Verse:
Chapter 2 : Sutra 1
The Rise of Relative Opposites
When the people of Earth all know beauty as beauty, there arises (the recognition of) ugliness. When the people of Earth all know the good as good, there arises (the recognition of) evil.
Tao Upanishad #5
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
Chapter 2 : Sutra 1
The Rise of Relative Opposites
When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty, there arises (the recognition of) ugliness. When the people of the Earth all know the good as good, there arises (the recognition of) evil.
The Rise of Relative Opposites
When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty, there arises (the recognition of) ugliness. When the people of the Earth all know the good as good, there arises (the recognition of) evil.
Transliteration:
Chapter 2 : Sutra 1
The Rise of Relative Opposites
When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty, there arises (the recognition of) ugliness. When the people of the Earth all know the good as good, there arises (the recognition of) evil.
Chapter 2 : Sutra 1
The Rise of Relative Opposites
When the people of the Earth all know beauty as beauty, there arises (the recognition of) ugliness. When the people of the Earth all know the good as good, there arises (the recognition of) evil.
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, yesterday you described the cathartic practice of pillow‑beating to release anger. In the same way, what practices should be done for the cessation of lust, greed, attachment, and ego? Please shed some light on these.
Lust, anger, greed, attachment, ego! From the words it sounds as if a person is surrounded by many diseases. That is not the truth. There are not as many diseases as the number of names we know. There is only one disease. The energy is one, and it manifests in all these forms. If you suppress sex, it turns into anger. And we all have suppressed sex; therefore anger accumulates inside everyone in greater or lesser measure. Now, if you want to be saved from anger, you have to give it some channel; otherwise anger will not let you live. If you can transform the force of anger into greed, you will become less angry; your anger will start flowing into greed. Then you will throttle people less and tighten your fist around the neck of money instead.
Keep in mind one thing: a human being has only one energy. We can employ it in twenty‑five ways; if we become distorted it can flow into a thousand streams. If you try to fight it stream by stream, you will go mad, because you will keep fighting each branch and never encounter the root.
So first understand this clearly: at the root there is only one energy in a human being. And if any transformation is to be done, you must establish direct contact with the root energy. Do not get entangled in its expressions. The simplest way is to begin with whichever of these four or five is strongest in you. If you feel anger is the strongest in you, then that is your chief characteristic.
Whenever someone came to Gurdjieff, he would say, “First I must find your special disease—what is your particular symptom?”
And everyone has a special symptom. For some it is greed, for some anger, for some sex, for some fear, for some ego. These are signatures. Catch hold of your special symptom. Do not go to battle with all of them. Do not fight with everything at once—just catch the chief symptom. That stream is the largest one connected to your source. If it is anger, then take hold of anger. If it is sex, then take hold of sex. And begin to apply two things to that special symptom: awareness and catharsis. As I said yesterday regarding anger, a friend is experimenting even with a pillow, and the results are significant.
Whatever your chief symptom is, do two things with it.
First, increase awareness of it. The difficulty is always that we hide our chief symptom the most. The angry person hides his anger most, afraid it might burst out anywhere. He keeps it concealed. He builds a thousand lies around himself so that others won’t notice his anger—and he himself also won’t notice it. And if it isn’t seen, it cannot be changed. So first remove all the veils and understand your situation precisely: this is my chief symptom.
Second, start being aware with it. Say anger arises. The moment anger comes, our attention immediately goes to the person who “made” us angry; we do not notice the one to whom anger has arisen. If you made me angry, I start thinking about you, and I completely forget myself—whereas the real thing is me, the one in whom anger has arisen. The person who “provoked” it was merely an occasion. He has gone. He just tossed a spark, and my gunpowder is burning. His spark would have been useless if there were no gunpowder with me. But I don’t see my burning stockpile; I look at his spark—and I think the fire blazing in me was thrown by that man.
He did not hurl that much fire; it was only a spark. This fire is my gunpowder taking on a vast blaze. He didn’t throw so much fire—he may not even know what happened. It could have been entirely unintentional; he may have no idea your house is in flames. You project all this fire onto that person. That is why when you rage at someone, it doesn’t make sense to him—he feels, “There was nothing in this that warranted so much anger.” This is always a difficulty: the amount you project is yours.
So he too is startled: “I didn’t say anything that big; why are you going mad?” It is beyond his understanding. If anyone has ever raged at you, you know you thought: “It wasn’t that big a deal; the person is making it huge.” There is a natural fallacy here: as much fire as burns in me, I think you lit it. You toss a spark; my gunpowder is ready. It catches the spark—and how great the blaze becomes is anybody’s guess.
Whenever we are seized by anger, our attention stays on the one who “started” it. If you keep your attention there, you can never step out of anger. When someone provokes anger in you, forget them immediately; remember instead the one to whom anger is happening. And remember this too: no matter how much you think about the one who provoked it, you will not be able to change anything there. If any change is possible, it is only in the one to whom anger has happened.
So when anger grabs you—or greed, or sexual desire, or anything—drop the object at once. You see a woman and lust surges; you see a man and desire arises. The same event is occurring: the other only offered a spark, perhaps without even knowing. In anger, there is usually at least some action from the other; in sex, often not even that. A woman passes on the street and lust seizes your mind. You fixate on her; you do not look at the inner energy where the flame of desire is catching. In this way we miss knowing ourselves, miss self‑observation. And without self‑observation, there can be no transformation.
So when desire catches you, instantly forget the outside, forget the object. Forget the one who triggered desire, anger, greed. Turn attention within immediately: what is happening inside me? Do not suppress it; let what is happening complete itself. Close the door. Let it happen fully. See it as clearly as possible.
If anger is rising within, shout, jump, rant—whatever wants to happen—close your room and let it happen. Enact your whole madness before yourself and watch. Others have seen this madness of yours many times; only you have escaped seeing it. Others have enjoyed its spectacle enough; you alone have been spared. And you find out only after the entire episode is over, when the play has ended. Then, sitting at home, you look back in memory. But only ash remains then, not the fire.
Remember: nothing can be learned about fire from ash. Even a big heap of ash tells nothing about a small spark. One who has not seen fire cannot infer fire from ash. No logic, no inference can take you from ash to fire. And whenever you look at your anger, you look as at ash. When everything has passed, only a pile of ash remains, and you sit there repenting.
No, that won’t help. See it when the fire is burning fully. It becomes easier to see if you express it. And remember, when you express it on another person, you never express it fully. If I rage at my wife, husband, father, son, brother—there are limitations. No wife is such that I can pour out my whole anger on her; there is a limit. I will express up to a point and swallow the rest. No one has ever expressed anger completely. Even a father raging at a little son—though the son has no strength and the father could break his neck—still cannot be total. Twenty‑five limitations stand in the way. You do a little, don’t get the satisfaction, and you get hurt. You don’t see it fully. So you do it again tomorrow, and again the day after—always incomplete.
If you want to see anger in its totality, do it alone—only then can it be seen whole. There will be no limits. That is why I suggest the “pillow meditation,” the process of focusing on a pillow to a few friends: on a pillow it can be done totally.
The friend I mentioned yesterday—today his companion told me he actually pulled out a knife and ripped the pillow to shreds. I hadn’t even suggested that! It makes us laugh: how can someone stab a pillow? But when we can rip a living person apart, we don’t laugh—so what’s the difficulty in slicing a pillow? When someone tears a living person, the “juice” is in the tearing itself; the person is incidental. That same juice can arise with a pillow. In fact, more so—because with a pillow you need impose no limits at all.
So shut yourself in your room, and when your root “disease” wants to show itself, let it show. Consider this meditation. Let it come out in every pore of your being. Shout, jump, do whatever is happening—let it happen. And watch from behind—you will even feel like laughing. You will be surprised: “I can do this?” Your mind will be amazed: “How am I doing this—and alone? If someone were here, fine—but alone!”
The first one or two times you may feel a bit uneasy; by the third time you will come into full flow and be able to do it with relish. And when you can do it with relish, an extraordinary thing will happen: outwardly you will be doing it, and in between a consciousness will arise that is simply watching. With others present, this is difficult; in solitude it happens easily. Flames of anger will blaze all around, and you will stand apart in the middle.
Once someone has stood apart like this and seen their anger, or sexual desire, or greed, or fear, a ray of wisdom begins to dawn in their life. They have had an experience. They have recognized an energy within themselves. Now that energy cannot deceive them. The energy we recognize, we become master of. The power we know, we become master of. The power we do not know—we are its slave.
So you can imagine your pillow to be your beloved. You can imagine it to be the Koh‑i‑Noor diamond. You can imagine it to be your enemy before whom you tremble with fear. It doesn’t matter what you imagine. Just recognize your symptom.
And it is not difficult to recognize, because it dogs you twenty‑four hours a day. You actually know quite well what your root symptom is. In a person there is one primary symptom; the rest are connected to it. If sexuality is primary, then anger and greed will be secondary. If he is greedy, it will be to fulfill sexuality. If he is angry, it will be to fulfill sexuality. If he is fearful, it will be lest sexuality be obstructed. Sexuality will be primary; the rest secondary.
If anger is primary, he will even love someone so that he can be angry. Sexuality will become secondary. Such a person will love people so that he can rage at them. For him the root will be anger. He will earn money so that, when he gets angry, he has power. Whether he knows it or not, as his wealth increases, so will his capacity for anger. And over all those on whom his money gives him power, he will press his grip. If he desires position, it will be so that, upon reaching office, he can express anger fully. Often anger hides very deep.
A daughter of Winston Churchill married a young man whom Churchill did not want her to marry. He had great anger in his heart and swallowed it. The marriage happened. He never told the young man he was angry. The poor fellow had no idea—he kept addressing Churchill as “Papa.” But whenever the son‑in‑law said “Papa,” Churchill would flare up inside. Being called “Papa” by that man was unbearable to him.
After the Second World War, the son‑in‑law asked, “Papa, whom do you consider the greatest statesman in the world today?” Hearing “Papa” again, Churchill became very restless. He said, “I consider Mussolini the greatest statesman.” The son‑in‑law was surprised. For Churchill to choose his enemy, Mussolini—when there were great men like Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler—and Churchill himself was no less than any of them! The son‑in‑law asked, “I don’t understand—why Mussolini?” Churchill hesitated, then said, “Let it be.” But the son‑in‑law insisted. Churchill said, “Since you insist, I’ll say it. I call Mussolini a great statesman because he had the guts to shoot his own son‑in‑law. There’s no other reason. At this very moment I feel like shooting you—when you say ‘Papa,’ I feel like shooting you. But I have not the guts. Mussolini had the guts to shoot his son‑in‑law. That is why I consider him a great man. I don’t have that much guts.”
Layers exist in our minds. We keep hiding, suppressing. Sometimes layers peel off; sometimes they don’t; sometimes they never show. Often a person thinks something is more in him, while something else is actually more.
So first, observe yourself a little. Keep a diary for a month. Write daily what you do most.
Recognize by three points:
1) Which tendency repeats most often? Greed, sex, fear, anger—which has the highest frequency in twenty‑four hours?
2) In that frequent tendency, where do you feel the most juice? And understand: juice appears in two ways—pleasure may come, or remorse may come; in both cases there is juice.
3) If that tendency were cut off completely, would your personality remain as before or change entirely? Because when the chief characteristic changes, your whole personality becomes another. You won’t even be able to imagine what you would be like if that part were removed.
Keep a diary for fifteen days. After fifteen days, with a full twenty‑four‑hour accounting, draw your conclusion. You will arrive at one primary tendency. Then become alert toward that foundational tendency. Whenever it arises, go into solitude, allow its expression, witness it. Catharsis will happen; recognition will deepen; and you will begin to feel more masterly about yourself.
To go through this process, keep Lao Tzu in mind and it will be simpler. If you want to know anger only to become free of anger, it will be very difficult to know it—because the desire to be free creates division. You start believing non‑anger is good and anger is bad; sex is bad, sexlessness is good; greed is bad, non‑greed is good. If you create such a dichotomy, it becomes very hard to know—and even if you somehow cross over, that crossing will only be suppression.
If you remember Lao Tzu, there is no need to link anger to non‑anger. There is no need yet to think anger is bad. Right now we don’t even know what anger is—why judge it? The judgment “bad” is borrowed. Others say anger is bad; we’ve heard it, so we say it—and keep doing it.
Drop judgment. Just know what anger is. Don’t be in a hurry to label it good or bad. Who knows? Go to find out utterly impartial. If you go impartial, anger will reveal all its buried layers before you. If you go saying and believing “it is bad,” its deeper parts will remain suppressed; they won’t appear before you. For them to be revealed, your mind must be completely neutral. You suppressed them in the first place because you believed they were bad; if you still believe they are bad, you will go on suppressing. That is why a tragic thing happens: the more people try to avoid anger, the more angry they become—because to avoid, they must repress. To be free, one must know. And knowledge is impossible in a repressed mind.
Go impartial. Know only this much: like lightning flashes in the sky—neither bad nor good—clouds thunder—neither bad nor good—so within, the flash of anger, the streams of greed, the sliding energies of sexuality—all these are. These are energies. Go to see them with an unprejudiced mind. Do not carry ill will or decisions. Never begin with a conclusion; otherwise you will never arrive at a conclusion. Let conclusions come at the end.
Otherwise your situation becomes like a schoolboy who turns the book over and looks at the answers first. Once the answer is seen, it becomes a great nuisance.
There is no need to see the answer first. You should do the process. The answer will come. If you see the answer first, you become so eager to arrive there that you don’t allow yourself the process. And all of us are sitting with answers. We have all peeked at the back of the book—or our ancestors put the book in our hands already upside down, with the answers first. We get the answer first, the process later. And often we never learn the process because those who know the answer think, “When the answer is known, what is the need of the process?”
You already “know” anger is bad; you already “know” sexuality is bad.
Just eight days ago a friend came. He said, “I heard you on the Gita and liked it very much, so I came. Earlier I had heard you on sexuality, I disliked it so much I stopped coming.” I said, “Tell me, what is the trouble?” He said, “Sexual desire torments the mind.” I said, “Then I will not talk with you, or you will be upset again. Read the Gita and find your way.”
How amazing people are! I said, “Stand right outside the door—and do not come asking me about sexuality again. If you want to ask about the Gita, come. Ask only about what pleases you.”
Sex is the problem, but even to inquire about it frightens you. So the one who makes you inquire seems like an enemy. The Gita changes nothing—listen at your leisure and go home. It doesn’t touch your life anywhere. It has nothing to do with you; you stand outside while the Gita flows by somewhere else.
I asked, “What kind of man are you?” And this is not just one man’s case. I know so many whose real question is this—but even the mind will not allow the admission, “This is my question.”
He told me, “I’ll ask you privately; there is no need to say this in public.” I said, “Just as it is your private question, it is everyone’s private question. And everyone wants to hear the Gita in public. How can I tell each person one‑by‑one the real thing privately? And the real problem you are afraid to raise; and what is not your problem, that you enjoy hearing. So thousands of years pass and man remains the same.”
Catch your own problem—and do not carry conclusions beforehand. Whoever begins with conclusions never arrives at conclusions. Begin with the problem. Admit we do not know the conclusion. We don’t know whether anger is good or bad, beautiful or ugly—it is. Now let us know fully what it is.
The delightful thing is: one who knows fully becomes free. One who wants to be free cannot know fully. Understand this difficulty. One who wants to be free has already concluded it is bad. Now the process of knowing cannot happen. He says, “I already know it is bad—just tell me how to be free!” And there is only one way to be free: complete understanding. He says, “But I already understand it’s bad.” Then he does not go through the process of complete understanding.
So go through the process; come to full understanding. Avoid borrowed conclusions. Whether Buddha says it, Mahavira says it, or anyone says it—even I say it—makes no difference whether something is bad or good. Do not take conclusions. Enter within without conclusions—impartial, unprejudiced, without any fixed idea. See what is. Let anger itself tell you what anger is; do not impose preconceptions upon it. The day you know anger in its total nakedness, in its total ferocity, in its total fire and poison, that very day you will find you are suddenly outside it—anger is not there.
This can be done with any tendency. The tendency does not matter; the process is the same. The disease is one; only the names differ.
Keep in mind one thing: a human being has only one energy. We can employ it in twenty‑five ways; if we become distorted it can flow into a thousand streams. If you try to fight it stream by stream, you will go mad, because you will keep fighting each branch and never encounter the root.
So first understand this clearly: at the root there is only one energy in a human being. And if any transformation is to be done, you must establish direct contact with the root energy. Do not get entangled in its expressions. The simplest way is to begin with whichever of these four or five is strongest in you. If you feel anger is the strongest in you, then that is your chief characteristic.
Whenever someone came to Gurdjieff, he would say, “First I must find your special disease—what is your particular symptom?”
And everyone has a special symptom. For some it is greed, for some anger, for some sex, for some fear, for some ego. These are signatures. Catch hold of your special symptom. Do not go to battle with all of them. Do not fight with everything at once—just catch the chief symptom. That stream is the largest one connected to your source. If it is anger, then take hold of anger. If it is sex, then take hold of sex. And begin to apply two things to that special symptom: awareness and catharsis. As I said yesterday regarding anger, a friend is experimenting even with a pillow, and the results are significant.
Whatever your chief symptom is, do two things with it.
First, increase awareness of it. The difficulty is always that we hide our chief symptom the most. The angry person hides his anger most, afraid it might burst out anywhere. He keeps it concealed. He builds a thousand lies around himself so that others won’t notice his anger—and he himself also won’t notice it. And if it isn’t seen, it cannot be changed. So first remove all the veils and understand your situation precisely: this is my chief symptom.
Second, start being aware with it. Say anger arises. The moment anger comes, our attention immediately goes to the person who “made” us angry; we do not notice the one to whom anger has arisen. If you made me angry, I start thinking about you, and I completely forget myself—whereas the real thing is me, the one in whom anger has arisen. The person who “provoked” it was merely an occasion. He has gone. He just tossed a spark, and my gunpowder is burning. His spark would have been useless if there were no gunpowder with me. But I don’t see my burning stockpile; I look at his spark—and I think the fire blazing in me was thrown by that man.
He did not hurl that much fire; it was only a spark. This fire is my gunpowder taking on a vast blaze. He didn’t throw so much fire—he may not even know what happened. It could have been entirely unintentional; he may have no idea your house is in flames. You project all this fire onto that person. That is why when you rage at someone, it doesn’t make sense to him—he feels, “There was nothing in this that warranted so much anger.” This is always a difficulty: the amount you project is yours.
So he too is startled: “I didn’t say anything that big; why are you going mad?” It is beyond his understanding. If anyone has ever raged at you, you know you thought: “It wasn’t that big a deal; the person is making it huge.” There is a natural fallacy here: as much fire as burns in me, I think you lit it. You toss a spark; my gunpowder is ready. It catches the spark—and how great the blaze becomes is anybody’s guess.
Whenever we are seized by anger, our attention stays on the one who “started” it. If you keep your attention there, you can never step out of anger. When someone provokes anger in you, forget them immediately; remember instead the one to whom anger is happening. And remember this too: no matter how much you think about the one who provoked it, you will not be able to change anything there. If any change is possible, it is only in the one to whom anger has happened.
So when anger grabs you—or greed, or sexual desire, or anything—drop the object at once. You see a woman and lust surges; you see a man and desire arises. The same event is occurring: the other only offered a spark, perhaps without even knowing. In anger, there is usually at least some action from the other; in sex, often not even that. A woman passes on the street and lust seizes your mind. You fixate on her; you do not look at the inner energy where the flame of desire is catching. In this way we miss knowing ourselves, miss self‑observation. And without self‑observation, there can be no transformation.
So when desire catches you, instantly forget the outside, forget the object. Forget the one who triggered desire, anger, greed. Turn attention within immediately: what is happening inside me? Do not suppress it; let what is happening complete itself. Close the door. Let it happen fully. See it as clearly as possible.
If anger is rising within, shout, jump, rant—whatever wants to happen—close your room and let it happen. Enact your whole madness before yourself and watch. Others have seen this madness of yours many times; only you have escaped seeing it. Others have enjoyed its spectacle enough; you alone have been spared. And you find out only after the entire episode is over, when the play has ended. Then, sitting at home, you look back in memory. But only ash remains then, not the fire.
Remember: nothing can be learned about fire from ash. Even a big heap of ash tells nothing about a small spark. One who has not seen fire cannot infer fire from ash. No logic, no inference can take you from ash to fire. And whenever you look at your anger, you look as at ash. When everything has passed, only a pile of ash remains, and you sit there repenting.
No, that won’t help. See it when the fire is burning fully. It becomes easier to see if you express it. And remember, when you express it on another person, you never express it fully. If I rage at my wife, husband, father, son, brother—there are limitations. No wife is such that I can pour out my whole anger on her; there is a limit. I will express up to a point and swallow the rest. No one has ever expressed anger completely. Even a father raging at a little son—though the son has no strength and the father could break his neck—still cannot be total. Twenty‑five limitations stand in the way. You do a little, don’t get the satisfaction, and you get hurt. You don’t see it fully. So you do it again tomorrow, and again the day after—always incomplete.
If you want to see anger in its totality, do it alone—only then can it be seen whole. There will be no limits. That is why I suggest the “pillow meditation,” the process of focusing on a pillow to a few friends: on a pillow it can be done totally.
The friend I mentioned yesterday—today his companion told me he actually pulled out a knife and ripped the pillow to shreds. I hadn’t even suggested that! It makes us laugh: how can someone stab a pillow? But when we can rip a living person apart, we don’t laugh—so what’s the difficulty in slicing a pillow? When someone tears a living person, the “juice” is in the tearing itself; the person is incidental. That same juice can arise with a pillow. In fact, more so—because with a pillow you need impose no limits at all.
So shut yourself in your room, and when your root “disease” wants to show itself, let it show. Consider this meditation. Let it come out in every pore of your being. Shout, jump, do whatever is happening—let it happen. And watch from behind—you will even feel like laughing. You will be surprised: “I can do this?” Your mind will be amazed: “How am I doing this—and alone? If someone were here, fine—but alone!”
The first one or two times you may feel a bit uneasy; by the third time you will come into full flow and be able to do it with relish. And when you can do it with relish, an extraordinary thing will happen: outwardly you will be doing it, and in between a consciousness will arise that is simply watching. With others present, this is difficult; in solitude it happens easily. Flames of anger will blaze all around, and you will stand apart in the middle.
Once someone has stood apart like this and seen their anger, or sexual desire, or greed, or fear, a ray of wisdom begins to dawn in their life. They have had an experience. They have recognized an energy within themselves. Now that energy cannot deceive them. The energy we recognize, we become master of. The power we know, we become master of. The power we do not know—we are its slave.
So you can imagine your pillow to be your beloved. You can imagine it to be the Koh‑i‑Noor diamond. You can imagine it to be your enemy before whom you tremble with fear. It doesn’t matter what you imagine. Just recognize your symptom.
And it is not difficult to recognize, because it dogs you twenty‑four hours a day. You actually know quite well what your root symptom is. In a person there is one primary symptom; the rest are connected to it. If sexuality is primary, then anger and greed will be secondary. If he is greedy, it will be to fulfill sexuality. If he is angry, it will be to fulfill sexuality. If he is fearful, it will be lest sexuality be obstructed. Sexuality will be primary; the rest secondary.
If anger is primary, he will even love someone so that he can be angry. Sexuality will become secondary. Such a person will love people so that he can rage at them. For him the root will be anger. He will earn money so that, when he gets angry, he has power. Whether he knows it or not, as his wealth increases, so will his capacity for anger. And over all those on whom his money gives him power, he will press his grip. If he desires position, it will be so that, upon reaching office, he can express anger fully. Often anger hides very deep.
A daughter of Winston Churchill married a young man whom Churchill did not want her to marry. He had great anger in his heart and swallowed it. The marriage happened. He never told the young man he was angry. The poor fellow had no idea—he kept addressing Churchill as “Papa.” But whenever the son‑in‑law said “Papa,” Churchill would flare up inside. Being called “Papa” by that man was unbearable to him.
After the Second World War, the son‑in‑law asked, “Papa, whom do you consider the greatest statesman in the world today?” Hearing “Papa” again, Churchill became very restless. He said, “I consider Mussolini the greatest statesman.” The son‑in‑law was surprised. For Churchill to choose his enemy, Mussolini—when there were great men like Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler—and Churchill himself was no less than any of them! The son‑in‑law asked, “I don’t understand—why Mussolini?” Churchill hesitated, then said, “Let it be.” But the son‑in‑law insisted. Churchill said, “Since you insist, I’ll say it. I call Mussolini a great statesman because he had the guts to shoot his own son‑in‑law. There’s no other reason. At this very moment I feel like shooting you—when you say ‘Papa,’ I feel like shooting you. But I have not the guts. Mussolini had the guts to shoot his son‑in‑law. That is why I consider him a great man. I don’t have that much guts.”
Layers exist in our minds. We keep hiding, suppressing. Sometimes layers peel off; sometimes they don’t; sometimes they never show. Often a person thinks something is more in him, while something else is actually more.
So first, observe yourself a little. Keep a diary for a month. Write daily what you do most.
Recognize by three points:
1) Which tendency repeats most often? Greed, sex, fear, anger—which has the highest frequency in twenty‑four hours?
2) In that frequent tendency, where do you feel the most juice? And understand: juice appears in two ways—pleasure may come, or remorse may come; in both cases there is juice.
3) If that tendency were cut off completely, would your personality remain as before or change entirely? Because when the chief characteristic changes, your whole personality becomes another. You won’t even be able to imagine what you would be like if that part were removed.
Keep a diary for fifteen days. After fifteen days, with a full twenty‑four‑hour accounting, draw your conclusion. You will arrive at one primary tendency. Then become alert toward that foundational tendency. Whenever it arises, go into solitude, allow its expression, witness it. Catharsis will happen; recognition will deepen; and you will begin to feel more masterly about yourself.
To go through this process, keep Lao Tzu in mind and it will be simpler. If you want to know anger only to become free of anger, it will be very difficult to know it—because the desire to be free creates division. You start believing non‑anger is good and anger is bad; sex is bad, sexlessness is good; greed is bad, non‑greed is good. If you create such a dichotomy, it becomes very hard to know—and even if you somehow cross over, that crossing will only be suppression.
If you remember Lao Tzu, there is no need to link anger to non‑anger. There is no need yet to think anger is bad. Right now we don’t even know what anger is—why judge it? The judgment “bad” is borrowed. Others say anger is bad; we’ve heard it, so we say it—and keep doing it.
Drop judgment. Just know what anger is. Don’t be in a hurry to label it good or bad. Who knows? Go to find out utterly impartial. If you go impartial, anger will reveal all its buried layers before you. If you go saying and believing “it is bad,” its deeper parts will remain suppressed; they won’t appear before you. For them to be revealed, your mind must be completely neutral. You suppressed them in the first place because you believed they were bad; if you still believe they are bad, you will go on suppressing. That is why a tragic thing happens: the more people try to avoid anger, the more angry they become—because to avoid, they must repress. To be free, one must know. And knowledge is impossible in a repressed mind.
Go impartial. Know only this much: like lightning flashes in the sky—neither bad nor good—clouds thunder—neither bad nor good—so within, the flash of anger, the streams of greed, the sliding energies of sexuality—all these are. These are energies. Go to see them with an unprejudiced mind. Do not carry ill will or decisions. Never begin with a conclusion; otherwise you will never arrive at a conclusion. Let conclusions come at the end.
Otherwise your situation becomes like a schoolboy who turns the book over and looks at the answers first. Once the answer is seen, it becomes a great nuisance.
There is no need to see the answer first. You should do the process. The answer will come. If you see the answer first, you become so eager to arrive there that you don’t allow yourself the process. And all of us are sitting with answers. We have all peeked at the back of the book—or our ancestors put the book in our hands already upside down, with the answers first. We get the answer first, the process later. And often we never learn the process because those who know the answer think, “When the answer is known, what is the need of the process?”
You already “know” anger is bad; you already “know” sexuality is bad.
Just eight days ago a friend came. He said, “I heard you on the Gita and liked it very much, so I came. Earlier I had heard you on sexuality, I disliked it so much I stopped coming.” I said, “Tell me, what is the trouble?” He said, “Sexual desire torments the mind.” I said, “Then I will not talk with you, or you will be upset again. Read the Gita and find your way.”
How amazing people are! I said, “Stand right outside the door—and do not come asking me about sexuality again. If you want to ask about the Gita, come. Ask only about what pleases you.”
Sex is the problem, but even to inquire about it frightens you. So the one who makes you inquire seems like an enemy. The Gita changes nothing—listen at your leisure and go home. It doesn’t touch your life anywhere. It has nothing to do with you; you stand outside while the Gita flows by somewhere else.
I asked, “What kind of man are you?” And this is not just one man’s case. I know so many whose real question is this—but even the mind will not allow the admission, “This is my question.”
He told me, “I’ll ask you privately; there is no need to say this in public.” I said, “Just as it is your private question, it is everyone’s private question. And everyone wants to hear the Gita in public. How can I tell each person one‑by‑one the real thing privately? And the real problem you are afraid to raise; and what is not your problem, that you enjoy hearing. So thousands of years pass and man remains the same.”
Catch your own problem—and do not carry conclusions beforehand. Whoever begins with conclusions never arrives at conclusions. Begin with the problem. Admit we do not know the conclusion. We don’t know whether anger is good or bad, beautiful or ugly—it is. Now let us know fully what it is.
The delightful thing is: one who knows fully becomes free. One who wants to be free cannot know fully. Understand this difficulty. One who wants to be free has already concluded it is bad. Now the process of knowing cannot happen. He says, “I already know it is bad—just tell me how to be free!” And there is only one way to be free: complete understanding. He says, “But I already understand it’s bad.” Then he does not go through the process of complete understanding.
So go through the process; come to full understanding. Avoid borrowed conclusions. Whether Buddha says it, Mahavira says it, or anyone says it—even I say it—makes no difference whether something is bad or good. Do not take conclusions. Enter within without conclusions—impartial, unprejudiced, without any fixed idea. See what is. Let anger itself tell you what anger is; do not impose preconceptions upon it. The day you know anger in its total nakedness, in its total ferocity, in its total fire and poison, that very day you will find you are suddenly outside it—anger is not there.
This can be done with any tendency. The tendency does not matter; the process is the same. The disease is one; only the names differ.
Osho's Commentary
Lao Tzu, in his very first sutras, has repeated a truth—now from a fresh dimension. Lao Tzu is saying: one who experiences the beautiful cannot do so without experiencing the ugly. In the mind of the person in whom the sense of beauty arises, in that very mind the sense of ugliness arises in equal measure. In truth, one who knows nothing of the ugly will know nothing of beauty either. One who strives to be virtuous must have the presence of vice in his mind. One who wants to be good will not be able to be good without being bad.
Lao Tzu’s understanding—an important understanding—is that from the very day people learned what beauty is, the world lost that spontaneous beauty in which ugliness had no place. And from the day people understood what the auspicious is, that natural state of the auspicious was lost—when people had no idea at all of the inauspicious.
Let us see it like this. If we enter the ancient, the most ancient human past—if we consider the first gentle, simple, natural state of man—there we will not find any sense of beauty. But equally, there will be an absence of the sense of ugliness. There we will not find honest people, because dishonesty was not possible there. There we will not find thieves, because there were no saints there.
Lao Tzu is saying: our whole life is always woven out of duality. If in a society people are eager to be very honest, they are merely announcing that that society has become very dishonest. If in a society parents are teaching their children that to speak the truth is religion, then know it well: that society has lost the natural truth of life, and speaking untruth has become the common way.
Lao Tzu is saying: we emphasize only that which already has its opposite present. If we tell children, do not lie, it only means that lying has become widespread. If we tell them, be honest, it only means that dishonesty has taken residence.
Lao Tzu has a story: Confucius once went to meet him. Among the moral philosophers who have walked this earth, Confucius is supreme—moral philosopher, not religious! Confucius is not a religious thinker; he is a moral thinker. He is of those who pondered most deeply only over how man might become good.
Naturally, Confucius went to Lao Tzu, having heard that Lao Tzu is a great religious man. “I shall request him,” he thought, “that he, too, should teach people how to become good, how to become honest; why not to steal; how to be free of theft; how to drop anger; how to become forgiving; how violence may cease and ahimsa arrive—please, you too explain this to people.”
So Confucius went to meet Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu was sitting outside his hut. Confucius said, “Teach people how they may become good.” Lao Tzu replied, “How can people be good unless there is evil? Only if evil exists can people become good. So I concern myself with how evil may not arise; I do not concern myself with the good. I want that state where even the good is not recognized—where there is no knowing of who is good.”
Confucius could not understand. He said, “People are dishonest; they must be taught honesty.” Lao Tzu said, “From the day you began talking of honesty, dishonesty has deepened. I want a day when people do not even speak of honesty.”
Still, Confucius could not understand. No moral thinker will grasp this sutra. For the moral thinker believes that evil and good are opposites: cut off evil, and good will remain.
Lao Tzu holds that evil and good are two sides of the same coin. You will not be able to cut away one. If you must throw, then throw both; if you save, both will be saved. If you wish to save the good, evil will remain from behind—because the good cannot survive without evil. And if you decide to honor the honest, you can do so only while the dishonest are present.
This is a matter worth deep understanding. If truly no dishonest person remained, would the honest receive any honor? If no thief remained, would the saint have any prestige? It follows that if the saint is to remain prestigious, the thief must be maintained. And one of life’s secrets is this: the saint is continually speaking against the thief, yet he does not know that it is because of the thief that he is recognized. Because of the thief he is. Without the unholy, the holy will be lost. The saint’s existence can only be in the vicinity of the unholy, amidst it.
Lao Tzu says: religion was present in the world only when the saint could not be detected at all. Lao Tzu’s statement is very deep. He says: religion was present in the world when there was no trace of the saint; when there was no notion of the auspicious and what goodness is; when no one explained that to speak the truth is religion, when no one told anyone that violence is sin. The day you declare ahimsa to be merit, the day you declare truth to be religion, that very day their opposites begin to exist in full strength.
Lao Tzu told Confucius: “All you good people, be silent. Stop preaching goodness in the world. You will find that if you can completely drop the insistence on goodness, evil will drop by itself.”
But Confucius will not understand. Nor will Gandhi. Nor will any moral man. He will say, “This will only worsen matters. Somehow we coax and cajole and, with effort, keep goodness alive.” And Lao Tzu says, “By preserving goodness, you preserve evil alongside it. The two are conjoined. It is not possible to save one of them. Either both will be kept, or both will have to be removed.”
Lao Tzu says: the state of religion is that where neither remains. He called this the simple Tao, the world of swabhava, of Dharma. He said, if man comes into his own nature in totality, then there is neither evil nor good there. There is no evaluation, no valuation. There is no condemnation, no praise. Nothing is beautiful, nothing is ugly. Things are as they are.
Often it happens that the more one is filled with a sense of beauty, the more he is tormented by ugliness. For sensitivity rises on both sides at once. If I have said, “This is beautiful,” then everything opposed to it becomes ugly. If I decide even a little for one pole, the other pole is decided in equal measure.
So Lao Tzu says: “When the people of the earth all know beauty as beauty, there arises the recognition of ugliness. When the people of the earth all know the good as good, there arises the recognition of evil.”
It is a hard sutra. It means that if we wish beauty to be on earth, then recognizing beauty as beauty is not appropriate. Recognition itself is not appropriate, because in recognizing, the measure of the ugly must be brought in. If someone asks you, “What is beauty?” you will say, “That which is not ugly.” Without the ugly there is no way to define beauty. If someone asks, “Who is a saint?” you will say, “One who is not unholy.” To recognize the saint you must bring the unholy within the definition; and to recognize beauty you must draw the boundary of ugliness.
Therefore Lao Tzu says: when beauty is not recognized as beauty—beauty is there, yet no one recognizes it—when no label is placed, no name is given, “This is beauty,” when beauty is nameless, then ugliness does not arise. And when no one gives the auspicious the name “auspicious,” no one honors it, no one respects it, no one even recognizes it—then the inauspicious has no footing. There is a goodness beyond the dual, and there is a beauty beyond the dual. But that beauty cannot be called “beauty,” and that goodness cannot be called “goodness.” There is no way to say anything about it. The only way, regarding that, is to remain silent.
Lao Tzu said, “Confucius, go back! You moralists are the ones who distort this world. You are the mischief-makers. Go. Please, do not attempt to make anyone virtuous. Because by your efforts to make people virtuous, they will only descend into vice.”
It is very likely that when a father first tells his son, “To speak the truth is religion,” the son does not even know what truth or untruth is. When the father first says, “To lie is sin,” until then the son does not even know what a lie is. And this very assertion of the father—that lying is sin—becomes the first birth of attraction toward lying in the son. If earlier he had lied, he had not lied knowingly. There was no recognition of lying in him. The line of sin cannot be drawn upon his mind until recognition arises. But now—now the distinction begins. Now he will know what truth is and what lie is. And the moment he knows what is truth and what is lie, the natural ease of consciousness is destroyed and duality is born.
Yet we manufacture duality on all sides. And we do not even suspect it; we think we are doing it for the sake of the good.
In this respect Lao Tzu is very revolutionary. He says: this is the evil, this is the evil. Whenever we give birth to evil, we do so under the pretext of good. In fact, evil cannot be birthed directly. Whenever we create evil, we do so in the name of creating good. We try to make goodness—and evil is produced. No one manufactures evil directly.
There is a tribal, primordial man living in the forest. He has no sense of beauty as we have. He has no sense of ugliness as we have. He does not have the distinction. He is able to love; he does not need to bring in between an idea of beauty and ugliness. That which we would call ugly, he can love. That which we would call beautiful, he can love. His love sets no bounds. It is not that only the beautiful will be loved and the ugly will not. He can love all. The notions of beautiful and ugly have not developed.
We develop notions. We separate the beautiful and the ugly. And then, a great irony: we cannot even love the beautiful. The real irony is this: without notions the primeval man can love even what we call ugly. But we, having developed notions, cannot even love the beautiful. First we think we will be able to love the beautiful; hence we separate the ugly from the beautiful. Then we still cannot love the beautiful. For a mind filled with duality is incapable of love. And beauty and ugliness are a duality. And that which you called beautiful—how long will it remain beautiful?
Curiously, that which you have called ugly will become ugly forever. But that which you have called beautiful—after two days it will no longer remain beautiful. What will remain in your hands? Have you noticed? That which you have called ugly has become fixed and permanent. But that which you called beautiful—after two days you cannot call it beautiful. Its beauty will be lost. Ultimately, in the hands of such a mind obsessed with duality, no beauty will remain at all; only ugliness will pile up.
And there is a primeval consciousness that makes no distinctions, draws no line between ugly and beautiful. It can love what we would call ugly. And because it can love, everything becomes beautiful for it.
Note well: we love what is beautiful. After two days the beauty will melt and be spoiled. Through familiarity, the unknown flavor of beauty is lost the moment we become familiar. The unfamiliar allure and invitation of beauty dissolves. We love what is beautiful. After two days the beauty vanishes. Then where will love stand? The primeval man loves, and to whom he loves, he gives beauty.
Understand the difference. We love the beautiful. After two days the beautiful is gone. Where will love stand? The primeval man loves first—and in whom he loves, he finds beauty. And the marvel of love is this: if it depends on itself, it grows each day; if it depends on something else, it diminishes each day. If I love because you are beautiful, love will diminish every day. But if I love simply because I have to love, your beauty will increase every day. When love stands on its own feet, it is evolving; when it leans on someone else’s shoulder, sooner or later it becomes lame and falls.
Still, we are speaking; therefore we must use the words beauty and ugliness. The primeval mind has no sense of these words. It is almost like a mother with two sons—one whom people call beautiful and one whom people do not call beautiful. But for the mother there is no difference in their beauty. One son is not ugly; the other is not beautiful. Both are sons—therefore both are beautiful. Their beauty flows from their son-ness. The mother’s love is primary; from that love their beauty springs.
The primeval mind of which Lao Tzu speaks—the mind living in simple swabhava—is beyond duality and distinction.
Therefore Lao Tzu says: evil must certainly be eliminated; but as long as you wish to preserve goodness, you will not be able to eliminate evil. The unholy must certainly be bid farewell from the world; but as long as you go on glorifying the saint, you cannot bid farewell to the unholy.
Now here lies a deep web. The saint himself will take delight in this—that the society contains the unholy. For the more the unholy, the more the saint will shine. He can condemn them, abuse them, launch campaigns to reform them, labor to correct them. He will have work; he will be doing something. But if a society arose in which there were no unholy ones, then those whose identities and egos are nourished by the name “saint” would suddenly become impotent and useless; they would not even find a place to stand.
Paradoxical as it is—and amusing too—the ego of the saint can be nourished only when around him stands a society of the unholy. It is like this: a rich man can enjoy his wealth only when around him are people sunk in poverty. The charm of a great palace exists only when shanties are built all around. Otherwise a palace has no relish. The relish of the palace is not in the palace—it depends on the pain that throbs in the huts. And the relish of the saint is not in saintliness—it is in the comparison with the unholy that gives strength to the ego.
Lao Tzu says: drop both; we call that Dharma where neither the auspicious nor the inauspicious remains. Hence the usual definitions of religion—“the good is religion,” “the auspicious is religion,” “truth is religion”—Lao Tzu will say, No. Where there is truth, untruth has already arrived. Where there is the auspicious, the inauspicious has already set foot. Where there is blessing, ill omen will remain present. Lao Tzu says: where neither are, where there is no duality, where consciousness is non-dual, where not even an inch of separation has arisen—that is Dharma. For Lao Tzu, Dharma is beyond duality, transcendental, beyond. Where there is neither darkness nor light. If we say to Lao Tzu that Paramatma is of the nature of light, he will deny it. He will say, “Then what of darkness? Where will darkness go? Then your Paramatma will always be encircled by darkness. For whatever is light is surrounded by darkness.”
Remember: whatever is light is encircled by darkness. Without darkness, light cannot be. Light a small lamp and an ocean of darkness surrounds it on all sides. In the midst of that darkness the lamp burns. If darkness were removed from all around, the lamp would instantly be lost, feeble—nowhere.
Lao Tzu will say: no, Paramatma is not light. Paramatma is where there is neither light nor darkness—where there is no duality.
This is the fundamental distance between moral thinking and religious thinking. Moral thinking always splits life into two. It condemns one and gives respect to the other. And that which it respects it promotes and rewards. That which it condemns it humiliates and denigrates.
But have you ever thought what the secret is in this entire strategy—this whole arrangement of ethics? What is the secret?
The secret is ego. We say: the thief is bad, condemnable, to be humiliated. We thus tell people’s egos that if you are caught stealing, you will lose prestige, be insulted, be worth two pennies; people will look at you with a bad eye. If you do not steal, you will be honored; people will garland you and take you in processions; your name will have prestige; you will gain fame—not only in this world, but in the next too; you will become a claimant of heaven. And if you do bad, you will rot in hell, in sin and remorse. But what are we doing? If we look between these two, what are we doing?
We are wounding the ego of the bad man and fulfilling the ego of the good man. And we teach everyone: if you want the fulfillment of your ego, be good. If you become bad, the ego will suffer. The entire structure of ethics stands upon ego. And the amusing thing is that it never occurs to us: how can ethics stand on the foundation of ego? What could be more unethical than ego itself? Yet the whole structure of morality stands upon ego.
When Lao Tzu speaks thus, he is bringing down the whole edifice of ego. He says: we do not accept good and evil, we do not accept sin and merit. We seek a state of consciousness where the very sense of duality is absent. And there the sense of ego will also not remain.
Religion is egolessness, and ethics is an arrangement erected upon ego.
Our entire enterprise—from the child to the old man—revolves only around ego. In school we tell children: come first, or be humiliated. If you come first, there is honor. Good marks bring honor; fewer marks bring humiliation. The same game we continue throughout life. We tell the old man, too: if you do good, you will get more marks—you will get heaven. If you do not do good, you will go to hell; you will get fewer marks; you will be defeated, humiliated. In this world your name will not shine; in the next, too, you will lose your name. Name—only name!
A morality erected on ego cannot be moral. And then, beneath the entire arrangement of morality, a vast spread of immorality grows. For each person who is clever at appearing moral ceases to care for being moral. Because the real question is of name, fame, identity—what will people say?
If I steal and am not caught, I remain non-thief. And morality has said the same: people will condemn you. Whether people condemn or Paramatma condemns—what does it matter? Someone will condemn; I will be humiliated before someone. If I steal and no one catches me, I can steal and still save my ego—so what is the harm? I can be dishonest and still keep my prestige—so what is the harm? Thus morality, going round and round, ends up as deception. And those who are clever, intelligent, discover skillful ways to be immoral and arrange a display of morality. They appear to be one thing and become another.
Lao Tzu says: we do not trust in such morality.
When the first news of the Upanishads reached the West, there was great anxiety. For the Upanishads are close to Lao Tzu. Nowhere do they say: do not steal; do not do violence. The Upanishads do not give such commandments. But the West was used to the Ten Commandments of Christianity—do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, these are the foundations of religion. When the Upanishads were first translated, and the Tao Te Ching, too, Westerners said: “These Easterners seem immoral. These are their seers! Not a single word here about religion.” For them, religion meant: instruct people not to steal, not to be dishonest, not to deceive. This is nowhere said. “What kind of scriptures are these!”
So in the first contact with the profound Eastern vision, the West felt these were all immoral doctrines. As understanding deepened and the West came closer and went deeper, they realized: these are not immoral. They had to create a new category—trans-moral. Three categories: immoral, moral, and trans-moral. Slowly it dawned that these scriptures are neither moral nor immoral. They do not talk of morality at all. They are speaking of another mystery that goes beyond morality. These alone are the true scriptures of Dharma.
It is a curious thing: an atheist can be moral—and often more moral than a theist. For the theist’s morality is a bargain—he is after getting something out of his morality: Moksha, heaven, merit, a good birth. He is bargaining. He knows that by bearing a little pain now he will gain greater pleasure later. But the atheist’s morality is pure morality—no bargain, for there is no next life. The atheist knows that the one who does good will die and become dust, and the one who does evil will also die and become dust. No fruit will be given. If, even so, the atheist is moral, then certainly his morality is of greater worth than the theist’s. His morality is purer—no bargain, no expectation, no desire for fruit. There is no Paramatma to grant rewards, no law of karma to give fruits, no future, no new birth. This is the last word. Whether I lie or speak truth, I will become dust. No fruit to be had. And if the atheist can be moral, his morality is surely deeper than the theist’s.
The atheist can be moral. He has no difficulty in being moral. But the atheist cannot be religious. And the theist who is only moral is worse off than the atheist. Only if the theist is religious does his theism have any value; otherwise his theism is lower than the atheist’s morality—because he is doing in order to get.
If the theist comes to know there is no God, his morality will totter immediately. If he learns there is no rebirth, his morality will totter immediately. If he learns the law has changed and those who speak truth now go to hell and those who lie go to heaven, he will start lying at once.
The atheist will not be affected. Whether your God is or not, whether heaven and hell exchange places—the atheist will not be affected. For these are not his foundations. He is not moral because of them. He is moral because he says: there is joy in being moral; my conscience calls me to be moral; therefore I am moral—no other purpose. I find myself cleaner and more peaceful; therefore I am moral—no other purpose.
A theist is a theist only when he is religious—not because he is moral. The atheist can be moral—and often better than the theist.
Lao Tzu is stating the fundamental formula of theism. He is saying: do not divide life into dualities; move beyond both.
Fear will immediately arise in our minds—minds bound by morality. “If we go beyond both, we will become immoral.” At once, hearing Lao Tzu, we think: “If both are dropped, why not steal?” The question arises: “If both are to be left, the world will become wicked. We are good only on the surface; evil is stuffed within. If we relax even a little, goodness will break and evil will spread.” This is our real fear.
But Lao Tzu says: one who is ready to go beyond even goodness will never be ready to fall into evil. One who can drop goodness itself—how will you make him fall into evil? In fact, the cause of falling into all evils is ego—and we have made ego the ladder for climbing into goodness. That very ego is the cause of the fall into evil.
Lao Tzu says: one who is not eager even to climb into goodness will not agree to fall into evil. And one who is eager to climb into goodness can be tempted at any time to fall into evil. Just a moment—and he will fall. If it seems to him that evil can grant a greater fruit than goodness—since he is doing good for the sake of fruit—if it appears that evil will gratify the ego more than goodness, he will at once choose evil. Because even in goodness he went for the sake of ego.
Lao Tzu says: one who goes beyond both good and evil—there is no way for him to fall, and no way for him to rise. He neither climbs mountains nor descends into ravines. He comes to the even line of life. The name of that even line is Rit; the name of that even line is Tao; where he does not fall even an inch below, nor rise above. The name of that even line is Dharma.
So Lao Tzu says: I do not tell you to leave evil; I do not tell you to cling to goodness. I tell you: understand that good and evil are two names of the same thing. Recognize that they are a joint phenomenon. And when you recognize they are joined, you will be able to go beyond them both.
Let us understand it another way, perhaps it will become clear.
You are standing near a flower. Is it necessary to say that it is beautiful? Is it necessary to say that it is ugly? And does your saying anything alter the flower in any way? Your statement does not alter the flower at all. But your statement certainly alters you. If you say “beautiful,” your behavior toward the flower changes in a certain way. If you say “ugly,” your behavior changes in another way. Your words do not affect the flower; they affect you.
And truly, what is the basis for saying the flower is beautiful? What is the criterion? Which scale do you use to measure that the flower is beautiful? You will be in difficulty if someone asks, “Why?” What is the basis?
At bottom, you will say: “I like it.” But is your liking a law of beauty? What then is the basis of ugliness? “I don’t like it.” But has God made your disliking into a law that whatever you dislike becomes ugly? What do like and dislike reveal? They reveal something about you, not about the flower. Standing by the same flower, I can declare a different preference. The flower remains the flower. One may call it ugly, another beautiful, a third say nothing; still the flower remains the flower. A thousand people may pass by and offer a thousand statements—yet the flower remains the flower. Then who do those statements inform—about the flower, or about the speaker?
If we understand clearly, all statements inform only about the speaker. If I say, “This flower is beautiful,” to say it precisely I must say: “I am such a person that this flower appears beautiful to me.” But it is not necessary that in the evening this flower will appear beautiful to me; in the evening it may appear ugly. Then I must say: “Now I have become the sort of person to whom this flower appears ugly.” And tomorrow morning it may appear beautiful again. Is beauty and ugliness objective—of the thing—or subjective feelings? Are they inner mental emotions, or the nature of the object?
They are our mental feelings. To project mental feelings upon the flower is unjustifiable. Who are you to be projected upon the flower? By what right? None at all. Yet we are all projecting ourselves.
One day stand by a flower and neither say “beautiful” nor “ugly.” Let it be enough that the flower is. Stand silently; restrain the old habit that instantly declares “beautiful” or “ugly.” Stop the judgment; take no decision; just stand. The flower remains there, you remain here, and between you, no decision—neither beautiful nor ugly.
With a little practice, the day it becomes possible that no mental current runs between you and the flower, no decision arises—on that day you will experience a new beauty of the flower, a beauty beyond beautiful and ugly. On that day the flower will appear before you anew. On that day you will have no mental notion, no like or dislike. On that day you will not be in between; only the flower will be in its fullness. And when the flower blooms in its fullness, without any interference of our mental attitudes, there is a beauty that is beyond both the beautiful and the ugly. Mind this: when I say the flower has its own beauty beyond our notions.
Lao Tzu says: we call that beauty where there is no trace of ugliness. But then even the beauty—as we know beauty—is not there.
There is a tree. You pass by and in the rain a branch falls upon you. You do not say that the tree has done something bad, that the tree is wicked, that it is violent, that it intended to harm you; that you will take revenge upon the tree.
No—you say nothing of the sort. You make no judgment about the tree. You are judgmentless regarding the tree. Then at night the fallen branch does not become a worry in your sleep. You do not waste months pondering how to take revenge. Because you did not decide whether something good happened or bad happened; whether the tree did good or ill. You did not think the tree did anything. It was coincidental—the branch fell just as you were beneath it. You do not blame the tree.
But if a man hits you with a stick—let alone the stick, he hurls an abuse. A stick at least leaves a little pain; an abuse leaves none. How can a mere word wound? And yet instantly the mind decides: he did bad, he did good; revenge must be taken. Now anxiety will grip you; the mind will revolve around that abuse. Months may be wasted—years may be wasted; even an entire life may be consumed by that business. But where did it begin? Did it begin with his abuse, or with your decision? This is what needs to be understood.
If you did not decide, and you said: a coincidence—that I came near and an abuse came to your lips—just as I walked by and a branch fell, so too I walked by and an abuse came to your mouth. I take no decision—good or bad; coincidence. If truly I can see it as coincidence, like the branch of a tree, and take no decision of good and bad—will it become a worry in my mind? Will the abuse become a wound? Will I have to waste more time around it? Will I have to coin abuses and return them? And by giving abuses will I invite more? No—the matter would end there. I would take no decision of good or bad. A fact happened, I knew it, and I moved on. Lao Tzu calls this the auspicious.
Now be alert: the distinctions here are very subtle. Jesus will say: if someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other cheek also. Lao Tzu will say: do not do this. Jesus will say: if someone hits you on one cheek, offer the other. Lao Tzu will say: if you offered the other, you already decided; you decided—and you have reacted. Granted, you did not abuse, but you have still slapped—you offered the other cheek!
Jesus says: love your enemy. Lao Tzu will say: do not do that. Because if you express love, you have accepted that he is your enemy. Lao Tzu’s statement is far, far beyond. He will say: to love the enemy is to have accepted “enemy.” What you then do—abuse, hate, or love—are secondary. But one thing has been fixed: that he is the enemy.
There is an anecdote from Nasruddin’s life: he slapped his younger brother. His father said, “Nasruddin, only yesterday you were reading in the Bible that one should love even one’s enemies.”
Nasruddin said, “That I was reading—but this is my brother, not my enemy. I fully agree—but he is not my enemy.”
To accept “enemy,” Lao Tzu will say, is already a decision. You have decided that this man has done evil; therefore you will not answer with evil but with good.
Jesus says: answer evil with good. But you have decided that he did evil. Then you answer with good—this is morality, not religion. Lao Tzu will say: do not answer at all—because you do not decide. You say: “It happened; the matter is finished.” Beyond this you do not continue the chain of thought, you do not let a line of reflection arise. A man slapped you—the matter ended; the event is complete. You do not begin anything in your mind from this event—whether he did bad or good, whether he was a friend or enemy; who he is, who he is not; what should I do, what should I not do—you do not initiate any thread of thought. The incident is complete; the door is closed; the chapter is over. You write “The End.” The matter is finished. The fact is over. You do not drag it in your mind. Lao Tzu says: you are religious.
If you even decide this much—that it was bad, now what should I do—you have fallen from Dharma. Distinction is to fall from Dharma; judgment is to fall below religion.
Lao Tzu’s entire effort is to make you alert before the mind—out of its fixed habit—splits things into two. Wake up before the mind divides into two. Before the mind makes two, wake up. If it has made two, then whatever you do—whatever you do—once the mind has split in two, you will not get out of the circle. Wake up before the division.
Therefore he takes up two of our most basic distinctions: beauty and goodness. On the distinction of beauty stands our entire aesthetics; on the distinction of good and evil stands our entire ethics. Lao Tzu says: in both, there is no religion. Beyond both! Pleasant–unpleasant, liked–disliked, beautiful–ugly, auspicious–inauspicious, good–bad, wholesome–unwholesome—beyond all these distinctions lies Dharma.
Lao Tzu will not say: forgiveness is religion. Lao Tzu will say: if you have forgiven, you have accepted that anger had arisen. No—when anger or forgiveness arises, be startled and aware that the dual of opposites is rising.
Hence we cannot call Lao Tzu “forgiving.” If we ask him, “Do you forgive everyone?” Lao Tzu will say, “I have never been angry at anyone.” If someone abused Lao Tzu and he said nothing and walked away, we would think he forgave—but that is our mistake. Ask Lao Tzu and he will say, “No—I was not angry; the question of forgiveness does not arise. Forgiveness is possible only when anger has arisen. And when anger has arisen, what forgiveness is there? Then everything is whitewash—bandaging after the wound. Lao Tzu says: we did not get angry; therefore we never entered the bother of forgiving. That would be the second step; had anger happened, it would have to be taken.”
Lao Tzu’s deepest emphasis is this: wherever duality begins to arise, become aware before it takes shape, and remain beyond duality. Do not enter the dual.