Chapter 13. Religion is a song, poetry, a dance of your heart - Osho

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

Chapter 13. Religion is a song, poetry, a dance of your heart

Question 1

Beloved Master,

Are you converting people to your own religion?

Christina, I don't have any religion at all: a certain kind of religiousness, but no religion in particular. That's why it is so easy for me to absorb Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Moses, Mohammed, Mahavira. If I had a religion, then it would not be possible for me to be so universal.

To have a religion means to become limited. To have a religion means you have defined life, you have made a dogma out of life, you have demystified it. It is no longer infinite; it is no longer unknown, unknowable. You have reduced it to a system of thought.

My whole effort here is to melt all systems of thought, to melt your minds which have become ice-cold, frozen into prejudices, so that a new kind of warmth surrounds the earth. It will be a kind of religiousness - just a vague feeling, not a definite thought. You can experience it, but you cannot explain it. It will not be like a flower, it will be more like a fragrance. If you are not suffering from cold you will be able to feel it, the fragrance. And people's heads are too full of coldness; they are suffering from cold, they have become frozen. One is a Hindu, another is a Christian.

That is the meaning of your name, Christina: a Christian.

Be a christ and never be a Christian! Be a buddha, never be a Buddhist! That is settling for rubbish. When you can experience the truth yourself, why settle for secondhand knowledge? All religions are secondhand knowledge.

When a master is alive he has a certain climate, there is no doubt about it, a certain atmosphere around him, where people start growing - growing into themselves. That is true conversion. Conversion does not mean a Hindu becoming a Christian or a Christian becoming a Hindu; that is not conversion. That is simply changing one prison for another, moving from one dead system of thought to another dead system of thought - but you remain the same.

Conversion means a radical change in your being. It is not a question of changing your ideology, it is a question of changing your consciousness. In that sense, people are certainly being converted. And I am not converting them, they are allowing themselves to be converted. Remember that difference. I am not interested in converting anybody; I am simply making a space available for those who want to go through this revolution. They can go through this revolution. Neither directly nor indirectly am I trying to make you part of any religion.

Just the other day I was reading... somebody has written - a Hindu - that I am converting people into Jainism because I was born in a Jaina religion. And Jainas think that I am converting Jainas into the Hindu religion because orange is a Hindu color - as if colors can also be Hindu or Mohammedan! And Christians have been writing letters to me, writing articles against me, that I am converting Christians to Hinduism. It is a very strange world! Christians think I am converting you to Hinduism, Hindus think I am converting you to Jainism, Jainas think I am converting you to Hinduism, Mohammedans think I am converting you to Buddhism and Buddhists thinks I am converting you to something else.

I am not converting you to any organized system of thought, directly or indirectly. I am not interested in that at all. But certainly I am making a dimension available to you. If you are interested in going through a revolution you can go. If you have guts and courage you can have a new consciousness.

But I can understand the question, particularly from a Christian, because Christians have been doing this business of conversion all over the earth for centuries, in every possible way, right or wrong. If people cannot be converted by convincing them, then convert them by swords. If swords have become out-of-date and look ugly, then convert them by money, by bread and butter. People are poor and starving.

In India I have never come across a single rich family who has become Christian. Only very poor people who are always on the verge of dying because of starvation have become Christians. The reason is not that they are interested in Christ; they are simply interested in surviving - and Christian missionaries have the money. They can give them the money, employment, clothes, medicine, schools, hospitals. And when it is a question of survival, who cares about religion? To what religion you belong does not matter - the first requirement is to survive. So in India all the poor people, very poor people have been converted. This is converting them by bribery. Now instead of swords, a very subtle methodology is being used to convert them.

But I am not interested in converting anybody. I love Jesus as much as I love Buddha because I don't see any difference. Both are religious because both are awakened. There is no difference at all between the awakened people. But the churches are not concerned with awakening or the awakened people; their concern is with numbers, and they use every possible way, direct, indirect, gross and subtle to convert people.

Hence, Christina, the question has arisen in your mind: maybe I am doing something like the Christian missionaries. I am not a missionary.

Mr. and Mrs. Chotnik had hoped that their son, Stanley, would follow in the path of their own orthodox ways and pursue his higher education at Yeshiva University. Instead, despite their voluble concern, he entered a Christian college. But when he returned home for summer vacation, they were vastly relieved to see that their fears had been groundless. Stanley had not forsaken his ancestral faith, he had not been converted, he had not, it was clear, been affected in the slightest way by his non-Jewish environment. In fact, on the very next Friday, he readily agreed to accompany them to synagogue.

That evening, at the close of shabbes services, the rabbi, an old friend of the Chotnik family, greeted the young student with a wide smile.

"It is good to see you here in the temple again, Stanley," said the rabbi, shaking the youth's hand. "Frankly, your parents and I were afraid you might be Catholicized there at South Bend."

Stanley's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Impossible!" he declared. "No one will ever convert me, Father."

There are subtle ways to convert. The person who is being converted does not become aware at all what is happening. You go on conditioning him, slowly slowly. You go on repeating the gospels and slowly slowly, without his awareness, his mind becomes full of all that has been repeated. He is being conditioned. It is a process of hypnosis.

My effort here is just the opposite: it is a process of dehypnosis, deconditioning. I decondition you, whosoever you are, Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. I simply decondition you and then I leave it to you so that you can be yourself. I don't recondition you again. I stop with deconditioning so that you are free from the old pattern, from the old gestalt that has been imposed upon you. Once you are free then my work is finished. Then you can grow on your own according to your own light, according to your own inner needs. Each individual has a birthright to be himself.

The world does not need Christians, Hindus and Mohammedans; it needs certainly religious people. And what do I mean when I use the words 'religious people'? I mean people who are aware that the world is not only matter, that the world is something more, something plus. It is not finished with matter; matter is only the circumference: consciousness is at the center. And this is possible only when you experience consciousness at your own center; then you can experience consciousness everywhere. When you start feeling consciousness everywhere you have come across godliness. This experience is religion.

I am certainly interested in introducing you into this vast experience, but you have to come to it on your own. You have to come to it without any beliefs, prejudices - open, vulnerable, ready to see that which is, rather than to project what should be. I don't give you any shoulds and should-nots, I don't give you any commandments. I simply help you like a gardener helps a seed. It is not an effort to make a lotus out of a rosebush or vice versa. The gardener helps the rose to be a rose and the lotus to be a lotus. Whatsoever is your potential, you have to be that.

I am not here to decide what you have to be; I can only give you hints how to grow into your own being. And that's how a person becomes a Jesus, a Buddha, a Zarathustra.

Question 2

Beloved Master,

The west is overpopulated with psychotherapists and their patients, but why does no one seem to be helped?

Patrick, the help is possible only through a buddha. The help is possible only through the awakened one.

The psychotherapists are as asleep as you are; they are in the same boat. There is no qualitative difference between you and them - in fact they may be crazier than you are. They may be more in a mess than you are because they constantly deal with mad people; day in, day out, they are surrounded by mad people. Rather than helping the mad people to become sane, just the opposite happens: being constantly in contact with mad people, slowly slowly they become mad themselves.

This is natural. They don't have yet that awareness which can remain aloof, unaffected. They don't have that distance, that coolness, that detachment. They are not living on sunlit peaks; they are groping in the same dark valley where you are groping. They are as blind as you are, but they have to pretend that they are not blind - and that is more dangerous.

If a person is blind and knows that he is blind and never pretends otherwise, there is every possibility he will walk more cautiously. If he pretends that he is not blind, if he projects that he is not blind, if he convinces others that he is not blind, slowly slowly he will be hypnotized by his own sayings, auto-hypnotized. He will start believing that he is not blind and he will start walking less cautiously. And that is more dangerous.

I have heard:

Once a blind man came to visit a Zen master. When he was leaving - it was night, a dark night, no moon, and so many clouds - the master said to the blind man, "Please take this lamp with you."

The blind man laughed loudly. He said, "Are you joking? What can a lamp do for me? I cannot see! It is all the same to me whether I have a lamp or not."

But the master said, "That I know, that you cannot see, but at least others will be able to see in the darkness that you are coming so they will not stumble into you."

The argument appeared right. The blind man took the lamp, went away. He had just walked only a hundred yards and a man just walked into him. He said, "What is the matter? Are you too blind? Can't you see this lamp?"

And the man said, "I am not blind. Excuse me, but your lamp is no longer lit; its flame has gone out."

The blind man went back to the Zen master and said, "Look, never give a lamp to another blind man again. If there was no lamp I would have walked more cautiously. I always walk cautiously. Because of the lamp I walked as if I were no longer blind - and the lamp went out. But how was I to know that the lamp went out? Because of this lamp, for the first time I have been hurt by a man. Otherwise, I have walked my whole life in every possible situation, but because I was so cautious, always making noise with my stick on the road so people can feel that some blind man is there, always groping with my stick in the darkness so I know where I am, whether I am facing a wall or a door... It was the first time that I walked without any fear."

And that's what is happening to your psychotherapists, Patrick. They think they know - they know nothing. They are more informed, but information is not knowing. They are well educated, but they have not a higher being than you. And help is possible only when somebody higher than you gives you a hand.

More psychotherapists go mad than any other profession and more psychotherapists commit suicide than any other profession. And it is natural. Living with mad people, one can understand - they become affected.

A few scenes will be helpful to you...

The first scene:

A man walks into a psychiatrist's office.

"You must help me!" he exclaims.

"What do you do for a living?" asks the shrink.

"I am an automobile mechanic."

"Get under the couch!"

The second scene:

First psychiatrist: "Hello!"

Second psychiatrist: "I wonder what you mean by that?"

The third scene:

The patient: "Of course I am upset, doctor. I have eleven children and I find out my husband does not love me."

The doctor: "You are very lucky. Imagine if he did!"

The fourth scene:

"Doctor, my wife accuses me of being a compulsive card-player."

"That's ridiculous. Now shut up and deal!"

And the fifth scene:

"Doctor, now that you have cured me of my homosexual tendencies and since this is our last session, may I kiss you goodbye?"

"Don't be ridiculous - men don't kiss. I shouldn't even be lying on the couch with you!"

You ask me, Patrick, "The West is overpopulated with psychotherapists and their patients, but why does no one seem to be helped?"

Help is possible only from higher sources. A person who is on the same ground as you cannot be of any help to you. Help is possible only when a fully conscious man tries to help the unconscious. It is as if you are asleep; do you think somebody else asleep can help you in any way? Only somebody who is awake can wake you. If you want to be awakened at a particular hour, you don't say to somebody else who is asleep, "Please wake me up at five o'clock in the morning. I have to go for that goddamned Dynamic Meditation!" You have to ask somebody who is awake. Only somebody awake can wake you up. In fact, the person who is asleep may help you to fall into a deeper sleep.

You may have watched it happen. If a few people are sitting just by your side yawning, you start feeling sleepy. They create a certain vibe; they create a certain atmosphere in which anybody vulnerable will start feeling it is better to go to sleep.

The same happens with awakened people: a buddha creates a totally different vibe. He shakes you up, he wakes you up. He goes on shocking you in many ways; he finds devices to shock you.

Kavita has asked, "Beloved Master, sometimes you use such words that I feel shocked - and I used to think that no word can ever shock me. Don't you have any couth?"

Kavita, I will go on using these words unless you wake up. You would like to listen to lullabies - but lullabies are not going to help. What appeals to you, what you like is not going to help. Something that shocks you... I am going to use rough words till you stop yawning.

Whenever I see somebody yawning somewhere, immediately I have to say something which shocks you - and I can see his yawning disappears. The moment I say "bullshit" - immediately I say it he stops yawning! His spine is erect, his kundalini is rising upwards!

Unless you all become awakened I am not going to leave you at ease; I will go on hitting you in every possible way.

Help is possible, Patrick, only from the awakened ones. You don't need psychotherapists, you need buddhas.

Secondly: you go to the psychotherapist, but you don't really want to be helped. You have great investment in your pathology.

A few scenes again.

First:

"Doctor, my wife thinks she is a refrigerator."

"Why don't you divorce her?"

"I would but I need the ice."

Second scene:

"Doctor, my girlfriend thinks she is a rabbit."

"Bring her in. I will see what can I do."

"Okay, but whatever happens, I hope you don't cure her."

Nobody wants really to be helped. People are only playing games. They go to the psychiatrist in the hope that he can't do anything, that he is not going really to change them. Nobody wants to be changed; everybody wants to remain the same as he is. You have become so accustomed to your misery, to your pathology... it is your life, it is your way of life.

If you want to be changed you will seek a master, not a psychotherapist.

Question 3

Beloved Master,

Is there any truth in the philosophy of physical immortality which says that it is only our belief in the inevitability of death which produces old age, disease and death? To what extent do our thoughts manifest results?

John Fisant, man is afraid of death; hence he goes on creating all kinds of stupid ideas. Physical immortality is sheer nonsense because anything that begins is bound to end. Physical immortality is possible only if you are not born through parents but manufactured in a factory. If you are made out of plastic, if you are not a real man, then there is a possibility. Plastic seems to be the only immortal thing.

So if you don't have skin but plastic instead, if you don't have real blood but synthetic blood which you can change any time - you can go to the petrol pump - and all that you have in your body - your bones, your joints, everything - is replaceable so whenever there is some problem, things can be replaced; you just have to change a few parts and parts will be available... You may have to go to the garage for a time; a few things may have to be unscrewed and screwed again. Then you can be physically immortal - but then you will not be a man, you will be a machine.

If you are born you are bound to die. Yes, it is possible your life can be prolonged - life has been prolonged. As medicine has evolved, as scientific technology has come to help human beings, as we have become more and more aware of the secrets of life, life has been prolonged. It may be prolonged from seventy years to seven hundred years, but then too you will not be physically immortal.

And I don't think many people would like to live seven hundred years; even seventy years is too much! People start thinking after a time, "Now it will be better to die." Death is a relief, a relaxation. Everything wants rest; death is going into rest. Your body also gets tired, matter also gets tired. It wants to go back to its original source: water into water and air into air and earth into earth and fire into fire. Everything wants to go back to its source to rest, to rejuvenate itself, and come back again. But man has always cherished these ideas - physical immortality. And not ordinary people, even people who are thought to be extraordinary, they also go on having such stupid ideas.

Sri Aurobindo and the mother of Sri Aurobindo both believed in physical immortality - and both died! When Sri Aurobindo died nobody believed it, because all the disciples who had gathered there had gathered for the simple reason that he knows the secret of physical immortality and by being his disciples THEY are going to become physically immortal. How can they believe that he had died?

For three days it was kept a secret that he had died. They waited: he may be in deep samadhi, he may come back. But after three days when they saw no sign of his coming back and his body started stinking, then they had to bury it. Then they hoped that the mother would be immortal. She lived a long life, but a long life does not mean physical immortality. When she died, again they were shocked. Their whole philosophy was confused by these two persons' deaths.

But one thing is good about death: now you cannot ask Sri Aurobindo, "Why have you been telling your whole life that physical immortality is possible, that you know the secret, that you have been able to bring God into the physical world?"

But fools gathered. Fools become attracted always to strange things. Just deep down the fear is there - nobody wants to die. Why? Why in the first place are you afraid of death? Death is not the enemy. To a man who has really lived, death is the friend. It is like sleep. Nobody wants to remain wakeful twenty-four hours a day.

There are a few people who think that sleep is also just an old habit and they try to reduce it. For centuries they have tried. Yes, it can be reduced, it can be reduced to two hours because two hours is the essential sleep; you also sleep only two hours in a deep way. Somewhere between two and four or three and five you sleep for two hours very deeply; those are the refreshing moments. All dreaming disappears, you are almost dead. Hence the ancients used to say sleep is a small death. But people have been trying to avoid sleep also.

The logic is: if you can avoid sleep then you can one day avoid death too. If sleep is a small death and you have conquered sleep, you will be able to conquer the big sleep, death, too. But why? What is wrong in dying? The people who are afraid of death are the people who have not really lived their lives. They are not afraid of death, they are simply afraid that they have not lived yet and death has come.

Rather than thinking of physical immortality, think of living your life totally. While you are here, live your life in a multidimensional richness. And then when death comes you will feel it as a crescendo, as a peak, as an ultimate - life reaching to the highest - and you will enjoy death as much as you have enjoyed life. You will be utterly satisfied with death because it will give you rest, relaxation; it will renew you. It will take away the old garments and it will give you new garments.

But people go on philosophizing. They have created things like Christian Science, mind over matter. They think that if you believe that you are not going to die then you will not die.

I heard about a man who was a Christian Scientist. One day he met a young man. He asked the young man, "Any news about your father?"

The young man said, "He is very ill."

The Christian Scientist said, "All nonsense! Tell him, 'Mind over matter.' He believes he is ill, that's all; it is his belief that is creating illness. Don't believe in illness and you will be healthy."

After a few days again the young man came across this Christian Scientist, and the Christian Scientist asked, "How are things now with your old man? How is he?"

And the young man said, "Now he believes that he is dead."

It is not a question of belief: illness has a reality, and death too has a reality. Yes, by believing also you can create a few illnesses - which are false, bogus - and by disbelieving in them you can destroy them. But you cannot destroy a real illness; the illness has to be false in the first place. If you BELIEVE in it and create it, then by disbelieving in it, it can be dropped.

But death is not your belief; otherwise why do animals die? They don't believe, they don't believe that they are going to die. Why do trees die? They don't believe that they are going to die, they don't have any belief system. Why do stars and suns and moons die? Why do earths die? They don't believe; death is a universal phenomenon, it happens everywhere. It is part of life; it is the other side of the coin.

I am not in any support of Christian Science. It is neither science nor Christian - it is simply nonsense.

Two middle-aged men were walking off the tennis court after only a few minutes of play. The older, somewhat corpulent fellow was puffing heavily.

"I guess I am in pretty poor shape," he confessed ruefully.

"How long have you been playing, Herbie?" asked the young man.

"About two weeks."

"Then let me give you a little practical advice. Try the Christian Science way - mind over matter."

"I already have," admitted the fat one. "When my opponent serves the ball to me, my Christian Science mind says, 'Now, Herbie, you just race right up to the net, slam a blistering drive to the far corner of the court and then jump back into position.' That's exactly what my Christian Science mind tells me...

"But my Jewish body says, 'Herbie, to make a schlemiel out of yourself you don't need!'"

In fact, body and mind are not two things: the body is the outer side of the mind, the mind is the inner side of the body. To use the phrase 'body AND mind' is not right; you are bodymind, not even a hyphen in between. We should use it as a single word 'bodymind', 'psychosomatic'. So of course, your inner affects your outer, your outer affects your inner - you are bodymind - but you are not finished with the bodymind. There is a witness also.

John Fisant, rather than bothering about physical immortality, get in touch with your witnessing soul which watches the body and mind both. It watches life, it watches death; hence it transcends life and death both. Only this witness is immortal because it is never born and it never dies.

The Zen people call it the original face. This witnessing is your original face. And meditation is nothing but an art to discover your original face. You are immortal, but not physically; just in your awareness, in your consciousness you ARE immortal, you are universal.

Question 4

Beloved Master,

Was buddha not a poet? Did he not have a logical mind? How are we as new men and women to go beyond what you have called his one-dimensionality, when it seems that your basic teaching, as well as that of buddha, is simply awareness?

Roderick, Gautama the Buddha was not a poet if you understand him directly, but if you understand him via me, he IS a poet. When I am speaking on Buddha it is very natural that my color is reflected in him.

I love poetry and I go on finding poetry even where it is not.

Buddha is like a desertland - but I love oases and I go on discovering them. If you had seen Buddha you would have seen immediately that he couldn't have anything to do with poetry. Poetry was fiction for him, as much fiction as it was for Plato. In his Republic, Plato says, poets will not be allowed, for the simple reason that they are liars, they live in lies. What is poetry? Beautiful lying! Buddha was also of the same mind; he would have agreed with Plato. He was very insistent on truth.

My approach is different. I don't see religion as a dry, dead thing. To me religion is a song, a dance. If I am going to create a republic, a utopia, then poets will be the only citizens there; they will be the only ones allowed - because beauty is far more valuable than truth itself. And the poet discovers beauty - not only discovers, he creates. The poet is creative.

It is because of me that in Buddha you will find poetry. Excuse me, I cannot do otherwise. That's why Buddhists are not happy with me; particularly Buddhist scholars are not happy at all. They say I go on finding in Buddha things which are not there. I am not much concerned whether they are there or not. I use Buddha only as an excuse, just as I use Jesus and I use Mahavira and I use Patanjali. I am not a commentator - I have my own vision. I use them as pegs to hang myself on.

When you are hearing Buddha through me, it is a totally different phenomenon. You are looking through MY eyes; hence Buddha will look like a poet - but he was not. He was a very logical man; hence I say he was one-dimensional. He was utterly logical, as logical as Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Wittgenstein says you should not speak about something which cannot be spoken of. That's exactly Buddha's standpoint; Buddha would have immediately agreed with Wittgenstein. That's exactly what he said twenty-five centuries before Wittgenstein. He never spoke about God because nothing can be spoken about God; hence don't say anything. Even to say that nothing can be spoken about God is to say something about God; better not to say even that.

The Upanishads say: Nothing can be said about God; he is indefinable. Buddha will not say even that because that is self-contradictory. To say that nothing can be said about God is self-contradictory because you have said something already. Even to say that nothing can be said is saying something. Buddha was utterly logical, absolutely logical. He kept absolutely silent.

Whenever he would enter a town, a city, a village, his disciples would go ahead of him to declare, "Don't ask these eleven questions to the Buddha, because he is not going to answer, so don't waste your time and his time." Those eleven questions consisted of everything that philosophy, theology, metaphysics is made of. If you don't ask those eleven questions, nothing is left to ask - nothing metaphysical. Then you can ask only actual problems. You can ask about your anger, your greed, your sex. You can ask about your misery, suffering, how to get rid of it, but you cannot ask whether God is. You cannot ask what will happen after death. You cannot ask what is truth, what is beauty, what is good; he forbade it. He was a very logical man and one-dimensional.

Life is three-dimensional. And up to now there have been people, great people, but they were all one-dimensional. For example, Buddha is logical, so is Socrates. There have been great poets - Kalidas, Rabindranath, Shelley, Shakespeare. They are one-dimensional: beauty is their god. And there have been moral people, absolutely moral people, virtuous people whose whole life was devoted to being just as virtuous as possible: Mahavira, Lao Tzu. But all are one-dimensional.

Humanity has come now to a crossroads. We have lived the one-dimensional man, we have exhausted it. We need now a more enriched human being, three-dimensional. I call them three C's, just like three R's.

The first C is consciousness, the second C is compassion, the third C is creativity.

Consciousness is being, compassion is feeling, creativity is action. My sannyasin has to be all the three simultaneously. I am giving you the greatest challenge ever given, the hardest task to be fulfilled. You have to be as meditative as a Buddha, as loving as a Krishna, as creative as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci. You have to be all together simultaneously. Only then your totality will be fulfilled; otherwise something will remain missing in you. And that which is missing in you will keep you lopsided, unfulfilled. You can attain to a very high peak if you are one-dimensional, but you will be only a peak. I would like you to become the whole range of the Himalayas, not just a peak but peaks upon peaks!

The one-dimensional man has failed. It has not been able to create a beautiful earth, it has not been able to create paradise on the earth. It has failed, utterly failed! It created a few beautiful people, but it could not transform the whole humanity, it could not raise the consciousness of the whole humanity. Only a few individuals here and there became enlightened. That is not going to help anymore. We need more enlightened people, and enlightened in a three-dimensional way.

That is my definition of the new man.

Roderick, you ask me, "Was Buddha not a poet?"

He was not! But the people who will become awakened here with me are going to be poets. When I say "poets" I don't mean that you have to write poetry - you have to be poetic. Your life has to be poetic, your approach has to be poetic. Logic is dry, poetry is alive. Logic cannot dance; it is impossible for logic to dance. To see logic dancing will be like Mahatma Gandhi dancing! It will look very ridiculous. Poetry can dance; poetry is a dance of your heart. Logic cannot love; it can talk about love, but it cannot love. Love seems to be illogical. Only poetry can love; only poetry can take the jump into the paradox of love. Logic is cold, very cold; it is good as far as mathematics is concerned, but it is not good as far as humanity is concerned. If humanity becomes too logical then humanity disappears; then there are only numbers, not human beings - replaceable numbers.

Poetry, love, feeling give you a depth, a warmth. You become more melted, you lose your ice-coldness. You become more human.

Buddha is superhuman, about that there is no doubt, but he loses the human dimension. He is unearthly. He has a beauty of being unearthly, but he does not have the beauty that Zorba the Greek has. Zorba is so earthly.

I would like you to be both together: Zorba the Buddha! One has to be meditative, but not against feeling. One has to be meditative but full of feeling, overflowing with love. And one has to be creative. If your love is only a feeling and it is not translated into action, it won't affect the larger humanity. You have to make it a reality, you have to materialize it.

These are your three dimensions: being, feeling, action. Action contains all creativity, all kinds of creativity: music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, science, technology. Feeling contains all that is aesthetic: love, beauty. And being contains meditation, awareness, consciousness.

You ask me, "It seems awareness is your basic teaching, as well as that of Buddha..."

I have no basic teaching, I cannot have a basic teaching. I am not a teacher at all. I don't teach you, I am simply a presence. You can learn, but I don't teach. You can imbibe my spirit, and my spirit and its implication will depend on you.

There are people to whom awareness will help as a basic teaching; they will learn awareness from me. And there are people to whom love will help; then they will learn love as a basic teaching from me. It will depend on you. I am multidimensional, hence I can absorb all kinds of people.

Buddha would not have accepted you all, remember, neither would Jesus or Mahavira; they would have chosen. A few people would have been chosen by Buddha and a few would have been chosen by Jesus and a few would have been chosen by somebody else. But I don't choose at all, I am absolutely choiceless. Whosoever comes to me is accepted, absolutely accepted, totally accepted, because I don't have a basic pattern. I have only hints - and hints for all, for all kinds of people.

It is not a teaching; teaching becomes rigid, becomes defined. It is only a presence. I am only a window; through me you can look into God. And once you have looked into God, then you can look into God on your own - I am not needed anymore.

Question 5

Beloved Master,

Why are all the awakened ones against desiring? What is wrong with desire?

Sujata, meditate over Murphy's maxim: Be careful about what you want, because you are liable to get it.

Question 6

Beloved Master,

Why do I always find it difficult to relate to my wife?

Richard, because you are British, and you know British wives!

Sent to Australia for an extended business trip, the Englishman was asked if he missed his wife, who was still back in London.

"Ah, I don't miss her all that much," he explained. "One day a week I hire a local woman to come in and nag."

After they had been discussing their problems for more than an hour, the prissy English lady said to the marriage counselor, "I think it is unfair to suggest that I don't enjoy sex. But what can you say about a man who wants it five or six times a year?"

And the last:

"I am taking Kung Fu lessons just in case some sex fiend tries to rape me on some dark night," the prune-faced Englishwoman told her long-suffering husband.

"Why bother?" remarked the husband. "It will never get that dark."

Question 7

Beloved Master,

All the buddhas say that one should learn to be silent, but in day-to-day life one has to speak. Then what should one do?

Shakti, first meditate over Murphy's maxim: Think twice before you speak and then don't say anything.

But if you have to say something, then meditate over this:

Walker, a newspaperman, was on vacation up in Maine. He came across a lonely hut and began interviewing the owner with the idea of doing a story on the locale.

"Whose house is this?" asked the reporter.

"Moggs'," replied the Mainer.

"What in the world is it built of?"

"Logs."

"Any animals natural to the locality?"

"Frogs."

"What sort of soil have you?"

"Bogs."

"How about the climate?"

"Fogs."

"What do you live on chiefly?"

"Hogs."

"Have you any friends?"

"Dogs."

Be telegraphic!

Question 8

Beloved Master,

Aha! I thought there was something familiar about him - murphy is a jew! Used to be called moshe kapoyer?

Tao, this is a remarkable discovery! I wonder how you managed to find it out. It is true. Moshe Kapoyer was the only Jew in a small town and since business was bad he decided to change his name. There were other reasons also to change his name: because he was a Jew and the only Jew, people were avoiding him and his business was suffering. And secondly because his name, Moshe Kapoyer, means Mr. Topsy-turvy or Mr. Upside-down, so he was not very happy with his name either.

He went to a judge and became Mr. Jones. One week later he was back before the same judge asking that his name be changed to Murphy.

"Why do you want your name changed? I just changed it last week."

"So that when people ask me what my name was before it was Murphy, I can say it was Jones."

Question 9

Beloved Master,

Can I also be a god?

Krishna, Deva, I have given you the name Krishna Deva. It means God Krishna. Yes, there is no trouble about it. In fact you ARE a god; even if you want to be somebody else you cannot. Everybody is trying to be somebody else, but nobody has ever succeeded in being somebody else. God is our nature. You can forget all about it, but you cannot change it.

Flaherty and Gluckstein were discussing the merits of their religion.

"Answer me this," said the Irishman, "could one of your boys be pope?"

"No," answered Gluckstein. "Could one of your boys be God?"

"Why, of course not!" replied Flaherty.

"Well," said Gluckstein, "one of our boys made it!"

If Jesus can make it, if Buddha can make it, why not you? In fact, they could make it because it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be only discovered. We have forgotten it; it is already there like an undercurrent. Our godliness is always there; wherever you go it goes with you. It is you. It is in the sinner, it is even in the saint!

Question 10

Beloved Master,

I loved your answer the other day to arup's question. The only trouble is that I have started coming home early and not drinking so much, while arup is getting disco parties together, going out and generally having a good time. Am i becoming meditative, while arup is becoming as loose as a goose?

Niranjan, now you know why I said to Arup that this is absolutely the sure way to raise the consciousness of humanity. She has started - she has begun with you. You are her first victim!

Question 11

Beloved Master,

What is misunderstanding?

Dhyanesh, three stories for you:

Anna: "Is it true what I hear about your husband cutting down on his smoking?"

Hannah: "Yes, now he is smoking only after meals - his meal, my meal, the children's meals, everybody's meal!"

The second:

The defendant was accused of sullying the honor of a pure young maiden, according to the lady's testimony, and he was having a difficult time explaining the circumstances.

"I am innocent, Your Honor," he declared. "All I did was offer her a scotch and soda, and she reclined!"

And the third and the last:

Young Moishe was getting married. On the day of his wedding, his father took him aside and said, "Look here, Moishe, if you want to have a successful marriage you've got to make three things clear right from the start: you've got to show your wife that you're the master of the house, that you're a man, and that you're independent."

Moishe thanked his father and went off to his wedding and honeymoon.

Kavita, if you are asleep, be awake!

After the couple had returned and father and son were alone together in a quiet moment, the father asked how his advice had worked.

"Ah, beautiful!" beamed Moishe. "I put it into practice on the first night of our honeymoon. When we were alone in the hotel room, I first ripped off her clothes to show her who's the master; then I ripped off my clothes to show her that I'm a man; and then I jerked off in front of her to show her that I'm independent!"

Enough for today.

John Nguyen

Dhammapada Vol. 10

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

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