Learning
Nose is passage.
Passage simply means bridge.
We are not on the bridge, we are the bridge. This has to be understood. If we think that we are on the bridge, we have missed the point – this is the ego misinterpreting the whole thing. We are the bridge. We have to be surpassed, transcended. We, as we are, are the bridge. We have to be left behind; we have to go beyond ourselves.
If we understand this rightly then one thing can become very clear: if we are too much, we will become the animal; then too the bridge disappears. If the ego is crystallized too much, then too we are not a bridge, the bridge is no more – we have become the animal. If we are not at all, the bridge again disappears – then we are the divine. If only ego is left, we are a dog; the ego is the dog. If you have completely disappeared, then the remaining silence is divine, is God.
Between these two points – the ego and the egolessness – is the bridge. We are that bridge. It will depend on how much ego we have: if we have too much we are leaning towards the animal; if we have not too much we are leaning towards the divine. A rope stretched between the animal and the divine – but we are the rope. So don’t ask where we are on the bridge, because that is the ego asking. Just try to understand that we are the bridge. It has to be transcended, surpassed; we have to go beyond ourselves.
Don’t try to be free, because that may be a subtle ego motivation. Try to be free from the ego – because even freedom can become a motivation for the ego, but then we will never be free because the ego is the bondage. The freedom is not going to be yours; the freedom will be there only when we are not.
What is egolessness?
A really egoless person is not humble at all. He is neither arrogant nor humble; he is simply himself – ACCEPT YOURSELF.
A rose flower is a rose flower, there is no question of its being something else. And the lotus is a lotus. Neither does the rose ever try to become a lotus, nor does the lotus ever try to become a rose. Hence they are not neurotics.
And so it is with the whole existence except man. Only man has ideals and shoulds. ‘You should be this and that’ – then you are divided against your own is. Should and is are enemies.
And you cannot be anything other than you are. Let it sink deep into your heart: you can only be that which you are, never anything else. Once this truth sinks deep, that ‘I can only be myself’ all ideals disappear. They are discarded automatically. And when there is no ideal, reality is encountered. Then your eyes are herenow, then you are present to what you are. The division, the split, has disappeared. You are one.
Learning from Nose: Become Bridge
