Geeta Darshan #6

Becoming egoless does not make one inactive, nor does becoming thought-free make one inactive. Egolessness only removes the sense of doership. But action, surrendered to the Divine, flows with total momentum. The river flows—there is no ego. The winds blow—there is no ego. Flowers blossom—there is no ego. In just the same way, in a natural, egoless life everything happens; only the inner claim of “I am the doer” is no longer hoarded within.

So when I said this morning that Arjuna’s ego was the source of his pain and anguish the whole time, it does not mean that if he drops the ego, action will drop.

And as I said, thought puts a person in anxiety; if the consciousness becomes thought-free, it moves beyond anxiety. That does not mean a thought-free mind will not speak, will not act, will have no expression.

No, not so. A thought-free mind becomes like a hollow bamboo reed. Songs will flow through it, but not its own—only God’s. Thoughts will arise from it, but not its own—only God’s. Such a mind is surrendered to the Whole. It will speak only what God makes it speak; it will do only what God makes it do. The inner support of “I,” that sense of me in-between, will disintegrate. With its disintegration there is no worry. With its disintegration there is no sorrow, no anxiety.

na tvevāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ
na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ sarve vayam ataḥ param (2.12)

There was never a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be.

Arjuna seems to worry that all those who stand before him today will die in the war and be no more. Krishna tells him: what Is, always was; what is not, never is.

It is useful to understand this a little.

Religion has always said such things, and now science has begun to say them too. And it is fitting to begin with science, because religion speaks of the peak to which not all can reach, while science speaks of the base where we all stand. One of the deepest discoveries of science is that existence cannot be led into non-existence. What is, cannot be annihilated; and what is not, cannot be created. Even a grain of sand cannot be destroyed by all the knowledge of science, all the laboratories and scientists of the world; it can only be transformed—given a new form.

What we call creation is the making of a new form—not a new existence, but a new form. And what we call destruction is not the destruction of existence—only of form, of shape. Forms can be changed, but that which is hidden within form remains unchanged. It is like a wheel that spins, but there is a nail, an axle-pin, that stands still and around which the wheel turns. Those who know only the wheel will say, “Everything is change.” Those who also know the axle will say, “At the root of all change, at the center, there is something unmoving.”

And the wonder is: if you remove the axle from the wheel, the wheel cannot turn at all. The turning of the wheel depends on that which does not turn. Forms change; their changing depends on that which is formless and unchanging.

When Arjuna says, “These will all die,” he is speaking of form, of shape, of the visible outline. He is saying, “They will vanish.” He knows nothing beyond form.

And when Krishna says, “It is not that those you see today were not before. They were before; I was before; you were before. Nor is it that what we are today will not be tomorrow. We will be tomorrow too—from the beginningless to the endless our being abides,” then know that Krishna and Arjuna are speaking of two different things.

Arjuna speaks of form; Krishna speaks of the formless. Arjuna speaks of what appears; Krishna speaks of what does not appear. Arjuna speaks of what can be grasped by eyes and hands; Krishna speaks of that which slips beyond the grasp of eyes, hands, and ears. Arjuna is thinking as we all think. Krishna is speaking as we all may one day be blessed to know.

What appears was not there always. “Always” is too big a word. What appears was not there even a moment ago. You are looking at my face—this face was not exactly this a moment before, and it will not be exactly this a moment later. In a moment much within this body dies, and much new arrives.

Buddha used to say: someone would come to meet him, and he would tell him, “When you came and when you leave, you will not be the same person.”

In an hour, much changes. In seventy years a person changes completely about ten times. Every seven years all the atoms of the body are replaced. Every instant something in the body is dying and being thrown out; every instant something new is being born and coming in; through food you are bringing in the new; every moment much is being expelled. In seven years the whole body changes. And yet we keep saying, “I am the same.” The continuity of form creates the sense of identity.

Watch a film. If the film were run very slowly, you would be amazed. To raise a hand from the waist to above the head takes thousands of frames. Then those frames are projected rapidly—one slightly higher, the next higher, the next higher—and the hand seems to rise. But run them slowly and you will see thousands of pictures were needed for a single lift of the hand.

Exactly so, when we look at a person we are not seeing one person. During the time we look, our eyes receive thousands of images, which the mind fuses into one shape. By the time that shape is formed within, everything outside has already changed.

In the vast sky, stars appear to us. But the stars we see are not where they appear. They were there once. Even from the nearest star, light takes about four years to reach us, and light is not slow—it travels at about one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. When the ray reaches us, we see the star where it was four years ago. In the meantime, it may have ceased to exist. What is certain is that it is no longer where it appears. In those four years it has traveled millions and billions of miles.

So the stars we see at night are not where we see them. The night is deceptive; the stars are utterly deceptive. No star is where it appears. And there are distant stars whose light takes a hundred years, a thousand years, even millions of years to reach us. There are stars from which light set out when the Earth was formed—some four billion years ago—and it has still not reached the Earth. Who knows what has happened in those four billion years!

What we see is not what is. Even in the time it takes for light to travel from you to my eyes, you are no longer the same; within you all has changed. Form—not to speak of eternity—does not remain the same even for a moment.

Heraclitus said, “You cannot step twice into the same river.” Even that is not quite exact. It is difficult to step even once into the same river; twice is impossible. When your foot touches the surface, the water beneath is already moving away; as the foot goes deeper, the water above is already moving away. Your foot descends a foot into the river and, in that time, all the water has fled past. The water you touched above is gone by the time you reach below.

Form is running like a river. And yet form seems stable. The similarity creates the appearance of identity. We say, “This is the same as yesterday, the same as this morning.” But every moment the form is changing.

This world of forms—of shapes, sounds, rays, waves—is constantly in vibration. We are all changing, all quivering, all wavering, all in flux. To wish to preserve this changing world of forms is to desire the impossible; and dashing against impossible desires, a person goes insane.

Krishna tells Arjuna: You say they will die; I tell you they were before and they will be after. Drop this worry about their dying. Why?

I remember an incident of Socrates. When he was about to die, his friend Crito asked, “You are going to die, but you don’t seem anxious or troubled.” Socrates said, “I am not anxious because I think: if by dying I entirely cease to be, then there is no reason for worry at all—because if I won’t be, who will worry, who will suffer, who will know that I have died? And if I do not cease—if I do not die even by dying—then again there is no reason for worry. There are only two possibilities: either I will be gone completely, or I will not be gone at all; there is no third. Therefore I am at ease.”

Krishna tells Arjuna: What is going to die will not be saved by your saving; and what is deathless cannot be killed by your killing. Your worry is futile. Drop this futile anxiety.

Whether we grasp the spread of existence from the side of form or from the side of the formless, worry is pointless. From the side of form, what is perishing is perishing and will perish—it is a line drawn on water: it is erased as it is drawn. From the side of the formless, what does not perish never has perished and never will.

But we have no acquaintance with the formless; nor does Arjuna.

It is also necessary to see that Arjuna’s worry gives us another clue. He says, “They will die.” This means Arjuna takes himself too to be only form; otherwise he would not say so. What we say about others is actually what we say about ourselves. When I see someone die and think, “Gone, lost, finished,” I should know that I have no glimpse within of that which does not die, does not vanish, is never lost.

When Arjuna expresses worry that “they will die,” he is expressing the worry of his own death. He does not know that within him too there is something that does not die. And when Krishna says, “They will not die,” Krishna is speaking from his own knowing—because he knows that which does not die.

Our knowledge of the outer is an extension of our knowledge of the inner. Our knowledge of the world is an extension of our knowledge of ourselves. What we know in ourselves we extend to the whole. What we do not know in ourselves, we can never know about anyone else. Self-knowledge alone is knowledge; all other knowledge stands on deep ignorance—and knowledge that stands on ignorance is unreliable.

Now Arjuna seems to be speaking great words of knowledge and religion, but he does not even know that there is the formless, the shapeless. He has no inkling that at the base of existence there is something immortal. For one who does not know the immortal, no ray of true knowledge has yet dawned. One who knows only death stands in thick darkness and ignorance.

This is the touchstone: if only death is known to you, ignorance is the base; if the deathless is known to you—what does not die—then knowledge is the base. If there is fear of death in your mind—whether of another’s or your own, it makes no difference—then that fear testifies that you have no glimpse of the immortal.

Only the immortal is; death is merely the name for waves on the surface. The ocean is—but the ocean is not seen; only the waves are seen. You may say, “We have seen the ocean.” But you have only seen the waves; you have not seen the ocean. Waves are not the ocean; they are in the ocean. The ocean can be without waves, but waves cannot be without the ocean. Yet what is visible are the waves; their net spreads above. The eyes catch them, the ears hear them.

And the wonder is: the wave you see—you never actually see it. Because the very meaning of “wave” is that it is changing while you look. Before you can truly see it, it has changed. A wave is that whose being and non-being are occurring together—rising and falling, is and is-not, swaying at once. This wave is what we see.

One who takes waves to be the ocean will worry: “What will happen? The waves are dying.” But one who knows the ocean will say, “Let the waves arise and subside.” The water—the ocean—was there before the wave, and will be there after the wave is gone.
A friend asked Jesus about Abraham—a very ancient prophet in Jerusalem—“What do you know about Abraham?” Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
Certainly, that man must have been suspicious. Jesus was not more than thirty. Abraham had been dead for thousands of years, and this man says, “I was before Abraham.” Even when Abraham was not, I was.

In truth, Jesus is speaking of the ocean; not of the wave that rose from Mary. He is not talking about the wave named Jesus. He is speaking of the ocean that is before the waves and after the waves.

And when Krishna says that before, too, we were—you were, I was; these people who stand here on the battlefield, they too were; and later we shall be—he is speaking of the ocean. Arjuna is speaking of the wave. And it is often very difficult for those who speak of the ocean and those who speak of the wave to communicate. Communication is very difficult, because one is talking of the East and the other of the West.

That is why the Gita goes on so long. Arjuna will again and again raise matters of the waves, and Krishna will again and again speak of the ocean—and nowhere do they really intersect. They do not cut across each other; if they did, the matter would be settled. So the dialogue goes on. Arjuna returns, repeating himself, to the waves. He can see only waves. And what fault is it of one who sees only waves? The waves are what are on the surface.

In fact, one who depends only on seeing will see only waves. If one wants to see the ocean, it is a little difficult with open eyes; one has to see with eyes closed. Truly, to see the ocean you do not have to look—you have to dive. And when you dive, you must close your eyes. You have to go down beneath the waves into the ocean. But one who has not yet gone beneath the waves of his own mind cannot go beneath the waves rising over another. All of Arjuna’s anguish is self-ignorance.

There is a difference between existence and expression. What is unexpressed may still be. A seed is there. The tree is hidden in it; it is not expressed, yet it is. It is in the sense that it can be; it is in the sense that it is concealed; it is in the sense that it is potential.

Just now, in a laboratory at Oxford University—Delabar Laboratory—an unusual scientific experiment is underway. I consider it among the most important of current experiments. The finding is that very sensitive cameras can capture an image of the tree hidden in a seed, the very tree that will become fully manifest twenty years later.

It is astonishing. The event occurred by accident while photographing a bud. Many scientific discoveries happen by accident, because scientists are very traditional-minded, very conformist; they cling to what science already knows and do not readily allow anything new to enter. The entire history of science shows that in the path of every new discovery, scientists themselves have placed more obstacles than anyone else. So often the new happens by mistake; the scientist is not trying to make it happen—it happens accidentally.

At Delabar they were studying flowers with exceptionally sensitive cameras. They took a photograph of a bud, but what appeared was not the bud—it was a flower! In front of the camera was a bud; inside the camera, a flower appeared. At first they thought there must have been some mistake in the film—perhaps a prior exposure, some technical error. Still, they decided to wait until the flower actually bloomed.

When the flower opened, they were in difficulty. The mistake was not in the film; it was in the scientists’ understanding. The flower that bloomed was exactly as it had appeared in the earlier photograph. Work continued, and they began to see that what is to happen tomorrow must already be happening right now on some subtle plane of waves—otherwise it could not happen tomorrow.

A child is born from the mother after nine months. For nine months it remains hidden in the womb; no one knows what is happening. It does not arrive suddenly at the end of nine months; it has traveled within for nine months. When a bud becomes a flower, the electromagnetic waves around it first travel the process of becoming a flower—like a gestation. That picture can be taken. This means that, perhaps today or tomorrow, from a picture of a child we may also be able to image the child’s old age. I believe we will.

In this sense astrology will gain a scientific footing. Until now it has not been scientific. In this sense it will become scientific. What is to happen tomorrow is already happening today on some plane—whether we see it or not.

The difficulty is like this: I am sitting beneath a tree, you are sitting up in the tree. You say, “I can see a bullock cart on the road.” I say, “I can’t see it. There is no cart; the road is empty.” As far as I can see, the road is empty. For me the cart is in the future. For you, perched in the tree, it is in the present. You say, “No, the cart is there; I can see it.” Then the cart comes within my sight as well; from my future it arrives into my present. After it passes by, I no longer see it; for me it goes into the past. But you, from your higher vantage, still see it and say, “It is still present for me.” For me the cart was future, then present, then past. For you it moved within a single present. You just sit a little higher; the difference is only of height.

Krishna sees from a height—from the peak. When he says, “We were before, we are now, and we will be,” he is speaking from where everything is the ever-present, where all is the Eternal Now. Arjuna, from where he stands, says, “Who knows whether we were before birth? I don’t know.” His journey reaches up to birth—and not even that far truly.

If you notice, you have no memory before four years of age. Before that it is inference—people tell you that you were. Some very intelligent ones recall to three years; some, exceptionally gifted, to two. Even then, can you say you were, if memory is the only proof? How could you suddenly come to be if you were not there for those first years?

Under deep hypnosis one can remember being in the womb. A person can recount, “When I was three months in my mother’s womb, she fell.” The child is jolted when the mother falls. Memory of the womb can surface; even memory from before the womb may come; past lives can be recalled. But all that is still past for us; it has to be evoked as memory.

For Krishna, all is the Eternal Now; everything is present. From that stance he says, “Arjuna, all were before and will be again. I was, you were.”

Here lies a danger of misunderstanding. Arjuna may think, “I, the person named Arjuna, existed before.” Krishna is not saying that. The person named Arjuna never existed before; how could he? “Arjuna” is only a garment. Behind that garment is the formless consciousness; that was. And “Arjuna” will not be there ahead; that garment will drop with death. Yes, the one on whom the garment hangs—that will be.

Even if Arjuna understands, the likely mistake is that he will think, “I, Arjuna; you, Krishna—we were before. These people standing here were before.” He will still ask, “Were these same forms there before?”

These forms never were. Form is expression. The formless, shapeless existence is not expression. But existence can be unexpressed, unmanifest. What is manifest is not all that is; the unmanifest is also this. What is manifest to us is very little.

Ask a scientist: today they say that only a tiny fraction is manifest to us. Two hundred years ago there was no radio. Today we switch on a radio here and hear London. Does the voice from London begin only when you turn the knob? No, it is passing through all the time; you simply did not have a receiver to catch it. Even when you did not hear, it was passing—unmanifest to you. Thousands of voices are passing.

Scientists say our hearing has a range. Below and above certain frequencies we do not hear. Beyond the limits of our senses much is passing that we cannot perceive. It is. Imagine beings on other planets with more than five senses—surely there are such. Then, for the first time, we would realize there are things in existence we have no inkling of. Our five senses are not the limit. Science says there are at least fifty thousand planets with life, out of roughly four billion known planetary bodies—on those, different forms of life have evolved: beings with seven senses, fifteen, twenty. They would know things we cannot even dream of—because we can dream only what we already know. Even our greatest poets cannot imagine what lies beyond our senses. But it is. There is no reason to say “it is not” just because we do not see it.

Expression is a very surface affair; existence is the innermost. In fact, existence is not an event; it is being. Expression is a happening. I am sitting here. I sing a song. Before I sang, where was that song within me? Could any physiologist cut me open and find it? Could any brain surgeon locate the chain of the song? Nowhere could it be found—yet the song appears. If it was not within me, how did it come? It was unmanifest, a seed somewhere, riding the subtlest waves; it existed but was unexpressed. Then it appeared. Not that it came into being by appearing; it was there before. Nor is it fully expressed—my limits obstruct it.

Ravindranath kept saying till his last breath, “What I wanted to sing, I have not been able to sing.” But if you cannot sing it, how do you know what you wanted to sing? Certainly there is a feeling somewhere within that something was to be sung. Often you feel a name is “on the tip of the tongue,” yet it won’t come. If it is on the tongue, why not just say it? The meaning is: there is a sliding sense of knowing, but it will not manifest; the mind cannot seize it. If you were to die now and we dissected you, we would find the tongue but not “the thing on the tip of the tongue.” Brains, neurons, cells—we would find all that, but not the unexpressed something, hidden in some interval of being.

Krishna is saying: what has appeared is not you. What remains unmanifest—that is you. And the unmanifest is vast; what appears is just a tip, Arjuna. Such tips have appeared many times and will go on appearing. But the unmanifest is infinite; beginningless; boundless; it never gets exhausted. After all expressions, it remains, untouched.

Certainly, if it does not express, the senses cannot recognize it—because the senses catch only expression. But we are not only the senses. If we learn the art of descending within the senses, the unmanifest is also caught, recognized, seen, heard—touched at some deep level of the heart.

Expression is not an inevitability of existence; expression is its play. Form is not an inevitability of existence; form is its play. That is why Krishna calls the world, life, a lila—a divine play. On the stage someone comes as Rama—just a form. Someone as Ravana—just a form. They fight with bows and arrows—just a form. Behind the curtain, a little later, they will chat, forget Sita, stop the quarrel, and drink tea together in the green room.

Krishna speaks of the green room; Arjuna speaks of the stage. What appears on the stage is only form, only acting. Existence can be without form, but form cannot be without existence. As I said: waves cannot be without the ocean; the ocean can be without waves.

When Rama and Ravana go behind the curtain to gossip and sip tea, where are the “forms” of Rama and Ravana? They are not. They were waves, shapes only. Without the life behind, they cannot be. The form changes, the role changes—the actor does not. Krishna is speaking of that which stands behind.

देहिनोऽस्मिन्यथा देहे कौमारं यौवनं जरा।
तथा देहान्तरप्राप्तिर्धीरस्तत्र न मुह्यति।। 13।।

Just as the embodied dweller in this body passes through childhood, youth, and old age, so, upon leaving the gross body, another body is attained. Therefore the wise, led by the Self, do not fall into doubt.

Krishna is saying: even within this one life everything is change—childhood, youth, old age; birth and death. Yet language deceives us because words are static. Life is never static. When we force static words onto a flowing life, we go wrong. We say, “He is a child.” But a child is never in a state of “is”; he is in a constant becoming—a child is happening. We say, “He is old.” No one “is” old; oldness is happening. Everything is happening; nothing is in the state of “is.” We say, “The river is.” How wrong! A river means flowing—becoming.

Words are fixed; life nowhere is fixed. Repeating fixed words, we forget. In a dictionary “youth” means youth. In life, youth means only preparation for old age. In a dictionary “old” means old. In life, old means the preparation to die—an ongoing preparation.

Krishna tells Arjuna: even here, what you call forms were children yesterday, became young, and grew old. If we place side by side the image of a man on the day of birth and the image on the day of death, where is the congruence? Could we ever imagine these two are the same? There seems no relation at all. Yet we rarely contemplate this radical flux.

Krishna wants to provoke that contemplation. He says the forms you fear will perish are forever perishing; they are always dissolving. A man does nothing his whole life except die: life is a long process of dying. What begins at birth completes at death. Death does not come suddenly; it arrives every day from the day of birth—that is how it reaches you after seventy years. Or say: it takes you seventy years to reach it. The journey begins the first day.

Through all this change there remains a sense that “I am the same one who was there in childhood, in youth, in old age.” This identity, this continuity amidst change—where does it abide, in whom, and why? There must be a note within that is unchanging; otherwise who remembers? I say, “When I was ten, such and such happened.” Then something of what I was at ten must still be present at some level today; otherwise how could I remember? The one I am today was not there then. Who remembers? There must be a nail within upon which all the changing spokes have turned. The wheel cannot remember; it keeps changing. Some unchanging element is needed.

So Krishna says: childhood was, youth was, old age was. Amidst all this change, there is something still, unmoving, unchanged—he wants to awaken the memory of that. Then we will not say, “I was a child; I was young; I am old.” We will say, “I was in childhood; I was in youth; I am in old age.” “I was born; I was in dying.” The “I” will separate from these states—as a traveler passes stations. At Ahmedabad he does not say, “I am Ahmedabad,” but, “I am at Ahmedabad station.” At Bombay he does not say, “I have become Bombay,” but, “I am at Bombay station.” If he becomes Ahmedabad, he can never be Bombay. If you were the child, how could you become young? If you were the young, how could you become old? Surely there is something in you that was not the child—hence childhood came and went; youth came and went; old age came and will go. Birth came; death came. And there is one who stands within it all, before whom all this comes and goes like stations.

If this distance becomes visible—if we remember that what we take to be our being are only states through which our being passes—then Krishna’s point is fulfilled.

Between leaving one body and entering another, is there any expression, or only existence? There is expression as well. But that expression is not like the expression we are familiar with inside a gross body. The medium of expression changes completely. It is the expression of the subtle body. That too can be perceived—with special tuning. Just as a radio can be heard—with special tuning. It can even be touched—with special arrangements.

The ordinary body we know—the one we bury or cremate—does not remain. But that is not our only body. Within it there are other bodies—an entire web of bodies. In ordinary death only the first body falls. The second body hidden behind it travels with us. Call it the subtle body, call it the astral body—give it any name—it journeys with us. In that body all our memories, all experiences, all actions, all impressions are stored. It travels with us.

That body can be seen. It is not very difficult—indeed quite simple. As the world has advanced in “civilization,” it has become a little harder; otherwise it was not so difficult. Some capacities have been lost; certain things have become hard to perceive. We are simply no longer accustomed to seeing in that direction. Our minds have turned away; we stopped inquiring there. Otherwise the subtle body could be seen with great ease. Even now it can be seen. And now, even on scientific grounds, significant attempts have succeeded in observing it. Hundreds and thousands of photographs of the subtle body have been taken. It has been examined with all kinds of scientific instruments.

We are many seated here. But we are not only as many as you see. If someday we can properly develop a camera—which will happen, since photographs of subtle bodies have already begun—and take a picture here with a camera that can capture subtle bodies, then not only those seated will appear. Many more will be visible whom we do not see now.

It is said of Mahavira’s assemblies that there were great crowds. But many kinds of beings were included in those gatherings: those who came from the villages to listen, and those who came from the sky to listen.

Always, everywhere, those consciousnesses are present. Sometimes they endeavor from their side to make themselves visible to you. Sometimes, if you try, they can become visible. But their becoming visible has a special connection; it is not a general phenomenon.

Between one body and the next there is a body, for without the subtle body a new body cannot be assumed. In the language of science, the subtle body is a built-in program; it is the plan, the blueprint for taking on a new body. Otherwise assuming a new body would be difficult. Whatever you have accumulated in this life—imprints, experiences, knowledge, actions—whatever you have collected, whatever you are, all of that is in it.

Have you noticed: when you sleep at night, the last thought you have as sleep descends becomes your first thought on waking. If you have not, pay a little attention. In the final moment as sleep is taking over, whatever thought you are holding—when sleep is descending—will be your first thought when sleep is breaking in the morning. The last thought of the night becomes the first thought of the morning. Where was it all night? You were asleep; by now it should have been lost. It waited in your subtle body—waiting for you to rise so it could catch hold of you again.

As soon as this body drops, you set out on the journey carrying within your subtle body a built-in program—a compiled blueprint of a lifetime’s longings, desires, cravings, a map. That map will wait until you take a new body. As soon as a body is assumed, then, as possibilities in that body become available and opportunities arise, the subtle body will begin to manifest those tendencies.

But there is also a kind of death in which even the subtle body is no longer with you. That death alone is liberation—moksha. After that there is only existence; there is no expressive body. In ordinary death, a body still remains with you. That extraordinary death—the great death—belongs to one established in samadhi. One who attains samadhi in this very life has dissolved the subtle body while living. That is precisely what samadhi means: that while alive he dissolved the subtle body, broke the built-in program. Now he has no plan for further journeys—no five-year plan, no five-lives plan. He is plan-free. When this body falls, there remains only existence, not expression.

Expression is bondage, because it is not the expression of the whole. Only a little becomes manifest, and what remains unmanifest grows restless. The agitation within us for freedom, the longing for liberation, is because only a tiny part is manifest. It is as if chains are fastened all over a man’s body and only one finger is left free. He wiggles that finger, is in distress, and says, “I want freedom,” because his whole body is shackled.

Just so, our entire being is fettered. Through a small door there is a mere trickle of expression, and that very expression appears as bondage. That is our anguish. We writhe. But this restlessness can be used in two ways. Either we keep trying, through that small door which is our body, to free ourselves—and then we only enlarge it.

A man builds a big house; it simply means he is enlarging his body, nothing more. He builds a big house and for a while it seems he is a little freer—the space has increased. In a small room one feels more confined; in a bigger house one feels a bit open. But after a few days that too begins to feel small. Then he builds a palace; after a few days that too feels small.

In truth, man’s being is so vast that even the whole sky is small. Therefore, however large a house he builds, all will prove small. He needs as much space as God has. Nothing less will do. For within, too, there is God; he wants the whole space—the infinite—where no boundary ever comes. Wherever a boundary arises, there bondage is felt. And the body creates many kinds of boundaries: limits to seeing, to hearing, to thinking—limits to everything.

Existence is infinite and expression is finite; therefore to be free of expression is to be free of the world. In the old language, freedom from coming-and-going is freedom from expression. It is the search for pure existence—just being—where there will be no expression, only being. And there will be no boundary. In pure being there is no boundary.

So on the day someone dies having attained samadhi—having broken all built-in programs, having dropped all longings and desires for expression—then he has no body any longer; we cannot photograph him.

Therefore, in the photographs taken by the psychic research societies in the West, Mahavira cannot be photographed, nor Buddha, nor Krishna. Only those can be captured who are still carrying a built-in program—who still have a plan, a blueprint of a body. Mahavira cannot be photographed; there is no way. No picture of pure existence can be taken. A picture can be taken of one who is existent, but not of existence itself. How could there be a picture of existence? Because existence has no boundary. Only that which has a boundary can be photographed. So, in ordinary death—as you have asked—the body remains; it becomes subtle. In extraordinary death, in yogic death, in the great death, in nirvana, no body remains; only existence remains. No wave remains; only the ocean remains.

Desire belongs to each person; no one else can do anything about it. My desire is mine; my wife can do nothing about it. Yes—but under the pretext of doing something for my desire, she can do something for her own. But that is quite another matter.

The husband has died. The wife tries to free her husband from desire—she prays, performs havan, does pind-daan, arranges rituals—whatever she does. None of this can make any difference to her husband’s desire, but it can make a difference to her own. And that is the secret of the whole arrangement.

The arrangement is not for the husband’s release from desire. Because if you could bring about the husband’s release from desire, then you could also saddle him with desire. Then liberation would become difficult in this world. If Mahavira dies and Mahavira’s wife can load him with desire, what will Mahavira do! For the one you can set free, you can also bind. Then liberation itself would become a bondage; liberation would become impossible.

No—the secret is different. That secret, ordinarily, has not been revealed. The secret is: the husband is dead; for the husband the wife can do nothing. She could do nothing even while he was alive; after his death, to do something is far more difficult. The other’s being is his own, into which we have no entry—not the husband, not the wife, not the mother, not the father. But whatever she does in the husband’s name—if she prays with the longing to free him from desire—then that prayer, that longing, that wish for release will dissolve her own desire.

It’s a great amusement that in trying to arouse desire in another, we arouse our own; and in trying to extinguish another’s desire, we extinguish our own. In truth, whatever we do to the other, deep down we do it to ourselves. To be exact, with the other, only a show of doing is possible; all doing is ultimately with oneself. It is useful—but please do not think it is useful for the one who has already set out on his journey. It is useful for you. It is meaningful for you.

But if it had been said exactly as I am saying, perhaps the wife would not even pray. She would think, Fine then. Yet the urge within her to do so much for the dead husband—perhaps he may find an easy path, the road of bliss, the gate of heaven—becomes the basic reason for these things to be done.

There is a basic reason for this. While alive, we only escort one another to the gates of hell; we shove each other into suffering. Hence after death, repentance begins. After death the husband appears to love the wife far more than he ever did in life. Repentance begins. We begin to do exactly the opposite of what we did with the living.

What the son did to the father while he was alive, after his death he starts doing something else. He never showed respect in life; after death he hangs the photo, offers flowers! He never pressed his father’s feet while alive; after death he gathers the ashes and carries them to the Ganges. Had the living father asked to be taken to the Ganges, he would never have gone. He takes the dead father to the Ganges!

Deep down, in our world we behave so badly with the living that with the dead we can only seek forgiveness—nothing more. Therefore the wife can do it for the husband; the husband can do it for the wife; the son can do it for the father; the son can do it for the mother. Perhaps not for oneself.

Thus a very psychological truth has been conveyed by giving a very wrong reason. That truth is only this: by making efforts for the pacification of another’s desire—our own desire—we become capable of pacifying our own desire. And this is no small thing. But now it should be done with understanding. And now it will only be done with understanding; because the age changes, the maturity of the mind changes.

If there are sweets kept in the house, we tell the children that there is a ghost in that room, don’t go. There is no ghost, there are sweets. But the child might eat too many sweets. And there is no way yet to explain to the child that if you eat too many sweets it will harm you. So a ghost has to be erected. The job gets done—the child does not go because of the ghost. But then the child grows up. Now if you say there is a ghost, he says, Leave it—no worry. In fact, because of the ghost even more attraction is created; he goes even more. Otherwise he might not have gone. Now it is appropriate to explain the whole thing clearly.

All the notions humanity fabricated in its childhood have now been thrown into disarray. Now it is appropriate to speak straight and clear. Five thousand years ago when the Gita would have been spoken—or even earlier—the assumptions declared in the very initial stages of human development have now all become laughable. If they are to be saved, their secrets must be revealed; it is necessary to state plainly why they are there. There is no ghost; there are sweets. And the harms of eating sweets should be told plainly.

Humanity has matured. And that is why humanity appears irreligious all over the world. This is humanity’s maturity, not irreligiosity. In fact, for adult man, for an adult humanity—for a humanity that has come of age—the principles given in its childhood now need to have their spirit poured into new bodies.

मात्रास्पर्शास्तु कौन्तेय शीतोष्णसुखदुःखदाः।
आगमापायिनोऽनित्यास्तांस्तितिक्षस्व भारत।। 14।।

O Kaunteya, the sense-contacts that color the eyes, speech, and so on—the objects of sound, etc.—give pleasure and pain like cold and heat; they are of coming and passing, impermanent, not lasting. Therefore, O Bhārata, bear with them.

Whatever is born, dies. Whatever arises, perishes. Whatever is constructed will scatter, will end. Krishna says, keep this in mind, O Bhārata—remember that whatever is made will fade. And when you remember that whatever is made will perish, that whatever is born will die—then there remains no reason to suffer its perishing. And when there remains no reason to suffer its perishing, there remains no reason to rejoice in its being.

Our pleasures and pains arise out of our delusion that whatever we have received will remain. A loved one comes and we are happy. But whoever has come will go. Where there is union, there is separation. The one who sees separation in union—his happiness in union dissolves, and his sorrow in separation also dissolves. The one who sees death in birth—his joy in birth departs, his grief in death departs. And where both happiness and sorrow depart, what remains is called bliss. Bliss is not happiness. Bliss is not the name of a large sum of happiness. Bliss is not the name of happiness becoming steady. Bliss is not merely the absence of sorrow. Bliss is not just an escape from sorrow. Bliss is to rise beyond both happiness and sorrow, to be free of both.

In truth, happiness and sorrow are two sides of the same coin. The one who sees only union in union and not separation attains a moment of happiness; then the one who sees only separation in separation and not union attains a moment of sorrow. And yet union and separation are two parts of the same process; two poles of the same magnet; two ends of the same thing.

Therefore, whoever is getting happy should know he is moving toward sorrow. Whoever is getting sorrowful should know he is moving toward happiness. Happiness and sorrow are two ends of the same existence. And whatever is constructed, whatever is made, will fall apart; in its very making its breaking is hidden; in its very formation its destruction is latent. The person who sees this truth in its entirety—complete! We see half-truths, and we suffer.

It is a great amusement: falsehood does not cause suffering; half-truths cause suffering. There really is no such thing as untruth, because untruth means what is not. Only half-truths are untruths. They too are because they are halves of truth. The whole truth leads to bliss; the half-truth rocks you between happiness and sorrow.

In this world we do not have to be free of falsehoods; only of half-truths. Understand it this way: the half-truth is itself untruth; there is no other untruth. Even for untruth to stand, it has to stand on the very ground of truth; it cannot stand alone; it has no legs of its own.

Krishna is saying to Arjuna, See the whole truth. You are becoming agitated, afflicted, disturbed by seeing half-truths.

Whoever is agitated, afflicted, disturbed will be troubled by some half-truth or the other. Wherever there is sorrow, wherever there is happiness, there will be a half-truth. And the half-truth is all the time trying to become the whole truth.

So when you are becoming happy, already the ground has slipped from under your feet and sorrow has arrived. When you are becoming sorrowful, just look carefully—somewhere around, behind sorrow, happiness is coming like a shadow. Here, dawn arises; there, dusk begins. Here, day breaks; there, night falls. Here is night; there, day is preparing. Life, all the time, is a journey into its opposite. Life, all the time, is a journey into its opposite. Waves are going from one end to the other. Krishna says, O Bhārata! See the whole truth. If the whole becomes visible to you, you can become unperturbed.

यं हि न व्यथयन्त्येते पुरुषं पुरुषर्षभ।
समदुःखसुखं धीरं सोऽमृतत्वाय कल्पते।। 15।।

O best of men, Arjuna, the wise one who remains the same in pleasure and pain is not obstructed by cold, heat, and the like; he attains the state of the Absolute.

Our existence is divided into opposing poles. Between these two, seeing the differences of their forms, the one who experiences the underlying unity of being within them—such a person alone is a knower. The one to whom the journey toward death becomes visible in birth; to whom the shadow of sorrow becomes visible within happiness; in whose union separation arrives; the one who becomes capable, moment to moment, of seeing the opposite as present—only such a person is wise. Be careful: becomes capable of seeing—that is essential. The one who becomes capable of believing so does not become a knower. To have believed so does not work.

Truths that are merely believed collapse and scatter at the slightest jolt from existence. Truths that are known do not scatter in life. The one who knows so, who sees so—or say, who experiences so—and the great amusement is: to experience, you need go nowhere far. Life gives the opportunity every day, every moment. Have you known any happiness that did not turn into sorrow? Any happiness in life that did not become sorrow? Any success that did not turn into failure? Any fame that did not turn into infamy?

Lao Tzu used to say that in my life no one ever defeated me. He is dying; it is the last moment. The disciples asked, Tell us that secret as well—because we too want to win, and that no one ever defeat us. Please, before you go, tell that secret. Lao Tzu laughed. He said, You are the wrong people. Telling you is useless. You did not even listen to my full sentence and you asked in the middle. I had only said this much: in my life no one ever defeated me. You asked so quickly. Listen to the whole sentence! I was going to add: no one ever defeated me because I never wanted to defeat anyone. Because I saw that the moment you win, you are preparing to be defeated. Therefore no one ever defeated me—because I never won. There was simply no way to defeat me. On this earth there was no person who could defeat me. No one could defeat me, because I was already defeated. I never made any attempt to win. But you say that you too want to win, and also that no one should be able to defeat you—then you will be defeated. Because winning and losing are two sides of the same coin.

Krishna is saying—he is saying that the one who sees so! And mind this seeing; it is an existential experience; it is an experience of being. We know it every day, and yet somehow we miss seeing it! How do we save ourselves from seeing it! Perhaps we play some very clever trick upon ourselves. Otherwise that such a living truth should not be seen—that is the wonder.

So when you are becoming happy, already the ground has slipped from under your feet and sorrow has arrived. When you are becoming sorrowful, just look carefully—somewhere around, behind sorrow, happiness is coming like a shadow. Here, dawn arises; there, dusk begins. Here, day breaks; there, night falls. Here is night; there, day is preparing. Life, all the time, is a journey into its opposite. Life, all the time, is a journey into its opposite. Waves are going from one end to the other. Krishna says, O Bhārata! See the whole truth. If the whole becomes visible to you, you can become unperturbed.

यं हि न व्यथयन्त्येते पुरुषं पुरुषर्षभ।
समदुःखसुखं धीरं सोऽमृतत्वाय कल्पते।। 15।।

O best of men, Arjuna, the wise one who remains the same in pleasure and pain is not obstructed by cold, heat, and the like; he attains the state of the Absolute.

Our existence is divided into opposing poles. Between these two, seeing the differences of their forms, the one who experiences the underlying unity of being within them—such a person alone is a knower. The one to whom the journey toward death becomes visible in birth; to whom the shadow of sorrow becomes visible within happiness; in whose union separation arrives; the one who becomes capable, moment to moment, of seeing the opposite as present—only such a person is wise. Be careful: becomes capable of seeing—that is essential. The one who becomes capable of believing so does not become a knower. To have believed so does not work.

Truths that are merely believed collapse and scatter at the slightest jolt from existence. Truths that are known do not scatter in life. The one who knows so, who sees so—or say, who experiences so—and the great amusement is: to experience, you need go nowhere far. Life gives the opportunity every day, every moment. Have you known any happiness that did not turn into sorrow? Any happiness in life that did not become sorrow? Any success that did not turn into failure? Any fame that did not turn into infamy?

Lao Tzu used to say that in my life no one ever defeated me. He is dying; it is the last moment. The disciples asked, Tell us that secret as well—because we too want to win, and that no one ever defeat us. Please, before you go, tell that secret. Lao Tzu laughed. He said, You are the wrong people. Telling you is useless. You did not even listen to my full sentence and you asked in the middle. I had only said this much: in my life no one ever defeated me. You asked so quickly. Listen to the whole sentence! I was going to add: no one ever defeated me because I never wanted to defeat anyone. Because I saw that the moment you win, you are preparing to be defeated. Therefore no one ever defeated me—because I never won. There was simply no way to defeat me. On this earth there was no person who could defeat me. No one could defeat me, because I was already defeated. I never made any attempt to win. But you say that you too want to win, and also that no one should be able to defeat you—then you will be defeated. Because winning and losing are two sides of the same coin.

Krishna is saying—he is saying that the one who sees so! And mind this seeing; it is an existential experience; it is an experience of being. We know it every day, and yet somehow we miss seeing it! How do we save ourselves from seeing it! Perhaps we play some very clever trick upon ourselves. Otherwise that such a living truth should not be seen—that is the wonder.

Experience brings it daily. Everything changes into its opposite. Make friendship too deep and enmity starts being born. But what is our trick to escape this? Our trick is that when the friend starts turning into an enemy, we do not understand that friendship is becoming enmity; we think the friend is becoming an enemy. There the mistake happens. When a friend turns into an enemy, we think this friend is becoming an enemy; had it been some other friend it would not have happened—this man was a cheat. The other friend too—now you are becoming his enemy—he also thinks the same: I chose the wrong person. Had it been the right man, this would never have happened. When a friend becomes an enemy, we are deprived of the truth. The truth is that friendship turns into enmity. But we pin it on the person and set out in search of a new friend.

A man in America married eight times. But he must have been intelligent. The first marriage—after a year he got a divorce. He saw that the wife was wrong. Nothing unusual—every husband sees that; every wife sees that. He saw the wife was wrong, the choice was wrong. He divorced. Then he chose a second wife. Six months later he found he was wrong again! He married eight times in his life. But I said the man must be intelligent—because to arrive at the right truth even after eight mistakes is also extraordinary. People do eight thousand and still do not arrive, because our logic remains the same each time.

After eight, he did not marry. And when his friends asked why, he said: In eight times I had a strange experience. Every time the woman I brought home thinking she was right turned out wrong. The first time I thought the woman was wrong. The second time I thought the woman was wrong. But the third time a doubt started arising. By the fourth, it was becoming very clear. Still I said, one or two more experiments should be done. By the eighth it became clear that this is not a question of a woman being right or wrong. From whomever I sought happiness, from that one I would get sorrow. From whomever I sought happiness, from that one I would get sorrow. Because all happiness turns into sorrow. From whomever I sought friendship, from that one I would get enmity. Because all friendships are the beginnings of enmities.

Where is the mind’s trick? Where is the deception? The contrivance?

The contrivance is that we impose the truth of the experience, the truth of the situation, onto individuals. Then we go looking for a new person. There is no bicycle in the house; a bicycle is bought. Then we find—what we had thought would bring great happiness does not arrive. But by then the idea does not arise that the very bicycle for which we dreamed night after night—if only it came, we would be so happy—now brings no happiness at all. But we forget that entirely. By then we are after the happiness of getting a car. Then the car is also obtained. Then we forget to ask: did the happiness we imagined arrive? It never does.

You seek happiness; sorrow is what you get. You seek love; hatred is what you get. You seek light; darkness is what you find yourself traveling into. But we never manage to connect the two; we never complete the arithmetic. There is another reason—it must be kept in mind. Because there is a time-gap between the two, we fail to connect them.

When Westerners first reached Africa, they were astonished. Among the Africans there was no idea at all that children had anything to do with sexual intercourse. They did not know that the birth of a child was in any way connected with sex. The time-gap is large. First, not every act of sex produces a child. Second, there is a gap of nine months. In the tribes there was simply no notion that children have any connection with sex. Sex has nothing to do with it! The gap between cause and effect is so great—cause nine months earlier, effect nine months later—that the link is not made.

When we grasp happiness, by the time it becomes sorrow, a span of time falls in between. We do not connect that these two points are linked. It is that very happiness that has now become sorrow—we do not connect it. A friend will take time to become an enemy—after all, everything takes time to become something. So when he became a friend, and when he became an enemy, years pass between. We do not connect that from friend to enemy took this much time. No—the event of becoming a friend is separate, and the event of becoming an enemy is separate. Then we cannot decide; then we pin it on the person, that the mistake happened with this person.

Krishna says to Arjuna, See through and through; see the whole. And the one who sees this whole becomes a knower. And then cold and heat, pleasure and pain do not afflict the knower. But do not take it to mean that the knower does not feel cold or heat.

Such a misunderstanding has happened; hence I say this. Such a misunderstanding has happened. If so, he would not be a knower—he would have become dull. If sensitivity dies, he will not feel at all. Many dull-witted people fall into the illusion that they are knowers because they do not feel cold and heat. With a little practice, you won’t feel it. There is nothing difficult in that.

Keep in mind: the knower is not pained by cold and heat, by happiness and sorrow. In happiness and sorrow, choice does not remain. Choice disappears; choicelessness happens. It does not mean that things do not appear. It does not mean that if you prick a needle in a knower he will not feel it. It does not mean that if you put a garland around his neck he will not smell the fragrance, and if you throw stench he will not sense the stench.

No—both fragrance and stench will be sensed—perhaps more than by you. His sensitivity will be greater than yours. Because he will be more alert to existence, more awake to the moment. His experiencing will be more intense than yours. But he knows that fragrance and stench are two ends of smell.

If you ever pass by the factory where fragrance is made, you will understand. In truth, stench is what is turned into fragrance. You put manure in the earth and flowers carry fragrance. Fragrance and stench are two ends of smell. When a smell seems pleasing, we call it fragrance; when it seems displeasing, we call it stench.

It is not that the knower cannot tell what is beautiful and what is ugly. He knows very well. But he also knows that beauty and ugliness are two ends of form—two ends of one wave. Therefore he is not pained, not rocked, not destabilized. He does not lose balance.

But from this, a greater misunderstanding has arisen. And it is this: that the person to whom cold and heat are not noticeable has become a knower! This is very easy. What I am saying is the work that is very difficult! To not feel cold and heat requires only a little practice with cold and heat. You will not feel it; the skin will grow dull; its sense will diminish. A little in the nostrils—the few olfactory fibers—if you keep sitting near stench, they will get habituated.

So people even become “paramhansas” by sitting near stench. The ignorant touch their feet—What a great paramhansa; he does not notice the stench! What scavenger notices it? The nostrils have been ruined. But this does not make the scavenger a paramhansa.

Khalil Gibran has written a little story—I will tell it, then today’s talk is complete. In the morning we will continue.

Gibran writes: From a village a woman came to the city to sell fish. She sold the fish. As dusk fell and she was returning, her friend in the city—a girl from the same village—kept her back: Stay the night. She was a gardener’s wife; she had a beautiful garden, flowers everywhere. A guest had come to the house; the poor gardener’s wife had nothing else. She brought big flowers—mogra, rose, juhi, jasmine—and placed them all around her.

At night the fish-seller could not sleep. She tossed and turned, and could not sleep. The gardener’s wife asked, You can’t sleep? Any trouble? She said, There is. Remove these flowers—first. And give me my basket in which I brought the fish; sprinkle a little water in it.

An unfamiliar house makes it difficult. An unfamiliar smell! Fish had become part of her habit. But that does not make anyone a “paramhansa.”

If cold and heat do not register, that does not make one a knower. If happiness and sorrow do not register, that does not make one a knower.

Let happiness and sorrow be fully sensed, and yet let them not disturb your balance. Let happiness and sorrow be fully sensed, and yet in happiness see the shadow of sorrow, in sorrow see the shadow of happiness. Let happiness and sorrow become transparent, seen through and through—then the person attains to knowing.

More, tomorrow.