Tao Upanishad #71

The possibility for the sprouting of a new religion is indeed in the West. If seeds are to be sown, the West is the right soil—because a new religion sprouts only when people are suffering from materialism, when they are afflicted by prosperity.

There are two kinds of suffering. One is the suffering of poverty, of lack. And the other is the suffering of affluence: when everything is there and yet an inner emptiness is felt; whatever can be attained in the world of desire is attained, and then one discovers that the soul has not been found; no fulfillment is felt. All the means for satisfaction exist, but inwardly the capacity to be satisfied is missing. There are two kinds of lack: the poor person’s lack and the rich person’s lack. In the lack of the poor, the sprouting of a new religion is impossible; it is in the lack of the rich that a new religion takes birth.

So I have said again and again that the new religion will be born in the West. The West is now as affluent as the East once was. When Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist thought arose, the East was at the peak of prosperity and the West was impoverished. Now the East is poor and the West is prosperous. Therefore the new religion can be born in the West; the expansion of religion is possible in the West, not in the East. And yet I have said that if Tao is to take root, only India can be of use. And if the Dalai Lama wishes not to let what Tibet has attained through centuries of sadhana be lost, then India is the right land for him. These two statements seem contradictory; they are not. If an old religion is to be established, India can serve as the ground; if a new religion is to sprout, the West. Sowing new seeds is one thing; bringing an old tree and transplanting it into the soil is quite another.

Tao is an old tree—older than old. And what the Dalai Lama is bringing, the Buddhist contemplation and practice, is also a very ancient stream. To tend such an old tree, a very ancient land is needed, a very long history of culture and conditioning; only then can the old tree be cared for. It needs very ancient air, a very ancient sky, a very ancient soil; otherwise the old tree will die.

If you plant this old tree in the West, it will not do. In the West new seeds can be sown, and a tree can be grown—then it will be born in Western winds and will grow in that way. But these trees of Tao and of Buddhism are very ancient, and they require a very ancient land. Among ancient lands, India is the most ancient, and it has the wealth of very old traditions. In that wealth these trees can be nurtured; they cannot be raised in a new place.

Understand it like this: if a small child is placed in the West, he will very quickly adapt to the West. But if an old man is taken to the West, he will not be able to adapt; there is no way for him to adjust. The new land will prove dangerous for him. For a child, a new land can be meaningful; for the old, the old environment is needed.

Tao is the oldest of old religions. That is why I said: in India. Yes. Later, the new seeds that set upon this tree can be carried to the West. But the process of sadhana that the Dalai Lama has brought, the West cannot even understand. It is so complex; it carries a history of thousands of years. If one has to explain it to the West, one will have to begin with the ABC—with the first grade. What they have brought is the ultimate peak. To understand that peak, no land other than India is capable. There is no summit so high that India has not already touched and become familiar with. Granted, the condition of the larger mass in India has become distorted; yet in India one can always find a few who are capable of understanding however lofty the matter. And in India a heart can be found for whom there is no need to begin with the ABC—to whom the final lesson can be given. And what Tao or the Dalai Lama have brought is the final lesson. If you give it to first-grade students, it will be lost. Therefore I said that for both, replanting is possible only in India. This is not the sowing of new seeds; it is the replanting of an old tree.

Whenever it happens that just by seeing someone—with whom you have no friendship, no relationship, no acquaintance—hatred arises, it means only one thing: in that person there is something you are familiar with, toward which you carry hatred. Without familiarity, hatred cannot arise. In that person there is something—in the way he gets up, in his walk, in his eyes, in his face, in the air around him—in the stamp of his personality—something you know, something you have once loved, and toward which you are now hating. It may be difficult to locate, because a person is a large assemblage; there are many elements in him.

If you have hated your father—as often sons do—because there is a quarrel, a struggle that runs between father and son. The father, for the son’s own good, tries to change him, and the son’s ego begins to be hurt. Those wounds accumulate. That is why societies and cultures the world over try to create the utmost reverence of the son toward the father. The secret behind this effort is that if it is not arranged, the son will only disrespect the father; on his own he cannot respect him. So society, culture, has to stage-manage it.

Understand this. Wherever we laboriously manufacture respect, it simply means that if it were left alone, without effort, disrespect would arise. What society arranges, it does not do without cause. Society teaches that any kind of sexual desire between brother and sister is the greatest sin. It teaches this precisely because if it were not taught, the first sexual relationship would be formed between brother and sister; there is a natural possibility of it, because the first male–female acquaintance is between siblings. And unless society strongly conditions it as a great sin—nothing greater than this—the event will occur. Between father and son, too, we cultivate a feeling of reverence because there is every possibility that disrespect will arise and dense conflict will take place between them.

So if you carry a submerged feeling of hatred toward your father, wherever a father figure appears, you will feel hatred. A son who hates his father cannot love a guru, for the guru will seem like the father. A son who hates his father cannot love God either, because God is the state of the Supreme Father. Wherever a glimpse of the father appears, hatred will stand up.

If a son hates his mother—which happens less; it is daughters who hate the mother, not sons. Daughters do not hate the father, and this is appropriate, because this is natural. But if a son, for whatever circumstantial reasons, hates his mother, then he will not be able to love any woman. Wherever a woman appears, the mother’s shadow will be present.

So if a person cannot love any woman, it means he could not love his mother. Wherever a woman appears, the mother has already appeared. A son who is against his mother, for whatever reasons, will become opposed to woman as such. For the first acquaintance with woman is with the mother; the first imprint is the mother’s. So whatever notions are going to form regarding woman, the reflection already formed of the mother will help shape them.

In your mind many kinds of reflections are stored. A person seems a stranger, but some trait of his will be known; because of that trait an instant judgment happens. That judgment produces hatred. But hatred does not arise without love. With that trait you have had acquaintance, friendliness, love—and you have failed in that relationship. That failure has thickened. Because of that failure, wherever that trait appears, you will at once be startled. We say: the one scalded by milk blows even on buttermilk, because a glimpse of milk is found in buttermilk—at least the color. So one who has been burnt by milk will blow even on buttermilk. That sting of having been burnt will create fear even toward buttermilk.

And there is another reason, deeper than this; keep it in mind. You often hate precisely those things—those qualities in others—which you hate in yourself. This is a little deeper; it is a layer even deeper than the previous one. When, suddenly on seeing a man, hatred arises in your mind, investigate whether this is not a part of self-condemnation. For what you find bad in yourself you will also find bad in the other. This is projection. What you wish were not in you—when you see it in another—hatred arises. Hence every expansion of hatred is, somewhere deep down, a part of self-hatred. Understand this.

You do not want to be angry, yet anger happens. And you hate anger. So whenever you see a glimmer of anger in someone, hatred will arise. You do not want to steal, and yet you steal. So whenever you see a thief somewhere, instant hatred will arise. This means that whenever you hate somewhere, you certainly find some connection with yourself. Search for that connection a little.

Therefore the person who has absolutely no hatred toward himself will not hate anyone. This is worth understanding. That is why we say that in a sage’s mind there will be hatred toward no one. For now within him there is no such part with which he has enmity, conflict, opposition. He has accepted everything. He has absorbed all. He has drunk everything—poison and nectar alike. And now there is no point within him from which hatred can arise.

Therefore a very unique phenomenon occurs. Suppose a person here commits an act you do not like; suppose a thief is caught here. Then those among you who are the most thievish will begin beating him first. Those who are not thieves can forgive him, but those who are thieves cannot. What they have not been able to forgive in themselves, they cannot forgive in another. And the burden of guilt that weighs on them, they will unload onto the other. It is very difficult to beat oneself, but another can be beaten. And there is a relief.

Then there are further reasons. When a thief is caught, the ones who are themselves thieves will be the first to shout against him. Because by this they are announcing, “We are not thieves; we are so much against the thief.” They are trying to show they are not thieves. For if they stand silently, they fear that someone may think these people are supporting the thief.

Thus a very peculiar event keeps happening in society: whenever a few people stand up and fight against some evil, often among them are the very people who are the doers of that evil. A good man has neither a sense of guilt nor the fear of “I will be caught,” nor the anxiety, “What will people say—why are you standing silent? While a thief is being beaten, why are you quiet? What do you mean? Are you in support of the thief? Do you want theft to happen?”

Examine this in yourself: when you rise to fight very vehemently against something, then explore within whether that vice is not part of you. If it is not part of you, such passion cannot come. There is no reason for so much fervor. For a vice that is not yours, there is no reason for such heat. It is lying suppressed within.

So whenever, in relation to someone, you suddenly see that hatred is arising in you, forget worrying about him; worry a little about yourself. Do self-analysis: why is this happening?

If a man here pushes a woman, you will immediately pounce on him. Those who will pounce are precisely those who push women. Because they cannot miss this chance, this opportunity—they will never get a better occasion to display goodwill toward women. The man who pushed is a goon, of course; but those who beat him are goons too. Only one goon has been caught, and the other goons are at this moment collecting certificates of saintly character.

Look within: wherever you become very heated, somewhere there is a piece of disease in it, a fever; otherwise there is no reason for so much heat.

So even in hatred toward the other, some connections of your own within are involved. In truth, whatever we do toward the other, in it we are doing something toward ourselves. We cannot be free of ourselves. In all our actions we are present—whether it be hatred or love. All our behavior is a mirror in which we appear. And we go on deceiving ourselves all our lives.

If you examine your inner world properly, you will be very surprised. Then every behavior will give you a clue toward a life-transformation. Our ordinary tendency is to project what is within us onto another, using the other as a screen; we can see it there. To see it in ourselves is difficult; to see it in another is easy. Therefore the other always functions as a mirror. When you stand before a mirror and you see an ugly image, do not try to break the mirror; nothing will be gained by that—though you can break the mirror. Perhaps the first thought will be precisely this: “This mirror is wrongly made; otherwise how could a person as beautiful as me look so ugly!” But by breaking the mirror you will not become beautiful. The mirror is only informing you of how you are.

But we do not have the courage to see ourselves as we are. We keep on building dreamlike images of ourselves in our minds. We go on considering ourselves supremely beautiful. Therefore the mirror hurts us, because the mirror brings us to where we are. The mirror reveals reality. Your behavior is life’s mirror. Other people function like mirrors. The whole society is a mirror. And whenever, near someone, you feel a sense of ugliness, do not impose it on him; return to yourself. Take it as a mirror and search within. But no one wants to change himself; everyone wants to change others.

One friend meets me every day as I go out. He says, “What you said—people need it very much.”
People! Who are these people? All of you—except himself. But your viewpoint is the same. Do not laugh at him.

I have heard: a woman used to come to a church daily, and when the priest’s sermon would finish, at the time of taking leave she would say, “My, certainly they did need this message today.” But one day it snowed and no one came; only the woman came. Still the priest delivered the full sermon. And when he was seeing the woman off at the door—he was wondering in his mind, “Today what will she say! Because people did not come at all—what will she say!” But the woman said, “My, they certainly would have needed this message, if they had come today.”

You have no need at all—others have the need. This is the sign of an irreligious mind. A religious mind always thinks, “What do I need? What shall I do with myself?” An irreligious mind always thinks, “What should be done with others? How can others be changed?” This is a part of violence.

Take care of yourself. And life is very short; even if you take care only of yourself, it is enough. Do not worry about people at all. And your worry will not benefit people anyway. Nor are those people any less intelligent than you. They are worrying about you; they are not worrying about themselves. On this earth no one is concerned with himself; everyone is concerned with others: how others should improve. Who has given you this job of changing others? When you meet God, he will not ask you, “How many people were you able to improve?” He will ask you, “What is your condition?” Then you will feel very poor indeed. You will say, “We wasted many lives trying to improve others; we never got the chance to improve ourselves.”

Take care of yourself. Become utterly, purely selfish. Your self-interest is the true interest of others. And if you are transformed, the waves begin to arise around you that can change others too. But that should not be your goal. Your goal should be: I become blissful; this is my work in this life—to become blissful. And if you become blissful, a rain of bliss will begin to fall from you. Unknowingly, waves will radiate from you which can also touch the hearts of others. But that does not need to be your concern—whether they touch or not. Be fragrant! Whether that fragrance reaches some nostrils or not is not the point.

If each person were utterly selfish, it would be difficult to find misery in this world. But every person is “altruistic,” and everyone thinks that religion means only this—how to…

I don’t know what Vivekananda said. But if he said this, then it is simply wrong—or he must have meant it in some other sense. As for me, I tell you: live utterly for yourself. But where is the difficulty?

The difficulty is in words. You think you are living for yourself; you are not. You assume you are selfish and living for yourself; I say to you that you are profoundly other-oriented. You are not selfish at all; you are not living for yourself at all. If you believe you are living for yourself, then what Vivekananda said is perfectly right—that those who live for themselves—in your language—are dead. You are dead. And he said that those who live for others are alive. That is your way of using words. But I say to you that your language is wrong. You are not living for yourself. The father lives for the son; the wife lives for the husband; the husband lives for the wife. Everyone is living for someone; someone is living for someone. No one is living for himself. And therefore you are dead.

Start living for yourself. Do not live for anyone; live for yourself—and you will become alive. And the very moment you become alive, through you many people will begin to receive life. This is an attempt to look at language in a different way. Certainly, everyone condemns selfishness; I do not. Because I see that it is hard to find a truly selfish person. Once in a while a Mahavira, once in a while a Buddha is selfish.

Understand this language. If you take Buddha and Mahavira to be altruists, then Vivekananda’s statement is right. But I hold that they are utterly selfish. Yet the greatest good of others happened through them. Only from the selfish can true altruism happen. One whose own meaning has not yet been fulfilled—how will he fulfill another’s? Your own lamp is extinguished, and you go to light lamps for others—carrying an extinguished lamp! Let your lamp be lit, let your flame burn, and burn with such life that you are able to give flame to another—then certainly some lamps will be lit from you. But the first act and the first vision must be that your own flame is burning.

Otherwise I see many social workers—extinguished lamps going to light other lamps. Sometimes they even put others out; in their meddling, other lamps are snuffed. How can an unlit lamp light anyone? Yet often the unlit feel the urge to light others. Why? Because in that way they gain the convenience of forgetting that they themselves are unlit. “Others are unlit; they must be lit”—in that bustle they forget that they are unlit.

The first experiment is with oneself; the second is secondary. And when I say this to you, I am saying it to the other as well. If each person takes care of himself, then on this earth there will be no cause for anxiety. Who will remain to worry? If each secures his own good, what space is left for harm? Who is left then?

Let us understand it like this: here each person tries that the other become healthy while he himself remains sick—then the whole earth will be sick. Here each person thinks, let the other attain knowledge; my being ignorant will do—then the whole earth will remain ignorant. For you can do something only with yourself, because that is the closest consciousness to you. If nothing is happening there, the other’s consciousness is very far; there you will be able to do nothing. And if something happens within you, then in that happening such great energy, such great power is born that its effects begin to be reflected in others too.

Therefore Tao says—the basic foundation of Taoist thought is this—that if you are set right, you become the foundation of a right society and a right world. Put all your attention on yourself.

Hearing this, it may seem that I am perhaps depriving you of altruism, turning you away from the path of service. But you are neither on the path of service, nor can you be. You cannot do altruism; there is no way to do it. As yet you are not—such that altruism could happen through you. The consciousness from which service can happen is not present within you. So your altruism can only create disturbance, mischief. In the name of altruism you can throttle someone, and in the name of service you can sit on someone’s chest.

Look at the servers! They begin by pressing the feet, and then they press the throat. For the final goal is to press the throat. But starting with the feet is always easier. And you also lie down quietly—he is a servant; he is pressing the feet. When the servant presses the throat, then you are troubled; then you say, what are you doing? But no one wants to press feet; they want to press the throat. Only, one has to start with the feet. That is the proper technique. Therefore servants finally become masters.

Look at India: those who served during the days of the freedom struggle are now sitting on the chest. Now they say, we served! We fought for the nation’s freedom! Who asked you to? Now they demand recompense. Now they say: we want return, reward, prize. But when they began, they began by pressing the feet. Now they have caught the country by the throat.

Remember, true service cannot arise in your deep mind so long as the ego is there. The day there is no ego, that day whatever you do will be service. You will not have to do service; all your doing will become service. First transform yourself, and you become the center of a transforming world.

Tao is an effort to bring earth and heaven close. Neither Ramana nor Ramakrishna were moving on the path of Tao. Ramakrishna and Ramana were walking on a path opposite to Tao. That too is a path: a path of taking earth and heaven farther and farther apart. They proceeded with the feeling that body and soul are separate. The body has to be dropped—and kept on being dropped; the expanse between body and soul has to be increased, the space widened; and a moment has to be brought where only the soul is experienced and the body is completely forgotten. So naturally, the entire connection between body and soul in Ramana and Ramakrishna had broken. Earth and heaven had gone as far apart as they can. Therefore I say, they should indeed have died of cancer. That is fitting.

This does not mean they were not enlightened. Nor does it mean they did not attain the ultimate nirvana. But that path is to carry duality to its extreme.

Lao Tzu’s path is to bring duality to its zero point. The leap happens from extremes. Either the body and soul become so separate that the body is not noticed at all—then too the leap happens. Or body and soul become so utterly one that the body is not noticed—then too the leap happens. In both conditions the body is not noticed. You are in the middle condition. You notice the body; there is distance, and there is also a sense of unity. At some moments the gap seems to be there—“I am not the body”—and in daily dealings you live as “I am the body.” You stand in the middle. On both sides of this middle there is a path. One path is to go on leaving the body; the distance becomes infinite—so great that no relation, no bridge remains between you and the body, all threads break. You come to an extreme; from there the leap will happen. You have reached the 100-degree boiling state; the tension is at its peak. When tension reaches its peak, it snaps. At 100 degrees water boils; now you will turn into steam.

Lao Tzu’s path is exactly the opposite. He says, come closer, and closer still. You stand in the middle; there is a little distance—erase that too. Bring earth and heaven absolutely close; so close, so close that you become one. Come to zero degrees, from where the leap happens and water becomes ice. Become one—so much so that even the sense that there is a body does not remain.

These are two paths. At a distance from the body, cancer can arise. Nothing unusual in that. If you ask Lao Tzu, he would say that for Ramakrishna and Ramana, cancer should indeed have occurred. That is perfectly right. A follower of Lao Tzu cannot get cancer, because the whole question is of reducing distance. From both conditions the ultimate state is attained; from both ends the leap happens.

Ramakrishna and Ramana’s path is a little unnatural. Lao Tzu’s path is wholly natural. Lao Tzu says, become one with nature; do not break yourself apart. Therefore, on Lao Tzu’s path peace begins from the very start, tathata (suchness) begins to happen from the start, and silence begins to descend from the start—because the struggle is dropping from the start. On Ramana and Ramakrishna’s path, peace happens at the final moment. In the beginning restlessness increases, tension increases, trouble increases, spiritual anguish increases—because there will be fight, duality, conflict, austerity.

Austerity means withdrawing yourself from the body—wherever there is a joint, to break it there. Pain is natural. There will be much torment. Only in the final hour of this torment will everything suddenly change; the torment will dissolve. When all relationships break, all sorrow dissolves.

From both extremes the leap is into the same ocean. That ocean is one. Where Lao Tzu arrives, there Ramana arrives. But their travel-paths are entirely different. The path of Tao is very pleasant. The path of Tao is very simple. Tao is Sahaj Yoga—the yoga of spontaneity.

What is there to fear? Even if we had to return, what is there to fear? What harm would there be? What have we attained anyway? We have only lost; we have not gained anything.

So first, there is no need to be afraid of the so‑called primitive. Because what we call civilization today—what is it except a great disease? Still, I do not believe that we will have to go back. In existence, there is no going back. But even if we did—no harm. Because you have nothing that could be lost. You have nothing. Your situation is like a naked man taking a bath and wondering, “Where will I wring my clothes? Where will I dry them?” What is there to wring, what is there to dry? What could be lost? What have you gained? There is noise, uproar all around—so it looks as if something is being achieved. If it all fell away, nothing would be harmed, because nothing has been attained. Had something been gained, then there would be cause for concern. But nothing will be lost, because there is nothing to lose.

And Tao has little to do with outer circumstances. Tao pertains to the inner state. If the inner state becomes simple and natural, then wherever you are, in whatever material condition you are, you can be natural. No need to go to the mountains to be natural. Naturalness is a state of mind. You can be natural in your own house. You don’t have to strip naked to be natural; you can be utterly naked even within clothes. In truth you already are; it is only an idea that you are not. It is only a delusion that you are not. Wherever you are, you can be natural. To be natural, there is no great need to change the outer world.

Yet if people begin to be natural, a good deal will certainly be lost from our material civilization—the things that are diseased, useless, pointless, born out of our fever. Some things have arisen only out of our fever.

For example, everybody is in a hurry; everybody is in a hurry without caring where they are going. There is such haste lest a minute be missed, such anxiety lest time be lost. But going where? And what will you do with the time you save? People save time and then ask, “Now what should I do? How do I pass the time?” And to save this time, they stake their life.

A man races in his car; he can risk his life lest five minutes be wasted. And by saving those five or ten minutes—for which he risked his life—he arrives at his house five or ten minutes earlier. Then he lies down and thinks, “Now what? Shall I turn on the television? Start the radio? Go to a movie? How do I kill time?” Ask this man: first you were saving time; now you ask how to kill it?

This is what you do your whole life. There is a rush, a speed. If there were a goal, it would be understandable. If there were a destination worth staking your life on, it would make sense. You’re only reaching your home, and even that you don’t really wish to reach.

Mulla Nasruddin asked a friend, “Why do you stay so late in the tavern drinking? Is your wife quarrelsome? Are you afraid to go home?” The man said, “I’m unmarried.” Nasruddin said, “Then you fool—what’s the need to drink? And what’s the need to sit here so late? We sit here because we’re married. And we drink so much that when we have no sense left, then what does it matter what happens at home...”

From the same home you run away from in the morning, you rush back to in the evening. Perhaps your haste has some other psychological mechanism: you don’t truly want to arrive where you’re going; speed must be serving something else inside. In fact, the faster you go, the easier it is to forget yourself. The slower you move, the more you remember yourself. The more gently you move, the more you become aware, “I am”—and that life is being wasted. When you rush headlong, nothing is noticed. Speed is an intoxication. Speed is alcoholic. Walk fast and see—you will lose your awareness.

That’s why Buddha told his monks, “Do not walk fast. Walk very slowly. Draw a line—wherever your self‑remembrance begins to slip, that is your limit. Stay below it. Do not walk fast. Place your feet softly. Go slowly so that you do not lose your remembrance.”

Man uses speed to forget himself. Then haste invades everything. And in the end there is nowhere to arrive except death. You arrive a little sooner, that’s all. Walk slowly, and you arrive later. Walk slowly, and you live a hundred years; rush, and you are finished in sixty. You are headed toward death, and though no one wants to die, there is such great haste. Where are you going? Who do you hope to meet there? Who is waiting?

If Lao Tzu’s vision enters our life, haste will fall away. We will walk slowly, live slowly, breathe and live. There will be no hurry, no scramble. This does not mean that material civilization will disappear; it is the disease in it, the madness, that will drop. Many things will drop. For example, a man goes on accumulating wealth. He thinks, “I will enjoy it—later. It is not the time yet. First accumulate.” He keeps accumulating and dies. Because wealth is never so much that the accumulator feels, “Now it is enough.” Enough wealth no one ever has—not Rockefeller, not Morgan, not Carnegie. Wealth is such that whatever the quantity, it feels insufficient. Because we measure wealth against desire. Desire is endless, infinite. We may not know whether Brahman is infinite, but everyone knows desire is infinite. Compared to desire, wealth is always small—however much there is.

Carnegie died leaving ten billion. Even at the time of death he was unhappy, for he said, “My wish was to make a hundred billion.”

Ten billion is a lot—for you. Because you have only ten, ten billion looks huge. You measure ten billion against your ten. Andrew Carnegie does not measure against ten; he measures against his desire. Ten billion is very small. The desire is for a hundred billion. And it is not that a hundred billion would have brought contentment; by the time he reached a hundred, desire would have grown to a thousand. Desire advances like the horizon, like the sky—ever receding.

So money is always insufficient. Therefore the man who says, “When there is enough money, then I will enjoy,” is mad. He will never enjoy. He will accumulate and die. His life will be spent accumulating. This is madness. It is madness because means have become ends. Money was a means, through which life could be enjoyed. But he forgot the enjoyment; accumulating became for the sake of accumulating. This is madness. If you live simply and naturally, it is not that you will run away from money; rather, money will become a means, not an end. You will enjoy it now.

Now, civilization breeds two opposite insanities. Every madness has its opposite madness. Some people accumulate money; they think it is the way. Seeing their failure—seeing Carnegie and Rockefeller as defeated—some decide to renounce money. The accumulator fails, that is visible; logic then suggests the opposite: “Do not accumulate; run from wealth—and you will attain bliss.”

Both are mistaken. Neither by accumulating money does anyone attain bliss, nor by renouncing money does anyone attain bliss. The wise are those who use money as a means, never allowing it to become an end. That is the first step toward understanding the mystery of life: to treat means as means and never let them become ends.

There are two kinds of fools: those busy gathering money and those busy renouncing it. They are the same—standing back to back. The stupidity of one is the stupidity of the other. Both have their eyes fixed on money. Both treat money as the end: one thinks, “By accumulating I will be happy,” the other thinks, “By abandoning I will be happy.” Both believe happiness will come from money—and money becomes the goal.

For one who uses money as a means, money is never the goal; happiness is the goal. If money creates convenience for happiness, he uses it. If he sees that money creates inconvenience for happiness, he leaves it. In both cases, money remains a means. Understand this well: money is not an end. If he feels that money supports his joy and his search for truth, he uses it. If he feels it hinders, he lets it go. But he does not go around proclaiming, “I have renounced money,” because money has no intrinsic value.

Money has no value at all—only for the unintelligent does it have value, whether they hoard it in safes and banks or abandon it to become sannyasins. Only the uncomprehending give money value. For the intelligent, money is a tool.

Like a boat with which one crosses the river and then forgets. And if the boat begins to sink, he jumps out midway. It depends on whether the boat carries you or drowns you. You take the boat, and if midway you feel it will drown you, there is a hole in it, you jump. You don’t go around shouting, “I renounced the boat.” You know the goal was to reach the other shore. If the boat carries you, you use it; if it doesn’t, you swim. There is no need to make a fuss. The boat is valueless.

As soon as a person lives according to Tao, whatever arrangements exist in life remain as means. This does not mean material means or prosperity will collapse. But the madness around them will depart. Whatever you have, you will be able to relish fully; and what you don’t have, you will not worry about. And if a person relishes what he has, it grows. This is a different, unique law of abundance: whatever you savor increases with your savoring. There is no question of loss.

But our eyes are fixed on lack. We keep tallying what we do not have. That torments us. And we are left incapable of enjoying what we do have. If, in accord with Tao, we can gratefully savor what is present, our gratitude toward the divine will grow, not diminish.

In truth, there is no gratitude in our minds toward God. We may say anything, but we do not feel grateful. How could we? We are suffering so much. And if we are honest, we are suffering because of the way we are. So why be grateful? If you met God, you would probably take him to court: “Because of you we have suffered for lifetimes. What need was there to create me?”

I know a young man who said to his father, “What need was there to give birth to me—for a life that contains nothing but suffering?”

D. H. Lawrence wrote, “I will not bring a son into the world until I am capable of answering him—if he asks, ‘Why did you bring me into being?’—for I have no answer.” He did not want to be left speechless before his own son. “I must have an answer: ‘Why did you bring me into being? To join all this madness and derangement? To bear the misery of this life?’”

If you were to meet the divine, truly, what would you ask? “Why did you create me? What was the need? What harm would it have done you if I had not been?” Non‑being would have been better; in being I have found nothing. Hence gratitude cannot arise in you. There is only suffering. And why? Because your gaze is on what is missing, not on what is.

Tao says only this: a simple, natural, easy use of what is; a relishing of its juice as deeply as possible. That savoring will give birth to gratitude—the feeling of the divine’s grace, a sense of thankfulness.

Do not fear that we will have to return to a primitive state. Even if we did, no harm. But we will not. We will return to a healthy state. What we have now is unhealthy. This civilization is ill. Civilization can be healthy—if its foundations become basic and natural. Right now everything is unnatural.

When a child is born in your home, you begin teaching him to be unnatural. What do you instill? Ambition. “Look, the neighbor’s sons are getting ahead! Keep up the family name. Remember whose house you were born in. Beat them all.” You may not say it outright, but your whole program is to defeat others. To stand first in the line. Then by any and every means—push and shove, create a ruckus, steal, cheat, copy—whatever it takes—be number one. And everyone knows: if you become number one, all the disturbances you created on the way will be forgiven. If you don’t make it, you will be in trouble.

Remember, a man climbs in politics to be number one; if he succeeds, all sins are forgiven. No one talks about what he did to become prime minister; no one even mentions it. If he fails, the world says, “See—he was dishonest; he failed.” Here people say the one who fails is dishonest; the one who succeeds is honest. Here we say, “Satyam eva jayate—truth alone triumphs.” The reality is reversed: whoever triumphs we assume must be truthful—otherwise how could he win? Whoever loses, we assume must be false—otherwise, why did he lose? Everything becomes “truth” once you win. Victory bathes everything in the glow of truth. So win—by any means; the only goal is to stand number one. All sins will be forgiven.

You are teaching your child this very race—planting fever, planting madness. He will run and keep running his whole life, trying to be first. And in truth, no one ever becomes truly first. We are running on a circular track. Here even the president is not number one, the prime minister is not number one. No one ever is number one, because we are running round and round. Someone is ahead in some respect. You may become prime minister, still it changes nothing. Your driver, your servant, may be healthier than you. Seeing his muscles, your heart sinks—number one! At least in muscles you are not... Look at the politician—he is frightened even of his driver, afraid his wife might become interested in the driver. He is frightened.

All emperors kept crowds of eunuchs before their harems so that no man could see their wives, and their wives could see no man. Because emperors had lost their bodies’ vigor. They had no physical strength nor the charm of love to keep five hundred queens with them. So they had to contrive to keep them; those queens could become interested in any real man. Imagine the misery of an emperor who fears that his wife could be attracted to any man—though he stands number one. A beggar on the street may be more attractive in body.

It’s a mess. There are a thousand lines. If there were only one queue, perhaps you could stand first. Here there are a thousand queues. You stand first in one, and in the other nine hundred ninety‑nine someone else stands ahead. There is no way. And how can you stand first in many lines at once? No one is ever first.

So the day you teach your child to be first, you sow the seeds of madness. He will never be happy. He will be unhappy, and his sorrow will grow. Only dejection awaits him.

Yet we think we are teaching a great art. We think we are building society, civilization, ambition. Ambition lies at the root of this civilization. Competition—because of which we are all sick.

If you live according to your nature, you will not be in the race to be first; there will be no ambition. This does not mean you will do nothing. We think that without ambition we will do nothing. This is wrong. There will be a difference. You may not do what you are doing now. If ambition drops, you will do what brings you joy.

A man is a doctor, or an engineer, or a shopkeeper. This shopkeeper wants to be a poet. His true longing is to sit under a tree and write poems. But ambition could not be fulfilled that way. Money can be gathered from the shop, not from poetry. If he lived in tune with his nature, he might even starve—but he would write poetry. And I say that whatever feels natural—if it is poetry—even if one has to go hungry for it, a joy and a shade of peace will be present in life. But this man, afraid of hunger and of being left behind, sits at the shop and becomes rich. He will not find fulfillment. Fulfillment was needed by his nature—and he deprived himself of it. Instead of birthing a poem, he gathered money. However much he gathers, the joy a single poem could have given him will not be given by millions. Because that does not match his nature.

Certainly, if we drop ambition, then in ninety‑nine cases out of a hundred we will not do what we are currently doing. We will do something else—what we always wanted to do but could not, because it did not fulfill ambition. If we no longer wish to be ahead of others, we will become what is our destiny to be. We will act, but then our action will be our joy. It will nourish life. The insane race of ambition will not be served—and there will be no need for it. Nothing is more valuable than being ordinary. Because then one is at ease, in rest. The thought of being extraordinary drives you into speed—and you arrive nowhere.

It will be so. When you look in, there will be much pain. But you will have to look, and you will have to endure the pain—because only by enduring it is there freedom from it. Turning your eyes away will do nothing. All our illusions are methods of avoiding a look. All illusions will have to be broken. Because there is no liberation except through truth—however painful truth may be. And remember, truth will be painful at first, because with untruth we have built false comforts. When the first ray of truth descends, the darkness of untruth shatters; there will be much pain. Because our whole past becomes futile. All our earnings prove false. Whatever we have accumulated is not worth more than dust. There are no grains of gold there. The day this is seen, there will be pain. But this pain must be borne—because only after this pain is the possibility of bliss.

So truth has two outcomes. People often think truth brings only bliss. They think wrongly. First there will be much pain. And whoever agrees to pass through pain will become acquainted with truth’s second face: bliss. But the path will be through pain—because we have decorated lies; they will break. Our dreams are rainbow-colored; there is no life in them. The slightest thing will tear them. They are paper boats; anywhere they will sink.

Now a man traveling in a paper boat—if you tell him, “Look down: it’s a paper boat; you will drown!”—he will say it would have been better to stay on the near shore; or at least one should have decided beforehand that if there is danger of drowning, learn to swim; but to sit in this boat is trouble, this paper boat will sink. He will say, “Don’t remind me. Until it hasn’t sunk, at least I am comfortable. When it sinks, we will see. And what’s the big deal, a paper boat can also cross. Besides, everyone is traveling in paper boats; what is there to fear? No one looks at their own boat. Everyone looks ahead, at the goal, the far shore, dreaming its loveliness.” Meanwhile, beneath them is a paper boat. So whoever reminds them of it will feel like an enemy, not a friend—because it brings pain, it brings fear.

But I say: let there be pain, let fear grip you—no harm in it; because the paper boat will drown you anyway. It will not take you to the other shore. And the eyes you have fixed on the other shore are there only to help you forget the boat.

There is pain in seeing oneself—because so much repulsive rubbish has accumulated there. But you accumulated it. The sooner you begin to see it, the better. Because after seeing it, you will stop accumulating it—first thing. Second: after seeing it, you will begin to expel it, remove it, give it expression and throw it out. Having seen the garbage, no one will tolerate it. And if this garbage is cleared and no new garbage is gathered, you will begin to be steady in your own nature.

There will be pain, and it will last exactly as long as you are afraid to endure it. This is what I call tapas. Not standing in the sun, not fasting—this is tapas: to see within whatever uselessness we have piled up, the thorns, the junk. And it is there. If you look, fear will arise. You will see: “He is my friend, yet I am jealous of him! He is my friend, yet I do not want him to succeed!” We say, “May you be successful, live for ages.” On birthdays we say, “May this day come a thousand times.” Everyone says so.

But if you look within, it will seem that his happiness hurts; if he succeeds, something stings. It feels as if I have lost and he is succeeding, going ahead of me. Jealousy grips, envy grips, hatred grips. And all that we have decorated on the surface appears false. Then we feel: forget this, don’t look inside. Keep intact this beautiful lie, this pleasant dream; keep repeating on the surface, “Your joy is our joy, your life is our life.” And inside, the disease.

What is inside is the truth; what is outside is the lie. This does not mean you should go and tell all your friends what is inside you. There is no need. There is no need to hurt anyone. We are so skilled at hurting that we even start using truth to hurt. Some people become “truthful” precisely for this reason—not because they are attracted to truth, but because nothing wounds more than truth. Some say, “I am a plain speaker.” There are no “plain speakers”; they simply know that no insult is sharper than the truth.

Someone said to Oscar Wilde, “People are spreading false stories about you, writing articles in the papers—why don’t you refute them?” Oscar Wilde said, “Why refute false stories? I am afraid they may start telling true things about me.” Let them spread falsehoods, no worry; the fear is of truth—because truth can wound as nothing else can.

And when someone says something false about you, you are not hurt. When someone speaks the truth, you are hurt. So here is the test: whenever someone’s words hurt you, remember—there is a possibility they are true. And if you are not hurt, there is no need to worry; that means it is false. If someone calls you “thief!”—if you are a thief, it hurts; if you are not, it does not. You can laugh at the foolishness. But if you are a thief, you will jump at his throat: “What did you say? I, a thief?” Because you are afraid: “I am a thief. If I give him even a little space, the truth will come out.” You are always hurt by truth, never by falsehood. So whatever hurts, make it a subject of self-observation.

So there is no need to go tell your friends the truth. They will all turn on you. They took you to be a friend only because of your untruth. There is no reason to cause anyone pain. Turn this into self-observation. Begin to look within. And understand whatever hatred, jealousy, envy, disgust is there—why it is there.

It is not because the friend is succeeding that there is hatred. It is because you want to be first in the line and are not able to. It is not due to the friend, not due to his success; it is due to your ambition. Your own fever of ambition is giving you pain. No friend is giving you pain, no enemy is giving you pain. In this world no one is giving anyone pain; we ourselves are giving pain to ourselves.

So understand your hatred, your jealousy. It is not because of the friend; the friend has nothing to do with it. Therefore there is no need to tell him anything. What needs to be understood is this: my ambition—to be first—is my disease. Because of it I have hatred toward everyone. Try to understand that ambition. Go deep into it and see that its fulfillment is impossible; it never gets fulfilled for anyone. Then, as you are, who you are—accept it.

One who accepts himself has no hatred toward anyone—because there is no reason for hatred. I am as I am, and where I stand is precisely my place, my throne. Other than this there is no throne for me, no other place. And I have no quarrel with the other—because the other is the other and I am I. We are so different that the very question of comparison does not arise. Every person is unique. Comparison is futile. There is no need to struggle with another. What gives me joy, I am doing; what gives another joy, the other is doing. If you begin to be at ease with yourself, all hatred will drop. The root meaning of hatred is that you are not at ease with yourself.

Women are often more jealous than men. It is very difficult to make two women friends; even a pretend friendship is difficult. Friendship hardly forms among women. The one basic reason remains deep down: no woman is content with her body, her beauty; some other woman always seems more beautiful, more impressive, more attractive to men, more captivating. So every woman looks at another woman as if she were an enemy. Distant women aside—even when the daughter comes of age, the mother begins to see the daughter as an enemy.

An Italian old woman was with me recently, and her daughter too. The daughter told me, “My mother loves me, but I don’t want to live with her.” Why? She said, “Because whoever comes to the house, naturally their attention goes more toward me than toward my mother. And she asks me, ‘Why does everyone pay attention only to you? Whoever comes to the house, why does he look only at you?’”

As soon as the girl comes of age, the mother becomes eager to push her out of the house. She makes many excuses—“We must get her married quickly,” and this and that—but the real reason is that the center of the house begins to be the girl; the mother is no longer the point. Jealousy deepens.

If a person is content with his body and beauty—“This is what I am; existence has made me thus”—then there is no struggle.

But no one is content. No one. Whatever you have appears lacking. Then there will be suffering. The cause of suffering is not the other; the cause is your race, your running. Understand this within, and with understanding this race begins to drop. You will have to pass through pain. All heavens lie beyond hell; no one goes straight to heaven. There is no leap from the world straight into heaven. There is no road that goes there except through hell. Whoever agrees to endure hell can be master of heaven. And this hell is inner.

Last question:

You are laughing, because this is everyone’s question. It will happen to all; it is perfectly natural. Because finding something appealing or “right” is one thing, and having it come into your life is quite another.

There are many reasons why something may feel good. One, it appears logical. Two, it seems to offer a glimpse of joy. Three, while listening you become so absorbed that—even if it is neither wholly logical nor does it itself carry a taste of joy—for that one hour of listening you become so immersed that a stream of well-being starts flowing within you. Because of that, you connect whatever was said with that happiness and conclude, “What was said must be right, because for an hour I had a glimpse of happiness; I felt blissful.”

But the moment you step out of the room, the situation changes. It will change. Because what felt logical—life does not run by logic; life is utterly illogical, irrational. What fits the intellect perfectly will not work in life. That alone is not enough for it to enter life. Life does not run by intellect; life is bigger than the intellect. There is the heart there, the body there, hidden, inherent passions there. If there were only the head, that would be the end of the matter. If only your head had come here, you would go back completely transformed. But there are other parts besides the head.

You heard talk of brahmacharya—celibacy; it sounded absolutely right, even pleasant. But the point of sexual desire is also within you—powerful. It is not so easy that because your skull agrees, your genitals will agree. They couldn’t care less what the skull says; it has nothing to do with them. They have their own life, their own current, their own momentum, their own power. And that power does not come from the skull; it comes from hormones, from blood, from food. They have a thousand other pathways. You cannot run the genitals from the head. When you want them to be filled with desire, they may not be; and when you don’t want it, suddenly you find them aroused.

That is why clothing had to be invented. You can falsify the face, but you cannot falsify the genitals. If you are walking naked, you cannot pretend—your reality will be exposed. You can falsify the eyes: a beautiful woman appears on the street, you can look the other way, read a newspaper. Though even while reading the newspaper the same image will be seen; even looking away, the eyes will be stuck there—but you can pretend. Passing by, you can say, “Mother, namaskar.” You can make a few moves. But if you are standing naked, what will happen? The genitals will betray you, reveal the truth. You will be able to do nothing. Clothes had to be invented because the body can deliver the real news; it does not listen to the intellect.

A very strange thing happened in America, where nudist clubs were established. An unusual fact came to light. Before the nudist clubs, psychologists thought women would resist more to being nude. The opposite was found. Men resisted more. Women became nude quite simply; men experienced great difficulty. Because a man’s genitals reveal his desire quickly; a woman’s genitals have no outward way of showing it. So women undress easily; they don’t have much hassle. But a man faces a great hassle—because he fears his whole image can be shattered in a single moment, and he will be able to do nothing.

So when you listen, you listen only with the head. But you are more than the head; the head is not much. A far larger portion of your personality is the body, the passions, the energies—each with its own way of functioning. So you listen and go away. While listening you were only a head; as soon as you step out of the hall, you become whole—and the obstacle begins. Everything starts fading—first.

When you are listening, it also seems—as with Lao Tzu—that there might be bliss in this. You are unhappy; whatever you are doing seems wrong, because it has brought you suffering. If you could do something like this, it seems a taste of bliss is possible; somewhere in the future bliss might come. But that is only what you heard. You are a mesh of habits. Whatever you are doing is the result of long habits. Listening, habits do not obstruct; but in doing, habits will obstruct.

You heard that smoking is bad. You heard that drinking is bad. The point is understood. But the moment you step outside the building, the snag will begin—because smoking is a habit. If you had only heard once that smoking is good, and then heard that smoking is bad and the second point appealed to you, dropping the first would be easy—there was no habit. That too was only something heard; this too is only something heard. And while you are hearing, it is all just words heard; your life, however, is a web of long-standing habits—it is not merely heard. Those habits will resist. Because for one who smokes, the body’s chemistry changes; the body’s demand changes. Nicotine begins to be demanded by the blood; a hunger for it arises. That nicotine—you may not know it; you only smoke smoke—but through the smoke nicotine is entering your blood; it gives a freshness. For a moment, yes, but a freshness. So you have built a habit of taking freshness from nicotine. Nicotine becomes associated with freshness. Without it you feel dull. Because nicotine gives you a kick; for a moment it does, but it does. So it becomes your habit. Without it you will feel sluggish.

So hearing the point is fine, but that inner need for nicotine has not heard. It has no idea what you have been listening to. An hour later it will push from within: “Light a cigarette, otherwise everything is getting dull.” In the office you don’t feel like working; there is no zest. Everything feels gloomy. The moment you smoke, freshness returns—if only for a moment, but it returns. Then you will pick it up; you cannot avoid it. Because that is part of habit.

The body is a mechanism. And the habits you have installed in that mechanism have to be replaced by new habits, not by hearing new ideas. This means that if you want to drop smoking, you will have to cultivate other habits for producing freshness. Otherwise you will never be able to drop it. Understand: if I tell you that whenever you feel like smoking, take ten deep breaths—so that extra oxygen goes in—then the freshness will last longer than the freshness from nicotine and will be more natural. This is a new habit. Whenever the thought of smoking arises, take ten deep breaths. And don’t begin with inhaling; begin with exhaling. Whenever the urge to smoke comes, exhale—throw the breath out forcefully, so that as much carbon dioxide as possible goes out. Then inhale fully, so that the space vacated by carbon dioxide is filled with oxygen. Freshness will surge through your blood. Then you can drop the cigarette—because you have found a better, more suitable, more natural, superior method. Then the cigarette can drop. Otherwise, there is no way.

So hearing is one thing; doing is quite another. Doing will be obstructed by the habits of your whole life. And with what I am saying, the habits of many lives will obstruct—not just one life. This is not merely about dropping cigarettes. This ego-habit has been gathered over many births. This disease of ambition is ancient. Who knows how many lives you have labored for it. So to be freed of it just by listening—neither do I believe that, nor should you hope for it. If listening creates the longing to be free, that is enough. Then something will have to be done; then some sadhana will have to be undertaken.

Whatever I am saying here is only to plant a new seed within you. Then it must be cared for. Then you have to walk with it. Then it must be given life. That is a long affair. Perhaps the same number of lives you spent gathering wrong habits will be needed to transform them. It is not necessary that it take that long; if you work intensely, with great depth, it can happen quickly. But do not live under the illusion that by listening you will be liberated.

And when you listen to me, in the listening the mind becomes concentrated. All attention turns to one side—what I am saying—lest something be missed, lest a word slip by. You are fully mindful, fully attentive toward me. For that time, the web of your thoughts, the clouds that constantly drift within you, all come to a halt. For an hour you step out of yourself. You are with me for an hour—you are not with yourself. Hence the experience of bliss. When you step out of the hall, you are with yourself again. Your satsang resumes—with yourself. That is the hindrance. That is the hindrance.

Learn from this: to whatever extent, in whatever way, you can be attentive, it is good. If while listening to me you are so attentive, then when you return home and your wife begins delivering her day’s collected discourse, be just as attentive to her. Do not raise the urge to quarrel; simply listen with attention. If you can do this, you will find there is great flavor even in your wife’s discourse. And when your daughter or your son comes and begins to tell you things that seem senseless to you, do not interrupt them; listen to them in the same spirit, with the same calm. If you learn the art of listening here, then apply it. And in the end you can apply the art of listening to yourself too—but in the end. When you can listen to your wife, your son, your friends—and you become a good listener, and you use listening itself as meditation—then you can listen to yourself. When your head starts moving within and thoughts begin to flow, sit silently inside and listen to whatever the mind is saying. Whatever it says, do not interfere; stand at a distance and listen. Then the same joy you feel in listening to me can arise in your own satsang as well.

And something most amazing: by listening to me you will not be able to change, but if you begin to listen to your own mind with a witnessing attitude, change will begin. Because then you are separate from the mind; you are standing at a distance—you are the seer, the witness.

To become a witness is the supreme experience.

That’s all for today.

Do kirtan for five minutes and then go.