Flower of Peace

There are many friends who grow old like withered trees. They do not only fail to become a shelter for themselves, they also fail to become an umbrella for the next generation. As a result, there are very few shelters that are available currently in life. 

The Dark Rooms Inside
Osho often use extreme languages. In one of his lectures, Osho told that most human beings only grow until the age of seven. The rest there is no growth. As an evident – once again according to Osho – if you hurt the heart of the person who is eighty years old, the reaction will resemble the children who are six years old.
To be honest, not all people are like that. It depends on the depth of one’s excavation inside. Anyone who do not dig inside, then they have plenty of dark rooms within. In this case, Osho is true. And the older the person, the more frightening life will be. On the contrary, when a person illuminates the dark spaces inside with the light of mindfulness, then old life can be a beautiful life.


The beauty of mindfulness, it does not illuminate the darkness inside by throwing, but by meeting the inner darkness the same as we meet a friend. For that reason, in ancient times some Tantra practitioners meditate on the grave yard or very scary places not for showing something, but to be face to face with the fear inside. Especially because we will meet the more frightening fear in the moment of death.
Lantern of Mindfulness
Any friends who often enter the dark spaces within will understand, fear, doubt, anger and the like, they are not demon, they are the integral parts of ourselves. The inner darkness is very frightening because it is like one of the rooms in the old house that was never entered, everyone are prohibited to open the windows, and since long time ago people made horrible stories about this room. As a result, from day to day the room is getting more frightening.
Through the deep practice of meditation, we enter all dark spaces within, see them as they are, and embrace all of them. Especially because they are the integral parts of ourselves. Initially, it is very frightening, but as we approach them with serenity and sincerity, there is nothing dangerous inside. It is an encountering between our usual self with the other parts of ourselves that we never meet. To put it simply, to see the more holistic view of ourselves. That is the reason why all friends are often guided in meditation classes with a simple but profound message: “accept, flow, and smile”. Everything is the dancing of the same perfection.
In the language of psychologist Sigmund Freud, these steps are called to make the unconscious conscious. Quoting from psychologist Carl G. Jung, this approach is similar to encountering the shadow that keep following us. On the path of Tantra, it is to open the layers of ourselves until we meet the part of self that never born and never dies.
Full Moon of Love
The first inner darkness which is illuminated by the lantern of mindfulness is doubt. The next one is fear. And when all of the inner darkness are illuminated, then one will smile with full of understanding. It turns out that all the doubts and fears are ropes which are mistakenly thought as snakes. Because of the inner darkness then we tend to be very frightened. Once the inner rooms are bright, then there is actually nothing to be afraid of.
A spiritual friend who has illuminated all of his inner darkness said: “Our complete and holistic self is like full moon. The dark part is doubt and fear. The bright part is love. And both of them are ourselves”. This explained why the spiritual person who arrived here then have a deep longing to share the light of love to everyone.
In the deep spiritual journey, some of the last people meet mystical experiences, some others meet religious experiences, there are few who meet the enlightenment experiences. In the mystical experience, one sees with his/her own eyes that there is something sacred in nature that is hard to explain. It gives birth to a deep feeling of devotion, a deep longing to love. This transforms a soul into a religious soul. At the peak of religiosity, one can have direct experience of enlightenment. To make it simple, it is similar to an exploding balloon. In the moment of enlightenment, there is inner explosion of intelligence. There’s no longer barrier between outside and inside, there’s no different between the knower and the knowledge, both the worshiped and the worshiper are no longer two. At this stage, life is a blooming flower of peace. As a result, old age is no longer like withered tree. Old age is like Bodhi trees whom become the peaceful shelter of many restless souls.

Author: Gede Prama.
Photo Courtesy: Twitter@Leonor188.

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