Tao Upanishad #9

What is man’s anxiety? What is man’s pain? What is man’s torment?
If one person is anxious, if a few are troubled, we could understand—perhaps it is their mistake. But what happens is the reverse. Sometimes a single person is carefree, sometimes a single person is healthy; all the others are sick, restless, in pain. Disease seems to be the rule; health appears the exception. Ignorance seems to be the very soul of life; insight appears as some accidental, chance event. It seems that to be human is to be sick, to be anxious and harried. Once in a while—who knows how—someone among us attains a carefreeness. Either some slip of nature, or some grace of the Divine. But the rule seems to be just what we are: infirm, afflicted, disturbed.
This sutra of Lao Tzu is very strange. Lao Tzu says: the reason so many are troubled must lie in the very construction of the human mind, in the basic premises of our culture, in the modes of thinking of our civilization, in the structure of our society. We set each person up in such a way that sickness becomes inevitable.
The latest discoveries in the West say that each person is born as a genius, born talented—but together we make such arrangements that we blunt and destroy that talent in every possible way.
Swami Ram has written in his memoirs that when he went to Japan, he saw the sky-touching cedars as trees of a mere handspan, a mere span of the hand. He was amazed. They were not young saplings; they were a hundred, a hundred and fifty years old. But their height was one handspan.
So he asked the gardeners: what is the secret?
The gardeners turned the pots upside down and showed him: the bottoms were broken out. And regularly the roots of the trees were cut. Below, the roots could not grow; above, the tree could not grow. The tree went on aging, growing old, yet it could not rise beyond a handspan. For to rise, the roots must go down; they must enter the earth. A tree rises up only as far as its roots go down. Now if the gardener decides that the roots must never reach down, and goes on cutting, the tree will grow old, but it will not grow big.
The arrangement by which we try to make man great is precisely the arrangement that cuts the roots. Hence all the people we see on the earth have managed to rise only a handspan. They too could have touched the sky. But we pour poison at the roots.
For so long has poison been poured that we no longer even remember. Then each generation keeps pouring it. Your elders pour poison into your roots. And what your elders did to you, you in turn do to your children. Naturally, every father repeats with his son what his father did with him. A vicious circle; the thing goes on repeating like an evil wheel.
It is for this poison that Lao Tzu has spoken a few things.
To understand these, first grasp this: the greatest poison poured into the human mind is that of ambition. Our entire social arrangement stands upon ambition. We make even the smallest child ambitious. We put him on a racetrack, in a race where he is agitated to come first at any cost. Whether he studies in school, whether he plays, whether he learns manners, whether he wears clothes—whatever he does, or whatever we want him to do—there is just one formula beneath it all: we bind him in ambition, we tie him into competition.
Ambition means we set his ego in contest against the egos of others. We tell him: do not let the other children get ahead! If you fall behind, there will be no scope left for your ego. Wherever you are, strive to be first.
This striving to be first is our poison. Whether we dress, whether we behave, whether we become educated, whether we earn wealth—whatever we do—even when we worship and pray, even when we renounce and practice austerity—we must constantly keep in mind that we are being seen in comparison with others. Always we must see where we stand with reference to others. What is my place in the line? Am I not behind?
If I find myself standing behind, pain will result. If I see people behind me, I am elated. Those who are elated are elated only when they can give pain to others by pushing them behind; otherwise there is no elation. And the earth is so vast that no one can ever be absolutely first. Life is so complex that there is no way to be first in it. Its complexity is multidimensional.
A man amasses much wealth, then he finds someone stands ahead in health. A man begs on the street, his clothes are torn, yet his body is better. Another achieves great health, then finds someone else ahead in beauty. One earns wealth, then finds someone ahead in intelligence. And someone becomes a great intellect, yet he finds he has no bread to eat while someone else has built a great palace.
Life is many-sided, multi-dimensional; and in every direction I must be first. Unless a man goes mad—and there is no way he will not. Those who do not go mad are a miracle. The whole structure is madness-inducing. Wherever we stand, there will be pain—somewhere ahead we will find someone standing ahead.
Ambition means: never think who you are; always think who you are in comparison to others. Never see yourself directly; always see yourself in comparison. Never see where you stand; do not see whether there is joy or not where you stand. Always see where you stand vis-à-vis other people! Do not even worry if you are in misery; always see whether others are in greater misery than you; if so, no harm—you can be pleased.
I have heard: in a village there was a flood. An old farmer sat greatly worried. His fields were under water, his cows and buffaloes were lost, his goats washed away. His neighbor said, “Baba, you look very anxious; all your goats were swept by the river.” The old man asked, “In the village, did anyone else’s survive?” He said, “No one’s survived.” The old man asked, “Yours too?” The young man said, “Ours too were lost.” The old man said, “Then there is not so much reason to be as anxious as I am. The issue is not that mine were lost—if everyone’s were lost, there’s no need to be so worried.”
Pleasure or pain—the thinking is always: where do we stand? Where in the line? Our thinking is in lines—ranked. Not: What am I as a free individual? But: In line, in the queue, where am I? And the queue is circular—a ring. In it we go on advancing. Many times it seems we have passed one, passed two, passed three. Great hope arises: having passed three, soon we will be first. But each time, after passing, we find there are still people ahead.
The queue is circular. It is not a straight line in which someone arrives ahead. And often it happens that one who runs hard to get ahead suddenly finds he has ended up far behind. If you try to get far ahead in a circular queue, one day you will find those you had left behind have suddenly come in front.
Hence those who reach the summit of success often become impoverished within. Those who reach the peak often become frustrated. What is this frustration? This inner poverty? It is that in the end they find they have not reached the peak; those they left behind stand ahead. The queue is circular.
So understand this sutra of Lao Tzu in this context.
Lao Tzu says: “If ability is not given rank and status, there will be neither division nor conflict.”
Lao Tzu says: why make ability into a post? Why not see ability as nature?
Understand the difference—upon it many things depend. Why not recognize ability as nature? Why make ability a rank? A man is skilled in mathematics—this skill is his nature. Another is skilled in music—this skill is his nature. Another is weak in mathematics—this weakness is his nature. The one skilled at mathematics—there is no special merit in him, for skill in mathematics comes from nature. And the one not skilled—there is no defect in him either, for the lack of skill comes from nature just as skill comes to the other.
The Zen mystic Rinzai stood outside his hut telling a man, “Do you see those great trees touching the sky? And do you see the small shrubs?” Then Rinzai said, “I have lived among these trees for years; never have I seen the shrubs thinking, ‘Why are the big trees big?’ Nor have I ever seen the big trees strutting, ‘These shrubs are small and we are big.’”
The man asked, “What is the secret?”
Rinzai said, “Only this: shrubs are shrubs by nature, trees are trees by nature. There is no rank in being tall, nor inferiority in being small. The nature that makes trees tall makes the grass small. And it is not necessary that what is high is high in every situation. When storms come, the tall trees fall and the small plants survive.”
Napoleon’s height was short; he was not very tall. And it often happens that those of small height try to reach great positions. One day, in his library, he was trying to pull down a book, but the shelf was high; his hand could not reach. His guard, a man some seven feet tall, said, “Your Excellency, if it is not improper and you permit me to step ahead and take it down, give me the order. No one is higher than me in your army.” Napoleon glared and said, “Not ‘higher’, but ‘longer’. Do not say ‘higher’, say only ‘longer’. No one in my army is longer than you; as for higher—there are many higher. Higher—I alone am.”
It is natural that Napoleon was hurt. To say “higher”—this was not just a slip of the tongue; it was a serious mistake. Napoleon immediately corrected it: say “longer,” say “taller.”
What difference did Napoleon make between higher and taller? Taller is merely a natural fact. Higher carries rank, valuation. Tallness has no value. You may be tall; no value accrues to height. Height is nature. Fine—you are seven feet tall, another is five feet tall; there is no matter of special virtue in it. But highness! With highness we have added valuation, worth.
Lao Tzu says: if rank and status are not fastened to ability, there will be neither division nor conflict in the world.
If only we would begin to see things such that each acts according to his nature, and for his nature he is not responsible. We never hold a blind man responsible for being blind. A man is blind from birth—do we ever declare him responsible? Rather, we feel compassion.
A young man came to me two years ago—one and a half, two years. There was a camp in Srinagar on Mahavira. When we all had left, that young man must have learned of it—he was blind. He travelled all that way to Jabalpur to see me.
I asked him, “You are blind; you must have had great difficulty to travel so far!”
He said, “No, being blind brings me great convenience; everyone helps me. Someone holds my hand, someone buys my ticket, someone seats me in a rickshaw. Even here the rickshaw-wallah brought me for free and is waiting outside so that, after I meet you, he will take me back to the station. Being blind is a great convenience. Had I eyes, I would not have had so much help.”
We show compassion to the blind—because we accept: what is his fault? But if someone’s intelligence is dull, we do not show compassion. We say, “Fool!” We never ask: what is his fault in this? A man is stupid—what is the crime?
No, we feel no compassion. He will be condemned, tormented, rejected from place to place, pushed behind. No one will have mercy. Why? Because we have made intelligence the formula for ambition. Without intelligence, ambition cannot move. So the measure of intelligence, IQ, has become very important.
But what is the fact here? A man is born like Einstein—what is Einstein’s merit in that? Lao Tzu says, where is Einstein’s hand in it? And a man is born a great fool—what is his fault?
Lao Tzu is saying: nature makes this one thus and that one thus. Because we cannot accept nature, we attach rank and status to one, and lowness to another—so we give birth to division, quarrel, conflict. It means we never see what is natural, what is spontaneous. We impose our desires upon nature and think accordingly.
Lao Tzu is a naturalist; he is a man of swabhava. Tao means swabhava—nature-as-such. He says: we are such. And he does not say this only for himself; he says the other is such too. But we will say: to accept such a thing would mean there are thieves, the dishonest, the bad people—if we accept that all is nature and swabhava, then if nature made one a thief, what shall we do? If nature made one dishonest, what shall we do? Shall we accept the dishonest and let dishonesty run?
This is the struggle of the moralist with Lao Tzu. The moralist will say: this is a dangerous formula. Understand—grant even this far that one man is foolish and one is intelligent, then fine, let it be nature. But if one is dishonest, one is a thief, one is a murderer—what shall we do? Accept it? Understand nature made him thus?
If you ask Lao Tzu, he will say: you did not accept—how many murderers did you manage to make non-murderers? You did not accept—how many dishonest did you make honest? You did not accept—you gave punishments, you declared criminals, you hanged them, you flogged them, you imprisoned them, you gave life sentences. How many people did you change?
Lao Tzu says: the truth is, the one you punish, you make him more fixed in his dishonesty. The one you sentence—you never free him from his crime; you make him a more consummate criminal. The person who goes through prison once becomes a bird of the prison. In prison he finds satsang. From prison he returns having learned much. He does not come back as he went. In prison he finds gurus, great experts, the experienced.
And once your verdict that so-and-so is a criminal, a thief—the seal is stamped. He no longer has any way to become honest. Even if he wants to become honest, no one is ready to accept it.
Lao Tzu says: you have not made a dishonest man honest.
In England there used to be flogging for thieves. It was stopped a hundred and fifty years ago. Because at a public crossroads, they would strip a man naked and flog him so that hundreds could see—see and be impressed and so others would not steal. But about a hundred and fifty years ago it happened that a crowd was gathered, and two men in that crowd were picking pockets. In the middle a man was being stripped and flogged. The crowd was so engrossed watching the flogging that no one imagined pockets would be picked. Many pockets were picked right there.
So the English Parliament deliberated: this is astonishing. We thought that flogging in the streets would stop theft. Astonishing that where flogging was happening, people’s pockets were picked! Because they were so absorbed in watching that no one thought theft would occur here.
Even after such punishments we have not changed man a bit. Day by day man has become worse. The more the laws increase, says Lao Tzu, the more the criminals increase. Every new law becomes a formula for creating new criminals. Every punishment gives birth to new crimes.
So Lao Tzu says: you say, then what will happen to the world if you do not change it? Though you have not been able to change anyone. So many courts, prisons, penal codes—no one has been changed.
It seems some people have a vested interest. I have heard about a thief—he was being sentenced for the third time. This was the last time, for now he was getting life imprisonment. The magistrate asked him at the end, “Since you were born, what good have you done for humanity?”
The thief said, “You have no idea how many magistrates, how many policemen, how many detectives are employed because of me! Because of me they are busy twenty-four hours. Without me, countless people would become completely jobless. You would be seen begging on the street! Because of me you have work.”
It is not only a joke. It is truth—deep truth. If there were not a single thief upon the earth, how would there be magistrates? This vast arrangement of prestige, of law, of lawyers—all of it depends upon thieves, the dishonest, the wicked. And if someone looks deeply, he will see that this entire administrative class will not agree with Lao Tzu. They will say: to accept a thief as a thief—and do nothing—what will happen to us who do all the doing?
And the psychologists’ experience is very amusing: generally, those who regulate the law are precisely the people who, if there were no law, would be the ones to break it. In truth, it is the thief who enjoys beating the thief with a stick.
I have heard that Nasruddin worked in a shop. He had poor dealings with customers, so he was fired. The owner said, “Remember, the rule for running a shop is: the customer is always right. You cannot work here and try to prove yourself right and the customer wrong.”
Fifteen days later he saw that Nasruddin had become a policeman, standing at the crossroads. “Nasruddin, you took a police job?” “Yes,” said Nasruddin, “I thought a lot. This is the only job where the customer is always wrong. Otherwise, no business suits me.”
Lao Tzu’s view will feel difficult. Not only to those in regulatory power, but also to monks and ascetics it will feel displeasing. Because the monk does not consider his saintliness as nature; he considers it an achievement. The monk says, “I am a saint through great effort, great difficulty; the path was arduous, much austerity—and so I am a saint. You are not a saint because you did nothing.”
Lao Tzu’s sainthood is ultimate. He says: if I am a saint, there is no merit in it. Understand this ultimate saintliness. Lao Tzu says: if I am a saint, there is no merit in it, no cause for respect. If you are not a saint, there is no disgrace in it. Your not being a saint is natural; my being a saint is natural. And where nature enters, what can we do? So you are not below me, I am not above you.
But the entire arrangement of our saints is to be above. If he is not above us, all is meaningless. And remember, if we stop seating the saint above, ninety-nine out of a hundred saints will immediately leave. There is only one basis that keeps them: their sainthood feeds their ambition, their ego, their asmita. There is great enjoyment even in being a saint. And when society is very un-saintly, then being a saint has great relish. For you can nourish your ego as nowhere else.
Even saints will not agree with Lao Tzu. When he spoke these things, they were revolutionary in China. Even now, two and a half millennia later, they remain revolutionary—and perhaps even after another two and a half millennia. For what greater revolution can there be than Lao Tzu’s? He says: I am what I am—just as the neem bears bitter leaf; what is the neem’s fault? And the mango bears sweet fruit; what is the mango’s merit? Why should the neem be behind and below, and the mango sit above? Even if the mango is useful to you. Your utility is no basis for high and low. The opposition of the saint, the jurist, the moralist—understand it. Their objection will be: society will fall. But no one sees: how much more fallen can it become? Society is fallen; it will not become so—it already is. And when society is fallen, the moralist says: if we accept Lao Tzu, things will get worse.
Lao Tzu says: you yourselves have made it worse. By condemning the thief you do not reform him; by condemning you shut the door to the possibility of change. As soon as we decide on praise and blame, we begin to draw boundaries. As soon as we make circles of condemnation and applause—calling some bad and some good—the one we call bad we compel to become bad; the one we call good we slowly help manufacture hypocrisy in even his goodness.
Why? Because the one we call good—we do not leave him the convenience of being bad. No man is so good that there is no badness in him. No man is so bad that there is no goodness in him. But we split things in two. We say: this man is good—there is no badness in him. And when some bad part of his inner life begins to surface, he will have to deceive. He will hide, suppress. What is within he will not show; what is not within he will display. Our effort to praise goodness turns goodness into hypocrisy. Hence those whom we call good—ninety-nine percent are hypocrites. But once we stick a label of goodness, they spend a lifetime protecting the label.
The one we call bad—we shut the door to his becoming good. Because by the time we have called him bad often enough, he has heard it so many times that his aspiration, his possibility, his adventure toward goodness becomes impotent. He thinks: it cannot happen; I am bad, condemned; it will not happen with me. Then slowly he makes his life-journey in becoming skilled in badness itself.
Lao Tzu says: do not call the bad bad, do not call the good good; do not label; do not create rank. Know only this: all live from their nature.
What will this mean? It will mean that in society there are no categories, no hierarchy, no high and low. Does it mean communism? This needs a little reflection. In the arrangement Lao Tzu speaks of, if it were accepted, all would be unequal, and yet all would be in their nature. Therefore there would be no sense of inequality.
Lao Tzu is saying: if one can earn wealth, he will earn; if one can squander, he will squander; if one can beg, he will beg. But the beggar will not be below the builder of palaces, because we give no rank to building palaces. We say: it is that man’s nature—he cannot live without building palaces, so he builds. And this man’s nature—if money comes to his hand he cannot live without throwing it away. This is his nature. We do not make rank; we accept nature. And we accept all kinds of nature. In truth, the supreme mark of saintliness is total acceptance—acceptance of every kind of nature.
If such a possibility could be, that we accept all natures, then, says Lao Tzu, there is no division, no torment, no anxiety, no pain, no quarrel.
Just yesterday I spoke with a friend. Between him and his wife there is conflict. Naturally, he had the same notion everyone has: if this woman were not here, if there were another, there would be no conflict. There is no experience of the other woman—she is imaginary; she is nowhere. The woman too thinks: I made the mistake of joining with this man; if there were another, there would be no trouble. Which other man? Imaginary—nowhere. We cannot experience all men, nor all women; thus the illusion persists.
No, I told the friend: it is not the question of this woman or that woman; it is the nature of man and woman. In that nature there is conflict. It is the arrangement we have made between man and woman; in that arrangement there is conflict. Wherever there is ownership, there will be conflict. Wherever we fix relationships forever, there will be conflict. Because the mind is very unfixed, and relationships become very fixed.
Today I say to someone: none is as beautiful as you. Tomorrow morning—where is it written that it must still be so? Tomorrow morning I may feel otherwise. And it does not mean what I said today was false. Not at all—it was true—true to that moment. In that moment it appeared so. But that moment cannot bind my whole future. Tomorrow morning I may feel: no, it was a mistake. That too will be true—to that moment. Then what shall I do? Either I will betray the old truth, create hypocrisy; and where hypocrisy arises, there will be conflict. I will feel I have fallen in my own eyes: what did I say yesterday, and what do I do today!
Where we make relationships permanent, the impermanent mind will bring suffering. Where there is demand, there will be struggle. Wherever there is high and low—the high will strive with all his power to remain high, thus will be in conflict; the low will strive to rise, thus will be in conflict. Our whole thinking is of quarrel. Man can be free of conflict only when he accepts the nature of things.
Now, what is the nature of things?
Its nature is: if I love a person and receive joy from that person, I will receive pain from that person as well. From whom you receive joy, from that one you will have to receive pain. The door we open for joy—along with it, the door of pain opens. Through the same door both come. When I want only joy and will not take pain, I am not embracing the nature of things. I am saying: joy is fine—pain I will not take.
The one I love—I will also be angry with that one. The one who loves me—will be angry with me. But we think: one we love—we must never be angry with. Wherever there is attachment, there will be anger. And if there is no anger, then the quality of love will be entirely different, its element will change; it will no longer be love, it will be karuna—compassion. But compassion will not give you the satisfaction you seek, because compassion is utterly peaceful love, free of clinging. You feel fulfilled when a passionate, active, aggressive love comes toward you. You feel it when someone comes to conquer you.
Here is the great irony: when someone comes to conquer you, you feel great joy; but when someone succeeds in conquering you, you feel great sorrow. When someone comes to conquer you, you feel joy because you think you are worthy of being conquered—why else would anyone come? And when someone has conquered, then the pain begins: I have become someone’s slave. The two are conjoined.
If we see the nature, there will be no quarrel, no division.
Lao Tzu says: no division and no conflict.
What is conflict? Conflict is this—every moment: I am engaged in trying to be other than my nature. What I cannot be—that is what I am trying to become. And with the other too the same: what he cannot be—that is what we are determined to make him become.
Suppose I love a woman. I love her only because woman is pleasant to me. That is why I can love. The woman will be happy that I love her. But she does not know—I love woman; I could love another woman. For me there is juice in the feminine, that is why I love. Tomorrow I could love another. She will be happy because I loved her; tomorrow the pain will begin because I could love another.
Hence every woman you love will immediately set guard upon you—are you leaning in love toward someone else? For now she knows that your mind is filled with love for woman. And the mind does not know individuals; the mind knows only energies. The mind does not know Mr. A, Ms. B; the mind knows woman and man.
Now she will try that the love for woman disappears from your mind. But the day love for woman is gone, that very day this woman too is gone from your mind. Now the struggle is immense. Her effort will be: love for woman should remain—but only the woman within me should remain. A struggle that is impossible, that cannot be fulfilled, in which nothing will be gained but melancholy.
It is so everywhere. Everywhere it is so.
Voltaire wrote: there was a time I would pass through the street and think—if only someone greeted me. But people did not; they did not know me. It hurt. With great effort Voltaire came to the point where it was hard to leave the village. Then he wrote: “These rascals have ruined my sleep. I cannot go out alone; someone or other stops me, greets me, walks along talking.”
In his diary he wrote: now it occurs to me that I myself invited this trouble. Earlier they would not greet at all; I would pass, then I was pained that no one greeted. Now a crowd gathers when I go out; I am pained that these rascals keep following me.
The mind of man! The very diseases we invite—when they arrive, we are tormented. First a man wants fame. As soon as it comes, he wants isolation. First he wants fame—meaning a crowd. When the crowd arrives, he is afraid of the crowd. Hitler does everything to bring crowds. When the crowds come, then he has to try to escape the crowds. The amusing thing: those who did not get crowds are troubled; those who got crowds are troubled.
Lao Tzu says: we do not accept nature—that is the difficulty. And we do not see that along with every thing many other things are joined; they come along and cannot be kept out. We want that no one should insult us; and we want that all should honor us. Where honor comes, insult is inevitable—we do not see this nature. If this nature becomes visible… Lao Tzu says: if you do not want insult, then do not desire honor. If you want honor, be ready for insult. Then there is no difficulty; then there is no division. Then inside there is no conflict.
And when there is conflict in each individual, there will be conflict in the whole society. What we call life—cannot be called life, because what are we doing twenty-four hours a day? Fighting countless kinds of battles! In the market we fight economic battles. At home—family battles. Among friends—fighting, politics. If we watch a man from morning till night, till he sleeps—what is there except shifting fronts? He shifts fronts here, there; from one he moves to another. If he gets free of one, he takes up another battle. In the change of battles he gets a little respite. Otherwise, the fighting goes on. There is nowhere to be outside of battle. At night he sleeps—the dreams are of battle. The same conflicts return in dreams.
Why this condition of the mind—filled with conflict? Why? Could it be that we are poisoning the roots of man so that this must be? It is so. We are poisoning the roots. And our root-poisoning is so old, so systematically organized, that it has become part of our collective mind. It seems we cannot live any other way. This is our net. And if you were given peace twenty-four hours a day—no opportunity for conflict—you would become more restless than conflict ever made you. People say they want peace—because they do not know what peace is. If they were really given peace, within twenty-four hours they would say, “Forgive us; we do not want this peace. Better the unrest.” Because in the moment of peace your ego cannot survive.
The ego survives in quarrel, in conflict, in victory, in defeat. Even defeat is better—there too the ego remains. Better defeat than nothingness—there the ego remains. But if there is total peace, your ego will not remain; you will not remain. In absolute peace only peace remains—you do not. That will be frightening. You will run out of it. You will say: not this peace; better hell. At least something was happening! Whether or not it was happening, it felt like it was. We were busy, engaged. And the mind thought: we are engaged in great work.
The bigger the conflict, the more it seems we are engaged in great work. Hence people leave small conflicts and seek big ones; they leave petty troubles and look for great troubles. The troubles of their own home do not suffice; they look to the neighborhood. Then to society, the nation, humanity—they seek great problems. The small ones will not do.
A young man came to me. He is a member of an American pacifist group. Four hundred of them are working for peace in India. He took sannyas here. I asked him, “Are you not perhaps trying to escape your own inner unrest by working for other people’s peace?”
He was startled. He said, “What are you saying? But yes—that is it. How did you know? At home there is so much unrest—I cannot get along with my father, with my mother, with my brother. Conditions had become such that if I stayed, there would be bloodshed. Either I would kill my father, or he would kill me. So I had to run away from home. When I heard that India needs peace, I came here. I am engaged in peace here.”
Our social workers, reformers, leaders—the small unrest does not suffice for them. They need a larger canvas, and problems that can never be solved. With those that get solved you cannot live long; they will be solved, then you will have to find new ones. So they need permanent problems that never end. And we—who know no formula of peace, whose entire makeup is of unrest—whether we stand, sit, walk, speak—only unrest arises from us. Even if we remain silent…
Nasruddin was speaking with his wife. She had been talking for half an hour. Nasruddin said, “Lady, you have spoken for half an hour and I cannot even say yes or hmm.”
His wife said, “You keep quiet—but the way you sit silent is so dangerous, so aggressive! You are sitting quietly, but in such a way I cannot stand it!”
A man can sit quietly in such a way that it looks aggressive. Your manner of keeping silent can be such that even an abuse would be better than that silence. Our mode of being is quarrelsome. Even if we sit quietly… Someone says, “I keep quiet, I say nothing.” But your not speaking also works. Often you keep quiet only when you wish to say something even more dangerous than you could with words. You keep quiet because the words of the weight you need are not found. The weighty abuse you want will not come—so you keep silent. But why is it so?
By Lao Tzu’s reckoning because we have not given acceptance to nature. We have played with nature—and that play is rank and status. We say so-and-so is low, so-and-so is high—on the basis of utility. That which seems of more use to us, we call high. But when utility changes, the high and low change.
There was a time when the priest was highest. Why? Because he was useful. Clouds thundered, lightning flashed in the sky—no one knew anything. Only the priest knew that Indra is angry. How to propitiate Indra—only he knew the formula. The mantra was with him. The king sat at his feet. For thousands of years the priest tried that what he knew others should not know. His monopoly was his knowledge. There were a few things only he knew; no one else knew. Emperors came to ask him; they too had to touch his feet. So the priest was highest in the world.
But today! Today he is not at the top. In twenty years the scientist will sit where two thousand years ago the priest sat. Today a scientist’s value is immense—beyond measure. Because everything depends on him—the entire fate. One man slipping from Germany can change the fate; one man leaving Russia can unbalance destiny. If America looks prosperous and organized today, the reason is this: ninety percent of the world’s scientists of history are in America today. So you can do nothing. There is an arrangement: wherever a scientist is born, he is drawn—like rivers pour into the sea, so the scientist is drawn to America. Wherever he is born, it makes no difference—he will be pulled there.
In England there was a big conference of thinkers. They said: we must somehow stop our thinkers from going to America; otherwise we will die.
But you cannot stop it. How will you? You cannot give a laboratory of that size, nor that salary, nor that arrangement, nor that freedom, nor those facilities. Even if you stop him, he will be of no use. He will go to America.
Those who know—if they open their eyes to see where scientists are gathering—that nation is the future. The rest will drown. For power is in their hands today.
And today in America it appears as if power is in the hands of politicians. Not for long. Power has already slipped. It has gone into other hands. At their hint, everything happens. The politician may say a thousand times: what is the use of going to the moon—people are starving! The scientist wants to go to the moon; he is going. And the politician must arrange it. He may keep saying: what use is it—but he cannot even understand the use. His intelligence is not enough to grasp it. But his valuation is nil today.
If America’s five top scientists refused and stepped aside today, America would fall at Russia’s feet. So much power in five people’s hands! The whole military would stand helpless. If five say: enough.
Utility has changed. The priest is no longer on top—the scientist is. In between, the warrior was on top. The sword was power. He was above. Where utility changes, high and low change. Today intellect is valued, because with intellect you can climb. But if tomorrow the world becomes such—and it will—that people need not work, machines do it, and there is no way to climb, you will be surprised—those who can play the flute, catch fish, play cards—they will suddenly be at the top. Because—you will be standing still. You ran a big market and a big shop—no one asks after you. People ask after the one who can play cards. Because the man of leisure will be precious in twenty-five years. In America that condition will come: the one who can rejoice in leisure will be on top. The value of the worker will end the day work goes into machine hands.
Now a great scientist does big mathematics. But a computer will do bigger mathematics soon. He will take six months—a computer will do it in a second. His value will end. Who will run after a scientist? One will buy a computer for home and do his work. He will have no place. The whole arrangement will change. Other sorts will come to the top—those who entertain.
Today you see the film actor suddenly rise to the top—never before. Actors always existed, but never on top. They were unprestigious; their work was not respected. People considered it unworthy. But suddenly, in the whole world, film actors and artists are rising. Day by day they will rise. Their future is vast—because they entertain. And as people become free, they will need entertainment. As people become empty, with leisure, with no work—they will need arrangements to keep them engaged: someone to dance for them, to sing, to tell stories, to stage plays—some arrangement to fill their empty time. That one will rise. The world never gave actors such a place as the twentieth century has. And it will increase. Leaders will soon fall behind—they already have. Why?
All because of utility. Otherwise it was laughable: a man who makes faces and dances—people thought, fine. Every village had one or two such men. But no one thought such a man would become Charlie Chaplin—that even Gandhi would be eager to meet him. Charlie Chaplin—this man! In the village he did jokes; fine for the village. Useless fellows existed in every village who did such things. The village would sometimes look for them—in weddings and fairs they would amuse. But they had no prestige; their work was not respectable. But to be so prestigious?
As the value of work falls and the value of entertainment rises, prestige changes. Who is above, who below—keeps changing with utility. But by nature there is no high and low.
Lao Tzu says: by nature you are as you are. And if we accept this, then there is no division, no quarrel, no conflict—neither within nor without.
“If rare objects are not valued, people will even be free of the bandit mind.”
We constantly condemn, but we never think. We condemn the thief, the dacoit, the dishonest, the fraud—but we never think: for what is he striving? And the very thing for which he strives—we keep increasing its value—and we condemn him. A very strange game—and a great fraud.
On one side we go on honoring the Kohinoor; on the other side we say that the efforts to get the Kohinoor are not right. And there is one Kohinoor, and three or four billion people. All want the Kohinoor. Now there is only one; it cannot be had by all. Therefore, by rule and policy, the Kohinoor cannot be attained. And every day it is seen that the one who leaves aside all the rules and pushes in—he gets the Kohinoor. When it is seen daily, then those who stand in a queue—how long will they stand?
And those who keep standing in the queue—the one who attains tells them, “You are fools! Who told you to keep standing? This is our trick: those who want to break the queue and go ahead—make the others stand in line. Persuade them: ‘Do not break the queue; it is a great sin.’”