Tao Upanishad #51

Amrit too is not always amrit. Some drink it and yet die. Some use even amrit as if it were poison. The wise can even use poison as medicine.
Neither amrit is amrit in itself, nor poison poison in itself. It depends on the man and on his use. Some people receive dharma as if it were a disease. Some make even dharma into their prison. Some behave with light exactly as they behave with darkness. Life is not bliss for all. Death is not suffering for all. Some do nothing in life except die; and some, even in death, experience the Supreme Life. Things are nothing in themselves; everything depends on the person. Everything depends on the person.
This sutra is related to this great insight. Lao Tzu says, for some people dharma is like a boil; it aches. They do not receive any joy from it. It seizes them like an illness. It does not make them blossom, it makes them shrink. Their bud does not become a flower, it turns dead.
It is essential to go down into the depth of this great sutra. And it is very deep. Because we all think that things are fixed. Poison is poison, amrit is amrit. Dharma is dharma, adharma is adharma. We think things are fixed. Things are not fixed at all. Everything is decided by how a person uses it.
How is it that people make a boil even out of dharma? How does dharma become a cause of contraction rather than flowering? If you want to understand, you need not go far; a “religious man” can be seen anywhere. That is why such a surprising event has happened on the earth: everyone seems to consider themselves religious, and yet there is no joy anywhere in life. Someone is Hindu, someone Muslim, someone Christian—someone is something; someone is tied to a temple, a mosque, a gurudwara. It appears that everyone has lifted their eyes towards Paramatma from somewhere or other. But the ground is utterly irreligious. And man’s soul is nothing more than a boil that only aches.
How could this become possible? And this is happening in all our lives every day. There must be some trick in the hands of man by which he turns amrit into poison. He knows some method by which that which could be bliss becomes suffering, and that by which freedom is possible turns into a prison. The very wings with which one could fly into the sky, we have the skill to make into chains.
It is of that method that this sutra speaks; let us read the sutra.
“One who stands on tiptoe is not steady; one who stretches his steps tight does not walk well.”
Wherever we bring tension into anything in life, everything there gets distorted. If we bring tension even into love, then love becomes the mother of sorrow; you will hardly find anything that gives birth to greater misery. If our prayer also becomes a tension, then that too is a burden—like a stone placed upon the chest. It will drown us more in darkness; it will not let us soar towards light. Yet we are skillful in turning everything into tension. We have forgotten how to do anything without tension.
Nature is tension-free. When a bud becomes a flower there is no effort whatsoever; the bud simply becomes a flower. It is the bud’s nature to become a flower; no striving is needed. And when a river flows toward the ocean we think it is flowing; the very nature of the river is to flow. No extra effort is needed to flow. Therefore you will never find the river tired anywhere. The bud will not be tired in blossoming. If the bud gets tired in blossoming, it will not be able to become a flower—because where is any birth of a flower out of fatigue? When the bud opens, it does not tire—it blossoms, it becomes fresh, it becomes new. And when the river falls into the ocean, after such a long journey it is not tired; it is utterly jubilant.
Man tires in everything. Whatever he does, he gets tired in it. But have you ever noticed the principle of this tiredness? You feel tired in the very moment of doing any work. But suddenly, sometimes, an event happens and all tiredness disappears.
Vincent van Gogh—a Dutch painter, one of the few precious men in the last one and a half centuries. He was ugly, so no woman ever fell in love with him. His life was a weariness, a long boredom. Van Gogh has written: I know no reason to get up in the morning—why should I get up? I have to get up, it is a compulsion, so I get up. In the evening I know no reason to sleep. I have no reason even to open my eyes; for there is no future. When Van Gogh walked, his steps would falter. When he worked, a sadness overshadowed his work. He worked in a shop that sold paintings—the owner had never seen him take any interest in any customer. Seeing a customer, it felt to him as if a trouble were approaching. He would get up, show the paintings, but as if an automaton, some machine, were doing it all.
But one day, suddenly, the owner saw Van Gogh humming a song as he climbed the steps. It was the first time anyone had seen him humming. When he came near, the owner noticed not only was he humming, it seemed today he had even taken a bath. He used to bathe daily too, but that was merely pouring water over the body. There is a great difference between pouring water and bathing. When one pours water for oneself, it is only pouring water; when one pours for someone else, then it becomes bathing. There is a fundamental difference. His clothes were the same, but their feel had changed. The man was the same, but his gait had changed. The owner asked, Van Gogh, what happened? Van Gogh said, today a woman has come into my life—an event of love.
That day his interest in customers was different. Seeing a customer he was delighted. That day there was a change in his work. Some meaning entered life.
Van Gogh wrote in his diary that night: for the first time a day passed from which I did not get tired; otherwise I rise tired in the morning itself. In the evening of that day I was fresh, not tired. And I had worked more than on any other day.
What changed? What was tension yesterday is no longer tension today. The work you do with tension will tire you. The work you do without tension, with ease, will make you fresher still. Neither does work tire, nor does it refresh. It depends on the man.
We make the whole of life into work, into tension. I hear people come and say: Father is ill, we are serving him; it is our duty. Duty belongs to a policeman; duty belongs to a servant. A son does not have duty. Duty means: we are doing it because it should be done. But if serving the father is duty, then service will become a stone upon your chest. And if somewhere in the corner of your mind a feeling begins to arise—do not think, where is this thought coming from?—that it would be good if this father came to an end. Though you will say, what a bad thought, it should not arise. You will not even express it. But the day you called service a duty, that very day you sowed the seed of this thought within. No one else is bringing it. For where there is duty, there will be a desire to be free of it.
But if serving the father is not duty, it will not be a burden. And then, the truth is, while serving the father for the first time in your life the flower will bloom whose meaning is to be a son. Without it, that flower will never bloom. The father does not become a father by giving birth, and you do not become a son by being born of someone. You become a son the day service of the father is joy. And you become a father the day the love towards the son is joy, not work and duty.
Whatever is supreme in life flowers from nature. And whatever is trash in life—which Lao Tzu calls dregs, sediment, boils—whatever turns into wounds, is all born out of tension. And whatever we do is all tension. Our whole life is a long journey from one tension to another.
Therefore death is not the fulfillment of our life, only its ending. Otherwise, if a man’s life has unfolded, the setting sun of evening is not less beautiful than the morning sun. The beauty of the evening’s sinking sun is as unique as that of the rising sun. But man’s rising beauty is one thing; his setting becomes ugly. Why is the sunset of a man’s life not beautiful? Because life has been a journey of tension. So we end in death, we do not fulfill. For a religious person death is fulfillment. For an irreligious person it is only an end, only a cessation. This happens because we turn every act into tension.
Lao Tzu says: “One who stands on tiptoe is not steady.”
Try standing on your tiptoes. In truth, everyone stands on tiptoe in life, but try it consciously. You will soon be tired. And however carefully you stand on tiptoe, you will be trembling within; standing will be a labor each moment.
But we all stand on tiptoe. Our standing is not a natural standing. Why does a man stand on tiptoe? He wants to appear higher, bigger; he wants to appear something in the eyes of others. Others’ eyes are very valuable; one’s own naturalness is not accepted. He wants to be tall.
In the West, women invented high-heeled shoes—only in competition with men. Men are a little taller. Walking on those high heels is not pleasant, because it is utterly against nature. Wearing high heels means you want to stand on your toes; you need support, so the high heel gives you support. The woman too has the thirst to be as tall as the man; there is no acceptance. There is comparison with the other, a feeling of being vis-à-vis the other. And then it will not stop at the height of the heel; it will spread over the whole of life. That is the seed, the stance. The day, three hundred years ago, the women of the West discovered high heels, one could have said that today or tomorrow, whatever women are doing in the West now, they will do. It was all decided by that heel. There is a feeling within.
But standing on high heels cannot be pleasant. Even standing will become a pain. Walking will be a suffering. Walking can be a joy; walking is blissful. But those who have acquired the habit of standing on toes can no longer walk. They will have to drag the whole body.
And Lao Tzu says: the one who stands on his toes cannot stand firm. He will also tremble; because all the props he has taken are false and artificial. It is not his leg that is long, it is the heel of the shoe. Whatever props have made him appear taller are all false.
A politician has become big on his chair; that chair is just as false. Therefore a politician can never sit peacefully upon his chair. To be on the chair and to be peaceful is very difficult—because the very use of the chair is for one thing: to be seen above others. This very effort will not allow one to sit peacefully. That is why emperors’ nights have been painful; and why emperors have sometimes felt envy even for beggars—the reason is this.
If a man has piled up wealth and is engaged in trying to be above through that heap, then however much he thinks he stands atop the heap, whether he understands or not, the truth is that heap will sit upon his head. He will be crushed. He is not going to rise above that heap.
Lao Tzu says: if you are to stand firmly, stand in such a way that there is no tension in standing. One cannot stand firmly on the toes. And when you stand on toes, only then do you come to know that you are standing. When you stand on the whole foot, you do not even know that you are standing. But we have no habit of balance.
Therefore, in Lao Tzu’s tradition there is a process. Lao Tzu used to tell his disciples: stand up, then close your eyes, then be aware whether you are pressing any part of the foot more. Distribute the balance equally on both feet. But we will not be able to detect it. So to detect it Lao Tzu would say: stand; then put all emphasis on one leg; put full emphasis on the left leg—stand only on the left, shift all the inner force to the left. Then you will feel that the right leg has become impotent, no prana there. Then remove all emphasis to the right. You will find the left has become empty, hollow. Then divide the emphasis equally on both.
And Lao Tzu said: the day your balance becomes absolutely equal, you will not be able to tell which is the left foot and which the right. And the day the balance becomes equal, you can stand as long as you wish—you will not be tired.
This is true not only about the feet; it is true about the whole body. If our prana is equally distributed over the whole body, we will have no reason to be tired and tense as we are. Watch people—easier than watching yourself. Go to an examination hall and watch students writing. You will be astonished. Writing is done by the hand, but even their feet are taut. The feet have no connection with writing. If one is a skillful writer, the fingers hold the pen and the hand needs only that much force—no more. But the whole body gets tense; from head to toe, every nerve is pulled.
Watch a man riding a bicycle. The toes alone are enough to pedal the bicycle, but his whole body is involved. This total involvement is the cause of unnecessary fatigue. And if this becomes a habit, our whole life gets broken on the wheel of useless tension.
In England there was a great teacher named F. M. Alexander. He was a teacher of how to stand, how to sit, how to lie down, how to walk. And you will be amazed to know that Alexander cured thousands of people of thousands of illnesses merely by teaching them how to stand rightly, to lie rightly, to sit rightly. He was only a teacher of human activity, but he proved a physician. In his memoirs Alexander wrote: I have not yet found a single man who is in a right relationship with his body. He does not even know it.
Alexander remembered Lao Tzu and said: this man knew the secret. He says that if someone stands on his toes, he will not be able to stand firm. His whole life will become a weakness. A tremor of fear will enter his whole being; whatever he does, he will tremble within, frightened, flustered. And the reason? The reason is not that he is weak. Only this—that he is trying to appear strong before others. Whenever you feel a weakness catching hold inside, understand that you are engaged in the futile effort to appear powerful before others. When you feel fear arise—perhaps that I am not intelligent—know that you are standing on tiptoe to show people you are intelligent. Life is very paradoxical.
In America there is a psychologist, Abraham Maslow. A patient came to him. He was a director of a big bank, and all his work depended on his handwriting. Until now his reputation and praise had been for his very neat and graceful script. But lately his hand had begun to tremble and his handwriting had become poor. The more he tried to preserve his script, the worse it grew. Now fear had arisen that he should quit his job; his lifelong reputation was being destroyed. He had sought counsel from many. Every advice proved dangerous. Each piece of advice made his hand worse. He asked Maslow.
Maslow said to him: do one thing. When your handwriting was good, do you recall having tried to keep it good? He said, I recall no such effort. Then Maslow said: now deliberately write as badly as you can—with effort. Spoil your writing as much as possible. And the worry which had plagued him for a year disappeared. For the more he tried to spoil it, the more he found it did not spoil, it became graceful. Whatever we do with effort goes wrong. If we try to spoil with effort, that labor too will be wasted; the writing will improve. If we try to improve with effort, that labor too will be wasted; the writing will spoil.
The German psychologist Frankl has called this the Law of Reverse Effect. Whatever we do by effort brings the opposite result. A man tries to be good to everyone; then one day he beats his chest: I try to be good to all, and everyone is bad to me. People are heard saying constantly: I do good and people do bad to me; I helped that man so much, and when the time came he turned his back on me.
This is the result of your effort; it is happening lawfully. No one is doing you wrong. Whenever one tries to be kind to someone, it turns bad. The trying itself carries the poison. Try to be compassionate to someone, and that man will never be able to forgive you—someday he will take revenge for your compassion. Because in the effort to be compassionate, compassion became cruelty, compassion became violence. When you try to be good to someone you are showing that you are good. That show is the seed of poison.
Therefore the so-called good people are never forgiven by anyone. It is difficult to forgive even one’s own parents. Parents try to do so much good that they begin to look like enemies.
This can go to such an extreme that the English thinker R. D. Laing begins one of his books with the sentence: the mother’s first kiss upon the child is the beginning of mischief in this world. A kiss! The mother’s first kiss is the beginning of mischief in this world! Violence upon the child begins—Laing wrote—violence upon the child begins.
This is true—only so far as that kiss is born of effort. If it is not born of effort, there is no memory of the kiss at all. But mothers remember much later—therefore it seems such things were born of effort. Later they say: what all I did for you! I stayed awake nights by your sickbed! What hardships I bore! Mothers keep a full account. This account-keeping does not befit mothers; it befits a secretary of some institution.
If it is born of effort, memory is formed; if it is born of naturalness, there is no memory. If it is born of naturalness, its fruit is received then and there; there is no expectation of some other fruit. If it is born of effort, it becomes an investment; there will be a desire to reap its fruits in the future. Then the old mother will say to her son: I did so much for you; what are you doing for me? Which means she did not receive the joy when she did it. The joy is left over. The work is done, the fruit remains pending. But if the mother’s kiss was joy, she has received the joy; now how could there be a question of getting something in return? If there is memory, it says capital was invested for the future—with hope of profit. The profit was not obtained immediately; it will come later; an account must be kept. Memory persists.
Lao Tzu says: whatever we do out of tension makes our life ugly from within and cripples it, shackles it, makes it lame. Stand and see—and standing will become a suffering.
“One who stretches his steps tight does not walk well.”
Everywhere in life, such incidents are experienced daily whether we notice or not. We all speak. Ninety-nine out of a hundred speak well in conversation. Bring them here onto the stage and it becomes difficult to speak. What happened? Their tongue has no defect; their throat is fine—everything is fine—they talk all day, what else do they do! Suddenly, standing before the microphone, their throat gets choked. Their hands and feet begin to tremble. They are so skillful in speaking! They find it difficult to be silent in ordinary life, silence seems hard! Why does their silence suddenly become perfect? Why can they not speak on the stage? Speaking has become an effort now. Now it is standing on toes. Now speaking is an effort. What they did all day was effortless. There was no trying; there was not even the thought that I am speaking. Speaking was happening. Now there is the thought that I am speaking. And why the thought? Because: lest I say something that lowers my prestige before people; let me say something that raises prestige. Eyes are on the people.
Just understand it like this: if all these people were no one, if you were alone at the mike, you could speak with ease, with great joy. Hearing one’s own voice is very delightful. But when people are sitting, then there is a hindrance. You are filled with tension.
Psychologists say—and you must have experienced it—swallowing a pill is difficult; you swallow food every day. You never think a mouthful gets stuck and you have to make an effort to gulp it down. But put a pill on the tongue—and the water goes in, the pill stays on the tongue. What magic is in this pill? When you take food down, there is no effort. A pill must be gulped. That effort itself becomes the obstruction.
On all levels of life the law of the opposite works. The more you try, the more you will fail. There is only one formula for success: do not try. This does not mean do nothing. It means: do in such a way that it issues from you by itself. Let there be no weight upon it, no burden, no forcing, no dragging yourself. Let it be like the river’s flowing, like the bud’s blooming, like the bird’s song.
“One who stretches his steps tight does not walk well; one who shows himself off is not truly radiant.”
That others see me, that others know me, that others recognize me—why is there so much longing that a good opinion of me be formed in the minds of others? Why is there so much taste in it?
Because I have no trust in myself. I have no image of my own. I have no identity. I do not know who I am. I only know what others take me to be. The sum of that is my soul. A says something, B says something, C says something. What people say about me—I put all that together and make my soul. If people say I am good, I feel I am good. If people start saying I am bad, the foundation stones of my edifice begin to shake.
Therefore when someone calls you bad, the anger you feel is not because he spoke falsely. If he spoke falsely there is no need for anger. The mistake is his; why are you disturbed? The fear is: what if he spoke the truth? That brings anger. And if he spoke the truth, the image I have created of myself will begin to melt like wax. One person can snatch away my life-breath. If one man says you are bad, my whole existence trembles. I have built my existence from others’ opinions; I have collected their opinions, compiled their file. That file is my soul. If one page flies out, my life flies out.
Have you ever thought—if you remove all that people say about you—what will remain with you except zero, a cipher? Then how will you know you are good or bad, beautiful or ugly, intelligent or unintelligent? How will you know? What others say is our self-knowledge. Therefore we show ourselves off. Hence arise great complications, and life falls into perplexity.
A person falls in love. Both display themselves to each other. The lover appears as if no such lover has ever existed in the world. The beloved seems as if just now, freshly, she has descended from heaven. Both are showing each other. But this is standing on toes. You cannot stand on it long. If you meet for a moment on the beach, you can stand on your toes. If you meet secretly in the full moon, you can stand on your toes. Then if, by mistake, they marry—how long will they stand on toes? They will have to come down to the ground. Then that effort to show will end. Suddenly it seems: an ordinary woman whom I had taken for an apsara! An ordinary man whom I had taken for a god descended! Deceived. And yet both think the other deceived. Neither thinks we were both standing on tiptoe trying to show each other. That trying cannot last long; it cannot be permanent. Three days are enough; all love gets uprooted.
If in old days it did not get uprooted, the reason was that even three days together were not obtained. It was very difficult. The old were certainly wise. Even to see one’s wife was a furtive act. To meet one’s wife in a big joint family was very difficult. The deception could last long.
Now we have sat husband and wife face to face. Their condition becomes like what Sartre imagines in a novel: a man dies. He has always been afraid; he is afraid of sin, guilt. He fears he will go to hell. But when, after death, he opens his eyes, he finds himself seated in a good room, all furnishings in place. He is astonished—perhaps I have come to heaven! Everything is beautiful, well-ordered. The man who brought him to the room—he asks him, is this heaven? The man says, forgive me, you have come to hell. Then two more people are brought into the room—an old woman, a young girl. He asks, but what kind of hell is this, there is every comfort! The other says, everyone suffers like this; in a little while you will understand.
And soon he begins to understand. There is no way to go out of the room. The door opens inward, it does not open out. Someone can come in from outside; no one can go out from inside. The man feels good—there is a young, beautiful girl; a companion is here; no fear. But twenty-four hours they sit in their chairs in that room. One hour, two hours, night and day—twenty-four hours—no way out. Even if you close your eyes and sleep, you know two people are present; they will be watching. In hell there is no other torture; those three must live in the same room. Within three days he feels that that old hell in which one was burned in fire was better; this new invention seems dangerous. At least there would have been some excitement—being burned, thrown into fire—something! Here nothing happens. Just these three sit in one room. The questioning ends—like when people meet in a train, the talk ends; in a waiting room, where are you going, what’s this and that, it ends. Then people begin to read the time-table again and again. The conversation ends, the information is over, recognition made—now no way remains. Within three days he knows this is a great hell, invented by a very devilish intelligence. The old devil was not so inventive.
When two lovers are locked in one room, in three days love becomes hell. It is bound to happen. The cause is not love’s fault. The cause is the effort to stand on toes. Marriage in this world cannot succeed until people stop trying to show. The family cannot become heaven until people stop the effort to show; friendship will carry poison; relationships will produce disease. Because whatever we try to show cannot last long. What I am, I can be always. What I try to show, I can be only sometimes—and being that will be painful. I will have to strive for it. Striving will bring labor. And for that which I have to strive, my goodwill will be destroyed.
To accept oneself as one is—that is Tao. And even from that acceptance a movement comes into life. Do not think it stops movement. Movement comes—but without tension. Then, from what one is, the flow issues. Now we have to drag ourselves. For this dragging we employ two devices: either we are pushed from behind, or ropes are tied to pull us from ahead. All our movements are like this. Either someone pushes us from behind.
Parents keep pushing the son: study, get educated; if you study you will become a nawab. What is the condition of the nawab, nobody cares. They still keep saying: study and you will become a nawab. Ambition! You will become something—the push from behind. When a man becomes capable of pushing himself, he cannot push himself from behind; others can push. To push himself, he must place ambition in the future: if I work hard today, tomorrow I will get this; a star in the sky—someday I will reach there if I labor. Then the man runs. The star ahead pulls. Two ways only—either someone pushes from behind, or we run for what lies ahead.
But both are artificial arrangements. There is another movement. No one pushing from behind, no one pulling from ahead; rather, my energy of prana is flowing of itself. My energy of life is flowing of itself.
We say the river flows toward the ocean. It is not right to say that; it is not just to the river. We think so because we see all the states of the river. But what does the river know of the ocean? The river is only flowing; flowing is the name of river. Flowing, flowing, it reaches the ocean—that is another matter. Flowing, flowing, the ocean is found—that is another matter. But the river is not flowing for the ocean.
If we could train a river to flow for the ocean, the likelihood is small that it would reach the ocean. Because the moment the river falls into the effort to reach the ocean, it will forget flowing. The reaching of the ocean will become more important; flowing will become less important. The river delights in its flowing. That delight one day brings it to the ocean.
The bud does not want to become a flower; it becomes. The bud is what it is—out of its being the flower emerges.
In human life too, the supreme flowers that blossom—the Buddhas, the Krishnas, the Lao Tzus—are very natural flowers. We remain unblossomed because we are very clever. We are more intelligent than Buddha, more wise than Lao Tzu; because we plan in advance where to reach, what to become. We decide the goal first. Often we are finished merely in deciding the goal. The goal is within the man. If the bud wants to become a flower, it means the flower is somewhere outside which the bud wants to become. But if the bud becomes wholly a bud, it will become a flower, because the flower is hidden within the bud.
Understand this rightly. Whatever we can be is hidden within us. It is no future goal somewhere else; it is here and now. Therefore if I become complete here and now, I am nourishing that which is hidden within. I am watering it; I am giving it drink. If I become complete here and now, the seed within receives life from my being, receives joy, grows. One day it will blossom.
But for us the goal is something external. We think: something has to be—what I am not, that has to be.
Lao Tzu says: what you are not, you can never be. And what you are, only that you can be.
One more thing must be added: what you are, it is not necessary that you will be—you may miss. What you are not, you can never be; what you are, only that you can be; but what you are is not inevitable—you may miss. The bud may remain a bud; it is not necessary it become a flower. The seed may remain a seed; it is not necessary it become a tree. But a rosebud, whatever device it employs, cannot become a lotus. The danger is that in the effort to become a lotus, the rosebud may be deprived of becoming a rose. Often that is what happens.
Man is tormented by planning. What is planning? And why do we choose the goals we choose? We display even our ideals to others as ornaments. Our ideals are nothing more than adornments. We show others what we are, what we want to be, what plans we have for being.
“One who shows himself off is not truly radiant.”
If there is radiance, people will see. And if they do not see, what difference does it make to the radiance that it is? If a lamp is lit in your house, light will stream from your windows. A passerby will see. And if the passerby is blind, or is preoccupied and does not see—what difference does it make to the lamp’s being? And if some passerby stands and praises: a lamp is lit and there is light—no extra oil will be added to the lamp by this praise; nor will this praise increase the lamp’s flame.
Yes, we are such lamps that flare up if someone says a word. In that flare whatever little oil we have is consumed. And if no one passes by, we sink into our sadness and go out. We need another’s provocation the whole time. We do not live from ourselves; someone is needed to make us live; someone to push us, support us, keep telling us. Do not think this is being said about someone else—this is about you. When someone says you are so beautiful, something within flares up. When someone turns his face away and his eyes say: there is nothing worth seeing—some flame within goes out. Know for certain: that flame is not yours. Someone else lights it, someone else snuffs it. You are toys in the hands of people. To say it in the language of religion: you have no Atman of your own. You are borrowed. You are running on others’ capital.
Therefore a curious event: politicians, so long as they are in power, generally do not die. Not that they do not die—they have to—but generally they do not. And political leaders generally remain very healthy as long as they are in power. But let their prestige suffer a jolt, they begin to fall ill. If their prestige grows dim, death approaches. The brilliance you see is borrowed. Hence, when a politician reaches the pinnacle early in life, he falls into difficulty. Because after that there is no way except to descend. Each descent weakens his life. There remains no way to live.
Psychologists say, people who retire from their jobs die at least ten years earlier—whatever they were, even if a school headmaster. A headmaster, but among two or three hundred children there is a swagger. For children the headmaster is almost like God. If you ask a child, what is God like? the picture that will come to mind will be the headmaster. No other could come. The headmaster retires. Now children do not salute him on the road. He cannot scold any teachers, cannot lord it over the peons. Habit! The life-energy suddenly goes dull. It feels useless; now there is no meaning to being.
Aurangzeb imprisoned his father. Shah Jahan sent word: considering my habits, at least do so much—send me thirty children so that I may teach them. Shah Jahan sent word: give me thirty children so I may run a small madrasa.
Aurangzeb had it written in his reminiscences: Shah Jahan had such a craving to be sovereign that even in prison he could not rest in being alone. Thirty children had to be sent. Then, upon a chair in the midst of thirty children, he again sat in court. He began to teach, to instruct, to scold and rebuke. He became emperor again.
In a small class, a teacher too is an emperor. There are classes; small, big—what difference? Whether you sit before forty crores or forty, what difference? Whoever there are, you are above them—enough! Beyond the wall is a big world—what have we to do with it!
Shah Jahan was ill; in jail he became healthy. He became happy. He began to enjoy the work. The eyes of those thirty children again poured oil into his lamp. The flame is not his own at all.
This borrowed life is an irreligious life. And what is the formula of this borrowed life? The one who shows himself off must understand clearly: he has no radiance. And understand also: borrowed radiance is mere deception. Better that you seek your own radiance, rather than steal radiance from others’ eyes and create deception. Better that you light your own lamp rather than hold your mirror to others’ lamps and display their light. It is not necessary that there be a lamp in my window for light to stream out—if there is light from your house, I can place a mirror in my window. Then it may even happen that passersby see more light from my window than from yours.
But the mirror is only deception. We all live in houses of mirrors. We set up mirrors around us in the form of personality. In them we collect the reflections of others.
Therefore no one likes to live near those better than himself. Everyone prefers to live near someone inferior. To seek one lower than oneself always feels good. When he is near, our mirrors puff up. To stand near a superior person makes us small.
He who decides to live near one superior to himself is, in the language of religion, called a disciple. But we are afraid of gurus. To be near a guru is also dangerous. Therefore if some guru convinces us that there is no need of any guru, our mind is delighted—quite right. Near the superior we appear small. Our lamp begins to go out. Near the inferior we appear superior.
No husband would like to marry a wife taller than himself. Perhaps this is why, over millions of years, women’s height has become less. No man would like to marry a taller woman; it would be a deficiency. Men do not like to marry women more intelligent than themselves, nor more educated. Why? The male ego, battered in the marketplace all day, returns home—if it is battered there too, life will become unbearable. We allow him at least this little comfort—so much competition, so much struggle outside, mountains taller than oneself everywhere; he returns, and seeing his wife he feels great satisfaction.
This human mind is forever seeking those smaller than itself. For those whose light is borrowed, this is the formula.
Those who wish to find their own light must seek the peaks incessantly. Those who wish to find their own light must shatter all their mirrors. Naked—as they are—they must accept themselves. To know one’s nakedness as it is, in its facticity, is the first step towards life-revolution.
“One who justifies himself is not renowned.”
He who tries to convince that he is renowned, he who tries to prove that he is right—he himself doubts. In truth, it is our own doubts that torture us. What have we to do with others’ doubts? Someone comes and says you are characterless. If you yourself suspect this, his words will strike your wound. If you have no doubt, you can laugh at him.
Sharat Chandra, the famous Bengali novelist. A noble housewife deeply influenced by his novels invited him to dinner. But Sharat Chandra had written a book called “Characterless,” and his own character was not such that ordinary minds could call him “a man of character.” To call him such requires an extraordinary understanding. Those we all can call men of character, by our measures, cannot be very deep men of character. They fit even our yardsticks.
So people thought Sharat Chandra characterless. As soon as it was known at home that the lady had invited him, the maid told her mother-in-law: she has invited this characterless Chatterjee; such a man should not even be allowed into the house. The mother-in-law said at once: go and refuse—say my mother-in-law is ill. The housewife tried to persuade: the maid is mad; and after all it is only a dinner, half an hour—characterless or not, they will eat and go; I have invited, now to refuse would be unseemly. And she had great reverence too. But the mother-in-law yielded in no way; she had to go. Yet her respect for Sharat Babu was so great she did not want to lie. She told him the whole incident exactly: the maid has reported that you are characterless, and my mother-in-law is beating her chest and weeping; it is impossible to take you.
Sharat Chandra laughed heartily and said: be carefree. Then, calling his wife from inside, he said: I have married her duly, yet people say she is my mistress. I have married her duly, yet they say she is my mistress. The lady said: why do you not refute it? Sharat Chandra said: had I suspected, I would. Having duly married, what else is there to refute? And those whom my marriage and my law do not reassure—will my justification reassure them? Why fall into this delusion? He said: we believe what we want to believe. No one’s justification makes much difference.
I have heard: whenever Mulla Nasruddin returned home, his wife searched for hairs on his clothes—often she found them. Mulla was fond of women. Quarrels were constant. At last Mulla thought: if character is decided by such a little thing, then one day, before going home, he had his clothes brushed clean in a laundry and thoroughly tidied, and then went home. He thought, today there will be no reason for quarrel. His wife examined his clothes, beat her chest, began to weep: now you have begun to love bald-headed women too! There is a limit to everything!
Man believes what he wants to believe. No argument makes much difference. Trying to justify only reveals one’s own doubts.
Therefore Lao Tzu says: “He who justifies himself is not renowned. He who boasts loses credit. He who is proud never becomes a leader among people. In the eyes of Tao they are called the dregs and boils of virtue.”
Which things? The ones Lao Tzu has just listed. The man filled with tension; the man who shows himself off; the man who justifies himself; the man who boasts; the man who is proud—Lao Tzu calls these the dregs and boils of virtue. Such a man is not virtuous.
But those whom we call virtuous are exactly such people. You must even publicize your renunciation, then people will consider you a renunciate. It is not necessary you have renounced—proper publicity is necessary. If you do not speak of your virtues yourself, no one else will. People have no time from speaking of their own virtues to speak of yours. Where everyone is occupied with himself, who cares whether you have virtues! So everyone has to advertise himself. Proper publicity—that seems to be the need—such is the society in which we live. If people do not believe, it only means there is some flaw in the publicity. And if people still find out, it only means the structure of your propaganda is faulty. With proper publicity, people will believe. People believe only that which is hammered upon their brains and advertised. Our virtuous men, our mahatmas, our sadhus, our men of character, our moralists—if you remove propaganda from them, where will they stand? Strange—we live by propaganda.
I have heard: Thakkar Bapa, a great social worker of Gujarat, was traveling by train. As a follower of Gandhi, he traveled third class. Great crowd, with difficulty he got in, coming towards Bombay. One fat man was lying occupying the whole seat. Dozens were standing—women, children. Great crowd, great heat! And that man held the whole seat and read his newspaper. Thakkar Bapa said: I am an old man—give me a little space. He said: shut up, old man, do not make trouble. After reading the paper he said to his neighbor: tomorrow in Bombay there is a lecture by Thakkar Bapa; I too want to hear it.
And Thakkar Bapa was standing beside him! Whom to believe—the man or the newspaper? The newspaper is a big thing.
A very revolutionary Jaina thinker was Mahatma Bhagwandin. He was a guest at a friend’s house in Nagpur. They told me the incident. He had come to collect donations for an ashram for widows and the aged. He told my friend: I have come to collect; and he went out. After a day’s labor he returned with five or seven rupees. My friend said: this is too much—five or seven rupees! You do not know how to collect. Tomorrow we will go out.
Before that, the newspapers were properly informed who Mahatma Bhagwandin is. Then, with a crowd of ten-fifteen people, they went to people’s shops. And then they took a false list, with two or four big names written—against one a thousand rupees, against another five hundred—all false. Wherever they went, a shopkeeper saw the four names, saw “Mahatma Bhagwandin,” rose, touched feet. Some were the very shops from which yesterday he had returned with four annas. They gave one hundred and one rupees, some two hundred and one rupees.
The man who came yesterday was not Mahatma Bhagwandin. The one who came today is a great mahatma. And we do not give to a man—we give to propaganda. We all think we relate to persons; in truth we relate to propaganda.
I was a student in a university. It was my first year; Buddha Jayanti came. The Vice-Chancellor gave a lecture and said: there remains in my heart always a pain—whenever the name of Buddha comes, it seems that alas, had we been in his time we would have sat at his feet and learned! I stood up and said: think again. As far as I understand, had you been in Buddha’s time, you would have been the last to go to his feet. He said, what do you mean? I said: you need at least two and a half thousand years of propaganda first—Buddha! Only after two and a half thousand years of propaganda does such a thought arise.
I asked him: in this age, at whose feet have you sat who is awakened? Or say—forget awakened—is there anyone on this earth at this time superior to you? He became a bit restless. I said: two and a half thousand years later you will be born again and beat your head: if only I had been there then, I would have sat at his feet. You have no inclination to sit at anyone’s feet. But after the long propaganda of millennia—Buddha! You cannot relate to Buddha; you relate to the propaganda.
Those who crucified Jesus did not feel they were crucifying anyone special. And if they were born now, they would think: if only we had been in Jesus’ time, we would have sat at his feet and drunk nectar. These are the ones who had crucified him! A hundred thousand were gathered at Jesus’ crucifixion; not one felt they were killing someone at whose feet people would someday yearn to sit. But we do not care for the feet—we want the propaganda of the feet.
In Kandy, Sri Lanka, in the temple at Kandy a tooth is kept. People have bowed before it for thousands of years. It is believed to be Buddha’s tooth. It is only propaganda. When the research was done it was found that it is not even a human tooth; it cannot be Buddha’s tooth. It is the tooth of some animal. But those millions bowing—they do not care for the tooth, they care for its propaganda. We live by propaganda.
And Lao Tzu says: this tendency to weigh everything by surface morality, conduct, piety has nothing to do with religion. These are the dregs of virtue. Virtue is far; this is the debris left over. It has nothing to do with virtue. And not only is it debris, it is boils. Those whom you worship for their virtue—because of that “virtue” the man is getting no joy, and you worship him. To call it a boil is to say: he is in pain.
I know many such sadhus who have thousands of devotees; in private, when I have met them, they have said to me: as yet meditation has not happened—show us a way. And thousands there are who think: sitting at their feet, meditation will happen to them.
Here in Bombay, some ten years ago, I was speaking with a great sadhu. He spoke marvelous things on Self-knowledge. He knew everything—for there is no difficulty in knowing. I spoke afterwards. When he was leaving, I said to him very quietly: whatever you have said, you do not know it. If you knew it there would be no quarrel; but you yourself know you do not know.
He was hurt, showed anger, said: how could you say such a thing? I said: now you think on it. I have said it—now you think. He could not sleep at night—was restless. But he was an honest man. Next morning he sent for me.
Seeing that I was coming, twenty or so of his devotees gathered. He said: I want to meet alone. The doors were closed. Then he said to me: I am sixty years old; no one has ever said to me that you do not know. All assume I know. Gradually I too had forgotten that I do not know. Yesterday you startled me. First anger came; then at night I thought—what is the use of anger? I do not know. Then he said: if I truly understand, open the door and let those twenty or twenty-five men who are outside come in too.
He said: what are you saying! all my prestige will be ruined. They believe I know; from that belief comes prestige. But give me a path.
And even this he wants to ask secretly! I said: the beginning of the path will happen if you call them in and ask in front of them. He did not have even that courage.
Those sadhus who preach brahmacharya—celibacy—when they meet me in private, they ask: how to settle brahmacharya? It does not settle. And the less it settles, the more emphasis in discourse: practice celibacy! They are not explaining to you; they are explaining to themselves. They will talk about brahmacharya twenty-four hours. But inside it is their boil. You think they are preaching; it is their boil oozing. It is their inner pain. Man is supremely skilled at deceiving himself. He is not willing even to admit he is sick. Even this troubles him—to admit sickness. He says: I am healthy—but give me medicine if there is some. Is there medicine for the healthy? Illness must be admitted.
Mark this as a sutra: the “virtue” that gives you no joy is a boil for you. People come and say: we are honest, but we are suffering. If you are honest, how suffering? They say: the dishonest enjoy so much. The honest suffer; the dishonest enjoy.
Then do not suffer—be dishonest. This honesty is false, it is dregs; it is not virtue, it is a boil. It gives nothing. The wonder is, this boil is such that even the dishonest seems to be in more profit. It seems so—strange!
A man says: we speak truth and suffer, while the liars advance!
If speaking truth is not enough for bliss, then this “truth” is a boil. It only means you do not even have the courage to lie; that is why you do not lie. But you are tormented by the greed for what lying brings. You want that. You are very dishonest—more than the dishonest.
The dishonest does dishonesty and gets what dishonesty gives. You cannot even be dishonest—no courage for that—and you maintain the show of being honest, and you also want what comes from dishonesty. Your cunning is greater. The dishonest man’s account is clear. He never says: we are so dishonest, yet we do not get happiness, while that honest man is happy. The dishonest does not say this. He never says: after so much dishonesty, we are unhappy, while that honest man is happy without dishonesty.
In truth, the honest man does not seem happy. To the dishonest it appears he suffers more than us. No “honest” man appears happy. And the honesty that is not bliss for the man is a boil. The man who truly lives in virtue—there is no comparison for him in this world. If before him someone brings heaven and says: give up truth and take heaven—the man will say: take your heaven away, for for me, speaking truth is heaven. And if speaking truth is not heaven, no heaven can be proved heaven.
But with us, leave heaven aside—even if someone shows a new kind of hell, we are ready to lie. At least it is a new hell; we are rid of the old; accept this—we will get a little relief.
Lao Tzu calls this “virtue” a boil—the so-called virtue as we know it. To call it a boil means: in the arrangement of your being, your prana, some foreign element dislocates the harmony. Health means: no foreign element jarred within; you are in a deep musical arrangement, a rhythm; nothing jars.
But this can be only when a person’s virtues are not for showing others, but have arisen from one’s own joy. And such virtues can arise only when we do not pressurize ourselves to fulfill them, but obtain them in the flow of our naturalness. If someone flows naturally and once in a while some dishonesty also happens in life, it is no harm; because one who flows naturally cannot remain long in dishonesty—it is so unnatural. Have you ever lied? If you have lied only once or twice you will know—you will have to lie all life for that lie. It is that unnatural! And you will have to remember whom you said what, because that one lie will force you to say everything further to fit it. Your whole life will become a lie. Lie is so unnatural—it has to be remembered.
Therefore take note: those whose memory is weak should not lie. Lying requires a very strong memory. Therefore often those with weak memory remain honest—not because of virtue, but because lying is such a hassle; it requires too much accounting. It is a chess game—you must remember many moves ahead. Truth can be forgotten; there is no need to remember truth. Therefore truth puts no burden. The more truthful a person is, the lighter he is within. The more untruthful, the more burden increases. Mountains rise. The weight of thousands of lies keeps him stretched taut. It becomes a boil.
If someone speaks truth with naturalness, there will be no boils in his life. If someone lives honesty with naturalness, there will be no boils in his life.
An American psychologist, Frederick Perls, before he died—he created a small commune. In that commune, families of ten or fifteen friends lived. He made a motto for the commune. The man has died. Who knows whether the commune can continue or not. But I liked the motto very much. With such simplicity, the flower of love can bloom in life. On the door he had written: I am I; you are you. If I can love you, it is beautiful; if you can love me, it is beautiful; if I cannot love you, I am helpless; if you cannot love me, you are helpless. That is all.
A formula for families. With such simplicity, if you love someone, your love will not become a wound. If it happens, it is beautiful; if it does not, man is helpless. If love blossoms, it is blissful; if it does not, there is no way to make it blossom by effort. That is the meaning of helpless—I am helpless. If I can love you, well and good; if I cannot, there is no way to do it by trying. And if I try, everything will turn to poison. Then I have begun to stand on my toes.
And where even love is not natural, nothing can be natural in that life—mark it. In whose life love is not natural, how will money be natural? Money is by nature an unnatural thing. Love is by nature a natural thing. Those whose love is tension—even their everything will become tension-struck.
Lao Tzu says: “These are the dregs and boils of virtue. They are things that cause revulsion.”
They cause disgust. Strange, says Lao Tzu. When virtue is a boil, nothing is more repulsive than that. It will be so. Because things are linked to their opposites. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than love; but where love is acting, where love is untrue, there is nothing more ugly than love. They cause revulsion. Where virtues are boils filled with pus, where the saint is only a hidden non-saint, where only clothes are clean and within there is no cleanliness anywhere, where even the soul is not one’s own but borrowed, where one has to go begging for soul in others’ begging bowls—there is nothing more repulsive than such things.
This means this: a criminal can be beautiful; but a false saint cannot be beautiful. There can be a certain vigor and sheen even in anger; but there is not even that much sheen in false, attempted love. Anger can be fresh; acting love is always stale. The staleness of love stinks more than fresh anger. Freshness even of anger is good; staleness even of love is bad. When love is fresh, there is no point talking of it. And when anger is stale, the man is totally dead. He is a tomb, not a man.
Jesus said: you are whitewashed tombs—whitewashed graves. Your whiteness is above; within everything is rotting.
If our virtues are whitewash above, Lao Tzu says, there is nothing that produces more revulsion.
“Therefore the lover of Tao stays far from them.”
The lover of Tao stays far from such virtues. For the lover of Tao yearns for that virtue which develops naturally and blossoms; which is a flow—not brought, not dragged; which has no way by which it can be hauled into being; for which only the doors of the heart have to be opened—and it comes. You can let it come; you cannot bring it.
Almost like this: the sun has risen outside, I open my door and the rays come in. I can let them come. If I close the door, the sun remains outside, its rays strike the door and return. I can prevent the sun from coming; but I cannot bring the sun in. I can prevent; I can allow; but I cannot bring. There is no way to tie the rays of the sun in a bundle and bring them. And if you have tied them, the bundle will enter, the rays will remain outside. Then if you sit with that empty bundle—there is no situation more repulsive.
Enough for today. Let us pause for five minutes, sing kirtan, and then leave.