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

164 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
The only delight in life is when you master something. And when a man has mastered all his being his action,
his saying, his thinking his delight is infinite. DELIGHT IN THE MASTERY....
OF YOUR HANDS AND YOUR FEET, OF YOUR WORDS AND YOUR THOUGHTS.
Buddha never divides your bodymind. He says: Be a master of both because you are psychosomatic, you are
bodymind. So be a master of your body and be a master of your mind. Then you will know who you are. Then
you will know the master is you beyond bodymind. Then you will know you are pure consciousness.
DELIGHT IN MEDITATION....
Delight in silence, stillness; that is meditation.
AND IN SOLITUDE.
Delight in being alone. Enjoy being alone as much as feasible, as much as practical. Delight in solitude.
Sitting silently, doing nothing,
The spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
If you can sit silently doing nothing, the spring is not far away, the spring is bound to come. It always comes in
silence. It always comes when you know how to delight in your aloneness because only then are you independent.
If you delight in others’ company you are dependent. If you feel lonely when you are alone you don’t know
aloneness yet.
Loneliness and aloneness are two different things, notwithstanding what the dictionaries say. In dictionaries they
are synonymous, but in existence they are totally different. Loneliness is negative. It means you are dependent,
you are hankering for the other, you are suffering. Your being alone is not a joy, it is a misery. You want to be
occupied.
The zookeeper guided the visitors to the next cage. ”Now here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the laughing
hyena. Now, the laughing hyena has sex on only one night in the year.”
”Well, what has he got to laugh about then?” asked a young lad in the group.
”Aha! Well, tonight’s the night!”
People are happy with others, but that happiness is dependent; it can be taken away. It will be taken away, it
is bound to disappear. It can’t be permanent, it is momentary.
Raleigh Rosenblum, the romantic young bachelor of Palm Beach who was also a big spender, telephoned the
girl he had just met the night before. She was not only gorgeous but had also proved to be a real swinger. He
wanted another date. To his surprise, however, she turned him down.
”How come you are refusing to go out with me tonight?” he demanded. ”Only yesterday you said there was
something about me you adored.”
”There was, baby,” she crooned in a husky voice, ”but you spent it.”
All happiness that is dependent on others is bound to disappear sooner or later. It is temporary, it is momentary,
it is illusory. Only that joy is yours which wells up within your own being. Hence Buddha says: DELIGHT IN
MEDITATION, delight IN SOLITUDE.
Aloneness is the joy of being just yourself. It is being joyous with yourself, it is enjoying your own company.
There are very few people who enjoy their own company. And it is a very strange world: nobody enjoys his
company and everybody wants others to enjoy his company! If they don’t enjoy he feels insulted and alone he
feels disgusted with himself. In fact, if you cannot enjoy your own company, who else is going to enjoy it?
Aloneness, solitude is positive. It is overflowing joy for no reason. It is our very nature to be joyous; hence
there is no need to depend on anybody else. There is no other motive in it, it is simply there. Just as the water
flows downwards, your being rises upwards. Just give it a chance give it solitude. And remember again, solitude
is not solitariness, just as aloneness is not loneliness.
COMPOSE YOURSELF, BE HAPPY. YOU ARE A SEEKER.
Buddha reminds you again: YOU ARE A SEEKER. COMPOSE YOURSELF.... Be harmonious, be graceful.
Learn the art of being alone and yet utterly happy. Then one day, in that solitude, something starts happening
which you had never expected. Something immense, something vast descends in you. Something of the beyond
penetrates you. A great uplift, a great feeling of levitation arises in you. You are being uplifted, you start rising
towards the ultimate. Call that ultimate God, truth, whatsoever you prefer to call it. Buddha calls it freedom,
nirvana: cessation of the ego, freedom from the ego, freedom from all bondage, freedom from all dependence on
others. And you become unbounded, you become as vast as the sky: even the sky is not your limit.
MASTER YOUR SENSES, WHAT YOU TASTE AND SMELL, WHAT YOU SEE, WHAT YOU HEAR.
IN ALL THINGS BE A MASTER OF WHAT YOU DO AND WHAT YOU SAY AND THINK. BE FREE.
YOU ARE A SEEKER. DELIGHT IN THE MASTERY OF YOUR HANDS AND YOUR FEET, OF YOUR
WORDS AND YOUR THOUGHTS.