Heraclitus

THE HIDDEN HARMONY

Chapter 1: The Hidden Harmony

 

THE HIDDEN HARMONY

IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS.

OPPOSITION BRINGS CONCORD.

OUT OF DISCORD

COMES THE FAIREST HARMONY.

IT IS IN CHANGING

THAT THINGS FIND REPOSE.

PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND

HOW THAT WHICH IS AT VARIANCE WITH ITSELF,

AGREES WITH ITSELF.

THERE IS A HARMONY IN THE BENDING BACK,

AS IN THE CASE OF THE BOW AND LYRE.

THE NAME OF THE BOW IS LIFE,

BUT ITS WORK IS DEATH.

I have been in love with Heraclitus for many lives. In fact, Heraclitus is the only Greek I have ever been in love with -- except, of course, Mukta, Seema and Neeta!

Heraclitus is really beautiful. Had he been born in India, or in the East, he would have been known as a buddha. But in Greek history, Greek philosophy, he was a stranger, an outsider. He is known in Greece not as an enlightened person but as Heraclitus the Obscure, Heraclitus the Dark, Heraclitus the Riddling. And the father of Greek philosophy and of Western thought, Aristotle, thought that he was no philosopher at all. Aristotle said, "At the most he is a poet," but that too was difficult for him to concede. So later on he said in other works, "There must be some defect in Heraclitus' character, something wrong biologically; that's why he talks in such obscure ways, and talks in paradoxes." Aristotle thought that he was a little eccentric, a little mad -- and Aristotle dominates the whole West. If Heraclitus had been accepted, the whole history of the West would have been totally different. But he was not understood at all. He became more and more separate from the main current of Western thinking and the Western mind.

Heraclitus was like Gautam Buddha or Lao Tzu or Basho. The Greek soil was absolutely not good for him. He would have been a great tree in the East: millions would have profited, millions would have found the way through him. But for Greeks he was just outlandish, eccentric, something foreign, alien; he didn't belong to them. That's why his name has remained just on the side, in a dark corner; by and by he has been forgotten.

At the moment when Heraclitus was born, precisely at that moment, humanity reached a peak, a moment of transformation. It happens with humanity just as with an individual: there are moments when changes happen. Every seven years the body changes, and it goes on changing -- if you live for seventy years, then your total bio-physical system will change ten times. And if you can use those gaps when the body changes, it will be very easy to move in meditation.

For example, at fourteen for the first time sex becomes important. The body goes through a biochemical change, and if at that moment you can be introduced into the dimension of meditation, it will be very, very easy to move because the body is not fixed, the old pattern has gone and the new has yet to come in -- there is a gap. At the age of twenty-one, again deep changes happen, because every seven years the body completely renovates itself: all the old cells drop and the new cells come in. At the age of thirty-five again it happens, and this goes on. Every seven years your body comes to a point where the old goes and the new settles -- and there is a transitory period. In that transitory period everything is liquid. If you want some new dimension to enter into your life, that is precisely the moment.

In the same way exactly it happens also in the history of humanity as a whole. Every twenty-five centuries there comes a peak -- and if you can use that moment, you can easily become enlightened. It will not be so easy in other times because at that peak the river itself is flowing in that direction; everything is fluid, nothing is fixed.

Twenty-five centuries ago there were born in India, Gautam Buddha, Mahavira the Jaina; in China, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu; in Iran, Zarathustra; and in Greece, Heraclitus. They are the peaks. Never before were such peaks attained, or if they were attained they are not part of history, because history starts with Jesus.

You don't know what happened these twenty-five centuries ago. Again the moment is coming, we are again in a fluid state: the old is meaningless, the past doesn't have any significance for you, the future is uncertain -- the gap is here. And again humanity will achieve a peak, the same peak as there was in Heraclitus' time. And if you are a little aware, you can use this moment -- you can simply drop out of the wheel of life. When things are liquid, transformation is easy. When things are fixed, then transformation is difficult.

You are fortunate that you are born in an age when things are again in a state of liquidity. Nothing is certain, all old codes and commandments have become useless. New patterns have not settled in. They will settle soon; man cannot remain forever unsettled, because when you are unsettled there is insecurity. Things will settle again, this moment will not last for ever; it is only for a few years.

If you can use it, you can reach a peak which will be very, very difficult to reach in other times. If you miss it, the moment is missed for twenty-five centuries again.

Remember this: life moves in a cycle, everything moves in a cycle. The child is born, then comes the age of youth, then old age, then death. It moves just as seasons move: summer comes, then rains follow, then comes winter, and it goes on in a circle. The same happens in the dimension of consciousness: every twenty-five centuries the circle is complete and before the new circle starts there is a gap you can escape through; the door is open for a few years.

Heraclitus is a really rare flowering, one of the most highly penetrating souls, one of those souls who become like Everest, the highest peak of the Himalayas. Try to understand him. It is difficult; that's why he is called Heraclitus the Obscure. He is not obscure. To understand him is difficult; to understand him you will need a different type of being -- that is the problem. So it is easy to categorize him as obscure and then forget him.

There are two types of people. If you want to understand Aristotle you don't need any change in your being, you simply need some information. A school can provide some information about logic, philosophy; you can collect some intellectual understanding and you can understand Aristotle. You need not change to understand him, you need only a few more additions to your knowledge. The being remains the same, you remain the same. You need not have a different plane of consciousness; that is not the requirement. Aristotle is clear. If you want to understand him, a little effort is enough; anybody of average mind and intelligence will understand him. But to understand Heraclitus is going to be rough terrain, difficult, because whatsoever you collect as knowledge will not be of much help; just a very, very cultivated head won't be of any help. You will need a different quality of being -- and that is difficult -- you will need a transformation. Hence, he is called obscure.

He is NOT obscure! You are below the level of being where he can be understood. When you reach that level of being, suddenly all darkness around him disappears. He is one of the most luminous beings; he is not obscure, he is not dark -- it is you who are blind. Remember this always, because if you say he is dark you are throwing the responsibility on him, you are trying to escape from a transformation that is possible through encountering him. Don't say that he is dark. Say, "We are blind," or, "Our eyes are closed."

The sun is there: you can stand in front of the sun with closed eyes and you can say the sun is dark. And sometimes it also happens that you can stand with open eyes before the sun, but the light is so much that your eyes temporarily go blind. The light is too much to bear, it is unbearable; suddenly, darkness. Eyes are open, the sun is there, but the sun is too much for your eyes so you feel darkness. And that is the case -- Heraclitus is not dark. Either you are blind, or your eyes are closed, or there is also the third possibility: when you look at Heraclitus, he is such a luminous being that your eyes simply lose the capacity to see. He is unbearable, the light is too much for you. You are not accustomed to such light so you will need to make a few arrangements before you can understand Heraclitus. And when he is talking he looks as if he is riddling, he looks as if he is enjoying riddles, because he talks in paradoxes.

All those who have known always talk in paradoxes. There is something to it -- they are not riddling, they are very simple. But what can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, what can they do? Just to avoid paradoxes you can create neat and clean theories, but they will be false, they will not be true to life. Aristotle is very neat, clean; he looks like a man-managed garden. Heraclitus looks like riddles -- he is a wild forest.

With Aristotle there is no trouble; he has avoided the paradox, he has made a neat and clean doctrine -- it appeals. You will be scared to face Heraclitus because he opens the door of life, and life is paradoxical. Buddha is paradoxical, Lao Tzu is paradoxical; all those who have known are bound to be paradoxical. What can they do? If life itself is paradoxical, they have to be true to life. And life is not logical. It is a logos, but it is not logic. It is a cosmos, it is not a chaos -- but it is not logic.

The word logos has to be understood because Heraclitus will use it. And the difference between logos and logic also has to be understood. Logic is a doctrine about what is true, and logos is truth itself. Logos is existential, logic is not existential; logic is intellectual, theoretical. Try to understand. If you see life you will say there is death also. How can you avoid death? If you look at life, it is implied. Every moment of life is also a moment of death; you cannot separate them. It becomes a riddle.

Life and death are not two separate phenomena; they are two faces of the same coin, two aspects of the same coin. If you penetrate deeply you will see that life is death and death is life. The moment you are born, you have started dying. And if this is so, then when you die you will start living again. If death is implied in life, then life will be implied in death. They belong to each other, they are complementary.

Life and death are just like two wings or two legs: you cannot move only with the right leg or the left leg. In life you cannot be a rightist or a leftist, you have to be both together. With doctrine you can be a rightist, you can be a leftist. Doctrine is never true to life and cannot be, because doctrine, of necessity, needs to be clean, neat, clear, and life is not that -- life is vast.

Somewhere, one of the greatest poets of the world, Whitman, has said, "I contradict myself because I am vast."

Through logic you will attain to a very tiny mind -- you cannot be vast. If you are afraid of contradiction you cannot be vast. Then you will have to choose, then you will have to suppress, then you will have to avoid the contradiction, then you will have to hide it -- but by your hiding, can it disappear? By just not looking at death, are you going to not die?

You can avoid death, you can have your back towards it, you can forget completely about it.... That's why we don't talk about death; it is not good manners. We don't talk about it, we avoid it. Death happens every day, everywhere it is happening, but we avoid it. The moment a man dies we are in a hurry to be finished with him. We make our graveyards out of the town so nobody goes there. And there also we make graves with marble and write beautiful lines on them. We go and put flowers on the grave. What are you doing? You are trying to decorate it a little.

In the West, how to hide death has become a profession. There are professionals who help you to avoid it, to make the dead body beautiful, as if it is still alive. What are you doing? -- can this help in any way? Death is there. You are headed towards the graveyard; wherever you put it makes no difference -- you will reach there. You are already on the way, you are standing in the queue waiting for the moment, just waiting in the queue to die. Where can you escape to from death?

But logic tries to be clear, and just to be clear it avoids. It says life is life, death is death -- they are separate. Aristotle says A is A, it is never B. That became the foundation stone of all Western thought: avoid the contradiction -- love is love, hate is hate; love is never hate. This is foolish because every love implies hate, has to; that's how nature is. You love a person and you hate the same person, you have to; you cannot avoid it. If you try to avoid it everything will become false. That's why your love has become false: it is not true, it is not authentic. It cannot be sincere, it is a facade.

Why is it a facade? -- because you are avoiding the other. You say, "You are my friend and a friend cannot be an enemy. And you are my enemy, you cannot be my friend." But these are two aspects of the same coin -- the enemy is a hidden friend, and the friend is a hidden enemy. The other aspect is hidden, but it is there. But it will be too much for you. If you see both it will be unbearable. If you see the enemy in the friend you will not be able to love him. If you see the friend in the enemy you will not be able to hate him. The whole life will become a riddle.

Heraclitus is called "that Riddler." He is not, he is true to life. Whatsoever it is, he simply reports it. He has no doctrine about life, he is not a system-maker -- he is simply a mirror. Whatsoever life is he represents it. Your face changes, the mirror represents it; you are loving, the mirror represents it; next moment you become hateful, the mirror represents it. The mirror is not riddling, it is true.

Aristotle is not like a mirror, he is like a dead photograph. It doesn't change, it doesn't move with life. That's why Aristotle says there is some defect in this man Heraclitus, some defect in his very character. For Aristotle mind should be clear, systematic, rational; logic should be the goal of life and you should not mix the opposites. But who is mixing them? Heraclitus is not mixing them. They are there, mixed. Heraclitus is not responsible for them. And how can you separate them if they are mixed in life itself? Yes, in your books you can try, but your books will be false. A logical statement is basically going to be false because it cannot be a life statement. And a life statement is going to be illogical because life exists through contradictions.

Look at life: everywhere there is contradiction. But nothing is wrong in contradiction, it is just because it is unbearable for your logical mind. If you attain to a mystic insight it becomes beautiful. Really, beauty cannot exist without it. If you cannot hate the same person you love there will be no tension in your love. It will be a dead thing. There will be no polarity; everything will go stale. What happens? If you love a person, in the morning you love and by the afternoon it has become hate. Why? What is the reason for it? Why is it so in life? ... Because when you hate, you separate; the initial distance is again regained. Before you fell in love you were two separate individuals. When you fell in love you became a unity, you became a community.

You must understand this word community. It is very beautiful; it means common unity. You became a community, you attained to a common unity. Community is beautiful for a few moments, but then it looks like slavery. To attain to common unity for a few moments is beautiful, it leads to a height, to a peak -- but you cannot live on the peak for ever. Then who will live in the valley? And the peak is beautiful only because the valley is there. If you cannot move to the valley again, the peak will lose all its peakness. It is against the valley that it is a peak. If you make a house there you will forget that this is a peak -- the whole beauty of love will be lost.

In the morning you love, by the afternoon you are filled with hate. You have moved to the valley, you have moved to the initial position where you were before you fell into love -- now you are again individuals. To be individual is also beautiful because it is a freedom. To be in the valley is also beautiful, because it is a relaxation. To be in the dark valley is soothing, it helps you to regain balance. Then you are ready again to go to the peak; by the evening you are again in love. This is a process of coming apart, then coming together -- and again and again. When you fall in love again after a hateful moment it is a new honeymoon.

If there is no change life is static. If you cannot move to the opposite everything will go stale and it will become boring. That's why people who are too cultivated become boring -- because they always go on smiling, they are never angry. You insult them and they smile; you praise them and they smile; you condemn them and they smile. They are unbearable. Their smile is dangerous, and their smile cannot be very deep; it remains just on the lips, it is a face. They are not smiling, they are just following a code. And their smile is ugly.

People who are always in love and never hate, never get angry, you will always find superficial -- because if you don't move to the opposite, from where will you gain depth? Depth comes through a movement to the opposite. Love is hate. In fact, we should not use the words love and hate, we should use a single word: lovehate. A love relationship is a lovehate relationship -- and it is beautiful!

Nothing is wrong in hate, because it is through hate that you gain love.

Nothing is wrong in being angry, because it is through anger that you come to a silent stillness.

Have you observed? Every morning airplanes pass over here with a loud sound. And when the airplane has passed, a deep silence follows in its wake. It was not so silent before the airplane came, no. When the airplane has gone, it is more silent. You are walking down a street on a dark night, suddenly a car comes. With full speed it passes by you; your eyes are dazzled by the light -- when the car has passed it is more dark than before.

Through the opposite, through the tension of the opposite, everything lives -- and becomes deeper. Go away so that you can come near; move to the opposite so that you can come closer again.

A love relationship is a relationship of falling again and again into honeymoons. If the honeymoon is over and the thing has settled, it is already dead -- anything that is settled is dead. Life remains through an unsettled movement -- anything that is secure is already in the grave. Your bank balances are your graveyards; that is where you have died. If you are totally secure you are no longer alive, because to be alive is basically to move between the opposites.

Illness is not bad: it is through illness that you regain health. Everything fits in the harmony -- that's why Heraclitus is called the Riddler. Lao Tzu would have understood him deeply, but Aristotle could not understand him. And, unfortunately, Aristotle became the source of Greek thought. And Greek thought, even more unfortunately, became the whole base of the Western mind.

What is the message of Heraclitus, the deepest message? Understand so you can follow.

He does not believe in things, he believes in processes -- process is God to him. And if you watch closely, you will see that THINGS don't exist in the world; everything is a process. In fact to use the word "is," is existentially wrong, because everything is becoming. Nothing is in a state of isness, nothing!

You say, "This is a tree." By the time you say it, it has grown; your statement is already false. The tree is never static, so how can you use the word, is? It is always becoming, becoming something else. Everything is growing, moving, in a process. Life is movement. It is like a river -- always moving. Says Heraclitus, "You cannot step in the same river twice," because by the time you come to step into it the second time, it has moved. It is a flow. Can you meet the same person twice? Impossible! You were here yesterday morning also -- but am I the same? Are you the same? Both rivers have changed. You may be here again tomorrow, but you will not find me; somebody else will be here.

Life is changing. "Only change is eternal," says Heraclitus -- only change never changes. Everything else changes. He believes in a permanent revolution. Everything is in revolution. It is how it is there. To be means to become. To remain where you are means to move; you cannot stay, nothing is static. Even the hills, the Himalayas, are not static; they are moving, moving fast. They are born, then they die. The Himalayas is one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world, and it is still growing. It has not reached its peak yet, it is very young -- every year it grows one foot. There are old mountains whose peaks have been attained; now they are falling down, old, their backs are bent.

These walls you see around you, every particle of them is in movement. You cannot see the movement because the movement is very subtle and fast. Now physicists agree with Heraclitus, not with Aristotle, remember. Whenever any science reaches nearer to reality, it has to agree with Lao Tzu and Heraclitus. Now physicists say everything is in movement. Eddington has said that the only word which is false is rest. Nothing is at rest, nothing can be; it is a false word, it doesn't correspond to any reality. "Is" is just in the language. In life, in existence, there is no "is"; everything is becoming. Heraclitus himself, when he says about the river -- and the symbol of the river is very, very deep with him -- that you cannot step in the same river twice, he also says that even if you do, you are the same and you are not the same. Just on the surface you look the same. Not only has the river changed, you have also changed.

It happened: A man came to Buddha to insult him -- he spat on his face. Buddha wiped his face and asked the man, "Have you anything more to say?" -- as if he had said something. The man was puzzled, because he never expected this type of response. He went away. The next day he came again -- because the whole night he couldn't sleep; he felt more and more that he had done something absolutely wrong, he felt guilty. The next morning he came, fell at Buddha's feet and said, "Forgive me!"

And Buddha said, "Who will forgive you now? The man you spat upon is no more, and the man you were who spat is no more either -- so who will forgive whom? Forget about it, now nothing can be done about it. It cannot be undone -- finished!... because nobody is there, both parties are dead. What can be done? You are a new man and I am a new man."

This is the deepest message of Heraclitus: everything flows and changes; everything moves, nothing is static. And the moment you cling, you miss reality. Your clinging becomes the problem, because reality changes and you cling.

You loved me yesterday; now you are angry. I cling to the yesterday and I say, "You have to love me, because yesterday you were loving and yesterday you said you would love me always -- now what has happened?" But what can you do? And yesterday when you said that you would love me always, it was not false, but it was not a promise either -- it was simply the mood, and I believed in the mood too much. At that moment you felt it, that you would love me always and always and always, forever; and it was not untrue, remember. It was true to the moment, that was the mood, but now that mood has gone. The one who said it is no more. And if it is gone, it is gone; nothing can be done. You cannot force love. That's what we are doing -- and making much misery out of it. The husband says, "Love me!" The wife says, "Love me because you promised -- have you forgotten the courting days?" But they are no longer there. Those persons are no longer there either. A young man of twenty, just remember: are you the same man? Much has passed; the Ganges has flowed too much -- you are no longer there.

I have heard: One night Mulla Nasruddin's wife said, "You no longer love me, you no longer kiss, you no longer hug me. Remember when you were courting me? -- you used to bite me and I loved that very much! Can't you bite me once more?"

Nasruddin got out of his bed, started walking. His wife said, "Where are you going?"

He said, "To the bathroom to get my teeth."

No, you cannot step in the same river twice. It is impossible. Don't cling; if you cling you create a hell. Clinging is hell, and a nonclinging consciousness is always in heaven. One moves with the mood, one accepts the mood, one accepts the change; there is no grudge, no complaint about it because this is how life is, things are. You can fight, but you cannot change.

When somebody is young, of course there are different moods because youth has different seasons and moods. How can an old man have the same? And an old man will look very foolish with those moods. How can an old man say the same thing? Everything has changed. When you are young you are romantic, inexperienced, dreamy. When you are old all the dreams have gone. Nothing is bad in it, because when the dreams are gone you are nearer and closer to reality -- now you understand more. You are less of a poet because you cannot dream now, but nothing is wrong. Dreaming was a mood, a season -- it changes. And one has to be true to the state in which one finds oneself at a certain point.

Be true to your changing self, because that is the only reality. That's why Buddha says there is no self. You are a river. There is no self because there is nothing unchanging in you. Buddha was thrown out of India because the Indian mind, particularly the brahmins, the Hindus, believed in a permanent self, ATMA. They always said that something is permanent, and Buddha said only change is permanent -- nothing is permanent.

Why do you want to be a permanent thing? Why do you want to be dead?... because only a dead thing can be permanent. Waves come and go, that's why the ocean is alive. If waves stop, everything will stop in the ocean. It will be a dead thing. Everything lives through change -- and change means changing to the polarity. You move from one pole to another; that's how you again and again become alive and fresh. In the day you work hard, and in the night you relax and go into sleep. Again in the morning you are alive and fresh to work. Have you ever observed the polarity?

Work is against relaxation. If you work hard you become tense, tired, exhausted, but then you fall into the deep valley of rest, a deep relaxation. The surface is far away, you move to the center. You are no more the identity you are on the surface, no more the name, the ego; nothing from the surface is carried. You simply forget who you are, and in the morning you are fresh. This forgetfulness is good, it makes you fresh. Just try for three weeks not to sleep -- you will go mad, because you have forgotten to move to the opposite.

If Aristotle is right, then if you don't sleep at all, if you don't move to the opposite, then you will become an enlightened man. You will be MAD. And it is because of Aristotle that there are so many mad people in the West. If they don't listen to the East, or to Heraclitus, sooner or later the whole West is going to be mad. It is bound to be so because you have lost the polarity. Logic will say something else. Logic will say rest the whole day, practice rest the whole day, so that in the night you can go into a deep sleep -- this is logical. This is logical: practice rest! This is what rich people do: they rest the whole day, then they have insomnia and they say, "We cannot sleep." And they are practicing the whole day -- lying on their beds, lying on their easy chairs, resting and resting and resting. And then in the night, suddenly they find that they cannot sleep. They have followed Aristotle, they are logical.

One day Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. Coughing, he entered. The doctor said, "It sounds better."

Nasruddin said, "Of course, it has to sound better -- because I practiced it the whole night."

If you practice rest the whole day, in the night you will be restless. You will change sides again and again: that is just an exercise the body is doing so that some rest becomes possible. No -- in life you cannot find a man more wrong than Aristotle. Move to the opposite: work hard in the day and you will go into a deeper sleep in the night. Go deeper in sleep, and in the morning you will find you are capable of doing tremendous work, infinite energy you have. Through rest one gains energy; through work one gains rest -- just the opposite.

People come to me and they say, "We have insomnia, we cannot sleep, so tell us some way to relax" -- they are Aristotelian.

I tell them, "There is no need for you to relax. Just go for a walk, a long walk, run madly -- two hours in the morning, two in the evening, and then rest will follow automatically. It always follows! You don't need techniques of relaxation; you need techniques of active meditation, not relaxation. You are already too relaxed; that's what insomnia is showing, that you are already too relaxed -- there is no need."

Life moves through one opposite to another. And Heraclitus says this is the secret, the hidden harmony; this is the hidden harmony. He is very poetic, he has to be. He cannot be philosophic because philosophy means reason. Poetry can be contradictory; poetry can say things which philosophers will be ashamed to say -- poetry is truer to life. And philosophers just go around and around: they never hit the point in the center, they beat around and around the bush. Poetry simply hits directly.

If you want any parallels to Heraclitus in the East, then you will find them in Zen masters, Zen poets, particularly in the poetry known as haiku. One of the great masters of haiku is Basho. Basho and Heraclitus are absolutely close, in a deep embrace; they are almost one. Basho has not written anything in a philosophical way; he has written in small haikus, just three-line, seventeen-syllable haikus, just small pieces. Heraclitus has also written fragments; he has not written a system like Hegel, Kant; he is not a systematizer -- just oracular maxims. Each fragment is complete in itself, just like a diamond; each cut to its perfection in itself, no need to be related to another. He has spoken in an oracular way.

The whole method of the oracular maxim has disappeared from the West. Only Nietzsche wrote in the same way again: his book, Thus Spake Zarathustra consists of oracular maxims -- but since Heraclitus, only Nietzsche. In the East, everybody who has been enlightened has written in that way. That is the way of the Upanishads, the Vedas, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Basho: just maxims. They are so small that you have to penetrate them, and just by trying to understand them you will change and your intellect cannot cope with them. Says Basho in a small haiku:

Old pond frog jump

in water

sound

Finished! He has said everything. Pictorial: you can see an ancient pond, a frog sitting on the bank, and... the jump of the frog. You can see the splash, and the sound of water. And, says Basho, everything has been said. This is all life is: An ancient pond... a jump of the frog, the sound of water -- and silence. This is what you are; this is what everything is -- and silence.

The same way Heraclitus talks in his river fragment. First he uses the sounds of a river -- AUTOISI POTAMOISI; before he says something he uses the sounds of the river, and then he gives the maxim: You cannot step twice in the same river. He is a poet, but no ordinary poet -- a poet Hindus have always called a RISHI. There are two types of poets. One who is still dreaming and creating poetry out of his dreams -- a Byron, a Shelley, a Keats. Then there is another type of poet, a rishi, who is no longer dreaming -- he looks at the reality, and out of the reality poetry is born. Heraclitus is a rishi, a poet who is no longer dreaming, who has encountered existence. He is the first existentialist in the West.

Now, try to penetrate his oracular maxims.

THE HIDDEN HARMONY

IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS.

Why? Why is the hidden harmony better than the obvious? -- because the obvious is on the surface, and the surface can deceive and the surface can be cultivated, conditioned. At the center you are existential, on the surface you are social. Marriage is on the surface, love is at the center. Love has a hidden harmony, marriage has an obvious harmony.

Just go to some friend's house. If you look through the window and the husband and wife are fighting, their faces ugly, the moment you enter everything changes: they are so polite, they are talking to each other so lovingly. This is a harmony that is obvious, a harmony that is on the surface. But deep down there is no harmony, it is just a mannerism, it is just for display. A real man may appear unharmonious on the surface, but he will always be harmonious in the center. Even if he contradicts himself, in his contradictions there will be a hidden harmony. And a person who never contradicts himself, who is absolutely consistent on the surface, will not have the real harmony.

There are consistent people: if they love they love, if they hate they hate -- they don't allow opposites to mingle and meet. They are absolutely clear who their enemy is and who their friend is. They live on the surface and they create a consistency. Their consistency is not real consistency: deep down inconsistencies are boiling; on the surface they are somehow managing. You know them because you are them! On the surface you manage, but this won't help. Don't be bothered too much with the surface. Go deeper -- and don't try to choose between the opposites. You will have to live both. And if you can live both, nonattached, unattached to either, if you can live both -- if you can love and remain a witness, and you can hate and remain a witness, that witnessing will be the hidden harmony. Then you will know that these are climates, changes in season, moods that just come and go -- and you will see the gestalt in them.

This German word gestalt is beautiful. It says there is a harmony between the figure and background. They are not opposites, they APPEAR opposites. For example: in a small school you see the blackboard, and the teacher writes with white chalk on the blackboard. Black and white are opposites. Yes, for Aristotelian minds they are opposites: black is black and white is white -- they are the polarities. But why is this teacher writing with white on black? Can't she write with white on white? Can't she write with black on black? She can, but it will be useless. The black has to be the background and the white becomes the figure on it: they contrast, there is a tension between them. They are opposites and there is a hidden harmony. The white looks whiter on black; that's the harmony. On white it will simply disappear because there is no tension, no opposition.

Remember, Jesus would have disappeared if Jews had not crucified him. They made it a gestalt: the cross was the blackboard, and Jesus became whiter on it. Jesus would have completely disappeared; it is because of the cross that he has remained. And it is because of the cross that he has penetrated people's hearts more than a Buddha, more than a Mahavira. Almost half of the world has fallen in love with him -- it is because of the cross. He was a white line on a black board. Buddha is a white line on a white board. The contrast is not there, the gestalt is not there; the background is just the same as the figure.

If you simply love and can't hate, your love will not be worthwhile, it will simply be useless. It will have no intensity in it, it will not be a flame, it will not be a passion; it will be simply cold. It becomes a passion -- and passion is a beautiful word because passion has intensity. But how does it become a passion? -- because the same man is capable of hate also. Compassion has an intensity if the same man is capable of anger also. If he is simply incapable of anger, then his compassion will be just impotent -- just impotent! He is helpless, that's why compassion is there. He cannot hate, that's why he loves. When you love in spite of hate, there is passion. Then it becomes a figure and background phenomenon, then there is a gestalt.

And Heraclitus is talking of the deepest gestalt. The obvious harmony is no harmony really, the hidden harmony is the real harmony. So don't try to be consistent on the surface; rather, find a consistency between the deep inconsistencies, find a harmony between the deepest opposites.

THE HIDDEN HARMONY

IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS.

That is the difference between a religious man and a moral man. A moral man is just harmonious on the surface; a religious man is harmonious at the center. A religious man is bound to be contradictory; a moral man is always consistent. You can rely on a moral man; you cannot rely on a religious man. A moral man is predictable; a religious man, never. How Jesus will behave nobody knows -- even his close disciples were not aware, they couldn't predict him. This man is unpredictable. He talks of love and then he takes a whip in the temple and chases the moneychangers out. He talks of compassion, he talks in terms of "love your enemy," and he upsets the whole temple -- he is rebellious. A man who talks of love seems to be inconsistent.

Bertrand Russell has written a book, Why I am not a Christian. In that book he raises all these inconsistencies. He says, "Jesus is inconsistent and looks neurotic. Somewhere he says love your enemy, and then he behaves in such an angry way -- not only with persons, even with trees -- he curses a fig tree. They came near the fig tree and they were hungry, but it was not the season at all for figs to come. They looked at the tree and there were no fruits, and it is said Jesus cursed the tree. What type of man is this? And he talks of love!"

He has a hidden harmony, but Bertrand Russell cannot find it because he is the modern Aristotle. He cannot find it, he cannot understand it. It is good that he is not a Christian -- very, very good. He cannot be a Christian, he cannot be a religious man. He is a moralist; each act should be consistent -- but with what? With whom? With whom should it be consistent? With your past? My one assertion should be consistent with another -- why? It is possible only if the river is not flowing.

Have you watched a river? Sometimes it is going left, sometimes it is going right, sometimes to the south, sometimes to the north, and you will see that this river is very inconsistent -- but there is a hidden harmony: it reaches the ocean. Wherever it is going, the ocean is the goal. Sometimes it has to move towards the south because the slope is towards the south; sometimes it has to move just the opposite way, towards the north, because the slope is towards the north -- but in every direction it is finding the same goal: it is moving towards the ocean. And you will see that it has reached.

Think of a river which is consistent, which says, "I will always move to the south because how can I move to the north? -- people will say I am inconsistent." This river will never reach the ocean. The rivers of Russells and Aristotles never reach the ocean; they are too consistent, too much on the surface. And they don't know the hidden harmony -- that through opposites you can seek the same goal. The same goal can be sought through the opposites. That possibility is completely unknown to them -- that possibility is there.

THE HIDDEN HARMONY

IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS.

... But difficult, you will be in constant difficulty. People expect consistency from you and the hidden harmony is not a part of the society. It is part of the cosmos, but not of the society. Society is a manmade affair, and society has worked out the whole plan as if everything is static. Society has created moralities, codes, as if everything is unmoving. That's why moralities continue for centuries together. Everything changes and dead rules continue. Everything goes on changing and the so-called moralists always go on preaching the same things which are absolutely irrelevant -- but they are consistent with their past. Absolutely irrelevant things go on....

For example: in the times of Mohammed, in Arabian countries there were four times more women than men, because the Arabians were warriors and continuously warring and killing each other, murderers. And women have never been so foolish, so they survived four times more; then what to do? In the whole society, if there are four times more women than men, then you can understand it will be too difficult for any morality to exist there. Many problems will arise. So Mohammed made a rule that every Mohammedan could marry four women... they are still following the rule.

Now it has become an ugly thing, but they say they are consistent with the Koran. Now the whole situation is different, absolutely different: there are not four times more women now -- but they follow the rule. And the thing that was a beautiful response in a particular historic situation is now ugly, absolutely ugly. But they will follow it because Mohammedans are very consistent people. They can't change; and they cannot consult Mohammed again, he is not there. And Mohammedans are very, very cunning: they have closed the door for any prophet to come again; otherwise he will do something, make some change. So this Mohammed is the last -- the door is closed even if Mohammed himself wants to come. He cannot come because they have closed the door. It always happens. Moralists always close the door because any new prophet will always create trouble, because a new prophet cannot be consistent with old rules. He will live the moment. He will have his own discipline -- consistent with the reality now, but what is the guarantee that it will be consistent with the past? There is no guarantee, it is not going to be so. So every moral tradition closes the door.

Jainas have closed their door: they say Mahavira is the last, now no more TIRTHANKARAS. Mohammedans say Mohammed is the last; Christians say Jesus is the only begotten son of God, now no more -- all doors closed. Why do moralists always close the doors? -- just as a safety measure, because if a prophet comes, a man who lives moment-to-moment, he will topsy-turvy everything, he will create a chaos. Somehow you get settled: a church, a morality, a code; everything fixed -- and you follow the rules. On the surface you attain an obvious harmony. Again a prophet comes and he recreates everything, disturbs everything; he starts creating everything anew again.

A moralist is a man on the surface. He lives for the rules, rules are not for him. He is for the scriptures, scriptures are not for him. He follows the rules, but he doesn't follow awareness. If you follow awareness, witnessing, you will attain to a hidden harmony. Then you are not bothered by the opposite, you can use it. And once you can use the opposite, you have a secret key: you can make your love more beautiful through hate.

Hate is not the enemy of love. It is the very salt that makes love beautiful -- it is the background. Then you can make your compassion intense through anger, then it is not the opposite. And this is the meaning of Jesus when he says, "Love your enemies." This is the meaning: Love your enemies, because enemies are not enemies -- they are friends, you can use them. In a hidden harmony they fall and become one.

Anger is the enemy -- use it, make it a friend! Hate is the enemy -- use it, make it a friend! Allow your love to grow deeper through it, make it a soil -- it becomes a soil.

This is the hidden harmony of Heraclitus: Love the enemy, use the opposite. The opposite is not the opposite, it is just the background.

OPPOSITION BRINGS CONCORD.

OUT OF DISCORD

COMES THE FAIREST HARMONY.

Never is Heraclitus surpassed.

OPPOSITION BRINGS CONCORD.

OUT OF DISCORD

COMES THE FAIREST HARMONY.

IT IS IN CHANGING

THAT THINGS FIND REPOSE.

PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND

HOW THAT WHICH IS AT VARIANCE WITH ITSELF,

AGREES WITH ITSELF.

THERE IS A HARMONY IN THE BENDING BACK,

AS IN THE CASE OF THE BOW AND LYRE.

THE NAME OF THE BOW IS LIFE,

BUT ITS WORK IS DEATH.

Of course, to the rationalist he will seem to be speaking in riddles, obscure, dark. But is he? He is so crystal clear if you can see, he is so luminous. But if you are addicted to the rational mind it becomes difficult, because he says that out of disharmony the fairest harmony is born, opposition brings concord, love the enemy.

Life will be absolutely saltless if the opposition is simply destroyed. Just think of a world where evil doesn't exist. Do you think good will exist? Just think of a world where there is no sinner. Do you think all will be saints? The saint cannot exist without the sinner -- the saint needs the sinner. The sinner cannot exist without the saint -- the sinner needs the saint. There is a harmony, a hidden harmony: they are polarities. And life is beautiful because of both. God cannot exist without the Devil. God is eternal, the Devil is also eternal.

People come to ask me, they say, "Why? If God exists why is there so much misery, evil, bad -- why?" It is because God cannot exist without them -- that is the background. God alone without the Devil will be just tasteless, just tasteless -- you can vomit him, but you cannot eat him -- just tasteless, nauseous. He knows the hidden harmony; he cannot exist without the Devil, so don't hate the Devil -- use him. If God is using him, why not you? If God cannot exist without him, how can you? So real saints, saints who have an intensity, are just like Gurdjieff.

Alan Watts has written about Gurdjieff: "He is the holiest rascal I have ever known!" And it is so: he is a rascal -- but the holiest. God himself is that rascal, the holiest. If you cut out the Devil, simultaneously you have killed God. The game needs two parties.

When Adam was tempted by the Devil it was God himself who was tempting him. It is a conspiracy. The serpent is in the service of God, the Devil also. The very word Devil is beautiful; it comes from a Sanskrit root which means the divine. Divine comes from the same root, DEV, as Devil; both words come from the same root. It is as if the root is one, only the branches are different: on one branch the Devil, on another branch the divine -- but the root is the same: DEV. There must be a conspiracy, otherwise the game cannot continue. There must be a deep harmony -- that is the conspiracy. Here God says to Adam, "You are not to eat from this tree of knowledge." Now the conspiracy starts, the game starts; now, the first rules are being set.

Christianity has missed many beautiful things because it has tried to create an obvious harmony, and for twenty centuries Christian theologians have been worried about the Devil: "How to explain him?" There is no need, it is simple, Heraclitus knows. It is very simple, no need to explain. But Christians have been worried because if the Devil is, God must have created him; otherwise, how is he there?

If the Devil is there, God must be allowing him to be there; otherwise, how can he be there? And if God cannot destroy him your God becomes impotent; then you cannot call him omnipotent. And if God created the Devil without knowing that he was going to be the Devil, then he is not omniscient, all-knowing. He created the Devil not knowing that this was going to disturb the whole world. He created Adam not knowing that he would eat the fruit of the tree. He prohibited it! -- then he is not omniscient, all-knowing. If the Devil is there, then God cannot be omnipresent because who is present in the Devil? Then he cannot be everywhere; at least he is not there in the Devil's heart. And if he is in the Devil's heart, then why condemn the poor Devil?

There is a conspiracy -- a hidden harmony. God prohibited Adam from eating just to tempt him. This is the first temptation, because whenever you say, "Don't do this," temptation has entered. The Devil comes only later on -- the first temptation is from God himself. Otherwise, in the garden of Eden there were millions of trees, so if Adam had been left to himself it is almost impossible that he would have found the tree of knowledge -- almost impossible, unbelievable!

Even up to now we have not been able to find all the trees of this earth. Many trees still remain unknown, uncategorized, many species still have to be discovered. And this earth is nothing -- the garden of Eden was God's garden: millions and millions of trees, infinite. Left to themselves, alone, Adam and Eve would never have found it -- but God tempted them. This I insist: the temptation comes from God. And the Devil is just the other partner in the game. He tempted, "Don't eat!" -- and immediately the tree was known, and then the desire must have come. Why does God prohibit? There must be something to it. And it is not prohibited to God, he himself eats from it; and just for us it is prohibited -- the mind has started to function, the game starts. Then, just as a partner in the conspiracy, the Devil comes, the serpent, and he says, "Eat it! -- because if you eat, you will be like gods." And that is the deepest desire in the human mind, to be like gods.

The Devil did the trick because he knows the conspiracy. He didn't approach Adam directly, he approached through Eve -- because if you want to tempt man, you can tempt him only through woman; otherwise, directly, there is no temptation. Every temptation comes through sex, every temptation comes through woman. Woman is more important for the Devil to play the game because it is impossible to say no to a woman who loves you. You can say no to the Devil, but to the woman...? And the Devil comes in the form of the serpent. That is just a phallic symbol, a symbol for the sex organ, because there is nothing like the serpent to represent the male sex organ -- they are exactly alike. And through woman it comes, because how can you say no to a woman?

Mulla Nasruddin had arranged for his wife to go to the mountains for her asthma. But his wife was not willing, she refused. She said, "I am afraid that the mountain air is going to disagree with me."

Mulla Nasruddin said, "My dear, don't you be worried. There is no mountain air so brave as to disagree with you! Don't be worried."

It is impossible to disagree with a woman you love, so women become easy conspirators with the Devil. Then the temptation entered, and Adam ate the apple on the tree, the fruit of knowledge -- and that's why you are out of the garden of Eden... and the game continues.

It is a deep hidden harmony. God cannot function alone. It would be just like electricity functioning with only a positive pole, no negative pole; he would be functioning only with man, no woman. No, he had tried it before -- he failed. He first made Adam, but he failed because with Adam alone the game was not going on, there was no go. Then he created woman, and the first woman he created was not Eve. The first woman was Lilith -- but she must have believed in the women's liberation movement. She created trouble because she said, "I am just as independent as you." And the first day when they were going to sleep the trouble came because they had only one cot, one bed. So who would sleep on the bed, and who would sleep on the floor? Lilith simply said, "No! You sleep on the floor." This is how the liberation movement goes on. Adam didn't listen and Lilith disappeared. Lilith went to God and she said, "I am not going to play this game."

This is how, in the West, woman is disappearing -- Lilith is disappearing -- and the beauty and the grace and everything. And the whole game is in trouble, because there are women who say, "Don't love a man."

I was reading a pamphlet. They say, "Kill man! Murder every man! -- because if man lives, there can be no freedom for woman." But if you kill man, can you be there? The game needs both.

Lilith disappeared, then the game could not continue, so God had to create a woman. That's why he tried one bone of man himself this time, because to bring a separate woman would again create trouble. So he took a rib out of Adam and created a woman. Hence, there is a polarity and still a unity. They are two and still they belong to the same body. That is the meaning: they are two, opposites, and still they belong to the same body, deep down the same root; they are one body deep down. That's why when they meet in a deep, loving embrace, they become one body. They come to that state where Adam was, alone; they become one, meet and merge.

There is opposition for the game, but still there is oneness deep within. These two things are needed for the game to continue: opposition, and still harmony. If there is absolute harmony the game will disappear -- because with whom will you play? And if there is complete discord, opposition absolute, no harmony, then too the game will disappear.

Harmony in discord, oneness in opposition, is the key of all mysteries.

IT IS IN CHANGING

THAT THINGS FIND REPOSE.

PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND

HOW THAT WHICH IS AT VARIANCE WITH ITSELF,

AGREES WITH ITSELF.

The Devil agrees with God, God agrees with the Devil -- that's why the Devil exists.

THERE IS A HARMONY IN THE BENDING BACK,

AS IN THE CASE OF THE BOW AND LYRE.

A musician plays with a bow and a lyre; the opposition is just on the surface. On the surface it is a clash, a struggle, a fight, a discord, but there comes beautiful music out of it.

OPPOSITION BRINGS CONCORD.

OUT OF DISCORD

COMES THE FAIREST HARMONY....

THE NAME OF THE BOW IS LIFE,

BUT ITS WORK IS DEATH.

And death is its work, the ultimate result. Death and life are not two either.

THE NAME OF THE BOW IS LIFE,

BUT ITS WORK IS DEATH.

So death cannot be really the opposite -- it must be the lyre. If the name of the bow is life, then the name of the lyre must be death. And between these two the fairest harmony of life comes up.

You are just in the middle between death and life -- you are neither. So don't cling to life and don't be afraid of death. You are the music between the lyre and the bow. You are the clash and the meeting and the merging, and the harmony, and the fairest that is born out of it.

Don't choose!

If you choose, you will be wrong. If you choose, you will become attached to one, identified with one. Don't choose!

Let life be the bow, let death be the lyre -- and you be the harmony, the hidden harmony.

THE HIDDEN HARMONY IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS.

CLICK BELOW FOR HERACLITUS...

• Heraclitus, The Hidden Harmony Chapter 1: The Hidden Harmony
  Heraclitus, The Hidden Harmony Chapter 1: The Hidden Harmony, THE HIDDEN HARMONY IS BETTER THAN THE OBVIOUS. OPPOSITION BRINGS CONCORD. OUT OF DISCORD COMES THE FAIREST HARMONY. IT IS IN CHANGING THAT THINGS FIND REPOSE. PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THAT WHICH IS AT VARIANCE WITH ITSELF, AGREES WITH ITSELF. THERE IS A HARMONY IN THE BENDING BACK, AS IN THE CASE OF THE BOW AND LYRE. THE NAME OF THE BOW IS LIFE, BUT ITS WORK IS DEATH at energyenhancement.org
  
  
• Heraclitus, The Hidden Harmony Chapter 2: Fast Asleep Even While Awake
  Heraclitus, The Hidden Harmony Chapter 2: Fast Asleep Even While Awake, MEN ARE AS FORGETFUL AND HEEDLESS IN THEIR WAKING MOMENTS OF WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND THEM AS THEY ARE DURING THEIR SLEEP. FOOLS, ALTHOUGH THEY HEAR, ARE LIKE THE DEAF; TO THEM THE ADAGE APPLIES THAT WHENEVER THEY ARE PRESENT THEY ARE ABSENT. ONE SHOULD NOT ACT OR SPEAK AS IF HE WERE ASLEEP. THE WAKING HAVE ONE WORLD IN COMMON; SLEEPERS HAVE EACH A PRIVATE WORLD OF HIS OWN. WHATEVER WE SEE WHEN AWAKE IS DEATH, WHEN ASLEEP, DREAMS at energyenhancement.org
  

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