Each Sunday, members of our Interfaith family lead portions of the service.  Last Sunday Rod Rodriguez shared wisdom from Rumi and Osho to highlight the topic “Letting Go.

The Tent, by Rumi

Outside, the freezing desert night.
This other night inside grows warm, kindling.
Let the landscape be covered with thorny crust.
We have a soft garden in here.

The continents blasted,
cities and little towns, everything
become a scorched, blackened ball.

The news we hear is full of grief for that future,
but the real news inside here
is there’s no news at all.

~Translation by Coleman Barks (italics added for emphasis)

On the “Watcher,” by Osho

As your watcher becomes stronger, thoughts become less —  in the same proportion. If the watcher is 10 percent of  your  energy, then 90 percent of your energy is wasted in thoughts; if your watcher becomes 90 percent, then only 10 percent remains in thoughts. The moment you are 100 percent a watcher, the mind becomes empty.

This whole process is known as meditation.

As you pass through the thoughts, you will come to the second layer which is inside you — of feelings, of your heart — which is more subtle. But by now, your watcher is capable even of watching your moods, your sentiments, your emotions, your feelings — however subtle they may be.  And the same method works in the same way as it worked with the thoughts: soon there will be no sentiments, no feelings, no moods.

You have gone beyond the mind, and the heart. Now there is utter silence;  nothing moves. This is your being; this is you.
The taste of your being is truth.

The beauty of your being is the beauty of existence.The silence of your being is the language that existence understands.

And just settled in being, you have come home:
the wandering is finished: the struggle is finished.

At ease, you sit silently within yourself.

~from Priests and Politicians: The Mafia of the Soul