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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 59
Life means danger, life means risk. Life means going always from the known to the unknown, from one peak to
another peak, always climbing peaks which have not been climbed before, always moving into the uncharted sea
with no maps, with no guidelines. Only then you live ecstatically, and only then you know what life is. Through
living dangerously one becomes integrated. Through living a life of insecurity one passes through fire and becomes
pure gold.
The only way to become a master of oneself is to go into the unknown, unafraid or in spite of all the fears.
Buddha invites you for an arduous life. That’s what sannyas is all about.
”Hello, hello, police. Please come quickly. There is a big black cat coming to get me. Hurry up! I am afraid.”
The policeman replied in a tired voice, ”Now, come on! What kind of man are you, afraid of a black cat?”
”I am not a man. I am a peacock.”
It is very rare to find a real man. Even to find a peacock is very rare. There are only rats, white and black
and all colors of rats! It is not an accident that psychologists go on studying rats to understand man. Strange,
trying to understand rats so as to understand man! But not really, not really so strange as it appears, because
the majority of men live like rats.
The psychology of Pavlov is based on the study of dogs, and the psychology of Skinner is based on the study
of rats. And both are perfectly true as far as the majority of humanity is concerned. Only once in a while they
may not be right. If they try to apply their psychology on a buddha they may not be right, but as far as the
ordinary humanity is concerned they are perfectly right. What has happened to man? He has lost all meaning
and significance for the simple reason that he has become a very cowardly being. He lives in such cowardly ways,
he is so afraid of anything new.
I know people who have been listening to me for years ten years, twelve years, fifteen years and they go
on saying to me, ”We want to become sannyasins, but we are still thinking.” And they go on finding excuses,
sometimes one excuse, sometimes another excuse. They love me, but they are not courageous enough to declare
it. They hide the fact. They are not courageous to move into this unknown dimension of sannyas. They love me
so they listen to me, and they love me so sometimes they think that one day they are going to become sannyasins,
but they go on finding excuses to postpone it.
It is because of this cowardliness that man has lost all meaning and significance. All joy, all bliss, all ecstasy,
has disappeared. Man looks very sad. Even if he laughs, his laughter looks phony, mechanical, false something
cultivated, managed, not coming from the depths. It has no profundity, it does not sound like it is coming from
the center. It is only a painted smile on the circumference.
Do you know how the word ’phony’ came into existence? It came because of the telephone. When the telephone
was invented and people started listening to others thousands of miles away on the telephone, the voice sounded
strange. It is bound to be so. It is mechanical; it has not that authenticity. And there was nobody behind it; it
was coming out of nowhere. Hence the word ’phony’. You smile, but you don’t seem to be behind it; you may
not be there at all.
And now even a new thing has come into existence. At least in the old days you could imagine that on the
other side there must be somebody. Now there may be just a tape recorder saying, ”Hello. How are you?”
I have heard:
One psychologist became very tired with a patient, tired because he was saying the same things again and
again. And he was so rich that there was no hope of getting rid of him! So the psychologist said, ”You do one
thing. I will leave my tape recorder and you go on talking to the tape recorder. And whenever I have time I will
listen to it.”
The man said, ”That’s perfectly right” because psychologists sit behind a screen, particularly Freudian psychologists.
The patient lies down on the couch and the psychologist sits behind a screen. It is a good device... so
that the psychologist can go to sleep, can read a newspaper, or may even leave. And the patient goes on talking,
believing that he is there. Only once in a while he has to say, ”Hmm. Yes. Go on,” but this can be done by a
tape recorder.
Next time, next session, and the psychologist said, ”You did perfectly well last time. Now my tape recorder is
here again. You go on talking to it. I am going to see a matinee show. When I am back I will listen.”
When he was outside he saw the patient walking out. He said, ”Where are you going?”
The patient said, ”To the matinee show.”
He said, ”What happened? Aren’t you going to talk to the tape recorder?”
He said, ”I have put my tape recorder there. I have told everything to my tape recorder, and my tape recorder
is talking to your tape recorder, so what’s the need of me being there? I’m also coming to the matinee show!”