Action is good, it is needful, but it is not all...

The world has come to a point... and it has been brought to this point by the Western attitude of action, and always action, and condemnation of inaction. Now the East can be of immense help. Action is good, it is needful, but it is not all.

Action can give you only the mundane things of life. If you want the higher values of life, then they are beyond the reach of your doing. You will have to learn to be silent and open, available, in a prayerful mood, trusting that existence will give it to you when you are ripe, that whenever your silence is complete, it will be filled with blessings.

Flowers are going to shower on you.

You just have to be absolutely a non-doer, a nobody, a nothingness.

The great values of life -- love, truth, compassion, gratitude, prayer, God, everything -- happen only in nothingness, in the heart which is absolutely silent and receptive. But the West is too rooted in action. And there seems to be perhaps not enough time left for it to learn non-doing.

You will be surprised to know that India never invaded any country -- and India was invaded by almost all the countries of the world. Whoever wanted to invade India, that was the easiest thing. It was not that there were no courageous people, that they were not warriors, but simply the idea of invading somebody else's territory was so ugly.

It is a surprising fact that one Mohammedan conqueror, Mohammed Gauri, invaded India eighteen times, and he was thrown back by a great warrior king, Prithviraj. Mohammed Gauri was driven back, but Prithviraj never entered his territory.

Prithviraj was told again and again, "This is going too far. That man will gather armies again in a few years, and again he will invade the country. It is better to finish him once and for all. And you have been victorious so many times -- you could have gone a little further. He has just a small country by the side of India; you could have taken his country and... finished! Otherwise, he is a constant worry."
But Prithviraj said, "That would be against the dignity of my country. We have never invaded anybody. It is enough that we force him to go back. And he is such a shameless fellow that even after being defeated dozens of times, he again comes.!"

The eighteenth time when Mohammed Gauri was defeated, all his armies were killed, and he was hiding in a cave and thinking, What to do now? And there he saw a spider making its net. Sitting there, he had nothing else to do, so he watched the spider. It fell again and again. It fell exactly eighteen times, but the nineteenth time it succeeded in making a net, and that gave the idea to Mohammed Gauri: "At least one time more I should make the effort. If this spider was not discouraged after eighteen failures, why should I be?"

He again gathered his army, and the nineteenth time he conquered Prithviraj. Prithviraj had become old, and having fought his whole life, his armies were tattered, ruined. He was taken prisoner, handcuffed, chained -- which was absolutely against the Eastern way of life.
When another king, Poras, was defeated by Alexander the Great, and was brought before him, chained, Alexander asked him, "How should you be treated?"

Poras said, "Is that a question to be asked? An emperor should be treated like an emperor."

There was a great silence for a moment in the court of Alexander. It was very appropriate for Poras to say this, because his defeat was not really a defeat; his defeat was through the utter cunningness of Alexander. Alexander had sent his wife to meet Poras -- he was waiting on the other side of the river. It was the time when, in India, sisters would tie a small thread around the wrist of their brothers -- and it was called rakshabandhan, a bondage, a promise that "You will defend me."

When Alexander's wife came she was received just like a queen should be received. Poras himself came to receive her, and asked, "Why have you come? You could have informed me -- I could have come to your camp."

That was part of the Eastern tradition: by the time sun was down, people would go into each other's camp -- the enemy's camp -- just to discuss how the day went, who died, what happened. It was almost like a football game -- nobody took it that seriously.

But the woman said, "I have come because I don't have a brother. And I heard about this tradition here, so I want to make you my brother."
And Poras said, "It is a coincidence; I don't have a sister."

So she tied the thread and took the promise of Poras that "Whatever happens in the war, remember, Alexander is my husband; he is your brother-in-law, and you should not want me to be a widow. Just remember that."

There came a moment when Alexander's horse died as Poras attacked the horse with his spear, and Alexander fell on the ground. Poras jumped down with his spear, and the spear was just going to pierce Alexander's chest when Poras saw his own wrist with the thread. He stopped.
Alexander said, "Why have you stopped? This is the opportunity -- you can kill me."

Poras said, "I have given a promise. I can give my kingdom, but I cannot break my promise. Your wife is my sister, and she has reminded me that I would not like her to be a widow." And he turned back.

Even this kind of man was treated by Alexander as if he were a murderer. And Alexander asked Poras,
"How should you be treated?"

"You should treat me just as an emperor treats another emperor. Have you forgotten that just a second more, and you would not have been alive? It is because of your wife -- the whole credit goes to her."

But it was a conspiracy. The East cannot think of such things. Mohammed Gauri imprisoned Prithviraj -- and Prithviraj was the greatest archer of those times. The first thing Mohammed Gauri did: he took both of Prithviraj's eyes out.

Prithviraj's friend was also captured with him -- he was a poet. Prithviraj told him, "You come with me to the court. Nobody understands our language, and I don't need eyes to hit my target -- you just describe how far he is."

Mohammed Gauri was so afraid of Prithviraj that he was not sitting on his usual throne, he was sitting on the balcony; the whole court was on the ground floor. And Chandrabardai, the poet, described exactly how many feet high, how many feet away. "Mohammed Gauri was sitting...." He sang it in a song, and blind Prithviraj killed Mohammed Gauri just through that description. His arrow reached exactly to his heart.

But Chandrabardai was very much puzzled, because in Prithviraj's blind eyes there were tears. Prithviraj said, "It is not right of me, but he has forced to do me something which goes against our whole tradition."

The East has a totally different approach towards things. If the West learns something about the East, the most important thing will be that all that is great comes out of non-doing, non-aggressiveness -- because every act is potentially aggressive. Only when you are in a state of non-doing are you non-aggressive. You are receptive, and in that receptivity, the whole existence pours all its treasures into you.