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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 247
And why has this question arisen, Shraddhan? Misery must have started again! That’s why you are asking,
”Is it possible?” You have done it, and you are asking me, ”Is it possible?” You yourself cannot believe what you
have done.
When people are together they want to be alone; when they are alone they want to be together. People are
impossible!
Middle-aged Rizzoli sat on the front steps weeping bitterly.
”What’s-a matta for you?” asked his neighbor, Pasquale.
”Bonnaocchi’s wife-a just-a die,” said Rizzoli, wiping his tears.
”So what?” said his neighbor, ”She was-a no blood-a relative of yours.”
”I know that,” said Rizzoli. ”It is-a just-a that everybody seems-a to have-a good luck but-a me!”
When you are with someone, immediately a thousand and one problems arise which were not there before.
When you are alone those problems disappear, but a new problem arises: the loneliness seems to be so empty.
You feel at a loss, you don’t know what to do. Soon you start forgetting all the misery that was coming out of your
relationship; you start hankering for another relationship. You think, ”Maybe this time it is going to be different.”
Maybe she has changed, maybe you have changed. Maybe both of you have learned from the experience.
Harry and his girl, Francesca, were on the couch watching an old Roy Rogers movie on TV. As Roy rode
through a pass, Harry said, ”I will bet you a screw his horse steps in a gopher hole and falls.”
”Okay,” said Francesca, ”you’re on!”
Sure enough, the horse stumbled.
After the bet was paid in full Harry said, ”I oughta tell you I saw the movie before. That’s how I knew.”
”So did I,” said the Italian girl, ”but I didn’t think-a a horse-a be dumb-a enough to fall-a in the same hole
twice-a!”
But man is more dumb.
Now make the best out of it. When you have fallen in the hole, try to make a home there! You are an American,
and the only religion the American believes in is: Try and try and try again.
The second question:
Question 2
BELOVED MASTER, I CANNOT UNDERSTAND YOU; I HAVE TRIED HARD BUT FAILED. WHAT
SHOULD I DO NOW?
Govindo, is there a need to understand me? What is understanding? It is an intellectual effort. What I am
trying to communicate to you has nothing to do with the intellect. You can feel it, but you cannot understand it.
You can live it, and only by living it will you be able to understand it.
But people try just the opposite first they want to understand. The idea is: Unless we understand a thing,
how can we try it, how can we live it? It is logical that first one should understand and only then should one try
to live.
But life is not logical; life is far deeper than logic, and many times life is absolutely illogical. If you try to cling
to logic you will miss many things, and those many things are the most precious. You will miss love, you will
miss meditation, you will miss joy, you will miss God, you will miss freedom. You will miss all that makes life
significant, that gives life beauty, splendor. You will miss the presence of godliness that surrounds you. Logic is
a barrier, not a bridge.
And Govindo, you say, ”I cannot understand you.” You must be trying from the head. It is a heart-toheart
communion. If you want to misunderstand me then the head is the right instrument; then you can go on
misunderstanding me forever and forever. But if you want to understand me, then you have to forget all about
your old patterns of understanding things. It is not mathematics that I am teaching here, it is not philosophy
that I am teaching here.
I am teaching something absolutely existential. You have to live it, you have to take the quantum leap. You
have been told again and again that before you take the jump, think twice. And what I am saying to you is: Take
the jump first and then think as many times as you want, because then thinking cannot do anything, it cannot
do any harm. But let the jump happen first.
Meditation has to be experienced. If you try to figure it out, what it is, you will miss the point because it is not
a question of mind at all. Meditation means a state of no-mind. I am constantly pulling you towards the state of
no-mind, in every possible way.
What I am doing here is absurd, it is not logical. You will have to put logic aside; otherwise I will say one thing
and you will understand something else.