re: 'Janam Sakhi' Are True Events
sorry, i know its a really long post, but cutting n pasting only a section of it wouldnt have the same effect as the passage in its entirety. so read n reflect....
DO MIRACLES REALLY NOT EXIST?
I am sorry to disappoint you, but I can't help it.
I cannot give you the consolation that has been given by all the religions down the centuries. I cannot do it because that consolation has cost too much. It has not given anything; on the contrary, it has taken away your very religiousness.
I cannot say anything that in the short-term may seem to help your growth towards religion, but in the long-term is simply poison. That's what the idea of a miracle is.
The human mind is begging for it. It is the need of a sick mind -- but all minds are sick. Mind as such is the sickness of man. When the mind disappears you are, for the first time, really healthy and whole. Mind needs all kinds of poisons to continue to exist. The idea of miracles is one of the most important. The idea is absolutely against existence.
First you have to understand, what does a miracle mean? It means that existence is not trustable, that nature is not unprejudiced, that the laws of life allow exceptions. This is an absolute absurdity. Existence has no prejudices -- that for Jesus it has a soft corner in the heart, and not for you; that it allows Mohammed to go beyond natural laws, but it does not allow you. A miracle simply is a condemnation of the fairness of existence.
No, there is no such thing as a miracle -- never has been, never will be. If miracles happen then science cannot happen; and we know that science has happened. And as science has grown, miracles have diminished in exact proportion. The more science grows, the less and less are there miracles. If you go farther back you can find thousands of miracles happening.
Most of those miracles are just stories invented to create messiahs, prophets, reincarnations of God -- because how can you manage to put a certain man above all humanity? How can you manage to make him superhuman? His body follows nature, his life follows nature. From birth to death there is not a single exception.
But the fools around the world will not accept an ordinary man as enlightened. They need a superman, only then is their mind satisfied: Of course, he is a superman, a messenger of God; he can be enlightened -- but how can we poor human beings be enlightened?
And how to prove that he is superior to you? Just look: Jesus is not superior as far as intelligence is concerned, shows no special intelligence. There were hundreds of more learned rabbis, great scholars of profound intelligence; he is just an uneducated, unpolished carpenter's son. By intelligence he cannot prove -- nor can his followers -- that he is superior, that he is special, that he is the only begotten son of God. By physical strength he cannot prove that either. Any Muhammad Ali will throw him flat. Just by a single hit on his nose he is finished. Physically he cannot prove that he is superior.
Now these are the only two things in human life where you find.... Somebody is an Albert Einstein, a Bertrand Russell, a Jean-Paul Sartre -- they have proved intellectually they are sharper, more talented. But a strange thing is, they don't claim they are the only begotten son of God. No intelligent person can claim such an unintelligent thing. Or there are people who are physically talented. They may come first in the Olympic race, in some game, in some wrestling, but that simply shows a difference between you and them of quantity, not of quality. Howsoever powerful a man may be, he is only quantitatively different from you; and the difference of quantity is no difference at all.
If you had worked on the same lines with the same gymnastics for the same time, perhaps you might have proved even a better wrestler, a better runner. All that is proved is that this man has practiced a certain talent. Certainly he should be respected -- but he does not become the messenger of God. It is only a question of training. The difference is only of degrees, there is no difference of quality. He is just as human a being as you are.
Then how to prove that Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna -- that these people are not just ordinary like you? The way that has been discovered is called the miracle. That makes them qualitatively different from you, because whatsoever you do, you cannot get trained in walking on water. Whatever you do you will be drowned again and again. So it is not a question of training, discipline, knowing certain strategies -- no, nothing will help. How can you turn stones into bread? How can you turn water into wine? These stories are invented for a certain purpose -- to make that man qualitatively higher than you.
But this is exploiting humanity, corrupting human consciousness, giving people false ideas. Just look at these miracle-men of the world and you can see that of all those miracles, ninety percent were invented by the followers or in some cases by the originators themselves. It is difficult at such a long distance to know who started them. Most of them must have been started by the originators themselves, and of course followers go on adding to them. It becomes an absolute necessity for followers to go on adding more and more miracles, because it is a competitive business and everybody has to prove his messiah the highest, the greatest. Everybody else is below him. Now, only miracles can do that miracle, there is no other way.
Jainas have 24 tirthankaras, 24 messiahs. Because Jainas had 24, Buddhists were at a loss; they had only one -- Gautam Buddha. In the market -- and this whole world is a market and every human being is a customer -- when you are selling your messiah, your religion, your holy book, small things count. A Buddhist feels at a loss because people ask how many buddhas there have been. Just one? Looks very poor -- Jainas have 24!
Hindus up to that moment had ten incarnations of God. They immediately changed to 24 because 10 looked poor before 24. The idea of Jainas having twenty-four.... Before Mahavira, all Hindu scriptures talk of ten avataras; after Mahavira suddenly a great change happens -- Hindus start talking about twenty-four. Buddhists are at a loss because their religion starts with Buddha, so where to put twenty-four buddhas? But they have to be a little more creative. They started talking about twenty-four lives of Gautam Buddha -- this was the twenty-fourth life. He had been an awakened one twenty-three times before. You can see a clever legal process. They had no historical grounds to prove that there had been twenty-four buddhas. Even Buddha cannot say that because he was the originator. But this was easy, to invent twenty-three previous lives.
Coincidences perhaps may have happened in the lives of Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, but it would have been far more honest of them to say that these were coincidences, that nature had not broken its law, it had not given a special power to somebody. But they or in most cases their followers remained silent about it. Silence is a support. Perhaps there was not any bad intention, because it has been noted that people are not in search of truth but in search of power -- and the miracle is a symbol of power, not of truth. Truth has nothing to do with miracles
But who is interested in truth?
Everybody is interested in power.
So when you see a man of miracles you are immediately impressed: here is a man who has power. And that is your deepest urge -- the will-to-power. Then you start following this man. In fact, if somebody tries to explain to you that these are not miracles you don't want to listen because he is taking away your power; your only hope he is destroying. So the people who believe in miracle-men are not ready to listen for the simple reason that you may destroy their faith, their belief You may be able to prove that either it is magic -- that means just conjuring tricks -- or it is simply a coincidence, or it is just an invented story. And many things can be managed very easily....
I used to know in Jabalpur a man from south India. He must have come some thirty, forty years before from Madras, and he had lived in Jabalpur for forty years; still he was known as Madrasi Baba because he was from Madras. It was known that he had revived dead people. I was a student in the university; I heard this many times so I collected a few people and one night we went to Madrasi Baba.
He used to live in a small hut outside the town, so it was very easy. We all entered his hut, and we took hold of him -- he was lying down on his cot. We tied his feet and hands, and I told him, "You have to tell the truth -- we are not going to tell anybody, but if you don't tell us the truth then today we are going to do a miracle."
He said, "What kind of miracle?"
I said, "Today we are going to turn an alive man into a dead man. Just in front of your house there is a big lake; we are going to throw you into it. And we will make every certainty and surety that you cannot survive. We have big rocks outside which we are going to put on your chest, bind with your cot and throw the whole cot with you and the rocks. And you will go down -- unless you tell us how you managed to revive a man."
He said, "I will tell you but please don't tell anybody; otherwise my whole life will be ruined. I live only on that miracle."
I said, "First tell us." And what miracles had he done?
It was one of his friends who pretended to be dead. He was a practitioner of yoga, they both were practitioners of yoga. If you practice yoga then there is a possibility that for at least ten minutes you can stop your breathing. With certain exercises it is possible that your heart goes on at the minimum, the pulse at the minimum, and your breathing completely stops -- but for not more than ten minutes. But ten minutes are enough to prove a man dead, you don't need more.
One morning he declared that his friend had died. People came, they looked, they took his pulse; it was gone. There was no breathing, his heart was not beating -- he was dead. They covered him, and then Madrasi Baba chanted some mantras in Telugu, in his language, so nobody knew whether he was chanting mantras or singing film songs. And after seven rounds of chanting and throwing some invisible power over the man he took off the cover, put his hands on the nose of the man, looked upwards -- and slowly slowly, the breathing came back, the pulse came back and the heart started beating.
The man is still alive, the other man. And we confirmed the story through this other man also, in the same way; we had to because there was no other way. We said that Madrasi Baba himself had told the whole story, "but now you are also in the same situation. So you just tell us, otherwise you will go; we will perform the real miracle."
And he said, "It is true, I conspired with him -- we are partners. Whatsoever money he gets, half he gives to me. For these forty years life has been very pleasant, without any work, without any trouble; we have lived comfortably, and people respect us. Now I am his disciple in people's eyes, but really I am a partner in his business." So either miracles are invented....
Now, nobody can say this Lazarus was not a partner in the whole conspiracy. He was a friend of Jesus' -- that much is reported. And why only Lazarus? There were so many people dying. Did he have to wait to do the miracle only when Lazarus died? And Lazarus was young -- it was not his time to die either. He was Jesus' friend so there is every possibility that Jesus may have told him, "Just pretend you are dead." He had learned all yoga practices in India, in Egypt; both countries know the secrets about stopping the breath.
Either it is a coincidence, or it is a conspiracy, or it is just a myth created when the person is gone. But you can judge very easily. Jesus can revive a dead man, but when he is feeling thirsty on the cross he cannot materialize a single glass of water, or just a Coca-Cola. That would have been a real miracle -- if he had produced Coca-Cola. Then I would never say that miracles don't exist, because to produce Coca-Cola at that time would not have been possible. Even today you cannot make it, because the secret of Coca-Cola is absolutely preserved, there is no way.... There are so many cold drinks available in the world, but nothing comes close to Coca-Cola. If Jesus had produced that, with the label of Coca-cola and the bottle and everything, then there would have been no need for any other proof; they could have just preserved the Coca-Cola bottle in the Vatican.
But whatever he did is not of much significance, and he could not do it when he was himself in need.
He could revive the dead but he could not change those apostles, transform their beings. What to say of transformation -- even on the last night when Jesus is to depart he says to them again and again, "Remain awake, don't fall asleep! This is my last night; tonight they are going to catch me. Remain awake so that I can pray silently -- and be watchful!"
And after each hour he comes and he finds his disciples are fast asleep, snoring. He wakes them up and tells them again, "Have you forgotten?"
Again and again, the whole night that drama continues, but they are not ready. You can't change people's minds just a little bit but you can raise people from the dead? It doesn't seem to be possible.
There are miracles around Buddha -- that when he passes, trees blossom out of season. The whole forest might be dry if the season was fall and all the leaves had fallen, but if Buddha passes through the forest it looks disrespectful -- those barren trees without leaves, without flowers. No, suddenly the whole forest changes its course of millions of years; suddenly there are leaves, suddenly there is greenery, flowers, fruits.
I
can say this must be a myth because Buddha himself has a personal physician continuously moving with him. For what? If even trees understand, won't his body understand? The most famous physician of those days, Jivakar, was continuously with him, just like a shadow, taking care of his body -- and still he died of food poisoning. Not a great way to die, through food poisoning.
If some glutton dies of food poisoning he can be forgiven, but not Buddha. The poison had no consideration for Buddha, the food had no consideration, the body had no consideration -- and the trees and the forest and the mountains had consideration for him?
He was sitting in meditation, and his brother, his own brother, Devadatta, who was a follower... but he wanted Buddha to declare him his successor. Buddha said, "That is not possible. You are not yet capable of such a position. And there are people -- Mahakassapa, Sariputta, Moggalayan -- so many people who are already enlightened. How can I declare you, an unenlightened person, as my successor? I am not going to declare anybody my successor because there are so many people who are capable of being my successor -- how am I to choose?"
But Devadatta was very angry, so angry that he left Buddha, taking five thousand disciples of Buddha with him. And he tried many ways to kill Buddha. One was that while Buddha was meditating, sitting on a rock Devadatta slid a big rock from the mountain top aimed exactly to hit Buddha. And it would have simply crushed him -- there was no chance -- but the rock, just on the way, thought, "There is Buddha, and this would not be right, to go on falling in the traditional way." It moved, changed its course -- which was very strange because there was no reason for it to change its course, no obstacle that moved it from its course.
Devadatta brought a mad elephant who was known to have killed many people and so was kept always in chains. He brought him and left him without chains close to where Buddha was sitting. And the elephant came rushing, because after many days he had got the chance to kill somebody. He was murderous. But just coming close to Buddha, a sudden break: no, this is not the man to kill. He lowered himself, went on his knees and touched Buddha's feet.
Now if elephants, mad elephants, rocks and trees are so careful about Buddha -- and I would like them to be so careful, there is no harm in it. I would like them to be so careful about everybody, why only about Buddha? But when he eats the poisonous food his own body does not bother; the poison takes no care. That proves that all other stories are beautiful stories created to make Buddha a superhuman being.
The same is true about all your miracle-men. As far as I am concerned, a miracle is something against nature, against existence; hence it is impossible. Yes, your mind wants it because your mind is sick. It is hungry for power and it would like its master to be a man of power. Then of course you can hope that some day you can manage -- by serving the master, by trusting the master, by surrendering to the master -- you can get some power yourself.
It is a deep desire for power that goes on asking again and again whether miracles happen or not. I say categorically they have never happened, because in the very nature of things a miracle is an absurdity. It simply means suddenly nature forgets its laws, existence changes its course. No, existence is fair, it is equal to all, exactly the same to all. And it is good that it is fair and equal; otherwise there would be the same bureaucracy and hierarchy that goes on in governments.
And that's what religions have been trying to create. What is this Christianity? A certain kind of bureaucracy from God, the Holy Ghost, Jesus, the messiah; then the pope, his representative; then the cardinal, then the bishop, and so on and so on.... It goes on and on to the lowest priest in the village.
This is a hierarchy, a bureaucracy. But everything is based on the miracles of Jesus. That's why I want to hammer those miracles as forcibly as possible.
If they are broken completely the whole hierarchy and bureaucracy falls down; they have nothing else to support them. And the same is true about all religions
I
know only of one miracle which is not included in your question about miracles; and that miracle is a jump of consciousness between the Master and the disciple.
Something transpires, but it is not done by the Master, it is not done by the disciple. Both are surprised when it happens.
The Master is available.
Whenever the disciple is also available, it simply happens.
This is the only miracle I know of
But it is not to be categorized with other miracles because it is really the ultimate law of existence. It is not something against existence, it is something which is the deepest, most central, most fundamental part of existence itself.
Just look for this miracle, wait for this miracle, and forget all nonsense about everything else.
If you really want to be religious, if you really want to be transformed, then you have to destroy all barriers between you and the transformation you are searching.
Yes, that miracle is possible. That miracle is possible any moment -- here, now. So prepare for that. Don't go on digging in bullshit.
THE END.
Ok, so we will always find people who will agree the sakhis are true factual events that did occur and others who won't.
