once krishna said

 A scholar came to Ramana Maharshi and started eating his brains, started discussing scripture. Ramana Maharshi told him again and again, ”Meditate my friend. Nothing will happen from any of this, it is all useless talk. Don’t waste time, your life has already gone by.” But he was an authority on scripture too, he said, ”What are you saying? Useless? These are statements from the Vedas.” And he started giving proofs. And Ramana Maharshi said, ”Okay it’s alright, but meditate.” He said, ”First there will be talk about it only then I will meditate.” He remained stubborn, Ramana Maharshi kept on telling him to meditate, he kept on saying only one thing, ”Meditate, there is nothing more to be said.” When he didn’t listen, Ramana Maharshi picked up his staff... The man freaked out. He had never thought Ramana Maharshi would raise his staff. And Ramana Maharshi started running after him. ... picture it, Ramana Maharshi taking his staff and running after a pandit... Many followers of Rama...

 It used to happen that seekers would come to Gautam Buddha. A great philosopher of those  times, Maulingaputta, came with his five hundred  disciples. He himself was a well-known teacher, and he had come to challenge Gautam Buddha to a debate; that's why he had brought all his disciples.  In India it was a common phenomenon that has now disappeared ... it was so beautiful - but now to challenge somebody seems to be a way to create enemies. For centuries it was not considered that way in India; challenging was simply a matter of coming face to face, with inquiring, penetrating questions, and finding out who has gone deeper. The one who went deeper was victorious. It was a very loving phenomenon, very friendly.  Maulingaputta said to Gautam Buddha, "I have come here to pay my respects to you and also to challenge you."  Buddha said, "I love your challenge. But you will have to fulfill a condition which I have been keeping my whole life. I cannot make any exc...

 One Zen master used to ask his disciples: Some time ago, I put a goose in a bottle. Now the goose has grown, and the neck of the bottle is very small so the goose cannot come out. The bottle is very precious and I don't want to break it, so now there is a crisis. If the goose is not allowed out, she will die.  I can break the bottle and the goose will be out, but I don't want to break the bottle - the bottle is precious. I don't want to kill the goose either. So what would you do?  This is the problem! The goose is in the head and the neck is very narrow. You can break the head, but it is precious. Or you can let the goose die, but that too cannot be allowed - because YOU are the goose.  That old Zen master continued asking his disciples,  and beating them, and saying to them: Find out a way because there is no time.  And only once did he allow an answer.  One disciple said: The goose is out!  Many answers were tried, but he would always beat the...

 A lot of people come to me and say, ”We know anger is bad; it is poison, it burns, it is fire, it is hell, and yet we are not free from it.” Then I tell them, ”It is a mistake on your part to think that you know it. You think you already know and yet you ask yourself, ’What should be done so that anger goes away?’ This is your mistake. In fact you do not know that anger is hell.” Is it ever possible that a person would not leap out of anger once he knows it is hell? Buddha has said this somewhere. A person whose life was full of troubles and anguish had approached him for advice, for a way out of his miseries. There was nothing but sorrow and affliction in his life. Buddha told him to give up those cares and miseries, to come out of them immediately: ”I will show you the way to be out of them,” he said. The man said, ”Show me the way now, and then I will try, by and by, to follow your way.” Then Buddha said, ”You are like a man whose house has caught fire and who says, ’Thank you ...

 One man, a great criminal, a murderer, a sinner, came to be initiated by Buddha. When he came he was afraid that people might not allow him entry, the disciples might not allow him to see Buddha. So he came at such a time when there were not too many people. And he didn’t enter from the main gate, he jumped from a wall. But by chance Buddha was not there – he had gone begging – and he was caught. And he said to the disciples, ’I have not come to steal or anything, I was just afraid that you wouldn’t allow me through the main gate. Everybody knows me, I am a well-known figure around here. I am the most hated and feared man around here, everybody knows me. So you might not allow me, you might not believe that I want to become a sannyasin.’ So they took him to one of Buddha’s great disciples, Sariputra – who was a great astrologer too, and who had a capacity, a telepathic capacity, to read people’s past lives. So they asked Sariputra, ’Look into this man. We know that in this life he...

 There is a famous story about Tansen. He was the musician in the court of Akbar. Akbar was very interested to have the best from all directions in his court – the best musician, the best poet, the best philosopher, and so on and so forth. He had chosen Tansen, and Tansen was perhaps one of the greatest musicians the world has ever produced.  Akbar had given orders that where Tansen used to live, throughout the whole neighborhood, nobody could play music. It would be a disturbance to Tansen. Anybody playing music there would be put into jail, or he had to accept a challenge and come to the court and face Tansen with his music.  So many people came and were defeated; Tansen had certainly something higher to give. But there was a man, Baiju Bawara. His name was Baiju; bawara means mad.  People thought he was mad, so his full name became Baiju Bawara. His whole ambition was to come to a point where he could defeat Tansen – he was a great musician himself.  He worke...

 After having won many archery competitions, the town champion sought out the Zen master. “I am the best of all,” he said. “I did not learn religion, I did not look for help from the monks, and I have been considered the best archer in the whole region. I heard that some time ago you were the best archer in the area, so I ask you: did you have to become a monk to learn to shoot arrows? “No,” answered the Zen master. But the champion was not satisfied: he took out an arrow, placed it in his bow, fired, and hit a cherry at a considerable distance. He smiled, as if to say: “You could have saved your time and just dedicated yourself to technique.” And he said: “I doubt if you can do the same.” Without demonstrating the least concern, the master took his bow and began to walk towards a nearby mountain. On the way there was an abyss that could only be crossed by an old rotting rope bridge that was almost falling down: with the utmost calm, the Zen master went to the middle of the bridge,...

 One day a famous government officer met a highly respected eldlerly master. Being conceited, he wanted to prove that he was the superior person.  As their conversation drew on, he asked the master, "Old monk, do you know what I think of you and the things you said?"  The master replied, "I don't care what you think of me. You are entitled to have your own opinion."  The officer snorted, "Well, I will tell you what I think anyway. In my eyes, you are just like a pile of dry shit!"  The master simply smiled and stayed quiet.  Seeing that his insult had fallen into deaf ears, he asked curiously, "And what do you think of me?"  The master said, "In my eyes, you are just like the Buddha."  Hearing this remark, the officer left happily and bragged to his wife about the incident.  His wife said to him, "You conceited fool! When a person has a heart like a pile of dry shit, he sees everyone in that light. The elderly master has a hear...

In Japan, a great mystic, Hotei, is called the laughing Buddha. He is one of the most loved mystics in Japan, and he never uttered a single word. As he became enlightened, he started laughing, and whenever somebody would ask, Why are you laughing? he would laugh more. And he would move from village to village, laughing. A crowd will gather and he will laugh. And slowly -- his laughter was very infectious -- somebody in the crowd will start laughing, then somebody else, and then the whole crowd is laughing -- laughing because.... Why are they laughing? Everybody knows, "It is ridiculous; this man is strange, but why are we laughing?" But everybody was laughing; and everybody was a little worried, "What will people think? There is no reason to laugh." But people would wait for Hotei, because they had never laughed in their whole life with such totality, with such intensity that after the laughter they found their every sense had become more clear. Their eyes could see...

I have heard about a great warrior in Japan, a samurai, a very famous swordsman: One night when he came tired after the whole day's fight in the fields and he was just going to fall into bed, he saw a rat. And the rat was looking at him ferociously! The samurai tried to kill the rat with his sword. He was one of the best swordsmen known, but somehow he missed. He hit many times, he broke his sword, and he could not kill the rat. He became really afraid: "The rat seems to be very mysterious. This is no ordinary rat!" He started, perspiring - he had never perspired. He had been a fighter his whole life and now a rat had defeated him. He ran out, asked his wife what to do. The wife said, "You are a fool! You need not kill a rat. Have you ever heard of anybody killing a rat by a sword? You just take our cat inside." And the cat was brought inside. It was no ordinary cat, it was the great warrior's cat. She was also trained in many things; she was one of the most...

A young monk was staying in a monastery. He had come to sit in the presence of an old sage but within a few days he felt that the old man did not know anything at all. Listening to the same things every day he got fed up. He thought that he should leave this monastery and search somewhere else for another master. This was not the place for him.  But on the day he was to leave, another monk visited the monastery.  That night the inmates of the monastery gathered and they talked about many things. The new monk was very knowledgeable about so many things, very subtle and perceptive, very deep and very intense, and the young monk thought that this was how a master should be. Within two hours the new monk had mesmerized everyone. The young monk thought that the old master must be feeling a lot of pain and very depressed that he was so old and yet had not learnt anything, while this newcomer knew so much.  After two hours, when the talks were over, the guest monk looked at the ...

A Zen master Hakuin lived in a village in Japan. He was very famous, and had great reputation. The whole village worshipped and respected him. Songs were sung all over the village in his honor. But one day everything changed. A young girl in the village became pregnant and gave birth to a child. When her family asked her whose child it was she said it was the child of the young Hakuin.  How long does it take for admirers to become enemies? How long? It does not take even a short while because inside the mind of an admirer condemnation is always hidden. The mind just waits for a chance, and the day admiration ends, condemnation begins. Those people who show respect can change in one minute to being disrespectful. The people who are touching a person's feet can within a moment start cutting the same person's head off.  There is no difference between respect and disrespect - they are two faces of the same coin.  The people of the whole village attacked the Hakuin's hut. For ...

One man declared to the emperor of China, ”Now you have to announce it and recognize me as the greatest archer in China. I am ready for any challenge.” And he was absolutely perfect, one hundred percent successful. But the king said, ”Have you heard about an old archer who lives deep in the mountains?” He said, ”I have heard about him, but I am ready to contest.” The king laughed. He said, ”You should go and meet that old man. If he recognizes you, I will recognize you, because I don’t know archery.... But he is a great archer, perhaps the greatest, so you should go. Bring his recognition, and my recognition is available. But without asking him I cannot do it. It is not a question of a challenge.” So the man had to travel to the high mountains, where he found a very old man whose back was bent, who could not stand straight. He asked, ”Are you the archer?” The man said, ”I used to be. But perhaps half a century has passed, and when I became a perfect archer, according to my master, I ha...

I have told you the story about Lao Tzu. He was made the chief justice by a Chinese emperor who thought that he was the most wise and the most respected human being in the whole empire. He could not find a better chief justice. Lao Tzu told him, ”It won’t last long. If you say so, I will accept the post. But you don’t know me, you have just heard about me.” But the emperor was stubborn as emperors are supposed to be. He said, ”No. You have to accept this post.” The first case that came before Lao Tzu was about a great thief who had stolen a lot of money and armaments from the richest man of the empire. The man was so rich that he was lending money to the emperor. He was far richer than the emperor himself. And naturally, he had never expected what happened. The man – the thief – was caught red-handed. So there was no question that he should not be punished. Lao Tzu heard the whole thing, both sides, and gave the judgment that, ”The thief and the rich man, both, should be sen...

One Zen monk, Bokuju, was passing through a street in a village. Somebody came and struck him with a stick. He fell down, and with him, the stick also. He got up and picked up the stick. The man who had hit him was running away. Bokuju ran after him, calling, ”Wait, take your stick with you!” He followed after him and gave him the stick. A crowd had gathered to see what was happening, and somebody asked Bokuju, ”That man struck you hard, and you have not said anything!” Bokuju is reported to have said, ”A fact is a fact. He has hit, that’s all. It happened that he was the hitter and I was the hit. It is just as if I am passing under a tree, or sitting under a tree, and a branch falls down. What will I do? What can I do?” But the crowd said, ”But a branch is a branch, this is a man. We cannot say anything to the branch, we cannot punish it. We cannot say to the tree that it is bad, because a tree is a tree, it has no mind.” Bokuju said, ”This man to me is also just a branch. ...