I am
going to teach you the secrets that make up the lot of a man of knowledge.
You will have to make a very deep commitment because the training is long
and arduous.
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to
war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance.
Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and
whoever makes it will live to regret his steps.
When a man has fulfilled those four requisites there are no mistakes for
which he will have to account; under such conditions his acts lose the
blundering quality of a fool's acts. If such a man fails, or suffers a
defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful
regrets over that.
A
man of knowledge is one who has followed truthfully the hardships of
learning, a man who has, without rushing or without faltering, gone as far
as he can in unraveling the secrets of power and knowledge. To become a
man of knowledge one must challenge and defeat his four natural
enemies.
When a man starts to learn, he is never
clear about his objectives. His purpose is faulty; his intent is vague. He
hopes for rewards that will never materialize for he knows nothing of the
hardships of learning.
He slowly begins to
learn--bit by bit at first, then in big chunks. And his thoughts soon
clash. What he learns is never what he pictured, or imagined, and so he
begins to be afraid. Learning is never what one expects. Every step of
learning is a new task, and the fear the man is experiencing begins to
mount mercilessly, unyieldingly. His purpose becomes a
battlefield.
And thus he has stumbled upon the
first of his natural enemies: fear! A terrible enemy--treacherous, and
difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way,
prowling, waiting. And if the man, terrified in its presence, runs away,
his enemy will have put an end to his quest and he will never learn. He
will never become a man of knowledge. He will perhaps be a bully, or a
harmless, scared man; at any rate, he will be a defeated man. His first
enemy will have put an end to his cravings.
It is
not possible for a man to abandon himself to fear for years, then finally
conquer it. If he gives in to fear he will never conquer it, because he
will shy away from learning and never try again. But if he tries to learn
for years in the midst of his fear, he will eventually conquer it because
he will never have really abandoned himself to it.
Therefore he must not run away. He must defy his fear, and in spite of it
he must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. He
must be fully afraid, and yet he must not stop. That is the rule! And a
moment will come when his first enemy retreats. The man begins to feel
sure of himself. His intent becomes stronger. Learning is no longer a
terrifying task.
When this joyful moment comes,
the man can say without hesitation that he has defeated his first natural
enemy. It happens little by little, and yet the fear is vanquished
suddenly and fast. Once a man has vanquished fear, he is free from it for
the rest of his life because, instead of fear, he has acquired clarity--a
clarity of mind which erases fear. By then a man knows his desires; he
knows how to satisfy those desires. He can anticipate the new steps of
learning and a sharp clarity surrounds everything. The man feels that
nothing is concealed.
And thus he has encountered
his second enemy: Clarity! That clarity of mind, which is so hard to
obtain, dispels fear, but also blinds. It forces the man never to doubt
himself. It gives him the assurance he can do anything he pleases, for he
sees clearly into everything. And he is courageous because he is clear,
and he stops at nothing because he is clear. But all that is a mistake; it
is like something incomplete. If the man yields to this make-believe
power, he has succumbed to his second enemy and will be patient when he
should rush. And he will fumble with learning until he winds up incapable
of learning anything more. His second enemy has just stopped him cold from
trying to become a man of knowledge. Instead, the man may turn into a
buoyant warrior, or a clown. Yet the clarity for which he has paid so
dearly will never change to darkness and fear again. He will be clear as
long as he lives, but he will no longer learn, or yearn for,
anything.
He must do what he did with fear: he
must defy his clarity and use it only to see, and wait patiently and
measure carefully before taking new steps; he must think, above all, that
his clarity is almost a mistake. And a moment will come when he will
understand that his clarity was only a point before his eyes. And thus he
will have overcome his second enemy, and will arrive at a position where
nothing can harm him anymore. This will not be a mistake. It will not be
only a point before his eyes. It will be true power.
He will know at this point that the power he has been pursuing for
so long is finally his. He can do with it whatever he pleases. His ally is
at his command. His wish is the rule. He sees all that is around him. But
he has also come across his third enemy: Power!
Power is the strongest of all enemies. And naturally the easiest thing to
do is to give in; after all, the man is truly invincible. He commands; he
begins by taking calculated risks, and ends in making rules, because he is
a master. A man at this stage hardly notices his
third enemy closing in on him. And suddenly, without knowing, he will
certainly have lost the battle. His enemy will have turned him into a
cruel, capricious man, but he will never lose his clarity or his
power.
A man who is defeated by power dies without
really knowing how to handle it. Power is only a burden upon his fate.
Such a man has no command over himself, and cannot tell when or how to use
his power.
Once one of these enemies overpowers a
man there is nothing he can do. It is not possible, for instance, that a
man who is defeated by power may see his error and mend his ways. Once a
man gives in he is through. If, however, he is temporarily blinded by
power, and then refuses it, his battle is still on. That means he is still
trying to become a man of knowledge. A man is defeated only when he no
longer tries, and abandons himself.
He has to come
to realize that the power he has seemingly conquered is in reality never
his. He must keep himself in line at all times, handling carefully and
faithfully all that he has learned. If he can see that clarity and power,
without his control over himself, are worse than mistakes, he will reach a
point where everything is held in check. He will know then when and how to
use his power. And thus he will have defeated his third enemy.
The man will be, by then, at the end of his journey of
learning, and almost without warning he will come upon the last of his
enemies: Old age! This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one he won't be
able to defeat completely, but only fight away.
This is the time when a man has no more fears, no more impatient clarity
of mind--a time when all his power is in check, but also the time when he
has an unyielding desire to rest. If he gives in totally to his desire to
lie down and forget, if he soothes himself in tiredness, he will have lost
his last round, and his enemy will cut him down into a feeble old
creature. His desire to retreat will overrule all his clarity, his power,
and his knowledge.
But if the man sloughs off his
tiredness, and lives his fate though, he can then be called a man of
knowledge, if only for the brief moment when he succeeds in fighting off
his last, invincible enemy. That moment of clarity, power, and knowledge
is enough. Anything is
one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path
is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay
with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a
disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and
there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is
what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or
to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every
path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think
necessary.
This question is one that only a very
old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they
lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In
my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not
anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it
doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart,
the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow
it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One
makes you strong; the other weakens you.
Before you embark on any path ask the question:
Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and
then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the
question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without
a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can
stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never
enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a
path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.
I have told you that to choose a path you must be free from
fear and ambition. The desire to learn is not ambition. It is our lot as
men to want to know.
The path without a heart will
turn against men and destroy them. It does not take much to die, and to
seek death is to seek nothing.
For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have a heart,
on any path that may have a heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile
challenge for me is to traverse its full length. And there I
travel--looking, looking, breathlessly.
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