A Buddha Is A Nobody
But the young man said, “But every religion says be egoless, and I want to be egoless.” Who is this I,’ that wants to be egoless? The ways of the ego are very subtle. When I was talking to him I felt he was not listening to me. If I gave him some technique to do to be egoless, he would be ready and accepting, receptive, because then the ego could start work. But I was saying, “Don’t talk about egolessness, just be whatsoever you are. And for three months don’t struggle, then come to me.”
He tried. After three months he came again and he said to me, “It has been very hard to accept, but because you told me, I tried. Now give me some technique, give me some key to go beyond this ego.” The whole effort was false, because if you accept then there is no desire to go beyond.
Whenever you feel yourself to be ordinary you try to be extraordinary in some way. But everyone is ordinary: to be ordinary is to be real. It may be that to you someone looks extraordinary because you compare him with yourself, but a genius in himself is as ordinary as anybody, and he feels himself ordinary. A rose flower is ordinary, a lotus flower is ordinary, but if the rose starts comparing and starts thinking about how to be a lotus flower then problems arise. And if the lotus starts thinking about the beautiful perfume that comes from the rose flower, then the rose flower becomes extraordinary.
When you compare, in comparison extraordinariness happens – otherwise everything is ordinary. In itself everything is as it is. Don’t compare and don’t hanker after it. If you hanker then meditation will disappoint you, because meditation will bring you to a point where you feel your total ordinariness. Be receptive to it, welcome it. It is good. It shows that meditation is progressing, deepening. But somewhere the desire for the extraordinary is still there and that is creating the barrier.
If that desire disappears, you will not feel yourself as ordinary. You will simply be. How can you feel that you are ordinary? You will simply be, and to be, to be so simple that you don’t feel whether you are ordinary or extraordinary, is to attain.
It is good, don’t be disappointed by it. If you are disappointed then remember that you are carrying a desire, and that desire is creating poison. Why is there this madness? Why does it come and happen to everyone? This whole world is mad because of this: everyone is trying to be something special, somebody.
Life happens to you only when you are nobody. When you are so empty that there is no one, then the whole of life flows through you without any barrier, without any obstacle, without any hindrance. Then the flow is total and complete.
When you are somebody, you become a rock, you disturb the flow – life cannot move through you. There is a struggle, a resistance, and of course you create much noise. And you may think that because you are creating so much noise that you are something extraordinary.
Be an empty vessel, passage, with no resistance, so that life can flow through it, flow through it easily. Then no noise will be created. You may not be able to feel that you are, because you only feel that you are when you fight. The more you fight, the more you feel.
Excerpted From The Book of Secrets CH: 66
