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

84 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
in the middle a small minority, but those people are there. With your help they will reach to the other shore;
without your help they may wander and wander for centuries and centuries.
”And you are right in saying that what difference does it make in eternity? It does not make any difference to
you because you know eternity, but for those poor people who live in time it makes much difference. For many,
many lives they will be suffering. For you it makes no difference you have entered eternity but they are living in
time, and time means birth, death and the wheel of birth and death. And they will have to go on the wheel, in the
vicious circle, millions of times. Compared to eternity it is nothing, but compared to a small life a seventy-year
life, a sixty-year life it is too much. You have to think about that third category too.”
Buddha listened to them and immediately agreed to speak. He followed the argument: yes, there is a third
category. The first category is of those people who cannot understand at all. Words they can understand;
intellectually they are capable of understanding whatsoever is said to them. But deep down the meaning is
missed, the significance is missed. They hear the music, but they don’t get the melody of it. They hear the noise,
but they don’t feel the harmony; that is a subtle phenomenon. They hear the words.
All the three categories are here. The majority is hearing my words, but they will not feel my silence, they will
not feel my presence in them. It is the same to them. They can read a book, they can listen to a tape or they
can hear me directly; it is all the same to them, no difference, because the words are the same.
But to the second category there is a difference. To read my words in a book is one thing, because I will not
be there in those words, my presence will not be there. I will not be breathing in those words; they will be dead.
When you listen to the tape it is a little better than the book, but still my presence is not there. Tapes are
mechanical repetitions; there is nobody behind them.
Here when you are listening to me, my words are there and my silence is there. My silence can go with the
words if you are available. The second category of people will be able to feel my presence, my silence, my song.
And the first category of people will immediately realize that this is it! A sudden enlightenment... not even a
moment’s gap.
The fifth question:
Question 5
BELOVED MASTER, THE OTHER DAY I READ THAT TARU MET YOU ONCE IN THE STREETS OF
BOMBAY WHILE YOU WERE CARRYING A BAG OF GIN AND WHISKY IN BOTH HANDS. ARE YOU
REALLY A DRUNKARD?
Prem Aditya, if Taru says so, it must be so. I am such a drunkard that I can’t remember! Yes, vaguely I
remember Taru meeting me on the streets of Bombay. I can remember her hug it is difficult to forget! But my
memory is not very good... so maybe I was carrying bottles of whisky in both of my hands.
That has been very usual for Zen masters in Japan. That is the last stage of enlightenment! To be enlightened
means to be utterly drunk drunk with the divine.
Maybe those bottles of whisky were empty. They must have been, because a drunkard like me cannot keep
those bottles full very long. The moment I get them I drink them. I don’t postpone anything! But my memory
is not very good....
”Doctor, I have a very serious problem,” Max began. ”I am losing my memory maybe I have already lost it
completely. I can’t seem to remember anything.”
The psychiatrist smiled indulgently. ”I am sure it is not quite that drastic. You must remember something.”
”No, nothing at all. I tell you, I can’t remember a single thing.”
”You mean, of course, such things as names and faces and dates? We all tend to forget them now and then.”
”Doctor, you don’t understand. I mean everything!”
”Ah, that is pure nonsense!” snapped the doctor. ”No one just forgets everything he has ever known. Even a
person suffering from amnesia remembers something such as whether he drinks coffee or tea or whether he smokes
cigarettes or not.”
”Listen, Doc,” Maxwell said despairingly, ”I am telling you for the last time I can’t remember anything at all.
Everything I see, everything I hear, everything I read, it just makes a temporary impression and then goes out of
my head forever. That’s it, Doctor, I swear to you. I simply can’t remember one single goddamn thing!”
The psychiatrist frowned, leaned back in his chair and pondered this unique malady for several moments. Then
he asked, ”How long has this been going on?”
”How long has what been going on?”
That’s my situation too! I don’t remember much. I am not much interested in the past, I am not interested in
the future either. My whole interest is in the present moment.