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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
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into his house. I looked into his books, found the book in which he had collected all the lectures, and stole it.
You cannot believe what happened to the professor! He didn't turn up the next day. I inquired after him; he said, "I am shattered, my life is finished -- somebody has stolen my book, and I cannot speak without it. I have been using the same notes for thirty years! Now I cannot make again new notes."
I could see the poor man; he was just functioning like a gramophone record. There was no need of him. I gave him the book and I said, "Why do you bother to come to the university at all? You can simply send this book, one of us can read it, and others can take notes. Why do you bother in your old age to come to the university again and again? This book will do! You can die in peace. This book is enough. You don't have to live at all -- there is no need."
Now, this professor is a brahmin; he is the highest because the head is thought to be the highest. It IS on the top, maybe that's why the idea has arisen that the head and the head people are the topmost people. The bosses are called "heads" and the servants are called "hands"! Why? Just because physically the head is on top...?
We have created hierarchy in society. The lowest are those poor people who are chopping wood or cleaning the roads. Why are they the lowest? -- because they are doing the most essential things. The professors can be discarded, the society can exist without them; but the society cannot exist without the street cleaners, the toilet cleaners, the woodchoppers -- the society cannot exist without them. They are far more essential, far more fundamental, but they are the lowest.
The whole idea is wrong. There is no hierarchy. The professor is doing his work, and the woodcutter is doing his work, and both are needed. Neither is there a hierarchy between men and other animals, nor is there a hierarchy between men and men. I am against the whole idea of hierarchy.
And that's my vision of a new commune.
In the new commune there is going to be nobody higher and nobody lower. In this ashram, there is nobody higher, nobody lower. There are toilet
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