The search itself is the hindrance
because it creates the seeker, the ego,
the illusion that I am.
And I am not.
Do not seek and you will find it:
the I-am-not-ness.
This nothingness is the gate.
The Gateless gate.
Riko once asked Nansen
to explain to him the old problem of the goose
in the bottle.
If a man puts a gosling into the bottle, he said,
and feeds the gosling through the bottle’s neck
until it grows and grows and becomes a goose –
and then there is simply no more room inside the bottle,
how can the man get it out without killing the goose
or breaking the bottle?
Riko! shouted Nansen, and gave a great clap
with his hands.
Yes master! said Riko with a start.
See! said Nansen.
The goose is out!
339. Love.
Meditation requires understanding and not effort,
understanding is essential, not effort,
and remember always that you cannot
substitute understanding with any effort whatsoever.
But what do I mean by understanding?
By understanding I mean – living a natural life.
Of course, you cannot try to be natural,
that is self-contradictory!
You can be natural but you cannot try to be natural.
Do you understand this?
Suzuki tells a story:
A monk once asked one of the old Chinese masters:
What is the way?
The master replied: The natural one, the ordinary one,
is the way.
How, continued the monk, am I to be in accord with it?
When you try to be in accord with it, said the master,
then you deviate from it.
Does this mean that one should not try?
No, because that too is a way of trying.
Of course, indirect, but still intentional;
that too will not help.
But just see the dilemma clearly and you are out of it.
Are you not?
340. Love and blessings.
I received your letter.
I was waiting for it daily since you left.
I know that you have gone far away from here
but I also know that now you cannot go away from me –
and that nearness is all that counts.
You have come near me in a non-spatial and
non-temporal sense.
The meeting has taken place in the nowhere
or in the everywhere –
because they mean the same thing.
And the real meeting takes place only in this way.
All else is illusion.
Remember me whenever you need
and you will find me then and there.
Ask anything and wait – and you will be answered.
The barriers have fallen from your mind
and you have entered the meditative state.
Now the doors of the divine are open.
Do not hesitate, and take the plunge.
You are completely ready,
just be courageous enough to enter the uncharted
and the unknown.
The call from beyond has come –
now accept the challenge and be fulfilled.
Now close your eyes
and feel me and see me and let my blessings
be showered on you.
341. Love.
Don’t take life so seriously,
because seriousness is a great dis-ease,
and not only a disease but a suicide also.
Be playful – totally,
because that is the only way to be living.
Life is a play, a leela, and to know it as such is religion,
and to live it as such is sannyas – renunciation.
If you can act and live as if acting and living in a dream
and still be a witness to it
then you will be in the cosmic flow, the tao.
And to be in the cosmic flow is to be free –
free from oneself, the ego.
The ego is the seriousness, the disease,
and the tao, the egoless existence, is the bliss, the ecstasy.
That is why I have given you such an absurd name!
But I have given it to you knowingly.
I have given it to you so that
you may never be identified with it.
The name is so absurd
that you will have to remain nameless
and a nobody behind it.
The name is such that not only others
but you yourself
will be able to laugh at it.
SWAMI KRISHNA CHRIST!
What a name!
But perfectly suitable in a dream drama,
is it not so?
So feel at ease with it,
and laugh with it, and sing and dance with it,
and be Swami Krishna Christ
with all the letters capitalized!
And always remember that you are nobody.
Always be aware that
you are neither a swami nor a Krishna nor a Christ –
that is what is meant by a swami!
And Krishna himself is not a Krishna,
Christ himself is not a Christ,
because they are nameless, absolutely nameless.
They are nobodies – and that is what makes them divine.
The moment one is identified with any name
one is lost to one’s divinity.
Either one can be a name or a reality,
and no one can be both simultaneously.
Really be a name –
and your reality is lost.
Really be a reality –
and your name is just a dream, maya.
And what nonsense to be a swami!
But once one is at ease with the no-sense
one transcends it.
Please! Don’t try to be sensible
otherwise you will never have any sense at all –
because only stupidity tries to be sensible!
The existence is absurd
and meaningless
and irrational –
and that is why it is so beautiful,
and to be in it, such a blessing!
342. Love.
Man is free to decide, but not free not to decide –
because not to decide is to decide,
to waver is to decide,
to postpone and evade decision is to decide.
There is no escape:
one must say yes or no.
And there are a thousand ways of saying no,
only one way of saying yes,
and no way of not saying anything at all.
This is the human situation,
and the seeker of truth must be aware of it,
otherwise life is wasted unnecessarily.
A single moment lost cannot be regained –
and we have wasted so many lives –
so decide to decide,
and decide to transform and transcend.
With the decision comes crystallization,
and then one is ready to take the jump into the unknown.
343. Love.
A traveler stops at an inn:
he passes the night there,
takes his meal,
and as soon as he has done so
he packs and continues his journey again.
As for the host of the inn, he has nowhere to go.
The one who does not stay is the guest,
and the one who stays is the host.
Now who are you –
the guest or the host?
Meditate.
No answer is required,
rather, realize,
because all answers belong to the guest
and realization only to the host.
But do not believe me, I may be just deceiving you.
Go in and find out for yourself!
344. Love.
Meditation is the master key.
It can open the doors of the infinite
and it can unlock the mystery of the unknown.
But just by possessing the key nothing is attained,
unless one uses it.
Idries Shah tells a dervish tale:
There was once a wise and very rich man who had a son.
He said to him:
My son, here is a jeweled ring.
Keep it is a sign that you are my successor,
and pass it down on for posterity.
It is of value, of fine appearance,
and it has the added capacity of opening
a certain door to wealth.
Some years later he had another son.
When the son was old enough
the wise man gave him
another ring with the same advice.
The same thing happened in the case of his third
and last son.
When the old man had died and the sons grew up
one after the other claimed primacy for himself
because of his possession of one of the rings.
Nobody could tell for certain which was
the most valuable.
Each son had his adherents,
all claiming a greater value
and more beauty in his own ring.
But the curious thing was that
the door to wealth remained shut
for the possessors of the keys
and even their closest supporters.
They were all too preoccupied with
the problem of precedence,
the possession of the ring, its value and appearance.
Only a few looked for the door to the treasury
of the old man.
The rings had a magical quality too.
Although they were keys
they were not used directly
in opening the door to the treasury.
It was sufficient to look on them
without contention or too much attachment
to one or other of their qualities.
When this had been done
the people who had looked
were able to tell where the treasury was
and could open it merely
by producing the outline of the ring.
The treasuries had another quality too:
they were inexhaustible.
Meanwhile the supporters of the three brothers,
repeated the tales of their ancestors about
the merits of the rings,
each in a slightly different way.
The first community thought they had
already found the treasure
because they had the key.
The second thought that it was allegorical
and so consoled themselves.
And the third transferred the possibility
of opening the door
to a distant and remotely imaginable future
and so for them there was
nothing to do at present.
There is every possibility
for you too to belong to one of these three communities,
because anyone who begins to search
is always prone to fall into the trap of any one of the three.
Really, these are the three basic tricks the mind can play
to save itself from meditation.
So beware of these old tricks.
345. Love.
Look at yourself without thinking, evaluating, or judging,
without any liking or disliking;
that is, without any movement of the mind
or without the noise of the mind.
Then you have eyes
which are altogether different from your eyes
because they are not burdened by the past.
They are innocent and silent,
and in this silence there is neither
the observer nor the observed –
but that which is,
undivided and one,
beginningless and endless.
You can call it God or nirvana or anything whatsoever –
the name does not matter
because the name is not the thing,
and when one has known the thing
one does not bother about the value.
346. Love.
Begin the following meditation from tomorrow –
and know that this is an order!
Now you are so totally mine
that I cannot do anything other than order you! Prerequisites:
Do it cheerfully.
Do it relaxedly.
Be playful.
Do it in the morning after taking a bath.
The meditation:
First: breathe deeply and rhythmically,
not fast but slowly,
for ten minutes.
Second: dance rhythmically and slowly;
be ecstatic, as if flowing in it,
for ten minutes.
Third: use the mahamantra: hoo-hoo-hoo.
Continue dancing and moving,
do not be serious, do not be tense,
for ten minutes.
Fourth: close the eyes and be silent;
do not move or dance now.
Stand, sit or lie down, as you feel to do,
but just be as if dead,
feel a sinking in,
surrender and be in the hands of the whole,
for ten minutes.
Post requirements:
One: live the whole day in ecstasy,
in intoxication of the divine,
flowing and flowering in it,
and whenever depressed say inwardly: hoo-hoo-hoo,
and laugh outwardly,
laugh without any reason, and accept the madness.
Two: before sleep chant the mahamantra: hoo-hoo-hoo
for ten minutes,
then laugh at yourself.
Three: in the morning as you feel awake
chant again the mahamantra: hoo-hoo-hoo
for ten minutes,
and then begin the day with a hearty laugh.
Four: remember always that I am with you.
347. Love.
Everything belongs to the man who wants nothing.
Having nothing, he possesses all things in life:
renouncing all he becomes the master of all.
But why?
Because into his emptiness enters the divine.
348. Love.
Live humbly and in wonder
and then meditation comes by itself.
Relax, and there is ecstasy.
But effort is needed
because unless this fails completely you will not
be effortless!
349. Love.
Be aware of the mind before it is stirred by a thought,
or, be aware of the gap between two thoughts,
and – you will meet yourself!
And this meeting is the meeting with the divine.
350. Love.
Buddha says: If the mind does not arise
all things are blameless.
What more is there to be said?
And even this much is enough to blame everything!
351. Love.
The eyes are blind. One must look within the heart.
So do not believe the eyes,
believe the heart
and remember to look through it,
and then you will come to know things unbelievable.
And unless one comes to know the unbelievable
one has not known at all.
352. Love.
Remember always the one who is inside the body.
Walking, sitting, eating or doing anything,
remember the one who is neither walking nor sitting
nor eating.
All doing is on the surface,
and beyond all doing is the being;
so be aware of the non-doer in the doing,
of the non-mover in the moving.
One day Mulla Nasruddin’s wife,
hearing a tremendous thump
ran to his room.
Nothing to worry about, said the Mulla.
It was only my cloak which fell to the ground.
What! And made a noise like that? asked his wife
Yes – I was inside it at the time, said the Mulla.
353. Love.
A monk asked Daishu Ekai, What is nirvana?
The master answered: Not to commit oneself
to the vicious circle of birth and death
or pleasure and pain
is great nirvana.
What then is the vicious circle
of birth and death and pleasure and pain?
The master said:
To desire nirvana!
Now be silent and feel what is meant by to desire nirvana,
and remember that I am not saying think about it
because to think is to miss it.
Feel it.
Feel it.
Feel it.
354. Love.
In this world everything is upside down
and anyone who is meditating
will have to put everything right side up!
One should not try to know life but to know death,
and then the mysteries of life are revealed to him.
One should not ask for any security
and then there is no insecurity at all.
Bunan says in a poem:
While living be a dead man,
be thoroughly dead,
and then behave as you like
because then all is well.
355. Love.
Materialistic societies produce hollow men,
men with dead emptiness within,
and because of this dead emptiness
one dies before one is really born.
Remember that man cannot live by shops alone,
and today the holy of holies is the shop.
The outer is meaningless without the inner richness,
and the outer richness
only makes the inner poverty prominent.
Man is hollow because there is no inner growth
and the inner grows only when one lives in the inner.
Inward is the way of growth, grace and God.
356. Love.
Never suppress any thought,
or fight with it,
otherwise you will never be without it.
Fight it, and you invite it more.
Suppress it, and it will be back with double the force.
I have heard
that someone advertised something for women
but with the heading, Only For Men.
It is reported that
out of ninety thousand women who came across it
eighty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-four
read the advertisement.
The other six were blind.
357. Love.
It is impossible to conceive of the divine intellectually,
and that is why the intellect denies it
or creates fictitious systems about it,
which is even more dangerous than plain denial.
The mind works only in the circle of the known;
it cannot transcend the world of the known.
For the mind the unknown is not.
Says Attar: You know nothing of your real self
here and in this state.
You are like the wax in the honeycomb –
what does it know of fire or guttering?
But when it gets to the stage of the waxen candle
and when light is emitted
then it knows.
358. Love.
Life is not a detective story,
and you do not have to deduce a thing.
Life is before your eyes as clear as the sun
and as open as the sky.
Just be out of your thinking disease
and open your eyes,
and nothing is hidden at all.
Even the hidden one is not hidden then.
I have heard a dialogue between
Sherlock Holmes and Watson:
Holmes: Ah, Watson, I see you have put on
your winter underwear.
Watson: Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!
How did you ever deduce that?
Holmes: Well, you have forgotten
to put on your trousers.
359. Love.
Life goes on flowing.
It does not wait.
But mind thinks and therefore takes time.
To exist, no time is needed,
but to think – time is necessary
Really there is no time in existence.
There appears to be only
because of the mind and its thinking.
Existence exists not in time but in eternity.
It exists in the eternal now.
There is neither past nor future
but only the present –
or not even that –
because without the past and future
it is meaningless to call it present.
Do not live out of the mind,
otherwise you will always lag behind,
because life never waits for you and your so-called mind.
That is why the mind always feels
as if something is missing –
because it is missing life itself – and always!
Once a master said to his disciples:
If you utter a word – thirty blows of my stick for you.
But if you utter no words
just the same, thirty blows of my stick.
Now – speak, speak!
One disciple came forward
and when he was about to bow
before the master he was struck.
The disciple protested: I have not uttered a single word
nor did you allow me not to utter.
Why the striking?
The master laughed and said
If I wait for you and your speech or your silence,
it is too late, and life cannot wait!
360. Love.
Goethe is said to have cried when dying:
Light, light, more light!
And Miguel Unamuno has responded with his:
No – warmth, warmth, more warmth! For we die of cold
and not of darkness!
But I say to you that we die neither because of cold
nor because of darkness
but because of our lust for living
or because of our fear of death –
which is to say the same thing in different ways.
Do not look at death as opposite to life, because it is not.
And live death moment to moment.
Do not postpone it for the end
because that creates fear.
Die each moment to the past,
and then each moment you will be fresh,
young and reborn.
And then there is always light
because the very darkness becomes light;
and warmth also,
because only the dead past is cold.
The present is always warm.
361. Love.
Man is not the end
but only the means.
Man is not really a being
but only a tension
between two planes of being.
Man is only a bridge,
that is why he cannot remain satisfied with himself.
His heart is nothing but a continent of discontent
and his very being is anguish.
Religion is man’s wish to pass beyond himself
as he now is.
That is why I say man can never be irreligious;
that is impossible.
He can pretend to be but he cannot be.
Religion is not something accidental or circumstantial,
it is in the very nature of man:
man is a religious animal.
And man is nothing if he is not a desire
to transcend himself.
He can go below himself,
or he can go above,
but he cannot remain himself.
He cannot be at rest.
That is why there is restlessness.
362. Love.
Use dreaming consciously as meditation
and know well that conscious dreaming opens
new doors of perception.
Lie down, relax,
and dream, but do not fall asleep;
remain conscious in the background.
Wait and watch;
dream anything that happens to your mind.
Do not plan beforehand –
dream anything, because in dream
the whole world is yours.
Dream your existence as you please;
dream and be content…
content with your dreams because they are yours.
And remember that nothing can be yours
like your dreams are
because you yourself are a dream entity! –
and also because your wishes
come to be true in your dreams,
and only in your dreams.
But do not fall into identification.
Be a witness.
Remain aware.
And then suddenly there will be no dreaming.
Only you
and illumination.
363. Love.
You write to me that without me you cannot pass through the gate
and with me you will not pass through the gate.
I know that!
But you need not do either.
You need not pass through the gate
with me or not with me,
because I am the gate.
I am no-one, so how can you be with me or not with me?
And only one who is no one can be the gate.
The gate means the emptiness
because the gate is nothing
but the space to pass through.
Pass through me –
not with me –
and know.
I appear to be someone only from without,
but the deeper you penetrate me
the less you will find me.
And in the end – no one.
364. Love.
Walk as if you are not walking,
stand as if you are not standing,
sit as if you are not sitting –
and then you will begin to feel
something completely new arising within you.
This is the real one.
The false you walks, stands and sits,
and the real you just remains in suchness.
Feel this – this very moment,
because there is no need to postpone it.
And if you postpone it you postpone it forever
because there is no tomorrow for the real one,
there is no there for it,
it is always here and now.
365. Love.
You will become more deeply tied
to whatever you desire to become free from.
Because freedom is not negation.
Freedom is not ‘from something’ or ‘for something’.
Freedom is not positive either.
Freedom is the transcendence
of negation and affirmation both.
Freedom means freedom from duality.
Where is a ‘for or against’ there?
With what to react?
What rebellion?
Reaction is not wisdom.
And, rebellion is nothing but a continuity of the old.
Hence, understand – do not fight.
When has anybody attained anything through fighting?
Except pain? – except defeat?
Hence, do not escape, but wake up.
By escaping one has to keep on escaping.
And then there is no end to that.
Knowing is freedom.
Not the fear, not the anger,
not the enmity, not the rebellion.
Only knowing is freedom.
1962
1. Любовь.
Я получил твое письмо.
Как ласково ты заставляешь меня хоть что-нибудь написать,
и вот он я – утонувший в глубоком безмолвии!
Я говорю, я работаю,
но внутри я погружен в пустоту.
Там – нет движения.
Так что кажется, я живу одновременно две жизни.
Что за драма!
Но, возможно, вся жизнь и есть драма,
и осознание этого открывает дверь
уникальной свободе.
Той, которая —
недействие в действии,
неподвижность в движении,
вечность в перемене,
– в этом истина,
и в этом существование.
Подлинная жизнь состоит в этой вечности,
все остальное – всего лишь поток сновидений.
На самом деле этот мир – всего лишь сон,
и вопрос не в том, покидать эти сны или нет,
их просто следует осознавать.
С этим осознанием все меняется.
Центр перемещается.
Происходит сдвиг от тела к душе.
И к тому, что там.
Об этом невозможно рассказать.
Об этом никогда не рассказывали
и никогда не расскажут.
Нет другого способа, кроме как узнать это на собственном опыте.
Смерть познается только через умирание,
и истина познается только через глубокое погружение в себя.
Да утопит тебя Бог в этой истине!
2. Любовь.
Я в блаженстве.
Я давно уже хотел написать,
Однако множество дел не позволяло мне этого сделать.
Но все же каждый день я посылаю свои благословения…
Любовь – это садхана,
чем больше ты в нее вовлекаешься,
тем более божественной она становится.
Свет скрыт во тьме,
истина спрятана,
и отсюда приходит радость поиска.
Я вспоминаю слова риши:
«Истина спрятана под золотой крышкой».
Золотая крышка, скрывающая истину, – не что иное, как наш ум.
Ум окутал нас;
мы в нем,
мы отождествляемся с ним,
и так приходят страдание,
рабство и цепь перерождений.
Поднимись над умом,
осознай, что ты и он – не одно и то же.
Одно это приносит блаженство,
одно это – свобода
и конец рождений и смертей.
Мы должны быть тем, кто мы есть на самом деле:
в этом – единственная садхана.
И именно разочарование в жизни, полной желаний,
приносит эту садхану.
Осознавай свои желания —
и начнет проявляться непривязанность.
Это не что-то, что можно заставить случиться,
это то, что следует само по себе из осознания привязанности.
Каждый из нас должен осознать свои привязанности
и оставаться в этом осознании!
Ничто не следует делать бессознательно.
Если это помнить,
то в один прекрасный день произойдет совершенно новый тип революции
в нашем сознании.
Бог ведет тебя к этой революции —
я знаю это.
3. Приветствую тебя.
Мне было необычайно приятно получить твое письмо.
Пока я еще ничего не написал,
но здесь открылся медитационный центр,
где несколько друзей проводят эксперименты.
Когда у меня будут какие-то определенные результаты,
скорее всего, я что-нибудь напишу.