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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 307
Meditation means removing all your prejudices, putting all your conclusions aside seeing without any hindrance,
seeing without any curtains, seeing clearly without any mediation of any thought, seeing without Buddha standing
between you and reality, or Krishna standing or Christ standing.
That’s why Buddha is reported to have made one of the most strange statements; only a man of the caliber of
Buddha can say it. He said to his disciples, ”If you meet me on the way, kill me. Don’t allow me to stand between
you and the truth. Immediately kill me, remove me; otherwise I will be the barrier.”
The true master is one who helps the disciple finally to get rid of the master too, so that the disciple can
encounter reality directly, immediately. The false master is one who creates more and more dependence in the
disciple, makes him a slave, so much so that the disciple cannot even think of being without the master.
That’s what is happening all over the world. So many so-called saints go on creating dependence in you; their
whole effort is how to enslave people. They condition you in such a way that their conclusions become your
conclusions. They don’t give you eyes, they give you ideas.
The real master gives you eyes, not ideas. He gives you insight into reality and then leaves you in total freedom
to function out of that insight.
Buddha says:
HE LOOKS DEEPLY INTO THINGS AND SEES THEIR NATURE. HE DISCRIMINATES AND REACHES
THE END OF THE WAY.
’Discrimination’ is one of the very important words to be understood. Buddha has used the word again and
again; his word is VIVEK. Vivek has far deeper meanings than the English equivalent ’discrimination’. Vivek
contains awareness, and discrimination through awareness. One can discriminate without being aware; then it
will not be discrimination according to Buddha. You can be told what is right and what is wrong and you can
discriminate, ”This is right and this is wrong,” but because it is not your awareness it is not discrimination. Unless
you see what is right and what is wrong it is not going to help much.
The Ten Commandments are of no help to you unless they are handed over to you by God himself, not to
Moses. They may have been of infinite value to Moses because he came to those insights himself, independent of
the whole past, of the whole tradition. But you are simply repeating like parrots.
From their very childhood we start teaching children what is right and what is wrong, what should be done
and what should not be done. And they become conditioned so much that they forget completely that this is
not their own voice. They start thinking this is their conscience it is not. It is a strategy of the priests and the
politicians, a conspiracy against man. They have created a conscience in you and because they have created a
conscience in you they have prevented the growth of your own conscience. Your own conscience comes out of your
own consciousness; it can’t come from the outside. Nobody can give it to you, it has to happen to you in your
deep aloneness.
Buddha says: The master knows what is false and what is true. He knows on his own authority, not on any
other authority. He does not know according to the Koran and he does not know according to the Talmud, he
does not know according to the Vedas he knows himself. And only when you know yourself does your knowing
have a validity, an authenticity an authenticity that can transform you, that can give you a new birth.
And he REACHES THE END OF THE WAY.... The moment that authentic insight has arisen in you, your
consciousness is born, YOU are born. This is a rebirth. You are born anew. You have reached the end of the
way, there is nowhere else to go. You have arrived home.
HE DOES NOT LINGER WITH THOSE WHO HAVE A HOME NOR WITH THOSE WHO STRAY. WANT-
ING NOTHING, HE TRAVELS ON ALONE.
In India, people are divided into two categories; this is a traditional division. It was so in Buddha’s time too,
it is a very ancient division. Buddha is trying to make a distinction: he is trying to make his disciples a third
category. The old, ancient categories are two. The first is the worldly, the householder, those who have a home.
They are called householders for the simple reason that they live in the fallacy of security, safety a safety that
they think comes through money, power, prestige, a security that they think comes out of relationships. The wife
thinks she is safe with the husband, the husband thinks he is safe with the wife, the parents think they are safe
with their children. The safety is fallacious because neither the family nor money nor anything else of this world
can save you from death.
When death comes it shatters everything; it shatters all your sandcastles. The householder lives in a kind
of dream-world, a world of his own projections. It is not true, it does not correspond to reality; it is his own
projection. The wife thinks the husband is her security and the husband thinks the wife is his security. Now, both
are insecure. How can two insecure persons give security to each other? Two insecure persons together become
doubly insecure, but the fallacy is created.