Tao Upanishad #45

Aristotle has said: in the world only two things are infinite—one, space; and second, human stupidity. Only two things are infinite in the world—one, space; and second, human stupidity.
Einstein has proved Aristotle half wrong. Einstein has shown that space is not unlimited. It is not infinite; it is finite and bounded. If Einstein is right—and he appears to be right—then only one thing remains infinite in this world: human stupidity.
And to prove that space is not infinite was easy even for an Einstein. But a thousand Einsteins will never be able to prove that human stupidity is not infinite. Man’s obtuseness is infinite, boundless, so vast and so universal that it is difficult even to recognize it.
On a small hill in Mexico lives a very strange tribe. A tiny community, three to three hundred and fifty people—no more. The mountain is deserted. These three, three and a half hundred tribal people live scattered in five or seven little villages around. Their peculiarity is that all three hundred and fifty are blind. Children are born with eyes; but there is a fly on that mountain—like the mosquito that spreads malaria—whose bite takes away the eyes. No cure has been found till now. So the children are born with eyes, but within a month or two they go blind. Three hundred, three and a half hundred people, all blind.
When civilized men first found them and people with eyes reached their settlement, the blind refused to believe that anyone could exist who had eyes. They not only refused to believe it, they also did not take kindly to the sighted. In fact they thought, “You are creatures of some other species, not human. Humans are blind.”
A Christian denomination sent a missionary to preach Christianity among them. But the blind were not ready to hear or understand a man who could see. At last someone suggested—and it worked—that a blind missionary be sent. The blind were ready to listen to the blind. Between the blind and the blind a certain affinity, a harmony arose. But a sighted man could not be accepted—naturally.
People like Lao Tzu are sighted among us blind ones—in the spiritual sense. Perhaps we too are born with eyes. But the bacteria of civilization, education, culture blind us before awareness dawns. Then we, the blind, become a vast society. Numbers matter. They are only three or three hundred and fifty; we are three and a half billion. The whole earth is filled with us blind. Whenever a Lao Tzu is born among us, we do not like it. His presence is painful. Because because of him we begin to know that we are blind. And this knowing does not feel good; for our blindness this recognition becomes a wound.
These sutras of Lao Tzu are full of satire and of great significance. They are the utterances of a man who is a stranger among us; who finds he cannot speak the language we speak. And who sees that the way we live is more a way of dying than of living. And the language we speak is used less to speak and more to hide. We are sick; we are diseased, not healthy. Yet our numbers are great and our power is vast. It is because of that power that this sutra is written.
Lao Tzu says, “The people of the world are well supplied.”
He calls us impoverished ones rich. Those who have nothing—Lao Tzu says—the people of the world are very wealthy.
“The people of the world have enough and to spare.”
Not only do they have enough, they are even ready to give to others. For themselves they have enough, and they have so much they can distribute to others as well. And I am utterly destitute—let alone giving to others, I have nothing at all.
But this is difficult to see. Let us understand in one or two directions.
We all give love without ever bothering whether we have love. A mother gives love; the father gives love; husband and wife, brothers, friends—everywhere people are giving love. Yet nowhere in the world is even a drop of love to be seen. Everyone is showering love; but in what desert does it disappear? Oceans should be flowing with love—so much love is being poured out. Each person is showering from a thousand doors: to someone he is mother, to someone wife, to someone father, brother, friend. How much love we pour out all around! Our world should have become an ocean of love. But it appears to be an ocean of hate. Love is nowhere to be seen. So much given and received—yet not a drop is visible. Surely some mistake is being made. We are giving what we do not have. Therefore we enjoy the feeling of giving, and yet it reaches no one.
Mulla Nasruddin went to a wealthy man in his village. Early one morning he knocked at the door. Seeing Mulla, the rich man understood he had come to ask for a donation—for the mosque, for the madrasa. Mulla said, “Do not be afraid. I have not come for the madrasa, nor for the mosque. I have quite another matter.” The rich man relaxed. “Then what do you want?” Mulla said, “I need a little money, I am buying an elephant.” The rich man said, “Have you gone mad! If you don’t have money to buy an elephant, from where will you arrange to keep it?” Mulla said, “Forgive me. I have come to ask you for money, not advice. I have come to ask for money, not advice. And please understand well: one can ask from you only what you have. What you do not have cannot be asked from you. And what you do not have, please do not try to give to anyone.”
But all of us keep giving advice. And who has advice? Who has the right to advise? Perhaps the one who has the right remains silent; and the unqualified are the ones who advise. In this world nothing is given as much as advice. But who has it? Who knows what is right? Yet by the act of giving there arises the illusion that what we are giving, we must have.
We are impoverished. We have neither love, nor understanding. And what we call wealth is a deception of wealth, not wealth. We may fill our safes and load our homes with ornaments, but that is not wealth. It is certainly a deception, because it creates in us the idea that we possess riches. How much gold, how many rupees, how much in the bank—we think now we have become wealthy.
Man, the blind man, has created false wealth—to deceive himself. For if this were wealth, Mahavira would not have renounced it and fled. If this were wealth, Buddha would be mad and we wise. Buddha would not have left it. If this were wealth, Lao Tzu would not have needed such satire. We have nothing like true wealth. We have calamity in abundance. And what we call wealth turns into our calamity—it is nothing else. Strange indeed: those without wealth are in trouble; and those with wealth are in double trouble. They must also guard their wealth; they become watchmen. Their whole life they stand guard over things that were never theirs; they grieve when they lose things that were never theirs. One day they die and the things belong to someone else. And someone else begins to keep watch over them.
Lao Tzu says, “The people of the world are well supplied.”
Here everyone seems to be a proprietor. Each one seems the owner of a great empire. And not only owners—ownership is so vast that everyone is also giving, donating, distributing.
“I alone seem to be outside the circumference.”
I alone appear to be destitute, with nothing at all. Everyone else has so much.
When Buddha came to Kashi for the first time after enlightenment, evening fell just outside a village before Kashi. He stopped to rest under a tree. The sun was setting. At that moment the king of Kashi said to his charioteer, “I am very disturbed, take me outside the town.” The golden chariot, glittering in the rays of the setting sun, suddenly halted before Buddha. The king said to the charioteer, “Stop the chariot! Who is this beggar who looks like an emperor, who is this beggar sitting under the tree like a monarch? Stop!”
The king approached Buddha and said, “Nothing is visible with you; but surely you have something—your eyes say so. This setting sun itself seems less radiant before you. What do you have? What treasury is hidden? I possess all that can be counted, seen, recognized—and I think of suicide.”
The king has everything; the beggar has nothing. And yet the king folds his hands before the beggar: “Tell me what you have.”
Buddha said, “What you have, I too once had. But then I was as impoverished as you. And what I have today is hidden within you as well. But until your false wealth appears false to you, the search for true wealth does not begin. As long as you take yourself to be a king, you cannot seek that which I have found. For the one who takes a false empire as true remains deprived of the true empire.”
Naturally, it is a straightforward arithmetic. If I am entertaining my mind with the false, and I have succeeded in it, then I will stop seeking the true.
So Buddha said, the search for the inner empire has two stages. The first: do not take as an empire what you have been taking as an empire; and second: you have searched outside till now, now search within. What you have, I also had. And what I have now, you too still possess. Only you do not know it yet.
Lao Tzu says, “The people of the world have enough and to spare. I alone seem to be outside the circumference. My heart seems like the heart of a fool—disordered and filled with fog.”
Here everyone is wise. Here everyone is wise; it is hard to find a man who is not. Have you ever met a man who considers himself not wise? You will not. It is difficult to find one who thinks, “I am not wise”—although that is the first sign of wisdom. Here everyone lives believing himself wise; therefore he remains deprived of real intelligence. He takes false wealth to be wealth, false intelligence to be wisdom; then he remains deprived of the real. His feet never move in that direction; he never goes to that temple, he never walks that path. The very door of the search remains closed.
We are all wise. And if someone asks what acts of wisdom we have done because of which we call ourselves wise, look back over your life: what wise act have you done for which you are wise? You will find a heap of foolishnesses. But the ego is hurt to learn, “I am unknowing.” So we gild our foolishnesses with gold. We drape our stupidities with lovely robes. We paint and polish our trivialities and insanities; painted, we keep up appearances.
Jesus has said, “In your white garments I see nothing but whitewashed tombs.”
Whitewash a tomb as much as you like—what difference does it make! We too keep whitewashing ourselves. Have you ever thought: what wisdom is it for which you claim to be wise? Whatever you have done has given you sorrow. Sin brought sorrow; merit brought sorrow. You did evil to someone—remorse; you did good to someone—remorse. You made friendship—sorrow; enmity—sorrow. You were poor—pain. You became rich—greater pain. Wisdom—what wisdom have you shown?
If we examine life, wisdom should mean that the outcome is bliss. What other measure of wisdom can there be? Only one: a wise person will be continually arriving at bliss; moment to moment his bliss will grow; the fragrance, the perfume, the peace of his life will deepen. Each instant he will grow more luminous. Each instant nectar will draw near and death will recede.
But we, who go about convinced of our wisdom—what fragrance have we attained? What joy, what music, what ray have we received by which we might make a path to our ultimate freedom and nectar-filled life? Nothing is in our hands. In truth, our whole life is a long journey of losing, in which we lose and gain nothing. Moment by moment we lose, and losing, we count ourselves more and more wise.
If losing alone is wisdom, then Lao Tzu’s satire is wrong. But it is not. For if we look within, we will find ourselves empty, void, filled with ash. All desires, all dreams, gradually become ash within. All rainbows of passion fall apart and become mud. At the end, we do not hold rainbows; we hold mud.
Lao Tzu says, “My heart seems like the heart of a fool.”
Seeing all around him only the wise, he thinks, “There is only one recourse: if I am wise, then I am like them. If they are wise, then I am a fool—that is proper.” There are only two possibilities. If Lao Tzu is wise, then we cannot be wise. If we are wise, Lao Tzu cannot be wise. There is no compromise. Naturally, if the matter is decided by vote, Lao Tzu is a fool and we are the wise. Hence his satire carries weight.
He is saying, even if I alone say to you, “You are all unknowing,” it will have no meaning. If I alone tell you, “You are blind,” you will doubt my eyes. You might even gouge out my eyes. It is proper that I say, “I am blind among you sighted. You have such marvelous eyes—you see not only what is near but what is far; not only above the ground but below it. You possess eyes by which you see the entire truth of the world. Only I am blind among you.”
This is why we did not crucify Lao Tzu. We must have been delighted: “The man is saying exactly right.” We crucified Jesus. Jesus did not use satire; he spoke plainly. Socrates we poisoned; he too did not use satire, he spoke directly. Socrates tried to tell us, “You are foolish.” We became enraged. The courts are ours, the law is ours—what difficulty to give Socrates hemlock! Jesus too spoke plainly. But Jesus and Socrates seem a little naive. Lao Tzu is like the cream of an ancient civilization—behind him stand thousands of years of experience. He speaks the other way. No one even threw a stone at Lao Tzu.
Bertrand Russell writes in his memoirs: I once wrote, as a joke, an article against nationalism. And in that satire I wrote that, except for the reader of my article, the entire nation is stupid. Letters came from many countries saying, “You are one who recognizes rightly.” A man from Poland wrote, “You speak exactly right—except for Poland, the people of the whole world are indeed fools.”
The intelligence to understand satire is itself very rare.
If Lao Tzu were to come and say to you, “Among all you wise people, I alone have a foolish heart,” we would say, “We already knew it. Otherwise you would have established a household, married, run a shop, done something practical. If you had intelligence, you would be somewhere in the world, holding some post. You would be successful, decorated by presidents. You are nowhere. We already knew it—out of politeness we did not say it.” And if Lao Tzu says to us, “The worldly people are so wealthy, they have so much that not only for themselves but to share with others”—we would say, “You speak rightly.”
We all think we are distributing. We all think we are distributing untold treasures—of love, of joy, of happiness, of friendship, of compassion. How many treasures we are distributing! We will say, “You speak rightly.”
But Lao Tzu is launching a deep satire. He is saying, “You are all wise; therefore it is proper that I say: I am a fool among you. Your lives are well-ordered; I am disordered. Your every inch is measured; you proceed by arithmetic; your life has a framework, a plan. I am unplanned, disorderly. You have logic, a method of thinking; you reach out into the far distance; you peer into the future; you place each step after measuring it. And you have a goal toward which you are going. I am filled with fog. In my intelligence there is no plan, no arithmetic, no logic. Everything is misty. You are perfectly clear.”
We all think we are perfectly clear. And Lao Tzu, to us, will indeed seem filled with fog. What is he saying—that there is no difference between yes and no? That sin and virtue are the same? What is the difference between auspicious and inauspicious? Foggy talk—only fools can speak like this! The intelligent will say, “If there is no difference between yes and no, what difference then remains between wisdom and foolishness?”
The intelligent know clearly that there is a difference between yes and no. The intelligent know so much they even see differences between one yes and another yes; between one no and another no. No has a thousand kinds; yes has a thousand kinds. The intelligent live by distinctions. Truly understood, all our intelligence depends on how many distinctions we can make. The more distinctions one can see, the more intelligent he is. The one who says “no difference,” he is anarchic; he has no intelligence. His intelligence is like fog.
But Lao Tzu himself says it; and so we may miss his purpose. He is saying: those in this world who are intelligent and live by order only die—they cannot live. For the whole secret of life, the whole poetry of life, is in the mist. In the morning when fog has fallen and it is difficult to distinguish one tree from another, when even two inches away nothing can be seen, when all of nature seems to sink into one ocean of mist—Lao Tzu says: live in such mist!
For Lao Tzu, mist and fog are symbols of the mysterious. In the West there is the word “mystic.” A mystic is one who lives in fog, in mist, in mystery. But in the modern West, to call someone a mystic is almost to abuse him. And when people want to dismiss someone’s view, they say, “You are mystifying—making things foggy.” Reading Lao Tzu is very hard. Legge, who translated Lao Tzu, has written again and again in his translation: “This sentence cannot be translated; I do not understand it.” For understanding survives by distances. This is to drop all distances, break all boundaries, mix everything together. Then, they fear, anarchy will ensue.
Yet Lao Tzu himself says, “My heart seems like the heart of a fool—disordered and filled with fog. The vulgar look brilliant and informed; I alone am dim and confused.”
The vulgar appear informed and radiant! To be vulgar and appear radiant is very easy. To be vulgar and appear informed is very easy. But to be truly informed and be emptied of the thought “I am informed” is very difficult. In truth, “I am wise” is the very sign of vulgarity. In a wise person even the feeling cannot arise. The wiser he becomes, the more he feels how little he knows.
Newton has said, “My knowledge is like gathering a few shells on the seashore, like grasping a little sand in my fist. What I know is like the grains of sand in my fist; what I do not know is like the grains of sand on the shore.”
But Newton can say it—he is not vulgar. As Newton came to know more and more, ignorance deepened and became clear. But ask a vulgar person; he will not even admit that as many grains as are in his fist, so much is his ignorance. He will claim that the grains in the sea are his knowledge; and those in his fist—he will not even concede that much to ignorance.
Therefore fools are very certain. And because of these certain fools there is so much trouble in the world that it is hard to calculate. They are absolutely sure. Two difficulties plague the world: the certainty of the fools, the uncertainty of the wise. Hence the fools are very adept at action. The wise seem inactive. The wise are so uncertain, shrouded in fog, drowned in mystery, wrapped in poetry, that they cannot think in the language of arithmetic. Fools enter blindfold where even the gods would fear to tread. Fools are very active. Their activity brings disturbance.
Think a little. Put Lao Tzu on one side, Hitler on the other. How can poor Lao Tzu compete with Hitler’s activity! Blessed will be the day for this world when fools like Hitler can become inactive and the wise like Lao Tzu can become active.
Lao Tzu says, “The vulgar look clever and sure.”
They know nothing. Therefore whatever little they do know, they stand upon it firmly. Their little knowledge seems to them like the great sun. The great knowledge of the wise looks to the wise like a flickering earthen lamp.
“I alone am dim and confused.”
And among these certain people, these dogmatists, where everyone is assured, certain, complete—I alone appear dim and confused.
Mahavira comes to a town. The chief pandit goes to meet him and asks: “Is there God? Is there Atman?” He does not even give Mahavira a chance to speak; he keeps asking. As if to ask about God were like asking, “How much is two and two?” as if to ask about the Atman were like a geography question, “Where is Timbuktu?” “Is there heaven? Is there moksha?” He goes on and on. He does not even allow Mahavira to speak. When he has asked everything—in one breath he has asked all that human consciousness has asked throughout history—and to which no answers have been found—Mahavira says to him, “Your questions are very big and your time seems very little; it is difficult to answer. Your questions are big, and your time seems short, because you do not stop even after asking one. And even one question is enough to require infinite lifetimes for its search.”
The man says, “I am in a hurry. And there is no need either. If you have some idea, say it briefly. And if you don’t, no harm. I was passing by, heard you had come, thought I would call.” As he turns to go, Mahavira says, “And as far as I understand, you must already know the answers.” The man replies, “Of course! Who does not know that God exists? I am an theist—God is.”
It is this foolishness to which Lao Tzu points: that you are all very assured. Ask anyone—“Is there God?” He answers without hesitation: yes, or no. He has no idea what he is speaking about, concerning what. It is difficult to find a man about God who will remain silent. He will say something. If he is Hindu, he will speak of the Hindu God; Muslim, of the Muslim God; Communist, he will say there is no God. But he will speak. All are assured; all know. Therefore such great dispute.
Think a little. The world is so full of dispute because our foolishness is so assured. Everyone is so sure he is right and the whole world wrong. In proving the other wrong he becomes so eager he forgets to check whether he himself knows what he is asserting to be true. He has no time for that. It takes so much labor to refute others that there remains neither opportunity nor convenience to find out whether he himself is right. And that is a cumbersome business. To prove the other wrong is always easier.
Lao Tzu says, here everyone knows everything; I alone appear dim and confused.
The one who is not at all confused seems confused among us. The one who is not at all dim appears dim among our false geniuses. It is almost as if, among paper flowers, someone places a real flower. Certainly the colors of paper can be more gaudy, more brilliant. They do not fear death; they can be more assured. The real flower wavers. Each moment death draws near. Its color is vanishing every instant; its life-energy is weakening. The real flower will look very poor and destitute among paper flowers. And soon it will feel, “I alone am weak; the rest are strong.” And perhaps at the time of its death it will say, “I alone was the fake among real flowers.” The real vanished, the fake remained. And the paper flowers too will trust this—for the matter is obvious: the real died and the fake survived. Life is very upside down. Great illusions arise because of the crowd.
“The vulgar are cunning and assured; I alone am sad, bowed low, ocean-like patient, drifting here and there—as if aimless!”
Have you ever noticed? Rivers have a goal; the ocean has no goal. Even a small brook has a goal—somewhere to reach. The ocean has none. A petty brook is purposeful; the vast ocean is purposeless. Ask the ocean, “Where do you wish to arrive?” Nowhere. Then even the petty brook may say, “Why lie idle? Look at us! We run, we race, we live in order. We have to reach somewhere; there is a destination; there is a future.” The ocean has only the present; the brook has a future too.
Lao Tzu says, “The vulgar are clever and assured.” Very skillful at arithmetic, they keep accounts to the last penny. Assured that they will reach—without caring whether there is any place to reach, any destination at all. Assured that they will arrive—their assurance itself is enough guarantee that there must be a destination. If there is a goal in our mind, there will certainly be a goal—because we are the determiners, the rulers of the world.
And Lao Tzu says, “I alone am sad.”
Because when there is no goal… the rush you see in us comes from goals. Remember, these are all words of satire. Lao Tzu says, consider it like this: we all have a fever, and a man without fever will seem cold. We will say, “What kind of life is yours—no warmth? Heat up a little; pick up some speed; show some sign of life! Even the thermometer gives no sign of heat in you.”
So Lao Tzu says: others are filled with great haste, fever; somewhere to reach, something to get, something to become. I alone am sad, bowed low, depressed—compared to them, feverish, racing in delirium.
Have you seen someone in delirium? The speed that comes in delirium never comes otherwise. Even four men cannot restrain him. A man lying on the cot says, “My bed is flying in the sky.” The pace that fever brings—we are all in that pace.
Watch a politician: an inner spiritual fever burns in him. In that fever he can do such things as a normal healthy man could never do. See the fever when a politician is engaged in saving a nation, in building a nation—or in destroying one. If ever we had an instrument to measure spiritual fever, politics would prove to be a spiritual fever. Look at the politician, the pace of his feet, his busy-ness from morning till night. The whole burden of the world is upon him. If he is not, the world is not. If he is, everything is.
This is fever. Seeing these fever-stricken people, Lao Tzu is left only to say, “I alone am sad, cool, inactive. All are arriving somewhere; I alone, like the ocean, am goal-less, lying where I am.”
“The people of the world are purposeful; I alone look stubborn and uncouth.”
When everyone is running, your moving slowly will look obstinate. When everyone is going mad, your remaining calm and gentle will seem uncouth. When in Hindu-Muslim riots people are taking to the streets and you stand aside and watch—take no side, do not divide, do not enter the fever—people will say, “What is the matter with you? Are you alive, or dead?”
Notice: when war breaks out, people become more alive. The man who found it difficult to rise even at eight in the morning gets up at five and turns on the radio—“What is the news?” Life returns to his limbs. Blood begins to flow faster. From morning a man sits with the newspaper. See the glow on people’s faces! When war is on, look at their faces. When war ends, people become dull again; they slow down and wait for something to happen. When nothing happens they feel there is no news.
I have heard: at the end of his life Mulla Nasruddin was made the qazi—the judge—of his village. On the very first day he sat in court. From morning till noon, no case came. By evening, still none. The clerk grew sad, restless. The guard restless. The policemen walked in and out—no one came. The lawyers were fidgety. At last the clerk said, “What has happened? It is your first day as judge and no one has come.”
Nasruddin said, “Don’t worry. I still have faith in human nature. Someone will come. Don’t worry—some crime or other will surely occur. I still have faith in man’s nature.”
And by sunset a case of beating arrived. The whole court lit up. Everyone sat properly in his place. Registers were opened. Lawyers stood; life returned to the constable; the magistrate too revived.
The court dies on the day no case comes. The doctor’s pulse slackens on the day no one falls ill—naturally. Our way of living is feverish. When war comes, everyone’s spine straightens.
Hitler has written in his autobiography, Mein Kampf, that no nation can become great without war. Nations that live long without war lose their backbone.
Perhaps this is why India’s backbone has broken—since after the Mahabharata we kept no connection with war. Hitler writes that even if no war is going on, one should keep the rumor of war alive to maintain vitality in the nation: “War is about to begin! War is about to begin!” Suspense! Then people’s blood runs fast, their souls throb, they remain spirited.
Surely, among such spirited people, Lao Tzu would feel—“I alone am stubborn and uncouth.” Where all are sick and racing in fever and shouting in delirium, my voice seems very soft. Surely they feel, “You are obstinate—come with us! Run with us! You are uncouth—you do not do what everyone is doing.”
What does “civil” mean? What does “uncivil” mean?
Civil comes from sabha—assembly. One who goes with the assembly is civil. One who goes with the crowd is civil. One who does not go with the crowd is uncivil. Civil means: fit to sit in the assembly; one who can stand with the crowd. Who is gentlemanly? One who conforms to our measure. Uncouth is the one who does not.
So Lao Tzu says, “I alone appear stubborn and uncouth. I do not listen to the people. They are annoyed. I do not walk with the crowd. The crowd thinks I am insane.”
“And I alone am different from others; for I value the nourishment that comes straight from Mother Nature.”
All around, people do not draw their nourishment, their life-energy and warmth, from simple nature and spontaneity. Their vitality comes from hopes of the future, from ideals, words, goals. Not from simple nature and spontaneity. I live only as much as is spontaneous; as much as Nature gives me life, so much I live. As much as Nature makes me run, so much is my pace. If Nature halts, I stop. If Nature moves, I move. I have no race of my own. I have no motion of my own. I am not conducted by mind and intellect.
Understand this last sentence well. One way is the way of spontaneous living. Lao Tzu says, “I am like a dry leaf. If the wind carries me east, I go east; if the wind carries me west, I go west. If it drops me to the ground, I rest; if it lifts me to the sky, I race with the clouds. But I have no direction of my own. I have no plan to go anywhere. For the moment a plan is made, conflict begins. I want to go east while the winds are going west. And the winds will not listen to me. Who am I? What concern have the winds with me?”
Lao Tzu says, “Where the winds blow, that is my direction. And if midway they change, my direction changes too.” He is saying: I have no direction determined by my intellect. I have no goal. If Nature has some goal through me, let Nature know it. If Nature wishes to do something through me, let it. If Nature does not wish to do anything through me, if I have no worth or capacity, I will not enter into the vanity of proving my worth. For Lao Tzu, “Nature” signifies what others call Paramatma. But Lao Tzu prefers not to use the word Paramatma. There is a reason. Lao Tzu prefers the word prakriti—Nature—rather than Paramatma, because we have made God into a doctrine. We have put Him out ahead. And whenever we talk of God, it has little to do with God and much to do with our own desires. We lay claim upon God. We deposit into God all the things we wish to be. We do not ask God His will; we impose our will upon Him and say, “If this be Your will, You are our God.”
The Bible says, “God created man in His own image.” Nietzsche says there is no sentence more untrue. The truth is the opposite: men created God in their own image. That is why there are so many gods—because there are so many people. A black man cannot make a white-faced god; a white man cannot make a black-faced god. The African’s god is in the African’s image; the Hindu’s god is in the Hindu’s image. Our gods are our own constructions. Whether God made us or not is another matter, but we make God every day.
Therefore every two or four hundred years God’s face has to change, because the sculptors change. Their modes change; their ways of thinking change. New gods must be made. Man has factories for making gods; he keeps producing them. Fashion changes; God must change with it. God too must be up to date. Old gods become out of date and are thrown away; new gods are sculpted—so that they match us.
If you look back over five thousand years, you will see how many gods we have discarded—how many we have thrown out. Today it would not even occur to us that these were our old gods. We made others. Times change; we must adjust. If we read the Vedas we will be shocked by the shape of God there. In the old Jewish picture, God looks ferocious, tyrannical: “Whoever does not take My name, I will roast him in hell, melt him, cut him, throw him into the fire. Whoever is against Me cannot be saved. Whoever is with Me alone will be saved.”
If our God today spoke such language, we would feel this is too dictatorial. Speak the language of democracy! This is dictatorial. Such a God we would not tolerate today. He would look like Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo. What kind of God is this who talks like that! Discarded. Even the Jews worship the book but do not discuss this God—at all.
Jesus changed the entire conception. Jesus said, “God is love.” Now the God of Jesus has no kinship with the God of Jesus’ father.
Go further back: read the Vedic prayers and you will be surprised: what kind of prayers are these? A farmer prays, “O God, rain on my field, but not on the field of my enemy.” Today we would say, “Is this a prayer?” Once it was. And when it was, no one doubted it. Today we would doubt it, for Buddha and Mahavira changed the conception. They said, if enmity enters prayer, prayer is spoiled.
Buddha said, “Meditate, and after meditation pray thus: ‘The peace that has come to me through meditation—may it spread to all. Even if it does not come to me, let it come to all.’”
Now Buddha has come in between; the Vedic prayer is in trouble. It must be discarded. We keep worshipping the Vedas, but even one who believes in the Vedas today will feel difficulty. Then there is only one way: change the meaning. Say, “This is not what it means.” Sri Aurobindo struggled to say, “It does not mean that.” But that effort is not honest. Had it been a sentence or two, we might understand. Ninety percent of the Veda is thus. However much a man of Aurobindo’s genius may twist and turn, this cannot be denied. But Aurobindo’s trouble is understandable: he is trying to make the Veda up-to-date. The Veda has fallen five thousand years behind; his labor is to make it suitable for today—to give it a new shape so it becomes acceptable to us.
We have to use the chisel on our gods daily; we have to keep remaking them. God is our product.
Therefore Lao Tzu does not use the word God. He says “Nature.” Prakriti is a very precious word. It means: that which was before creation. Pra and kriti—before making, before the formed. That which was before everything came to be; that which lies at the root of all; that into which forms fall when they dissolve; that out of which they arise when they arise. Nature means: that element which was prior to all forms.
Lao Tzu says: that is the Mother, the original source—I live by that. I have no goal of my own. If that Nature has some goal for me, let it be fulfilled; if not, no objection. If Nature wants me to remain useless and be lost—let that will be done. If She wants to take some work, let Her take it. But from my side there is no predetermined destiny.
This is what needs to be understood. Lao Tzu says, I leave myself to that very One from whom I was born and into whom I will dissolve tomorrow. Why interfere in between? Why say I want moksha? When I do not even know my own being, when I cannot create myself, how will I take myself to moksha?
Lao Tzu would say that all those who strive by their own efforts to attain something are like a man trying to lift himself by pulling his own shoelaces. Try as much as you like—no result will come. A man may jump and flail a bit; jumping he may feel he is lifting himself; then he will fall back. The vastness that surrounds me—if It has some goal, fine. I have none. Who am I to interfere? At my birth Nature did not ask me, “We are making you—what is your intention?” At my death no one will ask, “We are erasing you—what is your intention?” Nature does not consult me: “We are placing this heart within you—decide why you will beat.” No, Nature does not say anything. She makes and unmakes. In the middle we begin to think and we fix our goals.
Lao Tzu says, by fixing our goals we become like those brooks that run and run, yet arrive at the very ocean that goes nowhere. The brooks run much. And running, the brook may even say to the ocean, “Why lie idle—come on! We small streams run so much; you are so great—move!” But where do these brooks arrive, where do they fall, where do they lose themselves? In the same ocean into which they said, “Why lie idle!”
Lao Tzu will say to us wise ones, “You are running vainly—because you will arrive where I already am.” Understand this: you will arrive where I am already arrived. You will arrive by running; you will run much, worry, lose nights, lose sleep, breed a thousand diseases. Think of the trouble of a brook—the ocean is far! How many compromises must be made; into which river to fall; how to save oneself! And even after saving oneself, what happens? The fun is that what is going to happen at the end happens anyway—whether the brook saves itself or not. The brook strives not to be lost in the desert. But if a brook is lost in the desert, where will it go? It will rise as vapor in the sun’s rays and reach the ocean. “Let me go into a big river; with a small river’s support I may not arrive; let me take a big support.” Small rivers also reach there; big rivers also reach there. And the fun is that the final outcome of all is in that ocean which does not go anywhere.
Lao Tzu says, “I alone am sad, bowed low, ocean-like patient, drifting here and there—as if aimless.”
It looks as though the waves come here, go there—aimless. Have you noticed? When you stand on the shore it seems a foam-crested wave is racing from afar, comes and crashes, and breaks. Scientists say the waves never leave their place. What you see coming is an illusion. One wave rises and a hollow forms below; that wave falls and the nearby water rises; the nearby water rising gives you the feeling the first wave has advanced. No wave advances.
This is why on the stage the illusion of waves is easy to create. Or see the bulbs strung at a wedding pavilion—they seem to run, but none runs. One bulb goes off, another turns on; the illusion arises that electricity is traveling.
In the ocean too it is illusion. A wave rises and a hollow forms below. It falls and the adjacent water rises. You think the wave has traveled. No wave travels; each one rises and falls in its own place. There is no journey in the ocean. The ocean is still. That is why we call it patient, dhir. There is no impatience in it. What is impatience? The feeling that one must reach somewhere. Until one has reached, how can there be patience? Patience can be only in one who has nowhere to go. The one who must arrive will have to live in impatience; the greater the hurry, the greater the impatience.
In the West there is more impatience than in the East. The reason? Only one small reason—or big—Christianity, Judaism and Islam accepted only one birth. There is one life; time is short; arrival must be quick. In India, in the East, there is no impatience. The reason is not that you are very patient—you simply have a longer time span: births upon births. If not in this, then in the next; if not in the next, then in another. What is the hurry? Since we posited a chain of rebirths, we have plenty of time; we are not clock-conscious. Time is so much—why measure it? Who measures an ocean?
Therefore we are patient. Even while running, we move leisurely; we rest. No hurry. In the West there is great haste because Christianity accepted only one life. This death is the last. After this there is no time. Naturally time runs short, panic grows. One must arrive. If you miss, you miss forever. In our land there is no fear of missing. Missing does not mean missing forever. It means only this time you missed; next time we will see. And Paramatma is infinitely patient with us; He will wait—no hurry anywhere. Therefore time-consciousness did not arise in the East. Time-consciousness arose in the West. And in creating it, Jesus had a hand, because with one life there is panic.
We call the ocean patient. It has nowhere to go. A river will be impatient—so it will make noise, rush, struggle. In it you can see restlessness. The ocean is not restless.
Lao Tzu says, among these running people, “The vulgar are brilliant and informed; I alone am dim and confused. The vulgar are clever and assured; I alone am sad, bowed low, ocean-like patient, drifting here and there—as if aimless. The people of the world are purposeful; I alone look stubborn and uncouth. And I alone am different from others; for I value the nourishment that comes straight from Mother Nature.” I live only that deepest source of life—therefore I am different.
Look at it another way.
The one who lives by goals values the future—tomorrow, the ahead. The one who lives by the source values no future. He values the roots, the source. Consider ourselves to be like trees living in the hope of flowering—and in that hope we forget all about the roots. We forget that we are only the spread of roots. We forget that we are roots that have come above the earth. We forget that we are roots that have aspired to touch the sky. We forget that if a flower is hidden in the roots, it will emerge; if it is not, there is no way to force it. We are trees that have forgotten the roots, and we think, “How to produce flowers?”
If a tree becomes anxious about flowering—“How shall I make flowers happen?”—one thing is certain: such a tree will never flower. Anxiety will suck away the very sap from which flowers are made.
There is a Chinese tale from Lao Tzu’s time: a centipede with a hundred legs was crossing a forest. A rabbit became worried—“A hundred legs! Which does he put first, which later? How does he keep count—what is touching the ground, what is midway, what is raised?” The rabbit went up and asked, “Uncle, I worry when I see you. How do you keep the account? Which foot first? Then which? And then which?” The centipede said, “What a strange question! I never thought about it. I kept walking; I never thought. Let me think and tell you.”
He stood awhile; his legs trembled and he fell there. The rabbit asked, “What happened?” The centipede said, “Foolish one, never ask such a question to any centipede again. We knew how to walk—we had never thought which foot first and which later. It is a matter of a hundred; everything is mixed up. Now no foot rises, or many rise together and entangle. My life is in trouble. This question is very difficult. God grant I forget it soon—otherwise walking will be impossible.” Anxiety will take the place of walking.
If a tree begins to think, “How shall I make buds, how many petals, what color, what fragrance?”—there will be no flowers. Why should the tree worry? Flowers are hidden in the roots; the roots will manage. The tree must keep growing and leave all to the roots, surrender to the source. In the source everything is hidden—the future too, tomorrow too; what will be, is hidden.
Lao Tzu says, “I have left everything to the roots.” And all around people are carrying their own loads. They say, “Our destination! Our goal! We have to become something! We have to do something! We have come into the world, we will not leave without doing!”
Parents teach the children: “You have come into the world—do something!”
How many came into the world, how much did they do, and what fruit came of it? And the ones who did nothing—what inconvenience has there been? And even if you do—what will you show? But anxiety is sown. Anxiety grips the whole brain. Then even to move a single step becomes difficult. We become like the centipede.
Today man is almost in the state of that centipede. He does not know what to do and what not to do—how to do. Everything is topsy-turvy. It will be so. Because we have snatched everything from the roots; and in them all is hidden. We have placed everything in the brain.
And Lao Tzu’s disciples say: avoid thinking from the skull. If you were to ask Lao Tzu, “Where is your mind?” he would place his hand on his belly and say, “Here. The belly is my mind.” “Why the skull—so far from the source? That is too far out on the branches, too far from the roots.” The child is connected to the mother through the navel; that is the first beginning of existence. The navel is the source. Near the navel is existence; the skull is very far away—out in the branches, very far from the roots.
Man’s root—do you know—is the navel. There the mother is joined to the child. And her root was joined through the navel. If you search for the roots of human beings across the world you will find them spread from the navel. Grossly, outwardly we are joined at the navel; subtly, inwardly too the roots spread from the navel.
Therefore Lao Tzu says, “Forget the skull; remember the navel.” If the navel is strong, the roots deep in Nature, then whether you arrive or not, it makes no difference. If you arrive or you do not, in every case there is joy. And if you live from the brain, whether you arrive or not—in every case there is sorrow.
Therefore he says, “I alone am different from others; for I value the nourishment that comes straight from Mother Nature.”
Enough for today. We will speak again tomorrow. Sit for five minutes—let us do kirtan.