Tao Upanishad #113

The desire to be like someone else is born of inferiority; the desire to be like oneself arises from self-respect. Even if you want to, you cannot become like another. There is no way. In that very attempt you will be destroyed. And the more you are destroyed, the more inferiority will flood in. The more inferior you feel, the more you will want to be like someone else. You will be caught in a vicious circle.

Love others, have reverence, show respect—but always want to be yourself. Otherwise there is no movement. No one like you has ever been, and no one will ever be. You are incomparable. And until the seed hidden within you becomes a tree, there will be no fulfillment. Your destiny must be completed. You were not born to be like me. You were not born to be like anyone else. You were born only to be yourself. Many attractions will come in life, but understand them, learn from them—do not try to become like them. Absorb all those attractions, devotions, loves—but become only your own kind.

When Rinzai’s master died, there was much discussion among the people. The master had appointed Rinzai as his successor. But Rinzai was nothing like his master. One day people gathered and said, “You are not at all like your master. Neither your conduct nor your behavior is like his. How then are you the successor? On what basis did he appoint you? We cannot understand.” Rinzai said, “My master too was not like his master, and I am not like him. That is precisely my qualification as a disciple. Neither was my master like anyone, nor am I like my master. This is the similarity between us. This is where we are joined. Therefore he did not choose disciples who were like him; he chose me. Those disciples who became like him turned false—carbon copies. They lost their authenticity. They had no soul of their own. They became a bit borrowed. Their lives came to be controlled from the outside. They arranged their lives according to someone else’s image. Their life did not sprout from within; they learned life from the outside. That is acting, not the real blossoming of life.”

The soul unfolds from the inside out; imitation moves from the outside in. Imitation will make you fake. So it is a very delicate matter. Learn everything—but do not learn imitation. Though imitation is simple, everything else is difficult. Imitation is so easy that small children do it; monkeys do it. There is no dignity for a human being in being an imitator—there is no great glory in it. And precisely because it is easy, it tempts.

You can sit and stand exactly as I do. You can eat as I do. You can speak as I do. What will that do? It will not take you to any height. Rather, you will be deprived of the height you were born to reach. It’s a delicate matter, because whoever pleases us, the mind says, “Become like them.” To escape this temptation is the greatest task of a seeker. One must even be cautious of the master. Do not get so influenced that you abandon your own destiny’s momentum and stray from your path. I am not like anyone, nor do you need to be like me.

Second thing: to become like another, effort is required. To be yourself—what effort is needed? You already are yourself. But you have never loved yourself. You have never given any respect to your own soul. You have never accepted your own dignity.

All religions, all cultures, civilizations, teach you self-condemnation. They say: who is worse than you! Go listen to the so-called holy men—their entire discourse is full of condemnation of you. You are worms, you are hellish. Everything in you is worthy of condemnation. There is nothing in you that is worthy of acceptance. There is lust, anger, greed, attachment, envy—you are surrounded on all sides by hell. Your so-called saints and sannyasins do nothing but condemn you. From all sides you receive condemnation. Slowly you become filled with self-condemnation. Then you want to be someone else.

This is a deep conspiracy. Until you are saturated with self-condemnation, no one can become your guide, leader, guru. So those who want to be leaders, guides, gurus will first condemn you. First they will unsteady you; they will shake you; they will pull the ground out from under your feet. When you are trembling, fearful, panic-stricken, seeing only hell surrounding you, you will clutch someone’s feet. In this way so many gurus thrive. Out of a thousand gurus, perhaps one is genuine; nine hundred ninety-nine live off your self-condemnation. They frighten you, fill you with guilt; then you must ask, “What is the path?” Then you must imitate, for you are wrong and he is right.

You have come to me. I am not here to tell you that I am right and you are wrong. I do not want to unseat you even a little from your own being. I want you to become utterly settled in your being. Let the lamp within you not flicker at all; even if great storms arise, remain unwavering. I want to strengthen you in your being. I give you no other discipline—only one: remain ever alert, and remain engaged in being your own kind. Consider anyone who condemns you an enemy. He is an enemy, because he will create inferiority. And once inferiority arises, you will start following someone—some ideal, some image. It is a simple arithmetic: first frighten a person; once he is afraid, he asks for a path. First make him panic. First tell him he is so bad that he becomes dissatisfied with himself; then he will begin to ask you.

Whoever condemns you, whoever wants you to become like someone else—move away from there. He is ready to murder you. The murder is very subtle, delicate. No blood will flow, and you will be cut down. No sound will be heard, and for lifetimes you will be lost.

You yourself are God’s creation. There is no way to improve you. There is no need either. Those who set out to improve you have brought you to this wretched state. Simply awaken to yourself. Discover within you that which is God’s gift, his prasad. Become a little acquainted with your own treasure.

So I am not asking you to imitate anything. If you must imitate, imitate your own within; if you must go anywhere, go within; if you must arrive anywhere, arrive within. Be ever cautious of me too—because danger can arise even without my wanting it. You will think of me just like other gurus. You have learned many things from many gurus; you have brought that junk here as well. So when I say something, you will interpret it through that junk. I am here to help you become yourself. And if you feel even a little that you are sliding into imitating me, run away, and do not look back. Imitation is dangerous. Beware of imitation. All imitation arises from an inferiority complex. And you are not inferior. You already have everything that is needed. Only you do not know it. You sit atop a treasure, the key is lost. The key has not been lost far away; it is lost somewhere within you. You have only to find it. Your path is directly connected to God. Once you descend within, you are directly connected. Then you do not thank the master because he brought you to God, but because he did not stand between you and God—when the right time came, he quietly stepped aside.

The ordinary people you call gurus will not let you meet God. They talk of uniting you with God, but they always stand in the middle. They are walls, not doors. Whoever says, “I am the ideal; become like me,” that person is spreading poison.

My love is for Buddha, for Christ, for Krishna, for Lao Tzu. But because of that love, I have not become like Lao Tzu, nor like Buddha, nor like Christ. I am my own kind. Even when I speak on Lao Tzu, I am saying what I would say even without Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu is an excuse—an old peg, useful to hang something on. In fact, I am saying what I would say anyway—even if Lao Tzu had never been born. Through the pretext of Lao Tzu I am speaking myself. Through Krishna too I am speaking myself.

So do not assume that if you were to meet Lao Tzu and ask whether he agrees with what I have said about him, he would necessarily agree. There is no necessity. It may well be that he would not agree. If you asked Krishna whether he agrees with my interpretation of the Gita—there is no necessity that he would agree. The full possibility is that he would not. Because he is his kind, I am mine. What I am saying is what I am saying. Lao Tzu, Krishna, Buddha are pretexts. You can even understand it this way: whether they were or were not makes no difference to me.

You may ask, then why do I speak in their name? My love is for them. And real love is possible only when you do not become like the beloved. Otherwise love is lost. When two persons become exactly alike, the attraction between them disappears. When a disciple becomes exactly like the master, the attraction between them disappears. Attraction exists in polarity; it is between opposing poles.

Kahlil Gibran has said: Love, but do not become one with the beloved. Love, but be like the pillars of a temple, which stand apart and hold up the same roof. If the pillars come close, the roof will collapse. Keep a distance.

Be as close to the master as you can—yet keep a distance. If you remain steady in your own soul, the distance will remain. A temple will be built; together with the master you will become a pillar upholding that temple. But pillars stand apart. They support the same roof, yet each has an independent personality.

The master who destroys the disciple’s individuality is no master. The master who refines the disciple’s individuality—refines it so much that the disciple becomes contented and fulfilled in his own being—that one is a true master.

If seeing me a longing arises in you to touch heights, that is right. But not my heights—your own heights. Let seeing me awaken in you the thirst for God, but let that thirst be yours. Do not bind your thirst in my words. Your music will arise from you. Seeing my music, if you remember your forgotten music—that is enough. You too will blossom, but the fragrance that will arise from you will be of your own flower, not mine. If my fragrance brings back the memory of your own fragrance that you had forgotten—this is enough.

The day you blossom, your fragrance will not be like mine; it will be yours. It should be so. Who knows whether you are a champa, a jasmine, a lotus? Who knows what you are? Until your seed cracks open, how can it be known? From the seed, recognition is difficult. Seeds are innumerable, and each seed has its own flower. And it blooms only once. It will not bloom again on this earth. So do not deprive the earth of your fragrance. Do not become an imitator.

We have two words: imitation and following. Follow the master, do not imitate him. Following means: imbibe the master’s wisdom, his awareness, his understanding. Imitation means: try to be as the master is. A disciple learns; he learns in order to attain his own destiny. A true master does not want to mold you in his way, and a true disciple never lets himself be molded in anyone else’s way. The way must be yours.

It happened: there was a Muslim fakir, Junoon. He lived in Egypt. He used to say that God has made everything perfect, for from the Perfect only the perfect can be born. As the Isha Upanishad says: from that Perfect, the perfect comes forth, and yet the Perfect remains. Junoon also used to say that God made everything complete. In the village there was a logician—a pundit as well. One day he came to hear Junoon. Junoon said that God has made everything complete. The logician said, “Wait!” He had brought a man with him—a hunchback. He was completely bent; he could hardly stand upright; his hands and feet were crooked; his back utterly hunched. The logician said, “Look at this man! Is he also perfect? And did God make him too?” Junoon laughed and said, “We have never seen a more perfect hunchback than this. I have seen many hunchbacks; this one is perfect.”

God has made nothing less than perfect. You too are perfect. You only need a reminder—a stirring of awareness. Just gather a little mindfulness.

Do not even by mistake attempt to become like me. You will not be able to. And in that attempt, what you could have become will be lost. Then you will never be able to forgive me. I never wanted you to become like me; but if you get busy with that, you will remain angry with me forever. You will never be able to forgive me—because I spoiled one of your lives. Mind you, I completely withdraw my hands; I take no responsibility. If ever you regret it, do not blame me. I never wanted it.

But imitation is easy; it comes cheap. What does it take to imitate? It is very easy. And the mind wants to grab the cheap. For the costly, a price must be paid. If you want to be like me, you will become adept in a few days. If you want to be like yourself, you will have to journey into the unknown. I am here present, so you can watch me—learn how I sit, how I stand, how I speak. But you are not yet present. You will be, someday. Right now you are hidden in the seed. So you do not yet know who you are, what you are, what your possibilities are. It is a journey into the unknown. The map is not clear. In fact, there is no map. Where are the paths? Nothing is known. You will have to walk step by step and carve the path as you go. Slowly, slowly, the destination will take shape—you will be revealed. And then you will be able to thank me. If you become yourself, you will be able to thank me; if you imitate, you will never be able to forgive me.

Generally, yes. So long as you are unconscious, you belong to nature; you wander in circles like the seasons, the year, the month, day and night—the same thing repeats, again and again. That is why Hindus have called life a wheel—samsara. Samsara means the wheel. You keep revolving like the wheel of a bullock cart. Nothing new happens. Born many times; the same desire, the same greed, the same craving, the same anger. Grown old many times, died many times. The same fear. Then born again. It goes on revolving exactly like a wheel—childhood, youth, old age, birth, death; then birth again, death again—nothing new is happening in it.

But the new can happen—if you wake up. Because the moment you awaken, you are no longer a part of nature; you become a part of the divine. Nature is God asleep; God is nature awakened. That is the only difference. Like a sleeping man and a waking man. The sleeping man can awaken; the waking man can also fall asleep. No basic difference.

And yet the difference is immense. If the house is on fire, the sleeping man will lie there; the wakeful man will get out. Music may be playing in the house; the sleeping man will go on sleeping—he will not even know that nectar was showering; the wakeful man will be drenched. The sun may rise; the sleeping man will still lie as if it were night; the wakeful man will hear the birds’ chorus, will see the rising image of the sun. That enchanting beauty of dawn never reaches the sleeper; only the one who is awake can drink it in.

Right now, nature is within you—that means you are asleep. So there will be repetition. Nature repeats. Nature is repetition. Leaves fall, then they return. Everything goes on as it was. Do you see any difference in nature? The same, the same—and again the same. The sun rises, the evening falls—again and again.

But within you is the possibility to awaken; and the instant you awaken you step out of this wheel. That is what we call going beyond birth and death, beyond transmigration. Become filled with awareness and things change at once. Then, what anger you indulged in yesterday, you will not be able to repeat today. How can an awakened man be angry? It would be like a wakeful man thrusting his hand into fire. Why would he do it?

Anger is worse than fire. Fire burns only the hand, the skin; anger scorches and burns your very soul. Fire reaches only the surface; the poison of anger enters into the innermost of your life-breath. How can a wakeful man hate? For by hating you do not really harm the other; by hating you destroy yourself. Hatred is self-suicide. Hatred means feeding yourself poison. Whether the other is harmed or not is secondary; but the one who lives in hatred dies within, slowly-slowly. Hatred leads you toward death. How can one who is awake crave? For craving leads nowhere but into suffering.

But this is visible only to the awakened. He has eyes. He sees that this road leads only to misery—so why lift your feet upon it? The sleeping man walks as if drunk; he doesn’t know where he is going or why he is going, and repeatedly he goes down the same paths. The same old paths are easy for the sleeper; a new path would demand awareness. Old paths become a habit.

Have you noticed? Riding a bicycle or driving a car back home, you don’t have to remember whether to turn left or right. The sleeping body does everything. Suddenly you find yourself standing at your door from the office. The whole way was covered mechanically. You arrive there. You have gone and come so many times that no awareness is needed now. But change your house and you will need to come with awareness for a few days. If you don’t, you will end up at the old house.

In the Second World War it happened that a man was injured and lost his memory completely. He could not even remember his own name, nor which army he belonged to. His identification disc had fallen off when he was wounded. It became very difficult to discover who he was.

They took him all over England—perhaps something would return! They led him through big cities. He would stand and nothing would stir. But at a small village—the train happened to stop there; there was no thought of getting off—no sooner did he read the village nameboard than something happened. He got down. Those with him tried to stop him: What are you doing? But he got off and ran into the village. They ran after him. He ran to a door and stood there. He said, This is my home. And his memory started returning. He had come to that house so many times, read that station name so often; it had been lying hidden somewhere in stupor. There had been no need to remember. He stood at the door of his home. His father recognized him as his son. The thread was found. Memory slowly returned.

You too have completely forgotten who you are. Through births upon births you have traveled far and wide; and you are still wandering in those travels. Someone is needed to put the thread in your hand; let a little remembrance arise in you; let you find yourself standing before your own home. Once you remember the God within, then slowly everything will be remembered.

All the processes of meditation are efforts in this direction—to help a little memory return. If somehow, even for a single moment, you slip out of identification with the body, you slip out of nature. If somehow, for a moment, the mind falls silent, then the words, theories, scriptures you have accumulated in this wandering are forgotten. The moment you are cut off even briefly from body and mind, in that very moment you will find yourself standing before your home. If only this much becomes clear—This is home!—then memory will begin to return.

And as soon as you begin to awaken, recognize home, recognize yourself—even a little, even a single ray—then the path to the sun opens. Then repetition ceases in your life. Then every moment will be new. Nature is old; it moves in circles. The divine is ever new. You, too, have the capacity to be ever new. And then each instant is new. The morning will be the same, but not the same for you. The evening will be the same, but not the same for you. Because you will be new. And when you are new, your vision changes. When vision changes, the whole creation changes. You will have to learn the art of being new. Otherwise you go on repeating; you run like a machine. A machine cannot create the new.

In the West they have built very important computers. What would take a man a hundred years to calculate, they can do in a second. Problems that three thousand scientists might complete in a thousand years, they solve in a second. But a computer cannot do anything new. It can only do what you have already taught it. Not a grain beyond that. When computers were first invented it seemed we had discovered a brain greater than man’s. Man’s brain has limits; the computer has none. All the books of the world could be stored in one computer. Ask a question from anywhere, and the computer will answer—Vedas, Koran, Bible, Lao Tzu, Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna—all the scriptures could be placed in a single computer. And so small a computer that you could carry it in your pocket. Ask whatever you want, whenever you want—instantly, without even a second’s hesitation—the computer will answer. And yet there is one thing a computer cannot do: the new. That one word—new—the computer cannot produce. It can only repeat what it has been given.

So at first scientists were delighted, then they became depressed. Because the glory of the human brain is not its storehouse; its glory is the capacity to recognize the utterly new, to give birth to the utterly new, to initiate the utterly original. No machine will ever be able to do that. How could a machine do it? It can only do what we have taught it.

If you, too, are doing only what society has taught you, if you are doing only what nature has inscribed in your chromosomes, in the blueprint of your basic cells, then you too are a machine. Man has not yet been born.

Gurdjieff used to say, I do not accept the doctrine that every man has a soul. There is some truth in what he said. Most people are machines; once in a while a man has a soul. Most are mechanisms, not men.

And he is right. For as far as ninety-nine out of a hundred are concerned, they live mechanically; to call them “soulful” is pointless. We call them soulful because of their potential, not because of their actuality. In actuality they are mechanical.

A boy becomes young, his sexual energy ripens; thoughts of woman arise in his mind. This is not “you” doing it. It is hidden in the cells of your body; the cells make you do it. The hormones racing in your body make you do it. Give an old man hormone injections and he is once again filled with sex-energy like a madman. Take the sexual hormones out of a young man and he becomes impotent; lust leaves his mind; the drive falls away, becomes flaccid.

Ascetics discovered this device: fast for long and the sex-centers do not get energy; without energy craving seems to fade. Keep the body such that it has strength only for survival, not more; then sex-energy weakens by itself. But the day you eat properly it returns. Whom are you going to deceive? You deceive only yourself.

Right now your life is entirely mechanical. Lust grabs you and you are grabbed. You don’t even know from where lust takes hold—it is hidden in every cell and pore. Anger seizes you—hidden in every pore. Violence possesses you and you feel as though you are taken over, someone has overwhelmed you and is acting through you. And you must do it; if you don’t, there is restlessness; if you do, you repent. You are mechanical, unconscious. Therefore you will keep repeating. This repetition is utterly futile. It leads nowhere. The wheel keeps turning on the same spot.

Wake up a little. And the strange thing is: awakening is not hidden anywhere in your body; it comes from elsewhere. The capacity to awaken is not of your mind either, nor of your body. The capacity to awaken belongs to your soul. The moment you awaken, you become a soul.

So when anger comes, worry less about anger and more about awakening. Look at anger with awareness. If lust arises, do not be anxious about lust; watch lust with awareness. In awakening you are already stepping back; a distance is created. Whenever any passion seizes you, make the effort to be aware.

It will be difficult. People tell me, You say, Be aware in anger; but in anger we don’t remember at all. Slowly it will come. If you try, it will come. For it came to Buddha, it came to Krishna, it came to Christ. Why should it not come to you? You too are made of the same seed. If other seeds have sprouted, trees have grown and flowers have blossomed, your seed can sprout as well. What is needed is sustained effort, continuous watchfulness. If not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, the day after. Do one thing continually: whatever the situation, keep trying to be aware. One day, suddenly, you will find—the event has happened. Suddenly, awakening has reached a hundred degrees; there is an explosion. And when that explosion of awakening happens, there is nothing more wondrous in this world. As if a thousand suns were to rise at once!

Sri Aurobindo has said: When I awakened, I discovered that what I had till now taken to be light was great darkness, and what I had till now taken to be life was the repetition of death. Only when true life was known did this recognition come. Only when the real light was known did I recognize that what we had been calling light was nothing at all.

And when this awakening comes, for the first time you have the direct experience of your own nature. There is no way to put that experience into words.

Strive! Buddha’s last words at the moment of farewell were: Ananda, be ceaselessly engaged in effort! Do not be negligent even for an instant! Do not let even a trace of sloth settle within! For a little sloth, and much is lost. Keep toiling until you awaken; until then, do not grant yourself any rest. Tireless effort!

You will have to strike again and again; only then will this darkness break—because you have been maintaining this darkness for so long. Your state has become rock-like, inert. The crust has grown very strong. The soul is hidden within; the spring is within; but the doors are closed. By striking, the doors will break. By striking continuously, the doors will break. Even if the blows are gentle, they must be unbroken. Water falls—gentle blows—and rocks are split. Let the stream of your remembrance fall upon the mechanical rocks within you. If not today, then tomorrow the rocks will break. Today it may seem the stream is so soft—how can it break such hard stone? But an unbroken stream, if it continues, will bring down the highest mountains. Stone is weak before continuity.

But I understand your difficulty. One day you make an effort; ten days you rest. Then enthusiasm arises for a day or two; you try again for a day or two; then ten days’ rest. You build, and you undo. The situation remains the same. Each time you build, each time you demolish. You water the plant one day, and for ten days you do not care. By then the sapling wilts, dries up. Then you sow a new seed, tend it a little, and forget again.

People come to me and say: There was great joy in meditation—but then it broke.

I cannot understand: if joy was coming, why did it break? And they are right—joy was coming. But even for joy your effort does not remain continuous. The mind suggests a thousand things. The mind says, Sleep this morning; do it tomorrow.

The mind is very skilled at promising tomorrow. And tomorrow never comes. Only today comes. If something is to be done, do it today. If you don’t want to do it, postpone it to tomorrow. And what will you gain? If you lie in bed one more hour today, how much will you get? You have lain in bed so many days. If you live sixty years, you will spend twenty in bed. And what will one extra hour add? Get up! Do not listen to the mind!

And the mind begins to speak only when it sees danger. Up to a point, the mind doesn’t worry at all. Go on meditating—the mind has no concern. But when it sees that the blows are getting so strong there is a possibility of breaking, then it invents twenty-five devices. You invent twenty-five excuses: today I’m not feeling well, the body is not healthy.

This body will go—healthy or unhealthy—it will go to the funeral pyre. Always consider it as if it were already on the pyre. Only meditation will remain. So even if the body is not well, do not leave meditation; it may be only the mind’s trick, saying the body is unwell.

And the mind’s tricks have no end. All day you are fine—no ant bites you, no itching in the limbs, no cough—but the moment you sit to meditate, everything begins.

It is astonishing: for twenty-four hours the man was fine; he sits to meditate and it seems as if ants are crawling, itching starts in the leg, now the neck hurts, now this happens, that happens. And you know—you have opened your eyes many times and looked—there is no ant. Nothing is crawling. The mind is deceiving you. The mind says, Move! For in your movement is the mind’s life; in your stillness is the mind’s death. The mind is saving itself.

And what is the harm anyway? Even if an ant climbs up, what is the harm? If it bites, what will be lost? You never consider what is at stake. If the ant bites your leg, let it bite. What will be lost?

But you are ready to lose meditation rather than endure the ant’s bite. Will you not pay even this small price for awakening? If there is a little pain in the back, let it be. It is only the back’s pain; no priceless treasure is at risk. Rest a little after meditation. But no—if the back aches, you forget meditation and God. Instantly the backache becomes all in all. The mind is obstructing you. It is telling you, Stick with the body. It stirs a thousand disturbances in the body.

Do not listen. Ignore it. Say, All right—this body will go. Bitten or not, it will go to the pyre. If the back aches, it will go; if it doesn’t, it will still go. We are not going to worry so much about it. Tell the mind, Stop your nonsense. Begin talking to your mind. Tell it, What we have decided, we will do—do not interfere.

If you speak to it rightly, you will be amazed. If you speak with force, it stops interfering. It is a slave—a pampered slave, that’s all. You have listened to it so much that now it keeps dictating, keeps showing you the way. Say just once, Be silent! and the mind falls silent. Try it. Say it with force. Do not say it timidly, as if you know already it won’t be silent—for then you are not really saying it. Say, Be silent! If you say it rightly, you will find the mind becomes silent instantly. The mind is your servant, your instrument; you are the master. Declare your mastery. This is not repression of the mind; it is simply the declaration of mastery. It is only saying: I am the master, the one who decides. Your work is to help carry out my decision. Soon you will find the mind moves aside.

As the mind moves aside, the body’s disturbances cease, and a soft flame of awakening begins to rise. After deep darkness, like the dawn; after wandering in deserts, like suddenly finding an oasis—such is awakening. After walking in the blazing sun for thousands of lifetimes, to find the shade of a tree—such is its coolness. For the thirsty, as water; for the hungry, as food—such is the spring for the soul’s thirst.

And once you gain even a little sense of where that spring is, you will find that though outwardly you may be a beggar, inwardly you are an emperor. Outwardly nature surrounds you, but inwardly you are the divine. As in every clay lamp there is a flame, so in the clay of your body burns the flame of God. But you are so entangled with the clay lamp that you forget the flame. The clay lamp is to protect the flame, but in protecting the clay lamp you have forgotten the flame.

Remember the flame! And remembering the flame means: whatever you do, twenty-four hours a day, keep one thing going inside—Do it with awareness. Riding a bicycle on the road—ride with awareness. You will feel the difference immediately. If you ride with awareness, at once you will find the state of the whole body has changed. Eating—eat with awareness. Instantly you will see the quality changes; the inner consciousness has a different tone. A gentle peace, a softness, a sweetness will surround you.

Otherwise you are a machine. Right now you are a machine. Being human, for you, is only in name. To be human means to awaken, to break repetition, to enter the original, the new—to step into the eternally new.

No situation is so frightening that you cannot raise your eyes and look at it. And whether you look or not, the situation doesn’t change. If it is frightening, it is. In fact, even calling it frightening is an interpretation. Why do you call it frightening? There is lust in the mind—why call it terrifying? What is the fear? What is there to be afraid of in seeing? Even if hell itself is boiling within, you will have to gather the capacity to look—because that is the way to rise above it.

Now you ask how to deal with the fear first?
Without seeing, nothing can be dealt with. You are asking how to learn to swim without entering the water. You will have to get into the water. Only then is learning possible. Don’t go too deep at first, but at least step in near the shore. Go up to your neck, but go in a little—flail your arms and legs. Learn a little; learn in the shallows. When you have learned, you will be able to go into the deep. But if you decide, “First I will learn to swim, then I’ll enter the water,” then there is great difficulty; then there is no remedy.

How will you deal with fear beforehand? Who will deal with it? You are the fear; you are the one trembling—now who is going to deal with it? Wake up and watch the fear so that you become separate from it. If you do not awaken and do not watch, you will not be able to separate. Only the one who becomes separate can deal. And the delight is that the one who becomes separate has nothing to do to deal with it. Separation itself is the key. The very mental state from which you have stepped aside dissolves, because no mental state can live without your support.

There is lust. You step aside; you take your stand at a distance and say, “I am a witness; I will watch.” Instantly the life-force goes out of lust—because its support was you. It was receiving energy from you. You have stepped away. How long can lust continue? Some old energy will be there; in a little while it will be finished. You will find the sex-energy lying there as the shed skin of a snake lies after the snake has gone—lying there without any life in it. Like a cartridge already fired—there is no life left in it.

Who gives it life? You yourself are the progenitor of your fear as well. Distance is the art.

You will have to look. However frightening the situation, you will have to open your eyes. You say, “May fear disappear without my opening my eyes”—that is difficult. Because fear exists precisely because you have kept your eyes closed. Open your eyes, look around—there is no fear.

And the priests have made you fearful—because they have condemned everything; they have branded everything as sinful. Hence fear is natural. Whatever you do seems like sin. And when everything appears like sin, you tremble, you fear, you panic. Hell seems certain. You cannot even imagine how you will ever go to heaven! In the arrangement the priests have given, your hell is guaranteed. If that arrangement is true, it is doubtful whether anyone has ever reached heaven. Everything is condemned—so of course you become afraid.

I tell you: nothing is condemnable; everything is acceptable. And those very things you condemn as stones on the road are not stones at all; they are steps on the path.

Sexual desire has two forms. A stone lies on the road. One form is that you get stuck there: now how to move on? The other form is that you climb onto the stone and make it a step. Then the level on which you were walking rises.

The foolish mistake steps for stones; the wise turn stones into steps. That is the only difference between foolishness and wisdom. You do not know that if you make sexual desire a step, that very desire becomes celibacy. Make anger a step—it becomes compassion. Compassion is hidden within anger. Anger is just the outer shell; within, compassion is hidden. Lust is the outer husk; within, celibacy is hidden.

Think a little: if there were no lust, how would you attain celibacy? And how would you know the bliss of celibacy if lust were not there? So do not look at lust merely as lust; understand it as a step toward celibacy.

If there were no anger, how would you arrive at compassion? Tell me—what other way is there? There is none. Anger itself becomes compassion. So why look at anger only as anger? Why not see its entire arc—that in the end it becomes compassion?

Your situation is like someone who brings manure to the garden; it stinks. Manure is decayed; a foul smell arises from it. If you see only that much, you will conclude that gardens are not a good idea. But remember: that very manure will be laid at the roots of trees; from it the flowers will arise—their fragrance is great. All stinks transform into fragrance. You are in a hurry; you pass judgment. Then you get into difficulty.

Understand a little: if there were no fear within you, how would the moment of fearlessness ever arrive in your life? If you did not go astray, how would you ever arrive? If you never erred, how would you ever do the right? That is why I accept all your so-called sins—because in every sin I see the glimmer of virtue. Virtue is hidden there. In your brothels your temples are also hidden. Do not be in a hurry; otherwise you will turn back, taking the brothel to be just a brothel, and you will be deprived of the temple. I know—within, there is a temple. I tell you: do not be afraid; come.

Nothing is to be erased in life; nothing is to be destroyed. Everything is to be brought to its fullness. And when anything reaches its fullness, it turns into its opposite. This is Lao Tzu’s deepest understanding: when a thing reaches its uttermost, it becomes its contrary. Stench becomes fragrance; anger becomes compassion; lust becomes celibacy; the world becomes liberation.

Therefore I say my sannyasins are not to renounce the world—because the secret of liberation is hidden right there. If you run away from there, you will wander in the Himalayas and not attain liberation. In the very clamor of the marketplace an infinite peace is hidden. The day you awaken, you will find that in the very marketplace there is the art of being silent. There is nowhere to go—only take what you are toward its fullness. Do not stop; keep moving. Do not stop anywhere until such a moment arrives beyond which there remains no place to go. As long as there is space, keep going.

Someone asked the Zen master Lin-chi, “What is religion?”
He said, “Keep going.”
The man said, “Is that any kind of answer? What are we to understand from ‘keep going’?”
Lin-chi said, “I have said everything; to say more will spoil it.”

Do not stop anywhere. Stopping is sin; moving on is virtue. Pass even through sin, but keep going. And you will suddenly find that by going on and on, sin turns into virtue, stones become steps, bondage becomes freedom. Therefore the wise have said—as Tilopa said—that the world and liberation are one. He who sees two falls into error; he who sees two gets caught in choosing. One who keeps moving within the world, moving and moving, one day suddenly finds that liberation has come.

So I neither ask you to condemn anything, nor do I call anything a sin. Nothing is sin. How can it be? In this vast play of the Divine, where can sin come from? At most, you may be mistaken—that is all. You misunderstood something; you made an interpretation. I free you from all sins. I only say this: do not stop anywhere. Even if you have to pass through a brothel, pass through it; only do not stop there. The mistake lies in stopping—because then you will not reach the temple.

And there are two kinds of people in the world. One: those who stop in sin; we call them indulgent. And the other: those who, frightened of sin, run away; we call them renouncers. Neither reaches.

I call him a yogi who neither runs away nor stops—who goes on moving. He lives every experience and extracts the essence from every experience. The yogi is like the honeybee: he goes from flower to flower, gathers the nectar, and flies on.

Know all the facets of life. Fear is not bad; anger is not bad. What is bad is your stopping. Know—and move on. Know—and go beyond. Let transcendence be your key. Everything has to be known and then gone beyond. Knowing is transcendence.

But if you say, “How to deal without opening the eyes?”—you will never be able to deal. Because opening the eyes is the very way to deal. However great the fear, open your eyes. By closing the eyes, where does fear go? Yet the ostrich’s logic operates in our minds. The ostrich sees the enemy and buries its head in the sand, thinking: if the enemy is not seen, the enemy will not exist. But does that logic work anywhere? The enemy can see you—that is the real point. The enemy will eat you. If the ostrich kept its head up, perhaps some way would open.

Do not be an ostrich. Open your eyes and look. Nothing is terrifying, because nothing is bad. Nothing can be bad. On every single leaf is God’s signature. Nothing can be bad. He is hidden even in sin. What a wondrous player—that he is hidden even in sin! That is his hiding place, his cover. As children, when they play hide-and-seek, they hide where there is the least chance of being found. God too is hidden where there is the least possibility of your going. You will go to the temple to seek him—you will not find him there; he is not hiding in the temple. He is hidden exactly where you are avoiding going. There you have to dig a little. Whoever has found him has found him in the very depths of the world, after passing through all experiences.

Do not be a fugitive. There is nowhere to run. Wherever you feel, “How can it be here?”—I tell you, it is precisely there. How can you think that in anger there can be compassion? Yet it is there. How can you think that in lust there can be celibacy? It is there. And how can you think that in the world enlightenment would be hidden? It is there.

You are not—but you can be. And no one is preaching to you to be outside the world. You yourself come asking, “I am surrounded by duality, there is great restlessness—what should I do?” If you remain in duality, restlessness will remain, because wherever there are two, there will be conflict. There is an old saying: where there are pots, there will be some clatter. Until only one remains, peace is not possible. No one is telling you, “Become beyond duality.” You come asking, “The mind is disturbed, tormented, unhappy—what should I do?” You ask; therefore I say: you are unhappy because you are still with two. Somehow the One has to be found. Find the One and the unrest will vanish.

That is why Mahavira gave liberation the name kaivalya. He chose a very beautiful word. Kaivalya means utterly alone—only you, no other. Consciousness alone remains. Then with whom can there be struggle? With whom can there be duality? That is the moment of supreme peace.

The world is dual. The world is unrest. The world is suffering. If you are content with suffering, be content by all means—who am I to drag you out of it? If you enjoy your suffering, enjoy it fully. But then do not keep asking how to come out of suffering. If by your own consent, your own pleasure, you are suffering, that is perfectly okay—I will not interfere. But your situation is strange: you are unhappy with duality, you want to be out of suffering, and then you ask, “Why are we instructed to be beyond duality when the whole world is dual?”

Yes, the whole world is dual—but the consciousness that knows this duality is separate. The one who sees, the witness, is other than the world—outside it. How would duality even be known as duality if the non-dual were not present?

Understand this a little. If there were no silent center within you, how would you know unrest? Who would know that there is unrest? Can unrest know unrest? How could unrest ever know unrest? There must be some silent center hidden within you which knows unrest. Who knows suffering? If there were only suffering, suffering could not be known. Some note of bliss must be sounding within you—by that you measure that this is suffering. Otherwise how would you measure? How do you come and tell me, “I am unhappy”? How do you say, “I am disturbed”? How do you say, “I wander in ignorance, I live in darkness”? Some unknown recognition of light must be within you—how else would you weigh it?

The place from where this faint, unfamiliar recognition comes is outside duality. And if you wish, you can become established there. But it is up to you. If you want to remain in the world, in duality, remain joyfully.

But you do not really want to remain there—that is your trouble. I know your difficulty: you want to do what cannot be done. You want to remain in duality and still be blissful. All human prayers can be summed up in one sentence: “O God, show some trick by which two plus two will not make four.” Somehow let the impossible happen. Because you feel there is color and relish in duality; you feel there is pleasure in duality; all your desires pull you that way—there is bustle there. But in that bustle there is unrest. So you come to me—or to someone—asking, “How can I be peaceful?” There the difficulty begins. You want to go on enjoying duality and yet be peaceful.

This cannot be. I tell you: this is the way to peace—that you become peaceful. But then duality will be lost. You want to hold on to duality as well. People come to me and say, “Ambition does not leave me, but I have a great longing for peace.” How can that be? People ask me, “Continuing just as we are, doing just what we are doing, can some event not happen?” Then why have the event happen at all? If you are content, drop your worry. But you are not content, because you are getting suffering—and still you hope for pleasure there.

A friend lives in Bombay; he is always restless in Bombay. I went to Kashmir; he went with me. In Pahalgam there was great peace. The next day he said, “Here the mind feels bored.” In Bombay he was restless, “This Bombay is madness”; in Pahalgam he was also restless because peace began to bore him. Now he wants the peace of Pahalgam in Bombay—or the uproar of Bombay in Pahalgam. He cannot live without that uproar; he cannot live with it either.

This cannot be. You will have to change. If duality brings suffering, you will have to be non-dual; you will have to find the third position that is beyond both. If you find the third and are wholly absorbed in it, then indeed the impossible can also happen. Then one day you can come back to the marketplace, and within you there will be the peace of Pahalgam. You can stand in the very middle of Bombay, in the stock market, and yet within you there will be the peace of Pahalgam. Then you will be there and not be there. Outwardly you will be there; inwardly you will not. But this is the last happening; it cannot happen first.

First you must decide: if you want to rise above suffering, you must drop duality. Rising above suffering, dropping duality, one day within you such majesty will dawn, such deep peace will be born, that you can return to the marketplace. Then no bondage will touch you; then no duality, no two-ness will touch you.

After all, God too lives amidst duality—and it does not touch him. Because he is in duality and not in it. He is in it as an actor is. You are in duality as a doer—you are divided. You are not an actor. When your money is lost, the tears that come to your eyes are not the actor’s tears, they are real tears. You truly weep. If your wife is lost, you truly shout, beat your chest—not like in the Ramleela when Rama’s Sita is lost and he asks the trees, “Where is my Sita?”

But you know he is not really asking; he is only acting. Inside, nothing is happening; everything is happening on the surface. Even for tears, theater companies keep chili powder handy. Quickly they smear a little chili on the fingers and touch the eyes—tears begin to flow. Even Lord Ram in the Ramleela has to rub a bit of chili in the eye for tears to come. Tears do not flow by your command. Real tears are one thing; to bring false ones is very difficult. Try someday to produce false tears, then you will know—your eyes go completely dry; you won’t even feel there are any tears in them.

The day a person becomes steady in the deep peace within, that day the world is a play. That is why we have called it lila. That day he does everything—he goes to the market, he runs his shop, he takes care of his wife, his children—he does everything and yet remains a non-doer. That is the state of the siddha. But before that you must pass through being a seeker. You must step aside from duality.

The art of stepping aside is what I call awakening. Stay awake and keep watching. As you watch and watch, a third state will arise within you. The two will remain outside; the third will be within. That third is beyond the two. Once that beyond begins to be experienced, there is no difficulty left. Then whether someone abuses you, criticizes you, or praises you—it is all the same. No difference is made. Then it is a vast play, a great stage running on. The role given to you you have to fulfill; your acting you have to complete. Then you no longer even wish to change.

There is a story of a Japanese fakir who was a killer. Earlier he was a soldier; even then those close to him felt that though he killed, somehow he did not kill. A glimpse of it would be sensed by those near him. When he left the army, he took up the work of executioner—became a butcher. They say he slaughtered animals all his life. Even the emperor came to learn from him. Many times his disciples said, “This does not look right—that you still slaughter animals.” He would laugh and say, “The work God has placed in our hands, that we are doing. We did not choose it, nor is it our responsibility. It is his wish that we remain butchers, so we are butchers. We have no ill will toward these animals, no enmity. We have no personal insistence to save them, nor any to kill them. The role that has come, we are fulfilling it.”

They say he attained the ultimate liberation. You may practice nonviolence all your life and still not attain—and sometimes even killers have become free. The real secret lies neither in nonviolence nor in violence; the real secret lies in turning life into a play. Do not remain a doer. If you have not killed a fly or an ant, you keep an account: “Today I saved an ant.” But you are a doer—you are doing something.

Doership is bondage; witnessing is freedom. Do not remain the doer; slowly become the witness. In the doer there is duality; witnessing is the non-dual state. The day this happens, all is well. Then it makes no difference what you do or do not do—everything is the same. This world is no more than a dream. It appears real to you because you are asleep. When you awaken, you will find the whole dream has vanished. The virtuous man is virtuous only in the dream, and the sinner is a sinner only in the dream. The awakened one is neither virtuous nor sinful; he has simply awakened. The dream is gone. Nothing good remains, nothing bad; neither auspicious nor inauspicious; neither sin nor virtue. That is why saintliness is the ultimate peak.

But it is a long journey to it. Walk it step by step and you will arrive—because even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Enough for today.