The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1 Talks given from 21/06/79 am to 30/04/80 am

Carl Gustav Jung used to tell his patients to paint. And many insane people have painted really beautiful paintings. But, certainly, those paintings are insane! How can an insane person paint a sane painting? It may have a certain beauty of its own -- the beauty of insanity -- it may have a certain proportion, a certain arrangement of colors, or it may even have a certain vision, but something of his insanity is bound to be lurking there around it. And Jung became aware, slowly slowly, that through painting insane people can be helped tremendously -- painting can become a therapy. And, certainly, he is right. If you can paint your nightmares, you will be getting free from them. It is an expression! Expression always brings freedom. Repression brings bondage, expression brings freedom. And this is one of the beautiful ways to express, to paint.

If you are afraid of death, tortured by the idea of death, if you have nightmares about death, and you can paint many paintings of death, you will get rid of those ideas. You have brought them to the conscious from the unconscious. Anything that is brought to the conscious from the unconscious, you become free of it.

But humanity has been doing just the opposite. We have been told for centuries to throw things from the conscious to the unconscious -- that's what repression is. Yes, in a way, you appear to have got free of them, but not really. In fact, they have gone deeper in you, they have sunk deeper in you. They will trouble you even more. Now they will control you from the unconscious and you will not even be aware of them.

The whole approach of psychoanalysis is against repression: bring all that is repressed in the unconscious to the conscious. It can be done in many ways. Psychoanalysis is the longest route; it takes three years, six years, even ten. Then too the analysis is never complete. There is not a single person in the whole world whose psychoanalysis is complete and finished.

It cannot be finished, because the process is slow. Twice a week or thrice a week you see your psychoanalyst; lying on the psychoanalyst's couch you throw out your garbage for one hour. He listens patiently -- at least he pretends that he is listening patiently. And because he is listening you go on bringing it out. He gives you encouragement, so you go on digging deeper and deeper, and you bring things from the unconscious to the conscious. His presence, his expertise, his name, his authority, make you courageous. You are not afraid of bringing things up which would scare you if you brought them up when you were alone -- because you would see yourself on the verge of going mad. But his authority and his presence...and that may be only in your belief, because he himself may be more insane than you are. But you can have just the belief that he knows that he will be able to help, that he is there, so you need not be afraid; you can go and dig deep into your unconscious.

The more you bring to the conscious, the more you are freed -- it is very unburdening. But once, twice or thrice a week you unburden, and the whole week you go on gathering again. The three hours' doing is undone; you remain the same. It becomes a vicious circle. In the society, in the family, you again accumulate repressions, and you go to the analyst and you express those suppressions. A little bit unburdened, you are back in the society -- the same society, the same people. You listen to the same priest, you read the same newspaper, you go to the same political rally. You remain a communist or you remain a Catholic. The same wife, the same husband, the same children, the same people to associate with.... Again repression happens.

This is a very temporary relief.

Many other ways are being found. Painting is one of the ways -- far more significant, because the unconscious knows the language of pictures and not the language of words. The unconscious expresses itself in pictures. That's why in your dreams your unconscious expresses itself more adequately. Hence the psychoanalyst wants to know about your dreams more and more. Dreams are a pictorial, primitive language, unsophisticated, more innocent. And that's exactly what happens when you paint.

Painting is bringing your dreams out into the light -- it can help tremendously. My own feeling is that if Picasso had been prevented from painting he would have gone mad. It was his painting that saved him -- although he was unaware that it was his painting that was saving him. But his painting has the quality of madness in it.

If you look at a Picasso painting and meditate over it you will feel dizzy, you will feel uneasy, you will feel tense, you will not feel relaxed. And if you live in a room where on all the walls are Picasso paintings, there is every danger that you will have nightmares, or you may go mad. Those paintings will provoke your insanity.

So, Nirgun, you can avoid the art galleries, you can bypass Picassos, but you cannot bypass the aesthetic layer of your being. You cannot bypass the aesthetic dimension; otherwise you will remain impoverished, lopsided, something will be missing in you. And I would not like anything to be missing in my sannyasins. They have to be as scientific as possible. I don't mean -- again remember -- that you have to become a physicist or a chemist or a biologist or a physiologist. I don't mean that! When I say you have to be a scientist, I mean you have to be scientific -- it is a metaphor. Always remember: I am talking in metaphors and similes and parables.

You have to be scientific. To approach the world, the objective world, rightly, the only way is science. If the Bible says that the earth is not round but flat, don't believe in it -- be scientific. The earth is round and not flat. The Bible has no right to say anything about something objective. The Bible is a religious book; it has its own dimension. Don't confuse these dimensions.

Because of this confusion there has arisen a great conflict between science and religion. There is no need at all. Science has its own realm, its own territory. First the priests started interfering with science; now, the whole story is again being repeated in the opposite order. Now scientists are trying to interfere in the world of religion.

Don't ask a scientist whether God exists or not -- that is none of his business. What does he know about God? That is not his dimension. And whatsoever he says about God is stupid; whatsoever he says is going to be wrong.

It is like asking a great doctor about poetry -- he may be a great doctor, a great physician, but asking him about poetry just because he is a great physician is foolish. Or asking a great poet about your illness because he is a great poet...you can see the stupidity of it. You will not go to a great poet to be diagnosed just because he is a great poet. You will go to a doctor -- he may not be a poet at all.

The scientist has no right to say anything about the interiority of humanity -- that is not his world. But now he is interfering. He is doing the same wrong that the priests have been doing for centuries.
Galileo was called by the pope, forced in his old age to apologize because he had said that it is not the sun that goes round the earth, but the earth that goes round the sun. Now, it is against the Bible. The priests were very much annoyed: "How can you deny the Bible? Who are you?" In his old age -- he was seventy, ill, bed-ridden -- he was forced to go to the court, he was forced to kneel down before the pope, and he was asked to apologize.

He must have been a man of humor, he must have had a great sense of humor. He said, "Yes, sir, I apologize. I declare that the Bible is right, that the earth does not go round the sun but the sun goes round the earth. Are you satisfied, sir?"

And they were all happy. They said, "We are satisfied."

And then Galileo laughed. He said, "But whatsoever I say, it makes no difference -- the earth goes round the sun. My statements, what do they mean? What can they do? What can I do? My saying it won't help -- the earth won't listen. But I apologize, I am wrong and the Bible is right. But remember well: the earth goes round the sun -- it has no obligation to fulfill my desire. I would like it to go according to the Bible and according to you, but I am helpless, utterly helpless."

But now, centuries have passed, man has grown, has come of age. Now, science has its own world. We should drop all that is scientific from the religious scriptures -- they have nothing to do with it. Neither does science have anything to do with religious scriptures or the religious dimension. But this is how stupid minds go on quarreling.

I would like you to be scientific -- as far as the world is concerned, be scientific. As far as your inner reality is concerned, be religious. And there is a world between the two, the world of in-between, the twilight world, where the objective and the subjective meet. That is the world of aesthetics. About that, be an artist, be a poet, be a musician.

All these dimensions fulfilled and you will become spiritual; all these dimensions enriched will make you the fourth man, the spiritual man. My sannyasins have to be the fourth -- integrated, whole. Nothing has to be bypassed, Nirgun. Everything has to be lived, loved, experienced. Everything has to be absorbed, so that you become as rich as it is possible to become.

Question 2

BELOVED MASTER,

WILL YOU SAY SOMETHING MORE ABOUT RELAXATION? I AM AWARE OF A TENSION DEEP AT THE CORE OF ME AND SUSPECT THAT I HAVE PROBABLY NEVER BEEN TOTALLY RELAXED.

WHEN YOU SAID THE OTHER DAY THAT TO RELAX IS ONE OF THE MOST COMPLEX PHENOMENA POSSIBLE, I GLIMPSED A RICH TAPESTRY IN WHICH THE THREADS OF RELAXATION AND LET-GO WERE DEEPLY INTERWOVEN WITH TRUST, AND THEN LOVE CAME INTO IT, AND ACCEPTANCE, GOING WITH THE FLOW, UNION AND ECSTASY....
Anurag, total relaxation is the ultimate. That's the moment when one becomes a buddha. That is the moment of realization, enlightenment, christ-consciousness. You cannot be totally relaxed right now. At the innermost core a tension will persist.

But start relaxing. Start from the circumference -- that's where we are, and we can start only from where we are. Relax the circumference of your being -- relax your body, relax your behavior, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don't be in a hurry and don't be in haste. Move as if all eternity is available to you -- in fact, it is available to you. We are here from the beginning and we are going to be here to the very end, if there is a beginning and there is an end. In fact, there is no beginning and no end. We have always been here and we will be here always. Forms go on changing, but not the substance; garments go on changing, but not the soul.

Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife -- afraid tomorrow you will not be able to face the reality, so be prepared. Tension means the past that you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a hangover, it surrounds you.

Remember one very fundamental thing about life: any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will persist: "Finish me! Live me! Complete me!" There is an intrinsic quality in every experience that it tends and wants to be finished, completed. Once completed, it evaporates; incomplete, it persists, it tortures you, it haunts you, it attracts your attention. It says, "What are you going to do about me? I am still incomplete -- fulfill me!"

Your whole past hangs around you with nothing completed -- because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a lukewarm way. There has been no intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the future is crushed your present, the only reality.

You will have to relax from the circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body. Remember as many times as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension in the body somewhere -- at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously. Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly "Relax!"

And you will be surprised that if you approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you -- it is your body! With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax, and tell it, "There is nothing to fear. Don't be afraid. I am here to take care -- you can relax." Slowly slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body becomes relaxed.

Then take another step, a little deeper; tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, mind also listens, but you cannot start with the mind -- you have to start from the beginning. You cannot start from the middle. Many people start with the mind and they fail; they fail because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right order.

If you become capable of relaxing the body voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. Mind is a more complex phenomenon. Once you have become confident that the body listens to you, you will have a new trust in yourself. Now even the mind can listen to you. It will take a little longer with the mind, but it happens.

When the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your feelings, emotions -- which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is possible with the heart too. And then only, when you have gone through these three steps, can you take the fourth. Now you can go to the innermost core of your being, which is beyond body, mind, heart: the very center of your existence. And you will be able to relax it too.

And that relaxation certainly brings the greatest joy possible, the ultimate in ecstasy, acceptance. You will be full of bliss and rejoicing. Your life will have the quality of dance to it.

The whole of existence is dancing, except man. The whole of existence is in a very relaxed movement; movement there is, certainly, but it is utterly relaxed. Trees are growing and birds are chirping and rivers are flowing, stars are moving: everything is going in a very relaxed way. No hurry, no haste, no worry, and no waste. Except man. Man has fallen a victim of his mind.

Man can rise above gods and fall below animals. Man has a great spectrum. From the lowest to the highest, man is a ladder.

Anurag, start from the body, and then go, slowly slowly, deeper. And don't start with anything else unless you have first solved the primary. If your body is tense, don't start with the mind. Wait. Work on the body. And just small things are of immense help.

You walk at a certain pace; that has become habitual, automatic. Now try to walk slowly. Buddha used to say to his disciples, "Walk very slowly, and take each step very consciously." If you take each step very consciously, you are bound to walk slowly. If you are running, hurrying, you will forget to remember. Hence Buddha walks very slowly.

Just try walking very slowly, and you will be surprised -- a new quality of awareness starts happening in the body. Eat slowly, and you will be surprised -- there is great relaxation. Do everything slowly...just to change the old pattern, just to come out of old habits.

First the body has to become utterly relaxed, like a small child, then only start with the mind. Move scientifically: first the simplest, then the complex, then the more complex. And then only can you relax at the ultimate core.

You ask me, Anurag, "Will you say something more about relaxation? I am aware of a tension deep in the core of me and suspect that I have probably never been totally relaxed."

That is the situation of every human being. It is good that you are aware -- millions are unaware of it. You are blessed that you are aware, because if you are aware then something can be done. If you are not aware, then nothing is possible. Awareness is the beginning of transformation.

And you say, "When you said the other day that to relax is one of the most complex phenomena possible, I glimpsed a rich tapestry in which the threads of relaxation and let-go were deeply interwoven with trust, and then love came into it, and acceptance, going with the flow, union and ecstasy...."

Yes, Anurag, relaxation is one of the most complex phenomena -- very rich, multidimensional. All these things are part of it: let-go, trust, surrender, love, acceptance, going with the flow, union with existence, egolessness, ecstasy. All these are part of it, and all these start happening if you learn the ways of relaxation.

Your so-called religions have made you very tense, because they have created guilt in you. My effort here is to help you get rid of all guilt and all fear. I would like to tell you: there is no hell and no heaven. So don't be afraid of hell and don't be greedy for heaven. All that exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or a heaven -- that certainly is possible -- but there is no heaven or hell somewhere else. Hell is when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are all relaxed. Total relaxation is paradise.

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

EVERY TIME YOU HAVE SPOKEN ON A MASTER, I HAVE FELT YOU TO BE IN LOVE WITH THAT MASTER AND YOU FLOWING THROUGH HIS SUTRAS. IN THIS SERIES THOUGH, I FEEL YOU STANDING APART FROM THE BUDDHA AND NOT REALLY IN LOVE WITH HIS WORK.

IS SOMETHING CHANGING OR AM I IMAGINING THINGS?
Nishant, you are not imagining things. With me, you will have to be always on the move -- things will be changing. As you grow up I will be telling you things which I could not tell you before. It is not that my love for Buddha is less -- my love cannot be less or more; my love is just love, it is a quality, it has no quantitative dimension to it. It can never be less or more -- it simply is.

I love Buddha, I love Jesus, I love Zarathustra, I love Lao Tzu, I love Patanjali -- BECAUSE I love...because I love you, because I love the trees, because I love the birds. My love is not less.

And you are perfectly right that I am standing apart -- I will be standing apart more and more in the future. I am preparing for the new phase. The work has to take a quantum leap, and much preparation is needed. The work has to take on a totally different quality now. Now I have people with me of great trust, of love, people who are committed and surrendered.

In the beginning I was talking to the masses. It was a totally different kind of work: I was in search of disciples. Talking to the masses I was using their language; talking to the masses was talking to a primary class. You can't go very deep; you have to talk superficially. You have to look to whom you are talking.

Then, slowly slowly, a few people started turning from students to disciples. Then my approach changed. It was now possible to communicate on higher levels. Then disciples started changing into sannyasins -- they started becoming committed, they started becoming involved with me, with my destiny. My life became their life, my being became their being. Now communication took a jump: it became communion.

Now I have got enough sannyasins...the work will have to move deeper.

I was talking about Buddha before, and I was talking as if I was simply allowing him to flow through me. Now this is not going to be the case. This series is the beginning of a new phase.

Nishant, you have suspected rightly. Now I will have to make it clear what the points are in which I differ from Buddha, from Jesus, from Krishna. I have to make it very clear where I differ from them.

Twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha. Much has happened since then -- much water has flowed down the Ganges. Everything has changed! If Buddha comes into the world he will not be able to recognize that it is the same world that he had left.

I belong to this century. In these twenty-five centuries many new things have been added. For example, Buddha knew nothing about science -- he could not. I am not saying that he should have known -- he could not! It was impossible. Albert Einstein had not happened yet. Buddha was not aware of many things of which we are aware, I am aware. I have to incorporate all those things. Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx and Albert Einstein and many more have to be incorporated. Religion has to become more and more rich every day.

I will have to make it clear where I differ. I will have to make clear what MORE I am trying to add to the religious heritage. I will not be just a vehicle anymore. That phase is complete. It was needed up to now, because I wanted...the people who loved Buddha, I wanted to approach them; the people who loved Mahavira, I wanted to approach them; the people who loved Jesus, I wanted to approach them.

Humanity is divided: a few are with Jesus, a few are with Buddha, a few are with Krishna...and so on and so forth. There are no free human beings available. I had to pick and choose from different sects, from different communities, from different religions. The only way was: to speak the way Buddha spoke, then only would a few Buddhists become involved with me; otherwise it would have been impossible for them, they would not have understood me. Now they have become involved with me it is going to be a totally different matter. Now their love has arisen for me, it is easy for me to say where I differ from Buddha and they will be able to understand. It won't create any trouble for them, it will not be confusing to them.

But remember, my love is not less because I am standing apart: my love is the same. My love is not going to change; it is not something that can change. But more and more it will happen: I will stand apart and separate.

Now I have got my own people. And I have to make it very clear where I differ, where I am trying to give something new, something more; where I am trying to enrich the heritage, where I am contributing. And sometimes I will have to criticize too -- but I love so much that I can criticize.

Sometimes I am going to criticize Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus. Not that I don't love them -- I love them, otherwise why should I speak on them? Even if I criticize them, that means my love is so much that I will take even that trouble, to criticize them.

Buddha has given much to humanity, but humanity is an on-going process. And everything that happens to humanity brings its advantages and also brings its disadvantages.

In this world, nothing can remain absolutely pure. When it rains the water is pure. The moment it touches the earth...in fact even before that: the moment it enters into the atmosphere, the polluted air starts contaminating it. The earth is surrounded by a thick layer of air; when the water enters into this layer of air, it starts becoming polluted. And when it falls on the earth it becomes muddy, it becomes dirty. Still it is water, but it is no longer pure.