Empty Eyes

Question 3:

Fallen flowers don't jump back to the branches. That is not possible. The enlightened person cannot slide back into illusion. There is no way; for many reasons there is no way.

The first reason: the enlightened man is no more - who will slide back? Enlightenment is. There is nothing like an 'enlightened person'. Enlightenment is perfectly there, but there is nobody who is enlightened. That is just a way of speaking, a linguistic fallacy. Who will slide back? The one who could have slid back has disappeared. And where can one slide back? Once you have found it is illusion, it is no more there. When once you have seen it is no more there, it is finished! Where can you go back? It is not possible.

But the idea arises in our mind because in life we have never seen anything like that. We attain one thing and we fall back; we are in love and then we fall back out of it. We fall in love and we fall out of it. We are happy and then we become unhappy, we are feeling good and then we start feeling very bad. We know the duality, the duality never disappears, so we naturally think about enlightenment also as if one can slide back. Enlightenment is the realization of the non-dual. That's why Zen Masters say SAMSARA IS NIRVANA: the very WORLD is NIRVANA, the very illusion is truth; there is no distinction left. It is not that this is truth and that is illusion; all is truth, only truth is. Where can you fall back? You have gone beyond the point of no return. Nobody has ever fallen back.

And don't be worried about these people - you should worry about yourself. First become enlightened and then try to slide back, and then you will see - it is easier to become enlightened! It is very difficult to slide back. I have tried, but I have not been successful.

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The fourth question:

Question 4:

Suparna, you have been told again and again, you have been taught again and again, that to be joyous is wrong and to be miserable is right. You may not have been told so directly, but indirectly you have been conditioned and hypnotized for misery. You have started believing that misery is natural. You see misery all around, misery abounds, everybody is miserable. It seems to be the way things are.

When you were born, you were a happy child - as every child is happy. It has not happened otherwise, never. Whenever a child is born, s/he is happy, utterly happy. And that's why children look very selfish: they only think of themselves, they are not worried about the world. And they are happy about small things. A butterfly in the garden, and the utter joy and their wonder - at small things, at nothings; but they are happy, they are naturally happy.

But slowly slowly we cripple their happiness, we destroy it. We cannot tolerate so much happiness.

The world is very miserable and we have to prepare them for the world. So indirectly we start indoctrinating them that 'The world is misery', and that 'You cannot afford to be happy,' that 'Happiness is just a hope, how can you be happy? Don't be so selfish! There is so much misery all around - feel for others, consider others.' Slowly, slowly the child gets the feeling that to be happy is a kind of sin. How can you be happy when the world is in such misery?

People write letters to me asking: 'How can you teach people meditation when the world is in such a misery? How can one be happy when people are starving?' As if by being unhappy you will help them! As if by not being meditative you will be of any kind of service to them! As if wars will disappear. If you don't meditate, and poverty will disappear, if you are not happy!

But misery has been put on a pedestal, misery has been worshipped. I always suspect that Christianity became the greatest religion because of the cross. It represents misery, suffering. Krishna could not become a great religion because of his flute because of his dance. Even those who worship him feel a little guilty about him. How can you be so happy and dancing with girlfriends?

And not just one - thousands! And singing and playing on the flute! And people are dying and there is death and starvation and war and violence and all kinds of things are going around. It is hell, and you are playing on your flute! It seems callous, it seems cruel. Jesus seems to be more suitable, dying on the cross. Look at the face of Jesus! The way Christians have painted him his face is very long, sad. He is carrying the whole burden of the earth. He has come to take all the sins of all the people on himself. He seems to be the greatest servant - very unselfish.

But my feeling is that Christians have depicted Christ wrongly. This Christ is a myth, the real Christ was more like Krishna. In fact, if you go deep down into the word 'Christ' you will be surprised: it comes from 'Krishna'; its root is 'Krishna'. He must have been a very joyous man, otherwise how can you think of him eating, drinking, making merry? There are so many scenes where friends have gathered and they are eating and drinking and gossipping. He is not always 'gospelling', sometimes he is gossipping too! And he seems to be the only messenger from God who drinks and eats well and enjoys the small pleasures of life.

My feeling is that if Zen Masters were to create a religion out of Jesus, they would make him laugh on the cross - a belly laugh. Jesus would have as big a belly as Bodhidharma! And the belly would be shaking like an earthquake with great laughter! And that would have been more true, far more truer.

Even in Japan and China the statue of the Buddha is made with a big belly. In India they don't make that big belly, no, not at all. The Indian concept, the yogic concept is that the belly has to be very small and the chest has to be big, because the yogic breathing is a false breathing, it is not natural. It can make a Mohammed Ali out of you but not a Buddha. It will give you the shape of a Mr Universe, but have you seen any other kinds of people in the world who are more ugly? Mr Universe seems to be the ugliest. I don't think any woman can fall in love with a Mr Universe. He looks so animalistic - all muscles and no man, just a kind of mechanism. Just see his muscles moving - just a kind of mechanism, a machine, but no soul! The Indian statue of Buddha is the yogic statue. When they made Buddha's statue in China, they made it with a big belly.

When one laughs and when one breathes naturally, the belly becomes slowly bigger, because then one breathes from the belly and not from the chest - the breath goes the whole way down. If Zen were to make a religion out of Christianity Jesus would be on the cross, but with laughter, such laughter that it would resound down the centuries. But that may not have been a successful religion, because how would it suit the people who know only crying and weeping? He would look completely eccentric, outlandish. To be on the cross and sad looks perfectly right, because everybody is on a certain cross and sad.

And you must have been taught from your very childhood that the world is a wrong place. How can you be happy in this place? We are suffering a kind of punishment. God ordered Adam and Eve to leave paradise because they disobeyed, and humanity is under that curse. How can you be happy?

To be a Christian and happy will be a contradiction in terms.

So, Suparna, you must have been taught that the world is a miserable place; misery is perfectly right in it, in tune with it. And everybody is miserable; it will be very hard and cruel on your part to be happy and joyous. That's why people feel guilty and hold back even when there are moments to enjoy.

Larson took Charlotte for a drive way out in the country and parked the car in a desolate stretch. 'If you try to molest me,' said Charlotte, 'I'll scream.'

'What good would that do?' asked Larson. 'There's not a soul around for miles.'

'I know,' said Charlotte, 'but I want to satisfy my conscience before I start having a good time.'

People even make love with sad faces as if they are on the cross - serious, doing a duty. And even if they want to enjoy, they hide it, it 'doesn't look right'; they feel guilty.

If people really make love with joy, they will scream, they will shout, they will cry, they will weep, they will laugh. One never knows what kind of emotions will surface, so it is better to keep yourself in control, otherwise you will look so foolish. And then what will the neighbours think? And modern walls are so thin that you even have to make love in a yoga posture - SHAVASANA, the dead-body posture. 'And be finished with it as soon as possible, don't let it become ogasmic. What are you doing? And Jesus suffered for you on the cross! And you are shouting with joy? Think of Jesus, poor Jesus, what will he think of you? And think of God - who is a kind of peeping Torn who always looks through keyholes - what will he think?'

If you think of all the gods and then the angels and the Christs and the saints - and they are all watching you making love, and with such relish - you will suffer in hell! It is better to keep control, it is good to feel guilty. That's why after making love people feel a kind of sadness, a kind of frustration, as if they have done something criminal. Again they enjoyed themselves and 'that is not right'.

Just see. Whenever you are feeling miserable something feels good. It will look like a contradiction, but it is like this: whenever you are miserable you feel blissful and whenever you are blissful you feel miserable.

You say:

You will not be able to understand this at all because your whole understanding has been poisoned.

You will have to drop the whole mind! There is no need to understand. You have to go into it with innocence, not with understanding, because that understanding is again a kind of calculation. That understanding is again the knowledge that has been given by the society, and that knowledge is creating the whole trouble. You have to become a child again, innocent.

But you want to understand. Forget all about understanding! Understanding is again calculation, cunningness.

I have heard...

An elderly couple went to a doctor. The man said, 'We want to know if we are making love properly. Will you look at us?'

'Go ahead,' said the doctor. And they made love.

'You are making love perfectly,' the doctor said. 'That will be $50.'

They came back six weeks in a row and did the same thing. On the seventh visit the doctor said, 'What are you coming here like this for - I told you you are making love properly!'

'She can't come to my house,' said the man, 'and I can't go to her house. A motel costs more...'

Don't be calculating, don't be cunning with life. Now what kind of love will this be? Business and business and business... Knowledge is needed for business, innocence is needed for life.

Knowledge is a must in the market-place, but not needed at all when you are moving into the mysteries. You cannot know, you can only be. Drop this mind, drop all this conditioning, and start moving. When you feel joyous, Feel joyous, help yourself to feel joyous, dance, sing. The old habits will pull you back - don't listen to them.

You will have to get rid of the old habits slowly slowly. It will be a kind of struggle, because no habit leaves you easily. But these habits are against you and against God, because anything that is against joy is against God. If God can be defined by any word, that word is 'bliss' and nothing else.

Suparna, whenever you feel something beautiful and the pain arises in you, that pain is not in your being, that pain is in your mind. Your being is trying to go into the beautiful, but your mind is pulling you back. Whenever you feel love arising, bliss arising, and pain also, choose the bliss. Neglect the pain, ignore it. Ignoring it, it will die; if you go on paying attention to it you will feed it. Attention is food. Never pay attention to anything that is wrong, otherwise you are helping it to be there, you are giving it more and more strength. Ignore it - there is nothing better than ignoring it. Yes, let it be there, just say, 'Okay, you be there. You are just a hangover from my past. You be there. I am going ahead, I am not going to listen to you.'

Listen to blissful provocations, always go with them, and you are moving in the right direction - you are moving towards God. Never listen to anything that gives you guilt, pain, misery - you are moving away from God. Whenever you are miserable, you are in hell - farthest away from God - and whenever you are utterly joyous, you ARE in God, you are in heaven.

You say:

Misery is unnatural, bliss is your nature. Misery is taught by others, bliss is given by God. Misery is a conditioning, bliss is your inner soul, your essence. Misery is personality, just the structure around you; bliss is your freedom, it is unstructured.

Don't try to understand this at all. Just leave the pain there, accept it for a few days, and go into love - go into love madly. Go into beauty, dance around a tree, and you will feel something of the shape of the tree has started reaching you. Dance under the stars. In the beginning you may feel that your legs are not moving and you have to move - because you have been forced to live without dance for so long, your legs have forgotten the language of dance. But soon they will learn, because it is a natural language.

Each child knows how to dance, each child knows how to be joyous. You will have to learn it again.

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But because it is natural, it comes fast. Just a few efforts and, suddenly, one day you are out of the trap. Your crutches have to be thrown away. Even if sometimes you fall, it is perfectly good, but you have to stand on your own feet. The crutches of the society, of the organized religion, of the priests, have to be thrown even if for d few days you will feel impoverished. It is natural to feel impoverished for a few days; you have to accept it. But if you go on moving towards the natural, you will find Tao in your life.

Tao is a natural flowering. Follow nature. Nobody wants to be miserable and everybody is. They are not following nature. Nobody wants to be anything other than blissful and nobody is blissful. Listen to the desire - the deepest desire indicates the right path. Your longing is for bliss, for beauty, for something that will overwhelm you, for something that will take you to the other shore, for something which will be so tremendous and incredible that the past and the future will be washed away and you will be just herenow.

But don't try to understand. If you start trying to understand, you will become a victim of psychoanalysis. And the analysis is a process AD INFINITUM. It never ends. You can go on analyzing and analyzing and it is never finished. There is not a single person in the world who is totally psychoanalyzed, there can never be.

This is where I differ from psychoanalysis. Don't go into analysis. Put the whole mind aside. Jump out of it! There is no need to understand. All that is needed is to live, authentically live. All that is needed is to be.

 

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