The Psychology of the Buddhas

 

TO BEGIN WITH, one is already here, and sooner or later he will turn many of you into buddhas. If one is there, many become immediately possible because the one can work as a catalytic agent. Not that he will do something, but just because he is there things start moving on their own. That's the meaning of a catalytic agent. Sooner or later, many of you will turn into buddhas, because everyone is basically a buddha. How long can you delay in recognizing it? How long can you postpone it? Difficult -- you will try your best to postpone, to delay, to create millions of difficulties, but how long can you do this?

I am here to push you somehow into the abyss, where you die and the buddha is born. The problem is always in finding the one. Once the one is there the basic fulfillment, the basic requirement is fulfilled. Then many become immediately possible. And if many are there, then thousands become possible. The first works like a spark, and a small spark is enough to burn the whole earth. This is how it has happened in the past. Once Gautam became a buddha, thousands by and by had to become. Because it is not a question of becoming; you are already that. Somebody has to remind you, that's all.

Just the other day I was reading one of Ramakrishna's parables. I love it. I read it again and again whenever I come across it. It is the whole story of the Master being a catalytic agent.

The story is...

A tigress died while giving birth to a cub, and the cub was brought up by goats. Of course, the tiger believed himself to be a goat also. It was simple, natural; brought up by the goats, living with the goats, he believed that he was a goat. He remained a vegetarian, eating and chewing grass. He had no conception. Not even in his dreams could he dream that he was a tiger, and he was a tiger.

Then one day it happened that an old tiger came across this herd of goats and that old tiger could not believe his eyes. A young tiger was walking amidst the goats! Neither were the goats afraid of the tiger nor were they aware that the tiger was walking amongst them; the tiger was also walking like a goat.

The old tiger somehow got hold of the young tiger, because it was difficult to catch hold of him. He escaped -- he tried, he cried, he screamed. He was afraid, he was shivering with fear. All the goats escaped and he was also trying to escape with them, but the old tiger got hold of him and pulled him towards the lake. He would not go. He resisted just the way that you are doing with me. He tried his best not to go. He was scared to death, crying and weeping, but the old tiger wouldn't allow him. The old tiger still pulled him and took him to the lake.

The lake was silent like a mirror. He forced the young tiger to look into the water. He saw, with tearful eyes -- the vision was not clear but the vision was there -- that he looked just like the old tiger. Tears disappeared and a new sense of being arose; the goat started disappearing from the mind. He was no more a goat, but he could not believe his own enlightenment. Still the body was shivering a little, he was afraid. He was thinking, "Maybe I am imagining. How can a goat turn so suddenly into a tiger? It is not possible, it has never happened. It never happens that way." He couldn't believe his own eyes, but now the first spark, the first ray of light had entered into his being. He was no more the same really. He could never be the same again.

The old tiger took him to his cave. Now he was not so resistant, not so reluctant, not so afraid. By and by he was getting bold, gathering courage. He started walking like a tiger as he went to the cave. The old tiger gave him some meat to eat. It is difficult for a vegetarian, almost impossible, nauseating, but the old tiger wouldn't listen. He forced him to eat. When the nose of the young tiger came near the meat, something happened: from the smell, something deep in his being which had been fast asleep was awakened. He was pulled, attracted towards the meat, and he started eating. Once he tasted the meat, a roar burst through his being. The goat disappeared in that roar, and the tiger was there in his beauty and splendor.

This is the whole process, and an old tiger is needed. That is the trouble: the old tiger is here, and howsoever you try to dodge, this way and that, it is not possible. You are reluctant, you are difficult to bring to the lake, but I will bring you. You have been eating grass your whole life. You have completely forgotten the smell of meat, but I will force you to eat it. Once the taste is there, the roar will burst. In that explosion the goat will disappear and a buddha will be born.

So you need not worry about where I am going to get so many buddhas to study, I will produce them.

-----//-----

No, not yet. There are many problems. For the third psychology to be established the first two need to be completed. If you make a three storey house, the first two have to be completed, and only then can the third be raised. In the past, the psychology for the pathological man never existed, the first sort of psychology never existed. Nobody bothered to enter into the realm of mental disease, particularly not in the East. Nobody bothered because the disease could be got rid of without getting into it. There was no need to analyze it, there was no need to travel into the pathological mind, there was no need to do anything about it. Certain techniques existed and still those techniques exist. You could simply cut it off.

For example, in Japan whenever there is a madman, somebody gone neurotic, they take him to the Zen monastery, they take him to the religious people of the town. This has been one of the oldest ways: take him to the religious man. And what is done in the monastery? -- nothing. In fact, nothing is done. When a madman is brought to the monastery, they don't bother to analyze, diagnose.

They don't bother to think about what type of disease this is. There is no need because the disease can be dropped. They put the madman into an isolated room far away from the monastery, just in the corner, at the back. His needs are fulfilled: food is given and whatsoever he needs, but nobody talks about him, nobody pays any attention to his madness. The East knows that the more you pay attention to it, the more you feed the madness. The whole monastery remains indifferent, as if nobody has come in.

Indifference is one of the techniques, because a madman really needs much attention. It may be that he became mad just to get attention. That's why psychoanalysis cannot be of much help, because the psychoanalyst gives so much attention to the mad, the neurotic, the psychotic, that he starts thriving on that attention: for years together somebody is paying attention to you.

You must have observed that neurotic people always force others to be attentive towards them. They will do anything if they can get the attention. In a Zen monastery they don't give any attention, they remain indifferent. Nobody bothers and nobody thinks that he is mad, because if the whole group thinks that he is mad that thinking creates vibrations that help the madman to remain mad.

For three weeks, four weeks, the mad man is allowed to be with himself. Needs are fulfilled but no attention is given, no special attention; indifference is maintained. Nobody thinks that he is mad. And within three or four weeks, the madman, remaining with himself, by and by gets better. The madness subsides.

Even now they do the same in Zen monasteries. Western psychologists have become aware of the fact. Many have gone to Japan to study what is happening, and they have been simply wonder-struck. They work for years and nothing happens; and in a Zen monastery, without doing anything, the madman left to himself, and things start happening. Madmen need isolation. They need rest, they need indifference, they need inattention, and the waves that were rising in their minds, the tensions, simply dissolve and disappear. After the fourth week the man is ready to leave the monastery. He thanks the people there, the abbot and others, and leaves. He is completely okay.

In the East because of this, because of these techniques, the first sort of psychology was never developed. And unless the first sort of psychology is there, the second sort is impossible. The pathological mind has to be understood in its details. It is one thing to help a madman to come out, it is another thing to create a psychology of madness. A scientific approach is needed, a detailed analysis is needed. In the West they have done that; the first type of psychology is there. Freud, Jung, Adler and others have created the psychology for the pathological man. They may not be very helpful to people who are in trouble, but they have fulfilled another requirement. That requirement is scientific: they have created the first sort of psychology. Immediately, the second becomes possible. The second is the psychology for the healthy man.

Fragments of the second always existed in the East, but always fragments, never a compact whole. Why fragments? -- because religious people were interested in how to make an ordinary healthy man move towards the transcendental. They search a little, not in details, not to the very end, because they were not interested in creating a psychology. They were interested only in finding some foothold, some jumping-board in the healthy mind from where a jump into meditation, a jump into the ultimate could be taken. Their interest was different. They didn't bother about the whole terrain.

When a person simply wants to take a jump into the river, he does not search the whole bank. He finds a space, a small rock, and from there he jumps. There is no need to search the whole territory. Fragments of the second psychology existed in the East. In Patanjali they are there; in Buddha, in Mahavir and in others -- just a few fragments, a part of the territory. The whole approach was not scientific, the approach was religious. More was not needed. Why should they have bothered about it? Just by clearing a small ground, from there they could take off into the infinite. Why try to clear the whole forest? -- and it is a vast forest.

The human mind is a vast phenomenon. The pathological mind in itself is a vast phenomenon. The healthy mind is even bigger than the pathological mind, because the pathological mind is just a part of the healthy mind, not the whole. Nobody ever goes completely mad; nobody can. Just a part goes berserk, just a part becomes ill, but nobody goes completely mad. It is just like in physiology: no one's body can go absolutely ill. Have you seen anyone's body absolutely ill? That would mean that all the illnesses possible to humanity have happened to one man's body. That is impossible, nobody goes that far. Somebody has a headache, somebody has a stomachache, somebody has fever, this and that -- a part. And the body is a vast phenomenon, a universe.

The same is true about the mind: the mind is a universe. The whole mind never goes mad and that's why mad people can be brought back. If the whole mind went mad, you could not bring it back, there would be no possibility. If the whole mind goes mad, to where would you bring it back? Just a part, a part goes astray. You can bring it back, fit it into the whole again.

In the West now the second type of psychology is passing through the birth pains with Abraham Maslow, Eric Fromm, Janov and others. It is a wholistic approach: not thinking in terms of disease but thinking in terms of health; not basically concentrating on pathology but basically concentrating on healthy humanity. The second psychology is being born, but still it is not complete. That's why I say that it is just in the birth pains, it is coming into the world. Sooner or later it will start growing fast. Only then is the third type of psychology possible. That is why I say that it never existed.

Buddhas have existed, millions of them, but no psychology of the buddhas, because nobody ever tried to search the awaken ed mind especially to create a scientific discipline out of it. Buddhas have existed, but nobody has tried to understand the phenomenon of buddhahood in scientific ways.

Gurdjieff was the first man in the whole history of humanity who tried. Gurdjieff was rare in this sense, because he was a pioneer into the third possibility. As it always happens with pioneers, it was difficult, very difficult to penetrate something which had remained always unknown, but he tried. He has brought a few fragments out of darkness, but it became more and more difficult because his greatest disciple, P.D. Ouspensky, betrayed him.

There was a difficulty. Gurdjieff himself was a mystic not versed in the world of science. He was not a scientific mind. He was a mystic, he was a buddha. The whole effort depended on P.D. Ouspensky because he was a scientific man: one of the greatest mathematicians ever born and one of the most profound thinkers this century has known. The whole thing depended on Ouspensky. Gurdjieff was to sow the seeds and Ouspensky was to work it out, define it, philosophize it, make scientific theories out of it. It was to be a constant cooperation between the Master and the disciple. Gurdjieff could sow, but he could not put it in scientific terms and he could not put it in such a way that it could become a discipline. He knew what it was but the language was lacking.

With Ouspensky the language was there, absolutely perfect. I don't see another comparison -- Ouspensky would write so perfectly that even an Albert Einstein would feel jealous. He had really a very trained, logical mind. You must read one of his books, the TERTIUM ORGANUM. It is a rare phenomenon. Ouspensky says in the book, just in the beginning, "There are only three books in the world: one is Aristotle's Organon, the first organ of thought; the second is Bacon's Novum Organum, the second principle of thought; and the third is Tertium Organum." 'Tertium Organum' means the third canon of thought. Ouspensky says -- and when he says this he is not proud or egoistic or anything, 'Even before the two existed, the third was in existence.' He says in Tertium Organum, "I am bringing the very base of all knowledge." And it is not egoistic; the book is really rare.

The whole effort of Gurdjieff depended on a deep cooperation between Ouspensky and himself. He was to lead and Ouspensky was to formalize it, to formulate it, to give it a structure. The soul was to come from Gurdjieff and the body was to be supplied by Ouspensky, and Ouspensky betrayed him in the middle. He simply left Gurdjieff. That was always a possibility because he was such an intellectual and Gurdjieff was absolutely anti intellectual. It was almost an impossibility that they would continue their cooperation.

Gurdjieff demanded absolute surrender -- as Masters have always demanded; and that was difficult for Ouspensky -- as it is always difficult for every disciple. And it is more difficult when a disciple is very intellectual. By and by, Ouspensky started thinking that he knew all. That is the deception that intelligentsia creates easily. He was such an intellectual man that he formulated everything and he started feeling that he knew. Then, by and by, the rift started.

Gurdjieff was always demanding absurd things. For example, Ouspensky was thousands of miles away and Gurdjieff sent him a telegram:"Come immediately, leave everything." Ouspensky was in financial, family trouble, and many things, and it was almost impossible for him to leave immediately, but he left. He sold everything, he dropped the family and he immediately ran. When he arrived, the first thing Gurdjieff said was, "Now you can go back." This was the thing that started the rift. Ouspensky left and never came back -- but he missed. That was just a test for the total surrender.

When you are totally surrendered, you don't ask, "Why?" The Master says, "Come," you come; the Master says, "Go," you go. Had Ouspensky gone that day as simply as he had come, something deep inside him which was frustrating his whole growth would have dropped. But it was too absurd for a man like Ouspensky that Gurdjieff ask suddenly, and that he went. He must have gone with many expectations because he was thinking that he had sacrificed so much: the family, the problems, the finances, the service -- he had dropped everything. He must have been thinking that he was a martyr. He had gone, and without even greeting him, the first thing that Gurdjieff said, looking at him, was, "Now you can go back." It was too much; he dropped out.

By the dropping out of Ouspensky, the whole effort to create a psychology of the third dimension stopped. Gurdjieff tried and tried; he tried to find somebody else. With many people he worked, but he could not find one of the calibre of Ouspensky. Ouspensky's growth stopped, and Gurdjieff's work for the third psychology stopped. Together they were wonderful; separate, both became crippled. Ouspensky remained intellectual, Gurdjieff remained a mystic. That was the trouble. That was why it could not happen.

I am again trying to work in the third dimension, and I have not taken the risk that Gurdjieff took. I am not depending on anybody; I am Gurdjieff plus Ouspensky. It is hard work to live in two different dimensions, it is very hard. But anyway, it is good because nobody can betray me and stop my work, nobody. I am continuously moving in the world of no-mind, and in the world of words and books and analysis. Gurdjieff had a division of labor: Ouspensky was working in the library and Gurdjieff was working in himself. I have to do both -- so that the same thing is not repeated again. I have been working continuously on both levels and there is every possibility that the effort can succeed. I am studying you and you are growing, by and by.

To become a buddha, in itself, is one thing. The thing happens so suddenly: one moment before you were not a buddha, and one moment afterwards you are a buddha. When it happens in yourself, it happens so suddenly that there is no space in which to study it. But with you, I can study very slowly. The more you dodge and resist, the better I can study you -- what is happening, how it happens.

I have to study many people, only then can it happen. A psychology cannot depend on one man because individuals are so different, so unique. I may have become a buddha, but I am a unique person. You may become a buddha, but you are a unique person. There are at least seven types of people that exist in the world, so at least seven buddhas have to be studied very, very deeply -- one belonging to each type. Only then will the psychology be possible.

Ouspensky talks about seven types of men. All those seven types and their growth have to be understood: what types of obstacles they create, what type of escapes they try, and how their escapes and their resistances can be broken. With each type it is going to be different. Unless all seven types are known, studied deeply, step by step, layer by layer from the very beginning, from A to Z, the psychology cannot be formulated. It never existed before but it can exist in the future.