Chapter 5. He is the moon - Osho

Osho – Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 12)

Chapter 5. He is the moon

Desiring nothing, doubting nothing,

Beyond judgment and sorrow

And the pleasures of the senses,

He has moved beyond time.

He is pure and free.

How clear he is.

He is the moon.

He is serene.

He shines.

For he has traveled

Life after life

The muddy and treacherous road of illusion.

He does not tremble

Or grasp or hesitate.

He has found peace.

Calmly

He lets go of life,

Of home and pleasure and desire.

Nothing of men can hold him.

Nothing of the gods can hold him.

Nothing in all creation can hold him.

Desire has left him,

Never to return.

Sorrow has left him,

Never to return.

Gautama the Buddha is describing the indescribable. He is describing the inner world of a master. He is defining what a master is, what the quality of his consciousness is. Where does he exist? - in time or beyond time, in space or beyond space? Does he have any limitations? any boundaries? or has he only a pure vastness, the vastness of the sky? The very phenomenon is so mysterious that it is beyond the words that we use, that we can use. But still a few indications have to be given. These are only hints - don't cling to these hints. They are not scientific statements; think of them as pure poetry. Yes, fingers pointing to the moon, but forget the fingers and remember the moon.

No word is adequate enough to define a master. All words do injustice to the master because words are meant to describe the ordinary and the master has transcended the ordinary. Words belong to the world; the master is in the world and yet he is no more of it. He exists here and still he does not exist here. He is only a reflection in the lake. He is only a shadow lingering on this shore; the real one has already reached the other shore.

If you can remember this, then even these words will be of great help; otherwise you are bound to misunderstand them... I have been telling you again and again that life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. And Prem Mukta informs me, "Osho, this really happened: I overheard an Italian sannyasin enthusing after the lecture, 'Osho really knows what life is like. It is so true what he says, that: Life is not a problem to be solved but a misery to be lived.'"

Words are dangerous! You can hear in them something which is not there. You can project into them something which is your own, and it is impossible to detect what you are doing. It is good that the sannyasin was saying it to somebody else, but if you don't say it to anybody else... and there are a thousand and one things that you will never say to anybody else - then they simply remain part of your inner world. And if you have utterly misunderstood them in the first place, then you can start making a foundation out of them for your life. Words can be dangerous.

A true story:

Two mothers were overheard talking about their sons.

"My boy has taken up meditation," said one.

The other replied, "Well, I suppose it's better than sitting around doing nothing."

But that's exactly what meditation is: sitting around doing nothing - really nothing, not even inside, not even thinking, not even feeling. When action as such stops in toto, meditation begins. When doing ceases utterly, categorically, when there is no movement in your being, then for the first time there is the flowering of meditation.

So listen to these words. These words are beautiful if understood rightly - which is very difficult because you are so unconscious, you are so blind. You are living in a state of stupor. You are almost drunk - although you never think of it that way. You may see the drunkenness of others, but you never think that you are also drunk - drunk with greed, lust, ambition, ego. And these are more alcoholic than any alcohol.

One of the greatest problems with man is: he can see very easily that others are wrong but he cannot see that he himself is in the same boat.

Two pink elephants walked into a pub.

The barman looked up and said, "He's not here yet!"

Get it? He is thinking of some other drunkard who sees pink elephants. He is not drunk, it is some other guy who gets drunk and starts seeing pink elephants. Now he is seeing them, but he is telling the elephants, "Wait, he has not come yet. He must be coming sooner or later."

The moment you start seeing your own state, a great, radical change sets in.

So listen to these sutras with great alertness, awareness, not in a kind of half-asleep, half-awake state. People are mostly in that state twenty-four hours a day: half asleep, half awake. Something they hear, something is always missed. And the trouble is that whatsoever is more significant is always missed because that is beyond their capacity. Whatsoever is nonessential is immediately heard, is understood by them; that is within their capacity. But they go on forgetting the essential - even if they hear it.

Just watch yourself. Understanding a Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna is one of the greatest exercises in awareness.

Paul was riding his bicycle on a blistering hot summer day. But the heat and fatigue had finally so gotten to him that he stopped and sat down beside the road. Minutes later, a small Mercedes pulled up.

"Anything wrong?" asked the man behind the wheel.

"No, sir, I'm on my way to town," replied the black boy. "I'm just plumb tuckered out."

"As you can see I don't have enough room for you and your bicycle," said the occupant of the Mercedes. "But if you tie your bike to my rear bumper you can sit on it and I will tow you."

In a few moments the car, pulling the black boy on his bicycle, headed down the highway. At the first stop-light a Jaguar pulled alongside. "Hey," said the man inside, "wanna race?"

"You got it!" was the reply.

They were soon racing at over one hundred and twenty miles an hour, the Mercedes driver having completely forgotten about the black boy behind him on the bike.

Both cars were up to one hundred and forty when they passed a squad car. The bewildered police officer quickly picked up his radio mike. "Hey, Sarge, you ain't gonna believe this!" he shouted. "A Jaguar's racing a Mercedes all hell bent for leather, and there's some white kid keeping up with them on a bicycle!"

Listen to these beautiful sutras very consciously, meditatively, in tremendous reverence, in deep trust, because Buddha is revealing the greatest secrets of life.

Desiring nothing, doubting nothing,

Beyond judgment and sorrow

And the pleasures of the senses,

He has moved beyond time.

He is pure and free.

Go slowly - each word is significant. Desiring nothing, doubting nothing... You have been told by the priests down the ages, "Don't doubt, drop doubting." But why in the first place do you doubt? You doubt because you desire. Buddha is bringing the very root of the problem to your consciousness. If a man desires nothing he has no need to doubt anything at all; it is desire that brings doubt in its wake.

This is something very special, nobody has said it so clearly. In fact, nobody had said it before Buddha. If you desire you cannot get rid of doubt because desire brings belief and belief brings doubt. And what your priests are doing is simply ridiculous. They insist that you should believe and you should not doubt. They are putting you in a difficult situation which is impossible to maintain. If you believe, you are bound to doubt; all believers are doubters. This is the great insight of Buddha: no believer can ever get rid of doubt.

Belief means basically that there is doubt and you are covering it with belief. Doubt is there like a wound and you are covering it with beautiful flowers of belief. But by covering a wound with flowers you are not curing it, it is not being healed. In fact by covering it you will make it far more dangerous. It will be growing deep inside you, it will go on spreading; it will become a cancer finally. Why do you believe in the first place? If you don't doubt, what is the need to believe?

Buddha's approach is always very fundamental; he goes to the very root of the problem. You believe because you doubt. And why do you doubt? He does not stop there. Why do you believe, why do you doubt? - because you desire.

For example, you believe in an afterlife and you also doubt an afterlife. Both the belief and the doubt persist in you side by side. You believe in afterlife because you desire; there is a great lust for life, you don't want to die. Because you don't want to die, any priest can exploit you. He can tell you, "Don't be worried, only the body dies; your soul will live forever. Your soul is immortal." And you are immediately ready to believe. Why? Without inquiring into such an important matter, you believe some stupid priest who knows nothing about it, who has not experienced anything about it himself, who has not gone deeper into his own being. Maybe he knows the scriptures, he can quote the Bible and the Koran and the Gita, but so what? By knowing the Gita or the Koran or the Bible he does not know that the soul is immortal. How does he know? On what authority is he speaking? On the authority of Christ? - then it is borrowed. On the authority of Krishna? - then it is not his own. And unless it is his own there must be doubt in him.

Unless some experience arises in your own being, doubt cannot be dispelled. You can go on believing in light sitting in a dark room, but that does not mean that the darkness will disappear by your believing. You can recite the Gita and you can talk about light, but darkness will remain. You can deceive yourself by believing in light, you can say there is no darkness, you can pretend that there is no darkness, but you know that there is darkness. Otherwise, why are you talking about darkness at all if there is no darkness? Why are you saying there is no darkness? If there is no darkness there is no darkness! Why waste your time?

Why are the priests continuously teaching people that the soul is immortal? They know people are afraid of death and desire life. The fear of death and the desire for life are two sides of the same coin.

Buddha says: If you desire something then you have to believe. Why do you believe in God? Have you seen God? Have you experienced God? You can say Jesus saw God, but he may have been a deluded man. Either he himself lived in an illusion or he was deceiving you. Who knows? How can you be certain that he knew? What grounds have you got that anybody has ever seen God?

If you are suffering from a headache, nobody else can know except you yourself. Yes, if you say it, people can sympathize with you. They may not say so - they may agree with you, they may disagree with you - but how can they know that you are suffering from a headache? Only you know.

A visiting psychiatrist, wandering through the wards of a state asylum, saw a patient huddled in a corner scratching himself incessantly.

"Excuse me," said the doctor, "why do you scratch yourself like that?"

"Because," replied the man, "I'm the only one who knows where I itch."

There are things which can only be trusted if they become your personal experience.

But you are afraid of death, you believe in an afterlife, you desire an afterlife. You are afraid of being alone, you want protection. You want a God, a father figure. You are still childish. You can't live on your own, you can't stand on your own feet. Your real father may be dead or if he is not dead now you know perfectly well that he is as limited as you are - he has his own fears, he has his own tremblings. Now you cannot believe in him in the same way as you used to believe when you were a small child; then your father was all-knowing, all-powerful.

Every child brags about his father, saying, "He is the greatest man in the world!" But sooner or later, he finds he is just an ordinary man like everybody else. He knows that, "He suffers from the same fears as I do." Now he is no more a protection to him.

You cannot hide behind your mother anymore... You need a greater father, hence the projection of God. It is just your need, your desire for security, safety, for protection. You are not mature enough yet; hence you believe in God.

And look at the qualities of God: omnipresent... obviously. If he is not everywhere, then what is the point of believing in him? You may fall in a ditch and he is not there, and you may go on shouting and he is not there, or he is engaged somewhere else. And there are millions of people on this earth and this is not the only earth. Scientists say there are at least fifty thousand earths which are populated with life, millions of stars. If he is not omnipresent - and you are so small and the universe is so big - how is he going to take care of you? Of course you believe he is omnipresent, he is everywhere, so wherever you need him he is immediately available, instantly available.

So he may be omnipresent, but if he is not omnipotent, then? He may not be capable enough to help you; he may have only two hands, and with two hands how much can he do? Hence there are people who believe that he has thousands of hands. But even thousands of hands won't do much, so you have to believe that he is infinite, that his power is infinite, he can do anything.

And not only that: you also have to believe that he is omniscient because he may be omnipotent and he may be omnipresent, but if he is not omniscient then he can only take care of the present. That means when you have fallen in the ditch, only then can he help you, but you have fallen and broken your leg and you have fractures. He is omniscient, he can see the future, he can see everything, so before you fall in the ditch he can prevent you from falling in the ditch.

Just look at the qualities that you have given to your God. Those are not the qualities of God, those are your desires of how God should be. Then you can believe in him; if these qualities are missing then doubts will start arising. And God has to be infallible; if he is fallible, then there is danger. How can you believe in a fallible God? You cannot believe in a fallible God because he may mismanage, he may mess you up. Rather than helping you he may create more trouble. He has to be infallible. And when God is infallible, his son Jesus Christ has to be infallible, because if the father is infallible how can the son not be infallible? And then his representative, the pope of the Vatican, has to be infallible.

Now, you see how your logic goes on in this way... but it is rooted in desire. You believe in such foolish things - that the pope is infallible. And even now, after two thousand years, you still believe that the pope is infallible. And the popes have done so many stupid things.

Galileo said that the earth moves around the sun, not vice versa... The Bible says the sun moves around the earth, all the scriptures of the world say that the sun moves around the earth, because it is apparently so. All the languages have these words - 'sunrise', 'sunset'. We experience it every day; every day we see the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. We see the whole movement of the sun from the east to the west, and then in the night it disappears; it has gone to the other side of the earth, it is going round the earth. It is our experience! That's what we know, so before Galileo, all the scriptures of the world believed that the sun went round the earth.

Galileo was the first man who said that the reality is just the opposite: the earth goes round the sun. Now this was against the Bible and to find any fault in the Bible is dangerous. If one thing can be faulty in the Bible, then what about other things? Maybe they are also faulty; they just need some other Galileo to find the faults. Then where will it end? And if prophets are faulty, what about the pope? And all the popes had believed...

Galileo was called into the court of the pope. He was forced - he was very old, seventy years old, ill - he was dragged in chains to the court. He was in bed and so ill that he was going to die any day. And he didn't live long after. He was forced to apologize. And Galileo must have been a man of great insight. He said, "Of course, if the Bible says and if all the prophets agree and if all the popes, who are infallible, if they say that the sun moves around the earth, I apologize, I am sorry."

The pope was very happy, the court was very happy that they had brought a sinner back to his senses.

Then Galileo said, "But one thing I must tell you: I can apologize, I can say if you want me to that the sun moves round the earth - but the sun won't listen to me and the earth has no obligation to follow my orders. Still the earth will go on moving round the sun, my apologies apart. I apologize, but what can I do? If the earth moves around the sun I cannot stop it."

And these popes have been preventing all scientific growth. Still in the twentieth century millions of Catholics go on believing that the pope is infallible. But this is really a logical consequence: if you believe God is infallible, then of course his son is infallible, then his son's representatives are infallible.

But deep down, why do you believe in such nonsense? And this is not only so about Catholics; it is so about Hindus, about Mohammedans, about Jainas, even about Buddhists. They all go on believing in utter nonsense.

Buddhists believe that Buddha was born while his mother was standing in the garden; she had gone for a walk. Not only that, he was also born in a standing posture himself. He came out of the womb, stood on the earth, walked seven steps and declared, "I am the awakened one!" Now for twenty-five centuries Buddhists have believed in this nonsense. No baby can do that, but if you suspect it then you suspect the scriptures. If you doubt the scriptures then great trembling arises in you because then you become afraid. Doubting is not good, doubting is irreligious; one should believe. And the more absurd the belief, the greater is the test for the believer.

Buddha is saying: desiring nothing, doubting nothing... The master desires nothing, hence he doubts nothing - because he believes nothing. A master lives without desire, without belief, without doubt. And then what is left in the inner being of the master is trust. Trust is not belief; it is absence of both doubt and belief. Buddha calls it shraddha. It can only be translated as trust - trust in existence.

Belief is rooted in desire and every belief carries its own counterpart, doubt, as a shadow. Trust is absence of desire, belief, doubt. It is purity of the heart, innocence of the heart. In that innocent heart there is a meeting and merging with the universe. That is trust; it has nothing to do with you. It is not that you trust; you are no more there, only trust is.

Desiring nothing, doubting nothing, beyond judgment and sorrow... The master goes beyond judgment; hence there is no question of belief or doubt. He never judges; he never says, "This is right and that is wrong." He has dropped the mind which is a constant process of judgment. The mind continuously judges; its judgment has become an obsession.

You see the roseflower and before you have even seen it, the mind has said, "It is beautiful." You see a man passing by and before you have seen the man rightly, the mind says, "He is ugly." The judgment is instantaneous, it seems to take no time. You are continuously judgmental.

The master looks at the fact but has no judgments, because in fact beauty and ugliness all are our projections. When you say a rose is beautiful it is your idea, nothing else. The rose is a rose is a rose; it is neither beautiful nor ugly, it is simply itself. The ugly man is not ugly and the beautiful man is not beautiful; it is only a question of your idea of what beauty is. Hence with different people different things are thought to be beautiful.

In China beauty has a different color, a different form; in India it has a different form and color, in Europe obviously it is going to be different. Each country has its own idea of beauty and those ideas go on changing, they come like fashions. One thing is beautiful today and tomorrow it becomes ugly; today it is ugly and tomorrow suddenly it becomes beautiful.

Can you believe that Picasso's paintings would have been thought beautiful just two hundred years ago? Impossible! Not even a single person would have been found in the whole world who would have said they were beautiful. And whosoever would have said they were beautiful would have been thought insane.

Vincent van Gogh could not sell one of his paintings, not even one, for the simple reason that everybody thought they were just insane - not only ugly but insane too. Now only two hundred paintings are in existence and each painting has so much value that if those people come back and see that Vincent van Gogh's paintings are being sold for millions of dollars they will not be able to believe their eyes, what has happened to man. "What kind of beauty have people started seeing suddenly in Vincent van Gogh's paintings? Nobody thought them beautiful." The idea of beauty has changed.

Modern poetry is not beautiful in the same way as Shakespearian poetry is; it is not beautiful in the same way as Kalidas or Bhavabhuti, as Byron or Shelley. It is a totally different kind of beauty. Just our idea! If man disappears from the earth there will be nothing beautiful and nothing ugly. Weeds will be as valuable as roses; there will be no difference, there will be simple equality.

A master is one who has dropped all human ideas about things, hence he has no judgments. He lives in a nonjudgmental way. And can you see? - when you live in a nonjudgmental way you attain to great serenity, naturally; nothing disturbs you, nothing offends you, nothing attracts you, nothing infatuates you.

Beyond judgment and you are beyond sorrow. Buddha says: If you really want to go beyond sorrow, go beyond judgment. But going beyond judgment means going beyond mind. Mind is judgmental; if you live in the mind it will keep you tethered to all kinds of judgments. If you drop the mind then suddenly the whole existence becomes available to you. For the first time you are unclouded.

"Come on, let's screw," the Italian told his new date five minutes after he called for her.

"Oh, you're so sophisticated, Pietro," she said.

"So sophisticated" - after five minutes only! But in Italy it may be sophisticated; after five minutes, in India, it will be rape and the girl will shout for the police. It will take months for you to woo the woman, to persuade her, to bring her down to earth. It is a long long process. But things in Italy seem to be quick: five minutes and she says, "You are so sophisticated, so cultured!" It all depends on your ideas.

Desiring nothing, doubting nothing, beyond judgment and sorrow and the pleasures of the senses, he has moved beyond time. He is pure and free.

These four things have to be understood. The first is the senses and their pleasures; that is the lowest kind of life. And remember, by calling it the "lowest" Buddha is not judging it, it is not an evaluation - it is simply stating a fact. Just as you say "the lowest rung of the ladder" - there is no judgment. It is not bad, it is no more special than the highest rung. It is simply a statement of fact. This has to be continuously remembered, otherwise you will forget; you will start thinking that Buddha himself is judging. Then is he a master or not? He is not judging, he is simply stating a fact.

Senses are the lowest because they are on the circumference, they are part of your body. There are people who live only in the senses, they are still living like animals. Again remember, it is not a judgment: animals are not bad, animals are not immoral. There is no question of hierarchy. But animals live in the body, and the man who lives only in his senses is living an animal kind of life. He is living in the porch of his palace. Not that he is immoral, but certainly he is unintelligent. He could have lived in the palace and he is living in the porch - and suffering the heat of the sun, and in the rains he suffers the rains and in the cold he suffers from the cold. He could have been in the safety and the comforts and the coziness of the palace. The palace belongs to him, but he lives in the porch believing that that's all there is to life.

The man who lives only in sensuality, lust, who is obsessed with food, who is obsessed with his body, continuously thinking of the body, is not yet a man. He is a good animal, but utterly blind to the potential that he is born to, utterly blind to what he can become, unconscious of the whole range of his being.

The second circle, deeper than the body, is that of the mind. Mind has its own pleasures which are a little higher. Again, remember, it has nothing to do with judgment. They are a little deeper, they are a little closer to the innermost shrine. They actualize a little bit of your potential. The man who enjoys mathematics, science, philosophy certainly has a deeper sense of joy. Plato has a deeper sense of joy than Nero.

It is said about Nero that he used to keep four physicians constantly with him even when he went to war. Those four physicians were to help him vomit because he liked to eat so many times in the day. Now you cannot eat so many times a day; there is a limitation. You can eat three times, four times, five times at the most; more than that will be impossible. The body will not contain it, you will burst. So after eating, the physicians would help him to vomit immediately so he could eat again. He used to eat at least twenty times per day. He must have been the greatest eater in the world. But what kind of life is this? - twenty times vomiting to eat twenty times! - as if he lived only in the buds of the tongue, in the taste buds.

Of course Plato is far deeper. He enjoys a contemplative life: he contemplates the stars, he contemplates the sunrise and the sunset, he contemplates the possibility of human progress. And he enjoys it - and he enjoys it so much that many times he forgets to eat, he forgets completely that he has missed a meal.

It happened once:

Albert Einstein was brought his breakfast and he was so deep in contemplation - it must have been some great mathematical puzzle he was involved in - that he was sitting with closed eyes. So the servant did not disturb him; he left the breakfast in front of him and went away.

Meanwhile a friend came. He also saw him so deeply absorbed that he thought, "It is better... the breakfast is getting cold." So he ate the breakfast and pushed the plates aside.

At that moment Einstein opened his eyes, looked at the empty plates, looked at his friend and said, "Sorry, you came a little late. I have taken my breakfast."

Now, this is better than being a Nero. But there is a third layer still higher, still deeper: the layer of the heart - love, music, poetry, dance. People who enjoy art, people who can enjoy and appreciate harmony, color, people who can see some poetry in life and existence, who can feel some celebration going on all around, of course they are going still deeper. A Rabindranath... the poet goes deeper than the mathematician, the musician goes deeper than the philosopher. But these are still concentric circles around your center.

The fourth - the mystics in India have called it simply, "the fourth," TURIYA - is the world of your being, the innermost core. Those who enjoy meditation, neither food nor philosophy nor poetry, but who have gone beyond all these and entered into the world of utter silence, of absolute emptiness, who know how not to be... Yes, the question is, "To be or not to be?" Those who have chosen not to be, they are the meditators. They have moved from the senses to samadhi, and that is the highest experience of life.

Buddha says: desiring nothing, doubting nothing, beyond judgment and sorrow and the pleasures of the senses, he has moved beyond time.

The man who has moved into his being has moved beyond time. Time exists with the body, with the mind, with the heart, but with the being there is no time. You suddenly experience timelessness - or you can call it eternity. It is only in that state when you have transcended mind, transcended time, that you are pure and free. For the first time you know what purity is. It is not something to be cultivated; it is something like a fragrance of deep meditation. The joy, the song, the celebration that arises out of silence, the sound of soundless silence - that is purity, that is innocence; you have become a child again. And that is maturity too, that is growth. You have come of age. You are really born, you are born anew.

How clear he is...

Now the master has clarity because all the clouds have disappeared, the clouds created by the body... The body creates the darkest clouds, the densest clouds, the thickest clouds. As you go further inwards the clouds are less dark, less thick, less dense. When you have reached the fourth, turiya, all clouds have disappeared; there is pure clarity. You can see through and through. The whole existence becomes transparent. Nothing is hidden from you anymore. How clear he is.

He is the moon.

He is serene.

He shines.

At this point, suddenly there is an alchemical change in his energy. Ordinarily a man lives as a sun energy; the master lives as moon energy. These are just metaphors, but tremendously significant, very expressive indicators. Moon energy means cool energy, sun energy means hot energy. When you live in passion, lust, anger, greed, jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, you live as fire. It is not only that others are burned through you, you are burning yourself. In fact, if you want to burn others you have to burn yourself first; only then can you burn others. You are constantly in a fever. The sun energy is feverish, it creates insanity, it drives you crazy. It keeps you running and rushing after illusions.

Meditation is the miracle that transforms the sun energy into moon energy. The moon creates magic every night. The moon has no rays of its own, it simply reflects the sunrays. It absorbs the sunrays and reflects them back; the moon functions only as a mirror. Hence the moon represents two things: first it is a mirror. The master is a mirror, meditation makes you a mirror - without any dust, absolutely clean and pure, so everything is reflected in you as it is, with no judgment but simply as it is in its absolute facticity.

And second, the moon, just by reflecting them, transforms the hot rays of the sun into cool energy. That's what happens through a master. He absorbs the same energy that you absorb, he eats the same food as you eat, he drinks the same water as you drink, he breathes the same air as you breathe, but some alchemical change is constantly going on in him.

Out of your food you become more and more sexual, out of your breathing you become more and more hot. The master breathes the same air, but some miracle happens within him that is not perceptible to you. The same air no longer creates the same results for him as it creates for you, the same food no longer creates for him the same problems as it creates for you. The master does not live in another world; he lives in your world and he lives in the same way as you live.

Those who escape from the world are not real masters; they are afraid of the world. They are afraid to absorb this crazy energy. The world is full of it; hence they escape to the Himalayas. But they simply show by their escape that they are not yet masters. The real master lives here in the world. He absorbs the same crazy energy, but when it comes back, when it is reflected back through him, it is no longer crazy. It becomes a grace, it becomes cool. He showers a thousand and one blessings even on those who are not worthy, even on those who are not receptive, even on those who will never feel thankful, even on those who may do harm to him.

Jesus even kissed Judas and washed his feet, and he knew the man had betrayed him. He knew perfectly well, because before he washed the feet of Judas he told his disciples, "Tonight I am going to be betrayed by one of you." But he cannot do otherwise: he can only kiss, he can only wash the feet. He has no ego, he is utterly humble. In fact, he has no self; he is a nonself. Buddha's word for it is ANATTA - no-self. And he is constantly radiating the cool energy of the moon.

He is the moon. He is serene. He shines - he is as serene as the moon and he shines as beautifully as the moon.

For he has traveled

Life after life

The muddy and treacherous road of illusion.

He knows from bitter experience. He has every compassion for you. If you are deep in your mud he only has compassion for you. He makes every effort to pull you out of the mud because he has been in the same mud for lives. He has traveled the same path, he has gone astray thousands of times, he has suffered in the same way.

That is one of the most beautiful things Buddha taught, because all other religions were trying to prove something else. Hindus were saying in India that Krishna, Rama and all their avataras, they descend from heaven, they are parts of God, they are incarnations of God. That is the meaning of 'avatara'; avatara means "descending from above." They are not part of us, they came as messengers of God. They have not traveled on the same muddy path. How can they understand our misery? How can they understand our problems? They have never suffered the same problems.

And the same was the case with Judaism. And remember, these are the only two religions; all other religions are born out of these two. Judaism was also preaching the same idea: that God sends his messengers, messiahs, prophets. Those are special people, they are not ordinary like you.

Buddha's approach is tremendously human; he is the first humanitarian mystic. He says, "I have traveled on the same muddy path, I have suffered in the same way you are suffering, I have committed the same mistakes. Hence I can understand you, and I can understand why you are unable to understand me, because I have come across many buddhas in my other lives, many buddhas; I never understood them, I always misunderstood them. So if you are misunderstanding me there is nothing to make a fuss about. It is simple, it is natural, it is inevitable. So whatsoever you do to me," Buddha says, "it is okay. Still I will go on showering my flowers on you because I have nothing else to shower."

Buddha is not an avatara. He has not come from the above, he has risen from the below. He is a lotus: he has grown out of the same mud in which you are struggling. And I completely agree with him. The Hindu and the Jewish concept is utterly inhuman; that concept is not right. That cannot help humanity to be transformed.

Buddha brings a totally new insight. His approach is not mythological, his approach is scientific. For he has traveled life after life the muddy and treacherous road of illusion - so he knows and he understands you. You may not understand him, but he understands you.

A little girl was being driven very erratically in a car by her grandma.

"Don't go round corners so fast, Gran," she pleaded.

"Do as I do, dear," said the sweet old lady, "and close your eyes!"

Blind people are leading other blind people and they have created all kinds of superstitions, mythologies, religions. Only a buddha is capable, only one who is awakened, only one who up to now had belonged to you. You are asleep and he is awake, that is the only difference; there is no other difference. He can help you to be awakened because he knows how he has become awake, how difficult it is, what problems have to be faced. He knows your state.

The bandage-covered patient who lay in the hospital bed spoke dazedly to his visiting pal. "Wh-wh-what happened?"

"You had one too many last night and then bet that you could jump out of the window and fly around the block."

"Why didn't you stop me?" he screamed.

"Stop you, hell! I had twenty-five dollars on you!"

The receptionist of a five-star hotel picks up the phone: "May I help you?"

"Yes," is the reply, "can you please tell me when your bar opens?"

"Yes, sir. The bar opens at five o'clock."

"Thank you."

An hour later the phone rings again and the same voice asks, "C-c-an you tell me, p-p-please, when the b-b-b-bar opens?"

"At five o'clock, sir," says the receptionist.

"Th-th-thank you!"

Another hour passes and the phone rings again. "Please, when doesh... doesh... doesh the bar (hic) o-open?"

"I repeat, at five o'clock," answers the annoyed receptionist.

Still another hour later, the phone rings again. "Hic! Hic! Heelloo!"

"You again!" exclaims the receptionist, "I told you we open our bar at five o'clock, but in your state of inebriation we cannot allow you into our bar!"

"But... but... but - hic - I don't want to get in!" cries the drunk. "I want to get out!"

Only somebody who has been in knows the ins and the outs. Only one who has been drunk like you can help you. That's why the organization called Alcoholics Anonymous is so helpful. It has helped thousands of drunkards for the simple reason that other drunkards are helping. They understand each other, they understand the problems. They are not standing high above the others looking with eyes of condemnation at them, looking at them with that stupid holy look, "holier-than-thou," and preaching to them to be good. They have been in the same plight, they have suffered much; they understand each other's language.

Hence Buddha helped more people to become enlightened than anybody else in the whole history of humanity. I don't think Krishna helped anybody to become enlightened; he was enlightened, but he could not help anybody else. I am afraid Jesus could not help anybody, not even among his own twelve apostles. They remained very ordinary to the very end; not one of them became enlightened.

Buddha seems to be an exceptional master - in fact the first master whom we can really call a master, because through him thousands of people became enlightened. And the reason why Buddha's appeal is so deep is that he is not a pretender. He is not a messiah, he has not come from above, he claims nothing. He is not the only begotten Son of God; he does not talk about God at all. He does not talk any nonsense. He is very sensible and very down-to-earth. He means business. And he can help immensely. He says: for he has traveled - the master has traveled - life after life the muddy and treacherous road of illusion.

When are you going to wake up? You go on postponing, you go on saying tomorrow. And you have been doing this for centuries, and tomorrow has not come yet. When is it going to come? Stop postponing. Postponing is a trick of the mind.

After a smooth take-off the captain of the Boeing 707 welcomes his passengers: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard. I, Captain Cook, and my crew wish you a pleasant flight. We land in Amsterdam in approximately five hours."

A few minutes later the same voice is heard through the speakers: "Shit, Johnny, I feel like a nice cool beer and a good screw..."

As the stewardess runs towards the cockpit to inform the pilot that the speakers are on, a passenger grabs her by the arm and says, "Hey, lady, what's the rush? We still got another five hours to go!"

We are always thinking in terms of the future. Stop thinking in terms of the future; that is the way of the mind to live, to prolong, to get nourished. The future is the food of the mind. The moment you become decisive about the present, the mind has started dying. It is the beginning of the end, the end of the mind. And the end of the mind is the beginning of your real existence, your real life.

And can't you see that life has been very treacherous, that it has been deceiving you again and again? Still you go on being deceived. How gullible you are! And you go on falling in the same ditches - they are not even different - the same traps.

A Jew and a Polack are sitting together in a train compartment. The Jew is eating some apple seeds.

After some time, the Polack becomes curious and asks the Jew, "Why are you eating apple seeds?"

The Jew replies, "Apple seeds make you smart!"

The Polack, even more curious, asks, "Are they for sale?"

The Jew answers, "Yes, of course, You can have these five apple seeds for five dollars only."

The Polack agrees to the deal and starts eating the seeds. Suddenly the Polack turns to the Jew and says, "Hey, you, listen, for five dollars I could have bought five kilos of apples!"

The Jew turns to him with a satisfied smile and answers, "Now you see - it has started working already!"

You go on repeating the same mistakes. You go on being exploited by the treacherous life, by all kinds of traps which are all around you. And the emperors and the beggars are all in the same boat; there is no difference. The poor and the rich are in the same boat; there is no difference because all are full of desires. And wherever desire exists ego exists, and wherever ego exists illusion exists because ego is the greatest illusion there is. Even in a beggar who has nothing else you will find the same ego as you will find in Alexander the Great, because desiring is the same. Alexander the Great may have much money and much power, that does not matter; he is still desiring. The beggar may not have anything, but he is also desiring.

The distance between you and your desire always remains the same. It is like the horizon: between you and the horizon the distance is always the same. You can go on moving towards the horizon your whole life; the distance is never shortened, it remains the same. You can renounce the world, you can start running away from the horizon, but then again you will be facing another horizon. And now the desire to reach the other horizon... If you were heading west, now you will be heading east, but it is the same horizon - or south or north. You can go in any direction, it is the same horizon. Escaping won't help. You can renounce the world, it will not change you.

There is only one change - only one change, only one revolution and that is the revolution of dropping the illusion of the ego. It is the ego that keeps you on the muddy and treacherous road of illusion.

And remember, don't fool yourself that "Alexander the Great is an egoist. I am a poor man, a humble man. I go to the church every Sunday - how can I be an egoist?" You are in the same boat, in the same way. You have the same ego.

As a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce stopped at some traffic lights, a tramp tapped on the window and held out his hand. The somewhat literary English gentleman in the back seat rolled down the window and said in a very cultured voice, "'Neither a borrower nor a lender be'... William Shakespeare." And the Rolls Royce drove on.

The tramp, seeing that the Rolls had stopped at the next set of lights, raced down the road and tapped on the window again. The gentleman rolled down the window and the tramp said, "'Fuck you'... D.H. Lawrence."

He does not tremble

Or grasp or hesitate.

He has found peace.

He has no fear. Once desire has gone fear cannot exist. When desire is there you are always afraid - are you going to make it this time or not? Or if you have achieved the goal of your desire then you are afraid whether you are capable of keeping it forever or not. If you want to become the president then comes the fear - how are you going to make it? Millions of people want to be the president. There are so many neurotic people - you are not the only one. The whole world is mad; you are not the only mad person. Are you going to make it? And you have to be really the maddest to make it because you will have to fight with other madmen. There is always trembling.

And if by chance - and it is always a chance - if by some coincidence you become the president, then a new fear arises: are you going to keep it? - because so many people are pulling you. Your legs are being pulled, people are pushing you from your chair. And there are so many people around you and everybody is dangerous because everybody wants to sit in the same chair, but the chair can contain only one person. Now there is great fear, you cannot sleep. In fact now you are more afraid than you ever were; you know sooner or later they will topple you. They are so many and you are alone. They will gather together to topple you.

But the master has no trembling because he has no desire. And he does not cling to anything because he knows that there is nothing worth clinging to; he has that clarity of vision. All that is his is always his, nobody can take it away. He sees it now. And all that is not his is going to be taken away whether you cling to it or not, so what is the point of clinging? Why waste time?

He never hesitates - his clarity is such. For a master it is never a question of deciding between alternatives; he simply sees... and he acts. It is not a question of either/or. Never! He sees the door and goes out through it. It is not a question of deciding whether to go through the wall or through the door. It is always a question for you to decide whether to go through the wall or through the door. In fact, the wall looks more appealing because millions of times you have tried through the wall and you are really angry at the wall and you want to prove that one day you are going to defeat this wall. This dumb wall has been defeating you again and again; you want to take revenge. In fact, you can't see the door; you only see this wall and that wall. It is always a question of choosing which wall you want to go through.

For the master it is never a question of choice. He lives choicelessly because he lives consciously. He is alert, he has eyes to see, and you are blind; hence you always hesitate. Because he has no fear, no clinging, no hesitation: he has found peace. Naturally, there is tremendous peace in his being.

Calmly

He lets go of life,

Of home and pleasure and desire.

Calmly he lets go of life... He does not make any fuss about it, he does not brag about renunciation. Whatsoever he sees is futile, he drops it. In fact, to say he drops it is not right - he lets it go, he allows it to be dropped. He does not resist, that's all. He makes no effort to keep it. And very calmly, without any effort. His life is effortless.

Of home... Home represents security - he drops the idea of security. What security can there be here when death is going to take everything away? In this life there can be no security, on this shore there is no security; hence he does not bother about security.

And pleasure... because he knows pleasure always brings pain. He has seen it clearly, that pleasure is only a facade; behind it comes hidden pain. He can see through and through; hence he lets it go. And desire he has lived for many many lives and seen that it is unfulfillable. It is always after more: the more you have, the more you ask for. It is an absolutely absurd exercise in futility.

Seen, all these things start disappearing from his life. Not that he renounces... That's what my emphasis is: never renounce anything. If things are worthless they will fall of their own accord. And when things fall of their own accord there is tremendous beauty in them, because they leave you peaceful, calm and quiet, collected and centered.

Nothing of men can hold him.

Nothing of the gods can hold him.

Nothing in all creation can hold him.

When there is no desire, what can hold him? What can make him a prisoner? Neither this world nor the other world, neither the earth nor paradise.

All the religions of the world talk about heaven and hell. Buddha says there is something beyond heaven and hell and that is the true existence. He calls it nirvana. No other religion talks about nirvana; nirvana is a totally different vision. It means you are not hankering for heavenly desires, heavenly joys and pleasures, because it is the same stupidity again repeated on a bigger scale, on a higher plane, but the stupidity is the same.

The master knows the futility of desire; hence he has no desire for heaven, he has no desire at all. Nothing binds him and nothing holds him.

Desire has left him,

Never to return.

... Because he has seen that it is futile. If you drop it because I am saying it, then it will return again and again. If you drop it out of your own experience through meditation, then it has gone forever, never to return.

Sorrow has left him,

Never to return.

And sorrow is only a shadow of desire. Remember it always: everything has to happen to you through your own experience.

Buddha's last words to his disciples were: Be a light unto yourself. And how can you be a light unto yourself? Go beyond the body, the mind, the heart. Find the center of your being and suddenly there is light. It is already there, it is already burning bright. It is your very being; you just have to discover it.

Discovering it one discovers truth.

Discovering it one discovers peace.

Discovering it one discovers bliss, nirvana.

Enough for today.

John Nguyen

Dhammapada Vol. 12

Thursday, August 24, 2017

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