Pythagoras, The golden verses of Pythagoras, Vol. 2 Philosophia Perennis Chapter 1: The Golden Mean

LISTEN, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS, KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR 'GAINST PREJUDICE, OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR; THINK FOR THYSELF.

CONSULT, DELIBERATE, AND FREELY CHOOSE.

LET FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY AND WITHOUT CAUSE, THOU SHOULDST, IN THE PRESENT; CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE.

THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW, PRETEND NOT THAT THOU DOST. INSTRUCT THYSELF: FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL.

NEGLECT NOT THY HEALTH...

... DISPENSE WITH MODERATION FOOD TO THE BODY AND TO THE MIND REPOSE.

TOO MUCH ATTENTION OR TOO LITTLE SHUN; FOR ENVY THUS, TO EITHER EXCESS IS ALIKE ATTACHED.

LUXURY AND AVARICE HAVE SIMILAR RESULTS. ONE MUST CHOOSE IN ALL THINGS A MEAN JUST AND GOOD.

PYTHAGORAS ALSO INTRODUCED THE WORD 'COSMOS'.

'Cosmos' means order, rhythm, harmony. Existence is not a chaos but a cosmos. Pythagoras has contributed much to human thought, to human evolution. His vision of a cosmos became the very foundation of scientific investigation.

Science can exist only if existence is a cosmos. If it is a chaos, there is no possibility of any science. If laws change every day, every moment -- one day the water evaporates at one hundred degrees, another day at five hundred degrees -- if water functions in a whimsical way and follows no order, how can there be a science?

Science presupposes that existence functions in a consistent way, in a rational way, that existence is not mad, that if we search deep into existence, we are bound to find laws -- and those laws are the keys to all the mysteries.

Just as it is true for science so it is true for religion too -- because religion is nothing but the science of the inner. The outer science is called science; the inner science is called religion -- but both can exist only in a cosmos.

There are laws of the inner world. Those laws have been discovered just as much as scientific laws have been discovered. Neither have scientific laws been invented, nor have religious laws; been invented. Truth is -- you need not invent it And whatsoever you invent will be untrue -- all inventions are lies.

Truth has to be discovered, not invented. Einstein discovers a certain law; Patanjali also discovers a certain law; Newton discovers gravitation, Krishna discovers grace -- both are laws. One belongs to the earth, the other belongs to the sky; one belongs to the world of necessity, the other belongs to the world of power. One belongs to the visible and the other belongs to the invisible.

It is in the vision of a cosmos that Pythagoras became the originator of a scientific concept of the world. He was the first scientist because he provided the very foundation. His idea of cosmos has to be understood, because without understanding it you will not be able to understand what he is talking about.

The inner world, the world of the spirit, follows certain laws, and those laws are unchangeable, they are perennial. Hence I have called this series PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS -- the perennial philosophy. Those laws are not time-bound, they are beyond time. Time itself functions within those laws. If you want to do something in the outside world, you will need to know how the outer existence functions, because unless you know how it functions you are bound to fail.

Nature has no obligation to adjust to you -- you will have to adjust to nature. You can win nature only by adjusting yourself to nature. You can become a conqueror too, but not against nature -- with nature, in tune with nature. You can become a master of the inner kingdom too -- not against the laws but in tune with those laws.

It is because of this mystic vision -- that the world is not accidental, not anarchic, but an absolutely harmonious, cosmic, orderly world -- that Pythagoras was able to discover many things for the seekers. One thing that he discovered was that music can become the milieu for meditation. He4 was the first to introduce that idea too to the West. In the East we have known it for centuries, that music is the best aid to meditation. Why? because music creates harmony around you, and the harmony around you can provoke harmony within you. If the outside is harmonious, the inside also starts falling in line with it -- and that you have watched many times.

In the marketplace, you feel a great disturbance inside you -- with the crowd you never feel at home. In the market-place the whole atmosphere is anti-music; there is no harmony, it is a chaos. And the outer chaos provokes inside chaos.

Go into a madhouse and be with mad people for a few hours and you will see: you start feeling something going crazy inside you. Go to the hospital and just be with the ill patients there for a few hours, and you start feeling a sickening is entering into you, a kind of sick feeling. You are NOT sick; you were not sick when you entered the hospital. What has happened? The sick vibe all around you starts synchronizing inside you, because the outer and the inner are not divided; they are part of one whole. The inner is the inner of the outer, and the outer is the outer of the inner. They cannot be separated. So each affects the other.

If you know meditation deeply, you can sit in the market-place and nothing will be disturbed because you have a powerful music going on inside you. It is so powerful that the market-place and its noise cannot affect it; on the contrary, people who are around you may start feeling a certain soothing effect, a calmness coming. If a real Buddha sits in the marketplace, he creates there too a Buddhafield, and whosoever enters into the Buddhafield is affected immediately -- he starts falling into harmony. Something starts settling inside him; something starts getting together inside him. He becomes more centered, together.

That's the secret of SATSANG -- being with a Buddha. The whole secret is this: to be with the Master means just to allow his vibe to provoke your inner harmony which is fast asleep and you are unaware of it. But ordinarily if you go to the market-place, you come home a little lost, exhausted, tired, something is missing. You need rest; only after a good night's rest will you be able to go to the marketplace again.

Music is a harmony -- it is harmony between sound and silence. Sound belongs to the earth, silence belongs to the beyond. Music is, as Pythagoras believed and called it, numinous. The word 'numinous' comes from a Latin root NUMEN. It is a tremendously significant word, very pregnant with meaning. NUMEN means a nod from the above, a yes from the beyond.

Music creates such a harmony that even God starts nodding at you, saying yes to you. Music is numinous... suddenly the sky starts touching you; you are overwhelmed by the beyond. And when the beyond is closer to you, when the footsteps of the beyond are heard, something inside you gets the challenge, becomes silent, quieter, calmer, cool, collected.

In the Pythagorean mystery school, music was one of the greatest things -- and that's my effort here too. We have to create great music so that great meditative states become possible. Music is outer meditation: meditation is inner music. They go together, hand in hand, embracing each other. It is one of the greatest experiences of life when music is there surrounding you, overwhelming you, flooding you, and meditation starts growing in you -- when meditation and music meet, world and God meet, matter and consciousness meet. That is UNIO MYSTICA -- the mystic union.

In the East we have called it 'yoga'. Yoga simply means union. The best definition of yoga, and the shortest, is by the great seer Vyasa. He says yoga is samadhi, yoga is ENSTASIS. Ordinarily samadhi is translated as ecstasy -- that is not right, because ecstasy literally means to stand out. Samadhi is to stand in! It should be translated as ENSTASIS not as ECSTASIS. Yoga is ENSTASIS -- standing in, doing nothing, just being. That state is meditation.

And anything that can help from the outside will have some music in it, only then can it help. The sound of running water in the hills can help, because it has its own music. The roaring waves of the ocean can help, because they have their own music. The singing of the birds in the morning can help, or the sound of insects in the silent night, or the rain falling on the rooftop -- anything that creates music can also create meditation.

The Pythagorean school was a school of music, of song and dance. of great celebration. You are again living in that kind of school.

People have forgotten that music can take you downwards, and can also take you upwards. The modern music takes you downwards; it is concerned with the lowest center of your being, with the sex center. It gives you sexuality; it is pornographic. It has lost all heights. It is ugly -- it is really noise and nothing else, noise that drowns you -- jazz or other pop music. It is simply a kind of intoxicant. It is so deafening that you feel lost and you think something is happening. All that is happening is that you are pulled more and more towards the earth, more and more towards the animal in you.

The ancient music, the classical music, has a totally different effect: it pulls you upwards, it takes you beyond gravitation. It is part of levitation; you start floating upwards and upwards. It has a more meditative quality in it. It reaches to your higher centers. The real music worth calling music will have something to do with SAHASRAR -- your seventh center, but very rarely a genius reaches there to create such music. But if even your heart center is moved, it is more than enough. If your heart center starts dancing and revolving, you are very close to meditation.

JUST AS MUSIC is the meeting of silence and sound, for J Pythagoras philosophy is a meeting of religion and science. His concept of philosophy is that of a great synthesis. He is one of the greatest synthesizers ever -- he always brings polar opposites together and makes them complementary. He is a great artist in destroying opposition. Wherever he finds opposition he starts searching for something which must be bridging the opposition, and that bridge is important.

Religion and science have been in conflict for centuries because they have not listened to Pythagoras. Otherwise, this division would never have happened. And this division has proved one of the most fatal calamities. Religion and science have been fighting as enemies; for centuries the church did not allow science to develop and grow. People like Galileo and Kepler and others were punished.

Religion was afraid of science. This is stupid, because science can only help religion, science can only prepare the ground for the inner science. The church people and the popes who were against science were simply behaving in a very stupid way -- without knowing what they were doing.

Truth cannot be crushed; nobody can crucify truth.

Slowly slowly, science gained ground, became powerful -- it was good that it became powerful. But it started behaving in the same stupid way by destroying religion. It became a revenge. For three hundred years, the mainstream of scientific thinkers has been trying to destroy religion as hard as possible. They have declared God is dead. They have declared there is no soul. They have declared there is no afterlife. They have declared there is NO inner being in man. They have reduced man to a machine.

Man has lost all grandeur. Man cannot feel meaningful any more. It is because of this stupid approach of science, this revengeful approach of science, that all meaning has disappeared from the world. People are simply dragging themselves. There is no poetry -- there is no possibility of poetry, because without a God the world cannot be a cosmos. Then it is only a mechanical phenomenon; there is no consciousness behind it. Without God, the world cannot be caring; it cannot be your mother -- it is bound to be neutral. Whether you live or die, nature is not concerned at all.

Science has created the idea of a nature indifferent to man. This is dangerous, because man is so small and nature is so vast. And if this vast existence is absolutely indifferent towards you, how can you feel significant, meaningful? You will feel a stranger, an outsider, something accidental.

And science became so prominent that even philosophers started following the scientific way of thinking, which is a very lopsided way. Even philosophers lost hold of that great vision of unity, of oneness, of existence being a home.

The modern philosopher has no beauty compared to Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Buddha, Socrates, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. The modern philosopher is very ordinary; he is nothing but a professor of philosophy. His philosophy is not a delight in his being, it is not a song, it is not a music. All that he goes on doing is linguistic analysis. The modern philosopher is an ugly phenomenon. Modern philosophy has NO philosophy of life in it. At the most, it is a constant effort to go on sharpening logic -- but for what? The whole effort seems to be useless.

And modern philosophy has become just a shadow of science. It has lost its glory. It is no more the science of sciences; it is no more the queen.

With Pythagoras, philosophy was the highest peak of understanding, the highest flight towards truth. One wing has to be science, another wing has to be religion. Those were the days of great philosophers; the world came to know REALLY great philosophers.

In China, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Mencius, Lieh Tzu -- all close contemporaries of Zarathustra. In India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Prakuddha Katyayana, Sanjay Vilethiputta, Makkhli Goshal, Poorna Kashyapa, and many more. In Greece, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.... And the chain continues. In kan, the great Zarathustra. Twenty-five centuries ago, the world knew the highest flights of philosophy.

Now, instead of a philosopher, what you find is just a poor specimen: a professor of philosophy.

I have heard a story:

The King of the Cannibals decided to open his country up to tourism. A world-famous philosopher, who had a special interest in the primitive, was extremely eager to add this backward people to his studies.

On his arrival in Cannibal-land, the philosopher demanded a private tour and a personal audience with the Cannibal King. Not only was this granted, but the Cannibal King himself conducted the visiting dignitary to all points of interest, while the philosopher busily jotted down notes on his yellow pad. Towards the end of the day, the King was moved to suggest a visit to his people's most special and sacred structure. This, he announced, was the Cannibal Super-Market. There, in a shiny modern building, was housed the most complete and varied selection of human anatomical parts available anywhere in the world.

The philosopher enthusiastically agreed to see it, and they soon arrived at the building and went in. Here, lit by fluorescent lights, were row upon row of gleaming chrome-and-glass display cases. Inside, packaged neatly in clear plastic, with prices prominently displayed, were hundreds of items: legs, arms, hands, ears, etcetera. The philosopher eagerly scribbled notes while they toured the market.

At last they arrived at what the Cannibal King said was their most prized department human brains. As they walked slowly down the aisle, the philosopher noted the following signs: "Explorers' brains -- ten cents-a-pound"..."missionaries' brains -- twenty cents-a-pound"..."businessmen's brains -- one dollar-a-pound"..."commanding generals' brains -- ten dollars-a-pound". The very last item had a display case of its own and its sign was especially large: "philosophers' brains", it read, "fifty dollars-a-pound!"

The philosopher could scarcely contain his delight. Unable to restrain himself, he turned to the Cannibal King and smugly inquired as to how it was, that of all the items in the super-market, philosophers' brains were by far the most expensive.

"Come, come, my good man," said the Cannibal King, "do you know how many philosophers we have to kill just to get one pound of brains?"

Modern philosophy and the modern philosopher is just worthless. It has lost it's peaks: it no more moves into the beyond. It is neither science nor religion. It is just a very confused affair today.

For Pythagoras, science is a search for truth in the objective world and religion is a search for truth in the subjective world -- and philosophy is a search for the truth. So science and religion are like two hands or two wings. They are not opposites but complementaries. And the world would be better if we were reminded of it again.

The church, the temple and the lab need not be enemies. They should exist in a kind of friendship. Man will be far richer then. Now, if he chooses science he becomes rich outside and goes on becoming poorer and poorer inside. If he chooses religion, he becomes rich inside, but goes on becoming poorer and poorer on the outside. And both are ugly scenes.

The West has chosen science; it has all the riches of the world, but the man is completely lost, feeling meaningless, suicidal. The man, when he looks inside, finds nothing but hollowness, emptiness. The inner world has become very poor in the West.

In the East, just the opposite has happened: people have chosen religion against science. Their inner world is calmer, quieter, richer; but on the outside they are starving, dying -- no food, no medicine, no facilities to live a human life, living almost like animals or even worse.

This is the consequence of not listening to Pythagoras. The whole history of humanity would have been totally different if Pythagoras had been listened to, understood. There is no need for the East to be East and the West to be West. There is no need for anybody to be just a materialist or just a spiritualist. If body and soul can exist together -- they ARE existing together in you, in everybody -- then why can't materialism and spiritualism exist together? They SHOULD!

A man must be materialist and spiritualist. To choose is fatal. There is no need to choose; you can have both the worlds -- you SHOULD have both the worlds; that is your birthright.

I teach you this synthesis: you have to be a materialist, as materialistic as any materialist, and a spiritualist, as much a spiritualist as any spiritualist. And remember: both will be angry at you, because the spiritualist will not be able to forgive you for your materialism, and the materialist will not be able to forgive you for your spiritualism.

That's why people are against me -- all kinds of people! The religious people are against me because they cannot accept my materialist approach; and the materialists are against me because they cannot accept my spiritualist approach. I would like to remind you that you have to be both together. This will bring a new man and a new humanity on the earth -- and it is utterly needed, absolutely needed: a new man, a new humanity, a new concept.

There is no need to choose. God has given you a body -- that means you have to be a materialist; and God has given you a soul -- that means you have to be a spiritualist. You have to be a meeting of the two: you have to be a yogi, a union. And if your body and soul ARE balanced, and your spiritualism and your materialism are balanced, in a rhythm, you will attain to the greatest music possible. And that music is meditation, that music is samadhi.

The sutras... purification continues:

LISTEN, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS, KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR GAINST PREJUDICE, OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR; THINK FOR THYSELF.

LISTEN, SAYS PYTHAGORAS. Down the ages the Masters have always been saying: Listen. But what you do at the most is you hear -- you don't listen. And there is a tremendous difference between these two words.

Hearing is very superficial. You can hear because you have ears, that's all. Anybody who has ears can hear. It is an ordinary phenomenon. Listening has a different quality to it. When you hear attentively, then it is listening. Hearing is only physical; when your soul also gets involved in it, then it becomes listening.

And to listen is to understand. Truth needs no proof. Truth is self-evident. All that is needed is the capacity to listen.

The student hears; the disciple listens. The curious hears, because his inquiry is intellectual. But the one who is a seeker, whose inquiry is not only a kind of curiosity, whose inquiry is a question of life and death to him, he listens. Everything is at stake. How can you afford not to listen?

Listening means your body and soul function together in a deep harmony. You become all ears; your whole body functions as an ear -- your legs, your hands, every cell of your body and your whole being inside is attentive. Something immensely important is imparted to you. Something is communicated and you would not like to miss it.

If you are a seeker, a disciple, only then do you know what listening is. When you hear with great love, intensity, passion, when you hear aflame, when you hear totally, when you hear in silence, it is listening.

Pythagoras says: LISTEN...!

One of the great contemporaries of Pythagoras, Mahavira, has said that there are two ways to move into the world of truth. One is by RIGHT listening -- just by right listening. Those who fail in right listening, for them the other is by right practice. You will be surprised. Right practice is needed for those who have failed in right listening. Otherwise, to listen to a man who has arrived is enough. To listen to a Buddha is ENOUGH. He IS fire, and in listening you will become afire. Something will jump from the enlightened person to the disciple; something mysterious will be communicated -- a transmission beyond scriptures and beyond words. But for that, listening is needed.

I was travelling in this country for many years, almost for fifteen years, talking to millions of people, but they were hearing, not listening. I tried hard to help them to listen, but it was impossible. I had to stop travelling. Now I wait only for those who can listen.

You can see this silence, this presence of yours, this utter attentiveness, this being with me... this very moment a transformation starts happening. Something will be triggered in you. These moments are precious, and these moments are as precious as you are capable of listening.

If your mind is wandering somewhere else, then physically you will be hearing but you will not be able to listen. If many thoughts are moving inside you and there is great traffic, then you will be hearing. Those thoughts won't allow what I am saying to reach you, AND they won't allow what I am to reach you. When the mind has no thoughts, when the traffic inside has stopped, when the inner talk is discontinued, in that gap, in that silence, in that state of love and being, listening happens.

And to listen RIGHTLY IS to understand. There is no other effort needed. There is no need to practice truth because truth already is -- if you understand, it is there; if you open your eyes, you have found it. Truth is not lost, you have only fallen asleep. If you listen, you will be awakened. Truth is where it has always been.

LISTEN, says Pythagoras, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS...

If you listen, only then can the words reach the heart. If you hear, the words will only reach the head. The heart is your innermost core. If you are utterly silent, then only will the passage be available for the Master to reach you, to touch your heart, to engrave the message there.

... AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS...

And that's enough. Once the seed of truth falls into the heart, you WILL become a garden, you WILL bloom. Then it is only a question of time and patience. The seed that falls into the soil of the heart is bound to grow. It will sprout when the season comes; it will come to grow great foliage. And when the spring is there, it will bloom in thousands of flowers, it will blossom.

That's why Mahavira says right listening is enough. In right listening, your heart is available to the Master. And once the Master can reach the heart of the disciple, nothing else is needed. Then the flame jumps from one being into the being of the other. Then the lit candle can go on sharing its flame with all those candles which are not yet lit. It is literally a jump of the flame from one being to another.

KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR GAINST PREJUDICE...

Anything that can disturb you, anything that will not allow you to listen, is prejudice. If you come here as a Hindu you will not listen to me, you will hear, because constantly you will be judging, criticizing, evaluating, comparing. If you come here as a Mohammedan, as a Christian, as a communist, as a Catholic, you will not listen. You WILL hear, but you will be constantly engaged in inner work; you will not be available. Prejudice keeps one closed.

And when you are prejudiced, when you have already decided something a priori, then you will listen only in a very choosing way. You will listen only to that which goes to support your prejudice. You will not be able to listen to that which goes against your prejudice.

And that's how people hear, and that's how people see. Even seeing is prejudiced. You see only that which you want to see, and you hear only that which you want to hear. And then you go on interpreting according to your prejudice. If you don't come out of your prejudice, you will never come into the light. Your prejudice is your prison.

And there are prejudices and prejudices... social, political, religious, philosophical, layers and layers of prejudice. And you are surrounded by so many layers that it is almost impossible to reach you. You will have to drop these prejudices.

And Pythagoras is not saying, "Whatsoever I say, you have to believe in it." No. He is simply saying, "Listen!" There is no question of believing or not believing. And that's what I am saying to you. It is not a question of believing in whatsoever is said to you -- or disbelieving. Truth NEEDS nothing. Truth needs only to be listened to. Once you have listened to it, it will become your truth. And you will not need to believe in it. You have to believe in things only when you have not known them yourself, when you have not known them on your own, when they are not your own experience -- then you have to believe.

The person who is ready to listen will not need to believe in anything or disbelieve. His clarity will immediately settle things. When you listen with open ears and open eyes, with clarity and transparency, truth is immediately understood as true, and falsehood is immediately understood as false. You need not think about them; you need not ponder what is right and what is wrong.

In a transparent mind, right is known as right, and wrong is known as wrong. The transparent mind is the decisive factor -- it immediately concludes. And the conclusion is not a logical process either.

But we go on carrying prejudices. And small prejudices can prevent. Just a small particle of dust in your eye is enough to prevent you seeing this beautiful world. You will not be able to open your eyes. You may be seeing the Himalayas and a dust particle goes into your eyes -- and the Himalayas disappear. Now, the particle of dust is so small, yet it helps the big, immense Himalayas to disappear.

And your eyes are not only full of dust, they are full of mountains of prejudices.

The first thing for a disciple is to be utterly nude as far as prejudices are concerned. Drop them. You have not experienced; you have been told what to believe and what not to believe. Drop everything, become just a pure mirror, and listen.

LISTEN, AND IN THINE HEART ENGRAVE MY WORDS; KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR GAINST PREJUDICE; OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR, THINK FOR THYSELF.

AND LOOK AT OTHERS AND SEE: they are all full of conclusions, prejudices, scriptures, philosophies, dogmas and creeds -- and yet where have they arrived? Look at them, and fear, be afraid that if you don't drop your prejudices you will remain the same.

Go outside and look at people -- their lives have no joy. their lives have no authenticity, and they are all great believers. Somebody goes to the mosque, somebody goes to the church, somebody to the temple -- and they are all religious people. Somebody reads the Bible and somebody reads DAS KAPITAL and somebody reads the Gita -- they are all believers! Somebody believes in Kaaba and somebody in Kashi and somebody in the Kremlin, but they are ALL believers. But what has happened in their lives? God has not nodded yet. Their lives are not numinous -- God has not yet said yes to them. They know nothing of God.

You can look into their eyes and you will find only sadness and nothing else -- frustration writ large. Watch their lives and you will see they are dragging; there is no dance to their steps. Look at what they talk about and you will not find any music in it. Watch their lives and you will not find any grace there. Beware! Are you going to be like this crowd that surrounds the world? Are you going to be just part of the herd? Or are you going to become numinous? That has to be decided by you.

OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR...

Pythagoras is absolutely right. Watch others and that will help you. Watch your parents -- where have they arrived. And they are guiding you, blind people guiding other blind people. Watch your leaders -- where have they arrived. Mad people leading other mad people! Watch your priests -- what is their experience?

Look into their eyes, encounter them, and you will find them as afraid as you are, as dark as you are. You will not find even a ray of light in their being. Your rabbis, your pundits, your priests -- just go and see.

Be a little more alert in watching people, and immediately this understanding will happen to you: "Am I going to be like this? Like these people? Then life has been lost." And if you can learn anything from the crowd around you -- from your parents, from your friends, from your neighbours -- one thing is certain: that the way to truth never goes through prejudices, and the way to God is not the way of the scripture and belief. The way of God goes through silence, purity of the mind, clarity of the mind. And the unprejudiced mind is a pure mind, remember.

By 'purity' I don't mean anything moral; by 'purity' I simply mean something scientific. When you say, "This water is pure," do you mean this is moral? this water is moral? When you say, "This water is pure," the word 'pure' is not used in any moralistic sense. It simply says: this water contains nothing foreign in it. It is .simply itself, clear, no dust, no pollution. It is simply itself. natural; as it should be it is.

I call a mind pure if it has no prejudices -- then there is clarity and the mind is functioning like a mirror, a pure mirror.

The moralist's mind is never pure, because he has a prejudice -- what is good and what is bad. He is trying to be good and he is trying not to be bad. And he is against the bad, and he does not know what is bad -- because he does not know what is good: he has only been told. He is simply following others: he is part of a long chain of slavery.

If you are born in a Jaina family, then to eat potatoes is wrong. Potatoes? Poor potatoes? They are such innocent people -- can you find more innocent people than potatoes? But it is wrong. Anything that grows underneath the earth Jainas avoid; that is immoral. You may never have thought about it; but if you had been born a Jaina, then this would have been your prejudice.

Just watch your prejudices. They are ALL alike -- unless something is rooted in your own experience it remains a bondage.

KEEP CLOSED BOTH EYE AND EAR AGAINST PREJUDICE; OF OTHERS THE EXAMPLE FEAR; THINK FOR THYSELF.

Watch, look... never believe in others. Be aware of what is happening around you to people, but always THINK FOR THYSELF.

Socrates says: Know thyself -- but you can know yourself only if you start thinking for yourself. But we have all given the right to think -- which is a very intrinsic right, a very fundamental right -- we have given it to others. Others are thinking for you! Your parents decide what is right and what is wrong, and your teachers and your priests and your politicians -- you have given your right to others to think for you, which is the most fundamental right. Nothing can be more basic than that.

Never give your right of thinking to anybody else, whosoever he is. And the real Master never takes your right away from you. In fact, he helps you to regain it, to reclaim it, to rediscover it. He helps you to become a light unto yourself.

Remember the last words of Buddha to his disciples: Be a light unto yourself.

Pythagoras says: THINK FOR THYSELF... the same thing in other words. Watch, experience, see what is happening, but the ultimate decision has to be yours, totally yours.

Never say, "I am doing this because my parents have been doing this," that is stupid. Do it if YOU feel that it is right to do, if you think it is right you have come upon it through your own meditation. If it has come as a conclusion of all your own experiences, then do it by all means; whether your parents were doing it or not does not matter.

Never say, "Because it has always been done, that's why I am doing it." Never say, "Because it is written in the Vedas or in the Koran or in the Bible, that's why I am doing it." Everything has changed, times have changed. What was right in the times of the Vedas is not right any longer. And what was right in the times of the Koran is not right any longer, cannot be.

For example, Mohammed said to his disciples: "Give birth to as many children as possible!" This was perfectly right for the people with whom Mohammed was talking. He was talking to warriors; and in those days, and particularly in the Arabian countries, it was such a bloody struggle to survive that more and more people were needed -- and particularly more and more male children were needed to be soldiers. There were many women; almost four times more than men. That's why Mohammed said, "You can have four wives."

It was perfectly moral and perfectly right, because if Mohammed had insisted on one wife, then three women would have remained without husbands, without families, without children -- and that would have created great prostitution, that would have created great immorality. So he was perfectly right to say, "You can marry four wives." He himself married nine -- just to give an example. And of course the Master has to do it more perfectly than the disciple. And I am absolutely in agreement with him; he did well. And whatsoever he was saying was logical, rational, relevant. He was giving a very responsible commandment: Marry four wives.

But Mohammedans are still marrying four wives -- that is the trouble. They say, "It has been said by the prophet!" Now the number of women in the world is equal, in fact, in some countries, less than the men. On the whole it is equal, so one woman to one man seems to be the rational way out. Now, if you marry four women then three men will remain unmarried and they will create trouble -- they are bound to create trouble. In fact, they will create more trouble than three unmarried women. Women are passive, patient, accepting. Have you ever heard of a woman raping a man? It doesn't happen. But those three men without women will become rapists; they will destroy the whole society, they will destroy all that is beautiful and good and intimate. It will become an ugly sexual, perverted society.

Mohammed was right, but the right can only be relevant to a particular time. And then he said, "Give birth to as many children as possible." Mohammedans are still doing the same. Now the world is overcrowded, Mohammed was never aware of it, what was going to happen -- nobody can say about the future. Now the world is overcrowded; we don't need any more people. We need less and less people.

If India has half of the population that it has today, that will be the greatest blessing to it. But Mohammedans say they cannot stop because it is written in their scripture.

Now, because I am saying this, some Mohammedan is going to be against me. They will gather somewhere protesting that I am talking against the prophet. I am not talking against the prophet; I am simply talking against your stupidity. I am simply saying fourteen hundred years have passed since Mohammed, and much water has gone down the Ganges.

Five thousand years have passed since Manu wrote the Hindu code of morality -- FIVE thousand years have passed. Everything has changed, but the Hindu mind remains Manu-oriented. Three thousand years have passed since Moses gave you the commandments, but still you go on following them.

Each MOMENT life goes on changing, and the really aware man will respond each moment -- to the situation! He will not carry any prejudices? he will not carry any past in his head. He will be a pure mirror of the situation in which he is, and he will act OUT of the situation -- he will be responsible. That is the meaning of the word 'responsible': a responsible person is a moral person according to me. But your so-called moral people are NOT responsible people.

Responsibility is MORE fundamental than morality. And by 'responsibility' I mean ability to respond to the present moment -- not according to ready-made formulae, not according to already accumulated prejudices, but according to the situation. And when you respond to the moment, it is liberating, and it is always good, and it is always adequate.

... THINK FOR THYSELF

Mohammed cannot think for you, neither can Krishna nor Christ. I cannot think for you. I can help you to become a mirror so that you can think for yourself.

Remember, this is the difference between a real Master and a pseudo Master. The pseudo Master gives you what to think; the real Master gives you HOW to think. The pseudo gives you ready-made formulae; the real Master simply helps you to become a mirror, so whenever, wherever you are, you always respond adequately to the situation, your responses are never inadequate.

The pseudo master gives you a philosophy, a creed, a belief; the real Master gives you wisdom, awareness, understanding. Then each act has to come out of that understanding.

The world can really become a paradise if people are responsible. But it is easier to throw the responsibility of thinking on others. People don't like to think. They want somebody else to do the chewing for them, then they can simply swallow the food. They don't want to chew for themselves, and unless you chew for yourself you will not be nourished. Unless you chew for yourself you will never become an integrated individual. You will be only an anonymous number, not a real individual.

And to be an individual is the goal of life -- only then are you accepted by God, are you ready to offer yourself to God. You have something to offer only then. Before that you are just hollow, full of straw; you don't have anything valuable.

CONSULT, DELIBERATE, AND FREELY CHOOSE.

Pythagoras says: CONSULT... he is not saying don't listen to others. Consult -- there are more experienced people than you.

CONSULT, DELIBERATE... but don't accept. Take the advice, then contemplate, deliberate, meditate over it... AND FREELY CHOOSE. The ultimate choice has to be yours. Freely choose because if you don't freely choose, you will never have freedom.

Freedom is the accumulated effect of all the free choices that you have made in your life. If you have never made a free choice, how can you have freedom? Freedom is not a commodity; freedom is a cumulative effect of all the choices that you have made in your life.

You don't choose your woman -- your father chooses the woman for you. You will not have freedom. You don't choose your temple: your birth has already decided it, that you will go to the church -- Catholic, Protestant -- or you will go to the temple, Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist. Your birth has decided it. Your marriage is decided by your parents, your education is decided by the parents. And then you want freedom?! And then everything is decided by others. And freedom is cumulative. If you go on deciding at each step of your life on your own, slowly slowly, you accumulate freedom. Then freedom becomes a power in you, and freedom is the greatest gift of God. But you have to be worthy of it.

Don't throw your responsibilities on others. It is easier, because it gives you a chance to say, "What can I do?" If you have found a wrong wife, what can you do? Your parents are responsible, or the astrologers, palmists -- you are not responsible. You have shirked a responsibility, but by that you have shirked something valuable. Choosing your own woman, choosing your own man, you would have become integrated, crystallized. Every choice crystallizes you.

LET FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY AND WITHOUT CAUSE, THOU SHOULDST, IN THE PRESENT, CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE.

FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY, AND SAGES ACT AIMLESSLY. That's why sometimes the sage looks like a fool and vice versa: the fool sometimes looks like a sage. There is one common thing between the sage and the fool, and that common thing is: both act aimlessly -- but for different reasons they act aimlessly.

The fool acts aimlessly because he has no consciousness; he is functioning mechanically, unconsciously. The sage acts aimlessly because he is so fully conscious, he is so totally conscious, there is no need to think about the aim. The very consciousness is enough to take him in the right direction, to the right goal.

But you are between the two: you are neither a fool nor a sage. Sages are rare just as fools are rare. Millions of people are just in between, in limbo. This sutra is for those who are in limbo, and that is the majority; ninety-nine percent of people are in limbo.

LET FOOLS ACT AIMLESSLY AND WITHOUT CAUSE, THOU SHOULDST, IN THE PRESENT, CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE.

Act consciously, deliberately, choose, think of the consequences. Whatsoever you are going to do, think of the consequences. But remember: Pythagoras is not saying to become too much future-oriented. Hence he says:

... IN THE PRESENT, CONTEMPLATE THE FUTURE.

Remain in the present, remain present-oriented. Don't get too much involved into the fantasy of the future. But he is saying you cannot drop the future completely yet. That can be dropped only when you have become totally alert. So right now you have to do one thing: remain in the present -- that will help you to become more and more conscious -- and think of the consequences -- that will make you less and less stupid. And, slowly slowly, great intelligence is released by these two things: being in the present and always moving aimfully, with a target, with a direction.

Ultimately, direction and target, all disappear. That's why St Francis calls himself a 'fool of God'; Jesus Christ was also known as a fool, Ramakrishna is a fool -- but in a totally different sense. They are so innocent, they are again child-like. They act spontaneously, with no aim, with no idea of consequences. But their very awareness is such that they cannot go wrong. They have eyes so they need not think about the door, where the door is. But you are blind. If you don't think of the door, you may stumble into some furniture, into the wall; you may get hurt, wounded.

THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW, PRETEND NOT THAT THOU DOST. INSTRUCT THYSELF: FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL.

THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW... that which you don't know, please don't pretend that you know. That is the way of the mediocre mind; it goes on pretending. It cannot accept, "There is something I am not knowledgeable about, I don't know." He goes on pretending. He goes on behaving in a way AS IF he knows -- and that's how he becomes more and more foolish. Those pretensions are not going to help you to become wise. Those pretensions will become the barriers to wisdom.

When P. D. Ouspensky reached his Master, Gurdjieff, for the first time, Gurdjieff looked into his eyes and without saying a single word he gave him a piece of paper, empty, and told him to go in the next room and write on one side what he thought he knew and on the other side what he thought he did not know.

Ouspensky was a little puzzled: "What kind of beginning is this?" He had not even asked his name, no formal introduction. He had not even asked, "Why have you come?" Simply gave him the piece of paper and told him, "Go into the next room and write on one side what you know and on the other what you don't know."

Ouspensky went into the room. It was a cold night, a cold Russian night, but he started perspiring. He could not write a single word on the side where he was to write what he knew. For the first time he became aware that he knew nothing. He thought of many things -- God, truth, love, life, death -- and it was not that he was not knowledgeable. He was already a very famous author; he had already written his greatest book, TERTIUM ORGANUM.

Just a few days before, I told you that is the third greatest book in the world. First is Aristotle's ORGANUM, second is Bacon's NOVUM ORGANUM, third is Ouspensky's TERTIUM ORGANUM -- the third canon of thought. He had already written it! He was already world famous. Gurdjieff was not known at all; in fact, Gurdjieff became known because of Ouspensky.

A world famous mathematician, a world famous philosopher and thinker, a great author... he could have written thousands of things that he knew. He could have presented his great book, TERTIUM ORGANUM, to Gurdjieff: "These are all the things I know." And in that book he talks like an Upanishadic seer, like a prophet. If you read the book you will be surprised how a man who has not yet become enlightened can write such things. But they can be written -- just a little cleverness is needed.

But that night he could not write a single word. He came back with tears in his eyes, fell at Gurdjieff's feet, gave him the blank paper, and said, "I don't know anything. You start instructing me -- from the very beginning. Start from ABC."

This is the beginning of disciplehood. Only such a person can be a disciple, because he has dropped all prejudices, and it must have been hard for a man who was so famous.

THAT WHICH THOU DOST NOT KNOW, PRETEND NOT THAT THOU DOST. INSTRUCT THYSELF . .

Learn. If you believe that you already know, how are you going to learn?

... FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL.

And if you learn, don't be worried -- TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL. Existence always cares about you. If you are authentic, if your search is true and you are not a pretender, time will help you, will cooperate with you. Time from existence's side, and patience on your side.

The English word 'patient' is beautiful, but has become very ugly, has gone into wrong hands. Now the patient means somebody who is ill. In fact, in the ancient days the ill person was called 'a patient' because illness means you have not learnt how to be healthy and whole. Hence, you have to learn. In the ancient world, the patient simply meant the student. The patient had to learn how to be healthy and whole. And because he would need great patience to learn it, that's why he was called patient. It had nothing to do with illness. And everybody is ill. It happens almost every day.

People come here... one has come for only four weeks, and then it is difficult to go, and they come and ask me, "Osho, can we write back to our office, to our boss, that we are ill -- because only if we are ill can our stay be extended. But will it not be untrue? What do you say?"

I say, "Write! -- because it can never be untrue. You are all ill! You don't need a certificate for it. It is the absolute truth. You can go on writing again and again for years and it will be true."

Not to be ill means to become a Buddha. You can write till you have become a Buddha.

INSTRUCT THYSELF: FOR TIME AND PATIENCE FAVOUR ALL.

NEGLECT NOT THY HEALTH...

HEALTH TO PYTHAGORAS, HAS TWO ASPECTS TO IT. One is the physical, the other is the spiritual. The body is your temple -- don't neglect it. Your foolish, stupid ascetics have been telling you to neglect it -- not only to neglect but to destroy your body. Pythagoras is not an asCetic: he is a man of understanding.

He says: Respect, don't neglect, your body. If your body is neglected, you will not be able to find the inner harmony -- because if the body is harmonious it helps to attain to inner harmony. Take every care of your health, of your body; love it, respect it, it is a great gift. It is a miracle! a mystery.

... DISPENSE WITH MODERATION FOOD TO THE BODY AND TO THE MIND REPOSE.

What food is for the body repose is in exactly the same way for the soul: food nourishes the body and repose nourishes the soul. The materialist forgets about repose; that's why in the West there is so much restlessness -- they have forgotten repose, they don't know how to relax. They don't know how to be in a state of unoccupiedness; they don't know how to sit silently doing nothing. They have completely forgotten! The materialist is bound to forget. He goes on eating too much, and he has forgotten that only his body goes on becoming fatter and fatter, and his soul goes on becoming thinner and thinner.

Sometimes I see people who have only bodies and no soul. Just layers and layers of fat, and nothing behind -- vegetables, cabbages. Howsoever sophisticated they may be, educated, full of knowledge, there is not much difference.

They say the difference between a cauliflower and a cabbage is not much: when the cabbage goes through college it becomes a cauliflower.

Repose is far more essential even than food. If sometimes you go on a small fast it is good, but repose should never be forgotten -- because basically the body is only a temple: the deity is within. The body has to be loved only because it is a temple of the deity. The body is only a means; the end is inside.

Repose is food, meditation is food, for the soul. Repose means silence, rest, relaxation, calmness, coolness, collectedness, meditativeness. A state of unoccupied mind, empty, silent, with no idea of any doing, not going anywhere, not rushing anywhere -- just being herenow. That is repose. And to be herenow is tremendously nourishing, because then you are deeply in tune with God, then music showers on you.

The past is no more, it is dead; the future is not yet, it is unborn. Only the present is. Only the present is alive. When you are herenow, life flows in you. When you are herenow, you are in God. And that is nourishment, that is real food.

In that sense the Upanishads have said: ANAM BRAHM -- food is God, God is food. In the sense of repose it is REALLY food. As the body will die without food, the soul dies without repose.

The materialist thinks only of the body, and the spiritualist thinks only of repose, and both remain lopsided. One has a very nourished soul but an undernourished body; the temple is in ruins. And one has a beautiful temple, a marble temple, but the deity is dead, or has not come yet. Both are missing something.

We need a music of earth and sky, of body and soul; we need a harmony between the visible and the invisible. The food is visible, repose is invisible. And you need both, and you need a rhythm between the two.

The person who has not known what repose is starts stuffing too much food in himself. Nothing can help him unless he learns repose -- no dieting is going to help, no exercises are going to help, no disciplining is going to help. Sooner or later he will start eating again, because his inner being feels so empty and he knows no other way to fill it -- he knows only one way: to go on throwing food inside himself.

When people come to me with the problem of too much obsession with food, my only suggestion is: become more meditative. Don't be worried about food. Become more loving, become more meditative, and the problem will disappear. When you are full of love and meditativeness, you need not stuff yourself with food. The food is only a substitute -- because you are missing the inner food, you are trying to substitute it by outer food.

The man of repose always remains very very alert, aware, of what he is eating, how much he is eating. He cannot eat more than is needed, and he will not eat less than is needed. He is always in the middle, he is a balance.

TOO MUCH ATTENTION OR TOO LITTLE SHUN, FOR ENVY THUS, TO EITHER EXCESS IS ALIKE ATTACHED.

Pythagoras is always reminding you about the golden mean: be in the middle -- as much as Buddha goes on reminding about MAJJHIM NIKAYA, the middle path.

TOO MUCH ATTENTION OR TOO LITTLE SHUN...

Don't hanker for too much attention from people -- that is an ego trip. Don't try to become very famous, well-known, this and that -- that is an ego trip. But that does not mean start trying to become a nonentity -- that nobody should know you, that you should remain anonymous -- that is again the same trip on the other extreme. Avoid both.

All extremes have to be avoided. Excess is evil according to Pythagoras -- and it is. And to be in the middle, to be exactly in the middle, is virtue. Never be an ascetic, and never become indulgent. Don't eat too much food and don't go on long fasts. Don't become too much obsessed with luxury, and don't become too much anti-luxury, anti-comfort.

LUXURY AND AVARICE HAVE SIMILAR RESULTS. ONE MUST CHOOSE IN ALL THINGS A MEAN JUST AND GOOD.

Don't renounce the world, and don't be worldly either. Rejoice in the balance -- dance, because balance is dance. Sing because balance is a song. Become musical because balance creates music.

And remember, in each and everything the golden mean has to be followed. And if you can follow the golden mean, you will become gold, your baser metal will be transformed into the highest metal, gold.

Gold is a symbol of the ultimate peak -- that's why Pythagoras has called these sutras, GOLDEN VERSES. It is an alchemical expression. Down the ages alchemists have been trying to find ways to transmute baser metals into gold. Remember, they were not concerned with baser metals and gold at all: their whole purpose was how to transform man from a sexual animal into an ecstatic consciousness, how to transform the animal in man into God. That state is represented by gold.

Follow the golden mean and you will become the gold. Follow the path of balance and all the mysteries will be revealed to you. That's my message to my sannyasins too: Don't leave the world and yet be not of it.

Pythagoras

VOL. 2, PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS

Chapter-1

The Golden Mean