Consciousness can go either out or in; these are the two ways available for consciousness. When consciousness goes out, it thinks above the object, the other, the thou. When consciousness tomes in, thinking disappears -- because there is no other, no object. It falls into subjectivity.
When consciousness goes out, philosophy is erected. Philosophy is thinking about objects. Philosophy is extra version. When consciousness goes in, it forgets all about objects, it starts enjoying the being of subjectivity, of inferiority. You are simply there enjoying the very fact of being alive, the very fact of being conscious. No object is these, you are pure subjectivity. No thought is there, you are pure consciousness.
Extra version is philosophy, introversion is psychology and transcendence of both is religion. Buddha uses two words. For the outside he uses DHATU, the object. Philosophy is concerned with the object. It forgets the observer, it remembers the observed. The arrow is pointed towards the without, DHATU, the object. And for the inner journey Buddha uses the word CHITTA, subjectivity. When you are moving inwards psychology is created, when you are moving outwards philosophy is created.
And science is a growth of philosophy. But the modern psychology, the so-called psychology, is not psychology in the sense that Buddha uses the word 'psychology' because the modern psychology again goes on thinking ABOUT mind, in an objective way. It uses the philosophical method. Hence it misses the point. That is the difference between modern psychology and the real psychology.
Gurdjieff used to say that the real psychology has yet to be born. What does he mean by real psychology? Is Sigmund Freud not a real psychologist? Is Carl Gustav Jung not a real psychologist? Is Adler not a real psychologist?
No, they all think in the objective way. Their psychologies are nothing but philosophies. They think about mind; the mind is taken as an object. They think about the mind from the outside. They watch. They observe. They analyze. They dissect. But the observer remains outside; the observer thinks.
Gurdjieff says that the real psychology has yet to be born. In a sense he is right, in a sense he is not. If we think about Freud, Jung, Adler and company then he is right, but if we think about Patanjali, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Hui Neng, then he is wrong. The real psychology has existed for millennia. The real psychology has existed for so long that we have forgotten about it. The new, the so-called psychology is very immature. It is a very late arrival just one hundred years old. It is very childish.
The real psychology is the psychology of the Buddhas. The real psychology is to go inside your being -- not to watch how rats behave, not to watch how others behave, not to go on looking outside, but to go inside with closed eyes, deep, meditatively, alert, fully alert, watching what happens inside. Go on dropping from the outside into your inside, into your inferiority. Go on forgetting the world of objects, then the world of thoughts, then the world of feelings -- go on dropping out, go on dropping out. A moment comes when your consciousness is there without any content.
To know this consciousness is to know what real psychology is -- the psychology of the Buddhas. And you ask: What is religion? The division between the 'out' and 'in' is still a division, so the 'in' is also not very much 'in',it is part of the 'out', it is another aspect of the same coin.
On one side is written 'out', on another 'in'. So philosophy and psychology are two aspects of the same coin: one is extroversion, another is introversion.
What is religion? Religion is to throw away the whole coin itself. No more going out, no more going in, no more 'going' at all. When going disappears, when the pilgrimage has ended, then you simply are -- neither as an object nor as a subject. Then there is no knower and the known, then there is no observer and the observed -- then there is oneness, an oceanic feeling of oneness. Then you are in the rose, then you are in the trees, then you are in the rocks, then you are in people. You are everywhere. You permeate the whole existence. This is religion.
Philosophy is going out, psychology is going in, religion is not going anywhere at all. All journeys have been dropped, there is no identification with anything, in or out. This transcendence is what religion is. To another way.... To you ask Zen people they have their way of saying it. They say philosophy is that, psychology is this and religion is just suchness, TATHATA. That is an object; this is subjectivity; thusness, suchness, TATHATA, existence, isness, In Japaneese it is called KONOMAMA, or SONOMAMA, just isness with no demarking line, with no label attached to it, with no identity, just pure being -- is religion.
So first move from that to this, then move from this to such. TATHATA IS the ultimate word of Zen people. One who has attained to TATHATA is called TATHAGATA. That's why TATHAGATA IS one of the names of Buddha -- one who has attained to suchness.
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