HYAKUJO MEDITATION ZEN CHECK MATE...

  When a man kills a lion, they call it a game. And when a lion kills a man, they call it a disaster. Why do you change the word? In a game both the parties should be respected equally. For thousand of years man has been hunting without even bothering that he is destroying life. We are part of that same life. It is almost like destroying one's own hand or one's own eyes. Those animals are part of the cosmic whole just as we are. But the blindness of man can do both the things together. He can't see the so obvious contradiction that the worshipped cannot be hunted. And if you are hunting, you know perfectly well, your worship is just phony.


 
 BELOVED OSHO,

 ONE DAY WHEN HYAKUJO WAS TO GIVE HIS DAILY DISCOURSES TO HIS DISCIPLES, HE BEGAN BY SAYING, "I AM NO ZEN ADEPT. I HAVE NOT A SINGLE THING TO OFFER ANYONE, SO I MUST NOT KEEP YOU STANDING HERE. GO AND TAKE A REST."

 ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A GROUP OF DHARMA MASTERS SOUGHT AN INTERVIEW AND SAID: "WE HAVE SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK. ARE YOU PREPARED TO ANSWER THEM, MASTER?"

 HYAKUJO REPLIED, "YES. THE MOON IS REFLECTED IN THAT DEEP POND; CATCH IT IF YOU LIKE."

 THE GROUP CONTINUED, "WHAT IS THE BUDDHA REALLY LIKE?"

 "IF THAT WHICH IS FACING THE LIMPID POND IS NOT THE BUDDHA, WHAT IS IT?" SAID HYAKUJO.

 THE MONKS WERE PUZZLED BY THIS REPLY, AND AFTER A SHORT WHILE INQUIRED AGAIN: "MASTER, WHAT DHARMA DO YOU EXPOUND IN ORDER TO LIBERATE OTHERS?"

 HYAKUJO RESPONDED, "THIS POOR MONK HAS NO DHARMA BY WHICH TO LIBERATE OTHERS."

 THEY EXCLAIMED, "ALL ZEN MASTERS ARE OF THE SAME STUFF!"

 AT THIS, HYAKUJO ASKED THEM, "WHAT DHARMAS DO YOU VIRTUOUS ONES EXPOUND FOR LIBERATING OTHERS?"

 THE MONKS REPLIED, "OH, WE EXPOUND THE DIAMOND SUTRA."

 HYAKUJO ASKED, "HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU EXPOUNDED IT?"

 "MORE THAN TWENTY TIMES," THEY ANSWERED.

 HYAKUJO CONTINUED, "BY WHOM WAS IT SPOKEN?"

 TO THIS THE MONKS ANSWERED INDIGNANTLY: "MASTER, YOU MUST BE JOKING! OF COURSE YOU KNOW THAT IT WAS SPOKEN BY THE BUDDHA."

 HYAKUJO SAID: "WELL, THAT SUTRA STATES: `IF SOMEONE SAYS THE TATHAGATA EXPOUNDS THE DHARMA, HE THEREBY SLANDERS THE BUDDHA! SUCH A MAN WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN.'"

 HYAKUJO CONTINUED, "NOW, IF YOU SAY THAT IT WAS NOT EXPOUNDED BY THE BUDDHA, YOU WILL THEREBY BELITTLE THAT SUTRA. WILL YOU VIRTUOUS ONES PLEASE LET ME SEE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY TO THAT?"

 AS THEY MADE NO REPLY, THE MASTER PAUSED AWHILE BEFORE ASKING HIS NEXT QUESTION, WHICH WAS: "THE DIAMOND SUTRA SAYS: `HE WHO SEEKS ME THROUGH OUTWARD APPEARANCE, OR SEEKS ME IN SOUND, TREADS THE HETERODOX PATH AND CANNOT PERCEIVE THE TATHAGATA.'

 "TELL ME, VIRTUOUS ONE," SAID HYAKUJO, "WHO OR WHAT IS THE TATHAGATA?"

 ONE MONK REPLIED, "SIR, AT THIS POINT I FIND MYSELF UTTERLY DELUDED."

 HYAKUJO SAID: "HAVING NEVER BEEN ILLUMINED, HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE NOW DELUDED?"

 THEN THE MONK ASKED, "WILL THE VENERABLE ZEN MASTER EXPOUND THE DHARMA TO US?"

 HYAKUJO REPLIED, "THOUGH YOU HAVE EXPOUNDED THE DIAMOND SUTRA OVER TWENTY TIMES, YOU STILL DO NOT KNOW THE TATHAGATA!"

 

 Maneesha, before I discuss the sutras placed before me, I have to introduce a new animal god to Avirbhava's museum of gods. This god is the fish.

 FISH HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH ALL ASPECTS OF A MOTHER GODDESS AND WITH ALL LUNAR DEITIES.

 ALTHOUGH SACRED FISH ARE NOT UNCOMMON, A FISH GOD SEEMS TO BE A SOMEWHAT RARE PHENOMENON. DAGON, THE CHIEF GOD OF THE ANCIENT PHILISTINES AND LATER THE PHOENICIANS, IS REPRESENTED AS HALF MAN AND HALF FISH. DAGON'S WORSHIPPERS WORE FISH SKINS.

 THERE WERE SACRED FISH IN THE TEMPLES OF APOLLO AND APHRODITE IN ANCIENT GREECE. XENOPHON, THE GREEK HISTORIAN WHO WAS A PUPIL AND FRIEND OF SOCRATES, RECORDS THAT FISH WERE REGARDED AS GODS.

 IN PERU SARDINES ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN WORSHIPPED IN ONE REGION, THE FISH KNOWN AS SKATE IN ANOTHER REGION, AND THE DOGFISH IN ANOTHER.

 IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, THE FISH, EVEN TODAY, REPRESENTS CHRIST.

 ONE OF THE MOST PROMINENT ROLES OF THE FISH, IN ALL MYTHOLOGIES, IS THAT OF RESTORER OF LIFE AND SAVIOR OF MANKIND. THE BUDDHISTS CALL THEIR FOUNDER DAG-PO OR "GREAT FISH"; HEBREWS DESIGNATE THE SAME NAME FOR THE COMING MESSIAH IN THE TALMUD.

 IN INDIA, THE FISH SAVIOR, MATSYA, AN INCARNATION OF VISHNU, LED MANU TO SAFETY IN THE GREAT FLOOD, THUS SAVING MANKIND AS WELL.

 

 Avirbhava's museum of gods represents to you that man has always been humiliated. His dignity in many ways has been destroyed. It was a well-organized conspiracy against humanity. To teach people to worship animals is simply so irrational. But yet, almost all the animals around the world have been worshipped as gods and nobody seems to have objected. People have been put in such great psychological slavery that they have forgotten even to question, to doubt. They have simply accepted whatever conditioning has been given to them in their childhood.

 Unless you are free from all such stupid conditionings, you won't be able to recognize the God within you. If you are searching for gods in fishes, in horses, in pigs, how are you going to search for the god within yourself? And that is the only place where you can find the ultimate consciousness. These poor animals are still growing towards that consciousness. They contain the same consciousness, but it is far more deeply asleep.

 Making man  --  who is the only conscious animal in the universe  --  worship far more sleepy animals, is a very dangerous strategy. It means making sleepiness virtually far more superior to awareness. Animals should be loved, should be respected, because somewhere at some time they will also reach to the same consciousness as you. There is a constant evolution going on  --  but worshipping the animal is dangerous.

 Loving the animal is absolutely human. Loving the animal shows that you can see the future of these animals' evolution. Some day they may come to the same point where we are, and some day they may come to the same height as any buddha. Regarding their future, you can be loving and respectful towards them.

 But the strange phenomenon of worshipping animals means you are lower than the animals. And the thing becomes even more weird. You worship the animals  -- and you kill them for your food. On the one hand they are gods, and on the other hand game.

 When a man kills a lion, they call it a game. And when a lion kills a man, they call it a disaster. Why do you change the word? In a game both the parties should be respected equally. For thousand of years man has been hunting without even bothering that he is destroying life. We are part of that same life. It is almost like destroying one's own hand or one's own eyes. Those animals are part of the cosmic whole just as we are. But the blindness of man can do both the things together. He can't see the so obvious contradiction that the worshipped cannot be hunted. And if you are hunting, you know perfectly well, your worship is just phony.

 Do you think even for a moment that you can go hunting for God? Searching for God is okay, but hunting for God? I have never heard that expression before. But that's what you have been doing. First you make these animals gods and then you go hunting them. And you don't see the contradiction. Your consciousness is also very superficial.

 This museum of gods will provoke great criticism around the world. So many cases are bound to be forced on me, but I love to fight for unpopular causes. Who cares about animals? Who bothers that much to go to the court and to fight for them? I am not only fighting for the animals that they should not be worshipped, but that they should be respected and loved. They are our common brothers and sisters. We share the same existence. We should give them the dignity that belongs to them. And we should not destroy our dignity. But the priests want us not to be dignified. They want us to be as undignified and as great sinners as possible, because that makes them saints, and that makes them mediators between God and you.

 The fish in the Hindu mythology is the first reincarnation of God. Why does God go on choosing such reincarnations?  --  and nobody ever thinks about these incarnations. Each incarnation has committed so many crimes that it is out of the question to worship them. They should simply be listed on the criminal records.

 You cannot believe... One Hindu god, Parasuram... His name became Parasuram because parasu is a special kind of sword, very heavy. In a single blow it takes away the head. Parasuram carried this sword continuously. He killed as many people single-handedly as perhaps anybody has killed. He killed his own mother because of an old suspicious father. The father was suspicious that the mother was having some love affair, and of course, when the father orders...

 Obedience has been proclaimed a fundamental virtue by all religions. The father ordered Parasuram, "Go immediately and cut the head of that woman." And it was only a suspicion, no evidence, no witness. It may have been just an idea in his mind. And my feeling is, it was just his mind because he was getting very old, and his wife was very young compared to him.

 Old people who become inadequate start becoming suspicious about everything. But Parasuram did not even ask, "Let us first investigate the case." Just because he did not ask the question, but immediately went and cut the mother's head and brought it to the father's feet, he is recognized as God's incarnation  --  for his great obedience.

 That was the beginning of his great journey of violence. He was a brahmin, and the suspicion was that the mother was having an affair with a warrior, a chhatriya. Not knowing who the man was, he decided to destroy all the warriors on the earth. Such a strange violent mind: because he does not know who is the right person to be killed, he kills the whole category, millions of warriors, single-handedly. He was a great warrior, there is no question about it.

 And this happened many times, because there was in those days a very strange tradition in India that Indians themselves never look back. Perhaps they were afraid they may come across something ugly; there is so much ugliness.

 He killed all the chhatriyas, but he did not kill the women because it was not a question of women. The issue was that some man was having an affair with his mother. So the women were left as widows all over the country. The tradition was that any woman can go to a seer, a saint, ask him to give her a child and the saint cannot refuse. Great saints and great religions! So all these widows went to saints; in fact they had to stand in queue because there were not so many saints as had been created widows by Parasuram. But they all became pregnant by some saint. Perhaps they may have invented saints just to become pregnant.

 Again young boys started growing and again Parasuram went on another round, killing the small boys. He was determined that he would not leave a single warrior in the world. His world was confined fortunately to India only. Sixteen times he killed the warriors. But this country was full of saints  --  they were really a kind of bull. Just one bull can manage to make many cows pregnant. You don't have to have many bulls for many cows. They don't believe in monogamy  -- one cow, one bull. One bull is enough for the whole village. Just one saint was also enough. So although Parasuram killed sixteen times, the warriors still continued. He could not delete them from existence.

 My problem is that Hindus still go on believing that he is an incarnation of God. If these people are an incarnation of God, then who are the criminals? Either animals or criminals, they have chosen strange people... The fish is the first and the horse is the last. The horse has not come yet. That is the last incarnation of God which will end this age, this civilization. So most probably within twelve years you will see a white horse trotting around killing sinners, saving saints.

 I have been going through all the Hindu PURANAS and not a single purana even mentions this: that you are giving too much responsibility to a horse  --  he will judge.

 All these are ways of taking dignity from man. Before you can make a man a Christian or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, you have to take away his dignity.

 My effort here is to take away everything that hinders your dignity to grow to its ultimate heights. I want you to be freed from all these gods they are your slavery, all these religions and all these scriptures, they are your slavery. I want you to live in a silent and peaceful freedom of being, in tune with existence, with joy and blissfulness, with gratitude and ecstasy.

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