Where the positive and negative meet

The old pond

Frog jumps in

The sound of water

THIS IS ONE of the most famous haiku by Matsuo Baso. It has that special flavor that only awakened people are aware of. Its beauty is not only aesthetic but existential. Its fragrance is that of Buddhahood.

Tao simply means that which is, with no qualification, with no adjective. Tao means: just so.

The old pond

Frog jumps in

The sound of water

Haiku is not ordinary poetry. The ordinary poetry is of imagination. The ordinary poetry is a creation of the mind. Haiku simply reflects that which is. Consciousness becomes a mirror and reflects that which confronts it. The mirror remains untouched by what it reflects. An ugly person passes before I mirror - the mirror does not become ugly, the mirror remains in its sameness. A beautiful person passes by, the mirror does not become beautiful either. And when there is nobody to reflect, the mirror is still the same. Reflecting, not reflecting, reflecting good, reflecting bad, the mirror remains virgin.

So is the consciousness of one who has awakened.

Baso was a disciple of the Zen Master, Buko. The time this incredibly beautiful haiku was born, he was living in a small hut by the side of an old pond. One day, after a brief rain, Master Buko visited Baso and asked, "How is your understanding these days?"

Remember, the Master has not asked, "How is your knowledge?" He has asked, "How is your understanding?"

Understanding is totally different from knowledge. Knowledge is borrowed, understanding is one's own. Knowledge comes from without, understanding wells up within. Knowledge is ugly, because it is secondhand. And knowledge can never become part of your being. It will remain alien, it will remain foreign, it cannot get roots into you. Understanding grows out of you, it is your own flowering.

It is authentically yours, hence it has beauty, and it liberates.

Truth can never be borrowed from anybody, and the borrowed truth is no longer truth. A borrowed truth is already a lie. The moment truth is said, it becomes a lie. Truth has to be experienced, not to be heard, not to be read. Truth is not just going to be a part of your accumulation, part of your memory. Truth has to be existential: each pore of your being should feel it. Yes, it has to be a feeling.

Each breath should be full of it. It should pulsate in you, it should circulate in you like your blood.

When truth is understood, you become it.

Hence the Master Buko asked his disciple, "Baso, how is your understanding these days?" And don't forget those two beautiful words, 'these days'.

Truth is always growing. Truth is a movement. It is not static, it is dynamic. It is a dance. It is like growing trees and flowing rivers and moving stars. Truth is never, at any point, a static phenomenon.

It is not stasis; it is utterly dynamic, it is movement. To be alive it has to be moving.

Only death is static, only death is stagnant. Hence the people who are dead may look alive on the surface, but if their truth is no longer growing they are dead. Their soul is no longer growing. Truth is not an idea but your very being, your very soul.

Hence the Master asked, "How is your understanding THESE days?" He is not asking about the past. Knowledge is always about the past, imagination is always about the future. He is asking about the present, he is asking about the immediate.

Baso responded, Rain has passed Green moss moistened.

Just a few moments before, it was raining: the rain has passed, green moss moistened. It is good, but not VERY good. It is already past. It is no longer immediate. It is a memory already, it is no longer experiencing. Buko was not contented - the answer was good but not great. And a Master is never contented unless the answer is absolute, unless the answer is really as it should be - and certainly not with the potential of a man like Baso.

Now nobody knows about Buko, his Master. He is known only because of Baso. The disciple had infinite potential; the Master cannot be contented so easily. Remember it! - the more potential you have, the more you will be put to hard tasks. The Master will be severe with you. He is going to be very hard on you.

The answer was good if it had come from somebody of lesser potential than Baso; the Master might have nodded his head in consent - but not to Baso. Even a few minutes' gap is gap enough. The rain is no more there, the clouds have dispersed, it is already sunny, the sun is shining all around, on the old pond, on the hut....

He said, "Say something more!"

And when the Master says, "Say something more," he does not mean talk a little more about it. He does not mean 'more' in a quantitative sense. He means: say something deeper, say something more intense, say something more existential. say something more, qualitatively!

At that instant Baso heard the plop of a frog jumping into the pond.

He said, Frog jumps in The sound of water Now, this is Tao: the immediate, that which is, alive, throbbing, this very moment. Tao knows no past, no future. Tao knows only one kind of time, that is present. Tao knows only herenow. Just let your mind disappear and then there is no past and no future. Past and future are mind creations. In reality, there is only present. And when there is no past, no future, how can you even call it present?

- because present has meaning only in reference to past and future.

The present is sandwiched between past and future. If you have taken away past and future, the present also disappears. That is the moment of Tao: when time disappears, when one is in utter immediacy, when one is utterly herenow, neither roaming somewhere in the ghosts of the past or in the unborn images of the future. This is the moment of enlightenment: when time is not, and when you are utterly here and nowhere else. And when there is no time, there is no mind. Mind and time are synonymous. The more mind you have, the more you are conscious of time. That's why in the Western world a great time-consciousness has arisen: it is because of the cultivation of the mind.

Go to the primitive people living in the mountains or in the jungles. Go to the aboriginals and there is no time-consciousness, because the mind has not been cultivated yet. And it again happens - when through understanding one drops all the nostalgia for the past and all the fancies for the future, time disappears again. And with the disappearance of time, suddenly mind is no more found. And when there is no mind there is silence. In that silence the beyond penetrates the earth. In that silence the unknown descends into you. In that silence, the meeting with God. In that silence, the benediction, the blessing. In that silence is the Kingdom of God.

Baso said, Frog jumps in The sound of water.

This is a statement of Tao. This is Tao - simple, pure, nude.

At this response the Master was immensely delighted. The Master is always delighted whenever a disciple comes back home. The delight of the Master knows no bounds, as if he becomes enlightened again! More perfection is added to his already perfect being. He needed nothing to be added to him, but each time a disciple flares up into awareness, becomes aflame, the Master feels as if he has again become enlightened.

The Master was immensely delighted, and the very delight of the Master became the occasion of Baso's enlightenment. Seeing the delighted face of the Master, seeing the aura of his joy, the nod of his consent - or maybe he said nothing - his silence showering on the disciple as grace, Baso became enlightened! What a moment to become enlightened! Thousands of people have become enlightened in the past, but the way Baso became enlightened is simply unique. Because the Master was delighted, the very delight of the Master penetrated his heart like a sword. Flowers showered on him, because the Master must have smiled.... The unheard music was heard because the Master must have looked at him with joy, with blessing.

I don't know, but Buko must have danced or done something crazy like that. The enlightenment of a disciple is no small matter.

Later on, Baso continued to polish the haiku like a diamond. For his whole life he continued to polish it - because this is a rare phenomenon, this small haiku:

The old pond Frog jumps in The sound of water.

It was because of this that his own process of enlightenment was triggered. He continued to polish it like a diamond. He continued to cut it and give it more and more depth.

He added: The old pond. The first statement was only:

Frog jumps in The sound of water.

Later on he added: the old pond. My feeling is that the old pond must have insisted on being included. And the old pond had every right to be included - without the old pond there would have been no frog, no jumping in, no sound of water. Baso owed much to the old pond; he included it.

Now the haiku was:

The old pond Frog jumps in The sound of water.

And still later on, he dropped the words 'of water'.

Now the haiku was not so perfect as before, but more complete than before. Now it was:

The old pond Frog jumps in The sound It is not so perfect as before, but it is more complete. What do I mean when I say it is more complete?

Now it is a growing phenomenon, it does not put a full stop. Before there was a full stop, it was a finished product; you could not have added anything to it. It didn't leave anything for you to meditate upon. But just 'the sound', and it opens a door. There is no full stop anymore. It becomes a quest.

So now it is more complete but less perfect. Now it is utterly complete, complete in the sense that it is growing. Now it is a tree growing, unpredictable. Now each one has to meditate over it. And this became one of the great meditations for the seekers who were to follow Baso. Now it has more beauty than before.

Always remember, anything complete, anything absolutely complete, loses something from it - it becomes dead. All the great painters know this. And the greatest paintings are those which have been left a little bit incomplete, the last touch has not been given to them. And the greatest poems are those which have been left incomplete - so a door remains open for you to enter, so your being can have a communion with the incomplete poetry, so your being can complete it, so it can be completed in your existence.

Now it was, The old pond Frog jumps in The sound Still later, he dropped a few more things. Now it became, The old pond Frog jumps in Plop!

Now this is getting to the crescendo: just 'plop!' This is truer - truer to the frog, truer to the pond, truer to reality. The reality knows only 'plop!' and it simply leaves you there - to wonder, to inquire, to meditate.

Somebody asked Baso, "Why have you dropped the words 'of water' and finally even 'the sound'?"

Baso said, "I want you to hear what kind of sound it is. I don't want to say, I want you to hear what kind of sound it is."

You are left in a new kind of meditative space. Suddenly the old pond becomes a reality very close by. You can feel it, it is here. And the frog jumps in. It is not a frog of the past... "Plop!" you can hear it again. It becomes a reality. This is great art, that what the artist lived through, he can create again in somebody who is receptive, who is available, who is ready to go on the journey of exploration.

This is the way of all the Buddhas. Their statements are nothing but triggering points of a certain process in you called meditation. This is the way of Tao: to bring you to that which is. This is my way too: to help you to fall utterly in the moment. THIS moment! THIS is it!

Tao is not a doctrine. It is a special way of becoming aware. It is the way of awakening, the way of enlightenment, the way of coming back home. Tao simply means 'the Way'. And remember, it docs not mean it in the ordinary sense of the word. Whenever you hear the words 'the way' you start thinking of a goal somewhere faraway, of where the way leads you. No, Tao means 'the Way', but not in reference to a goal Then what does it mean? It means 'the way things are'. It simply means the way things are, already are, just so.

Nothing has to be achieved, all is showering on you. Just be herenow and celebrate.

My definition of religion is celebration.

But there are people who would not like such a simple phenomenon as Tao: their egos do not feel challenged enough, they are always interested in the hard way. They are always interested in difficulties. If there are not difficulties, they will create them. They cannot do things in a simple way.

They are almost incapable of being simple, and to be simple is the only way to be in God. God is simplicity, innocence.

God is as simple as the rosebush and the call of the cuckoo from the mango grove. God is as simple as the giggle of a girl. God is as simple as a leaf falling from the tree. God is as simple as the breeze passing through the ancient pine trees.

But there are people who would not like God to be so simple. These are the people who create theologies, these are the people who create difficult, abstract speculations about God, who make the whole thing so difficult that it becomes almost incomprehensible. And God is very simple.

The old pond Frog jumps in Plop!

Yes, God is like that....

It has to be remembered again and again by you, because your ego will play tricks on you. That is how people go on missing the simple way of Tao. Christianity has so much of a following, Buddhism has a great following, Islam has a great following, but Tao is still not a church. It never has been a church, it never became an organization. Individuals have existed, individuals have followed it, individuals have attained through it, but it never became the way of the masses. Why? - because it is available only to those who are ready to drop the ways of the ego, who are ready to be simple, innocent, childlike.

There are some people who always look for the difficult side of the problem. To them the easy solution never appears, they always have to think of the most complicated one.

I recall a young man who was applying for admission to one of the most exclusive country clubs in Newport. The rather reserved, unimpressive-looking young man was notified that he must play a round of golf with the club officers as a prerequisite to his acceptance.

On the appointed afternoon he met them on the first tee equipped with a hockey stick, a croquet mallet and a billiard cue. The officers looked him over incredulously but nevertheless proceeded to tee off. To their dismay the young man coolly drove off 275 yards with the hockey stick, gracefully arched his second shot to the green with the croquet mallet and sank a twenty-foot putt with a billiard cue.

After soundly drubbing the baffled officers with a subpar 68, the applicant retired with them to the club bar. There he ordered a Scotch and soda, and when it arrived he mixed the drink himself by tossing the contents of the shot glass over his shoulder into the waiting soda behind him on the bar.

This further display of the young man's incredible physical coordination was too much for the officers of the club.

"You are miraculous!" they exclaimed. "What is the story behind these fantastic talents of yours?"

"All my life," the man explained, "physical activity of any sort has been child's play for me. To overcome the boredom that has resulted from my monotonous mastery of everything, I try to do almost everything the most difficult way possible. Thus I play tennis with a ping-pong paddle, ping- pong with a tennis racket, and so on."

"Wait a minute," interrupted one of the club officers. "If it is true, as you say, that you do everything physical in the most difficult manner possible, I have one question... "

"I know," said the young man, smiling. "Everyone asks me the same thing, and I don't mind telling you - standing up, in a hammock."

This is the way of the ego.

Tao is simple, utterly simple. You don't have to stand up in a hammock. The most fundamental thing about Tao is that it is a child's play. But to be a child seems to be almost impossible for people.

Who wants to be a child?Jesus says, "Unless you are like small children, you will not enter into my Kingdom of God." But it seems nobody wants to be a child; that is where our misery lies.

All these days we have been going deeper and deeper into the world of Tao. Today are the last sutras, the concluding remarks by Master Lu-tsu. They are simple. You have to be simple to understand them. There is not much knowledge in them, but certainly much insight. They will not make you knowledgeable. In fact, they will take all knowledge away, they will make you ignorant.

But if a man can be ignorant, can be courageous enough to drop all his knowledge and can live in a state of not-knowing, then there is no barrier between him and God, no barrier between him and existence. Knowledge creates the barrier.

Adam has been expelled from the Garden of Eden because he has eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. That fruit has to be vomited. Once knowledge is vomited out, you are clean. And in that cleanness, all is available. All is already available; just because you are not clean and stuffed with knowledge, you cannot see it.

The sutras:

THE TAO, THE UNDIVIDED, GREAT ONE, GIVES RISE TO TWO OPPOSITE REALITY PRINCIPLES, THE DARK AND THE LIGHT, YIN AND YANG. FROM YIN COMES THE RECEPTIVE FEMININE PRINCIPLE; FROM YANG COMES THE CREATIVE MASCULINE PRINCIPLE; FROM YIN COMES MING, LIFE; FROM YANG, HSING OR HUMAN NATURE.

This is the concluding part of THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. This is a summary of the whole treatise, so that you can remember.

THE TAO, THE UNDIVIDED, GREAT ONE, GIVES RISE TO TWO OPPOSITE REALITY PRINCIPLES...

First, what is Tao? - that which is, unnamed, unqualified, simply that which is. It contains all. It contains the trees and the stars, it contains you and me and the animals and the birds. It contains all that is. And that which is contains all that has ever been, and that which is contains all that is ever going to be.

Tao cannot be said just because it contains all - and no word can contain all. The very purpose of a word is to denote. The very purpose of a word is to classify. A table is a table and not a chair, and a chair is a chair and not a dog, and a dog is a dog and not a man. The word is meaningful only because it has a definite boundary around it. It excludes everything out of it. It includes only something tiny and excludes the whole existence.

Tao includes all, excludes nothing. That's why Tao cannot be said. It can be shown but not said.

The man of Tao can give you a taste of it if you are ready to go into him and let him come into you.

The man of Tao can give you a glimpse, a lightning glimpse of the totality of existence... but you may become frightened.

That's what happened in the great song, Bhagavad-Gita. The disciple Arjuna asked Krishna his Master, his friend, his guide, "You say great things. You argue well. Your proofs are very convincing, yet doubt persists deep down within me. The doubt is because I have not experienced what you are saying to me. Why don't you give me a little experience of it? - Just a little taste on the tip of the tongue will do. There is no need to go on arguing about it so long, there is no need to produce so many proofs for it.Just a little taste and I will be convinced and my doubts will disappear."

Krishna said, "Okay."

And then it happened, one of the most beautiful stories that has ever happened between a Master and a disciple: Krishna became huge and Krishna became infinite and worlds started rotating within him, and Arjuna was frightened. Krishna had millions of hands and all the stars and all the planets within him, and life and death within him, all polarities meeting and merging in him. It was a chaos.

Arjuna thought he must be going mad. He closed his eyes in fear, and he cried and shouted, "Come back! Come back to your ordinary form with two hands. Be my old friend again. This is too much!"

Krishna came back and he said, "I knew it. You are not yet ready to have the taste of the totality."

Totality will frighten you. Its sheer vastness is such, it is going to frighten you out of your wits. It is abysmal, and you will start disappearing into it like a soap-bubble. It is so vast that you will lose all orientation of who you are.

That's what happened to Arjuna. And he said, "Yes, I was feeling as if I was going to die, or as if I was going to be mad, or as if I had already gone mad. Thank you for coming back to your original form."

And Krishna said, "This is not my original form. That was my original form."

Tao is infinity. Tao is totality. Tao is all that is, hence it cannot be said. But in the deep intimacy of a Master and a disciple, something of it starts pulsating. There are moments when you become available to the whole, when you don't function as a separate entity, when you lose the idea of separation for a few moments, when you are one and united. When the drop disappears into the ocean - even for a single moment - then you know what Tao is.

So Tao cannot be said but can be showed. That's what I have been doing here.

This is not a school of philosophy. I'm not teaching you any philosophy at all. This is an existential school. I am teaching you existence as it is. And existence is already here; you just have to become a little more courageous to open up, to allow it in. It is knocking on your doors!

Jesus says, "Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find."

I would like to say just the opposite to you. God is knocking on your doors, has been knocking for millenia. Hear! He's knocking on the door... open your doors. Listen! He's asking you to come out of your self-imposed prison. He's seeking you! Let him seek you! Help him seek you! He's searching for you and you are escaping, and you have been escaping for lives together. You are miserable, and still you go on escaping. And whenever His hand comes close to you, you become frightened.

And I understand, the fear is natural. What is the fear? The fear is: if God is, then you cannot be.

Friedrich Nietzsche has said, "If God is, then how can I be? So, I DECIDE that there is no God; then only can I be." And that's how millions of people have decided: they have denied God in order to be.

If there is no God, ego is possible. If there is God how can the ego be supported? By what? Then you are no more there; that is the fear. God is the death of the ego.

Tao can be tasted, Tao can be experienced, but one condition has to be fulfilled: you have to be so simple that you don't have any ego. You have to be so silent that there is no idea of 'I'.

THE TAO, THE UNDIVIDED, GREAT ONE, GIVES RISE TO TWO OPPOSITE REALITY PRINCIPLES...

This is the very fundamental of the Taoist approach: that the one becomes two - because then only is the play possible. The one has to become two, and the two have to be opposites to each other; then the game starts.

The ancient Hindu scriptures say God was alone and was feeling really very very lonely. He decided to create the other. That's why Hindus say the existence is LEELA, a play. God created the other just to have a little fun.

Tao is one, but the moment it becomes manifested it has to become two. Manifestation has to be dual: it cannot be one, it has to be two, it has to split into two. It has to become matter and consciousness, it has to become man and woman, it has to become day and night, it has to become life and death. You will find these two principles everywhere. The whole of life consists of these two principles, and behind these two principles is hidden the One. If you continue to remain involved between these two dualities and the polar opposites, you will remain in the world. If you are intelligent, if you are a little more alert, and if you start looking deeper, into the depths of things, you will be surprised - these opposites are not really opposites but complementaries. And behind both is one single energy: that is Tao.

TAO... GIVES RISE TO TWO OPPOSITE REALITY PRINCIPLES, THE DARK AND THE LIGHT, YIN AND YANG. FROM YIN COMES THE RECEPTIVE FEMININE PRINCIPLE; FROM YANG COMES THE CREATIVE MASCULINE PRINCIPLE; FROM YIN COMES MING, LIFE; FROM YANG, HSING OR HUMAN NATURE.

Basically, the polarities can be named man/woman: the masculine, the feminine. And it is closer to our human reality to understand it that way. We can call it negative and positive, but that would be a little far away. To call it yin and yang, Shiva and Shakti, man and woman, brings it very close to our heart - we know this duality.

Man is attracted towards the woman, the woman is attracted towards the man, and yet when they are together they constantly fight. They cannot live separately and they cannot live together either.

Attraction is tremendous, repulsion too. When you are with your woman or with your man you start thinking of how to be alone. You start thinking of freedom, of being alone, and the beauty and the silence and all that. When you are alone you simply start feeling lonely and you start hankering for the other, and you start thinking of those loving spaces, warmth and all that. When alone you want to be together, when together you want to be alone.

Watch it, it has a great message for you. It simply says: you are half and the woman is half Together you become one. But then a problem arises. In that moment of oneness you are ecstatic, you rejoice, but then the problem arises: this oneness, is it man or woman? Which is the dominating factor? That is the conflict. Man and woman want to be one, but man wants to remain the dominating factor in that oneness; the woman should surrender, submit. And the same is the desire from the woman's side, that the man should surrender and submit.

Both want to be one, but that oneness has to be 'mine'. If I am man then that oneness has to be man's; the woman has to disappear into the man. If I am a woman then it has to be that of woman; the man has to disappear into the woman. Hence the conflict, the attraction and the repulsion, and the whole comedy and tragedy of life.

The feminine principle is receptive and the masculine principle is creative, and both can only go together. Separate, they both suffer. Then the woman has nothing to receive and feels empty. And if there is nobody to receive, the man's creativity is lost because there is nobody to appreciate, inspire.

The woman receives, inspires and helps the man to flow in his creativity. Man's creativity helps the woman to flow into her receptivity. This receptivity of the woman is not only biological, it is spiritual too. Behind all great poets you will find the inspiration of a woman. The women have not themselves been great poets - they need not be - but no great poetry is ever born without a woman. She functions as a lighthouse. Men have been great poets, but without a woman the poetry simply dies and withers away.

Receptivity and creativity are two wings of the bird. This flight towards the unknown can be completed only with both wings. With one wing the bird is not going to go anywhere. And remember, creativity is not more valuable than receptivity - they are equal, they are utterly equal. No wing, right or left, is greater than the other; cannot be. They are equal. They are not similar but they are equal.

Now there is a great desire in women's hearts to be creative - for a certain reason: because creativity is praised. Nobel Prizes are given only to creators, not to those who show tremendous receptivity.

Now this is an ugly situation which creates an obsessive desire to be creative, because the receptive person is not appreciated at all, is not valued at all, is not talked about at all. So all over the world the woman wants to be creative, but the moment she wants to be creative she starts losing her femininity, her grace. She starts becoming more and more masculine, because the creative is the masculine principle. She starts becoming more and more hard. She loses softness and roundness, starts growing corners, starts fighting. You can see the shouting Lib Movement women - their shouts are ugly. And I know their fight is right, but fighting is not the way of woman! - the very fight will destroy their womanhood. It has to be done in some other way. In fact, man should fight for woman's equality.

The people who can understand, the people who can think, the people who are intelligent, should create a man's movement for women's liberation. They should fight! It is their imposed slavery on woman - they should feel guilty, they should undo whatsoever they have done. But if the woman starts fighting - and then naturally she starts thinking to be creative, paint, dance, sing, sculpt, compose - very unconsciously she is imitating man. And remember, woman imitating man will always be a second-rate man. And that is ugly. The very effort of being equal is lost. The woman can only be a first-rate woman. If she wants to be a man, she will only be a second-rate man. It is just the same way if a man wants to be receptive: he can't have that natural receptivity of a woman.

He will become a second-rate woman. To be first-rate you have to follow your nature.

Never imitate. Follow your own intrinsic nature. Follow your own built-in nature, because only from the fulfillment of that nature does one arrive to a state of bliss, fulfillment, contentment.

Woman creates life, life in general, life as a universal phenomenon. Man, or the male element, creates human nature. Man is particular, woman is universal. Man goes into details of things. Man becomes a specialist. That's why male-dominated fields all become fields of specialization sooner or later. That's what is happening in science. Everything slowly, slowly becomes a specialization, and new branches arise, branches out of branches and now the whole thing seems to be a very absurd situation.

Man has created much knowledge and has gone into deep detail, but now there is nobody to make a whole out of that knowledge. Nobody knows how to create a synthesis. That synthesis is possible only through a woman, not through a man, because woman is a universalizing principle.

Man dissects. woman unites. That's why a woman feels closer to religion than a man, and has always felt closer to religion than a man. You may not have observed the fact. The fundamental fact is: that religion thinks in terms of one, wholeness, totality. That's what Tao is, or God, or whatsoever you will. Science dissects and goes on splitting and has reached to the electron, to the smallest particle. These are polar-opposite ways. Religion goes on joining things together, together, together, and comes to the ultimate Tao which contains all. It is the ultimate unity. Science goes on splitting and splitting, specializing and more specializing. They say specialization means to know more and more about less and less.

I have heard...

It is the twenty-first century, and a man goes to a doctor. He is troubled by his eyes; he is getting old. And the doctor asks, "Which of your eyes is in trouble?"

And he says, "My right eye."

The doctor says, "Sorry, you will have to go to somebody else, because I only specialize in left eyes."

It is going to happen. It is already happening.

Man is no longer one unity; there are so many specialists. Nobody thinks about the man as a whole, as a totality. That is one of the greatest problems that medical science is facing and has to face and find a solution for - because the patient is not thought to be one unity. If his head is in trouble, then the head has to be taken as a separate part. Just give some medicine - aspirin or something.

Nobody bothers about the whole system. The aspirin will first go to the stomach, it can't go directly to the head. What is going to happen to the stomach? - that is nobody's concern.

Man is a unity. You cannot treat him like a machine.

If something is wrong with your car you go to the garage; he changes the part. Because the machine has no soul, it is only the sum total of its parts. And what is a soul? Soul means that something more is there than the sum total of its parts. There is a unity behind. Modern medical science is facing it tremendously, and the reason is because all of these sciences have been developed by men. The impact of the woman is missing.

The woman always universalizes. She thinks in terms of unities, she never thinks in terms of parts. A woman is never mathematical; she cannot be. Her whole approach is wholistic. That is the meaning of this statement made twenty-five centuries ago; it is yet contemporary.

THE TAO... UNDIVIDED, GREAT ONE, GIVES RISE TO TWO OPPOSITE REALITY PRINCIPLES, THE DARK AND THE LIGHT, YIN AND YANG. FROM YIN COMES THE RECEPTIVE FEMININE PRINCIPLE; FROM YANG COMES THE CREATIVE MASCULINE PRINCIPLE; FROM YIN COMES MING, LIFE; FROM YANG, HSING OR HUMAN NATURE.

EACH INDIVIDUAL CONTAINS A CENTRAL MONAD, WHICH, AT THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION, SPLITS INTO LIFE AND HUMAN NATURE, MING AND HSING.

EACH individual comes as a single unit, unitary, and then is split. It is just like a ray passing through a prism is split into seven colors. Conception functions like a prism: the one white ray splits into seven colors. The one Tao splits into two opposite polarities: man and woman. Remember that no man is man alone, the woman is behind, hidden in him; and so is it with the woman. Both are bisexual.

If the conscious mind is man, then the unconscious is woman. If the conscious mind is woman, then the unconscious is man. It has to be so. And the desire to meet with the woman or with the man on the outside is not going to fulfill you - unless you know how to meet the inner man and the inner woman. The outer woman can give you only a few glimpses of meeting, beautiful moments, but at a great cost. And all lovers know that yes, there are a few ecstatic moments, but one has to pay a great price for them: one has to lose one's freedom, one has to lose one's own being, and one has to become dependent. One has to compromise in a thousand and one ways, which hurts and wounds. The meeting with the outer woman or the outer man is going to be only momentary.

But there is another meeting, and that is one of the secret messages of Tao: that you can find your inner woman - where your conscious and unconscious meet, where your light and darkness meet, where your earth and sky meet, where your positive and negative meet. And once that meeting has happened within you, you are whole. This is what is called the man of Tao.

The man of Tao is neither man nor woman. He has come back to his oneness. He is alone... all one. You cannot call Lao Tzu a man or a woman, or Buddha a man or a woman, or Jesus a man or a woman. Biologically they are, spiritually they are not. Spiritually they have gone beyond. Buddha has no unconscious in him, no division. He's undivided. And when you are undivided all conflict within you ceases. Otherwise you are in a INSTANT civil war: you are not only fighting with the outer woman, you are fighting continuously with the inner woman too. And you know those moments.

A moment comes when you want to cry, your inner woman is ready to shed tears, but your man stops it. Your man says, "What are you doing, man? Are you mad? People will think that you are being very feminine. Stop your tears! This is not right for a man like you. It is okay for women, let them cry and weep, but you have to keep a face, hard, strong, invulnerable. Hold your tears back!"

And the fight has started.

And the same happens to the woman. You would like to climb a tree, and it is so beautiful, and the highest branches of the tree are playing with the clouds. Who would not like to climb? But your inner woman says, "Wait! This is allowed only to men, not to you. You are a woman. You have to think of what is right for a woman and what is not right. You have to follow certain manners, etiquette." And you repress it.

This goes on continuously: man represses his woman, woman represses her man, and the repressed part starts taking revenge in subtle ways. It starts coming from the backdoor, it starts poisoning you. So there are moments when the woman becomes very hard, cruel, nagging, fighting, ugly; that is the man taking revenge. Climbing on a tree would have been beautiful, but that you denied. Now the man comes through the backdoor and you start screaming at your husband or at your children, and you start throwing things. Now this is ugly, this is pathological. It was good to cry.

Tears are beautiful because they are part of life. It was good to cry, there was no need to hide those tears. If you hide your tears, you will not be able to laugh either. You will always be afraid - if you laugh too much, you may feel so relaxed with the laughter that the repressed tears may start coming up.

Nietzsche has said, "I laugh just to keep my tears hidden, because I am afraid if I don't laugh I may start crying."

Now this is one aspect. One can go on smiling, this is not real laughter. One can go on smiling - this is diplomatic - so that nobody can see tears ready to come from your eyes. People become engaged in your smile and don't look at your eyes; this is one way. The other way is to keep a very hard face - don't even laugh, don't even smile. Let people know that you are a man of steel. That is the meaning of the word 'stalin': man of steel. It is said that Stalin never used to laugh. How could he laugh? - a man of steel. Steel men cannot laugh.

But this is ugly, this is becoming mechanical. This is dehumanizing. Either one becomes false, pseudo, or one becomes very hard, has to grow a hard crust to keep oneself in constant control.

Tao says there is no need to deny the opposite polarity of your being. Accept it, it is you! Both these rays are you. Let them meet and merge! Let them dance together! Let them become one so deeply that again you can have the vision of one - Tao, the great One, undivided.

IN THE PERSONAL BODILY EXISTENCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL THEY ARE REPRESENTED BY TWO OTHER POLARITIES, ANIMA AND ANIMUS. ALL DURING THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL THESE TWO ARE IN CONFLICT, EACH STRIVING FOR MASTERY.

Drop fighting for mastery! That is your inner politics. Both are equal and nobody can ever be the master. Both are needed and equally needed. Accept both, although it is very difficult, logically very difficult to accept both, because they are diametrically opposite. But logic is not true to life itself.

More true to life is what is known as dialectics.

Logic is not true to life. Logic is linear; it does not contain the opposite. Tao says the opposite is always there, running parallel to it. The process is not logical but dialectical. Thesis is opposed by antithesis: man is opposed by woman, and out of this opposition, out of this conflict, out of this challenge, energy is released. And that energy can either be dissipated - if you are foolish - or can be accumulated - if you are wise. If dissipated you will remain in constant conflict, a civil war.

Your life will become schizophrenic. Or, if you are wise, intelligent, and you know how to contain the opposites together in a deep friendly embrace, then thesis opposed by antithesis will create a new phenomenon in your being: synthesis. On a higher plane you will arise. In a deeper way you will be united. And then again the synthesis functions as a thesis, creates its antithesis, and again, on a higher plane, synthesis. It goes on and on, waves upon waves, higher and higher. There are planes upon planes, and one can go on reaching. The ultimate plane is the total synthesis of your life. All conflict disappears - is not dropped, but disappears of its own accord.

This is Tao, the Tao, the undivided, the great One.

IF THE LIFE-ENERGY FLOWS DOWNWARD, THAT IS, WITHOUT LET OR HINDRANCE INTO THE OUTER WORLD, THE ANIMA IS VICTORIOUS OVER THE ANIMUS; NO GOLDEN FLOWER IS DEVELOPED.

If energy flows downward and outward, your energy becomes reproductive, sexually reproductive.

A great phenomenon! That's how you were born, that's how everybody else was born - a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna. If energy flows downward, it creates new people, new forms for God to embody.

But the Golden Flower does not bloom. You produce somebody else - a child, a beautiful child; life continues, life goes on moving, remains flowing, but the Golden Flower cannot bloom this way.

How does the Golden Flower bloom?

IF THE LIFE-ENERGY IS LED THROUGH THE 'BACKWARD-FLOWING' PROCESS, THAT IS, CONSERVED, AND MADE TO 'RISE' INSTEAD OF ALLOWED TO DISSIPATE, THE ANIMUS HAS BEEN VICTORIOUS.

These are the two possibilities: energy flowing downward becomes sexuality, energy flowing upward becomes spirituality. Energy flowing downward is reproductive, energy flowing upward is creative.

Energy flowing downward creates new life, energy flowing upward gives you a new birth. That's what Jesus means when he says, "Unless you are born again" - not from a father and mother, but by your own upward movement; unless you become a DWIJA, a twice-born - "you will not enter into my kingdom of God."

The Golden Flower is waiting at the highest peak of your being. In the yoga map it is called SAHASRAR, one-thousand-petalled lotus. It is the seventh chakra - in your head. The lowest is the sex chakra, MULADHAR, and the highest is the seventh chakra, SAHASRAR. From the lowest chakra, energy moves downward, creates new life. If the energy is conserved, helped to move upwards, it reaches one day to the SAHASRAR - and the Golden Flower blooms.

Of course, it needs energy. It is there only as a potential, as a possibility. Unless energy becomes available for it, it will not become actual.

It is like when you don't give water to a tree: the tree is waiting, the water is not coming. The green juice is not flowing upwards. How can it bloom into a thousand and one flowers? - impossible. It will remain sad, it will almost remain dying. It will be a slow suicide. By and by the leaves will also wither away, by and by the branches will die, and ultimately, the roots. It needs a constant upward flow of energy.

Just as the green sap moves in a tree, man is also a tree. And this is not a new symbol that I am using - of man as a tree - it is one of the most ancient symbols. It has been used in the Jewish mystical schools: it is called the Tree of Life. Just as Buddhism has reached to its crescendo in Zen, and Islam in Sufism, Judaism has reached its ultimate peaks in the Kabbala. The Kabbala says that man is a tree, and it needs great energy for the flowers to bloom.

But remember, to conserve energy does not mean to repress energy; that's where many people become misguided. To conserve energy does not mean to repress. The processes are absolutely different.

Repression means you are continuously repressing at the lowest center. If it becomes too much at the lowest center it will create perverted sexuality. If you don't allow it a natural let-go and the energy accumulates at the lowest center too much, it will find some way or other; it can become perverted. It WILL become perverted! It will create pathology. Ask the psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts: they say, "Out of a hundred percent, ninety-five percent of the psychological cases are because of sexuality. Somewhere or other, sex is involved." This is too big a number, ninety-five percent. And the people who never go to the psychiatrists and the psychoanalysts are not in a better position either. Everybody is suppressed.

Suppression is not transformation. Let it be understood once and for all! - repression can never become a transformation.

Then what is transformation? And what is conservation of energy?

Conservation of energy is a meditative process. It is not moralistic. I will suggest a small method to you that will be of immense help. It has been used by Taoists down the ages. It is given only from the Masters to the disciples; that's why it has not been written in the books. But now the time has come that it should be given, because now millions of people are working on their spiritual search THROUGH books. Masters are not so available either.

This is a simple method of transforming your energy and leading it upwards. And always remember, Taoist methods are very simple, so don't think, "How can such a simple thing be of such great importance?" Practice it, experiment with it and you will know.

The process is:

At least twice a day - the best times are early in the morning, just before you get out of your bed.

The moment you feel you are alert, awake, do it for twenty minutes. Do it first thing in the morning! - don't get out of the bed. Do it there, then and there, immediately! - because when you are coming out of sleep you are very very delicate, receptive. When you are coming out of sleep you are very fresh, and the impact will go very deep. When you are just coming out of your sleep you are less in the mind than ever. Hence some gaps are there through which the method will penetrate into your innermost core. And early in the morning, when you are awakening, and when the whole earth is awakening, there is a great tide of awakening energy all over the world. Use that tide; don't miss that opportunity.

All ancient religions used to pray early in the morning when the sun rose, because the rising of the sun is the rising of all the energies in existence. In that moment you can simply ride on the rising energy wave; it will be easier. By the evening it will be difficult, energies will be falling back; then you will be fighting against the current. In the morning you will be going with the current.

So the best time to begin is in the early morning, immediately, just when you are half-asleep, half- awake. And the process is so simple. It needs no posture, no yogasana, no bath is needed, nothing.

You simply lie down, as you are lying down in your bed, on your back. Keep your eyes closed.

When you breathe in, just visualize great light entering from your head into your body, as if a sun has risen just close to your head - golden light pouring into your head. You are just hollow and the golden light is pouring into your head, and going, going, going, deep, deep, and going out through your toes. When you breathe in, do it with this visualization.

And when you breathe out, visualize another thing: darkness entering through your toes, a great dark river entering through your toes, coming up, and going out through the head. Do slow, deep breathing so you can visualize. Go very slowly. And just out of sleep you can have very deep and slow breaths because the body is rested, relaxed.

Let me repeat: breathing in, let golden light come into you through your head, because it is there that the Golden Flower is waiting. That golden light will help. It will cleanse your whole body and will make it absolutely full of creativity. This is male energy.

Then when you exhale, let darkness, the darkest you can conceive, like a dark night, river-like, come from your toes upwards - this is feminine energy: it will soothe you, it will make you receptive, it will calm you, it will give you rest - and let it go out of the head. Then inhale again, and golden light enters in.

Do it for twenty minutes early in the morning.

And then the second best time is when you are going back to sleep, in the night.

Lie down on the bed, relax for a few minutes. When you start feeling that now you are wavering between sleep and waking, just in that middle, start the process again, and continue for twenty minutes. If you fall asleep doing it, it is the best, because the impact will remain in the superconscious and will go on working.

And after a three-month period you will be surprised: the energy that was constantly gathering at the MULADHAR, at the lowest, the sex center, is no more gathering there. It is going upwards.

Just the other day somebody had asked a question. He said that he has seen the most beautiful women around here that he has ever seen anywhere else, but they are non-erotic.

Why is it so? It is so, his observation is right. If you meditate deeply you will become non-erotic. You will have a different kind of beauty, but it will not be erotic. It will start having the flavor of spirituality.

It will start having the subtleness of grace, not the grossness of sexuality.

Sex is gross because it is the lowest rung of your ladder. As energies move upwards a totally different kind of beauty and grace arises in you, which is divine. You become less and less of the body and more and more of the spirit.

If you do this simple method for three months, you will be surprised: there is no need to repress.

Transformation has started happening.

A MAN WHO HOLDS TO THE WAY OF CONSERVATION ALL THROUGH LIFE MAY REACH THE STAGE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER...

And if you can go on doing this for your whole life, one day it is going to happen.

The Master Lu-tsu says 'your whole life' so that you remain patient. It can happen any day, it can happen today, or tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. It depends with what intensity, with what sincerity you work for it, with what longing, what totality you go into it. And the day the Golden Flower blooms in you is the day of Buddhahood. You have attained the greatest treasure there is.

A MAN WHO HOLDS TO THE WAY OF CONSERVATION ALL THROUGH LIFE MAY REACH THE STAGE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, WHICH THEN FREES THE EGO FROM THE CONFLICT OF THE OPPOSITES, AND IT AGAIN BECOMES PART OF THE TAO, THE UNDIVIDED GREAT ONE.

From Tao to Tao, from One to One - as Plotinus says, "The flight of the alone to the alone."