Leadership Tales: The King Monkey

Ancient Indian leadership ethos say that living for his people is what makes one a great leader. Living for them, and if necessary, being ready to die for them.

Once upon a time there lived a large troop of monkeys in a forest. The leader of the troop was Mahakapi, a large monkey, strong and wise, and under his leadership the monkeys lived in great prosperity and security. The leader was well known for his love for his monkeys and care for them. He constantly thought of their welfare and how to safeguard them from dangers that might be waiting for them unawares.

The troop of monkeys had made a huge tree next to a towering mountain cliff their home. Beneath the tree that looked like another mighty mountain flowed a brook that that sang as it rushed downstream and, beyond the mountain and the forest, became a quiet river of crystal water.

As spring came, blossoms appeared on the mighty tree and soon the blossoms turned into young fruits. The whole forest was filled with the fragrance of the blossoms and as the monkeys breathed in the air scented with the perfume of fresh blossoms, it intoxicated them.

Soon the fruits were edible and the monkeys began to pluck them and eat them with relish. They were delicious even when they were green and how delicious they would be when they turned ripe! “What a wonderful feast this would make to my troop then,” thought Mahakapi, watching the monkeys eating the fruits.

He was sitting quietly and watching the monkeys enjoying themselves on a huge branch of the tree that hung over the river. They were jumping from one small branch to another, swinging from twigs, and doing all kind of things that monkeys loved to do. Some were leaping down into the river, some swimming back to climb back to the tree. Monkeys chased monkeys everywhere, shrieking in wild glee. Life was pleasant. Everything was wonderful.

And then a sudden thought flashed through the mind of the leader monkey. In a flash Mahakapi saw a terrifying picture. In the picture, hundreds of his monkeys were lying dead, bathed in blood. Dead bodies were floating in their dozens down the river. Terrorized monkeys were running everywhere, screaming in agony.

The future! The fruits on the branch overhanging the river were going to be the death of his troop! No, he couldn’t allow that.

There was deep concern in Mahakapi’s mind, but he was not one to show his worries to his followers. He knew any sign of the slightest fear in him would send rings of alarm through the whole troop and they would go crazy with terror. There is nothing that a troop of terror-stricken monkeys wouldn’t do. Monkeys are wild by nature and always it was only a thin line that separated them from insanity. Aggression was in their very nature. And in terror every monkey became concerned with only one thing: self-preservation. And once that urge took over, they could do anything, including tear one another apart.

In any case the danger was not immediate.

The leader asked his monkeys to eat up all the fruits on the overhanging branch. “Eat as many of them as you can. But make sure not one fruit falls into the brook. And destroy every remaining one, taking care again that none falls into the brook. A single fruit left on that branch could be our death. A single fruit falling into the stream could spell our death.”

The monkeys could make no sense of what he was saying. Destroy all these delicious fruits! And what would happen if a fruit fell into the river? How could it be their death?

But they trusted their leader. He had proved himself wiser than all of them put together. They knew he could see into the future, whereas they missed even what was happening before their eyes. And his love for them and commitment to their welfare were beyond questioning.

The monkeys ate from the branch as many of the fruits as they could. The remaining ones were destroyed as ordered by Mahakapi, taking care none fell into the brook.

Unknown to them, though, a single fruit escaped the destruction. It was hidden inside a nest of ants and the monkeys missed it. When it was tiny, ants had made a nest around it and protected by the nest, the fruit had grown inside it.

And then what the leader feared happened. Exactly as he had feared it would happen.

Over time, the fruit ripened and one day when a light wind blew it fell into the river.

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Beyond the jungle began the outskirts of a city through the heart of which flowed the river. The little brook under the mighty tree in the jungle had become a river by the time it left the mountains and the jungles and reached the plains that made the city. The city was the capital of the kingdom that included the mountains and the forest and vast areas beyond them. The palace of the king was close to the river.

The king and the queens were bathing and sporting in the river when the fruit came floating down. Such was the fragrance of the fruit that it intoxicated the queens instantly. The queens left their sports and there was a race towards the fruit. One of them caught the fruit. She presented it to the king, who took it to the palace with him when their sports and bath were over and they went back.

The fruit was cut and the whole palace was filled with its mouthwatering scent. The king and the queens enjoyed the fruit and they felt the royal meals they had every day was no match to it. They had eaten nothing that tasted so good, nor smelt anything so wonderful. Where could the fruit have come from?

The king decided to go and find out. He was fond of adventures and this would be a new adventure. Such a divine fruit grew in his kingdom and he had no idea of it! No, that had to be rectified. He would locate the tree and when he found it, he was going to declare this fruit a national treasure. Such a wonderful fruit deserved to be a national treasure.

The king took a team of soldiers with him and began the exploration. Crossing the city bounds he entered the jungle and travelled for many days across the thick jungle inhabited by all kinds of wild animals. As he faced the challenges of the jungle and encountered its threats, the king felt he was growing younger. Perhaps the fruit was an omen – an omen of something wonderful going to happen to him. The king felt charged now. Lions, tigers, bears, wolves, nothing scared him anymore. Nor did the sharp thorns and thick vines of the impenetrable forest trouble him.

The river kept growing smaller and eventually became a brook as they began approaching the mountain.

The king smelt the tree long before he came to it. The whole area for miles was filled with the intoxication that was the fragrance of its fruits.

As the king came near, sounds of wild celebrations filled him and his team of soldiers.

And then they saw the tree. A huge tree, as tall as the mountain, its leaves dark green, dominating everything in the surroundings, excepting the mountain. In size and majesty it seemed to vie with the mountain. And the wonderful fruits hung everywhere on the tree – hundreds and hundreds of delicious fruits.

The noise came from the monkeys! There seemed to be a hundred of them on the tree. Maybe, several hundreds! They were swinging from the branches with their tails, chasing one antoher, shrieking and attacking one another in mock fury, only to retreat at the last moment.

Beneath the tree were fruits fallen from the tree. Ripe, golden fruits. Many of them whole and complete, others half eaten by the monkeys.

All on a sudden, a fury filled the king. Such wonderful fruits and monkeys were eating them. Not only eating them, spoiling them too. A national treasure – that is what the fruits were, and the monkeys seemed to have no regard for them. They were treating them like any other fruit.

“Shoot the monkeys down!” ordered the angry king. “Shoot them all down, every one of them!”

Arrows fled everywhere. The king’s soldiers were good. Their arrows never missed. Monkeys started falling down dead everywhere. Many on land, many in the river.

The vision Mahakapi had seen was unfolding before his eyes with terrifying reality. So suddenly that even he did not get time to save his monkeys.

Mahakapi looked around. Soldiers had surrounded the tree and there was no escape.

He had failed his people!

His entire troop was going to be wiped out!

It took a moment for him to make up his mind. A plan took shape in his mind. Then he leapt from the tall branch on which he was sitting. Leapt as no other monkey could leap.
And landed on a bunch of bamboos far away, beyond the clearing around the mighty tree.

There was no escape for the monkeys through the ground. Soldiers stood everywhere, shooting down every monkey in sight. But if they could reach the bamboo bush there was a chance that they might escape to the mountain beyond. The bamboo bush was beyond their reach, true, none of them could leap as far as that, but . . . if only . . .

With all his might, Mahakapi started swaying the bamboo on which he had landed. It was the tallest bamboo in the bush, taller than all others, and stood closest to the tree.

He wanted to make this bamboo a bridge between the fruit tree and the bamboo bush. But no! It was not long enough to reach the tree!

Mahakapi climbed to the tip of the bamboo, as far as he could climb, and began swaying the bamboo wildly. The soldiers noticed what was happening and puzzled, stopped shooting. The king too stood watching it all.

As the bamboo came near the tree, Mahakapi held on to it with his feet as tightly as he could and stretched out his arms. There! He had caught hold of a small branch of three. He shrieked his instructions to the other monkeys and they understood. The whole horde of them ran in his direction from wherever they were on the tree. A bridge had been formed. Part by the bamboo and part by Mahakapi’s body. Monkeys rushed across his body onto the bamboo and away.

Scores of monkeys! Hundreds of monkeys! All in breathless desperation to escape death.

And the bamboo was pulling him away from the tree as it tried to straighten up again.

Mahakapi felt his body being pulled apart. All his ligaments were breaking. And there was blood everywhere, caused by the sharp toenails of the monkeys as they ran across his body frantically.

The soldiers took aim at Mahakapi. Shoot him down and the escape route will be closed. That would be the death of the monkeys.

“Stop!” shouted the king. “Don’t shoot!”

The soldiers lowered their bows and loosened their grip on the bowstrings.

The king stood watching the miracle unfolding before him. He had never seen such a sight. The leader monkey was sacrificing his life to save his people! He held on tightly to the bamboo with his feet and to the fruit tree with his hands, while blood oozed from every part of his body. What a wonderful sight!

Sudden tears welled up in the eyes of the king. He too was a leader of his people. But would he have done what the monkey king was doing?

The king ordered the soldiers to hold a net under the king monkey. Then he ordered his men to cut down with arrows both the branch of the tree which Mahakapi was holding on to and the bamboo. “Cut down both in the same instant,” he ordered.

Mahakapi fell into the net unconscious.

When he came to, he was surrounded by the king and his solders. Other monkeys were watching them from the safety of the bamboos. The solders had applied balms to his broken body and slowly life was returning to him.

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When Mahakapi recovered somewhat, the king asked him, “Why did you do it? Why did you risk your own life to save the other monkeys?”

“I am their leader,” answered Mahakapi. “Putreshu iva eteshu avabaddha-haardah.” “I am bound to them in my heart as though they are my own sons.”

“But it is the duty of the ministers and others to serve the king, and not the other way round. He is the master, not they. Isn’t that so?”

Adhipaartham amaatyaadi, na tadartham maheepatih.

Mahakapi’s answer to this is an important lesson to every leader at all times. He said: “That is what the science of politics ordinarily says. But that is not my way. I cannot do that.”

“As for me,” says Mahakapi, “even death in serving my people is a pleasure. They have served me all their life, and now when I serve them, I am doing no more than paying a debt back to them and becoming free of that debt [poorvopakaara-anrnataa].

“Yugyam balam jaanapadaan amaatyaan
Pauraan anaathaan shramanaan dvijaateen
Sarvaan sukhena prayateta yoktum
Hitaanukoolena piteva raajaa.”

“It is the duty of a king to work constantly to make his horses, army, citizens, ministers, common subjects, orphans, bhikshus, brahmanas, and all others happy as a father tries to make his children happy.”

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This has been the Indian leadership ideal throughout time. The king looks upon his subjects as a father looks upon his children. The leader looks after his people as a father looks after his children. And does everything he can to protect them, to make their lives meaningful and happy. And, if it calls for that, sacrifices himself in the call of his duty.

Another role model Indian culture sets up before the leader is that of a pregnant woman. Just as she lives day and night for the baby in her womb, forgetting all her self-interests, so should a leader look after the interests of his people forgetting his own self-interests, says the Mahabharata, speaking of the leadership ideal.

Yatha hi garbhinee hitvaa svam priyam manaso’nugam
Garbhasya hitam aadhatte tathaa rajnaapyasamshayam
Vartitavyam kurushreshtha sadaa dharmaanuvartinaa
Svam priyam tu parityajya yat lokahitam bhavet.

It is for this reason that Chanakya says in the Arthashastra: “To a king, the religious vow is his readiness to action; satisfactory discharge of duties is his performance of sacrifice; equal attention to all is the offer of fees. In the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness; in their welfare his welfare; whatever pleases himself he shall not consider as good, but whatever pleases his subjects he shall consider as good.”

Performance of his duty to his people is the highest religion of a leader. He does not need any other religious practice.

The Indian word for duty and religion are one: dharma.

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Note: This story is a retelling of the Mahakapi Jataka, one of the hundreds of Jataka tales, all dealing with the previous lifetimes of the Buddha, in each of which he sacrifices himself for others. It is these sacrifices lifetime after lifetime that eventually gives him birth as Gautama Siddhartha who becomes the Buddha. The Sanskrit quotations are from the text of Bodhisattva-Avadhana-Mala of Aryasura. My translations/free renderings into English.

The Great Way of the Heart

I read something tremendously beautiful this morning in Osho’s The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol. 1. The book is published in four volumes and is a commentary given by Osho in Pune in 1976 on forty-two sutras by the Buddha. The original book is called The Sutra of Forty-two Chapters and, unlike most other books on the teachings of the Buddha, this has never existed in India – neither in Sanskrit, nor in Pali or any other language. Tradition tells us that in response to a request from Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty in AD 67, a small group of Buddhist monks went to China and there made a short anthology of Buddha’s sayings as a first introduction of the great master’s teachings to the Chinese people.

Buddhism is commonly understood as a religion of the head as against the religion of the heart or faith. However, the sutra that is commented upon below tells us how wrong the notion is. As the Upanishads say, spirituality is not for the head at all. Naayam aatmaa pravachanena labhyah, na medhaya, na bahuna shrutena: “This Self cannot be attained through discourses, not through the intellect, nor by lots of learning.”

Spirituality is something to be cultivated through the silence of the heart, through stillness, through joy and celebration, through the awe one feels for existence, through trust, through love and through waiting.

The Katha Upanishad mantra which says naayam aatmaa pravachanena labhyah, also says later in the same mantra: yam eva esha vrnute tena labhyah, tasya esha aatmaa vivrnute tanum svaam: It is to be attained only by the one whom it chooses. To him this Self reveals its body.

That choice – swayamvara – is made by the Self. And the Self chooses only the one who has silence in his heart, stillness, joy and celebration; only the one whose heart is filled with awe, with trust, with love and with waiting. Into such hearts, the Self descends. In such hearts, the Self reveals itself.

Here is the sutra along with very short excerpts from Osho’s detailed commentary on it.

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“IF YOU ENDEAVOUR TO EMBRACE THE WAY THROUGH MUCH LEARNING, THE WAY WILL NOT BE UNDERSTOOD. IF YOU OBSERVE THE WAY WITH SIMPLICITY OF HEART, GREAT INDEED IS THIS WAY.”

Life is very simple. Just sometimes put your head away, sometimes behead yourself, sometimes look with no clouds in the eyes—just look. Sometimes sit by the side of a tree—just feel. By the side of a waterfall—listen. Lie down on the beach and listen to the roar of the ocean, feel the sand, the coolness of it, or look at the stars, and let that silence penetrate you. Or look at the dark night and let that velvety darkness surround you, envelop you, dissolve you. This is the way of the simple heart.

If you approach life through this simplicity you will become wise. You may not know the Veda, you may not know the Bible, you may not know the Gita, but you will come to know the real song of life—and that is where the real Gita is, the real song is. You may not know the Veda, but you will come to know the real Veda—that which is written by God himself.

This life is his book, this life is his Bible, this life is his Koran. Recite it! Recite this life. Sing it, dance it, be in love with it—and by and by you will know what the Way is, because by and by you will become more and more happy. The more happy you become, the more you are acquainted with the Way, the right Way. And whenever a step goes out of line, immediately you feel pain.

Pain is an indication that you have missed the Law, and happiness is an indication that you have been in harmony. Happiness is a by-product. If you go in accordance with the Law you are happy. Unhappiness is an accident. It simply shows you have gone far away from the Law.

Make happiness and unhappiness your criterion. The path is: become simple, trust more, doubt a little less. If you really want to doubt, doubt doubt, that’s all. Doubt doubt; trust trust—and you will never miss.

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Personality, Individuality, Ego and Self

Given below are excerpts from Osho’s spontaneous response to a question one of his disciples asked him about Personality, Individuality, Ego and Self.

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Q. JESUS AND BUDDHA WERE CERTAINLY INDIVIDUALS. CANNOT THEIR INDIVIDUALITY AND ITS EXPRESSION BE CALLED PERSONALITY? YOU TOO, IT COULD BE SAID, HAVE A PERSONALITY, YET NOT AN EGO. PLEASE CLARIFY THE CONCEPTS OF PERSONALITY, EGO, INDIVIDUALITY, AND SELF.

OSHO:

THE FIRST THING to be understood is about the words ‘individuality’ and ‘personality’. ‘Individuality’ means one who is indivisible, one who has become a unity, one who is no more divided. It is a beautiful word. In this sense, Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, can be called individuals—in this root meaning of the word, not the way you use it.

Your use of ‘individuality’ is almost a synonym for ‘personality’. ‘Personality’ has different orientations. It comes from Greek drama. In Greek drama the actors used to have ‘personas’, masks. They would be hiding behind the mask. You could not have seen their faces, you could have only heard their voice. ‘Sona’ means sound. ‘Persona’ means you can have a contact only with their sounds, not with their faces. They are hiding somewhere. From that comes the word ‘personality’.

In that sense Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, have no personalities. They are just there in front of you, not hiding anything. They are naked, confronting you in their absolute purity. There is nothing to hide. You can see them through and through, they are transparent beings.

So you cannot say rightly that they have personalities or that they are persons. They are individuals, but remember the meaning of the word—they cannot be divided. They don’t have fragments. They are not a crowd. They are not polypsychic. They don’t have many minds. Their manyness has disappeared and they have become one, and their oneness is such that there is no way to divide it. No sword can cut them in two. Their indivisibility is ultimate.

In that sense you can call them individuals. But it is dangerous. Because this oneness comes only when the many is lost. When the many is lost how can you say even that one is one? Because one can be called meaningfully one only when the possibility for many exists. But the very possibility has disappeared.

That’s why in India we call God advaita, non-dual. We could have called him one, but we have resisted that temptation. We have never called him one, because the moment that you call something one, the two has entered—because one cannot exist without the two, the three, the four. One is meaningful only in a series. One is meaningful only in a hierarchy.

If really one has become one, how can you call him one? The word loses meaning. You can call him only not-many; you can call him non-dual, advaita, not two. But you cannot call him one. Not-two is beautiful. It simply says that the twoness, the manyness, has disappeared. It does not say what has appeared, it simply says what has disappeared. It is a negative term.

Anything that can be said about the ultimate truth has to be negative. We can say what god is not, we cannot say what he is. Because to say what he is, we define him. Every definition is a limitation. Once god is defined he is no more infinite, he becomes finite.

So in a way you can call Buddha an individual, but it will be better to resist the temptation. He is certainly not a person, he has no personality, but to call him individual is also not right—better than calling him a person, but still not perfect. He is not a person, he is not an individual—because he is not.

The very idea of his being has disappeared. He is just a vast emptiness. He is space. He has no boundaries now.

Somebody becomes an individual only when he has become infinite. It will look paradoxical, but let me say it: somebody becomes individual only when he has become universal, when he is one with the whole. Then somebody is an individual. But then to call him an individual will be stretching the meaning of the word too far. It will be a little too outlandish. It is better to call Buddha a nobody—neither a person nor an individual. All those things have been left far behind. He has transcended all limitations.

The question is from Prem Divya. She asks, PLEASE CLARIFY THE CONCEPTS OF PERSONALITY, EGO, INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF.

Personality and ego are two aspects of the same coin, just as individuality and self are two aspects of the same coin. The personality has a center—that center is called the ego. Because personality itself is false, the center is also false, because a false circumference cannot have a real center and a real center cannot have a false circumference.

Personality is unreal. Personality is that which you pretend to be, but you are not. Personality is that which you show, but you are not. Personality is your exhibition, not your reality. Personality is that which you create around yourself a fiction to deceive—but you are not. This personality has a false center, as false as it is itself. That false center is the ego. When you drop personality, ego disappears. Or you drop the ego and the personality collapses to the ground, to the dust.

Remember not to pretend that which you are not, otherwise you will never be able to drop the ego. Then you go on feeding the ego. Never try to look in any way different than you are. Whatsoever the cost, be true to yourself. Don’t try to decorate it, to clothe it in manners, etiquettes, a thousand and one falsities. Be naked as you are. Let people feel your real pulse, and you will not be at loss.

In the beginning you may see that you are getting into trouble, but soon you will find that you are never at a loss. With reality nobody ever loses. With unreality you only think you are gaining, you go on losing. That’s how many people destroy their whole life—by being unreal—and then they say that they are not happy. How can an unreal person be happy?

It is as if you have put stones in the soil instead of seeds and you are waiting, you are waiting for them to sprout and bloom and fill your life with flowers and fruits. It is impossible—those stones cannot grow. Those stones are not seeds of something, they don’t have any potentiality. They may look like seeds, you may have coloured them in such a way, you may have painted them in such a way that they look like seeds, but they are not seeds, they cannot grow.

The ego cannot grow. It is dead, a false entity. It is not alive. You can go on and on living with it, but your whole life will become like a desert... empty. No fulfillment, no contentment, no bliss will ever knock at your door.

You can wait for eternity, nobody will ever come. Because in the very beginning you missed something—something very essential and basic. Only you can grow, not the pretensions.

I told you the word ‘personality’ comes from ‘persona’. If you have a mask, the mask will not grow. You will grow. You may have put the mask on your face when you were a child, now you may be a young man—but the mask will remain the same... a dirty old thing, rotten. It will simply rot, it cannot grow. You will be growing behind it, and it will give you many pains because it will be a confinement. It cannot grow and you are growing. It is as if you are still wearing your childhood clothes. You are growing and those clothes are not growing, so they have become a bondage. They don’t give you freedom, they confine you, they crush you. You feel continuously a pressure, a tension, an anguish.

You can try it. You can wear shoes which are smaller than for your feet, and walk—and you will know what is happening to millions of people. Their personalities are too small and their being is growing. Try to walk with shoes two sizes too small....

Look at the faces of people—their agony and anguish is written so clear. They are broadcasting nothing else but their agony and their anguish. And the problem is they are wearing a dead mask, a personality, which cannot grow with them. Of course it is always lagging behind. It cannot grow. They are growing continuously and it becomes a dead weight.

Remember, with the false you will be crushed. Never keep company with the false. If you really want to grow into a blooming being, if you really want to give freedom to your being, never keep company with the false. Be true, whatsoever the cost. I repeat again: in the beginning it may seem that these pretensions are very good. They are not. Your mind is deceiving you.

And if you try to keep company with the true, ego will disappear on its own accord. Otherwise it goes on finding new ways, new methods to feed itself.

People go on keeping their etiquette, their mannerisms, their falsities, their pretensions, even in such situations where it is unimaginable.

I know one man whose house was on fire, but the first thing that he did running out of the house was to tie his tie. The house is on fire and he could not run out of it without his tie. The personality becomes so clinging to you and you become so clinging to it.

I have heard about a great professor who was so polite that even when he was angry he would be polite—even in the expression of his anger. One day he was so angry with a student that he was boiling hot, and he said, ‘Please go to hell!’... Please go to hell?

Just watch yourself. Personality is the father of the ego. If you drop personality you will find the ego has died on its own accord.

The ego is the child of the personality. Many people would like to drop the ego, but they don’t understand the inner connection. They would like to drop the ego because it gives so much misery. It continuously hurts, it is like a wound. It never allows you any rest, it always keeps you restless. It is a disease. Many people by and by start feeling that it is better if they can get rid of the ego, but they never think that this is the child of the personality. If you want to get rid of the ego, you will have to drop your personality.

That’s why Buddha left the palace—because it was impossible to drop the personality and still be a prince. Mahavira became naked, he dropped even his clothes—he was one of the most courageous men the world has ever known—because he came to realize that even clothes are not for the body; they are just part of a social mannerism, just part of a social etiquette. Of course he suffered for it. He was chased out of towns—people used to throw stones at him. They thought he had gone crazy. He suffered for it, but his achievement was tremendous out of it.

Mahavira for twelve years completely dropped everything. He was the perfect dropout. Language, clothes, society, security, everything he dropped. Then by and by his innocence surfaced; all the layers of personality dropped, ego disappeared.

Remember, ego is very tricky. It is very subtle, its ways are very subtle. You drop it from one side, it comes from another. Unless you become very, very alert how it arises, how it feeds....

The ego can find food from anywhere. Whatsoever the game, I am the top. Whatsoever the game—the name of the game may be humbleness, but I am the topmost humble man. The names can be different. Always remember that whenever you start feeling that you are the topmost—maybe it is humbleness, it makes no difference; maybe it is egolessness, it makes no difference—if you think that you are the most egoless person in the world you are again in the same trap.

The ego lives on claims. The ego is competitive and personality goes on feeding it through subtle ways. Personality is the circumference of your pretensions, of your exhibitions, of your deceptions, and ego is the center. They go together, they remain together.

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Now the second couple: individuality and self. Individuality is the circumference, self is the center. They are more real than personality and ego, they are more real than the first couple, but still not ultimately real.

When personality is dropped, you become individual. When you become individual then a sense of self arises—‘I am.’ It has no claim, it is not competitive. Self is not competitive: it does not say that I am better or worse, that I am ahead or far behind. It does not compare, it is not comparative. It simply says ‘I am’. It is not relative to others. Individuality is a simple expression of whosoever you are, and a deep sense of ‘I am’.

But Buddha or Jesus cannot be even called individuals because they go a little further, where even the sense of self disappears.

The ego is comparative, very ill; the self is a little healthy, not so ill—it has no comparison with anybody—but still the very idea that ‘I am’ divides, separates from the total unity. The way of Jesus is: ‘My father and I are one.’ That is his way of saying, ‘I am not a self, my father is myself.’ You can translate it better if you say that the center of the whole is my center; then the language becomes more scientific.

Buddha is even more keen. He says simply, ‘I am not.’ Because the danger is—saying that I am god, or god is my center—the danger is that the ‘I’ may enter again from the backdoor. Buddha says, ‘I am not.’ He simply goes on dissecting the very phenomenon of ‘I’, and comes to a point where nothing is left. Just as matter disappears in the hands of the physicist, self disappears in the hands of Buddha.

I have heard:

One day an elephant went walking through the jungle. He was feeling in the pink, ready to challenge the whole world. As he walked along he met a poor little mouse with a runny nose and pink eyes.

‘Why are you not as big as I am?’ he roared.

The mouse looked up at him and said, ‘I have been very sick lately.’

Everybody, even a mouse, has his own ego. Everybody, even a religious man, has his own ego. Even while declaring, ‘I am just dust underneath your feet,’ you are gathering ego.

The ego and the personality have to be dropped, then you will find individuality arising... a feeling of uniqueness. Yes, you are unique. Everybody else is also unique. In this world only unique people exist, so comparison is just stupid, because you alone are like yourself. There is nobody like you, so how to compare?

Comparison is possible if there are many people alike, similar to each other, but this existence is so tremendously creative, so originally creative, it never repeats. It does not believe in carbon copies. It makes everybody an individual, unique. When personality is dropped you suddenly feel you are unique—but remember, you also feel everybody else is also unique. Uniqueness is a common quality of all, there is nothing to brag about. It is the universal quality of every being.

With the individuality you have a subtle center of a feeling—‘I am’. Buddha goes far beyond it. Mahavira, Krishna, Jesus, they don’t say anything beyond this. But Buddha goes to the very end of his logic. He says personality has been dropped, now drop this individuality also. The ego has been dropped, now drop this ‘I-amness’ also, this self-hood also.

Then nothing is left, then only nothing is left, and in that emptiness you become virgin, uncorrupted. Emptiness cannot be corrupted. Being is, but there is no feeling of ‘I am’.

Have you not ever come to some moments when you are, tremendously you are, but still there is no feeling of ‘I am’? Those are the moments of grandeur, grace. They happen to everybody. You may not have noticed, you may not have accepted them, you may not remember them, you may have rejected them because they seem so outlandish. They don’t fit with your life—with your life of the ego and personality. They don’t fit. They are not consistent with your routine way of life, so you drop them, you forget them. You think that they may be just the imagination, a dream.

But to everybody those moments come. I have not come across a single human being who has not in some way or other, in some moment or other, felt himself tremendously there and yet with no sense of ‘I’. Those are the moments when you feel beauty, when you feel love, when you feel wonder.

Looking at the stars in the night suddenly something disappears, suddenly an emptiness arises in you... virgin, uncorrupted, unpolluted by society, culture, civilization, religion, scripture, tradition. Again you are pure, innocent. You are. In fact, for the first time you are very substantial but with no ‘I’ anywhere. There is empty sky and the stars shining, and here you are—empty—and the stars reflecting. Two skies, both empty, meeting.

These are the religious moments—moments of prayer, beauty, wonder, awe. They come to everybody.

But remember, whenever you are a doer you are missing, because the doer carries his ego. The doer is the ego.

Whenever you are a non-doer there is a possibility you may fall into line with the whole, you may fall into harmony with the whole—what Buddha calls the way, the dhamma. You will become one with the dhamma, and suddenly a rush of bliss—it rains all around, your whole being becomes saturated with a new benediction that you have not known before.

Personality has to go. With personality goes the ego. Then individuality has also to go, and with individuality goes the self. Then nothing is left and you are at home. Gone—you have arrived.

One of Buddha’s names is tathagata. It means ‘who has gone very skilfully, disappeared very skilfully’. Gata means gone. Another of Buddha’s names is sugata—well gone, who has gone so well that you cannot find a trace behind... nothing is left, just pure innocence. Become a sugata, become a tathagata. Allow yourself to evaporate and disappear. Only then will you find who you are.

You are not you. Your very sense of ‘I’ is a confinement, a bondage, an imprisonment, a cage. When the cage disappears the whole sky is yours.

Even the sky is not your limit. You contain the sky in your inner being. You are vaster than the sky, bigger than the space.

0o0

Courtesy: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol. 1

The Dialogue of the Buddha and the Shepherd

In Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis, one of my all-time favourite writers, reproduces the following fascinating dialogue between the Buddha and a shepherd.

The Shepherd: My meal is ready, I have milked my ewes. The door of my hut is bolted, my fire is alight. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I no longer need food or milk. The winds are my shelter, my fire is out. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please.

The Shepherd: I have oxen, I have cows. I have my father’s meadows and a bull who covers my cows. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I have neither oxen, nor cows, I have no meadows. I have nothing. I fear nothing. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

The Shepherd: I have a docile and faithful shepherdess. For years she has been my wife; I am happy when I play with her at night. And you, sky, you can rain as much as you please!

Buddha: I have a free and docile soul. For years I have trained it and I have taught it to play with me. And you, sky, can rain as much as you please!

I found the dialogue beautiful the first time I read it years ago and fell in love with it instantly. The idea expressed there is not new and ascetics all over the world have spoken in tones similar to that of the Buddha in these lines.

Adi Shankaracharya has authored a beautiful poem called Kaupeena Panchaka, also known as Yati Panchaka, in which he reflects the feelings of the Buddha we hear expressed in this dialogue. Here is the poem of five verses, followed by a free English rendering by me:

Vedántavákyeshu sadá ramantah
Bhikshánnamátrena cha tushtimantah
Vishokavantah karunaikavantah
Kaupeenavantah khalu bhágyavantah [1]

Ever reveling in the great wisdom statements of Vedanta, contented with food received as alms, free from grief, the only possession of these men is their compassion. Blessed indeed are the wise clad just in their loincloths.

Moolam taroh kevalam áshrayantah
Panidvayam bhoktum amatrayantah
Kanthám iva shreemapi kutsayantah
Kaupeenavantah khalu bhagyavantah [2]

Their only refuge the bottoms of trees, their palms their bowls for receiving food, they look down upon wealth as though it were but a rag. Blessed indeed are the wise clad just in their loincloths.

Dehábhimanam parimárjayantah
Átmánam átmany avalokayantah
Nántar na madhyam na bahis smarantah
Kaupeenavantah khalu bhagyavantah [3]

Never identifying with their bodies as themselves, for ever seeing themselves as their souls, they never let their minds dwell upon anything within, without or in between apart from that self. Blessed indeed are the wise clad just in their loincloths.

Svánandabhave paritushtimantah
Sushántasarvendriyavrittimantah
Aharnisham brahmani ye ramantah
Kaupeenavantah khalu bhagyavantah [4]

Contented entirely with their own blissful nature, the functions of their sense organs stilled and no more running toward their objects, they revel in the Supreme Self day in and day out. Blessed indeed are the wise clad just in their loincloths.

Pancháksharam pavanam uchcharantah
Patim pashoonám hrdi bhávayantah
Bhiksháshino dikshu paribhramantah
Kaupeenavantah khalu bhagyavantah [5]

Repeating constantly the sacred five-syllable mantra, meditating forever on the lord of all beings in their hearts, they wander the world living on food received by begging. Blessed indeed are the wise clad just in their loincloths.

How beautiful!

And yet there is an approach to life far more beautiful than what the shepherd speaks of and is followed by the world and what the Buddha’s words in this dialogue speak of and is followed by those who live the ascetic way of life. This is the way of life followed by Krishna and numerous other jeevanmukta [living-liberated; liberated while still living] masters, the way of life that Krishna teaches in the Gita and is at the very heart of the Indian way of living.

Adi Shankaracharya himself speaks of this way of living in the Jeevanmukta Anandalahari, Waves of Bliss of the Living-Liberated, which I am giving below in its entirety with a free English rendering by me. The song is of rare beauty and has remained beloved to me for a long, long time. The English rendering, of course, takes much of its exquisite poetic beauty away and leaves behind just the spirit of it, and that too in words that sound so alien to the ideas expressed by the song.

Pure paurán pashyan narayuvatinánákrtimayán
Suveshán svarnálañkaranakalitán chitrasadrshán
Svayam sákshee drashtetyapi cha kalayan tais saha raman
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (1)

The young men and women of the city look pretty in their exquisite dresses. Of various sizes, shapes and complexions, they are all decked with ornaments. The whole scene looks like a splendid painting. And he, the living-liberated, mixes with them all without any hesitation and joyously revels among them, all the while maintaining in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher.

Vane vrkshán pashyan dalaphalabharán namrasushikhán
Ghanachchháyáchchhannán bahulakalakoojad dvijaganán
Bhajanghasre rátráu avanitalatalpaikashayanah
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (2)

The trees of the jungle are heavy with their foliages and filled with fruits, their branches bending under their weight. They cast shades thick and cool, and they abound in birds that sing melodiously. He resorts to them by the day or by the night, to lie down on the naked ground beneath them. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadáchit prásáde kvachidapi cha saudheshu dhaninám
Kadákále shaile kvachidapi cha kooleshu saritám
Kuteere dántánám munijanavaránám api vasan
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (3)

Now he lives in palaces, now in the rich mansions of the wealthy. At times he resorts to the mountains, at others to the banks of running brooks. Sometimes he dwells in the huts of great ascetics whose wealth is their self-restraint. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kvachid bálais sárdham karatalajatálaischa hasitais
Kvachit tárunyánkita chaturanáryá saha raman
Kvachid vrddhaish chintákulitahrdayais chápi vilapan
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (4)

Now he claps his hands and laughs in delight with children and now he revels among bright young women endowed with rich youth and now again he grieves with old men sad with heavy hearts. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadáchid vidvadbhir vividishubhir atyantanirataih
Kadáchit kávyálankrtirasarasálaih kavivaraih
Kadáchit sattarkair anumitiparais tárkikavaraih
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (5)

Now he is amidst scholars endowed with great knowledge, now with those engrossed deeply in the pursuit of wisdom. Now he is with great poets, masters of the poet’s art, and now, with erudite logicians skilled in meaningful reasoning and drawing true conclusions. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadá dhyánábhyásaih kvachidapi saparyám vikasitaih
Sugandhais satpushpaih kvachidapi dalaireva vimalaih
Prakurvan devasya pramuditamanáh sannatiparo
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (6)

Now he is engaged in the practice of meditation and now in worshipping the lord with auspicious, full blown fragrant flowers or even with clean leaves, his heart joyous and uplifted, himself surrendered in humility. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Shiváyás shambhorvá kvacidapi cha vishnorapi kadá
Ganádhyakshasyápi prakatatapanasyápi cha kadá
Pathanvai námálim nayanarachitánandasalilo
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (7)

Now he chants the names of Shakti, now of Shiva; and now again, the names of Vishnu, or of Ganesha or the Sun god, his eyes filled with tears of joy. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadá gañgámbhobhih kvachidapi cha koopotthitajalaih
Kvacit kásárotthaih kvachidapi sadushnaish cha shishiraih
Bhajan snánair bhootyá kvacidapi ca karpüranibhayá
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (8)

Now he bathes in the sacred waters of the Ganga, now in water drawn up from a well. Now he bathes in the waters of ponds, now in warm water and yet again now, in water that is cold. He covers his body with ashes white as camphor. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadáchij jágrtyám vishayakaranaih samvyavaharan
Kadácit svapnasthánapi cha vishayáneva cha bhajan
Kadáchit saushuptam sukhamanubhavanneva satatam
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (9)

Now he is awake, and deals expertly with objects of the senses, and now he is in dreams and enjoys the objects of the dream. And at yet again now he is in sleep, enjoying the perpetual bliss of that state. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadápyáshávásáh kvachidapi cha divyámbaradharah
Kvachit panchásyotthám tvachamapi dadhánah katitate
Manasvi nissangah sujanahrdayánadajanakah
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshata tamáh (10)

Now his robes are the ten directions, now he is clad in expensive clothes and now again, he wraps around his waist the skin of a lion. He is a man of control over his mind, and he gladdens the hearts of good people. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kádáchit satvasthah kvachidapi rajovrttisugatas
Tamovrttih kvápi tritayarahitah kvápi cha punah
Kadáchit samsáree shrutipathaviháree kvachidaho
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (11)

Now he is rooted in the satva guna, now he is deep in rajo-guna. Now he performs actions springing from tamas and now he is free of all the three of these gunas. He is a samsaree now, a man of the world, and now he walks on the paths of the Vedas. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadáchinmaunasthah kvachidapi cha vágvádaniratah
Kadáchit svánande hasati rabhasá tyaktavachanah
Kadáchil lokánám vyavahrtisamálokanaparo
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (12)

Now he observes silence, now he is engaged in debates and discussions. Now he abandons all speech and explodes in spontaneous laughter, his natural joy filling his heart and now again he becomes an observer of the activities of the common people of the world. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadáchit shakteenám vikachamukhapadmeshu kabalán
Kshipans tásám kvápi svayamapi cha grhyan svamukhatah
Tadadvaitam roopam nijaparaviheenam prakatayan
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (13)

Now he lovingly drops morsels of food from his mouth into the mouths of his female consorts [shaktis], and now he accepts them from their mouths into his own mouth, thus giving expression to the unity where the two do not exist, where the distinction has disappeared between what is what is one’s own and what belongs to another. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kvachit shaivais sárdham kvachidapi cha sháktais saha raman
Kadá vishnorbhaktaih kvachidapi cha saurais saha vasan
Kadá gánápatyair gatasakalabhedo'dvayatayá
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (14)

Now he is with the followers of Shiva, and now he is reveling among those who follow the path of Shakti. Now he is with the devotees of Vishnu and now, dwelling among those who worship the Sun god. And now he is again with the followers of Ganesha, himself devoid of all differences because of his experience of non-duality. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Nirákáram kvápi kvachidapi cha sákáramamalam
Nijam shaivam rüpam vividhagunabhedena bahudhá
Kadáshcharyam pashyan kimidamiti hrshyannapi kadá
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (15)

Now he sees himself as the formless ultimate, now his auspicious form as myriad beautiful manifestations born of the mingling of different gunas in different ways. Now he again looks at himself and wonders at the mystery that he is, and now he is filled with joy. The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Kadá’dvaitam pashyann akhilamapi satyam shivamayam
Mahávákyárthánám avagatisamabhyásavashatah
Gatadvaitábhásas shiva shiva shivetyeva vilapan
Munir na vyámoham bhajati gurudeekshákshatatamáh (16)

And now he sees the One Without a Second, everything as nothing but the Truth, filled with Primal Sanctity, because of the realization born of the contemplation of the meaning of the great wisdom statements of the Vedas [mahavakyas]; and freed from the illusion of duality, he cries out ecstatically Shiva, Shiva, Shiva! The wise man, the sage, is not trapped in illusion, his ignorance dispelled by the power of his initiation by his teacher [for he knows in his heart that he is the witness to all this, the watcher who is not involved].

Imám muktávasthám paramashivasamsthágurukrpá-
Sudhápángávápyám sahajasukhavápyám anudinam
Muhurmajjan majjan bhajati sukrtais chen naravarah
Sadá yogi tyági kaviriti vadanteeha kavayah (17)

When a great man becomes blessed enough to attain to this state of liberation and establishes himself in the state of supreme Shiva, achievable through his noble karmas and through the grace of a glance from the eyes of the guru, and takes dips again and again in the lake of bliss that is one’s true nature, then the wise men say he is forever a yogi, a renouncer and a man of intuitive wisdom.

Maune maunee gunini gunaván pandite panditashcha
Deene deenas sukhini sukhaván bhogini práptabhogah
Moorkhe moorkho yuvatishu yuvá vágmini praudhavágmee
Dhanyah ko’pi tribhuvanajayee yo’vadhoote’vadhootah [18]

A silent one among the silent ones, virtuous among the virtuous, a scholar amidst scholars, suffering among the suffering, joyous amidst the joyful, a contented man in the company of the pleasure seeker because he has attained all pleasures, a fool in the company of fools, a youth when he is with young women, eloquent among men of eloquence – such a man is blessed indeed in his world, whoever he is, the one who is an avadhoota [saint free from attachments] amidst avadhootas.

How can you say no to this incredibly beautiful world, the most concrete manifestation of the divine, and reject it as dirt, as pollution, as filth? To be in love with God, truly, one has to be in love with his creation. And a man who cannot love God’s creation, rejects it, cannot be in love with God. And if there is only One Without a Second, Advaita, then aren’t the things we reject, the people we reject, the relationships we reject, the emotions we reject, the little joys and sorrows we reject, all nothing but That?

The right way to live is to be the Buddha and the shepherd at the same time. And that is what Shankara is talking about in the priceless verses of this incredibly beautiful poem, Jeevanmukta Anandalahari – Waves of Bliss of the Living-Liberated.

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Zen and the Red Dakini 3

Continued from Zen and the Red Dakini 2

One of the most fascinating stories of enlightenment comes from Japan – that of Zen master Chiyono. Incidentally Chiyono, it is said, is the first Japanese woman to be enlightened through Zen.

Chiyono, also known less commonly as Mugai Nyodai, was an incredibly beautiful woman when she decided to devote her life to Zen and became a bhikshuni. A story tells us that she was so beautiful that monasteries one after the other refused to admit her. The chief monks of the monasteries were afraid that if Chiyono became a bhikshuni, the monks in the ashram would be tempted by her beauty and would forget all about Zen and instead fall in love with her.

When Chiyono realized that no master would take her as an inmate of his monastery because of her beauty, she did an amazing thing. In her eagerness for Zen, to be accepted as a disciple and allowed to live in the monastery to practice Zen, she burned her face with fire. She got so badly scarred that now it was difficult to make out she was a woman.

Chiyono has been the subject of many paintings and statues, portraying her either as extremely beautiful or as extremely ugly. We can see her face in one of the statues made in the thirteenth century, while she was in all probability still alive [she died in 1298], and looking at it, it is really difficult to believe she is a woman.

After scarring her face, she approached the great Chinese Zen master Wuxue Zuyuan, who had in his later years come to Japan and was popularly known in Japan as Bukko Kokushi, or Bukko Engarku, or simply as Bukko. He accepted her as his disciple.

Her guru was a couple of years younger to her.

It is said that Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko for several years but was still unable to attain the fruits of meditation, even as the boy in Paulo Coelho’s story was unable to hear temple bells ringing under the sea.

Sometimes your own eagerness to attain enlightenment becomes an obstacle in the way of attaining it. When your eagerness for enlightenment becomes like a restless, all-consuming fire, that restlessness itself can become your obstacle.

Because enlightenment happens to you on its own, and it is not something that you can make happen.

In a way enlightenment is like sleep. So long as you are struggling to fall asleep, you cannot sleep. And when you give up, sleep happens on its own.

There is no way we can make sleep happen. It has to happen on its own.

There is no way we can make enlightenment happen. It has to happen on its own.

Years went by, the story tells us, and then one night it happened. One beautiful moonlit night, when Chiyono least expected it. In a way Chiyono never expected it to happen. In a way nobody expected it to happen.

Each experience of enlightenment is unique. Because each one of us unique.

That night Chiyono was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. All on a sudden, the bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail, and at that moment Chiyono was enlightened!

It is a Japanese custom to write a poem in commemoration of your awakening. Here is the poem that Chiyono wrote:

“In this way and that I tried to save the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.

No more water in the Pail!
No more moon in the water!”

It is one of the most beautiful poems ever written by an enlightened master, one of the most beautiful poems ever written about enlightenment.

The reflection of the moon in the water is there only so long as there is water in the pail. When there is no water in the pail, there is no moon in the pail.

For Chiyono, the world disappeared. And there was only the reality left.

When the mind disappears, the world disappears. The world that is perceived as the other, as the object of perception. Leaving only the perceiver behind.

The triputi of the subject, the object and the process of perception – all become one. The experience, the experienced and the experiencing become one.

This is the state Vedanta calls advaita – non-duality.

Adi Shankara says in his classic Vivekachoodamani:

“There is no Ignorance other than the mind. Mind itself is Ignorance, which is the cause of bondage. When it is lost, everything is lost; and when it is manifest, everything comes into being. In a dream, which is without true substance, it is the mind alone using its own power that brings into existence the entire universe of the dreamer. It is no different when we are awake. Everything that we see around us is nothing but a projection of the mind.”

So long as the mind is, everything is. And when the mind has ceased to be, everything disappears, leaving behind only the reality that is beyond the mind.

When the pail is broken, the reflection of the moon disappears. What is left is the original moon alone.

Chiyono realized this when the pail broke and the reflection in water disappeared.

It was a spontaneous experience to her. Something that happened when she least expected it.

Which is to say if we break a pail and watch the reflection disappearing, there is no chance it will happen to us. Because then it will be a contrived trick.

Had it been otherwise, it all would have been so easy. All you need is a pail of water and a moonlit night!

Tricks do not awaken us into reality.

Our mind has to be ready.

Chiyono has been preparing her mind, just as the boy in the Manual of the Warrior of Light had been waiting for a long, long time.

And then it happened.

The Kathopanishad puts it beautifully when it says:

nayamatma pravacanena labhyo
na medhaya na bahuna shrutena |
yamevaisha vrinute tena labhyah
tasyaisha atma vivrinute tanum svam ||

“This Self cannot be attained through lectures on it,
Nor can it be reached through intelligence or by great learning;
It is attained by him whom It chooses,
To him, this Self reveals its body.”

The Self reveals itself only to him whom it chooses.

Truth is like a coy bride who reveals her body only to the one she chooses for herself.

0o0

There are several other stories of sudden enlightenment from Zen. One of them is of the master Kyogen. Here is Osho speaking about his enlightenment.

“Kyogen was a scholar of great learning, and for some time, this stood in the way of his enlightenment. One day Isan asked Kyogen,”When you were with our teacher, Hyakujo, you were clever enough to give ten answers to a single question, and hundreds of answers to ten questions. Tell me this: what is your real self – the self that existed before you came out of your mother’s womb, before you knew east from west?”

At this question, Kyogen was stupefied and did not know what to say. He racked his brains and offered all sorts of answers, but Isan brushed them aside.

At last Kyogen said, ”I beg you, please explain it to me.”

Isan replied, ”what I say belongs to my own understanding. How can that benefit your mind’s eye?”

Kyogen went through all his books and the notes he had made on authorities of every school, but could find no words to use as an answer to Isan’s question. Sighing to himself, he said, ”You cannot fill an empty stomach with paintings of rice cakes.” He then burned all his books and papers, saying, ”I will give up the study of Buddhism. I will remain a rice-gruel monk for the rest of my life and avoid torturing my mind.”

He left Isan sadly and took on the self-appointed job of grave-keeper. One day, when he was sweeping the ground, a stone struck a bamboo. Kyogen stood speechless, forgetting himself for a while. Then, suddenly, bursting into loud laughter, he became enlightened.

Returning to his hut, Kyogen performed the ceremony of purification, offered incense, paid homage to his teacher, Isan, and with the deepest sense of gratitude said, ”Great master, thank you! Your kindness to me is greater even then that of my parents. If you had explained the profound cause to me when I begged you to give me an answer, I should never have reached where I stand today.”

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Zen and the Red Dakini 2

Continued from the earlier part

But of course, he does not give up. He cannot give up. She has initiated him into the path. She has held his hands and led him to the path. Now there is no walking back.

When he does not find the island and the temple, he walks to the nearby fishing village and asks the fishermen about it. Of course, they know about it, they have heard about it. But the temple is no more. It used to be there in the days of their great-grandparents, but has been destroyed by an earthquake and swallowed up by the sea.

They tell him: ‘But although we can no longer see the island, we can still hear the temple bells when the ocean sets them swinging down below.'

The boy cannot hear the temple bells, but they can.

The ordinary fisher folk can hear the temple bells that the boy is not able to hear.

The boy goes back to the beach and tries to hear the bells. He spends the whole afternoon there, but all he hears is the noise of the waves and the cries of the seagulls.

This is something tremendously beautiful. What the boy cannot hear with all his efforts, the fishermen are able to hear without any effort.

But of course, they are not obsessed with it. The temple bells mean nothing to them. Their chimes are mere sounds to them, like the crashing of the waves, the chirping of the birds and the shrieks of the winds.

They hear the bells, but are not initiated into their meaning. They have not met the Red Dakini.

They hear them not consciously, but unconsciously, absent mindedly. And attach no significance to them.

They have not been initiated. The Red Dakini has not visited them.

The boy cannot hear them now. But when he hears them, they would mean something very different to him. They would have great significance to him. Because he would be hearing them consciously, wide awake, with an awakened mind. The fishermen hear them as though in their sleep. He would hear them awake.

But that would be later. At the moment he cannot hear them at all.

He goes back to the beach and sits listening again.

At night his mother and father come looking for him and take him back home. But the next day he is again at the beach.

He cannot hear the sounds but he trusts the beautiful woman. She could not have lied to him – she is so beautiful.

A long time passes and yet he has not been able to hear the bells. Not once.

“Many months passed; the woman did not return and the boy forgot all about her; now he was convinced that he needed to discover the riches and treasures in the submerged temple,” says Paulo Coelho.

Of course it is Paulo Coelho’s story, and he can tell it the way he wants, but I disagree with Paulo Coelho here. One never forgets the Red Dakini. The boy cannot forget the beautiful woman who initiated him into the path. She has to be there in his mind. One does not forget one’s initiatrix. He might forget her after he has heard the bells. But not so long as he has not heard them.

At this stage it is for her that he wants to hear the bells, more than for himself. What Coelho said earlier is more true – he wants to hear them and tell her that he has heard them. If hearing them is a need, telling her that he has heard them too is a need. An equally powerful need, if not more.

A time might come in his spiritual journey when he would possibly forget her and the search will become meaningful in itself, the search will gain other purposes than hearing the temple bells. But for that he will have to become an old man, past boyhood, past youth. In our story, our boy does not reach that tage. He is still a boy of school-going age. So he has to be still enchanted with the Red Dakini.

His school friends taunt him. He becomes the butt of their jokes. 'He's not like us,’ they say. ‘He prefers to sit looking at the sea because he's afraid of being beaten in our games.'

The world never understands people who are not like themselves. The world never understands people who have other calls, people who are on other journeys, people who are not interested in what they are interested in.

In this story, they just taunt him. But worse things could have happened to him. They could have attacked him. They could have pelted stones at him, calling him mad.

Even his parents could have misunderstood him.

I used to know a young boy some years back. He became interested in what other people were not interested in. His parents consulted doctors and, unknown to him, they fed him sedatives mixed with his food. For years. With every meal. Until he became so dull, his eyes lost all brightness, and when he spoke you could hardly make out what he was saying.

The boy in Coelho’s story was more fortunate.

He continues to sit there, oblivious to the ridicule of his schoolmates, oblivious to their laughter.

Now even the fishermen are scared by his commitment. They tell him that perhaps only fishermen can hear the bells, no one else.

At last he decides to give up. Who knows if it is all not a myth?

One afternoon he decides to give up and go back home.

He walks down to the ocean to say goodbye. He looks once more at the natural world around him and because he is no longer concerned about the bells, he can again smile at the beauty of the seagulls' cries, the roar of the sea and the wind blowing in the palm trees. Far off, he hears the sound of his friends playing and he feels glad to think that he will soon resume his childhood games.

And then, at that moment, he hears the bells. He hears them for the first time.

He was not trying to listen to bells any more. And at that moment, he hears them.

It happens by itself. When you are least expecting it.

This is how Coelho puts it: “Then, because he was listening to the sea, the seagulls, the wind in the palm trees and the voices of his friends playing, he also heard the first bell. And then another. And another, until, to his great joy, all the bells in the drowned temple were ringing.”

He gives up the struggle to listen to the bells, and the moment he gives up the struggle, he hears them. Along with the sounds of the sea, of the seagulls, of the wind in the palm trees and the voice of his friends playing.

Because he is no longer concerned.

It is not that he is still interested in it and gives it up. No, he gives it up altogether. His mind is free from his need to hear it. And at that moment it happens.

The Buddha gives up all sadhanas and sits under the Bodhi tree and he attains enlightenment.

It is not in struggle that enlightenment happens. For enlightenment to happen you need relaxation. Stillness born of relaxation.

Struggles make your mind noisy. When struggles cease, when all noises end, when your mind is free, still, then you hear. Then you see. For the first time.

And this seeing is different from the seeing of the common man. This hearing is different from the hearing of the fishermen.

This is conscious hearing. Awakened hearing. As though you are hearing for the first time.

Does it mean that all struggles are useless, all sadhanas are useless?

Does it mean that dhyana is useless, yoga is useless?

Absolutely not.

Sadhanas are required for creating that relaxation. Dhyana is required to create that stillness. Yoga is needed to create that stillness. The struggles are needed so that you can go beyond them and be still.

Without them, you do not reach stillness.

What is required for enlightenment is relaxation and stillness. The sadhanas are for creating this relaxation and stillness. That is the purpose of all yogas – jnana yoga, dhyana yoga, bhakti yoga, karma yoga. They create relaxation and stillness and the moment you reach this relaxed, still state, and give up all struggles, it happens.

The bells start ringing.

And you realize the bells have always been ringing. They have been ringing even when the sea was roaring, even when the seagulls were crying, the wind was whistling and your friends were playing noisily.

The bells are ringing even now. When you are busy in your office, in the market, or wherever you are.

Once you hear them, you realize you can hear them everywhere. You can hear them in the middle of your conferences, in the middle of your negotiations, in the middle of your presentations, in the middle of working to meet your deadlines, in the middle of whatever you are doing.

0o0

Polo Coelho tells us that years later the boy comes back to the beach as an adult and there he meets the beautiful woman again. He notices that, despite the passing of years, the woman looks exactly the same; the veil hiding her hair has not faded with time.

The Red Dakini does not change.

She is beyond time and beyond space.

Eternally waiting to tell all who are ready to hear about the temple bells.

Here is a song of the Red Dakini from the Tibetan tradition:

“I am the Vajra Dakini
of light the color of crimson roses and flowing blood
I transmute the life energies into their spiritual origin
By filtering out gross elements, and giving them form
By changing weak currents into strong ones,
Dribbling energy into pounding waves
Opening blocks and barriers.”


“I am the guide and introducer of men to the spiritual path
I strengthen and purify them
That they may encounter the great Buddhas of Light
I prepare them for the Great Awakening
I harmonize the spiritual striving of all beings
I call them forth, into the realms of the enlightened ones
That they may pass through the dangerous waters
To watch the rising of the sun upon the other shore.”


0o0

Continued …3

Zen and the Red Dakini

Paulo Coelho, the author of The Alchemist and twenty-five other books, needs no introduction. His books have sold more than one hundred million copies in 150 countries across the world and have been translated into as many as sixty-seven languages.

I recently read his The Manual of the Warrior of Light. The book begins with the following story:

‘Just off the beach to the west of the village lies an island, and on it is a vast temple with many bells,’ said the woman. The boy noticed that she was dressed strangely and had a veil covering her head. He had never seen her before.

‘Have you ever visited that temple?’ she asked. ‘Go there and tell me what you think of it?’

Seduced by the woman’s beauty, the boy went to the place she had indicated. He sat down on the beach and stared out at the horizon, but he saw only what he always saw: blue sky and ocean. Disappointed, he walked to a nearby fishing village and asked if anyone there knew about an island and a temple.

‘Oh, that was many years ago, when my great-grandparents were alive,’ said an old fisherman. ‘There was an earthquake, and the island was swallowed up by the sea. But although we can no longer see the island, we can still hear the temple bells when the ocean sets them swinging down below.’

The boy went back to the beach and tried to hear the bells. He spent the whole afternoon there, but all he heard was the noise of the waves and the cries of the seagulls.

When night fell, his parents came looking for him. The following morning, he went back to the beach; he could not believe that such a beautiful woman would have lied to him. If she ever returned, he could tell her that, although he had not seen the island, he had heard the temple bells set ringing by the motion of the waves.

Many months passed; the woman did not return and the boy forgot all about her; now he was convinced that he needed to discover the riches and treasures in the submerged temple. If he could hear the bells, he would be able to locate it and salvage the treasure hidden below.

He lost interest in school and even in his friends. He became the butt of all the other children’s jokes. They used to say: ‘He’s not like us. He prefers to sit looking at the sea because he’s afraid of being beaten in our games.’

And they all laughed to see the boy sitting on the shore.

Although he still could not hear the old temple bells ringing, the boy nevertheless learned about other things. He began to realize that he had grown so used to the sound of the waves that he was no longer distracted by them.

Soon after that, he became used to the cries of the seagulls, the buzzing of the bees and the wind blowing amongst the palm trees.

Six months after his first conversation with the woman, the boy could sit there oblivious to all other noises, but he still could not hear the bells from the drowned temple.

Fishermen came and talked to him, insisting that they had heard the bells.

But the boy never did.

Sometime later, however, the fishermen changed their tune: ‘You spend far too much time thinking about the bells beneath the sea. Forget about them and go back to playing with your friends. Perhaps it’s only fishermen who can hear them.’

After almost a year, the boy thought: ‘Perhaps they’re right. I would do better to grow up and become a fisherman and come down to this beach every morning, because I’ve come to love it here.’ And he thought too: ‘Perhaps it’s just another legend and the bells were all shattered during the earthquake and have never rung out since.’

That afternoon, he decided to go back home.

He walked down to the ocean to say goodbye. He looked once more at the natural world around him and because he was no longer concerned about the bells, he could again smile at the beauty of the seagulls’ cries, the roar of the sea and the wind blowing in the palm trees. Far off, he heard the sound of his friends playing and he felt glad to think that he would soon resume his childhood games. The boy was happy and – as only a child can – he felt grateful for being alive. He was sure that he had not wasted his time, for he had learned to contemplate Nature and to respect it.

Then, because he was listening to the sea, the seagulls, the wind in the palm trees and the voices of his friends playing, he also heard the first bell.

And then another.

And another, until, to his great joy, all the bells in the drowned temple were ringing.

0o0

It is a beautiful story that tells us many things about spiritual life and about learning to see and hear, and about learning to live.

It is said that the Buddha underwent every spiritual practice known on his day and still he did not reach Buddhahood.

It is not that the Buddha was not sincere in his efforts. He was totally sincere.

He failed to reach the goal because it is not through struggles that you awaken to the Truth. It is when you give up all struggles and relax in the giving up, in the letting go, relax deeply, that you awaken to the Truth.

Struggles never take you to the truth. Relaxation does.

In fact, our struggles are the greatest obstacle to our awakening to the Truth.

The more you struggle, the more your mind becomes strong. And the mind can never awaken to the Truth, however strong it is. As the Upanishads say, the Truth is “yan manasa na manute” – that which the mind cannot contemplate, comprehend. A very beautiful statement in the Upanishads says: yato vacho nivartante, aprapya manasa saha. The Truth is that “from which words return, along with the mind, unattained.”

The only way to comprehend the Truth is through the cessation of the mind. When the mind ceases to be, you awaken to the Truth.

The mind is the obstacle. That is why Patanjali defines yoga as chittavritti nirodha – the cessation of the vrittis in the mind. The vrittis – changing ‘thought waves’ – are the mind. When they cease to be, the mind ceases to be. And you comprehend the Truth, you awaken to the Truth.

And struggles make the mind stronger.

So the way to reach the Truth, hear the temple bells the boy was struggling to hear, is to give up all struggle.

And that is what the boy in Polo Coelho’s story does.

In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, the boy Siddhartha leaves his home in search of the Truth and practices all kinds of sadhanas just as the other Siddhartha – the Buddha – does. Years pass but he does not reach his goal. He meets the Buddha and then moves on, realizing no Buddha can give him his Truth, he has to attain it by himself. And then one day he gives up all the sadhanas he has been practicing so far. And then it happens. He has his first powerful mystic experience. Here is how Hesse describes Siddhartha’s first experience:

“He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colourful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. All of this, all this yellow and blue, river and forest, entered Siddhartha for the first time through the eyes, was no longer a spell of Mara, was no longer the veil of Maya, was no longer a pointless and coincidental diversity of mere appearances, despicable to the deeply thinking Brahmin, who scorns diversity, who seeks unity. Blue was blue, river was river, and if also in the blue and the river, in Siddhartha, the singular and divine lived hidden, so it was still that very divinity's way and purpose, to be here yellow, here blue, there sky, there forest, and here Siddhartha. The purpose and the essential properties were not somewhere behind the things, they were in them, in everything.”

Siddhartha gives up and it happens.

That is exactly what happens to the boy in Paulo Coelho’s story too. The beautiful young woman he meets, the strange woman with a veil over her head, tells him about the temple and the temple bells on the island. And he starts out on a journey to discover what the woman had told him about.

“Seduced by the woman’s beauty” – says the story. That is beautiful too.

The Tibetans have a name for that woman. In the esoteric writings of Tibet she is called the Red Dakini. Dakini is a Tibetan yogini. The Red Dakini is the one who initiates man into the higher mysteries of life. And she is incredibly beautiful.

The desire for the Truth is the most beautiful thing in the world. It is what makes life beautiful. Minus that, life is plain and monotonous.

The Red Dakini gives you the key to the mysteries of life. And she is so beautiful that her beauty will haunt you day and night. Once touched by her, you never escape her. You surrender to her seductive charms completely, you are infatuated by her hopelessly.

And that is the most beautiful thing to happen in life.

This introduction is something that happens to the rare fortunate individual, say the Upanishads. Something that happens to one in a million individuals.

She chooses the individual and reveals herself to him.

And once you are chosen there is no escaping her.

0o0

The boy goes to the place she has indicated. He sits down on the beach and stares out at the horizon, but he sees only what he has always seen: blue sky and ocean.

Continued …2

Buddha in the Business World 2

[Continued from Buddha in the Business World 1]

Siddhartha first says in Kamaswami’s house as his guest and then begins working for him. “Siddhartha learned many new things; he heard a lot and spoke little. And thinking of Kamala’s words, he was never subservient to the merchant, forced him to treat him as an equal, yes even more than an equal. Kamaswami conducted his business with care and often with passion, but Siddhartha looked upon all of this as if it was a game, the rules of which he tried hard to learn precisely, but the contents of which did not touch his heart.”

Simultaneously, young Siddhartha learns other things too – from Kamala. “Much he learned from her red, smart mouth. Much he learned from her tender, supple hand… Wonderful hours he spent with the beautiful and smart artist, became her student, her lover, her friend.”

Kamaswami soon realizes that while Siddhartha has no real interest in business, he has “that mysterious quality of those people to whom success comes all by itself.” Kamaswami is not sure what exactly it is, but he makes a few observations about Siddhartha and his ways. For one thing, Siddhartha “always seems to be merely playing with business-affairs, they never fully become a part of him, they never rule over him, he is never afraid of failure, he is never upset by a loss.” Also, “that Siddhartha surpassed him, the merchant, in calmness and equanimity, and in the art of listening and deeply understanding previously unknown people.”

On the advice of a friend, under the hope that this would perhaps make Siddhartha take more interest in business, Kamaswami makes him a shareholder in his business, with a share both in his profit and in his loss.

But Siddhartha never takes any more interest in business than he did before. “At one time, he traveled to a village to buy a large harvest of rice there. But when he got there, the rice had already been sold to another merchant. Nevertheless, Siddhartha stayed for several days in that village, treated the farmers for a drink, gave copper-coins to their children, joined in the celebration of a wedding, and returned extremely satisfied from his trip.”

True, Siddhartha can see the commercial advantages of this. “If I’ll ever return there again, perhaps to buy an upcoming harvest, or for whatever purpose it might be, friendly people will receive me in a friendly and happy manner, and I will praise myself for not showing any hurry and displeasure at that time.” But that is not the reason why he spends time with the people. It is not future benefits he has in mind. It is not a business strategy for Siddhartha. He truly values their friendship for its own sake. Among his most cherished memories of the time are that he has gotten to know people and places, received kindness and trust, and found friendship; that children have sat on his knees and farmers have shown him their fields.

Siddhartha values people for themselves and not for their commercial worth. He is genuinely interested in them as people, as human beings.

Like Kamala who wanted to take credit for what she had done to him out of love, Kamaswami too wants to take credit for what Siddhartha had learnt from him, and but his need to take credit is not as innocent as that of Kamala. Siddhartha calls this a joke and tells Kamaswami, “What I’ve learned from you is how much a basket of fish costs and how much interests may be charged on loaned money. These are your areas of expertise. I haven’t learned to think from you, my dear Kamaswami, you ought to be the one seeking to learn from me.”

Again, I want to point out here, it is not ungratefulness. He is just speaking the truth.

Siddhartha is a true brahmana, in the original sense of the term, and Kamaswami, a bania, a businessman in the true sense of the term. The brahmana should not learn the ways of the bania, whereas the bania should learn the ways of the brahmana. When the brahmana learns the ways of the bania, he ceases to be a brahmana but when the bania learns from the brahmana, he becomes a better businessman. Many are the things that a businessman can learn from the brahmana – his serenity, his search for understanding himself, his independence, his freedom, his equanimity in gain and loss, his fearlessness, his art of listening, his ability to understand people, and countless other things.

“The merchant’s attempts to convince Siddhartha that he was eating his, Kamaswami’s, bread were also in vain.”

A brahmana is grateful to people for the things he gets from them. But he also knows they are not the real givers – the true giver is existence itself, life itself. They are mere instruments.

There is a beautiful saying in my mother tongue, Malayalam. Throw a piece of bread to a dog, and it will wag its tail before you all its life. Give an elephant something to eat, it will be grateful to you for sure, but it will not wag its tail before you.

The rich and the powerful in India, the wealthy merchant, the moneylender and the zamindar, have always forced the poor and the powerless to kneel before them and call them their mai-baap and God after throwing a morsel of bread before them – a morsel of bread produced by the poor man’s efforts. But Siddhartha is not one to bend his knees either before money or before power.

“Whether there was a business deal going on which was in danger of failing, or whether a shipment of merchandise seemed to have been lost, or a debtor seemed to be unable to pay, Kamaswami could never convince his partner that it would be useful to utter a few words of worry or anger, to have wrinkles on the forehead, to sleep badly.”

Krishna tells Arjuna in the Gita: sukhaduhkhe same krtvā, labhālābhau jayājāyau tato yuddhāya yujjyasva. “Treating happiness and sorrow, gain and loss, and conquest and defeat with equanimity, get ready for battle.”

Words of immeasurable wisdom! Words that form the very core of Indian philosophy of work!

This is how a warrior battles. He puts his life at stake every time he enters the battlefield and yet he keeps his equanimity. He wants victory, no doubt, but he remains equanimous in victory and defeat; he wants happiness and not sorrow, yet he is equanimous in happiness and sorrow; he wants gain, but he is equanimous in gain and loss.

Every businessman knows it is impossible to beat a rival who is not afraid to lose.

The Kamaswamis of the world and the Siddharthas are made of different stuff. Where the Kamaswamis are under constant threat and insecurities, filled with mistrust and suspicion, the Siddharthas live their lives in festivity and celebration, in utsava bhava. Stress is a way of life for the Kamaswamis, but the Siddharthas dance through their life.

Just as Siddhartha wouldn’t allow Kamaswami to become his master, he wouldn’t allow business affairs to rule over him. Business is not life for him, it is one of the requirements of life, means of earning money.

There is a Sanskrit verse I love – love immensely. Says Janaka, our greatest ancient ideal for the sage king, the rajarshi, in the verse: mithilāyām pradīptāyām na me kinchana naśyati. “If Mithila burns down to ashes, nothing of mine is lost.” No, this is not Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burns. Janaka is not a hard-hearted ruler who did not care for his subjects. This is a ruler to whom each of his subjects was like a son. A king with total commitment, total dedication, a paragon of virtues, to whom nothing is more important than the welfare of his people. And yet he could say that, because at one level, he was beyond all these things.

That is exactly what it was all to Siddhartha. To him it was all a game he was playing.

Siddhartha is the sthitaprajna the Gita talks about. Well, almost.

Says the Gita about the sthitaprajna:

yah sarvatrānabhisnehah tattad prāpya shubhāshubham
nābhinandati na dveshti tasya prajnā pratishṭhitā.
A sthitaprajna does not feel the kind of possessive attachment other people feel everywhere. And as good things come to him he does not become overly elated, nor does he grieve it when bad things happen to him.

And that is exactly how we see Siddhartha at this stage in his life. He is muktasangah – free from attachments.

Siddhartha loves. But it is not money Siddhartha loves. It is not things Siddhartha loves. He loves people. “Welcome was the merchant who offered him linen for sale, welcome was the debtor who sought another loan, welcome was the beggar who told him for one hour the story of his poverty and who was not half as poor as any given Samana.” And he treated them all equally. “He did not treat the rich foreign merchant any different than the servant who shaved him and the street-vendor whom he let cheat him out of some small change when buying bananas.”

And Siddhartha loves life. “He visited the beautiful Kamala regularly, learned the art of love in which, more than anything else, giving and taking became one.”

In Siddhartha we find the beautiful ancient ideal of India: balancing dharma, artha and kama. Kama is pleasure; artha is wealth; and dharma is goodness, thought for the other, not exploiting others, giving others at least as much as we take from them.

The lesson Siddhartha learns from Kamala about love is equally applicable to business too. Business is at its best when giving and taking become one. When giving becomes taking and taking becomes giving. So long as the two are different, you are only an inferior businessman.

One day with Kamala, Siddhartha makes an invaluable observation. He tells her, “You are like me; you are different from other people. You are Kamala and no one else, and with you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself, just as I can. Few people have that capacity and yet everyone could have it.’

Siddhartha observes that he, a former samana, and the most famous, the most beautiful, the most talented prostitute of the day are alike.

And he tells her in what way they are both alike. She is Kamala and no one else, just like he is Siddhartha and no one else. Both of them are original people, and not of the faceless masses. Each lives his and her life in his and her own way, and not the way the faceless masses live. They have retained their individuality, their uniqueness.

This is the meaning of the word swadharma at its deepest level. Practicing swadharma means being what you are, living what you are. The dharma of a thing is what makes the thing what it is – dhārayati iti dharmah; dhāranāt dharma ityāhuh; and so on. The dharma of fire is to burn, the dharma of water is to find its level. When fire burns, it is practicing its swadharma; when water seeks its level, it is practicing its swadharma. The swadharma of fire maybe to destroy through burning, and the swadharma of water maybe to nourish through flowing; but when fire destroys through burning, it is practicing its swadharma, just as when water nourishes through flowing, it is practicing its swadharma.

Each one of us is born to practice our dharma, our swadharma. Spiritual growth is possible only when we practice our swadharma. All growth is possible only when we practice swadharma. Practicing swadharma is the highest virtue, says all of Indian culture. The Bhagavad Gita goes to the extent of saying that it is better to die in swadharma than to practice paradharma, what is not one’s dharma; for, terrible is [the practice of] paradharma [in its consequences]: swadharme nidhanam śreyah, paradharmo bhayāvahah.

Swadharma is when you become what you are, when you live what you are. When you become authentically what you are and live an authentic life as what you are.

And such is the stress Indian culture lays on swadharma that it never tires of extolling the virtues of swadharma and telling stories about those who practice their swadharma.

Like the famous story of dharmavyadha, the sagely butcher, that appears in the Mahabharata and is repeated in numerous other places, including the Shukasaptati, where I unexpectedly came across it earlier this morning. He is a butcher by profession, and yet he is a great saint too – saintliness acquired through the practice of swadharma.

One of the most beautiful stories I have come across about swadharma is the lesser known story of Bindumati, a prostitute like Kamala. The story says that one day Emperor Ashoka was taking a walk along the Ganga in Pataliputra. A couple of his ministers were with him, as was Bindumati. As they were walking along, an idle thought occurred to Ashoka and he spoke it out. “I wonder,” he said, “if anyone can turn the current of the mighty Ganga backward.” There was silence for a moment or two and then Bindumati spoke. “If I have your permission, Maharaj,” said the prostitute, “I can turn the Ganga backward.”

Ashoka was stunned. The ministers were stunned. The woman must have gone mad! Who can make the Ganga flow backward!

But Bindumati looked serious. She was waiting for the emperor’s permission.

“Show me,” said Ashoka. “Do it now.”

And, says the story, Bindumati closed her eyes and stood in utter silence for a few moments. The emperor and the ministers watched her and then looked at the Ganga. And they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Mother Ganga was slowing down. The greatest miracle of their life was happening right before their eyes. Soon the Ganga became absolutely still. Like a long, endless lake. There was not a movement in the water.

They all turned back and looked at Bindumati with unbelieving eyes. And when they looked back at the Ganga again, the water had slowly begun flowing backward. And soon the roaring, mighty river was flowing backward with the same power with which it had flowed downward!

“How could you do that?” asked the emperor. It was more a shout than a question.

“Because of the power of my swadharma,” answered Bindumati, in a voice as serene as could be. “I am a prostitute and I practice the dharma of the prostitute with total commitment.”

That is the Indian attitude towards swadharma. About being what you are and living what you are.

And Siddhartha tells Kamala: you are what you are and live what you are, just as I am what I am and live what I am.

That is one thing that makes them unique and separates them from the rest of the people around them.

And, he tells her, another thing: she has within her a stillness, a sanctuary to which she can retreat any time.

An inner sanctuary to which one can retire and cut off the world and be oneself.

I do not think there is anything in life as precious as that.

Every one of us feels the need to have a room of our own, into which we can go and close the doors and be ourselves. Virginia Woolf wrote a book by that name: A Room of One’s Own. I believe it is one of every human being’s basic needs.

I believe the need for solitude is as important a need as the need for self-actualization or self-transcendence or belongingness or the other basic human needs Abraham Maslow speaks about. Personally, it has always been with me. Even as a child, I had this need to spend hours all alone. If I couldn’t do that at home, I walked to solitary places and spent hours there. Like the attic of the gopuram of our village temple – it was a large one with a tall gopuram in south Indian style – where I could spend as many hours as I liked all alone. Or other solitary places in our valley.

And yet I believe the need for an inner sanctuary is perhaps even more important than the need for outer solitude. With that inner sanctuary, you can be in solitude even in the middle of a crowd.

Few people have that. Kamala has that. And so does Siddhartha. Having that most precious of human possessions is another common thing they have between themselves.

Sometimes in my executive training programmes I conduct an exercise in building an inner sanctuary to which a person can retire when he needs it. I think more than anything else, it is this that keeps a man sane. In the absence of that, I believe, there is the chance of our turning insane. We all need occasionally to get Far from the Madding Crowd.

To nourish ourselves. To give time for our souls to catch up with us.

James Truslow Adams writes in Time for the Soul: “A friend of mine, a distinguished explorer who spent a couple of years among the savages of the upper Amazon, once attempted a forced march through the jungle. The party made extraordinary speed for the first two days, but on the third morning, when it was time to start, my friend found all the natives sitting on their haunches, looking very solemn and making no preparation to leave. “They are waiting,” the chief explained to my friend. “They cannot move farther until their souls have caught up with their bodies.””

The modern man has great need to give time for his soul to catch up with him. Particularly men in the business world.

Speaking of sanctuary, Margaret Blair Johnstone says: “It gives more than refuge and release; it gives renewal. Essentially, sanctuary is a means of finding the power to face life on lifted wings. It is this power which enables men to “renew their strength…mount up with wings as eagles…run and not be weary…walk and not faint.”

Sanctuaries are opportunities to get in touch with our inner wisdom, to turn away from the world’s chatter and to listen to our inner silence, the silence of our being, its music. The busier you are, the more you have the need for an inner sanctuary. I do not think anyone has ever needed inner sanctuaries as today’s busy executive does – and the higher his position, the more is his need for a sanctuary.

Having a sanctuary is as important as having a vision and a mission in life, as being motivated and connected with people.

O0O

One last thing.

One day Kamala and Siddhartha “played the game of love, one of the thirty or forty different games Kamala knew. Her body was supple like that of a jaguar and a hunter’s bow; whoever learned about love from her, learned many pleasures, many secrets. For a long time, she played with Siddhartha, repulsed him, overwhelmed him, conquered him and rejoiced at her mastery, until he was overcome and lay exhausted by her side.

The courtesan bent over him, took a long look at his face, at his eyes, which had grown tired.

“You are the best lover I have ever had,” she said thoughtfully. “You’re stronger than others, more supple, more willing. You’ve learned my art well, Siddhartha. At some time, when I’ll be older, I’d want to bear your child.””

No one can love as beautifully as a Buddha can love. Or a Buddha-in-the-making can love. Even when it comes to physical love, sexual love.

In business, Siddhartha becomes more effective than Kamaswami, the merchant. In love, Siddhartha becomes the best lover the courtesan Kamala has known.

That is what happens when the Buddha enters the business world. He excels in whatever he does.

To be a Buddha is to excel in everything you do.

Krishna, the Buddha who excelled in everything he did, the great master of yoga, the yogayogeshwara, defines yoga as excellence in action: yogah karmasu kaushalam.

No matter what that action is, you excel in it.

O0O

Note: For those who are not familiar with the book, Siddhartha here is not the historical Buddha, though he too is a character in the book, This Siddhartha is a Brahmin youth who leaves home in search of the truth, as the Buddha himself did.