A capital 'M' Mind - Without End and Without Beginnng.
Tought it is born, Thought it dies... ( Lower m) The small mind is born and dies. The great mind continues. The small mind is only reflection; reflections are born and dies.
As a reflection you are born and you will die. If you cling too much to the reflection, you will suffer.. That's what suffering is, that what hell is. If you dont get too much attached. If you are clinging to the reflection... the body is a reflection, this mind is a reflection, this life is a reflection. If you watch it silently, you be able to see all these reflections are passing - and then you become aware of the mirror in whch this reflections are passing.
That mirror is eternity. To attain to that mirror is to know what truth is.
All The Sins Committed,
In The Three Worlds,
Wil Fade And Disappear,
Together With Myself.
The moment you know that you are not, Then all that you have done in the past, are doing in the present, or will be doing in the future, has also disappeared. When the door disappears, the doings disappeared.
In the East, people have been too much concerned with karmas, actions. They have been very much afraid because whatever bad thing they have done in the past, they have to pay for them, they have to suffer for them.
Dont be afraid - because you arenot. so you ahve not done anyting. How can yu do it? because in the first place you are not. with i all disappears.
So the only things is to go deep into yourself and to see the nothingness. You need not do good things to weigh against the bad things that you have done. You are not to go and dogood deeds - because whether you you do bad or good, you remain in the illusion or a doer. See the difference.
Ordinary religions teach you to be moral, do goods, avoid sins. Remember those Ten Commandents - they consist of the ordinary religion; Dont do this, do that. The extraordinary religion say: Disappear as a doer - don't be bothered about doing good or bad. And who knows what is good and what is bad?
In fact, nothing is good and nothing is bad, because existence is one - How can there be two? it is ll one. Good turns into bad, bad turns into good; one never knows what is what. Things are changing continuously into each other. You can watch.
You were doing something good, and something bad turns out. A mother tries to protect her child from all the bad things of the world, and just just because she is protecting she is forcing her to go into them - because she is creating the temptation.
Remember the old story; God said to Adam not to eat from this tree - he create the temptation. He must have been a good father, he destroyed the child. Just by saying , "Don't eat from the tree of knowledge," he created the temptation and the desire, the irresistible desire, to eat from that tree.
Now, he want to do good, but what happened? The original sin happened.
All people who go on doing good prove to be very mischievous th do-gooders are the most mischievous people in the world. The world has suffered a lot from them. Their intention is good, but their understanding is nil. And just a good intention is not going to do anything.
Those who understand, they say it is not a question of good or bad: it is a question of the disappearance of the doer. Or we can say it in this way: To remain as a doer is bad; to disappear as a doer is good. Not to be is virtue; to be is a sin.
This is Buddha understanding. All our doings are just dreams. When one becomes awakened, one simply starts laughing : all the bad , all the goods, have been just dreaming.
Story:
Once upon a time there lived a working man who detested coffee. His wife did not know this, however. He had never told her. She loved coffee very much and took great delight in packing a thermos of the stuffs in his lunch box every morning.
He always carried the thermos and the box to work, but being a frugal man brought them home again in the evening, the thermos of coffee still untouched. Then, to save a penny, and because his wife loved coffee as much as he detested it, he poured the java back into the coffee pot when she wasn't looking. He was excused the evening coffee on the grounds that it kept him from sleeping well.
One night the wife dreamt that her husband was unfaithful to her. The next night she had the same dream. It angered her , but she said nothing. A week or so, the dream happened a third time, causing her much jeolousy and anquish.
"It is true," she thought. "It must be true. The worm is unfaithful to me!" So she set out to avenge herself. This she did by putting a pinch or arsenic in his thermos every morning until she killed herself.
At the husband trial of acquital, the judge said, "It is always the same: those who believe the dream murder themselves."
The gretest dream is that "I am" - and that has become our suicide. Now it ill look very paradoxical. The idea that "I am" has prove very suicidal. And if you disappear as a self, if you commit that spiritual suicide, for the first time you will start living. For the first time you will be born to eternal life. For the first time you will know something which is not of time.
And then, there is nothing good, nothing bad. Then a man eats when he is hungry, sleeps when he is tired, answers when a question is raised. Then a person has no idea how to live - then a person lives without mind. Then a person lives with nothingness in him, and this is the goal of Buddhism. To live as nothingness is nirvana.
Next chapter - Question 1
You said yesterday that science and religion are diametrically opposite. In the west there are many schools teaching scientific mysticism, and the path to tantra and yoga are also very systemetic. Your literature is also deeply and artistically rational. There seems to exist a bridge between the rational science and the irrational religion.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Nothing - Chapter 5
Mind in its own purity is just a mirror, an empty mirror. It conatains nothing. It is a mirror because it is empty, because only emptiness call mirror. If something is contain already, then your reflection will not be the true reflection. When the mirror is absolutely empty, it is the most perfect mirror.
In meditation, the minds become more and more mirrorlike. Slowly, slowly all the dust of the thoughts disappears, all the clouds od desire disappear... and then there is nothing left, no-self, nothingness, MU. Mind in its purity is just a mirror, undisturb by passion and unclouded by thought. Everything appear As It Is.
Bodhidarma - Answered when questioned, ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired. The true life of sage. Nothing in the mind: Nirvana.
The enlightened person has no ready made answer. He has no thought ready to throw into your heads. He responds. His utterances are his responses. He is a mirror. The disciple comes infront of the master and he responds; He responds to the needs of his disciple. He has no fixed idea. He is not concern with dishing something out and giving it out to everybody. He simply waits there like a mirror. You come and you see your face.
Hence tyhe contradiction of a master. A teacher is consistent, a master is bound to be contradictory, inconsistent. A mirror has to be inconsistent: one moment it is mirroring a cat, another moment it is mirroring a man; another moment it is mirroring a tears, another moment laughter. How can a mirror be consistent. You cannot tell the mirror: "Be consistent! Yesterday I saw tears in you, today I'm seeing laughter. Yesterday I looked in youand you were sad, and today you look very happy.Yesterday I saw you in deep meditation; today I see you were singing and dancing. This is inconsistent!"
Only a photograph can be consistent, not a mirror. The photograph is a photograph. If there are tears, they will remain there forever. The photograph is dead; it does not respond. If a monkey comes, the photograph will go on showing it's tears. If a sage comes, the same. But remember, with a master it is different. If you are a monkey, then the maaster will show your face; then his answer will be in response to your being. He responds. He does not reply, he respond.
That's why it happen when 2 great indian masters met and sat together for 2 days continuously - not a single word was exchanged. Two mirrors reflecting each other, what can they reflect? Just put 2 mirrors infront of each other: one mirror will mirror the other mirror and so on and so forth... mirror and mirror and mirror but nothing will be mirrored. there is nothing.
Two silences sast together,(masters) looked into each other. There was no question, hence there was no answer. There was nobody. hence there was no responce.
Yes, that is the mind of a master - he has nothing in his mind. To have something in his mind is to remain unenlightened. To have nothing in mind is to become enlightened. Even if you haveenlightenment in your mind, then you are not yet enlightened. To have nothing in the mind is to be enlightened. Remember it.
If you have the idea that you have become enlightened, then you are not yet enlightened. Even this ideais enough to keep you move to the road which leak and also the world of desires.
Just the other day, somebody wrote me a letter. He thinks he has become enlightened, so he wants to come and shake hands with me. shaking hands is perfectly good, but the very idea that you have become enlightened will keep you unenlightened. Wait, when you are ready, I will shake hand s with you. You just wait, have a little patience. Let all ideas disappear, even the idea of enlightened.
The day you come like a mirror, I will shake my being with your being - Why hands? Hands won't do.
Ordinarily, we are walking bundles of solutions to problems that do not exist. Everybody is so. You are carrying thousands of solutions for problems which are no more existent - and you call it knowledge. It is hindering your capacity to know . It is not knowledge.
Drop all the solutions that you are carrying. Drops all the answers that you are carrying. Just remain silent. And whenever a question arise out of that silence you will hear the answer - and thatwill be the answer. It will not come from you, it will not come from scriptures, it will not come from anywhere - it will come from nowhere and it will come from nobody. It will come from your inner most nothingness.
Other religions call that nothingness 'God'. Buddha often emphasizes the word nothingness - and significantly so, meaningfully so. Because once you use the word 'God', people start getting attached to it. Then they have some idea; they ask what God looks like. You cannot ask what nothingness looks like - or can you? Once you have the word GOD, You start asking: How to make the image? How to create a temple? How to pray? What name to give Him? And there are many names and many images... and then the fight ensues.
That's why emphasizes the word nothingness so much - because it is really beautiful. It does not allows any games to be played with it. It does not allow itself to be corrupted by you. But if you understand rightly, nothingness means God, God means nothingness.
Our Mind, Without End,
Without beginning,
Thought it is born, Thought it dies,
The Essence of Emptiness.
Mind has to be understood in 2 ways. One with a capital 'M'. That is the Universal mind, the Mind of the whole - the whole itself, the consciousness that pervades existence. It is a conscious existence. It is alive, alive to the very core. Everything is alive. You may know it, you may not know it. It may not be tangible to you, it may not be visible to you, but everything is alive. Only life exist.
And death is a myth. Death is an illusion. So is unconsciousness. Even the rock is not unconscious - it is consciousin it's own way. It may not be available to us, it may not be possible for us to know whether it is conscious or not, because there are millions of ways of being conscious; man's way is not the only way. Trees are conscious in their own way, and birds in their own, and animals and the rocks.
Consciousness can be expressed is as many ways as possible. This universe has infinities of every expression.
Mind with a capital 'M' is a cosmic mind - that has to be attained. That's what Buddha call 'nothing', that's what he call mirrorlike emptiness.
Then there is another mind that we go on talking about with a lower case 'm', the small mind. Then my mind is different, your mind is different; man's mind is different from the trees minds, and the trees minds are different from the rocks' minds. Then there are differences. And each mind has it's own limitation; it is tiny.
One has to disappear from the tiny to the infinite. The lower case 'm' has to be dissolved into the capital 'M'. The lowercase 'm', the small mind, is part of the time, and the capital 'M', the cosmic mind, is eternity. The lowercase 'm' is also part of the capital 'M'. Eternity penetrates into time - just as the moon is reflected in the lake; not really there but reflected.
In meditation, the minds become more and more mirrorlike. Slowly, slowly all the dust of the thoughts disappears, all the clouds od desire disappear... and then there is nothing left, no-self, nothingness, MU. Mind in its purity is just a mirror, undisturb by passion and unclouded by thought. Everything appear As It Is.
Bodhidarma - Answered when questioned, ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired. The true life of sage. Nothing in the mind: Nirvana.
The enlightened person has no ready made answer. He has no thought ready to throw into your heads. He responds. His utterances are his responses. He is a mirror. The disciple comes infront of the master and he responds; He responds to the needs of his disciple. He has no fixed idea. He is not concern with dishing something out and giving it out to everybody. He simply waits there like a mirror. You come and you see your face.
Hence tyhe contradiction of a master. A teacher is consistent, a master is bound to be contradictory, inconsistent. A mirror has to be inconsistent: one moment it is mirroring a cat, another moment it is mirroring a man; another moment it is mirroring a tears, another moment laughter. How can a mirror be consistent. You cannot tell the mirror: "Be consistent! Yesterday I saw tears in you, today I'm seeing laughter. Yesterday I looked in youand you were sad, and today you look very happy.Yesterday I saw you in deep meditation; today I see you were singing and dancing. This is inconsistent!"
Only a photograph can be consistent, not a mirror. The photograph is a photograph. If there are tears, they will remain there forever. The photograph is dead; it does not respond. If a monkey comes, the photograph will go on showing it's tears. If a sage comes, the same. But remember, with a master it is different. If you are a monkey, then the maaster will show your face; then his answer will be in response to your being. He responds. He does not reply, he respond.
That's why it happen when 2 great indian masters met and sat together for 2 days continuously - not a single word was exchanged. Two mirrors reflecting each other, what can they reflect? Just put 2 mirrors infront of each other: one mirror will mirror the other mirror and so on and so forth... mirror and mirror and mirror but nothing will be mirrored. there is nothing.
Two silences sast together,(masters) looked into each other. There was no question, hence there was no answer. There was nobody. hence there was no responce.
Yes, that is the mind of a master - he has nothing in his mind. To have something in his mind is to remain unenlightened. To have nothing in mind is to become enlightened. Even if you haveenlightenment in your mind, then you are not yet enlightened. To have nothing in the mind is to be enlightened. Remember it.
If you have the idea that you have become enlightened, then you are not yet enlightened. Even this ideais enough to keep you move to the road which leak and also the world of desires.
Just the other day, somebody wrote me a letter. He thinks he has become enlightened, so he wants to come and shake hands with me. shaking hands is perfectly good, but the very idea that you have become enlightened will keep you unenlightened. Wait, when you are ready, I will shake hand s with you. You just wait, have a little patience. Let all ideas disappear, even the idea of enlightened.
The day you come like a mirror, I will shake my being with your being - Why hands? Hands won't do.
Ordinarily, we are walking bundles of solutions to problems that do not exist. Everybody is so. You are carrying thousands of solutions for problems which are no more existent - and you call it knowledge. It is hindering your capacity to know . It is not knowledge.
Drop all the solutions that you are carrying. Drops all the answers that you are carrying. Just remain silent. And whenever a question arise out of that silence you will hear the answer - and thatwill be the answer. It will not come from you, it will not come from scriptures, it will not come from anywhere - it will come from nowhere and it will come from nobody. It will come from your inner most nothingness.
Other religions call that nothingness 'God'. Buddha often emphasizes the word nothingness - and significantly so, meaningfully so. Because once you use the word 'God', people start getting attached to it. Then they have some idea; they ask what God looks like. You cannot ask what nothingness looks like - or can you? Once you have the word GOD, You start asking: How to make the image? How to create a temple? How to pray? What name to give Him? And there are many names and many images... and then the fight ensues.
That's why emphasizes the word nothingness so much - because it is really beautiful. It does not allows any games to be played with it. It does not allow itself to be corrupted by you. But if you understand rightly, nothingness means God, God means nothingness.
Our Mind, Without End,
Without beginning,
Thought it is born, Thought it dies,
The Essence of Emptiness.
Mind has to be understood in 2 ways. One with a capital 'M'. That is the Universal mind, the Mind of the whole - the whole itself, the consciousness that pervades existence. It is a conscious existence. It is alive, alive to the very core. Everything is alive. You may know it, you may not know it. It may not be tangible to you, it may not be visible to you, but everything is alive. Only life exist.
And death is a myth. Death is an illusion. So is unconsciousness. Even the rock is not unconscious - it is consciousin it's own way. It may not be available to us, it may not be possible for us to know whether it is conscious or not, because there are millions of ways of being conscious; man's way is not the only way. Trees are conscious in their own way, and birds in their own, and animals and the rocks.
Consciousness can be expressed is as many ways as possible. This universe has infinities of every expression.
Mind with a capital 'M' is a cosmic mind - that has to be attained. That's what Buddha call 'nothing', that's what he call mirrorlike emptiness.
Then there is another mind that we go on talking about with a lower case 'm', the small mind. Then my mind is different, your mind is different; man's mind is different from the trees minds, and the trees minds are different from the rocks' minds. Then there are differences. And each mind has it's own limitation; it is tiny.
One has to disappear from the tiny to the infinite. The lower case 'm' has to be dissolved into the capital 'M'. The lowercase 'm', the small mind, is part of the time, and the capital 'M', the cosmic mind, is eternity. The lowercase 'm' is also part of the capital 'M'. Eternity penetrates into time - just as the moon is reflected in the lake; not really there but reflected.
Our small minds are only reflections of the great mind. When the moon rises, the full moon. millions of lakes on the earth will reflect it, and the seas and the rivers and the ponds. wherever there is some waters it will be reflected. But the moon is one and reflections are millions... so are our small minds. The mind is one - you can call it the Buddha Mind. you can call it the mind of the whole. the cosmic Mind, or the Mind called GOD. These are just different names for the same reality.
This small mind has a beginning and an end. That great Mindhas no beginning and no end.
Next Chapter 6
Nothing Chapter 4
This is one of the most foundamental meditations. If it can settle in you That "I'm not" then suddenly the whole world disappear. To know that I'm not is to know that there is no need to do anything. To be anything, to possess anything, to attain anything. When there is no self, ambition is irrelevant. If there is self, Then ambition is relevant.
Most of us have fallen into the trap. The trap is they try not to desire the thing in THIS world, but then they start desiring things of the other world. But it is the same - Desire is the same. It does not matter what you desire. It makes no difference at all what the object of your desire is - desire is the same.
You desire money or you desire meditation: desire is the same. Only the object has changed. And the object is not the problem - the problem is the desire itself, desiring itself. Somebody desires long life here, a beautiful body here, success, fame; somebody else desire eternal life with God in Paradise - what is the difference? The only difference seems to be this; that the first man is not so greedy as the second one. The second is more greedy.
That's why your so called spiritual people are very greedy people. It is not just an accident that india is very greedy. That spirituality creates new greeds. In fact the so called mahatmas go on teaching people; "Don't desire things of this world because they are momentary. Desire things of the other worlds because they are eternal." And this they called Renunciation? Is this renunciation? this is getting more desirious. This is asking for eternal gratification.
The worldly people are simple people. They are satisfied with momentary desires. And the other worldly seems to be absolutely greedy. They are not satisfy with this world; they need another world where eternal pleasure exist, where beauty never fades, where life is always young, where one lives and never become old.
This is greed! This is pure greed! transplanted into another world. This is more greed than the first. Avoid this so called spiritual materialism; it is utterly materialistic. It does not change your life. It can't change it. It simply nourishes your old mind. It poison you even more.
Buddha says the basic meditation is to see that " I'm not and I will not be. so how can I be in the middle of two nothingness? If I was not before and I will not be again after death, then how can I be right now?" One cannot exist between two nothingess. Then this too must be a nothingness - we have not rightly seen it.
Before birth we were non-existent, no-self, and we shall be so after death again. Therefore we are in this condition at the present moment. without a thing in the world we can call our own - not even our ownselves. This goes to the deepest core of the problem.
Don't dispossess things - dispossess yourself, and things are automatically dispossessed. If I'm not, then how can I possess a woman, or man? If I am not, how can I possess a child? If I am not, then how is possession possible? there is nobody to possess. Do you see the difference.
Other religion have said: Renounce possession! Buddha says: Renounce the possessor. Certaintly, it goes infinitely deeper. You can renounce the possessions, but the possessor remains, and with the possessor the blueprint to possess again - the possessor will bring his possessiveness by the back door.
You can see it happening: A man renounce his worldly life, moves to the mountain, a cave, but then he possesses that cave. And if somebody else comes and start living in the cave, he will throw him out. He will say, "Get out! This is my cave." And this man has renounce his house, wife, his childrens. Now the same possessiveness has entered in a new form.
It does not matter what you possess, but if you possess then you remain on this leaky road.
Dispossessing things doesn't mean escaping things. Things are there, they will be everywhere. In the mountain or cave also things will be there - the mountains, the trees - and you can start possessing them. If you sit under a certain tress, you start possessing it. This is your tree; and no other religious man can come and meditate there: he has to find his own tree. Or you start possessing Temples, the Mosques, the Churches. Or you start possessing philosophies - Hindus, Christian, Etc. Or you start possessing scriptures - the Koran, the Gita, the Bible etc. Or you start possessing the concept of GOD: " This is my concept of GOD". Your is wrong and my concept is right."
Buddhas cut the root. He says there is nobody to possess. Just see the beauty of it and the tremendous import of it. He simple cut the roots. He does not cut the branches and the leaves; Don't drop the possession, drop the possessor. Then you can live in the world and there is no problem. Just live in the world and don't possess because there is nobody to possess.
That's why i dont say to my cultivators to renounce the world. I say renounce the EGO and live in the world. The world cannot do you any harm. All the harms that happens through the EGO. That's why buddha calls "SELF"; his word for 'EGO': The SELF.
Buddha works for 6 years continuously in search of the SELF. You have heard the famous teaching of all ages. Know thyself! Buddha work hard. For 6 years he tried from every nook amd corner, from every angle, from every possible side, to penetrate into this reality of the self. But he could not find it. Know Thyself, and you will know there is no self.
That day you ahve known - when you know that there is no self. There is utter emptiness inside, absolutely emptiness, silence undisturbed, virgin silence. There has never been anybody. It is just a Dream.
In the nightyou dream and you think you have become an emperor. And in the morning you find yourself in the same old bed, and you are not the emperor. But the mind can imagine; the mind is a great imaginative force. The self is mind imagination. It does not exist in reality.
Those who has penetrate deep into their own being have come to know utter silence. Nobody has been found there. And that is the greatest realization.: to find nobody there... then all problems disappear., because the problem creator has disappear.
Nothing means NO THING AT ALL.
A man came to a Master and asked, " Does a DOG have Buddha nature?"
You cannot asked this sort of question elsewhere or you will make other master enrage. But in Buddhism you can ask; there is no problem about it.
And the master answer is very strange and very puzzling, and down the centuries people have been contemplatingit; it has become a cone to meditate over.
The master said. "MU" means nothing. Now the problem is: what does he means by saying MU? It can also mean no; it can mean nothing.Is he saying that the Dog have not the same nature as Buddha? That is not possible from a Zen Master. Then What does he mean by MU? He does not mean no - he means nothing. He is saying : Buddha is nothing, so is dog. He is saying yes by saying no.
He is saying: yes, the dog has the same nature as Buddha, But Buddha is nothing! so is a dog.
There is no self, either in Buddha or Dog. There nobody there inside! Buddha is emptyand so is the dog. Onlt the forms are different, dreams are different. The dog is dreaming it is a dog - that's all. You are draming you are a man, somebody dreaming he is a tree. but inside there is nobody - puire consciousness.
This silence is samadhi. When you start having glimpse of this silence, your life start changing. Then you live for the first time in a poetic way. Then death create no fear in you. Then nothing can disturb you or distract you.
The master's reply, MU, really means yes. But he didn't say yes for a certain reason - becausethe yes will be misunderstood. Then the man would have thought that the dog also have the same self as the Buddha - That's why he didn't use the word 'yes'. He said no. But he does not mean that the dog has not the same nature. He means both have nothingness inside. The form differ.
For a Bhuddhist, and particular the ZEN Bhuddhist, there is nothing profane and nothing sacred.
Next Chapter 5
Most of us have fallen into the trap. The trap is they try not to desire the thing in THIS world, but then they start desiring things of the other world. But it is the same - Desire is the same. It does not matter what you desire. It makes no difference at all what the object of your desire is - desire is the same.
You desire money or you desire meditation: desire is the same. Only the object has changed. And the object is not the problem - the problem is the desire itself, desiring itself. Somebody desires long life here, a beautiful body here, success, fame; somebody else desire eternal life with God in Paradise - what is the difference? The only difference seems to be this; that the first man is not so greedy as the second one. The second is more greedy.
That's why your so called spiritual people are very greedy people. It is not just an accident that india is very greedy. That spirituality creates new greeds. In fact the so called mahatmas go on teaching people; "Don't desire things of this world because they are momentary. Desire things of the other worlds because they are eternal." And this they called Renunciation? Is this renunciation? this is getting more desirious. This is asking for eternal gratification.
The worldly people are simple people. They are satisfied with momentary desires. And the other worldly seems to be absolutely greedy. They are not satisfy with this world; they need another world where eternal pleasure exist, where beauty never fades, where life is always young, where one lives and never become old.
This is greed! This is pure greed! transplanted into another world. This is more greed than the first. Avoid this so called spiritual materialism; it is utterly materialistic. It does not change your life. It can't change it. It simply nourishes your old mind. It poison you even more.
Buddha says the basic meditation is to see that " I'm not and I will not be. so how can I be in the middle of two nothingness? If I was not before and I will not be again after death, then how can I be right now?" One cannot exist between two nothingess. Then this too must be a nothingness - we have not rightly seen it.
Before birth we were non-existent, no-self, and we shall be so after death again. Therefore we are in this condition at the present moment. without a thing in the world we can call our own - not even our ownselves. This goes to the deepest core of the problem.
Don't dispossess things - dispossess yourself, and things are automatically dispossessed. If I'm not, then how can I possess a woman, or man? If I am not, how can I possess a child? If I am not, then how is possession possible? there is nobody to possess. Do you see the difference.
Other religion have said: Renounce possession! Buddha says: Renounce the possessor. Certaintly, it goes infinitely deeper. You can renounce the possessions, but the possessor remains, and with the possessor the blueprint to possess again - the possessor will bring his possessiveness by the back door.
You can see it happening: A man renounce his worldly life, moves to the mountain, a cave, but then he possesses that cave. And if somebody else comes and start living in the cave, he will throw him out. He will say, "Get out! This is my cave." And this man has renounce his house, wife, his childrens. Now the same possessiveness has entered in a new form.
It does not matter what you possess, but if you possess then you remain on this leaky road.
Dispossessing things doesn't mean escaping things. Things are there, they will be everywhere. In the mountain or cave also things will be there - the mountains, the trees - and you can start possessing them. If you sit under a certain tress, you start possessing it. This is your tree; and no other religious man can come and meditate there: he has to find his own tree. Or you start possessing Temples, the Mosques, the Churches. Or you start possessing philosophies - Hindus, Christian, Etc. Or you start possessing scriptures - the Koran, the Gita, the Bible etc. Or you start possessing the concept of GOD: " This is my concept of GOD". Your is wrong and my concept is right."
Buddhas cut the root. He says there is nobody to possess. Just see the beauty of it and the tremendous import of it. He simple cut the roots. He does not cut the branches and the leaves; Don't drop the possession, drop the possessor. Then you can live in the world and there is no problem. Just live in the world and don't possess because there is nobody to possess.
That's why i dont say to my cultivators to renounce the world. I say renounce the EGO and live in the world. The world cannot do you any harm. All the harms that happens through the EGO. That's why buddha calls "SELF"; his word for 'EGO': The SELF.
Buddha works for 6 years continuously in search of the SELF. You have heard the famous teaching of all ages. Know thyself! Buddha work hard. For 6 years he tried from every nook amd corner, from every angle, from every possible side, to penetrate into this reality of the self. But he could not find it. Know Thyself, and you will know there is no self.
That day you ahve known - when you know that there is no self. There is utter emptiness inside, absolutely emptiness, silence undisturbed, virgin silence. There has never been anybody. It is just a Dream.
In the nightyou dream and you think you have become an emperor. And in the morning you find yourself in the same old bed, and you are not the emperor. But the mind can imagine; the mind is a great imaginative force. The self is mind imagination. It does not exist in reality.
Those who has penetrate deep into their own being have come to know utter silence. Nobody has been found there. And that is the greatest realization.: to find nobody there... then all problems disappear., because the problem creator has disappear.
Nothing means NO THING AT ALL.
A man came to a Master and asked, " Does a DOG have Buddha nature?"
You cannot asked this sort of question elsewhere or you will make other master enrage. But in Buddhism you can ask; there is no problem about it.
And the master answer is very strange and very puzzling, and down the centuries people have been contemplatingit; it has become a cone to meditate over.
The master said. "MU" means nothing. Now the problem is: what does he means by saying MU? It can also mean no; it can mean nothing.Is he saying that the Dog have not the same nature as Buddha? That is not possible from a Zen Master. Then What does he mean by MU? He does not mean no - he means nothing. He is saying : Buddha is nothing, so is dog. He is saying yes by saying no.
He is saying: yes, the dog has the same nature as Buddha, But Buddha is nothing! so is a dog.
There is no self, either in Buddha or Dog. There nobody there inside! Buddha is emptyand so is the dog. Onlt the forms are different, dreams are different. The dog is dreaming it is a dog - that's all. You are draming you are a man, somebody dreaming he is a tree. but inside there is nobody - puire consciousness.
This silence is samadhi. When you start having glimpse of this silence, your life start changing. Then you live for the first time in a poetic way. Then death create no fear in you. Then nothing can disturb you or distract you.
The master's reply, MU, really means yes. But he didn't say yes for a certain reason - becausethe yes will be misunderstood. Then the man would have thought that the dog also have the same self as the Buddha - That's why he didn't use the word 'yes'. He said no. But he does not mean that the dog has not the same nature. He means both have nothingness inside. The form differ.
For a Bhuddhist, and particular the ZEN Bhuddhist, there is nothing profane and nothing sacred.
Next Chapter 5
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Nothing - Chapter 3
The Christian word 'conversion' means exactly that: turning back. Conversion does not mean a Hindu becoming a Christian, or a Mohammedan becoming a Christian. Conversion means Adam becoming Christ. It has nothing to do with Christianity; it has something to do with Christhood. itself. Bt becoming a Christian you dont become converted, nothing changes. You were a Hindu and you were rushing into the world of desires, then you become a Christian and you go on rushing into the same world -just the label on you changes. Now you are no more call Hindu, you are called a Christian. Or you can be a Christian and get converted to being Hindu - that is not convertion either.
Conversion means a hundred and eighty degree turn - Adam turning back, the way back.
Buddhist have an even more beautiful word for it. It is called PARAVRITTI - that exactly means about-turn and exactly one hundred eighty degrees. Less that that won't do. If you miss even by a single degree, you will still be rushing into the desires world.
And 'the rest' means our short human life, so short that rain or wind , grief or passion, are of little moment or meaning.
Our human life is so momentary. there is no point in getting disturbed about it. Somebody has insulted you and you make so much fuss - and it is so momentary! It is not going to stay. All is going to be lost. Or somebody has succeeded and goes mad. Or somebody has accumulated much wealth and cannot walk on the earth, starts flying.
In ancient Rome, there was a tradition, a beatiful tradition. It should be followed in every country. Whenever a Roman conquerorwould come back - he had conquerored a new countries, had been a great soldier, was coming with great success and victory - the massess, the crowds, the mob, would shout in joy. He was greeted like a God. The tradition was that a servant used to walk justbehind him and continuously remind him: Don't be deceived by the people. Don't be deceived, sir, by the people! Don't be deceived by the fools, otherwise you go mad." A servant, a slave , had to repeat it continuously just at the back of the conquerorso that he would remember. Otherwise it is very easy: when success comes one goes mad.
This should be followed in every country. A person should follow Jimmy Carter, just reminding them that "Don't be deceived by the success. It is momentary; it is just a bubble, a soap bubble. Don't let it get to your head."
Success get into your head - and so does failure. It hurts. And all is momentary. This Rest is momentary. Just think of the infinities... before your birth there was infinity, beginningless time preceed you; and after your death endless time is going to succeed you. And between these two infinities, what are you? what is your life? A soap bubble , just a moment's dream.
Don't allow it to affect you. If one can keep aware, and is not affected by success and failure, praise and insult, enemies and friends, then one is moving back to the original source. One becomes a witness.
You don't get disturbed about it. Ponder over it, contemplate over it - it is a great secret, one of the great secret of Buddhas. Just to be alert that all is trivial, momentary, midsummer dream. It is going, it is already going. You cannot hold onto it. There is no need to cling to it, there is no need to push it. It is going of it's own accord, good or bad, whatsoever it is, it is going. All is going. The river is flowing. You remain undisturbed, detached, just a witness. This is meditation.
A rest on the way back,
From the Leaky road,
To the never leaky road,
If it rains, let it rain,
If it blows, let it blows.
Myself of long ago,
In nature Non-exixtent,
Nowhere to go when dead,
Nothing at all.
Again, Try to understand each word: Myself of long ago....... Before birth we were non-existent, and so we will be again after death. No self was there, and no self is going to be there after death.
Buddha insist very much on this vision of no-self, because all our desires hang around the concept of the self. I am. If I am, then a thoussand adn one desires will arise. If I am NOT, then how can desires arise out of nothingness?
This is one of the greatest contributions of Buddhas to the world. As far as the idea of no-self is concerned, he has surpassed asll other masters. He has surpassed all.
Next Chapter 4
Conversion means a hundred and eighty degree turn - Adam turning back, the way back.
Buddhist have an even more beautiful word for it. It is called PARAVRITTI - that exactly means about-turn and exactly one hundred eighty degrees. Less that that won't do. If you miss even by a single degree, you will still be rushing into the desires world.
And 'the rest' means our short human life, so short that rain or wind , grief or passion, are of little moment or meaning.
Our human life is so momentary. there is no point in getting disturbed about it. Somebody has insulted you and you make so much fuss - and it is so momentary! It is not going to stay. All is going to be lost. Or somebody has succeeded and goes mad. Or somebody has accumulated much wealth and cannot walk on the earth, starts flying.
In ancient Rome, there was a tradition, a beatiful tradition. It should be followed in every country. Whenever a Roman conquerorwould come back - he had conquerored a new countries, had been a great soldier, was coming with great success and victory - the massess, the crowds, the mob, would shout in joy. He was greeted like a God. The tradition was that a servant used to walk justbehind him and continuously remind him: Don't be deceived by the people. Don't be deceived, sir, by the people! Don't be deceived by the fools, otherwise you go mad." A servant, a slave , had to repeat it continuously just at the back of the conquerorso that he would remember. Otherwise it is very easy: when success comes one goes mad.
This should be followed in every country. A person should follow Jimmy Carter, just reminding them that "Don't be deceived by the success. It is momentary; it is just a bubble, a soap bubble. Don't let it get to your head."
Success get into your head - and so does failure. It hurts. And all is momentary. This Rest is momentary. Just think of the infinities... before your birth there was infinity, beginningless time preceed you; and after your death endless time is going to succeed you. And between these two infinities, what are you? what is your life? A soap bubble , just a moment's dream.
Don't allow it to affect you. If one can keep aware, and is not affected by success and failure, praise and insult, enemies and friends, then one is moving back to the original source. One becomes a witness.
You don't get disturbed about it. Ponder over it, contemplate over it - it is a great secret, one of the great secret of Buddhas. Just to be alert that all is trivial, momentary, midsummer dream. It is going, it is already going. You cannot hold onto it. There is no need to cling to it, there is no need to push it. It is going of it's own accord, good or bad, whatsoever it is, it is going. All is going. The river is flowing. You remain undisturbed, detached, just a witness. This is meditation.
A rest on the way back,
From the Leaky road,
To the never leaky road,
If it rains, let it rain,
If it blows, let it blows.
Myself of long ago,
In nature Non-exixtent,
Nowhere to go when dead,
Nothing at all.
Again, Try to understand each word: Myself of long ago....... Before birth we were non-existent, and so we will be again after death. No self was there, and no self is going to be there after death.
Buddha insist very much on this vision of no-self, because all our desires hang around the concept of the self. I am. If I am, then a thoussand adn one desires will arise. If I am NOT, then how can desires arise out of nothingness?
This is one of the greatest contributions of Buddhas to the world. As far as the idea of no-self is concerned, he has surpassed asll other masters. He has surpassed all.
Next Chapter 4
Nothing - Chapter 2
Don't try to understand them intelectually. rather play with them with deep love, sympathy, rapport. And, slowly, like a fragrance, like a melody, something will arise in you and you will be able to seewhat this amn want to convey. He wants to convey that which cannot be conveyed; he wants to say that which cannot be said. And he has been able to convey it.
Zen Master are strange masters. A religious person is bound to become strange, because he lives in a totally different way. He lives in a seperate reality. He starts existing here as an outsider.He becomes a stranger to this ordinary world, because he is here and yet not of it. He live here, but untouched, uncontaminated, unpolluted by it. He lives here, and lives in such a way that he is untouchable. He does not escape from the world. He lives in the ordinary world in an extraordinary way.
A story about a zen master named Ikkyu.
One summer day while working, perhaps weeding, Ikkyu got so tired, being hot, came up to the templeporch and aired himself in the cool breeze. He felt so fine that he went into the temple and took the buddha from the shrine and binding him to a pole outside and said, " Now, you too cool yourself!"
Looks absurd, binding a wooden buddha to a pole and saying to Buddha, "Now you too cool yourself" But look .... something deep is there. For Ikkyu, nothing is dead anymore, not even the wooden Buddha. All is alive. And he has started feeling for everything as he feels himself. Those boundaries of l and You are no longer relevant. He had come to being one.
And another opposite of the story,
One night, a very cold winter night, he was staying in a temple. And then suddenly, in the middle of the night, the priest of the templeheard noice and saw light, so he came running: "What is happening?"
He saw Ikkyu sitting there - he was burning a wooden Buddha. The preist was aghast. He said, " Are you mad or something? What have you done? This is sacrilege. There can be no other sin greater than this. You have burnt my Buddha!"
And Ikkyu took a small stick and start poking into the ashes. And the priest said,"Now what are you doing, what are you trying to do?"
And Ikkyu said, " I'm trying to find the bones of the Buddha."
And the priest said," You must be absolutely mad - how can you find the bones in a wooden Buddha?"
And Ikkyu laughed and he said, The night is long and very cold, and you have so many wooden Buddha - why dont you bring a few more ? And you can also warm yourself up."
Now this man is a strange man. One time he binds the Buddha on a hot summer day to a pole and say, "Now you cool yourself". Another time he burns a wooden Buddha because the night is too cold. And he says to the priest, " Look at me - the Buddha inside me is shivering." In fact, both the stories are the same, from two different angles the same.
A man of realization, a man who has understood, makes no differences. Distinctions are lost, divisions disappear. All boundaries become meaningless. A man of realizationstarts living in the unbounded, in the infinite.
Each words has to be penetrated with sympathy. The leaky road means this world, the world of desires. Through desires we are leaking our energy. Through desires we are wasting our being. through desires we are disappearing down the drain.
This world is a leaky road. Man simply waste himself here. Nothing is gain out of it, never . In fact, you come as emperor and you die as beggars. Each child is born as an emperor and soon the kingdom is lost, the purity, the innocence is lost. Each child is Adam in the Garden Of Eden, and each child has to be expelled from the Garden. And he starts moving to the world of desires.
Ten thousands of desires are there. They cannot be finished, they cannot be fulfilled. They bring only frustration and more frustration. Each desire is a new trap of frustration. You hope again and you are trapped, and each desire only bring greater frustration. But by the time it comes, you start desiring again. You move from one desire to another desire. You can go on moving for millions of lives. In fact, that's how we have been moving.
In Zen, this is the most foundamental meditation: to search for the face that you had before you were born, or, to search for the face after you are dead. Just to think about it brings great realizations. Just to meditate upon it constantly - and one starts feeling somethingfaceless. That is your original face: facelessness. You had no face before you were born, you had no body, no mind, no name, no form - You were, but you were not identified with anything.
To realize it again, amidst all this noise of the Leaky Road, admist all these people who are just running after desires, chasing one desire and then another and then another; to recognize and to realize the original face when you were neither a body nor a mind, but only a pure consciousness, a witness, is the goal of all meditations. If you can remain in that state, your life energies will not leak.
And the way back is to return to the source, to that original face. All religions are the way back. Religion means a hundred and eighty degree turn, an about-turn, an absolute about-turn. We are rushing away from the original source, we are rushing from ourselves. We have to return back. We have to come to our original source - because only there is peace and contentment and bliss. Only there is fulfillment.
The source is the goal - they are never seperate. Only the source can be the goal! When one has come back to one's original source, one has achieved all that life can give, all that life is meant to give.
Life is losing the paradise; religion is regaining it. Rushing into the world of desires is the Adam who is falling from grace; returning back is Christ. They are the same person! Adam and Christ are not two seperate persons. They are the same person, only their direction has changed. Adam is on the leaky road, going away from the source, farther and farther away from the source. Christ is returning back, has taken the turn.
Next Chapter Three
Zen Master are strange masters. A religious person is bound to become strange, because he lives in a totally different way. He lives in a seperate reality. He starts existing here as an outsider.He becomes a stranger to this ordinary world, because he is here and yet not of it. He live here, but untouched, uncontaminated, unpolluted by it. He lives here, and lives in such a way that he is untouchable. He does not escape from the world. He lives in the ordinary world in an extraordinary way.
A story about a zen master named Ikkyu.
One summer day while working, perhaps weeding, Ikkyu got so tired, being hot, came up to the templeporch and aired himself in the cool breeze. He felt so fine that he went into the temple and took the buddha from the shrine and binding him to a pole outside and said, " Now, you too cool yourself!"
Looks absurd, binding a wooden buddha to a pole and saying to Buddha, "Now you too cool yourself" But look .... something deep is there. For Ikkyu, nothing is dead anymore, not even the wooden Buddha. All is alive. And he has started feeling for everything as he feels himself. Those boundaries of l and You are no longer relevant. He had come to being one.
And another opposite of the story,
One night, a very cold winter night, he was staying in a temple. And then suddenly, in the middle of the night, the priest of the templeheard noice and saw light, so he came running: "What is happening?"
He saw Ikkyu sitting there - he was burning a wooden Buddha. The preist was aghast. He said, " Are you mad or something? What have you done? This is sacrilege. There can be no other sin greater than this. You have burnt my Buddha!"
And Ikkyu took a small stick and start poking into the ashes. And the priest said,"Now what are you doing, what are you trying to do?"
And Ikkyu said, " I'm trying to find the bones of the Buddha."
And the priest said," You must be absolutely mad - how can you find the bones in a wooden Buddha?"
And Ikkyu laughed and he said, The night is long and very cold, and you have so many wooden Buddha - why dont you bring a few more ? And you can also warm yourself up."
Now this man is a strange man. One time he binds the Buddha on a hot summer day to a pole and say, "Now you cool yourself". Another time he burns a wooden Buddha because the night is too cold. And he says to the priest, " Look at me - the Buddha inside me is shivering." In fact, both the stories are the same, from two different angles the same.
A man of realization, a man who has understood, makes no differences. Distinctions are lost, divisions disappear. All boundaries become meaningless. A man of realizationstarts living in the unbounded, in the infinite.
Each words has to be penetrated with sympathy. The leaky road means this world, the world of desires. Through desires we are leaking our energy. Through desires we are wasting our being. through desires we are disappearing down the drain.
This world is a leaky road. Man simply waste himself here. Nothing is gain out of it, never . In fact, you come as emperor and you die as beggars. Each child is born as an emperor and soon the kingdom is lost, the purity, the innocence is lost. Each child is Adam in the Garden Of Eden, and each child has to be expelled from the Garden. And he starts moving to the world of desires.
Ten thousands of desires are there. They cannot be finished, they cannot be fulfilled. They bring only frustration and more frustration. Each desire is a new trap of frustration. You hope again and you are trapped, and each desire only bring greater frustration. But by the time it comes, you start desiring again. You move from one desire to another desire. You can go on moving for millions of lives. In fact, that's how we have been moving.
In Zen, this is the most foundamental meditation: to search for the face that you had before you were born, or, to search for the face after you are dead. Just to think about it brings great realizations. Just to meditate upon it constantly - and one starts feeling somethingfaceless. That is your original face: facelessness. You had no face before you were born, you had no body, no mind, no name, no form - You were, but you were not identified with anything.
To realize it again, amidst all this noise of the Leaky Road, admist all these people who are just running after desires, chasing one desire and then another and then another; to recognize and to realize the original face when you were neither a body nor a mind, but only a pure consciousness, a witness, is the goal of all meditations. If you can remain in that state, your life energies will not leak.
And the way back is to return to the source, to that original face. All religions are the way back. Religion means a hundred and eighty degree turn, an about-turn, an absolute about-turn. We are rushing away from the original source, we are rushing from ourselves. We have to return back. We have to come to our original source - because only there is peace and contentment and bliss. Only there is fulfillment.
The source is the goal - they are never seperate. Only the source can be the goal! When one has come back to one's original source, one has achieved all that life can give, all that life is meant to give.
Life is losing the paradise; religion is regaining it. Rushing into the world of desires is the Adam who is falling from grace; returning back is Christ. They are the same person! Adam and Christ are not two seperate persons. They are the same person, only their direction has changed. Adam is on the leaky road, going away from the source, farther and farther away from the source. Christ is returning back, has taken the turn.
Next Chapter Three
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Nothing
Religion is irrational - by the irrational and for the irrational. Reason cannot contain it; reason is too small.
Religion is the vast sky of existence. Reason is a tiny human phenomenon. The reason has to be lost, has to be drop. Only by going beyond the mind does one start understanding what it is. That's the radical change/transformation. No philosophy can bring that radical change.
It is a heart phenomenon. You have to feel it rather than think it. You have to be it to know it. Being is knowing. And there is no other knowing.
That's why religion has to choose a different kind of language. Religion has to talk in parables, in poetry, in metaphor and in myth. Those are indirect way of hinting at the truth. Only hinting at the truth and no direct pointing; just whispering , not shouting. It come to you in a deep rapport.
Science and religion are diametrically opposite. they belong to different dimensions of existence. They dont overlap each other grounds, each others field. They simply never met. They dont criss-cross. And the modern mind has been trained for science, hence religion has become almost out of date, of the past. There seem to be no future for religion.
Sigmund frued has declared that there is no future for the illusion called religion. But if there is no future for religion, there is no future for man either. Science is going to destroy humanity because humanity can live on through poetic, the metaphoric. Life gathers significance only through the heart. Man cannot live by mind alone. Man cannot live by calculation, mathematics alone. Mathematics can serve but cannot be the master. The head can only be the servant , and as a servant it is very usefull; but when it pretends to become master it is dangerous, it is fatal.
The language of the objective science lives in the world of facts. Things are as they are. You say what you mean; as precisely as you can, and as equivocally. Speaking, then is decipering a puzzle, defining, prescribing limits, - this is this, not that. It is water not steam and not ice. Here is here, not there. One is one, two equals to two, dead is dead. This is the world of facts - dull and dead, stale and stagnant.
It is impossible to live just in the world of facts, because then you will never be able to relax. In fact, it is meaningless to live in the world of facts - from where do you get the meaning? From where will you get the value? Then a rose has no beauty; it is only a botanical fact. Then love has no splendour; it is only a biological fact.
How can one live in facts? Living in facts, life starts becoming meaningless. It is not an accident that the modern philosophical minds are talking consciously about meaninglessness. We have created it by deciding to live only in one language- the prose language.
It is a good thing that we have this languages, the language of facts, the language of prose. Our world cannot do without it, true . It is needed, nut can't be the goal of life. It can only serve. But we never use it when we want to pour out our hearts and say what is really in us, hidden and almost impossible to name.
A man is man only in so far as he lives in that ultimate need.
In question of love and death and god and man, the first language is not only adequate but also dangerous. If you use the first kind of language for the ultimate concerns of life, by and by your very language will destry them. That's how we have destroy God. That's how we have destroy all that is beautifull and significant. Use wrong language and sooner or later you will be trapped by the wrong language.
If you have dropped the vaque world of heart, the vaque world of feelings, sensations, emotions, ecstasy, then naturally you are closer to God. And then if you say God is dead, it seems to be absolutely true. Not that god is dead - only you are dead towards God. To be alive towards God is to move into poetry. Poetry is the rainbow bridge between man and God, between man as mind and God as mystery. That is the opening, the door , the treshold.
Have you ever seen Khajuraho, or other beautiful temples of India? In th old scriptures it is said that on each side of the temple's threshold there should be a statue, a sulpture of lovers. It is very strange. Those scriptures dont specifically say why; they simply mention it for architects, that it is a must. On each temple threshold, on the door, there must be at least one couple Maithuna - in Orgasm, in deep love, their limbs interwined with each other, in great ecstasy.
Why on the door? Because unless you know love, you cannot know the bridge between man and God. And the door is the symbol: the door is the threshold between the world of mind and the world of no-mind. It is love that bridges the world of mind to no-mind. It is only through love that we come to know the Orgasmic mysteries of life.
It is very signaficant - although many temples are not build that way. People have been avoiding it. They are too moralistic and stupid. But the ancient prescription is of great significance: Only love can be threshold , because only love will make your poetry alive.
But there is a second language, deep below the first, like a much older structure wide around the first. It is the language of what cannot be said. Yes, Poetry is the language of what reallycannot be said. Still it has to be said. There is an urgency to say it - and poetry is the language of that which cannot be said.
Once in China, I was given a simple verse to read and then to give my interpretation. I was ready to give my answer immediately but was informed that I had twenty-eight days to think about it. Why so long? asked I, with the usual impatience of a westerner.
"Because nothing has been read once until it has been read twelve times.," Was the answer. " Read and re-read."
I did. Twelve time twelve to make twelve readings - and I heard a melody I could not have heard otherwise. Since then I have known why it is that certain lines in the bible, or any other book, that have been read countless times will oneday, upon just one more reading, suddenly take on a grand new significance.
That is the whole secret of mantras. A mantras is a condensed poem: it is essential poettry. Just by reading it , you cant understand it. Not that you dont understand intelectually - it is simple, the meaning is apparent - but the apparent meaning is not the real meaning. The apparent meaning comes from the first language, and the hidden meaning will have to be waited for. You will have to repeat it in deep love, in great prayerful moods... sometime it will suddenly eruptfrom your own unconscious, it will be revealed to you. A melody will be heard. That melody is the meaning - not the meaning that you have deciphered from the first reading, on the first reading. And one never know what happen.
Hence in the East, people have been reciting the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhamarpada: they go on reciting . Everyday, morning and evening , they go on reciting. They recite as many times as possible. They dont keep count: what is the point of keeping count? But with each reciting, somethings goes deeper into you, the groove is deepened. And oneday the melody is heard.
When you heard the melody, you have come to know the real mantra. You have stumbled upon the second layer, the real poetry in it. That cannot be understood: that can only be heard. /that cannot be understood: that can only be experienced.
next chapter 2....
Religion is the vast sky of existence. Reason is a tiny human phenomenon. The reason has to be lost, has to be drop. Only by going beyond the mind does one start understanding what it is. That's the radical change/transformation. No philosophy can bring that radical change.
It is a heart phenomenon. You have to feel it rather than think it. You have to be it to know it. Being is knowing. And there is no other knowing.
That's why religion has to choose a different kind of language. Religion has to talk in parables, in poetry, in metaphor and in myth. Those are indirect way of hinting at the truth. Only hinting at the truth and no direct pointing; just whispering , not shouting. It come to you in a deep rapport.
Science and religion are diametrically opposite. they belong to different dimensions of existence. They dont overlap each other grounds, each others field. They simply never met. They dont criss-cross. And the modern mind has been trained for science, hence religion has become almost out of date, of the past. There seem to be no future for religion.
Sigmund frued has declared that there is no future for the illusion called religion. But if there is no future for religion, there is no future for man either. Science is going to destroy humanity because humanity can live on through poetic, the metaphoric. Life gathers significance only through the heart. Man cannot live by mind alone. Man cannot live by calculation, mathematics alone. Mathematics can serve but cannot be the master. The head can only be the servant , and as a servant it is very usefull; but when it pretends to become master it is dangerous, it is fatal.
The language of the objective science lives in the world of facts. Things are as they are. You say what you mean; as precisely as you can, and as equivocally. Speaking, then is decipering a puzzle, defining, prescribing limits, - this is this, not that. It is water not steam and not ice. Here is here, not there. One is one, two equals to two, dead is dead. This is the world of facts - dull and dead, stale and stagnant.
It is impossible to live just in the world of facts, because then you will never be able to relax. In fact, it is meaningless to live in the world of facts - from where do you get the meaning? From where will you get the value? Then a rose has no beauty; it is only a botanical fact. Then love has no splendour; it is only a biological fact.
How can one live in facts? Living in facts, life starts becoming meaningless. It is not an accident that the modern philosophical minds are talking consciously about meaninglessness. We have created it by deciding to live only in one language- the prose language.
It is a good thing that we have this languages, the language of facts, the language of prose. Our world cannot do without it, true . It is needed, nut can't be the goal of life. It can only serve. But we never use it when we want to pour out our hearts and say what is really in us, hidden and almost impossible to name.
A man is man only in so far as he lives in that ultimate need.
In question of love and death and god and man, the first language is not only adequate but also dangerous. If you use the first kind of language for the ultimate concerns of life, by and by your very language will destry them. That's how we have destroy God. That's how we have destroy all that is beautifull and significant. Use wrong language and sooner or later you will be trapped by the wrong language.
If you have dropped the vaque world of heart, the vaque world of feelings, sensations, emotions, ecstasy, then naturally you are closer to God. And then if you say God is dead, it seems to be absolutely true. Not that god is dead - only you are dead towards God. To be alive towards God is to move into poetry. Poetry is the rainbow bridge between man and God, between man as mind and God as mystery. That is the opening, the door , the treshold.
Have you ever seen Khajuraho, or other beautiful temples of India? In th old scriptures it is said that on each side of the temple's threshold there should be a statue, a sulpture of lovers. It is very strange. Those scriptures dont specifically say why; they simply mention it for architects, that it is a must. On each temple threshold, on the door, there must be at least one couple Maithuna - in Orgasm, in deep love, their limbs interwined with each other, in great ecstasy.
Why on the door? Because unless you know love, you cannot know the bridge between man and God. And the door is the symbol: the door is the threshold between the world of mind and the world of no-mind. It is love that bridges the world of mind to no-mind. It is only through love that we come to know the Orgasmic mysteries of life.
It is very signaficant - although many temples are not build that way. People have been avoiding it. They are too moralistic and stupid. But the ancient prescription is of great significance: Only love can be threshold , because only love will make your poetry alive.
But there is a second language, deep below the first, like a much older structure wide around the first. It is the language of what cannot be said. Yes, Poetry is the language of what reallycannot be said. Still it has to be said. There is an urgency to say it - and poetry is the language of that which cannot be said.
Once in China, I was given a simple verse to read and then to give my interpretation. I was ready to give my answer immediately but was informed that I had twenty-eight days to think about it. Why so long? asked I, with the usual impatience of a westerner.
"Because nothing has been read once until it has been read twelve times.," Was the answer. " Read and re-read."
I did. Twelve time twelve to make twelve readings - and I heard a melody I could not have heard otherwise. Since then I have known why it is that certain lines in the bible, or any other book, that have been read countless times will oneday, upon just one more reading, suddenly take on a grand new significance.
That is the whole secret of mantras. A mantras is a condensed poem: it is essential poettry. Just by reading it , you cant understand it. Not that you dont understand intelectually - it is simple, the meaning is apparent - but the apparent meaning is not the real meaning. The apparent meaning comes from the first language, and the hidden meaning will have to be waited for. You will have to repeat it in deep love, in great prayerful moods... sometime it will suddenly eruptfrom your own unconscious, it will be revealed to you. A melody will be heard. That melody is the meaning - not the meaning that you have deciphered from the first reading, on the first reading. And one never know what happen.
Hence in the East, people have been reciting the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhamarpada: they go on reciting . Everyday, morning and evening , they go on reciting. They recite as many times as possible. They dont keep count: what is the point of keeping count? But with each reciting, somethings goes deeper into you, the groove is deepened. And oneday the melody is heard.
When you heard the melody, you have come to know the real mantra. You have stumbled upon the second layer, the real poetry in it. That cannot be understood: that can only be heard. /that cannot be understood: that can only be experienced.
next chapter 2....
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