Es Dhammo Sanantano #3

Gautam Buddha is not a philosopher. He has not the slightest—the slightest—interest in metaphysics or the afterlife. His interest is in the psychology of man: in the illness of man and the treatment of man. Buddha gave the world a science of healing. He is the first psychologist of humankind.

So keep this in mind when you approach Buddha: he has erected no web of theories or arguments around theories. He has nothing to prove—neither God, nor the afterlife. He wants to discover, to diagnose. Where is man’s illness? What is man’s illness? Why is man miserable? That is Buddha’s fundamental question.

Whether God exists or not; who created the world or didn’t; whether the soul survives death or not; whether God is with qualities or without—he called such talk pointless. He called such talk man’s cleverness—strategies for avoiding the real questions of life. They are not real questions at all; even when they are answered, nothing essential is solved.

The atheist believes there is no God—and lives the same. The theist believes God is—and lives the same. Look at the lives of atheist and theist; you will find them alike. Then what is the consequence of their beliefs?

Whether there is an afterlife or not—you do not change. And Buddha says: until you change, you have only wasted time. His passion is for your inner revolution. He would tell a parable again and again: a man is walking down an unfamiliar road; an arrow pierces his chest. He falls. People gather. They want to pull the arrow out. But the man says, Wait! First let me know who shot the arrow. Wait—first let me know why he shot it. Wait—let me find out whether the arrow struck by accident or by design. Wait—let me know whether it is poisoned or not.

Buddha said: that man must have been a philosopher—what lofty questions he raises! But the people plead, Ask all this later. First let us remove the arrow, otherwise the one asking will die. Even if we find the answers, to whom shall we give them? And these questions are hardly urgent right now. Let us draw out the arrow. It is lodged in the chest; there is danger. You will not last long.

Buddha says: I find you all in exactly this condition. And you ask: Who created the world? First let that be settled—then we will meditate. Why did he create it? First let that be known—then we will change our lives. What motive did God have in creating? Why this play? Until this is clarified, we will not enter the temple.

Buddha says: The arrow of life is stuck in your chest. You are dying moment to moment. You can drown any instant. These questions and answers are futile. There is only one relevant question now: how to pull out this arrow.

For this reason Buddha’s sayings may not seem as “profound” as those of Kapila and Kanada, of Kant and Hegel, of Plato and Aristotle. But they are more actual—more real. And what will you do with “depth,” if that depth is false and merely of words? The real inquiry is to understand reality.

Buddha is the first in human history to give a method of meditation without God—to declare that belief in God is not necessary for meditation. Not only that: even the concept of soul is not necessary for meditation. He said: meditation is health. You can become healthy—and the rest, discover for yourself. I have come to free you from disease.

So see Buddha as a therapist of the mind. He is not a religious guru. Taking him as a religious leader has been a great misunderstanding—then people list him among other religious heads. He is not that in the least. Can there be “religion” anywhere without the concept of God? Without the concept of soul? Buddha did not speak of ultimate “essence”; he spoke of facts. It is hard to find a realist like him. He caught hold of man’s real affliction and said: it can be resolved.

He proclaimed the Four Noble Truths: that man is miserable—who can doubt it? Who will deny it? Man suffers. Suffering has a cause. Buddha speaks exactly as a scientist speaks. There is a cause—how else could pain be? If your foot hurts there must be a thorn; if your head aches there must be a reason. Pain cannot be without a cause.

So the first noble truth: man is in suffering. The second: the cause of suffering exists. The third: the cause can be eliminated. The fourth: there is a state where suffering is no more.

Buddha did not even say that there will be bliss there. He says, Why talk idly? He said only this: there will be no suffering. How will you understand bliss? You have never known it. The word is hollow for you. Whatever meaning you insert will be borrowed from what you know—your “pleasure.” You will only magnify your pleasure—make it a million times larger—but that is a difference of quantity, not of quality. Bliss is qualitatively different. It is not your pleasure—and not your pain.

So Buddha said: How to speak of that? Better not to speak of it at all. I say only this much: suffering will cease. What you have known as suffering will not be there. There will be no illness. What health is, taste it and know it yourself. And those who have tasted have not spoken. It is like a mute tasting jaggery.

These sayings of Buddha are the foundation stones of his psychology—
“One who lives seeing the pleasant in sense-tastes, with senses unrestrained, who knows not measure in food, lazy and indolent—Mara fells him as a storm fells a feeble tree.”

One who lives seeing “good” in the flavors of the senses slips continually into suffering. Understand this in detail, because all yoga and all spirituality rests on it. Taste seems to be in the object. Is it in the object, or in man’s own projection?

Have you seen a dog gnaw a dry bone and relish it? He thinks blood is oozing from the bone. But no blood comes from a dry bone—where would it? As he chews, the bone cuts his mouth; his own blood begins to flow. He drinks his own blood and thinks the bone is giving him juice.

Explain this to the dog—will he understand? He has never looked within. How would juice come from a dry bone? If any juice is coming, it must be coming from him.

I have heard: on a winter morning a dog was basking under a tree, resting. Up on the branches a cat had made her perch and was dozing. Seeing her so pleased in her sleep, the dog asked, What’s the matter with you? You look delighted. The cat said, I had a dream—such a dream! It was raining—not water, but mice! The dog said, Foolish cat! What nonsense! No knowledge of scripture, no puranas, no history! There is no mention of any such thing in our scriptures. Yes—many times it has rained dry bones—but never mice.

But that is the dog’s scripture. In the cat’s scriptures it is mice that rain. The dog tastes juice in dry bones; naturally his puranas will be written around bones. The cat tastes juice in a mouse; so there is nothing in the mouse that “has” juice—the juice is in the cat. There is nothing in the bone that “has” juice—the juice is in the dog.

The cause of taste is somewhere in our disposition—not in the object. That is the first analysis.

I was reading of an incident from the Second World War. In the jungles of Burma a band of soldiers had been fighting for months; they had not seen the face of a woman. One afternoon a parrot flew overhead calling loudly, “There is a very beautiful young woman—extremely beautiful!” The soldiers put down their guns. It had been so long! Trusting the parrot, they ran after it through the brush. When they arrived—panting, scratched by thorns—there was no woman. Only a female parrot—the one the parrot had been excited about. They beat their heads: Why did we listen to this idiot!

But a parrot’s taste is in a female parrot. You find no charm in a female parrot. There is no charm in her at all—except in the male parrot’s perception. A man finds charm in a woman; a woman in a man. That charm is not outside—it is in your state of feeling. After fever, even the most delicious food seems tasteless. Your tongue has changed; its capacity to taste is not there. Taste is not in the food; it is the capacity of the tongue. When you are healthy, there is taste. When you are unwell, taste is lost.

The juice of life is not in the object; it is in you. As long as you see it in the object, you will wander on a false path—because you will chase the object. The day you see that the juice is in me, that I project it into the object, I superimpose it—on that day, revolution begins. Then, if you want to find the juice, go inward. No need to go outside anymore.

There are only two kinds of journeys in the world. One is outward. Most people travel outward because they believe the juice is out there. The bones look juicy. A few wake up. They see: the juice is not outside; I am the one who pours it; I am the one who deceives myself. The juice is in me. Then they begin the inner pilgrimage.

It is this inner journey that Buddha calls yoga.

“One who lives seeing the pleasant in sense-tastes, with senses unrestrained…”

And when you seek juice in objects, the senses become unrestrained. The mind wants to enjoy as much as possible. Miss nothing. Time is rushing. Life is slipping. Death is drawing near. Let nothing be left that you regret not having enjoyed. So enjoy—more and more. This race for “more” breeds lack of restraint.

Even when your eyes are tired, you keep looking at form. Even when your tongue is tired, you keep eating. The stomach is unwilling to take more, yet you keep filling it. Then far from taste, distaste arises. No one is delighted by overeating; one is tormented. The eyes are not filled with beauty by over-seeing; they only grow weary and dull. The more you run, hoard, accumulate, the greater an emptiness grows within—no sense of fullness comes. Yet to the last breath, to the final moment, man wants to enjoy. I have heard:

Though my hands cannot stir, there’s still life in my eyes;
Leave the goblet and decanter before me a while.

You are dying; your hand cannot move—
Though my hands cannot stir, there’s still life in my eyes—
I can still look—so don’t remove the cup from before me. I cannot even reach to drink—
Leave the goblet and decanter before me a while—
but at least let me gaze.

Until the last breath, until the final inhalation, the taste for indulgence remains. Youth goes; old age encircles; but the mind remains youthful—filled with the same waves that might have been natural in youth, in the storm of hormones. The storm is gone; only its marks remain on the sand—the memory remains. Memory too can deceive; it weaves dreams. Inside, one stays “young.” Death arrives, but within one is still intoxicated with the juice of life. What then but suffering?

Suffering means: you sought where it was not. What else does it mean? You tried to press oil from sand; you tried to pluck flowers from the sky; you searched for a hare’s horns. Suffering means only this: you desired what could not be. Your hands return empty; your heart is dim. Failures pile up around you—and that very pile becomes your grave.

As long as the object appears juicy, as long as it seems happiness is “there”; as long as the eye has not turned inward and seen that happiness is what I project, that it is my seeing, that wherever I pour it there it appears; as long as I have not understood that happiness is within me—then how to “pour” it anywhere? Dive into yourself and there will be vast bliss. Until such a moment, the senses will remain unrestrained. When vision itself is deluded, restraint cannot be.

Restraint is the outcome of a balanced vision. Restraint is the fruit of right seeing. “Right” means: it appears where it is, and does not appear where it is not. Then the search becomes meaningful. Then there is attainment, fulfillment. Flowers of happiness bloom; a hush of bliss arises.

“One who lives seeing the pleasant in sense-tastes, with senses unrestrained, who knows not measure in food, lazy and indolent—Mara fells him as a storm fells a feeble tree.”

Mara is Buddha’s name for the god of lust. It is a fine word—the exact reverse of “Ram.” If you write “Ram” backwards in Hindi, it becomes “mar,” then with the long vowel, “Mara.” Mara is Buddha’s word for the deity of lust. And there are only two states of mind: either influenced by Mara, or stirred by Rama. Either you move inward—that is toward Rama—or you move outward—that is toward Mara.

“Mara fells him as a storm fells a feeble tree.”

The god of lust is not strong—you are weak. Remember this well. Lust is not powerful. If you fall, it is not because of its strength; you fall because of your weakness. Like a dry, root-loosened tree, feeble, decrepit, aged—when a storm comes it falls. Even without the storm it would have fallen. The storm is a pretext—a story we tell the mind. If it fell “just so,” with no agent to blame, the mind would hurt even more. Even without the storm, that tree was doomed to fall. It is one’s own feebleness that fells one—not the strength of another. For in truth there is no “god of lust” standing outside you to topple you. You fall by your own weakness.

How does a person become weak? When you seek where nothing is, slowly you lose faith in yourself. In the chase for the meaningless, repeated non-attainment, self-confidence erodes. The feet begin to wobble. A lifetime of failure naturally destroys trust. One becomes fearful, trembling. Before lifting a foot, one already “knows” the goal will not be reached; the journey is futile—thousands of journeys have yielded nothing; the hands have always returned empty.

“Lazy and un-enterprising…”

Laziness is the result of an unrestrained life. The more unrestrained the senses, the more one tastes in objects, the more laziness arises.

Laziness is a sign that your life-energy is not gathered in a single music. It is a sign that your energy is at war with itself. You are in a deep inner battle. You are fighting yourself—committing suicide in slow motion.

“Enterprise,” Buddha calls that state in which your life-energy flows in one music. All your notes are tuned to one rhythm. You become a concentrated force. Then there is freshness within you, a wild surge of life. Then you have the strength to meet life’s challenge. Then you are alive. Otherwise people die long before death. Death kills you much later; your unconsciousness kills you first.

“One who lives seeing the unlovely in sense-pleasures, with senses restrained, who knows measure in food, faithful and energetic—Mara does not shake him, as a storm does not shake a mountain.”

Storms come and go; the Himalayas do not tremble. You must have a Himalayan calm and restraint within. Himalaya is a symbol, a priceless summit. The meaning is: when you are inwardly unshakable, when nothing disturbs you—when you stand as still as a mountain—storms come and pass; you remain as you were. Then the storm will not pull you down—on the contrary, it will polish you. It will shake off your dust and debris. It will make you fresh.

Understand it like this: You walk down the road. A beautiful young woman passes by. In her a current of life, a wave, moves near you. If your mind is deluded—if you believe the taste is in the object—you will tremble. The passing of the woman or of a handsome man will shake you like a drying, dying tree in a storm—near collapse, or collapsed. Then the event becomes unfortunate. But if you are restrained—quiet—silent—unshakable—if even a ray of meditation has touched your life, if you have tasted what it means to let consciousness fall into stillness; if you have learned even a little of the art of standing and sitting within—then when that beautiful woman or man passes, if you remain standing in your inner meditation, you will see that the other’s beauty, that stream of life, has polished you, freshened you, made you blossom—like a storm that has passed and shaken off years of dust from the leaves. The tree becomes green again.

Everything depends on the way you look. If your way of seeing is wrong, whatever life does with you will go wrong. If your way of seeing is right, life is just this—there is no other life—but whatever happens to you will be right.

Buddha walks this same earth. You walk this same earth. The same moon and stars. The same sky. The same flowers. Yet in one life, purity grows day by day, innocence deepens, radiance increases; in another, the burden grows heavier, dust accumulates, pollution spreads, ugliness increases. When death comes to fetch Buddha, it will find a temple’s purity—temple incense and flowers—a virginity nothing has defiled.

As Kabir says: “I have returned the robe just as it was.” Buddha will return the robe just as it was.

To me, Kabir spoke a little under-statedly. It is not exaggeration—he told the truth in a very soft voice. For to my eyes, when Buddha returns the robe, it will be even more pure than when he received it. It must be so. Just as impurity can grow, so can purity grow. The purity Buddha received as a seed, he returns as a tree.

Jesus told a story. A father was anxious. He had three sons, and great wealth. He could not decide which son to make the master. So he devised a test. He called them and gave each the same amount of flower seeds and said, I am going on a pilgrimage. Keep these safe. When I return, give them back to me. Mind you, much depends on this—be careful. These are not just seeds—they are your future!

Three years later the father returned. The eldest thought, How to keep these? They will rot. If anything goes wrong there will be trouble; and father said, “Your future depends on them.” Better to sell them in the market now. Money is easier to keep. When father returns we’ll buy seeds again and return them. It was a tidy piece of arithmetic.

The second thought, How to keep them? They might get lost, some be stolen, some spoil. And what if father insists on these very seeds? Selling is not wise. Since he said our future depends on them—he locked them safely in a strongbox and kept the key.

The third went and planted them in the garden. Because do you keep seeds in safes? And what father entrusts—do you sell it in the marketplace? Even if you buy seeds later and return them, they will not be the same seeds. And seeds are for growth. If you “keep” them, they rot. One seed can become a million. When father returns there will be many more seeds.

When the father came, he asked the eldest. The son ran to the market. Wait here—I’ll bring them. He returned with the same measure of seeds. The father said, These are not my seeds. The ones I gave you are lost. These are someone else’s. Where are the seeds I entrusted to you?

He asked the second. He brought the strongbox and opened it: only stench rose. The seeds had rotted—into ash. The father said: I gave you seeds—and you return ash! These are not the ones I gave you. He said, But they are the same seeds. The father said, No. At least the first returned seeds—though not the same ones; you have not even returned seeds—this is ash. I gave you seeds—meaning, something that can sprout. Can ash sprout? Will it flower?

He asked the third. The son said, Come to the back of the house—the seeds are where seeds ought to be. Behind the house millions of flowers were in bloom. He said, The harvest is near—we will return the seeds to you. But we cannot return only as many as you gave us—they have multiplied a millionfold. How can we return just as many? Returning “just as many” is what my eldest brother did—sold them and later bought the same amount. And returning the same seeds is what my second brother did—he kept them until they became stench. But it did not seem right to me to return what could be fragrant as something foul. These are your seeds—keep them. All these flowers are yours. A handful became a million.

No—Kabir did not exaggerate; he spoke the truth in a whisper: “I returned the robe just as it was.” Buddhas return it more radiant. They return the seed as a flower. Purity grows moment to moment—just as impurity does. Whatever you care for grows. Nothing in life is static; everything is in motion. Life is a flow. Either you go backward or forward—there is no standing still. Whoever stops, strays.

Listen closely to these lines—
In the quest for the goal, if you pause even for a breath,
the caravans halt and lose the way.

Just to catch your breath—
In life’s journey, those who pause even for a moment—
the caravans halt and lose the way.
He who stops, forgets. He who lingers, strays. Not to move forward is to slip back. Not to rise is to fall. Not to walk is to slide backwards. Life is movement; there is no rest here. Eddington said famously: the word “rest” in human language is the most untrue word—there is no such event anywhere. Nothing is at rest.

You sit here—you are not still. You seem to sit, but you are moving. Moment by moment you are changing. At night you sleep—you are not still. In the bed, thousands of processes go on. The brain works. The heart works. Breath flows. The blood is purified. Food is digested. You are becoming old, becoming young—something is always happening. There is no such thing as stagnation. Even stone is not still—it is on its way to becoming sand. Today a rock; tomorrow sand. Nothing is still. Stillness is illusion. Movement is truth.

Buddha raised movement to such ultimate height that he said: wherever you find “is,” know it is false.

Thus he refused to use the word “God.” The very word suggests stillness. “God” implies something finished—a state beyond which nothing can happen. No movement can be in the Absolute; movement is in the incomplete. The complete is already that which ought to be—nothing more can be added. God is not ageing, not becoming wiser, not becoming ignorant, not becoming pure or impure.

Buddha said: There is no such thing. He said: the word “is” is false; the word “becoming” is true. When you say “the mountain is,” Buddha says: do not say “is,” say “is becoming.” In languages formed under Buddha’s influence, like Burmese—developed after Buddhism arrived—there is no exact word for “is.” When the Bible was first translated into Burmese it caused trouble. “God is”—how to translate? “God is”—there is no exact equivalent. If you translate, it becomes “God is becoming.” Because that language was formed under Buddha’s shadow. Everything is becoming. To say “You are young” is not right—“You are becoming young.” To say “You are old” is not right—“You are becoming old.” Life “is”—not right; life is happening. Death “is”—not right; death is happening. The universe consists of processes, not things.

So Buddha said: there is no God; there is no soul either. Those sound like fixed “things.” Soul—as if some stone lies inside, unchanging. Buddha said: nothing of the sort. Things are happening.

The symbol he chose for life is the flame of a lamp. At dusk you light a lamp. It burns the night, wrestles with darkness. In the morning you extinguish it. Is it the same flame you extinguish that you lit at night? How could it be the same? That flame has been extinguishing itself a million times—moment to moment it becomes smoke; a new flame takes its place. The flame you lit at dusk is not the one you put out at dawn—you extinguish a chain, not the original flame; it has been flowing, disappearing into the sky; a new flame comes each instant.

So Buddha said: there is not “a soul” within you; there is a stream of consciousness. One mind-moment goes, another comes—like the flame. You will not die as the one who was born. The one born is long dead. The one that dies will be in the lineage, in the chain—but not the same.

This is Buddha’s unique vision. He was the first to see life as truly alive—to see it as action, as flux. And whoever is sunk in laziness—who has stopped, become a stagnant pool instead of a river—will rot.

“One who lives seeing the unlovely in sense-pleasures, with senses restrained, who knows measure in food, faithful and energetic—Mara does not shake him, as a storm does not shake a mountain.”

It is a question of your weakness or strength. When you lose, you lose to your weakness. When you win, you win by your strength. No one is sitting there to defeat you. Take this to heart. There is no devil, no Mara—as an external being. It is only the name of your weakness. When you are weak, then the devil exists. When you are strong, the devil is not. Your fear is the ghost. Your feebleness is your defeat.

So stop looking for excuses to lay your responsibility on another’s shoulder—the devil led me astray; what to do, I was helpless; sin seized me. Is there some “sin” somewhere that seizes you? Have you ever seized “sin,” that it should seize you?

Mara is only a figurative word—to indicate that the weaker you are, the more your very weakness conjures your enemy—and the stronger you are, the more the enemy dissolves.

The art of becoming strong is yoga—how to be restrained within. Everything must become “right”—samyak. The senses must be used with restraint. Buddha would tell his monks: when you walk on the road, do not look more than four steps ahead. There is no need. Four steps are enough. That is restraint.

But you too walk the road. The wall poster you have read a thousand times—you read again today. Whether it is “Him-Kalyan” hair oil, or “Monkey Brand” black tooth powder—you have read it countless times. Why read it again?

Do not read it—if you walk like Buddha, looking four steps ahead, the walls will clean themselves. People will stop writing. They write because you read. As long as you read, they will write. Your repeated reading hypnotizes the mind. “Monkey Brand black tooth powder, Monkey Brand black tooth powder…” When you go to buy toothpaste, you won’t even notice when the words slip from your mouth—“Monkey Brand black tooth powder.”

You think you are buying thoughtfully. Repetition has hypnotized you—imprinted grooves in your mind. That is why advertising is used so massively. People make things later; the advertising starts first.

In America production may begin two or three years later—but the ads run three years in advance. Because the market must be made first. Demand must be created. Only then is it worth bringing the product to market. And man is so gullible that you can make him buy anything—just repeat it on walls, in newspapers, on radio and television. Promise the illusion of pleasure—any thing can be sold. There is no creature more foolish on earth than man. You cannot persuade a buffalo. It lives by its nature—eats the grass it needs. Beat drums and trumpet all you like—it won’t care. But man—instantly! Because man has forgotten his nature. He eats things with no nutrition—because they are advertised.

Slowly everything is losing nutritive value—because that is not the point. Color must be good; fragrance must be attractive. Nutrition has nothing to do with color and fragrance—those can be added artificially. And they are. Food must look colorful and smell good; whether it becomes blood or bone is not the question. You cannot deceive animals; they know what feeds their life. But man can be deceived. He is being deceived. For anything, you can persuade him—just repeat.

Buddha said: don’t look more than four steps ahead—enough to walk safely. He called this restraint. He said: do not listen to what is not worth hearing. Do not touch what is not worth touching. Do not go beyond what is necessary for life. And suddenly you will find: showers of peace begin. You are restless because you chase the unnecessary. If you get them, nothing happens; if you don’t, it eats your life—keeps you awake at night; you cannot sit in peace—your mind keeps churning: there should be two cars in the house. One car is for the poor. If you are successful, there must be at least two.

Earlier in America the ad was: at least one car per home. Now one per home is common—so now the ad says: only poor homes have one car. If you are successful, there must be two. Even if there aren’t enough bodies to sit in them—still there must be two, because prestige is at stake. In America cars are not bought to sit in; they are bought for prestige—power, status. They show how powerful you are.

Now they advertise: if you are successful there must be three homes—one on the mountain, one by the sea, one in the city. A man can live in one home! How many clothes do you have? How many have you hoarded? How many can you wear at once? How many pairs of shoes piled up?

I stay in people’s homes. Sometimes I am amazed: no place for God’s image, but built-in cupboards for shoes. One pair you wear. The rest are unnecessary. And yet you dust and polish them. You have become a cobbler. Every morning you must clean and shine them—only one will be worn. But someone, somewhere, has convinced you it must be so.

Make a list of your life: how much of it is unnecessary? You will find ninety percent is unnecessary. And for that ninety percent, how much labor you spent! How much anxiety! How much restlessness! How much life wasted! And if someone suggests meditation, worship, prayer—you say: There is no time. Of course there is no time—so much of it is given to the useless.

Buddha said: when a person understands that there is no juice in sense-objects, restraint begins—on its own. His life is no longer ruled by craving. It remains within the limits of need—but is not possessed by lust. Need has limits; craving has none. Craving is a kind of madness. Need belongs to life: food, clothing, shelter—these are needs. They can be met. They do not create anxiety. Your anxiety arises from what is not necessary. That is your real disease.

“One who lives seeing the unlovely in sense-pleasures, with senses restrained, who knows measure in food, faithful and energetic—Mara does not shake him, as a storm does not shake a mountain.”

For a long time Buddha did not ordain women into the Sangha. Only after much beseeching—especially the earnest request of a remarkable woman, Kisa Gotami—did he agree. Then he made certain rules. While framing rules he would ask the monks many questions; Ananda raised many points so the rules would be complete. He asked: If a monk meets a nun on the road, how should they behave? Buddha said: The nun should bow—even if the monk is younger. This sounds odd in Buddha’s mouth. Mahavira made the same rule: even if a nun is seventy, even if she has been initiated fifty years, if she meets a monk newly ordained yesterday, she should bow. Seat the monk above, sit below. This too seems odd for Mahavira—both were great champions of freedom and equality.

Jainas and Buddhists have been embarrassed—how to hide these sayings? They avoid discussing them. But I see a deep reason. When Buddha or Mahavira says such things there is meaning. They caught something deep in the male mind: only if his ego is arrested can his lust be arrested. If a woman honors a man, it becomes difficult—almost impossible—for his lust to flow toward her. If a woman touches your feet, she closes the door. Because in lust the man has to stoop; he falls in his own eyes. That is why with a prostitute you can indulge the most—there is no fear of falling before her; she never honors you.

Buddha and Mahavira caught the male ego at just the right point. If a woman gives you great respect, you will have to live up to it; you will have to behave so that her respect is not dishonored. You cannot easily descend to the level of lust; she has blocked the way.

Ananda asked: If a situation arises where a monk and nun are together—what of touch? Buddha said: No. A man should not touch a woman; a woman should not touch a man. Ananda said: And if there is some compulsion—if the nun is ill, or the monk is ill, and service is needed? Buddha said: Then touch—but remain alert.

First, do not look. If you must look, do not touch. If you must touch, then do not be unconscious—stay aware. Keep watch within. For the habits of lust are ancient, and awareness is new. Meditation is just beginning; craving is very old—of many lives. Its grooves are deep. If you slip even a little, if you become the least bit unconscious, the current of lust starts to flow in an instant. If you remain awake, if you keep watch, only then is it possible that the old ruts will break, the old path fade, a new pathway form. Your relationships with Mara are old; you have to form your relationship with Rama.

“Those who take the nonessential to be essential and the essential to be nonessential—given to false resolves—they do not attain the essential.”

If you have taken the essential to be nonessential, and the nonessential to be essential; if your intelligence is inverted—how will you arrive at the essential? You will keep chasing the nonessential.

That is why a peculiar thing happens in life: until you have wealth, you do not know that wealth is nonessential. Only when it comes do you know. Quite right too—how else would you know? Until then it looks essential. When it arrives, great difficulty arises—because what you took to be the essence, for which you labored so long, competed so fiercely, struggled so much, spent so much life—when it arrives, suddenly you find: there is no essence in it. Then you don’t tell others—why invite ridicule? Others would laugh. But you have understood.

Those you call “successful” feel their failure more than anyone. Those you call “rich” feel their poverty more than anyone. Those you call “learned” feel their ignorance more than anyone. They may not say so—saying it takes courage, a reckless honesty. To say it would mean declaring one’s life wasted—that all one’s striving proved worthless. “I was wrong.” It is hard to admit that—hardest at the peak of success, for it cuts the ego.

But this is the story.

Only the unsuccessful think the essence lies in wealth or status. Those who sit on the throne—cannot think so. They keep up appearances, but the foundation has slipped. If you have a little understanding, the capacity to look deeply, you will see failure in every “successful” person. In every fame and glory you will find a scorched heart, a weeping heart. If you learn to look through smiles, you will see the hidden tears.

“Those who take the nonessential to be essential and the essential to be nonessential—given to false resolves—they do not attain the essential.”

How could they?

“Those who know the essential as essential and the nonessential as nonessential—endowed with right resolve—they attain the essential.”

What is essential? To know that is already half attainment. What, in all you have sought so far, can be called essential? You gain wealth; tomorrow you die, it remains behind. What does not go with you—how can it be essential? You receive praise; garlands are placed around your neck—within moments they wither; the sound of clapping fades into silence. The whole world may clap—what will you get? What life-treasure is gained? And can you rely on it? Those who clap today will abuse you tomorrow.

In fact, whoever has applauded you will take revenge one day. He was not applauding out of joy; people want others to applaud them—then they are pleased. When you are applauded you are happy; when you must applaud, you do it as a compulsion—perhaps in the hope that since we applaud others, others will applaud us. “We applaud you today; you applaud us tomorrow.” Such reciprocal transactions go on. “We will praise you; you praise us.” But who seeks another’s happiness? People seek their own.

So whoever praises you will, sooner or later, take revenge. A thorn will remain in him: “I had to praise him.” He will watch for the chance when his hand is up and yours is down. Who is “ours” here? The total account of life is this—
A few lovely dreams—and a few tears:
the whole earning of a lifetime.

Dream lovely dreams; hoard them—and weep for their breaking. The broken dreams pile up; you keep dreaming new ones. The past becomes tears; the future, beautiful dreams. Between the two, you live. Yesterday is a desert—nothing gained. In tomorrow you plant oases; tomorrow turns into today and passes—becoming another yesterday. At the point of death you will find: life was a journey through a desert—long, weary, full of dust and glare. There were defeat and sorrow and worry—but nothing real in hand. Only dust.

Nothing becomes yours. What is not yours cannot be essential. Essential is only that which becomes yours—becomes within you—and never leaves you; which becomes your very being, your existence. This is our definition of the essential. Nonessential is whatever remains outside you. Today “yours,” tomorrow another’s—and it will be. Yesterday, someone else’s. No house here is a home; all are inns. Yesterday someone else lodged there; today you; tomorrow another.

Even if we wanted to trust this world, what could we trust?
Even the tear in our own eye does not belong to us.

Even your own tear is not “yours” here—what else can be? Those you call “mine” are not yours. Other than yourself, nothing here is yours.

Therefore, one who puts life to the search for the self—it is he who searches for the essential. Whoever searches for anything other than the self—even if he acquires the whole earth, the vastest empire—at the end will find his hands empty; his heart will be the begging bowl of a weeping mendicant; life will have gone like this.

The sooner one wakes, the wiser. This is the measure of intelligence and genius: how soon you wake. There is no other measure. In the West they have IQ tests; they are cheap. In the East we devised another way: we measured a person’s brilliance by how soon he recognized the nonessential as nonessential and the essential as essential. How soon? The sooner, the more brilliant. Whoever never recognizes it—even at the last breath he says,

Though my hands cannot stir, there’s still life in my eyes;
Leave the goblet and decanter before me a while—

he is without genius—foolish. He may seem clever in the world’s eyes, but inwardly he will know that with his cleverness he deceived others—he could not deceive existence. Before existence he remains a naked beggar.

“Those who know the essential as essential and the nonessential as nonessential—endowed with right resolve—attain the essential.”

Recognition is the first step to attainment. If a diamond is seen as a diamond, the search begins. If a stone is seen as a stone, it is already dropped. To see rightly—Mahavira called it samyak-jnana, right knowledge. Shankara called it viveka, discrimination. Right vision: to see correctly what can be yours—only yourself can be yours. Therefore that alone is worth seeking.

Jesus said: You may gain the whole world and lose yourself—and you have gained nothing. And if you gain yourself and lose the whole world—you have lost nothing. What was not yours never was yours. Only what is yours is yours.

“As rain penetrates a poorly thatched house, passion penetrates a mind without meditation.”

“As rain does not penetrate a well-thatched house, passion does not penetrate a mind steeped in meditation.”

You will not be able to “drop” passion. You must awaken meditation. First let this be recognized—what is vain, what is meaningful—then awaken meditation. Do not busy yourself with dropping passion. Many have made this mistake. If you grasp passion, you remain entangled with it; if you try to drop passion, you remain entangled with it. The real issue is not passion.

Buddha gives a straight, simple image: if the roof is not properly thatched, rainwater enters. If the house is well covered, rain cannot enter. Passion does not enter a soul roofed by meditation. If passion enters, it only indicates that your thatching is full of holes.

So do not worry about dropping passion. That would be like this: the thatch is faulty; the monsoon has come; rain is pouring; and you are busy bailing water out of the house. You can keep bailing—what difference will it make? The leaky roof is pouring new water in. Bailing out passion will not help. Fix the roof.

Therefore all the wise have emphasized meditation. The ordinary “holy men” who advise you “Drop passion” mislead you—they are telling you to bail water. The boat has a hole; they say, Bail water. Go ahead—bail! The hole keeps bringing in new water. Bail if you like—but first seal the hole. Then bailing is easy. Thatched the roof—then whatever dampness remains, how hard is it to dry? Whoever masters meditation finds passion fading by itself. Whoever fights passion finds his passion unchanged, and meditation hard to attain.

People come to me daily and say, Somehow let my anger go. I say, Don’t worry about anger—meditate. They say, What will meditation do? Just give us a trick to drop anger. Some even say, We have nothing to do with meditation; our only problem is a restless mind—let it become calm. They do not see what they are saying.

Four days ago an elderly gentleman said, I want nothing. Only this: anxiety sits on me; I cannot sleep; I tremble; I am afraid. Let this go. I want neither liberation, nor the knowledge of soul, nor anything to do with God—just let my anxiety go. This is like saying: this rainwater has flooded my house—let it not flood. I don’t want a new roof; I have nothing to do with liberation, God, soul.

Nothing can be done—because he does not understand where the disease is.

Do not engage in dropping wealth; engage in gaining meditation. The energy you expend in dropping can as well be used to gain meditation. Even dropping is not “free”—it takes effort. You are wasting that effort. The first task is to thatch the roof well.

A fundamental rule of life, an essential rule: do not busy yourself with dropping the wrong—busy yourself with gaining the right. Do not fight darkness—light a lamp. Esa dhammo sanantano. This is the eternal law.

Enough for today.