HERE--THEN GONE

“Love is the goal, life is the journey.” 
-Osho-

Remember, find ways to share with others...perhaps even convert memory to story as Mira Bartok did
HERE
(Just finished listening on audio books!  Although I might have edited a bit, I was thoroughly engaged and moved by this memoir)

“We are all different expressions of one reality."
-Osho-

Many days dissolve from image to image...from seeing  this man crossing the street, permanently bent low, possibly from scoliosis of the spine....
 
...to this woman passing, also bent while reading a text message...

...through a thousand messages from all directions imprinting themselves on my mind...

...to this begonia on my window sill which lifts my spirit...

...to the tree I had a hand in planting decades ago
flowering profusely in the street below... 

“Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously.”
-Osho-

Then on to relish late blooms in the church garden...

...and to inhale the intoxicating scent of phlox...

...be brightened by the splashes of color from
purple cone flower and golden coreopsis...

...on to art from Nepal at a friends apartment
where we followed prompts, and wrote for two hours.

This is a marvelous sculpture by her daughter

“Creativity is the greatest rebellion."
-Osho-

Here's a woman skipping rope at the church late one evening!

“Explanation is not needed – only exclamation, a wondering heart, awakened, surprised, feeling the mystery of life each moment. Then, and only then, you know what truth is. And truth liberates”
-Osho-

A brilliantly blue sky day followed.

These are artifacts kept in cabinets at the Masonic hall on West 23rd Street...

where we gather to meditate once a month...

not on these historic things displayed in the lobby...

...but to sit together in silence a while, let go of the world, and listen to 'Readings from the Masters'
(thanks to Joan Suval, and Ananda Ashram)

“I'm simply saying that there is a way to be sane. I'm saying that you can get rid of all this insanity created by the past in you. Just by being a simple witness of your thought processes.  It is simply sitting silently, witnessing the thoughts, passing before you. Just witnessing, not interfering not even judging, because the moment you judge you have lost the pure witness. The moment you say “this is good, this is bad,” you have already jumped onto the thought process.  It takes a little time to create a gap between the witness and the mind. Once the gap is there, you are in for a great surprise, that you are not the mind, that you are the witness, a watcher.  And this process of watching is the very alchemy of real religion. Because as you become more and more deeply rooted in witnessing, thoughts start disappearing. You are, but the mind is utterly empty. That’s the moment of enlightenment. That is the moment that you become for the first time an unconditioned, sane, really free human being.”
-Osho-

Compassion
The Ultimate Flowering of Love

http://youtu.be/Mpfoh47L8iw
 
I was given this rose.

  
“Be realistic: Plan for a miracle”
-Osho-