Two Zen debaters, reputedly the best in all of Japan, were to meet in verbal combat in Edo at the great celebration honoring the birth of Buddha. For this event scholars flocked from as far away as Hokkaido to marvel at the brilliance of these teachers.
During the competition, first one master would prevail on one day and on the next day the other master would counter, until by the end of the fourth day they were even.
Each of these masters traveled with retinues of supporters, who cheered their champions and pampered them like minor princes.
During the night of the fifth and final debate the two great adversaries parried and thrust at each other, to the delight and cheers of their separate retinues. As each master would score a telling point, he would puff himself up and walk in a circle to the applause of his supporters.
All of which was fine until a great explosion ripped through the hall, an explosion so great that all the lanterns and candles were blown out. When order and light were restored, it was discovered that both of the masters had exploded – making a huge mess over the altar and ceiling and even those sitting in the front rows.
Logic Is Not The Way To Life
While reading this story we all have realized Logic Is Not The Way To Life.
In our life many times we have our own experience that the more we are stuck to logic, the less freedom we have. And also if we are stuck into the logic we ruined our life in that very moment.
Unless the realization comes “You Are As Irrelevant As Existence”, we will not understand how logic has created a contradiction in us.
Do you see the contradiction? Logic has interpreted that which is complementary as contradictory. And logic rules our education, our minds, so whenever we see two complementary things, immediately the idea of contradiction arises. Otherwise, in one interrelated existence, how could there be contradiction?
Complementariness is essential. For example, the day and night are not contradictory; they are complementary to each other. Nor are life and death contradictory; they are complementary to each other. They make one whole, one circle, complete and entire. But seen through the eyes of logic, it is hard to believe that life and death are not contradictory.
It seems obvious that death is the end of life; that is not true. Death is only a beginning of a new life – a refreshment, a rejuvenation. The old body is tired. You need more experiences to become mature. You have to move through many other forms of life, and there are millions of forms of life.
Moving through all these forms of life, learning by and by, step by step, inch by inch, you arrive at humanity. Humanity gives you a new opportunity of transformation, to jump out of the circle of life and death and to become part of the eternal. Those who achieve it have really lived. Those who have missed may have to learn again the old route. Who knows how many lives it takes to recognize that humanity is a point of departure, not only from death, but also from life – life as you know it – to a new immortality, to a life which can be equivalent to godliness.
Logic has created many misunderstandings. It goes on insisting on the duality of things without seeing the interconnecting link.
If you can remove all that rubbish from your mind and can see your inner clean sky, your work is done.
Without knowing, you will know. The mystery, the mysterious, the poetry of life, the music and the dance… all will become available to you.
Learning from the story You Are As Irrelevant As Existence: Logic Is Not The Way To Life.
Experience Learning
In the East, we have a totally different logical approach. It is in tune with life. Those who are not accustomed to it will say it is contradictory, it is inconsistent. But those who can understand, they can see the underlying connectedness.
One morning a man asked Gautam Buddha, “Do you believe in God?” And Buddha said, “God? God does not exist. The question of belief does not arise.” And he said it so strongly.
In the afternoon, another man came and he asked, “Does God exist?” And Buddha said, “Yes, absolutely yes. Without God, life would be just dead, unconscious. God is the intelligence of existence.”
And in the evening another man came and he said, “I don’t know where to begin. I am not a thinker; I don’t know whether God exists or does not exist. I have not yet taken a partisan view. Would you help me to see the reality?”
Gautam Buddha, listening to him, did not answer, but closed his eyes and went into deep meditation.
The man, seeing the beauty and the grace of Buddha meditating, himself fell… You know that kind of experience: if you are sitting with a few people and one man goes on yawning, soon you start feeling sleepy also. We are not islands, we are connected, so things enter into each of us. And a man of the quality of Buddha, with such tremendous silence, created such an atmosphere that the man fell into that silence; he also closed his eyes.
After one hour, Buddha shook him and asked him, “Have you received the answer?” The man touched Gautam Buddha’s feet and he said, “I am grateful. There is no question and there is no answer. There is only pure silence in the inner being of man, and that silence goes on spreading into the innermost core of the universe. But there is no question, no answer. Life is very innocent. I am grateful that you showed me the way.”
Ananda, who always remained by Gautam Buddha’s side to take care of him… he was very much puzzled because he had heard all three answers. In one God does not exist; in one God exists; in another, the question does not arise. When everybody had left, Ananda asked Gautam Buddha, “Don’t disturb my sleep. I will not be able to sleep with such kinds of contradictory answers. One expects you to be consistent. If you say yes then go on saying yes, if you say no then that is your answer. But what kind of answer is this?”
Buddha said, “Ananda, I have told you many times: those were not your questions and I was not answering you.”
Ananda said, “I know, I have also heard you saying to me all kinds of things. But one thing is certain, I have ears and they hear. I cannot close my ears when you are answering somebody. I have heard all the three answers and they are all contradictory.”
Gautam Buddha said, “Just for your sleep’s sake… I would like to say to you, the first man who had come to me was an atheist – a confirmed atheist, well-known atheist. He wanted me to say something that supported him. He was not a seeker, he was not really on a quest. I had to shatter his ego. And the same was the case with the other man. He had come with a prejudice and he wanted to be supported in his prejudice. And that would be very unkind, to support anybody’s prejudice. I destroyed his prejudice. You simply heard those answers, you did not see what was the undercurrent.
The undercurrent was the same: to destroy prejudice, to destroy the belief and to bring those people to real, authentic experience. That’s why I did not answer the third man, because he had no prejudice. He was so innocent that to tell him something would have been a crime. So all that I could do was, I went into meditation, and around me in the deep silence of the night… And he was an innocent man; he also fell into silence. He experienced for the first time his own inner peace – no question, no answer. And he was grateful. He touched my feet, saying that I had solved his trouble.”
The work of a master is very complex because he is working with so many people of different prejudices, different conditionings – and he has to shatter them all and make people absolutely clean, just as they were born, knowing nothing. But that knowing nothing was such a beautiful flower in the child. It filled him with wonder.
Knowledge kills wonder. Not knowing fills you with mysterious experience.
Tags: Belief Systems Knowing Beyond Logic Logic Is Not The Way To Life Purpose Of Meditation Three Aspects Train The Intellect
