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

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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.
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 245 YOU ARE THE MASTER, YOU ARE THE REFUGE. AS A MERCHANT BREAKS IN A FINE HORSE, MASTER YOURSELF. HOW GLADLY YOU FOLLOW THE WORDS OF THE AWAKENED. And if you meditate, if you become a little silent, a little alert, you will love these words because they have the taste of truth but only for those who are meditating. HOW GLADLY YOU FOLLOW THE WORDS OF THE AWAKENED. Then all the awakened ones suddenly become your contemporaries. Then only can you understand Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira, Lao Tzu. Then only, when you meditate, suddenly mysteries open up, closed doors open and things which were never clear to you suddenly become clear. But it happens through meditation and there is no other way. Not by studying, not by gathering more and more knowledge, not by arguing, not by philosophizing, but only by becoming more and more silent. In utter silence, God speaks to you through all the awakened ones. HOW QUIETLY, HOW SURELY YOU APPROACH THE HAPPY COUNTRY, THE HEART OF STILL- NESS. And then your steps have a confidence because all the buddhas are witnesses to you. As you start tasting the joys of meditation, as you start becoming alert to the beauties of meditation, as flowers start blossoming inside you, all the buddhas become witnesses to you. You know you are on the right track; great confidence arises in you. HOW QUIETLY, HOW SURELY YOU APPROACH THE HAPPY COUNTRY, THE HEART OF STILL- NESS. HOWEVER YOUNG, THE SEEKER WHO SETS OUT UPON THE WAY SHINES BRIGHT OVER THE WORLD. And it is not a question of age. Buddha was the first to initiate young people into sannyas. Otherwise, in India the tradition was that only very, very old people, older than seventy-five, were allowed to take sannyas. Sannyas was for the old people. Buddha created a revolution: he initiated young people. And my own experience is: the younger you are, the better, because as you become older you gather more and more rust, more and more dust. As you become older you become more and more burdened with experience, knowledge and all kinds of stupid things. As you become older you start losing the vigor, the energy, the courage to experiment with the unknown, to explore the unknown. As you become older you become so afraid of death that out of fear you go to God, and those who go out of fear to God never reach God. Fear is not a bridge, it is a wall. Those who go towards God inquiring for truth out of love for truth, only they are bridged. It needs a certain youth, a certain courage, a certain capacity to take risks. It needs energy, freshness; because religion basically is rebellion. Buddha says: HOWEVER YOUNG.... Don’t be worried about that. Maturity has nothing to do with age; growing old is not necessarily growing up. One can be young and grown-up and one can be very old and very childish. Age and maturity have no necessary link. Maturity comes through meditation. Aging is an ordinary process; everybody ages. Animals age, trees age, people age; that has nothing to do with transformation. HOWEVER YOUNG, THE SEEKER WHO SETS OUT UPON THE WAY SHINES BRIGHT OVER THE WORLD. LIKE THE MOON, COME OUT FROM BEHIND THE CLOUDS! SHINE. Buddha says to his Bodhisattvas, go and tell the seekers: LIKE THE MOON, COME OUT FROM BEHIND THE CLOUDS! SHINE. The same I say to you: LIKE THE MOON, COME OUT FROM BEHIND THE CLOUDS! SHINE. Enough for today. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 11 Chapter 6 Rising in love The first question: Question 1 BELOVED MASTER, I HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH A WOMAN I HAD DIVORCED TWO YEARS AGO. IS IT POSSIBLE? Shraddhan, man is almost a machine. Man is not yet man; he functions unconsciously, he lives in sleep. Hence everything is possible. In fact, you always fall in love with the same woman, even though apparently you fall in love with somebody else. The type is the same because your liking is the same, your mind is the same, your choice is the same.
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