Geeta Darshan #4

I call spirituality an experience that cannot be expressed. Hints can be given, but hints are not expressions. You can point to the moon with a finger, but the finger is not the moon.

When I said the Gita is psychology, I did not mean psychology in the sense of Freud. Freud’s psychology ends with the mind; it offers no hint beyond the mind. For him the mind is the terminus; beyond it there is no existence. The Gita is a psychology that points beyond. But a pointing is not the state beyond.

The Gita is psychology, yet from that psychology there are indications toward the soul, toward spirituality, toward the ultimate existence. But it is not spirituality. It is a milestone; an arrow-mark; an indication toward the destination. But a milestone is a milestone—it is not the destination.

No scripture is spirituality. Yes, there are scriptures that point toward spirituality. But all such pointers are psychological. Pointers are not spirituality. Spirituality is that which becomes available upon finding what the pointer indicates. And as such, spirituality cannot be expressed—not even partially. Not even its reflection is possible. There are reasons; briefly, two or three must be kept in mind.

First: when the spiritual is experienced, no thought is present in the consciousness. And an experience in which thought is absent—how can thought reveal it? Thought can express only that experience in which it was present, a witness. But of an experience in which it was not present at all, thought cannot give any report. The spiritual experience is a thought-free experience. Thought is not there; therefore thought brings back no news.

Hence the Upanishads keep saying, neti, neti—“not this, not that.” Ask, What is it then? They say, It is neither this nor that. Whatever man can say, it is none of that. Then what is that experience which remains outside all that can be said?

Buddha flatly forbade eleven questions: do not ask them. Because if you ask, there is danger. If I do not answer, I will seem hard toward you; and if I do answer, it will be unjust to truth—because these questions cannot be answered. So do not ask; do not put me in difficulty. Wherever Buddha went, word was sent ahead that those eleven questions must not be asked. Those eleven are questions of the spiritual.

When people pressed Lao Tzu to write down his experience, he said, Do not put me in difficulty. For whatever I write will not be my experience; and what my experience is—what I would want to write—there is no way to write it. Even so, under the pressure and insistence of friends and loved ones—people would not relent—he wrote his book. But right at the beginning he wrote: What can be said is not the Truth. And Truth is precisely that which cannot be said. Read my book with this condition in mind.

Whoever in the world has had a spiritual experience has also known that it is not expressible. It cannot be expressed. The mystics have continually called it the mute man’s jaggery. It is not that the mute does not know the taste of jaggery—he knows it perfectly. But he cannot say what that taste is. You may think you can say it—then you are mistaken. You too have never been able to say the taste of jaggery. Not only the mute fails to say it; the speaking too have not been able to say it. And if I insist, Explain—what is the taste like? At most you can place jaggery in my hand and say, Taste it. Beyond that there is no way. But jaggery can at least be put in the hand to taste; spirituality cannot even be put in the hand and told, Taste it.

No scripture in the world is spiritual. Yes, there are scriptures whose pointers are toward spirituality. The Gita is one of them. But those pointers are within the mind. They show beyond the mind, yet they are within the mind. And their discipline is psychology; their base is psychology. The highest height of scripture is the mind. The highest possibility of the word is the mind. The last limit of expression is the mind. As far as the mind extends, things can be made manifest. Where the mind is not, all remains unmanifest.

So when I called the Gita psychology, I did not mean a psychology like Watson’s—some behaviorism, or Pavlov’s conditioned reflexes. All these psychologies are closed within themselves and are unwilling to accept any reality beyond the mind. Some are not even willing to accept the mind’s own reality; they say the mind is only a part of the body—the brain. The mind is nothing else. This bone-flesh-muscle—its developed part—that is all the mind is; it is not something separate from the body.

The Gita is not that kind of psychology. The Gita is a psychology that points beyond the mind. But it is psychology all the same. I would not call it a spiritual scripture. And not because there exists some other spiritual scripture—there is none. Nowhere is there a scripture of spirituality. The very proclamation of spirituality is this: It is not possible for me to be housed in scripture; I will not fit into words; I cannot be bound within any boundary of intellect. That experience which transcends all limits, renders all words futile, and makes all expressions null and void—that experience is what I call spirituality.

First, what Manu says is only social policy, social ethics. What Manu says is merely social thinking, a social code. Manu’s word is not spirituality. Manu’s word is not even of the mind—not even psychology. It is an arrangement of social conduct. So if you want to link Manu, you will have to link him with Marx, with Durkheim—people of that kind. Manu is not dealing with very deep questions.

Manu is a social administrator. And no social arrangement is ultimate. All social arrangements are temporal. Anyone who thinks even a little will find his thought constantly moving beyond social arrangements, because social arrangements are made with the last person, the lowest common denominator, in mind.

It’s like saying the competent teacher is the one who speaks keeping the last student in the class in mind. Certainly, the competent teacher is the one who considers the last student. But then for the first, the brightest student, the teacher becomes useless.

In a social order the last person is kept in view and rigid rules are established. Arjuna is not an ordinary person, not a mediocre mind; Arjuna is reflective, brilliant—extraordinarily gifted. For him, life becomes an inquiry.

Now, Manu says that in killing an aggressor there is no harm. For a thoughtful person, the matter is not that simple. Who is an aggressor? And even if someone is an aggressor, is it right to kill him or not? Then, what if the aggressor is one’s own? Manu has not considered that. In Manu it is taken for granted that the aggressor is the enemy. Here, the aggressors are one’s own. And it is not one person—there are thousands—and with those thousands there are a thousand kinds of intimate relations.

That is why Arjuna’s situation is very different. It is not the simple case of an aggressor, an attacker, and the one being attacked. This is precisely what Arjuna is pondering, and what he is saying: Even if by killing all these we gain the kingdom, is the bargain right? He is asking exactly this. To gain the kingdom by killing all these—does that bargain make sense? Does taking the throne at so great a cost have any meaning?

Arjuna’s inner state is thinking far above Manu’s rules.

In fact, rules are always dead. Rigid rules are makeshift devices and become meaningless in exceptional crises. And Arjuna’s crisis is very exceptional. Its distinctiveness is threefold. First, it is very difficult to ascertain who is the aggressor.

It is always difficult. From hindsight it seems easy to decide who the aggressor was. If the Kauravas had won, you would see who the aggressor was—because then the story would have been written differently, by different storytellers. And storytellers gather around the victor; they don’t gather around the defeated.

In the Second World War Hitler lost, so now we know who was bad. But if Hitler had won and Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin had lost, we would have been absolutely certain that the bad was someone else. What we think after the fact, when circumstances have passed and lines have been drawn, is not so settled in the heat of the situation. Generally, it is the history of the victors that gets written. History tends to crystallize around those who win.

So today we “know” the Kauravas were aggressors. But at the exact moment of war, who is the aggressor, who has done wrong—this is never as clear as two plus two equals four. Never.

China keeps saying India attacked first; India keeps saying China attacked first. It will never be conclusively established who attacked. To this day it is never settled who the aggressor is. Yes, the one who wins writes history; the one who loses is branded the aggressor. The defeated cannot write history.

Is losing proof of being the aggressor? It is always easier to decide later, because then the lines are drawn. But right in the midst of circumstances, it is not so easy.

Mistakes always happen on both sides; the quantities may differ, but it is never one-sided. It is not that the Kauravas alone are responsible for all the sin and the Pandavas not at all. Not so. The differences are of degree. It may be that the Kauravas are more responsible—but even that is something decided from a distance, with perspective, later on.

In the dense moment of battle, Arjuna’s mind is deeply troubled. Nothing is clear—what is happening, and to what extent it is right. And even if it is settled that they are the aggressors, on that side stand so many dear ones. Duryodhana may be an aggressor—but Drona? Drona is not an aggressor. Duryodhana may be an aggressor—but Bhishma? Bhishma is not an aggressor; in his lap all these children grew up. The enemy is not one; it is a large throng. Within that throng it is hard to decide. That is the cause of his anxiety.

The rules Manu frames are very simple and useful in ordinary circumstances. But in this special situation, Manu will not do. He could have, but only if Arjuna wanted to evade the situation: he could have invoked Manu, “All right, Manu says kill the aggressor—so let’s kill.” But that would not be a very thoughtful step. And one thing is certain: it wouldn’t be thoughtful also because then you wouldn’t have the Gita. The Gita became available because of Arjuna’s churning, reflection, inquiry, and questioning. If he had simply accepted things outright, fine—there would have been a war, someone would have won, someone would have lost. In war, someone wins and someone loses. A story gets told.

The Mahabharata has not proved as important as the Gita has. The Mahabharata happened and was over. The Gita is hard to bring to an end. The Mahabharata remains an event that time carries away into forgetfulness. In fact, the truth is that the Mahabharata is remembered because the Gita happened within it; otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth remembering.

There have been thousands of wars. In three thousand years man has fought fourteen thousand wars. Wars become small footnotes in history. But the Gita became an event greater than the war itself. Today, if the Mahabharata is remembered, it is because of the Gita; the Gita is not remembered because of the Mahabharata.

And so I want to say to you: in this world, it is not events that have value; it is contemplations. Events occur and turn to ash; thought sets out on an eternal journey. Events die; if in the midst of events some soulful insight is born, it sets out toward the infinite.

The Mahabharata is not important. Even if it had not happened, what difference would it make? But if the Gita had not happened, it would make a great difference. The Mahabharata is a small event—and as time goes on, it will become smaller: a quarrel among cousins. It happened, it ended. Their affair, over. But the Gita has been growing more important day by day. It could become so important because Arjuna did not possess the simple-mindedness to accept Manu. Arjuna had a genius that asks, that raises questions in crisis.

Usually it is very hard to raise questions in a crisis. Sitting at home, reading the Gita, and raising questions is very easy. To raise questions in Arjuna’s situation is fraught with risk. That situation is not one for philosophizing, not one of a guru and disciple sitting under a tree reflecting. War stands at the door; conches have sounded; and at that moment, tremors pass through this courageous man’s heart. He displays his trembling in the midst of the battlefield and still thinks and reflects there. Whoever can think in such crisis is not ordinary. Manu will not suffice; he needs someone like Krishna. Had Manu been there, he would have said, “Read my Manusmriti; it is written there, ‘Kill the aggressor.’ Duty is clear.”

Duty has always been clear only to the uncomprehending; it has never been clear to the wise. The wise are always in doubt. Because the wise think so much—and often on both sides—that they get into difficulty: what is right and what is wrong? The clarity of right and wrong that the ignorant possess, the thoughtful do not.

For the ignorant everything is clear: this is wrong, that is right; this is a Hindu, that a Muslim; this is one of us, that an outsider. The more contemplation advances, the more doubt arises: Who is one of us, who is other? What is right, what is wrong? Whatever of value has been born in this world has been born to those who have borne the labor pains of such contemplation. Arjuna suffered in that hour; from his suffering the Gita was resonated.

No, Manu will not suffice. Rules so rigid are like traffic rules on the road: walk on the left. Quite right. No problem even if reversed: walk on the right. In America they walk on the right—the sign says “Keep Right,” so people keep right. Left or right—once decided, it works.

But these are not ultimate foundations of life. If someone asks, “What’s so special about the left? Why not the right?” no one can really explain. It is merely conventional. And if a very thoughtful person asks, “What is left, what is right?” confusion will arise. These are makeshift.

Manu’s arrangement is extremely makeshift. Arjuna’s questions rise above such makeshift arrangements. His questions are ultimate. He asks: Suppose I gain the kingdom after killing so many—my own—what then is the meaning? What is the purpose? Granted I win—what then? Granted they are aggressors, we will cut them down, revenge will be taken—then what? What is the meaning of revenge? How many unarmed will die; how many innocents, who have nothing to do with this, who are dragged into war because they are connected somehow—what about them?

No, his questions are more precious; Manu will not suffice.

तस्मान्नार्हा वयं हन्तुं धार्तराष्ट्रान्स्वबान्धवान्‌।
स्वजनं हि कथं हत्वा सुखिनः स्याम माधव।। 37।।

यद्यप्येते न पश्यन्ति लोभोपहतचेतसः।
कुलक्षयकृतं दोषं मित्रद्रोहे च पातकम्‌।। 38।।

Therefore, we do not wish to kill our own kinsmen, the sons of Dhritarashtra. O Madhava, how can we be happy by killing our own people? Even though these men, with minds clouded by greed, do not see the fault in destroying a family and the sin in betraying friends—

कथं न ज्ञेयमस्माभिः पापादस्मान्निवर्तितुम्‌।
कुलक्षयकृतं दोषं प्रपश्यद्भिर्जनार्दन।। 39।।

कुलक्षये प्रणश्यन्ति कुलधर्माः सनातनाः।
धर्मे नष्टे कृत्स्नमधर्मोऽभिभवत्युत।। 40।।

—O Janardana, why should we not think to desist from this sin, we who understand the evil that comes from destroying a family? For when a family is destroyed, its eternal dharmas perish; when dharma is lost, the entire family is overpowered by adharma.

Arjuna is saying: They are thoughtless—if we too act thoughtlessly, how can good come of it? Granted they are in the wrong; but if, in response to a wrong, we also do wrong, will that be right? Does answering one wrong with another give birth to right? He is asking: They err—if we also err, do two errors cancel out or double up? Granted their minds are bewildered, granted their intelligence is destroyed—should we also destroy our intelligence? And whatever we gain, is it worthy of such a price? Is it so beneficial? Is it of such value?

Remember, two currents run in Arjuna’s mind. On one side he is asking, “Is there any value in this?” Two possibilities: perhaps there is value, and Krishna may show it; then he can rationalize fighting. Perhaps Krishna may explain that there is value, gain, welfare; perhaps Krishna may say that evil will be cut by evil and what remains will be auspicious—then he can ready himself for battle. Man seeks intellectual reasons to ready himself.

Arjuna holds both possibilities. The way he presents the question is this: either give me sanction to leave—let me escape—or, if I am to enter the war, make the purpose clear. He wants to clear his mind. If he enters battle, let it be with certainty that what is happening is auspicious. Or else, let him leave the battle. These two options appear to him; he seems ready for either.

Understand this a little. Man has always thought himself rational and intelligent. Aristotle even called man a rational animal. But as our understanding of man has grown, we have come to see that his rationality is mostly employed to prove his irrationalities rational. Man’s reason toils to justify what in him is utterly irrational.

If he must go to war, he first wants to prove that war will bring good and welfare—then he will go. If he wants to cut someone’s head off, he will first prove that this act is for the victim’s own good—then he can cut easily. If he wants to set a fire, he will decide that by setting this fire dharma will be protected—then he will be ready to light it. Man has constantly tried to justify his most irrational impulses with the language of reason.

No, his questions are more precious; Manu will not suffice.

तस्मान्नार्हा वयं हन्तुं धार्तराष्ट्रान्स्वबान्धवान्‌।
स्वजनं हि कथं हत्वा सुखिनः स्याम माधव।। 37।।

यद्यप्येते न पश्यन्ति लोभोपहतचेतसः।
कुलक्षयकृतं दोषं मित्रद्रोहे च पातकम्‌।। 38।।

Therefore, we do not wish to kill our own kinsmen, the sons of Dhritarashtra. O Madhava, how can we be happy by killing our own people? Even though these men, with minds clouded by greed, do not see the fault in destroying a family and the sin in betraying friends—

कथं न ज्ञेयमस्माभिः पापादस्मान्निवर्तितुम्‌।
कुलक्षयकृतं दोषं प्रपश्यद्भिर्जनार्दन।। 39।।

कुलक्षये प्रणश्यन्ति कुलधर्माः सनातनाः।
धर्मे नष्टे कृत्स्नमधर्मोऽभिभवत्युत।। 40।।

—O Janardana, why should we not think to desist from this sin, we who understand the evil that comes from destroying a family? For when a family is destroyed, its eternal dharmas perish; when dharma is lost, the entire family is overpowered by adharma.

Arjuna is saying: They are thoughtless—if we too act thoughtlessly, how can good come of it? Granted they are in the wrong; but if, in response to a wrong, we also do wrong, will that be right? Does answering one wrong with another give birth to right? He is asking: They err—if we also err, do two errors cancel out or double up? Granted their minds are bewildered, granted their intelligence is destroyed—should we also destroy our intelligence? And whatever we gain, is it worthy of such a price? Is it so beneficial? Is it of such value?

Remember, two currents run in Arjuna’s mind. On one side he is asking, “Is there any value in this?” Two possibilities: perhaps there is value, and Krishna may show it; then he can rationalize fighting. Perhaps Krishna may explain that there is value, gain, welfare; perhaps Krishna may say that evil will be cut by evil and what remains will be auspicious—then he can ready himself for battle. Man seeks intellectual reasons to ready himself.

Arjuna holds both possibilities. The way he presents the question is this: either give me sanction to leave—let me escape—or, if I am to enter the war, make the purpose clear. He wants to clear his mind. If he enters battle, let it be with certainty that what is happening is auspicious. Or else, let him leave the battle. These two options appear to him; he seems ready for either.

Understand this a little. Man has always thought himself rational and intelligent. Aristotle even called man a rational animal. But as our understanding of man has grown, we have come to see that his rationality is mostly employed to prove his irrationalities rational. Man’s reason toils to justify what in him is utterly irrational.

If he must go to war, he first wants to prove that war will bring good and welfare—then he will go. If he wants to cut someone’s head off, he will first prove that this act is for the victim’s own good—then he can cut easily. If he wants to set a fire, he will decide that by setting this fire dharma will be protected—then he will be ready to light it. Man has constantly tried to justify his most irrational impulses with the language of reason.

Arjuna too is in such a state. Within him is a readiness to fight—otherwise there was no need to come to the battlefield at all. In his mind there is a pull toward war; he wants the kingdom. He wants to repay what was done to him. That is why he has come to the very brink of war. But he is not as prepared as Duryodhana is, or as Bhima is. He is not whole. His mind is divided, split, torn. Somewhere within, it feels wrong, futile; and somewhere, it feels it must be done—for the sake of prestige, ego, family—thousands of reasons. Both voices move within him. His mind is double-bound.

And remember, a thoughtful person always has a double mind. The thoughtless do not. The no-mind also has no double mind—but the thoughtful do. A thoughtful person is one who is constantly in inner dialogue and discussion, arguing within himself—dividing himself into two and asking and answering: What is right? What is not? A thoughtful person is engaged in inner debate twenty-four hours a day.

That debate must have gone on within Arjuna. He had reasoned himself to the battlefield: “No, to fight is proper.” But he did not know the whole situation.

In the last world war, the man who dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima had no idea what would happen. He only knew he had to press a button and the bomb would fall. He did not even know that one hundred thousand people would die. He knew nothing; there was only an order he had to carry out—fly over Hiroshima, press a button, and return.

As the whole world came to know, so did he: a hundred thousand died. Then his sleep was ruined. Day and night he saw the dead. His life began to tremble; his hands and feet shook. He started attacking himself—one day cut a vein, another day struck his head with a hammer. He had to be kept in an asylum, chained; he began to attack others too. Sleep left him completely. He was seized by one overwhelming guilt: “I have killed a hundred thousand people.” But he had no idea at the time.

Our war machinery today is inhuman. Even the one who kills does not see that he is pressing a button for a hundred thousand deaths. In the Mahabharata, the situation was different—everything was face-to-face, human. Arjuna, standing in his chariot, could see the consequences: “That friend will die; he has small children at home.”

Remember, modern war has become inhuman. That is a great danger, because even the fighter does not clearly see what will happen. Everything occurs in the dark. And those who decide it have figures, not people—statistics, not living beings: “One hundred thousand will die.” Hearing “one hundred thousand” tells you nothing. Line up one hundred thousand before you; stand on a platform and see: they will die. Then you also see one hundred thousand wives, hundreds of thousands of children, their aged parents, their responsibilities. If the man who dropped the bomb had faced those one hundred thousand, I think he would have said, “I would rather die than obey this order.” A question would have risen within him too: “To kill these—for a job?”

A question arose in Arjuna; the whole picture stood before him. He began to see the widows sobbing, the orphans crying. So many dear ones would be among them—their wives would be widowed, their children writhe in grief. The field would be filled with corpses. So clearly did he see that all the reasoning with which he had brought himself to fight was shaken. His other mind began to speak: “What are you about to do? This is sin—the greatest sin. And for what? For a kingdom? For wealth? For a little pleasure? You are ready to kill them all?”

Surely, he must have been a thoughtful man. His mind began to refuse. But in that refusal, another mind sat inside, speaking too: “If only a rationalization could be found, if only it could be made clear that there is no harm—that it is proper, justified—then he could gather and unite himself and enter the war.”

When Arjuna asks Krishna, even he does not know what answer he will receive. With a man like Krishna, answers are not predictable; they are not readymade. With Krishna there is no certainty what he will say. But with Arjuna it is clear what he wants: either it be established that this war is proper, righteous, beneficial, conducive to the highest good—that in this world and the next it will bring happiness—and then he will leap into war; or it be established that it cannot be so—and he will leave the war. Two options stand before him, and between them his mind wavers; between them his mind is divided. He wants to fight—if his mind did not want to fight at all, there would have been no need to ask Krishna anything.

I was in a village recently. A young man came to me and asked, “I want to take sannyas. What is your advice?” I said, “As long as you need my advice, don’t take sannyas. Sannyas is not something to be taken on my advice. The day you feel that even if the whole world says, ‘Don’t take sannyas,’ you must—only then take it. Only then will the fragrance of joy blossom in the flower of sannyas.”

Arjuna would not ask for advice if he had one clear mind that fighting is wrong—he would have left. He would have told Krishna, “Control the chariot, take the horses wherever you like—do what you will; I’m going.” And if Krishna offered advice, he would have said, “Unasked advice has never been heeded in this world. Keep your counsel to yourself.”

But he is asking for advice. That very asking shows his divided mind. He still trusts that with some advice he can wage war; that trust is within him—hence he asks Krishna. If it were fixed that fighting is right, there would be no need for advice; everything was ready for war.

Arjuna is wavering, divided; that is why he raises all these questions. His questions are important. And anyone who thinks a little finds such questions arising daily—when the mind gets split, and two contrary answers arrive with equal force, and all decisiveness is lost. Arjuna is in a state of doubt; decisiveness has gone.

Whenever you ask for advice, it is always a sign that confidence in yourself is lost—self-confidence has gone. You no longer expect an answer from within, because within you two answers arise with equal emphasis, equal strength. It is hard to decide between them: sometimes one seems right, sometimes the other. That is when one goes to seek advice. When anyone goes to seek advice, know that he is so divided within that he can no longer find the answer inside. This is his condition. He is describing precisely that condition.

Such a long discussion with Krishna naturally raises a question. Certainly the question arises: on the battlefield, where warriors are ready to fight and grapple, these eighteen chapters, such a long book—if Krishna spoke exactly as Gita-devotees recite—would still take a lot of time. Even if he spoke without pause, without looking at Arjuna, with eyes closed—still, it would take quite a while. How could it have been possible?

Two points here. This question has echoed endlessly. So some people have said the Gita is an interpolation in the Mahabharata, inserted later; it couldn’t have happened there. Others have said that only a brief exchange took place and the poet later expanded it.

Neither seems right to me. For me, the Gita happened—and it happened just as it appears before us. But we need to understand the manner of its happening. If this whole dialogue occurred face to face, as you and I are speaking now, then Krishna and Arjuna would not have remained the only participants. There were many people, crowds all around. Others would have gotten involved. Others would have raised questions. Yet everyone else stands utterly silent: warriors on this side and that, and the two talk on for hours, and no one says even this much—“This is not the time for discussion, it’s time for war; the conches have sounded; this should not be going on!”

No—no one spoke up. As I see it, this conversation is telepathic; it did not occur directly, face to face. One needs to understand a little about telepathy, otherwise it won’t come to mind. Let me try with two or three examples.

There was a mystic in Greece in recent times, George Gurdjieff. He took a very great Russian mathematician, Ouspensky, along with thirty disciples, and went to stay for three months in a small village near Tiflis (Tbilisi). He confined the thirty in a large house—confined, because no one was permitted to go out. And he told them that for three months none of them was to utter even a single word. Not only no words—no gestures, no signals with the eyes, no movement of the hands. He said, “Each of you who live in this house for three months must live as if you are utterly alone, as if no one else exists. Do not recognize another person—not with your eyes, not with gestures. If someone passes by, do not even look.” And Gurdjieff said, “If I catch anyone even making the slightest sign, even tacitly acknowledging another—if someone was passing and you adjusted yourself to slip by—I will put you out. Because you accepted that another is here; that is already conversation; your slipping by is already a signal.”

Within fifteen days twenty-seven were expelled.

It was very difficult. Where thirty people are present—ten or twelve in one room—to forget completely that the others exist and begin living alone is hard. Not as hard as we think, because three did remain; three is not a trivial number. Not as hard, because a man in the forest can sit with eyes closed and be in a crowd; then why can’t one sit in a crowd and be alone! All the processes of the mind are reversible. Every process of the mind can be inverted. If a man can sit in a forest and converse with his wife, then sitting next to his wife he can be utterly alone. There is no barrier in this.

Three remained; among them was the mathematician Ouspensky. He himself was a scientific thinker. And in the last hundred years perhaps the most profound book on mathematics he wrote: Tertium Organum. They say that three great books have been written in Europe: Aristotle’s Organon, then Bacon’s Novum Organum, and then Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum. He was a profound scientific thinker; he was one of the three who remained.

Three months passed. For three months he lived there as if alone. Those in the rooms were forgotten; the outer world too was forgotten. And the one who forgets others also forgets himself—remember that. If you want to remember yourself, it is necessary to remember the other. Because I and thou are two ends of the same stick. If one end goes, the other immediately goes. Either both remain, or both disappear. If someone says, “I will keep the I and forget the thou,” that is impossible. Because the I is the knock of the thou, the response to the thou. If the thou is forgotten, the I falls apart. If the I is forgotten, the thou departs. They persist together, otherwise they do not. They are two faces of the same coin.

Others were forgotten—that was fine—but Ouspensky also forgot himself. Only existence remained. After three months, Gurdjieff is sitting in front and Ouspensky is sitting before him. Suddenly Ouspensky hears someone calling, “Ouspensky, listen!” Startled, he looks around—who is it? But no one is speaking. Gurdjieff sits silently before him. He looked intently at Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff began to laugh. Then a voice arose within: “Don’t you recognize my voice? I am Gurdjieff speaking.” The lips before him are closed; the man is sitting in silence. Ouspensky was astonished. He said, “What am I experiencing?” For the first time in three months he spoke.

Gurdjieff said, “Now you have come to the place of silence where conversation is possible without words. Now I can speak to you directly; words are no longer needed.”

Recently, a Russian scientist, Fayadov, has succeeded in an experiment sending messages a thousand miles without any medium. You can do it too; it’s not very difficult. Try a little experiment at home sometime. Choose a small child. Darken the room; seat the child in the other corner; you sit in one corner. Tell the child, “Close your eyes and keep your attention toward me. Try to hear whether I am saying something.” And keep repeating a single word inside yourself: rose, rose, rose. Don’t speak; repeat it inwardly. Within an hour or half an hour the child will begin to say, “You are saying ‘rose.’” And you only speak within; do not speak outwardly.

The reverse is also possible, but it will take a little longer. If the child sits there and thinks a word in his mind and you want to catch it, it may take two or three days. A child catches quickly. The human being, in what we call life, does little except get spoiled. Old people are nothing but spoiled children. But a child will begin to catch in half an hour or an hour. Repeat only one word; and if one can be caught, with practice whole sentences can be caught.

With Krishna and Arjuna, keep in mind this: this dialogue was not an outer discussion; it was deep, utterly inner. Therefore those standing around on the battlefield were not witnesses. And so it may also be that the one who wrote the Mahabharata did not first insert the Gita; that is possible. It is possible that the historian who wrote it did not add it then; but Sanjaya could hear it. Because one who can see at such a distance can also hear. In fact, it was through Sanjaya that the world first heard the Gita, not directly from Krishna. Arjuna heard it first; that hearing was very inner. There was no outer evidence of that hearing.

A second point: this is telepathic communication. The Gita is an inner dialogue in which words were not used on the surface. It is said about Mahavira that he never spoke. And the words that are attributed to him—he did not utter them. People would stand near him; Mahavira would speak to them—not outwardly, for thousands would come and they would not hear anything—then that person would proclaim aloud, “Mahavira says so.”

Therefore Mahavira’s speech is called shunya vani, wordless speech. He never spoke directly. He spoke inwardly to someone, and someone then expressed it outwardly—almost as I speak into this microphone and you hear. A man, too, can be used like a microphone.

What transpired between Krishna and Arjuna would have been lost had Sanjaya not heard it. Many such things have happened many times and have been lost. Much of Mahavira’s utterance is not available.

One day Buddha gathered all his monks. Holding a lotus flower in his hand he came, then sat, and kept looking at the lotus—just looking. People grew puzzled; after a while restlessness began; someone coughed; someone changed posture—because a long time passed. Why is he sitting silent? “Speak, speak, speak!” Finally, as half an hour was passing, the restlessness became intense. Someone stood and said, “What are you doing? We have come to hear you; you are not speaking!” Buddha said, “I am speaking; listen, listen.” But people said, “You are not saying anything; what shall we hear?”

Just then a monk named Mahakashyapa began to laugh. Buddha called him over and handed him the flower. And he said, “Listen, what could be said with words I have said to you; and what cannot be said with words, what can only be spoken within, I have said to Mahakashyapa. If you want to ask, ask Mahakashyapa.”

“What did Buddha say to Mahakashyapa?”—Buddha’s monks still ask one another to this day. Because whenever anyone asked Mahakashyapa, he would laugh and say, “When Buddha himself could not say, why should I get into this trouble? If it were to be said, Buddha would have told you. And since he did not err, I am not going to.”

Then Mahakashyapa said it silently to someone; that person too did not say it to anyone—and thus the lineage continued through six people. The sixth was Bodhidharma; he was the first to speak it aloud. In the meantime about nine hundred years had passed. Bodhidharma first spoke what Buddha had said to Mahakashyapa. And why did he speak? Because when Bodhidharma reached China and said, “Now I will say what Buddha said to Mahakashyapa,” people said, “Until now no one has said it; why do you?” He replied, “Because there is no one left who can receive it in silence. So I am compelled—and I am near death. That which Buddha told Mahakashyapa will be lost. Now, however imperfectly I can, I will say it.”

This is one event. So, first: the Gita happened as a silent dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. Second: the time-scale of silent dialogue is different. This too must be understood; otherwise you will say, “Even in silent dialogue it would take at least an hour, an hour and a half, two hours. What difference does it make whether I speak outwardly or inwardly; time will be needed!” Then you’ll have to understand the scale of time, the schedule of time.

Sometimes you doze in your chair and have a dream. In the dream you see you are married, have set up a home, got a job, bought a house, children were born, they grew up, the shehnai is playing, your son is getting married—then your officer nudges you awake. You look at your watch and find the nap lasted scarcely a minute. It’s baffling: how did such a long drama happen in one minute? Half a lifetime is spent in so much! Thirty or forty years—it all happened in a minute? Yet it did.

In fact, dream-time is different. Its scale is different. The conception of time in dreams is entirely different. That is why in one minute of dreaming one can see the dreams of a whole lifetime.

People often say that when someone drowns in a river, in the final submergence he sees his whole life again. He can; there is no great difficulty in it. The time of dreams is different; waking time is different. But even in waking, the scale of time is not uniform for twenty-four hours; it keeps changing; it flickers.

When you are in suffering, time becomes long; when you are in joy, it becomes short. A loved one sits near you; an hour passes and it feels as if he just came, it’s only been a moment. Let an enemy sit down, and even a moment feels endless—“When will he go! Life is passing.” On the clock the time is the same, but your mind’s time-scale is constantly dilating and contracting.

Sit by the bed of a dying person through the night, and it seems eternity—endless; the night does not end. “When will it end!” But let a man dance with his beloved, and the night runs away so fast—tonight the night is an enemy and hurries; swiftly it goes and morning arrives. It feels as if there was no time between evening and dawn; evening came and morning arrived—the in-between fell away.

In joy, time becomes short—not merely seems short; it becomes short. In pain, time becomes long. Even in the day, while awake, time keeps changing. And if one has ever experienced a moment of bliss, time disappears.

Someone asked Jesus, “What will be the special thing about the kingdom of your God?” Jesus said, “There shall be time no longer—time will be no more.” That will be the special thing. They said, “We don’t understand—if time is not, how will everything function?”

In a moment of bliss there is no time. If ever even a single moment of meditation has descended within you, if ever a single moment of joy has danced you—at that time there is no time; time is gone. On this all the awakened ones agree—Mahavira, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Mohammed, whosoever—that the moment of self-knowing, of bliss, of the Brahman, is a timeless moment; it is time-free, beyond time.

So the time of telepathy has a different scale. In a single instant what takes ninety minutes to write can happen. What you saw in a moment’s dream, if you write it down, it will take you an hour and a half. You will say, “Strange! I saw it in a moment, but writing it takes so long. What is the reason?”

A third point, to bring it into view. The reason is: when an event happens within you, it happens simultaneously, all at once—yugapat. As I look at you all, I see you all together in a single instant. But if I begin to count you, I will count one by one; then it becomes linear—I will have to count along a line—and it will take hours. When I saw you, I saw all—together, at once. But when I count and write your names in a register, many hours will pass.

When you see a dream, it happens simultaneously. When you write it on paper, you write in sequence; it is no longer simultaneous. You have to write event by event. Then it becomes long; it takes more time.

When the Gita was written, or when Sanjaya spoke to Dhritarashtra—“Such and such is happening between Krishna and Arjuna”—then it took as much time as it will take you now to read it. But how much time passed between Krishna and Arjuna will be hard to conceive until you have a little taste of telepathy.

By our reckoning, time has no value there. It may well be that no warrior even realized what had transpired between Krishna and Arjuna—it happened in a single instant. The chariot stopped; Arjuna collapsed and sat down; and in a single instant all that happened which is recorded.

One little story, then we’ll take the next verse.

I have heard a story from the life of Narada. “The world is maya, the world is maya”—he had heard this from great knowers. Then he asked God himself, “I don’t understand; that which is, how can it be maya? What is, is! How can it be illusory? What does it mean for it to be maya?” It was a scorching noon; the sun blazed in the sky. God said, “I am very thirsty—later I will explain—bring a little water.”

Narada went to fetch water. He entered a village. It was noon; people were sleeping in their homes. He knocked at a door. A young woman came out. Narada forgot God—anyone would. He whom you can remember always—what hurry is there to remember him! He forgot. And forgetting God, what question remains of his thirst! Why he had come slipped his mind. He looked at the girl—he was enchanted. He proposed marriage. Her father was out. The girl said, “Let father return; till then, please rest.”

He rested. The father came. He agreed. The marriage took place. Then the story moved on. Children came—four, six—time passed. The father-in-law died too. Narada grew old; his wife too. A line of children and grandchildren. The rains came; the flood rose. The village drowned. He was trying to save his wife and children and cross somehow. He is old; he lacks strength. He is in great difficulty. When he saves his wife, the children get swept away; when he saves the children, the wife is carried off. The flood is fierce; in trying to save all, all are lost. Alone, exhausted, Narada reaches the bank. His eyes are closed, tears flowing. And someone asks, “Get up; you have taken so long; the sun is about to set and we sit here thirsty. You haven’t brought the water yet?”

Narada opened his eyes: God was standing there. He said, “Oh! I had completely forgotten. But so much has happened in the meantime. You say only the sun is setting?” God said, “Only the sun is setting.” He looked around—there was no sign of flood. He asked, “Children—wife?” God said, “What children, what wife? Don’t you see dreams?” God said, “You asked how what-is can be maya. What-is is not maya. But when what-is is seen through the medium of time, it all becomes maya. And when what-is is seen by transcending time, it all becomes truth. The world, seen through the medium of time, is truth. Truth, seen through a time-free medium, is the world.”

This incident is inner and outside the circumference of time.

अधर्माभिभवात्कृष्ण प्रदुष्यन्ति कुलस्त्रियः।
स्त्रीषु दुष्टासु वार्ष्णेय जायते वर्णसंकरः।। 41।।

संकरो नरकायैव कुलघ्नानां कुलस्य च।
पतन्ति पितरो ह्येषां लुप्तपिण्डोदकक्रियाः।। 42।।

O Krishna, with the growth of unrighteousness the women of the family become corrupted. When the women of the family are corrupted, O Vrishni, mixture of varnas arises—i.e., the classes intermix and narrowness ensues. Such mixed progeny leads both the destroyers of the family and the family itself to hell; even their ancestors, deprived of libations and offerings, fall from heaven.

दोषैरेतैः कुलघ्नानां वर्णसंकरकारकैः।
उत्साद्यन्ते जातिधर्माः कुलधर्माश्च शाश્વताः।। 43।।

उत्सन्नकुलधर्माणां मनुष्याणां जनार्दन।
नरकेऽनियतं वासो भवतीत्यनुशुश्रुम।। 44।।

By these faults of the family-destroyers, the creators of mixed castes, the eternal duties of caste and family are ruined. O Janardana, for men whose family-dharma is destroyed, we have heard that their stay in hell is without limit.

Arjuna is probing, from many angles, all the evils that might come from war. In his mind many future harms appear: not only now but later—what will happen to progeny, how the varnas will be distorted, how sanatan dharma will be destroyed—he is seeking all that. It may seem strange: why is he concerned with all this?

But if, after Hiroshima, you read Bertrand Russell and the literature of all the Western anti-war thinkers, you will be astonished: they too say the same things—children will be deformed, order will be destroyed, civilization will perish, religion will be lost, culture will vanish. What is occurring to Arjuna occurred to the world’s pacifists after Hiroshima. Pacifists—note, I say pacifists—are always busy seeking what evils war will bring. But all their searching, as I said, is to find reasons in support of the tendency to escape that is arising within.

We find what we want to do. But it appears as if we are doing what should be done. We find arguments for what we want to do. And life provides arguments for everything. Whatever a man wants to do, he finds all the arguments for his side.

A man in America wrote a book that the number thirteen is dangerous. A big book. He collected everything: who fell from the thirteenth floor and died. Today, under the influence of that book, many American hotels don’t have a thirteenth floor at all—because no one agrees to stay there. After twelve comes fourteen directly. How many admitted to hospitals on the thirteenth die; how many road accidents happen on the thirteenth; how many get cancer on the thirteenth; how many planes crash; how many cars collide—he gathered all the mishaps of the thirteenth. The same happens on the twelfth and eleventh—just as much. But he left those out. He gathered only the thirteenth.

If someone were against the eleventh, he could gather the same for the eleventh. If someone were for the thirteenth, he could gather that children are born on the thirteenth; planes do not crash; good events occur; marriages happen; friendships are made; victories are celebrated—on the thirteenth all good also happens. The mind ferrets out what it wants.

Right now Arjuna wants to flee, so he is searching all this. Until yesterday he never spoke like this. Until yesterday what would happen to future generations meant nothing to him. Until the last moment before battle, none of this occurred to him. Today it all occurs! Today his mind is gripped by escape; so he is seeking all the arguments.

Here is the amusing thing: the whole matter is simply that he is afraid to kill his own. But he is seeking many other arguments. He is collecting arguments. The matter is just this much: he is afflicted by attachment and cannot muster the courage to kill his own. That simple. But around it he is erecting a great web, a philosophy.

We all do this. Often the real thing we leave aside, and the web we weave around it is something quite different. A man who wants to kill someone finds pretexts. A man who wants to be angry finds pretexts. A man who wants to run away finds pretexts. What a man wants to do comes first; the search for excuses comes after.

Krishna sees this and smiles. He understands that all these arguments Arjuna is giving are tricks; they are not real; they are not true. They are not his vision. Because he has never, till today, thought like this while killing. This is not his first time killing. He is a consummate warrior. Killing is his lifelong skill and experience. Killing is his strength; the sword is his hand, the bow his very soul. He is not one who sat weighing in a shop and was suddenly dragged onto a battlefield. Therefore Krishna must surely be smiling at his words. They must be seeing how clever man is!

All are clever. The real cause we hide. And for what is not the cause we amass arguments. And often by arguing we even convince ourselves and the root cause gets dropped.

But Krishna will want the root cause to come into his awareness. Because if the root cause is seen, understanding can arise. If the root is hidden and false reasons are collected…

What concern does Arjuna have with what will happen later? When did he ever worry about dharma being destroyed? When did he ever care that the brahmins or the families might be corrupted? When did he ever care? He never cared for any of this. Today suddenly all these worries descend upon him!

It is necessary to recognize why all these worries descend—because he wants to run away. If he wants to run away, he will not show himself a coward. He’ll run away for reasons. His escape will be reasonable. He will say, “There were so many reasons; therefore I am leaving.” If he runs without reasons, the world will laugh. Here is his cleverness. Here is our cleverness too. Whatever we are doing, we first erect a lattice of reasons. As we build a house, we first raise a structure—so we build a web of reasons. With that web we will show that this is right. But the real cause will be quite different.

If it were clear to Krishna that what Arjuna is saying is the very cause, then I do not believe he would want dharma destroyed; I do not believe he would want children deformed; I do not believe he would want culture and sanatan dharma annihilated. He would not. But these are not the causes. These are false substitutes, counterfeit reasons. Therefore Krishna will try to bring them down, to cut them away. He will bring Arjuna to where the root cause is. Because one can fight the root cause; one cannot fight false reasons. And that is why we hide the root and live in false reasons.

It is necessary to correctly recognize Arjuna’s mental state. This is the cunningness of reason, the cleverness of intellect. He does not say straight, “I want to run away; I cannot find the courage to kill my own; this is suicide; I am going.” He does not speak straight. No one in the world speaks straight. The man who speaks straight—there is revolution in his life. The one who keeps speaking in zigzags—there is never revolution in his life. He does what is called “beating around the bush.” He will beat all around. He will protect the bush and beat around it. He will protect himself and search for a thousand reasons. His simple, straight matter is that he is losing courage; with attachment, courage is leaving. He will not say that simple thing and is collecting all sorts of things. His reasons may sound worth hearing and understanding. Our mind does the same; therefore it is useful to understand.

No! All of Arjuna’s reasons are extremely superficial, utterly futile. No ancestors live bound to your pind. And if your pind-daan could somehow disturb the onward journey of those who have departed, then pind-daan would be a very dangerous thing. Souls set out on their journey from within themselves. What you do or don’t do after them has no connection with their journey.

But there is a web of priests in the world. And the priests’ web tightens around a person from birth to death—and even after death. Without frightening a person you cannot exploit him. Fear is the basis of exploitation. So the son can be exploited too, by frightening him in the name of his dead father.

Arjuna is saying all those things—things he must have heard. They were in the air around him. They were there then—no surprise; they are still there. Five thousand years ago Arjuna had heard them—no surprise; they are still around. What Arjuna is saying is simply what he must have heard in the air, what the priests around him kept preaching. He has no real stake in it. He is just mustering all those arguments and parading them before Krishna, so that it may be proved that his running away is dharma, is proper. That’s why he brings all these arguments. But there is no truth in them. Nor does any distortion arise from so-called varna-sankara.

It was the notion in those days. It still is. Ask Karpatri or Shankaracharya, and you will hear the same notion. Some people’s notions never change, even if everything else in the world does. Some cling to an idea so tightly that their whole life slips away beneath it, yet they go on clutching the dead idea.

Cross-breeding—the very thing Arjuna calls varna-sankara—is the best breeding. With cross-breeding the possibility is of something superior. You already make full use of it with seeds. At that time you don’t remember that you are going against Arjuna. You use it with animals. You still don’t use it with human beings. Hence today the breeding of humans lags even behind that of animals.

Today we can produce better dogs among dogs than we can produce good human beings among humans. The arrangement for human progeny is still utterly unscientific. It must have been so in Arjuna’s time; it still is. Even today we have no concern for bringing forth a nobler human being—healthier in mind and body, longer-lived, more gifted. We care about seed. Seed keeps getting better—of fruits, flowers, wheat. In animals we are concerned to breed better and better stock. With human beings we still have no concern.

But in old times there was such a notion that if one mingled with another caste, the child born would be varna-sankara. The truth is, all the most gifted peoples in this world are varna-sankara. And the more “pure” a people is, the more it has lagged behind. Negroes are absolutely pure; the people living in the forests of Africa are absolutely pure; the adivasis of India are absolutely pure. All the evolving cultures, the civilizations, are all varna-sankara.

In fact, just as two rivers join and become more abundant, so too two different streams of life, when they meet, become richer. If Arjuna is right, then we should marry brothers and sisters—then absolutely pure children would be born. But from a brother-sister marriage no pure child is born; only a diseased child is born. We prevent brother and sister. Those who are intelligent also prevent first cousins. Those more intelligent will never marry within their own caste. Those even more intelligent will also avoid marrying within their own nation. And if not today then tomorrow, if we discover human beings on some planet or satellite, those who are truly intelligent will think of interplanetary cross-breeding.

But that Arjuna is only putting on a parade. He is merely saying, “This is what I have heard; such-and-such harm will happen—so let me run away.” He has no concern with cross-breeding, nor is he any expert. He has no knowledge or skill in these matters. Yes, these are ideas he has heard. Such talk was in the air all around—still is. It was there then, and it seems quite natural, because the science of human reproduction was not very developed. Today it is very developed.

But even today, with such a developed science of heredity, our mind is not developed enough to bear it or to think in its terms. For to marry within one’s caste is to marry one’s own sister at a greater distance. There is just a gap—five or ten generations perhaps. To marry within the same caste is, five or ten generations back, the offspring of the same father. If you go very far back, a hundred generations perhaps. But within a caste all are brothers and sisters. And if you go further back, even within a larger meta-caste all are brothers and sisters.

The farther afield you go, the more diverse the seedings that are combined, the more varied the riches, the more varied the imprints; the entire history, experienced by many different peoples over thousands of years, gathers into the genetic molecule and is handed to that individual. The farther apart these two streams come from, the greater the possibility of an extraordinary person being born.

So “varna-sankara” was a real abuse in Arjuna’s time; even today, in Kashi, it is still an abuse. But now the intelligent people of the whole world agree that the farther apart the strains, the greater the cross, the higher the quality of the person that can be born. But Arjuna has nothing to do with this. Arjuna is not delivering an informed statement on it; he is merely collecting arguments.

Hell and heaven are not geographical locations, but they certainly are mental states. Yet the human mind always translates things into pictures. Man cannot think without images; images become a great aid to thinking.

We have all seen, and still see hanging in homes, the picture of Mother India. Then why is it that some intelligent people in our country don’t set out to search for Mother India? The photo is hanging in the house, but Mother India will not be found by searching. Yet a thousand or two thousand years from now, if someone says there was no Mother India, people will insist, “Absolutely wrong! Look—Gandhiji is pointing to Mother India in the photo. Could Gandhiji make a mistake? Mother India must have existed. Or perhaps, because of our sins, she has hidden away in caves.”

Whatever man wants to understand, he turns into pictures. In fact, the further back we go, the more the pictorial language grows. The old languages of the world are pictographic. For example, Chinese is still a language of pictures: there are no words, no letters—there are images; you have to do everything through pictures. That’s why learning Chinese becomes very difficult. An ordinary learner must toil for ten or fifteen years, because at least ten or twenty thousand pictures have to be memorized. Now, if in Chinese you want to write “quarrel,” you make a tree and seat two women beneath it—then it’s clear it’s a quarrel. Absolutely a quarrel it is! Two women under one tree—what bigger quarrel could there be?

The farther back we go in the world, the more thinking becomes pictorial. Even now, when we dream, there are no words in our dreams—there are pictures. Because the dream is primitive, very ancient, not new. Even in the twentieth century it is difficult to see a twentieth-century dream. The dream we see is a million years old; its style is a million years old.

That’s why children’s books must have more pictures and fewer words. A child will not understand words; he will understand pictures. For the letter “ga,” we unnecessarily have to rope in Lord Ganesha. Ganesha has nothing to do with “ga,” but the child will grasp Ganesha first, then “ga.” The child is primitive.

So the further back we go, the more we had to make inner mental elements into geography. Heaven is a state of consciousness—when everything is full of bliss, all is calm, flowers are blooming, everything is filled with music. But how to say that? So it had to be placed “above.” Hell is where there is suffering, pain, burning—so it had to be placed “below.” “Below” and “above” became values. Above is what is superior; below is what is bad, inferior. Then burning, sorrow, pain had to be painted as flames of fire. Heaven—cool, serene—had to be arranged with air-conditioning. But these are all pictures. Yet stubbornness arises behind them—the stubbornness the priest creates. He says, “No, these are not pictures; these are actual places.” Now he will be in trouble.

When Khrushchev’s man first reached space, Khrushchev said on the radio, “My man has gone around the moon; no heaven is visible.” Now this is Khrushchev’s quarrel with the priest. The priest will have to lose, because his claim is wrong. There is no heaven somewhere above, no hell somewhere below. Yes, but the state of happiness is an upper state; the state of hell—sorrow—is a lower state.

And the reason we made this above–below so geographical is this: when you are happy, you feel as if you are lifted above the ground. When you are unhappy, it feels as if you have sunk into the earth. It’s a very mental feeling. When you are unhappy, it seems darkness has fallen all around. When you are happy, it seems light has spread everywhere. It is feeling, sentiment, an inner experience. When you are unhappy, you feel as if you are burning, as if a fire is lit inside. And when you are blissful, flowers begin to bloom within.

These are inner feelings. But how will the poet make them? How will the painter explain them? How will the religious teacher present them before people? So he made pictures: heaven went up, hell went down. But now that language has become meaningless. Man has gone beyond that language; the language will have to change.

So I say: not geographical, but psychological—heaven and hell are psychological. Nor is it that after you die you will go to heaven or to hell. In the course of twenty-four hours you travel to heaven and to hell many times. It isn’t a one-time wholesale affair; it’s entirely retail, an around-the-clock business.

When you are in anger, you are immediately in hell. When you are in love, you rise into heaven. All the time your mind is going up and down; all the time you are descending and ascending the stairs of darkness and light. There is no bulk consignment in this. But the man who spends his whole life in hell—his further journey will also be toward darkness.

Now, this poor Arjuna—supposedly to save the whole world: so that souls may go to heaven; so that their sons can offer pind-daan; so that no one should become a widow; so that varna-mixing not spread; so that destruction not happen—for such a great uproar! This man only wants to run away. For so small a matter he wants Krishna to give the order. Even in this he seeks sanction; he wants Krishna to say, “Arjuna, you are absolutely right,” so that tomorrow the responsibility is no longer his own—so that tomorrow he can say, “Krishna, you were the one who told me, that’s why I went.”

In fact, he doesn’t even have the courage to take responsibility upon himself, to say, “I am going.” Because then his other mind will say, “That would be cowardice!” It’s not in his blood. This running away is beyond him. He is a Kshatriya; to show his back is beyond his courage. To die is better; to show his back is not better. This too is seated within him. So he says, “If Krishna will bear witness and say, ‘All right, you are justified, Arjuna…’”

If, in Krishna’s place, there had been some ordinary, base-metal kind of pundit-priest, he would have said, “Absolutely right, Arjuna; that is exactly what is written in the scriptures,” and Arjuna would have run away. He is looking for a route to escape. But he doesn’t know that the one he is speaking to is hard to deceive. Krishna is looking at Arjuna keenly, deeply. He knows Arjuna is a Kshatriya, and being a Kshatriya is his fate—his destiny. Arjuna is talking all these Brahmin-like things. He is not a Brahmin. He is giving the arguments of Brahmins, but he is not a Brahmin; he is a Kshatriya. Other than the sword he knows nothing. He has only one scripture. In fact, to find a Kshatriya like Arjuna in the world is difficult.

A friend of mine came from Japan. Someone had gifted him a statue. In one hand of the statue there is a sword, and the shine of the sword is on one half of the face; in the other hand there is a lamp, and the glow of the lamp is on the other half of the face. If you look from the side of the lamp, the face looks like the Buddha; and if you look from the side of the sword, the face looks like Arjuna. He asked me, “What is this?” I said, if in comparison to Buddha it is hard to find a purer Brahmin than Buddha, then it is just as hard to find a greater Kshatriya than Arjuna. And this statue in Japan is of a samurai soldier. The rule for a samurai is that he must have the peace of Buddha and the capability of Arjuna—only then is he a soldier: the courage to fight like Arjuna, and while fighting, the peace of Buddha. A demand for the impossible, a demand for the utterly impossible.

But Arjuna has nothing of Buddha in him. His talk of peace is only self-protection. His talk of peace is escapism. He will even repent after talking of peace. Tomorrow Arjuna will again catch hold of Krishna: “Why did you support me? I have been disgraced! The honor of the clan is gone!” He will bring twenty-five arguments again. Just as now he has brought twenty-five arguments in favor of running away, tomorrow he will bring twenty-five arguments and say to Krishna, “You alone are responsible; you entangled me and made me run away. Now all the disgrace has happened. Who will take responsibility for this?”

Therefore Krishna cannot let him off so cheaply. It isn’t even a matter of letting him off so cheaply. The man is of two minds. It is absolutely necessary to bring him to one mind. Then, whatever he does from that one mind, Krishna can agree.

That’s all for today. Again tomorrow morning.