To be conscious not a game.
To be conscious is to go through a deep surgery.
And the problem is, you are the surgeon, and you are the patient.
Just think of some surgeon doing surgery on himself. I had one surgeon friend – and it was not
much of a problem .... A certain disease, a very strange disease, started happening to me every
year. First, one of my fingers started being painful in the first joint – immense pain. Sleep was
not possible; no sleeping medicine would help, the pain was so shooting sharp. It continued for
twenty-one days.
I asked my surgeon friend about it. He said, ”This is a troublesome thing, but for one year there is
no problem. Next year the second finger will be affected, and for twenty-one days at the utmost. But
for ten years you will have to suffer; each year one finger will be affected.”
I said, ”I don’t want that kind of business for ten years. Who knows? – if I die tomorrow then my nine
fingers .... No, I cannot leave them just like that. You have to do something.”
He said, ”There is no medicine for it – only surgery can be done. I will have to cut the bone – which
has grown a little – on the joint. That’s how this whole thing is happening.”
So I said, ”There is no problem, you can cut it. But I can’t wait for ten years.”
He prepared everything, but I was so close to him that at the final time he had a nervous breakdown.
He said, ”I cannot do it; on you I cannot do it – I cannot cut your finger. I will call another surgeon. I
have kept him ready in case, because I knew it from the very beginning – last night I could not sleep,
just the idea of cutting your finger ....”
I said, ”What nonsense. My finger, anybody’s finger – you should be able to cut your own finger too
if the time comes. If there is no surgeon available, you should be able to cut your own finger.”
He said, ”I can cut my own finger, but I cannot cut your finger, because then I will repent my whole
life that I did that nasty thing to you. No, I will not do it.”
He simply freaked out; the other surgeon did it. That day I understood how difficult it must be to be
the patient on the table and also the surgeon by the side – the same person cutting his own deepest
layers of being.
Consciousness is self-surgery.
And don’t ask me how can we raise ...? Nobody can do it for somebody else; you can only do it for
yourself.
This is the fundamental of spiritual surgery: you can only be successful on yourself.
Howsoever painful it is ... but there is no other way. Yes, it pays tremendously if you can pass
through the test.
If you can pass through the pain, if you can pass through all the misery, the suffering that you have
repressed will rise again. It is like entering a house which nobody has entered for years. You will
raise so much dust – and that dust is not simple dust, it covers your wounds. It has helped you to
forget yourself. It has made you unconscious of yourself. It is not like taking off your clothes, it is
more like peeling off your skin.
But once you succeed, then all the pain seems to be just nothing, because the bliss that descends
on you is incomparable; the pain that you suffered looks so tiny and so meaningless. But that is in
the end.
Gautam the Buddha used to say, ”My path in the beginning is tremendous pain; in the end,
tremendous blissfulness. But patience is needed.”
I told you, in this surgery you are the patient and you are the surgeon both. Remember the English
word ”patient” comes from ”patience.” It is significant. Why is the sick person called a ”patient?” He
has to be patient, he has to wait. But when you are the patient yourself and also the surgeon, the
difficulty is multiplied. But still it is nothing compared to the bliss.
All that you can do is to pass through this suffering, to pass through this dark night of the soul.
Reach to the dawn of your being.
Blossom. Let your blissfulness explode.
Perhaps somebody’s sleeping soul may be triggered. Somebody’s sleeping consciousness may
have a shock and wake up.
But these are only ”perhaps.” One cannot be certain in these matters. The matters are so subtle you
cannot be certain.
Hope for the best.
And wait for the worst.
And time certainly is short.
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