Tao Upanishad #50

That is exactly what we are attempting—to define it. And even when all effort is exhausted, its definition will still not be understood. Because even when every attempt to explain is complete, Tao remains outside the net of definition. It will be understood only when you put it into practice, when you experience it.

Take love: explain it as much as you like—until you descend into love, you will not know it. No definition of love can reveal love; only the experience of love reveals it. Still, we try to define love—not so that you will know love through the definition, but in the hope that a thirst to know love may be kindled by it.

So if, in trying to understand Tao, its definition does not make sense to you, that is only appropriate. But if a thirst to understand Tao is awakened, then one day you can enter its experience. Even those who have experienced it cannot really define it. They themselves know, but when they try to tell another, the same difficulty arises. Experiences cannot be said. There can only be hints. There is no way to make them explicit in words. And the greater the experience, the greater the inability.

Tao is the greatest experience. There is none greater than that.

The word Tao means dharma. The word Tao means the supreme law by which the whole of existence functions. So until we dissolve into existence and become one with that supreme law, it will not be understood. Standing on the shore you can understand the waves, but that distant understanding will be only acquaintance, not knowledge. If you want to know the ocean itself, you must dive. And the dive cannot be such that you remain separate from the ocean. It must be like a salt doll leaping into the sea—never to return; the salt melts, flows, and becomes one with the ocean. Only then can the ocean be known.

If the desire is only to know the word, then Tao can be translated as dharma, the supreme law, the fundamental principle of existence. What the Vedas called Rta—that is the meaning of Tao. But that is only the meaning of the word. To think that by knowing this you have known something is to fall into delusion. It is only a pointer, the first indication toward a journey. The journey itself must be undertaken.

And what does “definition” mean? It means describing one thing by means of another thing—telling one thing through some other thing. For example, if you have never seen a nilgai that lives in the Himalayan foothills, we might say, “It is an animal like a cow.” That gives you a faint idea. But Tao, or dharma, is a solitary experience. There is no other experience like it to which we can point and say, “It is like that.” There is no other experience with which we can compare it.

Moreover, Tao is the most complex, the deepest of realizations. Even the smaller experiences of life are not definable. If someone asks you, “What is the color yellow?” what will you say? There is no other color quite like yellow; and if there were a color like yellow, it would be yellow itself. How will you define yellow?

The great twentieth-century thinker G. E. Moore, who worked most extensively on the problem of definition, after two or three hundred pages of discussion, concluded: “What is yellow is indefinable. Yellow is yellow.” But is that any answer? Logicians call this a tautology. It means that when you say, “Yellow is yellow,” you have refused to define it. We are asking, “What is yellow?” and you reply, “Yellow is yellow”—which leaves us where we began.

G. E. Moore says that whatever is definable is composite. If someone asks, “What is water?” we can say, “It is the combination of hydrogen and oxygen—H2O.” That is a definition, because water is a combination; we can break it down and say what it is. The more a thing is a combination of parts, the easier it is to define. But if someone asks, “What is oxygen?” there is a difficulty, because oxygen is not a combination. Still, we might try to break it further: the atom into so many electrons, so many neutrons. Descend far enough, and when only the one remains, it cannot be broken at all.

Tao is that final point; there is no way to break it down. Dharma is the ultimate experience—the absolute, the ultimate—and it cannot be defined. But it can be experienced. Granted that yellow cannot be defined, that does not mean yellow cannot be experienced. You experience yellow every day without any obstacle.

If you insist, “First the definition, then I will experience,” the experience will be closed to you. You first experience love. If someone says, “Let me define it properly and understand it clearly first, then I will enter it, because I will not venture on an unknown path,” he will never step onto the path of love. You use time every day, but if someone asks you to define time, you are in difficulty. Augustine said, “If you do not ask me, I know; if you ask me, I am at a loss.”

Knowing is such that definition is not necessary for it. Tao must be known; and even after knowing, Tao will remain like the sweetness tasted by a mute—indescribable. Kabir said, “Do not ask me what That is. Ask me the way—how I reached there—that I can tell you. You also can reach, you also can know. But do not ask me what it is. It is greater than me; there is no way to express it.”

So what are we doing? Our whole discussion about Tao moves around it—circling its circumference. We are moving in a circle around Tao in the hope that somewhere, some point on the periphery may strike your heart and you may enter the center within. All our talk is on the circumference, in the hope that some point on the circumference becomes a door for you, and you enter and reach the center. But if you insist on finding the center while remaining on the circumference, it is impossible. You will have to go.

The human mind wants to have everything settled before it takes even a single step. It feels secure only when everything is clear: where I am going, why I am going, what the path is, what the outcome will be, how much gain, how much loss—let all be decided, then it will move. The one who moves only after calculating everything will never reach Tao, never reach dharma. Those who reach dharma are the ones who are not calculative, who do not keep accounts. The accountants stay tied to the world; the uncalculating enter religion.

There is no definition. None has ever been given. None will ever be given. But do not be disheartened by this. It is only a reminder that what is experiential can be known only through experience.

Sheikh Farid was a Sufi fakir. Someone went to him to ask the definition of God. Whether you say God, or dharma, or soul, or truth—it makes little difference. All these are words for That which cannot be said.

The man said to Sheikh Farid, “Tell me something of your experience.” A stick lay beside Farid. He struck the man’s leg with it. The man cried out, “What are you doing? I am in great pain!” Farid said, “You are in pain? Tell me a little—what is happening?” The man was in great difficulty. He could not say. Farid said, “Madman! Pick up the stick and strike me! Forget explaining. If I feel the pain, I too will know.”

That is the way. If there is pain, you can know it. If there is dharma, you can know it.

Lao Tzu did not say that what a sage speaks is little from the listeners’ side; it is little from the sages’ side. For the listeners it may be far too much.

Our entire difficulty is with words. We are used to thinking in opposites. We think either man is free or dependent. If he is free, he must be separate and the Whole can have no authority over him. If the Whole has authority over him and he is only a part of it, then he is dependent—how could he be free?

But whether we call him free or dependent, in both notions we have already presumed one thing: that man is separate—separate in both cases. When we say someone is free, we mean he is separate and beyond the power of the Whole. When we say he is dependent, we mean he is separate but within the power of the Whole.

Lao Tzu says there is no separation at all. Therefore the ideas of freedom and dependence have no meaning. Man is not other-than-nature; man is not other-than-God. When we take God and man as two, then the questions of freedom and dependence arise. If God is the other, we can be free against him or dependent by following him. But if we are one with God, then the meanings we give to freedom and dependence are lost.

If we are one with God and there is none other than God, then it is not correct to say “God is free”; rather, “God is freedom.” There is a difference. To be “free,” someone must be free from someone else. Freedom is a nature, not a stance against another. God is not “free,” because to be free implies there is someone else from whom he is free. God is alone. There is no other who could enslave him or free him. His very nature is freedom. Besides him there is no other. God is not free, God is freedom. And we are one with him; therefore we, too, are freedom. Man is not free—man is freedom. There is no one who could enslave him; there is no one who could make him free.

Remember, if someone makes you free, you are still dependent—because someone made you free. Freedom that is given is not freedom; it is only a generous form of bondage. Freedom means not depending on anyone. Then the question arises: won’t man be caught in determinism? Nature is doing everything—then what of man?

But we keep assuming that man is separate. Then destiny stands up, fate stands up. Man says, “What can I do? Whatever God does, that happens.” But Lao Tzu says that the day you know, you will find you are not. So the question of what you can do does not arise. Whatever God is doing, that is what you are doing. There is no determinism in this.

In destiny, in fate, again we have accepted a split. We have assumed that I exist, and God determines my fate. I am separate; he is the determiner. If we rightly understand Lao Tzu, rightly understand nonduality, then the question of destiny does not arise either. Because there is no maker of my fate. There is no one apart from me. Then who will decide my fate? I am one with the Whole. And this oneness with the Whole is what we call moksha, liberation. Therefore in India we have not used the word “freedom,” because it still contains the sense that someone makes you free. We have used the words moksha, mukti. And we have said: moksha is the nature of the self.

Destiny, dependence, freedom—all such words become futile if we are one with nature. A drop is flowing with the river. If the drop says, “I have to flow with the river,” it has become dependent. If it says, “By my own will I am flowing with the river,” it has become free. And if it says, “I am the river,” it is liberated. That liberatedness is the name of oneness. Now the river is not someone else with whom one can have a relationship of freedom or dependence. There is no other with whom our relationship can be defined. Relationship is gone; only I am. How can one be free or dependent of oneself? How can one be free or dependent of oneself?

If you were utterly alone on this earth, utterly alone in this existence—suppose everything else disappeared and you alone remained—then would you be free or dependent? What would you say then? Both words would become meaningless. You would be liberated. That liberatedness would be your own innermost suchness, your inner nature.

Our freedom is but a form of dependence; and our dependence is also a form of freedom. There is not much distance between them. A man is in his house and we say he is free; the same man in prison and we say he is dependent. Where does freedom end and dependence begin? It is hard to say. And how free is the one in the house? Buddha ran away from the house because the house appeared to him as bondage. You have not run away—you may have become accustomed to bondage. Even prisoners become accustomed.

During the French Revolution the revolutionaries broke open the Bastille and released the prisoners. Some had been there forty years, some fifty—lifers. By evening half the prisoners returned and said, “We do not like it outside.” A man who has lived forty years in prison—the outside world has ended for him. Forty years! The outside world has died; and he has died to it. No one knows him there: no friends, no enemies. Outside everything feels strange. And outside he would have to earn his bread. That began to feel like bondage. In prison the bread arrived at the right time; no worry, no responsibility. Outside he had to worry where to find a roof under which to sleep. In prison the roof was provided; when the rains came, the officials repaired it. No worry. That prison felt like great freedom. And another difficulty arose: the heavy chains that had been on their hands and the shackles on their feet for forty years—the prisoners could not sleep without them outside. Sleep would not come. It felt as if something was missing, something was being lost. They came back and said, “Without these chains we can no longer sleep. Without them the hands feel naked. Those chains were our ornaments.”

Who knows—your ornaments may be chains too! Without them you also may not be able to sleep. What is freedom and what is dependence? Differences of degree. What you are habituated to, you take for freedom. But in both our freedom and our dependence, our ego is present.

Tao, religion, sannyas—whatever name we give—is liberation: neither freedom nor dependence.

Understand it from another side and it will be clear. We live in dualities. Either we are in suffering or in pleasure. So we ask: when we are in God, will there be pleasure or pain? Neither will be. Our pleasure and pain are two shades of the same thing. Therefore we needed a new word: ananda, bliss. Bliss does not mean pleasure. Bliss means the absence of both pleasure and pain. Although when we hear “bliss,” we think of pleasure; and when we seek bliss, we are really seeking super-pleasure. In our minds bliss means a great happiness; a place where there is no pain at all; a place where pleasure is eternal. All this is wrong. So long as there is pleasure, there cannot be bliss—because pleasure always carries pain along with it. Bliss is the absence—of pleasure and of pain. Therefore Buddha did not even use the word “bliss,” because it is misleading; it carries a glimmer of pleasure. So Buddha used the word “peace.” Everything has become quiet—pleasure too, pain too. All excitations have disappeared.

But difficulties remain with every word, because all our words function within duality. The moment we say “peace,” the mind conjures its opposite, “unrest.”

Exactly so with freedom and dependence. Where both disappear, there is liberation, there is moksha. Moksha is not freedom, not dependence; it is rising beyond both, a transcendence of both. And when one becomes one with existence, one becomes utterly alone; only one remains. Then he can say: Aham Brahmasmi—“I am Brahman.” Now no other remains. Therefore all words of duality become futile.

There will be a difference, because each leads to a different experience. Consider: the earth has gravity. You walk along the road; if you walk upright, you don’t fall. You are free—you can also walk crookedly and fall. Gravity will not say, “Don’t walk crookedly.” Walk askew, fall, your leg breaks—there is pain and trouble. When you fall sideways on the ground, the same gravity is at work; it was at work when you were walking, too. No difference. The same law functions—impartially. If you err in walking, or choose wrongly, you will be hurt. Choose rightly, and you will not be hurt.

What does happiness mean? Happiness means: in accord with the law. Unhappiness means: against the law. The law is neutral. You drink poison—nature will kill you. You are ill; you take a dose of poison—the illness dies and you become healthy. Even water, if you drink too much of it, becomes poison. So moderation is needed in drinking water too, not only in drinking alcohol. Drink too much water and death can come. Water is impartial. No water tells you how much to drink; that freedom is yours. But water has a nature. If you drink in accord with its law, it is beneficial; step outside the law, it becomes harmful.

Happiness lies in harmony with the law; misery lies in opposition to it. So whenever you find yourself in misery, know that somewhere you have gone against the law. No one suffers for any other reason. This is why science says it will bring more happiness to human beings: because it keeps discovering those laws which, once known, prevent you from acting against them. In essence, this is all science seeks: we keep discovering the law and keep telling you, “This is the law—if you move in accord with it, there will be happiness; if you do not, there will be misery.” Not knowing the law, we often move against it. But one thing is certain: whether you know the law or not, misery will tell you that you have gone against it, and happiness will tell you that you have gone with it.

So Lao Tzu says: whether in accord with the Tao, whether in accord with external rules, or even in opposition—nature is pleased in every case. When you fall and your leg breaks, gravity is not unhappy; you are unhappy. Gravitation feels no pain. When you drink poison and die, the poison is not grieved; nature does not shed tears. There is no personal purpose in it. You were free; you did what you wished. Then whatever result follows will follow. Understand this well: you are free in action, but not free in the result. The result is born of what you did—and you are bound to it.
Ali asked Muhammad, “How much freedom do we have?” Muhammad said, “Lift one foot and stand!” So Ali lifted his left foot and stood. Muhammad said, “Now lift your right one as well.” Ali protested, “What kind of joke is this! How can I lift the right? I’m already bound by having lifted the left; now I can’t lift the right.” Muhammad asked, “If you had lifted the right foot first, could you have lifted it?” Ali said, “Of course I could—because until then I wasn’t bound; I hadn’t done anything yet. If I lifted the right first, I’d be bound by that, and then I couldn’t lift the left.” Muhammad concluded, “You are free to do; but every act will bind—every act!”
That’s why, in our tradition, we’ve called karma bondage and akarma liberation. The moment I do anything, I am bound—doing is binding—because what I have done will have consequences. And those consequences will be according to the law, not according to me. I am free to jump from a tree, but my leg will break; I am not free to decide whether it will break or not. You can jump out of an airplane—your choice! No one in this world will stop you. But if your legs shatter, if every bone is crushed, don’t blame anyone. That is the fruit of your own action, the outcome of your own freedom of choice. I am free to drink poison, but I cannot then demand not to die.

A person is free in regard to action. Freedom means freedom to act, not freedom over results. If we were free to choose results as well, the world would become chaos, anarchy. Nothing would remain settled. I would drink poison and receive the result of nectar; I would fall from the sky and stroll away merrily; I would sow the causes of sorrow and reap happiness. Then nothing could be determined. But existence is not chaos; it is law. This is the very meaning of Tao: existence is a law, a cosmic order. That law has two aspects. One: you are always free to choose what you do. Two: the moment you do, you come under the law—and the result is assured.

Hence Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu—all have said that as long as karma continues, total liberation is not possible. Total liberation means total non-doing. There are many ways to realize this non-doing.

Lao Tzu’s way is: drop your distance from nature. Forget that you are the doer. Say to the divine, “You are the doer, You are the enjoyer; we are not present.” Then you are free. You do not choose while acting; you do not enjoy while receiving. In both moments the divine chooses, the divine enjoys. Or say it this way: the whole existence chooses, the whole existence enjoys. I am out. I am no longer there. This is liberation.

But the moment I choose, the inevitable consequence is born. That consequence I will have to undergo. I chose; therefore I must taste its fruit. Everyone must experience his own karma. There is no way to slip past the unexperienced residue. No way.

Buddha died from poisoned food. Ananda asked him, “That man did a terrible thing—ignorantly, yes—but he fed you poisoned food!” It was a mistake, not deliberate. A poor man had gathered mushrooms, dried them; some were poisonous. He cooked them, and Buddha died from eating that dish.

What did Buddha say? “Ananda, his mistake is his concern. But that this body should die by poison is the fruit of my own karma. He has little to do with it; he is just a coincidence. I have done something in the past, and I was bound by it. Now I am released, Ananda. Perhaps no burden of my doing remains. I am utterly un-done—everything is finished. Maybe this is why I stayed alive until now. This is not my ‘death’; this is my dissolution. All accounts are settled. And do not harbor ill will toward this man; that ill will will become your karma, and you will have to bear its fruit—not he.”

Ananda asked, “Then what shall we do? Man cannot live without doing. We must do something! If we do not revile him, if we do not oppose him, if we do not go and condemn him, what should we do?”

Buddha said, “Take a bell-stick in your hand, go through the village beating the gong, and announce: ‘This man is blessed, for he had the good fortune to offer Buddha his final meal.’ Go make a joyful noise in the village: ‘This man is as blessed as Buddha’s mother, for she had the fortune to offer him his first meal.’ Go!”

Ananda said, “But that too is action.”

Buddha replied, “It is also action—but you cannot escape action. If you do the first—condemn and insult him—you will suffer; it is against the law. If in this very moment you praise him, you are in accord with the law—you will know happiness. Both are actions. Bliss, Ananda, comes from neither. If you do nothing at all—utterly still—you are free; then you can know ananda.”

Whenever we choose, we choose either the affirmative or the negative. We condemn someone or we praise someone. We go to bestow joy or to inflict pain. Every action is a choice. From that choice, happiness or suffering will flower. If suffering flowers, understand that your choice was against the law. If happiness flowers, understand that your choice was in accord with the law. If your life is nothing but suffering, know that your choices run counter to the law.

People say life is only suffering. A gentleman came to me recently: “I am sunk in suffering. Astrologers say Saturn is after me. When will I be free of him?” No Saturn is after anyone. And if Saturn’s job is to make people suffer, what will be Saturn’s own fate? In which hell should he be thrown for such a trade? No one is chasing you; you are chasing yourself. “Saturn” only means this: you keep choosing against the law and suffering is the result.

Your suffering is your responsibility; your happiness is your responsibility. If there is much suffering, understand that your ways of thinking, choosing, and living are wrong—contrary to the law. Suffering is only a signal, and a very good one. Nature has arranged it so that suffering informs you: you have stepped outside the law. But we are foolish—we try to remove suffering rather than return to the law. Often, in trying to remove suffering, we go even further against the law. Then one pain becomes ten. We remain busy erasing each pain and never look back to see that pain is the indicator: “You are living against the law; come into accord and pain will dissolve.” We try to dissolve the pain, not to align with the law. Then pain doesn’t dissolve; one becomes ten, ten become a thousand.

Everyone is born free of suffering and dies full of it—spread by one’s own hands. That spread, that expansion, is the result of not knowing this arithmetic. Whenever suffering arises, stop worrying about the suffering; immediately review your whole life. Look over it again: where have I gone against the law? This is the curious thing—and the chief cause of human misery.

A friend drinks. For twenty years his wife has been after him: “Don’t drink.” It has become their one thread of quarrel. Twenty years wasted in this mess. The wife says, “My husband is good in every way, kind in every way; only this one thing—drink—has ruined everything.” The husband cannot stop. I told the wife, “Do one thing. You’ve been telling him for twenty years; nothing has changed. For three months, stop telling him. After that, I will speak to your husband.”

Five or seven days later she came back: “It’s very hard. Just as he is addicted to drinking, I am addicted to needling and stopping him. I cannot keep from stopping him.”

Now this is the fun of it. Who is drinking, it’s hard to decide! If the husband, with courage, actually gives up drinking, the wife will be in trouble—perhaps for the first time in her life real suffering will begin. Until now there was suffering; now a new suffering will start. She believes the cause of her suffering is his drinking. It is not. Even if he stopped drinking, she would still suffer. And had he never drunk, she would still suffer—because the cause lies elsewhere: a violation of the law.

Whenever one person lays any sort of ownership over another, he goes against nature’s law—he will suffer. Whenever one person tries to dominate another, he will suffer—because each person is freedom. Whenever anyone tries to make another dependent, he violates the law and will suffer. And those who exercise control in the name of “good” will suffer even more—because they cannot see they are doing anything wrong. The wife finds it hard to see that she is doing something wrong. Clearly she is doing right: trying to cure her husband of drink. Drink brings illness, pain, everything—so she is doing good.

But remember: good action does not bring suffering. There is one simple test—if you are doing good, its outcome will be happiness. If after twenty years of “doing good” the result is still misery, “good” is only a word; something else is happening inside. Drink is only the excuse.

I heard a woman say, “My husband has no vices, and that’s why I’m unhappy.” If you get a saintly husband, there will be no end to your suffering—because there’s no way to keep him under your thumb. How will you frighten him, threaten him, seize him by the neck? Nothing will work. It’s a curious fact: wives have never tolerated saintly husbands. A thief, a cheat, a rogue will do—there is a certain flavor in it. He may be dishonest, a drunkard—still acceptable—because the wife has the upper hand. The husband enters the house already afraid, ready for a sermon. But who is suffering?

Here is the deeper point: when a wife strives to make her husband “good,” she may become responsible for making him worse. Why? Because he experiences it as an attack on his freedom. The issue is no longer drink; it’s “Who obeys whom?” If the wife simply stops saying anything—utterly—perhaps he will no longer enjoy drinking so much. Because by drinking he is putting his wife in her place; he is showing who is master. “Shout as much as you like—but who is the boss!”

The bottle has become the center of the disturbance in a struggle over ownership. The wife will keep on insisting, because that is the mode of ownership. The husband will keep on drinking, because he too must prove his ownership. He will suffer—and has been suffering for twenty years—because he is violating two laws. The wife violates one law: she obstructs freedom. The husband violates two: he asserts freedom by injuring himself—suicide of a sort. The consequences of drink he will have to bear; and he will still think, “This woman is the trouble. With another woman everything would be fine.”

No, it would make no difference. Any woman would do the same—because the basic cause of conflict between man and woman is the attempt to dominate one another. Where there is domination, love is murdered—and suffering thickens.

In all the suffering we endure, if we investigate a little, we will find a cause somewhere, and that cause is always a transgression of a deeper law. But we try to erase the suffering. A man can change his wife; a wife can change her husband. All that can happen. But the suffering will not end—because we remain the same. That “Saturn” will keep chasing us—because that Saturn is ourselves. If it were someone else, there might be a way out—some ritual, some mantra, some worship—and we’d be free. It isn’t so easy. You are your own hell; you are your own heaven.

We keep trying to shrug off this fact. We want to place it on someone else. When an astrologer tells you, “Saturn is after you,” the burden lifts from your shoulders. Some other villain is after you; he must be set right—through worship, persuasion, mantra, tantra. One thing becomes certain: you are not responsible. The relief you feel after showing your hand to an astrologer comes from nothing else: you are not responsible. Fate, palm lines, destiny—someone else is responsible. Whenever my responsibility slips off me, I feel light.

But that lightness will not give you joy; it leads you into deeper suffering—because you alone are responsible. And with that false lightness, you are free to pick up a new burden—you will go on doing exactly what you have been doing.

Man is free to act—not to determine the fruit.

Shri Krishna says, “Do your action and leave the fruit to me.” If you try to clutch the fruit, you will get into trouble—because the fruit is not in your hands. Do not hanker for the fruit; do the deed. Do not crave the fruit—because craving for the fruit will lead you in the wrong direction. The fruit is not yours; action is. And if the fruit of your action comes painful, know you must change the action, not the fruit. If the fruit comes pleasant, know you can proceed in that direction.

But another thing happens. The unhappy naturally seek happiness—so they should drop going against the law and align with it. The happy, in time, grow weary even of happiness. Sweetness, taken daily, turns bitter. When one tires of happiness, a third dimension opens. Then neither conformity nor nonconformity to the law—because in both I am still present. Then one dissolves oneself into the Law itself. One is neither for nor against; one becomes one with the Law. This oneness with the Law is Tao. Then he says, “Until now I chose actions; now I do not even choose action.”

So Krishna says: drop the hankering for results, keep acting—suffering will not happen to you. Lao Tzu says: drop action too, become one with the Whole—then even happiness will not happen to you. Neither suffering nor happiness. All dualities vanish, and the bliss of nonduality begins.

The sage seizes the One, Lao Tzu says. He leaves the two and holds the One.

Lao Tzu has not said good things; he has said very dangerous things. We call those things good which give consolation. We call those things dangerous which demand that you be erased, that you die, that you break, and that you become new. Lao Tzu has not said good things; he has said very dangerous—very dangerous—things. Lao Tzu has not sung you a lullaby to put you to sleep. He has tried to wake you up. And the effort to wake you is always painful. But you say, “Lao Tzu has said good things”; you are just consoling yourself. The things you take to be good, you must have heard in Lao Tzu. It will become clear as we proceed.

You are very knowledgeable. You know the Vedas, the Gita, the Upanishads. After knowing so much, how did you end up here? When you have known all that, nothing remains to be known. There is no point in your knowing anything more.

You see differences of style and words. There are much deeper differences! And the greatest difference is this: Lao Tzu stands in opposition to all knowledge—whether it is the knowledge of the Vedas, the Gita, or the Upanishads. He is against all punditry. He is against you. By bringing the Gita, the Upanishads, and the Vedas in between, you could not have understood Lao Tzu at all. I may be speaking Lao Tzu here, while within you the Vedic hymns keep rising. In that smoke everything gets muddled, confused. Pundits are exceedingly confused, because they never hear anything directly. They already possess knowledge. This new thing too falls onto that same heap of knowledge. The noises coming from that heap are what they hear; this statement itself is not heard. So naturally, it will appear to them that, all right, it is only a difference of words. What else?

This is an attempt to console yourself. If you had really understood the Gita, the Upanishads, and the Vedas, then fine. Then even the difference of words would not remain. Then neither the difference of words nor of style would appear. Then no difference would be seen at all. But right now you are seeing differences—of words, of style. Do you have any sense of the inner meaning? What is the meaning within?

Then remember, the Vedas too would not be able to say anything original, nor the Gita, nor the Upanishads. Then nothing at all would remain original.

Understand this a little. Religion is a very intricate matter. About religion, two statements can be made. One: about religion no original thing can ever be said. Two: about religion original things are always being said. No original thing can be said about religion because it comes from an experience that is eternal, timeless. Whether it is a Buddha, a Krishna, or a Lao Tzu—whenever anyone reaches that experience, the experience is one. And the one who reaches dissolves in the very reaching; he disappears, and with that the differences disappear. He is wiped out on the way. Therefore, in relation to religion, no original thing can be said.

But remember, this is so only among themselves. If Krishna listens to Lao Tzu, or Lao Tzu listens to Buddha, Lao Tzu will understand that nothing original can be said. But if you take it that way, you will get into trouble. For you, every word of religion is original—because you yourself have no experience of it.

Therefore the second statement is just as true as the first: in relation to religion, original things are always said. When a Buddha speaks, it is utterly new. In what sense new? New in the sense that those who have the Vedas by heart have no inkling of it; those who can recite the Gita by heart have no inkling of it. It is absolutely original. Not original for Krishna—but Krishna does not go to listen to Buddha.

Buddha and Mahavira stayed many times in the same village; they never met. Once, in the same wayside inn, Buddha stayed in one room and Mahavira in another. Half the inn was Buddha’s camp, half was Mahavira’s. But they did not meet. Much thought has gone into this. To many it seems a great misfortune; two good men should have met. They were not “good men” in the way we call people good—they were dangerous men. And there was no reason to meet, because both were standing in the same place. Both had disappeared; they were at the same point. Who was to meet whom? By what means, and to what end?

So if Krishna goes to hear Lao Tzu, there is nothing original there. But Krishna does not go. And if he did, it would mean the search was still on, that Krishna had not yet come to know and was still trying to find out. But for you, everything is original—because what you have is stale, secondhand, not born of your experience. Therefore whenever a religious flame appears, whatever he says is original. And that is the rub. A strange accident occurs: the followers of the old religion, whenever a living light of religion appears, immediately turn against it.

Jesus did not say anything new. Everything he said is written in the Jewish scriptures. The Jewish prophets had known and said what Jesus said. And Jesus himself said, “I have not come to contradict anyone. I have come to say what has always been said.” He also said—Abraham was the greatest prophet of the Jews—“Before Abraham spoke, I was.” “I am not new.” And yet the Jews crucified Jesus, because to them his words sounded shockingly new. What is the matter here? Jesus says, “I am not saying anything new.” Why then do the Jews hear it as new? And they knew the scriptures well; they had scholars, priests, great pundits. They knew everything and said, “This man is talking nonsense.” What is the matter? The man himself says, “I am saying the same,” and the knowledgeable—more knowledgeable than Jesus—refute him. Jesus was not a very learned man. Those pundits who sent him to the cross were far more skilled and qualified—in information. Jesus could not have beaten them in debate. They had every bit of knowledge by heart. They remembered every clause. Then what happened?

All they had was stale—memorized words; there was no experience. For those who have words, experience is always original, forever original. For those who have only scriptures, living experience is always original. But for those who have experience, the gap between old and new collapses.

Understand this last point. As I said of all dualities—happiness and misery, peace and restlessness, freedom and bondage—so also this duality of new and old. Truth is neither new nor old. A thing is called new only if someday it can become old; and old means it must once have been new. What is new today will be old tomorrow; what is old today was new yesterday. Truth is neither new nor old, because it can become neither old nor new. Therefore we call truth eternal, we call it timeless, that which always is.

So in relation to truth, nothing can be “original.” But in relation to truth, nothing can be “ancient” either. The experience of truth is outside time. New and old happen within time. Truth is not like a garment—new yesterday, old today. Truth is your very soul.

Have you ever noticed when your soul becomes old? Have you ever closed your eyes and asked, “How old is my soul? How ancient, how new?” If you go within you will fall into emptiness. The body’s age is known; in the body new and old are apparent. Inside there is nothing new and nothing old. Within, there is something that simply is—neither new nor old. Or say, ever fresh and ever ancient.

The experience of truth is neither new nor old. And remember, I am speaking of experience. Words grow old; words can be new. Krishna’s words have grown old. Mahavira’s words have grown old. The day Mahavira spoke them, they were new. That day the Vedic words were old. The day Buddha spoke, those words were new; today they are old. The day Buddha spoke, the Vedas were old and Buddha was new. Words become old or new; truth is neither. And that is why commotion arises. Those who are crowded with words have only the old; and when someone’s experience of truth manifests, it is utterly new. Hence the conflict.

In this world the religious man’s conflict is not with the irreligious. The real conflict is between the religious man and the religious pundit-priest. There is no quarrel with the irreligious; the irreligious says, “We are outside; we have no dealings in this.” There are two classes within religion. One: those who have a chain of words, a storehouse of stale terms. And two: those who have the fresh ray of experience. The conflict lies here, between these two.

If you want to understand Lao Tzu, then bid farewell to Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha. “Farewell” does not mean becoming an enemy. It means: for the time being ask them not to make a racket inside; set them aside. Understand Lao Tzu directly. And if someday you want to understand Krishna, then bid farewell to Lao Tzu. Let him step aside; do not let him come in between. For they are utterly unique people. Each one’s words are his own, unique, intimate. Their reach, the path of their journey, their eyes are very different. Their experience is one—but you will understand that only when you have the experience. Until then, do not let one man’s words come in between you and another.

Otherwise there are two ways. One way is that when you listen to Lao Tzu you feel the Vedas are wrong, Krishna is wrong, Buddha is wrong. Grab Lao Tzu and drop the rest. A courageous, adventurous person might do this. It is wrong. Do not be so hasty. Understand; and practice what Lao Tzu says. Calling Krishna wrong will not bring practice. Dropping Mahavira will not bring practice. Practice what Lao Tzu says. The day the practice is complete, you will find that in Lao Tzu’s being right, Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha all became right. When one is known to be true through experience, all are known to be true.

But we are clever people. We do not get into the bother of experience. We just juggle the labels on the surface—take off this label, paste another one. The inner content remains exactly the same. It never changes. Sometimes Lao Tzu’s label looks good, so we stick it on; when it doesn’t, we pull it off. We are very quick at this.

A friend came to me. He had started meditation for two or four days. The day Lao Tzu’s saying came that even meditation is unnecessary because meditation too is a doing, he came to me and said, “Very good—since I had only just begun a couple of days ago, I have dropped it.”

Another friend was to come for sannyas initiation. He had told me the day before that in the morning he would enter sannyas. But that very evening the topic was a Lao Tzu sutra in which I said that Lao Tzu never took sannyas. He did not come the next morning. He concluded, “All right, the point is clear.”

Man is very cunning. I asked the friend who dropped meditation after four days, “Having understood Lao Tzu, what else have you dropped?” He said, “Nothing else; I will start with dropping meditation.”

You had not even grasped meditation, had not found it; to drop it is very difficult. Only what you have can be dropped. I asked, “Have you attained meditation?” He said, “I had only started three or four days back.” What is not there, you have dropped. You wanted to drop it, and Lao Tzu became the excuse. We are very clever. The one who was afraid of taking sannyas found courage in Lao Tzu—“Right, what need of sannyas!” He linked his fear to Lao Tzu’s wisdom. This is not wisdom; it is fear. Keep this dishonesty in mind.

So I say: set aside Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira; when you are understanding Lao Tzu, then understand Lao Tzu. And if Lao Tzu feels right, enter into his experiment in totality. One day you will find that Buddha has not been dropped, Krishna has not been dropped—you have found them all. If Krishna feels right, walk with Krishna. But walk.

Most of us sit by the roadside and keep changing our minds there—who seems good, who seems bad. We do not walk. And even our changing we do only when we fear that someone is about to make us walk. At that moment we switch to another who will assure us, “Sit where you are.”

Man deceives himself. In this world we cannot really deceive others; we deceive ourselves all our life, for lifetimes. And we are so skilled that we draw meanings to suit ourselves.

I have heard of a man who drank wine. He was a great devotee of the Quran. A fakir asked him, “You are such a devotee of the Quran and you drink?” The man opened the Quran and said, “Look what is written here! It says, ‘Begin with drinking wine, and your end will be in hell.’ Look at this sentence!” The fakir said, “I can see the sentence, but it is against you.” He replied, “But I have reached only half the sentence. ‘Begin with drinking wine’—that is the command of the Quran. I do not yet have the strength to obey the whole sentence. But whatever I can, I should at least obey that much. Trying and trying, by your grace, I may someday reach the second half as well.”

We are all very clever. We choose what suits us—and then we are deceived.

If you want to understand Lao Tzu, cleanse the mind of all information; if you want to understand Krishna, cleanse the mind of all information. Understand them—and understand in order to do.

The pundit understands in order to compare, not to do. He thinks, “Fine—Lao Tzu said this. What did Krishna say? What did Buddha say?” He keeps tally: who said what.

Buddha used to tell of a man in his village who sat by the roadside counting the cows and buffaloes going to the forest each morning, and counting them as they returned in the evening. Buddha asked him, “You do a lot of accounting—what’s the matter?” He said, “So many went in the morning, so many returned in the evening.” Buddha asked, “How many of them are yours?” He replied, “Not a single one. They are the village’s. I just sit and count.” Buddha said, “I meet that man many times in life, in many, many forms.”

Some people keep tallying—what the Vedas said, what the Quran said, what the Bible said. How many are your cows? How much is your experience? What is to be gained from this whole jugglery of who said what, who contradicted whom, who agreed with whom, whose style differs, whose words differ?

Enough for today. Now five minutes of kirtan.