Geeta Darshan #9

The Infinite can have infinite symbols. What is everywhere can be pointed to from every direction. What is invisible, unknown—toward that, a leap can be taken from whatever is visible and known to us.

Yesterday Krishna tried from one direction to break open a way toward the Infinite. Today he makes another attempt. Often it happens that if one arrow misses, the second may hit; if the second misses, perhaps the third will land. Whether an arrow strikes the mark depends on whether there is any resonance, any attunement, between the listener’s heart and the words spoken.

There are many kinds of complexities. Something I say to you may not resonate with your heart this moment, but tomorrow it may. Something I tell you today may not make sense, yet if it had been said a moment earlier it might have fit.

Your mind is fluid—flowing from instant to instant, like a river. Who can say in which ripe moment, which word will pierce your heart and sink deep? It cannot be predetermined.

Therefore those who have taught the Supreme Truth have pointed toward it through many, many doors—so that by any doorway you might arrive; by any lattice a window of your eyes might open toward it; by any tone, the strings of your heart’s veena might be touched. It is not important from which direction you understand; what matters is that you understand.

Perhaps Arjuna’s heart could not catch the symbols Krishna chose yesterday. So he chooses others.

He tells Arjuna: And among the eleven Rudras I am Shankar; among Yakshas and Rakshasas I am Kubera, lord of wealth; among the eight Vasus I am Agni; and among mountains I am Mount Meru.

Yesterday he said, “Among the sons of Aditi, I am Vishnu.” Vishnu is the symbol of life—of sustaining, holding, continually breathing life into the stream that flows every moment. Today Krishna says, “Among the Rudras I am Shankar.” Shankar is the symbol of death, dissolution, destruction. A few things must be understood here—then the unique flowers that sometimes bloom in the Indian genius will also come into view.

All over the earth, death has been understood as the end of life, as life’s enemy, its opposite. India has not seen it that way. Death is also the completion of life, not only its end. Death appears as life’s enemy because we know nothing of life; otherwise death is friend as well. Nor is death some foreign assault upon life from the outside—no attack from elsewhere. India does not hold such a view. Death is an intimate part of life, an evolution of life itself, its growth. Shankar is not the opposite of Vishnu, and destruction is not the contrary of creation. Destruction and creation are two aspects of one and the same event.

When a child is born, we cannot even imagine that with that birth, death has also begun—but it has. Our inability to think so is our limitation. The day the child is born, dying also starts. With just this one sentence I’ve spoken, you have died a little; the stream of your life has thinned a bit, a little time is spent, you have moved closer to death. When the child takes the first breath in, one breath is already less in the account.

So the moment of birth is also the moment of death—for those who can see deeply. To see deeply means to have a transparent vision through which what will happen seventy or a hundred years hence is glimpsed even now. Those who can see birth deeply will also see the moment of death in it.

Death is not opposed; she walks alongside birth. Think of it as the left and right feet: you cannot walk on one alone; you need both. Exactly so, birth and death are the two feet of the same vital energy; you cannot move with only one.

Our desire is that there be birth but no death. That desire is foolish, opposed to the truth of life. Whoever wants birth without death simply does not know that he seeks to avoid and obtain the same thing—two faces of one coin. If ever death became impossible, birth would also become impossible. Cut away death, and birth is cut as well. They are not two.

Right now Arjuna’s mind is shadowed and overwhelmed by death. Krishna told him, “I am Vishnu, the god of life,” but perhaps it did not strike his heart.

Talk of life has no meaning to a man who is dying. Death stands at his door. Death stands at everyone’s door, but most are so busy in life they never see it. The one lying on his cot awaiting death hears the slightest sound at the gate and thinks, “The messengers of Yama have knocked.” He sees death everywhere.

Death surrounds Arjuna too—of loved ones, kin, his own people. This war was strange: on both sides stood friends divided. Those with whom one had played yesterday, loved yesterday, for whom one could have died yesterday—today, their lives were to be taken. Teacher and disciple had split. Friend against friend. Families torn apart—some here, some there.

Such a war is rare. Usually the lines are clear: enemies on one side, friends on the other. But the Mahabharata is unique; the division is not clear or fixed. Krishna fights on one side, his army on the other! There stand Bhishma and Drona—the very feet at whose feet all sat and learned. The art learned from them is now to be used for their death.

Yet in a sense the Mahabharata is a great symbol. I said there is no such war in the world—lines clear, friends here, enemies there. And yet I tell you another thing:

Every war is like the Mahabharata, whether we know it or not. The division is false, superficial. Inwardly, our own friends stand on both sides. Our own relatives are here and there. The Mahabharata tears off this false division completely. All wars are like this.

Today if Pakistan and India fight, the division looks clean. But yesterday there was no border. If Karachi had been destroyed then, Bombay would have been as pained as if Bombay were destroyed, Karachi would have been pained. Today we have drawn a line—so if Karachi is ruined, we may rejoice; if Bombay is ruined, rejoicing may happen in Karachi.

Look deeply and every war is like the Mahabharata. On both sides, human beings stand, and humanity is one family. Whether visible or not—anger, enmity, jealousy, violence may have smoked over the ties, but those with clear eyes always see that every war is a Mahabharata.

Arjuna is distraught. He sees death everywhere. Even victory appears meaningless. “If those for whom we win are gone, what will victory be? Those who would be happy will be dead! If I stand alone in victory, before whom will I stand? For whom? It will be meaningless.”

In a deeper sense, what happened in the Mahabharata threatens to happen in the coming century. We stand almost in the same condition again. Hence the Gita has become even more pertinent—deeply contemporary, if you have a little vision to see.

Before and after the Mahabharata, humanity passed through a vast crisis. Before the Mahabharata, human culture had reached a summit—almost as the West stands today, so did the East then. Nearly all the weapons we are inventing now are described in the Mahabharata. The names differ, but the properties are the same.

The culture and human development before the Mahabharata had reached a peak. After it, India could never touch that summit again. The fall and the decay, the destruction of culture, civilization, science that came with the Mahabharata have not been recovered to this day.

Perhaps deep in the Indian psyche another understanding dawned: that the ultimate outcome of reaching such heights of science is disastrous. The Indian genius grew disinterested, indifferent to science. The end to which material prosperity led—Mahabharata—left India with little appetite for material wealth.

If we seek the fundamental cause of India’s poverty, we must go far back: the Mahabharata is its cause. There we saw the last peak of prosperity. Whatever could be attained by human understanding, we had attained—education, science, culture at the summit; prosperity, excessive prosperity. The fruit of that excess was bitter.

Afterward, a deep despair regarding prosperity, science, tools, technology seized India. Post-Mahabharata, India ceased to develop technology—because its final development had proved tragic. All was laid waste.

Today the world stands again in such a condition. The West has once again forged instruments by which humanity can be utterly destroyed. And even if not all are destroyed, what is best will perish; only the worst may survive.

If there is war now, New York and Bombay and Tokyo cannot be saved; London and Paris cannot be saved. Perhaps some tribal hidden in a jungle might survive, that’s different. Cultures will not survive—only a few primitive fragments and clans.

Thus the Gita becomes meaningful again—urgently so. Today those who hold power fear to fight, because until now war had meaning: someone wins, someone loses. Now, if war happens, there is no reason to believe anyone will win or lose; both will be destroyed. And even if a “winner” remains, he will have no one left to tell—what would that victory be for?

Arjuna sees only death. Talk of life perhaps does not reach him. So Krishna says: “Among the Rudras, I am Shankar.” I am death; I am the great annihilation; I myself am its seed.

There are several things to grasp here.

First: when we identify God with the power of destruction, our logic gets entangled. We are used to identifying God with creation—the creator, the sustainer. That is because of our fear. We can accept that God makes, but that God also unmakes—we cannot, because annihilation terrifies us.

Yet the one who makes will also unmake. The process of becoming will have its counter-process of un-becoming. Creation and dissolution cannot be two—they are limbs of one process. All creation gives birth to destruction, and all destruction gives birth to new creation.

“And among the Rudras, I am Shankar!” Krishna is saying: Do not be disturbed or afflicted by destruction. Let death not frighten you. You can see me even in death, because that ultimate power of dissolution is also I.

As the individual’s life includes death, so the life of the cosmos includes dissolution, pralaya. Individuals are born and die; so too the cosmos is born and dies. As a person is a child, then young, then old, then dies—completing a circle—so is the Indian vision: all life becomes child, youth, old age, and meets death.

In the West, thinking is linear, in a straight line; hence the idea of evolution arose. Darwin, Huxley, and others gave birth to the notion of development. It is worth pondering why India never created such a theory of evolution.

Western thought assumes life runs on straight rails. India says: in this world no straight line can be drawn.

It’s surprising. If you studied mathematics or Euclidean geometry, you would say this is wrong: Euclid declares a straight line can be drawn; the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But in the last fifty years, non-Euclidean geometry has arisen in the West—and it accords with India.

Non-Euclidean geometry says: no line is truly straight. Extend any line far enough in both directions and it will encircle the earth and become a curve—because the earth is round. On the earth we cannot draw a straight line. Anywhere, truly straight lines cannot be drawn. What seems straight is a fragment of so vast a circle that we cannot perceive its curvature. All “straight” lines are arc segments; extend them and a circle appears.

India’s view has always been non-Euclidean: no line is straight; therefore no movement of life can be straight. All motion is circular. Child, youth, old age—birth, then death: at the point of birth the circle completes and becomes death.

That’s why children and the very old become alike in many ways. A culture that does not know how to treat its elderly as it treats its children is uncultured. In the West, the old cannot be treated like children because the assumption is linear—nothing returns, nothing is circular; what began will never be met again.

India sees all movements as circular: the earth circling the sun; the earth spinning on its axis; the sun circling some greater sun; all suns orbiting a great center; seasons returning; childhood, youth, old age recurring—everything moves in circles. The entire cosmos moves in a circle. Motion itself is circular; motion means circularity.

Hence we named this world samsara—the wheel. Samsara means the turning wheel, the potter’s wheel.

That wheel on India’s flag was once fashioned by the Buddhists as a symbol for samsara: the world turns like a wheel, and whoever remains caught in it keeps revolving—again and again.

Buddha said: the one who leaps out of this wheel is free. The one who keeps circling through birth and death—birth after death, death after birth; childhood after old age, youth after childhood, old age after youth—moves in a circular wandering.

What is true in the small life of the individual is true in the vast existence. The birth of the cosmos is creation; its death is dissolution. After dissolution, the world is born again and sets out anew.

We do not take death as the end; we call it deep rest. Like this: you labor all day and at night you sleep. The Indian mind has always held that sleep is a short death. We wake and tire through the day; at night we die a little. By morning we are fresh, rejuvenated, and the journey resumes. One who cannot sleep cannot live; he will go insane, tire quickly, and collapse. To die each night is necessary so that life is new in the morning.

The deeper you can die at night, the more fully you’ll live in the morning. If your sleep approaches the depth of death, your morning will approach the fullness of life. If you keep dreaming, half-awake all night, you will rise half-dead in the morning. One who does not know the art of dying at night cannot learn the art of living in the day.

Among tribals you’ll be surprised that many say they never dream. We cannot even imagine a person who does not dream! Among old tribal societies untouched by modern civilization, when someone dreams it is a rare event; the whole village gathers to ask about it. A dream means the depth of sleep is broken—he no longer reaches the near-death of true sleep.

Each day a death happens. Bring it closer and it will be clearer: when you breathe in, it is life; when you breathe out, it is death. Even a single breath is linked with birth and death. When breath goes out, you are in a moment of dying; when breath comes in, in a moment of living. With each breath, birth and death step together. As breath goes out, your life-energy wanes; as it comes in, you are enlivened.

Birth and death in each breath. Day as birth, night as death. If we take this whole life as a birth, then there is one death; if we take this entire cosmos as life, then one great dissolution. Death is inevitable with life. Death is rest; life is exertion, tension, toil. Death is repose, a pause, a regaining of vital forces.

This vast universe also tires! Not only you tire—mountains grow old, earths grow old, suns grow old. Not only you die—planets die, suns die, mountains die. Everything here sways between life and death.

So Krishna says: Among the Rudras I am Shankar—of death, of dissolution. But death is not contrary to life. This is what Krishna wants Arjuna to understand: you separate life and death; you think life is always good and death always bad. That division is delusion. Death is rest.

Life is the wave rising toward the sky; death is the wave returning into the ocean. Do not be so afraid of death; do not worry so much about it. That too is I. And do not think that death is happening through you. Neither life through you, nor death through you.

Remember: neither does life happen by us, nor can death happen by us. Yet we assume so. If you give birth to a child, you think you have given birth.

You were only a passage, a doorway through which the child has come. What did you “do”? Has any father ever thought what he actually did to become a father?

In fact, he was only a passage. Nature used him as a conduit. Life came through him; he did not bring it. And when life comes through you, you are so helpless! That is why lust is so overpowering—you cannot control it. When life pushes from within, you are utterly compelled. In lust you are hardly there; nature is.

Hence all religions hold that unless one goes beyond lust, nature’s bondage does not end; nature keeps you in thrall and puts you into a trance, using you as a doorway—whether as mother or father you are instrumental, merely a means. Life uses you as an instrument and is born. You are not the creator, only the tool.

Krishna says: life does not come by you, nor does death. Life is by me, and death is by me. So your worry in between is pointless. Your sadness in between is pointless. Your becoming the doer is pointless. You are not the doer.

If the essence of Krishna’s teaching were to be given to Arjuna in a single word, it would be: you mistake yourself for more than an instrument. You are merely an instrument. The vast power of life works through you; you are only a means. Do not think yourself more than the flute through which life sings. You are a hollow reed through which life expresses. You are not the giver of birth, nor of death. I am birth, I am life, and I am death.

Understand too: we have regarded Shankar as the lord of destruction, the presiding deity of life’s final chapter, under whose presidency the world will dissolve. Yet we have never tied Shiva’s personality to morbidity. We have portrayed him as Nataraj, the dancing one; as a great lover.

When Parvati died, the story says Shiva wandered for twelve years carrying her corpse on his shoulder. The body decayed—twelve years is long—and limb by limb it fell. Wherever each limb fell, a pilgrimage place arose. All the sacred sites are where Parvati’s limbs dropped.

The god of death and destruction is depicted so overflowing with love, attachment, longing for life! And as Nataraj—dancing! It is worth pondering. A deity of destruction should not be portrayed in such language. It would be appropriate to imagine a dry, detached ascetic. But Shiva is not such—he is soaked in rasa, brimming with love for life. It seems a contradiction.

But within this very contradiction India’s inner vision is hidden: opposites unite to constitute life.

Understand it this way: the very capacity for passion within you is your capacity for death. The same energy that is lust is death. If lust disappears, the fear of death also disappears.

We feel lust begets life. True—but whenever you beget life through lust, you do not see you also bring your death closer. The energy that serves life, in being spent also builds your death. Life is a continuous balance.

Hence those who sought immortality made celibacy the foundation, and for good reason. For the doorway of death is lust. Let me give examples. In humans it is harder to see because events are spread out. Among animals and insects, there are striking instances.

In Africa there is an insect that can copulate only once—and dies in the act. He falls dead off the female. Scientists measured his sexual experience and were astonished: they believe the intensity of pleasure—if we call it that—he experiences once is more than a man might in four thousand acts in a lifetime.

A normal man may have about four thousand copulations. There are instruments to measure the electrical waves and voltages in the brain and body in orgasm—the frequency and amplitude. That insect’s wave activity exceeds anything recorded in humans. And yet in that single act he dies.

Other studies show the same: lust begets life on one side and death on the other. Life and death are inseparably joined.

Therefore if we have called Shiva the god of destruction and death, we have also depicted his life as richly colored, full of rasa, deeply attached.

Parvati’s father did not consent to choose Shiva as bridegroom. Who would choose the god of death! And yet everyone must choose him. In the end only the lord of death can be chosen—there is no other way. Birth and death are yoked, and lust is the doorway of death.

So the father kept refusing this marriage. But Parvati was adamant—no one but Shiva would do. Naturally. Where death is so dense that the world dissolves through him, there too desire is dense; the intensities balance. Parvati longed, was mad with love. The wedding happened, though the father was unwilling.

Shiva’s allure is the allure of life—but Shiva is the god of death. Through this symbol we have sought to say that life and death are not two. Life calls, and finally death’s lap becomes our rest.

Krishna says: I am Shankar. I am death. I am destruction. I am life. Thus he says: in all dualities, I am.

When the same Being is in both poles, duality loses meaning.

Hegel worked deeply on dialectics in the West, saying all development is dialectical. Marx built on this and proposed dialectical materialism and communism. He seized the small point that just as life develops dialectically, so does society—through the struggle of rich and poor.

But neither Hegel nor Marx glimpsed what India says more deeply. Marx speaks very shallowly—only of society. Hegel goes deeper, says all development is dialectical. India says: not only development—existence itself is dialectical. The whole of existence is a tension of apparent opposites.

But dialectic does not mean two absolutes. They are not two enemies, but two banks of one river. From above you see two banks, but if you go under the riverbed, the ground is one. And here is the marvel: a river cannot flow with one bank; it needs two. Yet the two are one beneath. If they were truly two separate lands, the river would fall into the chasm and not flow at all.

Understand—this is subtle. If there is only one bank, the river cannot flow; two are needed. But if they are truly two, apart, the river falls into the gap and still cannot flow. Therefore they must appear two above, but be one underneath.

So India gave a new meaning to dialectics: the dual is on the surface; the non-dual within. Dvaita above, Advaita underneath. Two are seen, but they are two forms of One.

Therefore Krishna says: I am life and I am death—both banks are mine. And because both banks are mine, they are not two enemies but two ends of one existence. So do not worry about life, Arjuna, nor about death. Leave both to me—I am both. You needlessly come in between and take anxiety on your head.

But it seems difficult. People say they want to drop anxiety, but I have met very few who truly do. They say it, but saying only creates a new worry: “I want to drop anxiety!”—nothing else. A new religious anxiety, a new unrest: “I want peace!”

No one really wants to drop anxiety. Deep down, dropping anxiety means dropping the ego—and no one wants to drop ego. Everyone wants to drop worry, while all the leaves and flowers of worry grow on the tree of ego. If someone truly drops worry, the ego must be dropped at once.

What is Arjuna’s distress? He says, “I am the doer. I will kill. I will wage war. The sin will be on me. So I will do virtue; I will renounce; I will go to the forest; I will meditate, worship, pray. I will not do wrong; I will do right. If I am to be a doer, I will be doer of good, not of evil. But I will remain the doer.” This is his worry, his torment.

Understand rightly: apart from ego there is no other anxiety in the world.

All say, “We want to drop worry,” but no one wants to drop ego. Hence one more worry mounts the head: how to drop worry! But if someone truly tells you a simple alchemy: do not consider yourself the doer—and then try to worry and show me—then I will be impressed. Decide for twenty-four hours: “I am not the doer.” Then, in those twenty-four hours, try to worry and show me—you will have performed a miracle. It cannot happen.

Worry arises the moment I take myself to be the doer. Where I am not the doer, worry cannot be. Then I become part of the vast flow; the whole burden of doing is upon the Vast, not upon me. If good happens, it is his; if bad happens, his. Life comes—his; death—his; illness—his; health—his; happiness—his; sorrow—his. Whatever comes, his. I am a part of him. There remains no way to worry.

Think of ego as a wound—ever sensitive. Even a small touch hurts and anxiety arises. The ego is a boil, an ulcer. The slightest bump…

And isn’t it strange? If there is a sore on your foot, all day you bump it! You pass through the same door every day, the same furniture, the same chair and table—and today they all seem decided to strike that foot! They were striking yesterday too, but you didn’t notice. To notice, you need a wound.

Ego is that wound. Walking on the road, someone laughs for his own reason, and you are hurt. Someone is in a playful mood, you are hurt. Two people whisper, your ego concludes they speak of you.

The deeper the wound of ego, the more it seems the whole world revolves around you! Someone laughs—because of you. Someone weeps—because of you. Life runs—because of you. Death comes—because of you. Without you, the cosmos would collapse!

Arjuna is in this delusion: everything centers on him; everything depends on whether he acts or not. Krishna is saying only one thing: nothing depends on you; everything depends on me—on the Vast.

“And among Yakshas and Rakshasas, I am Kubera, lord of wealth.”

This is harder still—especially in today’s socialist age. One feels as if the CIA must have inserted this line into the Gita: Kubera!

Krishna says, “Among Yakshas and Rakshasas, I am Kubera, the lord of wealth.”

Our mind wants to delete this from the Gita. Be anything—but don’t claim to be the lord of wealth! And that too, Kubera!

Kubera is said to possess inexhaustible treasure—without limit. The richest in existence.

Krishna’s statement sounds capitalist. So it will be hard to understand. But rightly seen, it is very significant.

A poor man can never be free of wealth—how could he? You cannot be free of what you do not have; you can only be free of what you do have. Not that you necessarily will—but you can, if you wish. What you lack will keep attracting you. Freedom can only be from what is present. If the world gives wealth such prestige, its cause is not wealth but poverty.

Understand this well.

If wealth attracts so much, the cause is not wealth, as moralists say, but scarcity. Where money is rare, it attracts; where poverty prevails, money magnetizes. The day wealth becomes like air and water, it will lose charm. Often the opposite happens: in a village with no car, a car draws eyes; in a village where everyone has a car, someone walking attracts attention.

Because of poverty, money attracts. Because of deprivation, money fascinates. Where wealth abounds, its charm fades. That is why the greatest renouncers the world has known were born in palaces.

Mahavira, Buddha, Neminath, Parshvanath—the Jains’ twenty-four Tirthankaras—were princes. The Hindus’ avatars—princes. The Buddhists’ twenty-four Buddhas—princes. And none of them were on the side of wealth. It’s fascinating: Mahavira begged on the streets; Buddha carried a bowl. He even named his monks “bhikkhu”—beggar. “Bhikkhu” became a word of honor. When you see Buddha begging, do you begin to understand?

One who has wealth can become free of it. If someone has wealth but is not free, it only means he lacks intelligence. If you have wealth and freedom does not arise, understand—there is no intelligence. If you have no wealth and freedom arises, understand—there is great intelligence.

A poor person can be free only if he is very wise—deeply wise—able to imagine: “If what I lack were mine, what then?” That requires far-reaching insight. The poor, with great wisdom, may become free; the rich, only by being downright foolish can avoid freedom. If you have wealth and cannot let go of its grip, you are deeply unwise. If you lack it and yet are free, you are very wise.

Krishna says: Among Rakshasas and Yakshas, I am the lord of wealth, Kubera.

Two points. First, Rakshasa means a personality type: one whose soul is greed. Rakshasas are not a race; they are a psychology. Where greed is the soul, that man is a Rakshasa. The earth is full of them.

Krishna says: if you ask me who I am among Rakshasas, I am no petty demon—I am Kubera himself.

Greed is the Rakshasa’s nature. Only if a Rakshasa attains the state of Kubera can he be free of greed; otherwise not. Only when infinite wealth is obtained can the search for wealth end. Properly understood: among Rakshasas, only Kubera stands beyond greed.

There are two ways to go beyond greed. Either awareness, intelligence, prajna grow so much that, from where you are, greed appears futile—that’s one. The second: your greed is fulfilled to such abundance that you cannot even ask for more; what you have exceeds your imagination; your demand becomes small before the supply—then the state of Kubera is born. Then you can be beyond greed.

A poor society is never religious collectively—only individuals may be. A rich society can become religious collectively. If a society truly becomes rich, its fundamental bent turns religious.

India too was once religious—when it was collectively affluent. Today, if any country has the possibility of becoming religious collectively, it is America.

A poor man may be religious personally, not as a society; when the body’s basic needs are unmet, the soul has little chance to stir. When roots are bound to the ground, there is no chance to fly in the sky.

Religion is the ultimate luxury—the highest extravagance. It is so high, so summit-like, that only when the lower necessities loosen and you are light enough to take wing—when the earth’s hold loosens—does one reach that ultimate peak.

Seen in this context, Krishna’s statement becomes clear: “Among Rakshasas I am Kubera.” For until Rakshasas become Kubera, they will not turn toward the Divine. Only Kubera can bend toward that; nothing less will do. Until so much is heaped upon you that the very weight of it kills your craving—until the sky of your desires collapses upon you and you are bored beneath it—otherwise greed will keep you circling around wealth, however much pain you endure. Only when having wealth itself becomes suffering will you rise above it. You can suffer any amount for wealth until then.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin came to India. Entering Kashmir, he was very hungry and thirsty, trekking a mountain road with no one in sight. Under a tree on the edge of a village he spotted a man selling bright red fruits he had never seen. He gave the man a rupee for some fruit—the man handed him the entire basket. Nasruddin was delighted—never imagined so much for one rupee. He bit into one and tears streamed—his mouth was on fire. They were red chilies. But he kept chewing and gulping them down; flames leapt to his stomach.

A passerby saw his tears, red eyes, trembling body. “What are you doing, fool? These are chilies—stop, or you’ll die!” Nasruddin said, “Who’s eating chilies? I’m eating my money now. The chili-eating ended with the first chili—but I paid for them!”

Many of our tears are for the money we are eating. Everything burns inside and out—but the money must be eaten! Much of human misery belongs not to those without money—that difficulty is not so great—but to those “eating their money.” Their trouble is endless.

This journey can end in only two ways—the eating of money. Either you are thrown into an ocean of it, like Kubera; or you have enough prajna, awareness, intelligence to refrain from eating it.

Krishna says: Among Rakshasas, I am Kubera.

I am the one among them who has so much, so infinite, that all craving has died—more than imagination, more than desire. Kubera means: one who has more than imagination can hold. Krishna says: I am Kubera.

“And among the best of mountains I am Meru; among priests, Brihaspati, priest of the gods; O Partha, among commanders I am Skanda; among waters, the ocean. And, O Arjuna, among seers I am Bhrigu; among words, the single syllable Om; among sacrifices, the japa-yajna; and among the stable, the Himalaya.”

There are two or three symbols here of great value for the seeker—let us understand them.

Among words, the single syllable: Om. Om is one syllable but contains three sounds: A U M. These three together make Om. Phonetics says A, U, M are the basic sounds; all others are expansions of these—seed-sounds. From the three unfolds the entire world of sound.

Understand it like this.

Modern physics says the fundamental basis of life is the electron—electric particles. Indian insight says the fundamental basis of existence is sound-particles—not electricity but sound. The West says electricity is fundamental.

Curiously, Western physics says sound is a form of electricity—electric energy patterned in a certain way becomes sound. Indian science says electricity is a form of sound—particularly structured sound produces fire.

Hence the stories of Tansen and others. Whether historically accurate or not, behind them is the Indian vision: with a particular strike of sound, fire can be produced—electricity can be invoked.

As modern research in acoustics develops, Indian insight grows significant. Now Western science also concedes it may be possible to produce fire through specific sound resonances—since sound is a mode of energy.

Perhaps it is only a matter of words. More likely there is a third thing manifesting as both sound and electricity—what Indians call sound, modern science calls energy. Words aside, the two are deeply one.

As Einstein’s small formula E = mc² gathers today’s physics, so Om gathers the East’s science of sound. It is also a scientific formula: A, U, M combine to form Om. It has specific uses.

Krishna says: among letters I am the single syllable Om.

Let all scriptures go—no harm. Forget them all—no harm—if one Om remains; if the art of resonating Om within is remembered; if the capacity to synchronize with Om grows; if such a moment arrives that you disappear and only the utterance of Om remains within—then you enter the Divine. For when Om falls away, you drop into soundlessness, the void. Then you enter the formless unity. Om is the last door.

If you move from Om outward into the world, A U M unfold, and from them the entire expanse of sound. If you go behind Om, all sound dissolves; eventually you too dissolve—only Om remains.

This means Om is not a sound produced by man; it is the sound of existence itself. As you have heard the sound of silence—at night when there is no noise, silence has its own hum—so when all ego and thought fall silent and deep quiet descends, the inner hush carries a sound: that sound is called Om.

Entering Om, Krishna says, is entering me. Among all letters, I am the one-lettered Om. Among thousands of sacrifices, I am the sacrifice of japa.

Let us understand japa. Yajna means any structured method by which we build a bridge between ourselves and existence—any plan that reconnects us. We are severed; we do not know where we join existence or how to return. Any method that, by a particular arrangement, links us back is called yajna. There are thousands of such arrangements. From above they may look like empty ritual or hypocrisy. But any device looks so if you do not know its working.

Bring a tribesman and spread a radio’s innards before him: he will say, “What madness!” If he has never seen radio, if he does not know that an arrangement of wires can catch voices from afar, he will call it crazy. If he sees an electrician stringing wires and hears, “By these wires we will make night like day,” he will think the man insane.

Sigmund Freud writes: when electricity first came to his village, a friend from the countryside stayed at his house. Freud forgot to tell him how to turn off the light with a switch. The man had extinguished lanterns and hearths, but the notion that something could be put out by a button—unimaginable. Out of embarrassment he didn’t ask. He thought: when all sleep, I’ll figure it out. He tried everything—blew on the bulb, climbed on a chair, shook it—nothing worked. At dawn he confessed: “Now tell me the trick to extinguish this lantern.” Freud pressed a hidden switch—the “lantern” went dark. The man was spellbound: “What magic! What mantra!”

When we do not know the arrangement behind a method, it seems pointless. Many yajnas seem pointless today because both those who perform them and those who watch do not know what they are doing. The full science is lost; otherwise, there is a complete science behind them—methods to enter existence. That method is called yajna.

Krishna says: of all methods, I am the japa-yajna, for it is the subtlest and supreme.

Japa-yajna means: within yourself construct a web, a lattice of sounds so structured that it connects you with the primordial sound of existence. Create within a system of particular vibrations so that the vast symphony without can resonate with you.

When you intone Om within—Om, Om, Om—you are bathing every nerve with a precise vibration. Done rightly, every cell will be moved. Done rightly, your whole body becomes a broadcasting station, sending a specific vibration into the surrounding expanse.

When your whole body is tuned to one vibration, instantly a bridge is formed between that sound and the matching sound of the cosmos. This bridge is japa-yajna.

Hence all religions have used japa in different names and forms. Any name, any mantra—the foundation is the same: bring your body into such a sonic order that it harmonizes with the vast.

Have you noticed? If you truly listen to me, many things do not reach you—because you are bound by a particular attunement to my voice. When I stop, someone will notice the foot has gone numb—he didn’t know for an hour. Someone will feel a pebble biting into his sole—he hadn’t noticed. Someone’s headache returns. The pain didn’t go by listening to me; but your attention was focused, so many doors of sensation were closed and your consciousness flowed one way.

On the battlefield, a sword or spear may pierce a warrior and he not notice—his awareness is focused. On the playing field, a hockey stick bruises and the player doesn’t feel it; only after the game does he see blood. Your consciousness was bound in one direction; the others closed.

Japa-yajna is to bind your consciousness toward the Vast—focusing it—and closing off elsewhere. In that moment you enter another realm.

Krishna says: among yajnas, I am japa.

Japa is the most subtle. To kindle fire outside is gross; through mantra, fire can be kindled within. To pour ghee into an outer fire is gross; into the inner fire, cooling ghee can be poured with mantra. Outer arrangements are gross; inner arrangements are subtle; the subtlest arrangement is of sound.

Have you noticed—if all your words were taken away, what would you be? If every word you possess were removed, what would remain? A cipher, a zero. You are nothing but a bundle of words. If we could extract all sounds from a man’s brain, he would remain physically intact but become inert—dead while living.

We are nothing but a sum of sounds and words. Within this, a new sound must be structured.

A man repeats “Ram, Ram” within. Slowly, slowly, the Ram-sound lines the walls of his inner body. A “body” of the name Ram forms inside. His outer body remains; inside, his own being; between them, a sheath of Ram’s name.

People drape themselves in the “cloth of Ram’s name” outside—that won’t do much, though it is okay. But there is a way to drape it inside. Then Ram adheres within, layer upon layer, and that inner mantle begins to do wonders. With that mantle you enter a new world of sound; what was not experienced yesterday begins to be; and what used to be experienced begins to cease.

Therefore Krishna says: among yajnas I am japa; and among the stable I am the Himalaya.

As one sinks deep into japa, the vibrations of mind lessen. Slowly, they vanish—and a still Himalaya, a steady summit, is formed within.

Enough for today.

But wait—let us do five minutes of kirtan. Who knows—through its sound some bridge may be established between you and the Vast. Sit silently; let no one rise midway. When the five minutes of kirtan are complete, then rise.