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But 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 both knowledge and 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.
The 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."
The society goes on curing normal people. Every child is born normal, remember; then the 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 sizes and shapes of neurosis 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
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