The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1 Talks given from 21/06/79 am to 30/04/80 am
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Zusiya opened his eyes, and these were his last words. He said, "Stop talking nonsense! God is not going to ask me, 'Zusiya, why were you not a Moses?' He will ask me, 'Zusiya, why were you not a Zusiya?'" You have to be just yourself and nobody else. And in fact that's what buddhahood means: to be yourself. That is what christ-consciousness means: just to be yourself. Buddha was not an imitation of somebody else. Don't you think there were many many great men who had preceded him? He must have been told, "Be a Krishna! Be a Parshvanath! Be an Adinatha!" He must have heard beautiful stories, mythologies. He must have read the PURANAS, ancient stories about the great men, Rama, Krishna, Parasuram. He must have heard all that, he must have received the heritage. But he never tried to be somebody. He wanted to be himself, he wanted to know who he is. He never became an imitator; that's why one day he became awakened. Jesus never tried to be Abraham, Moses, Ezekiel. Jesus simply tried to be himself. That was his crime, that's why he was crucified. The same people who crucified Jesus would have worshipped him if he had simply been an imitator, a carbon copy of Moses. If he had been just a gramophone record repeating the Ten Commandments, the Jews would have worshipped him. But they had to crucify the man -- he was just himself. The rotten society, the crowd, the mob mind, cannot tolerate individuals. It is impossible for them to tolerate a Socrates. Do you know what the charge was against Socrates? Exactly the same thing is said about me! This was the crime of Socrates, that he used to corrupt the minds of the youth. That's exactly what my enemies say: that I am corrupting people's minds, particularly the minds of the youth. Socrates was corrupting the minds of the youth? He was trying to awaken their intelligence, but the society became afraid. If so many people become so authentic, true, then the vested interests are in danger. Then you cannot drive people like cattle. And that's what priests enjoy, and the politicians too. There is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician to exploit people, to dominate people, to oppress people. And the fundamental is: never allow them to become intelligent. Give them substitutes. What is the substitute for intelligence? -- intellectuality. Give them education; send them to the school, to the college, to the university, so they become intellectuals. Have you ever heard of universities creating intelligence? They create intellectuals, they create scholars, they create people who know the scriptures -- to the very word they can repeat the scriptures -- but they don't create intelligent people. They serve society; the educational system is invented by this rotten society to serve its own purposes. It is not there to help you, it is there to keep you in bondage. Dhyana Yogi, I cannot help you let go of this garbage, I can only help you to be more conscious. And if you are conscious the garbage will be dropped of its own accord. One day suddenly you will find it disappearing...suddenly disappearing. As consciousness deepens, all garbage disappears -- just as you bring light in and darkness disperses. Buddha says: Become more aware and the light will start pouring in...aes dhammo sanantano. The fourth question: Question 4 BELOVED MASTER, I OFTEN READ THE 'HYMN TO LOVE' IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THIS IS EXACTLY YOUR MESSAGE. ALSO, IT IS SIGNIFICANT THAT IT NEVER ACTUALLY USES THE WORD 'GOD'. I CAN FIND NOTHING TO CONTRADICT YOUR BASIC MESSAGE IN THIS LOVELY POEM. ON THE OTHER HAND, IT SEEMS TO BE EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IN YOUR DISCOURSES. AM I RIGHT? YOU HAVE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL VOICE THAT IT WOULD BE REALLY NICE TO HEAR YOU SAY SOME OR ALL OF IT, ESPECIALLY AS I FEEL YOU WILL SOON STOP TALKING PUBLICLY ALTOGETHER. HERE IS A COPY OF THE HYMN.
Millions of fingers can point to the same moon. Fingers are bound to be different -- my finger is different from the finger of Jesus or Buddha or Moses or Abraham -- but the moon is the same. And this hymn is a beautiful finger pointing to the moon. It is the very essence of all the teachings of all the buddhas of all the ages -- past, present, and future too. THOUGH I SPEAK WITH THE TONGUES OF MEN AND ANGELS, AND HAVE NOT LOVE, I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS OR A TINKLING CYMBAL. AND THOUGH I HAVE THE GIFT OF PROPHECY, AND UNDERSTAND ALL MYSTERIES, AND ALL KNOWLEDGE; AND THOUGH I HAVE ALL FAITH, SO THAT I COULD REMOVE MOUNTAINS, AND HAVE NOT LOVE, I AM NOTHING. AND THOUGH I BESTOW ALL MY GOODS TO FEED THE POOR, AND THOUGH I GIVE MY BODY TO BE BURNED, AND HAVE NOT LOVE, IT PROFITETH ME NOTHING. LOVE SUFFERETH LONG, AND IS KIND; LOVE ENVIETH NOT; LOVE VAUNTETH NOT ITSELF, IS NOT PUFFED UP, DOTH NOT BEHAVE ITSELF UNSEEMLY, SEEKETH NOT HER OWN, IS NOT EASILY PROVOKED, THINKETH NO EVIL; REJOICETH NOT IN INIQUITY, BUT REJOICETH IN THE TRUTH; BEARETH ALL THINGS, BELIEVETH ALL THINGS, HOPETH ALL THINGS, ENDURETH ALL THINGS. LOVE NEVER FAILETH: BUT WHETHER THERE BE PROPHECIES, THEY SHALL FAIL; WHETHER THERE BE TONGUES, THEY SHALL CEASE; WHETHER THERE BE KNOWLEDGE, IT SHALL VANISH AWAY. FOR WE KNOW IN PART, AND WE PROPHESY IN PART. BUT WHEN THAT WHICH IS PERFECT IS COME THEN THAT WHICH IS PART SHALL BE DONE AWAY. WHEN I WAS A CHILD, I SPAKE AS A CHILD, I UNDERSTOOD AS A CHILD, I THOUGHT AS A CHILD; BUT WHEN I BECAME A MAN, I PUT AWAY CHILDISH THINGS. FOR NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY; BUT THEN FACE-TO-FACE. NOW I KNOW IN PART, BUT THEN SHALL I KNOW EVEN AS ALSO I AM KNOWN. AND NOW ABIDETH FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, THESE THREE; BUT THE GREATEST OF ALL THESE IS LOVE. These are the essential qualities of a religious person. This is my message -- this is the message! The language is old, and because it is old it has a beauty of its own, because the older the language is, the more poetry it has. As we have become more and more scientific our language has also become more and more scientific. As the hymn is two thousand years old, it has something of primitive innocence in it, the childlike quality of wonder, of being surprised at the mysterious. But, Premartha, you are perfectly right: there is nothing in it which contradicts me, and there is nothing in it which I would like to contradict either. Whosoever said it must have been an awakened one. But don't go on simply repeating it. It is beautiful to repeat, it is beautiful to sing it, but not enough. Practice it, let it become the very flavor of your life. Let it be dissolved into your blood, into your bones, into your marrow. Let it surround you like an invisible aura. Don't go on simply repeating it. It is beautiful -- and that is the danger. You can become so charmed, so hypnotized by its beauty, that you may go on repeating it your whole life. And the more you repeat, the more beautiful it will look...because these ancient messages have tremendous power and many layers of meaning. But don't go into the linguistic or philosophical analysis of it. It is a prayer! -- and a prayer is not something to be said but something to be felt. A prayer is not something to be read but something to be lived. Live it! It is true: AND NOW ABIDETH FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, THESE THREE; BUT THE GREATEST OF ALL THESE IS LOVE. You can think about love, you can have beautiful flights of imagination about love, you can have beautiful dreams about love, but that is not going to help. What is going to help is, you have to become love. Love has to become your essential core. Everything else has to be sacrificed to love, everything else has to become part of your loving life. Then only will this prayer be true for you. And then it will not be Christian, then it will not belong to the New Testament. It will be something that is part of your heart; you will breathe it. And whosoever will come close to you will have a little glimpse of it. A little light will be shed on everybody's path...if you live it. Scriptures can be understood only if first they are practiced. People do just the opposite: they read the scripture and they try to understand it. Intellectually it is not difficult to understand those scriptures, they are simple. People become very proficient, very efficient, in repeating the scriptures -- and they end with that. They remain parrots. And what can you understand about it? Intellectually whatsoever you understand will not be right, because it will reflect your state of mind, not the state of the mind who uttered these words. A retired cattle rancher, aged sixty-five, who had sold his ranch and come to New York to see the sights, checked into a midtown hotel. Once upstairs, he made himself comfortable and relaxed on the bed. While he was resting, he saw the door slowly open, and there standing before him was a curvaceous blonde attired only in a sheer negligee. "Oh," she apologized when she saw the old fellow, "I must be in the wrong room." "No," he corrected, "you are in the right room, but you are about forty years too late!" The interpretation is always going to be yours. You can read Jesus, you can read Buddha, but who is going to interpret it? You will interpret it. And what is your understanding? What light have you got? Those beautiful sayings will remain just beautiful sayings, beautiful nothings. Yes, good poetry, but poetry cannot liberate you unless it becomes your own experience, unless you can become a witness to the scriptures. "Your continual unfaithfulness proves you are an absolute rotter," stormed the outraged wife who had just caught her husband for the seventh time in a sportive romp with another woman. "Quite the contrary!" came the cool reply. "It merely proves that I am too good to be true." Your interpretations will always reflect you. When you look in the mirror you will be looking at your face, you will be looking at yourself. You can't see the mirror, you can only see your face reflected in it. You will be able to see the mirror only when you have lost your face, when you have lost your head, when you are not. When you have become a nothing, a nobody, then stand before a mirror and you will see the mirror and its mirroring and you will not be mirrored in it, you will not be reflected in it. You will not be present there. Before you become an absence, going before the mirror is of no use. And that's what people go on doing: reading the Bible, the Koran, THE DHAMMAPADA, they read themselves. The worried mother was lecturing her teenage daughter on the subject of sex morality. "Of course I realize you may be tempted while you are out on a date. If you are, dear, please ask yourself this all-important question: is an hour of pleasure worth an entire life of humiliation?" "Gosh, mother," asked the daughter, "how do you make it last an hour?" Remember always, you cannot understand Jesus, Moses, Zarathustra. Your face will come in it too much. A newly wed patient was complaining to his doctor about his marital relations. It seems the first time he makes love to his spouse it is just wonderful, but the second time, he is perspired and sweaty. The medicine man decided to consult the wife. "Isn't it odd," the medico asks the missus when she arrives, "that it is just wonderful the first time and the second time he is all perspired and sweaty?" "Why should it be odd?" she smirks. "The first time it is in January and the second time it is July!"
Unless a person becomes a witness to the ultimate truth himself, he will go on thinking that Buddha is saying one thing and Jesus is saying something contrary; that Buddhism is against Hinduism, that Hinduism is against Jainism, that Jainism is against Mohammedanism. Unless you witness the truth you will go on believing these three hundred religions, and you will be part of the quarrel, the conflict, the antagonism that goes on between these religions continuously. The day you see the truth of your own being, all these three hundred religions simply disappear, evaporate. Once -- just like Premartha -- a Christian missionary went to see a Zen master. He wanted to convert the Zen master, so he had brought the Sermon on the Mount with him. He started reading the Sermon on the Mount: he had read only the first two or three sentences, and the Zen master said, "Stop! Whosoever said it was a buddha!" The missionary was surprised. He said, "But these are the words of Jesus!" The master said, "It doesn't matter what the name of the buddha is, but whosoever said this was a buddha. He had arrived."
Question 5 BELOVED MASTER, ONLY ONE STEP? Digambara, yes, in fact, not even one...because we are not to go anywhere. We are already in God! I say "only one step" just to console you, because without any steps you will be too puzzled. I reduce it to the minimum, only one step, so that something remains for you to do, because you understand only the language of doing. You are a doer! If I say, "Nothing has to be done, not even a single step has to be taken," you will be at a loss how to make any head or tail of it. The truth is, not even a single step is needed. Sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. But that may be too much. Your doer mind may simply ignore it or may think it is all nonsense. How can you achieve God without doing anything? Yes, a shortcut the mind can understand; that's why I say, "a single step." That is the shortest -- it cannot be reduced to less than that. A single step! That is just to make you understand that doing is nonessential. To attain to being, doing is absolutely nonessential. When you are agreed and convinced that only one step is needed, then I will whisper in your ear, "Not even one -- you are already there!"
Rabiya could not tolerate it that day. Hassan was crying, tears were rolling down, and he was shouting again and again, "Open the door! Let me in! Why don't you listen? Why don't you hear my prayers?" Every day she had laughed, whenever she had heard Hassan she had laughed, but it was too much today. Tears...and Hassan was really crying, weeping, crying his heart out. She went, she shook Hassan, and said, "Stop all this nonsense! The door is open -- in fact you are already in!" Hassan looked at Rabiya, and that moment became a moment of revelation. Looking into the eyes of Rabiya, he bowed down, touched her feet, and said, "You came in time; otherwise I would have called my whole life! For years I have been doing this -- where have you been before? And I know you pass this street every day. You must have seen me crying, praying." Rabiya said, "Yes, but truth can only be said at a certain moment, in a certain space, in a certain context. I was waiting for the right, ripe moment. Today it has arrived; hence I came close to you. Yesterday if I had told you, you would have felt irritated; you may have even become angry. You may have reacted antagonistically; you may have told me, 'You have disturbed my prayer!' -- and it is not right to disturb anybody's prayer." Even the king is not allowed to disturb the prayer of a beggar. Even if a criminal, a murderer, is praying in Mohammedan countries, the police have to wait till he finishes his prayer, only then can he be caught. Prayer should not be disturbed. Rabiya said, "I had wanted to tell you this, that 'Hassan, don't be a fool, the door is open -- in fact, you are already in!' But I had to wait for the right moment."
You ask me, "Beloved Master, only one step?" Not even one, Digambara. But the right moment has not come yet, at least for you. When it comes I will whisper in your ear, "You are already in. Not even a single step is needed" -- because we are not going outside. Steps are needed to go outside, steps are not needed to go in. It is like a man dreaming, and in his dreams he has gone far far away. Will he need a long journey to come back home? He is already home, he is sleeping in his home...but he may be in Timbuktu in his dream. All that is needed is that he has to be shaken up. As Rabiya shook Hassan, Digambara, one day I will shake you up! You just need cold water to be poured on you -- really cold water, ice-cold, so in shock you open your eyes. Do you think you will ask me, "How to go back home -- because I am in Timbuktu?" No, you will not ask, if you see that you are already in your home, had fallen asleep and dreamt about Timbuktu. You had never gone there. You have not gone out of God! You cannot, it is impossible, because only God exists. Where can we go, where can we go? There is no place where God is not. We are always in him and he is always in us. But that needs an awakening. Not even one step -- that is just to bring you closer to truth. Slowly slowly, you have to be persuaded. One thousand steps are reduced to one step, and then I will take that step away from you too. But that needs a right moment. Ultimate truths can be said only in a right, ripe situation. That moment will also come. Just be ready to receive it, welcome it.... Enough for today. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1 Chapter #7 Chapter title: By watching.... 27 June 1979 am in Buddha Hall Archive code: 7906270 ShortTitle: DHAM107 Audio: Yes Video: No Length: 108 mins THE FOOL IS CARELESS. BUT THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING. IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE. HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE. HE MEDITATES. AND IN THE STRENGTH OF HIS RESOLVE HE DISCOVERS TRUE HAPPINESS. HE OVERCOMES DESIRE -- AND FROM THE TOWER OF WISDOM HE LOOKS DOWN WITH DISPASSION UPON THE SORROWING CROWD. FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP HE LOOKS DOWN ON THOSE WHO LIVE CLOSE TO THE GROUND.
AWAKE WHILE OTHERS DREAM, SWIFT AS THE RACE HORSE HE OUTSTRIPS THE FIELD. BY WATCHING INDRA BECAME KING OF THE GODS. HOW WONDERFUL IT IS TO WATCH, HOW FOOLISH TO SLEEP. THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND AND FEARS THE WAYWARDNESS OF HIS THOUGHTS BURNS THROUGH EVERY BOND WITH THE FIRE OF HIS VIGILANCE. THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND AND FEARS HIS OWN CONFUSION CANNOT FALL. HE HAS FOUND THE WAY TO PEACE. Life is three-dimensional, and man is free to choose. The freedom that man has is both a curse and a blessing. He can choose to rise, he can choose to fall. He can choose the way of darkness or he can choose the way of light. No other being has the freedom to choose. Their lives are predetermined. Because they are predetermined they cannot go astray -- that's the beauty of it. But because it is predetermined they are mechanical -- that's what is ugly about it. Man is not yet a being in the true sense. He is only a becoming, he is on the way. He is searching, seeking, groping; he is not yet crystallized. That's why he does not know who he is -- because he is not yet; how can he know who he is? Before knowing, being has to happen. And the being is possible only if you choose rightly, consciously, with full awareness. Jean-Paul Sartre is right when he says that man is a project, that man creates himself by his own effort, that man is born only as an opportunity, as a possibility, not as an actuality. He has to become actual -- and there is every possibility that he may miss the target. Millions of people miss the target; it is very rarely that a person has found his being. When a person finds his being, he is a buddha. But the basic requirement is: choose your life with awareness. You have to choose anyway -- whether you choose with awareness or not makes no difference, choice has to be made. You are not free in the sense that if you don't want to choose you will be allowed not to. You are not free not to choose -- even not choosing will be a choosing. The millions who miss, they miss because they don't choose. They simply wait; they go on hoping that something is going to happen. Nothing ever happens that way. You have to create the context, the space, for something valuable to happen to you, for something essential to happen to you. There are two schools of philosophers in the world. One believes that man is born as an essence: the essentialist school. It says that man is already born ready-made. This is the idea of all the fatalists. The other school is that of those who call themselves existentialists. They believe that man is born not as an essence but only as an existence. And what is the difference? The essence is predetermined; you bring it with your life, you bring it as a blueprint. You have only to unfold it; you are already made. There is no choice for you to make yourself, to create yourself. That is a very uncreative standpoint; that reduces man to a machine. The other school believes that man is born only as an existence. The essence has to be created; it is not already there. You have to create yourself, you have to find ways and means to become, to be. You have to become a womb to your own being, you have to give birth to yourself. The physical birth is not the true birth; you will have to be born again. Jesus says to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again, you will not enter into the kingdom of my God." What does he mean? Is Nicodemus to die first physically? No. Jesus means something totally different: he has to die as an ego, he has to die as a personality. He has to die as a past. He has to die as mind. Only when you die as mind are you born as a being. In the East we have called the buddhas the twice-born -- dwij. Other people are only once-born; a buddha is twice-born. The first gift of life is through the parents; the second gift you have to give to yourself. You can choose between these three dimensions. If you choose one dimension you will attain a certain integrity, but because it is one-dimensional it will not be total and it will not be whole. The first dimension is the dimension of science, of the objective world, of objects, things, the other. The second dimension is of aesthetics: the world of music, poetry, painting, sculpture, the world of imagination. And the third dimension is that of religion -- subjective, inner. Science and religion are polar opposites: science is extrovert, religion is introvert. And between the two is the world of aesthetics. It is the bridge; it is both and neither. The world of aesthetics, the world of the artist, is in a way objective -- only in a way. He paints, and then a painting is born as an object. It is also subjective, because before he can paint he has to create the painting in his inwardness, in his subjectivity. Before a poet can sing his song, he sings it in his innermost recesses of being. It is sung there first, only then does it move into the outer world. |