Ojai - 42nd Entry - 10th April 1975

In the silence of deep might and in the quiet still morning when the sun is touching the hills, there is a great mystery. It is there in all living things. If you sit quietly under a tree, you would feel the ancient earth with its incomprehensible mystery. On a still night when the stars are clear and close, you would be aware of expanding space and the mysterious order of all things, of the immeasurable and of nothing, of the movement of the dark hills and the hoot of an owl. In that utter silence of the mind this mystery expands without time and space. There's mystery in those ancient temples built with infinite care, with attention which is love. The slender mosques and the great cathedrals lose this shadowy mystery for there is bigotry, dogma and military pomp. The myth that is concealed in the deep layers of the mind is not mysterious, it is romantic, traditional and conditioned. In the secret recesses of the mind, truth has been pushed aside by symbols, words, images; in them there is no mystery, they are the churnings of thought. In knowledge and its action there is wonder, appreciation and delight. But mystery is quite another thing. It is not an experience, to be recognised, stored up and remembered. Experience is the death of that incommunicable mystery; to communicate you need a word, a gesture, a look, but to be in communion with that, the mind, the whole of you, must be at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity as that which is called mysterious. This is love. With this the whole mystery of the universe is open.

This morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the sun was in the valley and all things were rejoicing, except man. He looked at this wondrous earth and went on with his labour, his sorrow and passing pleasures. He had no time to see; he was too occupied with his problems, with his agonies, with his violence. He doesn't see the tree and so he cannot see his own travail. When he's forced to look, he tears to pieces what he sees, which he calls analysis, runs away from it or doesn't want to see. In the art of seeing lies the miracle of transformation, the transformation of what is". The "what should be" never is. There's vast mystery in the act of seeing. This needs care, attention, which is love.