Aurobindo on Involution

Since this Consciousness is creatrix of the world, it must be not only state of knowledge, but power of knowledge, and not only a will to light and vision but a will to power and works. And since mind too is created out of it, mind must be a development by limitation out of this primal faculty and this supreme consciousness and must therefore be capable of resolving itself back into it through a reverse development by expansion.

-- Sri Aurobindo, from The Life Divine

Stuff that makes you go "hmm..."

"And because there is always only Atman, the Atman project never occurred."

-- Ken Wilber, from The Atman Project (last line on the last page.)

Meher Baba

"The so many deaths during the one whole life, from the beginning of evolution of consciousness to the end of involution of consciousness, are like so many sleeps during one lifetime."

-- Meher Baba, from God Speaks

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi cremated in India

The body of recently deceased Maharishi (great sage) Mahesh Yogi was cremated on a traditional pyre in the holy Indian city of Allahabad on Monday. The guru was the founder of the Transcendental Meditation ("TM") movement and a well-known popularizer of yoga and meditation techniques in the Western world.

Thousands of followers accompanied the body of their guru from his ashram to the burning site. In attendance was filmmaker David Lynch (a longtime TM practitioner and advocate) and one-time Presidential candidate John Hagelin of Maharishi's Natural Law Party.

U.G. on Death

Once a very old gentleman, ninety-five years old, who was considered to be a great spiritual man and who taught the great scriptures all the time to his followers, came to see me. He heard that I was there in that town. He came to me and asked me two questions. He asked me, "What is the meaning of life? I have written hundreds of books telling people all about the meaning and purpose of life, quoting all the scriptures and interpreting them. I haven't understood the meaning of life. You are the one who can give an answer to me." I told him, "Look, you are ninety-five years old and you haven't understood the meaning of life. When are you going to understand the meaning of life? There may not be any meaning to life at all." The next question he asked me was, "I have lived ninety-five years and I am going to die one of these days. I want to know what will happen after my death." I said, "You may not live long to know anything about death. You have to die now. Are you ready to die?" As long as you are asking the question, "What is death?" or "What is there after death?" you are already dead. These are all dead questions. A living man would never ask those questions.

-- U.G. Krishnamurti (7.9.18 - 3.22.07)

Death and Rebirth (Osho)

Have you observed that if you look inside, time exists not? If you look outside there is time, but if you look inside there is no time. Have you not felt it sometimes, sitting silently with closed eyes -- that inside you have not aged at all? Inside you remain the same as when you were a child, or as when you were young. Inside nothing has changed: the face is wrinkled by age, the hairs have gone gray, death is approaching -- this is all from the outside. If you look in the mirror then of course there are signs that much time has passed, that very little is left, that sooner or later you will be gone. But look within: there has never been any time there.

You are born, but not yet really born. A rebirth is needed; you have to be twice-born. The first birth is only the physical birth, the second birth is the real birth: the spiritual birth. You have to come to know yourself, who you are. You have to ask this question: Who am I? And while life is there, why not enquire into life itself? Why bother about death? When it comes, you can face it and you can know it. Don't miss this opportunity of knowing life while life surrounds you.

One birth has been given to you by your parents, the other birth is waiting. It has to be given to you by yourself. You have to father and mother yourself. Then your whole energy is turning in -- it becomes an inner circle.

Osho birthday message

I’m not a person, and if you like me as a person you have missed me. You have missed the impersonal that is present here. I am just an opening. Come close to me and I will help you to become impersonal too.

-- Osho (Rajneesh) from The Wisdom of the Sands Vol. II., p. 338

Yogi Ramsuratkumar

"I am infinite and so are you and so is everyone, my friend. But there is a veil, there is a veil. Do you follow me? You can see only a infinitesimal part of me. Just like when a man stands on the seashore and looks out over the great ocean, he sees only a fraction of that vast ocean. Similarly, everyone can see only a small part of me. The whole cosmos is but an infinitesimal part of the real man, but how can a man see the whole cosmos?" (Yogi Ramsuratkumar 1918-2001)

Ganesh Baba Nirvana

"In Nirvana your little ego is snuffed out. Nirvana is a process of being snuffed out. Nirvana is a defocalization on the sensate world and switching over our consciousness to the insensate world of intuition, of inner light, and of inner oscilloscopic vision in our gyral center. We have to penetrate the various sheaths or planes. . . . Your little ego becomes completely unified with the cosmic unified field of ultimate universal reality. That is the state of Nirvana which a few have had the good fortune to reach. But even if that highest goal is not reached, one step toward that supreme synthesis is a step indeed." (Ganesh Baba 1907-1987)