Tao Upanishad #6

That which is opposed, that which is contrary, is also a companion, also a friend. The enemy too is friend, a near one.
Lao Tzu does not see the opposite as opposite, the distant as distant, the contrary as contrary. Lao Tzu says: all distances are measured only against nearness; and every nearness is but a smaller stretch of distance. If you would draw a white line, you need a dark, black background.
So he who says white is in opposition to black is mistaken; for to make the white stand out, one must use the black. He who says morning destroys the night is deluded; the truth is, morning is born of night.
What we see as opposition, Lao Tzu sees as conjunction. His whole Gestalt, his way of seeing, is the reverse of ours. Where we see tension in things, there Lao Tzu sees attraction. Where we see, all too clearly, that someone is seeking our erasure, there Lao Tzu says: without him we could not be. That one who is trying to erase us—without him there would be no possibility of our being. He takes this, as an example, into every single thing.
He says: if there were no two, there would be no place for one to be. He gives a mathematical example. Mathematicians concede: if we wish to preserve the number one, we must preserve all the numbers that follow two. If we erase all numbers after two, one will be left without meaning. Whatever meaning one has is because of two.
Consider: if you had the solitary figure one, what meaning would it have? What would it mean? None. It would be meaningless. Whatever meaning comes to it arises from the spread that unfolds as two-three-four, right up to nine. If we remove all the numbers after one, one becomes meaningless.
Lao Tzu says: one is not separate from two; it is a part of two. He says: if we remove height, what will lowness be? If we erase mountain peaks, where will valleys remain? How will they remain? Though valleys seem opposite to the mountain’s crest. The peak appears to touch the sky; the valleys seem to touch the netherworld. But Lao Tzu says: valleys form near mountains and because of mountains. In truth, the valley is the peak’s other part, its other face. Erase the one and the other vanishes. If we want to save the peaks and erase the valleys, the peaks will not remain.
We always think the valley is the reverse of the peak.
Lao Tzu says: the valley is the foundation of the peak; the peak is the progenitor of the valley. They are conjoined; there is no way to separate them. Lao Tzu says: what we cannot separate, why call it opposite? What we cannot separate, why call it opposite?
A lifelong enemy of Napoleon died. Tears came to Napoleon’s eyes. A friend nearby said, “You should be happy that your lifelong enemy is dead!”
Napoleon said, “I had never thought of it. But today, now that my lifelong enemy has died—one with whom my enmity was perennial and with whom friendship was never even hoped for—now that he is gone, I find something in me has diminished. I shall never again be what I was in his presence.”
This insight in Napoleon clarifies Lao Tzu’s vision. Napoleon says: with my enemy’s death, something in me too has died, something that, without his presence, can never be again. I have become less. There was something in me that was there because of him. Today he is not, and that thing inside me too is no more.
So this means enemies also make you, not only friends. And without enemies, you too would be diminished, empty.
Lao Tzu says: in the world, nothing is opposite; only apparently so.
Illness is not the opposite of health. And if we ask medical science, it too will say: illness is also a part of health. To fall ill, one must be healthy. Without being healthy we cannot even be ill. Therefore, a dead man cannot be ill. And so, often it happens that beyond a certain age even death becomes difficult. For even to die, if one lacks the requisite health, it becomes arduous. Often, beyond eighty or ninety, death comes faltering in.
Luqman has said: if a man has never fallen ill, then at the very first illness he is finished. For he is so vibrant that the first illness could turn into death. One who has been ill often does not die so quickly. To die at once, one needs a very vibrant health.
These things look reversed. We see illness as the opposite of health. But if we also look from within, we will see that illness is the body’s device to protect health. When you are ill, what you call illness is the strenuous effort your body is making to safeguard health. A man has a fever. Fever is nothing but this: the body is trying so hard to stay healthy that it has become heated, inflamed; it is battling so intensely to be healthy that it looks ill.
In existence, illness and health are two parts of one thing. And all oppositions, all contraries, according to Lao Tzu, are no opposites at all. If a man thinks: I shall never be insulted, let him beware—he will never be honored. The one who is to be honored must keep himself ready to be insulted. And one who is honored passes through many kinds of affront before he can be honored. So Lao Tzu says: if someone does not wish to be insulted, he should do one thing—he should not try to be honored. Then no one will be able to insult him.
Lao Tzu has said: I always sat where no one could make me get up. I sat in the last place; I sat where people remove their shoes. For if someone were to pick me up and throw me, there would be no further to throw me. No one has ever been able to insult me, Lao Tzu says, because I have never desired respect. Desire respect—and insult will come. If you are not prepared for insult, there is no way to have respect. He who wants to rise will fall. And one who fears falling should not try to rise. But he who has the courage to fall can happily rise.
Lao Tzu is saying: that which is the opposite, from which we wish to save ourselves, if we try to escape it, we fall into error; we will get into difficulty. Either escape both, or be prepared for both. Existence is dual. The existence we know, in which we live, the world of our mind, is dual. There, every single thing is held up as an architect makes an arch over a door. In fact, the name architect begins with the arch. He who can make an arch is an architect. The art of the arch over a doorway is simply this: we place opposing bricks. Curved—half the bricks facing one way; half facing the other. Nothing else. But opposing bricks can support the weight of the largest building. The opposite bricks press against each other, they are in mutual contention. From their contention arises strength; that very strength holds the whole building.
Someone might think: if opposing bricks have such power, let us place bricks all facing the same way—then it will be even better. But then no arch will form and no structure will rise. It is from opposing bricks that the portal is made. Then the arch can carry the capacity, the strength, the weight of a great building.
The doorway of life, the foundation of life, rests upon the opposite. Wherever a thing is, immediately the opposing thing that sustains it stands there. Whether woman and man; whether negative electricity and positive electricity; whether sky and earth; whether fire or water—the whole arrangement of life all around is built by setting the opposites against each other, lending support, and creating. The opposite is a collaborator. Those bricks that are set contrary are not enemies; they are friends. Their contrariness is the foundation.
So Lao Tzu gives a few examples. He says: So it is that existence and non-existence give birth to the one the idea of the other. Existence gives the notion of non-existence; non-existence gives the notion of existence. Understand thus: life gives the idea of death; death gives the idea of life. We cannot think of a time when existence would be and non-existence would be no more. Nor can we think of life without death. Where there is life, there will be death. Without death there is no way for life to be.
Why does Lao Tzu say this? So that, if this is understood, an unparalleled acceptance will arise in your mind. Then you will not remain afraid of death. Then you will know: it is an inescapable part of life. Then there will be the capacity to accept and to welcome death as well. Then you will know: when life was desired, death too was desired. The moment I raised my foot toward life, I was already walking toward death. Then you will know that to save life alone is foolish, stupid. Life will be saved only with death. If I want life, I must want death as well. And if I do not want death, I must not want life either.
And in both situations extraordinary wisdom arises. Either a person renounces wanting both life and death—and attains supreme dispassion. Or he wants life and death together, meets them together—and he too attains supreme dispassion. Either drop the duality, or embrace the duality wholly—and you are outside the duality.
But our mind is such as to save one and leave the other. The mind says: save life, drop death. The mind says: save love, drop hate. The mind says: let friends remain, let enemies go. The mind says: let respect come, let insult not come. The mind says: let there be health, let illness never come. The mind says: let youth be, let old age not come. The mind says: let pleasure remain, let pain be avoided.
And when the mind makes such choices, life becomes a crisis—an anxiety, a futile strain. The very act of choosing one out of two is suffering. Either drop both or accept both—and a state of supreme bliss and utter fulfillment arises.
Lao Tzu wishes to show that whatever you may do—whether you grasp or you let go—the dual cannot be separated. They are united. Even “united” is a word of language—they are one. They are two ends of a single thing. Just so, as if a man decides to breathe in but not to breathe out. That man will die. For what we call the outgoing breath and the incoming breath are two names of the same breath. Either drop both, or preserve both. There is no provision for saving one and discarding the other. Lao Tzu takes all these examples for this.
He says, “Existence and non-existence together give birth to each other’s sense.”
They are companions, fellow-travelers, not enemies. Not opposites—paired.
“The intricate and the simple create the feeling of each other.”
If someone seeks to be simple, strives—as sadhus strive to be simple—then the more they strive for simplicity, the more complex they become. Strive to be simple—and you will be complex. Yes, it can happen that in the name of simplicity one cuts down to two garments, keeps a loincloth, eats once a day, sleeps under a tree—this can be done; and still there will be no simplicity. Sleeping under a tree with such purpose and plan, sleeping under a tree with so much regulation and discipline, sleeping under a tree with so much practice—behind all that practice the mind becomes complex, it becomes difficult.
Simplicity means only this: that a person can sleep in a palace exactly as under a tree.
We can see one kind of difficulty easily. If we abruptly put a king—accustomed to palaces, used to costly garments—into a loincloth, he will suffer greatly. But have you ever thought that a fakir, accustomed to a loincloth, seated under a tree—if we suddenly place him on a throne, dress him in fine clothes—will the difficulty be less for him?
The difficulty will be the same—perhaps even greater! Greater, because one needs no special practice to live in a palace, but one needs special practice to live under a tree. To wear beautiful clothes requires no discipline or sadhana, but to be unclothed requires sadhana and planning. So the one who stands naked—if we suddenly give him clothes—he will suffer greatly from our clothes. There will be difficulty within him.
Diogenes, a fakir, once went to meet Socrates. Socrates was a very simple man—simple in the sense of one who had never cultivated simplicity. For one who has cultivated has already become complex. If simplicity must be cultivated, it becomes complicated.
Socrates was simple. He had never cultivated simplicity. He had never grasped any simplicity in opposition to non-simplicity. Diogenes was complex. He had cultivated simplicity. He often remained naked, or if he wore clothes, he wore them patched into rags. If anyone gifted him new clothes, he would first get them cut, torn into pieces, then stitched back together—and only then wear them. If someone gave him new clothes, he would first soil them, rot them, spoil them, then turn them to rags, then join them—and only then put them on. He was a practitioner of simplicity.
He came to meet Socrates. He said to Socrates, “Seeing you in such lovely garments, I wonder—how are you a sage? What kind of simplicity is this?” Socrates laughed and said, “It may be that I am not simple; it may be you are right.”
Diogenes could not have understood that this is the mark of a simple man. So Diogenes said, “You yourself admit it? This is what I have been telling people—that Socrates is not a simple man. You yourself put your seal upon it?” Socrates said, “Since you say so, I find no reason to deny it; I must be non-simple.” Diogenes burst out laughing.
As he was leaving, Socrates’ disciple Plato met him at the door. Diogenes said to Plato, “Listen, your Master has just admitted before people that he is not simple.”
Plato looked him up and down and said, “Through the holes in your tattered rags, nothing but ego is visible. Please do not ever be naked, or else nothing but ego will be seen.” Plato said, “You have not understood; this is precisely the sign of a simple man—that if you go and tell him ‘you are not simple,’ he will accept it. And your advertised simplicity is very non-simple—most intricate.”
If simplicity is deliberate, it becomes complex. And even complexity—if effortless—becomes simple.
The real issue is not choosing between polarities. Whenever we choose one of two, the strange thing is: the opposite immediately appears. If we cultivate ahimsa, non-violence, then the element of violence immediately appears within us. Therefore, whoever cultivates non-violence will become violent in a very subtle form. It will be difficult to recognize his violence, but he will be violent. Whoever cultivates brahmacharya, celibacy, will become lustful at a very deep level. Without the opposite, we cannot cultivate anything. For to cultivate, one must fight the opposite.
And the amusing thing is: we become like that which we fight. It may happen that a friend has no effect on you, but it cannot happen that an enemy has no effect. One may remain unaffected by friends, but remaining unaffected by enemies is impossible. The enemy will leave an imprint. If someone has decided, “I am an enemy of violence,” then no matter how much non-violence he cultivates, deep down he will remain violent. And if one decides, “I will be egoless, I shall wipe out ego,” he will arrive at the state of Diogenes—through the holes of his rags nothing but ego will be seen.
Lao Tzu says: “The intricate and the simple create the feeling of each other.”
If you have come to know that you are simple, know that you have become non-simple. If you have the thought, “I am non-violent,” know that your violence has ripened. If you begin to say, “I have attained brahmacharya,” know that you have fallen into the pit of unchastity. If you announce somewhere, “I have found God,” be certain your hand has slipped off God. These announcements are made only for the opposite. And the opposite cannot be escaped. Therefore, simplicity remains unannounced. It is; and even the one in whom it is does not know it.
Understand it thus. When you are healthy, you have no sense of health. Only the sick know health. It sounds reversed, but it is true. If you are truly healthy, you do not know health at all. Only when illness jars, does health become known. Only when illness knocks at the door, does health become known. Only the sick are filled with awareness of the body; the healthy do not feel the body. Hence in Ayurveda the sign of a healthy man is videha-bhava—the feeling of bodilessness. Only he is healthy who does not feel the body. If one does feel it, he is ill.
In truth, whatever part of the body you feel—that part is ill. If you feel the stomach, it means the stomach is ill. If you feel the head, it means the head is ill. Have you ever felt your head? Without a headache, there is no sense of head. If you feel it even a little, in that measure the headache is present. Health is a natural condition; it is not felt.
The day a person truly becomes simple, he does not know that he is simple. He becomes so simple that if others come and say, “You seem non-simple,” he will accept it. He becomes so available to the Divine that if others come and say, “You know nothing,” he will be content with that too. He becomes so non-violent that the thought “I am non-violent” never occurs. For that thought can arise only in the violent.
“Expansion and contraction fashion each other’s shape.”
Expansion seems big; contraction seems small. The universe appears vast, and the tiny atom very small. But atoms together create the universe. Remove the atoms and the universe is void. Take away the drops and the ocean is emptied. Though the ocean never knows that the drops create it. And if the drop and the ocean were to discuss, the ocean would not accept the drop’s claim: “I create you.” Yet it is drop upon drop that becomes ocean. The ocean is nothing but the sum of drops. And if the ocean is made by the joining of drops, then the drop too is only a small ocean. It is not proper to call the drop anything else; it is a small ocean. Only thus can drop upon drop become the great ocean.
So if we say: the drop is a small ocean, the ocean is a great drop—we would not be mistaken. This is close to truth: the ocean is a great drop and the drop a small ocean. What we call expansion, the vast, the universe, is also atom. And what we call atom is also universe.
The Rishis of the Upanishads have said: they did not see difference between pinda and brahmanda—between the small and the great; they saw the nothing and the all as one.
Lao Tzu says: all this difference we see is a delusion.
If we ask the scientist, he too will agree with Lao Tzu here. And you will be surprised to know that some young Western scientists are very keen about Lao Tzu. And among scientists there is rumination whether, based on Lao Tzu, a new science can be born.
A very precious thinker and mathematician has written a book: Tao and Science.
Can a different kind of science be born out of Lao Tzu’s vision?
It can. For the Western science that came into being stands upon that Greek outlook which accepts opposites. The entire Western science is Aristotelian—built upon Aristotle’s principles. And there is no one more opposite to Lao Tzu than Aristotle. If rightly seen, there are two ideas in the world: one of Aristotle and one of Lao Tzu. The whole thought of the East is Lao Tzu’s; the whole thought of the West is Aristotle’s. If we take note of their slight difference, all becomes easy to grasp.
Aristotle says: darkness is darkness, light is light—opposites with no union. And he says, what need of proof beyond the obvious? Light a lamp, and darkness vanishes; extinguish it, and darkness comes. Darkness comes when there is no light. When light is, darkness is gone. So Aristotle says: darkness is darkness, light is light—no meeting. His entire system, his entire logic, stands upon one foundation: A is A, B is B; and A cannot be B. A is A, B is B; and A can never be B.
Lao Tzu’s entire principle, if cast in Aristotle’s language, would be: A is A and also B; and A cannot remain A without becoming B. Aristotle’s principle is a solid notion; Lao Tzu’s is liquid, flowing.
Lao Tzu says: things are so fluid they flow into their opposites. The valley becomes the peak, the peak a valley. Where there was a valley yesterday, today there is a peak. Where today there is a peak, tomorrow a valley will be. Life becomes death; from death life is rediscovered. Youth grows into old age; the old are born anew as children. No—darkness is not simply darkness, light not simply light. Darkness is light in its slow form; and light is darkness in its intense form.
Lao Tzu and Aristotle—this is a decisive divide in the world.
So Western scientists think in this direction: if ever science develops on Lao Tzu’s foundation, it will be another dimension altogether. Until now science developed by accepting Aristotle. The whole Western science stands on Greek thought. Aristotle is its father. The principles he gave have unfolded over two thousand years. Aristotle and Einstein are not different, but links in the same chain. The logic is the same; the way of thinking is the same.
Lao Tzu is the exact opposite. If Lao Tzu ever becomes the foundation of science, another science will be born, whose vision we can hardly imagine. If—for example—if Aristotle is right, we could save life by destroying death. Indeed, the more we destroy death, the more life will be saved. And if someday we destroy death completely, supreme life will remain—only life. For Lao Tzu the situation is reversed. If we destroy death, we destroy life. If death is utterly destroyed, life will be zero.
Now look: what has in fact happened? Curiously, the more diseases we have eradicated, the less healthy man has become. Health has not improved by the reduction of disease. The man of Lao Tzu’s time was healthier than we are—though in his time there were not as many means to combat disease as we have.
Even today the forest tribesman has few means to fight disease. There are many illnesses around him, and no means. Yet he is much healthier than we are. And there are so many proofs of his health that one is astonished. In the African jungles even today, among so-called uncivilized tribes, any wound made upon the body heals in forty-eight hours without any treatment. Without any treatment! An axe may cut the leg; in forty-eight hours the wound will close. Scientists say their health is unparalleled. That health-energy, that vitality, in twenty-four hours heals any wound—without treatment! Or whatever treatment there is is no treatment—some leaf tied on, some such thing with no scientific relevance. The leaf is only an excuse; the body itself heals the wound.
In the African jungle, diseases abound; there is no remedy, no understanding of medicine, no medical college, no physician; yet health is extraordinary.
Lao Tzu may be right. He says: the more you strive to end disease, the more you will also end health. Because this world rests upon duality; if you topple the bricks on one side, the opposing bricks on the other will instantly fall. And now Western scientists too have begun to think there may be truth in Lao Tzu’s word.
There is an old story: a Lao Tzu follower, an old man of ninety, was in his garden with his young son—about thirty. In a place where one should yoke oxen or horses to draw water from the well, both were yoked themselves, sweating and pulling the water. Confucius passed by. Between Confucius and Lao Tzu there is the same opposition as between Aristotle and Lao Tzu. Confucius is Aristotelian; his way of thinking is Aristotle’s way. Hence the West gave Confucius great respect these last three hundred years. Lao Tzu’s respect is growing now, because science has fallen into a strange and difficult situation.
Confucius passed by the garden. He saw a ninety-year-old man and his thirty-year-old son yoked and dripping with sweat, hauling water. Pity arose in Confucius. He said, “Foolish man, you must not know. In the cities we now draw water by horses or oxen! Why are you yoked to this?”
The old man said, “Speak softly—lest my son hear.” Confucius was amazed. The old man said, “Come back a little later, when my son has gone home to eat.”
When the son went off, Confucius returned. “Why did you not let your son hear?” he asked.
The old man said, “I am ninety and can still wrestle this work from a thirty-year-old. But if I yoke my son to horses, then at ninety he will not have my health. The horses will have it; my son will not. Do not say this. If my son hears, his life will be ruined. We have come to know that in the cities horses are yoked. And we have come to know machines are made to draw water from wells. Then my son will want to draw it by machines. But when machines draw the water, what will my son do? What will happen to his body? What will happen to his health?”
What we do on one side, immediately the other side bears fruit. And if Lao Tzu is right, the fruit can be calamitous.
For example, we want to sleep deeply. The one who wants deep sleep is a lover of rest. And the lover of rest will not labor. And the one who does not labor cannot sleep deeply. Lao Tzu says: labor and rest are conjoined. If you want rest, labor deeply—labor so deeply that rest descends upon you.
But we will think in Aristotle’s way: rest and labor are opposites. If I love rest and want deep sleep, I should sit idly all day. But he who sits idly all day loses the rest of the night. For rest must be earned through labor. It has to be earned. If you would enter rest, you must earn it by labor. Or else be content without rest.
So a curious event occurs: the lover of rest rests all day, and loses the sleep of night. And the more sleep he loses, the more he rests the next day to make up the deficit. The more he makes up, the more the sleep of night is destroyed. One day he finds he is caught in a vicious circle where rest becomes impossible.
Lao Tzu says: if you want rest, go the opposite way—labor. For labor and rest are not opposites; they are collaborators, companions. The deeper you labor, the deeper the rest into which you will go. And its reverse is also true: the deeper the rest, the next day the greater your capacity to labor. If this insight dawns, Lao Tzu will say the question is not to destroy the opposite, but to use it.
Aristotle says: nature gives diseases; fight nature. Hence the entire language of Western science is the language of combat. Russell has written a book: Conquest of Nature. It is all the language of struggle.
Lao Tzu will laugh. He will say: you do not know—you are a part of nature. How will you gain victory? As if my hand were to set out to conquer me—what then? As if my foot were to think to conquer me—what then? Absurdity. Lao Tzu says: nature cannot be conquered because you are nature. And the one who goes to conquer is nature’s part as well. In the attempt to conquer you will only fill yourself with tension and torment. Live nature, do not conquer nature. Do not wrest her secrets by fighting; love nature, drown in her—and she opens her secrets of her own accord.
If someday the entire structure of science is built upon Lao Tzu, science will be entirely different. Not the language of fight, but of cooperation. Not conflict—cooperation! Then we will think in an altogether different way. And the one who thinks in the language of conflict has this logic: A is A, B is B; therefore, to gain A, remove B—then A will increase. If you want health, fight disease. Erase disease—and health will grow. No.
I was reading the memoirs of Rothschild. He had air-conditioned his entire house. The porch is air-conditioned. The door opens automatically for the car to enter; closes automatically as it leaves. The car is air-conditioned. From it he steps into his air-conditioned office through an air-conditioned porch. Then twenty-five illnesses begin. The doctors tell him to sit two hours in a hot-water tub. Then he sits two hours in hot water to sweat.
Then it occurs to him: what am I doing? By air-conditioning I have arranged to stop the sweat. Then, having blocked the sweat, I sit two hours in a tub to produce sweat. Then, having sweated too much, I feel heat; so I sit in air-conditioning to cool. Then, having cooled too much, the sweat does not come, I fall ill—and then…what am I doing?
Almost the language of conflict throws us into such a duality.
Lao Tzu says: what we call opposite is not opposite. And if you would savor coolness, you cannot do so without savoring the sun. It seems reversed, but I too say Lao Tzu is right. If you would relish coolness, you cannot without having relished sweat. He who has not enjoyed the bliss of sweat will not enjoy coolness. For him coolness becomes an illness. But he who has rejoiced in flowing sweat, only he, seated in coolness, will enjoy coolness. In truth, he who does not know how to be hot will not be able to be cool. These are not opposites; they are conjoined. Their union is the music of life.
Therefore Lao Tzu says: “High and low rely upon mutual opposition; the notes and tones of music, interrelated, create harmony.”
Musical notes—opposite notes, contrary notes—when united, rhythmically aligned, give birth to loftier music. What we call harmony, the rhythm of music, is a gathering of opposing notes. When we make noise, we employ those very sounds that we use to produce music. What is the difference? In noise those sounds are chaotic, there is no coordination. In music those same sounds become rhythmic; they bind in mutual cooperation.
If we topple this house and heap up the bricks, the material will be the same—the bricks the same. Then, spreading out these same bricks, we make a beautiful house. The notes and sounds are the same as those heard in the market’s clamor. The same notes, the same sounds. What happens in music? We remove their chaos, their inner quarrel; we establish friendship even between opposites. Those same notes, those same sounds, become incomparable music. And if someone thinks we will create music with only one kind of note, he is mad. From one kind of note, music will not be born. For music, many notes are needed—varied notes are needed; even notes that look opposite, contrary—only then can music be made.
Without freeing ourselves from this Aristotelian notion lodged in our minds since childhood, it is very hard to understand Lao Tzu. Our Gestalt, our way of seeing, is always in opposites. Wherever we see something, we immediately break it into the language of the opposite—in anything whatsoever! If someone criticizes you, you immediately think he is an enemy. But he could be a friend. And those who know will say: he is a friend. Kabir says: keep the slanderer close, build him a hut in your courtyard. The one who slanders you—give him a good place near you. For he will say such useful things that perhaps no one else will tell you. At least your friends will never tell you. He can say things that may become helpful in your self-seeing. He can say things that may become a path to meet yourself. Keep him right by you.
Now Kabir is speaking Lao Tzu’s word. Do not take the one who condemns you as an enemy. There is no need. His condemnation too can be used. His condemnation too can become a harmonious music. But we are upside-down! Leave condemnation aside—even if someone suddenly begins to praise us, we startle: something is fishy. Who praises anyone without a motive? Surely there is some interest. Behind the flattery there must be a motive. If he is praising, he will surely ask for something—perhaps he has come to borrow, who knows what is coming next! Even praise startles us—what to say of condemnation!
Lao Tzu… As for our way of viewing life—one way is: we stand amid the enmity of the whole world. Illness is an enemy, death an enemy, old age an enemy. Those around us are enemies, nature is an enemy, society an enemy. The whole world, the whole God, is set against us. And we are alone. We must live by fighting this entire struggle. One Gestalt is this. One way.
The other way is this: moon, stars, sky and earth, God and society, animals, birds, trees and plants—and all—illness too, the enemy too, death too—are my companions, my fellow travelers. All are parts of my life. With all of them, I am. Without them, I will not be. This is the second Gestalt. The other way of life.
Surely, the final result of the first way is worry, anxiety. If it is nothing but fighting the whole world—twenty-four hours, from morning to night—then life cannot be joy. And even after fighting, one must die. Day by day one must lose. For who ever wins by fighting? Death will come, old age will come, illness will come—fighting or not, all will come. And we will go on fighting, and all this will go on happening—what will be the final result? We will become hollow, and inside us nothing will remain but anxiety.
The reflection of Western science has almost brought us to such a state. One must fight everything; one must fear everything. For when you must fight, you will fear. And when you must fight, you must arrange defenses against everything opposite. Hitler did not marry for this reason: if he married, at least one woman would gain the right to sleep in his room; and at night she might press his throat!
If the whole world is a struggle… According to Freud, the relation between husband and wife is a quarrel, a conflict. This is the spread of Aristotle’s thought across the whole Western mind! The relation between husband and wife—Freud calls it a sexual war. It is not love and such; it is only a sex-war in which the husband seeks to dominate the wife, the wife to dominate the husband. The clever wage this quest for power and domination by polite means; the boorish take up the stick and fight. But still it is conflict.
This is one Gestalt in which all relationships become thus. It is not that only the relation of nature and man is distorted. When the vision of relationship is distortion, no relation remains. Then between father and son there is conflict. Turgenev’s well-known book: Fathers and Sons—where he says between father and son there is continuous struggle. No relation exists except struggle. The son claims the father’s place; hence he is set to oust the father—to make him leave the place, hand over one key, then the second, then the third. “Now you sit at home; now retire; now let me sit at the shop, at the office.” The son is trying. The father is trying to hold his footing that as long as possible he remains where he is and does not let the son enter. It is not hard to see it so. It can be seen; it is so—as we have made life, in our way, it is so.
And the most amusing thing is: the father is raising the son, feeding him, nurturing him. Only so that the son may seize his place tomorrow. He is educating him—only so that tomorrow he may take possession of his books of account. He protects him from disease, educates him, raises him—so that tomorrow he may snatch the keys. The mother is eager to arrange the son’s marriage. Tomorrow the wife will come and start snatching everything. And then the quarrel begins. And it continues.
What is our Gestalt of seeing?
If we see life in the language of quarrel, of conflict, of struggle, then slowly on all layers of life and in all relationships, conflict will be. Then the person remains alone and the whole world stands opposite like an enemy. The whole world in competition, and I alone.
Naturally, standing in competition against such a vast world—what will we gain but mountains of anxiety? And even after anxiety there is no way to victory, for defeat must be. Old age will come, death will come, all will sink. Whether the father fights or not, he must hand it over to the son. Whether the mother-in-law fights or not, power will go to the daughter-in-law. And whether the guru fights or not, today or tomorrow the disciple will sit in his place.
Bayazid has written a sutra: “Those to whom I taught archery—ultimately, I became their target.” Whoever learned archery—their final target became me.
He has said rightly. If between guru and disciple there is struggle, that is what will happen. The guru is preparing the disciple only so that tomorrow the disciple may remove him.
All of life is a struggle to remove the other. Everywhere enemies, no friends. Those who look like friends are only slightly less enemies—just that. Enemies of our own—just that. Some are enemies a little farther away, some a little nearer. Those nearer take some care. Those farther take none. But enmity is constant.
Lao Tzu proposes another Gestalt. And if in the way he proposes it, it could ever come into man’s understanding, we would create another kind of culture, another kind of world. He says: you are not separate at all. Where then is the question of enmity? You are not a mere individual. You appear an individual only because you have no sense of the whole. But wherever there is an individual, he is linked with the whole. You cannot be without the whole. You are because all are. That tree standing at the door is also participating in your being.
Lao Tzu said to a disciple who had been sent by someone to pluck a few leaves from the tree in front—he was breaking off a whole branch to carry it away. Lao Tzu stopped him and said, “You do not know, foolish one, that if this tree becomes incomplete, you too become less. While it stood before us complete, in some meanings we too were greener. Today its wound has become a wound within us.”
We are not so separate; we are all connected. We have cut down trees on the earth. Lao Tzu says this on the breaking of a branch. We have cut down all the trees, felled all the forests. Now we realize we made a mistake. We cut forests thinking the forest is man’s enemy. For in the forest man was afraid—wild beasts, fear, alarm. Cutting down forests, making the ground bare, we raised our cities. We forgot that the rain that falls upon our cities will not fall without forests; the winds that flowed over our cities will not flow without forests; the coolness that descended upon our cities would not descend without forests. If we cut down all trees, our cities will become desolate.
Today there is a movement across Europe—trees must not be cut; even cutting a single leaf is a grave crime. Because man will fall if the trees fall.
So Lao Tzu, two and a half thousand years ago, on the breaking of a branch, says: “You do not know, foolish one—we have become less. That tree was a part of us, of our existence.”
As if from a painting someone were to remove a tree in a corner—the painting would no longer remain what it was; it becomes something else. A small brushstroke, a small line of color, changes the whole painting. Just a hint! If we remove even a small tree from a painting, the painting is no longer the same. For the total, the overall form, changes. The entire relation changes. The tree that stood between the sky and the hut—now it is gone. Now the sky and the hut stand stark naked.
We cut down the trees. We thought we would make a good place for man to live. We wiped out animals; we made some species extinct. Now ecology—the movement that is afoot called ecology—says: whatever we have reduced, man is bearing the consequence. The birds that sing in the forest are also our share. And the day no bird sings in the forest, that day we create a disruption in nature’s music. After that disruption our minds will not remain as serene as they were with that music. But we do not think. For this is vast; man lives in his tiny house, in his corner. He does not know whether clouds move in the sky now or not, whether flowers come on the trees or not, whether in spring the birds sing or not.
Three years ago a book was published in England: The Silent Spring. Three years ago, in England’s spring, a startling difference arose. Millions of birds suddenly fell from the trees in spring and died. Millions! Their bodies piled up on the roads. The whole spring turned silent. And it was a great puzzle: what happened? What went wrong? From the errors in experiments with radiation and atomic energy in England, such happened. But after that spring, England became pale. Such a spring will not come again in England. A large portion of the singing birds was wiped out in one stroke. To replace them is difficult.
But if such a spring does not come, we will think: what difference does it make to us? Will it affect our shop? Our office? If birds do not sing…
If only life were so separate! It is not. All is conjoined, all is linked. Even if a star billions of light-years away is destroyed, something lessens on this earth. If the moon vanished tomorrow, the earth would change. The waves of your seas would not rise; the menstrual rhythms of your women would be disturbed; they would not come in twenty-eight days. They come in twenty-eight days because of the moon. Everything would change. A small difference and the whole state of things changes.
Lao Tzu said: let things be as they are. Accept. They are companions. Do not remove even the apparent enemy. Let him live too—for nature’s web is profound, mysterious. Within, all things are linked. You do not know what disturbance you will cause by removing one piece.
Now that talk of ecology has begun across the world and man’s understanding has grown, it has begun to be known that in how many ways we are linked—it is hard to say! Very hard to say in how many ways we are linked. For example, if we cut down the forests and remove the trees, then the elements of life the trees gather for us vanish.
Trees transform the sun’s rays, make them fit to be digested in our bodies. The direct rays of the sun cannot be digested by our bodies. Trees drink them in and transform them, making them fit for our food. Trees draw the soil from the earth and manufacture food. You never think when you eat a vegetable that if the trees did not produce it there would be only a heap of dirt below. That heap of dirt became vegetable; and as vegetable it became fit to be digested by you.
For twenty-four hours you breathe in oxygen and throw out carbon dioxide. Trees drink in all the carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. If the trees on earth decrease, you will exhale carbon dioxide and oxygen will grow less day by day. One day you will find life has gone quiet—because the trees that give oxygen were cut down.
Lao Tzu did not even know of oxygen. He did not even know what trees do. Yet he says: things are all linked; you are not alone. If you make even a small tampering, there will be tampering in you too. Existence is integrated—an integrated existence. In it, non-existence too is linked. In it, death too is linked. In it, illness too is linked. All is conjoined. Lao Tzu says: among these, if there is the notion of cooperation—not conquest, but companionship, togetherness, oneness—then a music arises in life. That very music is Tao, that very music is Dharma, that very music is Rit.
It seems that as our understanding of ecology deepens, our grasp of Lao Tzu will deepen. For the more we learn how things are linked, the more we must give up our haste to tinker.
Just now I was looking at this: in only sixty years, at the rate we are pouring oil upon the sea’s surface—by a thousand ways, through factories, through ships—in sixty years, if it continues thus, there will be no need of any war; that oil spread across the sea’s surface will kill us. For the sea’s water, taking the sun’s rays, produces certain life-elements without which life on earth will be impossible. This is the latest finding. And when a layer of oil forms upon the sea’s surface, that element ceases to arise.
Now we use detergent powders in place of soap. Ecological study says: if for only fifty years we keep using these new washing powders in place of soap, no world war will be needed; man will die just using them. Soap, when you wash clothes, returns into the soil in fifteen days—reabsorbed into nature. But detergents take one hundred fifty years to decompose. For one hundred fifty years they remain as they are in the soil; they cannot be absorbed. And after fifteen years they begin to be poisonous. And for one hundred fifty years they cannot break down. That means for one hundred thirty-five years they remain as poison in the soil. And at the rate the world is using them, scientists say: after fifty years, whatever grows on the earth will be toxic. You will drink water and drink poison. You will cut vegetables and cut poison.
But we have no understanding of how things are linked. Soap is costly, detergent cheaper. Fine—that’s the end of the matter. It is cheaper, so we use it. Whatever we are doing is integrated. And a slight difference—a matter of inches—will bring vast differences.
Lao Tzu was in favor of no tampering. He said: accept life as it is. Accept the opposite too; it has some mystery. Death comes—embrace it too; it too has some mystery. Do not fight; yield. Fall at the feet of life; surrender. Do not enter into conflict.
And Lao Tzu says: if you enter surrender, not even a trace of anxiety arises in your life. What worry is there for a surrendered mind? He who has not cultivated enmity with nature—what worry for him? The one who is not going to fight—what fear of loss? His victory is assured. His defeat is his victory. For surrendering, for yielding, Lao Tzu speaks all these sutras.
The final sutra he says: “And only through preceding and following does the sense of order arise.”
The one who goes first, and the one who comes after—that is how we create sequence. If the one ahead does not go, the one behind will not come. Understand it thus: a venerable elder passes away in a house. We never connect it that the birth of a child in the house requires the elder to pass! But when the elder dies, we weep and wail. And when a child is born, we beat the drums! Though we never see the link that the going of an elder is only the arrangement of freeing space for a child. The one who goes ahead is necessary for the one who comes behind.
We want to retain the elder and also to summon the child. Both cannot be. Consider: if in a house the elders of two, three, four generations did not die—what would happen? The children would go mad at birth. No sooner born than mad! If elders of four or five generations lived in a house, it would be impossible for children to live. Elders of one generation make it difficult enough. If elders of four or five generations were there, the elders of two or three would have no worth at all—their elders would be behind them. And they would be so experienced they would not let the children learn. They would know so much that children would have no way to know. They would sit so heavily on the children’s necks that the children would have no chance to move. Children would go mad at birth.
The going of the elder is necessary so that the children may come. And when children come, elders will go on departing.
Lao Tzu says: all is bound in sequence. When youth comes, childhood must go. When old age comes, youth must go. And all this is conjoined. We divide it even here. We say: this much we like—let this remain; let youth remain.
When Bernard Shaw had grown old, someone asked him, “What are your thoughts now?” And Bernard Shaw said ver...
He said something very surprising. Bernard Shaw said, “When I was young, I used to think I might remain young forever! Having grown old, I have come to see that by giving power to the young, God has wasted power in vain. If so much strength had been given to the old, then along with experience it would have been a real joy. By giving strength to the young—by giving power to utterly inexperienced people—it has been squandered.”

But as experience increases, strength diminishes. The inexperienced have more strength—there is some secret of nature in this. A child is the most powerful; an old person becomes the most weak. If it were in our hands—as Bernard Shaw suggested—then we would say the child should be utterly weak; he should have no strength at all. Strength should belong to the old, for he has experience. Yet the tender, inexperienced child has the strength to expand, to grow, to evolve; and the experienced old person has no strength. What is the matter here?

The matter is significant. In truth, the very accumulation of experience means that death is drawing near. The very accumulation of experience means that death is coming close. The accumulation of experience means the work of life is complete; now you are to take leave. And when the work of life is complete—when the time has come to leave the university, the university of life—there is no need of strength. To go into the grave, no strength is needed; you will go. For the inexperienced, strength is needed, because without strength experience cannot be gained. One will have to err and stumble, wander, fall and rise. The inexperienced has strength; the experienced has none, because now he no longer needs to err. He already knows the fixed, bound path; he walks upon it. He doesn’t stray off the track. He doesn’t make mistakes, he does not get entangled; he always does the right thing. He does not need much strength.

The child has more strength because the entire expanse of experience still lies open. He still has to go and learn. So the inexperienced has strength, because experience requires strength. The experienced has no strength, because for the experienced nothing remains except death.

But we make many attempts to reverse this order of life. We try to give our son experience—experience before its time. Before his own experience, we try to hand him ours. That never becomes possible. It never can be, because we have no sense of nature’s own rhythmic arrangement, its order in which there is a sequence; in which the one who has gone before is linked with the one who comes after, and the one who comes after is linked with the one who went before. We have no awareness of this.

If a person comes to me and offers reverence, I begin to hope that he will now offer me reverence every day. There I go wrong. I err, because the person who has offered me reverence has created a great possibility that tomorrow he will offer me irreverence. When will irreverence come to completion? For life is made of opposites. He who has given me reverence will also give me irreverence. If one has Lao Tzu’s deep understanding, he knows: from the one from whom you have received reverence, be prepared also to receive irreverence. But we? From the one who showed us reverence, we prepare to receive even more reverence! Then we fall into difficulty. And from the one who showed us irreverence, we expect further irreverence, though that expectation is equally mistaken. He who has shown us irreverence will, today or tomorrow, be preparing to show us reverence—because opposites are conjoined.

I often tell a story of a Jewish mystic. A Hasid—a revolutionary mystic—wrote a book. The Jewish priestly class stands opposed to them, as always happens. This Hasid sent his book to the chief Jewish priest. To the messenger carrying it he said, “Just watch what they do. Don’t say a word; don’t do anything—only watch, be a witness.”

He went and delivered the book. The chief priest and his wife were sitting in their garden at dusk. He handed over the book and said, “Such-and-such Hasid has sent this.” The priest had barely taken it in hand; as soon as he heard that a Hasid had sent it, he flung the book forcefully toward the road and said, “I would not even like to touch such an impure book.”

His wife said, “But why so harsh? There are so many books in the house; you could have just kept it. And even if you had to throw it away, you could have done so after this man had gone. What need was there for such uncivil behavior? Keep it—there are so many books here; one more would have sat on the shelf. And if you had to throw it, you could have tossed it later. Why such haste!”

The messenger heard this while standing there. He thought to himself, “The wife is good.” Returning, he told his master, “The priest seems a very wicked man. There is no hope that he can ever become interested in you. But his wife could someday become interested in you.”

The mystic said, “First tell the whole tale; don’t interpret. What actually happened?”

He replied, “Only this: the priest took the book and threw it away as if it were poison, and said, ‘Throw it out, I won’t even touch it. I cannot even lay a hand on something so impure.’ And his wife said, ‘Why such hurry? You could have kept it; there are many books in the house. And if you had to throw it, you could have thrown it later. There was no need to be so rude.’”

The Hasid—the mystic—said, “With the priest, our connection will yet be made; with his wife, never. With the priest, our connection will certainly happen. One who is filled with so much hatred—how long can he remain so full of hatred? After all, love will wait for him; he will return. But the woman who speaks with such indifference—‘Keep it, let it lie there; later throw it away; what was the harm; at least observe decorum’—that woman has no feeling for us at all: neither hatred nor love. With her, a relationship is very difficult. But with the priest, our connection will be made. You will see: the priest will already have picked up the book and started reading. Go back.”

The messenger said, “What are you saying! Will he ever read it?”

“Go back. Don’t interpret. Go and see again.”

He returned and found the door closed. Peeking through the window, he saw the priest holding the book and reading.

Life is like this! One who hurls abuse carries within him the capacity to love. One who expresses love carries within him the capacity to abuse. Opposites are joined. One who honors you begins gathering the capacity to dishonor; one who dishonors begins gathering the eagerness to ask forgiveness. If one can see life in this way, then neither is friend truly friend, nor enemy truly enemy. Then things begin to appear within a vast pattern, a vast structure—a single gestalt.

Then, if someone comes near me, I know he will go far. And when someone goes far from me, I know he will come near. Yet there is no need to worry either about the one who comes near or the one who goes far. Such is the law of life. When one is born, it is in order to die; and when one dies, it is in order to be born. Such is the law of life. If we can understand the polarity of this vast law as the rhythmic, metrical form of a single order, then Lao Tzu becomes easy to understand. This is the meaning of this sutra.