Chapter 21 Health & the Sacred

Sufi tradition refers to the insane as "mastah," meaning drunk. Both the insane and the enlightened must experience a state of detachment from reason, from their minds. They must cross the same boundary, whether through the wrong door or the right one; both become "mastah"—drunken people—when they do so. But the enlightened one soon regains his balance because he has made considerable effort to leave his mind; he is ready to detach. The insane, however, leaves his mind unprepared. He is not ready; he simply falls out of his mind—it is an accidental event. Enlightenment is never an accidental event…

Those who have attained enlightenment are always "joyful." I use different words to avoid confusing you. A madman is always "happy," but he might be cured, and then he will become unhappy, and then he will start to worry. He will worry more than you because he will realize he was mad, and now he will worry about his madness. When he was mad, he didn't worry at all; he didn't care about it. Now he will worry about having been mad, and he will worry about it happening again because it has happened before…

Just understand this: even if you fall below the mind, you can still be happy. It's the mind that causes all sorts of pain, jealousy, hatred, anger, violence, and greed, and those things continue to make you increasingly miserable. Then you start hurting yourself and those around you, and everyone around you is hurting themselves and those around them. Even falling below the mind—that's falling below humanity, because that's the only difference between you and an animal… A madman has actually returned to the animal world; he has deviated from evolution, he's going backwards—he has betrayed Darwin, he has said goodbye to Darwin's theory of evolution! He has fallen back to a subhuman level.

Animals aren't happy, but they aren't unhappy either. Have you ever seen any animal unhappy? Yes , you won't see them happy; they can't be happy because they don't know what unhappiness is. But when a person falls from the human level to a subhuman level, he becomes happy because he knows what unhappiness is. So he's not just the animal he was before he became human; he's a completely different animal, a happy animal. There are no happy buffaloes, no happy donkeys, and no happy monkeys! Animals aren't happy because they don't know unhappiness, but a madman can be happy for no reason. That's good proof of what I've been teaching you: if you can detach yourself from your mind—not through an accident or a sudden fright—you will become joyful…

An enlightened person has transcended their mind, yet they possess complete control over it. They don't need a converter; their awareness alone suffices. If you observe everything closely, you will be able to experience the enlightened person—not fully, but just a taste, like a flick of the tongue. If you observe your anger closely, it will vanish. If you feel a sexual urge, observe it carefully, and it will soon disappear. If things disappear simply through observation, what about someone who is always beyond the mind, merely aware of the entire mind? Then all those ugly things you want to discard will evaporate. Remember, they all have energy. Anger is energy. When anger disappears, the remaining energy transforms into compassion; it is the same energy. Through observation, that anger departs. Anger is a pattern, a form surrounding energy. When anger departs, the energy remains; now, that energy of anger, in the absence of anger, is compassion. When sex disappears, much of the energy of love remains. Every ugly thing in your mind leaves behind a treasure when it disappears.

An enlightened person does not need to abandon anything or practice anything. All the wrong things will disappear automatically because they cannot withstand his awareness, while all the good things will arise automatically because awareness is a nourishment for him.

A madman is easily helped because he has tasted something beyond the mind, but he must be shown the right door. In a better world, our asylums will not merely try to make those people sane—that's pointless—but will try to help them use that opportunity to go through the right door. A madman who enters an asylum will leave enlightened, not just the same old self, not just the same tormented self.

Therefore, madness has great significance for me; it can become a path to enlightenment.

If faith can move mountains, why can't it heal your own body?

I have no body.

The idea that you have a body is completely wrong. The body belongs to the universe; you don't own it, it's not yours. So whether the body is sick or healthy, the universe will take care of it. A person in meditation should maintain awareness, whether their body is healthy or sick.

Desiring health is part of ignorance, and desiring illness is also part of ignorance. This is not a new question; it is one of the oldest. It has been asked of the Buddha, it has been asked of Mahavira, and it has been asked of unenlightened beings since the time of the enlightened.

Look… Jesus said faith can move mountains, yet he himself died on the cross; he couldn't even move the cross. You, or someone like you, must have been waiting there, the apostles were all waiting there, because they knew Jesus, he repeatedly said faith could move mountains, so they were waiting for some kind of miracle to happen, but Jesus died on the cross. Yet that is the miracle: he was able to contemplate his own death. That moment of contemplating one's own death is the greatest living moment.

The Buddha died of food poisoning. He suffered for six months while many disciples waited for him to perform a miracle. But he suffered quietly and died quietly, accepting death.

Some disciples tried to heal him, giving him much medicine. There was a great physician at the time named Jivaka, who was the Buddha's personal physician and followed him wherever he went. People must have asked many times, "Why does Jivaka follow you?" But that was Jivaka's own attachment. Jivaka followed the Buddha because of his own attachment. Those disciples who wanted to help the Buddha's body live longer, even if they only wanted him to live a few more days, that was attachment. For the Buddha himself, illness and health were the same.