and you need not think that which is already known.

The encounter is always with the unknown.

The unknown is everywhere,

within and without,

and thinking is always in the known and of the known.

You can never be in contact with the unknown through the known

so throw the known and be in contact with the unknown.

And this is what I call meditation.

228. Love.

Man goes on dreaming and desiring

but basically remains where he is,

and in the end

nothing but the ashes of his dreams and desires

are in his hands –

and of course there are tears in his eyes.

Panchatantra has a beautiful story:

In a certain town lived a Brahmin named Seedy

who got some barley meal by begging,

ate a portion,

and filled a jar with the remainder.

This jar he hung on a peg one night,

placed his cot beneath it

and fixing his gaze on the jar

fell into a hypnotic reverie.

Well, here is a jar of barley meal, he thought.

Now if a famine comes

I will get a hundred rupees for it.

With that sum I will get two she-goats:

every six months they will bear two more she-goats.

After goats, cows.

When the cows calve I will sell the calves.

After cows, buffaloes.

After buffaloes, mares.

From the mares I shall get plenty of horses.

The sale of these will mean plenty of gold.

The gold will buy a great house with an inner court.

Then someone will come to my house

and offer his lovely daughter with a dowry.

She will bear a son whom I shall call Moonlord.

When he is old enough to ride on my knee I will take a book,

sit on the stable roof and think.

Just then Moonlord will see me,

will jump from his mother’s lap

in his eagerness to ride on my knee

and will go too near the horses.

Then I shall get angry and tell my wife to take the boy

but she will be too busy with her chores

and will not pay attention to what I say.

Then I will get up and kick her!

Being sunk in his hypnotic dream

he let fly such a kick that he smashed the jar

and the barley meal it contained made him white all over.

229. Love.

Go on discarding: not this, not this (neti, neti),

and ultimately when nothing remains to be discarded –

then the explosion happens.

Do not cling to anything, to any thought.

Go on and on until the nothingness.

I have heard about a little boy, Toyo, and his meditations.

He was only twelve years old

but he wanted to be given something to ponder on,

to meditate on,

so one evening he went to Mokurai, the Zen master,

struck the gong softly to announce his presence,

and sat before the master in respectful silence.

Finally the master said: Toyo, show me the sound of two hands.

Toyo clapped his hands.

Good, said the master.

Now show me the sound of one hand clapping.

Toyo was silent.

Finally he bowed and left to meditate on the problem.

The next night he returned and struck the gong

with one palm.

That is not right, said the master.

The next night Toyo returned and played geisha music with one hand.

That is not right, said the master.

Again and again Toyo returned with some answer

but the master said again and again, That is not right.

For nights Toyo tried new sounds

but each and every answer was rejected.

The question itself was absurd so no answer could be right.

When Toyo came on the eleventh night,

before he said anything the master said:

That is still not right!

– then he stopped coming to the master.

For a year he thought of every possible sound

and discarded them all,

and when there was nothing left to be discarded any more

he exploded into enlightenment.