Zen Buddhism, Talks on the Faith Mind of Sosan, Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book Of Nothing Chapter 4: Return to the root

TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS TO FIND THE MEANING, BUT TO PURSUE APPEARANCES IS TO MISS THE SOURCE.

AT THE MOMENT OF INNER ENLIGHTENMENT THERE IS A GOING BEYOND APPEARANCE AND EMPTINESS.

THE CHANGES THAT APPEAR TO OCCUR IN THE EMPTY WORLD WE CALL REAL ONLY BECAUSE OF OUR IGNORANCE.

DO NOT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH; ONLY CEASE TO HOLD OPINIONS.

DO NOT REMAIN IN THE DUALISTIC STATE; AVOID SUCH PURSUITS CAREFULLY.

IF THERE IS A TRACE OF THIS AND THAT, THE RIGHT AND WRONG, THE MIND ESSENCE WILL BE LOST IN CONFUSION.

ALTHOUGH ALL DUALITIES COME FROM THE ONE, DO NOT BE ATTACHED EVEN TO THIS ONE.

WHEN MIND EXISTS UNDISTURBED IN THE WAY, NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN OFFEND, AND WHEN A THING CAN NO LONGER OFFEND, IT CEASES TO EXIST IN THE OLD WAY.

WHEN NO DISCRIMINATING THOUGHTS ARISE, THE OLD MIND CEASES TO EXIST.

THE NATURE of consciousness is to be just a mirror. The mirror has no choice of its own. Whatsoever comes in front of it is reflected -- good or bad, beautiful or ugly -- whatsoever. The mirror does not prefer, it does not judge, it has no condemnation. The nature of consciousness, at the source, is just mirrorlike.

A child is born; he reflects whatsoever comes before him. He does not say anything, he does not interpret. The moment interpretation enters, the mirror has lost its mirrorlikeness. Now it is no more pure. Now it is filled with opinions, disturbed, many fragments, divided, split. It has become schizophrenic.

When the consciousness is divided, not mirrorlike, it becomes the mind. Mind is a broken mirror.

In the root, mind is consciousness. If you stop making discriminations, if you stop making dual division -- choosing this against that, liking this, disliking that -- if you drop out of these divisions the mind again becomes a mirror, a pure consciousness.

So the whole effort for a seeker is how to drop opinions, philosophies, preferences, judgments, choices. And this should not become a choice in itself -- that's the problem.

So try to understand the basic problem, otherwise you can make THIS a choice"I will not choose, I will remain choiceless. Now choice is not for me, now I am for choiceless awareness." This has again become the same thing -- you have chosen. Now you are against choice and for choicelessness. You have missed. Nobody can be for choicelessness, because the being for IS choice.

So what is to be done? Simple understanding is needed, nothing is to be done. The ultimate is achieved not through effort but through understanding.

No effort will lead you towards that, because effort will always be from the dual mind. Then you dislike the world and you like God; then bondage is not your preference, freedom is your preference; then you seek the MOKSHA, the ultimate liberation. But again the mind has entered, and the mind goes on entering. And you cannot do anything -- you have to simply be alert to the whole situation.

If you are alert, in a sudden illumination the mind falls. Suddenly you are one with the mirrorlike consciousness; you have fallen to your base, to your root. And when you have fallen deep within to the root, the whole existence falls to the root.

Existence appears to you as you are. This is one of the fundamental laws. Whatsoever you see depends from where you see. If you are a mind, divided, then the whole life is divided. Existence reechos your being. If you have a mind, split, then the whole world will be seen as split, then day is against night. They are not, because the day turns into night, the night turns into day -- they make a complete circle. They are not against, they are complementaries. Without the night there cannot be any day, and without the day there cannot exist any night. So they cannot be opposites; they are deep down one.

Life and death appear as opposites because YOU are divided. Otherwise life becomes death, death becomes life. You are born, and that very day you have started to die. And the moment you die a new life has come into being. It is a circle -- the YIN and YANG circle of the Chinese.

That circle has to be remembered again and again. It is one of the most basic symbols ever discovered. No other symbol can be compared to it -- the cross, the swastika, the AUM -- no, no comparison with the Chinese YIN and YANG, because YIN and YANG comprehends the whole oppositeness of existence: the dark night and the bright day, life and death, love and hate.

All opposites are together in existence. Inside you are divided, outside they are divided. When you fall to your source and you become one, the whole existence suddenly falls into line and becomes one. When you are one, the BRAHMA appears, the ultimate appears, because to the one only one can appear; to the two, the two; to the many, the many. And you are many, you are a crowd -- not even two. You have many many selves within you.

Gurdjieff used to say that you are a house where nobody knows who the host is. Many people are there, everybody is a guest -- but because nobody knows who the host is, everybody thinks he is the host. So whosoever becomes powerful in any moment plays the role of the host.

When anger becomes powerful, anger becomes the host. When love becomes powerful, love becomes the host. When jealousy becomes powerful, jealousy becomes the host. But it is a constant fight, because many are the guests and everybody would like to be the host, the owner of the house. And nobody knows who the owner is. Either the owner has gone for a long journey and has not come back, or the owner is fast asleep.

Your self is fast asleep. Hence the insistence of all Jesuses, Krishnas, Buddhas: "Awake!" Jesus goes on using the word 'awake' many many times: "Awake, watch, be alert." Buddha goes on saying, "Become more conscious."

The meaning is one: that if you become aware the host will appear. And the MOMENT -- and this is the beauty of it -- the host appears, the guests disappear. The moment the master comes into being, the servants simply fall into line and they become servants. They don't claim that they are the masters.

So the real problem is not to fight with anger, jealousy, hate. The real problem is to bring the master, make him aware. Once he is aware everything is set right. But this awareness is possible only if you fall to the source.

Mind is bound to remain divided, it cannot become one -- the very nature of the mind is such. Try to understand the nature of the mind, then these sutras of Sosan will become clear, transparent.

THE NATURE OF THE MIND is to look at a thing in such a way that the opposite has to be brought in. Without the opposite the mind cannot understand. If I say, "What is light?" how will the mind understand? Immediately darkness has to be brought in.

If you go to the dictionary -- the dictionary is a vicious circle -- if you look for what light is the dictionary says: that which is not darkness. To destroy light, darkness has to be brought in. What nonsense! And when you go to the definition of darkness, you will be surprised -- then the light has to be brought in. What is darkness? -- then they say: that which is not light.

You have not defined either, because both remain indefinable. And from one indefinable how can you define the other which is undefined? The whole game of the dictionary is that you never look at the whole thing.

If you ask linguists, "What is mind?" they say, "Not matter." And, "What is matter?" they say, "Not mind." Neither is defined. How can one undefined term define something? If I ask you where you live you say, "I am a neighbor of A." And if I ask you where this A lives, you say, "He is my neighbor." How am I to find the place where you live? Because neither A is defined nor you; A lives near B and B lives near A. But this is how things go on.

Mind cannot understand anything unless the opposite is brought in, because through contrast mind becomes capable of seeing. Life cannot be understood if there is no death, and happiness is impossible to feel if there is no unhappiness. How will you feel healthy if you have never known illness? You may be healthy but you cannot feel it. To be healthy is possible without illness but the mind cannot check it, the mind cannot know it. You have to fall ill.

For the mind, to be a saint one needs to be a sinner first, and to be healthy you have to be ill, and to be in love you have to hate. If you love and there is no hate you will not be able to know, your mind will not in any way detect it. And nobody else will be able to know it.

That is the problem with a Buddha or a Jesus. Buddha is full of love, but we cannot detect his love -- he has no contrasting background, no hate. We have never seen hate in his eyes, and we have never seen anger in his eyes. How can we know that he loves? His love becomes incomprehensible.

For the mind, anything is comprehensible if the opposite is brought in. But the moment you bring the opposite you falsify existence, because in existence there is nothing like 'opposite.'

Mind moves through the opposite and existence is unitary. Existence is ADVAITA, existence is non-dual -- there is no problem. Where is the boundary of the day, when the day stops, ceases to be, and the night starts? Is there a gap between the two? Only if there is a gap then the boundary is possible. But there is no boundary! The day simply melts into the night, it merges into the night, and the night again merges into the day. Life is one, existence is one -- mind is dual.

So if you go on choosing you will never come to the source. Then you will cling to life and you will be afraid of death. Then you will cling to love and you will be afraid of hate. Then you will cling to the good and you will be afraid of the bad. Then you will cling to God and you will be afraid of the Devil.

Life is one. God, Devil -- one. There is no division where God ends and where Devil begins; there cannot be. In life, Ram and Ravan are one, but for the mind they are the enemies, they are fighting. For the mind everything is a conflict, it is a war.

And if you choose then you remain part of the game. And how not to choose is the whole art of religion, how to drop into a choicelessness.

But remember, don't choose choicelessness! Otherwise, listening to me or to Sosan or Krishnamurti you will become enchanted by the word 'choicelessness.' Your mind will say, "This is very good. Then ecstasy is possible and much bliss will happen to you if you become choicelessness. Then the door of the mysteries of life will be opened." The mind feels greedy. The mind says, "Okay, so I will choose choicelessness." The door is closed, only the label is changed, but you have fallen a victim of the old trick.

Now try to understand these sutras. They are some of the best ever uttered by any man on the whole of the earth.

TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS TO FIND THE MEANING, BUT TO PURSUE APPEARANCES IS TO MISS THE SOURCE.

TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS TO FIND THE MEANING...

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE of this whole play of existence? What is the meaning of all these trees growing, and human beings, and animals, and birds? What is the meaning of this earth and this heaven? What is the meaning of this whole? Where will you find the meaning?

For the mind the meaning must be in the end -- where this existence is moving to must be the meaning, the destination. For the mind the meaning must be somewhere in the destination: where we are going.

And this sutra of Sosan says: TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS TO FIND THE MEANING... not in the future, not in desire and destination, not somewhere else, but to the root. Not in the end but in the beginning.

Try to understand. Many things have to be understood. First, if there is any meaning it must be in the seed. Maybe hidden, not visible, but it must be in the seed, because nothing can come which is not in the seed. Nothing can come out of emptiness.

Even if there is a destination it must be hidden in the seed, just like a flower hidden in the seed -- the flower is the meaning of the tree. When it flowers it is ecstatic, when it blooms it sings and dances. It has attained, it is happy, it is delighted, it is not lacking anything any more. The flower is just a delight, the dance of the tree that "I have attained!"

But those flowers must have been somewhere in the seed, otherwise how can they happen? The end must be in the beginning; the omega must be hidden in the alpha. Jesus says, "I am the beginning and the end. I am the alpha and the omega."

The beginning is the end, because the end may not be revealed right now but it must be there. And when it is in the seed, you need not wait for the future to come, for the flower to happen. You can penetrate the beginning right now, because here it is. The seed, remember, is not in the past. The seed is always here and now in the present, because the whole past is in the present.

Of course, the whole future is also in the present, but the future has not happened and the past has happened already, the beginning has happened already. Penetrate the beginning, move to the roots, and to the source, and the meaning will be revealed.

And you carry the seed right now within you -- the seed of all meaning, of all possibilities, of all doors that can open and all mysteries that can happen. You carry the seed! But if you wait for the future then it may not come ever, because the future is infinite and waiting will be losing life, time and energy.

And if waiting becomes a habit the flower MAY flower and you may not be able to see. Because you have become accustomed to looking to the future, your eyes have become fixed. They cannot look at the near and the close, they can always look to the far and distant.

If for many lives you have been looking in the future for the meaning, and the flower flowers, you will not be able to see it -- because seeing does not depend on the flower, the seeing depends on your penetrating eyes. And you don't have any penetrating eyes, otherwise the beginning is always there, the seed is always there. You could have looked into it.

If you look to the future and wait for the meaning to be revealed somewhere, then sooner or later you will feel life is meaningless. That is what is happening in the West, because continuously philosophy was thinking that somewhere in the future is the goal.

It looks absurd to think that the goal is in the beginning. It looks contradictory, because how can the goal be in the beginning? So the mind says the goal must be somewhere ahead, because mind lives through desire, moves through desire. Motivation has to be there in the future. And now, for two thousand years continuously thinking in terms of the future, the Western mind thinks that there is no meaning because the future has not arrived.

The future never arrives! It cannot arrive by its very nature; it remains always unarrived. It is arriving but it never arrives. It is just like the tomorrow which never comes. Whenever it comes it is always today, whenever it comes it is always the present.

Future never comes, cannot come. Its very nature is like hope, dream -- illusory. It appears as if it is coming, just like the horizon; it never reaches. Then, waiting and waiting, you feel meaningless. The whole Western thinking mind today feels life is meaningless, absurd. And if you feel life is meaningless, absurd, then suicide remains the only way to get out of it.

One of the great Western thinkers of this century, Marcel, has written that suicide is the only problem. If you see that life is meaningless then what is left? Then why go on dragging? Why live at all?

If there is no meaning and you are moving in a rut... every day you get up, go to work, earn a little money, sleep in the night, dream, again in the morning... the wheel goes on moving and you reach nowhere. In the end is death. So why wait? Why not commit suicide? Why not destroy this meaningless thing? And why be so much worried and so much burdened and so much in anxiety and anguish for something which is meaningless? It is a logical conclusion.

If you look in the future you will come to understand that there is no meaning. But if you really want the meaning then the way is to look in the seed -- and the seed is here and now. But the mind likes to look in the future. It is easier. To look in the seed is difficult.

That is the whole SADHANA, that is the whole arduous effort: to look in the seed. Because if you want to look in the seed you will need a different quality of vision. You will need a third eye, because these ordinary eyes can look only up to the shell. But the invisible which is hidden behind, the secret -- these eyes cannot go so deep.

A different quality of eyes is needed which can penetrate and look right now into what the seed is carrying. If you look outside you cannot penetrate, because your eyes will meet the bodies, the shells of the seeds. If you really want to look in the seed, look within, because then the shell is no more a problem -- -inside you are also a seed.

You belong to this existence, you have come out of it. This existence has a blueprint in you, this existence is trying to fulfill some destiny through you. Look within, because then the shell is no more a problem. You need not penetrate the shell, you are already in.

This is what meditation is: to look within the seed, within oneself.

There meaning flowers, it flowers immediately. It has been always there -- only it needed your attention. You have neglected it, you have been indifferent to it. You have been engaged, occupied, in other things -- and you have been standing with your back towards yourself.

And the meaning waits, and the purpose of the whole life remains hidden, and the blessing and the grace just goes on waiting and waiting for you to turn.

The Christian word 'conversion' means turning. It does not mean making a Hindu a Christian or a Mohammedan a Christian -- it means making a consciousness turn within.

TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS TO FIND THE MEANING, BUT TO PURSUE APPEARANCES IS TO MISS THE SOURCE.

OUTSIDE THERE ARE ONLY APPEARANCES. You cannot know what is outside, because through the senses you can touch only the appearance. I cannot see you. I can see only your body -- not even the whole body but just the surface, just the surface of the skin is seen. I don't know whether you are there or not. Maybe you are just an automaton, a robot -- who knows?

A robot is possible -- now, more so. A robot can be made. And if a robot is there you cannot judge from the outside, because he will blink his eyes, he will even answer: if you say, "Hello!" he will say, "Hello, how are you?" How do you know that he is not a robot? On the surface he is just like any man, no difference.

He talks, and he will talk intelligently -- sometimes even more intelligently than you because he is fed completely. His information is accurate; he knows much, he can know more than you. They say a single small computer can know as much as five hundred scientists can know in five hundred lives. A robot can carry a computer inside the mind -- of course battery-run. You ask and he answers, and his answers are not as fallible as your answers. And he will never be a fool, he will always be a wise man.

How to judge who is inside? You cannot penetrate. You can just go about and about, around and around. You can touch the surface.

Only in yourself can you go within. Only there can you be certain of consciousness -- nowhere else. This whole world may be just a dream. Who knows? I can dream you sitting here and me talking to you. You can dream that you are sitting here and listening to me. Have you any criterion how to prove that this is not a dream? There Is no way.

Up till now nobody has been able to prove that this is not a dream, because in a dream also things appear so real -- even more real than when you are awake, because in waking sometimes the doubt enters in the mind whether it is real or not. But in a dream the doubt never enters the mind; in a dream you always take things as if they are real.

It is said of Chuang Tzu:

One day in the morning he started crying and weeping. His disciples gathered and they said, "Master, what are you doing? What has happened to you?"

Chuang Tzu said, "I am in a fix. Last night I dreamed that I had become a butterfly."

The disciples said, "But what is there to weep and cry and be so sad about? Everybody dreams of many things! Nothing is wrong in being a butterfly in a dream."

Chuang Tzu said, "That is not the problem. Now I am worried, now a doubt has arisen and I don't know now how to reach a conclusion. In the night Chuang Tzu dreamed that he had become a butterfly. Now the doubt has come: it may be now the butterfly is dreaming that she has become a Chuang,Tzu."

And who is to decide, and how? If a Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly in the dream, then why not the other way -- a butterfly sitting on a flower may be dreaming that she has become a Buddha.

There is no problem, the thing is simple. Chuang Tzu has raised a beautiful and basic problem: how can you be certain of the outside, that it is not a dream? There have been many philosophies which tried to prove that the whole world is a dream. Nobody believes in those philosophies, but nobody has been able to refute them either.

Berkeley, in the West, has proved that the whole existence is a dream. Nobody believes in him, not even he himself really believes in it, because his whole life shows that he doesn't believe it is a dream. If you insult him he gets angry. If you throw a stone at him he tries to avoid. If you hit him he runs to the doctor because blood flows out of him.

This is how Dr. Johnson tried to refute Berkeley's theory:

They were friends, and walking one day Berkeley said, "Now I have proved it, that the whole life is a dream, and I feel that nobody can disprove it."

And yes, he was right. Up to now nobody has been able to refute it -- it is impossible to refute! How to refute it?

Dr. Johnson bent down, took a stone and threw the stone on Berkeley's feet. He screamed. Dr. Johnson said, "This stone is real."

Berkeley laughed and he said, "That cannot refute my philosophy, because my scream may be just a dream you have dreamed. This blood flowing out of my leg -- how can you prove this is real and not a dream?"

Because in dream also, if you are hit blood will come out. And in dream also you have screamed many times. In dream also, when there is a nightmare, you perspire and you tremble and your heartbeat goes fast and crazy, and even if the dream is broken it takes a few minutes to settle. You know the dream is broken, you have become awake, and you know it was a dream, but still the heart goes on throbbing and the fear still lingers and the perspiration on the forehead is there.

It can happen in a dream, there is no way to disprove it. Outside, at the most, we can say there are appearances. The thing in itself cannot be known that way.

There is only one reality of which you can be absolutely certain and that is the reality within. You can move within. You can be certain only of yourself, nothing else. But once you penetrate this certainty that you are...

Remember, even in a dream you are. You may have become a butterfly, but you are. Even for a dream to exist, at least YOU are needed. Everything may be dream but you are not, because without you even a dream cannot exist. Consciousness is needed even to dream.

You can prove everything is a dream, but you cannot prove that the dreamer is a dream -- because the dreamer has to be real, otherwise dreams cannot exist. Only one thing is certain and that is you. Only one thing is absolutely certain and that is your reality within. Conversion means moving from an uncertain world, the world of the appearances, to the world of the reality.

And once you know that inner certainty and you are grounded, once you know that you are, then from THAT certainty the vision changes, the quality changes. Then you look at the outside world and a different world is revealed -- that world is God.

When you are rooted in a certain reality, absolutely certain, then your look has a different quality: then there is trust. Now you can look... and the whole world changes. Then there are no appearances, but the reality, that which is really real.

What is that which is really real? It is not these forms. Forms change, but that which moves through the forms is unchanging.

You were a child, then you were young, then you have become old -- the form has been continuously changing. Every moment your body is changing, the form is changing; but if you look within, you have remained the same.

You were a small, atomic cell in your mother's womb, not even visible to the naked eye; then a small child; then a young man filled with many dreams, desires; and then, frustrated, dejected, a failure; an old man. But if you look within, everything has remained the same. The consciousness never changes.

If you look within you will be surprised: you cannot feel how old you are, because there is no age to consciousness. If you close your eyes you cannot say you are twenty or forty or sixty, because the age belongs to the body, to the shell. Your reality is ageless; it has never been born and it is not going to die.

Once you are centered in this eternal, non-changing, unmoving absolute, then your quality changes. Then you can look, then you have become a mirror. In that mirror the reality is mirrored. But first you have to become a mirror. You are waving, shaking so much you cannot mirror anything -- you distort. Mind distorts the reality and consciousness reveals it.

TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS TO HAVE THE MEANING, BUT TO PURSUE APPEARANCES IS TO MISS THE SOURCE.

If you go on pursuing appearances you will miss the source, because appearances are outside. Sometimes you are after wealth, sometimes you are after a woman or a man, sometimes you are after prestige and power... and you go on pursuing appearances. And this whole time you are missing yourself, and this whole time you are living in a dream.

If you miss the source you miss all. You may attain in the outside world many things, but in the end you will find you have not attained anything. You have missed the one which carries all meaning.

Dying, you may be dying a very rich man, but you will die a poor man inside, a beggar. Dying, you may be very powerful, you may be a great president of a country, or a prime minister, but deep down you will know that you are impotent. Death will prove that your power was just an appearance; your power is powerless, helpless before death. Only that is power which goes beyond death -- all else is impotence. You may believe in it for a.time, but death will bring the truth to you.

Always remember that death is coming, and death is the criterion: whatsoever death disproves is disproved, whatsoever death approves is approved. Whatsoever can go beyond death, whatsoever is more powerful than death, is the reality. The real cannot die; the unreal dies a thousand and one deaths.

AT THE MOMENT OF INNER ENLIGHTENMENT THERE IS A GOING BEYOND APPEARANCE AND EMPTINESS --

ONLY WHEN THE INNER ENLIGHTENMENT HAPPENS, when you are filled with the inner light... The light is there but you are throwing it outside. It moves with your desire. Desire is the focus, light goes on moving.

If you are too much addicted to wealth your whole being focuses on wealth; then you only see money, nothing else. Even if you meet a person you don't see the person, you see the money. If the person is poor, simply no trace is left on your mind; if he is rich then a trace is left. If he is very very rich then you remember him, then memory is formed.

If you are after power and you meet a Hitler, or a Stalin, a Mao, then you are meeting a person, but the person is secondary. The power... When Nixon is no more a president you will not be able to see him; he may pass by yoU hut he is no more a person.

You see whatsoever you desire. Your desire is your vision, and your light focuses always on your desire. When this light turns, is converted, moves withinwards, there is illumination. Then you are filled with light. You become a house with a lamp, you are no more dark inside.

AT THE MOMENT OF INNER ENLIGHTENMENT THERE IS A GOING BEYOND APPEARANCE AND EMPTINESS.

And suddenly you go beyond appearance and emptiness. Then nothing is just the appearance and nothing is empty -- everything is filled with the divine. Everything is full, overflowing with the divine -- every tree, every river, every ocean -- overflowing with the divine. Then God is everywhere. You may call it truth, or whatsoever you like, but the real is everywhere.

When YOU are real, the world is real; when you are living in unreal desires you create a world of appearances. Whatsoever you are is your world. And there are as many worlds as there are people because everybody lives in his own world, everybody creates his own world around him. That's your projection and creation.

THE CHANGES THAT APPEAR TO OCCUR IN THE EMPTY WORLD WE CALL REAL ONLY BECAUSE OF OUR IGNORANCE.

THE CHANGES THAT APPEAR TO OCCUR IN THE EMPTY WORLD, WE CALL REAL ONLY BECAUSE OF OUR IGNORANCE.

YOU SAY SOMEBODY IS OLD; you call oldness real because you don't know what real is. Otherwise nobody is young and nobody is old and nobody is a child. The inner is ageless, only the outer form changes.

My clothes are old. Will you call me old because my clothes are old? My clothes are new, brand new, just from the tailor. Will you call me young because my clothes are young? The body is nothing but clothes. You call somebody old, and somebody young, and somebody a child -- because of the body? because of the form that is changing constantly? Those who have known, they say the reality is immovable, immoving, it cannot move. The clothes go on changing.

Ramakrishna died. Just before his death, when the doctor said, "Now he cannot survive," Ramakrishna's wife, Sharda, started crying. And these are Ramakrisna's last words: he said, "Don't cry, because I am not going to die. What the doctors are saying applies only to the clothes."

He died of cancer, and Ramakrishna said, "As far as I know there is no cancer in me. The cancer applies only to the clothes. So remember, when doctors say that I am dead don't believe them, believe me -- I will live."

And Sharda was the only widow in India, in the whole history of India, who never became widowed -- because Indian widows, when their husbands are dead, have to change their way of life, their very style. They cannot use colored clothes, because color has gone from their life. They cannot use ornaments, because for whom?

But Sharda continued the same as she was when Ramakrishna was alive. And people thought she had gone crazy, and they would come and say, "Now throw your ornaments, particularly the bangles. Break them! You are a widow.

And she would laugh and say, "Should I believe you or Ramakrishna? Because HE said, 'Only clothes are going to die, not I.' And I was married to him, not to his clothes. So should I listen to you or should I listen to Ramakrishna?"

She listened to Ramakrishna and she remained married to the very last. And she lived in such ecstasy, because this listening transformed her. She became aware of a fact -- that the body is not the real.

She continued his old way of life. It will look crazy, because in this world of mad people where clothes are thought to be real, somebody behaving in such a contradictory way is bound to look crazy.

She would prepare the bed every night and she would go to Ramakrishna's room and say, "Paramhansdev, come now, it is time for you to go to sleep" -- and there was nobody. And she would prepare food, singing, as happily as she had always been doing. Then she would go and call Ramakrishna: "Come, Paramhansdev, your food is ready."

She must have known something. And this was not for one day -- for many years. Just this simple message from Ramakrishna -- "Only clothes are going to die, not I" -- transformed her into a holy woman. She became, in her own right, an enlightened person.

THE CHANGES THAT APPEAR TO OCCUR IN THE EMPTY WORLD WE CALL REAL ONLY BECAUSE OF OUR IGNORANCE.

DO NOT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH; ONLY CEASE TO HOLD OPINIONS.

This is a BEEJA mantra -- a very very deep message:

DO NOT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH; ONLY CEASE TO HOLD OPINIONS.

HOW CAN YOU SEARCH for the truth? You are untrue! How can you go searching for the divine? How can you go searching for the truth? How can you search? What will you do?

At the most your mind will play tricks. At the most you will project a truth, you will imagine a truth, you will dream a truth. That's why Hindus go on seeing Krishna when they reach to the divine, and Christians go on seeing Jesus when they reach to the truth.

But truth is neither Hindu nor Christian, truth is neither Krishna nor Christ. These are the forms, clothes! And if clothes are still coming that shows that you are filled with your opinions -- Christian, Hindu -- and you are projecting.

Sosan says: DO NOT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH... YOU cannot search. How can you? You are not ready, because the mind is there. Who will search? All seeking belongs to mind, every search comes out of the mind. Consciousness never seeks, never searches; consciousness simply is. It is being, it is not a desire.

Search is a desire. You searched in the world for wealth, power, prestige, and you failed. Now you search for God and truth, but you remain the same. Nothing has changed, only words have changed. Before it was 'power,' now it is 'God' -- but you remain the same seeker.

The truth cannot be sought. On the contrary, when all seeking stops, the truth knocks at your door; when the seeker is no more, truth comes to you. When you cease all desires, when you have no motivation to go anywhere, suddenly you find you are illuminated. Suddenly you find you are the very temple you were seeking. Suddenly you come to realize YOU are Krishna, YOU are Jesus. No vision comes to you -- you are the source of all, you are the very reality.

DO NOT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH; ONLY CEASE TO HOLD OPINIONS.

Don't hold opinions -- Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Jain -- don't hold opinions. Don't carry scriptures, otherwise you may become a man of knowledge but you will never be a wise man. You may become filled with much knowledge and information, but everything will be borrowed and dead. Opinion is not truth, cannot be. Opinion is from the mind and truth is not from the mind -- truth happens when the mind is no more there.

Opinion is the known and truth is the unknown. When the known ceases, the unknown comes to you. When there is no known around, the unknown is there.

With the mind you cannot reach. That is the only thing to be renounced: the mind, the opinion, the Christian, the Hindu, the Gita, the Bible, the Koran. You cannot carry knowledge, because knowledge belongs to the mind not to consciousness.

Look at the difference. I told you consciousness is just like a mirror: whatsoever comes before it, it is mirrored without any prejudice. The mirror will not say, "This woman is beautiful, I would like to mirror her. And this woman I don't like; I am not going to mirror her, she is ugly." No, the mirror has no opinion. The mirror simply mirrors -- it is its nature.

But then there is a photographic plate. It also mirrors but it mirrors only once, then it clings to the reflection. A photographic plate hidden behind a camera also mirrors, but only once. Mind is just like a photographic plate: it mirrors, then it clings to the reflection; then it carries the dead information; then always and always it will carry the same information.

A mirror mirrors and again is empty... again it is ready to receive. A mirror is always fresh to receive because it never clings. A mirror has no opinion. Mind has opinions, opinions and opinions, and through this thick wall of opinions you will never be able to reach truth.

Truth is there. It is not a theory, it is a reality -- it has to be experienced. You cannot think about it, you cannot philosophize about it. The more you philosophize, the more you will miss. Sinners may sometimes have glimpses, but never doctors of philosophy.

Says Sosan:

DO NOT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH; ONLY CEASE TO HOLD OPINIONS.

DO NOT REMAIN IN THE DUALISTIC STATE; AVOID SUCH PURSUITS CAREFULLY.

IF THERE IS A TRACE OF THIS AND THAT, THE RIGHT AND WRONG, THE MIND-ESSENCE WILL BE LOST IN CONFUSION.

DIFFICULT. You can even understand to drop information. But deeper, deeper than ordinary information, is your conscience of good and bad. You can think, "Okay, I am no more a Christian, no more a Hindu." But the morality, the good and bad...? Do you think morality is not Christian and Hindu?

Morality is humanistic; even an atheist remains a moralist. Does not belong to any religion but he also thinks in terms of good and bad. And this is one of the deepest problems to be solved by a seeker. An authentic seeker has to drop all concepts -- good and had.

I have heard:

In a small boat a few people were traveling. Suddenly the ocean went mad and it appeared that "Now the boat is going to sink any moment!" Everybody fell on his knees and started praying.

In the boat there was a saint, well-known, and also a sinner, well-known. The sinner also fell on his knees and said, "My Lord! Save us!"

The saint came near to him and said, "Not so Loudly. If he comes to know about you, that you are also here then none of us is going to be saved. Then we are all going to be drowned. Not so loud!"

But can a saint be a saint if he can see in somebody a sinner? Can a saint really, authentically be a saint if he thinks that the other is the sinner? He may be a great moralist, but he clings to the good and still has condemnation for the other.

A religious man has no condemnation. He simply accepts. A religious man is so humble, how can he say, "I am a saint and you are a sinner"? A religious man simply drops all categories of good and bad.

Sosan says:

DO NOT REMAIN IN THE DUALISTIC STATE; AVOID SUCH PURSUITS CAREFULLY.

IF THERE IS A TRACE OF THIS AND THAT, THE RIGHT AND WRONG, THE MIND-ESSENCE WILL BE LOST IN CONFUSION.

And think, you know through experience also... If you think too much about being good, what will you do? The bad will remain there, you will suppress it. On the surface you will become polished, deep down there will be turmoil. On the surface you will be a saint, deep hidden will be the sinner.

And the same happens to a sinner. On the surface he is a sinner but deep inside he also hankers for saintliness. He also thinks, "This is bad, I am going to drop it." He also tries to show that he is not a sinner.

Both remain divided. The difference is not of division, the difference is only of what is on the surface and what is hidden.

A saint goes on dreaming about sin; he goes on dreaming about all those bad things he has suppressed. It is a strange phenomenon, that if you look at the dreams of the saints you will always find them as sinners, and if you look at the dreams of sinners you will always find them as saints.

Sinners always dream of being saints, and saints always dream of becoming sinners, because the repressed comes into the dreams, the unconscious reveals itself in the dreams. But the division remains -- and if you are divided you cannot fall to the source.

It is just like this: there is a tree, a big tree of a million branches. The branches are divided. If you cling to the branches how can you go to the roots? The deeper you move, less branches will be there; the lower you move manyness disappears and you come to the one trunk undivided -- all branches in it, but itself undivided. Everything comes out of it, the many comes out of the one, but the one remains one. And you have to fall to the one. And that is the root, the source.

ALTHOUGH ALL DUALITIES COME FROM THE ONE DO NOT BE ATTACHED EVEN TO THIS ONE.

... ALL DUALITIES COME FROM THE ONE DO NOT BE ATTACHED EVEN TO THIS ONE.

DON'T MAKE THIS A THEORY and be attached to it and start fighting if somebody says, "No!" This is how in India it has happened.

There is a school of non-dualists: Shankara and his school. he goes on arguing and fighting and creating proofs and philosophizing that only the one exists, the non-dual. If somebody says the dual exists he is ready to argue. And the dualist goes on saying, "How can the one exist?" The one cannot exist, because the other is needed for the one to exist."

Can you make an arithmetic out of one digit? Ten are not needed but two is a must. Einstein worked it out and he tried to use only two digits in arithmetic -- one and two: one, two, then comes ten, eleven, twelve, then comes twenty. This way it goes, but it can do. No need for nine digits or ten digits -- but you cannot work with only one.

Dualists say the existence is impossible with one, even a river needs two banks to flow. Man and woman are needed to give birth to a child; life and death are needed as the two banks for the life to flow between. One will be so monotonous -- how can life come out of one? They go on saying two. And those who say one, non-dual, they go on fighting with dualists.

Sosan says if really you have understood that everything comes out of one, then don't cling even to this, because clinging shows that you are for something and against something. If you say, "I am a non-dualist," you have lost the point -- because if there is only one, how can you be a dualist or a non dualist? And what do you mean by nondualism? If there is not duality, what do you mean by nondualism? Keep silence!

A real non-dualist cannot assert. He cannot say, "I believe in this," because belief always implies the opposite. If I say, "I believe in this," then it is implied that I don't believe in that. Then two are created.

Says Sosan -- he is really a non-dualist -- he says:

ALTHOUGH ALL DUALITIES COME FROM THE ONE, DO NOT BE ATTACHED EVEN TO THIS ONE.

WHEN MIND EXISTS UNDISTURBED IN THE WAY, NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN OFFEND, AND WHEN A THING CAN NO LONGER OFFEND, IT CEASES TO EXIST IN THE OLD WAY.

This is very beautiful, try to remember it!

WHEN MIND EXISTS UNDISTURBED IN THE WAY, NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN OFFEND, AND WHEN A THING CAN NO LONGER OFFEND, IT CEASES TO EXIST IN THE OLD WAY.

SOMEBODY INSULTS YOU. If you really exist undisturbed, you cannot be insulted; he may try, but you cannot be insulted. He may do everything to insult, but you will not take the insult. And unless YOU take it, he is a failure.

It happened:

One psychoanalyst was going for a morning walk with his friend. A man who was a patient of this psychoanalyst, a crazy man, came running and hit the psychoanalyst hard in the back. The psychoanalyst staggered, fell on the ground and the man ran away. He gathered himself together and again started on his walk.

The friend was surprised. He said, "Aren't you going to do something? Something has to be done, it is a must! This man is a madman!"

The psychoanalyst said, "This is HIS problem." He is right, because: "This hitting is HIS problem, not mine. Why should I be disturbed?"

He is right, because if somebody is angry it is HIS problem; if he is insulting it is HIS problem; if he is abusing it is HIS problem. If YOU are undisturbed, you are undisturbed. But you immediately get disturbed -- that means his anger and insult is just an excuse. You were ready boiling within, just waiting for some excuse to come your way.

Says Sosan:

WHEN MIND EXISTS UNDISTURBED...

And when you fall to the source it is undisturbed.

... IN THE WAY, NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN OFFEND, AND WHEN A THING CAN NO LONGER OFFEND, IT CEASES TO EXIST IN THE OLD WAY.

And the quality changes with the attitude. If somebody insults you, it LOOKS like an insult because you get insulted. If you don't get insulted, it will not look like an insult. How can it look like an insult if you are not insulted?

Somebody is angry -- you feel it as anger because you get disturbed. If you are not disturbed you cannot feel it as anger. The quality changes because your interpretation changes, because YOU ARE DIFFERENT. Somebody hates you you feel it as hate -- because you are disturbed. If you are not disturbed and somebody hates you, will you call it hate? How can you call it hate? The old name won't do; the old mind is not there.

You may even feel compassion, you may feel pity. You may feel, "What has happened to this man? How much he is suffering, and unnecessarily, and to no avail!" You may even help this man to come out of it, because when somebody is angry he is poisoning his own body, poisoning his own being -- he is ill. You will help him to come out of it. If somebody has a cancer, you don't start fighting with him. You help him, you serve him, you take him to the hospital.

For a Buddha, for a man like Sosan, when you are angry your mind has a cancer -- compassion is needed, you need much help. And if the world becomes a little more enlightened, whenever somebody is angry the whole family, the friends, they all will hospitalize the man. He needs hospitalization. It is foolish to fight with him and to be angry with him. It is absolutely foolish and absurd, because he is already ill, and you all are against him -- how are you going to help?

With physical illness we have compassion, with mental illness we don't have compassion -- because if someone is physically ill we don't take it as offending to us. When somebody is mentally ill, we think he is mentally ill because of us. Because you are also ill, hence this attitude.

Once you are undisturbed everything changes, because your attitude changes. You are different, the whole world is different -- IT CEASES TO EXIST IN THE OLD WAY.

WHEN NO DISCRIMINATING THOUGHTS ARISE, THE OLD MIND CEASES TO EXIST.

DISCRIMINATION -- this is good, that is bad, this I like, that I don't like -- this discrimination is the very base of your mind. If discrimination disappears the mind falls into an abyss. You will reach to your source. And that source carries all meaning, all ecstasies, all blessings.

Zen

HSIN HSIN MING: THE BOOK OF NOTHING

Chapter-4

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