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

356 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
The cold countries became world powers for the simple reason that in a cold country if you want to be alive
you have to work. In fact, when the climate is cold it provokes you, challenges you to work; otherwise you will
become cold, you will die. You have to work hard, only then can you feel hot and alive. Cold countries became
world powers; no hot country has ever been a world power, cannot be. Cold countries easily defeated big, hot
countries.
England is a small country, not bigger than a small state of India, a small province, but it dominated India
easily, very easily, with no problem. It was so simple to dominate. Cold countries become adventurous; Indians
have never been adventurous. They will not leave their villages. There are thousands of people in India who have
never gone beyond the boundary of their village, and they will never go. But the cold countries started traveling
around the world. Now the world is finished; they are trying to reach the stars they have reached the moon.
Everest is Indian, the mountain is Indian, but no Indian has ever tried to climb it. ”For what?” Indians will
say. ”For what? What is there? It is so futile!” But for a hundred years Western mountain-climbers have been
coming and risking their lives; many have died knowing that it is risky. The more risky it was, the more it was a
challenge.
When Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the top of Everest, was asked, ”Why?” of course by an Indian!
”Why did you try in the first place?” do you know his answer? He said, ”Simply because it is there! It is a
challenge. For no other reason. We cannot tolerate this mountain unless we conquer it it is a humiliation! The
mountain stands there so high and goes on telling us that nobody has been able yet to climb up to the top. It is
a constant challenge!” But no Indian is challenged by it.
Every country, every race has lived in a different way for centuries: climate, situations, history, accidents,
ideologies also have made much difference.
For example, Jews would not have been in such trouble if they had not carried this idea that they are the
chosen race of God. The very idea has been the cause of all their trouble. If you think you are the chosen people
of God, then of course you will be in trouble, because others will start fighting with you and proving that you are
not the chosen people. ”We are the chosen people. Who says you are the chosen people?” The very idea has been
torturing them.
But this is something to understand: people love their misery. People are sadomasochists, they always love
suffering. So any idea that gives you suffering, you cling to it. Jews have suffered so much, but they don’t drop
their idea. In fact, the very suffering and the antagonism of the whole world proves that they must be the chosen
people of God; otherwise why is everybody against them?
So there are great differences on the surface and the surface is all that comes in contact with others. Intrinsically
no two human beings are different; in their innermost core all human beings are just human beings.
So, Meera, we have to understand both things. Essentially, all human beings are one, but accidentally they are
not one. And it is not bad that they are not one. Variety is beautiful, it enriches the world, it makes the world
more beautiful. It will be an ugly world where only Hindus live, where only Jews live, or where only Negroes live.
It will lose all charm, it will lose all beauty.
It is such a beautiful mess.... Italians and Polacks and the Germans and the French, and they all have their
own ways, their own understandings, and they have all developed different styles.
So although everybody, every human being belongs to one species, still we have been able to create a variety
different flowerings on the same bush. It makes the world really rich. I would not like to destroy these differences,
I would like to enhance them still with this understanding that human beings are human beings. Nobody is
higher and nobody is lower; we should drop the idea of hierarchy, but variety is good.
Do you know how to recognize an Italian in a submarine? He is the only one carrying a parachute!
And how do you recognize the Polack? He is the one running after the Italian to steal his parachute!
A colored maid and her white employer became pregnant at the same time and gave birth on the same day. A
few months later the white woman came running into the kitchen and exclaimed to the maid, ”My baby said his
first word today!”
In the crib the colored baby sat up and said, ”He did? What did he say?”
An American couple was touring Europe.
As the bus pulled up at yet another famous cathedral in yet another famous town, the wife turned to the
husband and said, ”You do the inside of the cathedral, dear, and I will do the outside.”
An airplane full of tourists is flying from New York to Texas when one of the engines stops working.
The captain speaks to the passengers: ”Ladies and gentlemen, in order to stay alive we have to throw all the
luggage overboard. Then we will have less weight and we will safely reach our destination.”