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

Be aware! Start cleansing your mirror so that you can reflect.

PASSION, LIKE THE RAIN, FLOODS THE HOUSE. BUT IF THE ROOF IS STRONG, THERE IS SHELTER. If you know how to reflect reality there is shelter. You are secure because you are in God, because you are part of truth.

SUFFERS IN THIS WORLD AND THE NEXT.

IN BOTH WORLDS HE SUFFERS,

AND HOW GREATLY,

WHEN HE SEES THE WRONG HE HAS DONE.
All thoughts are impure. A thought cannot be pure. So let me remind you again: whenever Buddha says "impure thoughts" he means thoughts. He uses the adjective 'impure' to emphasize it, because if he simply says "thoughts" you may not understand rightly. So he says "impure thoughts," but he always means thoughts. All thoughts are impure, because a thought means you are thinking of the other, a desire has arisen. And whenever he says "a pure thought" he means a no-thought.

Only a no-thought is pure, because then you are utterly yourself, alone, nothing interfering.

Jean-Paul Sartre says: The other is hell. And he is right in a way, because whenever you are thinking of the other you are in hell. And all thoughts are addressed to others. When you are in a state of no-thought you are alone, and aloneness is purity. And in that aloneness happens all that is worth happening.
BUT WHOEVER FOLLOWS THE LAW

IS JOYFUL HERE AND JOYFUL THERE.

IN BOTH WORLDS HE REJOICES,

AND HOW GREATLY,

WHEN HE SEES THE GOOD HE HAS DONE.
Retrospectively, when you see that you have created a hell for yourself -- nobody else is responsible but you -- when you see this you will suffer very much, terribly. There is not even an excuse, you cannot throw the responsibility on somebody else's shoulders: it is your responsibility.

Suffering will be there and more so, more intensely so, because you will feel also, "I have been foolish. Nobody has made me suffer. It is because of my thoughts. It is because of my becoming more and more extrovert, becoming more and more interested in things of the outside, that I have suffered. I am solely responsible."

This will give you great anguish -- and vice versa. If you follow the law, dhamma, tao, if you follow your innermost core, your nature, you will be joyful here and there.

Buddha is not much concerned with the "there." But he says if you are joyful here you are bound to be joyful there. If this moment you are rejoicing, the next moment you will be rejoicing more, because the next moment is going to be born out of this moment.

And your bliss gathers momentum, it is accumulative. If this moment you are suffering, the next moment you will be suffering more, because you are learning the ways of suffering, you are becoming habituated to suffering. You will create more suffering the next moment because you are becoming more efficient in creating it. So whatsoever the nature of this moment is, it is going to be strengthened more, deepened, in the next.

But Buddha is not concerned with the next moment at all. He is simply stating a fact.

Don't be bothered with the next moment, or the next life, or the next world. Make this moment rejoicing, make this moment a moment of bliss, and the next will follow it, and the next life, and the next world. And everything that you are this moment is going to become deepened more and more. And when you see that you are responsible for your bliss, your bliss will be far more. When you see that nobody has given it to you, that you have not been a beggar, that it is not a gift from somebody else -- because nobody has given it to you, nobody can take it away -- when you see this you will be far happier.
FOR GREAT IS THE HARVEST IN THIS WORLD,

AND GREATER STILL IN THE NEXT.

HOWEVER MANY YOU SPEAK,

WHAT GOOD WILL THEY DO YOU

IF YOU DO NOT ACT UPON THEM?

Many people come to me and say, "We love your discourses, but we don't want to meditate and we don't want to become sannyasins. Isn't it enough," they ask, "just to listen to your beautiful discourses?" It is utterly futile!

Just to listen to my discourses is very stupid. If you are not going to act, don't waste time -- it is an exercise in futility! If you just go on listening to me and never act, my words may be soothing, my words may be consoling, my words may be convincing, you may enjoy what I am saying intellectually, you may enjoy the space that is created by my presence, but this alone is not going to help. Action is absolutely needed.

If you are convinced of some truth, act upon it, and act immediately! -- because mind is very cunning, and the greatest cunningness of the mind is postponement. It says, "Tomorrow..." and tomorrow never comes. It says, "Yes, we are going to meditate one day. Let us first understand what meditation is." And then you can go on understanding what meditation is your whole life, and you will never act. And unless you act nothing is ever going to happen, no transformation is going to happen.

Sannyas is a commitment. It is actively showing your love towards me. It is getting involved with my destiny. It is entering into my boat. It is dangerous -- it is safer to stand on the bank and listen. Then it is a kind of entertainment -- a spiritual entertainment! -- but utterly useless, just killing time.

And that's what people go on doing in the so-called spiritual gatherings -- satsangs. They go to the Sunday sermon and they listen very attentively and very seriously, but out of the church it has no effect on their lives. In fact, even the preacher is not affected by what he is saying. It is his business to say these things, he is paid for it. He is a professional. And it is a formality for the listeners -- just to have a good reputation in the community, that they are religious, that they go to the church every Sunday. And it is a beautiful social gathering too -- meeting people, talking to people, gossiping. It gives a good opportunity -- in the name of religion. A social gathering! It is an old kind of Rotary Club, Lions Club, etcetera. It does not matter, it does not change their lives.

I said, "What is the matter with your son?"

He said, "He has started taking my sermons too seriously. I have to preach and I have to talk about great things. He comes to listen and he has started to take them too seriously. Now he does not want to get married; he wants to become a holy man. Can't you help him?"

"I can -- that's my business! I can help -- I help holy people to become unholy again. You send him to me. I will pull him down."

"But listen," the priest said, "he is taking my words too seriously." Even the priest does not mean that anybody should take his words too seriously -- and nobody ever does except a few foolish people.
But when you are around a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna, a Mohammed, it is not a question of taking their words seriously. It is a question of seeing the authenticity of their words and then acting upon it. If it stirs your heart, if a bell starts ringing in your heart, then don't stop it. Then follow, then go deeper into it, because that is the only way to be transformed. That is the only way to know the eternal -- aes dhammo sanantano. That is the only way to know the eternal harmony of existence.

And to know the eternal harmony is to know bliss, is to know God, is to go beyond time, is to go beyond death, is to go beyond misery.

"My husband buys me whole new sets of diamonds when the ones I have get dirty," she says. "I never even bother to clean them."

"Fantastic!" says the other women.

"Yes," says the first, "we get a new car every two months. None of this hire-purchase stuff! My husband buys them outright, and we give them to the Negro gardener and houseman and like that for presents."

"Fantastic!" says the other.

"And our house," pursues the first, "well, what's the use of talking about it? It's just...."

"Fantastic!" finishes the other.

"Yes, and tell me, what are you doing nowadays?" says the first woman.

"I go to Charm School," says the other.

"Charm School? Why, how quaint! What do you learn there?"

"Well, we learn to say 'Fantastic' instead of 'Bullshit'!"
You can start calling bullshit "fantastic," but it makes no difference. You can learn religious, spiritual garbage....

There are many people here too who are very expert in so-called esoteric jargon. They always talk of so many planes, so many bodies, so many centers...and they talk so seriously that it seems they know what they are talking about. Avoid esoteric garbage! Avoid esoteric knowledge! It is not knowledge, it is just to befool people. If you are interested in such things you should read the great literature that has been created by theosophists.

Anything goes, you just have to talk in such a way that it seems otherworldly. It can neither be proved nor disproved. Now how can you prove how many planes there are? Seven or thirteen?
One man came to me. His religious sect believes in fourteen planes, and he had a chart, he had brought the chart. Mahavira has attained only to the fifth plane, Buddha to the sixth, Kabir, Nanak, to the ninth -- because he was a Punjabi he had been a little generous with Nanak and Kabir. But his own Radhaswami guru, he has attained to the fourteenth! Even Buddha is just hanging around the sixth! And Mohammed, do you know where Mohammed is? -- just the third! A Hindu and a Punjabi, how can you allow Mohammed to go beyond the third? He keeps him third-rate. Jesus he is a little more generous with -- on the fourth; he places Jesus on the fourth. But his own guru -- nobody knows about his guru -- he has reached the fourteenth! The fourteenth is called satch-khand -- the plane of truth.

So I asked him, "What about the other thirteen?"

He said, "They are just coming closer and closer to truth, only approximately true."

Now, can there be an approximate truth? Either something is true or something is not true. Either I am here in the chair or I am not in the chair -- I cannot be approximately in the chair. So "approximate truth" is a beautiful name for a lie.

He had come to ask me what my opinion is about the fourteen planes. I said, "I have reached the fifteenth. And just as you are asking about the planes, your Radhaswami guru asks me again and again how to enter into the fifteenth."

He was very angry. He said, "Never heard about the fifteenth plane!"

I said, "How can you hear? Your guru has only reached the fourteenth, so you have heard about fourteen. But I have reached the fifteenth!"

Just nonsense! But it can be presented in such a way that it looks very spiritual. Avoid!

Belief remains in the world of words. It is trust, it is deep trust, that takes you into action. Action is risky. To talk about the other shore is simple, but to swim to the other shore is dangerous, because no map exists. In fact nobody can be certain about the other shore, whether it exists or not.

Just ordinary belief won't do. Unless you have a tremendous trust in life, unless you have a tremendous trust in your own inner voice, you can't go on the journey of the uncharted sea.

But only action will prove that you trust, and only action can transform you.

WHO COUNTS ANOTHER MAN'S SHEEP,

NEVER SHARING THE WAY?
Buddha used to say it again and again: that there are foolish people who go on counting other people's cows -- that this man has fifteen cows, this man has thirteen cows -- and they themselves don't have a single one! What is the point of counting other people's cows or sheep? It is not going to feed you, it is not going to nourish you. It is a sheer wastage of time!

But this is what happens in the name of religion. What the Vedas say...people waste their whole lives in trying to decipher the meaning of the Vedas. There are people who have wasted their whole lives in finding out the true meaning of the Bible. This is counting other people's sheep!

You can go in and you can hear the Bible arising there -- as Jesus heard it. Jesus has no privilege over you. Nobody is privileged! Before the eternal law, before dhamma, everybody is equal. In this world everybody is unequal and can never be equal. In this world communism is impossible.

But in the inner world everybody is equal -- only communism is possible. Communism is an inner phenomenon. The efforts that are being made to make the outer world a communist world are futile; it cannot happen in the very nature of things.

In Soviet Russia now the old classes are not there, but new classes have come up. Old classes are replaced by new classes. First there were the proletariat and the bourgeoisie; now there are the people who rule, the rulers, the Communist Party members, and the people who are ruled. It is the same game played in different names.

In the outer world communism is impossible. Inequality is the law; everybody is unequal in the outer world. Somebody is stronger than you, somebody is more intelligent, somebody is more beautiful, somebody is talented, somebody is a genius.... People are different, and they cannot be forced to be equal; that will be destroying humanity. They will remain unequal.

But in the inner, as you move inwards, inequality starts disappearing. At the innermost core there is absolute equality. Communism is an inner phenomenon.

That's why I am going to call my new ashram a commune. Communism comes from the word 'commune'. It is going to be an inner equality. People will remain different, as much as possible; in fact, as far as the outside world is concerned, everybody should have his unique individuality, his own flavor, his own signature. On the outside everybody should be allowed absolute freedom to be himself. In the inner, the ego disappears, the personality disappears, there is only pure consciousness. And two consciousnesses are not higher or lower. There is no hierarchy.

Don't go on counting other people's sheep. Go in! Don't go on reading scriptures. Go in! Don't go on listening to others' words. Share the way! If you come across a buddha you are fortunate. If you fall in love with a buddha you are blessed. Don't just go on listening to his words. Follow the way, share the way! Look where he is pointing, don't start worshipping his finger. Look at the moon!
READ AS FEW WORDS AS YOU LIKE

AND SPEAK FEWER.

BUT ACT UPON THE LAW.
Let me remind you again, because the word 'law' in English has wrong associations. It is a translation for dhamma: the eternal law, the cosmic law, logos. ACT UPON THE LAW does not mean act according to the Indian Penal Code. Act according to the law means act according to your inner nature.
GIVE UP THE OLD WAYS --

PASSION, ENMITY, FOLLY.

KNOW THE TRUTH AND FIND PEACE.

SHARE THE WAY.

What are the old ways? -- the way of desire, the way of hate, and the way of stupidity. Don't function out of hatred and don't desire things, possessions. And don't be superstitious, foolish. If you can do this much, if you can take this leap into the unknown...because the past is known and you are accustomed to doing things in a certain way. When you drop the past you will be at a loss for a few days, disoriented, not knowing what to do, how to do it. You will be in a vacuum. That vacuum has to be passed through. It is painful -- that is the price we have to pay for truth.

Once you have passed that vacuum: KNOW THE TRUTH AND FIND PEACE. Then truth is known and truth follows peace like a shadow.

SHARE THE WAY, Buddha insists again. But this can't happen just by listening, just by reading the works of the masters.

SHARE THE WAY.

AES DHAMMO SANANTANO.

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

Chapter #4

Chapter title: Just lucky, I guess!

24 June 1979 am in Buddha Hall

ShortTitle: DHAM104

Audio: Yes

Video: No

Length: 105 mins

The first question:

Question 1

BELOVED MASTER,

UPON RETURNING TO HOLLAND LAST YEAR I STARTED COMMUNICATING ABOUT YOU WITH AN OVERWHELMING SENSE OF URGENCY. I FELT YOU IMPARTED THIS URGENCY TO ME, BUT IT SEEMED ALSO TO BE A PART OF MY NATURE.

THIS FEELING OF NOT HAVING A SECOND TO LOSE, THE WISH TO GET MORE DUTCH PEOPLE TO BECOME SANNYASINS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, MADE ME FAR FROM PLAYFUL. THE SERIOUSNESS LED TO MUCH ANGUISH BECAUSE I WAS CONFRONTED WITH INDIFFERENCE, RIDICULE AND CONTEMPT, ESPECIALLY FROM THE JOURNALISTS. OBJECTIVELY I DID NOT FAIL -- FAR FROM IT -- BUT IN TERMS OF BEING, MY TRIP WAS NOT EXACTLY wu-wei. I SIMPLY COULD NOT COMBINE THIS URGENCY WITH JOY AND RELAXATION.

WILL YOU SAY A FEW WORDS ON THIS URGENCY, EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE GIVEN ME SO MUCH ALREADY?
Deva Amrito, the playfulness that I talk about comes very slowly. You cannot just jump out of your seriousness which you have accumulated for lives. Now it has a force of its own.

It is not a simple matter to relax; it is one of the most complex phenomena possible, because all that we are taught is tension, anxiety, anguish. Seriousness is the very core the society is built around. Playfulness is for small children, not for grown-up people. And I am teaching you to be children again, to be playful again. It is a quantum leap, a jump...but it takes time to understand.

And as far as I am concerned, you have been immensely successful: objectively, certainly, but subjectively too. Unexpectedly you have been successful. Anybody else in your place would have been in a madhouse.

You were excited, and it is natural to be excited. When somebody understands me, feels me, he immediately starts feeling an urgency -- not a single moment to lose. And the word has to be spread. A kind of tremendous immediacy overwhelms. It is natural! It is true that there is not a single moment to lose. And if you love me, you would like all those people to come to me, because they may not get the opportunity again -- for centuries, for lives together!

When you love, and you have found a treasure, you would like to share it. And if the treasure is such that it can disappear any moment, how can you avoid the feeling of immense urgency? You will have to shout from the tops of the houses.

And the response that you will get is absolutely certain and fixed. The more you would like people to come to me, the more they will escape -- from you, from the very idea of coming to me. And the only way to escape is to ridicule you, to laugh at you, to call you mad. That is their way of defending themselves. If they listen to you understandingly, if they allow you to overwhelm their being, to overflow into their being, to flood their being, then they will also find themselves in the same grip. And it will be very difficult for them to avoid.

Hence, from the very beginning they will ridicule you, criticize you, oppose you, laugh at you. They will do everything possible to create the feeling in you that you are wrong. But they failed. They could not create that feeling in you. The more they ridiculed you, the more they laughed, the more they criticized, the more you tried to convince them.

And you have been objectively successful -- you have convinced thousands of people. Since your going to Holland, many many Dutch people have arrived, and more are arriving, and more will go on arriving. You have created a great stir. You have touched many people's hearts. And it has been a great experience for your inner growth too.

The impact that you created has not got into your head yet; it has not made you more of an egoist. In fact, it has made you more humble. It may not have been exactly wu-wei, but it was very close. And I was not expecting it to be absolutely wu-wei, but it has been more than I was expecting.

I was a little bit afraid, Amrito, that you might go mad. The urgency was such, your ecstasy was such, you were so passionately in love with me, that I was afraid deep down. I was sending you with all kinds of apprehensions. But you survived the test. You have come back. The turmoil that was created around you because of your talking about me -- in the newspapers, on the radio, the TV -- the way you talked, it gave the sense of your immense love, it gave the sense that you have found the home.

Many have been convinced. And many who have not been convinced have also started thinking about it. And even those who have ridiculed you and have opposed you are impressed; otherwise who cares? Why should you oppose somebody if you are not impressed? Why should you ridicule and laugh if you are simply alert that he is mad? Nobody laughs at a madman, nobody ridicules a madman. It is enough to know that he is mad and everything is finished!

You have created a chain which will go on. And I would like many of my sannyasins to be so excited, to feel the urgency, to go to their countries and spread the word. And you will have to shout from the tops of the houses.

And whenever you are in love you look mad -- you are mad. Love is madness...but far higher than the so-called, mediocre, mundane sanity. And love is blindness, but a blindness that is capable of seeing the invisible.

Love is not part of the ordinary world that we have created. We have expelled love from it. So whenever you are in love -- and to be in love with a master, to be in love with a buddha, is the ultimate love -- it drives you crazy. It makes you part of the beyond. Nobody can believe it.

How can your friends, Amrito, believe it, that it has happened to you and it has not happened to them? It is so much against their egos that you have found and they have not found yet, and still they are struggling. No, the easier way for them is to deny, to say that you have not found, that you are in an illusion, that you have been hypnotized, that you are hallucinating, that you have been drugged. That gives them a consolation, that gives them a kind of at-easeness. If you have really found, then they will feel very very uneasy -- then their lives are failures.

It has been a beautiful experience. I know you could not be very playful. It was difficult. Next time when I send you, you will be more playful. Now don't get afraid! I know that you don't want to go back again. Enough is enough...but one more time. Next time the whole project is to be playful. Then people will laugh more and they will think that you have gone even more mad. But laugh...dance, sing. This time you were arguing. Next time no arguing -- singing, dancing, hugging people.

But I am absolutely happy. Whatsoever has happened has been good objectively, has been good for others, has been good for you. It is a device: to send you for a particular purpose is a device for your inner growth. And you have been successful.