Ordinary Mind

Hard Work

I have heard an anecdote. While walking along a creek bank a man came across a young fellow lying lazily under a tree with a fishing line in the water, on which the cork was bobbling frantically.

‘Hey, you’ve got a bite!’ he said.

‘Yeah.’ drawled the fisherman. ‘Would you mind pulling it out?’

The walker did so, only to have the recumbent one ask, ‘Would, you mind taking the fish off, re-baiting the hook, and tossing it back in the creek?’

This was done and the man commented jokingly, ‘As lazy as you are, you ought to have some kids to do these things for you.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ yawned the fisherman. ‘Got any idea where I could find a pregnant woman?’

That’s how the mind is; it does not want to do anything. It simply hopes, desires, postpones. The future is a trick to postpone the present; the future is a trick to avoid the present. Not that you are going to do anything in the future, no – because again the same mind will be there and it will say tomorrow, tomorrow. You will die and you will not do anything, you will only think. And that thinking helps you to keep face: you don’t feel lazy because you think so much of doing, doing great things always, dreaming about great things and not doing the small things that are really to be done right now.

Hard work means to be present and to do that which the present has brought you as a challenge. EFFORT IS DANGEROUS BUT HARD WORK WAS NEEDED IN THE MEDITATIONS. Yes, hard work – because you will have to go against the mind. The hardness is not in the work – the work is beautifully simple, the work is very easy – the hardness comes from the fact that because you are so fogged by the mind you will have to come out of it.

FOR THE MIND, EFFORT EQUALS HARD WORK. All minds are German. That’s why everybody is in such trouble, that’s why everybody finds his own fascism, his own nazism, his own Adolf Hitler. Everybody does. Mind is fascist and the mind looks continuously for leaders, for somebody to lead. It was a surprise to the whole world when Germany fell into the trap of Adolf Hitler.

Nobody could believe it, it was almost illogical. Such a beautiful race with such a great tradition of learning, of learned men, of great philosophy, of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx…. Such a great culture with such refined intellect; a culture of great scientists, of great musicians, of great novelists and poets; the country of the philosophers and professors….’Professor’ has never been such a respectable word in any other country as in Germany. What happened to such an intelligent race that it fell into the hands of a stupid, almost idiot person, Adolf Hitler?

But this has to be understood: that all learning, if it is superficial, if it is of the mind, is not going to help. The learning only remains at the surface – deep down you remain childish. Those professors, even a man like Martin Heidegger – a great philosopher, you could say the greatest that this century has produced – he also became a follower of Adolf Hitler. What happened to these giants following this man who was almost mad?

It has to be understood; it can happen, it has always happened. These great minds are just great on the surface, deep down their existence is very childish; only their intellect has grown, they have not grown. Martin Heidegger’s mind is very grown-up, his being is very childish. His being is childish; it is waiting for somebody to lead it. A really mature person does not throw his responsibility on to anybody else; he becomes responsible for his own being.