how to open, and the fish knows how to swim, and the child knows in the mother’s womb how to grow, and you know how to breathe – even while asleep, even in a coma, you go on breathing – and the heart knows how to beat. This is a totally different kind of knowing, so intrinsic, so internal. It is not acquired, it is natural.
Knowledge is got in exchange for knowing, and when you have knowledge, what happens to knowing? You forget knowing. You have knowledge and you have forgotten knowing. And knowing is the door to the divine; knowledge is a barrier to the divine. Knowledge has utility in the world. Yes, it will make you more efficient, skillful, a good mechanic, this and that. You may be able to earn in a better way. All that is there, I am not denying it. You can use knowledge in this way, but don’t let knowledge become a barrier to the divine. Whenever knowledge is not needed, put it aside and drown yourself in a state of not knowing, which is also a state of knowing, real knowing. Knowledge is got in exchange for knowing and knowing is forgotten. It has only to be remembered – you have forgotten it.
The function of the master is to help you remember it. The mind has to be re-minded, for knowing is nothing but re-cognition, re-collection, re-membrance. When you come across some truth, when you come across a master and you see the truth of his being, something within you immediately recognizes it. Not even a single moment is lost. You don’t think about it, whether it is true or not; thinking needs time. When you listen to the truth, when you feel the presence of truth, when you come into close communion with truth, something within you immediately recognizes it, with no argumentation. Not that you accept, not that you believe, you recognize. And it could not be recognized if it were not already known somehow, somewhere, deep down within you.
This is the fundamental approach of Zen.
“Has your baby brother learned to talk yet?”
“Oh, sure,” replied little Mike. “Now Mommy and Daddy are teaching him to keep quiet.”
Society teaches you knowledge. So many schools, colleges, universities, all devoted to creating knowledge, more knowledge, implanting knowledge in people. The function of the master is just the opposite. What the society has done to you, the master has to undo. His function is basically antisocial, and nothing can be done about it. The master is bound to be antisocial.
Jesus, Pythagoras, Buddha, Lao Tzu, they are all antisocial. Not that they want to be antisocial, but the moment they recognize the beauty of not knowing, the vastness of not knowing, the innocence of not knowing, the moment the taste of not knowing happens to them, they want to impart it to others, they want to share it with others. And that very process is antisocial.
People ask me why society is against me. Society is not against me – I am antisocial. I can’t help it. I have to do my thing. I have to share what has happened to me, and in that very sharing I go against the society. Its whole structure is rooted in knowledge, and the master’s function is to destroy knowledge; to destroy ignorance and to bring you back your childhood.
Jesus says, “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into the Kingdom of God.”
Society, in fact, makes you uprooted from your nature. It pushes you off your center. It makes you neurotic.
Conducting a university course, a famous psychiatrist was asked by a student, “Sir, you have told us about the abnormal person and his behavior, but what about the normal person?”
“When we find him,” replied the psychiatrist, “we cure him.”
Society goes on curing normal people. Every child is born normal, remember; then society cures him. Then he becomes abnormal. He becomes Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Communist, Catholic… There are so many kinds of neurosis in the world. You can choose, you can shop for whatever kind of neurosis you want. Society creates all kinds; all shapes and sizes of neuroses are available, to everybody’s liking.
Zen cures you of your abnormality. It makes you again normal, it makes you again ordinary. It does not make you a saint, remember. It does not make you a holy person, remember. It simply makes you an ordinary person – takes you back to your nature, back to your source.
This beautiful anecdote:
Ascending to the high seat, Dogen Zenji said: “Zen master Hogen studied with Keishin Zenji. Once Keishin Zenji asked him, ‘Joza, where do you go?’
Hogen said, ‘I am making pilgrimage aimlessly.’
Keishin said, ‘What is the matter of your pilgrimage?’
Hogen said, ‘I don’t know.’
Keishin said, ‘Not knowing is the most intimate.’
Hogen suddenly attained great enlightenment.”
Now meditate over each word of this small anecdote; it contains all the great scriptures of the world. It contains more than all the great scriptures contain – because it also contains not knowing.
Ascending to the high seat…
This is just a symbolic, metaphorical way of saying something very significant. Zen says that man is a ladder. The lowest rung is the mind and the highest rung of the ladder is no-mind. Zen says only people who have attained no-mind are worthy enough to ascend to the high seat and speak to people, not everybody. It is not a question of a priest or a preacher.
Christians train preachers; they have theological colleges where preachers are trained. What kind of foolishness is this? Yes, you can teach them the art of eloquence; you can teach them how to begin a speech, how to end a speech. And that’s exactly what is taught in Christian theological colleges. Even what gestures to make, when to make a pause, when to speak slowly and when to become loud: everything is cultivated. These stupid people go on preaching about Jesus, and they have not asked a single question!
Once I visited a theological college. The principal was my friend; he invited me. I asked him, “Can you tell me in what theological college Jesus learned because the Sermon on the Mount is so beautiful, he must have learned in some theological college? In what theological college did Buddha learn?”
Mohammed was absolutely uneducated, but the way he speaks, the way he sings the Koran, is superb. It is coming from somewhere else. It is not education, it is not knowledge. It is coming from a state of no-mind.
Little Johnny was the son of the local minister. One day his teacher was asking the class what they wanted to be when they grew up.
When it was his turn to answer he replied, “I want to be a minister just like my father.”
The teacher was impressed with his determination and so she asked him why he wanted to be a preacher.
“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “since I have to go to church on Sunday anyway, I figure it would be more interesting to be the guy who stands up and yells than the one who has to sit down and listen.”
You can create preachers, but you cannot create masters.
In India, the seat from where a master speaks is called vyasa peetha. Vyasa was one of the greatest masters India has ever produced, one of the ancientmost buddhas. He was so influential; his impact was so tremendous that thousands of books, which were not written by him, exist in his name. Vyasa’s name became so important that anybody who wanted to sell a book would put Vyasa’s name on it instead of putting his own name. Vyasa’s name was guarantee enough that the book
