This Voyage

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.

The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, compassionate and cruel – the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.”

The other creatures laughed and said, “Fool! Let go, and that current will throw you tumbling and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!”

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, “See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!”

And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.”

But they cried more, “Savior!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone, and began making legends of a Savior.

Be Adventurous

If we want to be joyful then we need to let go of what we are clinging to. Clinging is nothing but boredom.

Life is not boring, but the mind is boring. And we create such a mind, such a strong mind, like a China Wall around ourselves, that it does not allow life to enter into us. It disconnects us from life. We become isolated, encapsulated, windowless. Living behind a prison wall you don’t see the morning sun, you don’t see the birds on the wing, you don’t see the sky in the night full of stars. And, of course, you start thinking that life is boring. Your conclusion is wrong. you are in a wrong space; you are living in a wrong context.

To make life boring one has to be religious; one has to be very scholarly. One has to know Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. One has to learn much from the Vedas and the Koran and the Bible. You must be very well-informed. A man who is too well-informed, too knowledgeable, creates such a thick wall of words – futile words, empty words – around himself that he becomes incapable of seeing life.

Knowledge is a barrier to life.

Put aside your knowledge! And then look with empty eyes…and life is a constant surprise. And I am not talking about some divine life – the ordinary life is so extraordinary. In small incidents you will find the presence of God – a child giggling, a dog barking, a peacock dancing. But you can’t see if your eyes are covered with knowledge. The poorest man in the world is the man who lives behind a curtain of knowledge.

The poorest are those who live through the mind. The richest are those who have opened the windows of no-mind and approached life with the no-mind.

This is not only your experience; you are not alone in it. In fact, the majority of people will agree. They don’t find any surprises anywhere. And each moment there are surprises and surprises because life is never the same; it is constantly changing, and it takes such unpredictable turns. How can you remain unaffected by the very wonder of it? The only way to remain unaffected is to cling to your past, to your experience, to your knowledge, to your memories, to your mind. Then you cannot see that which is; you go on missing the present.

Miss the present and you live in boredom. BE in the present and you will be surprised that there is no boredom at all. Start by looking around a little more like a child. Be a child again! That’s what meditation is all about: being a child again – a rebirth, being innocent again, not-knowing. The Master says: not-knowing is the most intimate.

Don’t live as if you know. You know nothing! All that you know is about and about. The moment you know something, boredom disappears. Knowing is such an adventure that boredom cannot exist. With knowledge of course it can exist; with knowing it cannot exist.

Learning from the story This Voyage:  Be Adventurous

Experience Learning

Nobody ever loses anything by being adventurous. I am not saying that the path of adventure is full of roses – it is not… But one grows, one becomes crystallized when one accepts a life of adventure.

Meditation is adventure, the greatest adventure the human mind can undertake. Meditation is just to be – no action, no thought, no emotion. You just are, and it is sheer delight.

The first step towards meditation begins with your body. So remember, whatever negative feelings you may have about your body that other people have imprinted on you, drop them. The body is just an instrument in the material as well as in the spiritual world.

Love makes you meditative if it is on the right lines. Meditation makes you loving if it is on the right lines.

Ordinarily, the energy is moving away from you – towards things, targets, in the world. The energy is moving away from you, hence you feel empty. The energy goes away, never comes back; you go on throwing away energy. By and by you feel dissipated, frustrated. Nothing comes back. By and by you start to feel empty. The energy is just oozing out every day – and then comes death. Death is nothing else but that you are exhausted and spent.

The greatest miracle in life is to understand this, and to turn the energy towards home. It is a turning-in. It is not that you leave the world. You live in the world – there is no need to leave anything, or go anywhere else. You live in the world, but in a totally different way. Now you live in the world but you remain centered in yourself; your energy goes on returning to yourself.

You are no longer out-going: you have become in going. Of course you become a pool of energy, a reservoir, and energy is delight, sheer delight. Just energy there, overflowing, and you are in delight, and you can share, and you can give in love.

Wherever you go, whatsoever you do, always do it in the inner light, with awareness. That’s what meditation is all about – to become more alert. Live the same life, just change your alertness – make it more intense. Eat the same food, walk the same path, live in the same house, be with the same woman and the children, but be totally different from your inside. Be alert! Walk the same path, but with awareness. If you become aware, suddenly the path is no more the same, because you are no more the same. If you are aware, the same food is not the same, because you are not the same, the same woman is not the same, because you are not the same. Everything changes with your inner change.

If somebody changes his within, then without changes totally. My definition of the world is this – you must be living in a deep inner darkness, hence the world. If you light your inner lamp, suddenly the world disappears, and there is only the divine. The whole thing depends on your inner awareness or unawareness. That is the only change, the only transformation, the only revolution, that has to be made.