October 17, 1974
“The autumn flood passed. Thousands of wild streams rushed furiously into the Yellow River. It became agitated and flooded its banks so much that, looking across it, you could not tell whether there was a bull or a horse on the opposite bank. Then the River God laughed, enjoying the thought that all the beauty of the world had fallen under his power.
So he swam downstream until he reached the Ocean. Then he looked at the waves running towards the empty horizon in the east, and his face fell.
Looking at the distant horizon, he came to his senses and murmured to the God of the Ocean: “That’s right, the proverb is true: he who has a hundred thoughts thinks that he knows more than anyone else. So am I, only now I see what is meant by space!”
The Ocean God replied: "Can you talk about the sea with a frog in the block? Can you talk about ice with a dragonfly? Can you talk about life's journey with a Ph.D.?"
Life is an experience, not a theory. It doesn't need explanation. She is there, in all her glory, just to be experienced, to be enjoyed. This is not a mystery, it is a mystery. A riddle is something that can be guessed, and a mystery is something that can never be guessed. A mystery is something with which you can become one, with which you can dissolve, with which you can fuse, you yourself can become mysterious.
This is the difference between philosophy and religion: philosophy thinks that there must be some answer, that life is a question mark and that one has to work hard at it. Of course, if you make life a question mark, your effort becomes intellectual. The very conclusion that life is a question leads you to greater and greater intellectual effort, and in search of answers you decide in favor of theories.
Religion says that taking life as a question is fundamentally wrong. This is not a question, it is there, without any question marks. It is there, like an open secret, it is an invitation. You must become a guest, you must move in it. She is ready and welcoming - don't fight her! She is not a question, don’t try to guess her! She's not a mystery! Come and become one with her - you will recognize her. Recognition will come from your totality, not from the intellect.
Intelligence is a partial effort, and life requires that you be total with it, flow with it, so one with it that you cannot feel which is which, cannot feel where you end and where life begins. All life becomes you, all of you become life. This is what salvation is. This is not a solution, this is salvation. This is what the Hindus called moksha, it is not a theory, it is not a conclusion, it is a completely different way - to live with being. It is not head-oriented: indeed, you become “headless”, you lose all distinctions, the periphery disappears, you are just like a drop in the ocean. You lose your limitations and reach the cosmic boundaries, which is limitlessness.
The first thing to understand is not to take life as a question. If you take it as a question, you will be in trouble: you have already gone down the wrong path and it will be a dead end. Somewhere, in some theory, you will get funny. Everyone is pinned somewhere in a theory, and then it is very difficult to discard the theory. You cling to it because the question hurts you, and in the end there is a certain consolation in the theory: you feel that you know.
You don't know. The mind cannot know, the mind can only theorize, it can juggle words faster and faster, it can play with words, process them, but all this is an interpretation, it is not the real, but only your interpretation of it. It's like cards. Have you seen the map of India? You may carry it with you, you may think you are carrying India in your pocket, but the map is not the country. You may have a theory about a rose, about what a rose is, you may even have a photograph of a rose, but that photograph is just a photograph, it does not convey anything of the living phenomenon that the rose is.
Look at the child: he has no mind yet. He opens his eyes and just looks at the world. Give him a rose. He doesn't know the name, he can't put a label on it, he can't categorize it, he can't say what it is, and yet the rose is there, its colors flooding the child, its beauty surrounding him. its aroma reaches the very heart. He doesn't know what it is, but he goes through a living moment.
You say to the child “this is a rose” and the experience will never be the same again, the child will never be able to experience this mystery of the rose again. Now, when there is a rose in front of him, he will say “this is a rose.” Now he will carry the word. You made him poor, but he was very rich. Here was the whole rose, and he could only experience it, there was no way to describe it, to define it.
A rose is a rose. You cannot say what it is, this or that. The child was silent - there was no functioning of the mind, it was not there, and there was no obstacle. The heart of the rose fused with the heart of the child, the heart of the child fused with the gray rose. The child could not even tell where he ended and where the rose began, where the rose ended and he began - there were no boundaries. They became one with the rose in that moment of awe. For one moment they were not two, there was unity, but you told him: “this is a rose.”
Now the experience will never be the same. The moment a rose appears, the mind immediately says, “This is a rose.” The mystery is lost, now there is an answer, now the child knows. What an absurdity! Now you will say that the child grows in knowledge. But just the opposite happens. Before you told him what it was. he knew, but he knew it in his universality. It was not knowledge, it was experience, but then you thought he was ignorant. Now you think he knows because he carries the word in his mind. The word "rose" is not a rose, the word "gods" is not God, the word "love" is not love.
But we continue to accumulate these words, and there are smart heads who process these words, interpret them, and turn them into theories and arguments. And the more reasoned, the more theoretical you become, the further you move away from the rose, and then it is impossible: nothing comes to you and you never arrive at anything, you just live in the mind, processing words.
I heard one joke. Three Jews went for a morning walk. They were old friends and discussed many things. Then they saw the mayor's big car drive past them, and the mayor waved and said, "Hello!"
Now things have become more complicated. The first one said: "Don't get too excited, he said hi to me and I can see why."
The others asked: “What do you mean?” The first one replied: “I borrowed 10 thousand dollars from him, and for two years now he has been waiting and waiting for me to give it back. He said hello to me.” Another said: "You're wrong, the 'hello' was meant for me. And it's clear why. The fact is that I lent him 10 thousand dollars. He owes me and that's why he's always afraid of me. The moment he sees me, he's terrified, and it's clear why."
The third laughed, and the other two turned to him and asked: “What does this mean? Why are you laughing?” He said: "That 'hello' was meant for me, not you, you are both wrong. He doesn't owe me money, nor do I owe him, why doesn't he say 'hello' to me from the bottom of his heart?"
Once you start looking at reality through the mind, everything becomes a problem: then the ego starts interpreting and then you have only interpretations. You may have evidence of their truth, and this evidence may look reasonable, but only to you and not to anyone else, since your ego gives the interpretation. And you get more and more caught up in your interpretations because you have invested so much in them.
If someone speaks badly about or against Christianity, the Christian feels affected. If someone speaks badly about Hinduism or against it, the Hindu feels affected. Why? If you are truly a true seeker, as religious people say they are, why should you be affected? You have to establish whether he is wrong, but the ego comes in and then it is not a question of whether Hinduism is right or wrong, it is a question of whether you are right or wrong. How can you be wrong? If you are wrong, then your whole image begins to shake; you cannot be wrong.
Then you start arguing and fighting over very trivial matters, but the real fight, the basis of the fight, is that you are fighting against life. With your answers you are trying to conquer life, with your theories you are trying to control life. And you think that if you know the theories, you will be a master. With knowledge you strengthen your ego, so if someone says that there cannot be knowledge through the mind, the ego simply becomes deaf. It never listens to this, because it is dangerous.
The mind says: “Even anti-philosophy is also philosophy, just as Zhu-ang-tzu is a philosopher.” Then everything is arranged and you begin your interpretations again, but remember that Zhuang Tzu is not a philosopher and neither am I. Philosophy is a position towards life. Position means choice, and choice can only be fragmentary. The mystic never chooses, he looks at the whole without any choice on his part, he does not become a chooser.
If you choose, then immediately the problem arises because life is contradictory, life exists through contradiction, and it is beautiful how life organizes the impossible. Night and day exist as neighbors, not even as neighbors - day melts into night and becomes night, night melts into day and becomes day. Love and hate exist together: love melts and becomes hate, hatred melts and becomes love. Life and death exist together: life melts into death and death melts into life again.
Existence is contradictory, but there is deep harmony between opposite poles. It seems impossible to the mind - because it can’t be. How can opposites exist together? How is harmony between life and death possible? How is harmony possible between hatred and love? The mind says: love is never hate, hate is never love. The mind says: A is A, and B is B, and A is never B. The mind is logical, but life is contradictory, so they never meet. So if you say that this person is good, you cannot believe that this person is also bad.
But life is like this: the sinner lives in the saint, and the saint lives in the sinner. Only logic is clear with its distinctions and definitions. Life is not clear, it moves towards the opposite. Just watch... you can be a saint one moment and a sinner the next. What is the problem of life? You can be a sinner this moment, and the next moment you can outgrow it and be a saint. What's the problem?
See the inner phenomenon, how things melt into their opposites, how opposites exist together. You were happy - happy, like a flower, like a star - and suddenly you become sad. See if this sadness is something separate from your happiness? Or does that same energy become sadness? Who was happy and who was sad? Are there two personalities within you or is it the same personality that changes your mood? And the same energy moves in you: sometimes it is sad, sometimes it is joyful.
If you understand this, then you do not create contradictions between the two and then in your sadness there is a flavor of happiness and in your happiness there is a depth of sadness.
If Buddha is sad, you will see the blissful feeling in his sadness, you will see the hidden compassion. His sadness is beautiful. And if Buddha is happy and you look deeply, watch him, you will feel that there is depth in his happiness, the same depth that is always there in his sadness. His happiness is not shallow, but this is the problem with you: when you are happy you are shallow, but when you are sad you can be deeper, less shallow. That's why the laughing one has a small ring.
If you laugh, it seems to be on the periphery, but when you cry, you cry with all your heart. It is easy to imitate someone laughing, but it is very difficult to imitate tears. If they do not flow, it is impossible to call them. You can force yourself to smile, but you cannot force yourself to cry: the more you force yourself, the more you feel that tears will not come, the drier your eyes will become.
There is depth in your sadness, but your laughter is superficial. When Buddha laughs, his laughter is as deep as his tears, and when he cries, he cries as beautifully as you laugh. Opposites have lost their “opposite”; they have become one. This is why Buddha is difficult to understand: he has become as contradictory as existence itself. It is absurd, now it has become a mystery in itself.
The religious man seeks the truth, the philosopher seeks interpretation.
I heard that once three philosophy professors were arguing in a men's club about what is most beautiful in a woman. One philosopher said: “These are the eyes - the whole woman is in the eyes, they are the most beautiful part of the female body.”
The second said: “I disagree. Hair is the most beautiful part of the face and body, it gives beauty and mystery.”
And the third said: “I don’t agree with you, you’re both wrong. It’s the legs, the way a woman walks, the line of her legs, the marbling of her legs, which gives beauty and femininity.”
One elderly woman listened to their argument very seriously, then proudly lifted her nose and said: “I have to get out of here before one of you boys tells the truth!”
A woman is not a philosopher, she has no theories - she knows.
A religious person has an intuitive grasp, but it is not the mind, it is his whole essence. He feels rather than knows, and the feeling hits right at the center. So remember one thing: through philosophy you will never get to the truth, you will just beat around the bush.
Omar Khayyam said in his Rubaiyat: “When I was young, I often met a doctor and a saint. They argued and argued, and I came out of the same door that I entered.” He visited so many philosophers, so many saints, but they kept talking and talking, and he had to go out through the same door.
Nothing is achieved, only life is wasted. The sooner you become alert, the better. The sooner you become conscious and drop the trap of philosophy, the better, because life will not wait for you and your theories, it moves quickly. Death will come soon and you will die with your hands full of theories, but they will not help, they are just dead ashes.
Chuang Tzu says: live, don't think! This is what those who have learned have already said: live, don’t think! Drop thoughts, become the essence, your totality is needed.
It is good that for science you use your head, and for art you use your heart, but for religion you are needed in all your universality. If the head functions on its own, it produces dry theories; if the heart functions on its own, it creates fictions, dreams. Your totality is needed, and when you function totally, you reach the total, which is the universe, you become the same, because only like can know like. If you become total in your small circle, then the totality of the infinite circle, Brahman, is ready to receive you. This is one thing.
The second thing we will look at before we get into this parable is that this mind is always conditioned. It cannot be unconditioned, the Essence is unconditioned, the mind is conditioned. The mind is trained by the society you live in, trained by the experiences you have gone through, so a frog has a frog mind, he lives in a well, this is his whole universe.
And you also have a frog mind, because you also live in a well - the well of Hinduism, the well of Islam, the well of Christianity or Judaism. And you have boundaries. They may be invisible, but then they are even more dangerous, because a visible boundary you can jump over more easily, but an invisible boundary... you never feel that they are there, so they cling to you. It is easier for a frog to jump out of his well than for you to jump out of your Hinduism or Christianity. It's difficult because the well is invisible.
The frog lives in a specific well, and it can jump out of it. You live in a well that you carry with you. It is like the climate that always surrounds you, it is your invisible personality. Wherever you go, you carry your well with you, you remain in it. Whatever you see, you see it through him.
All interpretations come from conditioning, and only one who is unconditioned can know the real, can know the true. A Hindu cannot know God, a Christian cannot know, a Jew cannot know either, because these are minds. Only one who has realized that he is not a Hindu, not a Mohammedan, not a Christian - only he can know.
An Indian cannot know the truth, a Japanese cannot know the truth, a Chinese cannot know the truth, because truth has no boundaries. Nationality creates conditioning, so it has to be dropped. One must become absolutely naked before the truth - without clothes, without conditioning: neither Hindu, nor Indian, nor Mohammedan, nor Chinese, just the essence - the pure essence that clings to nothing. Then you have come out of the well, and if you cling to the well, how can you reach the ocean? And if you carry the conditioning of the well, then even if the ocean is there, you will not believe it, you will not see it, because your eyes will be closed and will not see its infinity. They can only know that which is limited, like a well.
The third thing to remember is that the mind always wants to live with those who are lower than you, and it is always afraid of those who are higher. So everyone is looking for shorter friends, wife, husband, just shorter than you, because that way you can feel superior.
There is a proverb in India that a camel can never go to the Himalayas. If he comes close to the Himalayas, what will happen to the ego? That's why you run when the ego is afraid. If you come to Buddha you will run away, because a camel never wants to go to the Himalayas. You like your desert because, after all, you are someone in it.
Bernard Shaw is reported to have said: "If I am not first in heaven, I would not like to go there. Even hell is preferable if I am first there. If I am second in heaven, it is not for me." It says something about you. Just think, will you be at peace in paradise, where you are not the first and cannot be? After all, Jesus will be there, Buddha will be there - they have already taken the queue, and you will only be far behind. But there is a possibility in hell that you will be first - and that is easier.
You may be in misfortune, but you would like to be the first, the most important, someone, you would not want to be blissful and no one. And this is the problem: only those who are nobodies can be blessed; only those who are "someones" will always be in unhappiness, because the very feeling that "I should be someone" creates unhappiness. Then you are in competition and conflict, and everyone is in constant tension, everyone else is an enemy. And the mind is always looking for someone lower, it surrounds itself with those who are lower. Then you become the most.
Look at this trend. If she persists, you will fall and fall and there will be no end to it. Always seek something greater than yourself if you are truly seeking truth, for truth is the highest. If you seek the inferior, then eventually you will end up with the ultimate lie.
If you really want to go to God, then seek the highest, but then you must be humble, then you must bow, then you must submit. This is a problem for the ego, for the mind. The mind tends to seek the lower, that is why the mind cannot reach the highest, highest peak of life. Mind ends up in hell, mind is hell and no-mind is heaven.
Now we will try to penetrate into this beautiful parable.
"The autumn flood has come. Thousands of wild ones" poured furiously into the Yellow River. She became agitated and flooded her banks so much that, looking through her, you could not tell whether there was a bull or a horse on the opposite bank. Then the River God laughed. enjoying the thought that all the beauty of the world came under his power.
So he swam downstream until he reached the Ocean. There he looked over the waves running towards the empty horizon in the east, and his face fell.
Looking at the distant horizon, he came to his senses and murmured to the God of the Ocean: “The proverb is true. He who has a hundred thoughts thinks that he knows more than anyone. So am I. Only now I see what is meant by space!”
The Yellow River is one of the greatest rivers in the world and one of the most dangerous. And of course, when the river overflows in the autumn flood and thousands of streams, small rivers and rivulets flow into it, when it overflows, it itself becomes a small ocean. And the River God thought: now no one can be compared with me and all the beauty of the world has come under my power. Now I am limitless, incomparably limitless, there is no one who is also limitless.
This is what happens to every ego: every ego is a Yellow River. When you are a child, it is a small stream at the very source, not very big, not limitless. Then streams flow into it, you gain more experience, knowledge, certificates, money, fortune, prestige, respect. You go on collecting, thousands of streams flow in - the river becomes wider and wider, bigger and bigger. This is the autumn flood that comes when we are young - then you will imagine that no one can compare with you, that you are incomparable. Then you are filled with ego, inflated.
Anyone in their youth becomes puffed up - this is the autumn flood. And then he thinks: now the beauty of the whole world has fallen at my feet. Ask anyone, but whatever he says, don't listen, just watch how he speaks. He may say that he is a humble person, but look into his eyes - he says: “I am the most humble person, no one can compare with me.” He may say that he is not as wonderful as the others, but look, he expects you to contradict, saying “no, you are wrong,” and if you agree and say, “yes, you are right,” you have another enemy. He was diplomatic. What he wanted to say was something else, but he wanted to hear it from you yourself.
In youth, everyone is a flood, and then the whole worldview is shaded and decorated by the ego, then you walk, talk, enter into relationships, but everything is shaded, decorated by the ego. Of course, many misfortunes happen because you think of yourself as something you are not, and you believe in the shadow. Soon the flood will stop - autumn cannot last forever. You will become old, the streams will no longer flow into you, the tributaries will dry up, banks will appear, summer will come, and this seemingly boundless Yellow River will become a small stream. You can become just a dry sandy riverbed and nothing more.
This happens in old age. Then you feel angry, deceived, as if existence has deceived you. Nobody deceived you, you just stupidly exalted yourself. Your ego has created the whole problem and now you feel deceived. You will not be able to find a man who is old and yet happy, but if you find one, live with him - he is a wise man. You may find happy young people, but that is nothing. If you can find a happy old man, that's something. When summer has come and there is no more autumn flood, and the old man is happy, it means he knows something else, he has found some eternal source.
When you are young you have to dance until you drop, it is nothing, it is just a flood. When you are old and everything has been taken away from you, no one even remembers you, no one cares about you, no one pays attention, you are out of the game, thrown out like trash, like garbage - and yet you are happy...
Buddha said that when you find an old man who is as happy as a young man, there is something in him. Bow before him, listen to him and learn from him. In India it was a tradition that if you found a happy, dancing old man, you had to recognize him as a master. He must go to the forest. he must create around himself a small university, a gurukul, a master's household, and students must begin to arrive there from all over the country.
In India we never make a young man a teacher, only an old man can be a teacher, and that is right. There may be exceptions, but in general this is correct. Only an old man can be a teacher, only one who has lived through all periods of life, who has experienced these periods and remains happy and blissful. There is nothing special in being a flood and happy, it is ordinary, but to be happy and ecstatic when the flood is almost gone, when only sand remains, when the body is just ruins...
To be alive at the pinnacle of life and to dance is nothing, but when death approaches and you go on dancing to meet it, then it is something, then the rare has happened, then the extraordinary has entered the world of the ordinary, then the divine has entered.
If you are happy because you are young, you will not be happy for long; soon your happiness will fade. And if you become conscious before it fades, that is good, that is beauty: if you can be sad while you are still young, you will be happy when you are old. Otherwise you will become sad because now it is just an ordinary flood. If you look at it, it is not you, it is thousands of streams flowing into you that give you the impression that you are boundless. Soon what has been given to you will be taken away from you, and if you can be happy when everything has been taken away from you, only then will your happiness be unshakable. Then your happiness became bliss. This is the difference between happiness and bliss.
Happiness depends on others - on a thousand flowing streams, but bliss depends only on you, it is independent, it has no conditions to be fulfilled, it is unconditional, it is simply because of you, there is no causality in it, nothing causes it. If you are happy with your girlfriend, your friend, your lover, then something is the reason for your happiness. Soon the ego will be taken away, as this is just an autumn flood. The seasons change, the wheel of life continues to turn - it will all be taken away.
What has a cause cannot be forever: what has no cause can be forever. Remember this always when you are happy; remember... does it have a reason or is it without a reason? If it has a reason, then it is better to be sad, as it will be taken away. It is already happening, it is already leaving you, and sooner or later you will realize that it is gone. Because causality is part of the fluid world, this world that the Hindus called maya, this illusion that lasts like a dream, and if you believe in it, it becomes a nightmare. If you don't believe in it, you can drop it - then you can look at the witness, which is unconditioned.
"The River God swam downstream until he came to the Ocean."
You, too, will come to the Ocean one day or another. What is the Ocean? Death is an Ocean, boundless. Life has a source, death has no source. Life has shores; sometimes it overflows and then looks boundless; sometimes it doesn’t overflow, and then it becomes a small stream, but death has no shores, it is oceanic.
And just as every river must come to the ocean, so every river of consciousness must come to death. Wherever you go, whatever path you choose, whatever direction you take, it makes no difference - you will reach the Ocean. The ocean surrounds you on all sides. You will reach death, and next to death all your dreams will fade, everything will be shaken.
So he swam down the river until he reached the Ocean. There he looked over the waves at the empty horizon in the east, and his face fell."
This is how old people become sad: their faces become long, the happiness disappears, the heat, the enthusiasm, the dream - it all just dies. They look and see nothing but the soulless ocean in which they merge and dissolve - they will no longer exist. Every river, as they say, looks back to the days when it was something; looks back before she falls into the ocean, remembers the past, the floods, the autumn, the days when she was something.
But you can't go back. There is no way to go back in time. You need to move on and on, and any river must flow. She breaks down, crying. Go to the ocean and sit next to a river flowing into the ocean - you will feel such sadness in the river!
Every old person, all old people begin to look back. Old people always start to remember the days when they were someone, something, those days when they were loved and respected and honored. They do this over and over again. Just listen to old people and you will hear that they are very tired. Why do you feel they are tired? Why do you feel they are angry? Because they keep repeating the same story of the old days. They always start with the good old days. Why kind? Why aren't they any good now?
No old man can believe that the days are good now - no, they always were like that in the past, in the golden past, the good old days when things were like this and that. It is not a question of things or economic position or political position - nothing like that. They were young and everything was fine. They were a spill.
It so happened that the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court visited Paris after he retired. He was there once, 30 years ago. His old wife was also with him. Looking at Paris for two or three days, he became very sad and said: “We have been looking forward to this, to come and see Paris, but nothing looks the same anymore.” The wife laughed and said: “Everything is the same as before, only we are not young. Paris remains the same.”
But now other rivers are in autumn flood. Your summer time has come, and when you are old, how can Paris be the same as it was when you were young? Paris is a symbolic city of joy for youth. There are cities of different seasons: Varanasi is a city of old people, Paris is a city of youth. Paris gives pleasure, Varanasi renounces.
In India, when people want to die, they go to Varanasi to live there and die there, it is the city of the old, the city of summer. When you grow old, the whole world seems old and dying, but the world remains the same - only you change.
Look and drop your mind, then you are neither young nor old, then there are no seasons, because for the inner spirit there are no seasons, neither autumn, nor summer, nothing. He remains the same, eternal. Otherwise, when your river comes to the ocean, your face will become long, you will become sad - sad and burdened with old memories, thinking about the past, because now there is no future.
A child never thinks about the past, because for him there is no past. The child is fresh, a clean slate. Things are being written on it, but nothing has been written yet. He cannot move back, he always thinks about the future. Ask a child: he always thinks about how to grow up - grow up quickly and quickly, how to become like daddy. And he doesn't know what's happening to daddy, he doesn't know what trouble daddy is in. He wants to become strong, tall, strong, someone - and faster. He would like a miracle to happen: to fall asleep in the evening and wake up in the morning as an adult. Every child thinks about the future. Childhood thinks about the future, because for childhood there is an extension into the future.
To live 70 years that no one has lived before. There is no past, which is why the child has few memories. If a child gets angry, he immediately forgets about it, he can immediately laugh, since he does not have much of the past that can be a burden. He forgets about the past, since all his energy is directed towards the future. He can't look back, no child looks back.
A young man in his youth remains in the present, he is right in the middle: he lives here and now. There is no need to go into the past, because the present is so beautiful: it is so spread out, it is so high. There is no need to go to the future, because the future cannot be better than this.
There are old countries like old people. For example, India is an old country; it always thinks about the past, about ancient centuries. There are young countries, for example the USA: she lives here and now, just in this moment. There are young countries, for example, China. This is now a young country, revived: it is looking to the future, a lot is happening, soon the world will become a utopia.
Countries live just like people. Young people live in the present: everything is so good, nothing could be better, but this cannot last forever. Soon the days of old age come, and old people think about the past. The mind is either in the past, or in the present, or in the future, since the past, present and future are, all three, parts of the mind. They are not parts of time, but parts of the mind, and when you drop the mind, you are in eternity: it is neither past, nor present, nor future. You have surpassed all three, and then there are no more seasons for you. Then you are sad in your joy and joyful in your sorrow. Then you are old in your youth and young in your old age. Then you are a child at the time of death and an old man at the time of birth.
It is said that Lao Tzu, the master of Chuang Tzu, was born old, at the age of 80, and remained in his mother's womb for 80 years. This is a wonderful story. And they say that he was born an old man with a white beard and white hair, snow-white. This is the other side of the coin.
Jesus says: if you become like children again, you will enter the Kingdom of God. This is one aspect. Lao Tzu is another aspect. He says: if you are born old, you have already entered. But this is the same thing, but for the mind it is a problem that needs to be understood: one who is born old will be a child when he dies. If you are a child when you are born, you will be an old man when you die. So either become an old man when you are born, which is difficult, very, very difficult, but there are methods for this, or die and then become a child. But both of them are interconnected, since life and death are a circle.
When you die here, you are born somewhere else. If you can die here, being like a child - fresh, unburdened, innocent. - you will be born old because you will be so sophisticated, you will be so wise that you will be old. This is what it means to be wise from the very first moment. If you die fresh and young, you will be born wise, for wisdom happens in the empty and innocent mind, and if you are born wise, old, you will not get involved in the usual stupidity that everyone does, and you will remain fresh, young. Then there is no death.
So a sage is born only once, all other lives are just preparations. He can return only once before his final union with the universe, before his mahanirvana he can come only once.
If you die almost as a child, you will be born again one day, but you will be born as an old man. He will be wise from the first day: and then there will be no more birth, then you will achieve a state without birth and without death.
“Looking at the distant horizon, he came to his senses and murmured to the God of the Ocean: that’s right, the proverb is true. He who has a hundred thoughts thinks that he knows more than anyone else. So am I. Only now I see what is meant by space!”
When you come to one who is higher than you, when you come to the man of the Tao, only then do you understand what it means to be wise, what it means to be intelligent, what it means to be mature, what it means to be developed, what it means to be truly conscious, total, integrated. When you come to the enlightened one, only then do you really feel what it means to be here at all. Before this you moved in your sleep, in the shadows, you had never been in the open air. You have been living in dark caves, ego caves.
"The Ocean God answered: can you talk about the sea with a frog in a well?"
This is impossible because the languages are different. The frog in the well speaks the language of the well.
You may have heard this story. One day a frog came from the ocean and jumped into the well. She encountered a frog in the well and it asked, “Where did you come from?” She said, "I came from the ocean."
The well frog asked: “Is it bigger than this well?”
Of course, there was distrust in her eyes, doubt in her mind: how could anything be greater than this well where I live?
The ocean frog laughed and replied: “It’s very difficult to say.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru