|
Main Index
|
| |
| |
|
| |
unrelated. Man was advised to know himself, yet in his knowing he was to avoid extremes. What are the extremes?
Two are the extremes: the hell and the heaven, the ugly cockroaches and the beautiful butterflies. You have to remain a witness to both. You are neither the cockroach nor the butterfly with psychedelic colors -- you are neither. Neither this nor that -- NETI NETI. You are just the watcher, the mirror that reflects the cockroach, that reflects the butterfly.
According to the priests at Delphi, one extreme was the attempt to go beyond his finitude, to act as though he was infinite. That happens. If you go in, either you start feeling that you are something like a creature from hell, or you start feeling that you are an angel, a creature from heaven. But in both the ways you have again created an ego. Avoid the extreme, because the ego can exist only with the extreme. It dies in the middle. The golden mean is the grave of the ego.
The Greeks used to call this extreme HYBRIS. The term to designate this extreme meant an outrage against the nature of things. Don't start thinking that you are heavenly, that you are a messenger of God, that you are specially sent to the world to deliver the latest dissemination, that you are the son of God, that you are the only messenger, the only true messenger, the only Master, the only Perfect Master... avoid this nonsense. God comes in many many ways, and his messages go on filtering into the world. Not only from Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed -- no. Even when a cuckoo calls, it is his message. And Jesus is not the only begotten son of God -- otherwise everybody else will be an orphan.
Each tree, each animal, each bird is as much a son to God as anybody else. Not that only Mohammed is the prophet -- rivers and mountains, they are all his messengers, his prophets. His message goes on showering from everywhere, from every nook and corner. So don't get into that idea; otherwise, ego has come from the back door, and it will create trouble for you again. You missed self-knowledge.
Greeks have a special word for it -- they call it HYBRIS. The other extreme was the attempt to act as though the individual
|
|
|
|
| |