Geeta Darshan #4

The mind has two states: a running mind and a still mind. The running mind is never where it is; understand it this way: the running mind is nowhere. It is always in the future. Not today, not now, not here—tomorrow, later, somewhere else, in imagination, in dreams, somewhere far ahead. And the future has no existence. Only the present exists—the now, this very instant.

When I say this very instant, even in saying so that instant of the present has already passed. Delay it by even that much and we miss the present moment. By the time knowing takes place, the present has already gone.

One instant of existence is in our hands, but the mind is always in desire, in the future. The future has no existence. Hence the running mind exists nowhere. Where it could be, it is not; and where it cannot be, it is. It could be in the present, but the running mind is never in the present.

You cannot run in the present; there is no room, no space. Running requires the expanse of the future. Craving requires infinite space. The present moment is too small. In that tiny instant your craving cannot fit.

This running mind just keeps running. It has no way to stop anywhere. Where it could stop—in the present—it does not. And the future is not. There, it can only run. There is no facility there to come to rest. This running mind is our illness, our disease.

If we try to define an irreligious person, the definition cannot be: one who does not believe in God. Many individuals have been deeply religious yet denied God—Mahavira, Buddha: they do not believe in God, and yet they are supremely religious. There is not a grain of doubt about their religiosity. And if we doubt the religiosity of Buddha and Mahavira, then no one on this earth can be called religious.

Nor can we call irreligious the one who does not accept the Vedas, or the Bible, or the Koran. We can call irreligious only the one who has only a running mind, who has no taste of a still mind. Then, whatever he believes—whether he believes in God or in the soul; whether he believes in the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible—if the mind is running, he is not religious. And even if he believes in nothing at all, but has a still mind, he is religious. Because wherever the mind comes to rest, in that instant it connects with the Ultimate.

What name we give that is secondary. Someone may call it God—that is his choice. Someone may call it the soul—that is his choice. Someone may prefer to give it no name at all—that too is his choice. Someone may remain silent about it—that also is his choice. Someone may call it the void; someone may call it dissolution; someone may call it fulfillment—that is a matter of personal language. But wherever the mind rests, there the man becomes religious.

To still this mind, Krishna used a word in yesterday’s sutra; if we understand it rightly, today’s sutra will be easier to enter. Perhaps “understand” is not the right word, because we “understand” so often and yet no understanding arises. Perhaps better to say: if we do a little of that sutra, then this sutra will be understood.

Krishna said: He who attains nishchal dhyan yog—unwavering meditation—abides in oneness in me.

What nishchal dhyan yog is, I spoke of yesterday. But how you can do it—I want to speak of that today. What it is is one matter; how it is done is quite another. Understanding the meaning of nishchal dhyan yog is one thing; entering its process is entirely another. And without entering the process, no one will truly know—however much he understands.

That is why those whom we call “understanding” are often the hardest fools to find beyond. They understand everything and know nothing. In fact, they understand so much that they think there is no need to know. Their storehouse of words may be vast; they may not possess even a particle of experience. The relation of experience to meditation is not through understanding what meditation is, but by descending into how meditation happens.

Meditation is an experience. There are hundreds of kinds of meditation. People can attain it by hundreds of paths. There are hundreds of roads leading toward nishchal dhyan yog as well. From many different roads on this earth people have reached that moment we call the stilling of the mind. I will give you a small, simple method you can do.

If you begin to receive even a slight glimpse, a faint shadow of the motionless mind, your life will start to be transformed. A new man will be born within you. The old will begin to melt and dissolve; a new consciousness, a new center, a new way of seeing, a new way of living, a new ordering of being will arise within. As if the eyes of a blind man suddenly open, or a deaf man suddenly hears, or a dead man suddenly revives—the impact of meditation is just such a vast, revolutionary event within consciousness.

The mind is like an egg. When the egg breaks, the bird spreads its wings and flies into the sky. But if the egg remains unbroken, that egg, which was there to protect the bird, to shelter it, to safeguard it—that very egg becomes its grave. The egg must break.

The mind is necessary. If a man were born without mind, it would be like a bird born without an egg—he would be in trouble. The mind is absolutely necessary; but necessary like an egg. Up to a point it is a companion; beyond that point it becomes an enemy. Up to a point it protects; beyond that it harms. Up to a point it is a support; beyond that it becomes a prison.

And our mind is almost a prison. Through countless births we have been carrying the mind we should have broken long ago. But the bird hidden inside the egg knows nothing of the sky. It must also feel fear: If I break the egg, what will happen to me? The egg is my security, my shelter, my home.

It is natural that we live taking the mind to be our security. That is why if someone says your body is ill, you do not get angry. If someone says you look thin, you look sick, your health seems poor—there is even a feeling of sympathy: this person seems a friend. But if someone says your mind seems sick, feverish, a little deranged, a touch of madness—then he no longer seems a friend but an enemy. The body we can feel as separate from ourselves, but with the mind we take ourselves to be one. So when someone says your body is ill, he is not saying you are ill—your body is ill. But when someone says your mind is diseased, you instantly feel he means you are insane, you are diseased.

Our identification with the mind is deep. We have assumed ourselves to be one with it. Thus the bird finds no way to be outside the shell; it has taken the shell to be itself. If the bird believes, I am the egg, then trouble begins.

Meditation is the breaking of the mind. Or say, the stilling of the mind—or say, going beyond the mind—it makes no difference. Let me give you a small process by which you can come out of this shell.

If you have seen pictures of a child in the mother’s womb—psychologists and the deep findings of yoga say: in the posture the child holds in the womb, his mind is at a minimum, almost not there. You could say it is not there. And the child’s consciousness is not in the brain while in the womb. Nor is it in the heart. Perhaps you don’t know: in the mother’s womb the child’s heart does not beat. For nine months the child is without a heartbeat.

So understand something else: life has no intrinsic dependence on heartbeat, because the child lives nine months without it. Life is something deeper.

If someone asks you where your consciousness is, your hand goes to the head. When consciousness is centered in thought, the head becomes the center. When it is centered in feeling and love, the heart becomes the center. So a lover will place his hand on his heart. A man working out a mathematical problem scratches his head, not his heart. His hand will not go to the heart. And if a lover, lost in love, were to place his hand on his head, it would seem absurd—love has nothing to do with the head.

When consciousness is in feeling, the heart is the center. When it is in thought, the brain is the center. But the brain develops very late. The heart too begins beating only after nine months. Before even that, consciousness is centered elsewhere: at the navel. The child is connected to the mother through the navel. The first experience of life the child has is at the navel.

Those who want to go beyond the mind must climb down from both heart and head and return to the navel. If you can again experience your consciousness near the navel, your mind will instantly become still.

So for this meditative process, which I call a method toward nishchal dhyan yog, two points are essential. Sit with your knees folded as you may have seen Sufi fakirs pray, or Muslims perform namaz. The child’s knees are folded just so in the womb. Close your eyes, let the body be relaxed, and let the breath be utterly at ease—relaxed—so that it moves as slowly and gently as possible. The more the breath quiets, the better. Breath cannot be quieted by suppression. If you hold it, it will grow violent. Do not hold; simply let go.

Close your eyes and bring your consciousness inside to the navel. Bring it down from the head to the heart, and from the heart to the navel. Let your attention settle at the navel. The light ripple of the breath will make the belly rise and fall. With eyes closed, bring your attention right there where the navel is gently vibrating. With each wave of breath the belly rises and falls—bring your attention there. Keep relaxing the body. In a little while your body will incline forward and your head will touch the ground. Allow it—let it bow.

When your head touches the ground, you have come into exactly the condition the child has in the womb. For quietness there is no posture more precious in the world. Let the posture become like the child’s in the womb; and let your attention move to the navel. The child’s awareness is at the navel. Let yours be there too.

Many times attention will slip. A sound will arise somewhere and attention will wander. Someone will speak and attention will go. Even if nothing happens outwardly, a thought will arise within and attention will be pulled away. Do not fight it. If attention wanders, do not worry. The moment you notice it has wandered, bring it back to the navel. Do not enter into quarrel or conflict—Why did my mind wander? How fickle it is! It should not wander. Do not get into such useless talk. Whenever you notice it has wandered, bring it back to the navel.

Remain like this at least forty minutes—longer as you are able—lying as a child lies in the mother’s womb. The likelihood is that in two, four, or eight days of such practice you will begin to feel a deep stillness within. You will enter the simple awareness of a child. The mind will appear stilled. The closer you are to the navel, the longer the mind will remain still. And when abiding near the navel becomes easy, the mind will fall utterly quiet.

The mind moves, the heart moves; the navel does not move. The mind runs, thought runs, feeling runs; the navel has no running. Properly seen, the mind is in the future, feeling too is in the future; the navel is in the present—just in the moment, here and now.

The closer one brings one’s consciousness to the navel, the nearer one comes to the present. Just as the child is connected to the mother by the navel, so through a subtle navel-door we are connected to existence. The navel is the doorway.

Those to whom it has ever happened—even here perhaps to two or four—that they have found themselves outside the body—this does happen to many, sometimes suddenly, accidentally—suddenly it seems, I am outside my body—those who have had the accidental or meditative experience of being outside the body report one certain thing: when they see themselves outside, they are amazed to see that between themselves and their body lying below, from its navel a kind of ray of light is connecting them. In the West, scientists have called it the silver cord. Just as we are connected to the mother through the navel and this physical body, in the same way we are connected through the navel to this great cosmos, to the womb of existence. The moment you bring your consciousness near the navel, the mind becomes still.

Jesus has an astonishing saying—rarely understood by Christians—he said: You will enter the kingdom of my Father only when you become like little children.

In the shallow sense, it means: become as simple as children. In the deeper scientific sense, it means: return to that ultimate state of the child when he, as yet, is not—the mother alone is. The child lives entirely by the mother’s support. He has no heartbeat of his own, no brain of his own; he is wholly surrendered, a limb of the mother’s being.

Exactly such a thing happens in nishchal dhyan yog. You disappear, and oneness with the Divine happens. You begin to live by the Divine.

This is the very meaning of Krishna’s words: through unwavering meditation one abides in oneness in me. The gross meaning of the relation between mother and child becomes the subtle meaning between the seeker and the Divine. Do this experiment a little; the meanings that open cannot be conveyed by words.

Now let us enter the sutra.

And those devotees who keep their minds ever on me and offer their very life-breaths into me, always awakening in one another my presence by their mutual sharing and speaking of me, are fulfilled and revel constantly in me alone.

Now the whole meaning of this sutra will change if you have understood my first point. Only after nishchal dhyan yog does its meaning open; otherwise it will be misunderstood.

There are thousands of commentaries on the Gita. Most are by scholars rich in knowledge but perhaps poor in meditation. Hence the heavy wrangling over words. Hundreds of meanings have been made. Naturally—there will be hundreds. Hundreds of minds, hundreds of meanings.

Remember, meditation is one—whoever attains it. But minds are as many as there are people. Perhaps even that is saying too little, because a single person does not have only one mind. Morning one mind, noon another, evening a third. Perhaps even that is not accurate; a single person has many minds at once. Right now, at once, several minds. Psychology is gradually abandoning the notion of a single mind. It now says man is poly-psychic—multi-minded.

So meanings spun by mind will be many. If the same man interprets the Gita two, four, five times across his life, he will derive two, four, five meanings, because his mind keeps changing. Those interpretations composed by mind have little value. However deep they seem, they will still be shallow, because mind and intellect can never be truly deep. However loudly the intellect shouts, it remains on the surface; it never goes deep. Meditation goes deep.

One approach is to understand the words, study the expositions, and feel satisfied. That means you have missed the Gita; it has not served you. Perhaps it has even harmed you, because you may be deluded into thinking you know.

The other approach is to enter meditation first, then understand the Gita. Then a strange thing happens: those who understand by mind will create a thousand Gitas, and two commentators will fight like enemies. From mind, there will be a thousand meanings; but from meditation, the Gita, the Bible, the Koran—all say one and the same. Meditation gives a new perspective—a new way of seeing, knowing, touching.

Thus, if we now understand this sutra, there will be a difference. If we had understood earlier, its meaning would have been: those who constantly fix their minds on me—meaning, those who constantly remember God, constantly chant his name—and those devotees who offer their life-breaths into me, who surrender themselves to me—such people, by discussing devotion to me, awaken my influence in one another; speaking of my qualities and powers, they are satisfied and always delight in me. This would be a very ordinary meaning. Devotees engaged in God-talk, satsang, singing his glories and praises. Meditation changes this entirely. It turns the whole direction.

“Those who constantly fix their minds on me”—one who knows through meditation discovers the real meaning: only the one who no longer has a mind can be fixed in God. As long as your mind continues, it will remain fixed on the world. You can take God’s name now and then, but the mind will remain in the world.

Thus we see so-called devotees sitting in temples—but do not be fooled into thinking their minds are there. Sitting in a temple is easy; uttering God’s name is easy; having the mind there is not so easy.

There is an incident in Nanak’s life. He came to a village. The Muslim nawab said, I hear you say Hindus and Muslims are one! Nanak said, they are one—not because I say so; I say so because they are. The nawab said, today is the day of namaz; come to the mosque and pray with us. He thought Nanak would refuse—a Hindu would refuse to enter a mosque. Nanak readily agreed. The nawab grew a little worried. He said, but remember, you will have to join me in namaz. Nanak said, if you offer namaz, I will too.

The nawab did not sense how deep that was. You too may not catch it at once. The prayer began. Nanak stood leaning against the wall. Now and then the nawab bent and opened his eyes to check whether Nanak was praying—and saw he was not. Anger rose. He forgot his own prayer, burned with rage at Nanak’s dishonesty. He hurried to finish so he could set him right.

Afterwards he pounced: You are a cheat, a liar! No regard for your own word! You said you would pray, and you did not!

Nanak said, I said, if you prayed, I would pray. But you—where did you pray? You were only putting your body through the drill of namaz. You were doing exercises. Your mind was on me, not on the Divine. I was in a fix—what to do? Having given my word, I missed a prayer myself! Because I had promised, if you prayed, I would too. You never entered prayer!

The mind is your link to the world—that is what “mind” means. You cannot set the mind on God. It will set only on the world. If the mind is gone, the connection that happens is with the Divine. So, understood through meditation, “those who constantly fix their minds on me” means: those who have lost their minds and live constantly in me.

You cannot set the mind on God. Mind means disease. Mind means waves. Mind means restlessness. You cannot set it on God. As long as there is mind, you cannot set yourself on God either. Where mind falls silent and empty, there you are set in God. And this setting is of a different order. When you try to set the mind, effort is required, yet it slips away. This setting requires no effort; it is effortlessness. Now even if you try to flee, you cannot flee from the Divine.

Another event in Nanak’s life: he went to Mecca and lay down with his feet toward the sacred shrine. At night the priests shook him awake: You fool! We allowed you to stay thinking you are a fakir, and you sleep with your feet toward the holy temple? Aren’t you ashamed to point your feet at God? Nanak said, I am very ashamed. But I have my difficulty too. Please turn my feet toward a direction where God is not. I agree.

The priests were in a bind. Where could they turn his feet where God is not? Nanak said, that is my problem—where shall I point my feet? Wherever I point them, there is God. So it makes no difference where I place them now.

One who has lost his mind does not have to place his attention on God; wherever he goes, wherever his attention goes—there is God. Whatever he does, only the Divine is all around. The man with mind tries and tries to set himself on God and still cannot. Lose the mind, and even if you try to avoid the Divine, there is no way. Close your eyes—he is there. Open them—he is there. Whatever you do—he is there. Only then does the meaning of “constantly fixing the mind” become clear. Now no option remains in your hands. You exist only in that. As fish in the ocean, so you in him. On all sides, only that. But this meaning opens through meditation. If you try to open it by words, this sutra will seem the reverse.

“Those who constantly fix their minds on me and who offer their life-breaths into me”—

Who can offer their life? Can you? Not by thinking, not by intention, not by mind. If someone says with the mind, I offer my life, even then the final authority remains with him. Tomorrow he can say, I take it back. I withdraw my life! What is God to do then? When you place your head at his feet in the temple, it is still your decision. You may bow or not. When you say, God, I give you my life—it is still you giving. Tomorrow you can take it back. You remain; you are not dissolved.

But the surrender that happens after meditation is not your act, not your doing. The surrender born of meditation is your helplessness. As soon as one enters meditation, it no longer feels, I will surrender my life to the Divine. It becomes clear: my life has always been surrendered. My breath is his breath. I am not separate enough to surrender. Not even that separate—that I could surrender. I am surrendered.

This is very different. Now surrender cannot be taken back. This experience—I live in him, he lives in me; there is no separateness—this experience is what “offering one’s life-breaths into me” means.

But language has its compulsions. Whatever is said in language often turns things upside down. All languages are ego-centered—man made them, ego at the center. So everything is linked to the doer.

When we wish to speak of something beyond the ego, we are in trouble. We have to say, Surrender. This is quite wrong. How can anyone do surrender? And if one does it, how can it be surrender? The doer remains. If I do it, surrender cannot be. And yet we must say, Surrender. Whereas truly it should be said: Surrender happens; it is not done.

But if we say, Surrender happens, it is not done, the mind immediately grasps another wrong idea: Then it is not in our hands; when it happens, it will happen. What can we do! If we say, We will surrender, the ego remains and surrender does not. If we say, What can we do—we will wait, it will happen when it happens—we are deceiving ourselves again.

We cannot surrender—but we can still the mind. We cannot surrender—but we can break the mind. And when the mind breaks, when it is stilled, surrender happens.

Surrender is a by-product, the shadow of meditation. We can do meditation; surrender follows like a shadow. Where meditation comes, surrender enters suddenly—without footfall, without sound, without notice—like a silent guest within. It is to this surrender that the sutra points.

“Those who offer their very life-breaths into me, always awakening in one another my presence…” This does not mean they keep telling each other how great God is, how compassionate, how loving. No one can awaken anyone to God by talk. But when someone attains oneness, even the flutter of his eyelid spreads news of God around him. When his foot moves, it is God who moves through it. In his rising, his sitting, his walking, his turning, in his conduct, in his words, in his silence—on all sides the praise of God begins.

Imagine Buddha walking among you. He need not say a word. His very walking!

Once, when Buddha began his quest and practiced harsh austerities for six years, five were his devotees. There are many kinds of devotees. They were not devotees of Buddha but of his austerities. They were impressed not by Buddha but by his emaciation—fasting long, ignoring the body, sleeping on stones, walking on thorns, becoming mere bones.

There is an image from that time: Buddha as a skeleton, belly joined to spine, ribs exposed, all flesh gone. Those five were his great admirers.

Then Buddha realized: by torturing myself I have reached nowhere. This is a slow suicide. As one day he had renounced pleasure and palace, so one day he performed another great renunciation: he renounced renunciation.

This is harder to understand. We all understand someone leaving the palace—because we do not have palaces and we hanker after them. So when someone renounces a palace, we think, what a great renunciate. Buddha one day left the palace—he was a great renunciate. Then one day he saw that this renunciation too was his ego—his doership: I am practicing austerity, I am doing yoga. This too is ego. One day he dropped even that.

This is the great renunciation. One who can drop renunciation as well as enjoyment—he becomes beyond attachment and reaches the ultimate state.

But the five left him, saying, He is corrupted. He has stopped fasting. If someone brings food, he eats. If someone offers clothes, he wears them. He sits in the shade rather than in the blazing sun. He is corrupted. They abandoned him.

Then Buddha attained supreme knowing. He remembered those five disciples and thought to carry the first news to them, for they had been with him for years. He walked from Bodh Gaya to Kashi, where those five monks were staying in Sarnath.

It was evening. The five sat by a rock in satsang. Seeing Buddha approach, they said, The corrupted Gautama is coming. Look—bones no longer show; flesh has returned. Totally fallen. He is coming. We will not rise to greet him. We will not even look at him. If he greets us, we will reply with disdain. We will not invite him to sit—he is corrupted.

As Buddha came nearer, their resolve began to melt. Nearer still, they forgot they had decided not to rise. One fell at his feet, then another, until all five were at his feet. Buddha spoke first: When I was far away, I heard inwardly that you had decided not to rise to greet me. Why are you abandoning your resolve?

Tears filled their eyes. They said, We would not have abandoned it, but your coming was just like the coming of the Divine. While you were distant and we could not see you, and your eyes’ radiance had not fallen upon us, we stood firm. As you drew near, it was as if the sun rose, night thinned, stars sank—so our minds and our resolve vanished. When you came close, we no longer remembered what we were doing. Only because you reminded us—why did you give up your resolve?—did we recall our former resolve.

This sutra does not mean we will remind each other of God by singing his praises and calling one another to remember. Such reminders do not happen. Much of this goes on—people set up loudspeakers and do akhand kirtan day and night, thinking if God’s name reaches ears even of the sleeping, great merit will accrue.

I have heard that such people are sent to hell—for they do nothing but ruin others’ sleep. Those forced to listen will first be irritated by the noise, and slowly they will come to be irritated even by God’s name.

No one can force God’s name upon another. Nor can anyone influence another by making him praise God. But when someone lives God, then in his rising, in his sitting, in his walking, in his speaking, in his silence, in his expressions and gestures—on all sides, the praise of God begins.
Someone came to Buddha and asked, “I have heard that you do not believe in God!” Buddha said, “Forget what you’ve heard; look at me attentively. What I say is not valuable—what I am is valuable.” But the man, his eyes fixed on the ground, said, “You haven’t answered my question. Answer my question. I have heard that you tell people there is no God!”
If you understand this sutra attentively, its meaning is this: let my influence be made known among you; let my fragrance waft out through their conduct, their being, their very existence. That is true praise of the Divine. No one will be won over by what you say; someone will be won over by what you are. Who cares what you say! What are you?

And here is the amusing thing: whatever you say becomes worthless if you are the opposite of it. And even if you say nothing, but are aligned with what you would like to say, it is said without words. But this subtle feeling becomes clear only when you go within and glimpse that unity of being.

“And they become content simply in speaking of Me!” This is a very pleasing, very pleasing line: they are content while speaking of Me. When we speak of God to someone, we are not content while speaking; we become content only if the other agrees—if he is converted. If I can mold someone into my idea, then I feel satisfied.

But that satisfaction is the satisfaction of the ego. All conversion is ego-centered. If I am laboring to make you believe what I believe, and if I succeed in persuading you, the satisfaction I get is the satisfaction of the ego; it is sin.

No, this sutra does not say that. It says: they become content in speaking of Me. Whether you agreed or not, whether you even heard or not—this is irrelevant, useless. Why even bring it up! That they were able to speak of the Lord is contentment enough. That they had a moment to sing of the Lord is enough satisfaction. That their whole life in its totality could become a hymn to the Divine—that is fulfillment.

And so there is a very remarkable thing: Hinduism is a non-converting religion. Hinduism does not wish to convert anyone. In its history, Hinduism has never made efforts to convert others to itself. This is remarkable—because the mind’s natural tendency is to want others to believe what I believe.

Perhaps you have not considered why this desire arises. It arises because I myself do not have deep trust in what I believe. When I can make another agree, a little confidence comes. When the crowd swells and more and more people agree with me, I feel what I say must be true; otherwise how could so many accept it? Psychologists say there is inner inferiority, inner insecurity; by persuading others I gain confidence in myself.

I have heard that the man who opened the first bank in New York was asked later, “How did you get the idea to open a bank, and how did you do it?” He said, “I opened a bank. I had fifty dollars. I had no other business, so I thought—let’s try banking. I rented an office, hung a board—‘Bank’—and sat there. A man came and deposited a hundred dollars. Next day another man came and deposited three hundred dollars. On the third day I deposited my own fifty dollars too. By then my courage had grown—this bank would run; there was nothing to fear!”

Converting minds are almost always like this. When the other changes, you finally feel confident: “All right, what I believe must be right. That book, that scripture, that message must be true—how else did this man get convinced!”

Therefore when no one agrees with you, you get very angry. You are not angry at him; your own inner hollowness has become visible—“No one agrees with me; I cannot convince anyone.” Then your roots begin to shake; your confidence begins to break. If those two depositors had not come to that bank for two days, on the third day he would have taken down the signboard and started some other work.

Hinduism is a non-converting religion; it has no urge to change others. Dayananda was the first to introduce the idea of conversion into Hindu thought. That is why I do not call Dayananda a thorough Hindu. He bears deep traits of Christianity and Islam. I do not say he is bad; but I do say he broke Hinduism’s own flowing stream.

For the Hindu says: Why change anyone! If the fragrance of my life changes someone, that is enough. But why should I go to change him! And to change is a kind of aggression, a violence. Why should I strike someone—“You are wrong!” And why should I insist on persuading you! If my life changes you, that is fine. If you come on your own, touched by this fragrance, that is fine. If the ringing bell of the temple itself calls you, that is enough. There is no need to go separately to invite you. And no one has ever been able to drag anyone by force; even if you bring him, only the body comes—the soul remains behind.

Praise of God—through existence, through personality, through being. Then contentment lies not in making others agree, but in one’s own expression. Then the satisfaction is in letting what was within me become fragrant and spread outward. What happened to the other is not even a matter for consideration.

I see it often: there is a great thinker, now in the last days of his life. All his life he tried to make people understand; now he is deeply frustrated, deeply sorrowful. The sorrow is that nothing happened—no one agreed, no one changed!

But such sorrow should not arise in the heart of a religious man. Otherwise even religion becomes a shop: “I kept the shop open all day, and no customer came! Life has passed and no goods were sold; my life went to waste.”

No—this question does not arise. One who descends deeply into meditation finds that singing of God is his joy, only his joy; he is satisfied in that alone. If there is any calculation beyond this, know that you have set out toward God without meditation—know that you are proceeding from the mind.

The mind opens shops everywhere; it turns everything into a business. The mind always seeks pathways for the ego. The mind arranges food for the ego.

“And they delight continuously in Me alone!” They dive and surface in Me, they keep taking dips in Me. This is not possible from the mind; it is absolutely impossible. That is why I say: understand this sutra as a sutra of meditation.

To those devotees who are constantly absorbed in My remembrance and worship Me lovingly, I give the yoga of wisdom by which they attain Me alone. And, O Arjuna, in order to grace them I Myself, established in oneness in their inner being, destroy the darkness born of ignorance by the radiant lamp of essential knowledge.

When a person’s state of consciousness becomes such that he dives and surfaces in the Divine, keeps taking dips in that alone, delights only in that; whose entire world is nothing but that—let us say, for whom the Divine has become the only world; whose desire is the Divine, whose longing is the Divine, whose prayer is the Divine; whose everything has become God-suffused—such a person, Krishna says, attains wisdom, attains buddhi-yoga. In such a person, genius is born. Such a person, for the first time, attains true intelligence—what Buddha called prajna.

Buddha used three words; they will be useful in understanding this sutra. He centered his entire reflection on three terms: shila, samadhi, and prajna. Shila means: what you do. Samadhi means: what you become. Prajna means: what blossoms within you.

Shila means your life is transformed. Samadhi means your consciousness is transformed. And prajna means the treasure that becomes available when both transformations happen—the wealth you receive, the supreme wealth. Krishna has called that supreme wealth buddhi-yoga.

This will surprise us, because we all consider ourselves intelligent. But in Krishna’s reckoning, buddhi—true intelligence—comes only when a person becomes one with the Divine. Then what is it that we call intelligence?

Imagine a man standing by a lake. The lake is still; the man stands at the shore, and his reflection appears in the lake—but the reflection is inverted. Reflections are always inverted. If you had never seen the man standing at the shore and saw only the reflection in the lake, you would think the man is standing on his head. If you had never seen the real man above the lake, you would take the reflection as the true position!

What we now call intelligence is only the reflection of intelligence upon the lake of the mind. What appears on the surface of our mind’s lake we call intellect. That is not intelligence; it is only its reflection. And the fun is: the reflection is inverted.

Therefore it often happens that the people we call “intelligent” are, from the perspective of supreme intelligence, utterly upside down. The people we say are “wrong-headed”—they cannot grasp anything straight; they immediately turn it upside down. From the words about the Divine they derive such conclusions that reaching the Divine becomes impossible. In religion they find such arguments that religion immediately seems futile. Whatever they do becomes somehow inverted. The reason is this: those who mistake the reflection for intelligence will naturally walk upside down.

In our century—which we might call the century of intellect, reflected intelligence—surely, there has never been so much intellect on earth. But it would be hard to find a century so devoid of true intelligence. That is the inversion. Never so much education, so many scriptures, so many ideas—and yet earlier man was wiser than we are.

Surely, if we sat Buddha down in a matriculation exam, I do not believe he would pass—unless he cheated; then that’s different. If he copied, even a fool passes, so Buddha would pass too! Otherwise, failure is certain. And if our so-called intellectuals were to debate Buddha, they would certainly win; Buddha would lose. And yet, Buddha is the intelligent one, and the ones we call intelligent are only inverted.

There is another form of intelligence which we cannot see until we rise beyond the mind. Only when our gaze lifts away from the lake do we see that a man stands above the lake, his feet below, his head above—and in the reflection the feet are above and the head below. Then we understand the reflection was reversed. But those who have seen only the reflection…!

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin’s reputation became quite bad. So bad that the village pundits and priests went to the emperor and said, “This man speaks in such a way that people will fall off the path. He is dangerous; he speaks upside down.” The emperor summoned him. Nasruddin left his house, mounted his donkey, and set out for court. A crowd followed, mocking him—he was sitting on the donkey backwards. But he maintained his gravity.

When he reached the court, the emperor himself asked, “Nasruddin, why are you sitting backward on the donkey?” Nasruddin said, “Sire, it depends on one’s point of view. I think the donkey is standing backward; I am sitting straight. Please look at the donkey! It depends—it will hinge on certain things as to who is backward. I am sitting perfectly straight. The donkey’s head was facing this way; I sat facing this way. If I had sat the way you call ‘straight,’ I would have had to twist the donkey and hurt him.”

A curious thing happened: the emperor said, “Take this man away—there’s no point in further talk.”

How we see, from where we see, from what point we see—everything depends on that.

Nasruddin sits in his little school, his small madrasa. He tells a boy, “Go to the well and fill this pitcher with water.” As the boy starts out, Nasruddin calls him back, grabs his ears, gives him two slaps, and says, “Be careful! Don’t break the pot!”

A guest was present; he was amazed. He had seen many kinds of punishment, but punishment before the crime—never. The boy hadn’t even gone yet—how could he have dropped it! He said, “Everything else is fine, but this upside-down business I don’t understand. The boy hadn’t even dropped the pot, and you slapped him!”

Nasruddin said, “If he drops the pot, what’s the use of slapping then? What’s the point afterward? Now neither will the pot drop, nor will there be any need to slap.” Nasruddin said, “It’s a matter of perspective. This isn’t upside down; it’s straight.”

Upside down and straight are relative. If both views are in our awareness, the question of straight or upside down does not arise. Whatever happens, we take it as straight.

We have seen only the image in the mind—the reflection of our possibility. We have seen the reflection in the mind and call it intelligence. And that is what we educate in our universities: we train the reflection. Our greatest intellectual is no more than a reflection.

There is a different intelligence; Krishna is speaking of that. He says: when someone attains meditation and is drowned in Me, then he attains buddhi-yoga—then for the first time he comes to know what intelligence is.

Our so-called intelligence harms us. Have you noticed whether your intelligence does anything for you other than harm? Day by day man sinks into greater crises; a great part of the cause is his intelligence. The more cleverness he acquires, the greater the crises multiply—infinitely.

Our so-called intellectuals of the last two centuries said: “If we educate the whole world, the kingdom of happiness will descend; we need universal education.” It sounded appealing. Now we have educated nearly half the world; and wherever we have, new dimensions of trouble have begun that we had never imagined.

America today is the most educated. But what American children are doing today is what could only be expected in the most savage, most primitive state. And yet the intellectuals had said, “Educate everyone and there will be great happiness!” But as education has increased, so has suffering.

And it seems the educated person cannot be happy. Perhaps those uneducated may be happy; but the educated—he simply cannot be. Perhaps ambition grows too much; perhaps the craving for happiness becomes so intense; perhaps the fist closes so tightly on happiness that what is grasped slips through the fist. And perhaps education raises so much tension that the idea of being intelligent arises, but true intelligence does not—and life becomes entangled in great strain and restlessness.

The world runs according to those we call intellectuals. The world has not yet run according to those whom Krishna calls buddhi-yogis. We do perform their worship—that is the easy way to get rid of them. If you want to be rid of someone, worship him and go home; finished, the nuisance is over: “All right, we bow to you; now please excuse us, we will go.”

This second kind of intelligence leads life toward bliss. Our intellect has led us toward misery. If misery is the criterion, then what we call intellect is poison. If bliss is the criterion, then we must shift our attention to what Krishna and Buddha call intelligence.

This intelligence is something else. It becomes available to those who are constantly engaged in My remembrance, who are immersed in My devotion and love. To them I give that essential yoga, the yoga of intelligence, by which they ultimately attain Me, become Divine. And, O Arjuna, to grace them, I Myself, established in oneness in their hearts, destroy the darkness born of ignorance with the radiant lamp of knowledge—with the lamp of essential wisdom.

When this intelligence is born within—this buddhi-yoga—life is seen in its totality as it is, not according to our ideas, our glasses, our perspectives, but in its reality, its essential nature. Then this prajna itself becomes a lamp. And all this ignorance in which we have lived so far—the life we have taken as our life, in which we have wandered, been rejected, stumbled, suffered and toured hells upon hells—this entire darkness dissolves and becomes nothing.

Man is a possibility of light. Man is a seed of light; a flame is hidden within him. Just as a bird is hidden in an egg, to break the shell and fly into the sky—so too a bird of light is hidden within you. A flame that opens its wings and becomes a blaze toward the sky is hidden within you.

But the mind must be broken, and the ego must become fuel. Let the ego become oil and burn—then that flame of light, that buddhi-yoga, condenses within you. What is known in that light is religion. What is found in that illumination is liberation. And whatever we know without it, in darkness—that is the world.

Define it thus: what is known in ignorance is the world. The same, when known through knowledge, is God. World and God are not two different things. They are two visions of the same existence, two experiences of the same reality. In ignorance, one experience arises—that is the world. What we know of God in ignorance is what we call the world. And what we know of the world in knowledge is what we call God. These are two names corresponding to two states of our mind; they do not refer to two different things.

But man is astonishing—and will be—because his intelligence is inverted. He stands upside down and sees the world. So even when we think of God, we think: God is something else, the world is something else. The shop is something else, the temple is something else. The body is something else, the soul is something else. Stone is something else, God is something else. Even in thinking, we think in two. We make two existences—between which further difficulty arises, because both are false. Both are false.

Someone asked Buddha, “When you attained enlightenment, tell us what relationship remains between the world and truth. When you attained, tell us what is the relationship between soul and body. When you attained, tell us how you live in the world.”

Buddha said: A man walks on a path at night; a rope lies there; in the dark he imagines a snake. He panics, runs, flails, sweats; his blood pressure rises, his heart races, he becomes restless. Then someone says, “Don’t be afraid. Take this lantern and come.” The man says, “I will come later. First tell me—have you seen that snake with your lantern? If you have, tell me what is the relationship between the snake and the rope.” What will the man with the lantern say? He will say, “When someone goes there with a lantern, only the rope remains—the snake is not. And when someone goes in the dark, the snake is, the rope is not.”

But one man reports the rope, another reports the snake; the listener feels there must be two things—snake and rope—and then asks, “What is the relationship between the two?” And then we have our “intelligent” people who construct great scriptures to define the relationship.

No—they too have not gone. The ignorant one at least returned after seeing the snake. They have not even gone so far as to see the snake; they sit at home and tally up reports. Some say, “There is a snake”; some say, “There is a rope.” So surely there are two things—what is the relationship between them?

All over the world philosophies have sprung up to define the relation between two—call them what you will: world and liberation; soul and matter; mind and matter—it makes no difference. What is the relationship between two? Hundreds of philosophies have arisen. Some say: they are parallel. Some say: there is a relation. Some say: there is no relation at all; both function according to their nature. Some say: one is false, the other is true. Some say: the second is false, the first is true. But all of them are those who have not taken the light there to see whether there are two at all.

Krishna says: darkness, ignorance disappears. Through this buddhi-yoga the luminous prajna arises, the light manifests, and the darkness vanishes.

When the darkness vanishes, two do not remain—only one remains. Perhaps even this is not accurate, because “one” gives us a sense of number. So this land found a precious word: advaita—non-dual. It does not even say “one remains.” It says simply: two do not remain. Because even “one” carries the compulsion of number; and whenever you think of “one,” “two” arises immediately.

“One” has no meaning if “two” does not exist. It has meaning only in reference to two. Therefore those who knew in the light said only this: there are not two. We do not even say “there is one.” We say only this: there are not two—those two that you have known or heard about. There is something—unknown, mysterious—and it can be known only by knowing. Spoken statements, heard words, read texts cannot acquaint you with it.

Religion is an inner revolution, an alchemy, a chemistry, in which a man changes himself and is established on new planes of knowing; attains new light and new eyes; a new flame and new consciousness arise—and then he sees.

But we all want to know before knowing. Hence in this world a great deal of false, pseudo-knowledge circulates. We all want to know before we know! The bird wants to know what flying is before it flies! We want to know the taste of swimming before we swim! Before freedom—before spreading wings in the sky—we want to know what freedom means!

And then we find people ready to tell us—because whenever there is demand, there will be supply. Economists say: for anything you demand, someone will supply; all that is needed is demand; it is the law of the market.

So when we demand to know without knowing, there is a large class of pundits across the world ready to “make you know” without knowing. They say, “What need is there? Here is a book, here are the words—memorize them. Drink them in. Repeat them. Parrot them. Knowledge will be yours!”

We have such knowledge. Have you ever considered that your God, your soul, is parroted knowledge? You got it from your father; kindly you will pass it on to your son. Someone crammed it into you; you will cram it into another. But there is not even a ray of one’s own experience, one’s own realization within!

That is why there is so much talk of religion and yet religion seems so futile. There is such vast religious activity, yet no result anywhere. The whole world talks of light, yet there is dense darkness! Everywhere there is talk of God—in temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras. Everywhere the Lord is being praised—and yet not a glimmer of Him is visible in anyone’s eyes! It is a strange deception.

And humanity seems so skilled at deceiving itself that there is no measure for it. What is not at all in our lives—we talk about it endlessly! And we are satisfied with the talk; having talked, we think the work is done. It is a formality: we perform it, we listen from childhood and then keep repeating it. And all life long we never once consider whether there is any life behind these words we utter. Have we known them?

I call that man religious who weighs every word. Only if I have known God should I bring that word to my lips. Otherwise the word is too precious to be uttered by lips that have merely borrowed stale words and are repeating them.

Have I known the soul? If not, do not use the word; do not use it at all. If you can refrain from the word, perhaps a restlessness will arise—“Let me also know what it is!” But we are so pleased with words, so pleased! It is long conditioning.

One last thing. In Russia there was a great psychologist, Pavlov. He proposed the theory of conditioned reflex. It is a valuable theory—though not absolutely true, it is true to a great extent. He would place bread before a dog, feed him, and simultaneously ring a bell. Seeing bread, the dog’s saliva would flow; at the same time he would hear the bell. Bread and bell became associated. After fifteen days he did not give bread—he only rang the bell, and saliva began to drip from the dog’s mouth.

There is no relation between a bell and saliva. Ring as many bells as you like, no dog will salivate. But Pavlov’s dog did. Pavlov said, “This is conditioning; this is imprinting.” Bread was given, saliva flowed; the bell rang with the bread, the ear heard the bell; bread and bell became associated. Now the bread is not given, only the bell rings; the sound strikes the ear and the salivary glands begin to secrete.

We too have been conditioned to words in almost the same way. When we see a temple, our hands fold. This is pure conditioning. As a child you went with your father; he said, “Temple,” he folded his hands, you folded yours. Now the conditioning is set. Now when a temple appears, your hands join. You think you are very religious! This is only the bell ringing and the saliva flowing.

It is not so simple. You folded your hands and went away—done with the temple. Some religious festival comes—you celebrate. Religion becomes a social act.

You must awaken from this. If you awaken from this, one day you may know that light, that nectar, that benediction, that realm of which Krishna speaks. It is very near to us; it is only a slight turning. If we can loosen our grip on this so-called conditioned mind even a little, it is right at our shore. In a single leap we can attain it.

But if we cling to this mind, then the bells of words will keep ringing and the false saliva of experience will keep dripping—though it has no relation to the real. Someone says “God,” someone says “Gita,” and a bell certainly rings within us.

I was astonished recently: if I say the same thing in the name of the Gita, a bell rings within you. If I do not take the Gita’s name and say the same thing, no bell rings. If I say the same thing in the name of the Koran, a bell begins to ring within a Muslim; if I say it in the name of the Gita, his bell stops. Astonishing—very astonishing!

A mind so bound, so parrot-like, so mechanical cannot be religious. This mind must be broken, harnessed, transcended.

That is all for today.

But no one should get up. Sit for five minutes. The sannyasins will sing kirtan. Receive the prasad of Ram’s Name, and then go.