Question 1 THE RIVER ULTIMATELY REACHES THE SEA. THE BODY GOES AND THERE REMAINS ONLY EXISTENCE, THE INFINITE. WHAT THEN IS THIS URGE AND THE PURPOSE OF GETTING THERE NOW? ISN'T IT PUSHING THE RIVER?
Hamid, the problem is that man is NOT a river, man is very much frozen. There is no flow in man's being. Man is like ice, not like water.
If man is a river, there is no need to push it, it will reach ultimately to the ocean. It HAS already reached: in that very flow it has become part of the ocean. To be flowing is to be oceanic.
But man is not flowing, hence the urge. The ice wants to melt, hence the effort. Once the ice has melted, then there is no need to push anything, then everything happens of its own accord.
Man has become a rock. And the reason why man has become a non-flowing rock is the mind. The body is perfectly flowing, so is the soul. But between the two, the link, the mind, is frozen ice. Once the mind goes deeper into meditation it starts melting. That's what meditation is all about: an effort to melt the mind.
You say, 'The river ultimately reaches the sea.'
That's true, but first become a river.
You say, 'The body goes and there remains only existence, the infinite.'
True, but between the body and the soul there is a mind clinging to you, or you clinging to it.
The body goes, but you don't become the infinite because you are not only surrounded by a body -- that is your physical limitation -- there is psychological limitation inside it. Through the death of the body, mind will not die, it will take rebirth. It will move into another womb, because it will carry so many desires which are to be fulfilled. It will again seek another womb, another body with which to fulfil those desires. That is the very foundation of the theory of reincarnation.
Mind desires, and if desires are there, then opportunities will arise in which those desires will be fulfilled. God cooperates with you. If you have desires like a dog, you will become a dog, you will have the body of a dog. Your mind creates the blueprint, and then the body follows. The body is a projection of the mind, not vice versa. Unless mind disappears completely you will be born again and again. Once the mind is gone, then it is perfectly true, Hamid: the body disappears and you are the infinite. In fact, if the mind is not there, you are the infinite without the disappearance of the body, without the death of the body. There is no need to wait for that.
Buddha is infinite even when he is in the body because he knows he is not the body. Buddha is infinite when he leaves the body. There is no difference for him: living in the body or leaving the body is the same. You live in a house, but you don't think that you are the house.
Exactly like that, an awakened consciousness lives in the body; it uses the body just as you use a car. You sit in the car, you drive the car; you know that you are not the car. You can get out of it any moment. You need not wait for an accident to happen when the car is destroyed to feel that you are not the car. And if you don't know it when the car is there and you are in it, how are you going to know it when the car is not there? Just through the death of the body, you will not know that you are infinite.
Either you are infinite herenow, or you will never be. Infinity is your nature.
The real problem is not the body. The body is not the culprit as the so-called religions have been telling you, 'The body is the culprit!' The body is not the culprit at all. The body is utterly innocent and beautiful. The culprit is the mind, the MIND IS the devil. You will have to dissolve the mind, hence the urge, hence the purpose of all the methodologies that have been developed down the ages: Tao, Yoga, Tantra, Zen, Hassidism.
Become a river and then nothing is needed. That's what THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER says: Achieve inaction through action, achieve effortlessness through effort. But first comes the effort, the action. It will melt you, and then the river starts flowing. In that very flow it has reached the ocean.