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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 3 | Previous Next | |
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the healthier he is, the more help is possible through him."
I am not against working on the material plane. Whatsoever work you are doing -- urbanism, struggle against hunger, struggle for ecological balance, struggle against poverty, exploitation, oppression, struggle for freedom -- whatsoever your work on the material plane, it is going to be benefited, tremendously benefited, if you become more spiritually rooted, centered, calm, quiet, cool, because then the whole quality of your work will be changed. Then you will be able to think in a more cool manner, and you will be able to act more gracefully. Your understanding of your own inner being will be of tremendous help to help others.
I am not a spiritualist in the old sense and I am not a materialist either in the old sense. The Charvakas in India, Epicurus in Greece, Karl Marx and others, they are materialists. They say only matter is true and consciousness is only an epiphenomenon, a by-product; it has no reality of its own. And then there are people like Shankara, Nagarjuna, who say just the same thing in a reverse manner. They say the soul is real and the body is unreal, MAYA, illusion, an epiphenomenon, a by-product; it has no reality of its own.
To me, both are half right, half wrong. And a half-truth is far more dangerous than a whole lie -- at least it is whole. A whole lie has a certain beauty, but a half-truth is ugly -- ugly and dangerous too -- ugly because it is half. It is like cutting a man into two parts.
Just the other day I was reading a story:
It was very hot, and a man with his young daughter was passing by the side of a swimming pool of an intercontinental hotel. It was so hot, the girl said, "I would like to go in the pool and cool myself."
The father said, "Okay, I will sit underneath the tree, and you go ahead."
But she was stopped immediately by the guard and he said, "This pool is restricted. It is not allowed here for Jews... and you look Jewish."
The father said, "Listen: I am Jewish. My daughter's mother is not Jewish, she is a Christian, so my daughter is half Jew, half Christian. Can you allow her to take a bath only up to
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