Geeta Darshan #10

A third doorway too—Krishna uses symbols. Among trees, the peepal!

The peepal is a very special tree. Not only according to Hindu understanding, but botanically as well. And not only botanically—now even psychology hints at it. Most trees release carbon dioxide at night; the peepal is the exception. Throughout the night it does not emit carbon dioxide.

That is why, under any tree, staying the night is harmful—except under a peepal. To spend a night beneath most trees can even prove fatal if carbon dioxide accumulates. So there is a prohibition against sleeping under trees at night. But beneath a peepal, one can remain even through the night. In this sense the peepal is unique—life seems to flow from it twenty-four hours a day.

From psychology, too, something remarkable has come to light. Mind-scientists and physiologists have long searched for the center of human consciousness. They have investigated all the glands in the body, especially those in the brain that appear to be near awareness. The astonishing finding is this: the chemical element whose secretion correlates with wakefulness and awareness in the brain—and whose absence brings about unconsciousness—exists in the peepal in the highest concentration. The chemistry necessary for the flowering of intelligence in the human brain—the needed elements and processes—are found most abundantly in the peepal.

Colin Wilson, half in jest but thoughtfully, once wrote that Gautam Buddha’s enlightenment occurred under the banyan—the bodhi tree, of the same family as the peepal—and that, in some deep sense, Buddha’s enlightenment may have been related to the tree itself. The chemical possibilities that support the flowering of consciousness seem to be richer in the banyan and the peepal than in other trees.

So the bodhi tree is not called bodhi merely because Buddha sat beneath it. Among trees, it is the one with the greatest potential for intelligence.

Krishna says, Among trees I am the peepal.

This means: even if we were to seek the divine among trees, we would have to begin wherever we find a small ray of intelligence. Wherever there is intelligence, there is God. If there is even a glimmer of intelligence in a tree, there too is God.

For years science held that intelligence exists only in human beings. That proved mistaken. Animals too have intelligence, though its quantity and expression differ. We may not understand it—there may be no direct dialogue between animal intelligence and ours—but it is there. And now science even accepts intelligence in plants. Plants have memory; they can retain and preserve impressions. Perhaps soon we will discover the pathways by which plant memory can be read.

If Buddha awakened under the bodhi tree, then the tree too may carry the memory of that event. That very tree has been preserved to this day. Does its innermost being hold some trace of the great illumination that occurred beneath it?

Scientists now say plants have memory and awareness. They are sensitive. Not only this—there have been many experiments, in Russia and in America. Instruments have been built that can register the emotional state of a plant.

If you’re sitting and someone suddenly stands over you with a knife, you are flooded with fear—every fiber of your being vibrates with it. Today we have instruments that, attached to your body, will immediately signal that fear. Whenever fear arises, the bioelectric currents of your body begin to oscillate in a particular way; nearby instruments can pick up those vibrations. When you are filled with love, there is another pattern; when you are blissful, a third.

Then something astonishing happened. A scientist wondered: if a human being trembles, do animals, too? He experimented—animals fear, love, rage, just as we do. Then he thought: could this be possible in plants?

He brought a potted plant into his room, took up a knife, and approached it to see what its inner condition might be at the moment of cutting. He was shocked: as soon as he brought the knife close, before he even cut, his instrument showed the plant trembling with fear—just as a human being trembles. He had not yet struck—he was merely standing there with a knife. One must accept then that plants possess a sensitivity and a soul akin to ours.

An even more unexpected event occurred. The plant that was threatened reacted in fear—and so did a second plant placed beside it. Many experiments followed. He found that if you harm even a single plant in a garden, all the plants around it become distressed. The one being harmed, of course; but the neighbors too suffer.

What does this imply? That the sensitivity of plants may be purer than that of human beings. If someone near you is being killed, it isn’t necessary that you feel sorrow—you may even feel happy. But in the scientist’s experiments, he never found a single neighboring plant that became pleased when another was being cut or threatened. They all became sad together.

It is hard to find such unanimity in human beings. If a Hindu is killed, a Muslim may be pleased; if a Muslim is killed, a Hindu may be pleased. If a friend dies, we grieve; if an enemy dies, we may rejoice. The experiments showed that plants harbor no such malice, no partition of jealousy, enmity, and friendship.

Life is saturated with soul. Whether we recognize it or not; whether we understand it or not—for our understanding is very small. A human being’s understanding hardly suffices even for another human being. In truth, one person’s understanding often fails to comprehend another person.

We are all Robinson Crusoes, isolated on our islands. Even reaching another person is difficult. I see you happy, but I cannot know what is happening within you. I see your smile, the light upon your face, but I cannot experience the wave of joy moving inside you; at best I infer. And inference can be false—you may be acting.

Most of us are acting. That makes everything more complicated. Each person knows his own suffering and sees only the false smiles of others. So each concludes: no one is more miserable than I am; everyone else seems so cheerful! The whole world appears happy—only I am troubled. Why is God angry with me alone?

He forgets that he too smiles when others ask him how he is. “Very well, I’m fine,” he says, even when nothing inside is fine. The other is deceived into thinking, “How well he is!” It was a formal statement.

Our faces are formal, for display. Inside, it is otherwise. Our sorrow may not be true; our joy may not be true. We can only see another’s face; we cannot see into their soul. When we see tears we infer: when I am sad, I weep; therefore he must be sad. Not necessary. It is an inference.

One person’s understanding cannot enter another’s life-breath—another person who is just like us. So if our understanding fails to enter animals, it is no surprise.

Hence many religions denied animals a soul and felt no obstacle in killing them—assuming animals were made for man’s use. The whole reason was only this: the manner in which soul manifests in animals does not connect with us. There is no common language, no dialogue. Their signals elude us. So animals appear as mechanisms.

Plants are even farther. We cannot imagine their pain, their sorrow or joy; that they too might be blissful and absorbed; that they might dance in happiness; that tears might flow from their life-breath. We do not know the mode of their tears, nor their smile, nor any token of their tongue.

But in this land, we attempted entry into non-human existence by other routes. Mahavira became so overwhelmed by the pervasive presence of life—wherever being is, there is life—that he told his monks: do not even walk on wet ground, for a blade of new grass might be sprouting, and to step upon it is violence. Do not pluck unripe fruit, for to tear an unripe fruit from the tree causes pain to the tree as if one tore your hand away. Let the fruit ripen and fall of itself.

Mahavira’s ahimsa may be reinstated within the next fifty years. For science’s discoveries regarding plant sensitivity will vindicate him: there too is life as much as within us; there too is sensitivity; there too is soul.

Krishna says, Among trees I am the peepal.

You may not know this, but those few who have worked intimately with trees, who have tried to discover where the greatest talent resides among them, arrive near the peepal’s family. The peepal is highly gifted, very wise. Among trees, wisdom flowers most fully there.

That is why the worship of the peepal did not start accidentally. It began because of the potential for wisdom within it.

When science is lost, superstition remains in our hands. Even today we seat our deities beneath a peepal, install their images there. We still bow to the peepal. But we hardly know what we are doing or why. Without knowing, our reverence is empty.

To bow to the peepal means: wherever there is wisdom, it is worthy of reverence—even in a tree.

Yet if a wise human being lives next door, we feel pain at the thought of bowing, even as we bow to a peepal! Even if our neighbor has awakened to knowledge, our head will not bend. Clearly, when we bow to the peepal we do not know what we are doing; what science, what remembrance is at work there is unknown to us.

The feeling is: if wisdom flowers even among trees, we shall bow there too. But when wisdom flowers in a person, still our head refuses to bow. Ego obstructs.

And the irony: the one who can easily bow before a peepal cannot easily bow before a living person. Before a tree, it doesn’t feel as if we are bowing before someone; before a person, it does.

Hence it is easy to place your head before a stone image; very hard to place it before a living man. That is why when a master dies, he becomes valuable. Alive, he is not. Let Christ die, and he becomes God; alive, he is hung upon a cross! While Buddha is alive, we throw stones; once he dies, we raise so many statues that we cover the earth with them. Why? What is the secret?

If Jesus stands before us, he looks just like us. Bowing hurts—we feel wounded in our pride. But when Christ is no longer present—when Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna are no more—then nothing stands before us.

Remember, however great a dead master may be, he cannot help you as much as even a small living master.

But bowing before the living is difficult. It has come to this: if a guru wishes people to bow at his feet, he need only say, “No one should touch my feet; no one should bow.” Better still, he bows to you—then you feel, “Yes, this man is right.”

A friend came to me and said he was deeply impressed by Krishnamurti. I asked why. He replied, “When I sat with him, he placed his hand on my knee and gently stroked it, even down to my foot.” He must have done it in a moment of affection. But he did not realize how much delight it gave this man’s ego.

Lately I see around Krishnamurti a crowd of those we might call the deeply egoistic. The reason is simple. He says, “I am not a guru, not an avatar, not a teacher. I teach no one. I am nothing.” People have listened to him for forty years—learning constantly from him—yet their minds are soothed by the assurance that he is no one’s guru. Why? Because then I am no one’s disciple.

It is delightful. Krishnamurti speaks of freedom from ego all his life—rightly so—but the class gathered around him is the highly ego-centered class. They enjoy it. It feels absolutely right.

Such a class would never gather around Mahavira or Buddha, nor around Krishna. For Krishna says, “Abandon all dharmas and come to me alone for refuge.” This class protests: “Who are you to say that? Why should we come to your refuge? Who do you think you are?”

This very class that crowds around Krishnamurti cannot gather around Krishna. Ironically, only Krishna could help them; Krishnamurti cannot. Those who gather around Krishna could profit from Krishnamurti as well.

Do you see?

If humble people gather around Krishnamurti, they can benefit. But the proud have their pride fortified.

Ours is a century of denying God—not because we have discovered there is no God, but because this is the most ego-ridden century in human history. We cannot tolerate even the idea that someone stands above us.

In the West there is humanism: “Man is the ultimate truth.” But to say man is the ultimate truth is to declare that there is nowhere to look beyond; no further evolution; no going beyond what we are.

The eye turned toward what is higher is the door beyond. The day man refuses to go beyond himself, that day man begins to rot.

Nietzsche said: the day man’s bow no longer lifts an arrow aimed beyond man, that day man ends.

Always go beyond yourself. But this is possible only when there is surrender toward something beyond.

These Hindus were wondrous in one sense: if they found even in a peepal some hint of transcendence, some flicker of intelligence, a little flame—they placed their head upon the ground there too.

What need is there for a man to bow to a peepal? What power has a peepal to make a man bow? Man could cut them all down. Yet he bowed before a helpless tree that could be felled—a deep reason was at work. Among trees, the peepal holds a unique intelligence. One can relate to it.

Luqman, father of Greek medicine, wrote the properties of a hundred thousand plants. Astonishing! He had no laboratory, no chemical methods, no instruments. Luqman was a wandering fakir with only a begging bowl. How did he learn the properties of a hundred thousand plants? No one before him knew them; he could not have copied from others.

What Luqman said was not believable. But now it can be. This is why I say: do not distrust too quickly; later discoveries may overturn your doubts.

Luqman said, “I asked the plants themselves. I had no other way. I would sit by them with eyes closed, meditative, and ask: ‘Tell me, in what disease are you useful?’ Whatever a plant told me, I wrote down. Thus I asked a hundred thousand plants.”

And the great wonder is: what Luqman stated about a plant’s properties, our finest science cannot refute; it confirms them.

Historians and physicians have been puzzled: no visible cause explains how Luqman knew. The cause he offers seems unacceptable—how could plants tell? Yet in twentieth-century America there was a man, Cayce. Edgar Cayce’s case suggests Luqman spoke truly. Cayce was very ill; doctors failed. He despaired, contemplated suicide. One day, brooding thus, he fell unconscious and shouted: “If I’m given such-and-such a medicine, I’ll be cured.” His family wrote it down. Doctors said they’d never even heard of it. When Cayce awoke, he remembered nothing.

They searched and found it—a drug patented in Switzerland twenty years earlier but never manufactured, never marketed, never mentioned in medical texts. The inventor died and the formula slept in a patent file.

That Cayce named it in America was a miracle. They produced it and he was cured. Then a method opened in his hands. He cured, by estimate, nearly a hundred thousand patients—one of the century’s most remarkable events, as if Luqman had returned. Send him a name and address; he would go into trance and prescribe. Cayce was not a medical student, knew no pharmacology. Yet his trance prescriptions worked—often for cases medicine had abandoned.

What was happening to Cayce? What plane of consciousness did he descend to? He himself did not know; awake, he disclaimed responsibility: “I don’t know if this will help or harm. Take it on your responsibility.”

Sometimes he would say: “Leaves of such-and-such a tree, the flower of such-and-such—mix them like this.” People recovered. Did he establish an inner relationship with plants?

Cayce’s phenomenon invites reconsideration that perhaps Luqman spoke truly. Much in Ayurveda also becomes clearer: its knowledge does not seem to have arisen solely from laboratory methods; much seems to have come through a direct, inner rapport with plants.

Are there ways to relate to plants? There are. The deeper you descend within yourself, the deeper you descend into existence. Descend one step and you can relate to animals; another step and you can relate to plants; another and you relate to minerals. The deeper you go within, the deeper you connect with the strata of being.

Krishna’s statement—among plants I am the peepal—is not mere symbol; it is deeply evocative.

Another symbol: among the divine rishis I am Narada.

Narada is a unique character; perhaps no mythology has anyone like him. To understand why Krishna links himself with Narada, remember a few things.

First, Narada is not a serious personality; he is non-serious. There is no heaviness in him. He sees life as play and drama—more of a celebration, a festivity, carried in a non-serious way.

Krishna saying, “Among divine seers I am Narada,” signals something. He will not link himself to the grave rishis. Seriousness too is a kind of illness—a deep one.

The serious man cannot truly laugh, nor dance, nor live. He lives half-dead. His life is a gradual death. He is suicidal. Around him lies the aura of a cremation ground, not of life. He cannot pray, cannot worship—because prayer and worship belong to celebration, not to seriousness.

There have been serious rishis; but such a one is identified with only half of life—the tidy, the proper, the useful. He knows nothing of the useless, the play, the sheer fun.

We cannot imagine a rishi telling a lie—but Narada can. We cannot imagine a rishi entangling people—but Narada does, and delights in it. The serious will not even accept Narada as a rishi.

I often tell you tales of Mulla Nasruddin. To the Sufis, he is a great mystic. Most people think him a fool, a clown. But the Sufis know him as a profound saint. His way is not to take life seriously. Often, to expose your weakness, he exposes his own. Often, rather than laughing at you, he puts himself in a position where you laugh at him. He sees the whole of humanity as a cosmic joke.

Narada is such a figure from another angle. The world is a stage to him. Krishna choosing Narada hints at this:

Only the one who sees the theatricality of life is truly religious. This sounds difficult, because religious people take the world very seriously, calculating every step. Even in jest they cannot use a harmless untruth. Every step is measured lest a mistake be made. Even when they laugh, they ask whether they should laugh.

Christians even hold that Jesus never laughed. I cannot accept that, but their sensibility finds laughter profane. A man like Jesus laughing? No. Hence the face they give him is sad, bearing the weight of the world. They believe he took upon himself the sins of all—an enormous burden! One man’s sin is weighty enough; he bore the sins of all and redeemed the world—what a load!

But Jesus has not been understood. Looking closely at his life, this cannot be right. He must have laughed—he loved good food, appreciated beautiful women, had no objection to a little wine at table. Can such a man never have laughed? But serious people gathered around him.

There are, strangely, pathological serious people who are quickly attracted to religion. They find nowhere in life a balm for their melancholy. So the sick and the disturbed gather in temples, mosques, churches. Life seems to mock them elsewhere; flowers repel them; laughter drives them away.

These sufferers need somewhere to assemble, and religion is easy for them—under its name, sadness becomes respectable, rationalized. Their melancholy is no longer an illness; it becomes austerity. Their pain turns into metaphysics. They will call the joyful “sinners.”

And note this: the unhappy are always vocal. They speak a lot, spin philosophies around their pain, and condemn those who laugh.

Look at the history of religions: a mishap. Mahavira appears a joyous being; joy shines from every pore. Yet the crowd that gathers around him becomes morbid. Krishna plays the flute, dances, loves life, sees it as a festival. Still, around the flute-player gather the tired, the dreary, the afflicted. Gradually, such people organize rigidly. Religions are born in ecstasy and fall into the hands of the joyless.

Whenever religion is born, it springs from vast joy; whenever it is organized, the wrong people organize it. The joyous do not care to organize; they are content alone. The sad form groups.

Krishna’s declaration—among divine seers I am Narada—is worth pondering.

Life is a play. He alone is a seer who understands its entire theatricality. Life is a game, a lila. To take it seriously is sickness. To hold it lightly, not valuing it beyond play—that is health.

Consider an example. A man accumulates wealth with great seriousness. His life is invested in it. He imagines that if he piles up a mountain of money, life’s fulfillment will arrive. He toils with deadly gravity, then discovers it was futile. Life slipped away; the heap remained—of dust. Then he renounces with equal seriousness and runs from it.

I know ascetics who close their eyes if you place money before them. Some will not touch it. One monk came to see me. I had no time that day, so I said, “Come tomorrow morning.” He said, “It will be difficult.” His companion explained, “If he agrees to come, he can, otherwise not.” I asked why. “He does not keep money,” the companion said. “He needs someone to pay the taxi.”

Marvelous! Two men are required for one sin. One holds the cash. If he comes, the saint can come—he himself will not touch money!

Some madmen touch nothing but money; others have done a headstand—equally mad—who refuse even to touch it. Both are serious. Both deem money immensely significant: one as heaven, the other as hell. Neither sees that money is only money.

Narada stands apart from both. Life is not a serious matter. Think of a stage of the Ram Lila: someone plays Rama, someone Ravana. It is no sin to play Ravana; the only sin is to perform poorly. Nor is Rama doing great merit; the only merit is good acting. Offstage, it ends. There is no need to drag the quarrel home. But we take life seriously.

Whoever can take life as acting has grasped the deepest truth. Then there is no choosing between extremes; one can walk the middle. No need to abandon one insanity for another; one can drop both and pass laughing between them.

Narada sees life as a game, a stage—without ultimate value. Acting is everything to him. So too for Krishna. Life is not a grave matter for him.

That is why, in this land, Krishna is called the complete avatar. We could not call Rama complete—there is a reason. Rama is somewhat serious. Where there is maryada—code, propriety—seriousness follows. A non-serious man cannot be bound by maryada; he breaks it. So we called Rama an avatar, the loftiest place, yet still an amsha—partial.

Krishna alone we could call purna—complete—for he is utterly beyond bounds. Perhaps there has never been, nor will there be, a more unbounded being. To recognize such a one requires a society with great freedom; otherwise you will not be able to see.

You may say you are Krishna’s devotees—but try standing on Chowpatty, play a flute, let a few gopis dance, and you will be reported to the police. “This man is corrupting morals!” The distance is now so great that you feel no discomfort at Krishna’s tales.

Those among whom Krishna lived must themselves have been extraordinary to perceive something in such a boundaryless being. They were not ordinary.

We called Krishna a complete avatar because he embraced life in its totality—nothing rejected. What we ordinarily call “bad” is not rejected by Krishna either.

Therefore those who seek consistency in his life find it hard. Even to accept Krishna wholly is difficult for us.

Ask Surdas—he accepts only Krishna’s childhood. Later, he retreats, hesitates. Mischief by a child can be excused; by a youth, we worry. Keshav had the courage to portray Krishna’s youth, and devotees abuse him for it, accusing him of projecting his own ideas. That is untrue. Keshav brought forth what Surdas left out. But even Keshav emphasizes only the rapture of love, the rasa; other parts remain hard.

Gandhi loved Krishna and the Gita, but he was troubled by violence. He could never reconcile it. He called the Gita his mother, but she remained a stepmother; he solved his dilemma by saying the war is symbolic, not real—a struggle between good and evil within. Then Krishna does not endorse violence.

But this is not true. The Mahabharata war is not a symbol; it is an actual war. Violence occurred. Arjuna shrinks from it; Krishna stops him from fleeing. Had Gandhi met Arjuna on the way, the story would have turned out otherwise. But Arjuna met Krishna; history took another route. Gandhi never made peace with the violence.

His difficulty was real. Ninety percent Jain, ten percent Hindu. Gujarat is Jain in sensibility even among Hindus. Gandhi was shaped by Jain influence—especially Rajchandra. Of his three teachers—Rajchandra, Ruskin, Tolstoy—two were Christians with Jain minds. And there was love for the Gita. Between these, an inner dissonance remained. He turned to symbolism to resolve it.

With Krishna there is always this difficulty. He vowed not to take up arms in the war—then he took them up; a broken word! We do not expect this from a Krishna. Inconsistency!

We look with seriousness; thus it appears inconsistent. Krishna’s style is non-serious—it is play. He has no reason to be grave about it.

I heard a story. Nasruddin was in court. “Your age?” asked the magistrate. “Forty,” said Nasruddin. “But five years ago, in this very court, you said forty!” “I am a man who stands by his word,” said Nasruddin. “I do not change so easily. What I once said, I have said.”

This is one kind of consistency! You will not find such in Krishna. He is inconsistent from moment to moment. If there is any consistency, it is that amidst all his inconsistencies there is a harmony. He is consistent in his very inconsistency, and nowhere else.

This vast, many-faceted, multidirectional being—we called him complete. Even Rama we called partial; he is serious.

Krishna’s non-serious, lila-filled being is signaled by his choosing Narada among the divine seers.

Among the gandharvas I am Chitraratha; among the siddhas I am Kapila.

A word about Kapila. It will make Krishna clearer.

There are two great paths in the world: Yoga and Sankhya. This will sound surprising, for we call Krishna Yogeshwara, the Lord of Yoga. Yet Kapila, whom he chooses, is anti-yoga.

Yoga says: to realize truth, to realize God, one must do something—practice, discipline, method, kriya. Without passing through action, you cannot reach. Man is impure; he must pass through fire to be purified. The truth is hidden in him like gold mixed with earth; the dross must be burned away, the pure gold brought forth. Without doing, nothing happens.

Sankhya says the opposite: there is nothing to do—only to know. No action is needed. Man is not impure gold; he is God who has forgotten himself. He needs no purification. If God could become impure, where would purity be found? God means that which cannot be tainted. It is forgetfulness, not impurity.

Understand the difference well. It is a lapse of memory. You are drunk and have forgotten who you are. You are half-asleep and, startled awake, you don’t recall yourself. Or you have identified with something else and lost the sense of who you are. It is a mere forgetting.

Vivekananda told an old tale—from Aesop, also in the Panchatantra. A pregnant lioness leapt from one hillock to another; mid-leap her cub was born and fell among a flock of sheep below. The sheep raised him. He grew up among them. He was a lion’s cub, but he “knew” only that he was a sheep. He walked like sheep, bleated like them, turned where their leader turned. He grew bigger, taller, but the belief remained.

One day a lion attacked the flock. The sheep fled. The attacking lion was astonished to see another lion fleeing with the sheep! Neither the sheep feared him, nor did this lion seem to know he was a lion. He pursued and caught him with difficulty. The “sheep-lion” bleated. The lion said, “What are you doing?” He dragged him to a riverbank and said, “Look at your face in the water—and mine.” The sheep-lion looked, saw both faces, and a roar burst from within. He became a lion.

Sankhya says: man is in just such a delusion. Nothing has grown impure; only recognition is lost. The sheep-lion needed no purifying, no austerity, no posture or meditation—only remembrance: Who am I?

Kapila is the foundation of the Sankhya vision. It is wonderful that Krishna says, “Among the realized I am Kapila.” Deep within, he too holds and knows that man has merely forgotten—an accident of forgetfulness.

But few can simply remember. In the untold version of the tale, the lion might refuse to go to the river, sit down in protest, or shut his eyes in fear. Then something would have to be done: drag him to the river, force his eyes open. Knowledge alone would not suffice; some action would be necessary.

For ninety-nine out of a hundred, even if Sankhya is true, it is not workable. They must do something. Doing does not produce knowledge—but it takes you to the riverbank. Doing does not bring remembrance—but it opens the eyes; it heightens the possibility. One who can, can remember right now.

There was a Zen master, Rinzai. He came to his teacher, who asked, “Are you eager to do or to be? If to do, I will give you methods—practice ten years. If to be, it can happen this very moment.”

Rinzai said, “If it can happen now, show me how it can happen now.”

The master said, “Whoever asks ‘how’ is asking for method. Then practice ten years.” After ten years, Rinzai returned. “Now,” asked the master, “more doing—or being?” “Enough,” said Rinzai. “I am tired. Doing produces nothing.” The master said, “If you have truly seen that doing produces nothing, you can be this very moment. But do not ask how.”

He lifted his hand and said, “Now.” And Rinzai awakened.

People asked later, “What did you do in that instant?” He said, “Nothing. Ten years of doing wore me out. In that moment, all doing dropped; I remembered I am God. Being—what question of being? Doing—what question of doing? With that remembrance, the whole current of life changed. Darkness gave way to light; body to soul; the limited to the limitless.”

Such events are rare—one in a million. Usually one must pass through doing. Doing does not give knowledge—but it brings you where knowledge can flower.

Krishna is careful. He says, “I am Kapila.” The ultimate truth is this: you have nothing to do.

Our difficulty is that in this world, whatever we get, we get by doing—wealth, fame, education. Our whole understanding is chained to doing. We cannot imagine that something might be had by not doing—by sitting quietly, by becoming silent.

Yet there is one such thing, and its name is religion—call it the soul, godliness, what you will. It does not come by doing.

And remember, whatever comes by your doing is smaller than you. If you can “acquire” God, he becomes your commodity, locked away like all else in your safe—made petty by your action.

It is certain: whatever you do cannot be greater than you. If you wish to find what is greater than you, it will not come by doing; it comes by losing—losing yourself, letting yourself go. Drop the doer and the deed. Sit silently. Be still.

There is only one true pilgrimage: when all other pilgrimages cease—of body and of mind—then it begins. There is only one way to reach him: when all ways are abandoned and you come to rest within. There is only one direction to him: when all ten directions are dropped and you abide in the eleventh—within—traveling nowhere. This is Sankhya. These are the two great ways—Yoga and Sankhya.

Krishna says, I am Sankhya, I am Kapila. Among the perfected ones, I am Kapila.

The perfected are of two kinds: those who attained by doing, and those who attained without doing. Krishna says, I am with those who attained without doing. If one had to do and do and do, it means a dense darkness, a deep ego, were there—hence all that doing.

Let me tell you a story from Buddha’s life; you will grasp the meaning. He left palace and kingdom and practiced severe austerities for six years. Whatever could be done, he did. After each practice he found: no attainment. He embarrassed every teacher he met, because he did exactly what they prescribed, with such totality that even they could not fault him. Then they folded their hands and said, “What I know I have given; if it does not work, forgive me. Go elsewhere.” They even begged him, “If you attain, let us know.” For beyond this they knew nothing.

If you start doing, the number of gurus in the world will drop at once. Their crowd exists by your courtesy—because you never test what they say.

After six years, Buddha came to the place where Sankhya begins and Yoga ends. One morning he entered the Niranjana River to bathe. The body was emaciated by long fasting and self-torture. As he tried to climb the bank, he was too weak; he clutched a root to steady himself. In that moment a thought flashed: “By tormenting the body, I have gained nothing. I cannot even cross this little stream—and I aspire to cross the ocean of becoming? This will not do.” Somehow he came out.

Just as six years earlier he had left the palace, that day he left doing. He renounced Yoga, renunciation itself. He dropped all he had done in six years. He had already dropped the pursuit of wealth; now he dropped the pursuit of religion. He decided: “I will do nothing now. I am what I am—and if I am not, I am not.”

He could not conceive that by not doing he would attain. He simply stopped. One thing became clear: no more doing. “As I am, so be it. Ignorant, then ignorant; dark, then dark; sinful, then sinful. Whatever is, is accepted. I have nothing to get, nothing to seek.”

Such a state of mind is unique. He said later that that night he slept like a flower—weightless, unstrained. With nothing to gain, there was no tension. Morning or no morning—it made no difference. The future vanished. He slept in a peace known by very few.

At dawn, around five, his eyes opened. When there is no inner strain, the eyes are clear, transparent. He saw the last star sinking. He watched as it disappeared—and he awakened.

Buddha awakened after dropping Yoga as well. Practice is a tension. Doing is restless. He said, “I found it when even the desire to find had left me. It came when even the urge to receive was absent.”

He was startled: “What is this? Where had this been hiding?” It had been concealed behind his doing—behind the veil of the doer, the ego. There was no doing to be done, no doer to be kept, no deed to be performed. The mind became utterly empty—and in that emptiness the flower bloomed.

When people asked, “What have you gained?” Buddha said, “Nothing. What was always there—I saw it for the first time. I gained nothing.”

This is the meaning of Sankhya: what will be known is already present—here, now. It is not to be fetched from outside, nor is it impure to be purified. One has only to turn back, be still, be silent, and see.

Krishna says, Among the siddhas, I am Kapila.

And, Arjuna, among horses I am Ucchaisravas, among elephants Airavata, and among men I am the emperor.

Krishna is pointing Arjuna toward the highest possibility in every category—wherever Arjuna can understand. One precious thing to grasp: whether horse, elephant, or tree, there is no contempt in Krishna. He feels no embarrassment in saying, “Among horses, I am this; among elephants, I am that.” Otherwise, what need to say it?

For Krishna there is no higher and lower, no small and great. “I am within all,” he says. But wherever aristocracy appears—where a being comes to full flowering—there you can easily sense me. If you wish to approach through horses, I am there; through elephants, I am there; through trees, I am there. I indicate where it will be easiest for you to recognize me.
Arjuna asked Krishna: In what moods, in what forms should I seek you? Where should I look? How should I see? And Krishna says: Anywhere. If there are horses standing, I am present there too. Look for me there as well. So I will give you a key. If there are elephants standing, I am present there too. I will give you a key so you can know where to find me. If there is a row of trees, I am present there too. Wherever you wish to search, I am present. There is no place where I am not. But wherever you seek me, it will be easier for you if you look to the most excellent there—you will more readily see the Supreme.
It is like this: a seed lies here and a flower lies here; you will not notice the seed, you will notice the flower. Although the seed can become a flower tomorrow, still the seed will not be noticed, the flower will be. The flower is in the seed as well. And Krishna is in elephants just as he is in Airavata. And he is in plants just as he is in the peepal. But it will be easier to see in the peepal, for there the personality has blossomed. It will be easier to see in Airavata, for there the personality has blossomed. Wherever there is a flower, recognition will be easy; in the seed, recognition will be difficult. That is why Krishna keeps enumerating where I have blossomed.

And do not think that blossoming happens only in human beings. It happens in animals and in plants too. And do not think that only among humans there are the higher and the lower. They exist among plants and animals as well.

Buddha told a story from a past life, and said that in one previous birth he was an elephant. A disciple asked, “You were an elephant! Then how did you become a human? What act was it by which you journeyed from an elephant’s life to a human birth?” And what Buddha said is worth understanding; because of that act the elephant became special.

Buddha said: There was a forest fire—terrible. All the creatures were running. I too was running. I stopped for a moment under a tree to catch my breath, and I lifted one foot to move on. Just then a rabbit darted out from a bush and came to the spot beneath my raised foot—the place that had become empty because I lifted it—and there he curled up, taking shelter under my foot.

Then it occurred to me: if I put my foot down, this rabbit will die. I am running to save my own life—should I kill him? As my survival is important, so is his. And then it struck me that, having come with such trust into the shadow of my foot to sit, it would not be right to betray that trust.

So I stood there with my foot raised as it was. The fire came closer and closer, and in the end I burned to death. That day I did not know that any benefit would come of it. But because of that act I became human. It was because of that one small act that I became human.

If we look closely at animals, you will find they too have personality. The higher and the lower exist among them as well. Among them you will find Brahmin and Shudra. Now, even among humans we are trying to erase such distinctions; but among them too you will find Brahmin and Shudra. There too you will feel a wholly different disposition at work.

At Ramana Maharshi’s ashram, whenever Ramana spoke—whenever he spoke—a cow would come regularly to listen. This went on for years. Others would get word that Ramana would speak at five. But no one could send word to a cow! People might arrive a little early or late; the cow would arrive exactly on time.

When the cow died, Ramana said she was liberated. And Ramana did for that cow what he did only for one other person in his life, and never again. When his mother died, whatever rites he performed, the very same rites he performed for that cow. He conducted the complete last rites for both—just as he did for his mother, so he did for the cow.

Someone asked Ramana, “What are you doing—for a cow?” He said, “She appeared as a cow to you. You appear as a human; that does not make you a human. She appeared as a cow; that does not mean she was only a cow. Among cows she was most excellent. She had touched another dimension. And she was liberated.”

So when Krishna says, “Among horses I am…,” sometimes it may sound odd—what kind of symbols are these! Couldn’t Krishna find something else? Horses and elephants and trees—what is this about! But it is very deliberate.

Wherever existence is, there the Divine is. But Krishna told Arjuna: you will be able to recognize Existence where the flower is in bloom; the seeds may not be visible to you.

That is all for today. We will talk again tomorrow.

But sit for five minutes now. Join in the remembrance of the Name, and then go.