---
section: Library
booktitle: "Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "TREAS1"
dategiven: "18 June 1975 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #8"
chaptertitle: "Attaining Absolute Indifference"
acode: "7506180"
shorttitle: "TREAS108"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "78mins"
displaytitle: "Tao: The Three Treasures, Vol 1: Chapter #8"
---

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  font-style: italic;
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```
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The first question:
<p class="question">YOU HAVE SAID MUCH LATELY ABOUT INNER SILENCE AND EMPTINESS. AFTER TWO YEARS AS YOUR DISCIPLE, MUCH OF THE TIME, PARTICULARLY DURING THE MEDITATIONS AT THE ASHRAM, MY MIND SEEMS MORE THAN EVER TO BE OUT OF CONTROL AND WORKING LIKE A COMPUTER GONE MAD. I TRY TO BE A WITNESS TO THE WHOLE ABSURDITY, BUT THE MONSTER GOES ON AND ON!</p>


LET THE MONSTER GO on and on and don't you be worried. The very worry is the problem, not the monster.


The whole world is going on and on: rivers go on flowing, clouds go on moving in the sky, birds go on chattering in the trees. Just why are you so against only the mind? Let it also go on and on -- you be unconcerned.


Witnessing is not an effort. When you are unconcerned the witness arises. Be indifferent to the mind; in the climate of indifference the witness arises. The very idea that you have to stop it is wrong, that you have to still it is wrong, that you have to do something about this constant ongoing process is wrong. You are not required to do anything. If you do anything it won't help -- it will help the trouble, not you. That's why when you meditate you feel the mind going more mad; when you don't meditate it is not so mad. When you are meditating you are too concerned with the mind, trying your hardest to make it still. Who are you? And why should you be worried about the mind? What is wrong with it? Allow the thoughts, let them move like clouds.


When you are indifferent, suddenly you are watching. With nothing left to do, what will you do? You can only watch, you can only witness -- and in witnessing mind stops. Not that you can stop it. Nobody has ever been able to stop the mind, because the stopper is also part of the mind. The idea of meditation is part of the mind too -- the idea that if you become silent you will attain to the ultimate is also of the mind. So don't be stupid! The mind cannot silence the mind. Who is asking this question, you or the mind?


You are not aware of yourself at all; it's the mind playing tricks. The only thing that can be done, and which is possible, is to be indifferent and let the mind go. When you are indifferent suddenly a distance arises between you and the mind. You still listen to it because it is knocking continuously at your doors, but now you are indifferent. Now, inside, you are not worried whether it goes on or stops, you don't choose. You say to the mind, "If you want to go, you go on; if you want to stop, you can stop. It is none of my concern." This unconcern is needed. In this climate of unconcern and indifference the witness arises. Suddenly you see that the mind never belonged to you; it is a computer, it is a mechanism. You are absolutely separate from it.


Drop all efforts to still it and just remain passive, looking at whatsoever is going on. Don't give direction to the mind; don't say, "Be like this." Don't be a guide to the mind and don't be a controller. The whole existence is going on, nothing disturbs you -- why only this mind, a small computer, a small mechanism? Enjoy it if you can. If you cannot, then be indifferent. And then suddenly one day you find that something which was fast asleep within you is awakening; a new energy is coming up in you -- a distance from the mind. And then by and by the mind goes on -- far away, far away, far away. Then still it goes on chattering but you know that somewhere far away, near a star it is chattering; you cannot even make sense out of it, what it is saying. And this distance goes on and on and on, and one day suddenly you cannot find where the mind has gone.


This silence is qualitatively different from a silence that you can practice. The real silence comes spontaneously, it is not something to be practiced. If you practice it you can create a false silence. The mind is so tricky, it can give you a false notion of silence -- and that too will belong to the mind. So don't try hard to still it. Rather, stand aside, by the side of the road, and let the traffic pass. Just watch it, just look at it with eyes of unconcern, indifference, and the thing that you have been desiring will happen -- but not through desire. Because desire will not allow you to be indifferent. Buddha has used a word upeksha; the word means absolute indifference. And he says that you can never become meditative unless you have attained to upeksha, to indifference. That is the very soil. In that soil the seeds of meditation sprout -- and there is no other way.

The second question:
<p class="question">FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS ENLIGHTENED MASTERS HAVE BEEN HELPING THEIR DISCIPLES TO USE WORDS LESS AND SILENCE MORE. LAO TZU TALKED THE LEAST. BUT YOU SEEM TO BE THE PERSON WHO HAS TALKED MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ON THE EARTH! WHY IS IT SO?</p>


THEY TRIED and they failed with you. So I thought: Let me try the other way round.

The third question:
<p class="question">IT IS SAID THAT ALL THE KNOWLEDGE OF HEAVEN AND EARTH IS CONTAINED IN THE SIXTY-FOUR HEXAGRAMS OF THE I CHING. IS THIS SO? IF SO, HOW TO UTILIZE IT?</p>


ALL THE KNOWLEDGE of heaven and earth is contained in everything, not only in the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching. Even in a small pebble on the path all the knowledge of heaven and earth is contained; in a small blade of grass all the knowledge of heaven and earth is contained; in everything -- because every part of existence carries the whole in it. Even a drop of sea is the whole sea -- the whole knowledge, the whole being of the sea is contained in the drop. It is sea. It may not be the sea, but it is sea.


You also contain the whole. So no need to go to the I Ching and the hexagrams; rather, go inwards, because finally the I Ching cannot say anything to you, finally you will be the interpreter. If you read tarot cards or the I Ching or use other methods, who will interpret? You will be the interpreter. So finally everything depends on you.


Unless you are awakened no I Ching is going to help. And if you are awakened everything is a hexagram and everything is the I Ching. So don't waste your time with other things: become awakened. When you are awakened you will see the whole universe written everywhere. In each blade of grass you will find the signature of the divine. And if you can understand a blade of grass you have understood all, root and all.


So don't deceive yourself. People deceive themselves in millions of ways. They waste their time in millions of ways, hoping that somehow they can enter the temple from some back door. There exists none. There is no back door to the temple, only the front door. You will find many back doors but they will not lead you to the inner shrine. You will be caught by some charlatan or somebody else.


Back doors don't exist in existence because existence does not believe in hiding. Look! Everything is so open, the secret is so open. Nothing is hidden, everything is open, you just need eyes to see it, awareness to read it, ability to enjoy it. Everywhere everything is an open secret, nothing whatsoever is hidden from the very beginning. Existence is open, only you are closed. And a closed mind is working with the I Ching -- what will you attain out of it? Your own reflections, you will see yourself in it, your own unconscious will be reflected in it.


These methods are just mirrors. They reflect your own unconscious -- nothing much. They never give you anything new, they simply reflect you. But you don' t know yourself, that's why you think something new has been gained, some new knowledge has been gained through them.


I have heard: the Russian dictator, Khrushchev, came to Paris and went to see a modern exhibition of paintings. He was an uncultured man, and not in any way aesthetic -- had no sense of beauty. He was, in fact, vulgar. But he was invited and he had to go.


Great paintings were shown in the exhibition. He looked at one painting and he said, "I don't understand. This looks ugly."


The man who was showing him around, a great critic of art, said, "This is Picasso and it is one of the most beautiful things that has happened in this century, but it needs understanding. It is not so ordinary that anybody can understand it. You have to raise your level of aesthetic feeling, sensitivity; only then will you be able to see what it is."


They moved on. Khrushchev didn't feel good. He had never imagined... in fact, in Russia it would have never happened. No critic, no artist would have been so courageous to say that he lacked understanding.


Then at the next painting he stood for a few minutes, looked deeply, and said, "I think this too is Picasso."


The critic said, "Sorry sir, this is just a mirror. You are looking at yourself in it."


He was an ugly man -- it may have looked like Picasso to him, a painting of Picasso's, a distortion.


In the I Ching you will find a mirror. If a Buddha reads the I Ching it is going to be totally different, because the mirror will show Buddha. If Lao Tzu reads the I Ching, it will show Lao Tzu. If you read, of course you will see yourself. You can see only your face.


So don't be bothered. Become a Buddha, then it will be worth looking at the mirror. But no Buddha bothers to look at the mirror. This is the puzzle. No Buddha bothers to look in the mirror because deep down he knows his own being so well, so intensely, that there is no need for a mirror to know it. You need a mirror -- but then the mirror simply shows you. And you go on befooling yourself. Whatsoever you want to read you will read, and you will throw the responsibility on the I Ching.


Once Mulla Nasruddin didn't go to the office. In the evening he came to see me and he was very happy, because he had slept in bed the whole day -- not a care in the world.


I asked, "Nasruddin, why have you taken a holiday today?


He said, "Couldn't help it. I tossed a coin in the morning to see whether to go to the office or not -- if it came down heads I had to go, if it came down tails I could enjoy a holiday."


So I asked, "It came down tails and you enjoyed a holiday?"


He said, "Yes, but I had to toss it ten times, then it came to tails."


This is what is happening. I Ching, tarot cards, whatsoever -- this is what is happening. Whatsoever you want to do, you do it, but why throw responsibility on the poor I Ching? Just be responsible and do it. These are tricks.


Yes, I say everything is contained in everything. Even in the I Ching the whole universe is contained. Nothing otherwise is possible. This is how existence is. In each part the total is contained, the whole is contained. Anywhere you move, you move into the whole, but it depends on your understanding how you will read it.


So I'm not concerned with I Chings, I am concerned with you and your understanding. Try to grow into it. Don't waste your time with anything else. Life is really short and much has to be done. Don't fool around.

The fourth question:
<p class="question">DO GROWTH AND SPIRITUALITY HAVE ANY MEANING IN TAO?</p>


NONE WHATSOEVER -- because Tao is whatsoever is the case right now. Tao is the present. Growth brings future in. The very idea of growth brings the future in, and then everything is distorted. Not that you don't grow in Tao, in fact you only grow in Tao, but the idea of growth is completely foreign to the world of Tao. They don't talk of growth: they only talk of how to be, not how to grow.


And if you know how to be, that is the only way to grow. If you know how to be in this moment you are on the path of growth. You need not think about it, it comes by itself on its own accord, just as a river finds its way to the sea without consulting any guidebook, without asking anybody on the path where the ocean is. It finds the way. Not trying to find it, still it finds. It goes on moving, moment to moment living its life; finally it reaches the ocean. This moment lived well and totally, the next moment will come out of this moment -- from where else can it come? It will grow out of it on its own, you need not worry about it. You live this moment in totality, and the next moment is born out of this. If you have lived totally then the possibility for the next moment is born with it -- it can also be lived totally


If you know how to live totally, you will also live the next moment totally. And every moment more and more total you will become and growth will happen on its own. But if you are too concerned about growth then you miss this moment, and that is the only time one can grow in.


So Lao Tzu doesn't talk about growth, because he knows that the very talk about growth will become postponement. Then one thinks, "I will grow tomorrow. Today is not the time for me. Many other things have to be done; growth can wait a little. There is no hurry." And then you go on postponing and you go on living this moment in a fragmentary, partial way. And the next moment will come out of it, and with each moment you will become more and more partial, fragmented, divided, split. Then who will grow and how does one grow?


One has to become that which one is already. One has to attain that which one is born with. You have to become that which is your very being, the very basis of being -- so right now is the work. This passing moment has to be used so intensely, absorbed so intensely... then it becomes growth. Growth is not an ideal in Tao, it is a byproduct.


And about spirituality Tao does not concern itself at all -- if you ask Lao Tzu he will laugh. If you talk about spirituality he may slap your face, he may throw you out and say to you, "Go somewhere else. Don't bring such stupid things to me." Why? Because the moment you say spiritual you have divided life into the material and the spiritual -- and he is for the total, the whole. The moment you say spiritual you have condemned something in the material, in the body, in the world. The very word "spiritual" carries a condemnation in it, a division.


You can see people who think they are spiritual; in their eyes you can see condemnation. Don't go very near to them, they are poisonous; in their very breath there is danger and infection. Escape from them! Whenever you see a spiritual man coming towards you run as fast as you can, because he is ill. He is deeply neurotic, he is a schizophrenic, because he has divided life into two, and life is an undivided whole; it cannot be divided.


Life is not soul, life is not body, life is both. You are not body and soul, you are bodysoul. That "and" is dangerous, drop it. I have seen people who have dropped the "and" but still when they think of bodysoul they cannot make it one word, they place a small hyphen instead of the "and" between the two. Even that hyphen is dangerous, drop that also. Make bodysoul one word. It is one. Make mattermind one; make this world and that world one. Let your God be here, down in the matter, and let your matter rise high and enter into your God. Then how can you talk about spirituality?


In India this disease is very old, this disease of spirituality. People come to me, spiritual people. Not knowing me rightly, sometimes, they come to me by fault. They talk about their spirituality and in the same breath they talk about others' materialism. It is a cliche in India that the West is materialist and the East is spiritual. This is nonsense. This is just a very bigoted, schizophrenic mind. It arises out of the division between the body and soul -- then everything will be divided, then your whole life will always carry a division. Even the body is divided into two: the higher body is something higher, and below the navel the lower body is really lower -- lower as a valuation. Body and soul are divided, then the body is also divided: the lower part is somehow dirty, the higher part is holy, sacred. In fact where has your body a division inside it? Can you demark a place from where the body becomes lower? The blood circulates all over the body, the same blood. The whole body is one network, how can you divide it? And to people who divide, tell them, "Cut your lower body and live with the higher. Then we will see." They will die immediately.


That's what happens to spiritual people, they are dead people. This has been my observation: that even materialists are more alive than your spiritual people, because materialists deep down feel that someday they will try to become spiritualists also. They don't condemn. Rather, on the contrary, they feel a self-condemnation inside them, a guilt, that they are not going to the temple but to the prostitute; that they are not going to prayer but they are going to a singing party, a dancing party. They know that they are doing something wrong, they feel humiliated. So there is a possibility for them because the ego feels hurt. But the spiritual person is an egoistic person. In fact, the concept of God has been created by the greatest egoists in the world -- to condemn others and to appreciate themselves.


God is total, but the God of the so-called spiritual people is not total. Their God is just an abstraction, a thought, a pure thought with no life in it.


Lao Tzu is not spiritual in that sense, and he won't allow any spirituality into his vicinity. He is simply for the whole; he is simply for no division. I am also for no division. When I initiate you into SANNYAS I am not initiating you into spirituality, I am initiating you into a life of the whole -- I am trying to make you holy, not spiritual. And remember by holy I always mean the whole, in which you will live an integrated life -- an organically integrated life of body, soul, world, God, market and meditation; an integrated life where no division exists; a flowing energy, not compartmentalized. I don't want any airtight compartments in your being. Your being should be liquid. You should be courageous, so courageous that even the sinner can exist side by side with the saint in you, and the saint is not afraid and the sinner doesn't feel condemned. When your sinner and saint come closer and closer and one day become one, you have become holy. Then you have not denied anything, you are not a no-sayer, you have said yes to the whole of life as it is, with no conditions attached. You have said yes to the whole life -- this to me is what a religious man is.


And the same is true with Lao Tzu: he does not bother about growth, growth will take its own course -- you just live the moment. He does not bother about spirituality -- you just live totally, and spirituality will take care of itself. It will come -- it is a flowering, not a discipline.


When one is total, life flowers -- and that flowering is spirituality. Spirituality is not an attitude, it is not a discipline. It is an outcome of a life lived totally, joyfully, delightfully; of a life of no complaint; of a life lived courageously, intensely. Then this flowering happens.

The fifth question:
<p class="question">YOU SPOKE OF BALANCE, THE MEETING POINT, THE BLENDING OF OPPOSITES -- BUT IT SEEMS TO BE AN INVISIBLE TIMELESS POINT. THEN HOW CAN IT BE KNOWN BY ME WHO IS TIME?</p>


YOU ARE BOTH time and timelessness, otherwise balance could not be attained. But you have known only part of your being -- that part is time. If you know your whole being you know the timeless part also. For the whole there exists no time. Time is a relative concept, it exists only for people who are not whole. This has to be understood -- it is a delicate point and very complicated. Time is one of the most abstruse problems.


Saint Augustine says, "I know what time is when nobody asks me, but when somebody asks I don't know." Everybody knows what time is if nobody asks; if somebody insists that you define, explain what time is, then you are at a loss. You have been using it, every moment you have been talking about it and you have a subtle feeling about it, what it is, but when you want to be articulate about it you are at a loss.


Time is one of the most abstruse problems. Try to understand. Time is relative -- the first thing to be understood -- it is nothing absolute. For the whole universe there is no time because it cannot move from one point to another; both the points are in it. It contains all -- the past, the present, the future. If it doesn't contain the future already, how can the future ever exist? The whole cannot move in time because it contains time also. Time is part of its existence. That's why we say about the whole that it lives in eternity: eternity means timelessness, there is no time in it. Past, future, present -- all are implied in it.


Time exists for us because we live as parts. Space exists for us because we live as parts. They are relative phenomena. For the whole, space doesn't exist because it is contained in the whole. It cannot go anywhere else, because there is no anywhere else. The whole of space is in the whole. Where can it go? It exists here now, it always exists here now; otherwise has never been the case.


And you are both. If you live a divided life, if you live a partial life, if you live half asleep, almost sleep, then you live in time. If you live a fully awakened life, suddenly you live in eternity, timelessness. You have become the whole; now no time exists for you.

A German mystic, Eckhart, was on his deathbed.


A disciple -- a curious, inquiring man, a student of philosophy -- asked him, "Master, I know that you are dying, but I would like one question to be answered before you leave the body, otherwise it will haunt me my whole life."


Eckhart opened his eyes and said, "What is your question?"
The man said, "When you die, where will you go?"


Eckhart said, "There is no need to go anywhere." And he closed his eyes and died.


"There is no need to go anywhere," he said. I don't think that the man's inquiry was satisfied but a beautiful answer was given. It needs very deep understanding. Eckhart said, "There is no need to go anywhere." It means: I am everywhere now. Where is the need to go anywhere?


Buddha was asked the same question again and again -- when a Buddha dies where does he go? Buddha always laughed and kept quiet.


At the last moment again the question was raised and Buddha said, "Bring a small candle."


The candle was brought and Buddha said, "Light the candle."


The candle was lit and then Buddha said, "Bring it near to me."


The candle was brought nearer and nearer and then suddenly he blew it out and said, "I ask you where this candle light has gone; where has the flame gone?" The disciples were at a loss.


In Sanskrit the cessation of a flame is called nirvana. So Buddha said, "Just like this, when Buddha dies, he disappears. He becomes one with the whole. So it is irrelevant where he goes, because where can the whole go? Where has this flame gone? It has become one with the whole. Now it no more exists as an individual flame, the individuality is dropped."


That's why the word nirvana became most important in Buddhist terminology. It means cessation of a flame, total cessation of a flame. It remains because whatsoever is remains, but you cannot find it. Where will you find a flame which is no more? Individuality is lost, form is lost. Where will you find it? But can you say it is no more? It is, because how can a thing which was be no more? It disappeared, of course; became one with the formless, of course; became one with the whole, of course -- but it is. Now it exists as the whole.


You have both the possibilities. You can live in time, then you live as mind. Mind is time because mind divides life into past, present, future. Mind is the dividing factor. It is a great analyst, the great dissector. It dissects everything. You can live life through the mind, then you live in time. But you can live life directly, you can live life immediately, without mind. You can put the mind aside, then you live life timelessly, eternally. Then there is no past, then there is no future, then there is only present and present and present. It is always there.


Past is that present which you cannot see, and future is that present which you cannot see yet. Past is that present which has passed beyond you, beyond your perception; future is that present which has not yet come within the boundaries of your perception.


Just think of a small example. You are waiting under a long tall tree for someone. You can look at the road but there is a limitation. You can look one furlong to one side, one furlong to the other side, and then the road disappears. Another man is sitting in the tree, at the top of the tree. He can see further. He can see one mile in one direction, one mile in another direction.


You are waiting for a friend. The friend appears -- not for you, but for the man who is sitting at the top of the tree. The moment the friend appears on the road he has become present to the man at the top of the tree, but to you he is still future -- he has not yet appeared on the road. Unless he comes within your boundary of perception he will not be present. He is future. Past, future and present are relative; it depends on your height and where you are.


That's why Jainas insist that Mahavir knows all the three tenses of time -- because of his height. He can see end to end, nothing is hidden from him. So whatsoever you think is past is still present for him, and whatsoever you think is future is present for him.


Then the friend appears -- you talk to him and he moves on. After one furlong he disappears for you, he has become past. But for the man on the top of the tree he is still part of present. It depends how wide the compass of your understanding is. If your compass is total, then there is no time. Then you can see end to end. Then everything of the past is also present -- right now. Then everything that is going to happen in the future is also present -- right now. Then there is no past, no future; only present exists. Only one moment of present exists -- that moment is eternity.


You have both the possibilities. You can exist through the mind, then you are limited. It is just as if you are looking from a window towards the sky -- then the frame of the window becomes the frame of the sky. The frame of the mind becomes the frame of your world. Then you jump out of the window; you come out under the whole sky. Now there is no frame.


In French painting a new cult is arising, the cult of paintings without frames. It is a beautiful phenomenon, because all frames are false. In life everything exists without frame, but when you paint a picture you put a frame to it. That frame is the most false thing. And the irony is that sometimes people purchase such beautiful and decorative frames that even the picture is not as costly as the frame. The frame is more costly and precious -- and the frame is false. Life exists without a frame. Have you seen life anywhere with a frame? But you take a picture; immediately a frame comes into existence. The frame is false. All frames are from the mind; mind gives a frame to everything which is frameless, formless.


You can be both, it depends on you. In deep meditation the mind is no longer involved. It goes on functioning in the beginning but by and by, when you don't listen to it, it stops its chattering. Seeing that nobody bothers, seeing that nobody pays any attention, it stops.


The mind is just like a child. Have you seen a child do this? If he falls down, first he looks for his mother, to see if she is around somewhere. If she is, then he cries. If she is not, what is the point? Then he simply gets up, starts playing again because there is no point -- nobody is paying any attention. Nobody will bother unless the mother is there. And sometimes it happens that after half an hour the mother appears and he starts crying. Now it is absurd, but in a way logical. Because what is the point in crying when the mother is not there? Even if you are hurt it is pointless. When the mother comes now the hurt is no more, but it is meaningful to cry and weep for the hurt which is no more because the mother is expected to pay attention!


The mind is like a child. If you pay attention it cries. If you pay attention it creates problems. If you pay attention it goes on and on, there is no end to it. If you don't pay attention, suddenly the child realizes the mother is no more there, the child by and by realizes the mother is gone, and then he stops. When the mind stops you are immediate, then you face reality directly. Then there is no mediator in between, nobody to color it. Then the perception is clear, pure -- and you are in eternity.

The sixth question:
<p class="question">CAN THE EGO COMMIT SUICIDE?</p>


NO, BECAUSE IT IS NOT. To commit suicide it is needed to be there. Let me put it in another way: can a shadow commit suicide? A shadow cannot commit suicide because a shadow doesn't exist. If you commit suicide, if you cut off your head, then the shadow will be without a head. It simply follows you. The ego is just a shadow, it cannot commit suicide. If you cut off your head, the ego commits suicide -- not that it commits, it happens.


Try to understand that the ego is not substantial; the ego is just like a shadow. The body moves -- a shadow is created, a physical shadow; the mind moves -- a mental shadow is created. That mental shadow is the ego. When the mind stops there is no ego, when the mind is not functioning there is no ego. When the mind is functioning the ego is there; if the mind functions too much the ego is there too much. That's why you will see: people who work with the head too much are more egoistical than anybody else. Brahmins, scholars, professors, pundits, the so-called intelligentsia -- they have the subtlest egos. Intellectuals, writers, poets, philosophers -- they have the subtlest egos. They are nothing but egos -- too much head.


People who work with the hands, who are technically called hands, are humble people. Go and visit a small village of peasants, workers, laborers, who work with the hands. They are humble people.


There is a story about Confucius. The story is as old as Lao Tzu.


Confucius was traveling, passing through a village, and he saw an old man, a very old man, pulling water from a well and watering his field. It was hard work and the sun was burning hot. Thinking that this man seemed not to have heard that now there were mechanical devices which could pull the water -- you could use horses or bulls instead of man to pull the water out more easily -- so Confucius went to the old man and said, "Have you not heard that now devices exist? The water can be pulled out very easily from the well and the work that you do in twelve hours can be done in half an hour. Horses can do it. Why are you unnecessarily straining so much? You are an old man." He must have been ninety years of age.


The man said, "It is always good to work with the hands because whenever cunning devices are used a cunning mind arises. In fact only a cunning mind uses cunning devices. Don't you try to corrupt me. I'm an old man, let me die as innocent as I was born. It is good to work with the hands. One remains humble."


Confucius came back to his disciples. The disciples asked, "What were you talking about with that old man?"


Confucius said, "It seems he is a disciple of Lao Tzu. He hit me hard, and his argument seems to be correct. "


When you work with the hands no shadow of the head arises, a person remains humble, innocent, natural. When you start using cunning devices, the head comes in. People who work with heads technically are called heads: a head clerk, a headmaster -- they are called heads. Don't be a head. Even to be a clerk is too bad, and to be a head clerk... finished. To be a master is enough of a hell, but to be a headmaster.... Try to be hands. And hands are condemned because they are not cunning, not competitive enough; they seem to be primitive. Try to work more with hands and you will find that less and less the shadow arises.


The ego cannot commit suicide because it is not. If you commit suicide that is what I call samadhi, that is what I call the final meditation. If you commit suicide -- that means if you disappear, you become a nobody -- no shadow falls.


In the old days it was rumored that whenever a man becomes a Buddha no shadow falls from his body. This must have been symbolic. It is very meaningful. It doesn't mean that when Buddha walks on the path no shadow falls -- the shadow falls, but inside no shadow falls. He moves, he works, he does things, but the doer does not arise. That is how the shadow doesn't fall. If needed he even thinks, but the thinker does not arise; that's how the shadow does not fall. He lives, but he is not a manipulator, the controller. He flows, his life is a spontaneity. He does not even swim, he simply floats with the river. He does not push the river, he simply leaves himself in a let-go. He is a let-being-be. He floats. He leaves it to the river to do everything, then the shadow doesn't fall; the ego disappears.


Don't fight with the ego directly. If you do that you will fail, because nobody can fight directly with the shadow. If you have to do something with the shadow you will have to do something with your being. Something-is wrong, a wrong conception. You are a non-being inside -- realize more and more the inner hollowness, the emptiness, and suddenly one day you will find the ego has left you. In fact you will find it has never been there, you had a misconception, you were in an illusion. It was a mirage. It was not there, it only appeared to be there; it was not a reality, it was a dream -- in fact, a nightmare.

The seventh question:
<p class="question">CAN A MAN WHO LIVES THE STATES OF ANGER AND COMPASSION ALSO LIVE THE STATES OF LOVE AND HATE?</p>


YES. When a man is total, he is total -- unconditionally. But his hate has a different quality, his hate is even more loving than your love and his anger is even more compassionate than your compassion. Because he lives totally everything takes on a new quality. Whatsoever he does, it is different. You cannot judge him from your side because you don't know what totality means. You know hate, you know love -- sometimes you have loved, you had a glimpse of it, sometimes you have hated, you had a glimpse of it -- but you have never been total. If you are total your love is different: your love has the intensity of hate. Have you ever observed the fact that your love never has the intensity of hate? When you hate a person you really hate. When you love, you love so-so. When you love you never put yourself into it completely. But when you hate, you hate really intensely -- have you watched the fact that your compassion is impotent, maybe just a facade, a mask, but your anger is real?


All that is wrong seems to be real and all that is beautiful seems to be false. When a man is total his love is as intense as his hate. And when a man of totality hates, his hate also carries total love in it -- he can hate only because he loves, and he can be angry only because he has compassion.


No, it is difficult. It will create a deep confusion in you because right now you cannot understand it, right now your understanding is not ripe for it. You will have to try it.


Drop lukewarmness. It needs courage. The greatest courage is needed to live a life of totality because then one never knows what is going to happen. And you are always afraid. You love a person; you are afraid to be angry with him or her because you don't know really whether you love or not. You don't know really if love will be able to withstand anger. Will it be possible that love will survive anger? So you have to suppress anger, because you are afraid. You are not really certain that your love is there. You have a certain feeling -- maybe it is, maybe it is not -- a vague feeling. You live in a mist, always surrounded by smoke; nothing is ever clear, your perception is always clouded. So you are afraid: this much anger may dissolve the whole relationship, may destroy the whole relationship. No! Suppress anger! Then you suppress anger; anger becomes part of you -- then when you love, in your love the anger also comes in.


Watch two lovers making love. You will see that there is violence. The love act is not graceful. Look at the face of the man making love -- it seems as if he is going to murder the woman. Maybe that's why women always close their eyes while you make love to them: it is better not to see what this man is going to be or going to do. The whole thing seems to be nasty. Distortion comes to the face -- grace should come, but distortion comes to the face. Faces which look ordinarily beautiful become ugly, as if one is passing through some agony, as if it is not an ecstasy but an agony. Look at the woman's face: the face becomes distorted, all her makeup gone. The face no more seems to be beautiful. And she seems to be in some sort of a pain -- suppressing it.


Even while making love, people are afraid that if they move really totally there is a danger point. Their whole mind goes on showing the red light: Stop! Don't go further! Because all that they have suppressed can come up any time, it is there knocking at their doors: Allow us! So they cannot relax in love either, because relaxation can be only unconditional. There is no conditional relaxation.


If you relax, you relax for love, you relax for anger, you relax for hate. It is just like when you open the door you open it for the enemy as much as you open it for the friend. If you leave the door open in the night there is every possibility the friend may come -- the enemy also. So you close the door. But the closed door is closed for both, for the friend and for the enemy.


You have never been able to be angry really, authentically. You cannot love authentically. When you are total you do everything authentically whatsoever the consequences, never thinking of the consequences.


This is my mathematics about life -- if you live totally, whatsoever the consequences, it is always good. Whatsoever! It is always good. And if you live a fragmentary life, whatsoever the consequence, it is always bad.


You can see from your lives that you have been living a very gentlemanly life, a lukewarm phenomenon, neither cold nor hot. What has happened? Nothing, almost nothing. You have been wasting yourself. Don't waste any more. Be true. There are dangerous dangers in being true, otherwise everybody would become authentic. There are dangers, otherwise why would so many people be so unauthentic? -- cowards, afraid, trying to manipulate somehow.


A little comfortable life.... If you want to life comfortably, then it is better to be a coward. But a comfortable life is nothing but a comfortable death. A real life burns from both ends. It is a flame -- surrounded always by danger, surrounded always by death. When death surrounds you, danger surrounds you. Only in that context does life come to its peak.

The last question:
<p class="question">A BIRD CAME TO DIE AT YOUR FEET SOME DAYS AGO. CAN WE ALSO, WHEN OUR TIME ARRIVES, COME AND DIE AT YOUR FEET?</p>


THERE WILL BE no need to come, I will be there. If you really love me and trust me I will be there. But don't wait for death. If I am with you in life, only then can I be with you in death.


Life is the criterion. Death is the culmination. Whatsoever is in life culminates into a peak in death, it comes to a crescendo. If you feel me in your life, near your heart, then you will find me absolutely present in your death. There will be no need for you to come, I will come.


But don't wait for death. It should first happen in life. All that you want to happen in death you should allow to happen in life, because life is the preparation for death. And death is never against life, it is simply the completion. All that has been in life comes to a peak in death.
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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