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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 317
call the sound of one hand clapping. When you are utterly silent, not a single thought passes your mind, there is
not even a ripple of any feeling in your heart. Then you start, for the first time, hearing silence.
Silence has a music of its own. It is not dead, it is very much alive, it is tremendously alive. In fact, nothing is
more alive than silence.
Music helps you from the outside to fall in tune with the inner. Music is a device; it was invented by the
buddhas. All that is beautiful in the world, all that is valuable in the world has always been discovered by the
buddhas. Only they can discover because they have traveled the inner country, the inner, immeasurable universe.
Whatsoever they have found in the inner world, whatsoever they have experienced in the inner world, they have
tried to make something similar on the outside for those who can only understand that which is objective, who
are not yet able to enter the interiority of their own being, who are not yet even aware that there is an inner
world. Devices can be created on the outside which can help.
Listening to great music you suddenly become silent with no effort. Falling in tune with the music you lose
your ego with no effort. You become relaxed, you fall into a deep rest. You are alert, awake, and yet in a subtle
way drunk.
Once it happened:
A great musician came to the court of a king. The musician must have been an awakened master, must have
been a buddha. He said to the king, ”I will play on my instruments, but you will have to fulfill one of my
conditions. Unless this condition is fulfilled I cannot play.”
The king said, ”Whatsoever the condition is, it will be fulfilled. You say it.” He had never thought what the
condition could be: ”Maybe he will ask for much money that can be given easily or for some other favor which
can be given easily.” The king had been waiting a long time for this man.
But the condition was very eccentric. The condition was: ”While I am playing nobody should move his head.
If anybody moves his head, his head has to be cut off. So the audience has to be informed beforehand that people
should come knowing that they are playing with fire. If they start moving their heads in tune with the music,
then they will lose their heads make it clear to everyone who comes. And surrounding the audience let at least
one thousand soldiers stand with naked swords so everybody remains aware and never forgets.”
The king was so interested in hearing the musician he had heard about him for years and he was not ready to
lose this opportunity even at this cost. Of course, whatsoever he was demanding was simply insane, but the king
had to agree. He said, ”Okay, your condition will be fulfilled.”
The whole capital was informed. Thousands of people would have come, but now they were afraid only one
thousand people came to listen to the musician. Even seeing one thousand people come, the king was surprised:
”So many lovers who are risking their lives!” And one thousand soldiers were standing with naked swords. Again
it was declared, ”You have to remember and go on looking at the swords they are standing for you. Nobody can
escape.” And there were people standing who would take notes whoever shook his head, moved his head, would
not reach home alive.
The musician started playing, and he was such a master! After only a few minutes, a few heads started moving
in tune with the master’s music. The king was very much afraid. He saw heads moving, swaying people were
getting drunk. He himself was afraid for his own head! But a tremendous desire arose in him too, he could not
resist it. He himself started moving his head, he forgot all about it. What to say about the audience? The people
who were standing with naked swords, many of them started moving their heads and their swords were swaying!
The queen was very much worried. She saw that there were going to be hundreds of people unnecessarily
murdered. But sooner or later almost everybody was drunk with his music.
When he finished in the middle of the night, the people who had to report, they reported that ”Not a single
soul has remained without swaying, and we are sorry to say that we are also on the list!”
The king said, ”Now, Master, what do you want? all these people butchered, murdered? I am also on the list,
my wife is also on the list, my whole court is on the list!”
The master laughed and he said, ”I was waiting for these people. These are the right people for whom I can
play. Forget all about the condition! It was just a strategy to prevent those who were not ready to risk their lives,
it was to prevent the cowards. These are the people for whom I will play. And not only today I am going to stay
in this town for months together because these are my people. They have forgotten about their lives, or even if
they had remembered they could not resist. The joy was so tremendous that they were ready to go, even with
the risk; they were perfectly aware. These are the people for whom I exist because these are the people who can
be turned inwards. They were fully aware and yet drunk.”
And that is the whole secret of meditation. The paradox disappears the paradox between drunkenness and
awareness. And its first experience can happen in music more easily than in any other place, than in anything