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

216 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
Deva Louis, it is not inevitable for a spiritual seeker to suffer. You suffer because you are not aware of your
own responsibility. It is not because of growth that you suffer. You suffer because you are unconscious of your
resistance, of your past-orientation, of your future expectations, and you are unaware that you don’t have any
meditative space within you.
The fifth question:
Question 5
BELOVED MASTER, IS IT POSSIBLE TO MISS THE PERFECT JEWEL? IS IT POSSIBLE?
Prem Maitri, it depends how conscious you are. If you are conscious it is impossible to miss. If you really
know the perfect jewel, if you recognize it, if it is your own vision, your own understanding, it is impossible to
miss it. But it may not be so. You may have heard others say, ”This is a perfect jewel”; it may be a borrowed
understanding. Then it is not only possible to miss it, it is absolutely inevitable that you will miss it it is
impossible not to miss it.
If you come across a buddha and you pay your respects just because others are paying their respects, because
others are saying, ”He is a buddha, he is enlightened, he is awakened,” you will miss. But if you have even a
glimpse of your own into the being of the buddha, just a little taste of his milieu, just a small experience of his
perfume, that’s enough; it is impossible to miss. Then no force in the world can distract you. But it has to be
your own experience. And we are so unconscious that nothing seems to be our own experience.
People say that Jesus is Christ, so you believe it. But the people who crucified him, they could not see anything
in him; otherwise, do you think it would have been possible for them to crucify a man like Jesus? They crucified
him so easily. No problem was felt; their conscience was not disturbed. They did it just as they used to kill
criminals every year. The day they crucified Jesus they also crucified two thieves. They treated all three persons
in the same way; in fact, they treated the thieves in a far more human way because the thieves were more like
them.
Thousands of people had gathered to see. Nobody was crying, nobody was weeping, nobody had any pain in
the heart. Even Jesus’ own disciples had escaped, fearing that they may be caught.
When the people had gone when the show was over and Jesus was almost dead on the cross, three soldiers
were there just playing cards. They were on duty so nobody could steal the dead body of Jesus. So just sitting
underneath the cross they were playing cards!
And Maitri, you ask, ”Is it possible to miss the perfect jewel?”
Those three soldiers were just people like you. Of course, now you will think, ”Those soldiers must have been
utterly stupid, great sinners, unconscious, not knowing what they were doing we could not have done it,” because
now you have heard for two thousand years continuous propaganda that Jesus was Christ. But Jews still don’t
think that he was Christ; they still think that he was a charlatan, that he was a deceiver, that he was a false
messiah. Two thousand years’ continuous propaganda has not helped at all; they have kept on clinging to their
idea.
Do you think you would have recognized Buddha? Now, of course because now twenty-five centuries have
passed and Buddha has become bigger and bigger, so huge; he looms large on the horizon like a beautiful sunrise
you cannot believe that people could have missed him. But they were missing him! Even his own father could
not recognize that he was enlightened; even his own wife could not recognize that he was enlightened. There were
only a few people who had the courage to recognize him because to recognize him means you have to change
your life-style, to recognize him means you can’t remain the same anymore. To recognize a buddha as a buddha
means you are waking up.
The big cafeteria was crowded. A long line of people carrying trays was slowly moving along the counter when
someone shouted, ”Fire! McGinty’s house is on fire!”
Came the crash of a tray of dishes as an Italian near the front of the line made a mad dash out of the restaurant,
around the corner, and up the side street, bumping into people and knocking several of them down as he worked
his way homeward.
Then, just as suddenly, after he had narrowly escaped death several times, the man stopped short, clapped his
hand to his head and moaned, ”Hey, what am I doing? My name ain’t McGinty!”
People are living in such unconsciousness. What to say about recognizing a buddha? you don’t even know
who you are!
Maitri, it is possible to miss the perfect jewel if you are not aware. But if you are aware then it is impossible.
It all depends on your awareness.
The sixth question:
Question 6