🙏 spiritualist and the materialist.

🌹❤ "No, you cannot find Buddhahood by all these so-called things which religions go on preaching to people." ❤🌹

The sutras: BUT SUPPOSE I DON'T SEE MY NATURE, CAN'T I STILL ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT BY INVOKING BUDDHAS, RECITING SUTRAS, MAKING OFFERINGS, OBSERVING PRECEPTS, PRACTICING DEVOTIONS, OR DOING GOOD WORKS? NO, YOU CAN'T. This NO is certainly from Bodhidharma. The statement above is what all the religions are doing in the world. The so-called religious people are doing all these things; they are invoking God, they are invoking buddhas, they are invoking jinnahs, they are invoking prophets, messiahs, saviors. They are reciting sutras, holy KORAN, HOLY BIBLE, holy GITA,holy DHAMMAPADA. They are making offerings in temples, in mosques, in churches, in synagogues, in GURUDWARAS. They are observing precepts, fasting, not eating in the night, not drinking in the night. Thousands of different kinds of precepts are being followed by different religions.

Just the other day I was looking at theTALMUD, the holy scripture of the Jews, and I could not believe .... Many times before I have also opened it and closed it, because just to read one paragraph is enough to see the stupidity. You open anywhere and things are said which seem to have no relevance at all to any spirituality. For example, on the holy day of the sabbath you can go to your farm or your garden or your field, but not to the very end. You can go very close to the end, but not to the very end. And this is part of a holy scripture! And then there are commentaries on it; one rabbi says, "Why is it said?" Then another rabbi says something else. Then another rabbi .... Hundreds of commentaries on such a stupid statement.

Or ...that you should have one door and only one window and the question is whether the window should be on the right side of the door or on the left side of the door. And there are great rabbis discussing the point that it has to be on the right or it has to be on the left, and they are giving great arguments why. And it has not to be big, it has to be small -- how small ...?

In the name of precepts, disciplines, all kinds of nonsense is being practiced -devotions, or doing good works, opening hospitals, schools, orphanages. Only a man like Bodhidharma can say, "No, you cannot attain to enlightenment or buddhahood by such stupid things." There is only one way and that is to know your being, that is to know your self-nature. AND WHY NOT?

IF YOU ATTAIN ANYTHING AT ALL IT'S CONDITIONAL. Now this is very significant and you have to understand it. Anything that is conditional you can lose if the condition is removed. Enlightenment has to be unconditional for the simple reason that it cannot be taken away. Your life is conditional: anybody can murder you, you can commit suicide. But your enlightenment has to be unconditional.

You cannot do anything to demolish, to destroy anything that is unconditional. You cannot make any effort to go backwards, because there is no condition, there is no cause; it is free from being destroyed. For example, you are having a bonfire -- but it is conditional. If you remove the wood, the fire will be gone. That wood was absolutely necessary for the fire to remain in existence. It was not unconditional, it was an effect of a cause. The cause removed, the effect disappears.

That is the difference between the spiritualist and the materialist. The materialist says in philosophical terms that life, consciousness, are all conditional, are all effects. When causes are removed they will disappear. When in death the five elements of which your body is made fall apart, back into their original sources -water into water, earth into earth, air into air, fire into fire, space, sky into sky -then nothing is left. There is no soul that survives; it was only an effect. If causes were present, the effect was present -- when causes are removed, the effect disappears. In other words Karl Marx says, "Consciousness is only a by-product; in itself it has no existence."

Bodhidharma is saying: IF YOU ATTAIN ANYTHING AT ALL, IT'S CONDITIONAL, IT'S KARMIC. IT RESULTS IN RETRIBUTION. IT TURNS THE WHEEL. AND AS LONG AS YOU'RE SUBJECT TO BIRTH AND DEATH, YOU'LL NEVER ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT. Enlightenment has not to be an effect of some cause, not an effect of some practice, not an effect of some conditions that you have fulfilled. It has not to be an attainment, but only a discovery.

It is already there.

You are just keeping your eyes closed, so when you open your eyes and you see your buddhahood, you cannot say you have attained it. It was already there before you had even seen it. It is not your `attainment', and the opening of your eyes is not a cause.

Whether you open your eyes or not, your buddhahood is intact. Even with closed eyes you are buddhas; with open eyes there will be no change -- you will be buddhas. The only change will be in your understanding, not in your quality, not in your being. The only change will be in your understanding: "My God, I have been looking for enlightenment, for buddhahood, for lives altogether, searching and seeking everywhere and doing every kind of good act, observing precepts, making offerings, doing prayers, reciting sutras -- and that was all foolish, because while I was reciting sutras I was a buddha. When I was offering flowers to a stone statue I was doing such an idiotic act because I was making a buddha touch the feet of a stone statue. I have always been the buddha; that is my unconditional nature."

That's why Bodhidharma's statement is of tremendous significance when he says, "No, you cannot find buddhahood by all these so-called things which religions go on preaching to people.

                                             

                                        

            

        🌹🌹🌹🙏🌹🌹🌹