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BUT I CAUGHT HIM TODAY! INFATUATION FOR SCENERY INTERFERES WITH HIS DIRECTION. LONGING FOR SWEETER GRASS, HE WANDERS AWAY. HIS MIND STILL IS STUBBORN AND UNBRIDLED. IF I WISH HIM TO SUBMIT, I MUST RAISE MY WHIP.
Now there is a difficulty with the word whip. Ordinarily, the association comes to the mind as if you have to be very violent, you have to take the whip in your hands. But in Buddhism the whip is not a repressive symbol, not violent. The whip is simply awareness.
For example: if somebody suddenly comes with a sword to kill you, what happens? In that moment, mind stops. The sword flashes in your eyes, and the mind stops. The moment is so dangerous that you cannot afford the luxury of thinking. Suddenly there is a break: the mind is no longer there, and no-mind arises.
In dangerous situations, spontaneously, meditation happens for a single moment. Again you will be back -- but it happens suddenly. You are driving a car and there is going to be an accident; and a moment, just a moment before, you become aware that now an accident is going to happen -- your brake is not working, or the car is slipping. In that moment all thought stops. Suddenly, you are in a state of meditation, awake, alert. That is the meaning of the whip.
In Zen monasteries, disciples meditate and the master goes on moving with a stick, his staff. And whenever he sees somebody dropping, falling into sleep, he hits hard on the head. A sudden jerk... energy becomes alert, a momentary glimpse. Sometimes satori has happened that way. The master hits hard; you were falling almost asleep... try to understand it. When you are falling asleep, you are on the threshold. From that threshold, two doors open: one door goes into sleep, another door goes into samadhi. That moment is very pregnant. Ordinarily you will fall asleep -- your old routine. But you are on the threshold, and if at that time you can be made alert and aware, your life may have a glimpse of satori, samadhi.
Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, also says that deep sleep is like samadhi, with only one difference: the awareness is not there. In samadhi, you are as deep asleep as in any sleep, but you are alert.
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