Tao Upanishad #75

He who knows the One—nothing remains unknown to him.
But in this world we always see the two. Here there is nothing of the One; whatever is here is two. Hence people hear of the One, yet they cannot understand. Hence thoughts of the One have been moving since time immemorial, yet its sadhana does not happen. In this world of two, talk of the One seems dreamlike. Where the two are a truth—an intense truth—there the One appears to be only a notion in the minds of idealists, a utopia, a heaven imagined, some dream.
And those who have known the One call our world of two—maya. And those who know only the two, who are familiar only with the two, cannot accept the world of the One as more than a dream. A bridge must be found between that world and this; otherwise no journey will be possible. Lao Tzu is speaking of that very bridge.
Lao Tzu says—and whoever knows says the same—that even in this world of two, if we inquire a little more deeply, we will find only the One. Where two appear to be utterly opposed, even there the opposition is on the surface; within, they are one.
In truth, to weave the fabric of life we must set threads crosswise and lengthwise. They are all threads; simply by placing them lengthwise and crosswise the cloth’s pattern is formed. In the cloth the threads appear to be two, opposed to each other, taut against each other, pulling, fighting. The thread is one, but for the weaving it must be set in opposition. In the weaving of life too, the thread is one. Yet the net of life cannot be made unless that one thread be set against itself. As a king builds a palace, he sets opposite bricks at the gates. The brick is one; but when placed against each other, the same brick becomes supremely strong. From opposition, power—energy—is born. Even the largest building can be constructed above that gateway.
The essence is one. The Upanishads call it Brahman. Lao Tzu calls it Tao. Dharma, swabhava, nature—whatever name we give—it is one. But for the play of life it appears as opposite. This appearance of opposition is only on the surface. Go a little inward, and within all opposites you will find a harmony, a sameness.
We want there to be light in the world, but without darkness there is no way for light to be. Then darkness is not the enemy of light; darkness is its ally—because only with darkness can light be. Enmity is what appears to us; in truth, darkness is the background. Light needs its support. Remove darkness, and light too will dissolve.
Perhaps you think, why must it be so? Can’t darkness be removed? Why can’t light be alone? Ask the scientist. He says all energies exist only in the polarity of positive and negative. Positive electricity cannot be sustained if there is no negative; with the loss of the negative, the positive is lost. The scientist says darkness is light standing on its head; it is light inverted. The thread has been laid crosswise, slanted—so that weaving may happen.
There is birth. How deeply we desire that birth be, life be—but death not be. Then we have no understanding of life’s mystery; only then do we make such futile wishes. The wise do not wish that death should not be—because without death there is no way for life to be. If the wise wish at all, they say: let there be no death and no life either—because these two are a duality. There will be a third truth, by holding lengthwise and crosswise which the cloth has been woven. Liberation from coming and going is not freedom from death, it is freedom from the duality of life and death—so that we may discover the One hidden behind the two.
Birth and death are two sides of the same coin. Without death, birth cannot be; without birth there is no way for death to be. The day man stops dying, that very day he will stop being born. The two are bound together. Hence all efforts that man makes to find nectar in the body—amrita—prove futile. For thousands of years alchemists searched for some elixir, some metal, some essence by whose touch man would become immortal. All their searches came to nothing. Man cannot be immortal, for with birth death has already entered. The tension of birth takes form only upon the background of death—otherwise it cannot form.
There is spring because there is fall; there is childhood because there is old age; there is man because there is woman; there is woman because there is man. That which is called opposite is always present. Then how far is it right to call it opposite?
Lao Tzu does not call it opposite. He calls it complementary. To call it opposite is our mistake. For what meaning is there in calling opposite that without which we cannot be? Complementary! Only with its support can we be.
You love. Man desires such love, such a heart full of love, that there remain no tones of hatred within. But without hatred, love cannot be. And when a man stops hating, what we call love will also vanish from his life. We want man to be compassionate, without anger. But in whose life anger is dissolved, what we call compassion will also dissolve—because anger is the complement of compassion; they are always together. In this world, duality is the very mode of existence. And if you drop even one of the two, the other is also dropped. When both are dropped, what remains is the third—the very One that Lao Tzu calls Tao. Where both dissolve, there the hidden ground beneath them—the breath of both, the life of both, from whose current both lived—is revealed.
The principle of complementarity is Lao Tzu’s most precious gift. Possibly Lao Tzu is the first in human history to abandon altogether the notion of opposites and to give birth to the notion of complementaries. He said: do not see opposition in the world at all—it is the play of one energy. Therefore true opposition cannot be; if it seems to be, it is only an appearance. A little deeper understanding, and it dissolves.
This inner vision is immensely meaningful, with revolutionary consequences for life. Our mind forever tries to save one out of the two. That very ambition is samsara. The day we understand that of the two, one cannot be saved—either both will be saved, therefore accept both equally, in equanimity; or both will go, therefore renounce both, equally, in equanimity—then do not choose. Either accept life and death alike—with equal welcome, equal gratitude; the slightest difference, even a hair’s breadth, and the world is created. Desire a little more life and a little less death—and the world is born. Or, renounce both. Say: there is no insistence on life, no insistence on death.
But both are difficult for us. Either we cling to life, then we want no death; we postpone death, deny it, forget it, we create doctrines whose smoke hides death from our eyes and blinds us. The man frightened of death believes the Atman is immortal. He does not reason, he does not inquire, he does not seek evidence. Frightened of death, he believes the Atman is immortal. It is his way to refuse death. Hence the young man does not trust so much in the immortality of the soul; the old man trusts more. As death draws nearer, the immortality of the soul begins to feel more true. It is the fear of death. The small child has no concern whether the soul is immortal or not; the thought does not arise—there is as yet no awareness of death. Death has not entered, so what need is there for the soul’s immortality? Birth is so near, and death so far, its shadow does not fall.
We have devised all kinds of means to forget death. We build the cremation ground outside the village, so it not be seen in passing—as if life were one thing, and death we push outside the village as something to be cast away. We never go there; and when we do go to bid someone farewell, we are restless. And if you listen to the conversations of those who have come to bid farewell, someone is burning there and they gossip, indulge in village slander—or, if they are “wise,” they talk of the immortality of the soul. But they remain alert that the death happening there cast not too deep a shadow within. When children are playing outside and a corpse is carried by, the mother calls, Come in!—don’t look at the dead. And everyone must become a corpse. What attachment is this, that we hide from sight a truth so necessary, so unavoidable?
We want to remain unaware of death, by any means not to be reminded. We arrange our surroundings such that death does not happen there, where things seem fixed—and from those fixed things it appears we too will remain fixed. In the last two or three centuries, faith in religion and in the immortality of the soul has waned. Among many reasons, one is that man has begun to live far from nature where death happens daily.
A farmer sees death every day: a tree dries and dies; a bird falls dead from the tree; an animal lies dead. Death happens daily. The village is so small that whenever anyone dies it feels as if someone in one’s own house has died. You cannot avoid death. But now there are new cities. In those new cities the village is so vast that however many may be dying, for you no one dies—unless someone very near dies. You live surrounded by cement and concrete where no bird dies, no plant dies, no animal dies; there is no sign of death. Secure on all sides! Sometimes death enters; someone near dies. But our nearness has also become thin; there is no one near. So only distant people die. This false security keeps up the illusion that life will go on and on—a hallucination. But our arrangements are false. Whatever we do, death will come.
On one side are those who go on seeking ways to escape death. These are the very people who, if some calamity happens so that they feel death cannot be avoided, or a blow comes to life that shatters the hope of holding it, the juice of life dries up, roots are uprooted—beloved dies, bankruptcy, house burns down—then such a man becomes eager to die at once, to commit suicide. Either we want life everlasting, or we want death now. We always choose one of the two. And remember, there is no difference between them. Whether you choose life or choose death—once choice has happened, samsara is created. Choice is samsara. To prefer one and drop the other—which was its complement—is ignorance. If one can accept both together, and know that life is one shore and death the other shore of the same happening, two stations of the same journey—beginning and end—one becomes free. Not a hair’s breadth of preference. We can even persuade ourselves that to be free we make no distinction—but the mind will still wobble toward life.
Mulla Nasruddin had two wives. When one died he built a beautiful tomb. Then when the second died he built another, right beside it, leaving a little space in the middle for himself. Both tombs of the same marble, equally beautiful and costly. The craftsman who built the tombs asked, “Mulla, did you love both equally?” Mulla said, “I loved them equally, of course; but if you won’t tell anyone, I’ll whisper something in your ear. Build my tomb in the middle, and tilt it a little toward the first wife. In public love was equal—let no one know—but tilt it just a little toward the first.”
That much tilt remains in you too. However much we reason that all is equal, that death is equal to life, still a slight leaning remains toward life. And if that leaning disappears, we fear it may lean toward death. But some tilt remains. Tilt is the danger.
Or else renounce both equally. Say that both are equal, and in both I have no taste.
Therefore religion has two paths. One is vairag—dispassion: an equal renunciation of both. And one is rag—total acceptance: an equal acceptance of both. The journey of vairag is known as Yoga; the journey of rag is known as Tantra. Equal acceptance of both is Tantra; equal rejection of both is Yoga. But the outcome of both is one—because in both, leaning is lost, choice is lost; you become balanced.
Understand Lao Tzu’s sutra.
“Therefore the noble depend upon the common for their support; the high depend upon the low for their base.”
There is an emperor. An emperor cannot be alone; he needs subjects. As the subjects dwindle, the emperor’s emperorhood diminishes. If the subjects become zero, the emperor becomes zero. The emperor’s being depends on the people. Those who appear below are giving alms to the emperor to be an emperor. If only the emperor could see this, the taste for being emperor would be lost. What juice then remains? If the master sees, “It is because of slaves that I am the master,” it means mastery is slavery to the slaves. For upon whom we depend, without whom we cannot be—what meaning can there be in being superior to them? To be higher than those on whom we stand—what nonsense! If the master sees that he depends on slaves, and without them his mastery is gone, he has realized the true nature of mastery. Mastery and slavery are two sides of one coin. Either both will be, or both will vanish together.
Buddha said: if you truly want ownership, then neither become anyone’s master nor make anyone a master.
We often think mastery means the more people are my slaves, the greater a master I am. Certainly, in the language of the world, the number of your slaves is the measure of your mastery. But the mastery that grows by slaves depends upon slaves. What is the worth of such mastery which depends upon slaves? What is the meaning of riches that depend upon the poor? What value can beauty have which needs ugliness for its pedestal? But in life this does not occur to us. The rich man thinks, “I am rich.” He never considers that he is not rich because of the wealth locked in his safe, but because of those poor who surround him. His riches depend upon poverty. The beautiful person never thinks that his beauty depends not only on his body but also on those bodies called ugly. The intelligent never realizes that his intelligence is not his private possession—it depends also upon those whom people call stupid. Opposites are linked, and they complement one another.
If you can see that my cleverness depends on fools, then such cleverness is simply the other end of stupidity. Either accept both—and then you will attain supreme wisdom. Supreme wisdom has no opposite; it is alone. So long as complementaries, opposites remain, so long there is samsara, so long there is ignorance. Either accept both, or reject both.
There was a Zen sage, Bokuju. All sorts of people came to him—emperors, beggars, pundits, fools. One day a simple man came and said, “I am very foolish. I was afraid whether I should come to you or not. I feared and thought for many years; then I gathered courage and have come. I am utterly foolish.” Bokuju said, “Don’t worry; my work is the same whether a pundit comes or a fool. The pundit must be freed of his punditry, the fool of his foolishness. And if you understand rightly, behind your feeling of being foolish is hidden the ambition to be a pundit.
“To feel one is a fool—this itself means ambition for punditry is hidden. And he who is a pundit and struts that he is a pundit—that very strut shows this man was once a fool, and deep down still is. His learning, like clothing, has covered his foolishness. Clothes cover nakedness, but they do not remove it; inside the clothes the man remains naked. In the same way punditry covers foolishness, but does not erase it. Hence the foolishness of pundits is a cultured foolishness; the foolishness of the common fool is open and natural.
“So, I must toil equally. For you aspire to be a pundit; and those who have become pundits fear they may fall into foolishness again. Between you there is no difference. You have each chosen one face of the same coin. The whole coin is to be thrown away.”
When the whole coin is thrown, what remains is a sinless state—where it is known neither that “I am a fool,” nor that “I am a pundit.” There is knowledge. That knowledge is one. To reach that knowledge, these two ends must either be accepted together—then they cut each other off and a zero is formed—or thrown away together—then there is release, transcendence.
Think about the sorrows of your life—your anguish, your anxiety, your mental pain—and you will find yourself torn somewhere in this duality; you will find yourself trapped in it. Some pundit pains you because seeing him you become conscious of your foolishness. Some beautiful person pains you because seeing him you become aware of your ugliness. Some powerful person pains you because seeing him you realize your weakness. Comparison is pain. And for one who compares, there is no way to happiness in any situation—because there can be no situation in which the possibility of comparison does not remain. No such situation exists.
Even an emperor like Napoleon would be filled with pain and shame seeing his ordinary soldiers. His height was short. Ordinary soldiers looked taller than he. It was the pain of his life. However great an emperor he became, he suffered greatly for his short stature. Psychologists like Adler say it was precisely because of his shortness that he ran in the race for empire—so that in some other direction he could prove his height.
There is no way out. The world has a thousand dimensions. You may move a little ahead in one dimension, yet you will never reach entirely ahead—and often when you go ahead in one dimension, energy shrinks from the other side.
Albert Einstein has written a memoir: he had received the Nobel Prize; he was world famous; his mathematical genius—perhaps never before had such a genius appeared in human history, and perhaps never again. One morning he boarded a bus. The conductor gave him a ticket; he paid; the conductor returned the change. Einstein counted, counted again, and when he began counting the third time the conductor said, “Stop! It seems you don’t know how to count money. Educated or not?”
He was the greatest mathematician in the world, but he had been so absorbed in great mathematics that his connection with small arithmetic had snapped. He could not count coins. One who counts the stars will find it very difficult to count coins. Energy has gone in one direction. Even a bus conductor, puffed up, said to him, “Looks like you’re uneducated!” Einstein noted it thoughtfully.
He wrote another anecdote. Often he would go to dine with his wife; so she always read the menu. He would be lost in another world. One day the wife was not present and he went alone to eat. The waiter brought the menu; he looked at it, but he understood nothing—what was what, what was suitable, what not. He had never thought of it before; his wife always did it. When after a long time he was still staring, he said to the waiter, “You bring whatever you think fit.” The waiter said, “I am as illiterate as you; I cannot read either.”
Whenever energies fix themselves in one direction, they shrink on all sides. It is natural. Man’s capacity is limited, existence is infinite—so it must be so. Often beautiful women have little intelligence. It is difficult. And often an intelligent woman will not be beautiful. The beautiful woman has no need of intelligence; beauty is enough—her journey proceeds smoothly. If a woman is ugly, she needs intelligence; otherwise she has no means for her journey.
Therefore Adler says ugly women do develop their talent in some direction—music, poetry, writing, painting—because they too long to shine. If they cannot shine through skin, then through a painting, a poem, music, sitar... So, just watch—when you encounter a talented woman, think: a great singer, a playback singer—likely not beautiful. The beautiful woman does not enter such trouble. Why need music? Her body is music. There is no need to search for a complement. When a person advances in one direction, he shrinks in all others.
Adler’s entire life-theory is that it is because of inferiority—some deep inferiority—that ambition arises in people. Some lack exists, and to deny that lack people rush intensely in some direction. Energy shifts places. The blind man—his eye’s energy moves into his ears, therefore his art of listening deepens. A seeing person cannot listen as a blind man listens. The blind man’s listening becomes very subtle. He recognizes footsteps—who is coming. You may not even hear the step, but the blind, hearing a person walk in the verandah, knows who it is. The whole eye has become ear. Hence the blind go deep into music where the seeing cannot. Their grasp of sound is naturally greater.
Helen Keller is blind, deaf, mute. All her life-energy has descended into her hands. The way she touches, no one in the world can touch—because she must see with her hand, hear with her hand, speak with her hand; the hand must do everything. Ten years ago she touched your face; ten years later she will touch and recognize and say, “Your health is not as before—you seem a little unwell; the body has weakened, or you have grown old.” The memory of ten years lives in her fingers. From her touch flows a current no one else’s touch can flow—because her whole life has shrunk into the hands. They are all her senses.
Thus, when life-energy begins to flow in one direction, it shrinks from the other. If other ways are not found, it pours into one. One thing to remember: you will never reach a state where pain from comparison is not. It will be. And the more you advance in one direction, the more pain there will be—because by that much you will be diminished in many directions.
There is only one way for one who seeks happiness: drop comparison. Do not measure yourself against another. The very eye that measures is false. Look only at yourself; leave off comparing with others. Then contentment arises—boundless contentment. Because then there is neither ugly nor beautiful, neither intelligent nor foolish. All these arise only through the opposite. Suppose the whole earth’s people vanished and you alone remained—after a third world war—and the earth fell silent. Would you be intelligent, foolish? Would you be beautiful, ugly? Tall, short? Fair, dark? What would you be? All these categories would vanish—you would simply be, and all such things would be pointless. The peace that would arise in that moment can arise even now—if comparison drops. For the world is not obstructing you; comparison is.
And comparison is foolish. It always depends on the opposite. Beauty depends on ugliness; wealth depends on poverty. Remove the poor from the earth, and the prestige of wealth dissolves. But the poor strive to erase the rich; the rich strive to erase the poor. Both are parasitic on each other; both live on each other. Either both will go, or both will stay. Hence in countries like Soviet Russia where the poor tried to eliminate the rich—the rich disappeared in name; new rich came. Because the two can only be together. Where earlier there was the capitalist, there came the manager.
Burnham has used the right term. He says: there has been no communist revolution in the world so far—only a managerial revolution. Merely the managers change; in place of the owner comes another owner. The name differs, the signboard differs. But the slave remains slave; the master remains master. The relationship remains; it ends nowhere. Either both will remain, or both will go.
In this world of duality, it is impossible to get rid of one and save the other. We try in all ways to get rid—wanting no war, only peace. How many have not desired peace—and yet nothing happens; ten years and a world war descends. It seems there is no way. Peace and war are complementary, not opposites. And if war did not happen, peace would begin to feel meaningless. As birth and death, so peace and war.
So people like Bertrand Russell—good souls who want the world to be peaceful, without war—should understand Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu would say: it cannot be. If there is a world and there is peace, war will continue. There is only one way for the earth to be peaceful—if we find life on some other planet. If on Mars we find life, and a planetary war begins—Mars versus Earth—war on earth will cease. Then Pakistan and India fighting will be pointless, for before the great enemy we will need to unite.
Even now it happens: when India and Pakistan fight, the Gujarati–Marathi conflict ends—they unite. The Punjabi–non-Punjabi conflict ends. The Madrasi–non-Madrasi conflict ends. The bigger enemy appears, the common enemy; we come together.
Therefore when war runs, there appears great unity in a nation. It is not unity; only the smaller wars end when the greater war is before us. Just as if you have small illnesses and then a great disease appears. There was a boil on the foot; then someone says, “Cancer has come.” The boil disappears—who notices it? The straight way to remove small illnesses is a great illness. When India and Pakistan fight, small ailments vanish; the nation appears united. If some planet were to go to war with us one day, the small quarrels of earth would end. Russia and America could unite; China and India could unite. The common enemy has come. But war begins on a new level.
Where there is peace, there will be war. Hence many do not understand the Gita’s message: why does Krishna insist so much—fight! To people like Bertrand Russell it seems Krishna is warlike, encouraging war. But Krishna’s understanding is the same as Lao Tzu’s. Where there is peace, there will be war; there is no escape. It must be accepted. And if accepted totally, the burden of war is destroyed. Even in the fire of war one can remain serene and meditative. Accept both! The Gita’s message is precisely this: do not choose between peace and war; attune to the destiny of things, to what is happening. Do not desire fruit; be a mere instrument. Let what is happening, happen. Do not choose. This choiceless vision can arise only when we do not see opposites as opposites but as complementaries.
“The high depend upon the low for their base. That is why kings and lords call themselves ‘orphan, solitary, and unworthy.’”
This needs a little understanding. Emperors constantly experience loneliness; the rich experience loneliness—such a feeling the poor do not have. On the summit of their palaces they remain alone. What a paradox of man: first he strives with all his might to be the highest; but being the highest he becomes alone—because all are left below; no companion remains. Then pain begins: “I am utterly alone; no one with whom I can speak, no one I can love, no one to befriend.” And all the while people strive to reach the summit where no one equals us. Then you will be alone for sure. No one prepares to be alone, yet all strive to be alone. Hence at the peak of success the rich man finds he has failed—relationship has broken; no one remains his own—only wealth. Upon the Everest-heap of money, he remains alone. On the summit of fame a man finds all vain—because utterly alone. A man more alone than Hitler or Mussolini is hard to find—utterly alone. Then loneliness bites: “Now there is no companion.”
All the juice of life is linked with companionship. The more we can share with many, the more our feeling-state can enter many, and the flow of life of many enter us, the more good, pleasant and healthy we feel. The more alone we become, the more our roots are pulled from the earth. Society is soil; the consciousness around you is not so far as you think—it is linked. When you pull yourself far away, you break with your own hands your source of life.
Emperors have always experienced they have become utterly alone—no one is theirs. But whose fault is this? It has been their very effort to reach where no one remains equal. Where no one is equal, friendship cannot be; love cannot be.
Understand—it may not occur to you at once—just as if you had been abandoned in a desert where you cannot even speak, cannot tell your sorrow, cannot share your joy. You cry and only your own voice echoes back; no response comes. Exactly so are deserts here too. On the summit of wealth, politics, fame—many kinds of deserts. And we are all seeking them.
Lao Tzu says, “That is why kings and lords call themselves ‘orphan, solitary, unworthy.’”
Because those upon whom they depend they keep themselves away from; those upon whom life depends they cut themselves off from. If a beggar comes to the emperor’s gate, the emperor won’t meet him—“I am emperor, you are beggar!” But his emperorhood depends upon that beggar. He is his friend, his companion, his family. These two are two ends of the same chain. The emperor should welcome him, make him a guest, honor him—“Stay a while with me, for you and I are companions. I at one end, you at the other. Without you I cannot be; without me, you too cannot be.”
If an emperor could do so, he will not feel alone—he will spread into all, and the taste of the One will begin. It will become his sadhana. If the emperor embraces the beggar and says, “You are my friend,” his search for the One has begun. In a little while the emperor will not feel himself emperor; the beggar will not feel himself beggar. The One within both will begin to be experienced. Duality will dissolve.
Hence we made it a concern that the emperor honor the beggar; let power bow before those who have nothing—so that the search for the One continues. If you are beautiful, do not turn your face away from the unbeautiful. He is a member of your family; his gift is to you—he is your other half. Hold him to your chest.
In the life of Saint Francis it is recorded that his first experience of God happened when he embraced a leper, and when he placed his lips upon the leper’s diseased lips—then he had his first glimpse of God. He did not find it in churches, nor in prayers.
On seeing the leper one wants to run, to move away. The same happened to Francis. A leper was coming. Limbs were rotting, falling away. There was a stench. You feel uneasy; you want to keep away. But Francis remembered that Jesus had said: “Only he who finds me among the last, will truly find me. Go to those from whom you spontaneously withdraw—then you will find me.” Francis restrained himself. It must have been most painful. It is easy to stand on one’s head for years; easy to sit in lotus; easy to tell beads with closed eyes. But to stand near one whose limbs have fallen, who stinks, near whom no one will stand, whom the village will not allow to enter—this was the moment of great revolution for Francis. On one side was the natural duality—choice: step aside. On the other, the search for the One beyond duality. The transformation happened in that single moment. He embraced the leper; he placed his lips upon those rotting, stinking lips.
Consider that moment a little. It is the final, ultimate state of meditation, its peak. When Francis placed his lips upon the leper’s lips—at that instant Francis reached exactly where Buddha reached beneath the Bodhi Tree—no difference at all. For it was possible only when duality dropped—what is beautiful, what is ugly; what is good, what is bad; what is fragrance, what is stench—both dropped. Then the One that was behind appeared. Francis said: I opened my eyes and saw—Jesus was revealed to me.
It is not necessary that Jesus stood there; it happened within Francis. The leper dissolved, Jesus appeared. From that moment Francis was no longer just a man; he became Godly.
Where duality falls, there are a thousand means to make it fall. Each person may have a different way. Do not take this as a prescription—for perhaps stench brings you no revulsion; then sitting with a leper you will not know God. If you work in a hospital, you may have become accustomed to such smells; you’ll massage the leper’s feet with detachment, like any other task—and nothing will happen. For the revolution must occur within. It happens only when duality is at its peak and you drop it.
“Is it not indeed true that they depend upon the common people for support?”
A Jewish mystic comes to mind—Baal Shem. Passover was near. Baal Shem spoke in the village assembly and returned home utterly exhausted. His wife asked, “What did you say that your strength has so drained? You look so weak; when you went, you looked so strong. What happened?” Baal Shem said, “I was explaining to the village that those who are rich, during Passover, it is their duty to give clothes and food to the poor. It is theirs; return it. At least in these days, let no one be poor, hungry, naked.” His wife asked, doubtfully, “Were you able to persuade them? Did they agree?” Baal Shem said something wonderful: “I would say fifty–fifty. I convinced the poor.”
But there is no solution in convincing the poor; it was the rich who needed to be convinced.
Everywhere life is split half–and–half. There is no difficulty in convincing the poor that charity is a great virtue; the poor are already convinced. The difficulty is convincing the rich—because the rich always think that whatever goes from him toward the poor goes to his enemy, to his opposite. He lets go with difficulty. He does not know that whom he takes as the opposite is complementary; without him there is no way for the rich to be. Because he is, therefore the rich man is. Both are partners in the same play. The other partner is not an enemy. If this were understood, a true socialism could arise upon this earth.
If the opposite is not seen as opposite but as complementary, then there is no need to snatch from anyone, nor to be snatched from. If the other is seen as our own other end, deeply realized, then wealth and poverty both can be dissolved from the world.
If the poor try to erase the rich, they will fail—only seating other rich upon their shoulders. If the rich try to erase the poor—it is impossible; for with their erasing, he himself will be erased. There is only one way: either both remain; or both become complementary and dissolve—both realize: we are linked, two halves of one play; neither above nor below—like sun and shadow. Then a socialism could arise upon this ground—without struggle, in which power does not merely change hands, but is dissolved. This was the vision of the rishis of the Vedas and Upanishads—such a world where duality no longer appears as duality, but becomes complementarity.
“In truth, take apart the parts of a chariot—and no chariot remains.”
A Buddhist tale. There was a most unusual monk—Nagasena. An emperor invited him to come and teach the Dharma. When the minister came with the invitation, Nagasena said, “A little difficulty—there is no such one as Nagasena. The discourse will be, but tell the emperor—there is no one like Nagasena. I will come, the teaching will be given—but there is no one like Nagasena.”
The emperor thought the man seems deranged: he will come, he will teach, and he says, “There is no one like Nagasena!” Then who comes? Who teaches? Still the emperor said, “The man is interesting—let him come.”
He sent a chariot. Nagasena came, the chariot halted at the palace gate, the emperor came to welcome him. “Nagasena—welcome! Monk—welcome!” Nagasena again said, “Welcome—fine. Acceptance of welcome—fine. But there is no one like Nagasena.” The emperor said, “Do not tease with riddles. Speak clearly—what do you mean? Then who has come? Who is being welcomed? Who accepts the welcome? Who speaks?”
Nagasena said, “I have come on this chariot. Do one thing: is there a chariot?” The emperor said, “Certainly—else how would you be here? The chariot stands before us.” Nagasena said, “Separate the horses.” The horses were removed. “Are the horses the chariot?” “The horses are horses, not the chariot.” Then the wheels were removed. “Are these the chariot?” “These are wheels, not the chariot.” The emperor began to fear. He understood he was getting trapped; this logic leads to a dangerous place. One by one the parts were removed, and the emperor had to say, “This too is not the chariot, this too is not the chariot...” and nothing remained. Nagasena said, “Where is the chariot? Whatever was removed was not the chariot; the chariot should remain—pure chariot should remain.” The emperor said, “Forgive me, I was mistaken—the chariot is only a combination.” Nagasena said, “I too am only a combination. Remove one by one—and a zero remains, nothing remains. Therefore there is no one like Nagasena. I will come, the discourse will be, welcome accepted—but there is no such one.”
Thus the Buddha’s doctrine—this which Nagasena taught—is anatta, no-self. Buddha says: within, there is no one. Separate the parts—the joints break; there is no one within. He who knows this—that within there is no one—attains supreme knowledge. Then what strut? What ego? Who is there to be saved, who to be carried? He is free from duality. That which is not—what birth? What death?
Lao Tzu uses exactly the same symbol: “In truth, take apart the parts of a chariot—and no chariot remains.”
Remove the poor, and the rich slip, fall. Remove the lowly, and the swagger of the high is gone. Remove the weak, and the strong are erased. Here if you pull one, the other begins to fall—because it is a combining. Remove both and a zero remains—nothing remains. They are complementary—supporting each other. The parts of the chariot support one another and a chariot is made. The chariot is in the mutual support. The combination is the chariot. Remove the parts and the combination does not come out—the parts come out, and the combination, like a void, remains ungraspable. The wheel is joined. Where the wheel is joined—there the chariot is. But remove the wheel, then other parts, and empty joints remain. Joints cannot be seen; they are seen only when two things are joined.
Understand it thus: You are in love—deep love. Separate you, separate your beloved—love does not remain between. It should remain—for you used to say: “There is great love between us.” With both removed, love does not remain; only emptiness remains.
This is subtle—and a very existential question. When we separate two lovers and nothing remains between, were they deluded that love was there? Love is a joining; it manifests through the presence of both; with both removed, it dissolves into the void. Understand: upon the joining of two in a certain condition, love would manifest; what lay hidden in the void, in seed form, when the two joined in a certain mood, emerged from the void and became manifest. When both go, the condition is lost; the means of manifestation is gone; what had manifested returns into the void. Whenever two lovers are present, love will manifest. Whenever a devotee is present, prayer will be present, God will be present. Remove the devotee—devotion is gone, God is gone. The three are a joining, a conjuncture.
Lao Tzu says: “Just as when the parts of the chariot are taken apart, no chariot remains—so too, we are all parts of society. There is neither superior nor inferior. For if the so-called inferior is removed, the chariot breaks; if the superior is removed, the chariot breaks.” It might be possible to do without the superior; it is very difficult to do without the inferior. Without the emperor—possible; without the sweeper—very difficult.
That is why some communities cannot become a society—because they have not accepted the low. For example, the Jains. The Jains have no society. Ask the Jains to create a settlement of only Jains—and it will be known they have no society. Who will sweep? Who will tan leather? If the Jains build a village entirely of Jains, that would mean they have a society; otherwise, only a notion—no society. They are exploiters! They cannot even found a village of their own—for then who? Only Jains. What will they do? They will need a Hindu sweeper, a Muslim leatherworker, a Christian, someone. Then they are not a society; they do not yet have a social vision—only an idea. A purely Jain village would die—or they would have to descend and admit: that sweeper was so necessary we cannot live without him.
Tolstoy said: the day society is filled with understanding, those tasks which no one is willing to do will be paid the most. They must be. Anyone is ready to be president—no need for such a salary. No one is willing to be a sweeper—his pay should be greater than the president’s. He who is ready is a courageous man. And whether there is a president or not makes little difference—you can seat a clay doll there and it will do. But the sweeper is essential—there a clay doll will not do.
If society is a chariot, then all parts have equal worth. There remains no big or small; even a single nail becomes valuable—immensely valuable. If one nail comes out, the chariot becomes useless. How small a nail is!—it does not matter. Utility is collective. This is the only meaning samata—equality—can have. It cannot mean everyone must do the same work. Nor can it mean that whoever does anything should be given the same wage—that too is foolishness. Equality can mean only this: society is a togetherness, a joining—and within it, big and small have no meaning; all are essential, and if even one is removed, the chariot falls.
If you can see thus, the feeling of inequality will go—from the servant in your home you will no longer feel superior. For he too gives, in his way; he too is a part of your life. And the wonderful thing is: perhaps he could be without you; you cannot be without him. He is worthy of respect and honor. Yet no one sees a servant as a person. You sit gossiping at home; the servant comes and sweeps—you do not even lift your eyes to acknowledge his presence, or to greet him, or to register he came. You sit in indifference, as if no one has come. Perhaps the servant is not a person, only a function—a machine that came, cleaned, and went. You do not acknowledge his humanity at all. This means you believe you can be without him. This means he is not essential.
Then your understanding is narrow; you know nothing of life’s mystery. You cannot be without him. The grandeur of your drawing room is not because of you; because of you rubbish would collect daily—your servant clears it. You are the garbage-house; the servant cleans daily. The elegance of your drawing room is due to him. If this is understood, you will feel grateful—and that gratitude will slowly remove duality. You will begin to feel that things are so interlinked that it is hard to say who is responsible.
Things are so conjoint that we are all participants. Life is linked so densely you cannot imagine. You live within your little circles; you think you live apart. You have no idea how many are donating to your life, how many hands support it. Unknown, unseen people labor in fields—becoming your food. And not just people—ecology is now a movement worldwide, and new findings surprise: you cannot imagine how interlinked life is. Understand a little.
In the last twenty years in Western cities, disturbances appeared and people began to notice. There are factories—and rivers got polluted. Fish rotted, ingested toxins. Fish reached the markets; those who ate them fell ill. The babies of those ill people are born already tainted. What has a factory to do with a child being born? Yet the factory polluted the river; the river the fish—fish depend on river; people eat fish—people depend on fish. Fish tainted people; their children were tainted. Like a circle, everything moves. All of nature is linked.
Trees stand. You keep cutting trees without a thought. Now fear is rising—for man has cut down too many trees. He did not know that without trees the earth cannot be. Trees are essential to your life. Trees drink the sun’s rays; nothing else on earth can. They drink and transform them into vitamin D. That vitamin is essential for life. If trees diminish, vitamin D diminishes—men and birds get into trouble. Trees draw the clouds; their thirst calls, attracts. Their coolness invites clouds; delighted, the clouds rain. Cut the trees; the clouds depart. You stand below, watching—when will rain come? But the clouds never came for you; they have no direct relation to you. They relate to you via the trees. The clouds do not understand the language of man; however much you invoke Indra—they do not understand man. But when trees call, clouds listen. They are linked with trees. Remove trees, man will die. He cannot survive.
This is to say: life is linked on all sides. When you break a branch, it never occurs that you break something of your own. When you fell a tree, you do not suspect anything. You think: furniture is to be made. You have no sense of life’s interdependence. Here everything is linked.
You eat and drink, and excrete. Then there are insects who eat your excreta. You despise those insects. But you do not know they are essential to your life. Without them you could not be. By now the whole earth would be excreta. Those insects eat it and return it to food; it returns to soil. Wheat grows; in that wheat the same excreta, purified through those insects, returns. You despise insects. Man would like to destroy them all. But if they are destroyed, the earth will be only excreta; for those who transform it are no more.
Thus man has destroyed many things thinking: what have we to do with them?—not needed. With their removal, new disturbances arise—because some essential link breaks.
Ecology—a new science—says life is a web; change even one link and you influence the whole. Life is like a spider’s web. Move one filament and the whole web trembles. Make a small change anywhere—the whole web is affected.
Therefore Lao Tzu was utterly contrary: he said—do not touch nature. As it is, it is right. Until you have complete knowledge of nature, whatever you do will bring trouble—because whatever you do will be partial. Some links will break, some be lost—you will be in difficulty. Lao Tzu’s view is: do not tamper—live it. Live so wholly in it that the oneness of life begins to be known.
Science is now beginning to see that life is one. The rishis always knew—from meditation. But science is beginning to learn, through all kinds of troubles, that life is one, everything is connected; bound in a chain—seen or unseen, understood or not.
Ask police stations the world over: more crimes on full-moon nights. The police must be more alert on full moons. The moon is connected to the human brain. On full-moon nights people commit more crimes, fall more in love; all kinds of disturbances increase—because the moon affects. As the moon waxes, waves in the human brain increase. In Hindi the mad are called “struck by the moon.” In English too, lunatic—from lunar—the moon. As dark nights increase, men commit fewer disturbances, become more calm.
New moon night—you’ll be surprised; you may have thought there should be more disturbance on the new moon—it is the night of the least disturbance. Full moon—the most. Not only the sea is affected; you too are stirred. The same water is in you as in the sea—seventy-five percent water, twenty-five percent other. And in that water the same proportion of salts as in the sea. Scientists say man’s first birth was as a fish; thus the water within him is still the sea. So seventy-five percent of you is the sea; when the moon increases, that water is moved—then inner trouble begins.
Astrology is an extension of this: the recognition that everything—moon, stars, planets, satellites—affects you. Everything is linked, everything joined. Whatever happens anywhere has its resonance at the far end of the cosmos. A pebble thrown into a lake—its ripples spread over the whole surface. Exactly so in life: a small event—the entire life is influenced.
When this oneness is felt—when the sense of it arises—then we begin to move toward Brahman. And remember—scriptures will not reveal the One. Only through the experience of life, through the direct realization of life’s interlinkedness, can the One be known.
The final word: “It is better to rumble like rocks than to jingle like jewels.”
Lao Tzu says: better to be at the foundation of life as the lowly than to glitter in the vanity of being superior. Better to be humble than filled with conceit. Conceit makes man solitary; and being solitary he does not experience life’s unity. When conceit drops and humility flowers, the experience of oneness comes. So humble that one feels: what am I?—only the gift of all. Nothing of mine is mine; in the being of all I am only a ripple. With this humility in mind Lao Tzu says, better to rumble like rocks than to jingle like jewels.
Jewels too are rocks. Only because of man are they “jewels.” Without man they are pebbles and stones; pebbles never cared for them. Man’s ego creates hierarchies everywhere. Man is strange—he does not only stand higher himself, saying “you below, I above,” he divides even among stones: you below, this stone above.
No stone is higher or lower. Place the Kohinoor beside a rock—will the rock weep: “Alas, I am nothing”? The rock will not care. The Kohinoor will not puff and shout, “Look at me—I am the Kohinoor! I have adorned emperors’ crowns!” Neither will the Kohinoor strut, nor the rock feel inferior; no talk, no stir. Man himself is high and low—and he makes the whole world high and low. In his way he manufactures inequality everywhere.
Lao Tzu says: it is better to be low than high. Why? Because the higher you become the more closed you become—thinking yourself separate, special—and your threads with life snap. You will suffer, yet because of conceit you won’t drop even your suffering.
Better to be at life’s foundation—where there is no distinction, no one is high; where life is simple and natural. Humility is better, for humility can be a door. Ego is dangerous, for it is an obstruction.
Pause five minutes, sing kirtan—and then disperse.