Tao Upanishad #37

Right now the sky is empty. Soon it will fill with clouds. The clouds will come; they will thicken, they will rain, and then they will be gone. The sky will remain just the same. The sky is inactivity, passivity. Clouds are activity. Clouds arise and dissolve; the sky neither arises nor dissolves. Clouds sometimes are, sometimes are not. The sky always is. The existence of clouds lies between birth and death. For the sky there is neither birth nor death. The sky is outside of time. Clouds form and scatter within time. The sky is eternal.
The name of this sutra is: Knowing the Eternal Law.
Wherever there is activity, there will be no eternality. For action must move into rest. No action, no activity can be endless. It tires; it has to subside into rest. Only passivity can be eternal.
It is essential to understand this sutra. Religions have said: God is the creator. Lao Tzu is not in agreement. Lao Tzu says: creation is an activity. And if God is a creator, then one day the activity will tire. Every doing demands rest. The ultimate result of doing is always non-doing. So if God is a creator—if creation is his very nature—then God cannot be eternal. Only the absolute passivity can be eternal. If the sky too had to be made, to be active—if the sky were doing something—then like the clouds it too would someday dissolve. The sky does nothing. The clouds do. They do, and then they empty. Now they will come heavy with rain, they will surge and swirl; there will be noise, great movement, lightning flashing. Then the water will pour down, the clouds will be emptied, they will disappear. All activity empties. It must. For all activities begin; and whatsoever begins must end. Only that which never begins can remain beyond an end.
The God of Lao Tzu is passivity. Therefore Lao Tzu does not even call it God. He calls it the Eternal Law—the Tao. If we observe this in many facets of life, it then becomes easy to look within ourselves. And then Lao Tzu’s way of practice will come into our awareness—what he wants, and how one can become available to that supreme eternality. We sow a seed; a tree is born. Branches spread; flowers blossom. And then one day that tree falls back into the same earth and is lost. A person is born. And one day we lay him in a grave and let him merge back into the soil. In the morning you awaken. By evening you tire and fall into sleep. Birth too is a kind of awakening, and death a kind of evening. Again we fall back into the place from which we came. But is there within us also something like the sky is behind the clouds?
A tree is born—earth rising towards the sky. The earth becomes leaves of the tree. The earth flowers in the tree. Then the flowers fall, the leaves fall, the tree falls. Earth returns to earth. Was there in the tree also something like the sky? This—the being of the tree, the spread of leaves, the activity—this is like the clouds. But was there in the tree something too that was like the sky? Something that was there even when the seed had not yet sprouted, and is still there when the tree has fallen back into the soil?
A man is born; this is the birth of a cloud. He will surge, he will swirl, he will become young, passions will grip him, he will run, life will turn into a dense activity: anxiety and tension and restlessness, successes and failures. There will be a long story. And then all will fall into the dust. Omar Khayyam has said: dust unto dust. And then earth will fall back into earth. Was this man nothing but clouds, or was there also something like the sky? These passions are clouds. At times they are very full. Look at a young man; he is a cloud heavy with water. Look at an old man; the rain has fallen, the cloud has emptied. That which was full has been dispersed. An old man is a dried-out cloud. But behind this man’s passions, actions, running, achievements—was there any sky, or not?
If there is no sky behind, there is no Atman. And only if there is a sky behind does Atman exist. Those who say there is no Atman in man are saying that clouds arise, but there is no sky. But without the sky clouds cannot even arise. The sky can be without clouds, but clouds cannot be without the sky. Or can they? There is no hindrance to the sky’s being. If there are no clouds, nothing is lacking in the sky. Neither absence increases the sky nor presence diminishes it. The sky is, even without clouds. Clouds are an accident; or say, an event. The sky is an existence. Clouds are incidental, accidental, dependent upon causes.
Understand this a little. Clouds form in the sky dependent on causes—they are contingent. The sun rises, water becomes vapor, it rises toward the sky, and clouds form. If the sun becomes cool, if no sunlight falls, if water does not boil, clouds will not form. If the sun blazes, pours fire, and there is no water, clouds will not form. The sky is without cause. Whether there is a sun or not, water or not, whether clouds form or not, whether moon and stars remain or not, whether the earth survives or not, whether man exists or not—the sky is causeless, unconditional. Nothing affects its being.
This means: whatever has a cause is like the clouds; and whatever has no cause, the uncaused, is like the sky. You are born, and your birth has two aspects. One is cloud-like. Without your parents you could not have obtained this body. Thousands of causes exist through which you received this body. But if you end in causes alone, then you are not. There is no sky within you. Only if—even had your parents not existed, had your body not been obtained—you would still be, only then is there Atman within you. Otherwise the word Atman loses all meaning.
Lao Tzu says, within us all there are clouds and there is sky. And just as there can be no clouds without the sky, your passions cannot be without the Atman. As the sky is needed for clouds to float, so the Atman is needed for passions to float. The Atman can be without passions; passions cannot be without the Atman.
But when the sky is covered with clouds, the sky is not seen at all—only the clouds are seen. And when man is covered by passions, the Atman is not seen at all—only the passions are seen.
And every passion leads into activity. Those who have said that unless man reaches desirelessness, he will not attain the Atman, mean precisely this. Because unless one reaches desirelessness, one cannot reach passivity. Every desire is a birth of action. The very birth of desire means you have set out on a journey of doing. Whether in dream or in fact, you are engaged in doing something. Desire is born—and action begins; clouds gather.
The more clouds there are, the less the sky will be seen. Only when there are no clouds is the sky seen; or it is seen in the gap between two clouds. In the interval between two desires, sometimes the inner Atman peeks through. But our desires are such that there is no interval at all. Before one desire has ended, we give birth to a thousand more. It never happens that one desire ends, another has not yet arisen, and a vacant space remains in between through which we may look into our sky. No sooner is one desire sown than a thousand are sown. One dies, a thousand are born. Our sky remains forever filled with clouds.
Therefore, if a man tries to understand himself, he will find: I am only a sum of actions. And this is exactly how we take ourselves. If someone asks you, Who are you? what will you say? You will tell what you have done—how many houses you have built, how much wealth you have gathered, how many titles you have collected. What you have done is your sum. Thus you take yourself to be a cloud; you have no hint of the sky. Because the sky has nothing to do with doing. The sky simply is. And for its being you need not do anything. Its being does not depend on any karma. In every event these two truths are together present: the world of activity, and the soul of passivity.
Lao Tzu says: to know this passivity is to know the Eternal Law.
Let us understand his sutra.
'Attain the utmost in passivity; and be firmly rooted in the ground of tranquility.'
Within yourself attain the utmost in passivity. This does not mean that you do nothing. If there is life, action will be. If there is life, you will of course go on doing something. If you sit like a statue, that sitting too is an action. And if you lie down like a corpse in shavasana, that lying down too is an action. And if you renounce all and run to the forest, that running away too is an action.
A young man came to the Zen master Hui-hai. Hui-hai said to him: Remember Lao Tzu’s sutra—attain the utmost in passivity.
The youth tried all kinds of devices. The next morning he came and sat absolutely like a stone statue of Buddha. Hui-hai shook him and said: In our temple we already have enough stone Buddhas. We don’t need more. This will not do. Attain the utmost in passivity—enter its ultimacy. Here it is still you who are sitting, and in this sitting you are exerting yourself.
When a man sits ordinarily, less exertion is needed; when he tries to sit exactly like Buddha, great exertion is needed. He tried many devices; all failed. Because no device can succeed in attaining passivity. A device means action. How will action succeed in attaining non-action? If someone wants to stop, how will he reach stopping by running? And if someone wants to die, life is not his path. How will one gain non-action through action?
So the youth became distressed. He went to the elders of Hui-hai’s monastery and asked: What should I do? I am in trouble. My mind has reached its end. All my thinking is exhausted. I have tried all devices. You have been with the master a long time; surely you too passed through this test. Advise me: how shall I attain passivity? The elder he asked said: Unless you die, passivity is not attained. While living, what passivity? If you live, there will be action. Life means activity. Only if you die will you pass the test. The youth thought: Let me try this too.
The next morning, when he came to the master, the master asked: Have you grasped the sutra? At once he fell dead at the master’s feet. The master came to him and said: Open one eye a little. He opened one eye and looked at the master. The master said: Dead men do not open their eyes to look. Where did you learn this? And by borrowed teachings no one ever attains truth. The youth began to weep and said: I have tried every device, and this was the last. Now nothing remains to be done. How is passivity to be attained?
The master said: So long as you ask 'how', you will never attain. For what does 'how' mean? It means: by what method, by what technique, by what effort, by what act shall I get it? You go on asking for action.
Passivity, Hui-hai said, is not attained—passivity is present. And there is no device to attain passivity; it is present. Only let attention be withdrawn from activity onto passivity. It is only a matter of attention shifting. Let attention move from cloud to sky. The sky is not to be attained—the sky is. Nor have we ever truly lost it. At most we can forget. And it is not to be manufactured. Nor will it ever be produced by our efforts. And whatever is produced by our effort is not the sky.
Therefore, for Atman there is no effort, and for Atman there is no sadhana. All sadhanas and all efforts are only to shift attention away from the world of clouds within us.
Lao Tzu’s sutra says: 'Attain the utmost in passivity.'
The wording can create confusion. It seems as if there is something to be attained. But this is the helplessness of language. Lao Tzu has already said: what I want to say cannot be said. And whatever I say will inevitably err. Our entire language depends upon action. If a man dies, we say: he died—as if dying were his act. Dying is a verb. We say: so-and-so died, as if he did some work called dying. For dying you need do nothing. But our whole language runs on doing. It must. We know life by the clouds—and there all is action, movement. Therefore whatever we...
We tell someone: I love you—as if love were an action. No one up to now has ever 'done' love. Love is not a deed to be done. Love either is, or is not; there is no question of doing it. If it is, it is; if it is not, it is not. By effort you cannot love. Love has nothing to do with action. Yet in language love too becomes a verb. We say: the mother loves the son. Love happens between mother and son; it is not 'done'. There is no device for doing it. We even make a happening like love into an action. In exactly the same way we have made meditation into an action. A man says: I do meditation. It is unavoidable—language turns everything into verbs. It even turns states into actions.
Hence the sutra is paradoxical: 'Attain the utmost in passivity.'
Attaining implies action, while passivity is a state. Passivity is a state—so there can be no attainment. All attainments are actions. You can acquire wealth—there can be attainment of riches. You can acquire fame, position. All those are through action. But how will you acquire passivity?
Lao Tzu’s meaning is: within us are two levels. On one level there is action—clouds, waves, ripples. And just beneath, in depth, is the sky. All these clouds are afloat in that sky. That sky is infinite; these clouds are very limited. The capacity to look beyond these clouds is itself what becomes the 'attainment' of passivity.
Therefore in the very next line of the sutra he says—its second half: 'Attain the utmost in passivity; and be firmly joined to the ground of tranquility.'
And when it becomes visible to you within that there is also the sky, then do not wander in the clouds. Travel among the clouds as much as you must, but remain continuously linked to the sky. Keep remembrance of the sky. However far you may go, keep attention always on that sky which has been experienced within. Do as many actions as you do, run as much as you run, but keep attention on that which within does not run, has never run, for which there is no way to run.
Have you ever tried? Try running. You board a train. There is something in you that does not board the train. The train moves. You too move with the train. There is something in you in which no movement occurs. You go from one place to another, but there is something in you in which no change occurs. Howsoever much you move, within you there is a motionless element as well.
Keep that unmoving, passive sky always in attention. Clouds of anger may gather above you, or lust may fill the mind with smoke, or the poison of greed spread—still, amid these clouds, remember the sky hidden behind. For the clouds were not there a moment ago; they are here now; soon they will not be. That which has come for a moment and will depart in a moment—there is no reason to be disturbed by it. Only he is disturbed who forgets the deep foundation of inner peace.
There is a Sufi tale. An emperor grew old. He called his council and said: I am old and death draws near. Till now I have never cared for wisdom. But as death approaches, a concern for wisdom arises. If there were no death, perhaps there would be very few wise in the world. If there were no death, perhaps religions would have no existence. If there were no death, there would be no place for philosophical inquiry. The old emperor said: The mind trembles. And now I seek a ground by which I may be saved from this trembling. All arrangements I made till now are proving futile. I trusted them greatly—armies, cannons, palaces, forts; I was secure. But now these armies and stone walls will do nothing. Death comes nearer and nearer. I need a sutra so that death will not frighten me. This old age knocks at the door; the mind shakes.
The ministers said: We could advise how to build a greater fort; we could advise how to make larger armies; but regarding what you ask—we know nothing.
So there was a search throughout the kingdom. An old fakir came and said: I will give you a sutra that will be useful at the right time. But until the right time comes, do not open it. 'The right time'—when you feel that all means have failed, that whatever you could do is now of no use. As long as you can do, go on doing. When you find your capacity to do is exhausted, that you can do nothing—only then see the sutra. He sealed the sutra in an amulet and gave it.
The emperor tied the amulet on his arm. Many occasions came when the mind wanted to open it and look—but then he realized: I can still do something. The enemies are still far, I still have a swift horse, I can still escape beyond the borders. Years passed. Then an enemy attacked and the kingdom was lost. Fleeing on horseback, the enemy chasing him, he suddenly remembered the amulet. But he felt: I can still do something. The enemies are far, the horse is swift; I can yet get out of these bounds. He kept fleeing. He came upon a turn in the mountains where the path ended and a chasm opened before him. There was no way to turn back—behind were the enemies. The sound of their hoofs grew with every moment. In front, the abyss; there was no going further. The path was a narrow ledge. The last hoofbeats seemed to be striking upon his chest—upon his head. Then he broke the amulet open and read. There was a single short sentence: 'This too will pass.' Nothing else. No device to act. Holding the amulet, he stood there. The mind gave no help. He felt cheated by the fakir. He had thought there would be a mantra, a magic, a power of miracle by which something could be done. There was nothing—only a scrap of paper with: 'This too will pass.'
He stood silent. The hoofbeats grew louder, louder—then began to fade. They had taken another path. The horses moved away. He tied the amulet back on. Later his armies won again. He returned to his kingdom.
But from that day he opened and read the amulet at every moment. At every moment. Someone insulted him, abused him; he would read the paper, smile, and close the amulet. From that day no one saw him anxious. From that day no one found him unhappy. From that day no one found him angry. From that day death, life—none of these remained his worry. His ministers hovered around, trying to glance into that paper—what mantra is there? The man has utterly changed. What magic is in that mantra? Only one small sutra: 'This too will pass.'
If we understand rightly, whatever passes is a cloud within you. And that which does not pass—that you are. Whatever comes and passes is not you. If this remembrance goes deep, you have become joined to the ground of tranquility. That emperor became joined to the ground of tranquility. That which within me never passes—that alone am I. But all my actions pass away. Whatever I do passes. Therefore by my doing I have no link with the Eternal Law. Rather, the state of my non-doing alone is joined with the Eternal.
'All things take on form and become active.'
All things take form and become active. A cloud takes form, becomes active. A tree takes form, becomes active. A passion within you takes form, becomes active.
'All things take on form and become active; yet we also see them return again into repose.'
Lao Tzu says: everything becomes, is formed. Then we see it returning—falling back into repose. When all that is formed falls back... If this begins to be seen—if it begins to be seen that all forms, whether beautiful or ugly, pleasing or displeasing, are formed and fall apart; that disintegration is an inevitable law; that to fall apart is part of formation; that whatever is born today is born only to die; that the flower that has bloomed has bloomed only to fall; that withering, falling, disintegration are the other halves of blooming—if this begins to be seen through and through, then you have grown the eye of religion.
Buddha used to call this the 'Dharma-eye'. He would say: All is impermanent, all is mortal; nothing will remain, nothing will be saved; whatever has a beginning has an end. Whoever sees this obtains the Dharma-eye. He attains that eye which we call the religious eye. Memorizing the Qur’an does not give that eye. Nor does memorizing the Gita. That eye comes through this experience.
We see only the form. A cloud arises in the sky—we see the cloud, the sky is lost. That which always was, which is now, which will always be—we forget; and the cloud becomes all in all. And when the cloud is, we forget entirely that in a little while the cloud will scatter. The cloud is nothing but condensed vapor, condensed smoke. It will vanish. The person who can see this even when clouds gather; the person for whom, even when clouds gather, the sky remains clear—he has attained the Dharma-eye.
All forms are formed and fall apart. But forms grip the mind greatly. Leave aside living forms—even an image of a beautiful body on paper, people clasp it to their chest. Ink lines on a piece of paper make a form. People are stirred by it. They are affected by it. They are entangled by it. If one is moved by lines drawn on paper, there is no wonder if he is affected by the lines of flesh, marrow, and bone.
But if those moved by lines on paper could look a little carefully, they would see the blank paper behind. And those affected by bone, flesh, and marrow—if they could look deeper, they too would see the blank sky behind. All forms are nothing but lines sketched in ink. All forms—whether a tree is being formed, or a person is being formed, or a sun is being formed—all forms...
Buddha has said: all things are compounds, aggregates. All aggregates disband.
Buddha’s death was near. The monks were weeping. A monk asked: What will become of you now? Where will you go? What liberation?
Buddha said: I will go nowhere. And that which you took to be my being is only an aggregate. It is only a coming together of lines. Before you it will disband and merge here into dust. You yourselves will bury it. That which you think is my being will merge here into earth. That form was formed by this very earth. And that which I am has no coming and going. But that you do not know.
Within every form the formless is hidden. Without the formless there can be no form; as I said, without the sky there can be no clouds. The formless is indispensable to the form.
But we see the form; we do not see the formless.
Lao Tzu says: 'All things take on form and become active; yet we also see them return again into repose.'
To see this is religion.
'As the plant-world, having achieved a luxuriant growth, then returns to its place of origin.'
A sprout emerges. Flowers bloom, fragrance arises, it collides with winds, with a longing to touch the sun it sets out on a journey into the sky. How much color! how much form! how much longing! how much confidence! Then all is lost. Go there after a year or half a year—nothing remains. Earth has fallen back into earth. Like a wave which leapt and then fell back. But when this plant is, when it blooms, when it takes on form, we do not see the empty sky behind.
Lao Tzu is saying just this—but everything returns.
The person to whom this returning becomes visible—that person alone will touch the utmost of passivity. And that person alone will be joined to the ultimate ground of repose.
'To return to the origin is repose.'
This is a matter of vision. This must be attained as vision. It must be seen.
We can see through a plant that tomorrow it will be gone. But there we are seeing the plant. We can see through a cloud that in an hour it will scatter. But there we are seeing the cloud. The day someone applies this insight to himself—the day he says: that which appears in me—this body of mine, this mind of mine, these thoughts of mine, this I-ness, my ego, this intellect—whatsoever appears in me will also return to the origin, just as all forms return—when someone turns this vision upon himself, then Lao Tzu says: to return to the origin is repose. And whoever is filled by such an experience has returned to his origin. He who sees within that all that is formed in me will disband—he has already returned today to his repose.
This saying is very precious: 'To return to the root is repose.'
The recognition of that root-origin, of those roots—this returning is that. And to attain one's roots, one's origin, is the supreme repose.
That shadow of peace upon Buddha’s face is not the fruit of some practice, not the consequence of mantra-chant. If a man goes on chanting a mantra, a kind of peace starts appearing upon the face—cultivated, produced by effort. If one wished to tranquilize a man chemically, it could be done. Pour tranquilizers into the blood and a peace will appear upon the face—but it will be dead, a graveyard peace. The living peace upon Buddha’s face is not the fruit of any action. It is that repose which comes by returning to the root. Look at Buddha seated, look at his statue. Whoever looks attentively will feel as if within even this statue there is a center on which the whole statue is joined. The whole statue too seems to be joined to some center. Some center is holding all together.
If someone looks at you walking, rising, sitting, it will seem there is no center within you—or there are many centers at once. There is a crowd within you. A marketplace; many kinds of people, opposing voices. Whoever links himself to clouds will be like this. The sky is one; clouds are many. What is a small cloud now will after a while become large. What is a large cloud now will after a while break into pieces. Is there any reliability in the shapes of clouds? A cloud that seemed very beautiful a moment ago turns ugly the next. A cloud is smoke; it changes form every moment.
Thus whoever links himself to his actions, to his achievements, becomes merely a collected ego of clouds—and he totters moment to moment in a crowd. As soon as it begins to occur to someone...
It is difficult that it should occur. And it does not occur through philosophical thinking alone. I can see that this tree will fall tomorrow—this is easy; it is difficult to see that tomorrow I will fall. Everyone knows that everyone will die—except himself. Everyone knows that all are dolls of bone, flesh, and marrow—except himself. We never count ourselves in. We keep ourselves aside. It never occurs to us that in this world of changing forms I too am a form. It will be very painful to bring this home. That very pain is what we call tapascharya—ascetic fire. To admit that I too am bone, flesh, marrow; to know that I too am an outline drawn on paper; to experience—and to keep remembering every moment—that I am a cloud of smoke, is very difficult. Because if this remains in awareness, where will the ego stand? How shall I carve my image then? Who then am I?
Kahlil Gibran has said: As long as I did not know myself, I believed I was a solid statue. When I knew myself and opened my palm, I found I had been clutching only smoke in my fist.
In our fists too smoke is clenched. We hear this, perhaps we even understand intellectually—but it does not enter the innermost. Why not? Because if I come to know that I am but a wisp of smoke, then all the arrangements I have built around me will instantly fall apart. Someone has told me: you are very beautiful and I love you. If today I come to know I am a piece of smoke, what will become of my love? And I have said to someone: my love is not storybook love; it is eternal—since I have loved, I will love forever. If I come to know that the one who has given the assurance is himself a lump of smoke, that his assurances are unreliable—then what of my love? The investments I have made around me in life—those will all say to me: Don’t think like this. You are solid enough; your words have meaning; your statements will stand. People sing that the moon and stars may not remain, yet their love will remain. What will become of all that? Those dreams we have stretched across the far horizon!
If I myself am smoke, what meaning has my love? If I am smoke, what value have my promises? When I shall be gone, by what scales will my words and my deeds be weighed? There is no way. Hence the difficulty. Sometimes the point is understood; in certain moments it even seems that all this is lines drawn upon water. Then fear grips the mind—for what will become of the net we have spread all around? Frightened, we revert, and let life run in its old mold.
Every mold is built upon our vision. If our vision changes, the whole mold must change—the whole pattern of life must change.
Lin Yutang has written a reminiscence. A Chinese friend gifted a German thinker a small wooden box—very beautiful, very artistic, thousands of years old. But carved upon the box by its maker was a condition: the mouth of the box must always face the sun. Through thousands of years, whoever possessed that box honored the condition. The Chinese friend said: I gift this, but with one condition—the box’s mouth must face the sun. In no circumstance should this be violated; it is a will of thousands of years. The friend said: What difficulty is there? We will honor it.
But when he placed the box in his sitting room with its mouth facing the sun, the whole room looked out of joint. Instead of changing the box’s position, he changed the entire sitting room. It was costly. All the furniture was remade, the walls reoriented, the doors altered. Then the sitting room seemed out of tune with the whole house. He was a man of courage; he rebuilt the whole house to fit the sitting room. Then he found his house out of place with the whole neighborhood. He said: Now it is beyond my limits.
A small change sets in motion changes all around. And a change of vision is no small change. It is the deepest of changes. The moment vision changes, you are no longer the same man you were a moment before. Everything of yours will change. The fear—how will all this be changed?—halts one. Without that courage, a man hears religious talk all his life and never becomes religious.
Lao Tzu says: 'To return to the origin is repose.'
That primal sky—that void hidden within—and sky means emptiness; sky means nothingness. The sky is not an object. The sky is existence, not an object. Sky has no form; sky has no solidity. Yet sky is—the open expanse, space. All things happen in it and dissolve in it. And it remains untouched, unscarred.
'This is called returning to one's destiny.'
Lao Tzu says: to fall into this origin, to fall into the primal source, or to experience oneself as one with the primal source—this is to return to destiny, to swabhava, to nature. That is our destiny. Until one becomes one with the primal origin, he goes on wandering. He can wander for births upon births. So long as one links oneself with forms, with shape, he will go on wandering. This long journey of births is for the sake of form, of shape.
'Becoming available again to one’s destiny is to come upon the Eternal Law.'
There are two orders in existence. In the world we call 'world', change is the law—the change is the law. Everything flows like a river. Nothing repeats and nothing is at rest. Science investigates this realm of change. Therefore science must change its own laws daily.
A joke circulates among scientists. As the Bible says: God said, Let there be light—and there was light! Among scientists there was a joke that when Newton was born, with Newton history took a new turn. There is no man more precious to science than Newton. So a joke became popular: God said, Let there be Newton—and there was Newton! And the world could never again be as it had been before Newton.
Then came Einstein, and someone added a line to the joke. With Newton came law—Newton established three laws to explain the world, and everything fell into order. Before Newton there was chaos; after Newton, order. Then someone added: God got bored with Newton and his order—for every order becomes tedious. So God said, Let there be Einstein—and there was Einstein! And he brought the old chaos back. The ancient disorder that existed before Newton—Einstein resurrected it. He shook all the laws. Everything became disheveled. Newton had barely established that two and two are four; Einstein said two and two can never be exactly four. Everything was upset.
And even what Einstein said needs revision daily, needs revision daily. Science will keep changing every day—because the object of its inquiry itself is changing every day. If what we are trying to photograph changes daily, then no photograph will remain useful for long. After a few days we will find it is a portrait of someone else. The portraits will stand still while the world moves on. Therefore no portrait of the world can be ultimate. Einstein said: knowledge of the world can never be complete—because the world is changing every day.
It is like this: the road from your village reaches the station because the station does not move. The way you went yesterday, if you go today, you will find it there. But if the station started moving, roads could no longer be fixed. Then sometimes a man taking the wrong road might arrive, and sometimes a man taking the right road might not. It is because the station is still that roads are fixed.
If the world is unstill, a change, then its laws cannot be fixed. Therefore science must change its rules every few years. Three hundred years ago science used to say: we seek truth. Bertrand Russell, only a few years ago, said: stop talking about truth; it is enough to approach truth. Don’t talk about absolute truth; only approximate truth is enough. Almost-truth.
But remember—does 'almost-truth' exist? Is there such a thing as 'almost-love'? Is there such a thing as 'almost-theft'? 'Almost-truth' simply means a falsehood that works for the time being. Tomorrow it will be found not to work. Then another falsehood will have to be used. The day after, a third. 'Almost-truth' means: a falsehood not yet proved false.
This is natural—because the subject matter of science keeps changing.
Lao Tzu says: there is also an Eternal Law; it does not change. But then what changes must be left behind in order to find it. Whatever changes must be left. Therefore the laws of religion do not change.
In the West many thinkers grow anxious: Buddha said something, Krishna said something, Christ said something. And today, in our own land, many consider Western notions significant. They say: Two and a half millennia have passed since Buddha; how can Buddha’s truth still be true today? If the truth of science from a hundred years ago does not remain true after a hundred years, if the truth of ten years ago does not remain true after ten, how can the truths of Krishna or Buddha or Mahavira, thousands of years ago, remain true? Their question is valid—because the truth they know changes daily. But they have no idea of Krishna’s truth. They have no idea of Lao Tzu’s truth.
Lao Tzu speaks only of that truth from which all that changes has already been dropped. That condition has been fulfilled in advance. The stream of change has been left. Religion has nothing to do with it. Religion concerns that in which this changing stream was flowing. It has nothing to do with clouds; its search is for the sky in which clouds form and dissolve.
Certainly someone may say: Look at clouds in the morning—they are not the same by noon, not the same by evening. No two clouds are ever seen again. What sky are you talking about? If the clouds change, the sky must change too. Yet you go on speaking of the same sky. But the sky is eternal. Whatever changes is in the sky—but it is not the sky. Whatever changes changes in the sky—but the sky does not change.
This search for the sky—for this inner space—Lao Tzu says: whosoever attains it has found his destiny. He has found that by attaining which all is attained—and without which nothing is attained. He has found his home. He has found the house; there is no longer any need of inns. He has come home. Now there is no question of going anywhere. Now the place has been found for which he searched.
Every man is in search—whether he knows it or not. It may be he does not even know what he seeks. The truth is: he does not know what he seeks. If someone were to ask you honestly: What are you seeking? Great unease would be felt. That is why such rude questions are not asked—because they create unease. If someone were to insist, after a while you would be shaken. What are you seeking? The next morning it would become difficult to rise from bed—for what? What is the quest? We do not know what we seek. But we surely are seeking—something unknown. Something drives us on.
Nor is it that nothing is gained in this search. Much is gained; but no contentment whatsoever. The beauty of this world is that here whatever you want can be obtained by effort. Today or tomorrow, with effort it is obtained. And when it is obtained, you discover the effort was futile. It was gained; nothing was gained. The man who attains all his ambitions—no one is more miserable than he.
Think a little. If God were to appear suddenly in this hall today and say: all your desires are fulfilled—then there would be no men more miserable upon this earth than you. What would you do? Where would you go then? There would not even be need to breathe. There would be no way left but to die. This is what happens. Whoever attains his ambitions suddenly finds: now nothing remains. What to do now? And still there is no contentment. Even if all is attained, still there will be no contentment. Because we have not yet begun to seek that which is destiny. Destiny means: that which, when found, brings contentment.
Understand this distinction well. Destiny is not what you want to get. What you want may be destiny—or may not. You will know only when it is gotten. When it is gotten and you find no contentment, know that it was not destiny. Destiny means that moment you arrive at the utmost point—where there is no further desire, no further search, and contentment is. Where there is no future—and there is supreme contentment.
But whatever we desire... One man wants fame. One day fame comes—and then he finds: what is in my hands? Nothing. Only that my neighbors think well of me—this is all that is in my fist. Nothing else. A man gathers wealth. One day he looks at it and finds: I spent my whole life collecting these pieces. Now they are collected. Now I can only tie them around my neck and hang myself—nothing else can be done.
Bernard Shaw has written: Those who have said that in hell you will be tormented were not very imaginative. He said: If I could paint hell, I would paint a place where whatever you want is given to you at once. No greater hell can be. You want—and it is fulfilled. As soon as you desire, it is fulfilled. And still there will be no contentment—because none of our desires is a desire of destiny.
What we desire is perhaps not even our own desire. A neighbor buys a car; a desire arises in you to have one too. A neighbor builds a house; a desire arises in you to build one too. We live on borrowed desires; even our desires are not our own.
Destiny means: that longing which is in your nature, which you have not learned from anyone.
Hence today the clever ones of the marketplace know well that the old law of economics is wrong—that you should produce goods only when there is demand, then they will sell. Now we know there is no demand in people—first create demand. If your product is to come in ten years, advertise ten years beforehand. There is as yet no product in the market—first create the desire.
People live by borrowed desires. Others hand them over; then they run after them. The whole life man runs thus. Therefore when your desire is fulfilled, you find: nothing happened—only ashes touched my hand. But there is no time to think, because by then others hand you something else—and you run again.
Every man, at the time of death, knows: I was running after I know not what; I was trying to fulfill I know not whose desires. Did I have any destiny of my own? Was I here to attain something? Did I have an order of being? The opportunity is lost, time is gone—sometimes gathering clothes, sometimes building houses, sometimes earning name and fame. But what was my destiny? What was I to attain?
Lao Tzu says: destiny becomes available only on the day one finds within himself this Eternal Law—this sky.
'Becoming available again to one’s destiny is to come upon the Eternal Law. To know the Eternal Law is illumination. And ignorance of the Eternal Law is the begetter of all calamities.'
These calamities, born of chasing the clouds—so much suffering for pleasures which, when attained, bring no joy; so much suffering to reach goals which, when reached, yield nothing but fatigue; and each goal proves to be only a staging-post for the search for another goal—this great sorrow, Lao Tzu says, is the result of not knowing the Eternal Law.
If only we could know that within us there is also an element—unchanging, immortal, ever—and we could link ourselves to it, become one! Then however many clouds gather, however many storms arise, it will make no difference. Not the slightest ripple will arise within. Clouds will come and go; tempests will rise and disperse—and within, dense peace will remain.
To come to this key of dense peace, let me say three last things to you.
First: always, within and without, maintain vivek—discrimination—between what is changing and what does not change. Keep a constant awareness that only that is significant which does not change. What changes is not significant; it is insignificant. Even within, that which changes has no value. That which does not change alone is valuable.
Sitting, rising, walking—remember only that. On the road, keep awareness of that within which does not walk. Let what walks walk. While eating, keep awareness of that which does not eat and to which hunger never comes. Of course, the body needs food—give it. At night, you go to bed to sleep—know the body is tired and goes to sleep, but there is within that which never sleeps. In every act keep remembrance of the witness—the seer.
Hunger arises—and we immediately say: I am hungry. But outwardly you may say so; inwardly keep the remembrance: I know the body is hungry. I know the stomach is hungry. Take yourself as the drashta, the seer, not the doer. The moment you take yourself as doer, you link with action. If you are hungry, then you must eat. If you know the body is hungry, then in eating too you know it is the body that eats.
Behind, a vacant witness, an onlooker, a watcher will be born within. Then the whole life becomes a play. The world of action becomes a drama. And passivity becomes your very being. Attain passivity; keep passivity ever in remembrance. Keep attention flowing toward passivity. Whatever you attend to begins to appear.
We are sitting in this room. Psychologists call this gestalt. We sit in this house. See this once in this way: that the house is made of walls. Attend to the walls. Doors will appear in between, but only as spaces between walls. Walls are important. Attend to the walls. Then suddenly forget that the house is made of walls; conceive that the house is a void—the house is made of doors, and the walls are in between. Then you will find that within this one room you have two different experiences.
If this seems difficult, do this: Hold three fingers before your eyes and attend to the middle finger as the center. For a minute or two, look in that way—the middle is the center, the two are beside it. Then suddenly shift your attention—but keep your eyes just so—to the two outer fingers as important; the middle is only between. Then you will see: with just this shift everything within you changes. When you attend to the middle finger, the two outer fingers seem pale, dead—as if they are not. They seem far away. When you attend to the two, the middle becomes secondary.
Or do this: Hold one hand still below, the other above, and move the upper hand. Attend: I am in the moving hand. Then the other hand will feel alien, not mine. Then switch attention: conceive that the still hand is I; and move the other. At once you will find that the still hand is you; the moving hand belongs to someone else.
I say this so you see: shifting attention is only shifting focus. Both hands are mine. You will not even know in any moment which hand you are identified with. If I have joined myself to the moving hand above, the lower becomes alien—no longer 'I'. And you will repeatedly feel that the lower hand is not you; the moving is you. Then switch to the still. Outside nothing changes; within, focus has changed. The stream of attention was flowing in the upper hand; it flows now to the lower. The upper will begin to feel like someone else’s.
When you are eating and think, I am eating—this is one condition of attention. When you experience: the body is eating, I am seeing—then the focus has shifted. When you walk and think, I am walking—attention is one. If you can attend thus: I am seeing and the body is walking—the focus changes, the gestalt changes, the whole frame changes.
If you would experience Lao Tzu’s passivity, then within you keep attention always on the sky, and do not attend to the clouds. Let them fly, let them move—but keep the attention on the sky.
What is the sky within you? Hunger comes—it is a cloud; it comes and goes. Anger comes—it is a cloud; it comes and goes. Hatred comes—it is a cloud; love comes—it is a cloud; it comes and goes. Sorrow or joy, honor or insult—whatsoever comes, comes and goes like a cloud. Who is it that keeps seeing all this? Who is it within that wakes and looks at all this? Keep attention on that. Join the whole stream of attention to that. Become one with the seer. Drop identification with the doer; become one with the witness. At once you will find yourself linked within to that which is sky—passive. Upon linking with this passivity, all the sorrows of life are dissolved; death and change become dreamlike.
Lao Tzu says: This is the Eternal Law.
Enough for today. But sit. Let us do kirtan for five minutes before we leave. And even in kirtan, keep in mind: that which is being done is not you; that which is happening is not you.
Remain seated! Those who wish to join the kirtan, come up or come down.