UNDERSTAND THE POTENCY OF EMPTINESS

UNDERSTAND THE POTENCY OF EMPTINESS. Just being empty, you will understand -- there is no other way of understanding. Whatsoever you want to understand, be that, because that is the only way. Try being an ordinary man, nobody, with no name, no identity, with nothing to claim, with no power to enforce on others, with no effort to dominate, with no desire to possess, just being a nonentity. Try it -- and see how powerful you become, how filled with energy and overflowing, so powerful that you can share your power, so blissful that you can give it to many, to millions. And the more you give, the more you are enriched. The more you share, the more it grows. You become a flood. HE WAS ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE POTENCY OF EMPTINESS -- just by being nobody -- THE VIEWPOINT THAT NOTHING EXISTS EXCEPT IN ITS RELATIONSHIP OF SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY. This is one of the deepest meditations Buddha discovered. He says everything exists in relation, it is a relativity; it is not an absolute, substantial thing. For example: you are poor, I am rich. Is it a substantial thing or just a relationship? I may be poor in relation to somebody else, and you may be rich in relation to somebody else. Even a beggar can be rich in relation to another beggar; there are rich beggars and poor beggars. A rich man in comparison to a richer man is a poor man. You are poor -- is your poverty existential or just a relationship? It is a relative phenomenon. If there is nobody to be related to, which will you be, a poor man or a rich man? Think... suddenly the whole of humanity disappears and you are left alone on the earth: which will you be, poor or rich? You will be simply YOU, not rich, not poor -- because how to compare? There is no Rockefeller to compare with, there is no beggar to compare with. Will you be beautiful or ugly when you are alone? You will be neither, you will be simply you. With nothing to compare with, how can you be ugly or beautiful? So with beauty and ugliness, richness and poverty and with all things. Will you be wise or a fool? Foolish or wise? Neither! So Buddha says all these things exist in relationship. They are not existential, they are just concepts. And we are so bothered about these things which are NOT. You are too bothered if you are ugly. You are too bothered if you are beautiful. The worry is created by something which is not. A relative thing is NOT. It is just a relationship, as if you have drawn a design in the sky, a flower of air. Even a bubble in water is more substantial than relativities. Who are you if you are alone? Nobody. Somebodiness comes in relationship with somebody. That means, just to be nobody is to be in nature; just to be nobody is to be in existence. And you are alone, remember. The society exists only outside you. Deep within you are alone. Close your eyes and see whether you are beautiful or ugly; both the concepts disappear, inside there is no beauty, no ugliness. Close your eyes and contemplate who you are. Respected, not respected? Moral, immoral? Young, old? Black, white? A master or a slave? Who are you? Close your eyes and in your aloneness every concept drops. You cannot be anything. Then emptiness arises. All concepts nullified, only your existence remains. This is one of the deepest meditations Buddha discovered: To be nobody. And this has not to be forced. You are not to THINK that you are nobody, you have to realize it; otherwise your nobodiness will be too heavy. You are not to think that you are nobody, you have to simply realize that all things that you think you are, are relative. And truth is absolute, it is not relative. Truth is not relative: it does not depend on anything, it is simply there. So find out the truth within you and don't bother about relationships. They differ, interpretations differ. And if interpretations change, you change. Something is in fashion -- if you use it you are modern, appreciated. Something has gone out of fashion -- if you use it you are out of date, you are not respected. Fifty years before, that was in fashion and you would have been modern. Fifty years later on it may come again in fashion and then again you will be modern. Right now you are out of date. But who are you -- changing fashions, changing concepts, relativities? One of my friends was a communist, but a very rich man -- and he never felt the contradiction. He was a bourgeois, well fed, never worked with his hands. He had many servants; he belonged to an old royal family. And then he went to Russia in 1940. When he came back he told me, 'Wherever I went, I started feeling guilty there -- because whenever I shook hands with anybody, I could feel immediately that the other felt that my hands didn't carry any marks of a laborer. They are not proletarian, they are bourgeois: soft, feminine. And immediately the other person's face would change, and he would let go of my hand as if I was untouchable.' He told me, 'In India, whenever I shake hands with anybody my hands are appreciated. They are beautiful, feminine, artistic. In Russia, I felt so guilty about my hands that I even started to think how to destroy their softness, so that nobody would look at me as an exploiter -- a bourgeois, a rich man.' ... Because there, labor has become a value. If you are proletarian in Russia you are somebody; if you are a rich man you are a sinner. Anything is just a relative concept. In India, we have respected BHIKKHUS, SWAMIS, SANNYASINS. And that has been so in China also -- before Mao. A man who renounced the world was the most respected man and the society cared about him. He was the highest peak of humanity. And then communism came to China and thousands of monasteries have been destroyed completely, and all the monks, respected men of the past, have become sinners. They have to work. You can eat only if you work, and begging is exploitation. It has been prohibited by the law; now nobody can beg. If Buddha were born in China, it would be very difficult for him now. He would not be allowed to beg, he would be thought an exploiter. Even if Marx were born in China or Russia he would be in difficulty because his whole life he never did anything other than read in the British Museum. He was not a proletarian, he was not a laborer -- and his friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels, was a very rich man. They are worshipped like gods there. But if Friedrich Engels came to visit Russia, he would be in difficulty. He never worked, he lived on others' labor, and he helped Marx; without his help Marx could not have written Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto. But now it is different; in Russia, he would be in difficulty now, the fashion has changed. Concepts change. Remember this, that that which changes is relative and that which remains unchanging is absolute -- and your being is absolute; it is not part of relativity.
by
k.jagadeesh 
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