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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 345
been spent simply in preparing for these moments. Spare me just one hundred years more so that I can live to
my heart’s content.”
Death laughed and said, ”I am ready to spare one hundred years more to you, but I will have to take one of
your sons because I have to go with somebody who resembles you; if not you, at least one of your sons. I can’t go
empty-handed, I have to give the account to my boss himself. He will ask, ’Where is Yayati?’ What am I going
to say? Such a thing has never been done before, but I feel sorry for you. Just ask one of your sons.”
Yayati had a hundred sons; he must have had a hundred wives too. He asked his sons. The oldest was eighty,
but he started looking downwards, was not ready to say yes. Why should he? He had lived only eighty years; if
his father is not contented with a hundred years, how can he be contented with only eighty years? At least twenty
years more he is entitled to live. In those days, the story says, people used to live a hundred years. Why should
he die a premature death, an untimely death? And this old fellow has lived enough! He did not want to hurt the
old man so he didn’t say anything, he kept quiet.
The father was very much shocked; he used to think that his sons were ready to sacrifice themselves. But in
this world nobody is ready to sacrifice himself for anybody else. He looked around. His sons also started looking
at each other, meaning ”Why don’t you go?”
The youngest, who was only twenty years old, stood up and he said, ”I am ready. Take me with you, I am
coming with you.”
Even Death felt sorry for the boy. Death came close to the young man and said, ”Are you a fool or something?
Your other brothers one is eighty, one is seventy-five, one is seventy, sixty, sixty-five, fifty these people are not
ready to go and you are the youngest, you have not lived at all. Why are you ready to go?”
The young man said, ”If my father could not live in a hundred years, if my eldest brother could not live in
eighty years, if my other brothers... nobody has been able to live, then the whole project is nonsense. I don’t
want to waste time. If I have to die it is better to die now. Why wait for eighty years? If these people have not
been able to manage, it is absolutely certain it is unmanageable. And let my father try a hundred years more.”
Death tried to convince him, but he wouldn’t listen. Death had to take him away.
After a hundred years, Death came back and the situation was the same. Again Yayati fell at his feet and
started crying and weeping and he said, ”I know that now I should be ready, but nothing is fulfilled yet; all the
desires are the same. I have lived all the desires, I cannot say that I have not lived them, but nothing is fulfilled.
I want more! Now that I have lived a hundred years a new desire has arisen I want more! I want to live at least
one time more, a hundred years more, just one time more.”
And this went on happening again and again. When Yayati became one thousand years old and Death came,
he was just going to fall at his feet. Death said, ”Wait enough is enough! Can’t you see the point, Yayati? Are
you so blind? You have lived one thousand years, and you have been doing the same things again and again. You
have done nothing new in these one thousand years, and still you want more? Can’t you see the simple point that
mind lives in the more, it goes on asking for more? There is no end to it. Now you come with me I am not going
to listen anymore. Now even my boss is feeling angry with me. He says, ’This is too much! This man has been
given too much time.’ But I also wanted to try let us see what you can make out of one thousand years. You
have not made any progress, you are exactly in the same place, going in circles.”
Buddha calls this tanha going in circles this constant desire for more. One becomes a master when this desire
for more disappears, when the seed is burnt in the fire of awareness. HE IS CALM. Then of course he is calm.
When there is no desire, when the winds of desire are blowing no more, there are no waves in the inner ocean,
then the ocean becomes absolutely calm. In fact, the ocean is not the cause of waves the cause is the invisible
winds. You see the waves in the ocean so you think the waves are caused by the ocean; they are not. The waves
are caused by invisible winds blowing over the ocean. If the winds stop the ocean will be absolutely calm.
Why are you in a turmoil? Why are there constantly so many waves inside you, so many thoughts and so many
memories, fantasies? Why does this whole circus go on? For the simple reason that there are invisible winds of
desire blowing upon you.
The watchful person, the intelligent person, becomes aware of the root cause: it is in the winds, the winds of
desire. He stops desiring. Seeing the futility of desire he drops desiring. The seed is burnt and then there is calm.
This calm is not the calm of your so-called polished, cultured man. This calm is totally different, its quality is
different, its source is different it comes from the innermost core. The Buddha is calm because the winds are
not blowing anymore. And they cannot blow because the very seed has been burnt. HE HAS CONQUERED
ALL THE INNER WORLDS. There are worlds upon worlds inside you too, just as outside there are worlds upon
worlds. Scientists go on discovering new solar systems, new stars, new galaxies of stars, new milky ways. They