Taoism, Daoism, Tao, Dao, Lao Tzu's Tap Te Ching, Vol. 2 Tao: The three treasures, Chapter 10: Every Buddha Enriches The Universe, Question 2

The second question:

Question 2

YOU HAVE SPOKEN, WITH REGARD TO GURDJIEFF AND OUSPENSKY, ABOUT THE SEVEN TYPES OF PEOPLE. YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY STUDYING THROUGH US THESE SEVEN TYPES OF MAN. CAN YOU GIVE US EXAMPLES OF THESE, THEIR PSYCHOLOGIES, AND HOW YOU MUST WORK WITH US TO HELP US ATTAIN OUR BUDDHA-SELVES?

Gurdjieff has given a beautiful classification of man. Whenever anybody would ask him about man he would immediately stop and say: Don't ask about man. First tell me the number. Man number one? Man number two? Man number three? Man number four? Or man number five? Which man do you mean when you say man?

He had seven 'mans'. And he was perfectly right. Nothing can be said about man because nothing exists like man. A few are man number one, a few are man number two, a few are man number three.

These first three are simple to understand because you all belong to them. The man who lives in his body is man number one, you can find him everywhere. He lives for the body; he does not eat to survive, he survives to eat. That is the first number.

Number two man is emotional; he lives through his emotions -- always excited or depressed, moving up and down. When people come to me and I ask them how things are going they say, 'Up and down.' Number two man. Sometimes he feels very, very good, euphoric, and sometimes he is as dull as death; sometimes he is in hell and sometimes in heaven; sometimes laughing very beautifully and sometimes crying.

This second type of man is also available everywhere. You need not go very far, he may be within you.

I was just reading a dictionary -- I love dictionaries because I love words and their biographies -- and I came across the word 'maudlin'. That is the second type of man: emotional, always ready to weep and cry, sentimental.

I looked into the etymology of the word, from where it came, and really it was a discovery. It came from 'Mary Magdalen'. You must have seen pictures of Mary Magdalen washing Jesus' feet with her tears -- crying and weeping, eyes red. 'Magdalen' by and by became 'maudlin'. That is the second type of man.

The third type of man is intellectual. He lives through his intellect. He is only a head; he has no body, he has no heart. He is a great controller from the head. He goes on manipulating his heart and body and everything through the head; he is the scholar, the ascetic, the pundit, the man of knowledge, memory, logic, philosophy. This third type of man controls the whole world.

But these types are all on the same level -- their level is not different. These three types of men are available everywhere: the third type exists more as male, the second type exists more as female, the first type exists as both. And these three types are also you -- you cannot find them in their purity, they are mixed, a hotchpotch. These three types you cannot find in purity.

If you can find a man who has these three things absolutely separate, he is the fourth type of man: the yogi, the fakir, the mystic. He has separated his being into different layers. Now, when he is in the body he is in the body, he does not allow emotions to interfere with it or the head to control it. When he is in his emotions he does not allow his head or the body to interfere in it. He is not a mixture, he is not adulterated; everything is clean and clear in him. You can rely on him. When he thinks he thinks, he doesn't allow his emotions to interfere -- because emotions become clouds. They don't allow clear thinking.

That's why women cannot think as clearly as men. They belong more to the second type, they belong to Mary Magdalen, because they have so much emotion. I have never come across a woman whom I could say is intelligent. It is almost impossible because whatsoever she thinks... in fact she never thinks, it is her emotion that creates the phenomenon of thinking. Deep down is emotion. She 'emotionalizes', and reason simply follows like a shadow.

She is never unprejudiced, never. She cannot be just a watcher, a judge, a spectator, no. She will get involved. A man can be a watcher. That's why more scientists, more philosophers, more logicians are men. Except for Madame Curie, women have not produced anything. And I suspect that Madame Curie must have had more male hormones than other women.

Some day a study has to be done on hormones. Indira Gandhi must have more male hormones than Morarji Desai. One should not be deceived by the appearance.

These three layers are on the same ground. They are not like storeys, one on top of another. They are divisions on the same plane, and they have got mixed. They have to be separated.

The fourth type is the man who has separated his being, who has given to each center its own work. Unless he does this everything is intermixed and nothing functions well.

Your sex center is a body center. You can fall in love with a woman but you are a Brahmin and she is a Shudra, an untouchable. Emotions don't know who is a Brahmin and who is an untouchable.

A Hindu can fall in love with a woman who is a Mohammedan. Now, emotions don't know but the reason knows that she is untouchable. The body knows nothing, the emotions are not rational, but the mind reasons it out. And the mind will immediately interfere. It will say: Look somewhere else. This woman is not for you. She is a Mohammedan and you are a Hindu. How can you marry a Mohammedan woman? Or, she is so poor and you are so rich. How can you marry such a poor woman? What will people say?

The head interferes in the emotion. Now you suppress it and you try to fall in love with a woman who is a Brahmin of your own caste. Nobody can fall in love with effort. With forced effort it can at the most be a marriage, never a love affair. It will always be impotent, it won't have that intensity.

You are continuously interfering. The body says: 'I'm hungry,' but you say: 'This is not the time.' When the body says: 'I am not hungry,' you go on forcing food into it because you say: 'This is lunch time and I have no other time so this is the time and you have to eat.'

Gurdjieff used to say that all these three centers are intermixed and that's why you are so confused. No clarity exists in you. Everything is a confusion and a smoke. No flame exists in you. So the first thing Gurdjieff used to do was to bring each center to its own functioning.

Stop trespassing. Let the body function as the body; let the emotion function as the emotion; and let the head function as the head. And don't allow them to interfere with each other, otherwise you will be a hotchpotch man, you won't have a center. Then you will live in confusion and you will die in confusion. You will be a sheer wastage.

The fourth type of man comes into existence when the centers start functioning in their own territory and they don't trespass. This takes long effort.

The fourth type of man will be rare for you to find, but in some yogis and in some Sufi mystics you can find the fourth type of man. Still the fourth type exists.

The fifth type is still rarer. The fourth simply sorts out the three levels, the three layers, and makes them function according to their original nature with no interference, no outside domination. The fifth man becomes aware of it. The fourth man can work without awareness, the fourth man can work through a teacher, or through a discipline, or through a methodology and sort them out. Much awareness is not needed, a little understanding will do.

The fifth type is the man of awareness. He becomes aware of the whole phenomenon -- the three different centers and the fourth's effort to bring them to their own territories. The fifth becomes a watcher, a witnesser. It is very rare to find a man of the fifth category.

Ouspensky, Gurdjieff's greatest disciple, belongs to the fifth category. But he is only aware -- awareness will sometimes be there and will sometimes be lost. He cannot be constantly aware because for a constant awareness an integrated center, which is lacking in the fifth type of man, is needed. That's why Ouspensky went astray. He became aware, but he had no integrated center in him, so he was aware only sometimes. When he was aware, he was one man, but when he was not aware he was a totally different man. He became a good teacher but he couldn't become a master because a master needs total awareness, twenty-four hours' awareness, even in sleep.

The sixth type of man is very, very rare. Centuries pass, then the sixth type of man becomes available. The sixth type of man is one who is not only aware but who has become centered, who has attained to his center. The fifth type of man watches; the sixth type of man watches from an eternal center: he has attained to a tower inside. And his awareness is never wavering, his inner flame remains unwavering.

And then there is the seventh type of man about whom nothing can be said. Up to the sixth, description is possible but with the seventh there is no description. You have to be near to the seventh type to know what he is. And the more you know about him, the less you will know. The more you know, the more you will feel that much more is still left to be known.

The seventh type of man is absolute mystery, extraordinarily ordinary. Simple, but as mysterious as is possible. A Buddha, a Lao Tzu, a Gurdjieff, they are the seventh type of man. But about them nothing can be said.

People who belong to the first three categories are almost alike. People who belong to the fourth category will be more or less alike. People who belong to the fourth category will be different from the first three categories, but they will not be very much different from each other. Yogis, fakirs, are very different from the first three categories, but very similar to each other. The man of the fifth category starts becoming unique, he becomes something rare. You will find that two persons of the fifth category are as different as possible. The sixth type of person is absolutely integrated. He has become absolutely unique.

And with the seventh all the possibilities of uniqueness have been achieved. It is the highest peak, indefinable and unknowable through the intellect. There is only one way to know the seventh type, Hindus call it satsang. It is just to be in the presence of that type of man.

If you are fortunate to find a seventh type of man, just allow his being to penetrate your being -- become receiving ends. And then you will come to a feeling of what it is. It is the greatest diamond of being in the world.

Taoism - Daoism - Tao - Dao

VOL. 2, TAO: THE THREE TREASURES

Chapter-10

Every Buddha Enriches The Universe