The Upward_Flow Of_The Mind

UNMANI BHAAVAH PADDYAM

I am reminded of a Zen monk, Rinzai.

Rinzai is sleeping in his poor hut. A thief comes in at midnight. It is a full-moon night and a thief comes in. The light of the moon is coming in, the doors are open. There is no need to close the doors because he has nothing. He has only one blanket in which he is asleep. So the thief goes around the hut and finds nothing. Rinzai is awake. He feels very sorry for the thief because there is nothing. And he doesn't want to disturb him either, because he can give the blanket - that is the only thing - but the thief will be disturbed. He may even run. So he suddenly laughs. The thief is stunned. Rinzai throws the blanket over him and runs away. The thief follows. What has happened? The whole thing has become just a confusion. So the thief follows him, catches him by the hand and asks him, "What are you doing?"

Rinzai says, "I am just confusing my mechanism. You are not concerned at all. Don't worry. It was just a coincidence that you came in. I was just experimenting with myself."

What to do? Traditional answers are always ready. Use your fantasy, use your imagination, because your mechanism is the least imaginative thing - the least imaginative! It is very much traditional and orthodox. Understand what I am saying: it is orthodox, traditional. You have been angry the same way always. Innovate something, use your imagination, be creative, and confuse the current. The more you are capable of confusing the current, the more you will transcend it.

So the second thing: use unusual expressions. Don't allow the routine. The more you allow it, the more powerful it goes on becoming.

The thief just fell at the feet of Rinzai, and he said, "If you can use such things, allow me to use myself also. You ran like a thief and you are the master of the house. You confounded me. I have been in many, many situations, but never like this. You have hypnotized me also. You are the first man who has not behaved with me as a thief, who has not thought about me as a thief, so I cannot leave you now. Everyone has tried with me that I should leave this profession, and I had my own reactions. But with you I change. Now initiate me into your path."

Rinzai said, "How can I initiate you? Really, when I laughed, in that moment I became Enlightened. When I laughed, I became Enlightened! I was trying and trying and trying; I had been meditating for years and nothing happened. But in that moment of laughter, something broke down, something exploded; I became disconnected from myself. So you are my teacher, really - you have initiated me."

Use something absolutely absurd such as Zen monks have been using. If you go to a Zen teacher, you can never conceive what his answer will be. If you go to a Hindu teacher, a Hindu guru, your question can show you what the answer is going to be. The answer is predictable. And whenever the answer is predictable, it is useless: it is useless because it is routine. So if you go to a teacher, you can know that if you ask "this", he will answer "this". But you can never know with a Zen teacher. Everything is possible, and nothing is impossible. He may answer, he may not answer. He may answer in such a way which is not at all connected with your question - not at all!

You may have asked, "Is there a God?" and a Zen teacher might answer, "Look! the sun has gone down. The evening is to come" - not related at all. Someone may ask, "What is a Buddha?" and a Zen teacher might just beat you or throw you out of the window. Why? Really, they are not answering you. They are just trying to create a gap between your questioning mind and the answer - a gap!

If you ask, "Is there a God?" and I throw you out of the window, how can you relate these two? - no relation. If I answer, "There is no God," it is related. If I say, "There is a God," it is related. My theist answer, my atheist answer - all are related. They don't create the gap. But if I begin to beat you or I just begin to dance, I just begin to laugh, just a mad laugh - it is not related. And if you can be unrelated, unhitched from your routine track, if you can be derailed from the track, something has happened. And it has happened many times that the seeker is thrown out of the window, and he comes back to touch the feet of the Master and say, "Much has happened, and I never dreamt about it. And my question was not even related, but you have replied to me."

Bodhidharma

The first Zen teacher from India, Bodhidharma, went to China. He introduced Zen there. ZEN is really the Chinese form of dhyan - meditation. Dhyan is Sanskrit, and the equivalent of dhyan in Pali, the Buddhist language, is zhan. So zhan in China became chan, then zen in Japan. When Bodhidharma reached China, the Emperor Wu came to receive him. When he entered the boundary where he was to be received, many thousands of monks were there. No one could conceive that Bodhidharma would enter in such a way: one foot was naked; on one foot there was a shoe and another shoe was on his head. He entered with a shoe on his head!

The Emperor Wu was just bewildered: "What type of man is this? Is he mad?" Wu became worried, and Bodhidharma laughed. Bodhidharma said, "You must be thinking the man is mad. I can predict you, but you cannot predict me: that is the difference. That is the difference! You must be thinking I am mad. You have not said so, but I can predict. You cannot predict me: that is the difference."

Become unpredictable: this is the second thing. If you are predictable, you are a thing, not a person. The more unpredictable, the more you are not a thing - not just a thing among things. You become a person. So the second thing against the current: be unpredictable. Sometimes be absurd. Just don't try to be logical because the current is logical. Remember this: the current is very logical - strictly logical. Everything is related. You insult me: I am angry. You appreciate me: I am happy. You call me good and I am one way; and you call me bad and I am different. Everything is predictable, it is logical.

Really, if you are angry and I don't reply to you with anger, you will feel something strange has happened. You will not be at ease. You will not be at ease because something illogical has come in. We live in a logical world. This current is very logical, mathematical; everything is fixed. Unfix it! Disturb it! Create a chaos! Create an inner anarchy! Only then can you throw the animal heritage. Animals are predictable and animals are very logical. To transcend them you must have the courage to be illogical, and that is the deepest courage - to be illogical.

Jesus says, "Those who have will be given more, and those who have not, even that will be taken away." This is illogical. This is absolutely illogical! What does he mean? He is using some Zen words. If you look in the words of Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu, you will find that they are not logical. If you ask a Buddha, "I will be good, virtuous, I will follow - what will I gain?" he will say, "Nothing! You will not gain anything - nothing!"

Emperor Wu

This Emperor Wu asked Bodhidharma, "I have donated millions for the purpose of Buddhism; I have opened many monasteries; ten thousand monks are fed daily in my palace - so what will be the result? What will I gain?"

And Bodhidharma said, "Nothing! And if you insist more, you may even fall down into hell. If you insist more, you may even fall down into the deepest hell!"

Looks illogical.

Even the ten thousand monks were just afraid: "What is he saying? He may destroy the whole business" - because they were trying to persuade the Emperor that he will get into a high heaven, that he will be just by the side of the Divine Emperor, the Divine throne. He will be just by the side, and he will have a place there. And ten-thousandfold of whatsoever he is giving here, he will get back. But this man is destroying everything. He says, "Nothing!"

Bodhidharma is illogical; Wu is logical.

Wu again asked, "Are you joking? - because I have done so much. Is it not holy?"

And Bodhidharma said, "There is nothing holy. The word 'holy' is just empty. And if you insist more, you will fall down into a deep hell."

The Emperor Wu said, "We have no communication between us. What you are saying, I cannot understand; and what I am saying, I think you are not hearing."

Bodhidharma said, "Yes! How can there be communication between me and you? Either you come up or I must come down; only then can we meet somewhere. And I am not ready to come down - you try to come up." But it didn't happen, so Bodhidharma remained outside the Empire and the Emperor went back to his palace.

After ten years, when he was dying, the Emperor remembered. When death came, every logical system was shattered. Then he became afraid of whether anything was going to happen because "I have fed these bhikkhus, and I have made so many temples and viharas and so many monasteries, but this death is there." Then he remembered the monk, Bodhidharma, and he asked, "Bring him back. If he is found anywhere, bring him back soon, because I am dying and death has shattered all my logic and rationality. Now only that man can help."

But Bodhidharma was dead. He had died one year before, but he had left a message for the Emperor Wu and said to his disciples, "One day when he faces death he will remember me - because I was just a death to him, to his whole expectation, to all his desires, to his whole fantasy about the other world. I was just a death to him. And when death comes and when death shatters his hopes, he will remember me." So he had left a message for Wu. That message was given. In the message it was written again, "You cannot predict me, but I can predict you. When you die you will remember me. I can even predict what you will remember when you die - because death is illogical."

Really, if you can understand, life is illogical, death is illogical, love is illogical, God is illogical, and all that is logical is just marketplace. In this life everything that is meaningful, significant, deep, ultimate, is illogical. So create an illogical-ness inside. Don't be too logical - then you can break. Logic is the foundation of your old mind, your traditional mind. Illogic should be the beginning of the new mind.

And, thirdly, whenever you feel convenience, comfort, easiness, be alert: the mind is flowing downward. So don't ask for inner comfort, otherwise you will be lost. Don't ask for inner convenience, otherwise you will be lost. Whenever you feel everything is okay, be alert, you are flowing downward - because nothing is okay really. So whenever you feel that everything is okay, nothing is to be done and everything is just flowing, everything is good, remember, you are flowing downward. Be aware of inner conveniences. And when I say "comfort and convenience", I mean inner ones. Outwardly it makes no difference - you may be in comfort outwardly - but inwardly never allow comfort to set in.

That's why no one remembers religion when he feels happy. When you feel sorrow, when you feel sadness, when you feel misery, you begin to think about religion. Inconvenience inside must be used. So two things: first remember always that the downward flow is very convenient. Don't be a victim to it. Always create some inner inconvenience. This is TAP - inner inconvenience. This is TAP - this is austerity. What do I mean by inner inconvenience?

You are sleeping, relaxed: create an inner inconvenience. Let the body relax, but don't relax the alertness. Sufis have used vigil, night vigil, as an inner inconvenience. The whole night they will be on vigil. In India, sleep was never used, really - food and hunger were used as inner inconveniences.

The hunger is there: don't take food. The hunger is there: remember it, be aware of it, and yet be away from it. An inner inconvenience is created. The mind has a habit to fall for the convenience, so create any inner inconvenience. And always go on changing, because if you are fixed to one thing it will not be an inconvenience for long.

You can even become fixed to your fasting, then it becomes a convenience rather than an inconvenience, because to take food may begin to appear as an inconvenience. Once you know that the body can run without food - the body begins to feel more light, the body begins to feel more alive, the body begins to feel more vital; and the body has a built-in process so that for at least three months you can be without food, without any food - after seven or eight days, to take food will be inconvenient. So use fasting as an inconvenience, and when fasting begins to settle, use food.

Gurdjieff was strange in this. He would give you such strange foods - such strange foods you have never eaten! The whole stomach would be disturbed, and he would create inconvenience. Such strange foods - Chinese foods, Indian foods, Caucasian foods - he would use in New York. With him, whenever he was travelling, a whole truck of strange foods would follow. And his followers were very much afraid because he would force them to eat so much that it became a torture. From eight in the night up to twelve - four hours - would be for eating, and he would be there. He would go on forcing - no one could say no, He would force so much alcohol that ordinarily it would just make you deadly unconscious, but he would go on. He would create inner inconvenience and he would say, "Let the inconvenience be there. Remember! Be awake!"

He would go on pouring alcohol, and he would say, "Remember! Remember, and be awake!" Tantrics have used alcohol, and a real tantric can take any amount of it without being affected at all. They say, and they say rightly, that alcohol creates the deepest inconvenience inside. To fight with it and remain aware is the most arduous thing. When the alcohol goes in, and every body cell becomes lethargic, and the chemical begins to work, and the mind begins to lose consciousness, then to be aware is the most arduous TAP - austerity - possible. But it is possible, and once it happens you will never be the same again.

So create any inner inconvenience. The current always helps you to be convenient: that is a trick; then you begin to flow with it. So the third thing for the upward flow of the mind is to create inward inconvenience continuously, and go on changing. You can make anything a habit - go on changing. When something becomes convenient, leave it; create something new. Then, by these inconveniences, you create a crystallization inside. You become integrated, one. And for this oneness, this integration, this chemical crystallization, alchemists use the word "gold". Now the baser metal has been changed into higher. Now you are gold. This integration is the third point to remember.

So continuously be aware that some integration must take place. No moment should be missed in which you have not tried to integrate yourself. You are walking: a moment comes when your legs give way, and they say, "Now you cannot move." That is the point to move. Now move! Now don't listen to the legs, and you will become aware of a subtle force - because the body has two force reservoirs. One is just ordinary, for day-to-day use. Another, a deeper one, is infinite. It is not for everyday use: it only comes into operation when some emergency is there.

You are walking: you have walked twenty miles, and now you know very well, your logic says, your mind says, every fibre of the body says that now no movement is possible - you will just drop dead. A single step more, and you will drop dead! This is the moment: now move! Don't listen to the body! Now run! Don't listen to the body, and suddenly there will be an upsurge of energy again. Within moments you will feel a new energy, and now you can walk for miles together. This energy comes from the reservoir, and this reservoir is connected only when the day-to-day energy source is just empty. If you listen to the body then this reservoir is never used.

You are feeling sleepy, and now you cannot even open your eyes. This is the moment. Stand! Open your eyes! Stare! Don't blink! Forget sleep and try to be awake - and within seconds a sudden upsurge of energy will overflow. There will be no sleep. You will be fresher than you have ever been in the morning. A new morning, an inside morning has happened. A deeper source energy has come. This is how to integrate your mind and how to let it be arrowed upwards continuously.

The rishi says, "The upward flow of the mind is the water for Divine worship," mmm? No other water will do. This constant upward flow, by this and only by this can you worship the feet of the Divine.

 

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