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

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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.
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 135 Why do I call these works selfish? They are doing great service to humanity, but they are doing service to humanity as a means to reach to heaven. They are using the poor people and the blind people and the crippled and the lepers as ladders to reach to heaven. Just think of a world where there is nobody poor, nobody crippled, nobody is a leper, nobody is blind. Then what will Mother Teresa do? Will you still give her a Nobel Prize? For what? The basic requirement is that blind people should be there, poor people should be there, lepers should be there, widows should be there, orphans should be there. Thousands of orphans are needed for one woman to become a great servant of humanity. One of the Hindu priests, the head of the Hindu priests, Karpatri, has written a book, Against Socialism. He gives many reasons against socialism, but the most hilarious reason that he gives is that in Hindu scriptures it is said: Unless you donate to the poor people you will never enter into heaven. And socialism is trying to destroy classes so there will be no poor, no rich. Once there is nobody rich and nobody poor, who is going to donate unto whom? And what will happen to heaven? Very logical! And these people are great servants of humanity! These stupid people are thought to be saints! In meditation, you disappear; in prayer, you are very much there. You have to be there to pray; otherwise who is going to pray and to whom? Martin Buber has written one of the greatest books of this time, I And Thou. He says that prayer is a relationship between I and thou; both are needed. ”I” is needed the one who is going to pray and ”thou,” a concept of God. Then prayer is possible. Prayer is a dialogue between I and thou. Prayer is basically selfish, self-centered. But meditation is not a dialogue at all. Neither I is needed nor thou is needed. No I, no thou. The whole idea of I-and-thou disappears. A silence prevails, a virgin silence, undisturbed with any dialogue. It is not for one’s own sake. One disappears; only then meditation happens. Meditation is like a flower opening, and prayer is the fragrance of the flower that is released to the winds. I don’t talk about the fragrance, I only teach how to cultivate roses, Rosemary, remember! The third question: Question 3 BELOVED MASTER, WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL THINGS TO KEEP ONE’S WIFE HAPPY? Satyam, I don’t know much about wives. I am an unmarried man. You are asking a question to a wrong person. But I have been observing many wives and many husbands. So this is not my experience just my opinion! There are two things necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First: let her think she is having her own way. And second: let her have it. The fourth question: Question 4 BELOVED MASTER, WHY DOES TRUTH HURT? Prem Patipada, truth hurts because we live in lies. Our whole life consists of lies. Friedrich Nietzsche has said: Don’t take lies away from man; otherwise it will be impossible for him to live. Sigmund Freud also says exactly the same thing: that man cannot live without lies; he needs many lies religious, metaphysical, philosophical, political. Just watch yourself how many lies you need to support yourself, to go on nourishing your ego. Why does man need so many lies? because the basic lie is the ego, and the ego can exist only surrounded by many lies to support it. Any truth hurts because it takes away a few lies, a few props, a few supports, and your ego starts falling down. And that is all that you know about yourself. You don’t know that you are something transcendental to the ego. Somebody says to you, ”How beautiful you are!” and you believe it immediately. Nobody ever objects. I have told it to many people; nobody ever objects. I have never come across a person who will object, ”No, you are wrong because I know my face. I see it in the mirror every day.” You say it to anybody, even the ugliest. Say it to a camel, and he will nod his head. He will say, ”Right. I had always known it. You are the first intelligent person who has given it recognition.” Even the ugliest person deep down thinks he is beautiful. He believes, otherwise it will be difficult to exist, to live. The most stupid thinks that he is very intelligent. Hence you go on giving compliments to each other. All those compliments are lies and everybody is ready to believe. And it is not only in the ordinary life. When you enter into your inner journey, there also you expect recognition. Just the other day Somendra asked, ”Why don’t you give me recognition?” Everybody wants to be recognized, told that ”You are enlightened,” that ”You have attained,” that ”You have realized” and you will be so happy! But that happiness will be only momentary because it is not true.
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