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because unless one is free of life one can never be free of death.
And when one is free of both
one knows that life which is eternity itself.
174. Love.
Man is always lacking,
because he desires without knowing himself,
because he desires to become something
without knowing his being,
and this is absurd.
First one must know his being
otherwise there will be anguish.
Becoming is anguish
because it is a constant tension
between that which is and that which should be –
and it is an impossible longing also
because only that can be which is.
So know yourself as you are
without any ideals,
without any judgment
and without any condemnation.
Go deep within yourself without any desires to become
because only then can you know yourself.
Discover yourself,
not according to anybody else,
but as you are.
Discover the fact,
discover the real
in its total nakedness.
In this total authenticity
just be a witness,
and then there is an altogether different quality to life,
the quality of let go.
Then one is relaxed totally.
And all flowering is in relaxation,
and all benediction.
175. Love.
Fear cripples consciousness,
and fear is the source of unconsciousness,
that is why without transcending fear
no one can attain to full consciousness.
But what is fear?
Fear is awareness of death without knowing what death is.
Fear exists in the gap between you and your death,
and if there is no gap, no space,
then there is no fear.
Do not think of death as something outside you
because it is not.
And do not think of death as something in the future
because it is not.
Death is within you,
because death is the other side of life.
Life cannot exist without death;
they both belong to the same energy
as positive and negative poles.
So do not identify yourself with life –
because you are both.
The identification with life creates the gap.
And death has nothing to do with the future,
it is always here and now.
Every moment, it is.
And when one ceases to regard it
as something outside oneself
and, so to speak, draws it into his consciousness
and assimilates the idea of it,
one is completely changed.
He is in all truth born again.
And then there is no fear
because then there is no gap.
176. Love.
Thinking is necessary but not enough,
one must know living also,
otherwise one becomes like the philosopher
mentioned by Soren Kierkegaard
who builds a fine palace
but is doomed not to live in it.
He has a shed for himself next door to what
he has constructed for others,
including himself, to look at!
Meditation is not thinking, but living.
Live it daily, moment to moment;
that is, live in it or let it live in you.
It is not something other-worldly either,
because all such distinctions are from the mind:
they are speculative and not existential,
and meditation is existential.
It is no more than one’s everyday life lived totally.
When Mencius says: The truth is near
and people seek it far away,
he means this.
When Tokusan is asked about it he replies:
When you are hungry you eat,
when you are thirsty you drink,
and when you meet a friend you greet him.
He means this.
Ho Koji sings: How wondrous this, how mysterious!
I carry fuel, I draw water.
He also means this.
And when you are near me
whatsoever I may say I always mean this.
Or I may not say anything –
but then too I always mean this.
177. Love.
Religion is so much an experience
that it cannot be handed over by one to another.
But there are traditions of religious experience –
which are bound to be false
because of the very nature of the religious experience.
One has to travel the path alone
with no footprints of other travelers even to guide one.
Hassan of Basra was asked: What is Islam and who
are the Muslims?
He is reported to have said:
Islam is in the books
and Muslims? Muslims are in the tombs.
178. Love.
The world itself is a punishment enough,
so really there is no need for hell at all.
Once a man who had three wives
was brought before the king of the country for punishment.
The king called in his counselors and asked them to devise
the worst possible punishment for the offender,
even death itself.