The Bird Has Flown

IT IS ONE OF THE MOST VERY PREGNANT ZEN ANECDOTES. The Zen approach towards life is not of knowing but of being. Truth is not a question of knowing, it is a question of being. It is not something that you can accumulate from others, from scriptures, from traditions. It is not information:

it is transformation. You have to come to a totally new birth. You have to die as you are and you have to be reborn.

Jesus says to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again you shall not enter into my kingdom of God." Nicodemus was a rabbi, a famous scholar, a very respected professor of religion, theology, philosophy, much more known than Jesus He could not understand what Jesus means: "Unless you are born again..." He said, "That means I have to wait for another life? It cannot happen in this life.

He missed the whole point. Jesus is not saying that you have to wait for another life; he is saying that you have to attain a different vision, a different way of seeing. It is not a question of changing the objects, the seen. The whole thing depends on the change in the seer.

The knowledgeable person goes on feeding his memory with beautiful words, theories, ideologies, in the hope that by accumulating all these treasures he is coming closer to truth, to Tao, to God.

In fact, just the contrary is happening: he is going farther and farther away from truth because the more the memory becomes thick, the more his knowledgeability becomes strengthened; there will be a China Wall between himself and that which is.

To know that which is, one does not need information, one needs clarity. And information always creates confusion, because information comes from many sources which are confusing and contradictory; they are bound to be so.

This is one of the most important problems contemporary man is facing today. It has never been so acute as it is today, because the world has become a small village and all the sources of knowledge have become available to everybody. Now everybody knows something about Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Mohammedanism, communism. And all these different sources go on accumulating inside you contradictory information. You become a contradiction, a living contradiction. You become confusion. You don't know where you are; you don't know what is right and what is wrong.

All that you can do is find out into this mess of your mind something which seems more valid, more probable, more possible than other informations. But that is very tentative, hypothetical. Today you may decide Christianity is right because you know more about Christianity than you know about Buddhism. Tomorrow you may come to know more about Buddhism, and suddenly your Christianity starts evaporating. But your Buddhism is also in the same trap. some day you may come to know about Jainism, and then your Buddhism gives way. These are all sandcastles. You cannot live in them.

Hence the modern man has become very much confused: more knowledge, more confusion.

Zen insists that shift the whole consciousness from knowing to being. The question is not how much you know, the question is how much you are. The question is not about your memory but about your integrity. The question is not about your mind but about your consciousness, about your awareness.

A man can go on reciting beautiful sutras in his sleep; it cannot help him in any way. In fact, it will help him only to fall asleep deeper because he will be thinking that now there is no need to wake up.

Always remember, the last trick of the mind is to give you the illusion that you are awake. That is the last strategy. One can dream in a dream that one is awake; then all possibility of waking up is finished. There is no need to wake up - you are already awake. That's what you are dreaming.

That's what actually goes on happening to the scholars - repeat beautiful words of Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. But when Buddha says something it has a totally different significance, because it comes from his experience, it is rooted in his being. It is alive! It is a rose flower still on the rosebush. The juice from the roots is still flowing towards the flower. When you repeat the same sutra it is only a plastic flower, because there is no experience within your being to support it, to nourish it, to feed it. It is just imposed from the outside.

Buddha was not repeating any ancient sutra; he was simply saying it on his own authority. And remember the difference: he was not authoritative. The scholar is authoritative. Buddha was speaking simply on his own authority; he is not authoritative. All that he is saying is, "This is what I have experienced, this is my experience. Whether scriptures support it or not is quite irrelevant.

Even if all the scriptures of the world are against it, it doesn't matter a bit. Still it is true, because I have known myself." It has a certain inner validity, a self-evidence about it.

Words can be mere words if you are repeating them and you are not the source of their origin. They look exactly like Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, but that is only the surface. The container is the same, but where is the content? The content comes from experience. They are like corpses. When you repeat a sutra, a tremendously significant statement of Buddha or Jesus, you are just carrying a corpse; the soul is no more in it. You are carrying only the cage; the bird has flown away. The cage may be beautiful in itself: it may be golden, studded with diamonds, very valuable. But where is the living bird, the bird who can sing, the bird who is alive? The bird is dead. Or maybe you have placed inside just a toy which looks like the bird, which pretends even to sing; it can have a hidden gramophone record in it, but still there is no life.

Once a drunkard was coming home from his pub. Before he went to the pub he thought that "The night is very dark and when I will be coming back it will be late and I will be very much drunk, so it is better to take a lamp with myself." So he carried a lamp. And when he fell almost on the floor in the middle of the night he became a little bit alert that "Now it is time to go back home." Everybody had already left. The owner is waiting for him to leave so that he can close the shop.

So he took his lamp. But he was very much puzzled: on the way he started stumbling. He stumbled with a buffalo, then with a donkey, then with a tree. He looked again and again at his lamp: What is the matter? He is carrying the lamp - why he is stumbling? Finally he fell by the side of the street.

In the morning he was carried home by some friends.

In the middle of the day the owner of the pub came and said, "Please return my cage. Instead of taking your lamp you have carried my parrot!"

Then he looked... But when a man is drunk it is bound to happen.

You are reading the Bible, but are you meditative enough to understand the message of Jesus?

Once I was invited by the biggest college in the East which prepares Christian missionaries, Leonard Theological College - a six-years course to prepare missionaries. Thousands of missionaries it has prepared, and every year hundreds of people pass through the examinations and they become missionaries. I went to look around; the principal was showing me everything. I asked him, "Do you teach these people any kind of meditation?"

He said, "Meditation? For what? We are preparing missionaries! We teach them the Bible, how to interpret it, how to support it by logical arguments, by proof - because the world is turning atheistic - how to argue against pagan religions which are not true religions, how to prove that Christianity is the only true religion and Christ the only-begotten son of God. Meditation is not needed; they need scholarship. And these six years we devote for great scholarship." And they had a very huge library.

And I went around, and they were teaching every kind of thing - it looked so silly. In one class I saw the professor was teaching the would-be missionaries how to deliver a sermon: how to stand, how to make gestures by the hands, where to give a pause, where to speak slowly and where to shout loudly, where you have to hit on the table with your fist to emphasize the point...

I told to the principal that "You are preparing actors, not missionaries. You are not preparing Christians. Can you tell me where Jesus was prepared, in what kind of college, what lessons he took in eloquence, where he learned how to deliver the Sermon on the Mount - how to stand, how to speak, what words to emphasize?"

The principal said, "He never learned anything."

I said, "Then the difference is clear. The words that came to him came out of his experience, and these poor, stupid people that you are preparing, they will simply be repeating like parrots. Jesus won't be in their hearts. The experience is missing; they won't have any authenticity. When you have something to say, the very experience finds its own way of expression. When you have something to say it finds its own way; it finds the words, the gestures. But you can learn the gestures. and the words; that does not mean that you will find the experience. If there is experience there is expression, not vice versa.

"You are preparing parrots. You are making these people more stupid than they would have come here And what they are doing is so silly that only very mediocre people can do such kinds of things."

But that's what goes on happening all over the world.

Religion has nothing to do with words; it has something to do with realization. And if you realize, words automatically happen When your heart is full with a song you start finding the words. You start finding the right language, or whatsoever language you use becomes the right language and whatsoever words you use become significant.

Jesus is not a great scholar; he uses very ordinary words, day-to-day words, the language of the common people, of the marketplace, of the laborers, farmers, gardeners, fishermen, woodcutters, beggars, prostitutes, gamblers, drunkards. He is not a scholar, but nobody has spoken so beautifully.

His words have such tremendous quality, such immense magic. Yes, it can only be called magic for the simple reason that they are alive.

You don't know any rabbi's name who was part in the conspiracy to crucify Jesus. All those great scholars have been forgotten. And this young man, the son of a carpenter, has still tremendous import, for the simple reason that his words have some truth in them. They are not only empty containers; there is some content.

ZEN SAYS: RIGHT WORDS, even right words, in the wrong hands become wrong, and vice versa.

Even wrong words in the right hands become right. It is the magic of the person, it is the charisma of the experienced. awakened man that whatsoever he touches becomes gold; even dust becomes divine. In the hands of those who are fast asleep even gold is not gold.

This is something to be remembered. Then these small parables will start revealing great treasures to you. Words we can use, but the meaning will come from our own experience.

A hillbilly dragged his protesting son to a new school that had just opened in a nearby township. On arrival at the school the hillbilly Dad asked the teacher, "What kind of learning are you a-teachifying?"

The teacher replied, "Well, all the usual subjects. Reading, writing, arithmetic . . "

The earnest Dad interrupted him, "What is this here arith... arith... what you said?"

"Arithmetic, sir," repeated the teacher. "I shall be giving a full course of geometry, algebra, trigonometry..."

"Triggemometry!" cried the hillbilly. "Dang me! That's just that what my boy needs - he is the worsest shot in the family!"

It is bound to be so. The moment a word reaches to you it immediately changes its meaning. It becomes your word, it takes your color.

The teacher asks her class who invented the bulb.

Everybody shouts, "Edison!" except for Pierino who shouts, "My father, my father!"

The teacher, perplexed, asks, "Your father, Pierino? What do you mean?"

"Well," replies the little boy, "every night in bed my father says to my mother, 'Switch off the bulb, and we will do another one!'"

The boy can have his own meaning, he can only have his own meaning. It is natural. You can hear great words. but from where you are going to give the meaning to those words?

Just the other day Mutribo has asked me: "Osho, did you hear about the Polack woodworm?"

Yes, Mutribo, he was found in a brick! A Polack woodworm, one thing is certain, cannot be found in wood. A Polack is a Polack! And the same is true about everybody.

Visiting the Russian gallows, the American ambassador was shocked by the horrid cries of the executed. He immediately ordered a modern electric chair to be delivered from the States, as a gift from the American people.

Paying another visit to the gallows a few months later, he was alarmed, when he heard far worse cries than he had heard on his previous visit. "What is going on?" he inquired.

The commissar said, "We received the electric chair, thank you, but we have no electricity... so we have to use candles."

A MONK WAS RECITING THE DIAMOND SUTRA.

THE DIAMOND SUTRA is certainly one of the most valuable treasures ever handed over to humanity. It is certainly the most precious scripture, hence the name "The Diamond Sutra". The name has also been given to it because a diamond cuts everything, and the Diamond Sutra cuts your sleep, your dreams, your projections, your desires, your mind, all your stupidity, like a diamond.

It goes like a sword inside you, cutting all the layers, cutting all that you have accumulated in millions of lives. It makes your own innermost core again available to you. But it is not for reciting.

That's what Buddhists have been doing for twenty-five centuries: they go on reciting it. They have recited it so many times that there are millions of Buddhists all over the world who can recite the whole Diamond Sutra just by memory. There is no need for them to look into the book; they can recite it with closed eyes. But reciting is not going to help; in fact, it is going to hinder your progress, your growth, because reciting is a kind of autohypnosis. If you recite a certain sutra again and again and again it creates a deep sleep in you.

Hypnosis comes from a word hypnos; hypnos means deliberate sleep, created sleep. And it has been found that if you repeat a certain word or a certain mantra again and again it helps you to fall into deep sleep - a very refreshing sleep of course, rejuvenating sleep of course - but a sleep is a sleep; it is not awakening. And you will feel good: after you have done Transcendental Meditation for fifteen minutes, you will feel good. There is no doubt about it, because for fifteen minutes the mind stops all other kinds of chattering, because this is one of the laws of mind, that it can repeat only one thing at a time. If you repeat a certain mantra or sutra fast enough and you don't give gaps between, then the mind cannot do anything else. You can go on repeating, "Ram, Ram, Ram..." anything will do. You can repeat your own name and that will do. It has nothing to do with any sacred name or any holy mantra. There is no need to get it from anybody; you can invent your own mantra. Anything will do - abracadabra - just repeat it. The whole point is: constant repetition, and fast, because if you give gaps then your mind starts chattering. If you say, "Ram..." and then you pause, in that pause the mind will think, "The train is passing... somebody is crying... the ant is crawling on the foot... I wonder what time it is..." and thousand and one things. But if you don't give any time, if you repeat in such a way that one Ram starts overlapping another Ram, then it will create a very soothing sleep in you.

It can be done by any kind of repetition, not just that of a word. You can hang a pendulum and you can look at the moving pendulum, from right to left, from left to right. Just watching the pendulum move continuously, within a few minutes you will be fast asleep. You will fall into a deep sleep which will be deeper than your ordinary sleep, because your ordinary sleep continues to have dreams.

This deliberately created sleep takes you deeper than ordinary sleep; even dreaming stops.

And if you have been repeating the mantra for many years you will fall asleep, but the mantra has become now almost autonomous. It will go on repeating, reverberating inside you, "Ram, Ram"; you will go on hearing it. First you repeat it; after a few months or years you start hearing the mantra being repeated. Your mechanism takes it over. Mind has a robot part which always takes things over.

You start learning driving. First you have to be alert about everything You have to be alert about the accelerator and the brakes and the clutch and the gearbox and the road and people passing by - and there are a thousand and one things. And you are really trembling Inside that whether you are going to make it or not because so many things are happening together, will you be able to manage to remember all the things? If you look at the road you forget the brake; if you concentrate on the brake you forget the accelerator; if you watch the accelerator, the road is forgotten.

But after a few days there will be no need to remember anything. You can go on singing a song or discussing, talking, listening to the radio, smoking or whatsoever you want, or thinking a thousand and one thoughts - and your robot part has taken over. Now your mind will be needed only in emergencies. If suddenly a car comes in front of you and it is a question of life and death, then your mind will come in; you will become aware. The robot part cannot function any more because you cannot prepare the robot part for emergencies. You cannot prepare it for accidents, so it has no idea how to deal with an accident. So only once in a while your consciousness will be there, otherwise the whole thing will go on unconscious.

This robot part goes on taking everything that you learn. And if you recite a mantra or a sutra for years, the robot part learns it. Then you fall asleep, but the robot part goes on repeating it on your behalf, and you go on thinking that you have not been asleep. You have been reciting the sutra, how can you be asleep? You have been doing your mantra, how can you be asleep? And there seems to be some logic in it, some reasoning in it.

Many Transcendental Meditators have told me that "You say that we fall into sleep, but we go on repeating the mantra!" That is true. You go on repeating the mantra because now you don't need to be there to repeat the mantra; the robot part of the mind repeats it. The robot part goes on doing many things for you. Who circulates your blood? You? If you have to circulate the blood you would have died long before... because you see a beautiful woman passing by and you forget to circulate the blood! And by the time you remember, it is finished! Who breathes? You? It is the robot part, otherwise who will breathe when you are asleep? Even in a coma you will continue to breathe.

Once I went to see a woman who has been in a coma for nine months, still breathing, perfectly breathing. The robot part continues to do it.

You will be surprised to know that the robot part becomes so capable of doing things that even when you die the robot part continues to do a few things. What to say about sleep? If you dig a grave just one month or two months after the man has been buried you will be surprised: his hairs have grown, his nails have grown. And the man is dead! Who managed it? How his hairs and nails have grown? The robot part has become so autonomous that it has not heard yet about the death of the man. Unless everything withers away into the earth it will continue, it will go on doing its job. It is a mechanical thing - whether you are in the room or not, your clock will go on functioning - just like the clock!

So you will feel that you have been repeating, so you were not asleep - that is absolutely wrong.

You have been absolutely asleep. But the robot part is within you; It repeats so you can hear the vibration. And when you go into sleep you go hearing it and when you come out of sleep you come out hearing it. And the gap between the two you cannot remember because you were asleep, so you think that you have been hearing all along.

For centuries millions of religious people have been deceiving themselves by autohypnosis. Ninety- nine percent of your religion consists of autohypnosis and nothing else. Once that is dropped, then you will be able to discover true religion, not before it.

A MONK WAS RECITING THE DIAMOND SUTRA...

Reciting has become such a ritual. The very word "koran" means reciting - the very word "koran"

means reciting, as if it is meant only to recite. Nobody even bothers to understand the meaning of it.

I know many Mohammedan friends who can recite Koran without knowing exactly the meaning; they are not concerned about the meaning. I know Jain friends who can recite Kundkund Samayasar without knowing the meaning. And I know Buddhists, monks and nuns, who can recite the Diamond Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, without knowing the meaning at all. And even if they know the meaning it is going to be wrong. It is going to be wrong because they are wrong. The meaning depends on their being. The meaning can be right only if they attain to Buddhahood; it can never be right before that.

The Diamond Sutra says, and the monk was reciting "... IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE NOT FORMS, HE THEN SEES BUDDHA."

THE PATH OF BUDDHA is the path of neti-neti, via negativa, neither this nor that. This is his whole process of reaching to your essential core. You have to go on discarding, eliminating. You have to say that "The body is not myself, I am not the body, because I can see the body, I can feel the body."

You have been a child and you knew your body was a child's body. Then you became young and you know that your body became young. Then you became old and you know your body became old. Sometimes you have been ill and sometimes you have been healthy, and you know an inner feel of health, well-being, illness.

You are the knower and the knower can never be the known; that is the arithmetic of via negativa.

The observer cannot be the observed. So "I am not the body" - that has to be the first experience when you enter inside. The first hang-up is with the body, so you have to disconnect yourself with the body. That is your first identity that "I am the body."

When you are hungry you say, "I am hungry," but really the case is different. You are only observing that the body is hungry, your stomach is feeling empty; that is your experience. You are not hungry.

And when you eat and you are satiated, that too is your experience. You are the watcher; the food does not enter consciousness, neither the consciousness becomes ever hungry or satiated, neither it becomes thirsty or quenched. It is only an observer.

Buddha has said, "Watch and disconnect yourself from the body. You are not the body."

And the same has to be done with the mind. Then watch again - are you the thoughts? How can you be the thoughts? Thoughts come and go - and you abide. Thoughts are like reflections in the mirror, clouds passing in the sky, but the sky is not the clouds. Desires, memories, imagination, they all come and go. You are not your mind either, so say, "I am not my mind."

And thirdly, "I am not my heart either" - the feelings. the emotions, which are the subtlest. Then who am I? When you have cut these three identities. almost nothing is left. You have cut the very root of the ego. Then you cannot even say, "I am," you can only say, "There is a certain amness. but there is no I."

"I" consists of body, mind, heart. These are the three components of the body, of the ego. Once these three are dropped, eliminated, the ego disappears. Then there is only pure awareness. The body is a form, the mind too is a form, and the heart too is a form. And the ego is the hold-all, the bundle of all the forms. When everything has been taken out, the ego becomes empty and flops.

Hence this Diamond Sutra says:

"... IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE NOT FORMS..."

"The body is not my body, the mind is not my mind. I am neither in the body nor in the mind; these are only forms." And forms are not true. Forms are only forms, waves, passing phases, like dreams.

Forms are not forms. If once this is realized, then one becomes the Buddha, one sees the Buddha.

Awareness is Buddha.

There is a story about Buddha; I have loved it immensely:

He is sitting underneath a tree. A great astrologer is passing by. He saw his footprints on the bank of the river in the sand. It has just rained and the sand is wet and he can see the prints of Buddha's feet very clearly. He is puzzled, very much puzzled. His whole astrology is at risk because he has been studying his whole life that these are the symbols of a chakravartin. Chakravartin means the man who rules all over the world, the emperor of all the six continents. "What a chakravartin is doing here in this small, poor village, by the side of this ordinary river? And walking barefooted in the sand - a chakravartin? Impossible!"

He watched very closely - must have looked through his magnifying glass. All the indications are so exactly true that either his whole astrology is wrong or a chakravartin has walked barefoot. He followed the FOOTprints where this man has gone and he finds Buddha sitting under a tree just by the side of the bank. More puzzled he became. The face of the man looks like that of a chakravartin - so graceful, so beautiful. Such splendor he has never seen in his life. But he is a beggar, his clothes are that of a beggar. And by the side of Buddha there is his begging bowl.

He went, bowed down, asked the Buddha, "Can I ask who you are, sir? Are you a god who has descended from heaven for some special visit to the earth?"

Buddha said, "No, I am not a god."

"Then are you an angel?"

And Buddha said, "No, I am not an angel."

And this way he goes on asking and Buddha goes on saying "No, no, no..." Annoyed, he asks, "At least you will say yes to this question. Are you a man, or e en will you say you are not a man?"

Buddha said, "I am not a man either."

Exasperated, the man asks, "Then who are you?"

Buddha said, "I am just awareness. I have dropped all forms because forms are not forms... just dreams, sky flowers."

Sometimes you see them when you are near the ocean - you see the sky flowers. In Indian mythology they are called sky flowers. Physicists say it is condensed oxygen, because near the ocean there is too much oxygen in the air, so when you look sometimes you see forms in the sky moving.

Buddha said, "I am only awareness, nothing else."

This monk was reciting this sutra.

THE MASTER WAS PASSING BY AND HEARD IT.

THE MASTERS ALWAYS USE EVERY OPPORTUNITY to help people wake up; they don't miss a single opportunity. The monk must have been his disciple.

THE MASTER WAS PASSING BY AND HEARD IT. HE THEN SAID TO THE MONK, "YOU RECITE WRONGLY. IT GOES LIKE THIS: 'IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE FORMS HE THEN SEES BUDDHA.'"

Now the Master is saying just the opposite of the sutra. The monk is reciting rightly the Master is saying it wrong. But the Master is right and the monk is wrong, because in the hands of a right person even wrong words become right and in the hands of a wrong person even right words become wrong.

It has happened many times to me. In Sarnath I was invited by the Buddhists; one Buddhist monk, Bhikshu Jagdeesh Kashyap had invited me. I was talking to the Buddhist monks. Sarnath is the place where Buddha delivered his first sermon. I told a few stories about Buddha.

After I had talked, Bhikshu Jagdeesh Kashyap, my host, stood up and said, "We are very grateful.

Nobody has talked this way to us. But the stories that you have told are not exactly as given in the scriptures; you have changed in many places." And he was a great scholar; he knew all the scriptures.

I told him, "You know the scriptures, I know the Buddha! So if I am saying something which is not in the scriptures, you can add it into your scriptures. If I am saying something which is different from the scriptures, then you can correct your scriptures. You know only the scriptures, I know Buddha."

He said, "What do you mean by knowing Buddha? He has been dead for twenty-five centuries!"

I said, "That too is according to the scriptures; otherwise he is alive in everybody - right now! He is even alive in you. You are not aware of him, I am aware of him. I am not talking about Gautam the Buddha. I have experienced awareness, and whatsoever I am saying is according to my experience.

The stories have to be this way, the way I am telling. If your scriptures say differently, then somebody must have put them wrong."

He was my host so he could not argue that much; it would have been impolite. Later on in the night he said. But this is too much! I have been pondering over it the whole day. Do you mean to say that our scriptures which we have respected for centuries are wrong?"

I said, "I have not said that. What I am saying is: you know only the scripture, hence your knowing is not reliable." And I told him this story, this Zen story:

A MONK WAS RECITING THE DIAMOND SUTRA:... IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE NOT FORMS HE THEN SEES BUDDHA.

The monk was reciting perfectly, exactly as it is said.

THE MASTER WAS PASSING BY AND HEARD IT. HE THEN SAID TO THE MONK, "YOU RECITE WRONGLY. IT GOES LIKE THIS..."

He changed exactly to the opposite.

'IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE FORMS...'

that the body is the body, the mind is the mind, the heart is the heart... then one sees the Buddha.

THE MONK EXCLAIMED, "WHAT YOU HAVE SAID IS JUST THE OPPOSITE TO THE WORDS OF THE SUTRA!"

And the monk is right as far as the sutra is concerned, but still he knows only the sutra; he has no direct experience of reality.

THE MASTER THEN REPLIED, "HOW CAN A BLIND MAN READ THE SUTRA?"

You are blind and you are talking about light! You may have read about light, but what can you say about light? Whatsoever you say is going to be wrong.

Ramakrishna used to tell again and again a story about a blind man.

A blind man was invited by a few friends; there was a feast. For the first time he tasted a new sweet made of milk. He inquired the person who was sitting by his side - and the person sitting by his side was a great pundit, a great scholar - he inquired, "What is this?"

The pundit said, "This is a sweet made of milk."

The blind man asked, "Please tell something more about milk so that I can understand more about the sweet."

The pundit said, "Milk? Milk is white."

The blind man said, "You are creating more puzzles for me. I am a blind man. Don't create more puzzles for me, help me to understand. What is white? What do you mean by white?"

But pundits are far more blind than blind people. The pundit said, "White? You don't know what is white? What kind of question is this? Have you ever seen a swan? The color of the swan is white; that is what white is."

The blind man said, "You look annoyed, but forgive me - I am a blind man. Don't be angry, but my curiosity has been provoked by your answers. Now I am wondering what do you mean by 'swan'? I have never heard, nobody ever told me about the swan. How a swan is? How he looks? And make it clear, knowing perfectly well that I am a blind man. First think of my blindness and then try to explain to me; according to my blindness you have to illustrate the point."

The pundit came to his senses a little bit. He said, "This is going ad infinitum. Whatsoever I say, this man is going to ask another question. It has to be finished!" So he took the blind man's hand, put his on his own arm and said, "Move your hand on my arm. Do you feel something?"

He said, "Yes, I can feel a curved hand."

The blind man's answer made the pundit rejoice. He said, "Now you will understand. This is how the neck is of the swan - curved like this hand."

The blind man was over-rejoiced. He said, "Thank you, many many thanks! Now I know what this sweet is made of - curved hand!"

This is a logical conclusion. A blind man cannot understand color, cannot understand whiteness. It is stupid to explain it to him. He can go on reciting sutras about whiteness for lives together; he will not know what whiteness is. What he needs is not sutras about whiteness: what he needs is a man who can wake him up, a physician who can treat his eyes, who can make him see.

THE MASTER THEN REPLIED, "HOW CAN A BLIND MAN READ THE SUTRA?"

"You are blind. You don't know anything. I also know," the Master said, "what the Sutra says."

That is one way of approaching one's awareness: via negativa neti-neti - neither this nor that. That is the negative path. There is another path: via affirmativa iti-iti - this too, this too. That is another way. One can reach through the negative, one can reach through the positive. And the person who has reached knows both the doors.

The first statement concerns with the negative path:

"IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE NOT FORMS, HE THEN SEES BUDDHA."

But if you have seen the Buddha within yourself, if you have come to that understanding, you will understand my statement also. Then it does not contradict it, it only compensates it; it is complementary. Then it is via positiva via affirmativa: "IF ONE SEES THAT FORMS ARE FORMS HE THEN SEES BUDDHA."

But both the statements will look contradictory to the blind man; to the man who has eyes there is no contradiction at all.

There are people who will find thousand and one contradictions in Buddha's words, in Jesus' words, for the simple reason because they have not experienced that state of consciousness where opposites meet, mingle, merge and become one, where opposites are no more opposites but become complementaries, when opposites are absolutely necessary for each other's existence, when they are no more enemies but friends, partners in a dance. Those who have known, for them there is no contradiction at all.

It has been my experience... For all these twenty-five years I have been talking to people, again and again, scholars, professors, pundits and theologians will approach me and tell me: "Your statements are contradictory. In one place you say one thing, in another place you say just the opposite."

I have been telling them, "They will appear to you contradictory only if you have not attained to awareness. to consciousness. Once that peak is attained, from that peak you can see all the paths leading towards the same peak. The path that comes from the north and the path that comes from the south are not opposites."

But the people who are in the valley, dark valley, of course they will say that the path that goes from the north and the path that goes from the south are opposites paths: they cannot lead you to the same goal. They will quarrel, argue, fight and waste their time. And the man who sits on the top will simply laugh at the whole stupidity All the religions have been quarreling, but there is no quarrel between Buddha and Lao Tzu, Zarathustra and Mohammed, Bahauddin and Ramakrishna, Raman and Krishnamurti; there is no quarrel. The quarrel exists only amongst philosophers. Yes, Buddha has also argued against the fools, but never against another Buddha Mahavira has also argued against the pseudo masters, but never against a true Master. Jesus has also said things against the rabbis, the priests, but never against a true prophet; that is impossible. They all have the same taste, the same experience; they have known the same truth.

It is Sunday class and the priest is praising the beauty of altruism and generosity. Pierino gets up and says, "Yes, my father also says that in life you have to give and give and give."

The priest is very pleased and replies, "Your father must be a pious and God-fearing man. It would be good if there were many more like him. What does he do?"

"He is a boxer!" replies Pierino.

Manuel left Portugal and went to Brazil to start a business. When he arrived in Rio he looked up his old friend, Joaquin, who advised him to go into the motel business as it was the most profitable business in Rio.

After some months the two friends met again.

"Your suggestion is making me bankrupt!" complained Manuel.

"How can that be?" asked Joaquin. "There are no risks in this business. Maybe you did something wrong."

"No, no!" said Manuel. "I did everything you suggested. I used the best architect and interior decorator. Everything has atmosphere and taste. The whole motel is designed in an Arabian style.

It is very romantic - like camping in a tent in the desert. The beds are round, there are mirrors on the ceilings, exotic music is playing and there are thin veils shimmering in the soft red lamplight."

"So what could be wrong then?" asked the friend.

"I don't know," answered Manuel. "None of the couples you said would come checking in every hour have come. Only once in a while a family stops in."

"What name have you given your motel?"

"Motel of Our Holy Mother Mary!" answers Manuel.

People function out of their own understanding; they cannot go beyond it - one cannot even expect...

Tom goes to a travel agency in New York to book his holiday in England. The girl at the counter asks him, "Do you want to rent a car while you are in London?"

"Yes, why not?" Tom answers.

"Okay, sir, but you know in England they drive on the left hand side of the street," the girl explains to him.

Tom is surprised. "I did not know that, but then different countries have different customs, so why not?"

Tom happily leaves the travel agency and everything is arranged.

Two weeks later he drags himself into the office of the travel agency, arms and legs in a plaster cast.

"I want to cancel my trip to England!"

The girl at the counter wants to know what has happened to him.

Well," he explains, "I thought before I went to England I had better practice driving on the left hand side of the street for a while!"

A Brazilian went to a party and got very drunk - so drunk that he passed out on his way home. A little snake was passing by and somehow got into his pants and curled up comfortably in the black woods by his pelvis.

Next morning he woke, rubbed his eyes and went to pee. Putting his hand inside his fly, he pulled out the snake. Surprised, he said, "What is that, zeezee? I knew you had this little mouth, but those two little eyes I just can't remember!"

Two tabby cats are gossiping over the rubbish tip. One says, "Who is the father of your last kittens?"

The other replies, "The great magnificent ginger tom from the canal bank. And you?"

"I don't know who did it - I had my head in a sardine can at the time."

Three women were sent to a psychiatrist for a mental health check. The psychiatrist was using word association tests. "Blue seas, blue skies, white cliffs, glistening sands, sun shining in the sky - what do you think of?" he asked the first woman.

"Oh, a beautiful painting," said the woman. She was a painter.

"Okay, you can go, you are sane," said the psychiatrist.

The second woman entered the room. "Blue seas, blue skies, white cliffs, glistening sands, sun shining in the sky - what do you think of?" asked the psychiatrist.

"Summer holidays," said the woman. She was a teacher in a university.

"Okay, you can go, you are sane," said the psychiatrist.

The third woman came in and the psychiatrist repeated his question: "Blue seas, blue skies, white cliffs, glistening sands, the sun shining in the sky - what do you think of?"

"A prick," replied the woman.

"A prick?" said the psychiatrist. "What on earth makes you think of a prick?"

'That's all I ever think of," said the woman.

"Are you crazy?" asked the shrink.

"No, I am not crazy - I am just a Catholic nun," said the woman.

But you can't expect anything more from a Catholic nun!

People live in their own minds. Even white clouds, blue skies, sun shining in the sky, will not make much difference. They will remember only that which they can remember.

You can read the Diamond Sutra, but you will see only that which you can see, you will understand only that which you can understand. The whole point is not to know more, the whole point is to be more. The more integrated you are, the more aware you are, the more conscious you are, then there are sutras all over the place - in the grass blades, in the rocks. Yes, sermons in the rocks and scriptures in the trees. The question is of your eyes. If you are capable to see, then God is everywhere. You need not go to a church or to a temple or to a mosque. If you have clarity, transparency of vision, then you need not read the Gita, Dhammapada. the Diamond Sutra, the Koran, the Bible. Whatsoever you read will become the Diamond Sutra, will become the Bhagavad Gita, will become the Koran - all depends on you.

Hence my insistence here is to become more meditative, not more informative, to become so meditative that you are capable of seeing through and through, so that nothing hinders your vision, so that there are no more any barriers between you and reality. When reality stands naked before you and you stand naked before reality there is benediction, there is bliss.

That's why Zen monks, Zen Masters have even said, "Burn the scriptures." Not that they mean literally.

One Zen Master, Ikkyu, was staying in a temple. In the night it was too cold and the temple had three wooden Buddha statues, so he took the biggest statue and made a fire inside the temple. The priest was awakened by the fire; he rushed. He was a little afraid of this man because he looked a little eccentric, but he had allowed him to stay. He looked also very nice and good. And what had he done?

The priest was mad. He said, "What are you doing? You have burned the Buddha!"

Ikkyu took a small piece of wood and started looking, searching in the ashes. The statue was almost gone.

The priest asked, "What are you looking for?"

He said, "For the bones of the Buddha!"

He said, "You must be totally mad! How a wooden statue can have bones?"

Ikkyu said, "Then the long night is still there and it is too cold, and the Buddha within is shivering.

You bring... there are two more statues - you also come and let us warm up!"

Of course the priest threw him out. This man was dangerous! He may burn all the Buddhas, he may burn even the temple. But Ikkyu was showing something to the man: that a wooden statue is a wooden statue; it is not Buddha. Buddha is within you. But if you go on worshipping a wooden statue you will remain deluded.

In the morning the priest opened the doors of the temple and he saw Ikkyu sitting outside the door with a few flowers, worshipping the milestone. He said, "You are really mad - I feel sorry for you!

Last night you burned my best statue, and now what are you doing?"

And he was saying, Buddham sharanam gachchhami Sangham sharanam gachchhami, Dhammam sharanam gachchhami... and showering flowers on the milestone. "I go to the feet of the Buddha, I go to the feet of his commune, I go to the feet of the ultimate Tao that he has taught." And Ikkyu said, "When I feel like praying, I pray; then any excuse is enough. These are excuses! What is the need of having special excuses? Your statues are excuses; I invent my excuses whenever, wherever I am. I need not bother about a temple, need not bother about a statue. Wherever I am I create my Buddhas.

"Now for the moment this milestone is perfectly good. What is wrong with it? Look, how beautiful it is and with the flowers showering on it. And when I said Buddham sharanam gachchhami - I go to the feet of the Buddha, he nodded his head. It said, 'You are accepted, you are blessed!' "

Ikkyu was again showing the same phenomenon from a different angle. If you know, if you really know then everything is sacred; if you don't know, then nothing is sacred, not even the sacred scriptures. If you know, then the mundane tranforms into the sacred if you don't know, then all your sacredness is just hocus-pocus. All your temples and all your statues and all your scriptures are just inventions, imaginations, dreams.

Meditate over this story:

"HOW CAN A BLIND MAN READ THE SUTRA?"

Find out your eyes. And there is no other medicine except meditation which can help to open your eyes. The words "medicine" and "meditation" come from the same root; they both mean the same.

Medicine cures the body, meditation cures your innermost soul. Medicine cures the outer form, meditation cures the essential being.