Be a Seer
BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT IS THE GOLDEN RULE IN GAUTAM BUDDHA’S PHILOSOPHY?
Prabhat,
Once George Bernard Shaw was asked, “Is there a golden rule in life?” He said, “There is only one golden rule: that there are no golden rules.”
Life is not mechanical; that’s why there is a possibility of religion. If life was mechanical, totally rooted in rules, in cause and effect, in causality, then science would have been enough. And science is not enough. Science only touches the periphery of life; the innermost core remains untouched. Science only knows the rudimentary; it does not know the highest peak. It knows only the bodily part of existence but not its spiritual center. It is concerned with the circumference and utterly unaware of the center. Hence there are no golden rules. Life is freedom, it is consciousness, it is bliss, it is love — but not law.
That’s why I am very reluctant to translate Buddha’s word ‘dhamma’ as the “universal law”; it misses something very significant. Dhamma has freedom in it; freedom is the goal of dhamma. And law is absolutely without freedom. Law is like a goods train running on tracks, and dhamma is like a river descending from the peaks of the Himalayas, going zigzag, in absolute freedom, spontaneity, with no fixed routine, unpredictable, towards the ocean.
Life can be lived in rules, but then life becomes superficial. Live life not according to the laws but according to consciousness, awareness. Don’t live life according to the mind. Mind has rules and regulations, mind has rituals. Live life from the standpoint of no-mind so that you can bloom into unpredictable flowers. Buddha has no golden rule in his philosophy.
According to Peter’s Principle, the golden rule of life is: Whoever has the gold makes the rules. And Buddha has no gold — he can’t make the golden rule. And secondly, he has no philosophy either. He has a vision, a DARSHAN, a PHILOSIA, but not philosophy. A philosia simply means the capacity to see. Philosophy is thinking, philosia is seeing. Buddha is not concerned with thinking at all; his whole emphasis is on seeing. See the truth, don’t believe in it. Don’t think about it. You can go on thinking about it and about it, but you will never arrive at it by thinking about it.
Thinking about God has nothing to do with God. Thinking about light has nothing to do with light. In fact, only a blind man thinks about light. The man who has eyes ENJOYS light, he does not think about it. Have you ever thought about light? You enjoy it, you live it. It is dancing everywhere amongst the trees… you feel it, you experience it. Buddha is not a philosopher, in the Western sense of the word. He is a seer who has seen. And because he has seen he has become free: free of mind. Mind is needed only if you are a thinker.
Plato and Kant and Hegel and Marx and Bertrand Russell, these are philosophers. Lao Tzu, Buddha, Zarathustra, Jesus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Eckhart, these are not philosophers; these are seers. These are two totally different currents. Belong to the seers. Be a seer, because without seeing the truth there is no deliverance.
Source:
Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.
Discourse series: The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol 8 Chapter #2
Chapter title: The who behind all who’s
22 December 1979 am in Buddha Hall
References:
Osho has spoken on ‘Life, consciousness, awareness, religion, freedom’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:
- Beyond Psychology
- Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master
- Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind
- Sufis: The People on The Path Vol.1-2
- The Golden Future
- Zarathustra, the laughing prophet
- Ecstasy – The Forgotten Language
- The Rebel
- The Book of Wisdom
- My Way: The Way of the White Clouds
