The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, Chapter 26: Wordlessness

BELOVED OSHO

THERE IS NO SECOND PERSON

MASTER CHANG CHING SAID, "THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IS WORDLESS. PEOPLE OF THE TIME DO NOT REALIZE THIS: THEY IMPOSE THE PRACTICE OF OTHER THINGS, CONSIDERING THEM ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

THEY DO NOT KNOW THAT INHERENT NATURE HAS NEVER BEEN SENSE OBJECTS, THAT IT IS THE GATE OF SUBTLE WONDROUS GREAT LIBERATION, AWARE OF ALL THERE IS WITHOUT BEING STAINED OR OBSTRUCTED.

THIS LIGHT HAS NEVER STOPPED: FROM AGES PAST UP TO THE PRESENT IT'S BEEN STEADY, NEVER CHANGING. THE SUBTLE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRITUAL LIGHT DOES NOT DEPEND ON BEING CULTIVATED AND REFINED.

SINCE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND, PEOPLE GRASP THE FORMS OF THINGS -- IT'S JUST LIKE RUBBING THE EYES, FALSELY MAKING OPTICAL ILLUSIONS ARISE.

THERE IS NO SECOND PERSON.... In this small statement Ta Hui is saying that the whole of existence is one. And because there is no second person we cannot even say that it is one. This has to be understood... because the moment we say "one," "two" arises. Then all the numbers follow.

In India we have developed a roundabout way of saying "one," not direct. The mystics of this country have never said that the world, existence is one; they have always said, "It is not two, it is non-dual."

It may seem that there is no difference -- but there is some problem logically. If you say "one," it implies the whole series of numbers, all the digits. If you say "not two," you don't say "one," still you are indicating "one" without saying it, indicating oneness.

That's why Ta Hui is also saying in the same way, "THERE IS NO SECOND PERSON." He could have simply said, "There is only one person" -- but he is a well -- trained logician, an intellectual of the first grade; hence he is also very clear not to commit any mistake when he is saying anything about the truth. And now he is in a position to say something about the truth.

One of the great logicians of our times, Ludwig Wittgenstein, has written a book on pure logic. He was a strange person, verging on the mystic side, but never saying anything about it. Only once in a while, writing about logic, he would give certain indications which show that he was aware that there is much more to existence than just logic. In this book, TRACTATUS, he says, "One should not say anything about something which is inexpressible."

I wrote him a letter. I was a student and I wrote him a letter saying, "If you are true, you should not have said this much even. You say, `One should not say anything about the inexpressible' -- but you are already saying something about it. You are saying, `It is inexpressible.' You are already giving some indication."

My professor of logic said, "You have been torturing me, now you have started torturing faraway people. He lives in Germany, now... it is none of your business to harass people."

I said, "I am not harassing him, I am simply saying that if he really means it then he should remove this sentence."

He was one of the best minds. Even his own teacher, Bertrand Russell, had recognized him as a better logician than himself. But he never replied to me, because to reply to me would have meant he had to remove that sentence from the book. There is no logical defense about it. Whatever you say, you are saying something. Even if you say, "Nothing can be said about it," you are still saying something about it. So logic has its own subtleties.

Ta Hui is a well-trained professional logician, but any logician -- if he goes to the very extreme of his own logical thinking -- is bound to come to the point at which logic has to be left behind, because logic ends and existence continues. You have to leave logic behind and go with existence. But then you have to start speaking a different language.

Rather than simply saying, "There is only one existence, hence only one person" -- in which case he knows he will be committing a logical mistake -- he uses the same device that has been used for centuries in this country. He says, "There are not two existences, there are not two persons." He is indicating the one, but without saying anything about it, simply denying the duality, but not affirming the oneness -- because the moment you affirm the oneness you have affirmed the whole multitude of numbers.

It is not something philosophical; now his statements are becoming more and more existential.

We are all part of one oceanic unity.

Our separation is an illusion.

Except our separation there is no other illusion, and because of the separation there are all kinds of problems: enemies, friends, anger, hate, love -- all the problems of ambition, struggle, conquering, dominating, becoming somebody special.

But the moment you realize that there is nothing that separates you from anything in existence... not only the human beings but the animals of the wild, the trees, the birds, the stars -- they are all part of one organic unity. And I emphasize the word organic, because there are two kinds of unities.

One is a mechanical unity, for example your car or your bicycle or your typewriter. They have a certain unity, but it is mechanical -- you can take them apart. You can separate each part of your car: that does not mean that the car has died, it simply means that you have to put all those parts together again. And if you do, that will not mean that the car has come back to life, it is not a resurrection! The car does not have any life, it is only a mechanical unity. You can pull parts apart, you can put parts together: the car is not more than the sum total of its parts.

The organic unity differs in the sense that it is more than the sum total of its parts. Once you have taken it apart, something invisible disappears. Then you may try hard to put all the parts back together, but you will not bring it to life again. You may again have a skeleton, but the skeleton is not what the man used to be. You have simply taken parts apart, and you have not seen anything disappearing. But something invisible to the eyes is no more there. You can put all the parts together perfectly, but it will only be a corpse.

The mechanical unity is a dead thing. The organic unity is a living phenomenon. That's why I emphasize that existence is an organic unity. We are all one; there is no other.

MASTER CHANG CHING SAID: "THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IS WORDLESS." It is almost impossible to say something about truth without committing mistakes. However intelligently you try to express it, still you will have to commit mistakes because it is just not possible to bring the ultimate experience into words.

Chang Ching is right when he says, "THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IS WORDLESS," -- and he is wrong too. If it is really wordless, then why call it `ultimate', and why call it `wordless'? because that too is a word; you are using two words, `ultimate' and `wordless.' Although your effort is to indicate something true -- your intention is good -- the very nature of language is such that you cannot manage not to commit mistakes. Hence many mystics have remained silent.

It is true that truth is wordless -- but don't say it. By saying it you are contradicting yourself. I would prefer a little roundabout way: say that "Where words end, you enter into truth," or "When you are in absolute silence, whatever you experience is truth." But you cannot say anything about it. Just the nature of language does not allow it.

Once it is understood that truth becomes available to you when you are in utter silence, how can you manage to bring that which comes in silence to the lowest level of language?

Language is mundane; it has been invented for mundane purposes, for the market-place. But for the temple there is no language. In the temple you have to be silent. It is perfectly right to use language when you are talking about things, but the moment you go beyond things you have simply to leave language behind.

So the intention of Chang Ching is right. He is a man who understands what he is saying. But I want you to understand one thing: all that has been said about truth is bound to be full of faults and flaws. This is the least faulty statement:

THE ULTIMATE TRUTH IS WORDLESS. PEOPLE OF THE TIME DO NOT REALIZE THIS: THEY IMPOSE THE PRACTICE OF OTHER THINGS, CONSIDERING THEM ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THEY DO NOT KNOW THAT INHERENT NATURE HAS NEVER BEEN SENSE OBJECTS, THAT IT IS THE GATE OF SUBTLE WONDROUS GREAT LIBERATION.

The mystics have always condemned their contemporaries -- obviously, because those were the people who were misunderstanding them. Nobody condemns the dead because nobody knows whether they understand you or misunderstand you whether they hear you or do not hear you whether they even know about you. So about the dead, nothing can be said. But with their contemporaries, the living people, all the mystics have felt this problem -- that they don't understand.

PEOPLE OF THE TIME DO NOT REALIZE THIS....

Ta Hui is not very ancient; only one thousand years have passed since his times. But in the RIG VEDAS, which are the ancientmost scriptures in the world, you will find the same statement: "The people of this time don't understand."

Gautam Buddha, two thousand five hundred years before, says the same thing. And unfortunately I have to say the same thing: the people of the time don't understand. It seems to be consistently the situation. The mystic is destined to be misunderstood, and perhaps the same will remain the situation in future, because the whole world cannot become mystics....

One would love to have the whole world become mystics, seekers of truth, but it is hoping too much. Even the most optimistic person cannot conceive that the whole world one day will be able to understand the mysterious experience of spiritual realization.

Chang Ching is right: people of the time do not realize that the ultimate truth is wordless. They go on asking questions about it -- and there are people who answer them too. There are thinkers who think about truth. That is one of the most impossible thing in the world: how can you think about truth? -- either you know it or you don't. A blind man thinking about light -- what can he think? is there any possibility? He cannot even think about darkness, what to say about light.

I think many of the people in the world never consider the fact that blind people are not living in darkness. It is being taken for granted that a blind man, poor fellow, is living in utter darkness because he has no eyes. But you don't look at the fact that to see darkness, eyes are needed. How can you see darkness without eyes? I can understand... when you close your eyes you see darkness -- because you have eyes. The blind man has not closed his eyes; he has no eyes at all.

Do you think the deaf person is living in utter silence? Then it would have been really blissful, because that's what all the mystics are searching for, utter silence. If the deaf person is living in utter silence, then the problem is very simple -- so why go on doing unnecessary meditations, yoga exercises, standing on your head and making all kinds of contortions? Leave all this to the circuses; you simply go to the hospital and get your ears finished -- and you will be in utter silence!

But you will not be. The moment your ears are gone, you can neither hear noise nor you can hear silence. The moment your eyes are gone, neither can you see light, nor can you see darkness. So how can you think...? But all the thinkers of the world are doing the same thing: people are asking questions, and great thinkers are finding answers, and both are sitting in the same boat. Neither the questioner knows what he is asking nor the answerer knows what he is answering.

Truth is an experience, not a conception. It is not something that you speculate about, think about, and then come to a conclusion. It is not your conclusion.

Truth is something that... you open, you become silent, you become receptive, you become wordless... your whole mind comes to a full stop, and then what is left is the truth.

To be showered with that experience is to be transformed into a new being. It is true resurrection. And is true because now you will never die, now you will never know death. Now you will always know what life, eternal life, is. And it is not going to be only your life. It is going to be simply life as such, neither mine nor yours.

I am also a dewdrop in the same ocean in which you are a dewdrop. The moment the dewdrop falls in the ocean, all separation disappears.

AWARE OF ALL THERE IS WITHOUT BEING STAINED OR OBSTRUCTED, THIS LIGHT HAS NEVER STOPPED.... The moment you go beyond words and beyond mind you know something which can be indicated by light -- the closest thing to it is our experience of light -- but it is far more.

Kabir says, "As if one thousand suns have arisen all around" -- but even one thousand suns will be simply a difference of quantity. One sun or one thousand suns... the difference is not of quality, so I have an objection to it.

All that can be said is that in our ordinary experience, light comes closest to becoming a metaphor for that experience. But the experience is qualitatively different, not just more, light, bigger light. It is something that can be represented by light in our ordinary, mundane world -- but even light or love or beauty are all simply metaphors, poetic representations. But the actual experience is qualitatively different.

AWARE OF ALL THERE IS WITHOUT BEING STAINED OR OBSTRUCTED, THIS LIGHT HAS NEVER STOPPED.... Now, when Chang Ching says, "THIS LIGHT HAS NEVER STOPPED, "he is trying to indicate the qualitative difference. All the lights that you know depend on fuel: you light a candle, it burns the whole night, but in the morning it is gone. The fuel is finished, it was dependent on the fuel.

Scientists say that our sun has been giving light to the whole solar system, our solar system. There are millions of solar systems; there are millions of suns, and every sun has its own territory of planets and moons -- that is a solar system. Our sun has its own solar system, and it has been giving light to this solar system for at least ten million years. Our earth is four million years old, but even the sun, a tremendous source of light, is every day diminishing. Quantity, howsoever big, is bound to end one day -- although they say it is not very close.

I have heard: In a scientific conference, a scientist was saying, "According to my calculations..." and scientists don't agree about the calculations. It is very difficult to calculate how much more energy the sun still has inside it. All is inference. One scientist was reading a paper on how long our sun is going to last, and he said, "According to me it is going to last four billion years, and not more than that. That is the maximum limit I can give to the sun; longer than that it cannot have energy."

A woman sitting in front of him started trembling, so he became worried about what was wrong with her. He asked, "What is the matter, lady?"

She said, "Repeat what you said -- how long is the sun is going to last?"

He said, "It will last at least four billion years."

She said, "That's okay. I was afraid that you said four million."

"But what difference does it make to you? You are not going to last even forty years," the scientist said to the old woman." You need not be worried, it is not going to happen in your lifetime. You will be finished."

And then whether it lasts four million or four billion years does not make any difference! It may not make any difference, but one thing is certain: it is not different from the candle. Your candle lasts one night, the sun lasts billions of years -- but there is a beginning and there is an end to both. So it is the same kind of light as your small candle that burns the night over, and in the morning is gone.

But THIS LIGHT HAS NEVER STOPPED. The light that one experiences when mind stops is the light that has always been there, eternal, with no beginning and no end. It does not depend on any fuel. And that makes the great difference, the qualitative difference: it is independent of any fuel, it is autonomous. Because it is autonomous it will continue forever.

And to enter into such light... the entering is not an ordinary entry. The entering is almost a merger, a melting. As ice melts into water, you melt into this light.

FROM AGES PAST UP TO THE PRESENT IT'S BEEN STEADY, NEVER CHANGING. THE SUBTLE ILLUMINATION OF THE SPIRITUAL LIGHT DOES NOT DEPEND ON BEING CULTIVATED AND REFINED.

This spiritual light is what we mean by enlightenment. One who has seen this light has seen the ultimate source of life itself. Just by seeing it, he has become it -- hence we call him enlightened. His innermost being is now connected with the ultimate.

This experience of enlightenment does not depend on being cultivated. It does not depend on what you do, whether you practice yoga postures or chant certain mantras or read certain holy scriptures or do fasting or any other kind of nonsense. It does not depend on what you do -- it is already there. It is not a question of cultivating it and it is not a question of making a goal of it. It is not far away from you, so there is no question of going in search of it. It is within you.

All search has to stop, only then will you find it. All ambition has to collapse; all desiring, all longing, all goals have to disappear. You are simply sitting, going nowhere, not even in your thoughts... just sitting silently, still, unmoving, going nowhere, relaxed within yourself, completely centered... and suddenly it is all there.

With the experience the awareness that it has always been there. It is not dependent on any act of yours. No prayer is going to help, no fire worship is going to help, no reading of scriptures is going to help. What is going to help is stopping all activities of body and mind just for a few moments being within yourself, going nowhere, just being at home... and it explodes with such tremendous force that what people have seen in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is just a faraway echo. It was a great light, according to the witnesses, as if the sun itself had descended in Hiroshima -- it was so bright.

But the light that is within you is far more different -- qualitatively, because it has many aspects that no other light has. Love is one of its aspects, beauty is one of its aspects, grace is one of its aspects, blissfulness is one of its aspects. And it is a light that is not hot, it is cool.

You have just not to go anywhere, and you will find it. Do not cultivate anything; what you are going to find is already there, only you are not looking at it, you are keeping it at your back. Just turn and look inside.

SINCE THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND, PEOPLE GRASP THE FORMS OF THINGS -- IT'S JUST LIKE RUBBING THE EYES, FALSELY MAKING OPTICAL ILLUSIONS ARISE. You can, by rubbing your eyes, create illusions. For example, there is only one sun or one moon, but you can rub your eyes and you can see three moons, four moons -- it all depends on you.

One man had taken his son to the pub. He was a well-known drunkard in the locality, and his son had come of age and he wanted to teach him how much drinking is allowable, is harmless. So they both started drinking, and then after a few drinks the father said to the son, "Look at those four people sitting by the side of the other table...."

The son said, "Four? Only one person is sitting there."

The father said, "My God! I have gone already past the limit. But still you can learn the teaching: before you enter the pub, look all around, see accurately, and before one man starts looking like two, that is the time to stop. I am already gone, I had... one man looks like four! And what have you been doing? Have you been drinking or not?"

The boy was afraid, so he had not been drinking. He was just pretending -- the father was drinking, and he was pretending just to see what happens. He said to the father, "Now let us go home. You have already passed the limit, according to yourself. You are seeing double!"

I have heard about another drunkard who was coming home and was obstructed by an electric pole. He tried hard, this way and that, but always the pole was coming in front of him, and he was bumping into the pole. He said, "This is too much. I have never seen that there are so many poles just in front of my house."

Finally, a policeman watching him felt compassionate, came up to him, and asked, "What is the matter?"

He said, "What is the matter? I am surrounded by electric poles, so in whichever direction I go, immediately I am hit by the pole."

The policeman said, "Wait, I will try to get you out. You are certainly surrounded by many poles."

But the man said, "Just when I went out this evening, there was one pole, as always. From where have so many poles come?"

And the man... the policeman took him to his house. Because he was always coming home late, the wife was tired of it, so she had given him the key: "You take the key, and whenever you come, don't disturb me, just silently open the door and go to your bedroom and go to sleep. There is no question anymore of fighting and quarreling; we have done enough, and it doesn't make any difference. In fact, the more I fight the more you drink."

He tried hard, the policeman could see, but both his hands were shaking, so the key was not going into the lock. This wife was watching from the window and she said, "What is the matter, have you lost the key?"

He said, "No, I have not lost the key. Something seems to be wrong with the lock. If you can throw me another lock, I may be able to open it."

The policeman said, "Don't be stupid. The lock is perfectly okay, and even if you can manage to open another lock, that won't help. Can I help you?"

He said, "You can help. You just keep the house still for a moment, because it seems there is going to be a very big earthquake. The house is moving, and because of the house the lock is moving, I am moving, the key... I cannot manage to put it in the hole."

It is not only the drunkards who see many things. Even in our ordinary experience we are seeing many things which are not there. You see a beautiful woman or a beautiful man, and you get married, and after a week you don't see any beauty, you simply don't want to see that woman at all -- and neither does she want to see you. Love turns into hate within a week. Weekend is love's end -- you have come to the very end. It is five working days, so on the weekend in two days find somebody else to be with.

What happens when you see so much beauty? Are you behaving differently than the drunk? Is the beauty there, or are you projecting it? Is it your lust that is creating the beauty? Try to understand: you are projecting the beauty, that's why the beauty is finished when your lust is fulfilled. There was never anything in the first place. You managed to see it, but it was your biological lust that gave you the illusion.

And the same was true for the poor woman: she saw you as if you were Alexander the Great, and after seven days she finds you a third-rate mouse of no value at all. You both are caught in a hell, and it seems to be difficult to get rid of each other.

And it is not going to give you any experience: if somehow you can get away from the woman and the woman can get away from you, immediately you will fall in love with another woman and she will fall with another man. The same story can be repeated your whole life, and still you will not be aware that it is your projections.

A man who is aware can only see the reality. Otherwise, whatever you see is your own idea; whatever you want to see, you see. If you see the reality then there is no frustration ever, because reality remains as it is. But your projections cannot remain.

A drunkard is simply a perfect example of all our experiences... and not only a symbol, but almost exactly the case. Now scientists say if they inject a few more hormones into you, immediately what you are seeing around you will be different. For example, you see a woman as ugly. If a few more of the hormones which make your manhood more vital are injected into you, immediately the ugly woman will start looking like Sophia Loren: "My God, where has Sophia Loren come from!"

Those hormones are affecting your eyes, your sensibility; they are forcing your mind to see what is not there. Any love affair can be destroyed without any difficulty.

One of my students was in a great love affair. All love affairs are great; there is no point in saying `GREAT love affair.' He was a very intelligent student, and the father of the girl was an army colonel, who has said that if he sees the boy near his house he will shoot him. And he was such a dangerous man he was known to do things like that. So he could not even go near the house of the girl.

The more he was prevented, the more his mind was projecting, dreaming continuously. He asked me, "What should I do? -- because that old colonel is so idiotic, he may shoot. The whole day he goes on polishing his gun. I look from far away at what he is doing, but whenever I see him he is polishing his gun as if he has only this to do."

He was a retired man, and just out of old habit, he had nothing else to do. And it was known that he is the dangerous type. One can talk to somebody if he will allow you to come close, but this man would shoot him immediately. He had told him, "If I see you near my house, then whatever happens to me I will shoot you."

I said, "I know a doctor. The best way for you is to go to the doctor."

He said, "What can the doctor do about it?"

I said, "You do one thing. The doctor will take a few hormones out of you or he will give you some anti-hormones. If he cannot take them out, he can give you some anti-hormones."

He said, "My God, then what will happen?"

I said, "What will happen? Your great love will disappear. There is no need unnecessarily to waste the poor old colonel's one cartridge. There is no need. Let him polish his gun."

He said, "I used to think that he is strange -- but you seem even more strange. What kind of advice are you giving me?"

I said, "That's the only right advice. It is nothing but hormones. How many times have you seen his girl?"

He said, "Not many times. Because of him, it is so difficult."

I told him, "You consult any doctor, or consult the professor of biochemistry in the university. It is a simple phenomenon, there is nothing special in it. It is only hormonal attraction. But you get confused; you think you are in love. Those hormones are playing tricks."

All your senses are under the impact of your biology, physiology, your hormones, your chemistry, and your whole life is surrounded by all kinds of illusions. Only a man of realization sees things as they are.

You cannot see things as they are. You can only see things as you want to see them, or perhaps as your physiology, your biology, your chemistry makes you see them. Once a man goes beyond mind, he goes also beyond biology, beyond physiology: these are all parts of his mind.

Knowing the light of the beyond, knowing the truth and being the truth and merging with one organic whole -- all this will happen inside you. Nobody else will know about it, but suddenly your perception of the world will change. Your ambitions for power will disappear; your ambitions for money will disappear; your delusions about beauty will disappear. You will see beauty in a totally different way. You will see life not as surrounded by death.

This whole world will remain the same, but for you, it will not be the same anymore, because you have changed. Your change, your transformation is going to transform the whole world. You will see things in a new light.

There will be no attachment; there will be no desire to grab; there will be no greed; there will be no jealousy. And when all these poisons are no more there, your life is going to be a life of immense grace, of tremendous joy... full of a light which will start radiating from you, which will be felt by those who are receptive to it. It may trigger the same experience in others. It can become a chain reaction.

That's how it has been going on from masters to disciples. It is not transferred through words; it is transferred through presence, through energy. All that is needed on the part of the disciple is an open heart, with no expectations, with no prejudices -- just a simple, silent, open heart. And if the master is a man of enlightenment, his fire can start your own inner flame; his fire can make you afire, aflame.

That's how light has been transferred, truth has been transferred, from masters to disciples down the ages. They have been speaking, but their speaking was only a net to catch hold of your minds. Your minds need words, and if they can catch hold of your minds, then there is every possibility you will start coming closer and closer. Then without your being aware of it, any moment the fire from the heart of the master can jump into you. Then it will be too late, you cannot do anything. It has happened.

Now, all you can do is allow the fire to jump into others. There is no way to escape from this fire, because in fact it is your own fire; it was just repressed with mountains of rubbish. Because you trust, because you love, because you have a certain faith and you open your heart without any fear, the master's fire can burn all your rubbish, and your own fire can start being the way it has to be.

Once you have known your own fire, your own light, your own flowering, life is such a contentment. Only one thing remains after that, and that is a constant gratefulness, a gratitude. I call it the only prayer. It has no words, but just a feeling towards existence of deep gratitude.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Zen

The Great Zen Master Ta Hui

Chapter-26

Wordlessness