This flowery speech they proclaim, the undiscerning।
Devoted to the words of the Veda, O Partha, they declare, ‘there is nothing else’।। 42।। Those whose minds are driven by desire and whose eyes are fixed on heaven proclaim rituals like the Agniṣṭoma, elaborate with countless acts, and promise only the fruits of birth and death—thus they speak.
Those attached to enjoyment and power, whose minds are carried away by such speech—within them the single-pointed intelligence that enters samadhi does not arise.
Geeta Darshan #13
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
यामिमां पुष्पितां वाचं प्रवदन्त्यविपश्चितः।
वेदवादरताः पार्थ नान्यदस्तीति वादिनः।। 42।। कामात्मानः स्वर्गपरा जन्मकर्मफलप्रदाम्।
क्रियाविशेषबहुलां भोगैश्वर्यगतिं प्रति।। 43।।
वेदवादरताः पार्थ नान्यदस्तीति वादिनः।। 42।। कामात्मानः स्वर्गपरा जन्मकर्मफलप्रदाम्।
क्रियाविशेषबहुलां भोगैश्वर्यगतिं प्रति।। 43।।
Transliteration:
yāmimāṃ puṣpitāṃ vācaṃ pravadantyavipaścitaḥ|
vedavādaratāḥ pārtha nānyadastīti vādinaḥ|| 42|| kāmātmānaḥ svargaparā janmakarmaphalapradām|
kriyāviśeṣabahulāṃ bhogaiśvaryagatiṃ prati|| 43||
yāmimāṃ puṣpitāṃ vācaṃ pravadantyavipaścitaḥ|
vedavādaratāḥ pārtha nānyadastīti vādinaḥ|| 42|| kāmātmānaḥ svargaparā janmakarmaphalapradām|
kriyāviśeṣabahulāṃ bhogaiśvaryagatiṃ prati|| 43||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, in this verse there is that gloss—it feels very true. But a difficulty arises with traigunyavishayā vedāḥ: here the Gita seems to censure all the Vedas as being concerned with the three gunas! And secondly, in the latter half, niryoga-kshema atmavān—being “atmavān” is an inner state; why does Krishna seem to link it to the outward phenomenon of yoga-kshema? Will the issue of yoga-kshema be resolved merely by being atmavān?
Krishna says: all the Vedas are saguna, filled with the three gunas; they are not nirguna. Word can never be nirguna; not only the Vedas—Krishna’s own word cannot be nirguna. And when he says “all the Vedas,” he means all scriptures, all utterances, all spoken knowledge—whatever is said can never be outside the three gunas.
Understand it this way: whatever is expressed cannot be beyond guna. Only the unmanifest, the unexpressed, the un-manifested can be nirguna; the expressed will always be saguna. In fact, to be expressed it must take the support of guna; it must take on the contours and medium of guna. The very moment something is expressed, it enters the bounds of guna.
Veda means expressed knowing; Veda means truth put into word. The moment you place truth into words, its infinity can no longer remain; it becomes limited. No matter how great the word, it cannot encompass the whole of truth, because the whole of truth cannot be encompassed. No matter how great an image, it cannot enclose the whole of the divine, because the divine cannot be enclosed.
All words, all expression, draw a boundary—boundaries of guna. Expression will be through guna. In a seed the tree can be nirguna, formless—there is, as yet, no form. But when the seed sprouts and manifests, the tree takes on a form.
So when he speaks of the Vedas, he is speaking about all utterance. The Gita too is included in that. It is not that the Gita is slighting the Vedas; the Vedas themselves contain statements that say: it cannot be said by words.
The deepest difficulty of all scriptures is this: they are engaged in trying to say what cannot be said; in pointing toward what has no direction—no-dimension.
If I need to show you a tree, I point, “there it is.” If I need to show you a star, I can point, “there.” But if I need to show you the divine, you cannot point with a finger; you would have to close your fist and say, “Here.” A finger always points somewhere, but that which is everywhere cannot be indicated by a finger. To point with a finger is to go wrong, because the finger picks out one place—yet the same is everywhere else too.
Nanak went to Mecca. He slept at night. The priests were angry: “You fool! You sleep with your feet toward the holy temple, toward God?” Nanak said, “I’m in trouble too; I thought hard but found no way out. I give you the freedom—turn my feet in any direction where God is not.”
Those priests must have been in a fix—priests always are when they meet someone like Nanak. For priests know temples, not truth. Temples have limits.
Nanak’s challenge is the same: “Turn my feet where God is not, and I agree.” Where will you turn them? Wherever you turn, God will be. The temple may not be there, the Kaaba may not be there—but God will. Then the God of the Kaaba cannot be equal to the God who is everywhere.
So the God of Kaaba becomes saguna; the God of temple becomes saguna; the God of word becomes saguna; the God of scripture becomes saguna. The moment it is spoken, said, manifested—it is saguna. What Krishna is saying also becomes saguna the moment it is spoken.
This is not a condemnation of the Vedas but an indication of their limit. Not a condemnation of word but an indication of the limits of word. Not a condemnation of utterance but an indication of its boundary. And that indication is necessary. Yet no matter how clearly it is shown, man remains deaf. If someone hears Krishna say “what is in the Vedas lies within the three gunas,” he’ll say, “Then drop the Vedas; hold to the Gita.” Because if the Vedas are not nirguna-nirakar, drop them! The Vedas become small—so catch hold of the Gita.
But he has not understood. Krishna must be laughing somewhere: you have simply made another Veda out of the Gita. The issue is not the Vedas; the issue is the limit of expression.
Your second question is: if self-abidance is to be accepted directly, why does he link it to yoga-kshema?
He does not link them; they are linked. He only states it. He does not connect them; they are already connected. When a lamp is lit, it burns in itself. Even if nothing were around to be seen, it would still burn. The lamp’s burning does not depend on illuminated objects. But when the lamp burns, things are illuminated. Whatever is nearby will be lit up.
And the delightful fact is that none of you has ever seen light; you have only ever seen illuminated things. No one has seen light itself—only lit objects. From illuminated things you infer that light is present. You may object, “What are you saying? We all have seen light.” Think again: no one has ever seen light itself.
You see the tree shining in the sun and say, “There is sunlight.” Darkness falls and the tree is not visible—you say, “The light is gone.” But you did not see the light. Look at the sky: you will see things; you will not see light itself. Whatever is seen is illuminated, not light.
Krishna has a reason. He says: when someone attains the void-like state of the self, yoga and kshema come to fruition. What you will see are the signs of yoga-kshema; you will not see the self-state. Around that self-abidance, the happening of yoga-kshema takes place—that is what is visible. When someone attains bliss within, you cannot see his inner state; you see everything around him suffused with bliss. When someone attains knowing within, you cannot see that inner knowing; but around him, events of knowing begin to happen—that is what you see. Within remains the pure being of the self, but yoga-kshema are its consequences.
Just as when a lamp is lit, things begin to shine. Even if there were no things, the lamp could still burn—but then you could not see it. Arjuna’s becoming atmavān is his inner event. That inner becoming will make yoga-kshema blossom all around—that is the outer event. Hence he remembers both. And how will those who stand outside recognize it? They will not recognize the atmavān; they will recognize yoga-kshema.
It is said of Mohammed that wherever he walked, a small cloud moved above him, casting shade. Hard to believe: wherever he goes, a cloud follows and casts shadow! But human language has poor resources; what cannot be said in prose, we say in poetry. Poetry is the confession of prose’s inability. And all that is deep in life cannot be said in prose; so the deepest of life is spoken as poetry.
This is a poetic expression of an experience: wherever Mohammed went, shade arrived. To those around him—desert folk—it felt as if a cloud had come overhead and everything turned cool. Wherever Mohammed was, yoga-kshema flowered.
It is said of Mahavira that if he walked along a path where thorns lay upright, they would turn over. No thorn is going to worry about Mahavira; the literal chance seems small.
But those who wrote this had experienced something. Near Mahavira even straight thorns turned over—not the thorns, but thorniness. Life has many thorns, of many kinds. The roads of living are full of thorns. Those who came close to Mahavira must have suddenly felt that the thorns that had been piercing them now turned over; they were no longer pricked. Yoga-kshema had borne fruit. How shall one say this? People say, “It happens so.” But we are prone to mistake. How will we recognize that someone is Mahavira—or that someone is Buddha?
So we have woven stories: wherever Buddha passed, saffron rained upon the village. It cannot happen—at least not the saffron sold in the market. But those in whose village Buddha passed must have felt a fragrance like saffron—the finest word they had—something certainly showered upon that village. Lacking any other word, they said, “Saffron rained.”
When life is illumined within, rays of that light touch others. When they touch, yoga-kshema bears fruit.
Therefore Krishna says it, and rightly so. It should be said. It is necessary. Because when the event of the self happens in a person, the circle of his radiance spreads far into many realms. And when the note of the self sounds within, its resonance sets other hearts ringing. When bliss fructifies in one life, a few blossoms of bliss certainly shower into other lives as well.
Thus he tells Arjuna: you will become atmavān, endowed with shakti. But when someone becomes endowed with shakti within, then look at it from another side too.
When a person is selfless—rather, when he has lost his self—you must have noticed: suffering begins to be born around him. When someone loses his soul, he creates, around himself, a circle of sorrow. It will depend on how much of the soul he has lost.
If a man like Hitler is born, a vast circle of misery bears fruit all around. No trace of yoga-kshema remains; the reverse happens. Un-wellbeing and inauspiciousness spread. If a man like Genghis Khan appears, wherever he passes there is no saffron rain—only blood. Only blood flows.
We recognize evil men well; we also recognize the events around them. Naturally, the events around an evil man are very material, very gross—visible to all.
When Genghis Khan passes through your village, it is impossible not to notice. Events are crude, physical: he would have all the children killed, their heads stuck on spears. When someone asked him, “What are you doing? Tens of thousands of children hang from spears!” Genghis Khan laughed, “People should know that Genghis Khan is passing.”
Buddha also passes through a village, Krishna passes, Jesus passes—events there are immaterial, not grossly physical. So only those with a little sensitive awareness can catch them, those whose hearts are responsive. What is caught there—this is what Krishna calls yoga-kshema. Those who can catch it know: everything has changed. The air is different, the sky is different, everything is different. This experience of “everything becoming different”—Krishna calls it yoga-kshema. It is right to remind of it.
One more point: he says, you will become shakti-sampanna—endowed with power.
In truth, a human being is never empowered so long as he remains “someone.” As long as he is ego-centered, he is power-impoverished. The more ego I carry, the poorer I am. The more the ego drops and I become atmavān—the more I disappear—the more I am one with the All. Then the power is no longer mine; it is the Brahman’s. Then my hands do not move by me; they move by the Brahman. Then my speech is not spoken by me; it is spoken by the Brahman. Then my rising and sitting are not mine; they are his.
What could be greater empowerment than that? The day a person surrenders himself to the Whole, that day the Whole’s power becomes his. That day he is empowered.
Here shakti is not a symbol of power in the political sense. Not the power a man gains by attaining a position—that yesterday he was a nobody on the street and today, as a minister, he is powerful. That “power” is not in the person; it is in the chair. Remove him from the chair, he is impoverished again. It never belonged to him; it belonged to the seat.
You may have seen, in a carnival, the electric chair—an electrified seat. A boy or girl is made to sit on it; the person too becomes electrified. Touch him and you get a shock. The shock is not his; it is the chair’s. Take him off the chair—it’s gone. Morarji-bhai on the chair and Morarji-bhai off the chair—electrified chair! A circus! But look at the swagger of the one seated: when you get a shock, he imagines he is shocking you. They identify with the chair.
Krishna’s shakti does not mean power; it means energy—urja—that does not come from position; in fact, it comes by abandoning all positions.
Ego seeks position. One who abandons ego loses all positions. No position remains. He becomes a void. Into that void the Vast begins to resound. Into that void the Vast descends. In that void the Vast finds a door. Then it is energy, not power. Then it is shakti, not something borrowed. The person has faded and the non-person remains. There is no person—there is the divine. And from such a state there is no return.
Remember: from power there is a return; from position there is a return; from wealth there is a return. Any power gained through ego’s quest will be lost. But the power that comes by losing ego is the point of no return—there is no coming back from it.
So once a person knows the divine’s power, becomes one with it, he becomes empowered forever. Perhaps even this is not fully right: rather, he becomes empowerment. To say “he becomes powerful” still implies that “he” remains. Better to say: he becomes power. And if that “power” is of position or wealth, yoga-kshema will not bear fruit. If it is the divine’s power, yoga-kshema will.
Hence it is also proper to speak of yoga-kshema—because there are powers from which the very opposite of yoga-kshema ensues.
The whole world is power-politics. Whenever someone travels the path of political power, yoga-kshema does not happen; the opposite happens: inauspiciousness, sorrow.
So keep the distinction clear: shakti means energy, not power; it means not the pursuit of ego but the dissolution of ego. Then, surely, yoga-kshema bears fruit.
Yāvān artha udapāne sarvataḥ samplutodake
tāvān sarveṣu vedeṣu brāhmaṇasya vijānataḥ. (2.46)
Just as bathing in small ponds, wells, tanks, rivers at holy places yields a certain merit, that very merit—indeed manifold—is obtained by bathing in the ocean that pervades everywhere; so too, whatever joy the Vedas promise through rites and sacrifices is far surpassed in the joy the knower, the wise one, gains in knowledge itself.
Krishna says: just as there are little streams, ponds, wells, tanks—whatever purity comes from bathing in them, such purity, manifold, is obtained by bathing in the ocean. What you get in the puddles of words and scriptures, you get manifold in the ocean of knowing. Whatever the Vedas—Samhitas, shastras, words—can give, the knower obtains infinitely in knowledge itself.
Two points must be noted. First: whatever is available in the limited is found in the limitless—so there is no need to fear leaving the limited for the unlimited. If for knowledge one must leave the Vedas—no worry. If for truth one must leave words—no worry. If for experience one must leave scripture—no worry. Because what is gained here is found infinitely there.
Second: what is gained in the ocean, in knowledge, in the limitless—leaving that for the limited is dangerous. To leave the ocean for your house-well is dangerous. Granted, the house-well is yours—familiar since childhood—but it is still a well. Houses cannot hold oceans. To reach oceans, houses must be left. Houses can hold only wells.
We all have our houses—our own Vedas, our own scriptures, our own religions, our own sects, our own words under the spell of attachment. One is Muslim, one Hindu, one Christian—each with his own Veda. One worships this image, another that mantra—each with his own well.
Krishna says: for these, to leave the ocean is dangerous. The reverse is fine: for the ocean, leave these—there is no loss. Because whatever is in these is found infinitely in the ocean.
Hence that person is unfortunate who, for his house-well—for the Bible, the Quran, the Veda, the Gita… the Gita too! Krishna could not cite the Gita—how could he? What he was saying was to become the Gita; it did not yet exist. I say: the Gita too!—who, for these, blocks the way to knowledge, leaves knowledge for their sake. But the one who leaves all of them for knowledge is blessed. Because whatever is in them is in knowledge.
What, then, is the gap between knowledge and Veda, between knowledge and scripture?
A deep gap. Those who know see it clearly; those who don’t find it hard to see. To gauge the distance between two things, you must know both. One who knows only one cannot measure the gap.
We know only scripture—so the distances we construct are at most between scriptures: the Quran or the Bible, the Veda or the Gita, Mahavira or Buddha, Jesus or Zarathustra. The gaps we argue are between scripture and scripture, not between scripture and knowledge. The real gap is not scripture-to-scripture but scripture-to-knowledge. Let a few pointers be kept in mind.
Knowledge is that which never happens without experience. Knowledge means experience; and experience is always one’s own, never another’s. Experience means one’s own. Scripture too is experience—but another’s. Scripture is knowledge—but another’s. Knowledge is knowledge—but one’s own.
When I see with my eyes, that is knowledge. If I am blind and you see and tell me, that is scripture. It is not that you are telling untruth—you are not. But you see with eyes and I “see” by ear. A difference must arise: the ear cannot do the eye’s work.
Hence the old names of scripture are excellent: Shruti—what is heard, not seen. Smriti—what is heard and remembered, memorized—not realized. All scriptures are shruti and smriti. Someone knew and spoke; we did not know, and we heard. What happened through his eyes, happens for us through our ears. Scripture comes through the ear; truth comes through the eye. Truth is darshan; scripture is shruti.
Another’s experience—no matter what I do—does not become mine. Yes, another’s experience can be useful, but only in this sense: not that I should trust it blindly and become credulous—that would be misuse, a hindrance—but useful in that it opens the door of possibility for me too. What happened to another can happen to me—this assurance; why should what happened to another not happen to me—this inspiration. It can awaken the thirst hidden within. But only that much. I must know for myself. I must live it myself. I must reach that ocean-shore myself.
Another delightful point: the wells in our homes are man-made; the ocean is not. Your father built the well, or his father—someone did. The one who built it knew a secret: break the earth anywhere and you meet the ocean. What is a well? Just a hole. Do not think the water is the well; the water is the ocean. The well is only a way for you to peer into the ocean from your courtyard. The ocean already spreads below; wherever there is water, there is the ocean. You dig a hole in your yard, remove the earth, break a layer—now there is a window to the ocean.
But the well is made. If the well brings news—a remembrance—that there is an ocean, and takes you on the journey to it, then the well is a helper. If the well becomes the ocean for you, and you think, “Here is the ocean,” then the journey to the limitless will not happen; you will end your life sitting by the well.
Scriptures are wells. The knowers dig them—holes in the boundary of speech, within what can be said. They allow a little glimpse of the unsayable, a brief seeing—hoping that on seeing this, someone will set out for the infinite. Not so that on seeing this one sits satisfied.
The well is the ocean, bound in limit. The ocean is a well, free in the limitless. Scripture is knowledge bound in limit. Knowledge is scripture freed into the limitless.
So when Krishna speaks of the Veda, of word, it is not condemnation; it is indication. And that indication deserves to be remembered.
Enough for now. We will speak again in the evening.
Understand it this way: whatever is expressed cannot be beyond guna. Only the unmanifest, the unexpressed, the un-manifested can be nirguna; the expressed will always be saguna. In fact, to be expressed it must take the support of guna; it must take on the contours and medium of guna. The very moment something is expressed, it enters the bounds of guna.
Veda means expressed knowing; Veda means truth put into word. The moment you place truth into words, its infinity can no longer remain; it becomes limited. No matter how great the word, it cannot encompass the whole of truth, because the whole of truth cannot be encompassed. No matter how great an image, it cannot enclose the whole of the divine, because the divine cannot be enclosed.
All words, all expression, draw a boundary—boundaries of guna. Expression will be through guna. In a seed the tree can be nirguna, formless—there is, as yet, no form. But when the seed sprouts and manifests, the tree takes on a form.
So when he speaks of the Vedas, he is speaking about all utterance. The Gita too is included in that. It is not that the Gita is slighting the Vedas; the Vedas themselves contain statements that say: it cannot be said by words.
The deepest difficulty of all scriptures is this: they are engaged in trying to say what cannot be said; in pointing toward what has no direction—no-dimension.
If I need to show you a tree, I point, “there it is.” If I need to show you a star, I can point, “there.” But if I need to show you the divine, you cannot point with a finger; you would have to close your fist and say, “Here.” A finger always points somewhere, but that which is everywhere cannot be indicated by a finger. To point with a finger is to go wrong, because the finger picks out one place—yet the same is everywhere else too.
Nanak went to Mecca. He slept at night. The priests were angry: “You fool! You sleep with your feet toward the holy temple, toward God?” Nanak said, “I’m in trouble too; I thought hard but found no way out. I give you the freedom—turn my feet in any direction where God is not.”
Those priests must have been in a fix—priests always are when they meet someone like Nanak. For priests know temples, not truth. Temples have limits.
Nanak’s challenge is the same: “Turn my feet where God is not, and I agree.” Where will you turn them? Wherever you turn, God will be. The temple may not be there, the Kaaba may not be there—but God will. Then the God of the Kaaba cannot be equal to the God who is everywhere.
So the God of Kaaba becomes saguna; the God of temple becomes saguna; the God of word becomes saguna; the God of scripture becomes saguna. The moment it is spoken, said, manifested—it is saguna. What Krishna is saying also becomes saguna the moment it is spoken.
This is not a condemnation of the Vedas but an indication of their limit. Not a condemnation of word but an indication of the limits of word. Not a condemnation of utterance but an indication of its boundary. And that indication is necessary. Yet no matter how clearly it is shown, man remains deaf. If someone hears Krishna say “what is in the Vedas lies within the three gunas,” he’ll say, “Then drop the Vedas; hold to the Gita.” Because if the Vedas are not nirguna-nirakar, drop them! The Vedas become small—so catch hold of the Gita.
But he has not understood. Krishna must be laughing somewhere: you have simply made another Veda out of the Gita. The issue is not the Vedas; the issue is the limit of expression.
Your second question is: if self-abidance is to be accepted directly, why does he link it to yoga-kshema?
He does not link them; they are linked. He only states it. He does not connect them; they are already connected. When a lamp is lit, it burns in itself. Even if nothing were around to be seen, it would still burn. The lamp’s burning does not depend on illuminated objects. But when the lamp burns, things are illuminated. Whatever is nearby will be lit up.
And the delightful fact is that none of you has ever seen light; you have only ever seen illuminated things. No one has seen light itself—only lit objects. From illuminated things you infer that light is present. You may object, “What are you saying? We all have seen light.” Think again: no one has ever seen light itself.
You see the tree shining in the sun and say, “There is sunlight.” Darkness falls and the tree is not visible—you say, “The light is gone.” But you did not see the light. Look at the sky: you will see things; you will not see light itself. Whatever is seen is illuminated, not light.
Krishna has a reason. He says: when someone attains the void-like state of the self, yoga and kshema come to fruition. What you will see are the signs of yoga-kshema; you will not see the self-state. Around that self-abidance, the happening of yoga-kshema takes place—that is what is visible. When someone attains bliss within, you cannot see his inner state; you see everything around him suffused with bliss. When someone attains knowing within, you cannot see that inner knowing; but around him, events of knowing begin to happen—that is what you see. Within remains the pure being of the self, but yoga-kshema are its consequences.
Just as when a lamp is lit, things begin to shine. Even if there were no things, the lamp could still burn—but then you could not see it. Arjuna’s becoming atmavān is his inner event. That inner becoming will make yoga-kshema blossom all around—that is the outer event. Hence he remembers both. And how will those who stand outside recognize it? They will not recognize the atmavān; they will recognize yoga-kshema.
It is said of Mohammed that wherever he walked, a small cloud moved above him, casting shade. Hard to believe: wherever he goes, a cloud follows and casts shadow! But human language has poor resources; what cannot be said in prose, we say in poetry. Poetry is the confession of prose’s inability. And all that is deep in life cannot be said in prose; so the deepest of life is spoken as poetry.
This is a poetic expression of an experience: wherever Mohammed went, shade arrived. To those around him—desert folk—it felt as if a cloud had come overhead and everything turned cool. Wherever Mohammed was, yoga-kshema flowered.
It is said of Mahavira that if he walked along a path where thorns lay upright, they would turn over. No thorn is going to worry about Mahavira; the literal chance seems small.
But those who wrote this had experienced something. Near Mahavira even straight thorns turned over—not the thorns, but thorniness. Life has many thorns, of many kinds. The roads of living are full of thorns. Those who came close to Mahavira must have suddenly felt that the thorns that had been piercing them now turned over; they were no longer pricked. Yoga-kshema had borne fruit. How shall one say this? People say, “It happens so.” But we are prone to mistake. How will we recognize that someone is Mahavira—or that someone is Buddha?
So we have woven stories: wherever Buddha passed, saffron rained upon the village. It cannot happen—at least not the saffron sold in the market. But those in whose village Buddha passed must have felt a fragrance like saffron—the finest word they had—something certainly showered upon that village. Lacking any other word, they said, “Saffron rained.”
When life is illumined within, rays of that light touch others. When they touch, yoga-kshema bears fruit.
Therefore Krishna says it, and rightly so. It should be said. It is necessary. Because when the event of the self happens in a person, the circle of his radiance spreads far into many realms. And when the note of the self sounds within, its resonance sets other hearts ringing. When bliss fructifies in one life, a few blossoms of bliss certainly shower into other lives as well.
Thus he tells Arjuna: you will become atmavān, endowed with shakti. But when someone becomes endowed with shakti within, then look at it from another side too.
When a person is selfless—rather, when he has lost his self—you must have noticed: suffering begins to be born around him. When someone loses his soul, he creates, around himself, a circle of sorrow. It will depend on how much of the soul he has lost.
If a man like Hitler is born, a vast circle of misery bears fruit all around. No trace of yoga-kshema remains; the reverse happens. Un-wellbeing and inauspiciousness spread. If a man like Genghis Khan appears, wherever he passes there is no saffron rain—only blood. Only blood flows.
We recognize evil men well; we also recognize the events around them. Naturally, the events around an evil man are very material, very gross—visible to all.
When Genghis Khan passes through your village, it is impossible not to notice. Events are crude, physical: he would have all the children killed, their heads stuck on spears. When someone asked him, “What are you doing? Tens of thousands of children hang from spears!” Genghis Khan laughed, “People should know that Genghis Khan is passing.”
Buddha also passes through a village, Krishna passes, Jesus passes—events there are immaterial, not grossly physical. So only those with a little sensitive awareness can catch them, those whose hearts are responsive. What is caught there—this is what Krishna calls yoga-kshema. Those who can catch it know: everything has changed. The air is different, the sky is different, everything is different. This experience of “everything becoming different”—Krishna calls it yoga-kshema. It is right to remind of it.
One more point: he says, you will become shakti-sampanna—endowed with power.
In truth, a human being is never empowered so long as he remains “someone.” As long as he is ego-centered, he is power-impoverished. The more ego I carry, the poorer I am. The more the ego drops and I become atmavān—the more I disappear—the more I am one with the All. Then the power is no longer mine; it is the Brahman’s. Then my hands do not move by me; they move by the Brahman. Then my speech is not spoken by me; it is spoken by the Brahman. Then my rising and sitting are not mine; they are his.
What could be greater empowerment than that? The day a person surrenders himself to the Whole, that day the Whole’s power becomes his. That day he is empowered.
Here shakti is not a symbol of power in the political sense. Not the power a man gains by attaining a position—that yesterday he was a nobody on the street and today, as a minister, he is powerful. That “power” is not in the person; it is in the chair. Remove him from the chair, he is impoverished again. It never belonged to him; it belonged to the seat.
You may have seen, in a carnival, the electric chair—an electrified seat. A boy or girl is made to sit on it; the person too becomes electrified. Touch him and you get a shock. The shock is not his; it is the chair’s. Take him off the chair—it’s gone. Morarji-bhai on the chair and Morarji-bhai off the chair—electrified chair! A circus! But look at the swagger of the one seated: when you get a shock, he imagines he is shocking you. They identify with the chair.
Krishna’s shakti does not mean power; it means energy—urja—that does not come from position; in fact, it comes by abandoning all positions.
Ego seeks position. One who abandons ego loses all positions. No position remains. He becomes a void. Into that void the Vast begins to resound. Into that void the Vast descends. In that void the Vast finds a door. Then it is energy, not power. Then it is shakti, not something borrowed. The person has faded and the non-person remains. There is no person—there is the divine. And from such a state there is no return.
Remember: from power there is a return; from position there is a return; from wealth there is a return. Any power gained through ego’s quest will be lost. But the power that comes by losing ego is the point of no return—there is no coming back from it.
So once a person knows the divine’s power, becomes one with it, he becomes empowered forever. Perhaps even this is not fully right: rather, he becomes empowerment. To say “he becomes powerful” still implies that “he” remains. Better to say: he becomes power. And if that “power” is of position or wealth, yoga-kshema will not bear fruit. If it is the divine’s power, yoga-kshema will.
Hence it is also proper to speak of yoga-kshema—because there are powers from which the very opposite of yoga-kshema ensues.
The whole world is power-politics. Whenever someone travels the path of political power, yoga-kshema does not happen; the opposite happens: inauspiciousness, sorrow.
So keep the distinction clear: shakti means energy, not power; it means not the pursuit of ego but the dissolution of ego. Then, surely, yoga-kshema bears fruit.
Yāvān artha udapāne sarvataḥ samplutodake
tāvān sarveṣu vedeṣu brāhmaṇasya vijānataḥ. (2.46)
Just as bathing in small ponds, wells, tanks, rivers at holy places yields a certain merit, that very merit—indeed manifold—is obtained by bathing in the ocean that pervades everywhere; so too, whatever joy the Vedas promise through rites and sacrifices is far surpassed in the joy the knower, the wise one, gains in knowledge itself.
Krishna says: just as there are little streams, ponds, wells, tanks—whatever purity comes from bathing in them, such purity, manifold, is obtained by bathing in the ocean. What you get in the puddles of words and scriptures, you get manifold in the ocean of knowing. Whatever the Vedas—Samhitas, shastras, words—can give, the knower obtains infinitely in knowledge itself.
Two points must be noted. First: whatever is available in the limited is found in the limitless—so there is no need to fear leaving the limited for the unlimited. If for knowledge one must leave the Vedas—no worry. If for truth one must leave words—no worry. If for experience one must leave scripture—no worry. Because what is gained here is found infinitely there.
Second: what is gained in the ocean, in knowledge, in the limitless—leaving that for the limited is dangerous. To leave the ocean for your house-well is dangerous. Granted, the house-well is yours—familiar since childhood—but it is still a well. Houses cannot hold oceans. To reach oceans, houses must be left. Houses can hold only wells.
We all have our houses—our own Vedas, our own scriptures, our own religions, our own sects, our own words under the spell of attachment. One is Muslim, one Hindu, one Christian—each with his own Veda. One worships this image, another that mantra—each with his own well.
Krishna says: for these, to leave the ocean is dangerous. The reverse is fine: for the ocean, leave these—there is no loss. Because whatever is in these is found infinitely in the ocean.
Hence that person is unfortunate who, for his house-well—for the Bible, the Quran, the Veda, the Gita… the Gita too! Krishna could not cite the Gita—how could he? What he was saying was to become the Gita; it did not yet exist. I say: the Gita too!—who, for these, blocks the way to knowledge, leaves knowledge for their sake. But the one who leaves all of them for knowledge is blessed. Because whatever is in them is in knowledge.
What, then, is the gap between knowledge and Veda, between knowledge and scripture?
A deep gap. Those who know see it clearly; those who don’t find it hard to see. To gauge the distance between two things, you must know both. One who knows only one cannot measure the gap.
We know only scripture—so the distances we construct are at most between scriptures: the Quran or the Bible, the Veda or the Gita, Mahavira or Buddha, Jesus or Zarathustra. The gaps we argue are between scripture and scripture, not between scripture and knowledge. The real gap is not scripture-to-scripture but scripture-to-knowledge. Let a few pointers be kept in mind.
Knowledge is that which never happens without experience. Knowledge means experience; and experience is always one’s own, never another’s. Experience means one’s own. Scripture too is experience—but another’s. Scripture is knowledge—but another’s. Knowledge is knowledge—but one’s own.
When I see with my eyes, that is knowledge. If I am blind and you see and tell me, that is scripture. It is not that you are telling untruth—you are not. But you see with eyes and I “see” by ear. A difference must arise: the ear cannot do the eye’s work.
Hence the old names of scripture are excellent: Shruti—what is heard, not seen. Smriti—what is heard and remembered, memorized—not realized. All scriptures are shruti and smriti. Someone knew and spoke; we did not know, and we heard. What happened through his eyes, happens for us through our ears. Scripture comes through the ear; truth comes through the eye. Truth is darshan; scripture is shruti.
Another’s experience—no matter what I do—does not become mine. Yes, another’s experience can be useful, but only in this sense: not that I should trust it blindly and become credulous—that would be misuse, a hindrance—but useful in that it opens the door of possibility for me too. What happened to another can happen to me—this assurance; why should what happened to another not happen to me—this inspiration. It can awaken the thirst hidden within. But only that much. I must know for myself. I must live it myself. I must reach that ocean-shore myself.
Another delightful point: the wells in our homes are man-made; the ocean is not. Your father built the well, or his father—someone did. The one who built it knew a secret: break the earth anywhere and you meet the ocean. What is a well? Just a hole. Do not think the water is the well; the water is the ocean. The well is only a way for you to peer into the ocean from your courtyard. The ocean already spreads below; wherever there is water, there is the ocean. You dig a hole in your yard, remove the earth, break a layer—now there is a window to the ocean.
But the well is made. If the well brings news—a remembrance—that there is an ocean, and takes you on the journey to it, then the well is a helper. If the well becomes the ocean for you, and you think, “Here is the ocean,” then the journey to the limitless will not happen; you will end your life sitting by the well.
Scriptures are wells. The knowers dig them—holes in the boundary of speech, within what can be said. They allow a little glimpse of the unsayable, a brief seeing—hoping that on seeing this, someone will set out for the infinite. Not so that on seeing this one sits satisfied.
The well is the ocean, bound in limit. The ocean is a well, free in the limitless. Scripture is knowledge bound in limit. Knowledge is scripture freed into the limitless.
So when Krishna speaks of the Veda, of word, it is not condemnation; it is indication. And that indication deserves to be remembered.
Enough for now. We will speak again in the evening.
Osho's Commentary
If we put Karma Yoga into a brief mathematical formula, it would be: action minus desire equals Karma Yoga. Where desire is subtracted from action, what remains is Karma Yoga. But subtracting desire does not mean subtracting only worldly desire—it means subtracting desire as such. This must be understood a little more deeply.
To drop worldly desire is not very difficult; to drop desire itself is the real austerity. Worldly desire can be renounced. If the bait of otherworldly desire is dangled, then leaving worldly desire is no trouble at all. Tell someone, give up wealth on this earth, because in the next world, whoever gives up a little here receives much there—and it is not very hard to give up the little. That is a bargain, a deal. We all give up in order to get; to gain, we can abandon anything.
But whatever is relinquished in order to get is not desireless. Whether the getting be in the next world, in the future, or in the coinage of religion—it makes little difference. Renunciation based upon the longing to obtain is still desire, still a mind possessed by wanting. Such a mind cannot attain to Karma Yoga.
If you are told, renounce women here on earth because heavenly nymphs await you in paradise; renounce wine here because in paradise fountains of wine flow—then there is no renunciation in such renunciation. It is only desire being recaptured in a new form, in a new realm, in a new dimension. It is enticement.
Therefore whoever, anywhere, in any form, does something out of the urge to gain cannot arrive at Karma Yoga. For the very foundation of Karma Yoga is action without desire, action without any hankering for its fruits. This is hard—very hard. Ordinarily we think: then how will action happen at all? We act precisely because there is something to achieve, some goal, some fruit. We move because there is somewhere to reach. We even breathe because there is something to come afterward. If it is revealed that there is no desire ahead, then we will not move; we will not act. How will action happen?
For anyone who has thought about the Gita and Krishna’s message, the biggest psychological question, the real knot, is this: Krishna says, action without passion, without desire! Then how will action be possible? From where does action derive its motivation, its impulse? The impulse to act arises from desire. We want something, therefore we do something. Wanting precedes doing; the object precedes the act; aspiration first—and like a shadow our doing follows. If we drop wanting, desire, craving, object—how will action arise? There will be no motivation.
Even if we ask Western psychology—which has worked a great deal on motivation—what is the drive behind action? The psychologists of the West, in one voice, say: without desire, there can be no action.
Krishna’s psychology says the exact opposite of modern psychology. He says: as long as action is bound to desire, it leads nowhere but into sorrow and darkness. The day action is freed from desire—even the desire for heaven, even the desire for the next world—the day action becomes pure, a pure act in which not the slightest impurity of wanting remains, only then is action desireless, and it becomes yoga.
And such action is itself liberation. For such action there is no further need of moksha. There is no liberation as a future fruit of such action. Such action is liberation here and now. Such action is freedom. Its very nature is freedom; it does not produce freedom as a result later on.
We must understand this, because again and again the discussion will circle around it, and it lies at the very foundation of Krishna’s message. Is action possible without desire? Can we do anything without wanting? From where, then, will the inspiration come? From where the source, the force that draws us into action?
In the world we live in and in the web of actions we have known, perhaps there is scarcely a single act that is unmotivated—scarcely. Even when an act appears unmotivated, where no aim ahead, no wish to gain is visible, if you look a little within, you will find it.
You are walking down the road. Someone ahead of you drops his umbrella. You pick it up and hand it to him—unmotivated. While picking it up you do not think: what result, what gain, what will I get? No, that thought is not there. The umbrella fell, you lifted it, you gave it. It appears unmotivated, for you did not set out from home planning to pick up someone’s umbrella. A moment before it fell, there was no plan to lift it. Between its falling and your lifting, no desire seems to arise.
And yet, psychology will say: there is unconscious motivation. If, after you hand it over, the man does not thank you, you feel hurt. If he tucks it under his arm and walks away, you will stand startled—what sort of man is this, not even a thank-you! If later the thought comes, what kind of person doesn’t even say thanks!—then there was motivation. It wasn’t conscious, you hadn’t thought it, but it was hidden on some deep level of the mind. We can now say, in retrospect: did you pick it up for a thank-you? You will insist, no, the thought of thanks never occurred; I realized all this afterward.
But what was not there cannot be discovered afterward. What was not latent cannot become manifest. What was never unexpressed cannot be expressed. Somewhere it was hidden, pressed down on some unconscious level, waiting. No, there was no conscious desire—but there was unconscious desire.
In life, there are a few moments that seem to us unmotivated, when it appears that a desireless act has happened. But even those, if you look back later, reveal a desire hidden somewhere. Hence Western psychology says: whether it is visible or not, wherever there is action, there is desire; the only difference is whether it is conscious or unconscious.
But Krishna says: there can be action where there is no desire. This statement is very significant. To understand it we will approach from a few sides. Let me tell you a small story. Because what we are not familiar with in our own lives, we must sometimes glimpse in another’s life. Our own life is not the limit. We must look elsewhere and ask: is this possible? Is it possible? First see whether it is possible; if possibility appears, perhaps tomorrow it can become truth.
One day Akbar said to Tansen: when I listen to your music, it seems to me that there can hardly be anyone on earth who can play as you do! I can hardly believe there will ever be someone beyond you, for I cannot conceive what peak could be higher than this. You are the summit. But last night, after I bid you goodbye and went to sleep, it occurred to me: perhaps you too learned from someone, perhaps you have a master. So today I ask: do you have a guru? Did you learn from someone?
Tansen said: before my master, I am nothing; I am not even the dust of the feet of the one from whom I learned. So drop that idea from your mind. Summit! I am not even the ground. But because you have only known me, I appear to you as the summit. When a camel comes close to a mountain, then he realizes what a mountain is. Sitting at my master’s feet, I am nothing. If I ever become worthy even to sit by his feet, I shall feel I have attained much.
Akbar said: if your master is alive, then this very instant—bring him here; I want to hear him. Tansen said: that is the difficulty. He is alive, but he cannot be brought.
Akbar replied: whatever gift is required, the treasury is ready. Whatever he wishes, we will give. You ask, and it will be granted. Tansen said: that is the difficulty—he cannot be persuaded to accept anything, because the question of receiving does not arise. Akbar exclaimed: the question of receiving does not arise! Then what can be done? Tansen said: there is no way but that you yourself go. Akbar said: I am ready to go now. Tansen said: going now will be of no use. He does not play on request. When he plays and someone happens to hear, that is another matter. I will find out when he plays; then we will go.
It was learned—his master was the fakir Haridas, living by the banks of the Yamuna—that he rises at three in the night to sing and dance. Perhaps no emperor of Akbar’s stature ever listened in secret like a thief to a musician at three in the morning. Akbar and Tansen sat hidden outside the hut in the cold night. Akbar’s eyes ran with tears the whole time. He did not speak a word.
The music ended. They turned back. Dawn was breaking. On the way Akbar still said nothing. At the palace gate he said only this to Tansen: until today I thought no one could play as you do. Now I think—where are you in comparison? But tell me, why is it that you cannot play like your master?
Tansen replied: the matter is very clear. I play in order to get something; my master has gotten something, therefore he plays. Beyond my playing there is a goal; my life-breaths are set on what I will receive; therefore my life-breaths can never be wholly in my playing. In playing I am always partial, incomplete. If I could obtain, without playing, what I get from playing, I would throw music away and seize that. For me, music is a means, not the end. The end lies elsewhere—in the future, in wealth, in fame, in prestige. The end lies elsewhere; music is only a means. A means can never become the soul; the soul is fastened to the end. If the end could be attained without the means, I would drop the means at once. But since it cannot, I drag the means along. Yet my gaze, my breath, my aspiration circle the end. But the one who has just been heard—music is not his means to get something. There is nothing ahead for which he plays. Rather, there is something behind from which his music wells up and flows. He has found something, he is filled, and that overflow is singing. Some realization, some truth, some God has filled his being. Now it spills over, overflowing.
Akbar kept asking, For what? For what?
Naturally, we too ask, for what? But Tansen said, For what do rivers flow? For what do flowers bloom? For what does the sun rise?
“For what” is fabricated by the human intellect. The whole existence is overflowing—man alone excepted. Existence is not living for the future; it lives from within. The flower is blooming—there is joy in blooming itself. The sun is rising—there is joy in rising. The winds are blowing—there is joy in blowing. The sky is—there is joy in being. Joy is not ahead; it is now, here.
What happens is an uncaused outpouring from inner energy—an unmotivated act. Upon this rests all of Krishna’s Karma Yoga. It is not gripping life from the side of the future, not dragging life from the side of longing, but the overflow of what is latent within, the unexpressed blooming over the brim. The day an act in your life is the overflow of your life-energy, that day it is desireless. And as long as it flows for some reason toward the future, it is impelled by desire. Desire-driven action is not yoga; desireless action is Yoga.
It makes no difference whether the desire is for the future, for heaven, for liberation, for God—no difference at all. If a person is singing a hymn in a temple and even in that hymn there is the desire to attain God, then that hymn is wasted, it is no longer yoga. The desire to attain God is also desire—and with desire, God is never attained. God is available only in desirelessness. If there is even this much wanting in prayer—that I may have Your vision—then the prayer is in vain.
But if prayer is unmotivated—born of an inner feeling and complete in itself, not seeking some further door—then it is prayer. And in the very moment that prayer is desireless, it succeeds. Every action becomes prayer if it becomes desireless. And every prayer becomes bondage if it becomes desire-driven.
We run worship as we run a shop. The shop is motivated; so is the worship. In the shop there is something to get; in worship too. We commit sin in order to get something; we do virtue in order to get something. And Krishna says: to do in order to get is irreligion. The act that blooms without any hankering—the flowering of the pure act—when pure action blossoms for no reason at all…
In this connection, Immanuel Kant must be mentioned. In Germany, Kant said something almost identical to Krishna: if even a trace of longing mixes into duty, then duty becomes sin—the slightest trace! Duty is duty only when it is utterly pure, with no desire in it.
This will be hard for us, because in our lives there is scarcely any act by which we can recognize and understand this. But the doorway to such action can be opened.
I said: a man on the road drops his umbrella. You pick it up, hand it to him, and while doing so, keep looking within to see whether any demand arises. Just keep watching. Hand it over and walk on, and keep watching within—does any demand arise, even for a thank-you? It will arise. But keep watching. For two or four such acts, keep watching, and suddenly you will find—what madness!—it drops.
One who performs even a single unmotivated act in a day can begin to understand Krishna’s Gita. If within twenty-four hours you can do even one act in which there is nothing—no conscious or unconscious demand—just do it, step aside, and walk away, then the way to understand the Gita and Krishna’s Karma Yoga will open. You need not read the Gita daily—it is fine if you don’t. But let one act in twenty-four hours blossom in which there is not even a trace of our wanting; in which doing itself is sufficient—and we are out and gone.
It is not impossible. If you search a little, it is not very difficult. In small, ordinary events, glimpses can be had.
And what Krishna is telling Arjuna is entirely experimental. It is workable. This is not a discussion held in a gurukul under a tree in an ashram. It is a discussion on the battlefield, where dense action awaits. It is not a tranquil metaphysical parley under the banyan; it is not mere metaphysics. It is a discussion in the midst of intense action, at the very edge of war—what could be more intense than war!—and there Krishna says to Arjuna: if even the desire for heaven remains in the mind—any desire whatsoever—then all is wasted.
The essence of Karma Yoga is: action minus desire. When desire is removed from doing…
We have even fixed our word for action as kama—work as driven by kama—because for us work is made by desire. We say work is that which runs on desire.
But Krishna says: if from action desire is subtracted, that is Karma Yoga. Then it is no longer ordinary action; it becomes yoga. And once it becomes yoga, there is neither sin nor virtue, neither bondage nor liberation—the person is beyond both.
The Vedas deal with the field of the three gunas; therefore, Arjuna, become one who has gone beyond the three gunas—free of dualities, ever poised in sattva, free of acquisition and preservation, and self-possessed.
Free of attachment and aversion, free of duality, and empty. It is easy to be in one of the two—attachment or aversion. It is easy to be attached; it is also easy to be dispassionate. Dispassion is aversion. To grasp wealth is easy; to renounce wealth is easy. Grasping is attachment; renouncing is aversion. Be free of both—be empty, be vacant. Then what Mahavira called vitaragata—beyond attachment—becomes available.
In duality, choosing is easy; being without choice is difficult. Choice is easy; choicelessness is difficult. Tell the mind, “I choose this,” and the mind agrees. Tell the mind, “I choose the opposite,” and it still agrees. Only choose! For as long as there is choice, mind can live. Which choice is made is irrelevant—choose home or choose forest; choose friendship or enmity; choose wealth or anti-wealth; choose anything—love or hate, anger or forgiveness; choose anything—if there is choice, mind lives. But choose nothing at all, and the mind instantly—instantly—collapses. The foundations of the mind give way. Choice is the foundation; choosing is the life-breath of mind.
Therefore as long as choice operates in life, it matters little how often you change your choice. Leave the world and choose liberation; leave matter and choose God; leave sin and choose virtue—choose anything. The real question is not what you choose; the deeper question is whether you choose. If you choose—if there is choice—then duality remains. Because you drop one and pick up the other.
Understand this too: what you drop, you can never drop completely. For that which needs to be dropped has a deep hold in the mind; otherwise why would there be any need to drop it? If a man has no hold of wealth in his mind, how will he renounce wealth? For renunciation, grasping is essential. If a man has no interest, no attraction toward sex, how will he choose celibacy? And if attraction is present and we choose against it, we can, at most, suppress. It will only be forced down. What we have denied will sink into the unconscious; what we have accepted will become conscious.
Our mind thrusts what it rejects into darkness. All our minds have storehouses. In the house, what becomes useless is thrown into the junk room. Similarly, what the conscious mind refuses, it throws into the unconscious; what it accepts, it brings into consciousness. The conscious mind is our drawing room.
But no one lives in the drawing room. Guests are received there, no one resides there. The real house begins after the drawing room. A house could do without a drawing room—we might even say the drawing room is not truly part of the house. Family members do not live there; only guests are entertained there. The drawing room is just a face, a facade of the house, not the real house. It is a deception, in which outsiders are deceived that “this is our home,” though no one sleeps, eats, or lives there. The house begins after the drawing room.
Our conscious mind is the drawing room for display to the world. Through it we meet others. But deeper within, our real life begins. Whenever we choose, nothing is erased by the choice. What we choose becomes a drawing-room piece. What we reject is sent inside.
Thus the person who all day rejects wealth—“I have chosen renunciation”—gathers wealth in his dreams at night. The one who fights lust all day is surrounded by lust in dreams at night. The one who fasts all day is invited to royal feasts in his sleep.
In dreams, what is inside asserts itself. It says: enough of your daytime choosing—now meet us too. It does not go away; it only remains suppressed.
And there is a curious fact: what is suppressed inside grows powerful; what sits on display in the drawing room grows weak. Soon the time comes when what we pushed down announces itself—an explosion—and surges out.
Give drink to the best of men, whose life is smooth and proper, and you will see what hides inside! It all begins to pour out. Alcohol creates nothing in anyone; it merely breaks the barrier between the drawing room and the inner house; it opens the door.
There was a fakir in the West, Gurdjieff. Whoever came to him as a seeker, he would drown him in alcohol for fifteen days. What a madman, you might think! No—he was wise. He said: until I see that which you have suppressed, I cannot work with you. Because what you say is not trustworthy. It is essential to know what lies within you.
So he would pour drinks for fifteen straight days, until the man was soaked. Then he would look for the true face—who all are hiding within, what has been suppressed—what your choosing has done. Only then, transformation is possible.
Many ran away—“We cannot tolerate this.” But Gurdjieff said: until for fifteen days I plunge you into alcohol and peep into your inner house—until I see what you have stashed away—I will not even speak to you. Because if I listen to what you say and labour based on that, my effort will go to waste. What you say is not certain to be what you are; inside you may be something else. In the end, what lies within is decisive.
Therefore Krishna says: do not choose. Because if you choose, what you drop goes within; what you uphold comes up. Not much changes. Duality remains. And what is duality? What is conflict?
There is only one duality: the conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. You swear, “I will not be angry.” Your oath resides in the conscious mind; the forces of anger reside in the unconscious. Tomorrow someone insults you; the unconscious says, “Be angry!” The conscious says, “I have sworn not to be angry.” Conflict arises. You fight within.
Remember: whenever there is a fight, the unconscious wins. In emergencies, the unconscious always wins. In idle times the conscious may appear to win; in the hour of action, the unconscious prevails. Why? Because the findings of psychology say: the conscious is only a fraction of the mind. If we divide the mind into ten parts, one is conscious and nine are unconscious. Nine times the power.
That ninefold mind waits: no harm—when you recite the Gita at dawn, no worry; vow you will not be angry. When you go to the temple—no worry; is the temple life? Wait till the shop! Wait till the home! When the real moment comes, the conscious slips aside and the unconscious attacks.
Hence after anger we say: I don’t know how I became angry—despite myself I became angry! But how can anger happen despite you? Surely you have pushed some deep part of yourself so far down that you take it to be other. It strikes when its time comes.
This conflict—this inner war—is man’s hell. Duality is hell. There is no other hell than conflict. And we go on feeding it—every time we choose, we feed it.
So Krishna says in this aphorism: one who goes beyond attachment and aversion—beyond duality, beyond conflict; one who goes beyond choosing—only that one knows life’s supreme truth. One who remains caught in duality knows only life’s hell.
Only in this duality-transcending dispassion can the flower of desireless action bloom. Or where desireless action has ripened, this freedom from duality, from raga-dvesha—this zero-consciousness—can manifest.
Consciousness is pure only when it is empty. This is Krishna’s talk of zero. Consciousness is pure when it is empty; and when it is pure, it is empty.
Consider a mirror. When is a mirror at its purest? When nothing is reflected in it—when no image forms. As long as images form, something foreign, something alien shadows the mirror. As long as an image is there, the mirror is not just a mirror; it is something else as well. One image goes, another forms; that goes, a third forms. Something is always streaming across the mirror. But when no image forms, when the mirror is only a mirror, then it is empty.
Consciousness is only a mirror. As long as images keep forming upon it—now of attachment, now of detachment; now of friendship, now of enmity; now of left, now of right—so long as images form, consciousness is impure. But if no image forms, and consciousness lies outside duality and beyond choosing, it becomes empty. In empty consciousness, what remains? When the mirror is empty, only the mirror remains. When consciousness is empty, only pure awareness remains.
That empty taste of awareness is the experience of Brahman. That experience of pure consciousness is liberation. Zero and Brahman are two ends of one experience. Here you become zero, there you become Brahman. The moment images cease forming on the mirror, from within the Brahman dawns. The encrustation of images on the mirror of awareness—that is the world.
In truth, we do not behave like mirrors; we behave like camera film. The film seizes an image and won’t let go. The film is erased and becomes the image.
If we could invent a camera—indeed we can—in which one image could be taken on top of another, and a third on top of the second; if a thousand or a million images could be taken on one film, the state of that film would be like the state of our mind. Image upon image upon image—nothing remains but confusion. No face can be recognized—whose picture is it? Nothing can be made out. The mind becomes a nightmare.
A mirror is still better. One image forms and disappears, then another. Our mind is like a mirror that keeps clutching images, collecting them, until there is nothing but images.
There is a line from an Urdu poet: after death, only a few photographs came out of the house. After our death, too, nothing emerges from our inner house but a few pictures. Our whole life, apart from collecting images, is nothing.
Krishna says: an empty, non-dual mind. Drop the pictures; know the mirror. Do not choose; for the moment you choose, you grasp. Do not grasp—no clinging. Remain what you are. In that empty instant, what is known is life’s supreme truth, supreme knowing.