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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 27
This is presence of mind. She is thinking he is the dog, Toto. But presence of mind is not awareness; it is a
small phenomenon, a tiny thing. Mind can do it.
Awareness is something beyond the mind. You have to watch the mind, you have to watch the presence of
mind as much as absence of mind. You have to watch both, you have to go beyond both. It comes, it certainly
comes, and when it comes it takes all that is your misery, your ego, your insensitivity, your cruelty. It takes all
mud from you... and out of that mud arises the lotus, the one-thousand-petaled lotus of samadhi in you.
Enough for today.
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 9
Chapter 4 Freedom is something inner
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The first question:
Question 1
BELOVED MASTER, THIS MORNING WHEN YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT WAKING UP AND RIS-
ING FROM SLOTH, I FELT SO STUPID AND I THINK I AM GETTING STUPIDER AND STUPIDER!
WHAT TO DO... IS IT ENOUGH TO JUST BE HERE WITH YOU? I FEEL VERY HOPELESS. AND IT
MAKES ME SAD.
Krishna Gopa, it is a good sign that you feel that you are becoming stupider and stupider. That simply means
the borrowed knowledge is disappearing, hence the feeling. You are unlearning whatsoever you had learned up to
now. Unlearning is the basic process of becoming innocent again.
But don’t call it becoming stupid; don’t use that word that is condemnatory. And then one starts feeling sad.
You are becoming more innocent. You are becoming more and more unburdened from unnecessary knowledge,
information. You are becoming more natural, more like a child, more full of wonder. And if you call it being
stupid you will miss the whole point.
Your mind can call it stupid because the mind is losing its ground. The mind is dying, and the mind is bound
to make all possible efforts to save itself, to survive. And the first step is to condemn the state of not-knowing
that is growing in you. Every meditator comes across it and every meditator finds that mind condemns it. It is
against the mind; you are becoming a no-mind. And who wants to die? The mind does not want to die; it wants
to keep its possession of you. Hence the condemnation. Beware of it.
Let the knowledge disappear. Don’t be worried at all because that knowledge has not given you anything. In
the first place, borrowed knowledge creates only bondage, not freedom. It burdens you; it does not give you wings.
It does not make you light, it makes you heavy. It makes you hard, it makes you more and more mechanical,
because through the thick wall of knowledge you cannot see the mysterious surrounding you. And the moment
you don’t see the mysterious you are almost dead.
Life is in harmony with the mysterious. Life is in being full of wonder. Life is knowing the art of wondering,
of being in awe. The knowledgeable person is a poor person, very poor, utterly impoverished and he himself is
responsible. He thinks he is very rich because he knows about roses, although he has not seen a single rose. He
knows all about love, although he has never loved himself. He knows about God, but to know about God is not
to know God. To know about light is not to know light.
A blind man can know all there is to know about light, but he will still remain blind. He will not experience the
joy that light brings, that the morning brings, that the sunrise brings. He will not see the colors of the rainbow,
of the flowers, of the butterflies. He will remain utterly oblivious of the world of light and color. He is blind! He
knows about... but knowing about light is of no use if you are blind. And if you have eyes, whether you know
about light or not, it makes no difference at all. Even without knowing light you experience it and that is true
knowing. Knowledge is not true knowing, it is not wisdom. Knowledge comes through information; wisdom comes
through experience.
Gopa, don’t condemn your innocent state that is growing in you. Don’t call it stupid. That is mind playing a
trick upon you; it always plays the trick. In the old scriptures, the same mind is called the devil; there is no other
devil. It is the mind that tempts you to go wrong because the mind can exist only when you are wrong. The mind
is not needed at all when you are moving towards truth, when you are right. When you are on the right track,
mind has no utility; it simply loses its power over you. And that’s what is happening.
You say, ”This morning when you were talking about waking up and rising from sloth, I felt so stupid and I
think I am getting stupider and stupider!”
You are blessed. Go on becoming more and more stupid stupid in the sense of innocent.
Jesus was called a fool. Saint Francis was called a fool; used to call himself ”the fool of God.” Why have Jesus
and Francis and people like these been called fools? Even they themselves have called themselves fools for the