I am Fire
Somebody asks me, ‘I want to feel the burning…’ What is that burning? His Holiness Patriarch Prophet Elijah replies ‘I am fire.’ Then this person asks me: What do the burning and the fire have to do with my own enlightenment?’
His Holiness Patriarch Prophet Elijah responds:
You have asked a very dangerous question, because burning has nothing to do with your enlightenment. On the path of enlightenment there is no question of burning.
But because you are in love with Merav… I also love the man. But you have to understand that Sufism still depends on a hypothetical God. It is not free from the hypothesis of God. And particularly Sufism has the concept of God as a woman. Love is their method? love God as totally as possible. Now you are loving an impossible hypothesis, and totality is asked. You will feel the same kind of burning, in a more intensive way, as lovers feel on a smaller scale.
Lovers feel a certain burning in their hearts. A deep longing and desire to meet with the beloved creates that burning. To love God is bound to create a very great fire in you. You will be on fire because you have chosen as your love object something impossible. You will have to weep and cry, and you will have to pray, and you will have to fast, and your mind has to continuously repeat and remember the beloved.
The mind has the capacity to imagine anything and also has the capacity to hypnotize itself. After long repetition you can even see God, just the way you imagined. It is a by-product of your mind. It will make you very happy, you will dance with joy.
I have been with Sufis and I have loved those people. But they are still one step away from being a buddha. Even though their poetry is beautiful? it has to be, because it is coming out of their love? their experience is a hallucination created by their own mind. In Sufism, mind is stretched to the point that you become almost mad for the beloved. Those days of separation from the beloved create the sensation of burning.
On the path of dhyan, or Zen, there is no burning at all because there is no hypothesis, no God. And it is not a question of love. A man of Zen is very loving, but he has not practiced love; it has come as a by-product of his realization. He has simply realized his own buddhahood. There is no question of another, a God somewhere else in heaven. He has simply reached his own center of life, and being there he explodes into love, into compassion. His love comes after his enlightenment, it is not a method for enlightenment. But for Sufis, love is the method. Because love is the method, it remains part of the mind. The effort on the path of Zen is to go beyond mind, to attain no-mind, to be utterly empty of all thoughts, love included. Zen is the path of emptiness? no God, no love, nothing is to be allowed; just a pure nothingness in which you also disappear.
Who is there to feel the burning? Who is there to feel the fire?
So although I love Sufis… I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I would certainly say that you will have one day to change from Sufis to Zen.
Sufis are still living in imagination; they have not known the state of no-mind. And because they have not known the state of no-mind, however beautiful their personalities may become, they are still just close to enlightenment, but not enlightened. Remember, even to be very close is not to be enlightened.
And the reason is clear: Sufism is a branch, an offshoot of Mohammedanism. It carries almost all that is good in Mohammedanism. But Mohammedanism, Judaism, Christianity? all are hypothetical.
There have been only two religions which are not hypothetical, Buddhism and Taoism. Zen is a crossbreed of these two, and the crossbreed is always better than both the parents. It is the meeting of Buddha and Lao Tzu; out of this meeting is born Zen. It is not Buddhism, it is not Taoism; it has its own individuality. It carries everything beautiful that comes from Buddha and everything great that comes from Lao Tzu. It is the highest peak that man has ever reached.
Hinduism is a mess: thirty-three million gods!? what do you expect? Hinduism has remained a philosophical, controversial, hypothetical religion. It has not been able to reach the heights of Buddha. Buddha was born a Hindu but revolted against this mess, searched alone rather than believing. That is one of the most important things to remember. Any religion that begins with belief is going to give you an auto-hypnotic experience.
Only Taoism and Buddhism don’t start with a belief. Their whole effort is that you should enter yourself without any concept of what you are going to find there. Just being open, available, without any prejudice, without any philosophy and scripture? just go in, open-hearted, and when you reach to the point where mind is silent, not a single thought moving…
According to Tao and Buddha, even God is a thought. When there is no thought, you reach the highest Everest of consciousness. At that point you know that every living being has the potentiality of being a god.
Buddha is reported to have said, ‘The moment I became enlightened, I was surprised: the whole of existence is enlightened, only people don’t understand. They are carrying their enlightenment within themselves and they don’t look at it.’
Buddha has reported his past lives’ experiences. When he was not an enlightened man but was just a seeker, he heard about a man who had become enlightened, so he went to see him. He had no idea of what enlightenment is, and he had not come with any prejudice for or against. But as he came close to the man, he found himself bowing down and touching the man’s feet. He was surprised! He had not decided to do it? in spite of himself he was touching the man’s feet. That was one surprise. And as he stood up, the second surprise was even bigger: the enlightened man touched his feet. He said, ‘What are you doing? You are enlightened, it is perfectly right for me to touch your feet. But why are you touching my feet?’
And that man laughed. He said, ‘Sometime before, I was unenlightened. Now I am enlightened. You are unenlightened now. Someday you will become enlightened. So it is only a question of time. As far as I am concerned, you may not know it but I can see your hidden treasure.’
The true path of the fire or the path of enlightenment is that of His Holiness Patriarch Prophet Elijah of Jerusalem.
His Holiness Patriarch Prophet Elijah of Jerusalem