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become this -- because unless you become this you will go on missing your fulfillment. Unless you become a great tree which has come to its foliage, flowers and fruits -- which is fulfilled -- you will remain in discontent. Anguish will go on gnawing in your heart, misery will linger around you. Bliss will be only a word, signifying nothing. God will be just gibberish.
When you have fulfillment then there is grace and then there is God. In your fulfillment you come to realize the benediction of existence.
This is a song of meditation. Hakuin has called it 'song' -- yes, it is a song. If meditation is without a song it is do and dead -- it does not beat it does not breathe. It is a song and a dance: sing it and dance it. Just don't think upon it -- then you will miss the messages you will miss its content. You will find this song and its meaning only when you are singing and dancing. When the music of life has overtaken you, has possessed you.
Hakuin's song is so small and yet so vast, it is unbelievable. How can a man condense so much truth and so much love and so much insight into so few words? But Hakuin was a man of few words, a man of silence. For years he would not speak at all, and then he would speak a word or two.
Once the Emperor of Japan invited him to deliver a sermon in the palace. And the queen and the king and the prime minister and the ministers and the high officials and the generals, they all had gathered with great respect to listen. Hakuin came, stood there for a single moment, looked around, and left the hall. The king was puzzled. He asked his prime minister, 'What is the Matter with this man? We had come to listen.' The old prime minister said, 'This is the greatest sermon that I have ever heard. He has said it! You had asked him to come and teach you about silence. He has taught it! He stood there in silence, he WAS silence. What more do you ask? What more do you demand? He was pure silence, standing there for those few seconds. He was utter silence. He was silence, throbbing, pulsating. But you were looking to hear some words.'
But about silence nothing can be said. And all that is said about silence will
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