You may have heard a story like this: once a brahmin bought a goat and was taking it home. Three or four thieves saw him and thought the goat could be snatched away from him. But the brahmin was strong and to steal from him would be no easy job, so they decided to try diplomacy, a little trickery.
One came up to him on the road saying, "Well done! How much did you pay for the dog?" That man, that brahmin said, "Dog! Are you blind? Or only mad? It is a goat! I am bringing her from the market. I paid fifty rupees for her."
The thief said, "It's up to you, but you know... seeing a brahmin carrying a dog on his shoulders.... Dear brother, to me it looks like a dog. Could there be some mistake?"
The brahmin went on his way, wondering what kind of man was that! But he fingered the feet of the goat just to check, saying to himself, "It is a goat." Another of the gang was waiting across the road.
He called over to the brahmin, "What a fine dog you bought!"
Now the brahmin hadn't the courage to insist it was not a dog: who knows maybe it was a dog – two men could not be wrong. Still he said, "No no, it's not a dog." But it was weaker now. He said it, but the foundations inside were shaken. He said,"No, no it's a goat."
The man said, "It's a goat? You call this a goat? Then, respected brahmin, the definition of goat needs to be changed! If you call this a goat then what will you calls a dog? But it's up to you. You are a scholarly man; you can change it if you want. It's just a name. Perhaps you say dog, perhaps you say goat – a dog it remains. Nothing changes just by calling it a goat."
The man went away. The brahmin put the goat down and looked: it was definitely a goat... a goat like any other goat. He rubbed his eyes and splashed them with water from a roadside tap. He was nearing his own neighborhood: if people saw a brahmin carrying a dog on his shoulders it would be a blow against worship in the temple and against scholarship. People paid for his worship – they would stop paying, they would think him mad.... Again he thoroughly inspected the animal, making sure it was a goat. But what was with those two guys?
Again he shouldered the goat and started off, but now he moved a little nervously. What if anyone else saw him? Then he came across the third fellow. He exclaimed,"What a fine dog! Where did you get it? I too have wanted to have a dog for a long time."
The brahmin said,"Friend, you just take it! If you want a dog, take it. It is really a dog. A friend gave it to me; you please relieve me of it." And he ran home before anyone could find out that he had bought a dog.
This is how man lives. You have become what you believe. And there are many cheats and scoundrels all around – you have been led to believe all kinds of things. They have their own motives. The priest wants to convince you that you are a sinner, because if you are not a sinner how will he continue to pray for you? It is in his interest that a goat be taken for a dog.
A pundit... if you are not ignorant what will become of his scholarship? How will he run his business? A religious Teacher... if he explains to you that you are inactive, free of doing, that you have never committed sin – then what need is there of him?
It is as if you go to a doctor and he explains that you are not sick, that you have never been sick, you cannot be sick, health is your nature – then the doctor is committing suicide. What will happen to his business? In robust health go to a doctor, go when you are not at all sick; then too you will find that he discovers some problem. Go and try it. Go in absolutely top form, when you are not sick at all; just go and do it, tell the doctor that you just want him to do a check-up. It is not easy to find a doctor who will say you are not ill.
Faith to a Christian or to a Mohammedan or to a Hindu is nothing but another word for belief and a belief is never anything but a repressed doubt. Every belief has behind it a doubt. To repress the doubt you believe more and more ... but the doubt goes deeper and deeper into your unconscious. Faith in the world of Gautam Buddha's experience is not belief. It has nothing to do with doctrines and philosophies, theologies, ideologies. It has something to do with trust, something to do with love, something to do with being at ease with the world, however it is.
There is an ancient story of a Zen monk ... Every night the king used to go on a round of his capital in disguise, to see whether things were alright or there was some trouble which he was not allowed to know. Is somebody miserable? -- if he could do something, he wanted to know it directly, not through so many mediators and bureaucracies. He was always puzzled by a very beautiful, very silent man, always standing under a tree. Whatever time of the night he went, the man was always standing there silently, just like a marble statue.
Naturally, curiosity arose, and finally he could not resist the temptation to ask this man what he was guarding. He could not see that he had anything ... in fact he was standing naked. The young man laughed and said, "I am guarding myself; I don't have anything else. But guarding itself -- being alert and aware and awake -- is the greatest treasure. You have much, but you don't have the guard."
The king was puzzled, but intrigued by the beauty of the man and by the authority of his words. Every night they used to talk a little bit, and slowly, slowly a great friendship arose. The naked monk never asked, "Who are you?"
The king asked him, "I have been asking so many questions of you -- who you are, from where you have come, what you are doing, what is your discipline -- but you have never asked me, 'Who are you?'"
The young man said, "If you knew who you were, you would not have been asking all these questions. I don't want to humiliate you -- I simply accept whoever you are. I never asked the trees, I never asked the animals, the birds, I never asked the stars -- why should I ask you? It is perfectly good that you are, and I am perfectly at ease with you and with everything."
The question is an uneasiness, it is a tension; it arises deep down from fear. One wants to know the other, because the other may turn out to be an enemy, may turn out to be mad. The other has to be made predictable, then one feels at ease. But can you make anybody predictable?
The young man said, "Nothing can be predicted. Everything goes on moving into more and more mysteries, and I am perfectly at ease; whatever is happening is a joy. Each moment is so sweet and so fragrant, I cannot ask for more. Whoever you are, you are good. I love you, I love everybody ... I simply love. I don't know any other way to relate with existence."
This is faith: not knowing another way to relate with existence except love, except a total acceptance -- the one suchness. The king was so impressed. He knew well that a man who has renounced the world, even renounced his clothes, and in cold winter nights goes on standing alone in his silence, is bound to refuse his invitation -- a simple expectation of any human being.
But he said, "I have fallen in so much love with you that the whole day I wait for when the night comes and I go on my round. I am always afraid that some day you may not be here. I want you to be closer to me. Can I invite you to my palace? I will arrange everything as you want."
There was not even a single moment's hesitation and the man said, "This is a good idea." The king was shocked. One expects from a saint that he has renounced the world, he cannot come back to the world -- and the saint would have risen in honor and respect in his eyes.
But the man said, "This is a perfect idea! I can just go with you right now. I don't have anything to carry with me; no arrangements have to be made."
The king was in doubt -- perhaps he has been befooled. Perhaps this man is not a saint; he has only been pretending and must have been waiting for this moment. But now it was very difficult to take the invitation back. So sadly, reluctantly, he had to take the man whom he had desired so much, loved so much, his company, his presence, his eyes, his every gesture ... He gave him the best palace where his guests, other kings and emperors, used to stay.
He was hoping that the saint would say, "No, I don't need these golden beds and marble palaces. I am a naked monk, more in tune with the trees, with the wind, with the cold, with the heat." But instead of this, the man became very interested. He said, "Great! This is the right place!"
The king could not sleep the whole night, although the monk slept the whole night perfectly well in those luxurious surroundings. From that morning the monk's respectability in the mind of the king went down every day, because he was eating luxurious food, he was no longer naked, he was using the costliest robes. He was not worried about women -- the most beautiful women were serving him and he was quite at ease, as if nothing had happened. He looked just the same as he did naked under the tree.
But it was too much; it was becoming a wound in the king's heart that he had really been befooled, cheated. Now, how to get rid of this man? He is not a saint ... One day he asked him, "I have been carrying a question in my mind for many, many days, but have not been courageous enough to ask."
The man said, "I know -- not many, many days, but from the very moment when I accepted your invitation."
The king was again shocked. He said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I could see that very moment the change in your face, in your eyes. If I had rejected your offer, you would have respected me, touched my feet. But I don't reject anything. My acceptance is total. If you are inviting me, it is perfectly good. When I said the palace is
Right, it is not the palace that is right, I am right wherever I am. I was right under the tree naked; I am right under these royal robes, surrounded by beautiful women, all the luxuries.
Naturally I know you must be very puzzled. You look tired, you look sad, you don't look your old self. You can ask me the question, although I know the question." The king said, "If you know the question, then the question now is that I want to know what the difference between me and you is?"
The young man laughed and he said, "I will answer, but not here because you will not understand it. We will go for a morning walk, and at the right place, at the right moment, I will answer."
So they both went on the horses for a good morning ride, and the king was waiting and waiting. It was a beautiful morning, but he was not there to enjoy the morning; only the young man was enjoying. Finally the king said, "Now this river is the boundary of my empire. Beyond the river I cannot go; that belongs to someone with whom we have been enemies for centuries. We have ridden miles, and now it is time enough. It is getting hot, the middle of the day."
The man said, "Yes, my answer is -- this is your robe, this is your horse" -- and getting off his horse, he took off the robe. He said, "I am going to the other side of the river, because I don't have any enemies. This robe was never mine, and this horse was never mine. Just one small question: Are you coming with me or not?"
The king said, "How can I come with you? I have to look after the kingdom. My whole life's work, struggle, fight, ambition is behind me in the kingdom. How can I go with you?" The man said, "That is the difference. I can go -- I don't have anything in the palace, I don't have anything to lose, nothing belongs to me. As long as it was available, I enjoyed the suchness of it. Now I will enjoy the wild trees, the river, and the sun."
The king, as if awakened from a nightmare, could see again that he had been mistaken. That man had not been deceiving him; he was authentically a man of realization. He said, "I beg your pardon. I touch your feet. Don't go, otherwise I will never be able to forgive myself."
The young man said, "To me there is no problem. I can come back, but you will still start doubting, so it is better that you let me go. I will be just standing by the other side of the bank under that beautiful tree. Whenever you want to come you can come -- at least to the other shore -- and see me. I have no problem in coming back, but I am not coming back because I don't want to disturb your nights and days, and create tensions and worries."
The more he became reluctant, the more the king started feeling sorry and sad, guilty about what he had done. But the young monk said, "You could not understand me because you don't understand the experience of suchness: wherever you are, you are in a deep love relationship with everything that is. You don't have to change anybody, you don't have to change anything, and you don't have to change yourself. Everything is as it should be; it is the most perfect world.
"This is my faith, this is not my belief. It is not that I believe it is so, it is that I experience it is so." So 'faith' in the world of Gautam Buddha and his disciples has a totally different dimension, a different significance. It is not belief. Belief is always in a concept -- a God, a heaven, a hell, a certain theology, a certain system of ideas. Belief is of the mind and faith is of your whole being. Belief is borrowed; faith is your own immediate experience. You can believe in God, but you cannot have faith in God. You can have faith in the trees, but you cannot believe in the trees. Faith is existential, experiential.
There is a very beautiful story in the life of Nanak, another great mystic of the same caliber as Kabir.
Nanak went to Mecca; he traveled with some Mohammedan travelers who were on a pilgrimage. They reached Mecca, the holy stone of Kaaba. It was evening and the sun was setting, and they were very tired; and Nanak immediately fell asleep. The travelers, the companions, were very much surprised. They used to think of Nanak as a very holy man, but he was doing something stupid: his legs were towards the Kaaba when he lay down and fell asleep. They became very much afraid; this is a sacrilege.
And by the time they could do something about it, the chief priest came, and he said,"Who is this man? Is he an atheist, he does not believe in God? He does not seem to be a Muslim. Throw him out of here!" All this noise and talk, and Nanak opened his eyes, and he said, "What is the matter?"
They said, "This cannot be allowed. Your legs are towards Kaaba, and this is a sin." Nanak laughed uproariously, and he said, "You can put my legs anywhere you like, but, one thing before you do it, tell me if this is not so: wherever my legs are, they will always point towards God – because he is everywhere."
Up to this point, the story seems to be absolutely realistic; then it becomes a parable. The priest was very angry; he took hold of the feet of Nanak and turned his feet away from Kaaba. And the parable says Kaaba turned towards Nanak's feet. And he moved him in every direction, and Kaaba turned to that direction.
Now, it is a parable; I don't say now it is realistic. Half the story seems to be exactly right. The other part seems to be very poetic – true, but not factual. It is very significant though. God is everywhere. Once you have found him within, you will find him everywhere. Then you cannot find a place where he is not.
But don't start the journey from the outward. Don't start going to Kaaba and Kailash, to the temple and the mosque; otherwise you have taken a wrong step. And one wrong step leads to another. You start imagining.
Hypnotic sleep of Man
"There are a thousand things which prevent a man from awakening, which keep him in the power of his dreams. In order to act consciously with the intention of awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state of sleep.
"First of all it must be realized that the sleep in which man exists is not normal but hypnotic sleep. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth and understanding his position.
"There is an Eastern tale which speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where his sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines, and so on, and above all they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and skins and this they did not like.
"At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them first of all that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned, that, on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place he suggested to them that if anything at all were going to happen to them it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it.
Further the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to others that they were eagles, to others that they were men, and to others that they were magicians.
"And after this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins. "This tale is a very good illustration of man's position.
Source - from Ouspensky Book "In search of Miraculous"
Note - Ouspensky was a disciple of Gurdjieff, who later left him and started his own school. In this book Ouspensky shares fragments of Gurdjieff Teachings given to Him and the above story is Ouspensky narration of the actual conversation between him and Gurdjieff.
Once it happened: Buddha entered a village. A man asked him as he was entering the village, "Does God exist?" He said, "No, absolutely no."
In the afternoon another man came and he asked, "Does God exist?" And he said, "Yes, absolutely yes."
In the evening a third man came and he asked, "Does God exist?" Buddha closed his eyes and remained utterly silent. The man also closed his eyes. Something transpired in that silence. After a few minutes the man touched Buddha's feet, bowed down, paid his respects and said, "You are the first man who has answered my question."
Now, Buddha's attendant, Ananda, was very much puzzled: "In the morning he said no, in the afternoon he said yes, in the evening he did not answer at all. What is the matter? What is really the truth?"
So when Buddha was going to sleep, Ananda said, "First you answer me; otherwise I will not be able to sleep. You have to be a little more compassionate towards me too. I have been with you the whole day. Those three people don't know about the other answers, but I have heard all the three answers. What about me? I am troubled."
Buddha said, "I was not talking to you at all! You had not asked, I had not answered YOU. The first man who came was a theist, the second man who came was an atheist, and the third man who came was an agnostic. My answer had nothing to do with God; my answer had something to do with the questioner. I was answering the questioner; it was absolutely unconcerned with God.
"The person who believes in God, I will say no to him because I want him to drop his idea of God, I want him to be free of his idea of God -- which is borrowed. He has not experienced. If he had experienced he would not have asked me; there would have been no need.
"The person who believed in God, he was trying to find confirmation for his belief from me. I was not going to say yes to him -- I am not going to confirm anybody's belief. I had to say no, I had to deny, just destroying his belief, because all beliefs are barriers to knowing the truth. Theist or atheist, all beliefs, Hindu or Christian or Mohammedan, all beliefs are barriers.
There is a famous story. A prince took sannyas, was initiated by Mahavir. But he had lived almost always in comfort, in richness, and now life was very hard with Mahavir. He had to move naked, to sleep on hard floors with no clothes. It was difficult. The first night he started thinking of dropping out; this was not for him. There were so many mosquitoes -- as there have always been in India; they seem to be the constant enemies of meditators.
He could not meditate... so many mosquitoes... and he was naked and it was cold, and the place where he was sleeping was just in the middle, and hundreds of sannyasins were staying there. The whole night he could not sleep; people were coming and going. It was very crowded and he had never lived that way; that was not his way of life. So in the night he started feeling that the next morning he would leave.
It is said that in the middle of the night Mahavir came to him. He was surprised. He said, 'Why have you come?' Mahavir told him, 'I have been watching you. I know your difficulty. But this has happened before. This is in fact the third time. You have been initiated twice before in your other lives and every time you have left.' He said, 'What do you mean?'
And Mahavir told him to do a certain technique of meditation that he calls jati smaran -- the method to remember the past life. And he told him, 'You just do this the whole night. Sit in meditation and by the morning, whatsoever you decide....' He went into his past life. It seems very simple, it must have been. People must have been simple. He went into his past life so easily. And by the morning he came; he was full of new light.
He touched Mahavir's feet and he said, 'I have decided to stay. Enough is enough. I looked into.... Yes, you were right. How long can I go on repeating it again and again? It is insulting to take sannyas and leave it; it is below dignity. 'No, it is not good for a warrior like me to be afraid of mosquitoes, to be afraid of small inconveniences. But you were right. Twice also it has happened the same way.
I was initiated and the first night I became disturbed, and the next morning I left. And I was going to do it again. I am so grateful to you that you reminded me. Otherwise I would have committed the same thing again, thinking that I am doing this for the first time.' All the sannyasins of Buddha and Mahavir had to pass through jati smaran, through the memory of all the past lives.
"And the person with whom I remained silent was the right inquirer. He had no belief; hence there was no question of destroying anything. I kept silent. That was my message to him: Be silent and know. Don't ask, there is no need to ask. It is not a question which can be answered. It is not an inquiry but a quest, a thirst. Be silent and know.
I had answered him also; through my silence I gave him the message and he immediately followed it -- he also became silent. I closed my eyes, he closed his eyes; I looked in, he looked in, and then something transpired. That's why he was so much overwhelmed; he felt so much gratitude, for the simple reason that I did not give him any intellectual answer. He had not come for any intellectual answer; intellectual answers are available very cheap. He needed something existential -- he needed a taste. I gave him a taste."
There is a very ancient Chinese story: an emperor had only one son. That son was on his deathbed. The physicians had given up saying we cannot do anything to save him. He will not survive. It is not possible to save him. There was no cure for the disease. It was a matter of just one or two days, he will die any moment. The father stayed awake all night sitting at his bedside. It was time to say good-by. Tears were flowing from his eyes. Sitting and sitting, at about three in the morning the father began to doze. While he slept he saw a dream of a great empire that he was lord over.
He had twelve sons – all very handsome, young, talented, intelligent, great fighters, and warriors! There was no one comparable in the whole world. He had a vast horde of wealth. Unlimited. He was a world ruler – his rule extending over the whole earth. He was seeing this dream when the son breathed his last. His wife screamed and started crying. He opened his eyes. He was completely shocked.
He sat dumbfounded. Because just a moment before there was another kingdom, twelve sons, great wealth – it was all gone. And here this son has died! He remained completely lost. His wife worried whether his mind was damaged, because he had had great affection for his son, and not a single tear was coming to his eyes. When the son was living he had cried over him, now the son has died and the father is not crying?
His wife shook him and said,"Has something happened to you? Why don't you cry?"
He said," Who should I cry for? There were twelve, they died. There was a great empire, it has gone. Should I cry for them or should I cry for this one? I am thinking who should I cry for? Just as twelve are gone, thirteen are gone.
"Everything is finished" he said. "That was a dream and this too is a dream. When I was seeing that dream, I had completely forgotten this son. This kingdom... everything was forgotten. When that dream broke I remembered you. Tonight I will sleep and again I will forget you. So it comes and goes, now it is, now it is not: and now both dreams are gone. Now I have awakened from dreaming. Now I won't be roaming about in dreams. It is enough, the time has come. The fruit has ripened, it is time for it to fall!"
Bertrand Russell has written a story: A priest slept one night and dreamed he had died. He went to the gates of heaven, which were closed. He was rather surprised. He had expected the doors to be wide open and God Himself waiting on the steps to welcome him. Hadn't he served the poor and tended the ill? Hadn't he opened schools for poor children? Hadn't he served in the true Christian spirit? But the door was closed, and it was so enormous that he couldn't see where it started or where it ended.
He shouted aloud, but his voice couldn't penetrate the thick door. He banged with his hands. He banged his head against the door, but to no avail. It was just like an ant banging on your door! His ego turned to ashes. He had dreamed of a grand welcome. How much service, how much worship, how much charity he had performed; how many he had converted to Christianity, and here no one seemed to bother about him. Infinite years passed. He sat crouched near the door of heaven, which still had not opened. He had forgotten everything.
Then one day the door opened slightly and a man with a thousand eyes, each eye like the orb of the sun, looked around and spotted him – just as you would spot a tiny object with a magnifying glass. The priest cringed even more, for he thought it was God. He addressed him: "Oh God, how your eyes frighten me, for each is like a sun. I cannot bear to look into them." The man laughed and said, "I am not God. I am merely a guard. What are you doing here?" He lost all courage. This was only a guard! If the guard is like this, what would it be to face God?
At last he said, "I have come from earth, where my church is well known. I am a believer in Jesus. I am his devotee..." His courage sank further and further. The guard said, "Jesus? Earth? Which earth are you talking about? Give the file number. there are infinite worlds. Which earth do you come from and which Jesus are you talking about? Each earth has its own Jesus." Imagine the state of the poor priest. He said, "I speak of that Jesus who is the only son of God." The guard said, "You seem to be mad!
On each earth such Jesuses are born and their devotees declare them the only son of God. Anyway, we shall find out. First tell me the number." The poor man said, "We know of no number. We don't think in terms of numbers. We always thought our earth was the only one of its kind." "All right," said the guard, "then give me the number of your sun. Which solar system do you come from?" "We know only one sun and no other," the poor man wailed." Then it will be very difficult," said the guard. "But wait here while we make enquiries."
And again infinite years passed. The guard did not return for it was not an ordinary enquiry. It would take ages more, if he ever did manage to identify him. By this time the poor man's ego was turned to ashes; his hopes of a grand reception remained a dream. He had planned everything: there would be bands playing, flowers everywhere and God would make him sit at His right hand. In this state of fear and agitation he awakened. He was covered with perspiration. It was only a dream – thank God! But from that day onward he lost all courage.
Once a Man lost his Loving wife. While his wife was dying, he gave her the promise that that he will not marry again.
The man remain truthful to his dead wife for a while but destiny had stored some thing else for him. He fell in love again.
He fell so deep in love that he forgot about his promise and he married again. Its natural for a man to forget promises, wedding dates, and birthday but a woman always cherishes these things.
On his wedding Night he saw his dead wife's Ghost, who complained about the broken promise. The man was surprised to see the ghost of his dead wife but now he could do nothing about it, so he kept quite. But his dead wife ghost could not accept this betrayal and She kept coming back everyday and telling word by word what transpires between the man and his new wife.
Tired by complaints and threats from the Ghost one day the man went to a Sage. The Sage said "the Ghost is very intelligent. Next time she comes, just pick one handful of grains from a Sack and ask her how many grains are there in your Hand".
When the Ghost came that night, the man did the same. He filled his hand with grains from a sack and asked the Ghost, "Tell me how many grains are there in my hand?" The Ghost immediately disappeared and never returned again.
Most of time what we believe and see in this world is a Projection of our mind. We can only see those things which we are already aware of. The mind projects things from the past. That Ghost was a creation of the mind and so are most of our problems. If we stop projecting things then 99% of our problems will disappear like the Ghost in this story.
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