468

I speak on Mahavir as a part of my duty – my heart is never with him. He is too mathematical. He is not a mystic, he has no poetry of being. He is great, enlightened, but like a vast desert; you cannot come across a single oasis in him. But because I was born a Jaina I have to pay some debts. I speak on him as my duty but my heart is not there; I speak only from the mind. When I speak on Mahavir I speak as an outsider. He is not inside me and I am not inside him.

The same is true about Moses and Mohammed. I don’t feel like speaking on them; I have not spoken on them. If I had not been born a Jaina I would never have spoken on Mahavir either. Many times my Mohammedan-disciples or my Jewish disciples come to me and say, ”Why don’t you speak on Mohammed or Moses?” It is difficult to explain to them. Many times, just looking at their faces, I decide that I will speak; many times I look again and again into the words of Moses and Mohammed, then I again postpone it. No bell rings in my heart. It would not be alive– if I spoke it would be a dead thing. I don’t even feel a duty towards them as I feel towards Mahavir.

They all belong to the same category: they are too calculative, extremist; they miss the opposite extreme. They are single notes, not harmonies, not symphonies. A single note has its beauty– an austere beauty– but it is monotonous. Once in a while it is okay, but if it continues you feel bored; you would like to stop it. The personalities of Mahavir, Moses and Mohammed are like single notes– simple, austere, beautiful even, once in a while. But if I meet Mahavir, Moses or Mohammed on the road I will pay my respects and escape.

I speak on Krishna. He is multi-dimensional, superhuman, miraculous, but seems to be more like a myth than a real man. He is so extraordinary that he cannot be. On this earth such extraordinary persons cannot exist– they exist only as dreams. And myths are nothing but collective dreams. The whole of humanity has been dreaming them... beautiful, but unbelievable. I talk about Krishna and I enjoy it, but I enjoy it as one enjoys a beautiful story and the telling of a beautiful story. But it is not very meaningful, a cosmic gossip.

I speak on Jesus Christ. I feel deep sympathy for him. I would like to suffer with him and I would like to carry his cross a little while by his side. But we remain parallel, we never meet. He is so sad, so burdened– burdened with the miseries of the whole of humanity. He cannot laugh. If you move with him too long you will become sad, you will lose laughter. A gloominess surrounds him. I feel for him but I would not like to be like him. I can walk with him a little while and share his burden– but then we part. Our ways are different ways. He is good, but too good, almost inhumanly good.

I speak on Zarathustra– very rarely, but I love the man as a friend loves another friend. You can laugh with him. He is not a moralist, not a puritan; he can enjoy life and everything that life gives. A good friend– you could be with him forever– but he is just a friend. Friendship is good, but not enough.

I speak on Buddha– I love him. Down through the centuries, through many lives, I have loved him. He is tremendously beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful, superb. But he is not on the earth, he does not walk on the earth. He flies in the sky and leaves no footprints. You cannot follow him, you never know his whereabouts. He is like a cloud. Sometimes you meet him but that is accidental. And he is so refined that he cannot take roots on this earth. He is meant for some higher heaven. In that way he is one-sided. Earth and heaven don’t meet in him; he is heavenly but the earthly part is missing; he is like a flame, beautiful, but there is no oil, no container– you can see the flame but it is going higher and higher, nothing holds it on the earth. I love him, I speak on him from my heart, but still, a distance remains. It always remains in the phenomenon of love– you come closer and closer and closer, but even in closeness there is a distance. That is the misery of all lovers.

I speak on Lao Tzu totally differently. I am not related to him because even to be related a distance is needed. I don’t love him, because how can you love yourself? When I speak on Lao Tzu I speak as if I am speaking on my own self. With him my being is totally one. When I speak on Lao Tzu it is as if I am looking in a mirror– my own face is reflected. When I speak on Lao Tzu, I am absolutely with him. Even to say ”absolutely with him” is not true– I am him, he is me.

Historians are doubtful about his existence. I cannot doubt his existence because how can I doubt my own existence? The moment I became possible, he became true to me. Even if history proves that he never existed it makes no difference to me; he must have existed because I exist– I am the proof. During the following days, when I speak on Lao Tzu, it is not that I speak on somebody else. I speak on myself– as if Lao Tzu is speaking through a different name, a different nama-rupa, a different incarnation.

Lao Tzu is not like Mahavir, not mathematical at all, yet he is very, very logical in his madness. He has a mad logic! When we penetrate into his sayings you will come to feel it; it is not so obvious and apparent. He has a logic of his own: the logic of absurdity, the logic of paradox, the logic of a madman. He hits hard. Mahavir’s logic can be understood even by blind men. To understand Lao Tzu’s logic you will have to create eyes. It is very subtle, it is not the ordinary logic of the logicians– it is the logic of a hidden life, a very subtle life. Whatsoever he says is on the surface absurd; deep down there lives a very great consistency. One has to penetrate it; one has to change his own mind to understand Lao Tzu.

Mahavir you can understand without changing your mind at all; as you are, you can understand Mahavir. He is on the same line. Howsoever much ahead of you he may have reached the goal, he is on the same line, the same track. When you try to understand Lao Tzu he zigzags. Sometimes you see him going towards the east and sometimes towards the west, because he says east is west and west is east, they are together, they are one. He believes in the unity of the opposites. And that is how life is. So Lao Tzu is just a spokesman of life. If life is absurd, Lao Tzu is absurd; if life has an absurd logic to it, Lao Tzu has the same logic to it. Lao Tzu simply reflects life. He doesn’t add anything to it, he doesn’t choose out of it; he simply accepts whatsoever it is.

It is simple to see the spirituality of a Buddha, very simple; it is impossible to miss it, he is so extraordinary. But it is difficult to see the spirituality of Lao Tzu. He is so ordinary, just like you. You will have to grow in understanding. A Buddha passes by you– you will immediately recognize that a superior human being has passed you. He carries the glamor of a superior human being around him. It is difficult to miss him, almost impossible to miss him.

But Lao Tzu... he may be your neighbor. You may have been missing him because he is so ordinary, he is so extraordinarily ordinary. And that is the beauty of it. To become extraordinary is simple: only effort is needed, refinement is needed, cultivation is needed. It is a deep inner discipline. You can become very very refined, something absolutely unearthly, but to be ordinary is really the most extraordinary thing. No effort will help– effortlessness is needed. No practice will help, no methods, no means will be of any help only understanding.

Even meditation will not be of any help. To become a Buddha, meditation will be of help. To become a Lao Tzu, even meditation won’t help– just understanding. Just understanding life as it is, and living it with courage; not escaping from it, not hiding from it, facing it with courage, whatsoever it is, good or bad, divine or evil, heaven or hell.

It is very difficult to be a Lao Tzu or to recognize a Lao Tzu. In fact, if you can recognize a Lao Tzu, you are already a Lao Tzu. To recognize a Buddha you need not be a Buddha, but to recognize Lao Tzu you need to be a Lao Tzu–otherwise it is impossible.

It is said that Confucius went to see Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu was an old man, Confucius was younger. Lao Tzu was almost unknown, Confucius was almost universally known. Kings and emperors used to call him to their courts; wise men used to come for his advice. He was the wisest man in China in those days. But by and by he must have felt that his wisdom might be of use to others, but he was not blissful, he had not attained to anything. He had become an expert, maybe helpful to others, but not helpful to himself. So he started a secret search to find someone who could help him.

Ordinary wise men wouldn’t do, because they used to come for his own advice. Great scholars wouldn’t do; they used to come to ask him about their problems. But there must be someone somewhere– life is vast. He tried a secret search. He sent his disciples to find someone who could be of help to him, and they came with the information that there lived a man– nobody knew his name– he was known as the old guy. Lao Tzu means ”the old guy.” The word is not his name, nobody knows his name. He was such an unknown man that nobody knows when he was born, nobody knows to whom– who his father was or who his mother was. He had lived for ninety years but only very rare human beings had come across him, very rare, who had different eyes and perspectives with which to understand him. He was only for the rarest– so ordinary a man, but only for the rarest of human minds.

Hearing the news that a man known as The Old Guy existed, Confucius went to see him. When he met Lao Tzu he could feel that here was a man of great understanding, great intellectual integrity, great logical acumen, a genius. He could feel that something was there, but he couldn’t catch hold of it. Vaguely, mysteriously, there was something; this man was no ordinary man although he looked absolutely ordinary. Something was hidden; he was carrying a treasure.

Confucius asked, ”What do you say about morality? What do you say about how to cultivate good character?”– because he was a moralist and he thought that if you cultivate a good character that is the highest attainment. Lao Tzu laughed loudly, and said, ”If you are immoral, only then the question of morality arises. And if you don’t have any character, only then you think about character. A man of character is absolutely oblivious of the fact that anything like character exists. A man of morality does not know what the word ‘moral’ means. So don’t be foolish! And don’t try to cultivate. Just be natural.”

And the man had such tremendous energy that Confucius started trembling. He couldn’t stand him. He escaped. He became afraid– as one becomes afraid near an abyss. When he came back to his disciples, who were waiting outside under a tree, the disciples could not believe it. This man had been going to emperors, the greatest emperors, and they had never seen any nervousness in him. And he was trembling, and cold perspiration was coming, pouring out from all over his body. They couldn’t believe it– what had happened? What had this man Lao Tzu done to their teacher?

They asked him and he said, ”Wait a little. Let me collect myself. This man is dangerous.” And about Lao Tzu he said to his disciples: ”I have heard about great animals like elephants, and I know how they walk. And I have heard about hidden animals in the sea, and I know how they swim. And I have heard about great birds who fly thousands of miles away from the earth, and I know how they fly. But this man is a dragon. Nobody knows how he walks. Nobody knows how he lives. Nobody knows how he flies. Never go near him– he is like an abyss. He is like a death.”

And that is the definition of a Master: a Master is like death. If you come near him, too close, you will feel afraid, a trembling will take over. You will be possessed by an unknown fear, as if you are going to die.

It is said that Confucius never came again to see this old man. Lao Tzu was ordinary in a way. And in another way he was the most extraordinary man. He was not extraordinary like Buddha; he was extraordinary in a totally different way. His extraordinariness was not so obvious– it was a hidden treasure. He was not miraculous like Krishna, he did not do any miracles, but his whole being was a miracle– the way he walked, the way he looked, the way he was. His whole being was a miracle.

He was not sad like Jesus; he could laugh, he could laugh a belly laugh. It is said that he was born laughing. Children are born crying, weeping. It is said about him that he was born laughing. I also feel it must be true; a man like Lao Tzu must be born laughing. He is not sad like Jesus. He can laugh, and laugh tremendously, but deep down in his laughter there is a sadness, a compassion– a sadness about you, about the whole existence. His laughter is not superficial. Zarathustra laughs but his laughter is different, there is no sadness in it. Lao Tzu is sad like Jesus and not sad like Jesus; Lao Tzu laughs like Zarathustra and doesn’t laugh like Zarathustra. His sadness has a laughter to it and his laughter has a sadness to it. He is a meeting of the opposites. He is a harmony, a symphony.

Remember this... I am not commenting on him. There exists no distance between me and him. He is talking to you through me– a different body, a different name, a different incarnation, but the same spirit.

Now we will take the sutra:

[The Tao that can be told of
is not the absolute Tao]

Let me first tell you the story of how these sutras came to be written, because that will help you to understand them. For ninety years Lao Tzu lived– in fact he did nothing except live. He lived totally. Many times his disciples asked him to write, but he would always say: The Tao that can be told is not the real Tao, the truth that can be told becomes untrue immediately. So he would not say anything; he would not write anything. Then what were the disciples doing with him? They were only being with him. That’s what satsang is– being with him. They lived with him, they moved with him, they simply imbibed his being.

Being near him they tried to be open to him; being near him they tried not to think about anything; being near him they became more and more silent. In that silence he would reach them, he would come to them and he would knock at their doors. For ninety years he refused to write anything or to say anything. This was his basic attitude: that truth cannot be taught. The moment you say something about truth, it is no more true: the very saying falsifies it. You cannot teach it. At the most you can indicate it, and that indication should be your very being, your whole life; it cannot be indicated by words. He was against words; he was against language.

It is said that he used to go for a morning walk every day, and a neighbor used to follow him. Knowing well that he didn’t want to talk, that he was a man of absolute silence, the neighbor always kept silent. Even a ”hello” was not allowed, even to talk about the weather was not allowed. To say ”How beautiful a morning!” would be too much chattering. Lao Tzu would go for a long walk, for miles, and the neighbor would follow him. For years it went on, but once it happened that a guest was staying with the neighbor and he also wanted to come, so the neighbor brought him. He did not know Lao Tzu or his ways. He started feeling suffocated because his host was not talking, and he couldn’t understand why they were so silent– and the silence became heavy on him.

If you don’t know how to be silent, it becomes heavy. It is not that by saying things you communicate– no. It is by saying things that you unburden yourself. In fact, through words communication is not possible; just the opposite is possible– you can avoid communication. You can talk, and you can create a screen of words around you so that your real situation cannot be known by others. You clothe yourself through words.

That man started feeling naked and suffocated and awkward; it was embarrassing. So he simply said, when the sun was rising: ”What a beautiful sun. Look...! What a beautiful sun is born, is rising! What a beautiful morning!” That’s all he said. But nobody responded because the neighbor, the host, knew that Lao Tzu wouldn’t like it. And of course Lao Tzu wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t respond. When they came back, Lao Tzu told the neighbor, ”From tomorrow, don’t bring this man. He is a chatterbox.” And he had only said this much: ”What a beautiful sun,” or ”What a beautiful morning.” That much in a two-or three-hour-long walk. But Lao Tzu said ”Don’t bring this chatterbox again with you. He talks too much, and talks uselessly– because I also have eyes, I can see that the sun is being born and it is beautiful. What is the need to say it?”

Lao Tzu lived in silence. He always avoided talking about the truth that he had attained and he always rejected the idea that he should write it down for the generations to come. At the age of ninety he took leave of his disciples. He said goodbye to them, and he said, ”Now I am moving towards the hills, towards the Himalayas. I am going there to get ready to die. It is good to live with people, it is good to be in the world while you are living, but when one is getting nearer to death it is good to move into total aloneness, so that you move towards the original source in your absolute purity and loneliness, uncontaminated by the world.”

The disciples felt very, very sad, but what could they do? They followed him for a few hundred miles, but by and by Lao Tzu persuaded them to go back. Then alone he was crossing the border, and the guard on the border imprisoned him. The guard was also a disciple. And the guard said: ”Unless you write a book, I am not going to allow you to move beyond the border. This much you must do for humanity. Write a book. That is the debt you have to pay, otherwise I won’t allow you to cross.”

So for three days Lao Tzu was imprisoned by his own disciple. It is beautiful. It is very loving. He was forced– and that’s how this small book, the book of Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, was born. He had to write it, because the disciple wouldn’t allow him to cross. And he was the guard and he had the authority, he could create trouble, so Lao Tzu had to write the book. In three days he finished it. This is the first sentence of the book:

[The Tao that can be told of
is not the absolute Tao]

This is the first thing he has to say: that whatsoever can be said cannot be true. This is the introduction for the book. It simply makes you alert: now words will be following, don’t become a victim of the words. Remember the wordless. Remember that which cannot be communicated through language, through words. The Tao can be communicated, but it can only be communicated from being to being. It can be communicated when you are with the Master, just with the Master, doing nothing, not even practicing anything. Just being with the Master it can be communicated.

Why can’t the truth be said? What is the difficulty? The truth cannot be said for many reasons. The first and the most basic reason is: truth is always realized in silence. When your inner talk has stopped, then it is realized. And that which is realized in silence, how can you say it through sound? It is an experience. It is not a thought. If it was a thought it could be expressed, there would be no trouble in it. Howsoever complicated or complex a thought may be, a way can be found to express it.

The most complex theory of Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity, can also be expressed in a symbol. There is no problem about it. The listener may not be able to understand it; that is not the point. It can be expressed. It was said when Einstein was alive that only twelve persons, a dozen, in the whole world understood him and what he was saying. But even that is enough. If even a single person can understand, it has been expressed. And even if a single person cannot understand right now, maybe after many centuries there will come a person who can understand it. Then too it has been expressed. The very probability that somebody can understand it, and it has been expressed.

But truth cannot be expressed because the very reaching to it is through silence, soundlessness, thoughtlessness. You reach to it through no-mind, the mind drops. And how can you use something which as a necessary condition has to drop before truth can be reached? Mind cannot understand, mind cannot realize, how can mind express? Remember it as a rule: if mind can attain, mind can express; if mind cannot attain to it, mind cannot express it. All language is futile. Truth cannot be expressed.

Then what have all the scriptures been doing? Then what is Lao Tzu doing? Then what are the Upanishads doing? They all try to say something which cannot be said in the hope that a desire may arise in you to know about it. Truth cannot be said but in the very effort of saying it a desire can arise in the hearer to know that which cannot be expressed. A thirst can be provoked. The thirst is there, it needs a little provocation. You are already thirsty– how can it be otherwise? You are not blissful, you are not ecstatic– you are thirsty. Your heart is a burning fire. You are seeking something which can quench the thirst, but, not finding the water, not finding the source, by and by you have tried to suppress your thirst itself. That is the only way, otherwise it is too much, it will not allow you to live at all. So you suppress the thirst.

A Master like Lao Tzu knows well that truth cannot be said, but the very effort to say it will provoke something, will bring the suppressed thirst in you to the surface. And once the thirst surfaces, a search, an inquiry starts. And he has moved you.

[The Tao that can be told of
is not the absolute Tao]

At the most it can be relative. For example, we can say something about light to a blind man knowing well that it is impossible to communicate anything about light because he has no experience of it. But something can be said about light– theories about light can be created. Even a blind man can become an expert about the theories of light; about the whole science of light he can become an expert– there is no problem in it– but he will not understand what light is. He will understand what light consists of. He will understand the physics of light, the chemistry of light, he will understand the poetry of light, but he will not understand the facticity of light, what light is. The experience of light he will not understand. So all that is said to a blind man about light is only relative: it is something about light, not light itself. Light cannot be communicated.

Something can be said about God, but God cannot be said; something can be said about love, but love cannot be said; that ”something” remains relative. It remains relative to the listener, his understanding, his intellectual grip, his training, his desire to understand. It depends on, it is relative, to the Master: his way of expressing, his devices to communicate. It remains relative– relative to many things– but it can never become the absolute experience. This is the first reason that truth cannot be expressed.

The second reason that truth cannot be expressed is because it is an experience. No experience can be communicated... leave truth aside. If you have never known love, when somebody says something about love, you will hear the word but you will miss the meaning. The word is in the dictionary. Even if you don’t understand you can look in the dictionary and you will know what it means. But the meaning is in you. Meaning comes through experience. If you have loved someone then you know the meaning of the word ”love.” The literal meaning is in the dictionary, in the language, in the grammar. But the experiential meaning, the existential meaning is in you. If you have known the experience, immediately the word ”love” is no more empty; it contains something.

If I say something, it is empty unless you bring your experience to it. When your experience comes to it, it becomes significant; otherwise it remains empty– words and words and words. How can truth be expressed when you have not experienced it? Even in ordinary life an unexperienced thing cannot be told. Only words will be conveyed. The container will reach you but the content will be lost. An empty word will travel towards you; you will hear it and you will think you understand it because you know the literal meaning of it, but you will miss.

The real, authentic meaning comes through existential experience. You have to know it, there is no other way. There is no shortcut. Truth cannot be transferred. You cannot steal it, you cannot borrow it, you cannot purchase it, you cannot rob it, you cannot beg it– there is no way. Unless you have it, you cannot have it.

So what can be done? The only way– and I emphasize it– the only way is to live with someone who has attained to the experience. Just being in the presence of someone who has attained to the experience, something mysterious will be transferred to you... not by words– it is a jump of energy. Just as a flame can jump from a lit lamp to an unlit lamp– you bring the unlit lamp closer to the lit lamp, and the flame can jump– the same thing happens between a Master and a disciple: a transmission beyond scriptures– a transmission of energy not of message, a transmission of life not of words.

[The Tao that can be told of
is not the absolute Tao]

Remember this condition.

Now enter the sutras:

[When the people of the earth all know beauty as beauty,
there arises (the recognition of) ugliness.

When the people of the earth all know the good as good,
there arises (the regognition of) evil.]

Lao Tzu is the absolute anarchist. He says: The moment you start thinking of order, disorder arises. The moment you think of God, the devil is already present there– because thinking can only be of the opposites; thinking can be only of the duality. Thinking has a deep dichotomy in it, thinking is schizophrenic, it is a split phenomenon. That’s why there is so much insistence on attaining to a non-thinking state– because only then will you be one. Otherwise you will remain two, divided, split, schizophrenic.

In the West schizophrenia has become by and by more and more common, because all the Western religions are deep down schizophrenic; they divide. They say God is good. Then where to put all the evil? God is simply good and he cannot be bad, and there is much that is bad in life– where to put that badness? So a devil is created. The moment you create a god, immediately you create a devil. I must tell you– Lao Tzu never talks about God, never. Not even a single time does he use the word ”god,” because once you use the word ”god” the devil immediately enters through the same door. Open the door– they both come in together.


# This discourse is too long for 1 audio fragment.
# Here ends part 1. Go to pearl 469 for part 2.