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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 43
Intelligence is also contagious. If you live with an intelligent person you start becoming intelligent, because we
are not so separate, we vibrate together. If we live with somebody for a long time we start synchronizing with the
person.
That’s the whole secret of satsang the communion with the master. If he is awakened, his disciples slowly,
slowly start moving towards a subtle awakening. It is bound to happen. If the disciple can simply be in the
presence of the master, surrendered, relaxed, in a state of let-go, he may not have to do anything at all. The
presence of the master will start flooding him, will start changing his being. We are joined together.
Have you not watched it? If four persons are laughing and you are in a sad mood and you go to these people,
you forget your sadness; you start laughing. Later on when you remember that you were sad, it looks very strange.
How did you forget your sadness? How did you start laughing? What happened? The energy there, the space
there, was totally different from you: it was more powerful than you. Those four persons were creating a certain
vibe. Hence the significance of a buddhafield. The master creates a field around himself; through his disciples he
creates an energy field. To be in that energy field is a transformation in itself.
But the same happens if you move with the foolish people. Just to keep company, people would like to be with
anybody. They are so afraid of being alone.
Buddha wants you to beware of that. It is better to be with trees and the clouds and the river and the mountains
and the ocean, because they will not make you more foolish than you are; they may even help you to become a
little more intelligent, because the whole existence is nothing but intelligence. If you can be in deep communion
with nature you will become more intelligent. There is all around you tremendous intelligence available, but only
intelligent people can feel it. The foolish person remains closed.
The fool lives in his own world; that’s why he is called the idiot. The word ’idiot’ means one who lives in his
own world, one who has his own idiom, one who has his own private reality. He is closed to the real; he has his
own fantasy. He lives in his dreams.
Pat went to see the doctor about his eyes. The doctor suggested he bathe them every morning in brandy.
The next time Pat came to see the doctor, the doctor asked him how his eyes were.
”Did you follow my advice?” he asked.
”I tried to but I can’t raise the glass higher than my mouth!”
The fool is not only the person who is ignorant. The fool can be very knowledgeable; often he is. He can be
a pundit, he can be a priest, he can be a professor. And then he is more dangerous because he appears to talk
sense, and deep down he is as ignorant as anybody else, as foolish as anybody else.
A famous professor walked into a travel agency to buy a steamship ticket.
”To where?” the agent asked.
”Have you got a globe of the world?”
The travel agent handed him a globe. The professor turned the globe around and around looking at all the
countries and continents. After thirty minutes he said, ”Pardon me, haven’t you got anything else?”
Your professors, your pundits, your scholars, are not very much different.
And remember, the foolish person may have a certain character. It is easy for the fool to create a certain
character because he is stubborn. Stupidity is always stubborn. If some idea gets into his head he may be able to
practice it more consistently than the intelligent person because he is stubborn, he cannot be flexible. He is not
dynamic, he is stagnant.
That helps many foolish people to become respectable because they can do stupid things nobody else will be
able to do, but they do them with such perseverance, with such patience, with such strength, that they succeed
in doing them. They can create great characters, they can be great moralists, they can be very pious, and they
can impress you.
Remember, character is not of much value. What is valuable is consciousness not conscience but consciousness.
Conscience is created by the society. The more foolish you are, the more the society is able to create a conscience
in you. It gives you an idea how to live your life. It manipulates you in a very subtle way. It hypnotizes you and
conditions you. And the conditioning is so long that you forget completely that these are not your ideas.
For example, if you are born in a vegetarian family you will be a vegetarian, thinking that you have renounced
all meat-eating, etcetera, that you are great you are a vegetarian. But if you were born in a nonvegetarian family
you would have been a nonvegetarian. It depends on the conditioning; you are not doing it consciously. You are
allowing other people to dominate you, to decide for you.
The intelligent person is rebellious. He does not allow others to decide for him; he keeps the right to himself.
Hence, stupid people become saints very easily because they allow the society to condition them. At least in that