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‌CHAPTER 6

6 December 1978 pm in Chuang Tzu Auditorium

Madhuma means absolutely sweet – that’s the taste of god. Buddha is reported to have said: Truth is sweet in the beginning, in the middle, in the end; truth is sweet all over. If it feels bitter to us, and sometimes it does, that simply shows that we have become too accustomed to the lies. Otherwise truth is sweet. But we live in lies, and whenever truth is revealed our lies are shattered. It hurts. Our whole edifice starts falling apart; and that is too much, that becomes unbearable. Hence truth seems to be bitter.

Jesus was crucified because what he revealed was thought to be too bitter; nobody could swallow it. Socrates was poisoned just because the truth that he was forcing people to see was too much against their whole lives, their vested interests, their lies, their phoniness. The Greek court told Socrates ‘If you stop talking about truth, you can still live; we can forgive you.’ Socrates declined. He said ‘If I am not allowed to say what is true, then what is the point of my life at all? It is better to die saying the truth than to live in lies or in silence.’ That too is a lie: when you see something and you don’t say it, that is a political, diplomatic way of lying.

Man lives in lies, that’s why truth feels bitter. But that is not the taste of truth itself: it is absolutely sweet. So whenever truth feels bitter, remember, something is wrong in you. That wrong has to be dropped. Whatsoever the cost, truth has to be accepted. Even if one has to pay by one’s life, it is worth paying.

Jayant means the conqueror. Man can either conquer others or can conquer himself. Those who conquer others create much misery in the world. They create violence, conflict and chaos. They are destructive people. The world has suffered too much because of these people.

Those who try to conquer themselves are the religious people. They are creative. They bring love into the world, they beautify it. They are a blessing to existence. It is the same energy that conquers

others that conquers oneself. The difference is not of energy but of direction. When the energy is extrovert, it becomes political: when it is introvert, it becomes spiritual. And that is the most decisive phenomenon in life; everything else depends on it. If your energy is extrovert you will live a futile life. Not only that you will miss all the joys of life, because of you many others will also miss; you will be a calamity to yourself and to others. The political mind is a curse.

If the energy moves inwards then totally different experiences evolve. The closer you come to yourself, the more silent you become and the more loving. Your very presence becomes a benediction.

So, remember, one has to go in and one has to be mindful of it continuously, only then one day that turnover. Christ calls it conversion: it is a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn; I call it sannyas.

Jesus says: I am the door. I am the way. I am the truth.

This is not true only about Jesus – this is true about every being. Jesus is simply saying it on behalf of each being. It has nothing to do with Jesus in particular – it is a declaration of the innermost core of everyone.

Remember it: I am the door, I am the way, I am the truth... the way is masculine. It is effort, it is journeying. It is a process: it leads you from one point to another. It is aggression, it is search, it is penetration. Religion is a door, science is a way; and when both are balanced, truth happens. When the door and the way are utterly balanced, when there is no extreme, when the golden mean has been achieved; when the man in you and the woman in you have negated each other and there is absolutely no division left – there is neither man nor woman – when you have disappeared as a door and as a way, then ultimately that which is, happens. That is truth; and truth liberates.

But the beginning should be the feminine. By becoming feminine one becomes a disciple. And unless and until one has become really feminine, one cannot move on the way, because when one has become feminine all violence has been dropped; then the movement on the way will be non- violent. It will be a process, it will be a movement, but there will be no violence in it. And we cannot be violent with truth. Truth cannot be conquered; that is not the way to relate to truth.

So the first requirement is to be feminine. When the woman is there, then you are allowed to be a man. The woman will take care that the man does not become aggressive, does not become violent. It will keep you graceful; it will protect your delicacy, your rhythm. Otherwise the male mind tends to be aggressive, violent, ambitious; and those are not the qualities of a spiritual seeker. Maybe they are good in a soldier, but not in a sannyasin.

First become feminine, then allow the masculine. First become passivity, then allow action in it. And when action comes out of inaction, it is a flowering of such beatitude; it is something of the beyond. Lao Tzu calls it wu-wei: action through inaction. But inaction has to be learned first only then action. Then that action is not at all, in any way, aggressive, and that makes it beautiful, that gives it grace, that makes it meditative. And when both are balanced, when the door and the way are balanced, in that very balancing truth has already happened, and truth liberates.

The statement of Jesus is tremendously beautiful: I am the door. I am the way. I am the truth.

[A therapist says: When I am leading groups I have some trouble not to do anything. I like to do and not just to float with the energy; I have some difficulties with that.]

Slowly slowly you will become capable of not doing. That is the greatest skill in life. It takes time, it needs seasoning. Doing is very hardening. It is not an art, it is very primitive; everybody who is born is capable of doing something.

Non-doing is a flowering. And non-doing does not mean not doing anything: it simply means a totally different attitude of doing. One remains relaxed and allows things to happen. One does not rush; one goes with existence. One is not in a hurry, one has patience. One trusts that ‘Whatsoever is happening on its own is good. And whatsoever I try to do will be a disturbing factor..’

It will be like putting legs on a snake. The snake is doing perfectly well without any legs. If out of compassion you put legs on the snake, you will kill the poor fellow! He will not be able to move at all then, although it appears logical that the snake needs legs, otherwise how will he move?

The idea of doing something is basically egoistic; it is out of ego. The ego is a doer: it can exist only by doing something or other. It can exist only in the tension that doing creates, the dust that is created when you start rushing. The ego exists in that dust. Once the dust settles and you are not rushing anywhere, you are not in a hurry, you have no goal, you have surrendered all goals to existence itself and you simply float with the river, the ego disappears. There is no need to renounce it either: it simply is not found. Then there is great joy, and life then is without any anguish, any anxiety.

It will be difficult, that I know. Non-doing is the most difficult thing in the world because that is the greatest art. Only very few people have been able to do it! But those are the cream, those are the supermen. And I would like all my sannyasins to have some taste of it. Once you have tasted it, then all else is tasteless.

It will be difficult, it is natural that it will be difficult, because we are born doers. We are carrying many lives’ habits of doing; then suddenly you want to drop those habits. They want to persist, they can’t leave you so easily; they have become ingrained. It is just a question of conditioning.

But slowly slowly it is going to happen... I can see it happening. You are going perfectly well; just don’t be impatient. There are a few things which grow only in patience. In the soil of patience the greatest flowers bloom. And the flower of non-doing, wu-wei, is unique. It is the whole secret of tao: speaking without speaking, doing without doing, walking without walking, being without being. Then all is quiet and all is silence and all is joy. You have disappeared: god is. As a doer, you are: god is not.

It is not accidental that in the modern world god has disappeared, because for the first time man has become too obsessed with doing – technology, methodology, science: do this, do that. We have created such a smoke of doing around ourselves that it is impossible for god to exist. God is not dead, but we have created so much smoke that he is almost absent for us; he is behind the cloud that we have created. We cannot see him, we cannot feel him. This cloud has to settle.

There is a beautiful story: Buddha is going from one village to another village. They are passing a mountainous track. It is a hot afternoon; he is tired. He sits under a tree. He is thirsty. He asks his

disciple, Ananda, to go back, because two miles back they left a small spring.’Go and fetch water from there.’

Ananda goes back, but by the time he reaches there a few bullock carts have passed, they have passed through the spring; the spring is dirty. All the dirt that was settled inside has surfaced; dead leaves are floating on it. Now it is not worth drinking. So he comes back and he says to Buddha ‘It is not worth drinking. I will go ahead. I know that at least two, three miles ahead there is a beautiful river I will fetch water from there.’

But Buddha says ‘No, go back. Fetch water from that spring.’ He is so insistent. Ananda cannot follow the logic of it. He says again and again that the water is dirty; Buddha says ‘Go back! Even if it is dirty, bring it.’

Ananda goes back, very reluctantly; he has to go because the master has ordered. The whole thing seems to be absurd: in the same time he can fetch water from the river. Why this eccentric idea that the water has to come from that spring? But by the time he reaches, the spring is crystal clear; the dust has settled again, the leaves have gone. He can see the point, that just a little patience was needed, that’s all. He could have waited just a few minutes and everything would have been beautiful. Now he understands why Buddha was so persistent, absurdly persistent: he was giving some message, and it has been understood.

Ananda comes back with water, dancing. He falls at Buddha’s feet and he says ‘Your ways of teaching are such that if we are not utterly devoted to you we will never be able to understand what you want us to understand. I went very reluctantly, but I see the point.’

And Buddha says ‘Now do the same with your mind. Don’t be in a hurry, be patient. Just as the leaves have gone and the dust has settled, if you can sit silently inside doing nothing, the mind also settles, thoughts disappear, desires are gone, and the spring of your consciousness becomes crystal clear. Ananda, just a little patience! Sit by the side of your mind and wait. No doing is needed. Sitting silently, doing nothing, is all.’

That’s what meditation is all about. So, even though it is difficult, go slowly, go slowly with it.

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