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Book Name: From Death to DeathlessnessPrevious     Next
 

rejoicing. All their hostility and opposition will be simply gone. The moment they see you and me, they are finished.

So don't take it seriously. You are afraid that I am creating difficulty for you sannyasins. Of course, I am continuously creating difficulties. What else can I do? You go on falling asleep again and again! I have to create difficulties because only in difficulties can you remain awake. Once you learn the beauty, the ecstasy of being awake, then certainly there will be no need to give you shocks unnecessarily.

So, don't be worried about that. If you go into the outside world, people will be hostile to you, but you have to be compassionate to them. Let hostility and compassion stand facing each other. It is one of the fundamental laws of life that compassion cannot be defeated by hostility. Compassion simply changes the hostile person. So don't be worried that you will be facing hostility. Be concerned about compassion, love. Just start looking into people's eyes with grace. That will disturb them more -- and I want to disturb them!

There was a man in Gautam Buddha's time whose name was Angulimal. He had taken a vow to cut off one thousand heads, and to take one finger from each dead person and make a garland of one thousand fingers. Angulimal means the man with the garland of one thousand fingers.

He was a ferocious man. People stopped going close to him. The road that passed by the hill where he was staying was no longer being used. He had already cut off nine hundred and ninety-nine heads; he was waiting for only one more. The road that passed by his hill was utterly empty, nobody was coming. And then Buddha came to pass. That road was the shortcut, but people were going the long way around, just to avoid Angulimal. Naturally, Buddha took the shortcut.

His disciples said, "Bhagwan, you don't know what you are doing! Haven't you heard about that madman, Angulimal? It is better to go the long, roundabout way, rather than to take the shortcut."

But people like Gautam Buddha never turn back. He said, "I cannot turn back, now even more than before. If I had not known about Angulimal, perhaps I might have taken

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