Tao Upanishad #38

In nineteen fifty-nine a very unusual Nobel Prize was given to two American scientists. One is Dr. Segrè and the other is Dr. Chamberlain. Unusual—because the discovery for which they were honored runs counter to the entire scientific framework so far. And the very reason they received the Nobel Prize undermines the whole edifice of science as it has existed. What they asserted stands closer to Lao Tzu than to Newton. What they discovered could find harmony with the Gita, not with Marx.

Their discovery is the anti-proton. These two scientists proved that if there is matter in the cosmos, there must also be anti-matter. Because in this universe nothing can be without its opposite. Here there is light, so there is darkness. There is birth, so there is death. If there is matter, then anti-matter—something precisely contrary to matter—must also be. And what they said they did not merely say; they demonstrated it. Their statement is that even in the very domain of matter, where protons function, where the most fundamental particles of matter are at work, there, exactly contrary to them, an opposite power is also at work—the anti-proton.

Ordinarily we do not perceive that power, and we have no direct experience of it. But in this universe nothing is possible without its contrary. The opposite is inevitable. That which is contrary is essential, inescapable. One cannot be rid of it. The world itself is composed out of these contraries. Segrè and Chamberlain called it the anti-proton or anti-matter. And Lao Tzu, Krishna, Buddha, and Christ have given it other names—call it Atman, call it the Shashvat Niyam, call it Moksha, call it Paramatma. One thing is common to them all: it is contrary to this world, absolutely opposite to it. And the entire religious quest so far has been this: the world could not be, were there not another world in opposition to it.

It is very delightful that Segrè and Chamberlain also proposed a hypothesis... This is still only a hypothesis. What they proved I have already told you: without anti-matter, matter cannot be. For that they gave scientific evidence. It is for that they were awarded the Nobel Prize. They also have a conjecture, which may one day be found true—because it too rests on the principle that has been proven.

They say that just as in our world there are laws—gravitation pulls downwards, water flows downwards, fire rises upwards, protons revolve in a particular orbit—so, to balance this world, somewhere there must be another world entirely opposite to this one, where water moves upwards, where fire flows downwards, and where protons revolve in reverse orbits.

This is, as yet, a hypothesis. But it is weighty; because the men who speak it are not mystics, not occultists, not poets. And they have reason to speak it, for even here in this world nothing functions without the opposite. Thus there may well be the possibility that the world we know is balanced by a world contrary to it; only then can the great scales of existence remain in equilibrium. When science will be able to prove it cannot be said. But religion has always maintained that in opposition to samsara there is the possibility of Moksha. There, laws opposite to those of the world are in operation.

Jesus has said: he who is first here shall be last there; he who is last here shall be first there. He who hoards here, there it shall be taken away from him; he who shares here, there it shall be given to him.

In the poet’s language this announces the opposite: there, contrary laws operate. What is last here is first there. The same rules will not hold; those exactly opposite will. The language of Jesus is the language of poetry. All religion has spoken in the language of poetry. Perhaps this is fitting. For in the language of science aliveness is lost, fragrance disappears, rhythm is destroyed, the song comes to an end—dead statistics remain.

And what Lao Tzu is calling the Eternal Law—if we take it in brief into our awareness, his sutra opens before us.

He is saying: there is a world of change where everything is in flux. But this world is not enough. In fact, even for this world to be, there must be a world where there is no change; contrary to this—where there is eternity, where nothing changes, where nothing vibrates, where all is void and utterly still, where there is no trembling whatsoever.

Here, everything trembles. If we ask science, it will say: whatever exists in this universe is vibration, waves. To say wave is to say: everything is in oscillation, everything is shaking, moving. Nothing is at rest—not for a single moment. In the very time I speak, it changes. This world is deep change. Let us not call it a world but a process of changing—a flow, a flux.

Lao Tzu says: precisely contrary to the law of this world, hidden within this very world, there is also that thread where all is forever still, where nothing changes, where there is no wave—wave-less! He calls it the Eternal Law. And if change is possible, it is only in the balance maintained by that Eternal Law. If that Eternal Law is not, change too is impossible. Everything is composed out of opposites. Thus within you there is the body, and within you the bodiless. Matter and anti-matter, the proton and the anti-proton. Within you there is change—and also that which is eternal.

Lao Tzu says: one who takes change to be his very being is deranged. He will be afflicted, he will be miserable, he will be harassed. Because to what he ties himself is not still for even a single instant. He will be dragged along with it; and whatever hopes he builds will all be reduced to dust. With change, what hope? Change offers no assurance. Change means that which gives no guarantee. Change means a realm where a home cannot be built—you cannot build on sand. Everything is changing. Before you lay the foundation, the ground on which you intended to dig will have shifted. And by the time you place the stones, the base you relied on will have vanished.

Therefore whoever binds himself to the world of change—sorrow is his destiny. Sorrow means: all his hopes will be shattered and all his dreams broken. The more rainbows he paints—of hopes, of expectations—the emptier his hands will be; and the more wretchedness will fall upon him; the more pain, the more torment becomes an inevitable part of his life. Sorrow means joining oneself to change; bliss means joining oneself to the eternal. Both are available. It depends on us to which we join ourselves.

The Eternal Law means: contrary to all that appears as change; contrary to all that appears as such. That which is hidden within the visible, the invisible. And when we touch, not what comes to touch, but that which never comes into touch.

I utter a word, or I pluck a string of the veena; sound resounds. A tone vibrates, space is stirred by it, its impact reaches your ear, its wave enters your heart. Then, after a little while, that tone will be lost, for tone is a part of change. A while ago it was not; now it is; a while later it will not be again. In a while the tone will fade, the resonance will be absorbed, the word will return to emptiness. Then silence will descend. The string will tremble, slow, and become still. The heart will quiver and then be quiet. The tone will be heard; and then only peace, only silence remains.

The tone is change. The emptiness that was before the tone is eternity. And the emptiness that gathers again after the tone—that too is eternity. And the emptiness within which the tone vibrated, within which it resounded—that too is eternal. Every event happens in shunya. From shunya it is born, and into shunya it dissolves.

Lao Tzu says: to know this eternal is the Tao. To know this eternal is Dharma.

Now let us understand his sutra.

He who knows the Eternal Law is tolerant. He who knows the Eternal Law is tolerant.

Perhaps it is not precise to say “he who knows the Eternal Law becomes tolerant.” What is precise is: he who knows the Eternal Law is tolerant. He does not have to do anything to become tolerant. The very seeing of the eternal, and tolerance arrives. Why? What is our intolerance? What is our impatience?

That which is changing—lest it change—this is our unrest. That which is changing—let it not change—this is our agony. That which is changing—may it also not change—this is our desire. Hence we all want to live by binding: let nothing change.

A mother’s son is growing up. She herself is raising him. But as the son grows, he moves away from the mother. It is an inevitable part of growing. She is the very one who makes him grow; which means: the mother herself is sending him away from herself. Later she will beat her breast, she will weep. But the son must grow. Love will make the son grow. And the very love that makes him grow—on that love he will one day turn his back and go. So while the mother raises her son, she weaves great dreams—that this love will always shower upon him! And having done so much, the son will do as much for her! She will spin a thousand dreams. Then all those dreams will lie scattered and broken.

If you tie any hopes to that which is changing, there will be suffering. Love too is a flow. The Ganges cannot remain at one ghāt. Nor can love remain moored at one bank. Today love is with the mother; tomorrow it will be with someone else. Today the mother binds and suffers; tomorrow the wife will bind and suffer. Whoever binds will suffer. Whoever tries to bind change will suffer. Then intolerance arises, restlessness arises. The capacity to endure disappears.

We are all intolerant; we can endure almost nothing. If I love someone and the one I love casts even a single loving glance toward another, I go mad. I cannot bear it.

Lao Tzu says: he who knows this Eternal Law is tolerant. Because he knows: in the world of change, everything changes. Nothing abides there. Even love does not abide. One should not live by hopes. Whoever does—will be unhappy.

If you walk carelessly, stumble, fall, and break your leg, you cannot abuse gravitation, nor can you file a case in any court. Nor can you say to God, “What kind of earth have you made, that if balance is lost for a moment, a leg breaks? It would have been better had there been no gravitation!”

Gravitation does not break your leg; what breaks it is what you do without knowing the law. Walk with awareness and gravitation does not break your leg; in truth, it is because of gravitation that you can walk at all—without it you could not walk.

He who knows the law does not weave hopes against the law. He who knows that the law of change says that nothing will remain—wherever I desire to remain, there difficulty and stubbornness will arise. There a knot will form, there an obstruction will stand. He who knows the eternal recognizes change and becomes tolerant. Today there is honor, tomorrow dishonor. He does not cling to honor; he knows: honor is today, tomorrow it may be dishonor. Today there is respect, tomorrow there may be disrespect. Because here nothing abides; honor cannot be permanent. Nor will dishonor be permanent. That too is today and will not be tomorrow. When one sees this, what intolerance can remain?

You honored me yesterday; today you come with abuse. Intolerance arises because I imagined you would bring honor today as well. Not because of you, not because of your abuse does pain arise; it arises because my deluded expectation is broken. I assumed, I took it for granted, that he who touched my feet yesterday would come to touch them today too.

Who told me to bind such a hope? And in this changing world what reason was there to bind it? How much of the Ganges of yesterday has flowed by! Even the people of yesterday have all flowed away! Yesterday’s honor and hospitality too must have flowed away. In twenty-four hours what has not happened! How many stars must have been born and burst! How many lives must have taken birth and vanished! Such a vast change is occurring in these twenty-four hours throughout the cosmos—so a man who touched my feet yesterday comes today with abuse—does this require even to be named as change? Where so much changes, the wonder would have been had this man not changed. That he changed is no wonder. It is exactly according to the law. But if I had the expectation that I would be honored today as well, then my expectation will be shattered. And that very shattering becomes my pain and my sorrow. And from it, intolerance is born.

Tolerance means: whatever is happening—within the world of change it will happen—acceptance. Whatever is happening. Today there is life; tomorrow there will be death. Now it is morning; soon it will be evening. What is now illumined will soon be darkness. In the morning flowers bloomed in the heart; by evening only ash remains. This will be so. There is no cause to clutch the morning’s flower, nor any reason to sit and weep over the evening’s ash.

He who knows the formula of change rightly, and does not join himself to it, but joins himself to that which does not change... Only one thing within us does not change: our witnessing, our sakshi-bhav. In the morning I saw that flowers had blossomed in the heart—everything was fragrant, all was dance and song. And in the evening I see that all is ash, every note and rhythm has ceased, fragrance is nowhere to be found, the gates of heaven have closed and I stand in hell. Flames on all sides, stench everywhere; nothing remains as in the morning. Only one thing remains: in the morning I was seeing; now also I am seeing. In the morning I knew that flowers had blossomed; now I know that ash rests in my hand. Only one thread of knowing is eternal. One day I was young; one day I have grown old. One day I was healthy; one day I have fallen ill. One day I stood on the summit of honor; one day I have fallen into the pit of dishonor. One thread is eternal: one day I knew honor; one day I knew dishonor. Only the knowing is eternal; all else changes. Only the seer is eternal—witnessing, chaitanya is eternal.

Thus when Lao Tzu says that he who knows the Eternal Law is tolerant, he is saying: he who becomes a witness is tolerant. Move even an inch away from witnessing, and the world of pain and trouble begins. For even a moment if there is identification with any fragment of change, for that moment the fall from the eternal has happened.

He who knows the Eternal Law is tolerant; being tolerant he becomes impartial.

Tolerance means: whatever happens, discontent is no remedy. Whatever happens—unconditionally whatever happens—contentment is my state. Tolerance means that my contentment does not depend on causes.

One man says, “There is great contentment—because there is a balance in the bank.” Another says, “There is great contentment—there are children, a wife, a full house.” Another says, “There is great contentment—there is prestige, there is honor, people give respect.”

None of these is contentment. None—because all of these are causal. Tomorrow morning one brick may slip from this building, and only discontent will remain. This is the illusion of contentment.

Contentment means: causeless. A man says, “I am content—without any reason.” I experience the Eternal apart from change; I am rooted in the Shashvat; I have recognized change. If contentment relies on a cause, that cause can be removed—and the cause is in no one’s hands now. Hence: causeless, unconditional. Tolerance or contentment are unconditional happenings.
Someone came and asked Buddha, “Nothing seems to be with you, and yet you look so deeply delighted! It’s natural to ask. If one has something, one’s joy is understandable. With you, nothing is visible. You sit under a tree. Your joy is without a reason.” The man said, “Will you explain a little to me? Only a madman could be so ecstatic without cause. But you don’t look mad. Who are you? It seems as if the whole kingdom of the earth is yours. Are you some emperor?” Buddha said, “No.” The man asked, “Then are you a god who has descended to earth?” Buddha said, “No, I am not a god either.” The man kept asking, “Are you this? Are you that?” And Buddha kept saying, “No, I am not this; no, I am not that.” The man grew restless and said, “You’re not anything at all! Say something—who are you?”
Buddha said, “Once I was an animal. My cravings were such that being an animal was inevitable. Once I was a human being. My cravings were such that they made me human. Once I was a god. My cravings were such that they made me divine. All those were existences born of cause. Now I am only a buddha. I am not a man, not a god, not an animal; I am only a buddha.”

The man asked, “What does ‘buddha’ mean?”

Buddha said, “Now I am simply awake. Now I am only an awakened consciousness. I am only awareness, only consciousness. I am no longer a person. A person is fabricated by clutching at change, by grasping at form. Once I grasped animal forms, once human forms, once trees; those were my personalities. Now I am no person at all. Now I am only pure consciousness—a lamp of light.”

To attain the eternal law means that a lamp of witnessing is lit within—change is not what I am; the eternal is what I am. Then no intolerance arises. For if there is no attachment to change, there is no way for attachment to be broken. Those who hope can fall into despair. But those who have no hope—how can despair touch them? Those who possess can become poor. But those who possess nothing, who are not holding themselves by any property—how can poverty befall them?

If I am holding nothing, you cannot snatch anything from me. Your snatching is possible only because of my grasping. You can only take if I am holding. And if I hold nothing, what can you take?

This witnessing—the awakening to the eternal law—is the letting go of all grip on the world of change. Then the Ganges flows and I sit on the bank. Sometimes flowers drift past in the current—I watch. Sometimes a skeleton passes—I watch. Sometimes the Ganges is swollen and muddy with the monsoon—I watch. Sometimes it is so clear the stars shimmer in it—I watch. But I am not the Ganges; I sit on the bank.

If the witnessing on the bank of change becomes steady, then whatever flows or does not flow in the river, no anxiety is born within me. And seeing the ceaseless flow of the Ganges I know: do not bind yourself to hope. Sometimes flowers come; sometimes ashes float by. Sometimes stars twinkle; sometimes the river is so foul nothing twinkles. Sometimes it runs wild, breaks its banks. Sometimes it dries to a thin stream, looking peaceful. That is the Ganges’ way; it has nothing to do with me. I stand on its bank. Realizing the eternal law is to become steady in witnessing on the bank of change.

Lao Tzu says, “One who becomes tolerant becomes impartial.”

This must be understood. In truth, we have “sides” only as long as there is choosing in change. I say, “This man is good,” because he behaves toward me as I expect. I say, “This man is bad,” because he behaves contrary to my expectation. But if I have no expectations at all, then who is good and who is bad?

I say, “This man is a saint,” and, “That man is a sinner.” Is the one I call a sinner truly a sinner? I don’t know; but I have expectations he violates. Is the one I call a saint truly a saint? I don’t know; but I have expectations he fulfills.

Go near your saints and near your sinners—you will discover that whoever fulfills your notions becomes a saint for you. If you think a man is a saint when he ties a cloth over his mouth, then if you see one with his mouth covered, you will touch his feet. Let the same man lower the cloth tomorrow, and you won’t even hire him in your house. Your notions! Whoever fulfills them! If you examine saints closely, you’ll find: the more perfectly they fit your notions, the greater the saint. The more lax, the more they waver, the smaller the saint. Who is a saint? One who fulfills your expectations. Who is not? One who breaks them. But for one who has no expectations, who is saint and who is not?

Lao Tzu says: the knower of the eternal becomes impartial. For him there is no difference between Rama and Ravana. Whatever difference there is belongs to our expectations—our division, our concepts at work. If I have no concepts, there is no difference. To be impartial means I have no choosing left. It also means I no longer say to you, “Become like this.”

An old friend of mine lost his eldest son. The boy was a minister. Secretly he hoped that today or tomorrow his son would become the prime minister. Even those whose sons aren’t ministers dream their sons will be prime minister—so he was not to blame. His son was at least a minister. The prime ministership was possible. The hope was not absurd. Then the boy died. He wept and wailed, beat his chest, even thought of suicide.

I asked, “What is the reason for such pain?” He said, “My son is dead!” I said, “Consider this: if your son had been a thief, a hoodlum, a scoundrel, a cause of disgrace—and then died—would you still be ready to kill yourself for him?” His flowing tears dried. He said, “What are you saying! If he had been that sort, I would have wished him dead from the start.” I said, “Then don’t say you are weeping for your son. Some ambition in you has died, some fantasy. You were riding his shoulders. Had he become prime minister, he alone would not have become prime minister—you would have become the prime minister’s father. And had he been a thief or a bandit, he alone would not have been a criminal—you would have been the criminal’s father. Some ambition linked to this son has died; that is what you weep for.”

He was very annoyed—“I’m in such sorrow and you speak like this without shame!” I said, “If, in this sorrow, truth can be seen!”

Sometimes, in sorrow, truth is easier to see. When you are building a house of cards and it hasn’t yet fallen, no matter how I say, “It’s a house of cards; it will fall,” it’s hard to see. Let a gust of wind come and the house fall, and you cry your heart out; if I then say, “You weep in vain. You should have known while building that it’s a house of cards and will fall. This is a paper boat; it will sink.” But even a paper boat can float for a while. While it floats, it’s hard to take it as paper. The sinking brings the realization. Truth descends more easily in sorrow. What is good? What is bad? Even this is a sum of our expectations in the world of change.

Lao Tzu says: one who becomes tolerant becomes impartial.

Impartial means: when there is no expectation within, there is no side-taking without. If someone says to Lao Tzu, “Make so-and-so a good man; that one is bad,” Lao Tzu will say, “I have no expectation. I can’t tell who is bad; I can’t tell who is good. And what will make someone good, I don’t know. And what is good for me might not be good for another—others have their expectations.”

In this world, even the worst man is good for someone. And the best man is bad for someone. There is no way to be one hundred percent good. No way to be one hundred percent bad. If you were alone on earth, you could be a hundred percent something; but there are others—and their expectations.

Jesus was good to ten or twelve people when he was crucified. To everyone else he was bad—because he had not fulfilled their expectations. The signs by which “good men” are known have always been obvious. Jesus stayed in a prostitute’s house—what worse sign of a bad man could there be? All those who had secretly yearned to go to a prostitute’s house seized the chance to pour their pent-up anger on him. What we call anger born of morality is ninety-nine percent jealousy. These were the very people who had wanted to go, but didn’t dare because people would speak ill. And here is the extreme: a man whom people call good goes and stays at a prostitute’s house. Now only two options remain: either declare this man bad—and they will find peace; or accept that a good man may also go to a prostitute’s house—and they will find peace. The second is very hard. It has a vast web, a long history. As long as marriage is “holy,” the prostitute will remain “unholy.” Until marriage itself disappears from the earth, prostitution cannot vanish—it is its by-product. So the second option is impossible. Only one way remains: declare Jesus a bad man. And everyone will feel reassured. Fathers fear their sons might go to a prostitute’s house. Wives fear their husbands might go. The whole society is afraid. And the prostitute is a creation of this very society. They all fear—and they all support the prostitute. They are hands groping in the dark. Jesus’ one fault was walking into a prostitute’s house in broad daylight. That was his “mistake.” He could have escaped crucifixion with a little cleverness. Those who crucified him also went to prostitutes’ houses—there was no obstacle. But they were more artful. They knew there’s a way to do things. This man did it the “wrong” way.

There were still ways out: he could have apologized, repented, taken vows. Instead he insisted: “There is no sin in this. Prostitute she may be for you; for me she is not. Because ‘prostitute’ is a relationship, not a person. No woman is a prostitute—no woman is a wife. The same woman may be a prostitute for one and a wife for another—because being a prostitute is a relation between two persons.” Jesus said, “For me, she is not a prostitute. She may be for you. You don’t go.”

But this was beyond their understanding. Crucifying him became necessary.

Those who followed him also thought that at the last moment God would perform some miracle to prove Jesus right. They too must have doubted, for they were born of the same society. They too felt people might be right. But Jesus’ influence and their love for him kept them following. They were only ten or twelve. Jesus knew well they would flee when the time came. And they all ran. When his body was taken down from the cross, it was that same “prostitute” who took him down; his disciples—who later became apostles, the twelve great saints—had all run away. Certainly, for Jesus she was no prostitute. And for her, Jesus was not just a male buyer. When the closest disciples fled, a prostitute took him down; she alone stood to the very end in that crowd.

Who is good, who is bad—who will decide? By what criterion? We always use a single standard: whoever suits our expectations is good; whoever thwarts them is bad. But if a person has no expectations, he becomes impartial. This is the trouble with people like Jesus. A prostitute said, “Come, stay at my house tonight,” and Jesus had no expectations at all. If you were there, you would think: “Tomorrow my name will be ruined; the town will hear; what will my wife say, my children, what will happen?” A thousand thoughts. Jesus simply went.

The same happened with Buddha. One morning a courtesan came and invited him for a meal. Right after her, King Prasenajit arrived in his chariot and said, “Please come to my palace!” Buddha said, “The invitation reached me before yours.” Prasenajit said, “If people hear you went to dine at Amrapali the courtesan’s house, it will be a disaster; your reputation will be turned to dust. You—and a courtesan’s house!” Buddha said, “Her invitation came first, and I have already accepted. And the things by which you try to frighten me—if I could be frightened by them, I would not be a buddha. Let there be defamation—good. In this world there will be defamation. But if, fearing it, I accept you, Prasenajit, then the countless buddhas of eternity will laugh at me. There my disgrace would be great. So let this worldly disgrace be.”

Lao Tzu says: such a person becomes impartial. He lives—not by taking sides, but in spontaneity. He makes no judgments—what is bad, what is good, what should be, what should not be.

This will seem difficult; those with a moral intellect, who think the highest thing in life is morality, will find it very hard. Morality is the highest thing for those whose lives are immoral—just as medicine is for the sick. But don’t mistakenly start dosing the healthy with medicine. Morality is for those steeped in immorality. But for one who attains religion, morality falls away just as immorality falls away. Sides drop.

Moral thinking takes sides. Therefore moral thinking is never impartial. It judges clearly—this is right, that is wrong. It proceeds like arithmetic, keeping accounts. Even when things go beyond calculation, it still calculates: what should be done, what should not be done. Religion keeps no accounts. One who is established in the eternal leaves everything to that establishment. And wherever the eternal law leads—east or west, into darkness or into light—he yields to it.

Understand the difference this way. One boatman rows with an oar; he labors, and propels his boat. All the effort is his; there is a struggle between boat and river, a hostility between boatman and current. Another kind of boatman discovers a law: there’s no need to row; the winds are, raise a sail and they carry the boat. He hoists the sail, sets aside the oar, and the winds move his craft.

The moral person rows all the time—left, right, he must keep accounts, laboring constantly, fighting the river. The religious person is of the second kind: he has hoisted his sail and told the winds of God, of the Eternal, “Now take me where you will.” Wherever he arrives—that is the destination. And if the boat sinks midstream—that too is the destination. There is no longer any particular shore to reach. Whatever comes is the shore. There is no personal choosing left: “I must get there; if I don’t, I will be unhappy; if I do, I will be happy.” The religious person is not trying to reach somewhere. He has arrived.

The moral person is always trying to arrive. So he will be partial. Therefore a moral person can never be truly tolerant. If he seems tolerant, it will be imposed, cultivated. He may manage, carefully, to “tolerate,” but his tolerance cannot be natural. The tolerance that comes from knowing the eternal makes one impartial.

This is hard; for we find it hard even to be moral. Lao Tzu speaks of something far beyond. He says: morality itself is a disease. As long as there is duality—this is right and that is wrong—there will be restlessness. If I see “this is right and that is wrong,” restlessness is certain.

Hence the so-called religious, who should be called moralists, remain deeply agitated. They say, “This is wrong; that is right.” They worry about all that is wrong and right in the whole world. Their anxiety has no end. Their nights are ruined; their sleep destroyed. They keep the account of what’s right and wrong everywhere. And they die consumed by their worry that everything “should be right.” Whether anything becomes right by their worrying is not visible.

Lao Tzu is hard to grasp. And in the West much misunderstanding arises. When ideas like Lao Tzu’s reach there, they seem immoral, devoid of ethics. “Impartial? How can we be impartial where there is such a battle between good and evil?” The reason is: if we see ourselves only through change, we cannot be impartial; seen from the eternal, we can. From the level of the eternal, the world of change appears like a dream.

At night you dream: a great conflict between Rama and Ravana—an entire Ramayana. If you are a moralist, you identify with Rama; if immoral, with Ravana. But in the morning you wake, the dream breaks. Will any side remain once you are awake? If it does, your sleep hasn’t ended; the dream continues. If in the morning you can laugh and see it was all fine—whether Ravana won or Rama, it makes no difference—and the whole thing looks laughable, then your sleep is broken and you are impartial.

For one like Lao Tzu, the world of change is a dream. The one bound in dream takes sides. The partial one is bound to be intolerant, impatient, dissatisfied, tormented. If you would rise to bliss, there is no path except through nondivision and impartiality.

“One who becomes impartial, by being impartial comes to a kingly dignity. Being impartial is kingly.”

Even emperors do not possess the dignity of one who becomes impartial. For the peace in his eyes has no conceivable comparison. Where there is no side in the eye at all, the eye becomes transparent. Where there is no bias, one’s movement becomes unshakable. Because of bias we lean, and our whole life trembles.

Even scientists now say that our very body-language carries bias. Much research is done on bodily speech: the way you stand near someone reveals your stance—whether you are for or against him. When you are against someone, you stand withdrawn; you are there and yet pulled back within—lest he come close. When you are for someone, you lean, you draw near. Women reveal this very clearly in bodily signs. If a woman loves someone, she is ready to lean in; if not, she looks for a wall behind, to support herself away. Body-language experts say that if a woman loves you, her way of sitting will be one thing; if not, another. Every symbol, every sign appears.

Even the body, as you walk and move among people, gives news. If a red-light district appears, your stride quickens; a temple comes, your palms fold. Passing through a brothel quarter, your heartbeat rises—lest someone see you. Your pros and cons keep you trembling all the time.

Lao Tzu says: the impartial one attains a kingly dignity.

Perhaps Lao Tzu could find no better symbol—for emperors are not impartial. But there was no other way to say it. The implication is: even emperors do not possess emperorly dignity.

Jesus said one day to his companions, “Consider the lilies of the field; even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

When the flower blossoms, it attains a certain dignity. When a man blossoms, he attains the same dignity—the dignity of stillness. As if a lamp burns in a room with no breeze, and the flame stands utterly still; so when consciousness within becomes still, utterly unmoving.

There are two ways. One: keep your biases and forcibly still your consciousness—that is what the so-called saints do. Keep intact your judgments—this is bad and that is good, this beautiful and that ugly, this desirable and that not—and then, by great control, steady yourself. The stillness that thus comes is forced, false. Relax a little and consciousness will flow toward your biases, away from impartiality.

There is another dignity—the one Lao Tzu speaks of. He says: don’t worry so much about holding yourself still; don’t force it. Know the eternal law; see the nature of change—and you will find your sides drop. And as they drop, you become unshakable. There remains nowhere to lean, nowhere to recoil. Then the stillness that comes is natural. Without that naturalness, even saintliness is a complexity, an imposition, a repression.

Hence the difference can be seen. Whenever someone attains the saintliness of naturalness, an indescribable beauty appears. When someone attains saintliness by force, a deep ugliness appears. Ugliness will come—where everything is stretched and held by tension, everything becomes strained. It is rare to find a natural saint—though only the natural can be a saint. But he has great choices to make.

A sadhu once traveled with me. We were to go by car; I got in. He came and said, “I cannot sit like this; I sit only on a mat.” I said, “What difficulty is that?” I asked our hosts to bring a mat and spread it on the car seat.

They spread the mat. The sadhu settled very carefully on the sofa—now that a mat had come between—utter peace descended on him. The seat is the same, the car the same—but he is on a mat. Seeing him, you can only feel pity. He is not sitting on the sofa; he is not in the car—he is on his mat. He has preserved his simplicity. A life arranged so “safely” becomes ugly, crippled, paralyzed.

Lao Tzu says: the impartial one attains a kingly dignity.

Note one more point. Kingly dignity means: running away, renouncing—this or that—is meaningless to him. Wherever he is, he is like a king. Put him in a palace or stand him naked on the road—his dignity is unchanged. The palace will not frighten him; he will sleep there with equal peace. The tree will not lure him; he will sleep there with equal peace. Neither palace attracts nor tree repels. Wherever, whatever, he lives with kingly dignity.

Thus we have seen Buddha away from palaces, yet his dignity does not diminish—perhaps it grows. If you put garments on an ugly body, the ugliness is concealed. As long as there is little beauty in the world, clothes will haunt mankind—they don’t bring beauty, they cover ugliness. If you have no beauty, even this much is something—to hide your ugliness; at least a pretense of beauty. But if someone is supremely beautiful, his beauty is revealed more fully when clothes fall away. Seat the poor in palaces, and their poverty is hidden; kingly dignity does not come. But if there is kingly dignity, take away the palace, remove the crown and throne—in that nakedness it shines more strongly.

This kingly dignity is the result of an inner mastery—an inner ownership, a sovereignty. One bound to change will always be a slave—today dependent on this, tomorrow on that; in the world of change one must depend on a thousand things. One who turns from change and joins himself to the Eternal—he becomes a master. He will depend on no one. He can pass through all changes like a lord. His mastery is inner.

“Attaining a kingly dignity, aligned with his own nature, he enters Tao.”

Only those who enter the deepest realm of religion go in with kingly dignity. No one enters there as a beggar, wailing and pleading. Jesus said, “To those who have, more will be given; and from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.”

Jesus must have been mad! But this is the law of the other world—the anti-matter of our world. It sounds upside down. Elementary arithmetic says: give to those who don’t have; if you must take, take from those who have and give to those who have not. Straight math. But Jesus says: “To those who have, more will be given; to those who have not, even what they have will be taken.”

No one can enter that realm like a pauper. One enters like a king. The very key to that realm is sovereignty. That is why we have called the sannyasin a swami—a master. Not that every sannyasin is a master; but we call him swami because of that inner ownership—the key to the palace Lao Tzu calls Tao, Buddha called Dhamma, the Vedas called Rta, Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Only the words differ.

“Aligned with his nature, he enters Tao. Entering Tao, he becomes deathless.”

As long as we bind ourselves to change, we bind ourselves to destruction. We will go on perishing. Being born only in order to die. To think “I am my clothes” is to die every two or three months—when the clothes wear out, you must discard them and don new ones. If someone truly believes he is his clothing, he will die and be reborn every few months.

The more you bind yourself to the perishable, the more you must keep changing; dying daily, being born daily. We do not bind ourselves to clothing; we bind to the body—so we die at sixty, seventy, eighty years.

Is there a principle that is not like clothing for us but is our very being? If we can become one with that, then there is no destruction. Death exists only because we bind ourselves to the mortal. The moment we sever our tie with the perishable, death is dissolved. That with which we then are related has no death.

Lao Tzu says, “One who enters Tao becomes deathless. Thus his whole life goes beyond sorrow.”

What is sorrow? The shadow of death. Sorrow is death’s lengthened shadow. Wherever death is seen, there is sorrow. And wherever for a while we forget death, there we feel happiness.

But man circles in a vicious loop. Forgetting does not truly forget.

I have heard: one evening Mulla Nasruddin sat under the tree before his house, drinking—glass after glass. A guest arrived and said, “Nasruddin, why do you drink so much?” Nasruddin said, “To forget.” “Forget what?” “My shamelessness, my sin, my crime.” “What sin? What crime? What shamelessness?” Nasruddin said, “That I am addicted to wine! The sin is that I drink; to forget that sin I keep drinking.”

If you look closely at your life’s pattern, it is the same. To escape one thing, we cling to another; to escape the second, we grab a third; to escape the third, we seize the very thing we first wanted to escape. We go round in a circle. There is much motion—much “travel”—but no arrival. There can be no arrival in this.

Sorrow is that we do not know happiness at all; we know only sorrow. Sometimes, when we forget sorrow for a while, we call it happiness. And all the means by which we forget sorrow are themselves bringers of further sorrow. Then we are caught in the vortex.

Understand this deeply: as long as I am mortal, I cannot be happy by any means. Death stands there; its shadow falls upon me. It will poison every joy. You are eating a delicious meal—and just then comes news that this very evening you will be hanged; the taste disappears. Try any means—you cannot bring it back. You are in love, think the moon has descended to earth; suddenly comes the news: this evening you will be hanged. You won’t even know who is beside you. All becomes meaningless.

Camus wrote: so long as there is death, how can happiness be possible? Animals seem a little happy because they have no awareness of death. Man does not seem happy because he does. Those humans who are closer to animals seem a bit happier; they too keep death out of mind—someone else always dies; we never die. Sometimes A dies, sometimes B, sometimes C; we have not died yet. We haven’t yet died—so why should we die in future? It is always someone else—never us. Clear logic: we will not die.

Animals have no sense of death because they have no sense of time, no sense of future. In that sense, animals are happy. Man can at most be more unhappy—or he can forget. He cannot be happy—until he understands Lao Tzu; until he becomes one with the Eternal.

Animals can be happy; there is no idea of death. Man cannot be happy in the animal way. In truth we have crossed beyond that stage; left it behind. A young man cannot be happy like a child—pile toys all around him, fill the house with toys; a youth cannot be happy like a child. And if you are truly old, you cannot be happy in a young man’s way—seat the most beautiful women around you, fill the air with song and dance; if you are truly old these are just toys; they will not make you happy. Once consciousness goes beyond a level, the joys of that level become meaningless.

Man cannot be happy in the animal way. Yet all men try to be happy that way—and so are only unhappy. There is no way. Consciousness cannot go back; it can only go forward.

As long as the shadow of death remains, man cannot be happy. What to do? One way is to preserve the body as long as possible—to push death away. But however far you push it, death still stands. Whether four or eight days farther makes no difference. Whether you live eighty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty years makes no difference. Even if death is pushed back, it stands there.

In truth, the longer a man lives, the denser his awareness of death becomes. If a ten-year-old dies, he has little notion of death. A forty-year-old has had glimpses. An eighty-year-old is drowned in death long before dying. If a hundred-and-fifty-year-old dies, then even more so. If we keep a man alive a thousand years, the shadow of death will grow heavier still—because with age and experience all of life’s toys lose their value; and a time will come when only death has meaning—everything else is meaningless.

Therefore the most intelligent among us is the one most conscious of death. When Buddha saw a corpse on the road, the thought arose that life is futile. You don’t think so. You see dead men daily. You only think, “Poor fellow!” You pity him, not yourself. A little secret joy also arises—“Good, I am still alive”—and your steps to the market quicken. Every dead man tells you only this much: that you are still alive. Buddha, seeing a dead man, realized, “I have died along with him.”

The Irish poet (Donne) wrote: whenever someone dies, it is I who die. Therefore never send to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for me.

Seeing a corpse, Buddha felt: I am dead; if one man can die, I will die. Death is certain; then life is meaningless.

The more awake the soul, the sooner the shadow of death falls. It takes you eighty years to get old; Buddha grew old at twenty.

Don’t think this means only the elderly… In India there has been a notion that only the aged should take sannyas. Many come to me and say, “You should give sannyas only to the elderly—after seventy-five.” I tell them: you don’t know when a man becomes mature. At seventy-five many are not mature. Not a few—most are not. To grow old is easy; to be mature is not. Growing old happens with age; maturity is of intelligence. Some become mature very early.

Buddha was mature at twenty. What the eighty-year-old cannot grasp, he grasped at twenty. He saw death is certain. When it happens is secondary. Leave that to fools to decide. For me, if it will be, when it will be makes no difference. What I must know is whether there is something within me that is deathless. If not, all is vain. If yes, only seeking that is meaningful.

Lao Tzu says: one who enters Tao becomes deathless—he has become immortal. He has no death. And one who is deathless goes beyond all sorrow—because all sorrows are sorrows of perishing. My perishability is the cause of my sorrow. Becoming imperishable is the beginning of my bliss.

Enough for today. Sit, but do not get up. Leave only after five or ten minutes of kirtan.