Osho - The
Empty Boat
Chapter 4. Apologies
If a man steps on a stranger's foot
In the marketplace,
He makes a polite apology
And offers an explanation:
"This place is so crowded."
If an elder brother
Steps on his younger brother's foot
He says, "Sorry,"
And that is that.
If a parent
Treads on his child's foot
Nothing is said at all.
The greatest politeness
Is free of all formality.
Perfect conduct is free of concern.
Perfect wisdom is unplanned.
Perfect love is without demonstrations.
Perfect sincerity offers no guarantee.
All that is great, all that is
beautiful, all that is true and real, is always spontaneous. You cannot plan
it. The moment you plan it, everything goes wrong. The moment planning enters,
everything becomes unreal.
But this has happened to
humanity. Your love, your sincerity, your truth, everything, has gone wrong
because you have planned it, be-cause you have been taught not to be
spontaneous. You have been taught to manipulate yourself, to control, to
manage, and not to be a natural flow. You have become rigid, frozen, dead.
Life knows no planning. It is
itself enough. Do the trees plan how to grow, how to mature, how to come to
flower? They simply grow without even being conscious of the growth. There is
no self-consciousness, there is no separation.
Whenever you start planning you
have divided yourself, you have become two; the one who is controlling and the
one who is controlled. A conflict has arisen, now you will never be at peace.
You may succeed in controlling but there will be no peace; you may not succeed
in controlling, then too there will be no peace. Whether you succeed or fail,
ultimately you will come to realize that you have failed. Your failure will be
a failure, your success will also be a failure. Whatsoever you do, your life
will be miserable.
This division creates ugliness,
you are not one, and beauty belongs to oneness, beauty belongs to a harmonious
whole. All culture, all civilization, all societies, make you ugly. All
morality makes you ugly because it is based on division, on control.
I have heard that once Baal
Shem was traveling in a beautiful coach with three horses. But he was wondering
continuously, because for three days he had been traveling and not even once
had any of the horses neighed. What had happened to the horses? Then suddenly
on the fourth day, a passing peasant shouted at him to relax control of the
reins. He relaxed control and suddenly all the three horses started neighing,
they came alive. For three days continuously they were dead, dying.
This has happened to you all,
to the whole of humanity. You cannot neigh, and unless a horse neighs, the
horse is dead, because neighing means he is enjoying, there is an overflowing.
But you cannot neigh, you are dead. Your life has not in any way an overflowing
song, a dance that happens when the energy is too much.
Flowering is always a luxury,
it is not a necessity. No tree needs flowers as a necessity, roots are enough. Flowering
is always luxurious. Flowers come only when the tree has too much, it needs to
give, it needs to share.
Whenever you have too much,
life becomes a dance, a celebration. But society doesn't allow you to dance, to
celebrate, so society has to see that you never have more energy than
necessary. You are only allowed to live at starvation level. You are not
allowed to be too much, because once you are too much you cannot be controlled,
and society wants to control you. It is a domination, very subtle.
Every child is born
overflowing. Then we have to cut the energy source, we have to prune the child
from here and there so that he becomes controllable. And the basis of all
control is to divide the child in two. Then you need not bother, he himself
will do the controlling. Then you need not bother, he himself will be the enemy
of his own self.
So they tell the child: This is
wrong. Don't do this. Suddenly the child is divided, now he knows what is
wrong, now he knows what part of his being is wrong, and his head becomes the
controller.
Through division intellect has
become the controller, the master. If you are undivided, you will not have any
head. Not that the head will disappear or the head will fall off, but you will
not be head- oriented - your total being will be you.
Right now you are only the
head, the rest of the body is just to sustain the head. The head has become the
exploiter, the dictator. And this has come through conflict, the creation of
conflict in you.
You have been taught that this
is good and that is bad. The intellect learns it and then the intellect keeps
on condemning you.
Remember, if you condemn
yourself you will condemn everybody - you will condemn the whole.
And a person who condemns
himself cannot love. A person who condemns himself cannot pray. A person who
condemns himself, for him there is no God, there cannot be. A condemning mind
can never enter the divine temple. Only when you dance, only when you are
ecstatic, not condemning, only when you are overflowing with nobody sitting in
control, nobody managing, does life become a let-go; it is not formal, it is
natural. Then you enter, then everywhere is the door. Then you can reach the
temple from anywhere.
But right now, as you are, you
are schizophrenic. You are not only schizophrenic when a psychoanalyst says
that you are. There is no need for any psychoanalyst to analyze you. Society
creates schizophrenics; division is schizophrenia. You are not one. You are
born one but immediately society starts working on you, major surgery is to be
done, you are continuously operated upon to be divided. Then society is at ease
because you are fighting with yourself, your energy is dissipated in the inner
fight, it is never an overflowing. Then you are not dangerous.
Overflowing energy becomes rebellion.
Overflowing energy is always rebellious, overflowing energy is always in
revolution. It is just like a river in flood - it doesn't believe in the banks,
in the rules, in the laws, it simply goes on overflowing towards the sea. It
knows only one goal - how to become the sea, how to become the infinite.
Overflowing energy is always
moving towards God. God is missing in our world, not because of science, not
because of atheists, but because of the so-called religious. They have divided
you so much that the river keeps fighting with itself. Nothing is left to move,
no energy is left; you are so tired fighting with yourself, how can you move
towards the sea?
One of the basic laws of Tao,
of Lao Tzu, of Chuang Tzu, is that if you are spontaneous it is the highest
prayer; you cannot miss God, whatsoever you do you will reach him. So Chuang
Tzu never talks about God; talk is irrelevant, it isn't needed. He talks only
of how to bring out the wholeness in you. The holy is irrelevant. When you
become whole, you become holy. When your fragments dissolve into one, your life
has become a prayer. They never talk about prayer, it is not needed.
Spontaneity, living as a
whole.... If you want to live as a whole, you cannot plan. Who will plan?
You cannot decide for tomorrow,
you can live only here and now. Who will decide? If you decide, division has
entered, then you will have to manipulate. Who will plan? The future is
unknown, and how can you plan for the unknown? If you plan for the unknown the
planning will come from the past.
That means that the dead will
control the living. The past is dead, and the past goes on controlling the
future, hence you are so bored. It is natural, it has to happen. Boredom comes
from the past, because the past is dead and the past is trying to control the
future.
The future is always an
adventure, but you don't allow it to be an adventure. You plan it. Once
planned, your life is running on a track. It is not a river.
When you run on a track you
know where you are going, what is happening. Everything is just a repetition.
Who will plan? If mind plans, mind is always of the past. Life cannot be
planned, because through planning you are committing suicide.
Life can only be unplanned,
moving moment to moment into the unknown. But what is your fear?
You will be there to respond;
whatsoever the situation you will be there to respond. What is your fear? Why
plan it?
The fear comes because you are
not certain of whether you will be there or not. You are so unconscious, that
is the uncertainty. You are not alert.
You are going to have an
interview for a job, so you keep planning in your mind what to answer, how to
answer, how to enter the office, how to stand, how to sit. But why? You will be
there, you can respond.
But you are not certain about
yourself, you are so unalert, you are so unconscious, you don't know - if you
don't plan, something may go wrong. If you are alert, then there is no problem.
You will be there, so whatever the situation demands, you will respond.
And remember, this planning is
not going to help, because if you cannot be conscious, cannot be aware in a
situation when you are planning, then that planning is also being done in
sleep. But you can repeat it so many times it becomes mechanical, then when the
question is asked you can answer. The answer is readymade, you are not needed.
It is a fixed pattern, you simply repeat it; you become a mechanical device,
you need not be there at all. The answer can be given, it comes from the
memory; if you have repeated it many times you know you can rely on it.
Through planning life becomes
more and more unconscious, and the more unconscious you are, the more you need
planning. Before really dying, you are dead. Alive means responding, sensitive.
Alive means: whatsoever comes,
I will be there to respond, and the response will come from me, not from the
memory. I will not prepare it.
See the difference when a
Christian missionary or a Christian minister, a priest, prepares his sermon.
I once visited a theological
college. There they prepare their ministers, their priests - five years'
training. So I asked them where Jesus was prepared and trained, who taught him
how to speak.
Of course these Christian
priests are dead, everything about them is planned. When you say this, a
certain gesture is to be made; even the gesture is not allowed to be
spontaneous. When you say that, you have to have a certain look; even the eyes
are not allowed to be spontaneous. How you have to stand, when you have to
shout, and when you have to whisper, when you have to hammer the table and when
not - everything is planned.
I asked them where Jesus was
trained. He was not a minister at all, he was not a priest. He never went to
any theological college, he was the son of a carpenter.
For two thousand years
Christian priests have been trained but they have not produced a single Jesus,
and they will never produce one again because Jesus cannot be produced. You
cannot produce Jesus in a factory. And these are factories, these theological
colleges. There you produce priests, and if these priests are just boring,
dead, a burden, it is obvious that it is going to be so.
There are two types of
religion. One is of the mind - it is dead. That religion is known as theology.
Then there is the other type of
religion, the real, the spontaneous. It is not theological, it is mystical.
And remember, Hindus have one
theology, Mohammedans another, Christ-ians again another, but religion, the
mystic religion, is the same; it cannot be different.
Buddha and Jesus and Chuang Tzu
and Lao Tzu, they are the same because they are not theologians. They are not
talking from the head, they are simply pouring from their heart. They are not
logicians, they are poets. They are not saying something from the scriptures,
they are not trained for it, they are simply responding to a necessity in you.
Their words are not readymade, their manners not fixed, their behavior not
planned.
Now we will enter Chuang Tzu's
sutra.
If a man steps on a stranger's foot
In the marketplace,
He makes a polite apology
And offers an explanation:
"This place is so crowded."
Apology is needed because there
is no relationship, the other is a stranger. Explanation is needed because
there is no love. If there is love then there is no need for an explanation,
the other will understand. If there is love, there is no need for apology, the
other will understand - love always understands.
So there is no higher morality
than love, there cannot be. Love is the highest law, but if it is not there
then substitutes are needed. Stepping on a stranger's foot in the marketplace
an apology is needed, and an explanation also:
"This place is so crowded."
With reference to this, one
thing has to be understood. In the West even a husband will offer an apology, a
wife will offer an explanation. It means that love has disappeared. It means
that everybody has become a stranger, that there is no home, that every place
has become a marketplace. In the East it is impossible to conceive of this, but
Westerners think that Easterners are rude. A husband will never give an
explanation - no need, because we are not strangers and the other can
understand. When the other cannot understand, only then apology is needed. And
if love cannot understand, what good is apology going to do?
If the world becomes a home,
all apologies will disappear, all ex-planations will disappear. You give
explanations because you are not certain about the other. Explanation is a
trick to avoid conflict, apology is a device to avoid conflict. But the
conflict is there, and you are afraid of it.
This is a civilized way to get
out of the conflict! You have stepped on a stranger's foot, you see the
violence in his eyes - he has become aggressive, he will hit you. Apology is
needed, apology will calm his anger - it is a trick. You need not be authentic
in your apology, it is just a social device, it works as a lubricant. You give
an explanation just to say: I am not responsible, the place is so crowded, it
is a marketplace, nothing can be done, it had to happen. Explanation says: I am
not responsible.
Love is always responsible,
whether the place is crowded or not, because love is always aware and alert.
You cannot shift the responsibility to the situation, YOU are responsible.
Look at the phenomenon....
Apology is a device, just like a lubricant, to avoid conflict; and explanation
is shifting the responsibility onto something else. You don't say, "I was
unconscious, unaware, that is why I stepped on your foot." You say,
"The place is so crowded!"
A religious person cannot do
this, and if you go on doing this you will never become religious, because
religion means taking all the responsibility that is there, not avoiding, not
escaping. The more responsible you are, the more awareness will arise out of
it; the less you feel responsible, the more and more unconscious you will
become. Whenever you feel that you are not responsible you will go to sleep.
And this has happened - not only in individual relationships but on all levels
of society.
Marxism says that society is
responsible for everything. If a man is poor, society is responsible, if a man
is a thief, society is responsible. You are not responsible, no individual is
responsible. That is why communism is anti-religious - not because it denies
God, not because it says there is no soul, but because of this: it shifts the
whole responsibility onto society, you are not responsible.
Look at the religious attitude
which is totally different, qualitatively different. A religious man thinks
himself responsible: If someone is begging, I am responsible. The beggar may be
at the other end of the earth, I may not know him, I may not come across his
path, but if there is a beggar, I am responsible. If a war goes on anywhere, in
Israel, in Vietnam, anywhere, I am not participating in it in any visible way,
but I am responsible. I am here. I cannot shift the responsibility onto
society.
And what do you mean when you
say society? Where is this society? This is one of the greatest evasions. Only
individuals exist - you will never come across society. You will never be able
to pinpoint it: This is society. Everywhere the individual is in existence, and
society is just a word.
Where is society? Ancient
civilizations played a trick. They said: God is responsible, fate is
responsible. Now communism plays the same game saying that society is
responsible. But where is society? God may be somewhere, society is nowhere;
there are only individuals. Religion says:
You are... rather, I am,
responsible. No explanation is needed to avoid this.
And remember one thing more:
whenever you feel that you are responsible for all the ugliness, for all the
mess, anarchy, war, violence, aggression, suddenly you become alert.
Responsibility penetrates your heart and makes you aware. When you say,
"This place is much too crowded," you can go on walking sleepily.
Really, you step on the stranger's foot not because the place is crowded, but
because you are unconscious. You are walking like a somnambulist, a man walking
in his sleep.
When you step on his foot, you
suddenly become aware, because now the situation is dangerous.
You make the apology, you fall
asleep, and again you say, "The place is crowded!" You resume your
walk, then you start moving again.
I have heard of a simple
villager who had come to the city for the first time. On the platform at the
station someone stepped on his foot and said, "Sorry." Then he went
into a hotel, someone again clashed with him and said, "Sorry!" Then
he went into a theater and someone almost knocked him down, and he said,
"Sorry."
Then the villager said,
"This is beautiful, we never knew this trick. Do whatever you want to do
to anybody and say sorry!" So he punched a man who was passing and said,
"Sorry!"
What are you really doing when
you say sorry? Your sleep is broken, you were walking in a dream - you must
have been dreaming, imagining, something was on your mind - and then you
stepped on someone. Not that the place was crowded - you would have stumbled
even if no one had been there, even then you would have stepped on someone.
It is you, your
unconsciousness, your unconscious behavior. A buddha cannot stumble even if it
is a marketplace, because he moves with full consciousness. Whatsoever he does,
he does knowingly.
And if he steps on your foot it
means he has stepped knowingly; there must be some reason for it.
It may be just to help you
awake, he may have stepped on your foot just to wake you up, but he will not
say that the place is crowded, he will not give any explanation.
Explanations are always
deceptive. They look logical, but they are false. You give explanations only
when you have to hide something. You can watch and observe this in your own
life. This is not a theory, this is a simple fact of everybody's experience -
you give explanations only when you want to hide something.
Truth needs no explanation. The
more you lie, the more explanations are needed. There are so many scriptures
because man has lied so much, then explanations are needed to hide the lie. You
have to give an explanation, then this explanation will need further
explanation, and it goes on and on. It is an infinite regression. And even with
the last explanation nothing is explained, the basic lie remains a lie - you
cannot convert a lie into a truth just by explaining it. Nothing is explained
by explanations. You may think so, but it is not the case.
Once it happened that Mulla
Nasruddin went on his first air trip, and he was afraid but he didn't want
anybody to know. It happens to everybody on their first flight: nobody wants
this to be their first.
He wanted to behave
nonchalantly so he walked very bravely. That bravery was an explanation: I
always travel by air. Then he sat down in his seat and he wanted to say
something just to put himself at ease, because whenever you start talking, you
become brave; through talk, you feel less fear.
So Nasruddin spoke to the
passenger next to him. He looked out of the window and said, "Look, what
terrific height! People look like ants."
The other man said, "Sir,
we have not taken off yet. Those ARE ants."
Explanations cannot hide
anything. Rather, on the contrary, they reveal. If you can look, if you have
eyes, every explanation is transparent. It would have been better if he had
kept quiet. But don't try silence as an explanation. As an explanation it is of
no use. Your silence will be revealing, and your words will reveal - it is
better not to be a liar! Then you need not give any explanations. It is better
to be truthful - the easiest thing is to be true and authentic. If you are
afraid, it is better to say, "I am afraid," and accepting the fact
your fear will disappear.
Acceptance is such a miracle.
When you accept that you are afraid and say, "This is my first trip,"
suddenly you will feel a change
coming over you. The basic fear is not fear, the basic fear is the fear of the
fear: I don't want anyone to know that I am afraid, I don't want anyone to know
that I am a coward. But everybody is a coward in a new situation, and in a new
situation to be brave is foolish. To be cowardly only means that the situation
is so new that your mind cannot supply any answers, the past cannot give the
answers, so you are trembling. But this is good! Why try to supply an answer
from the mind? Tremble, and let the answer come from your present
consciousness. You are sensitive, that is all; don't kill this sensitivity
through explanation.
Next time you try to give an
explanation, be aware of what you are doing. Are you trying to hide something,
trying to explain away something? Nothing like this will be of any help.
A man who had become newly rich
went to a beach, the most expensive, the most exclusive, and he spent madly
just to influence the people around him. The next day, while swimming, his wife
drowned. She was carried to the shore and a crowd gathered, so he asked, "What
are you doing now?"
A man said, "We are going
to give your wife artificial respiration."
The rich man said,
"Artificial respiration? Nothing doing, give her the real thing. I'll pay
for it."
Whatsoever you do, whatsoever
you don't do, whatsoever you say, whatsoever you don't say, reveals you.
Everywhere mirrors are all around you. Every other person is a mirror, every
situation is a mirror - and whom do you think you are deceiving? If deception
becomes a habit, ultimately you will have deceived yourself and no one else. It
is your life you are wasting in deceptions.
Chuang Tzu says: Explanations
show that you are not true, you are not authentic.
If an elder brother
Steps on his younger brother's foot
He says, "Sorry,"
And that is that.
Two brothers... when the
relationship is more intimate, when you are close, the other is not a stranger.
Then no explanation is needed,
the brother simply says sorry. He accepts the blame. He says, "I have been
unconscious." He is not shifting the responsibility onto somebody else, he
accepts it and that is that. The relationship is closer.
If a parent
Treads on his child's foot
Nothing is said at all.
There is no need, the
relationship is even more intimate, closer. There is love, and that love will
do.
No substitute is needed, no
explanation, no apology.
The greatest politeness
Is free of all formality.
Perfect conduct is free of concern.
Perfect wisdom is unplanned.
Perfect love is without demonstrations.
Perfect sincerity offers no guarantee.
But all these perfections need
one thing - and that is spontaneous awareness; otherwise you will always have
false coins, you will always have false faces. You can be sincere, but if you
have to make any effort then that sincerity is just formal.
You can be loving, but if your
love needs effort, if your love is of that type which Dale Carnegie talks about
in How to Win Friends and Influence People, if that type of love is there, it
cannot be real. You have been manipulating it. Then even friendship is a business.
Beware of Dale Carnegies; these
are dangerous people, they destroy all that is real and authentic.
They show you how to win
friends, they teach you tricks, techniques, they make you efficient, they give
you the knowhow.
But love has no knowhow, it cannot.
Love needs no training, and friendship is not something which you have to
learn. A learned friendship will not be a friendship, it will just be an
exploitation - you are exploiting the other and deceiving him. You are not
true, this is a business relationship.
But in America everything has
become business, both friendship and love. Dale Carnegie's books have sold
millions of copies, hundreds of editions, next in popularity only to The Bible.
Now nobody knows how to be a
friend, it has to be learned. Sooner or later there will be colleges for love,
training courses, even by post, lessons you can learn and apply. And the
problem is that if you succeed then you are lost forever, because the real will
never happen to you, the door is completely closed. Once you become efficient
in a certain thing, the mind resists. The mind says: This is the short cut, and
you know it well, so why choose another path?
Mind is always for the line of
least resistance. That is why clever people are never able to love. They are so
clever they start manipulating. They will not say what is in their heart, they
will say what will appeal. They will look at the other person and see what he
wants to be said. They will not say their heart, they will just create a
situation in which the other is deceived.
Husbands deceiving wives, wives
deceiving husbands, friends deceiving friends.... The whole world has become
just a crowd of enemies. There are only two types of enemies: those you have
not been able to deceive and those you have been able to deceive. This is the
only difference. Then how can ecstasy be in your life?
So this is not a learning
process. Authenticity cannot come through schooling, authenticity comes through
awareness - if you are aware, if you live in a conscious way. Look at the
difference: to live consciously means to live openly, not to hide, not to play
games. To be alert means to be vulnerable, and whatever happens, happens. You
accept it, but you never compromise, you never purchase anything by giving up
your consciousness. Even if it means that you are left totally alone, you will
accept being alone, but you will be consciously alert, aware. Only with this
alertness does real religion start happening.
I will tell you a story. It
happened once, in ancient times, that there was a king who was also an
astrologer. He had a very deep interest in studying the stars. Suddenly he felt
panic in his heart because he became aware that it was going to be dangerous to
eat the coming year's harvest.
Whoever ate it would go mad. So
he called his prime minister, his adviser and counsellor, and told him that
this was certain to happen. The stars are clear, and because of the combination
of cosmic rays, this year's harvest would be poisonous. It happens rarely, once
in thousands of years, but it was going to happen this year, and anyone who ate
of this year's harvest would go mad. So he asked his adviser, "What should
we do?"
The prime minister said,
"It is impossible to provide for everybody from last year's harvest, but
one thing can be done. You and I can both live on last year's harvest. The
remainder of last year's harvest can be gathered, requisitioned. There is no
problem, it will be enough for you and I."
The king said, "This
doesn't appeal to me. If all my devoted people go mad, women, saints and sages,
devoted servants, all my subjects, even children, it doesn't appeal to me to be
an outsider.
It would not be worth saving
myself and you; that won't do. I would rather be mad with everybody else. But I
have another suggestion. I will mark your head with the seal of madness and you
will mark my head with the seal of madness."
The prime minister asked,
"How is this going to help anybody?"
The king said, "I have
heard that it is one of the ancient keys of wisdom, so let us try it. After
everyone has gone mad, after we have gone mad, whenever I look at your forehead
I will remember that I am mad. And whenever you look at my forehead, remember
that you are mad."
The prime minister was still
puzzled; he said, "But what will it do?"
The king said, "I have
heard from wise men that if you can remember that you are mad, you are mad no
more."
A madman cannot remember that
he is mad. An ignorant man cannot remember that he is ignorant.
A man who is in a dream cannot
remember that he is dreaming. If, in your dream, you become alert and know that
you are dreaming, the dream has stopped, you are fully awake. If you can
understand that you are ignorant, ignorance drops. Ignorant people always
believe that they are wise, and mad people think that they are the only really
sane ones. When someone becomes really wise, he becomes so by recognizing his
ignorance. So the king said, "This we are going to do."
I don't know what happened, the
story ends here, but the story is meaningful.
Only alertness can help when
the whole world is mad, nothing else. Keeping yourself outside, going to the
Himalayas, will not be of much help. When everyone is mad, you are going to be
mad, because you are part and parcel of everybody; it is a totality, an organic
totality.
How can you separate yourself?
How can you go to the Himalayas? Deep down you still remain part of the whole.
Even living in the Himalayas you will remember your friends. They will knock in
your dreams, you will think of them, you will wonder what they are thinking of
you - you go on being linked.
You cannot go outside the
world. There is nowhere outside the world, the world is one continent.
Nobody can be an island -
islands are joined deep down with the continent. You can just think
superficially that you are separate, but nobody can be separate.
The king was really wise. He
said, "It is not going to help. I am not going to be an outsider, I will
be an insider, and this is what I will do. I will try to remember that I am
mad, because when you forget that you are mad, then you are really mad. This is
what is to be done."
Wherever you are, remember
yourself, that you are; this consciousness that you are should become a
continuity. Not your name, your caste, your nationality, those are futile
things, absolutely useless.
Just remember that: I am. This
must not be forgotten. This is what Hindus call self-remembrance, what the
Buddha called right-mindfulness, what Gurdjieff used to call self-remembering,
what Krishnamurti calls awareness.
This is the most substantial
part of meditation, to remember that: I am. Walking, sitting, eating, talking,
remember that: I am. Never forget this. It will be difficult, very arduous. In
the beginning you will keep forgetting; there will be only single moments when
you will feel illuminated, then it is lost. But don't get miserable; even single
moments are much. Go on, whenever you can remember again, again catch hold of
the thread. When you forget, don't worry - remember again, again catch hold of
the thread, and by and by the gaps will lessen, the intervals will start
dropping, a continuity will arise.
And whenever your consciousness
becomes continuous, you need not use the mind. Then there is no planning, then
you act out of your consciousness, not out of your mind. Then there is no need
for any apology, no need to give any explanation. Then you are whatsoever you
are, there is nothing to hide. Whatsoever you are, you are. You cannot do
anything else. You can only be in a state of continuous remembrance. Through
this remembrance, this mindfulness, comes the authentic religion, comes the
authentic morality.
The greatest politeness
Is free of all formality.
If you are not formal, then
nobody is a stranger. Whether you move in the marketplace or in a crowded
street, nobody is a stranger, everybody is a friend. Not only a friend, really,
everybody is just an extension of you. Then formality is not needed. If I step
on my own foot - which is difficult - I will not say sorry, and I will not say
to myself, "The place is very crowded!" When I step on your foot, I
am stepping on my foot.
A mind which is fully alert
knows that consciousness is one, life is one, being is one, existence is one,
it is not fragmented. The tree flowering there is me in a different form, the
rock lying there on the ground is me in a different form. The whole of
existence becomes an organic unity - organic, life flowing through it, not
mechanical. A mechanical unity is a different thing - it is dead.
A car is a mechanical unity,
there is no life in it, and that is why you can replace one part by another.
Every part is replaceable. But
can you replace a man? Impossible. When a man dies, a unique phenomenon
disappears; disappears completely, you cannot replace it. When your wife or
your husband dies, now how can you replace them? You may get another wife, but
this will be another wife, not a replacement. And the shadow of the first will
always be there; the first cannot be forgotten, it will always be there. It may
become a shadow, but even shadows of love are very substantial.
You cannot replace a person,
there is no way. If it is a mechanical unity then wives are replaceable parts,
you can even have spare wives. You can keep them in your storeroom and whenever
your wife dies, you replace her!
This is what is happening in
the West. They have started to think in terms of mechanism. So now they say
nothing is a problem - if one wife dies you get another, if one husband is no
more you get another... So marriage in the West is a mechanical unity, which is
why divorce is possible. The East denies divorce because marriage is an organic
unity. How can you replace a live person? It will never happen again, that
person has simply disappeared into the ultimate mystery.
Life is an organic unity. You
cannot replace a plant because every plant is unique, you cannot find another,
the same cannot be found. Life has a quality of uniqueness. Even a small rock
is unique - you can go all over the world to find a similar rock and you will
not be able to. How can you replace it? This is the difference between organic
unity and mechanical unity. Mechanical unity depends on the parts; the parts
are replaceable, they are not unique. Organic unity depends on the whole, not
on the parts. Parts are not really parts, they are not separate from the whole
- they are one, they cannot be replaced.
When you become alert to the
inner flame of your inner being, suddenly you become alert that you are not an
island, it is a vast continent, an infinite continent. There are no boundaries
separating you from it. All boundaries are false, make-believe. All boundaries
are in the mind; in existence there are no boundaries.
Then who can be a stranger?
When you step on somebody, it is you; you have stepped on your own foot. No
apology is needed, no explanation is needed. There is no one else, there is
only one.
Then your life becomes real,
authentic, spontaneous; then it is not formal, then you do not follow any
rules. You have come to know the ultimate law. Now no rules are needed. You
have become the law - there is no need to remember the rules now.
The greatest politeness
Is free of all formality.
Have you looked at people who
are polite? You will not find more egoistic people than them. Look at a polite
person, the very way he stands, the way he talks, the way he looks, walks; he
has managed to make everything look polite, but inside the ego is manipulating.
Look at the so-called humble
people. They say they are nobodies, but when they say it, look into their eyes,
at the ego asserting. This is a very cunning ego, because if you say, "I
am somebody,"
everybody will be against you,
and everybody will try to put you in your place. If you say, "I am
nobody," everybody is for you, nobody is against you.
Polite people are very cunning,
clever. They know what to say, what to do, so that they can exploit you. If
they say, "I am somebody," everybody is against them. Then conflict
arises because everybody thinks that he is an egoist. It will be difficult then
to exploit people because everybody is closed against you. If you say, "I
am nobody, I am just dust on your feet," then the doors are open and you
can exploit. All etiquette, culture, is a type of sophisticated cunningness,
and you are exploiting.
The greatest politeness
Is free of all formality.
It happened that Confucius came
to see Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu's master. And Confucius was the image of formal
politeness. He was the greatest formalist in the world, the world has never
known such a great formalist. He was simply manners, formality, culture and
etiquette. He came to see Lao Tzu, the polar opposite.
Confucius was very old, Lao Tzu
was not so old. The formality was that when Confucius came in, Lao Tzu should
stand up to receive him. But he remained sitting. It was impossible for
Confucius to believe that such a great master, known all over the country for
his humbleness, should be so impolite. He had to mention it.
Immediately he said, "This
is not good. I am older than you."
Lao Tzu laughed loudly and
said, "Nobody is older than me. I existed before everything came into
existence. Confucius, we are of the same age, everything is of the same age.
From eternity we have been in existence, so don't carry this burden of old age,
sit down."
Confucius had come to ask some
questions. He said, "How should a religious man behave?"
Lao Tzu said, "When the
how comes, there is no religion. How is not a question for a religious man.
The how shows that you are not
religious but that you want to behave like a religious man - that is why you
ask how.
"Does a lover ask how one
should love? He loves! Really, it is only later on that one becomes aware that
he has been in love. It may be that only when love has gone does he become
aware that he has been in love. He simply loves. It happens. It is a happening,
not a doing."
Whatsoever Confucius asked, Lao
Tzu replied in such a way that Confucius became very much disturbed: "This
man is dangerous!"
When he returned, his disciples
asked, "What happened, what manner of man is this Lao Tzu?"
Confucius said, "Don't go
near him. You may have seen dangerous snakes, but nothing can compare with this
man. You may have heard about ferocious lions, they are nothing before this
man. This man is like a dragon which walks on the earth, can swim in the sea,
can go to the very end of the sky - very dangerous. He is not for us little
people, we are too small. He is dangerous, vast like an abyss. Don't go near
him, otherwise you will feel dizzy and you may fall. Even I felt dizzy. And I
couldn't understand what he said, he is beyond understanding."
Lao Tzu is bound to be beyond
understanding if you try to understand him through formality; otherwise he is
simple. But for Confucius he is difficult, almost impossible to understand,
because he sees through forms and Lao Tzu has no form and no formality.
Nameless, without any form, he lives in the infinite.
The greatest politeness
Is free of all formality.
Lao Tzu is sitting, Confucius
is waiting for him to stand up. Who was really polite? Confucius waiting for
Lao Tzu to stand up and welcome him and receive him because he is older, is
just egotistical.
Now the ego has taken the form
of age, seniority.
But Confucius could not look
directly into the eyes of Lao Tzu, because Lao Tzu was right. He was saying: We
are of the same age. Really, we are the same. The same life flows in you that
flows in me. You are not superior to me, I am not superior to you. There is no
question of superiority and inferiority, and there is no question of seniority
and juniority. There is no question, we are one.
If Confucius could have looked
into the eyes of Lao Tzu he would have seen that those eyes were divine. But a
man whose own eyes are filled with laws, rules, regulations, formalities, is
almost blind, he cannot see.
Perfect conduct is free of concern.
You conduct yourself well
because you are concerned. You behave well because you are concerned.
Just the other day a man came
to me. He said, "I would like to take the jump, I would like to become a
sannyasin, but I have my family, my children are studying at college and I have
a great responsibility to them."
He is concerned. He has a duty
to fulfill, but no love. Duty is concern; it thinks in terms of something that
has to be done because it is expected, because "What will people say if I
leave?" Who thinks about what people will say? The ego. So: "What
will people say? First let me fulfill my duties."
I never tell anybody to leave,
I never tell anybody to renounce, but I insist that one should not be in some
relationship because of duty - because then the whole relationship is ugly. One
should be in a relationship because of love. Then this man would not say,
"I have a duty to fulfill." He would say, "I cannot come right
now. My children are growing, and I love them, and I am happy working for
them."
Then this will be a happiness.
Now it is not a happiness, it is a burden. When you carry a burden, when you
even turn your love into a burden, you cannot be happy. And if you have turned
your love into a burden, your prayer will also become a burden, your meditation
will also become a burden.
Then you will say,
"Because of this guru, this master, I am caught, and now I have to do
this." It will not come out of you, your totality; it will not be
overflowing.
Why be worried? If there is
love, wherever you are, there is no burden. And if you love your children, even
if you leave them, they will understand. And if you don't love your children,
and you go on serving them, they will understand, and they will know that these
are just false things.
This is happening. People come
to see me and they say, "I have worked my whole life and nobody even feels
thankful towards me." How can anybody feel thankful towards you? You were
carrying them like a burden. Even small children understand well when love is
there, and they understand well when you are just doing your duty. Duty is
ugly, duty is violent; it shows your concern but doesn't show your spontaneity.
Says Chuang Tzu:
Perfect conduct is free of concern.
Whatsoever is done, is done out
of love - then you are not honest because honesty pays, you are honest because
honesty is lovely.
Businessmen are honest if
honesty pays. They say: Honesty is the best policy. How can you destroy a
beautiful thing like honesty and turn it into a best policy? Policy is
politics, honesty is religion.
An old man was on his deathbed.
He called his son and said, "Now I must tell you the secret, now I am
dying. Always remember two things - this is how I succeeded. First, whenever
you give a promise, fulfill it. Whatsoever the cost, be honest and fulfill it.
This has been my basis, this is why I succeeded. And the second thing, never
make any promises."
For a businessman even religion
is a policy, for a politician even religion is a policy - everything is a
policy, even love is a policy. Kings, queens, never marry ordinary, common
people. Why? It is part of politics. Kings marry other princesses, queens, and
the concern is about which relationship will be the most profitable for the
kingdom. Two kingdoms will become related so that they will become friends and
will not be antagonistic. So with whom should the marriage be made?
In India, in the olden days, a
king would marry many women, hundreds, even thousands. It was part of politics:
he would marry the daughter of anyone who had some power, so that he could
create a network of power relationships. Thus the person whose daughter you
have married will become your friend, he will help you.
In Buddha's time India had two
thousand kingdoms, so the most successful king was the one who had two thousand
wives, one wife from every kingdom. Then he could live in peace because now he
had no enemies. Now the whole country became like a family. But how can love
exist in such a concern? Love never thinks of consequences, never hankers for
results. It is sufficient unto itself.
Perfect conduct is free of concern.
Perfect wisdom is unplanned.
A wise man lives moment to
moment, never planning. Only ignorant people plan, and when ignorant people
plan, what can they plan? They plan out of their ignorance. Unplanned they
would have been better, because out of ignorance only ignorance arises; out of
confusion, only greater confusion is born.
A wise man lives moment to
moment, he has no planning. His life is just free like a cloud floating in the
sky, not going to some goal, not determined. He has no map for the future, he
lives without a map, he moves without a map; because the real thing is not the
goal, the real thing is the beauty of the movement. The real thing is not
reaching, the real thing is the journey. Remember, the real thing is the
journey, the very traveling. It is so beautiful, why bother about the goal? And
if you are too bothered about the goal, you will miss the journey, and the
journey is life - the goal can only be death.
The journey is life and it is
an infinite journey. You have been on the move from the very beginning - if
there was any beginning. Those who know say there was no beginning, so from no
beginning you have been on the move, to the no end you will be on the move -
and if you are goal-oriented, you will miss. The whole is the journey, the
path, the endless path, never beginning, never ending. There is really no goal
- goal is created by the cunning mind. Where is this whole existence moving?
Where?
It is not going anywhere. It is
simply going, and the going is so beautiful, that is why existence is
unburdened. There is no plan, no goal, no purpose. It is not a business, it is
a play, a LEELA. Every moment is the goal.
Perfect wisdom is unplanned.
Perfect love is without demonstrations.
Demonstration is needed because
love is not there. And the less love there is, the more you demonstrate - when
it is there, you don't demonstrate. Whenever a husband comes home with a
present for his wife she will know that something is wrong. He must have
stepped out of line, he must have met another woman. Now this is the
explanation, this is a substitute; otherwise love is such a present that no other
present is needed. Not that love will not give presents, but love itself is
such a present. What else can you give? What else is possible?
But whenever the husband feels
that something is wrong, he has to put it right. Everything has to be
rearranged, balanced. And this is the problem - women are so intuitive that
they know immediately, your present cannot deceive them. It is impossible,
because women still live with their intuition, with their illogical mind. They
immediately jump. And they will understand that something has gone wrong,
otherwise why this present?
Whenever you demonstrate, you
demonstrate your inner poverty. If your sannyas becomes a demonstration you are
not a sannyasin. If your meditation becomes a demonstration you are not
meditative, because whenever the real exists, it is such a light that there is
no need to demonstrate it. When your house is lighted, when there is a flame,
you need not go to the neighbors and tell them, "Look, our house has got a
lamp." It is there. But when your house is in darkness you try to convince
your neighbors that light is there. Convincing them, you try to convince
yourself. This is the reason why you want to demonstrate. If the other is
convinced, his conviction, her conviction, will help you to be convinced.
I have heard that once Mulla
Nasruddin had a beautiful house, but he got bored, as everybody gets bored.
Whether it was beautiful or not made no difference; living in the same house
every day, he got bored. The house was beautiful, with a big garden, acres of
green land, swimming pool, everything.
But he got bored, so he called
a real estate agent and told him, "I want to sell it. I am fed up, this
house has become a hell."
The next day an advertisement
appeared in the morning papers; the real estate agent had inserted a beautiful
advertisement. Mulla Nasruddin read it again and again and he was so convinced
that he phoned the agent: "Wait, I don't want to sell it. Your
advertisement has convinced me so deeply that now I know that for my whole life
I have been wanting this house, looking for this very house."
When you can convince others of
your love, you yourself become convinced. But if you have love, there is no
need, you know!
When you have wisdom, there is
no need to demonstrate it. But when you have only knowledge, you demonstrate,
you convince others, and when they are convinced, you are convinced that you
are a man of knowledge. When you have wisdom, there is no need. Even if not one
person is convinced, you are still certain that you alone are enough proof.
Perfect sincerity offers no guarantee.
All guarantees are because of
insincerity. You guarantee, you promise, you say: This is the guarantee, I will
do this. While you are giving the guarantee, at that very moment the
insincerity is there.
Perfect sincerity offers no
guarantee because perfect sincerity is so aware, aware of many things.
First, the future is unknown.
How can you make a guarantee? Life changes every moment, how can you promise?
All guarantee, all promising, can be only for this moment, not for the next.
For the next moment nothing can be done. You will have to wait.
If you are really sincere and
love a woman you cannot say, "I will love you for my whole life." If
you say this, you are a liar. This guarantee is false. But if you love, this
moment is enough. The woman will not ask for your whole life. This moment, if
love is there, it is so fulfilling that one moment is enough for many lives. A
single moment of love is eternity; she will not ask. But now she is asking
because this moment there is no love. So she asks, "What is the guarantee?
Will you love me always?"
This moment there is no love
and she is asking for a guarantee. This moment there is no love and you
guarantee for the future - because only through that guarantee can you deceive
at this moment.
You can create a beautiful
picture of the future and you can hide the ugly picture of the present. You
say, "Yes, I will love you forever and forever. Even death will not part
us." What nonsense! What insincerity! How can you do this?
You can do this and you do it
so easily because you are not aware of what you are saying. The next moment is
unknown; where it will lead, no one knows, what will happen, no one knows, no
one can know it.
Unknowability is part of the
future game. How can you guarantee? At the most you can say, "I love you
this moment and this moment I feel - this is a feeling of this moment - that
even death cannot part us. But this is a feeling of this moment. This is not a
guarantee. This moment I feel like saying that I will always and always love
you, but this is a feeling of this moment, this is no guarantee. What will
happen in the future nobody knows. We never knew about this moment so how can
we know about other moments? We will have to wait. We will have to be prayerful
that it happens, that I love you for ever and ever, but this is not a
guarantee."
Perfect sincerity cannot give
any guarantee. Perfect sincerity is so sincere that it cannot promise: it gives
whatsoever it can give here and now. Perfect sincerity lives in the present, it
has no idea of the future.
Mind moves in the future, being
lives here and now. And perfect sincerity belongs to the being, not to the
mind. Love, truth, meditation, sincerity, simplicity, innocence, all belong to
the being. The opposites belong to the mind and to hide the opposites the mind
creates false coins: false sincerity, which guarantees, promises; false love,
which is just a name for duty; false beauty, which is just a face for inner
ugliness. Mind creates false coins, and nobody is deceived, remember, except
yourself.
Enough for today.
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