Osho –
Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 7)
Chapter 3. Life:
The greatest gift
Life is easy
For the man who is without shame,
Impudent as a crow,
A vicious gossip,
Vain, meddlesome, dissolute.
But life is hard
For the man who quietly undertakes
The way of perfection,
With purity, detachment and vigor.
He sees light.
If you kill, lie or steal,
Commit adultery or drink,
You dig up your own roots.
And if you cannot master yourself,
The harm you do turns against you
Grievously.
You may give in the spirit of light
Or as you please,
But if you care how another man gives
Or how he withholds,
You trouble your quietness endlessly.
These envying roots!
Destroy them
And enjoy a lasting quietness.
There is no fire like passion,
There are no chains like hate.
Illusion is a net,
Desire a rushing river.
How easy it is to see your brother's
faults,
How hard to face your own.
You winnow his in the wind like chaff,
But yours you hide,
Like a cheat covering up an unlucky throw.
Dwelling on your brother's faults
Multiplies your own.
You are far from the end of your journey.
The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.
See how you love
Whatever keeps you from your journey.
But the tathagatas,
"they who have gone beyond,"
Have conquered the world.
They are free.
The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.
All things arise and pass away.
But the awakened awake forever.
Life is easy
For the man who is without shame,
Impudent as a crow,
A vicious gossip,
Vain, meddlesome, dissolute.
Life can be lived in two ways:
either as a continuous fall... then you are pulled by the unconscious forces of
gravitation; you need not make any effort. You are not trying to reach to the
peaks, you are simply a rock rolling downwards. Naturally it appears easy, comfortable,
convenient. If you conform with the society, if you live according to the
tradition, if you follow the stupid crowds, life is easy, but at a very great
cost: you don't grow. You miss the whole point, because life is significant
only when it is a continuous growth.
Man is the only animal in
existence who has the capacity to evolve. Charles Darwin says that monkeys have
evolved and become men. I don't agree with him, I can't agree with him. Not
that I have anything against the monkeys - they are good people! - but if what
he says is true, then why have not all the monkeys become men? For millions of
years monkeys have remained monkeys. Why are they not growing? They should have
taken at least a few preliminary steps by now, but they are exactly the same as
they have always been.
You can find proofs for Charles
Darwin's theory only if you watch the politicians. Then one suspects he may be
right - otherwise not! Otherwise, monkeys have remained monkeys. And the people
who have been following Darwin and trying to prove his theory have been coming
across great, unbridgeable gaps. The greatest is, they have not yet found the
missing link - because between monkey and man there must have been a few links.
There is a great distance between monkey and man. Where are the missing steps?
Not even a single proof has been found yet... except Idi Amin of Uganda!
In fact, Darwin's whole theory
is only a guess; it is not yet scientifically valid. And spiritually it is
never going to be valid, because those who have known man's spiritual growth
have come decisively to this conclusion: that man is a different being
altogether from any other being on the earth. He is an evolving animal. No
other animal evolves; they remain the same. They are very conformist: they
don't go beyond their heredity.
They never cross the limit of
what is allowed by their instincts; they never do anything beyond the
instinctive, beyond the unconscious.
It is only man who has been
able to produce a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Jesus, a Bahauddin.
It is because of the buddhas
that we can say man has the capacity to be a god. It is in the buddhas that we
have found the link between man and God. Darwin and his followers have not been
able to find the link between monkeys and man, but we have found in the buddhas
the link between man and God. Man has an infinite potential.
But then you cannot live an
easy life. You cannot just be a Rotarian or a Lion. You can't be just a Hindu
or a Mohammedan. You can't go on following the crowds. Crowds behave
instinctively; they don't know anything of the beyond. Their life is easy. If
you are part of them your life will also be easy, but there will be no growth.
And growth is all that matters.
The only thing that matters in
life is growth. Unless you are moving to the ultimate peak of becoming a god
you are wasting a tremendously pregnant opportunity.
Buddha says:
Life is easy for the man who is without
shame.
This Buddhist idea of shame has
to be understood in contrast with the Christian idea of guilt. In the
dictionaries they seem to be synonymous; they are not. Shame is a totally
different phenomenon.
Guilt is imposed by others on
you. It is a strategy of the priests to exploit. It is a conspiracy between the
priest and the politician to keep humanity in deep slavery forever. They create
guilt in you, they create great fear of sin. They condemn you, they make you
afraid, they poison your very roots with the idea of guilt. They destroy all
possibilities of laughter, joy, celebration. Their condemnation is such that to
laugh seems to be a sin, to be joyous means you are worldly.
Christians say Jesus never
laughed. What a lie! And they have been lying for centuries and with such
theological acumen, with great scholarship. They have been lying very piously,
very religiously. Have you ever come across a picture of Jesus or a statue in
which he looks happy, blissful, joyous? Impossible! You can't conceive of a
joyful Jesus - after two thousand years of Christian propaganda the whole
figure of Jesus has become distorted.
He was a man of great joy. He
was a man who knew how to laugh and how to love and how to live festively. He
loved eating and drinking. He must have danced, he must have joked with his
friends, with his disciples. I cannot conceive of him not having a sense of
humor, because it is impossible for me to conceive of a man being spiritual and
without a sense of humor. A sense of humor is one of the most fundamental
qualities of a religious man.
But the picture that Christians
have depicted of Jesus is ugly. He is always sad, in deep sorrow - carrying the
whole burden of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve.
He has been depicted by the
Christians as doing a great service to humanity. He is the savior - and how can
the savior laugh? Laughter seems to be such an earthly quality.
He has to be very serious,
long-faced. They have destroyed the beauty of Jesus.
Jesus has to be resurrected. He
was killed twice. First he was killed by the Jews and the Romans, and then he
has been killed by the Christian priests. He got away from his first murder,
but from the second he has not yet been able to escape. He is still a captive
of the Vatican; he has to be freed from the Vatican.
These people who have made
Jesus look so serious, so sad, so sorrowful - who have made him a martyr - have
also created great guilt in humanity. Whenever you laugh you feel as if you are
doing something wrong. Whenever you are happy you start looking guilty. How can
you be happy? How can you laugh? How can you dance? How can you sing? The whole
world is in such a suffering, and you are singing, and you are dancing? It
seems that you must be cruel.
Krishna seems to be cruel to
Christian eyes: playing on his flute, dancing, singing, celebrating. He seems
to be a hedonist, a Zorba the Greek! Christians can't conceive Krishna to be
spiritual. And in fact, the word 'christ' is a derivation of the word
'krishna'. Jesus must have the same qualities as Krishna; hence he has been
called Christ. 'Christ' comes from 'krishna', and Krishna-consciousness simply
means ecstatic consciousness.
But why does the priest go on
creating guilt in man? There is a secret behind it. If you can make humanity
feel guilty you remain powerful. The guilty person is always ready to serve
those who are powerful. He is always ready to serve those who are puritans.
He is always ready to be a
slave to the priests. The guilty person cannot have courage enough to be a
rebel - that is the secret. Only a blissful person can be rebellious. The
priests must have found this secret long ago, because they have been practicing
it for centuries and they have destroyed all the beauty of the human soul.
Remember, when Buddha says
"shame" he does not mean guilt. Shame is a totally different
phenomenon. Guilt is imposed by others; shame is your own experience.
Shame is interior, guilt is
from the outside. Shame is not because of others but because of your own
understanding: "What am I doing to my own self? What am I doing to my
life? How am I wasting it?" It has nothing to do with the priests,
Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan. It has something to do with your awareness. It
has nothing to do with the moral codes of a society. It has something to do
with your consciousness, not with your conscience.
Guilt is part of conscience,
and conscience is created by others. You have a Hindu conscience and a
Mohammedan conscience and a Jaina conscience, but consciousness is simply
consciousness. There is nothing like a Hindu consciousness or a Mohammedan
consciousness.
Consciousness makes you aware
of what you are doing to yourself. And when you see that you are destroying
tremendously pregnant opportunities for growth, shame arises in you. You start
feeling a deep anguish, and that anguish is helpful for growth, that pain is
helpful to growth. It brings you, for the first time, a vision of the possible,
a glimpse of the peaks.
Guilt simply says that you are
a sinner. And the feeling of shame simply shows you that you need not be a
sinner, that you are meant to be a saint. If you are a sinner it is only
because of your unconsciousness; you are not a sinner because the society
follows a certain morality and you are not following it.
All moralities are not moral,
and something which is moral in one country is not moral in another country.
Something moral in one religion is not moral in another religion.
Something is moral today and
was not moral yesterday. Morals change, morals are just arbitrary. But
consciousness is eternal, it never changes. It is simply the absolute - the
truth.
Once you have become a little
more aware you start feeling what you have done to yourself and to others. That
experience brings shame, and shame is good and guilt is bad. With guilt, deep
down you know that it is all nonsense.
For example, in the Jaina
religion to eat in the night is a sin. If you are born a Jaina and sometimes
you eat at night, you will feel very guilty; knowing perfectly well - if you
are intelligent enough you will know it - that this is foolish, there can't be
any sin in eating at night. But still your conscience will prick you, because
the conscience is manipulated by the priest, by the outside powers who are
dominating you.
Hence guilt creates a dual
personality in you: on the surface you are one person and deep down you are
another - because you can see the futility of it, the nonsense of it.
You become split - guilt
creates schizophrenia. And the whole of humanity suffers from schizophrenia for
the simple reason that we have created guilt, so much and so deeply that we
have divided every man in two.
One part of him is social,
formal. He goes to the church and follows the rules as far as they are
feasible. He maintains a certain front, a certain face, and from the back door
he goes on living a totally different life - just the opposite of what he goes
on preaching, just the opposite of what he goes on praising.
The idea of shame never creates
any conflict within you, it never creates any split. It creates a challenge, it
challenges you, it challenges your guts. It says to you, "Rise above -
because that is your birthright. Reach to the peaks, they are yours. Those
sunlit peaks are your real home, and what are you doing in these dark valleys,
crawling like animals? You can fly - you have wings!"
Guilt condemns that which is
wrong in you. The idea of shame makes you aware of that which is possible.
Guilt goes on bringing in your past again and again - burdens you with the
past. And the idea of shame brings the future to you, it releases your
energies.
They are totally different.
Buddha says: life is easy for
the man who is without shame...
Impudent as a crow...
Cunning! And people think that
to be cunning is to be clever. It is not so - only mediocre people are cunning.
A really intelligent person need not be cunning. He is intelligent and that's
more than enough. Cunningness is a poor substitute, a plastic substitute for
intelligence. The mediocre person tries to look intelligent; in that very
effort he becomes cunning.
And the greatest cunningness is
to be a hypocrite: to be one thing and to show something else. But then life
will be easy. Buddha makes it clear: you will fit with other cunning people,
they will understand your language.
What was the fault of Jesus?
The only fault was that he was not cunning. What was the fault of Socrates? The
only fault was that he was a really intelligent person, utterly innocent, full
of intelligence but with no cunningness.
Cunningness is cowardice,
intelligence is courage. And the greatest courage in the world is to be exactly
what your consciousness says to you to be. And the greatest cowardice in the
world is to follow others, to imitate others. Then you remain artificial.
Then you are never a real rose,
just a plastic rose which looks like a rose but is not a rose. It will not have
any fragrance and it will not have any aliveness, and it will not dance in the
wind and sing in the sun. It will be dead! Impudent as a crow...
A vicious gossip...
Why do people gossip? What must
be the reason behind it? Why do they go on biting each other's backs? This is
the way of cunningness. They are not sincere people, they are not authentic
people. They don't say what they want to say to you, but they have to say it;
otherwise they will remain burdened with it. Hence gossiping. They can't say
the truth to your face, they have to say it behind your back. And they say it
with a vengeance, naturally.
They have to repress themselves
in front of you, they have to smile and show a false face; and they feel that
they are being insincere, they feel they are being ugly, they feel that they
are being cowardly. They will take revenge. And this is their way of taking
revenge: they will gossip about you, they will say things about you, they will
invent things about you. And they will invent things about themselves too; what
they are not, they will pretend to be. They will magnify your faults and they
will magnify their glories.
Sokolow, aged seventy-five,
rushed into a doctor's office. "You gotta give me a shot so I can be young
again," he pleaded. "I got a date with a young chicken tonight!"
"Just a minute," said
the physician. "You are seventy-five years old. There is nothing I can do
for you."
"But Doctor,"
exclaimed the old man, "my friend, Rosen, is eighty-five, and he says he
has sex three times a week!"
"Alright," advised
the doctor, "so you say it too!"
What you cannot do, you can at
least say you do. Who is preventing you from saying it?
... Vain, meddlesome, dissolute.
These people are vain, empty,
utterly empty, hollow, full of straw and nothing else. But they go on bragging
about themselves, they go on declaring themselves to be great - they find ways
and means. And the easiest way to declare yourself great is to declare that
others are nothing, to reduce them as much as possible. That helps you feel
that you are somebody special. And these people are bound to be meddlesome,
querulous, always ready to fight for trivia.
Just watch yourself and watch
others. What are people doing? Ninety percent of their energies are being
wasted in being cunning, hypocrites, gossips, vain, meddlesome, dissolute. And,
of course, when you waste so much of your energy in such stupid activities you
cannot have any decisiveness in your life, you cannot be committed, you cannot
become involved in anything. And your old habits will always come in to destroy
all your commitments, your involvements. You will be just driftwood, you will
be dissolute.
Many people ask me... they want
to take sannyas, but they cannot decide. Who else can decide for you? My
suggestion is: Decide this way or that, but never remain in indecisiveness. If
you cannot decide for sannyas, decide against it - at least decide something!
But be decisive, because being decisive is of great importance.
What you decide is not so
important; much more important is that you are capable of making a decision.
And once you decide, then let the commitment be one hundred percent. That's the
only way to become integrated; otherwise you will remain fragmentary. You will
remain a crowd, you will never become a single individual. In fact, that's
exactly the meaning of the word 'individual': it means indivisible. If you are
fragmentary you are not an individual. The whole process of individuation is
the process of commitment, involvement.
Sannyas is a great commitment,
the greatest in life, because you are moving into a world of which you cannot
be certain at all beforehand. You are moving into such an uncharted sea that
you don't know what is going to happen; there is no guarantee whether you will
be able to reach to the other shore, whether you will be able to come back to
the old shore again - there is no guarantee. And the ocean is vast and it is
always stormy... and the boat is so small! But just the courage to take a small
boat and go into the uncharted...
The very phenomenon of risking
your life makes you alive. The very risk gives you a new birth.
Buddha says: But then life will
be difficult.
But life is hard for the man who quietly
undertakes the way of perfection, with purity, detachment and vigor.
He sees light.
If you want to see light - that
is Buddha's word for God - if you want to see truth and if you want to be
liberated by truth, if you want to get beyond all this stupid misery that you
have been living in for centuries, if you want to have wings to soar above the
clouds into the vastness of the sky, if you want to whisper with the stars and
dance with the whole cosmos... then life is going to be hard, because growth is
painful, growth is arduous. It is going uphill, it is going against
gravitation. It is going against the crowd, it is going against tradition, it
is going against convention. It is becoming free from all that keeps you in
bondage.
But when you live in a prison
you have many securities. For example, in a prison nobody can murder you; you
are always guarded, more guarded than any king. Kings have been murdered, but
prisoners cannot be murdered. Your bread and butter is safe.
In a prison you need not be
worried about employment, and everything will be supplied to you. You need not
think about tomorrow, it is not your responsibility.
At breakfast time you will get
your breakfast, at lunchtime you will get your lunch. It is not going to be
much of a lunch but at least it is certain! And supper is going to be supper
and never a dinner, but so what? People feel better in a secure situation, even
though the security is poor. Insecurity creates great turmoil and anxiety in
your mind.
This is the experience: that
people who have lived in prisons for a few years don't want to get out, and if
they have to come out, sooner or later they find ways to get in again.
They are called jailbirds...
because the outside life is too much trouble. Then you have to think about
everything: where to live, where to find your work, search for work, for food.
And everything seems to be too much of an unnecessary harassment. When you are
in a jail, everything is supplied for you. You live like a king!
And that's why millions of
people have decided to live in the jails called Hinduism, Christianity,
Mohammedanism, communism, India, Pakistan, China, Japan... all kinds of jails,
political, spiritual, ideological. It seems to be very convenient to be a
slave.
Hence Buddha is right: but life is hard
for the man who quietly undertakes the way of perfection. If you
want to grow towards the heights, if you want to be perfect, if you want to be
total and whole, if you want to know what it is all about, then you will have
to risk many securities, many safeties, many comforts.
You will have to go into the
unknown, into the dark night - and sometimes without even a candle.
... With purity, detachment and vigor. He
sees light. You will have to learn the ways of purity. By purity
Buddha always means innocence, the unburdened consciousness - unburdened of
knowledge, unburdened of scholarship, Vedas, Bibles, Korans. They all burden
you, they give you a false sense of knowing; and the false sense of knowing
becomes the barrier in knowing. If you really want to become a knower you will
have to drop all knowledge, you will first have to become ignorant. That is
purity: a mind without any content, a mind like a child's, a pure mind.
And detachment... By detachment
Buddha means, don't think of yourself as the body.
If you think yourself to be the
body you cannot undertake this adventure of finding yourself, because you have
already become identified with your body. Don't be identified with the mind
either. If you think that you know already, then you will remain confined to
whatsoever you are.
Remain open: that is
detachment. Don't say that "I am the body, I am the mind." Say that
"I know nothing. The body is there, the mind is there, but I don't know
who I am.
And certainly I am not my
body."
As you go deeper into innocence
you will be able to see that if your hand is cut off, your consciousness is not
reduced that much - it remains the same. Your leg can be cut off; your body is
no longer the same, but your consciousness remains the same, it is not reduced.
If your mind changes - and mind continuously changes - your consciousness does
not change with your mind; it is an unchanging phenomenon. It is the only
unchanging factor in existence; everything else is a flux. Only the witness
remains permanent, absolutely permanent. It is eternal. Mind is time and you
are timelessness.
But for that you will have to
learn the ways of detachment and you will have to release great vigor, great
enthusiasm and great energy. Ordinarily your energy is being wasted in
unnecessary pursuits. You will have to cut your unnecessary pursuits. That is
true sannyas.
Sannyas does not mean
renouncing life but renouncing the unnecessary life. Just look, take note,
watch, analyze, observe, and conclude how many things you are doing which are
unnecessary - how many things you go on doing because you have become
accustomed to doing them. You have never thought about them, whether they are
necessary or not. How much do you talk with people? Is it all necessary?
If you start watching you will
be surprised: you will become more telegraphic, in words, in actions, in your
pursuits. You will become very choosy. And you will be surprised that almost
ninety percent of your activity was futile; its only function was to keep you
occupied. Its only function was a slow suicide. It was poisoning you.
When this ninety percent of
your unnecessary activity is reduced, great energy becomes available to you.
And only with such energy, such detachment and such purity can you create the
right space in which light is seen.
Fenton's wife was going to have
a baby and he could not get a doctor. The snow outside was eight feet deep, the
telephone lines were down, and it was still snowing. He decided to go out and
look for an M.D. He fought his way through the storm and saw a light which
turned out to be a bar. He went in and began drinking heavily.
"What's the matter?"
said Hymowitz, sitting on a nearby stool.
"My wife is going to have
a baby," cried Fenton, "and I can't find a doctor..."
"I can help you,"
said the Jewish man.
"Are you a doctor?"
"I am a veterinarian. But
you give me your address. I will go and get my satchel, and I will come over
and do the job for you."
Fenton rushed home and soon
Hymowitz arrived carrying his satchel. "Now don't worry about a
thing," he said. "Get blankets and plenty of hot water." He went
into the bedroom.
Twenty minutes later, Hymowitz
came out, sweat pouring from his brow and said, "You got a hammer?"
"A hammer!" roared
Fenton. "What do you want it for?"
"Don't ask no questions,
get me a hammer."
Fenton brought him the tool and
Hymowitz said, "Don't worry about nothing. Get plenty of hot water, lots
of blankets!" He ran back into the bedroom.
Thirty minutes later he came
out, stripped to the waist, perspiration pouring from his body. He said,
"Hey, you got a chisel?"
"My God!" screamed
Fenton. "First you want a hammer, now it's a chisel. What are you doing to
my wife?"
"What do you mean, your
wife? First I gotta open the satchel!"
The real work has not yet
started - even the satchel is not opened! And that's how your life is: you are
born, but the real work has not yet started.
My function here is to supply
you with hammers and chisels and a few vets too - my therapists. The satchel
has to be opened first. And it is hard work because you have learned how to
remain closed; that has become your way of life. And to be open seems to be
just impossible.
Yes, once in a while you open
up, in a certain situation - maybe in a therapy group, in a meditation, in a
Sufi dance, in music - once in a while, in a certain space, you allow yourself
to open up. And then you see the beauty of life and the great joy pouring out
of you. But then you become afraid, guilt arises. Suddenly you close again.
Almost every day I receive
letters from sannyasins saying, "I am feeling very good, a great
well-being is arising in me, but simultaneously I am also feeling guilty.
Why?"
Somebody writes, "I am
feeling very blissful, but also, side by side, a shadow is following my bliss.
I am feeling guilty."
Why does this guilt arise? That
guilt is the strategy of your old mind. The old mind is saying, "What are
you doing, man? This is not your way of life. Close up! You are going beyond
your limits. And I am giving you a warning - then later on don't say to me that
you were not warned."
So you take one or two steps
beyond yourself and then rush back and close the doors.
You have become so afraid of
the fresh air. It has to be learned - howsoever hard it is, but it has to be
learned - because that is the only way to be reborn, the only way to celebrate,
the only way to know bliss and benediction.
Buddha says:
If you kill, lie or steal, commit adultery
or drink, you dig up your own roots.
But that's what people are doing
continuously. We are all destructive. That's what he means when he says: if you kill...
Don't take it literally - you are not murderers, but you are all killers. If
you are destructive you are a killer. And the closed person is always
destructive, he is never creative.
You can only be either
destructive or creative. If your energies are not released into creativity they
are bound to become sour, bitter, poisonous; and they will make you angry, full
of hatred and violence. Then there are two ways for that violence to go: one is
to be violent with others, and the other is to be violent with yourself. Buddha
is against both, so am I.
The politician is violent with
others. Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao - these people are violent with
others; they destroyed millions of lives. Mahatma Gandhi is totally different,
he has not killed anybody - he is the apostle of nonviolence - but he is
continuously destructive towards himself. His violence has turned upon himself.
That's how your saints are created, your mahatmas are created. The politicians
are sadists and the saints are masochists; both are psychologically ill.
If you kill, lie... And
everybody is lying. If you are not being your true self, whatsoever the cost,
howsoever hard it is - if you are not being your true self you are lying. You
may not be literally lying, you may not even be aware that you are lying, but
if you are a hypocrite - you smile when you are not feeling like smiling, you
say hello to somebody when there is no heart in it - it is a lie. When you say
to somebody "I love you," just formally, you are lying.
That's why Buddha says: It is
hard to be authentic, because even your own people will feel offended. Your
wife will feel offended because you will not be continuously saying, "I
love you, I love you." Once in a while you will say, "I hate you, I
hate you more than I hate anybody else!" And your wife is not going to be
sweet to you all the time. Once in a while she will throw things at you,
destroy the crockery, nag you.
But if you live an authentic
life you accept all this, in you and in others; you don't reject it. This is
part of the life situation, this is how we grow. All sweetness and all
politeness is phony, it is bourgeois. An authentic person is sweet and bitter;
he loves, he hates.
When you accept both the
polarities of your being you become authentic. Then you are not lying.
Or steal... Very few people are
thieves in the ordinary sense of the word; otherwise everybody is stealing. If
you are pretending to be wise on borrowed knowledge it is stealing, it is a
theft - subtle, but it is theft.
Commit adultery... The meaning -
the ordinary meaning - of the word 'adultery'
is: making love to a woman you
are not married to. But the real meaning of adultery is making love while you
are not in love. She may be your own wife, but if you are not in love, then
making love to her is adultery.
And man is a complex
phenomenon: today you may be in love with your wife - yes, even with your wife!
I know it is difficult, it is hard, and it is very rare too, but it happens.
Today you may be in love with your own wife, and then making love to her is
prayer, is worship, it is communion with God. And this communion can happen
even with some other woman to whom you are not married. If love is there then
it is not adultery, and if love is not there, then even with your wife
whatsoever you are doing is adultery.
Or drink... Remember, all the
buddhas are against any chemical drug that can make you unconscious, for the
simple reason that you are already so unconscious.
Just the other day somebody had
asked a question: "Jesus used to drink alcohol. What do you say about
it?"
I can allow Jesus! He was so
conscious that he could afford to drink once in a while. But I cannot allow
you. You are already so unconscious, you are already so burdened; now, making
you more unconscious will be dragging you towards hell.
In the East, particularly in
India, there has existed a tremendously beautiful esoteric school of tantrikas.
One of their very secret methods is that whenever a master thinks that a
disciple is ready, he allows him to drink alcohol or take some other drug in
small portions, in small quantities, slowly. As his meditation deepens he is
allowed to drink bigger amounts. The only condition to be fulfilled is that he should
remain conscious.
Even under the influence of the
drug he should remain conscious - that is the only condition to be fulfilled.
This is a rare experiment!
And a moment comes when a real
meditator can drink as much... he can drink alcohol just like water and he will
remain as centered as ever, as conscious as ever. That is the crucial test.
That day the master says, "Now there is no need to drink at all. You
passed through the test."
Buddha is talking about you. He
is not giving these sutras to tantrikas, he is talking to the common man. Hence
he says: if
you kill, lie or steal, commit adultery or drink, you dig up your own roots.
He is not telling you to repress. He is simply saying, become more aware.
Buddha was never in favor of repression.
Repression is an unconscious
effort; it never transforms you. It keeps you the same but repressed.
"Sinners!" shouted
the evangelist, accusingly, at the tent full of true believers. "You are
all sinners. Every one of you has something on his conscience, and one sin is
just as bad as another. Stealing is as bad as lying. Ain't that so, Brother
William?"
Brother William nodded his
agreement.
"And adultery is just as
bad as murder. Ain't that right, Sister Rose?"
"Can't rightly say,
Preacher," replied Sister Rose. "I never killed nobody."
Young Maureen knelt in the
confessional and whispered to the priest, "Ah, Father, I have sinned
grievously. On Monday night I slept with Seamus. Tuesday night I slept with
Timothy. On Wednesday night I slept with Dennis. Ah, Father, what shall I
do?"
"My child," replied
the priest, "go home and squeeze the juice from a whole lemon and drink
it."
"Ah, Father, will this
purge me of my sin?" she asked.
"No, child, but it will
take the smile off your face."
Repression will do only that:
it will take the smile off your face; otherwise, everything will remain the
same.
Buddha is not for repression.
He says: Become more conscious of your lying, of your destructiveness, of your
stealing, of your adultery, of your becoming constantly unconscious and finding
new ways of becoming unconscious. Beware, because you are digging up your own
roots.
And if you cannot master yourself, the harm
you do turns against you grievously.
These are the ways that destroy
the possibility of your ever becoming a master of your own being. And the man
who is not a master of himself - whatsoever he is doing to others is
destructive, and ultimately all that destruction rebounds on himself. Harming
others he is harming himself, because he is sowing seeds which he will have to
reap.
You may give in the spirit of light or as
you please, but if you care how another man gives or how he withholds, you
trouble your quietness endlessly.
Share whatsoever you have, but
share for the sheer joy of sharing; don't think of others.
People, even in being
religious, even in practicing spirituality, are always comparing and competing
with others. Somebody is fasting for one day and you fast for two days, just to
show him that you are higher, holier.
In a small town they had just
erected a fine new church. All it needed was a set of chimes. So Father McLain
went around collecting donations for the chimes.
Deegan, the blacksmith, donated
fifty dollars; Dugan, the contractor, came across with seventy-five; Donnelly,
the undertaker, gave his check for one hundred.
When the priest got to
Brennan's Bar and Grill, the owner did not like the idea of contributing two
hundred dollars.
"But Brennan," said
the priest, "just think - Deegan, Dugan and Donelly gladly contributed to
the chimes, and you should be represented with a donation."
"Well, Father, it is an
awful lot of money."
"But think how proud you
will feel, along with Deegan, Dugan and Donelly, when the chimes ring
out."
The saloonkeeper finally agreed
and when the chimes were installed, the reverend met Brennan on the street. He
said, "Brennan, did you hear the chimes?"
"I heard them."
"What is the matter? Don't
you like them?"
"Well, I hear them ring
out Deegan, Dugan, Donelly; Deegan, Dugan, Donelly... but doggone it, I never
hear anything that sounds like Brennan!"
People are so stupid that even
when they are trying to be spiritual they continue their old ways of
competition, of jealousy, of envy.
Buddha says: you may give in
the spirit of light or as you please, but if you care how another man gives or
how he withholds, you trouble your quietness endlessly. Never think
of the other in the world of spiritual growth - just think of yourself. Be
utterly selfish in that way. Don't compare, otherwise you will never be able to
attain to stillness and silence; you will be continuously disturbed.
These envying roots! Buddha
says, destroy
them and enjoy a lasting quietness.
If you can destroy jealousy,
envy, competitiveness, you enter into a world of lasting quietness.
There is no fire like passion, there are no
chains like hate.
Illusion is a net, desire a rushing river.
Beware of lust, unconscious
sexuality. When sex becomes conscious it has a totally different flavor. It
becomes tantra, it is no longer sex. When sex becomes conscious it is love, it
is no longer lust. Love brings freedom, and lust simply creates prisons for
you.
There is no fire like passion, there are no
chains like hate.
Illusion is a net, desire a rushing river.
Beware of desire, because it is going to drown you. It has drowned so many many
people, and it has drowned you many many times in the past. This time be alert.
Don't allow desire to drown you and don't allow unnecessary wastage of
energies. Because this is my observation: that the weaker you are spiritually,
the more desires will be powerful in you. The stronger you are spiritually, the
more energy you have spiritually, the less is the power of desire able to drag
you, to drown you. And illusions and illusions... that's all desires are.
That's what your mind is. It is never satisfied; it only goes on creating newer
and newer nets for you to be caught in. It goes on postponing the moment of
your becoming free - it goes on alluring you for the tomorrow.
Becky's greatest dream was to
make love with Mick Jagger. After spending the night with a man, her best
friend Jane would ask her about the experience, and the reply was always the
same: "It was good, but it was not Mick Jagger."
Finally Becky's dream came true
and she got a chance to sleep with Mick Jagger.
The next day her friend Jane
was eager to hear the report, but when she asked Becky how it was, Becky
replied, "It was good, but it was not Mick Jagger."
Nothing is ever going to
satisfy you. Even Mick Jagger will not be Mick Jagger! It is your illusion that
you project on Mick Jagger. The real Mick Jagger is just as ordinary as any
Harry, Tom, Dick... or is it Tom, Dick, Harry? I always get confused between
these three people!
How easy it is to see your brother's
faults, how hard to face your own.
You winnow his in the wind like chaff, but
yours you hide, like a cheat covering up an unlucky throw.
Dwelling on your brother's faults
multiplies your own.
You are far from the end of your journey.
Because the reason - the basic
reason - of dwelling on your brother's faults is to make your own faults look
smaller. You magnify others' faults so that you can say, "I am far better
than them," so that you can feel, "There is nothing much to be
changed in me.
Look at people, how ugly they
are!"
When everybody is so ugly, you
start feeling beautiful. When everybody is so materialist, you start feeling
spiritual. It is a trick, a strategy, to hide yourself from your own eyes. And
remember, while you are hiding your faults, they are growing inside of you like
cancer.
Just do the opposite. Don't bother
about others' faults, that's not your business at all.
Just look at your own faults,
watch them, observe them - because observing them you will be able to be free
of them. In fact, the deeper the observation, the more is the possibility of
those faults disappearing from you on their own accord, just as dewdrops
disappear in the early morning sun.
The way is not in the sky.
The way is in the heart.
Don't look upwards! When you
pray you look upwards, as if God is there. Buddha says:
Look inwards, because God is
there.
See how you love whatever keeps you from
your journey.
A very important indication for
the seeker: See how you love your own chains, see how you love your own faults.
See how you protect and defend your own misery. See how you love whatever keeps you from
your journey.
Jealousy... You say, "How
can I live without jealousy?"
Just the other day, somebody
had asked, "You teach us not to be jealous, but then without competition
what will life be? Without competition there will be no progress!"
Now he is trying to hide his
competitiveness and his jealousy behind the great word 'progress'. And not only
are you jealous, even animals are. In fact, jealousy is a very animal desire.
The rutting season had begun
and the veterinary surgeon was on the farm giving the cows artificial
insemination. By the time he got to the last cow he had no sperm left so he
began to pack away his equipment.
The cow slowly turned her head
towards him and with big, mournful eyes, said, "Not even a kiss,
Doctor?"
Watch yourself! See how you love
whatever keeps you from your journey.
But the tathagatas, "they who have
gone beyond," have conquered the world.
They are free.
The buddhas, the tathagatas, those who have gone beyond
the world - listen to what they say. They say: Real progress is in being
nonambitious. Real growth is in being without envy. The moment your jealousies
disappear totally, you have arrived home.
The way is not in the sky. The way is in
the heart. Look within. Watch how many jealousies, how many angers,
how many lustful desires are boiling there.
Just watch them!
And this is the greatest
contribution of Buddha - that he has said, and proved beyond doubt because it
has worked for thousands of people - that a deep observation of anything that
is wrong in you is enough; you need not do anything else. Just be aware of it
and it disappears. It disappears just as you bring light into a room and the
darkness disappears.
All things arise and pass away.
But the awakened awake forever.
Become aware, awake. Then you
will see that everything comes and goes, all things come and pass. Life is a
flux. Your consciousness is the only thing that is immovable, that is eternal.
To attain it is freedom. To attain it is the goal of life. If you miss it you
have missed your life and you have missed a tremendously great gift, a great
opportunity.
Enough for today.
