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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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The sexual is momentary and the spiritual is eternal, but the sexual gives you a glimpse of the spiritual.
Senses have to be tamed, not to be destroyed, remember. ... PRIDE AND THE SENSES. EVEN THE GODS ADMIRE HIM. Tame the senses, tame the pride. If the pride masters you, it is ego; if you are the master, then it is only self-respect. And every person of integrity has self-respect. Self-respect is not egoistic, not at all. Self-respect simply means, "I love myself, I respect myself, and I will not allow anybody to humiliate me. I will not humiliate anybody and I will not allow anybody to humiliate me. I will not create slavery for anybody and I will not be a slave to anybody either."
That is pride tamed. Then it has become a servant and it is beautiful.
YIELDING LIKE THE EARTH,
JOYOUS AND CLEAR LIKE THE LAKE,
STILL AS THE STONE AT THE DOOR,
HE IS FREE FROM LIFE AND DEATH.
The man who has become awakened becomes YIELDING LIKE THE EARTH. He loses all rigidity. He is not like a rock; he is like soft earth. And only the soft earth can be fertile, can be creative. The rock remains impotent; it creates nothing, nothing grows on it, nothing can grow in it. The rock remains utterly empty. But the yielding earth -- soft, humble, surrendering, receptive, womblike -- can give birth to new experiences, can give birth to new visions, new songs, new poetries. The awakened person is not rigid. In the words of Lao Tzu, he is not like the rock but like water. His way is the way of water -- the watercourse way.
JOYOUS AND CLEAR LIKE THE LAKE.... The man who is awakened, who is alert, becomes clear; all his confusions are gone. Not that he has been able to find solutions, no, but because all his questions have disappeared. Not that he has found the answers -- there is no answer to be found. Life is a mystery and remains a mystery; life cannot be demystified. And because he knows the mystery of life and now there are no longer any questions and no longer any conflicting answers, he is very clear, he is clarity itself, and he is joyous.
Why is he joyous? -- because now he knows that the whole kingdom of God is his. Now
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