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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 161
The policeman came to see because for half an hour Mulla was trying and trying. And he said, ”Wait! Give
me the key, I will open it.”
He said, ”No need to bother with the key. You just hold the house in place and I can open it!”
In your unconsciousness, thirty-three thousand keys! You will be burdened. That’s what has happened to
Buddhism. That’s what has happened to all the religions. So many laws and so many rules that people have
become burdened so much with them, they have forgotten all about them.
Religion is very simple. It consists of a single law awareness and that is the master key. Make each act of
your life full of awareness. Focus your awareness on each act, and that very focusing transforms it, because when
you give your awareness to anything it becomes alive; you are pouring your life into it. Your senses will become
totally sensitive, and because you are aware you will remain the master. Slavery means unawareness.
Karl the Knaidel, king of Kansas City, had everything in life that a man could ask for, except for one thing: he
wanted a grandson to carry on the family name, to say nothing of the family business. So he was understandably
happy when his bachelor son told him one evening that he had fallen in love and was planning to marry.
”It is a smart thing you are doing,” advised Karl. ”Until a man marries he is incomplete.”
He pondered the wisdom of his own statement for a moment or two and then added solemnly, ”He is not only
complete he is finished!”
And you are not falling in one thing in love you are falling in a thousand things in anger, in greed. You are
continuously falling, falling victims of some unconscious forces within you that you have carried from your animal
heritage.
We have to make our unconscious full of light. No nook or corner should be left without light inside you. Only
one tenth of our mind is conscious; nine tenths is in darkness, deep darkness. We are like an iceberg: one tenth
shows up, nine tenths is hidden underneath and that nine tenths is nine times more powerful.
So you may decide something, but you will not be able to follow it; that nine tenths will destroy it any moment.
You may decide to get up tomorrow early at five o’clock, but this decision is only by the one tenth of your mind;
nine tenths is completely unaware of your decision, absolutely unaware of your decision. So when in the morning
the alarm goes, nine tenths of the mind says, ”What is the hurry? And it is so beautiful and so cozy and so warm.
And that Dynamic Meditation can wait! Tomorrow we can meditate.” And of course, the tomorrow never comes.
And when you wake up you will feel guilty but this is again not the mind that stopped you from waking up which
is feeling guilty; that is another one tenth which is feeling guilty.
And this goes on your whole life, this hide-and-seek. One part decides, another part cancels. And the part that
cancels is nine times more powerful. You have decided many times not to be angry again, but all your decisions
are impotent because that nine times more powerful unconscious is always there and it won’t allow the one tenth
to take possession, to be powerful.
Hence the transformation is not through decisions, through taking vows; the transformation needs a totally
different approach. You have to change your unconscious slowly, slowly into consciousness. That’s what meditation
is all about: it is making your light grow bigger, spreading it deeper, slowly, slowly diving deeper into your own
being.
As more and more of your unconscious is reclaimed by the consciousness your decisions will start becoming
great fulfillments. Then you can promise yourself something. Right now all your promises are false; you know
they are not going to work. You know you have failed so many times and you know you will fail again; but you
go on hoping hoping against hope.
The ordinary religion taught in the temples and the churches by the priests teaches you character. The real
religion the religion of the buddhas, the awakened ones teaches you consciousness, not character. Character
is a by-product; when you are conscious, character comes on its own accord. The ordinary religion teaches you
conscience; it is cheap. The buddhas teach you consciousness, not conscience.
Buddha says:
IN ALL THINGS BE A MASTER OF WHAT YOU DO AND WHAT YOU SAY AND THINK. BE FREE.
Man can be divided into four parts. The outermost circumference consists of action, what you do. The second
layer, a little deeper than your action, consists of your saying, what you say. A little deeper, the third layer
consists of your thinking, what you constantly think. And the fourth is not a layer; the fourth is your reality, your
being. That is your center, the center of the cyclone. Your center, your being is surrounded by three concentric
circles: thinking, saying, doing.
Buddha says: IN ALL THINGS BE A MASTER OF WHAT YOU DO.... Are you aware of what you are
doing? Are you doing it consciously or just because others are doing it? Are you an imitator, just following the
crowd like a sheep? Be a man, don’t be a sheep! Don’t follow the crowd, be individual. Only then can you be a