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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| A man picked up by a prostitute in a bar is amazed by the college pennants and diplomas ornamenting the walls of her room.
"Are these your diplomas?" he asks. "Sure," she says airily. "I have my Master of Arts from Columbia, and took my Ph.D. in Shakespeare at Oxford." The man is incredulous. "But how did a girl like you get into a profession like this?" "I don't know," she says. "Just lucky, I guess."
Question 3 BELOVED MASTER, MY PARENTS WERE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES IN INDIA FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. MY BROTHER WAS A JUNKIE, MY SISTER A COMPULSIVE LIAR. AS FOR ME, I AM SO SERIOUS THAT IF I SMILE MY MOUTH HURTS. HOW DID I END UP HERE? Prem Parijat, just lucky, I guess! You will live in ecstasy and you will die in ecstasy. Did you hear about the man eighty-seven years of age who married a nineteen-year-old girl? He died of a new disease called ecstasy. It took them three days to wipe the smile off his face. Now, this is going to happen to you too: living your life will be a laughter; dying, it will be difficult for the people to wipe off your smile. It may be just because your parents are Christian missionaries that you have landed here, because to be born to any kind of missionaries -- Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan -- is to be fed up with all that nonsense. To be born to a priest is to know one thing for certain: that priests don't believe in God. It is their business; they pretend. It is a rare opportunity to be born in the house of a priest, because children are very perceptive and they can see through and through that all that nonsense that their father in preaching is just preaching -- he does not mean it because he never practices it. The children of the priests are bound to become aware of the hypocrisy of the so-called religious people. It may be just because of it, because it is almost impossible to be in the house of a priest and not to know that he is the most irreligious person possible in the world. Priests are exploiting religion. They are exploiting people's trust. They are the greatest cheaters in the world, because to exploit people's trust is the greatest crime. You are destroying their trust. But they live on that kind of cheating; that is their whole trade secret. The bishop was very proud of an elegant mansion he had constructed as his official residence. One day, a friend and the bishop were engaged in conversation and the bishop was pursuing a seemingly atheistic train of thought.... That kind of thinking is becoming very prevalent in Christian circles: religionless religion, Godless Christianity -- these are being talked about, discussed. After Friedrich Nietzsche, who declared that God is dead, Christianity has been in a turmoil -- what to do now? They have been trying every possible way to create a Christianity which does not need God anymore, so that the profession can expand again. Now God has become a barrier; the moment you assert the word 'God', you put people off. So Christian theologians are discussing, thinking, meditating, how to create a Christianity that does not need God at all. And it is possible! -- because Buddhism is there without any God, and Jainism is there without any God, so why can't there be a Christianity without God? ...This bishop was pursuing a seemingly atheistic train of thought. The friend asked him, "Bishop, do you believe in God or not? Say it exactly, say it in short. Don't go round and round. Say simply yes or no -- do you believe in God?" After a long hesitation, the bishop replied, "Of course I do! Who do you think paid for this house?" Now, the house that he has made, a beautiful mansion, is possible only because people still believe in God; and because they believe in God, they believe in the bishop. He cannot publicly declare there is no God. If you drop God, then Jesus is no longer the Son of God, then the pope is no longer the representative of Jesus, and so on and so forth. And they all go down the drain. It needs a hierarchy: God at the top and the priest at the bottom, the whole ladder. And the priest certainly knows that there is no God. If he was aware that there is a God, he would not have been a priest in the first place -- he would be a Jesus, he would be a Buddha, but not a priest. He would be a prophet but not a priest. He would bring something of the unknown into people's lives, but he would not be part of a status quo, he would not be part of the established church. No man of understanding, no man who has some religious consciousness and experiences, can be part of any established church. It has never happened. Buddha has to leave his fold, Jesus has to leave his fold, Mohammed has to leave his fold -- this has always been so. Whenever a religious man is born, he has to leave his fold, because the fold is already in the hands of the politicians and the priests, whose whole interest is in exploiting people. Anand Moksha has written to me: During the time of the major earthquakes in Guatemala in 1976, the Catholic bishop at Lake Atitlan befriended me and allowed me to stay in his garden for a while. A few months passed and after-shock tremors were still common. At that time I discovered that a beautiful house on a hillside was for rent for very little money. The reason was that a large boulder ominously overhung the house and people were afraid. I felt the vibes and it seemed okay to me -- so I rented the place. When I told the bishop, he reacted with nervous dismay and swung his arms about, saying, "Aren't you worried about that rock tumbling down on the house?" I replied, "If the Lord wants to take me, he will." The bishop shrugged his shoulders and said, "You don't believe that, do you?" It may be simply, Parijat, that just because you were born of Christian missionaries it became possible for you to be here. Christian missionaries, and twenty-five years in India! -- that is too much. In the first place, Christian missionaries and in the second place, twenty-five years in India...that is enough, more than enough, to convince the children that their parents are pseudo, that they are talking business, that they don't believe. It is not a question of belief at all. I have heard a small story: In a school, a Christian missionary school, the teacher asked the children, "Who is the greatest man in history?" An American boy says, "Abraham Lincoln." A Mohammedan boy says, "Hazrat Mohammed." A Hindu girl says, "Lord Krishna." And so on and so forth...and finally, the little Jewish boy stands up and says, "Jesus Christ." The teacher could not believe her ears -- the Jew and saying Jesus Christ? She asked, "Do you really mean that?" He said, "That is not the question. In my heart of hearts I know it is Moses -- but business is business." To be with Christian missionaries for twenty-five years, and in India, and seeing what they are doing, is enough to disillusion you. The whole credit goes to your parents and their twenty-five years in India. They have brought you here -- be thankful to them. The fourth question: Question 4 BELOVED MASTER, I FEEL THAT I AM A VERY SPECIAL PERSON. I AM SO SPECIAL THAT I WANT JUST TO BE ORDINARY. PLEASE CAN YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS? Anand Sangito, everybody here thinks exactly the same. And not only here, but everywhere else. Everyone deep in their heart knows that he is special. This is a joke God plays on people. When he makes a new man and pushes him down towards the earth, he whispers in his ear, "You are special. You are incomparable, you are just unique!" But this he goes on doing to everybody and everybody goes on carrying it deep in the heart, although people don't say it as loudly as you are doing, because they are afraid others may feel offended. And nobody is going to be convinced, so what is the point of saying it? If you tell somebody, "I am special," you cannot convince him because he himself knows that he is special. How can you convince anybody? Yes, maybe sometimes somebody may be convinced, at least pretend to be convinced. If he has some work with you, as a bribe he may say, "Yes, you are special, you are great." But deep down he knows business is business. A braggart is telling his friend about his three cars, etcetera, etcetera. When he also mentions that he has two kept mistresses in New York, but that he has made his ravishingly beautiful and terribly passionate private secretary pregnant, and must therefore take his gorgeous blond stenographer with him on his business trip to Rio de Janeiro to see the carnival, the listener suddenly begins to pant, grabs at his own necktie, and has a heart attack. The braggart interrupts his tale, gets water, pats the victim on the back, etcetera, etcetera, and he asks solicitously what the matter is. "Can I help it?" the man gasps. "I am allergic to bullshit." It is better to keep such bullshit hidden deep down inside yourself, because people are allergic. But in a way it is good that you exposed your mind. If you think you are special then you are bound to create misery for yourself. If you think that you are higher than others, wiser than others, then you will attain to a very strong ego. And the ego is poison, pure poison. And the more egoistic you become, the more it hurts, because it is a wound. The more egoistic you become, the more you become unbridged from life. You fall separate from life; you are no longer in the flow of existence, you have become a rock in the river. You have become ice-cold, you have lost all warmth, all love. A special person cannot love, because where are you going to find another special person? I have heard about a man who remained unmarried his whole life, and when he was dying, ninety years old, somebody asked him, "You have remained unmarried your whole life, but you have never said what the reason was. Now you are dying, at least quench our curiosity. If there is any secret, now you can tell it, because you are dying; you will be gone. Even if the secret is known, it can't harm you." The man said, "Yes, there is a secret. It is not that I am against marriage, but I was searching for a perfect woman. I searched and searched, and my whole life slipped by." The inquirer asked, "But upon this big earth, so many millions of people, half of them women, couldn't you find one perfect woman?" A tear rolled down from the eye of the dying man. He said, "Yes, I did find one." The inquirer was absolutely shocked. He said, "Then what happened? Why didn't you get married?" And the old man said, "But the woman was searching for a perfect husband." Your life will become very difficult if you live with such ideas. And yes, the ego is so tricky, so cunning, it can give you, Sangito, this new project: "You are so special, become just ordinary." But in your ordinariness you will know you are the most extraordinarily ordinary man. Nobody is more ordinary than you! It will be the same game, camouflaged. That's what so-called humble people go on doing. They say, "I am the most humble man. I am just the dust on your feet." But they don't mean it! Don't say, "Yes, I know you are," otherwise they will never be able to forgive you. They are waiting for you to say, "You are the most humble man I have ever seen, you are the most pious man I have ever seen." Then they will be satisfied, contented. It is ego hiding behind humbleness. You cannot drop the ego in this way. You ask, "I feel that I am a very very special person. I am so special that I want just to be ordinary. Please can you say something about this?" No one is special, or, everyone is special. No one is ordinary, or everyone is ordinary. Whatsoever you think about yourself, please think the same about everyone else, and the problem will be solved. You can choose. If you want the word 'special', you can think you are special -- but then everybody is special. Not only people, but trees, birds, animals, rocks -- the whole existence is special, because you come out of this existence and you will dissolve into this existence. But if you love the word 'ordinary' -- which is a beautiful word, more relaxed -- then know that everybody is ordinary. Then the whole existence is ordinary. One thing to be remembered: whatsoever you think about yourself, think the same for everybody else and the ego will disappear. The ego is the illusion that is created by thinking about yourself in one way and thinking about others in another. It is double thinking. If you drop the double thinking, ego dies of its own accord.
Question 5 BELOVED MASTER, WHEN I CAME HERE I FELT GOD TO BE VERY NEAR -- ANY MOMENT AND I WOULD BE WITH HIM -- BUT AS TIME PASSES IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE. HE IS NOT AROUND; IT IS DIFFICULT TO SEE HIM. WHY IS IT SO? PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.
God can be known only by those who are capable of dropping all ideas about God. Any idea that you have accumulated in yourself in your ignorance is a hindrance. Drop all ideas about God and you will be surprised, you will be shocked, you will not be able to believe your eyes...because only God is! Then you will never ask, "Where is God?" You will ask, "Is there any place where God is not?" Then in the very ordinariness of things you will see something tremendously extraordinary. Then ordinary pebbles are transformed into diamonds. Then ordinary humanity is no longer ordinary -- then something luminous is in everybody's heart. Then man comes closer to the divine, and the divine comes closer to man; the human and the divine disappear into each other, the world and God disappear into each other. Then you are not searching for a God who is separate and high and far away, living in the seventh heaven; then he lives in your neighborhood as your neighbor. Then he is human, he is animal, he is vegetable, he is mineral...he is all. And when you can see that he surrounds you, not as a person but as a presence, then only does your inquiry come to a fulfillment. God is not hiding from you but you are keeping your eyes closed because of so many prejudices. Somebody has a Hindu idea of God, and somebody has a Christian idea of God, and somebody else a Mohammedan idea of God. Now, God is neither Mohammedan, nor Christian, nor Hindu, so all these people who are carrying these ideas are bound to go on stumbling in darkness and more darkness. From darkness to darkness will be their journey, from death to death they will move. They will never know the light. A Hindu cannot know God, a Mohammedan cannot know God. First you will have to cleanse your mind completely of all Hinduism, all Mohammedanism, all Buddhism. When you are utterly thoughtless, just alert, aware, watchful, then God explodes. And he explodes all over the place. Vedant Bharti, you say, "When I came here I felt God to be very near." That was your imagination. "...Any moment and I would be with him." That was your wish. "...But as time passes it seems impossible" -- because no imagination can ever become real. No dream of yours can ever be fulfilled. Reality has to be discovered, not imagined. Now you say, "He is not around; it is difficult to see him." Only he is around. It is difficult to see him because your eyes are too burdened with your own prejudices, concepts, systems of thought. Be a little more childlike, be a little more innocent. God comes only when the heart is innocent. God comes only when you are utterly empty of all ideas. He is always ready to come, he is standing at the door, but you cannot hear because your mind is so full of turmoil, full of thoughts, millions of thoughts clamoring around. Your mind is so noisy you cannot hear the silent knock on the door. Be silent, be innocent. God is. Only God is. Enough for today.
Chapter #5 Chapter title: Wakefulness is life 25 June 1979 am in Buddha Hall Archive code: 7906250 ShortTitle: DHAM105 Audio: Yes Video: No Length: 112 mins WAKEFULNESS IS THE WAY TO LIFE. THE FOOL SLEEPS AS IF HE WERE ALREADY DEAD, BUT THE MASTER IS AWAKE AND HE LIVES FOREVER. HE WATCHES. HE IS CLEAR. HOW HAPPY HE IS! FOR HE SEES THAT WAKEFULNESS IS LIFE. HOW HAPPY HE IS, FOLLOWING THE PATH OF THE AWAKENED. WITH GREAT PERSEVERANCE HE MEDITATES, SEEKING FREEDOM AND HAPPINESS.
WORK WITH CARE AND ATTENTION. LIVE IN THE WAY AND THE LIGHT WILL GROW IN YOU. BY WATCHING AND WORKING THE MASTER MAKES FOR HIMSELF AN ISLAND WHICH THE FLOOD CANNOT OVERWHELM.
You sleep in the night, you sleep in the day; from birth to death you go on changing your patterns of sleep, but you never really awake. Just by opening the eyes don't befool yourself that you are awake. Unless the inner eyes open, unless your inside becomes full of light, unless you can see yourself, who you are, don't think that you are awake. That is the greatest illusion man lives in. And once you accept that you are already awake, then there is no question of making any effort to be awake. The first thing to sink deep in your heart is that you are asleep, utterly asleep. You are dreaming, day in, day out. You are dreaming sometimes with open eyes and sometimes with closed eyes, but you are dreaming, you are a dream. You are not yet a reality. And, of course, in a dream whatsoever you do is meaningless, whatsoever you think is pointless, whatsoever you project remains part of your dreams and never allows you to see that which is. Hence Buddha's insistence...and not only Gautama the Buddha but all the buddhas have insisted on only one thing: Awake! Continuously, for centuries, their whole teaching can be contained in a single word: Be awake! And they have been devising methods, strategies, they have been creating contexts and spaces, and energy fields in which you can be shocked into awareness. Yes, unless you are shocked, shaken to your very foundations, you will not awaken. The sleep has been so long, it has reached to the very core of your being; you are soaked in it. Each cell of your body and each fiber of your mind has become full of sleep. It is not a small phenomenon. Hence great effort is needed to be alert, to be attentive, to be watchful, to become a witness. If on any one single theme all the buddhas of the world agree, this is the theme: that man as he is is asleep, and man as he should be should be awake. Wakefulness is the goal, and wakefulness is the taste of all their teachings. Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, Bahauddin, Kabir, Nanak -- all the awakened ones have been teaching one single theme, in different languages, in different metaphors, but their song is the same. Just as the sea tastes of salt -- whether the sea is tasted from the north or from the east or from the west, the sea always tastes of salt -- the taste of buddhahood is wakefulness. But you will not make any effort if you go on believing that you are already awake; then there is no question of making any effort. Why bother? And you have created religions, gods, prayers, rituals, out of your dreams -- your gods are as much part of your dreams as anything else. Your politics is part of your dreams, your religions are part of your dreams, your poetry, your painting, your art -- whatsoever you do, because you are asleep, you make it according to your own state of mind. The Bible says God created man in his own image -- the truth seems to be just the opposite: man has created God in his own image. Your gods are false because you are false. Your religion is pseudo because you are pseudo. Your scriptures cannot have any significance because you don't have any significance.
The skies suddenly open: a thunderbolt flashes out, and strikes the older priest dead. There is a pause, and the heavenly voice is heard saying in accents of thunder, "Shit!" Your gods cannot be different from you. Who will create them? Who will give them shape and color and form? You create them, you sculpt them; they have eyes like you, noses like you -- and minds like you! The Old Testament God says, "I am a very jealous God!" Now who has created this God who is jealous? God cannot be jealous. And if God is jealous, then what is wrong in being jealous? If even God is jealous, why should you be thought to be doing something wrong when you are jealous? Then jealousy is divine. The Old Testament God says, "I am a very angry God! If you don't follow my commandments, I will destroy you. You will be thrown into hellfire for eternity. And because I am very jealous," the God says, "don't worship anybody else. I cannot tolerate it." Who created such a God? It must be out of our own jealousy, out of our own anger, that we have created this image. A Jew who has a long run of bad luck goes out into the woods and lifts his voice in prayer and recrimination. "Oh, God," he asks heaven tearfully, "haven't I always been a good Jew? Haven't I always given charity, even to those damn goyim? Didn't I bring up my family decent? Never drink, swear, gamble; no bad women, nothing! Why do you do this to me God? Why? Why?" A dark cloud suddenly appears overhead, and a tremendous voice replies, "You piss me off!" The God certainly cannot be different from you. It is your projection, it is your shadow. It echoes you and nobody else. That's why there are so many gods in the world. The Hindus have a certain idea about God -- the Hindu idea -- it reflects the Hindu mind. If you go back into Hindu scriptures you will be surprised. You will not be able to believe what kind of gods Hindus have created -- very sexual. Adultery is very common amongst Hindu gods, and not only do they play their games of adultery in the Hindu paradise, they can't even leave the earth alone; they come to the earth too, to rape women, to seduce simple women. They don't even leave the wives of the great seers alone. And because they have infinite power they can even appear as the husbands, they can look like the husbands. And the women have no idea who is hiding behind the facade. Who has created these gods? -- it must have been deep down a very sexual mind. And the same is the case with all other gods of all other religions. It is because of this that Buddha never talked about God. He said: What is the point of talking about God to people who are asleep? They will listen in their sleep. They will dream about whatsoever is said to them, and they will create their own gods -- which will be utterly false, utterly impotent, utterly meaningless. It is better not to have such gods. That's why Buddha is not interested in talking about gods. His whole interest is in waking you up.
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