They are great system-makers. They accumulate beautiful theories; they arrange them in beautiful patterns, but that’s all they do. They know nothing, although they deceive others, and deceive themselves too, that they know.
A man went into a restaurant to have some lunch and when the waiter came he said, “I will have a plate of kiddlies, please.”
“What?” said the waiter.
“Kiddlies,” said the man.
“What?” asked the waiter again. So the man picked up the menu and pointed at what he wanted.
“Kiddlies,” he repeated firmly.
“Ah,” said the waiter. “I see. Kidneys. Why didn’t you say so?”
“But,” said the man, “I said kiddlies, diddle I?”
It is very difficult to pull them out. Scholars live in their own words. They have forgotten that reality has anything else in it other than words. They are utterly deaf, utterly blind. They can’t see, they can’t hear, they can’t feel. Words are words. You can’t see them, you can’t feel them, but they can give you a great ego.
A cannibal rushed into his village to spread the word that a hunting party had captured a Christian theologian.
“Good,” said one of the cannibals enthusiastically, “I have always wanted to try a baloney sandwich.”
Beware of getting lost in philosophy and religion if you really want to know what truth is. Beware of being Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, because they are all ways of being deaf, blind, insensitive.
Three deaf British gentlemen were traveling on a train bound for London. The first said, “Pardon me, conductor, what station is this?”
“Wembley, sir,” answered the conductor.
“Good Lord!” exclaimed the second Englishman. “I am sure it is Thursday.”
“So am I,” agreed the third. “Let us all go into the bar car and have a drink.”
That’s how it goes on between professors, philosophers, theologians. They can’t hear what is being said. They have their own ideas and they are so full of them, so many thick layers of words, that reality cannot reach them.
Zen says if you can drop philosophizing, there is hope for you. The moment you drop philosophizing you become innocent like a child. But remember, the Zen emphasis on not knowing does not mean that it emphasizes ignorance. Not knowing is not ignorance, not knowing is a state of innocence. There is neither knowledge nor ignorance – both have been transcended.
An ignorant man is one who ignores. That’s how the word comes: the root is ignoring. The ignorant person is one who goes on ignoring something essential. In this way the knowledgeable person is the most ignorant person, because he knows about heaven and hell and he knows nothing about himself. He knows about God, but he knows nothing about who he is, what is this consciousness, inside. He is ignorant because he is ignoring the most fundamental thing in life: he is ignoring himself. He is keeping himself occupied with the nonessential. He is ignorant, full of knowledge, yet utterly ignorant.
Not knowing simply means a state of no-mind. The mind can be knowledgeable, the mind can be ignorant. If you have little information you will be thought ignorant; if you have more information you will be thought knowledgeable. Between ignorance and knowledge, the difference is that of quantity, of degrees. The ignorant person is less knowledgeable, that’s all; the very knowledgeable person may appear to the world as less ignorant, but they are not different, their qualities are not different.
Zen emphasizes the state of not knowing. Not knowing means one is neither ignorant nor knowledgeable. One is not knowledgeable because one is not interested in mere information, and one is not ignorant because one is not ignoring. One is not ignoring the most essential quest. One is not ignoring one’s own being, one’s own consciousness.
Not knowing has a beauty of its own, a purity. It is just like a pure mirror, a lake utterly silent, reflecting the stars and the trees on the bank. The state of not knowing is the highest point in man’s evolution.
Knowledge is introduced to the mind after physical birth. Knowing is always present, like the heart knowing how to beat or a seed knowing how to sprout, or a flower knowing how to grow, or a fish knowing how to swim. And it is quite different from knowing about things. So please make a distinction between knowledge and knowing.
The state of not knowing is really the state of knowing, because when all knowledge and all ignorance have disappeared, you can reflect existence as it is. Knowledge is acquired after your birth, but knowing comes with you. And the more knowledge you acquire, the more and more knowing starts disappearing because it becomes covered with knowledge. Knowledge is exactly like dust and knowing is like a mirror.
The heart of knowing is now. Knowledge is always of the past. Knowledge means memory. Knowledge means you have known something, you have experienced something, and you have accumulated your experience. Knowing is of the present. How can you be in the present if you are clinging too much to knowledge? That is impossible. You will have to drop clinging to knowledge. Knowledge is acquired, knowing is your nature. Knowing is always now. The heart of knowing is now, and the heart of now?
The word now is beautiful. The heart of it is the letter O which is also a symbol for zero. The heart of now is zero, nothingness. When the mind is no more, when you are just a nothingness, just a zero – Buddha calls it exactly that: shunya, the zero, then everything that surrounds you, all that is within and without, is known; known, not as knowledge, known in a totally different way. The same way that the flower knows how to open, and the fish knows how to swim, and the child knows in the mother’s womb how to grow, and you know how to breathe – even while asleep, even in a coma, you go on breathing – and the heart knows how to beat. This is a totally different kind of knowing, so intrinsic, so internal. It is not acquired, it is natural.
Knowledge is got in exchange for knowing, and when you have knowledge, what happens to knowing? You forget knowing. You have knowledge and you have forgotten knowing. And knowing is the door to the divine; knowledge is a barrier to the divine. Knowledge has utility in the world. Yes, it will make you more efficient, skillful, a good mechanic, this and that. You may be able to earn in a better way. All that is there, I am not denying it. You can use knowledge in this way, but don’t let knowledge become a barrier to the divine. Whenever knowledge is not needed, put it aside and drown yourself in a state of not knowing, which is also a state of knowing, real knowing. Knowledge is got in exchange for knowing and knowing is forgotten. It has only to be remembered – you have forgotten it.
The function of the master is to help you remember it. The mind has to be re-minded, for knowing is nothing but re-cognition, re-collection, re-membrance. When you come across some truth, when you come across a master and you see the truth of his being, something within you immediately recognizes it. Not even a single moment is lost. You don’t think about it, whether it is true or not; thinking needs time. When you listen to the truth, when you feel the presence of truth, when you come into close communion with truth, something within you immediately recognizes it, with no argumentation. Not that you accept, not that you believe, you recognize. And it could not be recognized if it were not already known somehow, somewhere, deep down within you.
This is the fundamental approach of Zen.
“Has your baby brother learned to talk yet?”
“Oh, sure,” replied little Mike. “Now Mommy and Daddy are teaching him to keep quiet.”
Society teaches you knowledge. So many schools, colleges, universities, all devoted to creating knowledge, more knowledge, implanting knowledge in people. The function of the master is just the opposite. What the society has done to you, the master has to undo. His function is basically antisocial, and nothing can be done about it. The master is bound to be antisocial.
Jesus, Pythagoras, Buddha, Lao Tzu, they are all antisocial. Not that they want to be