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moon is more useful than the sun.

      But why? asked someone.

      We need the light more

      during the night than during the day, he said.

      And I say to you that

      all our metaphysical theories and explanations

      are not of more worth than the explanation of that madman.

      173. Love.

      Ask for nothing and you will never be frustrated.

      Anticipate darkness with light and sorrow with happiness

      because such is the nature of things.

      Then you will never be frustrated.

      Say to life: What can you do to me? I want nothing!

      And say to death: What can you do to me? I have already died!

      Then you will be truly free,

      because unless one is free of life one can never be free of death.

      And when one is free of both

      one knows that life which is eternity itself.

      174. Love.

      Man is always lacking,

      because he desires without knowing himself,

      because he desires to become something

      without knowing his being,

      and this is absurd.

      First one must know his being

      otherwise there will be anguish.

      Becoming is anguish

      because it is a constant tension

      between that which is and that which should be –

      and it is an impossible longing also

      because only that can be which is.

      So know yourself as you are

      without any ideals,

      without any judgment

      and without any condemnation.

      Go deep within yourself without any desires to become

      because only then can you know yourself.

      Discover yourself,

      not according to anybody else,

      but as you are.

      Discover the fact,

      discover the real

      in its total nakedness.

      In this total authenticity

      just be a witness,

      and then there is an altogether different quality to life,

      the quality of let go.

      Then one is relaxed totally.

      And all flowering is in relaxation,

      and all benediction.

      175. Love.

      Fear cripples consciousness,

      and fear is the source of unconsciousness,

      that is why without transcending fear

      no one can attain to full consciousness.

      But what is fear?

      Fear is awareness of death without knowing what death is.

      Fear exists in the gap between you and your death,

      and if there is no gap, no space,

      then there is no fear.

      Do not think of death as something outside you

      because it is not.

      And do not think of death as something in the future

      because it is not.

      Death is within you,

      because death is the other side of life.

      Life cannot exist without death;

      they both belong to the same energy

      as positive and negative poles.

      So do not identify yourself with life –

      because you are both.

      The identification with life creates the gap.

      And death has nothing to do with the future,

      it is always here and now.

      Every moment, it is.

      And when one ceases to regard it

      as something outside oneself

      and, so to speak, draws it into his consciousness

      and assimilates the idea of it,

      one is completely changed.

      He is in all truth born again.

      And then there is no fear

      because then there is no gap.

      176. Love.

      Thinking is necessary but not enough,

      one must know living also,

      otherwise one becomes like the philosopher

      mentioned by Soren Kierkegaard

      who builds a fine palace

      but is doomed not to live in it.

      He has a shed for himself next door to what

      he has constructed for others,

      including himself, to look at!

      Meditation is not thinking, but living.

      Live it daily, moment to moment;

      that is, live in it or let it live in you.

      It is not something other-worldly either,

      because all such distinctions are from the mind:

      they are speculative and not existential,

      and meditation is existential.

      It is no more than one’s everyday life lived totally.

      When Mencius says: The truth is near

      and people seek it far away,

      he means this.

      When Tokusan is asked about it he replies:

      When you are hungry you eat,

      when you are thirsty you drink,

      and when you meet a friend you greet him.

      He means this.

      Ho Koji sings: How wondrous this, how mysterious!

      I carry fuel, I draw water.

      He also means this.

      And when you are near me

      whatsoever I may say I always mean this.

      Or I may not say anything –

      but then too I always mean this.

      177. Love.

      Religion is so much an experience

      that it cannot be handed over by one to another.

      But there are traditions of religious experience –

      which are bound to be false

      because of the very nature of the religious experience.

      One has to travel the path alone

      with no footprints of other travelers even to guide one.

      Hassan of Basra was asked: What is Islam and who

      are the Muslims?

      He is reported to have said:

      Islam is in the books

      and

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