Author: Catalin Amza

The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.

Carl Gustav Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (via yourbonyknees)

One day the Zen monk Rinzai is speaking in a temple. He has gone into a sermon, but someone is disturbing him there. So Rinzai stops and asks, “What is the matter?” The man stands up and says, “What is soul?” Rinzai takes his staff and asks the people to give him the way. The man begins to tremble. He never expected that such will be the answer.

Rinzai comes to him, takes hold of his neck with both hands and presses it. His eyes come out. He goes on pressing and asks, “Who are you? Close your eyes.” The man closes his eyes. Rinzai goes on asking, “Who are you?” The man opens his eyes and laughs and bows down. He says, “I know you have really answered ‘what is soul’.”

Such a simple device! But the man was ready. Someone asks Rinzai, “Would you do the same thing when anybody asks?” He says, ”That man was ready. He was not just asking for the question’s sake. He was ready. The first part was fulfilled. He was really asking. This was a life and death question to him: ‘What is soul?’ The first part was fulfilled completely. He was disillusioned completely with life, and he was asking, ‘What is soul?’ This life has proved just a death to him. Now he is asking, ‘What is life?’ So no answer from me would have been meaningful. I helped him to just stand still in the present.”

Of course, when someone presses your neck just on the verge of killing you, you cannot be in the future, you cannot be in the past. You will be here and now. It is dangerous to miss the moment. I just say to such a man, “Go deep and know who you are.” The man becomes transformed. He goes into samadhi. He stands still in the moment. If you are in the present even for a single moment, you have known, you have encountered, and you will never be able to lose the track again.

A Zen Story

We are partners in the same organic unity and everybody is essential; from the smallest blade of grass to the biggest star, everybody is needed, equally needed. There is no hierarchy in existence. The grass blade and the star have no inequality; they are equal. Existence supports them both in the same way, it makes no discrimination. To the sinners, to the saints, it is the same. The sun shines for all, the flowers bloom for all, the birds sing for all. It is our home! But without a taste of blissfulness it cannot be felt.

Your love makes you ready to go into aloneness, because one can be with people only for a certain time then the desire to be alone arises. It is a necessary phenomenon, a natural phenomenon. And when one is alone one can be alone only for a certain period because when one is alone one accumulates energy. It is not used, one becomes a reservoir and then one needs people to share it. That is what love is sharing the energy that becomes accumulated in your aloneness. But when you share your energy, when you live with people, slowly you feel exhausted, tired, depleted; again the need has come to move into aloneness.

Love means that you are grateful to existence for giving birth to you and out of that gratefulness you would like to do something for existence. Love is prayer, it is thankfulness. And slowly slowly as you start moving higher into the world of love new dimensions start opening up in you. A moment comes when love is no more a relationship, you are simply loving.

Man can either exist in conflict with existence or in harmony with existence, either as an enemy or as a friend. Existence is the same, it is neither inimical to you nor friendly; it is simply available — the whole thing depends on you. It simply reflects you, echoes you; it is a mirror. If you are inimical you will see your own face in nature and nature will look inimical. If you are friendly you will see your own face in nature and the whole existence will look friendly.

Because most humans spend their entire lifetime looking outward at thoughts, the body, the world, people, places, things, etc., most humans have never even once observed their own awareness, not even for one second, in their entire lifetime.

There is a parable. Buddha comes one day with a flower in his hand. He is to give a sermon, but he remains silent. Flower in his hand, eyes on it, he remains silent. Those who have come to listen to him begin to wonder what he is doing. Time is passing. It has never happened like this. What is he doing? They wonder whether he is going to speak or not. Then someone asks, “What are you doing? Have you forgotten that we have come to listen to you?” Buddha says, “I have communicated something. I have communicated something which cannot be communicated through words. Have you heard it or not?”

No one has heard it. But a disciple, a very unknown disciple known for the first time, a bhikkhu named Mahakashyap, laughs, heartily laughs. Buddha says, “Mahakashyap, come to me. I give you this flower, and I declare that all that could be given through words I have given to you — all; and that which is really meaningful, which cannot be given through words, I give to Mahakashyap.”

So Zen tradition has been asking again and again, “But what has been communicated to Mahakashyap? What was transmitted to Mahakashyap? A transmission without words. What has Buddha told? What has Mahakashyap heard?” And whenever there is someone who knows, he laughs again, and the story remains a mystery. When someone understands, he laughs again. Wherever there are persons who are scholars, who know much and who know nothing, they will discuss about what has been told They will decide about what has been heard. But someone who knows will laugh.

Bankei, a great Zen teacher, said, “Buddha said nothing. Mahakashyap heard nothing.” So someone asks, “Buddha said nothing?” “Yes,” Bankei said, “Yes, ‘nothing’ was said, ‘nothing’ was heard. It was said and it was heard. I am a witness.” So someone said, “You were not there.” So Bankei said, “I need not have been there. When ‘nothing’ was communicated, no one is needed to be a witness. I was not there, and yet I am a witness.” Someone laughed, and Bankei said, “He was also a witness.”

The living current cannot be communicated. It is always there; someone has to go to it. It is nearby, just by the corner. It is in you. You are the living current. But you have never been in. Your attention has always been out. You have been out-oriented. You have become fixed. Your focus has become deadly fixed, so you cannot conceive of what it means to be in. Even when you try to be in, you just close your eyes and go on being out. 

To be in means to be in a state of mind where there is no out, where there is no in. To be in means there is no boundary between you and the all. When there is nothing out, only then do you come to the inner current. And once you have a glimpse, you are transformed. You know — you know something which is incomprehensible. You know something which intellect cannot comprehend. You know something which intellect cannot communicate. But yet one has to communicate, even with a flower, even with a laugh. It makes no difference: they are gestures. Does it make any difference if I use my lips or if I use my hands with a flower? Only the gesture is new. So it disturbs you. Otherwise, it is as much a gesture as any lip moving. make a sound; it is a gesture. I remain silent; it is a gesture. But the gesture is new, unknown to you, so you think something is different. Nothing is different. The living current cannot be communicated, yet has to be communicated, somehow has to be indicated, somehow has to be shown.

Osho – I Am The Gate (Buddha parrable)

The more you are spontaneous, the more you feel a new discipline arising in you — moment-to-moment discipline. It is a very different dimension, so it will be better to understand it clearly. When you decide beforehand what to do, you do not think you are conscious enough to act in the moment — spontaneously. You are not self-confident. That is why you decide beforehand.

And still you are deciding. You cannot act in the moment, so how can you decide beforehand? On the contrary, you will be more experienced when the moment comes. Now you are less experienced. If I decide today for tomorrow, I will be richer; and if I cannot believe in the “me” of tomorrow, how can I believe in the “me” of today? When I have to decide it beforehand, it carries no meaning. It will only be destructive.

I decide today and I act tomorrow. All has changed. Everything is new and the decision is old. I am new, the moment is new, and the decision is old. And if I do not act accordingly, there is guilt. So all those who teach deciding beforehand, they create guilt. I do not act, then I feel guilty. And if I act, then I cannot act adequately and frustration is bound to follow.

So when I say you have not to commit yourself to any decision, you will be free. Let each act, each moment, come to you, and let your total being decide. In that moment, let the decision come as the act happens. Never let it precede. Otherwise the act can never be total. One should know that when you decide beforehand you decide intellectually. Your total being can never be in it because the moment has not come.  

If I love someone and I decide that when I meet him or her I will act this way, I will say this thing, I will do this and will not do that, this can only be intellectual — mental. This can never be total because the moment has not arrived. The total being has not been challenged. So how can the total being act?

And when I have decided beforehand and the moment comes, the total being will not be able to act because the decision will be there. So I will only imitate, follow, copy, the preceding. I will be the false man. I will not be real because I will not be total. I will have a blueprint to act; I will act according to it. Again this will be a mental act, not with your total being. So either you succeed or you fail, still in both cases you have failed because the total being could not be in it. You will not feel love.

So let the moment come. Let the moment challenge you, and let your total being act. Then the act is total. Then your total being comes to act. Then you are totally in it! And the best that is possible will come out of this “totalness” and never out of the decisions.

Osho – I Am The Gate (Spontaneous)

And unless you accept the responsibility, there is no possibility of any revolution in your life. You can go on cursing the whole world, you can go on saying it is fate, it is karma, it is the economic structure, it is the state, it is the church. You can go on finding some causes for your misery, but that is not going to help, that is not going to change you. In fact it is a way of consoling yourself, “What can I do? It is predetermined. Nothing is in my hands so I simply have to accept it unwillingly, in despair. But I have to tolerate it, I have to live with it.” Then life becomes a misery.