Walking the Tightrope

EXISTENCE is paradoxical; paradox is its very core. It exists through opposites, it is a balance in the opposites. And one who learns how to balance becomes capable of knowing what life is, what existence is, what God is. The secret key is balance.

A few things before we enter into this story.... First, we have been trained in Aristotelian logic - which is linear, one-dimensional. Life is not Aristotelian at all, it is Hegelian. Logic is not linear, logic is dialectical. The very process of life is dialectic, a meeting of the opposites - a conflict between the opposites and yet a meeting of the opposites. And life goes through this dialectical process: from thesis to antithesis, from antithesis to synthesis - and then again the synthesis becomes a thesis. The whole process starts again.

If Aristotle is true then there will be only men and no women, or, only women and no men. If the world was made according to Aristotle then there will be only light and no darkness, or, only darkness and no light. That would be logical. There would be either life or death but not both.

But life is not based on Aristotle's logic, life has both. And life is really possible only because of both, because of the opposites: man and woman, yin and yang, day and night, birth and death, love and hate. Life consists of both.

This is the first thing you have to allow to sink deep into your heart - because Aristotle is in everybody's head. The whole education system of the world believes in Aristotle - although for the very advanced scientific minds Aristotle is out of date. He no longer applies. Science has gone beyond Aristotle because science has come closer to existence.

And now science understands that life is dialectical, not logical.

I have heard.

Noah must have been an Aristotelian. The tom-cat knew better.

Love is a sort of fight, love is a fight. Without fight love cannot exist. They look opposite - because we think lovers should never fight. It is logical: if you love somebody how can you fight? It is absolutely clear, obvious to the intellect, that lovers should never fight - but they do. In fact, they are intimate enemies; they are continuously fighting. In that very fight the energy that is called love is released. Love is not only fight, love is not only struggle, that's true - it is more than that. It is fight too, but love transcends. The fight cannot destroy it. Love survives fight but it cannot exist without it.

Look into life: life is non-Aristotelian, non-Euclidean. If you don't force your concepts on life, if you simply look at things as they are, then you will be suddenly surprised to see that opposites are complementaries. And the tension between the opposites is the very basis on which life exists - otherwise it would disappear. Think of a world where death does not exist.... Your mind may say 'then life will be there eternally', but you are wrong.

If death does not exist life will simply disappear. It cannot exist without death; death gives it the background, death gives it colour and richness, death gives it passion and intensity.

So death is not against life - the first thing - death is involved in life. And if you want to live authentically you have to learn how to continuously die authentically. You have to keep a balance between birth and death and you have to remain just in the middle. That remaining in the middle cannot be a static thing: it is not that once you have attained to a thing - finished, then there is nothing to be done. That is nonsense. One never achieves balance forever, one has to achieve it again and again and again.

This is very difficult to understand because our minds have been cultivated in concepts whiCh are not applicable to real life. You think that once you have attained meditation then there is no need of anything more, then you will be in meditation. You are wrong.

Meditation is not a static thing. It is a balance. You will have to attain it again and again and again. You will become more and more capable of attaining it, but it is not going to remain forever, like a possession in your hands. It has to be claimed each moment - only then is it yours. You cannot rest, you cannot say, 'I have meditated and I have realised that now there is no need for me to do anything more. I can rest.' Life does not believe in rest; it is a constant movement from perfection to more perfection.

Listen to me: from perfection to more perfection. It is never imperfect, it is always perfect, but always more perfection is possible. Logically these statements are absurd.

I was reading an anecdote....

But logic won't do in life. You cannot go free so easily.

You can come out of a legal trap legally and logically because the trap consists of Aristotelian logic - you can use the same logic to come out of it. But in life you will not be able to come out because of logic, because of theology, because of philosophy, because you are very clever - clever in inventing theories. You can come out of life or you can go beyond life only through actual experience.

There are two types of people who are religious. The first type is childish; it is searching for a father-figure. The first type is immature; it cannot rely upon itself, hence it needs a God somewhere or other. The God may exist or not - that is not the point - but a God is needed. Even if the God is not there the immature mind will invent him, because the immature mind has a psychological need - it is not a question of truth whether God is there or not, it is a psychological need.

In the Bible it is said God made man in his own image, but the reverse is more true: man made God in his own image. Whatsoever is your need you create that sort of God, that's why the concept of God goes on changing in every age. Every country has its own concept because every country has its own need. In fact, every single person has a different concept of God because his own needs are there and they have to be fulfilled.

So the first type of religious person - the so-called religious person - is simply immature. His religion is not religion but psychology. And when religion is psychology it is just a dream, a wish-fulfillment, a desire. It has nothing to do with reality.

I was reading....

This is the God of the majority. Ninety per cent of the so-called religious people are immature people. They believe because they cannot live without belief; they believe because belief gives a sort of security; they believe because belief helps them to feel protected. It is THEIR dream, but it helps. In the dark night of life, in the deep struggle of existence, without such a belief they will feel left alone. But their God is THEIR God, not the God of reality. And once they get rid of their immaturity, their God will disappear.

That's what has happened to many people. In this century many people have become irreligious - not that they have come to know that God does not exist but only because this age has made man a little more mature. Man has come of age; man has become a little more mature. So the God of the childhood, the God of the immature mind, has simply become irrelevant.

That is the meaning when Friedrich Nietzsche declares that 'God is dead'. It is not God that is dead, it is the God of the immature mind that is dead. In fact to say that God is dead is not right because that God was never alive. The only right expression will be to say that 'God is no more relevant'. Man can rely more upon himself - he does not need belief, he does not need the crutches of belief.

Hence people have become less and less interested in religion. They have become indifferent to what goes on in the church. They have become so indifferent to it that they will not even argue against it. If you say, 'Do you believe in God?' they will say, 'It's okay whether he is or not, it doesn't make any difference, it doesn't matter.' Just to be polite, if you believe, they will say, 'Yes, he is.' If you don't believe, they will say, 'No, he is not.l But it is no more a passionate concern.

This is the first type of religion; it has existed for centuries, down the centuries, down the ages, and it is becoming more and more outmoded, out of date. Its time is finished. A new God is needed - who is not psychological; a new God is needed - who is existential, the God of reality, the God as reality. We can even drop the word 'God' - 'the real' will do, 'the existential' will do.

Then there is a second type of religious people for whom religion is not out of fear. The first type of religion is out of fear, the second type - also bogus, also pseudo, also so- called - is not out of fear, it is only out of cleverness. There are very clever people who go on inventing theories, who are very trained in logic, in metaphysics, in philosophy.

They create a religion which is just an abstraction: a beautiful piece of art work, of intelligence, of intellectuality, of philosophising. But it never penetrates life, it never touches life anywhere, it simply remains an abstract conceptualisation.

Once Mulla Nasrudin was saying to me, 'I have never been what I oughta been. I stole chickens and watermelons, got drunk and got in fights with my fists and my razor, but there is one thing I ain't never done: in spite of all my meanness I ain't never lost my religion.'

Now what kind of religion is that? It has no impact on life.

You believe, but that belief never penetrates your life, never transforms it. It never becomes an intrinsic part of you, it never circulates in your blood, you never breath it in or breathe it out, it never beats in your heart - it is simply something useless. Ornamental maybe, at the most, but of no utility to you. Some day you go to the church; it is a formality, a social need. And you can pay lip service to God, to the Bible, to the Koran, to the Vedas, but you don't mean it, you are not sincere about it. Your life goes on without it, your life goes on in a totally different way - it has nothing to do with religion.