Logos: Power: Necessity

'Philosophy' means love of wisdom, and 'philosopher' means a friend of wisdom. Before Pythagoras, other words were used for the same purpose. For philosophy, the word SOPHIA was used - SOPHIA means wisdom; and for the philosopher, SOPHOS - SOPHOS means the wise man, the sage. They were beautiful words, but they had fallen, they had become associated with wrong people. They had fallen on bad times. Words also have good times and bad times, days of glory and days of humiliation.

SOPHOS IS a beautiful word - the sage. Remember, the sage does not mean the saint. The saint is against the sinner; it has a polar opposite to it. The saint is one who is not a sinner; he has chosen to be virtuous, against vice. The sinner is one who has chosen vice against virtue. They are polarities like negative and positive. The saint cannot exist without the sinner; the sinner cannot exist without the saint - they are partners, they can only co-exist. A world without saints will be a world without sinners too. If you really want sinners to disappear from the world, let the saints disappear first - and immediately there will be no sinner.

The existence of the saint creates the sinner. And the more you respect the saint, the more you condemn the sinner, and the rift goes on becoming bigger and bigger. And the irony is that they exist together, two sides of the same coin. They are not different, their logic is not different - just their choice is different. One has chosen the night part of life, the other has chosen the day part.

But life consists of both day and night; it is neither day alone nor night alone. Both are halves of one whole - hence both remain in misery.

Your sinners are miserable because they go on missing the beauties of virtue, the beauties of the other part that they have chosen not to choose. And your saints are miserable because they have repressed something which cannot be destroyed, which is an absolutely essential part of their being.

If you look deep into your saint, you will find a sinner hiding somewhere in his unconscious. And the same is the case with the sinner: look deep, and you will find a saint hiding somewhere in his unconscious. The conscious of the saint is the unconscious of the sinner, and the conscious of the sinner is the unconscious of the saint.

The sage is neither this nor that. He is NETI, NETI - neither this nor that - he has not chosen.

He has accepted his wholeness; he is total, as much day, as much night. He has dropped the constantly choosing ego. He has simply accepted whatsoever is the case. He lives the truth in its utter nakedness, whatsoever it is - he has no business to interfere in the stream of life.

The sage is a tremendously beautiful phenomenon, because of his wholeness. The sage is a perfect circle. He contains all, he rejects nothing. That was the idea of SOPHOS; it was a beautiful word.

But it fell from its reputation.

It fell because it is a dangerous word too: it can easily be used by the cunning people. Because the sage is whole, he is both, now the sinner can use it. He can say, "I am both. I don't choose - whatsoever is the case...." Now the sinner can pretend to be a sage. He can say, "Because it is so, this moment I am like this. This is happening - what can I do? I have dropped choosing. I have accepted life in its totality."

Now, the sage is a totally different phenomenon from this cunning person. This cunning person used the word and the word became associated with this cunning mind. It became a camouflage for doing whatsoever you want to do. Deep down there is choice, but you can pretend on the surface that you are not a chooser, and you live in choiceless awareness. It is a very subtle cunningness.

So the WORD SOPHOS fell from its pedestal and became 'sophist'. The word 'sophist' is ugly - it means a pretender. It means one who is pretending to be a sage and is not, one who is pretending to be a sage and is not even a saint. He is simply a sinner but has found a beautiful rationalization for remaining a sinner.

The murderer can say, "What can I do? - God intended to murder through me." The thief can say, "What can I do? - that's how God commanded me. I simply followed." And it will be very difficult to argue with him; he has a beautiful rationalization there.

So the SOPHOS fell and became a sophist. And the same happened with SOPHIA: wisdom IS not knowledge, but they look alike. Knowledge only pretends to be wisdom; it is just the opposite of wisdom. Knowledge is always borrowed, and because it is borrowed it is basically untrue.

Wisdom arises in you - it is your flowering, it is your fragrance. It is self-understanding, self-knowing.

You become luminous; you attain to a solid presence. You have a center, you feel rooted, integrated; you are no more fragmentary, you are one piece.

Wisdom is a revolution in your being: knowledge is just rubbish. You can gather it from others; it does not change you, you remain the same. Of course you become very decorated, you gain many beautiful masks, but your own face remains the same. You go on accumulating knowledge, your memory becomes richer and richer, but your being remains as poor as ever. But knowledge can pretend to be wisdom; they both use the same language.

For example: when Al Hillaj Mansoor declared "ANA'L HAQ! - I am God! " this was wisdom. It was coming from his very core. It was a declaration not made by him but made through him. You can learn it. You can start declaring "ANA'L HAQ! I am God! " but it will be just knowledge. Your life will not support it; your existence will not be a proof for it. In fact, your existence will continuously disprove it; your life will be just the opposite of it.

In India it has happened, in Greece it happened, in China it happened... it has been happening down the ages again and again. The Upanishads say the same thing in their own words; they declare "AHAM BRAHMASMI! - I am God!" And not only that "I am God - all are Gods."

The brahmins, the Indian priests, have been repeating this beautiful statement for thousands of years: "AHAM BRAHMASMI! - I am God and all are Gods!" Still untouchability exists. Still there are people who are not even worthy of being called human beings.

On the one side you go on repeating like parrots the beautiful statements of the Upanishads, of the seers, of the wise people, of those who have known.... They were real brahmins: a brahmin is one who has known the Brahma - one who has known the Absolute. One cannot be a brahmin by birth, and whenever you find a brahmin by birth, he is a hypocrite. A brahmin can only be by experience, existential experience; a brahmin can only be by self-realization. But how can untouchability exist with self-realized people? It is impossible. Untouchability exists.

On the one side people go on declaring, "All is God, there is nothing else but God. The whole existence is permeated with God. Each atom of it is full of God." And yet there are people who are not even worthy of being called human beings - what to say about their being Gods? They cannot be touched; it is a crime if they touch you. Not only that their touching is a crime: in the past even their shadow... if their shadow fell on you it was a crime. An untouchable could have been burnt alive just because his shadow had fallen on you.

And don't think these are things of the past: they are still being burnt alive - every day! Their women are raped, their houses burnt, their children killed. And this goes on happening in a country which calls itself the most religious country in the world. What kind of wisdom is this? And behind all this rape, murder, arson, are your brahmins, the claimers. They repeat the Vedas, the Upanishads, but it is only a tape in their minds. They repeat without knowing what they are repeating.

SOPHIA IS wisdom. Wisdom happens in the innermost shrine of your being. It is never borrowed, it has nothing to do with knowledge, information, nothing to do with scriptures, doctrines, systems of thought. It is your own experience, individual, authentic. You have known. You have arrived. Then it is SOPHOS - it IS wisdom.

If you are simply repeating from other people's experiences it is sophistry, it is knowledge - dead, meaningless, nothing but gibberish. You can decorate yourself with it, you can strengthen your ego through it, but you will not know the truth.

SOPHOS fell and there was that ugly phenomenon, the sophist. SOPHIA fell and what came into existence was sophistry. Sophistry is pure argument for argument's sake, with no concern for truth.

It is just linguistic analysis, logical, rational, of course, but not intuitive, not experiential.

And one can go on arguing and guessing, and yet, even if you argue for millennia you will not arrive at truth - because truth is never a conclusion, not a conclusion of any logical process. Truth has not to be invented by logic: truth has to be discovered by love. The way to truth is not logic but love.

Wisdom is love: knowledge is logic.

And whenever logic starts pretending that "I am the door, I am the way to truth," truth disappears from the world.

PYTHAGORAS HAD TO COIN NEW WORDS, and he coined beautiful words. 'Philosophy' means love of wisdom - not love of knowledge, remember, love of wisdom. Knowledge is intellectual, wisdom is intuitive. Knowledge is of the head, wisdom is of the heart. Hence love - not logic but love, not calculation but innocence, not cunningness but intelligence, not intellectuality but intelligence.

And he also coined the word 'philosopher' - a friend of wisdom. Have you ever observed? - whenever you start arguing with somebody you are more concerned with your ego than for the truth.

Sometimes you even see the falsity of your argument, but you cannot accept it because it hurts the ego. You argue because it is your opinion, not because it is true. You argue against the other's opinion because it is HIS opinion, not because it is untrue.

Argument arises not for truth but for egoistic trips - then it is sophistry, then it is a very ugly phenomenon.

You love a woman - it is a beautiful experience. A love between a man and a woman has tremendous truth, a fragrance of its own, a benediction. It is one of the most incredible mysteries of life. But to go to a prostitute is not the same - physically it is the same, spiritually it is totally different. The prostitute is an ugly phenomenon: the beloved is something divine.

Philosophy is like your beloved: sophistry is a prostitute. And the sophists did exactly that - prostitution. They were ready to argue for anybody, whosoever was ready to pay them. If you pay the sophist, he will argue for you. If somebody else pays him more, he will argue for him. He is even ready to argue against you if somebody is ready to pay him more.

I have heard:

Every Sunday, a priest was very much disturbed by an old man who was a very respectable man, rich, wealthy, of his congregation, He used to sit just in front of the priest, and he would fall asleep within seconds and would snore loudly. And of course it was very disturbing - just sitting in front of him. snoring.

The priest was disturbed: what to do? And the man was so rich that he could not say it to him, "This is not right." So he found a way. A small boy used to follow the old man, his great grandchild. The priest called the boy and he said, "I will give you four ANNAS every Sunday - whenever your old man starts falling asleep, you just nudge him, just wake him up." The boy was very happy and he did it, and the idea worked.

For three Sundays it was perfectly okay: whenever the old man would start snoring, the boy would shake him. But on the fourth Sunday, the old man was snoring, the priest was waiting, but the boy was sitting silently. After the sermon he called the boy and asked, "What is the matter? Have you forgotten?"

He said, "No. But now he is paying me one rupee per Sunday. He says. 'If you don't disturb me, I will give you one rupee.""

That was the case with the sophists. They were ready to argue for anybody, whosoever was ready to pay. They were great arguers. But wisdom has nothing to do with argument!

The Buddha is not an arguer - he has experienced something. If he uses logic and language, it is just to express what he has experienced, not to prove it. It is not that he comes to his experience through language and logic: first he has experienced it through meditation, then he uses logic and language to express it.

Logic and language are perfectly right as far as expression is concerned, but they are not creative - they are expressive. TRUTH IS needed in the first place to be expressed, then they are useful. But from the outside it is very difficult to know who is expressing his experience and who is just playing with words. It is very difficult for those who have not yet experienced anything on their own.

Pythagoras came to India, met great wise men; he met great seers, great brahmins. Saw for the first time what a wise man is! Meditated for years... became a wise man in his own right, became enlightened. And then he went back to Greece, and there he saw what had happened: the beloved had disappeared - there was only a prostitute.

He coined these new words - these words are beautiful, but they have again fallen into the same trap. Now if you go to the universities, either in the East or in the West, there exists no philosophy in the Pythagorean sense; there exists no philosopher, in the universities at least, in the sense that Pythagoras uses the word. In the universities it is again sophism, and the philosophers and the professors of philosophy in the universities are again sophists. Hence, philosophy is on a deathbed - go into any university and you will see it.

Thousands of students are coming for science, for mathematics, for physics, for chemistry, for biology, for geology. Ask how many students are coming for philosophy - not even enough to count on your fingers.

When I was a student of philosophy there were only three students. I was one, and the two others were girls. Just three persons, and the department had ten professors - three and one third professors for each student. And those two girls were not interested in philosophy at all. Their whole interest was to attain to a master's degree - it helps to get a better husband. And they could not get admission in any other subject, that's why they had chosen philosophy. They were not interested at all.

It used to happen again and again.... One of my professors was a very ascetic man; he had decided not to look at women. Now, two girls in the class - so he would teach with closed eyes . And those two girls were almost always absent, so only I was sitting there and he was standing with closed eyes. So I learnt to listen with closed eyes - in fact, he would speak and I would sleep.

One day he found it out. first he was thinking that I was also an ascetic and I had also decided not to look at women, and he was very happy to find at least one kindred soul. The whole university used to laugh at him, and he was thinking, "This is very good - at least one person is here...." But one day he found it out, because those two girls were not there, so he opened his eyes and I was fast asleep.

He asked me, "What is the matter?"

I said, "The matter is that I don't see ANY philosophy in what you are teaching. It is far better and more beneficial to have a good sleep. What you are teaching is just rubbish, rotten. You don't know a thing!"

And that was really the case. And the man was honest - first he was shocked, but then he recognized the truth. Because on that day he was talking about Patanjali and samadhi, and I asked him, "Do you know what samadhi is? Have you ever experienced it? All that you are saying is learned but not wise. All that you are saying is mechanical; it can be done by a computer in a far better and far more efficient way than you are doing it. You have read about samadhi - but reading about samadhi is not knowing samadhi. It is like a blind man who has read much about light and he can talk about light, he may even be able to write a great thesis about light, but he knows nothing of it. He knows nothing, not at all. He has no eyes."

This is happening all over the world, and the reason is not that the people are no more interested in truth - the reason is that philosophy has become sophistry again. Now the great philosophers of this century are nothing but linguists, logical positivists, logic-choppers. Bertrand Russell, G.E.

Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein - great names in philosophy, but all are concerned with language. They are not concerned whether God is or not; they are concerned with how many ways the word 'God' can be used, and whether the use is valid or not, whether the word 'God' can be used or cannot be used, and if it is used, what meaning it carries. They are NOT concerned with the truth of God: they are only concerned with the word 'God'. And they go on analysing.

Just think of a person analysing the word 'love' - will you call him a lover? Love is something to be experienced, something to be lived. A philosophy, to be truly a philosophy, has to be a philosophy of life. A philosophy worthy of its name has to be existential, experiential; it has to be based in meditation, not in argumentation.

Again, the word 'philosophy' has fallen into disrepute. A new word is needed. For instance, it will be better now to change 'philosophy' into 'philousia'. OUSIA comes from the root for 'essence'.

'Philousia' will mean one who desires essence or Isness, one who wants not just to think about it but to experience, realize, see.

That is really the meaning of the Indian word for philosophy, DARSHAN. DARSHAN means to see.

It will be better now to do exactly the same thing that Pythagoras did twenty-five centuries ago.

He changed SOPHIA into 'philosophy.' Now 'philosophy' needs to be changed again - I suggest 'philousia': the desire to see and experience essence or Isness and not getting contented with only thinking about it.

The sutra... the second part, purification, continues. The previous sutra was:

IF THOU CANST AT LEAST; FOR A MOST RIGID LAW BINDS POWER TO NECESSITY.

PYTHAGORAS RECOGNIZED TWO MOTIVES TO HUMAN actions: the first issuing from lower nature called necessity - the second emanating from a higher nature called power; but both are dependent upon the implied primordial law - TAO, DHAMMA, TORAH, LOGOS. In the East we have called the first PRAKRITI and the second PURUSH.

There is every possibility that sitting in communion with the Indian sages Pythagoras learnt about these two laws. He experienced them in his own being too, but the first glimpse seems to have happened in the East in a deep communion with an enlightened Master.

PRAKRITI means lower nature, the material nature, the visible. PURUSH means consciousness, awareness, the higher nature. Prakriti is like the circumference of a circle and purush is like the center of a circle. Pythagoras has his own words: the first he calls the law of necessity. The lower you come, the more and more the law of necessity functions. The higher you go in consciousness, the less and less the law of necessity functions and more and more the law of power, the law of freedom.

At the lowest, cause and effect is the only law, and because science recognizes only cause and effect it cannot recognize God, it cannot recognize consciousness. Its very methodology prohibits it.

Science remains tethered to the lowest rung of the ladder; and existence is a ladder, of many rungs.

And the ladder exists in you, in each human being, on a smaller scale.

Your body is prakriti, lower nature; your body follows the law of necessity. Even the body of a Buddha will follow the law of necessity. After youth, he will become old; after old age, he will die. Even for a Buddha, nature is not going to be different - it is a very rigid law. There are no exceptions to it.

That's why I say Jesus is not born of a virgin mother - because birth follows the lowest law of necessity. Nobody can be an exception to it. He was certainly born of a very innocent woman. If virginity is symbolic, then it is perfectly true; if it is a poetic expression of the innocence of Mariam, then it is perfectly right. But if you insist that it is a physiological phenomenon, that Mariam was a virgin, then you are simply being stupid. Birth follows the law of necessity.

And exactly the same is the case with the idea of resurrection. Once Jesus is dead there is no possibility of resurrection, because the law of necessity does not allow any exception. But if you mean by 'resurrection' that the real life never dies, that there is something eternal in you which goes on and on, continueS, that only the gross body dies and the subtlest core of your being is eternal...

if you mean by 'resurrection' a spiritual rebirth, then it is perfectly true. But it is not true in a historical sense.

And so is the case with everybody.

Jainas say that Mahavira never perspired - this is impossible. Your body consists eighty-five percent of water, and perspiration is the body's way of avoiding too much heat. When you perspire, the body is creating a certain kind of air-conditioning; when you perspire, the water comes to the surface of your skin and that water starts evaporating. For evaporation it needs heat, so it absorbs the heat of the body and your inner body remains at a cool temperature. This is a very natural phenomenon - unless your body is made of plastic or steel; then it is a totally different matter.

And Mahavira was moving naked; and in the hottest part of India, Bihar, on dusty roads. Even today they are dusty, so just think of twenty-five centuries ago.... And he was not perspiring? He would have died; without perspiration he could not have survived. It is part of the survival mechanism.

But each religion wants its founder to be exceptional. In a sense they are on the right track. In what sense are they right? They are right because a man like Mahavira, Jesus, Buddha, has attained to the other law also - the law of power - but their bodies will not follow it. The body belongs to the earth; it will follow the earthly law. Their consciousness belongs now to the world of power, to purush, not to prakriti. Their consciousness will have total freedom, absolute freedom; their consciousness will not know any limitation. But we cannot see their consciousness.

Unless we also reach those peaks, those climaxes, those ecstasies, we can only see the body. So we start creating stories, myths, about their bodies, as if their bodies became part of the higher law of power. It never happens. As a metaphor, good; as a myth, beautiful; but don't try to prove it historically.

Jainas say that when a snake bit Mahavira's toe, instead OF blood, milk started flowing. Now, this is very dangerous. That means instead of blood, milk was circulating in Mahavira's body - and milk cannot remain milk for long: it becomes curd. Long before this bite of the snake happened, Mahavira would have started stinking of curd.

But as a poetic expression it is beautiful. It simply shows... milk is a symbol of love. When a child is born to a woman, milk starts flowing from her breasts - out of love. Milk is a symbol, a poetic symbol, of love. The story simply says that even if a poisonous snake has bitten him, from Mahavira he cannot get anything except love - that's all. To represent it, the story has been written that blood never came out - instead of blood, milk started flowing. But don't be foolish and don't try to prove it physiologically, that actually milk was flowing.

The body remains part of the earth; your consciousness can become part of the sky, it belongs really to the sky.

Man is a meeting of these two laws: necessity and power, purush and prakriti, bondage and freedom, earth and sky, body and soul, the visible and the invisible, the gross and the subtle. Man is a meeting- point. That is the glory of man, and his misery too. That is the anguish if not understood well - because if you don't understand that you are a meeting of two immense powers, polar opposites, you will remain in a state of anxiety, anguish; you will feel torn apart, two forces pulling you apart.

Your life will become a great anxiety: what to be? this or that?

The earth pulls you downwards, the sky calls you upwards. The body says, "Follow me!" and the soul says, "Come with me!" And their ways are different; you cannot follow both simultaneously. It seems almost impossible. If you follow the body you start feeling guilty, because you have not listened to the deepest voice in your being, to that still, small voice. If you follow that still, small voice, you start feeling that you are being hard on your body. The body starts feeling undernourished, unloved, and the body starts rebelling against you.

So whatsoever you choose...! If you choose the body, the soul feels suffocated; if you choose the soul, the body feels undernourished, neglected, ignored. Either way you feel in a state of tension.

This is the misery of man.

But IF these two laws are understood, and you can understand the rhythm of these two laws, that they LOOK opposite, but deep down they are complementary.... All opposites are always complementary. Life and death are opposites and yet complementary. Man and woman are opposites, yet complementary. Good and bad, opposites yet complementary. If you can see the complementariness, then there arises a transcendence in you - and your glory comes into manifestation, you become a splendour.

That is the state of a Buddha, the state of a Jesus - call it Christ-consciousness or Buddha- consciousness or Krishna-consciousness, it doesn't matter what name you use, but the meaning is this. When your tension dissolves, your anxiety Is resolved, when you can be the body and the soul together in harmony, when you have learnt how to play with your body and your consciousness together, simultaneously, with no friction, then your life creates great music. That music is meditation.

Then your life becomes a melody of tremendous import. You become a festival, a celebration. You bloom.

You use the body as a foundation and you use your consciousness to create a temple. The body becomes the foundation, the consciousness becomes the temple. You use your body as a flute, and the consciousness becomes a song through the flute. You use the body as a sitar, and your consciousness becomes the music that arises out of it.

Have you not watched? On a physical instrument, material instrument, music arises which has nothing material in it, which is utterly spiritual. In the same way, Pythagoras says, these two fundamental laws, the law of necessity and the law of power, are rooted in one primordial law.

Lao Tzu calls that law TAO, Jesus calls that law LOGOS, Buddha calls that law dharma. Moses calls that law TORAH. There is a fundamental law where all dualities dissolve and become non-dual - that one is God, that primordial law is God, that primordial law is truth.

Truth has a body - that body consists of the law of necessity; and truth has a soul - that soul consists of the law of power. Man is both: a rope stretched between two eternities. That's how Friedrich Nietzsche has expressed it: a rope stretched between two eternities, between past and future, between matter and consciousness. And to walk on this tightrope needs great skill. You will have to become a tightrope walker.

That's what sannyas is all about, disciplehood is all about. The religious person is one who learns the art of walking on this tightrope. It is full of hazards! It is very dangerous too: just one step gone wrong and you fall, just one step gone wrong and you go astray; just a small mistake and great will be your fall.

The higher you move, the more dangerous your life becomes. But the more dangerous life is, the more worth living it is, the more meaning it has to it and more significance.

Nietzsche has also said: Live dangerously! What does he mean by 'live dangerously!'? Those who live only conveniently don't live at all; their life is nothing but a gradual death, a slow suicide. Life exists in its sharpness, in its brilliancy, only when you live dangerously. And the greatest danger is to move between the law of necessity and the law of power, as if you are moving between two Himalayan peaks, on a rope stretched between these two peaks... if you fall you are lost. But if you reach, the greatest glory is yours - God is yours, nirvana is yours.

Man is both... a rope... a ladder... a meeting of earth and sky, body and soul, bondage and freedom, samsara and nirvana... If YOU DON'T understand this you will remain in agony. If you understand this, ecstasy arrives. It IS the same energy that becomes agony, that becomes ecstasy. In ignorance, the same energy turns bitter and poisonous and creates hell. When you become aware, more alert, more watchful, a witness, the same energy is transformed - becomes a paradise.

Today's sutras in continuation:

STILL IT IS GIVEN THEE TO fiGHT AND OVERCOME THY FOOLISH PASSIONS: LEARN THOU TO SUBDUE THEM.

THESE WORDS WILL HAVE TO BE MEDITATED UPON, because twenty-five centuries have passed since those words were uttered and the meanings of all those words have changed. They were written before Freud. They were written in a totally different milieu, in a totally different atmosphere - they had a totally different meaning then. You will have to understand THAT meaning, not the meaning that you associate with these words.

STILL... Pythagoras says:... although it is difficult, because a very rigid law binds power to necessity.

It is dangerous to create the harmony, it is moving on the edge of a sword - but still it is possible, it is not impossible. It is difficult, but not impossible.

STILL IT IS GIVEN THEE . .

This is your birthright!

... TO fiGHT AND OVERCOME THY FOOLISH PASSIONS.

Here 'fight' does not mean what you will associate with the word 'fight'. Here 'fight' has a totally different meaning. In the Pythagorean mystery school, the word 'fight' means creating friction.

Gurdjieff used to give the same methods to his disciples: methods of friction. Create a friction in yourself - because out of friction, energy is released.

For example, you are feeling angry, great anger is arising in you. The Pythagorean method is: when anger is arising in you, just confront it; let great compassion arise in you. It will be difficult, because when you are angry how can you be compassionate. But it is not impossible.

In fact, anger and compassion are not two different energies. It is anger that becomes compassion; it is compassion that is lingering in anger. So if you can create compassion when anger is there, this is fight, friction - you are creating a duality, two peaks you are creating. And you have to walk between these two peaks on a tightrope, from anger to compassion. And if you can reach from anger to compassion, you have overcome anger.

When sex arises, create love - they are the same energy - and walk from sex to love. It is going to be difficult in the beginning, because we have completely forgotten the methods of friction. But try!

For example, you are feeling sad - start dancing. And you will be surprised by the change that immediately comes to you. The sadness is there in one corner, and in another corner, just the Opposite of it, a subtle joy starts arising. You will be surprised, utterly surprised. You will not be able to believe what is happening! When it happens for the first time that you are sad AND yet joyous, and both are together, this is fight, this is friction. And out of this friction, great energy is released, great fire arises in you - and that fire purifies. And fire always arises through friction.

The first man who created fire, must have created it by friction, by rubbing two stones against each other. The first idea of fire must have come to man from seeing bamboos or other trees in a great, strong wind catching fire - seeing friction happen naturally. It always happens in a bamboo forest:

if the wind is too much, the bamboos start rubbing against each other, they become hot, and soon fire arises. The first idea of fire must have come from seeing some natural state of friction.

The same is the case inwards too: create friction. Always create the opposite of whatsoever is happening in you. first you will say that it is not possible, because you have never tried it. But remember, everything that you feel always remains in you. Sometimes it is in a manifest form, and sometimes it is in a dormant form. So when you try to create the opposite, all that you are doing is waking up something which is dormant.

You have loved before, you have been very compassionate before, you know what compassion is.

Now there is anger. Somewhere, in some chamber of your being, compassion is fast asleep - wake it up. And once you have learnt that it can be awakened, there will be great friction in you. Anger and compassion will start fighting.

And remember always: whenever there is a fight between the lower and the higher, the higher wins; the lower cannot win. The lower can win only if the higher is absent; the lower wins only in the absence of the higher. Once the higher is there, the lower has no power.

That's why Pythagoras calls the higher the law of power.

STILL IT IS GIVEN THEE TO fiGHT AND OVERCOME THY FOOLISH PASSIONS: LEARN THOU TO SUBDUE THEM.

Your passions are foolish. Remember, Pythagoras is not against passions - because they contain all the energy that you have. He is against foolishness. The moment your passion take the colour of intelligence, they are perfectly beautiful When sex is just an unconscious, mechanical urge in you, it is wrong. Remember, sex is not wrong:

the mechanicalness c it is wrong. If you can bring some light of intelligence into you sexuality, that light will transform it. It will not be sexuality any more - it will be something totally different, so different that you don't have a word for it.

In the East we have a word for it, 'tantra'. In the West you don't have any word for it. When sex becomes joined together is yoked with intelligence, a totally new energy is created - that energy is called Tantra.

The word 'tantra' means the capacity of expansion, that which goes on expanding. Sex shrinks you, Tantra expand you. It is the same energy, but it takes a turn. It is no longer selfish, no longer self-centered. It starts spreading - it starts spreading to the whole existence. In sex, for a moment you can attain to the orgasm, and at a great cost. In Tantra you can live in the orgasm twenty-four hours a day, because your very energy becomes orgasmic. And your meeting is no longer with any individual person: your meeting is with the universe itself. You see a tree, you see a flower, you see a star, and there is something like orgasm happening.

The man who has become absolutely intelligent, alert, aware, lives in an orgasmic way. His every movement is full of orgasmic peaks, and peaks upon peaks. And when Tantra has happened, sex disappears. Sex is a seed, Tantra is the tree - let the seed die and the tree will be born.

Each of your energies can have two forms: one is intelligent, one is foolish. Pythagoras is not against your passions - no Wise man can ever be against your passions - but every wise man is against foolishness, is against ignorance, is against darkness, is against stupidity, mechanicalness.

In sex you function like a robot. Something from the law of necessity, something from prakriti, something from lower nature, grips you, and you are no more yourself - you are a slave. When you are a master of your own being, then you live in the same world but with totally different eyes - the same world becomes divine.

That is the meaning of the declaration of Zen Masters: samsara IS nirvana - this very world is enlightenment. All that is needed is a change in you from foolishness to wisdom, from unawareness to awareness.

STILL IT IS GIVEN THEE TO fiGHT AND OVERCOME THY FOOLISH PASSIONS, LEARN THOU TO SUBDUE THEM.

They are not to be destroyed but only subdued. And remember, subduing does not mean repression - not in Pythagoras' methodology. Subduing simply means: if you become aware, you become the master and the passions become your slaves. As slaves they are beautiful, as masters they are dangerous.

Freedom means mastery over thyself, and bondage means no mastery over thyself. When you are unaware you are a victim of a thousand and one stupid passions - anger, sex, greed, pride, and so on and so forth. As you become alert, as you watch your passions, as you watch what is happening to you, as you de-automatize your actions, as you bring more and more alertness to your mechanical reactions, and transform them into less and less mechanical things, a mastery arises. And all those passions which were clamouring to be the masters simply become servants.

It happens almost like when in a small class all the children are fighting and rushing at each other and throwing things... and then the principal enters the room. Suddenly everybody is at his desk; they have opened their books. Suddenly silence prevails. The principal has not said a single word - just his presence.

When your master enters - and by 'master' I mean when your awareness is awakened - all your passions immediately fall in line. They no longer clamour for mastery: the master has arrived. They were fighting for mastery because the real master was absent.

This is subduing. Become a witness of your passions and subduing happens.

BE SOBER, DILIGENT, AND CHASTE; AVOID ALL WRATH. IN PUBLIC OR IN SECRET NEVER PERMIT THOU ANY EVIL, AND ABOVE ALL ELSE RESPECT THYSELF:

THE fiRST AND THE FOREMOST principle of Pythagorean philosophy is RESPECT THYSELF:

Your priests have been telling you not to respect yourself. They teach you to respect somebody else - respect the Buddha, Mahavira, Christ - respect somebody else and condemn yourself. There is a subtle strategy in it: if you respect somebody else, you can respect them only if first you condemn yourself. If you DON'T condemn yourself then there is no possibility of respecting the other. ,If you respect yourself, then there is nobody higher and nobody lower, nobody superior and nobody inferior. Then a totally different phenomenon happens which cannot be called respect: it is closer to love than respect.

The real disciple loves the Master - because he has seen in the Master something of his own being, something of his own unknown being has become known through the Master. He respects himself, and he respects the Master because he respects himself. But now the respect has a different colour:

it is not formal, it is not imposed - it is part of love. Love knows nobody as higher, nobody as lower.

Love never thinks in terms of higher and lower. Respect is a formal thing: love is informal. Respect is again a cultivated thing: love, uncultivated, spontaneous... something arises in you.

For example, if you are born a Christian you respect Christ; if you are a born Hindu you respect Krishna. If the Hindu meets Christ he will not respect him; and if a Hindu meeting Christ cannot respect him, how can he respect Krishna really? He does not know a thing about Krishna either, because the man who has understood Krishna and loved Krishna will love Christ too, because Christ will be another form of the same energy.

If you have loved Buddha, you will love all the Buddhas of the world - in whatsoever form they appear, in whatsoever way they appear, you will be able to recognize them immediately, instantly.

But the man who respects will not be able to recognize them because his respect is just formal.

He can only respect Buddha because he has been taught to. He will not respect Mahavira, he will not respect Mohammed, no - impossible. How can a Jaina respect Mohammed? Impossible! But that simply shows he has not even loved Mahavira, he has not known Mahavira; otherwise, knowing Mahavira, he will have known the taste of all those who are enlightened.

You can taste the sea from anywhere - it is always the same taste: the taste of salt. It makes no difference whether it is the Indian Ocean, or it is the Pacific, or it is the Atlantic - it makes no difference: the taste is the same.

The first thing is: ABOVE ALL... RESPECT THYSELF - because unless you respect yourself you will not be able to know yourself. We can know only if we love, if we respect. We will go inside only if we think we are moving into some glory. If you think you are a wretched rotten being, a sinner, condemned from the very beginning, if you hate yourself, if you feel unworthy, how can you go in?

Who wants to go into a hell? You will avoid, you will never go in.

And I agree with Pythogoras absolutely that for meditation the basic requirement is a tremendous respect for oneself. And remember, it is not egoism. In respecting yourself, you respect everybody else - because everybody has a self in the same way as you have. If you respect YOUR inner being, in that very respect you have respected all the beings of the world. In respecting yourself, you will respect the tree and the mountain because they also have their own being.

Self-respect is not egoism: it is just the opposite. It is glorying in the great gift God has given to you.

It is gratitude.

Then... BE SOBER... The Pythagorean principle is that of the golden mean - by 'sober' he means don't be too serious and don't be too non-serious either. That is sober, just exactly in the middle.

The too serious person is ill; the too non-serious person is also ill. Be sober, exactly in the middle.

Excess is evil according to Pythagoras. To be in the middle is to be balanced.

That s what Buddha says: MAJJKIM NIKAYA - the middle way. That's what Confucius says: To be in the middle is the way of the wise. To be exactly in the middle is to go beyond duality. In the exact middle is tranquillity, equilibrium, balance and transcendence.

BE SOBER, DILIGENT...

Again, remember the golden mean - that is the fundamental of Pythagorean philosophy. 'Diligence' does not mean too much activity, feverish activity, no. Neither too much activity nor too much inactivity - just exactly in the middle, a balance between inactivity and activity is diligence. Don't be mad in activity, don't be restless - as the West has become. People cannot rest at all; they are as if possessed by demons. They have to go on working. They cannot sit silently even for a few moments.

The East has moved to the other extreme: it has become lethargic, inactive, fatalistic; nobody wants to do anything. Everybody in the East is allergic to work. The West is getting madder and madder because of too much activity; and the East is getting poorer and poorer, sicker and sicker, because of too much inactivity.

We need a new man on the earth, a Pythagorean man: the man who walks in the middle. We need a man who is neither Eastern nor Western. We need a man who knows how to be active and who knows how to be inactive. We need a man who can bring a harmony between inactivity and activity, who can remain utterly relaxed even while engaged in work; who is not allergic to work and who is not allergic to no-work either That is diligence.

... AND CHASTE... The saint and the sinner have both gone to the excess. Neither is the saint chaste nor the sinner. The sinner has moved into vice too much, and the saint has moved into virtue too much. The saint has become righteous; a great pride and ego has arisen in him that "I am a saint!" And the sinner has gone into wrong ways so much that great condemnation has arisen in him that "I am a sinner, I am worthless."

Who is the chaste person? The chaste person is one who has no excess in him - excess is impurity according to Pythagoras, and according to me too. Excess is impurity. And not to exceed is to be pure, chaste, exactly in the middle; no tensions pulling you this way or that.

Chastity means you are natural, relaxed; you have not chosen a certain character for yourself. All characters are unchaste You have not chosen a certain morality OR immorality. You have not chosen anything! You simply remain watchful and you respond moment-to-moment out of the chastity of your watchfulness. Watchfulness is chastity - it is virgin, it is pure.

Remember, when you become a witness of your being, you become like the sky. Clouds come and go - black clouds and white clouds. theY all come and go - but the sky remains uncontaminated.

No cloud leaves any trace, any stain on it. In exactly the same way there is an inner sky in you - the sky of consciousness. It is chaste! If you choose something - if you have chosen this cloud or that cloud - you have fallen from your chastity, you have fallen from your virginity. You have become identified. To become identified is to become impure. To remain unidentified is to remain pure.

And... AVOID ALL WRATH. Avoid all rage, because whatsoever you do in rage, in a violent turmoil, is going to be wrong. Even if you do something right, it is going to be wrong.

It happened in Pythagoras' own life - this sutra is based on that experience. He had returned from the East and many seekers had started gathering around him. He had brought that magnetism of non-being. He had brought something tremendously valuable, a treasure, and people who were in search started coming. He was very very enthusiastic to give the message that he had brought, to share the treasure. And he was getting old, and he had brought so much wealth from the East, inner wealth, he was afraid whether he would be able to share it or not. His whole life he had searched!

So he was in a hurry, and the disciples who had gathered, the first group of disciples, he was very hard on them. Naturally. He wanted them to grow as fast as possible. Who knows? - tomorrow he may die. He was getting old. And not only was that a danger: the herd mind, the crowd mind, was going against him.

The seekers of truth were falling in love with him, but there are people who live so deeply in their lies... they were all getting hurt. There was every danger that he might be killed. If natural death was not going to come. there was every possibility that the herd might kill him. So naturally he was in a hurry. And he was more hard on those who were more capable.

The MOST capable disciple did something wrong - he acted in an unconscious way. And Pythagoras, out of love and compassion, chastised him, was very hard on him. It appeared to the disciple as if the Master was angry. He was not angry, but even to appear angry to the disciple proved very fatal.

The disciple must have been of real caliber - he committed suicide. And the wound went deep into Pythagoras. Never was he heard again to be hard on any disciple. Not a single word did he utter which could be taken as if the Master was angry. The disciple felt so guilty that he committed suicide.

Must have been that kind of man... Buddha says there are good horses and bad horses, and good horses are those for whom just the shadow of the whip is enough. You need not beat them: just the shadow of the whip....

That disciple must have been very close to truth. Such great qualities are rare: to feel so bad because he had betrayed the Master. He had promised to be conscious and he had fallen from consciousness. He could not think of anything else. He killed himself.

From that day, Pythagoras made it a point: AVOID ALL WRATH - even if it is in the cause of good, don't be angry. Anger functions like a poison; even if it is associated with good, it will poison the good, it will destroy its beauty.

IN PUBLIC OR IN SECRET NEVER PERMIT THOU ANY EVIL...

WHAT IS EVIL? Unconsciousness is evil. To act unconsciously is evil. And what is virtue? To act consciously is virtue. Pythagoras never gives any morality to the world; no real sage has ever given any morality to the world; no real sage has ever given any morality to the world. From real wisdom has come always only one voice: Become more alert in whatsoever you are doing. In private or in public, function consciously, act consciously.

It is said:

One day Buddha was walking - it must have been just before he was enlightened - with a disciple.

He had gathered a few disciples even before he became enlightened, because a light had started spreading - just as early in the morning, the sun has not risen yet but the sky becomes red and the earth becomes full of light. The sun is just going to rise above the horizon.

Just before Buddha became enlightened, he had five disciples. He was walking with those five disciples; a fly sat on his head. He was talking to the disciples; without paying much attention, mechanically he moved his hand, the fly went away. Then he stopped, closed his eyes. The disciples could not understand what was happening, but they all became silent - something precious was happening.

His face became very luminous, and he raised his hand very o slowly, and again moved it near his forehead as if the fly was Sitting there. It was not there any more. The disciples asked, "What are you doing? The fly is no more there."

He said, "But now I am moving my hand consciously - that time I did it unconsciously. I missed an opportunity of being conscious. I was too much engaged in talking with you and the hand simply moved mechanically. It should have moved consciously. Now I am moving it as it should have moved."

This is the path of virtue: to become so alert that even small acts, even small gestures, movements, all become full of awareness.

SPEAK NOT NOR ACT BEFORE THOU HAST REFLECTED; BE JUST.

This word 'reflection' has also to be understood. It does not mean, as dictionaries say, thinking - it means exactly, literally, reflecting, mirroring. If you read this sutra, you will think: SPEAK NOT NOR ACT BEFORE THOU HAST REFLECTED... YOU will think first one has to think about it and then one has to act. No. You have read it wrongly.

One has to be a mirror! Thinking is just the opposite of reflection. Reflection simply means WITHOUT thinking, just being alert, a mirror, and LET THE ACT ARISE OUT OF THAT MIRRORING - and then it will always be good. If you think, what will you think? You will bring the past - past experiences, memories - and you will act out of the past. And to act out of the past is to be irresponsible. To act out of the past is not to act but react; it is mechanical. To act in the moment, to act spontaneously now and here, needs reflection not thinking.

Become a mirror. Be in a meditative state before you act or before you say a word, and then nothing will ever go wrong. You will never need to repent.

And... Be JUST. What does Pythagoras mean by being just? Don't have double standards; don'; use one standard for yourself and another standard for the other. Keep only one standard - that is justness.

We all go on having double standards.

The son of Mulla Nasruddin asked him, "Papa, if a Mohammedan becomes a Christian, what will you call him?"

He said, "He is a renegade!"

And the son thought it over and he said, "If a Christian becomes a Mohammedan, what will you call him?"

And he laughed and he said, "He is a man of understanding."

This is double standard. If a Hindu becomes a Christian, Christians think understanding has arisen in him; if a Christian becomes a Hindu, he has betrayed, he has to be condemned. These are double standards.

The man of justness will have only one standard for himself and for everybody else.

... REMEMBER THAT A POWER INVINCIBLE ORDAINS TO DIE...

Death is coming. It has already come with your birth. Birth has determined your death. You cannot avoid it; there is no way of avoiding it. The only way to avoid death is not to be born. But you are already born, so death is going to follow as day follows night.

Remember it, because we go on forgetting about death. We go on living here as if we are here for ever - and that's how we miss all the opportunities of searching for the real self, the true treasure, the kingdom of God. We go on remaining concerned with the trivial, thinking, "We are going to be here, so what is the hurry? Tomorrow we will search for God; today let us have a little more money in the bank."

... THAT RICHES AND THE HONOURS EASILY ACQUIRED, ARE EASY THUS TO LOSE.

Death will take everything away from you. Empty-handed you come and empty-handed you will go... unless and until YOU LOOK within, you will remain empty. Look within, and you become an emperor; the beggar immediately disappears from you. The mind is a beggar, and the soul is an emperor.

To know oneself is to know that nothing is needed, that all is already given: "I have the greatest treasure, I have the whole kingdom of God. There is no point in adding anything to it - nothing can be added to it, it is already perfect."

So if you want to search and seek, search and seek for the true treasure - which cannot be taken away by death. This is the criterion: that which can be taken away by death is a false treasure; that which cannot be taken away by death is a true treasure.

AS TO THE EVILS WHICH DESTINY INVOLVES, JUDGE THEM WHAT THEY ARE; ENDURE THEM ALL AND STRIVE, AS MUCH AS THOU ART ABLE, TO MODIFY THE TRAITS. THE GODS, TO THE MOST CRUEL, HAVE NOT EXPOSED THE SAGE.

AND THERE WILL BE MANY TROUBLES and many pains in life - they are part of growth. Accept them for what they are. That does not mean become morbid; that does not mean become a masochist. Whatsoever happens, endure it, but if you can improve upon it, if you can modify it, modify it. Very sane advice.

The danger is there. One danger is that people start fighting with every pain in life; they want to avoid all pains - but then growth is avoided. This is one pitfall. The other pitfall is: people start accepting pains, not only accepting them - inviting; not only inviting but creating pains. As if by going through many pains they will grow faster. They become self-destructive, they become suicidal. Both are extremes and both have to be avoided.

If some pain comes in your life, accept it, endure it - watchfully grow through it. If you can see that you can modify it a little bit here and there, then modify it, because modifying it is also part of growth.

And remember always:

THE GODS, TO THE MOST CRUEL HAVE NOT EXPOSED THE SAGE.

And the wise man is not exposed, really, to any agony, any hell. Whatsoever the sage is exposed to is part - part of a growing life. Life cannot grow without challenges; and pains, miseries, sufferings bring challenges. You cannot become aware without suffering. Suffering evokes awareness in you.

EVEN AS TRUTH, DOES ERROR HAVE ITS LOVERS; WITH PRUDENCE THE PHILOSOPHER APPROVES OR BLAMES, IF ERROR TRIUMPH, HE DEPARTS AND WAITS.

Remember, the whole world is not in love with truth - in fact, the majority is against it, the majority is not ready to accept truth. It has invested in lies too much. They will be against you. So he says:

EVEN AS TRUTH, DOES ERROR HAVE ITS LOVERS...

Don't be angry at them - that is their choice. If they love the errors, the lies, it is perfectly okay. They have the freedom; don't be angry with them, don't condemn them.

WITH PRUDENCE THE PHILOSOPHER APPROVES OR BLAMES...

And if sometimes the philosopher approves or blames, it is always with great alertness, awareness.

It is not to condemn anybody and not to praise anybody but to help - but to become a blessing to all.

IF ERROR TRIUMPH, HE DEPARTS AND WAITS.

And there is no necessity that you will triumph because you have the truth with you. Jesus was crucified - that is truth crucified! Socrates was poisoned - that is truth poisoned. So don't go on thinking that if you have the truth you are going to win. The herd mind believes in its own ignorance, in its own blindness, in its own superstitions. And the herd mind is powerful; it is the majority on the earth.

SO IF ERROR TRIUMPH... there is every possibility that error will triumph... then the wise man, the philosopher, DEPARTS - departs into himself - AND WAITS... waits for the right moment. He is not angry, he is not frustrated. He does not expect that truth will win. Whatsoever happens he accepts it, and waits for the right moment. If the right moment arises, he will declare the truth again.

But he is always waiting. It is none of his business to impose himself on people - he never imposes.

He loves and respects people and their freedom and their dignity and their choice. He has no idea of dominating people. He waits....

It has always been so. The Master waits for the disciple to come. The real Master always waits for the disciple to come. In fact, he never goes in search of the disciple, because that will somehow be imposing himself upon others. Those who are thirsty are bound to come. If they come, good - he shares whatsoever he has. If they don't come, it is perfectly good... it is their freedom to come or not to come.