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Chapter 3 - Unhitch the Universe
At this moment another man, bound to another pillar, who had been tortured there for one month, shouted, "That man is wrong, Omar. Don't believe him! I have never sent anybody after Mohammed! I have come myself."
He was God himself. He had been jailed one month earlier.
If you don't have faith in yourself, you are going to have faith in some madman who proclaims to be God's messenger or God himself, or proclaims that he is a reincarnation. But deep down there will be doubt -- how can you believe that that man is not mad?
Rinzai is saying:
BY LACK OF FAITH YOU FALL INTO A STATE OF UNCERTAINTY, IN WHICH
YOU CONFORM TO ALL THE FLUCTUATIONS IN YOUR SURROUNDINGS, SUBJECTING YOURSELF TO THEIR MYRIAD REVOLUTIONS, SO THAT YOU ARE
UNABLE TO ACHIEVE FREEDOM. IF YOU, HOWEVER, SUCCEED IN STOPPING
THE MIND, AS IT MOMENTARILY DASHES HITHER AND THITHER IN ITS
SEARCH, YOU THEN BECOME INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE PATRIARCHS
AND BUDDHAS.
Patriarchs are equivalent to the master, founders of some school of Zen.
When your mind is silent and all the vibrations of thoughts are no more there, you are one with the buddhas and with the masters. There is nothing to divide. In this position sometimes even the sanest men have declared that they are the buddha, that they are God, but this is a totally different situation. A madman
shows every sign of madness, he does not radiate buddhahood. He does not have the fragrance of those heights, nor can you see in his eyes the pacific depths.
There are moments in meditation when you are a buddha. The only distinction between a madman and the man who is a real buddha is that the buddha is compassionate, loving, and is not declaring that he is the only begotten son of God. He is saying, "I am a buddha and you are a buddha, whether you know it or not." The madman declares, "I am the only buddha -- you are just ordinary human beings, made of mud. God breathed in you and you started running hither and thither."
The English word 'Adam' means mud. God made man out of mud. In America we had our commune, Rancho Rajneesh. Before we went there it was called the Big Muddy Ranch. I always wondered, perhaps God took all the mud from this Big Muddy Ranch and created humanity. There wasn't any mud at that Big Muddy Ranch, it was a desert. And certainly it was big, one hundred and twenty- six square miles.
All the words ... for example 'human being' -- 'human' comes from 'humus', and 'humus'
means mud. Religions have degraded man into puppets, made of mud. That is the distinction
-- the madman who is declaring himself as the prophet or the messiah or the Christ does not say that you are also Christ. He wants to be special, that is a sure sign of madness.
A buddha is absolute sanity. He knows that he is a buddha and he knows you are also a buddha. You are just asleep. Perhaps you have not decided yet to wake up, but it is your freedom to do so.
Do you see the difference? The madman wants to be special; the buddha is not special. He is declaring the buddhahood of every living thing -- not only of human beings, but even of Osho - The Miracle
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