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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 227
And hatred: all your saints are full of hatred hatred for the sinners. That’s why they have created hell: heaven
for themselves and hell for the sinners; heaven for themselves and hell for people who don’t follow their religion.
If you are a Catholic you will go to heaven according to Catholic priests. The Hindu has no hope. First he has to
become a Catholic, then he can hope; otherwise he is bound to go to hell. And ask the Hindus: they laugh at the
whole idea! Their scriptures are far more ancient and they have a longer tradition and a longer propaganda. They
think that except Hindus nobody is going to heaven; and not even all the Hindus the sudras, the untouchables,
have no place there.
This is hatred! This is still the same mind, the same ugly mind playing new games, but nothing has changed.
THERE ARE FIVE AT THE DOOR TO TURN AWAY.... These are the five. Buddha says: Turn them away.
Be watchful so they don’t catch hold of you.
AND FIVE MORE.... These five are very visible, and there are five more which are not so visible, but they are
also there hiding behind these five. Those five are: first, lust for life.... It is easy to drop the lust for a woman or
the lust for a man, but it is very difficult to drop the lust for life itself. Everybody wants to live and to live as
long as possible.
You can ask in India yogis are trying hard to live as long as possible. Now what is that? Why should they be
so much concerned about living long? And what is going to happen even if you live long?
Before Bernard Shaw died he left a message to be engraved as an epitaph on his grave. The message was, ”I
knew all along that if I lived long enough, something like this was going to happen.”
So whether you live ninety years or a hundred years or two hundred years, what is the point of it? Death is
going to happen. But lust for life.... Buddha says that ordinary people lust for money, power, prestige, and your
so-called saints lust for life, long life. And the yogis go on pretending that they are more aged than they are.
I have heard:
One yogi was telling people that his age was seven hundred years, and all the Indians were nodding their heads.
One Westerner was also there, a tourist, who could not believe this. The man looked not more than seventy and
he was saying he was seven hundred years? Impossible! He wanted to find out so he remained there.
He saw one man who used to serve the old man; he bribed the young man. And it is so easy in India to bribe
anybody! In fact, nobody feels offended by it; it is absolutely accepted. It is a way of life in India, no problem in
it.
And the young man was happy. He said, ”What do you want?”
The Westerner said, ”I want to know only one thing. Is your master really seven hundred years old? because
only you can tell me; you have been with him.”
He said, ”Yes, I can tell you only one thing, more than that I don’t know. I have been with him for only three
hundred years.”
And the man was not more than thirty years old!
And there are books now they are being translated into all the languages of the world saying that if you
practice yoga you will prolong your life. And if you eat this and if you eat that, and if you do this asana, this
posture, your life will be prolonged. If you breathe in this way or that way....
Buddha is saying this is the same lust. So the first subtle thing is lust for life.
And second: longing for birth in higher realms. Even if you drop it from here ”Okay, I don’t want to live long
here” then you have a deep desire to be born on some subtle planes, some higher planes, bodiless planes. You
would like to be angels. Beware of all these games!
The third is vanity. The people who are virtuous are very vain, they are not humble. In fact they may have
practiced humbleness for years, but their practicing of humbleness has given them only a new kind of vanity, a
new kind of ego.
Fourth: restlessness. These people are restless, they are not at ease herenow, they can’t be. All their hopes are
somewhere else, beyond death, in heaven, in paradise. How can they be at ease herenow?
A really spiritual man is absolutely at ease herenow. He has no other time; his only time is now, and his only
place is here. And he is utterly at ease, at home. He does not hanker for anything.
And the fifth is self-ignorance. These people go on practicing yoga... a thousand and one methods are available.
You can distort your body this way and that you can become a good performer in a circus but that will not help
you to know who you are. And unless you know ”Who am I?” all your knowledge and all your cultivated virtues
and practices are simply futile exercises in utter futility.
AND THERE ARE FIVE TO WELCOME IN. And what are those five? Faith.... Remember, by faith Buddha
does not mean belief; by faith he means trust, a loving trust, a trust in existence not in theories, not in scriptures,
not in dogmas and creeds, but in existence itself, a trust because this is our home, we are part of it. If we live in