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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 319
”Don’t be a jackass,” said the barkeep, ”a dog can’t talk.”
”But I heard him.”
”You think you heard him. Dogs can’t talk. It’s just that wise-guy cat over there he’s a ventriloquist.”
The moment you start feeling that you know something, remember, you are losing your contact with existence.
Knowledge is the barrier, the only barrier that prevents you from communing with God. Remain innocent, remain
ignorant. Go on dying to the past and go on dying to all your experiences. Don’t collect them, don’t be a collector.
Remember that every night before you go to sleep, be finished with that day, be totally finished. Go to sleep again
as a child and in the morning when you wake up, again wake up as a child. And you will never lose the eyes of
wonder and the heart which can feel awe.
And this is what I call the fundamental quality of a religious person: not that you know the dogma, not that
you know the creed, but that you know nothing, or that you know only one thing that you know nothing. It is
better to be a fool with the trees, with the rivers, with the mountains, than to be a scholar, because as the scholar
reaches the trees, the trees simply stop any communication, they close their doors. As the scholar reaches close
to the flower it is not the same flower; it stops sending its fragrance.
If you reach as a fool and you can say ”Hello!” to the tree and you can say ”How are you?” the tree feels
rejoiced: ”Here is a man who is worth talking to, with whom I can have a dialogue.” Sit with the tree, hug the
tree, kiss the tree, feel the tree. Of course, people will think that you are mad. Let them think! It doesn’t matter.
What people think about you is absolutely immaterial; don’t pay any attention to it. But make friends with trees,
because they have deeper secrets to reveal. Make friends with rocks, feel their texture, their coolness, their weight,
their age. Commune with nature and soon you will be surprised that if you are available to nature, nature starts
becoming available to you. And it is not only that you say hello the tree responds. It sends its messages to you
clearly and loudly.
Now even scientists are aware of the fact that the tree behaves with different people differently. When the
woodcutter comes, the tree trembles in fear. Now there are machines like cardiographs which can detect the
trembling; they make a graph of what is happening in the inner being of the tree. Seeing the woodcutter with
his ax coming to cut the tree, the tree is trembling, the tree is afraid, the tree is angry, the tree is full of hate,
the tree does not like this man. If the tree could run the tree would run away from this man. If the tree could
attack this man the tree would attack him, in sheer self-defense. But because the tree is rooted and she cannot
do anything, at least she can become utterly dead.
But when the gardener comes to water the tree, there is a different graph on the cardiogram. The tree is
dancing and swaying, she is all open to the gardener as if she is ready to embrace him, to kiss him. If the tree
could make love to the gardener the tree would do it. She is full of love. The fragrance of the flowers is more
when the gardener is close by.
Now these are scientific facts although there are mythological stories about Buddha that trees would become
greener when he sat underneath them and meditated. It is possible now it can be said on scientific authority,
it may be possible. A Buddha sitting underneath the tree, what more happiness can a tree have? And the tree
underneath which Buddha became enlightened must have felt tremendous joy.
Now scientists say that the tree Buddha became enlightened sitting underneath is the most intelligent tree of
all the trees: the bo tree. It has the same chemical in the biggest proportion that makes a man capable of having
a mind. No other tree has that quantity of that particular chemical. Buddha must have chosen that tree. And
the tree has been preserved, still it is there. It has a different quality, but the quality can be felt only by those
who are innocent.
And the same is true about the whole of existence: it is full of God, overfull, overflowing with God. All that
you need is an innocent heart to receive it. You are not open, you are closed.
My whole message to you is: function from a state of not-knowing and you will know the truth not through
knowledge but through innocence.
Nartano, I am happy that you say, ”Two years ago I was a Californian tourist. After all this time you still fill
me with wonder and awe. I love you.”
It is really difficult for a Californian tourist because California is so gullible that all kinds of fools have gathered
there Muktananda in Palm Beach... all kinds of stupid people from all over the world. They are being attracted
towards California as if California has a magnetic force. And any fool can gather disciples there. All that you have
to know is some esoteric nonsense. You talk about seven chakras and seven planes and you talk about kundalini
and the serpent power and you talk about siddhis, spiritual powers and astral travels, and you will find people
coming to you intelligent people, far more intelligent people than these Muktanandas. In fact, it is a miracle!