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

118 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
Ego is not something that you have to drop. Ego is only a misunderstanding. You don’t drop misunderstandings,
you simply understand and the misunderstanding is no more there. You don’t drop darkness, you simply bring
light in and it is not found at all. Not that first you bring light in, then you catch hold of darkness and throw
it out of the house there is no need. If you are really aware that it is a divine play, that means light has been
brought in. Then you cannot ask the second thing.
If it is your understanding that life is a divine play, then you cannot ask, ”Who am I to drop it?” Then you are
not, you disappear. There is no dropper and nothing to be dropped.
But the first part of your question is not your understanding. So please, if you have dropped it, put it back,
because there are so many foolish people, somebody may pick it up.
An angry mother dragged her nine-year-old son to the doctor’s office and asked, ”Is a nine-year-old boy able
to perform an appendix operation?”
The doctor barked impatiently, ”Of course not!”
The mother said to the kid, ”So, was I right? Put it back!”
The fifth question:
Question 5
BELOVED MASTER, LISTENING TO YOU, A DESIRE ARISES FOR AWARENESS; BUT IS NOT THIS
VERY DESIRE ANTITHETICAL TO AWARENESS?
Prem Sunderam, if listening to me a desire arises for awareness, then you have missed the point. Listening to
me you will become aware. If you are rightly listening, then awareness will happen through listening. If you are
not listening, then a desire will arise to be aware. Desire means tomorrow you will be aware you want to be aware
tomorrow. And if you are really listening to me, who bothers about tomorrow? This moment is all that is you
are aware.
See right now....
This is awareness: the birds chirping, the silence, three thousand people lost into one organic, oceanic unity, as
if there is nobody. This is awareness, and the taste of it will transform you. And then wherever you want to be
aware you can be aware. It is something that is happening in you. Listening to me is only a device.
I am not here preaching to you; this is only a meditative device. Just as you are doing other meditations, this
is also a meditation in which I participate with you so that your minds can become engaged with me, and your
hearts can slip deep into your very core.
Sunderam, if a desire arises for meditation, for awareness, then you have missed the whole point, because desire
is a barrier. Either be aware right now either now or never! You can’t say ”Tomorrow....” The moment you say
tomorrow you have postponed it forever.
Yes, a desire is antithetical to awareness. Listening to me, understand that a desire is antithetical to awareness.
Desirelessness is awareness. Seeing that desirelessness is awareness, how can you desire awareness? When, sitting
with me each morning, you become silent, what is happening? There is no desire to be silent that’s what
is happening. Because there is no desire to be silent you are simply silent, and then that silence will go on
surrounding you for the whole day.
And if you see the point then there is no need for any special situation for you to be aware in. You can be
aware anywhere. In the very marketplace you can suddenly become aware. It is not a question of desiring; it is
becoming aware suddenly. Any moment shake yourself a little, wake yourself a little.
Two drunks were riding a roller coaster when one turned to the other and said, ”We may be making good time,
but I’ve a feeling that we’re on the wrong bus.”
If you are postponing for tomorrow you are on the wrong bus; you are drunk; you are unconscious.
A policeman appeared in court as a witness against Max Loeb, arrested for being drunk in public.
”How do you know the defendant was intoxicated?” inquired the magistrate.
”No doubt about it at all,” said the officer. ”When I saw him, he was dropping a penny in a parking meter.
Then he looked up at the big clock on the City Hall building and moaned, ’My God, I have gained eleven pounds!’”
Just a little consciousness.... And it can happen only now. God knows only one time, now, and only one place
here. He knows no past, no future, he knows only the present. If you want to have any communion with reality
you have to be aware right now.
Wife: ”How did you happen to hit a telephone pole?”
Drunk: ”I hit it in self-defense.”
Just watch your life, what you are doing to yourself.
The fireman was pulling the drunk out of the burning bed. ”You fool,” he shouted, ”that will teach you to
smoke in bed!”