By Narinder Jarial
There is an ancient Chinese painting called The Vinegar Tasters. It depicts three old masters—Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi—standing around a vat of vinegar. This vinegar represents “Life.” Each master dips a finger in and tastes it.
But let us imagine a fourth figure standing in the shadows behind them. He is not a master. He is Bopa Rai—the “mere human.” He is a nuisance, a wanderer, forgettable and undefined. He is us.
Bopa watches the masters taste the world, trying to decide how to be a Man when it is so much easier to remain an animal.
I. The Propensity of the Animal
Before we taste the vinegar, we must understand the taster. A “mere human” is a creature of biology. Our default setting—our Propensity—is simple: seek pleasure, avoid pain, hoard resources, and fear the dark. This requires no effort. It is gravity.
If Bopa Rai follows his propensities, he is not a “Man”; he is just a biological event. He eats, he sleeps, he dies. To be a “Man” requires an act of rebellion against one’s own nature. It requires a structure.
II. Confucius: The Sour Face (The Spine of Ethics)
Confucius dips his finger in. He grimaces. “It is sour,” he says.
To Confucius, the vinegar (Life) is degenerate. If left alone, it spoils. The human animal, if left to its propensities, becomes rotten.
- The Diagnosis: We are broken by default.
- The Prescription: Ethics. Confucius is important because he offers the only “religion” that works without magic. He builds a scaffolding of Li (Ritual) and Ren (Benevolence). He tells Bopa: “You must hold the door for your enemy. You must bow to your parents even if they are wrong. You must be upright.”
- The Cost: It is exhausting. Ethics is a heavy coat that scratches the skin. It forces the animal to stand on two legs when it wants to crawl on four. It is the “Hardest Religion” because there is no heaven promised at the end—only the satisfaction of not having rotted.
III. Buddha: The Bitter Face (The Exit Door)
Buddha dips his finger in. His face drops. “It is bitter,” he says.
Buddha is not a “depressed Confucius”; he is a disillusioned Architect. He looks at the Confucian scaffolding and sees that it is built on quicksand. He sees the burning house. He sees that the vinegar is bitter not because it is spoiled, but because it is vinegar. Suffering (Dukkha) is the ingredient.
- The Diagnosis: The game is rigged. You cannot win; you can only leave.
- The Prescription: Detachment. He tells Bopa: “Stop drinking. Stop wanting the vinegar to be wine. Walk away from the vat.”
- The Cost: For a “mere human” like Bopa, this is terrifying. Bopa loves the taste of mangoes. He loves the memory of his daughter. To walk away is to lose himself. The exit door is too heavy for most of us to open.
IV. Laozi: The Smiling Face (The Water)
Laozi (the Taoist) dips his finger in and smiles. “It is sweet,” he says.
He laughs at the other two. He understands that vinegar is supposed to be sour. Why fight it?
- The Prescription: Flow. He tells Bopa: “Be like water. When the rock comes, go around it. When the shadow leaves, let it go; it will come back.”
- The Cost: This requires a total lack of fear. “Mere humans” are anxious. We cannot float because we are terrified of drowning. We want to control the river, not flow with it.
V. Sadhguru: The Mechanic (The Tool)
Then, a modern figure arrives. Sadhguru rides up, removes his sunglasses, and dips a finger in. “It is just vinegar,” he says dryly. “Why are you making a philosophy out of it?”
He represents the shift from Morality to Mechanics.
- The Diagnosis: The problem isn’t the vinegar (Life), nor is it the rigging of the game (Karma). The problem is that you don’t know how to use your tongue.
- The Prescription: Inner Engineering. He tells Bopa: “Your body and mind are machines. If you tune them correctly, vinegar tastes fine. If you don’t, even honey turns to poison.”
- The Cost: Competence. It puts the blame entirely on Bopa. If he is miserable, it is because he is a bad operator of his own life.
VI. The Verdict: Why Ethics is the Only Religion
So, where does this leave Bopa Rai, the forgettable nuisance?
- He is too attached to the world to be Buddha.
- He is too anxious to be Laozi.
- He is too lazy (or perhaps just too tired) to be Sadhguru.
He is left with Confucius.
He is left with the sour taste. He is left with the hardest religion: Ethics. He cannot escape the world, so he must endure it with dignity. He must wake up, suppress his animal propensities, and try to be decent in an indecent world.
It is a quiet tragedy. To be a “Man” is simply the act of carrying the sour vinegar without spilling it on your neighbors.
And perhaps that is enough. As Bopa stands by the Melaka River, watching his shadow return, he realizes that he doesn’t need to be Enlightened or Optimized. He just needs to be a man who didn’t run away.
“Hard to follow though?” Yes. But it is the only road that stays on the map.