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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 7 | Previous Next | |
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simply told her she would have to cut down on her political activity."
"Now that is ridiculous," exclaimed the old practitioner. "She was practically in a coma, and you thought it was politics? You are a fool!"
"No, sir. I just did what you told me to do. I just kept my eyes open."
"Now what is that supposed to mean?" demanded the irate physician.
"Well, when I bent over to pick up the thermometer, I saw the mayor under the bed."
Yes, once in a while accidentally, you may be able to understand a part of the message. But the part cannot be of much help. An accidental understanding is not liberation. Understanding has to be deliberate and conscious.
Now, this young doctor will do it again and again -- everywhere, wherever he will go, he will look under the bed. You can't hope that you will find mayors everywhere, and he will be at a loss. This time it worked. And sometimes a few wrong things can work. And once they work you become obsessed with them, and you start trying them in every possible way, hoping that they will become your very life-style. They will simply create chaos.
Hence on the path it is absolutely necessary to be a disciple, so that a constant source of light remains available to you; so the master can go on forcing you to see things as they are, and helping you to become deliberately conscious.
It is a long, arduous process, much hammering is needed on your head. You have remained unconscious for so long that unconsciousness has become your second nature, and it has grown so thick, that unless these rocks of unconsciousness are broken, waters of consciousness will not flow in your being. The first thing you can do is, start uprooting the weeds of desire: all kinds of desire, worldly and otherworldly.
That's why Buddha never talks of heaven, never talks about heavenly pleasures, never talks about moksha, nirvana. He never says to his disciples that great bliss is waiting for you, but goes on insisting: be desireless, be alert, be aware. Because if you say to people that great joy is waiting for you if you become desireless, they can try to become desireless, but that too will be only another
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