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Sufism

VOL. 1, SUFIS: THE PERFECT MASTER

Chapter-9

Hail Great Scholar!

 

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts          Sufism          The Perfect Master

 

 

NAWAB MOHAMMED KHAN, JAN-FISHAN, WAS OUT WALKING IN DELHI ONE DAY WHEN HE CAME UPON A NUMBER OF PEOPLE SEEMINGLY ENGAGED IN AN ALTERCATION.

HE ASKED A BYSTANDER, "WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"

THE MAN SAID, "SUBLIME HIGHNESS, ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES IS OBJECTING TO THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS QUARTER."

JAN-FISHAN WENT INTO THE CROWD AND SAID TO HIS FOLLOWER, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF."

THE MAN SAID, "THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HOSTILE."

THE PEOPLE EXCLAIMED, "THAT IS NOT TRUE: WE WERE, ON THE CONTRARY, DOING HIM HONOUR FOR YOUR SAKE."

"WHAT DID THEY SAY?" ASKED THE NAWAB.

"THEY SAID, 'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN."

JAN-FISHAN KHAN SAID, "IT IS THE CONCEIT OF SCHOLARS WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE, QUITE OFTEN, FOR THE MISERY OF MAN. AND IT IS YOUR CONCEIT IN CLAIMING TO BE OTHER THAN A SCHOLAR WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THIS TUMULT. NOT TO BE A SCHOLAR, WHICH INVOLVES DETACHMENT FROM THE PETTY, IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE, BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS.

"THESE PEOPLE WERE TRYING TO HONOUR YOU. IF SOME PEOPLE THINK THAT MUD IS GOLD, IF IT IS THERE MUD, RESPECT IT. YOU ARE NOT THEIR TEACHER.

"DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT, IN BEHAVING IN SUCH A SENSITIVE AND SELF-WILLED MANNER, YOU ARE ACTING JUST LIKE A SCHOLAR, AND THEREFORE DESERVE THE NAME, EVEN IF IT IS AN EPITHET?

"GUARD YOURSELF, MY CHILD. TOO MANY SLIPS FROM THE PATH OF SUPREME ATTAINMENT -- AND YOU MAY BECOME A SCHOLAR."

EXISTENCE IS -- UNEXPLAINED, UNEXPLAINABLE, UNKNOWN -- not only that, but unknowable also. There is no way to know it, because there is nobody who is separate from it. Knowledge needs separation. You can LOVE existence because love depends on union, and we are already united with it. But you cannot know it, because knowledge needs division, and there is no way to be divided from it.

Knowledge means the knower is separate from the known. We are not separate from existence -- we ARE it. It is our suchness -- how can we know it? The claim to know is the greatest conceit. The claim to know is the greatest ego there is. Hence the knowledgeable man goes on missing it. Only lovers know, scholars never. But to be a lover needs courage -- you have to dissolve and disappear.

To be knowledgeable needs no courage. That is the hiding place of the cowards. All cowards become scholars. Because they cannot love, the only thing left for them is to try to know. And because knowledge is impossible in the very nature of things, all that they claim is false.

All knowledge is false, absolutely false. Not even a bit of it is true. It CANNOT be true. Only love is true, only love can be true.

Do you see the point? The way of love is the way of union, and the way of knowledge is the way of separation. Love is marriage: knowledge is divorce. Love understands: knowledge only pretends.

Remember it, because the mind is always trying to become knowledgeable. It is always collecting information and avoiding transformation. Information is a way of avoiding transformation. You go on collecting... you can become a walking encyclopedia, but still you will remain the same, exactly the same. Because this is not the way to grow in being, this is not the way to become wise.

The knowledgeable man is never wise, he cannot be. He collects rubbish and thinks it is precious. But the first step has been wrong so the whole journey goes wrong. The more he thinks he knows, the less he knows. The more he thinks he is coming closer to knowing the truth, the farther away he is moving from truth.

Existence is. If you are also in that state of isness you will understand what it is. But that is not knowledge. That's a totally different dimension. You will know, yet you will not be able to reduce it to knowledge. You will see, but you will not be able to describe it. The mystery will not be demystified by your knowing it -- it will be deepened, it will be thickened. Life will become more joyous.

One cannot know, but one can dance it. One cannot know, but one can sing it. It can never become knowledge, but it can become ecstasy, great ecstasy. A great orgasmic life is possible.

The Sufis say: Avoid being scholars, pundits. Avoid! Because sometimes it has happened that sinners have reached, but scholars never. Sin is not that big a thing as knowledgeability. Seen rightly, knowledge remains the ultimate sin.

The biblical story is to be remembered again: Adam falls from grace -- not because of any sin but because he has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

There were two trees, special trees, in the Garden of Eden: one was the tree of knowledge and the other was the tree of life. He became interested in the tree of knowledge. It looks foolish to us when we read the story. Why should he not go and eat from the tree of life? But that's what everybody else is doing too -- nobody wants to eat from the tree of life, because to eat from the tree of life first one has to pass through a kind of death.

The moment you eat the fruit from the tree of life, you will die as you are. You are momentary. Your being now is temporal. You will die in time and you will be born in eternity. That's what life is! -- life abundant, life eternal. You will die as a tiny being, you will disappear as a drop of water, and then you will appear as the ocean. Oceanic will be your resurrection! But before that, the dewdrop has to disappear.

That is the fear. Because of that fear, Adam never went close to the tree of life. That's why you have not gone close to it. That's why millions of people go to the universities, to the libraries, but avoid going to a Master.

A Master, a Perfect Master, is a tree of LIFE. He is not a teacher. A teacher means the tree of knowledge: a Master means the tree of life.

A Master does not impart knowledge, he imparts being. He stirs your heart, makes it more alive. He breathes in you, gives you a new rhythm. He touches you in your deepest core and creates a dance there.

Adam avoided the tree of life, so everybody else is doing it. Down the ages, people have been following Adam. But the tree of knowledge attracted him immensely. The temptation from the serpent was: "If you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will become as wise as God -- you will become a god." That's the temptation of knowledge. One thinks, "If I can know more, then I will be more -- I will become like a god." By knowing, nobody becomes a god, but only by BEING.

The serpent is deceiving you too. The serpent is not something outside; it is another name for your mind. The mind says, "Know more -- if you know more you will be more." It convinces you very logically.

Once Adam has eaten from the tree of knowledge, his eyes are closed towards eternity. He becomes caught up in the net of time. And time means death. And God has told Adam, "If you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will start dying. You will lose eternity. You will lose the quality of deathlessness. You will become a mortal!"

This parable is immensely beautiful. I take it again and again -- it has so many aspects. To me this seems to be the greatest parable ever -- it has SO many meanings.

If you eat from the tree of knowledge you will become mortal -- because you will become more and more confined into time, into mind. Time and mind are synonymous. It is mind that creates time -- psychological time, I mean, not the chronological time. The more you become mindless, the less you are aware of time. When you become perfect, you become constantly, completely unaware of time. Then all is eternity.

Once a Buddhist monk came to see me. He had come from a very very far off place, Kalimpong. He travel led for many days to see me. He said, "I have only one inquiry to make, and only for that have I come."

"What is the inquiry?"

He said, "My inquiry is this: since you became enlightened, what has been happening? What experiences have you been going through SINCE you became enlightened? What has been occurring? What more? What new experiences after enlightenment?"

I said, "You don't understand the word 'enlightenment'. After enlightenment, nothing happens. All happening stops, disappears. One simply is."

He could not believe it. He said, "I cannot believe it. Something MUST be happening. Twenty years have passed... something MUST have happened! How can it be that nothing has happened?"

I said to him, "You will be puzzled, but let me say it as it is: Before enlightenment nothing had ever happened, because all that had happened was just writing on water. After enlightenment also nothing has happened, because time has disappeared. So the first happening and the last happening was enlightenment. Before that, all that happened was valueless; now it makes no sense, it was like a dream. And once you are awakened, nothing ever happens again. Not that the sun does not rise, not that the night is not full of stars, not that the flowers don't bloom any more -- ALL this goes on! But nothing happens in you. All remains calm and quiet."

After enlightenment there is no biography. After enlightenment all is silence -- because all is eternity. Things happen in time. Mind creates time because mind hankers for things to happen; mind hankers for excitements, something has to happen. If nothing is happening, mind becomes very uneasy. If good is not happening, let it be bad. If happiness is not happening, then let it be misery. But something must be there so one remains occupied. If nothing is happening, then you are at a loss -- then why exist at all?

So mind goes on creating new ways, goes on projecting new events. "Tomorrow I have to do this, the day after tomorrow I have to do this." Mind cannot remain without events, so it projects events. And when events are projected time is created -- psychological time. When nothing is projected, time disappears.

That is the meaning of the parable. God is right when he says to Adam: Don't eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, otherwise you will become a mortal. Then you will have to live in time! And you will become corrupted -- knowledge corrupts. You will not be innocent any more. You will lose trust, because knowledge creates doubt. And doubt is the thorn in the soul; it hurts, it wounds.

Still Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and since then every Adam has been doing it.

Sufis say we have to reverse the whole process. We have to vomit what Adam has eaten. We have to throw it back. We have to become pure of it. It has not to be allowed to circulate in our systems any more. With knowledge goes time, with time goes mind -- it is ALL entangled with knowledge. And once there is no knowledge, no mind, no time, you are back home.

Let me repeat: Sinners have reached, but scholars never.

I have heard:

George Santayana, a great American philosopher, remarked once during World War II, "I am reading the Upanishads... to take the bad taste out of my mouth."

The Upanishads? Why should he read the Upanishads to take the bad taste out of his mouth? The Upanishads are not knowledge: they are statements of pure joy, they are euphoric statements. They are ecstatic ejaculations, assertions of mad mystics. You cannot become knowledgeable by reading the Upanishads. They don't argue, they don't prove -- they simply declare!

That's what Lao Tzu does, Buddha does, Plotinus, Eckhart, Rumi, Al-Hillaj -- all the mystics have been doing that. What they say is not knowledge: what they say is just an overflowing joy.

When Aristotle says something, it is knowledge. When Plotinus says something, it is not knowledge. You have to make that distinction very clearly. When Jesus says something, it is not knowledge; it is just his ecstasy. It is not that he is saying it -- it is said through him. God is speaking through him. He is possessed by God. What he is saying is not knowledge. It is his declaration: "I have come home." It HAS to be declared. It has to be declared from the housetops. It has to be shouted in the marketplaces. But it is not knowledge! And the difference is very clear.

If you read the Upanishads, you will see it. No argument is proposed, no syllogism, no proof, is given. Simply, the seer says: That art thou -- TAT-TVAM-ASI. Finished! He does not give any argument for it. He does not try to explain it. He does not propose a philosophy around it. Such a potential statement, bare, naked.

When the Upanishads were for the first time translated into non-Indian languages, it was a problem for the translators: These people go on asserting without giving any proof -- what kind of philosophy is this?" It is not philosophy really. It is religion. And that is the difference between philosophy AND religion.

Philosophy proves, argues, proposes, fights, debates: religion declares. Religion says: God is! No proof is given. If you ask a mystic, he will say, "Look into my eyes. Come, hold my hand! Feel it!" But is this an argument? And it is not going to convince the skeptic. He will look into the eyes and will not see anything. It can convince only the trusting. It can convince only the disciple.

Santayana was bored with all the knowledge that the West has produced in these days, and could see perfectly well that "It is because of this knowledge that this world war is happening." Knowledge creates hate in the world, because it creates separation.

Love is not possible out of knowledge, because love is a diametrically opposite dimension. Hence he is right to say, "I am reading the Upanishads to take the bad taste out of my mouth" -- the bad taste of knowledge, the ugly knowledge that has created the ugly war, the murderous knowledge.

I have also heard: when Arthur Schopenhauer for the first time came across a translation of the Upanishads, he danced -- actually! With the Upanishads on his head, he danced in his garden.

His students were a little puzzled. They said, "Has he gone mad or something?" And they inquired, "What is happening?"

He said, "This is something I have been searching for -- this is not knowledge, this is knowing. This is authentic!"

When he was just about to die, he said, "The Upanishads have been the solace of my life, and will be the solace of my death."

What happened to Arthur Schopenhauer? What is the beauty of the Upanishads? What is the beauty of Sufism? What is the beauty of Zen? What is the beauty of Hassidism? The beauty is that they are not knowledge -- of course, great knowing, but not knowledge at all. Great insights are there, but no philosophy is proposed to be believed in. You don't become more knowledgeable through them: you become more innocent.

RELIGION IS EXISTENTIAL, philosophy is analytical. Knowledge has to be analytical; it can't be existential. Knowing has to be existential; it can't be analytical. If you want to know, forget all about analysis; otherwise, you will come across MULCH knowledge but never will you become a knower.

If you want to know a flower, don't dissect it -- otherwise you will destroy it. Be with it, in absolute quietness, with a throbbing, loving heart. Breathe it in, dance around it, sing a song, or be silent! Play upon a guitar, or on a flute. These are the ways to become friendly to the flower. When you are playing on a flute the flower starts leaning towards you, the flower becomes open. He understands... a friend has come. He knows when the cuckoo calls, he knows when a peacock dances -- he will know you too if you sing a song or play on the flute or dance a dance around it. Those are the languages he understands. Or silence he understands -- the silence of the stars and the earth.

Just be silently with the flower! Or let tears flow, let your tears drop on the flower. He understands that language too. When it rains and it has a contact with the clouds.... But be existential, don't be analytical, and the flower will release its secrets to you.

Secrets can be released only to friends. When you are analytical, you are an enemy. When the scientist goes to the flower, he goes in a very antagonistic mood, very egoistic, self-willed, adamant, stubborn. He goes like a rapist. Science is a kind of rape on nature.

Be a poet, be a painter, be a musician -- these are existential ways. And the flower, slowly slowly, will gather trust in you, will know that "This man is not dangerous, he is not a scientist. He is not after knowledge. He will not rape me. He is a lover." And the flower will drop all protections, defenses, arm ours. And suddenly there is a meeting -- AND a kind of knowing which is not knowledge.

That's how one comes to know God.

Remember these two words: analytical and existential. Never be analytical. That is the path of knowledge. Be existential -- that is the path of knowing. Knowing is loving: loving is praying: and one thing leads to another.

It is a well-known fact of history that in Greece, Aristotle formulated the syllogism as a way to explain and examine valid reasoning. He was the father of logic in the West. But at the same time, almost exactly the same time, another man in India was working on the same lines -- but in a totally different dimension, with a totally different quality. His name was Gotama -- the founder of Indian logic. rut the difference is great. Their syllo-gisms are almost the same, their logic is almost the same -- it has to be -- but the difference is in their goals.

Aristotle says: it is to explain and examine valid reasoning. Gotama created similar syllogistic forms, but as he stated at the beginning of his Naya Sutras, the purpose of the study was to aid human beings in the attainment of supreme felicity -- liberation, MOKSHA, ecstasy, samadhi.

The difference is clear. Even if reason has to be used, it has to be used with full awareness to help ecstasy, to help supreme felicity, ultimate liberation. For no other reason.

Philosophy is not an end in itself: it is a means. If it helps, good; if it doesn't help, throw it away, it is garbage. Use your mind to go beyond mind. Let philosophy commit suicide in you.

That is the message of this small story.

NAWAB MOHAMMED KHAN, JAN-FISHAN, WAS OUT WALKING IN DELHI ONE DAY WHEN HE CAME UPON A NUMBER OF PEOPLE SEEMINGLY ENGAGED IN AN ALTERCATION.

HE ASKED A BYSTANDER, "WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"

THE SUFI MASTERS BELIEVE IN SITUATIONS. Nobody else believes in situations so much. But the Sufi Master and his approach is that you can teach your disciples only in a certain situation, in a certain context. If the context is not there, the teaching will be lost.

You can beat iron only when it is hot, and you can give it a shape and a form. But when it is cold, it is impossible. A situation is a hot state of affairs. Sufi Masters watch always for particular situations to give particular lessons. It may take years, but they never speak out of context -- never.

So, to be with a Sufi Master needs great patience, because he will not speak unless the situation has arisen and things are hot and he can give a shape and form. He can teach you something only when the situation is ready.

The Master is passing, a crowd is there.

HE ASKED A BYSTANDER, "WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?"

THE MAN SAID, "SUBLIME HIGHNESS, ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES IS OBJECTING TO THE BEHAVIOUR OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS QUARTER."

Now, this almost always happens to knowledgeable people. They become haughty, they become egoistic. They carry that air around themselves of holier-than-thou. They are always putting everybody else right. They are always searching to condemn, to make people feel guilty. This is a way of the ego to satisfy itself. This is not the indication of a man who knows.

A man who knows never makes anybody feel guilty. The man who knows helps people to get out of their wrong patterns, but does not make them feel guilty. It is a great art, the most sublime art there is. It is very subtle -- has to be, because when you are trying to change a person it is very easy to make him feel guilty; it is very easy because the thing is delicate and you are touching his sensitivity. And you are trying to change him, so somehow or other you are saying, "You are wrong as you are." That has to be avoided.

Man is not wrong, never wrong. That should remain the fundamental. Man in his innermost core is always right -- even though he may commit a few errors on the surface. But those errors are momentary, of not much value. But his fundamental goodness, his natural goodness, is absolute.

Once a person starts feeling guilty, you have contaminated his natural goodness. You have hurt him deeply; you have created a wound in his soul. So the art is never to create a wound in the soul. The real Master is always indirect. He changes people, he transforms people, but his way is always indirect. The person who is being changed and transformed never comes to know of it -- or comes to know only when he has already changed, when he is already transformed. Then he feels grateful.

The Master's touch is a very subtle touch. It is never offensive, it is never aggressive, it is never violent. There is no condemnation in it. There IS compassion. There is love. There is great desire to help, to be of help, but there is in no way any effort, even a slight effort, to make the person feel that he is wrong.

Once you make a person feel he is wrong, you have created a barrier in his transformation process. Because once he thinks, "I am wrong," he loses hope. If he feels guilty he becomes closed up; he is no more open to you. Once he feels guilty, he becomes defensive. Once he feels guilty, he starts fighting back. And if again and again he is made to feel guilty, he starts accepting the idea: "This is how I am. When everybody says, 'You are wrong,' then I must be wrong." Then he starts persisting in his wrongness. Then he says, "Now, everybody says I am wrong so I AM wrong, and there is no possibility of my ever being right. So why bother? Then just be as you are. This is my fate! This is how I have been made by God. This is how my parents have brought me up. This is how the society has conditioned me." A thousand and one explanations he finds, and he relaxes... he will forget all possibilities of growing.

Never condemn a man, never make him feel guilty. It is a crime. Rather, when you find a man is doing something wrong, provoke his natural goodness! Remind him of his Tao, of the kingdom that is within, of his divine nature. Remind him of his divine nature first, and with that remembrance he will be able to see what wrong he is committing. You will not even be needed to pinpoint it -- he will know himself.

Bring light to him! Don't say to anybody, "You are stumbling and you have broken this and you have fallen on this table and this table is turned upside down" -- don't say anything like that. Bring light and give light to the man, and he will know what he has done. But from your side there should be no indication about his being wrong, in the wrong.

THE MAN SAID, "SUBLIME HIGHNESS, ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES IS OBJECTING TO THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS QUARTER."

This is the sign of a stupid disciple. And when I say 'stupid' I don't mean that he is not knowledgeable -- stupid people can gather much knowledge. Knowledgeable people are always stupid people. To become knowledgeable is their way of hiding their stupidity. They hang certificates and degrees around themselves , and it feels good! Except for a stupid person, who carts about the degrees and the scholarship and the certificates and the examinations that you have passed? It is always the stupid person who becomes interested in these things. These are his ways to prove to the world that "I am not stupid." But in the very effort of proving that "I am not stupid," you are simply declaring that you are stupid.

A man who is wise need not prove that he is wise -- his wisdom is enough, a proof unto itself. It is self-evident. It needs no certificates , it needs no degrees, it needs no scholarship.

JAN-FISHAN WENT INTO THE CROWD AND SAID TO HIS FOLLOWER, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF."

This is a hot situation. People are there and the disciple was condemning them and, of course, he was clover, logical. He could prove by scriptures; he could quote scriptures and prove to them that they are wrong, that their behaviour is wrong. And he was doing that. Suddenly the Master appears in the crowd and says, "Explain yourself! What are you doing?"

THE DISCIPLE SAID, "THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HOSTILE."

Now, if you are wise, it is impossible to say this. Unless you have some ego in you, you cannot feel anybody as hostile. If you have a wound on the foot and somebody touches it, it hurts -- but not because of his touch. It is because of the wound. If he touches somewhere else, it will not hurt. It hurts because of the wound, not because of his touch.  Whenever you feel somebody is hostile to you, remember well: you must be having a very very strong ego -- he has touched the wound, he has put his finger on your ego. Hence he looks hostile; otherwise, there is no question! He is just himself. How can he be hostile to you? And EVEN if he is hostile, that is HIS problem; that should not become your problem.

Buddha is insulted by people many times, stones are thrown at him, people abuse him... he smiles. Once he said to a group of people who had come with very great hostility, "I feel sorry for you. You are almost in a rage! You must be burning within. I feel sorry for you. What can I do for you to help? How can I calm you down? You are in a spiritual fever!"

He does not say anything about himself. He is not saying, "You are being hostile to me." He is not saying, "Why are you hostile to me?" He is not saying anything in reference to himself; that is not the point at all.

Somebody asked, "But we are being hostile to you, and you are feeling sorry for us? We are enemies! We want to uproot you and your doctrine completely. And you are feeling sorry for us?"

And Buddha said, "Yes. You may be hostile from your side. For example," Buddha said, "you can throw a burning torch into the river -- it remains fire TILL it touches the river. The moment it touches the river, it cools down. I am cool. You throw fire at me -- it remains fire from your side, but the moment it touches me it becomes cool. It disappears! I am not hurt, you cannot hurt me -- because the one who used to be hurt is no more. That ego is gone.

"I have searched for it, and it has not been found. There is nobody inside me -- how can you be hostile to me? I am not -- how can you be hostile to me?"

THE DISCIPLE SAID, "THESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HOSTILE."

THE PEOPLE EXCLAIMED, "THAT IS NOT TRUE: WE WERE, ON THE CONTRARY, DOING HIM HONOUR FOR YOUR SAKE."

"WHAT DID THEY SAY?" ASKED THE MASTER.

"THEY SAID, 'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN...

"And they told me, 'Hail, Great Scholar!' And I was condemning scholars -- as Sufis have always been doing -- I was condemning scholars and scholarship. And these foolish people, they say, 'Hail, Great Scholar!' This is an insult. This is being hostile towards me.

"I am saying that scholars are the persons who have created the misery in the world, and they called me a scholar! These people have to be put right."

JAN-FISHAN SAID, "IT IS THE CONCEIT OF SCHOLARS WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE, QUITE OFTEN,FOR THE MISERY OF MAN. AND IT IS your CONCEIT IN CLAIMING TO BE OTHER THAN A SCHOLAR WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THIS TUMULT. NOT TO BE A SCHOLAR, WHICH INVOLVES DETACHMENT FROM THE PETTY, IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE, BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS."

THE MASTER IS SAYING, These people are poor people, innocent people. They don't understand great, subtle distinctions between words. They have not been hostile to you! According to themselves, they were praising you. They were saying that you are no ordinary person -- you are a great scholar. From THEIR side, nothing is wrong. And from where have you got this conceit that you have gone beyond scholarship? This is an even greater ego, to think that you have gone beyond scholarship .

It is very difficult to go beyond knowledge, beyond the claim of knowledge. It is the last step in the journey. The moment a person goes beyond knowledge, he becomes enlightened. Because the moment knowledge is dropped, he enters back into the Garden of Eden.

Knowledge is not a bridge: it is a barrier. The moment the barrier disappears, you suddenly find that you have always been home. You had never left it. You had not gone anywhere. But remember: to come to that point is a very great accomplishment. Why?

Ordinarily, man, is ignorant -- ignorance hurts. "I am ignorant, I am inferior."

One of my sannyasins, a beautiful sannyasin, is Shanti. She goes on writing questions again and again that "Osho, I feel very inferior, because I can do only cleaning work or I can prepare food. I cannot be a great group leader. I cannot do something which is important. I cannot be a great editor. I am very inferior."

Now, this poor Shanti is unnecessarily suffering. My whole work consists of leaning! What else am I doing here? And preparing food -- what else am I doing, Shanti? You are just next to me!

But the mind goes on earring these ideas: "I am just cleaning or evoking food, and I am not a great group leader, therapist, editor, or somebody important in the office. I am nobody." 5;he goes on asking, "What should I do?"

This is the question every child asks in the beginning: "What should I do to become important, to be somebody special in the world?" And there are only a few ways: either have money, more than others have, and you will be special; or have more power, political power, than others have, and you will be special; or have more knowledge than others have and you will be special. Or, if you cannot do anything else then at least renounce everything and become a great mahatma. But do something! Be special!

The inferiority complex inside goes on pulling and manipulating you to do something so that you can stand out, you can be outstanding, so people know who you are.

You can have money. It is not difficult -- many stupid people have money. You can become politically powerful, not a problem -- only stupid people become politically powerful. You earl gather knowledge: so many stupid people have so many degrees and scholarships, names, fame. It is not difficult at all! But deep down you will remain the same: unaltered.

This is not the way to transform your being. You earl have AS mush knowledge as possible, but how is it going to make you more knowing? Maybe others will think you know so much, but you, deep down, will know perfectly well: "This is only in the memory. My being has remained untouched by it."

And then, one day, you can gather another conceit, the greatest there is, that "I renounce all this knowledge too. Now I will be like Socrates -- the one who knows only one thing, that he knows nothing."

But deep down you are still hoping that people will think you are a Socrates. You are a plastic Socrates, synthetic, just put together, not a real Socrates. A real Socrates is a great accomplishment.

How does the real Socrates happen? It is not by renouncing knowledge and declaring, "I have renounced knowledge, I am no more a scholar, I don't pay any value to scholarship" -- not that way. The real Socrates happens only when, slowly slowly, you understand the unknowability of life and existence -- the utter unknowability of existence, the absolute suchness of existence. And there is no way to know it, because we ARE it! Not that you renounce scholarship, no, but that you fall in love with life itself. Not that you burn your scriptures -- that is very easy. Even in burning the scriptures you are paying too much attention to the scriptures; they are still important to you.

There is a famous painting of a Zen monk burning scriptures. If I had been there I would have told him, "Why burn them? Why take so much trouble? Keep them, and if some time you have nothing else to cook your tea with, you can use them. But why take so much trouble in burning a big fire? You can cook your food some day if it is needed -- unobserved by anybody, unexhibited. This is an exhibition: taking all your scriptures to the market place and burning them there. It is an exhibition. You are again hoping that "Now people will know here is the real Socrates."

This is not the way to become a real Socrates.

It is not against the scripture that the real happens: it is going deeper into existence and being that the real happens. The scriptures are forgotten! And once in a while, one can look into them, because they are assertions of old Masters, beautiful assertions. Of course, you cannot become a knower through them, but they can be great witnesses to your knowing.

Certainly, if you see the sun rising and you enjoy and dance with it, and one day you come across a few immensely beautiful lines of Kalidas about the sunrise, you will be surprised: he has said the thing that you would like to say! but you cannot. You don't have THAT quality to express. Not everybody is a Kalidas.

Remember: everybody can become a Buddha, but not everybody can become a Kalidas. Everybody can become a Buddha, but not everybody can become a Mozart or Beethoven. Everybody 's potential is to become a Buddha, because Buddha is your nature. But these are specific qualities, talents. A Kalidas is a Kalidas! He can sing a song that nobody else may be able to sing again. A Shakespeare is a Shakespeare -- the way ho can put words together... nobody may be able to put those words together again the same way. He is a magician with words, you may not be.

Scriptures are good! You cannot become wise through them, but the day you become wise you can relish scriptures. You can just go into them -- here and there a look -- and immense joy arises through them too! Because suddenly an insight that has happened to you is expressed by somebody else five thousand years before. Then you are not only linked with existence through space, you are linked with existence through time too. A new kind of expansion happens. Five thousand years before, somebody sings a song in the Vedas, and one day, reading it, suddenly you see he has stolen your words! Five thousand years have disappeared. Between you and that unknown man, anonymous, there has arisen a bond, a friendship, a love, an intimacy. He has become your contemporary. You are not apart any more! He had seen things the way you see them; he has uttered the things that you would like to utter but you cannot.

These are the two dimensions: one is through space. I am contemporary to you through space. You are sitting in front of me -- we are contemporaries. I am contemporary to Buddha, to Jesus, to Krishna, to Rumi, to Hillaj... and to thousands more, through time. They are also sitting exactly in front of me as you are sitting in front of me. You are sitting in front of me in space, they are sitting in front of me in time.

So when I say something about Buddha, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, I am not talking about historical figures -- I am talking about my contemporaries. And life is immensely enriched when you can have Buddha on your one side and Lao Tzu sitting on the other side, and sipping a cup of tea. Life is immensely rich.

I am not saying burn the books. They are valuable, but they are valuable only for those who know how to cater into lithe and existence. Then they can enter even into books, because they are part of life. But if you cannot enter into a tree, into the being of a tree, how can you enter into the being of a book? Impossible. The tree is more alive, contemporary to you in space. You can hug it. The book can become contemporary to you only in time -- for that you will have to grow, you will have to expand. You will have to become so huge that time and space both disappear in you. Then not only are the past Buddhas your contemporaries, but future Buddhas too. Then the whole existence exists in THY moment, culminates, converges, in this moment. ALL that has been, all that is, and all that will be, converges into this here now. And then the beauty is tremendous, and the benediction is incalculable, immeasurable.

The Master asked, "What did they say? Why did you feel that they are hostile?"

"THEY SAID," SAID THE DISCIPLE, "'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN."

HE WAS SAYING IT, but he was saying it without knowing it. He had heard it. He was repeating it; it was a mechanical repetition. He was being a parrot.

AND that danger is always there for disciples: they can become parrots. That danger has to be avoided. That danger is great! And it comes so slowly and seeps into your blood and bones that you will never become aware of it.

Disciples go on listening, listening, listening, and one day they start repeating. And they have forgotten completely that what they are saying is not their own. Never repeat that which is not your own! because you will be getting into trouble. It will remain formal. And it will be so formal that your whole being will contradict it. You will say one thing and you will do another thing -- because your doing will come from you, and your saying will come from all that you have heard. This creates a dichotomy and a very ridiculous situation. And everybody can see it -- it is so apparent.

Whenever you repeat something that you don't understand, your whole life will contradict it, will belie it.

I was reading a beautiful anecdote:

Philadelphians have always been noted for their striving towards perfection, as the following story illustrates:

Fenton, visiting the City of Brotherly Love, decided to dine in Philadelphia's most exclusive restaurant.

"Your order?" asked the waiter.

"I'll have the hamburger plate," replied Fenton after examining the menu.

In a few minutes the waiter returned. He uncovered a casserole dish revealing two hamburgers. From a pocket the waiter produced a pair of silver tongs and with them he transferred the meat patties to the diner's plate.

"We never touch anything with our hands," said the waiter, smiling.

"Very nice," said Fenton.

"Cleanliness is our motto," retorted the waiter. "And we never touch anything with our hands."

"That's wonderful!"

"We even have a special rule about visiting the lavatory. See this little piece of string attached to my apron?"

"I noticed all the waiters had them. What's it for?"

"Well," said the waiter, placing a large potato on Fenton's plate with his silver tongs,"if I have to go to the bathroom, I just unzip my pants and take it out with that piece of string. That way everything stays sanitary."

"But how do you put it back?" asked Fenton.

"I don't know about the other men," said the waiter, "but I use these tongs. We never touch anything with our hands."

That is the situation... when you are just repeating, when you have learnt a formality which has not become your being, your whole life will belie it. On the surface you will manage, but life is not lived only on the surface; it has many layers.

The problem for the disciple is that he listens to great truth. The Master goes on sharing whatsoever he has experienced. You can become parrots. Remember it. Listen, learn, but talk to people only when it has become YOUR experience, never before.

You can share only your experience, and then it has a beauty. When you start talking about somebody else's experience, it is ugly. And you may be repeating the same words! -- that is not the point.

"THEY SAID, 'HAIL, GREAT SCHOLAR!' I WAS TELLING THEM THAT IT IS THE IGNORANCE OF THE SCHOLARS WHICH IS OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONFUSION AND DESPERATION OF MAN."

You can understand only that which you CAN understand in a certain moment. The Master speaks from his vision. You understand from your capacity. The Master is like an ocean; you have your small cup -- you cannot contain the ocean. To contain the ocean you will have to break your cup; then you will contain the ocean. The ocean cannot be contained in the small cup of thread . The head has to be broken completely. When you are headless , you will contain the ocean.

But that will come when it comes. In the beginning everybody has to listen from the head, and the head goes on playing tricks. You hear one thing, you understand quite another.

Passing a door in the early morning, a drunk noticed a sign which read RING THE BELL FOR THE DOCTOR. He did just that and a sleepy-eyed man came to the door.

"What do you want?" asked the man.

"I want to know why you can't ring the damn bell yourself."

It was written on the door RING THE BELL FOR THE DOCTOR.... Now the drunk is drunk; he understands in his own drunkenness. He is puzzled why the doctor cannot ring it himself, why somebody else is needed.

People are almost drunk with knowledge, drunk with ego. drunk with blindness. Somehow they manage, just somehow. It is a miracle how people go on managing and living for seventy years. It is REALLY a miracle.

The young couple was going at it hot and heavy on a park bench when the girl was heard to say, "Morris, could you please take off your glasses? They're hurting me." Quickly he whipped them off and went back to work.

After a few moments, the girl could be heard again. "Morris, could you put your glasses back on? You're kissing the bench."

Just thin glasses, just a little consciousness, and it is enough to carry on your day-to-day work. It is not enough to enter into reality. The reality will need eyes all over your being -- eyes and eyes. It will need great awareness, it will need awakening.

So this disciple HAS heard that the Master says that scholars have been the cause of the misery in the world. Yes, they have been. Without understanding what they are saying, they have created much misery for humanity. Without understanding what they are saying, they have been advising people. They have poisoned people's minds.

JAN-FISHAN SAID, "IT IS THE CONCEIT OF SCHOLARS WHICH IS RESPONSIBLE, QUITE OFTEN, FOR THE MISERY OF MAN. AND IT IS YOUR CONCEIT IN CLAIMING TO BE OTHER THAN A SCHOLAR WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF THIS TUMULT.

"Now you are gathering another conceit which is more subtle, subtler than the first. Somebody thinks, 'I am a scholar, a great Scholar.' Now you are thinking that you have renounced all that kind of childishness -- you are no more a scholar. You are still a scholar."

"NOT TO BE A SCHOLAR, WHICH INVOLVES DETACHMENT FROM THE petty, is an accomplishment."

Not to be a scholar means one is no more interested in the trivial: one is interested only in the real, in the ultimately real. One is not interested in theories any more: one is interested only in existential experiencing.

"Why are you wasting your time?" the Master said to the disciple. "Who are you to teach these people? They may be ignorant, they may not know as much as you know, but they did not mean any of fence to you. They were thinking that to call somebody a great scholar is to pay respect. Look at their intention. Their intention was good. They are innocent people. Now you are confusing them. You are not helping them to become more clear. Now you will create a fear in them; now they will be afraid even to use the word 'scholar'. And they will be at a loss as to how to respect somebody.

"And you don't have that accomplishment, because not to be a scholar is the highest kind of consciousness."

The first stage is ignorance, the second stage is knowledge, but both are similar in one way. The first state is unconscious ignorance, and the second stage is unconscious knowledge. And the third state is conscious ignorance. The first comes back, but with a new form. The sage again becomes a child, the circle is complete -- but in a totally different way. CONSCIOUSLY a child again -- this is rebirth.

Jesus says: Unless you are born again you will not be able to enter into the kingdom of God. This is rebirth: Unless you become a child again, unless you become ignorant again, with absolute consciousness that there is no way to know, that there is nothing to know, that there is nobody to know... so all three points of knowledge simply disappear into oblivion, and then the suchness of existence opens up. There is great ecstasy and great benediction.

Yes, love is there and dance is there and celebration is there, but there is no knowledge. That is a great accomplishment. And for that one needs detachment from the petty.

"Why are you bothering about these people and what they have said? Why are you so much interested in words? And can't you see your conceit? -- that by trying to teach them that scholars are the cause of misery, you are trying in a subtle way to pronounce, to propound, that you are not a scholar -- AND YOU ARE A SCHOLAR, because whatsoever you are saying is not your own experience. You have heard me say it and now you are, parrot like, repeating it. You must have been searching for these people; these people are victims."

Whenever you have some information, you start searching for somebody in whose mind you can pour it; otherwise, it creates a restlessness. Unobserved, you go on searching for somebody unaware. Whenever you have some information, it is very difficult to keep it inside yourself. That's why it is so difficult to keep a secret, almost impossible. It becomes heavy. One wants to say it to be unburdened.

It is very difficult to contain something that you have come to understand and not to say it to others. People search, they move around, they wait for some victim.

"SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE," SAID THE MASTER, "BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS..."

"And so are you -- you are unaltered. You have not yet been transformed. You have become very much informed, that's true. The information is so much that you cannot even digest it. And what you are doing here is just a kind of diarrhea . You are throwing it on these poor people. And they have not done anything! You have just found an excuse: 'You are hostile -- you called me a great scholar, and scholars are the cause of the misery of the world.'"

Unaltered. Knowledge never alters anybody. You remain the same, knowledge goes on being accumulated on the SAME Level. And unless the level changes, unless you have an altered state of consciousness, nothing is going to help. You can have all the scriptures of the world by your side, but you will remain as miserable as before.

"SCHOLARS ARE SELDOM WISE BEING ONLY UNALTERED PEOPLE STUFFED WITH THOUGHTS AND BOOKS."

But they become very very conceited, they become very egoistic.

A man who had just been promoted to vice-president boasted so much about it to his wife that she finally retorted, "Vice-presidents are a dime a dozen. Why, in the supermarket they even have a vice-president in charge of prunes."

Furious, the husband phoned the supermarket in the expectation of refuting his wife. He asked to speak to the vice-president in charge of prunes.

"Which kind?" was the reply. "Packaged or bulk?"

Presidents and vice-presidents and professors and scholars, they all go on bragging -- they are somebody special. On their noses it is written: "Look who I am. I am not an ordinary mortal." Just puffed up egos. And just a small prick and the balloon bursts.

Beware of it. The ways of the ego are very cunning. Unless one is very very aware, it goes on coming back from the back door.

"THESE PEOPLE WERE TRYING TO HONOR YOU. IF SOME PEOPLE THINK MIND IS GOLD, IF IT IS THEIR MUD RESPECT IT."

THIS SHOULD BE the approach of a really human person. If it is their mud and they think it is gold, why disturb them? It is THEIR mud. They respect it and they think it is gold -- let them be happy whatsoever they think. Don't unnecessarily disturb them. And:

"YOU ARE NOT THEIR TEACHER."

A Master is allowed to disturb, nobody else. Why? Because if somebody else disturbs people, he will ONLY disturb, he will not be able to reset. He will not be able to create the harmony again.

He will disturb the first thing, and he will not be able to create anything else instead. He will demolish the old building... it may have been a ruin, but still people were living in it. Now they will be under the sky in the rains, and under the hot sun. Don't demolish a building unless you can construct another and better.

Remember it: if you can't give truth to people, don't take their lies away. Otherwise, they will be left in such agony, their lives will become impossible. At least they were living -- with their lies they were hoping. Don't destroy people's beliefs if you cannot give them truth. If you cannot give them trust, don't destroy their belief. If you can give them the real coin, it is perfectly okay to take their false coins away. Only Masters are allowed, only Buddhas are allowed, to shake, shatter, to destroy, because they can create. Because destruction in itself is not the goal -- the goal is creation.

"DO YOU NOT REALIZE THAT IN BEHAVING IN SUCH A SENSITIVE AND SELF-WILLED MANNER YOU ARE ACTING JUST LIKE A SCHOLAR AND THEREFORE DESERVE THE NAME EVEN IF IT IS AN EPITHET?"

The Master has used the situation in a beautiful way. He has made it absolutely clear to the disciple that he has been acting like a scholar -- he knows not a single thing. He is a pretender. But he can destroy those innocent people's beliefs, and he can enjoy that he can destroy. He can argue, he can silence those people -- although he cannot convince, because no argument ever convinces. Only the PRESENCE of a Master is a convincing source, not an argument.

"GUARD YOURSELF MY CHILD. TOO MANY SLIPS FROM THE PATH OF SUPREME ATTAINMENT -- AND YOU MAY BECOME A SCHOLAR."

In the world of the Sufis, a scholar is the dirtiest thing. Mm? If you fall too many times from the path you MAY become a scholar. Just as it is said: When a poet fails he becomes a critic, exactly the same way it can be said: When a sage fails to become a sage, he becomes a scholar.

To you also, I say:

"GUARD YOURSELF, MY CHILD. TOO MANY SLIPS FROM THE PATH OF SUPREME ATTAINMENT -- AND YOU MAY BECOME A SCHOLAR."

Scholarship, to be a pundit, is not an attainment: it is a failure. It is a consolation only. You have missed the real treasure, and now you have just old dirty books -- and that is a burden, NOT a liberation. Books cannot liberate. In fact, books themselves wait for somebody to liberate the truth from them -- how can THEY liberate you?

When a Master is there, he liberates truths from the imprisonment of books. That's why I have chosen so many books to speak upon. Many truths are imprisoned there -- they have to be liberated. The book cannot liberate you; how can a dead book liberate you? Truth liberates. And if you know the truth, you can liberate truths from books too.

But remember: this is not possible if you only become a scholar. This is possible only when you become a sage. And who is a sage? A child again. A child who has consciously understood the futility of knowledge, and has understood the ultimate beauty of ignorance.

 

Next: Chapter 10, Buddha and the Beast, First question

 

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