THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The ...

100 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
that is your meditation. That will lead you slowly, slowly step by step, into God. So this is my criterion: if it
leads you towards God, it is true art, it is authentic art.
The third question:
Question 3
BELOVED MASTER, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF LIFE AFTER DEATH?
Sargamo, I totally agree with Tristan Bernard, the French-Jewish writer, who was once asked the same question.
He was asked what he thought of life after death. He replied, ”With regard to the climate, I would prefer heaven,
but with regard to the company I would give preference to hell.”
The fourth question:
Question 4
BELOVED MASTER, WHAT TO DO WITH THE PERSISTENCE OF UNBLISSFUL, SEEMINGLY INFI-
NITE RESISTANCE?
Amit Prem, accept it, don’t resist it. Don’t resist the resistance. That’s what you are doing. The first resistance
is not the problem at all; the second resistance creates the problem. You are resisting your resistance. Your misery
is unnecessarily multiplied. You drop the second resistance and you will be surprised: if you drop the second, the
first will evaporate on its own accord.
Jesus says: Resist not evil. A very strange statement... no other awakened person has given such a rebellious
statement. Christian priests, missionaries, don’t talk about it at all. They talk about other things, but they don’t
talk about this strange statement: Resist not evil. It seems very illogical, irreligious. Evil has to be resisted and
Jesus says: Resist not evil. Why?
There is a secret in it. If you resist evil, you give energy to it. Every resistance gives energy to the thing
resisted. ”Don’t resist evil” means if you don’t resist it, it will drop on its own accord because you will not be
nourishing it by your energy; you are disconnected immediately.
Amit Prem, you say, ”What to do with the persistence of unblissful, seemingly infinite resistance?”
Nothing has to be done. If you do anything you will create this resistance more and more; that’s how you have
made it infinite. It is not infinite. Only God is infinite, nothing else. How can your resistance be infinite? But
you are making it infinite because you are pouring your energy into it. You are trying to resist it, fight it, repress
it in subtle ways so it comes up again and again.
My suggestion is: Accept it, and then see what happens. Whatsoever happens is good. In the beginning you
may be afraid in accepting it. In the beginning you will think, ”If I accept it then I will have to follow it.” No,
that is not the truth. If you totally accept it you will see it dying immediately you have cut the very roots.
That’s what Jesus means. He wants to destroy evil totally; hence he says: Resist not evil. If you resist you will
go on feeding it.
The first resistance is never the problem, the second resistance is. And you cannot do anything about the first;
you can do something only about the second, because that is yours. What can be done? If resistance is there it
is there welcome it, accept it. But you are doing that in many ways.
Amit Prem goes on writing letters to me: ”I feel very sad, I feel very miserable, depressed. I suffer from
an inferiority complex.” When I was reading his letter in which he talks about his suffering from an inferiority
complex I was reminded about a politician who was going through psychoanalysis....
After three years of great psychoanalytic work, the psychoanalyst one day welcomed him beaming with joy, and
he said, ”Come in. I have found everything. Now there is no need for any psychoanalysis anymore. Your problem
is solved!”
The politician was also happy. He said, ”What solution have you found?”
And the psychoanalyst said, ”You are not suffering from an inferiority complex you simply are inferior, so
there is no problem!”
This is acceptance. Amit Prem, you simply are inferior accept it! You suffer from an inferiority complex
because there is a great desire to be superior. That desire for superiority creates in its wake the suffering of an
inferiority complex. Accept it.
I am inferior look at me! You can’t be more inferior than me. I am so ordinary! I cannot do any miracle, I
cannot walk on water. I must be suffering from an inferiority complex because Jesus walked on water. You see
how ordinary I am! But I am so blissful because I go on saying, ”So what?” I can’t walk on water, that’s true. I
don’t make a problem out of it. You can make a problem out of anything.
I have heard: