of the chamber and then suddenly clapped his hands.

Alarmed, the bird flew straight

through the opening of the window

to freedom.

To him that sound must have been something of a shock,

even an affront, do you not agree? said Bahauddin.

240. Love.

Fu Ta Shih says:

Each night one embraces a Buddha while sleeping,

each morning one gets up again with him.

Rising or sitting –

both watch and follow one another

Speaking or not speaking –

they are in the same place.

They never part even for a moment

but are like the body and its shadow.

If you wish to know the Buddha’s whereabouts,

in the sound of your own voice

there he is.

Do you understand this?

If not now – when will you understand?

And this is not being asked for the first time,

but many many times in many many lives

the same question has been raised –

and you have not yet answered!

Now, is it not time enough?

241. Love.

Mind is localization of consciousness,

and it can be localized in any part of the body.

Ordinarily we have localized it in the head,

but other cultures and other civilizations in the past

have tried other parts of the body also,

and on other planets

there are beings with other parts of their bodies

working as their minds.

But whatsoever the part chosen

localization of consciousness means its freezing,

and whenever it ceases to flow freely as is needed

it is no longer consciousness in its suchness.

Meditation means: consciousness in its suchness.

So let consciousness fill the whole body,

let it flow throughout the totality of your being

and you will have a feeling of aliveness

which is never known and felt

by localized consciousness.

Whenever there is localization of consciousness

the part in which the localization happens

becomes tense and diseased

and the remainder of the body becomes a dead weight.

But with meditative consciousness

or flowing consciousness

everything changes completely:

the whole body becomes alive, sensitive and aware

and consequently weightless.

Then there is no center at which

tensions can exist and accumulate:

they cannot exist without frozen blocks of consciousness.

The flowing, moving consciousness

washes them out constantly with every movement.

And when the whole body is alive

only then do you begin to feel

the cosmic consciousness all around you.

How can a frozen consciousness,

and that too surrounded by a dead body,

feel the cosmic?

242. Love.

Now man knows more about man than ever

and yet no problem is solved.

It seems that something is basically wrong

with our so-called knowledge itself.

This whole knowledge is derived from analysis,

and analysis is incapable of penetrating

the depths of consciousness.

The analytical method is all right for matter

or for things

because there is no inside to them,

but consciousness is insideness,

and to use the analytical method with consciousness

is to treat it as an object,

while it is not an object at all.

And it cannot be made an object;

its very nature is subjectivity,

its being is subjectivity,

so it must not be approached from outside

because then whatsoever is known about it is not about it.

Consciousness must be approached from inside –

and then the method is meditation and not analysis.

Meditation is synthetic:

it is concerned with the whole and not with the parts,

it is subjective and not objective,

it is irrational or super-rational and not rational,

it is religious or mystic and not scientific.