And they need to investigate, to analyze, to define.
What is the definition of peace? What is the definition of
problem, what is the solution of the problem and how can
you define that. What is sorrow and what is the remedy for it,
what is sadness and what is the remedy for it, remedy for this,
for that, and so many other questions.. And they started
enjoying somehow having spiritual discussions but they would
be very unhappy every time they felt defeated by my
answers. It was the year 1979-1980, and of course I was much
younger by that time. So one day they announced they will
come back the same evening but this time they were going
to bring their Philosophy professor with them. And we spoke of
so many things. All about analyzing, how one has to analyze
first in order to define something in proper manner...And
again, what is the remedy for so many problems and how
can we define all these?
I said “Better not to define. Just use the remedy.”
And they asked, “How?”
I said “Well, meditate, meditate...”
“How can we meditate without knowing first what meditation
is? We need to have some descriptions, definitions then we
know what it is and we can go ahead for meditation.”
I said “If you know, I am afraid you will not meditate”.
“And why is that?” they asked again.
“I will give you one example:
My grand father gave me once a nice, woolen blanket. He
told me it was made of pure wool and it was the best blanket
one could have to prevent him from cold. And indeed it was.
I had used it for several years and I was very much satisfied
with its qualities. One day my brother, who was a Philosophy
student too, returned home after some years. It was in winter
so the weather was pretty cold. Seeing my blanket he started
inquiring about it. “What is this?” “This is a blanket”. “A
blanket...I can see, but made of what?” “Well, I don’t need to
know. Grandpa gave it to me and I simply use it.”
He said “No, no, it is very important, we need to know, we
need to analyze, to investigate what it is.” I said again what I
knew that it was pure woolen blanket and that’s it. But then
we had long discussions with lots of arguments and finally we
reached to a conclusion. The wool was coming either from a
ram or sheep.
The same night we both slept in the same bed covering
ourselves with the same blanket.
“Better not to
define. Just use
the remedy.”
How?
“Well... meditate,
meditate...”