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Main Index
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to knock upon and no one to knock on it! And lo! the door is open. It has remained open all along, from the very beginning. And there is no self to be known, and there is no self-knowledge. Knowing, of course, there is, but nothing like self-knowledge.
That's what the great mystic woman, Rabia, said to Hassan:
Hassan used to pray every day before the mosque, just sitting on the street. And he would cry and he would weep, and he would look at the sky and he would say, "God, open the door! I have been waiting long. Is it not enough? Have I to pass through more tests? Have you not tested me enough? Open the door! I am crying, I am weeping, I am shouting -- open the door!"
That was his constant prayer -- every morning, every evening, wherever he was he would go to the mosque and sit in the street and pray.
Rabia was passing one day. She hit hard on the head of Hassan, and said, "What nonsense are you talking about? The door is open! But you are so much engaged in your shouting 'Open the door! Listen to me Lord. Why are you not opening the door?' You are so much occupied with this nonsense, you can't see that the door is open! It has always been open."
I agree with Rabia... all is available. You need not struggle. You need not even surrender! because surrender is the polar opposite of struggle. You have to be just in the middle. You have to be just in a state of non-doing, neither struggling nor surrendering. And suddenly you will be able to see the door is open. You have never gone anywhere else. You have always been in. Where else can you go? Inwardness is your nature. And then all is revealed like lightning. Suddenly darkness disappears and all is light.
But there is no self to be found. KNOWING happens but it is not a self-knowledge. Hence the fear. Deep down somewhere in the unconscious, you know it perfectly well that "If I go in, I will not find myself. It is better not to go in, so one can go on believing that 'I am'!"
This I is the only barrier. This I is the only ignorance. This I is the only sin.
Now this small, beautiful story:
ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A COW. IN ALL THE WORLD THERE WAS NO ANIMAL
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