/lit/ - Literature

>>16229587
>Socrates


Even poison needs someone to be effective. It killed Socrates - Socrates was not Meera. Socrates was a philosopher, not a sage; Socrates was a thinker, not a buddha. Socrates thought, contemplated, argued. He was a great intellect, but not an enlightened one. If he should argue with Buddha he would win; Buddha would be defeated. He was a rare genius. So when you think about Socrates, intellectually he is incomparable, but existentially he is nothing before a buddha. A buddha will laugh about his arguments and a buddha will say, "You go around and around, and you will never reach the center. And whatsoever you are talking is just talk. You argue; you are a logical man and you argue better than me," a buddha will say, "but you are wasting your life in arguments."

Socrates is not a person who has gone beyond his ego. He is a rare man with a rare, penetrating mind. Even if he talks about ego, that understanding is intellectual. He is not an existential, experienced man. So because of Socrates, the whole West has come to an intellectual climax - because of three men: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The originator is Socrates. Socrates was the teacher of Plato and Plato was the teacher of Aristotle. These three have created the whole Western mind. This whole science, logic, philosophy of the West, belongs to these three men. They are the creators.

Buddha belongs to a totally different dimension. Socrates is an intellectual giant, but Buddha would have just laughed at him. He would have said, "You are a giant amidst children. You have reached a climax in intellect, but intellect is a barrier. You have touched the ultimate in intellect, but intellect leads nowhere."

Socrates is different, Meera is different. Meera is a surrendered soul - totally surrendered, totally effaced. When the poison is given to her she is not drinking it, Krishna himself is drinking it. There is no difference now, no distinction. And if this trust is there, poison will become useless. This seems miraculous, but it is not so miraculous. In hypnosis, if there is a deeply hypnotized person and you give him poison telling him that this is not poison, it will not affect him. What happens? If you give him ordinary water and say, "This is poison," he will die. This is total acceptance. Even in hypnosis this can happen.