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

374 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
approach. Ordinarily, people think that if you come with a positive approach you cannot misunderstand. The
positive approach is very much appreciated around the world. Of course, your priests, your leaders praise your
positive approach because you are agreeing with them. I cannot praise it because your agreement means nothing
to me.
Your negative approach means disagreement, but both are misunderstandings. If you have come already with
a negative mind that you are against me, that this man is wrong you must have gathered it from public opinion,
from newspapers, from magazines. And if you have come already with a negative attitude, then whatsoever I say
you will find something wrong with it. You are bent upon finding something wrong with it. That is another kind
of misunderstanding.
To me, both are misunderstandings. And the first is more dangerous, because the second misunderstanding
is not going to do any harm. You will go empty-handed, that’s all; you have not lost anything. But the first
misunderstanding can be dangerous. You will go with the idea that I agree with you. You will become more
egoistic, thinking that your ideas are right, and that is more dangerous. If you think my ideas are wrong, there is
no problem, you remain the same. But if you think that your ideas are right because they are in agreement with
me and I am in agreement with you, then you are going with a more strengthened ego.
The positive approach is far more dangerous than the negative.
The real seeker comes with neither the positive mind nor the negative mind. He comes only with an open mind.
He comes silently. He has no a priori idea this way or that way. He simply listens, he does not interfere. He does
not go on continuously judging. He remains in a kind of let-go silent, open, vulnerable. It is not a question of
agreeing or of disagreeing. You are simply listening! What this man has to say, you are simply listening to it.
And you are not continuously commenting inside yourself that ”Yes, this is right, that is wrong. This agrees with
the Gita and this does not agree with the Gita. If it does not agree with the Gita how can this man be right?
The Gita is bound to be right.”
And what do you know about the Gita? All that you know about the Gita is your idea of the Gita. You can’t
understand Krishna. To understand Krishna you have to be a krishna, to understand Buddha you have to be
a buddha there is no other way. And when you are a buddha, why should you bother to understand Buddha?
When you are a krishna, what is the need to understand Krishna? You yourself know.
The real seeker listens with an empty mind, utterly empty. He listens totally, with no evaluation, no judgment.
Then there is no possibility of misunderstanding. And the miracle of right listening is that, if you listen silently,
whatsoever is true immediately strikes deep down somewhere in your heart a chord, a rhythm. Deep down
somewhere in your heart a synchronicity happens. That is the miracle of truth. If the mind is silent and if truth
is being told, your heart immediately starts beating with it, starts dancing with it. And that is true agreement,
not the agreement of the head, not the agreement of the ego, but something existential, something total. Then
you have understood. And if something is not true, your heart remains cold.
So there is no need to bother whether it is right or wrong. If it is right it touches something so deep in you
that you were not even aware that such a depth exists. And if it is not right nothing moves in you. So your whole
being becomes decisive, not just your head which is just a fragment. Never allow the fragment to decide for the
whole; let the whole decide.
The fanatic fisherman was telling a pal about his great dream: ”I dreamt I was out on a lake alone in a boat
with Elizabeth Taylor.”
His pal said, ”Wow how did you make out?”
He said, ”Great I caught a ten-pound flounder!”
You know fishermen, you know people who are mad about catching fish who cares about Elizabeth Taylor?
That is beside the point. He catches a ten-pound flounder.
He was really a golf nut. He was just about to tee off on the first hole when a beautiful girl came running up
to him in a gorgeous bridal outfit.
The golfer waved her away and said, ”Sylvia, I told you only if it rains!”
Two drunks were driving over a bridge and one said, ”When you come to the end of the bridge, turn left.”
The other slobbered, ”What’re you telling me for? You’re drivin’!”
In your state of sleep, in your state of drunkenness, what agreement? what disagreement? what understanding?
what misunderstanding? It is all the same.
Here, listening to me, become more and more silent and alert. Forget all about agreeing and disagreeing. I am
not interested in converting you, I am not a missionary. I am not interested in creating a following not at all. I
am certainly interested in sharing my joy with you, certainly interested in sharing my truth with you. But that
is a totally different matter.