| |
word dhyana -- meditation. Buddha never used Sanskrit; he hated it, for the simple reason that it had become the language of the priests, and the priest is always in the service of the devil. Buddha used a very simple language, that used by his people in the valley of Nepal. The name of his language is Pali. In Pali dhyana is pronounced ch'ana. Simple, illiterate, ordinary people cannot appreciate the subtleties of any language. They make it according to themselves. It is like a stone rolling down the river, it becomes round. That's how every word used by the people starts having a beautiful roundness, a particular simplicity. Dhyana is difficult for the ordinary people to pronounce; they pronounced it ch'ana. When it reached China, from ch'ana it became ch'an, and when it traveled to Japan it became Zen. You can see -- it happens everywhere -- people always make words simple.
D.T. Suzuki's book ZEN AND JAPANESE CULTURE is my fifth. This man has done so much service for humanity that no one can transcend him. His work is immense. The whole world is indebted to him and it will always remain so. Suzuki should be a household word. It is not... I am saying that it should be. Very few people are aware, and those who are aware it is their responsibility to spread their awareness far and wide.
Sixth: I am going to introduce a Frenchman to you. You will be surprised. Inside you are asking yourself, "A Frenchman? And being listed by Osho along with Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Suzuki? Has he really gone mad?"
Yes, I have never been sane, not for these last twenty-five years, or a little more. Before that I too was sane, but thank God -- again remember it is just an expression, because there is no God, only godliness. I don't forget to mention it because there is every possibility that even my followers, my disciples, will start worshipping God -- or me as a God. There is no God, there never was.
Nietzsche is wrong when he says, "God is dead!" -- not because God is not dead, but because he was never alive so how can he be dead? To be dead one has to first fulfill the condition of being alive. That is where Sartre is wrong: he agrees with Nietzsche.
|
|
|