Your analysis is brilliant and exactly matches the way my Guru thinks, sadhguru jaggi vasudev. I would like to ask u one simple qn why are few people spiritual and why are few people not?
- Mahendhar
||जिन खोज| तिन पाइयां||
Beloved Mahendhar,
I am not sure why you are asking a simple question when you had option of asking tough and more complicated ones but I must confess I like simple questions.
There are many reasons why I welcome simple questions. One – because it’s easy to answer them.. (Laughs); Two – It also reflects the mindset of the person who is asking it and I love simple people, Three – It also gives me hope that humanity is still appreciative of simple things; Four – It reaffirms my experience that simple things matter the most in human life…
Mahendhar, even the simplest questions are not as simple as you might feel them to be. In fact it’s the attitude and wisdom of the person who answers it which makes your question look simple or complicated. The most complicated questions may look silly and too simple if a Master answers them and that’s the beauty of a Master. However even while answering the so called simple question a Master may deliberately choose to play with your mind – give him food to get busy with; tire it out with the hide and seek games so much so that it demands rest. And when your mind takes rest the real understanding can be poured in.
A question is a question – It is neither simple nor complicated yet the questioner can assume that to be simple. There are many types of questions but the most complicated are questions starting with “Why”. In fact ‘Why’ questions are unanswerable questions beyond a limit. Because if one Why is answered another Why pops up. Its mind’s trick to keep itself busy but who is victim of its business?
Another reason why a question may look simple to the questioner himself is because the issue raised in question hardly matters to him. It is of least importance to him. May be the question you asked looks simple to you because it hardly brings about any storm in your life, because it doesn’t affect your bank balance. How does it matter if certain percentages of people are spiritual or not? I know the answer! But it does matter to mind. Because it succeeds in keeping itself busy.
Mind keeps asking – Why, How, When, What, Which, Where, Who and you keep running after it. Remember you are not your mind and you are not asking any questions – It is YOUR mind which is engaging you in questions. It is engaging you in finding out facts, figures, reasons and data to fill the void which exists in it. This void gets filled only when you get to see what is within but the whole trick is to keep you busy outside. Because the moment you turn inward mind has fear of death. Hence the question it asks are mostly concerning others. But why don’t you turn the same question towards yourself. Ask this question to yourself “Why am I so?” But remember the answer has to come from within – the search has to be intense and the same question turned towards self can become a potential opportunity for self-realization. Zen masters have been using simple questions, koans to turn people inward… And as I see any question can be a Koan unto itself. Yours too is not an exception.
I am choosing to answer your simple question through a short but real interaction between two scientists after one gave a strange reply to a Kid.
A very famous Professor of Botany was taking morning walk in a garden with his student. After taking few rounds they sat on a bench to just relax and watch the greenery around when his neighbourer and Head of Psychology department in the same university pass by the bench and asked “Why leaves are green?”
The Old Botany Professor who had equal interest in philosophy replied “Leaves are green because they are green”.
The other professor said thank you and walked away smiling.
I am not sure whether the professor of psychology understood the answer or not but Botany Professor’s student who was also sitting along with him on the same bench was baffled to hear this conversation.
“Why did you not tell him the correct reason sir? The student objected.
The Botany professor smiled and calmly said “You don’t know my neighbourer.. I have given perfectly correct answer to him and without any argument this is THE final answer as well.”
He continued.. “Ok let me elaborate it little further.. You may argue that I should have told him that plant leaves contain a pigment called Chlorophyll in them which gives them green color.
But then he would ask “Why Chlorophyll is green?” And I would reply that it looks green because it absorbs all other colours from white light and reflects only green. Then I would get another why…
“Why does it reflect only green colour?” And my reply would have been “Because the atomic structure and lattice formation of Chlorophyll is such that it allows all other wavelength of light to get absorbed and green doesn’t fit in there so it gets reflected.” And then I would have got another question from my friend..
” Why such is the atomic structure of Chlorophyll?”
And then I will have to say – “Chlorophyll is so because it is so.” So what is wrong when I am saying Leaves are green because they are green. At the end of all the questioning it will fall to that because it is so.
Beloved Mahendhar, I don’t enjoy answering questions. I enjoy killing the questioner - the mind. But that should not refrain you from asking another simple question for its duty of a Master to keep answering you until your mind drops dead, till you become a seeker who is interested investigating self and live life according to ’Tao of Creation’ rather than just seeking answers…
Love and Light
- Agyaatdarshan
