Weblog von Hans-Wolfgang

There were other teachers in Buddha and Mahavira's time too. One was Sanjay Vilethiputta. He avoided even initiation, he said, "You simply listen to me. If you feel like doing what I am saying, you do it, but I will not initiate you. If I initiate you, soon you will create an organization. You will need an organization to keep all the people who are my disciples together. There are so many reasons for them to be together -- for their security, for their safety, because they will be persecuted by the other religions. And if they are left alone in the vast ocean of enemies, they will be destroyed."

In India they have a very simple method of destroying anybody. India is a country of small villages, very small villages, millions of small villages. In a small village there are only twenty houses; twenty families are living there. They can destroy anybody by a simple method, a very non-violent method. They decide that a man is not to be accepted as part of them, so he cannot be invited to any marriage, to any ceremony.

Nobody will talk with him. He's not allowed to take water from the village well. If the river is five miles away, he has to carry his water from there. When crops are to be cut, nobody is to support him. Otherwise, in a village, that's the way: when one person's crops are ripe, the whole village helps him to cut the crop. Then somebody else's are ready and the whole village helps him. Singlehandedly, he will be in immense trouble.

Nobody will talk to him. People should not recognize him on the street, should not say hello. You will kill the man -- and he cannot go anywhere else because in India people are tethered to their land. Nobody is going to purchase his land, his house. If he wants to leave he can leave, but where is he going to go and what he is going to do?

It's a very easy, very non-violent, but really cruel method; far more cruel than killing the man. His children will not be playing with other children, his wife will not be meeting with any other woman. He's boycotted.

So Sanjay Vilethiputta said, "If I initiate you an organization will be necessary. I will not give you initiation, then it cannot be known to others that you are my followers. You just go on living, experiencing, doing what I have told to you. And if you feel to convey it to somebody, you can convey it, but there is no question of initiation. So nobody knows that you belong to Sanjay Vilethiputta."

But what happened? Sanjay Vilethiputta's scriptures we don't have. The man must have been of immense intelligence because Buddha criticizes him, Mahavira criticizes him. Otherwise, Mahavira and Buddha would not criticize a man who had no status. He must have had a status exactly the same as Buddha and Mahavira.

Jesus could not even say the whole truth -- that would have been too much. So whatsoever statements have come down in the name of Jesus are only half the story; the other half has never been told. Jesus could not say it because of the Jews he was surrounded with, and Christians have been clinging to those half-truths for two thousand years. For example, this statement is only a half-truth: "Seek and ye shall find." The other half, which has been said by Lao Tzu, is far more important; without it the first half becomes not only meaningless but dangerous. Lao Tzu says, "Do not seek and you will find. Do not seek and you have found it already." Both statements will look contradictory to each other; they are not. The beginning of the pilgrimage starts with searching, seeking, inquiring; there is no other way to begin. Unless you inquire what is the meaning of life, unless you go in search of the essential core of existence, you will never move, you will not even take the first step. Hence, the search has to begin. But if you continue searching forever and ever, if your search never comes to an end, you will remain in the mind. It is the mind which searches. Search is also a subtle desire. Even the inquiry into knowing is ambitious. The very desire to achieve something -- money, power, prestige, meditation, God, whatsoever it is, any desire, any ambition -- leads you into the future; it distracts you from the present. And the present is the only reality, the only truth there is. The person who never begins the search will remain unconscious; the person who always remains in the search will go crazy. The search has to begin so that you become a little more alert, a little more observant, vigilant, aware. And then the search has to be dropped so that you become silent, so that the mind disappears, so that the future evaporates and you are simply herenow, neither seeking nor searching. In that stillness of no-search, truth is found. And Lao Tzu is right when he says, "Seek and ye shall miss. Seek not and find immediately." But his statement is the second part of the journey. Jesus was speaking to the beginners; he is like a primary school teacher. Lao Tzu is talking to the adepts, to those who have come a long way; he is talking to the initiates. He is talking to people who can understand the joy of not searching, the stillness, the tranquility, the calmness of simply being -- no ambition, no desire, no future, no time, no mind. Jesus' statement is only half of the truth, and the beginning half. It is good for those who have not started the journey. It is meaningless, and not only that but harmful, for those who have started the journey and who are coming to realize the utter futility of all search. The truth is within you, and every search means going out, going somewhere else, leaving your home. When you drop searching you will come back home naturally, spontaneously; you will settle at the very core of your being.