“Everything that is born dies. The flower that is in the morning, full
of life and juice, by the evening will be gone. It is a natural law: nothing
can live forever. In time, things appear and disappear. In time, everything
is just a soap-bubble. You don’t condemn the morning flower just because
by the evening the petals have withered away, or do you? You don’t condemn
the sunrise because once the sunrise has happened the sunset is coming
closer.
When there is a Buddha, a flower blooms. But it cannot remain forever
- that is not the way of time. The flower will disappear. And man is cunning,
and man is calculating. A few cunning and calculating people will gather
around; they will make a business out of it - that too is natural. When
a Buddha is not there, whatsoever he has done is bound to become a business.
But that is no reason for a Buddha to stop doing whatsoever he is doing.
Even knowing perfectly well that things will deteriorate, a Buddha tries
with all his heart – he lives his light, he shares his light, he lives
his love, he shares his love. And those who are receptive enough become
enlightened. Those who are intelligent absorb the energy of the Buddha,
and are transformed through it. They don’t bother about what is going
to happen later on; there is no question of bothering.
You are here, - rather than becoming a sannyasin you are worried about
what will happen later on: ‘Will this ashram become the head office of
such a new business?’ It is bound to become. It has always been so, it
will always be so. Before it becomes one, you become a sannyasin. While
I am here, let me transform you. And why should you be worried about the
future? There will be future Buddhas too. They always go on happening.
So those who want to become enlightened, seek and search for a living
Buddha. And they are always around; the earth has never lacked them. Sometimes
a Jesus, sometimes a Mahavira, sometimes a Mohammed, sometimes a Pythagoras
- they are always there. Those who are thirsty, they always find them.
But there are millions who are not thirsty.
Those millions who are not thirsty, they also want to pretend they are
thirsty. It is these millions who are not thirsty and yet want to pretend
that they are religious, seekers of truth – they become the victims of
the cunning and the clever people, of the priests.
The priests succeed in exploiting because there are people who want to
be exploited. It is a perfect arrangement. The priest cannot make a business
out of religion if there are real seekers – they will see through it;
they cannot be deceived.
But in fact there are millions of people who don’t want to know the truth.
That hurts. For these people, plastic truths are needed. For these people,
plastic flowers are needed. And plastic flowers have one thing about them:
they never wither away.
This is something to be understood: the false has a longer life than truth,
because the false adjusts to the process of time; it is part of it. The
true comes from the beyond; it is not a part of time, it is a part of
eternity. It does not belong to time. It enters into time, but it is a
foreigner. Time cannot absorb it, and it cannot adjust itself to time.
So it is only for a moment that you see the light of a Buddha ... and
then it disappears. It is only for a rare moment that eternity gives a
glimpse into the world of time.
That’s how a real flower dies. But the plastic flower remains. In fact,
now scientists, particularly those who are interested in not polluting
nature, those who are ecology-oriented, are very much worried about plastic
– because plastic is something that never dies. It cannot be absorbed
back by the earth; it will remain for ever and ever. You throw away a
plastic bag or anything that is made of plastic – it will remain. The
earth cannot reabsorb it, the sea cannot reabsorb it. It is so unreal
that it will persist.
Lies persist for thousands of years; lies have their own ways of remaining,
because they adjust to time, they are part of time. But truth is something
strange in the world of time. It is timelessness. It is a miracle that
once in a while it expresses itself in the dimension of time – it is a
miracle. The Buddha, the Christ – these are miracles . . . something that
should not be, something that is going against the law of necessity; something
that follows the law of power, of grace, and comes from the beyond. That
ray comes and goes.
Millions of people want to pretend to be religious. These are the people
who go to the churches and to the mosques and to the temples and the gurudwaras.
These are the people who want religion cheap. They want only a formal
kind of religion – a Sunday religion. They don’t really want to become
committed; they are playing a game.
And the game seems to pay in their mundane life – the churchgoer is respected,
and the person who is respected can cheat better than anybody else. The
churchgoer is thought to be religous; nobody thinks he will deceive, hence
he can deceive more easily. The church fits with the marketplace perfectly
well; it is part of the market-place.
Jesus was always a misfit; otherwise, why did people crucify him? People
have never crucified priests; they have always crucified Buddhas. A Socrates
is dangerous, disturbing, shocking; but the priest is perfectly good –
consoling, helping to make your life easier through his lies. His lies
function as buffers, shock-absorbers. He helps you in every possible way
to live the false, pseudo life that you are living. He helps you to forget
about truth, and he gives you truth and God in such cheap ways that you
need not risk anything at all.
By being a Christian you don’t risk, by being a Hindu you don’t risk.
By being a follower of Jesus, you were risking. To be with me is a risk!
To be with the Shankaracharya is not a risk. To be with me is costly,
it will create a thousand and one problems for you. Unless one is really
committed to truth, really involved, really thirsty and hungry for God,
one cannot be here around me.
But millions of people want plastic flowers. Plastic flowers are very
convenient; you need not grow them; you need not take the trouble of growing
them. To grow real flowers is troublesome; think of the soil, prepare
the ground, bring the manure and the fertilizers and water, and then protect.
And then too it always remains unpredictable what is going to happen.
Plastic flowers are perfectly convenient; ready-made you get them. No
soil is needed, no preparation, no gardening – nothing of the sort. And
they don’t fade away. Once in a while you can give them a good bath, and
they will be again as fresh as ever. They only collect dust, that’s all;
dust can be washed away.
That’s how beliefs are – plastic flowers. But millions of people want
plastic flowers, hence the priest can exploit you. Remember always one
of the most fundamental laws of economics: wherever there is a demand,
there will be a supply. Because the false is demanded, there are falsifiers.
And this is a natural process. I am not saying, I cannot say that my place
will not become a business one day – it is going to become.
Every Truth, sooner or later, will be organized. And the moment it is
organized, it dies.
There is a famous story:
A disciple of the Devil came running to him and said ‘What are you doing
here? A man sitting under that tree has become enlightened! He has found
the truth. Our whole business is at stake, and what are you dong here?
We have to do something!’
Certainly, if somebody finds truth, then the Devil’s whole existence is
at stake – he lives on lies. But the disciple must have been a new disciple,
just a learner. The old Devil laughed and he said ‘Don’t you be worried.
Let him find it – we will organize it, and once a truth is organized,
it dies.’
And all truths will be organized. There is no way to protect them, there
is no way to make safeguards; there is no possibility. Every truth will
be organized. Every truth will become a religion.
So the way for the perceptive is: while the Buddha is there, drink of
him as much as you can, and forget all about what is going to happen later
on. That is the only intelligent way.”