“Once there was a great Zen master visiting a small town. While there he met this man who was in great agony feeling angry, frustrated, guilty and in general was in great emotional distress. When the man realised who this Zen master was, he asked him: ‘Great Master, how can I end my misery? I feel so much suffering, my mind feel so tight, like it is locked inside a bottle.’ The Zen master answered: ‘Well, who told you to get your mind into the bottle in the first place?’ The master left and it is said that the man became enlightened afterwards.”
Nice story.
Too bad, that few zen masters wander around these days.
And if one is not a master, but an impostor, or someone who just thinks he is a master, and says the same words, the whole thing works on the level of autosuggestion only.
I have grown to be cautious towards any method or way, what is apparently easy. I know that striving for truth is never easy, never comfortable. Why ? Because one must first realize one’s karma, than, one must follow it. That is never easy, or done in a flash. It might appear possible for those who do not have the slightest idea about their karma. These people are just psychologically sound, having all the defense mechanisms of their mind working just fine.
Surely there are cases when a long aspiring disciple, (or a person with the appropriate karma) arrives to a sudden enlightment, but to make it a general rule is misleading … in fact it actually feeds the autosuggested illusion of many.
If enlightement would be reachable by ambition, all politicians, and professional sportsmen would be enlightened. If enlightment would be reachable through peace, all peaceful people would be enlightened. To be peaceful is not a big deal. A very ignorant, and insensitive person can be peaceful because the trouble of others does not affect him. But that is not yet enlightment. If enlightement would be reachable by health, all young people would be enlightened. If enlightment would be reachable by thinking, scientists would be enlightened. If enlightement would be reachable through a still, thoughtless mind, all stupid or braindead people would be enlightened.
Fact is that there are many traditional methods towards enlightement, but few chose to walk on them, they seem so hard, and have all those stupid rules about what to do, and not do. Surely, there must be an easier way for me, some think. There must be a shortcut. There must be a fast, and yet comfortable way. And reviving ancient traditions about how the world is illusion, maya, complements this desire well. The attitude of the ancient indian human being, to escape the world of the senses was genuine, because he still posessed a dim, dreamlike cairvoyance, what made possible for him to witness the spiritual forces acting behind physical happenings. He knew that what we see today as real is just the outer veil of a higher reality. Today, this feeling is not at all genuine for the most people, because people today only perceieve the physical world, and thus adopting this attitude is an unrealized lie. We just would like to think, that all our trouble and duties are illusionary, that we belong to the spirit, and we already posess everything what we need. This inedeed is a great illusion, and a false promise.
Desperation, pain, suffering, illness are the forces what shake us, and wake in us the forces to become better, more, to strive and work for the Human Ideal.
Let’s take an example: someone becomes ill. He takes no responsability for it, He blames the world, others for it, than expects others to heal him. This is ignorance and selfishness.
But another one says; This is my karma. I had to face this illness, because earlier, I refused to aquire the necessary soul qualities what would have made this illness impossible to happen to me. I must do everything to find what the real reasons for my illness are, and change them, so I will never become prone to this illness again. And through this approach, this man is strenghtened, and takes responsability for what happnes to him, realizes that he might benefit the help of others, and he alraedy benefits the grace of heavens by being permitted to have this expereince, but it is his task to use this expereince skillfully. If he searches he will find that no moral energy is ever lost in the universe, and his soul will be strenghtened, even though his body might desert him, and die.
It is not enough to accept something as right, because that way, one is not able to mobilize one’s whole being for it, and when trouble comes one will forsake what one thought to be right. This is why it is important to realize even intellectually the great truths of human existence, what the human being is, where he comes from, how is he built, what is karma, how it works, how reincarnation actually takes place, because if one learns even intellectually these (from someone who really knows them) and how they apply to his everyday life, and how they are proven by everyday life and it’s happenings, than this will awaken the right thoughts, emotions, and will impulses in him, and it will give him the strenght to fulfill his karma. Everyone born to this world has a karma, and this is not some fantastic concept, or something what affects a few elements of our existence, but what is working through our every thought, word, in our bodies movements, shape, it’s state of health.
Those who practice pratyahara, without fulfilling first svadhyaya, they will never expereince reality as it is.
The disciple needs to read every book, every scripture, than forget them all. But lazy people will say … if they are to be forgotten anyway, why should I read them ? I rather believe my guru, or some teaching, and I am all set. But this attitude will never take one to real knowledge, it will take one in one nook of the great tree of spiritual advancement, and because he is unable to lift his head and see how great the whole tree is, and how, the trunk of the tree leads to even greater heights having thousands of branches, he will just say in that little comfy nest what he creates in his imagination, what he managed to perciveve from the whole spritual reality, assuming that he has reached enlightment.
Than when he is outrun by others, because the world develops and people advance on their paths, he will find himself again in a place he does not really know, and other karmic effects present themselves in his life.
Enlightemnt is the state when one aquires the ability to directly expereince spiritual realities … but to what extent is one able to expereince them, depends on one’s training.
By reading holy books, the soul receives knowledge what is not immediatly clear or apparent to the mind. And even if the words are forgotten, the soul has been nourished, and prepared to recieve something what otherwise could not reach it. And as said, if one through the grace of his karma, arrives to meet knowledge expressed even by his worldly intellect, than for such person all doubt is lost, and such person can concentrate all of his energies to what is right, what takes him further, and in time will arrive to real enlightment.
An enlightened person will be perceived often as a rebel, or a stupid fool by others who cannot percieve the causes of his actions or behaviour … but such a person will be capable to take on the whole world. He becomes invincible, becaue he will do the will of the Father, the will of the cosmos, the will of the universe and all beings and forces what make up the universe, and even if he apparently fails that is what must happen, and he performs that willingly. This is freedom, to do what is the will of the universe, what must come to pass, willingly. The freedom to give and create, to receive from the universe and to pour it out again for the sake of the universe.
I feel ya, bro. Definitely not enough true zen out there these days. The last time my mind felt like it was locked inside a bottle, the doctor told me to take two sudafed and stand on my head. I did not reach enlightenment, but my sinuses cleared up.