354. Love.
In this world everything is upside down
and anyone who is meditating
will have to put everything right side up!
One should not try to know life but to know death,
and then the mysteries of life are revealed to him.
One should not ask for any security
and then there is no insecurity at all.
Bunan says in a poem:
While living be a dead man,
be thoroughly dead,
and then behave as you like
because then all is well.
355. Love.
Materialistic societies produce hollow men,
men with dead emptiness within,
and because of this dead emptiness
one dies before one is really born.
Remember that man cannot live by shops alone,
and today the holy of holies is the shop.
The outer is meaningless without the inner richness,
and the outer richness
only makes the inner poverty prominent.
Man is hollow because there is no inner growth
and the inner grows only when one lives in the inner.
Inward is the way of growth, grace and God.
356. Love.
Never suppress any thought,
or fight with it,
otherwise you will never be without it.
Fight it, and you invite it more.
Suppress it, and it will be back with double the force.
I have heard
that someone advertised something for women
but with the heading, Only For Men.
It is reported that
out of ninety thousand women who came across it
eighty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-four
read the advertisement.
The other six were blind.
357. Love.
It is impossible to conceive of the divine intellectually,
and that is why the intellect denies it
or creates fictitious systems about it,
which is even more dangerous than plain denial.
The mind works only in the circle of the known;
it cannot transcend the world of the known.
For the mind the unknown is not.
Says Attar: You know nothing of your real self
here and in this state.
You are like the wax in the honeycomb –
what does it know of fire or guttering?
But when it gets to the stage of the waxen candle
and when light is emitted
then it knows.
358. Love.
Life is not a detective story,
and you do not have to deduce a thing.
Life is before your eyes as clear as the sun
and as open as the sky.
Just be out of your thinking disease
and open your eyes,
and nothing is hidden at all.
Even the hidden one is not hidden then.
I have heard a dialogue between
Sherlock Holmes and Watson:
Holmes: Ah, Watson, I see you have put on
your winter underwear.
Watson: Marvelous, Holmes, marvelous!
How did you ever deduce that?
Holmes: Well, you have forgotten
to put on your trousers.
359. Love.
Life goes on flowing.
It does not wait.
But mind thinks and therefore takes time.
To exist, no time is needed,
but to think – time is necessary
Really there is no time in existence.
There appears to be only
because of the mind and its thinking.
Existence exists not in time but in eternity.
It exists in the eternal now.
There is neither past nor future
but only the present –
or not even that –
because without the past and future
it is meaningless to call it present.
Do not live out of the mind,
otherwise you will always lag behind,
because life never waits for you and your so-called mind.
That is why the mind always feels
as if something is missing –
because it is missing life itself – and always!
Once a master said to his disciples:
If you utter a word – thirty blows of my stick for you.
But if you utter no words
just the same, thirty blows of my stick.
Now – speak, speak!
One disciple came forward
and when he was about to bow
before the master he was struck.
The disciple protested: I have not uttered a single word
nor did you allow me not to utter.
Why the striking?
The master laughed and said
If I wait for you and your speech or your silence,
it is too late, and life cannot wait!
360. Love.
Goethe is said to have cried when dying:
Light, light, more light!
And Miguel Unamuno has responded with his:
No – warmth, warmth, more warmth! For we die of cold
and not of darkness!
But I say to you that we die neither because of cold
nor because of darkness
but because of our lust for living
or because of our fear of death –
which is to say the same thing in different ways.
Do not look at death as opposite to life, because it is not.
And live death moment to moment.
Do not postpone it for the end
because that creates fear.
Die each moment to the past,
and then each moment you will be fresh,
young and reborn.
And then there is always light
because the very darkness becomes light;
and warmth also,
because only the dead past is cold.
The present is always warm.
361. Love.
Man is not the end
but only the means.
Man is not really a being
but only a tension
between two planes of being.
Man is only a bridge,
that is why he cannot remain satisfied with himself.
His heart is nothing but a continent of discontent
and his very being is anguish.
Religion is man’s wish to pass beyond himself
as he now is.
That is why I say man can never be irreligious;
that is impossible.
He can pretend to be but he cannot be.
Religion is not something accidental or circumstantial,
it is in the very nature of man:
man is a religious animal.
And man is nothing if he is not a desire
to transcend himself.
He can go below himself,
or he can go above,
but he cannot remain himself.
He cannot be at rest.
That is why there is restlessness.
362. Love.
Use dreaming consciously as meditation
and know well that conscious dreaming opens
new doors of perception.
Lie down, relax,
and dream, but do not fall asleep;
remain conscious in the background.
Wait and watch;
dream anything that happens to your mind.
Do not plan beforehand –
dream anything, because in dream
the whole world is yours.
Dream your existence as you please;
dream and be content…
content with your dreams because they are yours.
And remember that nothing can be yours
like your dreams are
because you yourself are a dream entity! –
and also because your wishes
come to be true in your dreams,
and only in your dreams.
But do not fall into identification.
Be a witness.
Remain aware.
And then suddenly there will be no dreaming.
Only you
and illumination.
363. Love.
You write to me that without me you cannot pass through the gate
and with me you will not pass through the gate.
I know that!
But you need not do either.
You need not pass through the gate
with me or not with me,
because I am the gate.
I am no-one, so how can you be with me or not with me?
And only one who is no one can be the gate.
The gate means the emptiness
because the gate is nothing
but the space to pass through.
Pass through me –
not with me –
and know.
I appear to be someone only from without,
but the deeper you penetrate me
the less you will find me.
And in the end – no one.
364. Love.
Walk as if you are not walking,
stand as if you are not standing,
sit as if you are not sitting –
and then you will begin to feel
something completely new arising within you.
This is the real one.
The false you walks, stands and sits,
and the real you just remains in suchness.
Feel this – this very moment,
because there is no need to postpone it.
And if you postpone it you postpone it forever
because there is no tomorrow for the real one,
there is no there for it,
it is always here and now.
365. Love.
You will become more deeply tied
to whatever you desire to become free from.
Because freedom is not negation.
Freedom is not ‘from something’ or ‘for something’.
Freedom is not positive either.
Freedom is the transcendence
of negation and affirmation both.
Freedom means freedom from duality.
Where is a ‘for or against’ there?
With what to react?
What rebellion?
Reaction is not wisdom.
And, rebellion is nothing but a continuity of the old.
Hence, understand – do not fight.
When has anybody attained anything through fighting?
Except pain? – except defeat?
Hence, do not escape, but wake up.
By escaping one has to keep on escaping.
And then there is no end to that.
Knowing is freedom.
Not the fear, not the anger,
not the enmity, not the rebellion.
Only knowing is freedom.
1962
1. Любовь.
Я получил твое письмо.
Как ласково ты заставляешь меня хоть что-нибудь написать,
и вот он я – утонувший в глубоком безмолвии!
Я говорю, я работаю,
но внутри я погружен в пустоту.
Там – нет движения.
Так что кажется, я живу одновременно две жизни.
Что за драма!
Но, возможно, вся жизнь и есть драма,
и осознание этого открывает дверь
уникальной свободе.
Той, которая —
недействие в действии,
неподвижность в движении,
вечность в перемене,
– в этом истина,
и в этом существование.
Подлинная жизнь состоит в этой вечности,
все остальное – всего лишь поток сновидений.
На самом деле этот мир – всего лишь сон,
и вопрос не в том, покидать эти сны или нет,
их просто следует осознавать.
С этим осознанием все меняется.
Центр перемещается.
Происходит сдвиг от тела к душе.
И к тому, что там.
Об этом невозможно рассказать.
Об этом никогда не рассказывали
и никогда не расскажут.
Нет другого способа, кроме как узнать это на собственном опыте.
Смерть познается только через умирание,
и истина познается только через глубокое погружение в себя.
Да утопит тебя Бог в этой истине!
2. Любовь.
Я в блаженстве.
Я давно уже хотел написать,
Однако множество дел не позволяло мне этого сделать.
Но все же каждый день я посылаю свои благословения…
Любовь – это садхана,
чем больше ты в нее вовлекаешься,
тем более божественной она становится.
Свет скрыт во тьме,
истина спрятана,
и отсюда приходит радость поиска.
Я вспоминаю слова риши:
«Истина спрятана под золотой крышкой».
Золотая крышка, скрывающая истину, – не что иное, как наш ум.
Ум окутал нас;
мы в нем,
мы отождествляемся с ним,
и так приходят страдание,
рабство и цепь перерождений.
Поднимись над умом,
осознай, что ты и он – не одно и то же.
Одно это приносит блаженство,
одно это – свобода
и конец рождений и смертей.
Мы должны быть тем, кто мы есть на самом деле:
в этом – единственная садхана.
И именно разочарование в жизни, полной желаний,
приносит эту садхану.
Осознавай свои желания —
и начнет проявляться непривязанность.
Это не что-то, что можно заставить случиться,
это то, что следует само по себе из осознания привязанности.
Каждый из нас должен осознать свои привязанности
и оставаться в этом осознании!
Ничто не следует делать бессознательно.
Если это помнить,
то в один прекрасный день произойдет совершенно новый тип революции
в нашем сознании.
Бог ведет тебя к этой революции —
я знаю это.
3. Приветствую тебя.
Мне было необычайно приятно получить твое письмо.
Пока я еще ничего не написал,
но здесь открылся медитационный центр,
где несколько друзей проводят эксперименты.
Когда у меня будут какие-то определенные результаты,
скорее всего, я что-нибудь напишу.
Что касается моих экспериментов на себе, я уверен и лишен сомнений,
но мне хочется опробовать их пользу на других.
