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

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296 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 Mrs. Rafferty was sitting at home in Dublin with her children, all waiting for the man of the house to come home from his job in the local brewery. A knock came at the door. When Mrs. Rafferty opened it she saw Mick standing with downcast eyes and a sad look on his face. ”Bad news,” he said. ”Pat fell into a vat of whiskey and drowned this afternoon.” Mrs. Rafferty and the children burst into anguished tears, but she managed to stammer, ”Oh Jesus, did he suffer? Was it a painful death?” Mick coughed reverently and took off his hat. ”No, maam,” he said, ”I don’t think so. He got out twice for a piss!” Be awake. Just see what you are doing, just see what your life consists of. Is there any awareness or is it just an unconscious play of unconscious forces? Are you just a victim of forces you are not aware of either from where they come or what they are doing to you? Are you going to die in this way? THE MASTER ENDURES INSULTS AND ILL TREATMENT WITHOUT REACTING. The master cannot react. He responds, but he never reacts. Reactions come from the past, response is spontaneous; it is in the present. The slave reacts, the master responds. The unconscious mind reacts, the conscious man responds. He has no ready-made answers. He encounters the situation, he reflects the situation. He accepts the challenge of the situation and acts accordingly. His action is born out of the present. And remember one fundamental secret of life: if the action is born out of the present it is never binding; if it comes out of the past it is binding, it is karma. If the action comes out of your present awareness it is not karma, it is not binding. You do it and it is finished, you do it and you get out of it; it never accumulates in you. The master never accumulates the past; he dies every moment to the past. He is born anew every moment. THE MASTER ENDURES INSULTS AND ILL TREATMENT WITHOUT REACTING. FOR HIS SPIRIT IS AN ARMY. He need not react. Insults cannot insult him, ill treatment only brings his compassion, because he knows his awareness is a citadel, is a shelter which cannot be broken. It is an ultimate protection; he is ultimately secure in his awareness. HE IS NEVER ANGRY. HE KEEPS HIS PROMISES. HE NEVER STRAYS, HE IS DETERMINED. THIS BODY IS MY LAST, HE SAYS! LIKE WATER ON THE LEAF OF A LOTUS FLOWER OR A MUSTARD SEED ON THE POINT OF A NEEDLE, HE DOES NOT CLING. He does not cling to anything body, mind or self. He clings not, he is no more there to cling. He is just pure emptiness. And out of that pure emptiness arises innocence, out of that pure emptiness arises godliness. FOR HE HAS REACHED THE END OF SORROW AND HAS LAID DOWN HIS BURDEN. According to Buddha the only burden is the self, the ego. Put the burden aside and you are absolutely free. He does not talk about God; he only talks about the burden, the ego. Put it aside and you will know what God is. There is no need to talk about God; talking about God is utterly futile. He emphatically avoids talking about God; it is useless. He gives you the right way to experience godliness. You are gods. Just the seed has to die, the self has to die, and you will start growing. That growth is divine. Religion is the process of inner growth, the process of actualizing the potential, the process of being reborn. Unless you are born again you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Enough for today. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 12 Chapter 2 Just throw the whole bag Audio:Yes Video:Yes Length:39 mins The first question: Question 1 BELOVED MASTER, YOU SAY THAT ENLIGHTENMENT CAN HAPPEN ANY MOMENT. TO ME IT FEELS LIKE A VERY SLOW PROCESS OF LEARNING AND BECOMING AWARE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS PARTS OF MY BEING. DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THIS? Dharmapriya, enlightenment is not a process of learning; on the contrary, it is a process of unlearning. Whatsoever you know has to be dropped. Knowledge, the knowledgeable mind, has to be renounced. If it were a process of learning, then certainly it would take time, it would be gradual. But if it is a question of dropping something then it is not gradual, it need not be gradual. You can simply drop it instantly. Once it happened:
THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 297 A man came to Sri Ramakrishna with ten thousand gold coins to offer him. Ramakrishna accepted his offering and then said, ”Now these coins are mine you go to the Ganges and throw them all into the river.” Ramakrishna lived in a temple just on the bank of the Ganges. The man was very much shocked. ”Ten thousand gold coins, solid gold coins, and this fool is saying, ’Throw them into the river!’ And I have always thought that this man had become enlightened he is simply mad!” He hesitated. Ramakrishna said, ”When you have offered them to me they no longer belong to you. Why are you hesitating? I can send somebody else to throw them away. You please go.” The man went, reluctantly of course, and he didn’t come back. One hour passed. Ramakrishna inquired, ”What happened to that man? Has he escaped with the coins? Go and inquire.” Somebody was sent. There was a great crowd, he had gathered a great crowd, and he was throwing each single coin, one by one, and counting them! When Ramakrishna was told, ”This is what is happening it may take a few hours more,” Ramakrishna went himself, hit the man on the head and said, ”Are you mad or something? When you collect coins, of course you collect them one by one, it is a gradual process. But when you are throwing them away, why are you counting? Just throw the whole bag! Whether they are ten thousand or a few more or a few less, it doesn’t matter. The Ganges won’t take any note of it!” This is the situation. When you stop gathering knowledge you also unlearn slowly, not because unlearning has to be slow. It is only your clinging mind. It is the mind that does not want to renounce knowledge, hence it goes on postponing. It finds beautiful rationalizations. The idea of gradual enlightenment is one of the most beautiful rationalizations, and it appeals to the mind because all that mind knows is gradual. The whole language of the mind is the language of time. Whatsoever the mind can do has to be done in time, it needs time. But enlightenment does not happen in time. When I say it can happen in a moment, please don’t misunderstand me the moment is not part of time at all! I am saying it can happen immediately; it needs no time at all, not even a single moment is needed. It can happen now... but you cling. You say, ”How is it possible? I have to become slowly, slowly alert, aware, meditative. Chunk by chunk I have to transform my unconscious being. I have to drop greed, anger, lust, jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, and there are a thousand and one things, and each thing is going to take time. I have to drop fear, I have to drop my identification with the body and the mind, I have to drop my attachments....” And the list is almost infinite. It will take eternity for you to become enlightened; in fact, you will never become enlightened. The very idea that it is going to be a gradual process is only a strategy of the mind to postpone it. Enlightenment is always sudden. It is a question of understanding, insight, illumination. It is like sudden lightning. It has always happened like that. Gautam Buddha was trying for his enlightenment for six years; it was a lengthy process. He was following many methods, many paths. He was doing whatsoever is humanly possible to do, but nothing was happening. He was moving in circles; he was where he had started, he was not going anywhere else. He was becoming tired, utterly tired. Finally one evening this sudden illumination happened to him that his whole effort was irrelevant. Enlightenment is not something like an achievement; one cannot achieve it. One has to disappear for it to happen. It is a happening and it happens only in the absence of the ego. And whenever you are doing something the ego becomes more and more strengthened. The ego is a doer, and enlightenment happens in a state of nondoing. It is simply the realization of who you are; it is not a question of achievement. You are already it! Just an awakening, just a turning in! Seeing the point, Buddha relaxed; he dropped all his methods. That is the only use of methods: you get tired of them, you feel utterly bored with them. One day out of sheer boredom you drop all the methods. That evening he dropped his whole spiritual search. He had dropped all worldly search six years before, but it is the same search whether you are seeking money or meditation, whether you are seeking power or enlightenment, whether you are running after prestige or God it is the same thing! The mind needs some object to run after. The mind wants something to desire. It wants an objective goal; whatsoever that objective goal is doesn’t matter XYZ, anything will do. Seeing the point, ”It is the same mind I have renounced the world, but I have not renounced the mind, and the mind is the real world. And these six years I have only been changing the objects of my desire, but I have not dropped desiring. Instead of money, now I desire enlightenment. Instead of power, now I desire ultimate truth. But is there any difference? It is the same desiring mind, the same ambitious ego; in fact, it has become more
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