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

338 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
preprogrammed in you, then you are not a man at all, then you are just a biocomputer. You are simply going to
repeat the program, you are a gramophone record. You don’t have any freedom, you can’t change anything. You
are just play-things in the hands of unknown forces.
Buddha says this is not true. Hence he even denies the existence of God for the simple reason that if God
is there then there will be trouble; then he will be the suprememost being. His very presence will become an
inhibition to you.
That’s exactly the logic of Friedrich Nietzsche. He said: God is dead, therefore man is now free. But Nietzsche
was only a philosopher. He could not contain that much freedom. He went mad.
Buddha is not a philosopher at all, he is a mystic. He used the freedom. He really became responsible for
himself. He created his own being and he became the most beautiful person who has ever lived on the earth. He
followed the law of freedom and achieved the ultimate joy, the ultimate truth.
You can do the same too. That is his message. He says, ”Whatsoever has happened to me can happen to you.
If it is not happening, nobody else is responsible except you.” So take the total responsibility in your own hands,
feel and be responsible, and use the law of freedom because it is available. Life has been given to you with no
preprogram; now it is up to you what you want to make out of it. You can become an ugly monster a Genghis
Khan, a Tamerlane, a Nadirshah or you can become a Gautam Buddha, a Jesus Christ, a Lao Tzu, a Zarathustra.
It all depends on you, it is your freedom. Choose!
But you can choose only when you are conscious; you can choose only when you are aware, alert. The more
aware you are, the more you are capable of choosing the course of your life. The more aware you are, the more
you know, the more you can feel a sense of direction.
Freedom is the foundation of life and freedom is the ultimate goal too. Freedom is the source and freedom is
the goal.
Use freedom to be free from all bondage.
Use freedom to become ultimately free.
Use freedom to become freedom itself.
The third question:
Question 3
BELOVED MASTER, I-A NEVER-A THOUGHT-A IT WOULD-A COME-A TO THIS-A, BUT-A I WISH-A
I-A WERE-A AN-A ITALIAN! MUCH-A LOVE-A AND-A PASTA, BIGGA PREMA.
Bigga Prema, avoid such desires, because if you carry them too long they start becoming a reality. Then don’t
make me responsible for it! Be very careful what you desire, because the danger is that the desire may be fulfilled
sooner or later.
I love Italians as much as I love others but naturally many people are feeling jealous of Italians, for the simple
reason that I am telling so many jokes about Italians. But the reason is not that I love Italians more than the
Dutch or the Australians; the reason is simply that my librarian happens to be Lalita, an Italian, so she goes on
finding Italian jokes for me! So rather than you desiring to be an Italian, just desire that I may get one assistant
for Lalita from every country. In the new commune, I am thinking Lalita must have at least a dozen assistants!
But beware of having this desire.
Do you know why they hang salami at Italian weddings?
To keep the flies off the bride.
And do you know who fired the bullet into Mussolini’s body?
One hundred top Italian marksmen.
Bianco, the barber, nicked his customer six times while shaving him. Finally the bleeding man asked if he could
have a razor.
”Why?” asked the Italian. ”You wanna shave-a yourself?”
”No,” said the victim, ”I want to defend myself!”
Collared by the cops after he roared up a one-way street and crashed his 1949 Ford into a store window, the
Italian drunk wanted to know what the hell was going on.
”You went against the traffic, you dumb bastard,” the angry cop said, ”Didn’t you see the arrows back there?”
”Holy Mother-a Jesus!” the boozed-up guinea said. ”I didn’t even see the Indians!”
And if you really want to change in your next life, in the next round when you come back, Bigga Prema, rather
than being an Italian, be a Polack! Now you see, the Polack has become the pope he has defeated all the Italians!
Now if a Polack can become a pope, the next thing is that a woman is going to become a pope-a.
Why do Polack dogs have flat noses?
From chasing parked cars.