Geeta Darshan #15

On this sutra Krishna has laid stress again and again. It is precious—and worth remembering continuously. Whenever we think about God, we tend to feel that God is something other than existence. This happens because of an error intrinsic to thought—its very nature and process. The moment thought is applied, things split into two. Thought is a method of analysis, of separation. Thus, when we think about God, the world becomes one thing and God another. We say “creation,” and the creator stands apart.

But in actual experience, creator and creation are not two; they are one. That is why the ancient knowers said: this creation is just like a spider that draws the web from within itself and spreads it. This vast expanse flows out of the Divine just as the spider’s web flows out of the spider.

This expanse is his expanse; it is not separate from him. Not even for a single moment can it exist apart. It is because he is that this is. He abides in it, therefore it abides. The meaning is: let us take God to be synonymous with existence. Existence itself is God.

On this point even science will agree. Even the atheist could agree. But the atheist or the scientist will say, then what need is there to use the word “God”? Nature is enough; the world is enough; existence is enough. Here it is helpful to understand why religion uses a special word.

To say “existence is enough” leaves our heart unmoved. “Existence” does not send a current through our life-breath. “Existence” does not strike the strings of the heart. Between “existence” and us no living relationship is forged. But the moment we say “God,” something begins to move within. That is why the word “God” is used. Because to say “God exists” is not enough; it is also necessary that man reach God.

Religion is not only the proclamation of facts, it is also the proclamation of goals. Here lies the difference between science and religion. Religion is not content merely with “what is”; it is engaged with “what ought to be, what can be.”

If a seed lies before us, science will say, “This is a seed.” Religion will say, “This is a flower.” Religion proclaims that which can be, that which should be. If it does not happen, the very life of the seed will remain stifled, pained, and restless. The seed will be unfulfilled if it does not become a flower; there will be a deep melancholy in it, a grief, an incompleteness.

Science is satisfied in saying, “Existence is.” Religion says, “God and existence are synonymous,” yet we do not say “existence,” we say “God.” The moment we say “God,” the seed and the flower are announced together. When we say “existence is God,” we fundamentally mean: everyone is divine—and can be.

Krishna says: there is not anything moving or unmoving that is without me. There is no reality in which I am not present.

Yet leave aside the stone; even man does not sense that he is present. He is present in the stone as well. But forget the stone—even man does not sense that he is present within. We do not feel him within us. And when we set out to seek him, we go elsewhere—to Kaba, to Kashi, to Mecca, to Medina—anywhere. It never occurs to us that he might be here, within. Why?

The reason is very simple, very natural: what is too close is forgotten. What is very near, we do not remember. What is within, we do not notice. We only register what is at a distance, where there is a gap between us and the object. For awareness to arise, there must be intervals—gaps. Between us and the Divine there is no gap, hence awareness does not arise.

Understand this a little.

If from childhood you were raised amidst the din of a railway station—trains running all day, passengers rushing, engines thundering—you would notice the noise only on the day the railways went on strike. Before that, you would not know. The day trains stop and no passengers come or go, that day for the first time you will realize there had been noise. Otherwise you will have become accustomed; it won’t even occur to you.

What happens continuously drops out of awareness. What happens suddenly, occasionally, we notice. What happens always, fades from notice. And between us and the Divine there is never a strike—that is the difficulty. Not a single event occurs in which the Divine is absent. If for even a moment God were not present, we would know.

A fish swims in the ocean; it does not know the ocean. Take the fish out and place it on sand; only then, for the first time, it knows the ocean. Its thrashing, its restlessness, its life in peril—then it knows: where I was, that was the ocean, the support of my life.

But with man there is no way to take him out of God and lay him upon any sand. Hence man does not realize he is living in God. It sounds strange.

We ordinarily think that God must be very far; that is why we do not sense him. It is exactly the opposite. If he were far, we would sense him. He is so close that we do not. And the intimacy is so absolute that it has never been broken; thus we do not notice.

No matter how great a distance, it can be crossed. If God were far, someone would have crossed. And once one person crossed, we could make a paved road; there would be no difficulty. One Krishna arrives, one Buddha arrives—then what difficulty remains? Like the moon: one man has landed, now in principle all humanity can land. It is no longer a question of difficulty, only of time. Once the route is known, anyone can go.

A Japanese airline is already selling tickets to the moon for 1975! Theoretically it has become possible; sooner or later someone else will land. Once one man lands, anyone can.

This is the advantage of journeys in space: when there is distance, a path can be made. If one reaches, all can. But between us and God there is no distance—so no path can be laid. For a path you need distance; some gap to bridge.

That is why even though so many have realized God, no fixed road comes into being on which anyone can bustle along safely—and no one need worry about seeking any more. If the road were firm, you would only need to know how to walk. In matters religious the difficulty is the opposite: everyone knows how to walk; there is no road. Each must make his own. Another’s path is of no use. Where there is distance, others’ paths help; here there is none—not an inch.

This appears paradoxical. When there is distance, we reach by walking. When there is none, we reach by stopping; walking cannot take us there. If I need to come to you, I must walk. If I need to come to myself, walking is futile. If I run to reach myself, I am mad. Should someone say, “I am running to get to myself,” you would say he is insane—for running will take him farther away, not nearer. To come near, one must drop all running.

This is the greatest difficulty: this very simplicity, this ceaseless presence of the Divine. Even to say “he is near us” is wrong, because “near” implies a little distance. We are that! Yet in language two arise—“I” and “he.”

Therefore the sages have said either “I am That”—aham brahmasmi—or “Thou art That.” Either “I am” or “Thou art,” because usage of two creates a gap; but not even that much gap exists.

Krishna’s statement that “in all that is, I am immanent” contains many hints. Whoever wishes to seek him should not fall into the mistake of seeking as if he were lost—for we have never lost him. You can search for what you have lost; but God cannot be lost. You cannot lose him.

If we put it as a definition: God means that part of you which you cannot lose. Whatever you can lose—body you can lose; mind can change tomorrow; eyes can go blind; senses can be lost; even what you call consciousness can go—tomorrow you may be unconscious. But that which you cannot lose—that is God within you. Your being, your existence—you cannot lose it. That which cannot be lost is the Divine.

Then it follows: if we are searching, we are in error. Certainly! No one attains him by searching. Searching yields one thing only: the futility of searching. By seeking we tire—and stop. The day we tire and stop, that very day we attain him—because we have always had him. He is our very being.

“O scorcher of foes, there is no end to my divine manifestations. What I have told you is but a brief unfolding of my glories for your sake.”

These many symbols Krishna has taken, pointing out to Arjuna in many ways. He says: this is very brief—only a few hints. My divine manifestations have no end.

Whatever has an end is no glory. Whatever has an end is not divine. All that has a beginning is worldly; all that has an end is worldly. “Divine” means that which has neither beginning nor end—whose origin cannot be found, nor its termination.

This does not mean our search is small; no matter how great our search, that whose nature is beginningless and endless alone is divinity, the divine.

In this world, wherever you find beginnings and endings, know: that is the realm of the world. Where you find neither beginning nor end, there the glimpse of the Divine begins.

But we want to see God as we see objects. We say: let God stand before us, only then will we believe. The atheist says: where is your God? Bring him before me and I’ll believe. His question seems reasonable—but is utterly irrelevant, for he does not understand the meaning of the word “God.”

“God” means that which has no beginning, no end; which has no form, no qualities—and yet is; and which is within all forms, all qualities, all shapes.

If I hand you a flower and say, “It is beautiful,” I can hand you the flower, I can define the flower. Beauty will create difficulty. You all know what beauty is. But if someone asks you to define it, you will be in trouble.

Everyone experiences beauty. It is hard to find a person who has never felt it—at sunrise, at a moonset, in a flower, in someone’s eyes, in a face, in the proportion of a body, in a sound, in a line of a song—somewhere. Yet from Plato to Bertrand Russell, those who have thought deeply about beauty have not been able to define it.

Saint Augustine said: there are certain things that I know until you ask me. When you ask, difficulties arise. He said: I know well what love is—until you ask me. I know what time is—until you ask.

God is the deepest of these difficulties, the greatest. Time, love, beauty, truth, the good—each is a separate difficulty. None can be finally defined.

George E. Moore—the most rigorously logical mind in the West in the last fifty years, and in all human history only a few minds match his sharpness—wrote Principia Ethica, two hundred plus pages devoted to a single question: What is good?

After extraordinary labor, his conclusion is: good is indefinable. Two hundred pages on this small question—and the conclusion is that the good cannot be defined!

He says it is like this: someone hands me a flower and I say, “It is yellow.” He asks, “What is yellow?” Now I am in trouble.

If someone asks you what yellow is, what will you say? Moore says: yellow is yellow. What more can be said? But that is merely tautology. If I say yellow is red, false; red is red. Yellow is green—false; green is green. What can I call yellow except yellow? Whatever else I say will be wrong. If I repeat “yellow is yellow,” you call it tautology. If I say anything else, it does not define yellow.

We cannot define even such little things. And we ask what God is! We cannot define the color yellow, or the good, or beauty; we ask, what is God?

All these indefinables—the totality of all indefinables—is God. The sum of all that cannot be defined is God.

Hence when Buddha entered a village, a disciple went ahead ringing a bell announcing: the Buddha has set aside eleven questions—do not ask them. Don’t ask “What is God?” All the indefinables were included in those eleven. Ask anything else, he would say—just not these.

Many asked him: but these seem the very questions worth asking, and you forbid them! Then what is left? Don’t ask about God, about soul, about liberation—he removed all your philosophical questions. Then what should we ask?

Buddha said: better you ask how God can be realized. Ask how God can be known. Ask how one can become God. Do not ask what God is.

Do you see? We cannot define God—but we can experience. We cannot define beauty—but we experience it daily. A flower blooms and we say, “It’s beautiful.” A child asks, “What do you mean by beauty? Where is beauty in this flower? Show me—put your finger on it.” You touch a petal—“Is this beauty?” You cup the whole flower—does that catch beauty? You can only say: beauty is an experience. If it happens, it happens; if not, it does not.

Beauty has nothing to do with the flower alone. Tomorrow at dawn you will say, “What a beautiful sunrise.” The child will object: what relation has the flower to the sun? Yesterday beauty was in a flower, today in the sun—use some intelligence! And the day after, seeing someone’s eyes, you say, “Beautiful eyes.” The child says, now you’ve gone mad—flower, sun, eyes! What is beauty?

If it is in all three, then it does not end with any one. If it is present in all three, it is unlike each, yet hidden in each. It is experienced in all three; the heart is moved in the same way. But what connection between a flower, the sun, and human eyes? And yet something invisible is present in each—which we call beauty. There is some hidden harmony.

Albert Einstein was a great mathematician; he married a woman, Frau Einstein, who was a poet. A difficult pairing. Marriages are difficult enough ordinarily; this one more so. He understood only the language of mathematics; the distance between mathematics and poetry is as great as can be.

After their wedding, her first wish was to recite one of her poems to him. She sang a love song comparing her beloved’s face to the moon. Einstein sat with eyes closed. She thought he was pondering deeply. At last he opened his eyes and said, “This is madness; never tell me such things again. I have thought about it: there is no relation between the moon and a human face. Put the moon on a man’s head and you won’t find the man at all. And when I think of the moon’s beauty, there are only craters and pits. What has the moon to do with a human face?”

She writes in her memoirs: I understood then that we were beings of different species, and this subject should be dropped. If you try to prove it, you cannot establish any relation between the moon and a face. Yet sometimes a face reminds you of the moon, and sometimes the moon reminds you of a face. That is another realm—the realm of beauty; it has nothing to do with measurement or mathematics.

Whenever we try to measure God, we immediately give him form. Whenever we ask, Where is God? What is he like? What is his shape, his color?—we are asking the wrong questions. He is the one of whom all shapes are, the one of whom all forms are.

Think of standing on the seashore. You say you have seen the ocean—yet in truth you have only seen the waves. Waves are not the ocean. The ocean can exist without waves; waves cannot without the ocean. In waves the ocean is present—but waves are not the ocean. You look at waves and return saying you have seen the sea. Every wave holds the ocean; all waves hold the ocean. But the ocean is beyond the waves as well—deeper than them. Waves only dance upon the surface. The ocean is vast. We have seen only waves. Then someone can ask, “Which wave is the ocean?”

We have seen people, plants, animals, birds—and we ask: which do you call God? Who is God?

All these are waves of that one ocean. Within and beneath them, that upon which these waves rise and into which they subside—that ocean is God. We have not seen it; we see only waves.

I see you—but not that which was before you were, which is within you now, and will be when you fall. You are only a wave rising on the day of birth and subsiding on the day of death, once youthful and dreaming of touching the sky. But before your form, you were in the ocean; when your form dissolves, you will still be in the ocean. The ocean is always.

That which is always is God. What is only sometimes—a wave—comes and goes. So even to say “God is” is not right. Whatever we say “is” of, goes into “is not.” All that we say “is” of, will not be tomorrow. God never goes into “is not,” so even our word “is” is too small.

Hence Buddha said he would give no statement. If he says “God is,” it is wrong; if he says “God is not,” it is wrong. Best to remain silent.

If someone on the shore asks you, “What wave is the ocean like?” you too will find silence best. Say, “This wave,” and you err; say “all waves,” and you err, for the ocean is greater than all waves. Say, “like none,” and you err, for he is in all. Such is the difficulty.

Krishna says, “There is no end to my expansion.” So, in brief, I have given you a few symbols—waves. If you peer beneath these, you will arrive at the sea.

There is one danger. If you dive into a wave, you reach the ocean. Sit on the shore pondering the wave—you will never reach the ocean. We all sit and think about the waves, imagining that by thinking we will reach someday. A plunge is required—a dive into a wave.

The symbols Krishna gives—if you dive into even one, your connection with the Divine will be forged. Sit and think, and you are on the shore. Thought is the shore of the world. Experience—call it meditation, call it samadhi—is the leap into the sea.

Therefore, Arjuna, whatever you find endowed with glory—splendor, radiance, power—know it springs from a spark of my light.

Wherever an expression touches its peak, a summit becomes Everest, a flower blooms to fullness—wherever you sense magnificence, radiance, glory; wherever you feel something extraordinary has happened, something has reached its climax, its height—

Erich Fromm, a great American psychologist, coined a valuable term now in use: “peak experience.” Wherever a peak experience occurs, the person approaches the mysterious. Peak experience: an experience at the summit, where you feel there is nowhere beyond to go. There—understand.

Let me tell you an incident.

Akbar felt continually that it was impossible to go beyond Tansen in music; and indeed it was. There was such grandeur—as if God rained from Tansen’s fingertips. It was inconceivable to imagine anyone beyond him. One midnight, as Tansen took leave, Akbar said on the palace steps, “Many times it occurs to me: it is impossible to go beyond you. Even in my dreams, music is pale beside yours. But tonight a strange thought came: you too must have a master. You must have learned from someone. If you learned, I long to see your master. Who knows—perhaps he goes beyond you.”

Tansen said, “That is very difficult. I do have a guru, but…” Akbar said, “What is difficult? I will empty my treasury to hear him.” Tansen replied, “That is just it: my master cannot be brought to court—no price will fetch him. Not that he is stubborn or proud; he goes even to a poor hut; he could come here. The difficulty is, he never plays from effort or request—only when his very being is moved. Sometimes—who can say when?—by spontaneous inner surge alone. No request can be made.”

“What is the way then?” asked Akbar. “I will find out,” said Tansen. “At times, in the Brahma-muhurta before dawn, he sings in praise of the Lord; sometimes. We can hide behind his hut. He is a fakir—Haridas by name—living in a hut on the Yamuna’s bank. We can go at midnight and wait. Who knows—at three, or four, or five—if he sings, we shall hear.”

Perhaps never in history has an emperor gone thus, secretly, to hear a fakir. Akbar went. They sat shivering outside the hut from two in the morning. Each moment was long. Around four, Haridas began to play his veena. Akbar’s tears would not stop. The veena fell silent; still Akbar kept hearing. Tansen nudged him: “Long since he stopped; we must go—dawn is near.” Akbar walked as if lost in another world. On the palace steps he said, “Now I see. I thought there was no match for you. But beside your master—you are nothing. Why such a difference?”

Tansen answered, “The difference is clear—simple arithmetic. I play to attain something. He plays because he has attained. My playing is a profession; my eye is on the reward. For him, music is soul. He plays for nothing; there is nothing he needs. What he has found within sometimes overflows—and becomes music.”

Akbar said, “For the first time I have seen majesty in music—the peak.”

Krishna says: wherever there is majesty—wherever an expression touches its last crest—there I am; there my own spark is revealed.

Understand this well. It is as if the sun were to say—because it is hard to look at the sun directly; ten crore miles away, and still we cannot stare—it blinds us; face the sun and you go blind. Without the sun the earth is darkness; without the sun we are blind—and yet looked at directly, we go blind. The sun cannot be seen as such.

Suppose one stands facing the sun and asks, “Where shall I see you?” The sun would say, “Wherever you see a lamp breaking the dark, know that I am there.” Wherever a lamp flares and spreads light—know my radiance is present.

This is Krishna’s meaning: wherever you see majesty—if you cannot see God, better look for majesty; if you cannot see the sun, look at the light. Wherever you see luminous radiance, know that a spark of my light manifests there.

You can see the sun’s light in lamps; that is not difficult. Even in the small lamp at home, the flame is a portion of the sun’s energy. If you are burning kerosene, you may not know that kerosene exists because for millions of years the earth’s substances drank the sun’s rays; those rays return to you through your lamp. If you kindle fire by rubbing wood, or strike flint, it may not occur to you that over eons stone and wood drank the sun; that same light re-ignites.

The sun is hidden in wood—and in you. Wherever there is light, there is a sun-ray. When it was absorbed is another matter. The sun keeps giving light—collected in a thousand places. That stored light you reclaim.

But the sun cannot be looked at directly; the lamp can. The lamp is, in small part, the sun; the radiance is his.

Hence Krishna says: wherever you see majesty, wherever glory, wherever radiance, wherever power—know it is born of a portion of my light.

The chosen words—splendor (aishvarya), glory (vibhuti), radiance (kanti), power (shakti)—are interwoven. Shakti means energy. In a small child, power is visible. In an old man, that kind of force has waned.

So if you are seeking power, look into the child, not the old; there power is thinning. Seek it in the morning sun, not at dusk, where it is setting. The newer the force, the more intense. For those who seek power, children become divine; there the energy is fresh, a fountain bursting forth, the Ganga just at Gangotri: small yet filled with tremendous force.

Curiously, there is more force at Gangotri than where the Ganga meets the sea. She becomes vast—but also old. Magnitude and power are not the same. In fact, the smaller the particle, the more intense the energy.

That is why science today taps the greatest energy in the atom—the minute, the subtlest particle. There lies the source.

Even in a newborn there is a power that daily diminishes. If you want to see power, look in the new. Hence powerful cultures honor their children.

But if you wish to find majesty—seek it in the elder. A child has indomitable energy, but not majesty. Majesty is the refinement of experience; it comes with age.

Tagore said: when one truly grows old—truly! We all grow old, but our old age is not maturity; only depletion, poverty. Our aging is not an achievement—merely a long loss. We have squandered. Tagore says, when one truly becomes old, his white hair becomes like the snow-capped Himalaya—cool and majestic, as when ice crowns Everest.

If one has lived rightly, old age attains majesty. A radiance—available only in elders—cannot be in a child. The child has drive, power—usable or destructible. If the elder can shape it, that very power matures into majesty. Traversing experience, power becomes splendor.

So in youthful cultures you will find power; in ancient cultures, majesty. If you want to see raw power, look to the West. If you want to see the soft aura of mature age, look to the East. Older societies honor the elder rather than the child, honoring the ultimate crest, the last flowering.

Power-based societies rely on the young. Majesty-based societies rely on the old. In our land we have regarded old age as worthy of respect—not that every old person is worthy, but because some elders have attained such depth that all elders gained honor through them. Only the elder can grasp the ultimate gentleness.

Fire has a blaze—and it has an aura. When the sun has set and night has not yet come, a soft light spreads; or at dawn, before the sun appears, a glow spreads—that is aura, majesty. Power burns; majesty illumines. Power is fire; majesty is light, cool. Majesty has no pride; power may.

Life begins with power; it culminates in majesty. The journey is by radiance. If power passes through radiance, it reaches majesty. If a person spends life-energy on the petty, radiance is lost.

Often we trade diamonds for crusts of bread. More often than not, we lose what is finest to purchase the trivial. Life becomes business—transactions—and we call that happiness.

Radiance means: the person dedicates energy continuously to the higher. Radiance comes to one who receives more than he expends—always inwardly in profit. If he loses an inch of energy, it is because a vast gate is opening—otherwise he does not lose.

Understand it thus: sex is energy. You can squander it in bodily pleasure, and you will lose radiance—your personal aura shrinks.

Have you noticed? When sexual energy is depleted, an inner contraction is felt—you become poor, something lost, nothing gained.

The opposite occurs when sexual energy moves upward toward the Divine and is not poured into others, but turns inward toward one’s own core. At every step life feels vast, expanding.

We often hear the word brahmacharya—celibacy—but rarely its meaning. It means “conduct like Brahman.” Brahman means the vast, the ever-expanding, without shore. The day your conduct moves toward expansion—something within keeps spreading, boundaries drop, sun and moon revolve within, you feel one with the sky—that day brahmacharya is attained.

This happens when our energy is ceaselessly consecrated to the higher. Seeking what is below you loses radiance; directing energy upward gains radiance. Radiance is the message flowing from your face, eyes, hands, your very presence—that energy has begun to rise.

This radiance is little valued. Thus: the child is powerful, the elder majestic; the youth can be radiant. Power in childhood is natural. Radiance in youth is a choice. If youth fails to become radiant, old age will be poverty, burden.

In this land we kept youths in ashrams till twenty-five, teaching the art of radiance—before power declines, it must be transformed; before it starts flowing downward, it must be directed upward. Once it start flowing down, habit forms; repetition sets in.

Life becomes like a bucket we lower into a well—so many holes that there’s much noise and the bucket seems to fill, but by old age, when we draw it up, it is empty—every drop lost along the way. If at old age the bucket comes up full, know that majesty has been attained.

This is possible only if in youth the holes are not made—most difficult. For if power is not transmuted, it becomes a burden to throw off.

Hence in the West a new idea has taken hold: sex is just a release, a relief. Energy builds tension; release it. They say sexual energy is like a sneeze—sneeze and you feel better. If not, there is irritation. Throw it out and feel relief.

If energy is not put to work, it becomes heavy; you have to throw it out. Only those can avoid this who learn the art by which energy is used daily and nothing remains to be thrown away.

Someone asked Diogenes why he never married. He said, “It is hard to keep two wives at once.” The questioner was startled—two wives? Diogenes said, “From the day I began seeking God, all my energy went there. Keeping another wife would be difficult. These two things together are hard.”

When energy flows entirely one way, nothing remains to flow elsewhere. Radiance arises when energy moves upward. Radiance means upward-moving force; its fragrance even touches the body; the body too is clothed in an uncommon beauty.

Wherever there is splendor, radiance, power—there my manifestation is; there I appear. And wherever this occurs, know it springs from a portion of my light; my flame burns there; my nectar flows there; my music resounds there; my fragrance lingers; my heart’s beat beats there too.

Or, Arjuna, what use is there in knowing so much?

If you cannot see me in majesty, or radiance, or power—if after all these hints nothing stirs—then this much knowing is useless. No matter how much more I say, nothing will be resolved. Begin to see.

We ask without caring what use it has. I meet people every day who keep asking—and don’t even know why. Perhaps questioning has become an itch—scratch it and there is relief. The nails scratch, blood comes, pain comes—but while scratching, it feels like you are doing something.

If your question is an itch, it is a disease. There is no end to “just asking.” Ask for lifetimes—and the answers you receive only breed new questions.

Have you noticed? Every answer births ten more questions. In five thousand years philosophy has asked countless questions; not a single one resolved. This is the marvel. So many answers—and not one solution. Rather the opposite: each answer gave rise to a thousand new questions.

Bertrand Russell wrote in his autobiography: as a child, when I first grew interested in philosophy, I thought that when I became proficient, some of my questions would be answered. Before dying he wrote: now old, I can say—not one of my questions has been answered; and something I never imagined has occurred—new questions have arisen in these ninety years.

He first defined philosophy as the search for answers to ultimate human questions; later he defined it as the search for further questions about ultimate questions. Question after question. If you ask merely to ask, it is futile.

Krishna says: Arjuna, what is the use of so much questioning if you cannot understand the hint? Then you will go on asking and I will go on answering—and nothing will be solved.

Today the earth is in such confusion because so many answers and questions crowd your mind that it is hard to tell whether you have any question of your own, and if you do, whether you intend to do something—or are you only curious?

A man came to me two days ago. He asked, “Is there truly a God?” I asked, “What is your intention? If there is, what will you do? If there is not, what will you do?” He said, “Do? Nothing. I just asked.” If there is, it will make no difference to him; if there is not, no difference either. Then why the question? He said, “And it’s not only you I ask—I’ve asked many saints.”

In one village people submit written questions. A man gave me a printed question. I was surprised. I had spoken there the first day; as I was about to leave, he handed me a printed question. I asked, “So quickly you had it printed?” He said, “What quickly? I had this printed thirty years ago. Whoever comes, I hand it to him.” I asked, “Haven’t you received any answers in thirty years?” He said, “Many—but none satisfy.” I said, “Ask for thirty lives—you will not be satisfied. No one is satisfied by someone else’s answer, until the answer becomes your own.”

Our difficulty is deeper: not only are the answers borrowed, the questions are borrowed. People say, “This is not my question; it’s my friend’s question.” Even our questions are not ours—they are planted in us. Then we become junkyards of others’ questions and answers.

Krishna asks: Arjuna, what use is this much knowing? Do you intend to dive—or only think? Are you eager to act—or is it merely intellectual curiosity?

I uphold this whole world by only a fraction of my Yoga-Maya.

This entire world is only a fragment of me. A priceless utterance. I said: the whole world is God. True—but the whole God is not the world. The whole world is God, but the whole God is not the world. God has infinite possibilities of expression across infinite worlds. God is the primal possibility of all existence. When one seed sprouts from that ground, a world is formed; when another sprouts, another world is formed. Infinite worlds are possible; each is only a part.

If the whole of God were the world, God would be limited; then no other world could be. If this world were all of God, there would be no further movement, no growth.

God’s infinity means: this world is one expression. Many could be; many have been; many will be. Hence: only a fraction of my Yoga-Maya is at play.

Yoga-Maya means exactly what “magic” means in English. But a magician—what does he do? He gestures, “Here grows a mango tree,” and a sapling appears, bears fruit, he plucks one and gives it to you. A marvel!

But what is he doing? Making what is not appear as if it is. Magic means: what is not seems to be.

The Indian understanding says: the world too is not—in itself—but because God wills, it appears. It is not; God desires, therefore it appears. Its being is his idea.

If you’ve seen hypnosis: a man is put into trance and told, “You are not a man, you are a woman. Walk from this end of the stage to that.” His gait becomes feminine. What happened? An idea! The hypnotist implants an idea: you are a woman. The idea becomes active.

Deeper: put a flower in his hand and say, “It is a burning coal.” He screams and throws it away. Not only that—blisters will appear where the flower touched! We placed no coal—only said so. He accepted it. Doubt is asleep; reason is suspended; faith is total. The unconscious is at work; the conscious is off. Whatever is suggested, he believes. The life-force accepts: it is fire—and blisters arise.

Sufi fakirs dance on live coals. There is no trick there. Praying, they tell the Lord: “O Beloved, in your name these coals will be flowers.” The statement is made so deep that the coals cannot burn; the body refuses to accept that they are coals.

Hypnosis is a small, personal experiment in Yoga-Maya. For the Divine, this vast expansion is not a material production but the spread of his thought.

Eddington, a great scientist, wrote: when I entered science, I felt the universe was like a thing. In later life, after a Nobel Prize and world renown, he said: the universe looks more like a thought than a thing.

But whose thought? Being a scientist, he wouldn’t say “God’s”—he had no notion.

Krishna says: this entire universe is the expansion of a fraction of my Yoga-Maya—my thought, my idea.

This existence is a deep dream of the primal energy—a feeling, and a world appears; the feeling ebbs, and the world disappears.

This does not mean that if you drop a stone on your foot, blood won’t flow. Nor that you are not. You are. But the basic constituent of your being is not substance—it is thought. You are a confluence of infinite thoughts. The world is a confluence of infinite thoughts.

If we distinguish materialist and spiritualist views, it is this: the materialist says the fundamental unit of the universe is matter; the spiritualist says it is thought. The bricks of the universe are made of thought. If matter appears, it is the density of thought. The difference between what we call thought within and stone without is not of kind, but of degree. If thought condenses utterly, it materializes.

Krishna says: this is a fraction of my Yoga-Maya, and upon it I sustain the world. Therefore know me in essence. Do not get lost in expansion. Know me, the foundational. In expansion you may lose yourself.

Many get lost in details, forgetting what they set out to find. Deep in the forest, the memory of the tree we sought disappears.

Thus finally Krishna reminds: I have told you a little expansion—do not get lost in it. I told it only so that all arrows point to me. Take me as the end and center of all seeking.

Whoever bends all the arrows of desire, prayer, aspiration, longing toward one—God—does not take long to find.

If we lose, forget, miss him, the only reason is: never once have we desired him with our whole being. If we have ever desired him, he is merely one item among thousands—and last on the list. Someone goes to market—ninety-nine items: salt, oil, wood—and hundredth: God. That is what we are like. After all else—last.

He who places God last will be last to attain. He who places him first finds him.

But we put the petty first. If someone offers you a car or a vision of God—what will you choose? You say, the vision of God can come anytime—he is eternal. Let’s take the car now—who knows if it will be available tomorrow. God we can take later—next life perhaps. No hurry. You choose the petty.

Krishna says: do not go into expansion. I stand before you. Know me in essence; long for me alone.

One last thing. Krishna has spoken many symbols. They are pointers. No symbol is an idol. Symbols are not for worship; they are supports for understanding. Those who begin to worship symbols go astray. A symbol is a pointer, not a destination.

A man walks along the road. By the side stands a milestone with an arrow. It is not for you to sit and worship. The arrow says: move ahead. If you want to reach the goal, don’t stop at the stones. The arrow says, walk on.

All the symbols Krishna has chosen are such milestones. Do not stop upon them.

Bokuju once stayed at a Buddhist temple in Japan, where the Buddha images were wooden. The night was bitterly cold. He took one statue, burned it, and warmed himself. The priest awoke, saw the fire, rushed in: “What are you doing? Are you mad? I gave you shelter, and you burn Lord Buddha!”

“Lord Buddha?” said Bokuju. “My mistake!” He took a stick and began poking in the ashes. “What are you doing now?” asked the priest. “Looking for the Buddha’s bones,” said Bokuju. The priest exclaimed, “You are crazy—burn a wooden statue and look for bones!” Bokuju laughed: “So you do know it’s only wood. The night is long and it is very cold; the living Buddha within is freezing. Bring two more statues, and the night will pass beautifully!”

He was thrown out that night. Burning images was a grave sin, and no one cared for the living Buddha. At dawn, when the temple opened, they saw Bokuju outside at a roadside stone, offering two flowers in worship. The priest was aghast: “What kind of man are you? At night you burned Buddha, and now you worship a roadside stone?”

Bokuju said, “For worship, any symbol will do. And to be a fool, people make symbols into idols and go astray. For this morning, I accept that Buddha is here; worship can be done at this stone too. It is just a device. But your idols have become heavy; you threw a living Buddha out and clung to wooden Buddhas. When I searched for bones in the ashes, you yourself admitted there are none—because it is wood. Your worship is false: you make symbols into idols.”

Remember this last point in this chapter of symbols.

A symbol is not an idol; it is a pointer. All symbols are useful—of temple, mosque, church, gurudwara. All are useful; none is final. Use the symbol—and pass beyond it. Do not stop at the pointer. Then one day the expansion drops and the center is found.

That’s all.

Sit for five minutes. It is the last day—let no one get up. Join the kirtan, then go.