Tao Upanishad #74

This century opened with a proclamation of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche said, God is dead.
There have always been those who declared that God is not. But the first man in human history to say that God has died is Nietzsche. This pronouncement is valuable in many ways. First, because the statement is not Nietzsche’s alone; it has echoed in the very breath of multitudes in this century — whether they know it or not. For many, God has died in their souls. Whether God has died or not is another matter, but in many hearts he no longer has roots.
When Nietzsche said, ‘God is dead,’ his intent is clear. Lao Tzu too could agree, but for a wholly different reason.
Lao Tzu says: God is when man has the capacity to experience God. God manifests to the exact extent the human heart is capable of experiencing. The presence of God depends upon man’s capacity to experience. Whether God is or is not is not the crucial question; whether the door to experiencing is open or not — that is crucial. When the door is shut, the light vanishes — not because the sun has set, not because the sun has been extinguished, but simply because your house is closed and there is no passage for the light to enter within.
But those who are locked inside the house, drowned in darkness — if someone there says the sun is destroyed, the sun has gone out — it is no wonder. And if the inhabitants of that house never go out, if they always live in that darkness, then their statement will gradually begin to appear true. And there will be no way to refute it. The darkness will be so obvious that there will be no need to prove that light has died. The beauty of Nietzsche’s statement is that he offered no proof for why he said God is dead. He simply announced: God is dead.
This whole century has grown under that shadow. And for you also, God is dead. You may go to temples, but you go to the temples of a dead God. And perhaps your going has reasons other than God. You may worship, you may pray; but your worship and prayer move around the corpse of a dead God. You know well that the God to whom you pray is dubious; yet for other reasons you continue with worship and prayer. Your worship and prayer do not show that God is in your life; your whole life testifies that you have no relationship with God. But for other motives you want to keep the name of God alive — fear, greed, insecurity, the sorrows of life. The name of God becomes a refuge — like sand for the ostrich, where he buries his head, and with eyes sunk and shut in sand he imagines there is no danger. When the enemy is not seen, the ostrich assumes the enemy is not. For you, God is like that sand in which you hide your head.
Life has many pains, torments, anxieties; there seems to be no way out. God becomes for you a liquor, by drinking which you forget yourself for a while. And when God becomes an intoxicant, he ceases to be God. The God who gives forgetfulness is no longer God, but a drug. Only that God is God through whom remembrance deepens, life-energy intensifies, awareness expands.
So take this as the touchstone: when you make ‘God’ merely a device to forget your suffering, God is dead — only ashes remain in your hand. But when God is not a means to forget pain, rather the source to attain bliss — this distinction must be understood well. Forgetting pain is one thing — escape, hiding, covering oneself, self-oblivion. The source of bliss is an altogether different thing. Bliss happens not through forgetfulness but through deep remembrance. The forgetting of pain happens through forgetfulness.
Nietzsche’s word is right: God is dead. Not because God has died — for that which can die has no right to be called God. By ‘God’ we mean precisely that principle which cannot die; ‘God’ means the element that is amrit, the current of amritatva. God is not a person; he is the current of immortality. This infinite current of life — beginningless, endless, perfect — that very current is God. God cannot die. Flowers still blossom on trees, birds still sing, man still walks the earth. The moon moves, the sun journeys. The stream of life flows on; nowhere is there any blockage. And life is God. So God has not died. Yet there is deep truth in Nietzsche’s statement: God has died from man’s being. Man has lost his connection with the vast current of life.
Lao Tzu too would agree and say: God is dead — not because God has died, but because you have died. Your life-source has dried up; you have shrunk, closed, become narrow. Your windows and doors no longer open; your heart does not throb. Breath goes in and out of the lungs, but the heart does not pulse. The spring of love has run dry. Hold this in mind, then we can enter this sutra, because it is most unique.
‘In ancient times there were those to whom the One was available.’
Lao Tzu gives it no name; he says, ‘the One.’ To name it is not possible — and with naming, the mischief begins. Say Ram, say Krishna, say Hari, say Shiv — quarrel begins, havoc begins. Your name won’t be my name; my name won’t be your name. Temples and mosques will be divided; sects will gather around names. So Lao Tzu says: do not name it. It has no name. With names, sects are born. That One, nameless, is the source of Dharma. That One’s many names become sources of sects. With sects comes foolishness.
But the human mind longs to name. Why? Because with a name, convenience arises. Whatever we name creates the illusion that we have known it. Our ‘knowledge’ is but the knack of naming. Tell a child: this tree is a mango tree — he learns the word ‘mango’ and imagines he has known. He feels acquainted. All his life he will go on thinking he knows a mango tree. But what is known by giving a name? A name is a pointer; ignorance hides behind the label. Do you know the mango tree simply because you named it? The tree remains as unknown as before the naming.
Yet man is satisfied with a name. Someone asks: ‘Your name?’ You say A or B or C — and he is delighted that he has come to know you. A name becomes information. Name is a trick. Necessary for utility, yes: in the marketplace you cannot buy without naming; if you ask for ‘that nameless one’ you will be in trouble. ‘Mango’ works, but do not think that uttering ‘mango’ you have known. Or that the shopkeeper who hands you mangoes has known. It is a contract that this unknown thing we will call ‘mango.’ Language is a contract, an agreement. Therefore if someone calls mango ‘mangue’ or ‘mango’ in another tongue, there is no need to quarrel; that is his agreement. There are three thousand languages. No language reports the truth; language reports only the agreement of its users — a set of terms between them.
A Sufi tale: four travelers, each ignorant of the other’s language, met in a caravanserai for the night. In the morning they pooled their money, for the journey’s last stage awaited and each had little. They needed to buy only one thing. But a Greek said one word, an Arab another, a Hindustani a third, and a Persian a fourth — and they quarreled. The money could not buy four things. The innkeeper overheard, laughed, and said: give me the coins; I will buy all four. He returned with grapes. All four laughed and danced — each had got what he wanted. They had all been asking for grapes, each in his own tongue. Words were different, desire one. Words may differ endlessly — the grape is one.
Lao Tzu calls it ‘the One.’ He refuses words. Use a word and the trouble begins — contention and conflict.
If the Hindu did not call him Ram and the Muslim did not call him Allah — if the Hindu said ‘the One’ and the Muslim said ‘the One’ — it would be hard to fight. What would remain to quarrel about? The quarrel is of names. Religious quarrels are basically quarrels of language, not of religion. Religion is one; languages are many. Religion cannot be two, but languages can be countless. You can even create a private language between you and your wife — it will work. None will understand, but you both will. Language is artificial, man-made; truth is not.
Therefore Lao Tzu steadfastly leaves it nameless. The Upanishads too say: it is the Nameless. The Bible says: He has no name. Mohammed says: there can only be a pointing; what can words say? But Lao Tzu holds himself back with great strictness — he says ‘the One.’ To know that One is to know all, because that One is not a thing or a person; it is the energy pervading all.
Know the One and all is known, for the One pervades everything. Taste a single drop of the ocean and you have tasted the whole — the salt in that drop pervades the ocean. He who has known that One finds nothing left to know.
Do not misunderstand this to mean that when you know that One you will suddenly know what the doctor knows, the chemist knows, the scientist knows. No — the knowledge of the One is the purest knowing; it is not a branch of knowledge. One who moves toward God does not become a specialist; he will be an expert in nothing. He goes to know the root of life. Knowing the root, the endless branches remain un-detailed, though their essence is understood.
Science searches branches; religion searches the root. Thus, as science develops in a branch, it splits further and further. A thousand years ago ‘philosophy’ contained all science. Then as science grew, divisions began. Chemistry itself split into organic and inorganic; further and further it narrows — knowing more and more about less and less. The information increases; the field constricts.
Fifty years ago a doctor was doctor of all ailments; now an eye specialist treats only the eye. They joke in the West that soon the left eye will require a different specialist than the right. It should be so — even one eye is so vast that a man could devote a lifetime to it. Then the eye itself will split into parts. To know is so infinite that you can go on dividing endlessly. In the West the greatest difficulty now is that there is so much information and no harmony between informations. The one who knows the eye knows the eye; the one who knows the nose knows the nose; the one who knows the heart knows the heart; between them there is no bridge. But man is a strange unity: when the eye is ill, the heart too falls ill; the whole body is affected. You can treat the eye locally; it may heal, but the person remains untouched. The disease will manifest elsewhere. Hence a new cry: stop treating diseases; treat the person. Until the person is treated, diseases cannot be healed.
Science moves toward the atomic — much about very little. Religion moves the opposite way — little about very much. I have said: science knows more and more about less and less; religion knows less and less about more and more. A moment comes when science will know everything about nothing — before it there will be nothing left to know. If its journey continues rightly, cutting and cutting, the time will come when information is immense and nothing remains to be known. Religion moves from the other side: a moment comes when the knower is lost, knowing is no more — and all stands revealed. When the Vast reveals itself, only the One remains. No distinctions survive; such is the fall of divisions that even the knower does not remain before the One — only the One remains. This is the ultimate, Buddhahood.
Lao Tzu says: ‘In ancient times there were those to whom the One was available. By the attainment of this One the heavens were revealed.’
Let us understand each step.
‘By the attainment of this One the heavens were revealed.’
Heaven is the symbol of bliss — the infinite ocean of delight hidden within life. Heaven is the great happiness. By the attainment of the One, heaven was unveiled — gates of supreme joy were open. As the attainment of the One was lost, heaven’s gates closed. Now we know much — except the One. But our knowing does not reduce our sorrow; it increases it. It is worrisome that knowledge grows and so does suffering! It should have been otherwise: with knowledge, sorrow should recede. What else is the aim of knowledge if not to lessen suffering?
For two thousand years knowledge has risen day by day — but for every measure of knowledge gained, many measures of sorrow have increased. Sorrow has thickened. Man is perplexed, and adds more knowledge to secure himself against suffering; yet suffering grows.
Lao Tzu says: the door to happiness is knowing the One; the door to sorrow is knowing the many. Knowledge of the many multiplies sorrow; realization of the One multiplies joy. Why? Because as the directions of our knowledge scatter, we scatter within. And the fragmented man must be miserable. Fragmented, broken, he cannot be happy.
You do not know how many fragments you are. At your shop you are one kind of man. If suddenly your beloved arrives there, you will be in great difficulty — for you are not there the man you are with her. The arrangement with a customer is altogether different. If she arrives, you will have to rearrange your interior, change your eyes, your smile, your movements, your language — everything. The fragment dealing with the customer will be replaced by another.
A fragmented person cannot be happy; happiness is the shadow of wholeness. The more the inner sense of ‘I am one,’ the more peace and joy are felt. Sorrow is caused by warring fragments within, and they clash incessantly because they are contradictory. You have arranged your life in ways that contradict one another.
If you must accumulate wealth, wealth is the enemy of love. The more your drive for wealth, the more you must suppress your loving heart. But you also want love — without love, no fulfillment. And to love, the mad race for money must be set aside. Yet the mind persuades: people gather wealth even for love. They think that with wealth, love will be possible. But in the very accumulation they are conditioned into a structure of unlove — hatred, exploitation. When love’s moment comes, they cannot open. The shopkeeper in them has become so strong that when they say, ‘Move aside,’ he does not.
I have heard: a man returned home at dusk, tired. His wife was there, and a little three-year-old daughter. He saw the child at the door and said, ‘What do you say — will you give Daddy a kiss?’ The child sat silent. He asked again; she said, ‘No.’ The man said, ‘I feel ashamed — I earn all day for you, and my little girl refuses me a kiss! Come on, give me the kiss. Where is the kiss? Come close.’ The girl looked into his eyes and said, ‘Where is the money? Where is the money you earned for us all day?’
Even small children begin to be fragmented by living with you. But the reasoning of the father and daughter is the same. The father asks for a kiss, offering the bait that he earns money for her; the daughter applies the same logic: where is the money? Even a kiss becomes a deal.
We are so drowned in transaction that even love turns into a bargain. But love cannot be a bargain. Great difficulty: you want love and you want wealth — and the two directions are opposed. In the way wealth is sought, love cannot be; in the way love can be, heaps of wealth cannot be amassed.
This is an example only; there are a thousand such contrary longings within you.
The scriptures have said: desire gives sorrow. In truth, not desire per se, but contradictory desires give sorrow. The more the contradictions, the more the suffering. If only a single desire remains, sorrow dissolves. And if a man pursues one desire alone, then today or tomorrow he must seek Lao Tzu’s One — for only with That can singleness be. No other desire can remain solitary. If you try to live by love alone, soon you will be in trouble: how will you live without money?
Thus in the West boys and girls rebel from homes and say: we have nothing to do with this mad race for money. But in a year or two the hippie returns home. Others take his place, so you keep seeing hippies. But where do the old hippies go? How long can you remain a hippie? And even that freedom of love rides on someone’s money — your father’s or someone else’s. When the money runs out, you cannot even love. You must run in the same race in which the world runs.
Only the longing for Paramatma can stand alone; every other longing has its opposite. Opposites tear a man into pieces; the gate of heaven closes.
‘By the attainment of the One the heavens were revealed.’
No one asked what happiness is — people were happy. One asks only when suffering begins. When you are healthy, you never ask: what is health? When you are ill, you ask what cancer is, what TB is. When you are happy you do not ask: what is the purpose of life? When you are unhappy you ask: what is the goal? Happiness is accepted; no question arises. Unhappiness is unaccepted; hence questions arise. The more questions arise within you, the more they indicate your life is filled with suffering; you stand in hell. Heaven is questionless.
Lao Tzu says: ‘When the One was attained, the heavens were revealed. By the attainment of the One the earth was steady.’
Heaven and earth are symbols. Heaven symbolizes bliss, joy — the dream of hope hidden in all hearts. Earth means your practical life, your body; how you are in the manifest world of matter. When heaven is unveiled, the earth becomes steady. When joy is within, the body too becomes still; there is no restlessness in the body.
So far it was thought: restlessness begins in the body, therefore the mind is restless. But Tantra, Yoga, religion have always said: restlessness begins in mind; body only echoes. Now the West too begins to agree: man is not body and mind, he is body-mind — psychosomatic. One event on one side resounds on the other. Ninety percent of diseases Western psychology now considers mental in origin; their sounds are heard in the body. The mind quivers, the body quivers. The tremor begins in the mind — as it should, for mind is subtler and catches vibration before the body can.
Thus in Russia a new process is developing: six months before a disease reaches the body, its subtle sounds in the mind will be detected — and treatment will begin before illness appears. You won’t even know you were sick. Before the news reaches the body, when the first tone is born in mind, it will be caught there.
Kirlian photography is doing great work — a special photography that catches the tiniest vibrations of mind. It is like an X-ray of the psyche. It is developing; soon you won’t have to fall ill — treatment will begin before illness.
But Lao Tzu’s point is profound: when heaven is unveiled and the One attained, earth becomes steady. For all vibrations in matter do not originate in matter; they are born in mind. The source is consciousness. The shadow reaches matter; then we treat matter. We err there — we treat symptoms, the signals, and the root disease remains.
Medicine has never been so developed; yet never were so many people ill. Strange: we develop medicine and patients develop more. Some fundamental mistake is there. Perhaps we treat from the surface and cannot touch the source within.
Man is afflicted. We see a thousand causes — poverty, bodily ailment, lack of education, this, that. We start removing them one by one. Two hundred years ago thoughtful men believed that when the earth is educated there will be no sorrow. Today the earth is almost educated — and sorrow has become denser. If we opened the graves of those thinkers who said, ‘When people are educated there will be no suffering,’ they would be startled; they would feel they committed a great sin. How many have labored to educate man!
People come to me and say: we must educate the tribals. I tell them: first, look at the educated. Your head is wrongheaded! If you find that the educated have attained some joy, then educate the tribals. Make sure first. Go to the universities — Lucknow, Banaras, Harvard, Oxford — see what is happening. Lucknow University is burning. You are going to educate the tribal to reach where? Where universities catch fire. At most, he will do that, being educated. And remember: when he creates mischief educated, you cannot cope. He is fertile ground; he has been silent long. When his unrest erupts, there will be explosion.
Many are busy in ‘service’ of tribals. The ignorant serving puts others in danger. In the last two centuries the ignorant have ‘served’ and made man educated. D. H. Lawrence, before dying, said: my suggestion is, if the world wants peace, close all schools, colleges, universities for a hundred years.
His suggestion seems intelligent, realistic. None will accept it, because we have gone too far into madness. But I say his suggestion has great wisdom: a hundred years — so that this false cleverness can be forgotten, and man can begin again from where nature is.
People thought: when poverty is removed, heaven will come. Poverty has been removed in many lands; heaven did not come — hell came. People thought: when socialism arrives. Socialism has come in Russia; the youth are eager to rebel. When they get a chance there will be a tremendous revolt. Education, socialism, wealth — anything — as long as you treat separate diseases, man will remain sick. Man’s disease is one: until he becomes one within, he will be unhappy. Neither socialism nor education nor money can make him one. This is a delusion; it is to catch symptoms.
A man has fever. The body is hot; you pour cold water on it to cool it. It will cool. But fever — body heat — is only a sign that the man is ill; the heat says something is disordered within, the cells are in conflict; through that friction the body heats. Remove the conflict — the heat will vanish. The heat is a report of warfare within.
When you are mentally ill — anxious, troubled, disturbed — it means fragments of your mind are at war; you are overheated. Any remedy you seek outside will not work. The inner fragments must depart; wholeness must arise; totality must return; the inner conflict must dissolve. The day the One is born within, health is attained.
‘By the attainment of the One the earth was steady. By the attainment of the One the gods had godliness.’
The statue in the temple is not godly; when the One arises within you, godliness appears in it. The image is only stone; but when the One stirs in you, that stone becomes a mirror. Those who first discovered images were artists of a rare vision — but they did not know what deceivers we would turn out to be. Simple people — the image was discovered as a thermometer: the day you begin to see the deity in the image, know that something has happened within. Till then you will not see the deity. We have abandoned the concern to see; we assume the image is God. We stand with folded hands before a stone that is not yet God for us. There is only stone; your deity is a belief.
The very same image, if it stands in a sculptor’s shop, you will not fold your hands. The same piece placed in a temple and you prostrate. How many lingams lie on the road! You kick them as you walk. A fragment of such stone tomorrow will be installed as a Shivling; you will lie full length before it. You bow to notions. For you there is no Shivling there.
The science of image was: know it is stone, and transform yourself — through prayer, meditation, sadhana — and the day the stone vanishes and conscious presence appears, know that an event has happened within. Because even to examine an inner event, you first have to look outside; we are so extrovert that even what happens within we check first without. The image is a symbol, a mirror, a thermometer — a device to test.
Lao Tzu says: ‘By the attainment of the One the gods had godliness.’
No deity has any godliness; when the One arises in you, godliness is revealed; it is your radiance reflected into the image. And the day you see deity in stone, you will see it everywhere. We chose stone for a reason: in this world the most ‘inert’ seems to be stone. It too is not truly lifeless — all is part of life — but life glimmers least in stone. Therefore stone images: if even there consciousness is discovered, then nothing remains where it will not be seen. If seen in stone, it will be seen everywhere.
‘There was godliness in the gods.’
You ask: what is there in the temple’s image? The question is misplaced; it only reports that godliness is not yet in your heart — that unity which can see. Thermometers are not at fault. If you put a thermometer and it shows no fever, you do not throw it away saying, ‘What is there in this instrument?’ It only reports what is within you — fever or not. If you see only stone in the temple, it reports the stoniness in your heart. It is not necessary that the image which is stone for you is stone for all; perhaps your neighbor standing there is seeing consciousness unveiled.
Hence the difficulty. Ramakrishna stood before the same image in Dakshineshwar where thousands stood. But what Ramakrishna saw none else saw. People would come out and say: his mind is sick. He converses with the Mother, argues, even quarrels. He sulks: ‘From tomorrow I stop worship! What do you think of yourself?’ Such intimacy — and only in intimacy can quarrel be. Others looked on: what madness — talking to a stone! Certainly his mind is deranged.
One day Ramakrishna said before that same image: ‘Enough worship! How long? Now give the final glimpse. If today it is not given, I will cut off my head — and yours too!’ A sword hung in the temple; he drew it: ‘I give you three seconds. If Brahmanubhava does not happen in three seconds, this head will fall.’ Three seconds must have become like infinite births — for time is not measured by clocks but by intent. Such urgency — life at the edge of a naked blade — his hand trembled, seconds passed, the sword flashed toward the neck — and in a split second the whole scene changed. The temple vanished; where the stone stood, conscious presence arose. The sword fell from his hand; Ramakrishna danced all night, and in the morning was found unconscious. After that day he was another man. He seldom went to worship; when asked, he said: ‘The manifestation has happened; now it is everywhere. Wherever I sit is worship. No need to go to a temple. The temple was a gate; the gate is open — why stand at the door?’
What happened in that moment when he raised the sword? Note well: nothing can happen to the image with a sword. What will you cut? But when you take up a sword with such intensity that you stake your whole life, you become one within. No second voice can remain. With only three seconds left and death so near, how many desires could remain? Would thoughts of tomorrow remain? Who to give money to? Who to collect from? Time vanished — no past, no future. Ramakrishna went beyond time — akal. What desire could survive? He who is ready to give his life for Paramatma — no desire remains. This is the last desire; beyond it none. In that intensity he became one; under that sword, with death near, life condensed — and in that condensation the One appeared. The image disappeared, the temple disappeared — the One alone was.
Remember: the event happens within; outside it is only experienced. If you were sitting there, for you the temple would not vanish, the image would not vanish; you would only feel the nuisance that something has gone wrong with Ramakrishna. You would not be entirely wrong — something did happen, but it happened within him.
Lao Tzu says: ‘By the attainment of the One the gods had godliness. By the attainment of the One the valleys were filled.’
Lao Tzu’s symbol: ‘valley’ means heart. An empty heart is pain. The lifelong suffering can be said in one word: empty heart. Your heart is a valley without fullness. Hence the mad attraction toward love — someone to fill me, complete me. Empty, incomplete, you long to be filled — but those from whom you demand are also empty. Deception is inevitable. All human loves fail — not because of love, but because of the expectation attached to love. One who is himself empty — how can he fill you? He can only promise.
Lao Tzu says: ‘By the attainment of the One the valleys were filled.’
When the One is attained, the heart fills — and such a heart overflows. What fills it is infinite; the valley is small. It overflows. Whoever comes near partakes; whoever comes close is drawn into the invitation. Buddhas, Mahaviras, Jesuses wander for years with a full valley, that the empty may come near…
But the empty have great difficulties. The empty fear to come near; only the full are fearless of nearness. A strange psychological fact: those who have nothing are always afraid lest it be snatched away; those who have everything never fear — what will you take from the abundant? Those who have little fear even a little being taken. Hence the empty avoid closeness; they do not let anyone come too near — their emptiness might be seen. Their poverty, impotence, beggary, their bowl might be exposed; they tremble. So even if a Buddha comes, you are afraid to go near; if he comes too close you seek to run, to escape.
Those who have — have because of Paramatma, not because of themselves. The person by himself is always empty; only by Paramatma is there fullness. The person is emptiness; Paramatma is the infinite fullness.
Thus Lao Tzu says: ‘By the attainment of the One the valleys were filled. By the attainment of the One all things lived and grew.’
One who is not filled within shrivels, rots; growth does not happen. Understand this: if a man grows rightly, he will go on developing to his final breath — never a decline. Life will be a continuous ascent, a peak that goes on rising.
But in our lives there is no such peak. Growth happens a little — in the primary years, when we are unknowing, inexperienced. Then growth soon stops. The day it stops, people say: he is mature. As long as the child grows, there is anxiety — who knows where he will grow, what will happen; unpredictable. All try to bring an early plateau where he will remain fixed so we can pre-decide what he will do. We have fixed the age of twenty-one worldwide — adulthood. Adult means: he will not grow. He has reached his last point. Adult means: dead — no longer alive. Now he can vote; no danger. Children are dangerous; they still grow; anything can happen. They can enter the unknown. We trust not life; we trust only death.
Thus you fear the living a little. When a man dies, all praise him: what a good man. Death makes one good at once. If you hear universal praise for a man, know he is dead. None criticizes the dead; there is no risk. People say: what is the point of criticizing the dead! Criticism is for the living — and the more alive, the more criticized. The dead is instantly good.
I have heard: in a village a man died. He was so wicked and had so tormented the village that the leaders were worried what to say at his funeral — it was impossible to call him good. After searching they found nothing praiseworthy. They asked the wise Mulla Nasruddin to deliver them. Nasruddin came and began by condemning the man’s wickedness — people were uneasy. But at the end he said: ‘But that is nothing — compared to his five brothers who are still alive, he was a saint.’
He found a way. The dead must be praised. Death makes us easy with a man; his possibilities are finished.
Lao Tzu says: When the One was attained, all things lived and grew. No one was dead.
This does not mean no one died, but no one lived as if dead. When he lived, he lived wholly; when he died, he died wholly. There is a joy in living totally; there is a joy in dying totally. Joy is always in fullness. We live lukewarm and die lukewarm. There is no flavor in living, no flavor in dying. We live somehow; and we likewise die. One whose life is lukewarm cannot die magnificently. His death is not an event; it is a slow rotting. He goes on dying, dying. His death is gradual. But one who has lived rightly, totally — his death is an event, a revolution. From life he leaps suddenly into another realm. His death is not a long dissolution but an exceedingly intense happening. Those who have known life deeply say: the beauty of death surpasses life — it is supreme rest, but only to him who has lived life in its full intensity, in all its meanings, without trimming.
Lao Tzu says: ‘When the One was attained, all things lived and grew. By the attainment of the One kings and lords were honored by the people.’
The honor kings enjoyed was not the honor of power; it was reverence for their inner peace. Respect for kings in those ancient times Lao Tzu speaks of was not because of armies and violence; the king was king by inner sovereignty.
Ram! The reverence for Ram was not because he was a king. Kingship was secondary; being Ram was the value. He was a king because he was Ram; even the throne was luminous because of Ram. But Ram did not shine because of the throne. Many kings have been; we have forgotten them. We remember King Ram — because something majestic was inward. By that, his throne shone; but the throne did not make Ram shine.
So Lao Tzu says: ‘By the attainment of the One kings and lords were honored. Likewise, each of these was thus. Without light the heavens would shake.’
Without light, without bodha, without prajna — heaven trembles. That happiness is shaken; the great joy of life shatters.
‘Without stability the earth would totter.’
And only in bliss is there stability — everything comes to rest within. If you have known a moment of bliss, you know what stillness descends — as if nothing moves. The river flows, yet no noise, no waves, no tremor — all is still. Moments of joy are motionless; time itself ends.
If we wish to define time accurately: time is another name for sorrow. The more sorrow, the longer time feels. Sit by a dying person through the night — how endless the night! When suffering is there, time lengthens. When joy is there, time shrinks. Two lovers can be together the whole night and at dawn feel it was but a moment. Joy shortens time. In the supreme bliss Lao Tzu speaks of, time ends.
Someone asked Jesus: what peculiar thing will be in your heaven? Jesus answered strangely: ‘There shall be time no longer.’ There will be no time; that will be the mark. There will be no movement. Things will be still — as on a silent lake without a ripple. In joy, man comes to rest.
Lao Tzu says: ‘Without stability the earth would totter.’
As soon as joy is lost, understanding is lost, the earth — our collective base of life, our worldliness, our body and the dwelling within — the whole house trembles.
‘Without spiritual power the gods would crumble.’
Temples will stand, images will remain — but their radiance will vanish; the indwelling will be gone. It has happened. No need to consult Lao Tzu — you can see. Temples are empty. Mosques have no indweller. Gurdwaras exist in name — empty shells. The bird has flown; the nest remains. The egg lies, the bird is gone. We bow to houses. It must be so, for without spiritual power the gods crumble. They live by your prana; your spiritual power is their food. They dwell at the very height where you dwell. Your height is the height of their temple.
See it thus: the state of human consciousness manufactures its gods. As consciousness rises, the gods refine. See the tribal deity: it is just as the level of tribal consciousness. Go back — the less developed the society, the feebler the consciousness, the cruder the god. Even in the Old Testament the god is dangerous, wrathful; he has compassion but only for his followers — conditional love. He angers quickly, and when angered behaves insanely — destroys villages, floods the earth because people do not worship him. This has nothing to do with God; it reports the consciousness of those who wrote. Such a god they could give birth to; this is their notion.
Return to our Puranic deities: see their character, their deeds — you will be ashamed that these are gods! Is there any sin they do not commit? They steal; they betray friends for their wives; they deceive the guru and elope with his wife — everything — yet they are gods. Of course there is a reason. Those who gave them birth saw no problem; otherwise they would have trimmed them.
Consider Yudhishthira: we call him Dharmaraj. He gambles — no hindrance to being Dharmaraj. He stakes Draupadi — and if you did so, would anyone call you Dharmaraj? Those who called him Dharmaraj saw no problem — hence they said so. Their consciousness conceived their Dharma and their God.
As consciousness develops, God is refined; when consciousness reaches its pinnacle, God loses form — he becomes nirakar. Any form, however beautiful, carries ugliness. However you manage and adorn it, form will err. And conceptions of form change with the age. Thus when consciousness reaches the ultimate height, Paramatma becomes nirakar. Nirakar because now no impurity can enter — how can formlessness be tainted? Form allowed impurity; the formless is pure. So when consciousness reaches its summit, Nirakar Brahman is born.
According to your consciousness, you craft your God. Show me your God and I can tell you what you are; show me your God and I can say who you are — he is born from you.
‘Without spiritual power the gods would crumble. Without fullness the valleys would shatter. Without life-giving power all things would perish. Without the power of Aryatva the kings and lords would fall.’
Historians think kings fell because they exploited, sucked blood, enslaved the people. There is a half-truth there, but not the truth. Kings fell because they remained only kings; their inner fullness was lost; the dignity of Paramatma within was gone. A Ram-like king cannot be dethroned. A Ravana-like king — how long can you keep him?
Kingship was an attainment — a sadhana, a process of refinement. When a prince was born, destined for the throne, he was put through disciplines; yogic practices were compulsory; he had to learn the art of meditation, of peace. For to sit on an outer throne is not difficult — but the outer throne has little value. He must be emperor within. He must be noble inwardly — shreshtha, kulin, Arya.
Consider one outcome: in India the twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jains are sons of kings. Their training prepared them for the outer throne — but the inner throne too was prepared. They escaped — kicked away the external. The inner taste was so luscious that they said: why sit on an outer throne when one is emperor within! The Hindu avatars are princes; the Buddha’s avatars are princes.
Three religions were born here; the avatars of all three are royal sons. There are many causes; one root is that we tried to make the king a king within. Sometimes our attempt succeeded so well that the man simply ran away — and that was success. He really became such within that the throne became of two-paisa value.
Lao Tzu’s disciple Lieh Tzu has said: he alone is fit to be king who has no desire to be king; he alone deserves the throne who does not even know it is a throne.
Today the world is democratic; its ideology dominates. It is difficult to say anything for kings. But I know there is injustice being done in the name of democracy — just as injustice was done in the name of monarchy, because the inner king was lost and the empty shell sat on the throne. Yet there was a magnificent possibility: to raise a man inwardly to the height to which power raises him outwardly — and his inner height must always exceed his power, only then will power not be abused. Today in democracy power is gravely abused, for men come from below without preparation. To be a minister requires no qualification. A taxi driver needs a license; a guard needs training; a clerk needs skill; but a minister needs nothing — except one mad qualification: do not bother about anything, put your head down like a bull and run straight for the chair. If you can do that, you will arrive.
We had the idea of an aristos: prepare the ruler. Plato, Lao Tzu, Valmiki — they all thought: a king should not be just anyone; he should be prepared with a whole heritage of nobility, and only then reach the summit. Power should come to the one utterly peaceful; peace should be the test.
Lao Tzu says: ‘Without the power of Aryatva, kings and lords will fall.’
Arya means inner purity, inner nobility. Its essential fragrance is humility.
Buddha arrives in a kingdom; the king hears and tells his ministers: prepare a welcome, I will greet him at the border. A minister says: ‘You yourself will go? Buddha is a beggar. Should a king greet a beggar?’
The thought had crossed the king’s mind — but he feared, for other kings had welcomed him. So he said to the minister: ‘You are right — what is the point?’ The minister smiled: ‘Accept my resignation. I only tested to see your inner state. Remember: you are a king, Buddha is a beggar — but his beggary is beyond you. He was a king, could have remained a king; he left and is a beggar. The majesty of his beggary is greater than your throne.’
In this land even the greatest emperor touched the feet of the poorest Brahmin — the Brahmin had no power, he was a lifelong fakir; yet the emperor bowed. It proclaimed: we value shanti over shakti. The king’s Aryatva, his excellence, lay in humility — so humble that no ego remained.
But the ego seeks the throne; we wanted the throne to seat the egoless. The effort failed — but it was a great experiment. If small efforts succeed, it is not much; even if great efforts fail, they are worthy. The attempt matters.
Lao Tzu says: ‘Without the power of Aryatva, kings and lords will fall.’
The One is the support of all. When the experience of the One becomes deep, many things follow — heaven is unveiled; earth is steady; there is godliness in the gods; the valleys are full; all things live and grow; kings and lords are honored spontaneously. If not, the heavens will shake; the earth will totter; the gods will crumble; the valleys will shatter; all things will perish; kings and lords will fall; thrones will be dust; the noble and the ignoble will become one.
But when the One is realized, everything is distinct; life moves upward. When the link with the One breaks, life begins to decline.
Sing kirtan for five minutes, and then go.