Osho –
Dhammapada: The Way of The Buddha (Volume 8)
Chapter 7. You
have slept long enough
The followers of the awakened
Awake
And day and night they watch
And meditate upon their master.
Forever wakeful,
They mind the law.
They know their brothers on the way.
They understand the mystery of the body.
They find joy in all beings.
They delight in meditation.
It is hard to live in the world
And hard to live out of it.
It is hard to be one among many.
And for the wanderer, how long is the road
Wandering through many lives!
Let him rest.
Let him not suffer.
Let him not fall into suffering.
If he is a good man,
A man of faith, honored and prosperous,
Wherever he goes he is welcome.
Like the himalayas
Good men shine from afar,
But bad men move unseen
Like arrows in the night.
Sit.
Rest.
Work.
Alone with yourself,
Never weary.
On the edge of the forest
Live joyfully,
Without desire.
Three reformed and very
progressive rabbis were boasting about the advanced views of their respective
congregations.
"We are so modern,"
said the first, "we have installed ashtrays in every pew so members can
smoke while they pray."
"Ah!" snorted the
second. "We now have a snack bar in the basement that serves ham
sandwiches after services."
"You boys," said the
third, "are not even in the same class as my congregation. We are so
reformed, we close for the Jewish holidays."
That's what has happened to all
the so-called followers - Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists. They are not
real followers; their being a follower is only a formality. It is just by
accident of birth that one is a Hindu and another is a Christian. It is not out
of your own choice, it is not YOUR commitment. You have not chosen to be a
Christian or a Hindu or a Buddhist; hence it is absolutely meaningless, it
carries no weight. It is at the most a social phenomenon. It has nothing to do
with religion, it has no sacredness about it - a social conformity, useful in
its own ways.
But your church is nothing but
a club. Just as there are Rotarians, so there are Christians. You belong to a
certain club and the club has a few privileges; belonging to it, you also have
the right to have those privileges. It is not the search for truth because the
search for truth does not make you a part of a tradition. It certainly makes
you a disciple, but not a part of a dead tradition, religion, organization. It
certainly brings you close to a Christ or a Buddha, but it has nothing to do
with the scriptures.
A living master is bound to
happen to the person who is in search of truth, who wants to know the meaning
of life, who wants to go to the innermost core of his being, who wants to know
the depth and the height of existence. He will have to hold hands with a
master.
The master is one who has
already known. The master is one who has been to the other shore and has come
to this shore to show you the path. But only a master can show the path - a
living master, remember. A tradition is just a fossil, a corpse. Yes, once
there may have been a light, but the light has gone to the infinite long long
ago.
Twenty-five centuries have
passed since Buddha's flame became one with the universal flame. Now you can go
on worshipping Buddha, but you will not be, in the real sense, a disciple - you
can't be. The buddha you worship is your own invention, your projection. You
will have to find a real buddha, a man who is alive, just as alive as you are,
who is in the body, whose flame can help your unlit candle to become lit, whose
fire can consume you.
But churches and temples and
creeds and dogmas cannot consume you, they cannot make you aflame. They have no
fire left. Two thousand years have passed since Christ.
You can go on worshipping in
the church, but now what you are doing is a kind of social duty. You are not
involved in it, your heart is not there. Superficially, on the periphery, you
have a label - Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan - but behind the labels you are all
alike; there is no difference at all.
The first sutra of Buddha says:
The followers of the awakened
Awake...
Those who are really followers
of the awakened are awake. That's the only way to be a follower of the awakened
- to be awake. It is not a question of worship, not a question of respect. It
is a question of inner transformation. It is going through inner alchemy.
How can you go through inner
alchemy if the master is not present? The gap of thousands of years cannot be
bridged. But there is no need to bridge it either because whenever there is one
who is awakened he is the same, the fire is the same. It does not make any difference
in what lamp the flame is alive. The lamp may be of this shape or that shape,
the lamp may be made of this metal or that metal, it is irrelevant. The flame
has nothing to do with the metal and the shape of the lamp; the flame is always
the same. But you will have to seek a lamp which can still show you the path.
The moment you see an
enlightened person, if you allow yourself to see the enlightened person, three
things happen in your life. The first is, you become a student.
A student means one who becomes
intellectually involved, who becomes intellectually intrigued, who starts
feeling that his questions are being answered for the first time, his
curiosities are dissolving for the first time. For the first time there is
someone who can answer him and his answers are not borrowed; his answers are on
his own authority.
His answers are not coming from
his memory; his answers are welling up from his very center.
And you can feel the
difference, the difference is great. It is the difference between a plastic
rose and a real rose. You can see that his answers are fresh, young, breathing.
They have a heartbeat to them,
they are not dead information. He has not collected knowledge; he has known, he
has seen, he has become. And you will feel his being. The first step is to
become a student; that's how the journey starts.
The second step is to be a
disciple. When not only your head is in communication with the master but your
heart too, when not only does he look logical but a great love arises in your
being for him, then you become a disciple. A disciple knows how to commune, the
student knows how to communicate. The student lives on the verbal, intellectual
level; the disciple on the nonverbal, feeling level. His heart starts opening.
Just as the sun rises in the morning and the flowers start opening, the
disciple feels some opening is happening in him. He is no more the same person.
The master has touched his being; something has penetrated in. The disciple has
become pregnant.
And the third step is to be a
devotee. The student relates through the head, the disciple through the heart,
and the devotee through his totality. It is no more a question of head or
heart, body or mind or soul; his whole being becomes suffused. He becomes one
with the master. It is no more a dialogue of the head or of the heart. There
are no more two; the flames have become one.
This is the moment of real
initiation, of real sannyas. Buddha is talking about it. He says: the followers of
the awakened awake...
They become just like the
master. They have the same quality, the same fragrance, the same aura. To
understand a buddha, the only way is to become a buddha yourself; there is no
other way.
The disciple will know about
the buddha; the devotee will know the buddha. The disciple will feel the
buddha. The disciple is just in between the student and the devotee. He will
remain a little vague, clouded; he will not have clarity. In that sense, the
student is clear - intellectually clear. The devotee is totally clear. The
disciple is in the middle: something is clear and something is very unclear;
something is light and something is dark. The disciple is in a state of
twilight, neither day nor night.
Buddha is talking about the
devotee when he uses the word 'follower'. He does not mean a Christian, a
Hindu, a Buddhist. He means someone who has the courage to take the plunge into
the very being of the master; he is a real follower. And in that plunge he
starts having the same quality - the quality of being awake.
Ordinarily you are living in a
kind of sleep; a metaphysical slumber surrounds you.
And even if sometimes there are
possibilities, opportunities for you to be awakened, you avoid, because you
have invested so much in your sleep. You are afraid of being awake. Deep down
you know that if you become awake your dreams will be disturbed - and you may
be having beautiful dreams, nice dreams, sweet dreams. And who wants to get
disturbed when there are so many beautiful dreams surrounding you?
And when you are dreaming, you
don't think that you are dreaming; your dreams look real.
That is one of the strange
things about dreams: they have such a deep impact on you.
They hypnotize you so deeply
that many times you have known that they are dreams when you wake up in the
morning, but again every night you fall back into the same hypnosis.
This is the case with you in so
many lives. You have lived the same kind of life again and again - the same
desire, the same greed, the same ambition - and each time you were frustrated,
but again you are ready to become a victim. It is exactly like dreams.
This morning also when you woke
up you remembered so many dreams from the night and you laughed; it looked so
ridiculous. But let the night come again and you will dream again, and when you
will be dreaming you will believe them. They are real deceivers! And when one
believes that this is real, why should one want to be awake and disturb it? You
resist awakening.
Even if you come across a
buddha you will not look at him. You will look sideways; you will not look into
his eyes. The fear... his energy may start pulsating in you. Hence, many times
you have come across a Buddha, a Krishna, a Mahavira, a Christ, a Mohammed, but
you have missed again and again on your own accord. You were afraid to
encounter them - the encounter may prove too dangerous.
"Hello. This is long
distance. I have a call for you from Palm Springs."
"Hello, Herman, this is
Rube. Listen, I am stranded here and I need five hundred dollars."
"I can't hear you.
Something is wrong with the phone."
"I want five hundred
dollars!"
"I still can't hear
you."
"I can hear it okay,"
interrupted the operator.
"Then you give him the
five hundred dollars!"
You listen only to that which
fits with you; you avoid listening to that which can be a disturbance. You
become deaf, you become dumb, you become blind. You have chosen a particular
sleepy life and you have lived with that style for so long that it looks almost
natural. The unnatural has become the natural and the natural has been
completely forgotten.
To awake means to be natural
again. To awake means to be awake in your consciousness, in your deepest core
of the heart, to become aware.
We go on reading the Bibles,
the Korans, the Gitas. That is not a problem. The problem comes when you come
across a Mohammed. It is easy to read Ayatollah Khomeiniac; it is difficult to
come across Mohammed, because Mohammed is bound to be like an electric shock.
He will go like a deep tremor into your being. And these ayatollahs, these
imams, they are not to be afraid of. They talk such nonsense.
Just the other day I was
reading... These people write great treatises on the Koran, and you will be
surprised to know what they write in those treatises. Such stupid things! - for
example: "You should not urinate towards Kaaba." Great metaphysics!
Great spirituality! You should remember continuously, otherwise be prepared for
hell. But this can be managed; Mohammedans manage it, they remember the
direction of Kaaba.
As if God is only in Kaaba and
nowhere else! As if Kaaba is the only direction which is divine and all else is
undivine!
I was reminded of a beautiful
story in Nanak's life:
He went to Kaaba and he slept
with his feet towards the sacred Kaaba stone. The imam of Kaaba came and he was
very angry. He said, "You pretend to be a holy man and you don't even know
the ordinary rules! Whether you are a Mohammedan or not, at least you can be
polite! This much courtesy you can show: you should not put your feet towards
Kaaba. Change the direction of your feet!"
Nanak laughed and he said,
"You have come in the right time - that's what was puzzling me! Please,
you do it. You turn my feet towards any direction... because I have tried and I
have to go to sleep. I have tried; half the night I have wasted already. You
try!"
In deep anger, rage, the imam
turned Nanak's feet to the opposite direction. He was shocked to see that Kaaba
moved towards Nanak's feet! He turned in every direction and Kaaba moved.
Whether it happened or not,
that is not the point; but the story is beautiful. It simply says that God is
everywhere. Wherever you put your feet it is God's direction, because nothing
else exists. But these foolish scholars, they go on talking nonsense and they
write big treatises. But they are not dangerous to you.
For example, on a day when you
are fasting, in the days of Ramadan when a Mohammedan fasts, in desert
countries a great problem has arisen: when you are moving in the desert
sometimes you may swallow dust. Now the problem is - what a great problem! - in
the desert on a fast day, if you swallow dust, is your fast broken or not? Now
these ayatollahs say your fast is broken if you swallow the dust voluntarily.
But who will swallow the dust
voluntarily? For what? Dust is not food, dust is not nourishment! But if it
happens INvoluntarily, then the fast is not broken.
Then for centuries people go on
discussing such stupid nonsense - sheer nonsense!
They will miss a Mohammed, they
will miss a Moses, they will miss a Lao Tzu; and then for centuries they will
discuss useless things. Useless things are not dangerous.
The real danger comes from
people who are awake, because to be in their presence it is possible that you
may become infected. Awareness is contagious! But read the Koran and the Bible
- it is just a game of words. And if you read every day your Bible and Gita,
then even words don't mean anything. You simply repeat like a parrot.
Every year dignitaries of the
church come from Rome to Israel and a time-honored ceremony is re-enacted. One
of the chief rabbis hands a jewel-covered scroll to a visiting priest who holds
the scroll for a minute, shakes his head, and then returns it to the rabbi
until the next year.
This year, however, the rabbi
and the priest involved in the ceremony grew curious about the scroll and
decided to open it. They removed the jeweled covering, then unrolled yards and
yards of yellowed parchment with long columns of numbers on it and blurred
words The rabbi put on his glasses and finally managed to read the ancient
Hebrew letters. It was the bill for the Last Supper!
For two thousand years they had
been giving it to the other: "Please, you pay it!" And nobody has
bothered what is written in it, what exactly it is.
Scriptures are cheap and
scriptures are manipulatable. You can manage very easily any meaning out of
them. You can invent, you can interpret, you can do a thousand things to the
scripture. You can bring it to your own level.
But you cannot bring a buddha
to your own level. If you want to commune with a buddha you have to go to HIS
level, to HIS plane of being. And his plane of being is awareness.
The followers of the awakened awake...
You are somnambulists! The only possibility in your life of being awake is
coming in contact with someone who is awake.
Only fire can ignite fire in
you. And you are living in such a deep sleep that unless somebody hits you hard
enough your sleep may not be broken.
The advance proofs of a
cookbook for hipsters recently came my way. The wildest recipe is for a salad.
"You cut up lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers, then you add a
dash of marijuana and the salad tosses itself."
And that's the state you are
in. For centuries the salad is tossing itself - too much marijuana! Everybody
is spiritually in a state of deep slumber, dreaming great dreams, but not an
inch of evolution... because there are only two states: either you are asleep
or you are awake.
This whole idea of human
consciousness evolving, the idea of progress, is nothing but a strategy of the
mind to keep you sleeping. It is a great trick of the mind. The mind goes on telling
you, "Humanity is progressing. Don't be worried - everything has its own
time. When the spring comes, you will also become an evolved buddha. Wait!
Nothing can be done before its time. Wait for the right time and you will also
be ripe." And you have been waiting for centuries and you can go on
waiting for centuries, the right time will never come. This is not the way that
it comes. You have to catch hold of it.
You are just in a deep
lethargy. Buddhas happen and disappear, light descends from the beyond, but you
don't take any note of it. Yes, you do one thing: when a buddha is gone you
worship him. You make him a god, you create temples for him, you make statues
of him and you worship them. Statues are toys, they can't awaken you. And the
real man? The real man you avoid. And because you avoid the real man, a great
guilt arises in you. To put that guilt right you worship.
Worship is not religious;
worship is just out of guilt. Because you never listened to the buddha when he
was alive, when he dies you start feeling guilty. Now what to do?
How to put your guilt and the
burden of it aside? You worship. You compensate with worship, but you remain
the same.
And day and night they watch
And meditate upon their master.
The devotee - the real follower
- is constantly watching what he is doing, how he is doing, why he is doing.
Even in small matters he de-automatizes himself. Walking, he does not just
walk; he walks with meditative awareness. He knows that he is walking.
Eating, he knows he is eating.
You eat and you do a thousand
and one other things. You go on swallowing food, you go on throwing food in,
you go on stuffing yourself... and the mind goes on planning, goes on
remembering, desiring, projecting. You are not there in the act; you are either
in the past or in the future. And the present is the only time, only the
present is real. Past is unreal, future is unreal; both are unreal - and you
are always living in the unreal.
This is sleep: you go on doing
things... You yourself sometimes say, "I did it in spite of myself."
What do you mean when you say "in spite of myself"? It simply means
that you were not conscious and you did it - as if you are just an automaton, a
robot!
A very fat lady boarded a
crowded bus and managed to wedge herself in. She had a long way to go and
feeling very uncomfortable reached down and unzipped the zipper in the back of
her skirt.
A few minutes later, feeling
the draft, she reached back and zipped it up again. Feeling more and more
uncomfortable, she reached back and unzipped the zipper, but in a few minutes
she reached back and zipped herself up again.
This went on for nearly twenty
minutes until finally the man standing behind her leaned over and said,
"Listen, lady. I don't know what's on your mind, but in the last half hour
you have unzipped my fly at least ten times!"
People are not conscious of
what they are doing! They just go on doing things, half asleep, half awake, in
a kind of alcoholic state.
The pretty young thing came
slamming into her apartment after a blind date and announced to her roommate,
"Boy, what a character! I had to slap his face three times this
evening!"
The roommate inquired eagerly,
"What did he do?"
"Nothing!" muttered
the girl. "I slapped him to see if he was awake!"
People only appear to be awake;
they are not. People only appear to be alive; they are not. People only appear
to be; they are not - because if they are really there, then there is no
difference between them and the buddha. Then they will know all the secrets of
life, then they will know the significance of life. Then their life will be a
celebration, a constant celebration, a joy, a song, a dance. But people are
living in hell, in misery.
Misery is symbolic of
unawareness; bliss is symbolic of awareness.
Forever wakeful,
They mind the law.
The devotees of a master, of an
awakened one, are continuously wakeful and they are continuously making every
possible human effort to be in tune with the universe, not to fall out of step
with the universe - because that is what misery is.
To be in tune, to be harmonious
with the universe, is bliss, is joy, is music, is poetry.
You start blooming the moment
you are in tune with the whole. Whenever you are not in tune with the whole,
something goes berserk in you. Then the whole no more nourishes you; then you
are no more rooted in the whole. Then you become an uprooted tree, then you are
undernourished. Then your green foliage starts disappearing. Then flowers can't
happen to you, because flowers are possible only when you are overflooded with
joy, overflowing with joy.
They know their brothers on the way.
The real devotees are so awake
that they immediately, intuitively recognize anybody who has the same quality -
the Brothers On The Way. A sannyasin,
if really meditative, will immediately know another sannyasin. This is not an
intellectual understanding - not that he infers that this must be a sannyasin -
but a simple intuitive feeling. Something strikes him deep down in his being.
Something so similar is there present in the other person that he knows without
any mental effort and exercise. He knows through the heart that the other is
also on the way.
How do you recognize a man when
he is awake? And how do you recognize a man when he is asleep? Sleepers cannot
recognize other sleepers and sleepers cannot recognize that somebody is awake,
that is true. But if you are awake you know who is asleep and who is awake.
Exactly in the same way, on a higher plane, it happens again: the people who
have a little bit of awareness immediately become aware of the brothers on the
way.
That's how the commune arises,
through this recognition. A commune is not a church.
A commune is not an
organization. A commune is not based on a dogma, on a creed.
The commune grows out of this
intuitive recognition that the other is also in tune with the whole. You can
hear the music! You can hear something which cannot be heard by the outer ears.
Something immediately rings a bell in your heart. It is a mysterious
phenomenon.
Buddha says: they know their
brothers on the way. Wherever you will find anybody who is
meditative, out of your meditation you will be able to recognize him.
Every commune has arisen in
this way. Of course, every commune has fallen and become a religion finally.
That's the way of the world. Once the master is gone, the commune slowly
slowly, starts losing its quality of awareness, it becomes more and more
formal. When the first disciples have also disappeared it is no more a heart
phenomenon, it becomes a head phenomenon. When the second line of disciples has
also disappeared, it is only because of your birth that you are a Christian or
a Hindu or a Mohammedan. Then you are following a dead path which leads
nowhere.
They understand the mystery of the body.
Buddha calls the commune the body. The real devotees start
feeling such attunement, such at-onement with other brothers, that they become
one body. Buddha used to call it the sangha
- the commune, the one body, the family. If something happens it immediately
affects all the people, a wave surrounds all instantly.
When Buddha died he had
thousands of disciples. They were spread all over the country. The moment he
died, all the disciples who were real disciples immediately were affected
wherever they were. Thousands of miles away from Buddha, immediately they felt,
"The master is no more."
This is a mysterious
phenomenon, but now even science is going deep into this phenomenon - from a
different route, of course. They have been experimenting on animals,
particularly the relationship between the mother and the child. And they are
surprised, utterly surprised, by a mysterious phenomenon. You take the child of
any animal deep into the sea, a mile deep or two miles deep into the sea, and
you kill the child there. The mother is on the shore; there are two miles of
water in between, but the mother immediately knows the child has been killed.
She becomes sad, depressed; tears start flowing.
In Soviet Russia particularly,
they have worked hard on this phenomenon. They have tried the distance of a
thousand miles; and if the child is killed, the mother is immediately affected.
There seems to be a spiritual umbilical cord between the child and the mother.
It has become very confused in human beings, that's why they have to experiment
with animals. Animals are still simple, innocent; they have not yet become
educated, cultured, civilized. These misfortunes have not yet happened to them;
hence they are working with animals, but it happens in human beings also.
If there is a deep love
relationship between the child and the mother, the death of the child anywhere
in the world will affect the mood of the mother immediately. Some mysterious
connection exists between the mother and the child.
But this is nothing compared to
the mystery that happens between the master and the disciple, because the
mother/ child relationship is only physical and the master/disciple
relationship is spiritual. It is far more profound, far deeper.
Buddha says: they understand
the mystery of the body.
They find joy in all beings.
You find only that in others
which you have found in yourself first. If you are sad you will find sadness
all over the place. To a sad person even the full moon looks sad, gloomy,
depressed. To a joyous heart even the dark night is luminous. It all depends on
you; it all depends how you are, where you are. The whole world moves with your
heart, it becomes that which you are.
You have heard it said again
and again that the person who is holy, who is meditative, who is prayerful,
goes to heaven. That is wrong; just the opposite is the case. To the prayerful
person, to the meditative person, heaven comes. Not that he goes to heaven -
heaven comes to him, to his heart. Wherever he is, he is in paradise. And the
evil person, wherever he is, he is in hell. There is no need to send him to
hell, there is no need to have a special place called hell. Nowhere is there
any hell and nowhere any heaven.
If you are joyous you live in
heaven, and your neighbor may be living in hell. And sometimes it happens, one
moment you are in heaven and the next moment you are in hell. It all depends on
your inner states. If you are soaring high, heaven opens up. If you are
drowning in darkness, in sadness, hell is ready to welcome you. They find joy in
all beings.
They delight in meditation.
This is a very significant sutra;
remember it. Buddha says: they delight in meditation. It is easy to
meditate if you don't want to be blissful - it is very easy to meditate. If you
want just to be blissful and you don't want to be in meditation, that too is
easy. The rarest combination is meditation plus bliss. Meditation minus bliss
is easy; bliss minus meditation is easy. But meditation minus bliss is not true
meditation and bliss minus meditation is not true bliss either. They are true
only when they are together.
Many people have tried to
meditate without bliss because it is simple, less complex.
You have to take only one work
upon yourself: that you have to still your mind. And you can force your mind to
be stilled, but you will become sad, you will have a long face.
That's why your saints -
so-called saints - look sad. Sadness has become a necessary quality for being a
saint. They can't laugh, they can't dance, they can't sing, they can't love,
they can't rejoice. They talk about bliss but they only talk about it. You
don't see any bliss in their eyes, you don't see any bliss in their milieu, you
don't see any bliss radiating from their inner center. They look sad, dull,
dead, unintelligent, for the simple reason that they have chosen a shortcut and
there is no shortcut. They have avoided the complexity of spiritual
transformation. They have chosen meditation, they have forced their mind to be
still. It is a negative state; their minds are only empty, not silent -
forcibly made still. But it is not a natural growth of silence, it is not the
flowering of silence. Their silence is like the cemetery, it is not the silence
of a garden.
The silence of the garden is
full of music: the bees humming and the birds singing and a distant call of the
cuckoo. They are all in it, essential parts of it. The garden has a very living
silence, full of song and joy. The cemetery is also silent, but it is only the
silence of death; because there is nobody, hence there is silence.
You can meditate, force
yourself to be silent, but you will miss God, you will miss nirvana. And you
can also try to be blissful; that means you can pretend, you can practice, you
can rehearse bliss. You can always try to be blissful, smiling, at least
looking happy.
Slowly slowly, it becomes so
practiced... like Jimmy Carter. Now his smile is disappearing, but just
remember two years before - you could have counted his teeth!
You can practice it. I have
heard that in the beginning days of his presidency his wife had to close his
mouth in the night! I don't know how far it is true, but it appears to be true
- because if you practice the whole day, then in the night too your muscles
become fixed. Even in sleep you will go on smiling.
You can practice blissfulness
too, but a practiced blissfulness is false. Anything practiced is false,
remember it - never forget it. Things have to be spontaneous and natural, not
practiced, not cultivated. Cultivated blissfulness is only a mask. You are
smiling, but the smile is not in the heart. You are showing joy, but you are
not joyous.
Your heart is a desert; only on
the face you have put plastic flowers. They may deceive others, but they can't
deceive you and they can't deceive a master. Your smile, your joy, is formal -
just good manners.
This too has happened. There
have been many saints, very blissful, always singing and dancing, but deep down
just deserts. They both have chosen only the half, and the half- truth is far
more untrue than any untruth.
Truth has to be total, truth
has to be whole. And the whole truth is: bliss PLUS meditation. It is difficult
of course, arduous, to manage both. Why? - because they seem to be polar
opposites. Meditation means silence and bliss means dance.
Meditation means stillness and
bliss means a song. Meditation means escaping from the world and bliss means
sharing with the world. Meditation you can do in a Himalayan cave, but to be
blissful you will have to come back to the world.
Bliss needs to be shared; it
exists only in sharing. It can't exist when you are alone, it disappears. It is
a communion. Meditation can exist in aloneness and bliss can exist in
togetherness. But when both exist then you have to learn a totally new way of
life.
Buddha will give you the sutra
soon. He says:
It is hard to live in the world
And hard to live out of it.
It is hard to be one among many.
He says: it is hard to live in the world...
Certainly, hence millions have preferred to escape. He himself had escaped in
the beginning - but remember that he did not become enlightened because of his
escape. He became enlightened in spite of his escape. He did not become
enlightened because he renounced the world; he became enlightened even though
he renounced the world. It was in spite of it. It was not the cause of his
enlightenment, it did not cause it.
Enlightenment is not caused by
anything.
So when he comes back after his
enlightenment to the world, goes to the palace to see his parents - his old
father, his old stepmother - his wife, his son, the wife asks one question; a
very pertinent question she asks Gautam Buddha. She asks, "Tell me one
thing - I have waited long just to ask you one thing. Whatsoever you have
attained, was it not possible to attain it here in this house? Was it necessary
to escape from the palace and from the world and from me and from your child?
Was that absolutely necessary to attain it?"
And that is the only time when
Buddha looks downwards without saying anything. His silence is eloquent. He
accepts that yes, it was not necessary.
He escaped out of the world
because it was hard to live in the world. It is hard.
"Son, I just know that you
will do the right thing by this little girl," said the preacher.
"You just marry her and
you will be at the end of your troubles."
So he did the right thing and
he married the girl. And about six months later, when he saw the preacher
again, he tried to murder him.
"You miserable liar!"
shouted the young man. "You told me if I married her I would be at the end
of my troubles. Well, I married her and she has made my life miserable!"
"That may be true, son,
but you can't blame me," replied the minister. "I said you would be
at the end of your troubles, but I never said which end."
To be in the world is hard, to
live in the world IS difficult, because it is living with so many lunatics. You
yourself are a lunatic and everybody else is a lunatic! The world is in such a
mess. It simply seems impossible how the good God could manage within six days
to make such a mess of the world! There was not time enough... and no woman
even to advise him! Still he managed.
Those who know, they say he created
Eve only in the end simply so that she would not give advice to him; otherwise
in six days it would have been impossible to make the world. She would have
interfered in everything: "Do it this way. This is not right." And
since he created Eve he has not created anything else. That was too much! He
called it a day and he said, "Enough is enough!" Since then nothing
has been heard about him.
Shed a tear for the beatnik who
committed suicide, leaving a note saying, "Goodbye, cool world."
It is really icy-cold - no
warmth anywhere, no love anywhere, no compassion anywhere. It is hard to live in the world and hard
to live out of it.
And it is not easy to live out
of it either; it is even harder to live out of it.
Man is in such a dilemma! It is
difficult to live in the world, it is difficult not to live in the world. Have
you ever tried living in a Himalayan cave? Try for one month, and the world
will look so beautiful and so heavenly! A few experiences you have had. It is
difficult to live with the wife, but when she goes for a few days to her
mother's house, it is very difficult to live without her. When she is with you,
you want to be without her; when she is gone, you want her immediately back.
It is going to be so, because
the ultimate question is neither to live in the world nor out of it. The
ultimate question is to live in a state of wakefulness. If you are living in
sleep IN the world you will be in misery; if you live outside the world you
will be in far more misery.
I know both types of people, the
worldly and the otherworldly. I know the people who live in the marketplace,
and I know the people who have renounced the marketplace, and have moved to the
monasteries. Both are in misery, deep misery, for the simple reason that just
changing the place, just changing your address from the marketplace to the
monastery, does not make any difference at all. You are the same person, your
consciousness has not changed. And change is needed there. Then you can become
the center of the cyclone. Then you can live in the cyclone and yet
undisturbed.
But Buddha says that is very
rare.
It is hard to be one among many. That
happens only once in a while. Among millions, only a single person manages to
live joyfully wherever he is - in the world or outside the world. Who is that
person who can manage to live joyfully? - the one who lives in awareness. That
is Buddha's insistent message.
And for the wanderer, how long is the road
Wandering through many lives!
And how long have you been
wandering! When are you going to decide to be awake?
You have slept long enough. It
is time to wake up and to start a totally new kind of life which is lived from
inside. Light a flame inside of awareness, and then wherever you are it is all
joy.
Let him rest... You need rest,
you have wandered enough. You are tired, utterly tired, weary, bored.
Let him rest.
Let him not suffer.
Let him not fall into suffering.
The time is right now. Don't
suffer anymore. Don't fall again and again into suffering.
To fall into forgetfulness is
suffering; to remember is to come out of suffering. And rest is the most
necessary step for remembering, for awareness. Relaxation is the whole art of
meditation and bliss both.
How can you rest with so many
desires? They go on pulling you apart. You can rest only if you learn the
secret of desirelessness; if you learn to live moment to moment without any
future; if you learn to live without any hope for the future; if you live
concentratedly in the present, totally involved in the moment, neither worried
by the past nor worried by the future, relaxed, at rest. Then meditation and
bliss both are easy, spontaneous growths out of a restful heart, out of a
relaxed being.
If he is a good man,
A man of faith, honored and prosperous,
Wherever he goes he is welcome.
And don't be worried what will
happen to you if you don't take care of your future, if you don't plan, if you
don't arrange beforehand what is going to happen to you. Don't be worried.
Buddha says: if he is a good
man, a man of faith... a man who trusts existence, then don't be
worried: wherever
he goes he is welcome - at least welcome by those who know, at least
welcome by those who understand... and only their welcome is of any worth.
Like the himalayas
Good men shine from afar,
But bad men move unseen
Like arrows in the night.
Don't be worried what will
happen to you. You will become so luminous - like the himalayas - shining from thousands of miles away. You will
become so radiant that people will start moving towards you as if you are a
great magnet. From far and wide, from all corners of the earth, people will
start moving towards you, pulled by an unknown force, by a mysterious energy.
Don't be worried about the
future, everything will be taken care of. Trust nature. Aes Dhammo Sanantano: this is
the inexhaustible, eternal law. Trust, and nature will shower upon you millions
of blessings.
Sit... Don't rush, don't run. Don't continually be on the move for
this and that. Sit.
That's exactly the meaning of Zazen. The word 'zazen' has come from
this sutra.
Sit.
Rest.
Work.
Zazen means just sitting doing
nothing. The first thing to do is learn sitting, a deep restfulness. Become a
pool of rest, not even ripples of desire, going nowhere, no ambition - not even
for God, not even for nirvana.
Sit... not only physically - psychologically, spiritually too.
Learn to sit; that is zazen.
And Rest - and fall into a deep rest, so the breathing becomes natural,
the body becomes cool, all the fever of constant desire and turmoil disappears,
evaporates.
And then, work. That work will have a totally different quality. It won't be
out of desire; it will be creativity. It will be because you have so much
energy available that you would like to share your energy with the world, that
you would like to create something, that you would like to make the world a
little more beautiful, a little more blissful, a little more human.
Alone with yourself,
Never weary.
And remember the difference
between loneliness and aloneness. Never feel lonely. You are never lonely. At
the deepest core of your being, God resides; he is always with you.
And whenever you are alone,
only then will you be able to hear his footsteps. Whenever you are alone, only
then will you be able to hear his music, his whisperings. He never shouts, he
only whispers. He comes very silently and goes very silently. Be in a deep rest
and you become the host; and he is the guest, God is the guest.
On the edge of the forest
Live joyfully...
The forest represents the
unknown, the unknowable. On the edge of the forest live joyfully... Be
always close to the unknown and the unknowable and don't be afraid. Live joyfully...
because the unknown, the unknowable, is also yours. You belong to it, it
belongs to you. Live
joyfully...
Without desire.
Don't ask for anything. Jesus
says: Ask, and it shall be given. Buddha says: Ask not, and it shall be given.
Jesus says: Seek, and ye shall find. Buddha says: Seek not, and ye shall find.
Jesus says: Knock, and the doors shall be opened unto you. Buddha says: There
is no need to knock; the doors are already open.
Why this difference between two
enlightened persons? Both are awakened. The difference is because of the
audience. Jesus is speaking to very ordinary people; Buddha is speaking to his
commune - that is the difference. He can speak the highest truth without any
compromise. Jesus cannot. Jesus has to compromise with the listeners.
Jesus lived without a commune.
Yes, a few disciples he had, twelve disciples - and those twelve disciples are
also not of much worth. Buddha had thousands of disciples and of tremendous
value - because many of them became enlightened while Buddha was alive. In his
commune there were at least one thousand enlightened people, of the same status
as he himself was. He could talk in any possible way and it would be
understood; there was no worry on his part about being misunderstood. Jesus had
to be constantly on guard, and even then he was misunderstood and crucified.
Sit. Rest. Work. Let these three
words sink deep in your heart. Learn to sit silently, restfully, not fighting
with yourself, relaxed. Not in a yoga posture, remember, because the yoga
posture is a constant effort. No yoga posture is needed. Sit in any way that
you find relaxed - even a chair will do.
Buddha used to sit on the
floor; that was easy in those days. You can sit in any posture you like. You
can use a pillow, a zen pillow, to sit upon; you can use a chair. The question
is not the posture; the question is inner rest.
Be at rest... and when energy
accumulates in you, start being creative. Paint, sing, dance, or do whatsoever
you feel like doing to make this world a little more beautiful, a little more
warm.
We have to create a paradise on
the earth.
Enough for today.
