Within the LIGHT there is DARKNESS

The sutra, the SANDOKAI, second part:

SEKITO WROTE: CAUSE AND EFFECT BOTH NECESSARILY DERIVE FROM THE GREAT REALITY.

Everything derives from the great reality. There is no other reality, there is only one reality, the great reality. Outside, inside are just two sides of this great reality. Every cause, every effect, necessarily comes from this great reality.

THE WORDS ‘HIGH’ AND ‘LOW’ ARE USED RELATIVELY.

Don’t take any cognizance of those words. They are very relative, but even your so-called great people suffer from strange ideas.

Napoleon Bonaparte, whom you will think a great, successful man, always suffered because he was only five feet five inches high. Even his guards were seven feet high.

One day he was trying to fix a picture on the wall, but he could not reach. His guard, his bodyguard said, ”I am higher than you, I can do it.”

He said, ”Shut up! Don’t use the word ‘higher’. Just say you are taller than me, not higher.” Some very soft wound was touched that he had been carrying his whole life.

The man who created the Russian Revolution, Ilyich Lenin, suffered his whole life from an inferiority complex. The greatest revolutionary in the world, he was always hiding behind a desk because his legs, being smaller than his upper body, were dangling, they never reached to the earth. And he could not sit on a smaller chair because that would look odd, ”Why are you sitting on a small chair?” So he used to have a big chair, but in front of him a desk always covered his legs. He was so conscious about his legs, he never allowed anybody to come very close. You have to sit just in front of him on the other side of the desk so you could not see his legs. Just feeling unnecessarily inferior...

So all your ideas of high and low are relative – your imagination – because you continuously compare. Everybody is unique, hence all comparison is wrong.

WITHIN THE LIGHT THERE IS DARKNESS – because there is no difference between darkness and light. The difference is only relative. Darkness can be defined as less light, and light can be defined as less darkness – just as the same thermometer can be used for cold water and for hot water. The hot water is a little less cold, the cold water is a little less hot; but these are degrees, and all degrees are relative.

They are both the same. Light and darkness are one complete whole, two extremes of one reality. There are animals who see in the night. You know the owl, whose night begins when your day begins. He goes to sleep as the sun rises, because his eyes are very sensitive. He cannot open them in the light, it hurts his eyes. His eyes are so sensitive that he can see only in darkness, but in darkness it is all light to the owl, it is all light in darkness. So it is only a question of the capacity of your eyes. With certain instruments your eyes can see in darkness, your eyes can be brought to the same level of sensitivity as the owl’s eyes.

You don’t hear radio waves passing, but they must be passing, because once you put your radio on it immediately picks them up. So when you are feeling there are no radio waves around, there are, but your ears are not capable of picking them up.

It happened in Switzerland in the second world war that a man got a bullet in his ear. The bullet was taken out and the ear cured, but something strange followed: the man started hearing the nearest radio station the whole day – nothing could turn it off.

He reported to the nurses. They wouldn’t believe him. ”You must be imagining. It can’t be. How can you hear the radio station?”

He said, ”Call the doctors.” And the doctors wouldn’t believe him. He said, ”Then make some experiment if you don’t believe me. I am going crazy! There is no way to shut it off!”

So they finally decided – because the man was absolutely sane, although what he was saying was absolutely insane – to make an experiment to satisfy him. So they brought a radio into an adjoining room and told the man, ”You go on writing whatever you are hearing.” And there was another doctor sitting in that other room writing whatever was going on on the nearest radio station. And when they were compared, they were exactly the same. His ear had to be operated on so he could become normal.

But that opened the possibility that one day you will not have those big radios and transistor sets to carry and listen to. You will have small buttons you just fix in the ear, and on the button will be all the stations. Just push the part you want to hear and your ear will be able to hear directly. There will be no need for a big transistor radio or any other instrument.

That leads to another idea which has not happened yet. Just as radio waves pass by, in the same way television waves are passing. So someday there is the absolute possibility you will just have to change your glasses, that’s all. Your eyes are sensitive to certain waves, and on your glasses will be all the television stations. So you fix the television on the glasses, put the glasses on, and enjoy it without troubling anybody, silently.

We are not aware of many things that are happening around us. We are not aware even of our own being, things that are happening within us.
Sekito is right.

WITHIN THE LIGHT THERE IS DARKNESS, BUT DO NOT BE ATTACHED TO THIS DARKNESS. WITHIN THE DARKNESS THERE IS LIGHT, BUT DO NOT LOOK FOR THAT LIGHT. LIGHT AND DARKNESS ARE A PAIR, LIKE THE FOOT BEFORE AND THE FOOT BEHIND IN WALKING – two legs of the same man, of the same reality. EACH THING HAS ITS OWN INTRINSIC VALUE, AND IS RELATED TO EVERYTHING ELSE IN FUNCTION AND POSITION. THE RELATIVE FITS THE ABSOLUTE AS A BOX AND ITS LID; THE ABSOLUTE WORKS TOGETHER WITH THE RELATIVE LIKE TWO ARROWS MEETING IN MID-AIR.

The whole existence is functioning together with you. This is your success: if you come together with existence and meet like two arrows in the air. This is your failure: if you don’t come from your side, and existence stands there while you are going sideways. You can go anywhere but you will not be satisfied unless you come to existence, meet, and then your heartbeat becomes the heartbeat of the whole universe. That is success, and that is enlightenment.

READING THE ABOVE LINES YOU SHOULD HAVE GRASPED THE GREAT REALITY. DO NOT JUDGE BY ANY STANDARDS. IF YOU DO NOT SEE THE WAY, YOU DO NOT SEE IT, THOUGH YOU ARE ACTUALLY WALKING ON IT.

You may not be aware that you are a buddha, but you are carrying the buddha all the time. You may not know that you are reaching to the ultimate, but you are walking on the way without knowing. The whole difference is between knowing and not-knowing. Not-knowing, you are miserable; knowing, you are dancing with joy and celebration.

WHEN YOU WALK THE WAY, IT IS NOT NEAR, IT IS NOT FAR. IF YOU ARE DELUDED, YOU ARE MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS AWAY FROM IT.

Only in your delusion, in your mind fictions, hallucinations, is it far away, mountains and rivers away. But if you are not deluded, if you are simply silent without thoughts, you are in it. There is no distance between you and the truth, there is no distance between you and existence. This very moment, just a little awareness, and suddenly you will find yourself merging with this vast splendor, this great miracle of existence.

I SAY RESPECTFULLY, says Sekito, TO THOSE WHO WISH TO BE ENLIGHTENED, DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME IN VAIN.

That is his last statement: ”If you want to become enlightened, don’t waste your time. Don’t postpone until tomorrow.”

Now and here put in your total energy, and you will be enlightened. Enlightenment is your nature, so you are not to find it somewhere else. You don’t have to go on any pilgrimage. You don’t have to go to any holy place. You don’t have to believe in any theology, in any religion. You just have to dig deeper into yourself, in the present moment, and suddenly the whole of life springs up.

And you are in for a great surprise – the buddha was hidden within you, not in any temple. You have always been on the right path, you have always been carrying buddha in your womb as your nature. It is just that you never looked at it.

All I teach you is to look inwards to find your center. That is the center of the whole existence.

Buson wrote:

I GROW OLD –
SWEET BIRD, YOU VANISH
INTO AUTUMN TWILIGHT.

He is saying, ”I grow old, and just as a sweet bird vanishes into the autumn twilight far away, you see it to a certain point and then it goes into the blue sky...” He is saying, ”I am also growing old, sweet bird, my autumn twilight is going to come soon. I will also disappear into the blueness of existence.” These are the words of someone who knows.

Death is a door to the divine, death is a door to the deepest mystery of existence. You just have to disappear. You are the only problem, you are the only barrier. Just drop that problem, drop that barrier, and all is just ecstasy and pure bliss.

God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth 159 ♡♥Osho♡♥