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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 6 | Previous Next | |
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action is a response. I see the whole situation, then out of my consciousness I act. At this moment I am feeling so compassionate for you, so sorry for you, that I cannot speak the same language that you are speaking to me."
The man who is asleep reacts; he knows nothing of action. And reaction is a binding: it binds you into new prisons, new chains. Response is out of freedom, hence it brings more freedom. Reaction is out of the past; you act according to your memories, built-in by your experiences, conditionings. You react not to the present, not in the present. You don't reflect the real situation as it is; you go on interpreting it according to your past, your past experiences.
The man who is awake is like a mirror: he reflects that which is the case. HE IS AWAKE.
THE VICTORY IS HIS.
HE HAS CONQUERED THE WORLD.
And Buddha says: It is only by awakening that one becomes victorious; not by conquering the world but by conquering one's unconsciousness.
There are only two types of people in the world: the Alexander the Great type and the Buddha type. There are millions... in fact ninety-nine point nine percent of people belong to the Alexander type -- small Alexanders and big Alexanders, but Alexanders all. Everybody is trying to conquer the world in his own way, big or small, through money, power, prestige. And everybody is carrying a deep desire, a great longing to succeed one day in becoming the most famous man in the world, the most powerful man in the world. This is the Alexander type, the extrovert, the worldly; he accumulates money, possessions, but he loses his soul.
And there are very rare, very few people in the world who belong to the Buddha type, who are no longer interested in the world, whose whole interest is in self-actualization, in self-realization, in becoming more aware of the reality that they are.
These are not fixed types, they are liquid. Anyone who belongs to the Alexander category can move to the category of being a buddha. And all the buddhas, in their past, had belonged to the Alexander category, and all those who are Alexanders now can become buddhas one day. It all depends on you;
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