There are things which only happen, which cannot be done.
Doing is the way of very ordinary things, mundane things. You can do something to earn money, you can do something to be powerful, you can do something to have prestige; but you cannot do anything as far as love is concerned, gratitude is concerned, silence is concerned. It is significant to understand that “doing” means the world, and non-doing means that which is beyond the world—where things happen, where only the tide brings you to the shore. If you swim, you miss. If you do something, you will undo it; because all doing is mundane.
Very few people come to know the secret of non-doing and allowing things to happen. If you want great things—things that are beyond the small reach of human hands, human mind, human abilities—then you will have to learn the art of non-doing. I call it meditation… And meditation basically means the beginning of non-doing, relaxing, going with the tide—just being a leaf in the breeze, or a cloud moving with the winds.
Never ask a cloud, “Were are you going?” He himself does not know; he has no address, he has no destiny. If the winds change he was going to the south, he starts moving towards the north. The cloud does not say to the winds, “This is absolutely illogical. We were moving south, now we are moving north. What is the point of it all?” No, he simply starts moving north as easily as he was moving south. To him, south, north, east, west, don’t make any difference. Just to move with the wind, with no desire, with no goal, nowhere to reach; he is just enjoying the journey. Meditation makes you a cloud—of consciousness. Then there is no goal…
Lao Tzu is one of the most important figures in the history of non-doing. If history is to be written rightly then there should be two kinds of histories. The history of doers includes Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah, Alexander, Napolean Bonaparte, Ivan the terrible, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini; these are the people who belong to the world of doing. There should be another history, a higher history, a real history—of human consciousness, of human evolution. This is the history of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Guatam Buddha, Mahavira, Bodhidharma; a totally different kind.
Lao Tzu became enlightened sitting under a tree. A leaf had just started falling: it was in the autumn and there was no hurry; the leaf was coming down zigzag with the wind, slowly. He watched the leaf. The leaf came down and settled on the ground, and as he watched the leaf falling and settling, something settled in him. From that moment, he became a non-doer. The winds come on their own, and existence takes care.
Lao Tzu’s whole teaching was the watercourse way: just go with the water wherever it is going, don’t swim. But the mind always wants to do something, because then the credit goes to the ego. If you just go with the tide, the credit goes to the tide, not to you. If you swim, there is a chance that you can have a greater ego: “I managed to cross the English Channel!”
But existence gives you birth, gives you life, gives you love; it gives you everything that is invaluable, everything you cannot purchase with money. Only those who are ready to give the whole credit of their lives to existence realize the beauty and the benediction of non-doing.
It is not a question of doing. It is a question of being absent as an ego, letting things happen.
Let go—just these two words contain the whole experience.
In life you are trying to do everything. Please, leave a few things for non-doing, because those are the only valuable things…
