Nobody should manipulate you into a certain kind of action...

It is reported that Gautam the Buddha was passing by the side of a village. The village was populated by anti-Buddhists; so much so that although Buddha had just bypassed them -- he had not even entered the village for the simple reason that he did not want to create any unnecessary scene there -- those idiots were not going to leave him so easily.

They came rushing out of the village behind him surrounded him and started abusing him in every possible way, using language which one should not use against another human being -- what to say of a man like Gautam the Buddha. The followers of Buddha really became angry. They were ready to hit back, but in front of Gautam the Buddha it was impossible for them to take any action before he said something. And what he said puzzled everybody, shocked everybody.

He turned to his disciples and said, "You have disappointed me. Those people are doing their thing. They are angry. They think that I am an enemy of their religion, of their moral values -- naturally they are angry. And I am listening to them; they are abusing me, not abusing you. Why are you getting angry? Although you are controlling yourself, that does not make any difference. You have allowed those people to manipulate you. Are you their slaves?"

The people of the village were also puzzled. They fell into a strange silence. Buddha said to them, "I am in a hurry to reach the other village, where people are waiting for me. If you are finished, I can go. Or if something else is still there in your mind, when I come back I will inform you ahead. At that time you can complete the whole thing. So am I allowed to go?"

Those people said, "We have been abusing you, saying all sorts of dirty things against you; many of them are lies, we know -- but in love and war everything is right. But you are so cool and calm, as if we have just welcomed you, greeted you, and you are asking our permission to go ahead."

Buddha said, "Whatever you have done, that is your problem. I do not react, I act. Nobody can force me to do something, nobody can influence me to do something. If I want to do it, nobody can prevent me from doing it. My actions are my actions -- they are never reactions."

When you act, that is response; when you react, that is not response. But to act you have to be very conscious so that nobody can push your buttons, so that nobody can manipulate you into a certain kind of action.

Buddha said to his disciples, "You are behaving like slaves to these people." And he said to the villagers, "You have come a little late. You should have come ten years earlier -- then I would have cut off your heads, then you would have known what it means to abuse. Now it is too late! I cannot function like a slave. Now I am a Master -- you cannot manipulate me.

"I would like to ask a question of you. In the last village people brought sweets, fruits, flowers, just to greet me. I told them, 'We had our breakfast in a village earlier; now take these fruits and these sweets with my blessings. We cannot carry them. We don't carry food, we don't carry anything for the future. We will see what happens later on: somebody may offer something. And it has always been happening, so there is no problem in it.'

"l ask you: those people had taken the sweets and fruits back -- what must they have done with them?"

One of the men in the crowd said, "They must have distributed the fruits, the sweets, to their children, to their families, to themselves. They must have enjoyed them."

Buddha said, "That's where you make me sad. Now what will you do? I reject, I don't take your abuses. If I can reject fruits and sweets then those people have to take them back. What can you do? I reject your abuse, I don't take such things. For ten years I have not taken any such things from anybody. So now carry the load back home, distribute it among yourselves, to your children, your friends; whatever you want to do you can do.

"But this is your doing; I have nothing to do with it; I simply refuse. And I have the right to refuse anything. You are giving it to me and I am saying, 'Thank you, I don't want it.' You cannot force it on me. I only act out of my own consciousness. You cannot cloud my consciousness with your abuse and make me unconscious, and make me react."

Reaction is unconscious. You do not know exactly that you are being manipulated. You are not aware that you are behaving like a slave, not like a master.

Action out of consciousness is response.