When people pointed out
that going to church was against his own principles
he laughed – and replied: I have no faith whatever
in what John Brown says,
but John Brown has total faith in what John Brown says.
So once a week I make a point of hearing a man
who has total faith in himself!
118. Love.
Love is also fire,
but a cool fire.
Yet we have to burn in it
because it also purifies;
it burns only to purify.
The dross burns
leaving pure gold.
In the same way my love will bring suffering
because I wish to destroy you in order to recreate you.
The seed must be broken –
how else can the tree be born?
The river must end –
how else is it to merge with the ocean?
So let go of yourself and die –
how else will you find the self?
119. Love.
Truth is discovered not through swimming
but through drowning.
Swimming is a surface happening,
drowning takes you to the infinite depths.
120. Love.
The search for meaning is disastrous;
it has brought nothing but meaninglessness.
To see that there is no meaning –
is to have the real meaning
where meaninglessness cannot be,
where meaning doesn’t matter
and so its disasters are avoided.
What remains just is, and what is,
is and what is not, is not and that’s all.
You ask for a clear statement about motivelessness.
Your attempt to understand cannot succeed
because it is motivated!
Why bother about understanding?
Look, isn’t the thing clear before you there?
All things are open!
All things are clear!
But man is so busy understanding no one is left to see what is clear,
what is obvious, what is there!
Confusion is the effort to understand.
Ignorance is the effort to know.
If you don’t try to understand or know,