Awareness Will Not Go To War

An old story:

A king was getting old, and he told his only son, who was going to succeed him, "Before I die you have to learn the art of morality, because a king has to be a model for everyone else in the kingdom; nothing should go wrong in your actions. So I am sending you today to my old master. I am old, he is even older than me, so don't waste time. Learn everything intensely, totally, without wasting a single moment."

The prince went to the master and he was surprised - surprised by the fact that the master was a master of archery: "And what has archery to do with morality? Has my father gone senile?" But he had come to the mountains, so he thought, "It is better to see the old man at least once."

He went in. The old man was immensely majestic & graceful, surrounded by an aura of silence and peace. He had been thinking he was going to meet a warrior, an archer, but here was someone who appeared sage-like. He was getting even more puzzled. He asked the old man, "Are you the master archer?" He said, "You are right."

The prince said, "I have been sent by my father, the king, who is your disciple, to learn morality from you. I cannot see any connection at all between morality and archery." The old man laughed and he said, "Soon you will see."

The prince said, "I am in a hurry. My father is old, and before he dies I want to fulfill his desire." The master said, "Then get lost, because these things cannot be learned in a hurry. Patience, infinite patience is the very foundation of learning any art, whether it is archery or it is morality."

Looking at the old man's eyes the prince remained, and he said, "When are my lessons going to start?" The old man said, "Just now they have started. Patience is your first lesson. And about the second lesson I should make you aware. The second lesson is that you will be cleaning the floors, cleaning in the garden, collecting the old leaves, throwing them out. Be very careful, because I may hit you with a wooden sword at any moment. Although it is wooden, it hits really hard. It has given many people fractures."

The prince said, "But I have come here to learn morality, not to get fractures!" The old man said, "That will come in its own time, this is only the beginning." Puzzled, confused... but he knew his father, that if he went back empty-handed the old man would be really enraged. He had to learn. On both sides two mad, old people.... "And this man is trying to teach me morality by hitting me! But let us see what happens."

And the master started hitting him. He would be washing the floor, and suddenly a hit would come. He would be cleaning the path in the garden, and suddenly a hit would come. But he became surprised, within a week, that a certain intuitive awareness was beginning to arise in him. Even before the old man had approached him, he would jump out of his way. Whatever he was doing, some part of his consciousness was continuously alert the old man, where he was. And the old man used to walk so silently that it was almost impossible to remain conscious. But he started being conscious, because getting so many hits, his whole body was hurting.

It continued for one month. But in one month he became so capable that the old man was no longer able to hit him. The old man said, "You are really the son of your father. He was also very keen, intense, and total in learning; it won't take much time. Your first lesson is finished today, because for twenty-four hours I have been trying to hit you, but you have been found always alert, and saved yourself.

From tomorrow morning you will have to be more alert, because the wooden sword will be replaced by a real sword. The wooden sword at the most could have given you a fracture, but the real sword may even cut off your head. So more awareness will be needed."

But this one month had been of such great learning... he was never aware that inside him there was so much possibility of intuitive awareness. He was trained, well-trained intellectually, but he had no idea of what intuition was. And he was not afraid even of the real sword, because he said, "It is the same. If you cannot hit me with the wooden sword, you cannot hit me with the real sword either. It makes no difference to me."

For one month the old man was trying in every possible way to hit him with the real sword, and naturally the prince became more and more alert - had to become, there was no other alternative.

And one complete month passed, and the old man could not even touch him. He was very happy, and he said, "I am immensely satisfied. Now the third lesson. Up to now I was hitting you only while you were awake. From this evening, remember that in the night when you are asleep I may hit you at any time. Again it will start with the wooden sword."

The prince became a little worried - awake it was one thing, but when you are asleep? But these two months had given him tremendous respect, trust in the old man and his art, and also a confidence about his own intuition. And he thought, "If he says it, then perhaps intuition never sleeps."

And that proved to be the truth. The body sleeps, the mind sleeps, but the intuition is always awake; its very nature is awareness, but we never look at it. He had to look, he had to remain alert, even while asleep.

The old man started hitting him, and a few times he got really bad hits. But he was grateful, not angry, because after each hit he was becoming more and more alert, even in sleep - just like a small flame, something remained alive in him, alert and watchful. And just in one month he was again able to protect himself even in his sleep. As the old man would come close, very silently, making no noise, no footstep sounds, the young man would jump up out of his bed. He may have been fast asleep, but something remained awake.

And in the next lesson, a real sword appeared in his sleep. The next morning the old man said, "Now the last lesson - I will be hitting you with a real sword. And you know my sword, just a single hit and you are finished. You have to gather all your consciousness." The young man was a little worried, a little afraid, because the game was becoming more and more dangerous.

In the early morning sun, the old man was reading a book, sitting under a tree in the rising sun, and the young man was gathering the old leaves from the garden. Suddenly a thought came to him, "This old man has been hitting me for months; it will be a great idea... I should try to hit him and see whether he is alert or not."

And he was just twenty or twenty-five feet away, when he was just thinking this in his mind - he had not done anything yet - and the old man said, "Boy, I am very old, and your teaching is not finished yet. Don't have such ideas."

The prince could not believe it. He came and touched his feet, and said, "Forgive me, but I had not done anything, I was only thinking... just an idea."

The old man said, "When you become fully alert even the sound of your thoughts is heard. It is the question of awareness. You don't have to do anything, you just think and I will know. And soon you will become capable of the same - just a little more patience."

And soon the day came when he started suddenly becoming aware that the old man was thinking of hitting him... for no reason. The old man was sitting reading his book, but the idea came so clearly that he went to the master, and said, "So you are going to hit me again? Just a few seconds before I heard the idea." The master said, "You are right, I was just thinking to finish the page and come. Now there is no need for you to be here. I know your father is old and is waiting for you."

But the young man said, "What happened about morality?" The old man said, "Forget all about it. A man who is so alert can only be moral. He cannot harm anybody, he cannot steal, he cannot be unkind, cruel; he will be naturally loving and compassionate. You forget all about morality!"

This awareness is what is also called 'religiousness'. The prince went back. The father was waiting and waiting, and he said, "Have you learned the whole art of archery?" The young man said, "You sent me to learn the art of morality. From where have you got the idea of archery?" The king said, "I sent you to learn morality, archery was only a device."

There are many devices, many ways and methods to create awareness, to wake up your sleeping intuition. And once it is awake, then there is no need to tell you what is good, what is moral, what is bad, what is immoral; your awareness will be decisive on its own. And it will be spontaneous, fresh and young, and always to the point, because all principles become dead. And if you try to fit your life according to principles, you also become dead.

That's what has happened to Christians, to Hindus, to Mohammedans, to Jainas, to all the people around the world - they are living according to dead principles, dead doctrines. And those dead principles don't fit with the reality of today - they cannot fit. Only a spontaneous consciousness.... The difference is something like this: you have a photograph of yourself of the last year, or maybe of your childhood, and if you don't know that it is your picture of your childhood, you may not even recognize it - because you have changed so much. That picture is dead, it is not growing; but you are still growing.

Morality is like photographs. Religion is like a mirror. If a child is facing it, it reflects the child; if an old man is facing it, it reflects the old man. It is always spontaneous, in the moment, responding to reality. A conscious human being is just like a mirror - he reflects reality and responds accordingly.

His response is moral.

And if more and more people can become aware, the world will be a totally different place. A man of awareness will not go to war. Although religious scriptures say that to sacrifice yourself for your nation, for your religion is virtuous, a man of consciousness cannot follow that dead idea. To him, the nation itself is an immoral idea, because it divides humanity - and war is certainly immoral. You may find good names, good words - sometimes it is religion, sometimes it is political ideology, sometimes it is Christianity, sometimes it is communism - good ideas, but the reality is turning human beings into butchers.

You are killing people whom you have never even met. And you know perfectly well that just as you have left a wife behind, crying, who will be waiting for you, just as you have left your old mother and father back at home, hoping that their son comes back alive, just as you have left small children... the man you are killing has also a wife, has also children, has also an old father and mother. And he has done no harm to you; neither have you done any harm to him.

If the world becomes a little more conscious, soldiers will throw away their arms and hug each other, sit down together under a tree and gossip. The politicians cannot force all the armies to kill, to murder. Neither can the popes, the religious leaders convince anybody that for God's sake you have to kill. Strange... because God has created everybody. Whomsoever you are killing, you are killing God's creation. If it is true that God created the world, then there should be no war - it is one family; there should be no nations.

These are immoral things: the nations, the religions, anything that discriminates against people and creates conflict.

A man of awareness will not be greedy, because he will be able to see that his greed will create poverty; and the people who will be starving and dying through poverty are his brothers and sisters.

It does not matter whether they live in Ethiopia or in India; it does not matter whether their skin is white or black.

Authentic morality is a by-product of consciousness. And the art of consciousness is religion. There is no Hindu religion, there is no Christian religion, there is no Mohammedan religion; there is only one religion, and that is the religion of consciousness - becoming so aware, so enlightened and awakened, that you have eyes to see clearly and can respond according to that clarity.

A man of consciousness cannot be deceived by words. Mohammedans say that if you die in a religious war...

But, how can there ever be a religious war? War is basically irreligious. But Christians, Mohammedans, and all other religions say that if you die in a religious war, your reward will be great in the other world. For this immoral act of killing people, you will be rewarded. But beautiful words - "religious war" - covers it up.

A man of awareness sees deeply and penetratingly through the words. Neither your God can deceive him, nor your holy books can deceive him, nor your nations, nor your politicians. He lives according to his own consciousness. He has an individuality, a very crystal clear individuality - a pure mirror, unclouded by anything, with no dust covering it.

But for thousands of years just mere words, and sometimes such stupid, trivial causes have been killing people. Christianity in the middle ages burnt thousands of women. They created a fiction - the fiction of the devil. There is no devil. There is no God! But people have lived in unconsciousness, and whatsoever the leaders, the so-called saints, go on saying, people have been told to believe: "if you don't believe you will suffer in hell; if you believe you will be rewarded."

People's intelligence has been destroyed. They have been kept retarded. Otherwise it would be impossible to burn thousands of living women for a strange reason - that these women are having sexual intercourse with the devil. Now nobody is having sexual intercourse with the devil. Only in the middle ages, suddenly, the devil became so much interested in women, and that too, only in Europe...!

A special court was created by the pope, so that if anybody suspects any woman, that she is having some friendship with the devil, you have just to report to the court and the woman will be immediately imprisoned, tortured. And the torture was so intense. They had invented special methods of torture. Just a form of insanity, mental illness.

Morality is nothing but a conscious man's life style. Become more & more consciously aware & morality is a by-product.

 

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