VBT – Meditation 41.5
Thoughtlessness Is Facelessness
This is to be remembered as a very foundational fact: do not judge, let the mind flow easily. As the river flows, let the mind flow easily; just sit on the bank watching. And this watching should be pure – without any interpretations. Sooner or later, when the water has flown, when the repressed ideas have moved, you will find gaps coming. A thought will go, and another thought will not be coming, and there will be a gap – an interval. In that interval, nothingness happens. In that interval you will have the first glimpse of your real face, of the original face.
When there is no thought there is no society. When there is no thought there is no other. When there is no other, no society, you need not have any face. Thoughtlessness is facelessness. In that interval, when one thought has gone and another has not appeared, in that interval, for the first time you will know in reality what is your face – the face you had when you were not born and the face you will have when you die.
All the faces in life are false. And once you know the real face, once you feel this inner nature which Buddhists call BUDDHA SWABHAVA – the nature of the inner buddha – when you come to feel this inner nature even once, even with a single glimpse, you will be a different person, because now you will constantly know what is false and what is real. Then you will have the criterion. Then you can compare, and there will be no need to ask what is real and what is unreal. The question comes only because you do not know what is real, and whatsoever you know is all unreal.
Only through meditation will you be able to learn what is a false image and what is a real, authentic face. Of course, the mind is automatic, and whatsoever you have done has become mechanical. It is hard to break this mechanicalness.
The first thing to be understood: mechanicalness is a necessity of life – and your body has an inner mechanism. Colin Wilson has called it the inner robot, you have a robot within you. Once trained, once you are trained in anything, that training is passed to the robot. You can call it memory, you can call it mind, – anything – but the word robot is good because it is absolutely mechanical, automatic.
It functions in its own way.
You are learning to drive. While you are learning, you will have to be aware, alert. A danger is there.
You do not know how to drive and anything can happen, so you will have to be alert. That is why learning is so painful, one has to be alert constantly. When you have learned driving, the driving has been given to the robot part of your mind. Now you can go on smoking, singing, listening to the radio or talking to a friend, or even loving your girlfriend. You can go on doing anything and the robot part of your being will drive.
You will not be needed; you are relieved of the burden. The robot will do everything. You will not even have to remember where to turn; you need not. The robot will know where to turn, where to stop, where not to stop, what to do and what not to do. You are not needed; you are relieved of the job. The robot does everything.
If something very sudden happens, some accident or something that the robot cannot tackle because it is not trained in it, only then will you be needed. Suddenly there will be a jerk in your body.
The robot will be replaced and you will come in its place. You can feel that jerk. When suddenly you feel that an accident is going to happen, there is a jerk inside. The robot moves away; it gives place to you. Now YOU are driving. But when the accident is avoided, again the robot will take over. You will relax and the robot will drive.
And this is necessary for life because there are so many things to do – so many things! And if there is no robot to do them, you will not be capable of doing them at all. So a robot is needed, it is a necessity.
I am not against robots. Go and give unto the robot whatsoever you learn, but remain the master.
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