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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Dhammapada - The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8 | Previous Next | |
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that's how wisdom grows.
CUT DOWN THE FOREST,
NOT THE TREE.
FOR OUT OF THE FOREST COMES DANGER.
CUT DOWN THE FOREST means cut out the root, the very source of it all -- NOT THE TREE, because the tree is only a symptom. If you cut one tree, another tree will be growing. Don't fight with the symptoms; look into the root and destroy the root.
The root is the ego. The root is the desire of the ego. The root is the clinging of the ego. Cut the whole forest: the ego, the desire, the clinging, the cunningness, the cleverness, the calculativeness, the politicalness -- cut all these. Don't go on fighting with small things.
Somebody comes and says, "How can I get rid of anger?" Now, without getting rid of ego you cannot get rid of anger, and if you try you will be only repressing it. People come to me and they ask, "How can we get rid of sexuality?" You cannot get rid of sexuality if you don't get rid of the ego and its continuous hankering for more and more. You can't get rid of sexuality if you cannot see the inner nothingness. In that seeing, sexuality is transformed into spirituality. Go to the root, to the source.
But people go on pruning the trees, thinking that this is how they are going to transform their life. Yes, they can become more sophisticated, more cultured, more civilized, on the surface more polished -- but this will be only the surface. Deep down they will remain the same person, as ugly as before or even more ugly because all that is repressed will make them more and more perverted.
CUT DOWN THE FOREST.
FELL DESIRE.
AND SET YOURSELF FREE.
If you want to cut out the forest, FELL DESIRE. See the point, that desire is futile. Live in the moment and don't try to live in the future. Nobody can live in the future. How can you live in the future which is not yet? And desire gives you the illusion of living in the future. Sitting, you start thinking you have become the president of a country. You start living a dream, a daydream, thinking that you have found great money, a lottery has been opened in your name. And you start thinking and become very much disturbed, really disturbed: "What
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