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 And the modern mind has been trained for science, hence religion has become almost out of date, of the past.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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