Geeta Darshan #12

Certainly it is incongruous. There is no greater mistake than someone setting out to search for God. You can only search for what you have lost. What you have never lost, there is no way to search for it. But the search is incongruous only when it has become clear that “I am God”; before that, it is not incongruous. Before that, you will have to search.

The search will not give you God; through seeking you will only discover that what you are looking for is nowhere out there—it is where the seeker is. It is the futility of seeking that brings you to God, not the success of seeking.

This may be a little difficult to understand, but try to understand it.

Here the seeker is the very one who is being sought. What you are looking for is hidden within. Therefore, so long as you keep seeking, you will not find it. But if someone thinks, “Without seeking, let me just remain as I am and I’ll get it,” he also will not get it. Because if it were to be had without seeking, you would have had it already. You don’t get it without seeking; you don’t get it by seeking either. When all seeking ends and the seeker is exhausted, when nothing remains to be sought, in that very moment the happening occurs.

Kabir has said: “Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir himself got lost.” Searching and searching, that was not found; but the seeker slowly disappeared. And when the seeker was lost, it was known that what we had been seeking is present within.

When we seek the divine, we do it just as we seek other things. One person seeks wealth, another fame, another position. The eyes look outward—toward wealth, status, fame, fine. We begin to seek God outside as well. Our habit of searching is to search outside; we look for him there too. That is where the mistake happens. He is within. He is the seeker’s own inner being.

But this does not mean I am telling you not to search. Where are you searching that I should tell you not to? One who has been searching and is tired—he can be told, “Stop.” But to one who has not even set out to search, who is not tired, who has made no effort at all, to tell him, “Drop the effort,” is foolish. To drop effort, there has to be effort.

A pertinent little point comes to mind; a friend has asked it too—it will be useful. Krishna also says: I will not be found in the Vedas, not in the scriptures, not in the sacrifices, not in yoga, not in austerities. But do you know to whom he said this? To those who were searching in the Vedas, in sacrifices, in austerities, in yoga. He did not say it to you. You are not searching at all.

Buddha said, “Drop the scriptures, only then will truth be attained.” But he said it to those who had scriptures. Krishnamurti also tells people, “Drop the scriptures; truth will be found.” But he is saying it to those who have not held on to any scripture at all. What will you drop? How will you drop what you have never held?

Those who listen to Krishnamurti think, “Then fine. We already have truth, because we never held the scriptures.” How can one who has not held, drop? And truth is attained by dropping. The holding is an indispensable part of it.

You can drop only what you have. How will you drop what you do not have? Your search must happen. And when you grow tired of seeking, bored, troubled—when no way remains to continue the search and no courage remains to pursue it—when, frustrated on all sides, dejected and broken, you collapse, in that very collapse he is found. Because only when nothing remains outside to search for do the eyes turn inward. And when there is no path left for consciousness to move outward, only then does consciousness turn within.

If we tell a poor man, “Renounce wealth,” if we tell a beggar, “Kick away kingship,” beggars are always ready to kick away kingship! But where is the kingship for them to kick? Where is the wealth to renounce? One who does not have wealth—how will he renounce it? One who has no kingdom—how will he give it up? We can drop only what we possess.

So remember, when I say to you that there is no need to search for the divine, because he is hidden in the seeker, I am saying it to those who are searching, not to those who are not searching. To them I will say: search. Wherever your capacity allows, search there—in idols, in scriptures, in pilgrimage—wherever you can, search. Let your mind get a little tired. Let the search prove futile. Only then will you be able to turn within. In life there are no leaps; in life there is a gradual movement.

You too hear that it is not in the scriptures—so then what’s the point?

He speaks rightly. The friend is asking well: if we accept Krishna’s own words, then what is there in the Gita either? But even if from the Gita you come to know this much—that “it is not in the Vedas”—that is already knowing a great deal. If reading the scriptures brings you to see that scriptures are useless, that is quite some knowing. Would you have discovered even this on your own!

People come to me and say, “Krishnamurti says, don’t believe anyone; find out for yourself.” I ask them, “But you have come here believing Krishnamurti. And Krishnamurti has explained: don’t believe anyone. And you tell me, ‘Krishnamurti says don’t believe anyone; now we will not believe anyone.’ But you have already believed someone.” Krishnamurti says, “Nothing can be gained from a guru.” Then why did you go to Krishnamurti? And if you gained even that much, then at least for that much Krishnamurti has become your guru. And then why do you keep going to him again and again when he says nothing can be gained from a guru?

Look at those who have been listening to Krishnamurti year after year. For forty years the same faces appear, sitting there again and again. What are they hearing, if nothing can be gained from a guru? Then how will they gain it from Krishnamurti! Yet even if they gained only that much, it is no small thing.

Remember, life is deeply paradoxical. Masters have always said that nothing can be gained from masters. But we heard this news only from them. Scriptures have always said, “What is there in scriptures!” But that knowledge, too, came from the scriptures. Only by making the effort is it discovered that effort does not yield it. And when this is discovered, it is a different kind of experience.

There are two kinds of people. I have heard it happened once: a crowd was at a station, embarking on a pilgrimage to Haridwar—perhaps it was Amritsar station. One man said, “I will get on the train only if I will not have to get down again. If I have to get down, what is the point of getting on?”

He was arguing logically. He said, “If one has to get down from this train anyway”—there was a great rush, it was hard to squeeze in—“then why all this trouble to get on! I am already off. And if I must take such risks to get in, then let’s make sure of one thing: that I won’t have to get down from it!”

His friends said, “Don’t waste time in talk. The whistle is blowing; the train is leaving!” They dragged him in by force. He kept shouting—he was a wise man! He kept shouting, “First make it sure that I won’t have to get down! With such difficulty we are climbing in—arms and legs are being bruised, bones are getting battered. You’re pulling me in. Tell me first that I won’t have to get down!” They said, “We’ll sort that out later. First get in!” Somehow they pushed him through a window.

Anyway, he got in. Then the time came to get down at Haridwar. He said again, “I told you beforehand: if I had to get down, what was the point of getting on? I was already off.” His friends said, “Get down now. The train goes on from here.” They began to pull him out. He said, “What kind of people are you! Sometimes you drag me to get on, sometimes you drag me to get off! And you—doing both opposite things! I was already off to begin with.”

Then an old man said, “But you were ‘off’ at Amritsar. Now you are getting off at Haridwar. And there is a difference between the two.”

There is a person who has never touched the scriptures. He becomes very pleased to hear that nothing is to be gained from the scriptures. His pleasure is not that he has understood; his pleasure is: “Good! Those who kept reading scriptures and posing as knowers are no knowers at all. I was already ‘off’ from the start! If in the end one has to drop knowledge and become ignorant again, then we are already ignorant! So what have you earned? You wasted your time and strutted about in vain that you had read the scriptures, become a knower of the Vedas!”

But he doesn’t know that there is an ignorance before knowledge, and there is an ignorance that comes after dropping knowledge. The ignorance that comes after knowledge has no relation to the ignorance that is before knowledge. Where is Amritsar, where is Haridwar! There is a vast journey between them.

The ignorance before knowledge is merely ignorance. After knowledge, when even knowledge is dropped, the “ignorance” that happens is the innocence of consciousness, a weightlessness of being. It is not ignorance; that itself is wisdom.

Hence Socrates said: when one truly knows, he declares, “Now I know nothing.” And the Upanishads said: the ignorant wander in darkness; the learned wander into a great darkness! Then who will be saved? The Upanishads say: the ignorant wander in darkness, the learned wander into a great darkness. Then who is saved?

He is saved who attains the ignorance that comes after knowledge. Those who do not seek do not find the divine at all. Those who seek go even farther away. But after seeking there is an event of dropping the search—that they attain.

These are three positions. You—who are not searching at all. The sadhu, sannyasin, pandit—who is searching: some in austerity, some in scripture, some elsewhere. And a third, the wise one, the paramhansa—who has dropped even the search, dropped the scriptures, who has now simply sat as he is, goes nowhere to seek.

This not-going consciousness turns inward. This not-going consciousness becomes self-luminous. This nowhere-going consciousness catches a new dimension.

You have heard of ten directions. Those who know say there are eleven. Ten directions are outward, and one direction is within. When all ten outer directions prove futile, then consciousness turns inward. When it is found nowhere else, only then does a person search within—at the last hour, in the final moment.

So if you have come to know that you are God, then the matter is finished; the search is meaningless. But if you accept it because I say so, then you will still have to search. What is accepted on my word is not your experience. My saying will begin your search; it will not consummate your experience. And you will still have to board the train. If you insist, “If I have to get down later, I will not get on,” that is your choice. But understand then that you are standing at Amritsar. There is no movement toward Haridwar.

Climb, and also get down. One has to climb the stairs, and one has to descend them too. He who refuses to climb remains on the ground floor. He who then insists, “I will not get down,” remains stuck on the stairs. He too does not reach the upper floor. The one who reaches the upper floor is he who climbs the stairs and then does not cling to them, who also lets them go.

Buddha said, I saw some foolish people in a village. They had crossed a river in a boat. Then they thought, “How can we leave the boat that carried us across!” For a few days they stayed sitting in the boat. But how long can one live in a boat? Food became a problem; life became difficult. Then they decided, “It is proper that we get off and carry the boat on our heads. For how can we abandon the boat that ferried us across? And if we were to leave it, then why did we get in to begin with?” So they entered the village with the boat on their heads.

The villagers asked, “What are you doing?” Buddha was in that village. He said, “These are pundits, great learned men. The truly ignorant remained on the far shore; they wouldn’t even board the boat. These are the learned ones; they boarded. But their trouble is that now knowledge has climbed on top of them. The boat has climbed onto them. They cannot leave it. Now they are carrying the scripture. This is an even greater stupidity.”

Therefore the Upanishads are right: the ignorant wander in darkness; the learned wander into a great darkness.

To become ignorant again is necessary. But that becoming-ignorant-again is a very different thing. The search has to be dropped—but after doing it. The world has to be renounced—but after knowing it. Renunciation has value—but after enjoyment. Otherwise it has no value at all.

It is a state prior to supreme knowledge; not the state of supreme knowledge. Because in supreme knowledge no “other” remains at all. Neither Kali remains, nor Krishna, nor Christ. This is the last, the frontier. This is the last. The world has ended, multiplicity has ended, everything has ended. But duality still remains: there is the devotee and there is God. The devotee has not yet become God. The devotee is there and God is there—two still remain. The whole world is lost. The many forms are lost. All forms have been gathered into two. Now the whole world has become two: devotee and God. Everything has vanished, yet two remain.

This is exactly the state just before supreme knowledge. As at one hundred degrees water boils—steam has not yet formed, but it is boiling. It is on the verge of becoming steam. One more moment, and water becomes steam. This state is like that hundred-degree point—just a little while more. Just a little while more, and God too will be lost, and the devotee too will be lost, and only one will remain. Call that one God if you like, or call it devotee, or give it no name at all—it makes no difference. One remains, the nameless. That is the state of nonduality. Nonduality is supreme knowledge.

Our definition of supreme knowledge is very unique: we call it supreme knowledge when neither the knower remains nor the known remains—both are lost. The seen and the seer are both lost. The knower and the knowable are both lost. Only knowing remains—mere knowing. There is nothing over there to be known; there is no one over here to know. Only knowing remains. The final moment of that knowing is called supreme knowledge.

Mahavira called it Kaivalya—only knowledge. Nothing else remains. The seeker who was seeking is no longer; that which was sought is no longer. The duality of both has dissolved. Now only being remains—just being, just consciousness, only awareness. Both poles have vanished; what remains is the event of knowing that used to take place between those two poles.

Therefore, the vision of Kali is not supreme knowledge. The vision of Krishna is not supreme knowledge. The vision of Rama is not supreme knowledge. It is the last step before supreme knowledge—where you drop the ladder.

This happened in Ramakrishna’s life. Ramakrishna was a devotee of Kali—an extraordinary devotee. He reached the place where only Kali and he remained. But then a restlessness arose in him: “This is duality; how to experience nonduality? Two still remain—I am, and Kali is. The twoness has not yet been lost. Two persist.”

So he went to the refuge of a master of nonduality. He said to that master, “What should I do now? These two have got stuck; there is no movement beyond this. I don’t even see where to go. I become silent, and Kali stands there. I am there; Kali is there. Great bliss is there, a profound experience is happening. But two still remain. A final longing arises in me: how to become one?”

The master said, “Then you will have to gather a little courage. And the courage is hard; it will hurt the mind. When Kali stands within, take up a sword and cut her in two.” Ramakrishna said, “What are you saying—take up a sword and cut Kali in two! Don’t even say such a thing! Just hearing it fills me with pain and sorrow.”

The master said, “Then drop the concern for nonduality. Because now Kali is the obstacle. Until now Kali was the seeker, the means, the companion; now Kali is the obstruction. Now you must drop the ladder. Don’t cling to the ladder. Granted it is by this ladder that you have come so far; that is why attachment has arisen, infatuation has formed.

“Our attachment does not arise only in the world; attachment also arises to our spiritual methods. Tell a Jain, ‘Cut Mahavira in two!’ Tell a Buddhist, ‘Cut Buddha in two!’ Tell a devotee of Rama, ‘Remove this image from your mind—throw it out!’ He will be agitated: ‘What are you saying! Is this religion? Is this spirituality? This is sheer atheism!’”

But Ramakrishna knew the man was right. It was only his helplessness that he could not do it.

The master said, “Sit before me and meditate. And the moment Kali appears within, raise the sword and split her!” Ramakrishna said, “But where will I get a sword?” The master said something very precious: “You brought Kali within—will you not be able to bring a sword? Where was Kali before? You brought her; then the sword is child’s play for you. Just as by imagination you have installed Kali within you in form, in the same way pick up the sword.”

Ramakrishna said, “Even if I pick up the sword, I won’t be able to strike. I will forget. I will forget you and your instruction. At the sight of Kali I will be spellbound. I will start dancing. I won’t be able to lift the sword.”

The master said, “Then I will do something from the outside.” He brought a shard of glass and said to Ramakrishna, “When I see you becoming intoxicated, swaying…” Because when Kali appeared within, Ramakrishna would sway, his hands and feet would tremble, his hairs would stand on end, and an extraordinary ecstasy would flood his face. “When I see that, I will cut your forehead with this glass. I will slice the skin hard, make it bleed, split it in two—right where the third eye is. And when I cut you here, if awareness flashes in you, don’t miss—raise the sword and split her within.”

And so it was done. The master cut the skin of his forehead—exactly where the third eye is—splitting the skin from top to bottom. A stream of blood flowed. Awareness returned within Ramakrishna. He had been dancing, intoxicated inside. Awareness came. He gathered courage and with the sword cut Kali in two.

Ramakrishna—and cutting Kali in two! This is the devotee’s ultimate courage. The ultimate courage. There is no greater courage in the world. And whoever cannot summon such courage does not enter nonduality.

Kali was dissolved. Ramakrishna remained alone—or say, only consciousness remained. He regained ordinary consciousness after six days. When he opened his eyes, his first words were: “By the master’s grace, the last barrier has fallen. The last barrier has fallen.”

“Last barrier”—from Ramakrishna’s mouth! One does not even imagine it. Ramakrishna’s ordinary devotees have often left this incident out, because it goes against their whole devotional life. So only a very few devotees have mentioned it; most have omitted it. Because it seems like this: if one had to climb down, why climb at all? So much effort, crying and singing for Kali, dancing and shouting, burning with thirst, staking one’s life—then attaining Kali—and then cutting her in two!

So to those who write, this has seemed very painful; hence most devotees have left it out.

But the incident is very precious. And whoever is to tread the path of devotion must remember: what we build today, we will have to erase tomorrow. The final leap—leaving even the ladder, leaving even the boat, leaving even the path, leaving even the method.

So what happened to Ramakrishna in the vision of Kali is not the ultimate. The ultimate happened when even Kali was lost. When no image remains in the mind, no word remains, no form remains; when all words become empty, all images are absorbed in the infinite, all forms drown in the formless; when neither “I” remains nor “you” remains…

A great thinker, the Jewish sage and philosopher Martin Buber, wrote a book, I and Thou—one of the few supremely precious books written in this century. He wrote that the final experience of the divine is “I and Thou”—I and you.

But that is not the final. It is just before the final. But Jewish thought does not dare the last leap—that is the difference. Judaism, Islam, Christianity—none of the three makes the last leap. They go to the very end, to the extreme limit, but they keep the two. Then it becomes difficult to drop the two.

Hence Islam has never been able to agree that what Mansur said—Ana’l-Haqq, “I am Brahman”—is right. Because that is the very last thing! To be one with God does not seem proper; it seems irreligious to them. Therefore, Mansur was executed.

Islam has never been able to fully accept the Sufis—even though the Sufis are Islam’s deepest utterance, its very secret, its soul. But Islam’s religious structure stops at two: God and devotee. Christianity also stops at God and devotee. Judaism stops at God and devotee.

But this brings no obstacle to the one who has come so far. Understand this. Islam may stop—but a man who, even within Islam, reaches this last place will not stop. He realizes: now only this last thing remains, the last fragment of the world remains—let me drop this too. He takes the leap. Sufis are precisely those Muslims who took the leap. But the system of Islam as a religion stops at two.

All the common philosophies of devotion stop at two. That is not supreme knowledge. But without that, supreme knowledge also does not happen—keep this in mind. By it the water reaches the boil at one hundred degrees, and the final leap becomes easy. Those who have courage take it.

And by the time one reaches there, courage has arrived. One who has lost the whole world—how long will he carry even this single image of God pressed to his chest? One birth, two births, three births—how long? One day he will say, “This too has become a burden; I dissolve this as well.”

Therefore, in India we have a practice: we make the image of God. When the Ganesh festival comes, we make Ganesha’s idol. We make a great noise, we express devotion—and then we go and immerse him in the sea.

This is a symbol: just as you now play with this clay idol—making it, dancing, singing—and then, bravely, you go and immerse it, so at the end one day have the courage to immerse all images of God. Let there be constant training in this courage. That is why India is the only land where we both make and unmake God.

No other people in the world do both—make and unmake God. Some make—but cannot unmake. Some, fearing they will have to unmake, do not make at all—like Islam: it does not make images lest they get trapped in them. Christianity has made images, but gathers no courage to immerse them.

In this land we made a unique experiment: we even play with God. We create him, and once created, we pour out full devotion—no holding back because “we ourselves made them, why be devout?” We drop such calculations. As soon as we have installed them as God, we fall at their feet. And when the festival is complete, we lift them on our shoulders and carry them to the sea, to the river, to the lake, and immerse them.

This making and unmaking; climbing and descending; seeking and letting go of seeking; gathering knowledge and renouncing knowledge—the combined understanding of both, if kept in view, will ensure you never go astray. Otherwise there can be wandering.

This experience is of duality—one moment before supreme knowledge—but it is not supreme knowledge.

Certainly it can be. But in what other matters do you keep this condition? When you love someone, do you do it only in the mind, or do you also bring the body in? At that time you don’t say, “Love can be done only in the mind—why bring the body into it!”

How many things do you apply this to? If you observe this in everything else, I’m agreeable—don’t use the body at all; kirtan will happen within. But if in all other things you bring in the body, then don’t deceive yourself here.

What is the fear in bringing the body into kirtan? When you love someone, you embrace them—why bring the body in? You take their hand in yours—why bring the hand in? Shall we stand apart like a statue of Buddha, only in the mind? But then you will feel, “Ah, time is being wasted. How long will we keep doing this only in the mind?”

For now your mind and your body are not two; they are one. Don’t be in a hurry. At present your mind is just the other end of your body; it is driven by the body, given motion by the body. Therefore it is right that, in kirtan, you let the body also be immersed—only then will your mind be able to dive.

And the day you succeed in diving inwardly, only in the mind, there will be no need to ask me. You will know for yourself that there is no need to bring the body in; it happens in the mind. Then do it in the mind. But until that is possible, begin with the body.

You are living in the body; therefore every journey of yours will begin from the body. And the one who cheats himself by saying, “What has the body to do with it?” is in truth deceiving himself—he is giving himself the excuse that he doesn’t want to do it.

One can only start from where one stands. How will you walk from where you do not stand? What is your present condition? If I give you liquor to drink right now—the liquor goes into the body, not into the mind—do you think you will remain sober? You will become intoxicated. Why did you lose consciousness? The liquor goes into the body; it does not go into the mind, it does not enter the soul. So remain sober in your mind and go ahead, drink—what harm could there be! Then you will find out what the harm is.

If someone gives you a hard shove right now, does it strike only the body, or does it reach the mind? It reaches the mind. In fact, the body knows later; the mind knows first. So at present your body and mind are very close; there is no distance yet.

I have often told an incident. There was a Muslim fakir, Farid. A man came to him and said, “I have heard that when Mansoor was cut to pieces, even then he kept laughing. I can’t believe it. And I also hear that when Jesus was crucified, he said, ‘Father, forgive these people who are crucifying me.’ That too doesn’t sit right with me. If someone stones me, crucifies me, cuts off my head—I cannot do that. I have come to understand.”

So Farid picked up a coconut and gave it to him. Devotees used to offer coconuts to Farid. He handed him one and said, “Go and crack this open. Keep only one thing in mind: the kernel inside must remain intact; it must not break.”

The coconut was unripe. The man was in a fix: if he broke the outer shell, the kernel inside would break, because it was raw. He tried hard, but the kernel broke. He came back and said, “Forgive me. I couldn’t save the kernel, because the shell and the kernel are completely joined. The coconut is raw. What kind of thing are you asking!”

Farid picked up another coconut. It was a dry, mature coconut. He said, “Now take care of this one. Crack it and bring back the kernel intact.” The man tapped it and said, “There’s no problem here. I’ll break the shell and the kernel will be saved—because a gap has arisen between the shell and the kernel.”

Farid said, “Now there’s no need to break it. Jesus was a dried coconut, and you are a wet one. Right now your kernel and your shell are stuck together. Don’t worry about it now. For the time being, whatever happens to your shell will reach your kernel.”
Right now your body and mind are still together. If the friend who asked had his body and mind already separate, he wouldn’t even ask. What would there be to ask! You would already know that my kernel is different and my shell is different. Inside I am reveling in my own joy; the body has no idea. The reason for asking is something else. Perhaps you are very raw coconuts—too tightly attached. Perhaps the inner kernel hasn’t even formed yet; it’s all just water inside.
Why—why this fear that you should not participate with the body? The fear is that the neighbors might see: “Ah, you’re trembling! Clapping! Rejoicing!” If someone sees you crying, nobody objects. If someone sees you depressed, no one objects. You can live your whole life with a perpetually weeping face and no one will raise doubts or create trouble for you. The moment you get a little ecstatic, the people around you are disturbed. They’ll say, “What’s happening to you? Are you losing your senses?” As if being miserable were intelligence here, and being ecstatic were foolishness.

In a way it fits: in a society of the miserable, the one who becomes ecstatic is stepping out of the crowd and provoking jealousy in others. And when jealousy arises, people will condemn him; they’ll say, “You’re mad,” because no one wants to consider himself mad. And this is a crowd of the sad; they are the majority. They will say, “Your brain has gone wrong; that’s why you look so blissful!”

A man came and told me, “Ever since I began meditating, I’ve become blissful, and now my wife is worried. She wants to come to you. She says, ‘What’s happened to him? I’ve never seen such bliss. Maybe something has gone wrong in his head? Is blissfulness a symptom of some malfunction? Earlier he used to get angry; now if you say something to him, he laughs!’ That frightens her—maybe some nut and bolt in his head has come loose—because ordinarily, when someone abuses you, you should be ready to fight; he laughs.”

All of us will feel like that, because the crowd is mad. If someone among them fills with awareness, becomes ecstatic, becomes joyous, we will quickly put him in difficulty.

The fear that friend is feeling is the neighbors’ fear—the fear of “What will people say?” Then do it inwardly!

If you are going to do it only inwardly, then do everything else inwardly as well—then do kirtan inwardly too. But if you are doing everything else with the body, then you must do kirtan with the body as well. The journey can begin only from where you are.

Two little questions more, and then I will take up the sutra.

The reason is that no one considers themselves ugly—there is no other reason. No one thinks they are ugly! People take themselves to be beautiful. Even the ugliest person considers themselves beautiful. So they don’t even think about it in that sense.

And if it were only a matter of the body, I wouldn’t even answer this question. This is the state of our inner life as well. We take ourselves to be right and make ourselves the yardstick by which we weigh the whole world. That is the mistake.

If a person were to look at themselves for the first time, they would not find anyone more ugly than themselves, anyone worse than themselves, anyone more dishonest than themselves. And when they truly see themselves, then whoever they meet in this world will seem like the grace of the divine—because they will feel, “I was not worthy of this at all.”

One who sees all these faults within becomes capable of going beyond them, because the first key to going beyond evil is its recognition. Whoever sees clearly, “I am bad,” has already begun to become good. And whoever sees clearly, “I am ugly,” a very unique beauty begins to descend into their life.

In fact, the ugliest people are those who consider themselves beautiful. There is a kind of obvious ugliness that settles over their faces. No matter how much make-up they put on, it makes no difference. No matter how much they plaster and paint the body, it makes no difference. If they carry the thought, “I am beautiful,” that ego makes their whole personality ugly from every side. Their beauty does not go beyond the surface.

Even the most ugly person becomes beautiful if the realization arises within, “I am ugly.” And if, as they are, not a trace of the urge to falsify remains—if their feeling becomes authentic—then a new beauty begins to be born from within. And the more that inner beauty grows, the more the body becomes suffused with it.

The beauty on the faces of saints is not of the body; it is a radiance coming from within.

There are two kinds of beauty in this world. One is the beauty of the body, of form. The other is the beauty of the inner being, the innermost soul. The beauty of form is entirely imaginary. I call it imaginary because what is beautiful today becomes ugly tomorrow when fashion changes.

Consider: if there were only one person on earth, would he be beautiful or ugly? What would you call him? He would be neither beautiful nor ugly, because it is others who determine the standards of beauty and ugliness; they decide.

In China, prominent cheekbones are not considered ugly, because among Mongol people cheekbones are high. In India, prominent cheekbones are ugly. In China, a flat nose is not considered ugly. In Aryan countries—India, England, Germany—a flat nose is ugly. Why?

In many African cultures, large lips are considered beautiful, and some women even hang weights to enlarge the lips—because full lips are beautiful, because the kiss of full lips is something else entirely. All Aryan peoples prefer thin lips; and if the lips are large and drooping, it becomes difficult for a girl to marry. What does this mean? Who, then, is beautiful?

If we look at three thousand years of known history, all kinds of people have been considered beautiful—every kind. Different people have valued beauty differently. It is a matter of convention, of custom, of fashion. Outer beauty depends on the eyes of others; inner beauty is one’s own.

The beauty that rests on people’s approval has no value. Yet we live by people’s approval—public opinion, what people say! Whoever lives by others’ opinions is a worldly person and will remain worldly.

Become free of people’s approval. Look with your own eyes from your own side. Search for yourself: What am I? Imagine you are alone on the earth—what are you? Beautiful or ugly? Good or bad? False or true? Reflect. And live in such a way that you need not cover up any fault or ugliness of your own; rather, let the beauty within you manifest and wash away all your faults and all your ugliness.
Everyone wants the beautiful. The sister who has asked has asked well. Even an ugly woman wants to have the beautiful. But she should know that the beautiful one she wants to have will himself be seeking the beautiful. So where will the match be?
A friend has been asking me continuously for two or three days. I didn’t answer, because I thought it had nothing to do with the Gita. He asks: he is in love with a woman. Years have gone by; he’s exhausted himself trying to explain, yet he still hasn’t managed to make her understand what love is. And that woman is not in love with him. So how is he to make her understand?
It’s very difficult, extremely difficult. Because the one you long for has her own measures, her own criteria of wanting; she has her own desires. And the amusing thing is that whenever two people are involved, if one loves, the other cannot love to the same extent.

Freud says that whenever there is love between two people, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases it is one-sided—one-way traffic.

A woman desires a man because he seems beautiful to her. That man has his own idea of beauty; he desires some other woman. She seems beautiful to him. That woman desires yet another man; someone else seems beautiful to her.

It’s very hard for two people’s notions to coincide, because the two are so different that notions do not match. That’s why when lovers meet, they suffer; and when they don’t meet, they suffer too. If they don’t meet, they imagine that if only they met, perhaps they’d find heaven. And when they do meet, it feels as if they have invited hell with their own hands. Two people do not truly meet.

Therefore, one who genuinely wishes love to dawn should understand: whether the other loves or not, drop the worry. Be filled with love. And keep loving as much as you can. Do not beg for love.

In this world, only the one who loves—and does not demand—tastes the joy of love. The one who demands cannot truly love, and joy does not come to him at all.

Now let us take the sutra.

Hearing Arjuna’s words, Krishna said, O Arjuna, my four-armed form which you have just beheld is extremely difficult to see. Even the gods long for a glimpse of this form.

The four-armed form is not Krishna’s natural form. He doesn’t actually have four arms; he has two, as all humans do. But Arjuna wished that he appear as four-armed.

These four arms are a symbol. We have even imagined the Divine in a form with a thousand arms—also symbolic. A mother lifts her child with both arms—that is love at the human level. But where God lifts someone with four arms, we have added two more arms to carry the news of love beyond the human. As if God is a double-mother to us, in two senses: he sustains us in this world and will sustain us in the other world too. Hence the image of four arms.

It is a symbol—a poetic symbol—that the Divine supports us here and hereafter. He has four arms; he holds us from all directions. From every side we are held. In his hands we are safe. We can let go of ourselves; there is no insecurity there.

Krishna, of course, has only two hands. But when Arjuna saw the cosmic form, he prayed: now I am so shaken that only if you appear as four-armed will my fear settle. He is saying: I feel so unsafe, so insecure—I’m finished, annihilated. This experience I’ve had is traumatic. I will never be able to free myself from it. This fear will haunt me. I won’t be able to sleep, or to rise again. The death I have witnessed is too much. Now your old two hands will no longer suffice. As you were won’t do anymore. Now appear even more loving.

Meaning: now appear as infinite love. To balance the death you have shown me, spread all four of your arms on the other scale-pan and hold me, so that I may feel safe.

The four-armed form is only a poetic symbol. It means: become the heart of a mother for me—and not only of this world, but of the other as well! Let me lay my head in your lap and forget what I have seen. Let me forget what I have seen.

Psychologists say that the fear of death in the human mind is the very reason man seeks liberation. And they say a strange thing—perhaps not immediately graspable: the human conception of moksha, liberation, is the same state a child has in the womb. When the child is in the womb, he is completely safe—absolutely secured. There is no insecurity in the womb. No fear. No worry. No responsibility. No job to seek. No house to build. No food to gather. No concern for tomorrow. Everything is automatic.

Psychologists say the child in the womb is in a state of complete liberation. He receives everything—without asking, and exactly as needed. He has nothing to do. He just floats, as Vishnu floats in the ocean of milk. Similarly the child floats in the mother’s amniotic ocean. No worry. No anxiety. No disturbance. No knowledge of the world. No other to compete with. No knowledge of death. Nothing is known. The child abides in carefree, supreme peace.

They say our idea of liberation is an extension of that deep prenatal experience. To a point, they are right. Because where would our notion of bliss come from? We know sorrow. We know a little happiness. Yet in all our minds there is a longing for bliss. Where is our experience of bliss from? We all want peace. But we do not actually know peace. How does a longing arise for something unknown?

When there were no cars in the world, no one longed for a car. People longed for a bullock cart with good oxen, a chariot—such things. But a car didn’t arise as a desire. Now it does, because cars are visible everywhere.

Man does not know peace; he knows only unrest—so from where does the longing for peace arise? Psychologists say those nine months in the womb are seated deep in the unconscious. We know there that for nine months we dwelt in profound serenity. Life was carefree, secure. There was no fear of death. We were alone, and in every way sovereign—sitting beneath the wish-fulfilling tree.

We imagined that in heaven there are wish-fulfilling trees under which a man sits; he wishes, and instantly the wish is fulfilled. If you ever find such a tree, be very careful sitting beneath it—because you cannot trust your own desires!

I have heard: once a man—he must be present here today—once he accidentally reached a wish-fulfilling tree. He didn’t know it was such a tree. Sitting beneath it, he felt very hungry and thought, If only some food would appear. He started and, at once, platters appeared all around. He felt a little frightened—what is this? Perhaps there are ghosts here! Maybe ghosts haunt this place! The platters vanished; ghosts stood all around him. He panicked: this is trouble—what if they choke me! And the ghosts choked him.

If you find a wish-fulfilling tree, run—because you can never be sure what you might ask for, what might arise from within you! You’ll land in a mess there, because everything gets fulfilled.

Psychologists say the imagination of the wish-fulfilling tree is an extension of prenatal feeling and memory. In the womb, whatever the child wants—indeed, before he wants—it comes from the mother’s body. Under the wish-fulfilling tree you must wish first; then you receive. In the womb the child receives before the wanting even arises. He is sated—completely sated.

Having seen Krishna’s cosmic, immense, terrifying form, Arjuna is frightened. He’s saying: become a four-armed womb; let me drown in you—in your love, in your security. Balance what I have seen; on the other pan pour out equal love, equal security.

Krishna says: For you I reveal what is extremely rare, which even the gods yearn to behold. O Arjuna, neither through the Vedas, nor through austerity, nor through charity, nor through sacrifice am I seen in this four-armed way as you see me now. But, O best of ascetics, through single-pointed devotion I can be beheld in this four-armed way, I can be known in essence, and one can enter into me—become one with me.

One who snatches and grabs through austerity, who makes a bargain—“I’m ready to give this; I want this experience”—he will not get this experience, because this experience belongs to love. The dry, spare seeker can attain truth; but the four-armed, love-full form—only the devotee attains. The seeker attains truth too, but his experience is of truth as mathematics: measured, calculable. The devotee’s experience of truth is poetic, of love—not mathematical, but musical, lyrical. The devotee arrives overflowing with rasa.

And as you are, so truth appears to you. If you are filled with rasa, with love, truth appears as love. If you are filled with mathematics, logic, reasoning, discipline, ascetic calculus—then the truth that appears takes the form of mathematics.

Aristotle said that God is the supreme mathematician. No one else said this—because Aristotle himself was a great mathematician. He couldn’t conceive of any image of the Divine other than mathematical, because for him mathematics is the supreme truth; nothing can be truer. So for Aristotle it seems God too must be a great mathematician, and the whole universe is a play of mathematics.

If you were to ask Meera, she would say: God is a dancer. The whole universe is an expansion of dance.

Ask Buddha, and he will say: the supreme void—peace, silence. Vast silence in which nothing happens; no wave rises or falls. It is as it has ever been.

Each person arrives in his own way; according to the structure of his own personality the Divine appears to him. And when he gives it language, it becomes even more tailored to him.

Krishna says: Through austerity this form will not be attained, because the ascetic does not even ask for this form.

We cannot even imagine Mahavira saying, “Let truth appear before me four-armed!” Impossible. Unthinkable. Mahavira would say, “What’s the point of four arms? Such a truth is not needed.” For Mahavira, truth can never even be conceived as four-armed.

Arjuna is asking for a four-armed truth—a love-full truth; a truth like a mother’s heart, like the womb—where I feel safe. I am afraid. This is the cry of a small child seeking his mother in this vast world, wanting to see the whole existence as mother.

So Krishna says: But through single-pointed devotion, through love, I become visible in this form. Not only visible—one can enter into me and become one with me.

O Arjuna, the man who does all his duties only for me, who takes refuge in me—holding me as the supreme shelter and ultimate goal, eager for my attainment—who is my devotee and free of attachment; who has no clinging to wife, children, wealth and all worldly things, and who is free of enmity toward any living being—such a man of exclusive devotion attains only me.

At the end here are two or three things to understand—very useful things, especially for seekers.

First: Krishna says, one who leaves everything to me. Love lets go; hatred is afraid to let go—because in hatred one must secure oneself by oneself. Love lets go. Love means placing everything in the other’s hands.

I have heard of a young man returning after his wedding. He was traveling by ship. A fierce storm arose; his beloved began to tremble and panic, but the youth remained calm. She said, “How can you be so calm? Death stares us in the face. The boat seems sure to sink. Even the sailors are afraid.” The young man said, “Don’t panic. I have left everything to the One above.” His wife said, “Whatever you’ve done or not done—death is standing here!”

The youth drew his sword from its sheath—the naked, gleaming blade—and placed it on his wife’s shoulder. She began to laugh. She said, “What kind of game is this?” The youth asked, “A naked, gleaming sword—a small push and your head would be severed. Seeing a sword in my hand, don’t you feel fear?” She said, “How could I fear a sword in your hand? I love you.”

He sheathed the sword and said, “And I love Him. Seeing the storm in His hand, I feel no fear. His will. If drowning will benefit us, then He will drown us. If saving us would harm us, He will not save us. It is left to Him.”

Love lets go completely.

So Krishna says: the one who has surrendered wholly to me. And who performs each act as if it were my act—Krishna’s, not his; whose ego is wholly offered up; and who—this will sound difficult—is without attachment. No attachment to wife, children, money. One who has redirected all his love toward me.

This can be understood in two ways. One is dangerous—the common way people take it. They think it means: do not love your wife, do not love your child. Shrink love from everywhere and lay it at the feet of God. This common interpretation is dangerous. Because its outcome is a man who dries up on all sides—juiceless. And the love that is forcibly withdrawn from wife, children, family, friends—dies in the very act of snatching.

It is almost as if a planted sapling were uprooted to be planted elsewhere. Uprooting love from one’s wife and attempting to plant it in God—the roots wither in the tug-of-war. It never reaches God. It is torn from the wife but never reaches the Divine. Yet this is the usual understanding people have taken.

My view is not so. I hold that the love you feel for your wife is Krishna’s love too, not yours. Remove yourself; do not remove love. Because when you say of actions, “All actions are His,” then love too is His. The love you feel toward your wife is Krishna’s, not yours. And whatever you see in your wife, stop seeing “wife” and begin to see Krishna.

Do not withdraw love from the child. It will dry up. The plant is very tender. As it is, there is little love. What love is there really for a child—or a wife? Mostly it’s just planted on the surface—seasonal. Uproot it to plant it in God, and it breaks in the very struggle of uprooting. Its roots are so weak they never reach the Divine.

Better to send the roots deeper right where they are—so deep that the wife remains on the surface, and the Divine becomes the depth. Pour so much love into the child that the child disappears, and the Bal-Gopal begins to appear. Then wife is no longer merely wife, the child no longer merely child. All love has been offered to the Divine.

These are two paths. The first is the commonly practiced one; I’m firmly against it. My interpretation is this: wherever your love is, begin to see the Divine there. Forget the lover and behold the Divine. Slowly, that very plant which you had set upon your wife will spread its roots and enter the Divine—because there is plenty of God in your wife, plenty in your husband. There is no shortage of the Divine there. There is no need to uproot and carry elsewhere; there is need to deepen right there.

The depth of love becomes prayer. And if love becomes utterly deep, wherever it reaches—there is God.

Krishna says, Give me all your love. He does not say, Uproot it from somewhere. He says, Give all your love to me. From wherever you give, let it come to me. Let your river, from whatever source it flows, fall into my ocean. The path may be any, the banks any; without banks you cannot reach the ocean. Flow along the banks happily, but know that these banks are also bringing you to the ocean.

Let every stream of love in life flow toward the Divine, and let no attachment remain anywhere—that is my meaning. Let all attachment flow toward the Divine. And the day all attachment flows toward the Divine, that very day, naturally, there will remain no enmity toward anyone in the world. Understand my interpretation, and it will be clear.

If you adopt the first, mistaken interpretation, the whole world becomes an enemy. The husband runs away leaving his wife, and she becomes an enemy. And when you sever love from someone, it is hard to remain neutral. If you tear love away, you must create hatred—only then can you tear it away. If I have loved this wife and now I am to remove love from her, I will have to do one thing: I must engender hatred toward her!

Hence the sadhus and renunciates say, “What is there in your wife? Flesh and bone, pus and blood—that’s all. Look at this. Seeing it, disgust will arise. Hatred will arise. What madness to be infatuated with a wife! What is there in her? Merely a heap of refuse inside. Look at that.”

But in the wife whom they call a heap of refuse—what is inside those sadhus and renunciates? The same heap of refuse. And the irony is: they were born from that very heap! From the mother they were born—out of that very heap. They are an extension of it—the same pus, blood, flesh and bone spread out a bit more.

If you want to forcibly remove love from the world, you will have to generate hatred. Create enmity, then you can remove love.

And Krishna’s second aphorism is: hold no enmity toward anyone. Let there be no hatred toward any living being. This is very difficult. For enmity to vanish from the world, love must become so deep that no hatred remains.

So do not sever love from the world; deepen the stream of love in the world. Deepen it. Dig and dig—until love reaches the very soul of existence. No enmity will remain. And at that center of the soul is the Divine.

We will pause for five minutes. Today is the last day, so no one should leave without joining the kirtan. And no one should get up in between. As long as the melody continues, remain seated; don’t even stand. For five minutes, join in the kirtan with full voice. Let the body participate a little too.