Ultimate Freedom
Freedom from Oneself Is the Ultimate Freedom
Buddha is the only man who said, ‘If there is no God and there is no ego, the self is also arbitrary, artificial.’ As you go deeper in your interiority, you suddenly find yourself disappearing into the oceanic consciousness. There is no self as such. You are no longer, only existence is.
Hence, I call Zen essentially freedom from oneself. You have heard about other freedoms, but freedom from oneself is the ultimate freedom – not to be, and allow the existence to express itself in all its spontaneity and grandeur. But it is existence, not you, not me. It is life itself dancing, not you, not me.
That is the Zen Manifesto: freedom from oneself.
And only Zen has refined, in these twenty-five centuries, methods, devices to make you aware that you are not, that you are only arbitrary, just an idea.
As you go beyond the mind, even the idea of ‘I am’ disappears. When the ‘I’ also disappears and you start feeling a deep involvement in existence, with no boundaries, only then has Zen blossomed in you. In fact, that is the state, the space of the awakened consciousness. But it has no ‘I’ at the center, no atman, no self.
To make it clear to you: Socrates says, ‘Know thyself.’ Gautam Buddha says, ‘Know – just know, and you will not find thyself.’ Enter deeper into your awareness, and the deeper you go, your self starts melting. Perhaps that is the reason why none of the religions except Zen have tried meditation – because meditation will destroy God, will destroy the ego, will destroy the self. It will leave you in absolute nothingness. It is just the mind which makes you afraid of nothingness.
Nothingness is the fragrance of the beyond. It is the opening of the heart to the transcendental. It is the unfoldment of the one-thousand-petalled lotus. It is man’s destiny. Man is complete only when he has come to this fragrance, when he has come to this absolute nothingness inside his being, when this nothingness has spread all over him, when he is just a pure sky, unclouded. This nothingness is what Buddha calls nirvana. First we have to understand what this nothingness actually is, because it is not just empty; it is full, it is overflowing. Never for a single moment think that nothingness is a negative state, an absence, no. Nothingness is simply no-thingness. Things disappear, only the ultimate substance remains. The identity of “yes” and “no” is the secret of nothingness. Nothingness is not identical with “no”, nothingness is the identity of “yes” and “no”, where polarities are no more polarities, where opposites are no more opposites. When you make love to a woman or to a man, the point of orgasm is the point of nothingness. At that moment the woman is no more a woman and the man is no more a man. Those forms have disappeared. That polarity between man and woman is no more there; it is utterly relaxed. They have both melted into each other. They have unformed themselves, they have gone into a state which cannot be defined. The identity of yes and no is the secret of emptiness, nothingness, nirvana. Emptiness is not just empty; it is a presence, it is the ultimate peak of consciousness.a very solid presence. If you want to know it you will have to go into life, into some situation where yes and no meet, then you will know it. Where the body and the soul meet, when the world and God meet, where opposites are no longer opposites only then will you have a taste of it. The taste of it is the taste of Tao, of Zen, of Hassidism, of Yoga.
Tags: Awareness Comes Be Yourself Infinite Expanse Pure Freedom Raft Something Inner Ultimate Freedom
