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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 105
All your occupations are basically nothing but an effort to remain unaware of your unawareness because it
hurts. It hurts to know that ”I am a zombie,” it hurts to know that ”I am a slave.” So you go on bragging
about your slavery as if it is something very precious and valuable. You go on bragging about your being Indian
or Pakistani or Israeli or German or American. You go on bragging about your being Hindu, Mohammedan,
Christian, Jaina and you don’t know you are bragging about your prisons!
It is as if two prisoners are talking: ”My prison is better than your prison. Look at the flag! My prison has the
best flag in the world, the highest pole. And never say a word against my prison; otherwise you will suffer for it,
you will have to pay for it.”
My nation, my country, my church, my religion is higher than your religion, is higher than your church, is
greater than your nation and we are bragging about our prisons. This is utterly stupid. But why do we go on
doing it? because that is the only way to save our faces.
If we try to see the point, that all these are prisons, how can we avoid knowing that we are a prisoner not of
one prison but of many prisons, prisons within prisons? And that will destroy our ego. It helps our egos very
much that ”We are a great nation,” that ”Our history is full of bravery,” that ”We have created the greatest
warriors”... or greatest saints, or whatsoever it is. ”We have created the most religious society in the world,” or
the most democratic society or the most communist society. This helps us to protect our egos. We find in every
way methods and means, devices and strategies so that our ego remains intact.
And the ego is the most false phenomenon in existence; there is nothing more false than the ego. It has no
substance. It is a balloon full of hot air or maybe there is no balloon, only hot air! But we are living according
to the dictates of this false god, the ego. And there are priests who go on helping us, who go on giving us new
strategies, new interpretations. As times change, priests are ready to give us new interpretations.
A small boy in the Sunday school was very much puzzled when the priest said that God made everything. The
boy looked puzzled, almost a question mark in his eyes.
The priest asked him, ”What is the matter, Johnny? You look very puzzled.”
Johnny said, ”Yes. You say everything do you really mean everything? Then where is the reference that God
made railway trains? I have never come across it.”
And the priest said, ”Yes, you must have overlooked it. There is a reference. It is said in the Bible that God
made all creeping things; it includes the railway train!”
And it is not only that they are deceiving small children; they do the same to you.
”Rabbi,” said the worried father, ”I wish you would speak to my son. Here he is, bar mitzvah age, and all he
ever thinks about is baseball.”
The rabbi sighed to himself. ”With so many delinquent children getting into trouble,” he thought, ”this is
indeed a minor problem.”
”I am sorry to disappoint you,” he said, suppressing a desire to show his annoyance, ”but I cannot scold your
son for something we Jews have been practicing for thousands of years. In fact, there are several references to
baseball in the Bible.”
”Are you serious?” demanded the father incredulously. ”What are they?”
”Well, for example, you will recall that Eve stole first and Adam stole second; Gideon rattled the pitchers;
Goliath was put out by David; and the prodigal son made a home run!”
Priests are the most cunning people in the world.
In Baltimore, at the turn of the century, an itinerant maggid, or preacher, looking for all the world like a
prophet of old, with his majestic white beard and flowing, snow-white robe, was invited to speak at the Sanhedrin
Temple. The synagogue’s regular rabbi was somewhat apprehensive about the old man’s ultra-orthodox views, but
he had come highly recommended. The rabbi’s fears, as it turned out, were justified. The maggid harangued the
congregation with a scorching sermon that would have done credit to a Bible-thumping, fundamentalist Baptist
preacher. As the venerable patriarch brought his sermon to a close he shouted, ”And I say unto you, the Day of
Judgment is at hand, and unless you have lived in strict accordance with the law as handed down to us by Moses
himself, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!”
An old lady in the front row, frightened half out of her wits, cried out, ”But, Rebbe, I have no teeth!”
”My good woman,” thundered the righteous maggid, ”teeth will be provided!”
Buddha is not a priest, he is not a prophet either; he is a totally different kind of person. He is an awakened
being, he has come to know himself. He is not an incarnation of God he has no claims like that. He is not a
special messenger of God; he has no ego like that. He does not claim that ”I am the only begotten Son.” All this
looks absurd if you think of Buddha. He is very simple and yet his message is the most practical, most scientific,
most penetrating.