An assembly of two buddhas

Maneesha, I am feeling so light, just by dropping a single word. I feel I can fly like a swan to the eternal snows of the Himalayas. That small word I had chosen as a challenge to this country's whole past. For thirty years I carried that word.

There are so many Hindu scholars, shankaracharyas, Jaina monks - none of them had the courage to challenge me on the word. Perhaps they were aware that to challenge me on the word would be an exposure of the whole Hindu structure of society, which is the ugliest in the world.

But the man who wrote the MANUSMRATI five or perhaps seven thousand years ago is still ruling the Indian mind. He was called Bhagwan Manu, because he gave the morality and the character to Hindu society. The Hindu society is one of the most spiritually enslaved societies. Its slavery is in its caste system. The caste system is the ugliest you can conceive. It also labels the woman as an inferior creature, spiritually incapable of being enlightened.

Gautama the Buddha rebelled against the caste system; that was his great crime.

In his presence it was impossible to argue with him. He was not a man of argument but of existential presence. Scholars, pundits, brahmins approached him, but his very climate was enough to silence them. They did not have courage enough to question this man's single-handed rebellion against the most ancient society in the world. Just because of this, I see Gautam the Buddha as the only man in the whole past of human history who knew what freedom is.

Yesterday you witnessed a historical moment.

I have accepted Gautam Buddha's soul as a guest, reminding him that I am a non-compromising person, and if any argument arises between us, "I am the host, and you are the guest - you can pack your suitcases!" But lovingly and with great joy he has accepted a strange host - perhaps only a strange man like me could do justice to a guest like Gautam the Buddha. Twenty-five centuries ago he was the most liberated, but in twenty-five centuries so much water has flowed down the Ganges.

It is a totally new world of which he knows nothing.

With great respect he will have to depend on me to encounter the contemporary situation.

He understood it immediately. His clarity of vision has remained pure all along these twenty-five centuries. I am blessed to be a host of the greatest man of history. And you are also fortunate to be a witness of a strange phenomenon.

When Gautam Buddha died, the brahmins, the priesthood which has been a curse to this country, destroyed everything that Buddha had created. All those beautiful roses were burnt alive. There were three categories of people: those who were enlightened simply left the country to convert the whole Far East; those who were not enlightened either suffered death or were forced to become part of the sudras.

It was one of the great contributions of Doctor Ambedkar to discover that the chamars, the shoemakers, are really Buddhists who have been reduced to shoemaking by the Hindu priesthood.

With their lives at risk, the poor fellows preferred this utter humiliation and indignity. But Buddhism disappeared completely from its own land.

You will not believe how revengeful the priesthood is. They burnt the Bodhi tree under which Gautam Buddha had become enlightened; even the tree could not be tolerated. The tree that exists now in Bodhgaya is not the original tree. It was just a coincidence that before the original tree was destroyed by the brahmins, a great emperor, Ashoka, became interested in Gautam Buddha and his awakening. He is the only great emperor who lived like Buddha's bhikkshus, who begged his food in his own capital.

He cut a branch of the original tree and sent his own daughter, Sanghamitra, to Ceylon to plant the tree and to plant the seeds of Buddha's great awakening in Sri Lanka.

Just after India became liberated, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of this country, was in immense love with Buddha. He asked that a branch from Sri Lanka should be brought back. It is a faraway descendant of the original tree under which Gautam Buddha became enlightened, but yet it carries the same juice.

So the tree you see now in Bodhgaya is not the original tree. The original has been burned. Such is the revengeful attitude of all priesthood around the world.

I wanted the Hindu priesthood to challenge me on the word 'Bhagwan'. But knowing me perfectly well, they simply avoided the challenge because it was going to expose all their incarnations of god.

You will not believe what kind of criminals have been called "Bhagwan" by Hindus.

As an example I would like to tell you: Parasuram is one of the incarnations of a Hindu god. His old father, according to the Hindu scriptures, was a great seer. But I don't think that is right, because a great seer will not be suspicious of his wife. A great seer transcends all these small desires and longings, jealousies. I will call that man, not a seer, but one of the blindest of people because he was suspicious that when he goes to the river early in the morning in the dark, the Moon God comes to have a love affair with his wife. Such idiots!

The moon is not a god; it is just a piece of this planet. But he ordered his son, Parasuram, "Until you cut off the head of my wife, your mother, my suspicion and my jealousy will go on burning like fire in my heart."

Parasuram, without asking, "What are the reasons for this jealousy? A man like you is not supposed to be jealous, and in your old age..." he simply went and cut off the head of his own mother. Just because of his obedience to his father, howsoever irrational and stupid, Hindus have called him "Bhagwan." I never had any desire to belong to this category of criminals.

Yesterday, dropping that word, I have disconnected myself with this land, its ugly heritage, its slavery.

One friend has asked if it was a mistake when I referred to Tulsi as Hindu, or do I mean it. I'm not any infallible pope, but that was not a mistake; I mean it.

Jainism never could become an independent religion. It depends for all its necessities on Hindus. It is only a philosophy, not a religion; a Hindu cult, but not a culture. No Jaina would be ready to make shoes; no Jaina would be ready to clean toilets. What kind of culture is this? It is simply a small branch of the Hindu heritage, maybe differing on a few philosophical points, but that does not make it a religion. So, with absolute awareness I called Acharya Tulsi a Hindu.

The people that Hinduism has been worshipping as gods... It is so hilarious! Krishna is worshipped as the perfect god and he is the man who forced this country into the greatest war India has ever known. It was an unnecessary massacre. It left Hindu society without a spine. It became so afraid of war that it has been available for anybody to invade it.

For two thousand years it has remained a country enslaved by small barbarian tribes - this vast continent - but nobody wanted any violence. The mind of the whole country settled into the consolation of fatalism: "If somebody is coming to invade - Moguls, Hunas, Turks, Mongols, anybody - this is destiny, you cannot avoid it. It is better to accept it; it is destined by God." That's why even after the freedom from the British empire, forty years have passed, and one wonders what we had asked freedom for.

Freedom has two wings - from and for. A freedom that is only "from" is not worth the name. Freedom has to be for something greater.

But India continues to become more and more poor, more and more uneducated. And the stupid politicians promised the country, "We are going to lead you into the twenty-first century."

The country is not even in this century. It still lives according to Manu, seven thousand years back; it still worships Krishna, five thousand years past. It seems all that has to happen has happened for this land. It has no future; its dark night has no dawn.

By dropping the word 'Bhagwan' I have disconnected myself absolutely from an ugly tradition - inhuman, barbarious. It has created a mind for slavery, uncreative in every sense, and in the name of spirituality every kind of nonsense goes.

Gautam Buddha fought like a lion. I am immensely happy that he has chosen me. His area of fight was very small, just the state of Bihar in North India; my field of work is the whole world.

I have to fight not only against the Hindu superstitions, I have to fight with the Mohammedans, with the Christians - alone, but with great rejoicing, hoping that the courageous ones are going to join my caravan.

The fight is at the most crucial time. The world cannot be saved. These coming twelve years are going to be the last for this beautiful planet to breathe, to blossom into flowers. My work and yours is to find the chosen people before the idiotic politicians destroy the world. Let us create as many buddhas as possible because they will be the only ones whose bodies may be destroyed but whose souls will have wings to fly across the sun into the blue sky and dissolve into eternity with joy, with dance, with gratitude.

Maneesha has brought a few beautiful sutras.

It is a traditional question containing many implications: "Why did Bodhidharma come from India to China?"

Certainly the first implication is that India was no longer receptive to the highest flight of consciousness of Buddha. Bodhidharma was in search of fresh ground, of new pastures.

Without saying a word, just making a circle in the air and putting the Chinese character for Buddha inside it... not a single word is spoken but everything is said, including that which cannot be said in any way. He is indicating that life is like a circle in the air, very fragile. Like a writing on the sands on the beach, and a tidal wave comes and takes away all the writing or a wild breeze comes and disturbs everything that is written.

Kyozan is saying that your life is even more illusory, just a circle in the air; you cannot even see it.

But inside the circle a tremendous force of consciousness, represented by the Buddha, is hidden in all its splendor.

Bodhidharma coming to China was carrying the message, "Don't just waste your life on the circumference, which is nothing but a circle drawn in the air. Look inwards. Always remember that the difference between life and death is not much - just a few breaths, a few heartbeats missed, and you are no more in the body. But inside, in this ephemeral circle of air is the very solid, immortal rock of the Buddha." Bodhidharma went to China to carry the message to which India had become absolutely blind and unreceptive.

He could see the great insight of Kyozan.

"AS FAR AS BEFITS MY POSITION," RESPONDED KYOZAN.

I have to remind you that Chinese or Japanese or other Far Eastern languages don't have any alphabet. They have only characters. It is very difficult to understand those languages unless you are born there because you need to know thousands of characters to read even an ordinary newspaper, and those characters are very symbolic.

One friend showed me a Chinese character. I tried in every way to work out what this character could be but I had to accept failure. The man said, "It is a very simple character, but unless you know there is no way to discover it."

It is just a symbolic roof with two symbolic women. Neither can you figure out that these are women and this is the roof... And the man told me, "This character means constant quarrel: two women under one roof; but it also means battle, fight, war."

He had been learning Chinese for almost thirty years, but he was still not confident about the ancient scriptures.

So when the monk asked, "Do you know the Chinese characters?" Kyozan responded, "As far as befits my position. I cannot say I know Chinese characters, I can only say I know a few characters which are needed for my work."

One wonders - why number ten? Moving around you anti-clockwise, why should it mean ten?

I have tried hard. My own understanding is, all the languages of the world have ten digits as the basis of their mathematics, and those ten digits come from the ten fingers of man.

Man started counting on his fingers. I still do! And howsoever hard I try, at the most I reach to the third finger. By the time I reach the fourth I have forgotten whether it is fourth or fifth....

This character within an anti-clockwise movement can simply mean that you will be limited to the small numbers - up to ten. You cannot go further than that. If you want to go further you will have to move clockwise - that is how existence is moving. Anti-clockwise, you will be stuck with your own fingers.

The swastika is, perhaps, the ancientmost symbol in the world. It moves clockwise.

When Adolf Hitler came to power, he wanted for his flag some ancient symbol. He sent his messengers to India, to Tibet, to China, and they all came to the conclusion that the swastika is the ancientmost symbol in the world. It means progress, it means being in tune with existence, it means victory. But the people who had brought this message from the eastern countries made the flag for Adolf Hitler, but forgot to make the swastika clockwise. They made it, but because it was unknown to them they made it anti-clockwise.

Now the people who understand numerology, symbology, say that Adolf Hitler's defeat is because of this wrong swastika character on his flag. I will not go along with them; that is nonsense. Clockwise or anti-clockwise is not going to decide the fate of a war.

But Kyozan is right in the sense that if you are in tune with existence, you may have the possibility of your potential coming to a flowering. Don't go against the current; that way your defeat is certain.

Go with the current; that way you are relaxed, joyful, floating with the stream, and you will reach to the ocean - to the vast oceanic consciousness.

The swastika is the symbol of time, clockwise. But time is nothing but a mind projection. If there is no mind, there is no time. Do you think the bamboos around the Buddha Auditorium know anything about time? Do you think the sun rises according to a clock? The whole existence goes on without having any sense of time. Time is a projection of the human mind. Except in your watches and clocks there is no time.

Kyozan did well. He drew a circle in the air around the swastika - that too is in the air. He is saying, all that our mind can do is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of.

This is the Buddhist mythology: that every kalpa means millions of years in which a world is born and dies - that is one kalpa. This earth was born four billion years ago, and it seems we have most probably twelve years more. There is every indication that by the end of this century we are going to commit suicide.

In this whole kalpa there are one thousand buddhas, and Rucika, mythologically, is thought to be the last buddha of the present kalpa.

The only thing to be taken care of is your innermost being, symbolized by the buddhas. Lose everything and you lose nothing. Empires disappear in the air like soap bubbles. But don't lose your buddha. That is your eternal treasure, your immortality, your master key to open all the mysteries of existence.

Shosha wrote:

Just suddenly in winter, when it is not expected, comes a rain cloud, and showers create so many rainbows.

Shosha is saying,

"To wake, alive,

In this world, where everything is mortal -

what happiness! Winter rain."

Every morning when you wake up, remember it.

I have come across a man, well-educated, a retired professor of mathematics, who suddenly became very much afraid of sleeping. His family brought him to me. They said, "He is absolutely rational in everything except he does not like to sleep. Moreover, he goes on waking others in the family."

He would knock on the doors of his daughter-in-law, "Are you awake?" Now, just to answer him her sleep is disturbed. But the whole night... what else can he do?

I asked him, "What is the fear? Why don't you want to sleep?"

He said, "The fear is that if I go to sleep, what is the guarantee that I will wake up alive."

I said, "This is certainly a very significant problem. But who told you that you are alive?"

He said, "I am not alive?"

I said, "As far as I can see you have been dead since you retired. You can sleep; you cannot lose anything, you are dead already."

He said, "That solves the problem. All these people have been bothering me: 'Sleep!' but nobody could give the right answer. You convinced me. If I am dead already, who cares?"

I went to see him the next morning. He was taking his breakfast. He welcomed me with great love and said, "It is a miracle! I awakened alive."

And I said, "Remember, if you don't sleep you will be dead. If you sleep there is a possibility you may wake up alive."

After twenty years I went back to the city. He had become very old, and he said to me, "Now I have come with a very different question: I want to die."

I said, "Sleep well. One day it is certain, I can guarantee you will not wake up. The best place to die is in bed. Ninety-nine percent of people die in bed. That is the most dangerous place."

He said, "My God! I have been sleeping on a bed."

I said, "You start sleeping on the mattress down on the floor."

He said, "What is that going to do?"

I said to him, "Remember, there is no way to avoid death. You can make every effort, and the best thing is not to go to bed. The bed is very close to the cemetery."

I have heard about an old Jew who was dying, a very rich man. His four sons were discussing: "The old fellow is going to die. What to do about the funeral procession?"

The youngest son said, "He always wanted to have a Rolls Royce. The poor fellow could not manage it, not because he did not have the money, but it was impossible to part him from his money. Once he had got hold of it, then that money could not be used in any way. But we can have for his funeral procession a Rolls Royce - at least once, a one-way drive. He will not come back."

The second son said, "Don't be stupid. What does it matter to a dead man whether he is riding the Rolls Royce or just a bullock cart. An unnecessary waste! You are too young, you don't understand."

The third son said, "So you propose a bullock cart. My feeling is: we are four, we can carry him on our shoulders. The cemetery is not far away."

The old man was listening to everything. He suddenly sat up in the bed and said, "Where are my shoes?"

One son said, "Shoes? Are you going to die with your shoes on?"

He said, "No. I simply want my shoes, because I am still alive enough to walk down to the cemetery!

Listening to the great discussion that is going on, the cheapest way is..."

But whatever you do, Shosha is right:

TO WAKE, ALIVE - again - IN THIS WORLD.

WHAT HAPPINESS!

WINTER RAIN.

Question 1:

Maneesha has asked:

Maneesha, it is true Gautam Buddha died of poisoning. The fact is, he was too old, eighty-two years old, and tired. Forty-two years just walking from village to village... He could not fight back against the poison. But his work was incomplete.

In fact the work of a buddha is always going to be incomplete. It is an intrinsic part of spreading the fire of awakening. You cannot conceive that the whole world will become awakened, but people like Gautam the Buddha are the dreamers of the impossible. They hope against hope. He had to leave because his body was tired and old and could not survive the poisoning. But he left with a dream that he may find somewhere someone to carry on his dream of growing more lotuses in the world.

These twenty-five centuries he has been wandering like a white cloud, searching.

It is my great destiny that he has chosen me to be his host. I will do - in fact I have been doing already - the same kind of work of spreading awakening. Hence it is not a problem to me. An ancient buddha residing inside will certainly strengthen my work.

You are asking about poisoning, "Is there any connection?" Certainly, seeing that I have overcome the poisoning, which was far more dangerous than the poisoning that Buddha suffered. The poisoning has been a great purification for me. This purification makes me receptive to the wandering soul of Gautam Buddha.

He is not a weight. He is rather more like wings. He is not the man to dictate anything - the pure agnostic, the greatest individualist, the utter rebel. I have been, without knowing, preparing a home, a shelter, for a wandering Buddha. It is my fortune that he has accepted me to be his home for a few days at least.

You are also fortunate to be the assembly of two Buddhas, a bridge stretched between twenty-five centuries, so rich that if you miss, nobody except yourself will be responsible for it.

It is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh. Gautam the Buddha may not be aware... because I don't find in his scriptures any sense of humor. But now in this assembly even a dead man will start laughing.

Polanski, the Polack, applies for a job at the Poona Travel Agency. He tells them that he worked three years for Polish Airways. The personnel director calls Polish Airways to see what kind of an employee Polanski was.

His previous boss says:

"He is a meathead, a cheat, a dumb bunny, a busybody, a loafer, a birdbrain, a sneak, a numbskull, a loudmouth, a fruitcake, a dodo, a chiseler, a bigot, a wino, a lamebrain, a dunce, a boob, a bananahead, an ass, a screwball, a dumbdumb, a nincompoop, a goofball, a dimwit, a pig, a hockey puck, a klutz, a dumkopf, a fuddy-duddy, a ding-a-ling, a lush, a weirdo, a dunderhead, a moron, a bungler, a mental midget, a turkey, a bloodsucker, a bully, a muttonhead, a slavedriver, a vulture, an imbecile, a tightwad, a dingbat, a braggart, an animal, a puttyhead, a bitcher, a clown and an idiot!

Still, I recommend him for the job."

"Why on earth would you recommend him?" asks the personnel director.

"Because," the previous boss says, "he was our best employee!"

Hymie Goldberg is lying on the psychiatrist's couch.

"So what seems to be the problem?" the shrink asks.

"Well, Doc," Hymie replies. "For the past two months, every morning at eight-thirty, I take a huge shit!"

"Really?" says the psychiatrist, after a moment's silence. "Why, millions of people would love to be that regular. So, what is the problem?"

"Well, Doc," Hymie replies, "I don't get out of bed until nine!"

Marco is a newcomer to the country. Although he does not know the language well, he manages to meet Janet and dates her for several weeks. Then, Janet invites Marco to her house for dinner.

When he arrives Janet excuses herself and goes off to the kitchen to help her mother. Marco gathers up all his courage and says: "Sir, I wanna ask for your daughter's gland."

"What?" cries the father. "You mean you want my daughter's hand?"

"No," says Marco. "I'm fed up with hand jobs. Now I want the gland!"

The quiz show moderator says to the contestant, "Okay, Mr. Clump, and now, for the one hundred thousand dollar question, what is the difference between Ronald Reagan and a bucket of shit?"

Clump thinks for a second, then smiles knowingly and declares, "The bucket!"

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards with your total consciousness, and with an urgency as if this moment is going to be the last in your life.

The center of your being is not far away. As you come closer, a strange coolness, a silence starts becoming deeper. A light that has no source, a blissfulness... thousands of flowers start raining on you.

This moment, you are the buddha.

This is your ultimate reality. The only character to be remembered is witnessing. The buddha consists only of witnessing.

To make it clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax, and just be a witness. You are not the body, you are not the mind. You are just a pure witness standing by the side. This witnessing is the very soul of a buddha.

The night was beautiful in itself, but ten thousand buddhas melting into an oceanic consciousness has made the night a splendor, a miracle.

Just remember one thing: when Nivedano calls you back, gather as much light, as much fragrance, as much existential juice as you can, and persuade the buddha to come along with you. Finally, he has to become your everyday action, gesture, word, silence - everything. The circumference of your life has to disappear, giving place to the center.

This is the greatest rebellion and the only living religiousness: to bring buddha into your ordinary life, simply, innocently.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back... with all the grace of a buddha, with all the beauty and the joy. Sit for a few minutes just to recollect the golden path that you traveled to reach to your center, and the encounter with the buddha, and the experience of just pure witnessing.

Slowly slowly, that which looks like a faraway peak of consciousness will become your simple, ordinary being. That will be the most historical moment for you.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Buddha.