LOVE IS BEYOND RELATIONSHIP
(An excerpt from: Life - Mystical Insights by Taoshobuddha)
LOVE BLOSSOMS WHEN ALL NEEDS ARE FINISHED!
Love is an unseen but realized truth beyond all that is known.
Each relationship evolves out of sub – consciousness. As an individual your sub – conscious differs from that of the other. No two individuals can ever have same sub – conscious pattern. Between these two is the vast ocean. You can swim through the ocean or drown in it. The choice is your. This makes each unique. And this gives rise to ego and makes the journey together difficult as well. It requires tremendous understanding to move together. Also it requires an understanding that this togetherness has a purpose. And the purpose is spiritual growth so that each can attain fruition.
The journey requires togetherness. Both are dependent on one another for their growth. This dependence has to become inter dependence first. One day each one of you has to become independent of a constant need of being cared for by a woman or a man.
That is the day that one actually becomes mature. That is the day when you are finished with your mother, and that is the day you can start loving a woman. Otherwise in every woman you will go on searching for your mother. Or in every man you will go on searching your father.
Then it is going to be false love. It is going to be political. Because you need the care, you pretend to love, but that is not mature love. You are like a child hanging onto the mother or the father. If you continue this way you will never know what love is.
One has to finish with this dependence. Only when you are finished with it, then for the first time you will be able to decide whether you love this woman or not, because now there is no need. Now you can share. When there is no need, only then love flowers.
Love blossoms only when all needs at physical, emotional, psychological, and intellectual have disappeared. Love is the most luxurious thing in the world. It is not a need. Instead it is the last luxury, the ultimate in luxuries. If you still need love it is just as any other needs. One needs food, or shelter, or clothes. One needs this and that. Then love is also part of this world. If love is still your need, than it is part of this world. Love belongs to the beyond. That is why love remains unknown and unknowable. Love first gives birth to you and then love evolves you.
When there is no need of love at any level of your being and you are simply flowing with energy and would like to share with someone, and someone has now begin overflowing with energy and would like to share with you, then you both offer your energies to an unknown god of love.
And it is sheer luxury because it is purposeless. It has no business to do. It is intrinsic. It is not a means to anything else. It is a great play. It is merger of two overflowing energies.
Love is a state of your consciousness when you are joyous. When there is a dance in your being love blossoms. Something starts vibrating, and radiating, from your center. Then something starts pulsating around you. It starts reaching people around you. It can reach women. Also it can reach men. So too it can reach rocks and trees and stars. This is cosmic dance of Shiva – ecstasy.
When I speak of love, this is what I am overflowing. Such love is not a relationship instead a State of Being. Whenever I use the word love, it is the State of Your Being because there is no other word as profound as Love. I use it as a state of being, not as a relationship. Relationship is only a minor aspect of it. But your idea of love is basically that of relationship, as if that is all. The nature of relationship goes on changing because it is the mirror effect of the state of your being. Your being operates through various stages of consciousness. And any change in your state of consciousness will unfold different natures of relationships. I am speaking of love as it evolves when everything and all states dissolve into one another. And nothing remains except oneness.
Relationship is needed only because you cannot be alone. Consciousness is still muddled. You have not known the cause of relationship. Because you are not yet capable of meditation you cannot know why two persons have to enter into relationship. Hence, meditation is a must before you can really love. One should be capable of being alone, utterly alone, and yet tremendously blissful. Without meditation no understanding can dawn. And without understanding relationship cannot attain to fruition.
Then you can love. Then your love is no longer a need instead a sharing, no longer a necessity. You will not become dependent on the people you love. You will share and sharing is beautiful. This is what I am doing here – Sharing my being, my Presence, and my Love.
But what ordinarily happens in the world? You do not have love. The person you think you love has no love in his being, either. Both are seeking for love from each other. None has experienced this deep within. Two beggars begging each other! Hence, there is fight, the conflict, the continuous quarrel between the lovers over trivial matters, over immaterial and stupid things! Thus life continues.
The basic quarrel is that the husband thinks he is not getting what is his right to get. The wife too thinks she is not getting what is her right to get. The wife thinks she has been deceived and betrayed too. The husband also thinks that he has been deceived. Where is the love then? Nobody bothers to give. What to say of sharing. Everybody wants to get. And when everybody is seeking to get love, nobody gets it and everybody feels at a loss, empty, miserable and tense.
The basic foundation of love is missing. It is like making the temple without the foundation. It is going to fall and collapse any moment. And you know how many times your love has collapsed. And still you go on doing the same thing again and again. You go on changing the partners without even creating the foundation. The foundation of love is aloneness. Aloneness is the fragrance of meditation.
You live in such unawareness! You do not see what you have been doing to your life and to that of others. You go on living mechanically, like a robot. You go on repeating the old pattern, knowing perfectly well you have done this before. You entered into one relationship that turned sour. You have not learned anything. Failures have not taught anything. Instead of seeking the cause you enter into another relationship. Also you know the outcome always, and deep down you are also alert that it is going to happen the same way again because there is no difference. You are preparing for the same conclusion, the same collapse and the same misery.
If you can learn anything from the failure of love, it is to become more aware, become more meditative. And by meditation I mean the capacity to be joyous alone. Very rarely you will find someone capable of being blissful for no reason at all just sitting silently and blissfully! Others will think you mad because the idea of happiness is that it has to come from somebody else. In reality bliss is the outcome of aloneness.
You meet a beautiful woman and you are happy, or you meet a beautiful man and you are happy. However sitting silently in your room and being blissful, is considered crazy or something! It is very rarely you will find such a person who is blissful by himself. No TV, no phone or no one is needed for his bliss.
Meditation is releasing your own psychedelic powers. It is releasing your own hidden splendor. And you become so joyous. A celebration arises in your being, and you need no relationship. Still you can relate with people. And that alone is the difference between relating and relationship.
Relationship is a commodity. Relationship is stationary. Relating is a process. You cling to relationship and remain stuck and miserable. Relating is a flow, a movement, a process. You meet a person, you are overflowing because you have so much love to give and the more you give, the more you have. Once you have understood this strange arithmetic of love that the more you give, the more you have you will be blissful. This is just against the economic laws that operate in the outside world. Once you have known that, if you want to have more love and more joy, you have to learn to share. Then you simply share. And whosoever allows you to share your joy with him or with her, you feel grateful to him or her. But it is not a relationship. It is a river like flow.
The river flows and passes by the side of a tree, greeting the tree, nourishing it, giving water to the tree and then the river moves on, dances on. It does not cling to the tree. And the tree does not hanker for the river. The tree never laments, ‘Where are you going? We are married! And before you can leave me you will need a divorce at least a separation! Where are you going? And if you were going to leave me, why did you dance so beautifully around me? Why did you nourish me in the first place?’
And the tree in return showers its flowers onto the river out of deep gratitude, and then the river moves on. The wind comes and dances around the tree and moves on. And the tree fills the wind with its fragrance in return. The entire universe is sharing except man.
This is relating. If humanity is ever going to become grown – up, or mature, this will be the way of love. People meeting, sharing, moving, in a very non possessive manner flowing like a river or blowing and surging through the tree leaves is indeed love that transcends all boundaries of finiteness.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
KNOWLEDGE AND AWARENESS
Awareness the
Inner Flowering!
“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you learned that by learning which there no need to learn anything anymore arises? Have you known that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have you been taught that which cannot be taught?”
This is awareness not knowledge that fulfills life and takes you to the dimensionless dimension.
Knowledge and Awareness
Knowledge is arrogance awareness is humility.
Knowledge comes through the gate of the mind. It brings with it the seeds of arrogance and ego. Because your mind is a human creation, if you live with human beings the mind is continuously fed. They say something, you say something – the mind goes on learning, it goes on revolving.
Our present day education system is mind and knowledge based. The system makes you capable to live into the world. However it does not make you a human being.
Awareness comes through the door of the heart. Awareness brings with it seeds of bliss and humility. Awareness belongs to the fourth dimension or the dimension beyond the known. Therefore meditation is the way to bring a greater degree of awareness in an individual.
I have taken this opportunity to look into the present system of our education system as well. As a student or an educationist, you either spend or help someone go through nearly one third precious years of life in acquiring all that is deemed necessary to plunder into the outer world of competition, conflict, and duality, where everything is measured in terms of money, efficiency, and speed. After spending nearly 20-25-27 years of your youthful life of vigor you are decorated with degrees, credits, honors of various kinds and colors. It is said, ironically, you are now ready to the world that lies ahead of you.
Have you wondered that after spending nearly one third of your life’s precious years when you leave the universities to enter the outside world are you a balanced human being. Are you capable to deal with the unique questions the life poses to you? Are you blissful deep within? Are fully ready to enter the mysterious world, with unique way and means that is inviting you in all its glamour and glitter?
“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you learned that by learning which there no need to learn anything anymore arises? Have you known that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have you been taught that which cannot be taught?”
I can answer on your behalf. But I leave this for you to introspect deep within the silence of your being. If the answer is a capital NO then we need to revisit our systems of education at schools colleges and universities.
Certainly, something is grossly missing in your education system. And that which is missing is Fourth Dimension or Dimension of the Being. It is Meditation. Meditation is the missing dimension in education.
When we look at ancient systems of education in the east the universities at Nalanda, Takshila and the system of teaching we find something unique. In such companies, the students were prepared inwardly to venture into the life ahead of us.
Let not any hasty conclude that I want the entire education system into older one. Remember life does not move backward. Life always moves forward. Wise never lament for that which is not. But certainly learn from the wisdom of the past and translate or present the old into new jargons. Each master does this. He is the link between the past and the present. Like a bridge under which life energy flows, he connects the two shores.
My purpose of such talks is to bring a new awareness and deep down a realization that indeed ‘Meditation is the missing dimension in our education system’. This realization is the first step for journey forward into a new horizon.
Meditation is that link or bridge or the master within that connects the two shores – the inner and the outer and in the process prepares you to face the intricate situations that life presents as you interact in the outer world of objects and beings.
Meditation transforms knowledge into awareness. In fact meditation bridges knowledge and awareness. And without the bridge your life will remain simply barren.
I take lore from the Upanishads to explain this further. This is the story of Svetketu.
SVETKETU
In Upanishadic days there was a sage Uddalak who had a son named Svetketu. Svetketu was sent by his father to a gurukul - a family of an enlightened master, to learn. He learned everything that could possibly be learned.
He memorized all the Vedas and all the science available in those days. He became so proficient in them that he came to be recognized as a great scholar. His fame started spreading all over the country. Then there was nothing else to be taught, so the master said, ‘You have known all that can be taught. Now you can go back.’
Thinking that everything had happened and there was nothing else remaining. Whatsoever the master knew, he also knew, and the master had taught him everything. Svetketu returned home. With great pride and ego, he came back to his father. When he was entering the village his father, Uddalak, looked out of the window at his son coming back from the master’s place or university. He saw Svetketu walking very proudly, holding his head in a very egoistic way, and he was looking all around very self-conscious of the fact that he knew.
The father became sad and depressed. He knew this is not the way of one who really knows, this is not the way of one who has come to know the supreme knowledge. The son entered the house. He was thinking that his father would be very happy – he had become one of the supreme most scholars of the country. He was well known and respected everywhere – but he saw that the father was sad, so he asked, “Why are you sad - Father?”
The father enquired:
“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you learned that by learning which there no need to learn anything anymore arises? Have you known that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have you been taught that which cannot be taught?”
The boy also became sad. He said, ‘No. Whatsoever I know has been taught to me, and I can teach it to anybody who is ready to learn.”
The father said,
“Then you go back and ask your master that you be taught that which cannot be taught.”
The boy said, “But that is absurd. If it cannot be taught, how can the master teach me?”
The father said, “That is the art of the master: he can teach you that which cannot be taught. You go back.”
He went back. Bowing down to his master’s feet, he said, “My father has sent me for an absolutely absurd thing. Now I don’t know where I am and what I am asking you. My father has told me to come back and return only when I have learned that which cannot be learned, when I have been taught that which cannot be taught. What is it? What is this? You never told me about it.”
The master said, “Unless one inquires, it cannot be told; you never inquired about it. But now you are starting a totally different journey. And remember, it cannot be taught, so it is very delicate. Only indirectly will I help you.
Do one thing: take all the animals of my gurukul – there were at least four hundred cows, bulls and other animals – and go to the deepest forest possible where nobody ever comes and moves. Live with these animals in silence. Do not talk, because these animals cannot understand any language. So remain silent, and when just by reproduction these four hundred animals have become one thousand, then come back.”
It was going to be a long time – until four hundred animals had become one thousand. And he was to go without saying anything, without arguing, without asking, “What are you telling me to do? Where will it lead?”
He was to just live with animals and trees and rocks; not talking, and forgetting the human world completely. Because your mind is a human creation, if you live with human beings the mind is continuously fed. They say something, you say something – the mind goes on learning, it goes on revolving.
“So go,” the master said, “to the hills, and to the forest. Live alone. Do not talk. And there is no use in thinking, because these animals won’t understand even your thinking. Drop all your scholarship here.”
Svetketu followed. He went to the forest and lived with the animals for many years. For a few days thoughts remained there in the mind – the same thoughts repeating themselves again and again. Then it became boring.
If new thoughts are not felt, then you will become aware that the mind is just repetitive, just a mechanical repetition; it goes on in a rut. And there was no way to get new knowledge. With new knowledge the mind is always happy, because there is something again to grind, something again to work out; the mechanism goes on moving.
Svetketu became aware. There were four hundred animals, birds, other wild animals, trees, rocks, rivers and streams, but no man and no possibility of any human communication. There was no use in being very egoistic, because these animals did not know what type of great scholar this Svetketu was.
They did not consider him at all. They did not look at him with respect, so by and by the pride disappeared, because it was futile and it even looked foolish to walk in a prideful way with the animals.
Even Svetketu started feeling, “If I remain egoistic these animals will laugh at me – so what am I doing?” Sitting under the trees, sleeping near the streams, by and by his mind became silent.
The story is beautiful. The years passed and his mind became so silent that Svetketu completely forgot when he had to return.
He became so silent that even this idea was not there. The past dropped completely, and with the dropping of the past the future drops, because the future is nothing but a projection of the past – just the past reaching into the future.
So he forgot what the master had said, he forgot when he had to return. There was no when and where, he was just here and now. He lived in the moment just like the animals, he became a cow. The story says that when the animals became one thousand, they started feeling uncomfortable. They were waiting for Svetketu to take them back to the ashram and he had forgotten, so one day the cows decided to speak to Svetketu and they said:
“Now it is time enough, and we remember that the master had said that you must come back when the animals became one thousand, and you have completely forgotten. Now is the time and we must go back. We have become one thousand.”
So Svetketu went back with the animals. The master looked from the door of his hut at Svetketu coming with one thousand animals, and he said to his other disciples, “Look, one thousand and one animals are coming.”
Svetketu had become such a silent being – no ego, no self-consciousness, just moving with the animals as one of them.
The master came to receive him; the master was dancing, ecstatic. He embraced Svetketu and he said, “Now there is nothing to say to you – you have already known. Why have you come? There is no need to come now there is nothing to be taught. You have already known.”
Svetketu said, “Just to pay my respects, just to touch your feet, just to be grateful. It has happened, and you have taught me that which cannot be taught.”
This is what a master is to do: create a situation in which the thing happens. Therefore only indirect effort can be made, indirect help, indirect guidance.
And wherever direct guidance is given, wherever your mind is taught, it is not religion. It may be theology but not religion; it may be philosophy but not religion.
Awareness the
Inner Flowering!
“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you learned that by learning which there no need to learn anything anymore arises? Have you known that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have you been taught that which cannot be taught?”
This is awareness not knowledge that fulfills life and takes you to the dimensionless dimension.
Knowledge and Awareness
Knowledge is arrogance awareness is humility.
Knowledge comes through the gate of the mind. It brings with it the seeds of arrogance and ego. Because your mind is a human creation, if you live with human beings the mind is continuously fed. They say something, you say something – the mind goes on learning, it goes on revolving.
Our present day education system is mind and knowledge based. The system makes you capable to live into the world. However it does not make you a human being.
Awareness comes through the door of the heart. Awareness brings with it seeds of bliss and humility. Awareness belongs to the fourth dimension or the dimension beyond the known. Therefore meditation is the way to bring a greater degree of awareness in an individual.
I have taken this opportunity to look into the present system of our education system as well. As a student or an educationist, you either spend or help someone go through nearly one third precious years of life in acquiring all that is deemed necessary to plunder into the outer world of competition, conflict, and duality, where everything is measured in terms of money, efficiency, and speed. After spending nearly 20-25-27 years of your youthful life of vigor you are decorated with degrees, credits, honors of various kinds and colors. It is said, ironically, you are now ready to the world that lies ahead of you.
Have you wondered that after spending nearly one third of your life’s precious years when you leave the universities to enter the outside world are you a balanced human being. Are you capable to deal with the unique questions the life poses to you? Are you blissful deep within? Are fully ready to enter the mysterious world, with unique way and means that is inviting you in all its glamour and glitter?
“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you learned that by learning which there no need to learn anything anymore arises? Have you known that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have you been taught that which cannot be taught?”
I can answer on your behalf. But I leave this for you to introspect deep within the silence of your being. If the answer is a capital NO then we need to revisit our systems of education at schools colleges and universities.
Certainly, something is grossly missing in your education system. And that which is missing is Fourth Dimension or Dimension of the Being. It is Meditation. Meditation is the missing dimension in education.
When we look at ancient systems of education in the east the universities at Nalanda, Takshila and the system of teaching we find something unique. In such companies, the students were prepared inwardly to venture into the life ahead of us.
Let not any hasty conclude that I want the entire education system into older one. Remember life does not move backward. Life always moves forward. Wise never lament for that which is not. But certainly learn from the wisdom of the past and translate or present the old into new jargons. Each master does this. He is the link between the past and the present. Like a bridge under which life energy flows, he connects the two shores.
My purpose of such talks is to bring a new awareness and deep down a realization that indeed ‘Meditation is the missing dimension in our education system’. This realization is the first step for journey forward into a new horizon.
Meditation is that link or bridge or the master within that connects the two shores – the inner and the outer and in the process prepares you to face the intricate situations that life presents as you interact in the outer world of objects and beings.
Meditation transforms knowledge into awareness. In fact meditation bridges knowledge and awareness. And without the bridge your life will remain simply barren.
I take lore from the Upanishads to explain this further. This is the story of Svetketu.
SVETKETU
In Upanishadic days there was a sage Uddalak who had a son named Svetketu. Svetketu was sent by his father to a gurukul - a family of an enlightened master, to learn. He learned everything that could possibly be learned.
He memorized all the Vedas and all the science available in those days. He became so proficient in them that he came to be recognized as a great scholar. His fame started spreading all over the country. Then there was nothing else to be taught, so the master said, ‘You have known all that can be taught. Now you can go back.’
Thinking that everything had happened and there was nothing else remaining. Whatsoever the master knew, he also knew, and the master had taught him everything. Svetketu returned home. With great pride and ego, he came back to his father. When he was entering the village his father, Uddalak, looked out of the window at his son coming back from the master’s place or university. He saw Svetketu walking very proudly, holding his head in a very egoistic way, and he was looking all around very self-conscious of the fact that he knew.
The father became sad and depressed. He knew this is not the way of one who really knows, this is not the way of one who has come to know the supreme knowledge. The son entered the house. He was thinking that his father would be very happy – he had become one of the supreme most scholars of the country. He was well known and respected everywhere – but he saw that the father was sad, so he asked, “Why are you sad - Father?”
The father enquired:
“Only one question I have to ask you. Have you learned that by learning which there no need to learn anything anymore arises? Have you known that by knowing which all suffering ceases? Have you been taught that which cannot be taught?”
The boy also became sad. He said, ‘No. Whatsoever I know has been taught to me, and I can teach it to anybody who is ready to learn.”
The father said,
“Then you go back and ask your master that you be taught that which cannot be taught.”
The boy said, “But that is absurd. If it cannot be taught, how can the master teach me?”
The father said, “That is the art of the master: he can teach you that which cannot be taught. You go back.”
He went back. Bowing down to his master’s feet, he said, “My father has sent me for an absolutely absurd thing. Now I don’t know where I am and what I am asking you. My father has told me to come back and return only when I have learned that which cannot be learned, when I have been taught that which cannot be taught. What is it? What is this? You never told me about it.”
The master said, “Unless one inquires, it cannot be told; you never inquired about it. But now you are starting a totally different journey. And remember, it cannot be taught, so it is very delicate. Only indirectly will I help you.
Do one thing: take all the animals of my gurukul – there were at least four hundred cows, bulls and other animals – and go to the deepest forest possible where nobody ever comes and moves. Live with these animals in silence. Do not talk, because these animals cannot understand any language. So remain silent, and when just by reproduction these four hundred animals have become one thousand, then come back.”
It was going to be a long time – until four hundred animals had become one thousand. And he was to go without saying anything, without arguing, without asking, “What are you telling me to do? Where will it lead?”
He was to just live with animals and trees and rocks; not talking, and forgetting the human world completely. Because your mind is a human creation, if you live with human beings the mind is continuously fed. They say something, you say something – the mind goes on learning, it goes on revolving.
“So go,” the master said, “to the hills, and to the forest. Live alone. Do not talk. And there is no use in thinking, because these animals won’t understand even your thinking. Drop all your scholarship here.”
Svetketu followed. He went to the forest and lived with the animals for many years. For a few days thoughts remained there in the mind – the same thoughts repeating themselves again and again. Then it became boring.
If new thoughts are not felt, then you will become aware that the mind is just repetitive, just a mechanical repetition; it goes on in a rut. And there was no way to get new knowledge. With new knowledge the mind is always happy, because there is something again to grind, something again to work out; the mechanism goes on moving.
Svetketu became aware. There were four hundred animals, birds, other wild animals, trees, rocks, rivers and streams, but no man and no possibility of any human communication. There was no use in being very egoistic, because these animals did not know what type of great scholar this Svetketu was.
They did not consider him at all. They did not look at him with respect, so by and by the pride disappeared, because it was futile and it even looked foolish to walk in a prideful way with the animals.
Even Svetketu started feeling, “If I remain egoistic these animals will laugh at me – so what am I doing?” Sitting under the trees, sleeping near the streams, by and by his mind became silent.
The story is beautiful. The years passed and his mind became so silent that Svetketu completely forgot when he had to return.
He became so silent that even this idea was not there. The past dropped completely, and with the dropping of the past the future drops, because the future is nothing but a projection of the past – just the past reaching into the future.
So he forgot what the master had said, he forgot when he had to return. There was no when and where, he was just here and now. He lived in the moment just like the animals, he became a cow. The story says that when the animals became one thousand, they started feeling uncomfortable. They were waiting for Svetketu to take them back to the ashram and he had forgotten, so one day the cows decided to speak to Svetketu and they said:
“Now it is time enough, and we remember that the master had said that you must come back when the animals became one thousand, and you have completely forgotten. Now is the time and we must go back. We have become one thousand.”
So Svetketu went back with the animals. The master looked from the door of his hut at Svetketu coming with one thousand animals, and he said to his other disciples, “Look, one thousand and one animals are coming.”
Svetketu had become such a silent being – no ego, no self-consciousness, just moving with the animals as one of them.
The master came to receive him; the master was dancing, ecstatic. He embraced Svetketu and he said, “Now there is nothing to say to you – you have already known. Why have you come? There is no need to come now there is nothing to be taught. You have already known.”
Svetketu said, “Just to pay my respects, just to touch your feet, just to be grateful. It has happened, and you have taught me that which cannot be taught.”
This is what a master is to do: create a situation in which the thing happens. Therefore only indirect effort can be made, indirect help, indirect guidance.
And wherever direct guidance is given, wherever your mind is taught, it is not religion. It may be theology but not religion; it may be philosophy but not religion.
ON ENLIGHTENMENT
© 2010, Taoshobuddha
Printed and Published by TAOSHOBUDDHA MEDITATIONSTM
All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the original publisher TAOSHOBUDDHA MEDITATIONS.
Cover design and graphics: Anand Neelamber
Photography: Taoshobuddha
The word Taoshobuddha comes from three words, ‘tao,’ ‘sho,’ and ‘Buddha’. The word Tao was coined by the Chinese master, Lau Tzu. It means that which is and cannot be put into words. It is unknown and unknowable. It can only be experienced and not expressed in words. Its magnanimity cannot be condensed into finiteness. The word Sho implies, that which is vast like the sky and deep like an oc carries within its womb a treasure. It also means one on whom the existence showers its blessings. And lastly the word Buddha implies the Enlightened One; one who has arrived home.
Thus, Taoshobuddha implies one who is existential, on whom the existence showers its blessings and one who has arrived home. The Enlightened One!
Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope. Enlightenment is not any achievement instead an understanding.
Enlightenment simply means an experience of your consciousness that is not clouded by thoughts, emotions, and sentiments together or individual! When the consciousness is totally empty, there is something like an explosion, an atomic explosion. Your whole insight becomes full of a light which has no source and no cause. And once it has happened, it remains. It never leaves you for a single moment; even when you are asleep, that light is inside. And after that moment you can see things in a totally different way. After that experience, there is no question in you.
Enlightenment means fully conscious, and aware. Ordinarily we are not conscious and not aware. We do things and act either out of habit or out of biological instincts…
Just as Freud's conscious mind, unconscious mind, and Jung says collective unconscious mind, I say there is a super conscious mind and collective conscious mind. To reach to the collective conscious mind they are going to the roots and I am going to the flowers.
But they are all interconnected and all the devices and matters are to discover in you, something which is simply watchfulness. For example, I can watch my body—certainly I'm not the body. I can watch my hand: it's hurting, but I'm not the hurt—I'm the watcher. I can watch my thoughts, then I'm not the thought. I'm the watcher and I can watch even the watcher. That is the moment beyond which you cannot go and enlightenment comes.
Enlightenment is simply that you become so conscious, so full of light, that it starts overflowing your life, your being. You can impart it. When one is enlightened one is conscious, but one is not conscious of consciousness. One is perfectly conscious, but there is no object in it. One is simply conscious, as if a light goes on enlightening the emptiness around it. There is no object. There is nothing the light can fall upon. It is pure consciousness. The object has disappeared; your subject has flowered into totality. Now there is no object—and hence, there can be no subject. The object and subject both have disappeared. You are simply conscious. Not conscious of anything, just conscious. You are consciousness.
Enlightenment is not an achievement. Enlightenment is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve. No degrees! No honors! No certificates! Nothing that your world of cognition understands is enlightenment. Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all. Life is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there -- you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe, you have forgotten and that is all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, this is the reason. Maybe you have gotten lost in many, many dreams, that is all. However you are there. God is your very being.
So the first thing is, never think enlightenment a goal to be achieved at some latter time. It is not. It is not a goal; it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it. In desiring a thousand and one things, by and by you come to understand that all desire is futile. Each desire lands you in frustration; each desire again and again throws you into a hole.
This has been happening for millions of years but again you start hoping, again you start thinking that this new desire that is arising, sprouting in you, will maybe lead you to paradise. That this will give you what you have longed for, that it will fulfil you. Again and again hope arises.
Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope.
There is nothing to worry when I say that enlightenment is a state of hopelessness. Hoplessness is not negative. Hope arises no more; desire is created no more. Future disappears. When there is no desire, there is no need for the future. Both past and future disappears. The canvas of the future is needed for the desire. You paint your desires on the canvas of the future. When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the canvas unnecessarily? You drop it. When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the brush and the color unnecessarily? They come from the past. The canvas comes from the future while the color and brush and technique, all comes from the past. When you are not going to paint you can throw away the canvas, you throw away the brush, and the colors too then suddenly you are here now.
This is what Buddha calls Chittakshana – a moment of awareness, a moment of consciousness. This moment of consciousness can happen any moment. There is no special time for it, there is no special posture for it, and there is no special place for it. It can happen in all kinds of situations. It has happened in all kinds of situations. All that is needed is that for a single moment when there should be no thought, no desire, and no hope. In that single moment, the lightning....
One day Chikanzenji was mowing down the weeds around a ruined temple. When he threw away a bit of broken tile it clattered against a bamboo tree. All of a sudden he was enlightened. Where at he sang:
Upon the clatter of a broken tile
All I had learned was at once forgotten.
Amending my nature is needless.
Pursuing the task of everyday life
I walk along the ancient path.
I am not disheartened in the mindless void.
Wheresoever I go I leave no footprint
For I am not within color or sound.
Enlightened ones everywhere have said:
‘Such as this is the attainment.’
This poor monk, Chikanzenji, had been working for at least thirty years. He was a hard seeker. Also he was a very, honest and sincere and serious seeker. He practiced all that was told to him. He visited many masters, and lived in many monasteries. He did all that was humanly possible. He practiced yoga, he practiced Zazen. He did this and that but all to no avail. Nothing was happening; in fact, his frustration was growing more and more. The more the methods failed, the more and more frustrated he became.
He had read all the Buddhist scriptures. It is said about this Chikanzenji that he had all these scriptures in his room, and he was constantly reading, day and night. And his memory was so perfect he could recite whole scriptures. But still nothing happened.
Then one day he burned his whole library. Seeing those scriptures in the fire he laughed. He left the monastery, he left his master, and he went to live in a ruined temple. He forgot all about meditation, all about yoga, and all about practicing this and that. He forgot all about virtue, sheela, discipline, and he never went inside the temple to worship the Buddha.
But he was living in that ruined temple when it happened. He was mowing down the weeds around the temple not a very religious thing to do. He was not doing anything specific, just taking the weeds out. When he threw away a bit of broken tile, it clattered against a bamboo tree and in that moment, Chittakshana, the moment of awareness, happened. In that very clattering of the tile against the bamboo, a shock, a jerk happened and his mind stopped for a moment. In that very moment he became enlightened.
How can one become enlightened in one single moment? One can indeed, because one is enlightened already one just has to recognize the fact. It is not something that happens from the outside, it is something that arises from the inside. It has always been there but you were clouded, you were full of thoughts.
Chikanzenji burned all the scriptures. That was symbolic. Now he no longer remembered anything. Now he had forgotten all searches. Now he no longer cared. Unconcerned, he lived a very ordinary life. He was no longer even a monk. He had no pretensions anymore or ego goals. Remember, there are two kinds of ego goals: the worldly and the otherworldly. Some people are searching for money while others are searching for power, prestige, and pull. Some people are searching for God, moksha, nirvana, and enlightenment. However the search continues. And who is searching - the same ego.
The moment you drop the search, you drop the ego also. The moment there is no seeking, the seeker cannot exist. Just visualize this poor monk who was no longer a monk instead living in a ruined temple. He had nowhere else to go. He was just clearing the ground maybe to put some seeds there for vegetables or something. He came across a tile, threw it away, and was taken unawares. The tile clattered against the bamboo tree and with the sudden clattering, the sudden sound, he becomes enlightened.
Upon the clatter of a broken tile the monk said all I had learned was at once forgotten.
Enlightenment is a process of unlearning. It is utter ignorance. But that ignorance is very luminous and your knowledge is very dull. That ignorance is very alive and luminous, and your knowledge is very dark and dead.
He says, All I had learned was at once forgotten. In that moment he knew nothing. In that moment there was no knower, in that moment there was no observer. Just the sound alone was there. And one is awakened from a long sleep.
And he says, amending my nature is needless. That day he felt that he was just struggling unnecessarily. Amending my nature is needless. You need not amend yourself. You need not improve yourself! Beware of all those who go on telling you to improve yourself, to become this or to become that, to become virtuous. Who go on telling you that this is wrong, do not do it; that this is good, do it; that this will lead you to heaven and this will lead you to hell. Those who go on telling you to amend your nature and improve upon yourself are very dangerous people. They are one of the basic causes for your not being enlightened.
Nature cannot be amended. It has to be accepted. There is no way to be otherwise. Whosoever you are, whatsoever you are, that is how you are and that is what you are. It is a great acceptance. Buddha calls it Tathata, a great acceptance.
Nothing is there to be changed. How can you change it, and who is going to change it? It is your nature and you will try to change it? It would be just like a dog chasing its own tail. The dog would go crazy. But dogs are not as foolish as man. Man goes on chasing his own tail, and the more difficult he finds it the more he jumps and the more he tries and the more and more bizarre he becomes.
Nothing has to be changed, because all is beautiful and that is enlightenment. All is as it should be, everything is perfect. This is the most perfect world, this moment lacks nothing. The experience of this is what enlightenment is.
Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Maybe you are lost in many dreams. That is all but you are already there. God is your very being. So the first thing is, do not think about enlightenment as a goal, it is not. It is not a goal. Also it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it. In desiring a thousand and one things, by and by you come to understand that all desire is futile. Each desire lands you in frustration. Each desire again and again throws you into a hole. This has been happening for millions of years but again you start hoping, again you start thinking that this new desire that is arising, sprouting in you, will maybe lead you to paradise.
Life is wasted in the pursuit of longing. You think this will give you what you have longed for, and that it will fulfill you. Again and again hope arises. Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope.
When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the brush and the color? They come from the past. The canvas comes from the future and the color and brush and technique, and all that, comes from the past. When you are not going to paint you throw away the canvas, you throw away the brush, you throw away the colors -- then suddenly you are here now. This is what Buddha calls chittakshana -- a moment of awareness, a moment of consciousness. This moment of consciousness can happen any moment.
There is no special time for it, there is no special posture for it, there is no special place for it -- it can happen in all kinds of situations. It has happened in all kinds of situations. All that is needed is that for a single moment there should be no thought, no desire, and no hope. In that single moment, the lightning....
What is enlightenment? Coming to understand, coming to realize that you are not the body. You are the light within; not the lamp, but the flame. You are neither body nor mind. Mind belongs to the body; mind is not beyond body, it is part of the body—most subtle, most refined, but it is part of the body. Mind is also atomic, as body is atomic. You are neither the body nor the mind—then you come to know who you are. And to know who you are is enlightenment…. Enlightened means you have realized who you are.
Enlightenment simply means becoming aware of yourself. Ordinarily, a man is awake to everything around him, but is not aware who is awake and aware of all the things around. So we remain on the periphery of life and the center remains in darkness. To bring light to that center, consciousness to that center is enlightenment. It is just being absolutely centered in yourself, focusing all your consciousness upon yourself as if nothing else exists; only you are.
Just be natural so that you can remain in tune with existence. So that you can dance in the rain, you can dance in the sun and you can dance with the trees, and you can have a communion even with the rocks, with the mountains, and with the stars too. Except this, there is no enlightenment. Let me define it: Enlightenment is to be in tune with existence.
To be in tune with nature—the very nature of things—is enlightenment. Against nature there is only misery—and misery created by yourself. Nobody else is responsible for it.
It will be difficult logically to understand it. It is something to be experienced. Since the moment I found the ego evaporating from me, I have not felt part of the universe, but the universe itself. And yes, I have found many moments when I am bigger than the universe—because I can see the stars moving within me, the sunrise happening within me, all the flowers blossoming within me.
This is enlightenment. Drown in the silence and the dance of it. I have attempted to speak of experience that cannot be put in words.
© 2010, Taoshobuddha
Printed and Published by TAOSHOBUDDHA MEDITATIONSTM
All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the original publisher TAOSHOBUDDHA MEDITATIONS.
Cover design and graphics: Anand Neelamber
Photography: Taoshobuddha
The word Taoshobuddha comes from three words, ‘tao,’ ‘sho,’ and ‘Buddha’. The word Tao was coined by the Chinese master, Lau Tzu. It means that which is and cannot be put into words. It is unknown and unknowable. It can only be experienced and not expressed in words. Its magnanimity cannot be condensed into finiteness. The word Sho implies, that which is vast like the sky and deep like an oc carries within its womb a treasure. It also means one on whom the existence showers its blessings. And lastly the word Buddha implies the Enlightened One; one who has arrived home.
Thus, Taoshobuddha implies one who is existential, on whom the existence showers its blessings and one who has arrived home. The Enlightened One!
Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope. Enlightenment is not any achievement instead an understanding.
Enlightenment simply means an experience of your consciousness that is not clouded by thoughts, emotions, and sentiments together or individual! When the consciousness is totally empty, there is something like an explosion, an atomic explosion. Your whole insight becomes full of a light which has no source and no cause. And once it has happened, it remains. It never leaves you for a single moment; even when you are asleep, that light is inside. And after that moment you can see things in a totally different way. After that experience, there is no question in you.
Enlightenment means fully conscious, and aware. Ordinarily we are not conscious and not aware. We do things and act either out of habit or out of biological instincts…
Just as Freud's conscious mind, unconscious mind, and Jung says collective unconscious mind, I say there is a super conscious mind and collective conscious mind. To reach to the collective conscious mind they are going to the roots and I am going to the flowers.
But they are all interconnected and all the devices and matters are to discover in you, something which is simply watchfulness. For example, I can watch my body—certainly I'm not the body. I can watch my hand: it's hurting, but I'm not the hurt—I'm the watcher. I can watch my thoughts, then I'm not the thought. I'm the watcher and I can watch even the watcher. That is the moment beyond which you cannot go and enlightenment comes.
Enlightenment is simply that you become so conscious, so full of light, that it starts overflowing your life, your being. You can impart it. When one is enlightened one is conscious, but one is not conscious of consciousness. One is perfectly conscious, but there is no object in it. One is simply conscious, as if a light goes on enlightening the emptiness around it. There is no object. There is nothing the light can fall upon. It is pure consciousness. The object has disappeared; your subject has flowered into totality. Now there is no object—and hence, there can be no subject. The object and subject both have disappeared. You are simply conscious. Not conscious of anything, just conscious. You are consciousness.
Enlightenment is not an achievement. Enlightenment is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve. No degrees! No honors! No certificates! Nothing that your world of cognition understands is enlightenment. Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Enlightenment is to come to know that there is nowhere to go. Enlightenment is the understanding that this is all. Life is perfect, that this is it. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is an understanding that there is nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. You are already there -- you have never been away. You cannot be away from there. God has never been missed. Maybe, you have forgotten and that is all. Maybe you have fallen asleep, this is the reason. Maybe you have gotten lost in many, many dreams, that is all. However you are there. God is your very being.
So the first thing is, never think enlightenment a goal to be achieved at some latter time. It is not. It is not a goal; it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it. In desiring a thousand and one things, by and by you come to understand that all desire is futile. Each desire lands you in frustration; each desire again and again throws you into a hole.
This has been happening for millions of years but again you start hoping, again you start thinking that this new desire that is arising, sprouting in you, will maybe lead you to paradise. That this will give you what you have longed for, that it will fulfil you. Again and again hope arises.
Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope.
There is nothing to worry when I say that enlightenment is a state of hopelessness. Hoplessness is not negative. Hope arises no more; desire is created no more. Future disappears. When there is no desire, there is no need for the future. Both past and future disappears. The canvas of the future is needed for the desire. You paint your desires on the canvas of the future. When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the canvas unnecessarily? You drop it. When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the brush and the color unnecessarily? They come from the past. The canvas comes from the future while the color and brush and technique, all comes from the past. When you are not going to paint you can throw away the canvas, you throw away the brush, and the colors too then suddenly you are here now.
This is what Buddha calls Chittakshana – a moment of awareness, a moment of consciousness. This moment of consciousness can happen any moment. There is no special time for it, there is no special posture for it, and there is no special place for it. It can happen in all kinds of situations. It has happened in all kinds of situations. All that is needed is that for a single moment when there should be no thought, no desire, and no hope. In that single moment, the lightning....
One day Chikanzenji was mowing down the weeds around a ruined temple. When he threw away a bit of broken tile it clattered against a bamboo tree. All of a sudden he was enlightened. Where at he sang:
Upon the clatter of a broken tile
All I had learned was at once forgotten.
Amending my nature is needless.
Pursuing the task of everyday life
I walk along the ancient path.
I am not disheartened in the mindless void.
Wheresoever I go I leave no footprint
For I am not within color or sound.
Enlightened ones everywhere have said:
‘Such as this is the attainment.’
This poor monk, Chikanzenji, had been working for at least thirty years. He was a hard seeker. Also he was a very, honest and sincere and serious seeker. He practiced all that was told to him. He visited many masters, and lived in many monasteries. He did all that was humanly possible. He practiced yoga, he practiced Zazen. He did this and that but all to no avail. Nothing was happening; in fact, his frustration was growing more and more. The more the methods failed, the more and more frustrated he became.
He had read all the Buddhist scriptures. It is said about this Chikanzenji that he had all these scriptures in his room, and he was constantly reading, day and night. And his memory was so perfect he could recite whole scriptures. But still nothing happened.
Then one day he burned his whole library. Seeing those scriptures in the fire he laughed. He left the monastery, he left his master, and he went to live in a ruined temple. He forgot all about meditation, all about yoga, and all about practicing this and that. He forgot all about virtue, sheela, discipline, and he never went inside the temple to worship the Buddha.
But he was living in that ruined temple when it happened. He was mowing down the weeds around the temple not a very religious thing to do. He was not doing anything specific, just taking the weeds out. When he threw away a bit of broken tile, it clattered against a bamboo tree and in that moment, Chittakshana, the moment of awareness, happened. In that very clattering of the tile against the bamboo, a shock, a jerk happened and his mind stopped for a moment. In that very moment he became enlightened.
How can one become enlightened in one single moment? One can indeed, because one is enlightened already one just has to recognize the fact. It is not something that happens from the outside, it is something that arises from the inside. It has always been there but you were clouded, you were full of thoughts.
Chikanzenji burned all the scriptures. That was symbolic. Now he no longer remembered anything. Now he had forgotten all searches. Now he no longer cared. Unconcerned, he lived a very ordinary life. He was no longer even a monk. He had no pretensions anymore or ego goals. Remember, there are two kinds of ego goals: the worldly and the otherworldly. Some people are searching for money while others are searching for power, prestige, and pull. Some people are searching for God, moksha, nirvana, and enlightenment. However the search continues. And who is searching - the same ego.
The moment you drop the search, you drop the ego also. The moment there is no seeking, the seeker cannot exist. Just visualize this poor monk who was no longer a monk instead living in a ruined temple. He had nowhere else to go. He was just clearing the ground maybe to put some seeds there for vegetables or something. He came across a tile, threw it away, and was taken unawares. The tile clattered against the bamboo tree and with the sudden clattering, the sudden sound, he becomes enlightened.
Upon the clatter of a broken tile the monk said all I had learned was at once forgotten.
Enlightenment is a process of unlearning. It is utter ignorance. But that ignorance is very luminous and your knowledge is very dull. That ignorance is very alive and luminous, and your knowledge is very dark and dead.
He says, All I had learned was at once forgotten. In that moment he knew nothing. In that moment there was no knower, in that moment there was no observer. Just the sound alone was there. And one is awakened from a long sleep.
And he says, amending my nature is needless. That day he felt that he was just struggling unnecessarily. Amending my nature is needless. You need not amend yourself. You need not improve yourself! Beware of all those who go on telling you to improve yourself, to become this or to become that, to become virtuous. Who go on telling you that this is wrong, do not do it; that this is good, do it; that this will lead you to heaven and this will lead you to hell. Those who go on telling you to amend your nature and improve upon yourself are very dangerous people. They are one of the basic causes for your not being enlightened.
Nature cannot be amended. It has to be accepted. There is no way to be otherwise. Whosoever you are, whatsoever you are, that is how you are and that is what you are. It is a great acceptance. Buddha calls it Tathata, a great acceptance.
Nothing is there to be changed. How can you change it, and who is going to change it? It is your nature and you will try to change it? It would be just like a dog chasing its own tail. The dog would go crazy. But dogs are not as foolish as man. Man goes on chasing his own tail, and the more difficult he finds it the more he jumps and the more he tries and the more and more bizarre he becomes.
Nothing has to be changed, because all is beautiful and that is enlightenment. All is as it should be, everything is perfect. This is the most perfect world, this moment lacks nothing. The experience of this is what enlightenment is.
Enlightenment is finding that there is nothing to find. Maybe you are lost in many dreams. That is all but you are already there. God is your very being. So the first thing is, do not think about enlightenment as a goal, it is not. It is not a goal. Also it is not something that you can desire. And if you desire it you will not get it. In desiring a thousand and one things, by and by you come to understand that all desire is futile. Each desire lands you in frustration. Each desire again and again throws you into a hole. This has been happening for millions of years but again you start hoping, again you start thinking that this new desire that is arising, sprouting in you, will maybe lead you to paradise.
Life is wasted in the pursuit of longing. You think this will give you what you have longed for, and that it will fulfill you. Again and again hope arises. Enlightenment is when all hope disappears. Enlightenment is disappearance of hope.
When there is nothing to paint, why should you carry the brush and the color? They come from the past. The canvas comes from the future and the color and brush and technique, and all that, comes from the past. When you are not going to paint you throw away the canvas, you throw away the brush, you throw away the colors -- then suddenly you are here now. This is what Buddha calls chittakshana -- a moment of awareness, a moment of consciousness. This moment of consciousness can happen any moment.
There is no special time for it, there is no special posture for it, there is no special place for it -- it can happen in all kinds of situations. It has happened in all kinds of situations. All that is needed is that for a single moment there should be no thought, no desire, and no hope. In that single moment, the lightning....
What is enlightenment? Coming to understand, coming to realize that you are not the body. You are the light within; not the lamp, but the flame. You are neither body nor mind. Mind belongs to the body; mind is not beyond body, it is part of the body—most subtle, most refined, but it is part of the body. Mind is also atomic, as body is atomic. You are neither the body nor the mind—then you come to know who you are. And to know who you are is enlightenment…. Enlightened means you have realized who you are.
Enlightenment simply means becoming aware of yourself. Ordinarily, a man is awake to everything around him, but is not aware who is awake and aware of all the things around. So we remain on the periphery of life and the center remains in darkness. To bring light to that center, consciousness to that center is enlightenment. It is just being absolutely centered in yourself, focusing all your consciousness upon yourself as if nothing else exists; only you are.
Just be natural so that you can remain in tune with existence. So that you can dance in the rain, you can dance in the sun and you can dance with the trees, and you can have a communion even with the rocks, with the mountains, and with the stars too. Except this, there is no enlightenment. Let me define it: Enlightenment is to be in tune with existence.
To be in tune with nature—the very nature of things—is enlightenment. Against nature there is only misery—and misery created by yourself. Nobody else is responsible for it.
It will be difficult logically to understand it. It is something to be experienced. Since the moment I found the ego evaporating from me, I have not felt part of the universe, but the universe itself. And yes, I have found many moments when I am bigger than the universe—because I can see the stars moving within me, the sunrise happening within me, all the flowers blossoming within me.
This is enlightenment. Drown in the silence and the dance of it. I have attempted to speak of experience that cannot be put in words.
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