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Main Index
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It is still alive. Even after twenty-five centuries, a few flowers come on his tree, it still blooms. Spring comes, and still it releases fragrance, it still bears fruit.
Saraha is also a fruit of the same tree. Saraha was born about two centuries after Buddha. He was in the direct line of a different branch. One branch moves from Mahakashyap to Bodhidharma and Zen is born -- and it is still full of flowers, that branch. Another branch moves from Buddha to his son, Rahul Bhadra, and from Rahul Bhadra to Sri Kirti, and from Sri Kirti to Saraha, and from Saraha to Nargarjuna -- that is the Tantra branch. It is still bearing fruit in Tibet.
Tantra converted Tibet, and Saraha is the founder of Tantra just as Bodhidharma is the founder of Zen. Bodhidharma conquered China, Korea, Japan. Saraha conquered Tibet.
These Songs of Saraha are of great beauty. They are the very foundation of Tantra. You will have to understand first the Tantra attitude towards life, the Tantra vision of life.
The most basic thing about Tantra is this -- and very radical, revolutionary, rebellious -- the basic vision is that the world is not divided into the lower and the higher, but that the world is one piece. The higher and the lower are holding hands. The higher includes the lower, and the lower includes the higher. The higher is hidden in the lower -- so the lower has not to be denied, has not to be condemned, has not to be destroyed or killed. The lower has to be transformed. The lower has to be allowed to move upwards... and the lower becomes the higher. There is no unbridgeable gap between the Devil and God -- the Devil is carrying God deep down in his heart. Once that heart starts functioning, the Devil becomes God.
That is the reason why the very root of the word'devil' means the same as'divine'. The word'devil' comes from'divine'; it is the Divine not yet evolved, that's all. Not that the Devil is against the Divine, not that the Devil is trying to destroy the Divine -- in fact, the Devil is trying to find the Divine. The Devil is on the way towards the Divine; it is not the enemy, it is the seed. The Divine is the tree fully in bloom and
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