But do not think about it
and do not crave it,
and if the craving comes – be aware and laugh.
It will be stopped by awareness
and the created energy will be used by the laughter,
and after the laugh you will feel a deep relaxation.
Then begin to dance or sing
and the negative state of the mind
will be transformed into the positive.
The craving to be someone, somebody,
is absolutely negative
because the ego is the negation of being.
The ego is the principle of negation,
and if the negative is negated then you are positive.
The ego is the source of all inferiority,
but the trick is subtle
because the ego promises superiority
and in the end only results in inferiority.
Decode this secret and understand it very clearly.
One who thinks in terms of superiority
will always remain inferior
because these are two aspects of the same coin.
Sow the seeds of superiority
and you will reap the crop of inferiority.
Begin with the longing for superiority
and you will end up with nothing but inferiority
and all the hell that is involved in it.
Begin with humbleness, with humility,
and you are nearer to the divine.
In fact you are divine
but the ego will not allow you any gap
to look into your own divinity.
On the contrary
it will go on creating new, imaginary heavens
only to make way for new hells.
Enter heaven and you are entering hell!
Beware of this, and beware of your so-called self –
the creator of all the agonies that exist on earth.
Be a no-self and you will be that which you are already
and have been always –
that which is bliss eternal,
and freedom,
and the cosmic being, the brahman.
Tat tvam asi – that art thou, my love.
301. Love.
Man is unaware of himself.
He does not know what is happening to him,
nor does he know the state of his being.
A man cut down a tree one day.
A Sufi who saw this taking place said:
Look at this fresh branch which is full of sap, and happy
because it does not know yet that it has been cut off.
But his companion said:
Yes, it may be ignorant of the damage it has suffered,
but it will know in due time.
Hearing this the Sufi laughed and said:
Meanwhile you cannot reason with it.
This reverence is the state of man.
This ignorance is the state of man –
and meanwhile you cannot reason with him!
Or can you?
But this is irrelevant.
If you can reason with yourself that is more than enough!
302. Love.
In life everything is whole, and organically whole.
You cannot divide it
or take it in parts.
Love is like that
and meditation is also like that.
Even death is like that.
That is why I say:
Death is not dead but organically one with life.
You cannot die partially!
– either you die or you do not die.
Nor can you die gradually.
Please remember this always
when you are in meditation or in prayer or in worship.
A very valuable dachshund
owned by a wealthy woman was run over.
The policeman sent a man
to tell the woman of her misfortune.
But break the news gently, he said.
She thinks a lot of this dog.
The man rapped on the mansion door
and when the woman appeared, he said: Sorry, lady,
but part of your dog has been run over.
303. Love.
Artificial and outward discipline have no use –
the inner and natural discipline is enough.
But what is the inner discipline?
In one word: acceptance –
total acceptance.
And acceptance can be only total
because partial acceptance
is just a contradiction in terms.
If you live – live!
If you die – die!
If you suffer – suffer!
And then there is no problem
and no anxiety
and no anguish –
and what freedom!
A Zen master was once asked:
It is terribly hot, how shall we escape it?
Why not go, answered the master,
to the place where it is neither –
neither hot nor cold?
Where is that place?
And then the master laughed and said:
In summer we sweat and in winter we shiver.
304. Love.
How can a man learn to know himself? inquires Goethe,
and then answers:
Never by reflection but only by action.
John Burroughs doubts this.
He says:
Is not this a half-truth? –
because one can only learn his powers of action by action
and his powers of thought by thinking.
But I say that
man is always more than all his actions and
all his thoughts,
and unless that more is known no one knows himself.
That more can be known neither
by action nor by reflection
because they both belong to the periphery
and that more is eternally the center.
It can only be known through witnessing action
and thought both:
not by them but by witnessing them.
And witnessing is meditation.
305. Love.
There is no answer to man’s ultimate questions
because the questions are absurd,
and moreover there is no one to answer them.
Existence is silent and has always been so,
so do not ask
but be silent and live it and know it,
because there is no knowing except living.
The search for answers is meaningless.
A patient in a mental hospital
placed his ear to the wall of his room, listening intently.
Quiet! he whispered to an orderly and pointed
to the wall.
The attendant pressed his ear against the wall, listened, and then
said: I don’t hear anything.
No, replied the patient.
It’s awful, it’s always been this way!
306. Love.
The mind lives in a logical somnambulism,
and it feeds on arguments and words.
You cannot come out of it gradually
or logically or rationally.
Rather, take the jump,
illogical and irrational —
and the jump can be nothing else than that.
It cannot be calculated
or conceptualized or predetermined
because it is going into the unknown
and the unchartered
and the unpredictable,
and ultimately not only into the unknown
but into the unknowable also.
307. Love.
Meditation cannot be taught directly
because it is not a mechanical technique,
but a living art.
Dogo had a disciple called Soshin.
Soshin waited long with his master
to be taught the art of meditation.
He expected lessons the way a schoolboy
is taught at school,
but there no special lessons were forthcoming,
and this bewildered and disappointed the disciple.
One day he said to the master:
It is a long time since I came here
but not a word has been given to me
regarding the essence of meditation.
Dogo laughed at this heartily and said:
What are you saying, my boy?
Since your arrival I have continually
been giving you lessons on the matter!
At this the poor disciple was even more bewildered
and for some time he could not think what to say.
Then one day he gathered courage and asked again:
What kind of lesson could it have been, sir?
Dogo said:
When you bring me a cup of tea in the morning, I take it;
when you serve me a meal, I accept it
and when you bow to me I return it with a nod.
How else do you expect to be taught in meditation?
Soshin hung his head
and began to think about the
puzzling words of the master,
but at this the master said again:
If you want to see, see, right at once,
because when you begin to think
you miss the point altogether.
308. Love.
Meditate, pray and wait.
Do not will anything,
for in you there is strength
greater than any strength of your own.
But it works only when your will is at rest.
309. Love.
Be free at the center;
let the center relax and die:
be only a circumference –
and this is the only renunciation I know.
No man is free until he is free at the center.
When he lets go then he is really free –
and then life is not anguish
and then life is not agony
because no hell can exist without the self, the center.
310. Love.
Do you hear me?
Do you see me?
I stand at the door and knock,
and I knock because of a promise made
in another life and another age.
311. Love.
Be in the crowd as if you are alone
and vice versa.
Receive a guest with the same attitude
you have when alone,
and when alone
maintain the same attitude you have in receiving guests.
In this way the drop drops into the ocean.
On retiring, sleep as if you have entered your last sleep,
and upon awakening be reborn again.
In this way the ocean drops into the drop.
312. Love.
Emptiness is not really emptiness:
rather, it is the all.
It is not negative:
rather, it is positivity itself.
It is out of it that everything is born
and to it everything returns.
It is the source and ground of all existence.
So whenever I say emptiness
I never mean just emptiness!
To me emptiness is not the absence of anything
but the presence of emptiness itself.
And now you can understand it
because you yourself are in it,
and it is in you.
Once a student asked Joshu: Sir, you teach that