#if any part of this starts to sound like i read ecclesiastes recently……that’s because i did

[frodo-with-glasses]

Ah, now here’s one I’ve been looking forward to discussing. Lord of the Rings has a strange relationship with hope. Before I began this read-through, I would have told you that hope is at the core of LotR: hope that the war will end, hope that light will triumph over darkness, hope that “there’s some good in this world, Mister Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for”. I would have told you that it’s an innately cheerful, optimistic story, though it gets dark at times.

But over this past year, as I’ve reread this book with the eyes of an adult, I’ve begun to realize it’s more complicated than that.

Lord of the Rings is not a story about hope. It’s a story about what you do without hope. It’s a story about when your spirit is utterly defeated, and your prospects are grim, and both the best and the worst possible outcomes look shockingly alike, and yet you keep walking anyway. It’s not a story of blind, naive optimism, of sitting back and dreaming about a better about-to-be. It’s a story of weighing the facts with a clear mind, of realizing that there’s no way in hell this works out well for you, and of doggedly moving your grain of sand to tip those massive scales anyway, because the only other option would be to sit back and let the world burn.

I feel like that rings truer to the human condition, really. After all, what good is it in the end to be kind and generous and courageous; what good is it to waste our short lives trying to make this awful world a better place? For every one human being trying to be a good person, there are hundreds more who are selfish, cruel, exploitative, greedy, twisted, and wicked. For every good deed done on this planet, there are hundreds more murders and abuses and horrors. One day, you will die, and at some point, everyone who knew you will be dead. There will come a day when you will be utterly forgotten. No one will remember you. No one will remember what you did. No one will remember if you made a difference, if you tried to make the world a better place. And let’s be honest; you won’t. No matter what light you managed to throw into the world while you were alive, this awful cosmos will generate enough pain and misery to overshadow it, eventually. When you’re gone, the world will be just as bad as it always was. Always has been. Always will be.

What good is it to go on loving someone when the diagnosis is terminal—when the medicine doesn’t work—when the sickness in their head has locked the person you love behind an unbreakable concrete wall? What good is it to stand for what you believe in when it’s not popular anymore—when friends and family turn their backs and reject you—when those who gave you praise and encouragement now insult you and curse you and spit on your face? What good is it to love when your heart is broken, be kind when your skin is mottled with bruises, be brave when your back is bent and your arms are weary under the weight of it all? What good is it to cast your little candle light when all the wind in the world tries to blow it out? Why be good? Why be selfless? Why sacrifice so much, when you lose so much more than you gain?

In that moment, there’s only one answer. And it’s not hope. It’s not optimism. It’s some strange defiance, some visceral fire that roars in the chest and aches in the bones.

“I will be light,” it cries. “I will defy you,” it howls. “I will push back with the last of my strength, though you crush me down,” it screams. “Because if I am not light, I am darkness, and I cannot, I will not, I refuse; let me die with my knees unbowed and my head held high; I WILL NEVER SURRENDER”

There are many instances in the book that speak to this point—Aragorn himself says something along the lines of “we must do without hope for the moment”—but to me, nothing better encapsulates this strange spirit of hopeless defiance than this moment with Sam Gamgee.

“Sam said nothing. The look on Frodo’s face was enough for him; he knew that words of his were useless. And after all he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed. Now they were come to the bitter end. But he had stuck to his master all the way; that was what he had chiefly come for, and he would still stick to him. His master would not go to Mordor alone. Sam would go with him.”

Sam would go with him. Not “we will win”. Not “I believe in us”. Just “he will go, and I will go with him, whether this ends in (improbable) victory or (more probable) a horrible, horrible death”. It’s not that Sam’s hope began to fail here; it’s that he never had much hope to begin with, but he went with it anyway, and it’s only his cheerful disposition in the face of near certain disaster that ever began to flag. Holy cow.

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but when the first two fail, love is the unkillable cockroach of all the virtues and will survive the nuclear winter of utter despair and grow wings and fly buzzing right up into your face just to spite you.

Now, of course Lord of the Rings does not simply leave us with the tragedy of a futile fight against the darkness. This story has a happy ending. And I’m glad it does, because sometimes, there are happy endings. Sometimes sicknesses are cured, families are restored, and old scars are healed and begin to fade. Sometimes loved ones emerge from the prison of their own minds and return to you—wiser, more melancholy, but still themselves—and you discover that the bond is deeper, the smiles sweeter, the laughter richer, and the love galvanized into something stronger than it ever would have been. Sometimes there are happy endings, and it’s not wrong to want them. It’s not wrong to have hope.

But Lord of the Rings lets us linger in that moment of hopeless defiance, because it offers an odd sort of comfort of a totally different kind.

“Lost all hope, did you?” it whispers. “It’s all right. So did Frodo, and Aragorn, and Gandalf, and Sam. But you see, they kept fighting anyway, with hope or without it, and that’s what made them heroes. Oh, you might still have your happy ending, someday, and it might come in ways you don’t expect. It is also equally likely that nothing will get better, and it will actually get much worse, and you shall die. But do keep fighting. Do keep walking. One foot in front of the other. If you do nothing, the worst will definitely come to pass; but if you fight, it just might not. So if we shall win, let’s not be embarrassed by our cowardice when that happy ending comes; and if we shall lose, let’s not go down without a fight.”

Perhaps, paradoxically, that’s what makes Lord of the Rings the most hopeful story of all. Because this is the story that whispers, “Remember, when all hope is gone…

“It isn’t.”

WORD ASK GAME!

[pencilsforlives]

Insights of a mystical Guru

“Let it go See what stays” - Osho

It's been a long time that I have hung up with something of my journey with u folks. This time its all about a book that I had read recently.

Osho..

Not a religious follower of this spiritual guru, but deep inside a part of me, who truly understand the inner selves is viewing Osho or can view Osho, as someone who took the topsy turvey world in a complete another dimension; the apex figure outlooked the world in a way that none among us has approached to see it with our real eyes,

Hailing from the Madhya Pradesh, of Indian subcontinent, Shree Rajneesh a.k.a Osho was controversial guru that was a top topic discussed worldwide when he propelled his ideas and beliefs. Leaving the body at the age of 58, he named himself as ‘Osho’ that expounded himself as ‘oceanic’ of ‘experience’.

Many appraised him as the most radical spiritual person in the world, especially religious organisations. Hence there are reports that evidences his death was as a planned murder which still prevails to be a mystery. The all time celebrated master visioned to shape the world and its human race in a unique avenue that disturbed many sleeps. 

Beside interviews he rendered during his ecclesiastical life, his teachings went on by voice recordings during his sessions, has always connected well with the people that later got published into books; that too in many languages crossing across  seas and mountains.

Book Of Women - Osho 

Consequently this is a book that a must-read not only just women as name indicates but also men in order to understand the womanhood. Himself being a man, Osho talks in this book not as even a human but just as conscious. The author signifies her serenity and delicateness as a charisma that has to be admired and appreciated in the whole world. The existence of woman is a gift to the mankind. Born as a girl or a boy, the mortal is an amalgamation of both male and female. While according to Osho, marriage is an institution invented by man to monopolise woman; to suppress her dreams and motives. Whereas on the other hand prostitution is a by-product of marriage. I might sound as a feminist but we must reap that the true face of reality assorted with philosophy that is barbaric and wicked than we grasp. 

As of Osho’s  perceptions, the women existing today, including you and me are not the true women. It’s a crippled, suppressed human form under the male chauvinistic society that how a peeress should me. Gautham Buddha, ascetic sage once commented that man is the crossroad where you can go anywhere - to enlightenment which notes that he was a male chauvinistic according to Osho.

Every pain has its own sweetness; its own miracle; its own joy,

It is there(women) innocence that adds beauty, Man’s dominance, torture and reduction to nonentity has made woman ugly.  Osho says its the dominance of man over woman is the first slavery in the world. Today ladies across wear pants shirts, cigarettes etc like men, but according to the author, these are just imitations rather than liberation, fulfilling ourselves that we too are capable of anything and everything like man does. In the emergence of such thoughts that perforate in us, we ladies forget to celebrate the femininity!! Only then she can flower! The first person who started talking about freedom, equality were men itself. Hence, a woman remains feminine, a man remains masculine however imitations each other does. For whoever approaches is graceful, whoever initiates is courageous.

Children belonging to the commune will learn much, will be more friendly, will be more available to all kinds of influences.  

You shout and the valley shouts; or you sing and the valleys sing. Each heart is a valley. If you pour love into it, it will respond. The first lesson of love is not to ask for love but to give love.

Aloneness has beauty and grandeur, a positivity; its the moment we find ourselves. Loneliness is poor, negative dark and dismal.

While being pregnant, a woman should always be in her purest form, as your climate is his/her climate; climate is the mood of the mother, Every human that exist has the need for sex at some point of time. Isn’t it cunning that even sex has a formula to be followed always perfectly? Man can never satisfy women in any aspect because of her orgasmic factors. Isn’t it miracle that a few people like Zarathustra, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha have escaped from social structure. from family conditioning.

The meaning of the word ‘husband’ is farmer like husbandry. Osho have said that do not do sex just to make babies, but has to be done with love and its always the art of giving the love by men and getting the consent from woman is the success of sex; success of a man; rather than duress her. Woman taking up the control, starting to control the world without just reproducing will make the world a better and beautiful place to live because she connects with people through heart and love, not through brains unlike men,

Tantra - the religion of body. The cats’s sleep is something to be learnt - man has forgotten. The calmness it enjoys; and so the peace in ourselves has to be brought back whenever possible at least. Some of us has even forgot the art of sleeping 

[laneynoir]

I want @frodo-with-glasses to teach an artistic theology class.

Ah, now here’s one I’ve been looking forward to discussing. Lord of the Rings has a strange relationship with hope. Before I began this read-through, I would have told you that hope is at the core of LotR: hope that the war will end, hope that light will triumph over darkness, hope that “there’s some good in this world, Mister Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for”. I would have told you that it’s an innately cheerful, optimistic story, though it gets dark at times.

But over this past year, as I’ve reread this book with the eyes of an adult, I’ve begun to realize it’s more complicated than that.

Lord of the Rings is not a story about hope. It’s a story about what you do without hope. It’s a story about when your spirit is utterly defeated, and your prospects are grim, and both the best and the worst possible outcomes look shockingly alike, and yet you keep walking anyway. It’s not a story of blind, naive optimism, of sitting back and dreaming about a better about-to-be. It’s a story of weighing the facts with a clear mind, of realizing that there’s no way in hell this works out well for you, and of doggedly moving your grain of sand to tip those massive scales anyway, because the only other option would be to sit back and let the world burn.

I feel like that rings truer to the human condition, really. After all, what good is it in the end to be kind and generous and courageous; what good is it to waste our short lives trying to make this awful world a better place? For every one human being trying to be a good person, there are hundreds more who are selfish, cruel, exploitative, greedy, twisted, and wicked. For every good deed done on this planet, there are hundreds more murders and abuses and horrors. One day, you will die, and at some point, everyone who knew you will be dead. There will come a day when you will be utterly forgotten. No one will remember you. No one will remember what you did. No one will remember if you made a difference, if you tried to make the world a better place. And let’s be honest; you won’t. No matter what light you managed to throw into the world while you were alive, this awful cosmos will generate enough pain and misery to overshadow it, eventually. When you’re gone, the world will be just as bad as it always was. Always has been. Always will be.

What good is it to go on loving someone when the diagnosis is terminal—when the medicine doesn’t work—when the sickness in their head has locked the person you love behind an unbreakable concrete wall? What good is it to stand for what you believe in when it’s not popular anymore—when friends and family turn their backs and reject you—when those who gave you praise and encouragement now insult you and curse you and spit on your face? What good is it to love when your heart is broken, be kind when your skin is mottled with bruises, be brave when your back is bent and your arms are weary under the weight of it all? What good is it to cast your little candle light when all the wind in the world tries to blow it out? Why be good? Why be selfless? Why sacrifice so much, when you lose so much more than you gain?

In that moment, there’s only one answer. And it’s not hope. It’s not optimism. It’s some strange defiance, some visceral fire that roars in the chest and aches in the bones.

“I will be light,” it cries. “I will defy you,” it howls. “I will push back with the last of my strength, though you crush me down,” it screams. “Because if I am not light, I am darkness, and I cannot, I will not, I refuse; let me die with my knees unbowed and my head held high; I WILL NEVER SURRENDER”

There are many instances in the book that speak to this point—Aragorn himself says something along the lines of “we must do without hope for the moment”—but to me, nothing better encapsulates this strange spirit of hopeless defiance than this moment with Sam Gamgee.

“Sam said nothing. The look on Frodo’s face was enough for him; he knew that words of his were useless. And after all he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed. Now they were come to the bitter end. But he had stuck to his master all the way; that was what he had chiefly come for, and he would still stick to him. His master would not go to Mordor alone. Sam would go with him.”

Sam would go with him. Not “we will win”. Not “I believe in us”. Just “he will go, and I will go with him, whether this ends in (improbable) victory or (more probable) a horrible, horrible death”. It’s not that Sam’s hope began to fail here; it’s that he never had much hope to begin with, but he went with it anyway, and it’s only his cheerful disposition in the face of near certain disaster that ever began to flag. Holy cow.

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but when the first two fail, love is the unkillable cockroach of all the virtues and will survive the nuclear winter of utter despair and grow wings and fly buzzing right up into your face just to spite you.

Now, of course Lord of the Rings does not simply leave us with the tragedy of a futile fight against the darkness. This story has a happy ending. And I’m glad it does, because sometimes, there are happy endings. Sometimes sicknesses are cured, families are restored, and old scars are healed and begin to fade. Sometimes loved ones emerge from the prison of their own minds and return to you—wiser, more melancholy, but still themselves—and you discover that the bond is deeper, the smiles sweeter, the laughter richer, and the love galvanized into something stronger than it ever would have been. Sometimes there are happy endings, and it’s not wrong to want them. It’s not wrong to have hope.

But Lord of the Rings lets us linger in that moment of hopeless defiance, because it offers an odd sort of comfort of a totally different kind.

“Lost all hope, did you?” it whispers. “It’s all right. So did Frodo, and Aragorn, and Gandalf, and Sam. But you see, they kept fighting anyway, with hope or without it, and that’s what made them heroes. Oh, you might still have your happy ending, someday, and it might come in ways you don’t expect. It is also equally likely that nothing will get better, and it will actually get much worse, and you shall die. But do keep fighting. Do keep walking. One foot in front of the other. If you do nothing, the worst will definitely come to pass; but if you fight, it just might not. So if we shall win, let’s not be embarrassed by our cowardice when that happy ending comes; and if we shall lose, let’s not go down without a fight.”

Perhaps, paradoxically, that’s what makes Lord of the Rings the most hopeful story of all. Because this is the story that whispers, “Remember, when all hope is gone…

“It isn’t.”

WORD ASK GAME!