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Go in and find out – immediately.
A moment’s thinking
and you are again in the old rut.
A moment’s thinking
and you are as far from the real as is possible.
290. Love.
We kneel down to ourselves
because we kneel down to the gods we make
out of our experience, or out of our desires and dreams,
or out of our so-called logic and foolish arguments.
This is neither humility nor prayer,
rather, on the contrary, this is
the most egoistic attitude possible.
The truly religious mind is one which just kneels down –
not to anyone, not to any image in particular.
This kneeling down is nothing but
a flowering of one’s total nothingness.
Then this kneeling down becomes an inner way of life,
and unless prayer is such, prayer is not.
One cannot pray, one can only be prayerful.
291. Love.
You cannot run away from the self
because you are the self –
how can you run away from it?
It is like running from one’s own shadow:
all your efforts are bound to be futile.
Rather, stop and see it,
witness it, be aware of it.
Face the shadow and then – where is it?
It has never been, really.
You created it by not facing it
and you strengthened it by running from it.
Is it not time now to stop the game?
292. Love.
Search – and the ego is always somewhere behind.
Search – and in every act the ego is the motivation.
But if one can find that this is so
and can realize it,
one goes beyond it, because the very realization
is the going beyond.
Brother, said Mulla Nasruddin to a neighbor,
I am collecting to pay the debt of a poor man
who cannot meet his obligations.
Very commendable said the other, and gave him a coin.
Who is this person?
Me, said Nasruddin as he hurried away.
A few weeks later he was at the door again.
I suppose you are calling about a debt,
said the trusting neighbor.
I am.
I suppose someone can’t pay a debt
and you want a contribution?
That is so.
I suppose it is you who owes the money?
Not this time.
Well, I am glad to hear it.
Take this contribution.
Nasruddin pocketed the money.
Just one thing, Mulla –
what prompts your humanitarian sentiments
in this particular case?
Well, you see…I am the creditor!
293. Love.
Knowledge is through experiencing.
Mere information is not knowledge,
on the contrary it cannot give the clarity
which knowledge gives to the mind
and may confuse one more
because a confused mind is still more burdened with it.
Two men had played chess
regularly together for several years.
They were quite evenly matched
and there was keen rivalry between them.
Then one man began to beat his rival nearly every time they played
and the other man was completely at a loss
to understand this phenomenon.
On the contrary, he was expecting his game to improve
because he was reading a four-volume set
on How to Play Chess.
After much thought he came up with an idea.
He sent the books to his friend as a gift –
and it was not long before they were evenly
matched again!
294. Love.
There is no proof of the divine in the world
for it is hidden deep, deep, deep inside.
But in you there is the absolute proof,
for it is deep, deep, deep, inside.
Go in and discover it.
Thinking about it will not help:
action is needed,
action turned on oneself –
so act.
That is, turn in.
Man is like a sealed book
written before he was born,
and ordinarily he carries it unopened inside himself
until he dies.
One who opens it knows that he is not
and only the divine is.
295. Love.
Truth is aristocratic.
It cannot be decided by votes or numbers
because truth is enough in itself,
it needs no help or support;
it even needs no proof because truth is self-evident.
A certain man was believed to have died
and was being prepared for burial
when he revived.
He sat up but he was so shocked at the scene around him that he fainted.
He was put in a coffin
and the funeral party set off for the cemetery.
Just as they arrived at the grave
he regained consciousness,
lifted the coffin lid
and cried out for help.
It is not possible that he has revived, said the mourners,
because he has been certified as dead
by competent experts.
But I am alive! shouted the man.
He appealed to a well-known and impartial scientist
and jurisprudent who was present.