VBT – Meditation 62.4
Ever-Virgin Sky
Remember the sky, allow the wandering, and just say, “Okay, it is just traffic on the road. Many people are moving this way and that. The same traffic is going on in the mind. I am just the sky, not the cloud.” Feel it, remember it, and remain in it. Sooner or later you will feel that the clouds are slowing down and there are bigger gaps between the clouds. They are not so dark, not so dense.
The speed has slowed down, and intervals can be seen, and the sky can be looked at. Go on feeling yourself as the sky and not the clouds. Sooner or later, someday, in some right moment when your focus has really gone inwards, clouds will have disappeared and you are the sky, the ever-pure sky, the ever-virgin sky.
Once you know this virginity, you can come back to the clouds, to the world of the clouds. Then that world has its own beauty. You can move in it, but now you are a master. The world is not bad; the world as the master is the problem. With you as the master, you can move in it. Then the world has a beauty of its own. It is beautiful, it is lovely, but you need to know that beauty and that loveliness as a master within.
With this question might arise in us – When in this thoughtless awareness the buddha-mind is revealed?
The first thing: if you are aware that there is no thought in your mind, there is thought. Even this is a thought, that now there is no thought in you. This thought is the last thought. Allow it also to disappear. And why are you waiting – for when the buddha-nature is going to happen to you? That again is a thought. It will not happen in that way – never!
I will tell you one story. One king came to Gautam Buddha. He was a devotee, a great devotee, and he had come for the first time for his darshan – for his audience. In one of his hands, in his left hand, he had one beautiful golden ornament, priceless, with many jewels in it. It was the most precious that he had – a rare piece of art. He had come to present it to Buddha just to show his devotion. He came near. In his left hand was that priceless jeweled ornament; he was going to present it. Buddha said, “Drop it!” He was disturbed. He never expected this. He was shocked. But because Buddha was saying “Drop it”, he dropped it.
In his other hand, in his right hand, he had brought a beautiful rose. He thought that Buddha might not like stones. He might just think that this was a childish thing that he had brought. But it was good to have an alternative, so he brought a beautiful rose. A rose is not so gross, not so material.
It has a spirituality, something of the unknown is there. And Buddha might like it because he says life is flux, and the flower is in the morning and in the evening it is no more. It is the most flux-like thing in the world. So he put his other hand in front of Buddha and he wanted to present the flower.
Buddha again said, “Drop it!” Then he felt very disturbed. Now he had nothing to present. But when Buddha again said to drop it, he dropped it.
Then suddenly he became aware of the “I.” He thought, “Why am I presenting things when I can present myself?” When he became aware, with both his hands empty he presented himself. But Buddha again said, “Drop it!” Now he had nothing to drop – just empty hands – and Buddha said, “Drop it!”
Mahakashyapa, Sariputta, Ananda and his other disciples were there, and they started laughing.
The man became aware that even to say that “I present myself to you” is egoistic. Even to say, “Now I am here and I surrender to you,” is not surrender. So he himself fell down. Buddha smiled and said, “You understand well.”
Tags: Ever-Virgin Sky
