Tao Upanishad #96

The greatest illness that has gripped man, and from which no deliverance seems in sight, is called the ideal.
It will be hard to understand, because all of us have been initiated into this very illness. And we have been initiated so skillfully that the ideal does not appear to us as a disease, it looks like the goal of life. It seems the supreme aim. The sickness itself has been explained to us as health. And our minds have been completely filled with the sickness.
Along with the mother’s milk the child is given the poison of ideals. Ideal means: you must try to become someone else. An ideal says just one thing — do not be yourself; become someone else. Become a Mahavira, become a Buddha. As if you were not born for yourself. As if you are here to play someone else’s role. As if you were born to live a borrowed life. As if existence has rejected you, and some other person is your model according to whom you must mold yourself.
Then everything in your life will turn pathological. The person who drops being himself and tries to become something else — there is no end to his diseases. Every day he will create new ailments, because his whole style of living is diseased. Individual, society, state — all are moving under the inspiration of ideals. That is why the world has become a madhouse; the earth a crowd of the mentally ill.
Lao Tzu says: keep the normal in view, not the abnormal. And let order come through the normal, discipline be founded on the normal. The state, society, the individual — let them move according to the thread of the ordinary. Let the rule be the normal, not the extraordinary.
Understand it a little. Abnormal persons become the basis of stories because they are special. Special means different. I do not use the word special with any reverence. They are different from the normal.
I was once a professor in a college. I had just arrived new; I was introduced to a teacher. He was seven and a half feet tall. The friend who introduced me praised him greatly, “Look, if height, then such!” I looked at that friend. Everyone must have praised him; perhaps I was the first person who cautioned him. I said, I think your glands are not functioning properly; this height is a disease. Go to a physician, something has gone wrong. Your eyes are bulging. Your body does not look healthy, nor serene; there is some deep restlessness within. And I asked him, “Is your height still increasing?”
He said, yes. Then I said, there is great danger. See a physician, and do not consider this a matter of pride.
Something in him trusted what I said, because he too felt the inner unease. Because of everyone’s praise he had never confessed his disquiet to anyone. He saw a physician, and it turned out he was afflicted with a major, incurable disease.
Each person’s measure of height is hidden beforehand in the seed. In it the blueprint is contained — whether he will be six feet, or five. That height is completed as soon as sexual maturity sets in. After that, any increase becomes dangerous. And if even after that it keeps increasing — and by then he was twenty-eight — it only means the blueprint is lost somewhere, a natural error has occurred, and the cell does not know where to stop; the mechanism to stop is missing within.
From the day he went to the doctors, his swagger disappeared. Not only did the swagger go, the opposite happened. He began to walk bent, trying to hide his height.
I told him: now do not cultivate this second disease. The first disease was that you strutted because of your great height and made yourself the measure, and everyone around seemed a dwarf to you — and you filled each one with an inferiority complex. Now you are catching the opposite malady. Get it treated, but do not pick up a second inferiority, that you must walk hunched, that you must conceal.
Those I call special, I say it in this sense. Somewhere the thread of life’s normality has been lost. However much you may honor them, there is some fundamental error. Because of that, they have become different from the spontaneous order of life. Understand. However great they may be, it makes no difference. For Lao Tzu — and for me — the greatest person is the one who becomes utterly ordinary. Because in the ordinary is hidden the nature — swabhava. Truth is universal. Truth is not a specialty. Truth is hidden in each particle. That which flows according to nature — that arrangement itself is truth. So the one who is utterly ordinary, in whom you will find nothing special, he is the measure of health. But it has not happened so.
In the story of Dhritarashtra it is said that the woman he married — Gandhari — Dhritarashtra was blind — out of love for her husband she bandaged her eyes and never opened them for life. She is praised: if a woman, then like Gandhari.
If a man is blind, his wife should have four eyes, not bandage two of her own. The husband needed a wife with eyes. He lacked vision; that lack needed to be fulfilled. But the tales say that out of love she virtually destroyed her own eyes, for she never opened them. The scriptures praise Gandhari greatly — if a wife, then like her.
This wife is a little special, but she is not natural. A good story can be woven around her, because no story can be woven around a natural person. Hence the Puranas only narrate those who went against nature, who became otherwise. What story of a natural man?
A washerman cast suspicion on Sita’s conduct, and Rama cast her out. Now Rama is called Maryada Purushottam — the supreme man of discipline. If a husband, then like him!
If everyone did the same, not a single wife would remain at home. Are washermen in short supply? Without investigation, without asking, without giving Sita any justice, he had her thrown into the forest. This may be the pride of a husband, but it is not a natural event. Thousands of people exist, with thousands of opinions. If someone begins to chop life to pieces based on their opinions, it cannot become a general measure of life. Around such a man a fine story can be woven; he will be a character for legend — but he cannot be the ideal of life.
Mahavira became naked. Winter, sun, shade, heat — standing naked. They cannot be made the basis. If people stand naked taking them as a basis, it is doubtful they will realize the soul — Atman; they will surely lose the body. But around Mahavira there is great ease in spinning a tale. Stories grow around the special — remember. And take stories as entertainment, do not make ideals of them. Read them, understand them. They are beautiful. But they are literature, not foundations for living.
Buddha left his wife, left home, fled to the forest. If all leave home and flee to the forest, even the birth of Buddhas will cease. Life will not gain dignity through that. The whole dignity of life will be lost. And from Buddha no flowers will bloom in this world again; the world will become a desert. Barrenness will spread like melancholy. Nothing will be seen here but sorrow and lamentation.
Yes, Buddha’s story becomes more intriguing through such events. And the story takes on a uniqueness. Unique people are fine for stories; for life the thread must be the ordinary. When you shape life, never shape it under the impact of something unique. Otherwise you will fall ill; you will be harassed.
And it may also be that what happened to Mahavira, to Buddha, to Rama — was natural for them. You must assess your own nature. Make your own nature the measure of your life. If you make an ideal your measure, you will begin to live in a prison. The ideal will never be fulfilled, because nothing can be fulfilled against your nature. Because it does not get fulfilled, you will always be stung, always consider yourself inferior — the ideal is not fulfilled; who is as mean as I am! A sinner! Fallen! You become sinner and fallen because of your ideals; you are not sinners and fallen. The idea of sin and fall arises in you because you constructed an ideal which does not get fulfilled. You took a vow of Brahmacharya which does not get fulfilled. Now you are a sinner. If you had not taken the vow? If you had not made Brahmacharya an ideal? Would you be a sinner?
There is another Brahmacharya which flowers out of the naturalness of sex-energy, not because of an ideal; which arises from living one’s own life, not by following another’s. In the unfolding of your own life a moment comes. Lust is yours, Brahmacharya too will be yours — only then will it be true. You learn Brahmacharya from another; from whom did you learn sex? You do not go to sinners to learn lust, then why go to the virtuous to learn Brahmacharya? If lust has been received from nature, then understand the nature of lust, live it consciously. And let Brahmacharya arise from that. Only then will a real flower come into your life.
Ideals are hollow, because they are borrowed. And ideals you will plant from outside; they will not arise from inner understanding. They will not come from your inner light, they will come from outer conditioning. They will be moral, not religious.
Let the inner bloom. Obstacles are there, of course. But no one else will walk your obstacles for you; you must walk them. Dreaming is one thing. Mahavira attained Brahmacharya; then the obstructions of lust were faced by Mahavira. No one attains Brahmacharya for free. You want to attain Mahavira’s Brahmacharya sitting at home without the journey. Then who will undertake Mahavira’s journey? You want the flower, but you do not want to endure the labor of sowing the seed and tending the tree. Then your flowers will be plastic.
All ideals are plastic, paper, unreal. The real always comes from nature. The real always comes from the ordinary. The fake always comes from the ideal — which is false, which you built in the far sky out of desires.
One more thing must be understood: it is not necessary that those you call Mahavira and Rama actually lived as you imagine. Then the net is even denser. First you impose an ideal on Rama’s life — whether it was so or not. First you imagine a halo around Mahavira — whether it was there or not. Then you make that the ideal and begin to imitate. And when you imitate, remember it was you who imposed it first. What do you know of what kind of person Mahavira was?
You read from scriptures. Scriptures are written by devotees; devotees exaggerate, are emotionally charged. They see what is not. Never trust either admirers or detractors. Both are blind. And apart from these two, it is rare to find a third. And if there is a third, would he go to write the character of Mahavira? He will craft his own character. For the one who is that detached that he neither praises nor condemns — why would he waste his life writing another’s life? He will write himself. His story will be his inner story.
If you listen to the detractor, Jesus deserves the cross; listen to the admirer, he is the son of God. Both overdo. And both pull to extremes. Those who crucified Jesus crucified two thieves alongside him, just to declare that they considered Jesus no more than a thief. And the governor had the right each year to pardon one person — Judaea was under Rome. So the Roman viceroy asked, “Of these four to be executed — one Jesus and three thieves — whom do you want freed?” They chose a thief; they did not ask for Jesus’ release.
The viceroy felt a little kind toward Jesus; he had nothing to do with the hatred of the Jews. He was more impartial, an outsider. In his heart he wanted Jesus to be saved somehow. He looked simple, had been trapped for no reason. His admirers calling him the son of God — that he was not. His enemies calling him a great sinner who would destroy the nation — that he was not. A straightforward man, of simple heart; says a few precious things; creates no trouble for anyone. He wanted him released. He asked thrice, “Think again — the thief or Jesus?” Thrice the crowd shouted with raised hands, “We want to kill Jesus; we agree to free the thief.”
These were the opponents, pulling the matter to this side. And those on the side declared Jesus the son of God; not only son, but the only begotten son — so that no one else could ever claim sonship. Admirer and detractor both go to extremes. Somewhere in the middle is the truth — which remains hidden.
So you do not even know for sure. First you impose ideals, then you begin to imitate those ideals. Your ideals tell about your desires, not about truths. You would like it to be so. What you want you project on someone. You project because if it has never happened in any person, you would not be able to trust.
If you desire Brahmacharya — and who does not? For whoever suffers the pain of sex, the longing for Brahmacharya arises. Whoever suffers the futility of lust, the longing for Brahmacharya arises. He feels — when will that blessed moment come, when my energy will dwell in me and I will not throw it away in vain? When will that sweet moment arrive when the other will not be needed, and in my pure aloneness I will be fulfilled? Natural. But how will you trust that it is possible? It is a longing — but how can it be?
If you examine yourself, you cannot trust. Because you know how many times you decided and how many times you broke. How many vows, how many violations. How many resolves — and even as the resolve is being made, it breaks; it does not last even a day. If you observe closely, while you are resolving, another corner of the mind is preparing for desire. In the very moment of resolution, you are not honest. If you see your whole mind you will find what you are doing! Inside the mind preparations are being made for lust, and you are resolving Brahmacharya. So you cannot trust yourself, and yet the longing for Brahmacharya arises. Then what to do?
Then do this — believe that someone has attained Brahmacharya. And whatever you imagine would happen for you upon attaining it, imagine all those things for him. Mahavira’s followers say that there was no foul smell in his sweat — it was fragrant. These are your imaginations. Sweat is sweat. The law by which it flows does not distinguish Mahavira from the non-Mahavira. Followers say Mahavira did not defecate or urinate. Because the mind is shocked at the thought that Mahavira would do such mean things. Just imagine Buddha or Mahavira sitting on a toilet! The mind refuses — no, it cannot be. They look fine only beneath the Bodhi tree.
You too would like these things to disappear from your life — to become pure, twenty-four carat gold. This is your longing. First you project it. If you do it to a living Mahavira there will be trouble, because the living will defecate and urinate. Hence the Mahaviras of the past are pleasant. They cannot shout back — what are you doing! And you cannot catch them doing the opposite. Whatever you say sticks upon the past. That is why dead gurus are more adored than living ones. The moment the guru dies, the mythmaking begins. All your longings attack the guru. All that was human, you cut off. All that was ordinary, you separate. All that is abnormal in your dreams, you project.
These are dreams — false. If you make them your ideals, know that you will remain unfulfilled. As long as sweat stinks and as long as you must defecate and urinate, you will know you are a sinner. And this contentment will never come. If you run after this you are moving towards an illness for which there is no cure, no medicine. The disease of the ideal is more fatal than cancer. One struck by cancer may survive — the one struck by ideals does not.
To understand this, great understanding is needed. It is an entire web of your mind. You keep lifting the glorious ones into the sky, to a place beyond humanity. I tell you, all the glorious were human like you. Everything that is in you was in them; only they changed the arrangement of what is in you. The veena is with you too. Fingers are with you too. They joined veena and fingers, and the fingers learned, and music arose. You also pluck the strings — only discord arises, and the neighborhood gathers to fight.
I once asked Mulla Nasruddin, “How goes your practice on the harmonium?”
He said, “Where is the leisure! I am entangled with a car.”
“Who gave you a car? Where did you get a car?”
He said, “The neighborhood gave it to me in exchange for the harmonium.”
Bring a harmonium and start beating it, the neighbors will certainly give you one. After all, they care a little for their peace and comfort…
Only the arrangement changes. Mahavira, Buddha, Rama, Krishna — persons just like you. What you have, exactly that they have; not a grain more. There is no injustice in this world, nor can there be. No one gets less, no one more — exactly equal. The difference is that someone mixes his flour and water, places it on the fire, bakes a bread and is satisfied. And you sit — the fire burns, sweat runs; the flour lies and rots; you remain hungry. Water is filled. Everything is present — the whole equipment is here. Only the coordination is missing.
When Mahavira becomes a Tirthankara, even then he is just like you. Tirthankara is the music he created out of the same arrangement that you also have. When Jesus becomes godlike — that is music. There is no difference between Jesus and you. He feels hunger, thirst, defecates and urinates — everything is the same. But out of that arrangement a new fragrance now arises, a new music — which can arise from you too.
But you are poor because of your own foolishness. You have not known the whole arrangement of your life-breath, and how to tune these diverse, conflicting notes into a raga — you have not learned.
Look at a dancer. He has a body just like yours, yet in moments of dance he seems weightless. His leap, his movements, his gestures bring down something from the beyond. A spell is cast. You are enchanted, and for a moment you forget that you are. The same body as yours, the same limbs — yet out of this body a new art is born, a new skill arises. That skill changes everything. It gives the body a new form, a new style. A new style of life is born.
And this new style will never come by installing ideals. Ideals are false. They are your mind’s desires, mirages. From afar in the desert you see lakes; when you come near, nothing is there. The lake recedes still further. Your ideals are like the horizon. You will never reach them. Like earth and sky — they never meet, they only seem to.
Make the normal your scale, recognize the simple; avoid the unnatural. Do not impose the special upon yourself; uncover the ordinary. Unfold what is within you — and not into a mold. A mold does not give growth, it gives bondage. You will be only what you are. When you blossom in your fullness you will be like neither Mahavira, nor Krishna, nor like me, nor like anyone. When you blossom your flower will be unique, your very own.
The bliss will be the same — that of Mahavira, Buddha, Lao Tzu. The inner silence will be the same. But the outer style of your life will be entirely your own.
Lao Tzu says, “Rule a state by the normal.”
Manage society through the ordinary; do not impose ideals. Hence the more idealistic a society, the more corrupt it becomes. India is the proof. We have imposed more ideals than perhaps anyone in the world. Can you find a society more corrupt?
And here is the great mischief, the vicious circle. The idealist, whenever he sees society becoming corrupt, proposes still newer ideals. He says, ideals are being destroyed — bring greater ideals. Impose ideals more strictly. Make more rules. Find more codes. Do not leave conduct lax — discipline it. And the poor fellow does not know that he himself is the root of the disease — his ideals. When he sees ideals breaking he brings more. And with the ideals, more corruption comes.
In India’s corruption no one’s hand is so great as Gandhi’s. No one says it; no one will. To say it needs Lao Tzu’s understanding. Because Gandhi tried to impose such ideals as are not possible. Ideals he could not impose even in his ashram — what to say of a vast society!
Gandhi considered non-stealing an ideal — that no theft should exist.
This is impossible. So long as there is property, there will be theft. If property vanishes, theft may vanish. Because theft is simply an effort born out of the fact that some have too much, some too little. Between the one with much and the one with little, theft arises.
Your servant steals. You think he steals because no ideals remain. Then you are mistaken. He has little, you have much. And life has a simple law — bring things to one level. Like water. You take a potful from the river — the level remains the same. You pour a pot in — again the level remains the same. The river keeps its level equal — draw out, pour in. In society the levels differ so much that theft becomes inevitable. If you make non-stealing your aim, nothing will be solved; only thieves will increase.
If you try to understand why theft exists — it is no sin — it exists because some have abundance and some have none. The gap is so great that within it theft will happen, however much you try to stop it. The more you prevent it, the thief will find new devices. The real question is to reduce the gap. There is no other way to remove the thief. The gap is unnatural.
Let us understand with an example. “Smuggler” or “tasskari” is a new word. Fifty years ago no one knew. Today the smuggler is the biggest sinner, the greatest thief. What is smuggling? The price of gold in China is one, in India another, in Pakistan a third. Gold tries to have one price, as water tries to have one level. Gold will have one price if there are no useless walls; if nations were not divided there would be one price. Where there is a pit, gold will run, just as water runs to the hollow. If in this country gold is dearer and in Pakistan cheaper, gold will run from Pakistan to India. Here is a hollow. As soon as the hollow fills, prices equalize, and the running stops. Who is the smuggler?
He is against law, in favor of gold. He assists gold to move from here to there. He is trying to keep the normal arrangement of life. Law stands against nature. The entire power of the state rises to say no — the price in our country we will maintain. If it is less in another, that is their affair; we will not let our price fall. The poor smuggler is doing nothing — he is only helping the natural order of life. But he is a sinner. If you want smuggling to end, the world must adopt laissez-faire. Only then will it end. Markets must be open. Else smuggling will continue.
In India smuggling runs even within the country. From Bombay to Delhi your car will be opened at least twenty times, checked and inspected. What madness! There is no freedom of movement within one’s own country! Because between provinces too the wall of rules is raised. Wheat is cheap somewhere, dear elsewhere. Rice has no buyers somewhere, and people queue elsewhere. Rice runs. That is the rule, the direct order of life. People begin bringing rice where queues are formed. And it is right, because to remove queues this is the only way.
But the government stands making rules. The more rules, the more theft. Theft simply means you made more rules than needed, against nature. Reduce rules, theft will reduce.
There is corruption in the country. Jayaprakash says, increase rules and corruption will reduce; deal strictly and it will reduce.
Corruption will increase. Jayaprakash is Gandhi’s offspring. He wants to impose again the disturbance that Gandhi gave this nation. What is needed is to reduce rules, prune them. It is certain we cannot create a society with no rules at all — man is not that high yet. But the goal is that someday a time comes where there are no rules — so there are no thieves, no violators.
First you make rules, then you catch the thief. Imagine a law — if the yogis come to power, as Gandhians did, a law may be made that on waking in the morning one must rise with breath in the right nostril! Whoever rises with the left will be caught — because breathing on the right in the morning is good. Now you are trapped. If you rise with the left, you will be dragged to court — why did you breathe left? Then you will adopt artificial tricks — plug the left with cotton at night so that in the morning breath flows right.
Then there will be those who consider this nonsense — what foolishness! Can we not even breathe? Breath is our freedom. If their breath is also flowing right, they will still get up with the left. Because even breaking a law has a taste — rebellion, revolt. And the ego takes great delight in breaking laws. Criminals are born. Dacoits are born. Thieves are born. And behind all this the basic reason is that you set up impossible ideals that cannot be fulfilled.
Gandhi made Brahmacharya an ideal in his ashram — all must observe it. His own secretary Pyarelal could not. And in old age Gandhi himself began to doubt his Brahmacharya. So much did the doubt grow — it had to, because it was imposed from above — that in his last days he slept naked with a young girl for a year, just to test whether his Brahmacharya was real or not.
But when Brahmacharya is real, the question of testing does not arise. The very idea of testing shows it has been put on from above; even he himself does not trust it. When you have a headache, do you need to ask anyone? Need you test? You may test why it is, but not whether it is. When you are happy, happiness is evidence enough. When you are miserable, the misery is proof. The bliss of Brahmacharya is such, so unprecedented, that when it blossoms, will you need to ask anyone, to examine results?
But Gandhi’s Brahmacharya was imposed from above. It was forced. In the last moments fear arose — am I a brahmachari or not! And there were reasons for fear. Even at seventy, seventy-five, in dreams lust chased him. Even emissions continued till the end. So anxiety was natural. To cross this fear he began to sleep with a young woman — to test whether desire arises or not.
Gandhi’s followers have tried badly to hide this — as if it never happened. Because this fact breaks the entire edifice. If Gandhi himself is doubtful, what of the followers? If Gandhi himself does not trust himself, what is the point of teaching others? And what happened to Gandhi’s experiment? No open report was given — whether he found it true or not. A great difficulty. Because when an ideal is imposed from above, then there is stubbornness to fulfill it. And somewhere lust hides within, repressed in the unconscious. It is like a wound. You have covered it with bandage and balm. But the wound has not healed.
Do not impose the impossible, the extraordinary, if you want people to be virtuous. Because the more you impose the impossible, the more people will feel guilt and sin — we are sinners; we cannot do anything. We cannot fast, cannot master Brahmacharya, cannot drop greed or anger — nothing at all. We must be damned.
And once a man becomes convinced that he is damned, every means of rising closes. Who will rise when he has fallen himself, when he has become dejected, when he has dropped hope? Your sky is then a distant star seen from the pit. The pit is the reality; the star is very far.
And you do not know — where the stars appear, they are not. They were once there. Light takes time to travel. The nearest star — its light takes four years to come. It was there four years ago, perhaps not now. So your night is false. The stars you see are false. Where you see them, they are not; they were. In four years it may have perished. Yet for four years it will be seen, because the light will still be arriving.
And that is the nearest star. And there are far ones whose light takes millions of years, tens of millions, billions. There are stars whose light started before the earth was formed, and has not yet arrived. God knows where they are gone. Still they are seen.
Your Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas of the past — they are like those stars which once were. And you lie in your pit, eyes fixed on distant stars that are not there. Your pit is your reality. And the more you want to cover that reality, the more you look toward ideals. There is a convenience in looking at ideals — you don’t have to see your hell. You remain in greed, you remain in lust; your eyes remain fixed on the star of Brahmacharya. Thus the reality is not seen. Remember, what is must be seen — only then some day will Brahmacharya be born. Your ideal is your escape — a way to avoid. How long will you escape? Keep looking at the star — the pit will not disappear. By looking at the star no pit has ever vanished. The pit must be seen. You must get up, walk. Leave the star; catch hold of the real. Because truth is hidden in the real — not in your fantasies, your wishes, your dreams.
The angry man often makes nonviolence his ideal. Then he gains a convenience. He tells his anger, yes, I know — but I am trying for nonviolence; see, I filter water before drinking, I do not eat at night. Slowly it will happen. There is no hurry — it is a long matter, may take lifetimes. Some day I will attain nonviolence. Today I will be angry — because nonviolence has not yet matured. Someday! He postpones to the future. And what you do today — that is what your future will be, not what you say.
Understand this delicately. Your future will come from what you are doing today. You are angry today and think tomorrow nonviolence. Nonviolence is just consoling you. A consolation. Do not worry — your ego says, granted you are angry now because of compulsion, but nonviolence is your goal. You are an amazing person. Your time has not come; you are hidden light; tomorrow you will manifest. This gives you room to be angry today. Nonviolence is postponed to tomorrow. Today is free — fill it with anger. Fill it to the brim; for tomorrow nonviolence will happen. Tomorrow Brahmacharya will arrive; today is the last day — enjoy. Your Brahmacharya makes you indulgent. Because the ideal hides your reality.
Drop ideals. Recognize the simple truth. What is your state now? And live that state with awareness. Not ideals — awareness. Not future — the present. Then revolution happens. When you change today, consciously, through understanding — because understanding is the only transformation, there is no other. Understanding is the only freedom — no other. When today is lit by your light of understanding and changes, from this the tomorrow is born. If today you get a little less angry — with awareness — tomorrow it will be still less, and the day after still less, and one day a state of non-anger will arrive. That day the flower of nonviolence will bloom. Not as an ideal — it comes by passing through the reality of life.
Lao Tzu says, make the normal your thread. See as you are. And he tells the state — let the state too make man’s normalcy its rule, do not make the abnormal the ideal.
What are we doing? We want our ministers, prime ministers, presidents to live in huts. Then you do not understand the normal psyche of man. One who wants to live in a hut is mad to seek the prime ministership! If you want a hut, whose permission do you need? Why rub people’s feet for votes? To live in a hut you need no one’s consent. The ordinary mind is ordinary. He goes to live in a palace; he rubs your feet, folds his hands before you. He bows before those from whom he needs nothing, flatters them. You stand stiff, he cajoles you.
Mulla Nasruddin stood for election. He toured the whole town to survey — who is for, who against. With the voter list he marked those for and those against. He came to a woman’s door; she was working in her garden. She shouted, “Stay out, do not enter!” Yet he smiled, opened the gate and said, “I have not come for anything else — only to ask: I am running for mayor; will I have your vote?” The woman exploded. “You vagabond! You stray! Vote for you? And you want to be mayor? You are not fit to beg on the street. You should be thrown out of the town. Get out!” She lifted the broom with which she was sweeping. Nasruddin backed away, smiling, “No problem, think it over, there is no hurry.” She said, “No question of thinking. Will you get out or shall I use the broom?” He stepped out. From outside he bowed again, checked his notebook, and wrote: Doubtful.
Even one who is against — the politician will not count him against. He will still fold his hands to you.
Later I heard Nasruddin grew old and his son once stood for election. The same thing happened to the son. He came and told his father, “This is hard work — people insult badly.”
Nasruddin said, “Insult? I fought so many elections. It even happened that I was beaten, thrown out, pushed out of houses, people hurled shoes, banana peels, rotten tomatoes. But insult? No one ever insulted me.”
He bows in every way, and you want him to live in a hut! If a hut is what he wanted, where was the difficulty? And when he lives in a palace, you call him corrupt. You are strange. It is straightforward. The ordinary mind of man. He is going for this very thing. He eats shoes, rotten tomatoes, black flags, people shouting “Down with you!” He endures — to live in a hut? Why else would he go? It is simple — he goes to live in a palace a little while. That is the ordinary mind. Then when he lives there you say he is corrupt. You feel fine if he rides a bicycle. If he wanted to ride a bicycle, where was the problem? When he rides a big car there, you are upset. He goes for this very reason.
Think of life in ordinary terms. Then your politicians will not appear as corrupt as they do. Nor will the country look as corrupt as it seems. It is not that much; if it were, no society could stand — it would be destroyed, could not be held together.
But you magnify corruption because your ideals are very abnormal. Your ideals are false, and you make rules based on them. The same ideals your leaders too accept. On their basis they tell you the people are corrupt. And the people say the leaders are corrupt.
See the ordinary. Have compassion for man’s ordinary desires. Try to understand the normal. From it the extraordinary has to be born. Do not impose the extraordinary from above.
Lao Tzu says, “Rule a kingdom by the normal.”
Then life can be ordered. What is the normal? Understand man, not ideals. Find the thread there. What does the ordinary man want? A roof, bread, clothing, love in life, security. This is the longing of the ordinary man. He does not want God today, nor moksha, nor Brahmacharya. Look at what the ordinary man wants and order accordingly. In that order, when he begins to get restful, only from the richness of that rest will new longings arise.
We teach small children the lesson of Brahmacharya. First teach children the lesson of sex, so they do not go wrongly into it. There is no question yet of Brahmacharya. But in schools it is written: Brahmacharya is the supreme virtue. In primary schools I have seen plaques — Brahmacharya is life. What meaning does this have for a primary child? Do old men come here to study? The child does not yet know what Brahmacharya is. Forgive him for now. Explain that sex will arise in life — how to live it rightly, how to enter it skillfully, so he does not go astray. If someone has entered sex rightly, the second step toward Brahmacharya is natural. If without entering sex you teach a child Brahmacharya, great trouble will arise.
People come to me, young men, and ask — should we marry or not? Because Brahmacharya is the higher thing. Even young men get a condemnation of marriage. Brahmacharya is the lofty thing. I tell them, do not talk of Brahmacharya; tell me of your heart. They say, the heart is full of desire. But give us some trick to fight, so we can cut off desire.
Has anyone ever cut off desire? And if you cut off desire, how will you bring Brahmacharya? The feet that go to the brothel — if you cut them, those very feet would have carried you to the temple too. The feet are the same — whether the brothel or the temple. Direction must change; do not cut the feet.
The energy is the same, the power the same — whether you waste it, or raise it into meaning; whether you make it downward and go to hell, or upward and reach the supreme state — Brahmacharya. Do not cut; know, recognize, place rightly; build steps out of stones. A skillful craftsman uses even the rejected stone; the unwise throws away even the precious stone in which a great statue was hidden. Just a little chisel and the statue would have appeared. If you ask great sculptors, they will not say, “We create statues.” They say, “The statue is already hidden; in some stones we can see it. Then we only cut away the useless around it, remove the covering. The statue was there. It is a skill of removing the cover. We separate the junk; the statue appears. We do not create statues; has anyone ever?”
So the sculptor goes to the hills and looks at stones — in which is it hidden?
When you come to me I too look at you like that — because you are an uncut stone. I look — the statue is hidden; there is a little rawness. A few places need the chisel; soon the form will reveal. Nothing to destroy; to refine, to adorn, to direct rightly.
And the right direction comes from the ordinary. Aspire to be ordinary. By becoming extraordinary you fall ill.
Lao Tzu says, “If there must be war, then all right — fight with extraordinary, astonishing strategies.”
Because war is wrong anyway. There, if wrong means work, let them. But at least in the quiet moments of life do not run wrong means. War is wrong, hence wrong keeps it going.
The Roman emperors used a trick. Their throne was connected by a device behind the wall. When the emperor sat, the throne rose. People were amazed — the emperor is no ordinary earthly man; gravity has no effect — he sits and the throne rises. Only much later people found out that behind the wall a machine was worked by a man. But it made a great impression.
On New Year’s day, when the Roman emperor reviewed his parade, arrangements were such that ten thousand soldiers looked like hundreds of thousands. The soldiers would pass in front and then return to join again from behind. The envoys of other kings, or friendly kings, standing and watching, would lose heart — to quarrel with this emperor is dangerous. Such a vast army! So many cannons! Just looking at them their spirits would sink. There was nothing much. Few soldiers, few cannons; but the mastery was that it all moved in a great circle. And soldiers have no faces — there are uniforms. A soldier means a uniform. No faces. It is impossible to recognize they are the same men passing again. Other kings were astonished.
Lao Tzu says: in war, use tricks, surprises, the abnormal — it is understandable. Because war is itself a disease, so other diseases will be there. But at least in the calm of everyday life, do not bring astonishments, specialties, the abnormal.
“Win the world without doing anything.”
If you win by doing, what kind of victory is that? Whom can you defeat by force? You can sit on someone’s chest, but you will remain only above him. Within, he has not been conquered; his heart does not surrender. You can cut his throat, but he will die unconquered. Has anyone ever won by doing? Only love wins. And love is not a doing — it is a state of being. Love is not something to do; it is a mood, a state of being.
Lao Tzu says, win the world without doing — win it through love.
“How do I know it is so? By this.”
Then he says, these are my experiences.
“The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people become.”
Prohibition has a great attraction. In those countries where the law is made that liquor is prohibited, people drink double. The whole world knows this. Yet foolishness knows no end. Still madmen chase prohibition. The world’s experience is that wherever liquor is banned, people drink two or three times more. Liquor begins to be made secretly. The path opens for thieves.
All prohibitions increase theft. And all prohibitions make people poor. Because the more you say “don’t,” the more people’s egos are wounded; they become eager to do. They forget what is necessary and what is unnecessary. Just as if we put a placard on this door: peeping inside is forbidden. Will you be able to pass without peeping? If you cannot read the placard that is another matter. But if the placard is there, you cannot pass without peeping. The placard announces there must be something inside worth peeping at. Some beauty sits within. There is something — otherwise why the placard? You will peep. If you are wicked you will stand right there. If you are virtuous you will peep stealthily. You will walk this way and look that way. If you are very virtuous, weak, limp, you will come at night when no crowd is there and peep. If absolutely weak, impotent, you will peep in dreams — but you will peep. It is impossible not to.
You have seen walls where it is written — no urinating here. The moment you arrive, the urge arises. You had not even thought of it. Then the wall where it is written — you will see a thousand marks of urine. If you want to save a wall, by mistake do not write. If you want to save it entirely, write: urinating here is strictly compulsory; if you do not, you will be caught and beaten. Then even one who feels like it will hold it in and pass by — what is this! Are we slaves that you order where we may and may not?
Prohibitions make people meek and poor. Because prohibitions attract people towards useless things. If liquor is banned, people are attracted to liquor. They will leave food but drink. Because if it is banned, there must be something to it. There must be some secret. There must be some joy. Why are so many behind it? Why is the law so keen? Why are governments behind? Leaders? And people know the leaders drink; they stop others. Surely there is some secret. And once someone gets caught in the net, it becomes harder to come out.
If you want the world to have fewer drunkards, leave liquor open. By your stopping, no one stops; by your stopping, only wrong liquors get drunk. Someone drinks spirit, someone paint. Hundreds die. If liquor is open, at least no one will drink spirit or petrol. If it is open, at least they will drink proper liquor. With prohibition everything goes into darkness. And there are businessmen of darkness; they immediately take over. If you understand rightly, those who sell liquor are in favor of prohibition. Morarji bhai may think he is pursuing prohibition — those who sell liquor stand with him; he is mistaken. The profit accrues to those who sell liquor. Because liquor increases suddenly the moment prohibition comes.
The film on which it is written — only for adults — that film too is watched by little children. It runs more. Adults reach it, who otherwise would not, thinking something is there — and children too reach it.
The greater the prohibitions, the greater the attraction — and journeys begin in wrong directions. Do not make the wrong so important. Prohibition gives importance. Ignore the wrong — don’t make it so alluring. Do not even bring it up. Do not tell a child, “Never lie.” Because it gives a taste. The child feels there must be some fun in lying.
There is fun — because to deceive gives a certain ego-satisfaction. And the child is weak; when he finds that by lying he can defeat people, he starts lying. He becomes skillful. Lying becomes an art. He crafts it so that you cannot detect. Little children become skillful artisans. They have just mischiefed, and when you arrive, they sit absolutely quiet. You ask, they say, “What?” As if they know nothing. “Who did it?” It is a game. They are showing that you may be very clever, tall six feet, but we can outwit you.
Do not tell a child by mistake, “Lying is forbidden.” Because that which is forbidden will be done. And all around there are only children. Their age grows — what difference does it make? Some are five years old, some fifty. But all are children.
Therefore Lao Tzu says, how did I learn this? By seeing — the more prohibitions, the poorer the people. The sharper the weapons, the more the disorder. The more the state tries to suppress, the more aggressive the people become; they do not get suppressed.
For twenty-five years in India we have tried to suppress people; they become more aggressive. You arm the police — bombs, guns — what is the difference? You kill people daily; nothing is solved. Uprising grows. Uprising is not subdued by suppression. Understand the uprising; understand the cause behind it. Change the cause. Suppression will do nothing. No one thinks to change the cause. They think only of suppression. Every power thinks force is enough.
People are hungry; does power fill the stomach? Does a sword fill it? If people are hungry, make arrangements for bread. Suppression will not do. And when you suppress the hungry, a moment comes when he sees — hunger never ends, there is no meaning in life, nothing left to lose — he goes mad. Then you cannot suppress him. Order stands only on belief. What is the value of a policeman? In this city there are millions. If you have to keep a million under control, how many policemen are needed? A million at least. But ten are enough, because there is belief. People stop when they see the policeman.
But if you overdo force, the secret of the policeman is revealed. People see that behind the uniform too stands an ordinary man. Throw a stone — he also runs. Raise a stick — he also hides. Once people know that behind the policeman there is an ordinary man, and behind the president too an ordinary man, and all the upper gloss is just glitter, there is nothing special inside — he is as afraid as we are — once faith is gone, it is very, very hard to restore.
That is what happens when you bring too many measures. The police try all measures. Now she has no safe measures left. Your order does not run by big swords. Your raising the sword tells that you are frightened. The police firing tells that the police are frightened and the people have broken their courage.
In England the police are instructed — only in absolutely impossible situations, use force; because force is dangerous. By using force you confess that your very presence is not enough. England alone has been the most orderly nation in this century. The reason is that there is not much attempt to order. Because the more attempt, the clearer it becomes that the orderers also have no real power. What will you do? The crowd is vast, chaos will spread.
Lao Tzu says: how did I know? By seeing that the sharper the weapons, the greater the disorder.
Do not trust weapons. Order is a state of mind, not a sword. Remember — desperation knows no limits. If you take to killing, the one being killed also takes to killing. Once the people take to killing, there is no remedy; you can do nothing. The mightiest emperors are seen falling into dust. Haile Selassie just fell. He was powerful. For forty years he ruled with severity. And he fell as if a straw dummy.
Severity brought it here. People came to that line where there was nothing left to lose. They overturned him. The overthrow of Selassie is strange; no one could have imagined. He called himself King of Kings — and he was powerful. For forty years on the strength of the sword he ruled. But he fell like a scarecrow in the field, without a sound. The day he was removed only two soldiers went in and said, “Please come out and sit in the car.” Sensing the situation — the people are in total opposition, and the whole military slowly moved to the side of the people, because the soldier is part of the people. How long will you make the soldier beat the people?
If you make the soldier beat the people, today or tomorrow the soldier will understand — I am beating myself. This is my mother, my father, my brother, my son. How long can this continue? How long can you keep a gap between soldier and people? Because the soldier comes from the people. Remove the uniform and he is the people. How long can the uniform’s deceit last?
The soldiers also went to the opposition. Only two went in and told Selassie, “Get up and without fuss sit in the car outside.” He looked around and silently came out. He said only one thing, because he had never sat in so small a car — a Fiat! He used to sit in very large cars. He said, “In this small car?” The soldier said, “Quietly sit.” He slid inside in silence. The car moved. They put him in a small house in a village. Like a field’s straw man falls.
Order is a feeling; it does not run by swords. And when a state begins to rely on the sword, know that its days are over; the last hour has come. This is the moment of death. As in the moment of death, the flame blazes once before going out, so when a big sword is seen in the hand of the state, know that death is near. This is the last blaze. The last measure is being taken.
Lao Tzu says, “The more technical skills, the more cunning people become.”
Lao Tzu was against machines. And he is right. Machines are a kind of cunning — a canny relationship with nature. You try to draw from nature what she was not ready to give. That is the meaning of machine. So as technical skills grow, people become cunning. When you are cunning with nature, why not be cunning with man? Cunning is cunning. If you deceive things…
In America everything is being deceived. Fruits are injected so that they become big. By injecting the fruit you are sucking the life of the tree. Hens, buffaloes — all are injected to get more milk. It does not matter whether crudely or elegantly.
In Calcutta a sin is practiced — at milking time a stick is thrust into the cow or buffalo’s vagina. It makes her extremely restless, but in that restlessness more milk comes out in panic. She suffers, but more milk is given. This is gross. One injection — because of hormones more milk comes. But you are deceiving the cow.
Those cows that are cut for meat — they are kept virtually in coma by injections. They are not brought into the light, not even outside. In air-conditioned buildings injections are given. They remain unconscious, but their flesh grows by injections. So much flesh cannot grow outside. If they walk and move the flesh gets consumed. Loss to business. So they are not allowed to move. Their life is made like plants. The cow lies and injections are given. Her flesh just keeps growing. She is a lump of flesh, unconscious. They will cut her. She will not even know she lived. She will not know she ever breathed life. This is all cunning.
Lao Tzu says: as technical skill increases, cunning increases.
An incident occurred. A man shot someone in an American city. The shooter ran away; the man died. Immediately his heart was taken out, because the man was dying, and the heart was fresh. It was flown a thousand miles and transplanted into another dying patient. Then a great legal difficulty arose. The shooter was caught. His lawyer said in court: until the heart stops, one cannot be declared dead. And that man’s heart is still beating — in someone else’s body. Therefore it is first necessary to prove that the man died. Such a case had never arisen in the history of law. The court was in a quandary. Until the heart stops, the man is not dead. So the lawyer said, you can punish him for assault, but not for murder. The penalty for assault is ordinary; for murder it is severe.
By coincidence the matter got settled. The recipient of the heart died. So legally it was settled — all right, now the heart too has stopped, the man is completely dead. Now we can give the murderer the death sentence. But what if he had not died?
As technical skills grow, people become cunning from all sides. Science is cunningness. It is an attempt to force open nature’s hidden secrets. Even if nature does not wish to give, to take. It is a rape. And as rape becomes organized, man becomes cunning everywhere. Then what difference is man? What difficulty is there in deceiving him? If extraction is the point, more can be extracted from man too.
“The more laws there are, the more thieves and robbers.”
Laws do not eliminate thieves and robbers; they create them. If you want fewer thieves and robbers, then the minimum of laws is needed. Fewer the laws, fewer the thieves and robbers. Because law gives the definition — who is a thief, who a robber. The thief depends on law. As with smugglers. If there were no law that prevents movement of goods from one state to another, with no guard standing — the smuggler disappears. No need of him. If property is equally divided or property is not, thieves will disappear. No need of them.
But there is a difficulty — thieves cannot be dismissed. Because if thieves go, where will judges be? They are the other face. If smugglers go, where will the catchers go? If thieves and robbers go, what will happen to lawyers? Judges? Magistrates? Jurists, those whom you honor with Padma Vibhushan — what of them? They are all partners in one business. The thief and the judge are parts of one trade. Their relationship is like customer and shopkeeper. If one goes, the other will not remain. What will the police do if there are no thieves? To tell the truth, if people are not bad, what will become of leaders? Why will you seat a president on your head? What need of prime ministers? Because people are bad, they must be reformed — so the reformers are needed.
It appears from above that they are busy reforming. They cannot, because that would be suicide. They themselves would die if people improved. No politician can desire that people improve. However much he says so, he cannot desire it. To desire it means I die, I go. Laws are creating thieves. Then you make more laws to stop thieves. Then more thieves. Then you make more laws. Laws grow, thieves grow. Courts get bigger. Prisons get bigger. Thieves and robbers go on increasing. A big net. Then lawyers are needed, specialists are needed.
If you look closely, where does it all start? Because you made a law. This does not mean that with no law at all there will be absolutely no thieves. They will be minimal — extremely few. And if law completely disappears and that because of which we make law is removed — which can be removed, without any difficulty.
No one now steals water, because water is open, available. There are no water thieves, no water thieves’ lawyers, no courts — because water is accessible to all. Everyone’s need is met. But in a desert, water begins to be stolen. Then law has to be made that no one steals water.
Surely there are many deserts in your life, because of which there is theft and dishonesty. Remove those deserts. They are not removed by laws. Laws increase thieves, increase deserts. The whole world has come to a state of being thieves. Now it is hard to find one who is not stealing in some way. He will be evading tax; a ticketless ride; some trick.
And I say people are not to blame. People have to live; you have made living impossible. You have bound trouble on all sides. The trouble is so much that no one can live without breaking. And when someone breaks, he becomes a thief. And when you commit one theft, you become prepared for another. Slowly theft becomes easy. It becomes a way of life. Then you do not even feel anything wrong. There is no question of wrong. If you are evading income tax, there is no question of wrong. You have forgotten that anything wrong is in it. Theft increases as the grip of law increases.
Lao Tzu says, “Therefore the sage says: I do nothing, and the people are transformed of themselves.”
There is another way. The ruler’s way has made the world corrupt. There is the way of the sage, which has never been used. Occasionally, in small tribes it has been used. With Buddha, a few sannyasins gathered — there it was used. With Lao Tzu, a few gathered. In small communities experiments occurred. Wherever they happened, they were unique. The sage says nothing…
“I do nothing, and the people transform themselves.”
There is something in the mere being of a sage, his presence — it changes people.
“I prefer silence, and people become virtuous of themselves. I do no business, and people become prosperous of themselves. I have no desires, and people become simple and honest of themselves.”
The sage’s way of being is contagious. He does not give you rules, nor disciplines. He gives you only his presence. From his presence rules begin to arise in your life. You become the maker of those rules. A discipline is born which is inner, crafted by you, not erected upon someone else’s prohibitions. He does not give you commands or orders. His presence itself becomes a command within you. His presence becomes a fire within you. His presence begins to indicate a new direction, and you start moving. He does not make you move. He has no desire. And you are transformed.
The world will remain corrupt as long as the ruler is the center. When sages become the center, and sages are not rulers, for they give no discipline — the mere being of the sage, the taste of his being, is such that if you taste it once, you will never again remain what you were. His fragrance is such that once your nostrils recognize it, all other fragrances become stench. His way of being, his energy, his atmosphere — in his presence for the first time you will feel healthy, silent, blissful. His presence becomes Samadhi. And once the taste is gained, no one can stop you. Until you reach the ultimate peak you will not rest. The taste will pull. The taste becomes a magnet.
So there are two ways to run the world. One is the way of politics, which has failed and has corrupted the world. The other is the way of the sage. There are two ways — one of politics, one of religion. The political way has failed. Why does it go on?
It goes on because you always think — if one politician failed, another will succeed. Indira failed, then Jayaprakash may succeed. Politicians live by this trick. When Indira’s wave comes, people say now there is great hope; she will do something. People never ask — have politicians ever done anything? Ever? In the whole history of mankind, has anything come from them? They only promise, they never fulfill. But what is the trick?
The trick is that when one fails, another appears. He says — that one failed, proved wrong; his policy was wrong, his order was wrong. We give a new order, a new policy; with it everything will be fine. Your hope is kindled again. You go after him. A man as foolish as you is hard to find. How many have you followed! His talk seems trustworthy because he has no power in his hand. He looks like a servant. Then you seat him in power. It takes four or five years for you to lose your hope again, then you despair. By then another politician stands up.
You think politicians oppose each other. You do not know that underneath they are together; the conspiracy is one. When one loses, the other stands up. They do not let politics lose.
And the day not the politician, but politics loses, that day the dawn of fortune will be. The day you can see this whole disturbance — that all of them fail, and they are all chips of the same block; there is no difference. One is in power, one out. The one in power fails, the one out says — with me complete revolution is coming.
Complete revolution has never come; revolution itself has never come. Only they change. One politician replaces another. Your hope gets stuck for a while again. Your hope is like when people carry a bier to the cremation ground — one shoulder gets tired, they shift it to the other. Some relief. Then that shoulder tires; by then the first has rested — they shift. Politicians are giving relief to each other on your shoulders.
When politics fails for you, then for the first time the sense of religion will arise in your life. Then you will understand success can come only by one path — by the advent of such people who know the art of doing without doing.
Enough for today.