Chapter title: Dang Dang Doko Dang
19 June 1976 am in Buddha Hall Archive
code:
7606190
ShortTitle:
DANG09
Audio:
Yes Video: No Length:
104
mins
HO-SHAN USED TO GIVE THE FOLLOWING SERMON: 'TO DISCIPLINE OURSELVES IN LEARNING, IS CALLED HEARING; TO REACH A POINT WHERE ANY MORE LEARNING NO MORE AVAILS, IS CALLED
APPROACHING. WHEN ONE GOES BEYOND THESE TWO STAGES HE IS SAID
TO HAVE TRULY TRANSCENDED.'
ONCE A MONK ASKED: 'WHAT THEN IS TRULY TRANSCENDING?' WITHOUT UTTERING A WORD HO-SHAN MOTIONED AS IF BEATING
A DRUM, SAYING: 'DANG, DANG, DOKO DANG, DOKO DANG.'
TO ALL SUCH QUESTIONS HO-SHAN'S ANSWER WAS ALWAYS THE SAME:
'DANG, DANG, DOKO DANG, DOKO DANG.'
WHAT IS truth?
This is the question every man has to answer on his own. And unless a man answers this question he is not truly a man.
This question has haunted humanity down the centuries. It is as old as man himself --
because man became man only when he asked this question. Unless we know what truth is, our whole effort to live, our whole to make a meaning out of life is futile.
It is ultimate, but urgent also, to know from where life has arisen -- and to want to know the source and the goal, to know the inner running current that holds everything, to know the thread which is the ultimate law of existence.
When we ask the question, 'What is truth?' we are entering into the world of man for the first time. If you have not asked the question yet then you live below human beings. Ask the question, and you become part of humanity. And when the question is dissolved you go beyond humanity, you become a God.
Below the questioning you remain part of the animal kingdom; with the question you enter on the path; and again being with out the question you have come to realise that you have come home.
The question is very difficult because just by asking, it cannot be solved. One has to put one's whole life at the stake.
This is the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus. At the last moment, when Jesus was going to be crucified, Pontius Pilate asked him, 'What is truth?' And Jesus did not answer him. Christian mystics have pondered over it. Why did Jesus not answer it? Why did he remain silent?
There are three possibilities. One, that the question was not sincere. A man like Jesus answers only when the question is sincere. When is a question sincere? A question is sincere when a questioner is ready to do something about it. If it is just curiosity then it is not worth answering. If it has an intense passion, a deep desire, so deep that the questioner is ready to put his whole life at the stake -- nothing less will do -- then only is the question sincere. A man like Jesus will answer only when the question has been asked from the very core of one's being. So the first possibility is that Pilate's question was not sincere. Seeing the insincerity, Jesus remained silent.
Pilate was a well-educated man, a man who had succeeded -- at least in the eyes of the world. He was the viceroy, a Roman Governor-general. He was at the peak of his career -
- power, prestige, wealth, everything was his. Whatsoever he had been doing in his life had paid him well. Facing him was Jesus, almost a hobo, a failure, one who had not achieved anything -- at least in the eyes of the world. He had no power, no prestige, not even respectability. He was just at the other end of life, a tremendous failure, mocked, jeered, insulted. Whatsoever he had been doing had all failed. It had not paid him in any way. His life was futile -- at least for others.
The successful man asked the failure, 'What is truth?'
There are two types of successes in the world. One, the worldly, which is not really a success but just trying to deceive yourself, just trying to keep up faces, appearances. The eyes are full of tears but you go on smiling; the heart is miserable, but you go on showing something else, just the opposite, to the world. They say 'nothing succeeds like success'
but I would like to tell you 'nothing fails like success'. As far as the inner journey is concerned, as far as the transcendental is concerned, nothing fails like success and nothing succeeds like failure.
The first possibility is that the question was not sincere, it was asked just by the way. The man was well-educated, well-trained in philosophical concepts. He could have asked the question as a philosophical question. Then Jesus remained silent because the question was not really asked and there was no need to answer it.
The second possibility is that the question was sincere, that the question was not
just a childish curiosity, that there was passion behind it, that it was authentic. Then why did Jesus remain silent? He remained silent because if this ultimate question is authentically asked then silence is the answer, because there is no way to answer it except silence. The question is so profound that words will not be capable of answering it. The question is so deep that words will not be able to reach it, to touch it -- only silence will.
If the second is the case then Jesus did answer it, but he answered it by silence.
A third possibility is also there: that the question was sincere and yet not so sincere, that it was ambiguous, split -- which was probably the case because where can you find a man who is total? A part of him was authentically asking, another part was pretending, 'Even if you don't answer I am not in a hurry. And even if you don't answer, I don't mind because in fact I don't need it. In fact, I know the answer already, I am asking just to test you.'
The question was ambiguous, Janus-faced. That seems to be more probable because that is how man is and has always been -- split. A part of Pilate feels the truth of this man who is standing before him -- a complete, utter failure but yet his eyes are luminous, yet he has a glow. Pilate can feel it, can almost touch it. Yet another part, the egoist part, is not ready to surrender so he pretends he is asking only casually -- 'Even if you don't answer, don't be worried. It is not my need. In fact, I already know the answer.'
If this ambiguity was the case, then Jesus would also remain silent because when a question is ambiguous and the person is divided, no answer is possible. Because the answer can be understood only in your undivided consciousness, the question can be answered only when you are no longer split, when you are one, when you are in a unison, unity. Only then can you understand it.
Jesus' silence before Pontius Pilate is very significant, pregnant with many meanings. But Jesus has answered the question somewhere else, it is recorded in the New Testament.
Somewhere else he says, 'I am the Truth.'
I would like you to go a little bit into history then it will be very easy to understand today's parable.
Homer asked the same question in 850 B.C. and he answered that 'the Whole is
supported by Fate and Fate is the Truth'.
This is not really an answer; in fact, it is avoiding. When you say, 'It is Fate,' you don't say much; in fact, you are not saying anything, you are simply playing with a word. You have simply shifted the question. It doesn't answer. If somebody is miserable and you say, 'It is Fate,' how have you answered it? Your answering has not added anything to the already known situation. You have simply labelled it. 'One is suffering because it is Fate.'
But why is it so? Why is Fate so? No, it is not a real answer. In fact, it is a lie.
But one can believe in such things. Many people still do as Homer did. They have not risen above that level of consciousness.
Then came Thales, 575 B.C. He said that the whole consists of nothing but water. Water is the basic element of truth, of life, of existence.
Better than Fate, something more tangible, but very fragmentary. Water does not go very deep, does not explain much. It is reducing the higher to the lowest. Thales must have had a scientific mind -- that's what science goes on doing. You ask about mind and they say it is nothing but matter. The higher is reduced to the lower; the sky is explained by the earth. Mind is a great evolution. To explain the mind by matter is a scientific fallacy.
Thales was the first scientist of the world. He tried to explain the unknowable by something known: he called it water, the liquid element, the liquidity, the flow. But the answer is very fragmentary. It has something of truth in it but not all of it. And a fragmentary truth is almost more dangerous than a lie because it has a certain appearance of truth and it can deceive more. That fragment of truth can become very deceptive -- it can cover the whole lie and make it appear as if it is the truth.
Then came Pythagoras, 530 B.C. He says that the whole consists only of numbers, mathematical symbols. He has even more of a scientific attitude than Thales --
mathematics. Meaningful, but mathematics is not life. In fact, all that is very alive is non-mathematical. Love is non-mathematical, you cannot reduce it to numbers. Poetry is non-mathematical. Just think of a life consisting only of numbers -- one, two, three, four -- all poetry disappears, all love disappears, all
dreaming disappears. Life will not be worth living.
That's how it is happening today. Scientists have reduced everything to mathematics. Life is not equal to equations howsoever accurate the equations; life is more than mathematics can ever explain. The mathematics cannot explain the mathematician, the mathematician who deals in numbers is higher and bigger than numbers. It has to be so -- those numbers are just toys in his hands. But who is this player? Whenever life is reduced to mathematics it loses charm, it loses charisma, it loses mystery. And suddenly everything seems to be worthless. Mystery is needed; it is subtle nourishment for growth.
I have heard two mathematicians talking. One said to another, 'Is there any meaning in life? Is there any worth? Is there any purpose?'
The other said, 'But what else can you do with it?'
The first asked, 'Is there any meaning to live for in life?' and the other says, 'What else can you do with it?' If life has to be lived just as if you are a victim, as if somebody is playing a trick upon you, as if you are being thrown into this torture chamber, into this concentration camp called the earth, then even if you live, you don't live enough. You slowly commit suicide. You by and by, by and by, go on disappearing. Suicide becomes a constant thought in the mind if life has no mystery.
Then came Anaxagoras, 450 B.C. and his answer is mind. Certainly he took a great leap from water, number, fate -- he took a great jump. Anaxagoras is a great milestone in the history of humanity. 'Mind,' he says. 'The whole existence is made up of the stuff called mind.'
Better, but Jesus would not agree, Buddha would not agree. Yes, certainly better than what others were saying, but Zen would not agree. Matter, mind...Zen says no-mind. One has to go higher still because mind still carries the duality with matter.
Good, great in a way, a radical step -- from object Anaxagoras turns to the subject, from the outer he turns to the inner. He opens the door. He is the first psychologist in the world because he emphasises mind more than matter. He says matter is also made of mind: he explains the lower with the higher.
You can explain in two ways. Go and see beautiful white lotus flowers in a pond;
they come out of the dirty mud. Then there are two possibilities: either you explain the lotus by the dirty mud or you explain the dirty mud by the lotus. And both will lead you in totally different dimensions. If you say that this lotus is nothing but dirty mud because it comes out of it, your life will lose all significance, meaning, beauty. Then you will live in the dirty mud.
That's what Freud has been doing; that's what Marx has done. They have great skill in reducing everything to the dirty mud. Buddha attains to enlightenment...ask Freud and he will say it is nothing but sex energy. There is a truth in it, because it arises out of sex, but the sex functions like dirty mud and out of it arises the lotus.
Ask Buddha...he will say sex is nothing but the beginning of enlightenment, the very first steps of nirvana. That's how Tantra was born.
These are two ways and you will have to remember that your life will depend more or less on the way you interpret, on the way you choose. You can try to reduce the lotus to dirty mud -- it can be done and it is very scientific. It can be done very scientifically because all that this lotus has was in the mud. It can be dissected and everything can be found, and then the mud can be dissected, and whatsoever the lotus has, everything will be found in the mud -- nothing special, nothing extra, nothing from the outside has entered into the lotus so it is nothing but the mud. If you are choosing your life with this attitude, your life will be just nothing but mud.
But the person who says that the mud is nothing but potential white lotuses, that the mud is nothing but a waiting to manifest its beauty in lotuses, has a higher standpoint...the standpoint of a religious man. Then the whole life becomes full of splendour, significance, glory. Then wherever you look, you can find God, you can find the white lotus. Then everything is moving towards a peak. Then there is evolution. Then there is future, possibility. Then even the impossible becomes possible.
With the first attitude -- the dirty-mud-attitude I call it even the possible seems to be impossible. But with the second attitude -- the lotus-attitude I call it -- you can see deeply into mud and you can see hidden lotuses there. And the dirty mud is no more dirty mud, it is just potentiality. Then sex becomes potentiality for samadhi, the body becomes potentiality for the soul, the world becomes the abode of God.
Anaxagoras was one of the greatest revolutionaries, a radical thinker. This word 'radical'
is beautiful. It means: pertaining to the roots. He changed the outlook. He said mind. He took a necessary step, but that too was not enough.
Then came Protagoras, 445 B.C. and he said 'Man'. Now his standpoint is more total.
Mind is a fragment of man. Man is many things more, mind plus. If Anaxagoras is thought to be absolutely true then you will remain in the head -- that is what has happened to many people. They have not moved beyond Anaxagoras. They go on living in the head because mind is all. Then mind becomes dictatorial, it goes on a great ego trip. It starts dominating everything and crippling everything. It becomes a destructive force.
No, you are not only mind. You are mind, certainly, but plus. Many more things are there.
A lotus cannot exist alone; the flower cannot exist alone. It will need many more things to exist: the pond, the water, the air, the sun, its connection with the mud, and leaves --
and a thousand and one things. So if you think only in terms of the lotus and you forget all connections with the universe, your lotus will be a plastic lotus. It will not be a real lotus, it will not be inter-connected, it will not be rooted in existence.
Protagoras has a more holy attitude, wholistic attitude. Man, and the totality of man -- the body, the mind, the soul -- becomes truth.
Then came Socrates, 435 B. C. and he said: wisdom, knowing, knowledge. When man attains to maturity, he becomes wise; when man comes to fulfillment, then wisdom arises.
Wisdom is the essence of man, the fragrance of the lotus flower. A still higher attitude.
And then came Jesus who says, 'I am the truth.' This one statement is one of the greatest statements ever made in the world. Either it is the greatest truth ever
uttered or it is the most egoistic and arrogant statement ever made.'I am the truth.' It depends how you decode it. Ordinarily, when you hear that Jesus says, 'I am the truth,' you think this man is a megalomaniac, has gone mad. He is uttering nonsense. This man is truth? Jesus is truth?
Then what about us all?
Jesus is not saying that, you have misunderstood him. When he says, 'I am truth,' he is not saying, 'Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, is the truth.' What he is saying is totally different.
He is saying 'I am-ness, I am, is the truth, ' so wherever there is this 'I am-ness' there is truth. When you say 'I am' you are uttering truth. Your 'I am' and my 'I am' are not two things, we both participate there. Your name is different, your form is different, my name is different, my form is different, but when I say 'I, I am' and you say 'I am' we refer to some common experience, we refer to some common root. Your 'I am-ness' and my 'I am-ness' are not different, are not separate, they belong to one 'I am-ness' of God. When Jesus says 'I am the truth' he means wherever this integration is felt of being totally 'I am', there is truth.
Ordinarily you are many i's. You don't have any capital I; you have many i's, lower case.
Gurdjieff used to say that we should not use the word 'i', only God can use it -- because you don't have any single 'i', you have many i's like a crowd. For one moment one i comes on the top, and becomes the ruler; in another moment it is gone and another i comes over and rules. You can watch it. It is so simple. One moment you say, 'I am happy. I am tremendously happy, at the top of the world' and the next moment you are unhappy, at the lowest bottom of the world, in the seventh hell.
Are both these i's the same? One moment you were flowing and you were compassionate and loving and another moment you were closed and frozen and dead. Are these two i's the same? One moment you could have forgiven anything and another moment just any small tiny thing and you cannot forgive. Are these two i's the same? One moment you are sitting in silence, in zazen, meditating, and you look so Buddha-like, and another moment, for a small thing, you are nagging, fighting. You will yourself feel ridiculous later on. For what were you getting so hot? For what were you creating so much fuss? It was not worth it.
But another i was ruling over you.
You are like a wheel of many i's -- those i's are like spokes. The wheel goes on moving, one spoke comes on top -- hardly before it has come it starts declining. It goes on changing. Again it will come up and again you will feel a different being existing there within you.
Watch. Have you got an 'i'? Any substantial 'i'? Any essential 'i'? Can you say that you have some permanent 'i' in you? A crystallised 'i' in you?
You promise, and next moment you have forgotten your promise. Gurdjieff used to say that unless you have a permanent 'i', who will promise? You will not be able to fulfil it.
Who will fulfil it? You say to a woman, 'I love you and I will love you forever and forever.' Wait! What are you uttering? What nonsense! Forever and ever? How can you promise? You don't know what is going to happen tomorrow, you don't know who is going to rule you tomorrow. Your promises will create trouble for you. You cannot promise because you are not there. Only a man like Gurdjieff or Jesus can promise. Yes, he can promise because he knows that he will remain the same; whatsoever changes in the world will not affect him. He will remain the same, he has come to a crystallised soul.
Now he knows that his wheel has stopped. He is in total possession of his being. He can promise.
But ordinarily people go on promising, and you never see the fact that no promise has ever been fulfilled by you. You completely forget about it. You don't even remember it because that remembrance will be like a wound. You find out ways and means to rationalise: you cannot fulfil it because the other person has changed, you cannot fulfil it because the circumstances have changed, you cannot fulfil it because you were foolish at the time you made;t. And again you will make promises.
Man is an animal who goes on promising, never fulfilling any promise because he cannot fulfil it -- man as he exists has too many i's.
When Jesus says 'I am the truth' he is saying that whosoever attains to 'I am-ness' is truth.
And this truth is not something philosophical, this truth is something existential. You cannot come to it by logic, argumentation; you cannot come to it by finding a right premise and then moving to a right syllogism and then reaching to a right conclusion. No, that is not the way. You will have to come to it through an inner discipline. That's what Zen is all about.
Now this story.
This story says everything that is needed for a seeker to come to truth, the truth of 'I amness'. It is 'I am' that holds the whole existence together. Moses asked God on Mount Sinai, 'I will go back to my people and I will say that I have seen God, but they will not believe me. So please tell me how I am to convince them. And they will ask "Who is God?" So please tell me what is your name, who you are, so that I can convince them.
Otherwise they will not be ready to believe me.' And God said to Moses, 'Go and tell them I am, I am.' No name, simply I am, I am. This is what Jesus is saying -- 'I am the truth.'
It has nothing to do with Jesus, it has nothing to do with any person, it is your innermost core -- which is absolutely impersonal. It is never born and never dies. It is your innermost current of life. It is from where you are connected with God. It is from where you are one with existence.
This has to be found, not by thinking but by a great, deep discipline. Now this story.
HO-SHAN USED TO GIVE THE FOLLOWING SERMON: TO DISCIPLINE OURSELVES IN LEARNING IS CALLED HEARING.
This is the first step.
TO DISCIPLINE OURSELVES IN LEARNING IS CALLED HEARING.
First one has to discipline oneself. What is discipline?
Ordinarily the word has very wrong connotations. Somebody else disciplines you -- your parents, the society. Always it is the other who disciplines you so the
very word has wrong associations. It has been wrongly used, misused. A beautiful word has been very much corrupted. Discipline is not from the outside. Nobody else can discipline you.
Discipline is from the inside; discipline is an understanding. And that is the word's meaning also. It comes from the same root as disciple. Can somebody make you a disciple? Think of it. Can disciplehood be thrown over you? Can you be forced to become a disciple? No, you can either take it or reject it. The ultimate decision is yours.
To become a disciple means to voluntarily surrender. If the surrender is not voluntary, it is not a surrender. If you are being forced to surrender then deep down you will resist and you will wait for the right moment when you can throw off this slavery.
The first Christians, those who had the great opportunity to live with Jesus, to imbibe his spirit, they used to call themselves slaves of Jesus. The first Christians used the word
'slave' but their slavery was not a slavery forced on them. Even if a freedom is forced on you it is a slavery and if you accept a slavery on your own it is freedom. They were freed by Jesus, liberated by Jesus, and they loved the man so much they called themselves slaves.
A disciple is one who surrenders according to his own heart. Nobody is forcing him to surrender. If any force is used then exactly there something goes wrong. If you are a Christian because your parents forced you to become a Christian, or if you are a Hindu because your parents forced you to become a Hindu...that's how people are Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians. They have been forced. The parents have somehow conditioned their minds to be Hindus, Christians or Mohammedans. It is not their own choice. Then out of it discipline cannot arise; in fact, out of it rebellion arises, out of it a great resistance arises, out of it your innermost life energy becomes angry, annoyed, irritated, and for your whole life you can never forgive those people who forced you.
And religion is a very delicate matter -- more delicate than love. Just think. If you are forced to love a woman or a man, the very effort that you are being coerced into loving will destroy love. Even if there was love it will disappear, it will evaporate.
I have heard a very beautiful story about an Egyptian king. He was in love, deeply in love with a woman but the woman was not in love with him. He could have forced it on her but his wise advisors prevented him.
They said, 'Don't do that. You can force it, she is your subject. You can simply bring her to your palace, but it will be almost a rape, not a love. You may even get children out of her but you will never get her heart. That is not the way.'
The king said, 'What to do? I cannot live without her. And she is not in love with me, that's a fact, so the only way is to force. What do you suggest?'
They asked him, 'Is she in love with somebody else?'
The king said, 'Yes, she is in love with one of my servants. And this is foolish, stupid.
She is blind!'
That's what so-called clever people have always been saying. They think of other things: economics, finance, respect and other things -- but not of love.
The king said, 'She is foolish. She cannot see the point It is so simple. She is blind, mad. I can give her a thousand and one slaves and she is in love with one of my poor servants.
And I am the king. So what to do?'
Those wise people suggested a very novel experiment. It has never been done before and I don't know that it has ever been done again.
They said, 'Catch them both. Bring them both to the palace and just in front of the palace, bind them both together naked, in deep embrace. And bind them to the pillar and leave them there.'
The king said, 'What will that do?' They said, 'Just wait.'
So they both were caught and undressed. They were ordered to embrace each other, forced to be loving to each other, and they were bound to a marble pillar.
And for twenty-four hours they were left there to be looked at by the whole town.
By and by they started getting angry at each other because the lover thought, 'It is because of her I am suffering this calamity.' And the woman started thinking, 'Because of him.' And because they were forced to be together they started resisting. They wanted to separate but there was no way. They were bound in chains. Twenty-four hours -- just think -- with your beloved, bound on a pillar.
By and by, more and more anger came. Then they started smelling each other's perspiration, hot. And then they couldn't sleep. And they pissed on each other. And they vomited. And it became a very ugly affair, a nightmare.
And the story says that after twenty-four hours, when they were released, they escaped in different directions and never saw each other ever again.
If you are forced to love, forced to be together with someone, that very enforcement will kill something subtle within you. That's why husbands cannot forgive their wives and wives cannot forgive their husbands. It is impossible to forgive those with whom you are forced to live by the law, by society, by responsibility, or by your own conscience -- but forced.
Disciplehood is an even higher thing than love. Nobody can force you to become a disciple. And discipline comes from the same root -- it means 'with full awareness you accept something on your own'. It is your heart's desire.
TO DISCIPLINE OURSELVES IN LEARNING IS CALLED HEARING.
And Buddhists call the first step of learning, of knowing, hearing; right hearing -
-
'SAMYAK SHRAVAN'. If somebody has attained the truth, if somebody has attained, then listen to him. Nothing else is needed. Listen to his vibes, listen to his being, listen to the murmur of his inner sound. Just listen. If you can find a person who has come home, then just listen to his calmness, his tranquillity, his bliss.
By 'right listening' is meant 'to be receptive'. Learning is not active, it is passive. You are not to do anything about it, you cannot be aggressive about truth, you can simply allow it
-- that's all. You can simply be there in front of it, in close vicinity, passive, allowing, not resisting, not creating any barrier. Remove all barriers and be in the presence of a man who has attained this right listening. If he says something, listen to his word; if he does not say something, listen to his silence.
When he is not saying something, then too, go on listening, and in his non- saying you will find tremendous expression. And when he is saying something, go on listening deeply, because when he is saying something he is at the same time transferring his silence to you. When he is speaking he is silent also, and when he is silent he is speaking also. A tremendous quality of listening is needed.
If you cannot find any person, don't be worried, then listen to nature, then listen to the winds passing through the pines, then listen to the waterfall, go and listen to the ocean --
wild. Go and listen to the birds -- anything will do. This is something very important to remember: if right listening is there, then even listening to a waterfall will do. And if right listening is not there, then even listening to Jesus or Buddha won't do.
The truth happens when you are in the mood of right listening. It has nothing to do with the object of listening; it has everything to do with the quality of listening. But we have forgotten how to listen. Even when we are silent we are not listening. Even when we pretend to show that yes, we are listening, we are not listening; we are doing a thousand and one things in the mind. Many thoughts are crowding in. Politely we show that yes, we are listening, politely sometimes we nod also -- we are listening -- but deep inside us is the madhouse. How can you listen?
To listen you will have to drop your thinking. With thoughts, listening is not possible. If you are speaking inside and I am speaking here, how can you listen to me? Because you are closer to yourself than me, your thoughts will be closer to you, they will make a ring around you and they will not allow my thoughts to enter. They will allow only those thoughts which are in tune with them, they will choose and select. They will not allow anything that is strange, unfamiliar, unknown. Then it is not worth listening because you are simply listening to your own thoughts. And it is dangerous because now you will think that you have listened to me. Right listening means to be in a totally receptive, silent mood.
In Zen the disciple sits for many months, sometimes years, before he becomes capable of listening. Whenever anybody came to Buddha he would say, 'For one year or two years you simply sit here. Nothing else has to be done. You simply learn how to sit.' People would say, 'We know already how to sit.' And Buddha would say,'I have never come across a person who knows how to sit, because when I say sit, I mean sit -- no turmoil, no movement of thought, totally silent, utterly silent, no movement in the body, no movement in the mind. A pool of energy with no ripples.'
TO DISCIPLINE OURSELVES IN LEARNING IS CALLED HEARING.
So the whole Buddhist discipline, Zen discipline, starts by right listening.
TO REACH A POINT W HERE ANY MORE LEARNING NO MORE AVAILS, IS
CALLED APPROACHING.
Then there comes a moment when you become so silent that the listener disappears. First your thoughts disappear, then your thinker disappears. The thinker is nothing but the inter-link between thoughts, the thinker cannot exist without thoughts; when thoughts are no more there, suddenly the thinker evaporates. When you are listening so totally that there is no thought arising, passing, coming and going, then the listener also disappears.
... WHERE ANY MORE LEARNING NO MORE AVAILS. This then is the
moment where from the outside nothing can be got, learning no more avails, now there is no need, now you are enough unto yourself. This is what Zen people call 'approaching'. Now you are coming home, approaching, closer and closer and closer.
So first you are full of thoughts. To drop those thoughts, hearing is emphasised -- hear the Master, or the winds, or the thundering clouds. Listening is used as a device to drop thoughts. When thoughts are dropped one day you will realise the thinker has disappeared. Now there is no longer anything like a listener. The device has worked, the work is over. Now there is no need to listen to the outside because now there is no need to learn from the outside. This is what Zen calls 'approaching'. Now you are approaching home, now everything is within you, you are coming to the innermost shrine.
Thought does not allow you to listen and the thinker does not allow you to enter into yourself. The thinker is the subtlest part of thoughts -- thoughts are gross- thinker and thinker is subtle thoughts. Thoughts prevent you from listening to the outside and the thinker prevents you from listening to the inside. First drop thoughts because the gross can be dropped more easily, then you can listen to the outside. Then the thinker disappears. Now you can listen to the inside. Then the Master speaks from the innermost core of your heart. The outer Master is just a help to create the inner Master; the outer Master is just a provocation for the inner Master to come into full swing, to come into its full being. The outer Master is just a situation so that the inner Master can awaken.
AND WHEN ONE GOES BEYOND THESE TWO STAGES ONE IS SAID TO HAVE
TRULY TRANSCENDED.
Now comes the last point. First you drop thoughts, then you drop the thinker. First the outside Master disappears, the outside object disappears, then you come to the inside. But the inside can exist only with the outside. As I told you, the thinker can exist only with thoughts; in exactly the same way, the inside can exist only with the outside. If the outside disappears, the inside disappears, because they are both two aspects of the same coin. So first the outside disappears, then you come in and suddenly you find one day that the inside is also disappearing, because it is nothing but the innermost core of the outer.
They are both together. How can you have an inside if you don't have an outside?
Just think of a house which has only an inside, no outside. How can it have only an inside without the outside? Or how can it have only the outside without any inside? They both exist together.
When inside and outside both disappear Ho-shan says, '...ONE IS SAID TO HAVE
TRULY TRANSCENDED.' Then there is neither out nor in, neither thoughts nor thinking, neither outside Master nor inside Master. It is a tremendous emptiness. Nothing is, or, only nothing is. This is transcendence, this is nirvana, enlightenment. Then freedom is utterly complete because there is no boundary -- you are without boundary.
This is what Jesus means when he says, 'I am the truth.' This is what 'I am' is. ONCE A MONK ASKED, ' WHAT THEN IS TRULY TRANSCENDING?'
Now this is a foolish question to ask, a stupid question to ask. Because when there is no outside, no inside, no thinker, no thought, then there is no possibility of any answer. If you have understood, then you will not ask what this transcendence is. It is meaningless.
You have come to a point where no question can be asked.
This monk must not have understood. So he asked, 'WHAT THEN IS TRULY
TRANSCENDING?' The question again brings you back to the first step. Now right listening is needed. You see it? The question again brings you to the first step. The monk has not transcended the first step. He has not listened, otherwise he would have understood. He must have been there listening ordinarily. He had ears so he could listen.
And he must have understood these words, because he could use the words, 'THEN
WHAT IS TRULY TRANSCENDING?' He must know language, of course, and he has ears so he can hear. He is not deaf that's certain.
But still he missed. Now the Master has to start from the very beginning. And Ho-shan used to tell this story almost every day. That was his only one sermon. Every morning he will start his sermon the same way.
TO DISCIPLINE OURSELVES IN LEARNING IS CALLED HEARING. TO REACH
A POINT WHERE ANY MORE LEARNING NO MORE AVAILS IS CALLED
APPROACHING. WHEN ONE GOES BEYOND THESE TWO STAGES ONE IS
SAID TO HAVE TRULY TRANSCENDED.
No question can be asked if you understand. You can touch the Master's feet and
thank him, or you can have a good laugh, or you can roll your mat and go home. A question is now irrelevant.
BUT THE MONK ASKED 'WHAT THEN IS TRULY TRANSCENDING?'
And what did Ho-shan do? WITHOUT UTTERING A WORD.…
It is useless to utter a word now, because he will have to repeat the same.
WITHOUT UTTERING A WORD HO-SHAN MOTIONED AS IF BEATING A DRUM.
Many things are implied in it. With this gesture -- AS IF BEATING A DRUM -- he is saying, 'Are you deaf or something? Do you need a drum to be beaten only then you will understand? Are you deaf or something? Your question simply shows that you have not heard what I have been saying all the time.'
HO-SHAN MOTIONED AS IF BEATING A DRUM, SAYING, 'DANG, DANG, DOKO DANG, DOKO DANG.
One meaning, just on the surface, is that he is saying to the person that he is deaf.'You don't need me, you need a drum to be beaten, only then will you listen, otherwise you will not listen. These things are very subtle. They are not for you.' That is one thing, just on the surface.
The second thing: the drum is a very, very meaningful symbol in Buddhism because a drum is empty inside and Buddhism believes in emptiness. Emptiness is virtually the God of Buddhism. A drum is empty but if you beat it, it creates much sound. Buddhism says that the innermost core of existence is empty, only just on the surface is it like a drum.
You can go on beating and creating sound.
All language is like beating a drum, but all meaning is more in tune with emptiness than in tune with the beating of the drum. All is noise; the innermost core can be known only in silence. All philosophy is beating the drum. If you enjoy, good, you can enjoy, but you will never enter into the really real, the ultimately real. It is empty.
And the third meaning: answering a question in this way is very absurd. Only Zen Masters are courageous enough to do that. You cannot think of any other tradition which is so courageous to use such outlandish modes of expression: Dang, dang, doko dang, doko dang. He is saying, 'Your question can only be answered in an absurd way. The question is absurd, the answer cannot be anything else than that. You are illogical so I will have to be illogical with you.'
One great Christian, Tertullian, has said a tremendously meaningful thing. He says,
'Credo quia impossible' -- 'I believe because it is impossible.' He says, 'I believe in God because God is impossible.' In fact, logically he should not be. In fact, if the world is rational, God should not be. Tertullian says, 'I believe because it is impossible.'
Rationally there is no reason to believe, but life is more than reason, deeper than reason.
Life is more than logic, vaster than logic -- logic is very narrow. Logic is man- made, life is not man-made -- on the contrary, man is life-made. Life is bigger than man so naturally it has to be bigger than logic.
The third meaning of Ho-shan's gesture is that you are asking such an absurd question that it can only be answered through an absurd gesture.
TO ALL SUCH QUESTIONS HO-SHAN'S ANSWER WAS ALWAYS THE SAME: DANG, DANG, DOKO DANG, DOKO DANG.
He had found even a better way than Buddha; he must have had a better sense of humour than Buddha himself. Buddha always kept silent whenever somebody asked a metaphysical question. About something which transcended language, logic, he would keep quiet or he would change the subject or he would talk about something else. But Ho-shan found a more alive way, with a certain sense of humour. Somebody was asking a question which by its very nature was absurd, because by its very definition the transcendental is that which goes beyond, beyond all dualities. We can talk about dualities but we cannot talk about the non-dual.
Let me tell you a story, a very famous story from the Upanishads.
Vidagdh Sakalya asked a great Upanishadic teacher, Yagyavalka, 'How many gods are there, Yagyavalka?'
He answered in the words of a prayer, 'There are as many gods as there are in the hymn to the Vishwa-devas -- three thousand three hundred.'
'Yes,' he said, 'but how many are there REALLY, Yagyavalkya?' 'Thirty-three.'
'How many?' 'Six.'
'How many?' 'Three.'
'No, how many really?' 'Two.'
'How many?' 'One and a half.'
'Now come on. How many really?' 'One.'
Now if you ask beyond this then Yagyavalkya will also have to beat a drum.
It happened. There was a great discussion in the court of Janak, a great emperor and a very wise man. He had requested all the wise persons alive to come to the court and they were trying to define the nature of God.
Yagyavalkya went there, he defeated all the participants and he was just going to be declared victorious when a woman arose.
Yagyavalkya must have felt a little afraid because it is very difficult to communicate with a woman. If you argue with a woman either you are defeated
or the argument remains incomplete -- there is no other way. Because the feminine mind functions in a totally different way; it has no logical coherence; it jumps from one place to another; it leaps.
The male mind goes step by step... so they never meet. The greatest and most impossible thing is to communicate with a woman -- and if you are in love then it is even more impossible. If you are not in love then maybe a certain way can be found.
Yagyavalkya must have felt a little shiver around his spine. The woman asked, 'Who is holding up this existence? Who is supporting this existence?' And Yagyavalkya said, 'Of course, God, Brahma, is the support of all.' He said, 'He is the support of all. He is the ultimate support.'
And the woman asked, 'Then who is supporting him?'
Now this was going beyond. He had said, 'He is the support of ALL. Nothing is left.' He had said that it was the ultimate, so you cannot ask logically who is supporting God because now nothing is left.
Yagyavalkya said, 'This is an absurd question' -- what in India they call UTEE PRASAN, absurd question. Absurd, because by the very definition of the word 'ultimate', nothing is left. It cannot be asked. If you want to be logical, if you want to be coherent, if you want to communicate rightly, then it cannot be asked. And if it can be asked then there is going to be no end to it.
He said to Janak, 'If this question is allowed then it is better that I should stop now because then there is no end. It will become a regress ad infinitum. If I say that God is supported by something then she will ask, "Who is supporting that something?" And if I say something else she will say, "Who is supporting that something?" It is going to be foolish and endless if it is going to be allowed; it is better that I should drop out of it right now.'
He was right, because when we say 'all' then nothing is left.
Ho-shan was saying, 'All duality is transcended' and language can function only in duality. A man has to be defined by a woman. A man is one who is not a woman and a woman is one who is not a man. Matter is to be defined by mind; night is to be defined by day; God is to be defined by the Devil -- language exists in duality otherwise there is no possibility of defining it. The other is
needed, and the transcendental means that now there is no other, the nondual has come. Now it is all one, you have reached to the indefinable.
But Ho-shan, of course, is a better man than Yagyavalkya. Yagyavalkya must have been very serious; he said to the king, 'I had better stop now because if this woman is allowed to ask, she will create regress ad infinitum.' And he was a little angry also. He said to the woman, 'No more questioning otherwise your head will fall off.' He was right but a little irritated and annoyed.
Ho-shan has more sense of humour; he is not so serious. And that's how an enlightened person should be. About Yagyavalkya I have always felt that he may have been a great philosopher, a great man of learning, learned, but he was not yet enlightened. Otherwise there was no need. He could have laughed. He could have also gestured as if he was beating a drum; he could have said, 'Dang, dang, doko dang, doko dang.'
But no, this quality of Zen is special to Zen. It is tremendously beautiful. They can turn an ugly situation into laughter, and laughter brings you home as nothing else.
The one cannot be expressed. To know that one, one has to become more and more silent, silent and silent. To know that one, to experience that one, one has to lose language by and by, so that language completely disappears and you are left without any language, without any mind.
Last night I was reading a few lines of Pablo Neruda -- beautiful.
SO THAT YOU CAN HEAR ME, AT TIMES MY WORDS GET FAINTER AND
FAINTER, LIKE THE MARKS MADE BY SEAGULLS ON THE SAND.
A Master, the more you grow with him, starts becoming more and more silent and his words get fainter and fainter -- LIKE THE MARKS MADE BY SEAGULLS ON THE
SAND. The more you become capable of hearing, the more the Master has nothing to say to you. When you are not capable of hearing he has to say many things to you to make you capable of hearing. When you become capable of hearing -- look at the absurdity of it all -- when you become capable of hearing,
his words become fainter and fainter. When you are really capable of hearing, he stops, because now there is no need to say anything, now silence can meet with the silence, now silence can melt and merge into silence. Now, language dropped, mind put aside, being can communicate with being. Communication can be direct, immediate. Now something can transpire, existentially.
But at that moment don't be stupid like that monk who asked, 'WHAT THEN IS TRULY
TRANSCENDING?' Because his question, if accepted, brings you back to ABC. Again he has to be taught how to hear.
Ho-shan did well. He said, 'Are you deaf or something?' by making the gesture of beating a drum. And he said, 'Sound and words and mind and language and concepts and philosophies and creeds and dogmas and scriptures are just on the surface. Deep inside the drum is nothing.'
Have you ever tried to open a drum and see what it is inside which makes so much sound
-- so much beautiful sound also? Small children do it sometimes.
Somebody gave Mulla Nasruddin's child a drum and it became a nuisance for the whole neighbourhood. One day I was sitting at his home and the child came running in with a broken drum. He had a knife in his hand with which he had broken it.
I said, 'What happened?'
He said, 'The neighbour gave me the knife and said, "Try to see what is inside." So I looked inside, there is nothing.' The same happens with all philosophies. A Master is there to give you a knife to look inside the drum. If you push your knife deep enough into philosophies, there is nothing, only emptiness. All words are empty. They make much sound, that's right, but don't be befooled by the sound. Have a penetrating knife, a sharp knife, with you -- that's what meditation is all about. It is like sharpening a knife so you can put it through all words and reach to the innermost core of it all, which is emptiness.
Yes, Ho-shan did well. His assertion about all metaphysical questions -- DANG, DANG, DOKO DANG, DOKO DANG -- was so absurd but tremendously
beautiful. He says,
'We here in Zen are not concerned with words, logic, intellect, syllogism. We here in Zen are concerned with existence, with being. And if you ask an absurd question, you will get an absurd answer.'
The story says nothing about what happened to the monk who asked it. If he had been a little alert he may have even become more alert. This sudden absurd response of the Master -- DANG, DANG, DOKO DANG, DOKO DANG -- may have brought him a little satori. But the story says nothing. The man may not have been even that alert that he could understand this. He may have turned away, thinking that this man was mad.
The Zen people are mad in a way because they are trying to pull you towards the ultimate which is beyond you. They are trying to pull you beyond yourself; they are trying to pull you out of yourself. They ARE mad people, but if you allow them they can give you a glimpse of the eternal, and once the glimpse happens you are never the same again.
Let this story penetrate your heart as deeply as possible and whenever you are becoming a victim again of theories, dogmas, doctrines, philosophies, say loudly, 'DANG, DANG, DOKO DANG, DOKO DANG.' It will be helpful; it will suddenly bring you back to the earth.
Ludwig Wittgenstein used to say that he did not solve philosophical problems, he dissolved them. Everything is left as it is but perhaps for the first time we come to see things as they are.
Zen is a way of dissolving philosophical problems, not of solving them. It is a way of getting rid of philosophy because philosophy is a sort of neurosis.
Dang Dang Doko Dang Chapter #10
Chapter title: Lady You Need Love! 20 June 1976 am in Buddha Hall Archive
code:
7606200
ShortTitle:
DANG10
Audio:
Yes Video: No Length:
99
mins
The first question:
Question 1
I HAVE TOO MUCH SEXUAL ENERGY BURNING WITHIN MY BODY. WHEN I DANCE, SOMETIMES I FEEL I AM GOING TO KILL THE WHOLE WORLD AND
AT SOME STAGES SO MUCH ANGER AND VIOLENCE BUBBLES WITHIN MY
BODY THAT I CAN'T CHANNELISE THE ENERGY INTO MEDITATION
TECHNIQUES AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I DON'T FEEL TO GO INTO THE
SEX ACT BUT VIOLENT ENERGY IS STILL BURNING LIKE VOLCANIC FIRE. I CAN'T BEAR IT AND IT MAKES, ME SOMETIMES SUICIDAL. PLEASE
EXPLAIN HOW TO GIVE A CREATIVE OUTLET TO THIS ENERGY.
The problem is created by the mind, not by the energy. Listen to the energy. It is showing you the right direction. It is not sexual energy which is creating the problem -- it has never created any problems in the animals, in the trees, in the birds. The energy creates problems because your mind has a wrong attitude about it.
This question is from an Indian lady. In India the whole upbringing is against sex. Then you create the problem. And then, whenever there is energy you will feel sexual because something is incomplete within you. Something that is unfulfilled will always wait and it will assert energy, exploit energy.
In the dynamic methods of meditation much energy is created. Many hidden sources are tapped and new sources become available. If sex has remained an unfulfilled desire then this energy will start moving towards sex. You will become more and more sexual if you meditate.
Let me tell you one thing that happened in India. Jaina monks completely stopped meditating because of sexual energy. They forgot all about meditation because they were repressing sex so much that whenever they meditated, energy would rise. Meditation gives you tremendous energy. It is a source of eternal energy, you cannot exhaust it. So whenever energy arose they would start feeling sexual. They became afraid of meditations. They dropped them. The most essential thing that Mahavira had given to them they dropped, and the non- essential -- fasting and keeping rituals -- they continued.
They fit with an anti-sexual attitude.
I am not anti-sexual because I am not anti-life. So there is not the problem where you think it is: the problem is in your head, not in your sexual glands. You will have to change your attitude otherwise whatsoever you do will be coloured by your sexuality.
You meditate and it will become sexual; you look at somebody and your eyes will become sexual; you touch somebody and your hand will become sexual; you eat something and eating will become sexual.
So people who deny sex start eating more. You can watch it in life. Freely flowing, sexually flowing people will not be very fat, they will not eat too much. Love is so satisfying, love is so fulfilling, they will not go on stuffing their body with food. When they can't love, or when they can't allow themselves to move
into love, they start eating too much. That becomes a substitute activity.
Go and see Hindu monks. They go on gathering unnecessary fat. They become ugly. That is another extreme. At one extreme are Jaina monks who cannot eat because they are afraid that once they eat, food will release energy and the energy will immediately move to the incomplete desire waiting for it. First it goes to the uncompleted experience which is hanging in the middle -- that is the first requirement so energy moves there. The body has a certain economy: wherever energy is needed first, energy moves there first. There is a hierarchy of needs. A person who has been denying sex will have a hierarchy -- sex will be first on the list. And whenever energy is available it will start moving to the most unfulfilled desire. So Jaina monks cannot eat well, they are afraid, and Hindu monks eat too much. The problem is the same but they have solved it in two extreme ways.
If you eat too much you start getting a certain sexual enjoyment by eating, by filling your belly too much. Too much food brings lethargy. And too much food is always a substitute for love because the first thing the child comes in contact with is the mother's breast. That breast is the first experience in the world and the breast gives two things to the child: love and food.
So love and food become deeply entangled with each other. Whenever love is missing, your childish mind will think,'Get more food. Supplement it.' Have you ever watched?
When you are feeling very full of love your desire to eat disappears, you don't feel so much appetite. But whenever love is missing, you start eating too much, you don't know what to do now. Love was filling a certain space inside you, now that space is empty and you don't know any other way to fill it than food. You create problems by denying nature, by rejecting nature.
So I would like to tell the questioner that it is not a question of meditation. Lady, you need love. You need a lover. And you need courage to move into it.
It is difficult to move into love -- there are very hidden fears in it. Love creates as much fear as nothing else can because the moment you start approaching the other you have to go outside yourself. And who knows? The other may accept you or may reject you. The fear arises. You start feeling hesitant -- whether to take the move or not, whether to approach the other or not. Hence all over the
world the coward ages of the past have decided for marriage instead of love, because if people were left open to love, very few people would be able to love. Most would die without love; they would live and drag out their lives without love.
Because love is dangerous.… The moment you start moving towards somebody else you are coming close to colliding with another world. Who knows if your approach will be accepted or rejected? How can you be certain the other is going to say yes to your need and to your desire? That the other is going to be compassionate, loving? How do you know? He may reject you. He may say no. You may say,'I love you' but what is the guarantee that he will also feel love for you? He may not. There is no necessity for it. The fear of rejection is very shattering.
So cunning and clever people decide not to move at all. Keep to yourself, then at least you are not rejected. And you can go on enhancing your ego with the idea that nobody has ever rejected you, even though that ego is absolutely impotent and is not enough to fulfil you. You need to be needed; you need somebody to accept you; you need somebody to love you because only when somebody else loves you, will you be able to love yourself, not before it. When somebody accepts you, you will be able to accept yourself, not before it. When somebody else feels happy with you; you will start feeling happy with yourself, not before it. The other becomes a mirror.
Each relationship is a mirror. It reflects you. How can you know yourself without the mirror? There is no way. Others' eyes become mirror-like, and when somebody loves you, that mirror is very, very sympathetic towards you; very, very happy with you; delighted with you. In those delighted eyes you are reflected and for the first time a certain acceptability arises.
Otherwise you have been rejected from the very beginning. It is part of the ugly structure of society that each child comes to feel that he is not accepted for himself. If he does something good -- of course, whatsoever the parents think is good -- if he does that, he is accepted; if he does something wrong -- what the parents think is wrong -- he is rejected.
The child sooner or later starts feeling,'I am not accepted for myself, not as I am, not intrinsically, but for what I do. Not my being is loved but my doing.' And that creates a deep self-rejection, a deep self-hatred. He starts hating himself.
If you don't fall in love, if you don't find lovers and friends who can accept you, you will remain with that rejection your whole life. Love is a must. You must move through it.
You can come out of it one day, you can transcend it one day -- it has to be transcended --
but how can you transcend it if you never enter into it?
So don't be afraid. And drop all nonsense from the head. Yes, there is fear. You may be rejected but don't be afraid of that fear. That risk has to be taken, only then somebody will come and accept you. If you knock at a hundred doors and ninety-nine remain closed, don't be afraid -- one will open. Somebody is waiting for you. Somebody will be fulfilled through you and you will be fulfilled through somebody. Somebody is waiting to become a mirror for you because somebody is waiting to make you a mirror for himself.
And there is no other way to find out who that one is than to go on knocking, groping. It is risky, but life is risky.
So very clever people miss life, they never take the risk. Afraid of falling, they never walk; afraid of drowning, they never swim; afraid of rejection, they never move in love; afraid of failure, they never make any effort to succeed in anything
-- their life is not life at all. They are dead before their death. They die many times before they really die. Their whole life is nothing but a gradual death.
Live, and live intensely, and don't take it as a personal offence if somebody cannot love you -- there is no necessity. You were ready, you were available. If the other is not willing, that is for him to decide. Don't make it a wound, it is not. It simply says that you two don't fit -- that's all -- it doesn't say anything about you or about the other. Don't say that the other is wrong and don't think that it is because you are wrong that you are not accepted. It is just you could not fit.
And it is good that the other did not deceive you, that he said,'Sorry, I don't feel any love for you.' At least he was sincere and authentic. Because if he had said a formal yes, then your whole life would have been a mess. Be true. When you love, say it, and when you don't, say that too. Be true and sincere.
And there are so many beautiful people in the world, why remain with yourself? Walk a few steps with somebody. Feel that rhythm also. That rhythm will satisfy
you and the urge will disappear. And when the urge disappears, your meditation will be the first in the hierarchy. Meditation can be the first in the hierarchy only if you have not been denying yourself that which is natural.
A person who has been fasting cannot meditate because whenever he meditates he thinks about food, whenever he closes his eyes he visualises food. A man who is denying love cannot meditate; whenever he meditates, immediately sexuality surrounds him.
Fulfil all natural needs, nothing is wrong in them. What is wrong in food, in sex? Nothing is wrong. Fulfil them. Be so natural that when you meditate there is no other thing waiting for your attention. If you fulfil your natural needs you will see that your dreams will disappear. In the night you will not dream because there is nothing to dream about.
Fast, then you will dream about food; force celibacy on yourself, then you will dream about sex. If you are moving naturally, if you have found a tune between you and nature That's what I call DHARMA, that's what I call the ultimate law
of life. Find yourself almost always in rhythm. Sometimes even if you go out of step come back again; remember and fall into line again. Remain with nature and you will reach to the goal; remain with nature and you will find God. You can even forget about God, then too you will find him -- if you remain true to nature. Because when lower needs are fulfilled, higher needs arise; when higher needs are fulfilled, ultimate needs arise. This is the natural economy of life.
If a person is hungry, how can he understand music? It is sheer absurdity to ask him to listen to classical music when he is hungry. Or to tell him to meditate or to sit in zazen.
He cannot think anything about Buddha, cannot think anything about God or Jesus. He cannot meditate, his mind will flicker and waver; it will go again and again to his empty stomach. No, he cannot love poetry and he cannot love music when the first needs are unfulfilled. Give him fulfillment in the first, primary needs -- food, shelter, love -- and then suddenly the energy is released from the lower world and he will start reading poetry, listening to music; he will enjoy dancing. Now higher needs are arising: he would like to paint or sculpt. These are luxuries. They only come into existence when lower needs are fulfilled. And when these higher needs are also fulfilled -- you have loved music, listened to music; you have loved poetry, enjoyed it; you have painted, danced --
one day you will see a new realm of needs is arising called the ultimate needs: meditation, God, prayer.
If the first needs are not fulfilled, the second will not arise -- and the third is out of the question. If the first needs are fulfilled then there is the possibility for the second needs to arise and a glimpse of the third to happen also. When the second is fulfilled, the third arises automatically on its own accord.
Just the other day in kundalini meditation two dogs were watching. After a while one dog looked at the other and said,'When I act like that they give me worm pills.'
Of course, a dog has a dog's mind. He has his own world, terminology, understanding, concepts. He can only think that people who are doing kundalini either have worms in their stomach or have gone crazy. And that is natural to a dog's understanding.
Your mind has been conditioned for centuries by people who have not understood your real needs. They have not bothered at all. They were looking for something else and they have managed that very well... they were looking for how to dominate people. And the easiest way is to create a guilty conscience -- then it is very easy to dominate people.
Once the guilt exists you will be dominated by one or the other, by this or that, but you will be dominated. A guilty person never feels at ease with himself, he cannot have any confidence; he knows that he is wrong so he goes and finds a leader, he goes and finds some church, he goes and finds somebody to guide him. He is unconfident, hence the need arises. Politicians, priests, have worked very hard to create a guilty conscience in everybody. Now that guilty conscience is creating trouble.
Drop it. Life is yours. It belongs to nobody else. No politician, no priest has anything to do with it. Don't allow anybody to meddle with your life. It is totally yours.
And your body is giving you the right indication; the body is very wise. The mind is a very late arrival. The body has lived millions of years, it knows what is needed. It is the mind that interferes. Mind is very immature, body is very mature. Listen to the body.
And when I say listen to the body, I don't mean remain confined to the body. If you listen to the body, the body will not have anything to say to you -- things will be settled. And when the body is at ease, relaxed, and there is no tension, and the body is not fighting for something, is not trying to attract your attention because you are not fulfilling a need, when the body is calm and quiet, you can float high, you can fly high, you can become a white cloud. But only when body needs are truly looked after. The body is not your enemy, it is your friend. The body is your earth, the body has all your roots. You have to find a bridge between you and your body. If you don't find that bridge, you will be constantly in conflict with your body -- and a person who is fighting with himself is always miserable.
The first thing is to come to a peace-pact with your body and never break it. Once you have come to a peace-pact with your body, the body will become very, very friendly. You look after the body, the body will look after you -- it becomes a vehicle of tremendous value, it becomes the very temple. One day your body itself is revealed to you as the very shrine of God.
The second question:
Question 2
FOR THE LAST TEN DAYS I HAVE FELT TREMENDOUSLY HAPPY -- AS I NEVER DID BEFORE. JUST BEING MYSELF AND ACCEPTING ME AS I AM
FEELS GREAT. SOMETIMES THIS INCREDIBLY GOOD FEELING IS
DISTURBED BY TWO THOUGHTS. FIRST, WILL THIS STAY THAT WAY? CAN I KEEP THIS FEELING IN THE FUTURE? AND SECOND, WHY DID I HAVE TO
BECOME SO OLD BEFORE I REACHED THIS POINT? I CANNOT FORGET AND
STILL I FEEL SORRY FOR ALL THOSE YEARS THAT I DID NOT LIVE AT ALL.
PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW TO GET RID OF THESE DISTURBANCES OF MY
HAPPINESS.
This has been asked by Swami Prem Dhyan. When he came just six months before, he was one of the most miserable persons I have ever come across. And it has been a miracle! He has changed totally! Now I can say just the opposite,'He is one of the most happy persons around here.'
These two questions are natural because now he is going to leave, he will be going back home. The fear arises. Will he be able to keep this happiness that has happened to him?
The future.… And the second question: he feels sorry for all those years that he lived but did not really live, that he missed. He could have lived those years as happy as he is now.
The past.…
These are the two dangers to be alert about. Whenever you become tremendously happy immediately mind starts spinning its web. And two are the methods of the mind, because mind exists either with the past or with the future. It immediately says,'Look, you could have been so happy your whole life.' Now the mind is distracting you. Say to the mind,'What does it matter? Those twenty years, or thirty years, or fifty years, are gone.
Whether I lived them happily or unhappily, they are gone -- it makes no difference.' In the morning, when you awake, what difference does it make that you dreamed a very sweet dream or that it was a nightmare? What difference does it make? When you awake in the morning both were dreams. And the night is over and you are no more asleep.
When the mind says, 'Look, you could have been this happy always,' the mind is creating an absurd desire. You cannot go back, you cannot do anything about the past, the past is gone and gone forever, irreversibly gone. Just think, even if you had been happy all those fifteen years, what difference does it make now? Whether happy or unhappy, it is just a memory. In fact, whether your past existed or not, what difference does it make now?
Bertrand Russell has written somewhere that sometimes he starts brooding about whether the past really existed or whether he simply imagines that it existed; were you a child really or did you simply dream about being a child? How can
you differentiate now?
Both are in the memory -- whether you dreamed about it or whether you lived it, both are part of memory and there is no way to differentiate. The past is in the memory -- real, unreal, both.
And psychologists say that when people say something about their past, don't trust them, because in their past many imaginations and dreams have mingled and mixed. Their past is not factual. And there is no way now because everything is contained only in the memory. Whether you were really living it or you had just dreamed it, both have mixed and melted into each other.
Past is just memory but the mind can create great trouble, and by creating that fuss it will deprive you of the happiness that is available right now. You just say to the mind,'I am finished with the past and I don't care a bit whether it was happy or unhappy, it is gone and gone forever. Now is the only moment.'
If you don't listen to this trap then the mind has another trap for you. It will say,'Okay, the past is gone but the future -- what about the future? At least you can manage the future. It has yet to happen. You can plan for it. And this beautiful space in which you are now, won't you like it to be there forever and ever?' Again the desire will arise. Don't say yes to it because again it will lead you away from the present.
And happiness is always herenow. Happiness is something that belongs to the present.
Now say to the mind,'I am not worried about the future at all because if I can be happy now, this moment, I can be happy forever because the future never comes as future, it always comes as the present. And now I know the secret of being happy in the present so why bother about the future? Tomorrow will not come as tomorrow, it will come as today. And I have the key to open the door. At least this moment I am happy and I know how to be happy in this moment. All moments that will come will come always like this moment.'
Have you watched? There is no difference between one moment and another moment.
Time is completely beyond discrimination. It is always pure now.
So beware. These are the two traps of the mind. Mind cannot live without misery so mind is trying to create misery so it can disturb your peace. Then it will be perfectly happy.
Once you start feeling sorry for your past -- it does not matter for what you feel sorry -- if you feel sorry, you start getting sad, depressed. And once you start getting too concerned about the future, you become full of desire, tense -- worried whether you will be able to manage or not, whether you will be able to perform or not.
Between these two rocks the fragile moment of the present is crushed. So you have to be very alert. When one is unhappy one can remain without alertness -- one has nothing to lose. When one is happy, one has to be very careful and cautious -- now one has a treasure to lose. And it can be lost within a second, within a split second. One step wrong and it can be lost. And these are the two directions in which you can lose your treasure.
A person who is poor, a beggar, need not be worried that he can be robbed. But a person who has treasures has to be very cautious. When Buddha walked so cautiously, why was he walking so cautiously? He had something, something tremendously fragile which could be dropped in any moment of unawareness and be lost.
There is a Zen story. A king in Japan used to visit his capital every night. He became aware that a beggar was always sitting alert under his tree; he never found him asleep.
The king went at different times but he was alert the whole night, just sitting there, completely immobile, with his eyes open.
Out of curiosity he asked the beggar,'What are you being so cautious for? For what are you guarding? I can't see that you have anything that could be stolen or that anybody could cheat you. Why do you go on sitting like that and watching?'
The beggar laughed and he said,'Sir, as far as I am concerned I would like to ask you the same question. Why so many guards? Why so much army around the palace? I don't see that you have anything to be guarded. I have never seen a bigger beggar than you. You are completely empty, I can see through and through you. I don't see any treasure there.
What are you creating so much fuss about? As far as I am concerned, I have a treasure and I have to be alert about it. A single moment of unconsciousness and it can be lost.'
And the beggar said,'Look into my eyes, because my treasure is hidden within me.'
And it is said that the king looked into the eyes of the beggar, entered into his eyes and was completely lost. It was a tremendously luminous space. He became a disciple to this beggar.
This beggar was a Zen Master and the king had been in search for many years and he had been to many Masters but he could never feel the vibe of the' unknown. With this beggar he could feel it almost crystallised in front of his eyes, he could touch it. Something Divine had happened to this man.
So when you have a little treasure to guard, guard it. Now these two will be the thieves --
the past and the future. You be alert. Nothing else is needed, just alertness. Just shake yourself out of sleep. Whenever you start falling into the trap, give yourself a jerk and remember.
I would like to tell you one of the most beautiful parables that has been written down the centuries. Parables have almost disappeared from the world because those beautiful people -- Jesus, Buddha, who created many parables -- have disappeared.
A parable is not an ordinary story, a parable is a device -- a device to say something which cannot ordinarily be said, a device to hint at something which can be hinted at only very indirectly.
This parable is written in this age; a very rare man, Franz Kafka, has written it. He was really a rare man. He struggled hard not to write because, he said, what he wanted to write could not be written. So he struggled hard but he could not control the temptation to write, so he wrote.
And he wrote in one of his diaries,'I am writing because it is difficult not to write, and knowing well that it is difficult also to write. Seeing no way out of it, I am writing.' And when he died, he left a will in the name of one of his friends to
say,'Please burn everything that I have written -- my diaries, my stories, my parables, my sketches, my notes. And burn them without reading them. Because this is the only way that I can get rid of that constant anxiety that I have been trying to say something which cannot be said.
And I could not resist so I have written. Now this is the only way. I have written it because I could not control myself. I had to write knowing well that it could not be written, so now, without reading it, destroy, burn everything utterly. Nothing should be left.'
But the friend could not do it. And it is good that he did not.
This is one of Kafka's parables. Listen to it, meditate over it. I gave order for my horse to be brought from the stable. The servant did not understand me. I myself went to the stable, saddled my horse and mounted. In the distance I heard a bugle call. I asked him what this meant. He knew nothing and had heard nothing.
At the gate he stopped me, asking,'Where are you riding to, Master?'
'I don't know,' I said, 'only away from here. Away from here, always away from here.
Only by doing so can I reach my destination.' 'And so you know your destination?' he asked.
'Yes,' I answered. 'Did not I say so? Away from here -- that's my destination.' 'You have no provisions with you, ' he said.
'I need none,' I said. 'The journey is so long that I must die of hunger if I don't get anything along the way. No provisions can save me because the journey is so long, I cannot carry enough provisions for it. No provisions can save me because it is, fortunately, a truly immense journey.'
Now this is the parable. 'The destination,' he says, 'is away from here. Away from here is my destination.' That's how the whole world is moving: away from here, away from now.
You don't know where you are going but one thing is certain -- you are going
away from here, away from now.
The parable says it is an immense journey. It is really endless because you can never reach away from here. How can you reach 'away from here'? Wherever you will reach, it will be here. And again you will be trying to go away from here. There is no way to reach this destination. If away from here is the destiny then there is no way to reach it. And we are all escaping away from here.
Watch. Don't allow this parable to become your life. Ordinarily everybody is doing this --
knowingly, unknowingly. Start moving into the here, start moving into the now. And then there is tremendous happiness -- so much so that it starts overflowing from you. Not only YOU delight in it, it starts overflowing, it starts becoming your climate, it becomes like a cloud around you. So whoever comes close to you becomes full of it. Even others will start partaking of it, participating in it.
And the more you have, the more you will be drowning into the herenow. Then a moment comes when you don't have any space left for yourself -- only happiness exists; you disappear.
But of two things -- the past and the future -- be alert.
And now, Prem Dhyan, you have something to lose -- you are fortunate because you have something to lose. And you have a tremendous responsibility not to lose it. The mind will go on trying its ways for a time being. When you become so alert that the mind cannot penetrate you and cannot disturb and distract you, then by and by the mind starts dropping. Then one day it understands well that now there is no way with you -- so it leaves you. Then it stops haunting you.
That day will also come. As you could not believe before that this happiness was possible, you may not be able to believe what I am saying now. The day will also come when there will be no distraction.
Then again you will have to be even more alert because you will start crying,'Why did I waste so many years with this distraction?' And then you will become again concerned with the future. Many times you will come to face this past and future in many, many different ways. It is like a person going to the peak of a hill -- he moves round and round the hill, the path moves round and round, and many times you come to the same view, to the same place. A little
higher, but the same place -- the same trees, the same sky. Again and again, many times before you reach to the peak, you come to the same point -- a little higher of course, but the same point, again and again. Many times you will come again and again to this same distraction of past and future. This is just the beginning.
But one day one reaches the peak and when one reaches the peak, all becomes available simultaneously: the valley, the sky, the clouds, the height, the depth -- everything becomes available. That's what enlightenment is.
The third question:
Question 3
THE OTHER DAY I TOOK A PIECE OF PAPER AND DID A LITTLE DOODLING
OR FREE WRITING, AND I WAS PAINED TO FIND THAT I WAS FULL OF SELF-CONDEMNATION AND SELF-PITY. I HAD NOT A NICE WORD FOR ME IN
THAT LONG NOTE. IS IT THAT I AM TOO IDEALISTIC AND SELF- CENTRED
AND IS THERE A WAY OUT OF THIS DARKNESS?
Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody has become idealistic. Nobody is realistic. The ideal is the common disease of humanity.
Everybody is brought up in such a way that everybody goes on thinking that they have to be something, somebody, somewhere in the future. An image is given and you have to be like it. That gives you a tension because you are not it, you are something else, yet you have to be it.
So one goes on condemning the real for the unreal -- the unreal is unreal. And the ideal goes on pulling you towards the future, out of the present.
The ideal becomes a constant nightmare because it goes on condemning. Whatsoever you do is imperfect because you have an ideal of perfection. Whatsoever you attain is still not fulfilling because you have a mad expectation
which can never be satisfied.
You are human, in a certain time, in a certain space, with certain limitations. Accept those limitations. Perfectionists are always on the brink of madness. They are obsessed people -- whatsoever they do is not good enough. And there is no way to do something perfectly -- perfection is not humanly possible. In fact, imperfect is the only way to be.
So what do I teach you here? I don't teach you perfection, I teach you wholeness. That is a totally different thing. Be whole. Don't bother about perfection. When I say be whole, I mean be real, be here; whatsoever you do, do it totally. You will be imperfect but your imperfection will be full of beauty, it will be full of your totality.
Never try to be perfect otherwise you will create much anxiety. So many troubles are there already; don't create more troubles for yourself.
I have heard.
It happened that bedraggled, worried Garfinkel sat in a train holding a three- year-old boy.
Every few minutes Garfinkel spanked the child.
'If you strike that baby one more time,' said a woman sitting across from him, 'I'll give you so much trouble you won't forget it!'
'Trouble?' said Garfinkel. 'You're gonna give me trouble? Lady, my partner stole all my money and ran off with my wife and car. My daughter is in the parlor car, six months pregnant, and she ain't got no husband. My baggage is lost, I'm on the wrong train, and this little stinker just ate the tickets and threw up all over me. And lady, YOU'RE gonna give me trouble?'
Now what more trouble can there be? Don't you think enough is enough?
Life itself is so complicated, please be a little more kinder towards yourself. Don't create ideals. Life is creating enough problems but those problems can be solved. If you are in a wrong train you can change the train; if the tickets are lost, they can be purchased again; if your wife has run away, you can find another woman. The problems that life gives to you can be solved but the
problems that idealism gives to you can never be solved -- they are impossible.
Somebody is trying to become Jesus.… Now there is no way; it does not happen that way, nature does not allow it. Jesus happens only once, and only once; nature does not tolerate any repetition. Somebody is trying to become a Buddha -
- now he is trying to do the impossible. It simply does not happen, cannot happen; it is against nature. You can be only yourself. So be total. Wherever you are and whatsoever you are doing, do it totally.
Move into it, let it become your meditation. Don't be worried whether it will be perfect or not -- it is not going to be perfect. If it is total it is enough. If it was total you enjoyed doing it, you felt a fulfillment through it, you moved into it, you were absorbed into it, you came out of it new, fresh, young, rejuvenated.
Each act that is done totally rejuvenates, and each act that is done totally never brings any bondage. Love totally and attachment does not arise; love partially and attachment arises.
Live totally and you are not afraid of death; live partially and you are afraid of death.
But forget the word 'perfection'. It is one of the most criminal words. This word should be dropped from all the languages of the world, it should be dropped from the human mind.
Nobody has ever been perfect and nobody can ever be. Can't you see it? Even if God is there and you come to meet him, can't you find faults with his creation? So many, that's why he is hiding. He is almost afraid of you. Faults and faults and faults. Can you count them? Infinite faults you will find. In fact, if you are a fault-finder you cannot find anything right -- in the right time, in the right place. Everything seems to be just a mess.
Even God is not perfect; God is total. He enjoyed doing it, he is still enjoying doing it.
But he is not perfect. If he were perfect then the creation could not be imperfect. Out of perfection, perfection will come.
All the religions of the world say that God is perfect. I don't say so. I say God is whole, God is holy, God is total -- but not perfect. Although he may still be
trying.… How can he be perfect? If he were, the world would be dead by now. Once something is perfect, death happens because there is no future, there is no way. Trees are still growing, babies are still born -- things continue. And he goes on improving. Can't you see the improvement?
He goes on improving on everything. That's the meaning of evolution: things are being improved. Monkeys have become man -- that's an improvement. Then man will become Divine and God -- that is evolution.
Teilhard de Chardin says there is an omega point where everything will become perfect.
There is none. There is no omega point. There cannot be. The world is always in the process; evolution is there; we are approaching and approaching but we never reach because once we reach -- finished. God still goes on trying in different ways, improving.
One thing is certain: he is happy with his work otherwise he would have abandoned it. He is still pouring his energy into it. When God is happy with you it is sheer nonsense to be unhappy with yourself. Be happy with yourself. Let happiness be the ultimate value. I am a hedonist. Always remember that happiness is the criterion. Whatsoever you do, be happy, that's all. Don't be bothered whether it is perfect or not.
Why this obsession with perfection? Then you will be tense, anxious, nervous, always uneasy, troubled, in conflict. The English word 'agony' comes from a root which means: to be in conflict. To be constantly wrestling with oneself -- that is the meaning of agony.
You will be in agony if you are not at ease with yourself. Don't demand the impossible, be natural, at ease, loving yourself, loving others.
And remember, a person who cannot love himself because he goes on condemning, cannot love anybody else either. A perfectionist is not only a perfectionist about himself, he is about others also. A man who is hard on himself is bound to be hard on others. His demands are impossible.
In India just a few years before, there was Mahatma Gandhi, a perfectionist, almost a neurotic. And he was very hard with his disciples -- even tea was not allowed. Teal Because it has nicotine. If somebody was found drinking tea in his
ashram it was a great sin. Love was not allowed. If somebody fell in love with somebody it was such a great sin that it was as if the whole world was going to be drowned because of it. He was continuously spying on his disciples, always sitting at the keyhole. But he was that way with himself. You can be with others only as you are with yourself.
But these types of people become great leaders because they create much guilt in others.
The more guilt you can create in people, the greater the leader you can become. Because more and more people feel that yes, you can help them to become perfect. They are imperfect so you can help them to become perfect.
I am not here to help you to become perfect; I am not concerned with any sort of nonsense. I am just here to help you to be yourself. If you are imperfect, beautiful; if you are perfect, that too is beautiful.
Don't try to become imperfect because that can become an ideal! You may be perfect already -- then listening to me can create a trouble for yourself! This man says be imperfect! There is no need. If you are perfect accept that too!
Try to love yourself. Don't condemn. Once humanity starts a deep acceptance, all churches will disappear and all politicians and priests will disappear.
I have heard.
A man was fishing in the North Woods and one night around the campfire his guide was telling him of the time he had guided Harry Emerson Fosdick on a fishing trip.
'Yes,' said the guide, 'he was a good man except for his swearing.'
'But look,' said the fisherman, 'surely you don't mean to say that Dr. Fosdick was profane?'
'Oh, but he was, sir,' protested the guide. 'Once he caught a fine bass. Just as he was about to land him in the boat, the fish wiggled off the hook. So I say to the Doctor, "That's a damned shame!" and the Doc comes right back and says, "Yes, it is!" But that's the only time I ever heard him use such language.'
Now this is the mind of a perfectionist. The Doctor has not said anything. He simply says,'Yes, it is.' But that too is enough for a perfectionist to find fault with.
A perfectionist is neurotic. And not only is he neurotic, he creates neurotic trends around him. So don't be a perfectionist, and if somebody is a perfectionist around you escape away from him as fast as you can before he pollutes your mind.
All perfectionism is a sort of deep ego trip. Just to think of yourself in terms of ideals and perfection is nothing but to decorate your ego to its uttermost. A humble person accepts that life is not perfect. A humble person, a really religious person, accepts that we are limited, that there are limitations.
Look... that is my definition of humbleness. Not to try to be perfect is to be humble.
And a humble person becomes more and more total because he has nothing to deny, nothing to reject. He accepts whatsoever he is, good, bad. And a humble person is very rich because he accepts his wholeness; his anger, his sex, his greed -- everything is accepted. In that deep acceptance a great alchemical change happens. All that is ugly by and by disappears on its own accord. He becomes more and more harmonious, more and more whole.
I am not in favour of a saint but I am in favour of a holy man. A saint is a perfectionist; a holy man is totally different. Zen Masters are holy men; Catholic saints are saints. The very word 'saint' is ugly. It comes from 'sanctos' -- one who has been given sanction by the authority that he is a saint. Now who can authorise anybody to be a saint? Is it a sort of degree? But the Christian Church goes on doing that foolish thing.
Even posthumous degrees are awarded. A saint may have died three hundred years before, then the Church revises its ideas, or the world has changed, and after three hundred years the Church gives a posthumous degree -- a sanction that that man was really a saint, we could not understand him at the time. And the church may have killed that man -- that's how Joan of Arc became a saint. They killed her, but later on they changed their idea. People by and by came closer and closer to Joan of Arc and it became difficult not to accept her. First they killed her, then they worshipped her. After hundreds of years, her bones
were found and worshipped. She was burned by the same people, the same Church.
No, the word 'saint' is not good. A holy man is a holy man because of himself, not because some church decides to award him sainthood.
I have heard.
Jacobson, aged ninety, had lived through beatings in Polish pogroms, concentration camps in Germany, and dozens of other anti-Semitic experiences.
'Oh, Lord!' he prayed, sitting in a synagogue. 'Isn't it true that we are your chosen people?'
And from the heavens boomed a voice:'Yes, Jacobson, the Jews are my chosen people!'
'Well, then,' wailed the old man,'isn't it time you chose somebody else?'
Perfectionists are the chosen people of God, remember. In fact, the day you understand that you are creating your own misery because of your ideas, you break all ideas. Then you simply live out of your reality -- whatsoever it is. That is a great transformation.
So don't try to be chosen people of God, just be human. For God's sake, just be human!
The fourth question:
Question 4
THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT EFFORT IS DANGEROUS, BUT HARD
WORK IS NEEDED IN THE MEDITATIONS. FOR MY GERMAN MIND, EFFORT
EQUALS HARD WORK. IS THERE HARD WORK WITHOUT EFFORT?
The point is delicate. Effort is always half-hearted, effort is always partial. You
are doing it because you don't see any way you can attain to the result you desire without doing it.
If there was any way you would drop the effort and jump to the conclusion. One is never totally in his effort, cannot be, because the idea is of the future, the end result. Effort is future-oriented, result-oriented. One is doing it only for the sake of some future result, some profit, some greed, some good pay-off.
That's why Zen Masters say effortless effort is needed. What do they mean by effortless effort? They say hard work is needed but it should not be future- oriented. You should enjoy it. Not for some other goal -- even if nothing is attained through it, it is beautiful in itself. And that is the hardest thing for the human mind to do. That's why I call it hard work. The hardest thing is to do something for its own sake, to sing a song for its own sake, to meditate for its own sake, to love for its own sake. That is the hardest thing for the human mind because mind is future-oriented. It says,'For its own sake? Then why?
What is going to happen out of it?'
People come to me and they ask,'We can meditate but what will we attain? We can become sannyasins but what are we going to gain out of it?' This is what mind is --
always greedy. Let me tell you.…
One day Mulla Nasruddin was watching the street through the window when he saw his creditor approaching the house. Knowing what the fellow was up to, Mulla called his wife and told her to handle the visitor.
Accordingly, the wife opened the door and said,'Yes, sir, I know we haven't yet been able to pay you. And although Mulla himself is not home at this moment, he thinks day and night about ways to get some money and pay you back. He has even asked me to watch the street and whenever a flock of sheep passes to go out and pick up any pieces of wool that might have been caught on the bushes. This way, when we get enough wool, we can spin it, make a couple of shawls, sell them and with the money pay you back.'
When she got to this point, the man started to laugh, whereupon Mulla came out
of his hiding and said,'You rascal, now that you smell money, you start to grin.'
The mind is that rascal. Once it gets any hint of any sort of future it starts to grin. It immediately jumps on it, catches hold of it -- you are no longer herenow. Meditation is for its own sake as love is for its own sake.
Ask a rose why he flowers. He simply flowers. It is so beautiful to flower. There is no motive in it. Ask the birds why they are singing. They are simply singing. They enjoy, they delight in it, there is no motive in it.
Drop the mind and motive disappears. So at least for a few hours in a day go on doing things for their own sake: dance, sing, play on the guitar, sit with friends, or just watch the sky. At least for a few hours go on devoting your time to intrinsic activities. These activities are the hard work. And I know, mind is very lazy. It likes to dream, it doesn't want to work, that's why it continuously thinks of the future. But mind is very lazy. It only thinks of the future so that the present can be avoided and the challenge of the present can be avoided.
I have heard an anecdote.
While walking along a creek bank a man came across a young fellow lying lazily under a tree with a fishing line in the water, on which the cork was bobbling frantically.
'Hey, you've got a bite!' he said.
'Yeah.' drawled the fisherman. 'Would you mind pulling it out?'
The walker did so, only to have the recumbent one ask,'Would, you mind taking the fish off, rebaiting the hook, and tossing it back in the creek?'
This was done and the man commented jokingly,'As lazy as you are, you ought to have some kids to do these things for you.'
'Not a bad idea,' yawned the fisherman. 'Got any idea where I could find a pregnant woman?'
That's how the mind is; it does not want to do anything. It simply hopes, desires, postpones. The future is a trick to postpone the present; the future is a trick to avoid the present. Not that you are going to do anything in the future, no --
because again the same mind will be there and it will say tomorrow, tomorrow. You will die and you will not do anything, you will only think. And that thinking helps you to keep face: you don't feel lazy because you think so much of doing, doing great things always, dreaming about great things and not doing the small things that are really to be done right now.
Hard work means to be present and to do that which the present has brought you as a challenge.
THE OTHER DAY YOU SAID THAT EFFORT IS DANGEROUS BUT HARD
WORK WAS NEEDED IN THE MEDITATIONS. Yes, hard work -- because you will have to go against the mind. The hardness is not in the work -- the work is beautifully simple, the work is very easy -- the hardness comes from the fact that because you are so fogged by the mind you will have to come out of it.
FOR MY GERMAN MIND, EFFORT EQUALS HARD WORK. That I
understand --
but all minds are German. That's why everybody is in such trouble, that's why everybody finds his own fascism, his own nazism, his own Adolf Hitler. Everybody does. Mind is fascist and mind looks continuously for leaders, for somebody to lead. It was a surprise to the whole world when Germany fell into the trap of Adolf Hitler.
Nobody could believe it, it was almost illogical. Such a beautiful race with such a great tradition of learning, of learned men, of great philosophy, of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx.… Such a great culture with such refined intellect; a culture of great scientists, of great musicians, of great novelists and poets; the country of the philosophers and professors.…'Professor' has never been such a respectable word in any other country as in Germany. What happened to such an intelligent race that it fell into the hands of a stupid, almost idiot person, Adolf Hitler?
But this has to be understood: that all learning, if it is superficial, if it is of the mind, is not going to help. The learning only remains at the surface -- deep down you remain childish. Those professors, even a man like Martin Heidegger -- a great philosopher, you could say the greatest that this century has produced -- he also became a follower of Adolf Hitler. What happened to these giants following this man who was almost mad?
It has to be understood; it can happen, it has always happened. These great minds are just great on the surface, deep down their existence is very childish; only their intellect has grown, they have not grown.
Martin Heidegger's mind is very grown-up,.his being is very childish. His being is childish; it is waiting for somebody to lead it. A really mature person does not throw his responsibility on to anybody else; he becomes responsible for his own being.
Now this whole country of scientists, philosophers, professors, poets, giant intellectuals, fell victim to a very ordinary, mediocre man. And that man ruled over it.
This must help everybody to understand the foolishness of intellect. Intellect is superficial. One should grow in being otherwise one is always prone, one always tends to become a victim of such people. They always happen.
Mind is conditioned from the outside; it can be ruled from the outside. You have to grow into no-mind, only then can you not be ruled from the outside. Only a man of no-mind is a free man, independent. He is neither German, nor Indian, nor English, nor American --
he is simply free. American, Indian, German...these are the names of your prisons, these are not your freedom skies. These are not skies to fly in, these are the prisons to live in.
A free man belongs to himself and nobody else. A free man is simply an energy with no name, no form, no race, no nation. The days of nations and races are past, the days of the individual are coming. In a better world there will be no Germans, no Indians, no Hindus, no Christians -- there will be pure individuals, perfectly free, living their life in their own way, not disturbing anybody's life and not allowing anybody to disturb their lives.
Otherwise, mind is childish and yet cunning. It can fall victim to any Adolf Hitler, to any chauvinist, to any mad person who is bold enough...and people are bold, they never hesitate. That was the appeal of Adolf Hitler. He was so bold that he was absolutely bold.
He would never hesitate, he was absolutely certain. And people who are uncertain in their being immediately find a deep appeal in such a person. This is
a man who is so certain about truth that he must have attained to truth. They start falling in line with him.
Because of your uncertainty you become a victim to somebody who is mad. But mad people are always certain, only very, very alert and aware people hesitate. Their hesitation shows their awareness and the complexity of life.
And mind is very cunning. It can rationalise everything. I have heard.
Berger, hiding with his wife from the Nazis in a secluded Berlin attic, decided to get a breath of fresh air. While out walking he came face to face with Adolf Hitler.
The German leader pulled out a gun and pointed to a pile of horse manure in the street.
'All right,.Jew!' he shouted. 'Eat that or I'll kill you!' Trembling, Berger did as he was ordered.
Hitler began laughing so hard he dropped the weapon. Berger picked it up and said,'Now, you eat the manure or I'll shoot!' The Fuhrer got down on his hands and knees and began eating.
While he was occupied, Berger sneaked away, ran through an alley, climbed over a fence, and dashed up the stairs to the attic. He slammed the door shut, bolted and locked it securely. 'Hilda! Hilda!' he exclaimed to his wife. 'Guess who I had lunch with today!'
Mind goes on rationalising. Even if you eat horse manure it can make it a lunch -
- and
'Hilda, Hilda, guess who I had lunch with today'! Beware of the traps of the mind. And the more you become alert, the more you will be able to live in the moment, in the act, totally. Then there is no motivation: you do it because you delight in it.
And that's why I call it the hardest work. To get out of the mind is the hardest work. But it is not effort, it is awareness; it is not effort, it is intense alertness.
The last question:
Question 5
FOR ENLIGHTENMENT DOES ONE NEED A HUMAN BODY? CAN'T A DOG OR
A TREE WHICH IS FLOWERING GET ENLIGHTENED?
Dang, dang, doko dang, doko dang.
Table of Contents