Living the dhamma

The first sutra.

THE FIRST THING TO BE UNDERSTOOD is why in the evil person the very desire arises to spit against the sky, why in the first place the evil person wants to denounce the wise. The evil person cannot allow himself to accept that somebody is wise - the very idea hurts him, hurts him very deep. Because all evil arises out of egoistic attitudes. And this is very shattering to the ego - 'I am not wise and somebody else is wise. I am not good and somebody else is good. I am still in darkness and somebody has attained to light.' This is impossible to accept.

Two ways open: one is 'I should try to become wise' - that is very difficult and arduous. The simpler and cheaper way is to denounce the wise, that he is not wise. Whenever you are faced with a challenge always these two alternatives present themselves before you, and if you choose the cheaper one you will remain in the evil.

Never go for the cheap, never go for the shortcut, because life is learnt only the hard way. Arduous are its ways, long, uphill is the task, because learning cannot come easily - because learning is not just collecting knowledge, it is not just collecting information. Learning has to change you. It is spiritual surgery, much has to be destroyed and thrown away.

Much is rotten in you and has to be renounced. Much is just like a rock around your neck; it won't allow you to float, it will drown you. You have to cut off relationships with many things, with many attitudes, with many prejudices. You have to unburden yourself.

Learning, real learning, wisdom, comes only when you are transformed. It is not an additive process - you cannot just add, go on adding knowledge to you. You will have to go through transmutation - that is hard. The easier way is to denounce. Whenever you face the challenge - somebody has become wise - immediately the shortcut is to say, 'No, it is not possible. In the first place wisdom never exists, in the second place, even if wisdom exists, it cannot exist in this man. I know him well, I know his faults.' And then you start magnifying his faults, and you start condemning him.

It is not just a coincidence that Socrates is poisoned, Jesus is crucified, Mansoor is murdered. It is not just a coincidence that all the Buddhas are denounced, all the Jainas are denounced. When they walk on the earth they walk continuously in danger, because there are so many who feel their egos hurting.

Just to think that somebody has become enlightened is difficult. It is easy to denounce and to say, 'No, in the first place enlightenment is impossible - it never happens, it is just an illusion, god does not exist. Samadhi? - is nothing but auto-hypnosis. This man is deluded, he has not become enlightened. We know him well, we have known him from his very childhood. How can he suddenly become an enlightened person? He is just like us, pretending. He is a pretender, a deceiver.'

This is our ego choosing the cheaper way. Beware of it. The desire arises in everybody to condemn, to deny. So whenever a person like Buddha is alive we condemn him, and when he dies, we worship in guilt. All worship arises because of guilt. First you denounce a person, knowing well that something has happened, but you can't accept it. Deep down in your own self you can see that the person is transfigured, he has a luminosity. You cannot really deny it; in your deepest core of being you feel that a ray of light has entered. But consciously, deliberately, you cannot accept it. It will be accepting your failure. Doubt, you certainly doubt deep inside; whatsoever you are doing - your condemnation - you doubt it, but still you go on doubting.

Then one day the person is gone, Then only the fragrance remains, the memory.

And when a person dies and you have been not accepting his reality, a guilt arises. You feel, 'I have been guilty. I was not good. I missed the opportunity.'

Then you start feeling remorse. Now what to do? To balance guilt, you worship.

That's why dead masters are worshipped. Very rare are the people who worship an alive master. Because when you worship an alive master it is not out of guilt, it is out of understanding. When you worship a dead master it is out of guilt.

For example your father is alive and you have not respected him, you have not loved him. You have been in many ways against him. In many ways you have dishonoured him, in many ways you have rejected him. And then one day he dies, and you start crying and weeping. And then every year you will do shraddh. One day every year you will give a feast to friends and brahmins. This is out of guilt. And then you will put a portrait of your father in your house, and you will put flowers.

You never did that when he was alive. You never came with flowers unto his feet. Now he is gone you feel guilty - you have not been good to the old man.

You have not done that which was needed to be done. You have not fulfilled your love and your duty. Now the opportunity is gone, the man is no more there to forgive you. The man is no more there so that you can cry and weep and fall into his feet and say, 'I have been bad to you, forgive me.' Now you feel, in a certain way, deep guilt. Remorse arises - you put flowers. You respect the memory. You never respected the man - now you respect the memory.

Remember, if you had really loved the man, if you had really respected the man, then there would have been no remorse, then there would have been no guilt.

Then you would have been able to remember him with no guilt, and that remembrance has a beauty. That remembrance is totally different, it has a totally different quality. The difference is tremendous. In fact you would have felt fulfilled.

It is not death that you weep for; it is always guilt. If you loved a woman, if you really loved a woman and you never betrayed her, and you never deceived her, when she dies of course you feel sad, but in that sadness there is a beauty. You miss her, but there is no guilt. You remember her, you will always remember, it will always remain a cherished memory, but you don't go out of your way to cry and weep and to make much show of it. You don't exhibit it, there is no exhibitionism in it. You will cherish the memory deep in your heart. You will not carry a picture in your pocketbook, and you will not talk about the woman.

I used to know a couple - the husband had been very bad to his wife. It was a love marriage, a very rich family, but the husband was a sort of Don Juan, and he had been betraying his wife in every way possible. Then she committed suicide - she committed suicide because of him.

I was passing through their town so I went to see, because somebody said that the husband was very unhappy. Since the wife had died his life had taken a change. I could not believe it. I thought he should have been happy. It was always a miserable relationship, a continuous conflict was there.

I went to see him. He was sitting in his drawing room surrounded by many pictures of his wife - all around - as if the wife had become a goddess. And he started crying. I said, 'Stop this nonsense! - because you were never happy with this woman, she was never happy with you, that's why she has committed suicide. That's what you always wanted. In fact you have told me many times that if this woman dies you will be free. Now she has done that.'

He said, 'But now I feel guilty, as if I have been the cause of her death, as if I have killed her. Now I am not going to ever get married.'

This is guilt, it is ugly.

When a Buddha dies many people worship him. They were there when he was alive, but they never came to him. When a Mahavira dies, for centuries and centuries people go on worshipping. These people were there when Mahavira was alive, but now they feel guilty.

Look, Jesus was crucified. At the last moment even his own disciples deserted him; there was nobody to say, 'I am his follower.' Even the last disciple... when Jesus was caught, Jesus told him, 'Don't follow me because you will not be able now any more to follow me.' He said, 'I will come, Master. I will go wherever they are taking you.' Jesus said, 'Before the sun rises you will have denied me at least thrice. Don't do it, leave me.' But he insisted.

Jesus was caught, the enemies took him, and the disciple followed in the crowd.

The crowd became aware that somebody looks like a stranger, and they asked him, 'Who are you? Are you a disciple of Jesus?' He said, 'Who is this Jesus? I have never heard the name.' And thrice, actually thrice before the sun rose, he denied. And when he denied the third time, Jesus looked back and he said, 'Yet the sun has not come over the horizon.'

Nobody else must have understood but the disciple must have cried deep down that he has denied Christ - that he does not know this man, he is a stranger in the town, he is simply coming out of curiosity. At the last moment even the disciples disappeared. Then Jesus was crucified, then disciples gathered, then more disciples gathered, then more and more. Now almost one-third of humanity is Christian.

This seems to be a tremendous guilt. Just think, if Jesus was not crucified - not crucified - there would have been no Christianity at all. It is not Jesus that has created Christianity, it is the cross. That's why the cross became the symbol of Christianity. I call Christianity 'Cross-ianity', not Christianity. In fact it is the cross, it is the death, that created the guilt. And it created so much guilt that...

what to do when guilt arises? You can compensate only by worship.

When a master is alive you love him: your worship has love in it, and your worship has no exhibition in it. It is a natural flow of your heart. But when a master is dead and you have been always denying him, then you worship him:

your worship has a fanaticism in it, exhibition in it. You want to prove something. Against whom? Against your own attitudes.

I have heard:

'You sure looked depressed,' a fellow said to Mulla Nasrudin. 'What is the trouble?'

'Well,' said the Mulla, 'you remember my aunt who just died? I was the one who had her confined to the mental hospital for the last five years of her life. When she died, she left me all her money. Now I have got to prove that she was of sound mind when she made her will six weeks ago.'

That's what happens. First you deny a wise man - that he is wise. You deny that he is enlightened, you deny that he is good. Then when he dies he leaves his whole legacy for you, he leaves all his money in your name. He becomes your heritage. Now suddenly things change, things take a one hundred and eighty degree turn. You were denying this man because he was hurting your ego, now suddenly you start worshipping him because now he becomes ego-fulfilling. The cause remains the same, whether you condemn or you worship.

Hindus destroyed Buddhism completely in India, but they accepted Buddha as their tenth avatara. Why? Because now it is okay to deny Buddhism, but how can you deny the heritage of Buddha? He was the greatest Indian ever. If you deny him your ego will fall short. Now with Buddha your ego shines like a star, a pole star. You cannot deny Buddha.

Now you go on claiming him - that he was the most wise man, the greatest man ever. Now your own ego feeds on the name of Buddha. Now you want that it was your Buddha - it was your Buddha now you say - who transformed the whole face of Asia. He is the light of the world. Of course you killed Buddhists, you destroyed the buddhist scriptures, you denied everything - but you carry on the name of Buddha.

Just think, when India became free and they had to choose a symbol for the flag, they chose a buddhist symbol. Is Hinduism lacking in any way about symbols?

There are millions of beautiful symbols in Hinduism. But why have they chosen the buddhist wheel for the flag? Now Buddha is their heritage. Now they would like to claim that Buddha was born here in this country, in this religious country, that he is ours. When he was alive you were throwing stones at him, now you claim he is yours.

When Buddha was alive, in every town he was condemned, wherever he was passing he was condemned. Now every town claims that he has been here, that he was born here, that he died here, that he stayed here in this house, that for forty years continuously he was coming here, twenty times he came. Every town in Bihar claims.

The whole of Bihar condemned him. Now the name 'Bihar' is because of him, because he walked there. Bihar means 'where Buddha walks'. Now the whole place is called Bihar. Now we go on claiming. Nehru took his bones back, brought his bones back to India. Nehru was not a religious person at all, not at all. Why? Now the indian ego can feel very fulfilled. Buddha has to be brought home. The same ego was condemning him, now the same ego goes on worshipping him. Remember it. Your ego always denies - watch it.

These sutras are for you. Remember. They are not airy-fairy things, they are not theories. They are very empirical, pragmatic: Buddha was a very pragmatic man.

Just the other day it happened, Mulla Nasrudin came to see me - after yesterday's morning talk. He shook hands with me and said, 'Wonderful, wonderful sermon. Everything you said applies to somebody or other I know.'

These sutras apply to you, not to somebody or other you know. If somebody says that 'X' has become enlightened, what is your first reaction? Watch it. You say, 'X? That fool. He has become enlightened? Impossible!' Just watch your first impression. Be alert what happens in your mind. And immediately you will start talking about all the defects and faults that you know. And watch that you are also exaggerating.

Sometimes it happens that if somebody says to you that some person has become enlightened, he has become very wise, you will say, 'That man? I know him well from his very childhood. I have seen him, I have watched him. Enlightenment doesn't happen in a day. It is a process. It is not possible.' Or you find something irrelevant.

Buddha used to say that once in a town a man said to his friend, 'Have you heard about our neighbour? He is such a virtuous man.' The other said, 'How come? It is not possible, it is impossible. I live by his side, we have lived together - how can it happen without me knowing it before you knew it? We are neighbours and I know everything, in and out. It is just a pretension. He is pretending, but who does he think he can befool?'

It is very difficult to accept that somebody is wise because in accepting that somebody is wise, you are accepting that you are ignorant - that is the problem.

It is not the question of the other being wise, the question is in relation to you.

When you accept somebody as beautiful, you accept very reluctantly.

Talk to a woman about some other woman who is beautiful and she becomes reluctant and she starts immediately condemning. Because to accept that another woman is beautiful is to accept that you are not so beautiful. A comparison immediately arises - ego exists through comparison.

In Zen they say that one man was a beautiful flute player. Somebody was praising him in the coffee-house, that he is a beautiful flute player. Immediately another person started condemning. He said, 'He is a liar, he is a thief - how can he play beautiful flute?'

Now there is nothing contradictory. You can lie and still play beautiful flute, you can be a beautiful flute player. You can be a thief, still you can play the flute beautifully. There is no contradiction. But the other man simply said, 'He cannot.

He is a thief, he is a liar...' and this and that. 'I know him - he cannot play.' And when people become too much condemning, shouting, their very shouting carries weight. The person who was talking about the flute player was silenced.

He was talking to somebody else the next day and he said 'That man is a thief.'

The other man said, 'How can he be a thief? He plays the flute so beautifully.'

Now again there is no contradiction, but this second man has a totally different vision. This second man is open to grow, who says, 'How can he be a thief? I know him he plays the flute so beautifully. Such an aesthetic person cannot be a thief. Impossible! I cannot believe it.' Whether that person is a thief or not is not the question, but these two reactions will decide many things for these two persons.

When somebody says, 'There is a good man,' watch, don't start condemning - because when you condemn goodness you condemn your own future. If you go on condemning goodness and wisdom you will never become good and never become wise, because whatsoever you are condemning cannot happen to you.

You will become closed.

Even if that man is not good, even if that man is not wise, it is not good to deny.

Accept it. What are you losing in it? The very acceptance that that man can be good and wise will help you to become good and wise. Your doors open, you are no more closed. And if that man can become good and wise, why not you? If you think that that man is ordinary, don't condemn him. Simply be happy, accept it as good news - 'That ordinary man has become wise, sol also can become wise because I am also ordinary.' Why make it a negative point? That's why Buddha says:

EVIL-DOERS WHO DENOUNCE THE WISE RESEMBLE A PERSON WHO SPITS AGAINST THE SKY.

You are spitting on your own face. When you spit against the sky, the sky is not going to be corrupted by you. You will be corrupted by your own spitting. The spit is going to fall on you. Your whole effort is absurd. The sky will remain the sky.

The wise man is like the sky. That too is very symbolic. Sky means pure space.

Why this proverb that spitting against the sky is foolish? Why? - because the sky is not there. If the sky is there your spit may corrupt it. You spit against the wall - - it will not come back to you. You spit against the roof - if you are expert it may not come back. You can practise it. There is no necessity that it will come back, because the roof is there; it can be corrupted. That which is can be corrupted, that which is not cannot be corrupted.

The wise man is not, his ego has disappeared. He is not a substance, he is just pure space. You can pass through him, you can spit through him, and there is no hindrance. The spit will pass through him, he will not catch hold of it.

If you insult a wise man, your insult is not taken by him. It is as if, in an empty room, you are insulting. Yes, you will create a sound, that's all. When the sound has disappeared the room is again the same. The room will not carry your insult, the room is empty.

The wise man is empty like the sky. The saying must be buddhist because Buddha says that the wise man means no self, no ego. The wise man means non- existential. He is not there, he is a pure presence, no material in him. You can pass through him. There will be no obstruction found in him, no hindrance found in him.

EVIL-DOERS WHO DENOUNCE THE WISE RESEMBLE A PERSON WHO SPITS AGAINST THE SKY. THE SPITTLE WILL NEVER REACH THE SKY...

Not that the sky is very far away. No, the sky is very close, you are in the sky.

But it cannot reach to the sky because sky is so pure existence. It is simply space and nothing else. Everything comes and goes and the sky remains innocent.

How many wars have happened on the earth? - but you cannot find any blood marks in the sky. How many people have lived on the earth? How many misdeeds have been committed, murders, suicides? - but the sky carries no record, not even a trace. The past simply does not exist. Clouds come and go and the sky remains the same. Nothing corrupts it.

A wise man becomes so spacious that nothing corrupts him.

You can only believe that you are insulting him; your insult will come back to you. The wise man is like a valley; your insult will be re-echoed. It will fall upon you.

THE SPITTLE WILL NEVER REACH THE SKY BUT COMES DOWN ON HIMSELF.

That too has to be understood. The wise man is higher than you, the wise man is like a peak, a himalayan peak. You are standing in the darkness, in the valley, in ignorance.

If you spit against the higher, the spit will fall back on you. It is against nature, it is against gravitation. So if somebody is insulted by your insult you can be certain that he is lower than you. If somebody is not insulted by your insult you can be certain that he is higher than you, that your insult cannot reach him.

Because insults follow gravitation. They go to lower depths.

So if you are angry you can only infuriate an inferior person. A higher person simply remains beyond you. You can infuriate only a weaker person, the stronger person remains unaffected by you. You can manipulate through insult only lower beings, higher beings are far beyond.

EVIL-DOERS AGAIN RESEMBLE A MAN WHO STIRS THE DUST AGAINST THE WIND. THE DUST IS NEVER RAISED WITHOUT DOING HIM INJURY.

THUS THE WISE WILL NEVER BE HURT BUT THE CURSE IS SURE TO DESTROY THE EVIL-DOERS THEMSELVES.

Remember it. We go on doing things which are against us. We go on doing things which are suicidal. We go on doing things which will destroy our future.

Each act that you are doing is in some way defining your future.

Beware - don't do anything that is going to do harm to you. And whenever you try to harm somebody, you are doing harm to yourself. Whenever you try to do some wound, whenever you want to hurt, you are creating a karma for yourself.

You will be hurt by it.

It happened, once a man came and spat on Buddha - actually. Buddha wiped his face and asked the man, 'Sir, have you anything else to say?' The man was puzzled, embarassed. He was not expecting such a reaction. He was thinking Buddha would be angry. He could not believe his own eyes. He was dumb, he was in a daze.

Buddha's own disciple, Ananda, was sitting by his side. He became very very angry. He said to Buddha, 'What is this?' If you allow people this way, life will become impossible. You just tell me and I will put him right.' He was a strong man, this Ananda. He was a warrior, he was a cousin-brother to Buddha, he himself was a prince. He was very much angry. He said, 'What nonsense. Just give me a hint and I will put him right.'

Buddha laughed and he said, 'He has not surprised me, but you surprise me.

Why are you jumping in it? He has not done anything to you. As far as his spitting on me is concerned, I know I have insulted him in some past life. The accounts are closed today. I am happy.'

'Thank you sir,' he said to the man. 'I was waiting for you because the account has to be closed. I have insulted you somewhere. You may not remember, I remember it. You may not know, I know it. You may have forgotten because you are not very aware, but I have not forgotten. Today I am happy you came and you finished the whole thing. Now we are freed from each other.'

'This is my own doing,' he said to Ananda, 'that has come back to me.'

Of course when you spit against the sky, it takes a little time to come back. It does not come instantly, it depends on many things - but everything comes back. Whatsoever you do is sowing: one day or other you will have to harvest, one day or other you will have to reap it.

If you are miserable today, these are the seeds which have flowered. These seeds you may have sowed somewhere in your past - this life, another life, somewhere. Whatsoever you are today is nothing but your accumulated past.

Your whole past is your present. Whatsoever you are going to be tomorrow will be whatsoever you are doing today.

Nothing can be done about the past, but much can be done about the future. And to change the future is to change all. If you start changing your ways of life, your ways of awareness, if you start understanding the laws of life... this is one of the fundamental laws, the law of karma: whatsoever you do you will have to reap.

Never forget it for a single moment. Because forgetting it has created so much misery for you. Remember it. Again and again old samskaras, old tendencies, will force you just by habit to do the old things. Remember - and drop out of old habits, drop out of mechanical reactions; become more conscious. A small awareness and great changes start happening.

I have heard:

It happened in Japan. Once a mother visited her son at college and was pained to see suggestive pictures on the walls of his room. She said nothing, but hung a picture of Buddha among the others. When she came again to see the boy the other pictures were gone, only the one of Buddha was left. The boy said, 'Somehow I could not keep him there and those pictures too - so they had to go.

Just a small thing, just a small picture of Buddha, and all those suggestive, pornographic pictures had to go. What happened? The boy started feeling uneasy. How to put Buddha there with all those pictures? By and by Buddha's presence was felt; the more and more aware he became, the more pictures disappeared. Just a small ray of light is enough to dispel all darkness. Just allow the first ray!

If you start becoming aware in a small way - nothing to be worried - by and by you will see all other pictures have gone and only awareness has remained.

Buddha means awareness, the very word 'Buddha' means awareness.

If you really want to be happy and blissful, to be eternally blissful, if you are fed up with all the miseries that you have lived through, then bring awareness to your reactions. And start trusting the good.

In English you have an expression 'too good to be true'. This expression is very dangerous. Too good to be true? Just if something is too good you disbelieve it; it can't be true? Change it, let it be this way: TOO GOOD TO BE UNTRUE.

Believe in goodness, believe in light, believe in higher reality - because whatsoever you believe becomes an opening to you. If you don't believe that a higher being than you is possible, then finished, all growth is stopped.

Trusting a Buddha or a Mahavira or a Jesus, Zarathustra, is nothing but opening yourself... the very idea that higher beings than you have existed, walked, lived - - higher beings are possible. It is not impossible to be a Buddha - the very notion, and a ray of light enters in your being. And that light starts transforming you. Your very chemistry changes.

Hence all the religions insist on trust, shraddha, faith. It has nothing to do with superstitions, it has nothing to do with theological beliefs. It is just an opening of the heart. If you don't believe, if you insist that roses don't exist, then even if someday you come across a rosebush, you will not believe. You will say, 'There must be some illusion, somebody is playing a trick, or I am in a mirage, or I am dreaming, because roses can't exist.'

In the first place if you don't believe in the existence of roses the very possibility is you may come across them and you may not look at them because we look only at things we believe are possible. We go on passing, indifferent. Whatsoever you believe becomes effective.

I have heard:

It happened in a hospital. A nurse put a screen round a male patient's bed, gave him a specimen bottle and said, 'I will be back in ten minutes for your specimen.'

Then another nurse came and gave the man a glass of orange juice. The man, who was something of a wit, poured the orange juice into the specimen bottle.

When the first nurse came back, she took a look and said, 'This specimen is a little too cloudy.'

'So it is,' agreed the patient. 'I will run it through again and see if I can clean it up.' And as he put the bottle to his lips the nurse fainted.

Just your belief, just the very idea - what is this man doing? He was simply drinking orange juice. But once you believe a certain thing it becomes effective.

Now the nurse is thinking he is drinking his urine. It is only in her idea - but ideas are great realities, they change your outlook.

If you are looking for beauty you will find beauty. If you believe beauty does not exist, you may come across it but you will not look for it. You see only that which you are looking for.

Faith, trust, simply means this much - that we are not the last, we are not the crescendo of existence... higher reality is possible. To believe in a Jesus or a Buddha is simply to believe in your own future, that you can grow. To believe in Buddha is to believe in growth, that there is still something which can happen to you.

That's why in the past centuries people were never as bored as they are today - because now nothing is possible. You are just in a rut. The more people become materialistic, the more they are bored. You cannot find more bored people than Americans. Now they have everything that down the centuries man has been hankering for, and they are bored to death, because they have no future. And when there is no future there is no meaning.

You have a beautiful car, you have a beautiful house, you have a beautiful job - so what? The question arises 'so what?' But where are you going? In a rut, moving in the same wheel again and again and again. The same morning, the same evening, the same work, the same money pouring in - what to do now?

Then people are playing small games just to pass the time, but they know that nothing is going to happen. That creates boredom.

Never in the history of human beings has man been so bored as in this century, because always there was a possibility, always there was an opening into the sky - you could have become a Buddha, you could have become a Jesus or a Krishna. You were always growing. You were not in a wheel; there was growth.

Suddenly you are in a wheel in this century - there is no god.

Nietzsche says, 'God is dead and man is free.' Free for what? - to be bored. Free not to grow, free to rot, free just somehow to vegetate and die.

Freedom is meaningful only when it brings growth. Freedom means only that there is a possibility to grow - better flowers are possible in you. Your potentiality has yet a destiny - that brings meaning, that brings enthusiasm, that brings a thrill. Your life starts throbbing with meaning.

Remember more and more that you are the cause of your misery, you can become the cause of your bliss. You are the cause of the hell you are living in, you can create the heaven also. You alone are responsible and nobody else.

Never try to do harm to anybody because all will fall back on you. If you can do something good, do. If you can help somebody, help. If you can have some compassion, love, let it flow, because that will be coming back. In moments of need you will have something to depend upon, to fall upon.

Love as much as you can, help, and don't be bothered whether the help is paying right now or not. It pays, it pays tremendously. You don't be bothered about the time and the place - it pays. Someday, whenever you are in need, it rushes towards you. It goes on accumulating.

Mulla Nasrudin kept begging the noted pianist to play. 'Well all right, since you insist,' he said. 'What shall I play?'

'Anything you like,' said Nasrudin. 'It is only to annoy the neighbours.'

People go on doing things like that. They may not be enjoying it at all, but if you can annoy the neighbours it is enough enjoyment for them. This is morbid, but this is how people are. People enjoy torturing, and then when they are tortured they cry and they say that life is very unjust and god is not just!

Buddha says there is no god. He simply drops the possibility of god. So that you cannot throw the responsibility on anyone else he says there is a law, no god, and the law follows its own course. If you follow the law you will be happy, if you don't follow the law you will be unhappy.

He drops the idea of god just to help you, because with a god the possibility remains that we can do something wrong and then we can cry and weep and pray and say, 'I was a fool, but now you save me.'

Before a law you cannot pray, before a law you cannot say, 'I was a fool.' If you were a fool you have to suffer, because the law is not a person. It is absolutely indifferent, it simply follows its own course.

If you fall on the ground and your bones are broken and you have many fractures, you don't go and tell the law of gravitation, 'Don't be so much against me. You could have at least given me one warning. Why did you get so angry?'

No, you never talk about the law of gravitation, because you know if you follow rightly it is protective. Without the law of gravitation you will not be here on the earth, you will be floating in the sky. You cannot stand on the earth. The law of gravitation keeps you on the earth, it is your very root. Without it you will not be here. It allows you to walk, it allows you to be. But if you do something wrong, then punishment.

But the law does not punish you, it does not reward you. It has nothing to do with you personally. You punish yourself, you reward yourself. Follow the law and you reward yourself. Don't follow the law, disobey the law and you are a victim, you suffer.

Buddha calls the law dhamma - that is his god. He takes personality out of it, because with personality man has created too much trouble. Then Jews think that they are the chosen people of god, so he is going to be a little lenient with them.

This is nonsense.

Christians think they are the chosen people of god because he sent 'his only begotten son' to save them, so whosoever follows Jesus will be saved. But that seems like nepotism - because you are related to Jesus and he is the son of god.

It seems like indian government officials, politicians. You are related. This is nonsense.

I have heard that when the Japanese were defeated a japanese general was talking to an english general and the japanese general said, 'We cannot understand why we were defeated, how we were defeated.'

The english general said, 'You don't know. We believe in god and we pray. Every day we start fighting, we pray first.'

But the japanese man said, 'We also do that. We also believe in god and we also pray.'

The english man laughed. He said, 'But have you ever thought about it? God does not understand Japanese.'

Buddha takes all personality out of god. Then there is no need for him to understand Japanese, English,Hebrew, Sanskrit. Hindus say that Sanskrit is his bona fide language - DEVAVANI, god's own language. All other languages are just human, Sanskrit is divine. But this foolishness exists all over the world.

Buddha takes the very base out. He says god is not a person, it is a law. Follow it, obey it, and you reward yourself. Don't follow it and you suffer.

THUS THE WISE WILL NEVER BE HURT BUT THE CURSE IS SURE TO DESTROY THE EVIL-DOERS THEMSELVES.

So remember it as a fundamental rule that whatsoever you do to others you are really doing to yourself - whatsoever, I say, you do to others you are doing it to yourself. So watch out.

THE BUDDHA SAID:

IF YOU ENDEAVOUR TO EMBRACE THE WAY THROUGH MUCH LEARNING, THE WAY WILL NOT BE UNDERSTOOD. IF YOU OBSERVE THE WAY WITH SIMPLICITY OF HEART, GREAT INDEED IS THIS WAY.

This way, this dhamma, this law, this ultimate law of life, cannot be understood by learning, by knowledge, by reading scriptures and memorising philosophies.

You have to live it to know it. The only way to know is to live it. The only way to know is existential, it is not intellectual.

I have heard a very famous anecdote:

Years ago word spread through academic communities about a young scholar at a talmudic college in Poland. He was hailed for his great learning and his concentration on his studies. Visitors came away deeply impressed by the young man.

One day an outstanding talmudic authority called and asked the head of the college about the young man. 'Does this young man really know so much?'

'Truly,' answered the old rabbi with a smile, 'I don't know. The young man studies so much that I cannot understand how he could fine time to know.'

If you are too much engaged with your intellect you will not find time to be engaged with your total being. If you are too much in your head you will miss much that is available. The way can be known only if you deeply participate with existence. It cannot be understood from the outside, you have to become a participant.

Just a few days back, a professor of psychology was here. He teaches in Chicago.

He is an Indian, lives in America. He had come - he has been writing to me for almost two years: 'I am coming, I am coming.' Then he came, and he wanted to know about meditation. For ten, twelve days he was here and he watched others meditating, and he said, 'I am watching.'

But how can you watch meditation? You can meditate, that is the only way to know about it. You can see a meditator from the outside - that he is dancing, or that he is standing silent, or that yes, he is sitting - but what are you going to know about it?

Meditation is not sitting, meditation is not dancing, meditation is not standing still. Meditation is something happening is his very being, deep inside. You cannot observe it, there cannot be any objective knowledge about it.

I told him, 'If you really want to see - dance.'

He said, 'First I have to see, first I have to convince myself that it is something, only then will I do.'

Then I said, 'If you stick to your condition you will never do. Because the only way to know is to do it, and you say you will do only when you have known it.

Then it is impossible. You are putting such an impossible condition that it will never happen.'

It is as if somebody says, 'I will love only when I have known what love is.' But how can you know love without loving? You can watch two lovers holding each other's hands, but that is not love. Even two enemies can hold hands. Even while two persons are holding hands they may not be in love, they may be just pretending. Even if you see two persons making love to each other, there may be no love. It may be something else; it may be just sex, no love. There is no way to know about love from the outside. There are things which are only allowed to be revealed to you when you become an insider.

BUDDHA SAYS:

IF YOU ENDEAVOUR TO EMBRACE THE WAY THROUGH MUCH LEARNING, THE WAY WILL NOT BE UNDERSTOOD.

There are things which can be understood by learning - they are outside things, objective things. That is the difference between science and religion. Science needs no subjective experience. You can remain outside and watch; it is an objective approach towards truth.

Religion is a subjective approach. You have to go in, withinwards; it is introspective. You have to dive deep within your own being. Only then can you know. Only from your own center will you be able to understand what the way is, what the dhamma is - or call it what god is - but you will have to participate.

You can know god only by becoming a god, there is no other way. You can know love only by becoming a lover. And if you think that it is very risky without knowing - and going into love IS risky - then you will remain without love, you will remain a desert.

Yes, life is risk, and one should be courageous enough to take risks. One should not always be calculating. If you go on just calculating your whole life, you will miss all. Take risks, be courageous.

There is only one way to live and that is to live dangerously. And this is the danger - that one has to move without knowing, one has to move in the unknown. Hence, trust is needed.

BUDDHA SAYS:

IF YOU ENDEAVOUR TO EMBRACE THE WAY THROUGH MUCH LEARNING, THE WAY WILL NOT BE UNDERSTOOD.

You can see it. You can look at scholars, great scholars, and somehow you will find they are missing. They may know much about the Veda, the Bible, the Koran, they can recite, but you can see there is no radiance in their eyes. Yes, much dust that they have gathered from scriptures, much smoke that they have gathered through knowledge. They are well-informed - but almost dead. They have missed life somehow, they could not find time to know what life is.

I have heard:

A great scholar and a clergyman, a pundit, stopped in a pet shop and asked the price of a parrot. The shopkeeper said he would not sell him that parrot because all it did was utter profanity. 'But,' said the shopkeeper, 'I have another parrot coming in from South America. When I get it trained I will phone you to pick it up.'

Several months later the pundit, the great scholar, was told to stop by and see the parrot the storekeeper had for him. The shop-keeper ushered the pundit into a backroom where the parrot was perched with a string on each foot. The proprietor pulled the string on the right foot and the bird recited 'The Lord's Prayer' from beginning to end.

'This is wonderful and edifying!' exclaimed the preacher, the pundit - that's what he himself had been doing his whole life. Then he pulled the string on the left foot and the parrot burst into 'Nearer My God to Thee'. 'This is tremendous!'

cried the preacher. 'Now tell me, what would happen if I pulled both strings at the same time?' Before the shopkeeper could reply the parrot said, 'You damned fool! I would fall on my ass!'

It is simple, even a parrot knows it, but a pundit - he is worse than a parrot. He simply lives in ideas, he lives in logic, he lives a verbal life. He has forgotten real roses, he is only acquainted with the word 'rose'. He has forgotten real life, he only knows the word 'life'. Remember, the word 'life' is not life, the word 'love' is not love, the word 'god' is not god. The real life is an existence, is an experience.

It happened:

A recent graduate from agriculture school was making a governmental inspection of a farmer's land and stock. He told them he was making an appraisal so that the government could help the farmer get out of the red. So he inspected everything, making careful notes in his neat little notebook. When he thought he had everything listed he saw an animal stick its head around the side of a barn.'What is that thing? And what is it for?' asked the young man. It was an old goat, but the farmer was not going to help the all-wise young inspector. 'You are the expert,' said the farmer. 'You tell me.'

Now it was very difficult. He had never seen such a thing. He had been learning in the university, he knew everything about agriculture, but he had never done anything. He had no experience. He had never come across such an animal as a goat. Consequently the young man sent off a wire to New Delhi asking them to identify for him 'a long, lean object with a bald head, chin whiskers, an empty lean stomach, a long sad face, and cadaverous eyes'. The next day he got a reply from the secretary of agriculture: 'You blithering idiot! That is the farmer!'

Remember, the head can be very disconnective; it can disconnect you from life.

Use the head but don't be confined to it. Use your intellect to approach existence, don't make a barrier out of it.

IF YOU ENDEAVOUR TO EMBRACE THE WAY THROUGH MUCH LEARNING, THE WAY WILL NOT BE UNDERSTOOD. IF YOU OBSERVE THE WAY WITH SIMPLICITY OF HEART, GREAT INDEED IS THIS WAY.

WITH SIMPLICITY OF THE HEART.... Life can be known only with a simple heart. Head is very complex and life is very simple. It is difficult from a complex head to understand the simple life. Life is simply simple. You have also to be simple.

A child understands more. He has a rapport with life. A poet understands more.

He has a rapport. A mystic understands more - tremendously deep and profound is his understanding because he puts his head completely away. He looks through the eyes of a child, he approaches with wonder, awe.

He is surprised at every step. He has no ideas, no fixed ideas to project. He has no prejudices: he is neither a Hindu, nor a Mohammedan, nor a Christian. He simply is. He has a throbbing heart, a loving heart. That is enough requirement to know what life is.

GREAT THEN INDEED IS THIS WAY... known - known through the heart.

Better to call it felt - felt through the heart.

Life is very simple. Just sometimes put your head away, sometimes behead yourself, sometimes look with no clouds in the eyes - just look. Sometimes sit by the side of a tree - just feel. By the side of a waterfall - listen. Lie down on the beach and listen to the roar of the ocean, feel the sand, the coolness of it, or look at the stars, and let that silence penetrate you. Or look at the dark night and let that velvety darkness surround you, envelop you, dissolve you. This is the way of the simple heart.

If you approach life through this simplicity you will become wise. You may not know the Veda, you may not know the Bible, you may not know the Gita, but you will come to know the real song of life - and that is where the real Gita is, the real song is. You may not know the Veda, but you will come to know the real Veda - that which is written by god himself.

This life is his book, this life is his Bible, this life is his Koran. Recite it! Recite this life. Sing it, dance it, be in love with it - and by and by you will know what the way is, because by and by you will become more and more happy. The more happy you become, the more you are acquainted with the way, the right way.

And whenever a step goes out of line, immediately you feel pain.

Pain is an indication that you have missed the law, and happiness is an indication that you have been in harmony. Happiness is a by-product. If you go in accordance with the law you are happy. Unhappiness is an accident. It simply shows you have gone far away from the law.

Make happiness and unhappiness your criterion. That's why I go on saying that I am a hedonist. In fact Buddha is a hedonist, Mahavir is a hedonist, Krishna is a hedonist, Mohammed is a hedonist, because they all want you to become tremendously happy. And they show you the path.

The path is: become simple, trust more, doubt a little less. If you really want to doubt, doubt doubt, that's all. Doubt doubt; trust trust - and you will never miss.

THOSE WHO REJOICE IN SEEING OTHERS OBSERVE THE WAY WILL OBTAIN GREAT BLESSING.

And Buddha says not only those who follow the way are benefited, but even those who rejoice in seeing others following the way, they are tremendously blessed.

Yes, it is so. Because by rejoicing that so many people are moving towards meditation...'Good - I have not been moving yet, I have not yet gathered courage, but so many people are moving - good'... even this will make you happy because this Will open your doors.

You are not condemning them, you are not saying that meditation is impossible.

You say, 'It is possible - I am not yet courageous enough, but you are going on the way - go happily! My congratulations for you, my greetings! One day I hope also to come and follow you.'

Buddha says if you greet a sannyasin you have greeted your future. If you see somebody moving on the path and you feel happy, tremendously happy - knowing well that you are not following on the path, you are yet not ready for it, but you don't condemn the man, in fact you rejoice, you help him to go on the path - you have started following on the path.

That's what I said in the beginning to you: in life whenever you hear somebody has become a sannyasin, don't start condemning him - rejoice. When somebody has started meditating, don't condemn him that he has gone mad or something - rejoice. By your rejoicing you are bringing your own meditative possibilities closer to you. By rejoiCing you have taken sannyas in a deeper way. Inside it has happened, outside it will come. That is not so important either.

THE BUDDHA SAID:

THOSE WHO REJOICE IN SEEING OTHERS OBSERVE THE WAY WILL OBTAIN GREAT BLESSING.

That's why in this country a sannyasin has always been respected tremendously.

Even sometimes one who is just wearing an orange robe and is not a sannyasin at all - even he is respected. Because who are we to decide whether he is a true sannyasin or not? Buddha says, 'Rejoice!"

I have heard an old story:

A man who was a great robber robbed the palace of the king, and by the time he was escaping it was known, so guards followed him. He was in tremendous danger. He came to the bank of a river and the horses of the soldiers were following and he could hear the noise that was approaching close, and the river was big and there was no bridge. He was afraid, and it was a cold night - so what to do?

Seeing nothing, no possibility, he saw a sannyasin sitting under a tree. He threw off his clothes, became naked, closed his eyes, started meditating - of course, pretending, because he had never known what meditation is. But you can pretend, you can close your eyes, you can sit in a padmasana, in the lotus posture. He closed his eyes.

The guards came, the police arrived. There was nobody, just these two sannyasins. They touched their feet. The man inside started feeling very very guilty. 'This is not good,' he thought. 'I am a thief, a robber, and these people are touching my feet. And I am just a pseudo-sannyasin. And if so much respect is given to a pseudo-sannyasin, what will happen if I really become a sannyasin?' A ray of light entered into his life. He dropped his old ways, he became a sannyasin.

His fame spread. One day even the king came to touch his feet. And the king asked him, 'How did it happen to you? How did you renounce the world? I also hope, dream, that one day that great blessing will shower on me, god will give me courage to renounce everything. How did you renounce, sir? Tell me your story. That will give me courage.'

The ex-robber started laughing. He said, 'I will tell you. You helped me much - your soldiers following me.'

The king said, 'What do you mean?' Then he told the whole story. He said, 'And when I saw that a pseudo-sannyasin like me - a robber, a murderer - can be respected, suddenly it became impossible for me to go back to my old ways. And I felt so beautiful when they touched my feet. I had never felt that before. It was such a beautiful moment. And since then I have been meditating, and since then I have really renounced the world, and I am tremendously happy. I have arrived home.'

Buddha says even those who rejoice seeing others observe the law.... Never condemn - even if sometimes it is possible; it is always possible. When there are real. coins there are bound to be counterfeit coins also. When so much respect is given to sannyasins, there are bound to be people who will be deceiving. But that is not the point. What can they deceive? What can they cheat? What have you got? But rejoice.

A SHRAMANA ASKED THE BUDDHA: 'WILL THIS BLESSING EVER BE DESTROYED?'

Will it be just a temporary thing if we rejoice in others being in meditation? The shramana has heard, he knows that if you meditate you attain to eternal bliss - but just by rejoicing because others are reaching... WOULD THIS BLESSING EVER BE DESTROYED?

THE BUDDHA SAID:

IT IS LIKE A LIGHTED TORCH WHOSE FLAME CAN BE DISTRIBUTED TO EVER SO MANY OTHER TORCHES WHICH PEOPLE MAY BRING ALONG.

AND THEREWITH THEY WILL COOK FOOD AND DISPEL DARKNESS, WHILE THE ORIGINAL TORCH ITSELF REMAINS BURNING EVER THE SAME. IT IS EVEN SO WITH THE BLISS OF THE WAY.

Buddha is saying those who follow the way, they become blissful, but even those who simply rejoice seeing so many people following the way, they also become blissful. And not only temporarily, not only momentarily - their bliss is also eternal. In fact, by their very rejoicing they have become fellow-travellers. Deep inside they have gone on the journey; the outside will follow - that is not the basic point.

But when you condemn those who are following the path, when you condemn those who are praying, meditating, when you condemn those who are somehow trying to feel and grope in the dark for the way, you are condemning yourself.

You are cursing yourself. Your doors will be closed, your potentiality will remain a potentiality, will never be actualized.

You are like a seed, and if somebody has flowered and bloomed, rejoice. In that very rejoicing you will start sprouting. Don't say that there are no flowers because they have not happened to you. If you say there are no flowers because they have not happened to you so how can they happen to anybody else....

Friedrich Nietzsche says the same thing. He says, 'How can there be any god? If there is any god then I am the god. If I am not, there cannot be any god. How can I tolerate the idea that somebody else is a god? Impossible, I cannot allow this idea.' He says, 'God is dead, god does not exist.'

But then man is left in the limbo. Then there is no way to go up. Then you can go on growing old, but you never grow up, you never become a grown-up.

Remember it! Growing old is not grow-ing up. Growing up means exactly what it says - growing up, growing upwards. Growing old is horizontal, growing up is vertical.

Growing up means growing up like a tree. Growing old is like a river - it remains horizontal, it does not change its level, it doesn't change its plane.

If somebody else is growing up, rejoice, celebrate. At least one human being has become a Buddha. Good - he has shown the path. In fact, in him all human beings have become Buddhas in essence, because whatsoever can happen to one human being can happen to every other human being.

We may not become Buddhas for lives together, but that doesn't matter. One man has become a Buddha - he has shown the possibility. Maybe we have to wait long, but we can wait because the morning is coming closer. It has to come; it has come to one, it will come to us also. It is dark and the night is very long, but now there is hope.

Rejoicing with a Buddha is creating hope for yourself. Then your life is no more hopeless. A hopeless life is a bored life, and a hopeful life, the very possibility...

maybe it will happen after many many lives; that doesn't matter, one can wait - but one can wait with hope.

IT IS LIKE A LIGHTED TORCH WHOSE FLAME CAN BE DISTRIBUTED TO EVER SO MANY OTHER TORCHES WHICH PEOPLE MAY BRING ALONG.

AND THEREWITH THEY WILL COOK FOOD AND DISPEL DARKNESS WHILE THE ORIGINAL TORCH ITSELF REMAINS BURNING EVER THE SAME. IT IS EVEN SO WITH BLISS OF THE WAY.