Tao Upanishad #86

There is a knowledge that comes by learning, and there is also a knowledge that comes by forgetting. There is a knowledge that comes by running, and a knowledge that comes by stopping. There is a knowledge that demands a great pilgrimage, and a knowledge that is found simply by peeking within.
The knowledge that comes through effort will be an outer knowledge. In the ultimate sense it has no value; at the final door it is not worth even two pennies. Ultimately, only that which is found within oneself is of worth. For, by the knowledge we gain from the outside we shall never know ourselves. And that by which the self is not known is not knowledge at all; it is only a device to hide ignorance. From erudition, wisdom does not arise; it only gets hidden, covered. One kind of knowing is like an open sky with not a single cloud. And there is the other kind—sky overcast with clouds—where everything is covered.
Man’s Atman is like the sky. It has not gone anywhere; nor is there anywhere for it to go. It has not come from anywhere; there is nowhere from which it can come. It is like the sky: it is, it has always been, and it will always be. No question of time, no question of space. Have you ever asked: from where has the sky come? Where is it going? The sky abides in its own place. The Atman too abides in its own place—the inner sky.
But even on the sky clouds gather; the days of rain come; the sky gets overcast. Nothing is seen; its blueness is completely lost. There is no glimpse of its vast emptiness. Clouds thicken everywhere. In just the same way, on the sky of consciousness the clouds of memory gather, the clouds of thought, of knowledge—knowledge that has been acquired from the outside. And when the clouds gather, there is no trace left of the inner blue; the inner void is utterly lost. The inner vastness gets covered by petty clouds.
One kind of knowledge is like those clouds—you will get it from others, you will learn it from someone. From scripture, from society, from conditioning you will collect it. The more the collection grows, the denser the scholarship becomes, the more the inner sky is covered. The more you will go astray. The more you know, the more you wander.
Hence the Christian story: the day Adam tasted the fruit of knowledge, that very day he was expelled from the garden of paradise. It is of this knowledge that the story speaks—knowledge that comes from the outside. He tasted the fruit from an outer garden. And what happened to Adam as soon as he tasted it?
Christians say Adam became a sinner. If you were to ask Lao Tzu, or if you ask me, I would say: Adam became a pundit. And this is the true meaning of the story. For what has sin to do with the eating of the fruit of knowledge? By eating the fruit of knowledge one may become a scholar; how does one become a sinner? Adam became a pundit.
The moment he became a pundit, he was thrown out of paradise. In the purity of nature there is no need for the knower. The ego of the knower cannot abide in that free sky. Paradise means: where the spring of bliss is flowing forever—where bliss never runs out, is never interrupted. The moment erudition arose, clouds gathered; the link with the sky was broken. There is only one sin—and that is erudition. The Christians are also right to say he sinned, for there is only one sin: to forget oneself. Understand this a little. Then Lao Tzu’s words will become very clear, crystal clear—transparent.
There is only one sin, and that sin is to forget oneself. And there is only one way to forget oneself: become occupied with remembering everything else. Then there is no space left in which to remember oneself. A thousand things are remembered; one thing is forgotten. And in the crowd of thousands, where will you find your own whereabouts? There is the marketplace, the spread of statistics. Clouds everywhere. You know a great deal, but within you remain in darkness.
That knowing by which the self cannot be known, Lao Tzu does not call knowledge. It is the illusion of knowledge, an appearance. That knowing by which the self is known—only that does Lao Tzu call knowledge. That is Tao, that is Rta, that is Dharma.
In this world you can either know yourself, or you can know everything else. Because the two dimensions are different. One who wants to know himself must turn within. One who wants to know anything other than himself must turn his back to the within. Naturally, if I am to look at you, how shall I look at myself? If I look at you, you fill my eyes; your cloud floats in my eyes. And if I am to look at myself, I must close my eyes to you.
Sannyasin means: one who has closed his eyes to all that is other. Sannyasin means: one who has closed his eyes to learning anything else. Sannyasin means: one who has resolved that until he knows himself, what value has any other knowing? Suppose I know all, and inside me is darkness—then what is the worth of that light? Lamps may be burning all around, it may be Diwali on all sides, but within if there is darkness, what benefit will that Diwali be to me?
Jesus has asked: If you gain the whole world and lose your own self, what meaning has such a victory?
But as soon as the child is born, we begin to teach him. On his delicate mind, on his innocent mind, upon his open blue sky we begin to lay layers of memory. In the world these have utility, use. Mathematics, language, geography, history—he must learn all this, for only by learning it will he be able to become a part of society. And we have to prepare him to be a part of society. Therefore schools exist, universities exist, big shops of teaching everywhere, where teaching goes on.
And learning and learning, man has learned so much, the store of knowledge has become so vast that even if one wants to learn in one’s life, one cannot; it always feels incomplete. For centuries man has been accumulating knowledge. In a life of seventy or eighty years, how will you assimilate the entire store? Hence a perpetual sense of lack. And always, farther and farther, space remains open for traveling. Man goes on running, goes on running. And slowly, the more he goes into outer knowledge, the farther he moves from himself.
Then there is only one way to return—drop that knowledge. And this is the most difficult thing. Wealth is easy to drop, for money is outside. Leave the safe and run away—the safe will not chase you. Husband, wife, children can be left. They are also outside. They will remember you for a few days, and then forget. Who remembers whom forever? They will make new relationships, create a new world of love. The wound will be green for a few days, then it will heal. Time heals all wounds. If you run away, no one will sit and weep for you forever.
Husband and wife can be left—but where will you leave knowledge? Wherever you go knowledge is with you, for the treasury of knowledge is inside. It is in your brain; it is memory.
Therefore the renunciation of knowledge is the greatest renunciation—the most difficult. Meditation is the process for that very thing. Meditation is not knowledge; it is the process of dropping knowledge—how your memory may become vacant and empty, shunya; how you may again find the inner sky with which you were born, which is your swabhava; this is what Lao Tzu calls Tao. Tao means swabhava—your intrinsic nature—with which you were born. You can suppress it, but you cannot lose it. You can forget it, but you cannot erase it; because it is you, it is not other than you. You will have to find it. And the more you suppress it, the more you will be filled with pain. For one who has gone far from his own being, who has become alien to himself—there is no measuring his pain. That is the greatest anguish in this world: to become alien to oneself.
Have you ever noticed? If your wife goes a little distant from you—in some impulse, some anger, some resentment—it begins to feel as if the wife is a stranger. How empty you feel then! One day your children will grow up, will study, will leave the nest and fly away. They have their own journey. That day how much pain you will feel—children too have become strangers!
But this is nothing compared to true estrangement. The day it dawns on you that the wife was always another—and even if she went far, what of it? The children were born from us, but still were not ours; they came from some distant source of nature, and they have gone. But when it dawns on you that you have become a stranger to yourself—that you have not yet seen your own face, that you have moved far from your own being—then the wound that opens, that wound alone makes a person religious. The day you know: I have gone astray from myself—I cannot find my own address, who I am, what I am, from where I am, where I am going—the day you are filled with this helpless and anguished moment, the day your life seems nothing but a wound, that very day the beginning of religion happens in your life. What will you do that day? How will you find yourself?
Let me tell you a small story of Buddha. One early morning—just as you were waiting for me today—Buddha’s monks were waiting for him. Buddha came and sat under his tree. People were a little surprised, for he had a silk handkerchief in his hand. That had never happened before. He kept looking at the handkerchief, and then he tied five knots in it. The monks watched in astonishment. When the knots were tied he said, I ask you a question. The question is: when this handkerchief had no knots—and now, when it has knots—is there a difference or not? Is this the same handkerchief or another?
A monk stood up and said: Do not throw us into useless perplexity. We have understood your trick. If we say it is the same, you will say, these five knots are new. If we say it is new, you will say, what is new here? The handkerchief is the same. What happens by tying knots? The nature of the cloth has not changed. Thread by thread it is the same; the warp and weft the same; the color, the worth the same. What happens by tying knots? And if we say it has changed, you will say so. And if we say it is the same, you will say, how can it be the same? There are five new knots! And earlier you could wrap something in it; now you cannot. Earlier you could cover your head with it; now you cannot. The utility has changed. So do not entangle us in vain logic. What is your purpose?
Buddha said: This is the nature of man. However many knots of knowledge are tied, in one sense you remain exactly what you have always been; but in another sense you are completely changed, because each knot of knowledge destroys the whole utility of your consciousness. Consciousness has only one utility—and that is bliss. As knots are tied, bonds arise, chains catch your feet, bliss is lost; you fall into a prison.
What is the difference between a prisoner in jail and a free person outside? The person is the same. You are outside; tomorrow handcuffs may be put on you and you may be thrown into prison. What is the difference? Nothing has changed in you—only a knot has come into the handkerchief. Now your utility is changed. The open sky is lost. You are no longer free; you cannot spread your wings whenever you wish. Knots have formed.
Buddha said: I want to tell you that in one sense you remain what you have always been. What can the knots of knowledge erase? A knot is like a line drawn upon water. And yet everything has changed. You have become other—without becoming other. This is the riddle.
This is what Kabir repeats again and again: I have seen a wonder. He speaks again and again of this wonder—that which can never change seems to have changed. I have seen a wonder: that upon which no knot can be tied—a knot has been tied. The sky—the vast sky—has been surrounded by petty clouds. Such a great Himalaya, and a tiny speck of dust in the eye—and it is lost.
Buddha then said: I want to untie these knots. And he took hold of the two ends of the handkerchief and pulled.
A man stood up and said: What are you doing! If you pull like this the knot will become finer and finer. And the finer the knot becomes, the harder it will be to open. Do not pull. Pulling is not the way to open it. By that, opening will only become more difficult. The knots are becoming small.
The subtler your knowledge becomes, the smaller the knots become—then the harder it is to open them. That is why I say: sometimes sinners reach Paramatma, the pundit does not. The sinner’s knot is coarse—he stole from someone, deceived someone, picked someone’s pocket. The sinner’s knot is coarse. There was nothing in the pocket; what will come of it? Two rupees were in the pocket; the cutting cannot be more than two rupees. What was the worth of the shopkeeper that the robber would be worth more? The shopkeeper had nothing; the robber took that nothing home. The knot is coarse. Those whom you have locked in prison have coarse knots—they will open with a little hint. If you go to the prison, you will find the criminals very simple and straightforward—more straightforward than those against whom they committed the crime. Their knots are coarse, cheap.
But the pundit’s knot is very subtle. I have yet to see a pundit who is simple, who is innocent. He has neither murdered nor stolen; you cannot catch him in the eyes of the law. He has never harmed anyone in the eyes of the law. He was entangled in his books; he has no leisure to break the law. But he has broken the deepest law of nature. He has tried to go against the rule of Paramatma; he has tasted the fruit of knowledge. It is very subtle. Outwardly he has done nothing against anyone; he has done nothing against society. What he has done, he has done against himself—and against his Paramatma. It is utterly subtle. What is this subtlety?
He has tried, by learning, to become knowledgeable—even though you were born wise. Existence has left nothing for you to learn. Paramatma has left nothing for you to achieve; all has been given. You are born entire. You are born perfect. How else could it be? From the perfect Paramatma how can the imperfect be born? And if the imperfect is born, then Paramatma cannot be perfect.
A village proverb says: If you want to know the father, know the son. By knowing the son, the father is known. Another proverb says: By tasting the fruit, the tree is known.
You are the fruit. Your taste is the taste of Paramatma, because you are attached to him. He is your root. You are the son; he is your father. If you are imperfect, he cannot be perfect. And if he is perfect, then your imperfection is only a delusion; somewhere you have misunderstood, misinterpreted. You are born perfect. From the perfect only the perfect is born. From the pure only the pure arises. Otherwise cannot be.
This is the subtle sin of the pundit: he seeks and fills himself with the knowledge with which he came.
You are such that within you diamonds and jewels are overflowing, and you are picking pebbles from the roadside and piling them up. Your poverty lies in your belief. To attain Paramatma you only need to break this belief. To attain Paramatma means: to be filled with the proclamation that I am Paramatma from the very beginning. There is nothing else to do. There is no need to stuff the Vedas and Upanishads into your memory. By cramming them you will only cram trash. There is no essence in words. Whatever you learn will be junk. It is not a matter of learning.
Kabir says: It is not by writing and reading; it is a matter of seeing.
By writing, by reading what will you attain? Inside there will be a crowd of words, a mob; orderly rows of words will stand. There will be arguments, doctrines. But knowledge is something else. Neither logic is knowledge nor doctrine is knowledge. Knowledge is your inner-bodhi. How will you generate inner-bodhi from a book? Even if you dissolve it and drink it, a book will go only into your body; it will not reach the soul. Your memory is a part of your body.
Hence a person falls from a train, injures his head, loses his memory. Does the soul get injured in falling from a train? Someone hits your head with a stick; you are hurt, memory is lost, the head reels. Memory is a part of your body.
Therefore in the West scientists have found methods. In Russia and China they are used: if a man is anti-communist, they do not try to persuade him. They say: that is a long process, beaten and worn, from the bullock-cart days. In this jet age, when we have reached the moon, why move at the pace of a bullock cart—arguing with this man for years that you are wrong? And even then no surety; some day he might change back. So they say: we will not enter into this mess. They simply clean the brain—brain-washing. They run electricity through the skull at high speed; the rapid flow of electricity throws everything into chaos. We give electric shocks to the insane; they give shocks to those who are against them.
Why does an electric shock help the madman?
Because the filaments of his memory are jolted; he forgets that he is mad; his old account becomes blurred. In between an interval arises. He begins again with A, B, C. Whoever is given an electric shock—this is the only purpose—his brain has come to a state where he must be detached from his brain. In shock his soul separates for a little while from the brain. For a little while only; then it joins again. But in that while an interval has occurred. A barrier has come in between. A wall stands between. Now he will not be able to remember.
But in China and Russia, those who are opposed to communism are given electric shocks. Memory is lost. The greatest pundit becomes like a small child if given electric shocks. He will have to learn again from A, B, C. He becomes helpless; nothing remains in memory. He cannot even recognize his face in the mirror, for recognition needs memory. How will you recognize that this is my face? You need the memory that yes, this is how my face was; by comparing the two you recognize. He will have to re-learn.
I am saying: memory is a part of the body, not of the soul. Hence scriptures can reach only to the body; words can reach only to the body. Your ears hear; my voice falls into your ears; from your ears it goes into your memory. In your memory, if you wish, it can be stored; if you do not wish, it can go out from the other ear. But how will these words touch your Atman? Words are material, pudgalic. Matter can come into contact with matter. Your Atman is not pudgal.
We throw a stone into the sky. The stone does not rebound from the sky, because the sky and the stone cannot meet. The sky is empty; the stone is matter. Throw it at a tree, it hits and returns. If you throw it into the sky and it returns, it is not because the sky threw it back; it is because the force with which you threw it was exhausted, then it falls. But it does not collide with the sky.
If there were collision with the sky, you could not walk; walking would be impossible. For the walls of the sky would be everywhere. Even moving the hand would be difficult. The word goes, strikes your body, vibrates the ear-sense, vibrates the memory. If you wish, it can be stored in memory; if you do not wish, it goes out the other ear. But it does not vibrate your Atman!
And if you collect it, you become a pundit. Adam tasted one fruit; you have digested the whole tree. But by this you will not become wise. The way to wisdom is to forget the word and descend into emptiness. The journey of knowledge is the journey of the wordless.
If you have come to me to learn something, you have come to the wrong person. Do not delay—run away. Because I am not here to teach you anything. I am not a teacher. This is the difference between a teacher and a guru. The teacher teaches; the guru makes you forget. The teacher writes upon your skull; the guru wipes it clean. The teacher fills your memory; the guru makes your memory empty, a void.
If you have come to me to learn, you have come to the wrong address. If you have come to forget; if you have come because learning and learning you are tired; if you have come because learning and learning you have found nothing—then you have come to the right man. Then however much your mind says to run away, do not run.
The mind will say: run away, because this man erases. With how much trouble you had learned! With what difficulty you studied Sanskrit! How many nights you kept awake! How hard it was to commit the Vedas to memory! And this man erases—run away. But then beware of the excitement of the mind and remain. For whoever has found—found that which is worth finding—has found by forgetting.
Yes, I am using words, and you must often be puzzled: if I am against words, why do I go on speaking? And I say you cannot be taught, and yet every day I speak to you as if I am teaching! I am using words just as, when a thorn gets lodged in your foot, what do you do? You look for another thorn, and with one thorn you remove the first thorn. I am sending words into you; by these your soul will not change. These words are like thorns that can pull out the thorn of the words already lodged within you. That is all.
And remember: when you remove the first thorn with the second, you do not keep the second thorn carefully and worship it—saying, O blessed thorn, your great grace, without you the first thorn would not have come out. You do not leave the second thorn in the wound, saying, how can we separate from you now—you are the life of my life. No—you throw both away together. Both thorns are alike. The one that was embedded and the one that removed it—there is no difference between them.
The words I am removing and the words with which I am removing them—there is no difference. Do not worship my words. Do not keep my words safely. Otherwise a great mistake will happen—you will come out of one Veda and fall into another Veda. When the words within you have been taken out, throw these also away; bid farewell to both together.
The purpose is to empty you. The goal is to make you shunya. Now listen to these words.
There has never been a greater knower than Lao Tzu. Therefore, understand Lao Tzu’s sayings with great care; take this thorn as deep as you can, for it is capable of drawing out the deepest thorn lodged in you. Lao Tzu is a great craftsman. His craftsmanship is unique—so unique that it is not craftsmanship of action; it is craftsmanship of non-action. That we shall try to understand further.
‘The student of knowledge aims at learning day by day; the student of Tao aims at losing day by day.’
Says Lao Tzu: There are two kinds of students. One is the student of knowledge; he tries to learn day by day. Day by day he increases his knowledge. For him knowledge is a collection. He goes on adding to his knowledge; his wealth increases. Day by day he knows more and more. When he dies he will have a great store of knowledge.
But he will die empty. He will die empty because he never learned how to be empty. He spent his life filling up—and will die empty. Because whatever he gathered remained in the body; it does not reach the soul. It remained in the skull; the skull will remain here. Your brain will remain here.
Already you read of blood banks in hospitals where you donate blood. There are eye banks where you donate eyes. Now there are heart banks where you donate your heart. The next step they are thinking of is brain banks—where at the time of death you will donate your brain. For that too does not go with you. It burns on the funeral pyre; it is wasted. Seventy years you worked hard, and then it burns away in fire. As you now read of heart transplants—from one man to another—they are soon trying to transplant a brain from one man to another. Why waste it? Seventy or eighty years of toil go down the drain. How much trouble! Nights you stayed awake, passed examinations, gathered knowledge with great difficulty—then all goes, and you leave empty-handed. Your skull remains here. You go as you came; you gained nothing, you earned nothing—perhaps you lost something, for the better. Gone! In your skull your memory remains. Whatever you knew is stored in the brain’s computer. Someone else will find some use for it one day.
Then a strange event will occur. Einstein dies; we transplant his skull into a small child. We take out his brain and place it into a small child’s skull. This child, without studying, will be as learned as Einstein. No need to send him to school. He will speak and do mathematics he never learned. He will speak languages he never knew, and be adept. No need to send him to any university. He will be born a Nobel Prize winner.
This is what we are already doing on a small scale. What has been known in the past—that is what we teach in schools and colleges. We are transplanting the brain by old methods. Inch by inch we do it. We cannot transfer the whole, so in twenty-five years of effort we make a child a scientist. This is the old method. The new method will not be long in coming.
But even if the brain of the whole world were grafted upon you, would you become wise? The brain is being affixed from the outside. What is affixed from the outside remains outside. What is outside can never reach your within. Your inner sky remains untouched.
So Lao Tzu says: one kind of student is of knowledge, of words, of information; he collects day by day, organizes for learning. The student of Tao organizes for losing day by day.
There is another student—of supreme knowledge; a student of Atman, Paramatman, truth. He tries to drop everyday. He keeps searching within, and whatever he finds he drops that too. He is engaged in emptying himself. He overturns the brain. Because the fewer the clouds within you, the more the blue sky appears. As the net of thought grows thinner, the interval hidden behind thought begins to appear. There the supreme shunya abides.
You are lost in clouds, and by the price of clouds you have lost the sky. And less than sky will not do—for with less than that you will always feel fettered. The sky is your natural home. That much freedom is needed; that is what we call moksha. One who finds the inner sky, whose clouds have all disappeared, is free, he has attained moksha. Now no bondage remains. Now there is no one anywhere who can stop his wings. Now even if he flies to the farthest infinity, no boundary will come. He has become master of the limitless.
By information you will become master of the limited. By knowledge you will know the limited. Lao Tzu says—through un-knowing! Lao Tzu does not use the word ignorance, but I would like to. If by knowledge the limited is found, by un-knowing the unlimited is found. But you will ask: then do the ignorant attain it? Yes, the ignorant attain it. But those whom you call ignorant are not truly ignorant. They are small knowers; they too are knowers.
Whom do you call ignorant? One who has passed matric thinks the non-matric is ignorant. The distance is not between knowledge and ignorance, but within knowledge—one a little less, one a little more. The educated consider the uneducated ignorant. The city-dweller considers the villager ignorant. Hence we call the villager a boor—gawar—meaning one who lives in the village. One who returns with the last degree of the university, if his father is uneducated, considers even his father ignorant.
Those whom you call ignorant are not ignorant; they are less knowledgeable than you. But they too stand upon the journey of knowledge. The truly ignorant have sometimes been—a Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Kabir. The ignorant means: they have dropped that which you call knowledge. What you took to be titles of knowledge, the truly ignorant recognized as mere titles, as disease—and dropped them. They dissolved into supreme un-knowing.
Hence Socrates says: when you know that I know nothing, that day the doors of knowledge open. To be ignorant is very difficult. Because to be ignorant means to be without ego. Ego claims knowledge. To accept oneself as ignorant means: I am not—I have no capacity, no power, no strength. Deep darkness—and the acceptance of deep darkness.
As soon as someone accepts the deep darkness within, from that very acceptance light is born. Darkness is not really there. You have not looked, not acknowledged, not peered within; therefore darkness seems to be. And you have taken the petty to be knowledge; therefore true knowledge appears to you as ignorance. When you drop the petty, you will discover that this ignorance—this empty space that arises by dropping the petty—is the abode of the perfect. This ignorance is the supreme knowledge.
‘The student of Tao aims at losing day by day.’
He loses knowledge, drops knowing, stabilizes slowly in not-knowing. As you stabilize in not-knowing, how will thoughts arise there? Thoughts arise because of your knowledge. People come to me and say: there is no peace, thoughts run and run. And if I say: become ignorant, they laugh. They say: what are you teaching? Knowledge is essential.
If knowledge is essential, then why are you troubled by thought? As knowledge increases, thoughts will run more and more. As knowledge increases, you will not be able to sleep at night; thoughts will run and run. Awake or asleep, knowledge will go on increasing; you will go mad. Hence in the West they call a philosopher great if he has visited the madhouse at least once. In the philosopher something is lacking if he has not reached the asylum. He did not travel right to the end; he stopped a little early. If he had gone a little further, he would have reached the asylum.
It happened once: a man was searching for a university. He was a stranger in that town. He knocked at a gate and asked: is this building the university? The gatekeeper said: not the university, but it makes no difference; come in if you wish. The university is the building opposite. This is the madhouse. But there is no difference. The man said: no difference? What are you saying! Are you joking? He said: no—there is one difference. From here sometimes some people even get healed; from there no one ever does.
From the university people return with near insanity, with madness. Because the excess of thought becomes tension. And when thought is stretched too tight, the moment of breaking draws near. The more you think, the more agitated you become. The more tension within, the more the tautness, the more difficult becomes rest. Thought does not know rest; it goes on. Whether you stay or go, whether you survive or not, thought has its own web.
People say to me: we want peace, we want to be thoughtless—and they do not even know what they are asking. For if you want to be thoughtless, the race of knowledge must be dropped. If you want to be thoughtless, the collection of knowledge must be relinquished. If you want to be thoughtless, the old store within must be emptied out.
‘By continual losing one reaches non-doing—laissez-faire.’
This French word laissez-faire is very precious. It means: let it be; what is, as it is, is right. Laissez-faire means: what is, as it is, is right; do not interfere. Do not try to improve. Nothing is damaged; kindly do not repair. Because wherever your hand touches, there things get spoiled. Nature proceeds in its perfection. There is no lack here. Kindly do not decorate and rearrange. Do not bring your improvements.
It happened that Mulla Nasruddin was returning home. It was dusk. Two men on a motorcycle had crashed into a tree. Nasruddin was the only one there; he went to them. One had already died. The other Nasruddin helped. It seemed to him that the blow had turned the man’s head around—his face toward his back. So with great effort—though the man screamed and cried—Nasruddin turned and set the head exactly as it should be. Just then the police arrived. They asked: are both men dead?
Nasruddin said: one was already dead; the other I tried very hard to fix. At first he screamed and shrieked, then even that stopped.
On looking carefully they found it was a cold evening and the man riding pillion had put his coat on backward, so that the wind would not hit his chest. Seeing the coat backward, Nasruddin thought the head had turned, and he twisted it “right.” In that very effort the man died. He had been alive—had he not been “repaired,” he would have been saved.
This is almost what we have done with nature. And wherever we have interfered too much, everything has become disordered.
In the West there is a great movement: ecology. Thoughtful people say to the scientists: now please, stop improving. As it is you have destroyed everything. Because everything is interwoven.
We cut down forests; now rain does not come. Without rain there is famine. We go on cutting forests—without even thinking that clouds are attracted by trees. They have an affinity with trees. They do not rain because of you. Your skull does not attract them. They are drawn by trees. You cut the trees. The roots of trees hold the soil. When trees are cut, roots vanish; the earth begins to crumble, deserts are born. There is a deep relationship between trees and the earth. Where trees depart, a desert will arise. There will be no rain, and the roots that held the soil will be gone; the earth will begin to scatter, there will be soil erosion.
You repair one thing, and instantly a thousand things are affected. Sooner or later you discover: this has created trouble. Benefits are not to be seen anywhere. Man seems to be dissolving on every side. And science keeps trying to “improve.” In all its improvements there is death. Man has never been in such trouble. Knowledge has taken him into great misery. And the earth cannot remain alive much longer if Lao Tzu is not heard. At most, until the close of this century, man can remain on the earth—twenty-five years more at most—if scientists do not listen to sages like Lao Tzu who say: stop, pause, do not improve; leave it as it is; it is perfect as it is; that is right. Your information is incomplete; you do not know the whole. You change one thing; twenty-five things are affected that you have not even thought of.
When they dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, they had no idea how much destruction would follow. No one had any idea; such terrible devastation occurred. Scientists had no idea that this destruction would continue for centuries. For the radioactive elements created by the bomb settled upon the sea. Slowly they sank into the ocean; fish absorbed them. Those who ate the fish absorbed radioactive elements. Children were born to them—crippled children. Radioactive elements reached the bones of their children. Those children will have children.
For thousands of years—since that bomb fell in 1945—if humanity survives, it will reap the consequences. There is no way now to stop it. For it has entered the fruit. It has entered the udders of cows. Cows ate grass—radioactive dust sat on the grass. Cows ate the grass, milk came from the grass, you drank the milk.
Do not think: we do not eat fish—we are vegetarians! The cow eats the grass; you drink the milk. Will you breathe? There are radioactive elements in the air.
Scientists say: in the air of New York, London, Tokyo there are so many toxic substances that the wonder is how man remains alive. He should not. He is alive only because he has become immune. But the poison is entering every moment. The poison is going inside.
You must have noticed: spray DDT and mosquitoes die the first time; the second time not so many die; the third time they do not die at all. By the fourth or fifth time they do not even care; keep spraying DDT. They have become immune. Those who would die—the weak—died; those who were strong survived, and now are capable of drinking poison. Now there is poison in their blood. Your DDT does nothing.
Just ten years ago there was the marvel of DDT all over the world. All the governments were spraying DDT—India still is. But in America and England there is heavy opposition; there they strictly ban DDT. Because DDT is dangerous. The poison goes into the mosquito; the mosquito bites you; the poison enters you. The mosquito sits on the fruit; poison enters the fruit. DDT you have released into the air; it will fall into water; with rain it will fall upon the earth; it is accumulating. And on all sides you are collecting poison with your own hands. You set out to kill the mosquito, and you arrange for the killing of humanity.
Life is interconnected. Life is as if—you have touched a spider’s web; touch it at one place, the whole web trembles. Such is life. And the Hindus have said from ancient times: it is a spider’s web. They have given the symbol of the spider to Paramatma. They have said: as the spider spins the web out of its own saliva, so Paramatma spins the entire creation out of himself. Then in dissolution, if the spider has to travel, to leave its home, it does not need to leave or sell the house like you; it swallows its web back, drinks the thread, and goes. Wherever it reaches, it draws the threads out again. The web is its saliva. Thus, at the moment of pralaya, Paramatma swallows his entire expansion and moves into rest. When the sleep opens again, the Brahma-muhurta comes, then he spreads his web again.
This world is nothing but that. The vast world is like the spider’s web. The English poet Tennyson has said: touch a flower and the stars tremble. However great the distance, because the web is one, a single web, all is connected.
With knowledge we try to improve—and we go on spoiling.
Lao Tzu says: as one continually loses, one reaches non-doing, non-interference.
Then one becomes gradually inactive; one does nothing. One becomes like me—doing nothing, sitting silently. Empty.
People come to me and say: why do you not do something? There is so much suffering in society; there is need for revolution; society must be reformed; look at the condition of widows, of the poor, of the lepers—do something.
They do not know that doers only create disturbance. And as long as there are revolutionaries there will be trouble in the world. And as long as there are social reformers there is no way society can be set right. These are the very elements of disturbance. They do not let things settle; they are busy improving. Everything is already improved.
This French word laissez-faire means precisely this: as it is, exactly right. Do not interfere. You will not be able to make existence better. Who are you? What is your capacity? Do you think you are wiser than the original source? Do you think you can impose improvements upon what Paramatma has made? Can you make a better world than this? It is the desire of the revolutionary that he will make a better world than this. In making a better world than this, you will lose even this.
‘One reaches non-doing; and then, by not doing, everything is done.’
Then one does nothing. Men like Lao Tzu do nothing. But in their non-doing there is such capacity—because in their non-doing they become one with Paramatma.
Have you seen him doing anything anywhere—planting trees? Building roads? Compounding medicines for the sick?
You have not seen him anywhere doing anything. He is not seen doing; that is why you do not see him. For your mind can only see doing. The non-thinking can see the inactive Paramatma. The active mind can only see activity. The active mind can only see matter. The inactive mind can see only the sky, only emptiness. Become like him—only then will you be able to see him.
As one becomes inactive, one becomes invisible. For there is no footprint of his anywhere; his voice is heard nowhere. He becomes nothing but shunya. In that shunyata the supreme event happens. Kabir has said: by the un-done, all is done. That is exactly what Lao Tzu is saying.
Lao Tzu says: ‘By not doing, everything is done.’
How can that be? How can everything be done by not doing?
Everything is already happening. Like the river flowing—but in your ignorance you keep pushing, and you think: if we do not push, how will the river flow? You are needlessly exhausting yourself. The river does not need a push; it flows of its own—flowing is its swabhava. Existence does not need improvement; being perfect is its swabhava. It is already in its supreme excellence. Nothing whatsoever is to be done. But you create commotion, leap and shout. In that you tire and are disturbed.
‘By not doing, everything is done. He who wins the world often wins it by not doing.’
There are two kinds of victors in this world. One kind whose names are written in the histories—Alexander, Napoleon, Stalin, Mao. They seem to do something; they seem to be victors. They are not victors. Neither do they give any real benefit to anyone else, nor do they have any real attainment themselves.
There is another kind of victor—Lao Tzu, Krishna, Mahavira, Buddha. Mahavira we have called Jina—Jin—the victorious. Jina means one who has conquered. His followers are called Jains because of Jin. Jina means the victor. Mahavira did not do anything. He stood naked in the forests beneath trees with closed eyes. No one ever saw him doing anything—massaging a leper’s feet, bandaging wounds, engaging in social reform, working as a nurse in a hospital. No one ever saw him doing. And yet we called Mahavira the Jina. He conquered.
There is only one art of conquering: do nothing; become quiet. Instantly you become an instrument of Paramatma. He begins to do through you. But his ways of doing are very invisible. His ways are supremely hidden. No sound, and yet all is done. No footprints, and the whole journey is completed. No footprints are even made, and the goal arrives.
‘He who wins the world often wins it by not doing. And if he is forced to do, the world escapes his victory.’
If he forces himself, or comes under anyone’s force and begins to do, in that very moment the world slips beyond his hold. For as soon as you do, the doer arrives; the connection with Paramatma is broken.
Your link with Paramatma is broken by your being a knower and a doer. And your link will be restored when you become a non-doer and a non-knower. You say: I know nothing. And this is the truth—you know nothing. What do you know? Nothing at all.
Einstein said at the time of death: life has gone like this; I am dying without knowing anything; nothing has been known. And Einstein said at death: if there is another birth, I would not want to be a scientist.
Edison used to say… Edison made a thousand inventions—no greater inventor has been. You do not even know: many things in your home are his inventions—gramophone, radio, electricity—so many. Your house is filled with his inventions. When someone asked Edison: you know so much! He said: what value has our knowing? I have made all the instruments of electricity—but what electricity is, I do not yet know. What is electricity?
There is an incident in Edison’s life. He had gone to a village, a hill village, to rest. A small rural school. It was the annual day, and the children had prepared many things. The whole village was going to see the school. So Edison too went; he was sitting idle, with no work. No one recognized him there. The children had made small toys—electrical. Edison was the greatest knower of electricity. The children had made motors, engines, and were running them with electricity. The villagers were amazed to see all this. Edison too watched amazed.
Then he asked the child who was running the electric train: what is electricity? What is electricity? The child said: I do not know; I will call my science teacher. He brought his science teacher. He was a graduate in science. He said: I too do not know what electricity is. We know how to use electricity. Stay, we will call our principal; he has a doctorate in science. The principal came. He tried to explain to this villager—because Edison was dressed like a villager. But the villager was no villager; he was Edison. He kept asking, and they kept speaking. He said: what I am asking, you are not saying. I am asking: what is electricity? Give a straightforward answer. Whatever you say only tells me how electricity can be used. But what is electricity? Usage we will manage later. Finally the principal too was exasperated and said: you stop this nonsense; better go to Edison. You will listen only to him.
He said: then we are undone. That is me. Then there is no answer anywhere. If with Edison lies the last answer, then there is no answer. It is useless to go; for that I myself am.
This existence—after the greatest heap of information—remains unknown. What do we know? Not even a flower do we know.
Un-knowing and non-doing—if the two are mastered—you are gone, you are effaced. Then Paramatma is where you were. As soon as you are empty, he fills you.
‘And if he is forced to do, the world escapes his victory.’
If you compel yourself to do something, in that very moment your link is cut. In the state of non-doer, non-knower, shunya—you are everything. Become a doer, stiffness arises, the idea of doing is born, you enter action, you enter the net of karma—you become worldly.
Hence in this land we say: he who becomes free of the net of karma… Who will be free of the net of karma until the sense of doership remains? Knowledge too is your karma; you have gathered it by doing. The net of karma will break only on the day neither the doer remains nor knowledge remains. Become like a small child who knows nothing, who can do nothing. From within him Paramatma begins to pour.
And Lao Tzu says: often the whole world has been won by those who have done nothing.
There are some strange paths. From my experience I say: they exist. Here I sit silently doing nothing; from far, from unknown lands, people begin to arrive. How they come is a mystery. Who sends them is a mystery. Some unknown, unseen energy is at work twenty-four hours a day. Wherever a hollow happens, from that side the journeys of many consciousnesses begin. There is not even a need to say anything. By some unknown paths the news reaches them. Someone brings them. This has always been so. Erase your doer completely, and the vast will be born from you. Remain a doer, and you will die limited in the petty. Your doership and knowership are your tomb. The doer and the knower gone—you have become a temple. Paramatma will do much through you. Just move a little aside, give way a little. Paramatma will fill you with much knowing; just drop your reliance upon your knowledge. Put down your bundle of knowledge for a while—and then see.
Enough for today.