I’ve been sick!
325. Love.
The whole of Yoga has gone dead because of imitation.
One cannot imitate anything that is real.
The real is always spontaneous:
one can jump into it but one cannot practice it.
Any practice is of the mind and by the mind –
and the mind is the past, the dead.
The mind is the thing one has to jump out of.
Out of the mind is the explosion,
so be aware of the mind and its tricks!
Mamiya went to a great teacher to learn meditation.
The teacher told him to concentrate on the famous koan:
What is the sound of one hand?
Mamiya went away
and came back a week later shaking his head.
He could not get it.
Get out! said the master. You are not trying hard enough.
You still think of money and food and pleasure.
It would be better if you died,
then you might learn the answer.
The next week Mamiya came back again.
When the master asked him:
Well, what is the sound of one hand? –
he clutched at his heart, groaned
and fell down as if dead.
Well, you have taken my advice and died,
said the master,
but what about the sound?
Mamiya opened one eye:
I have not solved that yet, he said.
Dead men don’t speak, said the master.
Get up and get out!
326. Love.
We settle down where no settling is possible.
We make homes
whilst homelessness is the very nature
of our consciousness.
We go on doing things which are impossible
and then suffer!
But no one else is responsible.
We fight with the void and are then defeated –
not because the void is stronger than us
but because it is not.
Now stand up
and fight with the empty space of the room
so that you can know and taste
the whole stupidity of the human mind.
And then sit down and laugh at yourself,
and as the laughter dies down
be silent and search within,
and then you will come to know a deep mystery:
the mystery that the void is not only without
but within also!
327. Love.
Death is everywhere
but everyone deceives himself that it is not for him.
This is the greatest
and the deepest deception the human mind is capable of,
and unless one is constantly aware of this fact
one is bound to be a victim of this deception –
because the mind goes on giving
very beautiful and logical rationalizations
up to the very end.
I have heard about a ninety-year-old man
who got into a bitter argument with his shoemaker
as to how a pair of shoes should be made.
See here, said the shoemaker,
What’s the idea of doing so much yapping?
You are past ninety
and there is little chance of your living long enough
to wear these shoes out.
The old fellow looked sternly at the shoemaker
and said: Apparently you are not aware
that statistics prove that very few people
die after ninety years of age!
328. Love.
Information is not knowledge
because information is not transformation
and can never be –
and knowledge comes only through transformation.
Information is adding something to the same old mind.
It is quantitative;
there is no qualitative change
because the mind behind it remains the same.
That is why all that is called education
just proves to be superficial.
Mind must go through a qualitative change,
otherwise there is no wisdom;
and to go on adding information to ignorance is fatal.
I call meditation
the method for mind’s total mutation.
First let there be a transformation
of the very quality of the mind
and only then education can be educative.
In ancient times
the king of a certain country was concerned
because his son was something of a fool.
The king’s counselors urged that the son be sent away
to a great university in another land
in the hope that the boy
would acquire learning and wisdom.
The king agreed.
The son studied hard for several years
then wrote to his father that he had learned
just about everything possible
and pleaded to be allowed to return home.
The king assented.
When the son arrived at the palace
the king was overjoyed.
A great feast was prepared
and all the great men of the kingdom were invited.
At the end of the festivities
one of the sages present asked the son
what he had learned.
The young man ticked off the university’s curriculum
that he had gone through. While the lad was talking
the sage slipped a ring off his finger,
closed his hand over it,
held up his hand and asked: What do I hold in my hand?
The son thought for a moment and said:
It is a round object with a hole in the center.
The sage was astonished at such wisdom.
Maybe the lad had become a great mind.
Will you now name the object? asked the sage.
The king’s son pondered for a few moments, then said:
The sciences that I studied do not help me
in answering your question,
but my own commonsense tells me that it is a cartwheel.
The sage concluded to himself
that you can educate a fool
but you cannot make him think.
329. Love.
Yes, there is a way,
but in many the will is lacking to find it.
And it is not far away,
it is just by the corner, so to speak.
Knowingly or unknowingly all men long for it.
Really, the whole of life is a longing for it
because without it
there is no reaching, no flowering, no fulfillment.
But few men seek it
and still fewer seek it rightly
and still fewer find it –
and all of those who find it do not enter.
Only a few enter
and still fewer progressively follow it.
But those who follow it with their total being
realize that the way is the goal itself!
330. Love.
Mind and meditation are two names
of the same substance,
or the same energy.
Mind is energy flowing in dualisms,
in conflict and dis-ease;
and meditation is non-dual energy,
one with itself and at ease.
Thinking is impossible without dualisms,
that is why meditation asks you to go beyond thinking.
The moment there is no thinking –
or a single ripple of thought –
the energy becomes integrated
and there is a qualitative change.
The no-thinking energy
opens the door of the dimensionless dimension.
So refrain from seeking even
Enlightenment or Buddhahood
because with any seeking whatsoever
the mechanism of thought
begins to operate and create dualisms.
331. Love.
Do not forget the search for the divine
for even a single moment
because the time is always short and the task is great,
and besides, the mind is wavering.
In fact the mind is the wavering.
Remember this, and remain aware of this fact
as much as you can
because the moment one is aware, the wavering stops,
and in the intervals are the glimpses:
glimpses of oneself, glimpses of no-mind.
One has to absolutely transcend the wavering of the mind before one comes to the doors of the beloved.
No-mindedness is the door.
And the door is not far off.
But the seeker is asleep.
Mind is the sleep.
That is why you will have to be attentive and alert
to everything that passes before your consciousness –
even be attentive to the inattentive moments.
Through constant awareness
the spiritual sleep will be broken
and you will he transformed.
This is your potentiality,
this is everyone’s potentiality,
and for you the time is ripe.
But the seed can remain a seed and die.
The opportunity can be lost.
You are free to be that which you are meant to be
or to be that which you are not meant to be.
Man is free to be or not to be –
this is the glory and this is the burden.
Freedom means responsibility,
so be careful.
If you can be that which is your potentiality,
if you can flower in your fullness
then there is bliss
then there is ecstasy, otherwise
ashes are in the hands
and anguish in the heart.
And ultimately everything depends on you:
heaven or hell –
and you and only you will be responsible for it.
So be careful.
My blessings are always with you.
332. Love.
Metaphysics is born out of childish curiosity,
so however sublime, it remains juvenile.
And all the ultimate answers are foolish in a way
because the ultimate is not only unknown,
it is unknowable.
A mature mind is one
who understands the impossibility
of knowing the ultimate,
and with this understanding
there is a new dimension:
the dimension of being.
Knowing is not possible, but being is.
Or in other words:
in relation to the ultimate, only being is knowing.
This dimension is the religious dimension,
and unless one is religious in this sense
one goes on asking absurd questions
and accumulating even more absurd answers.
In a little backwoods school
the teacher was at the blackboard explaining
arithmetic problems.
She was delighted to see her dullest pupil
paying fixed attention,
which was unusual for him.
Her happy thought was that at last
the lanky lad was beginning to understand.
When she finished she said to him: