VBT – Week’s Meditation 59
Identification Is Ignorance
When Buddha attained he was asked, “What have you achieved?” He said, “Nothing. On the contrary, I have lost much. I have not attained anything because now I know that whatsoever I have attained was always there; it was my nature. It was never taken away from me, so I have not achieved anything. I have achieved that which was already there, which was already achieved. I have lost only my ignorance.”
Identification is ignorance. It is part of this great play – this cosmic LEELA, this cosmic play – that you will have to lose yourself to find yourself again. This losing yourself is just a way, and the only way, to regain yourself. If you have lost too much already, you can regain. If you have not yet lost yourself enough, you will have to lose more. And nothing can be done before that; no help is possible before that. Unless you are lost completely in the valley, in the darkness, in the SANSARA, in the world, nothing can be done. Lose so that you can gain. This looks paradoxical, but this is how the world is, how the very process is.
You become original only when you transcend your mind. When the mind is dropped, and the consciousness faces existence directly, immediately, moment to moment in contact with existence, you become original. Then for the first time you are authentically your own. Otherwise all ideas are borrowed. You may quote scriptures, you may know by heart all the Vedas, the Koran, the Gita, the Bible, but that makes no difference – they are not your own. And knowledge that is not your own is dangerous, more dangerous than ignorance, because it is a hidden ignorance and you will not be able to see that you are deceiving yourself. You are carrying false coins and thinking you are a rich man, carrying false stones and thinking they are Kohinoors. Sooner or later your poverty will be revealed. Then you will be shocked.
This happens whenever you die, whenever death comes near. In the shock that death gives to you, suddenly you become aware that you have not gained anything – because only that is gained which is gained in being.
You have accumulated fragments of knowledge from here and there, you may have become a great encyclopaedia, but that is not the point. And particularly for those who are in search of truth, it is a barrier, not a help. Knowledge has to be transcended.
When there is no knowledge, knowing happens, because knowing is your quality – the quality of consciousness. It is just like a mirror: the mirror reflects whatsoever is there; consciousness reflects the truth that is always in front of you, just at the tip of your nose.
But the mind is in between – and the mind goes on chattering, and the truth remains just in front of you and the mind goes on chattering. And you go with the mind. You miss it. Mind is greatly missing.
Knowledge is borrowed, realise this. The very realisation becomes a dropping of it. You don’t have to do anything. Simply realise that whatsoever you know you have heard, you have not known it. You have read it, you have not realised it; it is not a revelation to you, it is a conditioning of the mind. It has been taught to you – you have not learned it. Truth can be learned, cannot be taught.
Learning means being responsive to whatsoever is around you – that which is, to be responsive to it. This is great learning, but not knowledge.
There is no way to find truth – except through finding it. There is no shortcut to it. You cannot borrow, you cannot steal, you cannot deceive, to get to it. There is simply no way unless you are without any mind within you – because mind is a wavering, mind is a continuous trembling; mind is never unmoving, it is a movement. Mind is just like a breeze, continuously flowing, and the flame goes on wavering. When the mind is not there the breeze stops, and the flame becomes unmoving. When your consciousness is an unmoving flame, you know the truth. You have to learn how not to follow the mind.
Nobody can give you the truth, nobody, not even a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna – nobody can give it to you. And it is beautiful that nobody can give it to you, otherwise it would become a commodity in the market. If it can be given, then it can also be sold. If it can be given, then it can also be stolen. If it can be given then you can take it from your friend, borrow it. It is beautiful that truth is not transferable in any way. Unless you reach it, you cannot reach it. Unless you become it, you never have it. In fact, it is not something you can have. It is not a commodity, a thing, a thought. You can be it, but you cannot have it.
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