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

96 THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 9-12
As she left, the rabbi said, ”Come back in a week and let me know how you are making out.”
Sure enough, the girl returned a week later, but this time she was even more disturbed than before.
”What is the matter now?” asked the rabbi.
”I stopped him from all that kissing,” said the unhappy young lady, ”but now well, I don’t know how to put
it....”
”Put, put!” urged the rabbi. ”With me you got nothing to be ashamed.”
”He’s trying to er touch me with his hands,” she stammered in embarrassment.
The rabbi rose from his chair in righteous anger. ”You tell that no-goodnik he should keep his dirty hands to
himself!” barked the rabbi. ”What kind of a way is that to treat a decent Jewish girl? Tell him to stop at once,
you hear?”
But when she visited the rabbi again she was almost in tears. ”I did everything you said,” moaned the girl,
”but now he insists he wants to sleep with me.”
”What!” yelled the outraged rabbi. ”I never heard of such chutzpah in my whole life. You go right home and
the next time you see him I want you to throw that bum out of the house. You understand? I am ordering you!
Throw him out!”
A few days later she visited the rabbi once more. Her eyes were red from weeping and her face was a picture
of misery.
”Did you do like I ordered?” demanded the rabbi.
She nodded, and, still sobbing, she said through her tears, ”Now he wants a divorce!”
Your priests are as unconscious as you are, or even more. They are not even aware of the situation man is
passing through. They go on handing out old recipes which are no more relevant. They go on giving you great
advice which may have been useful sometime in the past but is utterly out of context in the present situation.
You don’t need more priests and their help. You need a few awakened people in the world. You need more
meditators not mediators. The priests have been mediators between you and God. You need more meditators,
people who go deeper into their being, people who become centered, people who know the inner silence, the virgin
silence and the tremendous beauty of it. They will help humanity, and they will not help humanity directly either.
Their very presence will radiate new vibes which can transform.
A real person always helps people indirectly. He is not aggressive. He does not command you, ”Do this, don’t
do that.” He does not destroy your freedom in any way. He simply lives his life in the light that he has found
within himself. And being with him, something transpires between you and him.
A real master is never a priest. And I have never heard about a priest who was a real master. If you are a
master you cease to be a priest, and if you are a priest it is impossible for you to be a master. The priest belongs
to a certain ideology Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. The master belongs to no ideology. He is more conscious,
not more knowledgeable. He has more being, not more knowledge. He has more soul, not a bigger memory. He
may not know the scriptures because he himself is the scripture! And you will not find him in the temples and
the mosques and the churches.
I have heard about a very religious Negro who wanted to go to the church, but there was only one church in
his neighborhood and that belonged to white people.
The priest was a kindly man as priests are supposed to be. When the Negro knocked on the door one day,
the priest came out. The priest was in an embarrassing situation whether to say yes to him or no. To say yes
was dangerous because the whole congregation will be against it. It was the white people’s church and no black
person had been allowed; that was a tacit agreement. But how to say no to this simple man whose eyes were full
of tears and who said, ”I want to come in and I want to pray to Jesus Christ”?
But priests are cunning people. Howsoever kind they may appear on the surface, deep down they are cunning.
If they are not cunning they will not be in the profession of the priests at all, because that profession is far worse
than any other profession. Even prostitutes are better than priests! At least they sell only their bodies, and
priests are selling even their souls.
The priest immediately invented some strategy. He said, ”Good, you can come, but not right now. First purify
yourself, only then your prayer will be heard.”
That was a tricky strategy. No white man was ever asked to purify himself first, and then enter into the church.
And who is going to decide when the man is pure enough? That will be up to the priest and he can always go on
saying, ”You are not pure enough yet.”
The Negro went back. He was really in a deep love affair with God; he cried and wept, and he tried in every
possible way not to do anything wrong, to avoid anything that may make him impure. For three weeks he remained
in isolation, fasting, praying. And after three weeks God appeared to him: his desire was fulfilled.