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Main Index
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have any eyes, even the greatest of poets cannot give you an inkling of what a rainbow is; it is impossible.
Sufis don't believe in thinking: they believe in seeing.
You must have heard the famous saying: Seeing is believing. That's just what Sufis say. They say: Seeing is believing.
A famous Sufi saying is: He who knows others is learned -- he who knows himself is wise. To be learned is easy; to be wise takes guts, courage. Why? Why in the world does one need to be courageous to know oneself? There are reasons.
The first reason is: there is a fear that if you go in, you may not find anybody there... and in a way that fear IS right. You are not going to find anybody there. That apprehension is right.
If Naresh goes in, he will not find Naresh there. If Astha goes in, she will not find Astha there. If Sudha goes, she will not find Sudha there. If Viyogi goes, Viyogi will not find Viyogi there. Something is to be found there, but that is indefinable, unname-able. And that something is not your possession: that something is as much yours as everybody else's.
You will find something, but that will be the universal center -- you will not find any individual there, you will not find any ego there. Hence the fear. You will disappear: in self-knowledge you are going to disappear utterly. Hence people talk about it, ask about it, read books about it, but never go in. An unconscious fear prevents their path.
And the modern man particularly is even more afraid. Modern man is often driven to despair because he is afraid that the self does not exist at all, or that the self is a *Capekan machine, Skinnerian robot, a Kafkan cockroach, an Ionescoan rhinoceros, or a Sartrean useless passion. All these fears have exploded on the modern mind.
Who knows? When you go in, you may find the Kafkan cockroach. There is a parable of Kafka:
One morning he wakes up and he finds that he is a cockroach Must be dreaming, must have awakened in a dream. And not only that: the cockroach is upside-down -- just legs, and he can see those legs moving in the air, and he cannot put himself right, and he is on his back. And you can think...
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