469

(part 2)

Thinking is always in opposites.

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

The world will be beautiful when people have forgotten about beauty, because then there will be no ugliness. The world will be moral when people have completely forgotten the word ”moral,” because then there will be no immorality. The world will be in order when there is nobody to enforce it, nobody who is trying to create order. All those who try to create order are the mischief-makers– they create disorder. But it is difficult to understand.

It is difficult because our whole mind has been trained, trained by these schizophrenic thinkers. They say: Choose God and reject the devil; be good, don’t be bad. And the more you try to be good the more you feel your badness inside. Have you ever observed that saints who are trying to be absolutely virtuous are too conscious of their sins? Then read Augustine’s 'Confessions'. A whole life trying to be a saint, then there arises the recognition of sin. The more you try to be a saint the more you will feel you are encircled by sins. Try to be good and you will feel how bad you are. Try to be loving and you will come across hatred, anger, jealousy, possessiveness. Try to be beautiful and you will become more and more aware of how ugly you are.

Drop the dichotomy. Drop the schizophrenic attitude. Be simple. And when you are simple you don’t know who you are– beautiful or ugly.

There is a Sufi story:

A Master was traveling, and he came to an inn for an overnight stay with his disciples. The innkeeper told him that he had two wives, one beautiful, another ugly. ”But the problem is,” said the innkeeper, ”that I love the ugly one and I hate the beautiful one.” The Master asked, ”What is the matter? What is the reason for it?” The man said, ”The beautiful one is too conscious of her beauty; that makes her ugly...” -- when you are too conscious of beauty certainly you will become ugly ”... and the other is too conscious of her ugliness. That makes her beautiful.”

The one who was beautiful thought continuously that she was beautiful– she had become arrogant, very proud. How can you be beautiful with arrogance? Arrogance is ugliness. She had become very egoistic. And have you ever come across any ego which is beautiful? How can the ego be beautiful? The other, who was ugly and was conscious of her ugliness, had become humble, and humility has a beauty of its own. Humbleness, without any pride, without any ego, creates beauty.

So the man said, ”I am puzzled. I love the ugly one and I hate the beautiful one. And I am asking you to solve the puzzle. What is the matter? Why is it happening?” The Master called all his disciples and said, ”You also come, because this is really something to be understood.” And he said exactly what Lao Tzu is saying. To his disciples he also said, ”Don’t be proud that you know. If you know that you know, you are ignorant. If you know that you don’t know, you are wise. An absolutely simple man does not know either way, whether he knows or doesn’t know. He lives completely unself-consciously.”

Now, I would like to prolong the story a little longer. It stops there. As Sufis have told it, it stops there, but I would like to give it a deeper turn. I would like to tell you that after this Master’s visit, I also visited the inn, after many years, of course. And the man, the innkeeper, came to me and said, ”There is a puzzle. Once a Sufi Master visited me and I put this problem before him and he solved it. But since then everything has turned. The ugly woman has become proud about her humbleness, and now I don’t love her. Not only is her body ugly, now her being, her whole being, has become ugly. And the beautiful woman, knowing that the consciousness that she is beautiful was destroying her beauty, has dropped that consciousness. Now I love her. Not only is her body beautiful, her being has become beautiful as well.”

So he said to me, ”Now you tell me what the matter is.” But I told him, ”You please keep quiet. If I say something, then again, the story will take a turn. Keep quiet!” Self-consciousness is the disease; in fact, to be unself-conscious is to become realized. That’s what enlightenment is all about: to be unself-conscious. But between the dichotomy, between the two, between the dilemma, how can you be unself-conscious? You always choose: you choose to be beautiful and ugliness becomes your shadow; you choose to be religious and irreligiousness becomes your shadow; you choose to be a saint and sin becomes your shadow. Choose– and you will be in difficulty, because the very choice has divided life.

Don’t choose, be choiceless, let life flow. Sometimes it looks like God, sometimes it looks like the devil– both are beautiful. You don’t choose. Don’t try to be a saint; otherwise your saintliness will not be real saintliness– a pride in it will make everything ugly. So I say that many times sinners have reached the divine and saints have missed. Because sinners are always humble; thinking themselves sinners, they cannot claim.

I will tell you another story.

Once it happened: a saint knocked at the doors of Heaven, and at the same time, just by his side, a sinner knocked too. And the saint knew the sinner very well. He had lived in his neighborhood, in the same town, and they had died on the same day. The doors opened. The gatekeeper, St. Peter, didn’t given even a look to the saint. He welcomed the sinner. The saint was offended. This was not expected, that a sinner should be welcomed. He asked St. Peter, ”What is the matter? You offend me. You insult me. Why am I not received when the sinner has been received with such welcome?” Said St. Peter, ”That’s why. You expect. He does not expect. He simply feels grateful that he has come to Heaven. You feel that you have earned it. He feels the grace of God; you think it is because of your efforts that you have achieved it. It is an achievement to you, and all achievements are of the ego. He is humble. He cannot believe that he has come to heaven.”

It is possible that a sinner can reach and a saint can miss. If the saint is too filled with his saintliness, he will miss.

Lao Tzu says:

[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.

Therefore:

being and non-being interdepend in growth;]

Use both– don’t choose. Life is an interdependence. Use sin also, it exists there for a purpose; otherwise it wouldn’t exist. Use anger also, it exists there for a purpose; otherwise it wouldn’t exist. Nothing exists without any purpose in life. How can it exist without any purpose? Life is not a chaos, it is a meaningful cosmos.

[being and non-being interdepend in growth;]

– so be and not-be together

[difficult and easy interdepend in completion;
long and short interdepend in contrast;
high and low interdepend in position;
tones and voice interdepend in harmony;
front and behind interdepend in company.]

Lao Tzu is saying that opposites are not really opposites but complementaries. Don’t divide them, division is false; they are one, they interdepend. How can love exist without hate? How can compassion exist without anger? How can life exist without death? How can happiness exist without unhappiness? How is heaven possible without hell? Hell is not against heaven, they are complementary, they exist together; in fact, they are two aspects of the same coin. Don’t choose. Enjoy both. Allow both to be there. Create a harmony between the two; don’t choose. Then your life will become a symphony of the opposites, and that is the greatest life possible. It will be most ordinary in a way, and most extraordinary in another way.

That’s why I say Buddha moves in the sky, he has no earth part in him. Lao Tzu is both, earth and heaven together. Buddha, even in his perfection seems to be incomplete; Lao Tzu, even in his incompletion is complete, perfect. You understand me? Try to dig it! Buddha in his perfection is still incomplete, the earth part is missing. He is unearthly like a ghost, the body part is missing; he is unembodied, a tree without roots.

You are roots, but only roots; it has not sprouted, the tree has not come to bloom. Buddha is only f lowers, and you are only roots– Lao Tzu is both. He may not look as perfect as Buddha, he cannot, because the other is always there– how can he be perfect? But he is complete. He is total. He may not be perfect but he is total. And these two words have to be remembered always: don’t try to be perfect, try to be total. If you try to be perfect you will follow Buddha, you will follow Mahavir, you will follow Jesus. If you try to be total only then can you have the feeling of what it means to be near Lao Tzu, what it means to follow Tao.

Tao is totality. Totality is not perfect, it is always imperfect– because it is always alive. Perfection is always dead– anything that becomes perfect is dead. How can it live? How can it live when it has become perfect?– it has no need to live. It has denied the other part. Life exists through the tension of the opposites, the meeting of the opposites. If you deny the opposite you can become perfect but you will not be total, you will miss something. Howsoever beautiful Buddha is, he misses something. Lao Tzu is not so beautiful, not so perfect. Buddha and Lao Tzu are both standing before you; Lao Tzu will look ordinary and Buddha extraordinary, superb. But I tell you: thousands of Buddhas exist in Lao Tzu. He is deeply rooted in the earth– he is rooted in the earth, and he is standing high in the sky; he is both, heaven and earth, a meeting of the opposites.

There are three words to be remembered: one is dependence, another is independence, the third is interdependence.

Buddha is independent. You are dependent: a husband dependent on his wife, a father dependent on his son, an individual dependent on society– thousands of dependencies. You are dependent. A Buddha stands like a peak– independent. He has cut all the ties with the world: with the wife, with the child, with the father– everything he has cut. He has renounced all– a pillar of independence. You are part; Buddha is part, the other part. You may be ugly– he is beautiful. But his beauty exists only because of your ugliness. If you disappear Buddha will disappear. He looks wise because of your stupidity; if you become wise he will no more be wise.

Lao Tzu is the phenomenon of interdependence– because life is interdependent. You cannot be dependent, you cannot be independent– both are extremes. Just in the middle, where life is a balance, is interdependence. Everything exists with everything else, everything is interconnected. Hurt a flower and you hurt a star. Everything is interconnected, nothing exists like an island. If you try to exist like an island– it is possible, but it will be an unearthly phenomenon, almost a myth, a dream.

Lao Tzu believes in interdependence. He says: Take everything as it is, don’t choose. It seems to be simple and yet the most difficult thing, because the mind always wants to choose. The mind lives through choice. If you don’t choose the mind drops. This is the way of Lao Tzu. How to drop the mind?– don’t choose! That’s why he never prescribes any meditation, because then there is no need for any meditation. Don’t choose, live life as it comes– float. Don’t make any effort to reach anywhere. Don’t move towards a goal; enjoy the moment in its totality and don’t be bothered by the future or the past.

Then a symphony arises within your soul, the lowest and the highest meet in you, and then– then you have a richness. If you are only the highest you are poor, because you are like a hill which has no valleys: it is a poor hill. Valleys give depth and valleys give mystery; in valleys abides the very poetry. The peak is arithmetical; it is plain. In the valley move the shadows, the mysteries. Without a valley a peak is poor, and without a peak a valley is poor, because then there is only darkness. The sun never visits it; it is damp and gloomy and sad. The richest possibility is to be a peak and a valley together.

Somewhere Nietzsche says.... Nietzsche had one of the most penetrating minds that has ever been possessed by any human being. Because of that penetration he became mad; it was too much, the mind was too much, he couldn’t contain it. He says that a tree that wants to reach to the sky has to go to the deepest earth. The roots have to go to the very hell, deep down; only then can the branches, the peak, reach to the heaven. The tree will have to touch both: the hell and the heaven, the height and the depth both.

And the same is true for the being of man: you have, somehow, to meet the devil and the divine both in your innermost core of being. Don’t be afraid of the devil, otherwise your God will be a poorer God. A Christian or a Jewish God is very poor; the Christian or Jewish or Mohammedan God has no salt in it... tasteless, because the salt has been thrown away... the salt has become the devil. They have to become one. An organic unity exists in existence between the opposites: being and non-being, difficult and easy, long and short, high and low.

[tones and voice interdepend in harmony;
front and behind interdepend in company.

Therefore the sage:

manages affairs without action;]

This is what Lao Tzu calls Wu Wei: the sage manages affairs without action.

Three are the possibilities– one: be in action and forget inaction. You will be a wordly man. The second possibility: drop action, move to the Himalayas and remain inactive. You will be an otherworldly man. The third possibility: live in the market but don’t allow the market to live in you. Act without being active, move but remain unmoving inside.

I am talking to you and there is silence inside me– I am talking and not-talking together. Move and don’t move. Act and don’t act. If inaction and action can meet, then the harmony arises. Then you become a beautiful phenomenon– not beautiful against ugliness, but beautiful which comprehends ugliness also.

Go to a rosebush. See the flower and the thorns. Those thorns are not against the flower, they protect it. They are guards around the flower: security, safety measures. In a really beautiful person, in a really harmonious person, nothing is rejected. Rejection is against existence. Everything should be absorbed. That’s the art. If you reject, that shows you are no artist. Everything should be absorbed, used. If there is a rock in the way don’t try to reject it, use it as a stepping-stone.

[Therefore the sage:

manages affairs without action;]

He does not escape to the Himalayas. He remains in the world. He manages affairs but without any action. He is not active inside, the action remains on the outside. At the center he remains inactive. That is what Lao Tzu calls Wu Wei–finding the center of the cyclone. The cyclone is on the outside but in the center nothing moves, nothing stirs.

[preaches the doctrine without words;]

Here I am preaching to you a doctrine without words. You will say I am using words. Yes, I am preaching... without words, because deep inside me no word arises. It is for you, not for me; the word is for you, it is not for me. I use it; I am not used by it, it does not fill me. The moment I am not talking to you I am not talking at all. I never talk to myself, there is no inner talk. When I am not talking I am silent, and when I am talking the silence is not disturbed, the silence remains untouched.

[preaches the doctrine without words;
all things take their rise,
but he does not turn away from them;]

He never escapes. He never rejects. He never renounces. And that is the meaning of my sannyas. The word sannyas means renunciation, but I don’t preach renunciation. Then why do I call you sannyasins? I call you sannyasins in the Lao Tzuan sense: renounce and yet don’t renounce, remain in the world but yet out of it– this is the meeting of the opposites. So I don’t tell you to move, to drop, to leave your families. There is no need. You be there, you be totally there, but deep down something remains above, transcendental– don’t forget that. When you are with your wife, be with your wife, and also be with you. That’s the point. If you forget yourself and you are just with your wife, you are a worldly man. Then sooner or later you will escape, because it will create so much misery in life that you will want to leave and renounce and go to the hills. Both are extremes. And the truth is never in the extreme, the truth comprehends the extremes. It is in both and in neither.

[all things take their rise,
but he does not turn away from them;
he gives them life, but he does not take possession of them;]

Love your children, but don’t possess them. Love your wife and your husband, but don’t possess them. The moment you possess... you don’t know: deep down you have been possessed. The moment you possess you have been possessed. The possessor is the possessed. Don’t possess– because the possession tries to destroy the center of the other, and the other won’t allow you to. And if you try to destroy the center of the other, in the very effort your own center will be destroyed. Then there will be only the cyclone and no center. Be in the world and yet not in it Something deep in you transcends, remains floating in the sky– roots in the earth, branches in the sky.

[he gives them life, but he does not take possession of them;
he acts, but he does not appropriate;
accomplishes, but claims no credit.]

He simply lives, as part of the whole– how can he claim any credit? He simply lives as a part of this organic unity, this existence, this thusness. He is part of it; how can he claim? How can a wave claim anything? The wave is just a part of the ocean.

[he acts, but he does not appropriate;
accomplishes, but claims no credit.

It is because he lays no claim to nocredit
that the credit cannot be taken away from him.]

This is the absurd logic of Lao Tzu. He is absolutely logical, but he has a logic of his own.

He says:

[It is because he lays no claim to nocredit
that the credit cannot be taken away from him.]

If you claim, the claim can be disproved; if you don’t claim, how can the claim– which has not been claimed at all– be disproved?

If you try to be somebody in the world, it may be proved that you are nobody. It will be proved, because everybody is trying to be somebody and everybody is a competitor in that claim. But if you don’t claim, you remain a nobody– how can this be disproved? In your nobodiness you become somebody, and nobody can disprove it and nobody can compete with it. If you try to be victorious you will be defeated. Ask the Alexanders and the Napoleons and the Hitlers: if you try to be victorious you will be defeated. Says Lao Tzu: Don’t try to be victorious, then nobody can defeat you.

A very subtle logic, the logic of life itself: don’t claim, and your claim is absolutely fulfilled; don’t try to be victorious, and your victory is absolute; don’t try, just be, and all that you can try for will come to you by itself, on its own accord. A man who has not asked for anything, who has not been trying to be successful in any way, who has not been striving for any ambition to be fulfilled, suddenly finds that all is fulfilled– life itself comes to him to share its secrets, to share its riches. Because a man who remains without claim becomes emptiness; into that emptiness life goes on pouring its secrets and riches.

Life abhors a vacuum. If you become empty everything will come on its own accord. Trying, you will fail; non-trying, success is absolutely certain.

I am not saying that if you want to be successful don’t try– no, I am not saying that. It is not a result, it is a consequence. And you have to understand the difference between a result and a consequence. When you listen to Lao Tzu or to me, of course you understand the logic that if you try to be victorious, you will be defeated because there are millions of competitors. How can you succeed in this competitive world? Nobody ever succeeds. Everybody fails. And everybody fails absolutely, there is no exception. And then Lao Tzu says that if you don’t try to succeed you will succeed. Your mind becomes greedy, and your mind says: That’s right! So this is the way to succeed! I will not claim, I will not be ambitious so that my ambition can be fulfilled. Now this is asking for a result. You remain the same– you have missed Lao Tzu completely.

Lao Tzu is saying that if you really remain without any claim, without asking for any credit, fame, name, success, ambition, then as a consequence success is there, victory is there. The whole existence pours down into your emptiness; you are fulfilled. This is a consequence, not a result. Result is when you desire it; consequence is when you were not even thinking about it, there was no desire, no thinking about it. It happens as part of the inner law of existence. That law is called Tao.

[It is because he lays no claim to nocredit
that the credit cannot be taken away from him.]

Understand Lao Tzu. And understand your inner greed. Because the greed can say.... It happens every day, almost every day– people come to me and I tell them: Meditate, but don’t ask for results.They say: If we don’t ask for results, will they happen? I say: Yes, they will happen, but don’t ask for them. So they say okay. Then after a few days they come and they say: We have been waiting and they have not happened up to now.

You miss the point. You cannot wait. You can wait for a result; you cannot wait for a consequence. Consequence has nothing to do with you or your waiting. It is part of the innermost law. It happens on its own accord. You are not needed even to wait, because even in the waiting– the desire. And if the desire is there, the consequence will never happen.

Don’t desire and it happens. Don’t ask and it is given. Jesus says: Ask, and it shall be given. Knock and the door shall be opened. Lao Tzu says: Ask not, and it shall be given. Knock not, and the door has always remained open– just look! And I say to you: Lao Tzu goes the deepest, nobody has ever gone deeper. Lao Tzu is the greatest key. if you understand him, he is the master key; you can open all the locks that exist in life and existence. Try to understand him. And it will be easy for you if you don’t ask for any results out of the understanding. Just enjoy the understanding. Just enjoy the fact that you are on a journey with this old guy. This old guy is beautiful– not against ugliness; this old guy is wise– not against stupidity; this old guy is enlightened– not against unenlightenment or unenlightened persons.

This old guy is total. You exist in him, and Buddhas also. He is both.

And if you can understand him, nothing is left to be understood. You can forget Mahavirs, Buddhas, Krishnas– Lao Tzu alone is enough. He is the master key.

Enough for today.