One time, in Baroda, India, some graduate students at the local University asked me if I’d like to meet a great Yogi. Naturally, I said, “Yes.” Accordingly, we came together in late afternoon and went in a great, old-fashioned, open touring car down a country road into the usual spectacular sunset. It was a long drive, but we finally came to a dilapidated house in which most of the roofing was missing. Entering, I saw goats and birds inside, and one man was roasting something over a fire in what might have been a sitting room. The air was decidedly unreal.
We were told that the Yogi was in Samadhi (the superconscious trance state) and had been since the previous morning. This was a disappointment, but we decided to wait; time seems unimportant in India.
After a while, I looked up and saw the noted Saddhu, with only a loincloth around his middle, standing in the archway of the door, looking dazed. Though he had come out of Samadhi, sensing the presence of visitors, to all intents and purposes, he was still in it. When he seated himself cross-legged on the ground, the students — who called themselves “The Young Turks” because of their skeptical attitude — rushed forward spontaneously, one by one, and, prostrating themselves, kissed his feet. He took no notice.
I then sat in cross-legged fashion in front of him, and neither of us said anything. He was completely still except for his hands, which he clasped and unclasped as though to keep from exploding. The vibration, the sheer ‘livingness,’ was overwhelming. I have never felt such force, even while meditating under a Redwood or Banyan tree.
We sat that way for a long time. No thoughts entered my mind; it was just enough to be alive in that presence. Then I rose slowly and bowed. Only his eyes moved. They were focused on me, literally looking through me. Slowly, I backed toward the front door.
Once outside, “The Young Turks” swarmed around me. “Why didn’t you ask him something?” they inquired, as though his spoken answer would open the Gates to All Wisdom.
I smiled. “Did you miss it all?” I asked.
“Miss what?” they replied, mystified, but I only shook my head silently. We then got in the car for the long trip back through the densely black night, and the trip was made in silence.
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One of my T’ai Chi Chih teachers brought some students to see me on the Monterey Peninsula. We talked of this and that, and then one of the students asked me about reincarnation (a misleading word).
“What do you mean by reincarnation?” I asked. “What is it that reincarnates? That tree in the garden is shedding leaves, which is natural in autumn. But those leaves will return next spring. Is that what you mean?”
“The leaves that come in the Springtime will not be the same leaves!” the student protested.
“Why identify with the leaves?” I asked. “Why not identify with the tree?”
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In India, I heard two stories:
A wandering Holy Man, who always chanted “Ram” (his name for God), stopped at the back of a temple to relieve himself, still chanting God’s name. The resident priest ran out to tell him to stop speaking God’s name while carrying on such an activity. “Oh, I’m sorry,” apologized the mendicant and stopped moving his lips. But immediately, every cell in his body chanted aloud: “Ram! Ram!” The awed priest then said, “Such rules are not for a man like you.”
“I tell you, they are as good as men,” said my young host, Kaushik, when the monkeys tried to steal my hat and umbrella to imitate what they had seen me do with them. “Once there was a traveling salesman,” continued Kaushik, “who went from village to village selling hats. One very hot day he decided to have a nap under a tree. When he awoke, he was horrified to see monkeys on the branches of nearby trees wearing his entire stock of hats. ‘I’m ruined!’ he exclaimed, but then an idea came to him. Taking his own hat from his head, he threw it to the ground. Immediately, the imitative monkeys did the same thing, and he was able to collect all his hats and march on to the next town.”
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Here are two Zen anecdotes that both make the same point:
Dogen Zenji, founder of Japanese Soto Zen, ended his days at Eihe-ji, deep in the mountains to the north of Tokyo and Kyoto. He frequently took a dipper of pure water from the river there, but before he drank, he poured half of it back into the river. The symbolism of this strange gesture was probably lost on the monks of the time.
Another Zen Master discerned great spiritual potential in a young Chinese boy, so he arranged for the child and his parents to live in a small cabin on the Temple grounds while waiting for the youth to grow up. In gratitude, the boy’s mother baked some cookies every day for the Master, who received them graciously when the child brought them to him. Then, inexplicably, he would hand three cookies back to the puzzled youth.
Realizing there might be a meaning to this unusual action, one day the boy asked the Master why he always gave back the three cookies.
“What’s wrong with returning to you that which was originally yours?” was the Master’s explanation.
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A prominent lawyer and a metaphysically inclined girl from Latvia, hearing that Zen Master Joshy Sasaki was in Los Angeles, asked me if I could arrange an interview with him. When this was done, they went with me to his Zen Center on a steaming hot day in late summer. The lawyer was wearing only a T-shirt on top as we entered.
Before I could make the introductions, Roshi said to the lawyer: “Take off your coat and hat.” The lawyer looked bewildered. “Remove your gloves and scarf, too,” continued the Master. Noticing the lawyer’s lack of understanding, Roshi asked: “Unless we strip down naked, how are we going to meet?” Of course, he had observed that the lawyer arrived full of his own concepts and opinions and merely wanted them confirmed. One can only pour tea into an empty cup.
The idealistic Latvian woman asked Roshi a question. “Why are there French, Chinese, Russian, and so forth? Why must there be war?”
Roshi held up one hand and spread the fingers wide. “I have five fingers; why do I have five fingers?” he asked. With that, I ran over, counted his fingers one by one, and affirmed: “Yep. He has five fingers.”
After the meeting was over, the Latvian girl asked me why Roshi hadn’t answered her question. “He gave you the only possible answer!” I exclaimed.
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The Master, Takusan, was walking through the Meditation Hall one night when he came upon his disciple, So-So, sitting Zazen. Stopping in front of the meditator, the Master raised one eyebrow in inquiry. “A dark night and no travelers,” stated the disciple. Then, in a burst of emotion, he exclaimed: “Master, I am cold!” Anyone who has ever gone through the Dark Night of the Soul can sympathize with that plaint.
Immediately, the Master brought his right hand down and cracked So-So hard across the face. An unexpected blow, it really stung. As the Master then began another blow with his left hand, So-So got up and ran, with the Master in hot pursuit. Out of the meditation hall they ran, across the walk to the Buddha Hall, through the corridors, and out the other side. Running down a walk in the Zen Garden, they suddenly came to a dead end. Panting, with sweat pouring down his face, So-So turned to face his tormentor. “Are you warm now?” snarled the Master. I read this great lesson in a small pamphlet printed in England, brought to my attention by Paul Reps. This is true teaching.
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Swami Krishnanand is one of the great Saints of modern India, a true Karma Yogi who realizes through deeds — the Yoga of Action. Swamiji was a well-known judge, I am told, until he gave up the law to join Gandhi and became a sanyasi (complete renunciate). Swamiji, like all true sanyasi, does not touch money.
“That’s all very well, Swamiji,” I remonstrated, “but suppose someone sends you a ticket to South America and you take it as the Will of God. When you get there and no one meets the plane, what do you do?”
“I sit on the ground and chant thanks to God” was the decisive answer.
“Suppose three days pass and you haven’t eaten, what then?” I persisted.
“I sit on the ground and chant thanks to God” was the prompt reply.
I arrived in Baroda after a long, slow journey (including an extended stay in Japan), only to hear, at Swami’s “Vishva Jyoti”(“Universal Light”) Ashram, that I had missed Swami by a day. Reading in the paper that thousands of people in Kenya were starving, he took it as a command from God to go there and feed them, though he does not touch money. He did go there and fed thousands every day (he has a way of “bullying” rich Indians into donations). This is a man of steel with no doubts. How fortunate to meet such a one. In Africa, Swamiji fed people and only offered scripture or Yoga when they requested it of him. His stories to me of the cruelties practiced by the Belgians were blood-chilling.