Do you understand now?” And the whole ridiculousness of it!

It happened once that when Bokoju met his Master and asked something about Buddha, the Master took him physically and threw him out of the window… from a three-storey building. The poor fellow fell down on a rock, smashed, and the Master was looking from the window and he asked, “Do you understand now?” And the whole ridiculousness of it!

And the silence of the garden. And the silence of the accident. The shock. And the Master’s smiling face, and those compassionate eyes, and his asking, “Now do you understand?”
And in that moment, Bokoju became enlightened. He said, “Yes, yes, Master. Can I come in and touch your feet in gratitude?”

“You are welcome,” the Master said, “to have a cup of tea with me.”
And they are sipping tea together.

Gurdjieff used to say that mind is very slow in action, and he is right. The body is far quicker. Mind is very lethargic; it goes on round and round in circles. So whenever there is some urgency, then your existence does not allow your mind to go round and round through logical processes to come to a conclusion, because then it will be too late.

One Zen Master had this habit that whenever he would talk of God, of Buddha, of the higher dimensions of life, he would raise one of his fingers towards the sky. It became so characteristic of him that one of his small sannyasins, a young boy — must have been of the age of Siddhartha — became very much interested in this one finger pointing upwards. And he was always in attendance just to do something for the Master — if he needs some tea, to run and bring the tea, or just to be by his side and to help him to get rid of the mosquitoes.

He learnt the trick, and playfully, whenever the Master was not looking at him, he would show one finger to the audience. The Master knew — people would laugh, or smile and he would know who was doing the whole trick.

One day — and this can be done only by a Zen Master — he simply caught hold of the child when he was making the gesture of one finger pointing to heaven, and cut the finger with a sharp knife. Now, just think of doing such a thing to poor Siddhartha….

The child cried, screamed, and the Master said, “Stop! And put the finger up!” And his shout was such, it was such a thunderlike shout, that the child forgot all about his finger, that it had been cut and blood was oozing, and he showed the finger which was NO more there, because the Master had ordered.

And in that moment when he was showing a finger which was no more there, he became aware of the invisible; the Master was not pointing to something visible, but something invisible. And the child started laughing, and the Master took him into his embrace and said, “You have understood.” And it is said that small child had his first satori. Later on became a famous enlightened Master.