October 18, 1974
“Zhuang Tzu was fishing in the river with his bamboo fishing rod. The ruler of the kingdom of Chu sent two of his vice-chancellors with an official document: “We offer you the position of prime minister.”
Chuang Tzu held his bamboo fishing rod. Still looking at the Pu River, he said: “I was told that there is a sacrificial turtle, sacrificed and canonized 3 thousand years ago, which is honored by the prince. Dressed in silk, it is in a precious tomb on the altar of the temple.
Do you think it is better to give your life and provide a sacrificial shell as an object of cult, in clouds of incense, for 3 thousand years, or is it better to live as an ordinary turtle, dragging its tail through the mud? “For a turtle,” said the vice-chancellors, “it is better to live and drag its tail through the mud!”
“Go back,” said Zhuang-tse. “Leave me to drag my tail through the mud.”
Every child is born healthy, but every person becomes abnormal, the whole of humanity is neurotic. Neurosis is not a problem of a few people: the human being as such is neurotic, and this neurosis is created through such a subtle mechanism that you are not even aware of it. It has become unconscious and it continues to influence you, your behavior, your relationships - your whole life is colored by it.
He has entered so deeply into you that you cannot detect. where your unhappiness, conflict, anxiety and neurosis come from. You need to understand a few things, then this story will become clear and will help you a lot.
First: if you condemn yourself, you create division, and this division will become your misery and your hell. If you condemn yourself, it means that you condemn nature, and there is no victory over nature and there cannot be. You are only an insignificant part in the vast ocean of nature, and you cannot fight it, and the so-called religions will force you to fight it. They condemn nature and praise culture. They condemn nature and say: this means behaving like animals, don't be like animals! Every parent says: don’t be like an animal! What's wrong with animals? Animals are wonderful! But in your mind, animals are something that is condemned, something bad, something evil, something unworthy of you. You are superior, you are not an animal, you are born of angels. And animals... they are simply used, exploited, you are not one of them.
That is why, when Darwin first proclaimed that man came from the same circle as the animals, that he belonged to the animal world, all of humanity was against him. From every church pulpit, from every temple, from every mosque, he was proclaimed a heretic. They said that he taught something completely harmful, and if they believed him, then the whole culture would be lost. But he was right. Man is as natural as other animals, trees and birds: trees, birds and animals are not neurotic, they never go crazy unless you put them in a zoo.
This happens at the zoo: the animals become neurotic. Even just touching a person is dangerous. The person is contagious. Sometimes dogs go crazy. but never if they are wild, only when they are domesticated. Pets go crazy: living with a human means living with something unnatural. In the wild, no animal commits suicide, no animal goes crazy, no animal kills. But with a person, even the animals become unnatural, they begin to do this. which was never done in freedom; they become homosexual, neurotic, they kill, and sometimes even try to commit suicide.
What happens when you take a dog into your home? You immediately start teaching her, as if she is missing something. She's perfect! Every dog is born perfect! Nature gives her everything she needs - she is already provided with everything, you don’t need to teach her. What do you do? You try to make her a part of human society and that is how trouble begins. Now even the dog will learn to judge himself. If she does something wrong, she feels guilty inside herself: she is condemned.
I heard that once the following happened: a beggar tramp met a rich man and asked for a copper, just for a cup of coffee. The rich man said: “You still look healthy, why are you wasting your life uselessly? Why don’t you go to work and help yourself?”
And the tramp said, with a feeling of deep condemnation in his eyes: “How?! Help such a tramp?”
You constantly don't accept yourself. From the very beginning you have been taught that nature is not enough, that you must be more than nature. And you tried, but the effort was unsuccessful: it is impossible, you can never be more than nature. And if you try too hard, you will be less than nature. You can never be more than nature, since nature is perfect: nothing more
not under, no polishing needed, no effort needed. to make it better. But if you try too hard, you will fall out of the perfection of nature and become a neurotic animal.
Man came from animals, but he is not a higher animal - he became a neurotic animal. And the problem is that no one teaches you to accept yourself and accept your nature. Worship it, be grateful to the divine for it, be grateful to the whole.
Everything you have been given has meaning, it is significant. You can't cut it off and change it. If you try, you will end up in trouble. And you are in trouble, everyone on this earth is in trouble.
Why should a person condemn himself? Why can't he accept nature? Because with the help of condemnation the ego is created. There is no other way to make ego. To create an ego you must fight, to create an ego you must condemn something as bad and applaud something as good: to create an ego you must first create god and devil. And then you have to fight the devil and try to reach god. This requires conflict. If there is no conflict, there can be no ego. Just think: if there is no struggle in you, if you are completely accepting of yourself, happy as you are, deeply content, deeply satisfied, not a single note of complaint, grateful, how can the ego exist? How can you say "I am"? The more you struggle, the more you create 'I'. That's why if you go to your so-called saints, you will find more neurotic people there than anywhere else. And this is something that is observed there; where there are many saints, there are also many madmen. There is less madness in the East and more in the West: but if you just do ordinary arithmetic, you will be surprised: in the East many madmen are worshiped as saints, so they are not in madhouses. In the West these are the same people who should be in the madhouse. - on the psychiatrist's couch. They are not thought of as crazy, but they are because the ego is crazy.
Look at your saints. They have acquired such subtle egos, of course, refined, polished, very cultivated, decorated, but they are there.
If you are fighting with someone, you cannot have a very subtle ego, because in dealing with others there is always the possibility of defeat. Even if you win, the other remains; someday he will have a chance to gain more power, and then you may be defeated. Victory cannot be absolute, and you can never be sure, since the enemy is always there.
And outside there is not just one enemy - there are millions of enemies out there: after all, anyone with whom you compete is your enemy. You will always be shaking and worrying, your ego will never stand on solid ground because you have built your house on sand. But if you fight with yourself, then you are working on solid ground and you can be sure that you can be a more subtle egoist.
To have a self you have to kill nature, because in nature ego does not exist. There are trees there, but they do not know about the self; there are animals there, but they do not know about the ego, they live unconsciously. They simply live without any battle or struggle. When they are hungry, they look for food: when they are satisfied, they fall asleep. They make love, they eat, they sleep, they simply exist, they do not say “we are.” They are just waves in the vast ocean of life, they come and go without leaving any trace. They have no history, no autobiography. They come and go. as if they had never been here.
There were lions, there were tigers, but they have no history, no autobiography. The lion becomes like a boundless big wave, and then disappears, leaving no trace behind it.
The ego leaves traces, imprints. If the ego wants not to die, autobiographies are written, history is created, and then all the stupidity, neurosis comes.
To create ego, man has created conflict, and this conflict has two aspects: one aspect is conflict with external nature. This is how science is done. Science is a struggle with external nature, nature outside of you. This is why even figures like Bertrand Russell continue to speak in terms of the conquest of nature. How can you conquer nature? How can a wave conquer the ocean? This is patent stupidity! A part cannot conquer the whole, and if a part tries to do so, it goes crazy.
The whole will not lose anything, the part will lose everything, since the part exists with the whole and is never against it.
Science became destructive because of its aggressive orientation.
And there is another aspect of the conflict: the aspect which you call religion. One aspect is to fight the external nature. Science has been created, it is destructive. The ultimate goal can never be anything other than Hiroshima, and it will be achieved - the whole earth will become Hiroshima. Struggle leads to death, conflict in the extreme leads to final death, science leads to this.
And there is another conflict, an internal conflict - to fight with yourself. This is what you call religion, to conquer yourself. Again there is a struggle, and it is also destructive. Science destroys nature from the outside, so-called religion destroys nature from the inside. Chuang Tzu is against both types of conflict. So-called science and so-called religion are not enemies, they are partners, they have a deep affinity.
To understand Lao Tzu and Zhuang Tzu, to understand the Tao, you must understand that they do not believe in struggle of any kind. They say, don't fight, live! Just allow nature to penetrate into you and you to penetrate into nature. They say: just be ordinary, don't try to be extraordinary, don't try to be somebody, just be nobody. You will enjoy more because you will have more energy left, you will be full of energy.
There is an amazing energy, but it is dissipated in the struggle: you divide yourselves and fight on both sides, and the energy dissipates. The same energy can become ecstatic if you allow it to operate in inner harmony rather than in struggle!
Accepting everything is the basis of the Tao. Tao does not create any “shoulds”. Chuang Tzu says: don’t tell anyone that you should do this, you should do that, you shouldn’t be like that. He says these are dangerous things, you are poisoned. There is only one thing worth following, and that is your nature: wherever it leads, believe it.
But we are afraid to follow nature not because nature is bad, but because of moral teachers, because of the poisoners of the very origins of life. They have taught you so many 'shoulds' that you cannot look directly at how it 'is', what it is - you are always looking for the 'shoulds'.
Even if you look at a rose, you immediately start thinking what it should be like, that it could be a little redder, a little bigger, that you could put chemicals in it and it would become bigger, that you could color it and it would become redder, but you cannot accept it as it is. Small or big, red or not so red - it already exists. Why not enjoy it at this very moment? You want to make it redder, bigger, first, and then enjoy it.
You don't know why you are putting off. and procrastination becomes a habit. When it has become larger, the same mind will say: more is possible. And the same mind will continue to procrastinate until death knocks on your door. Then you will be surprised: I spent my whole life on “should”, and there was “is”, and “is” is beautiful. “There is” is the only religion of Chuang Tzu.
The conflict between "is" and "ought" is very fundamental. If you can drop your should, you may not be as respectable as you are now. People respect you because of what you should do. They say: this man is wonderful - he never gets angry, he always smiles, but they do not know that these smiles are false, because a person who can never be angry cannot be a real laugher. This is the problem: if he is not genuine in his anger, he cannot be genuine in his laughter.
Children are natural: when they get angry, they really get angry. Look at them - their anger is beautiful. They become just like wild animals, jumping and screaming, their faces completely red. They are like lions, at this moment they would destroy the whole world. Their anger is true, and everything that is true is beautiful. Look at your child when he is angry. Just look at it and you will see a beautiful flowering, a flowering of strength, power, energy - the energy is moving.
And the next moment the child is happy and laughing. Now laughter is also true, also beautiful. Everything that is natural is beautiful. Your kiss will only be poison - it will be poisonous. How can you love? How can you enjoy pure existence? No, you can't do anything, now you can only follow what should, should and shouldn't.
You are afraid to live, you go on postponing, thinking that someday in the future you will live, and because of this postponing you have created heaven and hell. Heaven is your last layover of everything worth living for. You say that there is eternal beauty in heaven. Eternal beauty is here and now, not in heaven. If you laugh, just stand in front of the mirror and laugh, you will see that behind your smile there is always anger, sadness, lust, it is not pure. It cannot be pure, since the source itself is poisoned.
Nothing is pure, not only the things in the market are fake, you are also fake. Then you cannot smile, and if you cannot smile, how can you kiss? But you tell the child: don’t be angry, suppress your anger, it’s not good, you can’t be angry. But who is the one who allows these things? Is there any possibility of going beyond nature? Who are you? At best, the only way you can do this is by forcing him.
The child is helpless. If you force him, he will have to follow you. He is weak, he depends on you - after all, you can show your love, but he needs your love. So he must follow you. When he is angry, he will not express it, and now anger will enter his blood, and since anger is chemical, his whole body will be poisoned. Expressed anger is a wonderful thing, suppressed anger is a disease. Now when he smiles, his smile will carry this anger, this poison, because now it is in the blood. And you have suppressed so much that when you want to smile, something holds you back, something is afraid of any kind of permission, because a smile is permission.
Eternal beauty is here and now, not in heaven. You say that in heaven love is pure and eternal, but love can be pure and eternal here and now, there is no need to wait for heaven. Wherever love is, it is eternal and pure, since for love time does not exist. Eternal does not mean permanent, eternal means timeless, eternal means there is no time.
Even if there is a single moment of love, it is eternal. In this moment there is such depth that time disappears in this moment - there is no future, no past, in this moment there are simply so many of you that you extend to all being: all being belongs to you, and you all belong to being. This moment is eternity in itself. Where there is love, there is eternity, and then there is the opportunity for prayer.
If your smile is false, then your kiss will also be false, and your love cannot be true, and all your prayers will be just words and nothing else.
How can you find God, how can you become godlike, if you are not true? You seek the truth, but in your life you are always untrue. How can an untrue person meet the truth? It seems almost impossible. Truth will knock on your door, you don't have to go anywhere - just be true. And when I say, “just be true,” I say, “just be natural.”
Nature is truth, and there is no truth other than nature. This is the message of Chuang Tzu, one of the greatest messages of the world. Now we will try to get started with his wonderful story.
"Zhuang Tzu was fishing in the Pu River with his bamboo fishing rod."
Can you imagine Buddha fishing in the Pu River? Can you imagine Mahavir fishing? Impossible.
"Zhuang Tzu was fishing in the Pu River with his bamboo fishing rod."
What does it mean? This means that Zhuang Tzu is an ordinary person, he does not strive for anything, he simply enjoys being ordinary. He doesn't live by principles, he lives by instincts. He doesn't put his ego on his being, he just flows with them, he's just an ordinary person. This is the significance of his fishing in the Pu River - only an ordinary person can do it. How can unusual people do this? There are so many “shoulds” in them - this should be done, this should not be done. They live morally, they live by principles: what do you do? You, a man of knowledge, also fish? Do you kill fish? It's impossible to imagine!
Chuang Tzu believes in nature, he says that everything that is natural is good. He is just an animal and he will not create any morality in order to feel superior. History says: just be ordinary and enjoy being ordinary, only then can you fall again and again into nature, into the natural, otherwise you will become unnatural. This fishing is simply symbolic. Whether Chuang Tzu caught fish or not is not the point, but he is the kind of man who can fish, who can sit with his bamboo fishing rod. That's why you can't make a statue of Chuang Tzu - it's difficult. Buddha is perfect, you can make a statue of him.
It is as if he was born only to have his statues. You couldn't find a more statue-like man. So naturally there are millions of statues of Buddha, more than of anyone else. He looks perfect, a perfect model for a statue: sitting under the Bodhi tree, eyes closed, doing nothing. He appears to be the perfect ideal, the perfect "ought" - as far as man can be - completely not cruel, completely true, completely meditative. He is just like marble, not a person at all.
You cannot make a statue of Chuang Tzu, you will find him in such wrong places. He's just an ordinary person, and that's the beauty, that's his whole message. Just be ordinary, fishing, with a bamboo fishing rod. And Zhuang Tzu says that this is enlightenment.
I tell you that Buddha may have achieved enlightenment, it may have been easy for his nature to sit under a tree, but if you follow Buddha you will become just stones. Chuang Tzu is better for you. Just be ordinary. For Buddha it could have been ordinary... sitting, that's why he achieved it, but as far as I know you and the average person in general, humanity on the average, boundless humanity on the average, boundless humanity, for you Chuang Tzu is better. And when I say better, I am not making any comparison, I am simply saying that he is so ordinary that you can easily be with him without becoming neurotic. If you follow Buddha, you may become neurotic. If you follow Chuang Chai, you will become more and more natural.
“Zhuang Tzu was fishing in the Pu River with his bamboo fishing rod. The ruler of the kingdom of Chu sent two of his vice-chancellors with an official document: we propose that you take the position of prime minister.”
Politics is the ego, it is the journey of the ego, the game of the ego, but Zhuang Tzu was far and wide known as a sage, there was no need to advertise it. When wisdom exists, it is so illuminated that you cannot hide it—even Zhuang Tzu could not hide it.
You can't hide ordinary love. If a young man or young woman falls in love, you can tell even by their gait that love has happened. You will not be able to hide it, since every gesture changes, becomes enlightened and a new quality enters. You can't hide it. How can you hide that you are in love with all existence? When prayer exists, how can you hide it?
Even Zhuang Tzu, who says that it must be hidden, cannot hide it, since it is impossible - people will suspect.
How can you hide the light? If your house is lit, your neighbors will know because there will be light in your windows. No, you cannot hide it, but the effort to hide it is good. Why does Chuang Tzu say to hide the fire of the inner lamp? He says this simply to take you from the exact opposite pole, since you would like to advertise him.
There are people whose light does not yet exist, whose flame does not yet exist, whose house is in darkness, empty, but they would like to advertise that they have become wise. The ego would like even the pretense of wisdom.
So Chuang Tzu says: don't say anything about who or what you are, just hide yourself. Those who have eyes will find you and follow you, they will come to you. You do not need to go and knock on their doors, the appearance itself will attract you and the seekers will follow you and find you wherever you are, and do not worry about those who are not seekers, as their coming is useless. They will only be a source of unrest and create difficulties for those. who is looking.
Hide the fact, but people will still find out.
The prince must have learned that Chuang Tzu had become enlightened.
“The ruler of the Kingdom of Chu sent two of his vice-chancellors with an official document: we propose that you take the position of prime minister.”
In the old days, prime ministers were not chosen by popular vote; how can you choose if the people vote? How can people choose their leaders? They would like to, but they are unable to. Democracy is just a thunderstorm, it has not happened anywhere yet, it cannot happen. And if it happens anywhere, it creates disaster: the medicine turns out to be more dangerous than the disease itself.
In the old days, the people did not elect the prime minister, he was appointed by the king, and the king had to find a sage. It was necessary to find, to find a Brahmin, since the sage did not show off, he did not knock on doors asking for votes, he was most likely hiding. Kings went and searched, and if a sage was found, he had to be brought into the world so that the world could honor him.
The prince apparently learned that Chuang Tzu had become enlightened and sent two envoys to invite him to become prime minister.
"Zhuang Tzu held his bamboo fishing rod."
Nothing has changed. The Vice-Chancellor was standing there with an official document, saying: you are being offered to become Prime Minister. It was the highest position, but Zhuang Tzu remained who he was: he held his bamboo fishing rod, still looking at the Pu River. He didn't even look at these vice-chancellors, didn't look at the document, as if it was worth nothing.
“Still looking at the Pu River, he said: I was told that there is a sacrificial turtle, which was sacrificed and canonized 3000 years ago and which the prince honors, dressed in silk, in a precious tomb on the altar of the temple.”
That turtle is still there. Her shell is covered with gold and precious stones, in the forbidden city of Penik, in the city of the emperor, which is not open to everyone, she is still there. Now its age is almost 6 thousand years. This dead turtle is covered with gold and precious stones and rests in a tomb, and is worshiped by the prince himself.
“Zhuang Tzu asked: “Do you think it is better to give up your life and provide a sacrificial shell as an object of worship, in clouds of incense, for 3 thousand years, or is it better to live like an ordinary turtle, dragging your tail through the mud!”
Chuang Tzu asked: What is better - just to be an ordinary turtle and live, or to be dead, covered in gold and be an object of worship? This is a problem for everyone, it faces everyone, and there are two alternatives. People can worship you, but they cannot worship you while you are alive, because life is immoral - it is neither moral nor immoral. Life knows no morality, it is immoral. Life does not know any “shoulds”, it simply lives in unconsciousness. If you are simply alive, then it is difficult for anyone to worship you. If you just live an ordinary life, enjoying, you will not be able to arrange things so that incense is burned around you, a temple, a cult, a sect is built around you and people worship you for thousands of years. No!
They worship Jesus not because he was enlightened, but because he was crucified. Just think about the story of Jesus: if the crucifixion had never happened, there would be no Christianity. Christianity exists not because of Jesus, but because of the cross. This is why the cross became a symbol of Christianity. Why cross?
The human mind, the neurotic mind, worships death, not life: the more dead you are, the more you can be worshiped. If you are alive, then you are not worthy of worship, since you are not sacrificing anything! Sacrifice can be worshiped because sacrifice means the sacrifice of life, the gradual crucifixion. If others crucify you, people will worship you, and if you crucify yourself, people will worship you even more. People worship death. Jesus has been worshiped since he was crucified.
If you just throw out that part of the story, then who is Jesus? Then it will be difficult for you to even remember, because Jesus was a vagabond, just like Chuang Tzu. The only difference is that Chuang Tzu was never crucified, but Jesus was crucified, otherwise it is the same person. You could find him on the river bank with a bamboo rod, fishing - he was very friendly with the fishermen. He had to fish on the Sea of Galilee, and the fishermen were his followers. You would find him standing with a prostitute, because the prostitute loved him, she worshiped him, and he knew no difference. He lived with gamblers, drunkards, people rejected by society, and that was his crime!
He was crucified because that was his crime: he lived with ordinary people leading ordinary lives. The respectable world could not tolerate this, it was intolerable. This man who lives with prostitutes, gamblers, drunkards, who has found himself in bad company, this man says that he is the son of God! This is heresy!
This man was accused so much that he had to be punished, because if such things go unpunished, then all morality will be destroyed, and this man lived against all the rules, he had no rules except life itself.
Jesus and Chuang Tzu are similar, they differ only in one thing: Jesus was crucified. Jews are very rule-oriented, they live by rules, they are Confucians, and they have a hard time imagining how someone who lives without rules can be good. The Jews are very moralistic and their concept of God is full of vindictiveness. The Jewish God is very vengeful and will throw you into the fire if you disobey him. It seems that submission is the greatest rule, and this Jesus, the son of a carpenter, an ordinary man lives with dubious people and declares that he is the prophet for whom the whole Jewish world has been waiting. No, he had to be punished.
China was more tolerant. Chuang Tzu was not punished because there was no concept of an avenging God in China, in fact there was no concept of God at all. Confucius never believed in God, he believed in rules, and he was the basis for China, but he said that the rules are human, there is nothing divine behind them and they are controversial, relative, you can change them. They must be followed, but there is nothing divine in them, nothing absolute. That is why Lao Tzu and Zhuang Tzu could live and were not crucified,
But you have to remember one thing: if Chuang Tzu had also been crucified, then he would have had a lot of followers. There are none. Zhuang Tzu had no followers; he could not have them, since people worship death. And he avoided becoming a turtle, being canonized, because the condition for this is one thing: be dead! Don't do this, don't do that, just cut yourself and sacrifice yourself, just sit. You are not even allowed to breathe. Then people will worship you, then you will become a dead turtle.
“Zhuang Tzu asked: do you think it is better to give your life and provide a sacrificial shell as an object of worship, in clouds of incense, for 3 thousand years, or is it better to live as an ordinary turtle, dragging its tail through the mud?
“For a turtle,” said the Vice-Chancellor, “it is better to live and drag its tail through the mud.”
Of course, for a turtle this is logical: it is better to live and drag its tail through the mud! Chuang Tzu said: "Go home, leave me here dragging my tail through the mud! Let me be just an ordinary turtle. Please don't try to canonize me, because I know your condition: first I must die and provide a shell, a dead shell, then you can canonize me, then you can make a cult out of me, then you can build a temple around me and smoke incense, clouds of incense, and then you can worship me for three thousand years old. But what will this do to me? I am a turtle, and what will a turtle know about gold and precious stones? They are only human stupidity, and the turtle never believed in dirt, the turtle drags its tail in the mud and enjoys it."
This symbol is full of meaning because dirt is something dirty for us, but dirt is nature. Dirty or not dirty are our interpretations. Mud is nature, and the turtle drags its tail through the mud and plays the game as long as it can, enjoying the mud. This is a good symbol. This is what a natural man should be: not condemning dirt, not saying that the body is nothing, dirt to dirt, dust to dust, not saying that the body will fall back into dirt, that it is only dirt.
"...dragging your tail through the mud."
Nature is dirty, it is dirt. You are made of it and you will dissolve in it, but if you want to be worshiped for thousands of years, then there is no problem. If you want to create a cult around yourself, if you want to become a deity, placed in a temple altar, buried, canonized, then that's all right, but then you have to give your life.
Is it worth it? Is it worth giving your life and gaining respect? Is it worth losing a single moment of life and gaining the respect of the whole world? Even in this case, it’s not worth it, no. If the whole world worships you, this is not enough to lose a single moment of life. Only life is valuable, there are no precious stones. Only life is gold, there is no other gold. Only life is a temple, there are no other temples. Only life is incense, aroma, there is no other aroma.
This is what Chuang Tzu says: let me be alive. You can blame me, since I am just a turtle dragging its tail through the mud, but this is the best thing for the turtle. Even you agree with me, so go home. I will not come to the palace, I will not become prime minister, this is not for me, because you will kill me.
There are many ways to crucify a person, and crucifixion is only one of them. You can put him on the throne, and then he too will be crucified, but in a more subtle way: you kill him in a very non-cruel way. When you start respecting someone, you have started killing him, because now he has to pay, he has to look at you - what to do, what not to do.
Once I stayed with a Jain family. They had never met me, but they had read my books and, thanks to the books, had great respect for me. Then they invited me to stay with them when I was in their city. This is a very rich family.
So I stopped. In the evening, several people came to see me, and Jains eat before sunset, they are very traditional. A woman came in and said: It's getting dark, you have to finish your business with these people, otherwise you'll be late for your meal. I said that I will eat a little later, there is no hurry, because these people have come from afar, from a remote village and they are true seekers, so I have to tell them something: before I leave, I have to tell them something.
She didn’t believe me, and by the time these people left, it was already late, the sun had set, it was dark. This woman came again and said, “Now you won’t be able to eat, or are you ready to eat even at night?” I said, “It makes no difference to me.”
And my whole image was immediately destroyed. She said, "We thought you were an enlightened person, but now you have destroyed the whole image. How can an enlightened person eat at night?"
For Jains this is impossible to imagine because they live by rules and continue to live by dead rules. If you want them to respect you, you must follow their rules, but if you follow their rules, you are imprisoned. And I said, “It’s better not to be enlightened, because I wouldn’t like to go to bed hungry, that’s too much. I can leave enlightenment.”
And that day I told them this story: "Let me drag my tail through the mud, it's all worthless." Does someone think that I am enlightened, and just to maintain this image, I have to kill myself? But that's exactly what happens.
Never ask for respect because the ego asks for it. Never seek respect from others, as these are thin fetters and you will soon be imprisoned and locked in it. Just live normally, just live as you feel, naturally, and don't care about anyone else: no one but you is responsible for your life. Be responsible only for yourself and no one else, then it will be difficult for you to create a cult around yourself. But if people come, they will be true seekers. If you are looking for respect, the wrong people will gather around you. If you do not seek respect, if you are not concerned about others, if you simply follow your natural path, only then the real seekers will come and they will not become a prison sentence for you.
But only those people who are not a prison sentence for you can be helped, otherwise followers lead their leaders, students impose rules on their masters. What nonsense is this? Both of them remain in the dark.
Always remember one basic thing: there cannot be anything greater than nature, nature is everything, so you have to find a way to fall again from your cultivated pattern of your life into the natural stream.
You are so frozen, so cultured. How to melt again and become a river? It's difficult because frozen ice is worshiped and it will say what are you doing? Now no one will respect you, now you will not be a respected person: what are you doing? It will say: just follow the rules, what a hassle. So much goes into the rules. If you follow the normal rules, everyone will worship you. But what does worship give? This is not a replacement for life. What does respect give? This is not a replacement for existence.
Be existential, let things happen. If someone respects you, even then it's up to them, it shouldn't be your concern. If this is your concern, then you will become neurotic. This is how everyone became neurotic. There are so many people around and they all expect you to do this and do that. So many people, so many expectations, and you are trying to satisfy them all! You can't satisfy them all. All efforts will end in your own
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru