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Zen's
Zenith of Zest
“Once-a-week
Zen is just about as useless as once-a-week Yoga. The
Science of the Soul is a way of life and must permeate
your thought and action for twenty-four hours of every
day. Eat less, sleep less and meditate the more. You
will not find it in societies and classes but only
within. No guru can help you unless he is a Realized
Soul- a Buddha himself. Only the awakened should be
the guides to awaken others. Otherwise you are trying
to buy purgatives from constipated doctors. Now that
someone has already written "Teach Yourself Zen", we
are but a short time away from someone who will start
teaching Zen by correspondence courses. Then tapes and
gramophone records. While there are worms there will
always be cunning birds looking for them.
Let us muse and meditate a while on the world of
relative comparisons. A Hebrew, Christian or Muslim
fanatic will become most aggressively insane if he
feels his scripture is insulted. He will die to defend
the name of his God and fight those who deny it. On
the other hand Zen, not only lampooned itself, but
ridiculed those who took the religious tradition and
substratum too seriously. Yoga-Vidya went a step
further and cracked relativity wide open. Sri Sukodev,
the naked yogi, warned his disciples in the following
way. "The Supreme Absolute is in all things and
manifests as all characteristics and is represented in
various ways in all religious systems and presented by
learned people, but they are all under the influence
of delusion (maya) and so it remains unknown to them".
The Absolute, through the mouth of Krishna as Guru,
says, "What theory is it possible to maintain when all
are based on My illusion (maya) ?' Speaking of the
very life-blood of Hinduism, the manifestations and
Avatars of the Supreme Reality, which millions
worship, "I have indicated to you, in brief, all these
manifestations of the Absolute but you must know them
to be nothing but the fancy of the imagination --mere
words, unreal".
Also speaking of Gods and Avatars, Ugrasrava Suta
says; "The descents and deeds of the Absolute are
likewise illusionary, for the Absolute is changeless
and has neither birth nor action". . . .
As Sri Dattatreya taught about 4000 years ago, "'It is
spontaneous and comes of itself". It cannot come to
"normal" people, because the civilized "normal" man is
so artificial. He will strive for something and make
efforts which prove to be obstacles. He will try to
reason, debate, memorize and wrangle to improve his
knowledge and the Essence only gets further and
further away. To become natural and stop reasoning and
calculating often proves to be impossible because he
has been conditioned and educated that way. He is
always tempted to seek knowledge from someone he
thinks has studied more and read more books than
himself. This leads to more confusion.
The Master Ma-Tzu summed this up by saying:
"Cultivation is an obstacle for attaining the Tao. All
you can do is become free from defilements
(conditionings). When the mind is tainted with
thoughts of life and death or intentional action, they
are defilements. Grasping the Truth is a quality of
everyday mindedness. Everyday mindedness (spontaneity)
is free from intentional action, free from the
concepts of right and wrong, taking and giving, the
finite or the infinite. All our daily activities
should be natural responses to situations as we deal
with all circumstances when they arise. All this is
Tao".
The time will soon come when the simple expression Zen
will have common usage, and be used in a general sense
to express the essence of a new freedom, previously
unknown in the West. Hitherto, the Western approach to
Zen has been much too conventional as it has been
presented as an orderly, scrupulously clean and neat
temple and monastic life with strict disciplines. None
of this is really Zen and it can have no outward forms
or patterns Most of the ancient Indian gurus were more
Zen than much which is found today in Japanese
temples. The same is also true of the celebrated
dropouts of European history, not to mention many of
the tramps and hobos of Europe and America. Zen can
have no fixed patterns and it is a Truth which needs
no robes. Japanese Zen is too much entangled in
Confucian and other ethics. The real Masters are the
hermits, vagabonds, and disembodied rogues who live in
nature's wilds, blown about like leaves in the wind.
Thus Zen must be the simplest of all simple patterns.
It can have no methods beyond the spontaneity of
natural people. It cannot be preached, for there is
nothing to preach. It is the Golden Flower beyond
explanation or definition. Children and insane
vagabonds are nearer to Zen than most of the people
who call themselves Zen masters. Its real history and
records are written in the trees, plants and stones,
and its only temples and monasteries are the hills,
mountains, rivers and clouds. It belongs to nature and
to natural man. You will not find it in the cities
because it cannot live or survive there.
The first approach to Zen is the first approach to the
Absolute Reality. It means you are already Zen just as
you are also Supreme Reality. It is only ignorance and
delusion of maya which prevents you seeing this. Stop
reading newspapers, listening to radio and watching
television. Worry not about what you wear or how you
are dressed. Stop planning and living in the delusions
of a vague future. Live only in the bliss and
detachment of the present moment. Cease holding
opinions and being well-informed. If you sincerely
seek the Absolute, remember only verse 13 of the Book
of Ashes:
All the materials of
the higher path,
All the foundations for spiritual gain,
All and everything to attain the goal
Are sleeping latent in the human frame.
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ?”
Shri Gurudev Mahendranath Paramahams (Dadaji) (www.clas.ufl.edu)
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