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Taoism - Daoism - Tao - Dao

VOL. 1, TAO: THE THREE TREASURES

Chapter-10

Wisdom And Understanding

Seventh Question

 

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts          Taoism          Tao: The three treasures

 

 

The seventh question:

Question 7

YOU SAID THAT LAO TZU WAS BORN OLD. HOW DID HE ACHIEVE HIS WISDOM AND MATURITY? WAS A MASTER NECESSARY TO BRING HIM TO THE POINT WHERE HE COULD BE BORN OLD?

YOU DON'T EVEN have a sense of humor. You can't understand a joke. These are just symbolic tales, beautiful in themselves, but if you start asking questions about them they become ugly. That's how the whole mystery and the poetry of a thing is lost; and that is what has been done. The whole of theology is all about such nonsensical questions. "Was Jesus really born out of a virgin?" It is a beautiful symbol. "Was Jesus really resurrected when he was dead, crucified?'' This is a beautiful symbol. "Was it a reality that Lao Tzu was born old, eighty-four years old, remained in his mother's womb for eighty-four years?" It is a beautiful Lao Tzuan joke. I suspect that Lao Tzu must have spread the rumor -- nobody else could do that, it is so subtle.

If you understand the joke, you understand. If you don't understand please don't ask questions. Forget about it, because questions will destroy it completely.

It is said that whenever a joke is told there are three kinds of laughter. The first is from those who understand it immediately -- and a joke has to be understood immediately, with no time gap, otherwise you lack the sense of humor. That is the whole point of it -- that suddenly it strikes, suddenly it hits somewhere inside, and you know what it is. You may not be able to explain to others why you were laughing, and the more you try to explain, the more it will become a puzzle. Why were you laughing? It is a subtle phenomenon. How does it happen?

When somebody is telling a joke, the joke moves on two levels, that's how the laughter is created. On one level everything is simple and ordinary, nothing is special, then suddenly there is a turn at the end, the punchline; at the end there is suddenly a turn -- you never expected that this was going to happen. That's why if you have heard the joke it is impossible to laugh again, because then the turn is not there, you already know it. When the sudden turn comes that you never expected, not even a single second before... everything was on plain ground and suddenly you are on Everest and everything has changed, and the change is so ridiculous, illogical, irrational... you explode in laughter. If you understand a joke you understand it immediately, without any effort on your part. It is just like satori or samadhi.

Then there is a second type of laughter. These people understand the joke but a little time gap is needed. Then it touches only their intellect, not their whole being; their laughter comes, but the laughter is from the lips -- an intellectual phenomenon. The first laughter is from the belly, the second laughter just from the head. They understand the point, but intellect always takes time, it doesn't get a very quick grasp on something. Even the most intelligent person is a little stupid, because the nature of intellect is such that it cannot jump. It moves in logical steps, it needs time, it is a progress, a gradual phenomenon -- step by step you reach the conclusion.

That is the second laughter. Pale it will be, not very deep, not very relaxing, not a catharsis, just an intellectual phenomenon. In the head something clicks, creates little ripples, that's all. But the first laughter is so deep that if it really happens, a joke can become a satori. In that laughter the mind can disappear completely.

Then there is a third kind of laughter... people who laugh because others are laughing. They have not understood, but not to be thought stupid because they have not understood, they laugh, lastly. Seeing that everybody is laughing, they have to laugh.

Mulla Nasruddin went to France once. His wife was with him and they went to see a comic show. The wife was surprised, because whenever the man, the joker on the stage, would tell a joke or do something, Mulla would laugh so loudly that he would defeat the whole audience. People would start looking at him.

The wife couldn't understand because she knew well that he didn't understand French. So she asked, "Mulla, I have lived with you for thirty years and I never knew that you know French. How do you understand? And why do you laugh so loudly?"

Mulla said, "I trust the man. He must be saying something funny and when one has to laugh, why laugh last? Why not laugh first? And when one has to laugh, one should laugh loudly. It costs nothing and I am enjoying myself."

This is the third kind of laughter -- nothing is happening to you, it is a pretension. You think that there must have been something humorous, you trust the man or you trust other people who are laughing and not to feel stupid you join in the laughter.

Whenever a joke is told you can immediately sort out these three kinds of laughter.

This is just a Lao Tzuan joke. Nobody can live in the mother's womb for eighty-four years. Even if Lao Tzu could, think of the mother also! Lao Tzu may be enlightened and could live, but the mother... poor mother, think of her also. Even nine months is too much, but eighty-four years.... The mother would have been dead long before.

No, it is a subtle humor. It says that Lao Tzu was born wise. It is a symbolic thing. From his very childhood he was wise. That is the only meaning. He was so wise that the rumor spread that he was born old.

Jesus was so pure, how could he be born out of carnal desire? He was born out of carnal desire, there is no other way -- life gives no exceptions. He was born out of ordinary love. But the story says something very beautiful. The story is not true and I say it is true! It is not true as a fact but it is true as a truth. And what is a fact before a truth? A fact is an ordinary facticity of life. No, Jesus' mother was not a virgin -- if you go to the ordinary facts. But she was a virgin, otherwise how could such a pure, such an innocent child be born out of her? She was virgin. She must have been very very innocent, absolutely innocent, as if she had never known any man. That is the meaning. The meaning is AS IF -- as if she never knew what sex was, as if she never knew what ordinary copulation was. But those are "as ifs"; once you start forcing them as facts you are foolish. And all theologians are foolish. They try to prove that yes, she was a virgin, and God permitted an exception at that moment of history.

This is a way to say a certain beautiful thing which cannot be said otherwise. This is just saying that Jesus comes out of a virgin source, Jesus comes out of a pure innocence which has not known any impurity of the world and the body. That's all. Don't insist that it should be explained because explanation kills the very spirit of it.

 

Next: Chapter 10, Wisdom And Understanding, Eighth Question

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts          Taoism          Tao: The three treasures

 

 

Chapter 10

 

 

 

 
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