Don’t interfere || Acharya Prashant, on Lao Tzu (2017)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 Ruzmarin has quoted Lao Tzu. He says, "The softest of all things can overcome the hardest

00:25 of all things. Only the insubstantial can penetrate the spaceless. Thus we know the

00:33 benefit of non-interference and the teaching of the subtle way of the universe that does

00:38 not rely on words. Few people under heaven can attain it." And she asks, "Dear Acharyaji,

00:48 when I read this, I can't think straight and I move to dispassionate tears. Please

00:55 take us deeper into this, deeper knowing Ruzmarin. The softness that Lao Tzu is talking of is

01:11 imperceivable. Hardness is available to perception. What is hardness? When you are resisted, then

01:26 you know something is hard. When you are resisted, then you know something is hard. It resists

01:34 your movement. It is available to senses. When you are not resisted, what is there to

01:43 perceive? You use your material senses to perceive. They will perceive only the material.

01:59 All resistance is from the material and to the material. The softest thing that Lao Tzu

02:10 is talking of is not a thing at all. It is immaterial. That is why he is talking of the

02:23 insubstantial that can penetrate the spaceless. Things are never spaceless. If there is a

02:33 thing, it will require space. If there is a substance, it can never be insubstantial.

02:44 So when Lao Tzu is declaring the superiority of the soft over the hard, what is he talking

02:51 of? He is essentially talking of the superiority of the Atma over the body and mind. The body

02:59 and mind are perceivable, material, open and available to discussion, thought, analysis,

03:13 and thought. The Atma is simply not available to thought. The truth is not something that

03:21 you can conjecture about. That is the softness that he is talking of and that is why he said

03:33 the softest of all things. If it is only relatively soft, then it is still hard. It is just less

03:42 hard than the other thing. When it is ultimately soft, the softest of all, then it is absolutely

03:53 soft. Then it is not hard at all, which means not material at all. He says the benefit of

04:02 non-interference and the teaching of the subtle way of the universe that does not rely on

04:07 words obviously. Words can capture only the little, the finite, the material. If there

04:13 is a thing, you can name it. If there is a thing, you can say something about it. If

04:17 there is nothing, what will you say about it? Few people under heaven can attain it.

04:27 Few people can attain it because most others take themselves to be people. These few who

04:33 attain it are the ones who do not think of themselves as people or persons. As long as

04:41 you take yourself to be material, the only truth for you will be the material universe

04:48 because you are deeply identified with the body, with that which is available to be seen

04:56 and touched. So you miss out on the insubstantial, the invisible, which means that all the fine

05:09 blessings of life will elude you. Love cannot be touched, freedom cannot be touched. Understanding

05:18 has no color or weight. Truth has no smell. Because you believe in the material, you will

05:26 miss all these. They are not material and you are saying only the material exists. By

05:32 saying only the material exists, you have discounted the possibility of truth, love

05:38 and freedom. They are not material. By your own admission you are saying they do not exist.

05:45 Well, they still exist but they won't anymore exist for you. The benefit of non-interference

05:57 and the teachings of the subtle way of the universe, the subtle, not the gross. The fine,

06:05 so fine that eyes cannot look at it. Take a sliver, of course it is visible. Then a

06:14 thread, it is usually visible. But if the light is dim or your sight is poor, then the

06:21 thread might not be visible. The fiber, even if you have good eyesight, it's not easy to

06:29 locate a fiber. What about a fiber being sliced into a million parts? Now will your eyes be

06:46 able to look at it? What if the fiber is reduced to the last atom? Will your eyes be able to

06:56 look at it? That is why the scriptures sometimes figuratively, poetically describe the Atman

07:06 in mathematical terms also. They say it is one by a billion, a trillion, some large figure

07:17 of the size of this. That is not to give a definite dimension to the Atman but to tell

07:23 you that it is so small that you should entertain no hopes of ever perceiving it sensually.

07:43 The benefit of non-interference, that which is so small is also all pervading because

07:53 only the fine can pervade everything. Please understand. If a stone is thrown at you, you

08:13 will block it. It will not be able to cross you. Even if a flower is thrown at you, you

08:23 will block it. Correct? It won't be able to permeate you, cross you. But when rays come

08:34 to you, certain rays, let's say x-rays, they are able to permeate you because they are

08:41 fine. Have you ever looked at x-rays? Have you ever looked at x-rays? They are fine.

08:51 You cannot look at them. The fine will penetrate you, the gross will be blocked by you and

08:58 that is why God is all pervasive. He is so fine that he penetrates everything. He permeates

09:06 and therefore pervades. He fills you up. He is so fine that he can get into the smallest

09:17 of cavities. Even within an atom there is a lot of space. In fact 99.9% of an atom is

09:25 just space and God is very fine. So what will he do? He will just fill that space. God is

09:32 all inside the atom. God permeates this wall. He is inside the wall. You cannot be inside

09:40 the wall because you take yourself to be material. That which pervades everything fully is bound

09:50 to be all powerful because he is now the essence of everything. He not only pervades, he is

09:56 everything now because the permeation is absolute, total, complete. He is everything. So it is

10:04 absurd even to say that he is the almighty or all powerful because he is all that there

10:10 is. Kutastha. That's how the scriptures talk of him. Kutastha. The all pervasive. Even

10:30 to say that somebody is powerful, you need somebody else over whom the power can be exercised.

10:38 Now here is nobody else. So the power is beyond description. Hence Lao Tzu talks of non-interference.

10:48 Let the all powerful do what he would because your wish is anyway irrelevant. By not honoring

11:03 his wish, by not honoring the call of the heart, you are just fighting against yourself

11:09 and it's a battle that you are destined to lose. And if you win this battle, then your

11:18 victory will be even more tragic. A defeat is a defeat. In this battle, the victory is

11:28 a bigger defeat. If you are able to defeat your heart, then the depth and the sordidness

11:39 of your victory is incomparable. It is a total and absolute defeat. Don't interfere. Our

12:01 interference as we had talked of is just accumulation. Our interference arises from our insecurity

12:08 and there is no need to be insecure. If you can right now understand what I am saying,

12:16 it is a proof of your perfection. You didn't learn the art of understanding from anywhere

12:25 and it is happening without your interference. That's the non-interference that Lao Tzu is

12:29 talking of. Are you interfering in this process of listening and understanding? Please, is

12:39 it not all happening on its own? The most that you are doing to contribute is that you

12:46 are not interfering, is that you are not escaping or walking away or falling asleep. That is

12:52 your maximum contribution. Your maximum contribution is that you are not turning out to be a nuisance.

13:04 In the divine process, man has only nuisance value. He cannot contribute to the process

13:09 but he can impede it. You cannot really add to perfection but of course you can try to

13:24 spoil it. So Lao Tzu says don't interfere. There is nothing to gain but you have everything

13:36 to lose. It's all yours. It's yours to lose. Unfortunately, very few heed. He says, oh

13:44 few people under heaven can attain it because few people would listen to Lao Tzu and few

13:48 people would listen to Krishna and few people would listen to Ashtavakra. So few people

13:55 attain to that truth which is their birthright. It is not even a right. It is a grant. It

14:02 is not even a grant. It is a natural state. It is not even a state. It is who you are

14:08 and yet you lose it.

14:09 Thank you.

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