Lao Tzu and Krishna have given the same message

 

 

Question 3:

Lao Tzu Stresses inaction, Whereas Krishna lays stress on action. How do these two theories compare and contrast?

 

 

These two theories are the two ends. Lao Tzu does not tell us to give up action. He tells us to act but act as if not acting. Do your actions as if you are not doing them. Rather, they are happening. Everything is happening – the breath comes and goes. You do not take the breath, you do not release the breath – it happens on its own. Life also is like that. You establish yourself in inaction and let all actions take place as they will.

 

Krishna says the same thing, but from the other end. He says, ”Do not run away from action. Do your duty but do not become the doer. Let go of the feeling that you are the doer. God is the doer.”

 

In Lao Tzu’s system, there is no place for God because he says that even this suggestion gives rise to duality. He says: ”By saying even this, that God is the doer, we plant our ego on God.” Besides, it suggests some doer, even if it is God and not us. According to Lao Tzu, there is no doer. Actions take place on their own. This is a little difficult to understand. It is easy for us to accept God as the doer. If not us, God is the doer. Our logic remains intact.

 

But Lao Tzu says: ”Why do you want to involve Him in this business of being the doer, when you yourself are not prepared to be the doer?” There is no doer; there are only happenings. The wind blows, the leaves rustle, the waves of the oceans rise and fall. The world is a collection of the happenings, there is no doer. When this comes within your understanding, then you let things happen. You are neither the doer nor the non-doer. Then you let things happen as they will and you merely watch them happening. Then you reach the state that Krishna speaks of.

 

Krishna said to Arjuna, ”Leave all this.” Perhaps Arjuna was not as worthy a disciple of Krishna as Lao Tzu’s disciples. Therefore Krishna had to say, ”Leave everything to God. It is He who does everything. Do not interfere in His work. Take yourself only as a means that He employs in order to carry out a particular task.”

 

Remember, if Lao Tzu were in Krishna’s place he would never have given Arjuna such a long sermon. Lao Tzu, in the first place, would not have spoken at all. If Arjuna could read his silence, well and good.

 

Lieh Tzu says: ”I have heard of teachers who teach with the help of words. And, there are teachers who teach without the medium of words.”

 

Lieh Tzu stayed with Lao Tzu for twelve long years. Never did he ask Lao Tzu a single question nor did he receive a single answer. Lieh Tzu would sit in a corner and listen to Lao Tzu when he answered the questions of others. Years later, Lao Tzu himself asked him one day, ”Have you nothing to ask?”

Lieh Tzu said, ”If I have your permission I will ask.”

 

”Why did you remain silent all these years?” Lao Tzu asked him.

Lieh Tzu replied. ”I have gained so much understanding sitting silently with you that I did not want to cause a disturbance with words.”

 

To this, Lao Tzu said, ”It is, therefore, that I say that you are now eligible to ask. He who finds speech an obstruction is freed from the illness of speaking. Now we can converse because words will cause no hindrance. He who discovers the bliss of silence cannot be hindered by words. Now, we can safely exchange our views.”

 

But the disciple who stands before Krishna is a different type altogether. The situation as well as the times are different. It is a time of battle. You could not afford to be silent for twelve years. The situation is very different. Besides, if Lao Tzu were to tell Arjuna, ”There is no doer. Things happen,”

 

Arjuna would have run away. When there is no doer, there is no deserter. He would have run away although that would have been wrong on his part because in running away, he would have been the deserter. He would then have been deceiving his own self. We all are capable of deceiving ourselves; we are great adepts at this art. We are very clever at deceiving ourselves. We will run away and then philosophise, ”It is happening. I am not the doer. I am only the witness.”

 

If a man in the same mental state as Arjuna runs away, he is responsible for his actions. In fact, it is the sense of doer-ship that makes him think that he would be committing a sin by killing his near and dear ones. Therefore, he should run away. Krishna stops him from running away and explains to him that this feeling that ’I am doing’ is wrong. If Arjuna had reached the stage where his ego had dropped, and then, if he had laid down his bow and arrow and walked away, Krishna would have been the last person to stop him. But then, that going would have been of different kind altogether.

 

Talking of Arjuna, I am reminded of a follower of Lao Tzu by the name of Rong Kong Uneji. He was a very great marks-man. He used to say, ”Pull the arrow but do not let the muscles of the arm move”, because if the muscle so much as twitches, you become the doer. Then it is you who has shot the arrow.

 

Now this was a very difficult thing. The king heard about him. He called for him because he was curious to see this man. We can believe that a man, while pulling the arrow, may have the feeling of being only a medium and not the doer. He may have the attitude of being a witness to the happening but it is virtually impossible for him to shoot the arrow without using his muscles.

 

Uneji came to the court and placed his bow on the ground. It is said that no one but he could lift his bow; it was so heavy. He lifted the bow. The king himself inspected the muscles of his arms. He found them soft and supple like a child’s. The king was surprised. Uneji said, ”Now your majesty will believe me when I say the arrow is not shot; it shoots by itself.”

 

If Arjuna came to this stage where he could say, ”It is not I who am going; this going is taking place,” then Krishna would never have stopped him. But Arjuna was not in this state. Arjuna was not fit to be a disciple of Lao Tzu. He belonged to the class of warriors, an outright masculine type; whereas all the teachings of Lao Tzu are for the feminine mind.

 

Arjuna is a symbol of masculinity. He was as a man should be. That is why, even Krishna, in order to bring his masculinity out to the fore, says, ”You talk like an impotent man!” He shakes the man in him to the very bones. He tells him that people will call him a coward and he will go down in history as a warrior whose courage failed him in battle. Krishna tried to bring out the pride of the warrior in him so that he would pick up his bow and prepare for battle.

 

The teachings of Lao Tzu are essentially for a feminine mind. Therefore, his disciples are bound to be basically different. Whether feminine or masculine, the result is the same. One may drown one’s ego in the service of God and not consider oneself to be the doer; or, like Lao Tzu, follow the path of non-action, where things happen by themselves and the sadhaka says he is not the doer.

 

Lao Tzu does not even ask his followers to act. Why should he? If things are happening, they are happening. If they are not, they are not. If they stop happening, they stop happening. You are no one to interfere or come in between. This, however, does not mean that the follower of Lao Tzu runs away from action. Nor does it mean that the followers of Krishna are always involved in actions.

 

Those who followed Lao Tzu have also fought wars. Uneji, about whom I spoke, was a warrior. He was well-versed in archery. We know of the so-called sannyasins of our country who run away from the world with the Gita in their hands, and yet maintain that the Gita is their very life.

 

What is one to do? What you should do is neither in the hands of Lao Tzu nor in the hands of Krishna. It is entirely in your hands. It has always been so. Actually, the teacher cannot do anything without your cooperation. And, the teacher can go only that far with you as you are prepared to go. Lao Tzu and Krishna have given the same message, but from very opposite points. One is a message for the male mind, and the other is a message for the female mind.

 

- Osho, "The Way of Tao, Vol 2, #7, Q3"