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

That's what happens to every truth. When Buddha uttered something, it was absolutely pure. The moment it was heard by people it became impure. When it was recorded -- and remember it was recorded after many years, after three hundred years...now can you imagine that people can record after three hundred years exactly the same thing that Buddha said? It is impossible! People are people; they will automatically destroy it, distort it -- they will give their own colors to it.

The day Buddha died, his followers were divided into thirty-six schools -- immediately! Thirty-six interpretations. Nobody was agreeing on what he said, or even if they were agreeing about the words, they were not agreeing about the meaning that was given to the words.
I am reminded:

In the last year of his life, Sigmund Freud called all his disciples -- the important ones, the chief ones. He was feeling death coming close by, he must have heard the first steps of death, and he wanted to have a last gathering.

They were sitting at the table, nearabout thirty people from all over the world -- all the chief disciples -- and they started arguing about something that Freud had said a few days before. Freud was there! He was the host, but they completely forgot about Freud. They became so involved in the argument: somebody was saying one thing, and somebody else was saying something else, and somebody else was contradicting both. And they were arguing about what Freud really meant.... And Freud watched, listened, and then shouted, "Stop all this nonsense! Do you think I am dead? I am here, present -- why don't you ask me what my meaning was? And if you can do this to me while I am alive, what are you going to do when I am dead? You don't bother to ask me, and you have wasted one hour in arguing with each other, fighting, getting irritated, annoyed, shouting at each other...and the master is present!"
And Freud is not an enlightened man. If this can happen to an unenlightened person, what about the Buddha who speaks from the highest peaks of existence? The moment he utters something, it is no longer the same as it was in his heart. When it is heard, it is no longer the same as it was uttered. When it is interpreted, it is totally something else.

Many times I will criticize. Many times I will tell you about all the advantages and all the disadvantages that have happened. Buddha is the purest religious dimension, the purest possible, but how can I avoid saying that he is a one-dimensional man? If I don't say it, it will be untrue. If I don't say it, my love for truth is not total then. I have to say it, that he is one-dimensional -- the purest in his dimension, but he lacks the other dimensions.

He has no appreciation of beauty, not at all. He has no appreciation of music, not at all. He has no appreciation of love, not at all. The aesthetic dimension is missing, he has bypassed it. And he has no scientific approach; he cannot have -- science was not yet developed enough. He is one-dimensional purity, but one-dimensional.

And because he is one-dimensional, this whole country has remained one-dimensional. Buddha is one-dimensional, Mahavira is one-dimensional, Patanjali is one-dimensional. All the great religious masters of this country were religious people. They reached to the purest religious experience, and they tried to convert the whole country to their vision. But the disadvantage was that the country became poor. Without science no country can ever become rich. The country became outwardly ugly, starving, ill. Without science and technology, no country can be outwardly beautiful, healthy, affluent.

Now, I cannot avoid mentioning it -- that will not be true, and that will not be right either. That will be deceiving you! That will be a crime against humanity. It is time that somebody should have the guts to say it! Nobody in the whole world is doing it, and the time is ripe that somebody should shout and say that Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali, Lao Tzu, are immensely beautiful people, and they have contributed much -- humanity would not have been what it is without them -- they are our very soul, that is absolutely true, but there is a disadvantage because they are all one-dimensional. Other dimensions have remained paralyzed, crippled. And now the time has come: other dimensions have to be fulfilled too.

I would like this country to become rich, scientific, technological, healthy, well nourished -- not only this country but the whole of humanity. And I don't see that it is against religion. On the contrary: the more rich a country is, the more religious it can become -- because richness gives you opportunity, richness gives you facility, richness gives you time and space and energy, to move inwards. If you don't move, that's your responsibility. Nothing is wrong in being rich. If a rich person is not religious, he is simply mediocre, stupid; it is nothing against richness: it is simply an indication that he is foolish.

If a rich person is not religious, I call him stupid; and if a poor person is religious, I call him intelligent, really intelligent. Rare intelligence is needed for the poor man to become religious. When a Kabir becomes religious he shows more intelligence than Buddha himself -- because it is impossible, almost impossible to become religious when you are poor. When you have not known what riches are, how can you get beyond them? One can go beyond a certain thing only when it has been experienced; it is only through experience that one surpasses and transcends. If somebody transcends without experiencing something, that simply means that he has such intelligence that he learns from others' experiences; he need not go into all those things on his own.

Kabir must have looked at the rich people and seen the futility of it all. Hence he dropped that ambition, that desire. Buddha was the son of a king; he lived richly, and through experience he came to understand that all is futile and all is vanity. He came through his own experience: Kabir came by watching others' experiences. Certainly, Kabir needs more intelligence.

Poor persons can become religious, but poor societies cannot become religious. Rich persons may avoid religion, but rich societies cannot avoid religion.

Now, this new dimension has to be added. Religion need not worship poverty. Religion need not console poor people by saying false things to them, by consoling them, by giving them invented theories of past lives and future lives and fate, etcetera. The whole earth is now capable of becoming affluent. Science has released so much power -- but it has to be used rightly!

Hence I am not in favor of the Western approach. The West is missing the soul, the very soul -- it is only a body. And the danger is that the stupid politicians in the East are going to imitate the West.

Now, every country wants to create atomic energy -- even India. Poor countries like India or Pakistan, they want to create atomic bombs. Why? People are poor and starving.

Just a few days ago, India launched a satellite, Bhaskar, into the sky, to study.... Industries don't have electricity; five days in a week, industries are being closed. You don't have electricity, but you launch a satellite to study the possibilities of the sky -- competition, foolish competition.

Now there are five hundred man-made satellites going round the earth. One of them, the American Skylab, is going to fall because it has gone out of control. It can create great danger. Poona is on its way; from Bombay to Poona, and from Poona up to Kannada, somewhere it will fall. And it will not fall in one piece in one place -- at least five hundred pieces, and each piece will be like a bomb. It can fall on an atomic generator and can destroy the whole earth.

And all those five hundred satellites, sooner or later, are going to go out of control. If the American satellite can go out of control, what about the Indian? Just two years ago, India launched its first satellite. Now it is functioning almost like an Indian -- the name of the satellite was Aryabhatta -- now it goes on giving wrong information. It is a nuisance! You cannot believe it. In the beginning they used to believe it, but then they found that it was giving absolutely wrong information. How like the Indian mind! How representative! Now they want to get rid of it, they want it to shut up, but it won't...it continues to send information. You cannot shut it up.

Poor countries imitating the West -- the whole thing is so foolish. The poor countries certainly need more scientific understanding, but they don't need sophisticated scientific instruments -- that is not their need.

And now science has released enough energy for the whole earth to be transformed into a paradise.

Buddha has contributed immensely, but as a side effect he has been one of the causes of India's poverty. I cannot ignore that fact. I have to state it. I have not stated it up to now, but now I have my own people who will understand.

Mahavira has contributed tremendously to India's spiritual enrichment, but the by-product of his teachings has been slavery for one thousand years; because of his teaching of nonviolence, India became one of the most cowardly countries in the world.

Now, Krishna is right in saying to leave everything to God -- in the religious dimension that's how things should be: trust God. But not in the scientific dimension -- there is a totally different mechanism that functions: doubt, not trust. Trust is the foundation of the religious world, doubt the foundation of the scientific world.

Krishna is perfectly right when he says to Arjuna, "Trust God! Surrender to God. Trust that whatsoever he is doing is right." Now, what has been the side effect? The side effect has been: "If you are poor, trust God; if you are ill, trust God. Whatsoever he is doing is right." This is the side effect. In the religious dimension it is perfectly right, but when you bring it to the scientific dimension it becomes absolutely wrong.

Now I have to say it. And I know I am going to suffer much because of these statements, because in India people are not accustomed to hearing any criticism of Krishna, Mahavira or Buddha -- no, not at all.

First I will make it clear to you where I differ. And soon I will start criticizing the side effects too.

Nishant, wait a little more, because I have to tell you the whole truth -- the whole truth as it is, whatsoever the consequences. I will appreciate whatsoever is worth appreciating and I will condemn whatsoever needs to be condemned.

India's poverty, slavery, long long suffering, cannot simply be tolerated, ignored. And Krishna, Mahavira and Buddha cannot be forgiven -- they are responsible. If they are to be praised for what they have contributed to the spiritual, they have to be criticized too because they have been the root cause of India's fall.

And now the time has come when everything should be put right. And it is not only a question of India: it is a question of the whole world. Just as Indian fools can imitate the West, there are Western fools who can imitate India, and can go on committing the same kind of mistakes that India has committed in the past.

We have to put things absolutely clear. We have to be very very dispassionate. That's why, Nishant, you are feeling there is a certain difference -- there is. You are not imagining things. My work is going into a new phase, I am entering into a new phase. Before the new commune happens, I am preparing for it....
The last question:

Question 4

BELOVED MASTER,

WHY AM I TIRED OF SEX?

It is good that you have started feeling tired -- that is natural. Sex simply means energy being dissipated downwards. The energy has to move upwards, then it is nourishing. Then it opens inexhaustible treasures in you -- aes dhammo sanantano. But if you go on and on into sex like a maniac, soon you will find yourself utterly exhausted, wasted.

He knocks on the door, hears a little scurrying in the room, and then a pale-looking man opens the door with just his shorts on. "We were worried," said the manager.

"Well, we just got married," replied the man.

"I understand," says the manager, "but you have one of the great wonders of the world...."

At that a tiny voice from the back of the room interrupts, "If you show that thing to me one more time, I will jump out of the window."
You don't get it! ...Three days continuously -- the woman is bound to jump out of the window.

Man can go on living stupidly only to a certain extent -- beyond that he has to become aware of what he is doing to himself. Sandhan, it is time now. There are far more important things in life than sex. Sex is not all. It is significant, but not all. If you remain trapped in it you will miss all the glories of life.

And I am not against sex, remember. That's why my teaching becomes a little contradictory. I am a paradox. I cannot help it because truth itself is a paradox. I am not against sex, because those who are against sex, they will always remain sexual. I am for sex, because if you go deep into it you will come out of it soon. The more consciously you go into it, the sooner you will come out of it. And the day when a person comes out of sex totally is a day of great blessing.

It is good that you are feeling tired. Now don't go to a physician for some medicine -- that won't help, or that may only postpone your tiredness a little bit more. If you are feeling tired that simply shows that you have come to the point from where you can jump out of it.

What is the point of remaining in it if you are feeling tired? Get out of it! And I am not saying repress it. When you are feeling much energy for it and you try to get out, there will be repression. But when you are exhausted and tired and you see the futility of it, you can come out of it without repression. And to come out of sex without repression is to be free of it.

Freedom from sex is a great experience. Freedom from sex makes your energies available for meditation, for samadhi.

Enough for today.
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1

Chapter #9

Chapter title: Seated in the cave of the heart

29 June 1979 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: DHAM109

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 107 mins

AS THE FLETCHER WHITTLES

AND MAKES STRAIGHT HIS ARROWS,

SO THE MASTER DIRECTS

HIS STRAYING THOUGHTS.
LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER,

STRANDED ON THE SHORE,

THOUGHTS THRASH AND QUIVER.

FOR HOW CAN THEY SHAKE OFF DESIRE?

THEY WANDER AT THEIR WILL.

IT IS GOOD TO CONTROL THEM.

AND TO MASTER THEM BRINGS HAPPINESS.

HOW ELUSIVE!

THE TASK IS TO QUIETEN THEM,

AND BY RULING THEM TO FIND HAPPINESS.

THE MASTER QUELLS HIS THOUGHTS.

HE ENDS THEIR WANDERING.

SEATED IN THE CAVE OF THE HEART,

HE FINDS FREEDOM.
Freedom is the goal of life. Without freedom, life has no meaning at all. By "freedom" is not meant any political, social or economic freedom. By "freedom" is meant freedom from time, freedom from mind, freedom from desire. The moment mind is no more, you are one with the universe, you are as vast as the universe itself.

It is the mind that is the barrier between you and the reality, and because of this barrier you remain confined in a dark cell where no light ever reaches and where no joy can ever penetrate. You live in misery because you are not meant to live in such a small, confined space. Your being wants to expand to the very ultimate source of existence. Your being longs to be oceanic, and you have become a dewdrop. How can you be happy? How can you be blissful? Man lives in misery because man lives imprisoned.

And Gautama the Buddha says that tanha -- desire -- is the root cause of all our misery, because desire creates the mind. Desire means creating future, projecting yourself in the future, bringing tomorrow in. Bring the tomorrow in and the today disappears, you cannot see it anymore; your eyes are clouded by the tomorrow. Bring the tomorrow in and you will have to carry the load of all your yesterdays, because the tomorrow can only be there if the yesterdays go on nourishing it.

Each desire is born out of the past and each desire is projected in the future. The past and the future, they constitute your whole mind. Analyze the mind, dissect it, and you will find only two things: the past and the future. You will not find even an iota of the present, not even a single atom. And the present is the only reality, the only existence, the only dance there is.

The present can be found only when mind has ceased utterly. When the past no more overpowers you and the future no more possesses you, when you are disconnected from the memories and the imaginations, in that moment where are you? who are you? In that moment you are a nobody. And nobody can hurt you when you are a nobody, you cannot be wounded -- because the ego is very ready to receive wounds. The ego is almost seeking and searching to be wounded; it exists through wounds. Its whole existence depends on misery, pain.

When you are a nobody, anguish is impossible, anxiety simply unbelievable. When you are a nobody there is great silence, stillness, no noise inside. Past gone, future disappeared, what is there to create noise? And the silence that is heard is celestial, is sacred. For the first time, in those spaces of no-mind, you become aware of the eternal celebration that goes on and on. That's what the existence is made of.

Except man, the whole existence is blissful. Only man has fallen out of it, has gone astray. Only man can do it because only man has consciousness.

Now, consciousness has two possibilities: either it can become a bright light in you, so bright that even the sun will look pale compared to it.... Buddha says it is as if a thousand suns have risen suddenly -- when you look within with no mind it is all light, eternal light. It is all joy, pure, uncontaminated, unpolluted. It is simple bliss, innocent. It is wonder. Its majesty is indescribable, its beauty inexpressible, and its benediction inexhaustible. Aes dhammo sanantano: so is the ultimate law.

If you can only put your mind aside you will become aware of the cosmic play. Then you are only energy, and the energy is always herenow, it never leaves the herenow. That is one possibility: if you become pure consciousness.

The other possibility is: you can become self-consciousness. Then you fall. Then you become a separate entity from the world. Then you become an island, defined, well defined. Then you are confined, because all definitions confine. Then you are in a prison cell, and the prison cell is dark, utterly dark. There is no light, no possibility of light. And the prison cell cripples you, paralyzes you.

Self-consciousness becomes a bondage; the self is the bondage. And just consciousness becomes freedom.

Drop the self and be conscious! That is the whole message -- the message of all the buddhas of all the ages, past, present, future. The essential core of the message is very simple: drop the self, the ego, the mind, and be.

Just this moment when this silence pervades...who are you? A nobody, a nonentity. You don't have a name, you don't have a form. You are neither man nor woman, neither Hindu nor Mohammedan. You don't belong to any country, to any nation, to any race. You are not the body and you are not the mind.

Then what are you? In this silence, what is your taste? How does it taste to be? Just a peace, just a silence...and out of that peace and silence a great joy starts surfacing, welling up, for no reason at all. It is your spontaneous nature.

The art of putting the mind aside is the whole secret of religion, because as you put the mind aside your being explodes into a thousand and one colors. You become a rainbow, a lotus, a one-thousand-petaled lotus. Suddenly you open up, and then the whole beauty of existence -- which is infinite! -- is yours. Then all the stars in the sky are within you. Then even the sky is not your limit; you don't have any limits anymore.

Silence gives you a chance to melt, merge, disappear, evaporate. And when you are not, you are -- for the first time you are. When you are not, God is, nirvana is, enlightenment is. When you are not, all is found -- and when you are, all is lost.

Man has become a self-consciousness; that is his going astray, that is the original fall. All the religions talk about the original fall in some way or other, but the best story is contained in Christianity. The original fall is because man eats from the tree of knowledge. When you eat of the tree of knowledge, the fruits of knowledge, it creates self-consciousness.

The more knowledgeable you are, the more egoistic you are -- hence the ego of the scholars, pundits, maulvis. The ego becomes decorated with great knowledge, scriptures, systems of thought. But they don't make you innocent; they don't bring you the childlike quality of openness, of trust, of love, of playfulness. Trust, love, playfulness, wonder, all disappear when you become very knowledgeable.

And we are being taught to become knowledgeable. We are not taught to be innocent, we are not taught how to feel the wonder of existence. We are told the names of the flowers, but we are not taught how to dance around the flowers. We are told the names of the mountains, but we are not taught how to commune with the mountains, how to commune with the stars, how to commune with the trees, how to be in tune with existence.

Out of tune, how can you be happy? Out of tune you are bound to remain in anguish, in great misery, in pain. You can be happy only when you are dancing with the dance of the whole, when you are just a part of the dance, when you are just a part of this great orchestra, when you are not singing your song separately. Only then, in that melting, is man free.

That's what freedom is. It is not political, not economic, not social. Freedom is spiritual. The social, the economic, and the political freedom are freedoms only if they help people to be spiritually free. If they don't help people to become spiritually free, then they are pretenders. Then in the name of freedom man is made more and more a slave. Beautiful names become facades hiding ugly realities. If you are not spiritually free you are not free at all. Then all your freedoms are bogus, phony, pseudo. Then you have been duped. Then you have been given toys to play with.

Buddha is talking about the reality -- the real freedom. He calls it nirvana. The word 'nirvana' is very beautiful; it means cessation of self-consciousness, utter cessation of the self, the naked state of egolessness. It brings great ecstasies, great harvest; inexhaustible treasures it brings.

Hence Buddha goes on repeating again and again...two statements he repeats in THE DHAMMAPADA. One is: aes dhammo sanantano. This is the ultimate law of life: that you disappear and you will find yourself. Very paradoxical -- that just by disappearing one finds. By dropping the self one becomes the ultimate self. By disappearing as a dewdrop one becomes the ocean.

And the other statement that he repeats again and again is: aes dhammo visuddhya -- such is the law of purity, of becoming innocent, pure. What is the law of purity? A simple law: become disidentified with the mind, don't think of yourself as a mind. Not that Buddha is against the mind, not that he does not want you to use it -- he wants you to use it, but not to be used by it. And usually the second is the case: the mind is using you. You have become a slave. The master has become the slave and the slave has become the master. Everything has gone topsy-turvy.