Pythagoras, The golden verses of Pythagoras, Vol. 1 Philosophia Perennis Chapter 4: I Mean Business!, Question 2

The second question

Question 2

THERE ARE MANY THINGS ABOUT YOUR SANNYAS THAT I DON 'T UNDERSTAND. I WANT TO BE A SANNYASIN, BUT BEFORE I TAKE THE JUMP I WANT TO UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING ABOUT IT.

THAT MEANS YOU DON'T WANT TO TAKE THE JUMP. If you have understood everything before taking the jump, it is not a jump at all -- it is a conclusion. Your mind is convinced of it. You have arrived at it through a logical process.

A jump means something illogical. A jump means: CREDO QUIA ABSURDUM. A jump means: I have fallen in love -- not in logic. The logical process is an ego process -- you decide, and then, certainly, you follow your decision. It is not a jump. A jump is going into the dark; a jump is going into the unknown; dropping the known and going into the unknown is the meaning of a jump. And the greater it is, the better -- because in the VERY jump you are reincarnated, in the very jump the old disappears and the new arrives. A jump has to be a crucifixion, and then it is followed by a resurrection.

A logical conclusion is a continuum; there is no gap. One thing leads to another; they are joined together in a chain. A syllogism is a chain. If you want to understand everything about sannyas and then you will take the jump, then it will not be a jump at all. And you will never get out of your mind. It will be your mind deciding, it will be your mind functioning, and through its functioning it is going to be strengthened more.

A jump means you are tired of your mind, you are utterly tired. You have seen all the stupid games of it. You want to drop it. Love is not a conclusion: it is dropping the mind. That's why people call it 'falling in love' -- why 'falling'? The mind thinks of it as a fall; it is a condemnation from the mind. If you ask the heart, the heart will say 'rising in love', not 'falling in love'. One rises in love, one doesn't fall. I}ut the mind, the head, condemns it by calling it a fall, that you have fallen from your logical clarity; from your logical acumen, skill, you have fallen. You have become emotional, sentimental. You have fallen backwards.

Logic is basically a condemnation of all love. And sannyas has to be a love-affair. It is falling in love with a Master. It is a love relationship.

And, secondly, sannyas is not a philosophy that you can understand. It is not a theology that can be intellectually made available to you. It is an experience! And to understand an experience, you have to go into it. You cannot make it a condition that "First I will understand, then I will go into it." That will be as absurd as somebody saying, "I will taste this sweet only when I have understood its taste. I will eat it only when I have understood its taste." How are you going to understand the taste of the sweet? If this is your condition, that "First I have to know the taste, only then will I eat," then you are not going to eat it ever -- because the only way to taste it is to taste.

Sannyas is an experience, a taste. You have to become a participant. You cannot observe from the outside. Sannyas is not something objective: it is something utterly subjective. It is pure subjectivity.

It is NOT like science. The scientist goes to the rose-bush -- he understands, tries to understand, analyse, experiment, with the rose. He will dissect the rose; he will find many things, but he will not find the rose and its beauty. He will find other elements. He will find how much of it is earth, and how much of it is water, and how much of it is air, and how much of it is sun -- he will find ALL these things. Only the rose will disappear.

He will not find one thing which was very very significant, which was really the significance of the rose: he will not find any beauty in it. No scientist has yet found any beauty in a rose. If you talk about beauty, he laughs -- he laughs knowingly -- you are talking nonsense. Beauty is not a component at all. But you know the beauty is there, although it cannot be proved in a scientific lab. Then how do you know the beauty?

Not by dissecting the rose, not by reading about the rose, but by participating with the rose, by becoming one with the rose, there are moments when you become one with the rose. When the observer disappears into the observed, when the observer is the observer and the observer is the observed, there is a moment of deep intimacy, communion. When the poet is not standing outside the rose but has gone inside it, when the rose is not there as an object but has penetrated the very soul of the poet, in that meeting there arises understanding.

That understanding is not scientific knowledge -- it is poetic experience. Sannyas is a poetic experience not scientific knowledge. So if you make this a condition, you can never become a sannyasin, you will never be able to know this poetic experience that is being made available here. You will miss this opportunity. You are asking the impossible; the desire cannot be fulfilled.

The scene was Elaine's Restaurant on Second Avenue in Manhattan on a crowded Saturday night. A stranger walked in from the street and pompously announced that, even with a blindfold on, he could identify any wine. The challenge was immediately accepted. A dark cloth was placed over his eyes and wine after wine was handed to him.

"Lafite-Rothschild, 1958," he would announce. Or "Bernkasteler Badstube, 1951." And he was always right.

Finally, someone handed him a glass he could not identify. He sipped and then he sipped again... suddenly he spat it out and pulled off the blindfold. "Hell, man! This is urine! Plain fresh urine!"

"Yes," said a small voice in the background, "but whose?"

Now, don't make such impossible demands.

Sannyas has to be experienced, not understood intellectually. You are making an impossible demand. And the demand looks very logical -- at least, on the surface. Have you ever made it a condition that before moving into a love affair you will have to understand what love is, unless you have understood all about love you will never move into love? Then how are you going to understand love? By consulting the Encyclopaedia Britannica? by reading learned articles and papers on love? by listening to great lovers and their poems? You may gather much ABOUT love, but about love is not love. To know about love is one thing, and to know love is totally different, utterly different. In fact, the person who knows too much about love may miss knowing love at all, because he will be deceived by his knowledge. He will think, "I have already known." He will think that he already knows so there is no question of searching for another way of knowing.

There are two ways of knowing. One is remaining outside as an observer, detached, aloof, cold -- the scientific way. And the other is the mystic's way: becoming passionately involved, not remaining cold and aloof; becoming committed, not remaining on guard; taking a jump, a quantum leap. It needs guts, courage.

And the greatest courage in the world is to drop the known for the unknown. It is only for the adventurous soul. Sannyas is not for all; it cannot be. It is not for the herd mentality. It is only for the few -- the few lions who can rush roaring from the known into the unknown.

And you can go on rationalizing your cowardice in millions of ways. This is one of the most beautiful ways to rationalize your cowardice: "How can I take the jump? because unless I understand, the jump is illogical -- and one should be logical." If you remain logical, your whole life will remain shallow. Logic cannot give you depth. Depth always comes with love, and love is a mad affair.

One sannyasin, Al Masta... Al Masta means mad, madly in love. Just a few days ago she took sannyas. Today she has said that she was moving in such beatitude, in such ecstasy, these few days she has been a sannyasin; she was rising and rising in a crescendo. Now her boyfriend has arrived and the boyfriend said, "This whole thing is a business!" She has asked me, "What should I do? Tell him to get lost? or should I be patient?"

Al Masta, be patient -- love knows how to be patient. Let him feel your energy. He may be closed to me, but he loves you -- let him feel your energy. And your energy is now my energy, don't be worried. Dance, sing, POUR your energy into his being. Let him feel that something tremendously important has happened to you. Don't try to convince him, because these are not things which can be argued.

Sannyas can never happen through conviction. It is a conversion! So don't try to argue. If you argue, there is every possibility he will destroy your joy. All arguments are dangerous for joy. And once he has become capable of destroying your joy, you will by and by start feeling he may be right. He will create doubt easily in you.

If you argue, you will lose. Don't argue. There is a far better way of conversion: dance. When he argues, you start dancing. Hug him, love him, shower kisses on him -- when he argues -- drive him crazy! Let him feel that you are a totally different person now.

And I have given you the name 'Al Masta' -- behave as a mad lover. And don't be bothered by his arguments. And if you don't become too much concerned about his arguments, he will become concerned about the change that has happened in you and that is happening every day. Then he will become suspicious about what he is saying -- then you will create doubt in him.

And this doubt will be totally different from that which he can create in you. What he can create in you will be only an intellectual doubt, just an impotent thing. But if you can create an existential doubt in him, that something has happened to you and he would also like it to happen to him, then the work is done.

Don't say to him, "Get lost." If he wants to get lost, he will get lost by himself; you need not say it. If you love the man, man, this is the opportunity to share your joy with him. And let him say that this is business and all... nothing to be worried about. This IS business! I mean business!

But this is no ordinary business -- this is something divine. But how can he understand? He must be afraid; now his woman is gone. He must cling and argue and try in every way to distract you -- because now you no more belong to him, you belong to me. That is the fear. He must be feeling very jealous; he must be feeling that he has lost you. He will try in every way to convince you. Listen to his arguments, but don't argue -- enjoy. When he argues, provoke him to argue more. Soon he will become empty of arguments; arguments are not many. You just listen patiently, lovingly, and you will see a change happening in him too.

Once you are a sannyasin, you are connected with me. And if you remain receptive, my energy can pour through you into anybody. That's how I am working: I don't go out of my room at all and my work continues on all the six continents. It is through my sannyasins. They are my extensions, they are my hands, they are my eyes, they are my hearts. The questioner has asked that first an intellectual conviction is needed, then sannyas... then it is never going to happen. First sannyas, then conviction -- that's how it happens, that is the natural course.

Become a sannyasin. The idea has already stirred your heart, otherwise the question would not have arisen. Your heart is already beating a little faster, your breath is already feeling the fragrance. You have already touched the periphery of this Buddhafield, now take a plunge in....

And convictions and conclusions will follow in their own time. And when they come out of experience they have a tremendous validity, truth in them. The only valid truth is that which is arrived at through experience.

Pythagoras

VOL. 1, PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Chapter-4

I Mean Business!