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

106 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
He says, ”I was as unconscious as you are; now I have become conscious and all my fears and sorrows have
disappeared. One day I was like you, one day you can be like me; there is no qualitative difference between us.
I am awakened, you are asleep; that is the only difference. I am not extraordinary, I am just as ordinary as you
are. The only thing that has happened to me is that I have opened my eyes and you are still keeping them closed.
Open them and see for yourself!”
The sutras:
IT IS NOT IRON THAT IMPRISONS YOU NOR ROPE, NOR WOOD, BUT THE PLEASURE YOU TAKE
IN GOLD AND JEWELS, IN SONS AND WIVES.
IT IS NOT IRON THAT IMPRISONS YOU... your prison is not that gross, it is very subtle. It is not so
visible, it is very invisible. It is transparent. It is not that you remain in the prison; on the contrary, the prison
surrounds you, wherever you go it moves with you. It is something in your mind, not something around your
body. It is something in your very approach towards life.
He says: IT IS NOT IRON THAT IMPRISONS YOU NOR ROPE NOR WOOD, BUT THE PLEASURE
YOU TAKE IN GOLD AND JEWELS....
Now one thing very significant has to be remembered: this sutra has been misinterpreted for centuries. Twentyfive
centuries of misinterpretation are there. For the first time I am telling you that it does not mean what
Buddhists have been saying that it means. They think it means that gold and jewels have to be renounced; it
does not mean that it is so clear BUT THE PLEASURE YOU TAKE IN GOLD AND JEWELS.... It is not
the gold that binds you but the PLEASURE that you take in it. If you don’t take pleasure in it you can live in a
palace and you are as free as anybody who lives in a cave in the Himalayas. If you take pleasure in your cave in
the Himalayas you are as unfree as anybody who lives in a palace. The question is psychological.
And one thing more: why do you take pleasure in the palace, in gold, in jewels, in diamonds? They all decorate
your ego. Your ego is empty in itself, it is nonexistential. You have to continuously go on pouring things into it so
it goes on giving you the sense that it is something substantial. It is constantly demanding, ”Give me this, give
me that.” It goes on demanding. It exists in the demand, it exists in the desire.
It is just like when you are on a bicycle: you have to peddle it continuously. If you stop peddling, maybe for a
few feet the bicycle may move out of the past momentum, but then it is bound to fall. Ego is just like a bicycle:
you have to continuously peddle. If you stop peddling it falls then and there, flat on the ground.
So if you have a palace it will demand a bigger palace and it will take great pleasure in the palace. It will
brag about it, it will feel very puffed up. If you are a president of a country, it feels very puffed up. If you
become famous, respectable, it becomes very puffed up. And the ways of the ego are very subtle. It moves in
your unconsciousness, in the darkest layers of your being. It can take pleasure in gold, it can take pleasure in
renouncing gold, but it is the same thing.
I know many so-called saints who go on bragging still after thirty or forty years. Forty years before they had
renounced the world and they still go on saying that ”We renounced so much money, so much gold.” Still they go
on talking about it! Forty years have passed, but they are still taking the pleasure.
You see the point? You can take pleasure when you have gold, you can take pleasure when you renounce gold.
In fact, when you have gold you can’t take so much pleasure as when you renounce it. Why? because millions
of other people have gold, it is nothing very special. But when you renounce you are a rare person: your ego
becomes more extraordinary, holier-than-thou, superior.
I know one person who was a homeopathic doctor. Now, you know about homeopathic doctors they somehow
manage to live. Very rarely I had seen any patients visiting him. Yes, a few people used to come they used to
come to read the newspapers! In fact, that’s how I started going to his dispensary to read the newspapers and
to have a little chitchat, and then we became friends. He was always talking about his troubles and he was very
much worried.
And then one day I heard that he had renounced the world; he became a saint. After three years I met him
in Calcutta. He was worshipped, and people were telling me that he had millions of rupees that he renounced. I
said, ”Don’t be stupid I know this man! He had only three hundred and sixty rupees in the bank!” Now they
have become millions!
When you renounce you can go on increasing your amount; nobody can prevent you and nobody can check on
it no auditing is possible. You can go on spreading the rumor how much you have renounced.
When I saw him, I asked him, ”Doctor....”
He said, ”I am no longer a doctor.”