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THE CANDLE WAS BROUGHT IN, THE MONK RETREATED AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE ASSEMBLY OF MONKS. There were thousands of monks.
LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN -- two other masters talking about the old days with Yakusan ...
LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN ABOUT THIS, AND TOZAN SAID, "THE MONK KNEW THE TRUTH -- HE JUST DID NOT WANT TO MAKE OBEISANCE TO THE MASTER."
There is every possibility you will misunderstand it. You will think Tozan is saying that the monk knew the truth, but he did not want to touch the feet of the master. You will think he was an egoist. No. A man who knows the truth cannot have the ego. They both cannot exist together, there is no coexistence possible between truth and ego. Then what is the meaning? Why did he disappear?
My understanding is, he disappeared because he did not want even to be recognized, because that desire to be recognized is part of the ego. He did not even want to be grateful to the master. Not that he was not grateful -- he was so grateful that to show it by touching his feet was very miserly.
There was no way to show the gratitude to the master, and he did not want any recognition. He simply disappeared in the crowd, just as inside he had disappeared in the cosmos. He is no more, who is going to touch the feet?
In the darkness it was perfectly okay, because the master could not see him. But when the light was brought in, he simply disappeared.
This anecdote has been misunderstood by the scholars very much. I have seen their commentaries; they all think it was because of his ego. But they don't understand -- scholars cannot understand -- they don't see that the monk knew the truth; how can he have the ego? You can have either the ego or the truth.
Ego is your personality, the truth is your individuality. You have to drop the personality. You have to stand utterly naked before existence. You have to melt down like ice into the ocean of this great divineness all around.
America has not produced any great mystic, it has not produced any great psychoanalyst. But one psychologist, William James -- everything else about him was ordinary, but one thing he brought, a phrase, "oceanic experience."
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