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THE DHAMMAPADA: THE WAY OF THE BUDDHA, VOL. 6
Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego
Question 4
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Dhammapada The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6
The fourth question:
Question 4
BELOVED MASTER,
I WANT TO THROW THIS UGLY MIND OUT OF MY SYSTEM. HOW TO DO IT?
Narayano, nothing has to be thrown out of your system; everything has to be transformed and absorbed. The mind is not ugly; your USE of the mind is ugly. Change your use. Mind is not ugly -- you are unconscious. The chariot is beautiful, it is a golden chariot, but the charioteer is drunk and fast asleep; and he calls the chariot names, condemns the chariot. When he finds himself in a ditch he beats the horses, he condemns the chariot, he condemns the chariot-maker, and he never thinks that it is not the fault of the chariot, not the fault of the horses, not the fault of the chariot-maker. It is his fault -- he was drunk, he was fast asleep. If the chariot has fallen into a ditch it is natural, the whole responsibility is yours.
It is not a question of destroying the mind or throwing the mind out. Mind is a beautiful mechanism, the most beautiful mechanism in existence, but you have become a servant to the mind. You are the master and the master is functioning as a servant; the mind is a servant and you have made the servant the master.
I have heard an ancient story:
A king was very happy with one of his servants. He was so devoted, so totally devoted to the king; he was always ready to sacrifice his life for the king. The king was immensely happy, and many times he has saved the king, risking his own life. He was the king's bodyguard.
One day the king was feeling so happy with the man, he said, "If you desire anything, if you have any desire, just tell me and I will fulfill it. You have done so much for me that I can never show my gratitude, I can never repay you, but today I would like to fulfill any of your wishes whatsoever it is."
The servant said, "You have already given me too much. I am so blessed just by being always with you -- I don't need anything."
But the king insisted. The more the servant said, "There is no need," the more the king insisted. Finally the servant said, "Then it's okay. You make me the king for twenty-four hours and you be the guard."
The king was a little apprehensive, afraid, but he was a man of his word and he had to fulfill the desire. So for twenty-four hours he became the guard and the guard became the king. And do you know what the guard did? The first thing that he did, he ordered the king to be killed, sentenced to death!
The king said, "What are you doing?"
He said, "You keep quiet! You are simply the guard and nothing more. It is my wish and now I am the king!"
The king was killed, and the servant became the king forever.
Servants have their own devious ways to become masters.
The mind is one of the most beautiful, the most complex, the most evolved mechanisms. It has served you well, it serves you well. Because of its services you have repeated the same story in your life, everybody has repeated the same story: you have made the mind the master and now the master treats you just like a servant.
This is the problem, not that the mind has to be thrown out. If you throw the mind out you will go insane. Without the mind there is only one profession you can be in: that is politics!
I have heard:
One politician was going through a brain operation. His brain was taken out, they were fixing his brain and he was lying on the stretcher waiting.
Suddenly a man came in and said, "What are you doing here? You have been chosen the prime minister of the country!"
So he got up. The surgeon said, "Where are you going? -- your brain is here!"
He said, "What am I going to do with the brain now? I am already the prime minister, I don't need it. You can keep it. When I need it I will come back."
Once you are a prime minister you don't need the mind.
I have heard another story too:
A man -- it must be some future story -- a man went to the hospital because his brain was damaged in a car accident and he wanted a new brain. So he asked the surgeon to show him all kinds of brains available. The surgeon took him around; there were many brains.
The first brain belonged to a professor, a mathematician. He asked the price -- fifty dollars. He was surprised: a famous mathematician, a Nobel laureate, just fifty dollars' worth! Then there was a musician and his was only thirty dollars. Then there was a businessman's brain and it was only twenty dollars. And so on, so forth.
Finally they came to the brain of a politician -- it was five thousand dollars! The man was puzzled. He said, "Why does it costs so much?"
The surgeon says, "Because it has never been used. All the other brains are secondhand, this is brand-new."
Narayano, if you throw the brain out, then you will have to go into politics, that's all. Then you cannot be a sannyasin: a sannyasin needs more intelligence than anybody else. So please don't ask me how to do it. And don't do it on your own -- because sometimes people do, and then fixing it is very difficult.
William had a big problem with his wife, Lisa. Every night before she went to bed she would stop at the door, start running and then with a big jump leap into the bed. He got so upset about this habit of hers that he decided to do something about it. So one night when she was asleep he got up, went to the fridge, got a big piece of beef liver out of it and placed it on the floor in front of the bed.
The next morning he got up and said, "My God, Lisa, look what has happened -- your uterus has fallen out! I always told you to stop your jumping." Lisa was very shocked.
When he came home that evening from work he said, "Now, Lisa, you see what can happen with a bad habit like this."
She replied, "Oh, that was not so bad. You should have seen how much trouble it was to get it in again."
So Narayano, please don't do it! It is easy to throw it out, it is very difficult to get it back in. You will need all the mind that you have. Just be the master of it. Use it, and don't be used by it.
And that's what meditation is all about: the art of moving away from the mind, being above the mind, becoming transcendental to the mind, knowing that "I am not the mind." That does not mean that you have to throw out the mind. Knowing that "I am not the mind" makes you again the master. You can use the mind. Right now, mind is not within your hands. You are not a good charioteer.
Just the other day, in his sutra, Buddha was talking about a good charioteer. And he says: Others only hold the reins in their hands and the chariot goes on moving wherever it wants to, the horses go on moving wherever they want to. You are simply holding the reins, but you are not really in control.
Be a good charioteer. And the first step is to know that you are not the mind. If you are the mind then you cannot be the master, because there is no separation between the mind and you, no distance. Create a little distance. Watch the mind, its functioning, and create the distance. Watching automatically creates the distance. Hence Buddha's insistence again and again: watch, watch day and night. Slowly slowly, you will see that you are consciousness and mind is just an instrument available to you. Then you can use it when needed and when not needed you can put it off. Right now, you don't know how to put it off; it is always on.
It is like a radio in your room which is always on and you don't know how to turn it off, so you have to sleep with the radio on and it goes on shouting all kinds of advertisements and all kinds of songs that you have heard a thousand times, but you don't know how to turn it off. The whole day you are tired, many times you want to get rid of the radio, but you cannot because you don't know how to turn it off. It is like sleeping with the lights on because you don't know how to turn them off.
Freud remembers that when electricity came to Vienna for the first time, a friend, a villager, came to visit him. Freud took every care of the visitor, took him to the room where he was going to sleep, left him there, said good night.
The villager was very much puzzled by only one thing -- the electricity, the electric bulb. He knew how to put a lamp off, how to blow a candle out, but what to do with this electric bulb?
He tried all that he knew: standing on a chair he blew it many times, but nothing would happen to it. He watched it from everywhere; there was no hole, there was nothing. And how could he imagine that just on the wall there is a switch? That was impossible for him to imagine, he had never seen electricity. But he was also afraid to go and ask Freud or somebody else because they would think that he is a fool.... "You can't even put the light off -- what kind of man are you?"
So, feeling embarrassed, he tried to sleep with the light on. He could not sleep. Many times he stood up again on the chair, tried again. The whole night it continued; sleep wouldn't come because of the light -- too much light, too bright light, he had never seen such bright light. One candle he has known, and the bulb must have been of a hundred candles or more. In the morning he was dead tired.
Freud asked him, "You look very tired. Couldn't you sleep?"
He said, "Now there is no point in hiding, because I am going to stay three days -- this bulb is going to kill me! Even to look at it a shiver goes up my spine. How to turn it off?"
Freud said, "You fool! Why didn't you ask me?"
He said, "I was just feeling embarrassed -- so foolish to ask such a simple thing!"
Freud took him to the wall, showed him the switch. He tried it, put it on and off, and laughed. And he said, "Such a simple thing, and the whole night I tried and could not find it!"
He may have tried his whole life and may not have connected the switch with the light.
This is how it is happening to you; your mind is continuously on. They say that the mind is such a magnificent mechanism that it starts working the moment you are born and it goes on working till you stand before an audience -- then suddenly it stops, then something happens to it. Otherwise it continues till you die. And very few people need to stand before an audience, so the mind continues unhindered, and it keeps you utterly tired, exhausted, weary, bored. And it goes on saying the same things again and again. Why are people so much bored?
Life is not boring, remember. Life is always a tremendous mystery, it is always a surprise, it is always new, it is constantly renewing itself. New leaves are coming, old leaves are falling; new flowers are appearing, old flowers disappearing. But you cannot see life because you are constantly bored by your own mind. It goes on saying things which it has said thousands of times. You look so tired, for the simple reason that you don't know how to turn it off.
The mind has not to be thrown out, Narayano. The mind has to be put in its place: it is a beautiful servant but a very ugly master. You take the reins in your hands, you be the master. And the first act, the first step is: become detached from the mind. See that it is not you, create the distance; the greater the distance, the more is the capacity of turning it off.
And one more miracle you will be coming across: when you turn the mind off, the mind too remains fresh and more intelligent; because it is also tiring. Just think: from the day you are born it starts and goes on working till you die. And one never knows, it may be even working when you are in the grave, because a few things continue to happen then. Nails go on growing even when you are in the grave, hairs go on growing, so some kind of mechanism still continues. Even in a dead body nails and hairs go on growing, something is still working, maybe some local mechanism, not the mind itself, but the body also has small, local minds to support the big mind, agents of the big mind. Maybe they have not known yet that the big guy is dead and they go on doing the old thing continuously. They know nothing else so they continue repeating their old job. Hairs go on growing, nails go on growing -- just small, local minds, mini-minds.
The mind has to be put into its right place, and when you need it you use it; just as you use your legs when you need them. When you don't need to you don't use your legs. If sitting on a chair you go on moving your legs up and down, then people will think you are mad. And that's exactly what is happening in the mind and still you think you are not mad.
A meditative awareness comes to know the key. Whenever it wants to put the mind off it simply says, "Now shut up!" and that's it. And the mind simply keeps quiet and great silence prevails inside. And the mind can also rest in those moments, otherwise everything becomes tired.
I have heard:
A man brings his computer to the mechanic and says, "What is the matter with the computer? It is not working well lately."
The expert looks inside the computer and says, "Metal fatigue." Just as you go to the psychiatrist and he says, "Mental fatigue," he says, "metal fatigue -- a metal case!"
Everything tires, everything gets tired -- even metals get tired. And your mind is made of very delicate tissues, so delicate that there is nothing more delicate in the whole existence. In your small skull millions of small fibers are functioning; so thin are they that your hairs, if compared with the nerves that function in your brain, are very thick, one million times more thick. Such a delicate phenomenon, but we don't know how to use it. It needs rest.
Hence a meditative person becomes more intelligent, he becomes saner. Whatsoever he does there is an art in it. Whatsoever he touches he transforms into gold. Mind is a blessing with meditation, otherwise it is a curse.
Add meditation to your being and the curse disappears, and the curse itself becomes the blessing; it is a blessing in disguise. You have not yet learned the art of how to use it and how to be a master. It is not a question of throwing the mind out; that will not help. That will make you even more hollow, more useless. If the brain, if the mind is thrown out, you will be just a cabbage -- or if you don't like the word 'cabbage', then cauliflower. And they say that there is not much difference between cabbage and cauliflower -- cauliflower is cabbage with a college education. You can choose, you can be a cabbage or a cauliflower, but you will not be a man. Very few men are men in reality. A man is one who is a master of his mind.
Next: Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego, Question 5
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Dhammapada The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6
Chapter 10:
Dhammapada, Buddhism, Buddha. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6, Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego, Question 1, WHY DOES MISERY FEEL SO SAFE AND HAPPINESS SO THREATENING? at energyenhancement.org
Dhammapada, Buddhism, Buddha. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6, Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego, Question 2, WHAT DOES LOVE MEAN? at energyenhancement.org
Dhammapada, Buddhism, Buddha. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6, Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego, Question 3, WHAT IS tathata -- TOTAL ACCEPTANCE? at energyenhancement.org
Dhammapada, Buddhism, Buddha. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6, Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego, Question 4, I WANT TO THROW THIS UGLY MIND OUT OF MY SYSTEM. HOW TO DO IT? at energyenhancement.org
Dhammapada, Buddhism, Buddha. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6, Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego, Question 5, WHY ARE THERE SO MANY JEWS HERE? at energyenhancement.org
Dhammapada, Buddhism, Buddha. The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 6, Chapter 10: Happiness: the death of the ego, Question 6, YOU REALLY GET US!! WE ARE ALL RUNNING AROUND LIKE HEADS WITHOUT CHICKENS!!! IS IT LOVE -- OR IS IT MEDITATION? AH DEAR! SQUACK SQUACK! BELOVED MASTER, WHAT IS A PATH? at energyenhancement.org
| ENERGY
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GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
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THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
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THE KARMA CLEARING
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MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4
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