A Most Significant Statement
One of the most significant statements ever:
Look into your heart.
Follow your nature.
Buddha is not saying follow scriptures. He is not saying follow
me. He is not saying follow certain rules of conduct. He is not
teaching you any morality. He is not trying to create a certain
character around you, because all characters are beautiful prison
cells. He is not giving you a certain way of life. Rather he is
giving you courage, encouragement, to follow your own nature. He
wants you to be brave enough to listen to your own heart and go
accordingly.
"Follow your nature" means flow with yourself. You are the
scripture...and hidden deep down within you is a still, small voice.
If you become silent you will be guided from there.
The master has only to make you aware of your inner master. Then his
function is fulfilled. Then he can leave you to yourself; he can
throw you back upon yourself. A master is not to enslave the
disciple; a master is to free him, to give him total freedom.
And this is the only possibility of attaining total freedom:
Follow your nature.
By "nature" Buddha means dhamma. Just as it is the nature of
water to flow downwards and it is the nature of fire to rise
upwards, so there is a certain nature hidden in you. If all the
conditionings that have been put around you by the society are
removed, suddenly you will discover your nature. Your nature has
become God. Aes dhammo sanantano - this is the eternal,
inexhaustible law: your nature is to become God.
Man is a potential god - a bodhisattva. Man is meant to become a
god. Less than that won′t satisfy you, less than that is of no use.
You can have all the money in the world, all the power, all the
prestige possible, and still you will remain empty - unless your
divine nature flowers, opens its buds, unless you become a lotus, a
one-thousand-petaled lotus, unless your divinity is revealed to you,
you can never be contented.
The ordinary religious person is told to remain satisfied,
contented, with whatsoever is the case. The so-called religious
saints go on teaching people: Be satisfied. Satisfaction is one of
their fundamental teachings. That is not the way of the true
masters.
The true master creates discontent in you - and such a discontent
that nothing of this world can ever satisfy it. He creates such a
longing in you, that unless you attain to the ultimate you will
remain aflame, afire. He creates pain in your heart, he creates
anguish... because life is slipping by every moment, and each moment
gone is gone forever, and you have not attained to God yet, and one
day is over.
He creates such a deep longing in you, such pain in the heart! He
creates tears in your eyes, because only through such divine
discontent will you move, will you take the quantum leap, the
ultimate jump into the unknown. It is only through such divine
discontent that you will gather together all your energies, and you
will risk, and you will go on the ultimate adventure of finding who
you are.