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THEN BANSHO WAS GIVEN THE SAYING OF CHOSHA'S TO CONTEMPLATE ON: "TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH."

It is a very strange statement of Chosha's.

"TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH." What does it mean?

It means, remember you are carrying five elements in your body: the earth, the air, the fire, the sky, the water. These are the five elements that make your body. Chosha is saying, "Return these elements back to their sources, and then see whether something is left behind."

Yes, something is left behind. That something is your consciousness. It is not a by-product of your body, it is a totally different phenomenon than the material world. Once you have tasted something of consciousness, awareness, alertness, you will not be afraid of death; you know it can happen only to the dead body, it cannot happen to your living sources of consciousness. They are in the body, but they don't belong to the body.

Chosha's statement was given to Bansho to meditate on:

"TURN YOURSELF BACK INTO MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND EARTH."

FOR SIX MONTHS BANSHO MET WITH NO SUCCESS AND SHOMOKU MADE THE COMMENT, "I ONLY HOPE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER."

What went wrong?

He was too much in a hurry, he became too tense about the matter, too serious about the matter, and realizing your being is not a serious matter at all. It comes to you in utter relaxation, a non-tense state of being, in a playfulness.

Never make your meditation a serious affair, otherwise you are going to miss it. Be playful about it.

I am the first person who is saying that.

All the religions have been telling you to be serious. That's why they have killed millions of people, destroyed their spirituality, made them tense, anxiety-ridden, sick unto death. And in the effort to find their innermost being, people have been doing all kinds of unnecessary ascetic practices, which are nothing but masochistic torture.

I teach you playfulness.

It is your being.

Even if you want to lose it, you cannot lose it.

What is the hurry?

And what is the seriousness?

Just be playful, lightweight.

Bansho missed because of his great effort to find the innermost core of his being. Effort is a barrier.

Effortlessness...

Just sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

That grass you should not misunderstand. Basho is saying: You just sit silently, unworried, effortlessly, doing nothing. When the time is ripe means when your tensions have all gone... the spring comes, and your being grows by itself. You don't have to do anything; it simply explodes into a tremendous revolution. All that was junk in you is burnt, and all that was truth in you, the pure twenty-four-karat gold, comes shining with a great splendor.

But it happens only in a relaxed state, in a let-go. This is one of the most difficult problems.

People who are seekers are in a hurry. They want it to happen just now. It can happen just now, but you are preventing it by desiring it to happen just now.

Forget all about when it happens. Whenever the right time comes, existence will take care. Enjoy the meditation; don't bother about any conclusion, about any enlightenment. These things are not within your hands, you cannot do anything about them!

The spring comes by itself... and suddenly you find your old personality has melted away, and something absolutely new and fresh is born within you, and it is growing on its own. You are just a watcher - watcher of the death of the old, and watcher of the birth of the new.

But there is no need to be serious. Any seriousness, any effort, any anxiety about being spiritual is the greatest barrier. Just be playful.

I have found myself without any seriousness. Hence, when I say this, I say it on my own authority.

FOR SIX MONTHS BANSHO MET WITH NO SUCCESS AND SHOMOKU MADE THE COMMENT, "I ONLY HOPE YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER."

FINALLY, AFTER A LONG TIME, BANSHO did SUDDENLY HAVE AN INSIGHT.

The anecdote does not say a few things; they have to be understood.

What must have happened that suddenly one day Bansho did have an insight?

Effort has a limitation: you get tired - that is the beauty of effort - otherwise you will never be enlightened. Any kind of effort, any anxiety has a limitation. A moment comes, you say, "Fuck it all!"

That very moment is your enlightenment!

Basho wrote:

THE EVENING HAZE.

THINKING OF PAST THINGS - HOW FAR OFF THEY ARE.

THE EVENING HAZE. THINKING OF PAST THINGS - HOW FAR OFF THEY ARE.

What does Basho mean by this haiku? He is one of the most insightful of Zen masters....

He is saying that what seems to be very important to you today, what is creating so much seriousness in you, so much anxiety in you, won't have any relevance after a few years. It will be far away, miles away, as though perhaps you have seen it in a dream. All the anxiety that it was giving you is lost.

Understanding this, just look backwards: at every point in the past you will find yourself ridden with anxiety, anguish, misery, failure. But now all that has become just writing on the sands. A breeze comes and the whole writing disappears, or a tidal wave comes and takes the whole writing away, leaves behind a fresh sand without any signature.

Basho's intention is that looking at the past you should understand that what is present will become past tomorrow. Don't be so serious. Tomorrow it will not matter at all. And the same is true about your future: never be serious, because everything is going to become past, just like a dream you had seen somewhere. Perhaps you may not even recognize that you were so much troubled.

Basho's statement is that your whole life is just a prolonged dream. Don't take it seriously. Be playful, enjoy it while it lasts. There is no need to renounce it, because those who renounce it take it seriously.

I have always wondered about so-called great philosophers, for example Adi Shankara, who has been thought by the Indians to be the greatest mind in the whole history of man. But that "greatest mind," Adi Shankara, looks so stupid on just a small scrutiny.

He talked about the world being illusory: it is just purely a dream, there is nothing outside, you are projecting it. Still, he could not touch an untouchable.

One morning he was getting ready for his prayer, taking a bath in the Ganges in Varanasi. It was still dark and he was coming back up the steps, and a man touched him and told him, "I am a sudra, an untouchable." Shankara was furious, he forgot all about peace, and "love your enemies."

I have always thought, Why unnecessarily...? First love yourself, then love your friends - because these friends will turn someday into your enemies. Continue loving. Nobody becomes an enemy before becoming a friend, so just go on loving friends and ex-friends, wives and ex-wives. But it is all a dream, your projection.

Shankara, freaking out, denies his own philosophy. The sudra was a strange fellow. He said, "Before you become enraged..."

Shankara said, "I will have to take another bath! It is a cold winter morning, and knowing perfectly well that you are a sudra, why did you touch me? There is no crowd" - and Varanasi has vast ghats with steps. "Only two men... there was no need to touch me."

The old man said, "There was: to make you aware that next time you say the world is illusory, remember me. It is not. You are freaking out at your own projections. You are going to take a bath in a dream river. Just think about your philosophy."

But Shankara is thought to be the greatest philosopher, at least in the Indian heritage. But his philosophy seems to be just mind-oriented. It has no actual experience of awakening. Otherwise, nobody is touchable and nobody is untouchable; just as you are made of bones and flesh, everybody is made of the same stuff. Everybody is made of the same elements.

And for a man like Adi Shankara - who says that everything outside is just a dream - behaving in such a way exposes him, that all his philosophy is just talk. He is articulate enough to talk about things, but it is not his life.

And unless something is your life, your very life, it makes no difference.

Another instance is still more idiotic.

Shankara traveled all over India, challenging other philosophers. One can ask, "Why are you challenging your own projections?" In this dreamlike world, if somebody thinks he is a philosopher, what is the harm? There is nobody, just a phantom, the Holy Ghost. But he went around the country with this philosophy that the world is maya, illusion, hallucination, a mirage.

He reached to Mandla, a small city in central India. It is named after a great thinker, Mandan Mishra.

He was very famous in those parts, and he was the last one to be defeated. Shankara wanted a victory over all the philosophers of this country.

Strange... his philosophy says everything is illusory - and his victory over illusory phantoms is real?

He went there. Before entering the city there was a well, and women were drawing water from the well. He asked them, "Which way do I have to go to find Mandan Mishra's house?"

The women started giggling. They said, "We have heard much about you. You think everything is illusory; to whom are you asking the question? What do you mean by Mandan Mishra's house?

"But if you want to meet another mirage, another illusion, a very learned illusion, you will not find any difficulty. You simply go into the town, and you will find Mandan Mishra's house without any difficulty, because just on the fence of his garden there are hanging many parrots, repeating, reciting the Vedas. They are all great pundits."

Shankara went, and he could not believe it: parrots were reciting Rigveda with such accuracy. He said, "My God! If parrots are doing this, I am getting into a lion's den." But he had to; the desire, the longing, which he was denying in his philosophy, was too heavy on him. He wanted to be victorious over all the philosophers.

It is the same desire as Alexander the Great had, in a different direction. He wanted to be the conqueror of the world, and Shankara wanted to be the conqueror of all the thinkers and philosophers. What is the difference? The desire, the longing is the same. The ego needs the same nourishment.

He entered into the house, a little nervous. And Mandan Mishra had thousands of disciples - he was very old. He received Shankara with great love, welcomed him, knowing perfectly well that he has come to challenge him.

Shankara said, "Do you understand my purpose in coming so far to meet you? You are the last person I have to conquer. I want to challenge you for a long discussion."

Mandan Mishra said, "It is perfectly okay. But do you have a judge who will decide who is the winner?"

Shankara had nobody with him, but he had heard much about Mandan Mishra's wife, Bharti. He had heard that she was as great a thinker as Mandan Mishra, so he said, "There is no problem. Your wife, Bharti, can preside and be the sole judge."

The discussion lasted for six months, and finally Bharti gave the judgment that Shankara had been the winner. And this was the tradition of those days: the one who is defeated becomes the disciple of the one who is the winner. So Mandan Mishra said, "If Bharti says that you are the winner, then I am ready to be your disciple."

But Bharti said, "Wait." In India it is a tradition that a man and a woman are only half and half of one whole - only together are they complete. Bharti said, "Wait. You have won only half of Mandan Mishra; half is still to be defeated. Then we will both become your disciples."

Shankara was amazed. The woman was really courageous: first to declare her husband defeated, and second to prevent Shankara from being victorious until she was defeated. And she was certainly a very clever woman.

Shankara was only thirty-three years of age, and a so-called celibate. I say "so-called" because nobody can be a celibate, it is against nature - unless you are impotent.

Bharti was very clever. She started the discussion, and she asked Mandan Mishra to preside and be the judge. Shankara agreed, but he was not aware what that woman had in her mind. She started talking about sex. Shankara had no notion... at least he pretended that he knew nothing about sex.

Bharti said, "I can give you a few months. You can go and learn about sex and come back again."

Shankara went to his disciples, who were residing in the mountains near Mandla, and he left his body in the care of his disciples.

A king had just died, and Shankara entered the dead king's body to know everything about sex, because the king had many queens. Unless you experience it, it won't be valid before that clever woman, Bharti.

My question is: Why could he not go in his own body? He believed in the body too much. He talked about that the body is just illusory; if it is illusory, then what difference does it make that you enter into a dead man's body and have love affairs with many women to understand the whole science of sex? Why had you not the courage to go in your own body? Why did you make the difference between two illusions, mine and yours?

But as far as I understand, this seems to be just to protect his celibacy. The whole story has been created by the disciples, and supported by him, because it took six months for him - too long really.

Even six days are too much! Anybody who has been married knows: just six days - and Sunday is a holiday! Six months? - it seems he got too much interested!

But this whole story seems to be bogus. And how to protect a dead body, Shankara's body, for six months? There is no indication of any science that Shankara or his disciples knew. In six days the body will start stinking; in six months there will be no Shankara, just a pile of bones, and rotten...

everything rotten ... and cockroaches... and rats, and all kinds of illusory things!

All these so-called great philosophers and thinkers are just clever, articulate, logical, but don't have an authentic experience of life.