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

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12 79
And what I am telling you here is just the opposite of it. I am talking about being, not about becoming.
Becoming is an invention of the crafty politicians and the priests and these are the people who have poisoned the
whole humanity. They go on giving you goals. If you become tired of the worldly things money, power, prestige
they are there to tell you about paradise, God, samadhi, truth. Again the whole process starts.
And it is easy to be frustrated with the worldly things. Sooner or later you can see the whole stupidity of
having more money or more power. Sooner or later you are going to see the futility of the very idea of ”more,”
because the more brings nothing else but more misery. It takes away all bliss from you, all peace from you. It is
destructive. It gives you only fear, trembling, anxiety, neurosis. It makes you insane; that can be seen very easily.
It has made the whole earth a madhouse.
But to see that the otherworldly goals nirvana and moksha and God and paradise are also the same is very
difficult. You will need tremendous intelligence to see that those goals are also of the same quality. There is no
qualitative change because you are still thinking in terms of becoming, you are still thinking in terms of the future.
Future does not exist, it is nonexistential. It is as nonexistential as the past. The past is no more, the future
is not yet; only the present is. And in the present there is no possibility for desiring, no possibility of being
ambitious, not space enough for the ego to exist. Whenever you are now and here there is no ego to be found.
You are a pure silence. Right now... see what I am saying. I am not propounding a theory or a philosophy; I am
simply stating a fact.
Ray Horton, just for a second see... this very moment! Where is the ego? And what heights and what depths
of peace suddenly become available to you. They are always within you, but you never look at them you are
running and running. And because you are not arriving anywhere you are very much worried.
You say, ”It is like driving a car in forward and reverse at the same time. I am not going anywhere.”
There is no need. This very moment, wherever you are, it is a blessing, it is divine. Where else do you want to
go? Why live in the past? It is the past that gives you goals. It is the past that you are carrying in your head
which projects goals in the future. Future is only a reflection of the past.
From your very childhood you have been told, you have been hypnotized, by the society, by the priests, by the
politicians, by your parents, by the pedagogues. You have been hypnotized continuously that you should have a
goal in your life, that you should have some purpose, that you should be a great achiever, that you have to be
famous a Nobel Prize winner or something that you are not to die just an ordinary man. To die just an ordinary
man is ugly; you have to die like a president or a prime minister as if their death has something special!
Because of this constant hammering on your head you have become so much accustomed to the idea that it is
driving you crazy. Otherwise, life is so beautiful as it is; no purpose, no goal is needed. Future can be completely
dropped. You live in the future just to escape from the present, and you become so psychologically obsessed with
the future that you go on missing that which is for that which is not.
Among the first things that a Jewish boy learns is the biblical injunction: ”Honor thy father and mother or
else!”
Herschel, aged six, was reminded of the admonition the day his father came home and announced that he had
decided to buy a car, the first his family had ever owned.
The father was in high spirits. ”Imagine, we are in this country only a few years and soon we will own a new
car,” he said proudly. ”I can just see us riding around in Central Park. In the front I am steering, and sitting
next to me is Mamma, and in the back is our little Herschel.”
Mamma nodded, smiling her approval. ”So, when are you planning to buy the car?” she asked.
”In two weeks, a month maybe no later.”
The pleasant interlude was suddenly shattered by Herschel’s mournful cry, ”I don’t wanna sit in the back! I
wanna sit in the front and help steer!”
”Only one steerer we need in this family,” the father reminded his son. ”In the front sits Mamma, in the back
sits you.”
”If I have to sit in the back I will bang my head on the wall, you will see!” wailed Herschel. He ran to the wall
and assumed a threatening pose, ready to give action to his words. ”Mamma is sitting in the back, I am sitting
in the front!”
”No, Herschel, you are in the back,” said the father sternly.
”In the front, not in the back!” Herschel’s voice rose in a sudden screech. ”I ain’t gonna sit in the back!”
Father, his manner grim, extended his arm and pointed a commanding finger. ”Herschel,” he said coldly, ”get
out of my car!”
People go on living in the future!