The materialists say that the world goes on perfectly because there is no manager, so who can
commit a mistake? It is mechanical.
The same logic: the spiritualist tries to prove God, the materialist tries to prove, using the same logic
– this harmony, this continuity – that there is no manager, that it is all mechanical. Only machines
are not able to commit mistakes – either they work, or they fail. While the machine is working, it will
be working the way it has been working forever, reproducing again and again, again and again, the
same kinds of peacock feathers. It is not a work of consciousness.
A conscious mind would try to improve, would like to change a little bit – once in a while to put a little
more red, a little more green, a little more blue ... a little different blue, because there are so many
kinds of blues and so many kinds of greens. Once in a while he would put the head of one bird on
another bird. One gets bored, putting on the same kind of head again and again, the same red nose
again and again; just for a change, one would change to yellow, green, blue. But nothing like that
happens.
The materialist says it is mechanical, it is a vast mechanism that goes on reproducing without any
mind. While it produces, it will be producing the same. Yes, one day every machine fails, but you will
not be there to know it. Once the machine fails, you fail too, so there will be nobody as a witness of
the failure.
I told the old professor – his name was Professor Dasgupta – ”Through this argument I can help you
to have some insight into agony. The existentialist says there is a difference between animals and
man. For the first time a certain group of thinkers has pointed to a difference which really makes
a difference. They say, two sentences will have to be understood. One is: Existence precedes
essence. And the other is: Essence precedes existence.
”In animals essence precedes existence. Essence means whatsoever they are going to be; the
whole program comes first, before their birth. Before they exist the blueprint is there; they bring their
blueprint with themselves, it is ahead of them. Their existence follows the essence.”
Essence means the program, the blueprint of what they are going to be, how many lives they are
going to live, how many children they will have, what colors they will change to according to seasons
– everything. So much so that there are birds who come flying from the North Pole, three thousand
miles down, because it becomes too cold there, and to exist is impossible.
They have to ... they start exactly on the same date every year. They don’t have any calendar,
they don’t know that the season is going to change, but on the exact date, day, time, millions of
birds immediately start moving towards the south. They will stop only when they have passed the
three-thousand-mile radius, because within three thousand miles they will not be able to survive,
they need a little warmer place.
But the strangest thing that has puzzled the scientists is that while they are away from their arctic
home, the season for reproduction comes. So they mate, they make love, they find boyfriends,
girlfriends. It takes time for the girls to become pregnant and then lay the eggs. By the time they lay
the eggs, the warm season is finished. Now the arctic is ready to receive them back. So they leave
the eggs and fly back to the arctic exactly on the same date as their forefathers and their forefathers
have always done.
Those eggs hatch in their time, and the birds come out and start flying towards the arctic; three
thousand miles in the exact direction they fly back to their world. Strange, absolutely miraculous,
because nobody is there to tell them where .... ”Your parents have gone. You don’t have a map, and
the arctic is far away – three thousand miles – and you are a little bird just out of the egg.” Such a
long journey with no preparation ... but they manage, they reach. And this happens year after year.
This is the meaning of essence coming first, existence following. They don’t know what they are
doing. It is some inner impulse, some urge that takes those birds far away. Flying three thousand
miles without fail they reach their parents who had left them in the eggs without even telling them,
”We are going, so when you get out, please come back home. Don’t forget us, we will be waiting
there,” or giving them any indication of direction, nothing – no message has been left. At least they
could have left one old guy and said, ”When all these kids come out you take them home.” Nobody
is left, no message is left, no contact exists between them – but they reach.
There are fishes from the arctic that move in a certain season, and near England at a certain place
they lay their eggs. Before the eggs are ripe, their journey back starts. And when the eggs give
birth, the new fish start swimming against the current! The natural course would be to go with the
current, but their program is fixed. Against the current they start moving towards the arctic, and they
find their way back to their parents.
They will not recognize their parents. There is no need either because these fellows, if they can
manage a three-thousand-mile journey against the current, don’t need any parents, any teachers,
any schools, college, universities. They are self-sufficient. This is the meaning of essence preceding
existence. They are born with their whole life pattern complete and they will simply go on unfolding
it. They are not going to learn anything.
Learning is not for them. They need no learning. They have already got all that they need for their
life, every detail about everything – what to eat, what not to eat. You just look at a buffalo eating
grass and you will be surprised: she goes on leaving certain grass and goes on eating certain other
grass. Strange, but if you look closely, you will find she eats only a certain grass, other grass she
does not eat.
You see here so many deer. They prefer a grass called alfalfa, and just now because we have
brought water and planted trees and lawns and made it a green place, and certainly because of the
deer, I have told my secretary, ”Take care that so much good alfalfa is grown around that the deer
will come automatically, and this will become a deerpark.”
And I love that word, because Gautam Buddha lived in a deerpark. Where his thousands of disciples
lived, hundreds of deer also lived in the same place. And our deer are growing, but a danger has
started happening: they are eating too much alfalfa, getting too fat, and for deer that is dangerous
because once they get too fat then they cannot run. Then they are easy prey to any animal, to any
hunter. Not only that – when they become too fat ... because two or three deer have died.
I enquired why they died. The reason was they became so fat they could not walk. They fell over
their feet and broke their legs, the weight was too much. Their feet are thin, those feet are not meant
for that big a load. So I told my secretary then to either bring more deer so the alfalfa is not too
much, or start cutting down the alfalfa, because this will kill the poor deer. They don’t have a built-in
program where to stop. Nature takes care. In nature, nothing goes off balance.
commit a mistake? It is mechanical.
The same logic: the spiritualist tries to prove God, the materialist tries to prove, using the same logic
– this harmony, this continuity – that there is no manager, that it is all mechanical. Only machines
are not able to commit mistakes – either they work, or they fail. While the machine is working, it will
be working the way it has been working forever, reproducing again and again, again and again, the
same kinds of peacock feathers. It is not a work of consciousness.
A conscious mind would try to improve, would like to change a little bit – once in a while to put a little
more red, a little more green, a little more blue ... a little different blue, because there are so many
kinds of blues and so many kinds of greens. Once in a while he would put the head of one bird on
another bird. One gets bored, putting on the same kind of head again and again, the same red nose
again and again; just for a change, one would change to yellow, green, blue. But nothing like that
happens.
The materialist says it is mechanical, it is a vast mechanism that goes on reproducing without any
mind. While it produces, it will be producing the same. Yes, one day every machine fails, but you will
not be there to know it. Once the machine fails, you fail too, so there will be nobody as a witness of
the failure.
I told the old professor – his name was Professor Dasgupta – ”Through this argument I can help you
to have some insight into agony. The existentialist says there is a difference between animals and
man. For the first time a certain group of thinkers has pointed to a difference which really makes
a difference. They say, two sentences will have to be understood. One is: Existence precedes
essence. And the other is: Essence precedes existence.
”In animals essence precedes existence. Essence means whatsoever they are going to be; the
whole program comes first, before their birth. Before they exist the blueprint is there; they bring their
blueprint with themselves, it is ahead of them. Their existence follows the essence.”
Essence means the program, the blueprint of what they are going to be, how many lives they are
going to live, how many children they will have, what colors they will change to according to seasons
– everything. So much so that there are birds who come flying from the North Pole, three thousand
miles down, because it becomes too cold there, and to exist is impossible.
They have to ... they start exactly on the same date every year. They don’t have any calendar,
they don’t know that the season is going to change, but on the exact date, day, time, millions of
birds immediately start moving towards the south. They will stop only when they have passed the
three-thousand-mile radius, because within three thousand miles they will not be able to survive,
they need a little warmer place.
But the strangest thing that has puzzled the scientists is that while they are away from their arctic
home, the season for reproduction comes. So they mate, they make love, they find boyfriends,
girlfriends. It takes time for the girls to become pregnant and then lay the eggs. By the time they lay
the eggs, the warm season is finished. Now the arctic is ready to receive them back. So they leave
the eggs and fly back to the arctic exactly on the same date as their forefathers and their forefathers
have always done.
Those eggs hatch in their time, and the birds come out and start flying towards the arctic; three
thousand miles in the exact direction they fly back to their world. Strange, absolutely miraculous,
because nobody is there to tell them where .... ”Your parents have gone. You don’t have a map, and
the arctic is far away – three thousand miles – and you are a little bird just out of the egg.” Such a
long journey with no preparation ... but they manage, they reach. And this happens year after year.
This is the meaning of essence coming first, existence following. They don’t know what they are
doing. It is some inner impulse, some urge that takes those birds far away. Flying three thousand
miles without fail they reach their parents who had left them in the eggs without even telling them,
”We are going, so when you get out, please come back home. Don’t forget us, we will be waiting
there,” or giving them any indication of direction, nothing – no message has been left. At least they
could have left one old guy and said, ”When all these kids come out you take them home.” Nobody
is left, no message is left, no contact exists between them – but they reach.
There are fishes from the arctic that move in a certain season, and near England at a certain place
they lay their eggs. Before the eggs are ripe, their journey back starts. And when the eggs give
birth, the new fish start swimming against the current! The natural course would be to go with the
current, but their program is fixed. Against the current they start moving towards the arctic, and they
find their way back to their parents.
They will not recognize their parents. There is no need either because these fellows, if they can
manage a three-thousand-mile journey against the current, don’t need any parents, any teachers,
any schools, college, universities. They are self-sufficient. This is the meaning of essence preceding
existence. They are born with their whole life pattern complete and they will simply go on unfolding
it. They are not going to learn anything.
Learning is not for them. They need no learning. They have already got all that they need for their
life, every detail about everything – what to eat, what not to eat. You just look at a buffalo eating
grass and you will be surprised: she goes on leaving certain grass and goes on eating certain other
grass. Strange, but if you look closely, you will find she eats only a certain grass, other grass she
does not eat.
You see here so many deer. They prefer a grass called alfalfa, and just now because we have
brought water and planted trees and lawns and made it a green place, and certainly because of the
deer, I have told my secretary, ”Take care that so much good alfalfa is grown around that the deer
will come automatically, and this will become a deerpark.”
And I love that word, because Gautam Buddha lived in a deerpark. Where his thousands of disciples
lived, hundreds of deer also lived in the same place. And our deer are growing, but a danger has
started happening: they are eating too much alfalfa, getting too fat, and for deer that is dangerous
because once they get too fat then they cannot run. Then they are easy prey to any animal, to any
hunter. Not only that – when they become too fat ... because two or three deer have died.
I enquired why they died. The reason was they became so fat they could not walk. They fell over
their feet and broke their legs, the weight was too much. Their feet are thin, those feet are not meant
for that big a load. So I told my secretary then to either bring more deer so the alfalfa is not too
much, or start cutting down the alfalfa, because this will kill the poor deer. They don’t have a built-in
program where to stop. Nature takes care. In nature, nothing goes off balance.
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