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

244 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
Not only about life but even about afterlife, the mind goes on preparing even for that. People decide about their
wills, they decide about their epitaphs, they decide how their tombs have to be made, in what kind of marble.
Man seems to be so utterly unintelligent and he goes on wasting his life on such things which don’t make any
sense at all. But you have to look into your own mind.
YOU WANT NOTHING. YOUR WORDS ARE STILL. YOU ARE STILL. Buddha says this is how one should
be no desire, because all desires are futile. They are about the future; life is in the present. All desires distract you
from the present, all desires distract you from life, all desires are destructive of life, all desires are postponements
of life. Life is now and the desire takes you away, farther and farther away from now. And when we see that our
life is misery we go on throwing the responsibility on others, and nobody is responsible except us.
”My good man,” said the visitor to the prisoner, ”how did you happen to come to this sad place?”
”Well, sir,” replied the convicted man, ”you see in me the unhappy victim of the unlucky number thirteen.”
”Indeed!” said the visitor. ”How was that?”
”Twelve jurymen and one judge, sir.”
Nobody wants to take the blame on himself. Anything will do unlucky number, palmistry, fate, astrology...
stars, poor stars are creating misery for Anshumali! Even if they search for Anshumali it will be difficult for them
to find him; they cannot even find the earth the earth is so tiny. Our sun is twelve thousand times bigger than
the earth and our sun is a very mediocre star. There are stars millions of times bigger than the sun; compared to
those stars this earth is just a particle of dust, unnoticeable, negligible. It can be neglected, ignored. And there
are millions of stars that science has counted and millions more must be beyond because our reach is limited, our
instruments are limited. And these stars are deciding the fates of a clerk in the collector’s office, of a peon in the
railway station!
Man is so stupid, unbelievably stupid. He goes on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Unless you
stop this you will never become religious. A religious person is one who takes the responsibility upon himself.
The first thing that is making you miserable is your desiring, constant desiring for this and that. Stop that.
And when there is no desire there are no thoughts either. The function of the thoughts is to help you desire; they
are instrumental. If you don’t have desires, thoughts are bound to disappear of their own accord. And when there
are no desires, no thoughts... YOU ARE STILL. You are calm, collected, centered, rooted.
It was an early morning fire, and the young Italian reporter was lucky enough on arriving at the scene to get
an account of it from one of the residents of the apartment house who had escaped.
”It was terrible,” narrated the man. ”Imagine walls crumbling about you, the flames of the fire practically
licking your cheek in whatever direction you turned and the very iron of the banisters smoking under your hands.
But in the midst of it all, I want you to know, I kept quite cool and balanced.”
”It’s a shame, since you were so calm and cool,” replied the reporter, ”that you didn’t think of putting your
pants on.”
The people who think they are quiet and calm are not quiet and calm, they are just believing that; they are
just hoping that they are quiet and calm. Only very rarely is a person quiet and calm. It happens only at the
ultimate peak of meditation, not before it. So don’t deceive yourself.
BY YOUR OWN EFFORTS WAKEN YOURSELF, WATCH YOURSELF. AND LIVE JOYFULLY.
Accept the responsibility and that gives you great insight. If you are responsible for all your misery, if you are
responsible for all your nightmares, then the other thing is also possible: you can wake up. If you are responsible
for your sleep, you can wake up; if you are not responsible, some stars are responsible, then what can you do?
You are just a victim and you have to suffer. Unless the stars change their mind, if they have any mind....
BY YOUR OWN EFFORTS WAKEN YOURSELF, WATCH YOURSELF. AND LIVE JOYFULLY. And
people say Buddha is a pessimist? and he says: LIVE JOYFULLY.
Buddha says: Don’t believe in a savior because that is the old mind, the same mind that wants to throw the
responsibility on somebody else. Now Christians think Jesus saves. Hindus think that whenever the need arises,
Krishna will come back; he will take another incarnation to save humanity. When are you going to feel your
responsibility? And people don’t think that this is just ugly, insulting, humiliating; it is falling below human
dignity.
A Christian and a Jew were out walking. They came across a church and in front of it there was a big board
with the words, ”Jesus saves!”
The Jew said, ”That’s nothing Moses invests!”
Nobody can save you; don’t wait for any savior. You can save yourself, that is true.
This is also one of Buddha’s great insights into human misery, into human reality, that he says: Don’t believe
that somebody will save you. You are the cause of your misery, you can be the cause of your bliss.