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is over. And this is really beautiful. There is no expression for it. It is so beautiful, it is better to end it now.
Books I Have Loved
Chapter #5
Chapter title: None
1984 in Lao Tzu House, Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA
Archive code:
ShortTitle: BOOKS05
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Now the work begins.
"Athato brahman jigyasa -- now the inquiry into the ultimate..." that's how Badrayana begins his great book, perhaps the greatest. Badrayana's book is the first I am going to talk about today. He begins his great book BRAHMAN SUTRAS with this sentence: "Now the enquiry into the ultimate." That's how all the sutras in the East begin, always with "Now...athato," never otherwise.
Badrayana is one of those who are bound to be misunderstood, for the simple reason that he is too serious. A mystic should not be so serious, that's not a good quality. But he was a brahmin living thousands of years ago, living among brahmins, talking to brahmins, and brahmins are the most serious people in the world. Do you know India has no jokes? Is it not strange for such a big country to be without jokes? Such a long history without jokes! The brahmins cannot joke because the joke seems too profane, and they are sacred people.
I can understand and forgive Badrayana, but I could not forget to mention that he is a little bit too serious. I was hesitating whether to include him in my list of books. The hesitation was only because of his seriousness. I did not hesitate about MIRDAD; I did not hesitate at all about even RUBAIYAT, by Omar Khayyam. But I hesitated about Badrayana and his BRAHMAN SUTRAS, which in the East is considered to be one of the greatest books -- and it certainly is.
I have read many serious books, even that rascal saint George Gurdjieff's ALL AND EVERYTHING, but there is nothing to compete with Badrayana's BRAHMAN SUTRAS as far as seriousness is concerned. He is ultimate in his seriousness too. Alas, could he only have laughed a little!
Christians believe that Jesus never laughed. I refute it. I refute it absolutely! It is possible about Badrayana; he may never have laughed.
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