This is the first of many stories about our protagonist, Rahul. Although he won many contests, Rahul often comes out the loser. But this is only part of the story. Todays world sees the story of a loser as a waste of time. Rahul sees wasting his time as a means to an end, a development of patience, and reaching that point where you realise that you will never fully get it anyway.
The essence of martial arts lies in dealing with adversity and overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. You have to be a loser to take on the impossible, if only to make that a possibility for you to eventually overcome the impossible. In doing so, you lose a sense of certainty within, or detach from it. These are the lessons which Rahul imparts to us. If he is to become a loser, then this is because he has chosen this form, either consciously or unconsciously. By losing a sense of certainty within, you become uncertain but prepared. Let us begin with the first time Rahul entered the temple with this sense of uncertainty…
Rahul approached the temple grounds, unsure of what he would find there. He had gone there out of curiosity. At once he was told by the Master there, “you must fight against my chosen opponent”. Who was this opponent, and why had Rahul been given such a challenge on his first day? He was not expecting this. So it would be a contest, but the rules weren’t made clear. In truth, he knew nothing about the culture of martial arts, only vague stories and fantasy. This would become a tremendous boon for him. The question is, can he retain the sense of childlike uncertainty as well as deal with the responsibility of knowing?
Rahul had heard of these martial contests, but could not understand the need to finalise a winner. For him, a winner is a loser because he has ended the journey. At the same time, a loser can excuse himself from responsibility and succumb to the self deceit of excuse making. So it was not about taking sides. So far he had partaken in physical sporting contests, and never found himself out of his depth there. At the same time, he had never found himself better than anyone else particularly. Some days he won, other days he chose the losing side to try and contribute to it and balance things out. It all depended on many factors what the outcome was. Rahul’s love of the game made him in such a way that the humanity in him would always give the opponent the advantage if that evened the odds. This was not due to some moral code, it just made the game more interesting and always fresh.
Rahul was a well rounded athlete, but not yet a fighter. He had pushed himself athletically, facing his fears an insecurities as a game rather than to vanquish them in a contest. H was about to come face to face with these fears, which would be brought out in the form of sparring partners, which he would face alone. Up until now, he saw such states of fear and apprehension as transient states. It never had occurred to him that there was anything at stake, or that victory was final. This was correct, but he had not yet come full circle. He had not yet logically assembled the foes within himself into formidable sparring partners to overcome. They just came and went without form. Never before had he entered into the world of martial arts, where the culture was that you directly fight in order to win. Or so he thought.
In martial arts, participants push themselves to the utmost. This often appears pointless. Rahul had heard that people often went mad with the desire to win, and in the process they became overpowered by fear and greed. These are the enemies within which were furled rather than minimised. Their desires become over nourished and morphed into various forms. He could not stand this on the playing field. He had seen that such vulgar displays undermined the integrity of the game. This way of thinking had not happened to him yet, but it was time to step into this world, of positive and negative polarities within himself, which was to be like managing a nuclear power centre.
Rahul would have to logically construct a certain form to pit himself against, whilst seeing that he himself was not that. This is the challenge each fighter must face, to keep the enemy at a physical, emotional, and logical distance, so that you don’t become what you are battling against. Like this you can classify the enemy without reducing the energy situation between you and them. This energy situation, between yourself and the enemy is the fight itself. When you don’t pick a side you become the fight.
Whether or not you win or lose, the experience is often the same. You can experience the downfall of pride, or the humility of innocence or defeat, whether you win or lose. More specifically, the experience is what you make of it, and you can evolve through it and be come more than a result. Fear, pain, misery, ecstasy, these feelings are common to all in martial arts circles, from champions to recreational fighters. But after some time, they fade into obscurity and you must renew all sense of self rather than relying on past glory. It is like the Water Lilly which rises out of the water. It is nourished by the sun and everything else rots away. When the sun goes down, obviously this is a problem, because the foundation crumbles. Like this the fighter must switch from roots to flowering when needed.
It is useless to hang on to that which is within the memory or imagination and not in direct present experience. So these psychological states are enemies, friends, and transient partners. A stimulus to beyond. Rahul did not understand all of this yet, and he was yet to become proud of anything he did, or saddened by any loss. He did not see these things as linear developments which remained for long. He was yet to classify into his logic that which remained in day to day experience.
The Master called Rahul to the pit, and said it was time to fight. Rahul did as he was asked, without hesitation and readied himself for battle, just as he did on the fields of play. Anxiety arose. Rahul was momentarily overcome by the very emotions he had created within himself as he perceived the gravity of the situation. So he quickly assumed a confident posture, and sunk deeply into it. So he transformed the anxiety into confidence to pursue his challenge. He then turned confidence into activity, which again changed his disposition, his very form. He did this automatically, it was natural to him. He went though the entire process in an instant, experiencing the entire contest before it begun. This again was natural to him. It never occurred to linger this process, or attribute aspects of it to an outcome of any kind. He needed no carrot.
He began warming up, preparing for the contest. He played it over in his mind. He was at first the loser, and then he become the winner. He experienced both possibilities even before anything had happened. This was a glimpse. Rahul learnt his first lesson, to transform the energy of a situation to his advantage, as needed. This was not something he learnt formally, it was knowledge transmitted to him as the first part of the nameless trial. This could only be experienced directly, not theoretically. In the same way the teacher teaches the fight show to punch. He does not teach how to experience all the possibility within it. The anticipation was the same as in his sporting contests, except this was more intense, there was something different about it. The difference was he was now a beginner, and took on the form of one just as anyone else would starting out. This is an essential first step. It creates the conditions for development and evolution. he took on the form of a nobody gladly.
That is what Rahul is like, he does everything without hesitation, absolutely uninterested in whether he can achieve victory or not. For him, there is no victory, because there is no sense of self worth or confidence. There are just ebbs and flows, it is not a linear path. This linear expectation only comes about when you identify with a particular side. “I won therefore I’m an eternal winner”. He had not yet learnt to take side. when you don’t take sides, it is impossible to conclude what will happen from any particular perspective. So right away he had to make a distinction. Was he going to win? Was he at a disadvantage? He quickly decided that he should become a winner. He didn’t really know how this would happen, so he drove this image from his mind which became blank. His approach was existential, rather than psychological. How can you experience that which you have not experienced? You become empty, devoid of anticipation or past knowledge.
At the beginning, Rahul became receptive to experience rather than what was going on in his mind. His mind had got him here, his emotion had been satisfied in staying for a while. The third step was beyond mind and emotion. It was into the unknown own he must step. He forgot to create an image of himself, to separate himself into a winner or a loser, for there was no need. He would later become both at various times, tearing himself apart in the process of heart wrenching training. But for now he was nothing, the possibilities endless.
When you are without self regard, without egotism, you see yourself as nothing but at the same time without limitation or boundary lines. The path to nowhere is an inward path, a path which starts where it ends. This makes no logical sense, but at the same time he has already left logic to one side. So Rahul is everything you would not want to be, there is no goal or timeframe. But at the same time he is a blank slate full of possibility.
The Master said to Rahul “You must fight against my chosen disciple, and whether or not you are declared winner or loser, this is just a metaphor.” This was the first hint of the masters wisdom. Rahul was intrigued. The fight is unitary, and which side you are on depends on many things. Above all, you can decide the perspective, not the situation deciding for you. So it is better to lose if that is the biggest contribution to the overall experience, the dance of duality. The aim is to destroy the limited vision of the intellectual mind, which always divides, and enter into no-mind, which always unifies. This had been Rahul’s experience thus far, he had always enjoyed the process in the many sport games he had lost himself in. Now however, he was overcome by a restlessness, a certain agitation. This was his first opponent, over which he would seek to gain victory. He did not know why this was happening. The Master said “I can see you are hungry, and to fuel the fire you must test yourself in combat”.
The Masters disciple was called Gakeet. Gakeet was a seasoned fighter. He did not play games or enjoy them. He wanted only victory. He did not yet possess the wisdom to know anything other than all out aggression. He did everything on a whim, so the master paired him up with Rahul, who was not in such a hurry to dominate. The Master always had trouble directing Gakeet, who was unstable yet powerful. Gakeet simply let the emotions of the situation charge him up. When he went about his furious ways, others regions within himself would wither away or cease to develop. He didn’t care about any of that so long as he won the fight.
To stabilise Gakeets efforts, Rahul was summoned to become the foundation of the Masters new form, which the two of them would create and perpetuate. One would balance out the other. For Rahul, there was no reason to fight, so Gakeet would rile him up to create some kind of big bang within him. Rahul would be an example for Gakeet of the other dimensions within, which one day he would need to develop. This was the real challenge, the outcome of the fight was meaningless really. T This whole process would require both to take on a role. The two of them would befit from the arrangement, and thus the rivalry began. Because Rahul formed no conclusions he always had time to spare. For Gakeet he was in a hurry to finish everything.
Gakeet took on the boxing stance, his fists held high. Rahul did the same, as this is what he had seen in all the classical forms. Gakeet was much bigger than Rahul, so naturally he was the aggressor. The master said “no headshots”. Knowing this Gakeet rushed in and started pummelling Rahul using his natural strength to his advantage. Rahul thought, “I could attack his head an any opportunity, why is this Gakeet leaving his head open to attack?” Obviously Gakeet was exploiting the rules to win, there was no other concern. Rahul received several body shots, which although powerful did not subdue him. After 2 minutes the master called an end to the contest.
Gakeet had outpointed Rahul, and at once declared himself the winner. Rahul did not feel any real contest had taken place, but it was clear he had been made an example out of. As proof of his victory, Gakeet explained how many points he had scored in the exchange. Gakeet walked away happy.
The Master turned to Rahul and said “To claim victory in an unending process, to win within rules where none exist except for technical analysis, this is the beginning of certainty. In a process where there is never any certainty, this is self deception.” He went on to say “When you become full of what you have done, then you deprive yourself of the privilege of not knowing. To awaken from ignorance to the no mind state is to enter the borderless infinite. We want this for Gakeet, and his path is different from yours. Rahul listened on.
The Master said of Gakeet, “He must must win many pointless contest to see this, and you must waste your time with him to rid yourself of any nonsense you have accumulated to exhaust your body and mind.” Rahul thought about these words. He decided that he was no better off than before, which means he is still seeking the truth. At least he had not found ignorance or untruth. He decided to agree and become the masters servant and accomplice. His job would be to continually rid himself of any accumulated matter which might build up. Gakeet on the other hand would be taught these truths by winning contests. He would have to win thousands of more times in order to leave behind this limited state of experience and move beyond it. Gakeet was told by the master that he too was chosen to teach Rahul how to become a champion like him. This is the strategy the master used, to impart the teaching in such a way that it seems like an abuse or a lie to anyone who is unwilling.