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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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Maulingaputta said, "Then why have I traveled so long? It has been a long suffering -- it seems I have been traveling my whole life, and you are asking, 'Do you really want the answer?'"

Buddha said, "I am asking again: Do you really want the answer? Say yes or no, because much will depend on it."

Maulingaputta said, "Yes!"

Then Buddha said, "For two years sit silently by my side -- no asking, no questions, no talking. Just sit silently by my side for two years. And after two years you can ask whatsoever you want to ask, and I promise you I will answer it."

A disciple, a great disciple of Buddha, Manjushree, who was sitting underneath another tree, started laughing so loudly, started almost rolling on the ground. Maulingaputta said, "What has happened to this man? Out of the blue, you are talking to me, you have not said a single word to him, nobody has said anything to him -- is he telling jokes to himself?"

Buddha said, "You go and ask him."

He asked Manjushree. Manjushree said, "Sir, if you really want to ask the question, ask right now -- this is his way of deceiving people. He deceived me. I used to be a foolish philosopher just like you. His answer was the same when I came; you have traveled one thousand miles, I had traveled two thousand."

Manjushree certainly was a great philosopher, more well-known in the country. He had thousands of disciples. When he had come he had come with one thousand disciples -- a great philosopher coming with his following.

"And Buddha said, 'Sit silently for two years.' And I sat silently for two years, but then I could not ask a single question. Those days of silence...slowly slowly, all questions withered away. And one thing I will tell you: he keeps his promise, he is a man of his word. After exactly two years -- I had completely forgotten, lost track of time, because who bothers to remember? As silence deepened I lost track of all time.

"When two years passed, I was not even aware of it. I was enjoying the silence and his presence. I was drinking out of him. It was so incredible! In fact, deep down in my heart I never wanted those two years to be finished, because once they were finished he would say, 'Now give your place to somebody else to sit by my side, you move away a little. Now you are capable of being alone, you don't need me so much.' Just as the mother moves the child when he can eat and digest and no longer needs to be fed on the breast. So," Manjushree said, "I was simply hoping that he would forget all about those two years, but he remembered -- exactly after two years he asked, 'Manjushree, now you can ask your questions.' I looked within; there was no question and no questioner either -- a total silence. I laughed, he laughed, he patted my back and said, 'Now, move away.'

"So, Maulingaputta, that's why I started laughing, because now he is playing the same trick again. And this poor Maulingaputta will sit for two years silently and will be lost forever, will never be able to ask a single question. So I insist, Maulingaputta, if you really want to ask, ASK NOW!"

But Buddha said, "My conditions have to be fulfilled."


And, Patrick, the same is my answer to you: fulfill my condition -- meditate, sit silently, just be here, and all questions will disappear. I am not interested in answering you, I am interested in dissolving your questions. And when all questions disappear, the questioner also disappears -- it cannot exist without questions. When there is no question and no questioner, what bliss, what ecstasy! You cannot imagine, you cannot dream, you cannot comprehend right now. Then the whole mystery of life opens up, mysteries upon mysteries...there is no end to it.
The third question:

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

I HAVE HEARD MANY SPIRITUAL SAINTS IN MY LIFE -- WHY DO THEY ALL SPEAK A VERY DIFFICULT LANGUAGE?


Kamla Kant, they have to, because they know nothing. If they speak simple language as I am speaking to you, the day-to-day language, they will not be able to hide their ignorance. Behind the camouflage of big words they can hide their ignorance; that is one of the trade secrets. And people are so foolish that if they can't understand what is being said to them, they think it must be something great.

The incomprehensible looks to them as if it is something profound. The comprehensible seems to be superficial. Hence, down the ages your so-called saints have been using very complicated, complex, difficult language, using big words, using dead languages, so nobody understands. Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic -- that's what is being used by your so-called saints.

When you hear them you can't figure it out, what it is all about, and, naturally, you cannot say, "I don't understand your language" -- that is humiliating. So you start nodding your head, "Yes, it is true." They are hiding their ignorance, you are hiding your ignorance -- this is a mutual conspiracy. You know it perfectly well.

When you go to the physician, he writes the prescription in Latin or Greek. Why can't he write in simple English or Hindi or Marathi? If he writes in simple English that you understand, you will think him a fool, because he is writing such things -- how can such simple things help your great complex disease? And if he writes in simple language, you are not going to give the chemist fifty rupees for it; you will go to the marketplace and purchase the same things for two rupees.

The physician writes the prescription in such a language...and it is always illegible. Even if you go back again to the doctor to ask what he has written, he will be in difficulty.
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin was using a prescription from a doctor for many things: he has used it as a ticket in a train, because the conductor could not read it; he used it in the moviehouse, because the ticket-checker could not read it -- he used it in many many ways. He used it as a pass to see a certain minister. He told me, "For two months this prescription has been such a help -- wherever I want to enter and whatsoever I want to do, I just present this prescription because they cannot read it and they cannot admit that they cannot read it. They simply allow me, they have to allow me."
This is a well-known secret, that saints who are bogus are bound to use very difficult language; otherwise, you will be able to see that they are as ignorant as you are, or sometimes even more ignorant than you are. They create a great camouflage, a facade, of big words from dead languages. They quote scriptures, high-sounding words, and you are simply at a loss as to what to do. Either accept your ignorance and ask them what they are saying, or simply say that it must be something very profound -- how can a man like you, a sinner, ignorant, unknowledgeable, irreligious, understand it?
A preacher was asked to conduct a revival in a small southern town. There being no hotel, he was housed with one of the church sisters, a young widow. After the revival, taking his leave, he said to the hostess, "Sister Jones, never in all my ecclesiastical career have I encountered such an abundant, satisfying and abiding manifestation of thorough, complete, and delightful exemplification of gratitude, graciousness, appreciativeness and hospitality as you have demonstrated."

Sister Jones smiled, simpered, and answered, "Parson, I don't know what all those big words mean, but want to say that you are a real world beater, a strong repeater, and that you do it neater, sweeter and more completer with less peter than any other person I ever had here!"


You can use very complex language, but you cannot deceive those who know -- you can only deceive those who don't know. If you read Hegel's books you will come across sentences which go on running for pages. By the time you reach the end of the sentence, you have already forgotten the beginning. It is almost impossible to make any sense out of it. Hence, when Hegel was alive, he was thought to be the greatest philosopher who had ever lived on the earth. But as people went into his books more closely -- scholars worked and thrashed it out and figured things out -- it was found that he was not saying anything very special. Much was absolute nonsense -- but with great words.

Great words attract people, big words fascinate people, hypnotize people.

You ask me, "Why do they all speak a very difficult language?"

...Otherwise, who is going to listen to them? For what?


A farmer with two lazy sons, once ordered them to clean out the crapperhole. They simply dug a new one and moved the shit-house a few feet over. One night the old man had a call of nature and ran out back along the well-worn path, falling into the pit. Up to his neck in shit, he began hollering, "Fire! Fire!"

People came running, pulled him out, and cleaned him off, then asked why he had yelled "Fire!"

"Do you think anyone would have come if I hollered 'Shit!'?"
The reason why they use difficult language is simple; otherwise, who is going to come? They can't talk like me -- I am simply using the language that you use. I am simply talking to you! This is not a sermon, just a dialogue between friends, gossiping -- it is not a gospel.

And you can use simple words, day-to-day words only if you really have something to convey, otherwise not. If you don't have anything to convey, then you will have to use big words out of necessity.


The last question:

Question 4

BELOVED MASTER,

ARE NOT ALL THE PRIESTS THE WORST ENEMIES OF GOD?


Deepesh, not all the priests, but just the few -- the pope, the shankaracharyas. These are the people who are the enemies of God; otherwise, poor priests are simply trying somehow to make their bread and butter. They have nothing to do with God -- they are not friends, they are not enemies. They don't have any time for God. It is just a profession, and a poor profession at that. The poor priest doesn't get more money than the lowest clerk, and he runs the whole day from one temple to another, from one house to another -- he is almost a beggar! No, he is not the enemy of God. He just doesn't know any other way to earn his bread, particularly in India.

In India, priests are brahmins, and brahmins are the poorest people. They don't know anything else, and they can't do anything else -- the traditional mind won't allow them. They can't be cobblers, they can't be carpenters, they can't be sweepers.... The brahmins down the ages have lived on only one thing: praying to gods. But if you simply go on praying to God, you will die, you will starve. Money is not going to shower on you from the skies; it has never happened. So you have to use your praying capacity, your scriptural knowledge, as a profession.

But the poor priest is not the enemy or anything. He does not know anything about God, he is not really interested in God at all.
I remember:

A priest used to live just behind my house when I was a child. I used to torture him with great questions: "Does God exist? Is the soul immortal? What is the philosophy of karma?" One day he said to me, "You please don't bother me. I tell you the truth: I don't know anything. And you are a kind of nuisance! Nobody asks me these questions -- I am a simple priest. People just ask me to do puja -- worship -- so I go, and they pay me two rupees, three rupees, per day. Somehow I am managing. I have three children, an old father, mother, wife, and also I have to pretend that I am living perfectly well, because that's how a brahmin should pretend. He is the high caste, so I have to pretend that everything is going well.

"And then after the whole day's work when I come home, you are sitting here! I have earned only three rupees in the whole day, and we are almost starving. Now, who bothers whether God exists or not! And I don't know at all. I only know how to worship, and I can worship any god -- just give me the money."
So please, Deepesh, don't think that all the priests...not all the priests, only a few cunning ones are against God. They are worshippers of the Devil, they are the reason that very few people have been able to become buddhas. But the other priests, ninety-nine percent of them, are just poor people not knowing what to do. Traditionally, just knowing one thing, they can beg. But they are high caste, so they beg with a method. That method is their ritual for worship.
A man sees signs on the highway saying ONE MILE TO GRANDMA'S CAT-HOUSE. Overcome by curiosity and surprise that anyone should have the nerve to advertise so plainly, he goes in.

An old lady admits him and snaps, "Two dollars, please, and you can go right through the door ahead of you at the end of the hall."



He pays, goes through the door, which slams shut behind him, and finds himself out in the yard, which is full of wooden boxes with wire fronts, inside of which are some mangy cats. Overhead is a small hand-lettered sign: "You have now been screwed by grandma. Please do not tell the secret -- I am just an old lady trying to make ends meet."
Enough for today.
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