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| | | Book Name: Zen - The Solitary Bird, Cuckoo of the Forest | Previous Next | |
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like all intellectuals of the world, the questioner is asking without understanding, without experiencing. The question is coming out of intellect, not out of inner experience. Out of inner experience such a question cannot arise.
When there is no thought, nothing arises -- neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong. One simply rejoices in oneself. But because he has asked, UMMON REPLIED, "MOUNT SUMERU!"
I will have to explain to you ... Mount Sumeru is a mythological mountain in paradise. It is all gold. Our Himalaya is nothing in comparison to it; it is millions of times bigger, just pure gold. It is a mythology, it is not a fact. But the mythology has a certain meaning, that's why Ummon replied, "When there is not a single thought, you have entered into paradise. You will be facing Mount Sumeru, the golden peaks spread from end to end over the whole universe."
Mount Sumeru is accepted by Buddhist mythology, Hindu mythology, Jaina mythology -- all the three religions born in this country have accepted the story of Mount Sumeru. It will be good for you to understand what is the purpose of Mount Sumeru. The purpose is that only chakravartins -- and a chakravartin is an emperor who has conquered the whole world -- are allowed to sign their names on Mount Sumeru when they enter into paradise.
One great emperor died with a great desire, because there is nothing greater than signing your signature on Mount Sumeru. It was the tradition of those times that the wife of a man who died would commit sati, and the kings used to have many wives, not just one. All the wives had to commit sati -- sometimes a hundred women, sometimes five hundred women. Krishna had sixteen thousand women! So it was a massacre; whenever an emperor died, hundreds of living women ....
When this emperor reached the gates of heaven with his hundreds of wives who had died with him on the funeral pyre, the gatekeeper said to him, "You take these instruments and sign on Sumeru, but don't take anybody else with you."
The emperor said, "These are all my wives, and what is the point of signing on Sumeru if there is nobody even as a witness? I want all my wives
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