Dying with death, You must live to seek
- From: mulai dari awal <lokananta@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:46:12 -0800 (PST)
COMMIT YOURSELF TO THE EARTH
WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
IF YOU WISH TO ATTAIN
THE UNATTAINABLE MAN.
PLACE AT HIS FEET
YOUR FLOWERS OF FEELINGS
AND THE PRAYERS OF TEARS
FLOODING YOUR EYES.
THE MAN YOU SEEK
IS EARTHED
IN THE EARTH,
DECEASED WHILE BEING.
DYING WITH DEATH,
YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK....
THE RELIGION OF THE BAULS IS THE RELIGION OF THE EARTH. It's radical,
because it pertains to the very roots of being. When I say it is the
religion of the earth, I mean many things: it is the religion of the
body, it is the religion of nature, it is the religion of reality. The
Bauls don't believe in fantasy and they don't believe in some heavenly
paradise; they don't believe in far-away goals, they are not utopians.
They are very realistic people, down-to-earth. This is something very
special in the world of religions, because ordinarily religions are
nothing but wish-fulfillments, dreams of a suffering humanity. Because
humanity is suffering it substitutes for reality by dreaming. A poor
man can console himself that at least in the kingdom of God he will be
the first. He can console himself with sayings like: Blessed are the
meek because they shall inherit the earth; the poor in spirit are the
people of God; those who are last will be the first in the kingdom of
God. The poor man needs all these consolations.
Man is afraid of death. He needs to be again and again reassured that
he is a soul, deathless, immortal; only the body dies, not you. Man is
suffering a thousand and one complexities. The whole life is almost an
oceanic sadness, suffering, sorrow. It is difficult to bear it. Dreams
are needed, hopes of a better future, of a better world, are needed.
Maybe it is beyond death, but just the idea that it is there waiting
for you and the suffering is only for today, you pass it somehow; you
believe in tomorrow. Sooner or later you will be relieved of it.
Ordinary religions are the religions of tomorrow. They simply indicate
that because man lives in suffering, man needs dreaming.
The religion of the Bauls is very down-to-earth; it believes in the
here-now. It does not say that paradise is somewhere else; it is here,
and you cannot postpone it, and all postponement is dangerous,
suicidal. If you cannot discover it here-now, you will never discover
it anywhere else because you will remain the same. And whenever you
will be, life will always come in the form of here-now. So the only
door to reality is here, this very moment.
The Bauls say, "This is the reality and there is no that." They don't
divide reality into two: they don't say illusory and the real, they
don't say MAYA and BRAHMA, they don't say this and that. They say,
"This is all." This moment is total, and all division is dangerous
because reality is nowhere divided; it is indivisible.
Hence, they don't talk about a God somewhere sitting in the seventh
heaven. They talk about a totally different God -- rooted in you,
rooted here in the earth, rooted in this body, rooted in these
emotions, lust and love, rooted here in tension and stress. The God of
the Bauls is a very real God. You can touch Him, you can love Him, you
can embrace Him, you live with Him, you can live Him. It is not far
away, it is very close; closer than close, because it is you. They
don't use the word 'God' at all. Their word for God is ADHAR MANUSH,
the essential man. Man himself is divine. If you enter yourself you
will be entering God. If you enter this world you will be entering
God.
This does not mean that there is no God. This is a radical standpoint,
but not negation. It is a very revolutionary attitude, but not
negative. It does not mean that God does not exist. In fact, it means
that God exists here, now, and the responsibility is yours to discover
Him. And there is no alibi, there is no excuse to postpone.
In Chinese, Taoists have reached to the same viewpoint: they dropped
the very word 'God'. They started using the word, 'CHI'LAN'. CHI'LAN
means nature; that is God. CHI'LAN means that which happens of itself,
that which is already happening, that which has always been happening
and will go on happening. That is the meaning of the word 'Tao' also.
In the Vedas, Hindus have a beautiful word: they call it RITAMBH. That
is exactly what Tao or CHI'LAN is. RITAMBH means nature, not God --
because whenever you say 'God', somehow it is always somewhere else,
not here; at least not in you, not in your neighbor. The earth seems
to
be not worthy enough for God to be here.
Jainas and Buddhists use the word DHAMMA -- that exactly means nature.
The Sanskrit word DHARMA also means nature. It is not equivalent to
the
English word 'religion'; no, not at all. In fact, both are polar
opposites. Religion means that which binds you, gives you a certain
organization -- a church -- gives you a certain belonging. DHARMA
means
that which frees you from all churches, from all organizations. DHARMA
is individual, religion is social. Religion belongs to the collective
crowd, religion does not belong to the individual. Christianity,
Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, are all religions; they are not DHARMAS.
DHARMA has no adjective to it. Everybody has to discover his own
DHARMA; everybody has to discover his own nature.
The Bauls' attitude that God is here in you has to be understood as
deeply as possible, because there is no other God. In fact, because
religions have been talking about a God somewhere else, that's why the
world has become more and more godless. Because the God that is not
here and cannot be touched and cannot be seen and cannot be lived
with,
cannot be very appealing. As man grows to be mature, that God will
start disappearing, withering away. Whenever man becomes very mature,
those gods of the dreams will disappear and man will be left without
God. That's what has happened to this age. It is not because of
atheists that man has become godless, it is because of a wrong notion
of God.
Marx could condemn the God of the Christians, Marx cannot condemn the
God of the Bauls. Scientists can deny the God of the so-called
religious, but scientists cannot deny the God of the Baul -- because
he
never proposes anything dreamlike. He is simply realistic.
I have heard a beautiful anecdote.
A commissar in Russia asked a peasant how the new potato-crop-
production plan was coming under their glorious leader.
Said the peasant, "Our potato crop has been miraculous. If we were to
put all the potatoes in a pile, they would make a mountain reaching to
the feet of God."
'But you know there is not any God," said the commissar.
"I know," said the peasant, "but there are not any potatoes
either."
A God in the sky is a false God. Not that the sky is without God, no;
the sky is as full of God as the earth. But the first understanding of
God is going to be rooted in the earth. The first understanding has to
be of the roots, and out of those roots your understanding will grow
and spread to the farther corners of existence. But the journey starts
at home. It starts deep within you. The first glimpse of God has to be
in the innermost shrine of your heart. If you have not seen Him there,
you can go on talking about Him, but you will not ever be able to see
Him anywhere. The first encounter has to happen within you. Once it
happens, you will be surprised that you start seeing God everywhere.
Once you have seen Him within your heart, how can you miss Him. --
because everywhere the heart is throbbing with Him. The tree is full
of
Him and the rock also, and the river and the ocean, and the animals
and
the birds, everywhere. Once you have felt His pulse, once you have
felt
Him circulating in your own blood, once you have had an experience in
your own marrow, then everywhere, wherever you look you will find Him.
But, it cannot happen otherwise. If you are empty of His experience,
you can go to the farthest corner of the world; your travelling will
be
in vain. You will never reach His temple because you missed the very
root of it. You missed Him at home. If your own house does not become
His temple, then no temple can be His abode. If your own house has
become His temple, then all houses are His abode.
When the Bauls say that one has to be very earth oriented, they don't
mean that the sky is empty of God. But they say, "If the earth is not
full, then the sky is absolutely empty. If even the earth is not full,
how can the sky be full of Him? If He is not here, how can He be
there?
If He is not this, how can He be that? If He is not today, how can He
be tomorrow? If He is not in this life, how can He be in the next?"
Their logic is simple and irrefutable.
But man has created a God in the skies. Why? This God is not a real
God, it is a substitute -- because you are missing Him here, and you
are missing Him so tremendously that you have to put Him somewhere or
other. Otherwise you will feel very alone. You will feel so lonely
that
you will miss the meaning of life. And it is good to put Him very far
away, because then there is no hurry. The journey is so far that you
cannot complete it today. Even this life is not enough, so enough
space
to postpone, enough space to say, "Yes, one day I will do," enough
space to pretend that you are interested in Him and continuing to be
of
the world, and going on talking at the same time about God. This is
the
double-talk, the double-bind of ordinary humanity. People talk about
God and live according to the devil. They go to the temple but they
never reach. They read the Bible, they read the Koran, but they never
listen. These are pretensions, only on the surface. This is how the
hypocritical humanity is born -- a false, pseudo-humanity.
I have heard....
Mulla Nasrudin went to his psychiatrist once and said,
"Doctor, I wonder if you can split my personality for me?"
"Why? Why would you want to do that?" asked the doctor,
surprised.
"Because," said the Mulla, "I am so lonesome."
Man feels very alone without God, and to find the real God is arduous.
It is very easy to create a pseudo-God which looks like God, which
appears like God. It at least gives consolation that you are not
alone.
Have you watched your concept of God? Has it arisen out of the
experience of your own being, or has it arisen out of your experience
of your loneliness? This is the criterion: if you believe in God
because you feel lonely, your God is going to be false; if you believe
in God because you have experienced Him in your aloneness, if it has
come out of your own being, then the God is real. Then let Nietzsche
declare that God is dead; your God can never be dead. Your God is
alive
in you. How can Nietzsche declare that God is dead? But he could
declare, and not only declare; his declaration became a prophecy.
Within a hundred years, his declaration has become a reality. The God
of the churches is dead, the God of the temples is dead, the God of
the
books is dead. Nobody has ever been so prophetic as Nietzsche has
been.
God is disappearing; the very word has become ugly.
Just the other day I was reading a Christian priest's book. I was
surprised, because I have heard about cases in which, particularly in
India, people, if they want to read Playboy, hide it in their Gita or
in their Bible and read it. That I have heard. But that Christian says
that he was so afraid to read the Bible that he was hiding his Bible
behind the cover of a Playboy magazine! It has come to happen in the
West. So when he would go every Sunday to his beauty parlor, he would
take his Bible. But afraid that others might see that he was reading
the Bible, so out of date, he would hide it in a Playboy magazine and
would read his Bible there.
One day in the Bible he came across Jesus' saying: If you deny me,
remember, at the last day of judgment I will also deny you. So he
became afraid because this was a sort of denial -- reading the Bible
behind the cover of Playboy. He became so afraid that he started
perspiring, because Jesus says, "If you deny me, then before God I
will
not recognize you." So he threw away the Playboy magazine and he felt
so good. He went to his priest and said, "Today I have done a great
deed. I gathered courage to let people know that I read the Bible."
God IS dead, MUST be dead. Have you watched yourself? -- if you are
carrying a Bible you feel a little awkward. Or, if you are going to
the
temple you start finding excuses: that you are going because your wife
has gone and there is some work to be done, or your father is there,
or
you are just going for formality's sake; it is just social. Have you
watched how things change?
I was reminded when I was reading this of a beautiful story.
One dacoit, a great robber, became interested in the American ways of
dacoity. Everybody has to be interested now, because everybody in his
own profession is trying to go to America. Doctors are going,
engineers
are going, so the dacoit thought, "Why not us? We can also learn the
modern techniques." So he went to America, he joined a gang, and he
was
watching and observing what they were doing, the modern techniques. He
was surprised, because first they kidnapped a beautiful woman, and
then
they wrote. But he said, "This is okay, because we also do the same in
India: we kidnap a woman and then we write a letter to the husband
that
if within three days he doesn't give fifty thousand rupees, then we
will kill his wife." So he wondered, "But what is new in it?" Then he
looked at what they were writing in the letter. He was surprised; he
said, "What are you doing?" -- because in the letter they were
writing,
"If within three days you don't send us fifty thousand dollars, we
will
send your wife back."
The world has tremendously changed. People used to read Playboys
hiding
them in their Bible covers, but now they are hiding their Bibles in
Playboy covers. Nietzsche was right -- God is dead. But the real God
cannot die; that is impossible. To say that God is dead is to say that
life is dead. If God means life, then the statement 'God is dead' is
simply stupid, meaningless, contradictory -- because life is that
which
lives, that which goes on living.
The Bauls would laugh. They would say, "Then you have not understood
the real God. Yes, your God is dead because he was false, but the God
of the Bauls is not dead, cannot be dead, because we never talked
about
God -- we talk about life, love. If all the temples were destroyed and
all the mosques and GURUDWARAS were burnt, nothing would happen to
God.
Because the God enshrined there is not the real God. The God enshrined
in you is the real God, and that cannot be destroyed. Life cannot be
destroyed; life goes on. It is an eternal river."
But man feels lonely. In his loneliness he creates fantasies, dreams.
Man has become so lonely that he finds solace in any way, anywhere. It
is unfortunate. But this is no way to find the real.
I was reading one anecdote:
Ira quit college, got himself a backpack and began hitchhiking around
the United States. After he had been gone more than a year he
telephoned home. "Hello, Ma, how are you?"
"Just fine, son. When are you coming home? I will fix you
some chopped liver and chicken soup and a beautiful potroast. "
"I'm still pretty far away."
"Oh, son!" cried the desperate woman.''Just come home, and I
will fix your favorite -- oatmeal cookies."
"I don't like oatmeal cookies," said the boy.
"You don't?" asked the woman.
"Say," said Ira, "is this Century 5-7682?"
"No."
"Then I must have the wrong number."
"Does that mean you are not coming home, boy?" asked the
woman.
People are really lonely. Even if it is not your son, at least
somebody
is coming. You can pretend, you can believe, you can console.
The God that exists in the temples is not a real God. That God that
exists in the sky is your projection; the real God is within you. That
which you are seeking is not somewhere else, it is in your very
seeking. It is in the very seeker -- the sought is in the seeker. You
are the truth, alive, in flesh. God is reborn in you, God is
incarnated
in you, God has taken a body in you. Where are you seeking, where are
you going? The Bauls say, "Wait, listen, go within."
They sing,
The God is living in man,
wholly intermingled.
Oh, my unseeing heart,
your eyes are unwise!
How then can you locate
the treasured man?
The unseen man
dwelling in the brilliance of light
hides his identity
from those blinded by stupor.
He is stationed in man,
appearing and vanishing
as the eyelids blink.
They go on singing again and again:
All of us in different ways
think of God
beyond senses and feelings.
And yet it is only
in the essence of loving
that God is found.
On the other shore of the ocean
of one's own self
quivers a drop of fluid
as the origin of all.
The root of all is based in you.
Explore the base
to reach the essence,
release the sensation of taste
on your tongue,
open the doors of feeling
for the Beloved.
Nectar, showering on
the lotus of spontaneity,
lust and love are housed
in one single place,
where sorrows and joys do not exist.
They
believe in man. They believe in the tremendous potentiality of man.
They believe that man is the shrine of God. They believe in the body.
No religion except Tantra has ever endeavored to understand this
miraculous happening of consciousness located in the body, of
consciousness residing in the body. All the other religions have
remained anti-body, anti-life, life-negative, body-negative -- as if
the more you destroy your body, the more you become divine, or the
more
you come close to God. Bauls say, "If you destroy the body, you
destroy
the very base. If you destroy sensation, you destroy sensitivity. If
you destroy your senses, then how will you taste Him, how will you
hear
Him, how will you see Him? If you destroy your love, how will you love
Him? If you destroy your passion, then you will be impotent."
They have a really revolutionary religion to preach to the world. They
are very illiterate people, but of great insight. Maybe that's why
they
are so full of insight, because they are illiterate...because they
don't know much about scriptures, and they don't know much about
philosophy and metaphysics. Because they cannot read the books they
read their own bodies; because they cannot understand
conceptualizations they try to find out who they are; because they
cannot be very learned -- poor beggars moving from one village to
another, singing and dancing, enjoying -- they have come very close to
reality.
They are very authentic, uncorrupted by nature, society, education.
They are very innocent people. And this is their understanding: that
body is divine. Body is sacred, because everything is sacred. But this
word 'sacred' is not very good. In the Old Testament, the word
'sacred'
comes from a root which means the separate. God is called sacred in
the
Old Testament because He is a separate reality from this reality.
Bauls would laugh. They will say, "You have gone insane! There is no
separate reality. God is THIS reality." Bauls make the whole reality
sacred, holy, divine. Their vision is so vast that even matter is no
longer thought of as matter. Even matter, in their vision, becomes
luminous. Even body is not just body -- it is of the earth, but it
carries the divine within it.
I have heard about a Hassid rabbi: Rabbi Bonum was his name. When he
was dying he left this last message for his disciples. He said,
"Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into one or the
other according to his needs. In his right pocket are to be the words:
For my sake was the world created; and in his left: I am nothing but
earth."
Beautiful it is. He is saying: Man is nothing but earth -- keep this
message in one pocket; and in the other: The whole world is created
for
me. I am the God of the whole world -- keep this message in the other
pocket. Both messages are true because one shows the reality, the
other
shows the potentiality. One shows the fact, the other shows the truth.
The fact is that we are made of earth; the truth is that we are made
in
His image. We are both -- God enshrined in earth. We are of the earth,
and yet, there is a great passion inside us to rise to the highest
sky.
Look at the trees -- what are they doing? They come from the earth,
they belong to the earth, they are rooted in the earth, and they are
trying to reach to the sun, trying to reach to the stars. Rooted in
the
earth, they move towards heaven. That is the Baul symbol: the tree
rooted in the earth, reaching towards heaven; rooted in the body,
reaching towards the soul.
Then these two are not contraries; they are both of one
process, of one dynamic force.
Just before the Zen Master, Baso, was dying at the age of sixty, he
sat
up in the lotus posture, and to those gathered around him said, "Don't
be misled. Look directly. What is this?" He repeated it loudly, and
calmly died.
Let me repeat what he said: "Don't be misled. Look directly. What is
this?" He repeated it loudly, then calmly died. THIS conveys the whole
meaning; the very directness of it. There is no THAT. THIS is THAT!
This is so vast, there is no need for any that to exist. This implies
all that.
"Don't
be misled," he said -- because the greatest misguidance comes from
people who separate God from reality, who separate truth from fact,
who
separate spirit from body, who separate lust from love, who separate
mud from the lotus. They are the great misguiders of the world.
They are the poisoners, because once they have made it clear to your
mind, conditioned your mind that the lotus can never be of the mud,
they have destroyed the very possibility of the lotus. Then you can
have a plastic lotus; but a real lotus, never -- because the real
lotus
is always rooted in the mud. It is part of the mud, it is a flowering
of the mud. It is earth come to its glory; it is earth's essence. Once
you can see lust and love as one, passion and compassion as one, body
and soul as one -- maybe two rhythms of the same energy, two
formations
of the same force, two concretizations of the same stuff, but the
stuff
is the same -- if you can see the world and God just like mud and
lotus, lust and love, you have the vision of the Baul.
If you don't have that vision, there is every possibility that you
will
be misled. And the misguiders are very cunning; they are great
rationalizers. They can convince you, they can argue for their
standpoint.
I have heard....
Mistress Goldfarb walked into a kosher butcher shop, asked the owner
for a fresh chicken, and immediately began inspecting it. She lifted
the wing, stuck her nose underneath and dedared, "Phew! It smells!"
Then she pulled up a leg, sniffed and said, "Phaugh!" After smelling
the hind end, Mistress Goldfarb held her nose and exclaimed, "It
stinks! You call this a fresh chicken?"
"Tell me, lady," said the butcher, "you could stand such an
inspection?"
These people who go on condemning the world, condemning the body,
condemning everything, just ask them, "Will your God be able to stand
all this inspection?" Then nothing is left, because all reality is
condemned. Then just a concept, an abstraction is left. Yes,
abstraction cannot be condemned because then God will not stink. Then
He will not perspire because He will have nothing to do with the
earth.
Then His hands will not be muddy; then He will be just an abstraction.
Have you noticed the fact that all religions have tried to convince
the
world that their founders were almost unreal? Jainas say Mahavir never
perspired, because how can a man of God perspire? Ordinary humanity
perspires, not Mahavir. They say that Mahavir was hit, but blood never
came out of his body. What came out of his body?. -- milk. How could
blood have come out Mahavir's body, this ordinary humanity? Now they
are trying to put Mahavir on such a pedestal that he is bound to
become
unreal. Then if people come and they say, "We don't believe in your
Mahavir, he seems just a myth," they are right. How can he be real?
Reality you deny, you condemn.
The same has happened with all the great Masters of the world:
followers try to make them unreal. Followers are always afraid because
if the hands of their Masters look dirty....'Dirty' is not a dirty
word, remember; it comes from 'dirt'. It simply says earthly, earthy.
A
gardener works in the garden; his hands are dirty -- not dirty, just
dirt is there -- but dirt is good. We are made of dirt, we are made of
dust. The word 'human' comes from HUMUS; HUMUS means the earth. The
word 'Adam' also comes from ADAMUS; ADAMUS means the earth. "We are
made of earth"; that's what Bauls say. We are made of earth but not
made only of earth. We are made of earth, but deep inside is enshrined
the divine.
You must
have seen earthen lamps in India. They are made of earth, but the
flame
is not of the earth. The lamp is of the earth, the lamp belongs to the
earth, and the flame is continuously running upwards, upwards, and
upwards, towards the divine. Man is an earthen lamp -- made of earth,
yet enshrining the divine flame.
The
Bauls are very down-to-earth realists. They have a beauty in their
great vision. They are not denyers: they don't say no to the world.
Remember, if you say no to the world too much, sooner or later your
God
will be just an abstraction -- because the very no to the world will
go
on reducing God's reality. Whatsoever you say no to will be a
reduction
of your God. By and by, when you have said no to the whole world, God
is nothing but a concept, a word: empty, impotent, just a container
without any content. The reality is earthly.
The world has been denied and God has been put as if He is an opposite
force, as if He is against the world. Now look at the absurdity: these
same people go on saying, "God created the world." He cannot be
against
it, otherwise why should He create it? The creator cannot be against
His own creation. The very creation is a proof that God loves it --
the
creation is His appreciation, the creation is His play, the creation
is
His love, His vocation. God creates the world because He loves it.
Gurdjieff used to say that all the religions are against God because
they are against His creation. How can you be for the poet if you are
against his poetry? How can you be for the man if you are against his
character? How can you be for the painter if you are against his
painting? Gurdjieff seems to be very logical, absolutely right:
religions seem to be against God. They talk about God, but they are
against Him because they are against His world. They teach you to deny
the world; but you cannot deny it because you are rooted in it. Then
what happens? -- you become pseudo, you become false, you become a
pretender, you become double faced. You have one face to show to the
world, and another face to live with. This is an emergency measure;
man
could not do anything else.
What to do? You cannot deny the reality, and you cannot allow it, and
you cannot accept it -- because your religions teach you to be against
it. So, man has found the golden mean: don't deny it in reality, just
go on denying it in words. Show that you deny it, that's all. Pay your
respects to God and go on living reality.
Religions have not helped man to become sane. They have
helped man to become insane, neurotic, split.
It happened in a church:
A man was confessing. "And how much of that stack of hay did
you steal, Kavanagh?" the priest asked at confession.
"I might just as well confess to the whole stack, your
Reverence," said Kavanagh. "I am going after the rest of it tonight."
He's confessing, and yet he's planning to do the same thing again this
night. Then why confess? No, he is putting himself at ease because
people say 'this is bad' and 'this is sin', and people have made a
virtue of confession -- as if confession in itself is a virtue. Unless
it is authentic, it is meaningless.
It happened on a road:
A Protestant minister was given a brand new car by his congregation,
and he was driving it through downtown Dublin. Suddenly the car in
front of him came to a screeching stop, and the minister crashed into
it. The furious clergyman climbed out and stormed up to the car in
front of him with murder in his eyes. Then he noticed that the driver
of the other vehicle was a Catholic priest.
"Your
Reverence,'' said the minister through clenched teeth, "were it not
for
the fact that I am a man of the cloth, I would be tempted to thrash
you
within an inch of your life."
"Your
Reverence," said the priest, sticking his head out the window, "were
it
not that I too am a man of the cloth, and that it happens to be a
Friday, I would be tempted to bite your balls."
This is how the whole effort of all religion has made man just
pretentious, hypocritical. Their reality is something different; their
masks are absolutely different. Bauls are against it. They say, "Love
the world and find your God through that love, so that there is no
division created in you. "
Man had to become a hypocrite; it became just a safety measure.
Religions have not left any possibility, any way for him to be real.
Now look at the absurdity: they go on teaching 'be true', and their
whole teaching creates untruth. On the one hand they teach you to be
true, to be authentic, and on the other hand their whole teaching
creates such a situation that if you want to be true you will have to
commit suicide; you cannot live. Either commit suicide if you want to
be true but then what is the point of being true if you commit
suicide?
You will not be here to be true. If you want to live, you will have to
be untrue. But the fault is not with you; the fault is in the whole
program that has been fed into your brain. The whole program is
faulty.
Man has to be real, real to reality. Whatsoever the reality, man has
to
accept it and live it in deep gratitude, and live it with such
reverence, respect -- because it is God's reality. It is His temple.
When Moses reached on the mount where he encountered God, he saw a
fire
burning under a bush. And the bush was not burnt; the bush was as
green
as ever and flames were coming out of it. He could not believe his
eyes. He started moving towards the bush; he was almost magnetized by
what he saw. Then suddenly God shouted, "Moses! Take your shoes off!
You are walking on holy ground."
I have always loved that parable. But I say to you, not only on Mount
Sinai, but wherever you are walking, you are walking on holy ground --
because all is His ground, because all is He.
The Beloved is present in so many forms. Lust is also His, love is
also
His. Bauls say, "Don't deny anything because denial is an irreverence.
It is a rejection of God."
One day I saw that Mulla Nasrudin was teaching his son to be able to
defend himself, so he taught him the finer points of boxing.
I asked him, "But suppose, Mulla, he comes up against a bigger
kid who also knows how to box? Then what?"
"I have already thought of that," said Nasrudin, "so I am
teaching him how to run too."
On one hand we go on teaching people to be true, and on the other
hand,
in a subtle way, we go on teaching them not to be true. Each child is
made neurotic by the parents, by the society; and we know that we are
doing it, and we know that others have done the same to us. Stop doing
it to yourself and stop doing it to others. Become alert. Just be
real.
I emphasize reality more than truth. Because truth has been used by
the
anti-life people so much, it has wrong associations. Be real. If you
are real, one thing will start disappearing from your heart, and that
is guilt.
One psychoanalyst and therapist, Shepard, has coined a
word:'unguilting'. I like the word. Real religion is always a process
of unguilting; false religions are always a process of guilting. They
try to make you more and more guilty: anger is there, lust is there,
sex is there, greed is there, attachment is there, hate is there, love
is there -- and everything is condemned. You become guilty, you start
feeling wrong; you are wrong, you start feeling condemned, you start
hating yourself. If you start hating yourself you will never be able
to
find God, because He is hiding in you.
Unguilt; drop all guilt! Whatsoever you are, whosoever you are,
wheresoever you are, God has accepted you. When God has accepted you,
why be worried?. -- accept yourself. Start living your life not
through
concepts; start living your life through your feelings, emotions, your
body. Start living life as if you were never corrupted by any society,
as if you have just come new into the world directly from God's hands
and nobody has taught you anything. Start living: that life is the
real
life. Then you listen to your own heart, you listen to your body. You
don't repress, you try to understand; and through understanding is
transformation.
The Bauls sing the song for today:
COMMIT YOURSELF TO THE EARTH
WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
IF YOU WISH TO ATTAIN
THE UNATTAINABLE MAN.
Commit
yourself to the earth -- don't be committed to some heaven somewhere
else, be committed to the here and now, to the reality that is your
surround. Be committed to your humanity, to the earth that is just
below you: commit yourself to the earth while on the earth.
Bauls say, "We will think -- when we have moved to heaven and gone to
the other world, then we will see. Once you have learned how to be
committed to the here and now, there also you will be committed."
Because whenever future comes, it always comes as the present. Even
the
other world will come as this world. Have you seen that you move from
one shore of a river to the other, and when you reach closer to the
other shore, the other shore becomes this shore, and the first shore
that used to be this shore becomes that shore? So wherever you are,
you
are surrounded by this-ness.
I have heard....
Once Mulla Nasrudin drank too much, and was walking on a road,
zig-zagging from this side to that. He was asking people, "Where is
the
other side of the road?"
Somebody said, "The other side is there."
He went there and he asked people, "Where is the other side of
the road?" And they said, "The other side is there."
He said, "These people seem to be very foolish. When I go to that
side,
people say the other side is there. When I come here, people say the
other side is there. Are they mad?"
The other side is always there. And wherever you are, you are
always here; this-ness surrounds you.
Just the other day I quoted one very great saying of Udallak to his
son, Swetketu -- ''That art thou"; TATWAMASI SWETKETU. The Bauls would
like to make a little change in it. They would say, "THIS art thou" --
not that, because THAT gives a far away idea of God. THIS is more
earthly.
COMMIT YOURSELF TO THE EARTH
WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
IF YOU WISH TO ATTAIN
THE UNATTAINABLE MAN.
That
unattainable man, the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man; if you want to
attain it, then be committed to the here and now. Be committed to the
present, be committed to the reality that is available to you in this
moment. There is no other commitment.
PLACE AT HIS FEET
YOUR FLOWERS OF FEELINGS
AND THE PRAYERS OF TEARS
FLOODING YOUR EYES.
They
are very real people. They say 'the flowers of feelings'. Ordinary
flowers won't do. You can pick flowers from the trees and go to the
God
of your temple and put those flowers there, but the God is abstract,
the flowers borrowed. In fact, they were more in tune with God on the
trees. They were more in tune with God on the trees -- at least they
were alive. You have not made them closer to God, you have killed
them.
When I used to live in Jabalpur I had a very beautiful garden, and I
was a victim, a continuous victim of religious people. Because there
used to be two temples just close by, so any worshippers would come,
and without asking they would start picking flowers. In that part of
the country it is thought that if somebody is picking flowers for his
God, it is not good to prevent it. So I had to put up a notice,
because
if I prevented them they would say, "These are for religious
purposes."
I had to put up a notice: You can pick for any other purpose, but not
for religious purposes -- because, as I see it, the flowers are more
surrendered to God on the plants, alive. You will kill them. Your God
is bogus and you will kill the flowers. This whole worship is pseudo.
The Bauls say 'your flowers of feelings place at his feet': your love,
your compassion, your understanding, your lived experiences, your
visions, your taste, your richness. "Place at his feet your flowers of
feelings and the prayers of tears'-' -- because words won't do. How
can
words become prayers? Words are dead things: they don't mean much.
Yes,
there is much noise in them, but they don't mean much. Silent tears
would be better. So you can find Bauls standing by the side of the
road
crying, and if you ask, "What are you doing?" they will say,
"Praying."
And you don't see any shrine, no temple, not even a tree-god. They are
just standing on the road, crying. You will ask, "Where is your God?"
and they will say, "Everything! Everywhere He is. Whenever the right
moment is available to pray, whenever I feel in a receptive moment,
that is the right moment to pray. I'm praying." With tears they pray,
with dance they pray, with singing they pray, but their prayer is very
alive.
The Bauls say,
With a beggar's humility
I have come to your doors.
No one is ever turned away
from your home of unending stores.
You have all the riches,
and so much have you given
without my demand.
No more do I need any wealth,
O my Master,
give me your feet!
"No
more do I need any wealth, O my Master, give me your feet" -- just
your
feet are enough, so I can cry, so my tears can wash your feet.
PLACE AT HIS FEET
YOUR FLOWERS OF FEELINGS
AND THE PRAYERS OF TEARS
FLOODING YOUR EYES.
THE MAN YOU SEEK
IS EARTHED IN THE EARTH,
DECEASED WHILE BEING.
DYING WITH DEATH,
YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK...
The
man you seek is earthed, is incarnated in the body. The body is your
earth. And the man you seek is here, enshrined in the earth, enshrined
in death: the flame of life enshrined in death...so don't be afraid of
the earth, and don't be afraid of death; they make it possible for you
to live. Life is possible only because of death, soul is possible only
because of the body. The tree is possible only because of the roots,
so
don't be afraid of the roots, and don't be afraid of death. Don't be
afraid of the body. Accept this reality.
DYING WITH DEATH,
YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK...
Live
when life is there. Be committed to the earth while on the earth; die
when death comes. Move with life and move with death. Dying, don't
cling to life. Dying, don't resist death; dying, die. Living, live;
dying, die. Let the moment be total. Float with it, be committed to
it.
When death comes, then don't be sad. Then accept death. Then accept it
with such totality that even death cannot kill you.
A total person cannot be killed, and a divided person never lives. A
total person is already beyond death. Totality is beyond death.
Divided, separated, falling into parts, not together, you just look
alive but you are not alive. Dying, die; surrender to death. Now it is
God who has come as death.
For the Baul everything is divine -- life, death. Nothing is
undivine. The devil does not exist.
You must have heard the parable in Jesus' life that when Mary
Magdalene
came to see him, she was possessed by seven demons. He touched her and
all the seven demons rushed, ran towards the sea and drowned
themselves
there. Now this parable is very significant. The word 'demon' comes
from a root which means division. If you transiate this parable into
psychological terms, it simply means Mary Magdalene was divided into
seven parts. Jesus touched her, she became total, unpossessed; the
demons disappeared. Demons mean divisions.
The Baul lives an undivided life; he never divides. He is not against
anything, he is not for anything; he simply lives. Whatsoever comes in
the moment, he lives it. He is surrendered to reality; that is his
prayer. Death comes, he yields beautifully, gracefully. He dies. He
cooperates with death. There is not a little bit of resistance, not
even a little bit. He is not fighting; he embraces death.
DYING WITH DEATH,
YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK....
And
then he goes on and on. His search is unending. God can never be
totally known because He is infinite. We can go on knowing Him more
and
more and more. We go on coming closer and closer and closer, but God
is
not a goal. Nobody can say, "I have arrived." If somebody says it,
then
something is wrong. The Upanishads say the one who says "I have known
God", has not known -- because how can you know the eternal? Yes, you
can live Him, you can love Him, you can be in Him, but you cannot know
Him -- because knowledge will become a definition, knowledge will make
Him finite. That which is known totally becomes finite, but God
remains
unknowable. The more you know, the more doors open, the more mysteries
open. Then each death is a closing of the past and a new vision of the
future.
DYING WITH DEATH, YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK.... and one goes on
seeking. The pilgrimage is eternal.
The Bauls sing,
SHUT THE DOORS ON THE FACE OF LUST,
ATTAIN THE GREATEST, THE UNATTAINABLE MAN,
AND ACT AS THE LOVERS ACT:
MEET THE DEATH BEFORE YOU DIE.
To
die with death is possible only if you have met death before you die.
Otherwise it will be difficult. You need some acquaintance. If death
comes and you are not acquainted with it, it will be difficult for you
to surrender. That is what meditation is all about: meeting death
before you die; making a few acquaintances, a few encounters with
death, so you start loving the beauty of it, so you start falling in
love with it, so you can see the divine face even in death. Only a
meditator can die without fighting, otherwise fight is unconscious. It
is not that you will fight; you will find yourself fighting, and it
will be almost impossible for you not to fight. Resistance is
unconscious, it is built in.
Meditate or love, because these are the two ways to be acquainted with
death. If you love, it is a small death. If you love very deeply, it
is
a great death. If you are really in love, you are no more the same as
you were before. Something has disappeared; you are reborn. Love is a
rebirth. So, many times in life, through meditation and love, you
should become acquainted with death so that when death really comes
you
know the guest so well that you are not afraid. You can welcome the
guest, you can receive the guest with great love, with great
rejoicing,
celebration.
The Bauls say about the ADHAR MANUSH, the essential man:
Poison and ambrosia
are one and the same to him.
He is dead while wholly living.
If
you become acquainted with death through love and meditation, by and
by
you will see that life and death are two aspects of the same coin;
poison and ambrosia are two aspects of the same coin; matter and mind
-- two aspects of the same coin; good and bad, all dualities -- two
aspects of the same coin. Then you are not worried. Then you don't
choose. Then you live a life of choiceless awareness. Then all is the
same. If you choose life you have chosen death. If you avoid death you
will avoid life -- so there is no point in choosing, and there is no
point in avoiding. One simply waits and accepts whatsoever gift comes
from God's grace.
This is what Bauls call: He is dead while wholly living. He is
absolutely alive and yet, in a sense, dead, because all dualities have
come into him and become a synthesis. He is wholly dead and wholly
alive. You are neither alive nor dead; you are in a limbo.
The perfect man is both together. In him, all dualities are
transcended. He is tremendously enriched because life goes on pouring
into him, death also goes on pouring into him. Whatsoever life can
give, he accepts; whatsoever death can give, he accepts. Whatsoever
happiness gives he accepts, and whatsoever unhappiness gives he
accepts.
And remember, there are treasures hidden in unhappiness also, as there
are treasures hidden in happiness. If you have known only treasures of
happiness, then you have not known much. If you have known only
treasures of joy you have not known much; there are treasures of
sadness also. There are a few treasures which only sadness can give to
you. There are treasures of laughter and treasures of tears.
The Bauls say that one should be so capable that one allows all
dualities to merge and come into oneself. Then only is the essential
man revealed. And the essential man is the God of the Bauls.
COMMIT YOURSELF TO THE EARTH
WHILE ON THE EARTH,
MY HEART,
IF YOU WISH TO ATTAIN
THE UNATTAINABLE MAN.
PLACE AT HIS FEET
YOUR FLOWERS OF FEELINGS
AND THE PRAYERS OF TEARS
FLOODING YOUR EYES.
THE MAN YOU SEEK
IS EARTHED
IN THE EARTH,
DECEASED WHILE BEING.
DYING WITH DEATH,
YOU MUST LIVE TO SEEK....
Osho - Baul Mystics, Vol. 1 The Beloved
Chapter 7: Dying with death, You must live to seek
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