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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 4 | Previous Next | |
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whether he is right or wrong, and who knows that he is not deceived, and who knows he's not deceiving others? What guarantee is there? What is the proof that Buddha is right? Except that Buddha says, "I have attained," there is no other proof. But that is going in circles, that is the question itself: How to believe that Buddha is right? And we have only one proof: Buddha says, "I have arrived." But how to believe that what he says is right?
Deep down the doubt will persist; your belief will be only a cover-up. It is like you have a wound oozing with pus, stinking, and you cover it with roses -- but deep down in the roses the pus is accumulating. The roses will not be able to transform it. They can hide it for a few moments, their fragrance may not let others know the stink that is arising out of the wound, but how long...? Sooner or later they will be stinking too! Rather than roses changing your pus, your pus will change the roses. And that's what happens: belief never transforms your doubt, your doubt transforms your belief itself.
The young rabbi finally decided that he must talk to the richest member of his congregation, no matter how much it hurt.
"Why," asked the rabbi, "must you fall asleep when I am preaching?"
"Let me explain something," answered the millionaire. "Would I fall asleep if I did not trust you?"
That's what has happened to millions of people: they have fallen asleep because they trust; there is no need to be awake. Buddha knows -- what is the need for you to be awake? Christ knows -- it is enough for you to be a Christian, there is no need to be a Christ.
But I say to you: unless you are a Christ nothing is going to happen. By being a Christian you are simply deceiving yourself and others, and you are wasting precious time, because in the same time you can become Christ himself. Don't remain satisfied by being Christians or Hindus or Jainas or Buddhists. Become a Buddha, become a Christ, become a Mohammed, become a Mahavira! Less than that is not going to help, less than that is not liberation.
And that is possible through reflection. If you become a no-mind, the whole that surrounds you will
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