VBT – Meditation 85.3
The Original Face
You may have heard about Zen koans. Zen masters give an absurd puzzle to the seeker to think about – and it is something which cannot be thought. It is given knowingly just to stop thinking. For example, they say to the seeker: ‘Go and find out what your original face is: the face you had when you were not born. Don’t think about this face which you have got; think of the face you had before birth.’
How – Can you think about it? There was no face before birth; the face comes with the birth. The face is part of the body. You have no face; only the body has a face. Close your eyes and you have no face. You know about your face through the mirror. You have not seen it yourself, and you cannot see it, so how can one think about the original face??? But one can try; the very effort will help.
The seeker will try and try – and it is impossible. He will come to the master again and again, asking, ‘Is this the original face?’ And before he says it to the master, the master says, ‘It is wrong. Whatsoever you bring is going to be wrong.’
For months together the seeker comes again and again. He finds something, imagines something, and he sees the face – ‘The original face is like this?’ And the master says, ‘No.’ And every time this ‘No, no’, and by and by he becomes more and more puzzled. He cannot think. He tries and tries and tries and fails – that failure is the basic thing. One day he comes to a total failure. All thinking stops in that total failure and he comes to realize that the original face cannot be thought of. Thinking stops.
And whenever this last time happens to a seeker, when he comes to the master, the master says, ‘Now there is no need. I see the original face.’ The eyes have become vacant. The seeker has come not to say something, but just to be near the master. He has not found any answer. There was none.
He has come for the first time without an answer. There is no answer to it. He comes silently.
Every time he had come he had some answer. The mind was there, the thought was there – he was limited by that thought. He had found or imagined some face – he was limited by that face. Now he has become original; now there is no limit. Now he has got no face, no idea, no thought. He has come without any mind. This is the state of no-mind.
In this state of no-mind, the limited-self unlimits. The limits are dissolved. Suddenly you are everywhere, suddenly you are everyone. Suddenly you are in the tree and in the stone and in the sky and in the friend and in the enemy – suddenly you are everywhere. The whole existence has become just a mirror – you are everywhere, mirrored. This state is the state of bliss. Now nothing can disturb you, because nothing exists except you. Now nothing can destroy you; nothing exists except you. Now there is no death, because even in death you are. Now nothing is opposed to you.
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