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OSHO Dhammapada-Buddhism-Buddha

THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 1

Chapter 6: Through a glass darkly

Question 3

Energy Enhancement         Enlightened Texts         Dhammapada         The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 1

The third question:

Question 3

BELOVED MASTER,

WHY AM I FEELING I AM MISSING SOMETHING? THAT I SHOULD BE SOMETHING ELSE? PLEASE HELP ME LET GO OF THIS GARBAGE.

Dhyana Yogi, if it is garbage, if you really understand that it is garbage, then there is no question of helping you drop it. Knowing it as garbage is dropping it!

But is seems that you have heard me say that it is garbage. It has become a belief in you; it is not your own knowing, it is not your own experience. You are still clinging to it.

Deep down you still think it is precious, it is not garbage. Deep down you still think these are diamonds not pebbles. Deep down somewhere you still believe it is a treasure to be protected and guarded.

Don't start believing me, because that will make no difference. You were believing in Mohammed, or you were believing in Christ, or in Buddha, and then you come and you start believing in me. That is not a revolution, that is not conversion. You simply change the object of your belief, but the belief remains -- the same believing mind. You believe in Jesus, but Jesus speaks the language which is now two thousand years old. You cannot make much sense out of it; the context is lost in which it was relevant. I speak the language of the twentieth century. You can make sense out of it, so you withdraw your belief from Jesus and you start believing in me. This is very simple and cheap.

I am not saying believe in me. I am saying drop all believing and start seeing, because belief will remain a blindness -- start seeing! Is it really garbage that you are carrying? Is it your understanding that it is garbage? Then you will not ask how to drop it. Nobody asks how to drop garbage. The problem arises only because deep down you know yourself that it is gold. And somebody says that it is garbage and says it very convincingly, and you cannot argue, and he silences you. And the man has such authenticity, such integrity, that in his presence you simply become overflooded with his being. You simply start saying, "Yes, it is garbage." But deep down you still know it is not garbage, it is gold! Hence the problem arises: how to drop it?

If you understand on your own that it is garbage, you will never ask how to drop it. Seeing it as garbage is dropping it, knowing it as garbage is dropping it! The garbage is not clinging to you -- you are clinging to it. The garbage cares nothing about you, the garbage is not interested in you. If you drop it, it is not going to make much fuss about it -- "Why are you dropping me?" It will not say a single word, it will not create any problem for you. It will not go to the court. You need not have a divorce! If you drop it, the garbage will be really more happy than it is now. It will be finished with you, it will be free from you. It must be getting tired of you. It is you who are clinging to it. Why are you clinging to it? Why does one cling to something? -- because deep down one goes on believing it is precious.

Dhyana Yogi, you say, "Why am I feeling I am missing something?"

Because from your very childhood you have been told that in yourself, intrinsically, you are worthless. As you are you have no value. The value has to be attained, the worth has to be proved. From your very childhood you have been taught this millions of times. The parents, the teachers, the priests, the politicians, they are all in a secret conspiracy to destroy the child. And the best way to destroy a child is to destroy his trust in himself.

To destroy the trust in the child you have to prove to the child that worth is not a given phenomenon, that it has to be achieved in life and you can miss it. Unless you work, unless you are very ambitious, unless you struggle with others.... It is a tooth and nail fight and you have to cut each other's throats to achieve it. You are being conditioned to be violent, ambitious, full of desires: to have more money, to have more power, to have more prestige. Because you have been told that intrinsically you don't have any worth, this problem has arisen.

And I say that you are intrinsically worthy, that you are born as buddhas. Unaware you are, utterly oblivious of the reality of your own being, but you are hidden gods. What I am saying is so totally different from what has been told to you, that a problem has arisen. I say you are buddhas -- right now you are buddhas! -- but the whole training and teaching, conditioning is: How can you be a buddha right now? Tomorrow maybe, one day certainly, in some future life it is going to happen...but right now? It seems impossible.

You have believed too much in your parents, in your teachers, in your politicians, in your priests, and whatsoever they have told you, you have collected it. It is garbage, but you have carried the garbage for so long that suddenly to drop it seems impossible -- so long you have remained attached to it, so long you have thought it beautiful, precious, nourishing. Now I say: It is all nonsense! Drop it, and just be a buddha from this very moment! It is not a question of attaining, it is only a question of becoming aware. It is only a question of becoming conscious, alert, awake, not a question of achievement.

So you listen to me: one part of your mind says, "Yes, the Master must be right!" One part of you simply nods yes, because what is being said is a simple truth of life. But all your training is against it. When you are close to me you start feeling it is true. When you go away from me the mind jumps back upon you -- with vengeance. And of course it is very powerful. The mind is so powerful, that's why it destroys your intelligence.

Intelligence has nothing to do with the mind; intelligence has something to do with the heart. It is the quality of the heart. Intellectuality is the quality of the head. The intellectual is not necessarily an intelligent person and the intelligent person is not necessarily an intellectual.

Your intellect is full of garbage -- and I am trying to wake up your intelligence. And the whole society has tried to make you unaware of your intelligence. The society is against your intelligence. It wants you to be mediocre, because only mediocre people can be good slaves. It wants you to be unintelligent and stupid, because only stupid people can be dominated.

And stupid people are obedient, stupid people are never rebellious, and stupid people simply vegetate. They don't make any effort to live their lives at the optimum. They don't try to burn their torch of life from both ends simultaneously. They don't have intensity. Stupidity is obedient, and obedience creates stupidity.

A rather simple dude rode into town in the middle of the day stark naked. The sheriff called him over and said, "Jake, what are you doing riding into town with no clothes on?"

"Well, sheriff," said Jake, "it is a long story. I was riding into town to get some provisions for my pa, when I came across this lady on the side of the road who asked me for some help. Now my daddy always told me to help gentle lady folk, so I got off my horse and helped her carry her picnic basket down to the river. Then I helped her lay out her blanket, and helped her with everything she asked me to do. Then she said, 'How about taking your boots off, cowboy?' So I did, sheriff, and then she said, 'How about taking your clothes off, cowboy?' And I said, 'Sure thing, Ma'am.' And she was there on that rug, naked as the day she was born. Then she lay back and said, 'Go to town cowboy!'...and so here I am, sheriff."

Obedience is a form of stupidity -- and the society wants you to be stupid. Stupid people are good people. They remain always with the status quo, they never go against it. Even if they see the rottenness of things, they simply close their eyes, or they are always ready to accept any stupid explanation.

For example, this country has been poor for centuries, starving, suffering. But because people are religious, obedient, stupid, they have been given any kind of explanation and they have accepted it. Some believe that God has made them poor because poverty is something very pious. They worship poverty; in India poverty is worshipped. If you renounce your riches and you become a naked fakir, millions of people will think you are a great sage. You may be simply stupid, but just because you have renounced riches you are a great sage. I have seen many stupid sages.

Now it is a contradiction in terms -- how can a stupid person be a sage? A sage has to be wise! But it is very difficult in this world to be wise and be worshipped. Wise people are to be murdered, crucified, poisoned. Stupid people are worshipped. Stupid people simply follow whatever the society says. Whatsoever the society wants them to do, they simply do it. So a few people have been worshipping poverty.

Gandhi used to call poor people daridra narayana -- "the poor are divine." Poverty is divine! The poor people are gods! If this is true then who would not like to be poor? If poor people are gods, who would not like to be a god?

And then there are other explanations: that you are poor because in your past lives you have committed sins. Those explanations have been invented for those people who don't believe in God. The Jainas, the Buddhists, they don't believe in God so you cannot give the first explanation to them. They need another explanation: the theory of karma. But the purpose is the same! If you have committed sins in your past life, then it is better to be finished with the karma. Go through poverty, and go through poverty without any resistance. If you create any resistance, you will again be creating bad karma and you will suffer in your future life. Enough, after all, is enough! Now be finished with the whole thing -- suffer at this moment contentedly. So people have become cows and buffaloes; they are suffering contentedly, no resistance, no rebellion.

The society wants you to be stupid, not intelligent. Intelligence is dangerous. Intelligence means you will start thinking on your own, you will start looking around on your own. You will not believe in the scriptures; you will believe only in your own experience.

Dhyana Yogi, please don't believe in what I say.

Experiment, meditate, experience -- unless it becomes your own understanding, nothing is going to help.

You ask me, "Why am I feeling that I am missing something?"

...Because you have been told always that you have to find something. Now you are not finding it, so the feeling arises that you are missing. And I am telling you, you have never lost it in the first place! Please stop trying to find it, stop seeking and searching. You have it already! Whatsoever is needed, you have it already. Just look within and you will find infinite treasures, inexhaustible treasures of joy, love, ecstasy.

Nothing is being missed if you look in, but if you go on searching outside you will feel more and more frustrated. And as you grow older, of course, you will feel that your life is slipping out of your hands and you have not found it yet. And the whole irony is that you have not lost it in the first place. It has always been within you...it is this moment within you.

But don't believe me. I am not here to create believers, I am here to help you experience. The moment it becomes your experience, it liberates. Truth liberates, says Jesus -- not belief but truth.

But my truth cannot be your truth; my truth will be your belief. Only your truth can be true to you. Truth certainly liberates, but let me add that the truth has to be your truth. Nobody else's truth can liberate you. Somebody else's truth will become only an imprisonment.

Dhyana Yogi, you are not missing anything. Nobody is missing. In the nature of things we cannot miss it. We are part of God and God is part of us. There is no way, no possible way to miss it. How can you escape from yourself? Where? Wherever you go you will remain yourself. Even in hell you will remain yourself, because you cannot escape from yourself, you cannot escape from God.

It is there waiting, patiently waiting for you to look in.

You say, "...that I should be something else?"

That has been told to you again and again: "Be somebody! Look at Gautam Buddha, at Krishna, at Christ. Be a Buddha, be a Krishna, be a Christ!" Then certainly you will die in misery, in anguish, frustrated -- utterly frustrated, crying and weeping -- because you cannot be a Buddha. You are not meant to be a Buddha! You cannot be a Christ, you cannot be a Krishna. You can only be yourself.

A great Hassid master, Zusiya, was dying. People had gathered -- disciples, sympathizers. Somebody asked, an old man, "Zusiya, when you are facing God -- and soon you will be facing God because you are dying -- will you be able to say to him that you followed Moses absolutely, truthfully?"

Zusiya opened his eyes, and these were his last words. He said, "Stop talking nonsense! God is not going to ask me, 'Zusiya, why were you not a Moses?' He will ask me, 'Zusiya, why were you not a Zusiya?'"

You have to be just yourself and nobody else. And in fact that's what buddhahood means: to be yourself. That is what christ-consciousness means: just to be yourself. Buddha was not an imitation of somebody else. Don't you think there were many many great men who had preceded him? He must have been told, "Be a Krishna! Be a Parshvanath! Be an Adinatha!" He must have heard beautiful stories, mythologies. He must have read the PURANAS, ancient stories about the great men, Rama, Krishna, Parasuram. He must have heard all that, he must have received the heritage. But he never tried to be somebody. He wanted to be himself, he wanted to know who he is. He never became an imitator; that's why one day he became awakened.

Jesus never tried to be Abraham, Moses, Ezekiel. Jesus simply tried to be himself. That was his crime, that's why he was crucified. The same people who crucified Jesus would have worshipped him if he had simply been an imitator, a carbon copy of Moses. If he had been just a gramophone record repeating the Ten Commandments, the Jews would have worshipped him. But they had to crucify the man -- he was just himself.

The rotten society, the crowd, the mob mind, cannot tolerate individuals. It is impossible for them to tolerate a Socrates. Do you know what the charge was against Socrates? Exactly the same thing is said about me! This was the crime of Socrates, that he used to corrupt the minds of the youth. That's exactly what my enemies say: that I am corrupting people's minds, particularly the minds of the youth.

Socrates was corrupting the minds of the youth? He was trying to awaken their intelligence, but the society became afraid. If so many people become so authentic, true, then the vested interests are in danger. Then you cannot drive people like cattle. And that's what priests enjoy, and the politicians too.

There is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician to exploit people, to dominate people, to oppress people. And the fundamental is: never allow them to become intelligent. Give them substitutes. What is the substitute for intelligence? -- intellectuality. Give them education; send them to the school, to the college, to the university, so they become intellectuals.

Have you ever heard of universities creating intelligence? They create intellectuals, they create scholars, they create people who know the scriptures -- to the very word they can repeat the scriptures -- but they don't create intelligent people. They serve society; the educational system is invented by this rotten society to serve its own purposes. It is not there to help you, it is there to keep you in bondage.

Dhyana Yogi, I cannot help you let go of this garbage, I can only help you to be more conscious. And if you are conscious the garbage will be dropped of its own accord. One day suddenly you will find it disappearing...suddenly disappearing. As consciousness deepens, all garbage disappears -- just as you bring light in and darkness disperses.

Buddha says: Become more aware and the light will start pouring in...aes dhammo sanantano.

Next: Chapter 6: Through a glass darkly, Question 4

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