TAO
The Empty Boat 06
Sixth Discourse from the series of 11 discourses - The Empty Boat by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
When an archer is shooting for fun
he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
he goes blind
or sees two targets –
he is out of his mind.
His skill has not changed,
but the prize divides him.
He cares.
He thinks more of winning
than of shooting –
and the need to win
drains him of power.
If the mind is filled with dreams you cannot see rightly. If the heart is filled with desires you cannot feel rightly. Desires, dreams and hopes – the future disturbs you, and whatsoever is, is in the present. When you are divided, desire leads you into the future, and life is here and now. Reality is here and now, and desire leads you into the future. Then you are not here. You see, but still you don’t see; you hear, but still you miss; you feel, but the feeling is dim, it cannot be deep, it cannot be penetrating. That is how truth is missed.
People go on asking where to find the divine, where to find the truth. It is not a question of finding the divine or the truth. It is always here, it has never been anywhere else, it cannot be. It is there where you are, but you are not there, your mind is somewhere else. Your eyes are filled with dreams, your heart is filled with desires. You move into the future, and the future is illusion. Or, you move into the past, and the past is already dead.
The past is no more and the future has yet to be. Between these two is the present moment. That moment is very short, as short as possible, it is atomic, you cannot divide it – it is indivisible. That moment passes in the flicker of an eye. If a desire enters, you have missed it; if a dream is there, you are missing it.
The whole of religion consists of not leading you somewhere, but bringing you to the here and now, bringing you back to the whole, back where you have always been. But the head has gone away, very far away. This head has to be brought back. So God is not to be sought somewhere – that is why you are missing him, because you are searching somewhere. He has been here waiting for you.
Once it happened that Mulla Nasruddin came staggering home totally drunk. He knocked at his own door, knocked again and again. It was already half past midnight. The wife came and Nasruddin asked her, “Can you tell me, madam, where Mulla Nasruddin lives?”
The wife said, “This is too much. You are Mulla Nasruddin.”
Mulla Nasruddin said, “That’s okay, I know that, but that doesn’t answer my question. Where does he live?”
This is the situation. Drunk with desires, staggering, you knock at your own door and ask where your home is. You are really asking who you are. This is home, and you have never left it, it is impossible to leave it. It is not something outside you which is going to leave and go away. It is your within, it is your very being.
Asking where God is, is foolish, because you cannot lose God. It is your within, your innermost being, your very core. It is your existence: you breathe him, you live him, and it cannot be otherwise. The only thing that has happened is that you have become so drunk, that you cannot recognize your own face. And unless you come back and get sober you will go on searching and seeking and you will go on missing.
Tao, Zen, Yoga, Sufism, Hasidism, these are all methods to bring you back, to make you sober again, to destroy your drunkenness. Why are you so drunk? What makes you so drunk? Why are your eyes so sleepy? Why aren’t you alert? What is the root cause of it all? The root cause is that you desire.
Try to understand the nature of desire. Desire is alcoholic, desire is the greatest drug possible. Marijuana is nothing, LSD is nothing. Desire is the greatest LSD possible – the ultimate in drugs.
What is the nature of desire? When you desire, what happens? When you desire, you are creating an illusion in the mind; when you desire, you have already moved from here. Now you are not here, you are absent because the mind is creating a dream. This absentness is your drunkenness.
Be present. This very moment the doors of heaven are open. There is no need even to knock because you are not outside heaven, you are inside. Just be alert and look around without eyes filled with desire, and you will have a belly laugh. You will laugh at the whole joke, at what has been happening. It is just like a man dreaming at night.
It happened once…
A man was very disturbed – his nights were simply prolonged nightmares. His whole night was a struggle. It was so painful that he was always scared to go to sleep and he was always happy to get out of bed. The whole night was nightmarish – he was having very bad dreams, ferocious. The nature of the dreams was such, that the moment he fell asleep, he would start seeing millions of lions, dragons, tigers, reptiles, crocodiles, millions of them sitting underneath his small bed. So he couldn’t sleep because at any moment they would attack.
Knowing they would all be coming back the whole night was just a long disturbance, a torture, a hell. He was treated medically, but nothing would help. Everything failed. He was analyzed by psychologists, psychiatrists, but nobody could succeed. Then one day he walked out of his house laughing.
Nobody had seen him laughing for many years. His face had become hellish, always sad, afraid, scared. So the neighbors asked, “What is the matter? You are laughing? We have not seen you laughing for years. We have completely forgotten that you ever used to laugh. What happened to your nightmares?”
The man said, “I told my brother-in-law, and he cured me.”
The neighbors asked, “Is your brother-in-law a great psychoanalyst, psychologist, or something? How could he cure you?
The man said, “He is a carpenter. He simply cut the legs off my bed. Now there’s no more space, so I slept for the first time!”
You create a space – and desire is the way to create that space. The greater the desire, the more space is created. Because if a desire is to be fulfilled in one year, then you have one year’s space. You can move in it, but then you will have to encounter many reptiles, many dragons. This space which is created by desire, you call it time. If there is no desire, there is no need for time.
A single moment exists – not even two moments, because the second is needed only by desire, it is not needed by your existence. Existence is completely fulfilled, totally, in one moment.
Remember: if you think that time is something outside you, then you are deceiving yourself. Time is not something outside you.
If man disappears from the earth will there be time? Trees will grow, rivers will flow, clouds will still float in the sky, but I ask, will there be time? There will not be any time. There will be moments, rather, there will be one moment – and when one moment disappears another comes into existence. Another disappears, another comes into existence. But there is no time as such. Only the atomic moment exists.
Trees don’t desire anything, they don’t desire to flower, flowers will come automatically. It is part of the nature of the tree that flowers will come. But the tree is not dreaming, the tree is not moving, it is not thinking, it is not desiring.
If man is not there, there will be no time, just eternal moments. You create time with desire. The greater the desire, the more time is needed.
For materialistic desires much time is not needed. That is why in the West they say that there is only one life. In the East we have desired moksha. That is the greatest desire possible – no other desire can be greater than that. But how can you get moksha in one life? One life is not enough. You may get a palace, you may organize a kingdom, you may become very rich and powerful, a Hitler, a Ford. You may become something in this world, but moksha is such a great desire that one life is not enough.
So in the East we believe in many lives, in rebirth, because more time is needed, many lives will be needed. Only then can you hope that the desire for moksha will be fulfilled. I’m not saying whether there are many lives or not. That is not the point. But in the East people believe in many lives because they desire moksha. If there is only one life how can you attain it?
If there is only one life, then only material things can be attained. Then spiritual transformation is not possible. The desire is so big that millions of lifetimes are needed. That is why in the East people live so lazily. There is no hurry because there is no shortage of time. You will be born again and again and again. Why be in a hurry? You have infinite time.
So if the East is lazy and looks so absolutely unaware of time, if things move with such a slow flow, it is because of the concept of many lives. If the West is so time-conscious, it is because there is only one life, and everything has to be attained in it. If you miss, you miss forever – no second opportunity is possible. Because of this shortage of time, the West has become so tense. So many things to do and so little time left – so many desires, and time is always short.
Everyone is always in a hurry, running fast. Nobody is moving slowly, nobody is walking slowly. Everybody is running, and more speed is needed. So the West goes on inventing speedier vehicles and there is never any satisfaction. The West goes on lengthening human life just to give you a little more time to fulfill your desires.
But why is time needed? Can’t you be here and now without time? Is this moment not enough, just sitting near me, no past, no future? – this moment in between, which is atomic, which is really as if nonexistential. It is so small that you cannot catch hold of it; if you catch it, it is already past. If you think, it is in the future. You can be in it, but you cannot catch hold of it. When you catch hold of it, it is gone; when you think about it, it is not there.
When it is there, only one thing can be done – you can live it, that is all. It is so small that you can only live in it, but it is so vital that it gives life to you.
Remember, it is just like the atom, so small it cannot be seen. Nobody has seen it yet, not even scientists have seen it yet. You can only see the consequences. They have been able to explode it – Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the consequences. We have seen Hiroshima burning, over one hundred thousand people dead – this is the consequence. But nobody has seen what happened in the atomic explosion. Nobody has seen the atom with their own eyes. There are no instruments yet which can see it.
Time is atomic, this moment is also atomic. Nobody can see it, because when you see it, it has already gone. In the time that is taken in seeing, it has past – the river has flowed on, the arrow has moved. Nobody has ever seen time. You go on using the word time, but if someone insists on a definition you will be at a loss.
Somebody asked Saint Augustine, “Define God. What do you mean when you use the word god?”
Augustine said, “It is just like time. I can talk about it, but if you insist on the definition, I am at a loss.”
You can go on asking people, “What is the time?” And they will look at their watches and reply. But if you really ask, “What is time?” If you ask for the definition, then watches won’t help.
Can you define time? Nobody has seen it, there is no way to see it. If you look, it is gone; if you think, it is not there. When you don’t think, when you don’t look, when you simply are, it is there. You live it. And Saint Augustine is right: godliness can be lived, but cannot be seen. Time can be lived, but cannot be seen. Time is not a philosophical problem, it is existential. Godliness is also not philosophical, it is existential. People have lived it, but if you insist on a definition they will remain silent, they cannot answer. And if you can be in this moment, the doors to all the mysteries are open.
So throw off all desires, remove all the dust from your eyes, be at ease within, not longing for something, not even for godliness. Every longing is the same, whether you long for a big car, or a god, or a big house, it makes no difference. Longing is the same. Don’t long – just be! Don’t even look – just be! Don’t think! Let this moment be there, and you in it, and suddenly you have everything – because life is there. Suddenly everything starts showering on you, and then this moment becomes eternal and then there is no time. It is always the now. It never ends, it never begins. But then you are in it, not an outsider. You have entered the whole, you have recognized who you are.
Now try to understand Chuang Tzu’s sutra: the need to win. From where does this need arise – the need to win? Everybody is in search of victory, seeking to win, but why does this need to win arise?
You are not in any way aware that you are already victorious, that life has happened to you. You are already a winner and nothing more is possible, all that could happen has happened to you. You are already an emperor, and there is no other kingdom to be won. But you have not recognized it, you have not known the beauty of the life that has already happened to you. You have not known the silence, the peace, the bliss that is already there.
Because you are not aware of this inner kingdom, you always feel that something is needed, some victory, to prove that you are not a beggar.
It happened:
Alexander the Great was coming to India – to win, of course – because if you don’t need to win you will not go anywhere. Why bother? Athens was so beautiful, there was no need to bother to go on such a long journey.
On the way he heard that one mystic, Diogenes, lived by the side of a river. He had heard many stories about him. In those days, in Athens particularly, only two names were spoken about – one was Alexander, the other was Diogenes. They were two opposites, two polarities. Alexander was an emperor, and was trying to create a kingdom which stretched from one end of the earth to the other: “The whole world should be in my possession.” He was a conqueror, a man in search of victory.
And there was Diogenes, the exact opposite completely. He lived naked, not a single thing did he possess. In the beginning he possessed a begging bowl for drinking water or sometimes to beg for food. Then one day he saw a dog drinking water from the river and immediately he threw away his bowl. He said, “If dogs can do without, why not I? If dogs are so intelligent that they can do without a bowl, I must be stupid to carry this bowl with me, it is a burden.”
He took that dog for his master, and invited the dog to be with him because he was so intelligent. He had not been aware that to carry the bowl was an unnecessary burden. Thereafter that dog remained with him. They used to sleep together, to take their food together. The dog was his only companion.
Somebody asked Diogenes, “Why do you keep company with a dog?”
He said, “He is more intelligent than so-called human beings. I was not so intelligent before. Looking at him, watching him, has made me more alert. He lives in the here and now, not bothered about anything, not possessing anything. And he is so happy – having nothing, he has everything. I am not yet so content, some uneasiness remains inside, within me. When I have also become just like him, then I will have reached the goal.”
Alexander had heard about Diogenes, his ecstatic bliss, his silent, mirrorlike eyes, just like the blue sky without any clouds. And this man lived naked, even clothes were not needed. Somebody said, “He’s just by the river, and we are passing, he’s not very far away.” Alexander wanted to see him, so he went.
It was morning, a winter morning, and Diogenes was taking his sunbath, lying on the sand naked, enjoying the morning, the sun showering on him, everything so beautiful, silent, the river flowing by…
Alexander thought, “What should I say?” A man like Alexander cannot think except about things and possessions. So he looked at Diogenes, and said, “I am Alexander the Great. If you need something, tell me. I can be of much help and I would like to help you.”
Diogenes laughed, and said, “I don’t need anything. Just stand aside a little because you are blocking the sun. That’s all you can do for me. And remember, don’t block anybody’s sun, that’s all one can do. Don’t stand in my way and nothing else is needed.
Alexander looked at this man. He must have felt like a beggar before him: “He needs nothing, and I need the whole world, and even then I will not be satisfied, even this world is not enough.” Alexander said, “I’m happy to see you, I have never seen such a contented man.”
Diogenes said, “There is no problem! If you want to be as contented as I, come and lie down by my side, have a sunbath. Forget the future, and drop the past. Nobody is hindering you.”
Alexander laughed, a superficial laugh of course, and said, “You are right – but the time is not yet ripe. One day I would also like to relax like you.”
Diogenes said, “That one day will never come. What do you need to relax? If I, a beggar, can relax, what else is needed? Why this struggle, this effort, these wars, this conquering, why this need to win?”
Said Alexander, “When I have become victorious, when I have conquered the whole world, I would like to come and learn from you and sit by your side and lie down here on this bank.”
Diogenes said, “But if I can lie down on this bank and relax right now, why wait for the future? And why go around the whole world creating misery for yourself and others – just to come to me at the end and relax here? I am already relaxing.”
What is the need to win? You have to prove yourself. You feel so inferior within, you feel so vacant and empty, you feel such a nobodiness inside, that the need to prove arises. You have to prove that you are somebody, and unless you have proved it, how can you be at ease?
There are two ways, and try to understand that these are the only ways. One way is to go out and prove that you are somebody. The other way is to go inside and realize that you are nobody. If you go out you will never be able to prove that you are somebody. The need will remain; rather, it may increase. The more you prove, the more you will feel as Alexander felt, like a beggar standing before Diogenes. You will feel it always. Because just by proving to others that you are somebody does not make you become somebody. Deep down the nobodiness remains. It goes on biting in the heart – that you are nobody.
Kingdoms won’t help, because kingdoms will not go in and fill the gap. Nothing can go in. The without will remain without; the within will remain within. There is no meeting. You may have all the wealth in the world but how can you bring it in and fill the emptiness? No, even when you have all the wealth you will still feel empty, more even, because now the contrast will be there. That is why Buddha left his palace: seeing all the wealth yet feeling the inner emptiness, feeling that all is useless.
Another way is to go within – not to try to get rid of this nobodiness, but to realize it. This is what Chuang Tzu is saying: Become an empty boat, just go in and realize that you are nobody. The moment you realize you are nobody you explode into a new dimension, because when somebody realizes he is nobody he is also realizing that he is all.
You are not somebody, because you are all. How can the all be somebody? Somebody will always be a part. God cannot be somebody because he is all, he cannot possess anything because he is the whole. Only beggars possess, because possessions have limitations. Possessions cannot become unlimited. Somebodiness has a boundary, somebodiness cannot be without boundaries, it cannot be infinite. Nobodiness is infinite, just like allness.
Really, both are the same. If you are moving without you will feel your inner being as nobody. If you are moving within you will feel the same nobodiness as all. That is why Buddha says that shunya, the absolute void, is brahman. To be nobody is to realize that you are all. To realize that you are somebody is to realize that you are not all. And nothing less will do.
So the other way is to move within, not to fight with this nobodiness, not to try to fill this emptiness, but to realize it and become one with it. Be the empty boat and then all the seas are yours. Then you can move into the uncharted, then there is no hindrance for this boat, nobody can block its path. No maps are needed. This boat will move into the infinite. Now everywhere is the goal, but one has to move within.
The need to win is to prove that you are somebody, and the only way we know how to prove is to prove in the eyes of others, because their eyes become reflections.
Looking in others’ eyes Alexander could see that he was somebody; standing near Diogenes, he felt he was nobody. Diogenes would not recognize that it was Alexander. Rather, Alexander must have felt foolish. It is said that he told Diogenes that if God would grant him another birth he would like to be Diogenes rather than Alexander – next time!
The mind always moves in the future. At this very time he could have become Diogenes, there was no barrier, nobody was preventing him. There would be millions of barriers to becoming Alexander the Great because everybody would try to prevent him. When you want to prove that you are somebody you hurt everybody’s ego, and they will all try to prove that you are nothing. Unless you kill them, unless you succeed in destroying them, they will go on saying that you are nothing. What are you thinking yourself to be? Who do you think you are? You have to prove it, and it is a very hard way, very violent, destructive.
There was no barrier to being a Diogenes. Alexander felt the beauty, the grace of this man. He said, “If God gives me another opportunity to be born, I would like to be Diogenes – but next time.”
Diogenes laughed and said, “If I am asked, only one thing is certain: I would not like ever to be Alexander the Great!”
Alexander must have seen in the eyes of Diogenes that there was no recognition of his victories. Suddenly he must have felt the sinking sensation, the deathlike sensation that he was nobody. He must have escaped, run from Diogenes as soon as possible. Diogenes was a dangerous man.
It is said that Diogenes haunted Alexander his whole life. Wherever he went, Diogenes was with him like a shadow. At night, in his dreams, Diogenes was there laughing. And it is said, it is a beautiful story, that they died on the same day.
Diogenes must have waited for this man to follow. They died on the same day, and while crossing the river which divides this world from that, Alexander met Diogenes again, and the second meeting, the second encounter was more dangerous than before. Alexander was ahead because he had died a few minutes earlier – it had to be so because Diogenes had to follow, he must have waited. Hearing a noise, that somebody was behind on the river, he looked back, and saw Diogenes there laughing. He must have felt numb, because this time things were absolutely different. He was also naked like Diogenes, because you cannot take your clothes to the other world. This time he was again absolutely nobody, not an emperor.
But Diogenes was the same. All that death can take away he had already renounced, so death couldn’t take anything from him. He was just the same as on that river bank, and here he was on this river, just the same. So to be nonchalant, to give himself courage and confidence, Alexander also laughed and said, “Great, wonderful! Again the meeting of the emperor and the beggar, the meeting of the greatest emperor and the greatest beggar.”
Diogenes replied, “You are absolutely right, only you are a little confused about who is the emperor and who is the beggar. This is a meeting of the greatest emperor and the greatest beggar, but the emperor is behind and the beggar is ahead. And I tell you, Alexander, at the first meeting it was also the same. You were the beggar, but you thought I was. Now look at yourself. What have you gained by winning the whole world?”
What is the need to win? What do you want to prove? In your own eyes you know that you are a nonentity, you are nothing, and this nothingness becomes a pain in the heart. You suffer because you are nothing – so you have to prove yourself in the eyes of others. You have to create some opinion in others’ minds that you are somebody, that you are not a nothing. And looking in their eyes you will gather opinions, public opinion, and through public opinion you will create an image. This image is the ego, it is not your real self. It is a reflected glory, it is not your own – it is collected from others’ eyes.
This type will always be afraid of others because they can take back whatsoever they have given. A politician is always afraid of the public because they can take back whatsoever they have given. It is just borrowed, his self is a borrowed self. If you are afraid of others, you are a slave, you are not a master.
A Diogenes is not afraid of others. You cannot take anything from him because he has not borrowed anything. He has the self, you only have the ego. This is the difference between the self and the ego – the ego is a borrowed self, it depends on others, on public opinion. Self is your authentic being, it is not borrowed, it is yours. Nobody can take it back.
Look, Chuang Tzu has beautiful lines to say:
When an archer is shooting for fun
he has all his skill.
For fun! When an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill. When you are playing, you are not trying to prove that you are somebody. You are at ease, at home. While playing, just for fun, you are not worried what others think about you.
Have you seen a father in a mock fight with his child? He will be defeated. He will lie down and the child will sit on his chest and laugh, and say, “I am the winner!” – and the father will be happy. It is just fun. In fun you can be defeated and be happy. Fun isn’t serious, it is not related to the ego. Ego is always serious.
So remember, if you are serious, you will always be in turmoil, inner turmoil. A saint is always in play, as if shooting for fun. He is not interested in shooting at a particular target, he is just enjoying himself.
One German philosopher, Eugene Herrigel, went to Japan to learn meditation. In Japan they use all types of excuses to teach meditation, including archery. Herrigel was a perfect archer, one hundred percent. He would never miss the target. So he went to a master to learn meditation through archery, because he was already skilled in it.
After three years Herrigel started feeling that it was a waste of time, because the master went on insisting that he should not shoot. He told Herrigel, “Let the arrow leave by itself. You should not be there when you aim, let the arrow aim itself.”
This was absurd. For a Western man particularly, it was absolutely absurd: “What do you mean, let the arrow shoot by itself? How can the arrow shoot by itself? I have to do something.” And he continued. And he would never miss the target.
But the master said, “The target is not the target at all. You are the target. I am not looking at whether you are hitting the target or not. That is a mechanical skill. I am looking at you, to see whether you are there or not. Shoot for fun! Enjoy it, don’t try to prove that you never miss the target. Don’t try to prove the ego. It is already there, you are there, there is no need to prove it. Be at ease and allow the arrow to shoot itself.”
Herrigel could not understand. He tried and tried and said again and again, “If my aim is a hundred percent correct, why don’t you give me the certificate?”
The Western mind is always interested in the end result and the East is always interested in the beginning, not in the end – in the archer, not in the target. The end is useless. So the master would say, “No!”
Then, completely disappointed, Herrigel asked to leave. He said, “Then I will have to go. Three years is too much and nothing has been gained and you go on saying no, and you go on saying that I am still the same.”
The day he was to leave, he had just gone to say good-bye. The master was teaching other disciples. That morning Herrigel was not interested; he was leaving, he had dropped the whole project. So he was just waiting there until the master was not engaged. He would say his good-bye and leave.
Sitting on a bench he looked at the master for the first time. For the first time in three years he looked at the master. Really, he was not doing anything; it was as if the arrow was shooting itself. The master was not serious, he was playing, he was in fun. There was nobody who was interested in a target.
Ego is always target-oriented. Fun has no target to reach, fun is in the beginning when the arrow leaves the bow. If it shoots that is accidental, if it reaches the target that is not relevant; whether it reaches or misses is not the point. But when the arrow leaves the bow, the archer should be in fun, enjoying, not serious. When you are serious you are tense, when you are not serious you are relaxed, and when you are relaxed you are. When you are tense, the ego is; you are clouded.
For the first time Herrigel looked – because now he was not interested. It was none of his business now, he had dropped the whole thing. He was leaving so there was no question of being serious. He had accepted his failure, nothing was to be proved. He looked, and for the first time his eyes were not obsessed with the target.
He looked at the master and it was as if the arrow was shooting itself from the bow. The master was only giving it energy, he was not shooting. He was not doing anything, the whole thing was effortless. Herrigel looked, and for the first time he understood what it meant.
As if enchanted he approached the master, took the bow in his hand and drew back the arrow. The master said, “You have reached. This is what I have been telling you to do for three years.” The arrow had not yet left the bow and the master said, “Finished: the target is attained.” Now he was having fun, he was not serious, he was not goal-oriented.
This is the difference. Fun is not goal-oriented; it has no goal. Fun itself is the goal, the intrinsic value, nothing else. You enjoy it, that is all. There is no purpose to it; you played, that’s all.
When an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill. When you are shooting for fun, you are not in conflict. There are not two, there is no tension; your mind is not going anywhere. Your mind is not going at all – so you are whole. Then the skill is there.
It is said of one Zen painter, a Zen master… He was making a drawing, a design, for a new pagoda, a new temple. It was his habit to have his chief disciple by his side. He would draw the design, look at the disciple and ask, “What do you think?”
And the disciple would say, “Not worthy of you.” So he would throw it out.
This happened ninety-nine times. Three months passed and the king was continually asking when the design would be completed, when the work could start. And one day it happened: the master was making the design, and the ink ran dry, so he told the disciple to go out and prepare more ink.
The disciple went out, and when he came back in, he said, “What? You have done it! But why couldn’t you do it for three months?”
The master said, “Because of you. You were sitting by my side and I was divided. You were looking at me and I was target-oriented, it was not fun. When you were not there, I relaxed. I felt that nobody is there, I became whole. I have not done this design, it has come by itself. For three months it would not come because I was the doer.”
When an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill…because his whole being is available. And when the whole being is available, you have a beauty, a grace, a totally different quality of being. When you are divided, serious, tense, you are ugly. You may succeed, but your success will be ugly. You may prove to somebody that you are somebody but you are not proving anything, you are simply creating a false image. But when you are total, relaxed, whole, nobody may know about you, but you are.
And this wholeness is the benediction, the beatitude, the blessing, that happens to a meditative mind, that happens in meditation.
Meditation means wholeness.
So remember, meditation should be fun, it should not be work. You should not do it like a religious man, you should do it like a gambler. Play, for fun. You should be like a sportsman not a businessman. It should be fun, and then all the skill will be available, then it will flower by itself. You will not be needed. No effort is needed. Simply your whole being has to be available, your whole energy has to be available. Then the flower comes by itself.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
he is already nervous.
If he is in a competition just for a brass buckle, if something is to be achieved, some result is there, he is already nervous, afraid. Fear comes in: “Will I succeed or not?” He is divided. One part of the mind says, “Maybe you will succeed”; another part says, “Maybe you will fail.” Now his whole skill is not available, now he is half and half. And whenever you are divided your whole being becomes ugly and ill. You are diseased.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
he goes blind
or sees two targets –
he is out of his mind.
Go to the market and see people who are after gold. They are blind. Gold blinds men as nothing else does, gold covers the eyes completely. When you are too much for success, too much for the result, too ambitious, when you are too much after the gold medal, then you are blind and you start seeing two targets. You are so drunk you start seeing double.
I have heard…
Mulla Nasruddin was teaching his son in a bar: “Always remember when to stop. Alcohol is good, but one needs to know when to stop. And I’m telling you through my experience. Look over at that corner – when those four people sitting at the table start looking like eight, stop.”
The boy said, “But father, I see only two people sitting there.”
When the mind is drunk, vision becomes double. And gold makes you so unconscious, drunk. Now there are two targets and you are in such a hurry to reach them that you are nervous, trembling inside.
This is the state Chuang Tzu calls: …he is out of his mind. Everybody is out of his mind. It is not only mad people who are out of their minds, you are also out of your mind. The difference is only of degree, not of quality, a little more and any moment you can cross the boundary. It is as if you are at ninety-nine degrees. One hundred degrees and you boil, you have crossed the boundary. The difference between those who are in madhouses and those who are outside is only of quantity, not of quality. Everybody is out of his mind, because everyone is after results, goals, purposes. Something has to be achieved. Then comes nervousness, inner trembling, then you cannot be still within. And when you tremble inside, the target becomes two, or even four or eight – and then it is impossible to become an archer.
A perfect archer is always the archer who is having fun.
A perfect man lives life as fun, as play.
Look at Krishna’s life. Had Chuang Tzu known about him, it would have been beautiful. Krishna’s life is fun. Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, somehow or other look a little serious, as if something has to be achieved – the moksha, the nirvana, the desirelessness. But Krishna is absolutely purposeless – the flute player just living for fun, dancing with girls, enjoying, singing. Nowhere to go, all is here, so why bother about the result. Everything is available right now, why not enjoy it?
Krishna is the perfect man if fun is the sign of a perfect man. In India we never call his life Krishna charitra, his character, we never call it that. We call it Krishna leela, his play. It is not a character, it is not purposeful; it is absolutely purposeless.
It is just like a small child. You cannot ask, “What are you doing?” You cannot ask, “What is the meaning?” He is enjoying himself just running after butterflies. What will he achieve just jumping in the sun? To what end will this effort lead him? Nowhere! He is not going anywhere. We call him childish and we think ourselves mature, but I tell you that when you are really mature, you will again become childlike. Then your life will again become fun. You will enjoy it, every bit of it, you will not be serious. A deep laughter will spread all over your life. It will be more like a dance and less like a business; it will be more like singing, humming in the bathroom, less like calculating in the office. It will not be mathematics, it will just be enjoyment.
His skill has not changed,
but the prize divides him.
He cares.
He thinks more of winning
than of shooting –
and the need to win
drains him of power.
If you look so impotent, so powerless, helpless, it is because of you. Nobody else is draining you of your power. You have infinite sources of power, unending, but you look drained, as if any moment you are going to fall with no energy left.
Where are all these energies going? You are creating a conflict within yourself – your skill is the same.
His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares. I have heard…
It happened in a village… A poor man, the son of a beggar, he was young, healthy – so young and so healthy that when the king’s elephant passed through the village, he would just catch hold of the elephant’s tail and it would not be able to move.
Sometimes it became very embarrassing to the king because he would be sitting on the elephant and the whole market would gather and people would laugh. And all because of the son of a beggar.
The king asked his prime minister, “Something has to be done. This is insulting. I have become afraid to pass through that village, and that boy sometimes visits other villages also. Anywhere he can catch hold of the elephant’s tail and it will not move. He is so powerful, do something to drain his energy.”
The prime minister said, “I will have to go and consult a wise man because I don’t know how to drain his energy. There is nothing to drain his energy because he is a beggar. If he had a shop, the energy could be drained. If he was working as a clerk in an office, the energy would be drained. If he was a master in a primary school, his energy could be drained. But he has nothing to do. He lives for fun, and people love him and give him food and milk, so he is never short of food. He is happy, he eats and sleeps. So it is difficult, but I will go.”
So he went to a wise old man. The wise old man said, “Do one thing. Go and tell the boy that you will give him one golden rupee every day if he will do a small job – and the job is very small. He has to go to the village temple and put the lamp on. He has just to light the lamp, that is all. And you will give him one golden rupee every day.”
The prime minister said, “But how will this help? This may make him even more energetic. He will get one rupee and he will feel more energy. He will not even bother to beg.”
The wise man said, “Don’t worry, simply do what I say.”
This was done, and the next week, when the king passed, the boy tried but he failed, he couldn’t stop the elephant. He was dragged along by it.
What happened? Care entered, anxiety entered. He had to remember, for twenty-four hours a day he had to remember that he had to go to the temple every evening and put the light on. That became an anxiety, that divided his whole being. Even in his sleep he started to dream that it was evening: “What are you doing? Go and put the light on and take your rupee.”
Then he started to collect those golden rupees – now seven, now eight. Then he started to calculate that by such and such a time he would have one hundred golden rupees – and they would grow to two hundred. Mathematics came in, fun was lost. And he had just a small thing to do to, to put the light on. Just a single minute affair, not even a single minute, just a momentary thing – but it became a worry. It drained him of all his energy.
If you are drained there is no wonder your life is not fun. You have so many temples and so many lamps to put on and off, so many calculations in your life, it cannot be a fun.
His skill has not changed – the skill is the same, but the archer, when he is shooting for fun, has all his skill available. His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares. Anxiety enters, nervousness comes in. He thinks more of winning, now he is not concerned with shooting. Now the question is how to win, not how to shoot. He has moved from the beginning to the end. Now the means is not important, the end is important, and whenever the end is important your energy is divided, because all that can be done is to be done with the means, not with the end. Ends are not in your hands.
Says Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita: “Don’t be concerned with the end, with the result. Simply do whatsoever is to be done here and now and leave the result to me, to existence. Don’t ask what will happen, nobody knows. You simply leave it to existence, to faith. Whatever happens you simply do whatsoever is to be done. Be concerned with the means and don’t think of the end. Don’t be result-oriented.”
This situation is beautiful and worth considering with Chuang Tzu’s sentences, because Arjuna was an archer, the greatest archer India has produced. He was the perfect archer.
But the end entered his mind. He had never worried, it had never happened before. His archery was perfect, his skill was total, absolute, but looking at that vast siege of Kurukshetra, two armies confronting each other, he became worried. What was the worry? It was that he had friends on both sides. It was a family affair, a war between cousin-brothers, so everybody was interlinked. Those who were on the other side were also related to those on this side All these families and relatives were divided – it was a rare war, a family war.
Krishna was fighting alongside Arjuna, but his army was fighting on the other side. Krishna had said, “You both love me so you will have to divide half and half. One side can have me, and the other side can have my armies.”
Duryodhana, the leader of the other side, was foolish. He thought, “What will I do with Krishna alone – and his army is so big.” So he said, “I will choose your army.”
So Krishna was with Arjuna and Arjuna was happy, because one Krishna is more than the whole world. What can armies do – unconscious, sleepy people? One awakened man is worth all.
Krishna became the real help when Arjuna was confused and his mind divided. In the Gita it is said that looking at these two armies he became puzzled. And these are the words he spoke to Krishna: “My energy is drained. I feel nervous, I feel impotent, my power has left me” – and he was a man of perfect skill, a perfect archer.
His bow is known as a gandiva. He said, “The gandiva seems to be too heavy for me. I have become so powerless, my body is numb, and I cannot think and cannot see. Everything has become confused, because these are all relatives and I will have to kill them. What will be the result? Murder, so many people killed, and what will I gain out of it? A worthless kingdom? I am not interested in fighting, it seems to be too costly. I would like to escape and become a sannyasin, to go to the forest and meditate. This is not for me. My energy is drained.”
Krishna told him that, “Don’t think of the result. That is not in your hands. And don’t think that you are the doer, because if you are the doer, then the end is in your hands. The doer is always the divine, and you are just an instrument. Be concerned with the here and now, the means, and leave the end to me. I tell you, Arjuna, that these people are already dead, they are fated to die. You are not going to murder them. You are just the instrument to reveal to them the fact that they have been murdered, they are already murdered. As far as I can see, I see them dead. They have reached the point where death happens – you are just an instrument.”
Sanskrit has a beautiful word, there is no equivalent to it in English: it is nimitta. Nimitta means you are not the doer, you are not the cause, not even one of the causes, you are just the nimitta. It means the cause is in the hands of the divine. The divine is the doer, you are just a vehicle of it. You are just like a postman – the postman is the nimitta. He comes and delivers a letter to you. If the letter insults you, you don’t get angry with him. You don’t say, “Why did you bring me this letter?” The postman is not concerned, he is the nimitta. He has not written the letter, he has not caused it, he is not concerned about it. He has just fulfilled his duty. You will not be angry with him. You will not say, “Why have you brought this letter to me?”
Krishna said to Arjuna, “You are just like a postman, you have to deliver death to them. You are not the killer; the death is from the divine. They have earned it already, so don’t you worry. If you are not going to kill them, then somebody else will. If this postman will not do it then somebody else will deliver the letter. It is not a question of whether or not you are there, or you are on holiday or you are ill, then the letter will not be delivered. A substitute postman will do. But the letter has to be delivered. So don’t be bothered, don’t get worried unnecessarily; you are just a nimitta, neither the cause of it nor the doer of it, just an instrument. Be concerned with the means, don’t think about the ends, because once you think about the ends your skill is lost, you are divided.
“That’s why you are feeling drained, Arjuna. Your energy has not gone anywhere. It has become a conscience – then you are divided. You are fighting with yourself. One part says go ahead; another part says this is not good. Your wholeness is lost. And whenever the wholeness is lost, one feels impotent.”
Such a powerful man as Arjuna says, “I cannot carry this gandiva, this bow is too heavy for me. I have become nervous. I feel fear, deep fear, an anxiety arising in me. I cannot fight.”
The skill is the same, nothing has changed, but the mind is divided. Whenever you are divided you are powerless; when you are undivided you are powerful. Desires divide you, meditation undivides you. Desires lead you to the future, meditation brings you to the present.
Remember this as a conclusion: don’t move to the future. Whenever you feel your mind moving to the future jump back to the present immediately. Don’t try to complete it. Immediately, the moment you think, the moment you become alert that the mind has moved into the future, into the desire, jump back to the present. Be at home.
You will lose it again and again. Again and again you will miss it because it has become a long habit; but sooner or later, more and more, you will be at home. Then life is fun, it is a play. And then you are so full of energy that you overflow – a flood of vitality. And that flood is bliss.
Impotent, drained, you cannot be ecstatic. How can you dance? For dancing you will need infinite energy. Drained, how can you sing? Singing is always an overflowing. Dead as you are, how can you pray? Only when you are totally alive, a thankfulness arises from the heart, a gratitude. That gratitude is prayerfulness.
Enough for today.
he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
he goes blind
or sees two targets –
he is out of his mind.
His skill has not changed,
but the prize divides him.
He cares.
He thinks more of winning
than of shooting –
and the need to win
drains him of power.
If the mind is filled with dreams you cannot see rightly. If the heart is filled with desires you cannot feel rightly. Desires, dreams and hopes – the future disturbs you, and whatsoever is, is in the present. When you are divided, desire leads you into the future, and life is here and now. Reality is here and now, and desire leads you into the future. Then you are not here. You see, but still you don’t see; you hear, but still you miss; you feel, but the feeling is dim, it cannot be deep, it cannot be penetrating. That is how truth is missed.
People go on asking where to find the divine, where to find the truth. It is not a question of finding the divine or the truth. It is always here, it has never been anywhere else, it cannot be. It is there where you are, but you are not there, your mind is somewhere else. Your eyes are filled with dreams, your heart is filled with desires. You move into the future, and the future is illusion. Or, you move into the past, and the past is already dead.
The past is no more and the future has yet to be. Between these two is the present moment. That moment is very short, as short as possible, it is atomic, you cannot divide it – it is indivisible. That moment passes in the flicker of an eye. If a desire enters, you have missed it; if a dream is there, you are missing it.
The whole of religion consists of not leading you somewhere, but bringing you to the here and now, bringing you back to the whole, back where you have always been. But the head has gone away, very far away. This head has to be brought back. So God is not to be sought somewhere – that is why you are missing him, because you are searching somewhere. He has been here waiting for you.
Once it happened that Mulla Nasruddin came staggering home totally drunk. He knocked at his own door, knocked again and again. It was already half past midnight. The wife came and Nasruddin asked her, “Can you tell me, madam, where Mulla Nasruddin lives?”
The wife said, “This is too much. You are Mulla Nasruddin.”
Mulla Nasruddin said, “That’s okay, I know that, but that doesn’t answer my question. Where does he live?”
This is the situation. Drunk with desires, staggering, you knock at your own door and ask where your home is. You are really asking who you are. This is home, and you have never left it, it is impossible to leave it. It is not something outside you which is going to leave and go away. It is your within, it is your very being.
Asking where God is, is foolish, because you cannot lose God. It is your within, your innermost being, your very core. It is your existence: you breathe him, you live him, and it cannot be otherwise. The only thing that has happened is that you have become so drunk, that you cannot recognize your own face. And unless you come back and get sober you will go on searching and seeking and you will go on missing.
Tao, Zen, Yoga, Sufism, Hasidism, these are all methods to bring you back, to make you sober again, to destroy your drunkenness. Why are you so drunk? What makes you so drunk? Why are your eyes so sleepy? Why aren’t you alert? What is the root cause of it all? The root cause is that you desire.
Try to understand the nature of desire. Desire is alcoholic, desire is the greatest drug possible. Marijuana is nothing, LSD is nothing. Desire is the greatest LSD possible – the ultimate in drugs.
What is the nature of desire? When you desire, what happens? When you desire, you are creating an illusion in the mind; when you desire, you have already moved from here. Now you are not here, you are absent because the mind is creating a dream. This absentness is your drunkenness.
Be present. This very moment the doors of heaven are open. There is no need even to knock because you are not outside heaven, you are inside. Just be alert and look around without eyes filled with desire, and you will have a belly laugh. You will laugh at the whole joke, at what has been happening. It is just like a man dreaming at night.
It happened once…
A man was very disturbed – his nights were simply prolonged nightmares. His whole night was a struggle. It was so painful that he was always scared to go to sleep and he was always happy to get out of bed. The whole night was nightmarish – he was having very bad dreams, ferocious. The nature of the dreams was such, that the moment he fell asleep, he would start seeing millions of lions, dragons, tigers, reptiles, crocodiles, millions of them sitting underneath his small bed. So he couldn’t sleep because at any moment they would attack.
Knowing they would all be coming back the whole night was just a long disturbance, a torture, a hell. He was treated medically, but nothing would help. Everything failed. He was analyzed by psychologists, psychiatrists, but nobody could succeed. Then one day he walked out of his house laughing.
Nobody had seen him laughing for many years. His face had become hellish, always sad, afraid, scared. So the neighbors asked, “What is the matter? You are laughing? We have not seen you laughing for years. We have completely forgotten that you ever used to laugh. What happened to your nightmares?”
The man said, “I told my brother-in-law, and he cured me.”
The neighbors asked, “Is your brother-in-law a great psychoanalyst, psychologist, or something? How could he cure you?
The man said, “He is a carpenter. He simply cut the legs off my bed. Now there’s no more space, so I slept for the first time!”
You create a space – and desire is the way to create that space. The greater the desire, the more space is created. Because if a desire is to be fulfilled in one year, then you have one year’s space. You can move in it, but then you will have to encounter many reptiles, many dragons. This space which is created by desire, you call it time. If there is no desire, there is no need for time.
A single moment exists – not even two moments, because the second is needed only by desire, it is not needed by your existence. Existence is completely fulfilled, totally, in one moment.
Remember: if you think that time is something outside you, then you are deceiving yourself. Time is not something outside you.
If man disappears from the earth will there be time? Trees will grow, rivers will flow, clouds will still float in the sky, but I ask, will there be time? There will not be any time. There will be moments, rather, there will be one moment – and when one moment disappears another comes into existence. Another disappears, another comes into existence. But there is no time as such. Only the atomic moment exists.
Trees don’t desire anything, they don’t desire to flower, flowers will come automatically. It is part of the nature of the tree that flowers will come. But the tree is not dreaming, the tree is not moving, it is not thinking, it is not desiring.
If man is not there, there will be no time, just eternal moments. You create time with desire. The greater the desire, the more time is needed.
For materialistic desires much time is not needed. That is why in the West they say that there is only one life. In the East we have desired moksha. That is the greatest desire possible – no other desire can be greater than that. But how can you get moksha in one life? One life is not enough. You may get a palace, you may organize a kingdom, you may become very rich and powerful, a Hitler, a Ford. You may become something in this world, but moksha is such a great desire that one life is not enough.
So in the East we believe in many lives, in rebirth, because more time is needed, many lives will be needed. Only then can you hope that the desire for moksha will be fulfilled. I’m not saying whether there are many lives or not. That is not the point. But in the East people believe in many lives because they desire moksha. If there is only one life how can you attain it?
If there is only one life, then only material things can be attained. Then spiritual transformation is not possible. The desire is so big that millions of lifetimes are needed. That is why in the East people live so lazily. There is no hurry because there is no shortage of time. You will be born again and again and again. Why be in a hurry? You have infinite time.
So if the East is lazy and looks so absolutely unaware of time, if things move with such a slow flow, it is because of the concept of many lives. If the West is so time-conscious, it is because there is only one life, and everything has to be attained in it. If you miss, you miss forever – no second opportunity is possible. Because of this shortage of time, the West has become so tense. So many things to do and so little time left – so many desires, and time is always short.
Everyone is always in a hurry, running fast. Nobody is moving slowly, nobody is walking slowly. Everybody is running, and more speed is needed. So the West goes on inventing speedier vehicles and there is never any satisfaction. The West goes on lengthening human life just to give you a little more time to fulfill your desires.
But why is time needed? Can’t you be here and now without time? Is this moment not enough, just sitting near me, no past, no future? – this moment in between, which is atomic, which is really as if nonexistential. It is so small that you cannot catch hold of it; if you catch it, it is already past. If you think, it is in the future. You can be in it, but you cannot catch hold of it. When you catch hold of it, it is gone; when you think about it, it is not there.
When it is there, only one thing can be done – you can live it, that is all. It is so small that you can only live in it, but it is so vital that it gives life to you.
Remember, it is just like the atom, so small it cannot be seen. Nobody has seen it yet, not even scientists have seen it yet. You can only see the consequences. They have been able to explode it – Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the consequences. We have seen Hiroshima burning, over one hundred thousand people dead – this is the consequence. But nobody has seen what happened in the atomic explosion. Nobody has seen the atom with their own eyes. There are no instruments yet which can see it.
Time is atomic, this moment is also atomic. Nobody can see it, because when you see it, it has already gone. In the time that is taken in seeing, it has past – the river has flowed on, the arrow has moved. Nobody has ever seen time. You go on using the word time, but if someone insists on a definition you will be at a loss.
Somebody asked Saint Augustine, “Define God. What do you mean when you use the word god?”
Augustine said, “It is just like time. I can talk about it, but if you insist on the definition, I am at a loss.”
You can go on asking people, “What is the time?” And they will look at their watches and reply. But if you really ask, “What is time?” If you ask for the definition, then watches won’t help.
Can you define time? Nobody has seen it, there is no way to see it. If you look, it is gone; if you think, it is not there. When you don’t think, when you don’t look, when you simply are, it is there. You live it. And Saint Augustine is right: godliness can be lived, but cannot be seen. Time can be lived, but cannot be seen. Time is not a philosophical problem, it is existential. Godliness is also not philosophical, it is existential. People have lived it, but if you insist on a definition they will remain silent, they cannot answer. And if you can be in this moment, the doors to all the mysteries are open.
So throw off all desires, remove all the dust from your eyes, be at ease within, not longing for something, not even for godliness. Every longing is the same, whether you long for a big car, or a god, or a big house, it makes no difference. Longing is the same. Don’t long – just be! Don’t even look – just be! Don’t think! Let this moment be there, and you in it, and suddenly you have everything – because life is there. Suddenly everything starts showering on you, and then this moment becomes eternal and then there is no time. It is always the now. It never ends, it never begins. But then you are in it, not an outsider. You have entered the whole, you have recognized who you are.
Now try to understand Chuang Tzu’s sutra: the need to win. From where does this need arise – the need to win? Everybody is in search of victory, seeking to win, but why does this need to win arise?
You are not in any way aware that you are already victorious, that life has happened to you. You are already a winner and nothing more is possible, all that could happen has happened to you. You are already an emperor, and there is no other kingdom to be won. But you have not recognized it, you have not known the beauty of the life that has already happened to you. You have not known the silence, the peace, the bliss that is already there.
Because you are not aware of this inner kingdom, you always feel that something is needed, some victory, to prove that you are not a beggar.
It happened:
Alexander the Great was coming to India – to win, of course – because if you don’t need to win you will not go anywhere. Why bother? Athens was so beautiful, there was no need to bother to go on such a long journey.
On the way he heard that one mystic, Diogenes, lived by the side of a river. He had heard many stories about him. In those days, in Athens particularly, only two names were spoken about – one was Alexander, the other was Diogenes. They were two opposites, two polarities. Alexander was an emperor, and was trying to create a kingdom which stretched from one end of the earth to the other: “The whole world should be in my possession.” He was a conqueror, a man in search of victory.
And there was Diogenes, the exact opposite completely. He lived naked, not a single thing did he possess. In the beginning he possessed a begging bowl for drinking water or sometimes to beg for food. Then one day he saw a dog drinking water from the river and immediately he threw away his bowl. He said, “If dogs can do without, why not I? If dogs are so intelligent that they can do without a bowl, I must be stupid to carry this bowl with me, it is a burden.”
He took that dog for his master, and invited the dog to be with him because he was so intelligent. He had not been aware that to carry the bowl was an unnecessary burden. Thereafter that dog remained with him. They used to sleep together, to take their food together. The dog was his only companion.
Somebody asked Diogenes, “Why do you keep company with a dog?”
He said, “He is more intelligent than so-called human beings. I was not so intelligent before. Looking at him, watching him, has made me more alert. He lives in the here and now, not bothered about anything, not possessing anything. And he is so happy – having nothing, he has everything. I am not yet so content, some uneasiness remains inside, within me. When I have also become just like him, then I will have reached the goal.”
Alexander had heard about Diogenes, his ecstatic bliss, his silent, mirrorlike eyes, just like the blue sky without any clouds. And this man lived naked, even clothes were not needed. Somebody said, “He’s just by the river, and we are passing, he’s not very far away.” Alexander wanted to see him, so he went.
It was morning, a winter morning, and Diogenes was taking his sunbath, lying on the sand naked, enjoying the morning, the sun showering on him, everything so beautiful, silent, the river flowing by…
Alexander thought, “What should I say?” A man like Alexander cannot think except about things and possessions. So he looked at Diogenes, and said, “I am Alexander the Great. If you need something, tell me. I can be of much help and I would like to help you.”
Diogenes laughed, and said, “I don’t need anything. Just stand aside a little because you are blocking the sun. That’s all you can do for me. And remember, don’t block anybody’s sun, that’s all one can do. Don’t stand in my way and nothing else is needed.
Alexander looked at this man. He must have felt like a beggar before him: “He needs nothing, and I need the whole world, and even then I will not be satisfied, even this world is not enough.” Alexander said, “I’m happy to see you, I have never seen such a contented man.”
Diogenes said, “There is no problem! If you want to be as contented as I, come and lie down by my side, have a sunbath. Forget the future, and drop the past. Nobody is hindering you.”
Alexander laughed, a superficial laugh of course, and said, “You are right – but the time is not yet ripe. One day I would also like to relax like you.”
Diogenes said, “That one day will never come. What do you need to relax? If I, a beggar, can relax, what else is needed? Why this struggle, this effort, these wars, this conquering, why this need to win?”
Said Alexander, “When I have become victorious, when I have conquered the whole world, I would like to come and learn from you and sit by your side and lie down here on this bank.”
Diogenes said, “But if I can lie down on this bank and relax right now, why wait for the future? And why go around the whole world creating misery for yourself and others – just to come to me at the end and relax here? I am already relaxing.”
What is the need to win? You have to prove yourself. You feel so inferior within, you feel so vacant and empty, you feel such a nobodiness inside, that the need to prove arises. You have to prove that you are somebody, and unless you have proved it, how can you be at ease?
There are two ways, and try to understand that these are the only ways. One way is to go out and prove that you are somebody. The other way is to go inside and realize that you are nobody. If you go out you will never be able to prove that you are somebody. The need will remain; rather, it may increase. The more you prove, the more you will feel as Alexander felt, like a beggar standing before Diogenes. You will feel it always. Because just by proving to others that you are somebody does not make you become somebody. Deep down the nobodiness remains. It goes on biting in the heart – that you are nobody.
Kingdoms won’t help, because kingdoms will not go in and fill the gap. Nothing can go in. The without will remain without; the within will remain within. There is no meeting. You may have all the wealth in the world but how can you bring it in and fill the emptiness? No, even when you have all the wealth you will still feel empty, more even, because now the contrast will be there. That is why Buddha left his palace: seeing all the wealth yet feeling the inner emptiness, feeling that all is useless.
Another way is to go within – not to try to get rid of this nobodiness, but to realize it. This is what Chuang Tzu is saying: Become an empty boat, just go in and realize that you are nobody. The moment you realize you are nobody you explode into a new dimension, because when somebody realizes he is nobody he is also realizing that he is all.
You are not somebody, because you are all. How can the all be somebody? Somebody will always be a part. God cannot be somebody because he is all, he cannot possess anything because he is the whole. Only beggars possess, because possessions have limitations. Possessions cannot become unlimited. Somebodiness has a boundary, somebodiness cannot be without boundaries, it cannot be infinite. Nobodiness is infinite, just like allness.
Really, both are the same. If you are moving without you will feel your inner being as nobody. If you are moving within you will feel the same nobodiness as all. That is why Buddha says that shunya, the absolute void, is brahman. To be nobody is to realize that you are all. To realize that you are somebody is to realize that you are not all. And nothing less will do.
So the other way is to move within, not to fight with this nobodiness, not to try to fill this emptiness, but to realize it and become one with it. Be the empty boat and then all the seas are yours. Then you can move into the uncharted, then there is no hindrance for this boat, nobody can block its path. No maps are needed. This boat will move into the infinite. Now everywhere is the goal, but one has to move within.
The need to win is to prove that you are somebody, and the only way we know how to prove is to prove in the eyes of others, because their eyes become reflections.
Looking in others’ eyes Alexander could see that he was somebody; standing near Diogenes, he felt he was nobody. Diogenes would not recognize that it was Alexander. Rather, Alexander must have felt foolish. It is said that he told Diogenes that if God would grant him another birth he would like to be Diogenes rather than Alexander – next time!
The mind always moves in the future. At this very time he could have become Diogenes, there was no barrier, nobody was preventing him. There would be millions of barriers to becoming Alexander the Great because everybody would try to prevent him. When you want to prove that you are somebody you hurt everybody’s ego, and they will all try to prove that you are nothing. Unless you kill them, unless you succeed in destroying them, they will go on saying that you are nothing. What are you thinking yourself to be? Who do you think you are? You have to prove it, and it is a very hard way, very violent, destructive.
There was no barrier to being a Diogenes. Alexander felt the beauty, the grace of this man. He said, “If God gives me another opportunity to be born, I would like to be Diogenes – but next time.”
Diogenes laughed and said, “If I am asked, only one thing is certain: I would not like ever to be Alexander the Great!”
Alexander must have seen in the eyes of Diogenes that there was no recognition of his victories. Suddenly he must have felt the sinking sensation, the deathlike sensation that he was nobody. He must have escaped, run from Diogenes as soon as possible. Diogenes was a dangerous man.
It is said that Diogenes haunted Alexander his whole life. Wherever he went, Diogenes was with him like a shadow. At night, in his dreams, Diogenes was there laughing. And it is said, it is a beautiful story, that they died on the same day.
Diogenes must have waited for this man to follow. They died on the same day, and while crossing the river which divides this world from that, Alexander met Diogenes again, and the second meeting, the second encounter was more dangerous than before. Alexander was ahead because he had died a few minutes earlier – it had to be so because Diogenes had to follow, he must have waited. Hearing a noise, that somebody was behind on the river, he looked back, and saw Diogenes there laughing. He must have felt numb, because this time things were absolutely different. He was also naked like Diogenes, because you cannot take your clothes to the other world. This time he was again absolutely nobody, not an emperor.
But Diogenes was the same. All that death can take away he had already renounced, so death couldn’t take anything from him. He was just the same as on that river bank, and here he was on this river, just the same. So to be nonchalant, to give himself courage and confidence, Alexander also laughed and said, “Great, wonderful! Again the meeting of the emperor and the beggar, the meeting of the greatest emperor and the greatest beggar.”
Diogenes replied, “You are absolutely right, only you are a little confused about who is the emperor and who is the beggar. This is a meeting of the greatest emperor and the greatest beggar, but the emperor is behind and the beggar is ahead. And I tell you, Alexander, at the first meeting it was also the same. You were the beggar, but you thought I was. Now look at yourself. What have you gained by winning the whole world?”
What is the need to win? What do you want to prove? In your own eyes you know that you are a nonentity, you are nothing, and this nothingness becomes a pain in the heart. You suffer because you are nothing – so you have to prove yourself in the eyes of others. You have to create some opinion in others’ minds that you are somebody, that you are not a nothing. And looking in their eyes you will gather opinions, public opinion, and through public opinion you will create an image. This image is the ego, it is not your real self. It is a reflected glory, it is not your own – it is collected from others’ eyes.
This type will always be afraid of others because they can take back whatsoever they have given. A politician is always afraid of the public because they can take back whatsoever they have given. It is just borrowed, his self is a borrowed self. If you are afraid of others, you are a slave, you are not a master.
A Diogenes is not afraid of others. You cannot take anything from him because he has not borrowed anything. He has the self, you only have the ego. This is the difference between the self and the ego – the ego is a borrowed self, it depends on others, on public opinion. Self is your authentic being, it is not borrowed, it is yours. Nobody can take it back.
Look, Chuang Tzu has beautiful lines to say:
When an archer is shooting for fun
he has all his skill.
For fun! When an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill. When you are playing, you are not trying to prove that you are somebody. You are at ease, at home. While playing, just for fun, you are not worried what others think about you.
Have you seen a father in a mock fight with his child? He will be defeated. He will lie down and the child will sit on his chest and laugh, and say, “I am the winner!” – and the father will be happy. It is just fun. In fun you can be defeated and be happy. Fun isn’t serious, it is not related to the ego. Ego is always serious.
So remember, if you are serious, you will always be in turmoil, inner turmoil. A saint is always in play, as if shooting for fun. He is not interested in shooting at a particular target, he is just enjoying himself.
One German philosopher, Eugene Herrigel, went to Japan to learn meditation. In Japan they use all types of excuses to teach meditation, including archery. Herrigel was a perfect archer, one hundred percent. He would never miss the target. So he went to a master to learn meditation through archery, because he was already skilled in it.
After three years Herrigel started feeling that it was a waste of time, because the master went on insisting that he should not shoot. He told Herrigel, “Let the arrow leave by itself. You should not be there when you aim, let the arrow aim itself.”
This was absurd. For a Western man particularly, it was absolutely absurd: “What do you mean, let the arrow shoot by itself? How can the arrow shoot by itself? I have to do something.” And he continued. And he would never miss the target.
But the master said, “The target is not the target at all. You are the target. I am not looking at whether you are hitting the target or not. That is a mechanical skill. I am looking at you, to see whether you are there or not. Shoot for fun! Enjoy it, don’t try to prove that you never miss the target. Don’t try to prove the ego. It is already there, you are there, there is no need to prove it. Be at ease and allow the arrow to shoot itself.”
Herrigel could not understand. He tried and tried and said again and again, “If my aim is a hundred percent correct, why don’t you give me the certificate?”
The Western mind is always interested in the end result and the East is always interested in the beginning, not in the end – in the archer, not in the target. The end is useless. So the master would say, “No!”
Then, completely disappointed, Herrigel asked to leave. He said, “Then I will have to go. Three years is too much and nothing has been gained and you go on saying no, and you go on saying that I am still the same.”
The day he was to leave, he had just gone to say good-bye. The master was teaching other disciples. That morning Herrigel was not interested; he was leaving, he had dropped the whole project. So he was just waiting there until the master was not engaged. He would say his good-bye and leave.
Sitting on a bench he looked at the master for the first time. For the first time in three years he looked at the master. Really, he was not doing anything; it was as if the arrow was shooting itself. The master was not serious, he was playing, he was in fun. There was nobody who was interested in a target.
Ego is always target-oriented. Fun has no target to reach, fun is in the beginning when the arrow leaves the bow. If it shoots that is accidental, if it reaches the target that is not relevant; whether it reaches or misses is not the point. But when the arrow leaves the bow, the archer should be in fun, enjoying, not serious. When you are serious you are tense, when you are not serious you are relaxed, and when you are relaxed you are. When you are tense, the ego is; you are clouded.
For the first time Herrigel looked – because now he was not interested. It was none of his business now, he had dropped the whole thing. He was leaving so there was no question of being serious. He had accepted his failure, nothing was to be proved. He looked, and for the first time his eyes were not obsessed with the target.
He looked at the master and it was as if the arrow was shooting itself from the bow. The master was only giving it energy, he was not shooting. He was not doing anything, the whole thing was effortless. Herrigel looked, and for the first time he understood what it meant.
As if enchanted he approached the master, took the bow in his hand and drew back the arrow. The master said, “You have reached. This is what I have been telling you to do for three years.” The arrow had not yet left the bow and the master said, “Finished: the target is attained.” Now he was having fun, he was not serious, he was not goal-oriented.
This is the difference. Fun is not goal-oriented; it has no goal. Fun itself is the goal, the intrinsic value, nothing else. You enjoy it, that is all. There is no purpose to it; you played, that’s all.
When an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill. When you are shooting for fun, you are not in conflict. There are not two, there is no tension; your mind is not going anywhere. Your mind is not going at all – so you are whole. Then the skill is there.
It is said of one Zen painter, a Zen master… He was making a drawing, a design, for a new pagoda, a new temple. It was his habit to have his chief disciple by his side. He would draw the design, look at the disciple and ask, “What do you think?”
And the disciple would say, “Not worthy of you.” So he would throw it out.
This happened ninety-nine times. Three months passed and the king was continually asking when the design would be completed, when the work could start. And one day it happened: the master was making the design, and the ink ran dry, so he told the disciple to go out and prepare more ink.
The disciple went out, and when he came back in, he said, “What? You have done it! But why couldn’t you do it for three months?”
The master said, “Because of you. You were sitting by my side and I was divided. You were looking at me and I was target-oriented, it was not fun. When you were not there, I relaxed. I felt that nobody is there, I became whole. I have not done this design, it has come by itself. For three months it would not come because I was the doer.”
When an archer is shooting for fun he has all his skill…because his whole being is available. And when the whole being is available, you have a beauty, a grace, a totally different quality of being. When you are divided, serious, tense, you are ugly. You may succeed, but your success will be ugly. You may prove to somebody that you are somebody but you are not proving anything, you are simply creating a false image. But when you are total, relaxed, whole, nobody may know about you, but you are.
And this wholeness is the benediction, the beatitude, the blessing, that happens to a meditative mind, that happens in meditation.
Meditation means wholeness.
So remember, meditation should be fun, it should not be work. You should not do it like a religious man, you should do it like a gambler. Play, for fun. You should be like a sportsman not a businessman. It should be fun, and then all the skill will be available, then it will flower by itself. You will not be needed. No effort is needed. Simply your whole being has to be available, your whole energy has to be available. Then the flower comes by itself.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
he is already nervous.
If he is in a competition just for a brass buckle, if something is to be achieved, some result is there, he is already nervous, afraid. Fear comes in: “Will I succeed or not?” He is divided. One part of the mind says, “Maybe you will succeed”; another part says, “Maybe you will fail.” Now his whole skill is not available, now he is half and half. And whenever you are divided your whole being becomes ugly and ill. You are diseased.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
he goes blind
or sees two targets –
he is out of his mind.
Go to the market and see people who are after gold. They are blind. Gold blinds men as nothing else does, gold covers the eyes completely. When you are too much for success, too much for the result, too ambitious, when you are too much after the gold medal, then you are blind and you start seeing two targets. You are so drunk you start seeing double.
I have heard…
Mulla Nasruddin was teaching his son in a bar: “Always remember when to stop. Alcohol is good, but one needs to know when to stop. And I’m telling you through my experience. Look over at that corner – when those four people sitting at the table start looking like eight, stop.”
The boy said, “But father, I see only two people sitting there.”
When the mind is drunk, vision becomes double. And gold makes you so unconscious, drunk. Now there are two targets and you are in such a hurry to reach them that you are nervous, trembling inside.
This is the state Chuang Tzu calls: …he is out of his mind. Everybody is out of his mind. It is not only mad people who are out of their minds, you are also out of your mind. The difference is only of degree, not of quality, a little more and any moment you can cross the boundary. It is as if you are at ninety-nine degrees. One hundred degrees and you boil, you have crossed the boundary. The difference between those who are in madhouses and those who are outside is only of quantity, not of quality. Everybody is out of his mind, because everyone is after results, goals, purposes. Something has to be achieved. Then comes nervousness, inner trembling, then you cannot be still within. And when you tremble inside, the target becomes two, or even four or eight – and then it is impossible to become an archer.
A perfect archer is always the archer who is having fun.
A perfect man lives life as fun, as play.
Look at Krishna’s life. Had Chuang Tzu known about him, it would have been beautiful. Krishna’s life is fun. Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, somehow or other look a little serious, as if something has to be achieved – the moksha, the nirvana, the desirelessness. But Krishna is absolutely purposeless – the flute player just living for fun, dancing with girls, enjoying, singing. Nowhere to go, all is here, so why bother about the result. Everything is available right now, why not enjoy it?
Krishna is the perfect man if fun is the sign of a perfect man. In India we never call his life Krishna charitra, his character, we never call it that. We call it Krishna leela, his play. It is not a character, it is not purposeful; it is absolutely purposeless.
It is just like a small child. You cannot ask, “What are you doing?” You cannot ask, “What is the meaning?” He is enjoying himself just running after butterflies. What will he achieve just jumping in the sun? To what end will this effort lead him? Nowhere! He is not going anywhere. We call him childish and we think ourselves mature, but I tell you that when you are really mature, you will again become childlike. Then your life will again become fun. You will enjoy it, every bit of it, you will not be serious. A deep laughter will spread all over your life. It will be more like a dance and less like a business; it will be more like singing, humming in the bathroom, less like calculating in the office. It will not be mathematics, it will just be enjoyment.
His skill has not changed,
but the prize divides him.
He cares.
He thinks more of winning
than of shooting –
and the need to win
drains him of power.
If you look so impotent, so powerless, helpless, it is because of you. Nobody else is draining you of your power. You have infinite sources of power, unending, but you look drained, as if any moment you are going to fall with no energy left.
Where are all these energies going? You are creating a conflict within yourself – your skill is the same.
His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares. I have heard…
It happened in a village… A poor man, the son of a beggar, he was young, healthy – so young and so healthy that when the king’s elephant passed through the village, he would just catch hold of the elephant’s tail and it would not be able to move.
Sometimes it became very embarrassing to the king because he would be sitting on the elephant and the whole market would gather and people would laugh. And all because of the son of a beggar.
The king asked his prime minister, “Something has to be done. This is insulting. I have become afraid to pass through that village, and that boy sometimes visits other villages also. Anywhere he can catch hold of the elephant’s tail and it will not move. He is so powerful, do something to drain his energy.”
The prime minister said, “I will have to go and consult a wise man because I don’t know how to drain his energy. There is nothing to drain his energy because he is a beggar. If he had a shop, the energy could be drained. If he was working as a clerk in an office, the energy would be drained. If he was a master in a primary school, his energy could be drained. But he has nothing to do. He lives for fun, and people love him and give him food and milk, so he is never short of food. He is happy, he eats and sleeps. So it is difficult, but I will go.”
So he went to a wise old man. The wise old man said, “Do one thing. Go and tell the boy that you will give him one golden rupee every day if he will do a small job – and the job is very small. He has to go to the village temple and put the lamp on. He has just to light the lamp, that is all. And you will give him one golden rupee every day.”
The prime minister said, “But how will this help? This may make him even more energetic. He will get one rupee and he will feel more energy. He will not even bother to beg.”
The wise man said, “Don’t worry, simply do what I say.”
This was done, and the next week, when the king passed, the boy tried but he failed, he couldn’t stop the elephant. He was dragged along by it.
What happened? Care entered, anxiety entered. He had to remember, for twenty-four hours a day he had to remember that he had to go to the temple every evening and put the light on. That became an anxiety, that divided his whole being. Even in his sleep he started to dream that it was evening: “What are you doing? Go and put the light on and take your rupee.”
Then he started to collect those golden rupees – now seven, now eight. Then he started to calculate that by such and such a time he would have one hundred golden rupees – and they would grow to two hundred. Mathematics came in, fun was lost. And he had just a small thing to do to, to put the light on. Just a single minute affair, not even a single minute, just a momentary thing – but it became a worry. It drained him of all his energy.
If you are drained there is no wonder your life is not fun. You have so many temples and so many lamps to put on and off, so many calculations in your life, it cannot be a fun.
His skill has not changed – the skill is the same, but the archer, when he is shooting for fun, has all his skill available. His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him. He cares. Anxiety enters, nervousness comes in. He thinks more of winning, now he is not concerned with shooting. Now the question is how to win, not how to shoot. He has moved from the beginning to the end. Now the means is not important, the end is important, and whenever the end is important your energy is divided, because all that can be done is to be done with the means, not with the end. Ends are not in your hands.
Says Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita: “Don’t be concerned with the end, with the result. Simply do whatsoever is to be done here and now and leave the result to me, to existence. Don’t ask what will happen, nobody knows. You simply leave it to existence, to faith. Whatever happens you simply do whatsoever is to be done. Be concerned with the means and don’t think of the end. Don’t be result-oriented.”
This situation is beautiful and worth considering with Chuang Tzu’s sentences, because Arjuna was an archer, the greatest archer India has produced. He was the perfect archer.
But the end entered his mind. He had never worried, it had never happened before. His archery was perfect, his skill was total, absolute, but looking at that vast siege of Kurukshetra, two armies confronting each other, he became worried. What was the worry? It was that he had friends on both sides. It was a family affair, a war between cousin-brothers, so everybody was interlinked. Those who were on the other side were also related to those on this side All these families and relatives were divided – it was a rare war, a family war.
Krishna was fighting alongside Arjuna, but his army was fighting on the other side. Krishna had said, “You both love me so you will have to divide half and half. One side can have me, and the other side can have my armies.”
Duryodhana, the leader of the other side, was foolish. He thought, “What will I do with Krishna alone – and his army is so big.” So he said, “I will choose your army.”
So Krishna was with Arjuna and Arjuna was happy, because one Krishna is more than the whole world. What can armies do – unconscious, sleepy people? One awakened man is worth all.
Krishna became the real help when Arjuna was confused and his mind divided. In the Gita it is said that looking at these two armies he became puzzled. And these are the words he spoke to Krishna: “My energy is drained. I feel nervous, I feel impotent, my power has left me” – and he was a man of perfect skill, a perfect archer.
His bow is known as a gandiva. He said, “The gandiva seems to be too heavy for me. I have become so powerless, my body is numb, and I cannot think and cannot see. Everything has become confused, because these are all relatives and I will have to kill them. What will be the result? Murder, so many people killed, and what will I gain out of it? A worthless kingdom? I am not interested in fighting, it seems to be too costly. I would like to escape and become a sannyasin, to go to the forest and meditate. This is not for me. My energy is drained.”
Krishna told him that, “Don’t think of the result. That is not in your hands. And don’t think that you are the doer, because if you are the doer, then the end is in your hands. The doer is always the divine, and you are just an instrument. Be concerned with the here and now, the means, and leave the end to me. I tell you, Arjuna, that these people are already dead, they are fated to die. You are not going to murder them. You are just the instrument to reveal to them the fact that they have been murdered, they are already murdered. As far as I can see, I see them dead. They have reached the point where death happens – you are just an instrument.”
Sanskrit has a beautiful word, there is no equivalent to it in English: it is nimitta. Nimitta means you are not the doer, you are not the cause, not even one of the causes, you are just the nimitta. It means the cause is in the hands of the divine. The divine is the doer, you are just a vehicle of it. You are just like a postman – the postman is the nimitta. He comes and delivers a letter to you. If the letter insults you, you don’t get angry with him. You don’t say, “Why did you bring me this letter?” The postman is not concerned, he is the nimitta. He has not written the letter, he has not caused it, he is not concerned about it. He has just fulfilled his duty. You will not be angry with him. You will not say, “Why have you brought this letter to me?”
Krishna said to Arjuna, “You are just like a postman, you have to deliver death to them. You are not the killer; the death is from the divine. They have earned it already, so don’t you worry. If you are not going to kill them, then somebody else will. If this postman will not do it then somebody else will deliver the letter. It is not a question of whether or not you are there, or you are on holiday or you are ill, then the letter will not be delivered. A substitute postman will do. But the letter has to be delivered. So don’t be bothered, don’t get worried unnecessarily; you are just a nimitta, neither the cause of it nor the doer of it, just an instrument. Be concerned with the means, don’t think about the ends, because once you think about the ends your skill is lost, you are divided.
“That’s why you are feeling drained, Arjuna. Your energy has not gone anywhere. It has become a conscience – then you are divided. You are fighting with yourself. One part says go ahead; another part says this is not good. Your wholeness is lost. And whenever the wholeness is lost, one feels impotent.”
Such a powerful man as Arjuna says, “I cannot carry this gandiva, this bow is too heavy for me. I have become nervous. I feel fear, deep fear, an anxiety arising in me. I cannot fight.”
The skill is the same, nothing has changed, but the mind is divided. Whenever you are divided you are powerless; when you are undivided you are powerful. Desires divide you, meditation undivides you. Desires lead you to the future, meditation brings you to the present.
Remember this as a conclusion: don’t move to the future. Whenever you feel your mind moving to the future jump back to the present immediately. Don’t try to complete it. Immediately, the moment you think, the moment you become alert that the mind has moved into the future, into the desire, jump back to the present. Be at home.
You will lose it again and again. Again and again you will miss it because it has become a long habit; but sooner or later, more and more, you will be at home. Then life is fun, it is a play. And then you are so full of energy that you overflow – a flood of vitality. And that flood is bliss.
Impotent, drained, you cannot be ecstatic. How can you dance? For dancing you will need infinite energy. Drained, how can you sing? Singing is always an overflowing. Dead as you are, how can you pray? Only when you are totally alive, a thankfulness arises from the heart, a gratitude. That gratitude is prayerfulness.
Enough for today.