VBT – Meditation 40.0
IN THE BEGINNING AND GRADUAL REFINEMENT OF THE SOUND OF ANY LETTER, AWAKE.
Fading Sound
Sometimes teachers have used this technique very much. They have their ingenious ways. For example, if you enter a Zen master’s hut, he may suddenly give a scream. You will become startled, but if you know why he is doing this you know he is doing it just to make you awake. Any sudden thing makes you awake. Any sudden sound can make you awake.
Suddenness breaks your sleep, and ordinarily we are asleep. Unless something goes wrong, we are not out of sleep, we go on doing things sleepily. That is why we never feel the sleep. You go to your office, you drive the car, you come back to your home, you love your children, you talk to your wife, so you think you are not sleepy at all. How can you do all of these things in a sleep? You think that isn’t possible, but do you know anything about sleepwalkers – about those who walk in their sleep? Their eyes are open, and they are asleep, and they can do many things. But they will not remember in the morning that they have done them.
They may go to the police station and report that something is wrong, that someone came into their house at night and was creating mischief, and they themselves have been found to be responsible.
But in the night, in their sleep, they walk and do certain things, then they come back into their beds and continue their sleep, and in the morning they cannot remember what has happened. They can open doors, they can use keys, they can do many things. Their eyes are open, and they are asleep.
In a deeper sense, we are all sleepwalkers. You can go to your office, you can come to your home, you can do certain things: you will repeat the same things you have always repeated. You will tell your wife, “I love you,” and you will not mean anything by it. The words will be just mechanical.
You are not even aware that you are telling your wife, “I love you.” You are simply doing things as if you are fast asleep. This whole world is a world of sleepwalkers for a person who has become awakened. A Buddha feels that way, a Gurdjieff feels that way – that everyone is fast asleep and still doing things.
Gurdjieff used to say that whatsoever is happening in this world is absolutely what can be expected – wars, fights, riots, murder, suicide. Someone asked Gurdjieff, “Can something be done to stop wars?” He said, “Nothing can be done – because those who are fighting, they are fast asleep, and those who are pacifists, they are fast asleep. And everyone is going on in a sleep. These happenings are natural, inevitable. Unless man is awake, nothing can be changed, because these are all just by-products of his sleep. He will fight; he cannot be stopped from fighting. Only the causes can be changed.”
Once he was fighting for Christianity, for Islam, for this and that. Now he is not fighting for Christianity, now he is fighting for communism, for democracy. Causes will change, excuses will change, and the fight will continue, because man is asleep and you cannot expect anything else.
Tags: Fading Sound
