Nature Of The Fence

A lion was taken into captivity and thrown into a concentration camp where, to his amazement, he found other lions who had been there for years, some of them all their lives, for they had been born there. He soon became acquainted with the social activities of the camp lions. They banded themselves into groups. One group consisted of the socializers; another was into show business; another was cultural, for its purpose was to carefully preserve the customs, the tradition, and the history of the times when lions were free; other groups were religious – they gathered mostly to sing moving songs about a future jungle where there would be no fences; some groups attracted those who were literary and artistic by nature; others still were revolutionary, and they met to plot against their captors or against other revolutionary groups. Every now and then a revolution would break out, one particular group would be wiped out by another, or the guards would all be killed and replaced by another set of guards.

As he looked around, the newcomer observed one lion who always seemed deep in thought, a loner who belonged to no group and mostly kept away from everyone. There was something strange about him that commanded everyone’s admiration and everyone’s hostility, for his presence aroused fear and self-doubt.

He said to the newcomer, “Join no group. These poor fools are busy with everything except what is essential.”

“And what do you think is most essential?” asked the newcomer.

“Studying the nature of the fence.”

State Of No-Thinking

What the story says, that when we are born we are fresh and have no thinking. But when we start growing family, society, nation etc will start entering in us. When the newcomer saw one lion was not part of any group. But sitting in deep thinking.

With his fear and doubt when he looked at him. The lion told him not to join any group but you can work on your essentials. Newcomers in his wonderment asked what is essential. He replied Nature Of The Fence. What is the nature of the fence?

Nature Of The Fence is a totally different quality of being which comes by not thinking: not good, not bad, simply a state of no-thinking. You simply watch, you simply remain conscious, but you don’t think. And if some thought enters… they will enter, because thoughts are not yours; they are just floating in the air. All around there is a noosphere, a thought-sphere, all around. Just as there is air, there is thought all around you, and it goes on entering on its own accord. It stops only when you become more and more aware. There is something in it: if you become more aware, a thought simply disappears, it melts, because awareness is a greater energy than thought.

Awareness is like fire to thought. It is just like you burn a lamp in the house and the darkness cannot enter; you put the light off – from everywhere darkness has entered; without taking a single minute, a single moment, it is there. When the light burns in the house, the darkness cannot enter. Thoughts are like darkness: they enter only if there is no light within. Awareness is fire: you become more aware, less and less thoughts enter.

If you become really integrated in your awareness, thoughts don’t enter you; you have become an impenetrable citadel, nothing can penetrate you. Not that you are closed, remember – you are absolutely open; but just the very energy of awareness becomes your citadel. And when no thoughts can enter you, they will come and they will bypass you. You will see them coming, and simply, by the time they reach near you they turn. Then you can move anywhere, then you go to the very hell – nothing can affect you. This is what we mean by enlightenment.

Learning from the story Nature Of The Fence: The Nature Of The Fence

Experience Learning

Each Particular Perception is Limited, is Fence.

Whatsoever we see is limited, whatsoever we feel is limited, all perceptions are limited. But if you can become aware, then every limited thing is disappearing into the unlimited. Look at the sky. You will see a limited part of it, not because the sky is limited by because your eyes are limited, your focus is limited. But if you can become aware that this limitation is because of the focus, because of the eye, it is not the sky that is limited, then you will see the boundaries melting into the unlimited. Otherwise existence is unlimited; otherwise everything is melting into something else. Everything is losing its boundary, every moment waves are disappearing into the ocean – and there is no end to anything and there is no beginning. Everything is everything else also.

Limitation is forced by us. It is because of us, because we cannot see the infinite, that we divide it. We have done it in everything. You make a fence around your house and you say, “This land belongs to me and beyond the fence is somebody else’s land.” But deep down your land and your neighbor’s land are one. The fence is just because of you. The land is not divided, the neighbors and you are divided – because of your mind.

So, whenever you see anything limited, always remember that beyond the limit it is disappearing, the limitation is disappearing. Always look beyond and beyond.

This you can make a meditation. Just sit under a tree and look, and whatsoever comes into your view, just go beyond, look beyond, and don’t stop anywhere. Just find where this tree is melting. This tree, this small tree just in your garden, has the whole of existence in it. It is melting every moment. If the sun does not rise tomorrow this tree will die, because this tree’s life is bound together with the life of the sun. The distance between them is very long – for the sun-rays to reach earth takes time, ten minutes’ time. Ten minutes’ time is very long, because light travels at a very fast speed, tremendous. Light travels one hundred and eighty-six lakh miles in one second and it takes ten minutes for light to reach this tree from the sun. The distance is tremendous, vast. But if the sun is no longer there, the tree will immediately disappear. They exist together. The tree is melting every moment into the sun and the sun is melting into the tree. Every moment the sun is entering into the tree, making it alive…. The other thing is as yet unknown to science, but religion says another thing is also happening – because in life nothing can exist without response. If the sun is giving life to the tree, the tree must be giving life back to the sun, because in life there is always a response. And energy equalizes. The tree must be giving life to the sun. They are one. Then the tree disappeared, the limitation has disappeared.

Wherever you look, look for the beyond and don’t stop anywhere. Go on and on and on, until you lose your mind, until you lose all your limited patterns. Suddenly you will be illumined. The whole existence is one. That oneness is the goal. And suddenly the mind is tired of pattern, limitation, boundary – and as you insist on going beyond, as you go on pulling it beyond and beyond, the mind slips, suddenly it drops, and you look at existence as a vast oneness, everything melting into each other, everything changing into the other.

In that moment you will have the illumination of oneness, of non-duality. That is the goal. That is the highest peak of consciousness. And that is the greatest ecstasy possible to the human mind, and the deepest bliss.