Gurdjieff used to say that there are two types of masters: one innocent and simple; another sly and cunning. He himself said, “I belong to the second category.” Patanjali is the source of all sly masters. They lead you to the rose garden and suddenly, the abyss. You are caught in such a grip of your own making that you cannot go back. You meditated, renounced the world, wife and children; for years you were doing postures, meditating, and you created such an aura around you that people worshipped you. Millions of people looked to you as a god – and now comes the abyss. Now, just to save your prestige, you have to jump. Where to go? Now you cannot go anywhere.
Buddha is simple; Patanjali is sly. All science is cunning. This has to be understood, and remember, I am not saying it in any derogatory sense; I am not condemning it. All science is cunning!
It is said that a follower of Lao Tzu – an old farmer – was drawing water from a well. Instead of using bullocks or horses, the old man and his son were working like bullocks and carrying the water out of the well, perspiring, breathing hard. It was difficult.
A follower of Confucius was passing by. He said to the old man, “Haven’t you heard? This is very primitive. Why are you wasting your breath? Now bullocks and horses can be used. Haven’t you heard that in the towns and cities, nobody is working the way you are working now? It is very primitive. Science has progressed fast.”
The old man replied, “Wait, don’t talk so loudly. When my son has gone, I will reply.” When the son had gone to do some work, he said, “Now, you are a dangerous person. If my son ever hears about this, he will immediately say, ‘Okay! Then I don’t want to pull this. I can’t do this work of a bullock any longer. A bullock is needed.’”
The disciple of Confucius said, “What is wrong in that?”
The old man said, “Everything is wrong in it because it is very cunning. It is deceiving the bullock, it is deceiving the horse. And one thing leads to another. If this boy of mine who is young and not wise discovers that he can be cunning with animals, then he will wonder why he cannot be cunning with man. Once he knows that he can exploit through cunningness, I don’t know where he will stop. Please leave, and never come back again on this road. Don’t bring such cunning things to this village. We are happy.”
Lao Tzu is against science. He says science is cunning. It is deceiving nature, exploiting nature – and through cunning ways, forcing nature. The more scientific a man becomes, the more cunning he becomes; it has to be so. An innocent man cannot be scientific, it is difficult. But man has become cunning and clever, and Patanjali, knowing well that to be scientific is to be cunning, also knows that man can only be brought back to nature through a new device, a new cunningness.
Yoga is the science of the inner being. Because you are not innocent, you have to be brought back to nature through a cunning way. If you are innocent, no means are needed, no methods are needed. A simple understanding, a childlike understanding and you will be transformed. But you are not. That’s why you feel that Patanjali seems to be very great. It is because of your head oriented mind and your cunningness.
The second thing to remember is that he appears difficult. You think Heraclitus is simple? Patanjali appears difficult; that too appeals to the ego. The ego always wants to do something which is difficult because against the difficult you feel you are someone. If something is very simple, how can the ego feed off it?
People come to me and say, “Sometimes you teach that just by sitting and doing nothing it can happen. How can it be so simple? How can it be so easy?” Chuang Tzu says, “Easy is right,” but these people say, “No! How can it be so easy? It must be difficult – very, very difficult, arduous.”
You want to do difficult things because when you are fighting against some difficulty, against the current, you feel you are someone – a conqueror. If something is simple, if something is so easy that even a child can do it, where will your ego stand? You ask for hurdles, you ask for difficulties. And if there are no difficulties you create them so that you can fight, so that you can fly against a strong wind and can feel: “I am someone – a conqueror!” But don’t be so smart.
You know the phrase “smart aleck”? You may not know where it comes from – it comes from Alexander. The word aleck comes from a short form of Alexander. “Don’t be a smart Alexander.” Be simple, and don’t try to be a conqueror because that is foolish. Don’t try to be a somebody.
But Patanjali appealed; Patanjali appealed to the Indian ego very much, so India has created the most subtle egoists in the world. You cannot find anywhere in the world more subtle egoists than you can find in India. It is almost impossible to find a simple yogi. A yogi cannot be simple because he is doing so many asanas, so many mudras, and he is working so hard, how can he be simple? He thinks himself to be at the top – a conqueror. The whole world has to bow down to him; he is the cream – the very salt of life.
Go and watch yogis; you will find that they all have very, very refined egos. Their inner shrine is still empty, the divine has not entered. That shrine is still a throne for their own egos. They may have become very subtle; they may have become so subtle that they may appear to be very humble, but if you watch, you will also find the ego in their humbleness.
They are aware that they are humble, that’s the difficulty. A really humble person is not aware that he is humble. A really humble person is simply humble, not aware. And a really humble person never claims that he is humble because all claims are of the ego. Humility cannot be claimed; humbleness is not a claim, it is a state of being. All claims fulfill the ego. Why has this happened? Why has India become a very subtle egoist country? When there is ego, you become blind.
Now when you talk to Indian yogis, they condemn the whole world. They say that the West is materialist; only India is spiritual. The whole world is materialist… As if there is a monopoly. They are so blind that they cannot see that the exact opposite is the case. The more I have been watching the Indian and Western minds, the more I feel the Western mind is less materialist than the Indian. The Indian mind is more materialist, clings to things more, cannot share; it is miserly. The Western mind can share, is less miserly. And because the West has created so much materialist affluence that does not mean it is materialist, and because India is poor that does not mean it is spiritual.
If poverty were spirituality, then impotence would be brahmacharya. No, poverty is not spirituality; neither is affluence materialism. Materialism does not belong to things, it belongs to the attitude. Neither does spirituality belong to poverty, it belongs to the inner – a nonattached sharing.
In India you cannot find anybody sharing anything. Nobody can share; everybody hoards, and because they are such hoarders, they are poor. And because a few people hoard too much, many people become poor.
The West has been sharing. That’s why the whole society rises from poverty to affluence. In India a few people have become so rich, you cannot find such rich people anywhere else – they are but a few – and the whole society drags itself in poverty. The gap is vast, you cannot find such a gap anywhere. The gap between a wealthy man like Birla and a beggar is vast. Such a gap cannot exist anywhere else, does not exist anywhere else. There are rich and poor people in the West, but the gap is not so vast. Here the gap is simply infinite. You cannot imagine such a gap. How can it be filled? – it cannot be filled because the people are materialist. Otherwise how and why would this gap exist? Can’t you share? – impossible! But the ego says that the whole world is materialistic. This has come about because people were attracted to Patanjali and to all the people who were giving difficult methods. There is nothing wrong with Patanjali, but the Indian ego found a beautiful, subtle outlet to be egoistic.
The same is happening to you. Patanjali appeals to you because he is difficult. Heraclitus is “kindergarten” because he is so simple. Simplicity never appeals to the ego. But remember, if simplicity can become an appeal, the path is not long. If difficulty becomes the appeal, the path is going to be very long because from the very beginning, rather than dropping the ego you have started accumulating it.
I am