Mind is Gone

IT IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PARABLES in all the records of Zen mythology, Zen approach towards life, Zen insight into truth. But the first thing to remember is, it is a parable, a myth. It signifies many things, but it is not a historical fact. Angels don't exist factually, but they have a great importance mythologically.

No mythology in the whole history of humanity is without the idea of angels. Religions differ almost about everything, but all the religions have some place for the myth of angels. Hence there must be something significant which cannot be related without bringing in the myth of the angels. First that has to be understood.

The angel is thought to be a divine messenger. Man does not exist in a vacuum, man does not exist like an island. He is in constant communion with God or with the whole or with Tao. He may be aware of it, he may not be aware of it - that will make lot of difference. But the fact remains true, whether you are aware or not aware of it, that man is in a constant communion with existence. That is the first thing the myth of the angels represents, that man and existence are deeply in communion.

The angels are thought to be messengers of God bringing messages to human beings. They are running between heaven and earth constantly.

If you drop the idea of the angels and just look around you will find thousand and one things continuously running between the earth, the earthly plane, and heaven, the divine plane. As one becomes more alert one finds more and more connections. We exist in a cosmic net and we are part of it.

In the East it is said that the universe is like a spider's web. If you touch a single thread of the spider's web, the whole web will feel the vibration Touch a single blade of grass and you have touched the greatest star, the farthest away star, because the whole is an organic unity; nothing is unrelated. It is only human ignorance that has created the idea of the ego.

And man lives in a kind of self-exile; it is self-imposed exile. We have made a small capsule around ourselves; we have become encapsulated, alienated. And then we suffer, then we are miserable.

Then we can't find any meaning in life, any significance in life. Then we feel uprooted, ungrounded.

Then we feel accidental, as if we are not needed at all, as if existence would go on running in the same way whether we are or we are not. That gives us a deep wound. We lose confidence, trust in ourselves. We become something futile, unneeded, useless; just by accident we have come into existence.

And this whole nonsense arises because we have created the idea of the ego. The ego is an effort to disconnect yourself from the whole, although you cannot disconnect yourself from whole, but you can live in the belief that you have succeeded. Your belief is the cause of your hell. Drop the belief of the ego and suddenly you will see messengers running between you and the whole continuously, every moment, day in, day out. Then the birds singing bring messages, the flowers opening bring messages, then the stars twinkling in the night bring messages. Then the whole existence becomes an open book, the REAL Bible. Then you need not go into old, rotten scriptures; you can simply look around and start reading existence. And then there are sermons everywhere, scriptures everywhere, songs everywhere.

This is the first thing that is represented by the beautiful myth of the angels. You must have seen pictures of the angels: they all look like small children, not even they are young. They look childlike - their faces have the same innocence, the same purity, the same unpoisoned state. Their eyes, their cheeks, their whole personality is that of a child - as if a child has been magnified, as if you are looking a child through a magnifying glass.

All the Buddhas have said: Unless you attain your childhood again you will not know what the truth is. But they are not childish, remember - childlike of course, but not childish. To be childish is to be retarded, to be childlike is to be innocent. To be childlike is healthy, to be childish is very unhealthy.

Our society does not allow us to remain childlike; it forces us to become so-called grown-ups, which are not really grown-ups. Physically they are grown-ups but not psychologically; psychologically they are very childish. The average psychological age is only thirteen years. The person may be ninety years old, but his average psychological age remains stuck somewhere at the age thirteen.

This is something very strange. Man should grow as a whole; his psychology, his physiology, his soul, all should grow in a kind of harmonious dance. Then only he remains whole, then only there is health, then only there is sanity. If even one part of you is lagging far behind, then your whole will remain undeveloped because you cannot grow in parts; that is impossible.

It happened in a court:

A thief was caught and just before the magistrate was going to punish him, declare his punishment, the thief said, "Sir, I would like to say one thing before you declare your judgment. That is, I am not responsible and you cannot punish somebody for somebody else's fault."

The magistrate said, "What do you mean? Have you not stolen these things? There are eyewitnesses."

He said, "Yes, they are also right. My hands have done the wrong, but I have not done it. You can punish my hands, but you cannot punish me."

The magistrate was also a very cunning person. He said, "Okay, which hand has committed the crime?"

And the man said, "My right hand."

The magistrate said, "That's all right. Then your right hand is sent to jail for ten years."

The whole court laughed, because if the hand goes to jail, how can the man remain behind? He will have to go to jail. But the court has to stop laughing in the middle because the man was laughing even more uproariously than the court.

The magistrate said, "You are laughing? Are you mad or something?"

The man said, "No, I am not mad." He removed his coat and gave his right hand - which was just an artificial hand. He said, "You can send this hand to the jail ten years or a hundred years or as long as you want."

It is possible if your parts are artificial to separate them, but your body is not artificial. All your parts are intrinSically necessary for you; nothing is artificial in you. So if one thing remains behind, everything else remains behind. You can go on pretending that you have become a grown-up person, but you are not a grown-up person, and you can watch yourself and others. lust scratch the person a little and you will find the childishness coming up. You may be a father of half a dozen children, and when you are fighting with your wife you start throwing pillows. You may be a mother of a half a dozen children and when you are in a fight you go in a tantrum, very childish.

"Oy, doctor, have I got tsuris with my son," wept the lady. "All day long he is doing nothing but blowing bubbles. From soapsuds he is making the bubbles and he is blowing them out from a clay pipe."

"Really, madam, there is no reason for you to be concerned," said the psychiatrist, smiling indulgently. "Lots of sons blow bubbles."

"Well, I think it looks funny," insisted the woman, "and so does his wife."

It is one thing to do something when you are a child - you can blow soapbubbles - but when you are physiologically grown-up, at least you look a grown-up person, the same thing looks stupid.

Watch people's lives - their lives are doublebinds. Their lives are not singular; they are living many lives, in fact. They have to live many lives because their many parts have remained hanging at different places and they have to live all those parts; they can't live as a totality.

Many times people ask me, "Why we can't be total?" You can't be total for the simple reason because your one hand may be only seven years old, your other hand may be twenty years old, your head may be just thirteen years old, your heart may be just born or not born yet, maybe in the womb, your head may have become eighty years old. Now how can you live a total life? You are bound to live like a crowd, sometimes at one stage, sometimes at another stage.

During the day, Signor Giovanni was a business tycoon, working hard and seriously married, but at night he would become a playboy, going around to all the nightclubs of Rome.

One day his wife decided that it was time they spent an evening together and asked him to take her out to a nightclub. Unable to dissuade his wife, they went out together.

When they arrived at the nightclub, the doorman greeted him warmly.

"Do you know him?" asked the wife.

Quickly he answered, "He is my errand boy. He works at night to make more money."

Inside the nightclub, the bunny-girl pinched his cheek and said, "Hello, Signor Giovanni."

Suspicious, the wife asked, "How come you know this girl?"

Perspiring, he answered, "Well, she is one of the models who works for me."

Then they were taken by the MAITRE D' to the best table, near the dance floor. As they sat down, the ballet dancers came out, stopped in front of their table and started singing, "Hip-hip-hooray for Signor Giovanni!"

The wife was furious. She dragged him out of the nightclub, shoved him into a taxi and started beating him.

The taxi driver turned around and asked, "What is happening, Signor Giovanni? The doll gives you trouble? Shall I throw her out of the taxi?"

People are living many lives, all simultaneously, hence there is so much mess. A person may be very wise in one thing and very stupid in another. A person may be very sincere in one thing and very insincere and unreliable in another. And you always become very puzzled that you have never thought this man can do this; you would have never imagined that this man can commit suicide - he was so mature. But you don't know the whole man because you don't know his many lives. You would not have believed that this man could commit murder - he was so loving, so nice. That was only one facade; with another facade he may be very ugly, very violent, very murderous. You may not have known him. In fact, what to say about you? He may not know himself how many people are living in him. He may not recognize his own aspects because many of them remain underground; he has repressed them underground. He is so afraid of them that he can't bring them up. He will feel too much immature, childish, stupid, silly, mediocre, and he would not like to see all that.

George Gurdjieff used to do one thing: whenever he will initiate a new disciple, which was very rare...

he was a very choosy person; out of thousands he will choose one or two persons. And his method of choosing was very strange. He will go on forcing you to drink strong wines, whiskies, brandies - and he was an expert about all kinds of intoxicants, alcoholic beverages, psychedelic drugs - and he will go on forcing you for the simple reason that unless you become totally unconscious, your all faces cannot surface. And he wants to see your all faces before he can decide whether it is worth to make any effort with you, whether it is worth to take any trouble, whether you are in any way potential, or just a lost case, a hopeless case - then why bother? He was not like a man like me who is ready to bother about anybody; he was the just opposite.

I am ready to work on anybody because my approach is whether you grow in this life or not is not the point; even if you have tried a little bit, that much will become part of you - in some other life maybe, with some other Master, it may come to a fulfillment. You may not become enlightened this time but the very desire, the very longing is enough. I Will work whether you are worthy or not. It is enough that you long for it. I will sow the seeds. Maybe this life you will not grow, but the seeds will remain because they are never destroyed.

And the people who are going to become enlightened in this life, I cannot claim the whole credit, because they may have lived with Jesus, they may have lived with Buddha, they may have lived with Mohammed, they may have danced with Jalaluddin, they may have sat with Bokuju, Rinzai... You have lived thousands of lives. If all those people would have been as choosy as Gurdjieff you would not have been here; because they all worked on you, something went on growing. Hence I don't choose at all. Anybody who comes to me, I am ready to work; my approach is different.

Gurdjieff's approach was different. He wanted to know all of your faces immediately, then he would decide. With me it will take ten years to know your all faces, because I will have to wait for different situations to know your other aspects. But he wanted to know immediately; only then he will start his work.

But remember that you are not one person, you are many persons. You are polypsychic. A man may be a great scientist...

One of the men who had been to the moon - only three persons have been to the moon - one of them has become a disciple of Swami Shivananda of Rishikesh. Now Shivananda is no more alive, but his disciples are there. Whatsoever Shivananda has written is just third-rate; he had no idea of anything real. He was just repeating like a parrot the ancient, rotten Hindu philosophy, and that too not in a very sophisticated way. But a man who has walked on the moon has become his disciple. This is sheer stupidity, but this man who has walked on the moon may still be carrying something very childish in him. Maybe it is because of that childishness that he wanted to go to the moon in the first place, because every child wants to go to the moon, and it is not new. From the ancientmost times every child becomes interested into the moon and starts stretching his hands towards the moon and wants the moon in his hands. Maybe it was just a childish idea that modern technology made him capable to realize, because the interest that he is showing now in people like Muktananda, Shivananda, shows the stupidity of the person.

It is possible a person may grow into a certain direction - and that's how our education is structured.

It makes you experts. You have to specialize into one thing and in other things, in every other thing, you remain mediocre.

An Italian goes to see a doctor. "Doctor," he exclaims, "I am-a desperate! A few nights ago, I came home-a from work-a and found-a my wife in bed-a with another man! When she saw me she started weeping and crying, so I said-a, 'Well-a, let's-a have-a coffee...' Then-a the other night-a, the same thing-a! She was-a in bed-a with my neighbor! I took-a the pistol-a to kill-a them, but she cried and cried, so I said-a, 'Well-a, let's-a have-a coffee...' Then last-a night-a the same thing-a again. She promised me that-a it was-a the last-a time - never was-a she going to do-a it again... so I said-a, 'Well-a, let's-a have-a coffee...

But, I am-a worried, doctor. Is-a it okay to drink-a so much-a coffee?"

Watch yourself and you will find thousand-and-one ridiculous things in you too. All the jokes that I go on telling you are about you!

The angels represent childlike innocence, but not childishness. Only this innocence can make you connected with godliness, hence angels are messengers of God connections with God. You must have seen angels in pictures. you must have read about them. They are always singing, dancing, praising the lord, Alleluia!" All that they do is playing on the harp and singing Alleluia. Yes, there is a state of innocence which is all song and all music and all harmony and all joy and all alleluia.

Remember that angels represent all this: the totality of life, innocence of life, celebration of life. And then immediately you are also connected with the divine, you are no more disconnected. You don't feel alien. You are no more an outsider, you become an insider. Then existenCe belongs to you and you belong to existence.

Now this parable:

ONE DAY AN ANGEL, FLYING BACK TO HEAVEN, SAW BELOW HIM A LUXURIANT FOREST ENVELOPED IN A GREAT, GLOWING HALO OF LIGHT.

ANGELS FLY. MAN CREEPS, crawls, although he is also born with wings, but he is not aware of those wings. To be with a Master the first awareness that happens to the disciple is that "I can also fly," that "I can also start moving upwards," that "I can also have a dialogue with the stars and the sky and the infinity and the eternity."

Man is so unconscious that he is no aware of his whole potential. What to say about the whole potential? - not even about the part of his potential. Psychologists say that you are aware only of one-tenth of your mind; that is about the mind. And what about the soul? You are not aware at all of the soul, and that is where your wings are.

Hence angels are not physical beings, just spirits. They don't have any weight, they are weightless.

And in deep meditation these moments will happen to you when you will find suddenly that you don't have any weight, that gravitation has no meaning for you, that another law has started functioning in your life: the law of grace. Just as gravitation pulls you downwards, grace pulls you upwards.

But the first thing is to become aware. You know only one-tenth of your mind; first you have to know about your whole mind and then only is it possible to know something about your soul.

"Hi, doc, was my operation successful?"

"Sorry, old chap, I am St. Peter!"

That's how you are living: not seeing what is, what is not, what is happening. You go on projecting your own ideas on people, on things, and you go on playing stupid games. They start in your childhood and then they continue your whole life. Of course they become more complex, but their quality remains the same; quantity becomes bigger, but the quality remains the same. And you are not even aware that there is a totally different world which belongs not to the realm of the quantitative.

Just the other day one sannyasin has asked me a question, that "I have heard, although I don't believe, that there are few people in the world who are working as vehicles of God." She mentions some babaji and she mentions about somebody who is going to announce himself as Maitreya, the Buddha of this age, and these people come into the world to help humanity. She says "... although I don't believe all this, but I am less aware, you are more aware, so you can answer my question."

She thinks the difference between her and me is only of less and more: she is a little less aware, I am a little more aware, that's all; the difference is of quantity, of degrees. But it is not only her idea, that's how almost everybody thinks. In the world we think always in terms of quantity; we don't know the dimensions of quality.

It is not a question of more or less awareness. Either one is aware or one is not. It is a transformation.

Either one is a Buddha or one is not; it is not that one is a little less Buddha and one is a little more Buddha, one is just one kilo Christ and another is two kilos Christ. We believe in matter, that's why we believe in quantity. Matter is quantity; the soul is not quantity.

When you become aware at the innermost core of your being it happens as a sudden illumination.

Your whole being becomes light. Just a moment before all was darkness and a moment afterwards all is light. But that dimension is totally unknown to us. Our whole life is lived through the world of quantity. The child knows a little less and you know a little more, and your father knows a little still more than you, so it is only a question of time. You will also know more as time goes by, as you become more experienced, more informed. But the game is the same. Children are playing the same games that you are playing.

Go and watch the children, and then sit silently and watch your own games, your own trips, and you will not find any qualitative difference at all - quantitative difference of course. They may be playing Monopoly, in which everything is false - false notes and false stations, and everything is false - but when they play they became serious about it, they become very serious. And what do you think?

- your notes are real? They are also false! In a game of Monopoly four persons have consented to believe that these notes are real: then they are real! For those four persons they have become real because they have consented, they have made a contract that they will believe in their reality.

And what are your notes? The Indian note will not be real in China, the Chinese note will not be real in India. Why? If it is real it is real, whether it is China or India. It is just that the Indians have consented, made a contract that they will believe in this note, hence it is real.

Just few days before there were one-thousand-rupee notes in India, then the government decided to cancel them. Now how you cancel realities? Can you cancel that tomorrow there will be no sunrise, by government order? But you can cancel those rupees. Rupees were cancelled: one-thousand- rupee notes became invalid within a second.

And people did all kinds of things with those one-thousand-rupee notes. Of course a little time was given - you can go to the bank and change them - but there were troubles. Those notes have to be white money. You will have to explain from where you got those notes. And as everywhere there are double things, in money also there is white money and black money. Black money means you have it, you can use it, but you cannot publicly declare it because you have not paid taxes on it, you have not showed from where it has come. You may have earned it through smuggling or some other illegal source. So many people could not declare those notes. They made cigarettes out of one-thousand- rupee notes and smoked the cigarettes! Why miss such an opportunity? They spread the notes and ate their breakfast on the notes. Why miss such an opportunity? People simply threw them out of their windows. Small children were carrying bundles of one-thousand-rupee notes, playing with them. They became useless. It was just a consent which has been withdrawn.

From your childhood to your old age you go on playing the same games. In chess the horses... all false: if you are poor they are wooden, if you are rich they are made of ivory or diamonds or anything valuable, but they are all false. But then there are people who go to real war - but that too is false, on false pretext:

"Our religion is in danger, our country is in danger." Now "country" is a belief.

The people who went to the moon for the first time became aware of the fact that the earth is one; they could not see countries. India and Pakistan and Bangladesh they could not see. They could not figure out where is America and where is Europe and where is Asia and what is communist and what is not communist and what countries are democratic and what countries are dictatorial.

There was no difference at all; all boundaries disappeared. For the first time they became aware that boundaries exist only on the maps and maps are false.

"Mummy, mummy, can I get pregnant?" asked the little girl breathlessly on the front doorstep.

"No, of course not, dear, you are only six," said Mum.

The little girl turns around, goes running down the path shouting, "It is okay, you guys - same game again!"

But this is the same game that goes on and on.

Isabella was going out on her first date. The story is not about our Isabel - her name is Isabel, not Isabella, mind you! Isabella was going out on her first date. Her parents warned her to be home by nine p.m. She arrived ten minutes late, her hair undone and her make-up smeared. Her parents asked her how the evening went.

"Mamma mia!" was her only replay.

The next night Isabella was going out with the same man. Again her parents gave a stern warning to be back by nine p.m.

At half past ten she arrived, her clothes dishevelled, her hair touselled. After she was reprimanded for coming home late, her only reply to how the evening went was, "Mamma mia!"

The third night Isabella arrived home at one o'clock in the morning; her dress was backwards, her hair in a mess. Her parents fumed at her for hours, after which they asked her how the evening went. Upon which Isabella broke down sobbing and cried, "Me a mamma!"

Now this game will continue on different levels, different planes, but the difference will be only of quantity not of quality.

The qualitative change comes in your life when unconsciousness is dropped, mechanicalness is dropped, mind as such is dropped and you become a no-mind. Mind is mechanicalness, no-mind is unmechanicalness. No-mind is the revolution, the great revolution, the only revolution there is. And when it happens you are full of light, and those who have eyes, those who are innocent enough to have eyes will be able to see that light.

ONE DAY AN ANGEL, FLYING BACK TO HEAVEN, SAW BELOW HIM A LUXURIANT FOREST ENVELOPED IN A GREAT, GLOWING HALO OF LIGHT. HAVING TRAVELED THROUGH THE SKY MANY MANY TIMES BEFORE, HE NATURALLY HAD SEEN NUMEROUS LAKES, MOUNTAINS, AND FORESTS, BUT HAD NEVER PAID MUCH ATTENTION TO THEM. TODAY, HOWEVER, HE NOTICED SOMETHING DIFFERENT - A FOREST SURROUNDED BY A RADIANT AURA,FROM WHICH BEAMS OF LIGHT RADIATED TO EVERY PART OF THE FIRMAMENT.

THE ANGEL COULD SEE IT because of his childlike innocence, because of his capacity to move upwards, because his capacity to be connected with godliness. You may have missed, you may have passed by the side of the same forest. And I say to you, many times you have passed through such people and you have missed, because you are not new on the earth; you are as ancient as the existence itself. It is impossible, improbable, that you may not have come across a single Buddha in your any life. Somewhere, some time you must have crossed the path of a Buddha. But you must have missed, otherwise you would have been transformed, you would have been changed, your values would have changed. Your life would have been a totally different phenomenon - but you must have missed.

It is easy to miss because it is very easy to be cunning, clever, knowledgeable. It is difficult to be innocent. And there are few things that only innocent people can see.

HE REASONED TO HIMSELF, "AH, THERE MUST BE AN ENLIGHTENED BEING IN THIS WOOD!

I SHALL GO DOWN AND SEE WHO IT IS."

UPON LANDING, THE ANGEL SAW A BODHISATTVA SITTING QUIETLY UNDER A TREE ABSORBED IN DEEP MEDITATION.

The whole forest was radiant, was glowing with an unearthly light, was surrounded by a halo. It always happens, and those who have eyes can see it, and those who have ears can listen to the music of it, and those who have love enough can understand it. It is understood by love, by innocence, by simplicity, by humbleness, by egolessness.

HE SAW A BODHISATTVA SITTING QUIETLY... ABSORBED IN DEEP MEDITATION.

According to Zen, meditation becomes deep at the fourth stage. There are four stages of meditation.

First is not talking; your lips are silent. That is an outer kind of silence but the beginning. The beginning has to be outer because you are on the outside; you can begin only from where you are.

The second meditation is not thinking. First you stop words, you don't speak. Second you stop words, yoU don't think. And third is: not thinking that "I am not thinking," which is the most difficult - because when you see that all thoughts have disappeared, this thought grips your whole being:

"Aha! So I have arrived. This IS SATORI!" But you have started falling. And in the beginning it is bound to happen a few times, unless the Master goes on hitting you and telling you, that "Stop this!

There is no need to brag about it to anybody or to yourself either. Let it pass - that too is a phase."

And then the fourth is the deep meditation when you simply are - not even the thought that "I have no thoughts."

Socrates says... his famous statement, but he is a Greek and thought in logical ways. If you put his statement to the Zen people they will say, "This is the third state, not the fourth." He says, "I know only one thing, that I know nothing." Zen people will say, "Even this much is enough knowledge: 'I know that I know nothing' - but still something is known." Still you are carrying the last shadow. The elephant has passed but the tail remains, and sometimes the tail is the most difficult part, and one clings to the tail. The whole is gone; now this is the last thing to cling to.

It is like a drowning man clinging to a straw, knowing perfectly well that a straw cannot save you.

But if somebody says, "What are you doing? This is a straw - it is not going to save you," he will be angry. You are destroying his last dream, you are taking his last illusion.

Friedrich Nietzsche has said, "Don't disturb people's illusionS, otherwise they will never forgive you."

And I know it perfectly well, they never forgive - but still their illusions have to be shattered. Whether they forgive it or not, that is up to them. Who cares? It has to be told, that "This straw is not going to save you."

Zen people will say that Socrates has reached the third. He needs now a Zen Master to hit him, to push him to the fourth, where he will forget about this knowing business totally. Even to say, "I know that I know nothing;' is knowledge.

Just few days before I gave sannyas to a beautiful woman; Kiffy is her name. Now neither she knows what does it mean nor I know, so there was trouble - what to do? So I said, "Don't be bothered." I called her Anand Kiffy and I told her, "Anand means bliss, so whatsoever Kiffy means, just be blissful Kiffy! And bliss is the real thing, the elephant; Kiffy is just the tail. If the elephant can pass, we will manage so that the tail can also pass through."

But sometimes the elephant passes easily because you can see that this is the cause of your misery, but the tail? That seems just to keep as a memoir, just in the memory of all those beautiful old days.

Of course there was nothing beautiful...

A mother was telling to her small boy, "Are you going to eat or not?"

And the boy was very stubborn and he was saying, "I hate the way you cook! I am not going to eat it. Even my dog has refused it!"

And the mother said, "Listen, after twenty years you will be telling some woman that 'My mother was a wonderful cook!'"

That's how people are. After twenty years every boy is going to say to the wife that "My mother was a wonderful cook!" And the same boy was every day a problem for the mother, and the mother was a problem for the boy. The mother was trying to force and the boy was resisting; he hated all those things. But after twenty years everybody forgets. People start remembering beautiful things about a past which had never been there; they invent. People are inventive, very inventive about the past.

Hence I don't believe that there is a single autobiography which is true. I have read thousands of autobiographies, but this is my observation: that not a single autobiography is true. Only a Buddha can write a true autobiography - but Buddhas have never written - because a Buddha can see actually the facts, but then it is not worth writing at all. What is there to write? Ordinarily people invent their pasts. First they try to create a future - which is not possible, they fail; everybody fails inevitably. When you fail in creating the future, the only substitute is create a past. Now nobody can prevent you; you can enjoy inventing a past. All autobiographies are fictions created, invented, polished, exaggerated. Many things have been dropped, many things have been added.

And I am not saying that people are doing it knowingly - people are not so much conscious - people are simply doing it. They must be believing that it is how it happened; they believe it. They are writing it with very great sincerity.

So people cling to the past. The last clinging in meditation is that "Now I have arrived, all is finished, mind is gone" - and this is mind coming from the back door. This is the mind's last effort to befool you.

Hence, up to the third Zen people don't call meditation deep. They call it deep only at the fourth when all is gone; even the idea that all is gone is no more there. Mind is gone. Even the idea that "I have achieved the no-mind" is no more there. Knowledge is gone. Even the idea that "Now I know nothing" is no more there. Zen has taken the ultimate step.

HE THOUGHT TO HIMSELF - THE ANGEL THOUGHT TO HIMSELF - "NOW LET ME FIND OUT WHAT MEDITATION HE IS PRACTICING."

Just the inquiry of a child. Remember, the angel represents only innocence, not that he is a sage; he is only a child. And never forget the difference between the two, because both are similar and at the same time very much different. The child has the same kind of innocence as the sage, but the sage has lost that innocence and found it again and the child has not lost it yet. It is the same innocence, but it changes its quality when you lose it and gain it again. You can have glimpses in the child of that intelligence which belongs to a Buddha, but those are only reflections. Moon reflected in a lake looks exactly like the real moon, and sometimes even more beautiful than the real moon, but it is just a reflection. Throw a small stone into the lake and you will know the difference. The reflection disappears.

The child can be disturbed very easily; the sage cannot be disturbed at all. There is no way to disturb the sage. The child is innocent, but his innocence is bound to be lost sooner or later. He is intelligent, but he will lose his intelligence.

At a Sunday school class, the priest asked the class, "Who can tell me how long Adam and Eve stayed in the Garden of Eden?"

Little Johnny promptly answered, "Up to the 15th of September."

Why?" asked the priest in amazement. "Why the 15th of September?"

"Because apples are not ripe before that time!" answered little Johnny.

Now no theologian has been able to discover that date so exactly. And I perfectly agree with little Johnny - that must have been the date.

The mother was explaining to Mario about the world's origin.

"So all this happened just because Adam disobeyed God and ate an apple!" said Mario.

"So the Bible says," replied the mother.

"That's too bad! If only I had been there instead of Adam, we would all still be in the Garden of Eden!"

"What! What are you saying?" exclaims the mother.

"Yes, of course, don't you remember? I don't like apples!"

Children have a quick insight, a direct insight. But it is going to be clouded, it is bound to be clouded.

It is a natural gift, and you cannot appreciate any natural gift unless you lose it; you will appreciate it only when you have lost it. Then you will make great effort to gain it again. Paradise has to be lost and regained; it is paradise only when regained, otherwise it is not paradise.

The angel is just a child, innocent. He is not a sage.

Naturally; HE THOUGHT TO HIMSELF, "NOW LET FIND OUT WHAT MEDITATION HE IS PRACTISING."

MEDITATION IS EVER PRACTICED. Those who think in terms of practicing meditation are childish; they don't know anything about meditation.

AND HE OPENED HIS HEAVENLY EYES TO SEE ON WHAT OBJECT OR IDEA THIS YOGI HAD FOCUSED HIS MIND.

Now meditation is not concentration either, but the child cannot think of a meditation which has no object.

Hence there are two kinds of religion in the world: one, the childish kind of religion which thinks about God the father. All the religions that think about God the father or God the mother are childish religions. They are projecting God as father or mother; that is the mind of a child.

Then there are really grown-up, mature religions which don't think of God as father or mother, in fact which don't think of God as a person at all - which think of godliness, just a quality that pervades existence, which think of God as awareness, as light, which think of God as the void, absolute purity, the nothingness, the no-selfness.

Zen belongs to the second category; it is the most mature religious approach.

The angel thought, "On what subject, on what object. what idea, he is practicing? On what he is focusing his mind?"

Meditation is not focusing; meditation is not mind at all.

ANGELS CAN USUALLY READ THE MIND OF YOGIS...

because yogis try to concentrate. Zen goes far beyond Yoga: Yoga only prepares you for the ultimate jump - Zen is that ultimate jump. But there are millions of fools around the world who go on practicing yoga postures their whole lives, forgetting completely that just preparing the ground and preparing the ground and preparing the ground is not going to make the garden: you have to sow the seeds too. Preparing the ground is necessary, but it is not the all, it is not the whole thing; it is just a preliminary step.

But there are people - and they have become world-famous simply because they can do all the yoga postures - they can distort their bodies in all kinds of shapes. And they have great impact.

They should be in the circuses! They are not part of the religious phenomenon at all, but they are dominating. And there are people who will go to them, to be tortured by them, because if you start yoga postures from your very-childhood it is easy very easy. If you start yoga postures after your body has become mature, it is very difficult. But people think that this is austerity, this is asceticism.

This whole torturing business, this whole masochism seems to be worth it because there is the carrot hanging in front of your nose that you will realize God, that you will realize heavenly pleasures, that you will realize this and that, that you will become immortals. And people are ready to do any nonsense: more nonsensical it is, the more they think there must be something in it.

BUT THE ANGEL COULD NOT FIND ANYTHING AT ALL, MUCH TO HIS SURPRISE. HE CIRCLED AND CIRCLED THE YOGI...

He went around and around the bodhisattva, looking from every nook and corner...

AND FINALLY WENT INTO SAMADHI HIMSELF...

because an innocent mind can catch, can imbibe - he may not be able to understand what is happening.

Many times it happens: when little Siddhartha comes for close-up or for charansparsh I can see it happening. He cannot understand what is happening, but he immediately goes into it. He will not be able to retain it because he is not aware of what happens, but he is open to me.

Just a few days ago he wanted to live with real men. He wrote to me a letter saying that "Enough I have lived with small kids, I want to live with real men." So I sent him to live with Govinddas. He went there in the night - it must have been one o'clock in the night - opened his suitcase, arranged his things, said, "Hi, guys!" fixed his alarm clock and went to sleep. He fixes his alarm clock every night so that when I go back from the lecture he can receive me on the gate - he must be waiting there for me - every day. Sometimes - he is a small child, the alarm cannot wake him up, so he makes other arrangements. Two, three guards, he tells them that "If this fails, then you come. If I do not turn up, then you come, but wake me in time so I am ready, washed and cleaned." And he will be standing under a tree waiting for me.

He cannot understand what is happening, but he can go into it. Just the moment I see into his eyes he starts moving into samadhi. He can imbibe that opening.

One sannyasin wrote just the other day that "I had come for a close-up darshan and while other people were passing through the close-up darshans I was very open and enjoying and flowing and was in a state of let-go, but when I came myself, suddenly something went wrong - I became closed."

And I know what happened because whenever somebody comes open and suddenly closes I can hear the sound "click"! What really happened to this sannyasin was - a woman is after all a woman - she became jealous of other mediums. That jealousy was enough. She forgot all about me; she became jealous of the mediums because they are so close to me, and every day. I could see what was happening to her; the jealousy closed her.

In her letter also, unknowingly, she mentions it: your mediums were almost crushing me, and because of their movements I could not remain open." It is not because of their movements - their movements are there to help you open. They are swaying in total openness towards me. They are surrounding you so that their openness can help you. From every corner they are surrounding you - from your back, from your front, from everywhere. They are creating the atmosphere of openness, the climate of openness. That is their purpose. But she became jealous - a woman after all is a woman. Even though she is a sannyasin it is very difficult to forget your feminine qualities. I heard the click so loudly!

The angel going round and round the bodhisattva himself went into samadhi:

... BUT STILL COULD NOT FIND ANYTHING IN THE BODHISATTVA'S MIND.

Innocence cannot understand; it can contact, but it cannot understand. To understand one needs to regain innocence A regained innocence is capable of under standing A regained innocence has something more to it, some new flavor, some new fragrance. Only a sage can understand. For understanding, innocence is needed, but something more is also needed, something plus: that is losing it and gaining it - that gap is needed.

FINALLY THE ANGEL TRANSFORMED HIMSELF INTO A HUMAN BEING...

Up to now he was just a spirit.

... CIRCUMAMBULATED THE BODHISATTVA THREE TIMES, PROSTRATED HIMSELF, AND SAID:

"I MAKE OBEISANCE TO THE AUSPICIOUS ONE; I PAY MY HOMAGE TO YOU, O LORD OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS! PLEASE AWAKE, COME OUT OF SAMADHI, AND TELL ME UPON WHAT YOU WERE MEDITATING. AFTER EXHAUSTING ALL MY MIRACULOUS POWERS, I STILL HAVE FAILED TO FIND OUT WHAT WAS IN YOUR MIND."

NOW THIS POINT has to be deeply remembered: the child has one quality, innocence, to understand, but the other quality is missing. He has not lost it yet, he has not missed it yet, he has not fallen from grace yet, he has not gone astray yet. He takes it for granted; he is not yet grateful for it. The knowledgeable person has missed it but is not trying to find it. He has another quality: he has missed it, but he is not trying to find it again. Neither the child will understand nor the scholar, the pundit.

To understand, a sage is needed who has lost and then made every possible effort, risked all to gain it again. He has both the qualities: the innocence of the child and the awareness of the one who had gone astray and the one who has suffered. He knows what ignorance is; that's why he can know what knowing is. He knows what knowledge is so now he can know what wisdom is.

The angel said:

"PLEASE... TELL ME UPON WHAT YOU WERE MEDITATING. AFTER EXHAUSTING ALL MY MIRACULOUS POWERS, I STILL HAVE FAILED TO FIND OUT WHAT WAS IN YOUR MIND."

There was no mind and there was nothing in the mind that's why he has failed. But he is not aware of the state. Of course he has experienced it himself - he wen into samadhi - but still he is not yet aware enough tc know what has happened to him.

THE BODHISATTVA SMILED.

This is the special transmission. Words are of no use they are not adequate enough, but the smile can say something which is unsayable; it can show something which cannot be said.

AGAIN THE ANGEL CRIED, "I MAKE OBEISANCE TO YOU; I PAY HOMAGE TO YOU! ON WHAT ARE YOU MEDITATING?"

But the angel cannot understand the smile either.

THE BODHISATTVA MERELY CONTINUED TO SMILE AND REMAINED SILENT.

The parable ends here; it does not say anything what happened to the angel. He must have remained as ignorant as before. He came so close, yet he missed. The knowledgeable person comes very close and missed because of his knowledge; the innocent person car come close and can miss because he is not yet aware enough. Innocence plus awareness, then only the special transmission is possible. And Tao can be transmitted only in a very special way; no ordinary methods are applicable.

The bodhisattva did all that can be done, but the angel was not a Buddha. If he had been a Buddha, he would have understood. The same smile was on the face of Mahakashyapa when Buddha came one day with a lotus flower in his hand for his early morning lecture, and sat and sat and didn't utter a single word. There was great silence. "It has never been so before. What has happened? Why he is not speaking?" And he continued to look at the lotus flower. Minutes appeared to be as long as hours, and then Mahakashyapa smiled and Buddha called him and gave him the lotus flower and told to the assembly: "What can be said I have said to you, and what cannot be said, I have given it to Mahakashyapa. He has understood it."

That was the first special transmission beyond scriptures. Mahakashyapa is the first Zen monk, first Zen Master. From Mahakashyapa the tradition of Zen starts; he is the first patriarch. Zen started in a smile. It is a very strange phenomenon; one needs great preparation to understand it. A child is capable but is not yet aware enough. The knowledgeable person may be able as far as words are concerned, philosophies are concerned, concepts are concerned, but he is not able to catch hold of the elusive phenomenon.

The disciple has to learn to be both. He has to be very innocent plus very aware. Then in some sudden moment, when everything is ready, in an instant, all becomes light, all is understood, and forever.