Tao Upanishad #39

Now, let us take the sutra.
Non-doing, for Lao Tzu, is the supreme truth, the ultimate. But do not take non-doing to mean it is without effect. Lao Tzu says: non-doing is supremely effective. By its very being, happenings happen. If a silent person passes by you—silent, within whom not a single ripple remains, a lake of stillness where all movement has ceased—if such a one simply passes by, it is as if a quiet breeze moved past you. He does nothing. He was merely present near you—and suddenly you will find a rain of calm showering within. You may not even suspect that it happened because someone passed by. And the one who passed will have even less idea that, because of him, peace has descended on someone. His non-doing, his emptiness, too is effective.
Lao Tzu says: the highest results arise out of shunyata—emptiness. Because in emptiness there is no violence. If my peace touches you and you become peaceful, then I have not changed you; you have changed. But if I must make effort to change you, and devise methods to make you calm, however auspicious those methods may look, there will be violence in them. Because violence begins the moment one person decides to change another.
This is why the so-called saints and holy men are violent in a very subtle way; because they cannot accept you as you are. They will change you. They will make you good, make you virtuous. They will take the clay out of your life and put in gold.
Their intentions are very good. But the very idea of changing the other is the idea of erasing the other. To alter even a hair’s breadth of what the other is means we do not accept the other’s freedom. And none of us tolerates the freedom of another. The father is busy changing the son, making him—without ever checking whether he himself has become anything. Every father practices violence upon his son. Hence the world is as bad as it is. Then sons take it out on their sons. And the chain continues. It is rare to find a wife who is not trying to change her husband. Till now there has never been a husband—not even the best—about whom the wife did not feel that some work of improvement remains. Even if she finds a husband like Socrates, the wife still tries to change him. With very good hopes, with very good intentions—to make him better.
And there is a strange thing: the moment you start trying to make someone good, you become very skillfully wicked. And because wickedness hides in goodness, it cannot even be opposed. The foolishly wicked are wicked directly. The intelligent and cunning wicked are wicked in the name of goodness. If someone grabs you by the neck to change you, then you cannot even protest, you cannot rebel. This is why around so-called good people there is always a certain restlessness.
So I give you the sutra: only that man is truly good in whose presence no restlessness is felt. If near some good man you feel unease, know that some stream of violence is flowing from him towards you. Hence one can visit mahatmas, but living with them is very difficult. For twenty-four hours their eyes remain fixed upon you—did you eat this, did you not drink that, did you not sit like this, did you sleep like that. They stand guard over you all day and night. As you are, they do not accept you.
The great wonder is this: as you are, Paramatma accepts you totally. I have not yet found that even with the worst of men Paramatma ever complained, “Become a little better! Improve a little!” Paramatma has never complained. And the mahatmas have no business other than to complain. It seems there is a fundamental enmity between the business of the mahatmas and the business of God. Paramatma is all-acceptance.
Lao Tzu’s sutra points in precisely this direction.
Lao Tzu says, “Who is the best ruler? The one whose very existence is not known by the people.”
So unnoticed that they do not even know he is. For even to know he exists is violence. If a son in the house becomes aware that the father is there, then some violence is proceeding from the father’s side. If the husband becomes aware that the wife is in the house and must adjust his step at the door, straighten his tie before entering, know that there is violence. If, upon the husband’s arrival, the wife cannot remain just as she was when alone, know that some violence flows from the husband. The very presence should pass unnoticed. The supreme expression of love is this: the lover’s presence is not felt at all, his being does not bruise anywhere.
Remember, we become aware only when there is a wound. Sanskrit has very precious words. One precious word is “vedana.” Vedana has two meanings—pain and knowing. “Veda” means knowledge. From the same root “vid” arises “vidvan,” the knower; and from the same root comes “vedana,” pain. One word, two meanings—and how strange! If vedana means pain and vedana also means knowing, one cannot understand what relationship pain and knowledge have. If in place of pain it were pleasure and knowing, a connection could be made.
But there is a connection. You only know pain; you do not know pleasure. Those moments which you call “filled with great happiness”—they are those moments which, while they were passing, you did not know at all. Pain is known. Let a thorn pierce the foot—then the foot is felt; otherwise the foot is not felt. Let there be a headache—then for the first time the head is known; otherwise the head is not known.
So to the man who becomes aware of his head, it should be clear he has some illness of the head. The man who becomes aware of his body is ill, diseased. Health has only one definition: the body is not felt. The healthy man becomes videha—bodiless; he will not even know there is a body. Only the sick man has a body; the healthy man has no body. And the sick man has a large body: the more illnesses, the larger the body—because that much bodily awareness there is.
Pain and awareness are one. From whose presence you become aware, from that some pain is coming to you. From whose presence you do not become aware, from that alone bliss is felt. If two lovers are sitting in a room, there are not two people sitting. There, each has no awareness of the other. There, one consciousness remains.
Lao Tzu says: the best ruler is he whose being is not even noticed by those he rules.
Perhaps, other than Paramatma, there is no such ruler. Of Him we have, in fact, no knowing. Seek—still no knowing. Go to the Himalayas to find—still no knowing. Wander in Kashi, Mecca, Medina—still no knowing.
Consider a little. Your mind carries a desire that wherever you go, people should know that you have arrived. What measures do we not take to ensure that people know we have come! If you enter a building and nobody notices, you become very afflicted, very afflicted.
When Ouspensky went to meet Gurdjieff for the first time, twenty people were sitting there. Ouspensky was a very intelligent man, a great mathematician, a scientific thinker—internationally renowned. No one even knew Gurdjieff. Somewhere in the unconscious, Ouspensky must have thought: Gurdjieff will rise to welcome me, the people sitting there will be astonished that a person of international fame like Ouspensky has come to meet an unknown Gurdjieff! There were twenty sitting, and Gurdjieff too was sitting. When Ouspensky was brought in, he was stunned; he had never seen a room so dead. Not one of the twenty even stirred; no one lifted an eye towards him. It was as if those twenty did not even know someone had come in. Gurdjieff remained exactly as he was, sitting.
Ouspensky stood there. It was a most strange moment of introduction. Not even a “How are you?” Not even a “Who are you?” Not even a “Please, sit.” It was a cold night. Ouspensky has written: in a single instant sweat began to bead on my forehead. Where have I come? I did not even have the courage to turn back. I stood there like a stump. If someone were to say “Sit,” I would sit. But nobody was looking. A minute, two minutes… Ouspensky writes: for the first time I became aware of time—what a heavy thing time is! It felt like a mountain was passing over my head. What would be the end of this? The person who had left me at the door had shut it and gone back. What would be the end? Will the whole night pass like this? This is hell. And those people sat so silently, so statue-like, that to break that silence from my side felt like discourtesy. I began to feel utterly nobody—no-body—as if I were nothing at all.
This went on for about fifteen minutes. Then Gurdjieff lifted his face, looked up, and said, “Wipe off your sweat—it is a very cold night; sit down. We did this knowingly. We wanted to see what kind of man you are. Do you want people to feel your presence? Because we consider this violence. You could not bear it even for fifteen minutes. You could not be as if you were not there! Had you been able to be so, then I had nothing to teach you. But you could not—and I have much to teach you. You are violent.”
We practice violence in many ways. There can be endless forms. One man dresses in such a way that you have to look. Another man has such a style of walking that you have to look. Everyone arrives making a noise, even if arriving very quietly. Everyone pushes his way in, even if trying to avoid pushes. Everyone brings the news: I have come, I am here.
Only Paramatma brings no such news. The atheist says, let Him become visible, then we will believe. The atheist says: let Him, like us, give some announcement of His presence, then we will believe.
Atheists do not know that the very nature, the deep quality of Paramatma’s being is that He is as if He were not; that no trace of Him is found. The day Paramatma becomes a thing to be found, that day He is no longer Paramatma. The day He begins to proclaim Himself, that day He is no longer Paramatma. The day He comes and shakes your neck and says, “I am here—see, I am right here, and you pass by without seeing,” that day He is no longer Paramatma.
The very meaning of Paramatma is: whose presence and absence differ not by a hair’s breadth. For whom “absence” and “presence” are synonyms, bearing the same meaning. Whose very mode of presence is absence.
So Lao Tzu says: the best ruler is the one whose being is not even known by the people.
Except for God, there is no such ruler. Only if some ruler comes near to God’s state… That is why in the old days—at least in the time of Lao Tzu, two to two and a half thousand years ago—the emperor was regarded as an avatar of God. Now it seems it was mere trickery. In these last two or three hundred years, the thinking has arisen that all this was mischief, a conspiracy of priests and kings. To a great extent this is true; but not entirely. At times there have been kings whose presence was known to the people hardly at all. Such a king Lao Tzu-like men called “divine”—one whose being was not felt, or felt hardly at all; enough to know he is, but no further news.
Lao Tzu says: if a ruler, an emperor, becomes so absent within himself, then by his very presence the people are blessed.
Such things are very hard to understand today. For today only those move towards the throne who are restless to announce their presence; whose only anxiety is that people should know they are something. For this they will even place their heads at people’s feet on the journey to the throne.
People are very troubled: yesterday this man was ready to put his head at their feet for a single vote; once victorious, the same man does not even look their way! Perhaps he now deems their heads unfit even to place his feet upon.
The populace becomes restless—but it should not become restless at all. The arithmetic is perfectly clear. Your feet were kissed only so that feet could later be placed on your heads. Simple arithmetic. There is nothing here to be upset about. No mistake is being made. Exactly what was prearranged is happening. And when you were so delighted while he was lowering his head to your feet, now allow him to be delighted as well. It is give-and-take.
Today only those move towards power who feel that without a post nobody will notice that “I too was.” The feeling of being can now be obtained only by sitting on a chair. Hence what Lao Tzu says is very difficult to grasp in these times. But once it was meaningful—and there have been kings on this earth of whom no news reached the people; or at most the slightest news, that they are.
Lao Tzu says: this is the mark of the emperor—only he is emperor—who wipes away ahankar from within so totally that he becomes a shunya. If on the throne a shunya sits, there will be benediction in the kingdom—such is Lao Tzu’s vision. But now upon thrones sit the densest forms of ego. Auspiciousness is impossible. Lao Tzu says: only he deserves the post who has disappeared—who is not. The more someone is, the less he deserves the post. The alliance of ego and throne is poisonous. The alliance of ego and power is dangerous. Power should be where there is nirahankar. Only where there is nirahankar should power flow.
Therefore in this land we had attempted a strange experiment: we placed the Brahmin above even the Kshatriya, above the king. An unparalleled experiment in human history. It failed. The greater the experiment, the greater the likelihood of failure; the smaller the experiment, the greater the chance of success. Communism will succeed—because it is the most trivial experiment in human history. It cannot fail. This experiment failed in which we placed the Brahmin above—the beggar, the born beggar, who had nothing—we placed him above the emperor.
Buddha comes to a village. The village’s emperor asks his ministers, “Would it be proper that I go to the town gate to welcome Buddha?” The prime minister, upon hearing this, immediately writes out his resignation and gives it to the king. He says, “Forgive me, I can no longer serve you.” The emperor says, “What has happened so suddenly?” The minister replies, “To ask whether it would be proper for you to go and welcome Buddha is proof of your unworthiness. The matter is finished. I cannot remain under you. It is a sin to stay with such a man. To ask this is the limit of discourtesy.” The emperor says, “But… I am not even saying that I should not go; I am only asking whether it is fitting for an emperor to go and welcome a beggar.” The venerable minister says, “This is precisely the emperor’s glory. And remember, do not forget: he, who is entering the town like a beggar today, was once an emperor. He renounced empire and became a beggar; you are one who still clings to empire. Your worth is not comparable to his. He is an emperor-worthy beggar; you are a beggar-worthy emperor.”
He who has become a no-thing is the highest. He who is nothing—is all.
Therefore Lao Tzu says: who is the best ruler? He whose very being is not known at all.
“Less than that—the people love and praise.”
If we think about it, it will seem difficult. We will feel the best must be loved and praised by the people. But Lao Tzu says: that is the second-rate ruler. Because to receive love and praise he must do something. And the people give love and praise because he does something. He who does nothing, who is like a shunya—the people will not even know him. Although much will happen because of him, the people will not know it.
Regarding the one who is like a shunya, in his final aphorism Lao Tzu says: “And when the work of the best ruler is done, the people say: we did it ourselves.”
Because he never declares, “I am doing it.” It never becomes known who did what. And when it is not known, then everyone assumes, “I did it.”
The less-than-best are loved and praised by the people, they are honored.
If you wish to be honored, praised, loved—then you will have to make your presence felt. In such a way, in such a manner, that people admire and love. But from the point of non-doing this person has descended into doing, has begun to act. And even if he is loved…
Love can be—but that is an altogether different matter. Ordinarily the love that happens cannot be known by you. How will you know someone loves you? He must say that he loves you, or he must bring jewelry and offer gifts—he must do something to make it known that he loves. If someone loves you and never says it, never offers anything, and his love remains silent and quiet, you will not even know it.
Even love becomes known when it becomes aggressive. Hence the more aggressive the lover, the more he is felt. The more assaultive the lover, the more he is noticed. The silent lover will not even be detected. Because to experience silent love your consciousness too must rise high enough to catch even the message of silence. You can only catch the message of violence, of aggression. Hence the more aggressive the lover, the greater a lover he seems.
Only if a ruler is of the second grade, says Lao Tzu, can the people give him praise and love. Because only if he is second-rate will the people even know of him.
Love too is an event below shunya. There is a love which happens even in shunya—but then it leaves no trace. No trace at all. Have you ever come upon any sign of Paramatma’s love? And yet without His love even your breath cannot flow. Without His love not a single flower can bloom. Without His love nothing is possible. His love is the source of all possibilities. And yet no trace is found. Therefore we cannot make God into the lover; we will make some very small person into the lover. His love is aggressive; it is noticed.
That is why even acting can be done in the name of love. Because if only the sign is made known, the acting of love is complete. Love need not be—yet you can be a lover if you can act a little, can act out its expression. And even if love is, still it will not be known if you do not allow it to manifest into acts. Perhaps the true lover is never known—because the true lover cannot be so aggressive as to say, “I love.” But such a ruler, such a lover, falls outside our range. We miss him.
“Lower still—the people fear, are frightened.”
And ordinarily it is the one we fear whom we love. That is the third-grade personality.
Tulsidas has said: “Bhaya bin hove na preeti”—without fear there is no love. Surely he speaks of this third grade. We are exactly such people as Tulsidas is describing. Only when we fear do we love. We love even God out of fear. The more God frightens us, or seems to frighten us—“I will cast you into hell, burn you in fire; commit sin and for eternity, for endless time, you will rot”—if such things are said to us from God’s side, we are immediately filled with devotion, our hands fold in prayer. We can understand fear. Shunya we cannot understand; we cannot even understand love! We can understand fear.
Hence whoever frightens us more appears to us as the greater ruler. If we open history, we will find written in golden letters the names of those rulers who frightened people most: whether Alexander, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, or any others. Our entire history is the history of those who terrify and those who are terrified. He who frightens more seems to us the greater ruler. Why? Because even love, if it does not attack, we do not notice. And love will not wish to attack. Fear we notice, because fear is pure aggression. Fear means someone has shaken the roots of your very being.
Understand this a little. The best ruler is he whose being you do not notice. The worst ruler is he who puts your very being in danger. The best is such that you need not even look in his direction. The worst is such that his gaze trembles the roots of your life. You are shaken, frightened.
Fear changes our entire state. When Genghis attacked, at the places he came upon he would have the children slaughtered and their heads pierced upon spears. In Delhi he had ten thousand spears pierced through children’s heads. Wherever he passed, he set the villages aflame so that his armies might have light. Humanity cannot forget Genghis. People cannot forget Timur.
Timur attacked the village of Mulla Nasruddin. Timur received word that there is a knower in that village, Nasruddin. He sent to arrest him, stood him in court and said, “I have heard you are a mystic, a man of mystery. Prove it! Otherwise—here is the sword. I accept proof, not talk.” Nasruddin closed his eyes, lifted his face blissfully towards the sky and said, “Look, the gods are present.” Lowering his eyes he said, “And here is the seventh hell! All is visible to me.” Timur said, “Incredible! What is the trick, what is the method by which you see gods and hells?”
Nasruddin said, “Method? Nothing but fear. Because of your sword I can see everything. There is no other method—only fear. I am no mystic. But what can I do? Fear can make a man see anything.”
The gods, heavens, hell, God Himself—whatever you think you see in the sky—its cause is fear. Hence the old become more religious; because the old become more afraid. To make the young religious is a little difficult; to prevent the old from becoming religious is very difficult. And people say, “It is not yet your age to be religious!” They mean: let fear increase a little, then you will begin to see heaven and hell. As death approaches, in the same proportion man becomes religious. What connection can death have with becoming religious? Fear increases, the hands and feet begin to shake, anxiety rises, panic comes.
That from which we are frightened is not God. It is only the expansion of our fear.
Lao Tzu says, “Lower still, the people fear him.”
The ruler of the third grade. If we examine governance in the whole world, it will be of the third grade. Because all governance stands upon fear. Law, court—all stand upon fear.
“And the lowest of all—the people condemn.”
Fourth grade—at this point matters come to such a pass that people must condemn.
But there is a humorous point. Chesterton has said: “If I pass somewhere and you will not praise me, at least criticize me. Because in condemning me you still acknowledge that I am something.”
Remember, there is no pain greater in the world than indifference. Condemnation is not such great pain. When people condemn you, they still accept that you are something. If they neither condemn nor praise—if they are indifferent—then the ego has nowhere to stand.
Fourth-grade rulers live upon your condemnation; they live on it. They place you in such a state that you must constantly condemn them. But even then, your attention must remain upon them. No harm—bad name is fine, abuse is fine. If on one road there are flowers, good; if there are stones, also good. But if on some road there is nothing at all, and no one even looks—then great pain arises. Because the ego demands attention; it wants to attract people.
Psychologists ask: what is the reason for so much crime in the world? The very same reason for which people become saints. The reason is not different. The one who can gain fame by being a saint becomes a saint. The one who cannot go that far gains notoriety as a criminal. But both make headlines. The bad man will not disappear from the world so long as we go on condemning badness. This will appear difficult. It is reverse arithmetic.
Jesus has said: “Resist not evil.” Do not even oppose evil. Because by opposing you also pay respect to evil. By opposing you also give attention to evil. By opposing you also give life to evil. Do not oppose evil. Because even the bad man rejoices when you condemn him.
Do not think hierarchy exists only in capitals; it exists in prisons too. Go to prisons—there also are “dada” criminals. There are ordinary criminals; there are great, grand criminals. When a new criminal is brought into prison, people ask, “First time here?”—meaning, “You are a novice, an amateur!” There are gurus there too—those who are very accomplished, skillful, who have come and gone many times. There too is hierarchy. How many crimes one has committed—that is the measure of how much respect one receives in prison; just as in a temple the respect is measured by how much one has donated. How much terror one has spread also provides a certain delight. The avenues by which the ego gets fed are very subtle.
Lao Tzu says: the fourth grade is the lowest kind of ruler. The people condemn him. But he lives upon condemnation.
“When rulers cease to be worthy of the people’s trust, and the people do not believe in them, such rulers take recourse to oaths.”
Among Christians there is a sect, the Quakers. They do not take oaths in court; they consider oath-taking a sin. They have suffered much for this, because the court first administers an oath: take oath upon the Bible, or in the witness of God, that what you will say will be true. The Quakers say: whatever oath I take—if I am going to speak untruth, the oath too can be sworn falsely. At least before taking this oath I have taken no oath. When I say, “What I speak will be true,” what oath existed before that statement? I could lie in saying even that. And if you trust me, there is no need for an oath. And if you do not trust me, on what ground will you trust my oath?
Then the Quakers say: if I take an oath, it means I also lie. If I swear, “I shall speak the truth in court,” it implies that I also speak lies. Therefore only one who lies can take oath. Hence be cautious of those who are constantly swearing! Those who swear every hour are dangerous people. In fact by swearing they want to assure you and themselves: “I am a good man—see, I swear.”
When the emperor has no means left to evoke trust in people, then oaths descend. If an emperor can evoke trust, there is no question of swearing.
A person once came to me and said, “I am in great difficulty. What you say feels right; I want to come to you. But I have already taken a guru. And that guru made me swear that I will never make anyone else my guru.”
So I told him, “Your guru must have had suspicion about himself! He must have lacked trust in his own guruship; that is why he made you swear. Had he had trust, there would have been no need of oath. He must have feared that sooner or later you would leave him and go to another guru. He has made provision out of this fear.” I told him, “From any guru who makes you swear, run away before he makes you swear. Because sooner or later you will run away anyway—this guru also knows it. He himself does not trust that he can keep you.”
Shraddha—reverence—does not make one take oaths; it only evokes a fragrance of possibility. Oath arises from the absence of shraddha. In court, in temples, when we perform marriage, the husband and wife are made to swear that “I shall always be yours; I shall always be yours.” The very day matters go wrong. That oath itself shows the matter has already broken. Before the marriage, the divorce has happened. What news does this oath bring? It brings the news that it is well known that sooner or later you will want to part. If there is love between two people, even the idea, “Let us swear to remain together forever,” will not arise. It is news of there being no love. People do not marry because of love; they marry out of fear that there is no love. Where love is on the ground, marriage may become unnecessary. As long as love is not there, marriage is compulsory. Because what we cannot do, we arrange by means of oaths and rules. What cannot be natural, we organize by regulation.
Lao Tzu says: those rulers who cannot evoke shraddha… And such rulers can be of any kind—whether rulers of the state or religious gurus. Whoever rules, whoever gives discipline, whoever gives a direction to life—these are all rulers: be they parents, gurus, elders. From whomever governance comes, discipline comes, guidance comes—when they cannot evoke shraddha, then they descend to oath.
“But when the work of the best ruler is done, the people say: we did it ourselves.”
When the work of the best guru is complete, the disciple feels: “I attained it myself.” When the work of the best father is complete, the son feels: “This is my own achievement.” And this is the guru’s joy—that one day the disciple comes to know that whatever he has known, he himself has known. This means: the guru did not put even so much as this much obstacle, this much interference, that the disciple should be left with the memory that the guru did something.
These are the four modes of the guru’s doing as well—the same as the ruler’s.
And Lao Tzu takes non-doing as the highest. The more doing increases, the more degraded the matter becomes. Shunyata is supreme. And the farther we come out of shunyata into the storm, the more low we become.
Enough for today. Let us pause five minutes, do kirtan, and then disperse.