Beyond Mind to Awareness_

 

Mind has 2 Centers

The Second Question:

Yes, the center of right knowledge, praman, is still within the mind. Ignorance is of the mind; knowledge is also of the mind. When you go beyond mind, there is neither; there is neither ignorance nor knowledge. Knowledge is also a disease. It is a good disease, a golden one, but it is a disease! So, really, Buddha cannot be said that he knows; he cannot be said that he doesn't know. He has gone beyond. Nothing can be asserted about it, whether he knows or whether is ignorant.

When there is no mind, how can you know or not know? Knowing is through mind, not knowing is also through mind. Through mind you can know wrongly, through mind you can know rightly. When there is no mind, knowledge and ignorance both cease. This will be difficult to understand, but it is easy if you follow: mind knows, so mind can be ignorant; when there is no-mind how can you be ignorant and how can you be knowing? You are, but knowing and not knowing both have ceased.

Mind has two centers; one, of right knowledge. If that center functions it starts functioning through concentration, meditation, contemplation, prayer - then whatsoever you know is true. There is a wrong center: it functions if you are sleepy, live in a hypnotic-like state, intoxicated with something or other-sex, music, drugs or anything.

You can be addicted with food; then it becomes an intoxicant. You may be eating too much. You are mad, obsessed, with food. Then food becomes alcohol. Anything that takes possession of your mind, anything without which you cannot live, it becomes intoxicating. So if you live through intoxicants then your center of wrong knowledge functions, and whatsoever you know is false, untrue. You live in a world of lies.

But these both centers belong to the mind. When mind drops and meditation has come to its totality... In Sanskrit we have two terms: one term is dhyana; dhyana means meditation; another term is samadhi: samadhi means perfect meditation where even meditation has become unnecessary, where even to do meditation is meaningless. You cannot do it, you have become it - then it is samadhi.

In this state of samadhi there is no mind. And there is neither knowledge nor ignorance, there is only pure being. This pure being is a totally different dimension. It is not a dimension of knowing, it is a dimension of being.

Even if such a man, Buddha or a Jesus, wants to communicate to you, he will have to use mind. For communication, he will have to use mind. And if you ask a certain question, he will have to use his center of the mind for right knowledge. Mind is the instrument of communication, of thinking, of knowing.

But when you are not asking anything and Buddha is sitting under his bodhi tree, he is neither ignorant nor a knower. He is there. Really, there is no difference between the tree and the Buddha. There is difference, but in a way there is no difference. He has become just as if a tree exists; he just exists. There is no movement, even of knowledge. The sun will rise, but he will not know that sun has risen. Not that he will remain ignorant - no, simply that is not now his movement. He has become so silent, so still, that nothing moves. He is just like the tree. Tree is totally ignorant. Or, you can say tree is just below the mind. The mind has not started functioning. The tree will become man in some life, the tree will become mad like you in some life, and the tree will try for meditation in some life, and the tree will also become one day a Buddha. The tree is below mind, and Buddha sitting under the tree is beyond mind. They both are mindless. One is still to attain the mind, and one has attained and crossed over it.

So when mind is transcended, when no-mind is achieved, you are a pure being, satchitananda. There is no happening in you. Neither action is there, nor knowing is there. But it is difficult for us. Scriptures go on saying that all duality is transcended.

Knowledge is also part of duality - ignorance, knowledge. But so-called saints go on saying that Buddha has become "a knower". Then we are clinging to the duality. That's why Buddha never answers. Many times, millions of times it has been asked to him, "What happens when a person becomes a Buddha?" He remains silent. He says, "Become and know." Nothing can be said about what happens, because whatsoever can be said will be said in your language, and your language is basically dualistic. So whatsoever can be said will be untrue.

If it is said that he knows it will be untrue, if it is said that he has become immortal it will be untrue, if it is said that now he has achieved bliss, it will be untrue - because all duality disappears. Misery disappears, happiness disappears. Ignorance disappears, knowledge disappears. Darkness disappears, light disappears. Death disappears, life disappears. Nothing can be said. Or, only this much can be said-that whatsoever you can think will not be there, whatsoever you can conceive will not be there. And the only way is to become that. Then only you know.

The third question:

The first thing: out of hundred cases, ninety-nine cases will be of imagination. You imagine - that's why, to a Christian, Krishna never appears in visions; to a Hindu, Mohammed never appears in his visions. Leave Mohammed and Jesus; they are far away. But to a Jain, Ram never appears in his visions. Cannot appear. To a Hindu, Mahavira never appears. Why? You don't have any imagination for Mahavira.

If you are born a Hindu, you have been fed with the concept of Ram and Krishna. If you are born a Christian and you have been fed - your bio-computer, your mind, has been fed - with the image of Jesus. Whenever you start meditating, the fed-in image comes up in the mind; it flashes in the mind.

Jesus appears to you; Jesus never appears to Jews. And he was a Jew. He was born a Jew, he died a Jew, but he never appears to Jews because they never believed in him. They thought he was just a vagabond & they crucified him as a criminal. Jesus never appears to Jews; he belonged to Jews - he had Jewish blood and bones.

I have heard a joke...

In Nazi Germany, soldiers of Hitler were killing Jews in a town. They had killed many. Few Jews escaped. It was a Sunday morning. They escaped; they reached in a church because they thought that it would be the best hiding place, a Christian church. The church was filled with Christians; it was a Sunday morning. So a dozen Jews were hiding there.

But the soldiers got the news that some Jews have gone to the church and they are hiding there, so they went into the church. They told the priest that, "Stop your services!" The leader of the soldiers went to the rostrum and said that "You cannot deceive us. There are a few Jews hiding here. So anyone who is a Jew should go out and stand in a line. If you follow our orders you can save yourself. If someone tries to deceive, he will be killed immediately."

So, by and by, Jews came out of the church and they stood in a line. Then suddenly the whole crowd in the church became aware that Jesus has disappeared, the statue of Jesus. He was also a Jew, so he was standing outside in the line.

But Jesus never appears to Jews. He was not a Christian. He never belonged to any Christian church. If he comes back, he cannot recognize a Christian church, he will move to the synagogue; he will go to the Jewish community. He will go to see the rabbi; he cannot go to see a Catholic or Protestant priest. He doesn't know. But he never appears to Jews because he has never been a seed into their imaginations. They refused him, so the seed is not there.

So whatsoever happens, ninety-nine percent possibilities are it may be just fed-in knowledge, concepts, images. They flash before your mind, and when you start meditating you become sensitive. You become so sensitive that you can become a victim of your own imagination. And the imagination will look so real, and there is no way to judge whether it is real or unreal.

Only in one percent cases it will not be imaginary, but how to know? In that one percent of case, there will be no image really. You will not feel that Jesus standing before you crucified, you will not feel Krishna standing before you, dancing with him, you will feel the presence, but there will be no image, remember this. You will feel a descendence of divine presence. You will be filled with something unknown, but without any form. There will be no dancing Krishna and there will be no crucified Jesus and there will be no Buddha sitting in siddhasan, no! There will simply be a presence, a vital presence that is flowing within you, in and out. You are overwhelmed, you are in the ocean of it.

Jesus will not be within you, you will be in Jesus. That will be the difference. Krishna will not be in your mind, an image, you will be in Krishna. But then Krishna will be formless. It will be an experience, but not an image.

Then, why call it Krishna? There will be no form. Why call it Jesus? These are simply symbols, linguistic symbols. You are acquainted with the word "Jesus", so when that presence fills you and you become part of it a vibrating part of it; when you become a drop in that ocean, how to express it? You know the most beautiful word for you may be "Jesus" or the most beautiful word may be "Buddha" or "Krishna" - these words are fed in the mind, so you choose certain words to indicate that presence.

But that presence is not an image; it is not a dream. It is not a vision at all. You can use Jesus, you can use Krishna, you can use Christ, or whatsoever, whatsoever name has appeal to you, whatsoever name has a love appeal for you. That's up to you. That word and that name and that image will come from your mind, but the experience itself is imageless. It is not an imagination.

One Catholic priest was visiting a Zen Master, Nan-in. Nan-in has never heard about Jesus, so this Catholic priest thought, "It will be good. I should go and read some parts from THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT, and I will see how Nan-in reacts. And people say that he is enlightened."

So that Catholic priest went to Nan-in and he said, "Master, I am a Christian, and I have got a book and I love it. And I would like to read something from it just to know how you respond, how you react." So he read a few lines from THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT - New Testament. He translated it into Japanese because Nan-in could understand only Japanese.

When he started translating, the whole face of Nan-in changed completely. Tears started flowing from his eyes, and he says, "These are the words of Buddha." The Christian priest said, "No, no, these are the words of Jesus." But Nan-in said, "Whatsoever you give the name, but I feel these are the words of the Buddha because I know only Buddha and these words can come only through Buddha. And if you say they have come through Jesus, then Jesus was a Buddha; that doesn't make any difference. Then I will tell my disciples that Jesus was a Buddhist."

This will be the feeling. If you feel the presence of the divine, then names are just immaterial. Names are bound to be different for everyone because names come from education, names come from culture, names come from the race you belong. But that experience doesn't belong to any society, that experience does not belong to any culture, that experience doesn't belong to your mind, the computer - it belongs to you.

So, remember, if you see visions, they are imagination. If you start feeling presences - formless, existential experiences - envelop in them, merge in them, melt in them, then you are really in contact.

You can call that presence Jesus, you can call that presence Buddha, it depends on you; it makes no difference. Jesus is a Buddha and Buddha is a Christ. Those who have gone beyond the mind, they have also gone beyond personalities. They have also gone beyond forms. If Jesus and Buddha are standing together, there will be two bodies, but one soul. There will be two bodies, but not two presences, one presence.

It is just like you put two lamps in a room. The lamps are two, just their bodies, but the light has become one. You cannot demarcate that this light belongs to this lamp and that light belongs to that lamp. The lights have merged. Only the material part of the lamp has remained separate, but the non-material part has become one.

If Buddha and Jesus come close, if they stand together, you will see two lamps, separate, but their lights have already merged. They have become one. All those who have known truth have become one. Their names are different for their followers; for them, now there are no names.

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