Time by time, there come GREAT masters. By penetrating the illusion of the world, they had emptied themselves of obstacles and fear, liberated themselves from illusion, and recognised the Perfect God/Buddha-hood/Christ-hood/Tao within.
It is difficult for us to meet such a GREAT master. How difficult? Buddha once told his apostles a story on this: "There was a blind turtle in the sea which moved its head out of the water surface to breathe once every thousand years. And there was a floating wood in the sea with a small hole on it. Would it be likely for the turtle's head accidentally passing through the small hole? It would be extremely unlikely! And meeting a Buddha (an enlightened person) is even thousands of times less likely than that."
Am I saying that we are in a hopeless situation? What can we do to empty ourselves of obstacles and fear in the time when we meet no GREAT masters?
Buddha, at the moment before he left the world, said, "Light the Lamp within by yourself and you light the Dharma (the Divine Law) Lamp." Everyone has the Lamp within. The Lamp within oneself is one's ONLY Dharma Lamp. If you do not light the Lamp within, there will not be light without. And Buddha also said once, "everyone has a Buddha within, everyone is a Buddha."
Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you!" But most people nowadays are finding the Kingdom of God from without: from churches, from teachers, and from the Bible.
Jesus said, "I am the Way." Most people think Jesus means He is the Way. But few people really comprehend Jesus' meaning: everyone of us should realise that "I myself is the Way". Only after one realises this true meaning of "I am the way", Jesus is the Way: the Way leading us to recognise God is within rather than without.
Okay, Buddha is already within us. God is already within us. Tao is already within us. We do not need to search from without anymore. Open our hearts and recognise Buddha/God/Tao. And it's done!
If you know what Buddha and Jesus mean, and move deep into yourself and recognise God or Buddha within, then congratulations! It's done! Wonderful!?
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If you still have a little bit uncertainty and doubt about whether you have already recognised God or Buddha within, I can for sure tell you, "Sorry! You haven't got it yet". Why? At the moment when you recognised God or Buddha within, you (if there is still an "I" in you) will know best. No one else will be clearer than you. You and your whole world will change (although you look just the same; Jesus ate, and Jesus slept). For example, Buddha experienced this world, his "Pure Land", different from we did. According to "The Heart Sutra", it is neither produced nor destroyed, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing.
"If God is already within me, if the Kingdom is even closer than my breath and my hands, why do I still not recognised God? Is there any problem with me?" My answer is that: I am with you! I haven't yet recognised God from within neither!
Even though GREAT masters like Buddha, Jesus, Lao Zi as well as Osho repeatedly told me that it's already done within, we are still in lack. Why? According to Osho, we are too get used to searching from without. We are too get used to believe that there must be a path, or a way, probably a sophisticated one, for us to follow: a path for us to light our Lamps within; a path for us to experience "I am the way" as well as to recognise God. We are too stupid to understand that NO PATH IS A PATH. Luckily, from the compassion of those Great Masters came their teachings, they understood our stupidity. They gave us paths. And their followers collected their Masters' teachings and put them in the form of sutras, gospels and seminal works.
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I am here to share a little bit of my experience with everyone who is still finding from without, just like me. I would first like to share with you several seminal books that touched me. In the near future when I have time, I will introduce each of these books together with my own experience and understanding about each of them.
Before I start, I would like to clarify this: we can never find God, Buddha, Tao, the Path, or the Way in words or books.
According to Lao Zi, the Tao (the Way) that can be described is not the Perfect Tao (the eternal Way). We should not confuse the descriptions of Tao with the Tao itself. Regarding this, the example that I always use is: how can I "experience" the taste of shit just through descriptions from others if I haven't tasted shit myself before? (Before I used to use the example of "the taste of sweet". There was once when I used the sweet example, friends did not receive enough impulse to see COMPLETELY how difficult it is because they all had tasted sweet before. One of my friend then suggested me to use "taste of shit" instead of "taste of sweet" as an example. And I found this worked better).
Using an ancient Chinese Zen Master's saying, the teachings in books are like fingers pointing to the moon. Hopefully, if we do not confuse the fingers with the moon, if we do not stop just at the fingers, we can see the moon. The teachings described in the books are valuable to us only after we have followed them, moved deep into them, penetrated them, and recognised "the moon being pointed at".
If the teachings of those GREAT masters are fingers pointing to the moon, what is going to come is ONLY a finger pointing to fingers pointing to the moon. And I am extremely happy if through this finger, you can see those fingers pointing to the moon, and can see the moon eventually.
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Who am I? I REALLY don't know. I only know that I am just like everyone else who eats, drinks, sleeps, laughs, cries, loves, hates, and has sick, has fear, and will die one day. We have been experiencing the same kind of happiness and suffering. Hopefully, those books that have touched me will also touch you. And I hope that both of us will see be able to the moon soon.
Some seminal books that touched me:
[Jesus]
[Tantra]
[Buddha]
[Lao Zi]
[Meditation]
[Gurdjieff (The Fourth Way)]
[Self-Help]
