Geeta Darshan #6

There are two ways of looking at life. One view is that the future is uncertain and changeable. If man so wishes, the future can be as he wants it. The future is not fixed in advance; it is in human hands to shape it.

The inevitable outcome of this view is human restlessness. If the future is uncertain, one will have to be agitated, anxious, dissatisfied. One will try to change it. And even if change happens, contentment will not arrive, because the future has no end. One change creates the desire for fifty more. If change does not happen, then deep pain, sadness, and calamity will surround one. The mind will burn, feel defeated, vanquished. In both cases—if the future is uncertain and in our hands—man is harassed.

The West has adopted this view. The West assumes: the past is fixed—it has happened. The present is happening—half fixed, half fluid. The future is wholly uncertain—it has not happened at all.

If the future is uncertain, then I must dedicate today’s present to it. I must get to work today to make the future conform to my desire.

Two consequences follow. First, the present slips out of my hands. I sacrifice it to the future. I cannot live today. I hope that when tomorrow becomes favorable, then I will live. Today I sacrifice to tomorrow. Second, tomorrow’s worry haunts me today, pulls me, torments me.

The West has tried this, and as a result it attained deep restlessness. Yet in material terms it also went very far in arranging life to suit the human mind. This is a tangled matter; understand it closely.

The West has been highly successful in shaping material conditions to the human mind. In one sense, then, its premise proved true: if we dedicate the present to the future, the future can indeed be shaped to the mind to some extent. In this the West’s success is evident: disease has lessened, lifespans have increased, material prosperity has grown, amenities have multiplied. What was once the future has become today’s present, fashioned to their liking.

But in another sense, they have lost. All this has happened, and man has become so restless, so inwardly deranged, that now the question arises: at such a price—losing the very man—was such an arrangement worthwhile? If man’s inner peace and joy are lost, what is the point of external wealth? Ultimately all wealth is for man; man is not for wealth. Whatever is built outside is for man to use. But if in the building, the builder is lost, then the bargain is very costly—and foolish.

The West has succeeded in showing that man can affect the future. But in affecting it, man is destroyed.

The East has taken the other view. The East says: man cannot make the future fixed by design. The future is fate, inevitable. What is to be, will be.

Its bad outcome was that in the outer world we are poor, wretched, unhappy, sick, troubled. We could not accumulate material prosperity. For when we left the future to fate, the very idea of laboring for it disappeared.

But a deep benefit also came. The derangement that worry about the future can create in man—we were spared from it. And some, leaving everything to the future, attained moments of supreme bliss.

It is still early for the West to give birth to a Buddha, still early to give birth to a Krishna. The West is not yet able to touch those heights of consciousness that we have touched. The one basis was simply this: we said the future is fixed—what is to happen, will happen. This had consequences.

If what is to happen will happen, then I have no reason to be concerned or troubled for the future. Another result: if the future is fixed, then to sacrifice the present to it is foolishness. So let me live now, here. Let me live this moment totally.

The amusing fact is that only the present is in our hands; the future never is. Today is in our hands; tomorrow is not. And if the mind develops the habit of sacrificing today to tomorrow, then when tomorrow comes it too will come as today, and I will again sacrifice it to the next tomorrow. And so on. Life will be endlessly postponed; we will never live.

Tomorrow never comes; what comes is always today. What is available is always the present; the future never arrives. Have you ever had a meeting with the future? Never. You never will. We meet only the present. But if the mind has the habit of destroying the present for the future, that habit will pursue you. To your dying breath you will not live—only dream of living.

So the West gathered the means of life, but the one who could live became absent. We did not gather the means, but the one who could live remained present. And the two cannot happen together—not both at once.

What is the truth? Both are true. The future can be constructed—if man is willing to pay with himself. Fate can be changed—if you are ready to efface yourself. If you want to save yourself and relish the joy of being, then the future cannot be changed. Then the future is destiny.

The West’s thoughtful minds today are experiencing that perhaps what the East has been saying is right—and rightly so. Only after experience can this be realized. The West now feels: what we gained is fine—but what we lost!

We too are troubled, because we have also lost something. Whenever there is a choice, something must be lost. We too are troubled today. Hence a strange situation has arisen.

The East stands with hands outstretched toward the West, begging; and the West stands toward the East with a begging bowl. The West asks the East for means of mental peace—meditation, yoga, tantra, mantra, worship, prayer. And the East asks the West for bread, clothing, food, shelter, engineers, doctors. Both are begging! This was bound to happen.

But the West’s experience is new. It has become wealthy for the first time, and in wealth it has discovered inner poverty. In becoming wealthy it has realized that no matter how much prosperity accumulates, inner poverty does not lessen—it increases.

The East has been wealthy many times. It has learned again and again that even if everything is attained, until the self is known all attainment is futile. Where the West stands today, the East has stood many times. The East’s story is very ancient.

When the Gita happened, the East was standing almost at the same pinnacle of science where the West is today. Because the weapons described in the Mahabharata—we can for the first time now understand what they might have been, because we know the processes of the atom and hydrogen bombs. Today we can for the first time understand what happened then, and what man had discovered. We have rediscovered it in the West. Standing on that peak of prosperity, the Mahabharata unfolded.

Whenever prosperity grows too great, war becomes inevitable. The reasons are these: the more man becomes outwardly prosperous, the more he becomes inwardly poor. The more inwardly poor, the more hatred, enmity, anger increase. Love, compassion, kindness, tenderness diminish. Love, compassion, kindness, and tenderness are signs of inner wealth. When inwardly poor, violence increases. The ultimate outcome of violence is war—destruction.

Prosperity was at its peak; inwardly man was impoverished. In that inward poverty, he was ready for violence.

Today the West is exactly in the state the East was in at the time of the Mahabharata. And it would not be surprising if the West cannot be saved from a third world war. No surprise at all. Very likely the West will halt only after destruction. Man is inwardly poor, mean, filled with violence and anger, filled with destruction.

Recently, in Rome, a deranged person broke a statue of Jesus. There was no point to it. When asked why, he said, “I felt great joy in breaking it. Even if you take my life for it, I don’t care.”

Breaking a statue of Jesus! What joy could that bring? But millions loved that statue; it was unique in its way. By breaking it he tried to break the hearts of millions. He says it gave him joy!

If you look at the West today, the pleasure of destruction is increasing. Destruction appears interesting, enjoyable. Hundreds of murders occur simply because killing gives people a kick. Hundreds commit suicide simply because erasing has a certain taste—a thrill in smashing, ending.

Sartre has said: man is not free to be born, but he is free to kill himself. So when someone kills himself, he experiences freedom. You are born without being asked; your opinion is not taken. You find you were born without your consent—that is certainly dependence. Where then is freedom?

Those who follow Sartre say: only in suicide does freedom appear; everything else feels dependent. At least one thing man can do—erase himself—and by erasing, experience, “I am free.”

If destruction becomes freedom and self-killing becomes freedom, then we must think: man has become deeply sick and diseased within, deranged and mad.

What is happening in Vietnam today is utterly without reason. No reason suggests itself as to why killing should continue there. America has nothing to gain from victory that would add luster to it. Vietnam has no value for America. Why then this ongoing war?

Destruction in itself gives pleasure. Without cause! No cause is required anymore.

As a sculptor creates a statue—if we ask why, he says, “There is joy in creating.” A painter paints—why? “There is joy in making.” A mother rejoices as her child grows—why? Creation, a birth is unfolding through her hands; she is delighted.

In exactly the same way there is a joy in destruction—pathological, diseased. When a man’s soul is impoverished, destruction brings joy.

The Mahabharata did not happen for no reason. It happened at the summit of prosperity, when the inner soul had become utterly poor; when savor remained only in violence; when the eagerness to break and obliterate had grown so much that Duryodhana was unwilling to give even an inch of land—ready for the entire human race to be destroyed, yet not ready to yield even an inch!

That very inner condition has arisen again in the West. Any day it can explode. All preparations are in place. A tiny spark, and it will be difficult to pull the West back from the jaws of death.

Exactly such an hour had come to India at the time of the Mahabharata—and such hours have come many times to the East. This world is not new, and we are not becoming civilized on earth for the first time.

The latest archaeological discoveries keep pushing human history further back. Only fifty years ago Western historians believed the world was created four thousand years before Jesus—so a total of six thousand years of history.

We have always found it hard to accept only six thousand years. We have books—the Vedas—that even the West accepts as at least six thousand years old. By our reckoning they are some ninety thousand years old—and our reckoning keeps being vindicated. It is possible they are older still.

The excavations of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa showed a seven-thousand-year-old civilization. But these are now old reports. Recent findings push civilization back fifty thousand years. And now the newest discoveries have upended the whole notion of history.

In Australia, two figures were found engraved on a stone about seventy thousand years old. They depict, as if, a space traveler—the very kind of suit and helmet our astronauts wear on the Moon. A seventy-thousand-year-old engraving of an astronaut! Until we had astronauts, we could not even understand what such a picture was. Now we can.

This is a great difficulty. Those who made this seventy-thousand-year-old image must have had something like an astronaut; otherwise, how could they make it? If man could travel into space seventy thousand years ago, we should drop the illusion that we reached the Moon for the first time, or that we have achieved these prosperities for the first time.

On a mountain in Tibet, seventy records of stone were found like gramophone records—stone discs with grooves, a hole in the center. Scientists say those stone records emit electrical waves similar to phonograph discs. Not one or two—seventy of them—estimated twenty to forty thousand years old.

So perhaps a civilization twenty thousand years ago discovered a way to record on stone! If so, we should abandon the illusion that we are civilized for the first time.

The East has been civilized many times, and it has experienced prosperity many times. After each experience it realized: man accumulates things, but loses himself. Houses are built, wealth is amassed; the soul is destroyed. Therefore the East chose this alternative: only by leaving worry about the future can the soul be cultivated.

Tension about the future is suffering. And there is only one way to drop worry about the future: if you are willing to accept that the future is inevitable, fixed; what is to be, will be. If you agree to this, then nothing remains to be done. And when there is nothing to do, there is no cause for restlessness.

If there is something to do, there will be agitation—before doing, and after doing. After doing, you will still feel: had I done it slightly differently, the result would have changed. If only I had done that, such and such might have been. You will be troubled by the past—had I altered this a little, life would be different—and troubled for the future—what should I do?

One last result: when you fail—and man is such that he never really succeeds! Understand this a little.

The structure of the human mind is such that in the end he always fails. The reason: whatever you achieve becomes meaningless; new goals arise. A man wants to earn ten thousand rupees; he earns it. That is not so difficult. He succeeds.

But he never celebrates success. By the time ten thousand are collected, desire has become a hundred thousand. When he gets ten thousand, he does not dance in joy; he suffers, thinking the journey still remains—he must make a hundred thousand. Nor is it that he won’t get a lakh; he will. But the same mind that moved the goal from ten thousand to a hundred thousand will move it from a hundred thousand to a million.

Everyone dies a failure. No one can die a success. Because whatever you get, your craving goes beyond it. Even at death your craving remains incomplete; it cannot be completed.

Andrew Carnegie, America’s richest man, died leaving a billion dollars. Two days before dying he declared, “I am a failure, because my intention was to leave ten billion, and I am leaving only one.” One billion!

How much will you get? It does not matter. Your mind will demand more. You are in the present; your mind runs to the future.

The doctrine of destiny is a way to shut the door of the future. If I can do nothing, then there is no means to travel into it. Whether I get ten or a million—or nothing, remaining a beggar—whatever will be, will be. I have no hand in it. Such a man never fails.

Understand this.

Such a man cannot be made to fail, because he will accept failure too as “this is how it was to be.” You cannot succeed. You will turn even success into failure, because whatever has happened is nothing—the “ought to happen” is always ahead.

A man of destiny cannot be made to fail; whatever you do, he remains successful. And one who is successful is peaceful; one who is a failure is restless. The successful one is cheerful; the failed one is sad. And when you keep failing in the journey of desire, there is no one responsible for your failure except you. You yourself are responsible. Then deep pain falls upon man.

Alone, man wrestles with this vast world—and breaks. Mountains of burden pile up on his shoulders. In the end there remains nothing but self-condemnation.

But one who holds destiny takes no burden upon his shoulders. He says: “God’s will. If I win, it is He; if I lose, it is He—always He is responsible.” He does not bear the load of responsibility.

You are like a man in a train who keeps all his luggage on his head. The fatalist is the one who has put his luggage down in the train and is sitting on it, saying, “The train is carrying it; why should I carry the load?” You are not certain the train is carrying it; you think you are moving everything yourself. Any little slip and you will be responsible; if anything goes wrong, you will be caught!

I am not saying which view is right—mind this. I am only saying there are two views. Take note.

Ordinarily people rush to decide which is right. If fatalism is right, let us accept it; if not, let us strive.

I am saying nothing of the sort. My statement is quite different. I am explaining the two views. Choose whichever you wish; its consequences will be yours.

Both views are right. If you want to be restless, deranged, to gather wealth and build palaces, then never believe in destiny. If you want to be calm, blissful, and have even a hut seem like a palace; if you want to seem an emperor even when you possess nothing—then choosing destiny is right for you.

These are two paths. One leads to a madhouse—in fact the whole world now is a great madhouse. There is no sense in sending anyone to an asylum anymore. Rather, those who are sane should be ring-fenced and protected, because the rest is a gigantic asylum.

Ask a psychiatrist today and he will say: three out of four minds are disordered. Three out of four! Thus the earth is almost three-quarters asylum. And about the one he calls sane—how long will the other three keep him sane? They are after him, shaking him too.

You do not notice your mind is deranged because you are surrounded by crowds of madmen. Your mind is like theirs; so nothing seems off. But sit for ten minutes and write down honestly what runs in your mind, and show it to someone—do not say you wrote it; you won’t even be able to admit it. Say some letter arrived from someone. The person will say, “A lunatic wrote this!” Then you will see what goes on inside. Sit honestly for ten minutes and write whatever occurs—make no corrections. Then show it to your closest friends who love you; ask them to make sense of it. You will not find a single person on earth who tells you it was written by someone with a sound mind. Everyone will say, “A madman wrote it.”

What is going on inside you? Is there any coherence? There is anarchy. You are like a crowd within, where anything can happen. You somehow hold yourself together and do not let it show outside. But at some occasion it bursts out. Someone pushes you hard, hurls an insult, and he punctures your shell—your inner madness flows out.

What is anger? Momentary madness. For a little while you go mad—then you collect yourself. Good that you do. But have you noticed what happens in that brief time?

This derangement is the outcome of the view that “Whatever can be done, we can do. We can change life; we can make it as we wish; there is no destiny. The future is open and in our hands.”

I do not say it is wrong. It is possible. The West has tried it. We too have tried many times. But its result is that while the future may start to move a little in our hands, we ourselves go completely off the rails.

In trying to drive the future, man becomes disordered. After many experiences India decided: leave the future to God. It is inevitable. What is to be will be. You are nothing in between.

Its direct result is that you are instantly freed from the future. No worries remain. Whether happiness comes or sorrow, good or bad, whether you survive or not—it is no longer in your hands. You can live in the present—here and now.

Many teachers—Krishnamurti, for instance—go on saying, “Live in the present.” But man cannot live in the present so long as he believes the future can be made. How can he? The teaching is correct but incomplete. How can he live in the present if he knows that, should he wish, tomorrow could be different—and if he does nothing, something else will happen? The notion that tomorrow can be changed will agitate today. If tomorrow cannot be changed…

It is as if I were reading a novel whose story is already written, or watching a film. However I twist and turn in my seat, nothing will change. Whatever is to happen in the film will happen. The film is only unfolding. All is fixed. If the hero is to marry, he will; the band will play, the shehnai will sound. If not, it will not happen. Whatever is to be, in one sense, has already been. Only the reveal remains.

If I toss and turn in the theater thinking, “Let me do something so the hero’s love succeeds,” I am needlessly agitated. Usually no one is agitated. Yet some people do get worked up even in films; for a while they forget and begin to hope, “May it happen thus,” and feel uneasy when it doesn’t.

The Indian view—the Gita’s view—after a very long experience is that the future is only unfolding. I am not saying this is right or wrong—note this. It is a device, an expedient.

If you want to collect things, then proceed believing the future is not fixed. You will lose the soul. If you want to be free of worry about the future, then believe it is fixed. You will more easily attain your own soul.

Therefore, what Arjuna saw in Krishna—understand—no one had died yet. Bhishma was alive; Dronacharya was alive. None had been defeated or destroyed. The war had not even begun. And he saw them in Krishna’s teeth, crushed, dying, finished—as if in a film he had peeked ahead, or flipped a few pages of a novel and read the conclusion. The future became visible to him.

This is what Krishna wants to say: you are needlessly worried whether to do this or that. What is to be, will be. Your worry is baseless, irrelevant. Krishna is explaining: what is to be has already been. Drop your anxiety. The story has been written; the play’s end decided. You are only a role. You are not the creator. You are not the author. This tale is not to be written by you. The writer has already written. The result is decided. You only need to do your part.

It is like a Ramayana play. In one village there was a man who always played Ravana—he looked the part. A beautiful woman of the village always played Sita. Slowly, working together over the years, the Ravana-actor actually fell in love with the girl, and it tormented him that though love was his, Sita married Rama every time. Naturally it hurt.

One year, during the swayamvara, Ravana’s messengers are supposed to come and report that Lanka is on fire, and he leaves; in that interval Rama breaks the bow and the wedding happens. The messengers came shouting, “Lanka is burning!” Ravana said, “Let it burn. This time I’ll marry first; I’ve seen it burn many times.” Without a thought he grabbed Shiva’s bow and snapped it in two.

King Janaka panicked, Sita panicked, Rama worried, Vashishtha wondered what to do—the whole drama spoiled! But Janaka was a clever elder. He said, “Servants, you brought my children’s toy bow by mistake! Bring Shiva’s bow.” The curtain fell; they quietly swapped the Ravana-actor for someone else. And the story proceeded.

Krishna is telling Arjuna: what is to happen is not in your hands; you are taking needless worry. It has been written, it has happened, it is fixed, bound. Be carefree. Do your part as an actor would.

It happens that actors forget they are acting—and then they get into trouble.

I heard of such a thing at Nixon’s election. A Hollywood actor was campaigning for him. On stage he was giving a speech—fully rehearsed: when to move the hand, when to nod—like a film scene. In the middle, an opponent heckled him. The actor got fired up: “Why are you disrupting? If you have the guts, come up here!” They both jumped down; a scuffle broke out. The heckler landed a few real blows. The actor cried, “Hey! What are you doing—you don’t know acting? Who hits like this!” He had forgotten this was a real rally; here the blows would be real. He thought it was a film scene.

Man too forgets—what is unreal he takes as real; what is real he takes as unreal. Then life becomes very inconvenient, very tangled.

Krishna’s key to Arjuna is: don’t come in between. Let what is happening happen; don’t obstruct. Don’t decide, “What should I do?” No one is asking you. You are merely an instrument. If you do not complete the work, someone else will.

I recall a remarkable incident. In Bengal there was an extraordinary sannyasin, Yukteswar Giri—Yogananda’s guru, who later became well known in the West. One day a disciple of Giri went to a village. A malicious man harassed him, pelted stones, even beat him. The disciple thought, “I am a sannyasin—why respond?” He kept quiet. He also thought, “What is to be, will be; why come in between unnecessarily?” He collected himself. His head was injured; some blood came; he had scratches. But thinking, “What was to be, has been,” he simply forgot it.

Returning to the ashram after alms rounds, he had forgotten the incident. Giri saw the marks and asked, “Where did you get hurt?” Only then did it occur to him. He said, “Thank you for reminding me—on the way someone beat me.” Giri asked, “But did you restrain yourself?” “For a moment it occurred to me to hit back,” he said, “then I restrained myself, thinking let what is happening happen.” Giri said, “Then you did not do right. You held back a little. You did not let what was happening happen fully. You interfered—in that man’s karma you obstructed.”

The disciple said, “I interfered? I didn’t hit him—I did nothing. Do you mean I should have hit him?” Giri said, “I am not saying that. I am saying: what was to be, was to be allowed. Go back, because you were merely an instrument. Someone else will be doing the hitting.”

And the amusing thing—the sannyasin went back; that man was getting thrashed in the market. He returned and fell at Giri’s feet. Giri said, “What you could not do, someone else is doing. Do you think the play stops without you? You are merely an instrument.”

This is very strange and goes far beyond ordinary rules.

Krishna is explaining this to Arjuna: let what happens, happen. Don’t say, “Shall I do this or that? Shall I renounce and leave?” Krishna is not stopping him from renouncing. If renunciation is to happen, no one can stop it; it will happen.

Understand this rightly.

If sannyas is destined to occur to Arjuna, Krishna will not stop it. He is only saying: don’t try to do anything by will. Become non-doing, merely an instrument, and let what is happening happen. If war happens, fine. If you flee and take sannyas, that too is fine. Don’t step in between; don’t become the creator. Be only the instrument.

With such a vision, how could you be restless? With such a vision, who could trouble you? With such a vision, worry ceases. And one who is not worried, not disturbed, not anxious—within him arise circles of peace through which the inner journey begins and the supreme source is reached.

Another question.

We need to take this a little to heart. Then the Gita will become easy to understand. Not only the Gita, but the entire Indian search will become easy to understand.

It is natural to ask: what is the reason for all this—giving man birth and then death; creating the world and then dissolving it? Here Brahma creates, there Vishnu sustains, and elsewhere Shankar destroys. What is this whole commotion? And to what end? If this making-and-unmaking is a wheel that goes on turning like a potter’s wheel, where is the cart going? This wheel spins—but to what destination? What will be its outcome? In the end, what is the goal of this vast orchestration? What is the secret behind it? This is a deep question, and man has been asking it continually: what is the purpose of this life? What is contained in this vast drama? Why is all this happening?

There are two answers. And the answer India has given is quite astonishing. One answer is to look for a purpose. Some religions say that the purpose is to attain self-realization. As the Jains say: behind this whole journey, this entire net of becoming, the goal is the attainment of the Self—self-realization, kevalya. Or as Christianity says: the experience of God, entry into His kingdom—the Kingdom of God—living in His presence; His quest is the purpose.

But such answers don’t go very deep. Because one can ask: if the purpose is self-realization, why place so many obstacles in the way? And the soul is already ours—then why such a long journey, such a web of suffering, such a tumult? Let it happen simply.

If God wants us to attain enlightenment, He could bless us and it would happen; let Him distribute grace, and we would awaken. If He wills it, it can be done. Why this whole labyrinth? Why the suffering of births upon births? If God is doing this, God seems very deranged. If the task is simply to make everyone realized, He could do it this very moment.

So the Jains did not accept God. Because if you accept God, a great difficulty arises: why has He not liberated everyone by now? The Jains said there is no God in the world to free you—you must free yourself.

But why? Why this non-liberation? And why did man become unfree? The Jains have no answer. They say it is beginningless. But why? They say one has to be liberated, and liberation is possible—some have become free. But why did the soul fall into bondage at all? No answer. They say from nigod, from beginningless time. But why? However long it has been, why is man unfree? No answer.

If the goal is to reach God’s kingdom, then why did God throw us down? He could have settled us there from the outset! If Christianity says that man rebelled against God—Adam disobeyed—and so man had to wander in the world, even so, it is puzzling: if Adam could disobey, does that mean God’s power is less than Adam’s? If Adam could rebel, it means Adam had a power even greater than God’s—he could stand apart, be independent.

And who planted the thought of rebellion in Adam? Christianity says God is the creator of all—then who planted the thought of rebellion in man? They say: Satan did. But who created Satan?

A great predicament! Religions too end up in great predicaments: the answers they offer put them in deeper trouble. Satan too was created by God. Iblis is God’s creation, and he is the one who incited man!

So did God not even know that if He created Iblis, Iblis would incite man? And if man is incited, he will fall; and once fallen, he will go into the world; and then you must send Jesus, send saints and sages and avatars to say “be free.” All this tumult! Did He not even know this much? Is the future unknown to Him? If the future is unknown, then He is as ignorant as man. And if the future is known to Him, then the whole responsibility is His. Then why this havoc?

No. The Hindus have a unique answer—one no one else on earth has discovered. It is the second answer. They say: this world has no purpose; it is lila.

Understand this a little.

They say it has no purpose; it is only play—just a play. This is a very different answer. Because there is a difference between work and play. Work has a purpose; play has none.

You go out in the morning along Marine Drive, for a walk. If someone asks, “Where are you going?” you say, “Just for a walk.” You cannot name a destination. If they say, “Are you crazy? Why walk needlessly when you’re not going anywhere?” you reply, “I’m just walking.” What does this walking mean? Where are you going? You say, “Nowhere. I’m simply enjoying it—the lifting of the feet, the touch of the breeze, the deep breath, the very joy of being. That’s all. I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t even set out to go anywhere. I’m simply delighting.”

This walking is play. It has no destination, no purpose.

But along the same road at noon you go to the office. The road is the same, the legs are the same, you are the same—but everything has changed. Now you are going somewhere—to the office. You must arrive. There is a goal. That is work.

You can feel the difference. In the morning the same person, on the same road, with the same legs, walks—and there is a joy. The same person, a little later, goes along the same road, with the same legs, to the office—and there is no joy in it. Only compulsion, a burden—something to be accomplished. There is a goal, and it must be achieved.

In the morning his thrill was different; the sparkle in his eyes was different; the smile on his face was different. Going to the office, all that brightness is gone, that smile is gone. The road is the same, the man is the same, the legs the same, the breezes the same—everything the same. What changed?

Now there is a goal in his mind, and goal creates tension. In the morning there was no goal, and without goal there is no tension. Now there is a future in his mind—somewhere to reach—and future creates tension. In the morning there was nowhere to reach. Go left or go right; go this way or that; stop here or stop there—no difference. There was no destination. Walking itself was the destination.

Children play. What are they doing? We grown-ups sometimes feel: what a waste, these useless games! We think even play should have some utility, some work. We too, if we play at all, cannot truly play. If adults play cards they’ll stake a little money—because staking money brings a purpose. Otherwise it’s pointless: shuffling, dealing, throwing cards—what’s the point? Put something at stake and it gains flavor. Why? Because then it is no longer play; it is work. There will be gain from it. If there is something outside the game to be obtained, it becomes work. Gambling is work, not play. Play means there is no external goal; it is delightful in itself.

India’s deep discovery is that for God, creation is not work, not purpose, not utility—it is play. That is why we call it lila. There is no other word in the world quite like lila. Because lila means that the whole existence is a purposeless play. There is no purpose in it. But God is rejoicing—that’s all. Like waves rising in the ocean, flowers blossoming on trees, stars moving in the sky, the sun rising in the morning, the evening sky filling with stars—this is the joy of His being. He rejoices.

There is nothing for Him to gain from this—no certificate tomorrow saying, “Well done, you staged the drama nicely”; no one to pat His back and say, “Bravo! Your management was excellent!” There is no one besides Him. He is alone. He is alone.

Have you ever played cards by yourself? If you have, you can taste for a moment the flavor of being God. Some people play alone on trains—no one else around, so they play both hands; then they answer from this side, then from that. Even there, the full thrill of winning and losing arises.

Lila means: the same One is on this side, the same One on that; both hands are His. If He loses, He is the one who loses; if He wins, He is the one who wins. And still He is enjoying. Hide-and-seek—He hides Himself and He Himself goes seeking. There is no purpose.

We will feel very uneasy with this. That is why India’s notion has not influenced many in the world. Even in the Indian mind it does not leave a deep imprint—because it seems then that all is futile! Our minds demand some meaning. So much running about, so much turmoil, a journey of many births—yet no point to it? This is something to ponder.

If we take life to be work, life will be a burden. If we take life to be play, life becomes weightless.

The religious man is one for whom everything has become play. The irreligious man is one for whom even play is not play—unless some utility can be extracted from it. The religious man is one for whom all is lila. He has no quarrel: Why is this happening? Why not that? Why is this man bad? Why is that man good?

From the perspective of purposeless lila, the one hidden in the bad is He; the one hidden in the good is He. In Ravana He is; in Rama He is. On both sides He is making the move. And He is alone.

Existence is alone. There is no goal outside existence. Therefore the person who drops goals and lives in the present moment as if playing—here and now he succeeds in experiencing God.

But we are such that even the search for God we turn into a business. A business! We set about obtaining Him with a scheme that says: we’ll not let go; we will get Him! And we cast it into the future: we’ll get Him somewhere, sometime. “First we will do this, then that—fast, practice austerities, perform penances”—the whole business! You know the phrase gorakh-dhanda, don’t you?

You know, it comes from Gorakhnath—the great tantric Gorakhnath. But his method of practice—Gorakh’s—was solidly business-like. The method was: do this kriya, do this act, do this, do that. So much fuss that gradually people began to call his path gorakh-dhanda—a tangled racket. Because it was a great commotion.

Go to our monks and ascetics—everyone is engaged in some gorakh-dhanda. Different kinds, different styles, but deeply busy in business!

But only he attains God who is not in business at all. Even if he is in business, he still understands it as play. Sitting in his shop, he knows he is only a character in a drama; standing in war, he knows he is a character in a drama. We have even dared to say: if a man is a killer and kills someone, or if he is a thief and steals—if even there he knows himself only as a character in a play—then even theft does not touch him, even killing does not touch him.

But it is very difficult—very difficult to take oneself merely as an instrument: to let what is happening, happen; not to insert one’s intellect; not to take decisions of one’s own; to flow with the current. One who lives without purpose, like a child—that one is the saint. It does not depend on what he is doing; it depends on the vision in his doing—the vision of the stroller, not of the arriver. He is enjoying—enjoying whatever is happening.

Now, let us take the sutra.

Arjuna says: “As moths, under the sway of delusion, rush with great speed into a blazing fire to be destroyed, even so do all these people, with great speed, enter into your mouths for their own annihilation.

“As a lamp burns and a moth circles it, coming closer and closer—its wings begin to singe, yet it does not withdraw, coming closer still; the flame touches it, yet it draws nearer; finally it leaps into the flame and is burned. Nor is it that, seeing one moth burned, the others learn. They too circle, and move toward the light. Wherever there is light, moths seek it.

“I see all these people just so, rushing into your death-like mouths. They all run with great speed and even compete as to who will reach first. Such speed! And where are they going? Into your mouth—where there is nothing but death. What is happening? These great heroes, great warriors, the intelligent, the learned, the wise—all are heading toward death. And they are going with such adornment, such pomp, that it does not seem they know they go toward death. They go in such grandeur. They have made a procession of their movement. And I see them entering your mouth, where death will happen.

“And you, with flaming mouths, are licking up the worlds from all sides.

“And you are one whose fiery tongues are touching the worlds from every side and consuming them.

“O Vishnu! Your fierce radiance fills the entire universe with heat and scorches it.

“All are burning, scorching, turning to ash.

“O Lord! Be gracious and tell me—who are you in this terrible form?

“He cannot bring himself to believe that this form He is showing is truly His. He thinks, perhaps it is a delusion; perhaps a symbol; perhaps He is deceiving me, frightening me; perhaps He is testing me. He cannot accept that this is He. So he asks, Who is this fierce form? You do not seem to be You!

“O Best among gods! I bow to You; be pleased.

“He is frightened, restless—and he says, Be pleased.

“Primal One, I want to know You in Your essence, for I do not understand Your activities.”

Gather in Your activities—what You do. That You become death for people—I have no use for that. That You devour people—I have no concern with that. That You create people—that too is not my concern. Set aside Your activities. What You do is not my interest. What You are—at the center, in the essence, the core, the tattva—that is what I want to know.

We too want to know God while dodging His activity. This whole world is His activity. This whole world is His play. We want to avoid it and yet know Him. That is exactly what Arjuna is saying. Arjuna’s longing is our longing.

We too say, “Deliver us from the world, Lord; call us near You”—as if in the world He is not near! We say, “Remove us from this ocean of becoming, from these bonds, and embrace us”—as if in these very bonds He is not the One embracing! We say, “When will this wife be gone? When will this husband be gone? When will this release come? O Lord, call us near”—as though in the husband and in the wife He is not present!
Buddha has returned, after becoming a Buddha. And his wife asked a question. I don’t know whether she actually asked it or not. Rabindranath Tagore wrote a song in which it is asked. Tagore wrote such a song, and he was a deep critic of Buddha. But the question is very precious. Even if it was never asked, Buddha’s wife ought to have asked it.
Buddha has returned. Yashodhara asks, “I have only one thing to ask you. What you found by going into the forest, leaving me behind—can you, hand on your heart, say that it could not have been found here, with me?”

Buddha stood without an answer. I don’t know if he actually stood so, but Tagore has left him standing speechless. And I too hold that the answer would have to be No. Buddha would have had to stand silent, because he could not lie. And the truth is that what he found in the forest could also have been found with Yashodhara—because That is present there as well.

“Remove us from the world, O Lord!” Why? The same One is making the world. You pray, “Take us away!”

Arjuna is saying: not your activity, but your essence. I want to know you in your very core. What you do is not my concern. What are you? Not your doing, but your being. I want to know that center of you where there is no movement, no action, where all is still and silent. Remove the activity.

But even as he says it, he does not see that he is contradicting himself. On the one hand he says, “Remove this terrible form and be pleased.” Pleasantness is also a mode of activity. And on the other hand he says he wants nothing to do with activity, he wants to know the essence. Pleasantness is not essence. Pleasantness too is a doing. Just as fierceness is a doing, pleasantness is a doing. Just as death is a doing, so too is life. Yet we keep choosing. He says, “Be cheerful, be joyful.” He probably believes joy is essence. It is not.

Essence is emptiness—shunya. And to see shunya is very difficult. We only perceive activity. Where do we see emptiness? Only when emptiness takes on the form of activity does it come within our grasp. Otherwise, how can it be grasped?

If I simply sit here in silence, my silence will not fall within your grasp. When my silence becomes words, then you can hear. What I want to convey is in my silence; only when I give it the form of words does it reach you.

If you ask me to do something so that you can hear my silence, it will be very difficult. For then your ears will be of no use; they are made only to hear words. Your intellect too will be of no use; it is made only to catch words. You too would have to stand in shunya—only then can silence be heard with silence.

There was a wondrous seeker some time ago—Anirvan. Very few people know of him, because he never allowed many to come close. A French woman stayed with him for about five years. She alone wrote a book; that is the world’s main source of knowledge about Anirvan. She sat quietly with him for five years. He would say nothing, or if he spoke, very little.

After five years she said to Anirvan, “You have not said anything to me—although I have heard so much.” Anirvan replied, “This was my one and only ambition. From the time I was born, from the time I became aware, I have had just one ambition: to be able to say something to someone through silence. But no one is willing to become silent.”

For two years of sitting quietly with him the capacity arose, a little, to be touched by his silence. After five years it began to be audible. When five years were complete and the woman said, “Now I can hear what you say in silence,” Anirvan said, “Then your work is done. Now you may go. Wherever you are, you will hear—for silence meets no obstacle. Distance is an obstacle for words, not for silence. Go now; your work is complete.”

The woman wrote: At the final moment, when with folded hands we said goodbye and parted, it struck me that in five years I had not even touched his hand! For five years it had never occurred to me that I had not touched Anirvan’s body, not even his hand. The thought came only at parting. And then I understood: it came because the intimacy in silence had been so profound that what greater nearness could physical touch have given?

But if you say you want to hear in silence, then you must learn the art of being silent. Arjuna says he wants to see you in your essence. Only one who is willing to be essence, to be shunya, can see essence.

One who is willing to be shunya will see the shunya that pervades this world. As long as we refuse to be emptiness, we will see only activity. And as long as there is activity, there will be choice. We will say, “Remove sadness, remove wrath, remove this cruelty, stop this fierce face of death. Smile, be pleasant.” We choose the activity that we prefer.

Keep in mind, there is a point to notice in this sutra.
We often say the world is a web of activity (pravritti), and a sannyasin is nivritti, one who has turned away from activity. It is true that the world is a web of activity. But remember also: no matter how much you flee the world, you cannot go outside it. Wherever you go, the world is there. Everywhere, activity is His—somewhere the bustle of the market, somewhere the chirping of birds in the trees, somewhere the roar of a river, somewhere the hush of the mountains. But all of it is His activity. There is no going outside pravritti.

There is only one way beyond activity: do not choose within activity. Do not say, “This is terrible, remove it; reveal the pleasant.” Choice binds; activity does not bind. One who does not choose within activity suddenly becomes shunya. It is choice that fragments the inner emptiness. One who becomes shunya knows Him in essence.

Arjuna says, “O Bhagavan, please tell me who you are in this fierce form. O best among the gods, my salutations to you. Be pleased. Primal One, I want to know you in essence. For your activity I neither truly know nor do I have much use. What you are—that is what I want to know.”

That’s all for today.
Wait for five minutes. Do kirtan, then go.