Chapter 6. Truth cannot be lost - Osho

Osho – Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 9)

Chapter 6. Truth cannot be lost

Question 1

Beloved Master,

I am rejecting my mind and clinging to awareness.

Prem Shahido, mind has not to be rejected at all; if you reject it, it will remain. Rejection means repression. Anything rejected never leaves you; it simply moves from the conscious to the unconscious, from the lighted part of your being to the dark layers where you cannot face it. You become oblivious of it, but it is there, more alive than ever. It is better to face the enemy than to keep the enemy at your back; that is far more dangerous.

And I have not told you to reject the mind. Mind is a beautiful mechanism, one of the miracles of existence. We have not been able yet to make anything comparable to human mind. Even the most sophisticated computers are nothing compared to it. A single human mind can contain all the libraries of the world; its capacities are almost unbounded. But it is a machine, it is not you. To get identified with it is wrong, to make it your master is wrong, to be guided by it is wrong. But to be the master and the guide is perfectly right. The mind as a servant is of tremendous value, so don't reject it. To reject it will impoverish you, it will not enrich you.

I am not against the mind; I am in favor of transcending it. And if you reject you cannot transcend. Use it as a stepping-stone. It all depends on you: you can make it a hindrance if you start thinking that the mind has to be rejected, denied, destroyed; or you can make it a stepping-stone if you accept it, if you try to understand it. In the very effort of understanding it, transcendence happens. You go beyond it, you become a witness.

And, Shahido, a second thing...

You say, "I am clinging to awareness."

That is bound to happen. If you reject mind you will start clinging to awareness. And clinging is nothing but mind functioning from the back door. Clinging is a process of mind. But that is bound to happen to people who reject, repress.

The question is of transformation. The mind has to be used rightly; then there will be no clinging to awareness. Otherwise, afraid of the mind, that it may come back, you will cling to awareness - and in clinging it has already come back, it is already there. Clinging is mind; nonclinging is intrinsic to awareness. You cannot cling to awareness; if you cling, it is just a mind phenomenon. Your awareness too is just a pseudo thing created by the mind because you were asking too much for it. It is false, utterly false; if you have to cling to it, it is false.

Real awareness remains with you; you need not cling to it. Who will cling to it? You are awareness. Who will cling to whom? In awareness there are not two - the clinger and the object of clinging; in awareness you are one. There is only awareness and nothing else. One cannot cling to awareness. But it is bound to happen if you reject the mind; the very first step has gone wrong. Don't reject it - understand it.

And in fact, the word 'understand' is very significant. When you understand something it stands under you. You become transcendental, you go beyond it; it is below you. It has its utility; great utility. There will be no science without mind and there will be no technology without mind. All human comforts will disappear without human mind. Man will fall back into the world of the animals or even far below without the mind. Mind has given much.

The problem is not the mind; the problem is your identification with it. You think you are it, that is the problem. Disidentify. Watch the mind, and you BE the watcher and let the mind be there watched, witnessed, observed. And a great radical change happens through observation. Mind functions far more efficiently when you observe it because all that is rubbish drops and mind need not carry unnecessary weight; it becomes light. And when you become a watcher, mind can have some rest too. Otherwise your whole life mind is working, working, day in, day out, year in, year out; it stops only when you die. It creates a deep fatigue, mental fatigue.

Now scientists say even metals become tired - metal fatigue. So what to say about the mind which is very subtle, which is very delicate? Handle it carefully. But you remain aloof, unconcerned, uninvolved. When you are writing you don't become the fountain pen, although you cannot write without it. A good fountain pen is very essential for good writing. If you start writing with your fingers nobody will be able to read what you have written, not even you, and it will be very primitive. But you are not the fountain pen, and the fountain pen is not the writer but only a writing instrument.

The mind is not the master but only an instrument in the hands of the master.

Shahido, be more alert, aware, but don't cling to it. Clinging will destroy the whole beauty of it. Why cling? What is the fear? We cling only out of fear. You are awareness, you cannot lose it. Even now, when you are unaware of the fact that you are awareness, you have not lost it.

Truth cannot be lost. Whether you know it or you know not, it makes no difference. The truth remains the truth, known or unknown. Your innermost being is still pure awareness. You live on the circumference, hence you are not able to see your own center.

Sannyas means exploring your interiority, moving towards the center. That's what meditation is all about. When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body. That does not mean that you start rejecting the body or the mind. You respect the body, you respect the mind. You love the body more so, more than ever. It is a beautiful house. It is your home and you have to live in it seventy, eighty, ninety years. And it is serving you so beautifully; its service is of great value. You respect it, you befriend it, you take care of it. But still you know: "I am neither the body nor the mind. I am consciousness."

And then there is no question of clinging. Knowing that "I am consciousness," you become part of God. Then there is no birth for you, no death for you. Then you ARE part of eternity, and to be part of eternity is to be blissful. When you know you cannot die, all fear disappears and the energy involved in fear is released as love. When you know you are part of the whole there is no anxiety left, no anguish possible, and the energy involved in anxiety, in anguish, is released. You become compassion, love, joy; it starts overflowing you. You are not only a blessing to yourself, you become a blessing to everybody else; you become a blessing to existence itself.

Question 2

Beloved Master,

Is it necessary to go through dream analysis for attaining enlightenment?

Gautami, dream analysis cannot help you to become enlightened, but dream witnessing can certainly help you.

That is the difference between psychology and religion: psychology analyzes dreams; religion watches them, helps you to become aware of them. And the moment you become aware of your dreams they disappear; they can't exist for a single moment longer. They can exist only when you are utterly unaware; for their existence that is an absolute condition.

A buddha never dreams, he cannot dream. Even if he wants to dream he cannot. Dreaming simply disappears from his being because even in the night while he is asleep, deep down in his innermost core he is awake. A flame of awareness continues and he knows what is happening. He knows that his body is asleep. Witnessing becomes so ingrained that not only in the day but in the night also it continues. And then dreaming disappears. You dream because you desire; your dreams reflect your desires. Now, you can go on dissecting your desires for lives, and you will not attain to anything. You can go on analyzing your dreams...

There are many systems of analysis. If you go to the Freudians they will analyze your dreams in one way: they will interpret everything as sexuality. Imaginable things, unimaginable things, everything has to be reduced to sexuality. If you go to the Adlerians with the same dreams, they will interpret them according to their ideology. Then every dream is reduced to Adler's idea: will to power. Then everything is nothing but will to power; each dream has to fit with his philosophy. And so is the case with the Jungians and others.

And one thing has been observed again and again - a very strange phenomenon happens. If you go into psychoanalysis of any kind - Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian - you start dreaming in the way your psychoanalyst expects you to dream. If you go to the Freudian, sooner or later you start dreaming according to his idea. People are very obliging; they feel sorry for the poor analyst. And he is making such hard effort to analyze your dreams. First he starts giving you interpretations and then you start dreaming according to his interpretations. Soon you fit with each other - you are as if made for each other. Then he is happy and you are happy. He is happy because his theories are confirmed and you are happy that you are a good boy, dreaming according to the great expert. And when you see your psychoanalyst happy, YOU feel happy. Seeing you feel happy, he feels happy. It is such a mutual arrangement! And nobody is really helped... dreaming continues.

I have never come across a fully psychoanalyzed person, because according to Freud, a fully psychoanalyzed person is one whose dreaming has disappeared. And that was not true even about Sigmund Freud himself; he continued to dream to his very last. And he was very afraid of psychoanalysis, you will be surprised to know, because he knew his disciples would only prove that all his dreams were sexual.

Once Jung wanted to psychoanalyze Freud. Jung was his most beloved disciple in those days, just as once Judas was one of the most beloved disciples of Jesus. And what Judas did to Jesus, Jung did to Freud. People whose names start with 'J' are dangerous!

Freud and Jung were traveling and they started talking. Jung said, "This idea occurs to me again and again: that I would like to psychoanalyze you. You have not been psychoanalyzed. In fact, nobody who has not been psychoanalyzed should be authorized to psychoanalyze other people. And you are the founder - you should be psychoanalyzed."

Freud actually started trembling and he said, "No, no, never! That will destroy my prestige."

Jung said, "If that is so, then it has already destroyed your prestige, at least for me. If you are so much afraid to talk about your dreams, that simply shows what kind of dreams you must be having."

There is not a single person in the world who is totally psychoanalyzed. And unless dreams disappear, your mind will remain in a turmoil. Dreams simply say you don't know how to put your mind off; you don't know where the switch exists so that you can put it on and off according to your needs. When you are going to sleep you can't put if off; it goes on chattering. Even if you say to it, "Shut up!" it does not listen to you at all; it does not care. And you know perfectly well it won't listen. You feel so impotent as far as your own mind is concerned that you have to move according to it, it does not move according to you. If it wants to chatter it will chatter; when you fall asleep, still it goes on chattering.

The art of meditation makes you aware where the switch is: it is in witnessing. Witnessing is the switch that can put your mind on or off. You become the master, so when you want to use it you use it and when you don't want to use it you simply put it off and it gives rest to the mind.

Hence the mind of a meditator is far more brilliant, far more intelligent, far more alive, sensitive, than the mind of a nonmeditator, because the mind of a meditator has a few periods of deep deep rest that rejuvenates it. If you see a meditator and he is not intelligent, that simply means he is not a meditator at all. A meditator cannot be stupid, a meditator cannot be mediocre; that is impossible. If he is a meditator, then he will radiate sharpness, intelligence, brilliance. He will be a genius, he will be creative.

In fact, if we can create more and more meditators in the world, in every dimension of life there will be more creativity, more intelligence, less stupidity, less lethargy. But it has not happened down the ages. Just the opposite has happened because in the name of meditation, something else has continued. In the name of meditation people either have been concentrating or contemplating. Both are not meditation.

Concentration is just the opposite of meditation and so is contemplation, in a different way. Concentration means closing your mind, focusing your mind, on a certain point, on a certain object. You are so focused on a certain object that you become unaware of everything else; that is concentration. It excludes everything else; it includes only one thing: the object of your concentration, whatsoever it is.

And meditation means absolute openness. It includes all, it excludes nothing. Hence it is not concentration at all. It is a state of vulnerability, openness, availability.

The person who is trying to concentrate can be distracted. He can be easily distracted by anything. Just a dog in the neighborhood starts barking and he is distracted, a child starts giggling and he is distracted, a bird starts singing and he is distracted. Anything will do, as if he is just waiting for anything to distract him; he is tired of focusing his mind. It is a tension, it is a strain.

Meditation is not a tension, it is not a strain. One is never tired of meditation. It is relaxation - how you can be tired of it? It is deep rest, it is utter restfulness. One is available to everything; nothing can distract you.

You can listen to me either as concentration or as meditation. If you listen to me as concentration, then anything can distract. A car passes by... the cuckoo starts calling from the distance - the chattering of the birds. Anything can distract you, any small thing. Not that the birds are interested in distracting you; they are not concerned with you at all. But you will feel anger arising in you.

That's why so-called religious people become more angry than anybody else. They live almost in rage. If a single person in your house becomes religious, he is enough to create trouble for everybody, because each small thing distracts him and then he takes revenge.

You can listen to me in meditation. Then you are not concentrating on me; you are simply sitting available, open. The birds go on chattering; that too comes to you, but because you are not concentrating it is not a distraction - it enriches. What I am saying to you is enriched. The singing of the birds becomes a background to it. And you never feel angry and you never feel tense.

Contemplation is also not meditation. Contemplation means thinking. Thinking can be of two types. One is zigzag, in jumps from one object to another, a little crazy; that is ordinary thinking. Anything leads to anything. A dog starts barking and you start thinking about your girlfriend. There seems to be no relationship, but maybe your girl had said once, "I go on barking at you and you don't listen!" Suddenly the dog reminds you. Or maybe she also has a dog who barks at you whenever you go to see her. And then from one thing to another... you will not stay with anything long. The girlfriend reminds you of her mother, and so on, so forth. Nobody knows where you are going to end. When you will look retrospectively you will be surprised: just the dog barking in the neighborhood started the whole process of thought.

Contemplation means remaining concerned with one object, thinking about it and only about it. Thinking has a consistency. If you are thinking about love, then you are thinking about love and all its aspects. You don't jump from one thing to another. Yes, you have a little rope just so that you can move around the subject of love, but you keep moving around it, around and around. You forget the whole world - love becomes your world for the moment.

Meditation is not contemplation either because it is not thinking at all - consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise - the traffic in the head. So many thoughts - trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.

You ask me, Gautami, "Is it necessary to go through dream analysis for attaining enlightenment?"

No, not at all. Have you ever heard anybody becoming enlightened through psychoanalysis? Yes, people have become mad, but nobody has become enlightened.

Psychoanalysis depends on analysis of the mind, and they don't see anything else in you. The body is taken care of by the physiologists; then all that remains is a constant traffic in the mind either of thoughts or of dreams, memories, imagination, desires. The psychoanalyst has nothing else to do: he looks into your dreaming process. And why does he choose dreams? - because if he asks you what you think when you are awake you are never authentic, you are never sincere. You are so deceptive, so dishonest, that whatever you say about your thinking is bound to be managed; it is not going to be true. You will say only that which is worth saying and you will delete many things. You will edit your thoughts. You will not allow the psychoanalyst to look into your thoughts without any censor, without any editing. You will not allow him the raw material of your thoughts because that will look like you are insane.

You can try it. Sit in your room, close all the doors so nobody can come in, and start writing whatsoever is happening in the mind - whatsoever it is. Just go on writing for fifteen minutes, then read it - and you will be shocked. This is your mind? All these thoughts are going on in your mind? Are you mad or something? You can't show it to anybody.

It is good that people don't have windows in their heads; otherwise the wife will look through the window in the head of the husband and she will find everything. She finds everything anyway, window or no window!

The psychoanalyst has to depend on your dreams because in dreams it is very difficult for you to deceive him. You don't know yourself what your dreams mean so you have to say them as they are, and he can find a few clues about you. But this is not going to make you enlightened. This may help you a little bit to become more normal, but what is normality? Even the people who are normal are not normal - they are normally abnormal, that's all. So you will be normally abnormal.

There are two kinds of abnormal people in the world: normally abnormal, abnormally abnormal. The work of the psychoanalyst is to bring abnormally abnormal people to the first category: normally abnormal. He helps you to adjust with the society, with people, with yourself, but he can't help you to become enlightened.

You can go on and on analyzing your dreams and you will never come to your witnessing soul through that analysis. How can you come to the witness by analyzing the dreams? One dream will lead you into another dream. Maybe you will become a very skillful dreamer, very artful. Maybe you will start dreaming in a better way, in a more scientific way, but dreams are dreams. They cannot take you to the witness of the dreams which is your reality.

Al: "I had a great dream - I dreamed I broke the bank at Monte Carlo."

Charles: "I had a great dream too - I dreamed I was in a room with Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot."

Al: "Wow! Bardot and Sophia! Why didn't you call me?"

Charles: "I did, but your maid said you were in Monte Carlo!"

You can analyze this dream. What will be the gain? Neither the bank in Monte Carlo nor Sophia Loren or Bardot - nothing is going to be your gain. But the psychoanalyst will analyze it. If you go to the Adlerian, his emphasis will be on the bank in Monte Carlo: will to power, money, prestige. He will forget all about Sophia Loren and Bardot; he is not interested - that is nothing. If you go to the Freudian he will not think about Monte Carlo and the bank at all; that is nonessential, accidental. The real thing is Sophia Loren and Bardot.

And if you go to a Jungian, then nobody knows what he will do with your dream. He is so confused! But he will make much fuss about it, that much is certain. He will create much dust - esoteric dust. He may start looking into your dream and finding things which you would have never suspected - some ancient mysteries, maybe Egyptian. Or he may go even farther back - Atlantis. He is really a grave digger. And he goes on finding things which are not there.

You must have heard the definition of a philosopher. The philosopher is a man who is blind looking in the dark night, in a dark room, for a black cat which is not there. But Jung FINDS it there! That's the beauty of Jung - he finds the black cat which is not there; he finds it still. And he creates so much smoke and dust that you cannot deny him. He creates great argument. And he himself is very much afraid of going towards the witness.

He has been in India, and there was a man - a man the like of whom happens only once in a while. Maharshi Raman was alive. And wherever Jung went in India, almost everywhere people suggested to him, "Why are you wasting your time here and there, going to Varanasi and Bombay? Why don't you go to Maharshi Raman?" People knew that he is a great psychoanalyst, world-famous. "You should go to Maharshi Raman, who has gone beyond the mind. Sitting by his side you may have a few glimpses. You may come away a totally changed person."

But Jung avoided him, he did not go there. On the contrary, back home he started writing against Eastern mysticism. He could not write against mysticism as such because he was himself creating great mysteries - superficial because he was not an initiate in any mystery school. He was gathering things from superficial sources. He had never been in contact with a living master. He had come so close to a buddha - Maharshi Raman - yet he missed. And in self-defense he started writing back home that Eastern mysticism is not meant for the Western mind - as if there are Eastern souls and Western souls too. Yes, there is a difference in the skin of the Eastern people and the Western people; it is not much of a difference, just a little color pigment - four annas' worth. And remember, the black person has it more than the white. He is more valuable - four annas more valuable - because he has a certain pigment that makes him black which the white skin is missing.

And yes, there is a certain difference in the mind, because the Eastern mind is conditioned in a different way and the Western mind is conditioned in a different way. Conditionings are different, but the witness is the same. Jesus and Buddha, Mohammed and Mahavira, are not different. Saint Francis and Ramakrishna, Eckhart and Krishnamurti, are not different. One who has known the witness is neither Eastern nor Western. He is no more the body and no more the mind - how can he be Eastern or Western?

And Jung started talking this nonsense in self-defense. He said, "That's why I avoided Maharshi Raman, because Eastern methods are not suitable to us. The West needs its own yoga, the West needs its own meditations." What difference can there be in being aware? Whether you are in the East or in the West, awareness will be the same - and that is the essential core of meditation.

They are great interpreters of dreams... the whole world of the psychoanalyst is the world of dreams. And as far as the enlightened person is concerned, for him the whole world is nothing but a dream. For the psychoanalyst, dreams are his whole world, and for the enlightened person the whole world is nothing but a dream.

The analyst was annoyed with her patient who said she did not dream the night before.

"Look," he warned her, "if you don't do your homework, I can't help you."

Dreaming is a necessity; that is your homework. Do it at home and then come to the psychoanalyst, and he is there with his whole expertise to analyze it.

Gautami, enlightenment means going beyond desires and dreams. There is no need to waste your time in analyzing. Just go beyond, put your whole energy in going beyond. And when you go beyond, all dreams disappear on their own accord.

Question 3

Beloved Master,

Why do I keep losing everything but my ego?

Sughanda... Odum, an elderly black called before the justice of the peace, was charged with keeping a vicious dog.

"That dog bit my girl Bobbie Jo three times," complained the mother.

"Did your dog bite little Bobbie Jo?" asked the judge.

"No, sir," said Odum. "My dog, he never bit any little girl."

"Well," said the judge to the mother, "this man says that the dog did not bite your little girl."

"I will go home and bring Bobbie Jo here and show you," said the woman.

"Hold on," said the black man. "In the first place, the dog is so old he ain't got no teeth and he can't bite. In the second place, the dog is blind and could not see Bobbie Jo anyhow. In the third place, the dog is deaf and can't hear a thing. And in the fourth place, he ain't my dog in the first place."

Sughanda, you cannot lose your ego because in the first place it does not exist at all. You can lose everything else because those things really exist, but how can you lose something which does not exist? You cannot lose your shadow; it does not exist. And the ego is far more false than your shadow; it is not even a shadow. It is not substance, it is not even a shadow. It is just an idea planted by society within you. It has no reality, so how can you lose it?

The only way to lose it is to look for it - and you will not find it. And when you don't find it you have lost it. Go within and look for it, search for it.

That's what the meditators have been doing for centuries. They close their eyes and they go in and they search for the ego, where it is - and they can't find it. When you can't find it and you have looked in all the nooks and all the corners of your being and it is not found anywhere, then you know you have lost it. In the first place, really it was never there; it was only your belief.

It is like you see a rope in the dark and you believe it is a snake. Then you are trembling and perspiring and running and trying to save yourself from the snake - which does not exist at all. All your running and your perspiration and all your shouting is just futile, but it can be dangerous to you. Even a false snake can kill you - you may have a heart attack! That's the trouble with false things; you cannot lose them - they are not there - but they can do real things to you.

You may have experienced it sometimes in your dream, when you are having a nightmare. You are running, and a tiger is chasing you, and the tiger is coming closer and closer, and you are running faster and faster and you know that only few moments are left. You can almost feel the hot breath of the tiger on your back.

And then suddenly you come to a cul-de-sac; the road ends. You can't go back - the tiger is there; you can't go ahead. If you jump into the valley you will be dead before you reach the bottom.

In that state you wake up. The nightmare is too much; it wakes you up. Your heart is palpitating, your breath is disturbed, you are perspiring on a cold winter night. And there is no tiger - just your wife putting her hand on your back, breathing so close... You are awake, the nightmare has disappeared. You know there is no tiger - "It is only my poor wife" - but still, for a few minutes the perspiration will continue, the heart will go on beating faster, you will start up. Still, knowing perfectly well that all was false, you are trembling.

Exactly is the case with the ego: it is a false entity. When you wake up you can't find it. So the question is not of dropping it. How can you drop something which is not? The question is seeing into it, looking for it, searching for it.

I don't say to you, "Seek and search for God." That is nonsense. How can you seek and search for God, and where? You don't know the address. And even if you meet the gentleman you won't recognize him. Even if he says hello, you won't understand his language. He does not speak German, he does not speak French, he does not speak Italian - not even Italian!

But every nation believes that "He speaks our language." The Indians think that he speaks Sanskrit, that he himself has written the Vedas. And the Mohammedan thinks he speaks Arabic - he himself has spoken in Arabic through Mohammed, the only messenger. And of course, the Jews think they are the chosen people of God - he speaks Hebrew.

After the second world war one German general was talking to an English general. He said, "I can't believe how it happened, how we failed. We had better armies than you, more advanced technology, we were better equipped in every way. How did we fail and you succeeded?"

The English general smiled and he said, "The reason is we used to pray before starting to fight every day."

The German said, "But we also did. We also used to pray before we started to fight."

The Englishman said, "That we know, but we used to pray in English and you in German - and he does not understand German at all."

Every country believes its language is divine, God's language. But God knows only the language of silence - and you don't know silence. So when he will say hello it will be a very silent hello. It will not be uttered, it will not be said; it will be only a gesture. And it is almost impossible for you to hear it because it cannot be heard.

You cannot recognize his face because it does not resemble Jesus', it does not resemble Krishna's, it does not resemble Buddha's. All faces are his and still he has no face. The Zen people call that face "the original face"; it resembles nobody. Christians will not recognize him because they will be looking for Christ's face and Hindus will not recognize him because they will be looking for Krishna's face. Yes, in Krishna's face also he was and in Christ's face also, but they are just waves - Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira - and he is the ocean. You can't recognize the ocean if you only know about a single wave; the ocean is not a wave although all waves belong to the ocean.

You cannot search for God, and you are so asleep that all your search is going to be wrong. The first thing is to search for your ego; that is the right direction for the seeker. And when you don't find the ego - when the ego is not found at all, it simply disappears - then is the possibility of recognizing God's face, because he is egolessness. And when you have the taste of egolessness, a little taste, you will understand him. When the ego disappears you will know what silence is, what space is, what emptiness is. You are so full of nonexistential ego; when it is gone you will know great spaciousness within you. And he is space, pure space. Something of him will be known by you; then you can recognize him, you are bridged to him.

Sughanda, you say, "Why do I keep losing everything but my ego?"

Because everything else has a concrete reality and the ego has no reality at all. If you want to lose your ego you will have to go in. Maybe that's why people don't go in - afraid that they may lose themselves. And their fear is right. Beware! If you are ready to lose yourself, then only decide to go in.

But that moment is the greatest moment in life - when you lose your ego - because that very moment, immediately, God is found. The moment you are not, God is. The moment you evaporate, God descends in you.

Question 4

Beloved Master,

I always feel that animals are very friendly with me. Why?

Roberto, you are an Italian! I will tell you one Italian story.

"It is wonderful the power I have got over dumb animals," boasted Rizzoli to his wife. "You notice wherever we go, dogs - big ones, small ones - no matta how mean, they all-a come up and lick-a my hand."

"Maybe," said Mrs. Rizzoli, "if you would eat-a with a knife and fork-a once in a while, they would not be so friendly!"

Just be a little less Italian, Roberto, so that even human beings can be friendly to you.

Question 5

Beloved Master,

What is the right way to handle a woman?

Somesh, there is only one way to handle a woman. The trouble is, nobody knows what it is.

Question 6

Beloved Master,

I did not like your telling to us not to look at the sun today while it is in total eclipse. I thought you believed in absolute freedom.

Sunderam, you are not the only one to ask this question. At least twenty other fools have also asked the same. Please forgive me that I told you not to look at the sun directly - do it! Please do me a favor! I was utterly wrong to say it so - your freedom is destroyed. Enjoy your freedom; at least today, don't forget to enjoy it. Look as much as you can at the sun and don't use any device - because that will hinder your freedom. With the naked eyes - natural eyes - look at the sun. Enjoy it to your heart's content.

I was not going to say it to you. The whole blame goes to Vivek! She nagged me and nagged me to tell you; otherwise I was not going to tell you anything.

A few of these twenty fools have said, "We had never thought that you are superstitious." This is not superstition - these are scientific facts. There are millions of superstitions also. For example, in India, after the eclipse is over then take a bath and if you can take the bath in a holy river like the Ganges it is thought to be very religious, holy - because Indians believe that the sun has been in deep difficulty and it is out of the difficulty. That is superstition. The sun is not going into any difficulty at all. The eclipse is not happening on the sun; the sun has nothing to do with the eclipse. It is just the moon coming between you and the sun; it is not happening on the moon either. It is only happening for us.

Indians give donations after the eclipse is over, rejoicing that the sun god is out of trouble. Those are superstitions.

But looking at the sun is dangerous - scientifically dangerous; it is not a question of superstition. You can try it. A few of the others have written, "How can we believe in what you say when your date was wrong, your day was wrong?" That is true. Even if my date is wrong and my day is wrong, the sun in eclipse will have the same effect. About days and dates I am not so sure. In fact, I have no idea of time. I have to go on looking at the clock again and again, otherwise I will go on talking and talking.

Just last month it happened: the clock stopped... at eight twenty it stopped. I looked at it again and again... it was ten to ten. And I am so superstitious that I still believed the clock! I was still thinking it was eight twenty. Finally I started seeing some restlessness around me. I thought, "What is the matter? Something somewhere is wrong." I looked at the clock - again eight twenty. I said, "There is no problem; there is still time enough."

Yes, on the fourteenth I said, "Tomorrow." Naturally, my date was wrong, but that does not mean that what I said is wrong. Fifteenth or sixteenth, that doesn't matter; dates are arbitrary. They are just our creation - days are arbitrary. But just because of that, if you ask me how you can believe...

I am not telling you to believe anything. You can go and check with the scientists - it is dangerous to the eyes, and sometimes so dangerous that the blindness that will be caused by it will be incurable.

But this is not a commandment. I am not saying that looking at the sun in eclipse is a sin or a crime. I am not saying that it is something immoral, irreligious, unspiritual. It is simply stupid!

Question 7

Beloved Master,

Is it true that money cannot buy happiness?

Anando, yes, it is true. Money cannot buy happiness - but it makes misery more comfortable. That's why I am not against money, I am all for it. It is better to be comfortably miserable than uncomfortably miserable. I have lived in poverty and I have lived in richness, and believe me: richness is far better than poverty.

Enough for today.

John Nguyen

Dhammapada Vol. 9

Friday, August 18, 2017

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