WESTERN MYSTICS
The Hidden Harmony 01
First Discourse from the series of 11 discourses - The Hidden Harmony by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
The hidden harmony
is better than the obvious.
Opposition brings concord.
Out of discord
comes the fairest harmony.
It is in changing
that things find repose.
People do not understand
how that which is at variance with itself,
agrees with itself.
There is a harmony in the bending back,
as in the case of the bow and the lyre.
The name of the bow is life,
but its work is death.
I have been in love with Heraclitus for many lives. In fact, Heraclitus is the only Greek I have ever been in love with – except, of course, Mukta, Seema and Neeta!
Heraclitus is really beautiful. If he had been born in India, or in the East, he would have been known as a buddha. But in Greek history, philosophy, he was a stranger, an outsider. He is known in Greece not as an enlightened person, but as Heraclitus the Obscure, Heraclitus the Dark, Heraclitus the Riddling. Aristotle, the father of Greek philosophy and Western thought, thought him no philosopher at all and said, “At the most he is a poet,” but that too was difficult for him to concede. So later on in other works he said, “There must be some defect in Heraclitus’ character, something biologically wrong; that’s why he talks in such obscure ways and talks in paradoxes.” Aristotle thought that he was a little eccentric, a little mad – and Aristotle dominates the whole West. If Heraclitus had been accepted, the whole history of the West would have been totally different. He was not understood at all. He became more and more separate from the main current of Western thinking and the Western mind.
Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East; millions would have profited and found the way through him. To the Greeks he was just outlandish, eccentric, something foreign, alien; he didn’t belong to them. That’s why his name has remained just on the side, in a dark corner; by and by, he has been forgotten.
At the moment when Heraclitus was born, precisely at that moment, humanity reached a peak: a moment of transformation. It happens with humanity just as it does with an individual: there are moments when changes happen. Every seven years the body changes, and it goes on changing. If you live for seventy years, your total biophysical system will change ten times. If you use those gaps when the body changes, it will be very easy to move into meditation.
For example, sex becomes important for the first time at fourteen; the body goes through a biochemical change. If at that moment you are introduced to the dimension of meditation, it will be very, very easy to move into it because the body is not fixed. The old pattern has gone and the new has yet to come – there is a gap. At twenty-one, again deep changes happen because every seven years the body completely renews itself; all the old cells drop away and new ones are formed. It happens again at thirty-five, and goes on. Every seven years your body comes to a point where the old goes and the new settles – then there is a transitory period. In that transitory period everything is liquid. If you want a new dimension to enter your life, that is precisely the moment.
It happens exactly the same way in the history of the whole of humanity. Every twenty-five centuries there comes a peak. If you use that moment, you can easily become enlightened. It will not be so easy at other times because at that peak the river itself is flowing in that direction; everything is fluid, nothing is fixed.
Twenty-five centuries ago in India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira were born; in China, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu; in Iran, Zarathustra; in Greece, Heraclitus. They are the peaks. Never before were such peaks attained, or if they were attained they are not part of history because history starts with Jesus. You don’t know what happened twenty-five centuries ago. The moment is coming again; we are in a fluid state. The old is meaningless, the past has no significance for you, the future is uncertain – the gap is here. Humanity will again achieve a peak, the same peak as there was in Heraclitus’ time. If you are a little aware, you can use this moment – you can simply drop out of the wheel of life. When things are liquid, transformation is easy. When things are fixed, transformation is difficult.
You are fortunate that you are born in an age where things are again in a state of liquidity. Nothing is certain, all old codes and commandments have become useless. New patterns have yet not settled in. They will settle soon; man cannot remain unsettled forever because when you are unsettled there is insecurity. Things will settle again, this moment will not last forever; it is only for a few years. If you can use it, you can reach a peak which will be very, very difficult to reach at other times. If you miss it, the moment is missed again for another twenty-five centuries.
Remember, life moves in a cycle; everything moves in a cycle. The child is born, has his youth, old age, his death. It moves just as the seasons do: summer comes, rains follow; winter comes, and it goes on in a circle. The same happens in the dimension of consciousness. Every twenty-five centuries the circle is complete and before the new circle starts there is a gap that you can escape through; the door is open for a few years.
Heraclitus is a rare flowering; one of the most highly penetrating souls, and one of those souls who has become like Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas. Try to understand him. It is difficult; that’s why he is called Heraclitus the Obscure. He is not obscure. To understand him is difficult; to understand him you will need a different type of being – that is the problem. So it is easy to categorize him as obscure and forget him.
There are two types of people. If you want to understand Aristotle you don’t need any change in your being, you simply need some information. A school can provide some information about logic, philosophy; you can collect some intellectual understanding and understand Aristotle. You need not change to understand him, you need only a few additions to your knowledge. The being remains the same, you remain the same. You need not have a different plane of consciousness; that is not the requirement. Aristotle is clear. If you want to understand him, a little effort is enough; anyone of an average mind and intelligence will understand him. To understand Heraclitus is going to be rough terrain, difficult because whatever knowledge you collect will not be of much help; a very cultivated head won’t be of any help. You will need a different quality of being, and that is difficult – you will need a transformation. Hence, he is called obscure.
He is not obscure. You are just below the level of being where he can be understood. When you reach that level of being, suddenly all the darkness around him disappears. He is one of the most luminous beings; he is not obscure, he is not dark – it is you who are blind. Always remember this because if you say he is dark, you are throwing the responsibility on him, you are trying to escape from a transformation that is possible through encountering him. Don’t say that he is dark. Say, “We are blind” or “Our eyes are closed.”
The sun is there in the sky. You can stand in front of it with closed eyes and say that it is dark, or you can stand with your eyes open in front of it, but the light will be so strong that your eyes will temporarily go blind. The light is too much to bear. It is unbearable, and suddenly, darkness. You open your eyes, the sun is there again, but it is too much so you feel the darkness. That’s the case with Heraclitus ? he is not dark. Either you are blind, or your eyes are closed, or there is a third possibility. When you look at Heraclitus, he is such a luminous being that your eyes simply lose the capacity to see. He is unbearable, the light is too much for you. You are not accustomed to such light and will need to make a few arrangements before you can understand him. When he’s talking he looks as if he is riddling, he looks as if he is enjoying riddles because he talks in paradoxes.
All those who have known always talk in paradoxes. There is something in it – they are not riddling, they are very simple. What can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, what can they do? Just to avoid paradoxes you can create neat and clean theories, but they will be false, they will not be true to life. Aristotle is very neat, clean; he looks like a well-managed garden. Heraclitus looks like riddles – he is a wild forest. With Aristotle there is no trouble; he has avoided the paradox, he has made a neat and clean doctrine – it appeals. You will be scared to face Heraclitus because he opens the door of life, and life is paradoxical. Buddha is paradoxical, Lao Tzu is paradoxical; all those who have known are bound to be paradoxical. What can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, they have to be true to life. Life is not logical. It is a logos, but it is not logic. It is a cosmos, it is not a chaos; it is not logic.
The word logos has to be understood because Heraclitus will use it; the difference between logos and logic also has to be understood. Logic is a doctrine about what is true, and logos is truth itself. Logos is existential, logic is not existential; logic is intellectual, theoretical. Try to understand. If you see life you will say that there is also death. How can you avoid death? If you look at life, it is implied. Every moment of life is also a moment of death; you cannot separate them. It becomes a riddle.
Life and death are not two separate phenomena; they are two faces of the same coin, two aspects of the same coin. If you penetrate deeply you will see that life is death and death is life. The moment you are born, you have started dying. If this is so, when you die you will start living again. If death is implied in life, life will be implied in death. They belong to each other, they are complementary. Life and death are just like two wings or two legs; you cannot move with only the right leg or the left leg. In life you cannot be a rightist or a leftist, you have to be both together. With doctrine you can be a rightist, or a leftist. Doctrine is never true to life and cannot be because doctrine, out of necessity, needs to be clean, neat, clear, and life is not that – life is vast. Somewhere, one of the greatest poets of the world, Whitman, has said, “I contradict myself because I am vast.”
You will attain a very tiny mind through logic – you cannot be vast. If you are afraid of contradiction you cannot be vast. You will have to choose, you will have to suppress, you will have to avoid the contradiction, you will have to hide it. Can it disappear by your hiding it? By just not looking at death, are you not going to die?
You can avoid death, you can have your back toward it, you can completely forget about it ? that’s why we don’t talk about death; it is not good manners. We don’t talk about it, we avoid it. Death happens every day, it is happening everywhere, but we avoid it. The moment a man dies we are in a hurry to be finished with him. We make our graveyards out of the town so nobody goes there, and we make graves in marble and write beautiful lines on them. We put flowers on the grave. What are you doing? ? you are trying to decorate it a little.
In the West, how to hide death has become a profession. There are professionals who help you avoid it, and make the dead body beautiful, as if it is still alive. What are you doing? Can this help in any way? Death is there. You are headed toward the graveyard; wherever you put it makes no difference – you will reach there. You are already on the way, standing in the queue waiting for the moment; just waiting in the queue to die. Where can you escape death?
Logic tries to be clear, and just to be clear it avoids. It says that life is life, death is death – they are separate. Aristotle says A is A, it is never B. That became the foundation stone of all Western thought: avoid the contradiction – love is love, hate is hate; love is never hate. This is foolish because all love implies hate, has to; that’s how nature is. You love a person and you hate the same person, you have to; you cannot avoid it. If you try to avoid it everything will become false. That’s why your love has become false; it is not true, it is not authentic. It cannot be sincere, it is a facade.
Why is it a facade? – because you are avoiding the other. You say, “You are my friend and a friend cannot be an enemy. You are my enemy, you cannot be my friend.” These are two aspects of the same coin – the enemy is a hidden friend and the friend is a hidden enemy. The other aspect is hidden, but it is there. But it will be too much for you. If you see both, it will be unbearable. If you see the enemy in the friend you will not be able to love him. If you see the friend in the enemy you will not be able to hate him. The whole of life will become a riddle.
Heraclitus is called “that Riddler.” He is not, he is true to life. He simply reports whatever it is. He has no doctrine about life, he is not a system-maker – he is simply a mirror. Whatever life is, he represents it. Your face changes, the mirror represents it; you are loving, the mirror represents it; the next moment you become hateful, the mirror represents it. The mirror is not riddling, it is true.
Aristotle is not like a mirror, he is like a dead photograph. It doesn’t change, it doesn’t move with life. That’s why Aristotle says, “There is some defect in the very character of this man Heraclitus.” The mind should be clear for Aristotle, systematic, rational; logic should be the goal of life and you should not mix the opposites. Who is mixing them? Heraclitus is not mixing them. They are there, mixed. Heraclitus is not responsible for them. How can you separate them if they are mixed in life itself? Yes, you can try in your books, but your books will be false. A logical statement is basically going to be false because it cannot be a life statement. A life statement is going to be illogical because life exists through contradictions.
Look at life; everywhere there is contradiction. Nothing is wrong in contradiction, it is just that it is unbearable for your logical mind. If you attain a mystical insight it becomes beautiful. Really, beauty cannot exist without it. If you cannot hate the same person you love, there will be no tension in your love. It will be a dead thing. There will be no polarity; everything will become stale. What happens? If you love a person, in the morning you love and by the afternoon it will have become hate. Why? What is the reason for it? Why is it so in life? ? because when you hate, you separate; the initial distance is again regained. Before you fell in love you were two separate individuals. When you fell in love you became a unity, you became a community.
You must understand this word community. It is very beautiful; it means common unity. You became a community, you attained a common unity. Community is beautiful for a few moments, but then it looks like slavery. To attain a common unity for a few moments is beautiful, it leads to a height, to a peak – but you cannot live on the peak forever. Who will live in the valley? The peak is beautiful only because the valley is there. If you cannot move to the valley again, the peak will lose all its peakness. It is because of the valley that it is a peak. If you make a house there you will forget that it is a peak – the whole beauty of love will be lost.
In the morning you love, by the afternoon you are filled with hate. You have moved to the valley, you have moved to the initial position where you were before you fell in love – now you are individuals again. To be individual is beautiful because it is a freedom. To be in the valley is also beautiful because it is a relaxation. To be in the dark valley is soothing, it helps you to regain balance. You are ready again to go to the peak; by the evening you are in love again. This is a process of parting and coming together – again and again. When you fall in love again after a hateful moment, it is a new honeymoon.
If there is no change life is static. If you cannot move to the opposite everything will become stale and boring. That’s why people who are too cultivated become boring because they always go on smiling, they are never angry. You insult them and they smile; you praise them and they smile; you condemn them and they smile. They are unbearable. Their smile is dangerous, and cannot be very deep; it remains just on the lips, it is a face. They are not smiling, they are just following a code; their smile is ugly.
You will always find that people who are always in love and never hate or get angry are superficial – because if you don’t move to the opposite, from where will you gain depth? Depth comes through a movement to the opposite. Love is hate. In fact, we shouldn’t use the words love and hate, we should use a single word, lovehate. A love relationship is a love-hate one – and it is beautiful! Nothing is wrong in hate because it is through hate that you gain love. Nothing is wrong in being angry because it is through anger that you come to a silent stillness.
Have you noticed? Every morning, airplanes pass over here making a loud noise. When the plane has passed over, a deep silence follows in its wake. It was not so silent before the plane came, no. When the plane has passed over, it is more silent. You are walking down a street on a dark night, suddenly a car comes. It passes by at full speed; your eyes are dazzled by the light – when the car has passed it is darker than before.
Everything lives through the opposite, through the tension of the opposite – and becomes deeper. Go away so that you can come near; move to the opposite so that you can come closer again.
A love relationship is one of falling again and again in a honeymoon. If the honeymoon is over and the thing has settled, it is already dead – anything that is settled is dead. Life remains through an unsettled movement – anything that is secure is already in the grave. Your bank balances are your graveyards; that is where you have died. If you are totally secure you are no longer alive because to be alive is basically to move between the opposites.
Illness is not a bad thing; it is through illness that you regain health. Everything fits in the harmony – that’s why Heraclitus is called the Riddler. Lao Tzu would have understood him deeply, but Aristotle could not understand him. Unfortunately, Aristotle became the source of Greek thought; even more unfortunate is that Greek thought became the whole base of the Western mind.
What is Heraclitus’s deepest message? Understand this so you can follow ? he does not believe in things, he believes in processes; process is God to him. If you watch closely, you will see that things don’t exist in the world; everything is a process. In fact to use the word is, is existentially wrong because everything is becoming. Nothing is in a state of isness, nothing!
You say, “This is a tree.” By the time you say it, it has grown; your statement is already false. The tree is never static, so how can you use the word, is? It is always becoming, becoming something else. Everything is growing, moving, in a process. Life is movement. It is like a river – always moving. Heraclitus says, “You cannot step in the same river twice,” ? because by the time you come to step in it the second time, it has moved. It is a flow. Can you meet the same person twice? Impossible! You were also here yesterday morning – am I the same? Are you the same? Both rivers have changed. You may be here again tomorrow, but you will not find me; someone else will be here.
Life is changing. Heraclitus says, “Only change is eternal.” Only change never changes. Everything else changes. He believes in a permanent revolution. Everything is in revolution. It is how it is here. To be means to become. To remain where you are means to move; you cannot stay, nothing is static. Even the hills, the Himalayas, are not static; they are moving, moving fast. They are born and they die. The Himalayas is one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world, and it is still growing. It has not reached its peak yet, it is very young – every year it grows one foot. There are old mountains whose peaks have been attained; now they are old, falling down, their backs are bent.
These walls you see around you, every particle of them is in movement. You cannot see the movement because it is very subtle and fast. Remember, now physicists agree with Heraclitus, not with Aristotle. Whenever any science reaches nearer to reality, it has to agree with Lao Tzu and Heraclitus. Now physicists say that everything is in movement. Eddington has said, “The only word which is false is rest.” Nothing is at rest, nothing can be; it is a false word, it doesn’t correspond to any reality. The word is, is just in language. In life, in existence, there is no is; everything is becoming. When Heraclitus talks about the river – and the symbol of the river is very, very deep with him – he says, “You cannot step in the same river twice.” He also says, “Even if you do, you are the same and you are not the same.” Just on the surface you look the same. Not only has the river changed, you have also changed.
It happened…
A man came to Buddha to insult him – he spat on his face. Buddha wiped his face and asked the man, “Have you anything more to say?” – as if he had said something. The man was puzzled because he never expected this type of response. He went away.
The next day he came again – because he couldn’t sleep the whole night; he felt more and more that he had done something absolutely wrong, he felt guilty. The next morning he came to Buddha, fell at his feet and said, “Forgive me!”
Buddha replied, “Who will forgive you now? ? because the man you spat on is no longer the same, and the man you were when you spat is no longer the same. So who will forgive whom? Forget it, now nothing can be done about it. It cannot be undone – finished! Nobody is there, both parties are dead. What can be done? You are a new man and I am a new man.”
This is Heraclitus’s deepest message: everything flows and changes; everything moves, nothing is static. The moment you cling, you miss reality. Your clinging becomes the problem because reality changes and you cling.
You loved me yesterday; now you are angry. I cling to yesterday and say, “You have to love me because yesterday you were loving and said that you would always love me – now what has happened?” But what can you do? Yesterday when you said that you would love me always, it was not false, but it was not a promise either. It was simply the mood, and I believed too much in the mood. At that moment you felt it, that you would love me always and always and always, forever. Remember, it was not untrue. It was true in the moment, that was the mood, but now that mood has gone. The one who said it is no longer there. And if it is gone, it is gone; nothing can be done. You cannot force love. That’s what we are doing – and making so much misery out of it. The husband says, “Love me!” The wife says, “Love me because you promised – have you forgotten the days when we were courting?” But they are no longer there. Those people are no longer there either. Just remember yourself as a young man of twenty ? are you the same man? Much has passed; the Ganges has flowed too much – you are no longer there.
I have heard…
One night Mulla Nasruddin’s wife said, “You no longer love me. You never kiss me, never hug me. Remember when we were courting? You used to bite me and I loved it so much! Can’t you bite me again?”
Nasruddin got out of bed and started walking. His wife said, “Where are you going?”
He replied, “To the bathroom to get my teeth.”
No, you cannot step in the same river twice. It’s impossible. Don’t cling; if you cling you create a hell for yourself. Clinging is hell, and a nonclinging consciousness is always in heaven. One moves with the mood, accepts it, and accepts the change; there is no grudge, no complaint about it because this is how life is ? things are. You can fight, but you cannot change.
When someone is young, of course there are different moods because youth has different seasons and moods. How can an old man experience the same? An old man will look very foolish with those moods. How can an old man say the same thing? Everything has changed. When you are young you are romantic, inexperienced, dreamy. When you are old all the dreams have gone. There is nothing bad about it because when the dreams are gone, you are nearer and closer to reality – now you understand more. You are less of a poet because you cannot dream now, but nothing is wrong. Dreaming was a mood, a season – it changes. One has to be true to the state in which one finds oneself at a certain point.
Be true to your changing self because that is the only reality. That’s why Buddha says, “There is no self.” You are a river. There is no self because there is nothing unchanging in you. Buddha was thrown out of India because the Indian mind, particularly the brahmins, the Hindus, believed in a permanent self, atma. They have always said, “Something is permanent,” and Buddha said, “Only change is permanent – nothing is permanent.”
Why do you want to be a permanent thing? Why do you want to be dead? ? because only a dead thing can be permanent. Waves come and go, that’s why the ocean is alive. If waves stop, everything in the ocean will stop. It will be a dead thing. Everything lives through change – and change means changing to the other polarity. You move from one pole to another; that’s how you become alive and fresh again and again. During the day you work hard, and at night you relax and go to sleep. In the morning you are alive and fresh to work again. Have you ever noticed the polarity?
Work is against relaxation. If you work hard you become tense, tired, exhausted, but then you fall into the deep valley of rest, a deep relaxation. The surface is far away, you move to the center. You are no longer the identity you are on the surface, no longer the name, the ego; nothing is carried from the surface. You simply forget who you are, and in the morning you are fresh. This forgetfulness is good, it makes you fresh. Just try not sleeping for three weeks – you will go mad because you would have forgotten to move to the opposite.
If Aristotle is right, and if you don’t sleep at all, and don’t move to the opposite, you will become an enlightened man. You will be mad! It is because of Aristotle that there are so many mad people in the West. Sooner or later the whole West is going to be mad if they don’t listen to the East, or to Heraclitus. It is bound to be so because you have lost the polarity. Logic will say something else. Logic will say, “Rest the whole day, practice rest the whole day, so that in the night you can fall into a deep sleep.” This is logical. “Practice rest!” This is logical. This is what rich people do; they rest the whole day, have insomnia and then say, “We cannot sleep.” They are practicing the whole day – lying on their beds, their easy chairs, resting and resting and resting. At night, suddenly they find that they cannot sleep. They have followed Aristotle, they are logical.
One day Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. He entered the room coughing. The doctor said, “It sounds better.”
Nasruddin replied, “Of course, it has to sound better – because I practiced it the whole night.”
If you practice rest the whole day, at night you will be restless. You will change sides again and again; that is just an exercise the body is doing so that some rest becomes possible. No – in life you cannot find a man more wrong than Aristotle. Move to the opposite. Work hard in the day and you will go into a deeper sleep at night. Go deeper in sleep, and in the morning you will find that you are capable of doing tremendous work, and will have infinite energy. Through rest one gains energy; through work one gains rest – just the opposite.
People come to me and say, “We have insomnia, we cannot sleep, so tell us some way to relax” – they are Aristotelian. I say to them, “There is no need for you to relax. Just go for a walk, a long walk, run madly – two hours in the morning, two in the evening, and rest will follow automatically. It always follows! You don’t need relaxation techniques; you need active meditation techniques, not relaxation. You are already too relaxed; that’s what the insomnia is showing – there is no need for more.”
Life moves through one opposite to another. Heraclitus says, “This is the secret, the hidden harmony; this is the hidden harmony.” He is very poetic, he has to be. He cannot be philosophic because philosophy means reason. Poetry can be contradictory; poetry can say things which philosophers will be ashamed to say – poetry is truer to life. Philosophers just go around and around; they never hit the center point, they beat about the bush. Poetry simply hits directly.
If you want any parallels to Heraclitus in the East, you will find them in the Zen masters, Zen poets, particularly in the poetry known as haiku. Basho is one of the great masters of haiku. Basho and Heraclitus are absolutely close, in a deep embrace; they are almost one. Basho has not written anything in a philosophical way; he has written in small haikus, just three-line, seventeen-syllable haikus, just small pieces. Heraclitus has also written fragments; he has not written a system like Hegel, Kant; he is not a systematizer – just oracular maxims. Each fragment is complete in itself, just like a diamond; each cut to its perfection in itself, no need to be related to another. He has spoken in an oracular way.
The whole method of the oracular maxim has disappeared from the West. Only Nietzsche wrote in the same way. His book: Thus Spake Zarathustra consists of oracular maxims – since Heraclitus, only Nietzsche. In the East, everyone who has become enlightened has written in that way. That is the way of the Upanishads, the Vedas, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Basho; just maxims. They are so small that you have to penetrate them, and just by trying to understand them you will change, your intellect unable to cope.
Basho says in a small haiku:
An ancient pond
…a frog jumps in
the sound of water
Finished! He has said everything. You can picture it: an ancient pond, a frog sitting on the bank, and ? the frog jumping. You can see the splash, and the sound of the water. Basho says that everything has been said. This is all life is: an ancient pond, the frog jumping, the sound of water – silence. This is what you are; this is what everything is – silence.
Heraclitus talks in his river fragment in the same way. First he uses the sounds of a river – autoisi potamoisi. Before he says something, he uses the sounds of the river, and then gives the maxim: You cannot step in the same river twice. He is a poet, but no ordinary poet – a poet Hindus have always called a rishi. There are two types of poets. One who is still dreaming and creating poetry out of his dreams – a Byron, a Shelley, a Keats. Then there is another type of poet, a rishi, who is no longer dreaming – he looks at the reality and out of the reality, poetry is born. Heraclitus is a rishi, a poet who is no longer dreaming, who has encountered existence. He is the first existentialist in the West.
Now, try to penetrate his oracular maxims.
The hidden harmony
is better than the obvious.
Why? Why is the hidden harmony better than the obvious? – because the obvious is on the surface, and the surface can deceive and can be cultivated, conditioned. At the center you are existential, on the surface you are social. Marriage is on the surface, love is at the center. Love has a hidden harmony, marriage has an obvious harmony.
Just go to some friend’s house. If you look through the window you see the husband and wife fighting, their faces ugly. The moment you enter everything changes; they are so polite, they are talking to each other so lovingly. This is a harmony that is obvious, a harmony that is on the surface. But deep down there is no harmony, it is just a mannerism, it is just for display. A real man may appear inharmonious on the surface, but he will always be harmonious in the center. Even if he contradicts himself, in his contradictions there will be a hidden harmony. And a person who never contradicts himself, who is absolutely consistent on the surface, will not have the real harmony.
There are consistent people: if they love, they love; if they hate, they hate – they don’t allow opposites to mingle and meet. They are absolutely clear who their enemy is and who their friend is. They live on the surface and they create a consistency. Their consistency is not real; deep down inconsistencies are boiling, and on the surface they are somehow managing. You know them because you are them! On the surface you manage, but this won’t help. Don’t be bothered too much with the surface. Go deeper – and don’t try to choose between the opposites. You will have to live both. If you can live both, nonattached, unattached to either; if you can live both, love and remain a witness, hate and remain a witness ? that witnessing will be the hidden harmony. You will know that these are climates, changes in season, moods that just come and go – and you will see the gestalt in them.
This German word gestalt is beautiful. It says that there is a harmony between the figure and the background. They are not opposites, they appear as opposites. For example, in your first school you look at the blackboard, and the teacher writes with white chalk on the blackboard. Black and white are opposites. Yes, for Aristotelian minds they are opposites; black is black and white is white – they are the polarities. But why is this teacher writing with white on black? Can’t she write with white on white or black on black? She can, but it will be useless. The black has to be the background and the white becomes the figure on it; they contrast, there is a tension between them. They are opposites and there is a hidden harmony. The white looks whiter on black; that’s the harmony. On white it will simply disappear because there is no tension, no opposition.
Remember, Jesus would have disappeared if the Jews had not crucified him. They made it a gestalt; the cross was the blackboard and Jesus became whiter on it. Jesus would have completely disappeared; it is because of the cross that he has remained. It is because of the cross that he has penetrated people’s hearts more than a Buddha, more than a Mahavira. Almost half of the world has fallen in love with him – it is because of the cross. He was a white line on a black board. Buddha is a white line on a white board. The contrast is not there, the gestalt is not there; the background is just the same as the figure.
If you simply love and can’t hate, your love will not be worthwhile, it will simply be useless. It will have no intensity in it, it will not be a flame, it will not be a passion; it will be simply cold. It becomes a passion, and passion is a beautiful word because it has intensity. But how does it become a passion? – because the same man is capable of hate also. Compassion has an intensity if the same man is also capable of anger. If he is simply incapable of anger, his compassion will be impotent – just impotent. He is helpless, that’s why compassion is there. He cannot hate, that’s why he loves. When you love in spite of hate, there is passion. It becomes a figure and background phenomenon, there is a gestalt.
Heraclitus is talking of the deepest gestalt; the obvious harmony is really no harmony, the hidden harmony is the real harmony. So don’t try to be consistent on the surface; rather, find a consistency between the deep inconsistencies, find a harmony between the deepest opposites. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. That is the difference between a religious man and a moral man. A moral man is just harmonious on the surface; a religious man is harmonious at the center. A religious man is bound to be contradictory; a moral man is always consistent. You can rely on a moral man; you cannot rely on a religious man. A moral man is predictable; a religious man, never. Nobody knew how Jesus would behave – even his close disciples were not aware, they couldn’t predict him, saying, “This man is unpredictable. He talks of love and then takes out a whip in the temple and chases the moneychangers out. He talks of compassion, he talks in terms of ‘love your enemy’ and upsets the whole temple – he is rebellious.” A man who talks of love seems to be inconsistent.
Bertrand Russell has written a book: Why I Am Not a Christian. In that book he raises all these inconsistencies. He says, “Jesus is inconsistent and looks neurotic. Somewhere he says ‘love your enemy’ and then he behaves in such an angry way; not only with people, but with trees – he curses a fig tree. Jesus and his disciples were hungry and came across a fig tree, but it wasn’t the season for figs. They looked at the tree and saw there were no fruits on it, and it is said that Jesus cursed the tree. What type of man is this? And he talks of love!”
He has a hidden harmony, but Bertrand Russell cannot find it because he is the modern Aristotle. He cannot find it, he cannot understand it. It is good that he is not a Christian – very, very good. He cannot be a Christian, he cannot be a religious man. He is a moralist; each act should be consistent – but with what, with whom? With whom should it be consistent? With your past? My assertion should be consistent with another – why? It is possible only if the river is not flowing.
Have you ever watched a river? Sometimes it is flowing left, sometimes right; sometimes to the south, sometimes north, and you will see that the river is very inconsistent – there is a hidden harmony; it reaches the ocean. Wherever it is going, the ocean is the goal. Sometimes it has to move southward because the gradient is to the south; sometimes it has to move just the opposite way, northward, because the gradient is to the north. It is finding the same goal in every direction ? it is moving toward the ocean. And you will see that it has reached.
Think of a river which is consistent and says that it will always move to the south because how can it move to the north? People will say that it is inconsistent. This river will never reach the ocean. The rivers of the Russells and Aristotles never reach the ocean; they are too consistent, too much on the surface. They don’t know the hidden harmony – that through opposites you can seek the same goal. The same goal can be sought through the opposites. That possibility is completely unknown to them. That possibility is there. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. But it is difficult, you will be in constant difficulty. People expect consistency from you and the hidden harmony is not a part of society. It is part of the cosmos, but not of society. Society is a man-made affair, and has worked out the whole plan as if everything is static. Society has created moralities, codes, as if everything is unmoving. That’s why moralities continue for centuries. Everything changes and the dead rules continue. Everything goes on changing and the so-called moralists always go on preaching the same things which are absolutely irrelevant – but they are consistent with their past. Absolutely irrelevant things go on.
For example, in the times of Mohammed, in Arabian countries there were four times more women than men because the Arabians were warriors and continuously warring and killing each other; they were murderers. Women have never been so foolish, so their survival was four times greater; what to do now? In the whole of society, if there are four times more women than men, you can understand that it will be too difficult for any morality to exist there. Many problems will arise. So Mohammed made a rule that every Mohammedan could marry four women. They are still following the rule.
Now it has become an ugly thing, but they say that they are consistent with the Koran. Now the whole situation is different, absolutely different; there are not four times more women now – but they follow the rule. The thing that was a beautiful response in a particular historic situation is now ugly, absolutely ugly. But they will follow it because Mohammedans are very consistent people. They can’t change, and they cannot consult Mohammed again, as he is not there. Mohammedans are very, very cunning. They have closed the door for any prophet to come again; otherwise he might do something, make some changes. So this Mohammed is the last – the door is closed even if Mohammed himself wants to come. He cannot because they have closed the door. It always happens. Moralists always close the door because any new prophet will always create trouble; a new prophet cannot be consistent with old rules. He will live the moment. He will have his own discipline – consistent with the reality now, but what is the guarantee that it will be consistent with the past? There is no guarantee, it is not going to be so. So every moral tradition closes the door.
Jainas have closed their door. They say that Mahavira is the last, now no more tirthankaras. Mohammedans say that Mohammed is the last. Christians say that Jesus is the only begotten son of God, now no more – all doors closed. Why do moralists always close the doors? – just as a safety measure because if a prophet comes, a man who lives moment to moment, he will turn everything topsy-turvy; he will create a chaos. Somehow you get settled: a church, a morality, a code; everything fixed and you follow the rules. On the surface you attain an obvious harmony. Again a prophet comes and he recreates everything, disturbs everything; he starts creating everything anew again.
A moralist is a man on the surface. He lives for the rules, rules are not for him. He is for the scriptures, scriptures are not for him. He follows the rules, but he doesn’t follow awareness. If you follow awareness, witnessing, you will attain a hidden harmony. You are not bothered by the opposite, you can use it. Once you can use the opposite, you have a secret key; you can make your love more beautiful through hate.
Hate is not the enemy of love. It is the very salt that makes love beautiful – it is the background. You can make your compassion intense through anger, then it is not the opposite. This is Jesus’s meaning when he says, “Love your enemies.” This is the meaning: love your enemies because enemies are not enemies – they are friends, you can use them. In a hidden harmony they fall and become one.
Anger is the enemy – use it, make it a friend! Hate is the enemy – use it, make it a friend! Allow your love to grow deeper through it, make it a soil. It becomes a soil.
This is the hidden harmony of Heraclitus. Love the enemy, use the opposite. The opposite is not the opposite, it is just the background.
Opposition brings concord.
Out of discord
comes the fairest harmony.
Heraclitus is never surpassed.
Opposition brings concord.
Out of discord
comes the fairest harmony.
It is in changing
that things find repose.
People do not understand
how that which is at variance with itself,
agrees with itself.
There is a harmony in the bending back,
as in the case of the bow and lyre.
The name of the bow is life,
but its work is death.
Of course, to the rationalist he will seem to be speaking in riddles, obscure, dark. But is he? He is so crystal clear if you can see, he is so luminous. But if you are addicted to the rational mind it becomes difficult because, he says: “Out of disharmony the fairest harmony is born, opposition brings concord, love the enemy.”
Life will be absolutely saltless if the opposition is simply destroyed. Just think of a world where evil doesn’t exist. Do you think good will exist? Just think of a world where there is no sinner. Do you think everyone will be saints? The saint cannot exist without the sinner – the saint needs the sinner. The sinner cannot exist without the saint – the sinner needs the saint. There is a harmony, a hidden harmony; they are polarities. Life is beautiful because of both. God cannot exist without the Devil. God and the Devil are eternal.
People come to me and ask, “If God exists why is there so much misery, evil, bad – why?” It is because God cannot exist without them – that is the background. Alone without the Devil, God will be tasteless, just tasteless – you can vomit him up, but you cannot eat him; just tasteless, nauseous. He knows the hidden harmony; he cannot exist without the Devil, so don’t hate the Devil – use him. If God is using him, why can’t you? If God cannot exist without him, how can you? So real saints, saints who have an intensity, are just like Gurdjieff.
Alan Watts has written: “Gurdjieff is the holiest rascal I have ever known!” And it is so; he is a rascal, but the holiest. God himself is that rascal, the holiest. If you cut out the Devil, simultaneously you have killed God. The game needs two parties.
When Adam was tempted by the Devil, it was God himself who was tempting him. It is a conspiracy. The serpent is in the service of God, the Devil too. The very word devil is beautiful; it comes from a Sanskrit root which means the divine. Divine comes from the same root, dev, as devil; both words come from the same root. It is as if the root is one, only the branches are different; on one branch the devil, on another branch the divine – but the root is the same, dev. There must be a conspiracy, otherwise the game cannot continue. There must be a deep harmony – that is the conspiracy. Here God says to Adam, “You are not to eat from this tree of knowledge.” Now the conspiracy starts, the game starts; now the first rules are being set.
Christianity has missed many beautiful things because it has tried to create an obvious harmony, and for twenty centuries Christian theologians have been worried about how to explain the Devil. There is no need, it is simple, Heraclitus knows. It is very simple, no need to explain. But Christians have been worried because if there is the Devil, God must have created him; otherwise, how is he there?
If the Devil is there, God must be allowing him to be there; otherwise, how can he be there? If God cannot destroy him, your God becomes impotent; you cannot call him omnipotent. If God created the Devil without knowing that he was going to be the Devil, he is not omniscient, all-knowing. He created the Devil not knowing that this was going to disturb the whole world. He created Adam not knowing that he would eat the fruit of the tree. He prohibited it! – he is not omniscient, all-knowing. If there is the Devil, God cannot be omnipresent because who is present in the Devil? He cannot be everywhere; at least he is not there in the Devil’s heart. If he is in the Devil’s heart, why condemn the poor Devil?
There is a conspiracy – a hidden harmony. God prohibited Adam from eating just to tempt him. This is the first temptation because whenever you say, “Don’t do this,” temptation has entered. The Devil comes only later on – the first temptation is from God himself. Otherwise, there were millions of trees in the Garden of Eden so if Adam had been left to himself, it is almost impossible that he would have found the tree of knowledge – almost impossible, unbelievable!
Even up to now we have not been able to find all the trees on this earth. Many trees still remain unknown, uncategorized, and many species still have to be discovered. This earth is nothing – the Garden of Eden was God’s garden, with millions and millions of trees, infinite. If Adam and Eve had been left to themselves, alone, they would never have found it – but God tempted them. This I insist, that the temptation comes from God. The Devil is just the other partner in the game. He tempted by saying, “Don’t eat!” – immediately the tree was known, and the desire must have come. Why does God prohibit it? There must be something to it. It is not prohibited to God, he himself eats from it; it is prohibited just for us. The mind has started to function, the game starts. Just as a partner in the conspiracy, the Devil comes, the serpent, and says, “Eat it! – because if you eat it, you will be like gods.” And that is the deepest desire in the human mind, to be like gods.
The Devil did the trick because he knows the conspiracy. He didn’t approach Adam directly, he approached through Eve – because if you want to tempt man, you can tempt him only through woman; otherwise, there is no direct temptation. Every temptation comes through sex, every temptation comes through the woman. It is more important for the Devil to have the woman play the game because it is impossible to say no to a woman who loves you. You can say no to the Devil, but to the woman? And the Devil comes in the form of the serpent. It is just a phallic symbol, a symbol for the sex organ because there is nothing comparable to the serpent in representing the male sex organ; they are exactly alike. It comes through the woman because how can you say no to a woman?
Mulla Nasruddin had arranged for his wife to go to the mountains for her asthma. She was not willing to go, she refused and said, “I’m afraid that the mountain air is going to disagree with me.”
Mulla Nasruddin replied, “My dear, don’t worry. There is no mountain air so brave as to disagree with you! Don’t worry yourself.”
It is impossible to disagree with a woman you love, so women become easy conspirators with the Devil. The temptation entered, and Adam ate the apple from the tree, the fruit of knowledge – that’s why you are out of the Garden of Eden, and the game continues.
It is a deep hidden harmony. God cannot function alone. It would be just like electricity functioning with only a positive pole, no negative pole; he would be functioning only with man, no woman. No, he had tried it before – he failed. First, he made Adam, but he failed because with Adam alone the game was not happening, there was no go. Then he created woman, and the first woman he created was not Eve. The first woman was Lilith. She must have believed in the Women’s Liberation Movement. She created trouble because she said, “I am just as independent as you.” On the first day when they were going to sleep the trouble surfaced because they had only one bed. So who was going to sleep on the bed, and who would sleep on the floor? Lilith simply said, “No! You sleep on the floor.” This is how the liberation movement carries on. Adam didn’t listen and Lilith disappeared. Lilith went to God and said, “I am not going to play this game.”
In the West, this is how the woman is disappearing – Lilith is disappearing – the beauty, the grace and everything. The whole game is in trouble because there are women who say, “Don’t love a man.”
I was reading a pamphlet. These women say, “Kill men! Murder every man! – because if man lives, there can be no freedom for the woman.” If you kill man, can you still be here? The game needs both.
Lilith disappeared, and the game could not continue, so God had to create a woman. That’s why this time he added a bone from man himself because to create a separate woman would make trouble again. So he took a rib out of Adam and created a woman. Hence, there is a polarity and a unity still. They are two and still they belong to the same body. That is the meaning that they are two, opposites, but they still belong to the same body, the same root deep down; they are one body deep down. That’s why when they meet in a deep, loving embrace, they become one body. They come to that state where Adam was, alone; they meet and merge, become one.
There is opposition to the game, but still there is oneness deep within. These two things are needed for the game to continue: opposition, and still harmony. If there is absolute harmony the game will disappear – because with whom will you play? If there is complete discord, absolute opposition, no harmony, the game will disappear.
Harmony in discord, oneness in opposition, is the key to all mysteries.
It is in changing that things find repose. People do not understand how that which is at variance with itself, agrees with itself. The Devil agrees with God, God agrees with the Devil – that’s why the Devil exists.
There is a harmony in the bending back, as in the case of the bow and lyre. A musician plays with a bow and a lyre; the opposition is just on the surface. On the surface it is a clash, a struggle, a fight, a discord, but beautiful music comes out of it.
Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony…. The name of the bow is life, but its work is death. And death is its work, the ultimate result. Death and life are not two either.
The name of the bow is life, but its work is death. So death cannot really be the opposite – it must be the lyre. If the name of the bow is life, the name of the lyre must be death. Within these two the fairest harmony of life arises.
You are just in the middle between death and life – you are neither. So don’t cling to life and don’t be afraid of death. You are the music between the lyre and the bow. You are the clash, the meeting and the merging, the harmony, and the fairest that is born out of it.
Don’t choose! If you choose, you will be wrong. If you choose, you will become attached to one, identified with one. Don’t choose! Let life be the bow, let death be the lyre – and you be the harmony, the hidden harmony. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
Enough for today.
is better than the obvious.
Opposition brings concord.
Out of discord
comes the fairest harmony.
It is in changing
that things find repose.
People do not understand
how that which is at variance with itself,
agrees with itself.
There is a harmony in the bending back,
as in the case of the bow and the lyre.
The name of the bow is life,
but its work is death.
I have been in love with Heraclitus for many lives. In fact, Heraclitus is the only Greek I have ever been in love with – except, of course, Mukta, Seema and Neeta!
Heraclitus is really beautiful. If he had been born in India, or in the East, he would have been known as a buddha. But in Greek history, philosophy, he was a stranger, an outsider. He is known in Greece not as an enlightened person, but as Heraclitus the Obscure, Heraclitus the Dark, Heraclitus the Riddling. Aristotle, the father of Greek philosophy and Western thought, thought him no philosopher at all and said, “At the most he is a poet,” but that too was difficult for him to concede. So later on in other works he said, “There must be some defect in Heraclitus’ character, something biologically wrong; that’s why he talks in such obscure ways and talks in paradoxes.” Aristotle thought that he was a little eccentric, a little mad – and Aristotle dominates the whole West. If Heraclitus had been accepted, the whole history of the West would have been totally different. He was not understood at all. He became more and more separate from the main current of Western thinking and the Western mind.
Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha, Lao Tzu, Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East; millions would have profited and found the way through him. To the Greeks he was just outlandish, eccentric, something foreign, alien; he didn’t belong to them. That’s why his name has remained just on the side, in a dark corner; by and by, he has been forgotten.
At the moment when Heraclitus was born, precisely at that moment, humanity reached a peak: a moment of transformation. It happens with humanity just as it does with an individual: there are moments when changes happen. Every seven years the body changes, and it goes on changing. If you live for seventy years, your total biophysical system will change ten times. If you use those gaps when the body changes, it will be very easy to move into meditation.
For example, sex becomes important for the first time at fourteen; the body goes through a biochemical change. If at that moment you are introduced to the dimension of meditation, it will be very, very easy to move into it because the body is not fixed. The old pattern has gone and the new has yet to come – there is a gap. At twenty-one, again deep changes happen because every seven years the body completely renews itself; all the old cells drop away and new ones are formed. It happens again at thirty-five, and goes on. Every seven years your body comes to a point where the old goes and the new settles – then there is a transitory period. In that transitory period everything is liquid. If you want a new dimension to enter your life, that is precisely the moment.
It happens exactly the same way in the history of the whole of humanity. Every twenty-five centuries there comes a peak. If you use that moment, you can easily become enlightened. It will not be so easy at other times because at that peak the river itself is flowing in that direction; everything is fluid, nothing is fixed.
Twenty-five centuries ago in India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira were born; in China, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu; in Iran, Zarathustra; in Greece, Heraclitus. They are the peaks. Never before were such peaks attained, or if they were attained they are not part of history because history starts with Jesus. You don’t know what happened twenty-five centuries ago. The moment is coming again; we are in a fluid state. The old is meaningless, the past has no significance for you, the future is uncertain – the gap is here. Humanity will again achieve a peak, the same peak as there was in Heraclitus’ time. If you are a little aware, you can use this moment – you can simply drop out of the wheel of life. When things are liquid, transformation is easy. When things are fixed, transformation is difficult.
You are fortunate that you are born in an age where things are again in a state of liquidity. Nothing is certain, all old codes and commandments have become useless. New patterns have yet not settled in. They will settle soon; man cannot remain unsettled forever because when you are unsettled there is insecurity. Things will settle again, this moment will not last forever; it is only for a few years. If you can use it, you can reach a peak which will be very, very difficult to reach at other times. If you miss it, the moment is missed again for another twenty-five centuries.
Remember, life moves in a cycle; everything moves in a cycle. The child is born, has his youth, old age, his death. It moves just as the seasons do: summer comes, rains follow; winter comes, and it goes on in a circle. The same happens in the dimension of consciousness. Every twenty-five centuries the circle is complete and before the new circle starts there is a gap that you can escape through; the door is open for a few years.
Heraclitus is a rare flowering; one of the most highly penetrating souls, and one of those souls who has become like Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas. Try to understand him. It is difficult; that’s why he is called Heraclitus the Obscure. He is not obscure. To understand him is difficult; to understand him you will need a different type of being – that is the problem. So it is easy to categorize him as obscure and forget him.
There are two types of people. If you want to understand Aristotle you don’t need any change in your being, you simply need some information. A school can provide some information about logic, philosophy; you can collect some intellectual understanding and understand Aristotle. You need not change to understand him, you need only a few additions to your knowledge. The being remains the same, you remain the same. You need not have a different plane of consciousness; that is not the requirement. Aristotle is clear. If you want to understand him, a little effort is enough; anyone of an average mind and intelligence will understand him. To understand Heraclitus is going to be rough terrain, difficult because whatever knowledge you collect will not be of much help; a very cultivated head won’t be of any help. You will need a different quality of being, and that is difficult – you will need a transformation. Hence, he is called obscure.
He is not obscure. You are just below the level of being where he can be understood. When you reach that level of being, suddenly all the darkness around him disappears. He is one of the most luminous beings; he is not obscure, he is not dark – it is you who are blind. Always remember this because if you say he is dark, you are throwing the responsibility on him, you are trying to escape from a transformation that is possible through encountering him. Don’t say that he is dark. Say, “We are blind” or “Our eyes are closed.”
The sun is there in the sky. You can stand in front of it with closed eyes and say that it is dark, or you can stand with your eyes open in front of it, but the light will be so strong that your eyes will temporarily go blind. The light is too much to bear. It is unbearable, and suddenly, darkness. You open your eyes, the sun is there again, but it is too much so you feel the darkness. That’s the case with Heraclitus ? he is not dark. Either you are blind, or your eyes are closed, or there is a third possibility. When you look at Heraclitus, he is such a luminous being that your eyes simply lose the capacity to see. He is unbearable, the light is too much for you. You are not accustomed to such light and will need to make a few arrangements before you can understand him. When he’s talking he looks as if he is riddling, he looks as if he is enjoying riddles because he talks in paradoxes.
All those who have known always talk in paradoxes. There is something in it – they are not riddling, they are very simple. What can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, what can they do? Just to avoid paradoxes you can create neat and clean theories, but they will be false, they will not be true to life. Aristotle is very neat, clean; he looks like a well-managed garden. Heraclitus looks like riddles – he is a wild forest. With Aristotle there is no trouble; he has avoided the paradox, he has made a neat and clean doctrine – it appeals. You will be scared to face Heraclitus because he opens the door of life, and life is paradoxical. Buddha is paradoxical, Lao Tzu is paradoxical; all those who have known are bound to be paradoxical. What can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, they have to be true to life. Life is not logical. It is a logos, but it is not logic. It is a cosmos, it is not a chaos; it is not logic.
The word logos has to be understood because Heraclitus will use it; the difference between logos and logic also has to be understood. Logic is a doctrine about what is true, and logos is truth itself. Logos is existential, logic is not existential; logic is intellectual, theoretical. Try to understand. If you see life you will say that there is also death. How can you avoid death? If you look at life, it is implied. Every moment of life is also a moment of death; you cannot separate them. It becomes a riddle.
Life and death are not two separate phenomena; they are two faces of the same coin, two aspects of the same coin. If you penetrate deeply you will see that life is death and death is life. The moment you are born, you have started dying. If this is so, when you die you will start living again. If death is implied in life, life will be implied in death. They belong to each other, they are complementary. Life and death are just like two wings or two legs; you cannot move with only the right leg or the left leg. In life you cannot be a rightist or a leftist, you have to be both together. With doctrine you can be a rightist, or a leftist. Doctrine is never true to life and cannot be because doctrine, out of necessity, needs to be clean, neat, clear, and life is not that – life is vast. Somewhere, one of the greatest poets of the world, Whitman, has said, “I contradict myself because I am vast.”
You will attain a very tiny mind through logic – you cannot be vast. If you are afraid of contradiction you cannot be vast. You will have to choose, you will have to suppress, you will have to avoid the contradiction, you will have to hide it. Can it disappear by your hiding it? By just not looking at death, are you not going to die?
You can avoid death, you can have your back toward it, you can completely forget about it ? that’s why we don’t talk about death; it is not good manners. We don’t talk about it, we avoid it. Death happens every day, it is happening everywhere, but we avoid it. The moment a man dies we are in a hurry to be finished with him. We make our graveyards out of the town so nobody goes there, and we make graves in marble and write beautiful lines on them. We put flowers on the grave. What are you doing? ? you are trying to decorate it a little.
In the West, how to hide death has become a profession. There are professionals who help you avoid it, and make the dead body beautiful, as if it is still alive. What are you doing? Can this help in any way? Death is there. You are headed toward the graveyard; wherever you put it makes no difference – you will reach there. You are already on the way, standing in the queue waiting for the moment; just waiting in the queue to die. Where can you escape death?
Logic tries to be clear, and just to be clear it avoids. It says that life is life, death is death – they are separate. Aristotle says A is A, it is never B. That became the foundation stone of all Western thought: avoid the contradiction – love is love, hate is hate; love is never hate. This is foolish because all love implies hate, has to; that’s how nature is. You love a person and you hate the same person, you have to; you cannot avoid it. If you try to avoid it everything will become false. That’s why your love has become false; it is not true, it is not authentic. It cannot be sincere, it is a facade.
Why is it a facade? – because you are avoiding the other. You say, “You are my friend and a friend cannot be an enemy. You are my enemy, you cannot be my friend.” These are two aspects of the same coin – the enemy is a hidden friend and the friend is a hidden enemy. The other aspect is hidden, but it is there. But it will be too much for you. If you see both, it will be unbearable. If you see the enemy in the friend you will not be able to love him. If you see the friend in the enemy you will not be able to hate him. The whole of life will become a riddle.
Heraclitus is called “that Riddler.” He is not, he is true to life. He simply reports whatever it is. He has no doctrine about life, he is not a system-maker – he is simply a mirror. Whatever life is, he represents it. Your face changes, the mirror represents it; you are loving, the mirror represents it; the next moment you become hateful, the mirror represents it. The mirror is not riddling, it is true.
Aristotle is not like a mirror, he is like a dead photograph. It doesn’t change, it doesn’t move with life. That’s why Aristotle says, “There is some defect in the very character of this man Heraclitus.” The mind should be clear for Aristotle, systematic, rational; logic should be the goal of life and you should not mix the opposites. Who is mixing them? Heraclitus is not mixing them. They are there, mixed. Heraclitus is not responsible for them. How can you separate them if they are mixed in life itself? Yes, you can try in your books, but your books will be false. A logical statement is basically going to be false because it cannot be a life statement. A life statement is going to be illogical because life exists through contradictions.
Look at life; everywhere there is contradiction. Nothing is wrong in contradiction, it is just that it is unbearable for your logical mind. If you attain a mystical insight it becomes beautiful. Really, beauty cannot exist without it. If you cannot hate the same person you love, there will be no tension in your love. It will be a dead thing. There will be no polarity; everything will become stale. What happens? If you love a person, in the morning you love and by the afternoon it will have become hate. Why? What is the reason for it? Why is it so in life? ? because when you hate, you separate; the initial distance is again regained. Before you fell in love you were two separate individuals. When you fell in love you became a unity, you became a community.
You must understand this word community. It is very beautiful; it means common unity. You became a community, you attained a common unity. Community is beautiful for a few moments, but then it looks like slavery. To attain a common unity for a few moments is beautiful, it leads to a height, to a peak – but you cannot live on the peak forever. Who will live in the valley? The peak is beautiful only because the valley is there. If you cannot move to the valley again, the peak will lose all its peakness. It is because of the valley that it is a peak. If you make a house there you will forget that it is a peak – the whole beauty of love will be lost.
In the morning you love, by the afternoon you are filled with hate. You have moved to the valley, you have moved to the initial position where you were before you fell in love – now you are individuals again. To be individual is beautiful because it is a freedom. To be in the valley is also beautiful because it is a relaxation. To be in the dark valley is soothing, it helps you to regain balance. You are ready again to go to the peak; by the evening you are in love again. This is a process of parting and coming together – again and again. When you fall in love again after a hateful moment, it is a new honeymoon.
If there is no change life is static. If you cannot move to the opposite everything will become stale and boring. That’s why people who are too cultivated become boring because they always go on smiling, they are never angry. You insult them and they smile; you praise them and they smile; you condemn them and they smile. They are unbearable. Their smile is dangerous, and cannot be very deep; it remains just on the lips, it is a face. They are not smiling, they are just following a code; their smile is ugly.
You will always find that people who are always in love and never hate or get angry are superficial – because if you don’t move to the opposite, from where will you gain depth? Depth comes through a movement to the opposite. Love is hate. In fact, we shouldn’t use the words love and hate, we should use a single word, lovehate. A love relationship is a love-hate one – and it is beautiful! Nothing is wrong in hate because it is through hate that you gain love. Nothing is wrong in being angry because it is through anger that you come to a silent stillness.
Have you noticed? Every morning, airplanes pass over here making a loud noise. When the plane has passed over, a deep silence follows in its wake. It was not so silent before the plane came, no. When the plane has passed over, it is more silent. You are walking down a street on a dark night, suddenly a car comes. It passes by at full speed; your eyes are dazzled by the light – when the car has passed it is darker than before.
Everything lives through the opposite, through the tension of the opposite – and becomes deeper. Go away so that you can come near; move to the opposite so that you can come closer again.
A love relationship is one of falling again and again in a honeymoon. If the honeymoon is over and the thing has settled, it is already dead – anything that is settled is dead. Life remains through an unsettled movement – anything that is secure is already in the grave. Your bank balances are your graveyards; that is where you have died. If you are totally secure you are no longer alive because to be alive is basically to move between the opposites.
Illness is not a bad thing; it is through illness that you regain health. Everything fits in the harmony – that’s why Heraclitus is called the Riddler. Lao Tzu would have understood him deeply, but Aristotle could not understand him. Unfortunately, Aristotle became the source of Greek thought; even more unfortunate is that Greek thought became the whole base of the Western mind.
What is Heraclitus’s deepest message? Understand this so you can follow ? he does not believe in things, he believes in processes; process is God to him. If you watch closely, you will see that things don’t exist in the world; everything is a process. In fact to use the word is, is existentially wrong because everything is becoming. Nothing is in a state of isness, nothing!
You say, “This is a tree.” By the time you say it, it has grown; your statement is already false. The tree is never static, so how can you use the word, is? It is always becoming, becoming something else. Everything is growing, moving, in a process. Life is movement. It is like a river – always moving. Heraclitus says, “You cannot step in the same river twice,” ? because by the time you come to step in it the second time, it has moved. It is a flow. Can you meet the same person twice? Impossible! You were also here yesterday morning – am I the same? Are you the same? Both rivers have changed. You may be here again tomorrow, but you will not find me; someone else will be here.
Life is changing. Heraclitus says, “Only change is eternal.” Only change never changes. Everything else changes. He believes in a permanent revolution. Everything is in revolution. It is how it is here. To be means to become. To remain where you are means to move; you cannot stay, nothing is static. Even the hills, the Himalayas, are not static; they are moving, moving fast. They are born and they die. The Himalayas is one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world, and it is still growing. It has not reached its peak yet, it is very young – every year it grows one foot. There are old mountains whose peaks have been attained; now they are old, falling down, their backs are bent.
These walls you see around you, every particle of them is in movement. You cannot see the movement because it is very subtle and fast. Remember, now physicists agree with Heraclitus, not with Aristotle. Whenever any science reaches nearer to reality, it has to agree with Lao Tzu and Heraclitus. Now physicists say that everything is in movement. Eddington has said, “The only word which is false is rest.” Nothing is at rest, nothing can be; it is a false word, it doesn’t correspond to any reality. The word is, is just in language. In life, in existence, there is no is; everything is becoming. When Heraclitus talks about the river – and the symbol of the river is very, very deep with him – he says, “You cannot step in the same river twice.” He also says, “Even if you do, you are the same and you are not the same.” Just on the surface you look the same. Not only has the river changed, you have also changed.
It happened…
A man came to Buddha to insult him – he spat on his face. Buddha wiped his face and asked the man, “Have you anything more to say?” – as if he had said something. The man was puzzled because he never expected this type of response. He went away.
The next day he came again – because he couldn’t sleep the whole night; he felt more and more that he had done something absolutely wrong, he felt guilty. The next morning he came to Buddha, fell at his feet and said, “Forgive me!”
Buddha replied, “Who will forgive you now? ? because the man you spat on is no longer the same, and the man you were when you spat is no longer the same. So who will forgive whom? Forget it, now nothing can be done about it. It cannot be undone – finished! Nobody is there, both parties are dead. What can be done? You are a new man and I am a new man.”
This is Heraclitus’s deepest message: everything flows and changes; everything moves, nothing is static. The moment you cling, you miss reality. Your clinging becomes the problem because reality changes and you cling.
You loved me yesterday; now you are angry. I cling to yesterday and say, “You have to love me because yesterday you were loving and said that you would always love me – now what has happened?” But what can you do? Yesterday when you said that you would love me always, it was not false, but it was not a promise either. It was simply the mood, and I believed too much in the mood. At that moment you felt it, that you would love me always and always and always, forever. Remember, it was not untrue. It was true in the moment, that was the mood, but now that mood has gone. The one who said it is no longer there. And if it is gone, it is gone; nothing can be done. You cannot force love. That’s what we are doing – and making so much misery out of it. The husband says, “Love me!” The wife says, “Love me because you promised – have you forgotten the days when we were courting?” But they are no longer there. Those people are no longer there either. Just remember yourself as a young man of twenty ? are you the same man? Much has passed; the Ganges has flowed too much – you are no longer there.
I have heard…
One night Mulla Nasruddin’s wife said, “You no longer love me. You never kiss me, never hug me. Remember when we were courting? You used to bite me and I loved it so much! Can’t you bite me again?”
Nasruddin got out of bed and started walking. His wife said, “Where are you going?”
He replied, “To the bathroom to get my teeth.”
No, you cannot step in the same river twice. It’s impossible. Don’t cling; if you cling you create a hell for yourself. Clinging is hell, and a nonclinging consciousness is always in heaven. One moves with the mood, accepts it, and accepts the change; there is no grudge, no complaint about it because this is how life is ? things are. You can fight, but you cannot change.
When someone is young, of course there are different moods because youth has different seasons and moods. How can an old man experience the same? An old man will look very foolish with those moods. How can an old man say the same thing? Everything has changed. When you are young you are romantic, inexperienced, dreamy. When you are old all the dreams have gone. There is nothing bad about it because when the dreams are gone, you are nearer and closer to reality – now you understand more. You are less of a poet because you cannot dream now, but nothing is wrong. Dreaming was a mood, a season – it changes. One has to be true to the state in which one finds oneself at a certain point.
Be true to your changing self because that is the only reality. That’s why Buddha says, “There is no self.” You are a river. There is no self because there is nothing unchanging in you. Buddha was thrown out of India because the Indian mind, particularly the brahmins, the Hindus, believed in a permanent self, atma. They have always said, “Something is permanent,” and Buddha said, “Only change is permanent – nothing is permanent.”
Why do you want to be a permanent thing? Why do you want to be dead? ? because only a dead thing can be permanent. Waves come and go, that’s why the ocean is alive. If waves stop, everything in the ocean will stop. It will be a dead thing. Everything lives through change – and change means changing to the other polarity. You move from one pole to another; that’s how you become alive and fresh again and again. During the day you work hard, and at night you relax and go to sleep. In the morning you are alive and fresh to work again. Have you ever noticed the polarity?
Work is against relaxation. If you work hard you become tense, tired, exhausted, but then you fall into the deep valley of rest, a deep relaxation. The surface is far away, you move to the center. You are no longer the identity you are on the surface, no longer the name, the ego; nothing is carried from the surface. You simply forget who you are, and in the morning you are fresh. This forgetfulness is good, it makes you fresh. Just try not sleeping for three weeks – you will go mad because you would have forgotten to move to the opposite.
If Aristotle is right, and if you don’t sleep at all, and don’t move to the opposite, you will become an enlightened man. You will be mad! It is because of Aristotle that there are so many mad people in the West. Sooner or later the whole West is going to be mad if they don’t listen to the East, or to Heraclitus. It is bound to be so because you have lost the polarity. Logic will say something else. Logic will say, “Rest the whole day, practice rest the whole day, so that in the night you can fall into a deep sleep.” This is logical. “Practice rest!” This is logical. This is what rich people do; they rest the whole day, have insomnia and then say, “We cannot sleep.” They are practicing the whole day – lying on their beds, their easy chairs, resting and resting and resting. At night, suddenly they find that they cannot sleep. They have followed Aristotle, they are logical.
One day Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. He entered the room coughing. The doctor said, “It sounds better.”
Nasruddin replied, “Of course, it has to sound better – because I practiced it the whole night.”
If you practice rest the whole day, at night you will be restless. You will change sides again and again; that is just an exercise the body is doing so that some rest becomes possible. No – in life you cannot find a man more wrong than Aristotle. Move to the opposite. Work hard in the day and you will go into a deeper sleep at night. Go deeper in sleep, and in the morning you will find that you are capable of doing tremendous work, and will have infinite energy. Through rest one gains energy; through work one gains rest – just the opposite.
People come to me and say, “We have insomnia, we cannot sleep, so tell us some way to relax” – they are Aristotelian. I say to them, “There is no need for you to relax. Just go for a walk, a long walk, run madly – two hours in the morning, two in the evening, and rest will follow automatically. It always follows! You don’t need relaxation techniques; you need active meditation techniques, not relaxation. You are already too relaxed; that’s what the insomnia is showing – there is no need for more.”
Life moves through one opposite to another. Heraclitus says, “This is the secret, the hidden harmony; this is the hidden harmony.” He is very poetic, he has to be. He cannot be philosophic because philosophy means reason. Poetry can be contradictory; poetry can say things which philosophers will be ashamed to say – poetry is truer to life. Philosophers just go around and around; they never hit the center point, they beat about the bush. Poetry simply hits directly.
If you want any parallels to Heraclitus in the East, you will find them in the Zen masters, Zen poets, particularly in the poetry known as haiku. Basho is one of the great masters of haiku. Basho and Heraclitus are absolutely close, in a deep embrace; they are almost one. Basho has not written anything in a philosophical way; he has written in small haikus, just three-line, seventeen-syllable haikus, just small pieces. Heraclitus has also written fragments; he has not written a system like Hegel, Kant; he is not a systematizer – just oracular maxims. Each fragment is complete in itself, just like a diamond; each cut to its perfection in itself, no need to be related to another. He has spoken in an oracular way.
The whole method of the oracular maxim has disappeared from the West. Only Nietzsche wrote in the same way. His book: Thus Spake Zarathustra consists of oracular maxims – since Heraclitus, only Nietzsche. In the East, everyone who has become enlightened has written in that way. That is the way of the Upanishads, the Vedas, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Basho; just maxims. They are so small that you have to penetrate them, and just by trying to understand them you will change, your intellect unable to cope.
Basho says in a small haiku:
An ancient pond
…a frog jumps in
the sound of water
Finished! He has said everything. You can picture it: an ancient pond, a frog sitting on the bank, and ? the frog jumping. You can see the splash, and the sound of the water. Basho says that everything has been said. This is all life is: an ancient pond, the frog jumping, the sound of water – silence. This is what you are; this is what everything is – silence.
Heraclitus talks in his river fragment in the same way. First he uses the sounds of a river – autoisi potamoisi. Before he says something, he uses the sounds of the river, and then gives the maxim: You cannot step in the same river twice. He is a poet, but no ordinary poet – a poet Hindus have always called a rishi. There are two types of poets. One who is still dreaming and creating poetry out of his dreams – a Byron, a Shelley, a Keats. Then there is another type of poet, a rishi, who is no longer dreaming – he looks at the reality and out of the reality, poetry is born. Heraclitus is a rishi, a poet who is no longer dreaming, who has encountered existence. He is the first existentialist in the West.
Now, try to penetrate his oracular maxims.
The hidden harmony
is better than the obvious.
Why? Why is the hidden harmony better than the obvious? – because the obvious is on the surface, and the surface can deceive and can be cultivated, conditioned. At the center you are existential, on the surface you are social. Marriage is on the surface, love is at the center. Love has a hidden harmony, marriage has an obvious harmony.
Just go to some friend’s house. If you look through the window you see the husband and wife fighting, their faces ugly. The moment you enter everything changes; they are so polite, they are talking to each other so lovingly. This is a harmony that is obvious, a harmony that is on the surface. But deep down there is no harmony, it is just a mannerism, it is just for display. A real man may appear inharmonious on the surface, but he will always be harmonious in the center. Even if he contradicts himself, in his contradictions there will be a hidden harmony. And a person who never contradicts himself, who is absolutely consistent on the surface, will not have the real harmony.
There are consistent people: if they love, they love; if they hate, they hate – they don’t allow opposites to mingle and meet. They are absolutely clear who their enemy is and who their friend is. They live on the surface and they create a consistency. Their consistency is not real; deep down inconsistencies are boiling, and on the surface they are somehow managing. You know them because you are them! On the surface you manage, but this won’t help. Don’t be bothered too much with the surface. Go deeper – and don’t try to choose between the opposites. You will have to live both. If you can live both, nonattached, unattached to either; if you can live both, love and remain a witness, hate and remain a witness ? that witnessing will be the hidden harmony. You will know that these are climates, changes in season, moods that just come and go – and you will see the gestalt in them.
This German word gestalt is beautiful. It says that there is a harmony between the figure and the background. They are not opposites, they appear as opposites. For example, in your first school you look at the blackboard, and the teacher writes with white chalk on the blackboard. Black and white are opposites. Yes, for Aristotelian minds they are opposites; black is black and white is white – they are the polarities. But why is this teacher writing with white on black? Can’t she write with white on white or black on black? She can, but it will be useless. The black has to be the background and the white becomes the figure on it; they contrast, there is a tension between them. They are opposites and there is a hidden harmony. The white looks whiter on black; that’s the harmony. On white it will simply disappear because there is no tension, no opposition.
Remember, Jesus would have disappeared if the Jews had not crucified him. They made it a gestalt; the cross was the blackboard and Jesus became whiter on it. Jesus would have completely disappeared; it is because of the cross that he has remained. It is because of the cross that he has penetrated people’s hearts more than a Buddha, more than a Mahavira. Almost half of the world has fallen in love with him – it is because of the cross. He was a white line on a black board. Buddha is a white line on a white board. The contrast is not there, the gestalt is not there; the background is just the same as the figure.
If you simply love and can’t hate, your love will not be worthwhile, it will simply be useless. It will have no intensity in it, it will not be a flame, it will not be a passion; it will be simply cold. It becomes a passion, and passion is a beautiful word because it has intensity. But how does it become a passion? – because the same man is capable of hate also. Compassion has an intensity if the same man is also capable of anger. If he is simply incapable of anger, his compassion will be impotent – just impotent. He is helpless, that’s why compassion is there. He cannot hate, that’s why he loves. When you love in spite of hate, there is passion. It becomes a figure and background phenomenon, there is a gestalt.
Heraclitus is talking of the deepest gestalt; the obvious harmony is really no harmony, the hidden harmony is the real harmony. So don’t try to be consistent on the surface; rather, find a consistency between the deep inconsistencies, find a harmony between the deepest opposites. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. That is the difference between a religious man and a moral man. A moral man is just harmonious on the surface; a religious man is harmonious at the center. A religious man is bound to be contradictory; a moral man is always consistent. You can rely on a moral man; you cannot rely on a religious man. A moral man is predictable; a religious man, never. Nobody knew how Jesus would behave – even his close disciples were not aware, they couldn’t predict him, saying, “This man is unpredictable. He talks of love and then takes out a whip in the temple and chases the moneychangers out. He talks of compassion, he talks in terms of ‘love your enemy’ and upsets the whole temple – he is rebellious.” A man who talks of love seems to be inconsistent.
Bertrand Russell has written a book: Why I Am Not a Christian. In that book he raises all these inconsistencies. He says, “Jesus is inconsistent and looks neurotic. Somewhere he says ‘love your enemy’ and then he behaves in such an angry way; not only with people, but with trees – he curses a fig tree. Jesus and his disciples were hungry and came across a fig tree, but it wasn’t the season for figs. They looked at the tree and saw there were no fruits on it, and it is said that Jesus cursed the tree. What type of man is this? And he talks of love!”
He has a hidden harmony, but Bertrand Russell cannot find it because he is the modern Aristotle. He cannot find it, he cannot understand it. It is good that he is not a Christian – very, very good. He cannot be a Christian, he cannot be a religious man. He is a moralist; each act should be consistent – but with what, with whom? With whom should it be consistent? With your past? My assertion should be consistent with another – why? It is possible only if the river is not flowing.
Have you ever watched a river? Sometimes it is flowing left, sometimes right; sometimes to the south, sometimes north, and you will see that the river is very inconsistent – there is a hidden harmony; it reaches the ocean. Wherever it is going, the ocean is the goal. Sometimes it has to move southward because the gradient is to the south; sometimes it has to move just the opposite way, northward, because the gradient is to the north. It is finding the same goal in every direction ? it is moving toward the ocean. And you will see that it has reached.
Think of a river which is consistent and says that it will always move to the south because how can it move to the north? People will say that it is inconsistent. This river will never reach the ocean. The rivers of the Russells and Aristotles never reach the ocean; they are too consistent, too much on the surface. They don’t know the hidden harmony – that through opposites you can seek the same goal. The same goal can be sought through the opposites. That possibility is completely unknown to them. That possibility is there. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. But it is difficult, you will be in constant difficulty. People expect consistency from you and the hidden harmony is not a part of society. It is part of the cosmos, but not of society. Society is a man-made affair, and has worked out the whole plan as if everything is static. Society has created moralities, codes, as if everything is unmoving. That’s why moralities continue for centuries. Everything changes and the dead rules continue. Everything goes on changing and the so-called moralists always go on preaching the same things which are absolutely irrelevant – but they are consistent with their past. Absolutely irrelevant things go on.
For example, in the times of Mohammed, in Arabian countries there were four times more women than men because the Arabians were warriors and continuously warring and killing each other; they were murderers. Women have never been so foolish, so their survival was four times greater; what to do now? In the whole of society, if there are four times more women than men, you can understand that it will be too difficult for any morality to exist there. Many problems will arise. So Mohammed made a rule that every Mohammedan could marry four women. They are still following the rule.
Now it has become an ugly thing, but they say that they are consistent with the Koran. Now the whole situation is different, absolutely different; there are not four times more women now – but they follow the rule. The thing that was a beautiful response in a particular historic situation is now ugly, absolutely ugly. But they will follow it because Mohammedans are very consistent people. They can’t change, and they cannot consult Mohammed again, as he is not there. Mohammedans are very, very cunning. They have closed the door for any prophet to come again; otherwise he might do something, make some changes. So this Mohammed is the last – the door is closed even if Mohammed himself wants to come. He cannot because they have closed the door. It always happens. Moralists always close the door because any new prophet will always create trouble; a new prophet cannot be consistent with old rules. He will live the moment. He will have his own discipline – consistent with the reality now, but what is the guarantee that it will be consistent with the past? There is no guarantee, it is not going to be so. So every moral tradition closes the door.
Jainas have closed their door. They say that Mahavira is the last, now no more tirthankaras. Mohammedans say that Mohammed is the last. Christians say that Jesus is the only begotten son of God, now no more – all doors closed. Why do moralists always close the doors? – just as a safety measure because if a prophet comes, a man who lives moment to moment, he will turn everything topsy-turvy; he will create a chaos. Somehow you get settled: a church, a morality, a code; everything fixed and you follow the rules. On the surface you attain an obvious harmony. Again a prophet comes and he recreates everything, disturbs everything; he starts creating everything anew again.
A moralist is a man on the surface. He lives for the rules, rules are not for him. He is for the scriptures, scriptures are not for him. He follows the rules, but he doesn’t follow awareness. If you follow awareness, witnessing, you will attain a hidden harmony. You are not bothered by the opposite, you can use it. Once you can use the opposite, you have a secret key; you can make your love more beautiful through hate.
Hate is not the enemy of love. It is the very salt that makes love beautiful – it is the background. You can make your compassion intense through anger, then it is not the opposite. This is Jesus’s meaning when he says, “Love your enemies.” This is the meaning: love your enemies because enemies are not enemies – they are friends, you can use them. In a hidden harmony they fall and become one.
Anger is the enemy – use it, make it a friend! Hate is the enemy – use it, make it a friend! Allow your love to grow deeper through it, make it a soil. It becomes a soil.
This is the hidden harmony of Heraclitus. Love the enemy, use the opposite. The opposite is not the opposite, it is just the background.
Opposition brings concord.
Out of discord
comes the fairest harmony.
Heraclitus is never surpassed.
Opposition brings concord.
Out of discord
comes the fairest harmony.
It is in changing
that things find repose.
People do not understand
how that which is at variance with itself,
agrees with itself.
There is a harmony in the bending back,
as in the case of the bow and lyre.
The name of the bow is life,
but its work is death.
Of course, to the rationalist he will seem to be speaking in riddles, obscure, dark. But is he? He is so crystal clear if you can see, he is so luminous. But if you are addicted to the rational mind it becomes difficult because, he says: “Out of disharmony the fairest harmony is born, opposition brings concord, love the enemy.”
Life will be absolutely saltless if the opposition is simply destroyed. Just think of a world where evil doesn’t exist. Do you think good will exist? Just think of a world where there is no sinner. Do you think everyone will be saints? The saint cannot exist without the sinner – the saint needs the sinner. The sinner cannot exist without the saint – the sinner needs the saint. There is a harmony, a hidden harmony; they are polarities. Life is beautiful because of both. God cannot exist without the Devil. God and the Devil are eternal.
People come to me and ask, “If God exists why is there so much misery, evil, bad – why?” It is because God cannot exist without them – that is the background. Alone without the Devil, God will be tasteless, just tasteless – you can vomit him up, but you cannot eat him; just tasteless, nauseous. He knows the hidden harmony; he cannot exist without the Devil, so don’t hate the Devil – use him. If God is using him, why can’t you? If God cannot exist without him, how can you? So real saints, saints who have an intensity, are just like Gurdjieff.
Alan Watts has written: “Gurdjieff is the holiest rascal I have ever known!” And it is so; he is a rascal, but the holiest. God himself is that rascal, the holiest. If you cut out the Devil, simultaneously you have killed God. The game needs two parties.
When Adam was tempted by the Devil, it was God himself who was tempting him. It is a conspiracy. The serpent is in the service of God, the Devil too. The very word devil is beautiful; it comes from a Sanskrit root which means the divine. Divine comes from the same root, dev, as devil; both words come from the same root. It is as if the root is one, only the branches are different; on one branch the devil, on another branch the divine – but the root is the same, dev. There must be a conspiracy, otherwise the game cannot continue. There must be a deep harmony – that is the conspiracy. Here God says to Adam, “You are not to eat from this tree of knowledge.” Now the conspiracy starts, the game starts; now the first rules are being set.
Christianity has missed many beautiful things because it has tried to create an obvious harmony, and for twenty centuries Christian theologians have been worried about how to explain the Devil. There is no need, it is simple, Heraclitus knows. It is very simple, no need to explain. But Christians have been worried because if there is the Devil, God must have created him; otherwise, how is he there?
If the Devil is there, God must be allowing him to be there; otherwise, how can he be there? If God cannot destroy him, your God becomes impotent; you cannot call him omnipotent. If God created the Devil without knowing that he was going to be the Devil, he is not omniscient, all-knowing. He created the Devil not knowing that this was going to disturb the whole world. He created Adam not knowing that he would eat the fruit of the tree. He prohibited it! – he is not omniscient, all-knowing. If there is the Devil, God cannot be omnipresent because who is present in the Devil? He cannot be everywhere; at least he is not there in the Devil’s heart. If he is in the Devil’s heart, why condemn the poor Devil?
There is a conspiracy – a hidden harmony. God prohibited Adam from eating just to tempt him. This is the first temptation because whenever you say, “Don’t do this,” temptation has entered. The Devil comes only later on – the first temptation is from God himself. Otherwise, there were millions of trees in the Garden of Eden so if Adam had been left to himself, it is almost impossible that he would have found the tree of knowledge – almost impossible, unbelievable!
Even up to now we have not been able to find all the trees on this earth. Many trees still remain unknown, uncategorized, and many species still have to be discovered. This earth is nothing – the Garden of Eden was God’s garden, with millions and millions of trees, infinite. If Adam and Eve had been left to themselves, alone, they would never have found it – but God tempted them. This I insist, that the temptation comes from God. The Devil is just the other partner in the game. He tempted by saying, “Don’t eat!” – immediately the tree was known, and the desire must have come. Why does God prohibit it? There must be something to it. It is not prohibited to God, he himself eats from it; it is prohibited just for us. The mind has started to function, the game starts. Just as a partner in the conspiracy, the Devil comes, the serpent, and says, “Eat it! – because if you eat it, you will be like gods.” And that is the deepest desire in the human mind, to be like gods.
The Devil did the trick because he knows the conspiracy. He didn’t approach Adam directly, he approached through Eve – because if you want to tempt man, you can tempt him only through woman; otherwise, there is no direct temptation. Every temptation comes through sex, every temptation comes through the woman. It is more important for the Devil to have the woman play the game because it is impossible to say no to a woman who loves you. You can say no to the Devil, but to the woman? And the Devil comes in the form of the serpent. It is just a phallic symbol, a symbol for the sex organ because there is nothing comparable to the serpent in representing the male sex organ; they are exactly alike. It comes through the woman because how can you say no to a woman?
Mulla Nasruddin had arranged for his wife to go to the mountains for her asthma. She was not willing to go, she refused and said, “I’m afraid that the mountain air is going to disagree with me.”
Mulla Nasruddin replied, “My dear, don’t worry. There is no mountain air so brave as to disagree with you! Don’t worry yourself.”
It is impossible to disagree with a woman you love, so women become easy conspirators with the Devil. The temptation entered, and Adam ate the apple from the tree, the fruit of knowledge – that’s why you are out of the Garden of Eden, and the game continues.
It is a deep hidden harmony. God cannot function alone. It would be just like electricity functioning with only a positive pole, no negative pole; he would be functioning only with man, no woman. No, he had tried it before – he failed. First, he made Adam, but he failed because with Adam alone the game was not happening, there was no go. Then he created woman, and the first woman he created was not Eve. The first woman was Lilith. She must have believed in the Women’s Liberation Movement. She created trouble because she said, “I am just as independent as you.” On the first day when they were going to sleep the trouble surfaced because they had only one bed. So who was going to sleep on the bed, and who would sleep on the floor? Lilith simply said, “No! You sleep on the floor.” This is how the liberation movement carries on. Adam didn’t listen and Lilith disappeared. Lilith went to God and said, “I am not going to play this game.”
In the West, this is how the woman is disappearing – Lilith is disappearing – the beauty, the grace and everything. The whole game is in trouble because there are women who say, “Don’t love a man.”
I was reading a pamphlet. These women say, “Kill men! Murder every man! – because if man lives, there can be no freedom for the woman.” If you kill man, can you still be here? The game needs both.
Lilith disappeared, and the game could not continue, so God had to create a woman. That’s why this time he added a bone from man himself because to create a separate woman would make trouble again. So he took a rib out of Adam and created a woman. Hence, there is a polarity and a unity still. They are two and still they belong to the same body. That is the meaning that they are two, opposites, but they still belong to the same body, the same root deep down; they are one body deep down. That’s why when they meet in a deep, loving embrace, they become one body. They come to that state where Adam was, alone; they meet and merge, become one.
There is opposition to the game, but still there is oneness deep within. These two things are needed for the game to continue: opposition, and still harmony. If there is absolute harmony the game will disappear – because with whom will you play? If there is complete discord, absolute opposition, no harmony, the game will disappear.
Harmony in discord, oneness in opposition, is the key to all mysteries.
It is in changing that things find repose. People do not understand how that which is at variance with itself, agrees with itself. The Devil agrees with God, God agrees with the Devil – that’s why the Devil exists.
There is a harmony in the bending back, as in the case of the bow and lyre. A musician plays with a bow and a lyre; the opposition is just on the surface. On the surface it is a clash, a struggle, a fight, a discord, but beautiful music comes out of it.
Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony…. The name of the bow is life, but its work is death. And death is its work, the ultimate result. Death and life are not two either.
The name of the bow is life, but its work is death. So death cannot really be the opposite – it must be the lyre. If the name of the bow is life, the name of the lyre must be death. Within these two the fairest harmony of life arises.
You are just in the middle between death and life – you are neither. So don’t cling to life and don’t be afraid of death. You are the music between the lyre and the bow. You are the clash, the meeting and the merging, the harmony, and the fairest that is born out of it.
Don’t choose! If you choose, you will be wrong. If you choose, you will become attached to one, identified with one. Don’t choose! Let life be the bow, let death be the lyre – and you be the harmony, the hidden harmony. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
Enough for today.