Tao Upanishad #98

Before the sutra, let a few things be understood.
In human behavior, and in human organization, freedom is the sutra. The fewer the rules, the less the effort to impose order, the more order flowers. The more the rules, the more the effort to superimpose order, the more chaos is created. Put it this way: between human beings, the more so-called anarchy there is, the more real order there will be; and the more imposed order there is, the more anarchy will erupt.
There is a reason. Whenever one person gives order to another, the other's ego is hurt. Even a small child feels wounded in his ego when you “order” him; then what to say of grown-up children! Tell a small child, “Sit quietly!”—what you say is not what he experiences as important; what hurts is the being-made-to-sit. He feels his helplessness, “Injustice is being done to me. Because I’m small, I am being forced.” Even if he sits, he will sit filled with revenge. The sitting was of no value; the poison of revenge will follow him for life.
Hence children can never forgive their parents. It is almost impossible. The reason is: so much order is thrust upon them that their ego is wounded at every step. They feel as if they have no being of their own; only the signals of others matter—where they point, move; what they say, see; what they order, do. They don’t let any sutra of freedom remain alive within you. This imposed order feels like a burden. The burden can become so heavy that the child may break all burdens, forget the difference between right and wrong, and be filled with a tendency to oppose everything.
That is why, so often, in the houses of respectable parents, respectable children are not born. Because respectable parents are in such a hurry to make the child respectable that their very effort gives birth to the unrespectable. Sometimes it happens that in the house of a gambler or a drunkard a good child is born—but not in the homes of the so-called respectable. For in the house of a gambler and a drunkard there are no rules. How will a gambler or a drunkard make rules? He cannot even arrange himself; what order will he give a child?
And a strange phenomenon occurs—psychologists have been much puzzled: the child takes the ordering of his life in his own hands. Seeing that there is no one to order, experiencing, “I am standing in darkness,” he begins to be careful on his own. Seeing that parents, the family, are moving on a wrong path... There is no difficulty for a child to see what is wrong, because that from which suffering arises is wrong; no special experience is needed for this. We are born with this touchstone: that which brings suffering is wrong. The child sees daily—alcohol brings misery, gambling brings misery; the family lives in pain, lives in hell. He becomes alert, begins to take care of himself. When there is no caretaker, the child cares for himself.
You must have seen: when a small child falls, he first looks around after the fall; he does not start crying immediately. First he checks, “Is anyone here? Is mother near?” Only then is there any point in crying. If mother is not near, he looks around, dusts his clothes, and goes on his way. He does not cry because of the fall; he cries because of the mother’s presence. When he sees there is no one to take care, to lift him up, to show sympathy, he quietly stands on his own feet. Before whom to cry? Whom to wait for? There is no one to lift him. He dusts off the dirt himself, gets up and stands.
This child has become a little mature. Finding himself alone, a certain maturity has entered: crying is futile. But if the mother is near, he will cry, scream, shout—because sympathy can be gotten from someone; someone will be concerned, someone will pay attention.
Understand this well: the children to whom too much attention is given, too much fussing is done—they will remain weak. They will be like plants that cannot live by themselves. Hot-house plants! They need glass walls. Even sunlight will wither them; a gust of wind will kill them; a little extra rain and the roots will be uprooted. They will have no roots. Why? Because they were overprotected. Overprotection destroys the very capacity to protect oneself.
Protect your children, but do not overprotect. Even when you protect, do it indirectly; do not give direct ordering. Be like an atmosphere around your children, not like chains. Be like a breeze around them that never becomes a wall. Do not become a prison. Even when you must say, “Don’t do this,” say it in such a way that their ego is not hurt. There are ways—creative ways—to say a no. And there are negative ways to say even a yes. If a child is going toward the fire, instead of saying, “Don’t go there,” attract his attention: “Look! What a beautiful flower has blossomed in the garden! What are you doing here?” Give him a positive direction toward the flower. “Don’t go to the fire”—this very statement is dangerous, because it becomes an invitation. When you are not present, the child will want to go to the fire. Because there was a prohibition—and to break a prohibition is necessary; how else will the child’s ego be formed?
Understand it rightly. For the ego to be formed, prohibitions must be broken. Whatever is said, “Don’t do,” must be done; otherwise the child will not learn to stand on his own feet. That’s why whatever you forbid, the child goes on doing. And you get upset, beat your head, “What is the matter? We explain so much, we forbid so much!”
It is being done because of your explaining and forbidding. You build the wall of prohibition—and rebellion arises. You say, “Don’t smoke.” Perhaps the child had not even thought of smoking. Which child thinks of it? Or if he had seen someone and imitated—if there were no prohibition—he would try once and never again. His own experience would free him, because except for tears, cough and discomfort, nothing would happen. A wise father will bring a cigarette to the child and say, “Today or tomorrow you will imitate someone anyway—know it by experience yourself. I won’t say anything; know by your own experience. If it is pleasant, go further; if unpleasant, stop. But you are the decisive one, not I.” If a father can do this, the very first charm of smoking in the child’s life is destroyed. Then when he sees others smoke, he will only laugh: “How foolish!”
But you say, “Don’t do it!”—and juice is created. There is great juice in a no. Now only one idea will revolve in the child’s mind, in his dreams: “When will I get the chance? In some solitary moment I will try smoking.” And the stronger your prohibition, the more he will endure the suffering of smoking, but he will break your prohibition. By breaking it he gets strength; by breaking it he experiences, “I am also somebody—you are not all-in-all.”
There is a struggle that goes on between father and son; there is a struggle that goes on between mother and daughter. It is absolutely natural. It is through that struggle that the child grows. Understand it so: the struggle begins from the very first primary moment—in the mother’s womb. That is why there is so much pain at birth: the child refuses to come out. Where he is, he is comfortable. He clings, he holds back. A struggle has begun. A quarrel has started. And this quarrel will continue throughout life.
Between father, mother, and their children, either there is the music of understanding—then the quarrel can be given a creative form—or there is no music. Remember, the responsibility cannot be placed on the child; the child knows nothing. The responsibility is on the elders. If the elders, over trifles, become harsh, this child will slip out of their hands. Then, cry and scream as you may—nothing will happen. The child will enjoy your suffering; for it means the child is becoming powerful: he can make you suffer. Not only you can make him suffer; he can also make you suffer. Now a political game will go on between father and son.
What is true for father and son is true in many dimensions—between teacher and student, too. Between ruler and ruled, too. Wherever someone has to lead, to give direction, to show a path, the same difficulty will arise.
Lao Tzu says: the minimum of rules, the least possible number. Only as many as are absolutely indispensable. Cut off those rules without which life can move perfectly well.
Let the relationship between two persons be grounded in freedom, not in governance. The wonder is: the more you give another freedom, the more he becomes ready and willing to be guided by you. Because now your guidance does not hurt his ego. Now your guidance is friendly, not like an enemy. Therefore, whatever you tell anyone—say it in such a way that it remains a suggestion, never becomes an order. That is what I call mitachar—temperance, spareness.
But the father has his stiffness: “Why offer a suggestion to the son? Give a straight command.” There is the mistake. Beyond suggestion, nothing can be done. And even the suggestion should be given in such a way that if you are truly skillful, the other feels it is arising from within himself.
Someone once asked America’s great multi-millionaire, Andrew Carnegie, “What is the secret of your success?” He said, “There is only one secret—and now I can tell it, because my death is near and my journey is complete. I get work done by people more intelligent than I—and in such a way that they all feel I am following their suggestions, though the suggestions are actually mine.” He would call his associates, “There is a problem to be solved; everyone please offer suggestions.” His own suggestion was fixed; he had already decided what to do and kept it inside. Then he would wait for the right moment: some suggestion close to his inner suggestion—he would begin the discussion around that one, and create the impression that he had accepted someone’s suggestion from among them. He would never give the feeling that “I gave a suggestion which you had to accept.” All who worked with Andrew Carnegie had the same feeling—that he never gave a suggestion. A very skillful man! Only such a man succeeds in giving order to human life.
Even if you must give an order, give it as if it were a suggestion; give it in such a way that there is no compulsion to obey. If he wishes, he can accept; if not, he can decline. Make it clear: if you don’t accept, I will not be hurt. Cut the very root of his urge to hurt you by disobeying. A small child doesn’t want to obey, because he knows if he disobeys, you will be disturbed—so he experiences a power: “I can disturb you too.” Make it clear beforehand: “If you don’t accept, it is no problem. I am happy either way—if you accept or if you don’t.” You have removed the sting. You have taken away the juice from the no. You have made the life-structure positive.
All our life-arrangement is negative. Jews and Christians have ten commandments. If you try to understand the West, Lao Tzu’s sutra will be easy. There is great rebellion in the West—rebellion against every father. The new generation is unwilling to accept anything—anything! Not even the small rules of life. Not even ready to take a bath. They have made filth a way of life. To look neat is the habit of the bourgeois, the passé. Thus hippies, and many like hippies in the West, won’t bathe, will remain dirty, wear dirty clothes, won’t wash. Why? Christianity has insisted strongly for two thousand years: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” The insistence became so intense that the hippy was born. The new generation said, “For us, stench and uncleanliness are divinity.” Christianity laid down ten commandments: Do not steal, do not covet thy neighbor’s wife, do not deceive... but all are negative.
A Christian priest went to the post office before Christmas. He was sending a gift parcel. On the top was written: Handle with care. The postmaster asked, “Is there something fragile, glass?” He said, “No, I am sending the Bible.” “What in the Bible can break?” “The Ten Commandments! They are more fragile than glass.”
In truth, there is nothing more fragile than a no, than prohibition. The moment you say “Don’t,” you create the basis for breaking. You say no to someone—you have invited him to break it.
In the Upanishads there is not a single commandment like that. That is why I say those who composed the Upanishads were very wise. Not a single negative commandment. The Upanishad does not say, “Do not steal.” The Upanishad says: Give, share. The Upanishad does not say, “Do not commit adultery.” It says: Attain to Brahmacharya. The Upanishad does not say, “This world is evil—renounce it.” It says: Paramatma is the supreme joy—seek Him.
The content is the same; but where there is affirmation, where something is positive—“Seek Paramatma”—what is there to break? There is no fun in breaking. The fun arises only when someone says “No.” Your ego becomes strong. You become ready to break. Someone is attacking your ego. “No” is aggressive to the ego—and the ego will not tolerate it; it will break it to prove itself.
Remember this. In human arrangement, the less the no comes in, the better. Let the yes come in, because yes joins; no breaks. And all your rules are founded on no. Base them on yes—and you will find that fifty rules based on no are contained in one rule based on yes. So many rules are not needed.
Someone asked Saint Augustine, “I want to improve my life—what rules should I follow?” Augustine said, “If you chase rules and ask ‘which ones,’ there are a thousand—and life is short. I will give you one rule: Love.” The man asked, “Will that do everything?” Augustine said, “Everything. One who loves—how can he steal? One who loves—how can he do violence? One who loves—how can he insult? In the life of one who loves, all thorns will fall away of their own accord; love makes only the flower bloom—there are no thorns in love. One who loves—how can he be angry, hateful, inimical, competitive? Have you ever seen a lover be greedy? There is no meeting between love and greed.”
If you want to be greedy, do not dabble in love; forget love. That is why the miser never loves; he cannot. Miserliness has nothing to do with love. The greedy hoard money—and love is dangerous to him. Nothing more dangerous than love—because love means: share. So the greedy never gets into the trouble of love, though he also finds a doctrine—people are very clever. He says, “I keep away from attachment.” The miser takes himself to be vitaraga. He says, “What is there in relationships?”—he says that, but keeps filling the safe. Money alone is his relationship.
And one whose relationship is with money has no relationship with life. Love is a living relationship. Money is a relationship with a dead thing. Is there anything more dead than money? Can you find anything more corpse-like than a rupee? Even a stone, lying there, grows, expands—existence is alive through and through. But money—you will find it utterly dead. One who starts hoarding money—his Atman also dies. And love blooms only where the Atman is alive.
Therefore one who loves cannot be greedy. One who loves cannot be a miser, cannot be possessive. One yes of love takes care of a thousand no-rules. One yes is such a vast sky that thousands of little rule-plants are contained in it—without sting, without thorns.
Augustine says: If you can love, it is enough. If you cannot love, then I will give you a long list of rules. Those are for those who cannot love.
All scriptures of law, all commandments, are for those who cannot love. For one who can love, the greatest scripture has been found—no other scripture is needed.
Hence Jesus says: Love is God. Do nothing else—just love. The essence-sutra of love? That what you desire for yourself, do that for the other; and what you do not desire for yourself, do not do that to the other. Love means: see the other as yourself—as atma-vat.
If even one person begins to appear to you as yourself, a window has opened in your life. Then that window goes on expanding. A moment comes when you behave with the whole existence as you would wish to be treated yourself. And when you behave with the whole existence as if existence were your own expansion, the whole existence behaves with you in the same way. What you give—that returns to you. A little love given, and it showers back a thousandfold. Smile a little—and the whole world smiles with you. It is said: Cry—and you will cry alone; laugh—and the whole existence laughs with you. A very true saying. There is no companion in weeping—because existence does not know weeping. Existence knows only celebration. It is not its fault. Weep—you will weep alone. Laugh—and you will find flowers, mountains, stones, the moon and stars laughing with you. The weeper remains alone; for the one who laughs, all become companions—the whole existence joins in.
Love will make you laugh. Love will give you such a smile that remains—spreading like a deep sweetness into every pore of your being. Love is enough of a rule—and love does not even look like a rule.
Give children love, not rules. Your love will lay the foundation for all the rules in their life. Do not give them doctrines—doctrines are junk. Give them the shade of the heart. Give them the feel of love. If you teach them just this much—that they begin to love as you love—you have taught them all. Then you can leave them in this vast world; they will not go wrong.
Give them every doctrine, pile up all scriptures on their heads—and do not give love—then the moment your eyes are turned away, they will throw your scriptures aside with a kick and go exactly where you forbade them to go. Your prohibitions will not transform their character. Your affirmation will!
And what is true between two persons is true between society and government. Governance is like the parents; the subjects are like the children. That is why in earlier days we called the king “father.” Even if the king was younger in age, he was “father,” and the subjects his children. Behind it is a reason: whoever is to govern must be bound in a deep, loving, intimate relationship. Once you understand this, Lao Tzu’s sutra becomes easy. Now let us try to understand each word.
“In managing human affairs, there is no better rule than to be sparing.”
Mitachar—sparing—has deep, many dimensions. One dimension: the rules of conduct should be as few as possible—the minimum. Countable on your fingers; not a web of countless rules. Often it is in the web of too many rules that confusion is created. Not many rules are needed. One such rule is needed which contains all rules. Life’s arrangement should be very simple.
With excessive rules, life becomes complicated; you begin to live like a soldier. A soldier loses his humanity, his humaneness. He becomes mechanical—a robot. When to rise—by rule; when to sit—by rule; when to eat—by rule. Everything becomes regimented. The soldier lives by command and in the bondage of rules. The soldier is the last fall of humaneness—because he has no freedom. Not even in his dreams is he free. Even into his dreams rules penetrate; even his sleep is invaded by rules. If you stand near a seasoned soldier while he sleeps and say, “Left turn!”—even in sleep he will turn. Rules reach down into the unconscious.
William James wrote a memoir: he was talking in a hotel. A retired soldier was passing carrying a basket of eggs. As a joke, to show his friends how deeply rules go in, he shouted loudly, “Attention!” The soldier had been retired for twenty years. He stood at attention. The basket fell; eggs smashed on the floor. The soldier was very angry: “What kind of joke is this?” William James said, “Have we no right to say ‘Attention’? You need not have obeyed.” He said, “Is that in my hands—obeying or not? An order is an order!”
Robot means: mechanical. You press the button here, the light comes on there. The lamp does not pause, does not think: “Shall I come on or not?” The soldier, too, is one who has fallen out of thinking.
Two kinds of people go beyond thinking: the saint and the soldier. The saint goes beyond thinking; the soldier falls below thinking. Both go beyond; the soldier falls from the place of thought. The entire military training is to depose him from the throne of thought. Whether there is a war or not, for a soldier it is as if war is always on. His routine does not change. Morning and evening he must drill—left-right—for hours. He is not allowed even a little slackness.
Why so much drill? What is the relation of left-right to anything? None. It is a very deep arrangement of conditioning. We say: “Left turn!”—and he turns left. “Right turn!”—he turns right. Slowly, slowly, it sinks so deep, from the conscious layers down into the unconscious, that your “left turn!” functions like pressing a button. It is beyond the soldier’s capacity not to turn. He has to turn—mechanically.
When a soldier can turn mechanically, then he can be trusted. Say to him: “Fire!”—and he will fire even if his own mother stands in front of him. He will fire at a stranger with whom he has no quarrel at all; who is just like him; who has a mother, a wife, children waiting, praying for his return; who has done him no harm. But thought—the soldier has fallen below it. He has to fire mechanically. He has to become a part of the gun.
The state cannot give him the chance to think—because if a soldier starts thinking, dropping a bomb on Hiroshima becomes difficult. The soldier will say, “I will not do it—one hundred thousand people will become ashes in a second! Better you shoot me. If I commit a crime, let it be disobedience to orders—but I will not kill one hundred thousand people without reason.”
The man who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima dropped it at 8:10; by nine o’clock he returned and went into deep sleep. Over there one hundred thousand were roasted in fire. There were little children, even those not yet out of the womb. Women, old people—who had nothing to do with the war; citizens who neither were waging war nor running it; absolutely unarmed, with no defense. They were roasted. In Hiroshima, a bank burned; its clock somehow survived, stopped at exactly 8:10. That clock has been preserved. It is Hiroshima’s memory. That day time stood still—and man took the last leap into inhumanity.
This man slept well. In the morning, journalists asked, “Did you sleep well?” He said, “Very well! Never had such sound sleep. The work was completed; the order given to me was fulfilled. Order fulfilled, I went into rest.”
No prick of conscience! If even an ant is crushed under your feet, you feel, “Unnecessarily... I could have walked more carefully.” One hundred thousand people! Not a small number. To kill so many and then sleep peacefully—that is possible only to a soldier. He has fallen below thought. He has no capacity for inner deliberation, no inner conscience, no awareness—he is a machine.
Rules turn a person into a machine. Rules are the murder of humaneness. So first, remember: the fewer the rules in your interrelationships, the better. If there are none—that is the supreme state.
A saint lives with you without rules. Love may be called his rule—but it is not a rule; it is his nature. He lives with you as if there are no rules between you and him. Moment to moment, the sensitivity of the moment, the response of the moment—whatever arises, he lives that.
Rules come from the past—a framework within. If you touch my feet because tradition says, “On going to the guru one should touch his feet”—if that is why you touch—then don’t touch. Because that is coming from rule.
But if suddenly you are filled with the feeling of bowing—let it not come from rule; let it arise from your depths, from love—then it is different. Then its quality is different, its juice is different. Then you will receive something in that bowing; your pitcher will bow and be filled from the river. But if you bow by rule, you bow in vain. It may be a kind of drill; perhaps your body will derive some benefit, but the soul will gain nothing. From rules the soul never gains; it is harmed at best.
You are going home. You buy a flower for your wife from the market. Are you buying it as a rule? Then don’t buy—it is a waste of money. Or you buy out of love, a sense of grace—“She must have been waiting the whole day; who knows how much work she has done—she cooked, prepared the vegetables, waited—and am I to go empty-handed?” A flower catches your eye; you buy it in a heartful state—she gives you so much, and you give her nothing! Then the flower has value—not the market value. Even if you bought it for two coins, it becomes priceless. Kohinoor pales beside it—because it carries the pulse of your heart. The poetry of this flower is now unique. It is no longer an ordinary earthly flower—you have poured something into it; it has become otherworldly.
But you can buy by rule. You read in marriage manuals: “When going home, take ice cream, a flower, something.” Because the wife sits there—dangerous; she must be appeased a little. As one offers something to a goddess, she, too, sits at home like a goddess—who knows whether she is angry—your little offering will bring compromise, a kind of bribe. Then the flower is ugly. Not even worth two coins. It becomes dirty—because a flower is only that into which you pour your within.
Husbands bring gifts on the day they feel guilty. They bring ice cream. Wives know: “Today he must have looked at some other woman.” Otherwise, what was the need of ice cream? Today he is a bit guilty; somewhere inside a thorn is pricking—so he brings ice cream. If he brings a necklace, it is certain: he is in love with another woman. The bigger the gift, the bigger the news of the crime.
Where there is rule between two persons, there is no love. Rule means you are moving according to the market, according to the head. Does the heart have rules? Does it have any discipline? None. Yet the heart has a discipline—utterly unique—which comes without being brought, is present without being imposed; which blossoms moment to moment; which is born in the present, not carried from the past.
You go home, you see your wife, you hold her to your heart. You can also do this by rule—“It should be done.” Men like Dale Carnegie write books—sold in millions, next only to the Bible—and all is rubbish, and turns people into liars and hypocrites. Dale Carnegie says, “Whether you feel it or not, at least two or four times a day tell your wife, ‘I love you. There is no woman as beautiful as you.’ Whether you feel it or not is not the question; it must be said. Parrot it.” He says, “Relationships remain sweet this way.” What a false world! Where, even when it is not felt, it must be repeated—life becomes hypocrisy.
Life is an art, not hypocrisy. And art does not mean you can learn it in a school. You learn by living—just as you learn to swim by entering the water, so by living you learn the art of living. Only one sutra is essential: live with awareness, and watch what life is. And avoid hypocrisy. Hypocrisy will only create deception. It may be that because of hypocrisy, relationships become somewhat convenient—but never joyous. Convenience is a cheap thing; taking convenience and losing joy is a poor bargain.
Lao Tzu says: be sparing. The first dimension of mitachar is: let rules of conduct be as few as possible.
“In managing human affairs, there is no better rule than to be sparing.”
When rules are few, you give the other a chance to be himself. This is the greatest love in the world—that you allow the other to be what he wants to be; you allow him to be what he was born to be. Do not become an obstacle in the other’s destiny.
Love supports; it cooperates in your becoming whatsoever you are meant to become. Love does not cut and prune you to fit its own fancy—for who am I to cut and prune you? Who am I to deviate you from your path and drag you elsewhere? Who am I to become your controller? Love is not a controller. Love has no proprietorship. Love gives you the freedom to be what you want to be. Love gives you the open sky; it does not confine you to a little courtyard. And the lover rejoices the more you roam free in the open sky. The farther you go, flying beyond the clouds—so far that the lover cannot even see where you have gone—the more he rejoices. Because the more free you are, the more your dignity will flower; the more free you are, the more your soul will be strengthened; the more free you are, the more the spring of love will rise and flow in your life.
A dependent person cannot give love. Therefore, as long as women remain dependent, I will go on saying: there cannot be love in the world. If women are dependent, love is impossible—because only two free beings can exchange love. A woman you bring home with dowry; a woman you never even saw—your parents arranged it; some priests decided after looking at horoscopes. The decision did not arise from your heart—borrowed, stale, belonging to others—and you bring such a woman home. There is convenience in it; less hassle; the home will run smoothly. But remember: the moment of dance will never arrive in your life; your love will never come to Samadhi. Through the path of such love, you will not know Paramatma.
Only a free being can give love. A slave can offer service, not love. A master can bestow compassion, not love. If the husband is a master, at most he can be kind. Is kindness love? No woman wants pity. You will be a little shocked: where love is concerned, pity is vulgar and ugly. Who wants pity? Pity means: I am a worm, and you are an angel of the sky. Pity means: I am pitiful; you are the giver, I am the beggar. A lover is never satisfied with pity. But a master can give pity—how will he give love? And a slave can offer service—but service is not love. Service is duty; you do it because it should be done. A wife massages her husband’s feet because the husband is like God; the scriptures say so—therefore she must. She massages because of scripture, not because of herself. And feet massaged because of scripture—better not massaged at all. Because there is no love for these feet, no trust, no reverence, no love. It is a relationship of slavery; chains are tied to these feet. These are not two free birds flying in the sky; they are locked in a prison.
Among the Jews there is a saying: the Devil is an old and foolish emperor. There was a Jewish fakir, Jhusia. He was troubled: “I don’t understand this saying. ‘Old’—that I understand, because the Devil is older than man; even before humanity he was there—he provoked Adam. ‘Emperor’—that too I understand, for he seems to be the real master of the world. People may pray to God in churches, but in their hearts they pray to the Devil; and from God too they ask things that belong to the Devil. So he is the real emperor. But why ‘foolish’?”
Then Jhusia was sentenced to jail. There he understood the secret. With shackles on his hands, he saw the Devil sitting nearby. Jhusia said, “Now I understand the saying. Old—you are; that we knew. Emperor—you are; that too we knew. But foolish—we realize now.” The Devil asked, “What do you mean?” Jhusia said, “Here in prison, with shackles on my hands, where I cannot do any good anyhow—what are you doing sitting by me? Here there is no possibility of doing the good; nor can I do the bad—there is no choice. You are sitting here for nothing. Here I cannot even pray. There is no way to do the auspicious. So I understand—you are the great fool. The saying is right. You are sitting here unnecessarily—because here I am entirely in your kingdom, bound hand and foot; there is no way out.”
When I read Jhusia’s autobiography I felt: wherever you find someone with you in chains, that cannot be God; it can only be the Devil. Because the possibility of God is in freedom. That is why we call God Moksha.
India has produced such people who did not even bother about God—they cared only for Moksha. They said, “If Moksha happens, God has happened. Why talk about God?” Mahavira does not talk about God. Buddha does not talk about God. They say: liberation is enough. The day you become utterly free, you have found God—why mention Him!
In supreme freedom, whoever is with you becomes God. In supreme dependence, whoever remains with you is only the Devil. One whom you make a slave—you create a devil in him; and when you become a master—you become a devil. In slavery only the flower of devilry can bloom. In the soil of slavery no other plant can grow.
Mitachar means: keep reducing rules—this is the first dimension—and keep increasing heartfulness. Let a moment arrive when no rules remain—only the heart is the rule. Remember: one who masters the One, has mastered the Many; one who runs after the Many, even misses the One. That One is love. There is no need to master many rules. Love is mitachar.
The second dimension of mitachar: in life, grow the capacity to be content with the minimum. The demand for “more” ultimately brings insanity. Be content with the minimum. The more content you are with little, the more vast you begin to be. This contentment with little applies in all directions—whether about wealth, position, fame—or even renunciation, vows—be content with little.
Here is a difficulty: when someone goes on collecting wealth, we say, “He is mad.” Our sadhus and sannyasins say, “He is mad—demanding more, more, more.” Stop! Where will this race end? We see it. But what about the renunciate? He too demands more—and we don’t see it. Last year he fasted twenty days; this year he will do twenty-five; next year he will do thirty. This too is demand for more. He had two million—he wants two and a half. He could fast twenty days—now twenty-five—he desires thirty. What is the difference? The ratio is the same: from twenty to twenty-five; from twenty-five to thirty. People don’t only hoard coins of wealth, they hoard coins of renunciation. The race remains the same.
So the second dimension of mitachar is: even in vows, in renunciation—be content with the little; even in conduct—be content with little. Do not fall into the madness that “I must be a great mahatma.” It is the same madness, for the formula is one: “More needed, more needed.” Until the whole world calls you a mahatma, how can you be content? There too—be content with little.