| |
not to know God. The word god is not in itself God. Even if the speaker of the word has known, he cannot pass on his knowing to you. Only the words will reach you, not his experience. The words will become part of your memory. Your memory will become full and dense, a load, and will become a scripture. You will fall in the illusion that you know God because you have heard the word, have read it, and its meaning is given in the dictionary.
But without reaching out to him, how can anyone know God? If it was so simple that God could be known just by referring to a dictionary, there would be no ignorant person left on this earth; everyone would have become a knower. If the etymology and grammar of the word liberation were the key to liberation, everybody would be free, no one would be in bondage. How simple it is to know a word!
So mind, because it is afraid of the journey, creates the illusion. That mind should be afraid of the journey is only natural, because it is going to be a journey into death for it. The one who will set out in search of God will lose himself. But in referring to a dictionary there is no worry about losing oneself, in reciting the scriptures there is no question of losing oneself. But one who seeks enlightenment will disappear, because no enlightenment, no liberation, is possible without disappearance. Basically, it is the 'I' who is the bondage. Then how is enlightenment possible until this 'I' is dissolved?
This 'I' is the wall between oneself and God. Until this wall falls, how can God be experienced? This journey is a journey of death. The seeker has set out to die. But only through dying is the ultimate life attained; only by losing oneself is one found. Because of this, mind is afraid... so it creates illusions and substitutes.
Understand well this law of substitution: to find substitutes is the greatest art of the mind. What is not found in life, mind provides it in dreams.
You are thirsty and fast asleep at night, you are dying of thirst. You will have to wake up. You will have to interrupt your sleep to go and find some water. But no, it is then that mind creates a substitute -- you start dreaming
|
|
|