James Thomas, one of the wise moderator of a FB group “Contemplative Mystics Meister Eckhart Tomas Marton Carl Jung Rumi Lao Tzu” posted a very good post that resonates with my spiritual journey too. I am sharing it as it is with a link to this post on this group here.
Moderators of this group are very open minded and welcome sharing teachings and experiences of any enlightened mystic as well as our own experiences in spiritual journey.
SOMEONE ASKED Zen Master Seung Sahn, “Why are we here?”
“Why did you come here today?”
“Because I wanted to come.”
“What do you want?”
“Well, I want happiness,” the student replied.
“Correct! But, where do you come from? What is your name?” “Juan.”
“That’s only your body’s name. What is your true self’s name?” The student was puzzled for a moment, and then said, “Somebody gave me this name, Juan. That’s my only name.”
“Yes, that is your body’s name: that’s not your name. Somebody gave you that name. Before that, you had no name. So this name is not you. You may say, ‘This is my hand, that’s my head, this is my body.’ But it’s not you. Your body has a master. Please bring your master here.”
The student was silent.
“Who is your master?”
The student replied, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know. That’s your true name. Someone might call it mind, or soul, or consciousness, while someone else calls it nature. But your true name, what is it really called?” The student was still silent. “OK, how old are you?”
“I’m thirty years old,” the student replied.
“That’s your body’s age. That’s not your true age. Another question: when you die, where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“Correct! You don’t understand your coming into this world, or your leaving.
You don’t know your name or age, or any kind of coming or going.
So you are ‘don’t know.’
That’s your true self.
A long time ago, Socrates used to walk through the streets of Athens, telling everyone he saw, ‘You must understand your true self! You must understand your true self!’
One day, a student asked him, “Teacher, do you understand your true self?’ Socrates replied, ‘I don’t know. But I understand this don’t-know, this not-knowing.’
That’s a very important point. If you attain your don’t-know, then you understand your true self. This don’t-know mind is very important.”
“Well,” the student continued, “What is this don’t-know?”
Dae Soen Sa Nim replied, “When you’re thinking, your mind and my mind are different. When you cut off all thinking, your mind, my mind, and everybody’s minds are the same: God’s mind, Buddha’s mind, Christ’s mind, Kwan Seum Bosal’s mind, demon’s mind, any mind is the same mind. Then there is no Russian, no American, no Spanish or Korean. Your before-thinking mind already cuts off all thinking.
- Shunryu Suzuki
Most basic yearning in a person is to know himself or to know the answer of ‘Who am I?’. As per scriptures originated in ancient Indian territory we are gifted birth a human being because we were unable to discover our reality in last birth instead we got engaged in fulfilling worldly desires and few desires left unfulfilled. At the time of death this mistake was realised and accepted by us but then not much time is left so as another chance we are gifted this birth.
And the biggest mistake we have made in this birth that instead of discovering the answer of ‘who am I?’, again we accepted ourself as wise enough to know ‘about’ everything and in some area even acted as an expert!
So the moment becomes our entry into vicious circle when we become confident on how to make money or how to manipulate people and become leader or how to act so that people start liking you and keep following you as an actor etc etc,
And the moment we recognise our this mistake and remain non-conclusive about everything around us this is the ‘Don’t know’ moment. We enter into a virtuous circle and start looking at everything with awe, wonder and amazement.
And slowly slowly our fictitious pride start falling on its own.
When we do not know ourself then how we can know about anything of this mysterious world?
If a person keeps experimenting, learning new and unlearning all conditioning after realising them as outside effect on him, courageously act as a gambler, instead of as a businessman, to explore everything that develops astonishment in him. Setting aside all biases is first step towards letting this most basic yearning or ‘Don’t know’ grow automatically. It grows if the heart is allowed to act on it’s own. It happens if we can stop our mind to germinate any thought by acting instantly in the moment our heart spoke to us. This way we get connected to our cosmic consciousness again and agin, because our heart is connected to cosmic consciousness.
If give even a second then we are bringing an opportunity to our mind. And mind is very notorious to get us distracted as if we are taking right decision.
At any moment you close your eyes, first you will see thoughts, a layer of thinking all around you, thoughts vibrating – one coming, another going – a crowd, a traffic. Remain silent for a few seconds, and suddenly you will see that thinking is no longer there but dreaming has started. You are dreaming that you have become the president of a country, or you have found a brick of gold on the road, or you have found a beautiful woman or a man, and suddenly you start projecting; dreams start functioning. If you continue dreaming for a long time, one moment will come when you will fall asleep – thinking, dreaming, sleep, and from sleep again to dreaming and thinking. This is how your whole life revolves. Real awareness is not known yet, and that real awareness is what Patanjali says will destroy ignorance – not knowledge, but awareness. We collect knowledge just to befool ourselves and others.-Yoga:The science of the soul.
Awareness meditation is the way worked for me, may be you too find it suitable otherwise Dynamic meditation is for most of the people. There are 110 other meditation techniques discovered by Indian Mystic Gorakhnath about 500years before and further modified by Osho that one can experiment and the suitable one could be practiced in routine life.
My experiences may be of your help in taking only one step. Because everyone has to move forward alone, this is the nature of this journey.
In my life mindfulness or awareness meditation helped miraculously. Apart from that living a simple, authentic and totality in life is very helpful even when we are serving people around us with great love and care without discrimination.
Hi ….. I write my comments from my personal experiences of my inner journey. This post may include teachings of Mystics around the world which from my personal experience I found worth following even today. For more have a look at my linktree website for getting regular updates through social media lor subscribe to YouTube channel or listen to the podcasts etc.
For references of content on Osho, Copyright © OSHO International Foundation, An MP3 audio file of many discourses can be downloaded from Osho(dot)com or you can listen or watch most of his discourses @ OSHO International channel of YouTube where you can get subtitles in language of your choice or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library. Many of Osho’s books are available online at Amazon.
My suggestions:-
Osho International Online (OIO) provides facility to learn these Osho discovered Dynamic Meditations for new generation from your home, through Osho Meditation Day @€20.00 per person. You can learn Dynamic meditations from disciples of Osho. OIO rotate times through three timezones NY,Berlin and Mumbai.