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

134 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
God used to do many things; now science is doing all those things. God is being deprived every day! In fact,
soon he will be out of employment; you will find him standing before some employment office in a queue! Your
God is your invention. Friedrich Nietzsche is right about your God that that God is dead. So don’t be too much
surprised or convinced when some coincidence happens. Coincidences are always happening.
On board an El-Al jet flight to Israel, a young mother and her two children were just getting settled when the
youngsters began to clamor that they had to go to the ”bafroom.” Two priests on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
seated in front of the little family group, smiled in amusement while the embarrassed mother quickly took the
children to the rest rooms on the plane. After a moment’s hesitation, she put the small boy in the compartment
marked ”Gentlemen,” while she entered the ladies’ room with her little daughter.
The boy left quickly and one of the two priests went in, forgetting to lock the door. A few seconds later, the
mother emerged from the ladies’ lavatory and opened the other door a mere slit, thinking her boy was still there.
”Don’t forget to slide up your zipper,” she whispered.
When the priest returned to his seat he was full of praise for the airline. ”You have to hand it to these Jewish
stewardesses,” he said to his fellow priest. ”They think of everything!”
Beware of coincidences!
You say, Rosemary, ”Why do you say that it is right to meditate but wrong to pray?”
To pray is not right; to be in prayer is right. To pray means you will be saying something to God. Your God
is your invention, your prayer is your invention. And what are you going to say? Just something trivial: Do this,
do that, don’t do that. Or: You are great. He has been hearing that for so long, he must be fed up! He must be
using ear plugs just to avoid these so-called religious people! Millions of people praying and saying all kinds of
things to God. He must be getting tired, utterly tired.
But to be in prayer is a totally different phenomenon. To pray is one thing; that is childish, out of a conditioned
mind. But to be in prayer means to be in love with existence, to be in a dance with existence, to dance with the
stars, to sing with the birds, to flow with the river. That is prayer. But that prayer arises only when meditation
has created the right space for it. Hence my emphasis is on meditation and I don’t talk much about prayer,
because when meditation is complete, prayer comes on its own accord. There is no need to talk about it because
if I talk about prayer there is every danger you will misunderstand, because prayer is easy and meditation is
difficult.
Prayer is easy, very cheap. You can go to the church, kneel down on your knees, fold your hands, talk to God.
It costs nothing. Or every night before you go to sleep you pray to God....
I have heard about a very, very intelligent man who had put his prayer on the wall just by the side of his bed.
And before he used to go to bed he would say to God, ”Please read it.”
What is the point of saying the same thing every day? And one hopes that God must be at least able to read
it! That seems to be far more clear, intelligent. Why go on repeating it like a parrot every day?
I don’t say to you to pray because I know that whatsoever you do right now will be wrong. I teach meditation
and prayer comes inevitably; it can’t be avoided, but a totally different kind of prayer, with a different fragrance,
a different texture to it. It is just a joyousness, a cheerfulness, a gratitude. You feel so fulfilled, so blessed, that
your whole heart says thank you not in so many words your whole heart says yes. Your whole heart becomes
the yes. You are surrendered. Your life is a prayer. Then you need not go to a church or a temple or a mosque.
You live your prayer. You breathe, you drink, you move... and all that is prayer.
You say, ”In my opinion, meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake....” Rosemary, have you
ever meditated? A mere opinion has no value and it is a mere opinion. You may have read, you may have heard
about it, but don’t give much importance to opinions.
You say, ”Meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake....” You don’t have any experience,
any taste of meditation. In meditation, the self disappears, the ego disappears. There is no question of ”for one’s
own sake.” One is no more an island; one becomes part of the vast continent of existence. Meditation means you
disappear, evaporate. You are no longer there, just a pure nothingness. How can it be for one’s own sake? There
is no self left. In meditation, no self is ever found so how can it be selfish?
People come to me and they ask me particularly Christian missionaries they write letters to me: ”You are
teaching people meditation; that is a kind of selfishness.” They don’t know what they are talking about.
Meditation is the only way to get rid of the self. Meditation is the only possibility to create unselfishness in
the world. Everything else is selfish. The Christian missionary serving the poor people, the crippled this is all
selfish. Mother Teresa of Calcutta and all her work is absolutely selfish.