Or: by putting your fingers in your ears
hear the source of all sounds –
and there will be a sudden explosion
of the silent music of the cosmos.
Using any way fall into the abyss of soundlessness
and you will achieve the divine.
288. Love.
I am thrilled with great expectations about you.
Much is to happen within you and without also.
You are on the verge of the explosion,
so be alone.
Not lonely but alone,
and live with that aloneness.
Rather,
that is the only meditation for you now.
Loneliness is negative:
to be lonely is to be aware of the absence of others.
But to be alone is the most positive state of mind:
it is to be aware of
Be aware of the presence that is you.
Just be aware and wait,
wait for the happening.
Near, very near is
And remember that I am always with you.
I have always been with you
even when you did not know me.
And always feel my blessings.
289. Love.
Takuan says: You cannot bathe in solid ice,
nor can you live in a frozen consciousness –
and what is the mind except that?
Go in and find out.
Do not ask anybody,
do not go to the scriptures,
Do not think about it
because that is absurd –
how can you think against the mind?
Any conclusion out of thinking
can only strengthen the mind.
Do not think because thinking
is stopping, halting and freezing.
Go in and find out –
A moment’s thinking
and you are again in the old rut.
A moment’s thinking
and you are as far from the real as is possible.
290. Love.
We kneel down to ourselves
because we kneel down to the gods we make
out of our experience, or out of our desires and dreams,
or out of our so-called logic and foolish arguments.
This is neither humility nor prayer,
rather, on the contrary, this is
the most egoistic attitude possible.
The truly religious mind is one which just kneels down –
not to anyone, not to any image in particular.
This kneeling down is nothing but
a flowering of one’s total nothingness.
Then this kneeling down becomes an inner way of life,
and unless prayer is such, prayer is not.
One cannot pray, one can only be prayerful.
291. Love.
You cannot run away from the self
because you are the self –
how can you run away from it?
It is like running from one’s own shadow:
all your efforts are bound to be futile.
Rather, stop and see it,
witness it, be aware of it.
Face the shadow and then – where is it?
It has never been, really.
You created it by not facing it
and you strengthened it by running from it.
Is it not time now to stop the game?
292. Love.
Search – and the ego is always somewhere behind.
Search – and in every act the ego is the motivation.
But if one can find that this is so
and can realize it,
one goes beyond it, because the very realization
is the going beyond.
Brother, said Mulla Nasruddin to a neighbor,
I am collecting to pay the debt of a poor man
who cannot meet his obligations.
Very commendable said the other, and gave him a coin.
Who is this person?
Me, said Nasruddin as he hurried away.
A few weeks later he was at the door again.
I suppose you are calling about a debt,
said the trusting neighbor.
I am.
I suppose someone can’t pay a debt
and you want a contribution?
That is so.
I suppose it is you who owes the money?
Not this time.
Well, I am glad to hear it.
Take this contribution.
Nasruddin pocketed the money.
Just one thing, Mulla –
what prompts your humanitarian sentiments
in this particular case?
Well, you see…I am the creditor!
293. Love.
Knowledge is through experiencing.
Mere information is not knowledge,
on the contrary it cannot give the clarity
which knowledge gives to the mind
and may confuse one more
because a confused mind is still more burdened with it.
Two men had played chess
regularly together for several years.
They were quite evenly matched
and there was keen rivalry between them.
Then one man began to beat his rival nearly every time they played
and the other man was completely at a loss
to understand this phenomenon.
On the contrary, he was expecting his game to improve
because he was reading a four-volume set
on
After much thought he came up with an idea.
He sent the books to his friend as a gift –
and it was not long before they were evenly
matched again!
294. Love.
There is no proof of the divine in the world
for it is hidden deep, deep, deep inside.
But
for it is deep, deep, deep, inside.
Thinking about it will not help:
action is needed,
action turned on oneself –
so
That is,
Man is like a sealed book
written before he was born,
and ordinarily he carries it unopened inside himself
until he dies.
One who opens it knows that
and only the divine is.
295. Love.
Truth is aristocratic.
It cannot be decided by votes or numbers
because truth is enough in itself,
it needs no help or support;
it even needs no proof because truth is self-evident.
A certain man was believed to have died