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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 12 | Previous Next | |
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And we have to work in the world and we have to earn money and a livelihood." You go on making excuses.
That's why my insistence is that none of my sannyasins are to leave the ordinary world. They have to become enlightened in the ordinary world so that this excuse, this traditional excuse, can be dropped forever.
And there have been people who have become enlightened living very ordinary lives. Kabir was a father and a husband, and he worked his whole life -- he was a weaver -- yet he became enlightened. He didn't renounce the world, he didn't escape. Or Raidas, he was a shoemaker. He continued his work, he remained in the world, and became enlightened.
And there have been many, but you will be surprised: priests don't talk much about these people because these people are dangerous. They talk about the renunciation of Buddha, that he renounced the world, went into the forest; they talk about Mahavira who renounced his kingdom. In the first place you have to have a kingdom to renounce. Where is the kingdom? And if you don't have the kingdom, then in this life at least you can't become enlightened. Even if you have the kingdom, then you have to renounce it.
Jesus is presented in such a way that it becomes almost impossible to conceive of him as a human being. He is born out of a virgin mother -- now, what nonsense! You are not born out of a virgin mother, so at least this life you have missed the train. Next life choose a virgin mother, because everything starts from there! In the first place you have chosen a wrong train.... But there are difficulties: if you choose a virgin mother you are a bastard. If Jesus chooses a virgin mother he is simply exceptional -- it is God's grace.
The priests have been trying to create a distance between you and the enlightened ones so that you can feel at ease. And the effort of all the buddhas is not to let you feel at ease, is to make you restless, to make you divinely discontented, to make you aware that you are capable of tremendous bliss and you are missing it, to make you alert that it is your birthright and yet you have not claimed it.
A MAN IS NOT BORN TO MASTERY.
A MASTER
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