Zen

ISAN: NO FOOTPRINTS IN THE BLUE SKY

Chapter 3: Start witnessing

Question 1

 

 

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Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

OUR BELOVED MASTER,

LAST NIGHT I SAW FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT THE MIND NEED NOT BE INIMICAL TO MEDITATION. DOES WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT THE MIND ACCEPTING ENLIGHTENMENT ALSO APPLY TO ITS ACCEPTANCE BEFORE ENLIGHTENMENT, OF, FOR EXAMPLE, WITNESSING? CAN THE MIND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WITNESSING IS OFTEN MORE USEFUL THAN THINKING, AND SO JUST STEP ASIDE IN THOSE MOMENTS WITHOUT THROWING A TANTRUM?

Maneesha, it is impossible. Enlightenment has to be first. As an experience mind can understand it, and seeing its gracefulness in action can become a friend to it. But before enlightenment mind can only believe, it cannot become a friend.

Mind can only believe that there is enlightenment. At the most the belief is possible -- but belief is of no use. The mind has to experience enlightenment in function, not as a belief but as activity. And the same is the case with witnessing: mind will always be against witnessing because it stops mind's long heritage of thinking. Mind is familiar with thinking; witnessing at the most can become a thought, but it cannot become an actuality.

You have to put mind aside to become a witness, and obviously mind resists it. Who wants to be put aside? -- and particularly from a place where the mind has been the master for centuries. And you want to put it aside for something that you don't know what it is? Mind will not allow you to remain a witness long.

You can try a small experiment. Just put your wristwatch in front of you and start looking at the second hand and remain watching and witnessing. You will be surprised: not even fifteen seconds have passed and you have fallen and forgotten that you are witnessing. Some other thoughts have come. Suddenly you will awaken after a few seconds: "My God, it was only fifteen seconds!" Not even sixty seconds -- one minute -- can you persist in witnessing. The force and the flood of mind is too big.

That's why an articulate master creates strange devices to put the mind aside without making it an enemy, because sooner or later, when you become enlightened, the same mind has to be used as a friend. It is a very useful mechanism. But in the beginning it is going to be against any effort to put it aside.

Meditation is nothing but putting the mind aside, putting the mind out of the way, and bringing a witnessing which is always there but hidden underneath the mind. This witnessing will reach to your center, and once you have become enlightened, then there is no problem. Then bring the mind in tune with you. It is a great art. First you have to put the mind aside, then you have to bring the mind back again, but now it comes as a slave. It used to be the master before, so if you try before enlightenment, it is going to throw all kinds of tantrums. There is no need, because those tantrums will hinder your progress into witnessing. Just don't create the enemy.

Silently start witnessing, without making a direct attack on the mind. You have to be very careful to reach to the center. Mind will try in every way to take you away for a worldwide tour. And it allures, persuades you, gives you great promises: "Where are you going? What is there inside? The boyfriend is waiting outside the gate and you are going inside. The party is arranged in the Blue Diamond -- and who has ever heard of a party inside?"

The mind will create many kinds of things, but you have to very lovingly and carefully put it aside. Remember my words, lovingly and carefully. Don't hurt the mind, because the mind will be of much use after enlightenment. Before enlightenment it is your hindrance; after enlightenment it is an immensely complicated mechanism which can be used for all kinds of things. Then it is no more your enemy. Just the master has to be awakened, and once the mind sees the immense light inside you, it spontaneously falls in tune. There is no question of fighting. But before enlightenment the mind will give every fight if you are going to leave it behind or put it aside. This is simple psychology.

Gurdjieff used to say that in a class where the master has gone out, there is havoc. Children are shouting, jumping, fighting, doing whatsoever they always wanted to do, but because of the master... And then the master comes in and every child is sitting in his place looking into the book. That does not mean that he is reading; that simply means he is showing that he is occupied. There is silence.

Gurdjieff used to say that something almost similar happens when you become enlightened. The master comes in and the mind, seeing the master, suddenly recognizes what his position is. Before such a splendor he is reduced. At that moment you can make friends with the mind; he will be immensely happy to be of any service to the eternity that you have brought with you. But don't try it before enlightenment: then the mind is going to give you unnecessary trouble. The more you will fight with the mind, the more you will be engaged in mind rather than becoming a witness.

Witnessing is simply slipping out of the mind -- a very graceful way, because the moment you start witnessing the very thought process, you have slipped out without creating any fight. You are just watching the caravan of thoughts within you. You are no more part; you are standing aside, by the side of the road, and the traffic is passing. You are not in a fighting mood, you are not even judgmental. You don't say, "This is good and that is wrong." Whatever is passing, your whole work is just to see. Soon this silent seeing... and the mind is put aside.

It is witnessing that will take you to enlightenment. After enlightenment mind can be used, can be very significantly used. It is the greatest biological evolution. It has not to be thrown away in the wastepaper basket; it has to be used. But first find the master who can use it. Right now mind is using you. Everybody is a mind slave unless he is enlightened. Then enlightenment is you and mind becomes your slave.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh. I have found the secret of his rainbow turban: he keeps it tightly bound around his head, otherwise it will be very difficult to be patient so long. And he is very clever also, because when everybody starts throwing all kind of gibberish, that turban protects it.

Farmer Meadow-Muffin has a barn which catches fire and burns down in the middle of the night.

The next day, the insurance man, George Grabbit, comes to inspect the damage.

"It is the company policy," explains Grabbit, "to build a replacement barn of the same size and with the same materials, instead of paying you cash for the damage."

"Well, if that's the way your company does business," snorts the farmer, "you can cancel the insurance on my wife!"

Herman Humpski is getting married to Hilda, his childhood sweetheart, but he is very worried because he is not sure about what to do on the wedding night.

He confides in his experienced friend, Kowalski, who thinks for a moment, and then comes up with an idea.

"Listen," says Kowalski, "no need to worry. I will take the hotel room next to your honeymoon suite, and when it is time to go to bed, just sneak into the bathroom and I will give you instructions through the wall."

"Great idea!" says Herman, very relieved, and the two of them go to book the hotel rooms.

The wedding goes fine, and at the reception the cake is served by Hilda, the bride, who manages to eat an enormous quantity of it herself.

Later, at the honeymoon hotel, the young couple are getting ready for bed, when Herman sneaks into the bathroom, locks the door and knocks on the wall. Kowalski and Herman have difficulty in hearing each other through the wall, so the instructions take a long time.

Meanwhile, back in the bedroom, Hilda is dying to relieve herself of the mountain of wedding cake she has eaten. She pounds on the bathroom door but Herman will not let her in.

Finally, in desperation, she shits in a shoe box and leaves her deposit outside the bathroom door.

Sure enough, when Herman has received all Kowalski's instructions, he flings open the bathroom door and steps right into the shoe box.

"Ah!" cries Herman, "this box is full of shit!"

From the other side of the bathroom wall, Kowalski shouts, "You idiot! Turn her over!"

Pope the Polack is shocked and horrified to learn that many of his Roman Catholic priests are catching AIDS. So, in a hopeless attempt to try and preserve Christianity, he issues an edict. The edict states that all his cardinals, bishops and priests should become married immediately -- to women.

Everything goes beautifully, and all sorts of strange and wonderful Catholic weddings take place. Of course, the biggest of them all is Pope the Polack's own wedding to Sister Suzie, at the Vatican, in Rome.

The Vatican is packed with priests and politicians getting ready for the big event. And in his chambers, Pope the Polack is getting dressed in his best pope outfit, aided by his best man, Ronald Reagan.

"Are you sure that you will be able to manage married life?" asks Reagan.

"It should be simple, Ronnie," replies the Polack pope, admiring himself in the mirror.

"Yes, but you have been celibate all your life, haven't you?" says Reagan. "Are you sure that your machinery will work?"

"Ah! don't worry," replies the pope, confidently. "I tried it with my own hands last night, and now," he adds, crossing himself, "it is in the hands of God!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes, and feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now you are ready to go inwards with all your consciousness, with all your life energy. Move towards the center of your being. That is from where you have come and that is where everybody goes back.

Deeper and deeper... the deeper you go, the more fragrant becomes the air. The deeper you go, suddenly flowers start showering on you. At the deepest point you are the buddha.

The buddha means simply witnessing, pure witnessing. Just witness: the body is there, the mind is there, but you are neither.

You are a separate force which comes from the center, and the center is joined with eternity. It knows no birth, no death. This buddha is your ultimate potential, the very Everest of consciousness. Great is the splendor of this moment.

To make it more clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax, and continue to remember witnessing. Witnessing is the only thing in you that is eternal. Everything else is temporal; only witnessing is your reality, your very soul. I call it the buddha because it is a great awakening.

This moment the Buddha Auditorium has become a lake of consciousness without any ripples. It is such a joy to join the cosmos, such a joy for the dewdrop to disappear into the ocean.

The evening was beautiful in itself, but your presence and your tremendous experiment have made it a thousandfold more beautiful, more graceful. The whole existence is rejoicing because you have reached to the center of your being.

Collect all the fragrance that you can manage. Remember, any moment you become a witness, you are a buddha. So bring the buddha with you.

Soon Nivedano will be calling you back. Before that, collect as many treasures as possible, and persuade the buddha to come with you. It is your very innermost core, it is not something separate. It has remained hidden inside. Now you have to bring it to the circumference, to your ordinary life.

If we can create a great number of buddhas around the world, we can have a great transformation happening. More love, more songs, more ceremonies...

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but with the grace of a buddha, silently, peacefully. Sit down for a few moments collecting the experience.

Each day you are becoming richer and richer. Each day your circumference is coming closer to your center. Each day you are bringing buddha more and more in your day-to-day life.

I am against renunciation. I want buddhas to be here in the world doing all kinds of things. It was unfortunate in the past that buddhas escaped from the world. If they had remained in the world, we would not have been so barbarious. More humanity and more culture and more consciousness would have been available to us.

That's why I say nobody has to leave the world. We have to transform it. We are bringing a new approach in religion. You don't go away from the world, but rather go deeper into it and change it. This is more courageous, more rebellious, more significant.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.

 

Next: Chapter 4: How about you?

 

Energy Enhancement                Enlightened Texts                Zen                 Isan: No Footprints in the Blue Sky

 

 

 
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