| ENERGY
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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
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THE KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3
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MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4
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THE MIRACLE
Chapter 9: The simple task of turning in
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen The Miracle
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
EJAKU SAID:
LET EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TURN THE LIGHT INWARDS UPON HIMSELF, AND NOT TRY TO MEMORIZE MY WORDS. SINCE TIME WITHOUT BEGINNING, YOU HAVE TURNED YOUR BACK UPON THE LIGHT AND RUN AFTER DARKNESS. THE HABITS OF ERRONEOUS THINKING ARE SO DEEP-ROOTED IN YOU THAT IT WOULD BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO UPROOT THEM OVERNIGHT. THIS IS WHY ONE IS COMPELLED TO RESORT TO THE USE OF MAKE-BELIEVE EXPEDIENTS IN ORDER TO STRIP YOU OF YOUR CRUDE WAYS OF THINKING.
THIS IS ON A PAR WITH WHAT A PARENT SOMETIMES WOULD DO IN ORDER TO STOP HIS LITTLE CHILD FROM CRYING -- GIVING HIM SOME YELLOW LEAVES, MAKING BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE PRECIOUS COINS. IT IS ALSO LIKE A MAN SETTING UP A STORE STOCKED WITH ALL KINDS OF GOODS FOR DAILY USE, AS WELL AS ARTICLES OF GOLD AND JADE, TO ACCOMMODATE CUSTOMERS OF DIFFERENT ABILITIES. AS I HAVE OFTEN SAID, SEKITO'S IS A GOLD SHOP, WHILE MINE IS A GENERAL STORE, SELLING ALL AND SUNDRY.... BUT BUSINESS DEPENDS ON DEMAND. IF THERE IS NO DEMAND, THERE IS NO BUSINESS.
IF I DEALT ONLY WITH THE ESSENCE OF MEDITATION, I WOULD BE LEFT ALL ALONE. EVEN A SINGLE COMPANION WOULD BE HARD TO GET, TO SAY NOTHING OF A COMMUNITY OF FIVE OR SEVEN HUNDRED MONKS. IF, ON THE OTHER HAND, I TALKED ABOUT THINGS OF EAST AND WEST, PEOPLE WOULD COME IN FLOCKS, PRICKING UP THEIR EARS TO CATCH EVERY BIT OF MY TALES. THAT WOULD BE LIKE SHOWING AN EMPTY FIST TO LITTLE CHILDREN, PRETENDING THAT THERE ARE CANDIES IN IT. THIS IS JUST HUMBUG.
NOW, LET ME TELL YOU IN ALL PLAINNESS:
DO NOT DIVERT YOUR MIND TO THE HOLY THINGS; RATHER, DIRECT IT TO YOUR SELF-NATURE, AND CULTIVATE YOURSELF WITH YOUR FEET ON THE GROUND. DO NOT DESIRE THE THREE "GIFTS OF VISION," AND THE SIX "SUPERNATURAL POWERS." WHY? BECAUSE THESE ARE ONLY ACCIDENTALS OF HOLINESS.
THE ONE THING ESSENTIAL NOW IS TO RECOLLECT YOUR MIND TO ATTAIN THE FUNDAMENTAL, THE VERY ROOT OF YOUR BEING. HAVING ARRIVED AT THE ROOT, YOU NEED HAVE NO WORRY ABOUT THE ACCIDENTALS. IN TIME YOU WILL FIND THAT YOU ARE SELF-PROVIDED WITH ALL THESE ACCIDENTAL GIFTS AND POWERS. ON THE OTHER HAND, SO LONG AS YOU HAVE NOT GOT AT THE ROOT, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE SUCH GIFTS AND POWERS THROUGH STUDY AND LEARNING.
Maneesha, basically there is only one way of discovering the buddha, the truth of your very being. But there are thousands of people with different states of consciousness; hence for them, different devices, different small streets joining to the main way, have to be created. That's what all the Zen masters in the fourteen-hundred-year history of Zen have been trying very diligently to do.
No one is being left out; everybody is shown a way that may fit them. But finally, whatever fits you will lead you to the ultimate way: turning in. Every device is dedicated to the simple task of turning in.
As the situation is, man is born with five senses which all go outwards. Nature has not given you a special sense that goes inwards.
Your eyes open outwards; if you close them there is only darkness. Or even with closed eyes you will still see things of the outside world as imagination, as dreams. Ears can hear only the music that comes from the outside; they know nothing about the music that is continuously happening within you. Nobody is born with an ear to hear the inner music. Your hands stretch outside. Even the smallest child starts grabbing outside things.
Obviously this state of affairs, that all our senses open outwards, has been exploited. We have been given every kind of theology, religion, truth, from the outside, because that is what we are demanding. We want a God to be there above in the sky. We want anything and immediately there will be a supplier. You just have to ask and somebody will create a system of beliefs to satisfy you.
Zen cuts all this rubbish like a sharp sword in one single blow. It has nothing to do with anything that takes you away from you; it may be God, it may be hell, it may be heaven -- all kinds of rewards and all kinds of fears about punishment. All the religions are living on the exploitation of your senses because they open outwards.
The work of a real master is to close all these doors so that your life energy, your consciousness, does not leak out. There is no naturally given way to go inwards, but it is not needed. If enough consciousness is gathered in, it will create its own way, just as water creates its own way -- no map, no guidelines, just enough quantity and the water will start flowing towards an unknown sea. It has never heard about, knows nothing about, where it is going.
The same is true about consciousness. Enough consciousness gathered inside immediately makes a way upon which nobody has ever trodden, and starts moving inwards. Outward senses are closed; that's what I mean when I say in your meditations to close your eyes, to leave the body completely behind ... because all the senses are joined with the body. Just be a watcher of the mind, so the mind cannot take your energy outside. With body and mind both closed energy gathers upon itself spontaneously, and at a certain point it starts moving inwards. You don't have to do anything except to close all the doors that lead you away from yourself.
It is one of the simplest things because you don't have to do it. But just because of its simplicity, its obviousness, it has become difficult -- the most difficult, because nobody can teach you; nobody can indicate to you where to move, how to move. The master can only create a situation in which the spontaneous movement of the energy will happen.
That's what I call meditation. It is not your doing. You have to stop doing everything. It is your non-doing.
And the moment when you are not doing, all your energy that was involved in doing a thousand and one things is released. It gathers to a point where it starts flowing inwards, and the innermost center is not far away.
Meditation is, in a way, going beyond nature. Hence it is called transcendental. Nature has not provided any automatic way, like it has provided eyes, hands, ears; it has not provided any way for your energy to go in. Meditation is transcending the natural gifts, moving beyond nature. It is not against nature, it is simply towards a greater nature, more overwhelming, more universal.
And once you have found the way and you have touched your own being, you have gone through a magic. You will never be the same person again. Not only that, the world that surrounds you will never be the same again. Now your love will have a new fragrance -- not the old possessiveness, domination. Your friendship will be more friendliness than friendship. It will not have any bondage, any conditionings. Your vision of the world will become immensely intense and sharp. You will see things which have been there always, present, but you were not present.
Each flower is showing something of the divine. Each star is shining, showing something of the divine. The whole existence in its multitude of expressions is showing only the divine, but you will recognize it only on the condition that you have recognized it within yourself. Then you know that your center is not only your center, it is the center of the whole universe.
We are all joined in this center.
It is said about Bacon -- a great scientific thinker, perhaps the most important, because he turned the whole human mind from religion to science... He used to say, "If I can find the center of the world I can move the world according to me." But he never found the center of the world, and I say unto you he has never heard that in the East we have been searching not the center of the world but the center of ourselves. Finding the center of ourselves we have found the center of the universe. But then the desire for change drops. The universe is so beautiful, nothing needs to be changed; everything has to be rejoiced and celebrated.
These statements of a great master Ejaku are very fundamental.
EJAKU SAID:
LET EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TURN THE LIGHT INWARDS UPON HIMSELF, AND NOT TRY TO MEMORIZE MY WORDS.
Only a very great master can say that -- don't bother about my words, because they don't contain the truth. No words can contain it, so don't memorize them. I am saying to you, "Turn in." But you can do two things: you can memorize the words "turn in" or you can do another thing... existentially, you can turn in. That's what Ejaku is saying: "I am not saying these words to you so that you can memorize my words."
SINCE TIME WITHOUT BEGINNING, YOU HAVE TURNED YOUR BACK UPON THE LIGHT AND RUN AFTER DARKNESS. THE HABITS OF ERRONEOUS THINKING ARE SO DEEP-ROOTED IN YOU THAT IT WOULD BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO UPROOT THEM OVERNIGHT.
It is obviously true, but with great respect to Ejaku I disagree.
However many lives you may have been wandering outside, it does not matter. You can come to yourself in a single moment. It is just like a man asleep. He may be anywhere in the world, visiting Moscow or Peking or Tokyo or going to the moon -- just wake him up. Do you think he will say, "Wait, I have to catch a train to come back from Tokyo?" Or, "From Moscow I have to take a plane; I cannot just wake up immediately." He does not say that, he simply wakes up and wonders... instantaneously. The projection is a dream. All our projections -- of greed, lust, power, anger -- are simply dreams.
Ejaku is right as a common-sense approach. But I don't agree, because I know you can be a buddha this very moment. All the wanderings in past lives into darkness cannot prevent you. It is like saying a room has been dark for centuries and you bring a small candlelight... the darkness cannot say, "I will not go so immediately. I have been here occupying this room for centuries. It goes against the constitution of India; you cannot throw away the occupant in a single moment. Go through a proper channel. First go to the court, claim that you have the right." But the darkness does not say anything. You just bring a small candle, and the darkness disappears.
In fact the darkness has no substance. It is an absence. So when you bring the light, the absence disappears; it was the absence of the light.
If you can go in, pushing aside the whole crowd of habits -- just like an arrow, with force, gathering your whole energy inwards -- you can prove Ejaku wrong. Although what he is saying is out of compassion, perhaps most people will have to follow what he is saying.
THE HABITS OF ERRONEOUS THINKING ARE SO DEEP-ROOTED IN YOU THAT IT WOULD BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO UPROOT THEM OVERNIGHT.
I say unto you it is extremely simple to throw them this very moment. Those habits have been formed in darkness and unconsciousness; they don't have any substance in them.
I was talking to a friend. He was a professor in the same university I was, and he was continuously harassing me -- "Do something! I want to drop this habit of smoking. Many times I try: one hour, two hours, three hours, and then it becomes too much. The urge... I think, `It is better to have a cigarette. Next time we will try in better conditions; right now I am too tense.' So many times I have decided, but it fails. Every time, rather than being a success it has been a failure, and now it has become written in my memory that I cannot succeed. Just show me how to drop it."
I said, "Are you ready?"
He said, "I am ready to do anything."
Then I said, "Do one thing. Come with me to my home, and I will not let you out until this habit is gone."
He said, "What do you mean? Are you going to torture me or something?"
I said, "No torture, just chain smoking. Sitting before me you have to smoke to your heart's content."
He said, "I never heard such a thing from anybody else. I have been talking about dropping this habit."
I said, "You have been bragging. All this talk about dropping this habit is just a strategy of the mind to brag that `I am trying, but what to do?' But today you are caught in a lion's den. Just come and sit behind me in my car and forget the world. On the way we will purchase cigarettes -- as many as the car can contain."
He said, "My God, you will kill me!"
I said, "It does not matter. Either you will leave dead or you will leave the habit!"
Hesitantly, afraid, he said, "I always have heard that you are a strange type, but I never thought that just by telling you I would get trapped. Do you really mean it?"
I said, "Just sit down in the car, and on the way I will fill the whole car...."
He was looking at me and he said, "What are you doing? That much smoking will kill me!"
I said, "There is no way out now. Chain smoking means chain smoking. When you drop one cigarette, immediately take another; take the fire from the first cigarette to the second cigarette. And I will be watching."
Just after three or four packets he said, "Can I go home, before..."
"No way! Either your dead body will go out, or you will have to drop this habit that you have been bragging about."
He said, "I promise."
I said, "I don't want to interfere in anybody else's life, but you offered yourself."
He burned his lips, he burned his hands. It must have taken about six hours, and after six hours he was so tired... smoking and smoking. And a crowd of the neighbors gathered, and they started talking -- "Is this man mad or something?" And all over, cigarettes and ashes. Finally he said, "Let me go!"
I said, "I will not let you go. Do you see my guard? He will put you back in your place, and if you don't smoke he will force you to smoke. This time or never!"
He said, "It is better I drop this habit. But let me go home!"
I said, "Be a man of your word. If you are found smoking again you will have to commit suicide -- hara-kiri. A man of his word has no other way. If he goes against his word, he has to commit hara-kiri."
He said, "I promise. I will commit hara-kiri, but at least right now let me go home!"
I followed him for many days. He tried to escape, he wouldn't look at me. But when I take something into my hands I do it.
I used to go every day to his home to ask his wife how things were going. She was of course on my side; she was my detective in his home. Even the small children of the poor professor were all working for me. They would say, "Uncle, you have done a miracle! He is so afraid. Even to mention the word `cigarette' and he starts perspiring. That experience you have given him... Since that experience -- we don't know what experience, he simply says, `Since that experience I am finished. Because that man is so dangerous, if I even touch a cigarette he will force me to commit hara-kiri. And I want to live, cigarettes or no cigarettes.'"
The question is, if you have really decided, if you are in an honest search for yourself, then you can prove Ejaku wrong. And I would like you to prove him wrong, although he is making a very common-sense statement. Ordinarily it takes lives to drop old habits. But that simply means you are not really wanting to drop them. If you want to drop, it takes only a simple, single moment, because all old habits are your own projections.
THIS IS WHY ONE IS COMPELLED TO RESORT TO THE USE OF MAKE-BELIEVE EXPEDIENTS IN ORDER TO STRIP YOU OF YOUR CRUDE WAYS OF THINKING.
THIS IS ON A PAR WITH WHAT A PARENT SOMETIMES WOULD DO IN ORDER TO STOP HIS LITTLE CHILD FROM CRYING -- GIVING HIM SOME YELLOW LEAVES, MAKING BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE PRECIOUS COINS. IT IS ALSO LIKE A MAN SETTING UP A STORE STOCKED WITH ALL KINDS OF GOODS FOR DAILY USE, AS WELL AS ARTICLES OF GOLD AND JADE, TO ACCOMMODATE CUSTOMERS OF DIFFERENT ABILITIES. AS I HAVE OFTEN SAID, SEKITO'S IS A GOLD SHOP, WHILE MINE IS A GENERAL STORE....
Sekito is sitting here in front of me, behind the camera. In this new reincarnation he is called Niskriya, the Stonehead. Sekito means the Stonehead. He was a great master.
Ejaku says that Sekito has a gold shop -- only very refined people can become his disciples. Ordinary ones are simply given a good beating and thrown out. They never come back to Sekito's temple. Only very rare, extraordinary seekers will take all the beatings but will not leave the steps. Sometimes it happened that a person would sit there for months before Sekito would allow him to come in. It may be raining, it may be winter, it may be summer, but unless Sekito is convinced that the man has a will, that he has not come just out of curiosity but in every way he wants to seek and search himself...
... WHILE MINE IS A GENERAL STORE, SELLING ALL AND SUNDRY.
Ejaku was a different kind of master -- not hard, he never hit anybody. He never slapped any disciple. Naturally he attracted the wishy-washy people. But in a general store you cannot find great shoppers like Avirbhava. Now she has gone to Hong Kong to find other gods worshipped in the past, because there is going to be a fair of toys. She is not here today. Yesterday she did her show of the great rat. Now she has gone in search of finding something even greater.
Ejaku is saying, "I serve all and sundry; even the curious ones are accepted. One never knows: today the person may be curious, tomorrow he may become really a longing. A chance has to be given."
Both are right. Sekito works on the very special ones; Ejaku works on everyone, of any category. Both are needed.
IF I DEALT ONLY WITH THE ESSENCE OF MEDITATION, I WOULD BE LEFT ALL ALONE.
To deal with the essence of meditation alone ... that's what I am doing. But even dealing only with meditation, I don't have a general store. I have my ways of choosing the best and the most intelligent. Just because of my words, those who are curious will not stay here. There is nothing for them here.
Those who have stayed with me have stayed because they started feeling the essence of meditation, slowly slowly, like a cool breeze or a full-moon night or a roseflower in all its beauty. They have found something, and now they are certain there is much more. This certainty creates trust. And without this trust, Ejaku is right: if a man simply deals with meditation he will be left alone, because who wants meditation? And when there is no demand, what is the point of keeping the store open?
I have tried in a unique way to call forth from all over the world the most intelligent ones. I am not alone. It is not only that you are here -- there are two million people around the earth who are meditating, whose only concern is meditation; everything else in life has become meaningless.
But Ejaku is making a common sense statement: if you deal only with meditation, people will desert you. Seeing this, masters deal with scriptures, mantras, to keep you engaged. Some day may come the right moment that you can be introduced into meditation.
I am totally different from Sekito or Ejaku, although I am doing the same work. But neither do I hit you, nor do I push you away, nor do I wait. I make the atmosphere available to you. All kinds of people, in this atmosphere, can have a little experience. And that little experience starts growing just like a seed grows into a huge cedar, aspiring to the stars.
Those who were more concerned with non-essentials have come and gone. In these thirty years thousands of people have passed -- but now, as we are coming to the most precious experience, deeper and deeper, only those who are authentically interested in digging for the gold have remained.
Now this assembly has become one of the greatest assemblies of seekers that has ever been on the earth.
Ejaku says: IF I DEALT ONLY WITH THE ESSENCE OF MEDITATION, I WOULD BE LEFT ALL ALONE.
Ordinarily that is true.
EVEN A SINGLE COMPANION WOULD BE HARD TO GET, TO SAY NOTHING OF A COMMUNITY OF FIVE OR SEVEN HUNDRED MONKS. IF, ON THE OTHER HAND, I TALKED ABOUT THINGS OF EAST AND WEST, PEOPLE WOULD COME IN FLOCKS, PRICKING UP THEIR EARS TO CATCH EVERY BIT OF MY TALES. THAT WOULD BE LIKE SHOWING AN EMPTY FIST TO LITTLE CHILDREN, PRETENDING THAT THERE ARE CANDIES IN IT. THIS IS JUST HUMBUG.
He is very honest. He is saying, "I have to create all kinds of things, but all those things are just humbug." Just as you can engage a child with toys and he forgets that he was crying, you can engage thousands of people... in fact they are engaged. What are the churches doing, what are the synagogues doing, what are the temples doing? Dealing with non-essentials. And flocks of millions of people... And these holy places and these so-called great priests go on watching what the need of the people is. They immediately supply their need, so that they remain entangled in the net of Hinduism or Christianity or Judaism.
I have heard that three rabbis were talking about their congregations. The first rabbi said, "My congregation is the most up-to-date. You can even smoke cigarettes inside the synagogue. You can play cards and gamble."
The second one said, "That is nothing. In my synagogue I have already entered the twenty-first century. People can make love and do whatever they want to do. They can drink wine, they can dance. After all, one has to have a congregation; otherwise we will lose our profession, our salaries. So whatever they want to do, let them do."
The third one said, "That's nothing. In my synagogue there is a sign in front of the synagogue on which it is written, `This synagogue is closed on Saturdays and all Jewish holidays.'" What more do you want? This is the most ultra-modern! People are happy, very much rejoiced, to be members of a synagogue which is always closed, which does not bother them at all with old sermons.
But all the religions have been keeping people engaged with the non-essentials.
Ejaku is very sincere. He says, "It is not in my capacity to deal only with the essential Zen. I know that I will not find even a single companion. So I go on giving them devices, scriptures, mantras and all kinds of things -- a general store. But it is all humbug."
Do you know what `humbug' means? It was Charles Darwin's sixtieth birthday, and he was very friendly with children. So all the children of the neighborhood decided, "Precious presents will be coming to the great scientist. We poor children, what can we do? But something has to be presented to the great scientist who is our friend." So one small boy came up with a great idea, and they managed it. They found all kinds of insects... because that was the interest of Charles Darwin. Working out his theory of evolution, he was looking into insects, into animals, in every place.
What they did was cut up all those insects and made a new insect. The body of one insect, the legs of another, the face of a third, the tail of a fourth... and they made it so perfectly and beautifully that anybody could be deceived. They brought their present to the great Darwin and asked him, "Uncle, can you say what it is? You are such a great scientist, you must know the name."
He looked and he could not imagine.... He had never come across such an insect. He looked again and again, and then finally he saw that it was not one insect -- the legs are different, the tail is different, the head is different. But the boys had done a great artistic job, so he said, "This is a humbug. Its name is humbug."
Most of the people are humbugs. They are carrying something from somebody, something from somebody else. They are not themselves, they are many people, a multitude. They are a crowd.
Says Ejaku:
NOW, LET ME TELL YOU IN ALL PLAINNESS: DO NOT DIVERT YOUR MIND TO THE HOLY THINGS; RATHER, DIRECT IT TO YOUR SELF-NATURE, AND CULTIVATE YOURSELF WITH YOUR FEET ON THE GROUND. DO NOT DESIRE THE THREE "GIFTS OF VISION," AND THE SIX "SUPERNATURAL POWERS." WHY? BECAUSE THESE ARE ONLY ACCIDENTALS OF HOLINESS.
THE ONE THING ESSENTIAL NOW IS TO RECOLLECT YOUR MIND TO ATTAIN THE FUNDAMENTAL, THE VERY ROOT OF YOUR BEING. HAVING ARRIVED AT THE ROOT, YOU NEED HAVE NO WORRY ABOUT THE ACCIDENTALS.
All the virtues come on their own as you become conscious, so don't cultivate those virtues. They will be artificial and they will become preventive, hindrances on the way to your own self.
Don't ask for miracles. A man of meditation is himself a miracle. Whatever he does is a miracle. It is a beauty, it is magic, but it is all spontaneous. It is not practiced, it is not rehearsed.
But most people are interested in supernatural powers, healing people with supernatural powers, or creating things out of nothing, just as Satya Sai Baba is doing. All kinds of frauds... but people become interested in them, thinking that here is a man of miracles. And what is the miracle if you can produce a Swiss watch which was hiding in your sleeve...?
One old Parsi woman came to me in Bombay. Satya Sai Baba used to stay at her place, and she told me, "One day when he had gone into the bathroom, just out of curiosity I looked into his suitcases. They were all full of watches! I could not believe that this man was deceiving." She said, "I kicked him out. I told him, `Never again come in my house!' I cannot be a partner to any kind of fraud." She told me, "I am an old woman. Nobody listens to me, they think I have gone senile. I have come to you... perhaps you can do something about it."
I said, "I have been challenging Satya Sai Baba, saying that this is stupid. When the country is dying of starvation, produce more food out of your miracles. He should bring rain to Hyderabad" ... where the Shankaracharya of Puri is going to force a woman to be burned alive on her husband's funeral pyre, and only then rain will come. And Satya Sai Baba is not far away from Hyderabad. Bring rain to Hyderabad -- do some real work! All that he produces is ash, and he gives you the ash and you think it is great. It is so simple that any street magician can do it. In fact the more experienced street magicians can do it in a far better way, and can do many more things than he is doing.
I have no objection to him as a magician, but he should not pretend to be a spiritual man. It is not only a question of a single person pretending to be spiritual when he is not. The question is that he attracts thousands of people, mediocre people, who believe that this man of miracles may impart something to them, may lead them to the ultimate truth.
Ejaku is right: don't bother about supernatural powers, THREE "GIFTS OF VISION."
THE ONE THING ESSENTIAL NOW IS TO RECOLLECT YOUR MIND TO ATTAIN THE FUNDAMENTAL, THE VERY ROOT OF YOUR BEING. HAVING ARRIVED AT THE ROOT, YOU NEED HAVE NO WORRY ABOUT THE ACCIDENTALS. IN TIME YOU WILL FIND THAT YOU ARE SELF-PROVIDED WITH ALL THESE ACCIDENTAL GIFTS AND POWERS. ON THE OTHER HAND, SO LONG AS YOU HAVE NOT GOT THE ROOT, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACQUIRE SUCH GIFTS AND POWERS THROUGH STUDY AND LEARNING.
A very honest man, saying simply two things: one, turn your lights in; second, don't be concerned with accidentals, non-essentials. As you become an enlightened man, miracles follow you like a shadow. You don't have to do them, they happen around you, in your very air.
And the greatest miracle is that whoever comes in contact with the awakened one tastes for the first time the sweetness of awakening, the grace of awakening, and a longing arises in him which he has never thought about -- to be a buddha himself.
The greatest miracle in the world is to bring people to the recognition of their buddhahood.
A Zen poet wrote:
IN THE BOTTOMLESS BAMBOO BASKET
I PUT THE WHITE MOON;
IN THE BOWL OF MINDLESSNESS
I STORE THE PURE BREEZE.
These are true miracles. They happen on their own in your silences of the heart.
Seigensai wrote:
THIS GRASPED, ALL IS DUST --
THE SERMON FOR TODAY.
LANDS, SEAS.
AWAKENED, YOU WALK THE EARTH ALONE.
Everything is dust once you understand yourself. And the moment you understand yourself you find your aloneness so beautiful, so precious, that you don't get lost in the crowd and its stupid ideologies. You become for the first time an individual on your own; you are no more a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian. You simply belong to the universe. You are a universal man. This is the greatest miracle.
Another Zen poem, by Nensho:
ONLY GENUINE AWAKENING RESULTS IN THAT.
ONLY FOOLS SEEK SAINTHOOD FOR REWARD.
LIFTING A HAND,
THE STONE LANTERN ANNOUNCES DAYBREAK.
SMILING, THE VOID NODS ITS ENORMOUS HEAD.
What Nensho is saying is: Why are you trying to be a saint? -- because saints will be rewarded in heaven. All your virtues are just making a way towards paradise, where you will be provided all kinds of pleasures. What are your saints torturing themselves for? Hoping that the more they torture themselves, the closer is paradise. And what does paradise provide? Naked young women, rivers of wine, no work; everybody is given a harp... drink the wine, find a girlfriend, play on the harp, Alleluia! That's all that is happening in paradise.
And I say to you that your saints will look very hilarious. Here they have been torturing themselves, they have become ugly, rotten. And those girlfriends in heaven are plastic, because they have been serving since eternity. I have never heard that anybody goes into retirement. They remain always stuck at the age of sixteen. Time goes on, but they don't grow old -- only plastic can do that. Plastic never grows old, never dies.
And the descriptions in the scriptures make me convinced, because those girls don't perspire. Skin is bound to perspire, that is its very life, it is its breathing. Every pore of the skin is breathing. And there is a reason why it perspires: perspiration keeps your temperature the same so that whether it is cold outside or hot outside, it doesn't matter. Your life is dependent on your temperature. From ninety-six degrees to one hundred and eight -- just twelve degrees is your lifespan. If you go beyond one hundred and eight, you have gone beyond. Perspiration keeps you below that level, because it keeps the heat engaged -- the perspiration becomes evaporated, so the heat becomes engaged in evaporating the perspiration and forgets you completely. It is a miracle.
When it is cold, you start shivering, even your teeth start chattering. Do you know what for? This is all to keep you warm.
I have heard stories -- I don't believe them -- that people will leave their false teeth in the bathroom, and in the cold those teeth, out of old habit, start chattering. I don't know... but there are stories on record. Perhaps just an old habit....
Your shivering keeps you warm. Otherwise your temperature will fall and that will be again death. Your lifespan is just within those twelve degrees.
Now those beautiful ladies in paradise never grow old, they always remain young. I cannot conceive that they have been serving all the saints for millions of years, and still nobody calls them prostitutes! They are the only eternal prostitutes. And these saints are dreaming about them. Here it is prohibited, you cannot drink wine; it is a sin according to many religions. But the same religions provide rivers of wine -- there is no need to drink, you can drown! Here, every religion goes on working on every child: "Do something; otherwise you will be a hobo." And what are all your saints doing in paradise? -- hobos, playing on their harps. Hippies were simply imitating your saints in paradise, playing their guitars and doing nothing.
It is such a boredom to conceive that for millions of years you will be just playing on your harp. There is nothing else to do. You can have as many women as you want, you can drink as much alcohol as you want. Perhaps to make it up-to-date, God may have provided new drugs -- LSD, heroin, hashish -- because the saints have earned them by their virtue; this is their reward.
A genuine search is not for any reward. It is just to know who I am, why I am, what I am. It is a pure search to be acquainted with oneself, because that is the only way to find some connection with the universal spirit.
Nensho has a beautiful metaphor. He says, "All these saints, what they are doing in declaring their saintliness is like lifting a hand with a stone lantern, announcing daybreak." But all over, there is darkness. It is not daybreak. These saints are just stone lanterns, they are not the sunrise.
And the universe smiles at these fools: the void, the immense void, nods its enormous head, smiling.
Next: Chapter 9: The simple task of turning in, Question 1
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