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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol 1 | Previous Next | |
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Your need cannot be a guarantee of their reality.
You are in a dark night passing through a forest. You are alone. Your need is there for a companion. You can imagine a companion, you can start talking to a companion, you can even start answering as from the companion. It will give you an illusion that somebody is there. You can believe in the companion, you can be completely hypnotized by it, but that does not mean that you can create the companion.
People start whistling when they are alone. Passing in a dark night, they start whistling. That helps, it is better than nothing. You listen to your own noise and it gives you the idea that there is somebody else. People also start singing. Listening to their own voice gives a feeling that there is somebody else also. Because you have always listened to others talking. The very sound that you can hear gives you a feeling that the other must be there.
But Buddha says that just because you need, reality has no necessity to fulfill it. Reality does not change by your need. Your need is true -- that you are alone and you would like a father figure in the sky, a god. That's why Christians call god 'the father'; it is a father figure.
Psychologists will agree with Buddha. Psychologists say that god is just a need for a father figure. Every small child has a father -- protective, giving security. One feels absolutely okay because the father is there. Then you grow, then you become mature. Then your father is no more a protection. Then you know that your father is as weak as you are. Then you know your father is as limited as you. And by and by you see your father is becoming weaker and weaker every day, becoming old.
Your trust is lost, but the need remains. You need some father figure. You want somewhere to go and talk to your father, who is no more there. Lost, you create a god, or you create a mother -- call it Kali, Amba... but you create a father or mother figure. It is your need, certainly -- a psychological need -- but this need keeps you immature.
Buddha is all for maturity. He says drop all these figures, they don't exist, and even if they exist this is not the way to find
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