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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 229
The moment you start seeing your faults they start dropping like dry leaves. Then nothing else has to be
done; to see them is enough. Just to be aware of your faults is all that is needed. In that awareness they start
disappearing, they evaporate. One can go on committing a certain error only if one remains unconscious of it.
Unconsciousness is a must to go on committing the same errors. Even if you try to change you will commit the
same error in some other form, in some other shape. And they come in all sizes and all shapes. You will exchange,
you will substitute, but you cannot drop it because deep down you don’t see that it is a fault. Others may be
telling you because they can see.
That’s why everybody thinks himself so beautiful, so intelligent, so virtuous, so saintly and nobody agrees
with him! The reason is simple: you look at others, you see their reality, and about yourself you carry fictions
beautiful fictions. About yourself you are very fictitious. All that you know about yourself is more or less a myth;
it has nothing to do with reality.
The moment one sees one’s faults, a radical change sets in. Hence all the buddhas down the ages have been
telling only one thing: awareness. They don’t teach you character. Character is taught by priests, politicians,
but not by the buddhas. Buddhas teach you consciousness not conscience. Conscience is a trick played upon you
by others. Others are telling you what is right and what is wrong; they are forcing their ideas upon you. And
they go on forcing them from your very childhood, when you were so innocent, so vulnerable, so delicate, that
there was a possibility to make any impression on you, any imprint on you. They have conditioned you from the
very beginning. That conditioning is called conscience and that conscience goes on dominating your whole life.
Conscience is a strategy of society to enslave you.
Buddhas teach consciousness. Consciousness means you are not to learn from others what is right and what is
wrong; there is no need to learn from anybody. You have simply to go in; just the inward journey is enough. The
deeper you go, the more consciousness is released. When you reach the center you are so full of light that darkness
disappears. When you bring light into your room you don’t have to push the darkness out of the room. The
presence of the light is enough because darkness is only an absence of light. So are all your insanities, madnesses.
But everybody can see others’ faults, so don’t be worried about it, Prageeta. This is the situation in which
everybody is living.
A man dressed as Adolf Hitler visited a psychiatrist.
”You can see I have no problems,” he said. ”I have the greatest army in the world, all the money I will ever
need and every conceivable luxury you can imagine.”
”Then what seems to be your problem?” asked the doctor.
”It’s my wife,” said the man. ”She thinks she’s Mrs. Weaver.”
Don’t laugh at the poor man. It is nobody else but you.
A man went into a tailor’s shop and saw a man hanging by one arm from the center of the ceiling.
”What is he doing there?” he asked the tailor.
”Oh, pay no attention,” said the tailor, ”he thinks he’s a light bulb.”
”Well, why don’t you tell him he’s not?” asked the startled customer.
”What?” replied the tailor. ”And work in the dark?”
The moment you know you are mad you are no longer mad. That’s the only criterion of sanity. The moment
you know you are ignorant you have become wise.
The Oracle at Delphi declared Socrates the most wise man on the earth. A few people rushed to Socrates and
they told him, ”Be pleased, rejoice: the Oracle at Delphi has declared you the wisest man in the world.”
Socrates said, ”That is all nonsense. I know only one thing: that I know nothing.”
The people were puzzled and confused. They went back to the temple, they told the Oracle, ”You say that
Socrates is the wisest man in the world, but he himself denies it. On the contrary, he says he is utterly ignorant.
He says he knows only one thing: that he knows nothing.”
The Oracle laughed and said, ”That’s why I have declared him the wisest man in the world, the greatest wise
man in the world. That’s why precisely because he knows that he is ignorant.”
Ignorant people believe they are wise. Insane people believe they are the sanest.
Yes, Prageeta, it happens; it is part of human nature that we go on looking to the outside. We watch everybody
except ourselves. Hence we know more about others than about ourselves; we know nothing about ourselves. We
are not witnesses to our own functioning of the mind, we are not watchful inside.
You need a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn that’s what meditation is all about. You have to close your eyes
and start watching. In the beginning you will find only darkness and nothing else. And many people become
frightened and rush out because outside there is light. Yes, there is light outside but that light is not going to
enlighten you, that light is not going to help you at all. You need inner light, a light which has its source in your