~~ THE WORD AND LOGAS ~~8

Dozo was a great master, but he himself was very much disturbed, when he was a disciple, about how his master came to know what he was experiencing. And the Zen master moved with his staff and he would hit you immediately. If something goes wrong with your sound inside, he will hit you immediately. So Dozo asked, "But how do you know? And you hit me exactly in the right moment.

How do you know?"

The face expresses the feeling, not the sound. The sound cannot be expressed by the face, but the face is bound to express the feeling. And the deeper you move, the more your face becomes flexible to express, more liquid. It immediately shows what is happening inside. This face which you have right now will drop because this is a mask - this is not a face. When you move in, masks fall down because they are not needed. Masks are needed for others.

Because of this, the old masters insisted on moving away from the world. This was so that you could move away from the mask easily; otherwise others will be there, and because of them you have to carry masks. You do not love your wife or your husband, but you have to carry a mask - a loving face, a false loving face. The moment you enter the house, you arrange the face: you come in and you start laughing. This is not your face.

Zen masters insisted that first one should attain the original face, because with the original face everything becomes easy. Then the master can simply know what is happening. So enlightenment was never reported. If some seeker attained enlightenment, he was not to report to the master that he had attained because the master would simply know. He would tell the disciple. No disciple was allowed to tell the master, "I have attained." There was no need. The face will show, the eyes will show, the very movement, the walking, will show. Whatsoever he does, every gesture will show that he has attained.

When you move from sounds to feelings, you move into a very, very ecstatic world, an existential world. You move away from the mind. Feelings are existential; that is what the word means - you feel them. You cannot see them, you cannot hear them, you simply feel them. When you come to this point, you can take the jump. This is the last step. Now you are standing near an abyss; you can jump.

You move from the mind to the being, and the bridge, the link, is the feelings. But to come to the feelings you will have to leave many things - words, sounds, the whole deception of the mind. THEN, LEAVING THEM ASIDE, BE FREE.

You ARE free. This saying, BE FREE, doesn't mean that you have to do something to be free.

THEN, LEAVING THEM ASIDE, BE FREE means you are free! Being is freedom; mind is bondage.

That is why it is said that mind is the SANSAR, the world.

Do not leave the world... you cannot leave it. If the mind is there, you will create another world; the seed is there. You can move to a mountain, to a retreat, but you will move with the mind; you cannot leave it here. The world moves with you, you will create another world. Even in your retreat you will start creating it again, because the seed is there. You will create relationships again. It may be with the trees, it may be with birds, but you will create relationships again, you will create expectations again, and you will go on spreading the net because the seed is there. You will again be in a world.

Mind is the world, and you cannot leave mind anywhere. You can leave it only if you move within. So the only Himalaya is this; no other Himalaya will do. If you move within from words to feelings, and from feelings to being, you are moving away from the world. And once you know this inner abyss of being, then you can be anywhere, even in hell. Then it makes no difference. It makes no difference then! If you are without mind, hell cannot enter you, and with mind ONLY hell enters. The mind is the door to hell.