Reflections of emptiness
THE BUDDHA SAID:
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY, FOR IT IS LIKE STIRRING UP CLEAR WATER WITH HANDS.
PEOPLE MAY COME THERE WISHING TO FIND A REFLECTION OF THEIR FACES WHICH HOWEVER THEY WILL NEVER SEE.
A MIND TROUBLED AND VEXED WITH PASSIONS IS IMPURE, AND ON THAT ACCOUNT IT NEVER SEES THE WAY.
O MONKS, DO AWAY WITH PASSIONS. WHEN THE DIRT OF PASSION IS REMOVED THE WAY WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
THE BUDDHA SAID:
SEEING THE WAY IS LIKE GOING INTO A DARK ROOM WITH A TORCH.
THE DARKNESS INSTANTLY DEPARTS WHILE THE LIGHT ALONE REMAINS. WHEN THE WAY IS ATTAINED AND THE TRUTH IS SEEN, IGNORANCE VANISHES AND ENLIGHTENMENT ABIDES FOREVER.
WHO IS A BUDDHA? Or what is buddhahood? Unless you have a clear concept about it, it will be difficult to understand the sayings of Buddha. To understand those sayings, you will have to understand the source from where they arise. To understand the flower, you will have to understand the roots. Unless you understand the roots, you can appreciate the flower, but you will not be able to understand it.
Who is a Buddha? Or what is buddhahood? The word 'buddha' means pure awareness, a state of absolute awareness. A Buddha is not a person but a state - the ultimate state, the ultimate flowering. Buddha has nothing to do with Gautam the Buddha. Before Gautam the Buddha there have been many Buddhas, and after Gautam the Buddha there have been many Buddhas. Gautam the Buddha is only one who has attained to that ultimate consciousness.
The word 'Buddha' is just like Christ. Jesus is only one of the Christs - those who have attained to the ultimate flowering. There have been many Christs and there will be many. Remember it - that buddhahood is not in any way confined by Gautam the Buddha. He is just only one example of what buddhahood is.
You see one rose flower. It is not the rose flower, it is only one of the rose flowers. Millions have existed before, millions are existing right now, millions will exist in the future. It is simply a representative. This rose flower is simply a representative of all the rose flowers that have been, are, and will be.
A Buddha is not defined by his personality. He is defined by the ultimate state of his being, which is beyond personality. And when a Buddha speaks, he does not speak like a person. He speaks through his ultimate awareness. In fact to say that he speaks is not good, not right. There is nobody to speak, there is no self in him to speak. And in fact he has nothing to say. He simply responds. Just as if you go and start singing in a valley the valley responds. The valley simply echoes you.
When you come to a Buddha, he simply mirrors you. Whatsoever he speaks is just a reflection. It is an answer to you, but he has nothing to say himself. If another Buddha comes to him, they both will remain absolutely silent, two mirrors facing each other... nothing will be reflected. The mirrors will reflect each other, but nothing will be reflected. Two mirrors - just think of two mirrors facing each other. If Christ comes to see Buddha, or Buddha somewhere on the roads of life comes across Lao Tzu, they will be absolutely silent - there will be no echo.
So when Buddha is speaking, remember it. He is not saying anything in particular. He is simply reflecting the people. That's why a Buddha can never be very consistent. A philosopher can be very consistent. He has something to say.
He remembers it, he clings with it, he never says anything that goes against it...
he manages. A Buddha is bound to be contradictory because each time somebody faces him, something else will arise. It will depend on the person who faces him.
It is just like a mirror. If you come before the mirror, it is your face. Somebody else comes, then it is his face. The face will go on changing. You cannot say to the mirror, 'You are very inconsistent. Sometimes you show a woman's face and sometimes a man's face, and sometimes a beautiful face and sometimes an ugly face. The mirror will simply keep quiet. What can he do? He simply reflects. He reflects whatsoever is the case.
So buddhist sayings are very contradictory. Jesus is contradictory, Buddha is contradictory, Krishna is contradictory, Lao Tzu is tremendously contradictory.
Hegel is not contradictory, Kant is not contradictory, Russell is not contradictory, Confucius is not contradictory, Manu is not contradictory. They have a certain dogma. They don't reflect you. They have something to say. They go on saying.
They are not like mirrors, they are like a photograph. It doesn't bother who you are; it remains the same. It is dead. It has a clearcut definition and form.
Buddhahood is a formless awareness. Remember it, otherwise many times you will come across contradictions and you will not be able to figure out what is happening.
When Buddha died, immediately there was much controversy, and the followers divided into many sects. Because somebody had heard Buddha saying this, and somebody had heard something absolutely contradicting it. So there was no possibility. How can one man say all those things? So, somebody must be lying...
and people started sorting out. They sorted out in many different schools.
Buddha was cut. Somebody carried his hand, somebody his head, somebody his legs - but he was no more an alive phenomenon.
Now, these philosophies are very consistent... very consistent, very logical - but dead. A Buddha is not a philosopher, he is not a systematizer. A Buddha is not logical in any way. He is simply alive, and he reflects everything that is.
So when you come to a Buddha, he answers you. He has no fixed answer to give to you, he answers you. He has no public face. All his faces are private and they depend on you. If you bring a beautiful face to him, you will see your own face reflected. And if you come without any face... pure, mirrorlike... nothing will be reflected. Then Buddha disappears, he has nothing to say.
Those who lived with Buddha, they knew. When they had their own minds, those minds were reflected in him. When their minds dropped, they really became meditators, and when they looked at Buddha there was nobody... just emptiness, a valley, pure silence, primal innocence - but nobody there.
These sayings are collected, compiled, by a certain school. They are very consistent. Many sayings have been dropped which were apparently contradictory. Many have not been included which were ambiguous. These sayings were collected by a particular school. Later on I will be discussing other sources, and many times you will come across contradictions. Remember it.
And those who are near me, they have to understand this, absolutely clearly, because I will be contradicting myself every day. It depends on the climate. It depends.... If the weather is very cloudy, I am cloudy. If the sun is shining bright and clear, I am that way.
You not only come to me with questions, you also come with the answers.
Maybe the answer is not known to you, maybe the answer is hidden in your unconsciousness, lurking somewhere in the darkness of your soul. The question is conscious, the answer unconscious. My function is to make your answer clearly obvious to you, to bring it to light. I am bound to be contradictory.
I am not a public man. I am not interested in the crowds. I am interested only in disciples and devotees. That means I am interested only in intimate relationship.
I am interested in you, and whatsoever I say to you is said to you and is irrelevant for others. When I talk personally, then I am talking to a particular person. To others it may not be relevant. Even to the same person it may not be relevant tomorrow, because he will be changing.
Life is continuous change. And I am only consistent with life and nothing else. So I am bound to be contradictory. So if sometimes you come across contradictions, don't be in a hurry, and don't try to figure out somehow, and don't try to fix them. Let them be as they are.
A man like Buddha has to be contradictory. He has to contain all contradictions because he contains all the possibilities of humanity. He contains all possible questions and all possible answers. He contains all the possible faces and all the possible phases. He contains the whole past of humanity, the present and the future.
That is the meaning when Buddha says, 'When you have come home, when your innermost being is luminous, all will be known - all that was past, present and future. Nothing remains unknown. In that knowing light everything is revealed.'
But everything... and things are not consistent.
That's the beauty of the world - that things are not consistent. Things have different qualities, different personalities. All things are beings in their own way, and Buddha is simply reflecting... a reflection, a mirror.
These sayings start always by, THE BUDDHA SAID. Remember it. When it is said, THE BUDDHA SAID, it simply means he has nothing to say. He reflected, he reflected you back. He simply showed you who you are. He revealed you to yourself. He brought you to your own center.
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY, FOR IT IS LIKE STIRRING UP CLEAR WATER WITH HANDS. PEOPLE MAY COME THERE WISHING TO FIND A REFLECTION OF THEIR FACES WHICH HOWEVER THEY WILL NEVER SEE. A MIND TROUBLED AND VEXED WITH THE PASSIONS IS IMPURE, AND ON THAT ACCOUNT IT NEVER SEES THE WAY.
O MONKS, DO AWAY WITH PASSIONS. WHEN THE DIRT OF PASSION IS REMOVED THE WAY WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
Many things of tremendous import are said in this sutra. First Buddha says, THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY.
What is passion? Passion is a sort of fever, a sort of trembling of your being, a sort of inner wavering. Passions means you are not content as you are. You would like something else, you would like something more, you would like a different pattern of life, a different style. Then you think you will be happy and contented.
A mind full of passion is a mind full of discontent with the present. A mind with passion desires, hopes, but never lives; it postpones. It says tomorrow, always tomorrow. It is never here and now. A mind full of passion always goes on missing the present - and the present is the only reality there is. So a mind full of passion goes on missing reality. It cannot reflect that which is, it cannot reflect the truth, it cannot reflect the dhamma, the way. It cannot reflect the real that surrounds you, because you are never here.
Watch your mind. Whenever there is a desire, you have gone astray. You cannot be in the future, remember. You cannot be in the past, remember. That is impossible. That doesn't happen in the way things are. That simply doesn't happen. You cannot be in the past. Past is no more. How can you be in the past?
But more or less you are always in the past. You are in the memory of the past.
That is a way of not being, that is not a way of being. That is a way of not being.
Or you are in the future which is impossible, because future is not yet. How can you live in a house which is not yet? But you live.
Man goes on doing miracles. These are the real miracles. He goes on living in the past which is no more, and he starts living in the future which is not yet. You love the woman you have not found yet, or you go on loving the woman who is dead.
The mind either clings with the past or with the future. This is a way of not being. This is how we miss existence. This is how by and by we become phantoms, shadows, ghosts. Watch yourself. As I see people, millions of people remain in a life of a ghost.
A woman was here just a few days ago, and she said she is very much afraid of ghosts. And I said, 'This is something. Because sometimes ghosts come to me, and they say that they are very afraid of you. You are also a ghost. Why should you be afraid of ghosts?' I looked into her face. It was of the past, it had something of the future, but there was no real content of the present.
Living in the memories or living in imagination - that is the way of passion.
Passion is a wavering - either to the left or to the right, but never in the middle.
And middle is the truth, the present is the truth... the door to reality.
Buddha says:
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY.
We are always on the way - there is no other way to be - but we never perceive that which we are always together with. We are always in god, but we never perceive god. God is so obvious. But we perceive everything except god, and he surrounds you... within and without. He is pulsating in everything. Only he is...
but you cannot see him because you are never in the real, you are unreal. So how can the unreal meet the real? A mind full of passion cannot meet with the real.
And this continues.
Children are full of passion. One can understand - they are childish, they don't know life yet. Young people are full of passion. One can forgive them too; they are yet too young. That means they are yet too foolish - they will have to learn.
But even old people, dying, on their deathbed... but still full of passion. Then it is too much; an old man cannot be forgiven.
A child is okay, a young man can still be forgiven, but an old man? - impossible to forgive. He has lived his whole life and he has not come to understand a simple fact - that you cannot be in the future and you cannot be in the past. He has lived his whole life and he has been frustrated each moment of it, and yet he goes on expecting. He has lived his whole life, desiring and desiring and desiring, and nothing has come out of it. Death has come and life has not yet arrived. He has been waiting only, preparing for it... it has not happened. Yet he goes on - hankering for more life.
As I see many people... I have watched people dying - it is very rarely that a person dies without passion. When a person dies without passion, the death is beautiful. It has tremendous significance, it has intrinsic value. But people die ugly deaths. Even death cannot shake them out of the dreams and passions and fevers. Even death cannot make them realize what is happening.
I have heard a very beautiful anecdote:
There is a whorehouse. The doorbell rings and the madam answers it, but she sees no one. Then, looking downstairs, she sees a man with no arms or legs sitting on a platform with wheels. She says to the guy, 'What could you possibly want here?'
The guy looks up at her, smiles and says, 'I rang the doorbell didn't I?'
Now that's enough. To the very end... dying, people think of sex. There is some interconnection, because sex means birth. So death and sex are really very deeply connected. If you have not been able to sort it out while you were fully alive, it will be very difficult to sort it out while you are dying. Because when death comes, it also brings its polarity, its shadow.
Life starts with sex, life ends with death, and when death comes, the sex energy has a last bout. It becomes a flare. That very flare leads you into another life... the wheel starts moving again. Dying with a sexual, passionate mind, you are again creating a new life, a new birth. You have started seeking a womb. Sex means the search for a womb has started. Already you are not dead, but the search has started. Your soul is already preparing to take a jump into another womb.
Buddha says if you can die without passion, you have broken the desire. You may never be born again. Or even if you are born it is going to be only once.
Maybe a little karma is left, accounts have to be closed, things finished - but basically you are free.
When the mind is free of passion, the mind is free. Freedom means freedom from passion. And only a free mind can see what is real. Only a free mind - free from passions - can see what is here.
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY, FOR IT IS LIKE STIRRING UP CLEAR WATER WITH HANDS.
Have you watched sometimes? In a full moon night you go to the lake - everything is silent... not even a ripple on the surface of the lake... and the moon is reflected so beautifully. Shake the water, create a few ripples in the water with your hands, and the moon is divided into fragments... the reflection disappears.
You may see silver all over the lake, but you cannot see the moon. Fragments and fragments... the totality is broken, the integration gone.
Human consciousness also can be in two states. One state is the state of passion - when there are many ripples and waves hankering for some shore somewhere in the future, or still clinging from some shore in the past. But the lake is disturbed.
The surface is not calm, quiet and tranquil. The surface cannot reflect the reality; it distorts. A mind full of passion is a mechanism for distortion. Whatsoever you see, you see through distortion.
Go to a lake on a full moon night and watch these two things in the lake. First see everything quiet, calm, the moon reflected, a tremendous beauty, and everything so still - as if time has stopped. And everything so present - as if only present is.
Then create ripples, or wait for a wind to come and distort. Then all reflection is gone or distorted. Then you go on looking - you cannot find the moon, you cannot figure out what the moon is like. You cannot make it out from the reflection.
These are the two states of the mind also. A mind without any thought, desire, passion, is quiet... quiet like a lake. Then everything as it is, is reflected. And to know that which is, is to know god, is to know truth. It is all around you, just you are not in a state to reflect it.
When your passions drop, by and by things start falling in line, they become integrated. And when the reflection is perfectly clear, you are liberated. Truth liberates. Nothing else liberates. To know that which is, is to be free, is to be absolute freedom.
Dogmas cannot liberate you, creeds cannot liberate you, churches cannot liberate you. Only truth liberates. And there is no way to find the truth unless you have come to create a situation in yourself where that which is, is mirrored.
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY.
Consciousness has to become without content. That is the meaning of being passionless. When you are, simply you are, I call it primal innocence. You are not hankering, desiring for anything. You are just in this moment, absolutely here and now. A great content arises into your being, a tremendous satisfaction arises into your being. You feel blessed.
In fact that is what you are seeking. In all your desires you are seeking a state of contentment. But desires cannot bring it. Desires create more ripples on your lake. Desires create more restlessness in you. You are desiring only one thing - how to come to a state where everything is just contentment... nowhere to go...
one is simply delighted. Just by being, one is blissful. Just by being, one can dance and sing.
That is what you are seeking. Even in your desires, in your greed, in your sexuality, in your ambition, that's exactly what you are seeking - but you are seeking in a wrong direction. It cannot happen that way. It has never happened that way. It can happen in only one way - the way of the Buddha, the way of Krishna or Christ. The way is the same; it belongs to nobody.
That way is right now-here available to you... just you have to come to meet it here. You are escaping somewhere else, you are never found at your home.
Whatsoever address you give, you are never found there. You are always somewhere else.
God comes and seeks you. Of course, he trusts you, and he comes to your so- called address, but you are never there. He knocks at the door and the room is empty, the house is empty. He goes into the house, looks everywhere, but you are not there. You are somewhere else. You are always somewhere else - somewhere else is your house.
Ordinarily people think that they have to seek god. The truth is just the opposite - god is seeking you, but you are never found.
What Buddha is saying is, if you are passionless you will be found. You will be immediately found, because you will be sitting in the present moment. Your mind will not be wavering, your flame will be absolutely unwavering. In that very moment of meditation you meet god, you meet truth. You become free.
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO PERCEIVE THE WAY.
But one thing has to be remembered. You can drop the worldly passions - many people do. They become sadhus, monks, they move to the monasteries, but they don't drop the passion as such. Now they start thinking of god. Now they start thinking how to achieve in the other world. Their achiever's mind still continues, only their language has changed. Now they no more desire money, they no more desire a bank balance, but still they desire security - security in the hands of god.
When you are seeking a bank balance, or when you are going to an insurance company to be insured, these are just languages for a deep search for security.
You leave them; then you become a Christian or you become a Hindu. By becoming a Christian, what are you seeking? You are seeking again security. You are thinking, 'This man Jesus is the begotten son of god. I will be more secure with him.'
Or you are seeking to become a Hindu. You think, 'These Hindus, they have been longest in the profession of religion. They must know. They must know all the secrets of the trade. They must be having keys. Many civilizations have come and gone, but these Hindus have some trick - they continue. Babylon is no more, Assyria is just ruins, the old civilization of Egypt is just in the museums. Many civilizations have existed on this earth and gone; only treasures are left here and there. But these Hindus are something; they have persisted. They have not been destroyed by time, they have a certain quality of eternity. They must be knowing some secret. Become a Hindu.' But you are seeking security.
If you are seeking security, your mind still carries the same passion, desire, fear.
You may not be interested in this world. There are many people who come to me and they say, 'This is impermanent, momentary. This world is not worth. We are seeking something like permanent bliss.' So, nothing has changed. In fact, they seem to be more greedy than ordinary people.
Ordinary people are satisfied with momentary things. These people seem to be very much dissatisfied. They are not satisfied with momentary things - a beautiful house and garden, a beautiful car, a beautiful woman and a husband, a wife and children, they are not satisfied. They say, 'These are all momentary, sooner or later they will be taken away. We are seeking something which cannot be taken away.' These people are more greedy. Their passion knows no bounds.
They think they are religious. They are not.
A religious person is one who has dropped all passion, passion as such. Just by changing the language, nothing is changed.
I have heard:
Mulla Nasrudin was saying to his friend, 'I have never called you a son of a bitch.'
'Yes you did!' The friend was very angry. He insisted, 'Yes you did!'
'No I didn't!' Mulla repeated. 'All I said was, "When you get home throw your mother a bone".'
But it is the same. Just by changing your language, nothing is changed.
The so-called religious person is as worldly as worldly people, sometimes even more so. I have come across many religious people, many jaina monks - they seem to me more worldly than their followers. Because the world does not mean the world. The world simply means passion, desire, greed. They are hankering for moksha, hankering for the other world, the heaven, the paradise. Their dreams are full of future.
Your dreams are also full of future, but your future is not so big. Hm? you think only a few days ahead, or at the most a few months. If you are very very imaginative, at the most a few years, that's all. Your passion is not so strong.
Their passion seems to be mad. They are not only thinking a few years ahead, they are thinking a few lives ahead - the other world. Their desires have gone berserk, they are mad. They can leave and renounce the world, but that renunciation is false, because they are renouncing for better worlds. When you renounce for something better, it is a bargain, it is not a renunciation.
You go to the film, to the movie. Of course, you have to renounce five rupees.
You have to sacrifice five rupees immediately. But that is... nobody calls it renunciation. It is a bargain. If you want to live in heaven, in paradise, you have to pay for it.
Remember this - that whenever you are paying something for something, it is not renunciation. The very idea of paying makes it immediately clear that it belongs to the world of desire. Because life is free and nobody needs to pay for it.
Let me repeat it. Life is absolutely free, nobody needs to pay for it. The moment you start paying for it, it is not life. It must be something like a commodity in the market - maybe in the religious market, but it must be some commodity.
If somebody asks you to renounce because that is the way to gain, then he is asking you to pay for it, sacrifice for it. He is talking economics, not religion. He is talking finance. He is telling you, 'This much you have to pay. If you want to be in god's paradise, you will have to pay these things. You will have to sacrifice.'
And of course it appeals to you, because you know the logic. How can you get anything free? You have to pay for it. And when you see god, you have to pay tremendously. You have to pay with all your pleasures. You have to become frozen, dead. You have to renounce life. So you become a 'good boy', a 'nice boy'.
And now god feels very happy. 'Look, this man has renounced everything for me. Now he should be allowed.'
God never asks any sacrifice from you. How can he ask any sacrifice from you? It is not a market. The paradise is not to be earned. You are not to pay for it. You have only to learn to enjoy it, that's all. If you know how to enjoy it, right now it is available. You are not to pay for it.
But our whole mind has been trained by economists and politicians. They say you will have to pay. Sacrifice your childhood in education so that when you are young you can have a beautiful house, a family, respect, a respectable job. You will have to pay for it - so sacrifice your childhood so when you are young you have all the pleasures of the world.
Then when you are young your wife says, 'Make insurance, because the children are growing and they will need. And we will be growing old - and old age?
What are you going to do?' Sacrifice your youth for old age so that in old age you can retire, and comfortably.
So you sacrifice your youth for your old age. And then what do you do when you retire? Now the whole life is gone. Just preparing for something else always.
And the more you prepare, the more you become skilful in preparing, that's all.
Then you can prepare more. A man who becomes skillful in preparing is never ready to live. He becomes more ready to prepare, that's all.
That's how the whole life is missed. And then in the old age they say, 'Now prepare for the other world. What are you doing? Pray, meditate, go to the church. Now become religious. What are you doing? Death is coming. Prepare for the afterlife.'
Now this whole logic is foolish. The childhood sacrificed for youth, the youth sacrificed for old age, the old age sacrificed for after-life. So everything is just a sacrifice. When comes the time to enjoy? Let me say to you - if you want to enjoy, never prepare! If you want to enjoy, enjoy! Do it right now, because there is no other way to do it.
And if you become a great preparer, a great, skillful, efficient man in preparations, you will always prepare but you will never go for any journey. You will become so skillful in preparing, packing and unpacking, that you will not know how to go for the journey. You will only know how to pack and unpack again.
That's what people are doing in life. Life is free, it is a gift... gift of god. Enjoy it.
Let this go as deep as possible in your heart. Let this secret be now no more a secret. Life is a gift. Let there be dancing in the streets.
There is no need to prepare. Preparation is always a shadow of passion. When you desire for the future, of course you have to prepare for it. In the present, no preparation is needed. The present has already arrived. The trees are already green, and the roses have flowered, and the birds are calling you. Where is the point in preparing?
This craziness of preparing is absolutely human. You will never find it anywhere. Have you ever seen any animal preparing for anything? any tree preparing for anything? any star preparing for anything? They must be all laughing. Man is so ridiculous an animal. They must be all laughing. What has gone wrong. They are enjoying, just NOW they are enjoying.
Reality must be more clearly reflected in animals, in birds, in rocks, than in man.
Man's mind is full of ripples. These ripples have to be dropped.
Man is in a very strange situation. Below man is nature - absolutely unconscious and blissful. Above man are Buddhas - absolutely conscious and blissful. Man is just in between - a passage, a bridge... a rope stretched between two eternities.
Man is neither as happy as the cuckoo in the garden, no, nor as happy as the Buddha. He is just in between - stretched, tense, wants to move both the ways together... becomes more and more split.
That's why I say schizophrenia is not a special disease, it is a very common phenomenon. It is not unusual. Everybody is schizophrenic, has to be. The very situation of humanity is schizophrenic. Man is not unconscious so he cannot be like trees - enjoying without preparation. And he is not yet buddhalike, so he cannot enjoy without preparation. He is not in the present. He is just in the middle.
But nothing to be worried about. You can never be as happy as the tree now.
There is no way of going back - that world is lost. That is the meaning of Adam's expulsion from the garden of Eden - he is no more part of the unconscious bliss.
He has become conscious by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. He has become man.
Adam is man, and every man is adam-like. Every childhood is in the garden of Eden. Every child is as happy as the animals, as happy as the primitive, as happy as the trees. Have you watched a child running in the trees, on the beach? - he is not yet human. His eyes are still clear, but unconscious. He will have to come out of the garden of Eden.
It is not that Adam was once expelled - every Adam has to be expelled again and again. Every child has to be thrown out of the god's garden; it is part of growth. The pain is that of growth. One has to lose it to gain it again, to gain it consciously. That is man's burden and his destiny, his anguish and his freedom, man's problem and man's grandeur - both.
Buddha is nothing but Adam coming back, re-entering the garden of Eden. But now he comes with full awareness. Now the circle is complete. He comes dancing, he comes absolutely blissful. He is as blissful as any tree, but not unconscious. He has gained consciousness, he has risen towards consciousness.
Now he is not only blissful - he is aware that he is blissful. A new quality has entered.
That's what is trying to enter in you - knocking your head from everywhere.
That's what I mean when I say god is searching you. I mean that consciousness wants to happen to you. Allow it to happen. Recognize that god is searching you.
Let go, fall in accord with him. That's what Buddha calls dhamma - being in accord with nature... fully accord, fully in accord, but aware.
And don't wait. Don't wait for some age when the whole humanity will become aware and passionless. That will be a very futile waiting; you will be waiting in vain.
I have heard:
A drunkard was walking home when he came upon a group of men digging a big hole in the middle of the street. 'Watcha doing?' he asked.
'We are building a subway,' came the answer.
'When you gonna finish it?' he asked.
'Ah, in about eight years.'
The drunk thought for a while and then shouted back, 'Ah, the heck with it. I will take a taxi.'
The humanity will someday become collectively conscious - that possibility exists - but nobody knows when. Millions of years will pass, and millions of individuals will have to become Buddhas before it can happen. Then one day it is possible that buddhahood may become a natural phenomenon.
But before it, you have to strive individually. And you cannot wait for it. That waiting will be very suicidal. And if everybody waits for it, it will never happen.
Because for it to happen a certain amount of individual souls are needed to become Buddhas.
Now a few experiments are being done about meditation. It has been found that if in a village, a small village of four hundred people, the number of meditators rises at least one percent... for example, if in a village of five hundred people, five persons start meditating, the crime rate in the village falls immediately. People commit less crimes, just because one percent of the village is meditating. It affects the whole consciousness - just one percent. And just meditating - they are not Buddhas.
If one percent of humanity becomes Buddhas, the whole quality will change.
Consciousness will become more easy, may become almost natural and spontaneous.
So if you are waiting, you are waiting in vain. And if you are waiting and everybody goes on waiting, it is never going to happen. Do something about it, because by doing something about it, you will be creating a situation in which it will become easier and easier for it to happen to others.
THOSE WHO HAVE PASSIONS ARE NEVER ABLE TO SEE THE WAY, FOR IT IS LIKE STIRRING UP CLEAR WATER WITH HANDS. PEOPLE MAY COME THERE WISHING TO FIND A REFLECTION OF THEIR FACES WHICH HOWEVER THEY WILL NEVER SEE.
That's why you don't know who you are. You have not been able to see your own face in your mind. What to say of other things? What to say about the face of god? You have not been able to look at your own face in your mind, even that much reflection is not possible. The face does not become a reality, only fragments you see, because the mind is continuously shaking, wavering.
The flame is never in a state of tremendous rest, so everything is flickering.
Sometimes you see one of your eyes, sometimes you see your nose, sometimes you see one of your hands, sometimes you see a part of your face, but everything is muddled. And if you want to figure it out, it becomes a Picasso painting. You don't know what is what.
I have heard that Picasso made a portrait of a friend. The friend came, he looked from all sides. He said, 'Good, beautiful, but I don't like the nose. You will have to change at least that much.'
Picasso said, 'Okay, come after one month.'
He said, 'One month! It will take so long?'
Picasso said, 'I cannot be even certain whether I will be able to do it in one month.'
He said, 'What do you mean?'
Picasso said, 'Now don't force me to say the truth. In fact I don't know where I have made the nose. I will have to search and meditate upon it. I have made your nose certainly, somewhere, but where?'
If you look about yourself, you are a Picasso painting. Everything is muddled, in a mess. You don't know your identity, who you are. So you cling to outer helps, supports - your name, your father's name, your family name, your certificates from the university, your degree. These are outer supports. They help you somehow to give some idea who you are. But really you don't know who you are. Because how can you know yourself if you know that you are a doctor or an engineer or a plumber? What has that to do with your being?
You can be a plumber, you can be a doctor, you can be an engineer - that has nothing to do with your essential being. These are all accidents. You can be white or you can be black, but that has nothing to do with your essential being. These are just accidents, nothing essential. The difference between a white man and a black man is just of a small pigment. If you go to the market, the pigment will not cost more than four annas. That is the only difference between a negro and a white man. Very non-essential, but has become so tremendously important.
What is the difference between a rich man and a poor man?... just accidents.
Between a successful man and a failure?... just accidents. They don't really define you. But we don't know how to define in any other way, so we go on clinging with this fragment and we go on making something out of it.
The reality of your being is within you. You just need a little silent mind; it will be reflected. You will know who you are. And that will become your first step to know what this reality is. What is this whole game? What is this magical world?
By knowing yourself, you will have taken the first step of knowing god. By knowing yourself absolutely, you have taken the last step of knowing god. By knowing yourself, you know what god is. There is no other way - because you are gods, but you have not been able to see your face.
A MIND TROUBLED AND VEXED WITH PASSIONS IS IMPURE, AND ON THAT ACCOUNT IT NEVER SEES THE WAY.
O MONKS, DO AWAY WITH PASSIONS. WHEN THE DIRT OF PASSION IS REMOVED THE WAY WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
THE WAY WILL MANIFEST ITSELF. There is no need to discover it. All that is needed is you should have an innocent, pure mind. And when Buddha says pure, he does not mean a mind which is moral. He does not mean a mind which is religious. His definition of purity is more scientific. He says a mind which is without thought.
Because a moral man is moral, but he has moral thoughts. An immoral man is immoral, but he has immoral thoughts. As far as the mind is concerned, both are full of thoughts. A worldly man has worldly thoughts, a religious man has religious thoughts. Whether you are singing a song from the latest movie or you are chanting a religious prayer, it makes no difference - your mind is wavering, your mind is not silent.
So, by pure, Buddha does not mean moral. No, he simply means a mind which has no content. All content brings impurity. Whatsoever the content, it is impure.
He is not saying impurity in any condemnatory sense. He is saying it only in a very scientific sense - anything foreign, anything alien, makes the mind impure.
Mind is just pure reflection, the capacity to reflect. If the mind has some ideas in itself, they will not allow its reflection to be pure. Then projection starts and the reflection is destroyed. So whether you have religious ideas or non-religious ideas, whether you are a Communist or a Democrat, it makes no difference.
Christian, Mohammedan, Hindu, Sikh - it makes no difference. If you have ideas, your mind is impure.
A mind full of consciousness will be empty of all contents. He will be neither a Christian nor a Hindu nor a Jew. He will not be a moral man nor an immoral man. He will simply be. That being, that be-ness, is purity. That's what I call primal innocence. Then all dust is washed and you are just a reflective force.
O MONKS, DO AWAY WITH PASSIONS. WHEN THE DIRT OF PASSIONS IS REMOVED THE WAY WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
And then suddenly you will see - the way has always been herenow, only you were missing it. It is impossible to lose the way, it is impossible to lose god. You can try - that's what you have been doing. You can try, and for moments you can also believe that you have succeeded. But in fact it never happens.
You cannot lose the way, there is no way to lose the way. There is no way to go astray. You can only believe in your dreams that you can go astray, but in reality you cannot go astray. Any time when you become awake, you will simply laugh - that you have been thinking you have gone far away. You have never even gone out of your home... you have always lived here. Just with closed eyes you go on dreaming and dreaming and dreaming.
In dream you can go as far away as you like, but in reality there is no way to go anywhere except god.
Because wherever you are, reality is. You are part of reality and you exist only as an organic part to reality. You cannot go away. You cannot separate yourself.
You are intermingled with existence, you are interwoven with existence. We are not dependent, we are not independent, we are interdependent. We are members of each other. There is no way to go anywhere.
So when the mind is pure, WHEN THE DIRT OF PASSION IS REMOVED, THE WAY WILL MANIFEST ITSELF.
Suddenly you will see - god is standing before you. Suddenly you will recognize that you have been always standing in the door, on the threshold. You will start laughing. The whole game has been so ridiculous.
A really religious person never loses the sense of humour. And if you see a religious person who has no sense of humour, you can be certain he has not come home yet. Because a religious person... the more he understands, the more he sees the ridiculousness of the game, the more he starts laughing. How did it all become possible? How did I dream? How long have I been in dreams? - and those dreams were looking so real.
THE BUDDHA SAID:
SEEING THE WAY IS LIKE GOING INTO A DARK ROOM WITH A TORCH.
THE DARKNESS INSTANTLY DEPARTS WHILE THE LIGHT ALONE REMAINS. WHEN THE WAY IS ATTAINED, AND THE TRUTH IS SEEN, IGNORANCE VANISHES AND ENLIGHTENMENT ABIDES FOREVER.
A beautiful maxim to be remembered. SEEING THE WAY IS LIKE GOING INTO A DARK ROOM WITH A TORCH.
If you go into a dark room with a torch, with a lamp, the darkness immediately disappears - immediately; Buddha says INSTANTLY. It does not take time. It is not that you bring light in, then the darkness lingers a little while, decides whether to leave or not, takes a little time and then goes. No, no time is needed because darkness is not real.
If it was real, it will take a little time - maybe a split second, but it will take a little time to go out. It will have to travel; travelling will take time. Sometimes it may be a lazy darkness, it may take a little longer time. Sometimes it may be a fast runner; then it will go fast. But anyway it will take time if it is real.
When you bring light, the very bringing of the light is the disappearance.
Darkness is not, only light is. When darkness is, in fact there is nothing. It is only the absence of light, that's all. Darkness has no positive being, it is just absence of light. So when you bring presence, the absence is no more there.
Buddha says this world is just like darkness. Once you bring light to it, once you become aware, once you drop your passions and become meditative, once the mind attains to the purity of meditation, suddenly the light is there. Darkness dissipates, disappears instantly, immediately, within no time.
SEEING THE WAY IS LIKE GOING INTO A DARK ROOM WITH A TORCH.
THE DARKNESS INSTANTLY DEPARTS WHILE THE LIGHT ALONE REMAINS. WHEN THE WAY IS ATTAINED AND THE TRUTH IS SEEN, IGNORANCE VANISHES AND ENLIGHTENMENT ABIDES FOREVER.
Enlightenment is that which has always been the case. Enlightenment is that which has always been there. You were not aware. You were fast asleep. It was just sitting by your side waiting for you to awaken. Enlightenment is your nature, is your very being. From the very beginning it has been there. It is there right now. If you can flare up in awareness, you can attain to it immediately. It is a sudden illumination.
But if you want, you can take your time, you can move slowly, gradually. You can turn over and go to sleep again and wait a little more. But whenever you open your eyes, you will find it. It has been always there. Just for asking's sake it would have been achieved any time. It was never difficult. It seems difficult because you are asleep. Once you are awakened, you will laugh. How was it difficult? Why was it difficult? It was something that was present, only you had to claim it.
The way is. Waves come and go... the ocean is. Minds come and go... no-mind is.
Roles come and go... Buddha is. Buddha is your original face, your originality, your very being.
O MONKS, DO AWAY WITH PASSIONS.
Drop desiring. Our desiring culminates everything. Our desiring becomes our interpretation of everything. The more you desire, the more miserable you will be, because the more you desire, the more will be your expectation. The more you desire, the less grateful you will be, because the more you desire, the more you will feel man proposes and god disposes. The less you desire, the more grateful you be, because the less you desire, the more you will see how much is given without desiring, without asking. If you don't desire at all, you will be in tremendous gratitude, because so much is given already. Life is such a gift... but we go on with our mind.
I have heard:
A man was reckoned to be the laziest man in the country and naturally spent most of his time sleeping. He was so inactive and so useless that at one time the townspeople thought it would be a good idea to bury him whether he was dead or alive.
They made a crude coffin, came around with it to his house, put him in it without any protest from his family, and started off with the live old critter for the cemetery. Of course there was no resistance from him; he was so lazy. He said, 'Okay.' Or he may not have even said that. He may have just watched what was going on.
But before they got to the cemetery, they were stopped by a stranger who had heard of the grim proceedings. They told the stranger the man would not work and had not a grain of corn on his place, and the town was sick of providing him with food. 'Enough is enough,' they said, 'and we are fed up.'
'If you boys will hold off, I will gladly give that man a wagonload of corn,' said the stranger. Before the townspeople could reply, a head was raised out of the coffin, and the almost deceased asked, 'Is that corn shucked?'
The lazy man is worrying about the corn - whether it is shucked or not. He is ready to die, but if he has to shuck the corn, then it is too much effort.
A man who is surrounded by laziness looks at everything through his laziness.
His laziness becomes his interpretation of things.
If you are sleepy, you will look at life with sleepy eyes, naturally.
And if you miss life, it is natural - because life is possible only if your eyes are fully alive, if your eyes are radiant with life. If you look at life with alive eyes, there is a meeting, a communion.
We live surrounded by clouds of desire. Then those desires become our interpretation. Then we go on thinking according to those desires.
It happened:
Applicants for a job on a dam had to take a written examination, the first question of which was: What does hydro-dynamics mean?
Mulla Nasrudin, one of the applicants for the job, looked at this, then wrote against it: It means I don't get the job.
Whatsoever meaning we give to life, we give it to life. And Buddha is saying if you want to know the real meaning of life, then you have to drop giving all meanings to it. Then the way reveals itself. Then life opens its mysterious doors.
You stop giving meaning to it - your desires are giving meaning to it; they are defining the undefinable. And if you remain clouded with your desires, whatsoever you know is nothing but your own dreaming. That's why we say in India that this life, this so-called life lived through desires, is maya, it is a magical thing. You create it, you are the magician. It is your maya, your magic.
We don't live in the same world, remember. We live in separate worlds, because we don't live in the same desires. You project your desires, your neighbour is projecting his desires. That's why when you meet a person and you want to live with a person, with a woman or with a man or with a friend, difficulties arise.
That is a clash of two worlds.
Everybody is good alone. Together, something goes wrong. I have never come across a wrong person, but every day I come across, I have to watch and see and observe wrong relationships. I never come across a wrong person, but every day I come across wrong relationships. It seems almost all relationships are wrong.
Because two persons live in two desire worlds, they have their own magical worlds. When they come together those worlds clash.
It happened:
One night Mulla Nasrudin was sitting on one side of the fire and his wife on the other. Between them lay the cat and the dog, lazily blinking at the fire. The wife ventured this remark, 'Now dear, just you look at that cat and dog. See how peacefully and quietly they get along together. Why can't we do that?'
'That's all right,' said Nasrudin, 'but just you tie them together and see what will happen.'
Tie two persons together - that's what a marriage is - and see what happens.
Suddenly two worlds.... It seems almost impossible to understand the woman you love. It should not be so - you love her - but it seems impossible to understand. It is impossible to understand the man you love. It should not be so - - you love him - but it seems impossible to understand.
It is very easy to understand strangers, it is very difficult to understand people who are very close. To understand your mother, father, brother, sister, friend, is very difficult. The closer you are, the more difficult - because the worlds are clashing.
These worlds surround you like a subtle aura. Unless you drop this magical creation that you go on feeding, you will remain in conflict. You will remain in conflict with persons, you will remain in conflict with god. Because he has his own world, and you have your own private world. They never go both together.
You have to drop your private mentation.
Dropping mentation is what meditation is all about. You have to drop your thinking, desiring. You have just to be, and suddenly everything falls into an organic whole, becomes a harmony.
And these desires are the root of the darkness that is surrounding you. These desires are the support, the foundation of the darkness that surrounds you.
These desires are the hindrances that don't allow you to become alert.
Beware of these desires. And remember - the word 'beware' means be aware.
That is the only way. If you really want to get rid of these desires, don't start fighting them. Otherwise you will miss again. Because if you start fighting with your desires, that means you have created a new desire - to be desireless. Now this desire will clash against other desires. This is changing the language; you remain the same.
Don't start fighting with the desires. When Buddha says, DO AWAY WITH PASSIONS, O MONKS, he does not mean to fight with the passions. Because you can fight only if there is a prize, if you are going to attain something. Then again a desire has arisen - a new shape, a new form, but the same old desire. Don't fight, just be aware.
Beware of desires. Become more watchful, more alert. And you will see - the more alert you are, the less desires are there. Ripples start subsiding, waves start disappearing. And one day, suddenly... any moment it can happen, because all moments are as potential as any other. There is no auspicious moment for it to happen. It can happen in any ordinary moment, because all ordinary moments are auspicious. There is no need for it to happen under a bodhi tree. It can happen under any tree, or even without a tree. It can happen under the roof of your house. It can happen anywhere... because god is everywhere.
But by and by become aware. Create more and more awareness, collect more and more awareness. One day the awareness comes to such a point, the energy is so much that it simply explodes. And in that explosion, darkness disappears and light is. Immediately darkness disappears, instantly darkness disappears - and light is. And that light is your own luminosity, so you cannot lose it. Once known, it becomes your eternal treasure.