04-13-2014, 08:08 PM
Hence for centuries the mystics have said that man is a bridge between two eternities: the eternity of the unconscious and the eternity of the conscious, and man is always moving between these two polarities. He is like a tightrope walker. Each moment is full of danger, but full of possibilities too. No possibility comes alone; it has its own danger. You can miss – you can fall from the rope into the abyss.
![[Image: climbing-7102_640.jpg?itok=yudRL-bB]](http://soundofheart.org/gac/sites/default/files/styles/galactic_free_press/public/artsubmission/climbing-7102_640.jpg?itok=yudRL-bB)
Man has been called by the mystics a ladder. Now, the ladder can do two things: you can use it to go upwards, and the same ladder can be used to go downwards. You use the same ladder for both the purposes, just your direction changes. When you are moving upwards your direction is different; when you are moving downwards your direction is just the opposite of it. But the ladder is the same, the result will be totally different. Man is a ladder between heaven and hell.
That’s why it is only human beings who repress, who manipulate, who kill, who try to conquer the natural flow in nature, who are stupid – because they can be Buddhas. Because man has intelligence, that’s why he can be stupid. Stupidity simply means you have not used your intelligence; it does not mean absence of intelligence. If there is no presence of intelligence you cannot call man stupid. You cannot call a rock stupid; a rock is a rock – no question of stupidity.
But you can call man stupid because with man there is hope, a ray of great light. With man, a door opens towards the beyond. He can transcend himself and he is not transcending – that’s his stupidity. He can grow and he is not growing, he is clinging to all kinds of immaturity – that is his stupidity. He goes on and on living in the past, which is no more – that is his stupidity. Or he starts projecting in the future, which is not yet – that is his stupidity.
He should live in the present with deep passion, with great love, with intensity, with awareness, and that will become his intelligence. It is the same energy: upside down it is stupidity; put it right, rearrange it, and it becomes intelligence.
-Rajneesh
Man has been called by the mystics a ladder. Now, the ladder can do two things: you can use it to go upwards, and the same ladder can be used to go downwards. You use the same ladder for both the purposes, just your direction changes. When you are moving upwards your direction is different; when you are moving downwards your direction is just the opposite of it. But the ladder is the same, the result will be totally different. Man is a ladder between heaven and hell.
That’s why it is only human beings who repress, who manipulate, who kill, who try to conquer the natural flow in nature, who are stupid – because they can be Buddhas. Because man has intelligence, that’s why he can be stupid. Stupidity simply means you have not used your intelligence; it does not mean absence of intelligence. If there is no presence of intelligence you cannot call man stupid. You cannot call a rock stupid; a rock is a rock – no question of stupidity.
But you can call man stupid because with man there is hope, a ray of great light. With man, a door opens towards the beyond. He can transcend himself and he is not transcending – that’s his stupidity. He can grow and he is not growing, he is clinging to all kinds of immaturity – that is his stupidity. He goes on and on living in the past, which is no more – that is his stupidity. Or he starts projecting in the future, which is not yet – that is his stupidity.
He should live in the present with deep passion, with great love, with intensity, with awareness, and that will become his intelligence. It is the same energy: upside down it is stupidity; put it right, rearrange it, and it becomes intelligence.
-Rajneesh
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