Geeta Darshan #15

When intelligence awakens from the sooty blackness of delusion, then dispassion bears fruit. From the sooty blackness of delusion! What is the darkness that surrounds a human being?

One kind of darkness disappears when lamps are lit. Religion has nothing to do with that darkness. Whether it is there or not, it makes no difference. Then what darkness is religion striving to dispel?

There is another darkness that does not surround the body but engulfs consciousness. There is another darkness that gathers around the soul. That is what Krishna calls the blackness of delusion. So it is useful to understand these two words—darkness and delusion—a little more deeply.

What is the mark of darkness? First, where nothing can be seen, where seeing is lost, where seeing is not possible, where a veil falls over the eyes. Second, because nothing can be seen, no path is known—where should one go, what to do? Third, because nothing can be seen, at every step there is the possibility of colliding with anything. Darkness is the loss of vision.

The same happens in delusion. That is why it is meaningful to call delusion darkness. In delusion, whatever we do, whatever we become, however we move—in delusion whatever comes out of us—is exactly like groping in the dark. We have no idea what we are doing, no idea what is happening, no idea which is the way, which is the path. There are no eyes. Delusion is blind. And the blindness of delusion is spiritual blindness.

I have heard: a man’s house caught fire. A crowd gathered. The man was beating his chest, crying, shouting—as is natural. The wealth of a lifetime was being destroyed. What he had taken to be life itself was going up in flames. The ground he stood upon was collapsing. The very basis of his “I,” from which his power and pride came, from which he was something, a “somebody”—all that was scattering.

Jan Soliz wrote a book, Arestros. There are a few precious sayings in it. One is: “Nobody wants to be nobody. Nobody wants to be nobody.” A precise translation is difficult. No one wants to be a nonentity. Everyone wants to be somebody, to be something.

That man’s somebody-ness was unraveling. He had been something because that house existed. And anyone whose being somebody depends on something else’s being—one day such grief and pain will seize them too. For everything that rests on outer wealth falls apart one day, because nothing outside is lasting. It is not only that his house caught fire—everyone’s outer houses catch fire. In truth, whatever is outside is already on the pyre.

So he beats his chest and weeps. Natural. Then a neighbor comes running and says, “You are weeping needlessly. Your son sold the house yesterday. He even took the deposit. Didn’t you know?” At once, the tears vanish. The man stops beating his chest. Where he had been crying, he begins to smile, even laugh. Everything changes in an instant.

The fire still blazes; the house burns just as it did a moment before. Where has the difference occurred? The house is no longer mine. The bond of delusion that tied me to the house has snapped. The house is on fire, but there are no tears in the eye. Were those tears because the house burned? The house is still burning. Those tears were because “my” was burning. Now the “my” is not burning; the eyes have cleared. The film of tears has lifted. Now he can see clearly. A moment ago he could see nothing.

Flames raged there; here, the eyes were filled with tears—everything was blurred, everything dark. Till now his hands and feet were trembling; now the trembling is gone. Now he is just like everyone else. “Alright,” he says, “what has happened is alright.”

Just then his son comes running. He says, “Talks did happen, but no deposit was made. We tried to sell, but it didn’t happen. And now who will buy this burned house!”

The tears return; he starts beating his chest again. The house is burning exactly as before! The house knows nothing of all this change in between. Everything changes again. Delusion returns. The eyes are blind again. Again the “my” begins to burn.

In this life it is delusion that burns, delusion that worries, delusion that fills with tension, delusion that meets with anguish, delusion that leads astray, delusion that makes one fall. Delusion is the misery of life.

Krishna calls it moha. Buddha called it thirst, tanha. Call it by any other name—it makes no difference. Its inner secret has one quality: that which is not mine begins to appear as mine; and that which is mine remains unknown. This is the hypnosis of delusion, the spell of moha—what is not mine appears to be mine; and what truly is mine is not known at all.

The law of delusion’s darkness is this: what is not mine appears as mine, and what is mine does not appear to be mine. A reversal takes place; everything turns upside down.

How can the house be mine? It was there when I was not; it will be there when I am no more. How can the land be mine? It existed before me; it will exist after me. And the land has no idea that it is “mine.” But my delusion spreads a hypnotic net—my son, my wife, my father, my religion, my scripture, my temple, my mosque. Around the I, a vast web is raised. This expansion of the I is the darkness of delusion.

In truth, understand the I as a lamp of darkness. As light falls from a lamp, so darkness falls from the I. When the lamp burns there is light; when the I burns there is darkness. The denser the I, the deeper the darkness that spreads all around. The person who lives in the I lives in darkness—in the night of delusion.

So Krishna says: the one who is free of this blackness of moha attains dispassion. But what Krishna calls dispassion is not what we commonly call dispassion. This must be understood well.

What we call dispassion is merely the opposite of passion. We call the opposite of attachment “dispassion.” In our understanding, to know “the house is mine” is attachment; to know “the house is not mine” is dispassion. But “mine” and “not mine” are two ends of the same thing. Krishna does not call this dispassion. This is reverse attachment. It is not freedom from attachment. “Not mine,” too, is still attachment.

Ramtirtha returned from America and was a guest in Tehri Garhwal. His wife came to meet him. Seeing her approach through the window, he shut the window and bolted the door. A friend staying with him, Sardar Puran Singh, asked, “Why are you closing the door? I’ve never seen you close the door to any woman!” Puran Singh knew the woman was—or had been—his wife. Ramtirtha said, “She is no one of mine.” Puran Singh replied, “All the other women who come are no one of yours either. Yet you never close the door to them! This woman must surely be someone special to you—you make a special arrangement: you close the door!” Ramtirtha said, “She was my wife; but I have no wife.” Puran Singh said, “If she is not a wife, then treat her as you would any woman. Open the door!”

This behavior is special; it is the behavior of reverse attachment. There was once the illusion that “she is my wife”; now there is the illusion “she is not my wife.” But if the first illusion was false, how can the second be true? It stands upon the first; it is only its extension.

The first illusion we can understand. The second is the illusion of the “renunciate”—the sannyasin, the renouncer—and that we grasp less easily. But it is clear: this woman is special—she is not ordinary in his eyes. Ramtirtha has a particular view of this woman. Once he would have risen to open the door for her—“my wife”; now he rises to shut the door—“not my wife.” But rise for the door he must; this is not dispassion.

Puran Singh said, “If you do not open the door, I bow and take my leave. For me, all your knowledge of Brahman is worthless. I am going. What kind of Brahma-knowledge is this? You have never said to any other woman, ‘Stop!’ In all women you have seen Brahman. Today what fault has happened in this woman that Brahman is not there?”

The words pierced Ramtirtha; they pricked his awareness. He opened the door. He was a thoughtful man. He saw it clearly: dispassion has not ripened. For dispassion means that neither attachment nor aversion remain. Where even dispassion does not remain—there is dispassion. The night of delusion has wholly vanished. “Mine” is gone; even “not mine” is gone. Where there is not even dispassion, there is dispassion.

Ramtirtha saw it and understood. That very day he gave up the saffron robes. You may be surprised to hear that on the day he took water-samadhi, he was not wearing ochre; he wore ordinary clothes. For it was clear to him: that was not dispassion.

Dispassion means: where neither attachment nor aversion remain. Where there is neither attraction nor repulsion; neither pull nor push; no call and no opposition. Where a person is steady, equal; where pro and con are the same—there dispassion flowers.

But why then call it “dispassion”? Why use the word at all when even dispassion is not there? There is no choice—this is the helplessness of language. All our words are dialectical. Human language has no truly non-dual, non-dialectical word. Language is made by the mind; the mind is dualistic. So whatever language the human mind creates is built from opposing terms.

It’s a strange fact: our language cannot be built without opposites, because we cannot define without them. If someone asks, “What is darkness?” you say, “That which is not light.” A very circular definition. If asked, “What is light?” you say, “That which is not darkness.” You know neither what darkness is nor what light is. Asked about darkness, you say, “Not light.” Asked about light, you say, “Not darkness.” Is that a definition? A definition would require knowing at least one of the two.

I have heard: a man went to a strange village. He asked, “Where does Mr. A live?” They said, “Next door to Mr. B.” He said, “But I don’t know where B lives either.” They said, “Next to A.” He said, “That doesn’t help; I know neither A nor B. Tell me exactly where A lives.” They said, “Next to B.” “And B?” “Next to A.”

Ask a man, “What is consciousness?” He says, “Not matter.” Ask, “What is matter?” He says, “Not consciousness.” What is mind? Not matter. What is matter? Not mind. Even the greatest philosopher calls this a definition. But it’s deception, not definition. For not even one of the two is known.

Yet even without knowing, life must be managed. So we make do with dishonest words. Our words are deceptive; none carries its own meaning. The words by which we explain meaning have no meaning either. All our definitions are circular. “What is left?” “That which is not right.” “And right?” “That which is not left.” But do we know either?

Human language is dialectical. Ask, “What is A?” it talks of B. Ask, “What is B?” it talks of A. This creates the illusion that everything is known. Nothing is known—only words are known. But we cannot function without words. If there is attachment, there is dispassion. But where to find a third word? And truth is the third. Where to find it?

Mahavira says vitaraga—one beyond attachment. But it makes no difference. Vitaraga means beyond attachment; viraga means outside attachment. Whichever word we coin, it will be the opposite of another word; it will not be the third, it will always be the second. And truth is the third. So the second word is used provisionally. Krishna is also using it provisionally.

Therefore do not take dispassion to mean the opposite of attachment. Dispassion means to go beyond the duality, beyond attachment and aversion. For repulsion is only attraction standing on its head. Repulsion is attraction inverted. And all this happens only when the blind night of delusion breaks, when its blackness scatters. The condition is clear: who attains dispassion? The one for whom the night of delusion breaks, whose blackness dissolves.

But what do we do? We do not break the blackness of delusion; we begin cultivating non-delusion in opposition to delusion. We do not shatter moha; we practice anti-moha against moha. We say, there is attachment in the house, so leave the house, go to the forest. But in whom was the attachment—in the man, or in the house?

If attachment was in the house, then leaving the house would put you beyond attachment—if the house itself were attachment. But the house has no attachment to you; you have attachment to the house. And you are running away while the house remains where it is. Wherever you go, attachment will arrive. It travels with you; it is your shadow. Then you will be attached to the ashram—my ashram. What’s the difference? My house, my ashram—what’s the difference? My son, my disciple—what’s the difference? Delusion will find new arrangements, set up a new household.

It is very interesting that griha (household) does not really mean a building. It means the attachment that builds the home—the force which builds the home. It is not about the home itself; it is about that which makes it. That will make a home anywhere. Sit under a tree—it will become “mine.” A palace—it will be “mine.” A loincloth—it too will become “mine.” And the “mine” has no trouble with size—big house or small—no difference. The volume of “mine” does not affect its being “mine.”

Understand it this way: if one man steals two hundred thousand rupees and another steals two coins, do you think two coins is a small theft and two hundred thousand a big theft? The amount is bigger, the theft is the same. The same event happens with two coins as with two hundred thousand. In either case, the man becomes a thief. Yes, the court may call the two-coin thief a small thief and the other a big thief and give more or less punishment. That’s different. The court is concerned with the amount, not the theft. The court lives in quantity.

Religion has nothing to do with quantity. Religion is about quality. Religion will say: two coins or two hundred thousand—it’s theft, equally. In mathematics there is a difference; in religion there is none. For religion, theft has happened. The man is a thief.

In truth, go deeper still: if there is no difference between stealing two hundred thousand and two coins, is there any difference between stealing two hundred thousand and merely thinking of stealing? For religion, there is none. Whether you stole or only thought to steal—no difference. The event has happened. What we do becomes part of our life; what we think of doing also becomes part of our life.

In that same book Arestros by Jan Soliz, there is another line: “A man is bound not only by what he does, but also by what he wanted to do and did not do.”

We are bound not only by theft committed, but equally by uncommitted theft—by the thought of theft. Committed theft becomes known to others; uncommitted theft is not known to the world, but to the divine it is perfectly known. Because our relationship with the divine is of feeling, not action. Our relationship with the world and society is of doing; with the divine it is of being.

And what difference is there in being? Whether I imagined stealing or I stole—it makes no difference in being. I became a thief. The news reaches the divine: this man is a thief. Yes, the world has not yet heard. For news to reach the world, mere thought isn’t enough; the hands must also act. For the world to know, it requires not only feeling but a material act. That does not increase the theft; it only makes it manifest. The unmanifest becomes manifest. No other difference. But as far as religion is concerned, the unmanifest theft is as much theft as the manifest.

So the question is not whether you have a big house or a hut. Not whether you have millions or pennies. The question is whether you have the feeling of “mine.”

That feeling of “mine” is the night of delusion, the darkness of moha. As long as you can say “mine,” no matter to what it is attached—“my religion”—it makes no difference, the night of delusion continues. You can say: my Hindu, my Muslim; my Quran, my Bible, my Gita; my temple, my mosque.

We are strange people. All the religions of the world shout that to attain the divine, the “mine” must be dropped. And we are so clever that we even make God “mine.” “That God is yours; this God is mine.”

I have heard a very amusing incident from a village. It was the festival of Ganesh and processions of Ganesh idols were moving. But in that village, each neighborhood had its own Ganesh—Brahmins’ Ganesh, sweepers’ Ganesh, cobblers’ Ganesh, blacksmiths’, oil-pressers’. Even the idols had a discipline: the Brahmins’ Ganesh would lead, then others in order.

One year the Brahmins’ Ganesh arrived a little late—of course a Brahmins’ Ganesh must show up a little late! The greatness of a person is known by arriving late. The bigger the leader, the later he arrives. So the Brahmins’ Ganesh came late, and the oil-pressers’ Ganesh—poor Ganesh—arrived early, on time, lest the procession depart without him. No one would stop a procession for the oil-pressers’ Ganesh; they must arrive on time, and they did.

Time was passing; night was approaching; the procession had to start—so the oil-pressers’ Ganesh went ahead. The Brahmins’ Ganesh came from behind! The Brahmins said, “Move the oil-pressers’ Ganesh back! The oil-pressers’ Ganesh in front? Never!” The poor oil-pressers’ Ganesh had to move back.

The Hindu has his gods; the Muslim too. Among Hindus themselves, there are a thousand different gods. A single deity becomes separate as Brahmins’ Ganesh and oil-pressers’ Ganesh. God is attained by dropping “mine,” and we are so skillful that we bind even God within the confines of “mine.” If a temple burns, no Muslim feels pain—he feels joy. If a mosque burns, no Hindu feels pain—he feels joy. And in every case, it is God that burns. But because of “mine,” we cannot see. The “mine” blinds. It is a darkness.

Any kind of “mine-ness” is the night of delusion. One must awaken to it, not run from it. If you run, the opposite of “I” begins; it will reconstruct itself elsewhere. It will build again.

The “I” is a highly creative force—a creator of dreams. Not of reality, but of dreams; yet it does create. It is deeply hypnotic. Wherever it stands, a whole world appears around it.

In fact, the world exists because of “mine.” The day “mine” is not, the world is nowhere. Household exists because of “mine.” The day “mine” is not, there is no home and no household anywhere. A sannyasin is not one who has run away from home; a sannyasin is one in whom the home-builder has fallen apart. In whom that trance of delusion that constructs has dissolved.

This is what Krishna is saying: the one who leaves the night of delusion and whose intelligence attains dispassion—then in his life fruition happens. Call it liberation, call it knowing, call it bliss, call it God, call it Brahman—it makes no difference. They are only differences of name.

When your mind, confused and shaken by what you’ve heard, becomes unwavering and steady in the supreme, then your intelligence will be firmly established in samadhi—you will attain yoga. (2.53)

As the intellect now is, it is not steady. As it is, it is not firm. As it is, it is wavering, trembling, fluttering—like a lamp’s flame in a storm. Not still for a single moment; in a moment, in many places—at the start of the moment somewhere, at the end of the moment somewhere else. Not assured of even a single moment’s survival—flickering on the edge of every gust: now gone, now gone.

Kierkegaard called man “a trembling.” All the time—from birth to death—a tremor. Everything is shaking, all is an earthquake. Within, nothing is steady, nothing firm. The faces we wear outside are false. Our outer faces look steady, unmoved; the truth is otherwise—inside everything quakes. The bravest of men tremble with fear within. The bravest tremble with fear within.

There was Stalin. He was named Stalin—“man of steel.” It was not his birth name, but given—the iron man. Khrushchev, in his memoirs, writes that he was so fearful there is no measure for it. One day he even told Khrushchev, “Till now I was afraid of others; now I have begun to fear myself.” The fear was immense.

Stalin would never eat without first having two or four others eat the food. He did not trust even his daughter—perhaps the food is poisoned! Khrushchev writes: we all had to taste his food first. We tasted trembling, because what made the iron man so anxious was being tested on us! But it was necessary. Once he saw four men still alive, he would eat. Even eating became anxious.

He would not go out. It is said he kept a double—another man with his face—to attend public rallies. Hitler also kept a double. Who knows when a bullet will fly! For all the arrangements, there is still fear. Their precautions were unmatched; no one on earth ever had such protection. Every person was searched. They sat among thousands of soldiers. Every kind of arrangement. Yet the final arrangement was: the man receiving the salute was not the real Stalin. He was a fake actor playing Stalin. Stalin sat at home, listening to reports.

What irony! Men like Stalin and Hitler worked so hard to gain this very fame—and then an actor goes to take the salute. They could not even let their wives sleep in the same room—who knows when a neck will be squeezed in the night.

Such men of steel! Then what is a man of straw? If Stalin is so stuffed with chaff, what must be our condition? We are not Stalins; we are not men of steel. If this is the state of a steel man, what of us?

No—the outer mask is steady; the true inner face trembles all the time. Inside there is only trembling. The bravest is fearful within. The so-called wisest, deep down, trembles with ignorance. Outwardly he says, “I know—Brahman is”; inwardly he knows, “I know nothing.” Not even sure that “I am.” Outside he shows authority: “I know.” Inside he knows nothing. Ignorance eats him within. Outside he says, “The soul is immortal.” Inside, death gapes.

Such is our intellect: not firm. But what does firm mean? Again the difficulty of words. What does firmness mean? The people we call firm—do they not tremble within? In fact, the more firmness a person displays outwardly, the more he trembles within. Outward firmness is a safety measure, an arrangement to deny the inner trembling.

Adler worked hard on this. Perhaps in human history his insights in this direction are most precious. Adler says something strange happens: a person organizes the exact opposite outside of what he is inside. The more he suffers from inferiority within, the more he organizes superiority outside.

All politicians suffer from inferiority complexes. They must; otherwise being a politician is difficult. To be a politician requires an inner feeling of being nothing. Only then does one rush to prove: look, I am something. He proves it less to you than to himself—to deny that inner whisper, “I am nothing.” “See, I am something.”

Adler says: the greatest musicians have often had weak ears in childhood. The man of weak hearing becomes a musician. The man of weak eyes becomes a painter.

When Lenin sat on a chair, his feet did not touch the ground. His legs were very short; his upper body large. Yet he sat in the biggest chair. He proved: if your feet reach the ground, no matter; we will make the chair touch the sky. Adler would say: behind Lenin’s ambition was the smallness of his legs—an inferiority that pained him. His legs were so short that even on an ordinary chair they dangled.

Bernard Shaw joked: what difference do short legs make! Whether short or long, when a man stands on the ground, everyone’s feet touch the ground. What difference do leg-lengths make? Stand—everyone’s feet reach the ground.

True enough. But short legs do make a difference: the man reaches for the chair. Until he reaches the chair, his life is tormented—“short legs, short legs.” That very torment takes him on the opposite journey.

Ask Adler what firmness means. His meaning and Krishna’s differ—that I want to clarify. Adler will say: firmness means the man is a weakling within. He is weak inside; therefore he imposes firmness outside. He is filled with straw inside; therefore outside he is Stalin. He is nothing within; therefore outside he tries to become everything. Is Krishna talking about this kind of firmness? If so, it is not worth a penny.

No, he is not. There is another firmness that does not arise from suppressing inner weakness, not by arranging the opposite of the inner state, but by the very dissolution of the trembling inner mind.

There are two kinds of firmness. In one, weakness remains within, and you climb onto its chest to appear firm. In the other, weakness has dispersed, dissolved; and in its absence, what remains within—that is firmness. What shall we call it? Calling it firmness is not right, because the word already names the first kind. Adler is correct there. What can we call that which remains after the disappearance of weakness?

There is one kind of health that appears by suppressing disease. And another kind of health that appears in the absence of disease. But what shall we call the health that appears in the absence of disease? We are familiar only with health gained by suppressing disease. We even call the process “medicine”—that which suppresses. We keep pressing the disease down and call that cure.

But there is another health, which is simply the absence of disease—not suppression, but absence. If you ask medical science, it will say: we do not know any such health that is the absence of disease. We know only health achieved by fighting disease.

So if you go to a physician and say, “I want to be healthy,” he will say: we cannot tell you how. Ask us which disease you have—what to separate, what to remove—and we can help.

To this day, no medical science—Ayurveda, Allopathy, Homeopathy, Unani, any “pathy”—has been able to define health, only disease. Ask: what is health? “We do not know.” Ask: what are diseases? They can answer—TB means this, cancer means that, flu means this. But what is the meaning of health? “We have no idea.”

Superiority built by suppressing inferiority forever trembles upon what lies beneath. Always fearful, always eager to prove itself, always busy justifying itself, always suspicious, always inwardly afraid.

And there is another superiority—without doubt, not eager to prove itself, not striving to certify itself, one that is not even aware of its own being.

Note this well: the firmness you know will be Adler’s firmness. The firmness you do not know will be Krishna’s. How would you know it? Knowing always works by contrast. At school the teacher writes with white chalk on a blackboard. He could write on a white wall, but you would not see it. On black it shows. The blacker the board, the clearer the letters.

The more inferior a man, the more his superiority shows. The greater the man, the more his greatness dissolves like white letters on a white wall—imperceptible. We perceive in contrast, in opposition.

If you sense, “I am healthy,” know some disease is suppressed. If you sense, “I am wise,” know ignorance is suppressed. If you sense, “I am firm-minded,” know there is straw stuffed inside. If there is no sense at all...

Therefore the Upanishads say: he who says, “I know,” know that he does not know. They make an astonishing statement—perhaps the boldest ever on earth: the ignorant wander in darkness; the learned wander in a greater darkness. The ignorant wander in darkness; the learned, in a greater darkness. Which “learned” do they mean? Those who know they have knowledge.

Those who know they are firm—are not firm. The firmness Krishna speaks of is wholly different from Adler’s. Krishna’s psychology is of another order. It does not stand upon the opposite. A house built upon its opposite will one day collapse; it has no reliability. If something is built upon its own enemy, how long can it stand? Leaning on its opposing shoulder, how long can it remain strong? When the foundation stone is its adversary, how long can its spires stand bright under the sun?

Not long. And as long as the spires appear to rise, down in the foundation a perpetual struggle rages—duality, trembling. The stream trembles. This is a house built on sand—no, not even sand, on water. Now it falls, now it falls—you know it inside. Now it falls—you fear it inside. The more fear within, the more firmness displayed outside—to deceive yourself, to deceive others.

But the firmness Krishna speaks of is not deception; it is transformation. When does it flower? Only when the heart goes beyond attachment and aversion; when the intellect drops choosing; when the mind stops trembling among objects; when it leaves the wavering among desires and arrives at desirelessness. Desirelessness does not mean a reverse desire; it means the absence of desire. Then, Arjuna, in such a state of unshaken mind, the treasure of life is attained. Then the mind is firm. Then it stands not on water, but on rock. Then the peak can rise into the sky. Then the flag of life, of existence, can wave on the heights.

Arjuna said:
O Keshava, what is the mark of the one established in wisdom and absorbed in samadhi? How does the man of steady intellect speak, how does he sit, how does he walk? (2.54)

For the first time Arjuna asks from beyond his usual circular personality. For the first time. Until now whatever he asked came from the old Arjuna. For the first time his question tries to touch Krishna. For the first time this sentence brings him near to Krishna. For the first time Arjuna does not ask as Arjuna; he asks from near Krishna. For the first time Krishna seems to have entered Arjuna’s being.

This question is deep. He asks: who is called sthitaprajna—whose wisdom has become steady? Who is he whose lamp of knowing is unwavering? Who is called absorbed in samadhi? What is his language? How does he rise? How does he walk? How does he speak? What is his being? What is his conduct? How shall we recognize him?

He asks two things. First: what is this inner event—wisdom becoming steady, established, still? But that event is very interior. Perhaps only when it happens within oneself can it be known. Perhaps even Krishna cannot describe it. So Arjuna immediately—and here he shows great intelligence, great discrimination—adds a second part to the question. He senses that the first may be “too much,” that perhaps it cannot be answered, the event being too inward to be described from outside.

So in the second part he asks: tell me also—how does one speak whose wisdom is steady? The one who is established in samadhi—how does he speak, how does he move, how does he walk, how does he rise? What is his behavior? In this second part he asks: if we want to know from the outside, what is he like? From within, what is the event? What is that happening called “absorbed in samadhi”? But even if that cannot be said, when such an event happens in someone, what are its outward fruits? What are the effects around it?

This is the first question that must have delighted Krishna. The first to make his heart thrill. All earlier questions rose from a very sick mind. They were for Arjuna’s self-justification—asking for support for what he already wanted. He wanted Krishna to become a consolation for him as he was.

Now this is the first question in which Arjuna leaves the insistence that “I am as I am—console me.” He asks instead: let me know the one you point to, the man you envision. The kind of person toward whom your gestures point—I am eager to know him. Let go of what I have been clutching.

With this question Arjuna’s true inquiry begins. Till now he was not inquiring. He did not place Krishna where from he wished to learn or know. He was using Krishna to justify himself—to rationalize his own ideas.

Understand this well, and later things will be clearer.

Often when we ask questions, they do not arise from inquiry. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, questions are not from inquiry. They are asked just to get confirmation, to attach someone else’s stamp to our own belief.

Buddha once entered a village. A man asked, “Is there a God?” Buddha said, “No. Nowhere. Never was, never will be.” Naturally, the man trembled. “What are you saying? No God?” “Absolutely not,” Buddha said. “I have searched everywhere. I say, there is none.”

At noon another man came and asked, “As far as I think, there is no God. What do you think?” Buddha said, “No God? God alone is. Nothing but God.” The man said, “What are you saying! I came thinking Buddha is an atheist.”

In the evening a third man came and said, “I do not know whether God is or is not. What do you say?” Buddha said, “I will also say nothing.” “No, no—please say something!” “I will say nothing.”

Leave these three aside; Buddha’s disciple Ananda fell into difficulty. He had been present all three times—morning, noon, evening. We can understand his distress. He had never imagined Buddha could be so inconsistent—morning one thing, noon another, evening a third. But only fools can be consistent. Only the witless can be uniform. The wise will be inconsistent, because each answer is given to someone in particular; there is no answer for everyone.

Ananda said, “You have put me in trouble. I will not sleep before you answer me. Which is right of the three? Or is there a fourth which is right?”

Buddha said, “What is it to you? The ones I spoke to have been served. Your question was not asked; there is no answer for you. You did not ask—why did you listen?” Ananda said, “Now you are making fun! I have ears; I am not deaf. I was present; I heard. Tell me: which is it? You gave three answers in one day! What do you intend?”

Buddha said, “I did not give three answers. I gave one answer: I will not confirm you. I will not add my ‘yes’ to yours. That was the single answer all day. In the morning the man wanted me to say ‘yes, God is,’ so that the God he believes in would be supported by me, so that he could be assured—‘Buddha also says this.’ He wanted to use me. He did not come to learn or to know. He already knew—he was schooled. He just wanted my company, one more certificate: ‘What I say, Buddha says too! I am right, because Buddha says the same.’ He was looking for one more device for his ego. He was exploiting even Buddha for his ego.

“The man at noon was an atheist. He too was sure he knew. No inquiry. Those who are sure have no inquiry. And the irony is: those who are sure also inquire—because their certainty stands on very shaky ground. The shaky ground below keeps jostling it: make it firmer, make it firmer.”

Arjuna has been speaking like that—until this question—as if he knows what is right and wrong, what is welfare and ill-being, what will benefit the world, what will not; who will die, who will not. He “knows” everything. He knows nothing; but the ego says, “I know.” In that ego he wanted to secure Krishna’s support, so that tomorrow he could say to the world, “I didn’t flee alone—Krishna said so too. I didn’t abandon the war—ask Krishna!” He wanted to share responsibility.

Remember: the one who wants to share responsibility trembles within. He too is not sure; that is why he seeks support. But he doesn’t want to admit he does not know. He won’t drop the ego that says, “I know.”

All this time Arjuna has spoken as if he knows well—what is dharma, what is adharma; what is good, what is not; what will benefit the world, what will not. He knows everything. He knows nothing; but the ego says, “I know.” And in that ego he wanted to make Krishna a crutch. “You too become the cane of a lame man”—that’s what he wanted.

People like Krishna never become anyone’s crutch. To be a lame man’s crutch is to arrange that he remain lame. People like Krishna take away all crutches. They want to give legs, not canes. So Krishna has taken away even the crutches Arjuna had.

Now, for the first time, Arjuna truly inquires—without asking for support. Now he asks them alone: “Who is established in samadhi, Krishna? Whose wisdom is steady? And when someone’s inner light becomes steady, what is his conduct? When the lamp stands still within, what happens on the outside? Tell me about that.” For the first time, he is humble.

Where there is humility, there is inquiry. Where there is humility, the door to knowing opens. Where one knows one’s ignorance, the journey toward wisdom begins. In this verse, for the first time, it is clear even to Arjuna that Krishna is the knower and he the ignorant. Earlier Arjuna too was a knower—Krishna perhaps number two. He himself was number one till now. It is very hard to put another in the first place.

I have heard: Gandhi went to London for the Round Table Conference. One of his devotees went to meet Bernard Shaw. The devotee asked, “Do you consider Gandhi a Mahatma or not?”

Devotees worry greatly whether others consider their Mahatma a Mahatma. They are unsure within; so they want a stronger guarantee from others. Why go ask Bernard Shaw? The devotee himself must have doubted. He thought, let’s ask Shaw. And he must also have thought: at least as a courtesy Shaw will say yes.

But people like Bernard Shaw do not practice etiquette; they practice truth-etiquette. And that is another matter—it is not show. Shaw said, “Your Gandhi is a Mahatma—absolutely. But number two.” The devotee asked, “Number two? Who is number one?” Shaw said, “I am! I cannot lie. I cannot put anyone above myself. That is my clear realization.”

The devotee was horrified—what an egotist! But Shaw was very honest. Everyone secretly puts himself first. Even he who says, “I am dust at your feet,” keeps himself number one. “Dust at your feet” and such are just manners.

Shaw said, “The truth is: at most I can put your Mahatma at number two. Number one is fixed. Don’t even discuss it. There is no doubt. I am number one.”

He was making a deep satire on the whole human race. Sometimes the satirist says what the very wise cannot.

There is an Arabic saying: whenever God creates a man, before pushing him into the world He whispers a joke in his ear: “A better man than you has never been made.” All men live by that joke. It rings in the ear all life long: “No one better than me!” But it must be kept in the heart, because God told the same to everyone. Say it aloud and there can only be quarrels. So in the mind each person thinks so. He speaks politely to others and holds the truth within: I know the truth.

In all his earlier questions, Krishna knew Arjuna was still number one. Through all this, Krishna has tried to topple his number one place, to help him see the real situation—do not think yourself first in vain. For only that one attains the number one who has no idea of being number one. He becomes it. The one who knows it never becomes it. For the first time Arjuna is humble. Now his humble inquiry begins. Now he asks, “Tell me, Krishna!” And in this asking there is great humility.