Tao Upanishad #43

Yes, it is. But you are already running. You have run enough. The race of many lifetimes is behind you; you are its outcome. Now there is no need to run more; now stopping is needed. But our mind finds many devices to deceive itself.

A religious teacher explained at length to small children: if you want to be free of sin, you must do penance, pray, confess your guilt before God, and take a vow never to repeat it. After much explaining he asked them, “What is necessary to be free of sin?” A little child said, “To sin is necessary.”

Certainly, to be free of sin, sin is necessary. But by sinning alone no one becomes free. After sinning, something more must be done. Certainly, to stop, running is necessary. But by running alone, no one will stop. And the running is already on. What we call life is a race. So don’t persuade your mind, “I am running in order to stop.” We can postpone stopping to the future—“let me run enough now; then I will stop.” But we have already run enough. It is already late enough.

It may be that our mind is not yet sated with running. The mind is never sated. That which becomes full is not the mind. The mind will keep you running. It will change one direction, then another. One goal will change, then another. The mind will go on driving you to run.

But what if this running is misery, anguish, pain? And it is. Running can be nothing but suffering. Yet the mind’s logic is: we think the suffering is because we are running a little too slowly. “If I run faster, I’ll reach the goal—why should there be suffering!” Or we think the suffering is because others are running faster; they arrive first and we miss. Or we think the running itself is perfectly fine; it’s the road we chose that is wrong. Those who choose the right path arrive. Or we think the running is fine and the path is fine, but what we seek—the object of our desire—is perhaps wrong. “Let me replace wealth with religion, the world with spirituality; then the race can be completed.”

It will not. The running itself is wrong. Neither are the roads wrong, nor the runner wrong, nor the manner or speed of running wrong, nor the goal for which we run wrong. The running is wrong.

If one understands Lao Tzu rightly, Lao Tzu says: activity itself is the mistake. The running is wrong. To stop, to rest, to sink into the inactive—that alone is right. Therefore, there is no such thing as a right race. In Lao Tzu’s reckoning there is no right race. Running as such is wrong. Stopping as such is right. No stopping is wrong; in Lao Tzu’s view, no stopping is wrong—because no race is right. All activity is wrong. Inactivity is the supreme nature.

If you understand Lao Tzu, he says: no desire is worldly and no desire is spiritual. Desire is the world; desirelessness is spirituality. Therefore the phrase “worldly desire” has no meaning—and “spiritual desire” also has no meaning. Desire itself is the world. So as long as you are in desire, you are in the world. Even if that desire is to attain moksha, you remain worldly. And when you are without desire, then even if you are in the world, you are in liberation.

Understand it this way: desire is not related to objects. It is not about what you ask for; it is that you ask. What you ask for is irrelevant. Whether you ask for wealth or religion, fame or liberation—so long as you are asking, you are in the world. Where you do not ask, you are in moksha. Therefore moksha cannot be asked for. The one who does not ask attains moksha. There can be no desire for moksha; when desire drops, one is free.

So moksha is not the result of any desire. Moksha is not the final destination of any race. Moksha is the name of stopping in any race. If one stops anywhere in any race, one is liberated. Moksha is not the goal, the end, of any journey. Where the road ends is not the destination called moksha; rather, where the running ceases, there is moksha. Wherever you stop—right here on the path, this very moment—that is moksha. Whenever consciousness comes to a standstill… And in desire, consciousness never stops. Desire means consciousness will keep running.

Therefore Lao Tzu does not admit a division into worldly and spiritual desires. Hence so-called spiritual people are very troubled by him, because they have assumed in their minds that they have dropped worldly desire and taken hold of a higher desire. No desire is high. No poison is high. No sin is high. Poison is simply poison; desire is simply desire. Yes, there is a danger. There is no higher poison, but there can be pure and impure poison: with adulteration it is impure; without adulteration it is pure. Worldly desire is impure poison; the desire for moksha is pure poison.

From this a friend felt troubled—that you are calling spiritual desire worse than worldly desire! There is a reason for saying so. Desire fits with the world; in the world, desire is consonant. With moksha, desire has no consonance at all; it is utterly incongruent. Between the world and desire there is a kind of harmony, because the world cannot be without desire. But between moksha and desire there is no commerce whatsoever.

Therefore the person caught in the desire for moksha is caught in utterly pure poison—there is nothing there for it to take hold of. One who runs in the world may even attain the world; one who runs after moksha can never attain moksha. The one who runs toward wealth, who desires wealth, may get wealth—no great surprise; many do. But no one who has run toward moksha has ever attained moksha; it is impossible.

So the person who directs desire toward moksha is doing something very dangerous. He is placing desire where it can never succeed. In the world it may succeed; in the world desire sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails—some attain, some do not. In moksha there is no possibility at all for desire to succeed, because moksha itself means desirelessness. Nowhere do moksha and desire connect.

Therefore the worldly are not in as great an error as the so-called spiritual, because what the worldly seek is possible, while what the so-called spiritual seek is impossible. A man sitting in the marketplace seeking wealth and fame is not seeking the impossible; it is possible. But a man sitting in a temple seeking God, a man sitting in the forest seeking moksha—he is seeking the impossible.

In truth, God is not found by seeking; when seeking ceases, he is already here. It is because of the seeking that he is not seen. Like a man running fast in this room and searching—because of his running, he cannot see things; his speed is so great that nothing is seen.

When one travels by bullock cart, the nearby scenes are visible. In an airplane, the details are lost: flowers aren’t seen, trees aren’t seen; only forests are seen. The expanse remains, the subtleties are lost. In a rocket, even forests disappear; then nothing is seen. The greater the speed, the blinder the vision becomes; nothing is seen. The faster the run of desire, the blinder the eyes become. The smoke and dust of running fill the eyes so much that nothing is visible.

And that which we are seeking becomes visible only when there is no smoke, no dust upon the eyes—when the mind is so much at rest that there is not even the slightest bustle, not even the slightest ripple to obstruct. Everything is empty; the mind utterly calm like a lake—instantly his image, instantly his reflection appears; instantly he begins to be seen.

So Lao Tzu says: desire is the world. Therefore no desire is spiritual. And those who dye desire in the color of spirituality are giving themselves the greatest possible deception. The worldly are pardonable; the so-called spiritual are unpardonable—because they have taken the methods of the world and applied them to God. The method is worldly, the manner is worldly, and the aspiration is for God. Desire and greed are worldly, and the wish is for God.

We cannot turn the world toward God. We cannot direct worldly tendencies toward spirituality. When worldly tendencies dissolve, whatever remains—that is spirituality.

It is not at all beyond the grasp of the ordinary person; it is beyond the grasp of the one who is under the illusion of being extraordinary. An ordinary person is a very rare thing. It is very hard to find one. Everyone is extraordinary. Ask people one by one—everyone is extraordinary. Have you ever met someone who is simply ordinary?

And if ever someone does say, “I am ordinary,” he says, “I am very ordinary.” “Very ordinary” means: even among the ordinary, I am extraordinary. Everyone goes about considering himself extraordinary. No one considers himself simply ordinary.

Lao Tzu says: become ordinary and you will attain. Your being extraordinary is your obstacle.

What is our extraordinariness? Someone amasses more wealth—he is extraordinary. Someone gathers more knowledge—he is extraordinary. Someone practices greater renunciation—he is extraordinary. Have you noticed? Our extraordinariness depends on the quantity of our doing. The more one does, the more extraordinary he becomes.

And Lao Tzu says: by non-doing the truth is found. Therefore the extraordinary can never attain it, because “extraordinary” means those who have done something. The ordinary will attain it—those who have done nothing at all. But to find an ordinary person is exceedingly rare. This is the great joke: the most common notion is that everyone considers himself extraordinary. Whether he says it or not, declares it or not, inwardly each person believes he is the center of the whole universe. Everyone takes himself to be the exception, not the rule. Everyone takes himself to be the summit of Mount Everest, and keeps busy trying to prove this summit. Those who fail to prove it suffer great anguish, deep shame, and a profound sense of wretchedness.

It arises for this very reason: you take yourself to be Everest and you cannot prove it. You believe yourself to be the center of the world, but you cannot prove it. Then inferiority is born. Inferiority arises only in those whose minds carry a sense of superiority. It will sound upside down; but we have turned life so upside down that when one says something simple and straightforward, it appears inverted. Whoever harbors a feeling of being superior will come to feel inferior. He will feel, “I am nothing,” because he imagines so much about himself and cannot make it true. Then pain grips the mind: “I could do nothing.”

Don’t manufacture it. What does it even mean to manufacture self-confidence? “I am somebody! I’ll show you! I’ll prove it!” Self-confidence usually means, “I am not ordinary; I am extraordinary. And not only that—I can prove it.” All madmen are self-confident. It’s very hard to shake a madman’s self-confidence. If a madman thinks he is Napoleon, even the whole world cannot convince him he is not. His trust in himself is rock-solid.

What need is there for self-confidence? Why are you troubled that you don’t have it? Because there is comparison in the mind: the other man trusts himself more; he is succeeding. I don’t trust myself; I am not succeeding. He earns so much; I earn so little. He keeps climbing the ladder, the capital draws nearer; I am left far behind. I’ve fallen back. How to produce self-confidence? How to make myself strong? What does all that mean? It means you are comparing yourself with others and therefore you are disturbed.

You are you; the other is the other. If you were alone on the earth, would you ever find out that you lack self-confidence? If you were alone on this planet, would you discover that you have a sense of inferiority, an inferiority complex? You would discover nothing of the sort. You would simply be. Ordinary. And ordinary means: you wouldn’t even know you are ordinary—you would just be. The one who even knows “I am ordinary” has already begun to be extraordinary. You are—that is enough. There is no need for self-confidence; the self is sufficient. You are. Why weigh yourself against others?

Then troubles arise. Someone’s nose is better than yours—inferiority appears. Someone’s eyes are better—inferiority appears. Someone is taller—inferiority appears. Someone has built a bigger house—inferiority appears. Then a thousand inferiorities will arise. As many people as you see, so many feelings of inferiority will arise within you; their sum will pile up. And your belief is that you are Gaurishankar—Everest! Now a great difficulty arises. You take yourself to be the highest peak in the world; and everyone you meet shows you that you are a ditch, a pit. The tension between these two—chasms all around and your feeling “I am the summit of Everest”—that tension is man’s illness. That is the disease in which everyone rots, dies, is obliterated. Why compare yourself with others?
Someone came to Bokuju and asked, “I am not at peace; you are. I am restless; you are tranquil. How can I become like you?” Bokuju said, “If I too had ever asked someone how to become like them, I would have become restless long ago. My only device is that I have never asked anyone how to become like another. I am as I am. You are as you are. I have never wanted any other change in this.”
The man said, “I don’t need lofty talk; just show me a direct way. You are peaceful, I am restless—how can I become peaceful?” Bokuju said, “Wait; let the people leave and I will tell you.” People came and went; the day passed and evening began to fall. The man said, “It’s gotten very late; please tell me quickly now.” Bokuju took him outside and said, “Look—behind my house there is a small tree and a big tree. I have lived in this house for years, and I have never seen the small tree ask the big tree, ‘You are big and I am small; how can I become big?’ That is why there is such peace. The big is big, it remains big; the small is small. And even this is only we humans who think, ‘This is small; that is big.’ The small does not know it is small, the big does not know it is big. Therefore there is great silence—no quarrel, no conflict, no disturbance. I am I; you are you. Drop this notion of how to become like someone else.”

The man said, “How can I drop it? I am very restless!” Bokuju said, “I am telling you the cause of your restlessness: whoever measures himself against another is bound to remain restless.”

Lao Tzu says, accept yourself. All the turmoil is in non-acceptance. And none of us accepts ourselves—no one. The more a person rejects himself, the greater a saint he appears to be. None of us accepts ourselves. We are all our own enemies. If we had our way, we would cut ourselves to pieces and throw parts away.

We accept others; we have no acceptance of ourselves. And those whom we accept—take a peek into them: they too have not accepted themselves; they are busy accepting others. If the mind of each person could be opened and laid before you, you would find one disease everywhere: no one accepts himself—no one! And the one who accepts himself has no disease left. For where there is no comparison, how can there be inferiority, superiority? Who is extraordinary, who is ordinary?

It is perhaps fortunate that we compare ourselves only with other humans. Otherwise a rose blooms on the rosebush and we would beat our chests that not a single flower has blossomed in us—how inferior we are! The moon rises in the sky and we would weep that such radiance has never come from our faces. It is good that we have kept our disease limited to humans. If we spread it wider, anything could make us feel lowly. A small butterfly would fly by and the color of its wings would make us feel inferior. A deer would run and its speed and sheen would diminish us. A small stone by the roadside would glisten in the rain, and its sparkle would make us look dull. So it is good that we measure ourselves only against people.

If you measure, you will become miserable. It is a double disease: we assume ourselves to be peaks, and then when we measure, inferiority arises. Two tense states are created. In reality a pit appears; in imagination a peak appears. Nowhere between them can harmony be found. Life breaks apart in this.

Lao Tzu would say: be ordinary; nothing is more auspicious. Accept your ordinariness.

But everyone keeps persuading us: become something! Become this, become that; become like this, become like that. From childhood parents are after us—become something. Teachers are after us—become something. “Will you remain ordinary? You’ve come into the world—do something and show it.”

It is astonishing: those who “did something and showed it” are lying in graves all the same. Those who did not “achieve” are also resting in graves. And the graves make no distinction as to whether you did something or not. And what is the outcome of all that doing? Whatever we do in life is like what we do in a dream—by morning it all disappears. Like lines drawn on water, it all vanishes. Yet everyone is after you: do something! Because we take doing to be a virtue.

Lao Tzu says non-doing is the virtue.

This does not mean that Lao Tzu says, “Do nothing.” It does not mean, “Don’t go to earn your bread.” It does not mean, “Don’t take a job.” It does not mean, “Don’t move your hands and feet.” Lao Tzu says: abide in non-doing. Let non-doing be your center. And whatever doing arises in you should arise not from the race of doing, but out of the acceptance of non-doing. Then your cravings will naturally lessen. Needs will remain; passions will fall away. Necessities will remain. And a human being’s needs are so few they cannot be counted; his desires are so many they have no end.

Lao Tzu says: if you live in your natural ordinariness, you will do as much as you need. The animals and birds also do. Man is not so weak. They too gather what they need. But animals are not afflicted by their doing. They do, but they are not tormented by doing. No animal is trying to become something. All peacocks are simply peacocks; all parrots are simply parrots. They eat, drink, sleep, sing, dance, fly in the sky. No one is ordinary, no one extraordinary. No one is small, no one great. They too act, but there is no race in their acting—no madness of staking everything behind their doing.

Only man has gone mad. His doing has become more important than his rest. Why do we act at all? Man acts so that someday he may rest. And the end is that the chance to rest never comes; he ends while still doing. What, then, is the goal?

Diogenes is resting, lying in the sand—naked. Alexander has gone to meet him. Alexander says, “Such ease! Such bliss! Still, I ask, if I can do anything for you, tell me.”

Diogenes says, “Step a little to the side. The sunlight was coming, and you have become an obstacle. What more can you do? We were perfectly happy—the fresh morning light was falling—and you came in between. Just move aside.”

Alexander felt thoroughly baffled. He had thought he would do something for Diogenes—he could have piled up mountains of wealth. And what did Diogenes ask? Alexander said, “Diogenes, you do not know who I am! I am Alexander the Great—ask for something.” Diogenes said, “Your great kindness is that you moved aside. What greater thing could there be than that there is now nothing between me and the sun?”

This is a man of need, not of craving. The need was only this much: step out of the way. That’s all. He is living like the birds—in just that much nature, just that much simplicity.

Diogenes asks Alexander, “What are your intentions?” Alexander says, “To conquer the world! I want to conquer the whole world.” Diogenes asks, “And then what will you do?” Alexander says, “Then I will rest.” And Diogenes bursts into laughter. Alexander asks, “Why do you laugh?” Diogenes says, “We are resting right now. To conquer the world in order to rest—I cannot make any sense of it. If rest is the goal, Diogenes is at rest this very moment; and it has nothing to do with conquering the world. But Alexander, you are in a delusion—you will not be able to rest. You don’t understand the mathematics of it. The one who is to rest—why would he go to conquer the world? If rest were possible only after conquering the world, how is Diogenes resting? There is no relation, no cause-and-effect linkage. And I tell you, you will never be able to rest. You are only in the illusion that you will rest. You will die running like this.”

And Alexander died running just like that.

We all also think that someday we will rest. We think: when such-and-such conditions are fulfilled, then we will rest. It may even happen that those conditions are fulfilled. But by then working will have become such a fixation for you that by the day your bed is ready, your sleep will have been lost. By the time you arrange food, your hunger will have died. In arranging food a man sacrifices his hunger. In acquiring a fine bed, he destroys his sleep—he offers sleep on the altar so that a good bed may be had, and the good bed is to sleep on. Then, when the bed is obtained, sleep is not there. When the food is obtained, hunger is gone.

In this world there are two kinds of poor people. One: those who have hunger but no food. Another: those who have food but no hunger. Bernard Shaw has said that there are two classes in the world—the haves and the have-nots. That is wrong. There are two classes—the have-nots and the have-nots. For if someone has food, he has no hunger; if someone has hunger, he has no food. And mark this: of the two, the poorer is the one who has food but no hunger. Because food is an outer thing; hunger is inner. Food can be begged or even stolen; hunger can neither be begged nor stolen. Whoever has food but no hunger has had something die within, while something has been accumulated outside. And the irony is that he accumulated the outer only so that he could enjoy the inner—but that very inner he sold in the marketplace. He sold what he had set out to protect. And man continually passes through this mistake.

Need will remain if a man enters into non-action. Activity will not be lost, but it will become proportionate to need—no more than that. And the person who has known the inactive within will become ordinary. He will drop the insanities of “I will become an Alexander, a Napoleon, a Hitler—or a Buddha, a Mahavira.” No—he will not want to become anything. What he is, is enough.

It is said that Martin Luther, at the time of his death, said, “I am going to meet God. All my life I tried to become Jesus Christ. And now it occurs to me that God will not ask me, ‘Why did you not become Jesus Christ?’ He will ask me, ‘Why did you not become Martin Luther?’ What had I to do with Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ—let him be what he is. I was Luther. Now it occurs to me that I spent my life trying to become like Jesus. God will ask me, ‘Why did you not become Luther? Why did you not become what you could have been? And why did you spend your time trying to become what you never were?’”

God will not ask anyone, “Why did you not become a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna?” He will ask only this: “Why did you not become what you could have become?”

We fail to be that because we are busy becoming something else. What we could be, we do not become; and what we cannot be, we keep trying to become. In this way life is missed; the whole opportunity is lost. Then inferiority arises, an inferiority complex, self-condemnation. It feels: I am nothing. Gloom surrounds you, melancholy grips you, and life becomes a burden, not a dance.

What Lao Tzu is speaking of is a life of dance—but effortless, natural. And when I say that Lao Tzu speaks of a life of dance, he does not mean that you should dance like Nijinsky, that you should become a great dancer, that you should become an Uday Shankar. That you can dance with joy is enough. Even if your dance is crooked and clumsy—let it be yours, authentic, your very own. You need not have the notes of a Tansen. Have your own note, arising from your own heart. There need be no raga in it, no poetry in it, nothing at all—only one demand of existence: that it be yours, authentically yours.

And all the bliss of the divine showers upon the one who is authentically himself.

So all of Lao Tzu’s reflection is not for the extraordinary person. In other religious traditions the extraordinary person is highly valued; for Lao Tzu, only the ordinary person is of value. Become such that it is as if you are not. Why should anyone even notice you?

Therefore this question may seem meaningful in the context of the so-called religious teachings that say, “Become this, become this, become this. Your life is futile—always futile. Someone else’s life is meaningful; become like that.”

Lao Tzu says: you are meaning itself. You exist—that is enough; existence has accepted you. You are—that is sufficient: the divine stands behind you just as much as behind a Buddha, just as much as behind a Lao Tzu. It gives you breath with not the slightest stinginess. It gives you the same heartbeat, without the least discrimination. When the sun passes over you it does not draw back its rays; when the breeze passes by you it does not hesitate, thinking, “Oh, a small man!” The whole existence embraces you just as it embraces anyone else.

But you yourself do not accept yourself—what then can existence do!

Lao Tzu says: all talk of the extraordinary and the ordinary is nonsense. Comparison is futile; comparison is meaningless. Someone is like this, someone is like that; among these there is no higher and lower. In the world there are differences, not superiorities.

Understand this a little clearly: in the world there are no superiorities and inferiorities; there are differences. The Buddha is different from you. Talk of higher and lower is utterly foolish. And if they could blossom like a flower, it is precisely because there was no comparison with anyone in their minds. They did not want to be higher than anyone, nor lower than anyone. The other is simply not in their view. They opened themselves.

And your trouble is exactly this: the Buddha bothers you, Mahavira bothers you, Krishna bothers you, Christ bothers you. “How can I become something other than what I am?”—that is hell. “How can I be exactly what I am?”—that is heaven. And the day this very notion of becoming disappears—“I must become something”—and only being remains, that day is liberation.

Lao Tzu stands firmly for the ordinary man. He is not on the side of the superman. He is on the side of the human being—the adjective-less human being; a nobody, upon whom no adjective is pasted.

The very meaning of education is: that which is given from the outside, given by someone else. The meaning of conditioning is: that which is implanted from the outside, put in by someone. So, in a deeper sense, all education and all conditioning will become coverings over nature. Only this much can happen: some coverings may be very complex, some less complex. Only this much can happen: some coverings may be of iron, some may be coverings of air. Coverings there will be.

Understand this well.

Education is necessary for the world. If one is to live in the world, move in the world, run after desires, be active, then education is necessary. Education is the arrangement for activity. Therefore, the more educated a person is, the more successful he appears in the world of activity. The less educated, the more the doors of activity close. Education is the technology of activity.

But to go into one’s nature, no education is needed. To enter one’s nature, what is needed is the courage to drop whatever education has been received. Whatever education has been received, the courage to let it go is needed. Let us understand it like this; let us frame the question like this, then it becomes clear.

Lao Tzu says that clothes hide man’s nakedness. We may ask: Granted that clothes hide nakedness, can there be clothes that do not hide nakedness? However the clothes may be, they will hide nakedness; only the degree of hiding can differ. Clothes can be made of glass, transparent; they will hide very little. But they will still hide. And if someone wishes to be naked, then whatever the clothes, they will have to be taken off and set aside—whether of iron or of glass, whether you can see through them or not. Clothes have to be removed; only then will nakedness be revealed.

Nature is our inner nakedness. Culture, civilization, education are our clothes. In those clothes we get suppressed. Gradually the clothes prove so useful that we forget that there is any being of ours apart from the clothes. Leave aside the inner—this happens even outwardly. If you were to meet yourself on the road naked, you would not recognize yourself. Or do you think you would? Suddenly one day you step out your door and you find yourself standing there naked at the door—you would not recognize that it is you. We recognize even ourselves by our clothes.

In the German concentration camps, many people had a great shock. When the Nazis captured people, the first thing they did was to strip them of all clothes and belongings. Then they shaved their heads, beards, mustaches. A psychologist, Frankl, has written about this. He is a great doctor, a great psychologist. He too was captured; he was a Jew. Along with him five hundred people were seized, people from his own village. All were familiar: someone a lawyer, someone a judge, someone a physician, someone a teacher, someone this, someone that. The heads of those five hundred were shaved; all their clothes removed; glasses, watches—everything taken away.

Frankl has written that when the five hundred of us stood there naked, no one could recognize anyone. It simply could not be understood who these people were standing there! And Frankl has written that when I myself stood before the mirror—head shaved, naked—I could not believe that it was me.

Your identity, the sense of self you carry, is your clothing even outwardly. Just see: stand a magistrate and a thief naked side by side; then tell, who is the magistrate and who the thief? It may well be that the naked thief stands with pride, and the magistrate looks like the thief. All the dignity of the magistrate is lost, because that dignity is of the clothes. Therefore we value clothing so much. Take the garments off an emperor—everything is taken away.

If it were only so on the outside, it would be fine; but it is so inside as well. The inner clothes are fine and subtle; it doesn’t show. Education is such. If your education is taken away, would any difference remain between you and your servant? You sat a few years longer on the benches of the university; he sat a few years less—but see how much difference it has made! You are cultured; he is uncultured. Wherever you go, people will salute you. Wherever he goes, no one will even look at him.

Have you noticed: when a guest enters your room, a person comes in. But when your servant comes into that room and goes out, you don’t even notice that a person came and left. A servant is hardly a person. He is not a person. What is the difference between your humanity and his? Only this much: that you sat a little longer on the school benches. Only this much: that the clothes you have to hide yourself are a little more expensive. Your nakedness is hidden in costlier clothes, and his nakedness is hidden in poorer clothes.

Lao Tzu says: all education manufactures clothes—upon the inner soul, upon nature. All conditioning suppresses that which I am. He says: by dropping all these conditionings, one comes to know oneself.

Certainly, there can be a culture that presses down so hard that it leaves no possibility of escape. And there can be a culture that, along with conditioning, also teaches how to be free of it. You can be made to wear clothes such that taking them off becomes difficult. And you can be made to wear clothes such that you can step out of them in a moment.

That culture which gives such education and such conditioning that getting out of them is no trouble at all—that culture is religious. And that culture which gives such clothes that they are no longer clothes but cling like skin and won’t let go—then to get free becomes very difficult, coming out of them becomes a great obstacle—such a culture is irreligious. A religious culture is that which also gives the method of getting free of itself. A religious culture is one that gives you conditioning and also the path to go beyond conditioning. But conditioning will bind in any case. Along with it, there can also be the path of getting out; there should be. If it is there, the culture becomes religious.

This is precisely what is called a preconception. The question itself is full of preconception.
As you say, “Entering oneself with a preconception is not possible.” That has already been assumed. Have you entered and seen? You have formed the notion, without entering, that it is not possible. Now possibility will become very difficult. This very notion will be the obstacle: “It is not possible.” Why would you even attempt what you believe to be impossible? If it is impossible, you have shut the door. Now it will be hard.

To be free of notions means: keep the mind open without knowing in advance; do not bind it. Do not decide whether it is possible or impossible. Experiment—do not decide. Experience—do not decide. Let decision arise from experience; do not manufacture experience out of decision. Because if you have decided beforehand, the scientific quality of the experiment is finished. You have already decided what is going to happen; now nothing remains to be known. And now your mind will make every effort to prove what it has already assumed. We are all busy proving our own minds. When what we believe turns out to be right, we feel great joy.

A friend came to me and said, “When we heard you on the Gita, the mind felt great joy. Now when we listen to Lao Tzu, there isn’t as much joy; rather, there is a little restlessness.”

Listening to the Gita, the mind felt happy because the Gita had already been believed. It must have seemed, “He is saying exactly what I believe.” The mind finds great peace. Another brick gets added to my ego; the house grows a little bigger. But if something is found by which one brick slips and the foundation begins to shake, restlessness arises. We are not really in search of truth; we are in search of our own mind. We want our mind to be proved, and all the Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas, Kabirs to become our witnesses. Witnesses—as a man in court lines up his witnesses: “Here are twelve witnesses for me.” Our mind, too, wants Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ to stand as our witnesses and say, “You are absolutely right.” If all these people say you are right, the mind becomes very pleased.

But these fellows are very disruptive. They have not the slightest concern to make you “right.” What is right is right—even if you have to be erased in it. But remember, their compassion is great. If they tell you that you are right, you will remain sick. Your illness will increase; when supported, it grows. The moment you fix any notion, the search for truth stops at that very moment. To move toward truth means: I go without bias.

His idea is that curiosity arises only when we already know there is something. But curiosity can just as well arise when the thought occurs: is there something or is there nothing? You pass by a room; you can feel curious to know what is inside without knowing what it is. In fact, if you are already certain what is in the room, there is no need for curiosity. The stronger the belief, the weaker the curiosity. And if faith is complete without knowing, then curiosity has no place at all.

What need is there? If you already “know” that within is the soul, and Mahavira, Buddha and others searched and declared it so, then why should we toil? And once it is settled that it is within, the matter is finished—let us do something else. If you are certain, curiosity dies.

No, you do not know what is within. It is pitch-dark. No ends can be made out. No recognition is apparent. What is inside? Is there anything or not? Is it death or nectar? Is there someone there, or only a void? Then curiosity arises.

Curiosity means: you stand dumbfounded, and you know nothing. Where there are fixed notions, you are not dumbfounded; you already “know.” Therefore people of assumptions are not curious. Curiosity comes to perfection only when there is a total emptiness of assumptions. In the measure there are assumptions, in that measure curiosity diminishes.

That is why children are curious; the old are not. Why? Children ask questions that even the very old cannot answer. Children are curious because they have no assumptions at all. An old person’s curiosity ends; a heap of assumptions has accumulated, and no curiosity remains. The old and the child stand in the same world, yet no curiosity arises in the old. In the morning the sun rises; the old sees it, the child sees it. In the child curiosity springs up at once—What is it? A bird sings; the child asks—What is it? The old has no curiosity. If the child asks, he says, “Be quiet! When you grow up, you’ll know.”

But he himself did not come to know by growing up. One thing he has learned, though: in growing up, curiosity dies. He will not ask; the question of knowing does not arise. This son too, when he becomes old, will tell his son, “Don’t worry; you are still young. When you grow older, you will know everything.” But what do the elders really know? Nothing. Only their curiosity has died. The freshness for questioning is lost; the longing to search has died. He has heaps of theories. He has answers to everything. He has no questions, only answers. His questions are utterly lost. He has plenty of information.

Thus in the old person the body’s growing old is natural. But this—this is the soul’s growing old. Let the body grow old, that is natural. Yet if, within some elder, the body grows old while a childlike curiosity continues, there is no event more beautiful in the world than old age. Then the fresh dew of morning is within. Then the experiences of life cannot press him down like garbage, and life’s assumptions cannot turn to ash; in such an old one’s eyes a child peers out. And the day the experience of age and the curiosity of the child are together, that day a person is nearest to truth.

But our trouble is that we think: if we don’t already know, why go to search at all?

To go searching means precisely this—that we don’t know, therefore we go to search. Assumption is the murder of oneself, a device for avoiding truth.

He has asked, “Is not the root cause of curiosity a prior knowledge of the essence of the thing?”

If it is prior knowledge, then curiosity would be stupidity. How can there be a prior knowledge to knowledge? Knowledge must happen first. And when knowledge happens, curiosity disappears.

The danger is just this: even without knowing, curiosity can be lost if we take others’ knowledge to be our own. That is what we call prior knowledge. Mahavira says the soul is infinite energy, infinite bliss, infinite knowledge—such it is, such it is, such it is. That is his knowing. For us, it can become “prior knowledge.” What does prior knowledge mean? It means: this is Mahavira’s knowledge; as for us, we know nothing of the soul. But we accept Mahavira’s words.

How many have accepted Mahavira’s words; among them, who sets out upon Mahavira’s search? Crores revere the Buddha; but who searches as Buddha did? It was fortunate that Buddha did not find another Buddha to hand him prior knowledge. He searched himself, and thus he found. Truth is attained through one’s own search. It is not so cheap that it can be got from another.

Yes, from others you can get knowledge in the sense of information. Lao Tzu calls precisely that: drop it! Drop this borrowed cleverness.

The scriptures may say so. Those who said it must have known. All who have known have said it is of the nature of bliss. But the danger begins when those who have not known also start believing that it is bliss. The danger is not with the knowers; the danger is with the listeners. You too sit believing that it is bliss. You have no idea what bliss is, what “of the nature of bliss” could mean; nor do you know what the soul is. You don’t know what bliss is! Yet the sentence sounds very elegant: “The soul is bliss.” What could it possibly mean?

You have known suffering. Perhaps you have had an occasional glimpse of pleasure. But you have no glimpse at all of bliss. So whenever you think the soul is bliss, you imagine something like: plenty of pleasure, pleasure forever. For you, bliss can only mean an extension of pleasure—dense pleasure, never-ending pleasure. That is your notion.

Bliss is related to pleasure exactly as it is to pain: it is related to neither. You don’t know the soul, you don’t know bliss; but by hearing the words again and again it seems as if you know—“The soul is bliss.” Sit and keep repeating it: “The soul is bliss, the soul is bliss.” Nothing will come of it.

Lao Tzu’s view is not that the self is not bliss. Lao Tzu is saying: we will not say what the self is. You must go and know. We will only say how you can go. We will not say what you will find upon knowing. Because you are such cheats that, without going anywhere, you will sit here chanting, “The soul is bliss, the soul is bliss,” and by repeating it again and again you will hypnotize yourselves and forget that you have not arrived, that you do not know anything.

When one speaks of what truth is, you hear words; truth itself is not heard. Words are heard, and by hearing them again and again they become familiar. And familiar words are dangerous.

Among the Jews there is a practice—and a precious one—that the name of God should not be spoken. So the name they chose is Yahweh, which means only: the One who has no name. Because by repeating a name again and again, a delusion may arise that you know. And even “Yahweh,” whose meaning is simply “the Nameless,” is not to be used—otherwise that too becomes a name.

Human beings have these difficulties. Those who understand them will not tell you what the self is; they will only tell you how you can go—go! What is the use of telling a blind man what light is? It is enough to tell him the remedy, the medicine by which the eyes may open. And the danger is that you tell a blind man what light is and he also hears it—because a blind man is not deaf; he listens. In fact, the truth is that the blind listen more than those who see.

Have you noticed? The ears of the blind become sharp. The power that would have gone to the eyes goes to the ears. So the blind become very skilled in listening. The blind also have more memory than those who see, because some ninety percent of our memories are formed through the eyes. When that function ceases, the whole power of memory goes to the ears; thus a blind person’s memory is very keen.

So if someone tells a blind man what light is, he will hear it, he will understand it, he will think he has understood; he will memorize it, his memory will be strong. He will forget altogether that he is blind, that he has no relationship with light and no recognition of it. People with eyes say, “Light is like this.” This friend has written, “The scriptures say…” People with eyes say, “Light is like this.” What has that to do with you? You need eyes. And the danger is precisely this—that the blind also memorize.

Therefore Lao Tzu does not discuss what the self is or is not. He says only how the eyes can be treated. Let that treatment happen—then it is enough.

No one is telling you to be religious—at least Lao Tzu would not. The so-called religious people have created so much disturbance that it is better you do not become one of them. Lao Tzu does not say, “Be religious.” He simply says: be what you are.

You may ask, why should I be what I am? Because that is the only thing you can be. There is no way to be anything else. Yes, you can try to be something else—and in that trying your life can be wasted.

You may then say, why not waste life? No one can stop you. And precisely for this reason even the enlightened ones are defeated and cannot give you the knowledge of truth—because you say, why should we know the truth? What can the enlightened do? They can speak. They can try to awaken in you the thirst for the joy they have known, the peace they have found, the light that has dawned upon them. They cannot hand you the light, but they can try to awaken the thirst.

You might even say, why are you trying to awaken our thirst? But try to understand a little. If you do not wish to be religious, how did you get here? What made you think of asking this question? There is some restlessness within that has brought you here, and you have been kind enough to write a question—taken that trouble. There is a restlessness inside. One thing is certain: you are searching for something; otherwise there was no reason to come, no reason to ask. There is a search.

What are you searching for? The Buddha calls that very search dharma; Lao Tzu calls it Tao. Whether you know it or not, you are searching for religion. You may not even know what you are searching for.

Look within a little: What is the longing? What is the quest? We do not even know who we are, why we are, for what reason we are. Our being seems utterly without cause—as if we were suddenly thrown onto this earth. Why are we here? There is a restlessness inside, and it will not cease until we experience our roots within this existence, until we know the relationship between ourselves and this vastness.

What else does it mean to be religious? There is no need to get lost in words. Being religious simply means: the person who has discovered the link between himself and existence, who has found the bond between himself and the vast, who is no longer a foreigner, a stranger, an outsider in this world. This world has become his family. These moons, stars, and the sun have become his family. He is now at home. To be religious means we are not wandering in a foreign land among strangers; this universe is our home.

But a house is not a home. Everyone has houses. Which house becomes your home? The one with which an inner oneness arises, an intimate meeting happens—then the house becomes a home. The irreligious man lives in the world; the religious man lives in the divine. Between the world and him a relationship, a profound connection, is established. Upon the inner veena of his heart the things of the world begin to play music. The sun is no longer alien. The moon and stars are no longer distant. Everything is one’s own. This entire vast cosmos is one’s home. This taste is what I call religiousness.

If you are seeking a family in this world, a love, you are seeking religion. If you fall in love with even one person, you have made one part of the world religious. And the larger one’s family, the deeper one’s joy.

There are people for whom they alone are their entire family—no bond anywhere. Such people begin to feel, “I am an outsider...” Colin Wilson has written a book—The Outsider. It is a symbolic book for our age. In this age everyone feels, “I am a stranger.” Why? With what am I connected? Who is mine, and whose am I? Nowhere is any link visible. People are uprooted—like trees torn out of the soil and left hanging in the air—that is how we are.

To be religious means: the search for roots. Simone Weil wrote a book—The Need for Roots. Among the few truly religious beings of this century, she was one. She wrote that religion is the search for roots. This tree that hangs suspended in the air—drying, withering, writhing—must be given back its place in the earth. Let it find its roots again; let it become green once more; let flowers return to it. To be religious means the search for oneself, the search for a relationship between oneself and the world, the search for a deep love between oneself and existence.

I am not telling you to become religious. But there is not a single person on this earth who does not want to be religious—even if he denies it. It is hard to find a person who is not seeking to be religious. What word he gives to it is his choice. What form he gives to his longing is also his choice. But I have not yet met a single person who is not in search of religiousness. Even the one we call an atheist is searching.

In truth, man’s search is only this: Am I not something incongruous and futile in this world? Does my being have any significance here? Do I have a place? You may have a price; do you have a value? If you have a value, it means this world is unfolding from within you; this stream of vast consciousness is evolving through you. The whole existence wants you; without you it would be incomplete. If you were not, something would be missing, some space left empty. You have filled the world. There is a deep give-and-take between you and the universe. Moment to moment, the world is giving to you and taking from you. Between you and existence there is a profound inner communion. The search for this communion is religion.

But I do not say, become religious. No one has ever become religious because somebody told them to. In fact, the many who appear irreligious are the result of too much trying.

Charles Darwin wrote something striking in his autobiographical notes: there are certain things which, when you try to force them, produce the opposite result. He had read this. Being a scientific man, he thought, how can one accept it without experiment?

So he called in ten young men from his neighborhood. He placed snuff before them and asked, “Have you ever tried this snuff?” All of them said, “We have; it brings on strong sneezes.” Then Darwin put down ten gold coins and said, “Whoever sneezes after taking the snuff will get one coin, cash.”

All ten took the snuff and tried hard to bring on the sneeze—the money was right there—but the sneeze would not come. Tears flowed from their eyes, their faces turned red, yet the sneeze did not come. Not one of the ten succeeded in producing a sneeze.

You too will not succeed—try to bring on a sneeze. A sneeze comes; it is not brought.

Religion happens; no one can make you religious. That is why, together, the religious teachers have made the earth irreligious. The result of their efforts is that no one sneezes; everyone is trying to bring it on. But there is a way things work: some things happen only when they are natural; they do not happen through effort.

And that is why Lao Tzu emphasizes spontaneity. He says the ultimate truth of life happens naturally. The more spontaneous you become, the leap happens. The more you try, the more impossible that leap becomes.

That’s all for today. Let us pause, do five minutes of kirtan, and then go.