Chapter 2: Sutra 1
The Rise of Relative Opposites
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 recognition of) evil.
Chapter 2: Formula 1
The origin of relative opposites
When the creatures of the earth become acquainted with the beauty of the beautiful, only then do they begin to recognize the ugly. And when they become acquainted with the auspicious, only then do they become aware of what is inauspicious.
As soon as we become acquainted with beauty, as soon as we perceive beauty, we are informed that we have also become acquainted with the ugly. Understanding the good is impossible without understanding the bad.
Lao Tzu reiterates what he said in his first sutras, taking a new dimension. Lao Tzu is saying that a person who experiences beauty cannot experience it without experiencing the ugly. A person who perceives beauty will also perceive ugliness with equal intensity. In fact, one who knows nothing of ugliness will have no idea of beauty either. A person who strives to be good will inevitably have the presence of evil in his mind. A person who wants to be good cannot become good without becoming evil.
Lao Tzu believed—and it's an important one—that the day people learned what beauty was, the world lost its innate beauty, the absence of ugliness. And the day people understood what good was, the innate state of goodness was lost, even when people had no idea of evil.
Let us understand it this way. If we delve into the ancient, most ancient times of humanity, if we consider the first, gentle, simple, and natural state of humanity, we will find no sense of beauty there. But at the same time, there will be no sense of ugliness. We will not find honest people there, because dishonesty was not possible there. We will not find thieves there, because saints did not exist there.
Lao Tzu is saying that our entire lives are always shaped by conflict. If people in a society are eager to be extremely honest, they only indicate that that society has become extremely dishonest. If parents in a society teach their children that telling the truth is religion, then it should be known that that society has lost the natural truth of life, and lying has become the norm in that society.
Lao Tzu is saying that we emphasize the very thing whose opposite is already present. If we tell children, "Don't lie," it simply means that lying is prevalent. If we tell them, "Be honest," it simply means that dishonesty has taken root.
Lao Tzu has a story about going to meet Confucius. Confucius is the greatest moral thinker who has ever lived. A moral thinker, not a religious one! Confucius is not a religious thinker, but a moral thinker. Confucius is one of those who has deeply contemplated and pondered the question of how to be good.
Naturally, Confucius went to meet Lao Tzu, hearing that Lao Tzu was a very religious person, so I pray to Lao Tzu that you also explain to people how to become good, how to become honest, why they should not steal, how to avoid stealing, how to become a non-thief, how to give up anger, how to become forgiving, how to eliminate violence, how to bring non-violence, you also explain to people.
So Confucius went to meet Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu was sitting outside his hut. Confucius said, "Teach people how to become good." Lao Tzu said, "How can people become good unless there is evil? Only if there is evil can people become good. So I explain how to prevent evil; I don't care about good. I want a situation where even the good cannot identify who is good."
Confucius couldn't understand anything. Confucius said, "People are dishonest; they need to be taught honesty." Lao Tzu replied, "The day you started talking about honesty, dishonesty has become rampant. I want the day when people don't even talk about honesty."
Confucius still didn't understand it. No moral thinker will understand this principle. Because a moral thinker believes that good and evil are opposites; if you eliminate evil, good will remain.
Lao Tzu believes that evil and good are two aspects of the same thing. You can't cut off one. If you throw away, throw away both; if you save them, both will survive. If you want goodness to survive, evil will always be there, because goodness cannot survive without evil. And if you want to respect the honest, you will be able to do so only when the dishonest are present.
This is a matter worth understanding. If there were no dishonest people left, would the honest be respected? If there were no thieves left, would the saint have any prestige? This means that if the saint wants to remain respected, he will have to maintain the thief. And one of the mysteries of life is that the saint is constantly speaking against the thief, but he does not know that it is because of the thief that he is recognized. It is because of the thief that he exists. Without the ascetic, the saint would be lost. The saint can exist only around the ascetic, only in his midst.
Lao Tzu says, "Religion existed in the world when there was no trace of saints." Lao Tzu's words are profound. He says, "Religion existed in the world when there was no trace of saints. When there was no thought of auspiciousness, of what goodness was. When no one explained that speaking the truth is religion. When no one told anyone that violence is sin. The day you make non-violence a virtue, the day you call truth a religion, that very day the opposite qualities become present in their full power."
Lao Tzu said to Confucius, "All you good people, calm down, stop talking about goodness in the world. And you will find that if you are able to give up goodness completely, evil will also be left behind."
But Confucius wouldn't understand. Neither would Gandhi. Nor would any other moral person. They would say, "This will only get worse. We somehow preserve goodness by persuading, by holding on to it, by exerting effort." And Lao Tzu is saying that while you preserve goodness, evil also survives. The two are connected. It's impossible to preserve one. Either both must survive or both must be eliminated.
Lao Tzu says, the state of Dharma is one where neither exists. He called it the simple Tao, the world of nature, the world of Dharma. He said, if a person comes into his full nature, there is neither evil nor good. There is no such evaluation, no valuation. There is neither condemnation nor praise. There is neither anything beautiful nor anything ugly. There things are as they are.
Therefore, it often happens that the more a person is filled with a sense of beauty, the more ugliness begins to torment them. Because sensitivity increases simultaneously. If I say that this is beautiful, then everything opposite to it will become ugly. If I decide even slightly on one side, the other side becomes equally determined.
So Lao Tzu says, when the people of the earth all know beauty as beauty, when the people of the earth start recognizing that this is beauty, this is beauty, when they start calling beauty as beauty, there arises the recognition of ugliness, at that very moment the recognition of that which is ugly, that which is deformed, begins, its identification begins. When the people of the earth all know the good as good, and when the people of the earth start recognizing auspicious as auspicious, there arises the recognition of evil, at that very moment the recognition of inauspiciousness begins.
This is a very difficult formula. It means that if we want beauty on earth, then recognizing beauty as beauty is not appropriate. Recognizing it is not appropriate at all, because recognizing it requires using the value of ugliness. If someone asks you, "What is beauty?" you will say that which is not ugly. There is no way to recognize beauty without ugliness. If someone asks you, "Who is a saint?" you will say that which is not wicked. To recognize a saint, you must bring the wicked within the definition. And to recognize beauty, you must draw a boundary between ugliness.
So Lao Tzu says, when beauty is not recognized as beauty—beauty certainly exists, but when no one recognizes it—when no one labels it, no one names it, saying, "Here is beauty," when beauty is nameless, then ugliness doesn't arise. And when no one calls the good auspicious, the good receives no respect, no one honors the good, no one even recognizes the good, then there's no remedy for the evil. There is a good beyond duality, there is a beauty beyond duality. But that beauty cannot be called beauty, and that good cannot be called auspicious. There's no way to say anything about it. The only remedy is to remain silent in this regard.
Lao Tzu said, "Confucius, go back! And you moral people are the ones who distort this world. You are the mischief-makers. Go away. Please, don't try to make anyone good. Because your efforts to make people good will only lead them into evil."
It's quite likely that when a father first tells his son that speaking the truth is righteousness, the son doesn't even know what truth is and what falsehood is. When a father first tells his son that lying is a sin, the son doesn't even know what a lie is. And the father's statement that lying is a sin gives rise to the son's first attraction to lies. Even if his first son has lied, he didn't lie knowingly. Even if his first son has lied, he didn't lie knowingly; he has no awareness of lies. No sinful line of lies can be drawn in his mind unless there is awareness. But now, now the distinction, now the difference will begin. Now he will know what is true and what is false. And as soon as he knows what is true and what is false, the naturalness of the mind is destroyed and conflict is born.
But we create conflict everywhere. And we don't even realize it, we think we're doing it for good.
Lao Tzu is quite revolutionary in this respect. He says, "This is evil, this is evil." Whenever we give birth to evil, we pretend to be good. In fact, evil cannot be directly created. Whenever we give birth to evil, we pretend to be good. We try to create good, and evil is created. No one directly creates evil.
There's a tribal man, a primitive man who lives in the jungle. He doesn't have the same sense of beauty as we do. He doesn't even have the same sense of ugliness as we do. He doesn't even understand this distinction. He's able to love; he doesn't need to bring ugliness and beauty into the picture. He can love even those we call ugly. He can love even those we call beautiful. His love knows no boundaries. It's not that only the beautiful will receive love; it's not that the ugly won't. He's able to love everyone. The concept of beautiful and ugly isn't developed.
We develop concepts. We separate the beautiful and the ugly. And then, the funny thing is, we can't even love the beautiful. What's even more interesting is that without concepts, primitive man could love even the ugly, what we call ugly. But we can't even love the beautiful by developing concepts. First, we think we'll be able to love the beautiful, so we separate the ugly and the beautiful. Then, we can't even love the beautiful. Because a mind filled with duality is incapable of love. And there's a duality between the beautiful and the ugly. And what you call beautiful, how long will it remain beautiful?
It's a very interesting thing: what you called ugly will remain ugly forever. And what you called beautiful will cease to be beautiful after two days. What will you get in return? Have you ever thought about this? What will you get in return? What will become permanent? Its ugliness is fixed forever. But what you called beautiful, after two days you will no longer be able to call it beautiful. Its beauty will be lost. Then, ultimately, such a conflicted mind will not get any beauty at all; only ugliness will accumulate.
And there is a primitive mind that makes no distinctions, no lines of distinction between ugliness and beauty. It is able to love even what we might call ugly. And because it is able to love, everything becomes beautiful to it.
Remember, we love that which is beautiful. After two days, that beauty will melt and deteriorate. The unfamiliar charm of beauty will vanish as soon as we become familiar. The unfamiliar allure and invitation of beauty will disappear. We love that which is beautiful. After two days, that beauty will vanish. Then, where will love survive? Primitive man loves and gives beauty to the one he loves.
You must understand the difference. We love the beautiful. The beautiful will disappear after two days. How will love last? Primitive man loves first and finds beauty in the one he loves. And the speciality of love is that if it is self-dependent, it keeps increasing every day, and if it is dependent on something else, it keeps decreasing every day. If I loved you because you are beautiful, then love will decrease every day. But if I loved you only because I wanted to love, then your beauty will increase every day. If love stands on its own feet, then it is evolving. And if love takes support of someone's shoulder, then sooner or later it will become lame and fall.
But still we are saying this, that is why we have to use the words beauty and ugliness. The primitive mind has no understanding of the words beauty and ugliness. The mind of Adam is almost like a mother having two sons, one whom people call beautiful and one whom people call not beautiful. But for the mother there is no difference in their beauty. One son is not ugly, the other son is not beautiful. Both are sons, hence both are beautiful. Their beauty arises from their being sons. A mother's love is primary. Their beauty arises from that love.
The primitive mind that Lao Tzu is talking about, the mind that lives in simplicity, is beyond duality and distinction.
That's why Lao Tzu says, "Evil must be eradicated; but as long as you seek to preserve goodness, you will not be able to eradicate it. The wicked must be banished from the world, but as long as you go about hailing the virtuous, you will not be able to banish the wicked."
Now, there's a deep trap within this. Even a saint will be interested in having unrighteous people in society. Therefore, when there are more unrighteous people in society, the saint will appear more vibrant. Because he will be able to condemn them, abuse them, launch campaigns to change them, and work hard to reform them. He will find work, he will feel he is doing something. But if there is a society in which there are no unrighteous people, then those whose identity and ego are nourished by the name of saint will become completely impotent and useless; they won't even find a place to stand.
Now this is quite paradoxical, but it is also interesting that the ego of a saint can be strengthened only when he is surrounded by a society of unsaintly people. It is just like a rich man can enjoy himself only when there are people sinking deeper and deeper into poverty around him. A big palace is enjoyable only when there are huts all around. Otherwise, there is no enjoyment in the palace. The enjoyment of the palace is not in the palace itself; it depends on the suffering in the hut. And the enjoyment of a saint is not in his saintliness, but in the strength his ego gets in comparison to the unsaintly people standing all around him.
Lao Tzu says, abandon both; we call that religion where neither good nor evil remains. That is why the usual interpretation of religion is: Good is religion! Lao Tzu will say, no. Auspicious is religion! Lao Tzu will say, no. True is religion! Lao Tzu will say, no. Because where truth is, untruth has appeared. And where auspicious is, evil has set foot. And where auspicious is, evil will always be present. Lao Tzu says, where both are not there, where there is no conflict, where the mind is without conflict, where the mind is in non-duality, where not even an inch of distance has arisen, there is religion. So, for Lao Tzu, religion is beyond duality, transcendental, beyond. Where there is neither darkness nor light. If we tell Lao Tzu that God is the embodiment of light, he will deny it. He will say, then what will happen to darkness? Where will darkness go? Then your God will always remain surrounded by darkness. Because whatever is light is surrounded by darkness.
Remember, any light is surrounded by darkness. There can be no light without darkness. So, light a small wick of light, and an ocean of darkness surrounds it. The wick of light burns within it. If the darkness disappears, the wick of light will instantly be lost, diminished, and no longer exist.
Lao Tzu would say, "No, God is not light. God exists where there is neither light nor darkness, where there is no duality or two."
This is the fundamental difference between moral thinking and religious thinking. Moral thinking always divides life into two parts. It condemns one and honors the other. And the one it honors, it promotes and rewards. The one it condemns, humiliates, and humbles.
But have you ever wondered what the secret is to this entire strategy? What is the secret to this entire system of ethics? What is the secret?
The secret is ego. We say a thief is bad, condemned, and disgraced. So, we tell people's ego that if you are caught stealing, you will be disgraced, insulted, and worthless. People will look at you with evil eyes. If you don't steal, you will be honored. People will garland you and organize chariot processions. People will honor you, your name will be respected, you will gain fame; you will gain fame not only in this world but also in the next, you will become a contender for heaven. And if you do wrong, you will rot in hell, in sin and guilt. But what are we doing? If we look between these two, what are we doing?
We are hurting the ego of the bad man and fulfilling the ego of the good man. And we are teaching everyone that if you want to fulfill your ego, be good. Becoming bad will harm your ego. The entire structure of ethics is built on ego. And the funny thing is that we never consider how ethics can be built on the structure of ego? What could be more immoral than ego? But the entire system is built on the ego of ethics.
When Lao Tzu says this, he is demolishing the entire structure of ego. He is saying that we do not accept good and bad, we do not accept sin and virtue. We seek a state of mind where there is no sense of duality. But there, even the sense of ego will disappear.
Religion is a state of egolessness, and ethics is a system based on ego.
Our entire endeavor, from children to the elderly, revolves around ego. We tell children in school to come first, or face humiliation. If you come first, you are honored. If you get good marks, you are respected. If you get low marks, you are disrespected. Then we continue the same game throughout life. We tell the elderly too that if they do well, they will get more marks and will go to heaven. If they don't do well, they will go to hell and will get fewer marks. They will be defeated and disgraced. They will not gain fame in this world, nor will they lose it in the next world. But only a name!
The ethics we formulate based solely on ego are not ethical. And then, beneath the very framework of ethics, immorality grows ever more profound. Because every person who is adept at presenting themselves as ethical gives up the concern of being ethical. Because the real question is of name, fame, and identity—what will people say?
If I steal and am not caught, I remain a thief. And morality also says that people will say bad things. Whether people say bad things or God says bad things, it makes no difference. Someone will say bad things, I will be humiliated in front of someone. If I steal and am not caught, I steal and I also save my ego. So what's the harm? I commit dishonesty and I also save my honor, so what's the harm? Therefore, morality ultimately proves to be a deception. And those who are skilled and intelligent find clever ways to be immoral and manage to maintain a moral appearance. They appear to be one thing, but they become something else.
Lao Tzu says, we do not believe in this morality.
When news of the Upanishads first reached the West, they too were deeply concerned. Because the Upanishads, too, are close to Lao Tzu. Nowhere in the Upanishads does it say not to steal or to commit violence? The Upanishads offer no such teachings. The West was familiar with Christianity's Ten Commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie—these are the foundations of religion. And when the Upanishads were first translated, or Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching was first translated, Westerners said, "These Easterners seem immoral. These are their great sages! There's not a single word of religion in it. Because the meaning of religion is to teach people not to steal, not to be dishonest, not to cheat. This is not mentioned anywhere in these texts. What kind of religious scriptures are these?"
So, when the West first encountered the profound thought of the East, the Westerners thought these were all immoral principles. As their understanding deepened, and they came closer and deeper into the West, they realized that these were not immoral. They had to create a new concept, a new category: that of the super-moral. Three categories had to be created: immoral, immoral; moral, moral; and super-moral, immoral or transmoral. Gradually, it came to light that these scriptures are neither moral nor immoral. They do not speak of morality at all. They speak of some other mystery, one that transcends morality. These scriptures are theology itself.
It's quite interesting: even an atheist can be moral. And often more moral than a believer. Because even a believer's morality is a bargain. He's after something from his morality—salvation, heaven, virtue, a good life—he's after something. His morality is a bargain. He knows that if he endures a little hardship, he'll gain more happiness. But an atheist's morality is pure morality. There's no bargain, because there's no future life. The atheist knows that even those who do good will die and return to the dust, and those who do evil will also die and return to the dust. There's no reward for virtue. Yet, if an atheist is moral, his morality is certainly more valuable than theism. His morality is more pure. There's no bargain, no expectation, no aspiration, no question of the rewards of virtue, no means of seeking results. Because there's no God who will bestow rewards; there's no system of karma that will deliver rewards. There is no future, no new birth. This is final! If I lie, I will return to dust; if I tell the truth, I will return to dust. There will be no reward. And if an atheist can be moral, his morality is certainly deeper than that of a believer.
An atheist can be moral. An atheist has no difficulty being moral. But an atheist cannot be religious. And a believer who is merely moral is even worse than an atheist. Only if a believer is religious, his belief has any value. Otherwise, his belief is even lower than the morality of an atheist. Because he is doing something to gain something.
If a believer were to discover that there is no God, his morality would waver. If a believer were to discover that there is no rebirth, his morality would waver. If a believer were to discover that the law had changed, and that those who tell the truth were going to hell and those who lied were going to heaven, he would immediately start lying.
It won't matter to an atheist. Whether your God exists or not, whether heaven and hell change, it won't matter to an atheist. Because they aren't his foundation. He isn't moral because of them. He's moral because he believes there's happiness in being moral. My conscience tells me to be moral, so I'm moral. There's no other purpose. I find myself more pure and peaceful, that's why I'm moral. There's no other purpose.
A believer is a believer only if he is religious. It doesn't happen by being moral. Even a moral person can become an atheist, and he is better than a believer.
Lao Tzu is stating the fundamental principle of theism. He is saying, "Don't divide life into dualities; move beyond both."
Fear will immediately arise in our minds. In our minds, which are bound by morality, the fear will arise that if we transcend both, we will become immoral. The immediate thought that will come to mind after listening to Lao Tzu is, if we transcend both, then why not steal? The question will arise in our minds: if we have to give up both, the world will become evil. Because we are good only on the surface, evil is all within. If we slacken even a little, goodness will be destroyed, evil will spread. This fear is the real fear within us.
But Lao Tzu says that one who is willing to transcend even goodness will never be willing to fall into evil. How can you make someone who is willing to abandon even goodness fall into evil? In fact, the root of all evil is ego. And we have made ego the ladder to ascend to goodness. And that is the reason for falling into evil.
Lao Tzu says that one who is not eager to ascend even to goodness will not be willing to fall into evil. And one who is eager to ascend to goodness can be tempted to fall into evil at any time. A moment, and he will fall. If he sees that evil can yield more rewards than goodness—because it is for the sake of reward that he is doing goodness—if he sees that evil will satisfy his ego more than goodness, then he will immediately fall into evil. Because he has gone into goodness also for the sake of his ego.
Lao Tzu says, "For one who transcends both good and evil, there is no way for him to fall, nor any way for him to rise. He doesn't climb mountains, he doesn't descend into ravines. He arrives at the flat line of life. That flat line is called Rita, that flat line is called Tao. Where he doesn't fall even an inch, nor does he rise even an inch. That flat line is called Dharma."
So Lao Tzu says, "I don't tell you to abandon evil, I don't tell you to embrace goodness. I tell you to understand that good and evil are two names for the same thing. Recognize that these two are combined phenomena. And when you recognize that these two are combined, you will be able to transcend both."
If we understand it in some other way then perhaps it will become clear.
You are standing near a flower. Is it necessary to call it beautiful? Is it necessary to call it ugly? And does your saying make any difference to the flower? Your saying makes no difference to the flower. But your saying definitely makes a difference to you. If you call it beautiful, your behavior towards the flower changes. If you call it ugly, your behavior towards the flower changes. Your saying makes no difference to the flower, but it makes a difference to you.
And what is the real basis for saying that a flower is beautiful? What is the criteria? What is the scale by which you measure whether a flower is beautiful? You would be in great difficulty if someone asked why? So what is the basis?
The deepest reason would be that I like it. But is your liking a rule for beauty? What would be the basis for ugliness? That I don't like it. But God has made your dislike a rule, that the thing that has become ugly is disliked. What news do likes and dislikes give? They give news about you, but nothing about the flower. Because I can stand next to the same flower and express a different liking. The flower will still remain a flower. Someone may call it ugly, someone may call it beautiful, no one may say anything, the flower will still remain a flower. And even if a thousand people pass by the flower and make a thousand statements, the flower will still remain a flower. Then, about whom do those statements give news? About the flower or about the one who gave it?
If we understand correctly, all statements convey information about the person making them. If I say, "This flower is beautiful," then to express it correctly, I would have to say, "I am such a person that I find this flower beautiful." But it's not necessary that this flower will appear beautiful to me in the evening; it may appear ugly in the evening. Then I would have to say, "Now I have become such a person that this flower appears ugly to me. But it may appear beautiful again tomorrow morning." This beauty and ugliness—are they objective, subjective, material, or subjective feelings? Are they our inner, mental feelings, or the nature of the object?
These are our mental feelings. It's unfair to project these mental feelings onto a flower. Who are you to project them onto a flower? What right do you have? We have no right at all. Yet we're all projecting ourselves onto ourselves.
Stand near a flower for a day and observe it. Don't call it beautiful or ugly. It's enough that it's a flower. Stand there quietly, control your old habit of immediately declaring it beautiful or ugly. Stop judging, don't make a decision, just stand there. Let the flower be there, and you be here, without any judgment in between about whether it's beautiful or ugly.
And the day, with a few days of practice, when it becomes possible that there is no emotion, no judgment between you and the flower, that day you will experience a new beauty of the flower, one that transcends beauty and ugliness. That day, the flower will appear new to you. That day, you will have no mental perceptions. That day, you will have no likes or dislikes. That day, you will not be in the middle. The flower itself will bloom in its fullness. And when the flower blooms in its fullness, without any interference from our emotions, then it has a beauty that transcends both beautiful and ugly. Remember, when I say that it has a beauty of its own, one that transcends our perceptions.
Lao Tzu says, "We call that beauty where ugliness is not even known. But then even beauty is not known, as we know beauty."
There's a tree. You're passing by, and a branch falls on you in the rain. You don't say, "The tree has done something terrible; that it's wicked, that it's evil, that it's violent; that it intended to harm you; that you'll now take revenge on the tree."
No, you don't say anything. You don't make any judgments about the tree. You are indecisive about the tree. Then a fallen branch doesn't haunt your sleep at night. Then you don't spend months agonizing over how to take revenge. Because you haven't made any judgments about whether it was good or bad, whether the tree did good or bad. You haven't even considered that the tree did anything. It was a coincidence that you were downstairs and the branch fell. You don't blame the tree.
But a man might hit you with a stick. Forget about the stick, he might even hurl an insult at you. A stick hurts a little, but an insult doesn't. How could mere words inflict a wound? But the mind immediately decides whether the person did wrong or good, or whether revenge is necessary. Now worry will take hold. Your mind will linger around the insult.
K. Now, months could be wasted; years could be wasted; it could even take a lifetime. But where did it all begin? Did it start with that man's abuse or with your decision? This is something to understand.
If you hadn't made a decision and said, "It was a coincidence that I happened to be near you and you uttered the curse, just as I was passing by and a tree branch fell, it was a coincidence that I happened to pass by and you uttered the curse." I don't make any judgments about whether it was auspicious or inauspicious; it was a coincidence. If I truly saw this, like the branch of a tree, as a coincidence and didn't judge between good and bad, would it become a worry in my mind? Would this curse become a wound? Would I have to waste more time on it? Would I have to create and deliver curses? And by cursing, would I invite more curses? No, it's over. I didn't judge anything good or bad. It was a fact, and the knowing grew. Lao Tzu calls it auspicious.
Now keep in mind, there are very subtle nuances in this. Jesus would say that if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek to him. Lao Tzu would say, don't do that. Jesus would say, if someone slaps you on the other cheek, turn the other cheek to him. But Lao Tzu would say, if you turn the other cheek to him, then you have made a decision, you have taken a decision. And you have reacted, and you have also responded. Granted, you did not abuse, but you did slap him; you turned the other cheek, didn't you?
Jesus says, love even your enemy. Lao Tzu would say, "No, don't do that." Because even though you expressed love, you still assumed he was your enemy. Lao Tzu's point is very profound. Lao Tzu would say, "To love your enemy means to accept him as your enemy." Then what you did—whether you abused him, hated him, or loved him—are other matters. But one thing is certain: he is your enemy.
There's a story in Nasruddin's life where he slaps his younger brother. His father says to him, "Nasruddin, just yesterday you were reading in the Bible that you should love even your enemy."
Nasruddin said, "I was reading that; but he is my brother, not my enemy. I agree with that. But he is not my enemy at all."
The enemy's acceptance, Lao Tzu would say, is a decision. And you have accepted that this man has done evil. Therefore, you must not respond with evil, but with good.
Jesus says to respond to evil with good. But you've already decided that he did evil. Then you respond with good, and this becomes moral, not religious. Lao Tzu would say, you don't respond at all because you don't make a decision. You say, "This happened, the matter is over." You don't think beyond this, you don't allow any thought to arise. A man slapped me, and the matter is over, the incident is complete. You don't begin anything from this incident in your mind. Anything—whether he did good or bad, whether he was a friend or an enemy; who is he, who is not; what should I do or what should I not do—you don't initiate any thought. This incident is over, the door is closed, the chapter is over. You put an end to it; you put an end to it. The matter is over. The fact is complete. You don't drag it on in your mind. So Lao Tzu says, you are religious.
If you even decide, "This is bad, what should I do now?" you fall from dharma. Discrimination itself is a departure from dharma. Decision itself is a fall from dharma.
Lao Tzu's entire effort is to make you aware of the mind's ingrained habit of splitting things in two; to awaken before the mind can split things in two. Before the mind splits things in two, awaken. It cannot split them. Once it has split them in two, no matter what you do, no matter what you do, once the mind has split them in two, you will never be able to break free from the cycle. Wake up before it splits them in two.
That's why he raises two issues: beauty and goodness. These are our fundamental distinctions. Our entire aesthetics is based on the distinction between beauty. And our entire ethics is based on the distinction between good and bad. Lao Tzu says, religion does not exist in these two. Beyond these two! Beyond all distinctions: pleasant and unpleasant, interesting and unpleasant, beautiful and ugly, auspicious and inauspicious, good and bad, beneficial and undesirable, religion exists.
Lao Tzu would not say that forgiveness is a religion. Lao Tzu would say that when you forgive, you acknowledge that anger has arisen. No, when anger arises or forgiveness arises, you should be startled and aware that now a conflict of opposites arises.
That's why we can't call Lao Tzu forgiving. If we ask Lao Tzu, "Do you forgive everyone?" Lao Tzu will say, "I never got angry." If someone abused Lao Tzu, we'd think he forgave because he didn't say anything and went on his way. But we're mistaken. If we ask Lao Tzu, he'll say, "No, I didn't get angry; forgiveness is out of the question. Forgiveness is possible only when there is anger." And once there is anger, can there be forgiveness? Then everything is a cover-up. Then everything is a behind-the-scenes arrangement, a band-aid. Lao Tzu says, "I never got angry." Therefore, I didn't bother to forgive. That was the second step, which would have been necessary if I had gotten angry.
Lao Tzu's deepest emphasis is on becoming alert before any conflict arises and remaining in non-conflict, do not enter into conflict.
Question:
Bhagwan, just as yesterday you told us about the method of getting rid of anger through catharsis and foot pillow beating, please look at what methods should be used to get rid of lust, greed, attachment and ego.
Lust, anger, greed, attachment, ego! The words make it seem as if a multitude of diseases surround humanity. The truth is not that. There aren't as many diseases as we know the names. There is only one disease. The same energy, manifested in all of them. If you suppress lust, it becomes anger. And we all have suppressed lust, so anger accumulates within us in varying degrees. Now, if we want to avoid anger, we have to give it some form. Otherwise, anger will prevent us from living. So, if you can transform the power of anger into greed, you will become less angry; your anger will begin to manifest as greed. Then you will suppress people less, and will tighten your fist around the neck of money.
It's important to keep in mind that humans have only one energy, one source of energy. We can use it in twenty-five ways. But if we become distorted, it can flow in a thousand streams. And if you try to fight each stream, you'll go mad, because you'll keep fighting each one and never truly confront the source.
So, the first thing to understand is that every person has one fundamental energy. And if any transformation is to be achieved, it's essential to connect directly with that fundamental energy. Don't get entangled in its manifestations. The easiest way is to start with whichever of these four is most dominant within you. If you feel that anger is the most dominant within you, then that becomes your chief characteristic.
Whenever someone went to Gurdjieff, he would say, "First, let me find out your specific illness; what is your specific illness? What are your specific symptoms?"
And every person has a special characteristic. Someone's special characteristic is greed. Someone's special characteristic is anger. Someone's special characteristic is lust. Someone's special characteristic is fear. Someone's special characteristic is ego. There are characteristics. Catch hold of your special characteristic. And don't fight with everyone. Don't fight with everyone, catch hold of your special characteristic. That special characteristic is the biggest stream connected to your original source. If it is anger, then catch hold of anger. If it is lust, then catch hold of lust. And start practicing awareness and catharsis on that special characteristic. As I told you yesterday about anger, a friend is experimenting even on a pillow and there are great results.
Whatever special characteristic you have within you, do two things about it. The first thing is to increase your awareness of it. Because the difficulty is always that whatever is our special characteristic, we keep it hidden the most. For example, an angry person hides his anger the most because he is afraid it might come out. He keeps it hidden. He creates a thousand kinds of lies around himself so that others do not become aware of his anger, and he himself does not even become aware of it. And if it is not known, it cannot be changed.
So first of all remove all the curtains and understand your situation clearly that this is my special symptom.
Second, start becoming aware of this. For example, when anger arises, we immediately think of the person who made us angry; we don't think of the one who got angry. If you made me angry, I get lost in your thoughts and forget myself completely; whereas the real thing is me, the one who got angry. The one who made me angry only acted as an instrument. He is gone. He threw a small spark and my gunpowder is burning. And his spark would have been useless if I had no gunpowder. But I don't look at my burning building of gunpowder; now I look at its spark. And I think that all the fire that is burning in me was thrown by that person.
That man didn't throw so much fire, he just threw a spark. This fire is my gunpowder, burning and taking such a huge form. That man didn't throw so much fire. He may not even have known. He may have thrown it unknowingly. He may not even have noticed that you are burning in the house.
You project all this anger onto that person. And so when you get angry at him, he doesn't even understand that it wasn't even that serious. He doesn't understand either, and that's why it's always difficult. Because whatever you project is yours.
That's why he's also shocked that he didn't even say anything to you, and yet you're going so crazy! It's beyond his understanding. Anyone you've ever gotten angry at knows that it was beyond their understanding that there was no reason for such anger. If someone has gotten angry at you, you too think that it wasn't such a big deal. It was a small matter, and you're making a big deal out of it. But there's a natural fallacy, a natural illusion, and that is that whatever fire burns within me, I think you lit it. You throw a spark, and I have gunpowder ready. That gunpowder catches the fire. And how much it will spread, it's hard to say.
And whenever we become angry, our focus is on the one who triggered the anger. If you maintain this focus, you will never be able to overcome anger. When someone provokes you to anger, immediately forget them; and now remember the one who is causing the anger. And remember, no matter how much you contemplate the one who caused the anger, you will not be able to make any difference. If there can be any difference, it can be in the one who caused the anger.
So when anger, greed, lust—when anything takes hold—let go of the object immediately. A woman's mind becomes aroused by lust, a man's mind becomes aroused by lust; remember, the same thing is happening; he merely ignites the spark, perhaps he's unaware. And in the case of anger, there's some effort on the part of the other, but in the case of lust, there's often no effort at all. A woman is passing by, and lust takes hold of your mind. Even then, you're engrossed in contemplating her. Even then, you don't see what the inner energy, the one in which lust is igniting, is. In this way, we miss knowing ourselves, observing ourselves. And without self-observation, there can be no transformation in life.
So when you're overcome with lust, immediately forget the outside, forget the object, forget the subject. Forget immediately whoever made you lust, anger, greed. And immediately meditate within, what's happening inside you? Don't suppress it; let whatever is happening be complete. Close the room. Let whatever is happening be complete. The more clearly you can see it, the better.
If anger is rising within you, then scream, jump, leap, rant, do whatever you want, close the room. Act out your complete madness in front of yourself. Because others have seen this madness of yours many times; you alone have escaped seeing it. Others have enjoyed it enough. You have given others a lot of pleasure. You alone have escaped seeing this incident. And you realize it only when the whole incident is over, the drama is over. Then, sitting in your home, you look back at it in your memory. Then only ashes remain; the fire is gone.
And remember, ashes don't reveal anything about fire. No matter how large a pile of ashes you have in your house, they don't reveal even the smallest ember of fire. And someone who hasn't seen fire can't draw any conclusions about what fire is by looking at ashes. No conclusions are possible. No logic can lead from ashes to fire. You can't even guess, you can't even draw an inference. And whenever you look at your anger, you see it as ashes. When everything is gone, all that remains is a pile of ashes, and you sit there regretting it.
No, that won't be helpful. When the fire is fully burning, observe it. And it will be easier to see it if you express it. And remember, when you express it to others, you never fully express it. If I'm angry with my wife, or husband, or father, or son, or brother, there are limitations to my anger. Because no wife is so strong that I can vent my anger on her. There's a limit. I'll rage up to a point, and I'll swallow the rest. I can't fully express it. No one has ever expressed their anger completely. Even when a father expresses his anger to a small son—though the son has no strength, he could break his neck if he wanted—he too can't fully express it. Twenty-five limitations stand in the way. Even if you can do a little, you can't enjoy it, and it also causes pain. You can't even see it fully. So, you'll do it again tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow, and always leave it incomplete.
If you want to fully understand anger, it can only be done alone. Then there are no limits. That's why I have some friends practice pillow meditation, the process of meditating on a pillow, because it can be done on a pillow.
The friend I was talking about yesterday, his friend came to me today and told me that he had taken out a knife and ripped a pillow to shreds. I didn't even say that. We would immediately laugh, wondering how someone could rip a pillow with a knife? But if we can tear a living person apart, then we can't laugh, so what's the difficulty in tearing a pillow apart? And even when a person tears a living person apart, the fun is in the tearing apart, it has nothing to do with the person. The pillow also gets just as much fun. And the pillow gets more fun because there's no need to impose any limits on the pillow.
So lock yourself in your room and whenever the root of your illness, your illness, has a chance to manifest, let it manifest. Consider it meditation, consider it concentration. Bring it out completely. Let it manifest in every fiber of your being. Shout, jump, leap, let whatever is happening happen. And look back, you will laugh. You will also be surprised. You will be amazed to know that I can do this. Your mind will also be filled with wonder: how am I doing this? And alone? Even if someone was there, it would have been fine.
You'll feel a little uneasy once or twice, but the third time you'll be fully engaged and able to do it with full passion. And when you're able to do it with full passion, you'll have a wonderful experience: you'll be doing it from the outside, while a consciousness will stand in the middle, watching. This is sometimes difficult or very difficult to do with another person. In solitude, it will happen easily. Flames of anger will be burning all around, but you'll stand in the middle and separate yourself.
And once someone stands apart like this and observes their anger, once someone stands up like this and observes their lust, greed, and fear, a ray of knowledge will begin to dawn in their life. They have attained an experience. They have recognized their own energy. And now they cannot be deceived by this energy. The energy we recognize, we become its master. The power we know, we become its master. And the power we do not know, we are its slave.
So you can think of the pillow as your beloved. You can think of it as the Kohinoor diamond. You can even think of it as your enemy, one in whose presence you tremble and fear. There's no question what you... Whatever your characteristic, recognize that characteristic.
And it's not difficult to recognize him. Because he's after you twenty-four hours a day. You know very well what your basic characteristic is. There's only one basic characteristic in a man; everything else is connected to it. If lust is the core in him, then anger, greed, everything else will be secondary. Even if he's greedy, it's to fulfill lust. Even if he's angry, it's to fulfill lust. Even if he's afraid, it's so that there's no hindrance to lust. Lust will be primary, everything else will become secondary.
If anger is your root, then you will love someone only so that you can express your anger. Your sexual desire will become secondary, secondary. Such a person will love people so that he can express his anger. But his root will be anger. Such a person will also be greedy and earn money so that he can have power when he becomes angry. Whether he knows it or not, as his wealth increases, his capacity for anger will also increase. And he will completely crush those over whom his wealth has power. If such a person desires position, it is so that after reaching that position, he can fully express his anger. Often, it is not visible how hidden anger remains.
One of Winston Churchill's daughters married a man Churchill didn't want her to marry. She was deeply angry, but she swallowed it. The marriage took place. She never told the young man she was angry. The poor fellow had no idea. He would always call Churchill "Papa," "Papa." But whenever Churchill called him "Papa," she would become furious. He couldn't bear to hear this man call him "Papa."
One day after the Second World War, his son-in-law came to visit and asked Churchill, "Father, who do you consider the greatest politician in the world right now?"
Then he called him "Papa," and he became very uneasy. He said, "I consider Mussolini the greatest politician." His son-in-law was a little surprised. Because Churchill would call his enemy Mussolini that! And when there were great people in the world—Roosevelt, Stalin, and Hitler—then his attention would immediately turn to Mussolini! And Churchill himself was no less a man than Mussolini, he was even more so.
So he asked, I don't understand why you like Mussolini...?
Churchill was startled, but he said, "Let it go." But his son-in-law insisted, "Tell me why?" He replied, "Now that you don't agree, I'll tell you. I was able to call Mussolini a great politician because he had the courage to shoot his own son-in-law. There's no other reason. At that moment, I felt like shooting you. When you say, 'Father,' I feel like shooting you. But I don't have the guts. Mussolini had guts; he shot his own son-in-law. That's why I consider him a very powerful man. I don't have that much guts."
There are layers in our minds. We keep them hidden, we keep them suppressed. Sometimes they unravel, sometimes they emerge, sometimes they become visible. Sometimes we keep them hidden for a lifetime. Many times it happens that a person thinks that there is something more in him, that there is something more.
So, the first step to identifying yourself is to observe yourself a little. Keep a diary for a month. Write down every day what you are doing the most.
Identify these three things. Which instinct recurs the most? Greed, lust, fear, anger—which ones? Which ones recur the most in twenty-four hours?
Then, consider the thing that has the most repetition: does it evoke the most interest in its repetition? Also, consider that there are two ways to experience interest: it can be enjoyable, it can also be remorseful. But there is interest in both situations.
Then, thirdly, consider that if that instinct is completely cut off from you, will your personality remain the same or will it completely change? Because by changing your core character, your entire personality will become different. You won't even be able to imagine what you would be like if you cut that part off.
Keep a diary for fifteen days. Keep a record of every twenty-four hour day for fifteen days and figure out what the issue is. You'll arrive at one, which will be primary. Then become aware of that basic instinct. And whenever that instinct awakens, observe its expression in solitude, become a witness. It will also be cathartic, purged, and its awareness will also increase. And you will begin to feel more in control of yourself.
If you keep Lao Tzu's words in mind while going through this process, it will become much simpler. If you want to understand anger only to know how to become free from it, then you will have great difficulty in understanding it. Because you have created a distinction in the very feeling of freedom. You start believing that non-anger is a very good thing, anger is a bad thing; lust is a bad thing, desirelessness is a good thing; greed is a bad thing, non-greed is a good thing; if you create such a distinction, then you will have great difficulty in understanding it. And even if you somehow transcend it, that crossing will be suppression, repression.
If we keep Lao Tzu's words in mind, there's no need to connect anger with non-anger. There's no need to even think that anger is bad. Right now, we don't even know what anger is. Why should we judge what is bad? The judgment of what is bad is borrowed. We've heard others say anger is bad. We too say anger is bad, and we go on doing it.
No, let go of judgment. Just know what anger is. Don't rush into deciding whether it's good or bad. Who knows? Go and explore anger with complete impartiality. If you go with impartiality, anger will reveal to you all the layers buried within it. If you go with the assumption that it's bad, its deeper parts will remain suppressed; they won't be revealed to you. For them to be revealed, your mind must be completely impartial. Because you suppressed it because it's bad; that's why you suppressed it. If you still believe it's bad, you'll continue to suppress it. Therefore, a strange and unfortunate phenomenon occurs: the more people try to avoid anger, the angrier they become. Because to avoid it, you have to suppress it. And to be free, you need to know. And knowing is impossible with a suppressed mind.
Go with an unbiased mind. Go knowing just this: just as lightning flashes in the sky, neither good nor bad; just as clouds thunder, neither good nor bad; similarly, anger sparks within, currents of greed flow, the energy of lust moves; all this is there. These are forces, go to see them with an unbiased mind. Not with any ill will, not with any judgment. Never start with a conclusion, otherwise you will never reach a conclusion. Never start with a conclusion; let the conclusion come at the end.
Otherwise, you'll be like a school child who turns the book over and looks at the back to see the answer. And once you see the answer, it becomes a real problem.
There's no need to see the answer. You should process it, you should go through the process. The answer will come. Once you've seen the answer first, there's so much hurry to get it that there's no time to process it. And we're all sitting there with the answer. We've all looked at the book upside down. Or our ancestors gave us the book upside down; so we get the answer first, then we discover the process. And sometimes we don't even realize the process, because those who know the answer think, when you already know the answer, what's the point of the process?
You know that anger is bad, you know that lust is bad.
Just eight days ago, a friend came over. He said, "I just heard you speak on the Gita, and I really liked it. That's why I came. Previously, when I heard you speak on sexual desire, I felt so bad that I stopped coming. I had stopped coming altogether. I really liked the Gita when I heard it, so I came."
I said, tell me, what is the problem?
So the problem is that sexual desire torments the mind. So I said, "I won't talk to you, otherwise you'll feel bad again. Read the Gita and find your way out."
What amazing people you are! I said, "Get out of the door and don't come here again to ask me about sex. If you have any questions about the Gita, come. Because ask only what you like."
Lust is the problem, but we fear even learning about it. Therefore, anyone who tells us about it seems like an enemy. The Gita doesn't help. Listen to it with pleasure and go home. It doesn't touch our lives in any way. We have nothing to do with it. We stand outside, while the Gita's current flows away.
I said, "What kind of a man are you? And this isn't just a one-person issue. I know so many people who have that question..." But I shouldn't even admit it in my mind that it's my question.
He started telling me that I am asking you this privately, I am asking you this privately, there is no need to say this in public.
I said, "Just as this question is personal to you, it's a personal question for everyone. And everyone wants to hear the Gita publicly. So, what and where will I go about telling each person in private? And you're afraid to even raise your real problem. And you enjoy listening to something that isn't your problem. So thousands of years pass, and people remain the same."
Grasp your problem, don't jump to conclusions. One who starts with a conclusion never reaches a conclusion. Start with the problem. We don't know the conclusion, start by assuming that we don't know it. We don't know whether anger is good or bad, beautiful or ugly—it is. Now let's fully understand what it is.
And the most interesting thing is that the one who knows completely becomes free. But the one who wants to be free cannot know completely. Keep this difficulty in mind. The one who wants to be free has already concluded that it is bad. Now there is no question of going through that process. He says, "I already know it is bad; now just tell me how to become free!" And there is only one process for becoming free: complete realization. And he says, "I already know that it is bad." Then he does not go through the process of complete realization.
So go through the process, understand it fully. Avoid borrowing conclusions from others. Whether Buddha says it, Mahavira says it—whoever says it—I say, it doesn't matter whether it is good or bad. Don't draw conclusions. Go within without any conclusions, impartially, unprejudiced, without any preconceived notions. And see what it is? What is anger? Know anger through anger itself; don't impose your preconceived notions on it. And the day you know anger in its complete nakedness, in its complete ferocity, in its complete fire and poison, that very day you will find that you are suddenly outside, anger is no longer there.
And this can be done with any instinct. It doesn't matter the instinct; the process will be the same. The disease is the same, just the names are different.