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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 2 | Previous Next | |
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conflict with Christian ideology. They were not allowing anybody to practice anything else; even to talk about anything else was not permitted: "Christianity and only Christianity is the way."
The mystics had to disappear. They created a beautiful deception, they created the idea of alchemy. They started saying, "We are alchemists; we have nothing to do with spirituality. All that is rot. We are seeking and searching for the secret of immortal life, of eternal youth. We are trying to find ways and means to transform base metals into gold." And just to deceive the public they made chemistry labs. If you had entered into an alchemist's world, you would have encountered jars and medicines and herbs and test-tubes...and you would have seen a kind of lab where much chemical work was going on. But this was only a facade; this was not the real work -- the real work was happening somewhere else deep down in the school.
The real work was to create integral, crystallized human beings, to create wakefulness. The real work was meditation. But Christianity does not allow meditation. It says prayer is enough. It does not allow inward search. It says worshipping God is enough, going every Sunday to the church is enough, reading the Bible is enough. It has given you toys -- and that's how it has happened in other countries too.
In India too the mystics have lived in disguise.
Just the other day I was reading a Sufi story -- and Gurdjieff is basically rooted in the Sufi tradition. He is a Sufi. He learned his secrets from the Sufis.
I was reading a Sufi story:
A disciple came to the master and said, "I am in trouble. The trouble is that the richest man of the town is going on a pilgrimage. He has a beautiful daughter, and I have a great reputation because of all the discipline that I have gone through and the character that I have cultivated. I have such a reputation in the town that he wants me to take care of his beautiful daughter while he is on his pilgrimage. And I am afraid -- I know my temptations. And the girl is really beautiful; in fact I have always been infatuated with her. I have been avoiding...! This is too much: for six months
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