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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
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ZEN: THE PATH OF PARADOX
VOL. 2
Chapter 10: The Bridge but not the Water Flows
Question 1
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 2
Question 1
UNTIL THE JEWS AND ARABS AND OTHER TRIBES BROUGHT THEIR RACIALLY EXCLUSIVE AND JEALOUS GOD TO THE WEST, TOAMY, BACCHUS, MITHROS AND APOLLO WERE THE GODS THAT MAN WORSHIPPED. DIANA HAD HER BOW AND ARROW, THOR WAS IN THE NORTH, THE MOTHER GODDESS WAS WORSHIPPED IN THE WEST. AND THEN DEATH AND RESURRECTION BECAME THE RELIGION OF THE WEST. GUILT AND SIN WERE TAUGHT. WHY IS ADAM A SINNER? WHY ISN'T HE LIKE THESEUS OR JASON OR HERMES? IS THE CONCEPT OF SIN JUST A TRICK? TO MAKE MEN MEDITATE?
The question is from Anand Mohammed.
I am a pagan. There is no god for me, except this existence. God is intrinsic to life; God is not outside life. God is this very life. To live this life totally, is to live a divine life. To live this life partially, is to live an undivine life. To be partial is to be irreligious. To be total and whole is to be holy.
The questioner asks about the past. In the past, all over the world, people were pagans -- simple nature-worshippers. There was no concept of sin, there was no question of guilt. Life was accepted as it is. There was no evaluation, no interpretation -- reason had not interfered yet.
The moment reason starts interfering, condemnation comes. The moment reason enters in, division, split, starts and man becomes schizophrenic. Then you start condemning something in your being -- one part becomes higher, another part becomes lower, and you lose balance.
But this had to happen; reason had to come, this is part of growth. As it happens to every child, it had to happen to the whole of humanity too. When the child is born he is a pagan; each child is a born pagan. He is happy the way he is. He has no idea what is right and what is wrong; he has no ideals. He has no criteria, he has no judgement. Hungry, he asks for food. Sleepy, he falls asleep. That's what Zen masters say is the uttermost in religion -- when hungry eat, when feeling sleepy go to sleep. Let life flow; don't interfere.
Each child is born as a pagan, but sooner or later he will lose that simplicity. That is part; that HAS to happen, that is part of our growth, maturity, destiny. The child has to lose it and find it again. When the child loses it he becomes the ordinary man, the worldly man. When he regains it he becomes religious.
The child's innocence is very cheap; it is a gift from God. He has not earned it: he will have to lose it. Only by losing it will he become aware of what he has lost. Then he will start searching for it. And only when he searches for it, and EARNS it, achieves it, becomes it -- then he will know the tremendous preciousness of it.
What happens to a saint? He becomes a child again; nothing else happens to a saint. He is again innocent. He went into the world of reason, division, ego, a thousand and one ideals; he became almost mad with evaluation. And then one day, finding it all just absurd, stupid, he drops it. But this second childhood is far more valuable than the first childhood. The first childhood was just given to you. You were not even asked, it was a pure gift. And we cannot value gifts. You value a thing only when you make effort for it, when you strive for it, and when it takes a long journey to come to it.
There is a Sufi story: A man, a seeker, came to a Sufi mystic. And he asked, 'I am searching for my master. Sir, I have heard you are a wise man. Can you tell me the characteristics of a master? How am I to judge? Even if I find my master, how am I going to decide that he is my master? I am a blind man; I am ignorant, I don't know anything about it. And without finding a master, it is said, no one can find God. So I am in search for a master. Help me.'
And the master told him a few things. He said, 'These are the characteristics. You will find the master in such a way, with such a behaviour, and he will be sitting under such a tree. And he will be wearing such a robe, and his eyes will be like this.'
And the man thanked the old man, and went in search. Thirty years passed, and the man roamed almost all over the world but he could not find the man who was his master according to the old man's valuation. Tired, exhausted, frustrated, he comes back to his home town and sees the old man. The old man has become very very old, but the moment he comes in.... The old man is sitting under the same tree -- suddenly he sees this is the tree the old man had talked about. And this is the robe the old man had described. And these are the eyes, and this is the silence, that the old man had described. This is the benediction in the presence of the master. He is overjoyed.
But a great question also arises in his mind. He bows down, touches his feet, and says, 'Before I surrender to you, just tell me why you tortured me for these thirty years. Why didn't you tell me right then, "I am your master"?'
The old man started laughing, and he said, 'I told you, "He will be sitting under such a tree" -- and this is the tree I was sitting under! And I told you, "This will be the robe he will be wearing" -- and I was wearing the same robe! I was the same man then, but you were not alert. You could not see me -- you needed these thirty years' journeys from one comer to another corner of the world; you needed all this effort to recognize me. I was here, but you were not here.
'Now you are also here, you can see me. And I had to wait for you. It is not only a question for you, that you have been travelling. Think of me -- I am so old, and I could not even die before you came back. And I have not changed the robe, in case you missed me again -- for thirty years! I have never for a single moment left this tree! But you have come. The journey has been too long -- but this is the way one discovers.'
God is always here, but we are not here. A child has to lose track; he has to go for thirty years' pilgrimage. Every child has to lose track, every child has to go astray. Only by going astray, only by suffering, will he attain eyes, clarity, transparency. Only by going into a thousand and one things, will he start looking for the real.
The unreal has to be searched. The unreal is attractive, the unreal is magnetic. And how can you know the real if you have not known the unreal? The child knows the real -- but he has not known the unreal, so he cannot define the real. The child knows God -- but he has not known the world, so he cannot define God. Each child comes like a saint, but has to become a sinner. Then the second childhood. If you don't attain to the second childhood you have missed your life.
So don't think, and don't be worried, that you have lost it. Everybody has to lose it -- that should not be a problem. The prob!em is only if you go on and on, and you never come back. If this man goes on and on... thirty years, thirty lives, three hundred lives, three thousand lives... goes on and on, and never comes back, and never attains to the second childhood, then something has really gone wrong.
Err -- to err is human. That is the way to learn. Go astray -- going astray is the way to come back home. Forget God, so that you can remember him. Escape from God, so one day the thirst becomes a fire in you and you have to come to God again... Like a hungry man, like a thirsty man.
This had to happen to humanity too. Now there will be a great assertion of paganism in the world again -- the second childhood. That's why Zen has become so important, so significant; Tantra has become such a significant word. Sufism, Hassidism, are more important now than Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism -- why? Why Tantra? Why Tao? Why Zen? Why Sufi? Why Hassid? These are the pagan attitudes -- they create the second childhood.
The world is getting ready; humanity is becoming more and more mature. This age is the age of humanity's youth. The childhood is no more; we have lost it, we have become corrupted. But don't be worried by it -- that is how one attains to innocence again. And the second childhood is far more valuable than the first, because the second cannot be lost. The first has to be lost, is bound to be lost; no child, not even a Buddha, could retain it. No child can retain it; it is in the very nature of things. When something is given to you -- and you were not seeking it, and you were not even asking for it, you were not ready even to receive it...
If you give a child a diamond, a diamond like the Kohinoor, he will play with it a little while and then throw it away. He does not know what it is. The Kohinoor is the Kohinoor, whether you know it or not. The Kohinoor IS the Kohinoor -- knowledge makes no difference. But the child will throw it away; he will become fed-up sooner or later. Just a stone -- how long can you play with it? Even if it is very colourful, even if it is very shiny... but how long?
For the Kohinoor to come into your life again, you will need a thirst for it. You will need to feel a great missing -- something missing inside your being. You will need a great desire. All desires should become lesser desires, and God becomes the supreme-most desire, the topmost desire. God is always here.
It happens to children, it happens to societies, it happens to civilizations, it happens to humanity at large, too. So don't be worried about Christianity -- that was part. Christianity or those kinds of religion are the religions between these two childhoods, the first and the second. They condemn. They shout that you have gone astray: 'Come back!' They pull you back, they make you afraid. They give you great provocations, that if you come back you will attain great prizes, rewards, in heaven. If you don't come back, you are going to be thrown into hell. Hellfire is waiting for you; for eternity you will be in hell, suffering.
This is fear -- creating fear in people, so that they will come back. But out of fear, even if you come, you never come. Because fear can never become love. Fear cannot be reduced into love, cannot be converted into love. Fear remains fear, and out of fear arises hatred.
That's why Christianity has created great hatred against religion. Friedrich Nietzsche is a by-product of Christianity; if Friedrich Nietzsche says God is dead, it is just a reaction to Christianity. Too much emphasis on God, on heaven and hell -- somebody has to say it. I am all for Nietzsche -- somebody has to say, 'Enough is enough. Stop all this nonsense! God is dead, and man is free' -- because man feels in bondage if you create fear.
And greed? Greed again is a bondage. You just see -- heaven, paradise, FIRDAUS, the idea of it -- what is it? It is such greed, such lust. In the Mohammedan's FIRDAUS, heaven, it seems saints are doing nothing but copulating. Beautiful women are available, and streams of wine are flowing, and all that you need is immediately made available. And those beautiful women remain at the age of sixteen; they never grow.
And one more beautiful thing about that: they again become a virgin. Whenever a saint makes love to a woman -- only saints go there -- when a saint makes love to a woman, the moment he is finished, again she becomes a virgin. That is the miracle of paradise. And what are your saints doing there? It seems an orgy, sexual orgy. And streams of wine.... Here you say, 'Avoid wine, avoid women' -- for what? To gain better women and more wine in heaven? This seems to be illogical.
But this is how people are provoked, through greed, to come back. Or fear: if you don't come through greed, then fear, then hellfire -- and ETERNAL hellfire. You have not done so much sin, eternal hellfire is unjust. Okay, for ten years you are thrown into hell, one can understand -- fifteen years, twenty years, fifty years. But eternal? You have not been eternally sinning here, so how can eternal punishment be given to you? It looks too much.
But that is not the point; the point is just to make people afraid. Fear and greed have been the base of many religions. And they have not been helpful; they have destroyed. They have not appealed to the courageous, they have appealed only to the cowards -- and when a cowardly person becomes religious the religion is bogus. Because a cowardly person CANNOT become religious; only a courageous person can become religious -- religion needs great courage.
It is a jump into the unknown. It is a jump into the uncharted sea, with no maps. It is dropping the past and moving into the future, it is going into insecurity. It cannot be out of cowardice.
And in your temples and in your mosques, in your churches, cowards have gathered together. They are trembling with fear. And they are full of greed -- afloat in greed, aflame with greed, agog with greed. These greedy and cowardly people cannot be religious. The basis of religion is to drop all fear and to drop all greed, and to move into the unknown. God is the unknown, the hidden. He is hidden HERE -- in the trees, in the rocks, in you, in me. But to enter into that hidden reality, that occult, one needs great courage -- it is going into a dark night without any light.
A Zen master was saying goodbye to one of his disciples, and the night was very dark. And the disciple was a little bit afraid, scared, because he had to pass a jungle of at least ten miles. And it was wild. And wild animals were there, and it was night -- and a dark night with no moon. And it was getting late, almost half the night had passed. Talking to the master, he had completely forgotten.
Seeing him a little afraid, the master says, 'You look a little afraid, so I will give you a lamp.' He puts a small paper lamp into his hand, lights the lamp. The disciple thanks him, goes down the steps, and the master calls him and says, 'Stop!' And the master comes close and blows the flame out. And he says, 'A real master gives courage; he does not help cowardice. Go into the dark, be your own light. And remember, nobody else's light will be of any help; you will have to attain to your own light. Be a flame to your own being. Go into the dark, be courageous.'
He says a real master never helps any cowardice. In a small act, by blowing the flame out, the master gives a great message: Religion is only for the courageous.
Those who followed Jesus, they were courageous people. They were not many, they were very few -- you could have counted them on your fingers. Those who followed Buddha were courageous people. Christians are not courageous, Buddhists are not courageous.
Those who are with me are courageous people. Once I am gone, your children and your children's children may pay their respect to me, but they will not be courageous.
Religion exists only when there is an alive master to LIVE it for you. When the master is gone then religion becomes dead. Cowardly people gather together around a dead religion; then there is no fear. They worship the scripture, they worship the word, they worship the statue -- all dead things.
But whenever a Jesus is there, or a Buddha is there, or a Mohammed is there, they are very much afraid. They find a thousand and one ways to escape; they find a thousand and one ways to rationalize their escape. They condemn the real master -- why? The real master will not support your cowardice. He will not give you any more greed -- you already have too much -- and he will not make you afraid. His whole effort will be to take fear and greed away from you, so that you can become capable of living your life in totality.
Christianity and religions like that had to happen. They have to be forgiven; don't be angry about them. But now they have to go, too -- now the world is no more in need of them. They are tumbling, they are scattering, they are dying. In fact they are dead. But people are so blind that for them to know that their church or their temple is dead takes such a long time. They are so unconscious, they cannot understand it immediately. Christianity is dead, Hinduism dead, Islam is dead. In Islam, only a small thing lives, still has a flame -- that is Sufism. In Christianity, only a few mystics are still alive. Otherwise the church and the pope and the vatican are just cemeteries, graveyards.
In Hinduism, a few mystics are still alive -- a Krishnamurti, somewhere a Raman -- but far and few in between. Otherwise, the SHANKARACHARYAS are dead people. But nobody goes to a living master. In Buddhism only Zen is alive. In Judaism only Hassidism is alive.
The organized religion is not the real religion. The unorganized, the rebellious, the unorthodox, the heretic religion is the real religion -- has always been so. Religion comes always as a rebellion -- its very spirit is that of rebelliousness. The days for Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, are gone. In the future, a totally different kind of religion, a different kind of climate, will surround the earth. Religions will disappear; there will only be a kind of religiousness. People will find their own religion individually; people will find their own prayer, their own way of praying. There is no need to follow anybody's prescribed idea -- that is not the path, that is not the way of the courageous. That is the way of the coward.
And God is available -- you just have to become courageous to look into his eyes.
You ask me: AND THEN DEATH AND RESURRECTION BECAME THE RELIGION OF THE WEST. That's true. Christianity has never been concerned with Christ; it has been more concerned with the cross. It has not worshipped Christ it has been worshipping the cross. The cross is a symbol of death. Why? Because death is the basic fear. Making people alert about their death makes them afraid. If you make a person very much mindful of death, every possibility is there that he will start shaking and trembling. And when a person is shaking and trembling you can victimize him very easily; you can convert him into any nonsense. He is ready to believe anything -- if you just promise immortality he is ready.
So followers of Christianity say, 'Those who are in the church will be saved, and those who are not in the church, we don't make any guarantee for them. They are doomed; they cannot be saved.' And that's what all other religions say. This is creating fear. Bring death into their mind, they become afraid -- who will not become afraid of death? And then an afraid man is prone to be converted into a slave very easily.
And why resurrection? Death and resurrection became the foundation of Christianity in the West. Death gives you fear, and the promise of resurrection gives you greed. If you die within the church, you will resurrect. You will resurrect as a divine being, with all that you always wanted, with all that you always needed -- beautiful, with a golden body, with an aura around you, you will be resurrected.
These are fear-greed tricks, punishment-reward tricks. This is what B. F. Skinner goes on doing with his rats: make them afraid and they start doing things. This is what you see in a circus: make the elephant afraid -- such a courageous animal and such a wise animal, but just make him afraid. And he starts doing foolish things for you -- he will sit on a stool, he will bow down to a man... he can kill that man within a second. Even lions, seeing the whip, tremble -- just make them afraid, that's all. Even lions can be tamed, and elephants can be taught and disciplined. Create fear and reward -- if the elephant follows you, give him good food; if he does not follow, starve him. A simple technique.
That's what so-called religions have been doing to man. Guilt and sin were taught. Naturally, if you want to make people afraid -- and that is the only way to exploit them -- teach them that everything is sin, all that you enjoy is sin. Death creates fear, but death is far away. After fifty years or seventy years you will die -- who bothers? 'Seventy years? We will see. Right now we are not dying.'
Maybe old people become afraid. That's why you find more old people in churches, temples. Old women, old men -- women more than men, because they become more afraid. Old, dying, just on the verge, so they know now something has to be done. Life is going, slipping by; they have to manage something for the future.
Do you see young people in your churches? in your temples? And remember, wherever you see young people, there religion is alive. A young person, if he becomes interested in religion, his religion cannot be that of fear and cannot be that of death. His religion will be of life.
Many times people come to me and they say, 'Why do so many young people come to you?' They come because I teach the religion of life, of love, of joy. I don't create any guilt, and I don't go on conditioning their minds that 'This is sin, that is sin.' There are mistakes, but there is no sin. Mistakes, certainly, there are -- but a mistake is a mistake. If you are doing a mathematical problem and you make two plus two equal five, is it a sin? It is just a mistake; it can be corrected. No need to throw you in hell forever just because you counted two plus two as five. It is simply a mistake, pardonable.
All that you call sin is nothing but mistakes. And mistakes are the way of learning. Those people who never commit mistakes are the most stupid people, because they never grow. I teach you: Go on committing mistakes, never be afraid. Just remember one thing -- don't commit the same mistake again and again, because that is meaningless. Be inventive, commit new mistakes every day -- then you learn. Just don't commit the same mistake every day, because that is foolish. You have committed it once, you have known it is a mistake -- you were angry, and you have seen what anger is -- now being angry again is stupid. You have seen, it is just meaningless. It is destructive -- it destroys the other, it destroys you. And it does not bring anything; no flower flowers in you.
You become less by anger, you don't become more. Love, be kind -- and suddenly you are more flowing, bigger, higher; you start floating, you have less weight. So learn: when you love, when you are loving, you can fly, wings grow. When you hate, when you are angry, you become like a rock. Then gravitation is too much on you, you become heavy.
Can't you see that? Simple -- just like two plus two is four. Life is a learning, it is a school. That's why we have been sent here, that is the purpose -- not to punish you. I would like to change your whole idea about it. You have been taught that you have been sent here to be punished -- this is absolutely wrong. You are sent here to learn.
Why should God be such a torturer? Is he a sadist or something? -- he enjoys torturing people? And if, as these people say, you have been sent here to be punished, then why for the first time were you sent? There must have been your first life -- before that you had not committed anything, because how can you commit sins unless you come here? You cannot have committed any sins -- then why were you sent for the first time?
They don't have any answer. Jainas don't have, Hindus don't have, Mohammedans don't have; they don't have any answer for it. Why has man been sent? Maybe this time you have been sent because in the past life you committed sins. Okay, but what about the first life? And if this is the first life, as Christians say, then why have you been sent here? Now, they have a very absurd idea: because Adam committed sin. You have nothing to do with Adam; this is simply absurd. Somebody you don't know, whether he ever even existed or not, committed sin and the whole humanity is suffering for it. Your father committed sin and you have been sent to jail. And Adam is not even your father -- not even your father's father, not even your father's father's father -- he is the first man.
And what he has done does not seem to be a sin at all. It seems simple courage, it seems simple rebelliousness. Each child needs that much spine. God said to Adam: 'Don't eat the fruit of this tree. This tree is the tree of knowledge.' And Adam ate it. I think anybody who has any soul would do the same. If Adam had been dead and dull, then he would have followed. He must have been challenged; in fact, that is the very purpose. Otherwise, on the earth there are millions and millions of trees -- just think, if God had not shown the particular tree, it is very very impossible that Adam would have found it. That was only one tree in the whole garden of God, and the garden is infinite. That was only one tree of which God said particularly, 'Don't eat it. If you eat the fruit of knowledge you will be expelled.'
My own understanding is, God was putting a challenge to him. He was trying to see whether he is alive or dead. He was trying to see whether he is capable of disobeying, whether he can say no -- God was trying to see whether he is just a yes-man. And Adam proved his mettle: he ate the fruit. He was ready to be thrown into the world, but he showed spirit. It is not sin, it is simply courage.
Every child has to disobey his father one day or other, every child has to disobey his mother one day or other. In fact, the day you disobey, that is the day you start becoming mature -- never before it. So only stupid children never disobey. Intelligent children certainly disobey; intelligent children find a thousand and one ways to disobey the parents. You can look around: you will always find the intelligent child disobeying. Because he has to grow his own soul -- if he goes on obeying you, obeying you, obeying you, when will he grow? how will he grow? He will remain dull and limp. He will not have his own soul, he will not have his own individuality.
No, Adam has not committed any sin; Adam is the first saint. He disobeyed God, and God wanted it. That is exactly what God wanted -- that Adam should disobey. Disobeying God, Adam will go far away into the world; he will lose his first childhood. Then he will suffer many many mistakes, and from those mistakes he will learn.
And one day he will come back -- as Christ, as Buddha, as Mahavira, as Krishna, he will come back.
This going away is a must for coming back. This is not against God really, this is precisely what God wanted to happen. It was absolutely planned by God himself. So I don't call it sin. Why is Adam called a sinner? He is called a sinner because your religions depend on calling you sinners, on condemning you. The more you are condemned, the more you touch their feet. The more you are condemned, the more you crawl on the earth and beg. The more you are condemned, the more afraid you become. The more you are afraid, the more you need mediators.
You don't know where God is. Your priest knows, your pope knows; he has a direct line with God. If he interferes, only then can you be saved -- otherwise your whole life is sin. Only if HE persuades God for you then you can be saved. This is the whole trick, the trick of the priest. The priest is not really the religious man, the priest is the businessman -- doing business in the name of religion, exploiting.
The ugliest profession in the world is not of the prostitutes, the ugliest profession is of the priests.
'WHY ISN'T HE LIKE THESEUS OR JASON OR HERMES?' He is. 'IS THE CONCEPT OF SIN JUST A TRICK? TO MAKE MEN MEDITATE?' Yes, it is a trick, but not to make them meditate. It is a trick to make them slaves. Meditation is a totally different thing. Meditation never comes out of fear, meditation comes out of understanding. Meditation comes out of love, out of compassion. Meditation comes out of living your life in all climates, in all seasons. Looking into each fact of life deeply, understanding it -- and if it is meaningless discarding it, if it is meaningful choosing it -- by and by, you go on collecting the essential and discarding the non-essential.
Both are there. The chaff and the wheat, both are there. The roses and the weeds, both are there. And one has to make a distinction between the chaff and the wheat: one has to throw the chaff and collect the wheat.
This much intelligence is needed, otherwise you cannot become a religious person. These fears don't give you understanding. They in fact cloud your mind more, they make you more unclear about life. They don't allow you to go into life totally and experience it -- they are against experience.
Meditation comes when you live life, and you see life as it happens. Not because Buddha says anger is bad -- that will not help; you will become a parrot, a pundit -- but if you see into your own anger and this understanding arises, that anger is meaningless, poisonous. Not because Krishna says, 'Leave everything to God, surrender to God' -- no, following Krishna you will not attain to God -- but see how your ego is creating all kinds of miseries for you.
Seeing that, one day you drop the ego, and you say, 'Now I will live in a totally surrendered way. Whatsoever God wants through me, will happen. I will not have any desire of my own, I will not have any will of my own. I drop my will.'
Seeing the misery that ego brings, comes surrender. Seeing the misery that anger brings, comes love. Seeing the misery that sexuality brings, arises BRAHMACHARYA, celibacy. But one has to go through it -- there is no shortcut, and these things cannot be borrowed from anybody.
Next: Chapter 10: The Bridge but not the Water Flows, Question 2
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 2
| ENERGY
|
GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
|
THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
|
THE KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3
|
MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4
|
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ENERGY ENHANCEMENT TESTIMONIALS EE LEVEL1 EE LEVEL2 EE LEVEL3 EE LEVEL4 EE FAQS |
