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

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202 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 11 Chapter 1 Hold your tongue Audio:Yes Video:No Length:0 mins HOLD YOUR TONGUE. DO NOT EXALT YOURSELF BUT LIGHTEN THE WAY FOR YOUR WORDS ARE SWEET. FOLLOW THE TRUTH OF THE WAY. REFLECT UPON IT. MAKE IT YOUR OWN. LIVE IT. IT WILL ALWAYS SUSTAIN YOU. DO NOT TURN AWAY WHAT IS GIVEN YOU, NOR REACH OUT FOR WHAT IS GIVEN TO OTHERS, LEST YOU DISTURB YOUR QUIETNESS. GIVE THANKS FOR WHAT HAS BEEN GIVEN YOU, HOWEVER LITTLE. BE PURE, NEVER FALTER. Life is full of complications. Even when we are born there is a string attached. The greatest complication, the source of all complications is unawareness, unconsciousness. We are focused on the objective world and we are totally unaware who we are. The whole message of Gautama the Buddha is to turn in. The message is simple, but the implementation is arduous. It is arduous because for many, many lives we have lived outwardly, we have lived the life of an extrovert. We have completely forgotten how to relate with our own beings, how to be with ourselves. We have forgotten the path, the language, the method. Not only that, we have become completely oblivious that there is an interiority to us. We think as if we have only an outside. Now that is stupid. The outside can exist only with an inside; without the inside the outside is impossible. If we can see out, we can also see in. In fact, to see in is easier because it is there that we are rooted. But never seeing in, we go on rushing in all directions, doing all kinds of things, not knowing why, just because others are doing them. We are imitating, following. We become carbon copies. That’s the most ugly thing in life: to be a carbon copy. Man can never be blissful unless he is original, unless he knows his original face. I have heard a very beautiful story. It may be true, it may not be true. Its truth is not historical but, far more significant, it is metaphorical. The story is: Alexander the Great was on his way to India. He met a fakir sitting by the roadside with a round, small, crystal-like object in his hand. ”What’s that?” inquired Alexander. ”I will not tell you,” said the fakir, ”but I will bet you that it is heavier than all your gold, silver and jewels.” Alexander ordered an enormous balance to be brought along with all of his treasures. On one side of the balance he piled all the treasures; the fakir put his small round crystal on the other side and, lo! it was heavier. Down it went and the vast treasures were lifted into the air. Alexander was amazed. Then the fakir said, ”I will show you one more thing.” He took a little dust and spread it over the crystal. It immediately became light, went up into the air, and the treasures came down. Alexander could not contain his amazement anymore and asked the fakir, ”Please, you must tell me. What is this object?” Said the fakir, ”It is nothing special. It is only a human eye.” Man has the capacity to see himself too, but that capacity is full of dust. We have an inner eye too the third eye but that eye is not functioning, and we have not used it for so long that it has gone out of function completely; it has become a paralyzed part in our being. Now even physiologists have discovered a certain part in the human brain which seems to be absolutely superfluous. They are puzzled because nature never creates anything superfluous. It must have a purpose, but it seems to have no purpose. It can be removed and that will not affect you at all. But all the mystics down the ages have been saying the same thing of course, not in scientific terminology; they have their own way of saying it. They call it the third eye. A certain part of your mind is capable of functioning in an introvert way only. Meditation creates the right atmosphere, the right climate for it to function. Meditation simply means removing the dust that the fakir threw on the eye. And the dust is nothing but the whole mind process of thoughts, desires, imagination, memory. If you become capable of a few intervals, gaps, when all thought processes cease... suddenly you are and there is nothing to see inside. Then the turning happens; then immediately there is a radical change in your vision, your gestalt changes. The outside world disappears and the inside world appears. It is because of this that the mystics say that the outside world is illusory. Not that it does not exist; it exists, but it is illusory because the mystic knows a certain state of consciousness when it simply evaporates, it is found no more. You enter into a totally different dimension: the dimension of bliss, the dimension of peace, the dimension of Buddha, Christ, Krishna.
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 203 These sutras today are very special. This whole series... this is the last series of Buddha’s sutras. Up to now he was talking to the disciples who were getting ready. Now this last part of his sutras is meant for the bodhisattvas, for those who have become ready, for those who have experienced something of the inner. It is not for the initiates, it is not for the adepts. Hence this last part is the most important part. Buddha says there are two kinds of enlightened people in the world; he is very scientific about his approach. His categories are very significant; nobody has done that before or since. He says the first category of the enlightened ones is called arhatas. The arhata is a mystic; he has known, he has realized, but he is utterly unconcerned about others. He has found the way. He has reached his home and he does not care about others who are seeking and searching, because his understanding is that if they seek and search authentically they will find the way themselves. And if they are not true seekers, nobody can make them true seekers; hence no help is needed. The arhata does not help anyone. He has traveled alone and he knows everybody has to travel alone. When Buddha became enlightened himself, his first idea was to become an arhata. For seven days he remained absolutely silent, not saying a single word. The story is: Gods from heaven came. They were very much worried because only once in a while does a person become awakened, and if he remains absolutely silent the world will miss his message. And his message is a medicine for those who are dying; his message is a nourishment for those who are starving for truth. His message can be a boat to the other shore. His message has to be delivered, he has to be persuaded. They came, and they argued. But Buddha said, ”You must agree with me that nobody was able to help me of course, I knocked on many doors because it is something which is not transferable. Even if they had it they could not give it to me; I had to find it by my own effort. Hence I think that is the only way: people have to seek and search; it cannot be borrowed.” He was right and the gods had to agree. And he said, ”Even if I say it, only one out of ten thousand people will understand. The remaining ones will not understand; on the contrary, they will misunderstand. So why create so much misunderstanding in the world? The world is already in confusion why create more confusion? Out of compassion I am keeping quiet. And the one who will understand will find it himself anyway. The man who can understand what I say is so intelligent that really he needs no help. So what is the point? Why should I bother?” The gods were silenced. They moved into the woods to ponder over the matter. ”How to convince the Buddha? He appears to be right, he is logical, but some way has to be found.” It is good that they were able to find some way, otherwise we would have missed The Dhammapada; these beautiful sutras would have been missed. The world would have been far poorer. The whole credit goes to those anonymous gods who persuaded Buddha! They pondered over the matter for hours; they found a way. They came back and they said, ”We agree with you, but only on one point we cannot agree. And that point is that we understand that only one person will understand out of ten thousand, so you need not bother about that one person; he will find himself sooner or later. It is only a question of time, and time does not matter because existence is eternal. So what does it matter, how does it matter, whether one achieves today and somebody else achieves tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? All those who have become awakened are contemporaries; it does not make much difference at all.” That’s why I say I am a contemporary to Buddha, a contemporary to Jesus, a contemporary to Zarathustra, a contemporary to Lao Tzu. Once you know, you become contemporary to all the knowers. All small time gaps simply disappear, they are so tiny. Twenty-five hundred years make no difference at all. That’s why in the East we have not bothered much about time. Nobody knows when Krishna was born. We could have also created a calendar in the name of Krishna before Krishna, after Krishna we could have made a history. And Krishna certainly preceded Jesus by at least three thousand years, so his calendar would have been five thousand years old by now. But we have never bothered about it. Nobody knows when the founder of Jainism, Adinatha, was born or when he died. He must have preceded even Krishna by at least five thousand years. If we had a calendar then, his calendar would by now have been at least ten thousand years old. I am saying ”at least,” because Jainas say that he is far older. According to them he is almost ninety thousand years ancient; it is possible. But we have not created history, we have not written history, for the simple reason that the people who are worth writing about go beyond time; for them time becomes irrelevant. And the people who are not worth writing about, only they make much noise in the world of time. Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Ayatollah Khomeiniac, these people make much noise in the world of time. A Buddha, a Krishna, a Jesus, a Zarathustra simply make no trace in time; they disappear without leaving a trace, as if they are not part of history, or they are part of a totally different kind of history which is nontemporal.
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