Nahin Ram Bin Thaon #15

Many things need to be understood. First: Buddhahood is exceedingly rare. Awakening is an attainment almost of the impossible. Total awakening is an event that does not and cannot happen every day. Because there is great relish in sleep, and great rest in sleep. In sleep there are no responsibilities; however much the pain, however deep the sorrow, because of unconsciousness even pain and sorrow are not felt.

Surgeons know well: give the body anesthesia, morphia, any narcotic—and you can endure any amount of pain. A bone can be cut, a leg broken, organs taken out and replaced—there is no felt suffering. The deepest device for bearing pain is stupor. There is much suffering, and we have found a device to bear it: remain unconscious. As awareness increases, the intensity of pain is felt more; as awareness grows, the thorn pricks more sharply. The thorns are already there—thousands of them.

Buddhahood means the capacity to know life’s suffering in its totality; the courage to endure all that is, without running away; not hiding your face or turning your back, but witnessing whatever inferno life contains.

Only by witnessing hell does the door to heaven open. Those unwilling to pass through hell will be deprived of heaven. We all want heaven, but the road to heaven passes through hell; we do not want to travel that road. So we have invented a trick: we remain right at the gate of hell and dream of heaven. In those dreams hell is hidden. To dream, sleep is necessary.

Sleep has two uses: first, it does not let you experience pain in its full intensity; second, it allows you the convenience of dreaming. Hence Buddhahood is extremely rare. Sleep must be broken, and with the breaking of sleep, dreams break. We have invested so much in dreams, staked so much on them. Dreams are the very sweetness of our lives. In truth we have known no joy; we have pinned our hope on dreams—there lies our whole treasury of happiness.

That is why anyone who speaks of breaking dreams does not seem pleasant to us. We go even to Buddhas to ask how our dreams might be fulfilled. Even if we desire liberation, that too is our final dream, our last hope for bliss. In sleep, dreams are possible; in sleep pains are not felt—so we seek sleep.

Once in a great while, in a thousand years, someone wakes up. And when one person wakes up, the door that is ordinarily closed opens—for others too, even for those who sleep. Here we are so many; if we all sleep, who will wake us? If even one among us wakes, the door opens for all. For the awakened can rouse the sleeping, can shake them. You may not wake; you may turn over and go back to sleep; you may hear and not hear; his call may dissolve into your dream and become a part of it.

We have become so skillful that we absorb the outer existence into our dreams as well. At night you set an alarm because waking early is important. The alarm rings and you dream that the temple bells are ringing, worship is going on. The alarm is coming from outside; you make it part of the dream. Then the alarm is futile. You will not get up; there is no need. You forget the clock, the alarm. You have joined what was coming from outside to your inner dream. Mind is amazing and very skillful. You will fabricate a dream in which bells are ringing; once they are inside, there is no reason to wake.

I have heard: a military colonel retired and said to his orderly, Ram—you will stay with me. He had no wife or children; he was alone. Your only duty is that just as you used to wake me at four every morning, you will continue to do so. As you have always come and said, “Get up, sir, it’s time for parade,” so every day at four you must come and say, “Get up, sir, it’s time for parade,” and I will tell you, “To hell with the parade,” and turn over and go back to sleep. This has been my lifelong desire, which I could never do. All my life I have thought, “Kick the parade aside!”—but I could not. Now I am retired.

Such is our mind. It wants to sleep. And when the chance to awaken comes, then sleep becomes even more delicious. If only we can get the chance to sleep like that… The colonel is crazy, but he is a true picture of man. He can now sleep in peace; there is no need to hire an orderly to wake him at four. But the relish in being awakened and then turning over is not in sleeping straight through.

So when Buddhahood happens somewhere and a Buddha shakes you, your sleep becomes even sweeter. You roll over and go back to sleep. You make that Buddha part of your dream too. You dream about him; you do not let him become a path toward awakening. You use him as a support for deepening your sleep.

But an opportunity opens. Gurdjieff used to say: until someone else wakes you, how will you wake up? Your sleep is so deep that unless someone shakes you, how will anything from outside enter your sleep? You are so skillful you may drown even the awakener in your sleep. Yet still there is a way. Gurdjieff told a story worth understanding.

A dense forest, ten travelers, wild animals all around. All ten should not sleep; one must stay awake. He watches and does not sleep until he wakes the next man. One remains awake; he protects the nine. When his time to sleep comes, he rouses another. Gurdjieff called this school-work.

This is the use of an ashram. A hundred people decide together to try to awaken. Sleep is deep. Alone a person may forget he even decided to wake. Our capacity to forget is immense.

I have heard: a man kept forgetting whatever he decided. He consulted a psychologist, who said, Tie knots—tie a bit of string on your finger, a thread on your ear, a knot in your clothes—so when you see the knot, you will remember. One day he had to remember something, so on the way he tied a thread on his finger. The psychologist had said, Tie it so you will remember. He tied it and relaxed: Now I will surely remember. That made forgetting even easier. He came home, ate, read his paper. While reading, he saw the thread. He thought hard, but could not recall why he had tied it. If you are to forget, you can forget anything. He said, Whatever happens, I will remember—even if I have to sit up all night, meditate—I will remember. How long can this go on! At two in the night he remembered: This afternoon I had decided to go to bed early today. For that I tied the thread.

Our power to forget is boundless. Our alchemy of turning truth into dream is highly skilled.

When someone awakens, a door of possibility opens. He can shake us. The awakened can break our dreams; can stop us from turning over; can place a hurdle in our drowsiness.

Therefore Gurdjieff says awakening is the process of a school, an ashram, a circle of friends. Alone it is very difficult. Hence Buddha created the great sangha in which thousands of monks lived together. If even one awakens a little, he can become a door for the others. Hence Mahavira created an organized order of monks and nuns. Hence Hindus built orderly ashrams; Christians created precious monasteries. If ever a single person awakens there, he can be of use in awakening others. One ray will try to break the darkness of many. Still there is no certainty the darkness will break.

Therefore I say Buddhahood blossoms only once in a while. The door then opens for a short time. If at that moment you can prevent yourself from rolling over, if you can restrain the old habit of turning truth into dream, if you can hold a little remembrance, if you can see clearly that the “benefits” you imagine you get from sleep are not benefits but harms, and that unconsciousness does not remove suffering, it only forgets it and multiplies it—then you will have to awaken. If life is hell, you will have to see it. From that seeing and vision the journey toward heaven begins.

No one has ever reached anywhere by running away. No one has falsified truth by closing his eyes. The ostrich’s logic is no logic. By burying your head in sand the enemy does not disappear. Runaways have never attained any fulfillment. You will have to wake. If there is struggle, you will have to see it. If there is pain, you will have to endure it. Only through this bearing, this awakening, this process of awareness will you come to that place where suffering is transcended.

If a Buddha becomes available, it is great good fortune—also the fruit of your own efforts through many lives. Perhaps for lives you have only dreamed, but you dreamed of awakening. For lives you have desired liberation. You have not been liberated—another matter; you could not leave the world—another matter; but the seed of renunciation has remained in you. Useless things have held you, yet the futility of the useless has flashed upon you sometimes. Sometimes in dark nights lightning has flashed and in a glimpse you have seen all. At some way-stations of your life lightning has flashed and you saw that all is insubstantial. The essential has called you too. That is why you have earned the good fortune someday to reach a Buddha. Not everyone can.

I have heard an old Buddhist tale. In the village where Buddha was born, on the very day he was born, a little girl was born too. She grew up with Buddha—same age, same experiences. But she was terribly afraid of Buddha. She avoided any path on which he might come. If suddenly Buddha appeared on the way, she fled down side lanes. Then Buddha renounced the world; her fear deepened. He had always evoked fear—now, as a monk, even more. One evening, returning from the market on a path where there was no likelihood of Buddha coming, suddenly he came face to face. She had never truly looked at him—the fear was too great; when there is fear, looking is not possible—so she had not really recognized him. It was dusk. She kept walking and suddenly stood before him. For the first time she saw Buddha. All fear vanished. The woman was transformed.

Zen masters have asked: Who was that woman? She is your shadow. She is born not only with Buddha, but with you. Hindus call her maya. You and your maya never come face to face. Neither does your maya ever see you fully, nor do you ever fully see your maya. A game goes on. If ever you stand face to face, you will not be destroyed—maya will be. If you see your shadow before you, the shadow will vanish, not you. Hence the shadow is afraid. Wherever you go, she runs away. If she follows you, she follows behind; she never comes in front.

What we call life right now is nothing more than a shadow. There is no truth in it. But near a Buddha, near one who has attained Buddhahood, you will have to confront your shadow. You will have to look your maya in the eye. You will have to witness your dreams. And the day you truly see your dreams, sleep will break.

You will be saved—even from good fortune. Our habits of misery are so deep that even when grace comes, we cannot bear it.

An old Sufi story: In an emperor’s capital there was a man who, whatever he did, went wrong. Whatever he did, loss came. Misfortune chased him. The emperor said to a dervish, I have studied this man for long; a moment of fortune never comes to him. Is it written on his forehead that he must suffer? The dervish said, He has the old habit of suffering; through many lives he has collected it. The emperor said, I don’t like to believe that. I feel the circumstances were not right, the company not right, the education not right—so he has gone astray. The dervish said, Then let us experiment.

One day the emperor placed, by the roadside on a bridge the man crossed every evening, a great golden vessel filled with gold coins and precious jewels. He alerted the guards so no one else could take it. But if that unlucky man tried to take it, no one should stop him. Let him take it—consider him its owner.

A strange thing happened. The dervish and the emperor stood at the far side of the bridge, waiting. The man came upon the bridge. The emperor’s heart pounded—his doctrine was at stake. He believed everything is in human effort. Now there was nothing even to do for effort; the pot was right there full, on his path—he had only to pick it up. No one would stop him; he would be rich; his poverty would end. But as the man drew near, the emperor was astonished: the man had his eyes closed! He bumped into the vessel, coins scattered with a clink—but he avoided it and, eyes closed, crossed the bridge.

When he reached the other side, the emperor could not restrain himself. He caught him and said, Idiot, why are your eyes closed? The man said, Today I wondered whether I could cross the bridge with my eyes closed. I always cross with eyes open. I thought, Certainly I can cross—even if I become blind I will have no obstacle. The dervish said, See!

Even if a Buddha stands in your path, you will bump into him and pass on. That day you will decide to see whether you can walk with eyes closed.

That is why I say it is easy to miss. The possibility is very rare, and missing it is absolutely easy. But if you understand both ends—these apparent opposites—thoroughly, the situation reverses completely. Then it is not so easy to miss the possibilities, and the encounter with Buddhahood is not so difficult. If you truly understand both, perhaps you will meet Buddhas on the path every day. And if you meet even once, you will enter the door; there will be no reason to miss.

All the experiments in meditation I have you do are so that it becomes possible for you to recognize the Buddha when he meets you; that when the door opens you are not standing with your back to it; that even if it opens for a moment you enter, you do not miss. Meditation will help you recognize the master.

Now this is difficult, because ordinarily we go to a master to learn meditation. But I tell you, without meditation you cannot recognize the master at all. Where will you go? Only meditation will make you capable of recognizing the master. If you go with thought to recognize, you will miss.

Many people come to me. I see that they are so full of their ideas that there can be no contact between us—there is a thousand-mile gap. Their ideas are so many! And by those very ideas they weigh me; by those ideas they understand me. What their ideas say, they believe. You have never noticed how much surrender you have made to your own thoughts—those thoughts from which you have received nothing but suffering. You never doubt your thoughts.

People come saying, We are skeptics; we are rationalists; we cannot have faith. I see that their faith in their own skull is supreme; they never doubt that. From which you have never received even a drop of joy, where no flowers but thorns have ever bloomed—that skull you trust completely. And you say, We are faithless; we doubt; we think; we will not decide without thinking.

How did you decide that what your head says is right? Surely you made that decision without thinking. Whoever has truly thought has first dropped faith in his head. The experience of life—of endless lives—says this head has only led you astray.

If you are filled with thoughts, I may stand holding the door open—you will miss. Because your head is layered with so many thoughts that even an open door will appear closed. You will find some trick, some argument; you will understand in your own way—and be deluded.

You will understand Buddhahood only when you do not think. This state of nonthinking is meditation. Only in a moment of meditation is the master recognized. Not by thinking, not by logic, not by calculation; by sitting silent and still the master is recognized.

Hence the ancient tradition: when someone came to a master, he sat silent for two or four years; he did not even ask; he did not allow his mind the slightest movement; he simply sat and waited. It takes two to four years for the turmoil of lifetimes to fall silent. When the inner market closes like shops at night and all becomes still—this took years. We called this satsang: quietly going and sitting near someone.

And the amusing thing is, whether that man is right or wrong is not the crucial question—your silent sitting will benefit you. If he is wrong, it will become evident; you will be freed of him. If he is right, it will become evident; you will enter him. Meditation opens the eyes. So do not worry: What if I am sitting silently near the wrong man? Right and wrong are secondary; your silent sitting is primary. If you are with the right man but you are thinking, you will miss—thinking causes the miss. If you are with a wrong man but you are silent, you will arrive, because thoughtlessness opens the eyes. You will see this man is wrong.

And remember: he who can see what is false has become capable of seeing what is true. So even from the door of a false guru you will not return empty-handed. If you are full of thought, you will return empty-handed even from the door of the true guru. Your thinking is your prison. And however much I knock at your prison, it will not make much difference. You will find some meaning of your own. You will interpret it.

Rabindranath wrote a song. A great temple. The head priest dreamed that the deity of the temple would come the next day. Such a thing had never happened. The temple was ancient; the golden image was there—but the deity had never “come.” The priest could not quite believe it.

Remember, priests have the least trust. People think the priest is in the temple, so his faith must be firm. I tell you, the priest has no faith. He bathes the stone idol, washes it, sometimes even drops it—and it can do nothing. One who cannot protect itself, how will it protect me? The priest knows the trade inside out. It is the outsiders who have faith, not those who know the inner secrets.

The priest did not quite believe; he thought it was a dream. Should I tell the others or not? There were a hundred priests. He was also afraid: What if it turns out to be true? The world is strange; sometimes even dreams come true. What if God really comes? I shall be in a fix. He said, Better to tell them—even if they laugh.

He gathered the priests and said, I don’t believe it; it seems a dream; still, I must tell you. At night I saw the deity standing and saying, “Tomorrow I am coming to the temple.” They all laughed. You have gone mad in old age. Does any God come? It was a dream. The chief priest said, Now you decide; the responsibility is no longer mine.

Then they too felt, Why take the responsibility on our heads? Sometimes dreams do come true. In a world where the “true” looks like a dream, a dream may sometimes turn out true. Better not take the risk. What is the harm in preparing? Let us clean the temple, arrange the trays, light the lamps, and wait—with doubt. But can there be a waiting filled with doubt? They all knew no one would come; still they said, Prepare food, sweets. Even if God does not come, we will offer the food!

Evening came and the sun set. Now who will come? If God were to come, he would come by day; there is no reason to come at night. It grew late. They said, Enough. They closed the doors; they ate the food prepared for God; they put out the lamps; they shut the temple and, tired from all the cleaning, arranging, ceremony—and then seeing it all go to waste—laughed at themselves: How foolish we are, to be caught by a dream! They all went to sleep.

At night a chariot arrived. The sound of wheels at the door. In his sleep the head priest felt, He has come. He said, Listen, does anyone hear a chariot? The other priests said, Stop this nonsense. All day you plagued us; will you not stop now? Your head has gone bad. No chariot is coming; it is thunder. They went to sleep.

Then someone alighted from the chariot, climbed the steps, knocked at the door. One of the priests muttered in his sleep, Seems someone is knocking. The suspicion was there, the mind wavered—perhaps the dream was true! The chief priest said, This is the limit! It isn’t only I who am entangled in dreams—you are too. It’s just a gust of wind rattling the door. Who will knock at midnight? And is God a thief, to come at midnight? God comes in broad daylight, under the sun. Now sleep! And whatever happens, no one must disturb our sleep. Will you let us sleep or not?

In the morning they opened the door, beat their chests, and wept. The ruts of the chariot wheels were there; footprints on the dusty steps.

But then nothing could be done. The opportunity was missed. Rabindranath’s poem is titled, The Missed Opportunity. God had come, but the priests were asleep.

When I say I knock, if you are full of thought I hear you interpreting: it is thunder; a gust of wind; some self-deception.

A young man came to me and said, I like your words very much—so much that, as a student of psychology, I begin to suspect I have been hypnotized by you. Perhaps you have put me under a spell!

His mind is telling him: Run away, there is danger of hypnosis. And of course hypnosis is a terrible thing. You listen to my words; if they are logical, the mind says, Fine, the arguments are good—but they are only words. Can you eat words? Wear them? When it rains, will words shelter you? Do not get entangled in words, says the mind. Do not stray from the reality of life.

A young sannyasin told me two days ago: My father is very worried. He says, How long this meditation and sannyas? Return now, be normal. Live as everyone lives. What everyone lives we call normal. Even if all are insane, the way all live seems normal.

Certainly, when I knock upon you I am calling you to become a little abnormal, to live a life unlike others—a life unmatched, new, unknown. Courage is needed.

The mind persuades you. Until you are free from the mind’s persuasions, you will not cross over; this circle will revolve for endless births. Do not interpret; see facts. Do not be lazy; enough time has already been wasted. Wake up; morning has come.

But for one who sleeps, night persists. Only the awakened know that it is morning. And whatever I am saying here, my emphasis is not on saying, only on shaking you, on jolting you—so that your sleep breaks. Very often I have to do what psychologists call shock treatment. When someone is completely deranged, electric shocks are given; then somehow he comes to his senses.

You too need powerful shocks. I therefore often say things that will shake your heart and shock you. What I call the process of meditation is precisely an electric shock treatment. So many jolts will arise within you that you will become an earthquake. And until the earthquake comes, your sleep will not break.

I have heard: in the morning a man’s wife said, Last night the clouds thundered, lightning flashed, many were killed, the earth trembled, a flood came. The man said, Why didn’t you wake me? I too would have seen it. Some people even assimilate electric shocks; their sleep does not break. They need a higher voltage.

If you are willing, whatever voltage is needed I will give you. But even to make you willing I must begin with small voltages; otherwise you will run away.

In Zen, when disciples sit for six or eight hours in one posture to meditate, the master walks with a staff. The moment he sees someone nodding—because it is natural to feel sleepy—his stick lands on the head. Many times the blow has not only broken the nap, it has broken sleep itself; very often the moment of the blow has become the moment of awakening. When Zen stories were first translated into Western languages, people could not believe such a thing: can someone strike the head and enlightenment happen? Is enlightenment so easy? What has a stick to do with it? Surely knowledge comes from reading the Bible, the Koran, the Gita—how will it come from a blow? Zen stories are unique: a disciple is thrown out the window; when he hits the ground, he awakens. A disciple’s hand is in the doorway as he enters; the master slams the door; his hand is crushed, bleeding—and he awakens.

About Bokuju there is a famous story. Whenever Bokuju spoke, one finger was always raised—the symbol of nonduality. His disciples joked about it behind his back; in their discussions they raised one finger. No harm. A little boy who served Bokuju—bringing tea and water, laying out his seat—had become expert in this finger. He could imitate Bokuju better than Bokuju himself. Wherever he found an audience he would stand with one finger raised and preach.

Bokuju knew, for the eyes of a Buddha see even what happens behind them. You cannot hide. And if you feel you are hiding something, it is only because he does not let you know that he knows.

One day Bokuju was speaking. The child sat behind on a chair. Bokuju raised his finger; the child too raised his finger behind the chair. Bokuju turned, drew a knife from his sleeve, and cut off the child’s finger. Everyone was shocked; the child screamed. The finger fell; blood ran. Bokuju seized the child, brought him before him, and laughed loudly. When Bokuju laughed, the child did not know whether to cry or laugh; for a moment he forgot his finger had been cut. Then Bokuju raised his finger and said, You too—raise it. The child raised his finger, and they say he was enlightened in that very instant. He attained.

These stories are unique and senseless to the mind—and they may seem harsh. Bokuju seems wicked: he cut off a child’s finger. But the shock of a severed finger can break sleep. If sleep breaks from a cut finger, it is not a bad price.

Only Bokuju knows in which moment such an event can happen—when the film of sleep is very thin, a slight mist that will tear under a blow. Therefore a Zen master strikes only when there is just a delicate film; otherwise you will swallow even the blow. The finger will be gone, and no one will awaken.

All the processes of meditation are processes of shaking and jolting you. And I am always waiting for the moment when your film is so thin that the slightest signal will break it. If even once you open your eyes and see, that is enough.

What I am speaking is only to persuade you—to win your consent for a journey unfamiliar to you; for a search whose shores are unknown to you, where it may be you get lost, it may be you arrive. I am taking you in search of a treasure unknown to you. And what you now call treasure will have to be left. So your attachment is natural. You keep looking back—natural. You want to carry even the useless with you—natural.

Your sleep is natural; my jolting is natural. I know your sleep is difficult to break. And yet I also know it can break in a single instant. I only seek the right instant—when to knock at your door. If you keep coming, if you prove a little stubborn and do not run away in the middle, if you keep coming—how long will you think? You will get tired of thinking; slowly you will stop. When you stop thinking, dreams cease.

At some moment, when I find you just sitting—not thinking—no waves of thought within, then a tiny blow, a slight knock, a little gust of air, the fall of a dry leaf will be enough—you will awaken. Once you open your eyes and see, the whole world is transformed. You cannot return to what you have always been.

And it is true that I will not be here forever; you can lose the opportunity. You should not become too complacent, for complacency often deepens sleep. You must know that at any moment this door can close. Therefore let there be no slackening of your urgency and speed. You can lose me without finding me. If you find me, then there is no way to lose me; but you can lose me without having found me. The door may not even be visible to you and may close. Keep this in memory so that you do not fall asleep in complacency. The door is open this very moment; if you are quiet you can see it; if you are silent you can enter. The whole arrangement is for one thing: that you may disappear.

The scriptures have called the master death. The true master is he who becomes your death. Beyond that death lies the great life. He who dies will attain that great life. Therefore many times I will seem like your enemy. I break your beliefs—that too is a way to kill you. I break your ideas—that too is a way to kill you. I break your notions of right and wrong—that too is a way to kill you. I do not only change your clothes or your name; I want to change your very soul—that too is a way to kill you. I want to efface you.

As you are effaced, the Divine manifests within you. You are a seed. If you disappear into the soil and die, the sprout will appear. You cling to the seed-shell, thinking it is your life; if it breaks, you will end. The seed-shell is not your life; your life is hidden within it. When the shell breaks, germination happens. The seed is dead; the sprout will be alive. Do not fear losing a seed. The day you become a tree, millions of seeds will hang from you. But how to explain to a seed? The seed is afraid it might break.

I was reading a book, The Secret Life of Plants. The work Jagadish Chandra Bose began is nearing completion in the West: plants think much as you do.

Try a small experiment. Keep two or three pots. Put the same soil and manure in each. Sow equal amounts of any seasonal seeds that sprout in four to six weeks. Mark one pot with a plus sign, one with a minus, one with zero. The plus means you will tell the seeds daily, at least fifteen minutes: Do not be afraid; break; scatter; merge into the soil; soon sprouting will happen and the great life will manifest. There is no need to fear; the sun waits for you; the open sky is ready to welcome you. Do not fear; I am with you.

You will feel foolish at first. But do not worry; soon your “foolishness” will yield results. Keep the three pots at least eight feet apart so suggestions to one do not reach another. Sit each morning by the plus pot and give these positive suggestions.

To the pot marked minus, give the same water, the same sunlight—everything the same—only give negative suggestions: There is no need to break. If you break, you will die; no sprouting will happen. For months the sun has been hidden; the sky has prepared no welcome. Needlessly you will suffer; you will die. So protect yourself; save the seed.

To the third pot, give no suggestion—zero.

Within four to six weeks you will begin to see results. The pot you welcomed will sprout first; its seeds will break first—later in the other two. Those sprouts will grow faster. After that will come the turn of the pot to which you gave no suggestion; its sprouts will be small, late, without exuberance. And the one to which you gave negative suggestions will not sprout at all; if a sprout appears, it will be lifeless and will soon die. You can try this small experiment yourself.

I am doing the same with you. On your pot I have drawn a plus sign and am telling you: Do not fear; break; disappear; the sun is ready; the sky is eager. I am here; do not be afraid. Come, get up, move ahead.

A small child walks holding his father’s hand. He does not know how to walk; yet with his father’s hand there is trust. A master can do no more than this: he can give you his hand. If you trust, you will walk. Very soon you will not need the hand. A child soon wants to free his hand—it is natural. When he begins to walk, he says, Now let go! I want to walk by myself. And a father who truly loves wants to let go quickly. He held the hand so the child could learn to walk; he did not have a child to hold his hand. The moment your seed begins to break, to sprout—the moment you no longer need my assurances—I will withdraw my hand.

A master frees the disciple quickly. But that freedom can be only if you first agree to be bound. Otherwise whom shall I free? If the son never holds the father’s hand, what question of release? The son will keep moving on all fours like a wild animal.

I knock at your door; I give you assurance; I give you trust that there is no cause for fear. What you will leave is trash. What you will attain is the great treasure.

Certainly the mind is dual; in the mind nothing can be whole—it will always be half. If you love, it will be half love and half hate. If you have faith, it will be half faith and half lack of faith. Even in trust there will be half doubt. Then what to do? How can surrender be?

Surrender your irreverence too. Do not give only your faith; give your lack of faith as well. Do not say to the master, “I offer you only my trust”—offer your distrust too. Offer your doubt as well. Now you take care of my doubt and my surrender. I will doubt—because that is the nature of the mind. But I place even my doubt at your feet.

There was a very famous Christian mystic, Tertullian. He prayed to God every day. His prayer is worth understanding. Every morning he would say, “I believe in you; now you help my disbelief.” I trust in you; now you take care of my unfaith. It is there. If you deny it, you will get into trouble. If you hide it, you will get into trouble. If you convince yourself, “I now have complete faith; there is no lack of faith in me,” while lack of faith is still there, you will weave a net of deception.

No—understand yourself rightly. Faith is there, and lack of faith is there. The auspicious is there, and the inauspicious is there. Noble tendencies are there, and ignoble tendencies are there. Place both at the master’s feet; say to both, “Now you be managed by him.” And say it clearly: doubt is in me, but I give that to you; now you take charge.

If you can surrender even your doubt, then a new kind of faith will be born within you—one that is beyond duality. Because then you have not hidden the “bad.” Why do we hide the bad? Precisely because we do not want anyone to know it is also in us.

But if you hide from the master, you have not become totally naked. You have covered your ugliness and displayed your beauty. You showed what was showable and concealed what was not. Then even with the master you have behaved as in the marketplace. Before him you must place not only your flowers but your thorns as well. What else will you do? The thorns are there—and the master knows it well. When you say, “My faith is complete; there is absolutely no doubt,” he knows you are lying. You yourself may not know you are lying. But it is a lie, because it cannot be otherwise.

The day you say, “There is doubt and there is faith—I bring both to you. These are my wounds and these are my joys—I place both at your feet. Now I keep nothing back; I am utterly naked,” then the master knows you are true. This is authenticity. Only from this authenticity can something truly happen.

The mind is dual. Therefore, when you love someone, tell them that hatred also exists within you. This is the sign of a true lover: he does not hide; he opens everything, not even separating the good from the bad. He bares his mind completely and says, “Here is the mind—sometimes it emits stench, sometimes fragrance. I cannot promise that it will always be fragrance, because sometimes it stinks. Sometimes I will doubt, sometimes I will fight the master, sometimes I will even slander the master—this too is there.”

If in such simplicity you drop both, you will go beyond both. Do not set faith and lack of faith against each other. Both are your limbs. Surrender both. If you save nothing at all—if you empty yourself completely, handing over the whole duality—you become free of duality. In that very instant you will discover you have gone beyond. Then neither faith is needed nor lack of faith.

And in such a moment the event that happens is true surrender. There duality is not. There are not two. There the master and the disciple do not remain; the one who surrenders and the one who receives the surrender do not remain. Only the happening of surrender remains. The master is one pole, the disciple the other; between them only a single expanse remains. As with your left and right hands—within both, the same life-breath spreads—so between master and disciple there becomes a single flow.

A Zen master was dying. He called his chief disciple and said, “Listen, this scripture—my master gave it to me, his master gave it to him; for seven generations we have preserved this scripture with great care. Whatever is essential is written in it. All the essence is inscribed here. Nothing beyond it is needed. If only this one scripture remains, the Dharma will remain. Guard it more dearly than your life. You are my successor, so I give it to you.”

The disciple did not even glance at the scripture and said, “Whatever was to be received, I received without a scripture; whatever was to be known, I knew without this scripture. So take it with you. What would I do with it?”

Still the master insisted, “My dying hour has come; do not raise a useless argument. I trust you; that is why I give you this scripture—take it. This is my last moment; do not create an uproar.”

The disciple took the scripture in his hand. It was winter; a fire was burning in front. He threw the scripture into the fire. He did not even open it.

The master burst into laughter and said, “Your faith is complete.” There was nothing in that scripture; it was a blank book. Had you even opened it to look, it would have meant you had kept something back; your knowledge was doubtful; your enlightenment incomplete.

It is a very subtle matter. The master would have been unhappy had the disciple preserved that scripture. He is delighted because the disciple burned it. In his dying moment, the master wants to feel whether this one has become one with him or not. If he has become one, then what I know—that the scripture is trash—he too will know. If he has become one, then what I know—that the scripture is empty, with nothing written in it—he too will know. If he cannot know this, some barrier still remains. In that Zen tradition, the scripture was always passed down for seven generations, and the disciples always burned it. It was a blank book that the master used as the final test.

When the disciple and the master become utterly one, then there is surrender. But when will they become one? When you become completely naked, when you hide nothing at all. To hide means that you are in opposition to what is before you—you are hostile, afraid; there is fear, not love. What does it mean to hide before the master? And seeing the “bad” in you, there will be no condemnation in the master’s eyes, because even when you hide it, it is visible to him—so it makes no difference. You are needlessly displaying your cleverness, your smartness.

The mind is dual—therefore surrender the whole duality. Surrender the mind, not half of it. Remember: if you save half and surrender half, surrender has not happened. It is as if I have a gold coin and give you one face while keeping the other. The coin will remain in my pocket, because its two faces cannot be separated. I can show you one face and slip it into my pocket because I must save the other. Either the whole coin must be given, or the whole coin must be kept—there is no half-and-half.

Surrender means the surrender of the mind. The mind is dual; therefore surrender the duality—without saving anything, without any security. Open yourself wholly and completely. In that very instant, the disciple and the master disappear. The master is already disappeared; in that instant the disciple also disappears. Only the One remains. There are two ends, but between them there is a single wind; a single gust moves two leaves. The two leaves may be different, but the gust is one. The two bodies may be different, but the gust of consciousness is one.

That is all for today.