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

220 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
”Then why are you laughing?”
”Because I got even with him last week.”
”What happened?”
”I died and they buried him.”
Man is mad. Madness is not a disease, it is the normal condition of mankind. Yes, people differ in degrees, but
that is not much of a difference. Man as he exists on the earth is insane.
The effort of all the buddhas is to bring sanity to you, to dispel your madness. But because everybody is mad,
just like you, you remain oblivious of the fact your whole life. Unless you come across a buddha you will never
be aware of the fact that you are mad. The buddha becomes a mirror: he reflects your reality, he shows you your
face as it is and it is utterly distorted. It is not the way you are meant to be. Something has gone fundamentally
wrong, something very basic is missing.
Man is born in such a state of unconsciousness that whatsoever he does brings more and more misery to him
and to others. He goes on blaming fate, he goes on blaming nature, he goes on blaming the society but he always
goes on blaming others, he never blames himself. The moment you gather courage enough to blame yourself, the
moment you accept the responsibility of whatsoever you are, a ray of light enters into your being. You are on the
path of inner transformation.
These sutras are for the Bodhisattvas. Now Buddha is saying to his Bodhisattvas to those disciples who are
going to become helpers to mankind, who are ready to go into the world and to help people who are drowning
in their own insanity Buddha is saying to his Bodhisattvas, ”These are the basic things you have to start your
teaching with.”
The first thing he says: Tell the people that... YOU HAVE NO NAME AND NO FORM because that is where
millions are stuck. People live and die for name and fame. It seems their life purpose is to have a name known
to the whole world, a name which is going to be written in golden letters in history, a name which will go on
resounding down the corridors of time for ever and ever.
And the whole thing is so stupid, so ridiculous, because you don’t have any name in the first place. You are
born nameless, you are nameless. All names are arbitrary. Don’t sacrifice your life for a name. Don’t sacrifice the
real for something unreal. We are sacrificing something true for something which is untrue and cannot be made
true.
When a child is born, you know he does not bring a name with him; he is born as namelessness. But of course
a name is needed; it has a certain utility but no reality. It is arbitrary. You can call him anything, any name
will do X, Y, Z will do. In a more scientific age there is every possibility that we will drop these old names.
Somebody will be O-11, somebody will be X-13. Names are going to be more mathematical one day because they
will be more precise. And there is no need to have the same name for two persons; computers can decide. The
computer can say that this is a new name, nobody has it all over the world. Right now so many people have the
same name; it is bound to happen. It is not very scientific, but it works.
Buddha wants his Bodhisattvas to tell the people the first thing: You are nameless. So don’t be worried about
your name or your fame. You are also formless: your innermost being has no form. Your body has a form, but
your body goes on changing; every day it changes. Within seven years your body is completely new, entirely new.
Not even a single cell of the old exists in it, everything goes on changing.
If you come across the first sperm of your father that started your life, will you be able to recognize it as
yourself? Impossible. Will you be able to recognize your mother’s egg as yourself? Impossible. That was your
form one day, but you were not it. And then in nine months’ time in the mother’s womb you passed through
many forms.
The scientists say that each child passes quickly, very speedily, through the whole evolution of humanity. From
the fish to the monkey to the man, he passes through all the phases of course in very quick succession because
he has to fulfill the whole evolution in nine months. That’s why a premature child is a little retarded, because he
has not evolved yet completely; he has not been able to complete the whole cycle of evolution. Every child begins
as a fish in the mother’s womb. Will you be able to recognize that fish as you? But one day that was your form.
Will you be able to recognize your face the day you were born? If a picture is shown to you it will be impossible
for anybody to recognize that, ”This is me.” Right now you have a certain form; that form will also go down the
drain in the same way. Every moment it is changing.
But there is something eternal in you: your consciousness, your being, your awareness. You can call it your
soul, whatsoever you want to call it; names don’t matter. But one thing is certain: that you don’t have any
particular form; you pass through many forms. You can pass through many forms only because you don’t have