A Child on the Seashore_of_Time

A Child on the Seashore of Time

The second question:

Dreams are unreal but so is your life. Dreams are unreal but that is what your life is. Your life is just a dream because you are fast asleep. Can't you hear yourself snoring? You are fast asleep. Whatsoever you call your life is just a dream seen with open eyes. You see two types of dreams: one with closed eyes, one with open eyes. But both are dreams.

You say:

Your reading is a dream, your hearing is a dream. Whatsoever you have heard about Mahavira has nothing to do with Mahavira. It is your dream.

And just look - Mahavira's mother dreamed of nine white elephants. First it is a dream, then it is a dream about a white elephant. A dream is a dream! White elephant? The story is beautiful; it says that life is just like a Chinese box - a box within a box. It is just like an onion. You peel it, there is another layer; you peel it, another layer - box within box, within a box.

First, Mahavira's being born is a dream; then, being born out of a mother is another dream. Then the mother dreams. And the mother dreams about white elephants! Look at the whole absurdity of it.

Then there are stupid people who start analysing these dreams and make much fuss about it. Jainas say that whenever a TEERTHANKARA is born, a particular series of dreams has to happen to the mother. And if those dreams have not happened, then the man is not a TEERTHANKARA. So all the mothers HAD to dream - remember. Twenty-four TEERTHANKARAS have been born in India, and all the mothers of the TEERTHANKARAS had to repeat the same dream. It is a must, it is a legal thing - you cannot avoid it! If you don't dream, your son cannot be a TEERTHANKARA. When my mother started dreaming I said, 'Stop! There is no need. I am not going to fulfil any legal and formal things. There is no need to dream about white elephants. You can rest.'

Foolish people go on finding foolish things, but they decorate them very well. You ask what it means. It means nothing. It simply means that you are more interested in dreams than you are in reality.

People are not interested in Mahavira as such. If Mahavira's mother had forgotten to dream these dreams, Jainas would have not accepted him as the twenty-fourth TEERTHANKARA. That was one of the most important things to be decided. You may not know it but there were a few other people who were also claiming that they were TEERTHANKARAS. In the time of Mahavira there were eight persons who were claiming that they were TEERTHANKARAS and it was a great problem how to decide, because no criteria existed. So people had to invent such foolish criteria. It was only Mahavira's mother, the story says, who dreamed these dreams. Goshalak's mother erred.

Poor Goshalak suffered for it. Mahavira's mother must have been very clever; she must have planned everything very beautifully. At least Mahavira's astrologers must have - the mother died immediately after giving birth. In fact, I don't see that she ever told anybody because she died immediately. But that too is a point. Jainas say that when a TEERTHANKARA is born, the mother dies immediately. They have made things very difficult for the mother. Mahavira's mother's death must have been a pure accident.

Goshalak's mother lived. These things are not allowed. Goshalak suffered because his mother lived. Mahavira's mother died. These are foolish criteria. They don't see Mahavira directly, they are looking for other indications.

When Jesus was there, Jews were asking certain questions, because he had to fulfil the prophesies in the Old Testament. Were they fulfilled or not? Jesus was there in reality, standing before them, but they were not concerned about Jesus, they were concerned about the prophesies in the Old Testament. If they were fulfilled, then he was the right man; if they were not fulfilled, then he was not the right man. How foolish can humanity be? Jesus is there - but that is not proof of anything, no. And Jews denied him because they thought he had not fulfilled all the criteria. They had to crucify him because they thought he was just a charlatan, a deceiver; he had not fullfilled all the prophesies.

And Christians go on proving that he has fulfilled them. Now it has become just a verbal game of argumentation, of logic. The reality is completely forgotten.

Look at the real. If Mahavira is there, Mahavira is there whether the mother dreamed of white elephants or black elephants. Whether she dreamed or didn't dream doesn't matter; whether she lived or died doesn't matter. These are all irrelevant things. If Mahavira is there, look directly. His presence will be enough proof. And if it is not enough proof then there is no need to bother about other proofs. Then what can other proofs do?

The questioners have only dreams, they don't yet have a real life, so by answering their questions I will be pulling them out of their mud of dreams. I am not interested in their dreams, I am interested in the consciousness that is dreaming. That consciousness is not a dream. It is dreaming, it is in a dream, but it is not a dream. It is a reality, and it has to be pulled out of the dreaming state.

So I go on using whatsoever devices are needed. If sometimes I feel that analysing the dream may help you to come out of it then I analyse it. But remember always and always, I am not interested in the dream, I am not a psychoanalyst. But if I feel that by dissecting the dream I will be able to make you aware that you are not the dream, that you are the witness to it, then I dissect it. The reality is not in the dream, the reality is in the dreamer - and the dreamer has to be awakened. I function like an alarm clock.