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

192 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
BELOVED MASTER, WHY ARE THE INDIANS SUCH A PROUD PEOPLE?
Paul, God knows! They have no reason to be. I am also surprised. There is nothing but the ego clings to
anything or it invents something. India goes on inventing a beautiful past. It is invention, pure invention. It has
never been there, it has never existed.
Yes, there have been people like Krishna and Mahavira and Buddha, but they are not Indians at all. Jesus is
not Jewish and Lao Tzu is not Chinese. These people are universal; nobody can claim them. The whole earth
belongs to them; they are our common heritage, so you cannot brag about them.
But every country has to invent something to feel good. Just as individuals need egos, countries need egos,
races need egos, religions need egos. And Indians have a tremendously big ego. They think they are the most
spiritual people on the earth, and that is just bullshit! The very idea is unspiritual.
To be spiritual means to be humble. To be spiritual means to be nobodies. To be spiritual means not to
belong to any country, to any nation. To be spiritual means not to be Hindu, not to be Mohammedan, not to be
Christian. But even spirituality is being used as a prop.
It happens every day: some new Indians come, once in a while, those who don’t understand me... because it is
not possible to understand me just if you come once as a visitor just to look around. You can’t understand me if
you come as a tourist. Indians come, but they come only as visitors.
And the few Indians who have become absorbed into my commune, who have become sannyasins, I don’t count
them as Indians anymore. They have become universal. It is a universal brotherhood.
But when new Indians come they are Indians, very much Indians. And what egos they carry! When I pass
around the Buddha Hall with my hands joined together, with my head bowed down to them in love, in prayer, in
salutation, they can’t even respond. They sit like stones. Not even a formal gesture they can show. They look so
silly, so stupid, and I feel so sorry! How to help them? These people seem to be beyond help, beyond approach.
And they see the whole ocean of sannyasins with their hands joined together joyously bowing, responding in love,
communing, but they can’t do it. They just sit there like dead rocks. Strange... but not so strange because deep
down they think they already know. Deep down they think they are great inheritors of a spiritual tradition. They
know the Vedas and the Gita and the Upanishads.
I watch them, I watch their spirituality. They don’t look at me they look at my Rolls Royce! That’s why I
have asked my secretary to bring a Rolls Royce: at least for Indians there must be something to see! They are
more interested in the car and they are spiritual people, not materialists! When they come to the ashram, the
first question they ask the guides here is, ”Where is the Rolls?” They are not interested in seeing meditations,
they are not interested in seeing Sufi dancers, they are not interested in seeing Vipassana, they are not interested
in anything. ”Where is the Rolls?” Their whole mind is materialistic, but they go on pretending to be spiritual.
And you can always invent something or other.
The country is poor so they cannot brag about richness. The country is uneducated, they cannot brag about
education. The country is technologically backward, they cannot brag about technology. So they have fallen upon
something invisible: spirituality. You can always brag about spirituality. Nobody can disprove it. Of course, you
cannot prove it either, but one thing good about spirituality is that it cannot be disproved. So you can go on
talking about your spirituality which exists nowhere, which has never existed.
Individuals have been spiritual beings, societies have never been. We have still to wait for that great day when
there will be so many individuals awakened that the society will start having the color of spirituality. Up to now,
it has not happened. Hitherto it has not been happening; it has only been a hope. But every religion believes
that they are religious. Just believing in certain ideas gives you a false feeling of being religious. And whenever
you come across a real religious person you shrink back, you become afraid.
Hence they are against me they are bound to be against me. I am shattering all their structures. I am
shattering their whole egoistic patterns. I am trying to bring them down to the earth, to the reality and it hurts.
India has never been against anybody as India is against me, for the simple reason that nobody has ever
shattered their egos. I am making every possible effort to shatter their egos because that is the only hope. If
India loses its ego, there is a possibility of a rebirth. The country can be reborn. It has great potential. It has
the same potential as when you don’t use a field for many, many years, you don’t grow any crop, and the field
becomes more and more potential every year.
For centuries India has not grown any creativity. It has become the most potential country in the world. If
it explodes into creativity it is really going to be something great, something of great consequence to the whole
earth. But before it can ever happen the shell of the seed has to be shattered, has to be broken.