Tao Upanishad #21

Where is the abode of excellence?
Ordinarily, whenever we think a person is superior, we think so because of his position, his wealth, his fame. But our reasons are always outside the person. If the position is taken away, the wealth disappears, the fame evaporates, then his superiority also is gone.
Lao Tzu says: that which can be snatched away is not worth calling superiority. And any superiority that depends upon something external belongs to that thing, not to the person. If I am superior because I have money, then that excellence is the money’s, not mine. If I am superior because of office, that excellence belongs to the office, not to me. If there is anything at all in my possession by virtue of which I am superior, then it is not my superiority. Only if I am superior causelessly—only then am I truly superior.
Lao Tzu says: excellence resides in one’s very privacy, in one’s ownness. Not in one’s achievements, but in one’s nature. Not in what he has, but in what he is. Not in his possessions and acquisitions—excellence dwells in the person himself. But by what measure shall we know such excellence? Wealth can be measured—how much. Height of office can be measured. How much renunciation—can be counted. How much scholarship—certificates can testify. How much honor—people can be asked. Whether a man is good or bad—witnesses can be produced. But what proof is there for the excellence of privacy, of intrinsic being?
If a person does not become superior through outer causes—and he does not, Lao Tzu is right—then the truth is that those who search for superiority outside are the most inferior. Whenever someone seeks his superiority in wealth, it is already certain he has not found it in himself. Whenever someone seeks it in political power, it is certain he has not found it in his own humanity. The very search for excellence outside is a telegram from within that he experiences inside the opposite of excellence.
In the West, a great psychologist, Adler, in this very century, offered a theory that fulfills and substitutes Lao Tzu for the modern mind: those who strive to be superior are, within, inferior. Those who chase superiority are inside afflicted with inferiority. Hence a very amusing fact: those who are most deeply burdened by inferiority—whose inferiority complex is heavy—are the very ones who will not rest until they obtain some office, some wealth, some fame. Because they cannot concede without proof that they are not inferior—they must prove, in your eyes, that they too are superior. And the only means they know is what your eyes can see.
I heard a joke. An ardent follower of Adler, a noted psychologist, lectured in a capital city. He said: those who are inwardly poor, they run after wealth and become rich. Those who are inwardly weak, frightened, timid, they run after bravery and often become great heroes. Those who are inferior seek superiority.
Nasruddin was present in that gathering. He stood up and asked, “I want to know: those who are psychologists—are they mentally inferior? Those who stake all their prestige on the mind—are they mentally weak?”
There is such a possibility. It is not only a joke; it may well be so. Those who are too eager to know other people’s minds may themselves carry within a deep hurt and guilt. In truth, whatever we go out to do, the causes lie somewhere within us.
Lao Tzu says: excellence is in privacy, in oneself, in one’s very swabhava.
But how are we to know that excellence? What is its hallmark? For what we have so far called excellence does have identifications; only, in Lao Tzu’s vision, those very identifications prove the person inwardly inferior, not superior.
Lao Tzu says: its hallmark is—“The highest excellence is like that of water.”
This is the sign—that supreme excellence is like the nature of water.
Water’s nature is to enter the lowest place without any effort. Effortlessly, spontaneously, by its very suchness, it flows downward. Leave it on the mountain, in a few days you will find it in the valley. To reach the valley it needs no deliberate striving. It does not think about it; it does not persuade itself; it does not practice austerity, mortification, nor does it force its mind. It is simply its nature that wherever there is a hollow, a lowly spot, there it settles. If it finds a depression lower than the one it occupies, it instantly descends into it.
Lao Tzu says: supreme excellence is like water.
The supremely excellent person searches for hollows, not for peaks. Why? This sign seems strange! And in two and a half millennia nothing better has been said. The hallmark Lao Tzu has given has become the ultimate line—the ultimate. After that, nothing better has been found. Why is this so?
See it from the other side and you will understand.
The inferior man strives to go upward. Give him a chance to climb, and he will not miss it. Even without a chance, he struggles. His whole life is one effort: more up, more up, more up. The dimension may be anything—of wealth, of fame, of office, of knowledge, of renunciation—it makes no difference: up! In the end, the dimension may even be this, that the inferior man says, “Until I attain God I will not be content. Until I proclaim aham brahmasmi, there is no fulfillment for me.”
In Lao Tzu’s understanding, this very aspiration to transport oneself to the ultimate state of God is the opposite of water’s nature. Take it as the nature of fire, for example. Fire flies upward. Press it down as much as you will; the moment it is released, it rushes up. Fire does not go downwards. Even if you turn the lamp upside-down, the lamp may be upside-down, but the flame turns itself upright and runs upward. It may even die, but it will not agree to go down. If you want to take fire downward, enormous effort is needed—you must heavily suppress it. If you want to take the ego downward, great effort is needed. But water goes downward with ease. If you want to take it upward, great effort is needed. You must arrange for pumping, install machines; then you can raise it up. Still, at the first opportunity water will rush down again.
This going downward Lao Tzu calls the ultimate hallmark of excellence. Because only he can agree to go down whose excellence is so assured that it is not destroyed by going down. Only he is eager to go up who knows that if he remains below, he will be taken as inferior. He himself will take himself to be inferior. If he reaches above, others too will call him superior; hearing their voices, he will contrive to believe himself superior. The inner sense of inferiority prods one to climb. If within there is excellence, one wants to merge behind, below, into the hollow. Why? Why this effortless descending into the lowly pit? Because there is no competition there, no struggle there—no one is willing to go there.
I have heard: a new man asked Nasruddin about settling in his village and said, “I want to come to your village and do business with total honesty.” Nasruddin said, “You must come—there is no competition. If you want to do business honestly, come at once; there is absolutely no competition. For all businessmen here are dishonest. You come happily; there will be no quarrel. We will all be pleased. There is no competition.”
Lao Tzu says: that inner excellence takes its stand where there is no struggle. And except at the final station, there is struggle everywhere. Therefore excellence discovers the final. That is its armor of safety.
The Emperor of China pestered Lao Tzu for years to become his prime minister. A wise man like him was hard to find. Just his acceptance would have added a thousand moons to the emperor’s prestige. Ministers surrounded Lao Tzu to persuade him. Wherever Lao Tzu heard that they were tracing him, he would leave that village. When the ministers reached the village and asked for him, people would say he left in the night.
They barely caught him. He was sitting by a river, fishing. The minister folded his hands and said, “You are mad. You keep eluding us, and you don’t even know for what we seek you. The emperor has ordered that you be placed in the seat of highest honor. Become the grand minister of the realm!” Lao Tzu sat silently. The minister thought he had not heard. He shook him and said, “Did you hear what we said?”
Nearby, in a muddy pit, something was stirring. Lao Tzu said, “Look at that pit—what do you see?” Mud, and some motion in the pit. The ministers went to the pit. They saw a turtle wallowing in the mud. “A turtle is rolling in the mud,” they said.
Lao Tzu said, “I have heard that in your royal palace a turtle covered in gold sits enshrined. It is the imperial emblem. And I have heard that each year, on the first day, it is worshiped, and hundreds of thousands are spent.” They said, “You have heard rightly.”
Lao Tzu said, “I ask you—if you invite this creature wallowing in mud and say, ‘Come, we will seat you in the royal palace, enshrine you in gold, and every year worship you’—will it prefer the palace or prefer to wallow here in the mud?”
The minister said, “If it is mad, it will agree to the palace and gilding; for that is death. It will receive worship, but dead. Gold will be plated, but life will fly away within. If this turtle has even a grain of understanding, it will prefer to roll in its mud.”
Lao Tzu said, “I have at least as much understanding as this turtle. You go. My mud is good. Do not gild me with gold. For by gilding you will kill me.”
Indeed, to be gilded with gold and to be dead are the same. No one can be gilded without dying. The higher the post, the more dead you must be. The higher the heap of wealth on which you sit, the more dead you must become. Without dying it is hard to climb. In the very climbing, life is cut off. All ascents are self-destructive—suicidal.
Therefore Lao Tzu says: supreme excellence is that which, effortlessly, like water, discovers those places to which we would never agree to go—places we habitually condemn.
“The greatness of water is in its benevolence—and in that humility by which it naturally occupies the lowest places which we despise. Therefore the nature of water is near to the Tao.”
Lao Tzu says: Tao means dharma. Tao means swabhava—one’s intrinsic nature. Tao means swarupa—one’s suchness. The ultimate law of life—that is Tao. Lao Tzu says: the way of water is exactly close to Tao. One who has attained Tao—the supremely excellent—likewise moves below, behind, and away. Into the shadow—where no one even sees him. Into the last rows of the crowd—where there is no conflict. And whenever someone else is present there, he recedes further.
There are two kinds of people: those pushing forward and those withdrawing backward. Those who withdraw are born rarely—once in a while a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Christ. Those who push forward are the vast crowd.
Nasruddin went to a meeting. He arrived a bit late—front seats were already taken. He had to sit by the door. He became restless. He was used to the chairman’s chair. Sitting at the back he began gossiping, telling jokes. Some people became interested. They turned their backs on the chairman and began listening to Nasruddin. Soon the whole assembly turned toward Nasruddin; the chairman faced people’s backs. The chairman shouted, “Nasruddin, what are you doing? I am the chairman!”
Nasruddin said, “We know nothing of chairs; wherever we are becomes the chairman’s seat. The meeting can proceed in only two ways: either I chair it, or the meeting cannot proceed. I shall be chairman.”
They had to invite Nasruddin up and seat him in the chair; only then could the meeting continue.
Nasruddin said, “Wherever we are, that is the chairman’s seat.” This is everyone’s longing. Even if we are not in the chair, we feel that wherever we stand, the chair should be there. We are at the center of the world. The sun, moon, stars revolve around us. Hence, when Galileo first said, “No—the sun does not revolve around the earth,” the shock to humanity was not that our theory was wrong—what difference does it make whether the sun revolves or not? The blow was that our earth ceased to be the center of the cosmos. Man had always imagined the earth to be the center. The sun and the stars circulate around the ground—my ground! man’s ground! Galileo dealt a deep wound. He said: the sun does not revolve; the earth revolves around the sun. And this sun, too, revolves around some greater sun. We are not at the center.
Yet up to Darwin man remained confident that God created man in His own image—He created man in His own image. Man wrote the books; if donkeys wrote books, they would have written that God created them in His own image. Donkeys would not agree that God creates man in His image! Man wrote the books; man wrote that God created us as the supreme creature.
Darwin created great difficulty. He said: there is no sign of God behind it; what is seen is that you are born of the monkey. A blow to the ego—where man was born of God, suddenly he had to be born of the ape! The opposition to Darwin was not because he was wrong—it was because he pushed man’s ego one step further down.
And Freud, in this century, gave the third great blow. Man had always thought: man is a rational being. Freud said: it is hard to find a creature more irrational than man. Whatever man does, he does without reason. He is merely clever enough to gild it later with reason. He rationalizes—there is hardly any reason. He first decides to do what he wants, then finds reasons for it. If he wants war—he finds reasons. If he does not want war—he finds reasons. If he wants to love—he finds reasons. If he wants to hate—he finds reasons. Always the reasons are hunted for. But what he wants, he does prior to reasons.
We all do this. If I say, “I do not like you,” I will promptly give reasons why. But the dislike arises in my emotions before any reason. Then I search for causes afterward. If someone pleases me, I say, “He is beautiful; therefore I like him.” Freud says: no—you like him; therefore you call him beautiful. Liking comes first; then you say he is beautiful. But when you explain, you say, “I like him because he is beautiful.” Is the moon beautiful and therefore you like it? Or does it seem beautiful because you like it? If you have gone bankrupt—the moon remains the same, yet it no longer appears beautiful. It seems as if tears are dripping from the moon; the moon has gone bankrupt. Your mood is projected onto the moon. What you feel within, you spread without.
Yet man is skillful; he provides rational explanations even for blind feelings. He says, “We have our reasons.” We do not like the moon just like that; we like it because it is beautiful. So-and-so we honor not just like that; we honor him because of his virtues. The truth is otherwise: you honor someone first; the search for virtues comes later. When you tear down someone’s honor and condemn him, you think you do so because you have found his vices. Again you err. Condemnation arises first; you find the vices afterward.
But before Freud, man believed he acted through reason and logic. In the last fifty years, psychoanalysis has shown in countless ways that man hardly acts out of reason. Bertrand Russell mentions an experiment. He persuaded a soap company to obtain statements from the ten top physicians in Britain endorsing their soap. The company advertised, quoting the ten leading medical scientists of the country, that this was the finest soap. A rival soap—utterly inferior, which not a single doctor would endorse—hired a cheap film actress to say, “My beauty is because of this soap.” The actress’s soap sold; the ten-doctor soap did not.
Man is rational! So very rational! Ten top scientists do not count; a dancing girl counts more. For the scientists speak to your reason; the dancing girl titillates the place behind reason from where you actually move.
Now the whole world understands. Therefore, if you want to sell anything, place a girl beside it—there is no need for arguments. Sell anything—it does not matter what. Place a half-naked girl there; the thing will sell. Bring in the arguments of all the scientists, the statements of all saints—the thing will not sell. One dancing girl will defeat them all. Because man is a rational being—this is the illusion. He is not. He moves for other reasons. The mechanism that moves him is not intellectual—not rational. It is emotional, instinctive. But the mind does not want to accept this.
Man, forever, has believed himself at the center of the world, the most intelligent, sprung directly from God. In the last century and a half, the blows that have fallen have toppled the edifice of ego…
Lao Tzu says: there was no need to build this structure at all. Who told you to? Lao Tzu does not even take the name of God in his sayings—deliberately. He says: the moment God’s name is uttered, man tries to hitch his ego to God. He does not even pronounce the name. He does not talk of the ultimate state; he does not talk of moksha. He says: the ultimate station—the last station—stand at the back! That is moksha.
No one agrees to stand at the back. You can persuade man to stand in front for anything—anything! However absurd, however foolish—to be in front he can be persuaded. To stand behind, even if Paramatma is found by standing behind—you cannot persuade him. The very willingness to stand behind cannot arise unless inner excellence is present; only if there is inner excellence is it possible to agree to stand at the back. And the wonder is: only those who stand back arrive first. And the final height of moksha is attained by those who, like water, consent to find the last lowliness of the valleys and ravines.
Keeping this law of the reverse in view, Lao Tzu says: I give only one counsel—whoever becomes like water attains Tao.
“The excellence of dwelling is in the suitability of the place.”
Not for us. None of these statements will apply to us. Lao Tzu says: the excellence of a dwelling is in its fitness. Not for us. If we buy a house, it is not because it is fit for living. We buy it because it is fit for projecting our ego. Many times you will accept living in a place in the rich quarter even if the house is not suitable for living—and you will refuse to live in a poor quarter even if the house is more fit for living. Suitability does not concern us. Our one concern is: what satisfies the ego.
Often we endure great difficulties to gratify the ego. If a tie satisfies the ego, we can suffer the heat but cannot remove the tie. If respectability lies in wearing shoes, then even if our feet burn, we cannot go barefoot.
In China, women wore iron shoes to make their feet small, because small feet were respectable. The mark of a high-born woman was tiny feet. Therefore in China the foot became the sex-symbol. As today the breasts have become the sex-symbol in the world, for five thousand years in China no one paid much attention to the breasts; they looked at the feet. A small foot, and a man would go mad. Today no one goes mad for feet. The association has broken; the idea has vanished. It was conditioning of five thousand years.
The woman whose feet were large became so anxious and miserable that it is hard to calculate. Not because of the foot—what has size to do with misery? A large foot is placed more firmly on the ground; it has greater capacity for walking, for running, greater strength, better support for the body. But that was not the concern. The suitability of place was not in suitability; it was in the gratification of the ego. A woman who walked without leaning on someone’s shoulder was proven not to be of a noble house. She needed support, a hand on her shoulder; they made their feet so small that they could not support their larger bodies. Women could not even walk.
Today the situation is the same; nothing has changed. Symbols change, the condition remains. You are ready to bear a thousand kinds of trouble if the ego is satisfied. You will abandon a thousand joys if the ego is not satisfied.
A guest arrives at your home. You do not care whether the food you serve is healthful. No one cares. That is why guests fall ill after returning. A guest must fall ill—otherwise you have no prestige. If a guest goes home without falling ill, it means the hospitality was lacking. Both the host and the guest will feel it. From the host’s home straight to the doctor’s ambulance—this is appropriate!
We do our best. If he escapes, it is his luck! No—health is not our concern; food that gratifies the ego is. He should return knowing he has eaten something that cannot be found elsewhere.
Women load themselves with jewelry—such weight that if you asked them to carry a bag of equal weight for two houses, they would refuse. But they carry one or two seers of gold easily. Very delicate women—who remember they are delicate—are no longer delicate at the time of gold. Gold can be borne. Although on the scale there is no difference between gold and iron—the weight is the same—on the scale of the ego there is a difference. If iron is to be lifted, hands ache; if gold is to be lifted, wings sprout.
In Africa there are women who wear so many bones around the neck that the neck becomes nearly like a camel’s. But that is fine—no difficulty. If we were to tighten a rope round such a neck, they would cry, “You are hanging me!” But if it is a symbol of beauty, it is acceptable. Anything is acceptable.
In America, the new generation—boys and girls—live in every kind of filth, because the hippies have given filth a value which it never had. They say: this business of cleanliness is bourgeois—idlers’ talk. Soaps, powders, deodorants—this cleanliness, this bathing—all lies. All bourgeois talk. A real man does not bother with such things. So now filth has a new value. If someone wants to be respected in hippie society, he must be filthy. The filthier he is, the greater hippie he is. If you arrive clean-cut, neat and tidy in the old way, the hippies will say, “A square has come—a stodgy fellow! Look, how clean-shaven!”
Hippies created a new value; and now boys and girls are ready for that value too—ready to live in filth. If their bodies stink, it becomes a value. It is not that this has not happened before—we have always assigned such values. A Jaina monk does not bathe. If those who know the Jaina monk come near and do not smell sweat, they are suspicious that something is wrong. He does not brush his teeth. When he speaks, there should be a stench from his mouth—that is the proof of his sainthood! If not, the devotee becomes anxious: surely a tube of toothpaste is hidden somewhere. And indeed today it is hidden.
That Jaina monk is in great difficulty—caught between two values. One is a two-thousand-year-old respectability; the other is what he reads and sees around him today—the value of toothpaste. Both have value in his eyes. He is confused. He does both together. He hides toothpaste in his bundle and also keeps up the appearance that he does not brush. He sponge-bathes…
A Jaina nun came to see me. I asked, “There is no odor from your body!” She said, “To you I can tell the truth: I cannot tolerate the sweat. I wet a cloth and sponge myself. But don’t tell anyone—otherwise all my sainthood is lost. All my sainthood lies in how much I do not bathe. For the Jaina value was: one who bathes cares for the body. To cleanse and decorate the body is a symptom of body-mindedness. One devoted to the Self should not care for the body.”
Beyond the Jainas there were some who were called paramahansas. They would relieve themselves and eat food in the same place. If a paramahansa did not do so, people would say, “What kind of paramahansa is this?” If you want to be a paramahansa, then defecate there and eat there; then people will say, “This is a paramahansa!” Whoever we place value upon, and show the path of ego-gratification, man is ready to do that. Man is very strange.
While listening you will think these things concern others. Do not fall into that illusion. Search within and you will find what you do which is not your nature, brings neither joy nor peace; but because it has respectability around it, you do it. To impress the neighbors, a man buys a car beyond his means.
Nasruddin’s wife said, “Now there are only two options: either buy a bigger car or shift the neighborhood—whichever is cheaper. The neighbor has bought a bigger car.”
Nasruddin said, “Buying the car will be cheaper; shifting neighborhoods is very expensive. And after all, we have already answered everything of this neighbor; new neighbors will require fresh answering—and who knows what they have to be answered!”
All are answering one another—no one cares what his own need is.
Lao Tzu says, “The excellence of dwelling is in the suitability of the place.”
And sometimes the palace is not suitable—sitting under a tree is. Sometimes the costliest clothes are not suitable—and a loincloth, lying in the sun, is. But we are strange—we can also lie in the sun in a loincloth, but only when that becomes respectable. Then even those for whom it is unnecessary will lie there. Fat women strive to become thin; thin women strive to become fat. It is hard to find a woman who is not striving. If she is fat, she strives to be thin. If thin, she strives to be fat.
In America, if her hair is not black, she is frantic for black hair; if it is black, she is frantic for the opposite. The frenzy goes on. No one cares what is suitable; only what the air around says. And the air changes daily. Those who move the air are many—you do not even know them.
Vance Packard wrote a book: The Hidden Persuaders—those who, hiding, keep seducing you. Their trade depends on luring you. When a fabric remains in fashion for six months, these persuaders set another in motion—otherwise how will the mills run? How will business run? One cloth can serve forever; but a mill cannot run on one. When one soap sells, in truth any one soap can serve; it is amusing that almost all soaps are made of similar material. But if one soap suffices, the factory won’t run. The hidden persuaders are everywhere. As soon as one soap picks up speed, the news is sown that it is out of fashion. To be in fashion is the supreme religion. To be out of fashion means you are not alive. One must be in the stream of fashion. And to be in it, you must change everything.
Now in America the big question is: old cars are piling up, and there is no space for them. Yet every six months the model must change. First it was yearly; now they change in six months. There is no need to change yearly from the standpoint of the car. From the standpoint of the ego, changing monthly would be right—daily even better. Yearly is not enough; factories are many. So now America’s persuading department is explaining: one car is owned by a poor man too; a big man needs two cars. A big man has two houses—one house even a poor man has. So now every man needs two houses: one in which he lives, and one in which his ego lives. He cannot live in both at once; in one his ego will live—kept empty.
I stayed in a rich man’s house—one hundred rooms. Only husband and wife. I asked, “What do you do with a hundred rooms?” He said, “We do nothing with them—that is their value. A poor man does something with his room; we do nothing. They just are. We have them cleaned and decorated, and they are. What are we to do with them? We are two—husband and wife. There is not even a son. For an old-fashioned couple, one room suffices; otherwise two are needed. What of the remaining ninety-nine?” Who lives in them?
Someone does—their ego. A man may live in one room; the ego finds even ninety-nine too few. Suitability of place is not our concern.
“The excellence of mind is in its bottomless silence.”
Lao Tzu says: the excellence of mind is in its abysmal silence. Our mind’s excellence? In its profuse talkativeness. The more a person is stuffed with words and thoughts, the more superior he appears to us. Lao Tzu says: in the bottomless silence, where the mind becomes utterly empty and still—there is the mind’s excellence. Why? Because where the mind is empty, there is meeting with truth. Why? Because where the mind is empty, there is meeting with peace. Why? Because where the mind is empty, there the end of sorrow is. The more the mind moves, the more sorrow will be. The further the mind travels, the bigger the destination of suffering.
But all our effort is: how much you know, how much you think, how much you reason, how wealthy you are in words. One who cannot speak much, cannot use many words and thoughts, becomes rustic, a villager, a bumpkin. It is not necessary that the rustic be less intelligent—often he is more. But certainly he speaks less, thinks less—that is why he is rustic. You can manipulate words; you can play with words.
In our civilization, those who succeed are the ones skillful in word-play. So we teach our children words, language, literature. I am not saying do not learn literature; I am saying it is not the mind’s supreme excellence. At most it yields outer excellences. It does not yield inner excellence. Those who have known inner bliss have been those who left the rubbish of words outside and went in.
“The excellence of association is to dwell with the virtuous.”
The excellence of association—satsang—is to dwell with punyatmas. Have you ever noticed when you feel the excellence of association? If your photograph is taken standing by a governor—then it seems, satsang happened. Or if it is taken beside a film star—then you feel satsang happened.
An American comedian went to the front during the war—to entertain soldiers. His name was Bob. Where General MacArthur was present, he too entertained the troops. He felt delighted to have his photo taken standing with MacArthur. After the photograph, MacArthur said, “Bob, send me a copy too.”
Bob was a little surprised—what use would MacArthur have for a photo with a poor comedian? But he sent it. Later he wrote asking, “What value does this picture with me have for you?” MacArthur replied: “When my son saw me with you, he said, ‘Father, for the first time you are standing with someone truly splendid and famous!’” For a son, what is the value of MacArthur? By sons, fathers are valued little. But Bob—the film star—standing with MacArthur—the son said, “This picture is splendid. I have seen many—God knows with whom you stand. This one is a celebrity!”
Consider: if you had the chance to get a photograph taken, close your eyes and contemplate—beside whom would you want it? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it will be an actress or actor. Ten times out of a hundred it will be a political leader. Is there even one chance that it would be a punyatma? Doubtful. Outwardly you might say, “No, not so,” but within…
In a university, a religious teacher distributed a questionnaire. “Which is the greatest book in the world?” One wrote Shakespeare, one the Bible, one the Koran, one the Zend-Avesta, one the Gita—each according to taste. Gathering them, he asked, “Have you read what you have named?” They said, “We have not.” The greatest books are precisely those whose names everyone knows and no one reads. While people read a book, it is not yet great. Be certain—something is wrong with it.
The excellence of association, Lao Tzu says, is to be with punyatmas. And in this world the greatest excellence is the excellence of association. To be in the presence of a punyatma—even for a moment—is a golden moment. But the moment of proximity to a punyatma is not a bodily moment. You could be placed near Buddha and still not have satsang. For satsang you need preparation. What preparation? The very same as water—the readiness to flow downward. Only then can satsang happen. If you are habituated to climbing upward, satsang will not happen.
Hence the old rule: when you go to a guru, place your head at his feet. It announces: I am willing to be like water. It became the indispensable gesture of satsang—placing the head at the feet. Things become formal over time; still, their value does not vanish. One who places his head at the feet is announcing with his body-language: if any prasad is given, I am ready to lay down my ego and my head. I am ready to lie low—if only I receive grace.
Satsang with a punyatma is an unprecedented moment.
When Buddha was born, a great tapasvin descended from the Himalayas to his home. Buddha’s father brought the newborn child and placed him at the sage’s feet. The tapasvin was near a hundred years old; tears poured from his eyes.
Buddha’s father was alarmed. “You are a great ascetic,” he said, “and you weep upon seeing my son. An evil omen? What are you doing? This is a moment of joy; bless us. Do you see some disaster?”
The old sage said, “Not for this child—for me. For this child is born to be a Buddha. But when his presence flowers, I will no longer be alive. I weep for myself. This child is born to be a Buddha; sitting one moment at his feet I would have attained what I have not in countless births of journeying. But I will not get that moment. My death hour has come near; and for this flower to blossom forty years must pass. When it blooms, I shall not be.”
Yet there were others who, when Buddha entered their village, fled. Krishna Gautami’s story is that wherever Buddha went, she left the village. “So many have been spoiled by this man’s presence,” she said. “Whoever listens to him is entangled. How many have become sannyasis, how many bhikkhus, how many have closed their eyes in meditation. They leave concern for wealth and office; people go mad. This man is hypnotic, mesmerizing—avoid him.”
But one day, by error, Buddha arrived in a village and Krishna Gautami happened to be passing the road. She knew nothing of his arrival. While for years she had fled from his shadow—Buddha’s contemporary and of his village—suddenly there he was. She looked; she paused. “Are you another Buddha?” she asked. “For you draw me as if by a magnet.” Buddha said, “I am the very one you flee. Today there is sudden meeting.” In that moment she fell at his feet and took initiation. Buddha said, “But you have fled so long!” She said, “Even in fleeing, a thought had formed in the mind—to see this man once. Perhaps that is why I fled, out of fear—if I see, I am gone. And today it has happened by chance.”
There are people who flee Buddha; people who, lest Mahavira’s voice reach their ears, plug their ears and pass by. People who say, “Kill Jesus—lest his word reach people.”
And Lao Tzu says: the excellence of association is to be with punyatmas. Who is a punyatma? Do we have any touchstone by which to measure who is virtuous and who is a sinner? No—there is only one: in whose presence, when you leave yourself open and sit, there arises the taste of joy, the taste of peace, the taste of light—he is a punyatma. Do not worry about what he eats and drinks; do not worry what he wears or not; do not worry what he says and what he does not; do not even worry what others say about him. Make the experiment yourself. But to experiment you must first experiment upon yourself—become like water. Whoever becomes like water recognizes the punyatma at once; the moment of satsang is given. Then let the world say what it will—it makes no difference.
But while the excellence of association is with the virtuous, the excellence of governance is in order. Lao Tzu’s order is strange: I call it order when no order is needed. Lao Tzu is a strange man! If the emperor enters and people must be told, “Quiet—the emperor is coming,” Lao Tzu says: this is disorder. If the emperor enters and people begin to fall silent—if, noticing the silence, one says, “It seems the emperor has entered”—that is order. Order is where order is not required.
If a guru must ask you to respect him, and only then you do, it is equal to disrespect. That is not order. A guru is one whom you have to honor—in spite of yourself. Suddenly you do not even know when you bowed; only when raising your head you notice, “Ah, the head had gone down.” Then there is honor.
Lao Tzu turns things upside down. Where order is needed, there is no order. Where police are needed to stop theft—that society is a society of thieves. Where prisons are needed to stop crime—there is a community of criminals. But where prisons are not needed; where no policeman is posted; where monks and saints are not the other arm of the police, going around preaching, “Do not steal, do not be dishonest; don’t do this, don’t do that”—where even such talk is absent—there is order. The excellence of governance is in order.
“The excellence of method is in skill in action.”
And by skill in action Lao Tzu means what Krishna means: skill is where the doer is absent, where the doer has disappeared and only the deed remains. The doer, intruding, disrupts the skill.
Have you seen? While driving, when you miss, when an accident almost happens—those are the moments when the driver comes in between the driving. If there is only driving, the chance of accident is minimal—on your side. Others may be at fault—that is another matter. But when the “driver” intrudes, the mess begins. “Driver” means: you come in. When there is not mere driving—when you enter, thinking starts; or stiffness arises: “There is no driver as skilled as I”—then the accident can happen. Where the doer is, skill is lost.
The excellence of method is skill in action—action without doer. Doerless action happens only when there is no craving for the fruit. If the fruit is desired, the doer is present. Without desire for fruit, action itself is enough—enough unto itself. The doing is done—complete. Therefore in those works we do without any desire for fruit, there is a superior skill. If you garden as a hobby, the skill you bring is incomparable. If you paint as a hobby, the absorption in painting becomes meditation. If you play sitar as a hobby—not as a profession, not as your business but as your joy—you will come upon the very skill of which Lao Tzu speaks.
Hence you enjoy your hobby more than your work. In work, the doer is present; in hobby, the doer is not needed; there is no question of fruit—the doing is the joy.
“And the excellence of initiating any movement lies in its timeliness.”
Any movement, any idea, any organization, any religion succeeds because it is timely. Timeliness! It fulfills the need of its moment—therefore it succeeds.
But therein lies its danger. All movements are bound to time; time passes, the movement sits upon your chest.
There are three hundred religions in the world. There is no need for three hundred. Today one would suffice. But it cannot, because these three hundred were born in three hundred different times. Time has gone; structures remain. Those who hold them say, “We will not leave—our forefathers…!” They do not understand that their very success was that they were appropriate to their time. Today that very thing becomes failure—because they are no longer appropriate. Their appropriateness was that they were useful then.
What Buddha said was for twenty-five hundred years ago. If today someone repeats it exactly, he does not know the logic of life. What Mahavira said is language of twenty-five hundred years ago. They succeeded because they used the timeliness of language.
Lao Tzu did not succeed; his movement did not succeed—because he spoke in the language of the timeless. One who speaks the timeless cannot run a movement. To run a movement, you must speak the language of the day, the easily understood. Lao Tzu cannot run a movement. He knows well that the success of movements lies in timeliness; and he knows equally that it is beyond him to lead one—what he speaks is eternal.
So here is the paradox: movements that succeed later become knots on the throat of man. And those like Lao Tzu never become knots on anyone’s throat—but they never succeed. They never mislead anyone—but they do not even lead anyone in a timely way. Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Christ, Mohammed—succeeded because they spoke the language of time. But that became the bondage. Now someone is needed who will scatter the time-bound language and reveal the timeless element hidden behind it. The follower makes this difficult. He says: recite the exact verse of the Koran—do not change a word.
Aurangzeb crucified a man—Sarmad—for a small thing. The thing was this: Sarmad would not recite a certain verse in full. The Muslim continually repeats a precious sentence: “There is no Allah except the one Allah.” But Sarmad spoke only half: “There is no Allah.” Priests were disturbed; they reported to Aurangzeb. Sarmad was summoned. “We hear you say wrong things,” he was told. “Not wrong,” he said, “I speak the saying—only half.” “Why only half? Speak it whole! ‘There is no Allah except the one Allah’ means there is only one Allah.” But Sarmad said, “I speak only half—‘There is no Allah.’ So it means, ‘There is no God.’”
Sarmad said, “So far I know only this; the second half I do not know. The day I know, that day I will say it. Until I know, I will not.”
Certainly, this man is a kafir—an atheist. What more atheism could there be? His neck was severed. There is a sweet story—there were thousands of eye-witnesses, so whether you call it story or history: the day Sarmad’s neck was cut on the steps of the Delhi mosque, his head fell, blood streamed, and from the severed head came the voice: “There is no Allah except the one Allah.”
Those who loved Sarmad say: until one does not risk one’s head, one does not come upon that Allah who is one. But if you cling to the literal language of the Koran, Sarmad will appear atheist. In truth, Sarmad is the theist. Aurangzeb, when dying, had one great pain: executing Sarmad. His last prayer was: “Whatever sins I have committed, I do not worry; but this one sin of killing Sarmad is enough. If this is forgiven, all is forgiven; if not, there is no way for me.”
By nature, all movements, all languages, all expressions are time-bound. That is their success—and in the end, their failure. The intelligent world daily brushes off the ash of time and reveals, polishes, the transcendental, the timeless. But such intelligence is never the quality of followers—otherwise they would not be followers. The day such intelligence comes, we will never again lose any precious truth.
The final thing: “And so long as a supremely excellent person does not raise a quarrel about his lowly position, only then is he venerated.”
This last condition Lao Tzu adds: it may happen that in the end you stand at the back and then go around proclaiming, “See—the sinners stand in front and the punyatma stands behind! The wicked succeed, and the simple, straightforward man keeps failing! Look—the dishonest are in the newspapers, and no one reports an honest man like me!” Such people are everywhere. “So-and-so was dishonest and succeeded—what kind of justice is this? In God’s world, what sort of justice is it that thieves succeed, and we, unthieving, fail?”
Lao Tzu says: if ever you raise a dispute about your last position, know that you are not the superior person. Your veneration ends that very moment. Your excellence is in this—that whatever comes to you is received as from the Ultimate—with gratitude. If by standing at the back you receive failure—that is your success. If dishonor—then that is your honor. If insult—then that is your respect. If abuse rains upon you—know that flowers rain upon you. But do not raise a quarrel. One small word of complaint—and all is lost. A little whining—and excellence is gone.
In truth, the superior person never complains—never. He has no complaint; for whatever comes to him is the grace of the Divine.
We shall continue tomorrow. Now for five minutes, let us dissolve into kirtan. Those among you who feel the joy to stand—come into the open space in the middle. And if the joy arises more, forget others and join the dance.