SEKITO’S ENLIGHTENMENT WAS REALIZED WHILE HE WAS READING THE Chaolun, A WORK WRITTEN BY SENGCHAO IN THE YEAR 400. SENGCHAO HAD COMPOSED THIS WORK WHILE IN PRISON AWAITING EXECUTION. THE PASSAGE WHICH INSPIRED SEKITO’S ENLIGHTENMENT WAS: ”HE WHO MAKES HIMSELF TO BE ALL THINGS OF THE UNIVERSE, IS NOT HE THE REAL SAGE?”
One who makes himself the whole of existence, is not he a real sage? Just this statement, and there suddenly transpired in him a great revolution. From ignorance he took a quantum leap towards enlightenment.
This is just what I have been saying to you: religiousness without God simply means feeling yourself one with the whole universe. Just this statement: he must have been just on the brink, just on the borderline. And as he read this sentence, ”HE WHO MAKES HIMSELF TO BE ALL THINGS OF THE UNIVERSE, IS NOT HE THE REAL SAGE?” – just reading this sutra, a metamorphosis. He became a totally new man. The old personality dropped and he was for the first time an individual, in tune with existence.
And this man, Sengchao, was also a great master. But the greater a master is, the more the society goes against him. He was imprisoned just because he was talking against the old religion of Japan – which is not much of a religion. It is just as ordinary a religion as Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity. It has no flavor of the genius and the giants.
But whenever a genius and a giant appears, the little man in the masses becomes angry, feels inferior, becomes enraged. He has killed Socrates, and he has killed Jesus, and he has killed Mansoor. He also killed Sengchao. Because the whole crowd was against him, the emperor had to arrest him. He was causing great turmoil in the country by his statements. And his statements are so beautiful that a single sentence made Sekito enlightened.
Sengchao’s small book, CHAOLUN, consists of very condensed statements, because he wrote that book before he was sentenced to death. But what a man, not bothering about death, but writing his last testament, with no fear of death, no question of death!
His book, you cannot imagine, was written just before he was going to be sentenced. It is a small book. You will not find the shadow of the cross on it. If you didn’t know, you would never dream or imagine that this book was written just before he was going to be sentenced to death. This shows the caliber of the man; this shows the depth and the height of his enlightenment; this shows his grandeur, his splendor.
A small statement in that book made Sekito enlightened. And inspired by CHAOLUN, Sekito wrote a book called SANDOKAI. It is as beautiful as CHAOLUN.
Very rarely have such cases happened in the contemporary world. It was Friedrich Nietzsche’s THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA that inspired Kahlil Gibran to write THE PROPHET. He wrote THE PROPHET when he was only twenty-one, and in his whole life he must have written at least fifty books. In every book he was trying to go beyond THE PROPHET but could not because THE PROPHET was an inspired book. He was so overflowing with Friedrich Nietzsche’s insights that they triggered him also into new spaces.
THE PROPHET is a great work, but all his other books... He wrote THE GARDEN OF THE PROPHET, a desire to go beyond THE PROPHET, but failed. At least fifty books he has written: thirty in English; twenty in Lebanese, his mother tongue. But in no other book could he even come close to THE PROPHET – these books he was writing. Perhaps THE PROPHET was written under the vast shadow of Friedrich Nietzsche’s insights. It is not to be compared with THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA, but it comes very close.
The same thing happened with Sengchao’s CHAOLUN, and Sekito’s SANDOKAI. But the difference is that both were enlightened. So SANDOKAI reaches the same height as CHAOLUN. Neither was Friedrich Nietzsche enlightened, nor Kahlil Gibran, but Friedrich Nietzsche was a giant compared to Kahlil Gibran. Both were unenlightened, but Nietzsche reached the very boundary of the mind. Just one step more and he would have become enlightened. Kahlil Gibran could not reach even to the boundary, that’s why he never became mad.
Nietzsche’s madness is a symbol that he was almost ready to become enlightened, but could not find the door. He had no idea that there is something beyond the mind. And he was rushing against the wall, forcing his way beyond the mind. But you cannot force your way. There is a door, you have to know the door; meditation is the name of the door. Otherwise you will hurt yourself by rushing against the wall. That’s how he became mad.
Kahlil Gibran never became mad. He never reached even to the boundary of the mind. The question of no-mind does not arise. But just the shadow of Nietzsche’s giant intellect triggered in him a tremendous inspiration, and he created THE PROPHET.
These two books, CHAOLUN and SANDOKAI stand on the same ground, on the same height. You are going into SANDOKAI, these sutras are from SANDOKAI. Each statement is magical.
God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth 130 ♡♥Osho♡♥
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