| statue of Lao Tzu (Laozi) at Hangu Pass, Henan, China -- photo by oshobob, 2006 |
| Tao The Three Treasures Vol. 2 (aka: Living Tao) talks on the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu by Osho Chapter 1 On Knowing the Eternal Law |
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- ON KNOWING THE ETERNAL LAW:
- Attain the utmost in Passivity,
Hold firm to the basis of Quietude.
The myriad things take shape and rise to activity,
But I watch them fall back to their repose,
Like vegetation that luxuriantly grows
But returns to the root (soil) from which it springs.
To return to the root is Repose;
It is called going back to one's Destiny.
Going back to one's Destiny is to find the Eternal Law,
To know the Eternal Law is Enlightenment.
And not to know the Eternal Law
Is to court disaster.
Death is destiny. It has to be so because it is the origin -- you
come from death and you go to death. Life is just a moment
between two nothingnesses, just a flight of a bird between two
states of non-being.
If death is destiny, as it is, then the whole of life becomes a
preparation, a training for it -- a discipline in how to die rightly
and how to die totally and utterly. The whole of life consists in
learning how to die. But somehow a wrong conception about
death has entered humanity, the conception that death is the
enemy. This is the basis of all wrong conceptions, and this is
the basis of humanity going astray from the eternal law, from
Tao. How has this happened? It has to be understood.
Man has taken death as the enemy of life, as if death is there
to destroy life, as if death is against life. If this is the
conception then of course you have to fight death, and life
becomes an effort to survive death. Then you are fighting
against your own origin, you are fighting against your destiny,
you are fighting against something which is going to happen.
The whole fight is absurd because death cannot be avoided.
If it were something outside you it could be avoided, but it is
inside. You carry it from the very moment you are born. You
start dying really when you start breathing, at the same
moment. It is not right to say that death comes in the end, it
has always been with you from the very beginning. It is part of
you, it is your innermost center, it grows with you, and one day
it comes to a culmination, one day it comes to flowering. The
day of death is not the day of death's coming, it is the
flowering. Death was growing within you all this time, now it has
reached a peak; and once death reaches a peak you
disappear back into the origin.
But man has taken a wrong attitude and that wrong attitude
creates struggle, fight, violence. A man who thinks that death
is against life can never be non-violent. It is impossible. A man
who thinks that death is the enemy can never be at ease, at
home. That is impossible. How can you be at ease when the
enemy is waiting for you any moment? It will jump on you and
destroy you. How can you be non-tense when death is waiting
just at the corner, and the shadow of death is always falling on
you? It can happen any moment. How can you rest when death
is there? How can you relax? The enemy won't allow you to
relax.
Hence the tension, the anxiety, the anguish of humanity. The
more you fight with death, the more anxiety-ridden you will
become, you are bound to become. It is a natural
consequence. If you fight with death you know that you are
going to be defeated. How can you be happy with a life which
is going to end in defeat? You know that whatsoever effort you
make, nothing is going to succeed against death. Deep down
you are certain about only one thing and that is death. In life
everything else is uncertain, only death is certain. There is
only one certainty, and in that certainty you have an enemy.
Fighting with certainty and hoping for uncertainties how can
you be in a repose? How can you be relaxed, calm, collected?
Impossible.
People come to me and they say they would like to be at
peace, they would like to be at home in the world, they would
like to be silent, they need a certain relaxation. But I look into
their eyes and the fear of death is there. Maybe they are just
trying to be relaxed to fight against death more easily; maybe
they are trying to find a repose so that they can become
stronger against death. But if death is there how can you be
relaxed, silent, at peace, at home? If death is the enemy, then
basically the whole of life becomes your enemy. Then every
moment, everywhere, the shadow falls; then every moment,
from everywhere, death echoes. The whole life becomes
inimical, and you start fighting.
The whole concept of the Western mind is to fight to survive.
They say, 'survival of the fittest', 'life is a struggle'. Why is it a
struggle? It is a struggle because death is taken as the
opposite. Once you understand that death is not the opposite
of life but part of it, an intrinsic part of it, which can never be
separated from it -- once you accept death as a friend,
suddenly a transformation happens. You are transfigured,
your vision now has a new quality in it. Now there is no fight, no
war, you are not fighting against anybody, now you can relax,
now you can be at home. Once death becomes a friend only
then does life become a friend also. This may look paradoxical
but it is so, only the appearance is paradoxical. If death is the
enemy, then deep down life is also the enemy, because life
leads to death.
Every type of life leads to death -- the poor man's life, the rich
man's life, a life of success and a life of failure, the life of the
wise man and the life of an ignorant one, the life of a sinner
and a saint. All sorts of lives, whatsoever their differences,
lead to death. How can you be in love with life if you are
against death? Then your love is just nothing but a
possessiveness, your love is nothing but a clinging. Against
death you cling to life, but you can understand that this very
life is bringing death nearer every day. So you are doomed, all
your efforts are doomed. And then anxiety arises, the whole
being trembles. You live in a trembling and then you become
violent and mad.
In the West the proportion of mad people is much higher than
in the East. The reason is clear. The West takes death against
life but the East has a totally different standpoint -- life and
death are one, two faces of the same phenomenon. Once you
accept death many things are immediately accepted. In fact if
you accept death as part of life, then all other enemies are
also accepted as part of friendship because the basic duality
dissolves, the duality of life and death, being and non-being. If
the basic duality is resolved, then all other dualities are just
superficial, they dissolve. Suddenly you are at home -- eyes
are clear, no smoke is in them, perception is absolutely clear,
and no darkness is around.
But why, why has it happened in the West? And it is happening
in the East also because the East is turning more Western
every day. In all education, in scientific attitudes the East is no
longer purely Eastern, it is already contaminated. The East is
now also becoming anxious, afraid. Have you observed that in
the West there is much time consciousness but in the East it is
not so much, and even if it is, it is only in the cultured,
educated parts? If you move to the villages there is no time
consciousness. In fact, time consciousness is death
consciousness: when you are afraid of death then time is
short. With so many things to do and so little time given, you
are conscious of every second passing. Life is being
shortened so you are tense, running around, doing many
things, trying to enjoy the whole of it, running from one place to
another, one enjoyment to another -- and enjoying nothing
because you are so time conscious.
In the East people are not so time conscious because they
have accepted life. You may not be aware that in India we
have named death as time. We call death 'kal', and we also
call time 'kal'; kal means time and kal means death as well. To
use the same word for both means a very deep understanding,
it is very meaningful. Time is death, death is time: the more
death conscious you are, the more time conscious you will be,
the less death conscious, the less time conscious. Then there
is no question of time. If you have completely absorbed death
into life time consciousness simply disappears. Why in the
West and now in the East is there so much anxiety about
death, so much so, that life cannot be enjoyed at all?
Living in a timeless world rocks are more happy than man;
living in a world where death is not known the trees are more
blissful than man; not that they don't die, but death is not
known. Animals happy, celebrating, birds singing, the whole
existence except man is blissfully unaware of death. Only man
is aware of death and that creates all the other problems; that
is the source problem, the basic rift.
It should not be so because man is the highest, the most
refined, the peak of existence -- why should it be so with man?
Whenever you attain to a peak, almost side by side the valley
becomes deeper. A high peak can exist only with a deep
valley. For rocks there is no unhappiness, no valley part,
because their happiness is also on the plain ground. Man is a
peak, he has risen high, but because of this rise, side by side
there is a depth, a valley. You look down and you feel
nauseous, you look down and you feel afraid. The valley is
part of the peak, the valley cannot exist without the peak and
the peak cannot exist without the valley, they are together,
they are a togetherness. But a man standing at the height of
the peak looks down and feels nauseous, giddy, afraid, fearful.
Man is conscious -- that is where the whole trouble lies.
Consciousness is a two-edged sword; it cuts both ways. It can
make you so utterly happy that that type of happiness is not
known anywhere in existence; it can make you so unhappy and
miserable that that type of unhappiness is also not known
anywhere else in the world. Man is a double possibility; by
being conscious two roads suddenly open before him.
Consciousness can become a blessing, but it can become a
curse also. Every blessing comes with a curse, the problem is
that it depends on you how you choose. Let me explain it to
you, then we can enter the sutra easily.
Man is conscious. The moment man becomes conscious he
becomes conscious of the end also -- that he is going to die.
He becomes conscious of tomorrow, conscious of time,
conscious of the passing of time -- then sooner or later the
end will come near. The more he becomes conscious, the
more death becomes a problem, the only problem. How to
avoid it? This is using consciousness in a wrong way. It is just
as if you have given a child a telescope, and the child doesn't
know how to use it. He can look into the telescope from the
wrong end.
Consciousness is a telescope, you can look through it from the
wrong end. And the wrong end has some benefits of its own --
that creates more trouble. Through the wrong end of the
telescope you can see that many benefits are possible; in the
short range many benefits are possible. People who are time
conscious gain something in comparison to people who are not
time conscious. People who are death conscious attain many
things in comparison to those who are not death conscious.
That's why the West goes on accumulating material wealth and
the East has remained poor. If you are not death conscious,
who bothers?
People live moment to moment as if the tomorrow doesn't exist.
Who accumulates? For what? Today is so beautiful, why not
celebrate it, and we will see about tomorrow when it comes.
In the West they have accumulated infinite wealth because
they are so time conscious. They have reduced their whole life
into things, material things -- skyscrapers. They have attained
much wealth... that is the benefit of looking from the wrong
end. They can see only certain things which are close, short-
range, they cannot see farther away. Their eyes have become
like those of a blind man who cannot see farther away. He
looks at just whatsoever he can gather right now, without
thinking that it may be at a very great cost in the end. In the
long range this benefit may not prove a benefit. You can make
a big house, but by the time it is built you are ready to go; you
couldn't live in it at all. You could have lived in a small house
beautifully, even a cottage would have done, but you thought
that you would live in a palace. Now the palace is ready but the
man is gone. He is not there.
People accumulate wealth at the cost of their own self. Finally,
eventually, one day, they become aware that they have lost
themselves and that they have purchased useless things. The
cost was great, but now nothing can be done, the time is past.
If you are time conscious you will be mad about accumulating
things, you will transform your whole life energy into things. A
man who is conscious of the whole range will enjoy this
moment as much as he can. He will float. He will not bother
about the tomorrow because he knows tomorrow never comes.
He knows deeply that finally only one thing has to be attained
-- that is one's own self.
Live, and live so totally that you come in contact with
yourself.... And there is no other way to come in contact with
yourself. The deeper you live, the deeper you know yourself,
in relationship, in aloneness. The deeper you move in
relationship, in love, the deeper you know. Love becomes a
mirror. And one who has never loved cannot be alone, he can
at the most be lonely.
One who has loved and known a relationship, can be alone.
Now his aloneness has a totally different quality to it, it is not
loneliness. He has lived in a relationship, fulfilled his love,
known the other, and known himself through the other. Now he
can know himself directly, now the mirror is not needed. Just
think of someone who has never come across a mirror. Can he
close his eyes and see his face? Impossible. He cannot even
imagine his face, he cannot meditate on it. But a man who has
come to a mirror, looked into it, known his face through it, can
close his eyes and see the face inside. That's what happens in
relationship. When a person moves into a relationship, the
relationship mirrors, reflects himself, and he comes to know
many things that he never knew existed in him.
Through the other he comes to know his anger, his greed, his
jealousy, his possessiveness, his compassion, his love, and
thousands of moods of his being. Many climates he
encounters through the other. By and by a moment comes
when he can now be alone; he can close his eyes and know
his own consciousness directly. That's why I say that for
people who have never loved meditation is very, very difficult.
Those who have loved deeply can become deep meditators;
those who have loved in a relationship are now in a position to
be by themselves. Now they have become mature, now the
other is not needed. If the other is there they can share, but
the need has disappeared; now there is no dependence.
Consciousness becomes conscious of death in the end. If
consciousness becomes conscious of death in the end a fear
arises. That fear creates a continuous escaping within you.
Then you are escaping from life; wherever there is life you are
escaping because wherever there is life a hint, a glimpse of
death comes. People who are too afraid of death never fall in
love with persons, they fall in love with things -- things never
die because they have never lived.
You can have things for ever and ever and, moreover, they
are replaceable. If one car goes you can replace it by another
car of exactly the same make. But you cannot replace a
person -- if your wife dies, she dies for ever. You can have
another wife but no other woman will ever replace her -- for
good or for bad, no other woman can be the same woman. If
your child dies you can adopt another, but no adopted child
will have the same quality of relationship that your own child
can have. The wound remains, it cannot be healed. People
who are too afraid of death become afraid of life. Then they
accumulate things: a big palace, a big car, millions of dollars,
rupees, this and that, things which are deathless. A rupee is
more deathless than a rose. They are not bothered about
roses, they only go on accumulating rupees.
A rupee never dies, it is almost immortal, but a rose.... In the
morning it was alive and by the evening it is no more. They
become afraid of roses, they don't look at them. Or sometimes,
if the desire arises, they purchase plastic flowers. They are
good. You can be at ease with plastic flowers because they
give a sense of immortality. They can be there for ever and for
ever and for ever. A real rose -- in the morning it is so alive, by
the evening it is gone, the petals have settled on the soil, it
has returned to the same source. From the earth it comes,
flowers a while, and sends its fragrance to the whole of
existence. Then mission done, message given, it falls silently
back to the earth and disappears with not a single tear, with no
struggle. Have you seen petals falling down onto the earth
from a flower? How beautifully and gracefully they fall, with no
clinging; for not even a single moment do they try to cling. A
breeze just comes and the whole flower has gone to the earth,
returned to the source.
A man who is afraid of death will be afraid of life, will be afraid
of love, because love is a flower -- love is not a rupee. A man
who is afraid of life may get married but he will never fall in
love. Marriage is like a rupee, love is like a rose flower. It is
there, it may not be there, but you cannot be certain about it, it
has no legal immortality about it. A marriage is something to
cling to, it has a certificate, a court behind it. It has the force of
the police and the president behind it and they will all come if
something goes wrong.
But with love.... There is the force of roses of course, but roses
are not policemen, they are not presidents, they cannot
protect.
Love comes and goes, marriage simply comes. It is a dead
phenomenon, it is an institution. It is simply unbelievable that
people like to live in institutions. Afraid, afraid of death, they
have killed all possibilities of death from everywhere. They are
creating an illusion around them that everything is going to
stay as it is. Everything is secure and safe. Hidden behind this
security they feel a certain security, but that is foolish, stupid.
Nothing can save them; death will come and knock at their
doors and they will die.
Consciousness can take two views. One is to be afraid of life
because through life comes death. Another is to love life so
deeply that you start loving death also, because it is the
innermost core of it. The first attitude comes from thinking, the
second attitude comes from meditation. The first attitude
comes from too many thoughts, the second attitude comes
from a thought-less mind, from a no-mind. Consciousness can
be reduced to thoughts; thoughts can be melted down again
into consciousness.
Just think of a river in cold winter. When icebergs start
appearing certain parts of the water are now frozen. Then
more cold comes, the temperature falls below zero and the
whole river is frozen. Now there is no movement, no flow.
Consciousness is a river, a stream -- with more thoughts, the
stream is frozen. If there are so many thoughts, so many
'thought-hindrances', there is no possibility of any flow. Then
the river is completely frozen. You are already dead.
But if the river is completely flowing, if you melt down the
icebergs, if you melt down all that has frozen, all the
thoughts.... That is what meditation is all about: it is an effort to
defreeze all thoughts. They can be converted again into
consciousness. Then the river flows, then the river has a flow
to it, and alive, vibrant, dancing, it moves toward the sea. Why
do people like to be frozen? Because a frozen river cannot
move to the sea. Sea means death. The river will disappear,
disappear for ever, it will become one with the infinite, it will not
be any longer an individual. It will not have its own name: the
Ganges will not be Ganges then, the Volga will not be Volga.
They disappear into the uncharted.
If the mind is afraid, it becomes a whirlwind of thoughts. If you
are too much of a thinking man, continuously thinking from
morning to evening, from evening to morning, in the day,
thoughts and thoughts and thoughts, in the night, dreams and
dreams and dreams -- your river is frozen. That too is part of
fear: your river is so frozen that you cannot move, so the
ocean remains far away. If you move, you will fall into the
ocean.
Meditation is an effort to defreeze you. Thoughts by and by
melt like snow, become flowing again, and mind becomes a
stream. Now nothing hinders it, it moves unhindered towards
the sea.
If consciousness becomes meditative then you accept death,
then death is nothing apart, it is you. Then you accept death
as repose; then you accept death as a final relaxation; then
you accept death as a retirement. You retire. The whole day
you have worked hard, in the evening you come home, and
then you go to sleep, you retire. Life is like the day, death is
like the night. Again you will come, many mornings will come, in
different forms you will be here again and again and again,
until the absolute death happens. That absolute death is for
those who have become absolutely without thoughts. It is for
those who have known absolutely that death and life are two
aspects of the same coin, who are now no longer afraid of
death -- have not even a slight fear -- and who are now no
longer attached to life.
So there are two stages of the final disappearance. The first
one is not to be afraid of death. And once you are not afraid of
death the second step is not to have any deep lust for life.
Then you go beyond.
And Lao Tzu said this is the eternal law -- to know it is to be
enlightened, not to know it is to court disaster.
Now the sutra:
- Attain the utmost in Passivity,
Hold firm to the basis of Quietude.
The myriad things take shape and rise to activity,
But I watch them fall back to their repose,
Like vegetation that luxuriantly grows
But returns to the root (soil) from which it springs.
To return to the root is Repose;
It is called going back to one's Destiny.
Going back to one's Destiny is to find the Eternal Law,
To know Tao is Enlightenment.
And not to know the Eternal Law, Tao,
Is to court disaster.
First, the utmost in Passivity. Death is a passivity. Death is the
utmost in passivity. You will not be able to do anything. That's
how we judge when a man is dead -- he cannot breathe, he
cannot open his eyes, he cannot talk, he cannot move. How do
you judge when a man is dead? He cannot do anything, he is
the utmost in Passivity. A dead man is absolutely passive, he
cannot do anything.
I am reminded of a story. One day Mulla Nasrudin said to
himself: Some people are dead when they seem to be alive,
and others are alive although they seem to be dead. How can
we tell if a man is dead or if he is alive? He repeated the last
sentence so loudly that his wife heard. She said to him: You
fool! If the hands and feet are quite cold you will know that he
is dead.
A few days later, Nasrudin was cutting wood in the forest when
he realized that his extremities were almost frozen by the bitter
cold. He said: Death now seems to be upon me. But the dead
do not cut wood, they should lie down, respectably, because
they don't need physical movement. He lay down under a tree.
Just then a pack of wolves, who were very hungry because of
the harsh winter, passed by. Thinking that Mulla was dead they
jumped on his donkey and ate it.
'Such is life,' thought Mulla. 'One thing is conditional upon
another. If I had been alive you would not have taken such
liberties with my donkey'.
Death is passivity. You cannot do anything. If one is trying to
learn how to die -- and that is the same as trying to learn, they
are not two arts, they are one -- then one should learn to be
the utmost in Passivity. You are always doing something; your
mind never allows you passivity. The mind hankers for activity
because through activity the mind remains alive. Try to be
passive for a few moments every day. If you can be passive for
one hour every day a different dimension of consciousness will
be revealed to you.
That's what is technically known as meditation -- to be passive
for a few moments. For twenty-three hours do whatsoever you
want to do -- life needs work, activity -- but life also needs a
balance between activity and inactivity, so at least once in a
while become completely inactive. Think as Mulla thought: For
one hour I am dead. Then let the world do whatsoever it is
doing, for one hour you be completely dead to it.
Why does Lao Tzu say utmost in Passivity? Will not passivity
be enough? Utmost has a meaning to it: when you start being
passive you even make efforts to be passive -- because you
don't know how to be passive.
People come to me and they ask how to relax. If I tell them
something, that this is the way to relax, they will do it -- but any
doing is against relaxation. There cannot be any 'how'
because 'how' means something to do. In fact relaxation comes
when you are not doing anything, not even making an effort to
relax, because that effort will be a hindrance. Of the people
who cannot go to sleep easily, who suffer from insomnia,
ninety-nine per cent suffer only because of their mind, only
one per cent may have some physical trouble. Ninety-nine are
just in some mental trouble: they have the idea that they
cannot sleep so they make all the effort they can to sleep.
Their efforts are their whole undoing. If you do anything, that
very doing will not allow you to fall into sleep. That's why when
you are excited and the mind is doing something, you cannot
fall into sleep. But when the excitement is not there and the
mind has nothing to do, you simply put your head on the pillow
and you go to sleep -- there is nothing more to it. That is that.
One puts the head down and goes to sleep. But a person who
is suffering from insomnia cannot believe it. He will think people
are conspiring against him. They say they simply put their
heads down and go to sleep but he has been trying that for
years and it never happens. So they must be hiding some
secret.
Nobody is hiding any secret, it is a simple phenomenon -- don't
do anything and sleep comes. You cannot force it to come. If
you try, the very opposite will be the result. Don't even wait for
it. Simply lie down, and don't bother about it, forget about it.
You simply enjoy lying down: enjoy the cold sheet, enjoy the
warmth, enjoy the feeling of the bed. Just enjoy.
Just breathing is beautiful to enjoy sometimes -- you are alive
and breathing. Everybody is not so fortunate. For a single
alive person there are thirty dead persons in the world
because the earth has lived so long. For a single person alive
thirty persons are dead already, under the earth. You are
fortunate that you are above the earth, not under it. Soon you
will be under. But meanwhile, enjoy that you can breathe. Just
breathing is so beautiful sometimes, it gives you such repose.
Utmost Passivity means when even the effort to be passive is
no more. Then it is utmost. And that is the deepest point
meditation can lead you to.
People come and say to me that I talk about passivity but all
my meditations are active. Why? There is a reason, a logic
behind it. Even if it looks mad to you, the madness has a
method behind it. And the method is that unless you have
been in total activity you cannot be in utmost Passivity.
If you have worked hard the whole day then by the evening
when you come home you are already asleep, you are moving
towards sleep, you are ready to fall into sleep. Poor men,
beggars even, never suffer from insomnia, only very rich
people suffer from insomnia. Insomnia is a very great luxury,
everybody cannot afford it. Only people who have not been
working at all, who have been resting the whole day, cannot
sleep. Their logic is foolish but their logic is very logical. They
think that when they have been training themselves the whole
day for sleep, sleep should come more easily. They have been
resting, relaxing, the whole day, waiting for night, deep in a
training, but in the night they find they cannot sleep.
Impossible. If you relax the whole day how can you sleep in the
night?
Life moves into polarities. That's why I say: Love if you want to
be alone; move into the other if you want to be totally, utterly
alone. Be active if you want to be passive. Don't be afraid of
the polarity, life is a polarity. That's why life is both life and
death -- death is the other polarity of it.
Attain the utmost in Passivity. Learn how to be passive. Don't
always be a doer; sometimes also let things happen. In fact all
great things happen, they are never done. Love happens,
nobody can 'do' love. If somebody orders you, if even an Adolf
Hitler orders you to go and love, what will you do? You can
pretend, you can act, but how can you really love by order? It
is impossible. It has been my observation that people who
have loved without really falling in love become observers of it,
they attain to a certain witnessing. Prostitutes, particularly,
become witnesses because they don't love the person, they
are not in it. Only their body moves; there are only gestures,
empty gestures of love, and they are always standing on the
outside of it. The whole thing goes on and they are standing
outside of it. They can easily become observers. Lovers
cannot compete with prostitutes because they get involved in
it, they forget themselves in it.
Remember to move into polarities. And if you really want to be
aware I will tell you to forget yourself completely sometimes.
Get involved so totally that you are no longer there, and when
you suddenly come back you are totally there. Forgetting,
remembering, living, dying, waking, going to sleep, loving,
meditating -- move into polarities, use the opposites, be just
like two wheels of a cart or two wings of a bird. Don't try to
remain with one pole because then you become paralyzed.
Attain the utmost in Passivity and always remember that all that
is beautiful always happens: love happens -- you cannot do it,
meditation happens -- you cannot do it, relaxation happens --
you cannot do it. In fact life has happened to you, you have
not done anything about it, you have not earned it. And death
will happen -- you cannot do anything about it. All that is
beautiful, profound, deep -- happens. Only futile things are
done by man.
You cannot even do breathing, that too happens. Get in tune
with the world of happening.
If you ask me, the material world is the world of doing and the
spiritual world is the world of happening. Do, but then you will
attain only to things; be, and let things happen, and you will
attain to the very being of existence. God is never attained by
effort, God is a happening. You have to allow him to happen --
you cannot force him. You cannot attack him, you cannot be
violent with him -- and all activity is violent -- you can simply
allow him.
That's why Lao Tzu says that those who want to reach the
utmost truth have to attain to a feminine mind. A feminine mind
is non-doing: the man does, the woman waits, the man
penetrates, the woman simply receives. But the greatest thing
happens to the woman, not to the man -- she becomes
pregnant. In fact, nothing happens to the man. He can be
replaced by any injection, he can be replaced by a small
syringe, he is not such a basic part in life.
Everything happens to the woman, she becomes the new
home of a new life. A new god is to be born and she becomes
the temple. Man remains the outsider -- and man is the doer,
woman is only on the receiving end. That's why Lao Tzu says
that if you want to receive the ultimate, be feminine, be
receiving, be passive.
Hold firm to the basis of quietude. If you are passive you will
remain in a deep silence, in collectedness, calm, quietude.
Hold fast to it. Once you know what it is you can hold fast to it.
Right now you cannot because you don't know whether
anything exists inside you at all. The small, still voice within
you, the very small, minute, atomic center within the cyclone is
there -- if you remain passive, by and by you will fall into it.
One day suddenly you will realize that the cyclone of the world
can continue but it does not disturb the center. The
disturbance is far away, it does not even touch it.
It happened that a Zen master was invited as a guest. A few
friends had gathered and they were eating and talking when
suddenly there was an earthquake. The building that they
were sitting in was a seven storeyed building and they were on
the seventh storey, so life was in danger. Everybody tried to
escape. The host, running by, looked to see what had
happened to the master. He was there with not even a ripple of
anxiety on his face. With closed eyes he was sitting on his
chair as he had been sitting before.
The host felt a little guilty, he felt a bit of a coward, and it did
not look good that a guest was sitting there and the host was
running away. The others, the other twenty guests, had
already gone down the stairs but he stopped himself although
he was trembling with fear, and he sat down by the side of the
master.
The earthquake came and went, the master opened the eyes
and started his conversation which because of the earthquake
he had had to stop. He continued again at exactly the same
sentence -- as if the earthquake had not happened at all.
The host was now in no mood to listen, he was in no mood to
understand because his whole being was so troubled and he
was so afraid. Even though the earthquake had gone, the fear
was still there. He said: Now don't say anything because I will
not be able to grasp it, I'm not myself anymore. The
earthquake has disturbed me too much. But there is one
question I would like to ask. All other guests had escaped, I
was also on the stairs, almost running, when suddenly I
remembered you. Seeing you sitting here with closed eyes,
sitting so undisturbed, so unperturbed, I felt a bit of a coward --
I am the host, I should not run. So I came back and I have
been sitting by your side. I would like to ask one question. We
all tried to escape. What happened to you? What do you say
about the earthquake?
The master said: I also escaped, but you escaped outwardly, I
escaped inwardly. Your escape is useless because wherever
you are going there too is an earthquake, so it is meaningless,
it makes no sense. You may reach the sixth storey or the fifth
or the fourth, but there too is an earthquake. I escaped to a
point within me where no earthquake ever reaches, cannot
reach. I entered my center.
This is what Lao Tzu says -- Hold firm to the basis of quietude.
If you are passive by and by you will become aware of the
center within you. You have carried it all along, it has always
been there, only you don't know it, you are not alert. Once you
become alert about it the whole of life becomes different. You
can remain in the world and out of it because you are always in
touch with your center. You can move in an earthquake and be
unperturbed because nothing touches you.
In Zen they have a saying that a Zen master who has attained
to his inner center can pass through a stream, but the water
never touches his feet. It is beautiful. It is not to say that the
water never touches his feet -- the water will touch them -- it is
to say something about the world within, the beyond within.
Nothing touches it, everything remains outside on the
periphery, and the center remains untouched, pure, innocent,
virgin.
The myriad things take shape and rise to activity,
But I watch them fall back to their repose.
Lao Tzu says: I watch, I observe life, and see what is
happening.
Like vegetation that luxuriantly grows
But returns to the root (soil) from which it springs.
Everything goes back to the origin. A new seed sprouts, then
comes spring and it is so luxuriantly alive. Then one day it
returns back -- the circle complete, it disappears into the soil
again.
Man is not an exception. Nothing can be an exception. As
animals go back, trees fall back, rivers move back, so does
man.
To return to the root is Repose.
Life is an activity, action; death is passivity. To return to the
root is Repose. It is beautiful. Whenever a man who has lived
rightly and understood rightly, dies, you will see that on his
face will be repose, not agony, ecstasy, not agony. You can
see his whole life written on his face -- he lived well, he loved
well, he understood well, he has come back home. There is no
complaint, there is no grudge, but there is gratitude and there
is thankfulness. The circle is complete, there is repose.
Whenever a man who has not lived well, who has lived half-
heartedly, dies, there is agony on the face. The face becomes
ugly.
Death is the criterion. If you die beautifully and I don't know
anything about your life, I know only your face in death, I can
write your whole biography. Because in death you cannot
deceive -- in life you can. In life you can smile when there is
anger within, you can give a false appearance, but in death
nobody is so cunning. Death reveals the true. Death brings
your reality to the very surface of your face. So whenever you
die, your death will show how you lived, whether your life was a
real life, authentic, or an ugly dishonest life.
A saint is not known in life, because he may be just posing; a
saint is known only in death, because then you cannot pose.
To return to the root is Repose. A saint dies in grace, death
becomes the very crescendo of the whole life, the final touch.
It is called going back to one's Destiny. Everything returns
back to its source.
In the West they have a concept of linear progress; in the East
we have a concept of circular progress. These concepts are
totally different and much depends on them. In the West they
think that everything moves in a line and goes on moving in a
line, a straight line. In the East we think everything moves in a
circle, in a wheel -- the very word sansar, the world, means the
wheel. Everything comes back to its source, again and again
and again. That's how the seasons move, that's how the earth
moves, that's how the sun moves, that's how the whole
firmament and the stars move -- in a circle. The circle is the
basic process and the circle is life's eternal law. It is not linear.
If things move in a line then history becomes very important
because never again will the same thing happen. That's why in
the West, history became so important. In the East we have
never bothered about history; we have not in fact written
history, we have written only mythology, puran. Puran is not
history because we don't bother about history.
If everything moves in a circle the same thing will happen,
again and again; so we are concerned with the essential, we
are not concerned with the fact. Nobody bothers when Buddha
was born but Westerners are very much concerned about it,
about the date when he was born. We don't bother, because
we know that thousands of Buddhas have been born before
and thousands will be born again, so the date is not important.
Then Buddha becomes just a symbol of all Buddhas -- the
essential Buddhahood.
So we write the story of Buddha as a myth, as an archetype,
we don't write the history. History is to be concerned with
details: when he was born, what his father's name was, which
town he was born in, when he died, what he did. These are not
meaningful to us. What happened is meaningful to us; not what
he did -- what happened. Any date will do for when he was
born. Even if he was never born, it will do, that is not the point
at all. To us he is a symbol of all the Buddhas ever born before
or ever to be born in the future. He is a symbol, he is a wheel.
The essential we catch. The essential becomes the puran, the
myth, the non-essential becomes the history. History is
useless. Henry Ford has said that history is bunk. It is. But
puran -- puran is truth. Now you will be puzzled. History is
factual, puran is not factual -- puran is not a fact, but puran is
truth. History is unnecessary detail, talking about the
periphery, but in the West history is important because things
are moving in a line. Nothing will happen the same way again,
so you have to catch the details. Jesus will not happen again,
he happens only once, that's why the bigotry, the dogmatism
of Christians.
Mohammed will not happen again because Mohammed and
Islam come from the same root, the Jewish tradition. The
Jewish tradition, Christianity and Islam, they come from the
same root, from the same idea -- but for us that is not the
point. Buddha has happened, will happen, will go on
happening, there is no need to bother about details. You can
see those details again and again because he will be coming
back.
Life is a circle. When life is a circle you know death is repose: it
is coming back to the same point, falling back to the mother
earth, falling back to the universal consciousness, falling back
to the same source from where you have come. Then there is
no struggle against it, no conflict, you simply accept.
Acceptance becomes your life and through acceptance
happens contentment.
To return to the root is Repose;
It is called going back to one's Destiny.
Going back to one's Destiny is to find the Eternal Law.
This is the Eternal Law -- the circle.
To know the Eternal Law is Enlightenment. And once you know
the Law you don't fight with it, because every fight is futile,
fruitless. You simply accept and live with it. A man who is wise
moves with the Law, a foolish man moves against it. There is
nobody to punish you. If you move against the Law you are
punished by your own act.
It is just as if you are trying to get through a wall, then you hit
your head. It is not that God is sitting there ordering the wall to
hit this man's head! Foolish! There is no need for any God -- if
you move against the Law, you suffer. So if you suffer, know
well that you are moving against the Law. If you feel happy,
know well that somehow, knowingly or unknowingly, you have
moved with the Law.
Try to find the moments of bliss and the moments of suffering
in your life. Analyze them, and you will find that whenever you
were happy and blissful it was because you moved with the
Law, and whenever you were suffering it was because you
moved against the Law.
To know the Eternal Law is Enlightenment.
And not to know the Eternal Law
Is to court disaster.
Nobody else is responsible -- only you and you alone. If you
suffer it is because of you, if you feel blissful it is because of
you. You are your hell and your heaven too.
-- End of Discourse 1 from Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol. 2
| Audio mp3 -- Discourse 1 complete from Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol. 2. Osho talk in English. Click on play button below to hear it now. 01:18:04 |