Scratching the Shoe

The only thing that can be said about the ultimate, categorically, is that nothing can be said about it. Even that is too much to say; even that is too much for language to express. That's why all the great scriptures are negative - they don't say what God is, they only say what God is not. By saying what God is not, they are not saying anything about God. They are simply saying something about that which is not God. And if you understand that, by and by your eyes will turn towards God. If you know the false as the false, then sooner or later you will stumble upon the real. To know the false as the false, is to know the real.

Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Christ - nobody says anything about the truth. They say what is NOT truth - they indicate the untrue, they acquaint you with the untrue. If that acquaintance goes deep in your heart, sooner or later you will be able to see the truth. Darkness can be expressed through language, light cannot be expressed. Hate can be expressed through language, love cannot be expressed.

Have you not observed it in your own life? If you are full of hatred, language is very potent. If you are full of hatred, suddenly language has a flow. People talk very animatedly when they are angry, in a rage - everybody becomes an orator when he is angry. Then he never gropes for words, then they simply come. Then all shyness disappears. But when you are in love, language looks almost impotent. Even to say 'I love you' looks so flat, pale, dead.

The wrong can be expressed by language, but the right cannot be expressed by language. That's why Lao Tzu says: That which can be said is already untruth. Because it can be said, or it has been said, it has become untrue. Truth cannot be said. Truth can be showed, but cannot be said. Fingers pointing to the moon - fingers don't say what the moon is, but they can show; they can direct your vision towards the moon.

Don't get caught by the fingers - that's what happens. And that is one of the revolutions Zen brings to the world. Zen burns scriptures - that is helping you to uncling from the fingers.

If I show you the moon, and indicate the moon with my finger, don't get attached to my finger - my finger is not the moon. And if you become too much obsessed with the finger you will miss the moon.

To see the moon you will have to forget the finger; to see the moon you will have to completely drop the finger. You will have to take the indication and follow the indication - in that very following, the finger is forgotten. The finger does not matter. It may be a beautiful finger, the hand may be that of a great artist. It may be an ugly finger, it may be ill, it may be healthy, it may be black and white, it may be male, female - that doesn't matter.

The qualities of the finger do not matter; any finger can point towards the moon. But people have got too much attached to the fingers. Jainas are holding the finger of Mahavir - they worship that finger, they have forgotten the moon. And Buddhists are worshipping the finger of Buddha.

Exactly, there is a temple in Japan where Buddha's statue is not in the shrine but a finger, a marble finger, pointing somewhere into the unknown. Those who made that temple must have been very perceptive; but you don't know people - people are worshipping that finger. They go and put their flowers there and bow down. Nobody is bothered where the finger is pointing at.

Christians are holding another finger. And they go on arguing with each other - 'Whose finger is more beautiful? Is Jesus the greatest man? Or is Buddha the greatest man? Or is Krishna or Mohammed the greatest man?' What are you talking about? All nonsense! You are talking about the fingers, but fingers are not at all relevant. Any finger can point to the moon. And all fingers that point to the moon are alike - in pointing to the moon they are similar; all other attributes are meaningless.

Buddha speaks one language, Jesus speaks another, Mohammed still another. That doesn't matter.

For a man who is perceptive the indication is enough. The man of perception will move towards the moon and forget all fingers. And the moment you move towards the moon, suddenly you realize all the fingers are pointing to the same goal.

So Zen is a finger raised in silence towards the moon. That's the way of all basic essential religion.

Why is language so impotent? Why can't the truth be said? A few things have to be understood before we enter into this small anecdote.

Language simply misses it - for certain reasons in the very structure of language itself. First, language is utilitarian. It is good, as far as the world of utility is concerned. You go to the market to purchase something, language is needed - it makes things easier. Language is a lubricant, it helps communication - but only in the utilitarian world.

The moment you start moving towards existence... Existence has no utility, it is not something that you can buy or sell. Existence is non-utilitarian, existence is purposeless. Existence has to be observed with a deep silence in your eyes.

If you go to the marketplace and remain silent there, it will be very embarrassing to you and to others too. If you go to the police-station and they ask, 'What is your name 1' and you behave in a Zen way, you will be thought mad, crazy, cunning. Silence won't be understood in a police-station. And if you go and just stand in front of a shop without saying anything, the shopkeeper will not be able to understand your silence either.

In the ordinary world, language is needed - language has been invented for this ordinary world, this day-to-day world. But language is not for the eternal. There you don't purchase anything. There you are not talking to anybody in particular, you are simply in communion with existence itself. There is no need to talk; words are not needed at all. This is the first thing to be understood: language has certain utilities, and because of those utilities has certain limitations.

Existence does not understand your language. Language is human, existence is FAR wider - it is not confined to the human.

Just the other night, I was reading a book of a Russian existentialist, Nikolai Berdyaev. He is an existentialist, he comes very close to the Zen standpoint - but just close; he does not penetrate it totally. He says that in the old days mystics used to think that knowledge is divine. He feels that is inadequate, because knowledge, to be knowledge of the ultimate and the total, must be human too.

Otherwise the human should be excluded from it. So how can knowledge be only divine? It should be human-divine - man should be included in it.

That's true - but there he stops. Why not include animals too? Why not include trees too? Why not include minerals too? They also exist; they cannot be excluded. Berdyaev says that knowledge, to be total, should be human-divine. I will say it should be mineral, vegetable, animal, human, divine - PLUS. If something is left, that has to be included in it too.

But language is human. No animal understands your language, trees don't bother about your language, rocks won't listen to your language - won't understand either. Even all human beings don't understand one language; there are thousands of languages on this small planet. So language is a human invention, very local. Existence is very big, huge; we are just small particles in it. This, our earth, is a very very small planet. Very small. Even our sun is a very small mediocre star. Bigger suns exist. Infinity surrounds us; we should not be very provincial.

That's what Zen means when it says language cannot express the truth. Language is a very provincial thing, local - an invention of humanity. If humanity disappears, all languages will disappear. Existence will continue. Existence was there before man entered, existence will be there if a third world war happens and man disappears and commits suicide. Trees will go on blooming, spring will come, flowers will bloom, birds will sing. The moon will be in the night, the sun will be in the morning. Nobody is going to miss you, remember; things will all be as they are. Man is so small....

But because we live in a human world, we live with people, we start thinking as if man is all. So language becomes very important. This you can watch. Have you ever seen Zen pictures? - you will see it in Zen pictures too. When people look at a Zen painting they are always surprised, and a little restless, because they cannot see the point of it. If you see a Zen painting, the whole painting is not painted; the canvas is left empty - almost ninety percent empty. Just in a small corner below, there is a small painting. In that painting also, there are huge mountains, big trees, rivers - and man is very tiny like an ant. A small boat, and just a dot-like man is sitting there.

Western painting is different; man covers the whole canvas. Zen people laugh about it. They say, 'This is egoistic - you don't cover the whole canvas of life. This is out of proportion, you are making yourself too big. Where is the sky? Where is the vastness?' Western paintings are not representative of existence. Zen paintings are - that empty sky covers ninety percent, or even more. There are a few paintings in which it covers almost ninety-nine percent - just in a small comer below.... The painting seems to be more interested in the empty sky - as if the painting is there to show you the empty sky. And then clouds and then mountains and then rivers - and all in proportion - and then a tiny man.

This is the right picture. But we have tricks, so we go on magnifying ourselves, we go on painting ourselves big.

This happens every day. When you stand before your mirror in the bathroom, have you watched it?

When you stand before your mirror, you cover the whole mirror; in a small frame, you are all there is. Looking in the mirror, you will be getting a wrong impression about yourself. Mirrors are great structures to create the ego - you feel as if you are the whole and all. In the mirror there is nothing else; only you are there. People love to stand before a mirror. The more egoistic a person, the more he loves to stand before a mirror. Mirrors are great flatterers, they flatter you. They make you look big - they help the mania of bigness.

That is not right. You should look at these trees standing there - before these trees we are very small. And then there are clouds, and before those clouds we are even more small. And then there is the empty sky and the stars, and infinity. Before that infinity we are simple dots.

Our language cannot express the whole. But our silence can - because when we are silent we fall in tune with existence. Hence, all religions preach for silence. When you are silent you are not a human being - you are as much a rock as a human being, as much a tree as a human being, as much an animal as a human being, as much a cloud. When you are silent you are in tune with existence.

When you are not speaking you are no more part of the human province, the small locality of human beings. You become a member of the vast existence.

Silence is tremendous. Truth is known through silence. And when truth is known through silence, it can be expressed only through silence. If it is known through silence, how can it be expressed through noise? Language is noise. If it is known through silence, it has to be indicated in silence.

Language simply misses it. First, truth is so big, and language is so small. And then - it will look very paradoxical - truth is so subtle, and language is so gross. From both sides, language misses it. On one side, truth is so big and language is so small. On another plane, from another side, truth is so subtle and language is so gross. It is as if you throw a net in the river to catch fish. The fish is caught, but the water is not caught. When you withdraw the net you may get a few fish, but you don't get water - water escapes. Water is more subtle. Your net cannot catch water, it catches fish; the bigger the better - smaller fish will escape out of it. And water is very very liquid and elusive - it escapes.

So, paradoxically, truth is infinite on one hand. On another hand, truth is subtlest, the smallest - the indivisible, the atomic. Again, language misses it. Language is a human invention. And truth is not a human invention. Language is man-made; language is just convenience. It is all make-believe.

You call a flower 'rose', in India we call it 'GULAB'. It does not matter. In six thousand languages, there are six thousand names for the rose. And the rose has no name; all names are inventions.

You believe, it becomes a rose. You believe in another word, it becomes GULAB. But all words are just conveniences.

Truth is not a convenience. Convenience adjusts with you; with truth you have to adjust. Remember that difference. Con-venience is for your use; truth you cannot use. If you want to move with truth, you have to move with truth - truth cannot move with you.

There are two kinds of people in the world. One, who wants truth to follow him. This man will never attain to truth. He thinks that truth should follow him, truth should become his shadow. This man is more interested in his own ego than truth. When this man fights and says, 'This is true,' he is not interested in truth. He is really saying, 'This is my truth - how DARE YOU say it is wrong! '

Watch it. If I say something against your truth you get angry. Not that you are getting angry because I am saying something against truth, no. It is YOUR truth; it hurts your ego. If something is said against YOUR truth, the hurt is in the ego - you don't bother about truth. Who cares about truth?

'My Christianity, my Hinduism, my Jainism, my Islam. My Koran, my Veda, my Gita, my Bible' - they hurt. The 'my' has to be looked into. You may not say it, but when you say, 'The Bible is true,' one thing is understood - that 'The Bible is my holy book.' That is not said so clearly, there is no need.

Ego moves in very very cunning ways - it never comes on the surface, it remains hiding behind.

When people argue, they are not arguing for truth. Truth needs no argument - because truth cannot be decided by any argument or any discussion. No debate can be decisive; it is meaningless. When you argue, you argue for egos - your truth and somebody else's truth. Two egos are in conflict, you have to prove that you are right. Even if sometimes you have a glimpse that the other is saying the right thing, you cannot accept it. Many times it happens. You have a consciousness - many times a glimpse comes to you that maybe the other is right. But you cannot allow this, you cannot conceive of this - that will be very very bad for your ego. You have to fight for it.

I used to live in a town for a few years, and I had a neighbour - a very interesting man he was. He was a very very fanatic Hindu, and he would come and argue with me for hours. And I could see that he could see what I was saying, I could see that he had understood what I was saying - but still he would argue. Then one day I was surprised. He was talking to somebody else, and he was saying the things that I had been saying to him just that morning.

So I went into his house and I said, 'What are you doing?' He became very embarrassed. 'Just this morning, you were against the thing that you are saying now.' He was caught red-handed, he confessed. He said, 'This happens every day. When I listen to you I want to agree, but my ego resists. I cannot say yes to you in front of you. But when I come home and I think over it, I find you are right. And you may be surprised, ' he said to me, 'that I have been arguing for you with many people. But I cannot say that to you. But today you have caught me red-handed - now it will be difficult to argue with you.'

And really, since that day, the argument ceased. He still used to come - now he would silently listen. A great realization happened to him, and the man changed since that day. Since that day, he became REALLY a seeker of truth. Then he was no more bothered by his ego - 'my belief' was no more the concern.

What is true? What is truth? Wherever it is, the real seeker is ready to go with it. These are the two kinds of man - one wants truth to follow him, and another is courageous and is ready to go with truth, wherever it leads. He has no conditions, he simply goes wholeheartedly with it. And unless you are so wholeheartedly with truth, so straight with truth, you will not be able to attain it.

Language is a human invention. Truth is not an invention, truth is a discovery - a rediscovery. Truth is already there. The word 'truth' is not there, just like the word 'rose' is not there. The rose is there, the word 'rose' is not there. Fire is there, the word 'fire' is not there. God is there, the word 'god' is not there - but people go on fighting whether to call him God or Allah or Ram. He has no name; truth is nameless. No linguistic label is needed, or, any label will do. If you need a label, then any will do - Allah will do as much as Ram will do, as God will do. Any name will do. If you know it, that God has no name, truth has no name - if that understanding persists in you - then any name is okay. Fire is fire. By whatsoever name it is called makes no difference.

Truth is there; language we have made. Silence you have not made - that is the beauty of silence.

Silence is God-given, language is man-made. If you want to know God you will have to go through the God-given, you will have to follow him through his gift. His gift has something in it - a bridge.

Through that bridge you can become reconnected with the divine.

Silence is golden, silence is precious. A single moment of silence is far more valuable than hours of thinking, studying.

Because language is a human invention, it is naturally dualistic. The human mind cannot see both the aspects of reality together; the human mind can see only one aspect at one time. Even about a very small thing: if I give you a small pebble, a very small pebble, you can keep it in your palm but you cannot see the whole pebble at one glance. You will be seeing only one aspect. When you turn it you will see the other aspect, but the first aspect will disappear. You cannot see even a small pebble in its totality. Its totality is an inference - first you see one part, then you see another part, and then you imagine its totality.

Just now you are facing me. You are seeing my face, but you are not seeing my back. When you see my back you will not be seeing my face. You can see a coin, you see one aspect at one time.

Something is always missing.

And existence is multi-dimensional; there are many aspects to it. Not only multi-dimensional, existence is paradoxical. Day and night are together there - but when we see, we see day as separate, night as separate. Life and death are together there - but when we see, we see life as separate, death as separate. In fact we see them as enemies. They are not enemies - life moves into death, death moves into life. They are like valleys and mountains - TOGETHER. Mountains cannot exist without valleys, valleys cannot exist without mountains. Wherever valleys are, mountains will be; wherever mountains are, valleys will be. They are together.

But the human mind always looks at one aspect - and when the paradoxical aspect asserts, it thinks it is against it. So day becomes against night, light becomes against darkness. Love becomes something against hate - they are not. Hate turns into love, love turns into hate - they are one wave, two expressions of one energy. And if you watch carefully, attentively, in silence, you will be able to see the fact. So clear it is! Can you hate a person without loving him? Can you make a person your enemy without first making him your friend? Impossible. First you have to make friendship, then you can create enmity. First you have to love, then you can hate.

That's why we hate those same people we love. The husband goes on hating the wife, and goes on loving. And the wife goes on hating the husband, and goes on loving. And sometimes you are puzzled - why? Why do you get so mad at your husband? Why do you get so angry with your wife? Why do you sometimes start thinking, 'Why not kill her?' And you know you love her too; you cannot live without her. Even if for a few days she goes some-where, you start missing her and you feel lonely and you feel sad. When the wife is away you hanker for her. When she is with you, you pray to God, 'When is she going somewhere? When will she leave me for a few days in peace and silence?'

Love and hate are involved in each other. In fact, to say that they are two is wrong. They are one.

Friendship, enmity, are one.

Existence is multi-dimensional, paradoxical. But language cannot be paradoxical. If language is paradoxical it will lose its utility. If somebody asks something and you say, 'Yes-no,' then it is meaningless to say anything. Either you say yes, then it is meaningful, or you say no, then it is meaningful. But existence says yes-no together. There, yes and no are not separate; yes and no are two aspects of the same energy. That's why language is dualistic - it creates a kind of schizophrenia in human consciousness, it creates a split.

And existence is non-dual, existence is one. There is no split at all. It is very difficult for you to think that death is nothing but your life, the culmination of your life. You have been taught for centuries that death is the enemy - avoid, escape, protect yourself, defend yourself against it. It is not; it is the background of your life. If your life is lightning, then death is the dark cloud. Without the dark cloud the lightning will lose much - it will not shine any more. If your life is like stars twinkling in the night, then death is like the dark night, moonless night. The stars are there in the day too, but you cannot see them because without darkness they cannot be seen. They are together - one becomes the figure, the other becomes the background. When the other becomes the figure, the first becomes the background.

When you are alive, life is like a light on a dark cloud, a lamp in a dark night. When you become dead, then darkness becomes the figure and light moves into the background, it becomes your background. You go into rest; you go into deep rest. Death is rest for life. And out of death you will be born again and again. And out of life, death will happen again and again. They are together, a rhythm.

That's why language cannot express the one, the non-dual, ADVAITA - it cannot express it.

Language is logical - has to be. If it is not logical, if it is illogical, it will be again meaningless.

Gurdjieff was sitting one day, and a journalist came to see him. And he was very averse to journalists.

Suddenly he asked the woman who was sitting by his side, 'What day is today?' And the woman said, 'Saturday.' And Gurdjieff looked very puzzled, and he said, 'How can it be? Just the other day it was Friday - so how can it be Saturday today?'

The woman was also a little embarrassed - what is he saying? But she knew that he made very illogical statements sometimes. But the journalist thought he was mad. He was saying, 'How can today be Saturday when just the other day it was Friday? How? You tell me!'

The journalist thought it meaningless to talk to this man. He escaped, because he seemed to be mad and he seemed to be very ferocious too - he was a very strong Caucasian, a really strong man.... He escaped. When he escaped, Gurdjieff laughed. And the woman said, 'Why did you do this to him, that poor man?' He said, 'He would have taken unnecessary time and wasted my time.

And all that I have to say is illogical. If he cannot tolerate this much illogic, then it is pointless - he will not understand what I am saying.'

Truth is illogical. Truth is super-logical - truth goes beyond the limits and confines of logic. Logic is clearcut. Logic is like an English garden - very clearcut, very symmetrical. One bush on this side, another exactly on the other side - very symmetrical. Lawn cut, hedges cut, everything clean, symmetrical.

Truth is more like a Zen garden... truth is more like my garden. Mukta is my gardener - she finds very many difficulties with my garden. She would like to make it clean, to put trees rightly in symmetry.

She is a Greek. The Greek mind is basically logical - Aristotle and Plato and all. Now she is here in the hands of a man who is very illogical. I go on telling her, 'Put it anywhere, let it be a jungle.' In the beginning, she used to go into the garden when I was not looking, and she would start cutting and pruning trees. Now she has stopped; now I don't see her with her scissors, moving. Now she has become accustomed that this is going to be so.

There is a wild plant growing and spreading all over the garden. Nobody allows that plant, because it can destroy the whole garden. And I am in love with it. Mukta calls it 'the monster', she has named it 'the monster'.

Truth is more like a jungle. Not even a forest, because a forest is planted. A jungle is not planted, it is out of God - asymmetrical, no planning, no logic, no syllogism. It is simply there, with all its puzzles - you can be lost in it.

I have heard about a very great Zen master who was a lover of gardens. And a great gardener he was. The emperor was learning from him how to create a beautiful garden. And the emperor prepared the garden - three years he worked under the master, learned everything, and prepared the garden in the palace. He had one thousand gardeners to help and work for him.

After three years he asked the master to come and see. That was going to be the examination - if the master says, 'Good,' the emperor has passed. If the master says, 'No. You start studying again,' then he would have to study again for three years. So much care was taken, everything was put absolutely right. And there was no trouble, because one thousand gardeners were working for months.

And then the day came, and the master came. And the emperor was very much afraid - and he took the master and he became even more afraid, because the master was looking very serious. And finally, it was a cool morning, but the emperor started perspiring - because the master had not even smiled; he had not said a single word.

And the emperor, full of fear, asked, 'Sir, why are you keeping so silent? Why don't you smile? Why don't you say something? Is there something basically wrong with the garden?'

He said, 'Yes, there is one thing basically wrong.' 'What is that?' the emperor asked. And the master said, 'Man is too much apparent here. God is absent. You have been too mathematical - you destroyed it. You have been too logical, the garden is too symmetrical. Everything is as should be. That's what is wrong. Nothing is wrong, that is the problem.'

So much of mathematics exists only in the human mind. God is not a mathematician. The Greeks used to say, in the academy of Plato, on the door it was written: 'God is a mathematician. Unless you know mathematics please don't enter into this academy.'

God is not a mathematician, God is very asymmetrical.

And then do you know what the master did? He went out, asked many gardeners to come out of the garden. They had thrown all the dry leaves outside the garden, and he said, 'Bring these leaves back.'

A garden without dry leaves is a dead garden. Dry leaves have to be there, they are part of it. As life cannot be without death, how can green leaves be without dry leaves? And the dry leaves fluttering in the wind on the ground create a music of their own that is as beautiful as the green leaves on the trees. Waving, dancing... and sometimes the dry leaves moving and dancing on the ground in the wind are more musical than any green leaves can ever be. Because the dry leaves are free. Green leaves are still in the world; the dry leaves are like Buddhas.

So he goes out, brings all kinds of dry leaves which have been thrown away, spreads them all over the garden. And comes wind, and those dry leaves start fluttering, and he smiles. He says, 'Now it looks a little more alive.'

This is the Zen attitude.

Language is very logical - has to be, by necessity. Truth is very illogical, very asymmetrical. It is not a syllogism, it is poetry. It is not arithmetical, it is a song. It is more like love than like logic - that's why language cannot express it.

Can you express your love in a syllogism? You will have to make something like this: you go to a woman and you say, 'Your nose is as it should be, your colour is good, your hair is perfect, your body is proportionate, your belly is not coming out - therefore I love you.' The woman will scream and call the police - this is no way to fall in love. You don't fall in love with a syllogism; you don't come to a conclusion. Love is a jump, not a conclusion. When you make a syllogism you think of parts - the nose, the breast, the belly, the waist, the legs, the hands, the fingers, the hair, the colour, the teeth - you think of a thousand and one parts.

Logic can go only to the part. But where is the whole? Where IS THIS woman, this particular woman? She is not just her nose, she is not just her hair, she is not just her hands, legs. She is more than the sum total of her parts. You fall in love with that 'more'; you fall in love with the whole.

And you love her nose because you love her; you love her first, then you love her nose - not the other way round. You love her first, that's why you love her teeth - not the other way round.

Logic goes through the part, love goes through the whole. Truth is more like love - it is an insight into the whole. That whole is called God. Or truth, or tao.

Language is linear, it moves in a straight line. Nothing moves in life in straight lines; life moves in circles. The earth moves in a circle around the sun, and the earth moves on its own hub in a circle. And the seasons move in a circle, and the stars move in a circle, and life moves in a circle. - everything moves in a circle. Only logic, language, move in a line.

Language is linear, and existence is non-linear. Existence is circular. You cannot express the circle through the line. The line goes straight; the circle has a line in it but it is curved, it is never straight.

If you listen to life, the straight line is an invention of geometry. Straight lines don't exist. Euclid says straight lines exist, but now a new geometry has come into existence: non-Euclidean geometry. It says there are no straight lines, straight lines are not there at all.

How can you draw a straight line? If you draw a straight line, sitting here on the floor, it will not be straight - because the earth is round. So if you go on drawing that line, go on drawing, one day you will find it has become a circle. So when it was small it looked straight but it was not, it was part of a great circle - it was an arc. You misunderstood it - go on making it bigger and bigger and bigger, and one day you will see it has become a circle. Every line turns into a circle finally - so every line is part of a circle. But the circular logic is very different from the linear logic. The linear logic goes on progressing, goes on progressing. It goes on evolving; it knows no involution.

That's why, in the West, Western religions have the concept of creation, but they don't have any concept of destruction. Their God only creates - and then? then is hooked. Then it goes on and on.

This is absolutely false, because nothing can go on for ever; some day it has to come to rest.

In the East, God creates and God destroys. One day the world comes into existence, one day it disappears again. This whole experience of millions of millions of years is called one day of God - 'Brahma's day'. And he is both the creator and the destroyer. Now, the Western mind cannot think that God can be the destroyer; that is very logical - the creator cannot be the destroyer.

But in the East we know far deeper, we have an intuitive feeling for the whole. yes, the creator has to be the destroyer too - otherwise there will not be any death, there will be only life. And there will be no hate, there will be only love. And there will be no sadness, there will be always happiness. It is not so. Everything born dies.

So this whole existence is born one day, and one day dies. Only in the East do we have the conception - with evolution, we have the concept of involution. All is not going on, always progressing - with progress there is a regress too. And you can watch and see it: in one thing you progress, in another thing you regress. When a man becomes very rich, inside he becomes very poor. When a man has all, inside he starts feeling he has nothing. So progress and regress go on hand in hand. When a man renounces all, suddenly he feels he has become a master of his own being. The beggar becomes the emperor, the emperor becomes the beggar.

Life is very paradoxical - it is not linear, it is not logical. And because of the language and its line- structure, time is created: past, present, future. In fact, there is no past and no future, there is only present. It is all eternity. Existence has no past and existence has no future. Existence lives in eternity; it is always NOW.

So how can that 'now' be expressed? Impossible - because our language carries the idea of past and present. Our language is created by our memory, it is committed to the memory. Because it is committed to the memory it thinks about the past - memory has the past. And because it thinks of the past, it thinks of the future too - the future is nothing but the projection of the past again. And between the past and the future it goes on missing the present, which is the ONLY reality.

God is present. You cannot say 'God was' - that will be stupid. And you cannot say 'God will be' - that will be stupid again. You can only say 'God is'. God always IS - there is no 'was' and no 'will be'. God is.

This is-ness is called by the Zen people 'TATHATA' - suchness. This suchness cannot be expressed by language. Language will destroy this suchness - it will divide into past, present and future. And immediately things disappear - the moment you divide the wholeness of a thing, you destroy it.

I can show you a beautiful rose, you can take the petals off to look inside it - what makes it tick?

But then you have destroyed the flower. You can go to a chemist, you can find all the chemicals that make the flower, you can find how and why it smells, what makes this beautiful rose-smell come.

You can find why it is red or why it is yellow or why it is black; you can find all the constituents.

But you will not find one thing which was the most significant: you will not find beauty. You can put all those chemicals in different bottles - labelled, measured, classified - but one bottle will remain empty, the bottle that is labelled 'beauty'. Beauty you will not find. Beauty is only of the whole. So is truth only of the whole.

Language is linear, and truth is simultaneous. It is as if you are here, the trees are here, the birds are here, the clouds are here, the stars are here - everything is existing in this moment. It is not that first you exist, then trees exist, then clouds, then stars. Everything is existing simultaneously. But if you have to make an essay, things cannot exist simultaneously. First you talk about people who are gathered here, then you talk about the trees, then you talk about the clouds, then you talk about the stars, farther away stars - by and by you talk, gradually you talk, you put everything in line. Then things exist first, second, third - a queue starts coming into existence.

Existence is not standing in a queue, existence is all together. That's why it cannot be expressed in language.

Finally, language is an echo, a reflection in the mirror, a shadow. How can it express the truth?

Language is like the menu - you can read the menu, but the menu is not the food. You can read the menu but you cannot eat the menu. The menu can do one thing, it may give you appetite - but it cannot satisfy your appetite.

The words of a master can give you an appetite for God, but they cannot satisfy the hunger for God.

The scriptures may provoke a desire in you, but they cannot fulfill the desire. Words can challenge you, but that's all - because a word is a shadow. The word 'fire' is not fire, the word 'food' is not food. So it is with the word 'god' - the word 'god' is not God.

That's why Zen masters try to find out non-linguistic ways. Sometimes a Zen master will shout. He will say a meaningless thing, just a shout, meaning nothing, a meaningless sound. Or sometimes he will laugh: Ha ha ha! Or sometimes he will cry, and tears will fill his eyes and will start rolling down his cheeks. Or sometimes he will remain silent and will not do anything. Or sometimes he will beat the disciple, hit the disciple, throw the disciple.

Zen masters try to find out a non-linguistic way to provoke you, to bring you to this reality that is surrounding you. But you are lost in your head. So many clouds of language and words and philosophies go round and round inside your head that you have become very very dull. Somebody needs to shout at you. Somebody needs to hit you hard, so at least for a single moment you come to wakefulness.

A few things. Zen masters say: 'The use of words is like striking out at the moon with a stick or scratching one's shoe because one's foot itches.' That I like. Mm? Go on scratching your shoe because your foot is itching. That is not going to help. That's what we are doing, scratching the shoe. Something else is itching. We have to go direct to reality. Even this small layer of the shoe is enough to prevent you. And language is a BIG layer.

These words are from a Zen master, Takuan. He says so it is with language - you can go on listening and listening and listening, and when you try to find out where the word touched you, you will not even find a shadow. Something else, something more immediate, something more down-to-earth, is needed.

It happened, a very beautiful anecdote in the life of a great Zen master, Rinzai:

Rinzai met a party of three travelling monks belonging to another Buddhist school, and one of the three ventured to question the Zen monk: 'How deep is the river of Zen?' The reference to the river arose from their encounter taking place on a bridge. The Zen monk, Rinzai, who was noted for his direct actions, lost no time in replying. 'Find out for yourself,' he said, and offered to throw the questioner from the bridge into the river.

The questioner has asked, 'How deep is the river of Zen?' A beautiful question. But when you ask a question of a Zen master you have to be ready for anything. Because a Zen master does not reply from his memory; just the immediate response is his response. They were standing on a bridge, that's why the question arose. Maybe because of the river the questioner used the metaphor of the river. But he must be unaware that Zen masters don't like metaphors, they like reality. The metaphor will function like a shoe - and the reality is your foot which is itching.

Rinzai said, 'Find out for yourself,' and offered to throw the questioner from the bridge.

Even Doctor Suzuki, who has introduced Zen to the West, who has done a great service to humanity - in these seventy years, no other man has done such a great service to humanity as Suzuki - but even a man like Suzuki comments on this story: 'But fortunately his own two friends interceded and pleaded for mercy, which saved the situation.'

Now even Suzuki has become afraid; this is going too far. But my own feeling is, this is not fortunate that the two interceded. It would have been perfectly good to throw the monk into the river - to give him a taste of the REAL river, rather than going on thinking in metaphors. Thinking in metaphors does not help.

I am not ready to agree with Suzuki. I have a very soft heart for Suzuki, but I am not ready to agree with this statement. He says it was fortunate that the other two interceded and saved the situation.

They destroyed the whole situation. Nobody knows - the man falling from the bridge into the river might have become enlightened. Because when a man like Rinzai offers to throw a man, it cannot be meaningless. A man like Rinzai knows what he is doing; a man like Rinzai is perfectly aware of the situation.

There are people who can become alert only when death faces them - otherwise they are never alert. There are people who will wake only when death is standing just in front of them. For me, it was unfortunate that the other two interceded and pleaded for mercy. The poor man missed a great opportunity. Satori was possible. In fact, a man like Rinzai will not offer to throw anybody or everybody. A man like Rinzai will offer to throw somebody only when he sees the possibility, when he sees the potential.

This is the way Zen tackles situations, questions, challenges. Another anecdote.

A monk had but just returned from a very long trip, only to learn that his little son had died - and that even now, the funeral was passing through the village. The shock and pain of this discovery sent him dashing towards the village waving a sword. He came upon the little procession with the master walking alongside the coffin.

The monk raised his sword to the master and cried, 'Now can you say a word?'

Now, this is a very special way of Zen people. They say, 'Now can you say a word? which can solve the problem that is encountered by me? My son is dead, and I loved him tremendously. Now can you say a word to solve this problem?' And he has come with a sword, and he raises the sword in front of the master. And he says, 'Now can you say a word? Can you say something that can help me to see into this problem, to go through this problem, to have a breakthrough?'

The master lifted the lid of the coffin and said, 'You see, I have kept nothing from you - not even this.'

A great master. Opened the lid of the coffin and said, 'Come on! You see?' The dead body of the son. Death - so young, so fresh. Death so alive. Because when a child dies, death is very young and very fresh. Very radiant. You can see death in the child's face more than you will ever be able to see it in an old man. When an old man dies, death is also old. When a young child dies, death is very young and fresh like a flower.

The master opens the lid and says, 'You see, I have kept nothing from you, not even this! I have talked about life, I have helped you to see life. Now see death too. Not even this - I have not kept anything hidden from you. No, everything is revealed. Life you know - now see death too.'

'It is so, it is so,' replied the monk, as pain revealed what had so long been hidden from him.

What has been hidden? What has pain revealed? What did this master do by opening the coffin and showing the man his own dead child? What has he done?

The man was angry; he was ready to kill or be killed. He was in a rage, he was mad, he was waving a naked sword. He must have been very much attached to the child; the child must have been his very life. He is not in his senses. But the cool face of death brings him back to his senses, and he can see his attachment. And he can see that he is not worried about the child and the child's death - he is worried about his own attachment, about his own possessiveness. He is worried basically about his own death. The child has shown that everybody is going to die. The child has shown that you are ready to die any moment - even a young boy can disappear into death, so what about you?

All these things are revealed in that fresh, silent, cool death. Life is warm, death is cool. But death is as much alive as life.

And the master says, 'You see, I have kept nothing from you - not even this.' And a great realization, a great awakening: 'It is so, it is so,' replied the monk, as pain revealed what had so long been hidden from him.

Zen masters are very straight, very immediate. Nobody can predict their response, because they never react. Now, this is not a reaction, it is not a prepared answer. The situation is so new, it may not have ever happened before, and it may not have ever happened afterwards. Nothing repeats.

If you are really alive, responsive, spontaneous, nothing repeats. Every situation brings its own answer.

This is not a rehearsed answer. He opens the lid - this is a total act of responsibility.

Listen to this, another anecdote - very rare.

Some unexpected visitors arrived at the monastery, so word was sent to the cook to prepare extra food.... And the cook was no ordinary man; he was a man who had attained his satori....

Quickly he set about his task, but in gathering up sticks of green vegetables in a hurry he also picked up a snake. And it was getting dark, and the monk was old, and he could not see well either, and he was in a hurry. The guests had come, and immediately something was to be prepared. So he was cutting vegetables, and in the vegetables he picked up a snake too.

Chop-chop-chop went the knife, leaving the cook all unaware of the extra protein going into the pot.

Halfway through the meal, the cook was brought before the master, who pointed to the head of a snake held between his fingers.

By accident the head had come into the master's vegetables. And the master called the cook and pointed to the head of a snake held between his fingers. What is the master saying? He is saying, 'Now can you say a word?'

Quick as a flash, the cook deftly removed the snake's head from the master's hand and swallowed it, saying, 'Oh, thank you, Master,' and briskly left the room.

This is a Zen response. What is there to say? Must have been a rare man, this cook. What a beautiful response! This is a total response - straightforward, immediate. And whenever you are straightforward, your answer is not just an answer, it is your totality - the action is total.

Now not a single moment's hesitation, not a single moment's doubt, not a single moment's guilt. No apology, nothing. And it happened in a single moment, in a split moment - because if you waver a little, thought enters and the answer is no more a response. Because through thought comes the past, memory. You start looking - 'What to do? What should I say?' The moment you think 'What should I say?' you have missed. He would have been beaten that day, badly beaten. He might have even been thrown out of the ashram.

But this beautiful act, this total act - he immediately took the snake, swallowed it, and said, 'Thank you, Master.' As if something has been offered to him. This is the Zen way of responding.

Now today's sutra.

Very small, but very penetrating. Very sharp like a naked sword - it can cut you to your very core.

A MASTER GOT UP TO ADDRESS... In Zen, 'address' means provocation, 'address' means challenge. 'Address' means calling you forth out of your sleep.

'Address' means exactly what Jesus did when Lazarus died. He had gone far away; the sisters of Lazarus sent a messenger. And Jesus comes rushing to the village - but still, when he comes, three days have already passed. Lazarus' body has already started stinking. But they have preserved the body in a cave; they are waiting for Jesus. Hope is no more there - how can a three days' dead body be called forth again to life? And they start crying when Jesus comes, and they say, 'Master, you have come too late.' And Lazarus was one of Jesus' very beloved disciples.

Jesus said, 'Don't cry. Just come with me, follow me.' And they go to the cave, and outside the cave stands Jesus, and he says, 'Lazarus! Come out!' Nobody believes that anybody is going to come out. But nobody can believe their eyes, because they see Lazarus coming out - stumbling a little, wavering a little, like somebody who has been in a deep coma.

This is address: 'Lazarus, come out!' A call, a provocation, a challenge.

A MASTER GOT UP TO ADDRESS A GROUP SEEKING ENLIGHTENMENT... And those who are in search of enlightenment, what is there to say to them? Nothing can be said about enlightenment.

You can be provoked to become enlightened, you can be pushed, you can be thrown into it - but what can be said about it? There is nothing to say.

... AND HAD ONLY THIS TO SAY... but this small gesture - it is a gesture: 'HA! HA! HA! WHAT'S ALL THIS? GO TO THE BACK OF THE HALL AND HAVE SOME TEA.' What is he saying? What is he indicating? What is he saying without saying?

Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the greatest philosophers of the modern age, has said... he was very much impressed by Zen, and many of his statements are Zen-like, they have the quality of Zen.

One of the most important statements that he has made, and it is very significant to come out of a Western philosopher's mouth, is in his book TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS where he says: 'That which cannot be said should not even be tried.'

That which cannot be said should not be said at all. One should keep silent. That's what this master is doing - without saying anything he is making a gesture. First he says, 'Ha! ha! ha!' - he laughs, a belly laughter. It must have been a shock for those who had come to seek enlightenment. You don't expect that, that you will be taken so non-seriously.

Enlightenment-seekers are very serious people, long-faced people. And here comes this man, stands there on the stage and says, 'Ha! ha! ha!' What kind of sermon is this? But it is a Zen sermon. He laughs at the absurdity that you are trying to seek enlightenment. It cannot be sought - that's what he is saying. He is ridiculing them. He is saying, 'You are ridiculous! Ha! ha! ha! You are foolish, you are stupid. Enlightenment cannot be sought; it is not something that you can seek and find. It is not something that can be achieved, attained. It is there already. All that is needed is to drop your seriousness. Laugh a little.'

Drop your seriousness, drop this dullness. And drop this seeking mind - the seeking mind HAS to be serious, because your hope is in the future: some day when you have attained, then you will laugh. And the master says, 'Don't wait! You can laugh right now!'

Enlightenment is not something that is in the future, it is already there inside you, bubbling - wants to surface, wants to bloom, but because you are so much concerned with search and so much occupied with search, you don't look within. It is there, and you go on rushing outside. That is the meaning of 'Ha! ha! ha!'

If you understand why he is ridiculing... people who have come in religious search, why is he laughing at them? Why is he trying to make them feel foolish? They are foolish! God cannot be sought, God is here. Because you seek, that's why you miss. Drop all seeking, drop all desire, drop all future, drop all hope - and suddenly you are not there. only God is.

You exist in your seeking; the achiever's mind is the ego. You want money, you want meditation, you want power, one day you want paradise - but you want something. Your wanting never stops.

This enlightenment, and the search for it, is again a new object for desire. Hence the laughter - the master simply laughs in their faces, to make them alert: 'Don't be ridiculous.'

If you go to a Zen master and ask: 'I want to know God' he may hit you. He may say, 'What kind of foolish question are you asking? You ARE a god! And how can a god try to be a god?' It is as if a mango asks, 'How can I become a mango?' Or the cypress tree in the courtyard asks, 'How can I become a cypress?' What will you say? You will say, 'Ha! ha! ha! You are a cypress already! What's all this?' The master says: What are you searching? What is all this nonsense? Stop searching, and find. Seek not and find.

There is a statement of Picasso - very beautiful. He says, 'I seek not, I find.'

'GO TO THE BACK OF THE HALL...' This is very symbolic. This search, this seeking to attain something, is again an ego-search. ego-effort, to come into the front. You want to have the biggest bank-balance in the world; you want to stand in front, you want to be the first in the world. You want to become a president, you want to become a prime minister, you want this and that - but the basic search is: you want to keep others at your back, you want to he in the front. You want to be the first man in the world - the most beautiful, the most powerful, the most rich, the most knowledgeable.

And one day you find this is not possible. Then you think, 'Now I should become a Buddha - the most enlightened.'

But again it is the same mad mind, creating new desires and new dreams.

And the master says, 'GO TO THE BACK OF THE HALL' What is he saying? He is saying: Forget all this effort to be in front. Move towards the back.

That's what Jesus says: 'Those who are first in this world will be the last in my kingdom of God. And those who are the last will be the first.'

The master says, 'GO TO THE BACK OF THE HALL AND HAVE SOME TEA!' Tea is symbolic - tea is a metaphor in Zen. Tea has become a great metaphor in Zen because tea brings awareness. If you drink too much tea you cannot sleep. If you are feeling sleepy you drink a cup of tea and the sleep leaves you. Hence, tea has become a symbol. And the master says: Go to the back, and have some tea! Just stand at the back, be the last in the world, and become aware! And then you will join with me in my 'Ha! ha! ha!' You will laugh at the whole absurdity. You were missing because you were seeking; you were missing because you were trying to get it.

The moment you stop desiring, it is there. But sometimes you stop desiring and it is not there. For example, in deep sleep - you desire no more, but it is not there. You need a cup of tea. In deep sleep you don't desire, you don't think of money - not even dreams are there. All has stopped, the mind has halted, but still you don't attain Buddhahood. Why? In deep sleep you become a Buddha every night. But you miss, because at that time you are not aware.

So go to the back, and have a cup of tea. And don't ask what enlightenment is, and don't ask how to attain it, and don't ask for the methods and the technology and the philosophy.

'WHAT'S ALL THIS?' The master says it is all nonsense. Saying this, HE THEN GOT DOWN AND DEPARTED. His sermon is finished. The shortest sermon - but one of the most penetrating.

Now don't start thinking about it! Now don't start thinking about it, otherwise you will miss the message. Go to the back, and have a cup of tea.