Osho –
Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 11)
Chapter 7. Beyond
the beyond
Wanting nothing
With all your heart
Stop the stream.
When the world dissolves
Everything becomes clear.
Go beyond
This way or that way,
To the farther shore
Where the world dissolves
And everything becomes clear.
Beyond this shore
And the farther shore,
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning,
No end.
Without fear, go.
Meditate.
Live purely.
Be quiet.
Do your work, with mastery.
By day the sun shines,
And the warrior in his armor shines.
By night the moon shines,
And the master shines in meditation.
But day and night
The man who is awake
Shines in the radiance of the spirit.
"Look, Captain Columbus,
land! We've discovered land!"
"Wonderful! Cable Queen
Isabella immediately!"
"But, Captain, the cable
hasn't been invented yet!"
"Mamma mia! Do I have-a to
do everything myself-a!"
Science is a tradition, it does
not depend on one man's discovery. It is a continuity; many people have
contributed, still many will go on contributing. Then too it is never going to
be complete; something will always remain to be discovered. It is a social
phenomenon. Without Newton there is no possibility of Albert Einstein; without
Albert Einstein there will be no possibility of anybody else to find something
beyond the concept of relativity. Science is interdependent; it is not one
man's work. Much has to be accepted from others, much has to be borrowed; it is
inheritance. Hence science depends on the past, it is rooted in the past.
Religion is totally different:
every individual has to discover on his own. Religion is not a tradition and
can never be a tradition. You cannot borrow insights from somebody else; the
insight has to be authentically yours. Only then is it significant. You can see
only through your own eyes, you can understand only through your own
meditation, you can experience only through the flowering of your own heart.
And there is no question of
dependence. If there had been no Buddha you could still be awakened, if there
had been no Christ you could still be enlightened. Your enlightenment is
absolutely your own, it is individual. That's the beauty of religion; that's
why religion cannot be taught. Science can be taught; religion has to be
discovered again and again by each and every individual, by each and every
seeker. The path of science is like walking on the earth; you leave your
footprints. Buddha has said: The path of religion is like birds flying into the
sky - they don't leave any footprints... so nobody can follow a buddha.
You can love a Buddha, but you
cannot follow him. You can love a Christ, but you cannot follow him. Yes, your
love will help you, will help you to understand, will give you courage to
inquire, will strengthen your spirit to go into the unknown. It will be a
tremendous help because the journey is without any maps and you are going into
the ocean. The other shore, the farther shore is not visible; there is no
guarantee that you will ever reach it. By loving a Buddha, a Christ, a
Zarathustra, a Krishna, a Lao Tzu, a deep trust arises in you about the farther
shore - that it exists: "If I search with my total being there is a
possibility I may discover it." But the risk is great and everything has
to be done by you. You have to go alone. You have to be totally alone; nobody
can accompany you on the way.
The master can show you the
path, but he cannot go with you. He can push you, he can encourage you, he can
help in many ways, but still you have to go alone. You have to discover
everything, each detail of the truth, again.
In science it is totally
different: once a truth is discovered it is discovered for the whole of
humanity. Once electricity is discovered there is no need for everybody to
discover it again and again. That will be stupid, utterly stupid. Once
discovered it becomes part of the whole humanity's heritage.
But it is not true about the
inner, subjective truth. Thousands of times it has been discovered, but when it
comes as a question, as an inquiry for you to discover it, you have to go again
from ABC, as if you are the first, as if nobody has preceded you. You have to
break the ice, you have to move in the virgin land.
This is a great challenge.
Cowards shrink from it, but courageous people feel tremendously attracted.
Courageous people find it almost like a magnetic force pulling them. Hence
Buddha always talks about fearlessness. He says: without fear, go.
Other religions, particularly
the organized religions, are rooted in fear. If Buddha had written the ancient
parable of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from heaven he would have written
it in a totally different way. He would have appreciated Adam and Eve. He would
not have called it the original sin, he would have called it the original
virtue - that they rebelled, that they were not afraid of God and the
punishment, that they were fearless people.
He would not have condemned
them, that much is certain; he would have praised them immensely. It was a
challenge to their spirit, to their very soul, to have been told, "Don't
eat from this tree, the tree of knowledge, because if you eat from this tree
you will be punished, tremendously punished - not only you but your progeny
also will be punished for ever and ever."
And the punishment was going to
be great. God had said to Adam and Eve, "If you eat from the tree of
knowledge, if you eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, you will become
mortal. Right now you are immortal." Death was going to be the punishment.
What more punishment can there be? Death is the ultimate in punishment.
Buddha would have appreciated
them. If Adam and Eve had not rebelled, had not eaten from the tree of
knowledge, there would have been no humanity - and there would have been no
Christ, no Buddha, no Zarathustra, no Lao Tzu. Adam and Eve would be still
roaming naked like animals in the Garden of Eden. There would have been nothing
like humanity. This consciousness, this awareness, this inquiry - nothing would
have been there. The whole credit goes to Adam and Eve.
And the serpent would not have
been the Devil. In Buddha's story, the serpent must have been an ancient buddha
provoking Adam and Eve, "Go without fear and eat the fruit and don't be
afraid, don't be cowards!" In the East the serpent has always represented
wisdom. Jesus also says: Be ye as wise as serpents. The serpent in the East
represents the inherent power, the seed power of your ultimate flowering; it is
your potential. Hence kundalini is
called serpent power.
Kundalini means the serpent
lying there fast asleep; it has to be awakened. Once it wakes up it starts
rising upwards. When it reaches to the ultimate center of your being - sahasrar - the last center, the last
rung of the ladder, you have arrived home. The serpent is not a representative,
a disguised form, of the Devil. Buddha would have written the whole story in a
totally different way.
But Christianity, Judaism, both
are fear-oriented; so is Islam, so is Hinduism. Only two religions in the
world, Buddhism and Jainism, are not; otherwise all other religions are
fear-oriented. Only these two religions are rooted in fearlessness, and I
cannot see how a religion can be fear-oriented. In all the languages of the
world we have words like 'God-fearing' for religious people; that is utter
nonsense. A religious person is not God-fearing, he is God-loving - and love
and fear don't exist together. If you love somebody you are not afraid; if you
are afraid you cannot love.
Love does not exist in the world
for the simple reason that we have been trying to create love through fear. The
father, the mother, the priest, the politician, they all are trying to create
fear in you. The mother says, "Listen to me, otherwise you will
suffer!" The father says, "I am powerful." In a thousand and one
ways he proves his power over the helpless child and then says to the child,
"Love me - I am your father!" Of course the child has to pretend,
because he is dependent, he is helpless. He loves the mother out of fear; his love
is pseudo. He loves the father out of fear; it is only a pretension, it is
hypocrisy. He loves God out of fear - the fear of hell, the fear of being
punished, the fear of being tortured.
And do you know? Christianity
believes that if you commit sins you will suffer in hell forever. That seems
such an absurd concept. How many sins can a man commit in one small life? And
Christianity believes in only one life. If Hindus were thinking that you will
suffer for a long time in hell one could understand the arithmetic because they
believe in millions of lives, so you can commit as many sins as you like. Of
course, the suffering will be in the same proportion, the punishment will be in
the same proportion. But Christianity proposes an eternal hell. And what sins
can you commit? You can smoke cigarettes and then in hell you will be thrown in
fire and you will smoke forever and forever! Or you can be an alcoholic, but
how much can you drink in one small life? Out of seventy years one third goes
into sleep; you can't commit any sin in your sleep unless your dreams are also
counted. Another one third goes into the offices, into the factories, into the
fields, into the shops... How much time have you got to commit sins? Just count
all the days - you will not find much time. And your sins will be just trivia.
Yes, you can fall in love with your neighbor's wife, but for that you will be
suffering for ever and ever? It is utterly unjust, unfair! Maybe three or four
years' imprisonment in hell will do, but eternity? Can you conceive of
eternity? It will never end, the suffering will be unending!
This is just to create fear.
And people love God out of this fear, they pray out of this fear.
Buddha is against fear; fear is
the original sin according to him. He believes in fearlessness - he believes,
and he believes rightly; it is his experience. It is my experience too, that
true love happens only when fear disappears completely.
A true religion has not
happened in the world because we have been trying to create a cheap religion
based on fear. True love has not happened in the world. The wife is afraid of
the husband, hence she pretends to love; the husband is afraid of the wife,
hence he goes on saying, "Darling, I love you!" as many times as
possible.
That's what Dale Carnegie suggests
to all the husbands: "Whether you love her or not, that is not the point.
Repeat it as many times in the day as possible, as many opportunities as there
are. Once or twice from the office phone your wife just to say 'I love
you.'" And this is all out of fear.
Because of fear the world is
missing the roses of love. Love can happen - every man is born with infinite
capacity for love - but fear cripples everybody, paralyzes everybody.
Buddha says to his
bodhisattvas: Go and teach people these few fundamental things. The first thing
he says:
Wanting nothing
With all your heart
Stop the stream.
These sayings are his code
words; you will have to understand his code words. In those old days things had
to be remembered, so only very small sutras, very condensed sutras were given.
Each sutra is expressed in a code language; you have to decode it. You have to
translate it into contemporary language; otherwise you will miss the
significance of it.
Wanting nothing... How is it
possible - wanting nothing? That is the most fundamental truth in Buddha's
teachings. He is not saying don't want anything, remember; that will be a
misunderstanding. He is saying: wanting nothing with all your heart stop the stream.
By "the stream" he
means the mind. He always calls the mind the stream because it goes on flowing;
whether you are awake or asleep it goes on flowing. It is the stream of
thoughts.
In the modern world, William
James, one of the great psychologists, used for the first time a Buddhist
expression for the mind; he called it "stream of consciousness."
Buddha says it is like a river constantly flowing. How can you stop it? The old
methods are to repress, to control, but they have failed, utterly failed; they
had failed even in Buddha's time.
In a sense Buddha is the first
psychologist of the world, not Sigmund Freud. And Buddha's insight into the
mind is far deeper than all your psychologists put together. There is no way to
get rid of the constant overpowering flood of mind energy, of mindstuff, just
by controlling it or by repressing it. Repression is absolutely destructive. If
you repress something it will come up again and again and you will have to
repress it again and again. Your whole life will become a kind of civil war;
you will be constantly fighting with yourself. And the fight is going to be
unending because you cannot destroy the mind in this way; this is not the way
to get rid of the mind. In fact, you are giving mind great energy by fighting
with it.
Mind can be given energy in two
ways: either by fighting with it or by indulging in it. One leads to
repression, the other leads to identification, and both go on nourishing the
mind. The stream becomes bigger and bigger.
You can repress - repression is
easy - and the whole of humanity has learned to repress because you always fall
for the easy. Repression is not a difficult thing. Anger arises: you can sit
upon it, you can go on smiling a false smile, and sooner or later you will
forget about it. But it is there boiling within you and you are accumulating every
day more and more anger. Anger has a beauty of its own if it is spontaneous,
but you are accumulating anger which will become irrelevant, it will not be
spontaneous.
Something may have happened ten
years ago; now it has no reference to reality, no context - and suddenly you
explode. You look insane. That's how people go insane. If they had been angry
ten years before when the right context was there, nobody would have called
them insane, but for ten years they were sitting on it; then it became too
much. And then for ten years continuously they were accumulating more and more
anger. Every day they were repressing, they were sitting on a volcano; sooner
or later it was going to erupt. Either that, or you have to become so dead and
dull, so unalive that nothing can erupt. You have to withdraw yourself so
totally from life, into a monastery, you have to become so insensitive to life
that people can go on insulting you and you gather such a thick skin that
nothing penetrates you...
Giovanni was sentenced to jail
for having made love with his wife's body a few hours after her death. "Do
you have anything to say in your own defense?" asked the judge.
"Honest, Mista Your
Honor," replied the Italian, "I didn't know she was-a dead. She has-a
been like-a that for the last-a twenty years!"
There are millions of people
who are not really alive - afraid of being alive because if they are alive then
their anger, their lust, their greed, all become alive. To keep them repressed
they have to remain at the minimum; they never live at the maximum. And not to
live at the maximum is to miss God, is to miss all - all the beauties and the
benedictions of life.
You should live at the maximum;
only then do you come to know the tremendous beauty of existence. Only from
that height do you become aware of the immense splendor, of the constant
celebration that goes on and on. But you cannot live to the maximum; you are
afraid because if you live so totally then all that you have repressed will
come up.
Millions of people have decided
for a dead life; before they really die they are dead. They live only for the
minimum, to earn a livelihood; not to live but just to vegetate. They are so
afraid - the priests have made them so afraid.
Buddha is against repression.
And if you repress something it will start finding some other way to come up,
some perverted way. That's why I say that all sexual perversions have religious
origins, for the simple reason that all religions have been against sexuality.
Sex has to be transformed, not
repressed. It is pure energy, it is fire! But you need not burn your house with
the fire. You can heat your house when it is too cold, you can make your house
full of light when it is dark. It is the same fire which becomes light, which
becomes heat, but it can also burn your house. You have to be very alert,
careful, cautious.
Your life energies are neutral:
they can harm you, they can help you; it all depends on you. Don't condemn
them. You are responsible - and only you!
But people go on condemning sex
as if sex has something to do with you. Sex has nothing to do with you; sex is
pure energy. But if you repress it it will become a perversion; then it will
find ways. If you close the natural way, then it comes through some unnatural
way. And you are the same stupid person, you have not changed at all; your
understanding has not grown up.
Mulla Nasruddin came from his
village to the big city, and a rich friend invited him to his box at the opera.
Said the friend, "We will
be sitting close to other people, so be sure to change your socks before you
come!"
A short time after they entered
their opera seats, the neighbors started turning their noses up at the bad
smell.
"I told you to change your
socks," said the friend to Mulla.
"I most certainly
did," said Nasruddin. "And furthermore I knew you wouldn't believe
me, so I brought the old socks right here in my pocket to prove it!"
If you are the same old stupid
guy it does not matter what you do with your sex, with your greed, with your
jealousy. They will be coming back in some other form, by some other route;
they will become even more subtle.
Buddha says what is needed is
more awareness, more understanding - neither repression nor control. If you can
become aware of your desires, if you can watch your desires, then a miracle
happens, the greatest miracle of all. The moment you become aware of your
desires you can easily see that no desire can ever be fulfilled; its very
nature is unfulfillable. Every desire is just a hankering for something which
cannot be, every desire means more and more and more. Now, how can you fulfill
this constant hankering for more? You can have all the wealth of the world,
still the desire will be there.
I have heard that when Diogenes
said to Alexander the Great, "Have you ever thought about one thing? -
although it is a very remote possibility, have you thought about it? You may
really conquer the whole world - then what? There is no other world to conquer,
there is only one world. If you really succeed - have you ever pondered over
the matter? - then what will you do?"
And it is said that Alexander
became very sad. Diogenes laughed and he said, "Look! You have not yet
conquered it, but the very idea that if you conquer the whole world... what are
you going to do next? - because there is no other world. You will be quite at a
loss, because the mind will ask for more. It is not going to be satisfied with
this world only - it is not going to be satisfied."
Mind means discontent; it is
its very nature. Desires are only manifestations of this discontent. When you
watch your desires you slowly slowly become aware of the futility of desiring,
you become aware of the absurd nature of desiring. You become aware that by
their very nature desires are unfulfillable. Seeing this, a transformation
happens, a miracle happens, a radical change sets in; but by seeing this - not
by repression, not by control but by understanding.
A violinist was convinced he
could use his art in music to tame wild animals. So, violin in hand, he
traveled to the heart of the African jungle to prove it.
He had no sooner begun to play
than the jungle clearing was filled with animals of all kinds gathering to hear
him play. Birds, lions, hippos, elephants - all stood round entranced by his
beautiful music.
Just then a crocodile crept out
of the nearby river and into the clearing and - snap! - gobbled up the
violinist.
The other animals were
extremely irate. "What on earth did you do that for?" they demanded.
"We were enjoying that."
"Eh?" said the
crocodile, cupping its hand to its ear.
The mind is absolutely deaf; it
goes on and on doing the same stupid things, never seeing, never listening to
the message. Every desire brings you to a point where a radical change can
happen, but the mind can neither see nor can it hear. It is blind, it is deaf.
As one desire fails it simply jumps on another desire. If one desire fails, the
mind thinks, "If this desire has failed that does not mean that all other
desires are going to fail." It goes on hoping that there must be some
desires which can be fulfilled, maybe not this time but next time; if not today
then tomorrow; if not in this life then in the life after death, in heaven. But
the mind goes on and on thinking in the same old rut.
At the scene of a bank raid the
police sergeant came running up to his inspector and said, "He got away,
sir!"
The inspector was furious.
"But I told you to put a man on all the exits!" he roared. "How
could he have got away?"
"He left by one of the
entrances, sir!"
The mind always finds a way to
convince you again of the same stupid game. Buddha says watch it. It is only
through watchfulness that wanting nothing happens.
And your watchfulness has to be
with all your heart; it should not be partial, otherwise it is not going to
work - because if you only watch partially then the part that has not been
involved will go on doing the old tricks, the old strategies. Your whole heart
has to be watchful so no dark spot is left in you, so your whole being becomes
aware of the absurdity of desiring.
Jimmy Carter was visiting one
of the largest institutions for the mentally unbalanced. He finished inspecting
the main building and wanted to see the Farm Section. His chauffeur was not
around so the president boarded the regular bus.
In a few minutes the keeper
brought on some inmates. When they were seated he began counting, "1, 2,
3, 4, 5..." He got to the president and said, "Who are you?"
Mr. Carter said, "Why, I'm
the president of the United States!"
The keeper said, "6, 7, 8..."
It does not matter who you are,
where you are. If you are still desiring you are mad: "6, 7, 8..."
You are insane. In fact, unless you are insane enough, how can you try so hard
to be the president of a country? For years people try to become the president
of a country; almost their whole life is devoted to a single goal, to be the
president of a country. And what is attained? With the same energy they could
have become buddhas, with the same effort they could have become awakened. But
we put our energies to such wrong goals - money, power, prestige - and they all
lead to insanity.
Desiring is insane. Enjoy life!
- but don't be too much bothered about tomorrows. Don't sacrifice your today
for tomorrows; otherwise you will always go on missing all the opportunities
which open up for your inner growth.
Wanting nothing with all your heart stop
the stream.
Watch. Try to understand the
very nature of desiring, and in that very understanding there comes a stop of
its own accord. The stream simply disappears, evaporates, as if it has never
been there. And the moment you are free of the mind you are free of all misery,
of all discontent.
When the world dissolves
Everything becomes clear.
With the dissolution of the
mind, the whole world that the mind has created around itself also dissolves,
obviously - it depended on the mind, it was mind's projection. Not that the
trees will disappear and the roses will disappear... roses will be far rosier
and trees will be far greener. People will be far more beautiful; even pebbles
on the seashore will be like diamonds. Everything will become precious.
This world, the real world, is
not going to disappear with your mind, but you are living in a totally
different private world: the world of your desires. You don't see the real
world, you only see your own private world projected on the real world. The
real world is simply being used as a screen on which you go on projecting your
desires. You never see that which is; you only go on seeing that which you
desire.
It is said that the shoemaker
never looks at people's faces, he always looks at their shoes. Of course he is
not concerned with their faces, he has nothing to do with their faces; he is
concerned with their shoes. And by seeing the shoes he knows about the person;
the shoe contains all the messages for him: whether the person is rich or poor,
successful or unsuccessful. The shoe will say everything: the shape of the
shoe, the newness, the oldness, the tiredness of the shoe; everything will say
what kind of man this is. The shoe, analyzed by a shoemaker, will give you a
perfect analysis of the man. There is no need to go to a psychoanalyst, you can
go to the shoemaker, leave the shoe with him. And he can make a chart about
you: what kind of man you are, what is happening in your life.
The tailors never see you, they
only see your clothes. They decide from your clothes. People see only that
which they desire and they project their desire. If somebody is full of lust
even an ugly woman may look beautiful.
Mulla Nasruddin goes to a hill
station once in a while; he has a bungalow there. Sometimes he says, "I am
going for three weeks," and comes back after only ten days. It happened
many times so I asked him, "You never follow your decision. You say, 'I am
going for three weeks,' then you are back within a week. Sometimes you say, 'I
am going for five weeks,' and you are back in ten days. What is the
matter?"
He laughed; he said, "I
have a criterion and I cannot decide from here. You know that I have got a
bungalow in the hill station - well, I have kept one woman there to look after the
bungalow. She is the ugliest woman you can conceive of and how long I am going
to stay is determined by that woman."
I said, "I don't
understand."
He said, "Let me explain.
She is so repulsive, so disgusting, but when I go there, after two or three days
she is not so repulsive, so disgusting. After four or five days I even start
seeing something beautiful in her. By the seventh or eighth day she starts
looking really beautiful. The moment I see that a desire for her is arising in
me, I escape - that's how I decide. That means now it is time for me to leave.
I know that she is ugly, but my eyes are deceiving me now, now they are
projecting. Now my unfulfilled sexual lust is being projected on her; she is
not what she is appearing to me. Then I start escaping - I am going insane.
Then I immediately rush back home; it is time to go home, otherwise there is
danger. And I don't want to make love to that disgusting woman. I know
perfectly well she is disgusting, but there comes a time, somewhere between
seven and ten days, when she starts looking so beautiful, as if she is a Sophia
Loren."
You experience this again and
again, but you don't understand. When for the first time you fall in love with
a woman or a man, the other looks almost like a god or a goddess; that is your
projection. Soon you will be disillusioned. The fault lies with you, not with
the other. It is not that the other has cheated you; the other has not done
anything. You were starving, you were hankering, you were living with a
repressed desire and that desire created an illusion for you. You fell in love,
you saw something which was not there. Lovers go on seeing things which are not
there, nobody else sees them; that's why lovers are thought mad by everybody
else. They themselves will think they were mad after two or three weeks, but
when they are in love for the first time they think they have discovered the
woman they are made for - that they are made for each other.
Here, I go on receiving
letters. One woman sannyasin finds somebody almost every month and she writes
to me and she forgets all about the fact that she has been writing it for at
least three years: "Beloved Master, it seems we are made for each
other." She has no idea that she has written this at least fifty times!
But when she is infatuated with somebody she forgets everything else.
I reminded her. She said,
"The other times I may have been wrong, but this time, believe me, we are
made for each other!" And within two or three weeks these people who are
made for each other are finished.
In fact, nobody is made for
anybody else; everybody is made for himself or herself. Nobody is made for
anybody - God never makes you in pairs! Drop that whole nonsense. He simply
makes individuals.
In the East we have stories -
they must be stories, they cannot be history. In Jaina scriptures it is said
that in the beginning when the world started, God used to make men and women
together. Each mother used to give birth to twins, one girl, one boy; they were
going to be husband and wife. They were not sister and brother - they were made
for each other! That must be a wish fulfillment. Man has always been thinking,
"There must be someone with whom I am going to fit absolutely. Somewhere
someone must exist who is just for me and I am for her." There is nobody
just for you or you for anybody. God creates only individuals, God believes in
individuality - he is an individualist.
In fact, marriage is a human
invention, God does not believe in marriage. He himself is alone without a
wife; you can see - the point is so clear. Otherwise he would at least have
married the Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost can be turned into a woman or a man - a
ghost is a ghost! He does not have any body; he could have given it a body. If
he can create the whole world, can't he create a woman for himself? He was so
generous with man - he gave man first a woman, Lilith. And Lilith was really a
beautiful woman, but the first night there was a pillow fight - the first
liberated woman! The Women's Liberation movement started with Lilith. And the
fight was because God had given them only a single bed and both wanted to sleep
on it and it was not big enough for two persons. Lilith simply rejected the
idea that she should sleep on the floor. She said, "If you want to sleep
on the floor you can!"
Adam felt very insulted - a
man, and sleeping on the floor, and the woman sleeping in the bed? In the
middle of the night they knocked on God's door and said, "You have to
settle it."
God also seems to be very
strange - it was such a simple thing. He could have called Asheesh: "Make
a double bed!" That's what I would have done. Why make so much fuss about
it? Or if Asheesh was going to take a long time - as he usually does - he could
have removed the bed: "Both of you can sleep on the floor, be equal!"
He could have sent Deeksha to remove it; she would have removed everything,
even the floor! But God's ways are strange.
He dissolved Lilith. He said,
"You disappear. You will not be able to work it out." Then he made
Eve, taking a rib out of Adam so that she would be a part of Adam. That is an
ugly act, that is very antifeminist. And since then God has been a male
chauvinist pig!
Nobody is made for anybody
else, hence no two persons can fit absolutely. All your ideas about fitting
with the other are illusions, and they are shattered sooner or later. Either
you have to compromise or you have to separate. But nobody is made for the
other.
Those who understand, they
start accepting the uniqueness of the other, they start respecting the
uniqueness of the other. They know they are different, yet they have decided to
be together. And it is beautiful that they are different because that variety
gives richness to life.
But you go on creating a world
around yourself, an illusory world. Buddha is talking about that world when he
says: when
the world dissolves - he means when the mind dissolves with all its
projections - everything
becomes clear.
When all your projections are
gone you have a clarity, an immense clarity, no clouds in your consciousness.
You can see through and through. That seeing is freedom, that seeing is
salvation, that seeing is nirvana, that seeing is coming home.
Go beyond...
Go to that seeing. Go beyond
the mind, go beyond the known, because the mind consists of the known. And go
beyond the knowable because whatsoever is knowable will sooner or later become
known and will again create the mind. So go beyond the known - known means that
which has already become your mind - and the knowable - that which is
potentially going to become your mind sooner or later. Go beyond the known and
the knowable so that you can enter into the unknowable, into the mysterious.
The beyond represents the mysterious.
This way or that way...
Buddha is not a fanatic; he
says it doesn't matter which way you follow. Remember: you have to go beyond
the mind. Follow any way! This is his beauty - it is very rare. You will not
find this quality in religious fanatics; he is not a fanatic at all. He says it
is immaterial what way you follow, whether you swim to the other shore or you go
by a boat or a steamship or how you manage... that is up to you. Go to the
other shore; that is the point. Every path is valid if it leads to the other
shore, every path is valid if it leads you beyond the mind.
And there are only two paths.
One is awareness, meditation - Buddha's path. And the other is love, devotion,
the path of the Sufis. There are basically only two paths, but Buddha is very
clear. He says: this
way or that way...
By "this way" he
means his path; by "that way" he means the path of love, of devotion.
That is not his path, but he does not prohibit you. He does not say that you
cannot reach by the other path. He does not say, "My path is the only
path." He does not say, he does not claim, "Only those who come with
me will reach and everyone else will fall into hell." No! He says,
"You can follow other paths too. Just keep one thing in your consciousness
- that you have to go beyond."
To the farther shore
Where the world dissolves
And everything becomes clear.
Beyond this shore
And the farther shore,
Beyond the beyond,
Where there is no beginning,
No end.
"Beyond the beyond"
is Buddha's expression for God; he never uses the word 'God'. But "beyond
the beyond" is exactly what the word 'God' represents. Why does he say
"beyond the beyond"? Is it not enough to call it "the
beyond"? It is not, because when you say "the beyond" it seems
you have comprehended it; it means your mind has comprehended. When you say
"the other shore" it means that it is the other shore, but it is
something like this shore; at least it is also a shore so it must be something
like this - maybe a little bit different, more beautiful, with more trees, with
more greenery, with more beautiful flowers and fragrance - but a shore is a
shore.
"This shore" and
"that shore" your mind can comprehend. Hence he says: Anything that
is comprehensible to the mind has to be left behind. The beyond is
comprehensible.
Beyond this shore and the farther shore
- you have to go beyond both the shores - beyond the beyond, where there is no beginning, no end.
When a man came to Buddha - he
had been practicing meditation for years - he said, "You have told me,
'Attain to nothing,' and I have attained it. Now what else do I have to
do?"
Buddha said, "Now throw it
away! Go out and throw it away!"
He was puzzled. He said,
"I have spent years in attaining it!"
Buddha said, "The only
purpose in attaining it is to throw it - then only will you be really in a
state of nothing; otherwise, this nothing has become something - you have
attained it. It is not real nothing. How can you attain real nothing? Real
nothing is not attainable, it is not graspable. It is beyond grasp, it is
beyond comprehension. So go out and throw it!"
A king came to Buddha with many
diamonds in one hand, very precious, very rare, and with a lotus flower in the
other hand, out of season. He wanted to offer the diamonds. Buddha said,
"Drop it!" So he dropped the diamonds - reluctantly, because it was
such a great treasure - thinking, "This man does not understand what he is
saying." But ten thousand monks are there and now not to drop them will
look miserly and people will laugh and they will say, "If you have come to
offer him something and he orders, 'Drop it!' then drop it! You have offered
them to him, now it is his business what to do with them." So he dropped
them, but very reluctantly.
Then he offered the lotus
flower. Buddha said, "Drop it!" He dropped that flower too. Now he
was standing with empty hands and Buddha said, "Drop it!" Now the
king was at a loss. He said, "Sir, I don't have anything to drop; my hands
are utterly empty." Buddha said, "Then DROP it!" Now the king
thought, "This man is crazy! I am saying my hands are empty, still he says
'Drop it!'"
One of Buddha's bodhisattvas,
Manjushree, laughed and he said, "Sir, you don't understand my master. He
is saying, 'Don't carry this idea of emptiness, drop that too - because the
idea of emptiness is enough to fill yourself; the idea of emptiness is enough
to create a mind.' Buddha is saying, 'Drop all unconditionally. And when you
have dropped all, don't carry this idea that now nothing is left. Drop that too
so you have nothing to claim.'"
That is the meaning of going
beyond the beyond. That is the ultimate state of nirvana - when the ego, the
mind, the personality, all cease to exist and you disappear into the
mysterious, into the miraculous, into the universal.
Without fear, go.
Meditate.
This is what meditation is all
about: watching your desires, understanding their nature... and letting them
fall like dry leaves from the trees in the autumn.
Live purely.
And when meditation has
happened and desire has disappeared, then live out of that innocence. Right now
you are living out of desires. You desire this, you desire that, and sometimes
you desire even God, sometimes you desire nirvana, sometimes you desire even
meditation, but you live out of desires.
There is another kind of life -
the real life - which is lived through innocence, without desiring. So
whatsoever comes on the way you enjoy, you rejoice, but you don't desire.
Live purely - that's what Buddha
calls a pure life: a life which is not lived out of desires.
Be quiet.
Naturally you will be quiet -
when there is no desire left there is no turmoil left.
Do your work, with mastery.
Then whatsoever you are doing,
whatsoever you enjoy doing, do it with mastery and skill. He loved skill very
much, he loved excellence, he loved perfection. He was not a perfectionist,
remember, because he was not a neurotic person, but he loved perfection. Do
everything with your totality. Whatsoever you are doing, do it with such love,
with such commitment and involvement that for the moment that is your whole
life.
Once Vincent van Gogh was asked
by somebody, "Which is your best painting?"
He was doing a painting. He
said, "This one - this is the best."
After a few months the man
asked again - he was painting something else - he asked, "Which is your
best painting?"
He said, "This one."
The man said, "But this is
not right. Just a few months ago you said about some other painting that that
was your best."
Vincent van Gogh said,
"Whatsoever I am doing at the moment is the best. It is always this, it is
never that. It is always now, it is never then."
This is the way of perfection,
the way of excellence, the way of skill, mastery. Whatsoever you are doing, do
it as if it is a question of life and death. Put your total energy into it, and
it will give you tremendous bliss. Don't be halfhearted. Only then does
creativity bloom, only then do you become a participant in God the creator.
By day the sun shines,
And the warrior in his armor shines.
By night the moon shines,
And the master shines in meditation.
These are code words. The sun
represents the warrior. The sun is hot energy; the sun is violent energy. The
moon represents the meditator, the mystic; it is cool energy. It is the same
energy, remember - it is the same energy, it is not a different energy. But
passing through the moon the sunrays become cool; that is the miracle of the
moon, the alchemical change that happens through the moon. The moon simply
reflects sunrays; it is a mirror. But just by passing through the moon a
radical change happens: the rays which are hot, violent, become silent, cool,
peaceful.
The sun represents the warrior,
the fighter, the soldier. The moon represents the sannyasin, the meditator, the
mystic.
Buddha says: by day the sun
shines, and the warrior in his armor shines.
The day belongs to the warrior,
the sun belongs to the warrior. The warrior means one who is trying to conquer
others, who is trying to become a master of others. That is a stupid effort,
but it is cheaper. It is easy to enslave somebody else, it is always easy to
find somebody who is weaker than you, it is easy to impose yourself upon
somebody.
But the mystic, the meditator
is moving in a totally different direction - he is moving in his interiority.
He is trying to be a master of himself, not of others but of himself - and that
is true mastery. The first effort is stupid.
And the world has been
dominated by the soldiers for centuries, that's why the world is in such a
mess. The world needs more and more sannyasins because each sannyasin becomes a
moon: he transforms the violent energy of the world into a cool pool of energy.
The world needs to be full of sannyasins, only then can we have a world which
forgets the ways of war and learns the language of peace and love. The world
needs many sannyasins as transformers of energy.
That's exactly what is meant by
a buddhafield: where many sannyasins are together and create such a great transforming
force that all kinds of energies passing through the buddhafield become cool,
become feminine, become more like flowers and less like rocks. They lose their
hardness, they become delicate - delicate like rose petals.
By night the moon shines... The
night is the time of the mystic, the day is the time of the warrior. The night
represents a change in the whole atmosphere. It is easier to meditate in the
night than in the day. Meditation is far closer to sleep than to any other
activity, with only one difference: in sleep you fall unconscious, in
meditation you remain conscious, but with the same relaxation. In the day it is
difficult to sleep; if you want to sleep in the day you have to close the doors
and the windows and pull all the curtains so it becomes dark. If sunrays are
coming they won't allow you to sleep; sunrays activate your energies. Night
helps you to rest and relax. It is the time of the mystic.
Sannyasins should use the time
of night more and more for meditation. You can go deeper, and easily, because
the winds are blowing that way; you can move with the winds with less effort.
In the day you are moving against the winds. In the day active meditations are
good; dynamic meditation is good in the day, dancing meditation is good in the
day. But in the night vipassana, silent meditations, just sitting and doing
nothing, just relaxing because the whole atmosphere is relaxing... The sun has
gone down, the trees have fallen asleep; it is a totally different quality of
energy that surrounds you in the night. It is easy to meditate.
Buddha says: the master
shines in meditation in the night.
By "the master" he
means one who is trying to be a master of himself; by "warrior" he
means one who is trying to be a master of others. But once you have attained,
once you have become enlightened, then there is no question of day and night,
no question of sun and moon.
But day and night
The man who is awake
Shines in the radiance of the spirit.
The buddha, the awakened, the
enlightened one shines both in the night and in the day; there is no difference
for him. Once you have become awakened, then nothing makes any difference. But
till that happens use the night atmosphere more and more for meditation.
And when the moon is there in
the night it is far easier to meditate. The full-moon night is the best for
meditation. Many people who have become buddhas have attained their
enlightenment on the full-moon night, even Buddha himself. It may have been a
coincidence, but it is significant to remember: he was born on the full-moon
night, he became enlightened on the full-moon night and he died on the
full-moon night. Something in the full moon seemed to be synchronizing with his
energy.
Use it. Be alert and use every
possibility to help you go in. Once you are awakened, then there is no problem.
Then you can be at ease, at rest, at peace, anywhere.
Somebody asked Buddha,
"When you die will you go to heaven?"
Buddha said, "Don't ask
nonsense questions. Wherever a buddha is there is heaven. Buddhas don't go to
heaven; wherever a buddha goes, heaven goes there."
This is much closer to the
truth, far more beautiful; the very statement is significant. There is no
question of enlightened ones going to paradise - enlightened ones live in
paradise wherever they are. You can send them to hell - if there is a hell -
and the hell will be transformed. By their very presence the hell will become a
buddhafield. By their very presence the energies of hell will go through a
transformation.
Once it happened:
A Christian priest was delivering
a sermon one Sunday and he said, "Those who don't believe in God and live
immoral lives will go to hell; those who believe in God and live moral lives
will go to heaven."
A man stood up and asked,
"A question has arisen in me. The question is: Those who don't believe in
God and live a moral life, where will they go? Those who believe in God and
live immoral lives, where will they go?"
The priest was at a loss; he
had not thought about it. The question was tricky. He said, "Please give
me time to ponder over it. After seven days I will answer, next Sunday."
Those seven days were real hell
for him. He tried to figure it out, but it was impossible to figure it out. If
he says, "Those who don't believe in God and are moral still go to
heaven," then the man will say, "Why believe in God? Why bother about
God at all? Just being moral is enough." He thought, "And if I say
the people who don't believe in God and are moral have to go to hell, then
morality loses all relevance. Then why be moral? Just believing in God is
enough. Believe in God and live as immorally as possible. Why miss that
opportunity?" He was driving himself crazy, he could not sleep.
Continuously he was thinking and consulting books, but there was no answer
coming.
Sunday came; he came a little
early to the church to pray to Jesus. "Help me!" he prayed to Jesus.
The whole night he had not slept so while he was praying he fell asleep, and he
dreamed a beautiful dream, a very significant dream. He saw that he was in a
train. He asked where the train was going and the other passengers said,
"The train is going to heaven."
He said, "This is very
good! That's what I wanted to see - see with my own eyes. Socrates never
believed in God, but he lived a moral life. Buddha never believed in God, but
he lived one of the purest lives. Mahavira never believed in God, but who can
surpass Mahavira in his moral life? If I can find these three people there,
then the question is solved; if I don't find them there, then too the question
is solved."
The train reached heaven; he
was very much surprised. Seeing heaven, he could not believe it - it looked
more like hell! Of course the board said it was heaven, but it had not been
painted, it seems, for centuries. So much dust had collected, everything was
dirty. It looked like a desert: no greenery, no trees, no roses, no lotuses. He
came across a few saints who looked almost dead, somehow dragging themselves.
Dust had also gathered on them as if they had forgotten how to take a bath, as
if nobody took baths in heaven.
He asked, "Is Socrates
here? Is Buddha here? Is Mahavira here?"
Those saints said, "Never
heard of these people."
He rushed to the inquiry
office. He inquired, "Is there a train that goes to hell?"
They said, "Yes, it is
leaving immediately. You can catch it right now."
And he rushed in the train
towards hell, and as hell came closer he was again in for a great surprise: so
much fragrance, so much greenery, so many flowers, so many beautiful birds, and
singing and dancing. He said, "What is the matter?" And everybody
looked so joyous, so radiant. He asked people on the station, "Is this
really hell? is this hell?"
They said, "Yes, this is
hell, and nobody can believe this is hell. Since these three people - Socrates,
Buddha and Mahavira - arrived, everything changed. They have transformed the
whole scene. Just the name is hell now - it is really heaven. And the other
place is only heaven in name; it has become hell."
I agree absolutely with the
dream. I can visualize that your so-called saints, wherever they are, will
create hell. But if a man like Buddha or Socrates or Mahavira or Jesus or Lao
Tzu or Zarathustra is in hell, then hell has to change. It is not a question of
the place; the question is of who is there.
But day and night the man who is awake
shines in the radiance of the spirit.
You can say hell or heaven... The man who is
awake shines in the radiance of the spirit. Wherever he is he
creates a new world, he creates a totally new energy. He is an alchemical
transformer.
First, don't be soldiers, be
sannyasins, because that is how one day you can become buddhas. Move towards
self-mastery. Use all devices, methods, to become a master of your own self.
And then one day, when the mind has disappeared with all its illusions and you
have attained to clarity, when you can see that which is as it is, you are a
buddha. Then wherever you are there is paradise.
Enough for today.
