Tao Upanishad #35

Yesterday’s sutra was left unfinished in its last lines. Let us begin from there.
In describing the sage’s signs, Lao Tzu gave the final hallmark: empty like a valley, and humble like muddy water.
The way we live is not the way of emptying, but of filling. One may stuff oneself with wealth—or with fame, office, status. One may cram oneself with knowledge—or with renunciation. One may hoard the riches of the world—or of heaven. But we all are eager to be filled. We all want to stuff ourselves. It feels as if there is such a void within that it is devouring us. Somehow it must be filled, so that the emptiness may end, the void may vanish, and we might appear full, not left empty.
One thing: all life long we keep trying to fill ourselves. Another thing: in the end we remain empty as ever. No one has ever truly managed to fill himself—whatever the direction, whatever the objects—of this world or the beyond—we remain empty. Alexander dies empty. The greatest scholar—Einstein too—will die empty. A great painter, a great sculptor, a great politician, a great wealthy man—will die empty.
From childhood we run to fill; a whole life we strive to fill—and yet we die empty! Those who fail in this race, they die empty, of course. Those who succeed, they die even emptier. Because the failed at least preserve a hope: had I succeeded, I would have been filled. The means were lacking, chance didn’t favor me, fate was unkind, people were against me, the circumstances were adverse—therefore I stayed empty. But those who succeed lack even this excuse. They cannot even say, “I had no chance to fill, hence I remained empty.” How will Alexander say he lacked opportunity? He had every chance, he tried to fill himself tirelessly—yet remained empty.
Perhaps that which we set out to fill has the very nature of emptiness. That is why we cannot fill it.
In defining the sage, Lao Tzu speaks the fundamental and final word: empty like a valley. A sage is one who has accepted his emptiness and has stopped the business of filling it—not out of frustration, not out of melancholy, not because he is defeated. The eminent Hindi poet Dinkar has just written a book: Hare Ko Harinam—“for the defeated, the name of Hari.” Whoever is defeated, only the divine name remains for him, nothing else. And he who takes Harinam out of defeat can never truly take it—it is compulsion, helplessness. He can take only the name now; nothing else is in his hands. The defeated hand holds nothing.
But let this much dawn upon us: even the full hand holds nothing! The full hand proves empty too! Because our inner nature is emptiness itself. We cannot fill it. Just as we cannot darken the sun—its nature is light. Nothing can happen contrary to nature. Those who try to go against nature will fail. They will fail, they will be filled with melancholy, with sorrow, with pain. Those who strive against the grain of nature will be defeated, their ego will be wounded, bruised, shattered. Everything will scatter; life will be imperiled.
By “sage,” Lao Tzu does not mean one who, having lost, having found no means left, takes the name of Hari; who, seeing no way out, consoles himself by saying, “Let me be as I am.” No—Lao Tzu does not say this. He says: sages know that this is the nature of things—not out of sorrow, but out of Tathata, acceptance, experience. And there is no meaning in going against nature—it is foolishness. This is not defeat; this is knowing. It is not a helpless acceptance of one’s emptiness. Through experience, maturity, growth—through recognizing life—they have seen that the inner Atman, the inner existence, has emptiness as its nature, voidness as its quality.
And understand: only emptiness can be infinite. Anything filled can never be infinite. Wherever filling happens, there the boundary appears. And understand too: only emptiness can be self-established. All filling is always by the other. A pot is empty. An empty pot means: the pot is just the pot. When it is filled, it will be filled by something else—by water, or by gold, or by clay, or by stones, or by jewels. So long as the pot is empty, it is the pot. When it is filled, it is filled with water, or stones, or jewels—filled by the other.
If we are to be ourselves, it can only be in emptiness. If we are filled, it will always be by the other. The purest form of the Self is empty—because there is nothing there except the Self. And whenever we fill, the other enters. That is our pain. We fill ourselves with the other—friend, beloved, wife, lover; with wealth, with position—something other. But the other cannot enter there; it remains outside. A race ensues, we get tired, we fall, blood drips from the mouth, death approaches—and we find the inside has remained empty; it could not be filled.
Lao Tzu says: the sage lives in his emptiness. He does not stuff himself with the other—with the Other, whoever it may be.
Lao Tzu says: the sage does not fill himself even with God; not with Dharma; not with merit. Emptiness itself is his Dharma. Emptiness itself is his virtue. Emptiness itself is his God. Because emptiness is Tao, the law.
This emptiness will frighten us. We are afraid of being alone. If the other is not, fear begins. If the other is not, it feels life has become futile. The other is needed. It is a great joke that none of us is willing to live with himself. We can live with others; we cannot live with ourselves.
And a greater joke: those who cannot live with themselves think that others will be delighted to live with them. We cannot be joyous with ourselves in aloneness, and yet we expect others to be joyful with us. And the other is in the same plight. He too cannot tolerate himself alone. And we hope that with him we shall be delighted. He himself has not been delighted with himself.
We are all living by depending on each other. And this dependence is so foolish that upon whom we depend, they depend upon us. We live on their strength; they live on ours. We are all weak. Yet we are deceived, and life’s chance slips by.
Saintliness is the effort to see the truth. As it is—truth as it is—let us try to see it. And whoever becomes willing to see the truth soon begins to taste the bliss of truth. Those who have recognized that the whole race of filling, of being filled, is hell, have stopped filling themselves. They have known themselves as empty: “I am empty.”
It is a strange thing that in the last two hundred years the West has created the greatest “filling” for man. Houses are filled with things. The earth is filled with new mechanical inventions. Each person has as much as no person ever had. What even the greatest emperors did not have, today an ordinary person in the West possesses. Everywhere, fullness. And in these two centuries the deepest realization of the West has been: emptiness. If we search for the single most important word of the last two hundred years of the West, it is: emptiness. Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, Ortega y Gasset—they all speak of emptiness. They say: life is utterly empty. And there is great restlessness, for life never fills.
A poor society never felt emptiness to this degree. When the belly is empty, one never comes to know of the emptiness of the soul. If the belly is empty, greater emptinesses do not become visible. All time goes in filling the belly. Today the West’s belly is full, the body is full; things have piled up all around. And within, man experiences: all is empty. Nothing is within.
Lao Tzu says: with this emptiness we have two options. Either set about filling it—which will never succeed. Or set about forgetting it. Man has only these two devices: he tries to fill; and when he cannot fill, he tries to forget. First Alexander will try to fill. And when he finds he has failed, he will drown himself in wine, he will forget himself in the dances of naked women—so that the emptiness is no longer noticed. Either fill, or forget.
But Lao Tzu says: neither filling fills, nor forgetting forgets.
The laws of life are wondrous. The more you try to forget something, the more it haunts you. Nothing can be forgotten by wanting to forget it. Forget it—and the more you try, the more it returns. In fact, in trying to forget, you have to remember it. When a man drinks to drown and forget his inner emptiness, even then he remembers it deeply. When he sobers, he remembers more deeply that the wine was futile, the body has been harmed; the old wound stands where it was—appearing even deeper, even more empty. No one can fill; no one can forget.
Lao Tzu says: sages are those who do neither. They consent to emptiness. They say, “We are empty.” The matter ends there. We shall neither fill nor forget. And the great surprise, the great miracle that happens in this world is: the one who agrees with his emptiness—his emptiness disappears.
This may sound difficult. In truth, emptiness is experienced because we are keen to fill. It is our eagerness that creates emptiness. The more eager we are, the more empty we feel. When we consent, when we drop the race to fill, when the dream of filling is broken, when we do not even make arrangements to forget—when we simply agree and say, “Emptiness is not in me; I am emptiness”—then emptiness vanishes. For the experience of emptiness requires in the background an ambition for fullness. As when on a blackboard we write with white chalk: if someone pulls away the blackboard from behind, the white writing vanishes; it was visible because of the blackboard.
The opposite is needed for experience. Emptiness is felt because the opposite—ambition for fullness—is in us. If there is no ambition for fullness, the experience of emptiness is lost. We feel sorrow because there is a desire for happiness. If there is no longing for happiness, the experience of sorrow is lost. Death frightens us because we cling to life. If there is no grip on life, death ends. Insult pricks us like a thorn because we are mad for the flowers of respect. If the hunger for respect dissolves, the thorn of insult vanishes with it.
The opposite is needed for experience. If you experience emptiness, it proves you are caught in the desire to be full. If you experience sorrow, it proves you have demanded happiness. If insult hurts, you are obsessed with respect.
If this becomes visible, Lao Tzu’s sutra is understood: the sage’s ultimate quality is: becoming empty. And then he added: humble, like muddy water.
There are two kinds of humility. Understand this a little. One is a humility that is merely an ornament of the ego. If we choose a symbol for it, we would say: like the sacred waters of the Ganges. Humble—like the holy waters of the Ganges. There is an ego of purity too. And there is an ego of humility as well. Such a “humble” man proclaims everywhere that he is utterly humble, “the dust of your feet, I am nothing.” Look into his eyes, watch him as he rises and sits—you will see, he is everything. And if you tell him that someone more humble than him has arrived in town, he will suffer as much as any other egoist. His humility is number one. He will not accept a number two humility.
Can humility also be number one? And if humility becomes a peak, where is humility left? The peak is the ego. The one who knows he is humble is not humble. Without the opposite, even the awareness of humility cannot exist. The one who announces, “I am humble,” is an egoist. The one who says, “I am the dust at your feet,” is an egoist. Otherwise even this awareness would not be there. Ego can feign humility—it does. We teach it.
I once went to a university. I saw a plaque in the vice-chancellor’s room: “Only the humble will receive honor.” It must have been put up for the students—that those who are humble will be honored. But it is amusing. The second half negates the first: “Only the humble will receive honor.” So whoever wants honor should start being humble.
Indeed, in our ego-ridden society, whoever wants honor must be humble. Otherwise honor will not be conferred. We honor only those who become humble. And we do not notice that he is being humble for the sake of honor. If the hunger for honor makes one join hands and bow the head… Politicians stand at every door. Their humility is the race to gratify a deep ego.
So one humility is that which knows its sanctity, its superiority. The other humility is what Lao Tzu speaks of. The second humility is that which has no idea even of its purity, its superiority, its saintliness. That is why Lao Tzu uses the symbol: like muddy water—muddy water, flowing anywhere, across any land, filled with silt. No sense of purity, of superiority, of Ganges-water. If a saint knows he is a saint, he is no longer a saint.
But here too there is a trick. Go to a “saint” and tell him, “You are a great Mahatma,” and he will say, “No, I am the dust of your feet.” He too knows the rules of the game. You also know that if the saint himself says, “Yes, I am a saint,” you will think: what a saint! He knows that if he says, “Yes, I am a saint,” you will not return. He says: “Saint? Me? Where! There is no sinner like me. When I went searching, I found none as sinful as I.” Then you touch his feet and return home: a saint has been found.
But these can be two sides of the same game.
Lao Tzu’s sage will neither say, “I am the best,” nor, “I am the worst.” For both are ego’s proclamations. Lao Tzu’s sage will remain unannounced. He will say nothing. He will make no statement about himself. Perhaps you will return from him disappointed. Either of the two would have satisfied your mind. Had he said, “Yes, I am a great sage,” you would at least return decided. Had he said, “I am nothing, a nobody,” you would also return decided. But Lao Tzu’s sage will say nothing. Because, says Lao Tzu, any awareness about oneself arises only because of the opposite. Hence there will be no self-awareness of that sort.
Someone came to Lao Tzu and said, “We have heard you are the supreme knower!” Lao Tzu listened. The man asked, “Will you not say something?” Lao Tzu remained silent. Just then another man came and said, “We have heard that you are spreading ignorance! You speak things by which the world will be corrupted and led astray!” Lao Tzu listened. That man asked, “Will you not say something?”
Lao Tzu said, “You two sit together and decide. This man says ‘supremely wise,’ and you say ‘supremely ignorant.’ I know nothing. You both are knowledgeable; you decide between yourselves. Please be kind to me—keep me out of your accounting. You two know enough. Of the matters unknown to me, you are the experts. Decide—there is no need to ask me.”
This unproclaimed personality is saintliness.
Now let us attempt to understand the sutra:
“In this impurity-filled world, who can find repose? He who, by remaining still, lets the impurities flow away.”
On this, a story of Buddha has always been dear to me; let me share it with you. This sutra is the title of that whole tale:
“Who can find repose in a muddy world? By lying still it becomes clear.”
Buddha was passing by a mountain. The sun was sharp; it was hot. He felt thirsty. He said to Ananda, “Go back; we have just crossed a stream. Bring some water.”
Ananda went with the begging bowl. The stream was about two furlongs back. When Buddha and Ananda had passed, the stream had been crystal clear. The water, in the sunlight, shone like pearls. It was shallow; over pebbles and stones it made a merry sound. A mountain stream—fresh, pure water. But when Ananda reached it again, a few ox-carts were just crossing. The stream had turned muddy. Dust and silt had been stirred up. Dry leaves, pressed into the bed, had risen and spread. All the water had become dirty—unfit to drink.
Ananda returned. He also thought: Buddha is so supremely knowing, yet did he not foresee that by the time I reach, two carts would pass and muddy the water? He said to Buddha, “The water has become muddy. Carts have crossed. It is not drinkable. I will go ahead; three miles on there is a river. I will fetch from there.” Buddha said, “No. I want to drink from that same stream. Go back.” It was very difficult for Ananda. He thought, unconsciously Buddha sent me; now knowingly! Seeing him hesitate, Buddha said, “Go!”
Ananda went again. But the water could not be considered drinkable. It was utterly dirty. Ananda was perplexed. How could he bring such water for Buddha? He returned again and said, “Forgive me, that water is not fit to be brought at all.” Buddha said, “Obey me once more—and go! But now, do not return. Sit on the bank. Sit until the water seems fit to you to drink.”
Ananda went. He sat on the bank. He kept watching, watching, watching. After a while the dry leaves floated away; the particles of mud settled to the bottom; the dust cleared. The water became pure again. Ananda filled the bowl and returned dancing. Falling at Buddha’s feet, he said, “Your compassion is boundless! Did you give me a message through that stream? In my foolishness what all I thought! Sitting on that bank, I understood: the mind is just like this. If we sit by its bank and wait, will the filth also flow away?”
Buddha said, “That is why I had to send you back three times.”
Lao Tzu’s sutra is its title. “Who can find repose in a muddy world?” In this muddy, dirty, silt-filled world—who can find rest? “By lying still it becomes clear.” Nothing else is needed. In this world, simply be still and wait—that is enough. Everything becomes clear on its own.
Afterwards Buddha asked Ananda, “Did it occur to you by that stream to jump in and clean it?” Ananda said, “Not only did it occur—I tried it. But the water became even dirtier.”
We do the same with the mind. We jump in to clean it by force. Our very effort—our entry into the stream—stirs it into greater muddiness.
Therefore the so-called religious, who sit in temples doing meditation, worship, prayer—if you get a chance to peek into their minds, you will find they are indeed sitting in the temple, but their minds have nothing to do with the temple. Their minds are filled with such dirt as does not collect even while sitting in a shop. In the shop there still remains a certain concentration on money; in the temple even that much concentration is absent. Why?
Everyone has experienced this: whoever tries to quiet the mind comes to know—the more you try, the more restless it becomes. For who will try to make it quiet? You are restless, and you are going to quiet it! Your restlessness will double; it can multiply. If one overstrains to become quiet, he who was merely restless may become deranged. Then what is the way?
Lao Tzu’s way is worth keeping in mind. This is the supreme path. Lao Tzu says: sit silently by the current of the mind—“lying still.” Let the current flow; let there be dirt; the stream is muddy—let it be. Sit silently—only wait. Do nothing. Make no effort to quiet.
Who in this world can attain peace? Only he who refrains from the attempt to eliminate unrest. This may sound strange—refrain from the attempt to eliminate unrest. All unrest is the fruit of our attempts. If we now attempt peace also, we shall create deeper unrest.
Bokuju went to his Master. “My mind is very restless,” he said. “Give me a way to quiet it. Should I meditate? Should I fast? Should I practice austerities?” The Master said, “Have you not tired of ‘doing’ yet? Your whole life you have been doing. This doing is precisely why you are restless. Yet you are still eager to do! Then do not enter my door. This is a house for non-doers. If you are willing to not-do, come in; otherwise wander a while longer.”
Bokuju did not understand. He said, “The unrest is great. You do not know my pain. It has to be quieted.” The Master said, “Your assertion, ‘it must be quieted,’ is giving birth to a double unrest. Do nothing; stay here. Just sit by me.”
For a year Bokuju sat near his Master. Every few days he would ask, “Now tell me something to do!” For without doing, the mind does not agree. Give anything—even a foolish act—“Alright, turn a rosary.” Give some mantra, some name—so that I can remain engaged. The Master said, “You have done enough. Now for some time, do nothing.” A fortnight passes, a month—the restlessness grows. “Something! Am I unworthy? Why do you not tell me?” The Master says, “Just sit!”
In Japan they have a word, zazen: just sitting. The Master would only say, whenever he asked through the year: “Zazen. Sit. Do nothing else.”
The head was worn out. This man tells nothing! Bokuju had to sit and sit and sit. Then he even stopped asking—what is the use asking this man!
But as he sat by him, in his presence, a certain love arose; now he would not want to leave. Sitting near him, some inner strings joined; he did not want to go outside this house. When the inner things had ripened, the Master said, “Now if you ask again, ‘tell me something to do,’ the only act left is to show you the door. I shall throw you out. Ask no more.” When the Master felt that point had come from which he could no longer flee—that he would have to sit—and yet he could not sit, for the mind kept whispering, “Do something, some occupation, some engagement!”
There is a saying: an empty mind is the devil’s workshop. Wrong. You are the devil’s workshop. In emptiness you come to know it. Emptiness does not create the workshop of the devil—you are already the whole factory. But it has been running so long that you do not hear its din. When it stops, you hear it.
Bokuju was in trouble. He could not go; he could not do; he sat and sat and sat. And exactly what happened to Ananda by the stream happened to him. By the end of a year, sitting and sitting, how often could one repeat the same thoughts? There was no way. Slowly those thoughts became stale. He grew tired even of them. Gradually they floated away. The mind became quiet.
One day the Master said, “If you wish, now I can give you something to do.” Bokuju touched his feet and said, “With great difficulty I am free of doing. Be kind. Do not, even by mistake, tell me to do anything now.” The Master said, “Do you not want to be quiet?” Bokuju said, “Now I understand. Please do not make a joke of me. The very effort to be something—to be something—is unrest.”
The effort to be—“to be something”—is itself unrest. Therefore there can be no effort to be silent. If the effort to be is unrest, then there can be no effort to be silent. Silence means only this: all effort to be has fallen away; what remains is silence.
Lao Tzu says: in this world full of impurity and unrest, who attains repose? He who stops, who settles into himself, who stands still in himself—and lets impurities flow away.
Do not fight the inner impurities. Yet the religion we ordinarily understand seems to say: fight. But I tell you: whoever has known religion has not said “fight.” For no one can become peaceful by fighting. And without peace, no one can be religious. Hence some statements of the religious are so revolutionary that we cannot digest them.
Jesus said: “Resist not evil.” Christianity has still not digested it—two thousand years have passed. No Christian thinker has clearly explained what Jesus means. “Resist not evil”—then should we not resist anger? Not resist sex? Not resist greed? These enemies!
People come to me and say, “Tell us a way to escape these four enemies: kama, krodha, lobha, moha—sex, anger, greed, attachment. How to destroy them?” And Jesus says, “Resist not evil.” Lao Tzu says: stop—and let evil flow away. Fight, and you are defeated. If you wish to win—do not fight.
But the so-called superficial religious thinking tells people: do not fight others, but you must fight yourself. Leo Tolstoy wrote in his diary: “O God, give me strength to forgive others—and never to forgive myself.” This is ordinary religious logic. Do not fight the other, but fight yourself.
And whoever fights enters the stream like Ananda—and makes it more muddy. Hence the so-called religious end up with minds so dirty that even criminals would hardly match them. They begin to project dirt everywhere. Wherever their eyes look, something filthy appears. That filth has gathered within them; now it has accumulated so much that it starts expanding outward.
A French painter came to see Khajuraho. In those days a friend of mine was a minister in Vindhya Pradesh. He was tasked to show the painter the sculptures of Khajuraho. He went, quite anxious—he was a “religious man”: daily worship, sacred thread, reading the Gita and Ramayana, temple-going, tilak-mark—religious in every way. He was very nervous: these nude sculptures of Khajuraho, erotic bas-reliefs of sexual union—a great bother. “What will this foreigner think—that Indians are so filthy! Is this any way to make art—and that too around a temple?” But it was compulsory to show. The man was distinguished; sending someone below the minister’s rank did not seem proper. Saying “Ram-Ram,” he went with him.
He told me: all the while I was praying inside, “O God, please let him not ask why these obscene, nude figures were made.” He tried to hurry through. The painter lingered at each piece for hours. He was troubled: “Now, let us go.” He kept his eyes lowered so he would not have to see. Somehow the tour ended. The painter did not ask. On the steps, while leaving, the minister could not restrain himself. He said, “Let me tell you: this temple is not central to our Indian tradition. Please do not conclude anything about our culture from this. It is the mischief of some deranged Bundela king. It has nothing to do with Indian culture. The images are obscene—we know it. If it were in our power, we would plaster these temples over.”
What did the painter say? He said, “I must go back in again, for I could not find obscenity anywhere. Please take me back in! I must see again, because I did not find obscenity anywhere. I have never seen figures so beautiful, so artistic, so natural, so innocent.”
Who is religious? These who pray daily? What kind of religiosity is this? That man may never have prayed, yet I would call him religious. He does not carry a mind full of garbage. He can see things directly; he does not put his notions in between.
If a sculpture looks obscene to you, look within. Desire is hammering inside; that is why the sculpture appears obscene. If a naked person stands and you feel, “Obscene, dirty,” peek within. It is the lust of seeing nakedness—the desire—that is the cause. Otherwise, what is the issue? If a person fights inner evils, he will descend into this perversity.
There are three states of the mind. One we call bhoga—indulgence. Bhoga is natural. The one who represses indulgence and fights it, falls below indulgence. I call that roga—disease. And the one who lets indulgence pass by—he rises above it. I call that yoga. Roga, bhoga, yoga. Bhoga is natural. Whoever distorts bhoga enters the world of roga. Whoever allows bhoga to pass—simply, with acceptance, without struggle—the silt settles, the leaves float away, the dirt clears—yoga happens.
Toward this yoga Lao Tzu points.
“Who can maintain his equanimity and peace continually? He who knows the secret of the rest that naturally follows every activity.”
Who can maintain his calm for long? By activity, it comes back into life-rest. Peace comes to all sometimes. Equanimity touches everyone now and then. Who can maintain it continuously?
There are two ways. One is to become dead—so dead that even the capacity to be restless is gone. Some attempt this. If lust rises in the mind, decrease food so much that the body has no strength to generate desire. Without vigor, passion will not rise. But the absence of vigor is not the absence of passion. Passion will wait. When the strength returns it will reappear. And if it is never given a chance to appear, there is no freedom; it remains like a seed.
In America they did an experiment at a university. Thirty students were kept hungry for a month. After five to seven days of hunger, sexual desire weakened. Nude pictures were displayed—no attraction. The most erotic images—no one even picked them up. After fifteen days, no one would be interested even if sex was discussed. In thirty days it seemed passion had vanished. Because passion needs surplus energy.
After thirty days they were fed. After the first day’s food, interest began to return. After three days, the pictures became beautiful again, attractive. Jokes, hints, the chase of sexuality returned. If they were kept lifelong at a level where little energy is produced, they would be deluded that desire had died within.
Many sadhus do exactly this. Passion does not die; it only hides because energy has no outlet for expression.
Lao Tzu says: if one tries to remain in equanimity this way, it is not equanimity—it is death. Not peace, but the silence of a cremation ground. Peace is a living phenomenon; hush is a dead one. There is silence at the cremation ground too. If that is the silence you want, you will have to shrink and ruin yourself. No bliss is attained thereby. You only drown in a deep depression—so deep that life folds its wings and halts its journey.
Often sadhus appear dead—dried up, sap drained. Only enough life remains to walk, to breathe. And we think: a high state has been attained. This is delusion. There is indeed a high state, but it is not death-like; it is even more alive. What is its secret?
Lao Tzu says: this is its secret. Activity will come—it is essential. Life means activity. But the one who understands this secret—that activity is also the doorway to rest, that activity itself gives birth to rest—and who understands that activity is not the opposite of rest, but the very path to repose—he attains lasting equanimity.
Consider thus. If I sit in a shop, anger and greed arise. Two options: quit the shop—then neither shop, nor anger, nor greed. Living with the wife brings quarrels and jealousy—leave the wife—then no jealousy, no quarrel. Withdraw from wherever trouble seems to arise. But I will remain I. Whether I leave the shop and go to the Himalayas, whether I leave the wife and sit in an ashram—I will remain I.
The man who escapes from circumstances does not change himself. He keeps himself the same. Had the opposing circumstances remained, perhaps he would someday have had to change himself. Now even that need has been removed. If anger kept appearing, one day he would see anger is madness. Now he has removed the circumstances of anger. If quarrels persisted, one day he would tire and rise above. He has removed the circumstances of quarrel.
He can remove himself everywhere. But this is not revolution, not transformation. The man remains the same. He has only thinned out the circumstances. No deep insight will be attained in this.
Lao Tzu says: if there is a shop, remain in the shop; if there is a market, then the market; if there is a home, then the home. Do not run from circumstances. Do not withdraw from action. Keep acting. And keep in mind: action is not the opposite of rest; rather, one who acts rightly enters rest rightly.
This is one of Lao Tzu’s basic sutras of practice. Let us understand a little.
I might think: if sleep does not come at night, I should sleep through the day so that at night sleep comes easily. So I lie down all day. Logical, it seems: night brings no sleep, so practice rest by lying down all day—then at night rest will come. But the one who lies all day will make sleep at night almost impossible. Because logic is one thing, life is another. Life does not follow logic. If logic wants to follow life, let it; but life follows no logic. Life has its own order.
Life’s order is the order of polarity, dialectical. One who is very active by day—labors, runs, breaks stones—that person enters deep sleep at night. The more active he is, the more his activity creates the inner arrangement for him to become inactive. Whoever touches one pole of the duality swings, of himself, to the other—like the pendulum. Touch the left, it goes to the right. And whoever rests deeply at night—do not assume he will sleep all day next. The deeper the night’s sleep, the more refreshed the morning. The deeper the rest, the more capacity for work returns. Understand this from a few sides.
Someone thinks: if I want silence, I should stop speaking entirely. Whoever thinks thus does not know life’s polarity. If he stops speaking altogether, he will speak inwardly twenty-four hours a day. He will never attain silence. Silence can be attained only by one who, when speaking, speaks with such authenticity that his whole being is poured into it, nothing remains within, the whole soul speaks. When such a person stops speaking, he enters perfect silence. Life’s law is polarity. If you can speak with total authenticity—pouring all your life into your words—then the moment speech stops, you will enter rest, silence.
But we think: if silence is needed, stop speaking. If sleep is needed at night, stop labor by day. If peace is needed, withdraw from all places of unrest.
No. If peace is needed, be fully present in the place of unrest; be wholly there. There is no need to run. The fuller the presence there, the more the journey toward peace will unfold.
Hence Lao Tzu says: understand the secret. Who can maintain his calm for long? By activity! He speaks the contrary.
A professor studying the Tao Teh Ching with me once came and said, “It seems something is misprinted. It should be ‘by inactivity,’ but it says ‘by activity.’” His impression was understandable. If we read again: “Who can maintain his calm for long? By inactivity” seems right. But Lao Tzu says: no—by activity.
But not by activity alone. We are all active—who is not? Not by mere activity. Therefore there is the second clause—know too: “it comes back to rest.” Know that all activity inevitably returns to rest. All actions finally become inaction. Knowing this truth, one who remains active will attain perfect, continual equanimity.
If you wish to come to a full stop, first learn to run to the full. If you wish to enter the great void and abide there, learn the full run. Whoever runs to his total will stand utterly still for a moment.
Our trouble is: our whole life is lukewarm. Nothing is complete anywhere. We run—half-heartedly. So when we stop, the feet keep moving. We wake—half-heartedly. So when we sleep, dreams keep us awake. We eat—half-heartedly. So we get up from the meal, but the mind does not get up. Whatever we do is so incomplete that the remainder keeps following us.
Lao Tzu will say: whatever you do, do it so deeply that the opposite begins to arise by itself. Once this secret is understood, you do not run. You do not flee anything. You do not run from activity, from the world of karma.
For Lao Tzu, sannyas means what it means for Krishna. For Lao Tzu it does not mean: abandon and flee the world. For Lao Tzu, sannyas means what it means for Krishna: to find akarma in karma—to understand, while doing, the secret that I will slip into non-doing—let me do totally, so that I may also enter non-doing totally.
Such a person will live in continual equanimity. Nothing will be able to break his balance. There is no way to break it. Because he does not flee imbalance; he lives even in imbalance. The one who has gone to the Himalayas can be made angry very easily. Perhaps he has not been angry for thirty years. Yet it is very easy to infuriate him. But the one who has become peaceful while sitting in the marketplace—even if only thirty days of peace have arrived to him—he is very hard to provoke. For all the situations of anger are present, and in their midst he has become peaceful. The one who leaves the situations of anger and then becomes peaceful—his peace may be a deception. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it will be so. Otherwise, why flee? What to fear?
“Therefore, one who attains Tao always protects himself from over-perfection.”
Now another foundational rule of Tao.
“And because he avoids excess perfection, he goes beyond decay and rebirth.”
What he said in the first sutra and what he says now might seem opposite. They are not.
In the first, Lao Tzu said: in any action, enter totality. Remember, in action—enter totality—so that the opposite state arises of itself. Remembering this, one attains equanimity. In the second sutra he says: one who attains Tao—Dharma, nature, Paramatman—always shields himself from too much perfection. In karma there should be totality; but for oneself—the second sutra is about oneself, the first about action. Regarding the first: the world is a polarity—complete one pole, and you enter the other; simple. And when both are harmonized, balance is born. In the second he says: do not fall into the madness of making yourself perfect. Because if you try to make yourself perfect, the consequence will be: you will meet decay and will have to be born again and again.
This seems strange. Ordinarily we are all perfectionists. The whole world is perfectionist. Each man strives to be perfect. Lao Tzu says: not perfect, whole. In English two words help: perfect and whole. Perfection and wholeness. Perfection means: to touch the peak in one direction. Wholeness means: to touch all directions in balance. Consider: a man wants to be perfectly honest. His life will not be peaceful; it will be tense. He will constantly be fighting dishonesty. He will have to pull himself up to the peak. This will be ego—the ego of the honest. He can become hard, harsh.
Lao Tzu says: the one who strives to be perfect in dishonesty will be in trouble; the one who strives to be perfect in honesty will be in trouble—for honesty and dishonesty are two sides of the same coin. The one who strives to be good will be in difficulty; the one who strives to be bad will be in difficulty—for both are two aspects of one thing. You are trying to keep one side of the coin and throw away the other: you will be in difficulty.
Lao Tzu says: do not strive to be perfect—stay between the polarities. Neither become dishonest, nor honest.
This is very hard. Becoming honest is easy; becoming dishonest is easy; staying between is very difficult. Why? Because both we understand. “Become dishonest”—we understand. “Become honest”—we understand. They are opposites. The paths seem clear.
Lao Tzu says: do not attempt perfection anywhere—stay in the middle. Between honesty and dishonesty, between auspicious and inauspicious, darkness and light, saintliness and un-saintliness—stay in the middle. The one who stays in the middle, all tensions end. For all tension arises from polarity. In action, be total; in oneself, always be in the middle.
Here Lao Tzu and Buddha are in great harmony. Perhaps this is why Buddha’s teaching could be so effective in China—because of Lao Tzu’s sutra. Buddha spoke of Majjhima Nikaya—the Middle Way. In the world, no one has presented the Middle Way as Buddha did. He said: the middle—do not go to any extreme.
Let me share an incident from Buddha’s life.
A prince took initiation with Buddha—Srona. He was very indulgent. Then he became very renunciate. For his habit was always “much.” It made no difference whether the “much” was of indulgence or renunciation. He had never walked barefoot. Where he walked, velvet was spread first, then he would pass. When he became a bhikshu, while the monks walked on the path watching for thorns, he walked on paths full of thorns. The monks avoided thorns; he sought them. His feet were full of wounds. The monks sat in shade; he sat in the sun. The monks ate once a day; he ate once in two days. Much!
This is the fun: the mind can drop indulgence and clutch renunciation, but it cannot drop excess. The mind lives in extremes. In six months his beautiful body, golden like gold, turned dark. Blisters covered him. He burned all over. Many times monks came and said, “Srona is a great ascetic! We are nothing before him.” Buddha smiled, “You do not know—he was a great indulger. Becoming a great ascetic is easy for him.”
For six months Buddha said nothing. Srona kept withering. One evening Buddha went to him: “Srona, I have come to ask something—an area where I know little, you know more. Teach me.”
Srona was surprised: “You, and to learn from me! What?”
Buddha said, “I have heard that as a prince you were a master veena-player. I have come to ask: if the strings are stretched too tight, does music happen?”
Srona said, “If the strings are too tight, they will snap. Not music—only a scattering of dissonance will happen; the strings will break.”
Buddha asked, “If the strings are too loose, does music happen?”
Srona said, “What are you asking! If the strings are loose, you cannot even pluck—the music cannot be born.”
Buddha asked, “When does music happen?”
Srona said, “There is a state of the strings in which we cannot say they are tight, nor loose. They stand in a certain equanimity—only then music is born.”
Buddha said, “I came to tell you: the law by which music is born in the veena is the same law by which music is born in life. If the strings are loose toward indulgence, music does not happen. If the strings are tight toward renunciation, music does not happen. There is a state of consciousness, Srona, when the strings are neither loose nor tight; when neither indulgence nor renunciation is, when one does not live in one extreme or the other—when one rests in the middle—only then the supreme music is born. That supreme music is named Samadhi. What you learned with the veena—do it with life as well. I see your strings were loose earlier; no music arose. Now, like a madman, you have tightened them so much—still no music.”
Lao Tzu says: one who attains Tao forever protects himself from too much perfection. He always remains in the middle. Neither this side nor that—between.
Mind is excess. Wherever there is no excess, mind is not. Mind is either to the left or to the right—never in the middle. The mind is either rightist or leftist—never in the middle. In the middle, mind is not.
If we understand the veena rightly, we can say: when the strings are perfectly tuned, the strings are not. Because as long as the string is “there,” it hinders music. People ordinarily think when the veena plays, music is produced by the strings. Wrong. Music is not produced by the string, but by the equanimity of the string.
Therefore learning to “play” the veena is easy; tuning it is hard. Anyone can strike a veena, but to set the instrument is difficult. To set it means: the art of bringing the strings into equanimity. Whenever a skilled hand brings the string into equanimity, the great work is already done. Then even children can bring forth music. But to bring it into equanimity! Remember, when the string is perfectly in tune, there is no string—there is only music. When the string is out of tune, there is only string—no music.
When the mind is in extremes, there is mind. When extremes are gone and the middle is, there is no mind. Only consciousness, awareness—Atman—remains.
Such a person, says Lao Tzu, does not meet decay and rebirth.
One who has settled in the middle abides in the immortal. Both extremes are death; the middle has no death. Both extremes have tension. Tension brings decay. If strings are too tight, they break. If strings are very loose and someone still tries to extract music, they also break. The more the strings are in equanimity, the more breaking becomes impossible. Where there is no tension, there is no breaking. Tension breaks.
Hence Lao Tzu says: “He goes beyond decay and rebirth.”
Decay ends. Where decay ends, death is impossible. Death is the sum of all decay. Day by day there is decay; death is their aggregate. One who experiences inner equanimity does not meet decay—or death.
The body will go, for the body lives in extremes. Birth is one extreme; death is the other. The mind will also go, for the mind lives in extremes: indulgence-renunciation, friendship-enmity, love-hate; this world—that world—it lives in extremes; it too will go. But within there is a third state—of equanimity. Only when equanimity happens, it is known. It then has no death. Where there is no death, there is no rebirth.
Without talking of transmigration, Lao Tzu says in this sutra: this is the way to be free of coming and going. Two things he has said: in action, totality—so that the opposite state arises spontaneously; in oneself, the middle—so that no tension is created. Then in life, decay and death become impossible.
Enough for today. We shall sit for five minutes—join in the kirtan.