Zen masters used to tell his disciples the story of a master thief who became enlightened…Zen Masters have loved it tremendously. When you come across it for the first time you will feel puzzled about the story — it is about a master thief.
So don’t be worried about being a judge or a doctor – even a thief can become enlightened. The question is not what you do, the question is how you do it. The question is not about the act but the consciousness out of which that act arises.
This is one of the most famous Zen stories. I love it tremendously.
He was no ordinary thief, because in his whole life nobody had been able to catch him red-handed. Even the emperor was amazed at his craftsmanship, his art in stealing. The man was so perfect…but he was getting old. The situation had come to the point in Tokyo that whosoever’s house was visited by the master thief, bragged about it. It was a great honor, because it was not that he would go just to anybody, but only to the super-rich. It was a certificate that the master thief had stolen things from some family, that they bragged about it.
But as he was getting old, his son said, “I don’t know anything of your art, your fame — and you have the strangest fame. Before you leave the world, please let me understand the secret of your greatness. Your stealing is not just for money; your stealing is simply to keep your mastery sharpened so you don’t forget the art.”
It is almost like a musician. Once Yehudi Menuhin was asked, “If you don’t practice one day, what happens?”
He said, “Only I understand that the thing is not as perfect as it would have been; nobody else will find any difference. If I don’t practice for two days, then the critics will become aware that something is missing. If I don’t practice for three days then everybody will be able to hear that something is wrong, the master is not at his height.”
Every musician practices for hours, sometimes eight hours per day. Even the most famous musician practices for hours, because the art is so subtle and so delicate that it can slip out of your hands if you miss just a few days’ practice.
So the boy said, “Before you leave the world, help me to know the secret so that I can practice in front of you, and you can correct where I am going wrong.”
The father said, “Tonight you come with me.– because this is not something that can be taught. You can only imbibe the spirit of me; if you are intelligent enough you can catch it. I cannot TEACH it to you, but you can CATCH it. I cannot GIVE it to you, but you can GET it. We will see. You come tonight with me.”” He said, ”I was just waiting for you to ask because we never impose; art is something that you should have a feel for. If you are ready, I am ready. Today is the beginning of your teaching. Tonight, you come with me.”
The old man takes the young man. They went to a very rich house, and the young man was trembling with fear and the old man was going as if they were going for a morning walk — so at ease, with such tremendous confidence. The old man made a hole in a wall to enter into the house… the young man was perspiring, and it was a cold night. But the old man was doing his job so silently that although he was making a hole in the wall, there was no noise. No hurry, no worry. When the hole was ready, the old man slipped in, and signaled the boy to come in.
His heart was throbbing, naturally, but he was wondering… his old father is going as if it is their own house! He had the master key that can open all the doors.
The father goes in, calls the son in. They move inside the house. He opened door upon door, and the boy became more and more afraid, he started cursing himself: Why have I asked him to teach me? This is not for me. If I can manage to survive tonight, finished — I don’t want to learn this art. It is beyond my capacity.
The man was doing things, so at home, and he took the boy into the innermost part of the house, opened a big cupboard and there were very costly things inside, valuable diamonds, very costly, and rare clothes. Everything was dazzling. The boy could not believe his eyes, that people have so much wealth.
The old man said, “You simply get in! You are not supposed to do anything. You simply get in and then whatsoever happens, happens.” He got in and .. and what the father did was unimaginable to the son. The old man went out and — it was such a great surprise — closed the door, locked it with the boy inside, and while he was leaving the house, he shouted “Thief! Thief! Wake up!” and escaped through the hole that they had dug in the wall and ran out!
The boy said, “Is this my father, or my murderer? And what kind of teaching is this? I was wondering if I could survive — now there is no possibility. This is the end. Finished! My father is mad! I should not have asked– this is not for me. Thieves are born not made. But is this a way to teach? If I stay alive, I will kill this old man! I will go home and cut his head off immediately!” The whole house was awake. The servants were awake. People were searching for every nook and corner, And they found the hole in the wall… certainly somebody has come in. A maidservant watching closely on the floor found some foot marks and went exactly near the wardrobe.
The son is aware; he cannot even breathe. He knows now that somebody is there, and is coming in with a search light: ”Soon they will open it and I am caught. And this old man… in what unfortunate moment I asked him to teach me the art; and is this a way of teaching? He finished me in the first lesson!”
He was really angry – anybody would have been in his situation – but there was no point in being angry. Right now something had to be done and he could not think of anything. The mind simply stopped.
That’s what meditation is: the mind simply stops. It cannot figure out what it is all about, what to do, because all that it knows is useless; it has never been in such a situation before. And mind can only move again and again in the world of the known. Whenever anything unknown is encountered, mind stops. It is a machine. If you have not fed it the right information before, it cannot work, it cannot function. Now this was such a new situation, the young man could not conceive what to do. There was nothing to do.
And then a woman servant came with a candle in her hand looking around for the thief. A thief had certainly entered the house: the wall was broken; the door had been opened– all the doors had been opened. The thief had entered the innermost room– he must be hiding somewhere.
She opened the closet door to look in – maybe he was hiding inside. She would not have opened the door of the closet, but something happened inside the closet, which was why she opened it. She heard some noise, some scratching noise as if a rat were biting clothes. She opened the door to look for the rat really. This was the young man making this scratching noise, he was doing it. And it had come to him spontaneously, it was not out of the mind. Seeing somebody entering with a light… he could see that somebody was inside the room, he could hear the footsteps, he could see the light outside; suddenly it was not so dark. The only way to get the doors opened was to do something.
What to do? Out of nowhere, intuitively – this is not out of intellect but out of intuition – he started scratching like a rat and the door was opened. The woman looked inside with her candle. Again, out of intuition, out of the moment, he blew out the candle, pushed the woman aside and ran away.
But he was seen, so the whole family and the whole neighborhood followed him. He had never run so fast in his whole life — he could have become an Olympic champion the way he was going! — just like the wind.
It was a question of life and death, and he was praying to God, “This is the first and last time, just save me!” And now in the dark night, he is running, and people are following him, and they are coming closer and closer, and they are shouting,” He is there! Catch him!” – they can see him.
Then suddenly he came across a well. He took up a big rock and threw it in the well – then stood by the side of a tree to watch what happened. It was all HAPPENING; he was not doing it. the whole crowd that was following him stopped. All the people surrounded the well – they thought the thief had jumped into the well. ” Now there is no point in bothering about him on this cold night. In the morning, we can see. If he is alive, we will put him in the jail; if he is dead, he is punished already.” They went back.
And the young man reached his house, really angry, almost ready to kill the father and again a great surprise: the old man is fast asleep, snoring! He could not believe that this man was his father! He shook him,” Is this the way to teach your own son?” and the father said, “Don’t disturb me. You have come back, that’s enough. I know the conclusion; the rest of the story you can tell me in the morning. There is nothing else to learn, I have given you my whole art. — I am not acting out of mind. I am acting out of no-mind, in utter silence. It is my meditation. Just go to sleep.”
The boy was amazed that he did not even want to know through what difficulties he had passed. He had been almost on the verge of being caught! He could not sleep the whole night: his heart was throbbing, and again and again as he would close his eyes, he would see the nightmare that those people had caught him, and he would wake up again. In the morning the father did not say anything, he was just sitting, with his tea. The boy said, “But at least ask me what happened!”
He said, “You have come home; everything has gone right. You could not have come back if you had acted out of your mind, so you don’t need to learn anything more. All that you need to learn is how to act out of no-mind. There is no other lesson. The first lesson is the last lesson. If you were not back it meant the student was not able to survive the first lesson: finished. He was not capable.”
“Still,” the boy said, “please listen to my story.”
He said, “Okay, if you want you can tell it. But I am not interested. All my interest was in whether you came back or not.”
He told his whole story, and the old man asked, “Scratching like the rats were destroying the clothes — was it your thought?”
He said, “I had never thought about scratching the cupboard like rats destroying the clothes… I don’t know how it came to me.”
His father said, “That’s the way — you don’t come in. Let your no-mind take possession of the whole situation. How did you figure out that to throw the rock in the well would stop them?”
He said, “I don’t know… just the rock was there, the well was there, and the people were just on my heels. Suddenly a flash… and I moved the rock picked up the rock — I cannot believe that I could even shake it now! and threw it in the well. It was not my act.” When you are in such situations your whole energy becomes available to you. You don’t live only on the superficial level. When life is at stake, your whole energy becomes available.
The old man said, “This is what the ancient masters have said — action without action. I am not a thief, I have just chosen stealing as a way of enlightenment.”
You have to take a jump. First it will be dark, very dark.
Rest in that darkness.
Darkness has a beauty of its own.
You have known the beauty of light, and the beauty of flowers and trees, and men and women: that is all beauty in light, through light. It is all light reflected: different colors, different faces, different flowers, but it is all the world of light. You have not known the silence, the depth, the unboundedness of darkness. It also has its own beauty, totally different. It is the beauty of death.
And once you have allowed it to happen, once you relax in it, you say, ”Okay. If it is death then let it be death, but I am not going back.” Once you relax in this darkness of the cosmic unconscious, slowly it starts becoming lighter.
So, I am not too concerned about what you are doing. That’s why I never ask anybody, ”What profession do you belong to? What are you doing?” Whosoever comes to me to be initiated I initiate, irrespective of their profession.
Unconscious acts are unconscious acts; they are all the same. One man can dream that he is a sinner, a murderer; another can dream he is a great saint. In the morning both will find that they were dreaming– all dreams are the same. So don’t bother me at all.
And the first glimpse of light is the beginning of the superconscious. If you can find just the middle point between light and darkness – very soothing, warm from the side of light, cool from the side of darkness – it is the meeting, the ultimate meeting of the polar opposites.
Just as darkness makes you afraid, too much brightness also makes you blind and afraid. Don’t be afraid, there is nothing to be afraid of. It is your nature; there is nothing to be afraid of, it is your being.
Friedrich Nietzsche again… because this man I find tremendously insightful. On the whole he is a mess, but in fragments he has such penetrating insight, which is rarely available anywhere else.
He says, ”Before you can reach heaven, you have to reach to hell. Unless you have fathomed hell completely, there is no way to heaven.”
You cannot believe it; anything can become a way to enlightenment, even stealing. But it has to be not your action, it has to come from your no-mind.
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बाहर बाहर सन्नाटा है अंदर अंदर शोर बहुत
दिल की घनी बस्ती में यारो आन बसे हैं चोर बहुत………….उमर अंसारी
bāhar bāhar sannāTā hai andar andar shor bahut
dil kī ghanī bastī meñ yaaro aan base haiñ chor bahut………….Umar Ansari
On the surface, life appears calm and composed. But within, the mind is restless and turbulent. The “dense settlement of the heart – dil ki ghani basti” suggests a heart full of thoughts, desires, fears, regrets, attachments; and the “thieves” symbolize those emotions or distractions that steal peace, innocence, and clarity.
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The song “Chori Chori Yun Nazrein Mili” from the Hindi movie “Kareeb” (1995), carries a tenderness that beautifully mirrors the inner journey. Chori chori….secretly, silently – just like the first encounter with darkness. it is to be met softly, As in the song, what begins secretly and uncertainly slowly deepens into something luminous. The fear of death, of losing oneself, transforms into a quiet union. What appears as “chori” loss, disappearance, ego dissolving, becomes the doorway to love, to light. | Singer(s): Kumar Sanu & Sanjivani Music Director: Anu Malik Lyricist: Rahat Indori.
Chori Chori Jab Nazrein Mili – Kareeb | Bobby Deol, Neha | Kumar Sanu, Sanjivani | Love Romance Hit