Intelligence

Rabia and the riddle of the lost needle

[i]We are born to be blissful, it is our birthright. But people are so foolish, they don’t even claim their birthright. They become more interested in what others possess and they start running after those things. They never look within, they never search in their own house.

The intelligent person will begin his search from his inner being–that will be his first exploration–because unless I know what is within me how can I go on searching all over the world?–it is such a vast world. And those who have looked within have found it instantly, immediately. It is not a question of gradual progress, it is a sudden phenomenon, a sudden enlightenment.[/i]

I have heard about a very great Sufi mystic woman, Rabia al-Adawia. One evening, people found her sitting on the road searching for something. She was an old woman, her eyes were weak, and it was difficult for her to see. So the neighbors came to help her. They asked, “What are you searching for?”

Rabia said, “That question is irrelevant, I am searching. If you can help me, help.”

They laughed and said, “Rabia, have you gone mad? You say our question is irrelevant, but if we don’t know what you are searching for, how can we help?”

Rabia said, “Okay. Just to satisfy you, I am searching for my needle, I have lost my needle.” They started helping her–but immediately they became aware of the fact that the road was very big and a needle was a very tiny thing. So they asked Rabia, “Please tell us where you lost it–the exact, precise place. Otherwise it is difficult. The road is big and we can go on searching and searching forever. Where did you lose it?”

Rabia said, “Again you ask an irrelevant question. How is it concerned with my search?”

They stopped. They said, “You have certainly gone crazy!”

Rabia said, “Okay. Just to satisfy you, I have lost it in my house.”

They asked, “Then why are you searching here?” And Rabia is reported to have said, “Because here there is light and there is no light inside.” The sun was setting and there was a little light still left on the road.

This parable is very significant. Have you ever asked yourself what you are searching for? Have you ever made it a point of deep meditation to know what you are searching for? No. Even if in some vague moments, dreaming moments, you have some inkling of what you are searching for, it is never precise, it is never exact. You have not yet defined it.

If you try to define it, the more it becomes defined the more you will feel that there is no need to search for it. The search can continue only in a state of vagueness, in a state of dreaming; when things are not clear you simply go on searching. Pulled by some inner urge, pushed by some inner urgency, one thing you do know: you need to search. This is an inner need. But you don’t know what you are seeking. And unless you know what you are seeking, how can you find it?

It is vague–you think it is in money, power, prestige, respectability. But then you see people who are respectable, people who are powerful–they are also seeking. Then you see people who are tremendously rich–they are also seeking. To the very end of their life they are seeking. So richness is not going to help, power is not going to help. The search continues in spite of what you have.

The search must be for something else. These names, these labels–money, power, prestige–these are just to satisfy your mind. They are just to help you feel that you are searching for something. That something is still undefined, a very vague feeling. The first thing for the real seeker, for the seeker who has become a little alert, aware, is to define the search; to formulate a clear-cut concept of it, what it is; to bring it out of the dreaming consciousness; to look into it directly; to face it.

Immediately a transformation starts happening. If you start defining your search, you will start losing your interest in the search. The more defined it becomes, the less it is there. Once it is clearly known what it is, suddenly it disappears. It exists only when you are not attentive.

Let it be repeated: the search exists only when you are sleepy; the search exists only when you are not aware. The unawareness creates the search.

Yes, Rabia is right. Inside there is no light. And because there is no light and no consciousness inside, of course you go on searching outside–because outside it seems more clear. Our senses are all extroverted. The eyes open outwards, the hands move, spread outwards, the legs move into the outside, the ears listen to the outside noises, sounds. Whatsoever is available to you is all opening towards the outside; all the five senses move in an extrovert way.

You start searching there where you see, feel, touch–the light of the senses falls outside. And the seeker is inside. This dichotomy has to be understood. The seeker is inside but because the light is outside, the seeker starts moving in an ambitious way, trying to find something outside which will be fulfilling. It is never going to happen. It has never happened. It cannot happen in the nature of things–because, unless you have sought the seeker, all your search is meaningless. Unless you come to know who you are, all that you seek is futile, because you don’t know the seeker. Without knowing the seeker how can you move in the right dimension, in the right direction? It is impossible.

The first things should be considered first. If all seeking has stopped and you have suddenly become aware that now there is only one thing to know–“Who is this seeker in me? What is this energy that wants to seek? Who am I?”–then there is a transformation. All values change suddenly. You start moving inwards. Then Rabia is no longer sitting on the road searching for a needle that is lost somewhere in the darkness of one’s own inner soul. Once you have started moving inwards…

In the beginning it is very dark–Rabia is right. It is very, very dark because for lives together you have never been inside–your eyes have been focussed on the outside world. Have you watched it? Sometimes when you come in from the road where it is very sunny and there is bright light–when you suddenly come into the house it is very dark because the eyes are focussed for the outside light. When there is much light, the pupils of the eyes shrink. In darkness the eyes have to relax. But if you sit a little while, by and by the darkness disappears. There is more light; your eyes are settling.

For many lives you have been outside in the hot sun, in the world, so when you go in you have completely forgotten how to re-adjust your eyes. Meditation is nothing but a re-adjustment of your vision, of your eyes. And if you go on looking inside–it takes time–gradually, slowly, you start feeling a beautiful light inside. But it is not aggressive light; it is not like the sun, it is more like the moon. It is not glaring, it is not dazzling, it is very cool; it is not hot, it is very compassionate, it is very soothing, it is a balm.

By and by, when you have adjusted to the inside light, you will see that you are the very source. The seeker is the sought. Then you will see that the treasure is within you and the whole problem was that you were seeking for it outside. You were seeking for it somewhere outside and it has always been here within you. You were seeking in a wrong direction, that’s all.

  • Osho

A

You know, at first, this idea is disturbing Then it comes to be astonishing…

Well I’ll be damned! Who would have thunk it! :wink:

JT

I’m thinking that seeking for it outside isn’t necessarily the wrong direction but simply part of the process. We look for that which mirrors our own self until we realise that our own Self needs no mirror.

A

Oh, yes, we need the outside experiences to spark what’s on the inside. They’re a must. Sometimes something or someone comes along that taps into something inside you didn’t even know was there. I think that’s why as we get older we become, not necessarily more comfortable with who we are but, more precisely, more in tune with who we are. (Assuming, that is, we’re paying attention).

Not a must, I would think, but an aid.

An excerpt from Chuang Tzu:

“A great deal of knowledge is needed to make bows, crossbows, nets, arrows and so forth, but the result is that the birds fly higher in distress. A great deal of knowledge is needed to make fishing lines, traps, baits and hooks, but the result is that the fish disperse in distress in the water.
A great deal of knowledge is needed to make traps, snares and nets, but the result is that the animals are disturbed and seek refuge in marshy lands. In the same way, the versatility needed to produce rhetoric, to plot and scheme, spread rumours and debate pointlessly, to dust off arguments and seek apparent agreement, is also considerable, but the result is that the people are confused. So everything under heaven is in a state of distress, all because of the pursuit of knowledge. Everything in the world knows knows how to seek for knowledge they do not have, but do not know how to find what they already know. Everything in the world knows how to condemn what they dislike, but do not know how to condemn what they have which is wrong. (bold is mine) This is what causes such immense confusion. It is as if the brightness of the sun and moon had been eclipsed from above, while down below the hills and streams have lost their power, as though the natural flow of the four seasons had been broken. There is no humble insect, not even any plant, that has not lost its innate nature. This is the consequence for the world seeking after knowledge. From the Three Dynasties down to the present day it has been like this. The good and honest people are ignored, while spineless flatterers are advanced. The quiet and calm of actionless action is cast aside and pleasure is taken in argument. It is this nonsense which has caused such confusion for everything under heaven.”

This was written about 300 BC. For all our present day “wisdom”…

JT

JT

I agree that this bold is you. You are superb in the skill of condemnation.

There is nothing wrong with knowledge or the pursuit of knowledge. The problem isn’t knowledge but the loss of human perspective. We don’t even recognize that it is a relative quality any more and people differ in their respective qualities of perspective… That should get the PC police going.

A person is made so that they have both the possibility of increasing awareness of the realities of the external world and of their inner world. Their balance is our perspective. It seems to me that the solution isn’t in becoming naive but in developing “perspective”

Nick,

Pull your head out. If you had even half the understanding of the passage I quoted (especially the bold) you would see that your post is irrelevent. That you failed to understand it is just confirmation of your incapacity to let go of your intellectualizing. Don’t waste any energy on it, it wasn’t meant for you in the first place.

JT

Oi, this is my thread about seeking that which is already in you. Please keep it clean.

Who mentioned becoming naive?

A

LA

OK, but that was very mild. :slight_smile: JT has that tendency of writing all this wonderfulness and then saying the opposite. Can you imagine if I would say something like he lacks understanding and it wasn’t meant for him? There would be screams of elitism, “knowing,” and the whole nine yards. :slight_smile: But it is what it is and enough of that.

I was responding to JT’s post and the following observation:

I was just stating that which I thought was the obvious. The problem isn’t the pursuit of knowledge and remaining naive but the lack of human perspective that allows it to become and remain truly beneficial.

As far as seeking the knowledge within, You know how I respect that. My concern is always for how it becomes perverted. This is one of the functions of the higher mind. Its attention stands guard over the body and emotions so that they don’t end up in la la land.

My dear, JT wasn’t talking about not pursuing knowledge. He was talking about people intent on pursuing knowledge and nothing else.

Do you then see that since you are always so concerned for how it becomes perverted then you will always be concerned for the perversion. It is not the perversion that you need to be concerned with, concern yourself with the purity.

A

LA

There are no straight lines in nature because of natural laws designed to keep things moving in circles and cycles. The human psych works in the same way which keeps us turning in circles. That is why sin is called missing the mark and it is the same idea in Zen with the bow and arrow. If nature is mechanical law, it can only be through consciousness that its effects can be transcended and the arrow can remain on target so to speak in relkation to Man’s transformation.

Have you ever wondered how Christianity could end up being perverted into the Spanish Inquisition? This is the normal result of a teaching losing its conscious essence and turning in circles and becoming the opposite of the original intention. They probably thought themselves pure also in their condemnation of the evil witches.

I am just suggesting that it is not as clear cut as you may think.

Nick,

How could you mis-read what I had bolded? There was no denial of knowledge, but a denial of the sort of knowledge that leads one astray. That you could miss this is beyond me.

It was meant to compliment and reinforce LA’s intitial post of understanding the difference of seeking without what is within. I do not wish to comment further on your comprehension, but rather, invite you to think about all objections to the way you approach the threads of others. You seem to not understand your lack of understanding. Your post to my quotation is proof of that lack of understanding.

JT

You’ve clearly never seen the ocean.

There is a vast difference between one’s opinion of what is pure and what is indeed pure. Focus on the essence Nick not on the opinion.

And I am suggesting that the only reason that it is not clear cut is because of where your focus lies.

A

JT

This is the bolded excerpt:

Everything in the world knows knows how to seek for knowledge they do not have, but do not know how to find what they already know. Everything in the world knows how to condemn what they dislike, but do not know how to condemn what they have which is wrong.

In particular:

As I’ve said often enough, the purpose of inner education in contrast to the outer is that the inner doesn’t teach you anything new but instead allows you to remember what has been forgotten.

No argument here.

Here is where it gets tricky but it is the same idea Jesus spoke of.

It is easy to condemn others but not so easy to admit the same failings in oneself. Knowledge in this case becomes dangerously selective. What don’t I understand?

A

I can’t believe you just said that. :slight_smile: Even on the quietist day the ocean is following the curve of the earth. A closer look reveals so many curves in the waves to make even the most curvacious woman envious.

Easier said than done. If it were so easy, we wouldn’t be inflicted with so many experts.

It really all depends on perspective.

A closer look still will reveal that there isn’t even an ocean, that it is simply made up of tiny particles and further inspection will reveal that there isn’t even that, that there is only space, not even that but that there is nothing there…in fact the same nothingness that you are made up of, the same nothingness that I am made up of…you know…perspective dear.

Please speak only for yourself. I can speak for myself. In other words do not say ‘we’ when you should only really say ‘I’ - “‘I’ wouldn’t be inflicted with so many experts”. This is your continual focus, experts. Enough already. Yawn.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss essence. If you wish to dicuss the opinions of experts then do so, but please Nick do it in your own thread.

A

A

True but at that level everything is in perpetual motion. In fact all materiality vibrates. As you know,vibrations are a series of curves.

Why would I want to discuss expert’s opinions? I’m the one trying to be free of blind acceptance.

If you want to discuss the human essence you first must describe it so I know what you are speaking of. Are you referring to the “soul” for example?

Are you referring to the seeker? What is it?

Nick,

If you understood the quotation, then all you had to do was say yes. I didn’t try to explain any more than emphasizing by bolding Chuang Tzu’s own words. There was no need for any explanation for those who understood.

And there you are, forcing your own interpretation onto the Chuang Tzu quotation, as well as getting off into a sniping game.

So no, you didn’t understand., because if you did, you would have said nothing. Not a single thing in those statements of yours suggests any understanding at all. You simply read into them what you wanted them to say, the better to attempt to hijack the thread. You may be clever, but you’re not THAT clever.

This isn’t a game of chess.

JT