Tao Upanishad #56

There is nothing in life that is useless — whether you call it good or bad. Good and bad are born of our definitions. In existence itself, each has its inevitable place. Therefore, those who know how to use even the bad, use it. And for those who do not know, even the good becomes an obstacle. Use depends on understanding, not on things. Put an unintelligent person even in Moksha, and he will find his way to hell. For the wise, even hell becomes a pathway to Moksha.
Once someone asked the very thoughtful Western man, Edmund Burke: “Would you prefer to go to heaven or to hell?”
Burke said, “I would first like to know where Socrates is, where Buddha is, where Jesus is. If they are in hell, I would prefer hell. If they are not in heaven, then heaven is not for me.”
The questioner was astonished. He said, “We thought you would unconditionally choose heaven. Everyone wants heaven unconditionally. But if Socrates, Jesus or Buddha are in hell, you are willing to go there too? Why?”
Burke said, “Wherever Jesus, Buddha and Socrates are, heaven will already have happened there. And where Jesus, Buddha and Socrates are not, that so-called heaven has long since been ruined. There is no meaning in going there.”
It depends on the person, not on the situation. People often cry that life is sorrow — and they do not even see that they themselves are the cause of their sorrowful life. Heaven and hell are not in circumstances; they are hidden within individuals. Circumstances only become screens; upon those screens, the inner hidden film begins to play. But whatever we see in the situation is our own projection. We ourselves spread out and appear on the canvas of circumstances. Circumstances are nothing more than mirrors. Yet we go on blaming them. And by blaming circumstances no one ever changes. In fact, by blaming circumstances the need to change disappears.
Lao Tzu says the sages do not reject anything. Whatever life brings, they know the alchemy to transform it. Rejection is the way of those who do not know transformation. That which we have called bad, inauspicious, sinful — the sages do not reject even that. Because they have the paras — the philosopher’s stone — by whose mere touch vice becomes virtue; by whose touch, what is poison becomes amrit.
We have no inkling of this, yet we go on seeking amrit. We have no inkling that if amrit were truly in our hands, then nothing besides poison would ever come to us. We possess the art by which poison can become amrit — or the art by which amrit can become poison. We have no knowledge of our own hands.
To come to know these hands is the essential, secret process of religion. Let us understand this half of the sutra.
Lao Tzu says, ‘Therefore, the good man is the teacher of the bad.’
We will not find much difficulty here. It is easy to understand that the auspicious is teacher to the inauspicious; the wise, teacher to the ignorant; the one lost from the path should take as teacher the one upon the path; that light should be a teacher for those lost in darkness.
The second part: ‘And the bad man is the lesson for the good. Therefore the good man is the teacher of the bad, and the bad man is the lesson of the good.’
But it is incomplete to say only that the good man is teacher of the bad. The whole truth appears only when the good man also understands that the bad is a lesson for him. Which means that the bad, in some deeper sense, becomes the good man’s teacher as well. Lao Tzu searches for non-duality amidst all dualities of life. So it is not sufficient — not sufficient merely — to say that the bad accepted the Buddha as their teacher. It is equally necessary to remember that had there been no bad people, the Buddha could not have become the good. The presence of the bad became a lesson for the Buddha; the suffering of the bad, the hell of the bad became his goad toward bliss. Now this is the delightful thing: the Buddha, being good, became the guru of bad people; but even before he was Buddha, the bad were already his teachers. One learns from bad people. And remember: whoever fails to learn from the bad will himself become bad.
There are two ways to learn from the bad. One is to imitate the bad man — then you have turned amrit into poison. The other — to experience the bad man, to perceive his pain, his sorrow, his shame; and let it become your lesson so that the possibility of becoming bad dissolves. Then you have turned poison into amrit.
But we too learn from bad men. In truth, we mostly learn only from the bad. We imitate the bad, we almost never imitate the good. Yet from the bad we learn their badness — not their hell. We do not see the pain lying at the bottom of that sin.
People come to me every day. They say, “So-and-so is dishonest, and yet he has raised such a grand house!” They see the house. They do not see that the man’s dishonesty must have its own hell. Such a man cannot remain protected from dishonesty for long — the one who says, “So-and-so is dishonest, and look what a mansion he has built!” This man cannot remain honest for long; he has already begun learning from the dishonest.
People say, “So-and-so is a sinner, and yet he is respected.”
In saying that, they have already committed a sin. For whoever sees prestige in sin cannot remain away from sin for long.
But have you ever seen the hell in sin? Have you ever seen that a sinner, though seemingly honored, carries an ulcer in his heart? That you do not see. However successful the dishonest may become, inside him there is nothing but failure. However many palaces he may build, within them he finds no possibility of peaceful living. But that is not visible to you. You only see that the bad man profits. What does that reveal? That you too will learn — that evil succeeds; that goodness fails; that sin has prestige and virtue has none; that the bad reach heaven and the good rot in hell. Inevitably this education will bear fruit. Your life will become imitation.
Lao Tzu also says so — but he says the bad man is the lesson for the good.
And it can be a lesson only if we begin to understand the inner world of the bad man. One thing is certain: a man who does evil pays a price — the price of suffering, of remorse, of self-laceration, of pain. He, too, must be getting something; if he builds a grand house, it is not a cheap bargain. It is expensive. If only we could see what he has lost, then what he has gained would look costly indeed. But what he has lost is hidden from us; what he has gained stands before our eyes.
From this is born a second mistake. Mahavira renounced; Buddha left his home. There too we see only what they left; we do not see what they attained. So the Jains have recorded in their scriptures exactly how many chariots, how many elephants, how many horses, how many diamonds, rubies, pearls, and how many crores — they have kept the accounts — all left. In the counting itself they must feel delight: so much he had!
Somewhere in the corner of their hearts a voice must whisper: “This Mahavira was naïve. If you had been in his place, you would not have made his mistake.” But what Mahavira attained is not visible to us. That is why we call him a great renunciate. Otherwise we would have said there has been no greater enjoyer than Mahavira. We see only what he abandoned — hence renunciation. We do not see what he attained — otherwise we would say supreme enjoyment. Then we would say, “A cheap bargain! Mahavira is clever, we are foolish. For what he lost is nothing; what he gained is beyond calculation. At such a price! If by losing the world one attains Moksha, it is a free bargain. And if by losing objects one attains the Atman — is that renunciation at all?”
But we say “great renunciate,” not because Mahavira is such — but because we see only what he left, and we do not see what he gained. Curious!
And when a dishonest man builds a mansion, we see what he has gained; we do not see what he has lost. These are two halves of the same logic. The day you can see the hell of the dishonest, that very day you can see the heaven of Mahavira — not before.
We too learn. From the dishonest we learn he is succeeding. From Mahavira we learn how much suffering he is enduring! How much pain he is bearing! We bow at his feet not because he attained something, but because he is enduring such suffering, such pain! We bow to the dishonest even more than to Mahavira. To Mahavira we bow rarely — ceremonially. To the dishonest we bow daily — because his gains are visible. Such is our way of learning.
Lao Tzu is not speaking of such learning. He says that what is wrong, what is bad, is a lesson for the good. But this lesson is difficult. It becomes possible only when we descend into the inner law of life. If we understand this law, perhaps the descent becomes easy.
One thing in this world is so definite that it has never changed — nor will it ever: whoever does evil cannot find happiness. Not because some God punishes him; not because the cosmos keeps accounts to give him fruits later; not even because what one does today will be rewarded in some future life. Not for any of these reasons. These are only consolations of our mind. What we see is that the bad man becomes successful, rich, powerful, famous — and our mind is disturbed: he does evil and gets the good. Then we create consolations: if not today, then someday, in some birth, he will have to suffer the fruits.
If you cannot see today that he has already received the fruit of his bad action, then your talk is false — mere consolation — and has nothing to do with truth. If you think evil is done today and the fruit will be borne across births, you are simply deceiving yourself.
In truth, you are filled with jealousy. You think, “This man got a big house — he should not have. He amassed so much wealth — he should not have. That wealth should have come to me, that house should have come to me. He got it.” Now how to adjust this arithmetic? Either you discard all religion and declare: evil succeeds, and whoever wants success must be evil. But then the very foundation of your thought collapses, for you have heard the opposite since childhood. What to do?
There is only one way: if not today, tomorrow. “In God’s kingdom there may be delay, but there is no darkness,” you say.
But why delay at all? What greater darkness than delay? You are merely soothing yourself: “No worry — today you have built a mansion; we will get our mansion in heaven, and you will rot in hell.” So whenever a sadhu enumerates arrangements for sinners to burn in hell, know that jealousy is still alive, still at work.
Yet the ultimate law is: the bad reaps bad — not “will reap,” but reaps. In the very doing, the fruit is received. Understand this rightly and you can learn the lesson.
When you put your hand in fire, it burns — you need not await the next birth. Poison taken now kills now — not in another life. Law brings its result instantly. When you are angry, you need not burn in some hell; you burn in anger itself — that is hell. When a man is dishonest, as his building rises in height, his inner being sinks in depth; a meanness grips him. No court can impose the punishment for theft. No God needs to give it either — it is inherent in the very consciousness of being a thief.
We cannot take a single step without bearing its consequence — and this consequence is not a future thing. It is linked to the very step; it is happening that very moment. In this world there is no one keeping accounts. And precisely because no one is keeping accounts, bribery cannot work, prayers cannot work. However much you cajole or persuade God, nothing can help. Since no law is suspended even for a moment — every law works every moment — whatever we are doing, we are undergoing in the same instant. There is no interval between doing and experiencing; karma and fruit are together.
When you show compassion to someone, in that very moment the fragrance that rises in your being — that is its fruit. Do not look for some heaven. When you give bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, or place a healing hand upon the head of the sick — it is not only the sick who find relief. It would be strange if the sick were relieved now, and you only in heaven. The relief is for both. That relief is your punya — and it is complete now.
There are deeper implications. First: if we can see the fruit in the very act, then we can take a lesson from the bad man. Then no matter how grand the mansion, we will not be deluded by it; no matter how tall the pile of wealth, it cannot deceive. We will look into the bad man’s interior. Because the fruit is not in the future; the fruit is already here — now.
Hitler murdered so many — but who speaks of how much suffering he endured? Hitler could not sleep. As soon as he slept, sorrowful dreams surrounded him. So many murders! All those spirits, those skeletons, encircled him. His dreams were hell. He began to fear sleep. He could not sleep. He lived in terror. One who has done violence must live in fear. He had not a single friend. Even his closest associates he looked upon as enemies. One who has deceived, tortured, killed — he lives in constant fear; retribution can come from anywhere. Hitler’s soul trembled with fear every moment. With no friend, such a man must be in hell — there is no need to go elsewhere. He did not marry — afraid that a wife would be too close, might share his room, might strangle him at night. One who has strangled thousands cannot believe that thousands are not ready to strangle him. Kill even one man and the shadow of that man follows you for life.
Hitler was encircled by his own murders. In the end he died utterly insane. Bombs were exploding where he was hiding. Germany was defeated. The enemy stood in Berlin. Bullets struck his windows. When his general came with the news, he ordered the guard to arrest the general: “He seems to have joined the enemy. Our armies are winning in Moscow!” Until the last moment Hitler imagined victory — London and Moscow being captured. Whoever brought accurate news he called a traitor and had him shot. Even at the end, when bullets hit his door, he would not accept the truth. He was completely deranged. Yet he still spoke on radio: “Our armies are triumphing; soon the German empire will be established over the world.”
His personal physician’s accounts have now been published: Hitler was mad throughout, afflicted with some twenty-five diseases. At times he was unable to speak or go out. He had an image to maintain; he could not appear in weak condition. So he kept a double — a man of similar face. Often the double took the salutes of the armies. Hitler could not go — his condition was too poor. Nights he could not sleep; days he could not sit. He could not sit a moment in one posture — so restless within. Day and night, medicines kept him somehow alive. And his double received the salutes!
Strange. For those very salutes all this was done — for those salutes! The photos in the newspapers were of the double; the voice on radio, the face on television — the double’s. Stalin too kept his own double — an actor playing Stalin. What was this grand arrangement for? For that very prestige — and it all proved futile. The man burned in hell — every fiber aflame.
No, there is no hell parked in the future. Whatever we do, at the very moment we receive it all. By postponing hell to the future we gave ourselves consolation and created convenience: “If we are doing evil now, the fruit won’t come yet — we will see later.” Hence we invented other tricks: if we’ve done something bad, do something good to cancel it out.
Nothing gets canceled in life. Understand this second point well. You think if you do two coins’ worth of harm, you’ll do two coins’ worth of good and the old harm will be erased — you are mistaken. For the harm you did, you must suffer exactly that harm. For the good you do, you will enjoy exactly that good. Nothing cancels anything. Because two moments in life never meet.
This is subtle. If I do evil now, I suffer it now; if I do good tomorrow, I will enjoy it tomorrow. But today and tomorrow never meet. The moment of evil is gone — it cannot be undone. What is done cannot be un-done.
But we preferred the trick: if the fruit comes in the future; if karma now, fruit later; there is room between for adjustment — for arrangements. If I put my hand in fire and the burn were to arrive six hours later, I could cool it on ice in the meantime. If time intervenes, we can un-do what we have done. For this reason we link karma to the future.
Karma bears fruit every moment. Then the difficulty is great — no escape, none can save you, no method can be devised. Here and now, what we do, we experience. Thus though we all live on the same earth, some dwell in hell, some in heaven, some are already free — living in Moksha.
Even this is not exact. One and the same person is in heaven in the morning, falls into hell by noon, and by evening may be in Moksha. It is not necessary that being in heaven at noon he cannot be in hell by evening. Moment to moment we rise and fall like mercury in a thermometer — heaven, hell, Moksha. Life is dynamic.
If this insight dawns, we can learn much from the bad man. He can become a lesson. Read the life of Hitler — it can be a great lesson.
But our misfortune is that the true lives of those we call successful are not available. Were we to have x-rayed, unvarnished pictures of great politicians, tycoons, famed celebrities — their inner pains, anxieties, torments — it would become difficult to be dishonest, difficult to be bad. But when one climbs to the prime minister’s chair, his inner hell vanishes from view. The smiling photo with schoolchildren is what we see. His inner hell becomes invisible. The colorful aura of success — paper-thin yet dazzling — surrounds and covers him. And in some corner of our being a desire arises: “We became nothing; we too could have climbed those stairs. We still can — let us try.”
H. G. Wells used to say — and he was right — that in newspapers, apart from the advertisements, nothing is true. And we know how true advertisements are. Still, he is right: the rest is false. Our history, our books, our epics — all false. They create illusions within us. We begin to follow the bad man; we fail to take the lesson.
A great good will befall humanity the day we can lay bare the entire life of the bad man. The life of a bad man can be a great lesson.
The life of a good man too can be a great lesson. But if we cannot expose the bad man’s life, it is far harder to reveal the good’s — for the bad lives on the surface, yet even his life remains hidden; the good lives in great depths, abysmal like the ocean — we have almost no contact with him.
Remember: if you would make the bad a lesson, expose the bad life. How? To expose another’s life is itself bad. But is there any lack of badness within you? Start there. Expose your own badness. And observe the shadow that always follows it — sorrow and hell. We are all doing something bad. Look into the bad and inquire what you received. From the bad, nothing is ever received but sorrow.
But we do not pause in the moment; we hurry on. We never really inquire what happened to us in the very doing. We do not examine the act in full.
You became angry. Have you ever closed your door and observed your anger? You abused someone, you insulted someone — have you ever closed your door and examined what you did?
No — we are very clever. Whenever we are angry, we focus on the other: “What did he say that made me angry?” What did he say? We do not examine what we did. We examine what the other did. And the fun is that the other is at home examining what you did. Both will miss themselves.
Self-observation means: what did I do? You hurled an abuse — that was your act; it is not my responsibility to examine it. I cannot examine it. That small abuse is part of your entire life-story. That thorn grew on the entire tree of your life; it did not appear suddenly today. How can I examine your entire tree? I can only examine what happened within me because of your abuse. Why did this one abuse change my whole mood? Why did it turn my smile into ashes? Why did it burn all the flowers blooming within me? Why did it turn a good man suddenly into a devil? And then, what is happening within — the rising rage, the spreading fire, the violence flaring up — what is it?
If, when someone abuses you, you close your door, forget the person, and observe what is happening within, you will learn the art of entering the bad man’s interior. The bad man is not the other — you are the bad man. The day you come to know your anger and its pain, your sin and its sting, you will never again fall into the illusion that someone else can obtain joy through anger. You will never think that someone can gain happiness by inflicting pain on others. This self-observation makes you capable of seeing into the bad man’s interior as well.
Buddha had a cousin. They played and grew up together. The ego never agrees to accept that one who played with us and grew up could become greater than us. Devadatta grew up with Buddha. Once he had even thrown Buddha down in boyhood games, sat upon his chest; sometimes he lost, sometimes he won.
Then suddenly Buddha’s summit rose high. Millions bowed at his feet. We can understand Devadatta’s pain. Devadatta made many attempts on Buddha’s life. Once, as Buddha sat in meditation on a rock, Devadatta had a huge boulder pushed from a hill. It grazed Buddha and missed him by a hair’s breadth. A disciple cried, “That wicked Devadatta!”
Buddha said, “Wait! Wait! You too have begun to push a boulder within against him. Why wicked? Whatever he can do, he is doing. This is the religious man’s acceptance: whatever is in him, he does. Why expect what is not in him?” Buddha said, “Bhikshu, had you played and grown up with me, perhaps you too would do something like this. You do not know Devadatta’s pain. Only one in deep pain exerts to push such a rock.”
This man we can call meditative: he does not bother about what Devadatta is doing; he concerns himself with what is happening within.
Buddha closed his eyes. The rock thundered down the ravine. Buddha remained with eyes closed. After a moment the monk asked, “What are you thinking?”
Buddha said, “I am looking within to see what is happening there because of what Devadatta did. If anything at all happens within, then I have not escaped the rock — a wound has already occurred. If even the smallest scratch arises within me, Devadatta has succeeded. That is what he wants. If I too pick up a rock and throw it upon him, his pain will be eased. That is what he seeks — then he will feel there is no discrepancy, no inequality. His jealousy will vanish. His jealousy is his suffering.”
On the path Buddha was walking, Devadatta once released a mad elephant. It sounds like a tale. But it is no tale; someday science will enter its depths and it will no longer be a story. The mad elephant approached Buddha and lowered its head at his feet. “Mad” — it sounds like a story: why should a mad elephant care for Buddha? What difference would it make to a mad elephant who is who? A mad elephant is mad.
There are differences. A mad man might not have cared for Buddha, for no creature on earth becomes more mad than man. A mad elephant, however mad, is not as mad as a mad man. And animals possess an inner instinct. Their intellect does not function, but their heart is touched.
Scientists — especially those working in psychic research in the West — now say that when a person becomes utterly silent, a special kind of waves begin to emanate around him. You too are radiating waves. Everyone is. Every person is a deep lake with ripples rising. When anger arises within, waves of anger spread around you. It is not necessary that you shout and display anger for waves to spread. Even without outward expression, the inner waves radiate. Around the silent angry person the air is angry. One who is sexed-up — even if not displaying it — creates erotic waves around himself.
There are now instruments to detect such waves — to register what state the person is in. Not only this — a remarkable invention has appeared that will be of great value for the future of spiritual practice: a small device where, by pressing a button, you can see a graph of your brainwaves in that moment. Your brain is connected by an electrode to the instrument. Turn it on — it begins to display the wave patterns. The instrument shows markings: if the waves are this high, your mind is agitated; this high — less agitated; this — peaceful; this — utterly quiet; this — you are in perfect emptiness.
When you see very agitated waves, the fascinating thing is that seeing them, they begin to fall. The very becoming aware, “I am agitated,” births a longing for peace. The sheer idea “I should be peaceful” immediately lowers the waves. The graph is called “feedback” — because by seeing it, you immediately react and a result follows.
This device will be of great consequence for meditation: you can see what is happening, and what you see instantly affects you and alters the outcome.
As soon as someone approaches perfect quiet and the graph indicates complete silence, he exclaims, “The mind is perfectly quiet!” — and restlessness begins. That thought too is a disturbance — a wave. Instantly the stillness is lost and ripples rise.
Animals catch these waves better than we do. Man has become desensitized; animals are more sensitive. Scientists have long been puzzled: dogs, cats — such cats have been blindfolded and flown by airplane to be dropped in jungles far away; they know nothing of the route or where home is — yet they walk straight home. Straight! Not even searching for the way: the bag is opened, the blindfold removed, and the cat walks straight. It has never been at that place; flown in by plane; blindfolded — how does it walk home? Scientists now say cats must have sensitivities, some experience of waves we do not have, by which they set out.
In one scientist’s home the government was secretly tapping his house — suspecting he had connections with foreign powers. A tiny tape recorder was hidden in a wall. The scientist came home; his dog faced that corner and began to bark. The scientist scolded the dog, but it would not stop — leaping at that corner, making a ruckus. They searched and found the device. The scientist worked on sound; he was astonished. Investigations showed that when a microphone sucks in sound, a tiny vacuum is created near it — the mic “sucks.” The dog sensed that vacuum — hence the barking. They experimented: even the subtlest vacuum produced by waves — a dog would detect it.
Those who study psychic research say — what Indian villagers have long said (but villagers are “superstitious,” so no one believes them): when dogs suddenly bark in the night, someone has died or is near death. On scientific grounds it now seems that when the soul departs the body, a shock of waves spreads all around — dogs are sensitive to it; they sense something disturbing is happening and become restless.
So it is no wonder that the mad elephant, entering Buddha’s aura of waves, became peaceful. Devadatta was distraught: the rock missed — a coincidence perhaps — but the mad elephant lowered its head! His turmoil grew.
Buddha said, “Even the mad elephant has understood — but when will Devadatta understand!”
Man does not learn — and when he does, he learns the wrong thing. Devadatta concluded, “We misunderstood; the elephant was not mad. Our mistake.” He learned only that — and began searching for another mad elephant. This is how we learn.
Lao Tzu says: ‘The good man is the teacher of the bad; the bad is the lesson for the good. He who does not value his teacher, and who does not love his lesson, is astray — though he may be learned.’
“He who does not value his teacher, and who does not love his lesson.”
Remember, when you learn something from a bad man, you should feel grateful — even to the bad.
But far from being grateful to the bad, we are not grateful even to the good from whom we have learned. In fact, the very notion that we have to learn wounds the ego. There is perhaps nothing more difficult than being a disciple.
You will say, “What is so difficult? What trouble is there in being a disciple?” Yet it is difficult — because it begins with admitting “I do not know.” No one is willing to admit that. We all know. And even when we do express gratitude, our words are amusing.
Many people come to me with amusing lines. One gentleman often says, “What you say is exactly what I have always thought; only I am not as skilled in expressing it as you are.” Another says, “Your words so strongly confirm what I already believe that there is no measuring it.” On the surface nothing seems wrong. In truth, these friends are saying: there is nothing to learn — whatever there is to know, we already have it.
This attitude spreads from individuals to the collective, to nations. In our country it has become deeply entrenched. If the West invents something new in science, our country cannot admit it is a new discovery. We immediately flip through our books to find some way — however twisted — to claim it was already in our scriptures. The irony: we had never opened those scriptures before; never told anyone what was inside. We have become so adept that nothing the world can do is not already “in the Vedas.” Do anything, and we will instantly “prove” it is in them — by changing meanings, forcing new senses into old words, grafting interpretations.
Why? Because we harbor the delusion that we are Jagatguru — world teachers. And if we are world teachers, we cannot be disciples; we can learn nothing from the world. This has spread to the whole nation: in a nation of world teachers, every individual is a world teacher.
We have lost the capacity to learn — that is our sin. If in five thousand years we have not moved forward an inch, it is because we lost the capacity to learn. Learning begins with humility: I do not know. But we are so dishonest that not knowing does not bother us; when someone else knows we say, “We already knew that.”
It is amusing: if we really knew what science will invent a hundred years hence, let us announce it from our scriptures once — we never can. You cannot even build a bicycle from our scriptures, yet you find airplanes “there.” Whether there were airplanes is not the point; the attitude is the point. This attitude has become collective. No one is willing to learn.
The feeling for learning arises only when someone accepts, “I do not know.” Then even the lesson from a bad man brings gratitude. Even those we saw falling into pits become our teachers if by seeing them we avoid falling.
“He who does not value his teacher, and who does not love his lesson, is astray.”
Why astray? Because one who has lost the capacity to learn has no way to arrive. If one has stopped learning, how to measure his wandering? However far I may have strayed — if I can still learn, I can return. Even if I stand an inch from the goal — if I cannot learn, I cannot return. The journey depends on learning.
It is not necessary, but as I see it, the West can become more religious than us — because its capacity to learn is innocent, fresh, guileless. We are in great trouble. The greatest Western thinker will sit at the feet of the crudest peasant if he can learn there — setting aside concern about “from whom.” But we are strange. Westerners have come — in the last fifty years thoughtful people from there turned to the East. Often they have, knowingly or unknowingly, sat at the feet of those who themselves know nothing. Seeking is like that — not always do you reach the right person. But their best thinkers sit at the feet of our simplest sadhus to learn — putting aside all their knowledge, so it does not become a barrier. But our most ignorant fellow has lost the capacity to learn. What has happened within us?
Two things. First, in matters of life’s truths, words have become lodged on our tongues; the word intrudes and gives us the feeling that we know. Then there is no need to go deeper. Second, in these five thousand years we have become so impoverished that if we were to admit we do not even have spiritual knowledge, our ego would have no support left. Only one support remains; all else has crumbled. We keep calling ourselves “spiritual” to hide our shame.
The irony: by that claim we become inwardly even more impoverished, for we cannot then search. Knowing blocks seeking. If we have already arrived, there is no walking left to do.
Lao Tzu says, ‘He who does not value his teacher, and who does not love his lesson, is astray — though he may be learned.’
To be learned is one thing — not as hard as to be a disciple. To learn is more difficult than to be learned. But what is “learned”? We think: he who learns becomes learned. No — he who invents ways to avoid learning becomes “learned.” He who manages to gather knowledge without knowing truth becomes learned. He who fears the guru but swallows the scriptures becomes learned. Scriptures are sold in the marketplace; they require no gratitude.
It is a curious matter. Reading Lao Tzu’s book is easy; sitting near Lao Tzu even for a moment is difficult. What difficulty is there in reading the Dhammapada? You read — toss it aside. Going to the Buddha is not so easy; and once you have gone, you can never toss him aside. Read the Buddha’s words — nothing is required of you; the words slip in and mix with your blood. Sit with Buddha — your whole life must change. Buddha will dismantle you entirely — bone by bone. Then he will fashion a new man. That is complex and hard.
But Buddha’s words are meant only for those ready to be broken, to die, and to be reborn. The revolution lies in the person’s transformation, not in the words. When the person changes and words become experience, then their power is known.
In this land we placed enormous emphasis on the guru — perhaps more than any culture on earth. The purpose was only this: that you might become a disciple. We placed the guru in the sky; we endowed him with godliness.
Kabir went so far as to say: “Guru and Govind both stand — whose feet shall I touch first? Blessed be the Guru, who showed me Govind.” Govind himself stands there, and the guru stands there — Kabir bows to the guru. Because without the guru, Govind could not be shown; thus Govind comes second.
We exalted the guru so highly. The purpose was that you might become a disciple. But we are clever. We thought: if the guru is so high, why not become a guru? And thus the land filled with gurus.
I have heard: in a village some people went out begging for alms. One house was always avoided — that of the richest man, a notorious miser. No one ever received charity there. But it was famine; bones lay in the streets. They thought: perhaps in such times he may feel pity. They went in, explained the situation. The miser seemed moved; a glow appeared in his eyes. They felt certain they would receive something. Finally the miser said, “I am deeply affected by your words.” They asked, “Then?” He said, “Then what? I too shall come with you to beg!”
The same happened here. The guru’s glory was so much — the entire land became guru. The teachings were meant for disciples — so that one might realize: if the guru is so glorious, attaining the guru is the way. But there is only one way to attain the guru: become a disciple with your whole heart. We lost discipleship. Five hundred years ago Nanak tried again, glorifying the guru — and therefore named his followers “shishya,” disciples — “sikh” in Punjabi. They did not know they would become Sikhs — a new community. Discipleship was lost; a new sect arose.
We are adept at missing. Whatever we are given, we find ways to protect ourselves from it.
Because this glorification of gurus caused so much harm, Krishnamurti raised a worldwide movement against the guru — “There is no guru.” Yet the same old mistake recurs. In this century the message that there is no guru — that each must realize himself — deeply pleases the ego. A congregation of egotists gathered around Krishnamurti. They said, “Right! No guru — perfectly right. Why should there be a guru? Each person can reach.” There are people who have been listening to Krishnamurti for forty years; whatever is in their mind is borrowed from him. Yet they have not enough gratitude to say, “We have learned from Krishnamurti.” Rather they quote Krishnamurti himself: “What is there to learn? He himself says there is no guru.”
Once we tried by exalting the guru so people might become disciples; they did not — they became gurus. Now Krishnamurti demolished the guru so people might drop being gurus and become disciples; people said, “If there is no guru, where is the question of being a disciple?” When we heard the guru’s glory we became gurus; when we heard there is no guru we said, “Then there is no question of discipleship.”
Whether Buddha, Kabir or Krishnamurti — none can push us off our self-chosen path. We are sturdy. However they shove, our interpretations only make us sturdier. Understand this condition rightly and the sutra will be clear.
And Lao Tzu says: ‘This is the subtle and secret mystery. Such is the subtle secret.’
Man is in ignorance. He does not know who he is; he does not know upon what journey he is; he does not know the destiny of this life. From this seed of life, what flower will bloom? In this darkness, what dawn? What sun will arise? Nothing is known. To what shore will this life’s boat moor? Is there a shore at all? In such profound ignorance, without the humility to learn, there can be no end to wandering. Humility must be such that one learns from wherever learning is available — even from the bad, the thief, the dishonest, the bandit, the murderer. Learn from whomsoever you can.
Guruship does not mean clutching the feet of a single teacher and stopping there. Understand this distinction well. Gurus warn otherwise; one woman came to me and said, “I want to come to listen to you, but my guru says: one husband, one guru. Will you change your guru?”
Amusing people! The time of “one husband” is long gone; what to say of “one guru.” And husbands are fools — one may make some sense. But when gurus act foolish — that is the limit. But gurus cling; they fear their flocks may slip away.
Discipleship does not mean clutching the guru. Discipleship means birthing an infinite capacity to learn — then learn wherever it is found, from whomever. Mosque, temple, gurudwara; Hindu, Muslim, Christian — wherever there is learning, keep learning. Learning has no limit and no station at which you must stop. Learning is a stream, a flow. The more you flow, the more you learn. Learn from all.
It is not necessary that one who is ignorant of you in one sense is not wise in another. A small child can be your teacher in some way; and in some way your teacher may learn from you. Learning is complex and subtle. What is needed is the learning attitude. With it, the secret mystery of life comes into our hands. He who learns to learn — truth stands near him.
Yet let me say it differently. Even saying “truth stands near” is not quite right. If one truly comes into the full posture of discipleship, truth is within him. One who opens his doors so humbly to the winds of truth from every side — with no prejudice to obstruct, no preconception to block; one who is ready to be broken, to be effaced; one whose past will not hinder his future; who is willing to burn his past to ash if the winds of truth prove it wrong — such readiness is arrival. He arrives this very instant. Perhaps he need not learn anything; perhaps the openness itself is the goal.
But we are closed. Even when we learn, we do so with fear — measuring and weighing. We want truth to suit us. If truth proves contrary, we shut our door: “This truth is not for us — not our truth.” We want even truth to be our witness.
Truth is no one’s witness. Those ready to lose themselves — truth becomes theirs; but it does not testify for anyone. If you want truth to be your witness — Hindu, Christian, Muslim, this or that, molded into your frameworks — truth will never reach you. All frameworks make truth untrue, kill it, dismember it, disfigure it. If you want truth, the readiness to throw away all frameworks — that readiness is the meaning of discipleship.
There is an Egyptian saying: “When the disciple is ready, the teacher appears.” It is one hundred percent true.
But we are amusing: many roam “searching for a guru.” Ask them where they are going, they say, “We are seeking a guru.” How will you seek? Do you have a criterion, a touchstone, a scale? How will you weigh who is your guru? And if you are so skillful that you can examine a guru, then what remains? Whoever we can examine, we are already above. You are the guru first. The guru is to be examined, to pass or fail? Then disciples wander, failing gurus: “So-and-so proved useless; now we search for another.”
The disciple cannot find the guru — impossible. There is no way. Always the guru finds the disciple — that makes sense. When you are ready to be a disciple, the guru appears; he will find you. Then you cannot escape. He will find you; you cannot run away.
Therefore the essential thing is not to seek a guru, but to prepare to be a disciple. Become a hollow — the rain will fall, and your hollow will fill like a lake. Become a hollow of learning — and from all sides those threads that will become your gurus will find you. Wherever there is a disciple’s hollow, the guru will pour down like a lake. But you cannot search for hollows; there is no way.
Two or three last points. It is not necessary that you be able to examine a guru; it is necessary that you keep examining your own discipleship. What is essential is to test whether your eligibility as a disciple, your capacity to learn, is pure and unmixed.
Bayazid was with his master. The master said, “Bayazid, besides what you have come to learn from me, do you also want to know what I am?” Bayazid said, “What need have I of that? What I have come to learn — that is what you are for me. That much is enough.”
One day Bayazid came and the master sat with a wine jug, pouring and sipping while instructing Bayazid. Another disciple sat there too. His endurance broke: “Enough! There is a limit to bearing and to trust. After all, I am not superstitious. What is happening? What kind of spirituality is this?”
The master said to that disciple, “If you do not wish to learn, you may go. Our relationship is over. On what condition? Did I ever tell you I would not drink?”
He looked at Bayazid: “You have nothing to ask?”
Bayazid said, “Nothing at all.”
For twelve years Bayazid remained with him. In those twelve years, twelve thousand such occasions must have arisen where anyone would have asked, “What is happening? This should not be.” After twelve years, when Bayazid was departing, the master said, “Do you have nothing to ask about me?”
Bayazid said, “Had I asked about these other matters, I would have been deprived of you. I did not ask about them. I kept drowning only in that for which I had come. And today I know that all that acting was a play. I did not ask — but today I know it was a drama. Had I asked about the drama, I would have missed the real man present here.”
In Tibet there is a maxim for disciples: even if the guru commits a sin before your eyes, you may not complain. Strange — and seemingly improper; it seems to breed blind faith. But one who has come to learn — for him to take interest in irrelevant matters is dangerous; it destroys his capacity to learn.
Naropa, an Indian master, went to Tibet. Milarepa was his first disciple there. Naropa was extraordinary. He asked Milarepa to do such things that anyone’s courage would break. “Cut stones from that mountain,” he said. Milarepa felt, “I came to seek truth — to cut stones?” But Naropa had told him: “The day doubt arises, leave at once — do not come to tell me. I do not labor with doubters.”
Milarepa was no less extraordinary. He cut stones. Naropa said, “Build a small house.” He built it. The day it stood complete he ran, thinking, “Today my teaching will start — the test is over.” He bowed, “The house is ready.” Naropa went, looked, and said, “Now demolish it.”
They say this happened seven times. Seven times he built it in seven years; seven times he was ordered to tear it down and throw the stones back into the ravine — then bring them up again and build. And even the seventh time, while demolishing, Milarepa did not ask “Why?”
They say Naropa then declared: “Your education is complete. What I had to give, I have given. What you could receive, you have received.” Milarepa fell at his feet.
Later Milarepa’s disciples asked, “We do not understand — what happened? There was no other instruction — only building and breaking!” Milarepa said, “At first I too wondered, ‘What is this?’ Then I thought: once resolved, at worst a single life will be lost — many lives have been wasted without a guru, by my own cleverness. Let this one life be wasted with a guru, by surrendering my cleverness. The day I resolved this, a great peace descended. It was not about placing stones; it was my births upon births being placed and uprooted. Those seven makings and unmakings you saw outside — they were my own making and unmaking. The day I demolished the house the seventh time, I was no more. Therefore he said, ‘What I had to give I have given; what you could receive you have received.’”
“But he who does not value his teacher, and who does not love his lesson, is astray — though he may be learned.”
Often — not just “though” — often he is learned.
“This is the subtle and secret mystery.”
Enough for today. Let us chant for five minutes — then go.