Chapter 6. Life transcends logic - Osho

Osho – Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 10)

Chapter 6. Life transcends logic

Question 1

Beloved Master,

In wanting to know who I am I often feel in a space of nothingness. In one way it scares me, in the other it feels fulfilling. I feel both all and nothing. How to feel one or the other? And where does the distinction lie between a vacuum - that space of neither past, present or future - and a dead space?

Prabhato, the first indication of a right, positive nothingness is that it will be paradoxical. It will be felt as all and nothing, both simultaneously. Then it is alive. All that is alive is paradoxical; only that which is dead is logical. Logic is applicable only to dead things; logic has nothing to say about life. Life transcends logic. Life is basically illogical. That's what I mean by calling it paradoxical: it contains its own opposite.

Hence it is a good indication that you feel both all and nothing. If you feel just nothing, then it is a dead space; if you just feel all, then it is all imagination. When you feel both, it is neither dead space nor pure projection; it is something authentically true.

Whenever you will feel all and nothing together, naturally, on the one hand you will feel scared because of nothingness, because nothingness looks like death... It is death; death of the ego, death of all that you have known up to now as yourself. It is a total discontinuity with the past; hence fear arises. You are losing your identity, and that is the greatest crisis in life. One wants to cling to one's identity; at least one knows who one is. Even though that identity was nothing but hell, still you would like to cling to it. At least it was something tangible. Now all tangibles are disappearing and all that you have known about yourself is evaporating. A great fear grips you. It seems as if you are going to die. It is natural to feel scared.

But you also feel, on the other hand, deeply fulfilled, because it is death and resurrection, crucifixion and resurrection. When you are ready to lose your old identity you are born anew. A new life starts pulsating, a new heart starts beating. As an ego you disappear, but you appear as part of the whole, of the immense vastness, of the totality.

This is really the birth of the holy man, because one becomes part of the whole. This is the birth of a buddha, of a christ. So in spite of all your fears, go into it, don't cling to your past. And remember, fear is very powerful because your whole past will support it, and you have a tremendously long past of millions of lives. Not only this life but many many lives are contained in your collective unconscious. They will all pull you back. They will say, "Where are you going? Are you going mad? Come back to the old shelter, to the old security!" The past is long; it has immense weight, great gravitation. And the new that is being born is just like a new sprout, very fragile. It can be crushed very easily, it can be destroyed very easily.

Remember that unless you go on in spite of all your fears you will never go into the unknown. And to go into the unknown is to go into God. God is never known. He is not only unknown, he is also unknowable. And whatsoever you know about God is just your ideas about God, not your experience.

Those who have experienced God have kept mum, have kept completely silent. They have not uttered a single word about God. They have indicated the way. Buddha says: Buddhas point you the way, but they don't say anything about the ultimate experience. They show how to reach it, but they never say what exactly it is. It is indefinable, inexpressible. God is a mystery. In fact, God is another name for the mysterious universe in which we are living, breathing. We are part of this great mystery and there is no way to demystify it.

So you will have to go knowingly, deliberately. You will have to risk your past. You will have to listen to the call of the unknown. It is a faraway, distant call and there is no guarantee for it. Nobody can give you the guarantee, only hints.

I can say to you: You have heard the right call. But it is risky because you will be risking all that you know about yourself for something which is far away, invisible, mysterious. One can never be certain. You can't be calculative about God, you can't be cunning and clever about God. You have to go into simple innocence, just like a small child holding the hand of his father can go into the deep forest without any fear. Lions may be roaring, but the child has no fear because he knows his hand is in his father's hand. The father himself may be trembling, but the child is enchanted with the whole journey, with the whole adventure. Such a simplicity is needed, such innocence is needed; only then can you take the risk.

The child is the most courageous being. As he grows in age, in experience, he starts becoming cowardly, he becomes calculating. He thinks twice before he takes any step, and when you think too much you never take any step. Very calculative people remain stuck their whole lives. They never move because each movement creates fear in them - and this is the greatest movement.

Prabhato, go joyously into it. And don't be worried what is the distinction between an empty space, a negative space, and a space that is positive, fulfilling. Don't be bothered. This is how the mind starts calculating, this is how the mind starts functioning. There is no need - you are on the right track.

Wherever you feel a paradox happening, remember, that is the criterion that you are on the right track. If you don't come across a paradox you must have missed somewhere, you are moving in a wrong direction.

So don't ask me, "How to feel one or the other?" If you feel one or the other you will be wrong. When you feel both, then you feel the total. The total is bound to be both, the negative and the positive. It is bound to be both death and life, summer and winter.

And that's where mind feels baffled, puzzled. Mind would like clear-cut things, but nothing can be done about it. Mind's requirements and expectations cannot be fulfilled. Existence has no obligation to fulfill mind's requirements and demands. You have to accept existence as it is. It is paradoxical and mind is not paradoxical. Mind is linear, logical, not dialectical. As far as mind is concerned it is Aristotelian, and as far as life is concerned it is more Hegelian than Aristotelian. It is dialectics: it moves from thesis to antithesis, and so on, so forth. The whole movement depends on thesis and antithesis. The polar opposites are really not opposites but complementaries.

Enjoy the polarity, the paradox. Rejoice that you are on the right track. And go on moving in spite of all the fears. They are natural. I cannot say that you should not feel those fears - they are absolutely natural, but you can go on in spite of them.

Remember, the difference between a coward and a courageous man is not that the coward feels fear and the courageous man does not feel fear. No, that is not the difference between the coward and the courageous. Both feel fear. The difference is that the coward listens to the fear and stops his movement, and the courageous takes no notice of it, pushes it aside, and moves in spite of it.

Question 2

Beloved Master,

Why do you say that it is right to meditate but wrong to pray? In my opinion, meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake, but to pray deeply and calmly gives you the direct and intense connection to god, and his holy spirit comes down to you.

Rosemary, I have not said what you have heard. You must be hearing through a thick layer of Christianity, a thick layer of rubbish.

In the first place, you say, "Why do you say that it is right to meditate but wrong to pray?" ... Because meditation is the only prayer there is, and prayer is possible only in meditation; any other prayer is going to be false, pseudo. If you have not been in deep meditation, how are you going to know that there is God? Then the idea of God is just a conditioning given by others to you.

Just think, Rosemary, if you were born in Soviet Russia, then you would not have talked about God at all. You would not be talking about the Bible; you would be talking about the Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital. You would not be talking about the Holy Trinity of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; you would be talking of the unholy trinity of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and V.I. Lenin, because you would have been told and conditioned by communist education.

If you had been born in a Jaina family you would have never thought of prayer, never - because there is no God, so to whom to pray? If you were born in a Buddhist family, things would have been totally different because you would have been conditioned in a different way. It is not you, Rosemary, who is asking this question; it is your conditioning. And all conditionings are wrong.

Meditation means a state of unconditioned mind. Meditation is the process of undoing the harm that every society goes on doing to every individual - communist or Catholic, Jaina or Jew, it does not matter. I am not talking about any particular conditioning that is wrong; I am saying conditioning as such is wrong.

Conditioning is nothing but a process of hypnotizing people: go on repeating from the very childhood, in the church, in the Sunday school... You have been told about God and prayer and you have been told by your parents and teachers and priests and all the authoritative people. And the small child has learned how to imitate those who are in power. Now you have completely forgotten the beginning of conditioning.

No child is born as a Christian or a Hindu. No child is born with any idea of God's existence - whether God exists or does not exist, whether there is one hell or seven hells or seventy or seven hundred. No child is born with any theology.

Meditation means a process of removing all that has been forced upon you so that you can become again a child. That's what Jesus says. He says: Unless you are like a child you will not enter into my kingdom of God. He is talking about deconditioning, dehypnotizing. He is not using these words 'deconditioning', 'dehypnotizing', because these words did not exist in his days, but that's what actually he is saying. He is saying: Unless you become a child again... Again and again he says: Unless you are BORN again... because this birth has been contaminated by the people; they have poisoned your minds. You need a new spiritual birth. And it is possible only through meditation; there is no other way.

Prayer will mean you will be continuing the conditioning. If you are Christian, your prayer will be Christian. Your very question says... it has the stink of Christianity! A Hindu will not say this, he will not use such words: "And his holy spirit comes down to you." A Jaina will never use such terminology - impossible, because for a Jaina, nothing comes down, everything goes up! He believes in growing up into a god. God is not someone there high above who comes down to you; there is no God. You have the seed of divineness in you; it grows upwards. The holy spirit descending on you is simply something that has been taught to you.

You say, "In my opinion..."

Opinions mean nothing! If you have some experience, then it is important. Opinion is just opinion. Opinion means something of the mind. You have not experienced anything; it is just a thought. People have all kinds of opinions.

I have heard:

Two camels were passing through a desert. Both were looking very tired and both wanted to say something to the other, but somehow they were keeping control.

Finally one exploded and he said, "Whatsoever people say, whatsoever their opinion, I want to say that I am thirsty!"

Thirst is not an opinion, it is your experience. Is it your experience? If it is your experience, the question cannot arise, because then you would have understood exactly what I was saying.

Meditation is the process that cleanses you, and when you are utterly clean a fragrance arises in you. That is prayer. Prayer is a consequence of meditation. I am not against prayer; I am against YOUR prayer, but not against prayer itself. Your prayer is false. Your prayer is only a part of your conditioning. The Hindu prays in the Hindu way and the Mohammedan prays in the Mohammedan way, but a real prayer is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan. It comes out of an unconditioned being. How can it be Hindu or Mohammedan?

A real prayer is simply prayer. It has no words; it is pure silence. It is a surrender in deep silence. In fact, it is not addressed to any God; it is bowing down to the whole existence. It is not an address. God is everywhere, all is God, so you simply bow down in tremendous gratitude, in ecstasy, in joy, in love. But first your love, your ecstasy, your joy have to be released. You are just a seed, and talking about fragrance will be only an opinion heard from others, borrowed. And anything borrowed is ugly. Anything borrowed is going to be only verbal.

And that's what has happened: when you heard me you only understood the literal meaning of the words. You missed the significance.

A gentile friend... a Christian friend cajoled Rabbi Berkowitz into attending Saint Joseph's in the city that made Schlitz famous. The old rabbi, long since retired, finally agreed when it was explained that a visiting dignitary would speak about the Jewish influence on the formation of the church.

In the front row, Rabbi Berkowitz's eyes widened as the visiting lecturer announced his topic: "My Name is Joseph, Father of Jesus."

At the conclusion of the talk, when they had been introduced, the rabbi said dryly, "My friend, you have had a most unusual experience!"

He misunderstood the whole thing. He took the title of the lecture literally: My Name Is Joseph, Father of Jesus. That was just going to be the subject. The man is not saying that he is Joseph, the father of Jesus. The rabbi said, "My friend, you have had a most unusual experience" - being the father of Jesus, after two thousand years. And Jesus was the son of a virgin woman; it was certainly an unusual experience for the father!

That's what has happened to you, Rosemary. I have not said anything against prayer, but I have said that meditation prepares the way. It cleanses you - it cleanses you of all thoughts given by others. It creates the space in which prayer can flower. Meditation brings the spring - and there is no other way. If you pray without meditation, then your flowers will be plastic flowers. Real flowers of prayer grow only in meditation. And then prayer is not addressed to God; in fact, then there is no God.

The whole idea of God the Father is childish, and Sigmund Freud is right that it is a projection of our deep desire to cling to the parents. It is a projection of your idea of the father, because your father cannot be with you forever. One day he dies and you miss the protection, the security, the safety. And you project a father in heaven who is forever and forever, who will never die and who will always take care of you. And you pray on your knees to the father in heaven. The idea is YOUR creation, the prayer is your creation. And you go on doing this stupid thing for your whole life, thinking that you are doing something religious.

And sometimes it can happen that certain of your prayers may be fulfilled. That is just coincidence. If you go on praying for thousands of things, once in a while it is bound to happen.

One man came to me and he said, "I never believed in God, but now I believe."

I said, "What happened?"

He said, "I gave an ultimatum to God that if within fifteen days my son does not get employment, I will become a confirmed atheist forever. And the threatening worked: within fifteen days my son got the employment. Now I am a firm believer."

I said, "It is perfectly good, but never give the ultimatum again because it may not work always. It was just coincidence."

But he did not listen to me. After two years he met me and he said, "You were right. I again gave the ultimatum. My wife was very ill and I told him that he has to save her, otherwise I will become an atheist." He thought that once the trick had worked; now he knows how to force God into his service.

That's what people who are praying are doing; they are trying to use God. They are trying to use God as a means for certain ends.

And the wife died. Certainly he became an atheist.

Prayers sometimes will be fulfilled - not that there is somebody who is there listening to your prayers and fulfilling them - and sometimes they will not be fulfilled. And priests are very clever. They will say, "Whenever your prayer is fulfilled you prayed deeply, truly, sincerely." And whenever your prayer is not fulfilled they say, "Your prayer was superficial." And the argument has much appeal because, in fact, all your prayers are superficial so you know perfectly well that your prayers are superficial. The priest can always say that you prayed, but deep down there was doubt.

There is always doubt because your belief in God cannot destroy doubt; it can only repress doubt. And the repressed doubt is always there boiling within you, ready to explode.

So don't be deceived if sometimes a coincidence happens. That's how many things continue in the world, many things can continue in the world. All hocus-pocus!

For example, there are so many "pathies" in the world: homeopathy, naturopathy, ayurvedic, and so many others. They all claim to cure - and their claims are not false; they cure many people. You try. Just go on giving sugar pills to people and you will be surprised; many are cured, so you have invented a new therapy. Seventy percent of people are only falsely ill, they are not truly ill. Seventy percent of illnesses are psychological, so all that is needed is somebody to convince them that "This is going to help." And people go to homeopathy and to other exotic medicines only when nothing else helps them.

The trouble with allopathy is that it can help only if your illness is real. If your illness is not real, then a real medicine will do harm instead of helping you. So you have to search for some quack, somebody who can give you a false medicine to cure you of a false disease.

Your prayers are false, your diseases are false. Sometimes they do help, and when they help, you become more and more convinced. And in despair, in deep helplessness, you don't know where else to go. When all human efforts fail you start looking towards the sky. That has been always so; nothing much has changed.

In the Vedas it is said: When there is lightning in the clouds, it is God who is angry; it is his anger. Pray to God. Now we know it is not God or his anger; now we know it is electricity, natural electricity. Now we are using God's anger in running our fans and machines. Now nobody prays. In India, still, when you put the light on in the evening, orthodox Hindus will immediately bow down their head with folded hands - to an electric bulb! Just an old conditioning.

God used to do many things; now science is doing all those things. God is being deprived every day! In fact, soon he will be out of employment; you will find him standing before some employment office in a queue! Your God is your invention. Friedrich Nietzsche is right about your God - that that God is dead. So don't be too much surprised or convinced when some coincidence happens. Coincidences are always happening.

On board an El-Al jet flight to Israel, a young mother and her two children were just getting settled when the youngsters began to clamor that they had to go to the "bafroom." Two priests on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, seated in front of the little family group, smiled in amusement while the embarrassed mother quickly took the children to the rest rooms on the plane. After a moment's hesitation, she put the small boy in the compartment marked "Gentlemen," while she entered the ladies' room with her little daughter.

The boy left quickly and one of the two priests went in, forgetting to lock the door. A few seconds later, the mother emerged from the ladies' lavatory and opened the other door a mere slit, thinking her boy was still there. "Don't forget to slide up your zipper," she whispered.

When the priest returned to his seat he was full of praise for the airline. "You have to hand it to these Jewish stewardesses," he said to his fellow priest. "They think of everything!"

Beware of coincidences!

You say, Rosemary, "Why do you say that it is right to meditate but wrong to pray?"

To pray is not right; to be in prayer is right. To pray means you will be saying something to God. Your God is your invention, your prayer is your invention. And what are you going to say? Just something trivial: Do this, do that, don't do that. Or: You are great. He has been hearing that for so long, he must be fed up! He must be using ear plugs just to avoid these so-called religious people! Millions of people praying and saying all kinds of things to God. He must be getting tired, utterly tired.

But to be in prayer is a totally different phenomenon. To pray is one thing; that is childish, out of a conditioned mind. But to be in prayer means to be in love with existence, to be in a dance with existence, to dance with the stars, to sing with the birds, to flow with the river. That is prayer. But that prayer arises only when meditation has created the right space for it. Hence my emphasis is on meditation and I don't talk much about prayer, because when meditation is complete, prayer comes on its own accord. There is no need to talk about it - because if I talk about prayer there is every danger you will misunderstand, because prayer is easy and meditation is difficult.

Prayer is easy, very cheap. You can go to the church, kneel down on your knees, fold your hands, talk to God. It costs nothing. Or every night before you go to sleep you pray to God...

I have heard about a very very intelligent man who had put his prayer on the wall just by the side of his bed. And before he used to go to bed he would say to God, "Please read it."

What is the point of saying the same thing every day? And one hopes that God must be at least able to read it! That seems to be far more clear, intelligent. Why go on repeating it like a parrot every day?

I don't say to you to pray because I know that whatsoever you do right now will be wrong. I teach meditation - and prayer comes inevitably; it can't be avoided, but a totally different kind of prayer, with a different fragrance, a different texture to it. It is just a joyousness, a cheerfulness, a gratitude. You feel so fulfilled, so blessed, that your whole heart says thank you - not in so many words - your whole heart says yes. Your whole heart becomes the yes. You are surrendered. Your life is a prayer. Then you need not go to a church or a temple or a mosque. You live your prayer. You breathe, you drink, you move... and all that is prayer.

You say, "In my opinion, meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake..." Rosemary, have you ever meditated? A mere opinion has no value - and it is a mere opinion. You may have read, you may have heard about it, but don't give much importance to opinions.

You say, "Meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake..." You don't have any experience, any taste of meditation. In meditation, the self disappears, the ego disappears. There is no question of "for one's own sake." One is no more an island; one becomes part of the vast continent of existence. Meditation means you disappear, evaporate. You are no longer there, just a pure nothingness. How can it be for one's own sake? There is no self left. In meditation, no self is ever found so how can it be selfish?

People come to me and they ask me - particularly Christian missionaries - they write letters to me: "You are teaching people meditation; that is a kind of selfishness." They don't know what they are talking about.

Meditation is the only way to get rid of the self. Meditation is the only possibility to create unselfishness in the world. Everything else is selfish. The Christian missionary serving the poor people, the crippled - this is all selfish. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and all her work is absolutely selfish.

Why do I call these works selfish? They are doing great service to humanity, but they are doing service to humanity as a means to reach to heaven. They are using the poor people and the blind people and the crippled and the lepers as ladders to reach to heaven.

Just think of a world where there is nobody poor, nobody crippled, nobody is a leper, nobody is blind. Then what will Mother Teresa do? Will you still give her a Nobel Prize? For what? The basic requirement is that blind people should be there, poor people should be there, lepers should be there, widows should be there, orphans should be there. Thousands of orphans are needed for one woman to become a great servant of humanity.

One of the Hindu priests, the head of the Hindu priests, Karpatri, has written a book, AGAINST SOCIALISM. He gives many reasons against socialism, but the most hilarious reason that he gives is that in Hindu scriptures it is said: Unless you donate to the poor people you will never enter into heaven. And socialism is trying to destroy classes so there will be no poor, no rich. Once there is nobody rich and nobody poor, who is going to donate unto whom? And what will happen to heaven? Very logical! And these people are great servants of humanity! These stupid people are thought to be saints!

In meditation, you disappear; in prayer, you are very much there. You have to be there to pray; otherwise who is going to pray and to whom?

Martin Buber has written one of the greatest books of this time, I and thou. He says that prayer is a relationship between I and thou; both are needed. "I" is needed - the one who is going to pray - and "thou," a concept of God. Then prayer is possible. Prayer is a dialogue between I and thou. Prayer is basically selfish, self-centered.

But meditation is not a dialogue at all. Neither I is needed nor thou is needed. No I, no thou. The whole idea of I-and-thou disappears. A silence prevails, a virgin silence, undisturbed with any dialogue. It is not for one's own sake. One disappears; only then meditation happens.

Meditation is like a flower opening, and prayer is the fragrance of the flower that is released to the winds. I don't talk about the fragrance, I only teach how to cultivate roses, Rosemary, remember!

Question 3

Beloved Master,

What are the essential things to keep one's wife happy?

Satyam, I don't know much about wives. I am an unmarried man. You are asking a question to a wrong person. But I have been observing many wives and many husbands. So this is not my experience - just my opinion!

There are two things necessary to keep one's wife happy. First: let her think she is having her own way. And second: let her have it.

Question 4

Beloved Master,

Why does truth hurt?

Prem Patipada, truth hurts because we live in lies. Our whole life consists of lies.

Friedrich Nietzsche has said: Don't take lies away from man; otherwise it will be impossible for him to live. Sigmund Freud also says exactly the same thing: that man cannot live without lies; he needs many lies - religious, metaphysical, philosophical, political.

Just watch yourself - how many lies you need to support yourself, to go on nourishing your ego.

Why does man need so many lies? - because the basic lie is the ego, and the ego can exist only surrounded by many lies to support it. Any truth hurts because it takes away a few lies, a few props, a few supports, and your ego starts falling down. And that is all that you know about yourself. You don't know that you are something transcendental to the ego.

Somebody says to you, "How beautiful you are!" and you believe it immediately. Nobody ever objects. I have told it to many people; nobody ever objects. I have never come across a person who will object, "No, you are wrong because I know my face. I see it in the mirror every day." You say it to anybody, even the ugliest. Say it to a camel, and he will nod his head. He will say, "Right. I had always known it. You are the first intelligent person who has given it recognition." Even the ugliest person deep down thinks he is beautiful. He believes, otherwise it will be difficult to exist, to live. The most stupid thinks that he is very intelligent. Hence you go on giving compliments to each other. All those compliments are lies - and everybody is ready to believe. And it is not only in the ordinary life. When you enter into your inner journey, there also you expect recognition.

Just the other day Somendra asked, "Why don't you give me recognition?" Everybody wants to be recognized, told that "You are enlightened," that "You have attained," that "You have realized" - and you will be so happy! But that happiness will be only momentary because it is not true.

I cannot give you any lie; hence I am, many times, offensive to you, outrageous. I hurt you - not that I want to hurt you, but to take any lie away from you is like taking a teddy bear from a child who can't sleep without the teddy bear. He goes on carrying the teddy bear - dirty, but he will carry it everywhere. That is his life; you can't take it away from him. And you are carrying many teddy bears, Patipada; that's why it hurts.

Now Somendra is very angry because I said that he can be a good candidate for Judas. Soon there is going to be a notice: "Wanted: a Judas." And there are many people eligible. Somendra can do the work. He is so angry because I had said that he sits behind keeping his back towards me, so the next day he came to his old place.

Today he has disappeared, because today he has asked a very ugly question out of sheer anger. That's why he has disappeared from here. Even though he has been sitting here for two or three days he does not look at me; he keeps his eyes down. He has not been coming to his group therapy darshan many times. Last night he appeared, but he did not look at me... boiling within. Today he has disappeared because of the question. He must have been afraid. He has put the question in somebody else's name - but you can't deceive me! And the moment I saw that he is not there my suspicion became absolutely certain that it is his question.

In his question he says, "Are you not a lazy person? And still, what chutzpah you have to tell other people to work and be creative." I am not a lazy person - I am the laziest! And naturally, the laziest person can live only if others work; otherwise how am I going to live? So I go on teaching, "Work, be creative! Clean the floor meditatively! Clean the toilets!" That is simple. It is not a question of chutzpah, it is simple logic! A man like me needs at least ten thousand people to work for him!

And he asks, "How can you tell others to work?" For a man who has never done anything, everything seems to be possible. Even the impossible seems to be possible. I have never worked, not for a single day. That's why I can say to you to do anything, because I don't know the trouble. I have no experience about it.

Truth hurts. And then it comes in many ways, it expresses itself in many ways.

Patipada, remember, if anything hurts then meditate over it. There must be something of truth in it, something true. If anything hurts, respect it, go deep into it. Find out why it hurts, and you will be rewarded. You will grow through that.

Lies are sweet; they don't hurt. So beware of sweet lies. When something does not hurt you it cannot become an impetus for growth; it is useless, not to be bothered about at all. But pay your total attention to anything that hurts, and don't get angry. You are to understand here, to be aware, not to be angry.

Just a few months ago I told Somendra that he had attained his first satori. He was just joy. You should have seen his face that time - all laughter, all smiles, bubbling with ecstasy! That was easy for him to accept because although it was true, the ego jumped upon it, grabbed it, felt very good - and that is how he missed it.

When truth - any truth - becomes an ego trip, you miss it, you lose track of it. And remember: before samadhi happens, before enlightenment happens, you may attain thousands of satoris - and you may miss them. If one remains very alert when a satori happens, only then he will not miss it. If you become very gratified about it and you start bragging about it in subtle ways, you are bound to miss it. And many people are doing the same.

Sometimes it is very difficult for me; even if I see that something beautiful is happening to you I have to control myself not to say it, because there is every danger that just by saying it your ego may feel puffed up. And that will be the point when you will lose it.

There are many people who are coming closer and closer to the ultimate, but it is better for me not to say it to them. I go on blessing them as much as I can, I go on loving them as much as I can, but I don't say it. Saying can be a distraction; it can take them on a different route, it can distract them.

So lies are dangerous; sometimes even truth can be dangerous. If it does not hurt, then it can be dangerous; if it hurts, there is no danger. If it hurts, it will wake you up; if it becomes a lullaby, then it is dangerous; it may take you in a deeper dream. You may start dreaming about satoris and enlightenment and becoming a buddha. And all that is possible - it is within your capacity, it is within your reach - but you can lose the thread many times.

Hence, don't ask for recognition. If I feel that the time is ripe and by recognizing something you will not slip back, I will give the recognition. But why hanker for the recognition? The real thing is happening to you. The recognition does not matter at all, it is irrelevant. If you are becoming a buddha, you are becoming a buddha whether I say so or not. Sometimes it may be needed that I will go on saying, "No, you are not becoming," just to help you go on in the right direction.

Patipada, anything that hurts, meditate over it and you will be immensely enriched.

Question 5

Beloved Master,

Why do you have so many enemies?

Gayan, remember two fundamental laws. One is: No good deed goes unpunished. And second: Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Question 6

Beloved Master,

I very much doubt my wife. What should I do?

Narayan, the wife is not your God. You need not doubt, you need not trust. It is a game - don't make it so serious! But you have been told to trust your wife, to trust your husband. And because of this very teaching, distrust arises. In fact, you have been told to trust. For centuries it has been known that it is very difficult to trust your own wife, very difficult to trust your own husband; it is next to impossible.

If your wife is interested in you, how can you trust her? If she is still interested in men - and you are only a man, and there are many many men who are far more beautiful - how can you trust your wife? If she is interested in you she must be interested in others too. She can be trusted only when she loses all interest in you too; then, of course, you can trust her. She has lost all interest in men - she is almost dead.

You can trust your husband only if he is no longer interested in your body. If he is interested in your face, your body, your proportion, your beauty, how can he avoid being interested in other women's bodies, other women's faces, other women's beauty? It is impossible. You are asking something inhuman or something superhuman. And your poor husband is neither - neither inhuman nor superhuman. He is just a poor husband, a poor human being... or a poor wife.

Don't demand such impossible things. It is natural; your wife is bound to fantasize about other men. It is impossible for her to dream about you, remember. I have never heard of a wife dreaming about her own husband. Who dreams about one's own husband or one's own wife? For what? Is the day not enough? Do you have to devote your night and your dreams also to the same woman, to the same man?

In dreams you are free; that is the only freedom left. In dreams you have a private world of your own. Your wife cannot peep in your dreams and say, "What are you doing? Stop!" In dreams you can have a few parties with the neighbors' wives. And nothing is wrong in it, nobody is harmed. Just, you have a good sleep and in the morning you have a smile on your face.

Don't ask the impossible.

Mulla Nasruddin was saying to me, "For the whole ten years of our married life I always trusted my wife. And then we moved from Calcutta to Poona - and I discovered we still had the same milkman!"

There is no need, Narayan, to trust or not to trust. Why bring in the question of trust? It is just a game! Play it joyfully. You make it too serious. And when you start demanding, "Be faithful to me!" you are creating a situation in which it will become impossible for the poor woman to be faithful to you. Give her total freedom; then she may be faithful to you.

Life functions in a very strange way. If you give her total freedom you are worth trusting. A great faith may arise in her. If a wife gives total freedom to the husband, that shows she loves him so much that she would like him to be happy in every possible way. Even if sometimes he is happy with some other woman she will feel happy because he is happy. And then a totally different quality of trust may arise. I am not saying that it is bound to arise - it is not an inevitability. I am saying perhaps, because about human beings nothing can be predicted.

The relationship between wife and husband is a very strange relationship because these are two different worlds. The woman functions in a different way, from a different center. She is more intuitive and the man is more intellectual. That's why they are attracted to each other. Not only physiologically they are polarities, but psychologically also they are polar opposites. They are intimate enemies. There is bound to be a little conflict, and that is not bad; it keeps the relationship alive. Whenever you see that the husband and wife have stopped fighting completely, that means the marriage is really finished; nothing is left now. Even fight is not left... all is finished.

The butcher and the milkman were discussing the pros and cons of married life. "Do you really believe it is better than being single?" demanded Weiss, the butcher.

"In a way," said the milkman, who was fond of philosophizing. "After all, if it were not for marriage, we would have to do all our fighting with strangers."

Yes, that is true. It is good to fight with your own wife; at least the fight is with the friend. Otherwise you will have to do your fighting with strangers.

There is no need to demand these things - trust, faith. Live together joyously. Make as much out of your being together as possible. Rather than doing that, people create such problems, useless problems, and destroy all their joys. The wife has no obligation to be faithful to you, neither do you have any obligation to be faithful to her. You love her, she loves you; that's enough. Don't bring faith into it. If love cannot keep you together, nothing else can keep you together. And if love cannot keep you together, then anything that can keep you together is dangerous.

Question 7

Beloved Master,

Are all words really useless?

Dharmendra, not all words. The words of the buddhas are immensely significant. They are the same words as your words, but they come from a deeper experience. Let your words come from deep experience; then they will have significance, then they will have some perfume of the unknown, of the beyond. But leaving the buddhas aside, then too all words are not useless. Otherwise, how are you going to communicate? You cannot communicate through silence, you cannot communicate without words.

To communicate without words you will have to become a total meditator. And then, too, you can communicate only with another total meditator, not with everybody else. The whole of humanity is not going to be in meditation, not at least in your life, and you will have to talk to people who are not meditators.

I am using words, Buddha used words, Jesus used words. You have to use words. Just make one effort; don't use unnecessary words. Be more telegraphic, be more condensed. Make your words more meaningful. When you use them, don't just go on using them so that you remain occupied.

Little Alma, a pupil in the first grade, arrived home from school all out of breath.

"Daddy, Daddy," she cried, her eyes sparkling with excitement, "we had our very first drill today!"

"That's good, shayneh," he said, smiling. "I believe in fire drills. Why I once almost died in a fire."

"Ooh, tell me."

"Well, it was like this: I fell into a great big vat of chicken soup. So I climbed on top of the knaidlach to keep from drowning and I hollered 'Fire' at the top of my lungs."

"Fire?" exclaimed Alma, "Was there a fire, too?"

"No," grinned the father, patting her curls, "but who would have helped me if I had yelled 'chicken soup'?"

Words are significant.

For their first date, the boy takes the girl to a carnival. After walking around for a while the girl says to her date, "I want to get weighed."

So the boy finds a man who guesses people's weight. The man accurately guesses the girl's weight.

After visiting some other attractions the boy again hears the girl say the same thing, "I want to get weighed." Again he finds another stall where she again has her weight judged correctly.

After some ice cream and taffy, she again says, "I want to get weighed."

The boy replies, "No, this is too much. I am taking you home."

After being deposited on her doorstep, the girl goes inside and seeing her mother, starts to cry and blurts out, "Oh, mother, I had such a wousy time!"

Enough for today.

John Nguyen

Dhammapada Vol. 10

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

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