VBT – Meditation 32.3
Science Of The Inner
Religion is the science of the inner. Philosophy is neither: it is neither the science of the outer nor the science of the inner; it is just in between. It only thinks; it thinks about science and about religion, but it only thinks. And just by thinking, nothing ever happens. You can make very clever answers, but they are not going to solve your real problems; the problems are real and the answers are just abstract. Real problems can be solved only by real answers.
Hence Buddha says: “The seeker can be persuaded to meditate.” Only the seeker can be persuaded to meditate. Meditation means you start changing your inner world. You start removing dust from the inner world, you start removing all that is unnecessary in the inner world. You remove all the clutter, all the rubbish you are full of. Meditation means emptying yourself of all that the society has put inside you so that you can have a clean, clear vision, so that you can have a mirror-like quality. When a mirror is without any dust it reflects reality; so is the case with meditation.
Meditation means making your consciousness a mirror. Thoughts are like dust, they have to be removed. And thoughts contain everything belonging to the mind: desires, ambitions, memories, fantasies, dreams. All mind stuff is different forms of thoughts, different kinds, different layers of dust. And the dust is so thick that the mirror is not functioning at all; hence you have to ask others. Once the dust is removed you need not ask anyone, you yourself can see. Existence has given you the magic mirror, it is within you.
I have heard a beautiful parable; it must be a parable, it cannot be an historical phenomenon…
When Alexander the Great came to India he collected many valuable treasures. And when he was leaving he came across a fakir, a naked fakir. He asked him, “Do you see my treasures? Have you ever seen anybody with so many treasures?”
The fakir said, “All your treasures are nothing, but I can give you one thing that will really make you rich!”
Alexander could not imagine what this naked fakir could give him. In his begging bowl he had a small mirror. He gave the mirror to Alexander.
Alexander said, “This mirror will make me the richest man in the world? You must be mad!”
The fakir said, “First look in the mirror.”
And Alexander looked into the mirror: it did not show his face – it showed his inner being, it showed his interiority, it showed his subjectivity. His being was reflected in the mirror.
He touched the feet of the fakir and said, “You are right – all my treasures are nothing before this mirror.”
And it is said he kept that mirror continuously with him.
The parable is beautiful. That mirror represents meditation. The fakir must have given him some meditation because only meditation can make you aware of who you are.
Tags: Science Of The Inner
