VBT – Week’s Meditation 23
Take The Jump
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra (VBT) is the method of bringing you to the extreme limit of reason – and not only a method to bring you to the extreme, but also a method to take the jump into Consciousness.
How to take the jump? Einstein, for example, would have flowered like a Buddha if he had known something about meditative methods. He was just on the verge, many times in his life he came to the point from which a jump was possible. But again and again he missed: he was entangled, again, in reason. And in the end, he was frustrated by his whole life of reason.
The same thing could have happened with Buddha. He also had a very rational mind, but there was something possible for him, a method that could be used. Not only does reason have its methods, irrationality also has methods. Reason has its own methods; irrationality has its own methods.
VBT is ultimately concerned with irrational methods; only in the beginning can rational methods be used. They are just to persuade you, to push you, to persuade your reason to move toward the limit.
And if you have come to the limit, you will take the ultimate jump.
Gurdjieff worked with a certain group on some deep, irrational methods. He was working with a group of seekers and using a particular irrational method. He used to call it a Stop Exercise. For example, you would be with him and suddenly he would say, “Stop!” Then everyone had to stop as he is – totally stop. If the hand was in a certain place, the hand must stop there. If the eyes were open, they would have to remain open; if the mouth was open – you were just about to say something – the mouth would have to remain as it was. No movement!
This method begins with the body. If there is no movement in the body, suddenly there is no movement in the mind. The two are associated: you cannot move your body without some inner movement of the mind, and you cannot stop your body totally without stopping the inner movement of the mind. Body and mind are not two things; they are one energy. The energy is more dense in the body than it is in the mind; the density differs, the frequency of the wavelength differs, but it is the same wave, the same flow of energy.
Seekers were practicing this Stop Exercise continually for one month. One day Gurdjieff was in his tent and three seekers were walking through a dry canal that was on the grounds. It was a dry canal; no water was flowing in it. Suddenly, from his tent, Gurdjieff cried, “Stop!” Everyone on the bank of the canal stopped. The three who were in the canal also stopped. It was dry, so there was no problem.
Then suddenly there was an onrush of water. Someone had opened the water supply and water rushed into the canal. When it had come up to the necks of the three, one of them jumped out of the canal thinking, “Gurdjieff does not know what is happening. He is in his tent and he is unaware of the fact that water has come into the canal.” The man thought, “I must jump out. Now it is irrational to be here,” and he jumped out.
The other two remained in the canal as the water became higher and higher. Finally it reached their noses and the second man thought, “This is the limit! I have not come here to die. I have come here to know eternal life, not to lose this one,” and he jumped out of the canal.
The third man remained. The same problem faced him, too, but he decided to remain because Gurdjieff had said that this was an irrational exercise and if it was done with reason, the whole thing would be destroyed. He thought, “Okay, I accept death, but I cannot stop this exercise,” and he remained there.
Now water was flowing above his head. Gurdjieff jumped out of his tent and into the canal and brought him out. He was just on the verge of death. But when he revived, he was a transformed man. He was not the same one who was standing and doing the exercise; he was transformed totally. He had known something; he had taken the jump.
Where is the limit? If you continue with reason, you may miss it. You go on falling back. Sometimes one has to suddenly take a step that leads you beyond. That step becomes a transformation; the division is transcended. Whether you say that this division is between the conscious and the unconscious, between reason and non-reason, science and religion, or East and West – division must be transcended. That is what VBT is: a transcendence. Then you can come back to reason, but you will be transformed. You can even reason things out, but you will be beyond reason.
Tags: Take The Jump
