Taoism, Daoism, Tao, Dao, Lao Tzu's Tap Te Ching, Vol. 2 Tao: The three treasures, Chapter 9: On Calm Quietude

ON CALM QUIETUDE:

THE HIGHEST PERFECTION IS LIKE IMPERFECTION,

AND ITS USE IS NEVER IMPAIRED.

THE GREATEST ABUNDANCE SEEMS MEAGRE,

AND ITS USE WILL NEVER FAIL.

WHAT IS MOST STRAIGHT APPEARS DEVIOUS,

THE GREATEST SKILL APPEARS LIKE CLUMSINESS,

THE GREATEST ELOQUENCE APPEARS LIKE STUTTERING.

MOVEMENT OVERCOMES COLD,

(BUT) KEEPING STILL OVERCOMES HEAT

WHO IS CALM AND QUIET BECOMES THE GUIDE FOR THE UNIVERSE.

Man is blind, although he has perfect eyes. Man is deaf, but it is not that he has not got ears. Man is dead, although he is fully alive. There is a seeing and seeing. There is a listening and listening. There is a life and life -- and they differ, they differ tremendously.

Eyes can see but eyes cannot understand and if you don't understand what is the use of seeing? Ears can hear but unless ears are also attentive to what they hear they will not be capable of listening. You are alive, but if you have not penetrated to your innermost core of being or non-being your life is going to remain only on the surface. You will never know, you will never come to an understanding of the tremendous energy phenomenon that you were. You will die without being aware of what life was.

If you live in such a way that the eyes see and yet do not see, that the ears hear and yet do not hear, that the heart throbs and yet remains like a rock, you are alive in the physiological sense of the word, medically you are alive -- but not existentially. Then what happens? Then all your understanding is like misunderstanding. Then it would have been better that you had had no eyes: at least you would not have forgotten the fact that you are blind, at least you would have known that you cannot see, at least there would have been no possibility of misunderstanding.

Better it would have been that you had had no ears. Better it would have been that you were not alive but really dead; at least there would have been some reality in it. A really dead person is at least really dead but an 'unreally' alive person is not really alive, he is in a limbo, neither alive nor dead. He drags, he doesn't exist, he has no inner dimension. He moves on the periphery without ever coming in touch with the center.

When I say these things about man I am not talking about man as an abstraction. Whenever I say man, I mean you. My man is concrete, not abstract; my man is not a concept, it is you. And this is the way you have been living for many lives: living a dead life. That's why you are so bored, bored to the very bottom: so tired, tired of existing. A thousand and one times you think of committing suicide so you can drop all this nonsense -- but even that you cannot do. Even that is not possible, because a suspicion is always within you that there is much in life that you are missing. You know deep down somewhere in your heart of hearts that this is not a real life that you are living.

A possibility always follows you like a shadow -- you may reduce that possibility to the concept of a paradise, a heaven, or a moksha, but they are nothing but a possibility of your coming really alive. If you live in such a way everything in your life will be perverted. You see, but in your eyes there are tears -- then your eyes are clouded. You see, but your eyes are filled with thoughts -- then the clarity is not really there to see. Then your thoughts interfere. If you see and your eyes have many prejudices around them, those prejudices become a barrier -- you see and yet you cannot see.

You have been hearing me, but I know that it happens rarely that you hear me. Rare is the moment when understanding arises in you, otherwise you go on hearing me but it is so dull; there is no intensity in it, no throbbing of being in it. The words go on falling on your ears but nothing happens within, they don't penetrate. You don't give them your attention, your energy, your awareness, and they can ride only on your attention and awareness, to penetrate withinwards. You just listen to them -- you listen as if you are in sleep and somebody is talking, you listen as if you are dead.

I would like to tell you an anecdote which happened in the life of a Sufi mystic. The man was not known much. He lived a life of an absolute stranger in the world. In fact he was known as 'the stranger' because nobody knew his name and he had never told anybody from where he came, who he was. He moved from one town to another and people became aware that he was 'the stranger' with no identity around him, an original face with no mask.

He came to die in a small town where Jalaluddin Rumi used to live: he came to die there because of Jalaluddin Rumi. When he died, a formality had to be performed: before a man was buried he had to be given a formal bath, so the professional bather was called. He cleaned the body of the saint and when he was coming to the private parts of the saint suddenly the dead body became as if alive, took hold of the hand of the professional and held it with a fist of iron.

Of course the professional became afraid, scared to death -- a dead body had gripped his hand. He started crying, screaming, and people gathered. Every effort was made but the dead man's grip was so strong that it was impossible to get the professional free from his grip. Then somebody remembered and said: It is better to call Jalaluddin Rumi, he may know something. The whole town gathered and Jalaluddin Rumi came. He whispered in the ear of the dead man: He is just a professional, he does not know the state of your being, he does not know who you are. Forgive him for his transgression.

Immediately the fist opened.

Sufis have been talking about this story for hundreds of years. What happened at that moment? I don't know whether it is true or not, but that is meaningless -- the story is beautiful and carries the message that a man of awakening is alive even when he is dead. This is the meaning to me. A man who is not alert and aware is dead even while he is alive -- that dead body was not dead and your living body is not alive.

Life means intensity of life. You live in such a diluted way, so unconcentrated, so spread over, that you never come to know what it is that you call life. Then you will do one thing continuously and that will be to misunderstand -- all your understandings will be misunderstandings.

A man came to see me. He was talking about his master and he said: This man is very humble. Sometimes he has even touched my feet. He is so humble and so simple....

I told the man a story. It happened that somebody asked a Sufi mystic, Junaid -- it was known that Junaid had lived with almost all the great masters of that time while he was learning and seeking and searching -- how he had known that these were the real masters because there were thousands of pretenders to one real master. He had the capacity to judge immediately who was real, and he avoided the pretenders and always went to the real.

When he himself became enlightened somebody asked: One thing has remained a mystery to us. How could you know, when you yourself were not enlightened? What was your criterion? Almost always you were right. What knack have you got? Is it just a hunch that somehow you know, or do you have a method for it?

Junaid said: I had a method for it. I would go to a person who was known to be a master and I would be very humble, very self-effacing: I would touch his feet with tears flowing from my eyes, I would fall down on the earth, I would completely self-efface myself, and then I would watch. If, at seeing my humbleness, the man became arrogant, domineering, I would escape from him as somebody escapes a plague. I would escape from him fast, as fast as I could.

The enquirer asked: And if the man didn't become domineering and possessive and dominating and arrogant, then? Said Junaid: If I was self-effacing and I saw that the other man, the master, also became self-effacing, humble -- when I touched his feet he touched my feet -- then too I would escape as fast as I could.

The enquirer was more puzzled. He said: I came to solve the mystery. You have made it more difficult. In both ways you would escape? Then when would you stay there? How did the master have to react? Said Junaid: He had not to react at all. Whether I self-effaced myself or not, he had to remain himself. If he became arrogant that was a reaction -- seeing a humble man he wanted to dominate him. If he becomes humble himself, it meant that seeing a humble man he was now in competition -- he wanted to prove that he was more humble than me. That too is arrogance, very subtle, but that too is ego. It is saying: You cannot prove that you are more humble than me. So, he would start self-effacing himself.

I would escape from both types of people and I would stay with the person who simply looked at me and remained himself, who did not react. He had attained to equilibrium, to balance, to what Hindus call STITH-PRAGYA: a man whose inner flame of consciousness does not move now, there is no wavering inside. He does not react, he has no mind to react, whatsoever you do is the same to him. You cannot disturb him in any way whatsoever. This man I would remain with.

So I told the man who was saying that his master was so self-effacing that when he touched the master's feet the master also touched his, I told him: You go again and this time don't touch his feet, and act arrogantly, and talk in such a way that it seems you are higher than him. He said: It will be difficult, I have been a devotee for many years. I said: You don't worry, you have to try it. Things will only be clear then, and then you come back to me.

He went. Just after a week he came back and he said: Everything changed. When I didn't touch the feet of the man, he didn't touch mine, and he looked with such condemnation towards me that it seemed as if, if it were possible for him, he would throw me into the seventh hell. And when I acted arrogantly and started talking as if I knew more than him he ordered his disciples to throw me out. I have been thrown out. I asked the man: Now what do you say?

When you go to a man, if he behaves according to your ideas you will have a misunderstanding; if he does not behave according to your ideas then too you will have a misunderstanding. You have fixed ideas. They don't allow you to understand. You have formulas and a man of understanding has no formulas about himself; he lives in the moment, lives freely. Remember this -- he lives in the moment, lives it spontaneously, and he follows no ideology. Ideologies are only for fools, stupid people who are not alert. They are substitutes for awareness.

Because you are blind, because you cannot understand, some substitutes to regulate your life and to discipline it have been given to you. If you understand, you throw away all those substitutes, because now you have the real thing, you live with awareness.

But how will you be able to understand a man who is free? You are slaves, slaves this way or that; even if you rebel you are slaves -- rebellious slaves, but still slaves. How can you understand a free man in your slavery? The slavery will surround you like a smoke, a screen, and through that slavery you look at a free man. Whatsoever you see will be a misunderstanding. Whatsoever you understand can never be understanding unless your eyes are completely clear of all smoke, all ideology, all fixed ideas, images, theories, concepts. Unless you come to a free man with a spontaneous being -- alert of course, but with no ideas, with no mind -- only then can you judge.

It happened that when Junaid was passing through a forest, he saw a man near a lake. The very appearance was that of a drunkard and there was also a woman with the man. Of course immediately the mind started working. Why was this man here with a woman? And then he was pouring something from a surahi, a decanter -- must be wine. Woman and wine together and the isolation of a forest? Interpretation. Things became clear. He thought he had understood.

Then there was a storm and a small boat which was coming to this side of the lake, sunk. The saint could not gather courage to jump into the stormy water but the drunkard jumped in to save the men. He saved six men out of seven and then he was absolutely tired. He said to Junaid: You are a great saint. Why are you standing there? Why can't you do something? Now only one man is left, you save him -- otherwise remember that his blood will be on you. I have done whatsoever I could.

Suddenly Junaid became aware that he had been thinking that this man was a drunkard, a womaniser, a corrupt man, a sinner, but he had done something which was more saintly than he had ever imagined, and he couldn't gather courage. It was dangerous, it was a risk; he couldn't even gather courage to help the seventh man. The drunkard again jumped in and brought the seventh man out of the lake also.

Then he started laughing and Junaid said: Why are you laughing? He said: You come nearer and closer. He threw off the veil from the woman's face -- she was a very, very old woman. Junaid came to know that she was the man's mother and in the decanter, in the surahi, there was nothing but pure water.

All that you can do is to judge from the outside -- immediately your mind starts spinning. You see a certain thing and there is no gap: the mind starts spinning and it creates an interpretation. Your interpretation is not reality. You are unreal, how can your interpretation be real? From an unreal being only an unreal interpretation is possible. Drop all interpretations, all judgements. If you want to know a real man of awareness, a Buddha, a Christ, then drop judgements.

It is very, very difficult to drop judgements, to remain without judgement, to just watch, to just see, to just allow things to take their own course; but if you don't, what Lao Tzu says, will happen.

Lao Tzu says:

THE HIGHEST PERFECTION IS LIKE IMPERFECTION.

To you, of course. If you come to a perfect man he will look like imperfection. Why? It is very subtle but try to understand it. A man who is really perfect is never a perfectionist -- this has to be understood -- and a perfectionist is never a perfect man. A perfect man is total, a perfectionist is fragmentary. A perfectionist has chosen a style of life and he goes on making it more and more cultured, polished. He can become very, very perfect, but he will remain imperfect because he has avoided many things which have to be incorporated -- otherwise life cannot be perfect. Only a total life can be perfect.

For example, a man who has been trying not to commit any sin, and has not committed any sin, has lived a pure, moral life, this man, howsoever perfect, will be imperfect because he has not known sin. Sin has to serve perfection somehow, it has some utility, otherwise it would not exist. The Devil is in the service of God, otherwise there would be no need for him. The Devil may be acting against God but that too is part of the whole drama. The Devil has to be incorporated. If you deny it, a part within you will be denied, and it is half of you.

For example, if you deny anger, you deny hate, you deny all that moralists say is wrong, you deny it all, then half of your being is denied -- the night part, the dark part, is denied. You only accept the day, but the night is also there -- whether you accept it or not, it is there and it will remain in the unconscious, suppressed.

A saint always dreams of sins. Don't look at the saint, rather penetrate into his dreams and you will find the sinner hiding there. People who try to become celibate always dream of sex -- they will have to. Where will people who try to manage their life with the day part put the night part? You cannot just destroy it. In existence nothing is destructible, everything is everlasting, eternal. It has to be absorbed, it has to be made part of your greater harmony.

If you live the life of a saint you won't have any salt in you -- you will be tasteless. If you live the life of a sinner you will be only salt -- not edible. If you live a total life, the saint and the sinner meet and embrace each other within your being, the night and day meet and mingle and become one, as they should be, then a third type of existence arises: the harmonious, the tranquil, the balanced, which is an absolutely different thing from both night and day. It is a third thing which comes out of the meeting of two opposites.

When oxygen and hydrogen meet, water is created. Water is absolutely different from hydrogen or from oxygen: it is a new existence, it is a new thing come into being. If you are thirsty, your thirst cannot be quenched by oxygen, and it cannot be quenched by hydrogen either because the quality of water is in neither hydrogen nor oxygen. The quality of water is a new quality -- a harmony. When hydrogen and oxygen meet in a certain proportion, the quality to quench thirst arises.

The whole art of yoga, Tao, religion as such is that night and day should meet in a certain proportion; is how to manage the harmony between the Devil and the Divine, the dark and the light, the summer and winter, life and death; is how to create a harmony within them so that a third quality arises. That is Brahma, that is Tao.

In English you don't have any word for it. God, Devil, heaven, hell, you have but you don't have any word equivalent to moksha or Brahma or Tao, because Christians, Jews, Mohammedans have all lived the life of a perfectionist, but not of perfection. They have tried to cut off the lower, to destroy it, and just to remain with the higher. This is sheer stupidity. It is as if you destroy the foundation and you want the higher part of the building to remain. It is as if you cut off the feet and you want the man to be really alive and walking.

The lower is a necessity, the lower is the foundation.

Look at the economy of life. The lower can exist without the higher but the higher cannot exist without the lower, that's why it is higher. I am not creating a paradox, it is simple: the foundation of a building can exist without the building, but the building cannot exist without the foundation. A man can exist in darkness, but a man cannot exist in light alone. A man can live the life of a sinner because it is lower, but a man cannot live only the life of a saint. The higher needs the lower. It is lower because it can exist without the higher -- the higher is not a necessity for it -- but the higher cannot exist without the lower. The roots can exist without the tree, that is nothing impossible. If you cut the tree, the roots will still exist and a new tree will be born; but try the other way -- cut the roots -- new roots will not be born. The lower is essential, the higher is a luxury; it comes only when the lower is fulfilled. It is possible only when the lower has been transcended, not destroyed.

A man of totality allows the lower to be there because that is the only way for the higher to be there also; then he creates a harmony between the lower and the higher. In that harmony lower is lower no more, higher is higher no more, they have become one, one unity. But if such a total man is seen by you, you will think he is imperfect because you will see there many things which you don't like in yourself. In the total man you will sometimes see anger also. Of course his anger has a totally different quality but that you cannot understand. His anger has the quality of compassion. You also have anger, but your anger has not the quality of compassion at all -- your anger is violent.

A man of totality also has anger because the lower is there, but the higher has come into being. Now the higher shadows the lower, surrounds the lower, now the higher has changed the quality of the lower. A Christ also becomes angry but his anger is love; he is angry really because he loves you so much. People have asked me many times why they have never come across any incident in which Buddha or Mahavir were angry, but they have come across incidents in the life of Jesus when he was angry. Was he less evolved than them?

No, he was not less evolved; in fact, he was more total. He was not as perfect as Mahavir, but he was more total than Mahavir and he loved you more. He loved you so much that sometimes if it was needed he became angry. Mahavir did not love you. He was simply non-violent. Try to understand this. Mahavir did not love you, he did not hate you, he was indifferent towards you. Jesus loved you and loved you deeply. It is not surprising that Christianity became such a vital force in the world and that Jainism remained an impotent branch, a dead thing. Why did it happen? Jesus loved, and his love was so great that he was not afraid of being angry. He knows you will understand. If a parent is angry and if he really loves the child, the child understands and never feels hurt. In fact just the reverse will be the case: if the parent is never angry with the child he will feel hurt, because the parent is cold. He will never be able to forgive such a father or such a mother.

Every day many times it happens in your life. People come to me sometimes.... Just a few days ago one young man said that he was brought up by a stepmother and he still feels very, very angry towards her. He cannot forgive her, he cannot forget her, and unless the conflict is resolved he will not be able to go into meditation -- because even in meditations he is thinking about the stepmother and how badly she behaved towards him, how deeply hurt he still feels. He carries a wound and he asked me how to heal this wound.

I'm always surprised -- whenever a person has lived with a stepmother this happens, but I have never seen any stepmother be more angry than other mothers; real mothers are even more angry than stepmothers and real mothers beat their children more than stepmothers. They can afford it. Then why so much difference? There is a difference: the real mother loves also, and that love transforms the quality of anger. If she is angry and she hits, the child know that she loves also. In fact the child comes to know by and by that she only hits hard because she loves. When a stepmother hits and beats or insults, then it goes very deep and hurts, and for the whole life it will remain like a wound. What is the matter? A stepmother's insult, rage, anger, is cold. She does not love. Only the foundation is there; the building doesn't exist.

Love transforms hate, anger, everything. Compassion becomes an umbrella -- it changes everything that comes within it.

You will think that a man who is a moralist, a puritan, who has lived according to rules and who has followed them very, very seriously, is perfect, because you will never see any anger in him. You will never see anything that you condemn within yourself. He is just purity. But just purity becomes abstract, a concept. He is just a bubble of air, not substantial, because he has no foundation. In fact he is not good, he is 'just good'. To be really good and substantially good the opposite is needed, a totality is needed.

It happened that Mulla Nasrudin was serving in a firm. Once the boss gave him a bottle of brandy. He waited, then after two or three days when Mulla didn't say anything, not even a thanks, he asked: What happened to the brandy I gave to you? Was it good? Mulla Nasrudin said: Yes, just good. The boss asked: What do you mean by 'just good'? Mulla said: Just right. The boss said: I don't understand. What do you mean by 'just right' or 'just good'? The Mulla said: If it had been a little better you would not have given it to me, and if it had been a little worse I would have given it to somebody else. It was just good, just right.

To be just right is nothing, it is a very mediocre state of mind. All your so-called gurus are almost always perfectionists, but they appeal to you because you can't see the picture clearly. Whatsoever you condemn in yourself is not there, they are hot air bubbles with no substance in their life, no foundation. They are half; they are not complete, they are not total. They have denied much and that which they have denied is still there in their subconscious, in their unconscious, struggling hard to come up.

That's why your saints, your so-called saints, go on trembling -- they are afraid of the sins that they have not committed. This is really something. Imagine -- a sinner is not afraid of sins that he has committed, but a saint is very afraid of sins that he has not committed because they are inside knocking at the door: Open the door and allow us. Saints are always afraid, that's why they used to move out of the town, out of the society, and go to the Himalayas, to a monastery.

The word 'monastery' is beautiful, it comes from a Greek root which means 'to be alone'. It comes from the same root as monopoly, monogamy, monotonous; it is that 'mon' that becomes monk. Monk means one who wants to live alone. Monastery means a place where people live alone; even if others are there everybody lives alone in his own cell.

Why so much fear of the world? The fear of the world is the fear of the unconscious, because if you are here in the market-place who knows, any moment the temptation may be too much. But if you have gone to a far-away monastery in the Himalayas, you cannot do anything -- there is no woman. And by the time you reach Poona, the fantasy will be dead and you will be back in control again.

To go away from the world is to create a distance between the real world and your fantasy world, because if you are really there in the market-place and the fantasy takes over, you will not be able to control it.

All perfectionists become escapists, they have to -- but you will see perfection in them. They are not real flowers; they are plastic flowers. They can be perfect but they have no fragrance. Fragrance is always of the total and the alive. It is of one who has absorbed everything that life has given, who has transformed his whole being, without denying any part -- but then he will not look perfect to you.

That's what Lao Tzu means. He says: THE HIGHEST PERFECTION IS LIKE IMPERFECTION. The higher the perfection, the less you will be able to see it, the lower the perfection, the more you will be able to see it.

In fact, you can see only those people who are just near you, just like you -- you can understand them. They may be better in certain ways, but they are just like you. You may be more angry, they are less angry -- the difference is of quantity not of quality. You are a sinner, they are a saint.

A saint only means one who has also condemned as sin all that you condemn and has dropped it into his own unconscious. Then he lives half-heartedly on the surface, always afraid of the roots inside, always trembling and praying, praying to God to save him from temptations. You can understand him, he is very close to you; the boundary line is not very big or solid, it is vague. But real perfection, a real man of perfection, is so transcendental to you, so different from you that you cannot understand him. Misunderstanding will be your only understanding about him.

THE HIGHEST PERFECTION IS LIKE IMPERFECTION,

AND ITS USE IS NEVER IMPAIRED.

Its use is never impaired, because a man of totality is never finished. He is always growing and growing and growing. His perfection is not a dead, stale thing. His perfection is a process, his perfection is a continuum, he goes on growing and growing and growing. There is no end to it. In real life there is no end -- beginning and end are false words. Nothing begins and nothing ends. In real life everything goes on growing... and on and on and on.

Your perfection is a dead thing, a man comes to a dead end. Then he is just like a stone statue, no longer a man.

I have heard of an anecdote. A Buddhist monk came to India, and after many years he went back to Japan. His master asked him: What have you learned in India? The monk sat in a buddha posture, closed his eyes and became completely calm and still. The master laughed and said: We already have too many stone buddhas here. Get out from here! There is no need for any more stone buddhas.

The monastery to which they belonged had one thousand stone buddhas already. It was called 'the temple of one thousand buddhas'. And the master was right -- enough is enough, get out of it. If this was all that he had learned he had wasted his time, because one can sit still like a buddha, but inside the whole turmoil goes on.

You can create a layer of stone-like inflexibility around you: that's what you call character. Character is a steel-like phenomenon: afraid of the inner tenderness, afraid of the inner living phenomenon, you create a dead, steel structure around you. That is what character is. A really perfect man has no character, cannot have, need not have. Only people who are afraid have characters -- character is a defense mechanism, character is an armour. Not that the man of character is afraid of others, he is afraid of himself. Something may get loose and get out any moment.

It is said that two types of persons should be silent: the man of wisdom should be silent, because he has nothing to say, and the idiot should be silent because he can say something for which he will repent.

A man of character is always afraid of doing something, because whatsoever you repress has to be repressed again and again and again. He is always afraid that he might do something for which he will repent. Such a life becomes an inner hell. A total man, balanced....

When I say balanced, don't misunderstand me. In language it is a problem because whenever words such as 'balanced' are used, the thing feels like it is finished. If it is balanced there is now no movement in it, no progress.

The whole language is created by perfectionists; there are few languages which are total. For example, Burmese is a total language because it was created after Buddha's religion reached Burma. Religion came first, it gave a new impetus to the total being of the man, and then the language followed it. It is a totally different language.

When the bible was being translated into Burmese there was much trouble because the languages are totally different. Burmese is a living language. Every word gives a hint of progress, of process, movement. The words are dynamic. The words in the bible, whether they be Hebrew or English, are dead. For example, in English I have to say 'balanced' -- in Burmese it will be 'balancing'. In English we have to say 'experience' -- in Burmese it will be 'experiencing'.

It was almost impossible to translate the bible, because how will you say 'God is'? In Burmese it will become 'God is becoming' or it will become 'God becoming' because there is nothing like 'is'; everything is becoming, moving. You call the river 'is' -- have you ever seen a river which is 'is'? It is always moving, it is 'rivering'. And life is 'lifing'. But the word gives a dead concept: 'life', finished -- as if the circle is complete.

So always remember that English, or other languages, Hindi, Sanskrit, are not parallel to life, they have created dead concepts. Everything is becoming, a total man is always becoming, always on the way. In fact there is no goal for him, only the way.

Buddha's sayings are collected in a scripture which is called 'Dhammapadda'. It means 'the way of Dhamma, the way of religion'. Somebody asked me: Why is it called the way? Why not the goal? I told him: There is no goal for Buddha. There is nowhere to where he will reach and everything will be finished, it is always the way -- and you are always the wayfarer, always a traveller. Buddha used to give to sannyasins names which mean travellers -- one he used to give was 'paribrajak' which means 'a wanderer'. One goes on wandering and wandering and wandering and the more you become capable of wandering the more you become capable of wondering. Both the words come from the same root. Only a wanderer can be a wonderer, because every day new things are coming up. He is always moving, things are always fresh and new and everything is unknown, unfamiliar, strange. The wonder continues.

Buddha used to give to his sannyasins another name -- he called them 'anugar'. The word means 'homeless', and the meaning is that there is no home, you go on and on and on. Buddha said: chereveti, chereveti, chereveti -- go on, go on, go on. Life is an on-going process.

So a really perfect man is never perfect in the sense that perfection is complete. He is always balancing, always, always -- there never comes a moment when he can say: Now I have attained. If you say: 'I have attained', you are now futile, you have no meaning, you are useless, you are no more a part of this on-going totality.

THE HIGHEST PERFECTION IS LIKE IMPERFECTION,

AND ITS USE IS NEVER IMPAIRED. It will look like imperfection to you. It has something of the imperfection in it because imperfect things move towards perfection and perfection always moves. It has a certain quality, an aroma of imperfection around it, otherwise it would be dead, finished.

It happened that a Mohammedan ruler of Iran sent a wise man to India to make contacts with the Indian emperor, to make friendly relationships. When the wise man came to India he addressed the emperor of India as 'full moon'. The emperor was very happy. He asked: You call me full moon? What do you call your own emperor? Mohammedans love the second day's moon very much, so he said: We call our king 'the second day's moon'. He is imperfect, sir, you are perfect. The emperor was very much pleased and with many presents, many valuable things, he sent this wise man back to his king. But the news reached the king before the messenger reached home. There were people in the court of the Iranian king who were against this wise man and they said: He has insulted you. He has called you 'the moon of the second day' and he has called the Indian emperor 'the full moon'. He is an enemy. He should be immediately caught.

Of course the king also felt offended. Immediately the wise man entered the kingdom he was caught and imprisoned and called to the court. The explanation was asked. The wise man laughed and said: Whenever something is perfect it is dead. A full moon has no more time to exist, the next day it starts declining. The moon of the second day has much future, it goes on becoming greater and greater. I have not offended you. If the emperor of India had been wise enough he would have caught me immediately and imprisoned me. You are a fool and your people around you are all fools.

He was true. Perfection is death, because there is nowhere to go any more. So the total man has something of imperfection in him, the aroma of imperfection, because he goes on moving and moving. He knows no death, he is deathless.

AND ITS USE IS NEVER IMPAIRED. How can it be impaired when you are not perfect? Your use will always remain, you will be useful always and always.

In India, in Jaipur, a few friends took me to a palace. They told me the history about the palace, that it had never been completed. An astrologer had said to the king: The day it is completed you will die. So he continued working on the palace, something or other, somewhere or other -- there was always construction.

The astrologer must have been a very wise man. He may not have been a great astrologer but he must have been a wise man. When you are doing something continuously you are alive, that is the meaning of it. When the palace is being constructed continuously, everything is alive. When everything is complete everything is dead also. That's why it happens, you may have even suspected it sometimes, that if you live with a man who thinks he is perfect and you think he is perfect, you cannot find more boring company. You may respect the man but you cannot live with the man, he will be too much of a perfectionist. He will be a dead body. From far away he is good, but if you come near he will start stinking -- he is dead. All your mahatmas stink, you cannot live with them. You can appreciate them from far away, but if you live with them for twenty-four hours you yourself will feel that you are going to die.

They are dead: around them only death exists. They are perfect, they are the full moons. They have achieved, reached.

A real life is always reaching, always reaching -- it never reaches. It is always arriving, it never arrives -- and that's the beauty of it

THE GREATEST ABUNDANCE SEEMS MEAGRE,

AND ITS USE WILL NEVER FAIL.

In fact, you show your abundance because of your inner poverty. The more poor a man, the more he tries to show that he is rich. The more impotent a man, the more he advertises that he is very potent. The more ignorant a man, the more he pretends knowledge. The more weak you become, the more you want to create an illusion around you that you are very strong.

In fact, whatsoever you want to show will be just the opposite of what you are. If a man understands a little psychology, not much is needed, he can judge exactly where you are and what you are. A real man of knowledge will not show his knowledge; there is no need, he is absolutely certain that it is there. In fact he may hide it, he may try to show that he is a fool, he may try to show that he doesn't know anything, he may try to show that he is nobody -- so that nobody disturbs him. When you have a treasure there is no need for another's opinion that you have a treasure. The need comes into being only when you don't have the treasure, when only opinions are there -- then you have to depend on them. Then you think too much about what people think. This shows something of an inner poverty.

THE GREATEST ABUNDANCE SEEMS MEAGRE... so don't be in a misunderstanding. If you come to the richest man you will not see any show of it. If you come to the wisest man he may look like a fool. Because he will not be showing, he will not be an exhibitionist. If you come across a beautiful woman you will not find her painted, decorated, with ornaments all around her body -- this is what an ugly woman does. A real woman, a really beautiful woman, will not bother to paint her face or paint her body, or put on too many ornaments. It is ugliness that wants to show beauty. Real beauty is completely oblivious of itself; it exists there in tremendous glory but it doesn't show, it doesn't exhibit, it doesn't advertise.

You have to find it, you have to seek it.

THE GREATEST ABUNDANCE SEEMS MEAGRE,

AND ITS USE WILL NEVER FAIL.

A man who lives a life of non-exhibition will always have enough, always more than enough, of what he needs. A man who lives an exhibitionistic life will always be poor and will always be in need of more and more and more. Don't show what you have because that is the way you dissipate energy. If you have power, hide it! Hide it within, so deep that only those who have that power themselves can reach it. If you show your power, soon you will become impotent, powerless. It will be taken from you, stolen from you, robbed. You will be persuaded to depart from it.

Don't exhibit that which you have, don't show it. Enjoy it, rejoice in it, delight in it -- but let it be absolutely unknown. Only those who know their own power will be able to know you. A man of power always immediately knows another man of power. A man of wisdom always immediately knows, without any outward symptoms, the man of wisdom. There is no way of missing.

So those who are wise will know your wisdom; no need to show it. In fact if you try to show it you will be stupid before them. And those who need not know, no need to exhibit it to them because they will be the stealers, they will be the thieves, they will rob you of it.

THE GREATEST SKILL APPEARS LIKE CLUMSINESS,

THE GREATEST ELOQUENCE SEEMS LIKE STUTTERING.

The greatest skill -- why does it seem like clumsiness? Because the man of the greatest skill is not self-conscious about it.

Have you seen Picasso's paintings? He is one of the greatest painters ever and to those who have seen his paintings the idea immediately comes that they look like children's paintings. That is the greatest skill -- it looks like clumsiness, but you don't know. Try a Picasso painting yourself, then you will know. It is more difficult than great classical painters.

A Michelangelo is absolutely perfect but not total; Picasso is more total. A Michelangelo creates beauty which is not of this world or of another world, it is just abstract. Picasso paints the real. If the real is ugly, then in Picasso's painting it is there. The beauty is there, the ugliness is there, the wisdom is there, the foolishness is there -- life is a totality.

A wise man will be able to see the wisdom in Picasso's paintings but it is child-like -- small children do paintings the way Picasso does them. But don't think that he was not trained; he was trained, disciplined. Then one day he became so perfect that he dropped all training and all discipline -- it was not needed now. Now he could paint like a child.

The greatest poet doesn't bother about grammar; it is for amateurs, the beginners, to bother about grammar. A great poet in fact by and by forgets language itself, he creates his own language. A great poet is unclassifiable, you cannot classify him. Only ordinary poets look at the grammar, the metre, they follow all poetics. They will look perfect to you because you cannot find a single fault in them. Try to understand me. A great poet will have many faults because life has many faults; a perfect poet will not have any faults but then his poetry will not be alive. Only a dead body cannot err. 'To err is human,' they say. I say: 'To err is to be alive.' Only life can err.

Life has no perfect touch about it, and that's the beauty -- it is childlike. So when a culture reaches to the highest peaks of its being everything becomes childlike: the greatest painter starts playing with the paint.

There are paintings of Salvadore Dali -- some of the most beautiful paintings. He will simply spread color on the canvas, directly from the tube, and the painting is ready. He is playing with color. In Salvadore Dali's paintings you cannot see which is the up-side and which is the down-side. You can put it in any way and it is always right.

Once it happened that Picasso was asked to produce two paintings immediately, within one day; but only one painting was ready. A man like Picasso cannot be ordered -- he lives spontaneously. The feeling was not happening, the painting was not happening, so he cut the one painting in two and sold it as two -- and nobody was ever aware that they were one, not two. He could have made four, then too it would not have been any different because nobody could make any sense out of it, could know what it was. It was just a play of colors. If you asked him what he was doing, what the meaning was, he would say: Go and ask the flower what its meaning is. If God can go on playing with colors without any meaning....

What is the meaning of a butterfly and its colors? And what is the meaning of these jasmine flowers around here? Why are they red and not yellow? And why yellow, why not white?

There is no explanation, life is unexplainable. A great painter becomes like God, he plays, he creates sheer beauty, not forms. A great poet becomes like God, he creates sheer poetry, not poems, and sheer poetry is totally different to poems. Poems have form; sheer poetry is formless. It may be in prose, poetry can be in prose, but a poem cannot be in prose. Poetry can be in silence, but a poem cannot be in silence.

A great musician forgets everything that he has learned, he forgets his instruments also -- he himself becomes the music. Then when he is silent, then too there is a singing. When he walks there is a song in it. When he sits there is dance in it. In his movement there is dance, in his non-movement there is dance -- he has become one with it.

That's why Lao Tzu says: THE GREATEST SKILL APPEARS LIKE CLUMSINESS.

It is difficult for you to understand it. To understand Michelangelo is easy, any fool can understand; but to understand Picasso is difficult, only a few can. Mad, wise people are needed to understand it -- mad and wise both.

THE GREATEST ELOQUENCE SEEMS LIKE STUTTERING.

The greatest man of eloquence always hesitates. Life is so subtle, how can you say something without stuttering? Life is so profound, how can you put it into words? Life has such depth, immense depth, that only a fool can say something without hesitation, only a fool can be certain. A wise man is always uncertain.

He walks as if he is walking across a winter stream; he walks cautiously as if there is death at every step. He speaks, knowing well that all that can be said is rubbish, and that which is not rubbish cannot be said. He knows well that there is no possibility of saying the truth because the moment you say it, it becomes a lie -- words kill it, they are poisonous. Only in silence can it be said, but there is nobody to understand silence so a wise man also has to speak.

But he stutters, he hesitates, he is always afraid in a way -- not for himself but for others. Whenever I speak to you I know there is a ninety-nine per cent chance for it to be misunderstood and only a one per cent chance for it to be understood. How can I say it with certainty? I have to hesitate, but the risk has to be taken for that one per cent. For the possibility of one per cent of the people understanding the risk has to be taken.

The song has to be sung, knowing well that maybe nobody will understand it. The painting has to be painted, knowing well that maybe nobody will be there to appreciate it.

It happened in the life of Van Gogh, the great Dutch painter -- he painted in such a spontaneous way that nobody could understand what he was painting. There existed no criteria by which to judge his paintings. In fact, how can there be criteria before Van Gogh was there? The criteria will follow Van Gogh, they cannot precede him. There were other painters in the world but there had never been a Van Gogh -- so how could there be criteria, critical standards, to judge a Van Gogh?

Van Gogh brought a new world to the world. He painted, but no paintings were ever sold -- but that was not the point, he was never depressed about it. If he had come across Lao Tzu he would have said: If people purchase them then they are not real paintings. Because nobody purchases them there must be something in them. Nobody can make head or tail of them.

His brother used to give him enough money to meet just his bare necessities, food, clothing, shelter, not even a single paisa more. So he would eat for four days and for three days he would fast because he had to purchase color and canvas to paint with. This was the pattern for his whole life, and he didn't live long.

This world is not for people like that. They simply remain outsiders and strangers, they simply don't feel at home. He painted madly because he knew that life was ebbing soon. How can you live for a long life on just four days of eating -- and not even efficient food -- and then three days of fasting? But he painted and he was happy.

His brother, Theo Van Gogh, was very, very depressed because no painting could be sold. He himself was a great critic of paintings, and he supported Van Gogh, he tried to sell his paintings, but no painting could be sold. Just to make Van Gogh happy he once sent a friend with money to purchase at least one painting. The man came and Van Gogh was very happy that at least somebody had come to appreciate. He showed him all his paintings, almost two hundred paintings, his whole life's effort. But the more he showed, the more he understood that the man did not understand. He was in a hurry to purchase just anything, so he said: I'm not going to sell. I suspect that my brother has given you money. He turned him out of the house, that was the last straw. He said: Never again am I going to sell anything. He simply gave his paintings to anybody and everybody -- to the tea-house on the corner of the street he would go and give his paintings -- and after his death the hunting started.

He had created the criteria for himself -- this is really something. A man like Van Gogh has to paint, and also create the criteria for the paintings to be judged because there existed no other criteria.

A man like Lao Tzu has to create his truth and then the methods of how that truth can be seen and realized.

After Van Gogh's death his paintings became so famous that they were hunted all over Europe, wherever he had lived -- in small villages, in hotels, in tea-houses, in coffee-houses. People had thrown them away as rubbish, they had completely forgotten about them. Now there exist almost one hundred rediscovered paintings and each painting costs almost ten lakh rupees, that is the minimum -- and the man lived like a beggar, nobody ever purchased anything.

What is the problem? With the greatest there is a problem because such a distance exists between them and the masses, and the distance is vast. There are only two possibilities: either the great man comes down to the masses -- which is impossible, because it cannot happen, it is unnatural -- or the masses reach higher. That is the only possibility and that takes time. That's why even thousands of years pass and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Krishna remain enigmas. The mystery is not solved.

THE GREATEST ELOQUENCE SEEMS LIKE STUTTERING.

MOVEMENT OVERCOMES COLD,

That you have observed. If you go to the physiologists, medical doctors, they will say yes, movement overcomes cold. That's why when there is much cold your body starts shivering; that is the body creating its own movement to overcome cold. Shivering is nothing but a mechanism of the body to overcome cold. When you shiver the body starts trembling, a movement is created all over the body. That movement gives you heat. That everybody knows. They may not be aware of it, but everybody knows that if you are feeling cold, you walk fast and you overcome it. You run and you start perspiring.

Even an imaginary movement can overcome cold. In Tibet there exists a particular method they call 'Heat yoga'. You simply imagine. You try sometime, when the night is very cold and it is winter, you just sit naked in the room, feel the cold, then close your eyes and just visualize that you are running fast, round and round the house -- not actually, just in imagination -- and by and by you will feel that the body is not feeling any cold. And if you really run fast, or you imagine that you are climbing the Himalayas and it is very hard and you are carrying a load, you will start perspiring. That's how Tibetan lamas live almost naked in the Himalayas, where everything goes frozen, where snow has been eternal, has never melted. They sit there naked and they start perspiring. Just imagination.

Even imaginary movement can overcome cold, and the same exists on the other side also -- that you have to remember, that is the whole secret of meditation.

MOVEMENT OVERCOMES COLD,

(BUT) KEEPING STILL OVERCOMES HEAT.

You are so heated up, so tense, so uneasy inside -- it is a feverish state of being. Keeping still overcomes heat -- you just keep still. That's why so many methods exist in which you simply sit silently, and you allow your breathing to become more and more and more silent and calm and quiet. Nothing else is to be done.

In Japan they have a method they call za-zen. One simply sits and allows every body process to calm down. That starts from the breathing. You breathe as slowly as possible, until by and by there comes a point where there is almost no breathing, or it is very shallow -- and suddenly you realize that with the calm breathing, and with the body still, the mind has stopped, the feverishness has stopped, the monkey inside is no longer jumping so hard. You have overcome the spiritual fever.

Or, you simply imagine -- that can also be done. You walk but you imagine that inside you are not walking; you work, in the workshop, in the office, in the shop, but inside you imagine that you are not working, it is only the body working; you run as much as you want but inside you remain calm and quiet and feel that you are a witness of the running, you are not the runner. You will overcome heat, tension, inner uneasiness.

MOVEMENT OVERCOMES COLD,

(BUT) KEEPING STILL OVERCOMES HEAT.

WHO IS CALM AND QUIET BECOMES THE GUIDE FOR THE UNIVERSE.

It is not because he tries to become the guide, but simply that, because he is calm and quiet, all those who are in real search, anywhere in the world, start coming to him.

It is a natural phenomenon. Just as waters go on moving towards the ocean and all the rivers fall into it there, so, if somebody has really become calm and quiet millions of rivers who want to be silent, who want to be calm and quiet, go on falling into that man -- a Buddha is born.

When you are silent suddenly you are the guide, one need not become the guide; you are the master, one need not become the master. If you try to become the master you will be a teacher and a teacher is a very poor thing. If you don't want to guide anybody you will find disciples coming and falling into your ocean, you have become the master.

Taoism - Daoism - Tao - Dao

VOL. 2, TAO: THE THREE TREASURES

Chapter-9

On Calm Quietude