Tao Upanishad #118

Till today man has lived with fear as his foundation. So it is no surprise that life has become a hell. Fear is the gate of hell. If love is the gate of heaven, fear is the gate of hell.

The whole arrangement of society and state is fear-driven. We have tried to make people good by frightening them. And there is no greater evil than fear. It is as if someone tried to keep people alive by feeding them poison. Fear is the greatest sin; and we have made it the foundation of all so-called virtues. Then our virtues also become like sins. Of course they do.

Let us try to understand this a little. It is easy to frighten people. To fill them with love is very difficult, because love needs an inner growth. Fear requires no growth at all. Even a small child can be frightened. But how will you teach a small child to love? Most people do not learn love even till the moment of death; most die without ever learning love.

If you want a small child to do the right thing, what will you do?
Frighten him, beat him, scold him, bark at him, keep him hungry, punish him. A little child is helpless; you can scare him. He is dependent on you. If the mother just turns away her face and says, I will not speak to you, he becomes like an uprooted tree. It is utterly easy to frighten him, because he depends on you. Without your support he cannot even live. Not for a single moment can a child even imagine how he would survive without you.

And the human child is more helpless than the young of any other animal. The young of animals can survive even without the parents’ support. The parents’ support is secondary; and even if needed, it is for a few days, a fortnight, a month. The human child is utterly helpless; no creature is more helpless. If there are no parents, the child simply will not survive. Death always stands nearby. Only with the parents’ support does life stand up. The moment support is withdrawn, life is destroyed. So it is very easy to frighten the child. And it is easy for you too. How difficult is it to frighten? You can frighten with your eyes, with your manner. And by frightening, you try to make the child good.

There the error happens. Because fear is the first evil. If the child becomes frightened and begins to sit quietly because of fear, his quietness will be hiding unrest within. He has not learned the lesson of peace; he has learned the lesson of fear. If because of fear he stops using bad words, stops abusing, still those abuses will go on circling within him; they will become residents of his innermost being. He will not bring them out to the lips. He has not learned the lesson of speaking nobly, of gentle speech, of the poetry of language instead of its filth. That he has not learned. He has learned only this much: there are certain things one must not reveal because they are dangerous.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was teaching his son that abusing is bad. The boy had begun to grow up, going around the neighborhood, to school; he began to learn abuses. Everywhere the market of abuses is open. So Mulla did what any father would do. He said to the boy, Look here, this is the system of penalties. If you use an abuse like calling someone a donkey, or son of an owl, then four annas will be deducted from the one rupee you get each day; once you abuse, four annas gone. Twice, eight annas gone. Four times you use such an abuse, the whole rupee will be deducted. If you abuse more, even tomorrow’s rupee will be deducted today. A number two abuse, said the father, if you call someone sala, scoundrel, then eight annas will be cut. He made a whole list like that, mentioning four deeper and deeper levels of abuses. If you used the fourth kind, a whole rupee would be cut. The boy said, That is fine, but I know such abuses that even if you cut five rupees it will still be less. What about those?

From above you will put a lid on, within things will remain filled. From above you will close the cover, in the soul the smoke will go on resounding. And that lid will stay closed only as long as fear persists. Tomorrow the child will become young, you will become old, then fear will reverse its direction. Then whatever you had repressed will begin to surface. Very few children are able, when grown up, to behave well with their father. Even if they touch the feet, there is no goodwill in it. It is very difficult to treat an old father well. Why?

Because when you were a child, the way the father treated you was not good. Nobody looks at how the father behaves with the son in childhood. Everyone notices how the son behaves with the father in his old age. But what you sow, you will have to reap. There is no way to escape it. Today the child has become strong, the father has become weak with age—the boat has turned over. Now the child will frighten. Now he is young; now he will scare you; now he will suppress you.

Fear destroys nothing; it only represses. And when the conditions of fear change, the repressed comes out. So you will see in society people who are good because of fear. Their goodness is like a eunuch’s celibacy—forced. They do not want to be good; they have never tasted the flavor of the good. They are only afraid of the bad, they tremble inside; and because of this trembling, people are good.

Therefore even in good people you do not see flowers blossoming. On the contrary, sometimes a bad man may be found laughing and smiling; a so-called good man you will not even find smiling. He has become so frightened that even in laughter he feels sin. He has become so afraid that he hesitates to allow life expression from anywhere, lest a mistake be made, lest an error happen. He walks with trembling steps; he proceeds with extreme caution. Even on smooth, clean ground he walks as if a tightrope walker on the rope.

This frightened man you call a saint? This frightened man is not a saint; he is only frightened. What has saintliness to do with fear? Can saintliness arise out of fear? The tone of saintliness is in fearlessness. Fear gives birth only to the unholy—terrified unholiness. He is so scared that he cannot commit a crime—for fear. One who is not committing crime out of fear, within he will continue to commit it.

Thus those whom you call criminals are fearless people; and those whom you call respectable, of saintly character, are timid, fearful people. Hence it has often happened that a criminal sometimes takes the leap into saintliness; but the one you call respectable never manages the leap. He has no courage to leap. He is good because of fear; how will he leap because of fear? All his life he will go on thinking, standing, pondering; he will never leap. A criminal may sometimes leap—he can leap in a single instant—because at least he is fearless. He has not arranged his life out of fear.

There is a second aspect that must be understood: when you make fear the basis of ethics in society, the timid become more timid, and the fearless become even more fearless. If there are five children in a home, the most troublesome among them will become more troublesome because of your frightening, and those who were not troublesome at all will become utterly dead out of fear—they will become lumps of mud.

Fear bears fruit in two ways. When you frighten someone, if his ego is still raw he will be scared and, scared, he will become good; but if his ego is ripe he will do exactly that which you wanted him not to do. Your fear becomes a challenge to him and creates the urge for crime. So fear has turned some into timid cow-dung idols, their life drained of energy; they live as if dead, like corpses. And fear has thrown a challenge to others; they have become wicked and criminal. Whatever you said, Do not do—his ego accepted as a challenge, and he will do it and show it, come what may, staking his life if needed.

Both are disastrous results. Because of both, society has become grotesquely distorted. Either there are frightened people who are good, or fearless people who are bad. It should be the reverse: the good should be fearless, the bad should be timid. But the scripture of fear has reversed the situation. The good should have fearlessness; the bad should have timidity. Instead, the bad struts with swagger; the good has a broken spine. These two are the outcomes of the scripture of fear; both are deadly.

The scripture of love is precisely the opposite. It makes the good fearless, and the bad becomes afraid—not that love frightens him; the bad becomes afraid on his own. The good attains fearlessness on his own. Because as movement into love deepens, fearlessness becomes available. A person filled with love does not fear; there remains no cause for fear. Love is greater than death. You cannot frighten love even with death. You may say, We will kill you! Love will be ready to die, but it will not be afraid. A lover can die in peace; he can stake life itself—because he has found something greater than life. When the greater is found, the lesser can be risked.

You fear the loss of life because you hold nothing greater than life in your hands. And you will go on fearing until something greater than life is in your hands. When Paramatma is in your hands, when love is in your hands, when prayer arrives, when meditation arrives, when Samadhi arrives—then you will give life as if it had no value. You have found the essence of life. The fragrance for which life was an opportunity has reached you. Now you can give life. If someone snatches life, you can die laughing. No one will be able to frighten you now.

And one who can leave life—how will you frighten him? For fear is fundamentally fear of death. All fears are essentially fear of death. What will you frighten him with now?

Alexander said to an Indian sannyasin: If you refuse to come with me, I will have your head cut off. The sannyasin said: The head you are threatening to cut off—I cut it long ago. If it pleases you, go ahead and cut. But remember this one thing: you will see the head falling to the earth, and I will also see it fall.

Alexander was bewildered. He did not understand. He knew only the language of the sword—the language of fear. He had never met a lover. He had never seen one who has attained to prayer. He sheathed his sword and said to that man: I do not understand what this is! But I have frightened millions. If I tell the mountains to come with me, they too will agree to come. A naked fakir! What do you have, on the strength of which you do not fear?

The fakir said: Whatever there was to gain from life, I have gained; now by snatching life you will snatch nothing. The butter has been churned out; only the buttermilk of life remains. You can take that. There was fear only until life was milk and the butter had not been churned. Had you taken it then, you’d have taken everything. Now only buttermilk remains. What was to be had, I have had. If you wanted to frighten me, you should have come a little earlier.

Naturally, when you have eaten and someone tries to snatch away your plate, you present it as a gift: Let him take the leftovers—what harm? But when you are hungry, your meal not even begun, and someone tries to snatch the plate—then it is difficult. One who has used the opportunity of life—the only meaning of using the opportunity is: one who has known something beyond life, for whom life has become a ladder, and who has gone beyond the ladder—one who has joined the river of life with the ocean beyond life, for him whether the river remains or dries up makes no difference.

The scripture of love teaches fearlessness; one immersed in love attains fearlessness. And in the life of one immersed in love, the auspicious begins to flow—silently, without even the sound of footsteps. A mother who loves her child—because of love the child becomes calm; the mother is present. For love allows no retaliation; love has only an echo. Fear invites retaliation; it has no echo. If a mother loves her child, the mother’s presence makes the child sit quietly. If a father loves his son, an echo arises from the son as well. The father is working, the son treads carefully, making no sound.

This is a different kind of peace. It is the fruit of love. Here the child is not suppressing inner unrest; the father’s presence and father’s love are giving birth to a peace. If in the father’s language there is poetry, if in his words there is refinement, if he has woven songs of words around the child, then from the child abuse cannot arise. Not because he fears, but because the father’s love has lifted him so high that to fall down by abusing becomes impossible.

Through love the auspicious flows—spontaneously. Whom you love, you lift up; you raise them into the sky. If you have loved anyone, you have lifted the lotus above the mud. As the lotus goes beyond the mud, so the one you love—in the very moment of love, instantly a revolution happens: the mud remains below, the lotus is beyond. A great distance arises. Try loving someone, ever. If your love is deep, then in proportion to the depth of your love, the birth of the divine begins in that person.

It is impossible to escape love. It is impossible to run from love. It is impossible to go against love. Love is the greatest power in this world. It comes like a flood and refines you.

But we have tried to make up for the lack of love with fear. And the seed of family is sown in fear. Then from family comes society; from society the nation; from nations the world. And the seed in the foundation is fear. That is why everywhere there is the empire of fear. Whenever you want to reform someone—frighten him.

The religious teacher does the same. If the politician does it, it is understandable; we cannot expect much understanding from a politician. Had he been understanding, he would not have been a politician at all. From the politician we cannot ask for the depth of human life; if he had that awareness, he would not be in the world of ambition. Leave politicians aside. But even the religious teacher speaks the language of fear—he speaks of hells: you will be roasted, smelted, killed. He too wants people to become religious through fear.

This is utterly impossible. No one has ever become religious through fear. Fear is the very root of irreligion. Love is the root of religion. Fear means: we will cut you, change you. Love means: we accept you as you are. And the wonder is, fear cannot change you even by cutting; and love changes you without cutting. The moment you love someone, change begins. The moment love’s glance falls, a ray enters the darkness; the moment love touches, a call from the other world arrives. Whom you love, instantly you ennoble him. He ceases to belong to the common herd. Wings grow. Now, to receive your love, to keep your love, to remain under the shower of your love, he will rise higher and higher each day.

Love does not say: Change; and nevertheless it changes. Fear says: Change, otherwise you will suffer; and it never manages to change. Understand this basic alchemy of life: those who want to change others never manage to change them. It is the changers who spoil people. Social reformers destroy and corrupt society. Good parents send their children on a journey toward hell. The saying goes: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. You have good intentions, but if your intention is based on fear, you will only send them to hell, not to heaven. Hence mankind is so fear-stricken, so sunk in misery, so rotten. Nothing seems to rise except stench.

Fear has ruined those who became frightened. And fear has ruined those who stood in opposition to fear. If there are five children in a house, perhaps four will be frightened. But at least one will certainly become rebellious because of your threatening. Whatever you forbid, he will break. You say: Do not go out into the dark; the dark will begin to call. You say: Do not swim in the river; an irresistible attraction will arise, an inescapable invitation will come from the river. He will have to go; no one will be able to stop him now.

Your prohibition will create relish in the ego of the stubborn; and those whose egos are unripe will become fearful, panic-stricken. One who becomes afraid will go on fearing all his life. He will go to the office and fear the boss; he will marry and fear the wife; children will be born and he will fear the children; he will fear walking on the road; he will sit at home and fear. A trembling will become embedded in his life. Fear will become his nature. And the one who accepts the challenge and sets out on the journey of ego will spend his life in breaking. If uncultured, he will become a criminal; if cultured, he will become a revolutionary. If unintelligent, he will steal, commit dacoity.

There are the dacoits of the Chambal valley. When Jayaprakash liberated those dacoits, a friend came and told me. I said: Both are the same kind of people; there is not a bit of difference. The meeting of Jayaprakash and the dacoits is of one kind; their life-energy is of one kind. Jayaprakash is a cultured man; the dacoits are uncultured—Devi Singh and the others are uncultured. But the basis of their life is the same: whatever society has said Do not do—they are breaking and destroying. They are fearless people; they stand against an entire state with a little gun. And Jayaprakash—his tendency is the same. Consider that the dacoit is doing a headstand; hence talk of anarchy, total revolution. Behind good words there is still rebellion; behind good words there is still the attraction to break, to demolish—not to create.

And Jayaprakash can harm more people. How many can Devi Singh harm? At most he will snatch some wealth from some people. But Jayaprakash can ruin the entire arrangement of life. And yet people will honor him.

There are two classes of fearless men. If cultured, he becomes a revolutionary. Revolution too is a way of crime. If he fails, people call him a rebel; if he succeeds, he becomes a great leader. In the lives of Lenin, Mao, Castro, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh—there is no essential difference from the lives of dacoits. The difference is only this: the dacoit creates disturbance on a small scale; these create disturbance on a vast scale. And behind their disturbance stands a philosophy. The dacoit has no philosophy. Behind their disturbance there is a doctrine, and behind the screen of that doctrine, everything looks beautiful. Try to understand this a little.

What is the thief saying? What does theft say? The thief is saying just this much: We do not accept the rule of private property. Unknowingly. What is the dacoit saying? He is saying: We do not accept your arrangement of private property. Perhaps he does not even know it; perhaps he cannot state it in such words; it may not be clear to him. But what is he doing? He is breaking the rule of private property. He is saying, We do not consider this a taboo. Nothing belongs to anyone; it belongs to the one who has the power. He is saying only this.

What are socialism and communism saying? What are Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh saying? They are making it into a vast scripture. They are saying: We will not let private property remain.

But the fun is: Abolish private property—no difference is made. Those who hold power become owners of all property in a way that Rockefeller, Ford, or Birla could never become. Stalin became the owner of the entire country’s wealth. Ownership does not disappear, because whoever holds state power has no one above him. Stalin is the greatest dacoit, in whose hands lay a country of two hundred million. How many have dacoits killed? Stalin killed an estimated ten million in his life. Whoever said no—he finished him. All the companions in the revolution, he killed them slowly one by one, because they were a danger. He cleaned them all out and sat as owner of the wealth of the entire country.

If you are uncultured, you will rob someone; if you are cultured, you will give the call for total revolution. And you are more dangerous; and no one will be able to catch you. Because you will arrange the whole system skillfully in a net of words.

I heard one day that Mulla Nasruddin had become a communist. I went to his house and asked, What has happened? He said, I have become a communist. I asked, Do you know what communism means?
He said, I know everything. So I said: If you had two cars, would you be willing to give one to the man who has none? He said, Certainly! Absolutely. If you had two houses, would you give one to the one who has none? He said, I would surely give—right now. Then I asked: And if you had two donkeys, would you give one to the one who has none? He said, Never. I said, What kind of communism is this? He said, I have two donkeys! I do not have two cars, nor two houses.

What we do not have, we will give away. And what the other has, we will snatch.

To snatch what the other has—the criminal also employs a method. His method is small, very small. It will not solve much. To snatch what the other has—the communist also employs a method, but his method is very organized. He has a strategy, a whole art of war. First he spreads a current of ideas. Naturally the idea appeals to everyone, because it is hard to find a person who has everything. Over everyone there are people who have much; and you will want to snatch from them.

Hence communism has appeal. Whenever communism explains to you that all property will be distributed, you never think that your two donkeys will be distributed. You think: The neighbor’s two cars will be distributed; the other neighbor’s two houses will be distributed. One house I will also get; one car I will also get. You always think that the other’s will be distributed—you will be the receiver. You never think your two donkeys will be distributed.

This is where the difficulty arose. When revolution came in Russia, the whole country was happy, because people had thought others would be divided. But when their own division began, then great trouble arose. The one who had four hens—Stalin tried to distribute even those. The one who had a little plot—tried to distribute that too. The ten million who were killed were not rich. How many rich can there be—ten million in a country? They were poor people who insisted on their little property, saying, We will not let it be distributed. They had made the revolution themselves.

This is the great joke! These were the ones caught in the net of revolution. They were filled with promises. They had never imagined that their ten acres would be divided. They had thought, Birla will be divided, Rockefeller will be divided—what will come will come to me.

Communism teaches the language of getting. That is the language of thieves and dacoits. Hence it has appeal. But when the distribution happened, it came to be known that mine too is being distributed. Then difficulty arose. How many rich are there? Ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred. Distribute theirs and not even a grain will come to your hand—because you are millions, billions. But yours will be distributed. The small peasants refused distribution. When their hens were to be taken into collective farms, they refused. When their farming was to be collectivized, they stood up to fight. Ten million small peasants and poor were cut down. And even then no communism came to the country.

Communism can never come, because people are so different. Classes will always remain. New classes arose. And now to keep these new classes in place, Stalin had to arrange such a setup of violence and fear as never before in human history. In Russia people began to fear speaking even in private, because the walls had ears. Let someone speak a word in opposition, and the man disappeared; then no one knew where he went. With such ease did Stalin kill as no one ever did.

But Stalin became a great leader. In the history of communism his tale will be written in golden letters. He is only a great dacoit—but a dacoit with a philosophy. All the world’s politicians are no different from dacoits. They do the same things, but they have cunning.

So remember: either fear will make you so frightened that you will live like a dead man all your life; or fear will fill you with such challenge that you will live as a rebel all your life. But in both cases you will be deprived of life. Because life is attained only by one who is neither timid nor rebellious. Only then can the energy of life come to rest in itself. The frightened one keeps fearing the other; the fearless one keeps trying to frighten the other. In both cases life-energy is wasted, destroyed.

Thus neither the timid has ever known God, nor the fearless has ever known God. Apart from these two there is a different state of life which I call fearlessness—abhaya. Fearlessness is neither timid nor swaggeringly fearless. Fearlessness means: he neither wants to frighten anyone, nor does he fear anyone. Consciousness settles in itself. And when consciousness returns to itself, falls into itself—when the stream of consciousness comes home—then life’s supreme bliss, the ultimate taste, is available.

Now let us try to understand Lao Tzu’s sutra.

‘People are not afraid of death; then why threaten them with death?’

The first thing: ‘People are not afraid of death.’

Because if they were afraid of death, a revolution would happen in their lives. People think death always happens to the other. And this appears true, because you always see the other die; you have never seen yourself die. Sometimes the neighbor on this side dies, sometimes the one across. It is always the other who dies. The corpse does come out, but it is always someone else’s. You have not seen your own corpse go out; nor will you ever see it—others will see it. So it seems death always happens to the other—that is one thing.

One to whom this remembrance arises—that death is mine—he will change by himself. You will not need to frighten him. Because one who can see that death is going to happen to me, in one sense he will drop his craving, his thirst for this life. Because when one has to die, when one is here only for a moment, what value remains in such insistence? His thirst will dissolve.

One who begins to see death—his thirst dissolves. And one whose thirst dissolves cannot be bad. We become bad because of thirst, because of desire. We snatch from others in the hope that it will remain with us—forever and ever.

But when we ourselves are to be lost, and the message of death will come a moment later and we will have to depart—then what is there to snatch from anyone? If someone else snatches from us, we will let him take it. Because perhaps the other is in the illusion that he is to remain here forever; we are not in that illusion.

The one to whom the remembrance of death has come, to whom the awareness of death has dawned—you will not have to change him! Society will not have to change him. He will change himself.

Those whom you need to change—they have no remembrance of death. They are utterly forgetful. They live as if they are to remain forever. They build such strong houses as if to remain forever. They accumulate bank balances as if they were to remain here for eternity. They make arrangements for a very long time, and they do not know that it is a matter of a few moments—this inn is for a night’s rest; in the morning one must depart. They are making huge arrangements for such a short time. They have halted in a wayside inn and are organizing as if to dwell forever in a palace.

Those to whom even a little remembrance of death arises—they become alert by themselves. Evil falls away from them on its own; you will not have to make it fall.

So Lao Tzu says: People are not afraid of death; otherwise they would become religious.

Buddha saw death; revolution happened. He saw a man dying and asked the charioteer: Will I also have to die? The charioteer was afraid—how could he say it? But he said, I cannot tell a lie. By asking you put me in a compulsion; I have to say it, though it should not be said. How can I say such inauspicious words that you too will die! But I cannot lie. Everyone has to die. Whether beggar or king, monk or emperor—die one must. You too will die. Buddha said: Turn the chariot back; the matter is finished.

They were going to a festival—the grandest festival of the kingdom. He said: There is no festival anymore. When death is going to happen, all festivals are futile. Turn the chariot back home. Now I must do something else. There is no time now to waste in festivities. Death can come at any moment; then it has already happened. Now I must do something keeping death in view. Until now I lived as if I never paid attention to death. Now the entire style of living must change. A great fact has entered life—death. Now I must shape life as one should who is here today and will depart tomorrow. I must now care for the beyond of death. Turn the chariot back. All this music and color is futile now. I had been living as if I would remain forever.

One who sees the fact of death—he turns the chariot back by himself. You do not have to threaten him, scare him. He returns his desires by himself. When life itself will be lost, what is the value of thirsting for life?

Hence Lao Tzu says: ‘People are not afraid of death.’

If only they were, would you need to change them? They would change by themselves.

‘And if they are not afraid of death, then why threaten them with death?’

Then why are you threatening them with death? Why are you frightening them? That threat will have no meaning. By that threat only those will be frightened whose feet have not yet even set upon the path of life, who have not learned even to walk—they will sit down in panic. Because of that fear there will be no revolution in their life; there will be paralysis. They will be paralyzed by fear.

Certainly, if someone becomes paralyzed, the evil in his life decreases by itself. You are lying in a hospital bed, you cannot get up. How will you steal? Where will you run off with another’s wife? You cannot even walk; where is the question of running away with someone else’s wife? How will you pick pockets? How will you run for election? If you are paralyzed, evil stops by itself. But is it right to stop evil by paralysis? Then it would mean that if everyone were to get paralyzed, evil would disappear from the world.

Evil would disappear—but to fill the world with paralysis would be the great evil. They would be dead. And this is what has been done up to now. Fear gives you a stroke. Because of fear your limbs become rigid; your consciousness ceases to be dynamic. The dynamism is lost; the energy of your life ceases to be dynamic. Your life-energy becomes bound, frozen. As if a river has stopped flowing and become a small, closed pond—stagnant, going nowhere, remaining in itself. It rots; it does not flow. Up to now ethics and sociology have been producing paralysis in people through fear.

Paralysis is not auspicious. However moral you may appear lying in paralysis, if you think, you will think immorality; if you think, you will think sin. Paralysis will stop your body, but not your mind. Your mind will roam like a madman. And the mind is in fact decisive.

So Lao Tzu says: ‘Why threaten them with death?’

Nothing of substance will come of it; rather, there will be danger. Some who were just learning to walk will sit down in fear. And some who were coming close to being free of life, whom life itself had so tortured, whose suffering had so exhausted them that they were coming near to trying to go beyond life—they will take your threat as a challenge and will rise again to fight with life. The timid will become more timid; the fearless will become more fearless. This is a great reverse occurrence. You wanted the fearless to become timid; they will not.

Such a thing happened in a village. It stood on a highway—houses on both sides of the road. It was a big road, cars sped fast, buses and trucks; the village was in danger. The village council decided that no vehicle should pass through the village at more than twenty miles an hour.

But it was a small village—who would bother? No one read their signboard. It was put up, but no one cared. They thought perhaps the ‘twenty miles’ notice is not right; let us write simply: Please pass at a very slow speed. And a member of the council was stationed to observe whether it had any effect.

After seven days the man reported: Those who used to read ‘twenty miles’ and keep twenty miles—they have begun to go at five miles. And those who, on seeing the ‘twenty miles’ sign, kept to fifty—now they are going at seventy.

This is what is happening in life. The fearless do not fear your scaring; they become more stimulated. The fearful were fearful already; they become even more so. One is seized by paralysis; the other by the stiffness of ego. Both are harmful to society.

Lao Tzu says: ‘Suppose people are afraid of death, and we can catch the troublemakers and kill them—still, who will dare to do such a thing?’

Yet it has been done. It should not be done; what should not have happened has happened. We have always tried to kill the troublemakers. We have killed the killers in the name of law. The courts are state-appointed institutions of killing. That very thing for which we penalize—we ourselves do. A man killed someone; then in court we spread the net of law and do it with great style, with planning. We do not let that man have the chance to say any injustice was done. We arrange a big system of justice—but what do we do? Only this: what he did in evil, we do in the name of society. We kill him. His killing is injustice; our killing is justice! He is a murderer for killing; the judge kills and does not even wash his hands; no wound is felt in his conscience.

Psychologists say that the murderer and the judge come from the same class; the quality of their consciousness is the same. Policemen and goons come from the same class; the quality of their consciousness is the same. A policeman must be a thug; otherwise he cannot deal with thugs. If you go and listen to the policemen’s language, the abuses they use are those that even the worst of men do not use. And their behavior—you do not know because you never get the chance to deal with them; but those who do, know that it is hard to find worse men. In truth, the only difference is that they are state-appointed goons; the others are goons on their own.

Judges are killers—but with great arrangement. Their gowns, the wigs on their heads, the solemn decorum, lawyers all around in black coats—it seems something is happening, something just is being done. But what is happening? Within this entire net only this is happening: what bad men have done, society wants to do the same badness to them; society wants to take revenge. You cannot change killing by putting it in the language of law. Killing is killing—whether the state does it or an individual, it makes no difference. Killing remains killing.

And there is one more thing to understand: those who kill cannot save themselves from the inner consequences of killing. Therefore it often happens that if you try to make bad men good by punishing them, in this very effort slowly you too become bad. Because you will punish. Punishing is not a very virtuous act. You will beat. Beating is not a virtuous act. You will flog; you will give sentences. Because of doing all this, your soul becomes hard, stony.

And you will not find a more stony soul than that of judges. The murderer may have killed in a passion; the judge kills in great coolness—cold murder.

You had a quarrel with a man; you flared up in rage; in heated passion you killed. That murder can be forgiven, because you were not in your senses—you were unconscious. Perhaps in the future courts will excuse this. As now, if it is proved that a man was insane, he cannot be punished; similarly, in anger too a man becomes insane—even if for a moment. He may not be permanently insane; he was not insane before, nor after; but in that moment he was insane. In that madness he killed. This may be forgivable. But the judge kills after thinking it through, calculating, with arithmetic. His killing is unforgivable. Individuals kill in passion; society kills by calculation. Society’s killing is utterly unforgivable.

But people like Lao Tzu are not heard. Therefore slowly a society’s soul becomes stone. The society that wants to give soul to people has none itself. The judge who wants to change people has no inner consciousness to change them. The politicians who want to remove the corruption of society—their whole life is soaked in corruption. They cannot reach where they have reached without corruption.

Understand this a little. The journey you undertake changes you. So often it has happened, and happens daily; history is full of it: the revolutionaries who wanted to destroy those in power eventually become like them. In this country it just happened. In 1947 the country became free. Those who came into power proved worse than the British. The British never killed as many as Indians themselves have killed in these few years of holding power. There was never such corruption as has increased in these days of independence.

Why does this happen? Because what you do also changes you. The very steps you take to reach power kill your soul. By the time you arrive, you have become like those you were against.

There is an ancient Chinese saying: Never make enemies of bad men. If you make enemies of bad men, slowly you will become bad—because with the bad, you will have to speak their language; with the bad, you will have to fight in their way; with the bad, you will have to behave as they can understand. Slowly you will find that you have become a bad man.

If you must fight, fight with a good man. If you must fight, fight with saints; then you will become like saints. Because against whom we fight, we have to become like them. There is no other way. If you fight a thief, you will become a thief. If you fight a cheat, you will become a cheat. Because you will have to learn the whole scripture of cheating; otherwise you cannot win.

Hitler was defeated, but he changed the whole world. Because those who fought with him, slowly all became like Hitler. Hitler is alive even in defeat. And after Hitler, almost more countries became fascist. Their language and name may not be fascism, but Hitler changed people; those who fought him had to abandon democracy. To fight him, democracy cannot run. To fight Hitler, England at once had to empower Churchill—because for a man as evil as Hitler, there was no one in England except Churchill. Only Churchill could fight Hitler. He was that kind of man; there was no difference. Those who defeated Hitler—he changed their life-consciousness. He lost, but he gave a boost to fascist forces across the world. Almost everywhere the roots of democracy were shaken; everywhere autocracy entered.

Just now in Bangladesh it happened. Freedom had not lasted long, democracy was murdered. Mujibur Rahman became a dictator. He says he wants to remove evil. But in removing evil you have to become evil. And a few days later you will forget whether evil has gone or not. Evil never goes; therefore when will this dictatorship end? Evil will never go, and the dictator will say: Evil has not yet gone, therefore I must remain a dictator. And as dictatorship strengthens, it becomes a nature. The whole world welcomed it, because Mujibur Rahman says this is the second revolution.

This is the murder of revolution; it is not a second revolution. Revolution had not even been born and it died; the child was stillborn. And it has happened worldwide. But man keeps repeating history. Stalin wanted Russia freed from the czar—and in freeing it, Stalin became a czar. The kind of arrangement you want to break—that is what you will become.

We sent very good people to power—those we considered the best. Because Gandhi had prepared great servants, great renunciates; they all proved to be indulgent. All that renunciation was sold for a pittance. As soon as power came, everyone changed form. Why? Because they had to fight—there is evil all around—they had to fight it. That evil made them evil.

Whom you take as enemy, sooner or later you will become like him. Therefore I say: Do not fight the devil. Love the divine; do not fight the devil. Do not even turn your attention to fighting the devil. Do not fight anger; awaken compassion. Do not pay attention to anger. Do not fight lust; otherwise you will become more lustful. And if fighting lust you manage to produce celibacy, then the quality of that celibacy will also be of lust; it cannot be otherwise. Therefore, it is essential to turn attention in the right direction.

Lao Tzu says: ‘Suppose people are afraid of death, and we can catch the troublemakers and even kill them—still, who will dare to do such a thing?’

Because the one who kills will become like the troublemakers. The one who kills them, who wants to break evil, will become evil in the very breaking.

‘Most often it is the executioner who gets killed.’

The killer is killed in the very process of killing. Perhaps not slain physically, but he is killed—he loses himself.

‘And to take the place of the executioner is like picking up the axe of a great master carpenter and trying to wield it.’

Whenever you take the place of the executioner—whenever you decide to scare, to threaten, to annihilate, believing that thus goodness will be born—you are erring then and there. Because from evil, goodness cannot be born. To destroy, to frighten, to threaten—these are evil. From evil, good never arises.

Recently, when war clouds gathered over India and China and the two nations came close to conflict, I was talking with a Jain muni. I said to him: You too gave your blessings to the armies—this I cannot understand, because Ahimsa paramo dharmah. He said, Certainly I did, because to protect nonviolence, war is necessary.

To protect ahimsa, war is necessary! The statement sounds right, but think a little—what does it mean? Will ahimsa be protected by himsa? Then you will do violence in the name of nonviolence—this is all; there is no other difference. And if even the protection of ahimsa happens through himsa, then ahimsa is impotent. Then drop talk of ahimsa. At least be honest; say frankly: Without violence there is no way, therefore we will be violent. You will talk of ahimsa, and when it comes to protecting, you will fall back on violence. Is ahimsa so weak? And when you do violence in the name of ahimsa, what difference remains between you and the violent? Yes, you are somewhat more cunning, more dishonest—that is all. The violent at least is straightforward. How can ahimsa be protected by himsa?

People say, Religion is in danger. Then they protect religion by violence. Religion is ahimsa, is love. And if you practice violence, slowly you will become irreligious. By the time your protection is over, you will find that your life-consciousness has become violent. Because what you practice, by practice, changes your life. You become whatever you do; you identify with it.

So Lao Tzu says: Taking the executioner’s place is dangerous—because you will become the executioner. You became the executioner, and it was the executioner you wanted to eliminate! You wanted to eliminate the troublemaker, but in eliminating him you yourself became one. The bad cannot be eliminated by the bad. Hatred cannot be ended by hatred; hatred increases with hatred. Evil cannot be ended by evil; evil increases with evil. If evil is to be eliminated, goodness is needed. If hatred is to be ended, love is needed. If sin is to be ended, virtue is needed.

But society has tried to eliminate evil with evil. You make a disturbance; the police baton falls on your head. The police say, You were disturbing, therefore the baton was necessary. But the baton itself is a disturbance. How to get out of this net?

No way out is visible. The entanglement is deep. Because the owners of the baton say, If the baton does not rise, the disturbance will increase greatly. Therefore, the baton is necessary. And the baton never suppresses disturbance. The only thing the baton does is this: next time the troublemaker also comes with a baton. Our entire arrangement is like this.

Rabindranath wrote a reminiscence. He had a big house, a large family. His grandfather had the title of Raja. There was so much money and facility that it could happen that a guest who came once as a guest never went back—he simply remained living there. Such a family had perhaps a hundred people. Milk was purchased by the maund. And in Bengal much milk is needed, because all Bengali sweets are made of chhena; much milk is needed. With every meal sandesh is needed. A lot of milk was purchased.

One brother of Rabindranath had the responsibility of overseeing the milk. The milk arrived mixed with water. The brother was precise, with the mind of an administrator. He appointed an inspector over those who delivered milk. From the day the inspector was appointed, more water began to be mixed—because the inspector’s share also got added. He was stubborn. He appointed a bigger inspector over the inspector. Then one day a wonder happened—a fish came in the milk. Water was mixed straight from the pond—along with it came a fish.

Rabindranath’s father called that brother and said: Dismiss the inspectors. Because this net will only grow. If you appoint yet another inspector now, slowly only water will come; milk will not come at all. Because everyone’s share is being fixed. But he was obstinate; he said, It means only this—it means we need just one more competent man above. Rabindranath’s father said: Look at what has happened! Milk used to come earlier; water was mixed, granted—but so much water was not mixed.

The more you arrange security, the more insecurity will grow. Life runs on trust—not on so much fear and so much arrangement. Arrangement ruins things; it brings in disorder. The troublemakers will come with batons; the police will come with gas shells; the troublemakers will come with shells. This is how revolutions arise in the world. The more the state tries to suppress, the more people rebel. The more they rebel, the more the state wants to suppress—because the arithmetic seems clear: if we do not suppress, what will happen! This is how great empires fall. This is how the British Empire fell in India. This is how this Congress will fall. This is how those who come after them will fall. The formula of falling is this: there is an error in your arithmetic.

But the difficulty is: what else can they do? If you talk to them, they have the same question: How to stop it?

Change cannot be made from above. Revolution, change, must come from the roots. If you try to change from above, nothing will change. The root is fear; there is the mistake. The root should be love. In each family the arrangement of love must begin. Do not frighten children. It will take time, it will take two or four generations living in love; then a moment will come when disturbances will subside. No one will be so unquiet as to create trouble.

And for immediate arrangements there is no great use in doing anything. Nothing comes from immediate arrangements—what is needed is the eternal arrangement. The disease is deep; blows on the surface do not cure it. You can suppress it for a little while; then it will arise again. What is needed is a fundamental transformation.

For that fundamental transformation, Lao Tzu’s words are.

He says: ‘To take the place of the executioner is like picking up the axe of a great master carpenter. Whoever takes the great carpenter’s axe in his hands can hardly keep from injuring his own hands.’

It happened that Mulla Nasruddin was a teacher in a school. One day a woman came with her son and said: Please frighten and threaten him a little, because he is becoming absolutely rebellious. He listens to no one, obeys no orders. He has broken all discipline. We are very distressed. Frighten him a little; bring him to the path. As soon as he heard this, Nasruddin leapt up, screamed and shouted so much that the child was certainly frightened; the woman fainted. She had not imagined this. She thought the man had gone mad. The child ran off; the woman fainted; and Nasruddin himself became so flustered that he too ran after the child.

After a while he peeped in to see whether the woman had regained consciousness. When the woman had come to, he came back and sat on his seat. The woman said: This went a bit too far; I did not mean this. I did not say: Frighten me.

Nasruddin said: Look, the scripture of fear cares for no one. When I frightened the child, fear does not look to see who is child and who are you. When fear is created, it is created for everyone. The child is frightened, for sure; and you too were frightened. Leave you aside—ask about my condition! I too was terrified. Now if I see this child, my hands and feet will tremble. I myself have taken a half-mile run and just somehow managed to stop myself from fleeing. Such panic seized me.

Keep this in mind. Nasruddin is right. When you frighten someone with fear, you not only frighten the other—you also frighten yourself. When you use fear to scare someone away from evil, you yourself become frightened. It is a double-edged sword. Lift it in your hand carefully, because your hands too will be bloodied.

Lao Tzu is saying: There is an artist—a master carpenter—skillful in holding his axe. Do not take his axe in your hand; otherwise you will not be able to save your hands from injury.

The scripture of life is very subtle, delicate. And one who walks in the scripture of life with utmost care, step by step with awareness—only he will save himself from being wounded. Otherwise, in trying to reform the other, you will spoil yourself; in trying to build the other, you will destroy yourself.

I have heard: In Egypt a king went mad. And he went mad by playing chess. He was so fond of chess that in his sleep he would go on making moves all night. At dawn he would leave all work and sit at the chessboard; he saw neither day nor night. Slowly he went crazy; slowly only chess remained; all else he forgot. Physicians were called. They said: This is not in our hands. If some great player of chess would play with him, perhaps there might be some remedy.

So the greatest player in the state was called. He agreed to cure the emperor. For one year, it is said, he played with him—and it proved right: after a year the emperor became normal, but the player went mad. To play chess with a madman! Chess is crazy-making anyway—then to play with a madman! The emperor, they say, recovered in a year; but the player went mad.

The family of the player asked the physicians: Now what shall we do? They said: Find an even greater player who will agree to cure him. But no player agreed, because the story had spread that whoever cures goes mad.

Take steps carefully in reforming the wicked. First look closely at your own side: in reforming the wicked, will you not become wicked? In correcting the wrong, will you not become wrong? If you go to reform a prostitute, go mindfully; to reform a drunkard, go in awareness.

A young man recently came to me and said: I have fallen into great trouble. In London there must be some institution that works to reform alcoholics. In the West there are many such—there is a great international institution: Alcoholics Anonymous. In some such institution he must have engaged in reforming alcoholics. Whether the alcoholics reformed or not—he learned to drink. Now he says, Who will reform me?

Enter the work of reform with great care—because it is the axe of the great master carpenter. Buddhas have done that work; you will not be able to. If you take that axe in your hand and wield it, you will hack your own hands and feet. A Buddha can do that work because he need not do anything—his very presence reforms. That is the art. His being reforms; his whole total consciousness. By his presence, revolution happens.

In the presence of a Buddha you begin to change. He does not want to change you. He has no desire left—that is why he is a Buddha. He does not even desire to change you. He accepts you in your totality; as you are, you are good. It is from this acceptance that your revolution begins. He loves you—just as you are, unconditionally he loves you. He does not say: Become like this, then I will love you. He says: As you are, you are perfect; I love you. His heart receives you; he embraces you; at a deep level he accepts you. From that very acceptance, revolution begins to happen in your life. His love changes you. His compassion changes you. His consciousness changes you. He does not change you; he does not even want to change you.

And those who want to change you—they neither can change you, nor do they remain unchanged; they themselves change in trying to change you. Do not get involved in the effort to change anyone. There is no bigger mistake. If you must change anyone, change yourself. The day you change, you become a lit lamp. Your light will fall all around you; whoever passes by will receive the gift of that light. Whoever passes by—this light will give him a vision of life. Transformation happens through inactive consciousness, not through activity.

Whoever wants to change someone is an egoist. This trick of changing is also a game of ego. In the name of change he wants to seize the other’s neck. In the name of change he wants to treat the other as one treats objects. He says: We will cut off this leg of yours; we will remove this head of yours; we will make you beautiful; we will make you good. He wants to destroy you. Hidden in the reformer’s tendency is great violence. And your so-called mahatmas are all violent. They want to change you.

In truth, a Buddha accepts you. What is there to change? You are good; as you are, you are wholly good. In your being, not even a grain causes a Buddha complaint. And then revolution happens—suddenly, in a blaze. In that total acceptance your life sets out upon a new journey.

Enough for today.