Eternal Self – In Gita Verse 7.27 O scion of Bharata, O conqueror of the foe, all living entities are born into delusion, bewildered by dualities arisen from desire and hate.
Krishna says that to grow in consciousness what is the hurdle? Hurdles are, we are after desire, hate, living in dualities. To grow in consciousness, means to enter into ourselves, we need to clear our mind as the farmer clears all the weeds before he sow new seed. To find our eternal self we need to finish with our desires, hate, dualities, thinking etc.
Zen is pure meditation. The very word Zen means meditation. It has nothing else, it requires no rituals. Just as you are, the only requirement is to go in and discover your eternal self. That eternal self is neither brahmin nor harijan; that eternal self is neither man nor woman. That eternal self is a blissfulness, a peace that passes understanding.
That eternal self is pure ecstasy. You can sing and you can dance, and your singing and your dancing – if they are coming from your innermost core – become your only prayers. They are the only authentic prayers; all others are composed by man, and a prayer composed by man is of no value.
A prayer that arises within you, like a flame… And that is what happens in deep meditation. Suddenly you start experiencing a new warmth and a new flame, a new joy that you have never experienced before. It has been dormant, it has been continuously repressed for millions of years. It has gone so deep that you will have to go that deep to find it. That’s why masters go on insisting: go on, deeper and deeper, and go on throwing the garbage that the past has left in you.
These small anecdotes are all concerned with meditation in different ways.
When the head monk, Ryosui, went first to see Mayoku, Mayoku took up his hoe and began to weed.
Zen is such a symbolic and poetic phenomenon, each gesture signifies a tremendous philosophy. Now, you would have missed, as Ryosui missed – without even a single word being expressed on either side, …Mayoku took up his hoe and began to weed. Ryosui went to the place where he was weeding, but Mayoku deliberately took no notice of him and went back to his room and shut the door.
It looks absurd on the surface. But what he is saying is, “There is no point in coming to me unless you have taken out all the weeds from your being. Unless you come with clean soil, I cannot sow the seeds.” He has made it absolutely clear, although he has not said a single word.
The next day the same thing happened, but this time Ryosui knocked at the door.
The first day Ryosui could not figure out what was happening, why he was being treated this way – not even taken notice of, not even a hello. But he must have pondered, meditated over the fact that there must be something, some reason why a great master would behave with a new seeker in this way. “Certainly I must be wrong. He cannot be wrong.” And in his silent moments he must have seen the point that unless you take all the weeds out, there is no point in coming to a master.
The next day he went again: …the same thing happened, but this time Ryosui knocked at the door. Now he had some confidence. He had understood the message: the master was not rejecting him but provoking him: “Unless you knock on the door, the door will not open by itself.”
Mayoku asked, “Who is it?”
Just the word who… Ryosui had hardly uttered his name when he was enlightened and said, “Do not make a fool of me… Don’t ask me who I am; the question makes me simply a fool. You know who I am, because we are not different. This time I have come without the weeds and this time I have gathered courage to knock at the door. If I had not visited you, I would have been deceived all my life by the Twelve Division Canon.”
The Buddhist scriptures are divided into twelve divisions. It is one of the greatest literatures; no other religion can compete with it. He said to Mayoku: “If I had not visited you, I would have been deceived all my life by the Twelve Division Canon. I would have gone on reading and reading and reading. But with a single act you have taken me to a state of no-mind.”
Ryosui went back… Before going back to his place: Mayoku opened the door and confirmed Ryosui’s enlightenment.
The moment he said, “I am finished with thinking, philosophy, and with mind”… It is enough if a person understands that mind is not the way, but the peace and silence of no-mind. And suddenly you are all aflame with a new and eternal life.
Krishna says – There is no way of knowing oneself through words, systems of beliefs, scriptures. There is only one way, and that is to immediately enter your own self as deeply as possible, cutting all weeds, not being prevented by any thought, desires, dualities – and suddenly you come to the source of your life. It is fire. And it is an eternal fire: once you have experienced it, it will always be with you. It will radiate in your presence; even others will feel the radiation. Those who are a little receptive, those who are not utterly blind, will even see the change, the rebirth, the revolution that you have gone through.
Tags: Eternal Self
