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Sufism

VOL. 2, SUFIS: THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH

Chapter-6

An Eternal Recurrence

Third Question

 

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts          Sufism          Sufis: The People Of The Path

 

 

The third question:

Question 3

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO FAKE?

People are so fake because it pays, it is a good policy. If you are true, you will be in danger. You can be true only in a true society where truth is respected, loved. This society exists through lies. Here truth is not respected, here truth is crucified, here truth is killed. Lies are enthroned. That's why politics becomes so important in this world -- because politics is the game of lies. And the politicians become the most important people in the world. They should be the last. They become the first because this world -- this whole society -- is based on lies. And if you live with liars and you will live with this falsehood all around you, you have to be fake. It pays, it is economical, it is safe. It protects you -- otherwise people will be against you. If you are true and they are all living through lies, they cannot tolerate you.

From the very beginning a child starts learning that lies pay. If the child tells the truth, he is beaten; if the child tells the truth, it creates a kind of embarrassment for the parents. If the child is being truthful, nobody is for him, everybody is against him. If he is Lying, then he can protect himself. A lie becomes a kind of umbrella. And if he is Lying in tune with the parents' lies, then there is no problem at all. He can exist very smoothly. And children are very perceptive, sensitive; they learn whatsoever they see around.

I have heard....

Returning after a lengthy absence to his family's spot on the beach, the youngster found them preparing to leave.

'Come along,' said the mother, 'we are going to a restaurant for a good dinner.'

'I am not hungry,' said the boy. 'I have eaten seven ice cream cones and three frankfurters.'

'Where on earth did you get seven ice cream cones and three frankfurters?' asked his astounded mother. 'You didn't have any money.'

'I didn't need money. I just wandered all around the beach crying as if I was lost.'

'Crying as if I was lost.... ' Now the child has learned a great trick. If the child pretends that he is lost, it pays. And that is the whole secret of why people are fake -- it pays. Whenever you are true, it harms you. And who is there to harm himself, and for what? The lie is a survival measure.

I have heard....

An art collector chanced upon a painting bearing the signature 'Picasso'. He purchased it immediately, hoping that it would prove to be very valuable. But a nagging doubt about the possibility of its being a forgery compelled him to seek out Picasso's home.

After much waiting he finally gained a moment of Picasso's time, and showed him the painting.

'It is a fake!' snapped the great painter, and slammed the door shut.

The collector was crestfallen and determined not to be taken in again. However, some time later, he came across a different painting, also bearing the signature 'Picasso'. He carefully researched the history of this painting and purchased it only after fully documenting its authenticity. However, even with legal proof that this was a genuine Picasso, he still felt a twinge of doubt, and resolved to satisfy his doubts by again visiting him.

When he finally gained a moment of Picasso's time, the great painter took one look at the painting, and said, 'It is a fake!'

'But, Picasso,' pleaded the art collector, 'I researched this painting thoroughly. I can prove that you yourself painted it.'

To this Picasso replied, 'I often paint fakes.'

It happens. Even a painter starts learning what sells. Not all Picasso's paintings are originals. More of them are fake, although they have been painted by him. Then what does he mean by saying that it is a fake? He is simply saying that he is just copying it from his other paintings; it is not original, it is a copy. It does not matter who is copying -- somebody else or Picasso himself.

It almost always happens that when a person gets a Nobel Prize he never produces anything original afterwards. He goes on repeating his old story in new ways. Because it has paid so much, he is stuck. He thinks it sells so he goes on writing the same thing again and again. It has never happened, up to now, that after getting a Nobel Prize, a poet or a novelist has been able to do anything original again. The Nobel Prize is a kind of death knell, the person is finished -- because now he knows what pays, now he has found the secret of success, now he has the key, so why bother trying other keys? They may not be so successful. Why bother about other directions and dimensions of creativity? One knows the right way to do a thing, so one goes on doing the right thing again and again and again, and becomes fake.

People are false because they have found a key. They know what makes life secure, comfortable, convenient, safe -- although convenience, comfort, safety, security, don't bring any kind of blessing. They bring all kinds of miseries, they don't bring any happiness in life. Happiness comes only through being original. Unless you have your original face you will never be blessed.

But to have your original face you will have to pass through many inconveniences, discomforts. The path is arduous. Keep it in mind that whenever you face a choice between convenience and joy, always choose joy, otherwise you will become fake. Whenever you have a choice between comfort and some adventure, choose the adventure, howsoever arduous, otherwise you will become a fake. Whenever you have a choice between security and insecurity, let insecurity be your love. Never choose security. Security makes people dead and dull. A perfectly secure person is already in his grave, he is no longer alive. If you are alive there is bound to be insecurity -- the more alive, the more insecure.

A really totally alive person lives moment to moment in insecurity. But then there is great thrill. And he is always on the verge of the unknown and he is always moving into something mysterious. The mysterious cannot be secure. Don't depend on bank balances, don't depend on marriage, don't depend on a comfortable and well-paying job, don't depend on family, society and state. People who have depended on those things are all around. You can see them -- how dead they are, how dragging is their life, how sad are their eyes. Not a single song is in their heart and you will never feel any dance in their feet. Impossible. You can go on searching in their life and you will find desert and more desert, not a single oasis. Love does not bloom; celebration they have not known.

I have heard....

An Indian died -- a very religious man, ritualistic, formal. He had been doing all the kinds of things that the scriptures commanded. So he was very, very certain of reaching paradise. When he reached there he looked through the door and he was surprised. The paradise looked almost like India, no difference, none at all.

So he asked the angel standing at the gate, 'What is the matter? It looks almost like India, I don't see any difference. Paradise is almost like our land, our country.'

And the man standing on the door said, 'What are you talking about? And why do you go on bowing down to me? This is not paradise and I am not an angel!'

This story is beautiful.... It is hell and the man standing on the door is not an angel but the Devil! But hell will look like India. Hell will look like anything that you have become accustomed to. If you are a German then hell will look like Germany, if you are Japanese then hell will look like Japan, if you are English then hell will look exactly like England.

Hell is that which you know. Meditate over it: hell is that which you are acquainted with; hell is the past, the known, the well-trodden path. Heaven is something unknown, something that you cannot compare with your past, cannot compare with your experience, there is no comparison. It is utterly new! Utterly! Absolutely! It is discontinuous. You have never known anything like it.

But if you live a life of comfort and convenience and ritual and formality and lies, if you live a fake life, a pseudo life, you live in hell. And you will be living in hell in the future too. You are creating it around yourself. Shake yourself up and get out of your dull and dead so-called life. Start living again. And don't think about what pays! It is always the wrong thing that pays in this world. The right thing never pays because there are no more people who can pay for the right thing. If you do something wrong you will be paid very much.

Just think, a poet is not paid, but a general is. And the general is doing the wrong thing -- killing people. He is a murderer. The soldier is paid, not a painter. Those who bring death into the world, they are paid. Can't you see it? The army people are the well-paid people. They are the butchers and murderers, but they are the most well-paid, well-fed. They live in good houses, have all the facilities of life. Look at the poet who goes on singing songs of love -- he will be a beggar. Think of the musician who brings music to your door -- he is a beggar. All that is right is not paid; it cannot be paid. The world is so wrong. The politicians are highly paid, highly respected. The newspapers are continuously full of their news. Have you ever seen anything else than politics in the newspapers? And these are the most mischievous people in the world. These are the people who make the earth a hell. But they are the well-paid people.

Remember, if you think in terms of payment, you will be fake. If you want to be paid in this world with comfort, luxury, you will have to be fake. If you really want to be alive, then don't bother whether it pays or not. If it pays, good; if it doesn't pay, good.

But then you will be living a life of great enrichment. You may not be rich, but your life will be enriched. You may not have fame, but you will have joy; you may not be known in the world, but you will be known to God. And that is all that is worth anything.

And I am not saying that you all have to carry your crosses on your shoulders continuously. No, I am not saying that. I never demand the impossible. When you live with false people there is no need to create unnecessary conflict either. Avoid. Go on searching for your life, your original face, but there is no need to be in conflict every day, every moment -- otherwise it becomes a problem, an unnecessary wastage of energy. Follow the rules of ordinary life, just as one follows the rules of a game. On the roads in India they say: Keep to the left -- so keep to the left. It is nothing of any importance. In America they keep to the right. That too is perfectly okay. When in America keep to the right, when in India keep to the left. And if some mad country exists somewhere where you have to keep in the centre, keep in the centre. Don't be worried.

But always know that this is nothing fundamental. It has nothing to do with any truth. It is a convenience. And when there are so many people.... You need not create incon-venience for others. You are at freedom to create all kinds of inconveniences for yourself -- that is your freedom -- but you need not create inconveniences for others.

I have heard....

The great maestro, Toscanini, was as well-known for his ferocious temper as for his outstanding musicianship. When members of his orchestra played badly, he would pick up anything in sight and hurl it to the floor. During one rehearsal a flat note caused the genius to grab his valuable watch and smash it beyond repair.

Shortly afterwards, he received from his devoted musicians a luxurious, velvet lined box containing two watches -- one a beautiful gold timepiece, the other a cheap one on which was inscribed: For rehearsals only.

So keep that in mind. When you are moving in the world, moving with people, there is no need to carry your cross. There is no need to go on shouting loudly that you are a martyr or a Jesus or a Mansoor, there is no need. Follow the rules of the game. It is just a game.

But remember always that the game should not become your whole life. That's all I would like my sannyasins to remember. That's why I don't take you out of society. Never has it been done before. For a single reason it has never been done before -- the reason was that Buddha would not allow his sannyasins to live in the world. The problem was that if the sannyasin was to be true, it would be difficult to live in the world -- because with people you have to be polite, formal, many times. In life you cannot continuously remember that you have to be true; people are so false. Just out of compassion, out of politeness, sometimes you may have to keep yourself quiet, not to say a word -- because if you say something it is going to hurt people unnecessarily. Or sometimes you will have to do something which is not true. You can't be absolutely yourself when you are living with so many people. So Buddha said to his sannyasins, 'Leave the world. Sacrifice your relationships to be true.' Others who decided to live in the world sacrificed their truth to live in relationship.

Both are lopsided. You can leave the world, but then you will be leaving many opportunities to grow. You can go to a Himalayan cave and sit there. Of course there will be no need to lie because there will be nobody to lie to, nobody to talk to, nobody to relate to. You will be alone in the cave, you will be perfectly true, you can have your original face -- but then you don't have any opportunities as challenges to provoke you into growth. You are out of life, and only in life do people grow.

Life is a great opportunity. In the cave you will be secluded, all alone, dull and dead. You will again become dead because you will not have any possibility of responding. Yes, you will not be telling any untruth, but to whom are you going to say the truth? You will not be angry, right, but you will not be loving either. So this is something meaningless. Anger is dropped but love also disappears. So the old kind of sannyasin becomes cold. They don't have any anger -- a good thing -- but they don't have any love. And that can't be praised.

It is as if a person was afraid of illness so he committed suicide. Now he will never be ill, that's true, but he will never be alive either. This is throwing the baby out with the bath water. I am not in support of it.

But up to now these have been the two alternatives given to humanity. One is to leave the world, to shrink into yourself -- that is a kind of dull life again. Or, to live in the world and be false, because it is too troublesome to be true.

I am giving you the golden mean: live in the world and don't be of the world. You will need to be very, very alert -- more alert than Buddha's sannyasins. They did not need to be alert, they could go to sleep in their caves. You will have to be very, very alert, and you will have to keep two watches -- one for rehearsals only, and one, the real one, for yourself. You will have to become a great actor. But when you act consciously you are not fake. When a conscious act is there and you know that it is just an act, then it is not going to destroy your life. But when you forget that this is an act and you become identified with it, then you become worldly.

So the old definition of the worldly is to live in the world, and the definition of the non-worldly is to not live in the world to get out of it. My definition is different. The worldly is one who gets into his act and becomes unconscious and forgets that this is an act. It is as if you are playing on the stage, acting some role. For example, you are in a drama playing the role of Jesus or Pontius Pilate and you forget that it is a role, and when the curtains fall and you come home you come as Pontius Pilate or Jesus Christ. Then you will be in trouble.

It has happened sometimes. Once it happened to an actor who was playing Abraham Lincoln continuously for one year around the United States. Every day the party travelled from one town to another town, and he was Abraham Lincoln. One year is a long time. He got mixed up. After one year he forgot his real identity, who he was, and he started saying that he was Abraham Lincoln. At first people thought he was joking, but then it became serious. He came home but he came as Abraham Lincoln. His wife tried to persuade him to get out of his role, his father tried to convince him that he was not Abraham Lincoln, but he wouldn't listen. And he wouldn't wear ordinary clothes either, he would wear the clothes that he had been wearing on the stage. And he would walk like Abraham, he would stutter like Abraham, and his face had also become like Abraham's. For one year he was pretending and pretending and pretending. It became so difficult that they had to bring him to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist tried hard, from one direction and another, but he wouldn't say anything else except 'What are you saying? Have you gone mad? I am Abraham Lincoln!' There was no way....

They have a lie-detector mechanism in America which they use in the courts. The person concerned stands on the mechanism unaware that there is a mechanism underneath. It is like a cardiogram-type thing. It makes a graph of your heartbeats. When you are speaking the truth there are smooth lines, when you are suddenly ready to speak an untruth there is a gap -- because the heart knows something else. And the graph is broken. So when you lie it can be seen in the graph. The graph becomes shaken or broken.

For example, if somebody asks you, 'What is the time on your watch?' you look and you say, 'Nine o'clock.' There is no need to lie. The graph is running smoothly. And if somebody asks, 'How many people are here?' you count and you say, 'Ten.' There is no need to lie. The graph is going smoothly. Then the person asks, 'Are you the murderer of this man?' Your heart says, 'Yes!' because it knows, and you say 'No.' So there is a conflict between the heart and you, and that conflict shakes the graph. Then it can be shown where you lied.

So the psychiatrist suggested that this Abraham Lincoln be put on the lie detector. There only would they be able to see whether he was lying or not. Now the man who was Abraham Lincoln had got fed up with all kinds of treatments and psychiatry and medicine and tranquillisers, and all kinds of suggestions and everybody pretending to be wise and patronising him. So he decided that day that although he was Abraham Lincoln it was better to say he was not. 'Be finished with it! Inside I know that I am, but for the outside I will just tell them and be finished with it. Otherwise life will become a problem!'

Standing on the lie detector, they asked him different questions and he answered. Then they came to the real question -- they asked, 'Are you Abraham Lincoln?'

He said, 'No!' And the detector said he was Lying.

He had got so much in tune with the idea, that in his deepest core he knew that he was Abraham Lincoln. Now just on the surface he was lying.

If this happens, then you are a worldly man. That is my definition of a worldly man -- one who gets into his act and forgets to come out; one who remains hooked there. This is the worldly man. And the sannyasin, the other-worldly, is the man who goes on playing acts, who knows they are acts, who never gets hooked by any act. When he comes home, he plays the act of being the husband and the father and the wife. These are all games. Play beautiful, play artistically, play aesthetically, but there is no need to get hooked -- that YOU ARE a father, that you ARE a mother, that you ARE this or that. Or you are a doctor, you are an engineer, you are this and that -- these are functions. When you are treating a patient, be in the role of being a doctor, but when there is no patient and you are sitting alone in your room, there is no need to be a doctor. Otherwise you are doing the same stupid thing as that man who became Abraham Lincoln.

I used to stay at a friend's house in Calcutta. He was a Justice of the High Court in those days, now he is a Chief Justice somewhere. His wife told me, 'My husband respects you so much, he loves you so much, that you are the only person who can be of some help to me.' I said, 'What is the matter?' She said, 'He is always the Justice -- even at home, even with children. He never comes out of that role. Not only that, even in bed with me, while he is making love, he is the Justice. And I have to treat him as "Your Majesty", "Your Honour". He expects that. And I feel as if I am a criminal standing before him always to be judged. And the whole house becomes sad when he comes in. When he goes out there is joy that the Justice has gone.'

This is happening to almost everybody, more or less. I call the man worldly who does not know how to play a game and gets too serious about it.

My sannyasin is a new entry into the world of religion. He will live in the world, he will play all kinds of games, and he will know that these are all games and he will never be hooked by any game. And he will always be able to get out of any act easily, and he will go on searching for his original face. He will not be lost in the acts that he has to put up with.

This is of immense importance. If he lives in the world in a worldly way, he becomes dead. If he becomes an old traditional kind of sannyasin, he shrinks and becomes dead. Both are ways of death. Life is where opposites meet. Life is where day and night meet. Life is in the world and yet only for those who can remain beyond it. Be a lotus flower -- in the water and yet untouched by it.

 

Next: Chapter 6, An Eternal Recurrence, The fourth question

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts          Sufism          Sufis: The People Of The Path

 

 

Chapter 6

 


  • Sufism, Vol. 2 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 6: An Eternal Recurrence, Question 1
    Sufism, a mystic tradition within Islam , Vol. 2 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 6: An Eternal Recurrence, Question 1, RECENTLY, MIND ALMOST STOPPING, I HAVE SUDDENLY FELT MYSELF AND EVERYTHING AROUND ME TO BE EXISTING EXACTLY AS IN JESUS' TIME. AND THERE HAS BEEN A VERY STRONG SENSE OF JESUS HIMSELF. COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THIS KIND OF PHENOMENON? at energyenhancement.org
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  • Sufism, Vol. 2 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 6: An Eternal Recurrence, Question 3
    Sufism, a mystic tradition within Islam , Vol. 2 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 6: An Eternal Recurrence, Question 3, WHY ARE PEOPLE SO FAKE? at energyenhancement.org

  • Sufism, Vol. 2 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 6: An Eternal Recurrence, Question 4
    Sufism, a mystic tradition within Islam , Vol. 2 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 6: An Eternal Recurrence, Question 4, I AM MUCH CONFUSED ABOUT THE FOLLOWING QUESTION. I AM TRAINED AS A PHYSICIAN AND I HAVE ALWAYS FELT DEEPLY THAT IT IS A GOOD THING. BUT INTRINSIC IN MY WORK, IN MY ACTIVITY, IS A REFUSAL TO ACCEPT ILLNESS AND DEATH, DISEASE AND HUMAN SUFFERING. VERY DEEP, THEREFORE, IS A REFUSAL TO ACCEPT LIFE OR EXISTENCE AS IT IS. VERY DEEP IS A DESIRE TO CORRECT SOME OF THESE MECHANISMS OF NATURE. ALL MY PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY IS GOADED BY A FEAR, A DEEP PERSONAL FEAR, OF SICKNESS, SUFFERING AND DEATH. I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO VIEW MY WORK IN THE LIGHT OF THE WHOLE. PLEASE SHOW THE LIGHT OF EXISTENCE ON THIS AREA OF CONFUSION FOR ME at energyenhancement.org
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