Reaching the Source

COMMENT:

Sat Prem came to me last night. Vipassana is on her deathbed. He was very worried, shaken, immensely shaken, and rightly so. The moment of death of someone you have loved deeply brings your own death into your mind. The moment of death is a great revelation. It makes you feel impotent, helpless. It makes you feel that you are not. The illusion of being disappears.

Sat Prem was crying. He is not a man to cry easily, he is not a man to feel helpless easily; tears will not come to him. But he was shaken. Anybody will be shaken - because suddenly you see that the ground underneath your feet has disappeared. You cannot do anything. Somebody is dying that you love. You would even like to give your life, but you cannot. Nothing can be done. One simply waits in deep impotence.

That moment can make you depressed, that moment can make you sad, or that moment can send you on a great journey for truth - a great journey in the search for the bull.

What is this life? If death comes and takes it, what is this life? What meaning does it carry if one is so impotent against death? And remember, not only is Vipassana on her deathbed - everybody is on his or her deathbed. After birth everybody is on his deathbed. There is no other way. All beds are deathbeds, because after birth only one thing is certain, and that is death.

You are also dying, not only Vipassana. Maybe you are a little farther away in the queue, but that is only a question of time. Somebody dies today, somebody tomorrow, somebody the day after tomorrow. What is the difference basically? Time cannot make much difference. Time can only create an illusion of life, but the life that ends in death is not, and cannot be, the real life. It must be a dream. I would like you to become aware of it; then your search for the bull starts.

The search for the bull is the search for the real life, the authentic life, which knows no death. Life is authentic only when it is eternal. Otherwise, what is the difference between a dream and what you call your life? In the night, deep asleep, a dream is as true as anything, as real - even more real than what you see with open eyes. By the morning it is gone; not even a trace is left. In the morning when you are awake you see it was a dream and not a reality. This dream of life continues for a few years; then suddenly one is awakened, and the whole life proves to be a dream.

Death is a great revelation. If there were no death there would have been no religion. It is because of death that religion exists. It is because of death that a Buddha was born. All buddhas are born because of the realization of death.

Buddha passed down a street and he came across a dead man. He asked his servant, the driver who was taking him in the chariot, "What has happened to this man? What has happened to this man?"

And the charioteer could not lie. He wanted to lie - that's what we are doing to each other - he wanted to lie to this young prince: Why unnecessarily disturb him? He is so young now. Why should he be bothered about death?

The story is beautiful. It says that he was just going to lie and avoid it and give some explanation or other, but the gods in heaven were watching and they immediately came into his being; they possessed him: The truth must be spoken; otherwise this Gautam Siddhartha will miss. They forced the driver to speak the truth. And in spite of himself, the driver found himself saying, "This man is dead, and everybody is going to be like that - even you, sir!"

"Even me?" Buddha asked. "Then take me back home. Then there is nowhere to go, then this whole life is false. I must not waste my time; then I must seek the eternal."

That is the search for the bull.

Go, sit by the side of Vipassana - feel death. Don't feel sorry for her. If you feel sorry for her, you miss the whole point. You miss a great opportunity, a great door. Don't feel sorry for her; there is no need to feel sorry for her. She is perfectly beautiful. She is leaving this world with something gained inside.

The day she came to me, I became apprehensive and aware that her breathing was not right. Hence the name Vipassana. Vipassana means, awareness of breath. And I had told her to be as aware of her breath as possible. She was going to die - when was not important - and she was going to die by some deep breathing trouble. Her breathing was not rhythmic.

But she worked hard, and I am happy that she is dying with a certain integration, so she is not dying uselessly. Don't feel sorry for her at all. You can, on the contrary, feel happy for her. She has worked hard. And whatsoever she has attained, she is going to carry into her other life. She has used this opportunity as well as possible - so whether she survives or dies is immaterial.

When you go and sit by her side, feel sorry for yourself. You are in the same boat, in the same plight. Death will knock on your door any day. Be ready. Before death comes, find the bull. Before death knocks, come back home. You should not be caught in the middle; otherwise this whole life disappears like a dream, and you are left in tremendous poverty, inner poverty.

The search for the bull is the search for the energy, the eternal energy, the very dynamic energy, of life. It knows no death. It passes through many deaths. Each death is a door for a new formation.

Each death is a cleansing. Each death is an unburdening. Each death simply relieves you of the old.

Life, real life, never dies. Then who dies? You die. The 'I' dies, the ego dies. Ego is part of death; life is not. So if you can be egoless, then there is no death for you. If you can drop the ego consciously, you have conquered death. And in the search for the bull, the only thing that has to be done is to drop the ego by and by. If you are really aware, you can drop it in a single step. If you are not so much aware, you will have to drop it gradually. That depends on you. But one thing is certain: the ego has to be dropped. With the disappearance of the ego, death disappears. With the dropping of the ego, death is also dropped.

So go and sit by the side of Vipassana. Soon she will disappear. Don't feel sorry for her - feel sorry for yourself. Let death surround you. Have the taste of it. Feel helpless, impotent. Who is feeling helpless, and who is feeling impotent? The ego - because you see you cannot do anything. You would like to help her and you cannot. You would like her to survive, but nothing can be done.

Feel this impotence as deeply as possible.

And out of this helplessness, a certain awareness, a prayerfulness, a meditation, will arise. Use her death - it is an opportunity. Here with me, use everything as an opportunity.

She has used her life beautifully. I can say goodbye to her very happily so that she can come back soon. She will be coming on a higher plane. And this death is going to help her, because with this body more work is not possible now. Whatsoever work she could do she has done. A new, fresh body will be needed for further work.

And she is not fighting, she is not struggling. She is simply surrendering by and by - and that's beautiful. She is in a letgo. If she fights, she may survive for a few days more. That's why doctors are not going to be of much help, because she herself is accepting death. And when somebody accepts death then nothing can help, because deep down the person is ready to die. And that's beautiful, that one is ready to die - because one is ready to die only when one has come to feel something which is beyond death, never before. When one has come to feel the taste of deathlessness, a little glimpse maybe, one knows that one is not going to die. One is going to die and yet one is not going to die. When one comes to know that, then one relaxes. Then where is the fight? What is the point?

One relaxes.

She is relaxing. By and by she will disappear. Use that opportunity! Be by her side. Sit silently.

Meditate. Let her death become a pointer to you, so that you don't go on wasting your life. The same is going to happen to you.

Reaching The Source, the ninth sutra:

TOO MANY STEPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN.... In fact, there was no need to take so many steps. But this is realized only when you have come to the ninth point. When you reach home you will realize that this was possible in a single step. There was no need to take so many steps, there was no need to move so gradually, in degrees. A jump was possible.

People come to me and I tell them to take the jump. They say, "But I will have to think." How can you think for a jump? And if you think and you come to a decision by thinking, how is it going to be called a jump then?

A jump is a jump into the unknown - unthought, uncontemplated, unplanned. A jump cannot be planned. You cannot prepare for it, you cannot think about pros and cons. You cannot be the decider. A jump is going out of the ego - doing something which has not been decided by the ego.

A jump is allowing the whole to take possession of you. A jump is discontinuous with you; it is not a continuity. If you think and then you come to a decision, it is a continuity. You may take sannyas then, but this will be the first step in a long series.

The sannyas that I was hoping for you was a single step. In one step you would have arrived home - but you wanted to think. I can understand your problem also: how can you take something without thinking? How can you be so trusting? A jump needs trust. You cannot trust. You doubt; you have been trained for doubt. You have been trained to think about all the possibilities before you decide.

You have been trained to always remain in control.

You can take sannyas as a conclusion of your own thinking; then it is a continuity. The sannyas I was going to give you was more like death, or love. You cannot think about love - it happens. That's why we have the expression in every language: falling in love. It is a fall - a fall from the ego, a fall from the head, a fall from control, a fall from continuity.

Yes, it is a fall. You are no more a part of your thinking, your continuity. Suddenly a gap appears. Or it is like death; you cannot do anything about it. It comes, it possesses you - it is not your decision.

But one day when you come nearer and nearer home, when your home is just in front of you, then you will realize:

That is the meaning of trust: better to have been blind and better to have been deaf from the very beginning. If you trust, your mind says: You are becoming a blind believer. Don't be blind. Think about it, take time, then make the decision. Everything should be your decision.

Have you ever thought about it - that your birth was not your decision? Nobody asked in the first place. And even if somebody had wanted to ask, you were not there to be asked. Your birth came out of the unknown; out of nothingness you were born. It was not your decision. One day you will disappear again into the unknown. That will be your death. That will not be your decision. And in between these two, sometimes there will be glimpses of love; they will all be of the unknown.

Or if you are fortunate enough, and you try meditation and prayer, then again you will have a few glimpses of the unknown. They will not be something of your doing. In fact, your doing is the barrier.

There are things which can be done only by you, and there are things which can be done only when you are not there to do them. There are things which can be done only in a deep non-doing: birth, death, love, meditation. All that is beautiful happens to you - remember it. Let it become a constant remembrance: You cannot do these things.

Look at the river: unconcerned with whatsoever is happening all around, it flows on in deep tranquility, in deep calmness, undistracted by what is happening on the banks. Undistracted, it moves on. It remains tuned to its own nature, it never goes out of its nature. It remains true to itself.

Nothing distracts it, nothing calls it away, away from itself. Whatsoever happens in the world around, the river goes on being a river - true to itself, it goes on moving. Even if a war is going on, even if bombs are being dropped, whatsoever is happening, good or bad, the river remains true to itself. It goes on moving. Movement is its intrinsic nature. And tranquility is a shadow when you are true to yourself.

And watch the flowers on the trees... AND THE FLOWERS ARE RED. The trees are also true to themselves. No flower is trying in any way to imitate any other flower. There is no imitation, no competition, no jealousy. The red flower is just red, and tremendously happy in being red. It has never thought about being somebody else. Where has man been missing?

Man misses his true nature because of desire, imitation, jealousy, competition. Man is the only being on earth who is not true to himself, whose river is not in tune with itself; who is always moving somewhere else, who is always looking at somebody else; who is always trying to be somebody else. That's the misery, the calamity. You can be only yourself. There is no other possibility, it simply does not exist. The sooner you understand it the better. You cannot be a Buddha, you cannot be a Jesus, and there is no need. You can be only yourself.

But everybody is trying to be somebody else. Hence we go on, away and away from the original source. The distance is created because of the desire. You see somebody moving in a beautiful car and you want the car. Not that that car is needed - just a moment before there was no need.

Suddenly, seeing somebody else moving in the car, a desire has arisen. If you had not seen the car, the desire would never have arisen. So it is not intrinsic to you, but something from the outside. It is as if the river was moving towards the ocean, and just on the bank the river has seen something and the flow is broken; the river does not want to go to the ocean now. Now, on this bank, she would like to cling to something, possess something. Now the river has moved away from its intrinsic nature.

It has fallen from its trueness, authenticity, from its truth.

You see somebody, an athlete, a beautiful body, ornamental, and suddenly a desire arises. You would like to have the same body, you would like to become Muhammad Ali - "the greatest." Or you see a beautiful man or a beautiful woman and you would like to become like that. Or you see a buddha, a tranquility of great understanding, and you would like to become like him. Remember one thing: you can be only yourself; there is no other way. All other ways simply lead you away from yourself.

Once you realize this the basic understanding has been achieved, and then immediately your river starts flowing. There are no blocks. People come to me and they say that they have so many blocks here and there. All blocks exist because of deep-rooted desires to be something other than you can be. All blocks exist because energy becomes frozen - because the energy knows only one way to flow, that's its natural flow.

Just think of a rose who has become neurotic and thinks to become a lotus. Now what will happen?

There will simply be misery, and in that misery the rose will not be able to become a rose. One thing is certain: the rose cannot become a lotus - that is absolutely certain. The rose will not be able to become a rose either; that too is almost certain, because now the whole desire will be going far away. The rose will dream of the lotus, and the rose will think of the lotus, and the rose will start condemning itself.

How can you grow if you condemn yourself? The rose will not be able to love itself. How can you grow if you cannot love yourself? The energy will not be flowing. Now there will be blocks. Now the rose will be constantly in trouble. One day there is a headache; another day there is something else.

The rose is ill.

Once the rose comes to understand that there is only one possibility, and that is to be a rose, and there is no need to be a lotus, and it is perfectly beautiful to be a rose - once the rose accepts itself and the condemnation disappears, once the rose loves itself, the grace returns, the dignity comes back. Now there are no blocks, they will melt. The rose will start flowing like a river. The rose will be red, happy, tremendously delighted in whatsoever is naturally available to it.

Roses never go neurotic. They laugh at man. Lotuses never go neurotic. The whole world laughs at man. Man is the only animal who goes neurotic. And the neurosis arises once you try to do something unnatural to yourself; then neurosis arises. Once you have an ideal, you are going to be neurotic.

You are the ideal, you are the destiny.

that means just being oneself, not trying to be anybody else.

The prose comment:

FROM THE BEGINNING, TRUTH IS CLEAR. From the beginning, truth is not hidden. From the beginning, truth is just in front of you. From the beginning, there is nothing other than the truth.

Something has gone wrong with you, not with the truth.

People come to me and they ask: Why is God invisible? I tell them: He is not. You are blind. Don't say God is invisible. God is the all that surrounds you, within and without. God is not invisible - you have lost the capacity to see. God is herenow. God is all that is. God is just a name for the totality, the whole. In millions of forms he is visible. In the flowing river, he is the flow. In the red flower, he is the redness.

God is not invisible. Somehow either you have gone blind or you have become too attached to your blinkers. You remain blindfolded. Your religions, your culture, your society, your conditionings, the civilization and all that nonsense just function as a blindfold. You are not allowed to open your eyes.

You have become accustomed to living with closed eyes. You have completely forgotten that you have eyes and that you can open them. You have become so afraid of opening your eyes, of seeing the truth, you have become so attuned to lies, that to see truth is going to be very devastating. Your whole image will fall down, will be shattered. Your whole house of playing cards will simply fall down and disappear. You have lived too much in dreams and desires, and you have become deep down afraid of the real.

Don't say God is invisible. God is absolutely visible here and now.

Then where does man go astray? In trying to be something else, in trying to be somebody else, in trying to fulfill some ideals, in trying to go into the future and to become somebody. The ego trip leads you astray.

Drop all ideals. Drop all ideas of how you should be. The 'should' is the greatest poison there is.

Just live naturally.

This is the uniqueness of Zen: it gives you no ideals, it helps you to be natural. It gives you no images so that you have to follow and imitate. Zen masters say: Even if you meet Buddha on the way, kill him immediately! And if you utter the name of Buddha, rinse your mouth. They know the exact message of Buddha, they have understood; hence they can be so hard. They look hard; they are not hard. They say you can be only yourself, so no imitation should be allowed. You should destroy all seeds for imitativeness; otherwise you will become a falsity, you will be a phony being.

Just be yourself. There is no other goal to be attained. Live alert, delightfully, and everything will be as it should be. There is no need to think about the 'should'. Truth will follow you like a shadow. You just settle down, relax in your naturalness, be spontaneous, be natural. Don't live according to rules.

Let the rules come out of your naturalness.

Zen is the natural religion of man. It is almost religionless religion, godless religion. It is beyond ordinary morality.

If you simply remain natural, you become a witness. A desire arises, it integrates - you remain a witness. As it integrates, the same way it disintegrates. You need not do anything. Just like a wave arises in the ocean and falls back - no need to do anything. No need to fight, no need to struggle.

Forms arise and disappear, you remain a watcher. And you know well that no form is identical to you; you are not identified with any form.

You were a child; that form came and disappeared. If you met your childhood somewhere you would not be able to recognize it. You became a young boy, a young girl - that form also disappeared. Now if you go and meet your youth somewhere, you will not be able to recognize it. You will become old - that form will also disappear in death. Forms go on like waves, come and go, appear and disappear.

No need to be distracted by them. Anger comes and goes... nothing is to be done about it. If you can remain poised in your alertness, it cannot poison you. You remain aloof - close, very close, and yet aloof, far, far away.

Remain in the midst of forms, and yet remain alert that no form is identical with your being. Your being is not reducible to any form. Your being is pure awareness. It is just awareness, with no forms.

POISED IN SILENCE, I OBSERVE THE FORMS OF INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION. ONE WHO IS NOT ATTACHED TO FORM NEED NOT BE REFORMED.

This is beautiful: ONE WHO IS NOT ATTACHED TO FORM NEED NOT BE REFORMED. First you get attached to the form of anger, or greed, or jealousy, or possessiveness, or whatsoever. First you get identified with the form of anger, then the question arises: How to drop it? How to attain to non-anger? First you become attached to the form of greed, and then you start inquiring: How to be non-greedy? Now reform is needed. And this is moving in circles.

Zen says: In the first place, why be identified with any form? Rather than trying to make anger non-anger, violence non-violence, greed non-greed, why not get out of the identification in the first place? Watch the anger; don't get identified with it. Suddenly you are neither angry nor non-angry, neither violent nor non-violent - you are the watcher. The violence and the non-violence, both are forms on the screen. You are the spectator. You have gone beyond. Now no reform is needed. Try to understand this basic, very basic thing.

Zen doesn't teach you that you should practice brahmacharya, celibacy - no. It simply says: Don't get identified with the form of sex. The real thing is to be done there. Once you are identified with the form of sex, then you are in a vicious circle. The first step has been wrongly taken; now you cannot arrive home. The first step has to be put right, so there is no need now to go to a saint and take a vow of brahmacharya. Your brahmacharya is going to be dangerous; it will be nothing but repression. And you will get more and more miserable, and sex will become more and more powerful. It will fascinate you more, it will attract you more. You will start living a very perverted life of sex. On the outside, brahmacharya; deep inside, the turmoil.

Zen says: Don't be worried about brahmacharya; just don't get identified with the form of sex. When the desire for sex arises, be a watcher. Don't condemn it, because if you condemn you cannot be a watcher; you have become a party. Then you cannot be impartial, you are already prejudiced. Don't condemn, don't judge. Just remain alert with no judgment, because all judgments are subtle forms of identification. If you say it is bad you are already identified, you are already against it. It has taken possession of you already, it has entered in you. If you say it is good, of course, you are getting identified.

Don't say good or bad, just don't say anything. Can you remain alert when anger arises, sex arises, greed arises, without saying yes or no? Can you resist the temptation to say yes or no? Can you be just alert, taking note of it, that it is there, with no judgment? Then you have got the key. That is the Zen key. It is a master key; it unlocks all the locks there are.

There is no problem really for a man of Zen - because he looks at things and accepts their naturalness. THE WATER IS EMERALD - what is the problem? THE MOUNTAIN IS INDIGO - what is the problem? A flower is a flower, a thorn is a thorn. Things are what they are. What is the problem?

The problem arises when you start evaluating them. You say: If the water was not emerald, it would have been better. Now the problem arises. If you say: If the mountains were not indigo, it would have been better. Now you are getting into trouble.

The water is emerald, the mountains are indigo - accept the fact. Live with the fact, and don't bring theories into it. Just go on watching your mind. It brings theories continuously. It does not allow you to accept anything. It goes on thinking: It should not be so, it should be so. It goes on bringing imagination in.

Watch... where is the problem?

Things are as they are. And if you accept this, if you understand this, there is nothing else to be done. You are back home. Then you go on watching and you go on enjoying. The scene is beautiful, the scene is tremendously beautiful - but don't bring yourself into it. With your evaluation, judgment, the ego enters.

The child is restless, running all around. It has to be so, he is a child. Now you want him to sit silently, you want him to behave like an old man, and the problem has arisen. Now you can't see that the child is a child. Now you are trying to make him into something which he is not. Now you will be in trouble, and you are creating trouble for the child also. Accept it!

Dogs are barking and you are meditating. Now don't say that they are disturbing you. They are not concerned at all with you; they don't even know that you are meditating. They are dogs - and barking is their meditation. You enjoy your meditation, let them enjoy their meditation.

Once you accept, suddenly the problem disappears. But deep down you go on evaluating: It would have been good if these dogs were not barking. But why should they not bark? They are dogs - and they are enjoying it so tremendously. Just accept the fact, and you will see that the more you accept, the more their barking becomes non-distracting. Then suddenly they go on barking and you go on meditating and there is no clash. The clash arises out of your mind and attitude.

Everything is in its nature. You also be in your nature. And the world is perfectly good, the world is perfectly beautiful - it is the best world there can be.

The tenth sutra: In the World. The ninth sutra is: Reaching the Source. But whenever you reach the source, the circle has to become complete.

I was reading a small anecdote:

"Who made God?" asked a small eight-year-old child.

"God has no beginning or end," answered the teacher.

"But everything has a beginning or end," insisted the boy.

Another eight-year-old tried to help: "Where is the beginning or the end of a circle?" he asked.

"I see," said the first child.

If life is really complete, the circle has to come back to the very first step. Then the circle has to become complete. That was what was missing before Kakuan. The Taoist pictures ended with the eighth, but Kakuan felt, and he felt rightly, that the circle was not complete - something was missing.

A man starts in the world; he must end in the world. Only then is the circle complete and man is perfect.

In Zen they have a saying: Before I entered the path, rivers were rivers and mountains were mountains. As I went deeper on the path, I became confused. Rivers were now no more like rivers and mountains were no more like mountains. Everything became topsy-turvy, upside down. It was a chaos. And when I reached the end and the path was complete, rivers again became rivers, mountains became mountains.

It has to be so. You start in the world. The world is the given. Wherever you start, you start in the world. Now one thing is certain: if the circle is complete and the journey full and you are fulfilled, you must end in the world. But in the middle, things will be topsy-turvy.

The siddha - the one who has attained - comes back into the world as an ordinary man. Sometimes you may not even be aware that a siddha lives just in your neighborhood. Somebody you know may be a siddha and you may not be aware. The circle may be so complete that he will look just like an ordinary man, because the effort to look like an extraordinary man is still an ego trip. So be careful!

- you may be passing many siddhas in the marketplace. And be alert - just by your side there a buddha may be sitting who has come full circle.

In the East we bow down to each other in deep remembrance of God. In the West you say hello to somebody, you say good morning, good evening. We don't say that in the East, we say: jai ram - God is great. We recognize the god in the other. We hail the god in the other. Who knows, he may have come full circle.

In that deep recognition, we don't talk about the morning or the evening or the afternoon or night; that is useless. Goodnight is just a formality; good morning - just a formality. But when somebody says: Jai Ram - I bow down to the god in you - it is not just formality. It has a very tremendous significance. It says: Who knows, I am not very alert, and the other person may be Ram, may be God himself. Let me bow down to him.

Whenever a buddha comes full circle, he is back in the world. That is where everybody starts and that is where everybody should end. That is the tenth sutra:

very ordinary, just like a beggar.

This mingling with the people of the world is a great recognition, realization, that everybody is divine.

So there is no need to go to the Himalayas, there is no need to hide yourself in the seclusion of a monastery, there is no need to keep yourself isolated. Mingling with the people is mingling with God in millions of forms.

Now the division between the world and nirvana is lost. This world and that world - that division is lost. The profane and the sacred - that division is lost. Now everything is sacred or profane, because everything is one. Call it the world or nirvana, it makes no difference. The world is moksha, the world is nirvana.

The sayings like this of Zen masters trouble other religious people very much. Zen masters say: This world is nirvana, this world is enlightenment, supreme, ultimate, and there is no other world. This troubles and creates anxiety in other religious people, because they cannot think that the profane can be sacred, that the ordinary can be the extraordinary, that pebbles on the path are diamonds.

But it is so, and the Zen insight is absolutely true.

The other world is not anywhere else - it is herenow. You only need perception, clarity. When your eyes are clear, pebbles become diamonds. When you attain to clarity, all stones turn into images of God. When you have the realization of your own being, suddenly you have realized the whole.

There is no other world; this is the only world there is.

But there are two ways of seeing it: one is with blindfolded eyes. It is not good to say that it is a way of seeing, it is a way of not seeing. And then there is another: with open, clean, clear eyes, with perceptivity. Then suddenly everything is beautiful, divine, sacred. Wherever you are, you are moving on holy ground. The holiest of the holies surrounds you.

Again ordinary - maybe chopping wood, carrying water from the well. Doing ordinary things:

cleaning the house, preparing the food, looking after the guest.

MY CLOTHES ARE RAGGED AND DUST-LADEN - back to the very ordinariness of life - AND I AM EVER BLISSFUL. But wherever I am, bliss surrounds me. Now it is no more something that happens to me, it is something that has become my intrinsic quality. Not that sometimes I am blissful and sometimes not; it has become my nature, I am bliss.

because there is no question of extending life. One lives eternally. Now there is no death, so what is the point of extending life?

Yogis have been very much concerned, almost obsessed, with the idea of extending life, living long.

The desire is deep down in every person. If somebody comes and says, "I have come across a sadhu in the Himalayas who is one hundred fifty years of age," you suddenly become interested.

Why? What is the difference if he is fifty or a hundred and fifty or three hundred? What is the difference? Why are you interested? You are still identified with the body - and still afraid of death.

I have heard about a sadhu in the Himalayas who used to say that he was a thousand years old. A Westerner had come to see him from thousands of miles away, just because he had heard that he was a thousand years old: "It is impossible - but maybe.... Things happen in the East.... "

He had come; he watched the man, but he couldn't believe it. The man looked not more than sixty.

He watched for a few days, but he could not believe that he was a thousand - sixty at the most.

Even that was too much. Then he gathered courage and asked one disciple who seemed to be the chief disciple, "What do you think? Is he really one thousand years old?"

The disciple said, "I don't know much, because I have only been with him three hundred years." And the disciple was not more than thirty!

The human mind is stupid. But the attraction has a deep significance: it shows that you are afraid of death. You become interested if somebody is a thousand years old - then maybe he can also help you. He can also give you some secret, some alchemical formula, some key, and you can live long as well. But Zen is not interested in long life, because Zen says: Once you understand yourself, then there is eternal life. Who bothers about a long life?

A long life is still a desire of the body - an identified man who is afraid of death. A man of understanding knows there is no death. Death does not happen; it has never happened. It happens only because you are identified with the body and you don't know yourself. Yes, from the body you will be separated. If you are too identified, that separation looks like death. But if you are not identified with the body and you know yourself as the witnessing soul, as the consciousness, as the awareness, then there is no death.

I USE NO MAGIC TO EXTEND MY LIFE... but one thing is happening: NOW, BEFORE ME, THE TREES BECOME ALIVE. Even dead trees, as I pass them, become alive.

A man who has attained to his innermost core of being is so full of life that wherever he moves he showers his life on everything. It is said that when Buddha moved into the forest, dead trees became alive and trees would blossom out of season. These may be just stories, but significant; mythological, not historical, not true in the sense of history, but still true in a deeper sense. When you are alive, whatsoever you touch becomes alive. When you are dead, whatsoever you touch you kill. Your touch becomes poisonous.

The prose comment:

INSIDE MY GATE, A THOUSAND SAGES DO NOT KNOW ME. The truth of one's being is so vast that even a thousand sages cannot know it. It is unknowable. Not only the unknown - it is the unknowable. The more you know it, the more you feel its unknowability. It is a mystery, not a problem to be solved, not a riddle which can be dissolved. It is a mystery which goes on growing bigger and bigger. The more you enter it, the more mysterious it becomes. It is the very substratum.

It is the ultimate. There is nothing beyond it. There is nothing beyond you; you are the very base of existence, the very ground of being. Of course, that very ground cannot become part of knowledge.

It is deeper than knowledge. It is deeper than the knower.

One feels it. One feels it but one cannot know it. One becomes alert to it, but it is very subtle. You cannot catch hold of it. You can realize it, you can live in it, but you cannot grab it, you cannot cling to it. It is elusive.

Now there is no need. Why should one bother about buddhas, the knowers, the enlightened people?

Jesus and Krishna and Lao Tzu - why should one be worried about them? The search is finished.

You have come home. Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs? Now there is no need. Once you are back to your innermost nature there is no need for any scripture, for any doctrine, for any yoga, for any system, for any search.

Here Kakuan is unique, a very courageous man. It is very rare to find such a courageous man among so-called religious people. Only a really religious person can be so courageous. He accepts the world in its totality.

Now nothing is prohibited, now nothing is denied. Now there is no 'no'. A great 'yes' surrounds.

Everything is included, nothing is excluded - even the wine shop is not excluded. Nothing is excluded - the 'yes' is all inclusive, total.

One becomes so all-inclusive that one goes to the market, even to the wine shop. Now in everything one finds God hidden. Now one has no condemnation for anything. The no-saying has disappeared totally. And remember, the ego disappears totally only when the no-saying disappears totally. If you still have a no, then you have a hang-up. Then the ego is still hiding in subtle ways. It says no, and it feels good.

What Kakuan means by this is: Now the yes is so total that the temple and the wine shop are the same to me. Now I see God everywhere. Now God is everywhereness. And everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.

That is the last thing to be remembered. Once you are enlightened, you cannot find a person who is not enlightened. Not that everyone becomes enlightened, but if I see into you, I cannot see anything else - you are enlightened. That's why I go on saying you are all buddhas. Buddhahood is your intrinsic nature. The day I looked into myself, that very day the whole world became enlightened to me.

You may be puzzled: I can see your confusion. You may be puzzled about your own treasures. You may not be aware, but I can see: you are carrying the greatest treasure of life. You are carrying a God within you. You may have forgotten completely. You may have completely forgotten the way back home, but it is still there.

And Kakuan is right: Everyone i look upon becomes enlightened. If I look at you, you become enlightened, because for me only enlightenment exists now.

Whatsoever you are, you will find the world exactly the same. You go on finding yourself in the world again and again. The world is a mirror. If you are enlightened, you are surrounded by enlightened beings. There is no other way. You are surrounded by an enlightened universe. The whole existence, the rocks and the rivers, the oceans and the stars, all are enlightened beings. It depends on you.

Where you are, you create your world. If you are miserable, you live in a miserable world. If you are enlightened, you live in an enlightened world. If your energy is celebrating within, the whole becomes a symphony of celebration.

You are the world.