has ever been able to know it – because, love is a game. That is its reality! So if you are waiting, watching, thinking and analysing whether the woman is just playing a game, you will never be able to love any woman – because love is a game, the suprememost game.
    Why ask for it to be real? Play the game! That’s its reality. And if you are too much of a seeker for reality, then love is not for you. It is a dream! It is a fantasy. It is fiction, romance, it is poetry. If you are too much of a seeker for reality, obsessed with reality, then, love is not for you; then you meditate.
    There is no way to judge. We are such strangers and our meeting is just accidental. Suddenly we have come across each other, not knowing who we are, not knowing who the other is. Two strangers meeting on a road, feeling alone, hold each other’s hands and think they are in love. They are in need of the other, certainly, but is this love?
    People feel lonely; they need somebody to fill their loneliness. They call it love. They show love because that is the only way to hook the other. The other also calls it love because that is the only way to hook you. But who knows whether there is love or not? Real love happens only when you don’t need anybody; that’s the difficulty.
    That’s how banks function. If you go to a bank and you need money, they will not give you any. If you don’t need money, you have enough, they will come to you and they will always be ready to give you.
    When you don’t need a person at all, when you are totally sufficient unto yourself, when you can be alone and tremendously happy and ecstatic, then love is possible. But even then you cannot be certain whether the other’s love is real or not.
    You can be certain about only one thing: whether your love is real. How can you be certain about the other? But there is no need for this constant anxiety. If you agonise over whether the other’s love is real or not it shows that your love is not real. Why be worried about it? Enjoy it while it lasts! Be together while you can be together. You need fiction. Nietzsche said man is such that he cannot live without lies, he cannot live with truth. Lies, in a subtle way, lubricate your system. You both are trying to use each other as a means.
    Don’t create anxiety. And try to become more and more awake.
    One day when you are really awake you will be able to love – but then you will be certain about your love only. But that’s enough! Because right now you want to use others. When you are really blissful on your own, you don’t want to use anybody. You simply want to share. You have so much, you are overflowing, you would like somebody to share it. And you will feel thankful that somebody was ready to receive. Finished! That is the full point.

A Sudden Clash of Thunder, courtesy Osho International Foundation, www.osho.com