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

148 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
on repeating it. He does not mean it. He has no heart within it, he simply says the words empty words, hollow
words.
A man was purchasing a parrot. He went to the pet shop. He liked one parrot very beautiful. He asked the
price. The price appeared to be a little too much: the man was asking one thousand dollars.
The purchaser asked, ”Is that parrot worth that much?”
The shopkeeper said, ”You can ask the parrot himself.”
He asked the parrot, and the parrot said, ”There is no doubt about it.”
He said it so convincingly. It appeared so natural. The man purchased the parrot, and he was very excited to
show it to his wife, to his children. He brought the parrot home.
He asked the parrot, ”What is your name?”
He said, ”There is no doubt about it.”
The man said, ”What?”
He said, ”There is no doubt about it!”
The man asked, ”Do you know anything else or not?”
He said, ”There is no doubt about it.”
The man said, ”My God, I must have been a fool to purchase you!”
The parrot said, ”There is no doubt about it!”
That was all that the parrot knew. You ask any question, the answer is the same. It has nothing to do with
the questions, it has nothing to do with the reality, it is not a response. It is just like a gramophone record. It
goes on repeating meaninglessly.
The people who have been conditioned to say yes yes to God, yes to the religion, yes to the society, yes to the
parents their yes is bogus, it has no substance. It is not even a shadow. Even shadows have something in them,
but this yes is absolutely a nonentity. Parents teach you to respect the parents, say yes to them, be obedient. Of
course, that is their vested interest. And the priest says: Respect the priest, respect the Bible, the Koran, the
Gita, respect the tradition, respect convention. That is his vested interest. And so on, so forth.
Somebody asked George Gurdjieff, ”Why has respect for parents been emphasized, in every religion, in every
country, in every society? Is there something divine in it?” Gurdjieff laughed and said, ”Yes. God knows perfectly
well that if people are trained to say yes to the parents only then will they say yes to God. He has a vested
interest in it” because God is the father figure, the ultimate father. And Gurdjieff also said, ”Parents are sooner
or later going to die, and then there will be a vacuum. You respected your parents, you were obedient to your
parents, you were always following, imitating whatsoever they said. You were just a carbon copy. You will feel
very empty so much so that you would like to fill your emptiness with something. And that is the place which
God will start filling in you.”
He was joking. It is not God’s vested interest. Of course it is the vested interest of the priests. God has no
vested interest in anything. In fact there is no God as a person; God is only godliness.
One need not believe in God, one need not be a yea-sayer. One should learn the process of saying no.
So Jinesh, don’t be worried. Say no boldly, courageously. Risk everything for the no. Slowly, slowly you will
become aware that the no has limits. There are points when you cannot say no. When you explore the possibilities
of saying no, you will come across certain spaces where no-saying is impossible and yes arises within your heart on
its own accord, not as a conditioning, not because somebody has told you. Now it is your own flowering. And then
that yes has beauty, then that yes has truth, that yes makes you a religious person. Otherwise you remain just
imitators. You can imitate Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism it does not matter whom you imitate.
I have seen Christians becoming Hindus, Hindus becoming Christians they are the same people. Not only that,
I have seen Catholics become communists they still remain the same people. I have seen communists become
religious but still they are the same people. Just the object of worship changes. Gods go on changing. One
God fails, another God is replaced but the worshipper is the same. Whether you worship Mohammed or Marx,
Mahavira or Moses, it is not going to make any difference.
If your yes has not come as a growth to you, then it is absolutely useless. Pass through this fire of no-saying,
but remember only one thing: don’t let it become a habit. It can become a habit, that is the danger. The danger
is not in no-saying. The danger is that your no-saying may become mechanical. So say it consciously, that’s all I
can advise you say it consciously! Just don’t go on saying it because you have become accustomed. That is as
foolish as saying yes meaninglessly. If you say it as a habit, it is meaningless.
There are theists and there are atheists, and they are all in the same boat. Somebody has been told from the
very beginning that God is say yes and you will be saved. And somebody has been told there is no God say no
and you are saved. And they both are repeating. Whom you are imitating is irrelevant.