标题: The Turning Point 9, 1981年萨能问答二 第四个问题-关于寻求帮助 [打印本页] 作者: Sue 时间: 2009-12-22 12:15 标题: The Turning Point 9, 1981年萨能问答二 第四个问题-关于寻求帮助
4th QUESTION: I have studied, been to Asia, discussed with people there, I have tried to penetrate beyond the superficiality of religions into something I feel in my bones although I am a logical man, something profoundly mysterious and sacred. And yet I don't seem to apprehend it. Can you help me?
It depends with whom you have tried to discuss. Shall we go on with this question? You are not tired?
那得看你曾经试图跟谁讨论这个问题。我们要继续这个问题吗？你们不累吗？
One wonders why you go to Asia at all, except for trade. Perhaps people who go there for religious purposes are also trading - you give me something, I will give you something. One questions why go to the East at all. Is truth there and not here? Is truth to be found through people, through a guru, through a path, through a system, through a prophet, through a saviour? Or truth has no path? There is a marvellous story in India of a boy who leaves home in search of truth. He goes to various teachers, to various parts of that country, walking endlessly, every teacher asserting something or other. And after many years as an old man he comes back to his house after searching, searching, searching, asking, meditating, taking certain postures, breathing rightly, fasting, no sex, and all that. At the end of the time he comes home to his old house. As he opens the door there it is! The truth is just there. You understand? You might say, "It wouldn't have been there if he hadn't wandered all over the place." That's a cunning remark but you miss the beauty of that story if you don't see that truth is not to be sought after. Truth is not something to be attained, to be experienced, to be held. It is there for those who can see it, but as most of us are everlastingly seeking, moving from one fad to another fad, from one excitement to another excitement, sacrificing - you know all the absurdities that go on, we think that time will help us to come to this. Time will not.
So the question is: I am a logical man, something profoundly mysterious, sacred I feel exists. I cannot apprehend it. I can understand it, I can logically see it, but I cannot have it in my heart, in my mind, in my eyes, in my smile. The questioner says, "Help me". If one may point out something, don't ask for help from anybody, because the whole history of man is in you, the whole travail, the mystery - if there is a mystery. Everything man has struggled, sought, found, denied, illusion, all that is part of your consciousness. When you ask for help, forgive me if I point this out, most respectfully, not cynically, if you ask for help you are asking something from outside, from another. How do you know the other has that quality of truth? Unless you have it you will never know whether he has it or not.
So the first thing is, please, I am saying this with great affection, care, please don't ask for help. Then if you do the priests, the gurus, the interpreters, all of them pour on you and you are smothered. Whereas if you look at the problem, the problem is this: man throughout the ages has sought something sacred, something that is not corrupted by time, by slow time, by all the travails of thought. He has sought it, longed for it, sacrificed, tortured himself physically, fasted for weeks, and he has not found it. So somebody comes along and says, "I'll show it to you, I'll help you." Then you are lost. Whereas if you say: is there something sacred? The mystery only exists because it is mysterious, but if you uncover it, it is no longer a mystery. Truth isn't a mystery, it is something far beyond all concept of mystery.
So is it possible for a man - listen to the question first - for a man who has studied a great deal, various aspects of religion, of the East and the West, accumulated a great deal of knowledge both in the scientific world, the Left and the Right, the Marx, etc. etc. read all that. There are lots of people who have read that and their brains are crowded. We used to know an author and he used to say to me that, "I know all the Asiatic religious thought, the Christian thought, 'The Cloud of the Unknown', the various mystics of Europe, and so my brain is full of other people's knowledge. And can I ever experience something totally original?" - you understand? The cry of such a human being who is desperately wanting something - not wanting - seeing something, this is not enough. Then what do they do? They take to drugs hoping to experience that something original. It is not a chemical product that is going to produce that originality.
So, what is one to do? What am I to do - I am asking as though an outsider - I am asking, what am I to do, knowing I am a serious man, I am human, I can laugh, I can shed tears, but I am a serious man. And I have superficially enquired into all the aspects of religion, and I recognise their superficiality, therefore I have discarded them, whether the superficiality of the gurus, the churches, the temples, the mosques, all the preachers in the world, because if I see one actual state of religious aspect of superficiality I have seen the whole lot of them. I don't have to go through them all. So what am I to do? Is there anything to be done? Who is the doer? And what is it that is being done? Are you following all this? Please follow all this, step by step, if you are interested in it. If you can discard all your superficiality with your garlands, pictures, you know, all that nonsense, if you can discard all that and stand alone, because one has to be alone. The word 'alone' means all one. Solitude is one thing, all alone is one. Solitude has in it the quality of loneliness, you can walk alone in the forest and be alone, or you can walk in the forest feeling that you are in solitude. That feeling is totally different from the feeling you are alone. Now what am I to do? I have meditated. I have followed different systems, slightly and I recognize their superficiality. I must tell you another story, if you don't mind.
We were speaking in Bombay, enormous crowd and so on. And the next day a man came to see the speaker. He was an old man, white haired, white beard. He told me the following story: he was one of the important judges in India, an advocat, a judge, highly placed, family, children, respected and all that stuff. And one morning he said to himself: "I pass judgement over others, criminals, swindlers, robbers, business robbers, political robbers and so on. I pass judgement, but I don't know what truth is so how can I pass judgement if I don't know what truth is?" This man who came to see me was telling me. And so he withdrew. That is one of the old traditions in India, highly regarded, respected, he withdrew from his family, went into the forest to meditate. This is the tradition in India still that when a man renounces the world he must be clothed, respected, fed, wherever he wanders in India. It is not an organized society of monks. He is alone. So he withdraws into a forest and he said that for twenty five years he meditated. And after hearing the speaker the other evening he said, "I have come to see you. I have come to say how deeply I have hypnotized myself, how in this hypnosis I have deceived myself." For a man who has meditated for twenty five years, to acknowledge that he has deceived himself - you understand the nature of a human being that says that. Not just these monks.
So what am I, who have a certain amount of leisure, serious, not following anybody - because if you follow anybody that is the end of it. Please see all this that I am saying. It is the end of your penetration into that which is eternal. You have to be completely a light to yourself, not depend on anybody. Their initiations, their garlands, nobody. Otherwise you cannot be a light to yourself. So I realize I must be a light to myself. I don't follow. I don't do any worship, any ritual, and yet that which is eternal is eluding me. It is not in my breath, in my eyes, in my heart. So what am I to do?
First of all can the brain be free of the centre which is me? You understand my question? Can my brain be free of myself, the self, whether that self is super self, ultra, ultra, ultra super, it is still the self. Is there total dissipation of selfishness, to put it very simply? Selfishness, the self-centre is very cunning - it can think it is escape from all selfishness, from all concern about its own entity, its own becoming, and yet very subtly, deeply it is putting out a tentacle - you understand all this? So one has to discover for oneself whether there can be complete and total freedom from all selfishness, which is all self-centred activity - right? That is meditation. To find out a way of living in this world, without being selfish, self-centred, egotistic activity, egocentric movement. If there is a shadow of that, a movement of that, then you are lost. So one has to be tremendously aware of every movement of thought. That is very easy, don't complicate it. When you are angry, for the moment you do not know even that feeling. But when you examine it you can observe the arising of it - right? The arising of greed, the arising of envy, the arising of ambition, aggression, as it arises to watch it, not at the end of it, as it is arising, as you watch it, it withers away. You understand? So the brain can be aware of the arising of a thought. The awareness of the arising of thought is attention, not to smother it, destroy it, put it away, but just the feeling that - don't you know the feeling of hunger when it arises? Obviously you do. Or your sexual feeling, as it arises to be completely aware of it. So the awareness, the attention of the movement of the 'me', my desire, my ambition, my egotistic pursuit, when one is aware as it arises, it withers away. That is absolutely necessary so that there is not a particle, a shadow of this 'me', because the 'me' is separate. I went into all that. So that is the first thing I have to understand. Not control my body, special breathing, yoga - you know all those - you wash your hands of all those.
Then to have a brain that is not partial - right? You understand? That is not acting partially but whole. I do not know if you have gone into this. I am talking so long. I must be brief.
那么就拥有了一个不偏颇的头脑-对不对？你明白吗？不是部分地而是整体地行动。我不知道你是否曾经探询过这些。我说的时间太长了。我得简短点。
We pointed out the other day that we are functioning not with all our senses, but only partially. The partiality, the narrowness, emphasizes the self - of course. I am not going to go into it in detail, you can see it for yourself. But when you observe the mountain, the trees, the rivers, the blue sky, the person whom you love or whatever it is, with all your senses there is no self. There is no me that is feeling all of it. So that means a brain that is not functioning as a dentist, as a scholar, or a labourer, as a super astronomer, but functioning in the whole of your brain. That can only take place when the brain is completely quiet. So no shadow of self and absolute silence of the mind, quietness, not emptiness - that gives a wrong meaning. Most people's brains are empty anyhow! But to have a brain that is not occupied with anything, including god, meditation, with nothing. Only then the brain is silent, full of vitality and that brain has a great sense of love, compassion, which is intelligence. Right?
