Sufism, Vol. 1 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 16: A Lotus on the Lake of Emptiness, Question 4

The fourth question:

Question 4

IF LIFE IS AN INTERDEPENDENCE AND AN ORGANIC WHOLE, HOW CAN ONE AWAKEN WHILE THE REST OF HUMANITY IS FAST ASLEEP?

The question is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya.

Never ask any question that starts with 'if' -- because that is just a made-up question, meaningless.

You ask: IF LIFE IS AN INTERDEPENDENCE AND AN ORGANIC WHOLE, HOW CAN ONE AWAKEN WHILE THE REST OF HUMANITY IS FAST ASLEEP? The question is knowledgeable, it is not innocent.

First, when one awakens one finds that one is not. When one awakens out of the idea that one was, out of the idea that one was separate, when one awakens, one disappears -- and then there is no point in saying 'the rest of humanity'. That's why Buddha has said, 'The day I became enlightened, the whole existence became enlightened.' Yes, that is how it is for Buddha, that's how it is.

For you existence has not become enlightened because you are fast asleep. In your sleep you think you are separate. The very idea of separation is part of sleep. In your sleep you think you are separate and the rest of humanity is separate from you, and in your sleep you have heard me talking about the organic unity of existence. So in your sleep a question arises: IF LIFE IS AN INTERDEPENDENCE AND AN ORGANIC WHOLE, HOW CAN ONE AWAKEN IF THE REST OF HUMANITY IS FAST ASLEEP?

Yes, one can still awaken. But in the very awakening one disappears. One does not awaken as one, one awakens as the whole. Asleep you are only one, awake you are the whole. Lost in your dreams and desires and thoughts you are separate; those thoughts and dreams and desires create the separation. Once those thoughts and dreams and desires have disappeared there is no separation, nothing to divide you. And in that moment you see that all is already awakened.

Existence is already enlightened. That's why Bodhidharma is said to have laughed for years when he became enlightened -- a very strange laughter. People used to ask him, 'Why do you go on laughing?' and he would say, 'It is so ridiculous that everybody is enlightened and everybody is seeking enlightenment. And everybody is already where everybody wants to reach and go. It is so ridiculous! Everybody is already happy but they are searching for happiness, and just because of the search they are missing their happiness which is already there. Everybody is running here and there looking for something that he has inside himself. It is so ridiculous,' Bodhidharma used to say, 'that's why I go on laughing.'

There have been other Masters who will hit you if you ask how to become enlightened. Rinzai hit a man because he asked how to become a Buddha. When he hit him, the man was puzzled -- 'Have I asked something wrong?' he said. And Rinzai said, 'What more can there be? What more wrong is possible? What greater absurdity can one ask? You want to become a Buddha? You are already a Buddha. How can a Buddha become a Buddha? The very effort is futile. Hence I have hit you -- so that I can give you a little piece of awakening, a shock. Maybe in that shock you can see that you are a Buddha already.'

The whole existence is one. If you think it is separate that is just an idea. If you think you are not enlightened that too is just an idea. Enlightenment is already the case because only God exists.

So rather than asking how it is possible, try to awake. Just a little bit of awareness, a little gap, a little interval of being conscious and suddenly you will see that 'Yes, that is how it is. I am not and there is no division between me and the whole. All is one, intertwined, interdependent.'

But I can understand your difficulty. When you see millions of waves on the surface of the ocean, and if those waves are conscious like you, then each wave will think that it is separate from the other waves. And it will be as logical as your question is logical -- because each wave will say, 'I am separate. I can see it.' And it can prove it also. The wave can say, 'When the other wave disappears I remain, so how is it possible? If we were together and the same, in the disappearance of the other I would also disappear.' Or, 'I disappear but other waves remain, so how can we be together?'

That's what you are asking. A man dies. Now you can ask, 'If he is one with the whole existence then how can he die alone? The whole existence should die.' A child is born and you can ask, 'This child is born but the whole existence is not born with him. It has been there already. So how is it possible?'

Just watch the ocean. Go and sit on the shore and watch the ocean. One wave arises, but it does not make all the waves arise. One wave disappears, but it does not mean that the other waves disappear. But can't you see that all waves are one in the ocean? They are joined together. They are interdependent. Can you make it happen that there is only one wave on the surface of the ocean and all the other waves have disappeared? Can you make it happen? One wave cannot exist alone. It will need millions of waves around it to keep it afloat, otherwise it will disappear. Waves don't come alone, they don't come in a great crowd. Have you ever seen a single wave? Nobody has ever seen a single wave on the ocean. Whenever they exist, they exist in multiplicity. One wave means many waves -- because a wave is a waving, it is a process. When there is one wave, many ripples will arise around it and they will become waves.

But all waves are joined in the ocean; they are one and organic. Can you take a wave away from the ocean? Can you bring it home? It will be a wave no more. You can bring water -- but water is not a wave. The moment you take the wave off the ocean it is just water. The wave has disappeared. That shape, that roaring quality, that dance, that form, that beauty, that sound -- all have disappeared. You cannot take the wave away from the ocean and you cannot have the ocean without the waves; they are together, they are a togetherness. Even to say that they are together is not right because the word 'together' again gives the idea of them being two. They are not two. It is the same energy. That is the meaning when I say life is organic -- it is one. We are waves, God is the ocean.

But we can look at ourselves in two ways. One is that we can think of ourselves as separate -- that's what I call sleep -- or we can think of ourselves as one -- that's what is known as enlightenment.

To know the truth is to become enlightened; to cling to a lie is to remain unenlightened. For one who becomes enlightened, everybody has become enlightened, in the same moment. Then the whole existence is made of the stuff called enlightenment -- for him.

But you have your private fantasies; you can go on remaining in them. I declare to you that in my enlightenment you have become enlightened. it can't be otherwise. In my enlightenment the whole existence has become enlightened. Since that moment I have never thought of unenlightenment for a single moment. I cannot. It is impossible to conceive of anybody as unenlightened.

But you can have your private fancies and fantasies and you can go on believing that you are unenlightened. That much freedom is yours. You can go on being deluded -- but that is your private creation, your invention. Reality is not in support of it that's why you are so miserable. You are without support in your ideas. You know the proverb -- it exists in all the languages of the world in some form or other -- in which people say, 'Man proposes and God disposes.' Your propositions are so foolish, absurd. It is not that God disposes of them -- just because they are foolish, stupid, irrelevant to reality, you yourself dispose of them in the very proposal.

You say 'I am.' You are saying something so utterly nonsensical that it is disposed of by its very statement. You are not. Now God is not at fault. Don't say God disposes of it. Your statement was so utterly false that it will not find any support from anywhere. It is against the truth. So if you want to keep it you will have to struggle hard, you will have to be continuously fighting for it -- then too it will go on slipping again and again and you will think God is against you and disposing of your idea. Nobody is disposing.

It is as if the trees are green and you have a fantasy that they are red. Now whenever you open your eyes they are green, so you will have to keep your eyes shut. Only with closed eyes can you go on imagining that they are red. But whenever you open your eyes for a single moment, you will think, 'God is against me and he goes on disposing of my idea. I say that trees are red and he goes on insisting that they are green.' God is not doing anything. Trees are simply green. Your idea is just your idea, your invention. And your invention is such a lie that it can't have any support.

The greatest lie is the ego. To think that 'I am' is the greatest fiction ever invented. Just go into it and try to find out where it is -- this 'I'. Watch. Where is it? You will never find it anywhere. Nobody has ever been able to find it. If you go in and search for it you will be very much puzzled. It is not there at all. It simply does not exist.

But you can go on creating props for it. You can have much money and then you can have a bigger 'I'; and you can have a bigger post and you can have a bigger 'I'; and you can create a great kingdom and you can have a bigger 'I'; you can become very knowledgeable and you can have a bigger 'I'; or you can become an ascetic, a mahatma, and you can have a bigger 'I' -- but these are all supports that you are making. And God will go on disposing -- disposing in the sense that truth cannot support the lie. Your very idea is so inauthentic that it cannot have any nourishment from existence -- that's why you will be miserable, you will be in misery. Continuously you will feel 'I am defeated. Defeated again and again.' And there is frustration.

But you are Creating your frustration. In your very expectation you sow the seeds of frustration. In your very desire to be, you create death. In your very desire for that 'I am' you create an enmity with existence.

See. Go in. Watch. Try to find out where it is. Nobody has ever been able to find it. Buddha went in and could not find it. He came out and said to people, 'There is no self.' And from that moment there was no misery -- because he was no longer holding any lie against the truth of existence. So now there was no conflict, now there was only harmony. And in harmony is happiness.

Those who have gone within themselves have without exception declared that there is no 'I' to be found anywhere. It has no foundation. And it creates misery. To be in a lie is to be miserable; to be in truth is to be blissful.

Sufism

VOL. 1, SUFIS: THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH

Chapter-16

A Lotus on the Lake of Emptiness