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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
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the children, "Don't eat ice cream. Don't go near the fridge!" -- and then they are bound to go. They might not have gone if you had not told them NOT to go. Prohibition becomes invitation. You are challenging them; you are challenging them to assert themselves.
God has challenged Adam and Eve, and then he must have waited for long. The challenge didn't work; Adam and Eve must have been very obedient people. They were the first people on the earth; hence they may not have tasted of rebellion and the joys of rebellion and the growth that rebellion brings. The agony and the ecstasy of rebellion were unknown to them. Hence the serpent was used as a messenger; in the whole animal kingdom, the serpent was chosen to be the messenger of God. The serpent is a symbol of wisdom -- and it is because of the serpent that you are here. The serpent is really the father -- the father of humanity.
The original statement of Jesus means: Be as wise as the serpents and as innocent as the doves. But the word 'cunning' is also beautiful. Gurdjieff used to say that unless you are cunning you cannot escape from the bondage of the world -- because the bondage is so complex that you have to be very sly. Gurdjieff used to say that if you want to learn from a master you have to be very sly, cunning. That's how he learned. He moved for at least twenty years from one master to another master -- but masters take their own time, they are not in a hurry. They don't live in time, they live in the eternal, so there is no hurry. But Gurdjieff was in a hurry, so rather than waiting until whenever the master feels the time is right and he will impart his knowledge, he will impart his wisdom, he started stealing wisdom from the masters.
Gurdjieff says he learned by stealing, by being cunning. It looks strange to use the words 'sly', 'cunning', in reference to spirituality, but Gurdjieff is a rare man. If you understand him rightly, what he means simply is: be clever, be intelligent, be utterly alert, be wise.
In the East, the serpent has become the symbol of the energy that is dormant in you. In yoga we call it KUNDALINI -- the serpent power. It is dormant in your sex center,
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