Question 3

WU-WEI AND THE WAY OF THE HEART -- HOW ARE THEY INTERRELATED?

They are not interrelated; they are one and the same thing -- just two ways of saying the same thing.

Wu-wei means action without action. It means doing without doing. It means allowing that which wants to happen..Don't do it, allow it to happen. And that is the way of the heart.

The way of the heart means the way of love. Can you do love? It is impossible to do love. You can be in love but you cannot do it. But we go on using expressions, like 'making love', which are foolish. How can you make love? When love is there, you are not there. When love is there, the manipulator, the maker, is not there. Love does not allow any manoeuvre on your part. It happens. It happens suddenly out of the blue. It is a gift. Just as life is a gift, love is a gift.

The way of the heart or the way of love or the way of wu-wei -- they all are the same. They insist that the doer has to be dropped, forgotten, and you have to live your life not as a manipulator. You have to live your life as a flow of the unknown. Don't move upcurrent and don't try to push the river. Flow with the river.

The river is already going to the sea. You just be one with the river and it will take you to the sea. There is no need even to swim. Relax... and let the river take you. Relax... and let god possess you. Relax... and let the whole take the part.

Doing means the part is trying to do something against the whole, the part is trying to have its own will against the whole.

Wu-wei means the part has understood that it is only the part and has dropped all struggle. Now the whole is doing and the part is happy. The whole is dancing and the part is dancing with it. To be in tune with the whole, to be in step with the whole, to be in a deep orgasmic relationship with the whole, is the meaning of wu-wei. And that is the meaning of love.

That's why Jesus says, 'God is love.' He is creating a parallel -- because in man's experience there is nothing other than love which comes close to god.

Listen. You were born, but then you were not aware at all. It was a happening, but it has already happened; nothing can be done now. You will die; someday it will happen in the future. This moment you are alive. The birth has happened, the death has to happen. Between the two there is only one possibility -- love.

These are the three basic things: birth, love and death. They all happen. But birth has already happened -- -now you cannot become aware of it. And death has not happened -- how can you become aware of it right now? Only love is the possibility between the two, which is happening right now. Become aware of it and see how it happens.

It is nothing on your part. You don't do anything. Suddenly you feel one day a glow, suddenly you feel one day an energy arising. In the hands of the unknown.... The god of love, has knocked at the door. Suddenly you are no more the same: the dullness has disappeared, the drabness has disappeared, that staleness has disappeared. Suddenly you are singing and bubbling with joy. Suddenly you are no more the same -- at the peak. The valleys are forgotten, the dark valleys... sunlight and the peak. Have you done anything for it?

People go on teaching love. How can you love? Because of this teaching, love has become impossible. The mother goes on saying to the child, 'Love me! I am your mother.' How is the child supposed to love? What is he supposed to do, in fact? The child cannot believe what to do, how to do it. And the mother goes on insisting. The father goes on insisting, 'When I come home, love is expected!' By and by the child becomes a politician; he starts the politics of love -- which is not love at all. He starts playing tricks. He becomes deceptive. He smiles when the mother comes close, and the mother feels 'he loves me'.

He has to do these things because he depends on them, his survival depends on them. He is helpless. He becomes a diplomat. He does not feel any love but he has to pretend. By and by the pretension becomes so deep-rooted he goes on pretending his whole life. Then he loves a woman because she is his wife; then she loves a man because he is her husband. One has to love. Love becomes a duty. Can you think of any more absurd possibility? Love becomes a duty; one has to do it. It is a commandment; one has to fulfill it. It is a responsibility.

Now, the real love will never happen to such a person, such a conditioned mind, because love is always a happening. You are always taken unawares. Suddenly, from nowhere, it comes to you. The arrow comes, hits the heart, you feel the pain, the sweet pain of it, but you don't know from where and how it happens.

Love still remains in the hands of god. It is a happening.

Just the other day I was reading an anecdote:

"Fredrich Wilhelm, who ruled Prussia in the early eighteenth century, was a fat eccentric who stood on no ceremony at all. He walked the streets of Berlin unattended, and when anyone displeased him -- and he was easily displeased -- he did not hesitate to use his stout walking-stick as a cudgel." The king -- and behaving that way!

"Small wonder then that when the Berliners saw him at a distance, they quietly left the vicinity. The roads were empty. Whenever they would see that he was coming, they would escape here and there.

One time as Fredrich Wilhelm was pounding down one of the streets, a citizen espied him, but too late, and his attempt to slide quietly into a doorway proved a failure. 'You!' called out Fredrich Wilhelm. 'Where are you going?'

'Into the house, your majesty,' said the citizen, trembling violently.

'Is it your house?'

'No, your majesty.'

'A friend's house?'

'No, your majesty.'

'Why are you entering it then?'

And the poor citizen, fearing he might be accused of burglary, and at his wits' end, finally decided to tell the truth, and said, 'In order to avoid you, your majesty.'

Fredrich Wilhelm frowned. 'To avoid me? Why?'

'Because I fear you, your majesty.'

Fredrich Wilhelm promptly turned purple, and lifting his cudgel pounded the other's shoulders crying, 'You are not supposed to fear me! You are supposed to love me! Love me, scum! Love me!"'

But how is one supposed to love? Love cannot be a duty. Nobody can be supposed to love. Nobody can be commanded to love. Nobody can be told to love. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. The very concept that you can do something about it has created such a situation that love is not happening to many people. Rarely it happens to somebody. It is as rare as god, because god is love... because love is god.

If you are available to love, you will be available to god also. They are the same. Love is the beginning and god is the end. Love is the doorsteps of the temple of god.