I once read an anecdote about my Tantric teacher Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (Baba) conversing with one of his senior disciples.
Baba asked him (paraphrasing mine): “How many blades are there in the rotating ceiling fan?” After a while, he said: “I don’t know!”
Baba then said: “Turn off the fan, stop it, and count.” A typical Zen-like answer.
To me, there is not only pragmatism but deep wisdom here. Just like the racing mind needs to slow down and stop for us to see clearly its structure and nature, the speeding fan needs to stop for us to see and count its blades properly.
Beyond mere stopping, in the dissolution of the configured mind through silencing insight—not mere suspension by force of concentration, one penetrates into the very essence of being in the space beyond space. Nirvana.
Locative terms or prepositions like “in” or “with” or “by” or “for” and so forth can be useful in our everyday communication. But in the ultimate dimension of nirvana, these linguistic designations are useless. Reality is simply and nakedly as it is. Words and concepts will always fail to capture reality. The danger of our words and concepts is the hidden grasping of ego-conceit: the making of “I am” and “me” and “mine” on the basis of “this and that.” Not sure what I am saying?
Meditate.
Image: Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (1921-1990).
