Tao Upanishad #23

Life is not arithmetic; more a riddle. Nor is life a system of logic; more a mystery.

The way of mathematics is straight and clear. A riddle is not straight, not clear—if it were, it would cease to be a riddle. Logical conclusions are hidden in their very premises; logic never discovers anything truly new. Mystery always moves beyond itself.

In these sutras Lao Tzu is unfolding the mystery of life. Let us approach it in two ways.

First, imagine a man walking along a straight line: he will never return to the point from which he began. If the path is linear, he will not come back. But if the path is circular, he will return to the very place where he started. If we travel on a straight line, we never return to the source. If the path is circular, we come back to the beginning.

Logic assumes life is a straight line. Mystery knows life as a circle. Hence the West, where logic has deeply conditioned human consciousness, does not see life as a circle. And the East—where the mystery of life has been explored by Lao Tzu, by Krishna, by Buddha—has seen life as a circle. Circle means: where you start, there you arrive. Therefore we called the world a chakra—the wheel. Samsara means wheel. Nothing here moves straight—whether seasons or human life. The point from which the child begins the journey of life is where life ends. The first act of life is breath: a child does not breathe in the womb; he breathes after birth. And no one dies while breathing in; one dies exhaling. The very point where birth begins is where death happens. Life is a circle. Understand this, and Lao Tzu’s words will open.

Lao Tzu says: do not carry success to its final limit, otherwise it will become failure. If you take success all the way, you yourself will turn it into defeat. If you draw the circle of fame to completion, fame becomes infamy.

If life is a straight line, Lao Tzu is wrong. If life is a circle, Lao Tzu is right. Everything depends on what life is—a straight line?

That is why the East did not write history. The West wrote history. The West believes what has happened once will not happen again; each event is unrepeatable, unique. Hence the birth of Jesus is unique; it will not recur, Jesus will not be repeated. History everywhere is measured from Jesus—before Christ and after Christ. We cannot measure time in that way by Rama. We cannot say before Rama and after Rama. First, we are not even sure when Rama was born. This does not mean those who preserved Rama’s whole life could not have preserved his birth date; the point is subtler. The East never wanted to write history, because its vision is that nothing is utterly unique; all things return on the circle. Rama has been in every age and will be in every age. The name may change, the form may change; the essential happening does not. It repeats.

So there is a very sweet tale: Valmiki wrote the Ramayana before Rama was born; only later did Rama appear. Elsewhere in the world this cannot even be conceived. Rama came after; Valmiki wrote first—because Rama’s being, in the Eastern vision, is a circular event. Like a potter’s wheel: what was above moves below, and returns above again. The Jains say that in every kalpa twenty-four Tirthankaras will appear. Names will change, forms will change; the event of the Tirthankara repeats.

Therefore the East wrote Purana, not history. Purana means: that which is essential, which will happen again and again. History means: that which will never happen again. If life turns in a circle, it is unnecessary to keep counting when exactly Rama was born and when he died. What matters is the meaning of Rama’s being. The essential fragrance of Rama is enough to remember; dates of breathing and its ceasing are secondary. We tend to preserve only that which will not recur; what recurs daily needs no record.

The Eastern understanding sees life as circular. And this understanding is crucial. For every movement in this cosmos is circular. Movement as such is circular—whether the stars wander, the earth spins, the seasons turn, or a person’s life wheels. There is no straight motion anywhere. Where there is movement, the circle is inevitable. Life cannot be the lone exception.

But a circle has its own logic; and its own mystery: wherever we begin, we arrive there again. And when the mind wants to press ahead, to go further and further, it does not know that at a certain point going ahead becomes returning from the other side. In one sense youth is opposite to old age. In another sense, not opposite at all—youth reaches nowhere except old age. The more one grows young, the more one is growing old.

Lao Tzu says: ‘Rather than trying to carry a brimming vessel, leave it half-filled.’

Whenever anything reaches fullness, the end has arrived. Not only a vessel; take it as a symbol. Whenever anything is full, its ending has begun. If love becomes full, love is at its end. Fullness is a sign of death. Ripening is the announcement of the fall. When the fruit is ripe, it must drop. Whatever you complete, comes to its close.

So Lao Tzu says: if you wish to know the truth of life, remember—better to keep the vessel half-filled.

But this is difficult—exceedingly difficult—because all our processes rush toward filling. When you start filling your safe with money, stopping halfway is hard. Even with the belly—when you begin to eat, stopping halfway is hard. When you start loving, stopping halfway is hard. When success begins, stopping halfway is hard. How can ambition stop halfway? In truth, when ambition reaches the halfway mark, it feels most alive. Hope arises: now soon it will be complete. And the more feverishly we press for completion, the more swiftly destruction sets in. Whatever you make complete, you will destroy.

Lao Tzu says: stop halfway.

Stopping halfway is restraint. And restraint is arduous. Across all the rules of life, stopping halfway is tapas. It is a great austerity. For precisely at the halfway mark comes the first inner assurance: now it can be done; no need to stop. When you have climbed all the steps and are lifting your foot to the throne—stopping at the bottom would have been easy. Not taking the first step would have been easier. One could excuse oneself—the grapes are sour. Laziness would help, negligence would hold you back. The lack of courage for struggle could be a barrier. You might refrain from the first step. But when your foot is halfway to the throne and the certainty arises that you can place it there—Lao Tzu says: hold the foot. For arriving at the throne takes you nowhere but into falling off the throne. When the fruit ripens, it falls. When success is completed, it turns into failure. When love is fulfilled, death descends. When youth is complete, old age arrives.

As soon as anything is complete, the circle returns to the starting point. The old man becomes as helpless as the newborn child. The long pilgrimage of success again leaves you in the child’s helplessness—perhaps even more helpless. For a child has parents to hold him, and is unaware of his helplessness. The old one has no support left and bears the heavy awareness of helplessness. And this is the sum of a whole life’s success! All life long we try to secure ourselves, yet at the end we are more insecure than a child. Surely we are moving on a circle we do not recognize.

‘If you keep feeling the edge of a sword, its sharpness cannot last long.’

This is the second part of the same riddle. First: do not take anything to its fullness; otherwise you will kill it yourself. Stop—stop halfway. Before the wheel turns back, be still. Second: what is touched again and again loses its edge. If a sword has a keen edge and you keep testing it—Is it sharp?—the edge will die. It may have been sharp, but repeated testing will blunt it.

We do the same in life. If I love someone, four times a day I want to check: Do I still love? I ask, I contrive to hear, Yes, I love. But what is felt again and again loses its edge. Lovers kill each other’s love. This is true not only of love; it is true of all of life’s essences. If you keep remembering, I am knowledgeable, you will kill your own edge. If again and again you hold, I am superior, you will wipe out your very excellence.

Why does whatever we keep feeling fade so fast?

There are reasons. First: we recheck only that about which we are inwardly uncertain. Inside we know it is not so; to compensate we keep testing. But continuous testing destroys sharpness. Sharpness belongs to the first, intense encounter. Repetition dulls the edge of experience.

People come to me and say: in meditation, the first time we had a very deep experience; now it doesn’t happen. Now they try daily to reproduce that experience. The edge of the sword is lost; so too the edge of meditation. The very attempt to repeat makes the experience stale. With staleness, sensitivity withers.

If you use the same perfume every day, the whole world may sense your fragrance, but you will stop sensing it. The sharpness dies. Repetition blunts the nostrils. The loveliest colors, seen every day, become colorless—not that they lose color, but the eyes cease their sensitive relation to them. Hence what becomes ours we slowly forget.

This means: the more we try to repeat, the more life grows stale and dead. And our lives do become stale and dead. Then no morning seems to dawn; no new ray of the sun, no new flower, no new song, no new bird spreading its wings in the sky. Everything is stale.

Why this staleness? Because whatever we experience, we try to experience again and again, killing its sharpness. If today, in love, I held your hand and it was delightful, tomorrow you will await that hand again. I too will try to hold it again. And together we will stale that delight. Tomorrow the hands meet, yet something will feel cheated—the past sweetness is not there. Then we clutch more madly, hoping to get it back. The very effort ends it. We destroy our satisfactions because we grab what comes. And in the grabbing it is lost.

Life is very strange. Strange in this: it runs opposite to expectation. He who does not try to regain a tasted joy, finds it visiting him again and again. He who does not worry about the edge of his blade by testing it repeatedly, keeps it sharp.

I have heard: in a Russian theater, a great problem arose. A major play was on. A part required a stutterer. The actor who played the stutterer fell ill at the last moment; the curtain was about to rise. Panic—without him the play would fall flat; the comedy depended on him. There was no time to train someone to stutter. Someone said: In my village lives a man who stutters; bring him. No training needed—he stutters whatever he says. All treatments had failed; he was a rich man’s son. They brought him. A miracle happened: for the first time in his life, standing on the stage, he could not stutter. What happened? Psychologists say: when consciousness becomes too intense, any habitual thing can disappear. Anything can be lost.

In one town a young man was brought to me. A university graduate, in great distress: while walking, he would suddenly begin to walk like a woman. Psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, medicines—all tried. Still, two or four times a day he would forget and slip into that gait. Now he was a college teacher; it had become humiliating.

I said: I know only one remedy. Whenever you remember it, deliberately begin to walk like a woman. Do not resist. Till now you tried to stop it: unconsciously you walked like a woman and consciously you forced yourself to walk like a man. Reverse it. Whenever it comes to mind, consciously walk like a woman. He cried: What are you saying! I am already in trouble without intending it; if I do it deliberately, I will walk like a woman all day. I said: Do it now, here, before me. He tried hard; he could not do it.

A law of consciousness: whatever you try too hard to do loses its edge; it becomes difficult to attain. We blunt the edge of joy. Curiously, sorrow retains its edge. We suffer so much not because the world abounds in suffering, but because there is a fundamental error in our way of living. We never touch sorrow—so it keeps its sharpness. We keep touching pleasure—so its sharpness dies. In the end we find only sorrow remains, and joy has vanished. Then we say joy was rare, a dream perhaps. Life is all suffering.

But the edge of suffering persists because of us. Reverse it—that reversal is tapas. Touch the edge of pain; drop the concern for pleasure. Slowly the edge of pain dulls, and life becomes joy. What you touch will fade. What you demand will be lost. What you chase, you will never obtain.

Therefore life is not mathematics; it is a riddle. Those who treat it like math get into trouble. Those who receive it as mystery, as riddle, grasp the innermost secret and arrive at supreme equanimity.

Lao Tzu says: ‘When a house fills with gold and diamonds, the owner cannot protect it.’

These statements seem upside down—contradictory, paradoxical. When the house is full of gold and diamonds, the owner cannot protect it. In truth, a man can protect his property only so long as he is poor—only so long as he has so little he himself can guard it. Only the poor can guard their wealth. The day you need others to guard your wealth, that is the day you become rich. From that day fear enters, because can anything be safe in the hands of others? Hence on this earth you may sometimes see a poor man sleeping like a rich man, and the rich man forever restless like a poor one. Occasionally a beggar lives with an emperor’s ease, and emperors live worse than beggars. Because what we have we must hand over to others for protection.

Consider Genghis Khan’s death—it is telling. A man like Genghis is naturally terrified of death. To keep death away he killed millions. But the more he killed, the more fearful he grew that someone would kill him. For his safety he murdered so many that he created as many enemies. He could not sleep at night—anything could happen in the dark. His suspicions grew so dense he could not trust even his guards. So guards over the guards, and guards over those guards—seven layers he arranged. Around his tent, seven rings of men watching each other. But when you trust no guard, and place another with a gun over him, and a third over the second—these guards cannot be friends. Genghis knew that too. Still, logic kept saying: if this is not enough, add more.

One night, exhausted, he dozed. He never slept at night; he would sit with his sword in hand. Something could happen any moment. He slept only in full daylight. That night, one of the tethered horses got loose. There was commotion—shouts. Genghis woke in panic, thought enemies had attacked, ran out in the dark, tripped on the tent peg—the very peg meant to secure him—and fell; the peg pierced his belly.

The tent was for safety! The peg was for protection! The guards, the horses—all arrangements. No one came to kill him. No one killed Genghis. He died of his own fear. He ran to save himself, and his defense killed him.

Such things happen throughout life. You build a house; then you must place guards. You gather wealth; then you must secure it. The web expands and expands. And we forget the one for whom all this was contrived—he becomes merely a watchman, nothing more.

Andrew Carnegie, the American tycoon, dictated in his memoirs: two days before dying he asked his secretary, If we are born again, would you choose to be my secretary again, or would you choose to be Andrew Carnegie and make me your secretary?

Andrew Carnegie died leaving ten billion rupees behind.

The secretary said: Forgive me; I know you too well to ever pray to God to make me Andrew Carnegie. Had I not been your secretary I might have died with the wish, O God, make me an Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie asked: What do you mean? The secretary said: I see what happens daily. You are the poorest man I know. You cannot sleep well, sit well, or speak at ease. You have no time to meet your wife, no leisure to talk to your children. I see you arrive at the office at eight-thirty; the peon comes at nine-thirty; the clerks at ten-thirty; the manager at noon; the directors at one. The directors leave at three; the manager at four; the clerks at four-thirty; the peon at five. I have never seen you return home before seven.

Even the peon leaves earlier—because he guards another’s security, not his own. Andrew Carnegie must guard his own.

Thus Lao Tzu says: when a house fills with gold and diamonds, the owner cannot protect it. And when the owner cannot protect it, he is no longer the owner; he becomes the slave of his gold and diamonds.

We do not notice when we become slaves of our property. We set out to be owners. We forget that what we sought to own has long since owned us. Whoever tries to be a master in this world becomes a slave. Whatever you try to own, you will have to be owned by it. There is no way to be a master without becoming a slave. Hence life is a mystery: the true masters are those who refuse to be masters of anything. They establish no ownership anywhere.

Forget people—even with things: if you establish ownership, things become your owners. When you must leave a house, the house does not weep for you—you weep. If a shirt is taken away, the shirt is not upset—you are. The possessor becomes the possessed.

‘When prosperity and honor give birth to pride, it becomes inauspicious for oneself. And after the successful completion of a work, when the doer’s fame begins to spread, making oneself invisible is the road to heaven.’

When a task succeeds, before the ego is born, the doer should disappear. Otherwise, nothing is a greater failure than success. Nothing a greater hell than success. Your own success becomes poison. Like a spider, weaving its web from its own being, we weave around ourselves entanglements; then we cry, how to be free? how to escape? how to break this slavery? The entire bondage is our own creation. But it is created in such a way that until the web is complete, we do not notice it. Learn this sutra: how this unknown bondage is formed, and how we ourselves form it.

First: on this earth only one kind of ownership is possible—such is the nature of things—and that ownership is over oneself. Beyond oneself, no ownership is possible. Whenever anyone tries to own anything other than himself, he becomes a slave. If Mahavira or Buddha leave their palaces and kingdoms, you think: what great renunciation—to abandon kingdoms, wealth, splendor! You are mistaken. Mahavira and Buddha simply abandon slavery. They see clearly: every ownership other than the ownership of oneself is bondage. The bigger the ownership, the bigger the slavery.

Hence a curious fact: have you heard in all history of a beggar renouncing his begging bowl and becoming a renunciate? Has any beggar left his bowl and become a tyagi? Why is it that a beggar cannot leave his bowl, and yet an emperor can leave his empire? Many emperors have renounced their empires, but no beggar has ever found the courage to renounce his bowl. Why? The beggar’s slavery is too small; he cannot even see he is a slave. The emperor’s slavery is so vast, so suicidal, that he sees he is a slave. For the emperor, the empire stands around him like a prison. The beggar’s bowl does not feel like a prison; with his bowl he can walk anywhere. His prison is so small it can be hung from the hand. The emperor cannot carry his prison anywhere; he must remain within it. The emperor can leave, because his slavery has grown so large that the illusion of ownership breaks. The beggar cannot leave; his slavery is so small the illusion persists.

Thus I say: as long as you retain the illusion that you own your things, know you are poor—the things are too few for you to notice. The day you begin to feel the things own you, know you have become rich. The mark of wealth is: it becomes obvious you are a slave to your things. The mark of poverty is: you do not yet notice it; the illusion of ownership still holds.

Lao Tzu says: if you truly wish to be a master, do not become the kind of master whose things also need guarding—because then you will become a watchman. And he says: whenever a work succeeds, before the sense of the doer thickens, disappear; let no one even know you did it.

When Lao Tzu’s name spread through China, to village and house alike, and people began coming from afar inquiring for him—traveling thousands of miles—one day Lao Tzu vanished. From that day on there is no trace. No one knows when he died or where. He simply became invisible.

That is the advice he offers: when your work is done, when success is in your hand, slip away quietly.

But this is hard—very hard. Because it is that very moment we have been awaiting: when success is complete. We too slip away sometimes; we too become invisible—but not in success; we disappear in failure. When we are defeated, broken, we hide. In sorrow and pain we want to flee, to vanish. In grief we even commit suicide—meaning we want to be so completely invisible that not even a trace remains. But if someone can disappear at the moment of success, a revolution happens within. Vanishing in failure is natural. The mind’s tendency is: run away, hide yourself, let no one know you failed. Failure hurts the ego; success gratifies and nourishes it.

So when a man succeeds, he wants to puff out his chest and parade. He wants to meet even those he never met before; he wants even strangers to know. He would beat the drum around the world: I have succeeded! All this striving was for the news of success. And Lao Tzu seems crazy: he says when you succeed, vanish from sight. For if the ego crystallizes in success, that is your hell. If you can become invisible at the moment of success, that is the door to heaven.

‘After the successful completion of a work, when the doer’s fame begins to spread, making oneself invisible is the road to heaven.’

Hell means ego; heaven means egolessness. There is no other heaven, no other hell. One hell only: the denser my I, the deeper my hell. The more rarefied I am, fluid and light, the more I am in heaven. The more I am, the more hell. The less I am, the more heaven. My being is my pain; my non-being is my bliss.

Consider this. Whenever you have suffered, writhed in hellfire, have you looked within to see: what is this pain? Why does it arise? What is its basis? Is someone else causing it? Or is it my way of living—my attempts to thicken the ego—that are the cause? And whenever for a moment you have known delight, if you looked within, you would have found you were not there. Whenever bliss arises, the I is absent. Whenever hell arises, the I is thick. The shadow of I is anguish. Yet we all try to enter heaven with the I intact: let me be saved and have bliss. If I remain, bliss cannot. I is sorrow.

So the ordinary pattern of life must be broken and awakened from somewhere. Lao Tzu says: vanish at the moment of success. From this, another key: when failure comes, do not vanish. When defeated, do not leave the capital’s streets. And when you win, withdraw so no one can even see you. He who can withdraw at the moment of victory—his ego evaporates. He who can remain present at the moment of defeat—his ego also evaporates. The opposite patterns are our habit: in defeat, hide; in victory, display. This strengthens the ego. Because of ego we hide when defeated; because of ego we expose ourselves when victorious.

One who understands how the ego is built, can even play with it. Right now the ego plays with us. He who agrees to play consciously with the ego becomes free of it.

Gurdjieff was in New York; his ideas were meeting with deep success. One disciple writes: we could never understand what kind of man he was. Whenever something drew near to success, he would do something to make it fail. At the very moment of fruition, he never missed the chance to upset it. And he worked with tireless effort to build it.

He created many ashrams for sadhana. Near Paris he built one; he labored for years, training hundreds. Then one day he dissolved it all. Those who had labored said: You seem mad—now is the time something could happen. We worked for years for this day. Gurdjieff said: We too worked for years for this day—for this very dissolution. In New York again a great organization neared completion. Years of effort. One day he uprooted everything and walked away. Closest companions left him. Gradually people concluded: the man is truly mad. When the fruit is within reach, he turns his back; when the fruit is the distance of the sky, he works beyond measure. Surely, a mark of madness.

But Lao Tzu calls such a madman wise. He says: when success is in your hand, quietly become invisible.

Understand this from within and the transformation, the revolution, will be clear. Try the experiment. Success is a distant thing; even on the road, if someone drops his umbrella and you pick it up, you stand and wait two moments for ‘thank you.’ If no thanks comes, the mind feels dejected. We cannot leave even a ‘thank you’ behind—we want to take it.

Lao Tzu says: when the work has fully succeeded, when life is near fulfillment, when the goal is in sight—turn your back and quietly disappear. It will require great integration, a condensed inner being. That condensation has an unearthly result: the one who turns his back near the goal finds the goal following behind him. The one who vanishes in the midst of success erases failure from the world. He cannot fail again.

He has found the alchemy by which man ceases to be man and becomes Paramatma. He who can leave success, turn his back before the goal, is no longer a man. Man’s weakness is the ego. That weakness is gone.

Lao Tzu disappeared. One disciple followed him to the outskirts of the village. Lao Tzu said again and again: Do not follow me; I am going to disappear. Stay there—there is great possibility of success; thousands are coming to ask.

The disciple too began to rationalize and weave logic. In the end he said: I return for your own work. You will not be there; many will come asking. I cannot explain as you do, still I can say something. For your sake I go back.

In his heart attachment had begun: wandering with Lao Tzu had become futile; no one recognized him; who knows where this ends? A whole life’s fragrance spread there; people were now coming—and he ran away! That night the disciple returned.

On the day Lao Tzu crossed China’s border, a border officer saw him for the last time. After that there is no knowing where he went. Tradition in China says: Lao Tzu is alive—for how can such a one die? Only the ego dies. One who never accumulated ego, who fled his hut when emperors were eager to lay their heads at his feet—how can such a one die?

Two unique tales are told about Lao Tzu. One: he was born at sixty-two—he remained in the mother’s womb for sixty-two years; born old. Those who love him say: such ones are born old.

Most of us remain childish even to our last breath. Look carefully and Lao Tzu’s saying will not seem so strange. An eighty-year-old can be seen playing with toys. Toys change; toy-playing continues.

A child sucks a milk bottle. An old man smokes a cigar. Psychologists say both are doing the same. But if the old man were to suck a milk bottle it would seem absurd. So he has invented a device. The warm stream of smoke that enters is similar to the warmth of mother’s milk; the way it enters is similar. It feels pleasant—the warmth, the flow. There is not much difference between the old man and the child. If any, it is in favor of the child; at least he drinks milk.

Observe the life of the old in general: childhood does not change; only forms change, styles change; childhood continues. Anger over trifles persists; ego swells over trifles; greed for little things persists; fear and desire remain. Nothing changes.

From Lao Tzu’s side: most of us die as children. Lao Tzu is born old—sixty-two years in the womb, says the tale. A sweet tale; the East has created such meaningful sweetness. Lao Tzu is not born until he is mature; when mature, then he is born.

Second: no one knows if he ever died. He did not die. Such a one does not die. That which dies within us is nothing but our manufactured ego. We do not die; our constructed ego dies. Even when we die, it is our ego that dies; we do not. The pain we feel is not our death—it is the ego’s death. At death what we have accumulated is torn away; what we have built is broken; what we have gained is taken. One thing is certain: we did not make ourselves. And one thing is certain: in dying, the real we is not taken.

Do you remember being before birth? You do not—because we remember only ego-stuff, and ego condenses after birth. Thus memory rarely goes before the age of three. The earliest memory is between three and five. Why? We were there before three, yet no memory forms—because those years go into ego’s construction.

Hence children feel no difficulty in lying or in stealing—not because they are thieves or liars, but because the ego that separates mine and thine is not formed. What we call stealing is pure socialism for the child. No separation between mine and yours. Whatever he likes is his. Preference decides all; not the ego’s verdict of mine and thine.

The child also has no firm distinction between dream and fact. Often he wakes and cries for the toy that broke in a dream; or for the toy lost in the dream. Such is the lack of distance between dream and truth. To distinguish dream from day’s reality also needs ego.

A curious event: before ego, the child has no difference between dream and world; when a Lao Tzu looks at the world after dropping the ego, again there is no difference. Hence Shankara can say: the world is maya. It means: in another sense, the world too has become dreamlike. Once, dream was worldlike—before ego. Then ego arose and the distance appeared. That distance belongs to the I. When the I falls again, the world too seems dreamlike.

At death, the constructed I breaks, scatters. Its pegs are pulled one by one. Those pegs being pulled—that is our pain. If only we could remember that before the I was, our being still was, then we could enter death with the same joy with which we entered life; with the same joy with which we enter sleep, we could enter the great sleep of death.

But nothing happens suddenly at death. One who has gathered success all his life and discarded failure; who never missed a chance to construct ego—even by false means…

That is why flattery pleases us so much. The flatterer knows he lies, the listener knows he lies, yet when someone praises, we cannot refuse it. Someone says: I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you. Even your mirror never told you that; still in that moment, you want to believe. We never deny someone’s slander of others, however baseless; nor do we deny praise of ourselves, however absurd. Praise of oneself always seems acceptable; nothing ever seems excessive. In others’ condemnation, too, everything seems within bounds.

If you have relished condemning others and savored praise of yourself; if in success you stood in the marketplace and in failure you hid in the dark; if you sought honor and fled dishonor—then at death you cannot suddenly drop the ego.

But if you have done the opposite—cultivated doubt toward others’ condemnation; disbelief toward praise of yourself; refused to accept praise; hesitated a thousand times before accepting honor, and quietly accepted dishonor when it came; appeared in failure and hid in success—if such a way of being has grown, in the moment of death, liberation becomes possible. For such a person the gates of hell are shut; the key has been lost with which hell’s doors open. For such a person heaven opens. Heaven means: the door of unbroken bliss opens. Wherever such a one is, however he is, he will find bliss. Bliss cannot be robbed from him. He will always see the auspicious facet; his eye will not catch the inauspicious. He will find diamonds among stones; flowers will bloom among thorns; darkness will turn to light; and death to supreme life.

Therefore I said: life is not mathematics; it is a riddle. In mathematics two plus two is four. In riddles the computation does not work so simply. In riddles, logic goes one way; results come another. Yet even riddles have a subtle mathematics. Lao Tzu speaks of that.

For example: a hunter learning to shoot birds in flight must use a subtle math. If he shoots where the bird is, he will always miss. He must shoot where the bird will be a moment later. The bird is before my eyes; if I shoot straight there, by the time my arrow arrives, the bird has moved. I must shoot where the bird is not now, and will be when my arrow reaches. Thus archery says: to strike a moving life, shoot where it is not. If the bird is dead and tied to a tree, then shoot where it is.

Dead mathematics moves straight. The mathematics of life cannot.

Lao Tzu says: if you want success, avoid success. If you want failure, embrace success. If you want to disappear, to die, cling strongly to life; if you want to live, let life go—do not clutch. If you want happiness here, do not search for it, do not grope for it. If you do, you will find sorrow. If you want happiness, seek sorrow—search for it. He who seeks happiness loses it; he who seeks sorrow loses sorrow. He who seeks happiness finds sorrow; he who seeks sorrow never finds it.

If you can see this, your whole way will change. Your steps will fall differently; your seeing and thinking, your entire philosophy, your vision will become other. One whose vision becomes so—I call him a sannyasi.

But the one we call sannyasi still thinks with the householder’s mathematics. He too sets out to search for Paramatma. Remember: the more intensely you search for Paramatma, the harder it is to find. This mathematics applies not only to money; it applies to religion. Paramatma is not a thing you can shoulder like wood and carry away. You will carry wood; you will not find Paramatma. Paramatma is not an object you can seek. Paramatma is an experience—revealed when you are not; when the seeker is not. The seeker remains present in seeking—therefore he gets into trouble.

Thus the sannyasi’s ego becomes very dense, formidable. He is searching for Paramatma! Tell him, and he will say: Who are you, petty thing! You search for trifles; we seek the priceless jewel. You sinners wallow in transient pleasures—we seek moksha. Naturally his stiffness grows; he cannot sit with you; he must be placed on a throne. This is natural—because the same old arithmetic is at work.

I was reading of a Japanese fakir, Tatasusu. If someone came and praised him, he would listen, then say: It seems you have come to the wrong man. The qualities you have described—none are in me. You must have set out to meet someone else and arrived at my door. I am not that man.

He would say it with such sincerity that strangers would believe him: Forgive us, then you are not Tatasusu! We came to bow at Tatasusu’s feet. He would reply: Someone misdirected you.

If someone came to condemn him—even with charges that had no relation to him—Tatasusu would accept: You must be right. After his death it became known how many false accusations he had affirmed. He also took care to provide the condemner with satisfaction, so he would not suspect that this yes was false—for instance, by producing ‘evidence.’

A man came and said: I have heard you are a very angry man! There was a stick by Tatasusu’s side; he picked it up, became a flame—eyes spitting fire. His disciples had never seen anger in him. They were shocked. The visitor said: Then it is true. No further proof is needed. Tatasusu said: It is true. The man went away.

The disciples asked: We have never seen you angry. Tatasusu said: You never gave me the chance. Had you come and said so, I would have arranged the proof. Why should that man trouble to come from afar and go dissatisfied? Now he is content; he need not come again—the proof is in his hand.

Lao Tzu is speaking of this kind of person—and such a person is a sannyasi. A second dimension opens in life.

We shall speak of this second dimension in the sutras ahead.

Sit for five minutes; join in the kirtan, and then go.