Tao Upanishad #58

Before we enter this sutra, a few fundamental points must be understood.

First. Lao Tzu takes the feminine—the feminine mind—to be more original, more foundational. Man is secondary.
Throughout the world man has been considered primary, woman secondary. First, this point must be understood rightly; for the whole history of humankind has been built contrary to Lao Tzu. All civilizations have proceeded by taking man as primary and woman as secondary.
Lao Tzu holds that woman is primary, man secondary.
And today science also stands in support of Lao Tzu. For science too says that, in the mother’s womb, all embryos are primarily feminine. The journey begins in the womb as feminine for all. Then some embryos set out on a different journey—toward the masculine. But the beginning of all is feminine.
The second point to understand is that man is born from woman. Hence, he can only be secondary; he cannot be primary. He is an extension of woman; he is woman’s own journey spread outward.
Third. Biologists say that in the male there exists a certain tension-state; the female does not have the same kind of tension. According to biology, from the union of two gametes—two living units—an individual is born. Each gamete carries twenty-four chromosomes. If two gametes with twenty-four and twenty-four meet, a female is born. Some gametes carry twenty-three. If a twenty-three and a twenty-four meet, a male is born. In the male, balance is slightly less: on one side twenty-four, on the other twenty-three. The female is balanced: twenty-four and twenty-four. So biologists say the root of feminine beauty is this very balance—more balanced, more poised. Hence woman’s patience, her endurance, exceeds man’s. And this is also why man has succeeded in subjugating woman—because restlessness is his trait; that imbalance of twenty-three and twenty-four, that tension, becomes his aggression. And man, his whole life, is seeking balance.
So, a very curious thing: women have not produced Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas, Jesuses; men have. The basic reason is that the male is the seeker of peace; the female has no such quest. Woman is peaceful by nature; unrest is superimposed. She can be made restless by effort. Man is restless by nature; by effort he can be made peaceful. Therefore Buddhas will be born among men, not among women.
Man is ceaselessly striving to become peaceful. Aggression will be his inborn flavor; aggression is his symptom. Hence man will be a seeker, for seeking is aggression. Man will create science, for science is aggression. Man will climb Everest, go to the moon, conquer Mars—because the whole campaign is aggressive. Woman is not aggressive. Man will wage wars; he cannot live without war. However much he speaks of peace, scientists say the male germinal-organization is such that he cannot live without war. War is part of his primal tendency. Until his tendency changes—or until we change the organization of his germinal structure—he will make war. It may happen that he wages war even for the sake of peace.
Hence it is quite amusing: examine the processions of pacifists and listen to their slogans, and they sound no less warlike than the war-mongers. They fight for peace, but fight they do. They are ready to die—and to kill—for peace. Whatever the excuse, the male’s excitement is in fighting.
Therefore, whenever war breaks out anywhere, a sparkle arises in men’s eyes. Life seems to acquire some taste—something is happening! That dullness breaks; a certain festivity spreads. The fundamental difference of imbalance between woman and man stands behind this.
Violence is the outcome of inner imbalance, and love is the outcome of inner balance. Hence woman has loved. But with love one can neither go to the moon nor climb Everest. In truth, women never quite understand what the need is to climb Everest at all, or to go to the moon. Woman’s curiosity is for the near, not for the far. Not at all for conquest, not at all for aggression. Her interest is in a balanced, calm, loving life—here and now. Therefore women are not far-sighted; they see what is close—distance becomes futile. Man does not see what is close. For that which is near holds no joy in conquering; it is already conquered.
Thus a very telling phenomenon occurs: a man is intrigued by any woman only so long as he has not conquered her. The moment he conquers, his interest ends. Once victory is attained, no juice remains. Nietzsche has said that man’s deepest flavor is victory; even sex is not that deep—sex too is merely one field of conquest. Hence interest in the wife fades, for she is already conquered; there is nothing left to win. Therefore, the wise wives live in such a way with their husbands that something always remains yet to be won. Otherwise, man’s taste is never in woman directly; if something remains to be conquered, he will be interested. If all is already won, his taste will vanish. Then, it may even happen that, leaving a beautiful wife, he becomes intrigued by an ordinary woman. People are puzzled: what madness! His wife is so beautiful, and he is besotted with the maid! But you do not understand: the maid can still be conquered; the wife has been conquered. Beauty and ugliness are not fundamental; the greater the challenge of conquest, the deeper a man’s interest.
The woman’s position is just the opposite. The more a man is given, the more he feels her own, the less the distance, the more she can be absorbed. Hence woman is eager to be a wife; she is not eager to remain merely a beloved. Man is eager to be a lover; being a husband is his compulsion.
This balanced feeling in woman—the absence of the urge to conquer—is the more fundamental condition. For imbalance is always a later state; balance is nature’s way. Therefore we have called man Purusha and woman Prakriti—nature. Prakriti means the suchness of how things ought to be by their intrinsic nature.
Thus another curious thing: when a man becomes peaceful, feminine traits blossom in him. Look at the face of a Buddha—the impression is less of a man, more of a woman. This is why we have not given beards and moustaches to Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Rama. It is not that they did not have them—they surely did. But the state they attained became woman-like. They became so calm and balanced that the masculine aggressiveness dissolved. Hence this is only a symbol—we have left them without beard and moustache. The Jains have twenty-four Tirthankaras—none has beard or moustache. It is very difficult to find twenty-four such men in whom not even one had facial hair! One or two could be found, but twenty-four is tough. Buddha has no beard or moustache; Krishna, Rama—none. You will never have seen a picture of Rama with beard and moustache. Why?
Surely they had them; to have none would mean they were not properly male—some hormonal deficiency, some sickness. No, this is symbolic. We experienced in them a state like that of a woman; so we dropped the beard and moustache as symbols.
Nietzsche has explicitly called Buddha and Jesus feminine—he meant it as condemnation, but his statement holds a truth. He says if the world follows these feminine men, the whole world will become effeminate. He condemns them because he is a partisan of the masculine; he wants virility to increase in the world. And these Buddha, Christ, Mahavira—he stands against them, for they are in favor of the feminine. All their talk of ahimsa, karuna—these are feminine qualities. Nietzsche says: war, violence, aggression, blood—these are masculine signs. Therefore, he says, these traitorous men have deceived men and are propagating femininity. Yet there is some truth in what he says: Buddha and Mahavira became feminine. On a very deep plane, balance happens; thus the male’s aggression, his violence, is lost.
For Lao Tzu, woman is the root, the foundation. Man is a branch of her.
Understand this from another angle as well. The very structure of male and female personalities, the very construction of their bodies, is indicative. The male generative organ is aggressive; the female generative organ is not aggressive, only receptive. Therefore woman cannot commit adultery upon someone—it is impossible; she cannot aggress and commit adultery. And for man, adultery is as possible as love is not. Hence in situations where a man thinks he is loving, in ninety out of a hundred cases he is only committing adultery. This is a little difficult, but today psychologists say it is true that man often aggresses even in love—there is a kind of coercion there. And the woman merely accepts this coercion. It is hard to determine whether her acceptance contained love or not, for the process of feminine love is passive, inactive. Understand this too; then entry into the sutra will be easier.
Man’s way of loving is active. He expresses love—his love also becomes aggression. Woman’s love is simply surrender. If a woman becomes overly active in love, man will be disturbed. She should only receive, surrender, be absorbed, offer no resistance—be in non-resistance—be cooperative. And even her cooperation should be passive, merely an invitation, an acceptance, a consenting glow—but love must not become active. The more so, the more lovable she will be to the male. Her love is acceptance, a very deep acceptance. Therefore it is not easy to discern it immediately; man’s love is instantly visible because it appears in activity.
This element of passivity is worth pondering. The more passive an element, the more peaceful, the more silent, the deeper, the more profound it is. The more active an element, the more on the surface, the shallower it is. Waves are on the surface—there is much noise. In the depths of the ocean there is silence—no waves, no noise. Man is a surface—great activity, tempests, hurricanes. Woman is a profound depth—all is silent and still. But remember: the male’s activity is supported upon that very depth; it is that depth’s upper face. Woman is the center; man is the periphery. Hence whenever a man enters his center, he becomes like a woman. And whenever a woman tries to be active, she rises to the surface and becomes like a man.
In the West today, women are in a great rush—to become like men. Here Lao Tzu counsels men to become like women. There, in the West, the race is for women to become like men. There is a reason: the entire Western culture has been manufactured by men—aggressive, violent. It has wiped out, suppressed, erased the woman—an aggression gone beyond limits. And the education men gave women filled women with men’s desires and ambitions. Today whatever education exists in the world is not made for women; it is all designed for men. Women have entered into it; the basic frame is for men, not for women. Even what we call women’s institutions—there too the educational frame is masculine. What is taught is not the only question—how it is taught, and for what it is taught, what is the goal—that entire framework is masculine: ambition, victory, race, competition—these are the formulas of education. Into that mold the Western woman has been poured. Now she wants to be like a man.
This will create profound difficulties. If woman tries to become like man, the valuable, the precious, the essential in this world will be lost. Here in the East, people like Lao Tzu made the opposite effort: that man try to be like woman—so that what is deep and valuable may become yet more steady, more manifest, more deeply rooted in man’s innermost being.
When women become like men, all becomes shallow. The woman herself becomes shallow. Of all things a woman can lose, the greatest loss is in this race to become like a man—she can lose her soul. Nor will she truly succeed in becoming a man; she can only don the garb. And a woman who dons a masculine mask—harder to find a more dissatisfied man than her. For restlessness is natural to man; in woman it will be superimposed. Racing is natural to man; for woman, racing will be against her nature.
So today, if the Western woman is growing neurotic and has no peace, the root cause is this. She can never be peaceful this way. Even man, remaining male, does not find peace—how will woman, becoming male, find peace? Man has found peace only when he has become feminine within—deeply passive, empty, surrendered, non-aggressive. Then peace happened. If even man finds peace by becoming like woman, the woman will never find peace by becoming like a man. Yes—she will become more restless, more deranged, more mad.
The reason is clear. When man becomes like woman, he is truly returning to his own center. Think of it thus: from his mother he ran into the world; now he returns to the mother. But if woman tries to become like man, except derangement and madness, nothing can result. In masculine activities there will be no solution, no solace—only a feverish, sickly heat.
Lao Tzu says passivity is natural. Activity is a storm, a gale. And it must fall—fall it will. Understand: nothing can remain active forever; for activity expends energy. A stone lies on the ground. You lift it and throw it into the sky. It had been lying passive. You gave it the strength of your hand and made it active. You too lose some strength; throw ten or twenty stones and you will say, now I cannot throw. Your energy goes with the stones. You are gifting your power to the stone; thus the stone collides with the air, fights, travels. And it will remain active only so long as it expends the given power. Once spent, it will fall back to the ground—again passive.
A stone can lie on the ground for thousands or millions of years, passive. But thrown, it cannot travel for thousands or millions of years. We can even imagine it lying for eternity, for lying requires no expenditure. But it cannot move eternally, because movement expends power; when energy ends, it falls. All activity spends energy; passivity stores energy—no expenditure.
Hence Lao Tzu says passivity is the nature; activity is the result of the wish to spend energy within nature.
Woman is more passive. Man is more active. Therefore Lao Tzu places woman at the root. But let women not think the work is done; let them not think nothing remains to be done for them.
Then, take the second point into account. Ultimate balance is a balance between opposites. If woman can remain passive only by remaining inactive, then it is not the supreme balance. If she can remain passive within even while being active, that is supreme balance. Conversely, if man can be peaceful only by dropping all work and fleeing to the jungle to sit in silence, even that peace is not ultimate peace—for a peace chosen in opposition to activity is itself a kind of activity. Where opposition exists, doing exists. If someone drowns himself in passivity against activity, that effort too is activity.
Therefore, the supreme knowers of Tao and Zen say: the peace attained by effort is not the ultimate peace. For what is effort-born carries activity within it. That which comes without effort—effortlessly—that alone is supreme peace.
What does this mean? It means: as long as we think in the language of opposites, we will not be peaceful. When the very language of opposition drops, we will be peaceful. The woman, remaining active, yet abides in her passivity; the man, remaining active, yet is drowned in passivity—he acts, and within remains as if non-acting; he speaks, and within remains silent. There is no difficulty in being silent by not speaking, and no difficulty in losing silence by speaking. But when words are outside and silence is inside, then the balance that is established—the bridge between two opposites—is supreme, is ultimate. That cannot be destroyed.
Now let us enter the sutra.
‘He who is aware of the male, but keeps to the female, becomes the valley of the world. Being the valley of the world he has the original character which is not cut up, and returns again to the innocence of the Way.’
He who knows the male but abides in the feminine. He who lives in action, yet keeps passivity alive within.
Do this: you are running along the road; outwardly there is running, but within there is one who is not running. Glance within. It will not be difficult to catch hold of the one seated within, who does not run. The body runs; consciousness does not run. Consciousness remains seated. Consciousness has never moved. However much you have moved, consciousness has not moved.
Consciousness is approximately like this: you are seated in an airplane. The airplane is running at thousands of miles per hour—and you are seated. Your body too is a vehicle. The body runs; you are seated. It is even possible—in the airplane, if your head is not right—that while the plane is rushing, you begin running inside it to arrive earlier! Exactly such madness you can do within: the body rushes, and you try to rush within. You will not arrive any sooner, because within there can be no movement. Within is unmoving. No motion, no movement is possible within. The body can move.
So one who, while running, can keep awareness upon that which does not run—he is one who, being male, abides in the feminine. One who, even while thinking, remains at a deep level in non-thinking—he is male yet abides in the feminine. One who, while walking and living in the world, remains a sannyasi—he is dwelling in the feminine alongside the masculine. Sannyas is feminine; to be a soldier is masculine, to be a sannyasi is feminine. But one who remains a soldier and yet remains a sannyasi—his state is ultimate. Or one who remains a sannyasi and yet remains a soldier—his state too is ultimate. For when two opposites meet, they cancel one another. When the negative and the positive meet, they dissolve each other—and beneath them, the zero remains.
‘He who knows the male but abides in the feminine…’
By feminine, understand passivity; by feminine, understand renunciation; by feminine, understand surrender; by feminine, understand acceptance—take the feminine in this sense. By masculine, understand aggression, possessiveness, accumulation, speed, ambition, competition. These words are symbols. If your mind lives only in speed and you have not discovered that place where there is no speed, you are living half a life. In this connection, take note of a new discovery too.
Carl Gustav Jung has contributed one of the great insights of this century: no man is wholly male and no woman wholly female. Each person is bi-sexual. It is a matter of proportion. You may be sixty percent male, forty percent female; your wife may be sixty percent female, forty percent male—only such differences exist. No one is a hundred percent male; no woman is a hundred percent female. It cannot be—for your birth is from the union of woman and man. You are conceived in the woman; you come out from woman—but man has cooperated. His element enters you. Because birth is sexual—born from male and female—both will be present in measure. It can be that one person is ninety percent male and ten percent female; but a feminine portion will be there. Sometimes the ratio is so delicate that later a woman becomes a man, a man becomes a woman—gender changes. If you are fifty-one percent male, there is danger—one or two percent is the whole matter. A slight chemical difference, a slight hormonal change—due to some illness, some medicine—and you can immediately become feminine. If you are only one or two percent away—the margin very thin—change can happen.
And now scientists say: change can be produced even if the margin is large, for it is a matter of hormones. If feminine hormones are injected into you, your inner ratio will change; you will start becoming feminine.
This means: within the male, the feminine is hidden; within the female, the masculine is hidden. If balance does not arise between these two, you will remain unbalanced. Within, these two must harmonize.
Observe, and you will begin to experience it. In the morning you are very peaceful; someone says a little thing and you become angry—fire catches. You do not know: when you were peaceful, the feminine element was above; the masculine was repressed beneath. Now someone has thrown a live coal at you—an insult, a push, a hurtful word; the woman immediately withdraws, for she cannot retaliate; she cannot aggress—she hides behind the veil; the man comes out. Your eyes fill with blood; poison runs in the limbs; you are eager to throttle someone, to kill.
In twenty-four hours you become woman many times and man many times. The woman who loves you—whom you could never imagine throttling your neck—she too can throttle you. Hidden within her is that strangler. If she finds you falling in love with someone else, she can throttle your neck. Even if she does not, she will at least think of it—if not yours, perhaps her own. But she can.
Often it happens: when a man is angry, he wants to destroy the other; when a woman is angry, she wants to destroy herself. That much difference remains between them. For to destroy another one must be more aggressive; to destroy oneself requires less aggression. Hence women commit suicide more often. The reason is only this much: they also want to murder you, but being feminine, they murder themselves. Men commit suicide less; whenever they intend it, their mind runs to murder someone else. Killing another is easier for a man—because the other is far. For woman, killing herself is easier—because she is near to herself; her gaze falls near, not far.
But both are hidden within one another. And if one of them is totally cut off, you become crippled—like losing the left leg. You walk because a balance is kept between left and right, though their work is opposite. When the left leg rises, the right grips the ground; when the left grips the ground, the right rises. They are in opposition: one is on the ground, one leaves it. Yet, between them, movement becomes possible. And the more balance of strength between them, the more orderly the movement.
Your inner woman and your inner man also demand a balance. The day this balance is complete, Lao Tzu says, you have attained Tao. For Lao Tzu says: this balance is innocence.
He who knows the male and abides in the feminine—he does not become feminine, he abides in the feminine. Exactly the reverse for woman: she who knows the feminine and abides in the male—she does not become male. He becomes a valley for the world.
Valley—ravine—is a symbol for Lao Tzu. Go to the mountains and you will see the raised peaks; and close to those peaks are the valleys. You may not have noticed that the peak can rise only because the valley forms beside it. Without the valley, the peak could not rise. The peak draws its substance from the valley and rises. The peak is secondary; it cannot be primary.
Then, the peak is aggressive—like an ego raised into the sky. The valley is egoless, humble. The peak must hold itself up, for there is always fear of falling. Whoever rises will fear falling. The valley does not have to hold itself—there is no fear of falling. Whoever descends has no fear left. The valley sleeps untroubled; the peak will be full of anxiety. The peak—today or tomorrow—will be eroded, for being a peak consumes energy. To hold itself up, energy is spent. In the valley, no energy is spent—for the valley is mere passivity, emptiness.
Hence Lao Tzu uses the valley again and again. And he says: man is like a peak; woman is like a valley. This symbol is apt. Even in the bodily structure of woman and man, this is true: the male body is peak-like, the female body valley-like. The valley is at ease; the peak is always uneasy. But one who balances both within becomes as peaceful as a valley.
‘He remains established in that original form which is unbroken.’
The original form is always unbroken; secondary forms are always fragmented. Understand thus: woman and man are two fragments of a single original form. Hence the attraction between them. One is always attracted to that which is one’s own fragment and has gone far, which is our own and has been lost. Understand this via a journey into science.
Scientists say the primal living unit is the amoeba. The amoeba is both—female and male together. Its reproductive process is quite wondrous. In the amoeba, female and male are not separate; hence a child cannot be born from the union of two. The amoeba is both at once. Then how does it reproduce?
Its reproduction is astonishing. It only eats—and keeps growing. When its body grows beyond a certain limit, the body splits into two. These two parts too are not female and male separately; each part is both—female and male together. Again they eat, grow; again, upon reaching the limit, split into two. The amoeba is called by scientists the first life born on earth, the first organism.
There is no sex-lust in the amoeba; it is the perfect Brahmachari. There is no way for sexual desire—because there is no other toward whom desire could arise. Nor is there any urge to meet another in the amoeba.
Curiously, the amoeba has no desire to meet; it has the desire to split. So it eats, and wants to split. When it becomes heavy, it wants to split. When you receive proper nourishment, sexual desire arises—you want to meet. Understand.
If you are not properly nourished, sex-lust subsides. Therefore the so-called sadhus attempt fasting to break sex-lust. I say “so-called” because in truth it does not vanish—only the lack of energy hides it. If you deprive the amoeba of food, it will not split; without food the body will not grow—no question of splitting. Splitting is its generative process. When you eat properly, you instantly wish to meet—if you are a man, with woman; if a woman, with man. Why? The amoeba gives birth by splitting; you give birth by meeting. The amoeba can split because both male and female are present in it; you cannot split, you can only meet—for half of the child is with you and half with the woman. The child is born through the meeting of the two halves. Until they meet, no child can be born.
The amoeba splits by an increase of energy; you, by an increase of energy, desire to meet. Hence if you stop eating, eat little, eat such that your energy does not increase, sex-lust will weaken. It will not be destroyed. The day you eat again, it will arise again.
The attraction of meeting between man and woman—its cause, according to biology, is that both are fragments of a single whole and long to be whole again. Therefore there is such delight in sexual union—the joy of becoming whole for a single moment. Those broken pieces of a single whole come together for a moment. In that coming together, the joy felt is the joy of completion.
Hence, one who cannot lose himself totally in sex will not find any joy in sex. And very few are able to lose themselves—because moralists and religious preachers have so poisoned the mind that while you cannot avoid sex—you cannot avoid it while you eat—yet they can manage one thing: they cannot save you from sex, but they can ensure that you cannot lose yourself in sex. Their words and ideas lodge in your skull; even in the moment of sex you cannot put the skull aside. You have sex, but you cannot be wholly absorbed. Then the sayings of the saints seem right to you: there is no joy in sex. This is a vicious circle: because they say so, you do not experience joy; because you do not drown, you do not taste joy. If you drown, joy will be known—though momentary, yet it will be known. Even for a moment, there is joy.
What is joy? Two halves becoming one. It will be only for a moment; after a moment, you and the woman will vanish as separate entities—the meaning of sex is: where woman and man disappear; where the woman is no longer a woman, the man no longer a man; where both are lost and become one. One consciousness remains. For a moment, there are no two egos, no two bodies, no two minds, no two souls. For a moment, duality is lost—Advaita happens. It happens for a moment; after a moment, again you are man and she woman. Therefore sex gives pleasure and pain: pleasure for a moment; pain for the rest of the day—because after meeting, separation comes. That separation brings pain. Man circles between this momentary pleasure and prolonged pain—again a moment of pleasure, again days of pain.
If Advaita happens even for a moment, joy is felt. Hence Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu say: if this Advaita becomes permanent, bliss is attained. And when Advaita is eternal, there remains no possibility of sorrow. When joy is momentary, sorrow is inevitable.
This search for Advaita—the first glimpse of it came to man through sex; there was no other way. The first glimpse of Samadhi came through sexual union—there was no other means. The first reflective man wondered: why is there joy in sex? He must have seen: because I disappear. Then, if I disappear totally and forever into the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Existence, then sorrow will be no more.
From the experience of sex arose the notion of Samadhi and its far-off goal. The distance between the two is vast; yet there is a bridge. When a man and woman are drowned in sex, a double event happens. Understand this double event too—for you are double: male and female; and the woman is double too—female and male. When a couple is immersed in union, your inner male meets the outer woman, and your inner woman meets the outer man—this is one form. And in this deep meeting, your inner male meets your inner female, and the inner female of your beloved meets her inner male. Then a circle is formed. For a moment, you are not broken—you become whole.
This wholeness cannot be attained permanently through sexual desire. It can be attained permanently only through Samadhi. But a glimpse of wholeness—a glimpse of Samadhi—does happen in sex. If it does not happen to you, it means your mind does not allow sex to happen. You go into sex full of guilt; you know you are committing a sin; you know you are doing something despicable; you know something bad is happening and you do it because you are compelled. With such knowing you go into sex—then the event does not happen. And when it does not happen, the words of preachers seem perfectly right—this is all futile. You come out more sad, more repentant. Joy is not obtained; the mind robs the moment of joy, and the sorrow remains. Then naturally your conviction grows stronger. That growing conviction deprives you of sex altogether.
And one who has no experience of sex often goes in search of Samadhi. He thinks: nothing comes from sex—how to attain Samadhi? But he has not even a glimpse with which to set out upon the journey. The union of man and woman is a deep meeting. One who cannot attain even this small meeting will not attain the meeting of the self and Existence. That is a vaster union. This is a very small one. Yet, even in this small union, wholeness happens—in a small measure. There is an even vaster union where wholeness happens—through the meeting of the self and the All. That is a great union—and eternal.
If that meeting happens, in that moment one becomes innocent: the mind is lost, thinking dissolves, only being remains—just being. Breath goes on, the heart beats, awareness is—yet there are no thoughts. In sex, for a moment, one becomes innocent.
But Lao Tzu says: if this deep inner meeting is attained—knowing the male, abiding in the feminine—then one becomes a valley for the world. And becoming a valley, one abides in one’s original form—unbroken. Childlike innocence is attained.
If you learn the art of the inner meeting of your own female and male, then the need to meet the outer woman disappears. But meeting the outer woman is easy, cheap; meeting the inner woman is very difficult and arduous. Meeting the outer woman is called bhoga; meeting the inner woman is called Yoga—that too is union. Yoga means union.
It is curious: people understand bhoga to mean union and Yoga to mean renunciation. Bhoga is union; Yoga is also union. Bhoga is meeting outside; Yoga is meeting inside. Both are unions; both are essentially sexual. When my inner woman and inner man meet within me, I have no more use for an outer woman or outer man.
And only the one in whom the inner woman and inner man have met attains Brahmacharya. No one attains Brahmacharya by eating less; no one attains it by fleeing from woman and man; not by closing the eyes, not by becoming Surdas—plucking out the eyes. There is only one way to Brahmacharya: the inner man and inner woman must become one.
Now, observe something curious: how long can you remain in union with the outer woman? On the bodily plane, for a moment—because that union is expensive; much energy is lost. Today energy can even be measured—how much electricity is lost in one sexual act. Until that electricity is regenerated, the union cannot recur. Hence one must stop—twenty-four hours, forty-eight, a week. As age increases, the stoppage increases—a month. Until the energy is restored, the union is not possible. Thus this union cannot be stable—so much electricity is lost in a moment.
This is why after sex people feel at peace, restful, sleepy. Freud called sex the only natural tranquilizer. It is. The rich man finds other tranquilizers; for the poor there is only one. Therefore the poor produce more children; nowhere else is there rest, nowhere else a way to be lost.
I was reading of an incident in America. In a town, television had to be shut down for a year due to mechanical reasons. A great surprise occurred—no one had imagined it: the next year, twice as many children were born in that town. People had watched television and slept quietly after watching; a whole year without TV—and the rich and poor became equal; only one entertainment remained. Double the children! One psychologist suggested that television is the best arrangement for birth control. Put a TV in every home and birth control will be less necessary—if that town’s experience works elsewhere. It should, for human nature is the same. Hence the poor produce more children; they have no other way to lose themselves. And the rich often have to adopt children.
If the meeting is only outside, at the level of the body, it will be momentary. At the level of the mind, not even momentary—understand this too. On the bodily plane it can be for a moment; on the mental plane, not even for a moment. Hence sex is easy; love is very difficult. Love means a union on the plane of mind—two minds meeting as bodies do in coitus: no opposition remains, no difference remains, no ego remains. When such a union happens on the plane of mind, love occurs; when it happens on the plane of body, sex occurs. Love is very difficult—because for two minds to come into such a moment where no opposition, no ego remains is extremely arduous.
On the plane of body, it can happen for a moment; on the plane of mind, not even for a moment—hence sorrow ensues.
Within you, a meeting can occur between your own woman and your own man—on the plane of the soul. In that meeting, no energy is expended. Why? Because you do not go outside yourself. To speak in the language of science: just as on the bodily plane the amoeba is both female and male, similarly one who unites his inner man and woman becomes one like the amoeba on the plane of the soul. The name of this union is bliss; its process is Yoga. And a person arriving at such a state becomes utterly innocent, like a child.
We say “like a child” for a reason. By child we mean: before the concept of sex has developed. A small child is neither male nor female. From the bodily viewpoint, yes; but he has no knowledge of the body. You know; for you, the newborn is boy or girl. The parents want to know: Is it a boy or a girl? This boy-girl is for the parents. For the child? For itself—nothing yet. Awareness of the body is not there. For itself it simply is. Time will pass; when you teach him, he will understand boy or girl. Yet even then, he will not understand what great difference there is. At fourteen, his glands will begin to produce power; hormones will differentiate. Then, for the first time from within, he will experience what it means to be boy or girl. Then boys will become peaks and girls valleys. Then the desire to meet will arise; they will wish to be whole by meeting each other.
Lao Tzu says: one who, being male, abides in the feminine becomes inwardly innocent like a child. Then he is neither woman nor man.
I said Buddha seems feminine. If we take Chingis Khan, Hitler, Napoleon, Alexander as masculine, then surely Buddha seems feminine. But within Buddha—what is the experience? Within, Buddha is neither woman nor man. Buddha simply is. He has become like the child who does not even know the body—who does not even know there is a body.
Whether you notice or not, you know the body only when you are ill; otherwise, you do not. If a child is healthy, he is utterly unaware of the body. Only when disease arrives—hunger, cold—does the child feel the body. If you were totally healthy—which is very difficult—you too would not feel the body. What you feel is disease. A thorn in the foot—you feel the foot; a headache—you feel the head. If you are always aware of your head, understand there is pain. Too many thoughts also create pain; because of them you feel the skull.
The child is unaware of the body, unaware of any distinctions. He has no urge to meet anyone; he is absorbed in himself. Freud used a beautiful word: the child is auto-erotic—self-loving. He is sufficient unto himself; no one else is needed. See, the child keeps sucking his own hand. If you want delight in sucking a hand, you will need someone else’s to suck; your own will not give pleasure—or can it? If it did, your family would take you to a doctor! The child is auto-erotic.
Psychologists say there are three possibilities: hetero-sexual—opposite-sex love, man and woman; homo-sexual—same-sex love, man-man, woman-woman; auto-sexual—self-sexual—oneself, toward no other. The child is auto-sexual: he needs no one in the world yet; he loves himself.
Read the story of Narcissus. In Greek legend, Narcissus was so beautiful that when he saw his reflection in water for the first time, he fell in love—with himself. He loved only himself thereafter, and could never love anyone else. Children are Narcissuses—they love themselves; for the other is not yet.
The other will come—soon; the body is preparing. The waiting is there; soon the other will arrive. Soon the child will begin to take delight in the other—even secretly now there is delight—unconscious, not yet clear.
Therefore girls love the father more; boys love the mother more. Mothers love sons more; fathers love daughters more—the opposite is attractive even now. Hence there is a little conflict between father and son; also between mother and daughter. And if the father loves the daughter more, the conflict grows; or if the mother loves the son more, it grows. The attraction to the opposite is still hidden—but it will become manifest.
But when the inner meeting happens, again the person becomes innocent like a child—like a child, yet not exactly like a child; a new dimension opens. Now the other will never be important again; the attraction to the other is lost forever—finished. Now the person is auto-erotic within—absorbed in his own inner nectar. He has attained that Advaita where there is no need to go outward, no need to search for a beloved; the beloved has been found within. Then naturally, when all tensions and unrest and sorrows fall away, it is no surprise. For such a person eternally experiences the inner spring of nectar.
If ever a glimpse of that has appeared to you in sex—if your preachers have not spoiled your brain, which is rare, for their net is ancient and their trade very old, their hands are everywhere, and their fingers reach every child’s neck—and before the child is filled with awareness, foolish notions about sex are inserted in his mind which will never allow him happiness in the moment of sex—
If any greatest injustice has been done to humankind, it is this. For the natural joy has been made impossible. And its becoming impossible has not spread religion—only irreligion. If the possibility of natural joy remained, man would certainly search for Samadhi. One who has had even a slight glimpse will seek the greater. One who has had no glimpse becomes only frustrated; the question of seeking more does not arise. If I place even a false diamond in your hand, the search for the real begins; but if a real diamond is in your hand and all around people insist it is a stone, you will throw it away—and the search for the real becomes impossible. A glimpse leads toward a vaster truth.
Therefore I say: if you have ever had even a moment’s taste in sex, you can conceive of the yogi in whom the union happens within—then the nectar flows twenty-four hours a day. Kabir says: whether I wake or sleep, stand or sit, the nectar keeps flowing. What nectar? The nectar of inner union. Now within, Kabir has become one.
The name of this becoming-one is Atman. Being divided within is called mind, and becoming one within is called Atman. Until the Atman is within you, you are not a person, not an individual; you are a crowd, a mob—many reside within. When this crowd dissolves and only One remains—when duality disappears and only One remains—
Lao Tzu says: ‘He who is conscious of the white but lives with the black; who is aware of the light but lives with the dark—he becomes a pattern for the world. And being the pattern of the world, he attains that eternal power which never errs—and he returns to the primordial existence.’
Conscious of the light, yet living in the dark—an even tougher statement. We desire light against darkness. All our longing for one thing is born against its opposite. Light!
The rishi sang: O Lord, lead me toward the Light! From darkness lead me to light! From death lead me to immortality!
Lao Tzu’s statement is deeper than that rishi’s. For that rishi expresses the ordinary man’s longing; there is nothing extraordinary in what he says. The ordinary longing is: lead me from darkness to light, from death to immortality, from sorrow to joy. This is the common longing; there is not much of the seer in it. Say that he voiced the common man’s desire in his sutra.
But Lao Tzu speaks as one who has known. He says: be aware of the white! Remain awake toward light—but do not choose light against darkness. Do not be afraid of darkness. Live in the dark. Do not panic. For only one who is willing to live in darkness without fear is truly one who has attained to light. One who fears the dark will never truly attain light—because darkness is but one form of light. It is only we who see the difference; Existence does not.
And if we go deeper, it means: one who is aware of morality but is not frightened of immorality; who is awake to sannyas but does not flee the world. This sutra must be spread across all opposites of life. Wherever there is opposition, know that both must be joined together. Then the state that happens is the state of supreme peace.
If we choose out of duality, peace will never happen. One who, out of fear of the world, flees and chooses sannyas will remain afflicted by the world. That which one fears will follow; wherever he goes, no peace will be found. Fear of the world will haunt him like a shadow; however much he escapes, wherever he goes, there the world will be created anew. But one who is renounced in the midst of the world—he has no fear left; he has no need to go anywhere. Wherever he is—
Kabir was close to death. He had lived in Kashi all his life, and at death he said: take me outside Kashi. People said: have you gone mad? People come to die in Kashi, for whoever dies here attains moksha. Kabir said: precisely therefore—take me outside Kashi, for I want to attain there where it is to be attained; I will not take Kashi’s support. People said: why such obstinacy? Even if moksha comes with the help of Kashi, why insist? Kabir said: what I have found within—now if I am thrown into hell, there too is moksha. It makes no difference where I am placed—what I have found within, that itself is moksha.
To die in Kashi for moksha—those are the people who have not found the inner moksha. And those who have not found the inner are mad to think the outer can be found. Die a thousand times in Kashi—moksha will not be attained. Die once within yourself—and moksha is here and now.
The formula for dying within is: do not choose within the duality—absorb the duality as a whole. Good and bad, auspicious and inauspicious, white and black—assimilate both together so that they cancel each other. When they cancel, one returns to the beginningless Existence.
‘And he attains that eternal power which never errs.’
Then he does not have to think, should I do this or not? He does not have to decide what is right and what is wrong. Whatever happens through him is right; what does not happen through him is wrong. His very being is his law.
Enough for today. Sit quietly for five minutes, do the kirtan, and then go.