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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1 | Previous Next | |
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all directions. This pull and push of many directions takes them apart. They become fragmentary, they lose wholeness. How can you be silent, how can you be calm?
The person who is concentrated also cannot be calm, because his life becomes lopsided. He is just moving in one direction; all other sides of his life are starved. A scientist never knows what beauty is, what love is. He does not know what poetry is. He is too much confined to his mathematical world. He becomes lopsided. His many parts are starved, hungry. He cannot be calm. When you are starved, how can you be calm?
The person who is moving in all directions has a little more richness than the specialist, but his richness has a schizophrenia in it; he becomes split. How can you be silent and calm when so many are your masters, pulling you into different directions?
These are ordinarily the two types of people, and both are uneasy, deep in turmoil.
THE BUDDHA SAID:
TO BE FREE FROM THE PASSIONS AND TO BE CALM, THIS IS THE MOST EXCELLENT WAY.
What is his way?
THOSE WHO LEAVE THEIR PARENTS, GO OUT OF THE HOME, UNDERSTAND THE MIND, REACH THE SOURCE, AND COMPREHEND THE IMMATERIAL, ARE CALLED SHRAMANAS.
This word has to be understood, this is very basic -- SHRAMANA. In India two paths have existed. One, that of the brahmin; another, that of the shraman. The path of the brahmin is the path of grace. The brahmin believes that by your own effort you cannot arrive. Your effort is so small, you are so tiny. How can you conceive of knowing truth by your own effort? God's help will be needed, grace will be needed.
The path of the brahmin is the path of grace, so you have to pray. Only when god helps can you move on the path. Unless he wills, you cannot arrive. There is no possibility for you to move alone. God is necessary, his help is necessary, his hand is needed. Unless he takes you above the world, you will be struggling in vain. So, prayer is the path. The brahmin believes in prayer.
The shramana is just diametrically opposite. The word 'shramana' comes from a root 'shram'. Shram means to exert oneself, to make effort. Shram means effort. There
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