Tao Upanishad #36

Waiting is important, necessary—but not enough. Along with waiting, one must learn to sit on the bank of the mind. If you sit in the very current of the river and wait, there will be no result. Sitting in the current, even your very presence will go on stirring up the mud. The art of sitting out of the current, on the shore, is meditation.

Waiting is an essential part of meditation. But waiting by itself is not meditation. One who cannot wait will not be able to meditate. Yet the one who takes waiting itself to be meditation is also mistaken. Meditation is the art of sitting on the bank.

The mind is a current, a stream of thoughts. If you sit in the middle of the mind and, no matter how long you wait, keep observing from within it, you will never be outside the mind—and the current will never become clear. Your very presence is making the mind impure. Step outside the mind; sit on the bank and look—watch the mind from a distance. As one watches birds flying in the sky, so from afar watch your thoughts moving. As one watches a river flowing, so sit on the shore and watch your mind flowing. The greater this distance becomes, the sooner the mind will become still and pure. That is one point.

Second, in the endless story of life, twelve years are nothing. In the infinite expanse of life, what value have twelve years? So do not think that waiting twelve years is a great waiting. For if you have waited twelve years, you have spent twelve lakh—1.2 million—lives trying your best to muddy that river. The proportion is nothing. Therefore I say: infinite waiting.

But infinite waiting does not mean you will have to wait for lifetimes. What is needed is the readiness to wait. The happening can occur in a single instant. And the greater the readiness to wait, the sooner the happening occurs. Why? Because impatience agitates the mind. The carts of circumstances do not stir up as much mud in the mind as one’s own impatience does.

Waiting means: I have now come to patience. Whenever the happening occurs, I will wait—even for lifetimes; I have no impatience, no hurry. The more the hurry, the longer it takes. And the more the mind is willing to wait as long as it takes, the sooner the event happens.

So do not think twelve years is a big thing. And do not take waiting to be sufficient. Pay attention to sitting on the bank—to witnessing, to awareness.

There are three points. First, two words must be understood clearly: one is ahamkara and the other is asmita.

Ahamkara (ego) means: “I am one with the body.” When consciousness gets linked with the body, experiences itself as joined to it, identifies with it, makes it one, then ego is formed. When consciousness comes to know itself as separate from the body, recognizes itself as other, the identification breaks—and ego breaks. But knowing “I am separate from the body” is not enough; it is not sufficient to know “I am one with the Divine.” If someone stops with “I am separate from the body” and does not come to experience oneness with the Divine, that state is called asmita (I‑am‑ness).

“I am one with the body” is called ahamkara. “I am separate from the body” is called asmita. And “I am one with the Divine” is beyond even asmita.

Lao Tzu says that for a saint one thing is essential: his ego must be broken; he must know “I am not the body, I am not the mind.” To recognize this much—this is the mark of a saint. But the saint can stop even here. Many saints stop here. Those saints who have said, “There is no God; there is only the self,” belong to this category. They have broken one link in the chain of bondage—this is a great event. They have severed their relation with the trivial—this is a tremendous revolution. But it is only half a revolution. One more thing remains to be done: to relate with the Vast (virat). When relation with the Vast is joined, asmita too disappears.

I told you, “I am”—there are two words in it. “I” is ahamkara; “am” is asmita. In a saint, the “I” falls; only “am” remains—am‑ness. Lao Tzu says this is the definition of a saint: his asmita is still there; ego is gone.

If this asmita keeps becoming dense, more solid, then ego can return. If asmita congeals and deepens, ego can return. Therefore Lao Tzu adds that a saint’s asmita keeps melting like ice; like ice lying in the sun, it keeps melting. If it goes on melting, then one day asmita too will be lost. The “I” has already gone; one day the “am” will also go. On that day, pure existence remains. On that day, Lao Tzu says, even to call him a saint has no meaning. That day, that person, that wave, has become one with the ocean.

Even being a saint is a distance. The non-saint is very far; the saint is near. But nearness too is a kind of distance. Nearness is not oneness. The saint is still far. He is close, very close—far closer than the non-saint. But however close, a gap still remains. Lao Tzu’s ultimate goal is when even that much gap does not remain, when even nearness dissolves. The farness is gone, and the nearness also goes. Only then, only then, is unity attained.

Ordinarily, it appears to us that when distance is gone, unity happens. But merely losing distance does not create unity; in fact, the truth is, the closer one comes, the more the distance is felt. A non-saint never feels the distance of God; the distance is so vast that he does not even notice it. He asks, “Where is God?” The distance is so great that he cannot see God anywhere.

The saint’s pain increases. He is so near that stretch out a hand—and there is God; take a breath—and there is God; move—and you bump into God. Such nearness! And then arises what the saints have called viraha, the pang of separation. The non-saint never experiences viraha; he is too far for that. The saint experiences viraha: so near, yet not one. Even nearness begins to hurt. A very thin veil remains.

But when a wall stands in between, we cannot even see the other side. Then longing does not arise; hope does not well up; thirst is not awakened. Ego is a wall of stone. Asmita is a very transparent glass wall. Everything on the other side is visible, as if there were no wall at all. But whenever the saint tries to move across, the wall is felt. Then the pain becomes heavy, and the viraha grows intense.

Only saints have known the viraha of God. The saint too is yet separate, not united. A transparent wall too keeps the saint apart. The day even this transparent wall melts, that day neither distance remains nor nearness remains. That day, unity is accomplished. That day the saint is lost, and only the Divine remains.

It is the mind’s final state, and ego is the mind’s first state. Ego is the grossest state of the mind; asmita is the subtlest.

Understand it this way: mind is in the middle—on one side the world, on the other the Divine, and mind between the two. Where mind joins with the world, ego is born; where mind joins with the Divine, asmita stands. These are the two junctions. The junction where mind connects with the world is called ego. And the junction where the human mind connects with the Divine—or must ultimately break as well, because every joining also implies a breaking; wherever things join, they also break—that junction is asmita.

Lao Tzu says: the one in whom the first bond has snapped, whose connection with the world is severed, but in whom the second bond still remains—his unity with the Divine has not yet ripened—there, asmita endures. Asmita is the subtlest form of mind; ego, the grossest. Yet both are events within mind.

Remember: the sinner is mind, and the saint is mind. Step outside mind and neither remains. The highest is within mind, and the lowest is within mind, because beyond mind there is neither the high nor the low. The inauspicious belongs to mind, and the auspicious belongs to mind; evil and good are within mind. Go beyond mind and neither evil nor good remains—all dualities dissolve. As long as duality is, know that mind is. Where duality is not, mind is not. The saint, too, is a part of duality; sinner and saint are the two poles of the same duality.

If this truly sinks in, then the final leap! The first leap is from ego, and the last leap is from asmita. The first leap is from “I,” and the final leap is from “being.”

Hence Buddha speaks of no-self. In place of asmita, Buddha uses the word atman. Buddha says: let the ego drop, and then let the atman—the self-sense—also drop; only then is there entry into the ultimate truth.

The difficulty that arises in our minds here is: then shall we still call such a person a saint who is yet within mind? Shall we say he has attained the ultimate truth?

In language, all statements are relative. When we say, “the saint has attained the ultimate truth,” it means only this: from where we stand, the saint has come very near to truth. Between us and truth there is a stone wall; between him and truth there is a glass wall—so transparent it seems not to exist. Truth is as clear to him as if there were no wall; yet the wall remains.

Understand this too: that wall will not be visible to us. Those who are not themselves saints will not see it at all. They will say, “For the saint no wall remains.” But the one who has come right up to it—the saint himself—recognizes that wall. Because it is transparent: it cannot be seen, but it can be felt. Try to pass through and your head strikes it. Everything on the other side is visible—only visible; attempt to enter and the wall stands in between.

Asmita is such a subtle wall that only the saint perceives it. Even the saint’s devotees cannot see it. To them it seems the saint has become God—naturally so. The devotees have only ever seen stone walls, never a glass one. But the saint, moment to moment, experiences that a subtle wall still encloses him. He has not yet utterly dissolved. He still is.

From the saint’s own experience Lao Tzu says: let even asmita melt, melt and disappear—only then. Not before. From our experience we may say, “The saint has become God.” When we ourselves become saints, we shall discover: no, one wall still remains. Even “being” is a barrier. That, too, must vanish; that, too, must be erased. Until emptiness takes the place of the saint, even that wall does not fall.

To understand this sutra, two things are necessary.

First: there are two frameworks for understanding life, for expressing life, for giving words to life. One is affirmative, the other negative; one positive, the other via negation. Whenever we want to say something, we can say it in two ways. If this room is dark, we can say, “It is dark,” or we can say, “There is no light.” If a man is alive, we can say, “He is alive,” and we can also say, “He has not yet died.” Expression can be affirmative, and it can be negative. It depends on the person.

Lao Tzu and Buddha love negative language. Whatever they have to say, they consider it appropriate to say it in a negative way. They have reasons—many reasons. The greatest reason is this: when Buddha had to speak out of his experience, he saw that all around him affirmative statements had been made, and taking those affirmations for granted, millions had gone astray.

For example, a man says, “I am God.” There are two possibilities. One is that what he says is true. The other is that it is untrue and hypocritical. Both are possible. If a hundred men proclaim “I am God,” the great probability is that ninety-nine are proclaiming falsely. The ego can enjoy nothing more than saying, “I am God.” The ways of ego are very subtle; what could give it more delight than, “I am God”?

So Buddha felt—and Lao Tzu felt—that an affirmative proclamation of this kind is dangerous. Not that it is necessarily wrong. When Mansoor says, “Ana’l Haqq,” he is right. From Mansoor’s side there is no mistake. When Mansoor says, “I am Brahman,” he is actually saying, “I am not; only Brahman is.” And when the Upanishadic seers say, “Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman,” their meaning too is: “Where am I now? Only Brahman is.” “I am Brahman” means precisely that. But—only if it is truly so.

A madman can also say, “Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman.” You cannot prevent him. The fear is that such people will also influence others, will also stir people up, and will become causes for leading others astray.

Therefore Buddha said, “No proclamation, no proclamation.” Lao Tzu too said, “No proclamation.” The saint will not proclaim; he will remain silent.

But even silence is a proclamation. Whatever a man does becomes a proclamation. And if everyone sitting here believes the mark of a saint is that he makes no proclamation, then whoever makes no proclamation will be taken as a saint. So one who wants to be accepted as a saint can avoid proclaiming.

Buddha and Lao Tzu used the negative. Very soon, in both their lands, it was found that the routes of ego are astonishing; it can exploit the affirmative and it can exploit the negative too. If you come to me and say, “So-and-so says, ‘I am God,’” I can reply, “He is not a saint, because saints do not proclaim. Look at me, I do not proclaim.”

The proclamation has happened. Even a negative proclamation is still a proclamation.

Meher Baba says, “I am the Avatar.” That is an affirmative proclamation. Krishnamurti says, “I am not an avatar.” That is a negative proclamation. But both are proclamations. It is difficult to avoid proclaiming. How will you escape it? Where will you run? Whatever you do—even if you do nothing—your every act is a statement. How will you escape making statements? If I remain silent, even then I am making a statement.

Bernard Shaw was once taken by a friend to see a play the friend had written. Shaw had resisted a lot, but finally went—and slept through the whole performance. The friend was very upset: with great effort he had brought Shaw, and then Shaw snored all the way. When the play ended, Shaw said, “Very good play.” The friend said, “Don’t deceive me. You slept the whole time; you have no right to make a statement.” Shaw replied, “My sleeping was my statement. And what I am now saying—‘very good play’—I say because I slept so well.”

Buddha and Lao Tzu tried. The effort is important. But the effort cannot fully succeed. Man can create instruments for deception out of anything. Those who believed in a soul and proclaimed they were God deceived; and after Buddha, even the monks of Buddha did the same. They made no proclamation—and still deceived. Deception can come from anywhere. There is no way to avoid it completely.

This means it will depend on the individual’s own bent how he expresses. Lao Tzu’s and Buddha’s inclination, their preference, is for negation—neti-neti. If they had their way, they would speak by remaining silent. But it depends. Meera cannot remain silent; Mansoor cannot remain silent either. That is the difference in their personalities. Chaitanya cannot remain silent; he will dance, sing, and proclaim. The proclamation is not being made; it is happening.

Understand this a little more closely. A man can sit silently. When Buddha was enlightened, he did not speak for seven days. He fell into silence. There is a sweet story: the gods bowed at Buddha’s feet and prayed, “In millions upon millions of years, rarely does someone attain this supreme state; for births upon births so many have waited for a Buddha to appear and speak. Please speak; do not remain silent. If you fall silent, what will become of those eager to hear? Those who are parched, who have waited like the rain-bird for lifetimes, will remain thirsty.”

Still Buddha was not moved. He said, “I cannot understand what to say. Whatever I say will be wrong. Words are wrong; only silence is right. Let those who can understand silence, understand.”

But if people could understand through silence, the sky is silent. If through silence alone people understood, why would Buddha need to stay back? The moon and stars are silent. The mountains, rocks, lakes, flowers—all are silent. All around there is the vast empire of silence. Who understands through silence? Buddha’s silence would not deepen this silence.

The gods said, “No, please speak—even if you err, even if people do not understand. If a hundred hear, and even one understands, that is enough, it is much.”

Buddha said, “There are some who will not misunderstand if I speak; they will understand rightly. Those who can understand rightly when I speak would understand even without my speaking. And there are some who will misunderstand even if I speak; for them there is no point in speaking. Let me be silent.”

But the gods offered another argument—an appealing one. “You are right,” they said. “If there were only two kinds of people in the world, we would agree. There is a third kind as well—those in between. If you do not speak, they will not understand; if you speak, they will. They are standing on the edge. If you do not speak, they will not understand; if you speak, they will. Just a little push, and they can leap. Speak for them.”

Naturally, one who was insisting on silence—when he speaks, his speaking will be negative. Ask him, “What is God?” and he will say, “God is not this, not that.” Negation will be his preference.

But Chaitanya, or Meera—their knowing became dance, became expression. Their knowing became song. There was not a moment’s gap between their realization and its expression. They were utterly expressive—through the mouth and through the body; their whole being was articulate. They never paused to think, “If I speak, it will be a mistake.” They did not even notice when speech began.

It depends on personality. Their language will be affirmative. When Meera speaks, she will not say of God what He is not; she will say what He is. All devotees will use affirmative language: what God is. Therefore the God of devotees cannot remain nirguna (without qualities); He becomes saguna (with qualities), with form. For affirmation means qualities and form. All knowers will use negation; therefore their God remains emptiness—formless. There will be no attributes. They will deny: “Not this, not this.” The devotee will say, “This, this.”

Both are right, and both are wrong, because both are incomplete. There is no way to be complete in expression. Expression will be incomplete. The moment you use words, words will say half and leave half unsaid. For there is no sense in uttering opposite words simultaneously. Even attempts have been made. The Upanishads say, “He is farther than the farthest and nearer than the nearest.” To say this in language…

In the West a new school arose among philosophers: the positivist analysts, the logical analysts. They would call such a statement nonsense, meaningless. Because if you say, “farther than the farthest,” then stop; do not immediately add, “nearer than the nearest.” Each cancels the other.

If these Western thinkers hear Lao Tzu say, “Formless is his form,” they will call it absurd. Then language has no meaning left. Form means form; formless means formless. And you say, “His form is formless.” Then better not speak at all. It is like saying, “His death is his life,” or, “His ugliness is his beauty,” or, “His blindness is his eyes.” Then do not use language at all. Be kind to language. Let eyes mean eyes, and blindness mean blindness. If eyes mean blindness and blindness means eyes, then do not speak.

The great thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “That which cannot be said must not be said.” If it cannot be said, be silent. What cannot be said, do not attempt to say; do not turn language into a muddle.

So there are only three ways so far. First, use affirmative language. Its dangers: limits are drawn, definitions arise, and the vast becomes narrow. Second, use negative language. Limits will not be drawn, form will not arise, the vast will not be confined; but the vast will slip beyond understanding, become unintelligible. Third, use both together: say that He both is and is not, that He is great and small. Use both at once. Then language becomes a riddle, not expression. What to do then?

There is a fourth option: fall silent. That too does not solve much. Language is a necessary evil. One has to choose within it. And the choice is a matter of taste. Lao Tzu’s taste is for negation. Mansoor’s and Jesus’ taste is for affirmation. No one can say which of the two is right. Jesus’ statement is right for Jesus; Lao Tzu’s statement is right for Lao Tzu. It depends on their way of seeing.

Our trouble is that we always want all their statements to be the same—only then do we feel satisfied. Our trouble is to insist: either Lao Tzu is right or Jesus is right; either Buddha is right or Krishna is right. Both cannot be right.

I say to you: drop concern for both. Choose quietly whichever of the two feels right to you, and walk with it; let the other be. The day you reach the goal, you will see both were right. Until you arrive, choose what resonates and suits your personality, and go with it. And never make the mistake of trying to force what is right for you to be right for another. Do not get entangled in that effort. It may not suit the other’s personality. You will become responsible for his murder.

We are all responsible for murdering one another. One man is dancing, doing kirtan. Another says, “What foolishness! Use some intelligence!” He is really saying, “If I danced, it would be foolishness; if I danced, it would be unintelligent.” But he goes beyond his limits and tells the other he is foolish. He makes himself the standard, the yardstick.

No person in the world is a standard for another. Whoever thinks, “I am the standard for others,” is responsible for deep violence; he is a criminal. What seems foolishness to me may be supreme bliss for another. What seems supreme wisdom to me may appear foolishness to another. But the other is never the criterion; for me, I am the criterion for myself. What brings me bliss is my path—even if the whole world calls it foolishness, I must seek my own bliss.

Therefore Krishna said: one’s own dharma, swadharma, is best; another’s dharma is to be feared. The dharma that belongs to another is a cause of fear.

But we have no concern for this. We all are engaged in imposing our dharma on others.

Lao Tzu will be understood by those who love negation, who delight in the language of “no.” He will not be understood by those who delight in the affirmative. There is no need that he be. Where you start is not important. What matters is that you finally arrive where both Lao Tzu and Krishna point. The day you arrive, you will see all paths converging there. Until you arrive, you must choose one path.

There is another danger. Some people become very “intelligent.” By that I mean they say, “Both are right.” They never start walking, because no one can walk on two roads at once. You have to walk on one.

In this century the number of such “intelligent” people has grown vastly—those who say, “Christianity is right, Hinduism is right, Islam is right; the Quran is right, the Bible is right, the Gita is right—everything is right. Allah-Ishwar Tere Naam—everything is right.” These are people who never walk. Because if all roads are right, the feet do not lift. If you walk on one road, another seems right; you move two steps and a third calls, “I too am right—try me a little.” For the walker, always one path is right; for the thinker, all paths can be right. For the walker, one path is right.

Yes, for the one who has arrived, all paths become right. But until you have arrived, do not speak the language of the arrived. That is costly. You are standing at the gate; if you take up the language of the palace within, you are unfortunate—you will get into trouble. You still had to travel there; now even that journey will not happen. All are right—but only for one who has reached the center and, from there, has seen all roads coming in. But one who stands on the circumference and has not walked even one path, and says, “All roads are right,” is cutting off his own legs. He will not be able to walk.

Therefore many curious things have happened. Every religion has said that all other religions are wrong—every one of them. Their statement is valuable—and dangerous. All valuable things are dangerous. Only valueless things are not dangerous. The more important the truth, the more dangerous it is—because a slight mistake with it creates danger. Every religion has said, “Only this religion is true.” It is a dangerous statement—very powerful.

It is dangerous if you take it to mean: “In the whole world, none but us holds the truth.” If that is all you take from it, it is very dangerous. It meant something else: that for one who has to walk, one truth alone must be held, otherwise he cannot walk. Religions were not anxious to proclaim the absolute. For when someone arrives, he will discover it himself. There is no hurry.

We all have very abortive minds—minds whose pregnancies never come to term. Nothing completes; and statements crowd thick within us. We do not walk, and we seize upon the language of the goal. Lao Tzu is right—and Mansoor too. But you will know this the day you arrive. Do not hurry. For now, take what seems right to you, and take it really as right. And what seems wrong, take it as completely wrong. But if you “accept” and then sit still, there is no point. Accepting as right should mean only one thing: I must walk.

People think enmity between Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Buddhists is decreasing; the world is getting better. That is not the case. Enmity is decreasing not because the world is improving, but because no one any longer wants to walk any path. Then what is the need to quarrel? Enmity is not decreasing because people have become broad and good; it is decreasing because religion can now be neglected. It is not important enough to fight about. There is not even the mood to argue.

If today someone says, “There is no God,” one does not even feel like arguing. “Fine, then there isn’t.” This is not greater tolerance; it is greater indifference. Indifference: “It doesn’t matter; fine.” If someone says today, “The Gita and the Bible convey the same message,” we say, “Perhaps.” Not because we know they say the same thing, but because it seems pointless: “Why waste time? Fine—let it be, don’t drag the conversation on.”

A friend sent me a book. He had done a great deal of “research” to show that the Gita and the Bible contain the same message. I went through the whole book. The research is utterly useless. He could not bring any real concordance anywhere. Not even one statement matched the other. But from Radhakrishnan to Vinoba, everyone had endorsed him: “You are doing very good work.” Seeing their endorsements, I felt none of them had read the book—only, seeing that someone was trying to level the Gita and the Bible, they blessed the effort as “good work.” Because not even a single statement actually matched.

But he must have felt pleased—pleased by all those statements that he was doing fine work. This does not mean he was truly doing fine work. There is such indifference that we say, “There must be something in the Bible, something in the Gita—who cares? Who has any stake in it?”

Both are right—affirmative and negative statements—but only for those who have arrived. For you: I speak on Krishna as well. If the affirmative feels right to you, take hold of it and walk. I also speak on Lao Tzu, because in the realm of negation there is no more beautiful expression in the world. Lao Tzu is the peak in negative statement. So those who feel drawn to negation should walk that path. Do not worry about which statement is “true.” What feels true to you in such a way that you can start walking—that alone is of primary value.

Our mind has two states: unrest and peace. Whenever we become active, the mind will be restless. Action arises, tension arises, thoughts are stirred. When work begins outside, it begins inside as well. The bigger the work outside, the proportionately bigger the work inside. That is the unrest. Then the work will be dissolved. If, Lao Tzu says, you enter the work totally, then the moment the work ends, the inner work also ends. And peace is available.

Our condition is such that we are neither properly restless nor properly quiet. And for one to be truly quiet, if he has not been truly restless, it is very difficult. Our unrest is not complete either. Therefore, when the activity of unrest subsides, whatever remains of it keeps moving within, suspended.

Understand this: suppose I got angry with you. I never complete the anger; I suppress some of it. I will be angry, yet not fully. You go away, the incident ends. What got stuck inside as anger keeps going on. If I were to live the anger totally, then with the event the inner anger would also end.

George Gurdjieff used to teach his disciples how to be angry. In this century he was a lone teacher—intelligent. There is no shortage of unintelligent teachers who keep preaching: don’t be angry, don’t do this, don’t do that. They repeat worn-out platitudes without knowing what they are saying. Gurdjieff would say—if an angry person came—“First learn to be angry rightly.” The listener would be in a fix. He’d say, “I have come to you to drop anger. What are you saying—be properly angry! Who could be more properly angry than me? I’m burning in it.”

Gurdjieff would say, “Had you been truly angry, you couldn’t have borne that much burning—you would have jumped out of it.” When the house is on fire, a person leaps out. He doesn’t ask, “Where is the way? Which master shall I ask for the path? Whom should I follow?” And even if someone shows a way, he doesn’t sit down to think, “First let me consider—are you right or wrong? Is this the correct path or not? Have the elders walked on it or not?”

When the house is aflame and the flames take hold, a man jumps out. He no longer asks for the way. Wherever the eyes fall, that becomes the way. In any manner, getting out becomes important; the path is no longer important. Note this: as long as the path seems very important to you, it means you have not experienced that the house is on fire. When the house is burning, the path is not important—getting out is. Any way that appears, a person takes and gets out. The very peacefulness with which we sit and ask, “What is the path? From where should we go? How should we go?” means the burning house is not visible to us.

Gurdjieff would say: first learn to be properly angry. He taught how to be angry and how to enter anger totally. Don’t hold anything back. And the great surprise is that whoever learned to enter anger totally would one day come and say, “Strange—behind anger a great peace is experienced. Suddenly everything becomes silent, as if a storm came and passed and everywhere there is stillness.”

So first understand the natural point Lao Tzu is making: after every activity there is an inevitable rest. But the activity must be total—that’s one. Yet that alone is not enough for equanimity. Equanimity is deeper, and it depends on an insight. When a person sees that after anger peace comes, and after peace anger comes; after morning comes evening, after evening morning; there is darkness, there is light, and again darkness—when one experiences that this play of duality continues all around him, then immediately something new is realized: I am separate from both.

If I see that anger comes upon me, dense anger, and then it goes; then peace comes, deep peace, and again anger, again peace—it is exactly as if I am sitting in a room: morning comes, the sun rises, rays surround me; then evening comes, the sun sets, night falls, darkness surrounds me. Should I say I am darkness or that I am light? I will say: I am the one who sees both. I have experienced both; I have known both. I am the witness of both. Morning comes and goes. Evening comes and goes.

Equanimity does not mean peace. Equanimity means to know the third that is within both peace and unrest. The person who says, “I want peace,” cannot attain equanimity. Because if you want peace, what will happen to unrest? You want day—what about night? You want sunrise—what about sunset? Whoever wants sunrise will have to endure sunset. Whoever wants peace will have to pass through unrest. Whoever wants birth will have to accept death.

But we say, no—birth we want, death we don’t; morning we want, evening we don’t; youth we want, old age we don’t. We try to cut out a part. That cannot be. That is not the law of existence. Then we will never attain equanimity.

Everyone wants peace. The more intensely they want it, the more unrest crashes upon their head. And the person who says, “I want morning, not evening,” becomes worried right from the morning that evening is coming, evening is coming—how to avoid it? He wastes the morning trying to escape the evening. And when evening arrives, he suffers the sorrow of evening. He never enjoys the joy of morning, because evening is present along with morning.

The one who strives hard for peace—when peace is there, he is afraid, anxious, panicky: now it will break, now it will break; unrest is bound to come. When unrest comes, he longs for peace. And when peace comes, he waits in fear of unrest: now it will come, now it will come. Equanimity becomes impossible.

Equanimity is a precious word. Equanimity means: if there is unrest, he knows there is unrest; if there is peace, he knows there is peace. Equanimity means: he endures unrest peacefully. He endures even unrest peacefully, because he knows it is the law of life—there is morning and there is evening. He passes through peace peacefully; he bears unrest peacefully. This state is called equanimity. Equanimity means now neither unrest touches him nor peace touches him. He no longer wants that there be no unrest, nor does he want there to be peace. Now he wants nothing. Now he simply watches. A witness—whatever happens, he keeps watching.

In this witnessing, equanimity happens. That equanimity is steady, because unrest cannot erase it and peace does not enhance it. It is steady between both. Such equanimity can be permanent. Peace cannot be permanent; unrest cannot be permanent either—because peace and unrest are two parts of the same larger event. Equanimity can be steady. Equanimity can be eternal, everlasting.

Krishna’s nature will never be understood by you. Lao Tzu’s nature will never be understood by you. Krishna’s nature is understood by Krishna. Lao Tzu’s nature is understood by Lao Tzu. What you will understand is your own nature. That is exactly what is meant by nature.

Of another, what you can understand is his conduct. Only conduct is visible. How will nature be seen? What Krishna does is visible. But what Krishna is—how will that be visible? What Buddha does is visible. What he says is heard. But what he is—how will that be visible? Nature means that which is unmanifest, hidden within. That you will not see. You will only see conduct.

Suppose Buddha is sitting silently and Krishna is playing the flute. To you it appears that Krishna is having great fun, because he is playing the flute; you infer the fun from the flute. Buddha must not be enjoying, because his eyes are closed and he is not playing a flute. But nature cannot be seen. Buddha and Krishna are in the same nature. But that nature will be expressed by each in his own way. Manifestation is a matter of personality.

Understand it this way: ten bulbs are glowing here. One and the same electricity runs through all ten. One bulb is blue, one red, one yellow. To you it seems as if red electricity is coming out of the red bulb, blue out of the blue. The bulb is the personality; the electricity is one.

Krishna’s body is his bulb; Buddha’s body is his bulb; Lao Tzu’s body is his bulb. These are personalities. And the nature within is one. But you will not see that. You will see it only when you enter your own bulb and know that that nature is colorless—neither red, nor yellow, nor green.

So what you saw as Buddha was Buddha’s personality; what you saw as Krishna was Krishna’s personality. Personality is visible—conduct is visible, behavior is visible. What is happening within is not visible. Change the bulb—where a red bulb is fitted, put a green one; where there is a green one, fit a red—and then you will understand: oh, where red used to appear, now green appears. If it were in our hands to put Buddha’s bulb on Krishna and Krishna’s bulb on Buddha, you would see: Buddha is playing the flute and Krishna is sitting silently.

But that is not in our hands. One thing, though, is in our hands: to go within our own bulb and see the nature. Then you will find that in that nature all is quiet, all is silence. All has become without attributes, formless.

But when that formless has to be expressed, you will have to use this body, this mind. Buddha speaks in Pali—of course he will; he knows Pali. Krishna speaks in Sanskrit—of course he will; he knows Sanskrit. But is truth Sanskrit or Pali? Jesus speaks in Hebrew—of course he will. If someone thinks that truth can be spoken only in Sanskrit, then by speaking in Hebrew it becomes untrue! But when Jesus realized truth, was Hebrew present there within? Or when Krishna knew truth, was Sanskrit there inside? Or when Buddha experienced truth, was Pali there?

No—there was neither Hebrew, nor Sanskrit, nor Pali. All words were lost there, all language lost; there was vast silence, vast emptiness. When one knows truth, all language disappears. But when one speaks truth, one has to use some language. Buddha cannot use Hebrew, and Jesus cannot use Sanskrit, and Krishna cannot use Pali. This is part of personality. Language is part of personality. The affirmative or the negative approach is part of personality. To dance or to become silent is part of personality. But the experience of that nature is beyond personality.

But that we cannot see; we will not be able to understand it. We will see it only when we descend into our own nature—before that, no. Difference will certainly appear; difference is there. Because from where we are standing, there can be no vision of the non-difference. If you want the vision of non-difference, you must stand at your own center, where all the causes that generate variety and difference are dissolved. Then there will be no difference.

Understand it this way: we put here a hundred pieces of paper—blank, clean. There is no difference among them. Then we give them into the hands of a hundred people and ask each to draw a picture of a man. All hundred will draw pictures of a man, but no two will be alike. A hundred pictures will be there. The pictures of a man were drawn, all by people, yet the hundred became different. Those pieces of paper now became very different.

The one on which Picasso has drawn may be worth millions, and the one on which you have drawn, nobody will be ready to buy even as wastepaper. Now what will you do? And these were both just paper; only a moment before, both had the same value. Both were pieces of paper, of equal worth, equally blank—in their own nature. Now personality has come upon them. What Picasso has drawn carries the worth of his personality; what you have drawn carries yours; what I have drawn carries mine. The value will be accordingly. Now the papers have become different.

Buddha and Krishna and Lao Tzu and Jesus are blank paper within. But the moment we look at them from the outside—the picture has been made. That picture is their personality. It is not existence, it is personality. The word personality is very good. It means: not what is hidden, but what appears through a medium.

A lamp is burning inside a lantern. A little light comes out. Soot has gathered on the glass. Another lantern—a lamp burns inside, the glass is clean; much more light comes out. Inside, the light is the same in both. But there is a great difference in the glasses. Personalities are different. Personalities dirty what comes from within, or they render it clear.

If Kabir speaks, his speech is going to be a weaver’s. Therefore all Kabir’s symbols are the symbols of a weaver. He was a weaver; he wove cloth all his life. So he says: Jhinee-jhinee bun dinhi re chadariya—finely, finely have I woven the cloak. Buddha cannot say this; his forefathers never wove a cloak. There is no connection with weaving a cloth. The idea of weaving a cloth cannot even arise—that “finely, finely I have woven.” It arises for Kabir; Kabir is a weaver, his life has been spent weaving cloth.

So when Kabir speaks it feels as if a cudgel has been brought down on the skull—there is a rustic sharpness in his utterance. If Buddha hits with a cudgel, it would feel as if a flower had been thrown—there is a royal aristocracy about him. That is part of personality. Hence, the sharpness, the urgency you find in the words of Mohammed or Jesus is neither in the words of Buddha nor Krishna nor Mahavira. That cutting edge is not there. Mohammed’s and Jesus’ words have a blade that none of these have. There is a reason. They are utterly unlettered, downright rustic people. A rustic does not have much language with him; he has only a few words, but they are unhewn. Buddha and Mahavira have a language that is like a stone carved and polished—a statue. Mohammed and Jesus have the raw stone—there is no carving upon it.

Therefore it is no surprise that Mohammed and Jesus went much farther into the life of the common people, and Buddha and Mahavira were left far behind. The common people can understand them; they feel near. Buddha and Mahavira feel far away; their words are of very high peaks. Such words that between us and them there is a great distance.

These are differences of personality. And remember: had Mahavira and Buddha spoken in the language of Jesus or Mohammed in India, no one would even have listened to them. Because in those days when they spoke, this country was at the summit of aristocracy. And if Mohammed had mistakenly spoken in Buddha’s language, he would have found no one to listen. Because those among whom he spoke were precisely desert folk—dangerous, fierce. They needed words with the edge of the sword; otherwise there was no point.

Personality, time—all these things are what we see. The inner existence does not appear. Do not bother about that. Let this much sink into your awareness, and slowly begin to inquire into your own inner existence. The day you find your own existence separate from your personality, that day the doors will open for you; you will be able to peep in.

Buddha is also a heap of garments; Krishna is also a heap of garments; Lao Tzu is also a heap of garments. That which is hidden within is utterly different from the garments. Do not think of it through the garments. But what can we do? We take ourselves to be the garments. We know nothing of the within. Go beyond your garments and see what is hidden there; then your eye will begin to reach beyond everyone’s garments.

There are four or six more questions left; we will take them up in the next Lao Tzu meeting. For today, I have taken the questions that were necessary for this discussion.

That is all for today.
Now join the kirtan. Even if to someone it appears as stupidity, still join—and then go.