I and Thou

A lover knocked at the door of his beloved. A voice cried, "Who is there?" The person outside said, "It is I." He heard in reply, "This house has no place for two, 'I' and 'Thou'."

The closed door remained closed. The lover retreated into a forest. There he made penance, observed fasts, and offered prayers. After many years, he returned and again knocked on the closed door. Again the voice asked, "Who is there?"

This time the doors were thrown open, for his reply was, "It is thou."

This reply, "It is thou", is the essence of all religion. On the endlessly flowing river of life, "I" is the only bubble. "I" alienates the individual from existence. The bubble of "I" thinks itself distinct from the river, whereas in reality the bubble has no separate existence. It has no separate center, no separate life. It is the ocean. The ocean is its life. Its very existence is in and through the ocean. Even the idea of its being separate from the ocean is ignorance. Look into the bubble, and you find the ocean. Look into t he 'I', and you find brahman.

Where 'I' does not exist, 'Thou' too is absent. There is only 'being'. Only existence, pure is-ness is there. To awaken into this pure existence is nirvana.

How to be free from the fear of death?

Last night a man breathed his last. Today people mourn at his door.

At such moments a memory of an event in my childhood arises in my mind. It was my first visit to the burning ghats. The funeral pyre had been lit, and the people were chatting in small groups.

The village poet said, "I am not afraid of death. Death is a friend."

Since then I have heard this same assertion in different forms from different people. I have also looked into the eyes of those who say this and have found that these fearless words arise from fear.

Nothing changes just by giving death beautiful names. In fact, the fear is not of death, the fear is of the unfamiliar. What is unknown creates fear in us. It is necessary to become acquainted with death. This acquaintance brings one to fearlessness. Why? Because it is through acquaintance that one comes to know that there is no death to what is.

It is only the personality, which we have taken to be our "I", that shatters, that dies. It shatters because it is not. It is only a combination, a union of a few elements. As this union disintegrates, the personality shatters. This is what death is. Hence, as long as personality is taken to be one and the same as the true self, there is death.

Move deeper from the personality, and as you arrive at the true self, the deathless is attained.

The path of this journey, the penetration from the surface of personality to the core of the self, is religion.

It is in samadhi, enlightenment, that acquaintance with death happens. Just as darkness ceases to exist the moment the sun rises, so does death when samadhi is attained.

Death is neither an enemy nor a friend, it simply does not exist. One needs neither to fear it nor not fear it. One has only to know it.

Ignorance of it is fear, knowing it is fearlessness.

What is renunciation?

I had been to a village. I heard someone saying there: "Religion lies in renunciation, and renunciation is a hard and demanding discipline."

As I heard this, I recollected an incident from my early childhood. I had accompanied a picnic party to the bank of a river. The river was small but with a vast expanse of sand. On the sandy bank there lay many pebbles in luminous colors. I felt I had stumbled on a treasure. By the evening I had collected so many pebbles that it was not possible to bring them home with me. Tears came into my eyes when I had to leave them behind as I left, and I was surprised to see my companions' lack of interest in those pebbles.

That day they seemed to me to be great renouncers. When I think of it today, I see that there is no question of renunciation once you have known the stones as stones.

Ignorance is indulgence. Knowing is renunciation.

Renunciation is not a doing; it is not something to be done, it just happens. It is a natural result of knowing. Indulgence is mechanical: that too is not a doing - it is a natural result of ignorance.

Hence, the idea that renunciation is a hard and arduous task is meaningless. In the first place it is not an act - activities alone can be difficult and strenuous - it is an outcome. Secondly, in renunciation what apparently drops is worthless, and what is attained is priceless.

In fact, renunciation as such does not exist, because we gain immensely more than we drop. The reality is that we drop only our bondage, but we gain liberation; we drop only shells but we receive diamonds; we forsake only death but attain immortality; we leave only darkness but attain the light - eternal and infinite.

Where then is the renunciation? Dropping nothing and receiving everything cannot be called renunciation.

Missed calls from God

Many candidates were invited to interview for a position as wireless operator at a telegraph office. They stood in a long line outside the office waiting for their names to be called. But that waiting was not silent. Conversations were going on, and either outside or inside, all were lost in their own thoughts.

Just then, a man standing at the very back left the line and went into the telegraph office. Perhaps no one saw him go.

People saw him only later, when he came out carrying an appointment letter in hand saying, "I have been appointed to the position advertised in the papers. So for you there is no need to stand in line here, you can go home."

A great hubbub arose when they heard this.

They shouted slogans like: "Favoritism," "Kill him."

People started complaining, "When this man had already been selected what was the need to call all of us here? "

But a big official from the telegraph office came out and said, "Your conclusion is wrong. This person was appointed only because he successfully completed the test. Through a loud speaker on top of the telegraph office we broadcasted in telegraph signals: 'Whoever understands this message, immediately come inside your appointment letter is ready.' But if you were occupied with your conversations and couldn't hear the tapping, what fault is that of ours?"

Ah! One day won't God say the same to each of us? So many are his calls - but amidst all our noise, has not his call become like the tapping of that telegraph signal?

God is calling each and every moment. But this mind of ours is busy with itself. Unless our minds become unoccupied we will not be able to hear his voice. Only the unoccupied mind is meditation. As we become empty - silent - wordless, his music fills our being to the brim.

Be silent - and know.

A difficult journey

Sa'adi has written:

A Sufi dervish had also joined us - he hadn't a single coin with him, nor anything else for that matter. We were all on camels, but he traveled on foot.

Nevertheless, his joy knew no limits and he went on saying: "I am not a load on any camel - nor is any camel a load on me. I am neither anyone's master, nor anyone's slave. I have no worries of the past, no worries of the future. The present is enough for me. My life is just moment to moment. Fully I breathe - fully I live life."

But the most worried among us, a businessman, advised him to return. He explained the difficulties ahead. He related his experiences of journeys in the past.

And when the dervish didn't listen to him he said, "by your own choice you are going into the mouth of death with little food and the exhaustion of traveling on foot, you are certainly going to die."

But the fakir just went on Laughing - he kept on singing his song and moving ahead. Every day the journey became more difficult. All our faces were filled with lines of worry and despair. The businessman had gone almost completely insane.

But the fakir went on laughing and singing: "Fully I breathe - fully I live life."

And then each and every step of the journey became impossible. The words of that experienced traveler began to seem right to us all. The journey became a total nightmare. But the fakir went on singing his songs. The radiance of his face increased with each difficulty. In his eyes, flowers of an unearthly joy seemed to blossom. And one day the businessman died from these extreme hardships.

And the dervish standing near the dead body of the businessman said: "Beloved! I have not died from the hardships of foot travel - and you have died riding comfortably on a camel? Fools burn lamps during the day, and at night they wonder why they have no light!"

We were on a long journey. The route was rarely traveled and filled with innumerable troubles.

A repressed fire can burst into flames at any moment

A so-called saint was sitting alone before his dhuni, his holy fire pit. Someone came by to test him, saying, "Babaji, is there any fire in the dhuni?"

The saint said, "There is none."

He said, "Please stir it, perhaps there are coals."

Raising his eyebrows the saint said angrily, "I told you there is no fire."

The man provoked him again, saying, "Babaji, surely there must be a few sparks?"

Leaning forward on his fire tongs the saint said, "What kind of idiot are you anyway?"

Then the man said, "Babaji, I see a few sparks."

The saint said, "What? Am I blind?"

The man said, "A few flames become visible now!"

Then the saint completely lost his senses - his eyes filled with sparks and his voice with flames. Picking up his fire tongs he started chasing after that man to beat him.

Fleeing for his life the man said, "Babaji, look, now the fire has taken flame totally!"

Only a repressed fire can burst into flames. And a repressed fire can burst into flames at any moment. Repression is self-enmity and a self-deception.

In the middle, between indulgence and repression is the door to peace, to liberation, to strength, to truth, to samadhi. Search for this door.

Don't ever repress the mind. Repression is a disease. And that which is repressed will never be completed. It comes back again and again to attack you. The mind is to be understood. Finally, only understanding the mind becomes the solution. Repression is merely postponement of diseases. The path is neither in indulgence nor repression. The path is in understanding. Hence know your own mind in all its forms. Live consciously. Live wakefully. Then what is meaningless disappears on its own. And its energy is transformed into the meaningful. Otherwise we create a vicious circle for ourselves.

If you want to attain the divine, learn to die

Someone went to visit a Baul mystic. He was absorbed in singing his song. Neither his eyes seemed to be seeing this world, nor did it feel as if his soul was present. He was somewhere else - in some other world, in some other form. When his song stopped, and it seemed his consciousness was returning, the visitor asked, "How do you feel liberation can be attained?"

The sweet-spoken mystic said, "Only by means of death. "

I said this to someone yesterday. He asked, "By death?" I said, "Yes, by death while living. Only one who dies to everything else, awakens and becomes alive to the divine."

There is no art greater than learning to die while living. I call that art: meditation. One who lives as if he is dead will certainly know whatever is essential in life.

If you want to attain the divine, Learn to die. Have you not seen that when the seed dies, it becomes a tree?

Learn something from everyone

I remember a story. It happened in Mecca. A barber was giving someone a haircut. Just then the Sufi fakir, Junnaid, came in and said, "Can you cut my hair in the name of Allah?"

Just hearing Allah's name, the barber said to his regular customer, "Friend, please just wait a little, I cannot cut your hair right now. I have to attend to that fakir for allah. Allah's work comes first."

After this he cut Junnaid's hair with great love and devotion, then respectfully bade him farewell.

A few days later when someone had given Junnaid money, he went to give some to the barber. But the barber wouldn't take any money, saying, "Have you no shame? You had said to cut your hair in the name of Allah, not for money!"

And his whole life Junnaid used to say to his disciples, "It was from a barber that I learned unselfish love and devotion."

If one's eyes are open, then this whole life is a school. And one who is hungry to learn, learns from every person and from every situation. And remember, one who does not learn in this way, learns nothing in life. Emerson has said, "Each person I meet is better than me at one thing or another. I can learn something from him."

Even in the lowest, vast messages are hidden. One who knows how to uncover them, becomes wise. Move with awareness in life and every experience brings intelligence. One who remains unconscious, returns even the light that comes to his door.

Know the strong fort inside you

A sadhu was asked by his friends, "If wicked people attack you, what will you do?"

He said, "I will go sit inside my own strong fort."

This conversation reached the ears of the enemies. Then one day the enemies surrounded him while he was alone and said, "O sadhu! Please tell us, where is your strong fort?"

The sadhu began laughing and then, placing a hand on his heart, said, "This is my fort. No attack can ever be made on it. The body can be destroyed, but that which is inside cannot be. This is my very fort. My only security is to know my way there. "

The person who doesn't know this strong fort his entire life is insecure. His life is surrounded by enemies every moment. Such a person has not yet found a shelter for peace and security. And those who search outside for that shelter, search in vain, because it is inside.Only by being established in your being does the real acquaintance with life happen, because the periphery which is outside this center is created by death.

One finds life only from knowing that which is inside one's being. One who doesn't know this is surrounded every moment by death and the fear of death.

Life never waits for you and your mind

Once a Master said to his disciples: If you utter a word - thirty blows of my stick for you, but if you utter no words just the same, thirty blows of my stick

Now - SPEAK. SPEAK!

One disciple came forward and when he was about to bow before the Master he was struck

The disciple protested: I have not uttered a single word and neither did you allow me not to utter. Why the striking ?

The Master laughed and said, If I wait for you and your speech or your silence.. it is too late and life cannot wait!

Life goes on flowing. It does not wait. But mind thinks and therefore takes time. To exist, no time is needed, but to think - time is necessary Really there is no time existence. it appears only because of the mind and its thinking. Existence exists not in time but in eternity. It exists in the eternal now. There is neither past nor future. But only the present - or not even that because without the past and future it is meaningless to call it present. Do not live through the mind, you will always lag behind. Because life never waits for you and your so-called mind that is why the mind always feels as if something is missing - because it is missing life itself - and always!

Classic Sherlock Holmes deduction

I have heard a dialogue between Sherlock Holmes and Watson:

Holmes: Ah Watson. I see you have put on your winter underwear.

Watson: Marvellous, Holmes, marvellous! How did you ever deduce that?

Holmes: Well, you have forgotten to put on your trousers.

Life is not a detective story, and you do not have to deduce a thing. Life is before your eyes as clear as the sun and as open as the sky. Just be out of your thinking, disease and open your eyes and nothing is hidden at all. Even the hidden one is not hidden then.

What is nirvana?

A monk asked Daishu Ekai, What is nirvana?

The Master answered: Not to commit oneself to the vicious circle of birth and death or pleasure and pain is great nirvana.

What then is the vicious circle of birth and death and pleasure and pain?

The Master said: To desire nirvana! 

Now be silent and feel what is meant by to desire nirvana, and remember that I am not saying think about it because to think is to miss it.

FEEL IT.

Mulla Nasrudin's cloak falls to the ground with a thump

One day Mulla Nasrudin's wife, hearing a tremendous thump. ran to his room.

Nothing to worry about, said the Mulla. It was only my cloak which fell to the ground.

What! And made a noise like that? asked his wife

Yes - I was inside it at the time, said the Mulla.

Remember always the one who is inside the body. Walking, sitting, eating or doing anything, remember the one who is neither walking nor sitting nor eating. All doing is on the surface and beyond all doing is the being; so be aware of the nondoer in the doing. of the nonmover in the moving.

The tricks your mind plays to save itself from meditation

Idries Shah tells a dervish tale:

There was once a wise and very rich man who had a son.

He said to him: My son, here is a jeweled ring. Keep it is a sign that you are a successor of mine and pass it down to your posterity. It is of value, of fine appearance, and it has the added capacity of opening a certain door to wealth.

Some years later he had another son. When he was old enough the wise man gave him another ring with the same advice.

The same thing happened in the case of his third and last son.

When the Ancient had died and the sons grew up one after the other each claimed primacy for himself because of his possession of one of the rings. Nobody could tell for certain which was the most valuable.

Each son gained his adherents, all claiming a greater value and beauty for his own ring. But the curious thing was that the door to wealth remained shut for the possessors of the keys and even their closest supporters. They were all too preoccupied with the problem of precedence, the possession of the ring, its value and appearance.

Only a few looked for the door to the treasury of the Ancient. The rings had a magical quality too.
Although they were keys they were not used directly in opening the door to the treasury. It was sufficient to look upon them without contention or too much attachment to one or other of their qualities. When this had been done the people who had looked were able to tell where the treasury was and could open it merely by producing the outline of the ring.

The treasuries had another quality too: they were inexhaustible. Meanwhile the partisans of the three rings repeated the tales of their ancestors about the merits of the rings, each in a slightly different way.

The first community thought they had already found the treasure because they had the key. The second thought that it was allegorical and thereby consoled themselves. And the third transferred the possibility of opening the door to a distant and remotely imagined future time and therefore for them there was nothing to do at present.

There is every possibility for you also to belong to one of these three communities because anyone who begins to search s always prone to fall into the trap of any one of the three. Really, these are the three basic tricks the mind can play to save itself from meditation

So beware of these old tricks.

Meditation is the master key. It can open the doors of the infinite and it can unlock the mystery of the unknown. But just by possessing the key nothing is attained, unless one uses it.

Dont TRY to be natural, just BE natural

Suzuki tells a story:

A monk once asked one of the old Chinese Masters: What is the way?

The Master replied:The natural one, the ordinary one, is the way.

How, continued the monk, am I to be in accord with it? Asked the monk.

When you try to be in accord with it, said the Master, then you deviate from it.

Does this mean that one should not try?

No, because that too is a way of trying. Of course, indirect, but still intentional; that too will not help. But just see the dilemma clearly and you are out of it.

ARE YOU, NOT?

Meditation requires understanding and not effort, understanding is essential, not effort, and remember always that you cannot substitute understanding with any effort whatsoever. But what do I mean by understanding? By understanding I mean - living a natural life. Of course, you cannot try to be natural, that is self-contradictory!

You can BE natural but you cannot try to be natural.

The old problem of the goose in the bottle

Riko once asked Nansen to explain to him the old problem of the goose in the bottle. If a man puts a gosling into the bottle, he said, and feeds the gosling through the bottle's neck until it grows and grows and becomes a goose - and then there is just no more room inside the bottle, how can the man get it out without killing the goose or breaking the bottle?

RIKO! shouted Nansen, and gave a great clap with his hands.

Yes Master! said Riko with a start.

See! said Nansen. The goose is out!

That which is never lost cannot be found, and to search for it is absurd. But the moment this absurdity is understood all seeking stops by itself and that which is never lost is found! That is why I say: SEEK AND YOU WILL NOT FIND, because the very seeking is the barrier. The search itself is the hindrance because it creates the seeker, the ego, the illusion that I am, and I am not. Do not seek and you will find it: the I-AM-NOTNESS. This nothingness is the gate. THE GATELESS GATE.

What is the holy ultimate truth?

When the Chinese emperor Wu came to meet Bodhidharma he asked the Master: What is the holy ultimate truth?

Bodhidharma laughed and replied: Nothing holy, sir, and it is emptiness itself.

Of course Wu was taken aback, but he asked again: Then who is the one who at present stands confronting me?

Bodhidharma simply said: I don't know.

Do you see the beauty of it? And the truth? And the innocence? And the holiness? And the fullness? And the absolute ultimateness?

Meditation is beyond knowledge. You can be it but you cannot know it. All knowledge is superficial. It is never anything else but acquaintance from outside. It is always about but never the thing itself.

The monkey way of thinking

In the BOOK OF AMU DARIA there is an old Sufi tale:

Once upon a time there was a monkey who was very fond of cherries. One day he saw a delicious looking cherry and came down from his tree to get it, but the fruit turned out to be in a clear glass bottle, so he had to put his hand into the bottle to get it out. As soon as he had done so he closed his hand over the cherry but then he found that he could not withdraw his fist holding the cherry
because it was larger than the internal dimensions of the bottle's neck.

Now all this was deliberate because the cherry in the bottle was a trap laid by a monkey hunter who knew how monkeys think. The hunter, hearing the monkey's whimperings, came along and the monkey tried to run away, but because his hand was, as he thought, stuck in the bottle. He could not move fast enough to escape. But as he thought he still had hold of the cherry he consoled himself.

The hunter picked him up and tapped the monkey sharply on the elbow making him suddenly relax his hold on the fruit. The monkey was now free - but he was captured. The hunter had used the cherry and the bottle and he still had them.

This monkey-way of thinking is the mind-way also!

And in the end when death, the hunter, comes everyone is found caught in his own bottle. Remember, before the hunter comes make sure your hand is out of the bottle!

Do not cling to anything, to any idea, because clinging is the bondage. Even if one is clinging to the idea of liberation - moksha or nirvana, one will be in bondage. With clinging meditation is impossible because clinging is mind - the bondage, and no-clinging is meditation -the freedom.

All the ultimate answers are foolish

In a little backwoods school the teacher was at the blackboard explaining arithmetic problems.

She was delighted to see her dullest pupil giving slack-jawed attention, which was unusual for him. Her happy thought was that at last the gangling lad was beginning to understand.

When she finished she said to him: YOU were so interested, Cicero. that I am sure you want to ask some questions.

Yes ma’am, drawled Cicero, I got one to ask.

Where do those figures go when you rub them off?

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 word: 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.

The educated fool

In ancient times the king of a certain country was concerned because his son was something of a fool. The king's counsellors 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 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 though for a moment and said; It is a round object with a hole in the centre.

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 aid 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.

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 remains the same. That is why all that is called education just proves superficial. Mind must go through 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.