Don't consider what is right and what is wrong

A tremendously important and revolutionary statement. Buddha is saying: Don't consider what is right and what is wrong, because if you consider what is right and what is wrong you will be divided, you will become a hypocrite. You will pretend the right and you will do the wrong. And the moment you consider what is right and what is wrong, you become attached, you become identified. You certainly become identified with the right.

For example, you see on the side of the road a hundred-rupee note; it may have fallen from somebody's pocket. Now the question arises: To take it or not to take it? One part of you says, "It is perfectly right to take it. Nobody is looking, nobody will ever suspect. And you are not stealing -- it is just lying there! If you don't take it, somebody else is going to take it anyway. So why miss it? It is perfectly right!"

But another part says, "This is wrong -- this money does not belong to you, it is not yours. In a way, in an indirect way, it is stealing. You should inform the police, or if you don't want to be bothered with it, then go ahead, forget all about it. Don't even look back. This is greed and greed is a sin!"

Now, these two minds are there. One says, "It is right, take it," the other says, "It is wrong, don't take it." With which mind are you going to identify yourself? You are certainly going to identify with the mind which says it is immoral, because that is more ego-satisfying. "You are a moral person, you are not ordinary; anybody else would have taken the hundred-rupee note. In such times of difficulties, people don't think of such delicacies." You will identify yourself with the moral mind. But there is every possibility you will take the note. You will identify yourself with the moral mind, and you will disidentify yourself from the mind which is going to take the note. You will condemn it deep down; you will say, "It is not right -- it is the sinner part of me, the lower part, the condemned part." You will keep yourself aloof from it. You will say, "I was against it. It was my instinct, it was my unconscious, it was my body, it was my mind, which persuaded me to do it; otherwise, I knew it, that it was wrong. I am the one who knows that it was wrong."

You always identify yourself with the right, the moralistic attitude, and you disidentify from the immoral act -- although you do it. This is how hypocrisy arises.

Saint Augustine has said in his confessions: God, forgive me, because I go on doing things which I know I should not do, and also I don't do things which I know I should do.

This is the conflict, this is how one becomes troubled. Hence Buddha gives you a secret key. This is the key that can take you out of all identification: don't be identified with the moral mind -- because that too is part of the mind. It is the same game: one part saying good, another part saying bad -- it is the same mind creating a conflict in you. Mind is always dual. Mind lives in polar opposites. It loves and it hates the same person; it wants to do the act and it does not want to do the act. It is conflict, mind is conflict. Don't get identified with either.

Buddha is saying: Become just a watchfulness. See that one part is saying this, another part is saying that. "I am neither -- NETI, NETI, neither this nor that -- I am just a witness." Only then is there a possibility that understanding will arise.

AN UNTROUBLED MIND,NO LONGER SEEKING TO CONSIDER WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG, A MIND BEYOND JUDGMENTS, WATCHES AND UNDERSTANDS.

To go beyond judgments of good and bad is the way of watchfulness. And it is through watchfulness that transformations happen. This is the difference between morality and religion. Morality says, "Choose the right and reject the wrong. Choose the good and reject the bad." Religion says, "Simply watch both. Don't choose at all. Remain in a choiceless consciousness."

Religion is very very different from morality. Morality is very ordinary, mundane, mediocre; morality cannot take you to the ultimate, it is not the way of the divine. Morality is only a social strategy. That's why one thing is right in one society and the same thing is wrong in another society; one thing is thought to be good in India and the same thing is thought to be bad in Japan. One thing is thought to be good today and may become wrong tomorrow. Morality is a social by-product, it is a social strategy to control. It is the policeman inside you, the judge inside you -- it is a trick of the society to hypnotize you according to certain conceptions that the society wants to be imposed upon people. So if you are born in a vegetarian family, then the nonvegetarians are the greatest of sinners.

One Jaina monk once told me that "I love your books, but why do you mention Jesus, Mohammed and Ramakrishna with Mahavira? You should not mention them in the same line. Mahavira is Mahavira -- how can he be compared and put in the same way, in the same category with Jesus, Mohammed and Ramakrishna?"

I said, "Why not?"

He said, "Jesus drinks wine, eats meat -- what greater sin can one commit?"

Mohammed ate meat and got married to nine women! One has to renounce the woman -- and not only one but nine! A perfect number. In fact, there are no more numbers; nine is the last number, then again repeats the same....

"Mohammed got married to nine women, was a meat-eater -- how can you put Mohammed with Mahavira? And how can you put Ramakrishna with Mahavira? He used to eat fish."

A Bengali is bound to eat fish.

His only criticism of my books is that I have put these people together.

Now ask a Christian.... I once asked a Christian missionary, "What do you say about this Jaina monk? He has said this...have you any objection?"

He said, "Certainly! How can you put Mahavira with Jesus? Jesus lived for humanity, sacrificed himself for humanity -- what has Mahavira done? Mahavira is utterly selfish, he thinks only of his own salvation. He cares nothing about others! He never healed a blind person, he never raised a dead person from death. He was just meditating for twelve years in the mountains, in the forests -- what more selfishness...? And the world is suffering and people are in great pain, and he didn't come to console them. What more luxury can there be? Just meditating by the side of a river in the forest -- what more luxury! What has he done for the poor humanity? Jesus sacrificed himself -- he lived and died for others. His whole life was nothing but pure sacrifice. How can you put Mahavira with Jesus?"

And he too seems to be right. Now, how do you decide? Buddha never healed the sick, the blind, the deaf, the dumb -- just meditated. Seems to be selfish! He should have opened hospitals, or at least schools; should have distributed medicine, should have gone to the flood areas and served people...he never did anything like that. What kind of spirituality is this? According to a Christian, it is pure selfishness.

Now, who is right? And who is going to decide? We live according to our prejudices.

The Jaina monk is wrong and the Christian missionary is wrong, because both are judging -- and to judge is wrong. Jesus is Jesus -- he lives in his own way. Buddha is Buddha -- he lives in his own way. Unique personalities, unique expressions of God. Neither is a copy of the other, and neither needs to be a copy of the other. And it is beautiful that the world has variety. If there were only Jesuses and Jesuses again and again, they would look like Ford cars coming out on an assembly line -- each second a Ford car coming out, the same, exactly the same as each other. It is beautiful that Jesus is one and simply one and unrepeatable. And it is good the Buddha is alone and unrepeatable.

A really religious person has a nonjudgmental approach. The moralist cannot avoid judgments, he becomes a judge. Now, this Jaina monk, an ordinary person, stupid, is ready to judge Jesus, Ramakrishna, Mohammed. He knows nothing, understands nothing, has never meditated -- has not known himself yet. That's why he had come to me.

He had come to me to understand what meditation is and how to meditate. Meditation has not happened yet, but judgment is there -- and he is ready to judge even a man like Jesus, is not even ashamed of what he is doing, is not shy, is very arrogant. And so is the case with the Christian missionary! He knows nothing of meditation, what Buddha was doing, what Mahavira was doing. He knows nothing of the subtle ways in which a Buddha functions. Just his becoming enlightened is the greatest service to humanity possible -- nothing more can be done. He has certainly not cured physical eyes, but he is the man who has cured thousands of people's spiritual eyes -- and that is real service! He has made thousands of people hear, listen, understand -- THAT is real service.

But this Christian missionary, because he runs a primary school and a hospital, thinks himself somebody who is authorized to judge. The moralist always judges, the religious person never judges. He lives in a nonjudgmental consciousness.

A MIND BEYOND JUDGMENTS, WATCHES AND UNDERSTANDS. He simply watches and understands. If Buddha had come across Jesus, he would have understood; if Jesus had come across Mahavira, he would have understood. Just watching, seeing, and there is understanding.