Taoism, Daoism, Tao, Dao, Lao Tzu's Tap Te Ching, Vol. 2 Tao: The three treasures, Chapter 5: On The Qualities of The Taoist

ON THE QUALITIES OF THE TAOIST

WHEN THE HIGHEST TYPE OF MEN HEAR THE TAO (TRUTH),

THEY TRY HARD TO LIVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH IT,

WHEN THE MEDIOCRE TYPE HEAR THE TAO,

THEY SEEM TO BE AWARE AND YET UNAWARE OF IT.

WHEN THE LOWEST TYPE HEAR THE TAO,

THEY BREAK INTO LOUD LAUGHTER --

IF IT WERE NOT LAUGHED AT, IT WOULD NOT BE TAO.

THEREFORE THERE IS THE ESTABLISHED SAYING:

`WHO UNDERSTANDS TAO SEEMS DULL OF COMPREHENSION;

WHO IS ADVANCED IN TAO SEEMS TO SLIP BACKWARDS;

WHO MOVES ON THE EVEN TAO (PATH) SEEMS TO GO UP AND DOWN.'

SUPERIOR CHARACTER APPEARS LIKE A HOLLOW (VALLEY);

SHEER WHITE APPEARS LIKE TARNISHED;

GREAT CHARACTER APPEARS LIKE INSUFFICIENT;

SOLID CHARACTER APPEARS LIKE INFIRM;

PURE WORTH APPEARS LIKE CONTAMINATED.

The greatest myth that I have come across is that of mankind. There exists nothing like it. There are as many mankinds as there are men, there is not one kind. Every man is so different from every other that a humanity does not exist. It is just a word, an abstraction.

You appear to be similar but you are not, and that myth has to be thrown away -- only then can you penetrate deeper into the reality of man. No old psychology ever believed that humanity exists. In fact, if we are going to classify, then all the ancient psychologies classify man in three divisions. In India we have divided humanity into three parts: SATWA, RAJAS, TAMAS. Lao Tzu has not given the names but he also divides humanity into three kinds exactly the same.

These three divisions are also arbitrary. We have to classify to understand otherwise there are as many mankinds as there are men, every man is a world in himself. But this classification helps to understand many things, many things which would be impossible to understand without it.

Try to understand the classification as clearly as possible.

WHEN THE HIGHEST TYPE OF MEN HEAR THE TAO (TRUTH),

THEY TRY HARD TO LIVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH IT,

WHEN THE MEDIOCRE TYPE HEAR THE TAO,

THEY SEEM TO BE AWARE AND YET UNAWARE OF IT.

WHEN THE LOWEST TYPE HEAR THE TAO,

THEY BREAK INTO LOUD LAUGHTER --

IF IT WERE NOT LAUGHED AT, IT WOULD NOT BE TAO.

The first is SATWA, the second is RAJAS, the third is TAMAS.

The highest type of man, when he hears about Tao, suddenly feels in tune with it. It is not an intellectual understanding for him, his total being vibrates with a new song; a new music is heard. When he hears about truth, suddenly something fits in, he is no longer the same -- just hearing, he becomes totally a different type of man. Not that he has to use his intellect to understand it, that would be a delayed understanding. The highest type of man understands immediately, with no time-gap. If he hears about truth, with just the very hearing of the truth he has understood. Not that he has brought his intelligence to understand it, no, that would be postponing -- his total being understands it, not only the intellectual part. Not only his soul, not only his mind, but even his body vibrates in a new unknown way. A new dance has entered into his being, and now he can never be the same.

Once he has heard about the truth he can never be the old again, a new journey has started. Now nothing can be done, he has to move. He has heard about light and he has been living in darkness: now unless he achieves it there will be no rest for him, he will become deeply discontented. He has heard that a different type of existence is possible: now unless he reaches it, attains it, he cannot be at ease, he cannot be at home anywhere. Wherever he will be, the constant call from the unknown will be knocking at the door continuously: waking he will hear it, sleeping he will hear it, dreaming -- and the knock will be there, he will hear it. Eating he will hear it, walking he will hear it, in the shop, in the market, he will hear it -- it will be a continuously haunting phenomenon.

Just by hearing? Mahavir said that there are two types of people, and Jains have not understood it at all. A very revolutionary thought has been completely lost by misunderstanding. He said: There are two types of people. One type become MUKTAS, become liberated just by hearing. They are called SHRAVAKAS. The word SHRAVAK means 'one who has heard and just by hearing is transformed.' Then there is a second type who cannot become liberated just by hearing, they have to practice it. They are called SADHUS. Now a great misunderstanding exists: the SHRAVAK has to bow down before the SADHU. In fact just the opposite should be the case because the SHRAVAK is a greater soul. He has attained just by hearing, but the SADHU has to practice -- just by hearing he could not attain. His receptivity is not so keen, his sensitivity is dull. He is not a first-rate mind, he is a second-rate mind, a mediocre mind.

This you can see. If you go and look at the SADHUS of the Jains you can immediately feel they are dull: some intelligence is lacking, their perception is not total. They are taking years to practise a thing which can be understood immediately. They are doing it the hard way because they don't have the intelligence to choose the direct, straight, easiest way, simply and spontaneously. They are doing a thousand and one things to attain that which can be attained with a perceptive mind immediately without doing anything.

In fact, a man who becomes aware just by hearing has a greater quality of consciousness than a man who has had to work for it for years, to do SADHANA, to practice this and that. He is a dullard, a mediocre mind. I have been observing thousands of people, I have met all types of people, but SADHUS have always appeared to me to be a little dull, and I was always worried: What is the matter? Why do they look a little dull, a little mediocre? Their intelligence is not of the highest quality -- by and by I understood that the reason that they could not attain to it just by hearing, was because they didn't have the intelligence.

That's why Krishnamurti goes on saying that there is no need to do anything. In fact, for the first-rate mind there is no need to do anything; just by hearing, by right listening, one attains. But where to find the first-rate mind? It is very rare. Unless a Krishnamurti comes to listen to Krishnamurti it won't happen. But why should a Krishnamurti go to listen to a Krishnamurti? It is absurd. It has no meaning. A man who has that kind of perceptivity can become awakened just by listening to the song of a bird, just by listening to the breeze passing through the trees, just by listening to the sound of the water flowing -- that's enough, because from everywhere the Divine speaks. If you are perceptive, whatsoever you hear you have heard the Divine.

Nothing else exists. All sounds are his, all messages are his, everywhere is his signature. For the first-rate mind the path is not a path at all, he simply enters the temple without any path, there is no need for any bridge.

Lao Tzu says that when the highest type of man hears the Tao there is immediate perception, immediate understanding. Just by looking at the master who has attained, just by hearing his word, or just by hearing his breathing, silent, peaceful, sitting by his side, he understands.

Once they understand then they are not trying to attain truth; then they are simply trying to refine their mechanism. They have understood the truth, it exists, they have heard about it. Hindus call their scriptures SHRUTIS. The word SHRUTI means 'that which has been heard'. All the scriptures are 'that which has been heard'.

Once a man of the first-rate intelligence hears truth, he understands it.

Once it happened that a Sufi master suddenly called one of his disciples. Many disciples were sitting in the hall, but he called only one: Come near to me. He was standing near the window, and it was full-moon night. All the disciples watched in wonder. Why had he called the one? Then the old man indicated something outside the window to the young man and said: Look! And from that day the young man changed completely. The others asked: What happened? There was nothing, we know, only the full-moon night. The full moon was there, of course, the night was beautiful, of course, but what has happened seems to be very out of proportion. You are completely transformed. What has happened?

The young man said: I heard the master and I was so silent because he called me, I was so without thoughts, so peaceful, that when he indicated the moon something opened inside me, a window. I had a perception which I had never had. I looked at the moon with new eyes, I looked at the moonlight with a new being. Of course, I have seen the view from a very faraway state of my mind and I will have to work hard to reach it, but now it exists. Now I know it is a certainty. Now there is no doubt. But I will still have to reach that state because I have looked through the eyes of the master, those eyes were not mine; he gave his to me for a single moment, I borrowed them.

I have looked through his being. It was not my being, the window was not mine, it was his window, and he allowed me to look through it. But now I know that a different type of existence is possible, is not only possible, is absolutely certain. Now it may take many lives for me to reach that goal, but the goal is certain. No doubt exists in me now, now doubt cannot disturb me -- now my journey is clear.

WHEN THE HIGHEST TYPE OF MEN HEAR THE TAO (TRUTH),

THEY TRY HARD TO LIVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH IT.

They hear, they understand, then they try hard to live in accordance with it. They have looked through the window of the master and they have become certain that now it is an absolute fact; it is not a philosophy, not a metaphysics. It is existential. They have felt it, they have known it, but they will have to go a long way before the same perception becomes their own.

They have heard truth, they have understood it, but they will have to move a long way before the truth becomes their being.

The highest type try hard to live in accordance with it -- not that by living in accordance with it and trying hard one achieves it, no. Just by trying hard nobody achieves it, but by trying hard, one by and by comes to feel that the effort itself is a barrier in the final stages of the transformation. By trying hard one comes to know that even trying hard is a barrier, and one drops it. Because when you are trying hard to live in accordance with Tao, that life cannot be a spontaneous life; it can be only a forced phenomenon, a discipline, not a freedom. It will become a bondage. By trying hard no-one can achieve that which is already there, but by trying hard one arrives at the understanding that even effort is a barrier, a very subtle barrier, because all efforts are of the ego. Even the desire to achieve truth comes from the ego. One drops that too.

But remember, one can drop effort only when one has made the effort to its utmost. You cannot say: If that's the case then I should drop the effort from the very beginning. Why make it? You will miss the whole point. That's what is happening to those who have been listening to Krishnamurti. He says -- and whatsoever he is saying is perfectly true -- that no effort is needed. It is right, but it is right only for those who have been making a very great effort with their total being. It is true only for those -- they can drop it.

To become artlessly artful is not possible for those who have not moved through any discipline. Finally an artist has to become completely oblivious of his art, he should forget whatsoever he has learned. But you can forget only that which you have learned. If the art of an artist is effortful, then his art is not perfect.

In Zen they used many methods to teach people meditation. They used art also: painting, calligraphy and other things. A student would learn painting for ten or twelve years -- until he became absolutely technically perfect, not even a single error existed in the technology of the art. When he had become technically perfect, the master would say: Now you drop it. For two or three years you completely forget it. Throw away your brushes, forget anything you know about painting and when you have forgotten it completely, then come to me.

Two, three, four, five years, sometimes even more, are needed to forget. It is very difficult. It is difficult first to learn a thing, and more difficult to unlearn it once you have learned it. The second part is very, very essential, fundamental, otherwise you will be a technician, not an artist.

It is said that it happened that a great archer trained his disciple to the very perfection in archery, and then told him: Now you forget everything about it. For twenty years the disciple used to come and go to the master but the master would not say anything, so the disciple had to wait patiently. By and by he completely forgot everything about archery -- twenty years is a long time, he had become almost an old man.

Then one day he came and as he entered the master's room he saw a bow, but he did not recognize what it was. The master came to him, embraced him and said: Now you have become a perfect archer, you have forgotten even the bow. Now just go out and look at the flying birds and with just the idea that they should drop, they will. The archer went out and he couldn't believe it. He looked at the birds flying, almost a dozen birds, and they fell immediately to the ground. The master said: Now there is no more to do. I was just showing you that when one forgets the technique only then does one becomes perfect. Now the bow and arrow are not needed, they are needed only for amateurs.

A perfect painter does not need the brush and the canvas; a perfect musician does not need the sitar or the violin or the guitar. No, that is for the amateur.

I have come across a very old musician -- he is dead now -- he was one hundred and ten years old. Ravi Shankar is his disciple. He could create music with anything, with anything whatsoever. He would be passing by two rocks and he would create music with them; he would find a piece of iron and he would start playing with it and you would hear beautiful music, such as you have never heard. This was a musician. Now even his touch was musical. If he touched you, you would see that he had touched the innermost instrument of your inner harmony and music -- suddenly you would start vibrating.

When anything becomes perfect the effort that you have made to learn it has to be forgotten, otherwise the very effort remains heavy on the head.

So it is not that by trying hard to live in accordance with it, the highest type achieve it, no. They try hard to live in accordance with it, then by and by they start understanding that to live in accordance with nature no effort is needed. It is like floating in the water: nobody can just float, first you have to learn to swim. Don't go to the river, otherwise you will be drowned. A person has to learn to swim and when the swimming becomes perfect he need not swim, he can just be in the river, floating; he can lie in the river as if he is lying in his bed. Now he has learned how to be in accordance with the river, now the river cannot drown him, now he has no more enmity with the river. In fact he no longer exists separately from the river. A perfect swimmer becomes part of the river, he is a wave in the river. How can the river destroy the wave? Now he floats in accordance with the river, he is no longer there fighting, resisting, doing something. He is in tune with the river, and he can simply float. But don't try it unless you know how to swim, otherwise you will be drowned.

The same thing happens with Tao. You make a great effort to live in accordance with the truth, then by and by you understand that your great effort helps a little, but hinders a lot. To live in accordance is to be in a let-go, it is not to fight with nature. To live in accordance with nature is to be one with nature, there is no need to struggle. Effort is struggle; effort means that you are trying to do something according to you. Science is effort, religion is effortlessness.

Science is violence to nature. That's why scientists continually talk in terms of conflict, conquering. Even a man like Bertrand Russell, of such great intelligence, has written a book about nature being conquered by science:'The Conquest of Nature'. It is a fight, as if nature is your enemy and you have to dominate it. Science is deep politics with nature, a deep war, an enmity. Religion is not a fight at all; in fact, it is to understand that you are part of nature. How can the part fight with the whole? And if the part tries to fight with the whole and then becomes anxiety-ridden, what can you expect? It is natural. If the part tries to fight with the whole, if my hand tries to fight with my whole body, the hand will get ill. How can the hand fight with the body? The body supplies the blood, the body supplies the nourishment, how can it fight with the body? The hand fighting with the body? It is foolish.

Man fighting with nature is foolish, you can live only in accordance with nature. Religion is surrender, science is a war. Science strengthens the ego and the whole problem for religion is how to drop the ego. Through effort it cannot be dropped.

So remember this:

WHEN THE HIGHEST TYPE OF MEN HEAR THE TAO (TRUTH),

THEY TRY HARD TO LIVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH IT.

That is their first standpoint. Once they understand, they hear, they feel, they taste, they feel the affinity with it, and they start the hard effort to live accordingly. But by and by, as they grow in it, they start understanding that effort is not needed -- rather, effortlessness. Finally they drop effort and become one with nature.

Then they are no longer part of humanity, they become superhuman. Then they are no longer part of the struggling humanity, they are no longer struggling. They appear like men but they are no longer men. When you come across a man like Lao Tzu, he is not a man; when you come across Buddha he is not a man. That's why we have called such people AVATARAS, just to make a distinction from ordinary humanity. We have called Jesus 'son of God' -- not that he is not son of man, he is son of man, but we have to make a distinction. If we call Jesus man, then what will we call ordinary humanity? Then we will have to find something subhuman for ordinary humanity.

To call ourselves human we have to call Jesus superhuman, we have to call Buddha an AVATAR, Krishna a god. These are just symbolic gestures to show that even the first type of man, the man of SATWA, transcends when he drops all effort and moves in accordance with nature.

Somebody asked Lao Tzu: How did you attain? He said: I was sitting under a tree and I had done all that could be done, all that was humanly possible and I was completely frustrated. Much had happened through it, but not all; something was lacking, missing, and the missing link was the most difficult to find, elusive. Then while I was sitting under a tree, a leaf, a dry leaf, fell from the tree slowly, and moved in the wind. The wind was going north, the leaf moved north; then the wind changed course, started moving towards the south, and the leaf started moving towards the south; then the wind stopped -- and the leaf fell down on the earth, with not a single complaint, with no struggle on its own part, with no direction of its own. If the wind was going south, it was going south, if the wind was going north, it was going north, if the wind stopped, it fell down on the earth and rested beautifully.

Then again there was some wind and again it rose high in the sky -- but there was no problem. Suddenly I understood, the message hit home. From that day I became a dry leaf and the missing link which was so elusive was elusive no more. The missing link was only this: that you can attain many things through effort but you cannot attain Tao through effort. Finally you have to leave effort -- and suddenly everything fits, you are in accordance. Then you don't give direction, then you are no longer a director; then you don't say to the winds: Go south, because I am on a journey towards the south. Then you don't have any destination; then the destiny of the whole is your destiny; then you are not separate. Then you don't think in terms of individuality, you have become part of the whole and wherever the whole is going you are going. If the whole changes its mind, you change your mind; if the whole stops the journey, it is beautiful; if the whole runs, you run with it. That is what 'in accordance' means.

With not a bit of mind of your own, when you have become a no-mind, the whole lives through you, lives you, moves through you, moves you. Now you don't breathe, the whole breathes you. Then everything is a benediction, a blessing. How can you be tense then? Worried about what? All worries exist because you have brought an individual destiny into your mind against the destiny of the whole -- you are moving up-current.

This is the whole secret of your failure -- you are moving up-current. Then you are worried, tense, in anguish, in anxiety, almost going mad -- anybody will go mad if they are going up-current because the fight is so hard and so meaningless. And one day you will feel tired and then it will look like a frustration, a failure. The wise man leaves this up-current nonsense, he simply allows the river to take him wheresoever it is going. If it is going anywhere, good; if it is not going anywhere, good -- then suddenly you are still, silent.

Only then, never before, does real meditation happen and all effort is dropped. But you have to make the effort first, otherwise you will never understand that it has to be dropped. You can drop it only if you have been in it -- and from the very beginning it is almost impossible for you to be so wise as to drop it. How can you drop a thing which you don't have?

WHEN THE HIGHEST TYPE OF MEN HEAR THE TAO (TRUTH),

THEY TRY HARD TO LIVE IN ACCORDANCE WITH IT.

WHEN THE MEDIOCRE TYPE HEAR THE TAO

-- the people of RAJAS --

THEY SEEM TO BE AWARE AND YET UNAWARE OF IT.

That's what the mediocre mind is -- a little aware, a little understanding and a little non-understanding, a little part lighted and a little part in darkness, divided.

To be divided is to be mediocre. To be divided against yourself is to be mediocre because it dissipates your energy; it can never allow you to be an overflowing, celebrating, existence. If you are trying to create a fight between your right and left hand, how can you be happy? The very fight will kill you and there is going to be no result from it because how can the left win, or how can the right win? Both hands are yours.

Any type of inner conflict makes you mediocre, and those who teach you to be divided are your enemies. They say: This is bad and that is good. Immediately division enters. They say: This is lower, that is higher. Immediately division enters. They say: This is sin and that is virtue. Immediately division enters. You are split. The whole of humanity is schizophrenic and everybody has become mediocre.

To be one is to be blissful, to be divided is to be in misery. To be one is to be in heaven, to be divided is to be in hell. The more divided, the greater will be the hell -- and you are just a crowd, not only two, many. Psychologists say that man has become poly-psychic: he has not one mind now, he has many minds.

In small matters also you have many minds -- to eat this or to eat that... Sitting in a restaurant, looking at the menu, you are poly-psychic -- whether to order this or that? It is as if you have lost all possibilities of decision, of being decisive, because you can only be decisive if you are one, a unit. How can you be decisive? When one voice says this, another voice immediately contradicts and says that; one voice says:'Go to the East,' another says:'Go to the West.' You are pulled against yourself in so many directions, your whole life will be just a sad failure, a long, long tale of frustration and nothing else -- a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. Significance is possible only when there is a unison within. The highest type of men can attain unity, the lowest type also has a certain type of unity, but the mediocre type, the 'middler', is in the greatest danger.

You can see wise persons like Buddha or Lao Tzu in unity -- a bliss surrounds them, they move surrounded by a subtle ecstasy, if you look at them you can see they are drunk with the Divine, they walk on the earth but they are not here.

But you can sometimes also feel the same type of glimpse around an idiot, a stupid man, absolutely stupid. A certain innocence surrounds him -- he laughs, and you can have a glimpse of the saint in the idiot because he is also one. He is not a saint, he has not attained anything, but at least he is not divided.

A saint has gone beyond the mind, an idiot is below the mind. In one thing they are equal: they both don't have any minds. There are vast differences but there is also this one similarity. So if you don't understand, a saint can sometimes look like an idiot, and sometimes, in your ignorance, you can worship an idiot for a saint. I have come across many idiots being worshipped -- they have a certain quality, at least they are one. They don't have much mind, they don't have a mind at all, they have no thoughts.

I lived in a town for many years, and just near that town there was a saint who was very famous, and people used to come from all over India to see him. He was a perfect idiot, but he had a certain beauty around him -- no anxiety, no problems. A few problems would have existed for him but because people started worshipping him even those problems were not there. People would bring food and everything else for him so even that problem was not there. They even made a beautiful house for him, so no problem existed.

And he was absolutely idiotic; if you watched him, you could see that he didn't understand a thing. Half of his body was almost paralyzed. It happens to idiotic persons many times that they are not even capable of managing their own bodies. He would defecate wherever he was sitting, but people would think that he was a PARAMAHANSA, a great soul who has attained to a height where no difference exists. He would defecate and in the same place he would start eating things -- no difference. I went to see the man many times, I watched him very closely. He was absolutely idiotic, he could not utter a single word, but people thought that he had taken a vow of silence for his whole life.

There was no glimmer in his eyes of any alertness -- but still there was a similarity. People have been deceived many times. Of course idiots can't deceive you, it is your own gullibility: you are deceived by your own self.

And many times it has happened that very, very rare souls have been thought to be idiotic, because there again you see that something like the idiot is happening. The idiot is one part, the superhuman being is one part, and then there is the middle part which is the greatest part in the world.

You will be surprised to know about a finding that scientists have made: it is that as humanity exists, almost ninety-eight per cent of the people are mediocre, and one per cent are geniuses and one per cent are idiots. It seems there is a certain balance: one per cent are idiots, one per cent are geniuses, and ninety-eight per cent of humanity is just in the middle. The greatest part of humanity is mediocre.

'The mediocre part,' says Lao Tzu,'seems to be aware and yet unaware of it.' If you talk about truth the mediocre mind understands it intellectually but does not understand it totally. He says: Yes, I can understand what you are saying but still I miss something. What do you mean? The word is heard, but the meaning is lost. He finds that he can understand intellectually, he is an educated man, he may be a graduate, a Ph.D. even. He understands whatsoever you are saying because he understands language, but he feels that something is being lost. He understands the word, but the word is not the message. The message is something subtle: it can come with the word, but it is not the word.

The word is like a flower and the meaning is like a fragrance that surrounds it. If your nose is not functioning well I can give you a flower but I cannot give you the fragrance. If your mind is not functioning totally I can give you the word but I cannot give you the meaning, because the meaning has to be detected by you, decoded by you. I can give you the flower because that is not a problem, but how can I give you the fragrance? If your nose is not functioning, if your nose is dead, insensitive, then nothing can be done -- I can give you a thousand and one flowers but the fragrance will not happen.

The mediocre man understands the word but misses the meaning. He goes on listening to Tao -- if there is a man of Tao he has a certain attraction towards him, he feels that there is something. A little aware, he suspects that there is something but he cannot be certain. He understands and yet he understands not.

Many people come to me and say: Whatsoever you say, we understand, but nothing happens. We have understood everything you have said, we have read your books many, many times, we have underlined almost every line -- but nothing is happening.

I can give you the flower, but how can I give you the fragrance? You have to cleanse your nose, you have to become more sensitive. And that is where meditation can be helpful, it makes you more sensitive, more alert. It pushes you towards the first type of man, the SATWA, and by and by you start feeling -- not only understanding, you start feeling. When I say something about love, you understand the word, you understand what I am saying, but your heart doesn't respond. How can you understand something about love if your heart doesn't respond? A feeling is needed. I don't mean that you should become sentimental, no. Sentimentality is not feeling; sentimentality is a false coin. There are people who can weep and cry for nothing and they think they are the feeling types. They are not. They are sentimental. Sentimentality is not feeling. Feeling is a very mature quality; sentimentality is a very immature quality.

A man of feeling will do something; a man of sentimentality will create even more trouble. For example, if somebody is ill, or somebody is dying, the man of feeling will rush to the hospital, and will try to help the man who is dying. The man of sentimentality will start crying and weeping. He will create more trouble for the dying man -- he will not even allow him to die in silence.

Sentimentality is a chaos; feeling is a very, very substantial growth. When I talk about love, if you have feeling, then not only your head understands but your heart starts throbbing in a different way. Then the fragrance reaches you.

Meditations can help you because they are cathartic -- they will throw out all the dust and dirt that you have collected within you, that is stopping your sensitivity. All doors of perception in you are covered with dirt. You would like to see rightly, but there are so many suppressed tears that they won't allow you a clear eye. You would like to smell the flower, but you cannot, because the whole of civilization has been suppressing the nose. You may not be aware that the nose is the most suppressed part of the body. Man has lost smell almost completely.

Even horses and dogs are more sensitive than man. What is happening to man's nose? Why has it gone dead? There is a subtle mechanism working behind it because smell is deeply concerned and connected with sex. Have you seen animals smelling each other before they make love? They will never make love unless they smell because through smell they feel if their body energies will meet or not, whether they are for each other or not. That smelling is a feeler. A dog moves, smells: if the female dog suits his sense of feeling and sense of smell, only then does he make any effort; otherwise they move on their separate ways. He is not worried at all, finished. That female dog is not for him, he is not for her.

Smell is the most sexual sense in the body and when civilization decided to suppress sex automatically civilization decided to suppress smell also. Whenever a woman wants to make love she suddenly starts throwing subtle smells around her and that would be dangerous in a civilized world where sex is not accepted. If you walk on the street with your wife and, looking at some other man, she starts throwing off the smell, you will smell the smell immediately. Then your wife cannot deceive you, she cannot say that she had not even looked at that man. The wife herself cannot smell that her body is throwing off a certain smell, neither can the man to whom she has become suddenly attracted. Your noses are completely closed, you don't smell. And things are beautifully settled, no trouble arises.

So if you really want to smell the flower also, if you want not only to carry the flower but to enjoy the smell as well, then you will have to come to a more natural state of non-repressed sexuality. Otherwise it will not be possible. And if all your five senses are covered with dust and dirt and suppressed, they will make a mediocre mind, because the mind is nothing but a collective reservoir of all the five senses. Then you are mediocre, then you can go on becoming more and more scholarly but you will remain a fool because you will not be alive. Have you watched the phenomenon that pundits are the most dead people you can ever see? Professors, scholars, they are the most dead people. They don't see, they don't smell, they don't taste; they are almost dead, all their senses are dead. Only their head functions, alone, without any support from the body.

If you cut off their body they will not be worried, only don't disturb their head. They will on the contrary be very happy if the head can function without the body. Then they can go on and on in their scholarly trips with no trouble from the body. No illness disturbs, no hunger disturbs.

I have heard something about Edison -- a very great intellectual giant but completely dead in his senses. One day it happened that he was doing some mathematical work, and his wife came to call him for breakfast. But it was an order from him that if he was too much engaged he should not be disturbed for such petty things, so she came and left the breakfast near him so that whenever his work was finished he would see the breakfast and eat it.

Then a friend came, but Edison continued, much involved in his work. The friend also knew that he was not to be disturbed, so what to do in the meanwhile? He found the breakfast, so he ate it, then pushed aside the things and waited. Then Edison looked at him, looked at the finished breakfast and said to the friend: You came a little late, I have already finished breakfast.

A scholar does not know even his hunger. He lives in the head. Scholars are always mediocres, perfect mediocres, and the problem for the mediocre is that he understands -- that deceives him, because he thinks he understands, finished. And he doesn't understand a bit, he remains unaware. His understanding is only of the head, not of the total being, and unless understanding is of the total being it is not understanding at all. Intellectual understanding is not understanding at all; that is a misnomer.

WHEN THE MEDIOCRE TYPE HEAR THE TAO,

THEY SEEM TO BE AWARE AND YET UNAWARE OF IT.

WHEN THE LOWEST TYPE HEAR THE TAO,

THEY BREAK INTO LOUD LAUGHTER.

The lowest type thinks this truth, Tao, is some sort of joke. He is so profane, so shallow, that nothing about the depth appeals to him and the laughter is a protection. When the shallow man, the lowest type, hears about truth he laughs. He laughs because now you are going funny. He knows well that there is no truth at all, that nothing like truth exists; it is just an invention of cunning people to exploit other people. He laughs loudly -- that laughter is a protection because he is also afraid, afraid that the thing may exist. Through laughter he brushes it away, he throws it away; through laughter he is showing his derision, his condemnation, he is saying that the whole thing is nonsense. At the most you can laugh at it and nothing else. You will come across the lowest type everywhere. If a lowest type sees a SANNYASIN he will laugh: This man has gone mad, one more man is lost to humanity, gone mad.

If the lowest man sees you meditating, he will laugh, he will think that this man seems to be a little eccentric. What are you doing? Why are you wasting your time? If the lowest type sometimes comes to me, he comes just to see other people meditating so he can laugh and he can feel very good about himself that he is not as mad or as foolish as these people are.

Says Lao Tzu:

IF IT WERE NOT LAUGHED AT, IT WOULD NOT BE TAO.

Lao Tzu says: If the third type does not laugh when it hears about truth, it will not be truth. So this is a definite indication: whenever truth is asserted the lowest type will immediately laugh. It shows two things certainly: one, that truth has been asserted, and second, that a third, a lowest man, has heard about it. Between truth and the third man, the lowest, laughter happens; between the mediocre and the truth an intellectual type of understanding happens; between the first type and truth a deep understanding of his total being happens -- his total being throbs with an unknown adventure, a door has opened, he is entering into a new world.

For the second type of man the door opens but only in the mind; it is a thought-door not a real door, into it you cannot enter -- at the most you can philosophize about it, think about it. The first type of man enters the door, the second type of man at the most thinks about it and goes on thinking, the third type of man does not even think. He laughs loudly, and everything is finished at that. Then he forgets.

The third type of man is the TAMAS. The third type of man, if he wants to reach truth will have to become the second type. The second type will have to become the first type, otherwise there is no way.

THEREFORE THERE IS THE ESTABLISHED SAYING:

WHO UNDERSTANDS TAO SEEMS DULL OF COMPREHENSION;

The third type and the second type are the greater part of humanity -- the first type is a rare flower. Because of this greater part of humanity, the majority, the man who understands Tao seems dull of comprehension. A real man of understanding seems dull of comprehension to the people of the first and second type.

WHO IS ADVANCED IN TAO SEEMS TO SLIP BACKWARDS.

The man who advances towards truth seems to slip backwards. People in the world will say: What are you doing? You were achieving so many things, now you are slipping back. You were just going to be made a cabinet minister and what are you doing taking SANNYAS? You are falling back. You were just near the goal, you would have achieved great wealth and power and prestige, but what are you doing? You are destroying your own life's work and effort, slipping back.

WHO IS ADVANCED IN TAO SEEMS TO SLIP BACKWARDS.

WHO MOVES ON THE EVEN TAO (PATH) SEEMS TO GO UP AND DOWN.

To the greater majority the man of truth is someone with whom something has gone wrong, someone who is not normal, who is abnormal. Jesus is abnormal, Lao Tzu is abnormal, Krishna is abnormal; they don't fulfil the standard of normality.

If the vast humanity is normal, then of course Lao Tzu is abnormal. If the first type of man existed in the world there would be no government, no need of one. There would be an anarchy. There would be no need to rule because people would live by their inner discipline. There would be no need for the courts and the police; in fact, there is no need to govern a man who understands. He lives in accordance with Tao.

Because of the second type, democracy exists in the world, and because of the third type, dictatorship exists in the world. If the third type is too forceful then any democracy will turn into a dictatorship any time. In India this is happening right now. Jayaprakash is appealing to the third type, his appeal is only to the third type and he will condemn Indira if she becomes a dictator. But he will be the cause because he is provoking the third type, the lowest human in society -- he is provoking the GUNDAS, the hooligans. If they are provoked, then immediately any democracy has to become dictatorial, because for the third type only a dictatorship can maintain the order, otherwise not. A democracy is too good for them.

Remember this: if the first type exists then democracy will turn into an anarchist type of government automatically. That's the best world: no government, or almost no government, is needed. It is needed just for small things, otherwise not. For a postal service, for a railway -- for these things a government is needed, because an organization is needed for efficiency. Otherwise there is no need.

With the lowest -- dictatorship, with the mediocre -- democracy. And whenever a country moves towards dictatorship, know well that now the third type of element has become active, and it is dangerous. In fact the first type of element should become more and more active; the first type of element should exist more and more so that even a democracy is not needed.

SUPERIOR CHARACTER APPEARS LIKE A HOLLOW (VALLEY);

It is not hollow, it is filled with the infinite, but you cannot see the infinity. To you it seems empty. A man of divine character looks hollow -- he has nothing. Because whatsoever you can count, he has not got that: he has no bank balance, he has no power in this world, he is absolutely powerless. But you cannot see his inner power, that he has a glory totally different, of another kind and quality, that he has a light, riches, treasures -- to see them you will have to become the first type. Even to have a glimpse of them, you will at least have to become the second type. For the third type, the man of Tao is an empty vessel, he has nothing.

SHEER WHITE APPEARS LIKE TARNISHED;

He is so pure you cannot feel him because you can feel only that which you have -- the same can feel the same.

I have heard about one Maharajah who was a drunkard. The whole night he would see dancers and prostitutes and indulge and drink and in the morning he would go to sleep. He would sleep the whole day -- that was the rule, not the exception, for the Maharajah.

One day it happened that he was not feeling sleepy. It was just BRAHMAMUHURT, early morning, the sun had not risen, and he came out of his palace. It was rare, the guard in the garden had never seen him coming out because the morning was the time for him to go to sleep. But he was not feeling sleepy so he came out.

He smelled a strange smell around and he asked the guard: What type of smell is this? This bad smell, from where does this bad smell come? The guard said: Your honor, my lord, this bad smell is coming from the morning fresh air.

A man who has lived only a night life, surrounded by smoke, drinks, dirty and ugly women, does not know the smell of fresh air -- it feels bad.

If you live too much in the dark you become allergic to light; if you live too much in impurity you become allergic to purity. Says Lao Tzu: PURE WORTH APPEARS LIKE CONTAMINATED.

So don't be afraid if you appear mad to other people; don't be afraid if when you are meditating you see others laughing -- if they don't laugh it wouldn't be meditation at all.

Don't be afraid of intellectuals who say: Listen to everybody but do always your own thing. Don't be bothered by them. If you hear the truth, if you feel the truth, then take the risk and go on the greatest adventure -- the adventure of truth, the adventure to seek God, the adventure to know oneself.

Taoism - Daoism - Tao - Dao

VOL. 2, TAO: THE THREE TREASURES

Chapter-5

On The Qualities of The Taoist