1971

1971

163. Love.

You ask for the way to make the invisible visible?

Pay attention to the visible.

Do not just see, pay attention.

It means, when you see a flower,

let your whole being become the eye.

When you listen to the birds, let your entire body-soul become the ear.

When you look at a flower, do not think.

When you listen to birds, do not ponder.

Let the total consciousness

either see or hear or smell or taste or touch.

Because it is due to a shallowness of sensitivity that the invisible is unable

to become visible,

and the unknown remains unknown.

Deepen the sensitivity. Do not just swim in sensitivity, drown in it.

This I call meditation.

And, in meditation, the seen disappears

and finally the seer too. There remains only the seeing.

It is in this seeing that the invisible becomes visible

and the unknown becomes known.

Not only this – even the unknowable becomes knowable.

And remember that whatever I am writing –

do not start thinking about this as well: act.

Nothing has ever been nor can be attained

by creating theories.

There is no other door except ‘seeing for oneself’.

164. Love.

You ask: how far is the destination?

Ah! The destination is very far, and very near too.

And the distance or the nearness of the destination

is not dependent on the destination but upon you yourself.

The deeper the will, the nearer the destination.

If the will is total, then you yourself are the destination.

165. Love.

The word is not the thing –

the word God is not God.

But the mind goes on accumulating words and

words and words,

and then the words become the barrier.

See this as a fact with you:

can you see anything without the word?

Can you feel anything without the word?

Can you live even for a single moment without the word?

Do not think but see

and then you will be in meditation.

To exist wordlessly is to be in meditation.

166. Love.

Always see what is –

the facts.

That which is.

Do not project anything,

do not interpret,

do not impose any meaning:

that is, do not allow your mind to interfere,

and you will begin to encounter reality.

Otherwise everyone lives in his own world of dreaming.

And meditation is the coming out of these worlds,

these dreaming patterns.

A philosopher stopped Mulla Nasruddin on the street.

In order to test whether the Mulla

was sensitive to philosophical knowledge

he made a sign, pointing at the sky.

The philosopher meant: There is only one truth,

which covers all.

Nasruddin’s companion, an ordinary man, thought:

The philosopher is mad.

I wonder what precautions Nasruddin will take.

Nasruddin looked in his knapsack and took out a coil of rope.

This he handed to his companion.

Excellent, thought the companion.

We will bind him up if he becomes violent.

The philosopher saw that Nasruddin meant:

Ordinary humanity tries to find truth by methods

as unsuitable as attempting to climb

into the sky with a rope.

Now can you remain content with the fact

of Mulla Nasruddin giving the rope to his companion

without any interpretation whatsoever?

Remain with the fact, and you will be in meditation.

167. Love.

The ego is necessary

for both the sensation of pain and the feeling of pleasure

and vice versa also –

the sensation of pain and the feeling of pleasure,

are necessary for the existence of the ego.

In fact these are two sides of the same coin.

The name of the coin is ignorance.

Understand this

and do not fight with the ego

or with pain and pleasure,

because unless ignorance is gone

they will not go, they cannot go.

And you cannot fight with ignorance

because ignorance is just absence of something –

absence of yourself.

So be present to your ignorance,

be aware of it,

and then you will be and there will be no ignorance

because you and ignorance cannot exist simultaneously,

as with light and darkness.

168. Love.

A small boy with a penny

clutched tightly in his hot little hand

entered the toy shop

and drove the proprietor to distraction

asking him to show this and that

and everything

without ever making up his mind.

Look here, my boy, said the storekeeper finally.

What do you want to buy for a penny –

the whole world with a fence around it?

The boy thought for a moment

and then replied: Let me see it.

And I say to you that ordinarily

no one in this world is different from that small boy.

But unless one is different, one is not mature.

And maturity does not come with age alone,

maturity comes through understanding the distinction

between that which is possible

and that which is not possible.

169. Love.

Things go on changing without.

You must mirror them,

you must reflect them,

but remember always that the mirror remains the same.

Mirroring does not change the mirror.

Do not be identified with mirroring.

Remember yourself as the mirror –

that is what is meant by witnessing.

And witnessing is meditation.

Lieh-Tzu exhibited his skill in archery to Po-Hun Wu-Jen.

When the bow was drawn to its full length

a cup of water was placed on his elbow

and he began to shoot.

As soon as the first arrow was let fly

a second one was already on the string

and a third followed.

In the meantime he stood unmoved like a statue.

Po-Hun Wu-Jen said: The technique of your shooting is fine,

but it is still a technique.

You look just like a statue from without.

Now let us go up to a high mountain

and stand on a rock projecting over a precipice

and then you try to shoot.

They climbed up a mountain.

Standing on a rock projecting over a precipice

ten thousand feet high

Po-Hun Wu-Jen stepped backward

until one third of his feet was hanging over the rock.

He then motioned to Lieh-Tzu to come forward.

Lieh-Tzu fell to the ground

with perspiration running down to his heels.

Po-Hun Wu-Jen said:

The perfect man soars up above the blue sky

or dives down to the yellow springs,

or wanders about all over the eight limits of the world,

yet shows no signs of change in his spirit.

But you betray a sign of trepidation

and your eyes are dazed.

How can you expect to hit the target?

170. Love.

Do you want to ask questions?

Or do you want to get answers?

Because if you want to ask questions

then you will not get answers,

and if you want to get answers

then you cannot be allowed to ask questions –

because the answer is in that consciousness

where the questions have not yet been raised,

or have been uprooted and thrown out.

171. Love.

I hope you will be moving in deep meditation.

Breathe in it

sleep in it

live in it –

let meditation be your very existence.

Only then is the happening.

Don’t do it, but be it.

And my blessings are always with you.

If you need any help from me just ask when

you are thoughtless,

and it will be given to you.

172. Love.

A madman entered the bazaar and declaimed:

The moon is more useful than the sun.

But why? asked someone.

We need the light more

during the night than during the day, he said.

And I say to you that

all our metaphysical theories and explanations

are not of more worth than the explanation of that madman.

173. Love.

Ask for nothing and you will never be frustrated.

Anticipate darkness with light and sorrow with happiness

because such is the nature of things.

Then you will never be frustrated.

Say to life: What can you do to me? I want nothing!

And say to death: What can you do to me? I have already died!

Then you will be truly free,

because unless one is free of life one can never be free of death.

And when one is free of both

one knows that life which is eternity itself.

174. Love.

Man is always lacking,

because he desires without knowing himself,

because he desires to become something

without knowing his being,

and this is absurd.

First one must know his being

otherwise there will be anguish.

Becoming is anguish

because it is a constant tension

between that which is and that which should be –

and it is an impossible longing also

because only that can be which is.

So know yourself as you are

without any ideals,

without any judgment

and without any condemnation.

Go deep within yourself without any desires to become

because only then can you know yourself.

Discover yourself,

not according to anybody else,

but as you are.

Discover the fact,

discover the real

in its total nakedness.

In this total authenticity

just be a witness,

and then there is an altogether different quality to life,

the quality of let go.

Then one is relaxed totally.

And all flowering is in relaxation,

and all benediction.

175. Love.

Fear cripples consciousness,

and fear is the source of unconsciousness,

that is why without transcending fear

no one can attain to full consciousness.

But what is fear?

Fear is awareness of death without knowing what death is.

Fear exists in the gap between you and your death,

and if there is no gap, no space,

then there is no fear.

Do not think of death as something outside you

because it is not.

And do not think of death as something in the future

because it is not.

Death is within you,

because death is the other side of life.

Life cannot exist without death;

they both belong to the same energy

as positive and negative poles.

So do not identify yourself with life –

because you are both.

The identification with life creates the gap.

And death has nothing to do with the future,

it is always here and now.

Every moment, it is.

And when one ceases to regard it

as something outside oneself

and, so to speak, draws it into his consciousness

and assimilates the idea of it,

one is completely changed.

He is in all truth born again.

And then there is no fear

because then there is no gap.

176. Love.

Thinking is necessary but not enough,

one must know living also,

otherwise one becomes like the philosopher

mentioned by Soren Kierkegaard

who builds a fine palace

but is doomed not to live in it.

He has a shed for himself next door to what

he has constructed for others,

including himself, to look at!

Meditation is not thinking, but living.

Live it daily, moment to moment;

that is, live in it or let it live in you.

It is not something other-worldly either,

because all such distinctions are from the mind:

they are speculative and not existential,

and meditation is existential.

It is no more than one’s everyday life lived totally.

When Mencius says: The truth is near

and people seek it far away,

he means this.

When Tokusan is asked about it he replies:

When you are hungry you eat,

when you are thirsty you drink,

and when you meet a friend you greet him.

He means this.

Ho Koji sings: How wondrous this, how mysterious!

I carry fuel, I draw water.

He also means this.

And when you are near me

whatsoever I may say I always mean this.

Or I may not say anything –

but then too I always mean this.

177. Love.

Religion is so much an experience

that it cannot be handed over by one to another.

But there are traditions of religious experience –

which are bound to be false

because of the very nature of the religious experience.

One has to travel the path alone

with no footprints of other travelers even to guide one.

Hassan of Basra was asked: What is Islam and who

are the Muslims?

He is reported to have said:

Islam is in the books

and Muslims? Muslims are in the tombs.

178. Love.

The world itself is a punishment enough,

so really there is no need for hell at all.

Once a man who had three wives

was brought before the king of the country for punishment.

The king called in his counselors and asked them to devise

the worst possible punishment for the offender,

even death itself.

But they did not order his execution,

ruling instead that it would be still worse for him

to live with all three wives at the same time.

Two weeks later the man committed suicide.

179. Love.

I have no special doctrine or philosophy,

no set of concepts or intellectual formulas,

but only certain irrational devices

through which I can push you into the unknown.

I do not believe in any theories

or any systems of thought,

but I have faith in certain existential situations

through which I can throw you into the unknown.

Intellectual understanding is not understanding at all

but only a deception.

Understanding is always of the total,

of the whole being.

Intellect is only a part, and that too a minor one,

but it acts as the whole

and thereby creates all sorts of stupidities.

Do not be identified with your intellect.

Dissolve it into the whole of your being,

and then you will know what understanding is –

and the bliss and the ecstasy that follow it inevitably.

180. Love.

Meditation is a mirror –

and the most faithful one.

Whoever goes into meditation

risks a confrontation with himself.

The mirror of meditation never lies,

and it does not flatter.

It is impartial and innocent

and it never projects anything.

It only faithfully shows your real, original face,

the face we never show to the world,

the face that we ourselves have forgotten.

So it is possible

that you yourself

may not be able to recognize it the first time!

But do not escape from it.

Face it and you will come to know it and recognize it.

This confrontation is the first test of courage

on the inner way.

So when it comes about –

rejoice and feel blessed.

181. Love.

Yes, there is tension.

To be consciously conscious is to be tense,

but it is not because of consciousness

but because of partial consciousness.

The unconscious is always

behind the so-called consciousness.

This situation creates tension

because this creates a dichotomy, a duality;

hence the tension.

The being, which cannot be divided,

is divided,

hence the tension.

The unnaturalness of the situation

is the root cause of this tension,

and for that matter of all tensions,

because then one is not individual,

that is, indivisible;

therefore there is tension,

and one cannot really relax unless one is one.

Either be totally unconscious as in deep and

dreamless sleep –

and then there is no tension,

or be totally conscious –

and then you are in the state of no-tension

because the total can never be tense.

That is why the whole is the holy.

But falling into a deep sleep-like trance

is just escaping the problem,

and that too only for the time being,

because you will be back soon –

and worse off,

because by such escapes

the gap between

the conscious and the unconscious

is not bridged

but, on the contrary, widened even more.

One becomes split and schizophrenic.

So always be aware of the mind

because it tries to find solace in unconscious states

in so many ways –

through chemical drugs,

through auto-hypnotic means, and otherwise.

Begin to be aware of anything

which ordinarily happens unconsciously,

for example – anger, jealousy, pride –

and your consciousness will be deepened.

Act consciously,

even in day-to-day acts be conscious,

for example walking, eating, talking,

and your consciousness will be expanded.

Be alert when thinking.

No thought should be allowed to pass unwitnessed.

And then, in the end, there is an explosion

in which you become totally conscious,

with no unconsciousness behind.

When this happens one is one,

and to be one is to be silent.

This silence is beyond time and space,

because it is beyond duality.

182. Love.

God is when you are not.

When you are it is not

because you are nothing but a blindness.

The ego cannot see,

the ego cannot be aware,

the ego exists only as a by-product of unconscious living.

One goes on living as if in sleep.

In this sleep the part begins to dream that it is the whole,

and this dreaming becomes a barrier to knowing the whole.

Begin to be aware,

aware of your actions, thoughts and emotions,

just aware.

Because if you condemn or appreciate

you will not be aware –

in any choice the awareness is contaminated

and the darkness of unawareness comes in.

So just be aware without any choice;

then awareness is pure and innocent,

and then awareness is a mirror.

In this mirror-like awareness one never finds oneself

but one finds that-which-is.

And that is God.

But it is only when you are not

because you are the dust which makes the mirror blind.

Because you are the blindness.

183. Love.

There are three forms of knowledge.

The first is intellectual knowledge,

which is in fact not knowledge but only information

and the collection of facts and the use of these

to arrive at further intellectual concepts.

The second is emotional knowledge,

which is also not really knowledge

but the mental state in which man feels

he has known something,

but there is no transformation or mutation of his being.

The first is objective, and out of it science is born,

and the second is subjective, and is the source of all art.

The third is neither,

it is beyond both,

and this third is the real.

It is achieved through meditation

because meditation does not use thinking and feeling

as doors of perception.

Really, these are not doors of perception

but forces of projection.

Through them pure knowing is impossible;

whatsoever comes through them is changed and colored by them.

So unless one is free of all projections

one cannot know that-which-is.

When there are no ripples of thought and emotion

in the consciousness, then and only then

does the third form of knowledge dawn,

and this third is the only real knowledge.

Out of it religion is born,

and out of it is total transformation.

184. Love.

The journey is long

and the path is pathless.

And one has to be alone –

there is no map and no guide.

But there is no alternative.

One cannot escape it,

one cannot evade it.

One has to go on the journey.

The goal seems impossible

but the urge to go on it is intrinsic.

The need is deep in the soul.

Really, you are the urge, you are the need –

and consciousness cannot be otherwise

because of this challenge

and because of this adventure.

So do not waste time – begin.

Do not calculate – begin.

Do not hesitate – begin.

Do not look back – begin.

And always remember old Lao Tzu’s words:

A tree that takes both arms to be encircled

grows from a tiny root.

A many-storied pagoda

is built by placing one brick upon another brick.

A journey of three thousand miles is begun by a single step.

185. Love.

When I say mutation I do not mean simply change.

Change is from the known to the known.

A sinner becomes a saint –

then it is change and not mutation.

You can practice change

but you cannot practice mutation

because only the known can be practiced –

and then any change is going to be only a modified past

because the past will be continuous in it,

and the past also will be the master of it

because it is cultivated by the past.

In other words, change is from this to that,

it is a movement in the known.

But mutation is an explosion:

from this to nothingness,

from here to nowhere.

You cannot practice it –

on the contrary, you are the only hindrance.

So what is to be done?

Really nothing can be done.

Be aware of this helplessness,

and remain in this helplessness.

Do not do anything

because any doing will be escaping

from this fact of helplessness.

Do not move at all –

and then there is an explosion,

and then there is mutation.

186. Love.

Religion is not a promise for the future

but an experience here and now.

But through the priesthood it has become

promises and promises and promises.

At an examination of a class in First Aid

a member, who was also a priest, was asked:

What would you do if you found a man in a

fainting condition?

I would give him some brandy, was the answer.

And if there was no brandy? he was then asked.

I would promise him some, replied the priest.

187. Love.

Wherever there are words there is no real meaning.

But here also are words.

Then what to do?

Read between the words.

Or read that which is said but not written,

or that which is shown and not even said,

or that which is meant and not even shown.

That is – look in,

because the words are without

but the meaning is within.

188. Love.

Reason is not enough;

it is necessary but not enough.

The beyond must be remembered – and always,

because reason in itself is destructive;

alone, it is nothing but an implement to dissect.

It makes a man anti-all and pro-nothing.

It creates absolutely negative minds

which can criticize but cannot create,

because reason has no healing force within itself.

It is only a tiny part and not the whole of life,

and the healing force is always with the whole.

189. Love.

With thought the mind has boundaries

but without thought the mind is just infinite space.

That is why in thoughtless awareness

one stops being a drop

and becomes oceanic.

And then there is great energy.

This energy wipes out everything which is dead.

It wipes out the whole karmic past –

and with no effort at all.

The greater absorbs the lesser and remains untouched.

190. Love.

The will to wholeness is inherent in everything,

but only in man has it become conscious.

Therefore man lives in tension,

and only when this longing is fulfilled

is his negative state of tension erased.

The tension is symbolic of the infinite potential

and also of the infinite possibilities.

Man is not what he can be,

and unless he is that which he can be

he cannot be at ease.

This dis-ease is man,

and health is in wholeness.

The fact that language has one root

for the words whole, holy and to heal

conceals a deep truth:

He who is whole is also healed,

and to be healed is to be whole.

This wholeness can only be achieved

by becoming totally conscious of oneself:

The darkness of the unconscious is to be penetrated

and transformed into light.

And meditation is the method.

191. Love.

The new world revealed in meditation

is not something added from the outside.

It has always been there – within,

is in being itself.

It is being itself.

One may know it or not, but it is there –

as a seed, of course, as a potentiality.

One has to make it actual, that is all.

That is why when it is revealed,

when it flowers,

one laughs uproariously

because it has always been there and one never knew it.

To work towards meditation is just like sculpturing

because as the sculptor chisels out a figure

deeply buried in a mass of inert matter,

so the meditator transforms his own inert potentialities

into living, dynamic and conscious creations.

Of course, here

the creator and the creation and the means of creation

are not different but one

because the meditator himself is all.

And that is why I call meditation the greatest art.

192. Love.

Do not think of others and waste your time;

really, that is a subtle and cunning way of the mind

to escape from itself.

Once a monk asked Ummon:

Sir, you always say that Buddhism helps us in

every possible way,

but how can it help the blind, the deaf or the dumb?

The blind cannot see the teacher’s staff

that is raised before them,

the deaf cannot hear the teacher’s words, no matter how wise,

the dumb cannot ask their questions or speak

their understanding:

so since we cannot help these people

how can we say that Buddhism helps in every possible way?

What good is it?

Ummon just remained silent for a while

and then abruptly poked at the questioner with his stick.

The monk of course jumped back.

Ah! said Ummon. I see you are not blind!

Then he told the monk to come forward, which he did.

Ah-ha! said Ummon. I see you are not deaf!

Then he asked the monk

if he understood what all this to-do was about.

The monk said he did not.

Ah-ha! said Ummon. I see you are not dumb!

193. Love.

Meditation does not require any application of the mind

or use of effort.

It descends upon you as effortlessly as sleep.

You cannot try to sleep,

nor can you try to meditate.

On the contrary,

every effort hinders its smooth and silent coming.

There is no place in it for action or aggression –

and action is always aggressive.

Meditation is passive receptivity.

Mind is aggressive,

meditation is passive.

Be passive

and receptive

and open

and vulnerable

and wait.

The real miracle happens through waiting.

The moment that waiting is total

there is a happening,

and – the explosion.

194. Love.

The problem of life is not philosophical,

it is existential.

You cannot solve it from the outside;

you cannot just be a spectator of it –

you are in it, you are it.

And moreover, what is philosophy?

At the worst a linguistic misunderstanding,

or at best a linguistic analysis.

And even at its best it leads nowhere

because the problem is existential

and it cannot be solved through

language analysis and grammar.

One dark night a dervish was passing a dry well

when he heard a cry for help from below.

What is the matter? he called down.

I am a grammarian,

and I have unfortunately fallen,

due to my ignorance of the path, into this deep well,

in which I am now all but immobilized,

responded the other.

Hold on, friend, and I’ll fetch a ladder and a rope, said the dervish.

One moment please! said the grammarian.

Your grammar and diction are faulty.

Be good enough to amend them. If that is so much more important

than the essentials, shouted the dervish, you had best stay where you are

until I have learned to speak properly.

And he went his way.

195. Love.

Don’t think about surrender at all

because that which thinks about it is the only barrier.

And therefore no one can surrender;

it is not a doing at all, it happens.

You cannot go to it,

it comes to you.

And any effort on your part will hinder its coming.

Be open and effortless, relaxed and passive,

and it will come – it always comes.

I am a witness of it.

196. Love.

Mulla Nasruddin was searching for something on the ground.

What have you lost, Mulla? someone who saw him searching, asked.

My key, said the Mulla. So they both went down on their knees

and looked for it.

After a time the other man asked: Where exactly did you drop it?

In my house, said the Mulla.

Then why are you looking here?

There is more light here than inside my house.

I ask you also – where are you looking for the key?

Inside the house?

Or out there, where there is more light?

197. Love.

There is no end to man’s self-deception, because whatsoever he is

going to do he can rationalize it.

One day one man boasted in the bar

that he was a man of iron will,

and now he would prove it

by not touching wine again in his life.

But not even that day could pass by.

In the evening he came to the bar

and said loudly for all to hear –

I am stronger than my willpower.

I fought the whole day and finally conquered

my damn willpower!

A double scotch, please!

198. Love.

The way of meditation is above the self;

its base is surrendering.

Surrender the self to your own no-self;

be as if you are not.

Oh, the benediction

when one just leaves everything to the no-self!

Buddha called this phenomenon anatma or anatta

(no-selfhood).

One must turn oneself into a puppet

in the hands of the no-self,

and then everything begins to flow naturally

and spontaneously

just like a river flowing to the sea

or like a cloud wandering in the sky.

Lao Tzu says this is doing by non-doing.

One ceases to be one’s own master

and becomes an instrument of the unknown –

and what nonsense it is to be one’s own master

because there is no one to be so!

Do not search and you will continue to believe in it.

Search and it is nowhere to be found.

The self exists only in ignorance.

It is ignorance.

In knowing there is no self

because there is no knower.

Then knowing is enough unto itself.

199. Love.

There is conflict in the mind – always,

because the mind cannot exist without the conflict.

It gets strengthened through conflict;

even warring against conflict is conflict

and struggling to go beyond the mind is mind.

See this deeply and immediately

without motive,

just as if you have come across a snake in the street

– and the jump.

Then it is not that you jump

but – the jump.

The jump happens spontaneously,

without effort and without conflict.

When this happens there is no-mind

and no-mind is the door to the divine.

200. Love.

In meditation, enjoy doing nothing.

Be in a state of perfectly quiet passivity –

then you are in harmony with the world.

The thought-forms dissolve automatically

because they cannot exist with total passivity:

they are forms of an activity-addicted mind,

and with them dissolves the ego –

because it cannot exist without thought-forms.

The ego is nothing but a whirlpool center

of constantly revolving thought-forms.

Remain in passivity,

that is, in the state of absolute doing-nothingness,

and meditation deepens to the depths where there is no meditator.

And remember that only when there is no meditator

has meditation really come into being.

If you are then there is no meditation,

and when there is meditation you are not.

201. Love.

It is tragic but true that few people ever

possess their souls.

They possess everything except themselves,

and then naturally they just become a thing

among their other things.

The possessor becomes the possessed.

Nothing is more rare in any man, says Emerson,

than an act of his own.

But this is just what can be expected

because no one is their own,

no one is themselves.

Most people are other people.

They are not living

but only acting roles given to them by others.

Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions

and their faces are just masks.

They are faceless.

They have no authentic being at all.

Their lives, a mimicry –

and their passions, a quotation.

Break this vicious circle otherwise you will never be.

Break this through meditation –

and it cannot be broken by anything else

because through mind it cannot be broken,

and except for meditation, all else is mind.

Mind is the prison,

meditation, the door.

And the only door.

202. Love.

Only God is –

that is why it is so difficult to find him.

And God is everywhere –

that is why he seems to be nowhere.

And the seeker is the sought –

that is why all seeking is so futile.

Stop and see.

But the mind is running constantly.

Do not be, and see.

But the mind is trying to be continuously.

Says Auden:

For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it,

until you have looked for it everywhere

and found nowhere that is not a desert.

The miracle is the only thing that happens,

but to you it will not be apparent,

until all events have been studied

and nothing happens that you cannot explain.

And life is the destiny you are bound to refuse

until you have consented to die.

Stop and see.

Do not be, and see.

203. Love.

Live in the body intimately and deeply.

Feel the body more and let the body feel more.

It is astonishing how many people

are almost completely unaware of themselves physically.

The body is suppressed and denied life too much,

that is why it is just a dead weight and not a living joy.

That is why I insist: go back into the body

and regain the wonderful joy in its movements,

sheer movements.

Make it a meditation and you will be enriched

beyond comprehension.

204. Love.

John Burroughs remembers:

One day my boy killed what an old hunter told him

was a mock duck.

It looked like a duck,

it acted like a duck,

but when it was placed on the table –

it mocked us!

Remember to make a clear-cut distinction

between your self and your mock-selves – the masks,

otherwise in the end they will all mock you!

205. Love.

Man is strange, very strange,

because he begins by deceiving others

and ends with deceiving himself.

A fakir was walking down the village street

deep in thought

when some urchins began to throw stones at him.

He was taken by surprise,

and besides he was not a big man.

Don’t do that, he said, and I will tell you

something of interest to you.

All right, what is it? But no philosophy.

The king is giving a free banquet to all comers –

he simply lied to them.

The children ran off towards the king’s palace

as the fakir warmed to his theme –

the delicacies and delights of the entertainment…

He looked up and saw them

disappearing into the distance,

and then suddenly he tucked up his robes

and started to sprint after them.

I had better go and see, he panted to himself,

because it might be true after all.

206. Love.

To be religious is to be a yea-sayer:

yes to everything –

yes to life and yes to death,

yes to light and yes to darkness.

Total acceptance is religion.

Says Nicolas De Cusa: Yes God! Yes God!

Yes, yes and always yes.

Say yes – and feel it,

and you have entered the temple of the divine.

Say no and you yourself have closed the doors –

or closed yourself to the divine.

No is suicidal, no is poisonous –

know this and be a yea-sayer.

Let your heart say yes with every beat.

Breathe yes in and out

and you will feel the divine all around you

within and without.

He is always present but he cannot enter through a no sign.

He cannot trespass on you.

With a no you are an ego

but with a yes you are just egolessness.

Ego is a Leibnizian monad without any doors or windows,

and egolessness is the gate.

Be a gate – the divine is waiting to enter you from eternity.

207. Love.

Begin to live positively – that is,

with positive emotions.

To be negative is to be self-destructive

and ultimately suicidal.

But ordinarily the mind works that way

because it is only an instrument for safety and security;

it detects only death and not life.

So to be completely positive is to transcend mind.

Some fakir was asked to talk to a group

about the negative nature of the mind.

He tacked up on the wall a large sheet of

perfectly white paper.

He made a black spot in the paper with a pencil.

Then he asked each man to say what he saw.

Each man replied: A black spot.

The fakir then said: Yes, there is a little black spot.

But not one of you saw the big expanse of white paper –

and that is the point of my speech.

208. Love.

The forms of existence are finite – all forms.

Really, to have a form means to be finite.

But existence is infinite

because only the formless can be infinite,

and existence is formlessness,

that is why it can take all forms.

But to take form in any way is to allow death in

because form is a death sentence,

whilst existence itself is eternal life.

Do not be identified with the form:

this identification creates the fear of death

– in fact, all fear.

Remember the formless

and you will know immortality

because you will be that – then.

209. Love.

One’s attitude is everything.

Negative attitudes negate life –

they are good for dying but not good for living.

Life needs positive attitudes;

life feeds on them

because they make you

not only happy but creative also.

Once there lived an old woman,

but the older she became the younger she felt –

because youthfulness has nothing to do with age,

it is an attitude,

and with age and its richness

one can really be younger than the young.

The old woman was so cheerful and creative

that everyone wondered at her.

But you must have some clouds in your life,

said a visitor.

Clouds? she replied. Why, of course:

if there were no clouds

where would the blessed showers come from?

In the presence of trouble –

and there are troubles in life –

the positive mind grows wings

but others buy crutches.

Grow wings, and do not buy crutches.

210. Love.

There is no security in life

because life cannot exist except as insecurity –

that is why the more secure one is

the less alive one becomes.

Death is complete security.

So never be in search of security

because you are searching for death.

To live totally and in ecstasy never demands security.

Accept insecurity blissfully

and when you accept it

then you will know that it has a beauty of its own.

Mulla Nasruddin’s tomb

was fronted by an immense wooden door,

barred and padlocked.

Nobody could get into it – at least through the door.

As his last joke

the Mulla decreed that the tomb

should have no walls around it…

What the Mulla did with his tomb

everybody is doing with his life –

and unknowingly!

If you also want to do it –

at least do it knowingly,

because I know that you cannot do it knowingly!

Not only you cannot, but no one can do it,

because no one can knowingly be stupid.

211. Love.

The universe cares for little but play.

But man in his life does hardly anything but work,

and because of this everything has become upside down.

Hence the agony.

The law, the tao of the universe, is play – leela –

and the law of human reason is work

because reason cannot think beyond utility.

But existence exists beyond utility.

Meditate on this gap and you will find the bridge –

and the bridge is necessary

because you cannot exist without work,

and to exist only for work is unbearable and unlivable.

The meditative man works

so that he can play more intensely –

the reason for his work is play.

And the unmeditative man plays so that he can work more efficiently –

the reason for his play is work.

212. Love.

Life does not need comfort when it can be offered meaning

nor pleasure when it can be shown purpose,

because in the total intensity of intentional living

is the fruition of the seed of consciousness.

And consciousness without the self is the goal.

Consciousness without the center –

and you have reached.

Consciousness without ego is nirvana:

or you may call it God or whatsoever you like.

Know that everyone is seeking this state of being,

but unless the seeker is lost, this state of being cannot be found –

and the seeker can only be lost

in the fire of total intensity of living.

So live totally.

And live in the moment

and moment to moment,

because there is no other way to live totally,

and no other way to dissolve the center, the self, the ego.

213. Love.

The secret of meditation is the art of unlearning.

Mind is learning;

meditation is unlearning.

That is – die constantly to your experience.

Don’t let it imprison you.

Experience becomes a dead weight

in the living and flowing, riverlike consciousness.

Live in the moment unburdened of the past,

flow in the moment unblocked by the mind,

and you will be in meditation.

Know well that it is innocence that is full

and experience that is empty –

although the surface appearance is quite the contrary.

It is innocence that knows

and experience that knows not –

though innocence never claims

and experience is nothing but claims and claims and claims!

And that is why I say:

innocence is meditation because it opens the doors of the unknown.

So learn how to unlearn.

So learn how to be beyond the mind.

Do not cling to the known

and the master key will be in your hands.

Be open and vulnerable,

always living and flowing into the unknown,

and you will be in meditation –

you will be meditation.

214. Love.

Three men made their way to the circle of a Sufi

seeking admission to his teachings.

Almost at once one of them

detached himself from the group,

angered by the erratic behavior of the master.

On the master’s instructions

the second was told by a disciple

that the sage was a fraud.

He withdrew soon afterwards.

The third was allowed to talk

but was offered no teaching for so

long that he lost patience and left the circle.

When they had all gone away

the teacher instructed his circle thus:

The first man was an illustration of the principle:

Do not judge fundamental things through seeing.

The second was an illustration of the injunction,

Do not judge things of deep importance through hearing.

The third was an example of the dictum:

Never judge by speech or the lack of it.

When asked by a disciple

why the applicants could not have been

instructed in this matter

the master retorted: I am here to give real knowledge,

not to teach what people pretend

that they have already learned at their mother’s knees.

215. Love.

Always remember the golden rule: One step at a time.

A good natured woman was often asked for food by tramps.

She finally decided to refuse them;

it was becoming too burdensome.

But shortly after she made her resolution

one young man stopped

and asked her for a little piece of thread.

She noticed that his pants were badly ripped,

that he had a needle,

and she realized he could not get work

with his pants in their present condition,

so she gave him the thread.

The fellow took the thread,

went down the road and sat under a tree

for a few minutes,

then came back to the house.

He told the woman he could not repair the pants

unless he had a piece of cloth for a patch.

She gave him a small piece of material.

About an hour later the young fellow

came again to the house

and said: Madam, these pants are beyond repair.

It would be very good of you

if you could give me a pair of your husband’s old pants.

So she gave him a pair of old pants

and smiled at his cleverness.

The young man went behind the barn

and changed into the pants given to him.

Then he returned to the house and told the woman

that the pants were sort of big around the waist,

but if she could give him some food

he was sure they would fit perfectly.

This time the woman burst out laughing

and gave him a big dinner.

And all because he took one step at a time.

216. Love.

Knowledge is accumulation,

that is why knowledge is always dead,

while learning is moment to moment

because learning is not accumulation but movement.

So do not be dead with knowledge

but move with learning,

only then will you be alive.

Do not be tethered to experience –

experience is slavery.

Always transcend that which has been

so that you are ready to receive the new.

Ecstasy is always with the new,

with the fresh, with the young,

with the discontinuous –

and to be always in the discontinuous

is to be in the divine.

217. Love.

If one is aware of the present moment

then one also becomes aware of the fact that

there is no me inside.

The me is my past,

the me is the dead past.

The me is not my life because it is not living.

The ego can exist only in the past

or in the future –

which is nothing but a projection of the past.

That is why awareness, moment to moment awareness,

leads to egolessness –

because the ego cannot exist in the present

and because awareness cannot exist except

in the present.

So they cannot exist simultaneously.

Ego is unawareness

and awareness is egolessness.

218. Love.

I live without planning,

and I also feel that this is the only way to be alive at all.

In fact I live a wild life,

absolutely unplanned,

not knowing anything about the future –

not even about the next moment.

Today is enough for me –

really more than enough!

The moment that is present is the only living moment –

the past is dead in the sense that it is no more

and the future is also dead

in the sense that it is not yet born.

And so to be concerned with the past is to be dead

and to be concerned with the future is also to be dead.

The only way to be alive is to be here and now –

in the moment and totally in it.

Living moment to moment I have found that ecstasy and bliss

which is not of this world at all.

The single moment lived totally transcends time itself.

It becomes the gap between two moments of time,

and if one can be in this gap

then one is beyond death

because time is death

and timelessness is life.

Life is not something fixed and finished,

life is living what is,

a process, just riverlike,

flowing always into the unknown,

from the shores of the known to the shores

of the unknown.

219. Love.

Anger, violence, greed or envy

cannot be overcome by the cultivation of their opposites,

because anger itself will cultivate its opposite

and violence will be present in its cultivated non-violence.

So always be aware

of the hypnotic spell of the opposite:

it never solves any problem

because it is beating around the bush.

Do not fall into the trap of the opposite

but understand anger, violence or greed

or anything else

directly.

To seek the opposite is a way of escape.

To seek the opposite is cowardice.

Live with your mind as it is.

Do not try to change it.

Be brave and face it and understand it.

When the light of awareness falls on anger or

greed or envy

there is change.

Awareness acts as a catalytic agent –

and then anger does not change into its opposite,

it is not that violence becomes non-violence,

but there is no-anger,

there is no-violence.

And when there is no-violence there is no-mind,

and an altogether different dimension opens its door:

the dimension of the spontaneous,

the dimension of the divine.

220. Love.

Moment to moment life passes into death,

because it is death.

Covered, it appears as life,

uncovered it is death.

Always remember this fact.

This is silent meditation.

And when this remembering even penetrates

your dreams

you will have a new door opened unto you.

In fact through it you will be altogether new,

and ultimately reborn.

Remembering death gives a new dimension

to consciousness

because to remember death is not natural.

On the contrary nature has arranged

that one should not be aware of it

because the moment one transcends death

one transcends nature also.

And one cannot transcend death

unless one is totally aware of the fact.

So be totally aware of death.

And it is happening each moment within and without.

It is present everywhere.

And because it is so obvious one becomes absent to it.

Remember – and deepen the consciousness,

because as the awareness of death goes deeper

one becomes capable of feeling that which is deathless.

Really, death is the door –

the opening to the deathless.

But be conscious of it.

Be conscious and transcend.

Be conscious and know that which is before birth and after death.

And – you are that.

221. Love.

Be a stranger to yourself.

See life as a river flowing through time.

Stand on the bank, neither curious nor concerned.

Glance or gaze at the driftwood of your past

floating in your memory –

just like the incidents one reads about in the paper.

Detached and indifferent remember that nothing matters.

Only exist –

and the explosion.

222. Love.

Always be positive, in each and every situation –

that helps meditative awareness very much.

Negative attitudes negate the whole effort.

Diogenes was looking for an honest man in New Delhi.

Any luck? asked a wayfarer.

Oh, pretty fair, sir, replied Diogenes.

I still have my lantern.

223. Love.

Philosophy cannot cure you of questions –

on the contrary, it can give you more.

I heard this at a chemist’s shop:

Did the patent medicine you purchased cure your aunt?

Good heavens, no.

On reading the wrapper around the bottle

she got two more diseases.

224. Love.

Mulla Nasruddin was carrying home some liver

which he had just bought.

In the other hand he held a recipe for liver pie

which a friend had given him.

Suddenly a buzzard swooped down and carried off the liver.

You fool! shouted Nasruddin.

Having the meat is all very well,

but what will you do without the recipe?

225. Love.

Man can only know what God is not.

To know what God is, is impossible

because that’s where the realm of being begins.

You cannot know God but you can be,

and in that dimension is the only knowing.

But that knowing

is altogether different from all our other knowing

because in that knowing there is no knower

and no known,

but only knowing.

That is why in that dimension knowing and being

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