 14 Nov 2004 @ 20:31, by Scotty
(painting by S. Dali - I think !)
Life is a paradox. It exists through the paradox; that's its very way of existence. the moving wheel moves on and unmoving axle, and at the very center of a cyclone there is silence. At the very core of life there is death. This is how things are, existence is through contradiction.
Existence continuously contradicts itself, and out of contradiction is born the energy to live. Out of the tension between the contradictions is this whole play, the game. This is the dialectics -- the thesis and the antithesis. And the constant conflict between the thesis and the antithesis creates energy, generates energy. Out of the friction the energy is created.
You can look around, and everywhere you will find contradiction functioning -- between man and woman, between day and night, between summer and winter, between success and failure, between birth and decay. Continuously, everywhere, the game is based on the very foundation of paradox. If you don't understand this, you will live a life of misery. If you don't understand this, if it doesn't get deep into your heart and become a luminous understanding to you, you will live a life of anguish. Because you will never be able to accept this contradiction -- you will never be able to see that this contradiction is not really a contradiction; the opposites function as complementaries.
Once seen in that light, life becomes enlightened. Then you are full of awareness. Then you know that there is nothing wrong in death -- not only that, you know that without death life will not be possible at all.
So life owes its all to death. Then death is not against life; it is not the enemy, it is the friend. Seeing this, the fear of death disappears. Seeing this, anguish disappears, anxiety disappears. Seeing this, a great rejoicing arises in your being. Not seeing this, there is conflict. Misunderstanding is what your misery is. Understanding is bliss, misunderstanding is the cause of misery.
Now try to penetrate into your innermost core and see how things are there, and what you are doing with them. If man looks withinwards he finds there, at the very core, just pure nothingness. That's why people don't look withinwards.
Socrates goes on saying, 'Know thyself.' The Upanishads go on shouting, 'Go within! Withinwards is the journey.' Buddhas go on persuading you to go in, and you continuously go out. You don't bother what Buddhas say. Even if you listen, you listen only with half your ear -- you listen one moment, you forget next moment. Because deep down you know that to look withinwards is to look into nothingness. There is nothing. And that is scary, that frightens.
At the very core there is nothingness. The wheel of all moves on that axle of nothingness. So, afraid of the inner nothingness, we go on rushing into the world. The fear of one's own non-being takes you on a thousand and one journeys. That's what Zen people call 'the world of a thousand and one things'. You go on rushing into this direction, into that. You have to rush, because if you don't rush you will stumble upon your nothingness... and there is fear. You are frightened of that -- you don't want to see that you are not.
Your being is non-being: you are not ready to look into it, to accept it. You are death living. Death is there, and at the very core of your being there is just emptiness -- what Buddha calls anatta. There is no self, there is no being, there is no '1'. And somehow everybody knows it -- hence nobody goes inwards, everybody goes outwards. Outwards you can befool yourself, you can deceive yourself. You can create a thousand and one games, you can play with those games -- they are not going to help, but still you can pass your time with those games. You can become so engrossed in them that for those engrossed moments you can forget your inner nothingness.
But this inner nothingness is not like an accident. It is not accidental, it is your very being. So you cannot escape from it, do whatsoever you want to do. Nobody has been able to escape from it. You can go on postponing, you can go on delaying that experience, but one day or other, that experience has to be gone through.
And that day is the day of great blessing, when you come to know your inner non-being. Because with that experience all fear disappears. When you know you are not, how can you be afraid -- of what? for what? And WHO can be afraid? When you know you are not, where can desire exist? with whom? for whom? from whom? Tanha disappears, becoming disappears.
When you are not, how can you become somebody? Knowing one's non-being, there is great rest. The seeker has disappeared, the desirer is no more, the becomer has not been found. So the foundation has disappeared -- and the whole palace made of playing-cards simply shatters to the ground.
Unless you come to know this inner non-being -- anatta, non-existence, or death.... Zen people call it 'the great death'. It is no ordinary death. Ordinary death does not make much difference -- here you die, there you are born immediately. You leave one body -- you have not even left it, and already you are entering into another womb. It does not make much difference.
The real death is when you come face to face with your inner non-being, the abyss. One gets frightened, one wants to go away from it. One wants to keep it at the back, one wants to fill it. That's what people go on doing.
SANSARA, the world, is nothing but an effort to fill this inner vacuum. Fill it with money, fill it with women, fill it with men, fill it with power, fill it with anything -- big houses, fill it with fame -- but fill it. Go on throwing things into it -- so one day you can feel you are not just nothing, you ARE somebody, you ARE something. But it never happens, it CANNOT happen. Because the abyss is bottomless -- you can go on throwing things into it, they go on disappearing.
There is a very famous Sufi story......
A beggar came to an emperor. Just by chance, the emperor was coming out of his palace for a morning walk. And the beggar was standing there, so the emperor asked, 'What do you want?' The beggar laughed. He said, 'You are asking as if you can fulfill my desire! "What do you want?" you say!'
The king was offended, challenged. He said, 'Yes, I can fulfill your desire. What is your desire? you just tell me.' And the man said, 'Think twice before you promise anything.'
The beggar was no ordinary beggar, the beggar was the emperor's past-life master. And the master had promised, 'I will come and try to wake you again in your next life. This life, you have missed -- but I will come again.'
But the king had forgotten completely -- who remembers about past lives? So he insisted, 'You just tell me, and I will fulfill it. You just tell me. I am such a big emperor -- what can you desire that I cannot give YOU?'
And the beggar said, 'It is a very simple desire. You see this begging-bowl? Can you fill it with something? Anything will do. I don't ask diamonds, and I don't ask gold -- anything! Can you fill it?'
And the emperor said, 'Yes! You seem to be mad! Why can't it be filled?' He called one of his viziers and told the vizier, 'You fill this man's begging-bowl with money.' And the vizier went. It was a small begging-bowl, but soon the king was getting afraid. Money was being poured, and the moment you would pour it, it would disappear. And the begging-bowl remained empty, and remained empty, and remained empty.
The whole palace gathered together. By and by, the rumour went into the capital; people started coming from all corners. There was a huge crowd, and the prestige of the emperor was at stake. And he was a man of his word. He said to his viziers, 'If the whole kingdom is lost I am ready to lose it, but I cannot be defeated by this beggar. The bowl is something magical -- but I will have to prove to him that I also have something to fill it.'
His treasuries started becoming empty. And people are running and rushing out of the palace, trying to pour into that begging-bowl -- and that begging-bowl seems to be bottomless, everything immediately disappears into it. You cannot see it again; once it has gone in, it has gone out of existence. It simply dematerializes -- or what?
Then diamonds and pearls and emeralds... and they started disappearing. Soon the vizier said to the king, 'This seems tO be impossible. You will have to accept defeat. And this man does not seem to be an ordinary beggar, he cannot be. There is some message in it. You surrender to this man!'
It was evening, and the whole capital had gathered there, and people were standing there in utter silence. There was such great excitement: 'What is going to happen?' Finally, the king dropped at the feet of the beggar and said, 'Sir, excuse me. It was wrong of me to pretend that I have anything. I have nothing to fill your begging-bowl. Just one thing -- what is the secret of this begging-bowl? Just tell me one thing. I am defeated, you are victorious -- before you leave me, just fulfill my curiosity. How has this begging-bowl been made, of what?'
And the beggar laughed. And the beggar said, 'Don't you remember me at all? Have you forgotten me completely? Look into my eyes! I am your old master. And this is what I was teaching you in the past life too, but you didn't listen. This begging-bowl has no magic! It is simply made out of the human heart. There is no secret in it; this is how the human heart is.'
The mysterious begging-bowl. Go on throwing things into it -- you go on throwing worlds into it, and they dematerialize and they disappear. And one is never satisfied, never never.
Have you ever seen a man who is satisfied? If you have ever seen a man who is satisfied, then that will be the man who has accepted his nothingness. That's what we mean by a Buddha. That's what we mean by enlightenment -- whose emptiness has become luminous, full of light. He knows, 'It is me, it is my being. This non-being is my being.' And he has accepted it. And now there is no effort to destroy it, no effort to fill it. It is beautiful as it is.
This understanding transforms life. Otherwise we go on rushing. Go into one desire: what is the mechanism of the desire? When you go into a desire, great excitement comes into your being, great thrill, adventure. You feel a great kick. Something is going to happen, you are on the verge of it. You will be having this big house, this big garden, this beautiful woman, this yacht, this car -- you are going to have this, and there is great excitement. And then you have the car, and you have the yacht, and you have the house, and you have the woman... then suddenly all becomes meaningless again.
What happens? Your heart has dematerialized it. The car is standing in the porch, and suddenly there is no excitement any more. The excitement was only in getting it, because in getting it you became absorbed. You became absorbed, you forgot your nothingness. You became absorbed so much that your mind became overpowered by the desire. You became so drunk with the desire that you forgot your inner nothingness. Now, the desire fulfilled, the car in the porch, the woman in your bed, the money in your bank-balance -- again, excitement disappears. Again the emptiness is there, yawning within you, ready to eat you up.
Again you have to create another desire, to escape from this yawning abyss, from this death that is waiting for you there. It can swallow you in a single moment -- if you don't cling to something, it will swallow you. So you start again. You start thinking of other houses, of other women, of other places, of other towns.... That's how, from one desire to another desire, one goes on moving. That's how one remains a beggar. From one desire to another desire, one goes knocking on a thousand and one doors. And nothing ever is fulfilled.
Have not you seen, the rich people are the most bored people in the world? Why? Their desires are fulfilled -- and nothing is fulfilled. They have the most beautiful house that they wanted -- now what? Now they cannot think of anything more beautiful. I know a few rich people who have all that they can have. Now what? Now suddenly they come to a dead end.
Once an astrologer said to Alexander the Great: 'Sir, you are going to win the whole world. It is in your destiny, you will win. But let me remind you of one thing: when you have won the whole world, what will you do? Because there is no other world.'
And it is said, Alexander became sad in his life for the first time. Suddenly, the idea, the very idea is frightening -- 'You will win the whole world, then what?' You can understand, in that moment suddenly he is thrown back to his emptiness.
Yes, you can win the whole world, but your heart is such; the whole world will become meaningless. The moment you have it, it becomes meaningless. See this logic: the moment you have something, it immediately becomes meaningless. If you are intelligent enough you will see it immediately. The car in the porch, and meaningless. The woman in your bed, and meaning has already disappeared.
I have heard about Lord Byron, one of the greatest poets of the English language, that he fell in love with many women -- nearabout sixty in his whole life. He would fall in love one day, and the next day he was finished -- he would make love to a woman once, and finished. Must have been a man of great intelligence. To make love to the same woman again, needs a kind of stupidity. He must have been a man of great intelligence -- if he had been in India, he might have achieved Buddhahood.
One woman finally persuaded him for marriage, because she wouldn't allow him to make love to her unless he got married to her. She knew that many women had come into his life: once he makes love to the woman, the woman becomes meaningless. He turns away, as if he has not known the woman at all. All his energy and all his love and all his romance simply disappears, as if it has never been there.
Listening to all these stories, one woman insisted that she would not allow him to touch her-body unless he got married to her. And he became more and more excited -- the more he was denied, naturally, the more he desired. He became almost crazy about that woman. Finally he agreed to get married.
One has to be very crazy to get married -- real crazy, mad. And women have some intuitive understanding about this. They don't allow anybody to come too close unless they feel they are settled in a marriage, unless the law protects them. Otherwise love disappears like a dewdrop in the morning sun, unless solid law is there. Marriage IS solid law, you can depend on it. It has the court and the policeman and the magistrate -- everything behind it.
Just love is a very vulnerable dewdrop -- in the morning sun it can disappear any moment. One moment it is there, another moment it is gone; you cannot depend on it. Women are very earthly, they have an intuitive feeling that love won't last long. Before it disappears, have the solid law to help you.
This woman was really intelligent, she forced marriage. Byron got married. While they are coming out of the church -- the church-bells are still ringing, the guests are greeting, congratulating.... Hand in hand, Byron comes out of the church, descends the steps -- and suddenly the woman feels he is not there. He sees a beautiful woman passing by on the road. He has moved, his energy is no more there. His hand is there, but dead -- that throb of love is no more there, his heart is not there in the hand. And the woman says, 'What are you thinking? Where have you gone?'
Byron was a very honest man that way. He said, 'Sorry, but it seems the marriage is finished. That woman has taken all my heart. And I know that just a few hours before, I was hankering for you, I was ready to do anything. I was ready to die, if that was going to solve the thing. But suddenly, knowing that you are mine, it doesn't feel that much of an adventure. Now your hand is in my hand; suddenly I possess you. And any desire to possess you has disappeared.'
This is great intelligence. I love this man Byron. He has been condemned by his own country very much -- he was expelled from his country, because people became very much afraid of him. It is said that when Byron would enter into a hotel, into a restaurant, people would just escape with their wives from there. He was really a lovely man! Then all husbands gathered together against him, and all fathers gathered together against him, and finally he was forced to leave England. And it is said, when he was leaving and was saying goodbye to his country, thousands of people gathered to see him. And in those thousands of people there were hundreds of women pretending to be men, in men's clothes -- even from the royal family, from rich families -- to see the last of Byron.
He was really a beautiful man -- very very intelligent, very very handsome. He was REALLY a poet; the poetry was throbbing in his very being. But he was expelled -- the country could not afford him, he was too dangerous. But his insights are very very significant. Look at this insight: he says to the woman... must have had great courage to say it to the woman -- and just now they have got married! And the bells are still ringing and the guests have not even departed, and they are coming out of the church and he says, 'Sorry, but I am no more interested in you.'
Such authenticity, such sincerity, is the quality of a religious man. Byron was unfortunate that he was born in England, he should have chosen India. He would have become a Buddha -- this very understanding makes a man a Buddha. If a man of such intelligence finds the right path, he will simply jump into a flame, will become a flame of Buddhahood.
Whenever you are attaining something, you immediately start losing interest in it. You all know it, it has happened to everybody in one way or other. You may not say it, you may not even say it to yourself, you may not accept it. Because it is so frightening, that you had been working for seven years to raise enough money to purchase a house -- now you have purchased the beautiful house in the mountains, and suddenly, the moment the house is yours and you have the papers in your hands, you are no more in-terested.
But this is how things are -- an intelligent person will see it immediately. A stupid person will take a few months, a few years, but that is not the point -- he will also see one day that there is nothing. It proved an illusion. Your whole life proves it again and again -- every desire frustrates, every desire lands you into frustration. And the only way you know how to get out of that frustration is to create a bigger desire.
Now, this is foolishness. This is what Buddha calls avidya -- ignorance. Seeing all desires fail, you don't see that desire as such is going to fail. The day you understand that the desire as such is going to fail, comes the turning-point in your life -- a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. That's what Christians call 'conversion' -- it means 'turning inwards'.
Buddha has the right word for it, he calls it PARAVRITTI -- turning back. PARAVRITTI -- a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn: seeing that every desire is going to fail, no desire can succeed -- it cannot succeed, by its very nature. Desire is just a postponement; when you have the thing it becomes meaningless. It exists only while you are waiting, it exists only while you are searching, it exists only on the path. When the goal is achieved you are finished -- you will need another desire.
I have heard a very ancient parable. There was a valley in the Himalayas, a very rich valley. People were affluent, there was more than they needed -- more fruits than they needed, more crops than they needed, more milk, more butter, than they needed -- everything was more. And the valley was so fertile that one man would work and the whole family would rest. That was enough, one man working was enough for the whole family.
Soon they got very much bored. There was nothing much to do -- everybody had everything that was available, everything that was needed. They got so bored, they started thinking what to do with life; life seems to be meaningless. Remember, whenever a society becomes rich, you will immediately find schools of philosophers arising who w ill say life is meaningless.
That's what is happening in the West; existentialists say life is meaningless. Sartre, Kafka, Camus -- they say life is meaningless, life has no meaning.
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