Geeta Darshan #3

Before entering this sutra, understand a few preliminary things.
We have called the ultimate mystery of life “God.” We have called the ultimate foundation of life “God.” We use the word “God” every day. But perhaps we have not noticed that “Ishwar” is of the same root as “aishwarya”—sovereign splendor. Wherever splendor appears—whatever the dimension—there the glimpse of God draws near.
When a flower blooms into its utmost beauty, that supreme beauty is called aishwarya. When a sound touches the uttermost height of music, that sound, too, is aishwarya. And when eyes drown in the deepest state of beauty, that beauty, again, is aishwarya.
Aishwarya means the supreme excellence in any direction, any dimension—the final limit beyond which one cannot go. Whether it be beauty, or truth, or shivam; whatever the dimension, wherever life touches its extreme intensity, reaches its highest peak, touches Gaurishankar—there God becomes most transparent.
God is hidden everywhere—even in the stone lying by the roadside. But when that very stone becomes a beautiful statue, it becomes easier for him to reveal himself through it. God is in every particle, yet he has two modes: the hidden, secret mode—when he is neither seen nor felt; and his manifest mode—when expression happens and he is seen.
Aishwarya means the manifestation of life’s ultimate mystery—its expression, the farthest edge of its expression.
In this sutra, Krishna says: the one who knows my supreme, aishwarya-filled manifestation…
We all hear and even say that God is hidden everywhere. But the wonder is, whenever his supreme manifestation appears, we fail to recognize it. Those who crucified Jesus also used to say, “God is hidden in every speck,” and yet they could not recognize Jesus. Those who stoned Buddha would also say that the Divine indwells every particle—and yet they could not recognize Buddha. Those who drove nails into Mahavira’s ears also thought, “God is hidden everywhere,” but in Mahavira they did not see that very God.
It is astonishing: people who believe that he is hidden everywhere not only fail to recognize him when he manifests supremely, they even stand against him. Clearly, their saying is only a saying; they have not known, they have not recognized. Otherwise, Jesus’ crucifixion would be impossible—for it is God they are crucifying. Otherwise, stoning Buddha would be impossible—those stones fell upon God himself.
And the irony is this: God is hidden even in a stone, yet no one goes to stone the stone. But when God manifests through a Buddha, people rush to throw stones! Where he is invisible, we may even worship; where he becomes visible, we turn hostile. There must be a deep reason. That reason is worth understanding.
Where God is not visible, we can say as much as we want that he is there, yet we remain bigger than that God; our ego is not disturbed. But when God manifests in his supreme aishwarya anywhere, our ego begins to ache. We feel small; we are reduced.
So we can worship a stone idol, but we will throw stones at a living Buddha. Then, around a dead Jesus, we can raise great churches and cathedrals—but Jesus himself we will crucify. Recognition in Jesus is possible only when we understand Krishna’s sutra: the one who knows my supreme aishwarya in essence!
To accept something from tradition is not to know it in essence. To accept by hearsay, by conditioning, is not essential knowing. Such “knowing” wavers at the slightest touch—and most of all wavers where God’s splendor appears.
Today it is easy to accept Krishna as God. In Krishna’s living presence, to accept him as God was very difficult. When Krishna is absent, there is no hurdle in accepting him as God, for our ego suffers no hurt, faces no comparison. But in Krishna’s presence, acceptance is hard.
Perhaps even Arjuna, in some inner corner, could not quite accept Krishna as God. Perhaps somewhere in the dark of his mind it lurked: after all, Krishna is my companion, my friend—and at the moment even my charioteer! In some exalted moments it may have felt to his mind that Krishna is unique; but in moments of ego it must have seemed: he is just like me.
Had Arjuna fully accepted Krishna as God, perhaps so much discussion would not have been needed. That Krishna has to explain so much to him is precisely the point. Even for what he says, Krishna must provide arguments—because Arjuna’s understanding is not: “These are the words of the Divine.” For him, it is a friend’s counsel—so debate is necessary, discussion is necessary. If persuaded, fine—he will concede. But if it were the Divine voice, there would be no question of thinking and weighing; thought would drop.
It matters that Krishna says to Arjuna: the one who knows my supreme aishwarya in essence!
This supreme aishwarya appears in many forms. Properly seen, all forms of splendor are God’s forms. Wherever the superior shows itself—whatever the direction—God becomes transparent there. Whether a musician touches the peak of his music, or a painter the ultimate limit of his art, whether a Buddha sinks into his silence—whatever the direction, wherever there is nobility, where life touches some aristocracy of being, there God condenses and becomes transparent.
Below also he is the same; even beneath our feet, in the ground, he is present—but there it is very difficult to see him. We might grant it, but seeing is hard. Easier to lift the eyes and see him in the majesty of the starry sky. There it is easier.
But we are in difficulty. We will grant that he is beneath our feet, yet find it very hard to grant that he is in the stars above. Whatever is above us is hard to accept; whatever is below us we can accept—because even while accepting, we remain above it.
Thus this tragedy has happened in human history: we have accepted the petty. It is not hard to accept the temple priest; but if the idol in the temple were to come alive, the worshippers themselves would become enemies!
Dostoevsky wrote a short tale. He wrote: Eighteen hundred years after his death, Jesus thought, “The first time I came to earth, I came at the wrong hour; people were not ready; there was no one to accept me. I arrived alone; hence my misfortune; hence people could neither receive nor understand me. They crucified me because they could not recognize me. But now the timing is perfect. If I return now, half the earth belongs to Christianity. In every village there is my temple. Everywhere are my priests. Everywhere bells ring in my name, candles are lit in my name. Half the earth accepts me. Now is the right hour; I will go.”
So, on a Sunday morning, Jesus descended again in Bethlehem, the village of his birth. It was morning. People were coming out of the church—the prayer was over. Jesus stood under a tree. He thought, “This time I shall not declare, ‘I am Jesus Christ.’ Once before I cried loudly that I was Jesus Christ, the son of God, bearer of the message of eternal life—that whoever understands me will be liberated, for truth liberates. But now they will recognize me without proclamation; my picture hangs in every home.” He stood silently.
They did recognize him—but wrongly. A crowd gathered; people began to laugh and make fun. Someone said, “Stand properly, decked out! You look exactly like Jesus! You’ve staged it well! You are such a skilled actor, one can hardly catch you out!”
Jesus had to say, “You’re mistaken. I’m not acting. I am that very Jesus Christ, whose worship you have just finished.” People laughed and said, “Run away quickly, before the High Priest comes out. It’s Sunday; many have come to church; why get yourself beaten for nothing? Go!”
Jesus said, “What are you saying—Christians! The first time I came, it was among Jews; there were no Christians—so it was natural none recognized me. But even you cannot recognize me!”
Just then the priest appeared. People gathered in the market. Those who had been laughing at Jesus fell and touched the priest’s feet, prostrating on the ground. “The great priest! The high priest has come!”
Jesus was astonished. Still, he hoped: “These people may not recognize me, but surely my own priest will.” But when the priest had received everyone’s obeisance and lifted his eyes to Jesus, he said, “Catch this scoundrel and pull him down! What mischief-maker is this? Jesus has come once—there is no question of a second coming.”
They seized Jesus. He remembered eighteen hundred years ago; he had been seized just like this. But then they were strangers; that could be understood. That his own would seize him now—this was beyond belief. They locked him in a church cell.
At midnight someone opened the door; a man entered with a small lamp. In the dim light Jesus saw: it was the priest himself.
He set the lamp aside, shut the door, locked it again, then fell at Jesus’ feet and whispered, “I recognized you. But I cannot recognize you in the marketplace. You are the old troublemaker! In these eighteen hundred years we have built the business with great effort; everything is running smoothly now; we have no need of you—we are doing your work. You are the ancient disturber. If you come back, you will throw everything into disorder; you are the old anarchist. You will speak of truth again and corrupt all our rules. You will talk of the supreme life again and people will become lawless. We have arranged everything nicely; we have no need of you. If anything is to be done, do it through us. We are the link between you and men. So I cannot recognize you before the crowd. And if you create too much trouble, I will have to do what the priests did to you eighteen hundred years ago. We will be forced to crucify you. We can worship your statue, hang your cross on our necks, build great temples for you, sing your praises—but your living presence is dangerous.”
Whenever God manifests in his sovereign splendor anywhere, his very presence becomes dangerous. Our petty egos begin to smart with pain. Whenever the Vast stands before us, the petty ego grows restless. We can worship a dead God; a living God is hard to recognize.
Krishna’s sutra is precious. Understand well this word aishwarya. And wherever—even from afar—you glimpse that which is beyond, bow to it, accept it.
Even in matter his glimpse appears. A flower is matter; but when it blooms alive, it brings news of what lies beyond matter. A vina is matter; but when a living heart touches its strings, then in those tones, it is his very tone that sounds.
Wherever anything touches excellence, touches nobility, there his glimpse begins to show. But to lift our eyes that high is very hard for us.
Mansoor was hanged; his hands and feet were cut off—because Mansoor said, “I am God.” When he was hung upon the gallows and his legs severed, one man lifted his eyes to Mansoor.
It was a subtle moment. The crowd had gathered—a hundred thousand had come to witness the hanging. Our eagerness to crucify defies all measures! People had come from far. And the man’s only crime was this proclamation: “I am obliterated, only God is.” His “fault” was that he proclaimed the supreme aishwarya—and it was in him. It shone in his eyes; it lived in his heart.
When people said to Mansoor, “You call yourself God!” Mansoor replied, “So long as I was, I did not even call myself a man. Only since I am not have I said, ‘I am God.’ I am not; only God is.” People thought: mere words…
The crowd had gathered, but very few eyes were raised to where the noose was tightening around Mansoor’s neck. People were bent over, picking up stones—readying to throw.
One man looked at Mansoor and was astonished to see a smile upon his lips. Mansoor was filled with joy. He asked, “Mansoor, what joy is this?” Mansoor answered—I whisper it to you softly—“I am rejoicing because perhaps to look at me your eyes will have to lift a little upward. The gallows is tall; perhaps only to see me your eyes may rise a little. If by this excuse you can look up even once, then even my hanging has meaning.”
Who knows whether they understood. For it was a great symbol. We are not accustomed to looking up. Our eyes are buried in the earth, bound by its pull. Lifting them brings pain. The petty delights us; we feel kinship with it. The great makes us uneasy; we cannot come to terms with it; it obstructs us.
Nietzsche said: “If there is a God anywhere, I can tolerate him only if I sit upon a throne equal to his. And if there is a God, I will deny him until the day I too sit at that same height.”
That is why accepting the superior becomes so difficult.
This is the difficulty. If someone comes and tells you: “So-and-so is a scoundrel, a cheat, a thief,” we accept it with great cheer. If someone says: “So-and-so is a saint, a noble man, a sage,” have you noticed how no feeling of acceptance arises in you? You say, “You must not know yet. Find out through the back doors too—is that man a saint? We have seen many saints! You must have heard from someone. Some agent, some broker of a saint caught you and praised him to you. Be careful; don’t fall into such traps.”
Even if we do not speak it, this feeling is there within. Even if we do not notice it, it is there. To accept that someone is superior brings great uneasiness. To accept that someone is inferior brings great relief.
When we hear that there is much dishonesty in the world, thefts, murders—our chest swells. Then we feel, “No harm done; I alone am not bad; the whole world is bad. And compared to such bad people, I am still better.” Each day people read the newspaper, first checking where murder happened, where theft took place, who ran away with whose wife. Then they sit puffed up: “I am better than all these. I plan to run away with someone’s wife, yes—but I never carry it out! Thoughts of murder come to me too—often—but they are only thoughts. I have never thrown even a pebble at anyone. I dream of stealing, yes; but in fact I am no thief.”
If newspapers carried no bad news, they would not be fun to read. That is why they cannot carry news of saints—no one is eager to read them. Newspapers have to hunt thieves, swindlers, murderers, the sick, the deranged. That is why if ninety-nine percent of the paper is filled with politicians, there is a reason: in politics ninety-nine percent are gathered who are thieves, cheats, killers.
But why are we so thrilled?
You are hurrying to the office; along the way two men draw knives and begin to fight—you forget the office! You park your bicycle and join the crowd. If the fight gets settled, someone intervenes and it ends, you return quite sad: “Nothing happened! It was the moment—excitement was rising, it was getting interesting—something should have happened! But nothing happened. Some fool got in the middle and spoiled it.” Why such relish in seeing evil? Why such fascination?
The reason is: whenever we see someone bad, we feel big. Whenever we see someone good, we feel small.
But the one who cannot look at the great cannot understand God. Therefore, wherever something great is seen, noble is seen—when some rare flower blooms far above in the sky, if you can glimpse it—be watchful of this illness of the mind. Only one who can understand the supreme aishwarya can move ahead.
Krishna adds a second word: “and my yoga-shakti.”
This is a little subtle. For a human being, yoga is meaningful—yoga means the power that joins the person to the Divine; understand this. For man, yoga means the connecting power that joins the limited to the vast, the drop to the ocean. But what would God’s yoga-power be? We understand man’s process of yoga: man practices and attains God. But from God’s side—what is yoga-shakti?
It is the very opposite power: from God’s side, the power by which the Vastness is joined to smallness; by which the ocean is joined to the drop.
Kabir said: “My drop fell into the ocean; how shall I find it now?
“Wandering, wandering, O friend, Kabir wandered lost;
“The drop merged into the ocean—where now can it be sought?”
The drop is lost in the ocean—how shall I retrieve it? In searching he himself is lost. He set out to seek the Lord—and lost himself. The drop fell into his ocean; how shall I recover that drop?
That is the first utterance. Immediately beneath it Kabir writes a second:
“Wandering, wandering, O friend, Kabir wandered lost;
“The ocean has merged into the drop—where now can it be sought?”
Searching, Kabir was lost. This became a great difficulty. At first I thought: the drop has fallen into the ocean—how shall I get it back? Now I find: the ocean has fallen into the drop—how shall I pull the drop free!
The drop falling into the ocean—that is our science of yoga. When the ocean falls into the drop—that is God’s yoga, God’s yoga-shakti.
Union is surely of two. The journey will be from both sides. We have heard of the journey in which man goes towards God. There is another journey in which God comes towards man. Truly, when we take one step toward the Divine, at once the Divine takes one step toward us. This balance never fails. As much as you approach, so much does God approach you.
Do not imagine that the meeting with God happens in his house. Not at all. It happens midway. You walk a bit; God walks a bit—and right in the middle the meeting occurs.
If only you were eager to meet the Ultimate, life would be simple. The Ultimate is also eager to meet you. That is the juice and joy of life. If only man were running toward God in one-way traffic, and God were not even slightly keen to enter man, even if you reached God you would not be fulfilled—for such love would be one-sided.
No. As keen as you are, just so keen is the Divine. The ocean is as eager to meet the river as the river is eager to meet the ocean. The streams of love flow from both directions.
That power by which God meets—this is what is called here yoga-shakti.
It has many meanings. A whole philosophy of life springs from it. It means: when you walk toward God… Among Sufi fakirs there is a saying: no one sets out to seek him until he himself has already set out to seek that seeker. The saying is: none walks toward God until God has already begun to walk toward him. The saying is: even thirst does not arise until his call has come.
There was a Sufi, Zunnun, in Egypt. He writes in his memories: “When I met that supreme Power”—it is a symbolic tale—“when I met the Lord, I said to him, ‘How much I sought you!’ The Lord smiled and said, ‘Do you think you sought me? Would that you knew how much I sought you! You only began to seek me after I had already begun to seek you. For if I did not set out to find you, you could never be capable of seeking me.’”
How could the ignorant seek? How could the unknowing? They who know nothing, not even who they themselves are—how will they seek? If that supreme vast energy were not also giving its hand in this search, if it did not support, guide, hint—this seeking would not be possible.
Therefore religion is not only man’s relation toward God. Religion is the dialogue, the meeting, the embrace between man and God—and God and man. The search is not one-sided.
But Krishna says: the one who knows, in essence, that God too is seeking.
He too is seeking. The Vast is calling you. The ocean too has invited—Come! Then the drop’s power becomes a thousandfold. Strength increases, courage increases, the journey becomes easy. It no longer remains a journey; it grows light, unburdened.
If the Vast is seeking me too, then union is certain. If only I am seeking him, the union is not assured. How will I find him? What is my strength? But if he is also seeking me, then however much I stray, forget, miss—whatever happens—meeting will happen.
From God’s side, yoga-shakti means: God’s power to meet us. Surely, on the day we attain God, we will say, “I found him.” But God already knows he has found us.
When Buddha was enlightened, the gods asked him, “What have you gained?” Buddha said, “Nothing has been gained. What was already mine—only that has been known. What was already with me, my own treasure within me, of which I was unmindful—its remembrance arose. So nothing is gained; what was, is known.”
On the day of meeting with God, it is we who come to know that meeting has happened. For God there is no reason to “come to know”—the meeting is ever. He is present all around us—without and within, in every hair, in every breath. We are not present in him; he is present in us—we are not present in him.
Like a blind man standing in sunlight. Light pours down all around. On every hair it knocks, “Open the door!” But the man has no idea that the sun is there. When the eye opens, he finds that the sun is everywhere. The eye has met the sun. The sun was meeting the eye even when the eye was shut. The sun stood at the door. For the sun, nothing new has happened. But the sun, too, was knocking.
For God, we are within him; for us, he is not within. When I say “he is not within,” it is not a statement about existence; it means only this: he is within, but we have no idea of our being within him. It is a statement about knowing.
A diamond lies in your pocket. You do not know. You beg on the street. Whether the diamond is there or not makes no difference—you would beg anyway. You are a beggar. The diamond is in your pocket. Whether it is or is not is all the same; it makes no difference to your price in the market.
But your hand goes into the pocket. Someone tells you, “Check your pocket.” You put your hand in. You find the diamond. You will say, “I found the diamond.” But it would be more accurate to say, “The diamond was with me; it had already been found; only I did not know. Remembrance came. Recognition arose. I came to know that the diamond is.”
Krishna means here: the one who knows my yoga-shakti in essence becomes untroubled. He knows: I am already established in God; I am already united. His hand has reached mine. I have only to loosen my hand and place it in his. His hand is not far. His heartbeat is my heartbeat. My heartbeat is his heartbeat too.
The one who knows thus—in essence!
Krishna uses this word tattva—“in essence”—again and again, just to create a distinction: that by merely hearing and “knowing” nothing will happen. I have spoken; you have heard. In one sense you have “known.” You may say, “All right, I accept.” But nothing will result. Your life will go on just as it did before you “knew.” And life will not change. What a man believes does not reveal his religiosity; how he lives does.
In 1857, in India’s uprising, the British mistakenly thrust a spear into the chest of a silent sannyasin. He had been naked, silent for years, passing along the road dancing. There was a British camp; it was the season of rebellion; times were tense. They seized him. “Who are you?” He looked suspicious—he did not speak; he danced, he laughed—but would not speak. They thought, “A spy,” prowling near the camp. They thrust a spear into his chest.
That sannyasin had taken a vow to speak only once: at the moment of death. The spear entered his chest; he had one chance to speak. What he spoke shows he knew in essence.
He used the Upanishadic mahavakya: “Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu—That art thou.” He said to that Englishman who had thrust the spear, “Thou too art the Divine, Shvetaketu.” And he fell.
In the moment of death, with someone driving a spear into your chest—yet to see the Divine in him—that capacity comes from essence, not from belief. Not from accepting; it comes from knowing.
So there is a notion of God that we grasp intellectually. It is of little value. There is the direct sense of God that we know sensitively. Understand these two words well: intellectually—by the mind; sensitively—by feeling, by direct sense.
When the winds touch the body, you feel: it is he who touches. When eyes lift towards the sun, you feel: it is his light. A flower blooms; you feel: it is his fragrance. Hair by hair, sitting and rising, sleeping and walking—whatever sensations arise, all carry his message. Gradually every door of life begins to bring news of him. Within, a crystallization—an essence—gathers; a center, a centering happens.
This knowing is what Krishna calls knowing in essence. Knowing in essence.
What to do for this? Our sensitivity has become dull, dead. Even when we touch a hand, nothing is felt. Skin touches skin, but that something beyond skin is touched—we do not feel it.
Now in Europe and America experiments in sensitivity are widespread. People gather in groups to touch and to learn what the experience of touching is. Training goes on. Let me give a small example.
You go to Juhu beach, sit on the sand. Close your eyes. Touch the sand—consciously. You have touched sand many times, walked upon it many times. But I say: you have no sensitivity to sand. Close your eyes, be quiet, let thought settle, then touch the sand with your hand. Feel its texture with your touch. Touch it with the underside of your hand; feel its coolness, its warmth, the distinct mood of each grain. Lie down; rest your head on the sand. Bury your closed eyes into the sand. Feel upon your eyelids the sense of sand—its spread, its being. Enclose it in your fist; feel it.
For an hour develop sensitivity with the sand. Then for the first time you will sense that even in sand there are vast dimensions. It too has its being. Sand has its great experiences, its memories, its long history. Sand is not “just sand.” It is a direction of existence. Much will be revealed. Much will be revealed.
Hermann Hesse wrote Siddhartha. Siddhartha, a character, lives for years by a river, learning the river. When storms blow the river to a frenzy, one form of the river appears. When the river is quiet, silent, absorbed in itself, not a ripple moves—another form appears. In monsoon, the river runs mad toward the ocean—distraught, wild; there is a madness in it—its own dimension, its own being. In the heat of summer it shrinks, grows feeble, thin—a silver thread glimmers. In the river’s fragility, in its dying, something else speaks.
Living by the river, Siddhartha slowly learns its language. He begins to understand its moods: when the river is angry, when it is pleased, when it dances, when it sits sad; when it suffers, when it burns, when it rejoices. He tastes all its flavors, dives into its inner pain and inner life—into the river’s autobiography.
Gradually the river becomes a great teacher. He becomes so sensitive he can say beforehand: “By evening the river will be sad.” He can say: “Tonight the river will dance.” He can say: “Today the river hums; there is a song in its soul.” Living for years by the river, he and the river enter into a living relationship.
Then the river itself becomes God. If such sensitivity arises, there is no need to go searching for any other God.
Those rishis who saw God in the Ganges were not like you, casual pilgrims—who come, toss a few coins, have the priest perform a rite, and run back after dumping their sins onto the Ganges! Those who never offered their merit to the Ganges will never know it. Can anyone know by dumping sins?
For us the Ganges is just a river. However much we may call it sacred, inwardly we know it is just a river. We may say “worthy of worship,” but it is all formal.
But those who lived for years upon its banks, mingling the stream of their life with her flow—they came to know. Then it is revealed by any riverbank. Then you need not go to one particular Ganges; any river becomes Ganges, becomes sacred.
Sensitivity—to sand, to a leaf, to a flower, to a person’s hands, to people’s eyes—make life into sensitivity. Touch life from all sides as much as you can. From this touch a center will be born within. That center alone can know God’s yoga-shakti. That center learns that when I flow in sensitivity—when my doors open to sensitivity—when I open my heart’s doors to a river, as a lover opens to his beloved or a beloved opens to her lover—then through a river, too, God’s coming begins. And the one who keeps all the doors of sensitivity open will come to know: God too is eager to meet me.
The mind will not know this. The mind is very partial, old, stale. Sensitivity is fresh, alive. And the irony is: mind can be borrowed, sensitivity cannot. If by touching water I have known whether it is cool or warm, friendly or unfriendly, that I alone can know. Water’s coolness or warmth, its friendliness or lack of it—these are my own experiences; I cannot know them secondhand.
Sensitivities cannot be borrowed. The universities and schools are markets of borrowed mind. Words are borrowed; sensitivity must be lived. Hence we have gradually broken away from feeling. So borrowed have we become that whatever can be loaned or bought, we take—even if we must pay with life itself. But what is to be known only by one’s own living—that much trouble, that much labor we refuse to undertake.
Gradually we have lost the sensitive forms of life. Hence we do not sense that God too calls, comes, is eager to meet us. His hands come toward us from every side—but finding us insensate, they return.
You will begin to sense God’s yoga-shakti only when you open your heart wherever there are possibilities of his meeting.
But the one we commonly call “seeker” closes even more. He contracts his sensitivities. Out of fear he bolts the doors and windows so nothing may enter. He fears beauty—lest desire arise. He fears a beautiful flower—lest it remind him of bodily beauty. He fears song—lest a hidden link stir some buried passion. He fears music. He becomes afraid from every side. The so-called religious person is less religious and more pathological. He shuts himself in.
The truly religious opens himself from all sides. The true religious will find nectar even in poison; the false religious will find poison even in nectar. The true religious will experience the superior even in the inferior; the false religious will grasp only the inferior in the superior.
It depends on us. If our sensitivity is deep, intense, we can enter life from anywhere—and God can enter us from anywhere. If God’s splendor—his aishwarya—remains in our remembrance, if we gather the humility to accept it, and the sensitivity to make his yoga-shakti a matter of direct sense, then…
Krishna says: such a man, through the yoga of still meditation, abides in me with a single, undivided heart—of this there is no doubt. One who is like this, through the yoga of unmoving awareness, becomes established in me without division—this is indisputable.
There is a point here: “through the yoga of still meditation.”
The movement of a person toward God is less a going and more a coming to a halt. The journey toward God is less a running and more a stopping in every way. Understand this well.
In the world, whatever we seek, we seek by running. So in the world, the one who can run fastest succeeds most. The one willing to run even over others’ corpses succeeds even more. The one who can run madly becomes assured of success in the world. The faster you run, the more you succeed. But within you become deranged and mad. The movement toward God is entirely different. There, the one who stands still in peace is the one who succeeds.
When you run, your mind runs. The mind runs; that is why you run. You follow the mind; it goes ahead. If you want a hundred thousand rupees, the mind has already reached the money; now you must run and complete the journey. The mind attains the goal first; the body is dragged behind. When you arrive at the grand mansion, the mind has already made greater mansions ahead—so it never lets you stop; it keeps you running.
The mind runs, therefore you run. Your running is the reflection of the mind’s. When the mind stops, you stop. One who would know God must take the reverse approach of the world: he must stop, he must come to a standstill.
The yoga of still meditation means a state of mind in which there is no running. A state in which there is no future. A state with no goal. The mind has not gone anywhere ahead; it is here, now, in this moment—nowhere else. This is the yoga of still meditation.
Commonly people think meditation means “concentrating on God.” If you focus on God, God is very far; your attention will run—toward God, yes—but it will run. As long as consciousness runs in any direction, God cannot be known. It is paradoxical:
Those who want to attain God must drop even the concern to attain him. That concern too is a hindrance—it is also desire, the last desire, but desire nonetheless. So the one who is restless to attain God—one restless for wealth, another for fame, another for God—still, restlessness.
Bear in mind: wealth can be obtained with restlessness; fame too can be obtained with restlessness. God cannot. For the first condition of God-realization is that peace arises—within, all is silent and still, everything stops. God is found by those who stand, who stop, who come to rest. It is the reverse. We can make a formula:
In the world, if you want to gain something, run; and in God, if you want to gain, stop. Wherever you are within—stop there; let nothing run, let no wave arise. This is very hard. We can change our waves; that is easy.
People come to me and say, “We understand, but we need some support. You say, ‘Don’t think of money’—we won’t. But then what shall we think? Give us something to think about; we’ll think of religion. You say, ‘Forget accounts and ledgers.’ Fine. Give us a Ramayana, a Mahabharata, a Gita—we’ll get absorbed. But give us something!”
Remember, a mind absorbed in accounts will find no difficulty if you hand it another ledger. It will get absorbed—whatever the title. But tell it: “No—do not get absorbed in anything. Stay empty a while.” Then great panic: “How is that possible? How?”
A madman is running west. We say, “Stop. Don’t run uselessly.” He says, “I can stop; I won’t run west. Let me run east.” But let me run.
His madness is not because he runs west; it is because he runs. Whether east, south, or north makes no difference. The madman says, “West is a problem? I won’t run west. Let me run east, south, north—anywhere. I can give up the west, but I cannot give up running.”
The madness is in running, not in directions. The madness is not in wealth—note this well. That is why a man like Janaka can be among riches and yet remain unmad. There is no madness in fame, either. The madness is in running. When a money-madman grows bored with money—as we grow bored with everything in life; wealth attained, the running done—he says, “Now I will run for religion—but I will surely run.”
The world’s logic hounds you to the end. Running is a logic—everything can be obtained by running. That something may be attained by giving up running—that is not part of our logic.
If God were elsewhere, you could run and find him. But God is exactly where you are. Therefore you will not find him by running. To obtain another, you can run. To obtain yourself—how will you run? For that, running is meaningless—madness.
Thus the Zen master Huang Po said: the one who sets out to seek God will lose him. Do not set out to seek.
Buddha returned home. Rabindranath Tagore wrote a biting tale, a song. Buddha returned. Yashodhara was angry—he had left and fled. Her anger was natural. Buddha returned precisely to give her a chance—to let twelve years of pent-up anger be poured out. One more debt to be shed.
Rabindranath has Yashodhara ask Buddha—and puts him in a great bind. After many reproaches, Yashodhara asks: “What you found by running away from home—was it not present here at home?”
Buddha was in a fix. He could not say, “It was not present here.” And having found it, he certainly could not say that now. Twelve years earlier, if Yashodhara had asked, “What you are going to find—does it not exist here?” Buddha could have said, “If it existed here, I would have found it by now. It does not; therefore I go seeking.” But now, having found, he knows: what is found could have been found at home. He is in a bind.
Rabindranath wanted to see Buddha cornered, so he did not continue the story. Yashodhara asked, and Buddha was at a loss. But I do not believe Buddha could not answer. If Yashodhara had asked thus, he would surely have said:
“I know well that what I have found can be found here too. But without running, how would I have known that running is useless? It is by running that I learned it. After running and running I came to see: all this running is vain. What I sought was here. But without running, even that does not become clear.”
Even if it becomes clear through running—that is much. We run long and still nothing becomes clear. That one thing keeps slipping: what we are, what is within, what is here and now.
The yoga of still meditation means: drop running, and for a few moments be without running—some moments, even half a moment. That—and only that—is the meaning of meditation.
Meditation does not mean taking up a rosary and running with the rosary. That is running. One bead, then the next, quickly spinning the rounds. You may not be running a long distance; you are circling in place. Like small children: stand them in a corner and they will jump in place. The rosary-doer is doing just that. Tell children not to run. “All right—on the spot!” They will keep hopping there. The hopping within them continues. It makes no difference how large the circle is; a man can run in a tiny ring. Someone turns a mala. Another sits repeating, “Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram…” But the running continues.
I am not saying, “Do not use a rosary.” It is not bad. Half an hour with a rosary—and how many mischiefs you did not do—that is something! At least you jumped in your own spot; you did not jump into someone else’s house.
I am not saying, “Do not chant Ram.” Do it happily—because you will do something anyway; you cannot remain without doing. So, better Ram than a film star’s name. Something or other will go on inside; your head will not keep quiet. Ram is a lovely word; repeat it. But do not mistake it for meditation.
Meditation means still meditation. It means becoming utterly still, the mind not running—not in the mala, not in “Ram,” not toward heaven, not toward liberation—nowhere. The mind stops, comes to rest. If even for one moment such a supreme instant arrives when your mind is doing nothing, going nowhere—going nowhere—and remains where you are, then…
Krishna says: through the yoga of still meditation one becomes established in me with undivided heart. As soon as this still meditation fructifies, the person abides in me without division. Then there is no gap between him and me. No distance between us.
Which means: running is distance. The more you run, the farther you are. Which means: to stop is to arrive. Stillness is the destination. As soon as one becomes still, suddenly the door opens. In that stillness, that quiet moment, one becomes one with God. Duality breaks, twoness dissolves.
He abides in oneness—of this there is no doubt.
How many times Krishna has to say to Arjuna in the Gita: “Of this there is no doubt.” Again and again he must have seen doubt in Arjuna’s eyes. Seeing it, he says: “There is no doubt.” It is a message about Arjuna; for Krishna to keep repeating it would otherwise be needless. But he must have seen the flicker of doubt.
If, while I was saying this, one could photograph the pictures in your eyes—when I was saying, “Do not run; stop. If the mind stops for a moment, you will be one with God”—if at that moment your eyes had been photographed, I would also have to say: of this there is no doubt! Your eyes say, “This won’t happen. How could it? You speak so simply!”
But it is very hard. This stopping cannot happen. The mind will keep moving—keep moving—and the ways of its movement are so strange!
Mulla Nasruddin went with three friends to a master to learn meditation. The master said, “Do one thing. Meditation is far off. Evening has come, the sun has set; sit silently for one hour. Be absolutely quiet. Then we will speak.”
The master closed his eyes and entered meditation. The four were in great trouble! If he had given them something to do, they would be fine. He gave nothing—and to sit quiet! Only a few minutes had passed when one said, “It’s night and the lamp isn’t lit.” The second said, “What are you doing! He told us to keep silence!” The third said, “You both are foolish. You’ve broken the silence.” Nasruddin, who had remained quiet, burst into laughter and said, “None of you is silent except me!”
To be quiet for a moment is very hard. Some excuse will come. To stop a moment is hard; some reason to run will arise. Some desire will become a wind and carry you off. When I was speaking, watching your eyes, I remembered why Krishna keeps saying, “There is no doubt.” Poor Krishna—he must have seen Arjuna slipping again and again. He had to say forcibly: “Arjuna, there is no doubt. Do this, and thus it will be.” Again and again Buddha said: “Do this—and this will happen. Do not do this—and it will never happen.”
Life, too, is a deep law of cause and effect. If one stops, union with God will happen. It may be that water at a hundred degrees will someday not become steam; it may be that if someone tosses you upward, gravity may not work and the world’s laws may fail—but one law is eternal: the mind that stops becomes one with God in that instant. Of this there is no doubt. But that stopping is arduous.
I alone am the cause of the whole cosmos, and through me the world moves. Knowing this in essence, endowed with faith and devotion, the wise worship me, the Supreme, unceasingly.
One last thing. I am the cause of all existence; through me the world strives; I am the motion. Knowing thus in essence, the wise, endowed with trust and devotion, worship me ceaselessly.
Just now I said that repeating “Ram, Ram,” “Krishna, Krishna,” “Hari, Hari,” will do nothing. You will say, “But Krishna says: they worship me unceasingly!”
Mind this: the word “unceasing” is precious. If you say “Ram, Ram,” it will still not be unceasing, for between two Rams there will be a little space without Ram. I say, “Ram.” I say again, “Ram.” In between there is a tiny gap. However fast you say “Ram, Ram,” it is not unceasing; there will be gaps—discontinuities.
Unceasing worship can only mean that there is no word—there is feeling. Feeling has no gaps. Words have gaps. Words must have intervals; otherwise one word climbs on another and meaning is lost. It becomes a train wreck.
Between words, spaces are necessary. Between one “Ram” and the next, what is there? There is no “Ram” there. You will say, “We will place a third Ram there.” Fine—but then between the three like three fingers, there will be two gaps in place of one! If you keep adding more in between, the intervals multiply. In words, there will be intervals. Only feeling is unbroken.
But feeling is a greater thing; it is hard to explain. Kabir was asked: “How to remember him so that it is unbroken? How to worship so there is no interval—so it is continuous?” Kabir said, “You have asked a difficult thing. Go to the riverbank. Village women will be returning with water pots on their heads. Watch them carefully.”
Village women carry the pot on the head and leave both hands free. They chat, they may sing, they walk—but the remembrance of the pot remains the whole time, else it will fall. That remembrance is wordless—just a remembering without words; only remembrance, a feeling. If the pot tilts, the hand at once steadies it; then they return to conversation.
Feeling means wordless awareness.
A mother sleeps with her child beside her. Scientists were amazed: a storm thunders, clouds crash in the sky, lightning flashes—the mother does not wake. But if the child stirs a little, makes the faintest sound, the mother’s hand comes upon him. What is at work? Clouds roar, and she does not wake; the child murmurs and she wakes!
Psychotherapists pondered: what is this? Then they understood: a wordless remembrance, present even in the night’s sleep—a wordless awareness that remains.
It is to this sense that Krishna points. Endowed with faith and devotion, the wise worship me unceasingly. Unceasingly means they remain continuously in my feeling.
What is feeling? Feeling is the unbroken sense of oneness that comes through still meditation. It is not exactly “maintained”—it remains. The sense born from still meditation remains within as breath remains. Even breath has gaps—feeling does not. Breath goes, then pauses, then returns; there too are intervals. But remembrance is continuous.
The name for this state of continuous feeling is devotion. And the name for this continuous feeling is worship.
Enough for today.
Let us pause five minutes. Perhaps a hint of that worship may come from the worship about to happen here. Pause five minutes. Let no one get up. When I rise from here, then you may rise. Join in the kirtan for five minutes.