Tao Upanishad #83

The sole root of all of man’s sorrows, pains, and afflictions is one. And that root is this: whatever man is, he wants to be otherwise—he longs to be something else. The craving that the given state be different is the very foundation of all human misery.
We are not content with what we are, and we nurse a deranged desire to become what we are not. A mind of this kind will never come upon bliss. In such a mind, the very possibility of bliss does not exist. Wherever it arrives, it will construct a hell.
There is a very ancient Arabic saying: the sinner does not enter hell, nor does the virtuous enter heaven; the sinner carries his hell with him, and the virtuous carries his heaven with him.
Wherever the virtuous arrives, that place becomes heaven; and wherever the sinner arrives, that place becomes hell. Hell is our way of seeing things; heaven is also our way of seeing things. Heaven and hell are not conditions, not geographical locations; they are our responses.
The German poet Heine wrote a short poem. He wrote: I was passing by a prison. It was a full-moon night, and I saw two prisoners standing at the barred gate. Right before the gate was a filthy pit, stinking, with mosquitoes, insects and moths hovering around. And in the sky was the full moon. Two prisoners stood at the gate. One was condemning the filthy pit before him and was miserable; to him the full moon in the sky was not visible at all. For one whose eyes are filled with the pit, the moon becomes impossible to see. When the eyes are brimmed with the cesspool, the moon disappears. The other was praising the moon. The night was wondrous. And to one who sees the moon, neither the filthy pit is seen; nor is there any feeling of standing in a prison; nor is there any sense of being behind bars. The moon in the sky set him free. They were standing at the same place. They possessed the same eyes, yet different minds dwelt within. Their ways of seeing were different; their interpretations were different.
This is the world. When one becomes a Buddha, the world does not change. Wherever you are, there you become a Buddha. The way of seeing changes. The pits vanish, and the full moon appears. It depends on the person—how he sees, how he interprets. If there is a mind of acceptance, then sorrow is impossible. For even sorrow can be accepted. The moment sorrow is accepted, it dies. Sorrow exists only in rejection. If we accept even sorrow, it dissolves. In acceptance there is happiness. If we cannot accept even happiness, it turns into sorrow.
So happiness and sorrow are not external events—they are my acceptances and rejections. And if a person learns the art that nothing at all remains in him which he rejects—how then can we make him unhappy? The whole world, united, cannot make him miserable. It becomes impossible to fracture his happiness. And as we are, it is impossible to make us happy. It is absolutely impossible to erase our misery, because we are so adept in the art of rejection. Whatever we receive, we know how to reject it; whatever comes to us, the mind fills, instantly, with opposition.
Lao Tzu is a nourisher of acceptance, of Tathata. Whatever the situation, the very moment it is accepted, its quality changes. Remember—this is unconditional: whatever the situation, the very moment it is accepted, its quality changes. However deep the sorrow, however grave the illness, however intense the pain, even if death is approaching—if you can accept, instantly the nature of it changes. Death too will become a friend. Death too will become a door opening toward the infinite. Even in death, you will not see what is slipping away; you will see what is being attained. But if there is rejection, then not only will death be sorrow, life too will be sorrow.
Every moment something is slipping away, something is being received—something comes, something goes. If we see only what is going, there will be sorrow; if we also see what is coming, there will be joy. And wherever we stand, beyond that, there is still space. However much wealth we possess, there can always be more.
Carl Gustav Jung, a great psychologist, wrote a very significant thing in his memoirs: the cause of all human misery is man’s power of imagination. No animal is miserable, because no animal can imagine. The power of imagination is the cause of man’s greatest misery. Why? Because whatever condition man is in, he can imagine a better one.
A beautiful woman may come to you as wife or beloved, but it is hard to find a man who cannot imagine a woman more beautiful than she. And if you can imagine a woman more beautiful than your wife, you have become miserable; the wife is rendered futile. However beautiful the palace, you can imagine a better palace—even if you cannot build it. With that imagination, comparison begins. The palace becomes worse than a hut. When something better can be, whatever we have becomes the not-better.
Imagination is the cause of man’s misery—and also of his creativity. No animal creates. Animals live in repetition. For millions of years, generation after generation, they live in the same way. Man seeks the new, creates the new. Because of imagination he sees: something can be changed, made better. But from the same power that gives rise to creativity, man’s misery also arises.
Therefore you will be astonished to know that creative people are the most miserable. Whoever is creative—painter, sculptor, scientist, poet—remains deeply troubled. For in no situation can they know the end; from any given point, there can be better. And until they attain the better, they will be unhappy. And there can be no state from which the imagination of a better is impossible.
Animals seem happier than man, for wherever they are, that is their existence. They can neither think of the better, nor dream; they cannot even compare. Man’s power of imagination drives him into the future—and when the mind goes into the future, our connection with the present is broken, and the present alone is life.
Lao Tzu says: whoever accepts the state he is in, in its totality, has no way left for sorrow to enter his life.
But this frightens us. The fear is: if we accept whatsoever we have, then what of development? If we cannot think of the superior, why will we seek? How will we seek? Then man too will become like an animal.
Western thinkers—the evolutionists—raise precisely this criticism of the East. Their criticism has logic. They say that is why the East could not develop. And looking at the East, their point seems right. For the East accepts: if there is a hut, the hut is accepted; if there is poverty, poverty is accepted; if there is hunger, hunger is accepted. Because of this acceptance, science did not arise in the East.
This seems right. In the West, science could be born because there is great imagination. And whatever they create—no sooner is it made than it becomes useless, feels out of date, because a newer imagination appears.
Thus the West never quite lives. It builds in order to live, but by then something better could be—before anything can be truly built, the moment of its dissolution approaches. The West does not live; it keeps running. The East stands still—but stands amidst great pain, and no development happens. The greatest criticism of Lao Tzu, Buddha, Mahavira is the current condition of the East. And if the West does not accept the East’s vision, the reason is that looking at the East, it appears unacceptable, even dangerous—it seems it will breed inertia.
But somewhere we have misunderstood Lao Tzu or Buddha. The possibility of misunderstanding is always there, because we do not stand on the plane from which Lao Tzu speaks. If Lao Tzu’s teaching is rightly understood, and whatever our situation, we accept it with our whole heart—development will not stop; development will happen. But the mode of development will change. We will become so delighted in the given that the power which is wasted in misery will not be dissipated.
Remember, energy is expended in suffering. In pain man breaks, is destroyed. And apart from bliss, there is no other source of power in this world. One who accepts life as it is, moment to moment, will not become stagnant. Through this acceptance, indomitable energy will remain with him. The waste of his energy will cease. The leaks through which his vitality drains will end. He will not be fragmented; he will be whole, unbroken—a source of great power. And by its very energy, that great power will develop moment to moment.
This development will not be like a man who drags a cow by a rope tied around her neck—whether the cow wants to go or not, the man pulls and the cow must go. The development occurring in the West is of this sort. Ambition pulls like a rope; there seems to be no way to stop. Every person is bound by the rope of ambition and dragged. Thus growth happens, but with immense misery, pain, tension and restlessness. And what shall we do with development that leads into anguish, torment, and insanity? The house becomes better, the food becomes finer, and the man is lost. And the very one for whom we build houses, for whom we arrange better food, better technology, machines—that one remains no more to enjoy them. If the goods of consumption pile up and the consumer dies, what is the point?
This is what is happening in the West. The man is being lost; means, materials, systems, conveniences keep increasing. The one for whom they increase appears gradually to be vanishing; there seems no possibility of his surviving.
There is development by dragging the human neck with the leash of ambition. And there is another development not born of ambition’s leash. We sow a seed; a sprout breaks forth. No one is pulling this sprout. If you pull it with a rope you will be proven a murderer—the plant will die. No one pulls it; no lust, no craving, no future is calling it. It is not wanting to become something. The indomitable energy of the seed! Its power!
So what do we do? When the sprout emerges from the seed, we water it, we give it manure; we do not tug at the plant. Water and manure mean we are giving it strength, we are allowing the hidden power within it to reveal itself. That very power will, of itself, draw the plant onward—and the plant will be delighted at every moment. It will not be unhappy today for the sake of flowers tomorrow. When flowers have not yet blossomed, it is happy; when flowers blossom, it is happy; it is happy in every moment.
Lao Tzu says: growth should be by nature. Development should not be by force, not by pulling and hauling. The inner power of man itself should lead him into unfolding, flowing like the current of a river. This source of human power increases through the feeling of acceptance and diminishes through the feeling of rejection. For the very moment we reject anything, our opposition begins. Where there is opposition there is struggle; and where there is struggle we become entangled in fighting, and our energy is wasted in the fight. Acceptance means: we have no opposition; there is no way for our energy to be squandered. We are not fighting; there is no conflict.
And remember: as soon as a person takes up the tendency to fight, the experience of religion becomes difficult in his life. For the experience of religion means only one thing: I am in friendship with this existence, not in opposition; I am a part of this total existence, not its enemy; and this whole universe wants to see me blossom, it is not eager to destroy me. It is that which has given me birth; it is that which supports my power. The breath is his; every pore is his gift. Whatever I am has arisen from within this vast cosmos; and this vast cosmos is not my foe. It is my home. Here there is no talk of conquest of nature—for nature cannot be conquered. I am a part of nature; a part can never conquer the whole. He can fight; fighting, he can destroy himself; he can become miserable and pained; but he cannot arrive at that good fortune where each moment becomes a festival. Such festivity is possible only when a deep sense of unity with existence begins to dawn in me—when I feel I am not an outsider, when I feel I am not a stranger, when I feel that trees and moon and stars and plants and earth and animals and birds are all with me.
The feeling of acceptance gives birth to this sense of togetherness.
In the West a new thinking arose—existentialism. That new thinking raised, like a slogan, a significant question that troubles every thoughtful man in the West: man is an outsider, man is a stranger; nature has no use for man; this universe is utterly indifferent; this universe is not in the least eager to support man. Man is a stranger. This existence cannot be home; at best—at the very best—there is the possibility of an inn; at worst, a battlefield. But it is not home. And if the feeling arises that existence is not home but at best an inn—this best possibility will fall to the lot of very few, the maximum will have the battlefield. This world is a battleground where one must fight and die; there is no way to live in joy, to live in festivity. For all around are enemies, and each is engaged in saving himself and destroying the other. If such a view prevails, and man becomes very restless, what wonder? If the number of madmen increases in the West and minds become more diseased day by day, it must be taken as natural. It is the natural outcome. If man is alone and the whole world is an enemy, in such a dark world where everything is hostile, how can we be at peace? How can we be joyful? How can Samadhi bear fruit?
Lao Tzu’s vision is to make this world a home—one’s own home. It is already a home; it depends on our vision. If we wish, we can make it a battlefield. Tathata, the feeling of acceptance—Total Acceptance—is Lao Tzu’s basal aphorism. Whatever I am, wherever I am, in this very moment let there be no demand to be otherwise.
Its consequences are many. First: whatever I am, wherever I am, as I am—what I have, little or much, for the ideas of little and much arise only when I demand something else—if I am contented with whatsoever is, this very moment becomes my moment of supreme joy. And through this contentment the world becomes my home; through this contentment my energy is conserved, and from that energy new sprouts will burst; I will keep unfolding, I will remain in flow. But that flow will be natural. Not through any struggle, not through any war—the flow will be loving, the flow will be a stream of prayer.
The East has not understood Lao Tzu or Buddha, or else the interpretations the people of the East have given of Lao Tzu and Buddha are proofs of their cunning minds. Lao Tzu is not saying: stop. He is not saying: close your eyes. He is not saying: become dead. And what Lao Tzu calls contentment is not what we call contentment. Because of words, great confusion arises.
People come to me. One friend came one day and said: the sadhus and saints say, “The contented are always happy.” I have been contented all my life—but there is no sign of happiness.
What kind of contentment could this man have? For happiness is the natural outcome of contentment. It is as if someone said: I drink water every day, but my thirst never gets quenched. Then we should understand that he must be drinking something other than water. The very sign of water is to quench thirst; it is its nature. This man says: I have always been contented, but happiness never came.
In this one sentence the entire mistake of the East lies concealed. I told the man: you are not contented even in this moment—leave alone “always.” It is the symptom of the discontented mind that says, “I have never found happiness.” Contentment means: what I have received was happiness; whatever came to me was my joy. This alone is the meaning of contentment. This man’s “contentment” is of another sort. Better to call it consolation; not contentment. Consolation is a very perverse thing. What you cannot get, that for which you try everything and fail…
You remember Aesop’s story? The fox jumps for the grapes and cannot reach them; then she is heard saying, “The grapes are sour.” This is consolation. By it the fox hides her defeat. This is not contentment. The fox tried her best to get the grapes. The grapes are far and cannot be reached. The fox is not ready to admit, “I am weak—my leap is short.” Nor does she want others to know she has lost; this hurts the ego. So the fox says, “The grapes are sour.” She says it to convince herself and to convince others—that it is not that she could not have had them if she wanted; she could have had them. But the grapes are sour, unworthy of having. This is the fox returning “contented.” This is consolation. This is the strategy of a cunning mind.
Our “contentment” is of this kind. We try every means; that is why this friend said, “I have always been contented, but happiness has not come.” He is doing everything possible so that happiness should come. Happiness does not arrive—so he persuades himself, “I am a contented man,” and then tries to get happiness by way of contentment. Through contentment there is no question of getting happiness; contentment is happiness. Contentment means: we have dropped rejecting sorrow, and we have dropped demanding happiness. Whatever comes is our destiny, our prasad; we have no ambition beyond it. We do not run for more. In such moments, a music begins within—when there is no demand, no craving, no race. The music of inner peace that begins is called contentment. Whoever experiences this contentment—could he ever say he did not find happiness? For what happiness could there be beyond this contentment!
The East made contentment a shield and hid its weakness and cowardice behind it. Contentment is only for the powerful. For the weak there is consolation—but they call consolation contentment. Words then create a great entanglement.
Understand Lao Tzu’s aphorism. Before that, take note of one more thing. A contented man cannot be ambitious. No goal of acquisition can remain for him—even if it be Moksha, Paramatma, Self-knowledge, meditation or Samadhi. No target of attainment can belong to a contented person. And the delightful paradox is this: the ambitious runs and runs and never arrives; the contented does not run and arrives. For if I am so contented that I want nothing at all, how long will meditation stay away from me? If there is no way for restlessness to persist, what need is there of methods to be tranquil? Methods are needed only when there are diseases. First we create the disease, then we seek methods. Lao Tzu says: there is no need to create the disease.
Hence Lao Tzu’s famous dictum: when Tao was in the world, there was no religion, no preachers of religion, no religious teachers. When Tao disappears from the world—when Swabhava is lost—then religion is born.
Plain truth. For religion is medicine. First there must be illness; then the doctor enters. We become very obliged to doctors. But Lao Tzu’s emphasis is not on treatment. “First create disease then cure it”—this is not his emphasis. Lao Tzu says: do not create the disease. And the disease is of our own making. Then thousands of medicines arise; thousands of remedies appear to cure the disease; then come the reactions to these medicines; then diseases created by medicines. Then there is no end to the sequence. And the physician can treat only what he knows; he seeks the disease he can treat. In my experience, this is so. Your ailment interests the physician less than what treatment he can offer.
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin once took up the profession of medicine. He arranged everything, hung a signboard at the door, and waited for patients. The first patient arrived and said, “I’m in great difficulty, I’m very discouraged. I’ve searched here and there, consulted many doctors, vaidyas, hakims—none can cure me. I have perpetual pain in my spine. It’s been many years—twelve, fifteen.” Nasruddin thought for a while and then said, “Do one thing. It’s winter—tonight take a bath and stand outside your house. Don’t dry your body with a towel. Cold icy winds are blowing.” The man said, “What? Will that cure my spinal pain?” Nasruddin said, “I did not say that. You will get double pneumonia. And for double pneumonia I have a sure remedy—an infallible medicine.”
Thus the physician seeks the disease for which he has a cure. If it is not there, he creates it. Go to a homeopath—he finds one sort of disease; to an allopath—another; to a naturopath—yet another. As many systems of medicine as you consult, so many diagnoses. Diagnosis means only this: the thing he can treat becomes his diagnosis. You matter very little; what he can do matters more. You are merely a pretext.
It is the same with religious teachers. What is your trouble is not the question; what medicine they have is the question.
Lao Tzu says: first the nuisance of disease, then the nuisance of remedies—there is no end. Better that the disease not arise.
People come to me and ask, “The mind is restless, how to make it quiet?”
I ask them not to worry about how to make it quiet; first worry about how you made it restless! Remove the causes by which you made it restless.
But this appears to them a long affair, even impossible. They say, “Leave that—just give us some method, some mantra for peace.” They will continue to produce restlessness; they are not ready to stop it; they have investment in restlessness—something else is being gained from it—so they cannot drop it, and they want some treatment from above for peace! If peace were obtainable like that, the whole world would have become peaceful long ago. Peace cannot come that way; the causes of restlessness have to be removed. In Lao Tzu’s view, those causes need to be understood.
“When the world lives in accord with Tao, the race-horses pull the garbage carts.”
The race-horses are your horses of ambition. It is a strange thing that man even decides victory and defeat by making horses run. Horses run—and men come first and second. Horses run—and thousands gather to watch. Try making men run—you won’t be able to gather a thousand horses to watch them. Horses would have no interest in it, nor would they be pleased that some men are racing and that from this… Horses have no ambition. Man, in every guise—whether he plays games, cards, kabaddi, football—everywhere seeks victory and defeat; everywhere he contrives to establish the ego. Even his games are diseases.
Lao Tzu says: if the world were in accord with Tao, the race-horses would haul garbage carts. Who would race them? Who would ride the horses of ambition? Who would take interest in who comes first or second? It is only because we want to be first that we search for various means to be first. Any pretext will do. A man begins collecting postage stamps—he takes delight that in the village he has the largest collection. What value can postage stamps have? Another starts collecting wine bottles—empty bottles. But whatever it is, any pretext will serve. My ego must be gratified. I must be something that the other is not; I must be somewhere the other is not; I must be unique, extraordinary. If you examine your activities, you will find the search for the extraordinary is afoot.
Lao Tzu makes fun of it. He says: your race-horses will haul garbage, if people live in accord with Tao.
“And when the world runs counter to Tao, cavalry fills every village.”
Behind all wars is ambition. And whenever we lose our Swabhava, violence flares up. Violence means we have gone against nature—we have become ill.
Understand a little. Whenever we become ill, we hold others responsible. Whenever we are unhappy, we hold someone accountable. If you are upset, you immediately search for who is upsetting you. You never think that you yourself could be the payer of this bill; no one needs to upset you. When you are angry, you think someone made you angry. Whenever you are sick, you seek causes outside; there must be someone to blame. This reduces your self-guilt. And you forget that your disturbances are self-made.
Scientists have done many experiments. In some, they kept people in every kind of solitude and arranged continuous observation of their minds. For forty-eight hours a man was alone: no cause—no one was abusing him, no one was teasing him, no one was misbehaving—he was alone. All facilities were there—food, water, lodging. Yet within twenty-four hours the man changed twenty-four colors—even alone. Sometimes he became angry; sometimes sad; sometimes happy; sometimes he began humming a song; sometimes he looked restless; sometimes very tranquil. As if these are inner seasons moving within him. If he had been with someone, he would have found the causes in the other. But even in this solitude, when he himself is producing everything, still he seeks causes in the other in his mind. If he becomes angry, he thinks, “The day before yesterday someone abused me, that is why I am angry.” If he becomes cheerful, he thinks, “Ten days ago such and such person honored me so much, that is why I am happy.” But we always seek causes outside.
In the view of Lao Tzu—and of all the knowers—the causes of everything are within. When we are happy, the causes are within; when miserable, within; when blissful, within. Outside there are only excuses, pegs. Whatever we are, we hang it on those pegs.
And when all lose touch with Swabhava, the man devoid of nature is bound to be filled with deep torment—and he will search outside for the cause. This searching for causes outside is the cause of all strife. Whether you are fighting with your wife, or the wife with the husband; father with son; India with Pakistan; or China with someone else; whether nations, castes, individuals, or societies—the entire rage is a symptom of being uprooted from Swabhava. We are disturbed within—and for the disturbance it becomes necessary to hold someone responsible. Whenever we hold someone responsible, we feel relieved.
Adolf Hitler wrote in his autobiography: even if your nation has no enemy, you must maintain the imagination of an enemy; otherwise people become extremely restless. If a nation is to be managed properly, it needs an enemy. If real enemies are not there, then false, manufactured enemies are needed—but enemies are needed.
Germany—a thoughtful country—if any country in the last hundred years could be credited with a precise prestige of thought, it was the Germans. That very thoughtful nation behaved so grossly and foolishly in two world wars that we should become suspicious of “thinking.” “Thinkers” do not seem trustworthy. Hitler convinced people of things which even the least intelligent could see were delusions—but Germany did not see it. There were reasons. In the first world war Germany lost. No one wants to admit: we lost because of our weakness, our mistakes. No one wants this, because it wounds the ego. There must have been some external cause. The whole German race was searching for the cause. Hitler supplied it. He said: “Because of the Jews, we lost.”
The Jews had nothing to do with it. That connection is as relevant as if Hitler had said, “Because people ride bicycles we lost the war,” or “Because people wear spectacles we lost.” That is how “related” the Jews were to losing the war. No relation at all. But people wanted an enemy they could suppress. Hitler butchered millions of Jews. The whole German nation was agreeable, because the enemy had to be exterminated. There is no logic, no mathematics, no connection—but the story sold. For we always want to find an external cause. Any cause will do.
If in this country troubles increase, it will not be long before you are dragged into war. If economic crisis grows, prices rise, people get into difficulties—quickly some war must be arranged. Otherwise what answer will the Indian leader give you about why there is trouble? It is never because of us. If some disturbance begins from Pakistan or China, the problem is solved: “Because of them.” Then the whole country is quiet. Then we can bear suffering, because a cause has been found.
Such false causes have carried history into wars. The very moment we deviate from Swabhava, we immediately need to seek causes outside.
Lao Tzu says: “When the world runs counter to Tao, cavalry fills every village.” War becomes inevitable.
In this century, people keep thinking how to avoid wars. But wars cannot be avoided—seeing the man that is. There is nothing despairing about this—it is a plain fact. Man as he is today needs war. Whatever the outcome—even if all humanity perishes—this man, as he is, cannot live without wars. Every ten years a war is needed. In the last three and a half thousand years there have been only seven hundred years in which there was no war. In three and a half millennia, except for those seven hundred years—scattered, not consecutive—war has been continuous. Those seven hundred years are not together—one day here, two there, ten there. Otherwise, somewhere on earth, war has always been under way.
War does not seem an accidental event. Something in the very way man lives is fundamentally wrong such that he needs war. Perhaps we accumulate so much anger, so much hatred and violence, so much pus forms within us that an outlet is needed. Some collective arrangement is needed to dump that filth. War is such an arrangement. After war there comes a lightness—like a little calm after a storm.
In Lao Tzu’s view—and in my understanding too—wars cannot be eliminated until man is brought into accord with Swabhava. Let Bertrand Russell do a thousand things; let all the pacifists in the world even wage wars for peace—still man cannot be freed from war. Man needs to be established in his nature.
See it a little. When you are happy, you do not feel like fighting. When you are happy, the thought to fight cannot arise. When you are happy, even if someone provokes you, you laugh and let it pass. You can laugh. Even if someone incites you to fight, you can ignore it. But when you are unhappy, you are waiting for someone to provoke you a little. Your gunpowder is ready; only a spark is needed. If a spark is not available, you can generate an imagined spark and create an explosion. Look in your own life and you will understand—under the same circumstances sometimes you are ready to fight, sometimes you keep laughing. The circumstances are the same; your inner disposition and mood differ. Yesterday the husband said the same thing to the wife—no quarrel arose. Today the same thing said, and a quarrel erupts. Yesterday the wife was happy; happiness is not ready to fight. Happiness can let go, can forgive, can forget. Today the wife is not happy; the same words become a spark.
In Japan, a great Tokyo company that manufactures cars has placed at its gate two statues—of the owner and the general manager—outside the factory. This is something that should be done outside every factory soon. Whenever any worker is angry, he can go and hurl his shoes at the owner, abuse him. Those statues are placed there for this reason. Psychologists are studying that factory and say the workers are extremely content, and many times during the day they go, throw their anger on those statues, and return lightened.
When you are venting anger on each other, it has nothing to do with the other; the other is no more than a statue. If you are intelligent, when someone is venting anger at you, there is no need to be troubled. It has nothing to do with you. You are just a statue, a pretext. You should be happy that you offered the other a chance to throw out his anger; his anger has lightened, he is calmed. But we lack such understanding. The other too boils—because he too has many boils inside. Everyone is smoldering. That is why it is not convenient to live with anyone. However close your love, when two persons live close, nothing but quarrel is produced. The cause is not the other; the cause is the inner departure from Swabhava.
“When the world runs counter to Tao, cavalry fills every village.”
When anyone runs counter to Tao, nothing remains within him but hatred, anger, envy and jealousy. Every person is burning. Each walks hiding his fire under his own ash. From above you see ash and think there is no danger. Inside, there are embers. Just a little gust of wind, and the embers reveal themselves and flames leap out.
This gives only one indication: within you no music, no contentment, no stream of joy is flowing. Your anger is only a symptom; your hatred is a symptom—not the disease. Therefore those preachers who say “Do not be angry, do not hate”—they speak in vain. Their talk is like telling a feverish person, “Don’t be hot.” It is beyond his control. Heat is not itself a disease. The rising temperature in the body is only a symptom. The disease is inside somewhere. In Lao Tzu’s view, to fall away from Swabhava—to go against nature—is the disease. Then everything else follows. You may employ a thousand means to “not be angry”—nothing will be solved. You may suppress anger from expressing, hide it, swallow it. If not today, then tomorrow it will come out—more so. And perhaps today had some context where it could have made sense; when suppressed, it will later emerge in a context where it makes no sense at all; then there will be even more pain.
Those who allow small angers to come out do not commit great crimes. Those who suppress small angers commit great crimes. It has not happened that people who become angry in simple, ordinary situations commit murders or suicides. Those who murder are those who know the art of swallowing and accumulating anger. Then so much gathers that its explosion takes life.
It is almost like this. Scientists say there is poison in tea. Nicotine is poison. If you drink two cups a day, the amount of tea you will drink in twenty years—if that much nicotine were to be drunk in one day, you would die instantly. But no one dies from two cups a day. Even for twenty lives, if you keep drinking two cups a day, you will not die—because no nicotine is accumulating so as to gather over twenty years and take life. It flows out daily.
One who allows small daily angers is not dangerous. One who suppresses anger for twenty years—do not go near him. He is explosive, inflammable—at any time he can catch fire. And when he catches fire, it will not be a small event. Suppressing anger only accumulates anger; suppressing hatred accumulates hatred. And whatever is accumulated—if it was bad in small amounts, in large amounts it will be much worse.
Lao Tzu is not in favor of repression. He says: that you feel anger, hatred, envy, malice—these are signals that you have moved away from Swabhava. Leave worrying about them. Concern yourself with becoming one with nature. The moment you become one with Swabhava, these events cease, they evaporate. You will not have to suppress anger; suddenly you will find anger has stopped happening. Your state of consciousness must change—then the diseases of the mind will change. If consciousness remains the same and you change the mind, it has never happened, nor can it happen. Consciousness must change. There are levels of consciousness. As consciousness deepens, the levels it leaves are naturally freed of their diseases. When consciousness settles in Swabhava, becomes one with nature, all illnesses vanish.
To say “a Buddha does not get angry” is wrong. To say “a Buddha does not show anger” is also wrong. To say “a Buddha keeps control over anger” is also wrong. From where a Buddha is, there is no relationship with anger. Where anger used to be possible, a Buddha is no longer there. On that surface of mind where anger used to burn, the Buddha is no longer there. He is at the center from where there is infinite sky between him and anger; no relation connects. Oneness with Swabhava dissolves all illnesses.
“There is no greater curse than lack of contentment; no greater sin than the desire to possess. Therefore, he who is content with contentment will always be full.”
“There is no greater curse than lack of contentment.”
Now we can understand. Lao Tzu takes contentment as the formula for becoming one with Swabhava. Discontent means: I want to be something other than what I am. Contentment means: whatever I am—nature has made me so—I am at ease with it. I have no ideal to fulfill, no goal to reach, no purpose to achieve. What nature has made me, that is my destiny. I am content with it. The rose is content to be a rose; the grass-flower is content to be grass. The grass-flower does not crave to become a rose, nor is the rose anxious to become a lotus. If they were anxious, we would have to admit rose bushes to lunatic asylums and treat them. They would lose their sleep, their minds would become feverish; they would get heart attacks. Discontent means: I crave to be other than what nature has made me. And that I shall never be—because what I am not, I cannot be. There is no way. I can be only what I am.
“There is no greater curse than lack of contentment.”
Therefore Lao Tzu calls it the greatest curse—the greatest mistake possible in life: to be caught in the race to be otherwise than what I am. The blessing is to become willing to be exactly what I am. Think a little. If you consent to be what you are—if even for a single moment a glimpse comes that as I am, I am right—all curses vanish, all clouds part, the sky opens.
But not in one direction alone do you want to change—in a thousand directions the race goes. If not intelligent, one wants to become intelligent; if poor, rich; if not beautiful, beautiful. And who knows what beauty means? No one can define who is beautiful, nor is there any measure—only groping in darkness. Whatever you become, you will not find certainty there either. How much wealth will satisfy you?
Just think. Only think; the wealth has not even arrived. Ten thousand? The mind says, what will that do? A million? The mind says, if it is only imagination, why agree so cheaply? As far as you can count, the mind will take you at least that far. And even then, some hitch within remains—there could be more. How much beauty will satisfy you? How much health? How long a life?
There is the tale of Yayati. He reached a hundred years; death came. Yayati said, “Leave me for a few days more, for I have not yet even tasted life.”
A hundred years should suffice. But if you reach a hundred and death gives you a moment to think, you will say what Yayati said. That is why the story is true, whether it happened or not; it is a deep fact of the human mind.
Yayati told his sons—he had a hundred sons—“Let one of you give me his age.” Death said, “If some son agrees, I will take him; I must take someone.” Ninety-nine sons looked at each other—they were all “wise.” Many of them had already grown old. The youngest son, still fresh and without experience of life, came to the father and said, “Take my age.” Even death felt compassion, for the boy was so new. She said, “Why are you doing this?” He replied, “When my father could not be satisfied in a hundred years, how will I be satisfied? And when even after a hundred years he needs more time and is not ready to die, then to agonize for a hundred years is meaningless. I will have to die, and die unsatisfied.”
Even then Yayati did not understand. The boy died. Yayati lived a hundred more years. Death came again. By then he had fathered another hundred sons. He said, “It’s too soon. These hundred years passed so quickly; I didn’t even notice. Nothing yet is fulfilled.”
Thus the story goes on. Each time a son gives his age and keeps Yayati alive. Yayati lived a thousand years. When death came the thousandth time, he was still where he had been the first time. He said again, “Why come so soon?” Death said, “When will you see that this will never be complete? This is not a thing that ever completes. Desire has no boundary; it is fulfilled nowhere.”
Therefore discontent is the greatest curse—because it never lets man be connected to joy at any moment. No other curse is needed. In India, rishis and munis had the habit of cursing—yet people still call them rishis and munis! Had they known Lao Tzu, they would not have given such curses as they gave. Had Durvasa known, he would have said only this: “Go, remain forever discontent!” That would have been enough. This is the greatest curse. But you need no Durvasa—you yourself are cursing yourself. You have made this your very way of living: to be discontented.
“There is no greater curse than lack of contentment; no greater sin than the desire to possess.”
Lao Tzu is unique, and what he compresses into a single aphorism, even great scriptures fail to say in detail. There is no sin greater than possessiveness. People count five sins—violence, theft, greed; some add lust. Lao Tzu says: the craving for ownership. And I agree that he is right. All other sins arise from the craving to own. The other sins are secondary, not the root. The desire to be someone’s master—to be an owner—whether of wealth or of a person, in any direction, the race to possess—Lao Tzu says—is the greatest sin, the mahapaap. Why? It is easy to grasp that lack of contentment is a curse. Why is the race for ownership a sin?
First: whoever is caught in the race for ownership will never become acquainted with the fact that the master is hidden within—the real owner is within. He will seek mastery outside; he will wish to own someone. But outside, ownership is impossible; that is not the nature of things. You can build a house; you may think you are the owner—but you are mistaken.
Ibrahim became a Sufi fakir—it is Ibrahim ibn Adham. He became a fakir because one night, as he slept, he heard footsteps on the roof. “Who is there?” he called. The man walking said, “I am searching for my camel.” Ibrahim thought: this man must be mad—do camels get lost on rooftops?
Next morning he said, “Find that man. Either he is mad—or he is wise. Who searches for a camel on rooftops at night? And how would a camel even get there? Either he is deranged—or he hinted at something I did not grasp.”
He was not found. But that very afternoon, when Ibrahim’s court was full, a fakir created an uproar at the door. He was saying, “I want to stay in this inn for a few days.” The doorkeeper said, “You are mad! This is no inn—this is the palace of the emperor, his residence.” The fakir said, “If it is true that someone claims it, I want to see him.” Finally he was brought in.
Ibrahim sat on the throne. The man asked, “I say this is an inn, but the guard says it is your residence. Do you also think so?” Ibrahim said, “What is there to think? This is my house, and I am its owner. Stop this talk—this is no inn.” The fakir said, “I am very puzzled. I came earlier too; then another man sat on this throne, and he said the same—that this was his house. Where is he now?” Ibrahim felt a tremor. “He was my father,” he said, “but he is dead.” The fakir said, “I came before that also, and a third man owned this house. Now you are here. Will you guarantee that when I come the fourth time, you will still be here as its owner? I have seen so many owners that it seems to me this is an inn. Many stayed and went. And I seek lodging only for a night.”
Ibrahim said, “Seize this man—he must be the one who searched for his camel on the roof that night. Are you that man?”
The fakir said, “I am. And I say to you: you too are searching for a camel on the roof; but you have no awareness. Searching for a camel on the roof means: to search where a thing cannot be found. And every person searches on the roof for a camel—for that which cannot be found there.”
It is said that hearing this, Ibrahim told him, “Stay in this inn—and I am going. I stayed here only because I thought it was a palace. Now that it is an inn, and must be left anyway, remaining has no meaning. Until now I thought I was the owner.”
The race for ownership keeps man wandering outside. As long as he wanders outside, he is searching for a camel on roofs. That which we need can be found—it is within; and where we search, it cannot be found—because it is not there. The master is within. That is why in this land Hindus gave their sannyasin the name Swami. There was a purpose. Swami means the one who has ceased to seek ownership outside, who has dropped the race to possess; who says, “Outside, nothing is mine—therefore sannyas,” and who says, “My master is within.”
The Swami is within. He is our Swabhava. But our gaze will turn there only when our eyes withdraw from objects. As long as we are entangled with objects, there is no room, no space left—no emptiness from which to look within. The mind is filled with objects.
Possessiveness—parigraha—Lao Tzu calls it the great sin because through that very race you deprive yourself of finding yourself. Until that race drops, you remain deprived. There is only one sin: that I do not know myself. What other sin could there be? There is only one sin: that I am, and I have no direct experience of myself. There is only one sin: that I cannot answer the question, “Who am I?” And whenever you answer, you report some ownership: “I am the owner of this house,” or “This shop is mine,” or “These positions are mine,” or “These titles, this knowledge is mine.” Whenever someone asks who you are, you report what you own. You never report who you are—for you do not know.
Who is he that races in the race of ownership? Who is he that wants to accumulate and build an empire upon the earth? Who is that one hiding behind? The experience of him is virtue. And those things that prevent his experience are sins. Whoever wants to own another will never be the owner of himself. Whoever wants to be the master of himself must drop all ownership over others, drop all claims, become claimless. Properly understood, the real purpose of leaving house, wife, husband, children, wealth is not the leaving itself—it is dropping the feeling of ownership. Someone may leave his wife and flee to the mountains—nothing is solved. Whether he stays with the wife at home or on the mountain makes little difference. The feeling of possession!
I was reading about a Jain muni—very renowned, many devotees. Only a few years ago he died. In his biography the author, in tones of praise and wonder, recounts an incident. After leaving home and wife—twenty years later—he was in Kashi. The wife died. A telegram came from home. On reading it the muni said, “Well then—one nuisance is over.”
I was a little shocked when I read this in a life-story. After twenty years, the death of the wife—and the muni says, “One nuisance is over.” Clearly, the nuisance continued. This is not a calculated statement—it came spontaneously on seeing the telegram. It means the nuisance ran on inside for twenty years. Otherwise, he had left her two decades back—what has her death to do with any nuisance ending?
No—wives do not leave so easily. And if on the death of the wife such a feeling arises—“the nuisance is over”—then surely the wish to kill her must have been hiding somewhere.
Husbands often think of killing their wives; wives often think of killing their husbands. They do not kill—that is another matter—but in many ways the mind goes on plotting. Many wives fear when the husband goes out—anxious that some accident may not happen, that the car may not crash. Psychologists say the cause of such fear is this: somewhere in their minds there is a secret relish in the husband dying—“if he died, I’d be free.” And, the way husbands and wives are, it is natural that death looks like a release.
But the sannyasin who left his wife twenty years ago and feels “one nuisance is over” shows the possessiveness remained. And remember: whoever we possess also possesses us. This possession is never one-sided. A husband may think he is the master—women are very clever; they have always said, “You are the master,” but we all know that in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases women are the owners and husbands are masters only in name.
There is an old, sweet famous story. In an emperor’s court, a dispute arose among courtiers: how many are afraid of their wives—how many are slaves to them? No one would admit it. The emperor said, “I know from my own experience that it is impossible that among all present not one is afraid of his wife. Beware: if anyone lies, I will have his head cut off. Tomorrow come with your wives.”
When the wives arrived, trouble arose. The emperor said, “Form lines. Those who are afraid of their wives stand on the left; those who are not, stand on the right.” All courtiers stood on the left—except one. He stood alone where those unafraid of their wives were to stand.
The emperor said, “At least one courtier! Why do you stand here?”
He replied, “When I was leaving home my wife said, ‘Do not stand where there is a crowd.’ There is a crowd over there.”
But a woman’s possessiveness has a different style, because her psychology is different. Her possession is passive, not aggressive, more intricate and subtle. The husband’s ownership is mere show, with an inner agreement: outside the house you strut and we will accept you as the master; the moment you enter, leave your swagger outside.
Certainly, whenever we make someone our possession, we become a slave too—for the other is connected with us to become a possessor. The methods differ: the husband’s possessiveness depends on threat, beating; the wife’s on crying, screaming, making herself miserable. She will make herself so unhappy that she will defeat him. The husband injures her to assert ownership; she injures herself to own him. Her way is nonviolent; she will fast, she will weep. The husband’s is violent. The difference is superficial—the search of both is ownership.
As long as we seek ownership, we will remain slaves. The very moment one drops this search, his slavery ends. He neither remains a slave to anyone nor makes anyone a slave. Suddenly the inner master is glimpsed—the inner Swami emerges out of the fog; the mist clears. With the cessation of the ambitious race, the smoke dissolves and the flame of mastery appears. That is virtue; to attain self-mastery is virtue. And the attempt to own another is sin.
“There is no greater sin than the desire to possess. Therefore, he who is content with contentment will always be full.”
And one who is full of discontent is forever empty; he cannot be filled. If we gave him the whole world, his begging-bowl would still be empty. He would say, “Only this much? Nothing more?” He would ask, “Is that all—has the world ended? Is there nothing beyond to get?” That is his mind’s habit. Whenever he receives something, he has always asked thus. Give him everything—even Paramatma—and he will stand before Paramatma depressed and say, “Only this much?” His mind is filled with discontent; there is no bottom to his pot. However much you pour into it, there is no base to be filled; the water keeps running out. The mind filled with contentment is not a pot—it is only a base. Even a single drop fills it.
Let me repeat: the discontented mind is a pot without a bottom. You pour water—it remains empty. However much you pour, it stays empty. Pour all the oceans into it—it will still be empty. For a moment it may look full while water is falling. The contented mind is only a base—there is no pot. Even empty, it is full. A single drop suffices.
“He who is content with contentment will always be full.”
Recognize yourself: do you ever feel full? Do you ever feel you could give thanks to Paramatma—that you have been given so much? Do you ever feel everything has been attained; there is nothing to attain? It never happens. Complaint persists. Our prayers, our worships, are our complaints. Whereas true prayer can only be gratitude, not complaint. People go to the temples and say: “Why have you put me in such poverty? Why have you given me such illness? Why so much failure?” Temples are full of complaints; prayers are constructed around complaints. True prayer can only be gratitude, only thankfulness, an ahobhava.
The day you can go to a temple and say, “Blessed is my destiny—you have given so much, more than needed, more than my worthiness; I am content with what I have”—that day your prayer becomes real, authentic. That day your prayer is heard. That day no gap remains between you and Paramatma. Complaint is the gap. Ahobhava is the disappearance of the empty space between.
In the last moments of death Jesus, for a moment, filled with complaint: “O God, what are you doing?” Nails being hammered into his hands on the cross, for a moment it slipped from his lips: “O God, what are you doing?” This is the symbol of us all—our complaint is very deep. Even in someone like Jesus complaint arose. But Jesus regained awareness and spoke a second sentence: “Forgive me—thy will be done.”
In my knowing, between these two sentences lies the distance between the world and liberation. Until that first moment, Jesus belonged to the world. As long as there is complaint, there is discontent. As long as there is discontent, there can be no prayer, no meeting with God. A small distance remained—“What are you doing to me?” Meaning: “You are doing something wrong.” Meaning: “I know better what should have been.” There is advice, counsel, petition, craving, dissatisfaction. But Jesus, being so sensitive—his consciousness at the last edge of sensitivity—must have seen, in that final moment, the mistake. Instantly he said, “Forgive me—thy will be done.” The moment he said, “Thy will be done,” Jesus disappeared and Christ was born. In the distance between these two utterances lies the gulf between samsara and moksha. A little complaint—and you are in the world. The disappearance of complaint—and you are in liberation.
Therefore Lao Tzu says, “He who is content with contentment will always be full.”
Always. Practice a little contentment. And when I say practice contentment, remember—I am not speaking of consolation. Practice contentment means: live what is with ahobhava; accept what is with a joyous heart; make what is into a celebration. Even dry bread, if eaten with ahobhava, is the supreme delicacy—no higher feast is possible. Otherwise, even if the ultimate feast is before you, a mind filled with complaint sees garbage. It is of no use.
Remove a little complaint. Keep a remembrance through the day that complaint not come in between. Wherever complaint appears, remove it. As Jesus has said again and again, “Satan, get behind me!” Satan is nothing but complaint. Whenever complaint arises, say to it, “Get behind me!” And try to see the element that produces contentment. Stop counting thorns. Turn your gaze a little toward flowers.
As flowers become more visible, thorns will disappear. A moment arrives of such contentment that even the thorn looks like a flower. In that moment, transformation occurs. In that moment, His will begins to be fulfilled.
Discontent means: “My will over You.” Contentment means: “I have no will; Thy will alone is my life.”
Enough for today.