Inner integrity

TO BE is to miss Tao. To be is to miss the whole. To be is to be separate, so not to be is the door.

To be is going astray. Not to be is coming home. When you are not, god is. When you are, God is not. and both have never been seen together; they cannot be together by their very nature. Just as darkness and light cannot exist together: if one is, the other is not.

So the basic, the very basic, teaching of Tao is to be in a state of non-being, what Buddhists call ANATTA, a state of no-self. Empty, a deep nothingness, nobody inside... then you really are. But then you are not: the whole is. The moment you start thinking about yourself as a separate individual the part is claiming to be the whole; the part has gone mad. They ego is the only insane thing in the world. The ego is neurosis, and anybody who suffers from the ego suffers from neurosis, becuase he thinks as if the part were the whole. The part is not the whole. If a leaf in the tree starts thinking 'I am', then the leaf has gone mad. The tree is and the leaf exists only as a part, an organic part, of the tree. Even to conceive of the leaf as separate is impossible. The tree is flowing in it. It is the tree's energy that has become the leaf. If a wave in the ocean thinks 'I am separate: I am', then the wave has gone mad. The ocean is. All waves are nothing but the ocean waving.

All human beings are nothing but the universal consciousness waving. We are waves. The moment you understand 'I am a wave' that means you have understood you are not - only the ocean is. Sometimes the ocean waves and you are, and sometimes the ocean remains silent and you disappear.

Tao says: The ego is the only barrier. All other religions say the same, but Tao goes deepest in its approach; its insight is the greatest. All religions say that the ego has to be dropped, but if you listen, if you read, if you look into those religious people, you will find that their insight is not very deep and the ego comes up in different forms again and again.

About the ego only two persons have touched the very substratum and these two persons are Lao Tzu and Gautam Buddha. Religions go on saying 'Drop the ego. Be egoless', but in a subtle way, somehow, they go on protecting it too. They say 'If you drop the ego, you will become spiritual. If you drop the ego you will be the first in the kingdom of God. If you drop the ego you will be the chosen one. If you drop the ego great is going to be the pay-off in the other world - the heaven, the paradise, MOKSHA.' On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they persuade you, they bribe you, they buttress your greed. They say 'You will be special. You will be extraordinary.'

On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they go on strengthening the same ego under different names. 'You will become a miracle man. You will have SIDDHIs - you will have spiritual powers, occult forces. You will be able to manipulate the existence more deeply. You will become telepathic. You will be able to read others' minds. You will be clairvoyant. This and that...

all the SIDDHIS of the yogis - all the miraculous powers of Yoga.... But again you are decorated, again you become very, very strong.

Remember, there are three layers of your being: the body, the mind. and the self. And beyond the three is your no-self. And so there are three possibilities for the ego to assert itself. Either it asserts itself on the layer of body - a beautiful body, a strong body, 'I have the most handsome body, the most powerful body.' Somebody is a beauty queen, a Miss Universe, and somebody is Mohammed Ali, the greatest man, Mr Universe. On the layer of the body the ego can assert itself. If the ego asserts itself on the layer of the body one becomes animalistic. All your wrestlers, great wrestlers, are nothing but too attached to their animal part, so that when you see the body of a Mr Universe you can feel it; he looks more like an animal than like a human being. Certainly he is very strong physically. His ego is asserting itself on that path. He will be very aggressive, brutal, violent. He will be very sexual, indulgent, unconscious. He will move like a robot, like a machine. He will not have any consciousness whatsoever. His whole life will be: Eat, drink and be merry. He will live on the very superficial layer of his life. Civilisations are against it, cultures are against it. They say 'This is not good. Drop this ego.' They go on teaching to every child who is born on this earth 'Drop this ego.

Become non-aggressive, become non-violent. Don't be brutal, have kindness, sympathy.' Then ego starts asserting itself on another level, the level of the mind.

At the mind level it becomes knowledge, knowledgeability, money. Money is a higher thing than sexuality, so those people who become interested in money forget all about sex; they are no more interested in sex. Their whole sexuality becomes money-oriented... or power, politics, ambition.

Those people who become politicians, become ambitious for power; they can also sacrifice sex, indulgence - everything they can sacrifice.

On the first layer they can sacrifice, because on the second layer they need all the energy available.

So they repress on the first layer and the ego asserts itself on the second layer. All cultures depend on this. In fact, all cultures use it as a technique: Repress the child's ego on the first layer and he will become egoistic on the second layer. Then he will start hankering for gold medals in the university, to become more knowledgeable, to come first in the university. He will start becoming more aggressive mentally than physically.

You can see it in the universities. All the students who are in sports are very poor as far as their mind development is concerned, and all the students whose minds are very clever and cunning are poor physically. The sportsman lives on the first layer and the scholar on the second layer. The scholar will have a delicate body, will wear glasses from the very beginning; he will be old even while he is young. On the physical level his ego has disappeared. He cannot fight, but he can argue. His fight now asserts itself as argument. He can discuss and debate; he has found a finer instrument to conquer and be aggressive with. He will not become a wrestler, he will become a lawyer. He will live through argument, through his knowledge - say anything against his knowledge and he is ready to fight. Of course his fight will be of words, verbal. If you fight with the body he will call it brutal, animalistic, primitive; if you fight on the level of words and language and logic he will say that this is 'civilised fight'... but the same ego is asserting itself on the second layer.

Religions depend on repressing this second layer of ego. Civilisation depends on the first repression:

repress the ego on the body level so that it asserts itself on the mind level. Religions depend on repressing on the second level so that the ego starts asserting itself on the third level, the level of the self. So religions say: Knowledge is nothing, politics is nothing, money is nothing, to become a great artist is nothing, to become a great novelist, writer, is nothing. Then what is real power? Real power is SIDDHI. If you can do miracles, if you touch a man and he is healed when he was ill, and if you touch a dead body and the dead body is resurrected, then you have something. If you can produce things out of nothing, if you become a miracle man, then you have something. So religions repress the ego on the second layer, then the ego asserts itself on the third layer.

Tao says: The ego has to disappear from all the layers. One has to understand it so totally that it cannot find another way for its existence, so that it cannot find another shelter in your being. When ego disappears completely and there is no way for it to assert itself then YOU ARE NOT in one sense and YOU ARE, for the first time, in another sense. You are not as an individual any more, you are the whole.

This is the meaning of a holy man in Taoism: A holy man is one who is not. Very paradoxical. And remember, Tao does not teach you to become humble. If you become humble the ego will continue - it will become the ego of the humble person, it will hide behind humbleness. So a practised humbleness, a cultivated humbleness, is not going to help. Then what is to be done?

If you ask Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu or Lao Tzu, they will say that nothing has to be done because whatsoever you do will create the ego; ego is created out of doing. Nothing is to be done. One has just to see the ways of the ego, the subtle ways of the ego, the cunning ways of the ego; one has to see them so totally.... One has to follow the ego into one's being from body to mind, from mind to self, one has to seek and see all the hideouts. Once you have known all the possibilities of ego-assertion, in that very understanding, in that very awareness, ego disappears.

When ego disappears your body is different, your mind is different, your self is different. When ego disappears, many things happen. First, now you are no more identified with your body. You are in the body, but you are not the body. When the ego disappears you are no more identified with the mind. You use the mind, the mind becomes an instrument - a beautiful instrument - but you are not identified with the mind either. When the ego disappears you use the self. but you are not identified with self either. You remain an individual: you walk and live like an individual. but continuously aware that the wave is just an appearance, the reality is the ocean; that 'I am just a wave. God is the ocean, Tao is the ocean.'

The disappearance of the ego is the disappearance of what Gurdjieff calls identification. That is the right word: identification. We get identified with everything, whatsoever we are close to. You are very close to the body, so you start thinking 'I am the body.' You feel hungry and you say 'I am hungry.'

That is not right. The body is hungry, you are the knower, you are the one who knows that the body is hungry. Sometimes you arc insulted and the mind is feeling miserable, but you are not miserable.

You are the knower who notices that the mind is miserable. Sometimes you see miracles happening in your life, but you know that you are not the doer, you are not the self. They are happening, but they are happening from the whole. That's why Jesus goes on saying again and again....

A man came to Jesus and said 'We are very grateful to you. You are good and great.' And Jesus said 'Don't assert such a thing. Only God is good and great. I am not.' What is he saying? He is saying 'I am not a self. I function as a self, but the function is not the reality, the function is just a function. The reality is far huger, far bigger, enormous, infinite.'

It is as if you were standing in your house by the side of a window and looking outside. The frame of the window becomes the frame of the sky although you know well that the sky has no frame..

There is a trend in modern painting not to frame the painting. It has significance. The moment you frame the painting it becomes artificial, because existence is unframed; all frames are man-made.

Existence has no frame. But if you look from the window, then the frame of the window becomes the frame of the sky; and the sky has no frame. And if you have always looked from the window and you have never been outside the house, then naturally you will think that the limitation of the window is the limitation of the sky. Looking from the body, you become framed within the body; it is just a window. Looking from the mind, you become framed within the mind; it is again just a window.

Looking from the self, you become framed within the self; it is again just a window.

Once you start coming out of these windows, then you know that even the sky is not your limit; you are unlimited. You are as unlimited as the whole: you are the whole. There will be great transformations.

On the body level sexuality will disappear. Sex will be there, but sexuality will disappear. When you get identified with sex it becomes sexuality. When you are not identified with sex then it is as beautiful as anything else, but it is not sexual; it is simple sex, natural sex. Animals are not sexual.

They have sex, but they are not sexual. If you show a dog the nude picture of his girlfriend he will not be interested - not at all. You cannot circulate magazines like PLAYBOY to the animals; they will not be interested at all, they will not look. They are not sexual, they have no sexual fantasy, they don't think about it. Their sex is pure and simple. It has not become cerebral, it has not entered into their head.

When sex enters into the head it becomes sexuality. When sex is sex it is beautiful. When you eat because you are hungry it is beautiful, but when you become obsessed with food then you are mad. When you start thinking about food, sitting and meditating on food with closed eyes, in the night dreaming about food, then you are mad. Then your hunger has moved beyond the limits of sanity. You take a bath - good, but you don't think about it the whole day. You don't fantasize about standing under the shower again and again; if you start doing that, then something is wrong.

I have heard....

A woman was very fat. Her psychoanalyst suggested to her that she should find a beautiful nude picture of a woman. 'Stick it on your fridge so that whenever you open the fridge, you will see the beautiful, proportionate body of the woman and that will bring you to your senses: What are you doing with your body?'

And it helped. Again and again she would be opening it, taking things out and in, and she would see the beautiful, proportionate body. Within one month she lost twelve pounds. But another thing happened - the husband gained twelve pounds! Because of that nude picture, he started going to the fridge again and again and when you go to the fridge - of course - Coca-Cola, Fanta, ice- cream... he started eating. So the wife lost, the husband gained.

Sexuality simply means that sex has become a mind thing, it has entered into your mentality.

Anything, when it moves beyond its centre, becomes ill. Gurdjieff used to say that man's centres have got very confused. If you search in man you will find great confusion. Sex you will find in the head - where it should not be; that is not the centre for it.

Man has repressed, changed arrangements inside himself, so much, that if God dissected man he would be simply surprised, because he had never made man this way; everything has changed, the whole arrangement has changed. And the greatest calamity that has happened is that everything which should function on its own is no longer functioning on its own - it needs the mind. Everything goes via the mind, so mind has become very polluted, poisoned.

If the ego disappears from the body, there are two possibilities. If you repress it, it will assert itself on the mind level. If you don't repress it, if you simply understand it - and through understanding it disappears - then it will not assert itself anywhere, and your body will change. You will attain to new insights. Your body will become more affectionate, more warm. Your body will have a certain new quality to it, the quality of weightlessness, as if gravitation does not affect you as much as it used to affect you before. You will almost feel that you can fly. You will become more loving.

Wh.en sex is no more sexuality, then sex starts on the right path and, by and by, the sex energy starts turning into love energy. Love is a transformation of sex energy. Sexuality is a repression, and repressions are never transformations. Remember, repressions are regressions. A transformation is a totally different thing: you reach higher levels - sex energy becomes love. A person becomes more loving and less sexual, more sensitive and less sensual. He thinks no more in terms of sensuality, his body-mind, his body-wisdom has changed: his body has become mature. Of course, if he looks at the trees, he will find more greenery than you can find because he has become more sensitive.

If he looks at the sky, the sky will be more blue and deep than you will find it. The whole of life becomes a great mystery.

It happens sometimes under drugs that your senses become so sensitive that you cannot believe it.

When Aldous Huxley took LSD for the first time, he was sitting before a chair and suddenly the chair became luminous, multicoloured, as if it were a rainbow. He could not believe his eyes... an ordinary chair.... And he had been seeing that chair for years it had always been in his study - but there was never any colour in it, was never alive. Now suddenly it had a life of its own, so many colours, and so beautiful. He went and touched it and he could not believe again because its texture was simply incredible. He wanted to hug the chair and to sing a song for it, to dance a dance for it. An ordinary chair can become extraordinary.

To painters it has always been so. You may have seen the great painting of Vincent van Gogh, THE CHAIR. Ordinarily you will think 'Why should a painter think to paint a chair, an ordinary chair?' But to van Gogh that chair was not ordinary. What happened to Aldous Huxley under the impact of the drug was very natural to van Gogh. His eyes were very sensitive, he could see through and through:

there were no more screens - nothing to bar the way. His sensitivity was very clear.

You will live more, you will love more, you will eat with taste. When you touch a thing you will know the texture. When you listen to a song it will go to your very heart. Your body will not disturb it; your body will be just a passage, a tremendous receptivity: it will simply soak it up and take it to your heart. And the whole of life will take a different luminosity - it will become colourful, psychedelic.

Man needs drugs because civilisation has dulled your senses. Now this is a problem. The government, the society, the politicians they are against drugs, but they are the source, because they have created such an ugly humanity that people have lost all sensitivity. Now they are trying desperately to find that sensitivity in any way - even if it comes through drugs. Drugs are harmful, but to live without sensitivity is not to live at all. To live without sensitivity is to live a very dull life, a dead life. Five thousand years of culturisation, five thousand years of civilisation, have dulled humanity so much that they are bound to rebel against it. Now the politicians and the priests are the source. It is they who are responsible for driving humanity to such a desperate state where people want to take drugs. And drugs cannot be stopped unless man is made sensitive again. Drugs will disappear once man becomes sensitive again.

My approach is that if you are sensitive, you will not take the drug. For what? Just to harm yourself?

When you are sensitive, even if somebody gives you a drug free you will not take it, because a sensitive man will feel his sensitivity lessened through drugs. A dull person will feel that his sensitivity grows and a sensitive person will feel that his sensitivity is dulled. It is relative: it depends on you. If you feel good through a drug, it simply shows that you have become very dull; and to feel sensitive through chemicals is simply meaningless because they are not going to make you sensitive. You will need more and more drugs, in larger and larger quantities, but the basic problem remains there.

The basic problem is how to attain the receptivity, the sensitivity, of the body again, how to make your body alive again. The resurrection of the body is needed, and that resurrection is possible only when you are no longer using your body as an ego vehicle.

Ego is the greatest drug. LSD is nothing, marijuana is nothing, alcohol is nothing. Ego keeps you so drugged, so asleep, so unconscious. Once the body attains to sensitivity, you will find joy through the body, great joy. Small things become so delightful. Just taking a shower and it is so delightful that you will feel great gratitude towards God - just for a shower. The water falling on you, the coolness of it, the freshness that comes in you....

You will be lost to its beauty. Small things: eating, taking to a friend, holding the hand of a friend, looking at the sky or looking at the trees, just swimming in the river, or Lying down on the sand just taking a shower of sunrays, and everything becomes so joyful. The whole of life takes a new hue of rejoicing. You will be able to dance and sing if the body is resurrected.

The ego is the death of the body. The ego has to disappear. But let me repeat again: it has not to be repressed, otherwise it will bubble up on a deeper level. When the ego disappears from the mind, knowledge disappears, knowing arises: you don't have any knowledge, but you have a capacity to know. Wherever you look, whatever your eyes see, you can see through and through. You may not have any information, but your insight is great. Scriptures disappear. borrowed knowledge becomes meaningless, your own knowing capacity arises. You have an inner lamp, and silence grows.

Knowledge is a continuous clattering inside you, a chattering inside you, a continuous talk.

Sometimes you arc puzzled why you go on talking inside. Why this monologue? For what? And you go on repeating the same thing again and again and again. You have thought those thoughts many times. then why are you repeating again? There is a reason: only by continuously repeating can you maintain your knowledge, otherwise your knowledge will disappear. By continuously repeating, chattering, muttering inside, you maintain your knowledge, otherwise it would disappear; you would not be able to possess it. This is the only way to possess it. Because it is borrowed, the only way to possess it is through constant repetition.

But when the ego is no more there in the mind, all the barriers disappear. Mind becomes a mirror:

you reflect reality. And it is your own experience, so you need not continuously keep it moving in your mind, you need not repeat it; it is your insight. Tomorrow, also, you will be able to look into reality in the same way - maybe even far more deeply, because time will give you depth. So why repeat it?

A man of knowing never carries any load. He can depend on his knowing. You cannot depend on your knowing, so you have to carry knowledge, otherwise you will be in difficulty at any moment. If some problem arises, you cannot trust yourself: you have to carry the knowledge. If you can trust yourself, then there is no need. You can just look into the problem and the solution will come out of it, because each problem has its own built-in solution. It has not to be brought from the outside, the problem has just to be understood rightly, and it will give you the solution.

Silence will arise. A man of knowing is very silent. Words don't go on floating in his consciousness; there is no monologue. He is not continuously in the inner talk... and awareness arises, and celebration; a man becomes creative. That's what celebration is: one starts participating in God the Creator. That's what celebration is all about. Whenever you are really celebrating, you create something. Whatsoever it is, you create something: you become a participant in the creative process of life. And when on the third level the self, the ego, disappears, a great explosion happens. That's what Zen people call SATORI, Yoga calls SAMADHI.

When in the self, the self disappears, when you look inside yourself and you don't find anybody there: just a pure awareness. a witnessing, a no-self, you have arrived home.

This is the very basic approach of Tao, that the ego has to disappear on three levels. The ego gone...

the body becomes the temple, the mind becomes the innermost shrine, and the self becomes the whole - m now, but it can be transformed into realie religious when your body is a temple, your mind is a shrine and you are nothing but God himself, the whole itself This is the vision to be carried. It is a dream now, but it can be transformed into reality any moment you are courageous enough to go into it. It can be transformed into reality very easily, because the ego-game is just a dream. Once you come out of the dream, the reality will be available. It is available right now - only you are dreaming.

It is as if you fall asleep here in Poona and you dream of Constantinople or Timbuktu. In the night you dream of Constantinople, but you are still in Poona: your dreaming does not take you to Constantinople. In the morning, when you open your eyes, you will not find yourself in Constantinople, you will be in Poona, and you will have a good laugh. In fact. in the night, when you had suddenly found yourself in the streets of Constantinople, you were worried about how you would manage to go back... and at eight o'clock in the morning you had to be here in Chuang Tzu Auditorium - how were you going to manage? You may have rushed to the airport to enquire whether there was any plane going right now. But in the morning, suddenly you will find that there was no need to go to the airport, there was no need to go anywhere, you had always, all the time, been here. You had never gone in reality.

The ego is a dream, and whatsoever you have dreamed through the ego is a falsity, it is illusory.

That's what Hindus call MAYA.

Now this beautiful story. It has to be understood step by step.

LIEH TZU WAS GOING TO CH'I BUT TURNED BACK HALF WAY. ON THE ROAD HE MET PO- HUN WU-JEN WHO ASKED HIM WHY HE HAD TURNED BACK.

Ch'i was the capital of the kingdom where Lieh Tzu lived, so he was going to the capital of his nation but turned back in midjourney. When he came back, he met Po-hun Wujen. Po-hun Wujen was an old Taoist Master, a man who had really arrived. So the old man asked 'Why have you come back?'

Lieh Tzu said 'I WAS ALARMED BY SOMETHING.'

Listen carefully, because nobody has gone so deeply into these phenomena as the Taoists.

'WHAT WAS IT?' asked the old man.

'I ATE AT TEN INNS AND AT FIVE THEY SERVED ME FIRST.'

Now look. He says 'I ATE AT TEN INNS AND AT FIVE THEY SERVED ME FIRST... that alarmed me.' Why should it alarm you? In fact it should make you very delighted, that people are recognising that you are extraordinary, that you are exceptional, that you are a V.l.P.; you are being served before others. But Lieh Tzu is a disciple of Tao; he understands that this is dangerous. When people start thinking that you are exceptional, there is danger.

What is the danger? The danger is that you may move again on an ego-trip; the danger is they may again give you an ambition; the danger is that they will not allow you to relax and to be yourself.

When people give importance to you, they start dominating you. That's the whole art of manipulating people. When you want to manipulate a person what do you do? You make him feel very important.

You say 'You are simply great.' And the moment you have said 'You are simply great', you have become powerful over him. Now, if he wants to maintain his greatness, he will have to consider you; now his greatness will depend on you. If you go against him, then what about his greatness? You have made him great - now you have the key. Now, in a subtle way, he will become your slave. So whenever somebody comes and exaggerates about you, beware! He is trying to catch hold of you, and once you allow it, it will be difficult to go back home.

Mind wants to play these games very much. Even when sometimes a person is saying a lie but it is fulfilling to your ego, you accept it. You can try it. Say to an ugly woman 'You are very beautiful' and even she will not say Ll am not. Stop all this nonsense! I am just plain and homely.' If you say even to an ugly woman that she is the most beautiful woman in the world she will accept it, she will not say 'No, don't deceive me.' Once she accepts it, she is deceived. Now she will be in your power; now she will always have to think about you and concede things to you, because you are the only person who has made her beautiful. You are the only mirror in which she has looked beautiful - all other mirrors were saying that she is ugly, now she cannot afford to lose you. She will cling to you, she will become a servant to you, she will become a slave to you-but she cannot afford to lose you.

Remember, whenever you are being made important there is danger. Danger! If you are not so alert that ego has disappeared from all the layers of your being, there is danger. And Lieh Tzu must have been a disciple when this happened, he was not yet a Master. A Master can afford to be in any situation; a disciple cannot afford to, he has to be very alert because still there are dangers, still he has not arrived. There are tremendous possibilities of getting lost.

'I ATE AT TEN INNS AND AT FIVE THEY SERVED ME FIRST.'

IF THAT IS ALL, WHY SHOULD YOU BE ALARMED?' asked the old man.

'WHEN A MAN'S INNER INTEGRITY IS NOT FIRM, sometimes, SOMETHING OOZES FROM HIS BODY AND BECOMES AN AURA, WHICH, OUTSIDE HIM, PRESSES ON THE HEARTS OF OTHERS; IT MAKES OTHER MEN HONOUR HIM MORE THAN HIS ELDERS AND BETTERS, AND GETS HIM INTO DIFFICULTIES.'

This is a very great insight. Nobody has ever mentioned it - not even Patanjali who has completely covered the map of consciousness, not even he has mentioned it in this way. The credit goes to the Taoists.

He is saying 'WHEN A MAN'S INNER INTEGRITY IS NOT FIRM..'

Ordinarily you think that a man has an aura when his integrity is very firm. No, it is wrong; the aura comes from some leakage. Your integrity is not absolute yet, so your energy starts leaking and it creates an aura, a subtle magnetism around you. Of course, whenever you come in contact with others they will be impressed. Your aura will function like an intoxicant; they will simply be impressed. You will have a very charismatic effect on them, but Taoists say that it simply shows that you have not yet become really ordinary, you are still hankering for something. Somewhere, the ego is still there, because only through the ego do your inner energies leak out.

'WHEN A MAN'S INNER INTEGRITY IS NOT FIRM...'

And what do they mean by 'inner integrity'? When there is no ego, you are integrated with the whole.

When there is ego, you are not integrated with the whole. When there is ego, you are split; when there is ego.... In fact. there are many egos - you are a crowd and there is a constant fight inside.

Each ego tries to be more powerful than the others and there is a continuous struggle, and in that struggle your energy starts flowing out: it becomes a sort of aura.

Remember, this is not the aura that happens to a Buddha or a Lao Tzu or to Jesus. An aura happens to Buddha, but that aura is not energy coming out - no. His whole being has become so luminous, that even from his body you can see the subtle rays of his luminosity. It is as if a lamp is burning in a house and even through the curtains you can see that there is no darkness inside. It is not a leakage, it has a totally different quality to it. And how will you make out the difference'?

When you come in contact with the Buddha, his presence does not press your heart; in fact, his presence makes you more free. His presence does not turn you into slaves, his presence turns you into Masters. His presence does not become a binding on you, but becomes a freedom: he liberates.

When the energy comes out, it becomes a very repressing force. It is almost violent. It is as if somebody has jumped upon you with a sword in his hand and forces you to submit. These words are good. When you come in contact with a Buddha whose energy is not oozing out, who has no leakage left, surrender happens, but there is no submission in surrender.

When you come in close contact with a person who is not yet really integrated and he is creating great energy through his SADHANA and the energy is leaking out, submission happens, but there is no surrender. You become a slave, you become an imitator. Your individuality is crushed and destroyed, you become a carbon copy.

Remember, this will help you always. Only keep company with a Master with whom you don't become a carbon copy, with whom freedom is possible, with whom even surrender gives you individuality, following whom you don't become a follower, with whom you earn more and more freedom. He makes you so free, he gives you tremendous freedom - more than you can give to yourself. He does not give you a discipline, he gives you awareness, and through awareness you flower. You are not repressed, you are not forced; great things happen, but they happen naturally, spontaneously.

You must have seen auras around the pictures of Buddha and Jesus and Krishna. They are not the aura Lieh Tzu is talking about. If you want to see this type of aura, then you have to come in contact with a man like Rasputin. Then you will find an aura, a great aura.

Whoever came in contact with Rasputin immediately submitted to him and became a slave, even the Tsar and the Tsarina. In fact, for a few years, Rasputin had become the real ruler of Russia.

Whoever came in contact with him, would simply lose his individuality, lose his freedom and would become just an aye-sayer, would become more unconscious than he was before and would start doing things which he could never do in his right senses. Around Rasputin such things were an everyday affair. He could tell people to do foolish things, but his order was an order which they would do and not even for a single moment feel that they were being stupid. When they would go back home, then they would suddenly recognise the fact of what they had done. It was ridiculous.

Rasputin was killed by people who became more and more aware of this phenomenon; he was murdered... and he was really a man of great energy. The people who murdered him were his victims. By and by, many people became aware that whenever they were around him, something simply went off within their being and they became just puppets; and whenever they were far away from him they would again regain themselves. They started feeling this phenomenon so deeply that they conspired against him - his own disciples - and they killed him.

And it was very difficult to kill him. He was a man of energy, of great energy - disintegrated, but still of great energy. And the energy was oozing so much.... First they persuaded him to drink, and he drank too much, but nothing affected him. He was perfectly alert. Then they poisoned him, they gave him poison in food, but nothing affected him. Then they became afraid: they shot him - eighteen bullets - but he was still alive! And then they were very afraid... if he survived, what would happen to them? So they tied him in a bag with rocks and threw him into the river. After forty-eight hours his body was found, and the post mortem report says that he was not dead when he was thrown in the water, that even underwater he remained alive for at least four hours.

A man of tremendous energy - but the impact was evil, the impact was not good. Let this be your definition: Whenever you are in close contact with a man whose energy makes you a slave, escape from him. Escape from him like the plague. Never look back. You are in danger: that man has an oozing energy. It is dangerous for him because he is losing the energy which can become integration, and it is dangerous for you.

'WHEN A MAN'S INNER INTEGRITY IS NOT FIRM, SOMETHING OOZES FROM HIS BODY AND BECOMES AN AURA, WHICH, OUTSIDE HIM, PRESSES ON THE HEARTS OF OTHERS...'

It is a pressure. These are things to be felt. If in contact with somebody you feel a pressure on the heart, a crushing pressure, then that man has more energy than you; but that energy will prove evil:

it is aggressive energy.

When, in the presence of somebody, you feel that you are uplifted, that you are taken to a higher altitude, that you start floating upwards, that gravitation is less; that the presence is soothing, gives you silence, awareness: makes you more conscious and there is no pressure in it.... In fact, the ordinary pressures of your life dissolve in the presence of a man who has become integrated.

'... IT MAKES OTHER MEN HONOUR HIM MORE THAN HIS ELDERS AND BETTERS, AND GETS HIM INTO DIFFICULTIES.'

And Lieh Tzu said 'It is bad for others, but that is not the point: it is bad for the person himself.' It is bound to get him into difficulties. That's how Rasputin got into difficulties. He could have become a Buddha - he had the possibility. He was a man of great energy, he was really very rare, but others got into difficulty, he got into difficulty. He got into many difficulties and he went astray. The more and more he became powerful over people, the more and more he forgo. his own training, his own inner discipline.

He had worked hard upon himself: for years he had meditated and prayed and his prayer was going deep. Then he became aware that he had great influence over people. The moment he became aware that he had great influence over people, he forgot about his prayers. He became ambitious.

The ego asserted itself on the last layer, the self - not on the body. not on the mind, but on the self.

And when the ego asserts itself on the third, the deepest, layer, many people are deceived because it is very difficult to make distinctions, sometimes the energy feels really helpful.

The Tsar had only one son and the son used to suffer from a disease for which there was no cure.

The disease was that if he would get any wound, the wound would not heal and the blood would start oozing out of his body and not stop. His life was always in danger - a small wound and... a child is a child. Playing, he would fall and... a small wound and a little blood would come, and then it was impossible to prevent the blood: that was the problem. And when too much blood would go out, the child would become unconscious, would fall into a coma, and there was no medicine and there was no cure.

And then came Rasputin, and he simply touched him and the blood stopped. He would simply touch the child and he would become conscious - and that was the Tsar's only child. Now Rasputin became a must. They would not even allow him to go far away from Moscow, from the capital, because it was dangerous: if he could not come in time.... So his presence had to be there in the palace. The Tsanna became too impressed, then the Tsar became too impressed, then the whole court. And he started ordering: he became the real emperor. And his orders had to be listened to, otherwise he used to threaten 'I will go' and the life of the child was in danger. The doctors had said 'He has to be kept here, otherwise we cannot help at all. Any moment the child can die.'

But he forgot his prayers, he forgot his own inner discipline; he created many difficulties for others, created much difficulty for himself. In fact, if some day the real history will be written, then he was the cause for the Russian revolution, not Lenin, not Stalin, not Trotsky. He was the cause: he created such a ridiculous state that the people rebelled. The revolution came because of Rasputin; and because of Rasputin. Russia has suffered for almost half a century. The whole of Russia has become a great prison - all freedom lost; millions of people have been killed. And if you look, deep down you will find Rasputin at the beginning of this whole communist myth - the myth of revolution, the myth of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nobody talks about him, but he was the provocation.

His presence was so ugly, so repressive, so oppressive, that not only he was killed, the Tsar and the Tsarina and the child were all killed, and the whole empire disappeared into disorder and chaos.

Lieh Tzu says it ... GETS HIM INTO DIFFICULTIES. THE ONLY MOTIVE OF AN INNKEEPER IS TO SELL HIS RICE AND SOUP, AND INCREASE HIS EARNINGS. HIS PROFITS ARE MEAGRE, AND THE CONSIDERATIONS WHICH SWAY HIM HAVE LITTLE WEIGHT. IF MEN WITH SO LITTLE TO GAIN FROM ME VALUE ME SO HIGHLY AS A CUSTOMER, WILL IT NOT BE EVEN WORSE WITH THE LORD OF TEN THOUSAND CHARIOTS WHO HAS WORN OUT HIS BODY AND DRAINED HIS KNOWLEDGE IN STATE AFFAIRS? THE PRINCE OF CH'I WILL APPOINT ME TO SOME OFFICE AND INSIST THAT I FILL IT EFFICIENTLY. THIS IS WHAT ALARMED ME.'

... Really a man of understanding. He says 'If I go to the capital and the king comes to know about me, I am bound to be in trouble. He will appoint me; he may make me a prime minister, a minister.

He will certainly get hold of me. If ordinary people like an innkeeper, who has nothing much to gain from me, become so much impressed, then what about the great king, the lord of ten thousand chariots, who has wasted his energy in state affairs, who has lost his soul in the world, who is really poor as far as the inner integrity is concerned? If I come in contact with him, he will immediately take hold of me; he will say "You come here. You serve the kingdom, you serve the state." And I will be in difficulty. That's why I became alarmed.'

Look at the beautiful understanding of Lieh Tzu. He is still a disciple, but has great insight. One should avoid ambition, one should avoid any possibilities where one can get into unnecessary troubles.

'AN EXCELLENT WAY TO LOOK AT IT! BUT EVEN IF YOU STAY, OTHER MEN WILL LAY RESPONSIBILITIES ON YOU' said the old man.

One thing more before we go deeper into this parable: When your energies ooze out and you are not yet centred, you will certainly become a man of great influence, but your presence will be a violence to others, an aggression. Even if you are non-violent you will do violence to people.

The same thing happened in the case of Mahatma Gandhi. He believed in non-violence, but his presence was very violent. All those who lived around him were very much pressed upon. For small things he would press them too much. For small flaws, human flaws, human limitations. he would create much fuss. He would very easily go on a fast; if a disciple did something wrong, he would go on a fast. Now this looks very nonviolent - he was not doing anything to the disciple - but look deeply, he was doing. doing in a very subtle way: he would go on a fast.

When you are on a fast, more energy comes out of you than at any other time - that's why people who fast become very, very influential. And when you are fasting for a particular person.... For example, somebody had been found smoking a cigarette - now this was not allowed, or somebody had been found enjoying a cup of tea - now this was not allowed... Gandhi would go on a fast. And the disciple would certainly start feeling very, very guilty: Gandhi was suffering for him he would not eat for three days. A disciple fell in love with a woman and Gandhi fasted because this was not allowed. And the disciple was no ordinary disciple, he was his secretary, so it created much fuss, great controversy. He should have told him why he lied - not that he had really lied, the only thing was that he had not declared it - but why should he have kept it secret? It should have been made public. He accepted that it was wrong: he asked to be forgiven, but it could not be forgiven so easily... Gandhi fasted.

Now, what would the situation be for the disciple? For three days Gandhi fasted. The disciple could not sleep, he cried and wept, and he would go again and again, he would say 'I am sorry, forgive me.' And Gandhi would say 'I am not doing anything to you. I am doing it to myself.' And he would say 'You are not at fault.' Look at his logic: he would say 'I must be at fault, because if the Master is right, the disciple has to be right. Then something must be wrong in me, so I am purifying my soul.' Now this is very violent; it is better to hit a person with a sword. This is more violent: you are pressing his heart with a subtle sword.

In the name of non-violence much violence can be done to people. In the name of love much violence can be done to people. You all know. Parents go on doing violence to their children in the name of love. They say '... because we love you.' They go on making them feel guilty, they go on torturing them in subtle ways, in a thousand and one ways: and they are always doing it for you, for your own good.

'Remember, Tao says: IN ANY WAY, the desire to impress the other, the desire to change the other, the desire to do good to the other, is violence. There should be no desire. And this is the beauty - when you don't desire to help the other, others are helped. And when you don't desire to impress them, they learn out of their own insight. They are never pressed. They are transformed, but not because you want to transform them. Your simple presence with no pressure is a great transforming force.

The old man said 'AN EXCELLENT WAY TO LOOK AT IT! BUT EVEN IF YOU STAY, OTHER MEN WILL LAY RESPONSIBILITIES ON YOU.'

'Beware of it! If you don't go to the capital it doesn't make much difference. Even if you stay home, other people are going to lay their responsibilities on you.'

NOT LONG AFTERWARDS, WHEN PO-HUN WU-JEN WENT TO CALL ON HIM, LIEH TZU'S PORCH WAS FULL OF THE SHOES OF VISITORS. PO-HUN WU-JEN STOOD FACING NORTH; HE LEANED ON HIS UPRIGHT STAFF AND WRINKLED HIS CHEEK AGAINST IT. AFTER STANDING THERE FOR A WHILE, HE LEFT WITHOUT SPEAKING. THE DOORKEEPER TOLD LIEH TZU. LIEH TZU RAN OUT BAREFOOT HOLDING HIS SHOES IN HIS HANDS AND CAUGHT UP WITH HIM AT THE GATE.

'NOW THAT YOU HAVE COME, MASTER' HE SAID 'AREN'T YOU EVEN GOING TO GIVE ME MY MEDICINE?'

This is called 'medicine' in the Taoist circles - when a Master gives his presence to you. It is medicinal; his presence is therapeutic, his presence is a healing force. Just by being in close contact with him, just being in front of him, a great healing happens. This is called 'The medicine the Master gives'.

The word 'medicine' comes from the same root as 'meditation'. Both come from the same root - that's very good; both have something in common. 'Medicine', 'meditation', both come from a root which means to take care - a caring, loving care. Medicine takes care of your body, meditation takes care of your soul. Certainly the Master is a physician, Buddha used to call himself 'the physician'.

When people would come and ask him great philosophical questions he would simply put them aside and he would say 'Don't talk nonsense. I am not a philosopher, I am a physician.' Nanak also used to say 'I am a VAIDYA, I am a physician. I don't answer questions, I treat people. I am not concerned about their questions, I am concerned with their illnesses, with their disease.'

In Taoist circles the presence of the Master is called 'medicine', 'the medicine'. You cannot find a more medicinal energy anywhere else. Whenever a man becomes enlightened his surrounding is therapeutic. Just being in close contact with him you will be healed. Not that he will do something - no, a Master never does anything: he has forgotten all doing. But because he is a non-doer healing happens, because he is a nobody he gives you space: in that very space you become integrated, you become centred.

'ENOUGH! I TOLD YOU CONFIDENTLY THAT OTHERS WOULD LAY RESPONSIBILITIES ON YOU, AND IT TURNS OUT THAT THEY HAVE. IT IS NOT THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO, VOU ARE INCAPABLE OL PREVENTING THEM. WHAT USE IS IT TO YOU TO HAVE THIS EFFECT ON PEOPLE WHICH IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH YOUR OWN BASIC PEACE? IF YOU INSIST ON MAKING AN EFFECT, IT WILL UNSTEADY YOUR BASIC SELF, AND TO NO PURPOSE.'

A great sentence, a great sutra 'Enough!' said the old man. 'I told you confidently that others would lay responsibilities on you and it has happened. So many people are gathering around you. Why?'

And the old man said LT IS NOT THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO...'

For that one needs to become perfectly enlightened - to allow others to do so - because one has come to his own centre. Now there is no possibility of getting distracted. One has arrived; then there is no problem.

'But, Lieh Tzu' said the old man 'you have not yet arrived. You are still struggling, you are still far away. You have not yet become really integrated. From the body the ego has disappeared, from the mind the ego has disappeared, but from the self it has not disappeared yet. On the most subtle layer, the ego is still hiding.'

To see that phenomenon, the old man stood there...

... HE LEANED ON HIS UPRIGHT STAFF AND WRINKLED HIS CHEEK AGAINST IT. AFTER STANDING THERE FOR A WHILE, HE LEFT WITHOUT SPEAKING.

What was he doing? He looked deeply into his friend, Lieh Tzu. He looked deeply into him: 'Have you really become integrated? Then there is no problem. Then you can have disciples, then you can have a crowd around you, then you can allow them to lay their responsibilities on you because you don't exist, so nothing burdens you. You are not, so how can you be burdened? How can you burden a nothingness? Then there is no problem.' The Master looked deeply and found that at the third layer the ego was still vibrating. It can be heard. If you listen silently, it is very simple to hear the ego of the other, and a man who has come home can immediately see.

'IT IS NOT WHAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO...'

'No, it has not yet become possible.'

'... YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF PREVENTING THEM.'

Your state is negative, not yet positive. You are enjoying it. You still need people to make you feel important. You still need them; and if you need them, you cannot help them. In fact, on the contrary, they will distract you, they will harm you.

The other day you had asked 'A disciple needs a Master, does a Master need a disciple too?'

Now you will understand. The Master is a Master only when he needs nobody, when his need has completely disappeared. If he still needs somebody, then he is still far from his home; he has not yet arrived. If he needs disciples, then he is not a Master. He is a Master only when he needs no disciples, and only then can he be of help... not that he will help, but he can be of help.

'IT IS NOT THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF ALLOWING THEM TO DO SO, YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF PREVENTING THEM. WHAT USE IS IT TO YOU TO HAVE THIS EFFECT ON PEOPLE WHICH IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH YOUR OWN BASIC PEACE?'

'Your own peace is not yet there. You are still wavering, swaying. Your centre is still not fixed, and these people will make you go more astray; they will be a distraction, so what is the point of it all?

You didn't go to the capital, but the capital has come here; the people have come, and sooner or later the king will be coming. These people will spread the news. So what is the point?'

'IF YOU INSIST ON MAKING AN EFFECT, IT WILL UNSTEADY YOUR BASIC SELF; AND TO NO PURPOSE.'

'And nobody gains out of it. You lose, and nobody gains out of it.'

It is a great parable. Let it sink deep into your heart. Think about it, and whenever you want to influence people, become capable first. And the capability comes only when you don't have any desire to influence people - only then will you be of help. If you want to influence people, that simply shows that you are on an ego-trip. Enough! These games you have played long enough; for many lives you have been playing. Now it is time to stop these games. Because of these games you cannot contact reality. Reality is not a game. When you stop all games and all plays, then reality explodes into your being.

But all the games have one thing in common and that is the ego; body-games, mind-games, self- games, but all have one thing in common - the ego. That's why I explain to you not to repress the ego, but to disperse it, and that dispersal comes.

Find out. Whenever you are feeling some ego arising, just go inside yourself and look at it. See its movement, how it moves from one space to another space, how it takes more and more energy from you, how it takes you on far-away journeys, how it always takes you away from yourself. Just watch. I am not saying 'Fight', I am not saying 'Stop' - no; just watch. First you will become aware of the ego in the body - that is the most gross. Then, by and by, you will start hearing the whisperings of the second layer - the ego in the mind: that is subtle. And if you become capable of listening to that, one day you will understand about even a third layer which is very subtle. You want to become a MAHATMA, you want to become a great saint, you want to become a great yogi, MAHAYOGI, you want to become this and that. You want to become a great benefactor to humanity, you want to become a Buddha - then, again you are playing the same game on a very subtle level. The Zen people have the right word for it, they call it 'the Buddha-disease' when the ego asserts itself on the third level.

The body, the mind, the self... one has to go on looking, layer upon layer, into the ego - its functioning. Just looking into it is enough. When you have looked well, when you have looked at all the nooks and corners of your being, one day, you will suddenly find that it has evaporated, it is not there.

And when it is not there, God is, Tao is. When you are not, you really are. To die on one plane is to be born on another plane. To die on the plane of games is to be born on the plane of existence. That is the meaning of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. Crucify yourself as far as ego is concerned, so that you can be resurrected.