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another is a right way. You can go mad if you are completely lost in your mind. Then you are uprooted from your being. And you may not appear mad to others but you will be mad. You may not appear mad to others because others are also mad like you. This earth is a great madhouse. Normally everybody is mad; in fact, not to be mad is almost an abnormality. People differ in degrees but all are mad. And when psychiatrists help you to be normal they simply bring you back to the level of the social madness, they bring you to the level which is allowed legally. You were going a little beyond the social limit so they pull you back. That's what they call readjustment.
But a man can become mad in another way, in a right way. One can fall out of the mind into the inner silence, into the inner thoughtlessness, inner emptiness. Then he will immediately appear mad to us. If you look into the eyes of a man who has attained to zazen you will be frightened. His eyes will be like an abyss, bottomless; you will avoid his eyes. His eyes will be empty. He will look to you and yet he will not be looking at you. His eyes will be vacant, and you will feel that he has gone mad. In a way he has gone beyond the mind, and to go beyond the mind is to go mad.
So all great people like Jesus or Buddha or Mansoor, they all appeared mad to their contemporaries. When Jesus was crucified he was crucified as a neurotic who was creating trouble, who had gone out of his mind. He was crucified as one of the most dangerous criminals. When Socrates was poisoned, he was poisoned because he was mad in a certain way. He was leading other people to madness.
Society has always been afraid of people who attain to zazen because their appeal is great but their behaviour is incomprehensible. Their behaviour has to be incomprehensible because they function from a totally different centre than yours.
For a man of zazen there is no difference between a skull or a bowl. A skull is made of earth as a bowl is made of earth. All skulls by and by will dissolve into earth again and then you can make a bowl of the earth and you will not be bothered. But if a skull is brought to you it will be impossible
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