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Feature Article (Archived) |
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Questions from Spiritual Seekers Question: In a Zen text representing a sage’s opinion, we read that everything is perfect just the way it is; hence, there is no necessity of struggle. Could you comment on this?
Answer: “Everything is perfect
just the way it is.” This is a profound observation, undoubtedly.
Certainly from the standpoint of a Buddha or the All-Knowing Intelligence,
everything is all right the way it is. All is evolving as it
should, but built into Buddha before his enligh So the observation is right, but from the standpoint of a realized soul. We have not reached that state, therefore we must struggle to remove the obstructions that are preventing our own realization. So in some way both are true. Everything is moving along as it should but this also presupposes that at each stage we are burning with a desire to advance. That is part of the rightness of everyone being in their right place; without this part of our being that desires to advance, we would be static. Question: It’s been said that attaining enlightenment is really much easier than we had been led to believe, that it is as simple as falling off a log. Is this true? Answer: Whatever the path is that we are taking to find out who we are, apparently when we come into that realization, the ecstasy is not only the ecstasy of joy and freedom, but the ecstasy of unbelief: “How could I have missed this? It was here all the time. The truth that I have now experienced was with me and was me all along. It was the Truth of my life. There was no other Truth in my life but that, and yet I had ignored it and paid attention to everything else but that. And now that I have found it, how could I have ever missed it?” So this is the statement of the realized soul who comes into himself or herself for the first time. We are not in that position. We are in the earlier state of taking the unreal for the Real. Again, as in the first question, this is a statement of experience by a realized soul. But, we have lived so long in a state of misdirection that it is hard to conceive that we will come to the Truth like falling off a log.
See also:
Words of
Wisdom: Spiritual Life and
Questions on the Path
Answered by Dr. Paul Hourihan, edited by Anna Hourihan from lecture transcripts Question: How can we know for sure that the Divine is within, that the God we seek is in the “heaven within” and not in the “heaven above”? PH: The only way we can be certain is by a direct personal experience of the indwelling Spirit. Short of that, the path of practical mysticism—that is, the path of personal discovery through meditation is the other way. By meditation we can know the Truth that will make us free. By a non-meditative life we have no alternative except to believe that God and man are forever different and separate. By non-meditation we are constantly and irresistibly aware of differences everywhere, of distinctions, of “them and us,” of the “saved and unsaved,” of some things superior, other things inferior. Instead of going directly to the Source itself, we believe in dogmas, forms, and symbols as substitutes for the Divine Reality that is flowing all around us and within us.
By
meditation, however, we come to know that there is only One—one
Truth, though we may reach it through different paths. QUESTIONS ON THE PATH - SPEAKING THE TRUTH Answered by Paul Hourihan Question: We hear we should not speak harsh truth, so how should we speak the truth? P.H.: One should never forsake the Truth. But a truth we discover when we try to speak the truth is that few people are pleased when told the truth directly. Therefore, according to this truth of our experience we must be cautious, timely, discriminating, tactful, often silent in “never forsaking Truth.” Here we are guided by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita when he said always to speak the truth, but to the right person, in the right manner and at the right time. If these three conditions are not present, then we should be silent. We shouldn’t lie; we have the option of saying nothing. This is hard to do when we're involved in the world, but as much as we can, we should try to do it. There may be some truth we can speak when the circumstances seem ideal, but what if the occasion is right and our mood is right, but the person we’re speaking to is in an angry state or not receptive for some other reason. Then we have to pacify him or her or be indifferent. The angry person doesn't want to hear any truth because the anger itself is a state of untruth—that is why angry people become infuriated when you speak the truth to them, as often happens in family discussions. Or the person may be right, and the occasion may be right and perhaps the timing is right, but you may be in a public place where others are present. In that case remain silent, or say something by the way. The truth is such a delicate thing—it's like nitroglycerin, we have to handle it in a special way. We have to carry it very gently; we can't throw it. So we have the responsibility of not forsaking the truth but handling it very carefully.
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