Tao Upanishad #70

The sun rises, it also sets. Breath comes, it also goes. Stars wheel; seasons change. The vast doing of nature goes on, and yet it is utterly like non-doing. There is no doer there. No one strives for the sun to rise; no plan is made by moon and stars to move; the flowers make no arrangements to bloom; rivers do not swell with any selfhood, any sense of being a doer, to run toward the ocean.
Except for man, there is nowhere any doer. There is immense movement, abundant action; but no awareness of a doer anywhere. When a seed cracks open and sprouts, no feeling arises of “I am cracking open, I am sprouting, I am going to become a tree.” And when blossoms open on the tree, the tree does not feel, “I have produced these flowers.” The vast deed happens, but there is no sense of a doer.
Surely, the sense of being the doer is man’s illness. It is necessary to understand this deeply. For the illness is very deep, and it has entered into every mode of our being. Whatever happens, you immediately convert it into doing. Hunger happens, youth comes, old age comes; life is born and then dissolves again into death. In all this there is no doing anywhere. You do not do anything; it is all happening. But if you see it as happening, just so, then there will be no place for the ego to stand. So you change being into doing. You convert that which is happening into your action. And only by making it your action can you feel, “I am.” Behind the whole sickness of doing is the craving to create an “I.” If all is happening, then there is no meaning left to your being. The moment you do something, the “I” stands up.
All the religions of the world say that this “I” of ours is the obstacle; drop it, renounce it, destroy it. But the odd thing is: only those who have attained awakenings like Tao truly understand that these teachings went wrong. Because when we say, “Drop the ego,” we make that too into an act, a doing. Who will drop it? Whoever drops it has again become the doer. Who will renounce the ego? Who will annihilate the ego? Whoever does so has created a new ego.
Ego simply means the feeling of being a doer. So the ego cannot be renounced; there is no way. Because if you renounce, then the one who renounces is a newly manufactured ego. The old went, the new has arisen. And the new will certainly be more dangerous than the old, subtler, fresher, more powerful. And then lifetimes will pass in even recognizing it.
The ego can neither be destroyed nor renounced, nor pruned and made humble. Because the ego is the feeling of being the doer. Lao Tzu says: if it is understood that the play of life moves on its own, without any doer; if within yourself you also understand that everything is happening, that there is no question of doing, then the ego will not be produced at all; there will be no question of renouncing it. The question of renunciation arises only after the ego has been manufactured. And a manufactured ego is impossible to renounce. What is possible is not to let it be manufactured; what is possible is not to feed it; what is possible is to understand the process of its formation and step aside from that process. But to erase an already formed ego is difficult, because erasing is again a deed. And by deeds the ego is strengthened.
Therefore the worldly man has an ego; the sannyasi has an ego—subtler and more poisonous than the worldly man’s. The sensualist has an ego, but the ego of the yogi has no comparison. The ordinary have an ego; the extraordinary have an ego. But the ego of the extraordinary, of the so-called holy, is very subtle; it is hardly visible. Yet its edge is razor-sharp. Look around the so-called great men and you will see it—if your eyes are keen enough.
I was just reading someone’s memoir. A pundit went to a Jain muni. That muni had great prestige. The pundit wished to write a book on his life. He said to the muni, “Grant me permission to write your biography, and bless me that I may succeed.” The Jain muni said, “I have no need at all of praise, no need at all of panegyric, no greed for fame.” The pundit was deeply impressed—how humble! No need for reputation, no need for public recognition.
But if you listen a little more closely to the tone, it is the accent of ego: “I have no need of praise! I have no greed for fame!” Who is this “I” standing behind? It is subtle; it won’t be recognized at once. But who needs no panegyric? Who is it that says, “I have no need for fame?”
Once the “I” says, “I need fame”—that is the worldly “I.” Then the “I” says, “I have no need for fame”—that is the sannyasi’s “I.” And the second is more dangerous. For the “I” that needs fame is not yet a great “I”—it is still incomplete, not full; it wants something. But the “I” that declares, “I have no need at all of fame,” is saying, “Your fame is worth two pennies; your acclaim, your eulogies are worthless. I kick them away; I have no need. I am where your fame cannot touch me.”
This is very subtle; it demands a very fine vision to see. We are familiar with gross ego; we do not recognize the subtle one.
Why does this happen? It happens because the muni is trying to drop ego; this is the result. Whether fame is needed or not, the underlying mechanism remains the same. When ego is absent, both needs vanish. Neither will there be a need for fame nor the need to declare “I do not need fame.” Both will be gone. For then nothing happens through me; I am not the doer. Then whatever happens, happens in the flow, and I simply watch—I am the witness. If blame comes, I watch; if fame comes, I watch that too. If someone censures, I watch; if someone praises, I watch that too. Then there is no need for me to say anything; no need to prop up this “I.”
But the seeker, in trying to drop the ego, erects a new one. The pathways of the ego are strange. If you understand Lao Tzu’s aphorism, a great lightness will arise. Lao Tzu does not say to you, “Drop.” For what can you drop? You can do nothing; the very talk of doing is delusion. On one side, we build the world and enjoy the taste: “I am creating a world, I am building a house, I am earning wealth; the safe is swelling.” It is a juice, the juice of “I am doing.” One day you get fed up with all this; then you start renouncing. Then you say, “I have renounced wealth.” And you keep accounts of your renouncing—just as before you kept accounts of collecting. You tally how much you had, and now how much you dropped. How grand the house was, and I kicked it—also entered in the ledger. What a beautiful woman was mine, and I renounced her—entered as well. You keep accounts of everything, because you did the renouncing. Before, accumulating was your treasure; now, renouncing is your treasure. But the treasure stands where it stood. Then you collected the coins of the world; now you collect the coins of moksha. But collecting continues. And the “I” is stiff with pride. And naturally that pride will be greater now; all can collect, but few have the courage to renounce. Only the supremely egotistic gather the courage to renounce.
I don’t mean to say, “Do not renounce.” I am not saying, “If you renounce, it will be a sin.” I am saying: wherever doership enters, sin is inevitable. You collected—there was the doer. You renounced—there too the doer. When the doer falls away, a happening of virtue, of punya, takes place. Therefore, what you grasp and what you drop is not important; what matters is who fattens, who is nourished by both. Swabhava is doing. As you are, whatever is happening is the play of the vast Dharma—or the play of Paramatma, if the word Paramatma is sweet to you.
Lao Tzu says, “Tao never acts, yet through it everything is done.”
Action is the conception of a weak man. The very sense of doing is weakness. By the sense of doing we keep our egos standing: something, something, something we are doing. The language of doing may change, but the relish of doing, the disease of doing, continues. This has to be recognized. To recognize it, a few directions of inquiry are needed.
First: you were born. Was your birth your deed? Did anyone ask you, “Please take birth”? Did anyone take your counsel? Was there any need of your decision?
No one asked; no question of asking arose. One day you were not; one day you were. Birth happened; it was not a deed. Then you were a child—simple, innocent; that too was no deed. Then you became young; crookedness came, desires stirred, anger and ambition grew; there too was no deed. That too happened. Then you became old; desires tired, grew thin. You ran and saw—nothing was gained; dispassion began to be born, vairagya arose. There too was no deed; that too happened. Then death happened; there too was no deed. If you look closely, life is deedless.
And if it becomes clear that events are happening, that I do nothing, then all your worry will drop; all tension will dissolve this very moment. No asceticism over many births is needed. This simple seeing—that all is happening—will make you weightless. What burden is left on you then? Even if you are bad, the responsibility is not yours. If you are good, there is no glory and praise that belongs to you either.
It happens that one man’s nose is a little long, another’s not so long. One man’s eyes shine, another’s do not. One man steals, one is a saint. If all is happening, the whole burden is gone. Then one plant has thorns and another has none; one bears red flowers, another yellow; one’s are large, another’s are small. Once this begins to be seen—that events are happening—
it is still very difficult. Many times the wise came very near to this truth, yet to express this truth is dangerous. The fear is: if we say all is happening, people will be spoiled. They will say, “Then there is no responsibility at all. If we must murder, we’ll murder—because it is happening. If we must steal, we’ll steal—because it is happening. If anger happens, it happens. Who are we? We have no duty, no responsibility.” For fear of this, this supreme truth has often been hidden.
But this fear is groundless, utterly futile. The truth is just the opposite. The person who experiences that all is happening—what we call sin begins to fall away of its own accord. For at the root of all sin is ego. However much it may appear otherwise, ego is the root of every sin. If the sense arises that all is happening…
In India we placed it differently—we called it fate, niyativad; we called it bhagya. At depth it is the same. We say: Paramatma is doing. It simply means: we are not doing. Whether Paramatma is doing or not doing is not the question.
But the Taoic statement is more scientific; Lao Tzu’s view is more scientific. He says: even if we remove the doer from ourselves, we do not remove doership; we project it onto God. We move it from here and place it there; we never get rid of it. Lao Tzu says: get rid of it completely. Neither you are the doer, nor is God the doer. Doership simply is not happening anywhere; life’s flow is spontaneous. In that vast orchestration of events, you are also present—one knot interlinked with innumerable happenings. The moment this is realized, ego falls—this is the first thing.
But moralists are afraid that this truth is dangerous. Indeed, every truth will be dangerous because society stands on untruth. When you stand on untruth, truth is dangerous—because as soon as truth appears, your edifice falls; it was built on falsehood. A man sits with a house of cards, eyes closed, dreaming: “We’ll live in this house, marry, have children.” If someone says to him, “What are you doing? This house is of cards!” naturally he will be angry. You are not only ruining his house; you are stealing his whole web of imagination, all his dreams, his entire future; you are denying all his past and all his future. For his whole life he spent building this house, and his future life is planned to be lived in it—and you say, “It is a house of cards!” He will not be ready to listen. He will deny you: “This cannot be true! What falsehood you speak!” Not because what you say is false, but because you are taking away the falsehood on which he stands.
Therefore the world has never welcomed those who reveal truth from close by. They cannot welcome Lao Tzu, nor Jesus. Yes, long afterward they can welcome them—when a gang of interpreters has woven webs of falsehood around their truth, and their truth has been explained into something in which truth no longer remains, only a net of dogma.
What relation has Jesus to the Pope of the Vatican? None. Jesus and the Pope are as far apart as can be. You too could be related to Jesus, but the Pope has no relation. Yet he is the representative. And certainly, Christianity was not erected by Jesus; it was erected by Popes. Around Jesus’ truth a net of falsehood is woven—so thick that the ember of truth is no longer visible beneath the ashes of doctrine. Then you are reassured, and you worship.
Lao Tzu speaks pure truth. He says: life has only one sin, one delusion, one ignorance—that “I am doing.” When birth was not in your hands, when life is not in your hands, when death is not in your hands—what is in your hands? Those small things you think are in your hands—analyze them deeply. Someone insults you; anger arises. Are you doing anger? Are you the doer? Or is anger arising? Someone beautiful appears and you fall in love. Do you think you are doing love? Or did love happen? And can you love someone for whom love has not happened?
Try, and you will see your failure. Try to love someone for whom you feel no love—what will you do? How will you give birth to love? If it is not, it is not. You can say, “My love is there,” but saying will not make it so. You can buy gifts and offer them; love will not arise by that. Do what you may, if love is not, there is no way to produce it. And if it is, there is no way not to have it. Run thousands of miles away from the beloved, still it will not disappear. Build all kinds of walls, still it will not dissolve. That which is, is not your deed.
If you uncover layer upon layer of life’s puzzle, you will not find anywhere a deed of yours; everywhere you will find that something is happening. But society is afraid of you, of your “being.” So it arranges that nothing be allowed to happen. If anger arises, society says, “Keep it inside.” From childhood we are taught: if anger comes, keep it in; expression brings harm. But no one worries that suppression brings harm. When anger comes, there is indeed one thing you can do…
It is a strange fact: whatever is positive happens in life, but whatever is negative you can do. Anger is arising; if it is not arising, you cannot create it. Can you? Try—and you will see how impotent you feel. Anger is not arising and someone says, “Come on, be angry!” You can jump and prance, glare and clench your fists; it will be ridiculous. Anyone will see you are pretending. You yourself will laugh—“What am I doing!” Inside there is silence. In trying to get angry, even your thoughts will halt; they too won’t move. In that effort, everything stops.
You cannot produce anger; you cannot produce love; you cannot produce hatred. But you can do one thing: if anger has arisen, you can hide it—negative doing. You can block it. You can contrive a false arrangement so that anger is not noticed.
But that lie you tell only to the other; for yourself it cannot be a lie. For you, anger has come; now it will whirl within. You can store it up inside. Every man has his own bank where anger is deposited; it keeps growing, stored day after day.
Hence every ten years a war becomes necessary. Without war, what will become of your banks? Hindu–Muslim riots become necessary. Gujarati–Marathi riots become necessary. Any excuse will do; the banks are ready. You are so brimful inside that you just need an occasion for a collective discharge.
Otherwise, a decent man is walking home, and a mob sets a mosque on fire—why does he join in? He had never thought of burning a mosque, of breaking temple idols, of looting shops or throwing stones at cars. He was a respectable man, returning from the office. Others smash car windows; he joins in.
What is happening to this man? He has a bank, a reservoir he guards; today there is a collective chance, law has broken down, order is absent; what was stored within begins to spill out. Two days later he himself cannot believe: “Why did I break car windows? For what?” Ask him and he will say, “I don’t know—some devil entered my head; a ghost possessed me.”
There is no ghost, no demon, no devil—only your own reservoir. It waits ready; a slight chance and it bursts. Any moment you can go mad. You stand always at the edge of madness—just the right occasion and you will topple.
Those who, at Partition, murdered by the lakhs were people just like you. Before the killing they would go to shop as usual, smile at the wife on returning home, pat the child’s back, offer flowers to friends on occasions, go to mosque, go to temple, read the Gita, read the Koran, do all religious rituals—just like you. They were not monsters, not demons. Before Partition there was no visible difference between them and you. Partition came—a chance. The mosque-going devotee suddenly went mad. The shopkeeper suddenly went mad. Bloodlust surged; people began to hack and beat. You too can do the same; remember. For you are gathering the very same stuff they gathered.
In the stream of life we can do nothing constructive, but we can erect dams. Therefore all our teachings are of inhibition: “Don’t do this; don’t do that.” All Ten Commandments teach one thing: don’t do. No one tells you what to do, because you can do nothing—at most you can “not do.” Not doing means: do not let the energy go out; it will whirl within and create wounds and ulcers.
Every man carries a cancer in the mind, because all that he has not done is accumulated and spins within. Everyone walks like a madman. People come to me and say, “Dreams run all night—how to stop them?” They won’t stop. Those dreams are saving you from the madness you are accumulating.
A woman came to me: her right hand was paralyzed. She said that in her dreams one and the same image recurs: she is killing her husband. I asked, “With which hand?” She was uneasy. “Why do you ask?” “Because I must know which hand.” She said, “With the right hand I kill him.”
The dream reveals the murderous impulse whirling within her. The fear has become so deep that the hand has turned paralyzed. I said, “No physician will be able to treat your hand.” She said, “Doctors say there is nothing wrong with it.” The paralysis is deep and has no bodily basis. It is born of the fear, “What if I kill my husband!” The hand has gone inert. I hypnotized her and said, “Raise your hand.” The hand rose, worked. In trance there was no paralysis; in waking, paralysis returned. There is nothing wrong in the hand—otherwise it would not work in hypnosis. A deep fear has pulled it inward. The dream discharges it a little; otherwise her whole body might become paralyzed.
In the Victorian era there was a disease among English women that now is completely absent. Doctors were puzzled: it used to occur—why not now? It suddenly vanished. There was no cure; still it disappeared. Hundreds of women suffered paralysis of both legs.
Psychiatrists now say it was not physical. Sexuality was so condemned that women were frightened of their own sexual energy; they pulled the energy up and in. Because of fear and suppression, the lower part became disabled—not physically, but functionally. As soon as the moral condemnation of sexuality relaxed in England, that disease disappeared.
You too do not own your lower body. You deny your body after a certain boundary, as if it does not exist. Therefore your legs never become as strong as they were born to be. They cannot, because the division of energy is wrong, unbalanced. You keep your body hidden from yourself. If your neck were cut and you were shown your body, you would not recognize it as yours. How would you? You recognize only the face; nothing else.
Many such diseases can vanish if we understand the inner situation. The greatest arrangement for producing disease is this: whatever is happening, we do not allow it to happen; we block it. Once this net is created, the one who blocks anger will also block love; that too will halt. Blocking becomes so mechanical that whatever energy arises within does not move out, it begins to revolve inside. If you cannot express anger, you cannot express love—impossible. If your anger is blocked, your love will be blocked too. Then all feelings freeze. And when feelings freeze, a man becomes like a corpse. One thing we can do is not allow what is happening to happen; this much we can do.
Lao Tzu says: what is happening, you are not the doer of it. Therefore, do not become the doer in not-doing either; allow it to happen.
Great fear arises: if anger comes, let it happen? If lust comes, let it happen? We get scared—naturally so. Because we have accumulated so much that if we suddenly allow it, there will be chaos. But if from childhood everything were allowed, there would be no chaos. Then anger too has a wondrous result.
Look at a small child after he has been angry: his eyes look as if a storm has passed and a peace has arrived; as if, in the anger, all inner rubbish has been blown away. If, when the small child is angry, we lovingly accept his anger and say, “Do not be afraid, be angry totally; this too is natural”—if we fill the child with a sense of naturalness even toward anger and tell him, “It too is happening; there is no question of your doing; let it pass through, as a storm comes and the trees tremble—so a storm has come within you, tremble and let it pass”—then in him the feeling of doership will never be created. Toward anger he cannot say, “I am doing,” but if he stops anger, he can say, “I stopped.” Whoever stops will give birth to an “I.”
Therefore observe a strange fact: ego is always negative. It always says “No.” “Yes”—even where there is no need to say no—is hard for ego. A small child asks his mother, “May I go out and play a little?” She says, “No.” Astonishing: there was no reason to prevent it. But there is a relish in saying no, because by forbidding one feels one is someone.
You go to an office; a clerk sits there; he could do your work in a second; he says, “Not possible now; come after two days.” By saying “No” he feels he is somebody. If he does it right now, he will not feel he exists; neither will you. You will also feel he is someone only when he says “No.” Observe in your life: in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases you say no merely for the taste of ego. And then your hundredth “No,” even when true, becomes worthless; it loses value. Children know their mother will say no anyway.
It is said Mulla Nasruddin’s son asked, “May I go outside?” Nasruddin replied, “If you must go out, then go tell your mother that your father has strictly forbidden you to go.”
Right—perfectly right. If you must go, tell your mother father has strictly forbidden it; then no barrier remains.
Saying no gives our ego its juice, because we feel we are somebody. Hence atheism is ego, because it is the ultimate “No.” By saying “There is no God,” you create the supreme ego. The meaning of theism is surrender; the meaning of theism is yes to the whole of existence—an acceptance. Atheism means “No”—no surrender at all; struggle. An atheist is not an atheist on philosophical grounds, because there is no philosophical basis for atheism. He is an atheist for psychological sickness. For if God is, then you are dissolved. Have you ever thought? Whether you go to the temple or not, if God is, you are finished—because then all is by Him; your doing or not doing has no value.
Nietzsche wrote: “God cannot be—because I am.”
Right. How can God be—I am. The “I” cannot accept God, for God would be the greatest refutation of “I.” If God is, “I” cannot remain; His being implies the dissolution of “I.”
Reduce the “No” in your life and your atheism will reduce. I am not telling you to go to the temple. I tell you: reduce the “No” in your daily living; wherever possible, use “Yes.” If you apply a little understanding and a little awareness, you will find that in ninety-nine out of a hundred occasions the “No” can be avoided. In that same measure your theism will deepen. Before the final “Yes,” learn the small yeses. People say directly, “God is.” That cannot be, because for twenty-four hours they are saying no to everything. By saying no they strengthen the “I,” and then they say, “God is.” In this reinforcement of “I,” God has no place. Tomorrow morning, at the first chance to say no, ask yourself: Is it necessary? Will things not work without it?
Even small children know your “No” has no value. They stamp their feet and stand there: “Shall I go? May I go play?” They know that if they ask three or four times, your “No” will crumble and turn into “Yes.” Thus you teach the child a useless net; you destroy his trust. He cannot trust you; your word has no value. You say no and a moment later you say yes. Better to have said yes at once.
Jung wrote in his memoirs: if parents say “Yes” from the start wherever they will have to say yes anyway, the children will retain trust in them. And only where “No” is the final word—where there is no other way—only there say no. And once you have said no, then whatever happens, do not change it to yes. For changing a no to a yes means you have no value.
Jung wrote: never say to a child what you cannot get him to do. For instance he is crying, and you say, “Don’t cry.” If he keeps crying, what will you do? You can beat him—he will cry even more. Once a child learns that your “No” can be overruled—you say don’t cry, he cries; you keep shouting “Don’t cry,” he keeps crying—then he knows your word has no value. Say only what you can effect; do not utter what is beyond your power. How will you stop crying?
In everything around us we emphasize the no. We never wonder why. Because with “No” our “I” swells, and with “No” the other’s “I” is broken. When this “No” assumes a vast form it becomes atheism. There is only one thing we can do: we can say “No” to what is arising; we cannot bring forth what is not arising. So all our doing is negative.
Life is affirmative, positive; our doing is negative. If we look at life and keep attention on life, our negation will fall, and with negation ego will fall. If we keep attention on negation, and do not look at life—if we look only at our ego—then gradually our negation will grow, our atheism will deepen, and our ego will rise to the peak of Everest.
“Tao never acts, yet through it everything is done.”
This is one meaning; there is a second as well: whenever you act, your connection with Tao is cut. Whenever you become bound to do, your connection with Tao is severed. When you are not bound to do anything, when you are like a void, then you are related to Tao. This is its meaning. Whenever you want to do something, you become weak, because the power of the Vast does not reach you. Why so much failure in the world, so much frustration, melancholy, sorrow? Why is every man tired and defeated? Because everyone is engaged in doing, and in doing, failure is unavoidable. For how much strength do you have? The power of the Vast comes to you only when you cease doing. Then you become the doorway for its flow; then through you flows the Divine, and by it things are done. As soon as you are insistent, “I will do this,” you limit the Vast; you uproot your own roots. You will wither. The whole world looks withered.
It is worth pondering: the aboriginal, the forest-dweller, with no means and no comforts—poor, destitute—yet he is not withered; he is exuberant. Even in hunger his life seems to bloom. He can dance beneath the stars at night, sing; there is no obstruction on his heart. He too has hunger in the body, yet energy seems joyous. Civilized people have everything—comforts, means, nothing lacking—but the flower of life is withered; there is no exuberance.
Bertrand Russell said, “I am ready to give away all I have, if someone will give me the power to dance on the road; I do not have the power to sing under the starry sky and let the burden of my thoughts dissolve, to sleep in peace beneath a tree without dreams, and to rise in the morning fresh and light as beasts and birds.”
Why is man so withered? The reason is: our link with the power of the Vast has been broken; broken to the degree we imagine we can do. The civilized man lives in the delusion that he is doing—building, creating, earning. He lives from ego.
The uncivilized, primal man did not live from “I”; he lived from God. He acts—He is the puppeteer; we are puppets. He moves us—we move. He will drop us—we will drop. We have no control. He was helpless, yet there was great joy. Today man seems powerful—and utterly sad and broken. Often it seems that the notion “I can do something” has proved most fatal.
Lao Tzu says: Tao never acts, yet through it everything is done.
You too, step aside from doing. This does not mean sit idle; it does not mean escape. It does not mean abandon life, become lazy, go lie down and never rise. Not that.
It simply means: whatever is happening, do not claim it as your action; allow the river of life to flow. As rivers run to the ocean, so you also are flowing. And the Vast is the source. Do not remain the source; be only the instrument in His hands. Then action will happen; futile action will cease. Useless action will fall away on its own; only action will remain—the inevitable will happen. You will neither stop it nor do it. It will happen. And you will become simple, like animals and birds.
Surely, when man becomes simple like animals and birds, the dignity of his simplicity is of another order, for he is simple with awareness. He knows his simplicity; he is a conscious witness to it. Animals and birds are simple, but their simplicity is compulsion—they cannot be complex. Their simplicity is no virtue; it is a kind of unconsciousness. But when man becomes simple like animals and birds, his simplicity is the supreme peak of life’s bliss, the ultimate height of life’s consciousness, the final flowering of life’s feeling.
Tao does not act. Therefore whenever you are acting, you are not religious. Do not pray—let prayer happen. Understand this difference. You go to a temple and sit; you can “do” prayer—then you repeat memorized words, finish quickly if in haste, sit longer when convenient. But there is another way—the real way: you go into the temple and sit; now let prayer happen, do not do it. Sit quietly; let prayer happen.
There is a small Christian sect whose prayer is unique. You may not immediately understand it, but it is very close to Tao. The sect never spread much, because their very prayer damaged them socially; people thought it madness. Their one rule is: enter the church and sit, and do not let any language you know come in between. If you know Hindi, English, Gujarati—do not use those. Just sit quietly, and whatever senseless sounds arise within—pray with them. Do not use language. Do not use any word that you know. For the danger is that you will be using it, that you will say “O Lord! O purifier of the fallen!” Don’t. There is no great essence in it. You have said it many times; it is embedded in the intellect; you can parrot it—it is a gramophone record; you can repeat and go home. It has no value. So the sect says: do not use any language you know. Sit, and whatever meaningless sounds begin to arise, that is prayer. If a roar comes, roar; if a shriek comes, shriek; if a call comes, call—but do not use language. As small children babble in baby language—some tune, some rhyme arises and they go on—just so. You will be amazed: in this prayer your intellect does not speak; your heart, your body, your nature begins to speak. Often you will make sounds like animals and birds. That too you are not to do; that too is to be allowed. If nothing arises, remain silent; understand that in this moment silence is prayer. If something arises, let it arise. From your side, do not block; from your side, do not produce—just let yourself drift in passive flow with whatever comes.
Unique, wondrous outcomes occur. An hour of such prayer will make you so light, as if no weight remains in the body. When you come out of the temple you will be another person. Your eyes will see the same sun you saw when you went in, but its glory is different. The same trees, the same birds—but now you are lighter; the burden of language has fallen. Now you are heartful, not headful. Now you are more natural. For a while you have broken the net of human cultivation and dropped into the Vast of nature. You are again a small child. That cultivated, cultured persona has moved aside; you are a small child again. This prayer has value, because it is natural. Do not pray—let prayer happen. Do not perform worship—let worship happen. Certainly there will be difficulty, because we bind everything—prayer, love, worship—into fixed patterns: “Do this, do that.”
Ramakrishna’s temple managers were ready to dismiss him from the priesthood. A priest like Ramakrishna appears perhaps once in thousands of years! The salary was only sixteen rupees a month, yet the trustees decided to throw him out because his mode of worship was improper. Naturally, his worship was disorderly. They said, “He will defile the temple.” Reports came that before offering food to the Mother he himself would taste it—everything spoiled, corrupted! Before offering flowers he himself was seen smelling them. There was no fixed procedure—sometimes the worship lasted four hours, sometimes not at all; sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. “This man is no priest; remove him—he is mad.”
The trustees questioned Ramakrishna. He said, “On the day it happens, it happens; on the day it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I am not the doer. If it is to be, it will be. When She wishes worship to happen, it happens; when She does not, who are we to interfere? As for flowers, how can I offer them without smelling? Who knows whether there is fragrance or not! As for the food, my Mother never fed me without tasting first; how can I offer what I have not tasted? Keep your job if you like, but things will be as they happen.”
The committee had to find a device—the man was priceless. They appointed another priest to conduct the orderly worship; Ramakrishna continued the disorderly. One did the formal ritual; Ramakrishna did the spontaneous.
Tao insists only on this: do not bring the doer in between you and life. Then your life will fall in tune with nature. It is not that difficulties will not be there; they will—but even in them there is joy. Now perhaps there are no difficulties, much convenience—but false convenience is hell. True difficulty is heaven. Joy is related to truth; joy has no relation to falsehood.
“If the emperor and the lords could keep to Tao, the world would right itself.”
Those who lead—lords, masters, gurus, those whom people follow—if they drop the sense of being the doer and dissolve into their own swabhava, letting Tao work through them rather than doing themselves, the world will right itself.
There is no shortage of gurus or leaders; an endless line stands of those who wish to improve others. Yet no one seems improved; no change appears. Revolutions happen and go to waste. So much killing in the name of revolution, and man stands where he was. So many wars to change man, to make society good and peaceful—and it never happens. Every time there is a change, the old disease returns in a new form with a new name. Five thousand years of recorded history repeats this one tale: man remains where he was. All the reformers and revolutionary leaders come and go, and no difference appears. These teachers and gurus conclude that people are at fault.
In Tao’s vision, people are not at fault. Lao Tzu says: in those who want to change others, the sense of doership is the obstacle. They cannot change, because they do not become instruments of the Vast; they themselves want to change the world. It is hard to change oneself; to change the world is impossible. If they become instruments of the Vast, the world will change on its own.
If we inquire, we will see where the hitch is: it is difficult to seat four mahatmas together—yet they talk of changing the world. A group of thoughtful people once built a great platform and invited renowned sages of all religions—thirty celebrated mahatmas. They made a stage large enough for thirty to sit. But on that stage, only one at a time sat and spoke. By mistake they also invited me. I asked the organizers, “You built such a big platform—why don’t the others sit on it?” They said, “We are in great trouble. The Shankaracharya says his is a throne—he will sit on it. Others say if he sits on a throne, we cannot sit below. It became so messy that we concluded only one should sit and speak at a time. They cannot even sit together. Who will sit below and who above—this is such a source of turmoil!”
These mahatmas are intent on changing the world. What sort of world will they build? It is by their kindness that the world is as it is. Leaders they are—whatever they say about saving the nation or society—each wants only his own leadership saved. No one cares for anything else; the rest is pretext. The inner relish is ego.
Lao Tzu says: until inner ego has fallen, nothing can be done through you that brings peace to the world—because you yourself are not at peace.
Psychologists speak later, that Hitler was mad, Mussolini deranged, Stalin diseased. They speak later, and only about those leaders who died or failed. About the successful, no one dares. While Hitler was alive, not one German psychologist declared him insane. After he died, after defeat, then German psychologists said he was mad. Hitler’s own physician, who served him thirty years, never said he was mad. Only after Hitler died and lost did the doctor publish a book: “I knew well he was mad.” About Nixon now, no doctor will say. About Mao, none will say. After they die, after failure, when no harm can come, then astonishing things are revealed.
To me it seems wrong to consider Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo as unique madmen. The very desire for leadership is a part of madness. Ego is the root of madness. And politics feeds ego more readily than anything else—because there is power. Where power is, ego savors its juice. There is the throne. So the mad are most eager for politics. Today or tomorrow, if the world ever becomes a little quiet and we free ourselves somewhat from politics, we will find our whole history to be the saga of madmen. Not only Hitler, Tojo, Stalin. We will find the entire political leadership of thousands of years was mad.
In truth, only the mad are ambitious; and when a madman reaches position, he has the power to fulfill his madness—then he fulfills it. If he succeeds, songs are written in his praise. If he fails, people speak against him. Five thousand years of history is the story of madmen trying to change society. They have turned the earth into a madhouse. But we do not see it, because we are used to it; we grew up in it, so we think this is natural.
It is not natural. It is as if a child were born in a hospital and never saw the outside world. He grows up there; the hospital is his only knowledge. He will think this is the world—people lying on cots, legs hanging up, injections in arms, oxygen cylinders nearby—this is life. He knows no other life. If, after a lifetime there, he is suddenly brought outside, he will be bewildered: “What are these people doing? They are all astray. Where are their cots, their injections, their cylinders? They should all be at their proper places; all is disorder, chaos.” Naturally—his thinking, logic, mind, conditioning is such. The world we call “world” is nearly a madhouse. We do not see it because we are born in it and grow accustomed to it.
A child grows up seeing mother and father fighting—and he comes to think this is love. He watches the politics of the house—mother suppressing father, father suppressing mother. Seeing this twenty-four hours a day, he grows up in it. When he marries, he repeats the same story, because he knows no other story; this is life. His children will do the same; their forefathers did the same. We pass even our madness down as inheritance. Consider: when you behave with your wife, are you not repeating your father? When you behave with your husband, are you not repeating your mother? What we saw in childhood is our only model; we follow it.
You repeat the same, with slight variations. Slight because life circumstances vary a little, allowing small adjustments. Otherwise it is the same repetition. We call this love, household, home, family. We even repeat: “Family is heaven,” yet we do not look to see the family has become a madhouse. We do not look at our own family; “the family is heaven”—that too is heard; and what the family is—that too we know. Only one condition remains within: what we say is one thing, reality is another.
A friend of mine wanted to buy a car. He was a professor—a poor man. He had scraped money together, but his wife was firmly against it—not that she had anything against cars, but she was firmly against anything the husband wanted. He asked me, “What should I do? With great difficulty I have saved enough to buy an old car, but the very mention of ‘car’ makes my wife flare up so much that I lose courage.”
I said, “I will tell you a trick. Go home now.” I explained it. He went and calmly announced, “I have bought the car.” Uproar. She could not believe—“Bought it!” For he always used to ask, “Shall I buy?” “Bought!” She was stunned—the biggest shock: without her permission! She created a storm, but how long can a storm last? Now it is already bought; after half an hour she quieted down.
My friend came to me. I said, “Now go and buy it. What had to happen has happened; the ultimate has already occurred. Now what is left? Don’t delay. And in future, make this a rule—whatever you must do, do it this way.”
In nearly every home there is conflict and strife. Between that strife we somehow keep a balance, as if two bullocks were yoked to opposite ends of one cart—life remains in that state. A little tug here, a little there; no journey happens; we remain where we are. In the end only the cart’s joints loosen in the constant struggle. Then the desire to move also dies.
We take this to be life, because it is what we know. We have no idea what man’s life can be, and what it has become. If both ideas dawned, we would tremble. Man’s life can be an utterly extraordinary experience. But what has become is a long nightmare.
Behind this nightmare is our continuous drift away from the natural, a slow severing from life’s spontaneity. Everything has become unnatural. We speak, rise, sit, act—but there is no spontaneity, no throbbing anywhere. Nothing seems to stream from our life-energy; all are superficial flowers—paper, plastic. We have pinned them on. They look like flowers; there is neither life nor fragrance—only deception.
Lao Tzu says: the root of all this deception is the sense of doership; in its depth stands your “I.” If the sense of doership falls, the “I” falls.
“And if the emperor and the lords can keep to Tao, can keep to swabhava, then the world will right itself. And when the world has righted and is moving rightly, then govern it by the nameless ancient simplicity. This nameless ancient simplicity is free of desire. From desirelessness comes stillness; and the world finds peace by itself.”
Only a change that happens without your push or effort has value. Without pushing someone’s neck down, without imposing anything, without the other even suspecting he is being changed—no hint, no sound of change around him—only your simplicity, your naturalness becoming contagious so that it echoes in his life and he changes—only such change has any religious value. Then change becomes self-discipline. He cannot lose that simplicity, nor can anyone take it, because it was never imposed. Nor would he wish to be free of it, because that simplicity is no bondage; no one laid it upon him.
We even make the beautiful ugly by imposing it. We distort the best by insistence. Whenever compulsion enters, all is spoiled.
I was reading Kierkegaard, the Danish thinker. He writes: if, when God made Adam and Eve—according to the Christian story—He had said, “See, there is a serpent living here—it is the devil; never eat it!” then Adam and Eve would have searched for the serpent and eaten it; the devil would have ended from the world. But God said, “Do not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.” They had to eat it—not because the devil incited them; God Himself incited them. His “Do not eat” produced relish. By saying, “Do not go near the tree of knowledge,” He made them feel, “If there is anything worth eating, it must be this.” Otherwise, why would God forbid it?
The Garden of Eden had many trees—endless trees. Leaving all, they must have hovered near that one. The devil is only a pretext; whenever prohibition is made, a devil is born within who whispers, “Do it! There must be something in it—otherwise, why the prohibition?”
Whenever you forbid someone, you are telling him to do it. When you tell your son, “Don’t smoke,” you send him his first invitation. Now his mind will attach to nothing else; everything else will become worthless—now the whole heaven is contained in the cigarette; he must smoke it. There is no rescue now. You created the relish, you provoked him. You thought you were reforming him; you forbade for his good.
Whatever obstruction we throw injures the other’s ego; injured, the ego wants revenge, and goes to the opposite extreme.
Lao Tzu says: by such effortless, simple resonance, let people be transformed—then their lives will be filled with the nameless ancient simplicity; desire will vanish of itself. Why? Because desire is competition, the race to get ahead; desire is ambition; desire is the spread of ego. If you become simple, desire and competition fall away on their own.
A friend comes and says, “I want to be peaceful.” I ask, “For what?” He says, “I am very entangled. I am the education minister of a state—nights no sleep, days no rest; so much work, so many tangles. Give me some meditation so I may become peaceful.” I ask, “If you become peaceful, then what will you do? Tell me honestly.” He says, “Since you ask—there is much upheaval in the state; I have a chance to become chief minister. But I am so disturbed I cannot work; I can’t sleep, I am ill. If I become peaceful, I can put my energy into it.”
I asked, “You think if you become peaceful you’ll work to be chief minister. But you are disturbed precisely because you are working to be chief minister. Who says you must remain education minister? And with such disturbance, what expansion of education will there be? Who is forcing you? No one is pushing you to be a minister. Many are busy trying to free you of this suffering, if only you would step aside and let them take this burden. Many are ready to serve; many wish that they might have your sleepless nights, your torments, and then go to saints and ask for peace. Who holds you back? No one in the world is stopping you. Step aside.”
“No,” he said, “that would be difficult. Just give me the method for peace.”
Man wants peace only so he can run faster after unrest. Hence such people waste a whole life and never find a moment of peace. They think, “Now I am minister—tomorrow I’ll be chief minister—then perhaps bliss.” When they were not ministers—they were deputy ministers—they thought, “If only I become a minister.”
I said, “Look back at your own logic. First you were only an MLA; you came to me then too, trying tactics to become deputy minister. Then you became deputy; you tried to be minister. Now you have become minister.” He said, “That is why I hope—if I keep trying, I will be chief minister as well.” I said, “You will be, no doubt; but life is slipping away. And being chief minister will not stop competition; desire will not rest; it will say, ‘Now to the center, to Delhi.’ And there the race continues—and look at those who are there, at their condition!”
People ask, “Why do presidents, prime ministers, governors rush to any saint, juggler, astrologer?” The reason is not that the miracle-monger is miraculous; the reason is that these poor people are more disturbed than any, beyond measure; they are searching anywhere for a charm, a talisman that will set all right.
Even as president, if one thinks some amulet will help, then presidency has not proved a talisman. The race continues—and grows. Before, there was hope: “If I become president, all will be fine.” Now he is president and nothing is fine; life has flowed away. Yet he has not the courage to leave the chair on which he is burning; he clings to the very spot where he is being scorched.
Religious understanding is the seeing that what you are doing has made life hell. Do not do something else new; simply slacken what you are doing. Relax once. What will be lost? If your name is not written in history, what will it matter? If your name is not in the newspapers, what will it matter? If crowds do not gather at your tomb, what harm? Yet some waste their lives so that crowds may gather at their tombs—astonishing, to live for a fair at one’s grave! For the sake of ego, all you do—you are losing yourself in it.
Lao Tzu says: as soon as ego falls—and ego falls only when life becomes simple and in tune with nature; when you drop forcing and say, “As God wills; whatever He makes happen, happens; I do not do, I will not do; I will only flow, I will not even swim; I will simply be carried—wherever His current takes me; I am not eager even to go toward moksha; I will take the place where His current leaves me as moksha”—in such a state there is no ego. Without ego there is no competition.
Where there is desirelessness, Lao Tzu says, there is stillness. And the world, by and by, comes to peace on its own.
Here is the secret of how peace happens by itself. No yoga is taught—“Stand on your head and peace will come.” No mantra—“Chant Ram-Ram and peace will come.” No talisman—“Tie this and peace will come.” Lao Tzu simply explains the mechanism of your unrest: your sense of doership is its root. If that falls, you have always been at peace. Unrest is acquired; peace is your nature. So do not acquire peace; just stop acquiring unrest. Health is not to be obtained—it is given. You have only accumulated disease; stop accumulating disease.
Let even a little remembrance of this vision arise and you will find yourself becoming peaceful. And as you become peaceful, the world around you begins to be peaceful—for by your unrest you make your surroundings very restless. You are a center; a small world revolves about you—wife, children, office, friends, relations—circling near you. Your unrest disturbs them; their unrest magnifies yours. Thus we multiply one another’s unrest. Each man increases the other’s disturbance.
Lao Tzu says: if there is even one peaceful person in a village, the effect will begin to spread through the whole village; his air will slowly enter others.
The world can be peaceful if there is no ambition. The world can be peaceful if the madness of ego falls. And this is in your hands; it can be dropped in a single moment.
Sing kirtan for five minutes—and then go.