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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 1 | Previous Next | |
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become aware that the same witnessing soul exists in everybody, even in animals, birds, plants, rocks.
These are only different ways of sleeping! Somebody sleeps on the right side, and somebody sleeps on the left side, and somebody sleeps on the back...these are only different ways of sleeping. A rock has its own way of sleep, a tree a different way of sleep, a bird still a different way -- but only differences in the ways and methods of sleeping; otherwise deep down at the core of every being is the same witnessing, the same God. That makes you humble. Even before a rock you know you are nobody special, because the whole existence is made of the same stuff called consciousness. And if you are awake, strong, and humble, this gives you a mastery over yourself.
IF A MAN'S THOUGHTS ARE MUDDY,
IF HE IS RECKLESS AND FULL OF DECEIT,
HOW CAN HE WEAR THE YELLOW ROBE?
Buddha chose for his sannyasins the yellow robe, just as I have chosen the orange. That is the difference between my approach and the Buddha's approach. Yellow represents death -- the yellow leaf. Yellow represents the setting sun, the evening.
Buddha emphasized death too much -- that's a way. If you emphasize death too much, it helps: people become more and more aware of life in contrast to death. And when you emphasize death again and again and again, you help people to awaken. They have to be awake because death is coming. Whenever a new sannyasin would be initiated by Buddha, he would tell him, "Go to the cemetery -- and just be there and go on watching funeral pyres, dead bodies being carried, burned...go on watching. And go on remembering this is going to happen to you too. Three months' meditation on death, then come back." That was the beginning of sannyas.
There are only two possible ways. One is, emphasize death; the other is, emphasize life. Because these are the only two things in existence -- life and death. Buddha chose death as a symbol; hence the yellow robe.
The orange represents life; it is the color of blood. It represents the morning sun, the early dawn, the eastern sky becoming red. My emphasis is on life. But the purpose is the same.
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