Weblog von Hans-Wolfgang

A man who is meditative, who knows his inner peace and silence, cannot be a perverted sex maniac. The experience of inner ecstasy is helpful in both ways. On the one hand, it will make you normal human beings, not perverted in any way. Secondly, it will make you capable of creating small fields of energy which will go on spreading on their own. That will be the barrier which cannot be broken by any nuclear weapons. But if AIDS goes on spreading the way it is spreading.... It is not only through sexual intercourse that you can get AIDS. Even by kissing you can get AIDS. There are a few tribes -- old, ancient tribes living in the mountains in the Himalayas -- who seem to be far more advanced as far as kissing is concerned. They laugh at the whole idea, it is so unhygienic. In each kiss the partners are exchanging millions of germs. You have heard the words "kiss of death." Up to now it has been only words; now it is a reality. If we stop kissing, we will feel something is missing. Man is so inventive. You just rub noses with each other, and you will enjoy it more. These aboriginal tribes in the Himalayas do exactly that. They don't kiss, they simply rub noses. That is such a simple thing. At the most you can catch a cold. If you don't take any medicine your cold will go in seven days; if you take medicine your cold will go in one week. There is no problem. And it is a show of affection, intimacy, love, that you are willing to rub noses with someone who has a cold. But please, avoid kissing. You don't know who has AIDS. Very few people are confirmed, because very few people go to the doctors. And those who know they have AIDS manage to bribe the doctors to keep the information secret. They know that they cannot live more than two years -- that is the maximum -- perhaps they will live six months, eight months. Just think of a man -- put yourself in his position -- whose doctor says to him, "You have AIDS and you don't have more than two years to live, at the maximum; most probably six months will do it." Naturally, you don't want people to know that you have AIDS, because it is so humiliating. AIDS simply means you are a homosexual, perverted. So you are going to bribe the doctor, "Please keep your mouth shut." And there is no medicine for AIDS, so the doctor cannot be of any help. And as for you, when you see that you have at the most two years, or perhaps only six months, you will try to make the best of those six months – make as much love as you can, find as many partners as possible, because life is finishing. The people who have AIDS become more focused on sexuality because their whole life flame is going out any moment. Before it goes out.... Now they have nothing to lose, but they can give something -- AIDS -- to as many friends, lovers, as possible. And each person who comes in contact with these people will become a new source. Within fifteen years, the world will be covered with people who have AIDS, and it will be impossible to prevent it. So what is the need of the third world war? The need is that the politicians don't want to take any chance. Who knows?

In July 2005, Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, was targeted by Jewish extremists with an ancient Kabbalistic death curse. This curse is known in the Aramaic language as a "pulsa denura" or "lash of fire", and was motivated by opposition to the policy of withdrawing Israeli settlements from Gaza. It recalled the Rabin assassination, and took place at the gravesite of a Zionist executed for an attempted assassination in the 1930s. Real history and the ineffable world of the supernatural were conjured up together. The pulsa denura, like most curses, is understood to be dangerous to the person who casts it as well as the person at whom it is aimed. The ceremony took place at midnight on the eve of the Sabbath, performed by a Kabbalist who led 20 men in prayer. While leading figures in the Israeli settler movement denounced the curse, it wasn’t the first such ceremony. The same group of hardliners used a curse against a previous Israeli Prime Minister, Yitshak Rabin, one month before his death in 1995. Rabin was shot dead by a ruthless assassin; while there was nothing mystical about that event, it’s possible that the curse emboldened some people to plot actual violence. It is significant that the ritual was carried out at the grave of Shlomo Ben Yosef, who was executed in 1936, during the British Mandate, for violent acts that included shooting at a bus full of Arabs. The pulsa denura curse is a recent evolution of the more widely known act of herem – the excommunication from the Jewish community of a person believed to be a criminal… and the first-known pulsa denura only occurred in 1958, after a person mysteriously died following an excommunication prayer. But popular rumour gives this curse a longer history. According to some, the ‘Curse of the Kennedys’ – the misfortunes that appear to haunt America’s famous political family – dates back to the 1940s when Joseph Kennedy, US ambassador to Britain, quarrelled with an eminent Polish rabbi, Aaron Kotler. He was said to have been cursed with a pulsa denura, which would continue to strike subsequent generations. Such destructive actions, seeking to channel hatred and malign thoughts, are part of the folklore of many religions. In Catholicism, the Virgin Mary is associated with mercy and love. Few realise that in pre-industrial Europe a number of Virgin Mary shrines celebrated her destructive powers; she was credited with the ability to cause sickness or death in those who had annoyed her devotees. Islamic legends too contain many tales of holy people whose miraculous abilities included the fatal curse. When informed by journalists that he was the subject of a death curse, Ariel Sharon laughed and asked when it would take effect. But Sharon was in his late seventies; this must give the creators of the death curse some hope. He cannot live forever, and his eventual death, whenever it takes place, may then be attributed to the successful workings of the curse.

Language creates the difficulty. Maybe because of this particular structure in certain languages, Buddha became important and significant and became rooted only in Japan, China, Burma -- because they have a totally different language. It is very significant to understand why he became so important in the chinese mind, why China could understand him and India could not. China has a different language which fits with buddhist ideology absolutely. The chinese language does not divide in two. In the chinese language, or in Korean, or in Japanese or Burmese, a totally different structure exists than in Sanskrit, Hindi, English, Greek, Latin, French, German -- a totally different structure.

When for the first time the Bible was being translated into Burmese there was much difficulty, because a few sentences could not be translated at all. The moment you translate, their whole meaning is lost. For example, a simple sentence, 'God is'; you cannot translate it into Burmese. If you translate it, it becomes 'God becomes'. 'God is' cannot be translated because there is no equivalent term for 'is', because 'is' shows staticness.

We can say 'the tree is', but in Burmese you have to say 'the tree is becoming', not 'is'. There is no equivalent for 'is'. The tree 'becomes'. By the time you say 'the tree is', it is no more the same, so why do you say 'is'? 'Is' gives a staticness. It is a riverlike phenomenon -- 'tree is becoming'. I have to say 'tree is becoming' but in Burmese it will be simply 'tree becoming', the 'is' will not be there. 'The river is' -- if you want to translate -- will be 'river moving'. 'River rivering' will be the exact translation in Burmese.

But to say 'God becoming' is very difficult, because Christians cannot say that. God is perfect, he cannot become. He is not a process, he has no growth possibility -- he has already arrived. He is the absolute -- what do you mean by 'becoming'? Becoming is possible if somebody is imperfect. God is perfect, he cannot become. So how to translate it? Very difficult.

But Buddha immediately penetrated the burmese, chinese, japanese, korean mind; immediately penetrated. The very structure of the language made it possible; they could understand Buddha very easily.

In life there are only events. Eating is there but there is no eater. Just watch eating. Is there really an eater? You feel hungry, right -- hunger is there, but there is nobody who is hungry. Then you eat -- eating is there, but there is nobody who is an eater. Then hunger is satisfied, then you feel satiation -- this satisfaction is there but there is nobody who is satisfied.

Buddha says life consists of events. Life means living. Life is not a noun, it is a verb. And everything is a verb.