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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
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MASTERY
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ZEN: THE PATH OF PARADOX
VOL. 2
Chapter 2: Selling Water by the River
Question 2
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 2
Question 2
DOES HEALTHY SELF-AWARENESS NECESSARILY INVOLVE A RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT?
Awareness necessarily is followed by action. Awareness flowers into action. Otherwise awareness will be impotent.
And that's what commitment is. When you are aware, it transforms your life. This awareness does not remain just inside you -- it is not a treasure of a miser, who never uses it, who simply hoards it. It starts flowing into your life. It becomes part of your each move, it illuminates your actions. Whatsoever you do will be totally different now, its quality will be different. If you love you will love in a totally new way, awareness will be there. Your love will no more be a fall. People fall in love. A man of awareness does not fall in love, a man of awareness rises in love. He goes higher, not lower.
Your so-called love is almost an illusion. The man of awareness has a different love arising in his heart which is not an illusion. Your so-called love is a bargain. You want to use the other person and the other wants to use you, so there is a mutual bargain -- a contract. Neither you love him, nor he loves you. He loves himself, you love yourself. You use the other, he uses you.
This is a kind of settlement, adjustment. You call it love. These adjustments don't go very far, they cannot go very far. Sooner or later you are fed-up with the person, and he or she is fed-up with you. You have looked into each other, you have explored each other, and now there seems to be nothing new any more. So interest has waned, love starts disappearing. Then you tolerate at the most, because of past promises, because of past commitments. You have to carry it somehow.
That's what happens to all kinds of so-called marriages. It is not love, it was not love ever, it was a kind of deception. And the deception is created by chemical changes in your body. It is as chemical as taking a drug. Certain hormones, certain chemicals, are released in the bloodstream and you feel an illusion arising and you start seeing things which are not there.
When you fall in love with a woman you start seeing things in that woman which are not there. Nobody else is seeing them, only you. And the woman starts seeing things in you; your chemistries are helping each other. You are dreaming -- dreaming with open eyes; it is a kind of daydream. Soon it will be shattered, soon the reality will assert.
The man of awareness does not fall in love, he rises in love. Only the man of awareness is capable of love, because he has found himself. Now love is no more a need, he can be happy alone. Remember, this is one of the indications of a man of awareness: he can be happy alone. His happiness is as perfect alone as when he is together with somebody else. His happiness no more depends on anybody else, his happiness is autonomous. Now he can share, now he can give. And he has too much, and it goes on flowing, and it goes on coming... and what is he going to do with it? He has to share it.
The man of awareness shares his love, the man of unawareness has no love to share. He simply pretends to give love, because deep down he wants love to be given to him. The man of unawareness wants to be loved really -- hence he has to pretend 'I love you'.
Both are doing the same thing to each other. Both need love, they both miss love -- they both are not yet capable of being alone and happy. They need somebody to be happy; they need some-body to depend on, to lean upon. So their love is a kind of bait so the fish is caught. But they are not interested in giving food to the fish. The bait is not food for the fish, it is a trap.
The man of awareness loves -- not because he needs love, but because he has so much that he has to give. And love is like flowers -- if you don't give it, it dies. Love is like flowers -- in the morning they bloom, by the evening they are gone. Go on giving. You cannot hoard flowers, that is one of the most beautiful things about flowers. And that is one of the most dirty things about gold and silver, that gold and silver can be hoarded and flowers cannot be hoarded. You cannot hoard flowers. If you hoard them, if you lock them in a box, they will be dead.
I have heard an ancient parable....
A great king had three sons, and he wanted to choose one to be his heir. And it was very difficult, because all three were very intelligent, very courageous. And they all were twins, of the same age, so there way no way to judge; Whom should he choose? So he asked a great sage, and the sage suggested an idea.
And the king went home and he asked all the three sons to come. And he gave them each one bag of flower seeds, and told them that he was going for a religious pilgrimage -- for a teerthayatra. 'It will take a few years -- one, two, three, maybe more. And this is a kind of test for you. These seeds you will have to give back to me when I return. And whosoever protects them best will become my heir.' And he left for the pilgrimage.
The first son thought, 'What should I do with these seeds?' He locked them in an iron safe -- because when the father comes he has to return them as they are.
The second son thought, 'If I lock them up just as my brother has done, these seeds will die. And a dead seed is not a seed at all. And my father may argue that "I had given you live seeds, there was a possibility for them to grow -- but these seeds are dead; they cannot grow. So you are not returning the same thing to me as I have given to you."'
So he went into the market and sold the seeds and kept the money. And he thought, 'When my father comes I will go to the market, purchase new seeds, and give him back better than the first.'
But the third was the best. He went back into the garden and threw the seeds all over the place.
After three years, when the father came back, the first son opened his safe. Those seeds were all dead, stinking. And the father said, 'What! These are the seeds I have given to you? They had the possibility to bloom into flowers and give great perfume -- and these seeds are stinking. These are not my seeds!' And the son said, 'Father, they are the same seeds.' The father said, 'You are a materialist.'
He went to the second son. He rushed to the market, purchased seeds, came back home, and said, 'These are the seeds.' The father said, 'But these are not the same; these are not exactly the same. You are better than the first, but yet not as capable as I would like you to be. You are a psychologist.'
Yes, a little better than the body is the mind -- a little better than the materialist is the person who believes in the mind.
He went to the third. With great hope, and fear too: 'What has he done?' And the third took him back into the garden and there were millions of plants blooming, millions of flowers all around. And the son said, 'These are the seeds you had given to me. Soon I will collect the seeds and give them back to you. Right now they are getting ready to be collected.'
The father said, 'You are the spiritualist. You are my heir. This is how one should behave with seeds.'
The mind can hoard, the mind can calculate -- but that won't do. The hoarder will not understand life, and the calculating mind will also miss it. Only a creative mind can understand it. That is the beauty of flowers -- they cannot be hoarded. They represent God: God cannot be hoarded. They represent love: love cannot be hoarded.
It is not just an accident that the flower has remained a symbol for love, down the ages, in all the countries, for all kinds of societies. It is not just an accident. Love is like a flower -- when it starts blooming in you, you have to distribute, you have to share, you have to give. You have to find people to enjoy it. And when somebody receives your love you feel tremendously grateful to him. Otherwise that flower would have died -- unknown, unappreciated.
And the more you give, the more love grows. If you go on giving, a day comes, you become a constant infinite source of love.
A man of awareness will love, but his quality of love will be totally different. It will be a different reality, it will move in a different dimension. He will act, because each awareness has to become an act. Awareness is a seed, and an act is the flowering of it.
You ask, DOES HEALTHY SELF-AWARENESS NECESSARILY INVOLVE A RELIGIOUS COMMITMENT? It necessarily becomes an act, hence it becomes commitment. A real religious man is a very committed man. But he is not committed to any ideology, remember. A Christian is committed to Christianity, a Hindu is committed to Hinduism. A nationalist is committed to his nation, a politician is committed to his party. No, a religious person has no such commitments. He is not committed to any nation, because a religious man knows there are no nations. He belongs to no nation.
The religious man is not committed to any party; he has none. The religious man is not committed to any ideology, creed, dogma; he has none. He is committed to God, he is committed to consciousness, he is committed to existence itself. He lives in God, he moves in God, he breathes in God, he loves in God, he dies in God. His commitment is God, his commitment is religiousness.
Yes, necessarily it involves commitment. The question arises because in the past the so-called religious people have proved very escapist. Once they become religious they escape, they run away, they are no more here. This escapism is not really a sign of authentic religiousness, it simply says they have not yet become aware. Otherwise they will bloom into actions.
And that's how it happens. When Mahavira was in search for truth he went to the forest. But when he found it he came back to the society. When Buddha was in search he went to the forest. When he found it he came back to the society. One has to come back. Maybe when you are searching for it you may need a special situation, just to help you search. But when you have found it, necessarily you come back to human society. Then you have to share. You can search alone, but how can you share if there is nobody else to share with?
Next: Chapter 2: Selling Water by the River, Question 3
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 |
