But the whole thing misfired. These stories were translated by Christian missionaries to prove Christianity’s superiority, but in fact, these stories – if understood, experienced – simply prove that there cannot be anything superior to them. Their utter innocence… Just look at the disciple dancing – because he has got it! Just look at the master hitting the disciple as a reward! This is possible only at the very heights of consciousness.
Man has progressed technologically, scientifically, but man has forgotten the language of his own being. There is progress in gadgets, but man is completely lost.
I want you to remember that your first task in life is to be fully, wholly aware of yourself. Because without being totally aware, you will never know the beauty and the splendor of this existence that surrounds you. You will never know your birth, your death. You will never really know that you ever lived.
Without being aware you are all somnambulists, walking in sleep, talking in sleep. And you have become so accustomed to your sleep that you can do even complicated things while you are completely asleep. You can be efficient in doing certain jobs while snoring within your being.
The whole world thinks that in the morning they wake up, and by the evening they go to sleep again. It is sheer nonsense. Once you wake up, you never go to sleep. So the waking in the morning is just fake, very superficial. You have to learn authentic awakening.
Seppo was saying goodbye to Tozan who asked him, “Where are you off to?”
Seppo answered, “I am going back to Reichu.”
“At that time, what road did you come by?” asked Tozan.
“By Hienrei,” answered Seppo.
“And by what road are you going back?” asked Tozan.
“The same road,” Seppo answered.
“Do you happen to know the one who never leaves Hienrei?”
The road: people come and go, the road remains.
Tozan is reminding Seppo: “Don’t be a coming and going, but be a remaining. There is nowhere to go, you are already there. Just realize it.”
Seppo said, “I don’t know that one that remains.”
“Why not?” asked Tozan.
“Because the one has no personality,” answered Seppo.
Tozan said, “You say that you don’t know that one – if so, how do you know that the one has no personality?”
These dialogues are so totally different from the dialogues of Socrates and Plato – beautiful dialogues, very rational. But these dialogues are simply of another world, of another consciousness.
Tozan is a great master, an old master. Although Seppo has understood, is enlightened…but just to be enlightened is not enough. There are many dimensions to enlightenment. Tozan is trying for Seppo to enter into another dimension. He knows isness, he knows thisness – but he is not aware.