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

94 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
And this is happening to many people. Many people come into the clearing and then so easily they move into
the black hole. In a way it seems logical, because they have lived in the black hole so long. The new experience
is new and threatening and the black hole starts claiming them again and again.
This is happening to Turiya. She was coming into a clearing, and now moving into a black hole on her own
accord. And the beauty of the whole thing is that when people start coming into the clearing they don’t thank
me at all. They don’t write letters to me saying, ”Thank you, Beloved Master.” But when they start moving into
the black hole they write great letters to me: ”Why are you doing it to me? Why are you taking it away?” They
had never thanked me. In the first place I had not given it to them, so how can I take it away? These things are
not given or taken away.
These things, you have to understand, happen from your very center. And you have to learn one very fundamental
rule: that when they happen there will be every possibility of moving back to the old pattern. You are so
familiar with it, so accustomed to it you have lived in it for so long; it seems so safe, secure, cozy, warm. And
the clearing seems to be cold, vast, empty, insecure. But in the clearing is real security because in the clearing is
eternity. That black hole is only your mind, a small mind. But with the small mind you are familiar.
You have to learn to love the unfamiliar, the unknown, and one day finally, the unknowable. Then you move
into the mysterious more and more. Only then can you say one day, ”I know nothing” because existence is not
knowable; it is a mystery, not to be solved. It is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived, to be loved,
to be shared.
DESIRE IS A HOLLOW AND PEOPLE SAY, ”LOOK! HE WAS FREE. BUT NOW HE GIVES UP HIS
FREEDOM.” And you are ready to give up your freedom you are ready to give up anything. You are so ready
to give up your freedom for any toy. You don’t know the value of freedom.
When the daughter of an aristocratic French family announces her engagement to a black man, Big Sam, her
parents decide they must try to stop the marriage.
They call Big Sam in and tell him that their daughter is used to every luxury and has to have the finest, largest
house in Paris to live in. The black man draws himself up and announces, ”When Big Sam loves, Big Sam buys,”
and off he goes.
Sure enough, he buys the biggest and best house in Paris.
So the parents call him in again and tell him that their daughter longs for the largest, brightest diamond in all
of France.
”When Big Sam loves, Big Sam gets,” says the groom-to-be, and off he goes, returning with the biggest,
brightest diamond the parents have ever seen.
In the last-ditch attempt to stop the marriage, the girl’s father goes to see him privately, and tells him that to
make their daughter happy he absolutely must have a prick that is twelve inches long.
The black man answers firmly, ”When Big Sam loves, Big Sam cuts.”
Enough for today.
The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 10
Chapter 2 Whatsoever happens is good
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The first question:
Question 1
BELOVED MASTER, CANNOT THE PRIESTS HELP HUMANITY IN SOME WAY OR OTHER?
Veeresh, they have been helping humanity for centuries; hence this miserable state of things. They have helped
a lot to create as many lies as possible lies which appear comfortable. But in the end, lies are lies. Maybe for the
time being they give you a feeling of warmth, coziness, security, but only for the moment. Sooner or later you are
in a far darker state, far colder than ever.
Priests have been inventing down the ages strategies for you to remain as you are. You don’t want to change;
you simply want comfortable lies to be handed over to you so that you can go on living the way you are. To change
oneself needs courage. Priests help you to remain cowards. You are afraid of death. Priests go on consoling you,
”Don’t be worried. Your soul is eternal.” And you don’t have any idea of the soul at all.
George Gurdjieff used to say that it is very rare to come across a person who has a soul. Others are only empty;
there is nothing inside. Yes, there is a potential to create the soul in everyone, but it is not an actuality. You can
be a soul, you can become part of eternity, you can be immortal, but that is only a possibility. Much work hard
work, arduous work will be needed to make it a reality, to realize it.
But priests have been telling you for centuries that you already have a soul. Only the body dies and the soul
continues on its eternal pilgrimage. It consoles you. It keeps you, in a certain sense, together. You don’t become