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

280 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
He said, ”It is all the same whether the body has cancer or does not have cancer. To be in the body now is a
suffering; even if it is healthy it is a suffering because now I can be as vast as the sky. But for you I will cling to
the body a little longer.”
And the master has to find ways and means to cling to the body because all the old associations are broken, all
the old connections are broken. He has to forge new connections, which is really one of the most difficult things
in existence.
Ramakrishna was very much interested in food, so much so that his wife was always feeling embarrassed. He
would be talking to his disciples and suddenly in the middle of it he would rush to the kitchen and ask Sharda,
”What are you cooking?”
It is just like if suddenly, in the middle of the lecture, I rush to the kitchen and ask Vivek, ”What are you
cooking?” and then come back again, and you have to wait!
Sharda said many times, ”This is not right. What will the people think?”
Ramakrishna always laughed and never answered. One day Sharda persisted: ”You answer me! There is
something strange about it.” Whenever she brought his food he would stand up; he was so eager to know. He
would remove the cloth and look into the thali. People were always sitting there and they would start laughing
and giggling: ”What kind of God-realized man is this?”
One day Sharda persisted, then Ramakrishna said, ”If you want to know the truth I will tell you: this is the
only way I am clinging to the body. I have created a false desire for food. And remember, the day I show no
interest in food then that is the end. Only three days more will I live after that.”
Sharda did not pay much attention to it who pays much attention to such people? They go on talking about
things, so many things; you listen and you don’t pay much attention.
But one day Sharda came in with the thali... Ramakrishna did not stand up. Not only that: he was looking at
the door, he turned his back towards Sharda and started looking out of the window in the other direction. Sharda
suddenly remembered the thali fell from her hands.
Ramakrishna said, ”So now you understand; that day you missed. Now only three days more....” And exactly
on the third day he died.
Only when you become enlightened, awakened, will you know how a man who has come home still goes on
living in the caravanserai dirty, ugly and still goes on helping people who are insane. HONOR THE FIRE OF
HIS SACRIFICE.... Hence, Buddha says, honor him.
MATTED HAIR OR FAMILY OR CASTE DO NOT MAKE A MASTER BUT THE TRUTH AND GOOD-
NESS WITH WHICH HE IS BLESSED.
YOUR HAIR IS TANGLED AND YOU SIT ON A DEERSKIN. WHAT FOLLY! WHEN INSIDE YOU ARE
RAGGED WITH LUST.
Character is not a decisive factor. You can cultivate a beautiful facade around yourself, but the really decisive
factor is your inside.
THE MASTER’S CLOTHES ARE IN TATTERS. HIS VEINS STAND OUT, HE IS WASTING AWAY.
ALONE IN THE FOREST HE SITS AND MEDITATES.
For years Buddha was meditating in the forest, alone, not caring about his clothes, not caring about his body,
not caring about anything else except his meditation; except for one thing all was dropped from his consciousness:
how to reach the center. Once you have reached it then there is no problem, but before you can reach it, it has
to be a one-pointed search. You have to be concentratedly concerned about only one thing, excluding everything
else. Unless your search is so total, so whole, so wholehearted, you will not succeed in it.
ALONE IN THE FOREST HE SITS AND MEDITATES.
Wherever you are, learn to be alone, sit alone. It is difficult, the most difficult thing in the world, because when
you are alone the mind starts dying. It cannot exist in aloneness, it needs company. Hence whenever you are
alone the mind says, ”Do something, go somewhere. Turn on the TV or the radio.” The mind wants company,
engagement, occupation.
If you can be just alone... sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. One
day your inner being blooms into a one-thousand-petaled lotus. That day you have also become a buddha, and
only then will you be able to understand the meaning of Jesus’ life, the meaning of Buddha’s sayings, the meaning
of Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. Before that whatsoever you try to understand is just your mind interpreting, and that
interpretation has been one of the greatest causes of mischief.
Drop the mind the only thing to be renounced in the world is the mind and move towards the no-mind, the
inner silence and serenity. Know yourself in your absolute aloneness and your life will be fulfilled, your life will be
blessed: blessed with eternal bliss, blessed with truth, blessed with freedom.