The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1
Chapter #7
Chapter title: By watching....
27 June 1979 am in Buddha Hall
THE FOOL IS CARELESS.
BUT THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING.
IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE.
HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE.
HE MEDITATES.
AND IN THE STRENGTH OF HIS RESOLVE
HE DISCOVERS TRUE HAPPINESS.
HE OVERCOMES DESIRE --
AND FROM THE TOWER OF WISDOM
HE LOOKS DOWN WITH DISPASSION
UPON THE SORROWING CROWD.
FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP
HE LOOKS DOWN ON THOSE
WHO LIVE CLOSE TO THE GROUND.
MINDFUL AMONG THE MINDLESS,
AWAKE WHILE OTHERS DREAM,
SWIFT AS THE RACE HORSE
HE OUTSTRIPS THE FIELD.
BY WATCHING
INDRA BECAME KING OF THE GODS.
HOW WONDERFUL IT IS TO WATCH,
HOW FOOLISH TO SLEEP.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS THE WAYWARDNESS OF HIS THOUGHTS
BURNS THROUGH EVERY BOND
WITH THE FIRE OF HIS VIGILANCE.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS HIS OWN CONFUSION
CANNOT FALL.
HE HAS FOUND THE WAY TO PEACE.
Life is three-dimensional, and man is free to choose. The freedom that man has is both a
curse and a blessing. He can choose to rise, he can choose to fall. He can choose the way
of darkness or he can choose the way of light.
No other being has the freedom to choose. Their lives are predetermined. Because they
are predetermined they cannot go astray -- that's the beauty of it. But because it is
predetermined they are mechanical -- that's what is ugly about it.
Man is not yet a being in the true sense. He is only a becoming, he is on the way. He is
searching, seeking, groping; he is not yet crystallized. That's why he does not know
who he is -- because he is not yet; how can he know who he is? Before knowing, being
has to happen. And the being is possible onlyif you choose rightly, consciously, with
full awareness.
Jean-Paul Sartre is right when he says that man is a project, that man creates himself by
his own effort, that man is born only as an opportunity, as a possibility, not as an
actuality. He has to become actual -- and there is every possibility that he may miss the
target. Millions of people miss the target; it is very rarely that a person has found his
being. When a person finds his being, he is a buddha.
But the basic requirement is: choose your life with awareness. You have to choose
anyway -- whether you choose with awareness ornot makes no difference, choice has to
be made. You are not free in the sense thatif you don't want to choose you will be
allowed not to. You are not free not to choose -- even not choosing will be a choosing.
The millions who miss, they miss because they don't choose. They simply wait; they go
on hoping that something is going to happen. Nothing ever happens that way. You
have to create the context, the space, for something valuable to happen to you, for
something essential to happen to you.
There are two schools of philosophers in the world. One believes that man is born as an
essence: the essentialist school. It says that man is already born ready-made. This is the
idea of all the fatalists. The other school is that of those who call themselves
existentialists. They believe that man is born not as an essence but only as an existence.
And what is the difference? The essence is predetermined; you bring it with your life,
you bring it as a blueprint. You have only to unfold it; you are already made. There is
no choice for you to make yourself, to create yourself. That is a very uncreative
standpoint; that reduces man to a machine.
The other school believes that man is born only as an existence. The essence has to be
created; it is not already there. You have to create yourself, you have to find ways and
means to become, to be. You have to become a womb to your own being, you have to
give birth to yourself. The physical birth is not the true birth; you will have to be born
again.
Jesus says to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again, you will not enter into the
kingdom of my God." What does he mean? Is Nicodemus to die first physically? No.
Jesus means something totally different: he has to die as an ego, he has to die as a
personality. He has to die as a past. He has to die as mind. Only when you die as mind
are you born as a being.
In the East we have called the buddhas the twice-born -- dwij. Other people are only
once-born; a buddha is twice-born. The first gift of life is through the parents; the
second gift you have to give to yourself.
You can choose between these three dimensions. If you choose one dimension you will
attain a certain integrity, but because it is one-dimensional it will not be total and it will
not be whole. The first dimension is the dimension of science, of the objective world, of
objects, things, the other. The second dimension is of aesthetics: the world of music,
poetry, painting, sculpture, the world of imagination. And the third dimension is that of
religion -- subjective, inner.
Science and religion are polar opposites: scienceis extrovert, religion is introvert. And
between the two is the world of aesthetics. Itis the bridge; it is both and neither. The
world of aesthetics, the world of the artist, is in a way objective -- only in a way. He
paints, and then a painting is born as an object. It is also subjective, because before he
can paint he has to create the painting in his inwardness, in his subjectivity. Before a
poet can sing his song, he sings it in his innermost recesses of being. It is sung there
first, only then does it move into the outer world.
It is scientific in the sense that art creates objects, and it is religious in the sense that
whatsoever art creates is first envisioned inone's own inner being. It is the bridge
between science and religion. Religion is absolute inwardness. It is moving into your
innermost core, it is subjectivity.
These are the three dimensions.
If you become a scientist and lose contact with aesthetics and religion, you will be a
one-dimensional man. You will be only one third; you will not be whole. You may
attain to a certain integrity that you will see in a man like Albert Einstein -- a certain
individuality, a beauty, a truth, but only partial.
You can choose to be an artist: you can bea Picasso, a Van Gogh, a Beethoven, a
Rabindranath, but then too...you will be a little better because aesthetics is the world of
in-between, the world of twilight. You will have something of religion in you. Each poet
has something of religion in him -- he may be aware of it, he may not be aware of it, but
no poet can be without some flavor of religion. It is impossible. Even the most atheistic
artist is bound to have some kind of religiousness. Without it he will not be a genius.
Without it he will remain only a technician, a craftsman, but not an artist.
Even a man like Jean-Paul Sartre -- who is determinedly an atheist, who will never
concede that he is religious -- even he is in some way religious. He has created great
novels, and those novels and the characters of those novels have great interiority. That
interiority has been lived by this man, otherwise he could not write about it. That
interiority is experienced.
And the man that moves into aesthetics is bound to have some scientific qualities
around him too. He will be more logical thanthe religious person, more object-oriented
than the religious person -- less object-oriented than the scientist ofcourse, less logical
than the scientist, but more logical than the religious person. He will be in a more
balanced state.
It is better to move in the world of art because somehow it has something of all the three
dimensions -- but only something, still it is not total.
The religious man is again one-dimensional, just as the scientist is. Albert Einstein is
one-dimensional, so is Gautama the Buddha. And because the East has become onedimensionally religious it has suffered much. And now the West is suffering much, and
the cause is one-dimensionality. The West isbankrupt as far as the inner world is
concerned and the East is bankrupt as far as the outer world is concerned.
The East is not accidentally poor and starving. It has chosen to be that way. It has
denied science; it has even denied the world of objective reality. It says the world is
illusory. If the world is illusory, how can you create a science? The very first
requirement is missing. You cannot create a science out of maya, illusion. How can you
create a science out of something which is not, which does not even exist? If you deny
the world, you have denied the dimension of science altogether.
That is the reason why the East is poor and starving. And unless the Eastern genius
understands this, we can go on importing science from the West but it will not get roots
into our beings. If our approachremains the same as it has been for five thousand years,
science will only be something foreign. That's how it is.
In India you can find a scientist, world famous in his field of work, and still living a
very unscientific life. He may be consultingthe palmist and the astrologer. He may be
going to take a bath in the Ganges, so his sins of many many lives are washed away. He
may still be believing in a thousand and one things which are simply superstitious --
and still he is a scientist! Science remains something peripheral; his soul still remains
rooted in the ancient past of the East, which is unscientific.
The East has suffered much because of one-dimensionality. And now the West is
suffering again for the same reason: one-dimensionality. The West has chosen to be
scientific at the cost of being religious. Now God is denied, the soul is denied. Man is
reduced first to an animal and now to a machine. Man loses all glory, all grandeur. Man
loses all hope, all future. The moment man loses his interiority he loses depth, he
becomes superficial. The Western man is rich asfar as things are concerned, but is very
poor as far as soul is concerned -- inwardly poor, outwardly rich.
This is the state of affairs right now.
And between these two a few artists exist who have something of both the dimensions.
But even the artist is not satisfied, because heis something of both but he is neither a
scientist nor a religious person -- just having a few glimpses of both the worlds. He
remains in a kind of limbo; he never settles, he remains a vagabond. He moves like a
shuttle between these two worlds. He does not contribute much: because he is not a
scientist he cannot contribute scientifically and he is not religious so he cannot
contribute religiously. At the most his art remains decorative; at the most it can make
life a little more beautiful, a little more comfortable, convenient. But that is not much.
I propose the fourth way. The true man will be all three simultaneously: he will be a
scientist, an artist, and religious. And I call the fourth man the spiritual man. That's
where I differ from Albert Einstein and Gautam Buddha and Picasso -- from them all.
You must remember my differences.
Buddha is one-dimensional -- tremendously beautiful! As far as his own inner world is
concerned he is the greatest master, the master of the inner, unsurpassable, but he
remains one-dimensional. He attains to immense peace, silence, bliss, but does not
contribute to the world in any objective way.
Albert Einstein contributes to the world in a very objective way, but cannot contribute
anything of the inner -- hence his contributionbecomes a curse. He suffered his whole
life because he was the man who proposed that atom bombs should be made. He had
written a letter to the American president: "Now it is time -- unless atom bombs are
made the war can go on for years and years and will be verydestructive. Just making
the atom bombs, the very threat of it, will stop the war."
But once the power -- any kind of power -- reaches into the hands of the politicians, you
cannot control them, you cannot prevent them from using it. The politician is the most
stupid kind of person -- monkeyish, power-mad.
Once the atom bomb was in the hands of the American politicians it had to be dropped
somewhere. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, were bound to happen. And when they happened it
was a wound, a great wound, for Albert Einstein. He repented his whole life.
In the last moments, when somebody asked him, "Would you like to become a scientist
again if God gives you an opportunity to be born in the world again?"
He said, "No, certainly no, absolutely no! I would like rather to be a plumber than to be
a physicist, a scientist. Enough is enough! I have not been a blessing to the world, I have
been a curse."
He enriched the outer world certainly, but without inner growth, the outer growth
creates a lopsidedness. You possess many things, but you don't possess yourself. You
have all that can make you happy but you are not happy, because happiness cannot be
derived from your possessions. Happiness is aninner welling-up; it is an awakening of
your own energies. It is an awakening of your soul.
Buddha contributed tremendously to the subjective dimension. He is a master par
excellence. Whatsoever he says is absolutely true, but it is one-dimensional -- never
forget it.
My effort here is to create the fourth way: a man who joins all these three dimensions of
life into himself, who becomes a trinity, a trimurti, who has all these three faces of God
to him. Who has as much of a logical mind asis needed by science and who is also as
poetic as is needed by aesthetics, and who is also as meditative and watchful as is
proposed by the buddhas.
The fourth man is the hope of the world. The fourth way is the only possibility if man is
to survive. If man is still to exist on this earth, we have to find a great synthesis between
these three dimensions. And if all these three dimensions are meeting, merging, melting
into one, of course thatsynthesis is the fourth.
I am speaking on Buddha, on Mahavira, on Jesus, on Patanjali, on Lao Tzu, and many
more. But always remember that all these people are one-dimensional. I want to enrich
your life through their teachings, but I don't end with them. I would like you to go a
little deeper into other dimensions too.
Hence the new commune is going to be a meeting place of East and West, of the
subjective and the objective. In the new commune we are going to have scientists,
artists, poets, painters, singers, musicians,meditators, yogis, mystics -- all kinds of
people pouring their energies into one great river. And that's how I would like the
whole world to be.
Buddha is to be incorporated in it, that's why I am speaking on him. And, of course, the
third dimension, the religious, is one of the most important, the most important
dimension. Without it everything is soulless.
Today's sutras:
THE FOOL IS CARELESS.
BUT THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING.
IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE.
Buddha calls a man foolish, not because he is ignorant, not because he is not
knowledgeable. According to Buddha, a man is a fool if he is unconscious, if he behaves
unconsciously, if he lives in sleep, if he is a somnambulist. If he goes on behaving
without any mindfulness, then he is a fool. The word has a special meaning, remember:
unconsciousness, unawareness, unmindfulness -- that's Buddha's definition of the fool.
He moves in life like driftwood, at the mercy of the winds. He does not know who he is,
he does not know from where he comes, he does not know to where he is going. He is
accidental; he simply lives by accident. He has no conscious, deliberate search for being,
for truth, for reality. He follows the crowd;he remains a part of the mob psychology.
He is not an individual. He has no authentic intelligence of his own; he simply follows
others. The parents have said something, the teachers, the priests, the politicians, and he
goes on following all kinds of advice. He has no idea why he is here, for what, and what
he is doing, and why. He never raises such questions.
These questions are very uncomfortable to him.They create anxiety in him; he avoids
these questions. He simply believes in the answers that are handed over to him; he
never doubts those answers. Not that he has attained to trust -- no, he has no trust either
-- but he simply represses his doubt because doubt creates discomfort.
He remains a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. He never inquires and he never risks
anything for his inquiry. He never goes into exploration. He is not an adventurer, his
life is not an adventure. He is stuck, he is dormant, stagnant. You cannot separate him
from his crowd; he is like a sheep. Buddha calls him the fool.
The fool can be very knowledgeable -- in factalmost always he is. He can be a pundit, a
scholar, a great professor -- that's how he hides his foolishness. Bygathering knowledge
on the circumference he hides the ignorance that exists at the center.
There are two types of people: one, very knowledgeable people -- knowledgeable, but
they know nothing. They have a kind of ignorant knowledge. And there is the other
category: the people who are not knowledgeable -- but they know. They have a kind of
knowing ignorance.
When Buddha uses the word 'fool', he is not talking about the second category --
because Buddha himself is not very knowledgeable, neither is Jesus, nor is Mohammed.
They are innocent people, simple people, but their simplicity is such, their innocence is
such, their childlike quality is such, that they have been able to penetrate into the
innermost core of their beings. They have beenable to know their truth; they have been
able to reach the very core of their existence. They know, but they are not
knowledgeable. Their knowing is not through scriptures. Their knowing has happened
through watchfulness. Remember the source: real knowing comes through meditation,
awareness, consciousness, mindfulness, watchfulness, witnessing. And unreal
knowledge comes through scriptures. You can learn the unreal knowledge very easily
and you can brag about it, but you will remain a fool -- a learned fool, but a fool all the
same.
If you really want to know you will have todrop all your knowledge, you will have to
unlearn it. You will have to become ignorant again, like a small child, with wondering
eyes, with alertness. You will be able to know not only your own being but also the
being that exists in the world...the being that exists in the trees and the birds and the
animals and the rocks and the stars. If you are able to know yourself, you will be able to
know all that is.
God is another name for all that is.
THE FOOL IS CARELESS. By "carelessness" Buddha means he behaves unconsciously.
He does not know what he is doing. He simply goes on doing things because he cannot
remain unoccupied; he wants constant occupation. He cannot remain alone; he wants
constant company. He cannot remain unengaged even for a single moment, because
whenever he is unengaged, unoccupied, alone, he starts facing himself -- and he is very
afraid of that.
He does not want to go into the abyss of his own being. All that he knows is
meaningless there. All that he knows, he cannot carry it there. All his knowledge, all his
efficiency, all his scriptures, all his theories, are utterly futile in the inner world. He
clings to the outer because there he is somebody. In the inner world he is a nobody.
Just watch people! In fact it is the greatest entertainment: stand by the side of the road
and just watch people. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? And then watch
yourself -- what are you doing? and why?
A man picks up a young woman in a hotel lobby and goes to her apartment with her.
They both undress, but then she says, "Firstchase me! I want to be inflamed, excited!"
He chases her for two hours, but cannot catch her and leaves in disgust.
The next night he sees her pick up another victim in the same lobby and he sneaks up
on the fire-escape to watch the new sucker's discomfiture through the window. As he
watches the bare legs flashing by under the partly-drawn window shade, he says to
himself out loud, "Ah, brother, get a load of that!"
"You said it!" breathes a man's voice in his ear, "but you should have seen the
sonofabitch that was here last night!"
Just watch people -- what are they doing? Chasing shadows, chasing things which they
don't need, trying to make great effort to attain something which once attained they will
not know what to do with. That's how people are running after money, after political
power. Once you have it you don't know what to do with it.
A woman was saying to another woman, "Are you not worried about your husband?
He continuously goes on chasing women, any woman -- and you know it!"
And the other woman laughed. She said, "Thereis nothing to worry about: his chasing
women is like dogs chasing cars."
The other woman said, "I don't understand. What do you mean, dogs chasing cars?"
She said, "Yes, dogs chasing cars -- once theyhave caught one they don't know what to
do with the car, and that's how my husband is. He will chase a woman, he will catch
hold of her. Then he does not know what to do with her. I know him! That's why I am
not worried."
This is the situation. Somebody wants to be very famous, and he will waste his whole
life in becoming famous and then he will not know what to do with it. In fact, once you
become very famous you want to become unfamous again, because it is such a weight.
You cannot relax. You cannot go anywhere without being watched by the crowds. You
have no privacy anymore, you cannot live any personal life. Everybody is looking,
watching, investigating your life. You cannot laugh, you cannot talk with
ease...everything becomes difficult.
Just a few days ago Jimmy Carter said thatif Kennedy stands against him in the
presidential election he will "whip his ass." Now he is being condemned all over the
world for using that word. You cannot even use an innocent word. Now he must be
feeling very repentant for what he has done. He has committed a crime.
You don't have a private life when you are famous -- when you are a president of a
country, a Nobel Prize winner, you are a publicthing. You are always on show, in the
show-window; you always have to keep dressed up. You cannot make a simple gesture
in freedom.
People have money...and then they don't know what to do with it.
The accidental man is foolish. The wise man moves deliberately, takes each step
consciously. His life is a constant inquiry for truth. He does not go astray. He remains
alert in every one of his acts -- not because of others. He remains alert because it is only
by being alert that he will become integrated, that he will become crystallized.
THE FOOL IS CARELESS. The wise man cares -- he cares about himself, he cares about
his life, and he cares about others too. He cares about everything, because he values his
life. He knows that it is very precious, that it is a God-given opportunity to grow, that is
has not to be lost in a kind of drunkenness.
A reformed prostitute has joined the Salvation Army and is giving testimony on a street
corner. "I used to lie in the arms of men," she confesses, "white men, black men,
Chinamen. But now I lie inthe arms of Jesus."
"That's right, sister," cries a drunk in the back row, "fuck 'em all!"
Just watch people and watch yourself, and you will be surprised how unconscious, how
drunk we are. How careless! We don't listen towhat is said, we don't see what we see.
Our eyes are clouded, our minds confused, our beings have no clarity. We are not
perceptive, we are not sensitive.
We go on uttering things which we don't mean, and then we suffer for them. We go on
saying things which we never wanted to say.We go on doing things -- even while we
are doing them we know that we don't want to do these things, still we go on doing
them. Some unconscious force goes on driving us. Sometimes we even decide not to do
a certain thing, not to say a certain thing -- still we do it, even against our own
decisions. We don't have any resolution, we don't have any resolve, we don't have any
will.
She knew that these were to be her last few hours on this earth, so she called her
husband to her side and in a halting voice told him her last request.
"I know," she said, "that you and mother have never gotten along. But would you as a
special favor to me, ride to the cemetery in the same car with her?"
"Alright," replied the unhappy husband."But it will spoil my whole day."
This is not really a joke -- this happens every day. You say things which you should
have known are not right to say. But you know only later on, when the harm is done.
Unconscious utterings.
Now, this man may have been crying and saying to his wife, "Without you it will be
impossible to live. I will always remain empty without you, a part of my soul will die
with you..." and things like that. But now,in this moment, he has forgotten all.
THE FOOL IS CARELESS. BUT THE MASTERGUARDS HIS WATCHING. IT IS HIS
MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE. The fool remains a slave -- a slave of the instincts, a
slave of unconscious desires, a slave of whims,a slave of the society in which he is born,
a slave of the fashions -- a slave of anything that happens around him. He simply picks
it up. If the neighbor is buying a new car, hehas to buy a new car too. He does not need
it. If the neighbor has purchased a house in the hills, he has to purchase one. It may be
difficult and hard to manage for the money. He may have to borrow, it may take years
for him to pay, but he has to purchase it. His ego is hurt. People are living imitatively,
very carelessly.
Among the Eskimos there is a tradition, a very beautiful tradition, that each year, the
first day of the year, every family looks in the house for what is unnecessary and what
is necessary -- they sort things out. And onlywhat is absolutely necessary is saved; all
that is unnecessary is given as gifts to people.
And you will be surprised to know that the Eskimo's home is the cleanest home in the
world, has a purity about it -- no garbage, nothing accumulates. Spacious -- small but
spacious; only that much which is necessary, absolutely necessary....
Just think of all the things that you go on accumulating: arethey really necessary? do
you really need them? Or is it just because people are accumulating that you also
become accumulative?
The watchful man becomes the master of his life. He lives it according to his light, not
according to others' lives. He lives it according to his own needs. And remember, your
needs are not many. If you are wise, watchful, you will have a very very contented life,
and very simple, and with small things.
But if you are imitative, then your life will become very complex, unnecessarily
complex. And I am not giving you particular directions about what you should have
and what you should not have. I am simplysaying go on watching...whatsoever is
necessary for you, have it; and whatsoever is not necessary for you, forget about it. This
is the way of a sannyasin.
I am not for renouncing things, but I am certainly for renouncing unnecessary garbage.
And it is not only that you collect unnecessary things -- you desire unnecessary things,
and you never meditate whether those thingsare really necessary. Are they going to
help in any way? Are they going to make you more happy, more blissful?
Before you start desiring a thing, think it over thrice...and you will be surprised. Out of
a hundred of your desires, ninety-nine are absolutely useless. They simply keep you
occupied; that is their only function. They keep you away from yourself; that is their
only utility. They don't allow you time, space to be with yourself. They are dangerous.
It is because of these unnecessary things that you will waste your life, and you will die a
bankrupt.
...THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING.
I have heard:
The husband and wife are being driven crazy by the continued presence of the wife's
brother, who came to spend the weekend but isstill there six months later. They decide
that the wife will cook a chicken and the husband will pretend it is overdone. They will
put the matter to the brother-in-law. If he says the chicken is good, the husband will
throw him out; if he says the chicken is bad the wife will throw him out. It can't fail!
The scene is set up as planned, with much pretended shouting and recrimination, while
the brother-in-law silently stows away his food. Suddenly the husband and wife stop
shouting and turn to him.
"Harry," says the husband, "what do you think?"
"Me?" says Harry, biting into the chicken leg. "I think I am staying another three
months."
Must have been a very watchful man. Must have been very careful, alert. He is not
caught in the trap. The trap was certainly very subtle. Unless he was very alert, it was
bound to trap him. He does not give any opinion. He simply states a fact, that "I am
going to stay three more months."
Live watchfully and you will not be trapped.Live unconsciously and on each step you
are trapped; your life becomes more and more imprisoned. And nobody is responsible
except you.
BUT THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING. IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS
TREASURE. Whatsoever he does, he does with total awareness. Whatsoever you do,
you do almost mechanically. You will have to de-automatize yourself. That's what
meditation is all about: the process of de-automatization.
You have become automatic. You go on driving the car, smoking the cigarette, talking
to the friend, and thinking a thousand and one thoughts inside. Most accidents happen
because of this. More men are dying every year in car, train, airplane and similar
accidents than die in war. Adolf Hitler may not have killed as many people as are being
killed every year by the mechanical behavior of man around the earth.
But what can you do? That's your whole way of life, that's how you live. You eat -- you
simply go on stuffing, you don't pay any attention to what you are eating. You make
love to your wife or your husband -- you don't even see the face of the woman. You
have become very insensitive; you just go on moving through empty gestures, with no
significance. They can't have any significance unless you are fully alert.
It is the light of awareness that makes things precious, extraordinary. Then small things
are no longer small. When a man with alertness, sensitivity, love, touches an ordinary
pebble on the seashore, that pebble becomes a kohinoor. And if you touch a kohinoor in
your unconscious state, it is just an ordinary pebble -- not even that. Your life will have
as much depth and as much meaning as you have awareness.
Now people are asking all over the world, "What is the meaning of life?" Of course the
meaning is lost, because you have lost the way to find the meaning -- and the way is
awareness. IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE.
HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE.
What does Buddha mean by "desire"? Desiremeans your whole mind. Desire means not
to be herenow. Desire means moving somewhere in the future which is not yet. Desire
means a thousand and one ways of escaping from the present. Desire is equivalent to
mind. In Buddha's terminology, desire is mind.
And desire is time too. When I say desire is time too, I don't mean the clock time, I mean
the psychological time. How do you create future in your mind? -- by desiring. You
want to do something tomorrow, you have created the tomorrow; otherwise the
tomorrow is nowhere yet, it has not come. But you want to do something tomorrow,
and because you want to do something tomorrow you have created a psychological
tomorrow.
And people are creating years ahead, lives ahead. They are even thinking about what to
do after life, after death. They are even preparing for that! And these people are thought
to be religious; they are not religious at all. Desire takes you away from the now-here,
and now-here is the only reality.
Hence Buddha says: HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE. He never moves into the
future, he lives in the present. To live in the future is to live a false life, a pseudo life.
A fashionable actress refuses a young man who begs for her favors, on the grounds that
he is Jewish, and laughs at his offer of one hundred thousand francs. She tells him that
to show him how little she cares for his money hecan make love to her for as long as it
takes the hundred thousand francs to burn.
He comes back the next day with the money, lays ten bills out in a line with the ends
just overlapping, lights the first one and leaps into bed with her. As the last bill burns
away, she pushes him off her.
"Well, I have had you," he says triumphantly.
"Yes," she smiles, "and your hundred thousand francs are burnt to ashes."
"What does it matter?" he says, lighting a cigarette. "They were counterfeit."
The man who lives in the future, lives a counterfeit life. He does not really live, he only
pretends to live. He hopes to live, he desires to live, but he never lives. And the
tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And whatsoever comes is always now and
here, and he does not know how to live now-here; he knows only how to escape from
now-here. The way to escape is called "desire," tanha -- that is Buddha's word for what
is an escape from the present, from the real into the unreal.
The man who desires is an escapist.
Now, this is very strange, that meditators are thought to be escapists. That is utter
nonsense. Only the meditator is not an escapist -- everybody else is. Meditation means
getting out of desire, gettingout of thoughts, getting out of mind. Meditation means
relaxing in the moment, in the present. Meditation is the only thing in the world which
is not escapist, although it is thought tobe the most escapist thing. People who
condemn meditation always condemn it with the argument that it is escape, escaping
from life. They are simply talking nonsense; they don't understand what they are
saying.
Meditation is not escaping from life: it is escaping into life. Mind is escaping from life,
desire is escaping from life.
HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE....
HE MEDITATES.
He brings himself again and again to the present. Again and again the mind starts
functioning and he brings it back to the present. Slowly slowly, it starts happening: the
window opens and for the first time you see the sky as it is. And for the first time you
feel the wind and the rain and the sun, in their immediacy, because you become
meditative. You start touching life. Then life isno longer a word but a tangible reality;
then love is no longer a word but an overflowing energy. Then blessing is no longer just
a desire, a hope -- you feel it, you have it, you are it.
HE MEDITATES.... Buddha is not for prayer, heis for meditation, because prayer is
again somehow a kind of desiring. When you pray, you desire. Prayer is always for the
future; prayer means you are asking for something. You may not be asking for money,
you may be asking for God himself, but it is the same. Ask, and you have moved away.
Meditation is a state of nonasking, nonquestioning, nonthinking. Prayer is still part of
thinking -- a beautiful thinking, but thinking is thinking; a beautifulprison, but a prison
is still a prison.
And the mind who prays is greedy, and the mind who prays goes through no
transformation. It remains the same mind. And the prayer is born out of the same mind;
it cannot have a very different quality. How can you pray for something which is
different from you? -- it will be your prayer. Itwill reflect your mind, it will come out of
your mind, it will sprout out of your mind. How can it take you beyond the mind?
Prayer cannot take you beyond the mind. Only meditation can take you beyond the
mind.
Meditation is a state of no-mind. Prayer is a state of religious mind, but mind is there.
And when it has the beautifulgarment of religiousness around it, it becomes even more
dangerous.
A little boy on a picnic strays away from his family, and suddenly realizes that he is lost
and night is falling. Becoming frightened after wandering aimlessly for some time, and
shouting for his parents but receiving noanswer, he kneels down and prays with
uplifted hands. "Dear Lord," he says, "please help me to find my daddy and mommy,
and I won't hit my little sister anymore, honest I won't!"
As he kneels praying, a bird flies over and drops a load of shit into his outstretched
palm. The little boy examines it and turns his eyes back to heaven.
"Oh please, Lord," he begs, "don't hand methat shit. I really and truly am lost!"
Your prayer is your prayer; it is part of you, an extension of you. It cannot help you to
surpass yourself. Meditation is the only way to surpass oneself, the only way to
transcend oneself.
And what is meditation? It does not meanmeditating upon something; the English
word is misleading. In English there is no word adequate enough to translate Buddha's
word sammasati. It has been translated as meditation, as right mindfulness, as
awareness, as consciousness, alertness, watchfulness, witnessing -- but there is not
really a single word which has the quality of sammasati.
Sammasati means: consciousness is, but without any content. There is no thought, no
desire, nothing is stirred in you. You are not contemplating about God or about great
things...nature and its beauty, the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, and their immensely
significant statements. You are not contemplating! You are not concentrating on any
special object either. You are not chanting a mantra, because those areall things of the
mind, those are all contents of the mind. You are not doing anything! The mind is
utterly empty, and you are simply there in that emptiness. A kind of presence, a pure
presence, with nowhere to go -- utterly relaxed into oneself, at rest, at home. That is the
meaning of Buddha's meditation.
And nobody else has ever reached such a beautiful expression about meditation as
Buddha. Many people have attained, but nobodyhas been so expressive, so capable of
conveying the message, as the Buddha. HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE. HE
MEDITATES.
AND IN THE STRENGTH OF HIS RESOLVE
HE DISCOVERS TRUE HAPPINESS.
Bliss is true happiness. What you call happiness is just misery in disguise. What you call
happiness is nothing but entertainment, pleasure. It is momentary -- it cannot be true.
Truth has to have one quality, and the quality is of eternity. If something is true it is
eternal; if it is untrue it is momentary.
True happiness is found only when the mind completely ceases functioning. It does not
come from the outside. It wells up within your own being, it starts overflowing you.
You become luminous. You become a fountain of bliss.
HE OVERCOMES DESIRE --
AND FROM THE TOWER OF WISDOM
HE LOOKS DOWN WITH DISPASSION
UPON THE SORROWING CROWD.
FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP
HE LOOKS DOWN ON THOSE
WHO LIVE CLOSE TO THE GROUND.
As someone becomes a buddha -- desire overcome, mind overcome, time overcome, the
ego transcended -- he is no longer part of this earth. He still lives on the earth, but his
soul soars so high that from the sunlit topsof his being he can see the sorrowing crowd
in the dark valleys of life, stumbling, drunken, fighting, ambitious, greedy, angry,
violent...a sheer wastage of great opportunities. Great compassion arises in his being.
His whole passion passes through dispassion and becomes compassion.
Passion means using the other as a means -- and that is the fundamental of immorality.
To use somebody as a means is the most immoral act in the world, because each person
is an end unto himself. To use him as a means is to exploit. And that's what we call love:
the husband using the wife, the wife using the husband; the children using their
parents, and the parents later on using their children -- that'swhat we call love!
It is not love. It is a strategy of the mind; itis poison coated with sugar. This love is
really disgusting. That's why you see the whole world in such disgust. This love is
sickening. It has sickened the whole soul of humanity because it is not love at all. It is
passion, lust, using the other as a means.
As you start meditating you move to the second stage, dispassion -- love disappears.
You come into a neutral phase; just as you change gears in the car, and each time you
change gear, the gear first has to move through neutral, so passion moves through a
neutral phase -- it becomes dispassion. Love disappears. For the time being, in the
interval, the man who is moving towards buddhahood becomes utterly cold,
dispassionate.
And then the third stage is reached. Whenhe has attained buddhahood, he has found
bliss and the inexhaustible fountains of bliss -- aes dhammo sanantano -- when he has
found the principle of eternity, when he has found the inexhaustible treasure of life, he
starts overflowing. Love comes back -- in fact, love comes for the first time. It is
compassion. Now he showers his compassion on each and everybody; whosoever
comes to him, he shares his bliss with him,he shares his way, he shares his insight.
MINDFUL AMONG THE MINDLESS,
AWAKE WHILE OTHERS DREAM,
SWIFT AS THE RACE HORSE
HE OUTSTRIPS THE FIELD.
And when you have become established in meditation and compassion you no longer
fall a victim of sleep and dream. You remainawake -- even while asleep. And then your
life becomes a straight arrow, moves with tremendous speed, with the speed of light,
towards the goal. You become, for the first time, being.
SWIFT AS THE RACE HORSE HE OUTSTRIPS THE FIELD. MINDFUL AMONG THE
MINDLESS, AWAKE WHILE OTHERS DREAM.That is the difference between
Buddha and others. Others are only dreaming, not really living; hoping to live some
day, preparing to live, but not living. And that day never comes -- before that day
comes death.
A buddha is awake. Even while he is asleep he does not dream. When desires
disappear, dreams disappear too. Dreams are desires translated into the language of
sleep. A buddha sleeps with absolute alertness.The light goes on burning within him.
The body needs rest, hence the body sleeps,but he needs no rest -- the energy is
inexhaustible. There, at the center of his being, a small lightgoes on burning. The whole
circumference is fast asleep, but that light is alert, awake.
We are asleep even while we are awake: he is awake even while he is asleep.
BY WATCHING
INDRA BECAME KING OF THE GODS.
HOW WONDERFUL IT IS TO WATCH,
HOW FOOLISH TO SLEEP.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS THE WAYWARDNESS OF HIS THOUGHTS
BURNS THROUGH EVERY BOND
WITH THE FIRE OF HIS VIGILANCE.
'Bhikkhu' is Buddha's word for sannyasin. 'Sannyasin' is my word for the bhikkhu. I
have not chosen Buddha's word -- for a certain reason. Bhikkhu literally means beggar.
Buddha renounced his kingdom and became a beggar. Of course, even while he is a
beggar, he walks like an emperor; of course, he is far more graceful than he ever was
before, and far richer that he ever was before. But because he renounced the kingdom,
people started calling him a bhikkhu, a beggar. And, slowly slowly, the name was
adopted by his followers too.
I don't want you to be beggars, I want you to be masters. Hence I have chosen the word
'sannyasin'. A sannyasin means one who knows how to live rightly. It is not
renunciation; on the contrary, it isrejoicing, it is celebration.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MINDAND FEARS THE WAYWARDNESS OF
HIS THOUGHTS BURNS THROUGH EVERY BOND WITH THE FIRE OF HIS
VIGILANCE.
Yes, meditation is fire -- it burns your thoughts, your desires, your memories; it burns
the past and the future. It burns your mind and the ego. It takes away all that you think
that you are. It is a death and a rebirth, a crucifixion and a resurrection. You are born
anew. You lose your own identity totally, and you attain to a new vision of life.
That vision of life is what is meant by god, dhamma, tao, logos. You can choose your
name for it because it has no name of its own. In fact it is not expressible at all; it can
only be indicated, hinted at.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS HIS OWN CONFUSION
CANNOT FALL.
HE HAS FOUND THE WAY TO PEACE.
Mind is confusion. Thoughts and thoughts -- thousands of thoughts clamoring,
clashing, fighting with each other, fighting for your attention. Thousands of thoughts
pulling you into thousands of directions. It isa miracle how you go on keeping yourself
together. Somehow you manage this togetherness -- it is only somehow, it is only a
facade. Deep behind it there is a clamoring crowd, a civil war, a continuous civil war.
Thoughts fighting with each other, thoughtswanting you to fulfill them. It is a great
confusion, what you call your mind.
But if you are aware that the mind is confusion, and you don't get identified with the
mind, you will never fall. You will become fallproof! The mind will become impotent.
And because you will be watching continuously, your energies will slowly be
withdrawn, away from the mind; it will not be nourished any more.
And once the mind dies, you are born as a no-mind. That birth is enlightenment. That
birth brings you for the first time to the landof peace, the lotus paradise. It brings you
to the world of bliss, benediction. Otherwise you remain in hell. Right now you are in
hell. But if you resolve, if you decide, if you choose consciousness, right now you can
take a jump, a leap from hell into heaven.
It is up to you: you can choose hell, you can choose heaven. Hell is cheap. Heaven needs
great effort, perseverance, resolve. Hell means you can remain unconscious, you can
remain as you are. Heaven means you haveto rise above yourself, you have to
transcend. You have to move from the valley towards the peaks.
And those peaks are yours, but you have to pay for them. Climbing to those peaks is
arduous effort. Be watchful, be meditative, and one day you will find yourself on the
sunlit peaks. That is liberation, moksha. That is nirvana -- cessation of the ego and the
birth of God.
You are entitled to be gods. If you are not,only you are responsible and nobody else.
Listen to the Buddha. Don't only listen to the Buddha -- act, be committed to the life of
consciousness, get involved.
But let me remind you again: this is only one dimension of life -- immensely rich, but
still one dimension. You will have to do something more. I am giving you a more
arduous task than Buddha did. Buddha gave you one dimension; I want you to have all
three dimensions, and a synthesis.
A new man is needed on the earth. The old isrotten and finished, it has no future, it
can't survive. It has come to the very end ofits tether. It is on the deathbed. Unless a
new man is born -- East and West meeting, all three dimensions together -- humanity is
doomed.
This experiment that I am doing here is just to create the first specimen of the new man.
You are participating in a great experiment of tremendous import. Feel blessed. Feel
fortunate. You may not be aware of what you are participating in, but you may create
history! It all depends on how committed, how involved you become with me and with
my experiment.
This is the greatest synthesis possible, that has ever been tried....
Enough for today.
Chapter #7
Chapter title: By watching....
27 June 1979 am in Buddha Hall
THE FOOL IS CARELESS.
BUT THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING.
IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE.
HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE.
HE MEDITATES.
AND IN THE STRENGTH OF HIS RESOLVE
HE DISCOVERS TRUE HAPPINESS.
HE OVERCOMES DESIRE --
AND FROM THE TOWER OF WISDOM
HE LOOKS DOWN WITH DISPASSION
UPON THE SORROWING CROWD.
FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP
HE LOOKS DOWN ON THOSE
WHO LIVE CLOSE TO THE GROUND.
MINDFUL AMONG THE MINDLESS,
AWAKE WHILE OTHERS DREAM,
SWIFT AS THE RACE HORSE
HE OUTSTRIPS THE FIELD.
BY WATCHING
INDRA BECAME KING OF THE GODS.
HOW WONDERFUL IT IS TO WATCH,
HOW FOOLISH TO SLEEP.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS THE WAYWARDNESS OF HIS THOUGHTS
BURNS THROUGH EVERY BOND
WITH THE FIRE OF HIS VIGILANCE.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS HIS OWN CONFUSION
CANNOT FALL.
HE HAS FOUND THE WAY TO PEACE.
Life is three-dimensional, and man is free to choose. The freedom that man has is both a
curse and a blessing. He can choose to rise, he can choose to fall. He can choose the way
of darkness or he can choose the way of light.
No other being has the freedom to choose. Their lives are predetermined. Because they
are predetermined they cannot go astray -- that's the beauty of it. But because it is
predetermined they are mechanical -- that's what is ugly about it.
Man is not yet a being in the true sense. He is only a becoming, he is on the way. He is
searching, seeking, groping; he is not yet crystallized. That's why he does not know
who he is -- because he is not yet; how can he know who he is? Before knowing, being
has to happen. And the being is possible onlyif you choose rightly, consciously, with
full awareness.
Jean-Paul Sartre is right when he says that man is a project, that man creates himself by
his own effort, that man is born only as an opportunity, as a possibility, not as an
actuality. He has to become actual -- and there is every possibility that he may miss the
target. Millions of people miss the target; it is very rarely that a person has found his
being. When a person finds his being, he is a buddha.
But the basic requirement is: choose your life with awareness. You have to choose
anyway -- whether you choose with awareness ornot makes no difference, choice has to
be made. You are not free in the sense thatif you don't want to choose you will be
allowed not to. You are not free not to choose -- even not choosing will be a choosing.
The millions who miss, they miss because they don't choose. They simply wait; they go
on hoping that something is going to happen. Nothing ever happens that way. You
have to create the context, the space, for something valuable to happen to you, for
something essential to happen to you.
There are two schools of philosophers in the world. One believes that man is born as an
essence: the essentialist school. It says that man is already born ready-made. This is the
idea of all the fatalists. The other school is that of those who call themselves
existentialists. They believe that man is born not as an essence but only as an existence.
And what is the difference? The essence is predetermined; you bring it with your life,
you bring it as a blueprint. You have only to unfold it; you are already made. There is
no choice for you to make yourself, to create yourself. That is a very uncreative
standpoint; that reduces man to a machine.
The other school believes that man is born only as an existence. The essence has to be
created; it is not already there. You have to create yourself, you have to find ways and
means to become, to be. You have to become a womb to your own being, you have to
give birth to yourself. The physical birth is not the true birth; you will have to be born
again.
Jesus says to Nicodemus, "Unless you are born again, you will not enter into the
kingdom of my God." What does he mean? Is Nicodemus to die first physically? No.
Jesus means something totally different: he has to die as an ego, he has to die as a
personality. He has to die as a past. He has to die as mind. Only when you die as mind
are you born as a being.
In the East we have called the buddhas the twice-born -- dwij. Other people are only
once-born; a buddha is twice-born. The first gift of life is through the parents; the
second gift you have to give to yourself.
You can choose between these three dimensions. If you choose one dimension you will
attain a certain integrity, but because it is one-dimensional it will not be total and it will
not be whole. The first dimension is the dimension of science, of the objective world, of
objects, things, the other. The second dimension is of aesthetics: the world of music,
poetry, painting, sculpture, the world of imagination. And the third dimension is that of
religion -- subjective, inner.
Science and religion are polar opposites: scienceis extrovert, religion is introvert. And
between the two is the world of aesthetics. Itis the bridge; it is both and neither. The
world of aesthetics, the world of the artist, is in a way objective -- only in a way. He
paints, and then a painting is born as an object. It is also subjective, because before he
can paint he has to create the painting in his inwardness, in his subjectivity. Before a
poet can sing his song, he sings it in his innermost recesses of being. It is sung there
first, only then does it move into the outer world.
It is scientific in the sense that art creates objects, and it is religious in the sense that
whatsoever art creates is first envisioned inone's own inner being. It is the bridge
between science and religion. Religion is absolute inwardness. It is moving into your
innermost core, it is subjectivity.
These are the three dimensions.
If you become a scientist and lose contact with aesthetics and religion, you will be a
one-dimensional man. You will be only one third; you will not be whole. You may
attain to a certain integrity that you will see in a man like Albert Einstein -- a certain
individuality, a beauty, a truth, but only partial.
You can choose to be an artist: you can bea Picasso, a Van Gogh, a Beethoven, a
Rabindranath, but then too...you will be a little better because aesthetics is the world of
in-between, the world of twilight. You will have something of religion in you. Each poet
has something of religion in him -- he may be aware of it, he may not be aware of it, but
no poet can be without some flavor of religion. It is impossible. Even the most atheistic
artist is bound to have some kind of religiousness. Without it he will not be a genius.
Without it he will remain only a technician, a craftsman, but not an artist.
Even a man like Jean-Paul Sartre -- who is determinedly an atheist, who will never
concede that he is religious -- even he is in some way religious. He has created great
novels, and those novels and the characters of those novels have great interiority. That
interiority has been lived by this man, otherwise he could not write about it. That
interiority is experienced.
And the man that moves into aesthetics is bound to have some scientific qualities
around him too. He will be more logical thanthe religious person, more object-oriented
than the religious person -- less object-oriented than the scientist ofcourse, less logical
than the scientist, but more logical than the religious person. He will be in a more
balanced state.
It is better to move in the world of art because somehow it has something of all the three
dimensions -- but only something, still it is not total.
The religious man is again one-dimensional, just as the scientist is. Albert Einstein is
one-dimensional, so is Gautama the Buddha. And because the East has become onedimensionally religious it has suffered much. And now the West is suffering much, and
the cause is one-dimensionality. The West isbankrupt as far as the inner world is
concerned and the East is bankrupt as far as the outer world is concerned.
The East is not accidentally poor and starving. It has chosen to be that way. It has
denied science; it has even denied the world of objective reality. It says the world is
illusory. If the world is illusory, how can you create a science? The very first
requirement is missing. You cannot create a science out of maya, illusion. How can you
create a science out of something which is not, which does not even exist? If you deny
the world, you have denied the dimension of science altogether.
That is the reason why the East is poor and starving. And unless the Eastern genius
understands this, we can go on importing science from the West but it will not get roots
into our beings. If our approachremains the same as it has been for five thousand years,
science will only be something foreign. That's how it is.
In India you can find a scientist, world famous in his field of work, and still living a
very unscientific life. He may be consultingthe palmist and the astrologer. He may be
going to take a bath in the Ganges, so his sins of many many lives are washed away. He
may still be believing in a thousand and one things which are simply superstitious --
and still he is a scientist! Science remains something peripheral; his soul still remains
rooted in the ancient past of the East, which is unscientific.
The East has suffered much because of one-dimensionality. And now the West is
suffering again for the same reason: one-dimensionality. The West has chosen to be
scientific at the cost of being religious. Now God is denied, the soul is denied. Man is
reduced first to an animal and now to a machine. Man loses all glory, all grandeur. Man
loses all hope, all future. The moment man loses his interiority he loses depth, he
becomes superficial. The Western man is rich asfar as things are concerned, but is very
poor as far as soul is concerned -- inwardly poor, outwardly rich.
This is the state of affairs right now.
And between these two a few artists exist who have something of both the dimensions.
But even the artist is not satisfied, because heis something of both but he is neither a
scientist nor a religious person -- just having a few glimpses of both the worlds. He
remains in a kind of limbo; he never settles, he remains a vagabond. He moves like a
shuttle between these two worlds. He does not contribute much: because he is not a
scientist he cannot contribute scientifically and he is not religious so he cannot
contribute religiously. At the most his art remains decorative; at the most it can make
life a little more beautiful, a little more comfortable, convenient. But that is not much.
I propose the fourth way. The true man will be all three simultaneously: he will be a
scientist, an artist, and religious. And I call the fourth man the spiritual man. That's
where I differ from Albert Einstein and Gautam Buddha and Picasso -- from them all.
You must remember my differences.
Buddha is one-dimensional -- tremendously beautiful! As far as his own inner world is
concerned he is the greatest master, the master of the inner, unsurpassable, but he
remains one-dimensional. He attains to immense peace, silence, bliss, but does not
contribute to the world in any objective way.
Albert Einstein contributes to the world in a very objective way, but cannot contribute
anything of the inner -- hence his contributionbecomes a curse. He suffered his whole
life because he was the man who proposed that atom bombs should be made. He had
written a letter to the American president: "Now it is time -- unless atom bombs are
made the war can go on for years and years and will be verydestructive. Just making
the atom bombs, the very threat of it, will stop the war."
But once the power -- any kind of power -- reaches into the hands of the politicians, you
cannot control them, you cannot prevent them from using it. The politician is the most
stupid kind of person -- monkeyish, power-mad.
Once the atom bomb was in the hands of the American politicians it had to be dropped
somewhere. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, were bound to happen. And when they happened it
was a wound, a great wound, for Albert Einstein. He repented his whole life.
In the last moments, when somebody asked him, "Would you like to become a scientist
again if God gives you an opportunity to be born in the world again?"
He said, "No, certainly no, absolutely no! I would like rather to be a plumber than to be
a physicist, a scientist. Enough is enough! I have not been a blessing to the world, I have
been a curse."
He enriched the outer world certainly, but without inner growth, the outer growth
creates a lopsidedness. You possess many things, but you don't possess yourself. You
have all that can make you happy but you are not happy, because happiness cannot be
derived from your possessions. Happiness is aninner welling-up; it is an awakening of
your own energies. It is an awakening of your soul.
Buddha contributed tremendously to the subjective dimension. He is a master par
excellence. Whatsoever he says is absolutely true, but it is one-dimensional -- never
forget it.
My effort here is to create the fourth way: a man who joins all these three dimensions of
life into himself, who becomes a trinity, a trimurti, who has all these three faces of God
to him. Who has as much of a logical mind asis needed by science and who is also as
poetic as is needed by aesthetics, and who is also as meditative and watchful as is
proposed by the buddhas.
The fourth man is the hope of the world. The fourth way is the only possibility if man is
to survive. If man is still to exist on this earth, we have to find a great synthesis between
these three dimensions. And if all these three dimensions are meeting, merging, melting
into one, of course thatsynthesis is the fourth.
I am speaking on Buddha, on Mahavira, on Jesus, on Patanjali, on Lao Tzu, and many
more. But always remember that all these people are one-dimensional. I want to enrich
your life through their teachings, but I don't end with them. I would like you to go a
little deeper into other dimensions too.
Hence the new commune is going to be a meeting place of East and West, of the
subjective and the objective. In the new commune we are going to have scientists,
artists, poets, painters, singers, musicians,meditators, yogis, mystics -- all kinds of
people pouring their energies into one great river. And that's how I would like the
whole world to be.
Buddha is to be incorporated in it, that's why I am speaking on him. And, of course, the
third dimension, the religious, is one of the most important, the most important
dimension. Without it everything is soulless.
Today's sutras:
THE FOOL IS CARELESS.
BUT THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING.
IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE.
Buddha calls a man foolish, not because he is ignorant, not because he is not
knowledgeable. According to Buddha, a man is a fool if he is unconscious, if he behaves
unconsciously, if he lives in sleep, if he is a somnambulist. If he goes on behaving
without any mindfulness, then he is a fool. The word has a special meaning, remember:
unconsciousness, unawareness, unmindfulness -- that's Buddha's definition of the fool.
He moves in life like driftwood, at the mercy of the winds. He does not know who he is,
he does not know from where he comes, he does not know to where he is going. He is
accidental; he simply lives by accident. He has no conscious, deliberate search for being,
for truth, for reality. He follows the crowd;he remains a part of the mob psychology.
He is not an individual. He has no authentic intelligence of his own; he simply follows
others. The parents have said something, the teachers, the priests, the politicians, and he
goes on following all kinds of advice. He has no idea why he is here, for what, and what
he is doing, and why. He never raises such questions.
These questions are very uncomfortable to him.They create anxiety in him; he avoids
these questions. He simply believes in the answers that are handed over to him; he
never doubts those answers. Not that he has attained to trust -- no, he has no trust either
-- but he simply represses his doubt because doubt creates discomfort.
He remains a Hindu, a Mohammedan, a Christian. He never inquires and he never risks
anything for his inquiry. He never goes into exploration. He is not an adventurer, his
life is not an adventure. He is stuck, he is dormant, stagnant. You cannot separate him
from his crowd; he is like a sheep. Buddha calls him the fool.
The fool can be very knowledgeable -- in factalmost always he is. He can be a pundit, a
scholar, a great professor -- that's how he hides his foolishness. Bygathering knowledge
on the circumference he hides the ignorance that exists at the center.
There are two types of people: one, very knowledgeable people -- knowledgeable, but
they know nothing. They have a kind of ignorant knowledge. And there is the other
category: the people who are not knowledgeable -- but they know. They have a kind of
knowing ignorance.
When Buddha uses the word 'fool', he is not talking about the second category --
because Buddha himself is not very knowledgeable, neither is Jesus, nor is Mohammed.
They are innocent people, simple people, but their simplicity is such, their innocence is
such, their childlike quality is such, that they have been able to penetrate into the
innermost core of their beings. They have beenable to know their truth; they have been
able to reach the very core of their existence. They know, but they are not
knowledgeable. Their knowing is not through scriptures. Their knowing has happened
through watchfulness. Remember the source: real knowing comes through meditation,
awareness, consciousness, mindfulness, watchfulness, witnessing. And unreal
knowledge comes through scriptures. You can learn the unreal knowledge very easily
and you can brag about it, but you will remain a fool -- a learned fool, but a fool all the
same.
If you really want to know you will have todrop all your knowledge, you will have to
unlearn it. You will have to become ignorant again, like a small child, with wondering
eyes, with alertness. You will be able to know not only your own being but also the
being that exists in the world...the being that exists in the trees and the birds and the
animals and the rocks and the stars. If you are able to know yourself, you will be able to
know all that is.
God is another name for all that is.
THE FOOL IS CARELESS. By "carelessness" Buddha means he behaves unconsciously.
He does not know what he is doing. He simply goes on doing things because he cannot
remain unoccupied; he wants constant occupation. He cannot remain alone; he wants
constant company. He cannot remain unengaged even for a single moment, because
whenever he is unengaged, unoccupied, alone, he starts facing himself -- and he is very
afraid of that.
He does not want to go into the abyss of his own being. All that he knows is
meaningless there. All that he knows, he cannot carry it there. All his knowledge, all his
efficiency, all his scriptures, all his theories, are utterly futile in the inner world. He
clings to the outer because there he is somebody. In the inner world he is a nobody.
Just watch people! In fact it is the greatest entertainment: stand by the side of the road
and just watch people. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? And then watch
yourself -- what are you doing? and why?
A man picks up a young woman in a hotel lobby and goes to her apartment with her.
They both undress, but then she says, "Firstchase me! I want to be inflamed, excited!"
He chases her for two hours, but cannot catch her and leaves in disgust.
The next night he sees her pick up another victim in the same lobby and he sneaks up
on the fire-escape to watch the new sucker's discomfiture through the window. As he
watches the bare legs flashing by under the partly-drawn window shade, he says to
himself out loud, "Ah, brother, get a load of that!"
"You said it!" breathes a man's voice in his ear, "but you should have seen the
sonofabitch that was here last night!"
Just watch people -- what are they doing? Chasing shadows, chasing things which they
don't need, trying to make great effort to attain something which once attained they will
not know what to do with. That's how people are running after money, after political
power. Once you have it you don't know what to do with it.
A woman was saying to another woman, "Are you not worried about your husband?
He continuously goes on chasing women, any woman -- and you know it!"
And the other woman laughed. She said, "Thereis nothing to worry about: his chasing
women is like dogs chasing cars."
The other woman said, "I don't understand. What do you mean, dogs chasing cars?"
She said, "Yes, dogs chasing cars -- once theyhave caught one they don't know what to
do with the car, and that's how my husband is. He will chase a woman, he will catch
hold of her. Then he does not know what to do with her. I know him! That's why I am
not worried."
This is the situation. Somebody wants to be very famous, and he will waste his whole
life in becoming famous and then he will not know what to do with it. In fact, once you
become very famous you want to become unfamous again, because it is such a weight.
You cannot relax. You cannot go anywhere without being watched by the crowds. You
have no privacy anymore, you cannot live any personal life. Everybody is looking,
watching, investigating your life. You cannot laugh, you cannot talk with
ease...everything becomes difficult.
Just a few days ago Jimmy Carter said thatif Kennedy stands against him in the
presidential election he will "whip his ass." Now he is being condemned all over the
world for using that word. You cannot even use an innocent word. Now he must be
feeling very repentant for what he has done. He has committed a crime.
You don't have a private life when you are famous -- when you are a president of a
country, a Nobel Prize winner, you are a publicthing. You are always on show, in the
show-window; you always have to keep dressed up. You cannot make a simple gesture
in freedom.
People have money...and then they don't know what to do with it.
The accidental man is foolish. The wise man moves deliberately, takes each step
consciously. His life is a constant inquiry for truth. He does not go astray. He remains
alert in every one of his acts -- not because of others. He remains alert because it is only
by being alert that he will become integrated, that he will become crystallized.
THE FOOL IS CARELESS. The wise man cares -- he cares about himself, he cares about
his life, and he cares about others too. He cares about everything, because he values his
life. He knows that it is very precious, that it is a God-given opportunity to grow, that is
has not to be lost in a kind of drunkenness.
A reformed prostitute has joined the Salvation Army and is giving testimony on a street
corner. "I used to lie in the arms of men," she confesses, "white men, black men,
Chinamen. But now I lie inthe arms of Jesus."
"That's right, sister," cries a drunk in the back row, "fuck 'em all!"
Just watch people and watch yourself, and you will be surprised how unconscious, how
drunk we are. How careless! We don't listen towhat is said, we don't see what we see.
Our eyes are clouded, our minds confused, our beings have no clarity. We are not
perceptive, we are not sensitive.
We go on uttering things which we don't mean, and then we suffer for them. We go on
saying things which we never wanted to say.We go on doing things -- even while we
are doing them we know that we don't want to do these things, still we go on doing
them. Some unconscious force goes on driving us. Sometimes we even decide not to do
a certain thing, not to say a certain thing -- still we do it, even against our own
decisions. We don't have any resolution, we don't have any resolve, we don't have any
will.
She knew that these were to be her last few hours on this earth, so she called her
husband to her side and in a halting voice told him her last request.
"I know," she said, "that you and mother have never gotten along. But would you as a
special favor to me, ride to the cemetery in the same car with her?"
"Alright," replied the unhappy husband."But it will spoil my whole day."
This is not really a joke -- this happens every day. You say things which you should
have known are not right to say. But you know only later on, when the harm is done.
Unconscious utterings.
Now, this man may have been crying and saying to his wife, "Without you it will be
impossible to live. I will always remain empty without you, a part of my soul will die
with you..." and things like that. But now,in this moment, he has forgotten all.
THE FOOL IS CARELESS. BUT THE MASTERGUARDS HIS WATCHING. IT IS HIS
MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE. The fool remains a slave -- a slave of the instincts, a
slave of unconscious desires, a slave of whims,a slave of the society in which he is born,
a slave of the fashions -- a slave of anything that happens around him. He simply picks
it up. If the neighbor is buying a new car, hehas to buy a new car too. He does not need
it. If the neighbor has purchased a house in the hills, he has to purchase one. It may be
difficult and hard to manage for the money. He may have to borrow, it may take years
for him to pay, but he has to purchase it. His ego is hurt. People are living imitatively,
very carelessly.
Among the Eskimos there is a tradition, a very beautiful tradition, that each year, the
first day of the year, every family looks in the house for what is unnecessary and what
is necessary -- they sort things out. And onlywhat is absolutely necessary is saved; all
that is unnecessary is given as gifts to people.
And you will be surprised to know that the Eskimo's home is the cleanest home in the
world, has a purity about it -- no garbage, nothing accumulates. Spacious -- small but
spacious; only that much which is necessary, absolutely necessary....
Just think of all the things that you go on accumulating: arethey really necessary? do
you really need them? Or is it just because people are accumulating that you also
become accumulative?
The watchful man becomes the master of his life. He lives it according to his light, not
according to others' lives. He lives it according to his own needs. And remember, your
needs are not many. If you are wise, watchful, you will have a very very contented life,
and very simple, and with small things.
But if you are imitative, then your life will become very complex, unnecessarily
complex. And I am not giving you particular directions about what you should have
and what you should not have. I am simplysaying go on watching...whatsoever is
necessary for you, have it; and whatsoever is not necessary for you, forget about it. This
is the way of a sannyasin.
I am not for renouncing things, but I am certainly for renouncing unnecessary garbage.
And it is not only that you collect unnecessary things -- you desire unnecessary things,
and you never meditate whether those thingsare really necessary. Are they going to
help in any way? Are they going to make you more happy, more blissful?
Before you start desiring a thing, think it over thrice...and you will be surprised. Out of
a hundred of your desires, ninety-nine are absolutely useless. They simply keep you
occupied; that is their only function. They keep you away from yourself; that is their
only utility. They don't allow you time, space to be with yourself. They are dangerous.
It is because of these unnecessary things that you will waste your life, and you will die a
bankrupt.
...THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING.
I have heard:
The husband and wife are being driven crazy by the continued presence of the wife's
brother, who came to spend the weekend but isstill there six months later. They decide
that the wife will cook a chicken and the husband will pretend it is overdone. They will
put the matter to the brother-in-law. If he says the chicken is good, the husband will
throw him out; if he says the chicken is bad the wife will throw him out. It can't fail!
The scene is set up as planned, with much pretended shouting and recrimination, while
the brother-in-law silently stows away his food. Suddenly the husband and wife stop
shouting and turn to him.
"Harry," says the husband, "what do you think?"
"Me?" says Harry, biting into the chicken leg. "I think I am staying another three
months."
Must have been a very watchful man. Must have been very careful, alert. He is not
caught in the trap. The trap was certainly very subtle. Unless he was very alert, it was
bound to trap him. He does not give any opinion. He simply states a fact, that "I am
going to stay three more months."
Live watchfully and you will not be trapped.Live unconsciously and on each step you
are trapped; your life becomes more and more imprisoned. And nobody is responsible
except you.
BUT THE MASTER GUARDS HIS WATCHING. IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS
TREASURE. Whatsoever he does, he does with total awareness. Whatsoever you do,
you do almost mechanically. You will have to de-automatize yourself. That's what
meditation is all about: the process of de-automatization.
You have become automatic. You go on driving the car, smoking the cigarette, talking
to the friend, and thinking a thousand and one thoughts inside. Most accidents happen
because of this. More men are dying every year in car, train, airplane and similar
accidents than die in war. Adolf Hitler may not have killed as many people as are being
killed every year by the mechanical behavior of man around the earth.
But what can you do? That's your whole way of life, that's how you live. You eat -- you
simply go on stuffing, you don't pay any attention to what you are eating. You make
love to your wife or your husband -- you don't even see the face of the woman. You
have become very insensitive; you just go on moving through empty gestures, with no
significance. They can't have any significance unless you are fully alert.
It is the light of awareness that makes things precious, extraordinary. Then small things
are no longer small. When a man with alertness, sensitivity, love, touches an ordinary
pebble on the seashore, that pebble becomes a kohinoor. And if you touch a kohinoor in
your unconscious state, it is just an ordinary pebble -- not even that. Your life will have
as much depth and as much meaning as you have awareness.
Now people are asking all over the world, "What is the meaning of life?" Of course the
meaning is lost, because you have lost the way to find the meaning -- and the way is
awareness. IT IS HIS MOST PRECIOUS TREASURE.
HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE.
What does Buddha mean by "desire"? Desiremeans your whole mind. Desire means not
to be herenow. Desire means moving somewhere in the future which is not yet. Desire
means a thousand and one ways of escaping from the present. Desire is equivalent to
mind. In Buddha's terminology, desire is mind.
And desire is time too. When I say desire is time too, I don't mean the clock time, I mean
the psychological time. How do you create future in your mind? -- by desiring. You
want to do something tomorrow, you have created the tomorrow; otherwise the
tomorrow is nowhere yet, it has not come. But you want to do something tomorrow,
and because you want to do something tomorrow you have created a psychological
tomorrow.
And people are creating years ahead, lives ahead. They are even thinking about what to
do after life, after death. They are even preparing for that! And these people are thought
to be religious; they are not religious at all. Desire takes you away from the now-here,
and now-here is the only reality.
Hence Buddha says: HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE. He never moves into the
future, he lives in the present. To live in the future is to live a false life, a pseudo life.
A fashionable actress refuses a young man who begs for her favors, on the grounds that
he is Jewish, and laughs at his offer of one hundred thousand francs. She tells him that
to show him how little she cares for his money hecan make love to her for as long as it
takes the hundred thousand francs to burn.
He comes back the next day with the money, lays ten bills out in a line with the ends
just overlapping, lights the first one and leaps into bed with her. As the last bill burns
away, she pushes him off her.
"Well, I have had you," he says triumphantly.
"Yes," she smiles, "and your hundred thousand francs are burnt to ashes."
"What does it matter?" he says, lighting a cigarette. "They were counterfeit."
The man who lives in the future, lives a counterfeit life. He does not really live, he only
pretends to live. He hopes to live, he desires to live, but he never lives. And the
tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And whatsoever comes is always now and
here, and he does not know how to live now-here; he knows only how to escape from
now-here. The way to escape is called "desire," tanha -- that is Buddha's word for what
is an escape from the present, from the real into the unreal.
The man who desires is an escapist.
Now, this is very strange, that meditators are thought to be escapists. That is utter
nonsense. Only the meditator is not an escapist -- everybody else is. Meditation means
getting out of desire, gettingout of thoughts, getting out of mind. Meditation means
relaxing in the moment, in the present. Meditation is the only thing in the world which
is not escapist, although it is thought tobe the most escapist thing. People who
condemn meditation always condemn it with the argument that it is escape, escaping
from life. They are simply talking nonsense; they don't understand what they are
saying.
Meditation is not escaping from life: it is escaping into life. Mind is escaping from life,
desire is escaping from life.
HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE....
HE MEDITATES.
He brings himself again and again to the present. Again and again the mind starts
functioning and he brings it back to the present. Slowly slowly, it starts happening: the
window opens and for the first time you see the sky as it is. And for the first time you
feel the wind and the rain and the sun, in their immediacy, because you become
meditative. You start touching life. Then life isno longer a word but a tangible reality;
then love is no longer a word but an overflowing energy. Then blessing is no longer just
a desire, a hope -- you feel it, you have it, you are it.
HE MEDITATES.... Buddha is not for prayer, heis for meditation, because prayer is
again somehow a kind of desiring. When you pray, you desire. Prayer is always for the
future; prayer means you are asking for something. You may not be asking for money,
you may be asking for God himself, but it is the same. Ask, and you have moved away.
Meditation is a state of nonasking, nonquestioning, nonthinking. Prayer is still part of
thinking -- a beautiful thinking, but thinking is thinking; a beautifulprison, but a prison
is still a prison.
And the mind who prays is greedy, and the mind who prays goes through no
transformation. It remains the same mind. And the prayer is born out of the same mind;
it cannot have a very different quality. How can you pray for something which is
different from you? -- it will be your prayer. Itwill reflect your mind, it will come out of
your mind, it will sprout out of your mind. How can it take you beyond the mind?
Prayer cannot take you beyond the mind. Only meditation can take you beyond the
mind.
Meditation is a state of no-mind. Prayer is a state of religious mind, but mind is there.
And when it has the beautifulgarment of religiousness around it, it becomes even more
dangerous.
A little boy on a picnic strays away from his family, and suddenly realizes that he is lost
and night is falling. Becoming frightened after wandering aimlessly for some time, and
shouting for his parents but receiving noanswer, he kneels down and prays with
uplifted hands. "Dear Lord," he says, "please help me to find my daddy and mommy,
and I won't hit my little sister anymore, honest I won't!"
As he kneels praying, a bird flies over and drops a load of shit into his outstretched
palm. The little boy examines it and turns his eyes back to heaven.
"Oh please, Lord," he begs, "don't hand methat shit. I really and truly am lost!"
Your prayer is your prayer; it is part of you, an extension of you. It cannot help you to
surpass yourself. Meditation is the only way to surpass oneself, the only way to
transcend oneself.
And what is meditation? It does not meanmeditating upon something; the English
word is misleading. In English there is no word adequate enough to translate Buddha's
word sammasati. It has been translated as meditation, as right mindfulness, as
awareness, as consciousness, alertness, watchfulness, witnessing -- but there is not
really a single word which has the quality of sammasati.
Sammasati means: consciousness is, but without any content. There is no thought, no
desire, nothing is stirred in you. You are not contemplating about God or about great
things...nature and its beauty, the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, and their immensely
significant statements. You are not contemplating! You are not concentrating on any
special object either. You are not chanting a mantra, because those areall things of the
mind, those are all contents of the mind. You are not doing anything! The mind is
utterly empty, and you are simply there in that emptiness. A kind of presence, a pure
presence, with nowhere to go -- utterly relaxed into oneself, at rest, at home. That is the
meaning of Buddha's meditation.
And nobody else has ever reached such a beautiful expression about meditation as
Buddha. Many people have attained, but nobodyhas been so expressive, so capable of
conveying the message, as the Buddha. HE NEVER GIVES IN TO DESIRE. HE
MEDITATES.
AND IN THE STRENGTH OF HIS RESOLVE
HE DISCOVERS TRUE HAPPINESS.
Bliss is true happiness. What you call happiness is just misery in disguise. What you call
happiness is nothing but entertainment, pleasure. It is momentary -- it cannot be true.
Truth has to have one quality, and the quality is of eternity. If something is true it is
eternal; if it is untrue it is momentary.
True happiness is found only when the mind completely ceases functioning. It does not
come from the outside. It wells up within your own being, it starts overflowing you.
You become luminous. You become a fountain of bliss.
HE OVERCOMES DESIRE --
AND FROM THE TOWER OF WISDOM
HE LOOKS DOWN WITH DISPASSION
UPON THE SORROWING CROWD.
FROM THE MOUNTAINTOP
HE LOOKS DOWN ON THOSE
WHO LIVE CLOSE TO THE GROUND.
As someone becomes a buddha -- desire overcome, mind overcome, time overcome, the
ego transcended -- he is no longer part of this earth. He still lives on the earth, but his
soul soars so high that from the sunlit topsof his being he can see the sorrowing crowd
in the dark valleys of life, stumbling, drunken, fighting, ambitious, greedy, angry,
violent...a sheer wastage of great opportunities. Great compassion arises in his being.
His whole passion passes through dispassion and becomes compassion.
Passion means using the other as a means -- and that is the fundamental of immorality.
To use somebody as a means is the most immoral act in the world, because each person
is an end unto himself. To use him as a means is to exploit. And that's what we call love:
the husband using the wife, the wife using the husband; the children using their
parents, and the parents later on using their children -- that'swhat we call love!
It is not love. It is a strategy of the mind; itis poison coated with sugar. This love is
really disgusting. That's why you see the whole world in such disgust. This love is
sickening. It has sickened the whole soul of humanity because it is not love at all. It is
passion, lust, using the other as a means.
As you start meditating you move to the second stage, dispassion -- love disappears.
You come into a neutral phase; just as you change gears in the car, and each time you
change gear, the gear first has to move through neutral, so passion moves through a
neutral phase -- it becomes dispassion. Love disappears. For the time being, in the
interval, the man who is moving towards buddhahood becomes utterly cold,
dispassionate.
And then the third stage is reached. Whenhe has attained buddhahood, he has found
bliss and the inexhaustible fountains of bliss -- aes dhammo sanantano -- when he has
found the principle of eternity, when he has found the inexhaustible treasure of life, he
starts overflowing. Love comes back -- in fact, love comes for the first time. It is
compassion. Now he showers his compassion on each and everybody; whosoever
comes to him, he shares his bliss with him,he shares his way, he shares his insight.
MINDFUL AMONG THE MINDLESS,
AWAKE WHILE OTHERS DREAM,
SWIFT AS THE RACE HORSE
HE OUTSTRIPS THE FIELD.
And when you have become established in meditation and compassion you no longer
fall a victim of sleep and dream. You remainawake -- even while asleep. And then your
life becomes a straight arrow, moves with tremendous speed, with the speed of light,
towards the goal. You become, for the first time, being.
SWIFT AS THE RACE HORSE HE OUTSTRIPS THE FIELD. MINDFUL AMONG THE
MINDLESS, AWAKE WHILE OTHERS DREAM.That is the difference between
Buddha and others. Others are only dreaming, not really living; hoping to live some
day, preparing to live, but not living. And that day never comes -- before that day
comes death.
A buddha is awake. Even while he is asleep he does not dream. When desires
disappear, dreams disappear too. Dreams are desires translated into the language of
sleep. A buddha sleeps with absolute alertness.The light goes on burning within him.
The body needs rest, hence the body sleeps,but he needs no rest -- the energy is
inexhaustible. There, at the center of his being, a small lightgoes on burning. The whole
circumference is fast asleep, but that light is alert, awake.
We are asleep even while we are awake: he is awake even while he is asleep.
BY WATCHING
INDRA BECAME KING OF THE GODS.
HOW WONDERFUL IT IS TO WATCH,
HOW FOOLISH TO SLEEP.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS THE WAYWARDNESS OF HIS THOUGHTS
BURNS THROUGH EVERY BOND
WITH THE FIRE OF HIS VIGILANCE.
'Bhikkhu' is Buddha's word for sannyasin. 'Sannyasin' is my word for the bhikkhu. I
have not chosen Buddha's word -- for a certain reason. Bhikkhu literally means beggar.
Buddha renounced his kingdom and became a beggar. Of course, even while he is a
beggar, he walks like an emperor; of course, he is far more graceful than he ever was
before, and far richer that he ever was before. But because he renounced the kingdom,
people started calling him a bhikkhu, a beggar. And, slowly slowly, the name was
adopted by his followers too.
I don't want you to be beggars, I want you to be masters. Hence I have chosen the word
'sannyasin'. A sannyasin means one who knows how to live rightly. It is not
renunciation; on the contrary, it isrejoicing, it is celebration.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MINDAND FEARS THE WAYWARDNESS OF
HIS THOUGHTS BURNS THROUGH EVERY BOND WITH THE FIRE OF HIS
VIGILANCE.
Yes, meditation is fire -- it burns your thoughts, your desires, your memories; it burns
the past and the future. It burns your mind and the ego. It takes away all that you think
that you are. It is a death and a rebirth, a crucifixion and a resurrection. You are born
anew. You lose your own identity totally, and you attain to a new vision of life.
That vision of life is what is meant by god, dhamma, tao, logos. You can choose your
name for it because it has no name of its own. In fact it is not expressible at all; it can
only be indicated, hinted at.
THE BHIKKHU WHO GUARDS HIS MIND
AND FEARS HIS OWN CONFUSION
CANNOT FALL.
HE HAS FOUND THE WAY TO PEACE.
Mind is confusion. Thoughts and thoughts -- thousands of thoughts clamoring,
clashing, fighting with each other, fighting for your attention. Thousands of thoughts
pulling you into thousands of directions. It isa miracle how you go on keeping yourself
together. Somehow you manage this togetherness -- it is only somehow, it is only a
facade. Deep behind it there is a clamoring crowd, a civil war, a continuous civil war.
Thoughts fighting with each other, thoughtswanting you to fulfill them. It is a great
confusion, what you call your mind.
But if you are aware that the mind is confusion, and you don't get identified with the
mind, you will never fall. You will become fallproof! The mind will become impotent.
And because you will be watching continuously, your energies will slowly be
withdrawn, away from the mind; it will not be nourished any more.
And once the mind dies, you are born as a no-mind. That birth is enlightenment. That
birth brings you for the first time to the landof peace, the lotus paradise. It brings you
to the world of bliss, benediction. Otherwise you remain in hell. Right now you are in
hell. But if you resolve, if you decide, if you choose consciousness, right now you can
take a jump, a leap from hell into heaven.
It is up to you: you can choose hell, you can choose heaven. Hell is cheap. Heaven needs
great effort, perseverance, resolve. Hell means you can remain unconscious, you can
remain as you are. Heaven means you haveto rise above yourself, you have to
transcend. You have to move from the valley towards the peaks.
And those peaks are yours, but you have to pay for them. Climbing to those peaks is
arduous effort. Be watchful, be meditative, and one day you will find yourself on the
sunlit peaks. That is liberation, moksha. That is nirvana -- cessation of the ego and the
birth of God.
You are entitled to be gods. If you are not,only you are responsible and nobody else.
Listen to the Buddha. Don't only listen to the Buddha -- act, be committed to the life of
consciousness, get involved.
But let me remind you again: this is only one dimension of life -- immensely rich, but
still one dimension. You will have to do something more. I am giving you a more
arduous task than Buddha did. Buddha gave you one dimension; I want you to have all
three dimensions, and a synthesis.
A new man is needed on the earth. The old isrotten and finished, it has no future, it
can't survive. It has come to the very end ofits tether. It is on the deathbed. Unless a
new man is born -- East and West meeting, all three dimensions together -- humanity is
doomed.
This experiment that I am doing here is just to create the first specimen of the new man.
You are participating in a great experiment of tremendous import. Feel blessed. Feel
fortunate. You may not be aware of what you are participating in, but you may create
history! It all depends on how committed, how involved you become with me and with
my experiment.
This is the greatest synthesis possible, that has ever been tried....
Enough for today.
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