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

222 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
But here on the earth the politicians make much fuss. Politics has become the center of life; your newspapers
are full of it, your radio programs are full of it. Everything seems to be colored by politics for the simple reason
that these people have got something which you are all hankering for they have got name and fame.
But Buddha says: WHY MISS WHAT YOU DO NOT HAVE? And, in fact, why miss that which you do not
have and can never have? To believe that you are famous is to live in a fool’s paradise. And even if your name is
going to be written in history... you can make so much nuisance that they will have to write it down in history.
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, of course their names will remain in history, but not in golden
letters. History is not written in golden letters at all, and their names will be only in some footnotes. And even if
they are there, what does it matter? Your whole history is bunk! It is less history and more hysteria! Of course,
if you are very hysterical you will become historical. But what is the point of it all? You would have missed a
great opportunity.
The real man does not care about name and fame. The authentic man lives his life irrespective of name and
fame; he does not care a bit whether anybody knows him or not.
THE SEEKER IS NOT SORRY.
Buddha says: Teach people that the search for truth should not be a sad search. This is one of the things which
has been very much misunderstood. Somehow the sad people have dominated the whole religious scene down the
ages. Only once in a while do you find a Buddha or a Jesus or a Zarathustra who talks about joy, who talks about
living in bliss. Only once in a while do you find a Krishna who not only teaches dance but dances himself, who
not only teaches singing but sings himself. Otherwise the scene is dominated by pathological people, either by
masochists or by sadists.
Ninety-nine percent of so-called religious people are ill, seriously ill people. They have gone into religion because
they have failed in life, they have gone into religion because they could not cope with life. It is an escape and
the escapist can never be happy.
Christians say that Jesus never laughed. Now, there cannot be a greater lie than that. Jesus, and never
laughed? Then who will be able to laugh? Then nobody will be able to laugh at all! And the whole life of Jesus
proves that he must have been a man of very joyous nature. He must have been really spiritual in the sense
the French use the word spirituel. In French this word ’spirituel’ means both ”spiritual” and ”humorous.” There
seems to be a great insight in it the same word meaning both. He must have laughed with his companions. It is
well known that he used to enjoy eating and drinking, and when a man enjoys eating and drinking it is difficult to
think of him never laughing. People who enjoy eating and drinking, people who enjoy parties, also enjoy dancing
and singing and joking. He must have laughed, he must have joked. One cannot believe that twenty-four hours a
day he was delivering only gospels he must have gossiped!
But the people who are sad, they would like him also to be sad. All the figures, statues, paintings of Jesus seem
to be false. And they have been changing down the ages. In the earliest pictures he was shown without beard
and mustache. After two centuries, suddenly the beard and the mustache appeared because without a beard and
a mustache he did not look like a prophet; he looked too young, not mature enough. A face without a beard and
without a mustache looks a little boyish... suddenly the beard appeared.
In the East just the opposite has been the case. Buddha is never painted with a beard, neither is Krishna or
Mahavira, neither is Rama or Patanjali... nobody. Why? because the Eastern idea is that these people were
so young, spiritually young, that it is better to let them appear young from the outside too. The outside should
represent the inside.
Buddha became very old, he died when he was eighty-two, but still he is never depicted as having a beard. Jesus
died when he was only thirty-three, but the beard appeared after two centuries. Still his face was not sad. After
two centuries even that face changed. He became more and more sad as if he were carrying the whole burden
of the earth. Now they have changed him into the savior; he is carrying the cross. He has come to deliver you
from your sufferings, he is taking your sufferings on himself. And they have falsified this beautiful man who used
to enjoy the company of very ordinary people carpenters, laborers, gardeners, fishermen, gamblers, prostitutes,
drunkards, tax collectors, every kind of people even tax collectors! They are making him more and more abstract;
he is losing his earthliness. He is becoming more and more a concept rather than a real human being; he is losing
his humanity. He is no more the Son of Man, he is becoming only the Son of God.
These are the sad people who are projecting their sadness on him. They say he never laughed I can’t believe
it. I can believe a far more impossible thing....
The followers of Zarathustra say that he laughed the very moment he was born I can believe that, that he
was born laughing. It looks absolutely impossible no child is ever born laughing but it has something beautiful
about it. Zarathustra getting out of the womb, laughing, appeals to me more. Such a joyous spirit! That’s why