Saint Kabir is one of the greatest mystics who brought an authentic spiritual revolution in the collective psyche of a large number of people who were either atheists or belonging to the traditional religions. And he did it in such a wonderful way — with his unique bhajans in simple Hindi language. The whole world must feel grateful to mystic poet Rabindranath Tagore for translating these songs into English. In the introduction to a collection of one hundred such songs, Kabir is given a befitting tribute: Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck and Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi are perhaps the chief who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God.

Modern enlightened mystic Osho has also given hundreds of profound discourses on Kabir and one of the series is titled: The Revolution. Osho says: Kabir is a harbinger, a herald of the future, the first flower that heralds the spring. He is one of the greatest poets of religion. He is not a theologian; he does not belong to any religion. All religions belong to him, but he is vast enough to contain all. No particular religion defines him. He is a Hindu and a Muslim and a Christian and a Jain and a Buddhist. He’s a great beauty, a great poetry and a great orchestra.

Though Kabir was an illiterate, without any schooling, a poor weaver — unlike Buddha, Mahavira, Ram and Krishna — yet he could transform the lives of millions of people. He liberated them from the bondage of superstitions. He was truly a rebellious spirit. Osho describes Kabir as the Christ of the East. Christ was the son of a carpenter and speaks in the same revolutionary way as Kabir. Both have great similarities. They belong to the same earth, they are very earthy, but both have great insights.

Kabir awakens the consciousness of people who want to seek God and offers them a song: Moko Kahaan Dhoondhe Re Bande. Where dost thou seek me?/ Lo! I am beside thee./ I am neither in temple nor in mosque./I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash./ Neither am I in rites and ceremonies nor in Yoga and renunciation./ If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see me: thou shalt meet me in a moment of time.

Kabir introduced ulatbaansis (upside-down verse) to express the inexpressible just like Zen Koans. Apparently, these ulatbaansis are not something logical. They destroy the ordinary logic and take us to the mystical realm. Kabir declares: “I was wonderstruck when I saw the ocean on fire!” How can the ocean ever catch fire? If water can catch fire, then there cannot be anything like science in the world. And then Kabir says: “I have seen another miracle: the fish left the ocean and climbed up a tree.”

Such things do happen in the spiritual realm beyond mind. Kabir describes it as unmani avastha — a transcendental space beyond mind.

We need to learn the art of meditation in our busy life — participating in everything can be a meditation.

Most of us live our daily life with a certain routine—which is based on our environment of family, society, nationality, besides our own personal tendencies and weaknesses.

We follow a certain way of living and we pick up certain habits to fit with our environment. These habits occupy our consciousness, consume our time and enslave our being. Gradually, it becomes very hard to become free from their bondage.

We are expected to attend religious ceremonies and rituals, social functions, group parties — this way we are forced to conform to everything that makes us a respectable member of the society. We develop certain habits of eating and drinking, smoking and gossiping.

All this is so  time-consuming that it drains our energy; we are not left with any time and space to be with ourselves. We find no time to meditate and to explore our own being.

In such a situation, the question arises how to make space for meditation and become a free individual.

Osho gives a clue in one Sufi story: Two disciples of a great master were walking in the garden of the master’s house. They were allowed to walk every day, morning, evening.

The walking was a kind of meditation, a walking meditation — just as Zen people do walking meditation.

You cannot sit for 24 hours — the legs need a little movement, the blood needs a little circulation — so in Zen and in Sufism both, you meditate for a few hours sitting and then you start meditating walking. But the meditation continues; walking or sitting, the inner current remains the same.

They both were smokers. They both wanted to ask for the permission of the master, so they both decided, “Tomorrow, we’ll ask him. At the most, he will say no, but we are going to ask. And it doesn’t seem such a sacrilegious act to smoke in the garden; we will not be smoking in his house itself. ”

The next day they met in the garden. One was furious — furious because the other was smoking — and he said, “What happened? I also asked, but he simply flatly refused and said no. And you are smoking? Are you not abiding by his orders?”

He said, “But he has said yes to me.”

This looked very unjust. And the first said, “I will go and immediately inquire as to why he said no to me and yes to you.”

The other said, “Wait a minute. Please tell me what you had asked.” He said, “What I had asked? I had asked a simple thing, “Can I smoke while meditating?” He said, “No! and he looked very angry.”

The other started laughing; he said, “Now I know what is the matter. I asked, “Can I meditate while smoking? He said yes.”

It all depends. Just a little difference and life is totally something else. Now, there is a great difference. Asking, “Can I smoke while meditating?” is just ugly. But asking, “Can I meditate while smoking?” — it’s perfectly okay. Good! At least you will be meditating.

We need to learn the art of meditation in our busy life — participating in everything can be a meditation.

During his address to United Nations General Assembly on Sept 27 last year,  Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi is reported to have stated:.. “Yoga is an invaluable gift of India’s ancient tradition. It embodies the unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfillment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well-being. It is not about exercise but to discover the sense of oneness with yourself, the world and nature.”

Yoga has been very popular in the west ever since the western world became aware of the wonderful teachings of Sri Vivekananda, Swami Ramateertha, Sri Aurobindo and some other prominent Yogis who traveled to the western countries. But for last four years, Yoga has been spreading very fast since 2014, when PM Modi suggested 21 June as International Yoga Day. This is a special date which happens to be the Summer Solstice (longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere), and from the perspective of yoga, it marks the transition in the Sun’s celestial passage from north to south. There was an unprecedented publicity around the world about it and Yoga got a royal attention in most of the countries. According to a senior journalist Parveen Chopra: Today, yoga is practiced by an estimated 300 million people worldwide. In the western countries, you can find a yoga studio almost every few blocks. In the US, the number of yoga practitioners is estimated to be over 30 million.

In the West, Yoga is adopting some different and unique shapes and styles not similar to how we do it in India. It is very different, sometimes it is very controversial and often too commercial, which offends purists in India–as the Yoga taught by Bikram Choudhury. A website about him claims: Bikram is to yoga what Tae-Bo is to kickboxing. Like Billy Blanks, Bikram Choudhury took a long-existing practice and modified it to create a uniquely-packaged fitness franchise. According to the 66-year-old Indian-born yoga guru, the precise sequence of 26 postures and two breathing exercises must be performed within 90 minutes in a heated (100-degrees-plus) room to allow the body to stretch, detoxify, relieve stress, tone, and heal chronic pain such as arthritis, joint aches, knee injuries, back problems, and more.

During last few years Bikram Yoga has been spreading in the world like no other Yoga system and it attracted lots of condemnation also from the purists. Parveen Chopra points out: The purists can argue that in its current form, yoga has been reduced to a system of physical exercises. But the practitioners must be liking it, enjoying it and benefiting from it enough to continue to spend their time and energy and money on the practice. Besides, one can also argue that the asana practice, unlike gym workouts, does create a sense of peace and equanimity –  a meditative state in short. Interest is also kindled in practitioners about yoga’s other dimensions and its origins.

Osho had a very radical take on Yoga and said:  I am very happy that Yoga is getting out of this country, moving into new cultures. There it is bound to take new forms — less rigid, more exploratory. The West has much to contribute to Yoga, as yoga has much to contribute to the West. It is very good that many things that have remained stuck and dormant in India are moving out. It will be good because new people will start trying new things. New postures can be developed, new body rhythms, new breathing processes.

As a sanyasin, one has to learn the art of meditating and creating distance from the mind that is suicidal.

Bhaiyyu Maharaj, a popular spiritual leader who counted some of the country’s top politicians and celebrities among his followers, committed suicide yesterday, by shooting himself in the head at his ashram in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.

Earlier, on June 8, the celebrity world was shocked to hear about the death of the Anthony Michael Bourdain (Born on June 25, 1956). He too committed suicide. He was an American celebrity chef, author, travel documentarian, and television personality who starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition. He was considered one of the most influential chefs in the world. Though best known for his culinary achievements and television presentations, along with several books on food and cooking and travel adventures, Bourdain also wrote both fiction and historical non-fiction.

In the same week, fashion designer Kate Spade took her life. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that suicide rates in the United States increased by an alarming 28 per cent from 1999 through 2016. The CDC reported that in the US in 2016 there were nearly 45,000 suicides — more than twice as many suicides as  homicides.

Suicide is not just an American problem, it is a problem of the whole world. We become more shocked when we come to know about celebrities committing suicide. In India, so many ordinary people are committing suicide every day — even the young students and young girls, besides farmers. We are told that the main cause of suicide is depression and the inability to deal with it. People are feeling certain kind of loneliness even though they live with the family, friends and society. But they don’t feel at home anywhere, they feel alienated. We wonder what has happened. Even though there is so much comfort available to a large number of people, so much amusement and so much entertainment, even then the people become depressed and commit suicide.  Almost everybody in the world has strong emotional moments when he or she feels the utter meaninglessness of life. In earlier times, during such moments some people used to think of renouncing the world and become sannyasis. Even this decision is much better than committing suicide. Because by going away from the world, one can contemplate and meditate; one can have a self-realisation under the guidance of some evolved soul, and return to the world after feeling strong enough. Even a periodical sanyas of three months or just 21 days can make the person rejuvenated.

As a sanyasin, one has to learn the art of meditating and creating distance from the mind that is suicidal. Osho says: I will teach you the right way to commit suicide. Not the destruction of the body; the body is a beautiful gift from God; the mind is a conditioning by the society. The soul is a gift, the body is a gift, and sandwiched between the two, the society has played tricks with you: it has created your mind. It gives you ambition, it gives you jealousy, competition, violence, it gives you all kinds of ugly diseases. But this mind can be transcended, this mind can be put aside.

This sanyas is life-affirmative: Being in the world and rejoicing in oneself.

Osho says: Come into the heart. Let the heart pulsate, let the heart sing, let the heart dance.

Osho is known as Rolce Royce guru but he gave the world a Jet Speed meditation known as Dynamic Meditation. It is one of the most powerful meditations being practiced every morning in Osho centres all over India and around the world. The best time to do is the time of sunrise. One may ask: what happens in the morning with the rising sun? The carbon dioxide decreases and the oxygen increases. So the same chemical change is needed within us. This energetic process begins with vigorous breathing and can make us feel more alive.

This meditation has five steps and lasts for one hour.  The first step is chaotic breathing for ten minutes through the nose. Let breathing be intense, deep and fast — without rhythm, with no pattern. The emphasis is on exhalation — inhalation will happen by itself. This process makes us ready for an explosion of emotions.  So explode in the second step for ten minutes. Let go of everything that needs to be thrown out. Give your body freedom to express whatever is there. Go totally mad. Scream, shout, cry, jump, kick, shake, dance, sing, laugh; throw yourself around. Hold nothing back; keep your whole body moving. All the psychologists say that that we have much madness within us hidden in our unconscious mind.  It needs to be released. Osho suggests: Release it in the second step! If you want to scream, scream. If you want to weep, weep. If you want to jump, jump. If you want to dance, dance. If you just want to be like a child – playing with your body, jumping, dancing, screaming – do it!

The third step is also for ten minutes. With arms raised high above your head, jump up and down shouting the mantra, “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”. The “Hoo” comes from the Sufi tradition and it is a powerful sound used to hit specifically the sex center, where our life energy resides. The aim is to awaken this dormant energy and work against gravity to push it upwards. If you follow the instructions correctly, you will experience first-hand the power of jumping and how it stimulates the production of bio-electricity.

After half-an-hour of vigorous activity comes the full stop for 15 minutes. Freeze wherever you are, in whatever position you are. Don’t arrange the body in any way. A cough, a movement, anything, will dissipate the energy flow and the effort will be lost. Be a witness to everything that is happening to you.

After 15 minutes of absolute silence and stillness, we are filled with an unknown energy. We feel grateful to the divine that surrounds us — grateful for our wonderful aliveness. This virgin feeling of bliss beyond mind leads us gently into a dance celebration. The energy that was stuck in our heads falls into our heart. Osho says: Come into the heart. Let the heart pulsate, let the heart sing, let the heart dance.