OUR BELOVED MASTER ON ONE OCCASION, YAKUSAN WROTE DOWN THE CHINESE
CHARACTER SIGNIFYING BUDDHA, AND ASKED HIS DISCIPLE, DOGO: "WHAT IS THIS
LETTER?"
DOGO REPLIED, "IT'S THE LETTER FOR
`BUDDHA'."
YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU ARE A MONK SO
FULL OF CHATTER!"
ONCE, AT THE EVENING DISCOURSE, YAKUSAN
DIDN'T LIGHT THE CANDLE AS USUAL. A MONK CAME AND STOOD BY HIS SIDE. YAKUSAN SAID, "I
HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PHRASE. IF A BULL GIVES BIRTH, I WILL TELL IT TO YOU."
THE MONK SAID, "THE BULL HAS ALREADY
GIVEN BIRTH LONG AGO, AND YOU JUST KEEP NOT REVEALING IT."
YAKUSAN ASKED FOR A LIGHT. WHEN THE CANDLE
WAS BROUGHT IN, THE MONK RETREATED AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE ASSEMBLY OF MONKS.
LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN ABOUT THIS, AND TOZAN
SAID, "THE MONK KNEW THE TRUTH -- HE JUST DIDN'T WANT TO MAKE OBEISANCE TO THE
MASTER."
Friends,
One of the sannyasins has asked me a
question.
IF THE TRUTH
IS ONE, THEN WHY DO ALL THE MASTERS, ALL THE AWAKENED ONES, SPEAK IN DIFFERENT WAYS?
SOMETIMES IT EVEN LOOKS AS IF THEY ARE CONTRADICTORY.
The truth is certainly one, but it has
multidimensional reality, and every master has to choose a certain dimension. You cannot
speak all the dimensions together.
Every master has his own style, his own way
of speaking, his own way of conveying. The higher you rise in consciousness and awareness,
the more you become unique, the more you become individual.
But let me explain to you:
Individuality is not personality.
Personality is given by the society to you.
Individuality is your intrinsic nature. Personality is fake, a fraud. Individuality is
your innermost buddha, your innermost enlightenment, your innermost door to the divine.
But every master is bound to be unique in his
expressions. They are all saying the same thing, they are all indicating towards the same
moon, but their fingers are different. They are bound to be different. The finger of
Buddha, the finger of Lao Tzu, the finger of Chuang Tzu, are bound to be different. If you
pay too much attention to the finger, there is every possibility you will forget the
purpose. The purpose was not the finger, the purpose was the moon.
All the differences are in the fingers, in
their expressions. The experience of truth is one, but to bring it to expression, every
master has to find his own device. That's why even enlightened people appear to you to be
speaking differently, even contradictorily -- because existence does not have
one-dimensional sources, it is multidimensional. It is comprehensive of all
contradictions. All contradictions melt into one cosmos.
Now, you cannot express the whole cosmos in
any statement. All philosophies fall short, and all languages appear impotent. All
theologies only manage a very partial truth. And remember, a partial truth is not truth.
You cannot cut truth into parts. It is one, and organically one, not mechanically one.
You can take a car apart, and you can put
those parts together again, but you cannot do the same with a living organism. You cannot
take a man's parts apart, and then put them together. You can do it, but the man will not
be there. There will be only a corpse in your hands.
But it is one of the most difficult problems
faced by all awakened ones: How to convey it?
They find devices, methods, meditations. They
open doors so that you can look at the truth yourself. Of course, every master will have
his own door. Existence has millions of approaches, and when a master reaches to the
truth, he reaches by one path. Obviously, he will talk about the path by which he has
reached to the truth.
Truth is one, but paths are many. And unless
we understand it, there is going to be a constant conflict and misunderstanding in the
minds of the seekers.
I am reminded of one of the greatest Urdu poets, Ghalib. Three hundred years have passed, but in three hundred years no poet so
great has been born in the Urdu language. It is a very poetic language, I don't think
there is any other language in the world which is so poetic. Contemporary languages are
bound to be non-poetic; they have to be scientific, exact. Poetry is flexible; poetry does
not say directly, it only hints.
This great poet, Mirza Ghalib, has a very
beautiful statement. I would like to repeat it first in his own language, then I will
translate it.
HAIN AUR BHI DUNIYAN MEN SUKHANBAR BAHUT
ACHCHHE
KAHTE HAIN GHALIB KA HAI ANDAJE BAYAN AUR.
HAIN... DUNIYAN MEN SUKHANBAR BAHUT ACHCHHE
.... In the world there are many great poets,
but it is said that Ghalib's way of saying, his style, his nuance, is absolutely unique.
Every master is unique, just like an Everest,
standing far higher, touching the stars -- alone. Never compare two masters. Comparison is
not the right thing in the world of masters. Comparison is mind-oriented, it is
intellectual, and the master's realization is beyond the mind, it is spiritual. In the
world of spirit, in the world of godliness, there is no question of comparison. Every one
is unique, but surrendered, dedicated to the same truth from different angles. It needs a
tremendous capacity of understanding, and that understanding has not to be of the mind, it
has to be of meditation.
Mind can understand everything that is
outside you. All that is objective is available to the mind: science and technology,
philosophy and theology -- all are mind-oriented.
But that which is within you is behind the
mind, beyond the mind. It opens itself in your meditations, when you start dropping your
thoughts and relaxing deeper and deeper, when only a witness is left. The body is far away
and no more you, the mind is just an echo in the valleys, and is no more you. In the
innermost core of your being there is no thought, no cloud, a great silence.
In that silence arises authentic
understanding. In that silence you are closest to the divine. That silence is a way, a
bridge, a path, a connection to the ultimate.
Once you know the ultimate, the difficulty
arises: How to convey it? And there is a tremendous urge to convey it, because millions of
people are living in darkness, in blindness, stumbling, finding no way out. Millions of
people are born in the night and die in the night; there is no dawn in their lives.
When one comes to the dawn, when one realizes
the sunrise and his whole being becomes full of light and beauty and blessings, he wants
to share it. This desire to share comes autonomously.
But how to share that which is beyond words?
All masters have been struggling to find some
way to communicate, to commune. That's why you find differences in their statements.
Rather than thinking about their statements, it will be better to go within yourself and
find the truth.
Nobody can help you. The masters can only
show the way; you have to walk.
Nobody can come inside you. That is the
dignity of man, a great privilege: nobody can interfere in your inner life. You are alone
there, the suprememost sovereign.
But people have got into trouble because they
have started imitating. You can imitate a buddha, you can have the same clothes, you can
walk the same way, you can eat the same kind of food. You can follow all the moral
principles, but you will still be an actor, you will not be a buddha.
It
happened ... There were three monasteries deep in the
mountains. All three belonged to different Christian sects.
One day it happened by coincidence that the
three abbots of the monasteries had gone for a morning walk and they all met on the
crossroads. They talked about matters concerning their monasteries and other problems.
Finally one of them said, "I have to
tell you that as far as scholarship is concerned, my monastery is far higher than your
monasteries."
The second one said, "That is true. As
far as scholarship is concerned, your people are great scholars. But don't forget, as far
as discipline is concerned, my monastery is far higher than yours. And also remember,
scholarship is not going to help. It can make you knowledgeable, but it cannot make you
wise. You have to walk the path of discipline; then only can you become a wise man."
The third was silent up to now. He laughed,
and he said, "You both are right. But as far as humbleness is concerned, we are the
tops!"
Humbleness ... and the desire is to be the
tops.
You can be humble, you can force yourself to
be humble, you can repress your ego -- but that humbleness will not be true humbleness. It
will be just inverted ego. It will be low-key ego.
Once a man touched my feet. I told him,
"There is no need ...."
He said, "It is not your concern. I am
just the dust underneath your feet."
To provoke that man, I said, "That's
right!"
Immediately he became angry. He said,
"You tell me that I am just the dust under your feet?"
I said, "I have not said anything. You
were saying it, I simply agreed."
Humbleness, or any other quality which makes
you religious, if practiced from the outside makes you an actor. If it arises from the
inside, out of your own experience of the intelligence of existence, then it has a
different flavor, a different fragrance -- the fragrance of the freshly-opened rose.
Then you are neither egoist nor humble,
because humbleness and ego, both are two sides of the same phenomenon. You simply are.
This being, simply to be, makes you enlightened, gives you new insight into matters.
It
happened in America, when they were celebrating some birth
anniversary of Abraham Lincoln. They searched all over America for a man who would look
like Abraham Lincoln -- and they found him. A man looked almost the same, so they chose
that man, they trained him.
Abraham Lincoln used to stutter a little, so
that man had to be trained to stutter. Abraham Lincoln was a little lame in one foot, so
he started walking like a lame person. One year's continuous training ... and the next
year they were going to celebrate the birthday the whole year, all over America.
In one year of continuously practicing and
practicing and practicing, and then the second year going from one city to another city,
from one part to another part, and playing the role of Abraham Lincoln, the man became so
much obsessed with the idea that when he came home he came as a lame man, stuttering.
First the family thought that he was joking.
The festival was over. They told him, "Now you don't have to do all this."
He said, "What do you mean? I AM Abraham
Lincoln." Those two years had got into his head.
They thought he would calm down, but he did
not. Those two years had been too heavy and hot. He was calm and cool, and absolutely
certain that he was Abraham Lincoln.
They took him to the psychiatrist. The
psychiatrist tried in every possible way, but with no success at all. He was feeling very
much harassed and tortured by everybody in his town, by his friends, by his family. And
now the psychiatrists, psychoanalysts -- they started harassing him.
Finally the psychoanalyst he was visiting put
him on the lie detector. If he was lying, the detector would show it. Because of so much
harassment the man thought, "It is not worth it!" So when he was standing on the
lie detector and the psychoanalyst asked him, "Are you Abraham Lincoln?", he
said, "No" -- and the lie detector said, "He is lying, he IS Abraham
Lincoln!"
Acting can go so deep in your unconscious
layers of the mind that it is beyond your consciousness. You have only a small thin layer
of consciousness; compared to it, your unconscious is nine times bigger. If something
enters into your unconscious, you will start behaving like Jesus, you will start behaving
like Mohammed. But it will be just acting and nothing else, and acting is not a
transformation of your being.
I am against imposing any discipline on
yourself from the outside -- according to others. I am in favor, in absolute favor,
categorically, that your life should arise from your own inner springs. From your own
awakening the morality, the discipline will follow, just like a shadow follows you.
The world is living in tremendous misery
because of your so-called moralists, puritans, who have been imposing things from the
outside. Those things enter into the unconscious, and the man starts behaving in a certain
manner -- but he is a robot.
Unless your potential that you have brought
with you, which you have been carrying from eternity -- unless that potential, that seed
sprouts and starts gathering more and more foliage, and brings blossoms to your being,
then morality is a small matter.
You don't have to listen to Moses and his Ten
Commandments; you will find your own commandments. Unless you are in direct contact with
the divineness of existence, all that you are doing is creating a persona, a personality
... fake, fraud, hypocrisy.
I
have heard that when God created the world, he went around
with the Ten Commandments. He asked the Babylonians, "Would you like to have one
commandment?"
They said, "What is it?" Naturally,
first you should inquire what the commandment is.
God said, "You should not commit
adultery."
The Babylonians said, "Forget all about
it. What shall we do then? In this meaningless life, adultery is the only game. Just get
lost!"
God was very angry, but what to do? If they
won't take ... He went to the Egyptians, he went to other races, but everybody asked,
"First tell us what the commandment is." And they all refused. They said,
"We don't want anybody else to tell us what to do. We want to find from our own
innermost spring what is right and what is wrong."
And then finally he came across Moses, who
had been struggling in the desert of Saudi Arabia for forty years continuously to find the
Holy Land, Israel. Almost two-thirds of the original group that he had taken from Egypt
had died on the way.
By the time he reached Israel he was old,
utterly tired, and there had grown a generation gap, because his old friends with whom he
had come had almost all died; a new generation had come up. In fact, a third generation
was growing up, and they didn't have any respect for Moses. They didn't know the fellow:
Who is this man who goes on commanding, "Do this, don't do that"?
But it was not his fault. It was God who had
met Moses, and not knowing the Jews exactly, he asked him, "Would you like to have
one commandment?" -- very hesitantly, because he had been refused everywhere else.
But Moses asked a totally different question.
He did not ask, "What is the commandment?", he said, "How much does it
cost?" Just like a Jew ...
God said, "It is free."
Then Moses said, "I will take ten. If it
is free, why take only one?"
But any commandments taken from anybody --
even from God -- are not going to give you a revolution in your being. They will only
create an actor, a pretender, a hypocrite, a repressed person, inhibited, feeling guilty
on every account. Whatever he does goes against the commandments.
But ten commandments are nothing compared to
Gautam Buddha, who has thirty-three thousand principles for every Buddhist monk to follow.
You cannot even remember them. Thirty-three thousand ...? Every detailed gesture of your
life is completely controlled from outside.
I hate the very idea of being controlled from
outside. I love the flowering of your being. And I am absolutely certain -- because
whenever your potential blossoms, there is no question of choice, of what is right and
what is wrong. You choose the right without choosing. It is choiceless, the only
alternative.
For a man of clarity, for a man of absolute
perceptiveness, for a man full of light beyond the mind, life becomes a choiceless
phenomenon. You simply do the right thing. It is not that you think that it is right,
"That's why I am doing it."
With me, the definition of right and wrong,
good and bad, sin and virtue, absolutely changes. Whatever the enlightened person does is
right. Whatever the enlightened person does not do, is wrong.
So I don't teach you any discipline, any
morality. I simply teach you to be awake, and in your awareness you cannot do anything
wrong. You cannot harm anybody, you cannot violate anybody's freedom, you cannot interfere
into anybody's territory. A great respect for life, reverence for life, arises in you, and
it has nothing to do with your religion, it has nothing to do with your belief systems.
A man of awareness does not belong to any
organized religion. Organized religion is against religiousness. Every organized religion
kills the truth!
The ancient story is:
A man found the truth.
A little devil came running to the old devil
and asked him, "What are you doing here?"
The old devil was smoking a cigarette. He
said, "My son, cool down. What is the matter?"
The little devil said, "You are sitting
here, and one man has found the truth! Our whole business is at risk!"
The old devil said, "Sit down. Take a
cigarette. My people have already reached there."
The little devil said, "But I am coming
from there, and I have not seen any devils!"
The old devil said, "Devils are not
needed, my people have reached there. They are the priests, they are the rabbis, they are
the popes, they are the shankaracharyas, they are the imams. They have reached there, and
they will organize the truth, and once the truth is organized, it is finished! They will
surround the man, and they will not allow the people to approach the man. They will
interpret the man, and in their interpretation the truth will be lost."
The last commandment from the pope has been
... He has found a new sin; it is a great discovery. People have been sinning just in the
old way, routine. He should be counted as a great pioneer!
The new sin is that you should not
communicate with God directly; you should only communicate through the priest.
As far as I can see, that's what the devil
was meaning, that "the priests are there, they are my people, they serve me."
They talk about God, but talking about God, creating belief in people about God, does not
help any transformation.
Belief is not needed. What is needed is
knowing. Belief simply hides your ignorance, it does not make any rebellion in your being.
Once Sri Raman, one of the great seers of this age, was asked by a journalist
coming from the West, "Do you believe in God?"
Sri Raman said, "No."
The man was shocked. He had heard that this
man has realized God, and he says he does not believe in God! He repeated the question. He
said, "Have you heard me rightly? I am asking, `Do you believe in God?'"
Raman said, "I have heard it. Do you
understand what I have said? I don't believe in God, because I know. There is no need of
belief. I know the whole existence is divine. There is no personal God anywhere. Every
part of this universe is divine. I know it, there is no question of believing."
Beliefs are to distract people from
discovering the beauty, the grandeur, the splendor, the divinity of existence. And this is
what all the priests of all the religions are doing all over the world: programming people
into believing certain things -- God, heaven, hell, right, wrong, what is virtue, what is
sin.
I would like you to know exactly the meaning
of the word `sin'. It does not mean what the Christians say, it means forgetfulness. In
its root it means forgetfulness of your being.
So there is only one sin: forgetfulness of
your being. And there is only one virtue: that is, remembering yourself. And the moment
you remember yourself, this whole existence becomes a totally different place. A great
love arises, a great compassion arises. It is not that you cultivated it, you simply found
it, just as in a flower opening in the morning sun, the flower discovers its own fragrance
for the first time. Amazed! -- a mystery was hidden inside him, a splendor -- he dances in
the wind, in the rain, in the sun, just with the sheer blissfulness of having such a
beautiful fragrance.
Remembering yourself, you don't have to be
part of any organized religion. You have a direct communication with existence. No
argument is needed to prove it, you know it. Argument is needed only when you don't know
it. Do you need any argument for the sun, for the moon, for the starry night? Do you need
any argument for things that you know? You need arguments for hell, you need arguments and
great theological systems to prove heaven.
It is strange that all religions are
concerned with hell, with heaven, with God. No religion seems to be concerned with you.
They are all concerned with past, they are all concerned with future. No religion seems to
be concerned with the present.
All religions are life-negative, they deny
life -- and to deny life is to deny God. That is the only denial. Whoever denies life and
teaches renouncing life is an atheist; he is against the divinity of existence. Whoever
teaches you to live life in its totality, with great affirmation, rejoicing, singing and
dancing ... then this very moment the whole existence becomes divine.
In your dance it becomes divine.
In your joy it becomes divine.
In your blissfulness it becomes divine.
In your ecstasy you reach to the highest peak
of divineness.
Unless you know your own divineness you
cannot know the divinity of existence. That is just the beginning: to know your divineness
is the first step in knowing the divineness of the whole existence.
This existence has never been created. The
whole argument is absolutely wrong. All religions think everything has to be created,
otherwise from where will it come?
But they don't think, "From where does
God come?" If God created the world, from where is he coming? Who created him? And if
God can be uncreated, then what is the point of bringing in an unnecessary hypothesis?
This is a basic principle of all scientific
research: don't bring in unnecessary hypotheses. Work it out with the minimum of
hypotheses.
If God is to be created by another bigger
God, you will end in an absurdity -- what logicians call regressum infinitum. You will
regress into infinity and you will not find the answer. The question will remain standing
exactly where it was: Who created the last God?
Existence is enough.
Hence I teach you godliness, but not God.
God is the invention of the priest. God is a
fiction to console you, to make you afraid, to make you guilty. All religions depend on
your guilt, on your fear -- but that is not authentic religiousness.
Authentic religiousness will make you
unafraid, fearless; not a slave, not a puppet in the hands of some unknown God, some
fiction.
According to my experience, if there is God,
it is against man's freedom. If God has created you, why did he create you?
According to Christianity, God created the
world only four thousand years before Jesus. It is only six thousand years ago that God
created the world. What has he been doing since eternity? And what was the cause that
suddenly he decided to create this world? And if God created the world in a whimsical way,
without any reason and rhyme ... For eternity he had been in a deep slumber, and suddenly
he woke up, six thousand years ago. It must have been January, the first of January, and
certainly a Monday, because he worked six days, and on Sunday he disappeared for eternal
holidays. Since then he has not been known.
One
of my tailors, an old man, told me a very beautiful thing. I
was going on a tour. I told him, "Exactly within six days you have to prepare my
clothes. Saturday evening I will collect them. And I am a perfectionist ... so put aside
all your other work."
He said, "Okay -- but have you had a
look at the world?"
I said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "God created this world. Do you
see the mess? I can make your clothes in six days, but they will be all in a mess. It is
up to you to choose."
I said, "You are right -- looking at the
world."
In three thousand years there have been five
thousand wars. What more mess do you need?
All the nations are trying hard to become
nuclear. This poor country has become nuclear. Half of the nation is starving, but the
politicians are not interested in the five hundred million people who are going to die
within ten years.
This whole country will become a big
cemetery. Half of the people are going to die. One will die out of two, and there will not
be enough people to carry the corpses to the funeral pyres or to the graveyards. You will
be surrounded by corpses. It will be impossible to live. Your whole country will be
stinking of death!
But your politicians are not concerned about
it. They are concerned about making the country nuclear; they have already made it.
It seems to be absolutely a mess. It is a
proof that it has not been created, it is evolving accidentally. It is up to man, not up
to God, to put it right. But man can put it right only if he puts himself right.
It is very difficult to convince the
unconscious masses that the world is moving towards a global suicide. By the end of this
century, perhaps, the only planet in the universe which has created people like Buddha and
Jesus, people like Lao Tzu and Rinzai, will disappear. In the whole of existence, millions
of stars and millions of galaxies are absolutely without any life. This is a miracle, that
this small earth ... It is very small, you don't understand its smallness.
The sun is six thousand times bigger than
this earth, and this sun is a mediocre star in the universe; there are bigger suns, far
bigger. This does not count for much, this is a small galaxy.
But this earth is our home. Unless we put
ourselves right, we cannot put humanity right, we cannot put this earth in such a way as
to live beautifully. There is no need of nations, there is no need of religions, there is
no need of races. It is one earth, it is one world, it is one truth, it is one divinity.
But one has first to search within oneself.
I
have heard about a man who became mad. That was not bad --
but in his madness he started thinking that he was dead.
Everybody tried to convince him, "You
are alive. You eat, you drink, you sleep, you go for a morning walk -- and you say you are
dead?"
He said, "I know perfectly well I am
dead! Who told you that dead people don't go for a morning walk?" It was very strange
of the fellow. He argued, "Who told you that dead people don't eat? Perhaps you are
also dead, you simply have forgotten to remember when you died! I remember."
He was taken to the psychiatrist. There is no
other place, although psychiatry has not been of any help to anybody. But what to do? --
except psychiatry and psychoanalysis, there is nowhere to go, although they have not been
of any help.
Now even the greatest psychoanalysts are
saying that psychoanalysis is on its way to dying, because people have not been helped by
it at all. Fifteen years of psychoanalysis, twenty years of psychoanalysis ... your whole
bank account is shifted to the psychoanalyst, and you are the same -- perhaps more insane.
The psychoanalyst said, "Don't be
worried. I have treated many people like this. Sit down."
The dead man sat down. He said, "Do you
think you are alive?"
The psychoanalyst said, "Have you come
here for treatment or to give me treatment?"
The madman said, "Just by the way, I
have inquired whether you are still alive. These people think they are alive, and I am
saying the truth, from the very bottom of my heart, that I am a dead man."
The psychoanalyst was a very clever, very
experienced man. He took out a knife and cut the man's hand, just slightly so that blood
came out. Before cutting the hand he asked the man, "Have you ever heard -- when you
used to be alive -- that dead men don't bleed?"
The madman said, "That's true. I have
heard -- while I was alive -- a proverb that dead men don't bleed."
Then the analyst cut the dead man's hand and
the blood came. He said, "Aha! And now ...?"
The dead man said even more loudly,
"Aha! That means the proverb is wrong: dead men do bleed. This is a proof!"
Now, what to do with people? If you want to
help them, it is not an easy job. It is one of the most difficult things to help somebody
towards spiritual exploration, to move someone towards his inner space.
That's exactly my work here.
My only concern is to make you aware of your
innermost center, and then everything will follow on its own accord.
The sutras:
OUR BELOVED MASTER
ON ONE OCCASION, YAKUSAN WROTE DOWN THE
CHINESE CHARACTER SIGNIFYING BUDDHA, AND ASKED HIS DISCIPLE, DOGO: "WHAT IS THIS
LETTER?"
DOGO REPLIED, "IT IS THE LETTER FOR
`BUDDHA'."
Perfectly factual and right -- but in the
vision of a master it is a totally different thing.
Does Dogo think that the master does not know
what the character signifies? His answer implies that the master is ignorant of the
significance of the Chinese character.
If he had understood, he would have remained
silent. His silence would have been the right answer. He would have remained silent,
showing the master that "You know it already, why are you harassing me?" But, on
the contrary, he said, "IT IS THE LETTER FOR `BUDDHA'." He showed his knowledge.
Before a master you should show your heart,
you should show your innocence, not your knowledge. All knowledge is rubbish! All
knowledge is borrowed. Dogo missed the point.
YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU ARE A MONK SO
FULL OF CHATTER!" -- and he had only said one word. But the master is right. One word
has come out, but the chattering mind -- yakkety-yak, yakkety-yak -- goes on inside. From
where has this "buddha" come? From that yakkety-yak, he has just pulled out one
word. He is not a silent man.
The master was disappointed. He hoped that
Dogo would remain silent, knowing that "The master knows, he is unnecessarily pulling
my leg." Or, if he wanted to answer him, he could have touched his feet. This would
have showed that "That character shows you, the buddha."
Gautam the Buddha is not the only buddha in
the history of the world; there have been thousands of buddhas around the world, in
different parts of the world. They may not be known as buddhas, because `buddha' simply
means the awakened one. It is not the name of Gautam Buddha; his name was Gautam
Siddharth. Buddha is his awakening, his enlightenment, his knowing himself and existence.
Anybody who becomes awakened can be called a
buddha, it is nobody's monopoly. The word does not belong to Gautam Buddha, it is not his
name; it is the quality that has happened to him, his awakening. Anybody awake, anywhere
in the world, has the right to be called a buddha.
Yakusan was an enlightened master, with
thousands of disciples. Hundreds became enlightened under his guidance. Just touching his
feet would have been the right gesture of a man of understanding, that "It signifies
you." But there is no need to use words. Just touch the feet of the master. Or, if
you have courage enough, then slap the master: "What do you mean? You know it and
still you want to harass me?"
In Zen, slapping the master is a very common
routine. It is the only religion in which the master and the disciple are not inferior or
superior. Sometimes the master hits the disciple, sometimes the disciple hits the master.
A great master, Rinzai, called his most intimate disciple suddenly in the
middle of the night. The disciple was meditating outside the master's house. He came in.
The master said, "I had to call you. I
love to hit you. As I see it, you are coming too close; by the morning you will be a
buddha, and I will not be able to hit you. So this is the last time" -- and he hit
him! And the disciple touched his feet in gratitude.
Zen is a very special world. It has its own
ways which are absolutely unknown outside this small stream of buddhas. It is not an
organized religion, it is pure religion, simple religion. The individual is far more
important than the church.
It was so loving of Rinzai to call his
disciple. Slapping him was sheer love and joy: "I have been enjoying slapping you for
years. From tomorrow morning, I will not be able to slap you; on the contrary, if you want
you can slap me."
And exactly the next morning, the disciple
came in and slapped the master. The master laughed and he touched the feet of the
disciple, just as in the night the disciple had touched his feet.
There is no problem of any superiority or
inferiority. One is awake, one is asleep, but the asleep one can become awake any moment.
Rather than answering Yakusan, if Dogo had
done something to express it -- slapping the master, touching his feet, or just remaining
silent, closing his eyes and sitting in a buddha posture -- that would have given the
answer.
Language cannot answer such questions. You
have to show your understanding, not your knowledge. You have to show your wisdom, not
your information. You have to show your transformation.
Dogo missed, utterly missed.
YAKUSAN COMMENTED, "YOU ARE A MONK
SO FULL OF CHATTER! You have not gone beyond the mind
yet?"
ONCE, AT THE EVENING DISCOURSE, YAKUSAN DID
NOT LIGHT THE CANDLE AS USUAL. A MONK CAME AND STOOD BY HIS SIDE.
You never know with the Zen masters. You are
absolutely incapable of predicting their behavior, because they live spontaneously, they
don't have a certain ritual to repeat. Nobody knows the reason why he did not light the
candle as usual. The assembly was completely in the dark.
ONE MONK CAME AND STOOD BY HIS SIDE. YAKUSAN
SAID, "I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PHRASE."
This is a special Zen expression. When the
master says, "I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PHRASE," he does not mean he has a phrase;
he simply means he has something to confer, not to convey, but to transfer.
He said, "I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL PHRASE.
IF A BULL GIVES BIRTH, I WILL TELL IT TO YOU." Now, bulls don't give birth, so he is
making an absolutely absurd statement: "IF A BULL GIVES BIRTH, I WILL TELL IT TO
YOU."
The monk must have been an enlightened one.
THE MONK SAID, "THE BULL HAS ALREADY GIVEN BIRTH LONG AGO, AND YOU JUST KEEP NOT
REVEALING IT. It is time you should reveal it. What do you mean by `the phrase'? It is
time you should convey, you should transfer it, you should unburden yourself, because the
bull has given birth long ago."
YAKUSAN ASKED IMMEDIATELY FOR A LIGHT -- he
wanted to see the monk. He had given the right answer.
YAKUSAN ASKED FOR A LIGHT. WHEN THE CANDLE
WAS BROUGHT IN, THE MONK RETREATED AND DISAPPEARED INTO THE ASSEMBLY OF MONKS. There were
thousands of monks.
LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN -- two other masters
talking about the old days with Yakusan ...
LATER UNGAN TOLD TOZAN ABOUT THIS, AND TOZAN
SAID, "THE MONK KNEW THE TRUTH -- HE JUST DID NOT WANT TO MAKE OBEISANCE TO THE
MASTER."
There is every possibility you will
misunderstand it. You will think Tozan is saying that the monk knew the truth, but he did
not want to touch the feet of the master. You will think he was an egoist. No. A man who
knows the truth cannot have the ego. They both cannot exist together, there is no
coexistence possible between truth and ego. Then what is the meaning? Why did he
disappear?
My understanding is, he disappeared because
he did not want even to be recognized, because that desire to be recognized is part of the
ego. He did not even want to be grateful to the master. Not that he was not grateful -- he
was so grateful that to show it by touching his feet was very miserly.
There was no way to show the gratitude to the
master, and he did not want any recognition. He simply disappeared in the crowd, just as
inside he had disappeared in the cosmos. He is no more, who is going to touch the feet?
In the darkness it was perfectly okay,
because the master could not see him. But when the light was brought in, he simply
disappeared.
This anecdote has been misunderstood by the
scholars very much. I have seen their commentaries; they all think it was because of his
ego. But they don't understand -- scholars cannot understand -- they don't see that the
monk knew the truth; how can he have the ego? You can have either the ego or the truth.
Ego is your personality, the truth is your
individuality. You have to drop the personality. You have to stand utterly naked before
existence. You have to melt down like ice into the ocean of this great divineness all
around.
America has not produced any great mystic, it
has not produced any great psychoanalyst. But one psychologist, William James --
everything else about him was ordinary, but one thing he brought, a phrase, "oceanic
experience." The religious experience is an oceanic experience. Just for this small
phrase, this small statement, I consider him to be one of the greatest psychologists that
we have produced anywhere around the globe. He has touched exactly the right point.
Religious experience is an oceanic
experience, a dewdrop slipping from the lotus leaf into the ocean -- in one way,
disappearing into the ocean, in another way, the ocean disappearing into the dewdrop, both
becoming one.
The monk simply disappeared into the crowd
because he did not want to be recognized. He did not want even to pay obeisance to the
master, because that would also be in some way a hidden desire to be recognized by the
master.
But a man who has understood the truth needs
no recognition. He becomes a nobody. In Buddha's language, he becomes anatta, he becomes a
no-self.
He is no more; only the existence is.
It is a beautiful anecdote for you to
meditate, to contemplate on.
Sampu wrote:
CHILD WAITING EARTHBOUND.
CLOUD SPARROW
HIGHER AND HIGHER.
It is a small haiku. It says, CHILD WAITING
EARTHBOUND ... a child in the mother's womb is waiting to come to the earth. First one has
to get roots into the earth; only then you can spread your branches into the sky like
wings. Unless you have roots, you cannot spread your wings into the sky. The deeper the
roots, the higher goes the tree ... almost reaching to the stars.
Only one painter in the West, Vincent van
Gogh, a Dutch painter, had such tremendous insight -- almost the insight of a mystic, very
close to being a buddha. He always painted his trees surpassing the stars. The stars
remained underneath the trees, and the trees went beyond the stars. Whenever he was asked,
"What are you doing? This is simply insane. No tree can reach beyond the stars!"
...
The closest star is four light years away --
the closest. You have to understand four light years. Scientists had to find a new
measurement; yards and feet and miles would no longer do. This is the measurement for the
stars -- the distance is so vast. What is a light year? A light year is: light travels in
a single second one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles -- in one second, one hundred
and eighty-six thousand miles. Now multiply it by sixty, that will be one minute. Multiply
it again by sixty, that will be one hour. Multiply it by twenty-four, that will be one
day. Multiply it by thirty, that will be one month. Multiply it by twelve, that will be
one year -- one light year! The nearest star is four light years away.
If we can ever in our wildest dreams think of
a rocket moving at the same speed as light, which is impossible ... It is impossible
because at the speed of light everything becomes light. That very speed turns everything
into light, so you cannot have a rocket moving at the speed of light. You and the rocket
both will become light.
But just to help you understand: if you move
at the speed of light, you will take four years to reach to the closest star -- and there
are already four million stars counted in the universe, and this is not the end; this is
the end of our instruments. Beyond those four million stars there is still infinity. We
can never reach to the boundary line, because there is no boundary line to existence.
Van Gogh was asked again and again, "Are
you mad?" But he said, "I have been sitting by the side of the trees, listening
where they are going, and I have always heard that the trees are our earth's ambition to
reach to the stars. My paintings are not factual, they are poetic. They are the ambitions
of the earth to reach to the stars."
He is the only man, a very rare man, who
looked at stars not the way we look. He looked at stars as spirals. Nobody had ever looked
at stars as spirals. People asked him, "What are you doing?" He said, "What
can I do? Whenever I close my eyes I see the stars as spirals."
It took one hundred years, but just now
physicists have come to the point that stars are spiral. Van Gogh was right, although he
had no instruments, and eyes cannot see it.
He was so much obsessed with the sun ... he
wanted to paint the perfect sunset. The whole day he would wait under the sun, watching
and watching and watching. And then all the psychedelic colors on the horizon, and the sun
setting ... He painted for almost one year, but rejected all those paintings because
nothing was coming close to the beauty and the ecstasy and the silence, and the birds
returning home, and the sun setting. And those psychedelic colors on the clouds, on the
horizon ... never repeated again, always original.
The day he finished his painting to his
satisfaction -- he was only thirty-three years old -- he wrote a letter to his brother
saying that "My work is done. Now I don't have unnecessarily to be a burden on the
earth" -- and he committed suicide.
He painted thousands of paintings, but not a
single painting was ever sold, because nobody could understand his paintings. They were so
strange, but they were absolutely real to him.
Sampu is saying, "Child waiting in the
mother's womb" -- for what? -- earthbound, he wants to get to the earth, to get his
roots deep into the earth, because unless you have roots in the earth you cannot rise into
the sky, you cannot be a cedar of Lebanon, four hundred feet high. Then you need
four-hundred-foot-deep roots. A balance is needed, otherwise the tree will fall.
This is one of my basic and essential
approaches, that unless you are deeply rooted in materialism you cannot rise into
spirituality.
The East has committed one mistake: it has
been trying to reach to the stars without going deeper into the earth, and it has been a
complete failure. The West has committed another mistake: it goes on growing the roots
into the earth, into matter, and it has forgotten completely about the stars.
Hence my continuous emphasis that every one
of you has to be a Zorba the Buddha. Zorba is the roots in the earth, and the buddha is a
longing to fly into ultimate freedom, to reach to the space which is unbounded.
CHILD WAITING EARTHBOUND.
CLOUD SPARROW
HIGHER AND HIGHER.
... And a bird, a cloud sparrow, goes on
higher and higher into the sky. Both need a great synthesis.
Our world is suffering because we have
not been able to create a synthesis between East and West, between earth and sky, between
spirit and matter, between your inner and the outer. Unless this great synthesis is
achieved, humanity has no hope.
A question from Maneesha:
OUR BELOVED MASTER,
YOUR MASTERLINESS LAST NIGHT WAS
AWE-INSPIRING.
IT SEEMS IRONICAL, BUT DOES THE DISCIPLE ONLY
REALLY COMPREHEND THE MASTER'S COMPASSION WHEN HE IS ENLIGHTENED AND THUS NO LONGER SO
DEPENDENT ON IT?
Maneesha, here nobody is dependent on me. You
want to be dependent, but I won't allow it. It is because of your desire to be dependent
that you have created organized religions. You have become enslaved by all kinds of
churches, cults and creeds, because of your desire to be dependent. It is a
father-fixation, in the terms of psychoanalysis, because the child is so dependent on the
mother and the father.
If it is a boy, he becomes fixed on the
mother, and that is a great trouble. If it is a girl, she becomes fixed on the father.
Every girl her whole life will be trying to find a father-figure in her husband -- and
that is impossible. Nothing is being repeated. You cannot find your father as a husband.
Hence, every woman is frustrated, no husband seems to be right. Every man is disappointed
-- because no woman is going to be your mother.
Now, it is a very strange problem. The
husband is trying to find his mother in the wife, the wife is trying to find her father in
the husband. There is constant struggle, fight. Marriage is hellfire.
How do people manage to live together? It is
a miracle. Because they are miserable as a husband, as a wife, they have to find some
consolation somewhere else -- in God, in the priest.
It is not without any reason that Christian
priests are called "father" -- even Catholic priests. Do you see the
contradiction? They are unmarried, and you call them father. Now they are trying to find
mothers, to become really fathers, but the Vatican is against it.
Why do you call God, "the Father"?
And there are Mother Goddesses also ....
These are fixations of childhood. You were
dependent then. How long are you going to be parasites on your parents? Twenty-five years
... Up to the time you become a Ph.D. from the university, you are a parasite. The father
and mother want you to be independent -- now it is time! -- but in twenty-five years
without being aware of it they have taught only one thing: be dependent.
Now you are thrown into the world. Your whole
psychology demands somebody to be your savior -- a Jesus. You are ready to become sheep,
some shepherd is needed -- somebody to console you, "Don't be worried. Just believe
in me and I will save you. I will take care of you."
Some God is needed who is omnipotent; he has
to be, otherwise how will he take care of so many billions of people? He has to be
all-knowing, present everywhere -- omnipotent, all-powerful; omniscient, all-knowing;
omnipresent, everywhere available. This is our desire. And the priest certainly exploits
humanity because of this dependence. The priest consoles.
Karl Marx was right when he said that
religion is the opium of the people. The organized so-called religions are certainly the
opium of the people.
I will not call religiousness the opium of
the people. That is a totally different phenomenon. No God, no fathers, no priest, no
rabbi -- you are standing on your own feet. Your trust is in existence itself -- no
mediator.
Maneesha, my whole effort is that you should
not be dependent on me, whether you are enlightened or not. If you are not enlightened, it
is needed even more -- no dependence -- because a dependent person is spiritually a slave,
and a slave has no right to become enlightened.
You have to declare your independence, your
freedom, even while you are not enlightened, because this freedom, this independence will
pave the path towards enlightenment.
Of course, after enlightenment there is no
need to be dependent. Because there is no need to be dependent, you can be grateful, you
can have compassion, and you can understand the compassion of the master. It is difficult
in your darkness, in your unconsciousness, to understand compassion and love.
But that should not be your concern at this
moment. At this moment, your sole concern is meditation. Go deeper into meditation and you
will find compassion, and you will find understanding of compassion. You will find
freedom, and you will find that freedom does not mean ungratefulness, unthankfulness.
There is no need to show it; your heart will
beat with it, your heart will continuously ring a bell of great blissfulness, benediction,
and of gratitude for the master. But it is not dependence.
No master who is authentic will ask your
surrender, your commitment. These are the frauds who ask your surrender, who ask your
commitment, who ask that "You have to be under my control, under my instructions. You
cannot leave the fold."
This is not a fold, this is purely a
gathering of individuals. It is not a society, neither is it a club, nor a church. It is
not an organization.
I love to share! -- and you are thirsty, and
I have enough water to share with you. Because I know the secret, the more I share the
more I have, so I am not a loser -- and you will be gaining deeper and deeper insights
into existence and its mysteries.
But there is no question of any dependence on
me. I am just your friend. It is your love if you call me your master. You are not
commanded to call me your master. You can call me your friend, you can even ask the
question without addressing me. The address is not the point.
You are related to me in deep love, without
any conditions -- either from your side or from my side.
I have to explain it to you.
Whenever you make somebody dependent on you,
you also become dependent on that person. Have you ever thought about it, that dependence
is a mutual phenomenon? The master of a slave is also a slave of the slave. The leader of
the people is also a follower of the people. The leader is continuously looking where the
masses are going; he jumps ahead, to remain the leader. He goes on saying what the masses
want to hear, and whether that is harmful or poisonous does not matter. Whatever the
masses want to hear, he goes on saying it.
Never make anybody dependent on you -- your
wife, your husband, your children -- because the more you make them dependent on you, the
more you are becoming dependent on them. Allow freedom to your wife, to your husband, to
your children. Help them to be independent, and that will help you to be independent of
them.
And if we can teach independence and freedom
to people, all fictions in religion will disappear.
I have heard ...
One rabbi and one Christian bishop were very
friendly. They used to go to the golf course together. They had made arrangements for the
coming Sunday, but the bishop said, "There is one difficulty. If many more people
come for confession I will be late. I will do it as quick as possible; you wait just in
front of the church."
The rabbi was waiting and waiting and
waiting, and it was getting late. Finally he got out of his car and went from the back
door into the church to the confessional booth, where the bishop was listening to the
confessions of people, and giving them punishments.
The rabbi said, "We are getting late,
and there is a long queue; it won't be finished by the evening. So I propose one thing:
just let me see how the confession is being done. You do just two cases, and then you go
and get ready, and I will finish this whole lot within minutes!"
The bishop said, "That's great!" --
so he showed him how.
One person said, "I have committed a
rape."
The bishop said, "Ten dollars in the
charity box, and five Hail Marys."
The rabbi said, "That's enough! You go
and get ready" -- and he sat in the bishop's chair.
There is a curtain and a small window so the
identity of the person is not known, only the voice is heard.
Another man came, and he said, "I too
have committed a rape."
The rabbi said, "Twenty dollars into the
charity box, and five Hail Marys."
The man said, "The rates have gone
higher within seconds! I heard ... just now you have told the other person to give only
ten dollars and five Hail Marys, and suddenly you are telling me twenty dollars?"
The rabbi said, "Don't be worried, my
son. Ten dollars are in advance. You can commit one rape more, no need to confess. I am in
a hurry, just pass on." And he finished the whole queue within minutes. He did not
hear what they were saying; he said, "I already know. Rape, theft, murder -- what
else can you do? So just name the crime, don't describe it to me, don't go into details. I
don't have much time. Just say, `Murder'; ten Hail Marys and thirty dollars in the charity
box, and get lost!"
The Christians thought, "It is very
strange. Our bishop never behaved like this!"
But by the time the bishop came he could not
believe it. The booth was empty.
The rabbi said, "This is a small
business, but you are doing well. In the synagogue we don't have such an institution. This
is absolutely against economic progress! I will try to start confession in the
synagogue."
But all the rabbis said, "Nonsense. That
is Christian, that cannot be done here."
So he went to meet the chief rabbi, and he
told him, "They are doing so much business. And Jesus was a Jew. He was born a Jew,
he lived a Jew, he died a Jew; he was never a Christian. He was our son! We should be the
inheritors of all his business."
The chief rabbi said, "Cool down."
His assistant was also present. The chief said, "We do business in a different way.
Look at me: my synagogue is the most ultra-modern."
Both the rabbis said, "What do you
mean?"
He said, "I allow people to smoke
cigarettes, or bring bottles of wine or beer -- whatever they prefer. Everything inside
the synagogue becomes holy. So people are coming ... the synagogue is packed."
The assistant said, "I have never told
you, but I am doing better. I allow them to bring their girlfriends also -- or boyfriends,
as the case may be. And all these things are ordinary, beer and wine and cigarettes --
that's okay. They can even make love, because that is what our basic teaching is: love --
and not only your wife, but also your neighbor's wife: love! So there is such a crowd, and
people are queueing outside, so we have to run the synagogue in shifts! Inside the
synagogue everything is holy."
The third man, who had come to find business,
said, "I have understood. Now I am going to do something even better."
They said, "What will you do?"
He said, "I am going to put a board in
front of the synagogue that on every Jewish holiday the synagogue will be closed. Let
people enjoy! That is the basic principle -- enjoyment. And for this enjoyment I am going
to charge. I am giving them one holiday completely -- no sermons, no sitting in the cold
seats, that is unnecessary trouble for people. So they have to pay, and the synagogue will
be closed on all Jewish holidays. It will be open otherwise -- but only on Jewish holidays
would the Jews come; on other days, nobody comes."
Religion has become a business -- all
religions -- and it has become a business because you are searching dependence. Now,
giving ten dollars and saying five Hail Marys, you feel unburdened -- unburdened to commit
another rape. It is cheap.
And that's why the pope says, "Don't
communicate directly with God, it is a sin!" Obviously it is a sin, because how will
the priest live? How will the Vatican bank live? Its turnover is perhaps the greatest of
any bank: one hundred billion dollars per year -- and all the money is heroin money.
The Italian government has issued an arrest
warrant for the bishop who was running the bank. They turn black money into white, it is
the biggest mafia. But the Vatican, although just eight square miles, is a sovereign
country, and the pope is not only the head of the Catholic church, he is also the head of
the Vatican sovereign country, just eight square miles. The Italian government cannot
enter there. So they were just waiting for that manager to come out -- but he would not
come out once he knew.
And do you know what the pope has done to
him? Rather than delivering him to the Italian government, because he is committing the
greatest crime, and the pope goes on speaking against drugs and his bank is dealing only
in drugs ... All the money that he is spending on his tours ...
When the pope went to Australia, he spent
eight million dollars. Just before him the queen of England had gone there, and she spent
only two million dollars. From where is this money coming?
Rather than giving him to the Italian
government, he has made the bishop a cardinal, promoted him because he is the source of
money.
It is true not only about the Catholic
church, it is the situation with all religions. But why do people give? They need
consolation, they need somebody to look up to, somebody who can promise them that they
will be saved from hell and hellfire.
Here, in this place, you have to learn to be
dependent only on you. Just search out your own sources. I can help you to be free, free
from everybody, including me, because I think freedom is the ultimate value.
Now it is time for Sardar Gurudayal Singh.
Sardar Gurudayal Singh has a special time
(SARDARJI GIVES A SPECIAL WHOOP AT THIS, AND EVERYBODY LAUGHS WITH HIM) because he is a
special man. (SARDARJI RELEASES AN EVEN LONGER "WHOOOOOOO!" ACCOMPANIED BY MORE
LAUGHTER.)
His speciality is -- there are many new
guests so I want to tell them -- that he is the only man in the whole world who laughs
before the joke is told!
And these jokes have a certain spiritual
purpose. We have been serious .... (SARDARJI PUNCTUATES AGAIN.) Before going into
meditation, you have to calm down, relax, laugh, forget all about religion .... (THIS
TIME, SARDARJI REALLY ENJOYS!)
It is a dark and stormy day at the Vatican. The bells are tolling
ominously, as inside, on his deathbed, lies Pope the Polack, breathing his last.
At the bedside there is a crowd of bishops,
cardinals, priests and other homosexuals, moaning and chanting. Cardinal Cats-ass is
crying his eyes out, as he is bent over the pope's face.
"Ah! Don't be upset," gasps Pope
the Polack. "Don't cry. The Vatican council will surely find a great man to take my
place. As a matter of fact, I am sure he will do much better than me."
"But," whimpers Catsass, "that
is just what they promised us last time!"
Dan Quayle, the vice president of America, gets called into George Bush's
office one morning.
"Dan," says Bush, handing him a box
of business cards, "Dan, these are your personal vice-presidential business cards.
They help you to remember who you are."
"Gee! Thanks, Mister Bush!" says
Quayle. "I shall always treasure them!"
"No, Dan," says Bush. "You use
them ... these cards are to influence people and show them how important you are."
"Gee! Thanks, Mister Bush!" says
Quayle. "I guess I really am important now!"
"Right, Dan!" says Bush. "Now
I want you to get out there and help the American farmers. Go out and visit some farms,
Dan. Just show them your card, Dan, and they will be able to get things done! Take the
bull by the horns, Dan!"
"Gee! Okay, Mister Bush," says
Quayle. "Here I go!" And he walks out.
Some time later, Dan Quayle finds himself at
old Farmer Zeke's place in Georgia.
He drives into the farmyard to find old Zeke
puffing on his pipe and leaning up against the railing. The old farmer can recognize an
idiot when he sees one, and he refuses to let Quayle look around the farm. So Dan Quayle
reaches into his pocket and pulls out his business card. Zeke inspects the card closely.
"What is this?" he asks.
"Well," explains Quayle.
"Mister Bush said, `Just show them your card and then you will be able to get things
done.'"
"Okay," says old Zeke, shaking his
head, "if that is the way you want it!"
Ten minutes later, old Zeke is still leaning
against the railing, smoking his pipe, when he suddenly hears loud screams coming from the
field. He looks around just in time to see Dan Quayle running for his life across the
grass. Right behind him, snorting furiously, comes Rambo, the big black bull.
"Hey! You idiot! What are you
doing?" shouts old Zeke. "Just show him your card!"
Bishop Ballsoff has a beautiful parrot called Lucy, who knows all sorts
of Catholic sermons and songs. However, Lucy does not really care for the Catholic
religion, and secretly learns to say, "Down with the Polack pope!"
One day, Lucy is sitting by the open window
when she starts screaming in a loud voice: "Down with the Polack pope. Down with the
Polack pope!"
Before long, the Catholic church committee is
told about this outrageous noise coming from the bishop's house. They immediately summon
Bishop Ballsoff to appear before them to explain himself.
The scene is tense in the church courtroom,
with Bishop Ballsoff and Lucy, the parrot, sharing the witness stand. Bishop Ballsoff is
testifying that it is Lucy who has been been causing all the trouble.
The prosecuting priest approaches Lucy and
tries to get her to speak.
"Down with the Polack pope!" hisses
the prosecutor.
But Lucy sits silently.
Cardinal Fizz, the judge, comes down from his
high-chair and approaches Lucy. He too tries to get her to speak.
"Down with Pope the Polack!" he
says.
But Lucy just blinks and keeps quiet.
The twelve priests and nuns in the jury leave
their seats and approach the witness stand. "Down with Pope the Polack!" they
shout in unison.
But Lucy remains silent.
Soon the whole Catholic courtroom is full of
noise as everyone tries to get Lucy to say the offending words.
"Down with Pope the Polack!" they
shout. "Down with the Polack pope!"
Suddenly Lucy flaps her wings, and a deathly
silence falls over the courtroom. The parrot looks this way and that, inspecting the
Catholics closely. "Okay!" says Lucy, holding up one wing. "Then may God
answer your prayers!" |