Chapter 37: #
I am reminded of a Sufi master, Junnaid...
He himself was a very simple man and would not have become world famous except for Al Hillaj Mansoor, his disciple who was crucified. He used to say, the question of right and wrong is the question concerning your consciousness. If you are conscious, then whatever you do, is bound to be right. If you are unconscious, then whatever you do is wrong. The world may appreciate it differently.
For example, a man may donate, give to charities and everybody will say, "How nice, how great, how righteous, how virtuous is this man." If you look into his mind, he is giving to all these charities in order to make a special place in God's bank, so when he reaches the pearly gates, he should be welcomed with angels, and he will have all the comforts. What he is giving, is nothing compared to what he is exploiting. Perhaps one percent... and he becomes a great virtuous man - and ninety nine percent he is exploiting the same people.
Unless one is conscious, absolutely a pillar of consciousness, it is very difficult to do right. Because you are not right, how can the flowers of right arise out of you? So the question to the authentic master changes the whole area. It is not your activity, it is your consciousness. What you do is irrelevant - from where comes the doing? Consciousness or unconsciousness - that is the decisive factor.
Zen has brought a totally different outlook. It is not a morality. It does not emphasize your actions.
The emphasis is on you. You are doing right things for wrong reasons. That will not make them right. Somebody is afraid of hell, and out of fear, he goes to church every Sunday. It is a bother...
listening to the priest, the same Old Testament and the same old garbage which he has listened to so many times. So most of the church goers simply have a good morning sleep in the churches. It is a very religious sleep.
A man used to snore in a church....
The bishop was worried, he took the man aside and told him, "I am not against sleeping, and sleeping is not an irreligious activity, but snoring is a little too much."
The man asked, "Is snoring irreligious?"
He said, "No, I am not saying that snoring is irreligious. I am simply saying that because of your snoring the whole congregation cannot sleep, and that creates many difficult problems. I have only three sermons which I have been giving my whole life. Nobody listens - what is the point? To be original and to find new material... And nobody has ever objected - that is absolute proof that nobody has ever listened. They were all fast asleep. And it is good for me too... unnecessary trouble. And in fact, those three sermons are also not written by me. Those are the three sermons of the previous preacher who has retired. He gave them to me and told me, 'These are enough.
Don't bother to take much trouble. The whole congregation comes to the church to have a good morning sleep. Just don't let anybody snore.'
"You are the most prominent member of the church. Snoring is killing me. If people start listening, it will not be long... it will be only three weeks, before they will come to know that 'this fellow has been repeating the same record.' So please, just for God's sake, sleep as deep as you can, but don't snore."
All the religions have been action oriented. Don't do this, don't do that - they are all commandments.
The question is not of your doing, the question is of your being. Be in a conscious state, then do whatever comes out of your spontaneity - and it is right. If it does not come as a spontaneous conscious response, then even if the whole world says it is good, it is not good. The ultimate criterion is not the action. The ultimate criterion is the origin.
The mind is capable of doing both. It can be a slave, as it is to millions of people. Very rarely is the mind completely free from objects, desires, anger, and just a simple empty space, no-mind.
So we can say it in this way: if you act through mind, it is wrong; if you act through no-mind, it is right.
A haiku by Basho:
BIRTH OF ART - SONG OF RICE PLANTERS, CHORUS FROM NOWHERE.
If you are utterly silent, then everything that happens in that silence, takes a new color. It becomes the birth of very art. "Song of rice planters" - it is not much of a music. Poor rice planters, just to keep them engaged, they are singing in chorus. But a man of silence, immediately makes or gives a glamor to the ordinary stones. "Song of rice planters, chorus from nowhere." As far as he is concerned he is utterly silent, so he wonders from where this chorus is coming. The whole existence has become a chorus, a beautiful symphony. Our lives can be lived as music, as poetry, as art... as mystics. Those are the right ways to live our lives. Right, because to live those styles, you will have to find your origin first.
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