---
section: Library
booktitle: "The Grass Grows By Itself"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "GRASS"
dategiven: "27 February 1975 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #7"
chaptertitle: "Not a Dead One"
acode: "7502270"
shorttitle: "GRASS07"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "76mins"
displaytitle: "The Grass Grows By Itself: Chapter #7"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
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```
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<p class="sutra">AN EX-EMPEROR ASKED THE MASTER GUDO:
WHAT HAPPENS TO A MAN OF ENLIGHTENMENT
AFTER DEATH?</p>
<p class="sutra">GUDO REPLIED:
HOW SHOULD I KNOW?</p>
<p class="sutra">THE EX-EMPEROR SAID:
WHY? -- BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER.</p>
<p class="sutra">GUDO SAID:
YES, SIR, BUT NOT A DEAD ONE!</p>


Man is ignorant of the real. And it is difficult to know the real because, to know the real, first you have to be the real. Only the same can know the same.


Man is false. As man exists, he is a deep hypocrite. He is not real himself. His original face is completely lost. He has many faces, he uses many faces, but he himself is not aware of the original face: his own.


Man is an imitator. He goes on imitating others, and, by and by, he completely forgets that he has his own unique being.


The real can be known only when you are real. It is a tremendous effort; arduous is the path. So man tries a trick. He starts thinking about the real -- philosophizing, theorizing, creating mental systems about the real. That is all that philosophy is: a trick of the mind to deceive oneself about one's ignorance, about one's not knowing the real. That's why philosophies abound and the whole world lives in concepts and theories. Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Jainas, Buddhists -- there are millions of concepts.


And they are cheap, you need not change yourself; you need only an ordinary intelligent mind, a mediocre mind. No higher IQ is needed, so there is not any difficulty. You can adopt concepts and you can hide your ignorance from yourself. Philosophy is just a hiding method: one starts feeling that one knows, without knowing at all; one starts feeling that one has arrived, without even having taken the first step.


Philosophy is the greatest disease, and once you are caught in it it is very difficult to come out of it because it is so deeply fulfilling to the ego. One feels hurt when one comes to know one's ignorance. And ignorance is total and absolute; you don't know anything at all. You are simply in dark ignorance, and this hurts. One would like to know something, at least something, and philosophy gives you a consolation: there are theories, and if you have an ordinary intelligence, that will do -- you can learn the theories, you can have your own system, a philosophy, and then you are at ease. Then not only do you know, but you can tech others, you can advise others, you can go on showing your knowledge to others -- and everything is settled, ignorance is forgotten.


Philosophy means a logical construction about reality: it is about and about and about, it is never the real. Round and round it goes, just beating around the bush, but it never hits the center of the real. It cannot do that, that is not possible for philosophy. why is it not possible? Because philosophy is based on logic, and reality is beyond logic.
You have to understand it a little more.


Logic is a search for consistency, and reality is not consistent. Or, it is so deeply consistent that even the opposite is not inconsistent with it. Reality is paradoxical: all the opposites meet and mingle and merge into it. It is so vast. Logic is narrow; logic is like a road, narrow, goal-oriented. Reality is like a vast space, no goal, not going anywhere; it is already there, moving in all dimensions together. Logic is onedimensional, reality is multidimensional. Logic says A is A and can never be B -- this is the consistency of logic -- and in reality, A is A, but always moves and becomes B also.


Logic says life is life and can never be death. How can life be death? But in reality, life is moving every moment into death. Life is death.


Logic says love is love and can never be hate; but love is moving every moment into hate, and hate is moving every moment into love. You love the same person and you hate the same person -- the deeper the love, the deeper the hate. Hate and love are two aspects of the same coin. Can you hate a person without loving him? How can you hate a person without loving him? First you have to love, only then can you hate. Hate needs love as a first step. How can you become inimical to a person with whom you have never been friendly?


Friends and foes are separate only in logic; in reality they are together. If you search your hate deeply, you will find love hidden.


The moment you are born, death is also born with you. Birth is the beginning of death, and death is the culmination of birth. Says Heraclitus: God is life and death, summer and winter, hunger and satiety, good and bad.
Always both. And God is reality.


If you look at reality, you will see all opposites meeting. Reality is contradictory; logic is noncontradictory. Logic is clean, plain, simple; reality is very complex. Reality is not like a logical syllogism or a mathematical problem -- it has many dimensions. And it is interrelated, all contradictions are together: the day turns into night, the night again turns into day. The morning is nothing, but the indication that the evening is coming. Youth becomes old age. Beauty turns and becomes ugly. Everything changes, and becomes the opposite.


This has to be understood deeply, because this is the basic difference between philosophy and religion. Philosophy is logical; religion is not. Philosophy is logical; religion is real. To understand philosophy is not difficult; to understand religion is almost impossible. Logic speaks a plain language; religion cannot speak, because religion has to speak the language of the reality.


Logic is a fragment chosen from reality by the mind, it is not total. Religion accepts the whole and wants to know it as it is. Logic is a mental construction. Philosophy, logic, science, all are mental constructions: they are all based on logic.


Religion is a de-structuring of the whole mind. Philosophy is a structure of the mind about the reality, a creation of a system. The mind remains there and helps you to choose, to project, to find. In religion you have to de-structure the mind. The reality remains as it is, you don't do anything to the reality -- you simply drop the mind, and then you look. If the mind is there, it won't allow you to look at the whole. The mind is obsessed with consistency, it cannot allow the contradictory.


So, whenever you come near a person who is enlightened, your mind will be in difficulty, you will feel many contradictions in him. Your mind will say, "This man says this, and then he contradicts. And sometimes he says this, and then again something else -- he is inconsistent." A religious man is, by the very nature of the case, contradictory; he has to be, because he is not in search of consistency, he is in search of the truth. He is in search of the real, and he is ready to drop everything for the real, whatsoever the real is. He has no preformulated structure for the real -- he has no idea how the real should be. If it is inconsistent, it is inconsistent. Okay. He has nothing to impose on it. A religious mind simply allows the real to reveal itself. He has no idea how it should be.


A religious man is passive; a logical, philosophical, scientific man is aggressive. He gets some idea and, through that idea, he structures reality. Around the idea he tries to discover the real. The idea won't allow you to discover the real -- the very idea is the hindrance.


So one path is logic, another path is poetry. Poetry is against logic. Logic is rational, poetry is irrational. Logic is logical, poetry is imagination. And this distinction has to be remembered because religion is neither -- neither logic, nor poetry.


Logic is of the mind and imagination is also of the mind. A poet imagines reality. Of course, his reality is more colorful than a logician's reality, because he imagines, and he is not afraid. He is completely free in his imagination, he has not to follow any idea. He simply drams about reality: but it is again "about". He dreams about reality, he makes a beautiful whole out of his dreaming. He is colorful, because deep down is fantasy. Logic is plain, colorless, almost grey; there is no poetry in it because there is no imagination in it. Poetry is almost contradictory, because it is imagination. It doesn't bother. You never ask the poet to be consistent. If a poet writes one poem today, another tomorrow, and contradicts himself, nobody bothers. People say this is poetry.


If a painter paints a certain thing today, and just the opposite tomorrow, you don't ask for any consistency, you don't say, "What are you doing? Yesterday you painted the moon yellow and today you are painting the moon red. What are you doing? You are contradicting." No! Nobody asks -- it is poetry, painting is poetry, sculpture is poetry, and you allow the poet all freedom. But poetry is imagination.


Mind has two centers: one is thinking, another is imagination. But both centers are of the mind -- and religion is beyond, beyond both centers, it is not of the mind at all. It is neither science nor poetry -- or it is both. That's why religion is a deeper mysticism than any poetry. It simply drops the mind, with all its centers, and then looks. It is just as if you put aside your glasses, and look. The mind can be put aside because it is a mechanism; you are not the mind. The mind is just like a window. You are standing there and looking through the window, then the frame of the window becomes the frame of reality. You look from the window, the moon has arisen, and the sky is beautiful, but your sky will be framed by the window. And if the window has certain colors of glass, then your sky will be colored by the window.


Religion is simply coming out of the house completely; looking at reality, not through any window, not through any door, not through any glasses, not through any concepts, but simply looking at it as it is, putting aside the mind. It is difficult because you are so identified with the mind that you have completely forgotten that you can put it aside. But this is the whole methodology of religion: all of yoga, tantra, and all the techniques of meditation are nothing but how to put the mind aside, how to break the identity with the mind, and then look. Then whatsoever is reality is revealed: that which is, is revealed. Remember this.


Sometimes religion will speak the language of logic, then it becomes theology. Sometimes religion will speak the language of poetry, then it becomes objective art, like the Taj Mahal. If you go and watch the Taj Mahal for the first time, you will understand what objective art is. Looking at a piece of objective art, like the Taj Mahal, if you simply sit and watch and look, suddenly a silence surrounds you, a peace descends upon you. The very structure of the Taj Mahal is related to your innermost being; just looking at the shape of it, something changes within you.


There are two types of art. One art is subjective -- for example, Picasso. If you look at a Picasso painting you can understand what type of mind Picasso must have had, because he pictures, paints his own mind, and he must have been living in nightmares, because all his painting is nightmarish. You cannot look at it for long without feeling ill and nauseous. It is his inner madness that he has painted in color, and it is infectious. This is subjective art: whatsoever you do, you bring in your own mind.


Objective art is not bringing your own mind in, but following some objective rules to change the person who will look at it, meditate on it.


All of Eastern art has tried to be objective. The artist is not involved in it, the painter is forgotten, the sculptor is forgotten, the architect is forgotten, they are not involved in it. They are simply following certain objective rules to create a piece of art, and for centuries, whenever somebody looks at it, something of meditation will happen in them. On a full-moon night, sitting near the Taj Mahal, not talking, just meditating on it, time disappears, a no-time moment happens. And suddenly the Taj Mahal is not there outside, something is changing within you.


Sometimes religion talks in terms of objective art, to bring the reality into this world of the mind Sometimes it talks in terms of logic, then it becomes theology, then it argues. But these are both compromises with the world, compromises with the ordinary, mediocre mind, bringing religion to the ordinary mind. When religion speaks in its purity it is paradoxical, like the TAO TE CHING of Lao Tzu, or the fragments of Heraclitus, or these Zen stories. In its purity religion transcends logic, imagination, both. It is the very beyond.


Now, a few things about the "very beyond", then we can enter into this story.


It is small, like a seed. But if you allow it the soil of your heart, it can grow into a vast tree. It is small, if you look at the form; but if you look at the formless hidden in it, it has no limits, it is infinite.


Something to be aware about the very beyond -- first, the very beyond, the transcendental, needs a transformation in you, otherwise you will not be able to understand it. It needs a clarity of perception in you. It is not a question of intellect alone; even a genius may not be able to understand it, and sometimes even an ordinary villager may be able to understand it. Sometimes even an Einstein may miss it, because it is not a question of cleverness, intelligence -- it is a question of clarity, not cleverness. Clarity is different. Cleverness is a way of being cunning with reality; it is cunningness. Clarity is completely different; it is not cunningness, it is innocence, child-like. You don't have a mind, the window is completely open. You don't have any ideas, because a mind filled with ideas loses its clarity; it is just like a sky filled with clouds. A mind filled with thoughts is not transparent, it is a junkyard. And through that junkyard, you cannot come to realize what reality is. One has to clean oneself. A deep cleansing is needed. One has to pass through many meditations so that, by and by, your mind becomes clear, like a clear sky with no clouds. So it is not a question of intellectual understanding, it is a question of a different type of being, a being who is clear, like a clear sky.


The second thing to remember is that a religious mind never goes beyond the moment, because the moment you go beyond the moment you have started working through the mind. The future is not here, so how can you look at it? You can only think about it. You can only think about the future, you cannot see it. Only the present moment can be seen, it is already here. So the religious mind lives in the moment; you cannot force the religious mind to go beyond the moment, because the moment the religious mind thinks about the future, it is no longer religious. Immediately the quality of the mind has changed. The religious mind exists here and now, and that is the only way to exist. If you think about the future, the moment that is not here, you are already in the trap of the mind and you have allowed thoughts to form. In the present there is no thought. Have you ever observed this? Right now, how can thought exist? No thought ever exists in the present, it always exists in the future or in the past. Either you think of the past -- then there is imagination; or you think of the future -- then there is logic. How can you think of the present? You can only be. And the moment is so subtle, so small, so atomic, that there is no space for any thought to exist in it. Thought needs space, needs room, and in the present there is no room for thought. Only being can be there. So whenever you are in the present, thinking stops, or, if you stop thinking you will be in the present. A religious mind is not concerned about the future, is not concerned about what happened in the past. It lives in the moment and it moves from moment to moment. When this moment disappears, another moments comes: the religious man has moved into it. He is riverlike.


The very, very deep thing to be remembered is that a religious mind, a religious man, a religious being, is always a process, he is always moving.


Of course, the movement is unmotivated. It is moving not for any goal, it simply moves -- because movement is the nature of reality. Movement is the nature of reality, it moves with reality, just as somebody floats with the river. He moves with the river of time. Each moment he lives, and moves. He is not doing anything, he simply lives the moment. When the moment has gone, another comes: he lives that moment. A religious man has a beginning but no end; awakening has a beginning, but no end -- it goes on and on and on.


Just the opposite is the case with ignorance -- ignorance has no beginning, but an end. Can you say when your ignorance started? It has no beginning. When did Buddha's ignorance start? It had no beginning, but it had an end. It ended on a certain full-moon night, twenty-five centuries ago. Ignorance has an end, but no beginning; enlightenment has a beginning, but no end. And that's how the circle becomes complete. When an ignorant man becomes enlightened, the circle is complete.


Ignorance has no beginning, but has the end; enlightenment has the beginning, but has no end. Now the circle is complete. Now here is the perfect being whose circle is complete.


But this perfection doesn't mean any "staticness", because enlightenment has no end; it goes on and on and on, for eternities, forever.


Now, try to understand this beautiful seedlike story.
<p class="sutra">AN EX-EMPEROR ASKED THE MASTER GUDO:
WHAT HAPPENS TO A MAN OF ENLIGHTENMENT AFTER DEATH?</p>


If he had asked philosophers they would have supplied many answers. The scriptures are full of answers.


What happens to an enlightened man after death? Buddha was asked the same question again and again, and he would simply laugh sometimes. Once it happened that it was evening and a small earthen lamp was burning near Buddha. Somebody asked the question, "What happens to a man of enlightenment after death?" Buddha put the flame out, and asked, "What happens now to the flame which is no more? Where has it gone? Where is it now? Just a moment before it was here, now where has it gone?" The same thing happens to the man of enlightenment.


This is not an answer. The man must have gone unsatisfied, feeling that Buddha was avoiding the question.


Those who have known have always avoided, but those who don't know, they have many answers. Scholars, pundits, you ask them and they will supply man answers. You an choose any of your liking.
<p class="sutra">GUDO REPLIED: HOW SHOULD I KNOW?</p>


You are asking something of the future, and I am here and now. For me there is no future. Only this moment exists, there is no other moment. You are talking about death, death of an enlightened person, somewhere in the future, or somewhere in the past. What happened to Buddha?


That's why Gudo said: HOW SHOULD I KNOW? He means: I am here and now; no past is meaningful for me, no future. He is saying: Look at me right now. The enlightened being is before you. He is saying: Look at me. Why are you concerned?


It happened once that a man came to meet Gudo -- he was a very famous master -- and the man was very old, nearabout ninety. He belonged to a particular Buddhist sect. And he said, "I have come from very far, and my life is almost coming to an end, and I have always been waiting for a chance to meet you" -- because Gudo was known all over the country as the master of the emperor -- "before I die I have come to you because I have to ask you one question. For almost fifty years I have been studying the scriptures, and I have come to know everything. Only one thing disturbs me. In my scriptures it is written that even trees and rocks will become enlightened. That I could never understand. Trees and rocks?" Gudo said, "Tell me one thing. Have you ever thought about yourself? Can you become enlightened, or not?" The man said, "It is strange, but I must confess that I never thought about it."


Trees and rocks and how they can become enlightened -- he had been thinking about this for fifty years! And he had come from far away to ask this question of Gudo, and he had never thought about himself.


People talk about death, now knowing that right now they are alive. Life is here, first know it. Live it totally! Why do you talk about death?


People talk about what will happen after death. It would be better to think about what is happening to you right now, after birth. And when death comes, we will meet it. First meet life that is here now; and if you can meet life, you will become capable of meeting death also. One who can live rightly will die rightly. One who has lived a total, rich life of moment-to-moment moving, living, awareness, consciousness, will of course, when death comes, do the same with death. He will live it, because he knows the quality of how to live in the present. When death becomes the present, he will live it. But people are more concerned about death, less concerned about life. But if you cannot know life, how do you suppose that you will be able to know death? Death is not separate from life, it is the very culmination of it. If you miss life, you will not be able to see death. Death will come, but you will be unconscious.


That is what is happening. People die in a deep unconsciousness, a coma. They live their whole life in unconsciousness, and when you treated life with unconsciousness, how do you suppose that you will be able to be conscious before death? Death will happen in a single moment, and life is a seventy or eighty-year process. If you could not even become aware in eighty years, if eighty years were not enough for you to become conscious, how will you be able to in one second? Only a person who has lived moment to moment will be able to see death, because when he has lived life moment to moment, death cannot escape him. He has the clarity, such intense clarity, that even in a single moment, when death comes and moves, he will be able to see it. One who has been able to see life, will automatically be able to see death -- and then one knows one is neither life nor death. One is just the witness.


When a person asks what happens to a man of enlightenment after death he himself is not enlightened. He is asking from his deep ignorance, so it is difficult to answer. It is just like a blind man asking what happens when the sun rises in the morning. How to explain that to him? How to make the communication? It is impossible.


It once happened that a man was blind, not only blind, he was a great philosopher. The whole village was disturbed by him, because he proved logically that there is no light. He said, "I have hands. I can touch and feel. So show me where light is. If something exists, it can be touched; if something exists, it can be tasted; if something exists, and you hit something against it, I can hear the sound.


And the villagers were very disturbed, because they couldn't gather any proof. He had four senses and he said, "I have four senses. You bring light before me and I will see through my four senses whether it is there or not. And they said, "Because you are blind, you cannot see." He laughed and said, "It seems that you are dreaming. What are eyes? And how can you prove that you have eyes and I don't have? You tell about your light, what it is. Explain it to me." They couldn't do that. It was impossible. But they felt very depressed, because this man was blind and they had eyes, and they knew what light was. But how to explain to a blind man?


Then buddha came to the town. They all took this mad philosopher, the mad blind man, to Buddha and they asked Buddha, "You try to explain to him, we have failed. And this man is something: he has proved that light is not there because it cannot be touched, cannot be smelled, cannot be tasted, cannot be heard. So how can it exist? Now you have come, you can explain to him." Buddha said, "You are fools! Light cannot be explained to a blind man. The very effort is absurd. But I know a man who is a great physician. You take this man to him, and he will treat his eyes."


The man was taken to the physician, his eyes were treated. He was not really blind. Within six months he started seeing. Then he cam running to Buddha, who was now in another town. He fell at his feet and he said, "Yes, now I know. Light is. Now I know why those poor villagers could not prove it, and now I also know that you did well to send me to a physician. I needed treatment -- not philosophy, not theories about light.


When an ignorant person asks, "What happens to an enlightened person after death?" leave it. Even, "What happens to an enlightened man while he is alive?" cannot be explained. CANNOT be explained. What has happened to me? How can I explain it? No possibility. It is impossible -- unless you start seeing, unless your eyes open. Unless you are changed, nothing can be explained. the communication is not possible, because enlightenment is a totally different quality of being, and you are completely blind to it. You can believe that I am enlightened, but you cannot see it. That belief will help, because that belief will allow you to remain open. That trust will help, because you can deny, you can say, "No, I cannot believe. How can I believe? How can I trust when I don't know?" That will close you: then there is no possibility. That's why religion insists on trust, SHRADDHA. The blind man can only believe and trust when people say that light exists. And if he trusts, then there is a possibility. If he does not trust, then he will not even allow a treatment. He will say, "What are you doing? There is no light, and there are no such things as eyes. I don't believe you, so please don't waste your time, and don't waste my time.


It is impossible to communicate from one plane to another plane; it won't function at all. You have to rise up to another plane of being; only then, suddenly, can you see. And when you see and experience, then the trust is fulfilled. But before you see, one has to have faith, to have trust, just to allow the transformation.
<p class="sutra">GUDO REPLIED:
HOW SHOULD I KNOW?</p>


Death has not come yet. When it comes, it comes. Then I will know and I will inform you, but right now I don't know.


An enlightened person will not give you theories. He would like to give you insight, not theories. Insight is a deep phenomenon with you; theory is just borrowed. He could have replied, because there are theories about what happens to the enlightened man. Some say he reaches to a plane called MOKSHA, where he lives for ever and ever. Some are more colorful, they say he goes to the kingdom of God and lives with God for ever and ever, just like Jesus sitting by the throne of God, on the right hand, with angels dancing and singing and celebrations going on and on. There are millions of theories. But they are all created by the theologians to console people. You ask -- so somebody has to give you the answer.


But not enlightened people: they have remained silent about it. They are not concerned at all. Jesus says: Consider the lilies of the field. They exist only here and now. They don't bother about the tomorrow; the tomorrow will take care of itself.


Somebody brought the New Testament to a Zen master, and he read a few sentences from it -- particularly this sentence: Consider the lilies in the field. They toil not, they don't think of the morrow, and they are so beautiful in the here and now that even Solomon, the great emperor, in his peak glory, was not arrayed in such beauty. When he read this the Zen master said: "Stop! Whosoever said this is a Buddha." He didn't know about Jesus, he didn't know about Christianity. Christianity had reached Japan just a few days before. The master said: "Stop! No need to say anything more. Whosoever said this is a Buddha."


All enlightened persons have insisted on remaining in the moment. That's why Gudo said, "How should I know?"
<p class="sutra">THE EX-EMPEROR SAID: WHY? -- BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER.</p>


From a master we expect answers, but in fact, a master never gives you an answer, he simply destroys your question. There is a vast difference between these things. From a master we expect answers to our questions, but if the questions are foolish, the answers cannot be better. How can you answer a foolish question in a wise way? The very question is foolish. Somebody comes and asks: "What is the taste of the color green?" It is absurd, because there is no relationship. But the question looks perfect, linguistically it is perfect. You can ask: "What is the taste of the color green? There is no error in the language, in the formulation.


The same is the case, for many reasons, when somebody asks: "What happens to an enlightened person when he is dead?" First, he is never dead. An enlightened person is one who has come to know the eternal life. He is never dead. Second, an enlightened person is no longer a person. His ego is dissolved, that's why he is enlightened. So, in the first place, he is never dead; in the second place, he is already dead, because he is no more.


Buddha moved about for forty years after his enlightenment, but in those forty years, while he was wandering from village to village, talking to people continuously, giving them whatsoever he has attained, it is said that he never uttered a single word and he never took a single step. What does this mean? It is rightly said that he never uttered a single word, because he was no more. How can you utter a word when you are not? It was as if existence itself, not Buddha, uttered those words, because now buddha was no longer a person, just the name remained, utilitarian, functional. Otherwise there was no need for it. He never took a single step, but he was wandering and wandering. The whole province of Bihar is called "Bihar" because of his wanderings. Bihar means the wandering, and because he was wandering there, the whole province is known as Bihar. But it is said that he never took a single step -- and it is right, absolutely right -- he never took a single step.


I tell you: In continuously talk to you but I have not uttered a single word. When the ego is not there, who can utter? Then what is happening when I am talking to you? It is just like a breeze passing through the trees; it is just like a spring moving towards the river; it is just like a flower opening. But I am not there. And the flower cannot claim that it opened itself. The breeze cannot say, "I pass through these trees," because the breeze has no ego to say it. The river cannot say, "I am moving towards the ocean." The river moves, but there is nobody who is moving. I talk to you, but I have not uttered a single word.


But how to communicate these things? An enlightened person is already dead; the past has disappeared, the center is no longer there. Now he is nowhere -- he exists everywhere. Now he is one with the whole, the wave has lost itself into the ocean. So, when you see Buddha standing there, that body is just a contact point, that's all. Nothing else. It is just like an electricity plug. If you plug in there the energy moves; otherwise the energy is everywhere. So, when Buddha is standing there, he is just a contact point for the cosmos. He is no longer there, he is just a passage, just an anchor into this world. And when the anchor is lost, that's when Buddha's body will drop.


You ask, "What happens?" When a wave is no more, what happens? It becomes the ocean. When a Buddha is no more, the body disappears like the wave has disappeared, Buddha is already dead, that's why he is a Buddha; and secondly, he can never die, because once the ego is lost, the eternal life is attained. Now Buddha is not anywhere: he is everywhere. When you don't have a center, the whole existence becomes your center.


The question is foolish. It looks logical, meaningful, but it is foolish. That's why Gudo replied: HOW SHOULD I KNOW? Many things are implied. Gudo is saying: I am not. Who should know? When the wave disappears in the ocean, how should I know?
<p class="sutra">THE EX-EMPEROR SAID:
WHY? -- BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER.</p>


We expect answers from a master, but answers are given by teachers, not by masters. Masters simply destroy your mind; even if it appears that they are answering you, they never answer. They are elusive. You ask something, they talk about something else. You ask about A, they talk about B. But they are very persuasive, seductive. They talk about B and they convince you that, yes, your question is answered. But your questions are foolish, they cannot be answered, they are irrelevant. So a master never answers the questions. He gives you the feeling that he is answering you, but he is simply trying to pull the earth from beneath your feet. The whole effort is for your mind to fall, to collapse. If you can be near a master for a little while, you will collapse. He is a chaos; you will be pulled down completely. Neither questions nor answers will be there. Only then, when silence exists in you, has a master succeeded with you.


Answers will fill your mind again, so how can a master give you answers? They will be theories, they won't allow you to enter into reality. A master really cuts away your questions until, by-and-by, you stop asking, and when the moment of no asking comes, only then is the answer given. But that answer is not verbal; that answer is from his very being. Then the master pours himself into you. He is the vehicle, and the whole pours through him into you.
<p class="sutra">WHY? -- BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER.</p>


We think that a master must be very knowledgeable, that he must know everything. In fact a master knows nothing: he has attained to perfect ignorance, because only ignorance can be innocent, knowledge never. Knowledge is always cunning, it can never be innocent. Perfect ignorance. He does not know anything. Knowledge has dropped. He is, but he is not a knower, and whatsoever he says is out of his innocence, not out of his knowledge. He can say millions of things, because innocence is so potent. He can go on and on for years -- for forty years Buddha talked. Now scholars say that it seems impossible for one man to talk for forty years -- and about so many things. It seems a difficult thing for them because they don't know that innocence is inexhaustible. Knowledge will be exhausted. If I know something, it is limited, then I cannot go on and on and on. And I tell you that if you are ready, I can go on and on for eternity, because it is not out of knowing, but out of perfect ignorance.


Perfect ignorance is not your ignorance: your ignorance is not perfect. You know -- in fact you know too much. You cannot find an ignorant person who doesn't know. He may know less, more, but he knows; he may know wrongly or rightly, but he knows. Even an idiot knows, and insists that he knows rightly. Only an enlightened man denies that he knows. Said Socrates: "When I was young, I knew many things, in fact I knew all. Then I became a little more mature and I started feeling that I didn't know much, in fact, very little. And when I became very, very old then I understood the whole thing. now I know only one thing: that I don't know."


While he was young he knew many things.... Youth is arrogant. Only immature persons are knowledgeable; maturity is like ignorance, it doesn't know. Or it knows only that it doesn't know.
<p class="sutra">GUDO REPLIED:
HOW SHOULD I KNOW?</p>
<p class="sutra">THE EX-EMPEROR SAID:
WHY? -- BECAUSE YOU ARE A MASTER.</p>


Answers are expected. He must know. If he doesn't know, then who else will know?
And beautiful is Gudo -- said he:
<p class="sutra">YES, SIR, BUT NOT A DEAD ONE!</p>


I am a master, but not a dead one. Wait. When I am dead, then I will say what happens when an enlightened person dies. I am yet alive and you ask me about death. It has not happened, so how should I know? When it happens, I will report to you.


It never happens to an enlightened man. Gudo is really clever. It never happens to an enlightened man. Only ignorant people die. Only the egos die. When there is no center inside you, who can die? How is death possible? Death is possible to the ego, to the self. How can death happen to the no-self? All the enlightened people through the ages have been saying only one thing: Die to the ego so that you can attain to the eternal. Let the ego die, then there will be no death for you, you become deathless.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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