Zen is like wild flowers

Maneesha, Zen is both a religion and a revolution against religion; this makes people confused. But the thing is not confusing. The so-called religions have become fossilized - they no more breathe, they no more sing, they no more dance. They have become a hidden organized politics.

Against all these things Zen is a revolution, and by this revolution Zen thinks religion can be purified, raised to the highest stars of its possibilities. Hence the strangeness of Zen. It is a religion but not like any other. Even the Buddhists do not accept Zen as authentic Buddhism.

The moment an experience becomes an explanation, a philosophy, a theology, it loses life. It may catch many people in its fold but these will be the people who want religion at a very cheap price.

Religion needs you to risk all, nothing less will do. Hence the organized religions - Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Jainism, Buddhism - they are not only giving you a false idea of religiousness, they are also preventing you from searching for the right one. When you think that you have the right one already in your hands, there is no need to search for it.

I agree with Karl Marx on this point, when he says: "Religions are the opium of the people." They have consoled... for centuries. They have not done any creative work for consciousness, nor have they enriched the earth, its beauty and its productivity. On the contrary they have taught people to renounce the world - and this is the only world we know.

Somebody of the caliber of Gautam Buddha was absolutely needed in his time to declare a constant war against those who have a negative attitude towards life. They only count the thorns in a rose bush and, amongst so many thorns, naturally they forget the beautiful roses. Looking positively, affirmatively, looking with love they should first count the flowers; they should become engulfed by the perfume of the flowers.

And then those thorns would appear in a totally different context. Those thorns would appear as bodyguards, as protective armor around the rose; that is their function. The same life juice that becomes the rose becomes the thorn. At their source they come from the same roots; they cannot be enemies. But all the religions were afraid of one thing: that religion may become a changing, moving, alive river. The fear was that if religion remains a flowing river... who knows, people may change tomorrow.

Mahavira closes the door on anything else being added. He is the twenty-fourth tirthankara. That is the last number; now nothing can be added to Jainism. It is a very tricky game.

Mohammed is the last prophet. Why this insistence on being last? Why not be first? But being last means you are closing the doors. Now the Holy Koran will remain, forever and forever, the only directions and guidance for the followers. It cannot take note of the changing circumstances; it cannot take note of the changing consciousness of man, his changing and deepening insight into reality. Christians are waiting for Christ. These are the tricks - one day Christ will come and he has promised them, "Soon." The "soon" seems to be very long... He cannot come again. He can only come in those same circumstances that existed in Judea two thousand years ago. Now, declaring oneself the only begotten son of God... any child will laugh.

Two small children were sitting on the steps of their house. The small one asked, "I wonder why these Christian bishops and cardinals are called 'father.' They don't have any children."

But the question, although it has come from a small child - and what is always being done to children's questions is, "Just wait. In time, in your maturity, you will know" - even Jesus never asked it. And if you are the only begotten son of God... is God so miserly? And at that time I don't think there were available any birth control methods.

Why did he stop at one? The same problem from a different angle. He has to stop at Jesus because somebody may later on declare, "I am another son of God." But what is the problem? Jesus has no proofs so evidence cannot be asked. Any idiot... and idiots are abundant, you try to seek one and you will find a thousand!

It happened in Bhagdad, the capital of Mohammedanism, that a man was brought to Kalif Omar.

He was claiming to be the latest messenger from God. "Mohammed is perfectly right but things have changed and a new dispensation from the direct source is needed." Mohammed cannot be bypassed in this way.

Omar said, "Listen. You will be beaten for seven days - no food, no water - and then I will come to see you in the jail. I hope by that time you have changed your mind."

The man laughed. He said, "These were exactly God's last instructions to me: 'People will not believe you. Even a man of the insight of Omar will first test you.' So I am available." He was taken to the prison, tied to a pole, naked, and beaten - no food, no water, no sleep. It was real torture.

After seven days when Omar came, he asked the man, whose whole body was oozing blood, but his eyes were glittering, shining, "Have you changed your mind?"

He said, "I was thinking to change but these seven days have proved to me that I am the prophet.

That's what God said to me, 'You will be tortured. You will be harassed. You may be killed.' You have fulfilled all this and made me more certain. I was a little hesitant and it felt a little embarrassing to call myself a messenger of God."

At the same time at the next pole another man was tied. He had come a month before and he had not come with any Koran, any message from God. He declared that, "Because all the prophets have failed - Mohammed included - I finally decided to come myself." Now this is too much for fanatic, fascist fundamentalists. The man shouted from his pole, "Omar, don't be deceived by this man. After Mohammed I have not appointed any messenger."

All these religions are grabbing everybody by the neck. Freedom means disobedience. To decide your own life means going against the organized religion, morality, ethos. Zen has specialities of its own. Perhaps it is the only religion which can be called religiousness. Religion becomes solid and centered, and then there is the hierarchy: the pope, the cardinal, the bishop, the priest.

Zen has no fixed teaching because every fixed teaching will become out of date tomorrow. Tomorrow new flowers will come on the bushes. Tomorrow new leaves will sprout. Tomorrow new waters will be flowing from the Himalayas. Tomorrow nothing will be there that you used to know. Every new dawn brings a totally new world around you. If it does not look new it is because you continue to hang on with old eyes.

Zen is rebellious at all possible points. It fills my heart full of great gratitude for these lions. At least a few people have declined the offer, the invitation to become slaves. At least a few people have roared and declared their freedom from bondage. And these are the only real people. Unfortunately they are not many.

But even those few people prove one thing for certain, that you also carry the same consciousness, dormant. You have not dared to go inside yourself to find the diamond which will give you the whole universe as yours.

This anecdote... And Zen is not very serious about things. It could have been very scholarly; it could have been very philosophic - like Bertrand Russell who wrote a book on mathematics and took two hundred and fifty pages to argue that two plus two are really four. Zen is just like wild flowers; it grows anywhere. It does not need much effort; all that it needs is a deepening in your consciousness so that you can see the world around you more clearly.

Now your vision of the world is very shadowy, very dark, and your world looks very small. As you go deeper inwards you will be surprised that the world goes on becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and a point comes where you know there is no end, no boundary line of existence. Being born in this infinite existence brings a tremendous bliss and a great ecstasy and a sense of eternity.

And Zen has found the right way by small anecdotes which even a child can understand, though it is possible that even an old man may not understand. The older a man becomes, he becomes so knowledgeable - he knows everything. The child is open and clean. The function of meditation - and that is the meaning of Zen - is to bring your childhood back to you, and from there on to look at the beauty, the godliness, the truth that has always been there but you have never looked at it.

A strange question, which can only be asked in the Zen atmosphere. You cannot ask in a Christian monastery, "How many teachings in the Bible are devil teachings?" The idea simply looks awkward.

But in Zen you can ask anything because nothing matters. It is not a serious, philosophical system.

Asking such a question... The Nirvana Sutra is one of the most respected sutras in the Buddhist world and it contains almost everything essential that Buddha has said. It is called Nirvana Sutra because it concludes at the point where you disappear. Its whole process is how to help you disappear.

First you become silent. And as the silence goes deeper you start feeling that you are not the body, that you are not the mind. You are living in the body but you are not it. You are using the mind but you are not it. As the silence goes to serenity you suddenly become aware that, "I am only a witness, witness of the whole world and witness of my body and mind too." Just a pure witness, a cool breeze, a fragrant breeze.

The word 'nirvana' means blowing out the candle. Buddha chose a really beautiful word for the ultimate. When you disappear into the ultimate ocean, the dewdrop disappears. Or you can say in other words, the dewdrop becomes the ocean. Or, you can even say the ocean disappears in the dewdrop. But something disappears, just as if you have blown a candle flame out and there is absolute silence and darkness.

Isan asked, "THE NIRVANA SUTRA HAS ABOUT FORTY CHAPTERS OF THE BUDDHA'S TEACHING. HOW MANY OF THESE ARE DEVIL TEACHINGS?"

In no other religion can such a question be asked. But the answer is even greater.

"ALL OF THEM," REPLIED KYOZAN.

Isan was not expecting that much. Buddha's words, and Kyozan is saying all of them are devil's words! And it is perfectly in line with Buddha's approach to life. It is not through books, it is not through words.

So Isan will go on teaching the Nirvana Sutra, and at the same time will remind his disciples, "Don't cling to any sutra - Nirvana or Diamond Sutra - don't cling. These are simply footsteps leading to your ultimate disappearance."

"If you start thinking that these words of Gautam Buddha's... You may start loving them, you may become attached to them. Attachment is very easy when you love a book. And the Nirvana Sutra is so full of splendor, with so much of beauty; each word implies so much. It seems impossible for a man to make words dance like this; one is bound to fall in love. And of course the Nirvana Sutra will not say no to you; it is just a dead book, paper and ink and nothing else."

Kyozan said to his master, "ALL OF THEM."

It simply means: all words are only echoes of faraway truths. Don't cling to the echo; otherwise, who is going to discover the truth? Avoid the echoes.

What are all the buddhas? - just an echo of the ultimate truth, just echoing the eternity of your being. Experience what they say, but don't cling to the explanations.

There is so much difficulty. First, the man who has come to realize his ultimate consciousness is in a difficulty how to convey it. There are not words which are capable of conveying it. Whatever he says, he immediately looks and finds it is not the same as it was in the experience. Explanation has fallen far away; it has betrayed.

And then the explanation is caught by the disciples, which is another tragedy, because the disciple is going to comment according to his conditioning. That will change the meaning again. And if the disciple also starts teaching people, then the truth has been left far behind. Not even a single ray reaches that far. Hundreds of mystics have remained silent for just this reason.

So when Kyozan says, "All of them," he is not talking about the Nirvana Sutra only. He is talking about all words. Words are incapable of containing the truth; some other way has to be found. That some other way becomes meditation.

Mind has to be put aside, so it does not start interpreting. And you have to go deep to where your life is arising, as if a rose is going deeper into the roots from where the juice of life is arising, manifesting in great foliage, in flowers. Once you know your original source you know also your ultimate destiny.

Obviously, if all words are useless and all words are from the devil, then there is no more possibility of any communication, any dialogue.

One of the most famous Jewish philosophers, Martin Buber, worked for his whole life on a single theme: dialogue. I wrote him a letter - I was very young - saying, "In your dialogue the two remain, and a dialogue is not worthwhile that does not culminate in one. Two bodies may be there, but one consciousness." I was informed that he was dead. I said, "It is fortunate for him. If he was alive I would have tortured him. Now he can rest, toss and turn in his grave."

But the man remained for his whole life concerned with only one thing: that there should arise a dialogue between religions, between politics, between ideologies, between man and man. His effort was right, his direction was right, but he did not come to the point where it becomes nirvana. Two must ultimately become one, because ultimately we are one.

Meditation is not a dialogue. Meditation is to get out of the mind and slowly enter into the oceanic reality.

"What should I do now? If you say even the words of Gautam Buddha are those of the devil, what about me? I was teaching people." Of course, you cannot teach without words.

No man of strength, integrity, individuality, is ever concerned about the practical side of the thing. If your consciousness is right, it will manage somehow your practical side.

A consciousness harmonious with existence is under the care of existence. You have said to existence, "Now it is up to you. If you want me to breathe, I will breathe. If you don't want me to breathe, I won't. Up to now I have been a separate being, now I dissolve my separateness."

That's what Isan means, "I ADMIRE YOUR JUST EYE. You have understood what I have said, but I AM NOT CONCERNED ABOUT THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF THE MATTER."

Why is he not concerned about the practical side of the matter? Nobody needs to be concerned. In your enlightened being you have become one with the universe. You are no more.

Existence takes care of trees and birds and animals, why should existence not take care of you? In fact, you are existence's greatest flower. And when you become enlightened you have attained your destiny. Now everything is care of existence; you need not be worried about it.

What has conspired? The question that was asked is relevant, because Buddha says you have many bodies, but the ultimate body that is immortal he calls the Body of Law. 'Law' gives a different connotation to the word. He calls it the Body of Dhamma, the body of nature. You have gathered many bodies around it; they will all fall down. Only the body that has been moving through eternity to eternity he calls your authentic body.

And the man who has asked Kyozan has not asked a nonessential point:

These points show the humbleness; these points show the simplicity. If he cannot explain, he will not try some arbitrary explanation. He will simply accept that, "I cannot, BUT THERE IS ONE WHO CAN."

In any reference, in any context, it will look absurd. The man is asking a question and you give him your pillow! And this is the one that can give you the answer.

The pillow represents total rest, total relaxation, going inwards so deep that the outer world is almost like a dream you have seen sometime. When the outer world starts looking illusory, you have come to the center point of your being. There is the answer. The answer is in your experience of utter restfulness.

An ordinary man will not understand anything. Only a man who has the sharpness of intelligence like a sword will be able to understand.

A beautiful answer he has given, but you would have been puzzled. You would have looked at the pillow. And how does the pillow explain the question, "What is Buddha's ultimate natural body?" It certainly conveys something.

Zen is very earthbound, very pragmatic. By showing his pillow to him, he is saying, "What cannot be said can be experienced. Just rest, and rest with totality."

That's what we are doing here every day. Your meditation is an ultimate rest.

But Isan commented, "KYOZAN IS USING THE BLADE OF THE SWORD."

The person may not understand it, most probably will not understand it and will think that this Zen is all nonsense, or may think that the pillow actually is the answer; so, "Keep a pillow continuously with you and you have found the body of the buddha." Now what the person does with such an exchange can be dangerous.

But masters look deep into disciples and say only things or indicate only things which they are capable of. No master is so unkind as to give a child a sword.

Basho wrote:

The experience of truth is just washing away the dust that goes on gathering on your mirrorlike consciousness.

Basho says:

The dewdrops may be small but they can cleanse your inner eye, your mirror, which has gathered so much dust. And that dust has to be cleared. Only then can you see the depth in things, the life in things; a world full of love, a world full of blessings, a world which could be a dancing place but has been turned by stupid politicians into a battlefield.

When more people become buddhas - they are already buddhas - when more people remember their being buddhas, this world will have a totally different aroma, a totally different fragrance, a totally different ecstasy.

Right now, what we have done, we have made the world a tragedy. Each step we are moving further into tragedy, and at the end of the tunnel is death.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked a question.

Maneesha, your question is two questions.

The first is perfectly right. All the religions have made the world ugly; they have made the world unlivable; their whole teaching has been to renounce.

A man who renounces the world will certainly not create a painting or a poetry or a sculpture. He will become uncreative. And where is this whole uncreative energy going to go?

Energy is neutral. If you don't move your energy in creative ways, it is going to be a calamity to you and to the world. But because all the religions have condemned the world and worldly relations, they have made the world poor. They have a reason, an investment in the world being poor.

They have cut the world into fragments, and seventy percent of the energy of man goes into war.

War seems to be the only god. Man is just a sacrifice, either in the name of nationality or in the name of religion. Whatever the name may be, man has to be slaughtered.

It is true that coming down from a hilltop is easy. Destructiveness is coming down from your humanity, becoming animals again. Hence, it is easy. And you can find any excuse, any excuse will do.

Question 2:

But the second part of your question:

No, Maneesha. Science is coming every day closer and closer to the mysterious. Science is no more than three hundred years old, but it has evolved in three hundred years and gone far away from the destructive and negative mind of the religions.

As I said to you, energy is neutral. Science creates energy, discovers energy, but it falls into the hands of the politicians, and the politicians use it for negative purposes. Their only goal is war.

And science itself has become so complicated that you have to depend on some government or corporation. Because so much money is needed, you cannot be a scientist just by yourself.

Those days are gone when Galileo could be a scientist, just using instruments which were ordinarily, easily available. He did not need trillions of dollars. Now the situation is different.

The Wright brothers could manage to make the first aeroplane with discarded parts of bicycles. Now you cannot create an aeroplane so easily.

But one thing is certain: that if a World Academy of Sciences - which is not committed to any government, to any ideology - can be created... in my opinion that must be the whole and sole reason for the existence of organizations like the UN.

Create a world academy. Every nation contributes to it, but the energy is in the hands of a world organization. And the world organization has the power to use it in any way it deems fit.

Science is not destructive in itself. Destruction has come from politics, and because politics has the money....

Albert Einstein's last dying words - he must have suffered deeply. He was a man of great conscience, and he could see that he had given a dangerous weapon into the hands of the politicians. He discovered atomic energy, and in a hurry....

He was employed by Germany first, but because he was a Jew he had to escape from Germany. But he knew that even without him all the basic facts were in German hands. "It may take a year or two, but Germany will harnas atomic energy. Before Germany does it, somebody else should be able to do it; otherwise the world will fall into the hands of fascists." But he was naive; he wrote a letter to Roosevelt. Roosevelt was very happy and gave him all the facilities to develop atomic energy, which could destroy millions of people within seconds.

Einstein never thought that it would be used. He thought just its presence would be enough for Germany and Japan to surrender. Germany surrendered and Japan was going to surrender within a week at the most. Without Germany, Japan could not stand alone against the whole world. It is a small land, but full of great people. And Roosevelt had gone by that time. Truman was the President and his generals also insisted to him, "Don't use such a destructive force, which will remain for generations affecting people; and not only people - trees, fish, animals. And there is no time to create any preventive cure. And there is no need in the first place. Germany is collapsing every moment. Our forces have entered Berlin."

You may not believe it.... Adolf Hitler was hiding underneath his building in a bunker, and because he never liked the idea that, "We are being defeated," he was given a radio for which his own people created a small station that would give him the news that, "We are progressing," that, "We are winning." Such a deception has never happened before. The enemy's forces were entering into Berlin and the radio was proclaiming, "We have reached London."

And poor Adolf Hitler was kept until the last moment.... When bombs started falling on Berlin, he could not believe that, "I can hear, hiding in this bunker, the falling buildings of London?" He called his general and asked, "What is the matter?"

He said, "I am sorry. So as not to make you tense, this was a special arrangement to give you good news, always good news." He had been kept in darkness for almost one year.

And the American generals persuaded Truman not to be in a hurry: "Within seven days with ordinary weapons Japan is going to go down." But Truman was in a hurry, because if Japan goes down and surrenders then there will be no chance to experiment with atomic bombs. He did not listen to his generals and ordered two cities to be killed, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more than two hundred thousand people. And the radiation is still killing, is still effective and will remain effective one knows not for how long; because there were many people not in the area where everyone was dying, but whom the radiation started to reach with the winds, with the water, with the rivers, in the fruits, in the vegetables. There was no way to say that, "You are eating your own death."

Science can give contribute immense energy for creative purposes, Maneesha, and the great scientists alive today are all coming closer to the mysterious. A day can be hoped for when science and religion will merge into each other. Religion will become the inner science and science will become the outer religion. And their meeting point is when both are facing the miraculous.

Now Sardar Gurudayal Singh's time. Sometimes I think that I should begin with Sardar Gurudayal Singh's time but that will destroy the serious attentiveness. So I keep him for the last. And it is respectful also.

Sally and Joan are chit-chatting over tea. Joan says, "When I married George, I was looking for sex and good humor, and I have found them both with him."

"Oh, really?" Sally asks.

"Yes," says Joan, "every time we have sex, it is a joke!"

The black dude in a full-length mink coat walks into the Rolls-Royce show room. He goes over to the most expensive model and proceeds to kick the tires and fenders. The usually staid salesman runs over and exclaims, "Excuse me, sir, but were you thinking of buying a Rolls-Royce?"

The black dude looks at him with a scowl and replies: "I is not thinking of buying a Rolls-Royce. I is gonna buy a Rolls-Royce. I is thinkin' of pussy!"

Jesus is hanging from the cross. Mary, his mother, sits a short distance away. Suddenly Jesus begins to cry uncontrollably. Seeing this, Mary has a pained look on her face.

"I am sorry to upset you, mum," Jesus sobs. "I just could not help but think - what a hell of a way to spend Easter!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards with your total consciousness, and with an urgency, as if it is going to be the last moment of your life.

Deeper and deeper, reach to the center of your being.

At this moment you are the buddha, unscratched by thousands of lives. The deeper you can go the more splendor, the more miraculous it becomes. The Buddha Auditorium has changed into a silent lake without any ripples.

A little more... Because buddha is your eternity, and buddha is your infinity, you can go deep, but you can never find the bottom. That's why it gives you ultimate freedom.

To make it more clear-cut, Nivedano....

(Drumbeat)

Relax. Just witness the body - you are not it. Witness the mind - you are not it. You are only the witnessing consciousness.

Thousands of lotuses have blossomed. The evening was beautiful enough on its own, but you have poured your witnessing, your consciousness and made it a majesty, a miracle.

Such blissfulness.

Such benediction.

Such ecstasy.

Collect as many flowers and as many juices from your center, because you have to bring them to the circumference. You have to remember in your day-to-day life, whatever you are doing, you are the buddha. That small remembrance will become ultimately a transformation of being.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat) Come back. But come back as a buddha, silent, graceful, at ease.

Just for a few moments sit, remembering where you have been, to what miracle you have reached.

And the golden path that you have been traveling every day back and forth will become shorter and shorter... because your buddha has to come from the hidden to your ordinary life.

Meditation is the only way to know yourself and to know the very meaning of life. It cannot be said, but it can be transferred.

When you are in deep meditation here, utterly receptive, it is so easy to enter into your hearts. It is so easy to become a song, so easy to become a subtle music.

You will feel it for a few moments later on also, like a drunkard. You have been drinking from the divine.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Beloved Master.