The Heart Sutra

Bodhisattva means one who has become a buddha but is still holding himself in the world of time and space – to help others. Bodhisattva means “essentially a buddha,” is just ready to drop and disappear, is ready to go into nirvana. Nothing remains to be solved, all his problems are solved. There is no need for him to be here, but he is still here. There is nothing else to be learned here, but he is still here. And he is keeping himself in body-form, in mind-form – he is keeping the whole ladder. He has gone beyond, but he is keeping the whole ladder – to help, out of compassion.

The Sanskrit word is iswara, which is translated as “holy lord.” Iswara means one who has become absolutely rich from his own riches, whose riches are of his own nature; nobody can take them away, nobody can steal them, they cannot be lost. All the riches that you have can be lost, can be stolen, will be lost – one day death will come and will take everything away. When somebody has come to that inner diamond that is one’s own being, death cannot take it away. Death is irrelevant to it. It cannot be stolen, it cannot be lost. Then one has become iswara, then one has become a holy lord. Then one has become bhagavan.

Buddhism is the only religion that has not converted a single human being against hisconscience. Only Buddhism is a nonviolent religion, because the concept of the ultimate reality is feminine.

If you cannot analyze your dream nobody else can, because your dream is your dream. And your dream is so personal that nobody else can dream the way you dream. Nobody has ever dreamed the way you dream, nobody will ever dream the way you dream; nobody can explain it to you

people who are materialistic are always stuck, they always feel something is missing, they don’t feel they are going anywhere. They move in rounds, in circles, and they come again and again to the same point. They become tired and bored. They start contemplating how to commit suicide. And their whole effort in life is to find some sensations, so something new can happen. But what “new” can happen? All the things that we go on being occupied with are nothing but toys to play with.

Emerson: “Man is a God in ruins.”