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ZEN: THE PATH OF PARADOX
VOL. 1
Chapter 8: Sannyas: A Decision from the Guts
Question 1
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 1
The first question:
Question 1
IN THE FISCHER-HOFFMAN PROCESS ONE DISCOVERS WITHIN HIMSELF A GUIDE. MY GUIDE IS DIRECT, OPEN, TAKES NO BULLSHIT, NO AMBIGUITY. SHE TELLS ME NOT TO TAKE SANNYAS.
MY QUESTION: ARE THERE SOME PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT OR NEED NOT TAKE SANNYAS? IS THERE SOME STIGMA ATTACHED TO THOSE WHO DON'T? I FEEL THERE IS NOTHING IN ME THAT CONTRADICTS ANYTHING IN YOU YET I FEEL I CANNOT OR NEED NOT OR SHOULD NOT BECOME YOUR SANNYASIN.
THE QUESTION is from Richard Lee.
My answer is, Richard Lee, don't be cowardly!
Mind is very cunning, very rationalising. It can find ways to protect itself; it is very defensive. Sannyas is a death to the mind. The mind will do everything to prevent you from taking the jump. And if you wait for co-operation from the mind you wait forever. The mind never co-operates.
The decision to take sannyas never comes from the mind, the decision to take sannyas comes from somewhere else, from somewhere deeper or higher. It comes from the guts, from your being. It is not a mind phenomenon. You cannot take sannyas through a decision, through the mind. If you take it that way you will miss it. Even if you have taken it, you will miss it. Mind has to be dropped. And when I say mind has to be dropped I mean in toto.
The Fischer-Hoffman Process can't be of much help to you here. The Process is good, goes so far, is helpful, but here you are creating a hindrance through the Process. So first let me tell you what the Process exactly is and how far it can be helpful. There comes a moment when it can become very destructive, very inhibiting.
The Fischer-Hoffman Process remains confined to the conscious mind. The mind has three layers. That which is known to us is the conscious mind. There are two layers one below it, one above it -- which are not known to us. Below it is the unconscious, above it is the superconscious. The conscious mind is a very small figment of the totality but it is conscious so it can pretend to be the master. The conscious mind is divided into two parts as the other two minds are also divided into two parts -- because to exist everything needs to have two parts to it: the male and the female, yin and yang, day and night. To exist at all everything has to exist through paradox, through the opposite. But the opposite is not really the opposite, the opposite is the complementary.
So first remember there are three minds and all the three are divided into two minds. So in all you have six minds.
The conscious mind is divided into two: thinking, feeling. The thinking part is very much developed at the cost of the feeling part. The reason part is very much developed at the cost of the intuition part. If you are a man then your male part is very much developed, your female part is not developed at all. And without the female part you are never whole.
The Fischer-Hoffman Process is to shift your focus from the thinking part to the feeling part -- a move from logic to dreaming, a move from the day part to the night part. It is very simple. If you become passive, if you relax, if you start visualising, if you start looking for a dream, if you start living a reverie, you change shifts. It is just like changing a gear in the car. The thinking part is tired too because it is the very much used part, so when you want to change it to the non-thinking part it is always ready. That's why to dream much in the night gives you a balance. In the day you use the thinking part, it becomes tired, it goes to sleep in the night and the dreaming part -- which has not become tired at all, you have not used it starts functioning. What exists in dreams is used in Fischer-Hoffman therapy. It is beautiful, it is scientific.
If you start looking for a guide, you will find a guide in the intuition part. Richard Lee has found a guide and he calls the guide 'she'. Naturally, when men look for the guide, the guide will come in the form of the woman -- and when a woman looks for the guide, the guide will come in the form of a man. The denied part will assert. So the guide is nothing but your feminine part.
But the Process is confined to the conscious mind. From conscious thinking you have moved towards conscious dreaming, but remember, it is as much in the conscious as the thinking was. It supplements, it complements, but there is no radical change. And deep down it will follow the same pattern that the thinking part has laid down -- it will follow the same map. Maybe on the surface you think it is not following the same map but it will follow the same map. There is no other map.
Your thinking mind is afraid of taking sannyas. This fear has been communicated to the feeling mind. The feeling mind is just behind it. Any vibration that goes deep into you reaches to the other part too. If you are doing a mathematical problem it may not -- but even that can go if you are very much concerned about it. If it is a life-and-death question then the problem will go deeper into the intuitive part and sometimes the answer will come from there. If you are in love, the love will sink into the deeper part. If you are afraid, the same will happen with the fear.
Richard Lee is a professor, a very rational man. His fear has entered into the feminine part. Now he asks his guide. He will close his eyes, he will move from the active to the passive, from the left hemisphere to the right hemisphere. He will even visualise the guide, he will call forth the guide and he will follow the guide and ask the guide. This guide is nothing but your shadow, Richard Lee. It is your fear, it is your love, it is your life, it is your death. It is you reflected very deeply.
Only the language changes. If the reasoning mind says 'Don't take sannyas' it will give you rationalisations, very clear-cut; it will give you logic, it will give you arguments. If you ask the feminine part it will not give you any logic, it will simply say 'No, don't take it' -- just as all women do. They don't argue, they simply conclude. Argument is not feminine, the process of argument is not appealing to them. They simply jump to a conclusion. They conclude. Intuition is conclusive, reason goes into the details of it, thinks for and against, then decides after a long process of thinking. But the intuitive part simply says yes and no.
You ask 'Should I take sannyas?' and your feminine part, what you are calling 'guide', says no. Your fear has entered into the deeper realm of your right hemisphere too. You are really a coward.
Fischer-Hoffman therapy can go only this far. Yes, it gives a certain balance, it is a balance in polarity -- listen to both the minds, the other part is also yours, and live your life in a more balanced way. Good, nothing wrong about it. That's what happens in dreaming, that's what happens when you drink alcohol, that's what happens when you take drugs -- a shift. Reason is dropped, logic is dropped, the argument is dropped -- suddenly you are gliding into the world of dreams. But this is not going to help you grow spiritually.
The second, the deeper mind, the unconscious mind, is also divided into two -- the thinking and the intuitive. But Fischer-Hoffman therapy never reaches to the unconscious, it floats in the conscious, it is very solid. The conscious is very solid, there is a clear-cut demarcation between the thinking and the feeling part. In the unconscious the state is very liquid. The thinking and the intuitive are not very demarked, they overlap, just like any liquid.
And in the third, the superconscious mind, the state is vaporous -- it is not only overlapping, there is a unison. The feeling and the thinking part are one, there is no division. In the superconscious there is no division -- feeling and reason exist as one. You feel, you think, together, simultaneously; you think, you feel, together, simultaneously. There is no duality. In the unconscious the duality is there but less distinct, more ambiguous. It is not solid, it is liquid. In the conscious mind the duality is very, very clear, mapped, fenced -- a China Wall exists between the thinking and the feeling part.
Fischer-Hoffman therapy goes only to this solid wall of the unconscious. If you want to reach deeper you will have to follow some other things -- yoga, tai-chi, tantra, karate, akido, etc. They take you deeper than Fischer-Hoffman, they take you to the unconscious. When you are in the unconscious you will have glimpses of being one for the first time -- but they will be only glimpses. A subtle division will still persist. It is just as if you have mixed water and oil -- no wall separates them, both are liquid, but still the water remains a little separate from the oil, mixing and yet not mixing.
In the Fischer-Hoffman therapy nothing much is needed. You can do it alone. It is very simple. You can relax in a chair and shift. With the second, the unconscious, you cannot do it just alone, you will need great methodology, yoga -- yeats of training. Or tai-chi or akido or karate -- you will need years of training. Method is a must. In the first, just a shift from thinking to feeling... it is so easy, anybody can do it. In fact, the moment you relax in a chair it already starts happening, you start dreaming day-dreams. Fischer-Hoffman has come in. The first is very simple -- the poets are always doing it, the painters are doing it, the artists are doing it, the children are always in that process. You can do it. And it is good, I am not against it, it is good. Rather than remaining confined to the thinking part it is good to allow the feeling part also to have a say. You will have a bigger being. But the conscious mind is a very small figment. It will be bigger than the thinking but not big enough. Good as far as it goes but it does not go far enough.
In the second, methods will be needed. Without methods you will not be able to do the second -- because the shift from the thinking to the feeling in the conscious is on one plane but the shift from conscious to unconscious is in depth. It is a difficult phenomenon. It is like diving deep into water. You will need to know how to swim, you will need to know how to accumulate oxygen inside your lungs for a longer time and you will have to become more courageous. You are taking a risk. Nobody knows what is going to happen underneath the water, nobody knows what is there. You are moving in darkness, you are moving beyond the boundaries of human society, culture.
All kinds of possibilities are there. You may go mad. You will need a great method to protect you, you will need a great method to keep you alert. You are moving into wilderness, you are moving into a desert land. All kinds of repressions are there and the whole past of humanity is there. It is a great reservoir -- what Buddhists call ALE VIGYAN. It is the reservoir of consciousness. All that you have known, consciously, unconsciously, is contained there. You are moving in an ocean of information, feeling, knowing, intuition, sexuality, repressions. Nobody knows how much is accumulated there in the unconscious. You will need a great method to lead you there.
Methods will do. You need not find a Master, you need not find an enlightened person. Methods will do. You can find a teacher, that will be enough. The teacher can teach you the method, you can depend on the method. The method will be the help.
But as far as the third is concerned it is even more difficult -- because in the first you move on the same plane, in the second you go into depth, in the third you go into height. You start falling upwards, you grow wings. That is certainly more difficult because the task is uphill. You will need a Master, you will need someone very alive to hold your hand on that journey.
Hence sannyas. If you are not interested in going to the super-consciousness there is no need for sannyas. If you are not interested in going into the unconscious then there is no need for any method -- tai-chi or yoga or tantra. If you are not interested in going from the thinking part to the feeling then there is no need for even Fischer-Hoffman therapy. It depends what you want to do.
Are you really interested in growing? Then first you can do a few things alone. You can do a few things with only a methodology. But you can do the last thing only in deep love with somebody who has arrived, who knows that uphill path. You can hold his hand. Trust will be needed. For the first, only knowledge; for the second, methodology; for the third, a Master.
Sannyas is the science of synactics. This word has been coined by a few people. I love this word -- synactics. It means the science of connections. Sannyas is synactic; it connects you with somebody who has arrived. By getting connected with somebody who has arrived, your journey starts. The Master is never going to do anything really, he is a catalytic agent. But his presence gives you confidence, his presence gives you courage, his presence gives you trust. His presence becomes a proof that something more than the known exists -- that the beyond exists.
Says D. T. Suzuki, one of the most significant persons of this age: 'There is no transference of secrets from Master to disciple. Teaching is not difficult, listening is not difficult either, but what is truly difficult is to become conscious of what you have in yourself and be able to use it as your own. This self-realisation is known as seeing into one's own being, which is satori. Satori is an awakening from a dream.'
But unless you are close to someone who has become awakened it is very difficult. You can even dream that you have become awakened -- that's the most difficult part of it. You can even dream that you have become awakened if somebody is not there who is already awakened. You will have no way to judge whether you have become awakened or you are still dreaming. Don't you remember dreams when you dream that you are awake? You must have all dreamed dreams when you feel you are awake -- and then when you become awake you laugh. Then you know it was just a dream.
But who knows? This may also be a dream. One can dream in a dream in a dream and go on in and in. You can dream that you are going to sleep, preparing your bed. Then you fall on the bed and you can dream that now you have fallen asleep and then you start dreaming in your sleep.... And you can dream that you are going to sleep and preparing a bed and falling and you fall and you start dreaming -- and so on and so forth. You call go on AD INFINITUM.
One who is already awakened is a must for those who have decided to go on the ultimate journey.
In Japan the Zen people have a saying:
Kokoro koso,
kokokar mayowasi,
kokoro nare;
kokoro ni,
kokoro,
kokoro yurusu na.
'It is mind that deludes mind for there is no other mind. Oh mind, do not let yourself be misled by mind.'
You can deceive yourself. It is your own mind which goes on deceiving your mind. Your small mind goes on deceiving, your big mind. Your mind with a lower case 'm' goes on deceiving your Mind with a capital 'M'. And there is nobody else.
So, Richard Lee, if you are afraid, there is no need to take sannyas but then be clear that you are afraid. Don't throw the responsibility on the poor Hoffman Process. Don't throw the responsibility on this poor woman inside you who you call your guide.
And you say: MY GUIDE IS DIRECT, OPEN, TAKES NO BULLSHIT, NO AMBIGUITY.... Certainly, because it is YOUR guide -- how can it take any bullshit? It is your guide. Now your ego has become part of your guide too. If your reason can take bullshit your feeling can take even more -- because reason can judge a little way what is bullshit and what is not. Feelings has no way to judge. Feeling is simply blind. If your logic can become a victim, remember, your love is far more blind. If your rationality cannot be trusted there is no way to trust your irrationality.
Becoming a sannyasin simply means you have come to realise one fact at least -- that alone you can go on deceiving yourself. So if you can find somebody with whom you will not be able to deceive yourself any more, you have found your Master.
But I am not saying take sannyas, no. Sannyas cannot be forced. I am not trying to convince you either. I am simply saying to become clear in yourself. Don't play games with yourself.
You say: SHE TELLS ME NOT TO TAKE SANNYAS. MY QUESTION: ARE THERE SOME PEOPLE WHO SHOULD NOT OR NEED NOT TAKE SANNYAS? Yes, there are a few people who should not. These are the people whom I call cowards. They should not because it is a dangerous journey; it is not meant for them. They will repent if they go into it. It is arduous. I can only promise one thing: it is very, very dangerous.
Just the other day I was reading about a guide who proposed to the government of a certain country that children should be taken to the mountains for climbing, skiing. They should be taken to the seas for diving, swimming, and there should be a national program -- each child should go to the seas and each child should go to the mountains to become acquainted with what adventure is.
He was called before a committee, the committee of the parents, and they all enquired about one thing: Can you guarantee that our children will be safe? Can you guarantee that no child will die in these dangerous things? The guide looked directly into their faces and said, 'No. I cannot guarantee that no child will ever die in these dangerous pursuits but I can guarantee one thing' -- and there was great compassion in his eyes -- 'that if you go on protecting these children they will live, but they will live dead lives. If you go on protecting these children they will never be born spiritually. They will die a spiritual death. On the surface they will be living but deep down there will be no life flowing in them, there will be no juice flowing in them.'
And that's what I can promise to you. I can guarantee only one thing; if you come with me your death is certain. If you come with me there is danger. Risk I promise to you. I am not here to promise any security, any safety -- only one thing: that you will die as you are and something new will be born. You will become twice born. I am not trying to convince you to take sannyas, I am simply trying to make you clear so that if you take it you take it, if you don't take it you don't take it, but don't bring these guides in. This is all bullshit. Don't avoid. Don't shirk responsibility in such subtle ways.
I FEEL THERE IS NOTHING IN ME THAT CONTRADICTS ANYTHING IN YOU YET.... That 'yet' contradicts everything in me.
Richard Lee is a knowledgeable person -- he is a professor, he is a therapist, and he knows much. So knowledge-wise he may be agreeing with me but that is no agreement, sir, not at all. If you agree being-wise with me only then do you agree with me; knowledge-wise it is just meaningless because I am not a man of knowledge.
If you want to learn something here it is not knowledge that is offered, it is life itself. So knowledge-wise you may be nodding and agreeing and saying yes -- you already know it so you agree with me -- but that won't do, that won't help. Being-wise, that's what sannyas is all about. If you agree being-wise only then do you agree with me, otherwise the 'yet' cancels everything.
Next: Chapter 8: Sannyas: A Decision from the Guts, Question 2
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Zen Paradox, Vol. 1
| 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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