Geeta Darshan #9

As long as there is asking, no relationship with the Divine is established. Prayer is not asking. More rightly, prayer is thanksgiving, not demand. Prayer is not a demand for what has not been given; it is gratitude for the grace of what has been given—thanksgiving.

Do not ask for anything. Your very asking will become a barrier between you and the Divine. For whenever we ask for something, what does it mean? It means that what we are asking for is greater than God.

A man asks God for wealth. That means the goal is wealth; God is merely the means. A man asks for happiness. That means happiness is greater. It can be obtained from God—hence he asks God. But God has been reduced to a medium, merely a means. We want even God to serve us!

Whenever we ask for something, the thing asked for becomes important; the one we ask from is not. If the giver seems important at all, it is only because what we want can be had from him. But his importance is secondary—second-rate, number two.

So nothing can be asked from God. And those who ask have no relationship with God. From God, one can only give thanks for what has already been given. And what has been given is vast, boundless.

But we do not offer thanks for what has been given. We ask and complain about what has not been given. The mind only sees the lack. What we have received—unasked!—life, existence, the flowering that has come to us—there is no gratitude for that.

Prayer is the feeling of grace.

It happened that when Vivekananda came to Ramakrishna, the condition at his home was very bad. His father had died. The father was a whimsical man, had left no property—on the contrary, had left debts. Vivekananda could not figure out how to pay them. There was not even bread to eat at home. Often it would happen that so little grain could be gathered that since only one of the two—mother and son—could eat, Vivekananda would tell his mother, “I won’t eat at home today; I have been invited to a friend’s place,” and then leave the house so that his mother could eat. He would wander the lanes and alleys—there was no invitation—and return happily saying he had a very good meal, so that the mother would eat.

When Ramakrishna found out, he said, “You fool! Why don’t you go and ask the Mother? You come here every day. Go into the temple and ask the Mother for what you need.” Because Ramakrishna said so, Vivekananda went. Ramakrishna waited outside. Half an hour passed. An hour passed. When an hour was about to pass, he peeped inside. Vivekananda was standing with eyes closed; tears of bliss were flowing from his eyes; his whole body was thrilled, hair standing on end.

When Vivekananda came out, Ramakrishna asked, “Did you ask the Mother?” Vivekananda said, “I completely forgot. What I received was so much that I was lost in the joy of grace. When I go again, then I will ask.”

The next day the same thing happened. The third day too. Ramakrishna said, “Madman, why don’t you ask?” Vivekananda said, “You are needlessly testing me. When I go inside I forget that those petty needs that surround me even exist, that they have any reality. In the presence of the Mother, I am in the presence of the Vast; all talk of the petty is forgotten. I cannot do it.”

Ramakrishna told his disciples, “This is precisely why I sent him—if his prayer could still turn into asking, he had not yet learned the art of prayer. If he can still ask in the moment of prayer, his mind is still entangled in the world; it has not risen toward the Divine.”

You ask: What should we ask?

Do not ask. Asking belongs to the world. The one who drops asking alone enters the Divine. So do not ask for anything—not even for happiness. Do not ask even for moksha, for liberation. Because asking itself is the trouble. Asking itself is the obstacle. The mind that asks cannot be in prayer.

Ordinarily we have turned all prayer into asking. We pray only because we want to ask. “Pray-er” has come to mean “beggar.” Otherwise we would not pray at all. Only when there is something to ask, we pray; when there is nothing to ask, prayer disappears. Our whole prayer is the prayer of a beggar. We stand before God with a begging bowl. This way is not right. This is not the way of prayer. Then what is prayer?

People generally think prayer is something to do—that you go and offer praise, sing hymns, glorify God—something to be done. Prayer is neither asking nor a doing. Prayer is a state of mind.

It is more accurate to say prayer is not done; you can be in prayer. You cannot do prayer; you can be in it. Prayer is not some act—ringing a bell, chanting a name. These are all outer devices. Prayer is an inner state of mind—a state of consciousness.

There are two kinds of inner states. One is desire, craving. Desire keeps saying: I want this, I want that. For twenty-four hours we are in desire: this is needed, that is needed. There is not a single moment without desire. Something is always wanted. This wanting surrounds us like smoke.

One state is desire. If you come to prayer with asking, the state has not changed; desire remains intact. There too you are asking for something. In the marketplace you were asking for something. From the wife you were asking. From the husband you were asking. From the son, from the father you were asking. From society you were asking. From the state you were asking. From the world you were asking. Now you are asking from God. The one you ask from has changed, but the mind that asks—the beggar-mind of desire—remains. Sometimes you asked this one, sometimes that one. When nowhere could it be found, people begin to ask God. They think what was not found anywhere will surely be found from God! But they do go on asking. This is desire.

Prayer is the exact opposite state. Desire is a running toward what is not; prayer is the rejoicing in what is. Prayer is coming to a stop; desire is a chase. Desire is in the future; prayer is here and now. A prayerful mind means the past has vanished, the future has vanished; this moment is everything.

You are standing before the image of God—and that image can be anywhere: in a tree, in a river, in a person; in your child’s eyes, in your wife’s eyes; in a stone; in form or the formless—anywhere.

Wherever you find such a moment that there is no more inner running, the mind has come to a halt, as if the stream has stopped and there is no movement at all—whatever bliss arises in that moment, the delicate trembling that spreads; when every particle of life thrills; when, deep within, at the very center, the murmur of the Infinite begins to be heard—that is prayer. From this prayer, dance is born; when the life-breath rejoices, even the feet begin to dance. From this joy, song bursts forth; when the inner veena plays, song overflows.

Here is the difference: you too can go to a temple and sing Meera’s songs. But you sing in order to get something. Meera also sang—but because something had been found within; its fragrance ran through the body; Meera began to dance and sing.

In this singing and dancing there is not prayer; these are the results of prayer, its by-products. As wheat grows, chaff grows along with it. When prayer happens within, that joy begins to express outside as well. But we see Meera from the outside and think: if we too dance and sing as she did, perhaps what happened to Meera will happen to us.

Here logic goes wrong. Meera’s inner happening gave birth to the dance. If dance caused the inner to happen, all dancers would be Meeras. And if song caused something within, all singers would long ago have arrived. How well can you sing? Skilled singers—what can you win against them? Skilled dancers—how will you dance against them?

No. What happened to Meera—its echo is heard in song and dance, that’s all. The happening itself is beyond these. Therefore it is not necessary that song and dance arise. Mahavira we have not seen dancing; Buddha we have not seen singing. So it is not necessary that the tune expresses outwardly in that form. It can take many forms—depending on the person.

With Buddha it did not come as dance; outwardly it came as a profound, dense silence. Buddha’s personality is different. Within, the same happens as with Meera. Within, the same happened to Buddha. But Meera is a woman; what is in Meera’s feet is not in Buddha’s; what is in Meera’s voice is not in Buddha’s. Buddha’s personality is different.

The same event happens within, but what it filters through—the personality—is different. So in Buddha it becomes deep peace on the outside. One who has seen Buddha cannot even imagine how the ultimate experience could become dance! For Buddha became utterly still; there was no ripple outside—like a stone statue. Those who saw Meera cannot believe such stillness; they saw her crazed with ecstasy. Her body was filled with dance. These are differences of individuals.

But even if you sit like a statue, like Buddha, nothing will happen within—if it is only outward. Because the inner event is primary; what happens outside is secondary. It is the result, the fruit. There is no way from the outside to the inside; the way is only from the inside to the outside.

Prayer is the mind’s stopped moment. Desire is the mind’s running moment. Desire is a race; prayer is repose.

If, in a moment of rest, you sit beside a tree, that tree will become God for you. Wherever we become a moment of rest, there the Divine is revealed.

What is form? What do we call form? Is there anything in this world that truly has form?
In this world everything is formless. But our eyes are limited; therefore even the formless appears to us as form. You look at the sky through your window and you see only so much sky as is framed by the window. You look at the world through blue glasses, and the world appears blue. It is your way of seeing that manufactures form; otherwise, there is no form anywhere.

You will say, “That doesn’t quite fit. At least our body has a form!”
Even there, there is no fixed form. Do you know where your body ends? If the sun were to grow cold—ten crores of miles away—if it grew cold, do you know what would happen to your body? It would go cold that very moment. So your body does not end at your skin. That sun a hundred million miles away is also a part of your body, because without it you cannot live. Your body is joined to it.

Where does your body end? Above you? If your father had not been, could you have been?
Go back! You will see that your body has been formed out of a history of billions upon billions of years. For millions upon millions of years life has been moving forward; that has made your body. If at any point in that chain one microorganism had slipped out, you would not be. So the whole history of time is contained in you. Right this moment the entire universe is contained in you. If there were even the slightest change in this universe, you would not be.

Your body is a confluence of infinite forces. Whatever little is visible to you, you take that to be the body. And if it is true that the infinite past is contained in you, then the infinite future is contained in you as well—it will be born out of you.

Where do you begin? Where do you end? You have taken your birthday to be your beginning—this is the limit of your understanding. When were you born? Your germ has been traveling for billions and trillions of years. When you were not born, it was in your mother, in your father. And when your parents were not born, it was in someone else. But it kept moving. You have been from eternity. And when you will not be, still it will go on for eternity.

Where does your body end? Where does it begin? Where is its boundary—even at this very moment? At what point shall we say, “Here my body ends”? Should we count the sun as a part of our body or not? This is the great question. Scientists ask: where are we to draw the line and say, “Here the body ends”?

There is a slight agitation on the sun, and a change happens in you. You do not know it. In the last twenty years deep studies have been done on the sun and the human body.

In an American hospital they were very surprised that on certain days the patients in the psychiatric ward seemed more disturbed; sometimes very quiet; sometimes intensely agitated. And when this phase came, it did not come to just one patient—it came to all. It seemed as if there was a periodic cycle, like the ocean tide rises and falls.

For three years they continuously kept records—on which day, when, why. No cause could be found. Any change in food? No. Any staff changes? No. Any change in treatment? No. Nothing was different. Everything was running as per routine. Suddenly one day all the insane would become more insane; one day all would become quieter.

After all kinds of investigation the conclusion that emerged was this: there is a connection with the sun. When storms arise on the sun, those mentally ill become more disturbed; when the solar storms quiet down, they quiet down.

And now an entire science is arising: without a precise study of what happens on the sun, one cannot say what is happening in the life of man. Every ninety years a great revolution takes place on the sun, and the upheavals that happen on the earth occur in that ninety-year period. Every eleven years a smaller storm comes on the sun; the periodic cycle of wars on earth is eleven years.

If such a study were to be in America, it would be understandable. But studies have been done in Russia too, and the Russian psychologists and scientists were astonished as well. And in Russia it is very difficult to accept that the revolution of 1917 happened not because of Lenin, Trotsky and communism, but because some disturbance happened on the moon or the sun.

But what can Russia do! Today’s studies are telling us that whatever happens on the sun immediately affects man—immediately! And whatever happens in the world of man is connected with the sun and the stars.

Where do you end? Where is your boundary?
You too have no boundary. Forget worrying about Rama and Krishna—you too are boundless. Here every point is vast; here every drop is the ocean. We see a drop because our capacity to see is limited.

As the capacity increases, form begins to drop away and the formless begins to be seen. As the capacity becomes vast, the vast reveals itself. The day there remains no framework to our seeing, when vision becomes totally free and empty, that day we stand before the Vast.

If you had seen Rama, you would have called him a man—for you cannot see anything other than a man even in Rama. If you had seen Krishna, you would have called him a man too—because of your way of seeing. But there are people who see differently: they saw God in Krishna, they saw God in Rama.

People ask me: Rama happened, Krishna happened, Buddha, Mahavira happened, Jesus happened, Lao Tzu happened—their time was long ago; why do they not happen now?
They still happen. But earlier there were more people who could recognize; now there are fewer. That is the only difference. And do not worry about it. Even if you had been in the time of Buddha, you could not have recognized him. And you were. It is not right to say “if you had been”; you were. And because you did not recognize, therefore you are still here. Otherwise by now you would have disappeared. If you had recognized, the path would have been revealed to you, and by now you would have evaporated and entered another realm. We are, only so long as we do not recognize—only so long as it does not appear to us.

If even in one person we get a glimpse of the Vast, then it will begin to be seen in all; that is the beginning. Rama and Krishna are not the end—they are the beginning. If it becomes visible in them, then it begins to be seen anywhere; then it has become our own experience.

That is why we made stone images as well. Those who made stone images were very intelligent people. Because once it has been seen, then it begins to be seen even in stone. Once it is seen, it will be seen anywhere. Then in stone too the same will be seen. Then there is no reason, no obstacle anywhere; no hindrance can prevent it. What I have seen even once, I will then see anywhere.

But for seeing, the great point is not whether Rama is God or not. That is not a great question; it is irrelevant. The great question is whether I have the eyes to see God or not.

There is an incident from Buddha’s past life. In his previous birth, when he was ignorant and had not yet become a Buddha—ignorance in our land means only this: that he had not yet come to know “I am God”; as long as he still believed “I am a man”—when he was ignorant, a realized being came to his village. Buddha went for his darshan. He fell at his feet in salutation. And when he rose after bowing, he was very surprised—he could not understand what had happened: that realized man placed his head at Buddha’s feet and bowed.

Buddha was very embarrassed and said, What are you doing! This will give me sin. That I should touch your feet is proper—because you have attained and I am still wandering. You are the goal; I am still the path. That I bow at your feet is right; my search is still incomplete, yours is complete. Why do you bow at my feet?

That realized one said to Buddha: You can only see what you are able to see right now. I see in you that which you cannot yet see. What I have attained, I see that in you as well. I am not touching your feet; I am touching his feet. And one day you too will see him. It is only a distance of time. There is no difference in the feet—there is only the gap of time. What is not visible to you today is visible to me; tomorrow it will be visible to you too.

And when Buddha became enlightened, the first remembrance he had was of that realized one from his previous birth. He said, Today I understand what he must have seen. Today I too can see it—but it was always with me, and I could not see it.

If there is no vision, even a treasure kept right beside you cannot be seen. If a lamp is burning beside a blind man, what meaning does it have? And if a lute is playing beside a deaf man, what meaning? None. Because for them the event does not happen at all. Until you have the organ of sensitivity, there is nothing.

If God does not appear to you in Rama, do not worry about whether Rama is God or not. You have no means to decide. There is no measure, no scale on which you could weigh who is God and who is not. Do not get entangled in this; it is a futile effort.

If you do not see God in Rama, in Krishna, in Buddha—anywhere—then worry about this: Do I have eyes to see God or not? Set out in search of that. The day those eyes are with you, that day not only in Rama but even in Ravana you will see God. Then there will be no place left where he is not.

Nanak went to Mecca and slept at night; he was tired. The priests became very concerned and came, because Nanak had stretched his feet toward the sacred mosque of Mecca. They said, “Foolish man! You think yourself very wise, and you do not even have the sense not to turn your feet toward the sacred shrine!”

Nanak said, “Then turn my feet to the place where his sacred temple is not. I too am in great difficulty. It is good you have come. I wondered a lot: where should I place my feet?—because he is present everywhere. And I must sleep—I am tired and worn out. Now that you have come, you solve it. Take hold of my feet and turn them in the direction where he is not.”

The story is very sweet: the priests tried to turn his feet in all directions and got into great difficulty—for wherever they turned his feet, there the Kaaba seemed to move. Whether the Kaaba moved or not is not the big question. The big question truly is: where will you place your feet where God is not?

If once Nanak has seen his presence, then there is no place where he is not. Now he is everywhere. Now place your feet anywhere, place your head anywhere—the feet will fall on him, the head will fall on him. When you rise or sit, it is within him; when you walk, it is within him. Now he alone is, and nothing else.

If there is the capacity to see—if there are Nanak’s eyes—then he is everywhere. And with our eyes, then he is nowhere. Then we even worry and doubt about Rama, about Buddha.

And do not think that only you have doubts. Even in those days the people had doubts. It is not that all people accepted Buddha; not that all accepted Mahavira; not that all accepted Krishna. Very few recognize.

The one who recognizes is blessed. From this recognizing no benefit comes to Krishna; the benefit comes to the one who recognizes. If it is seen even in one, the art of seeing is learned—then it can be seen in all.

The mind is not to be concentrated; the mind is to be dissolved. There is a difference between the two.
Even if the mind becomes concentrated, it still remains mind. If you create an image in the mind, the mind will concentrate on the image. But the image remains, and the mind remains. Two remain.
The ultimate aim of kirtan, the ultimate aim of meditation, of prayer, of worship, is that only One remains—no image remains.
So when you are doing kirtan, don’t worry about images. If an image arises, don’t worry about removing it. If no image arises, don’t worry about bringing one. Care only for being absorbed, for drowning. Care for dissolving.
When you try to concentrate, you put a tension on the mind. Tension will create restlessness. Do not attempt concentration. Attempt losing yourself. As a drop sinks into the ocean, so you are sinking into the Vast, you are losing yourself in the formless. As if someone blew out a lamp and it lost itself in the void, so too you are being lost. Be concerned with absorption, with drowning, with effacing yourself. Do not try to concentrate; try to dissolve—melting, like ice melting.
Just take this one feeling: as if you have become ice and you are melting, flowing, and merging into the river. Melting, losing, drowning!
If this mood is maintained in your kirtan, gradually the dance will deepen, gradually the voice will grow more intense. And gradually much within you will start breaking and ending along with the dance. Ego will begin to fall away. “What will people say? What will they think? Am I being foolish?”—all that will start disappearing. Slowly, slowly you will forget that you are; you will forget that the world is. And when that moment of forgetfulness comes—when you cannot make out who you are, nor who is all around—understand that the true remembrance is beginning.
In this forgetfulness of the world, the inner remembrance begins to arise. As the world is forgotten, the Divine begins to be remembered. To remember the Divine does not mean that some image appears. It means what William James called the oceanic feeling—the mood of being an ocean. Not the feeling of being a drop, but the feeling of being the ocean.
Then you become vast. And when the winds blow, it isn’t that they are blowing outside you—they blow within you. When trees sway, they don’t sway outside you—they sway within you. The moon and stars move within you. The people dancing and singing kirtan around you no longer remain outside; they enter within. You expand and become great—and everything begins to happen within you.
Don’t worry much about images. If one comes, don’t try to remove it—because removing too becomes a striving. If it comes, fine; if it doesn’t, fine. If you have loved any image, it will come. If you are devoted to Krishna, then when you are intoxicated the first thing will be that Krishna will begin to appear to you. If you love Christ, then as soon as you are lost, the first happening is you will arrive at Christ.
Let them be, happily. There is no need to remove them. But there is no need to concentrate on them either. Slowly, they too will dissolve. And when they too dissolve, the formless appears—where even Rama is lost, Krishna is lost, Buddha and Christ too—because they are our last stepping stones.
Understand this well.
Where the world ends, there stand Christ, Buddha, Krishna. Their images are the final planks at the edge of the world; there they stand. When their presence comes, it means we have reached the shore. But don’t cling to those planks and stop. Keep seeing—beyond, and beyond, and beyond—where even they dissolve; merge there. Watching, rejoicing, slowly, slowly let everything go.
This letting go begins with letting go of the body. This is the very delight and joy of kirtan—that you leave the body aside.
People ask me whether there should be some system—some regulated dance, some rhythm, some measure, some order.
Kirtan has no relationship with order. In truth, kirtan is a device to break order—to end the inner tendency to organize. You have dropped the body; whatever happens, you allow it to happen. You no longer come in between to decide which foot to lift, which not to lift. Now whatever is happening, you let it happen.
And this relinquishing of the body is the first taste of dissolution. Then the mind too has to be dropped. Whatever is happening, let it happen. Gradually the body and mind will move on their own, and you will remain only a witness—of your own body and your own mind.
I was reading that when the Russian astronaut Paikov circled the earth for the first time for thirty-six hours, he wrote his reminiscences afterward. He wrote in his diary that as soon as the earth’s gravity ends, your limbs become weightless; there is no weight in space. There is no inherent weight in you either; it is only the pull of the earth that makes weight seem real. About two hundred miles beyond the earth, weight ceases; you become weightless.
Paikov wrote that when he tried to sleep, it proved quite troublesome. His whole body was strapped by belts, but his hands would hang suspended in midair. He would pull them down, and that was fine; but as soon as he began to doze, his effort stopped and both hands would again float in midair! He writes that at midnight he awoke and, seeing his own hands hanging there, for the first time he felt the witness—that his own body, beyond his control, was hanging in space!
When in the depth of kirtan you leave the body utterly unbound and let whatever happens happen, instantly you begin to feel within that you are separate from the body. Now the body moves on its own. The body acts, and you watch. What happened to Paikov can happen very naturally in kirtan.
And the delightful thing is that sooner or later we will be able to use space travel for inner practice. What in the past took seekers years to accomplish might happen in hours in space. On earth it takes years to experience “I am not the body,” because the earth constantly reminds you that you are the body.
That is why our seekers went high into the Himalayas. The higher you go, the farther from the earth, the easier it is to feel weightless. Hence we discovered Kailash. But now Kailash is a small place. Now we can leave the earth altogether. And when, in a spaceship, a seeker’s body floats in the air like a gas-filled balloon, it will be utterly easy to experience “I am not the body.”
Kirtan makes you weightless; you drop the body, like a child. Sometimes dance performs a revolutionary act.
Among the Sufis there is the practice of the dervish dance. The dervish whirls as children whirl—standing in one place, like a spinning top. In the dervish dance one stands in a single spot and whirls—the whirling. When you spin strongly in one place, your head begins to reel; it feels as if you will fall. But if you don’t fall and keep spinning, in a short while you will notice the body is spinning and you are standing still.
Small children love it. Parents stop them—“Don’t do that, you’ll get dizzy.” Don’t stop them. The joy children get from whirling is a bit of the very bliss of the soul—because in whirling they feel “I am not the body.” The body starts to revolve like a mechanism, and they stand in the center. Children are innocent; it happens to them quickly.
Dance has to take you back to childhood. Kirtan has to make you as simple as a child. Whatever happens, let it happen. Inside, remain alert, silent, watching. If the witnessing stays and the intention to dissolve yourself remains, your kirtan succeeds.
Now let us take the sutra.
“O Lord! Taking you to be my friend, unaware of your majesty, whatever I have said out of love or even in heedlessness—‘O Krishna, O Yadava, O Friend!’—whatever I have rashly uttered; and, O Achyuta, if for laughter, in sport, on the couch, on the seat, at meals, alone or even before companions, I have shown disrespect to you—O Immeasurable One—these offenses I ask you to forgive.
“O Lord of the Universe! You are the Father of this moving and unmoving world; greater than any teacher, most worthy of worship. O One of unsurpassed glory, in all the three worlds there is none equal to you—how then could there be any greater? Therefore, O Master, prostrating my body at your feet and bowing, I pray to you, worthy of praise—be pleased with me. O Deva, just as a father bears with his son, a friend with a friend, and a beloved with her beloved, so too you are fit to pardon my offense.”
This is very sweet, very tender, utterly intimate. On the day Arjuna saw Krishna’s vastness, his divinity, naturally his mind was filled with many pains, many shames, a sense of offense. Because these very Krishna, upon whose shoulder he had often placed his hand, to whom he had said, “O Yadava, O friend, O companion!”—he had treated the Vast as a friend. Today, just thinking of it, he trembles. He feels, “What have I done? How did I take him all this time? How did I behave? If only I had known what was hidden within him, I would never have behaved so.”
But the delightful thing is—it isn’t only Arjuna who would feel this. If you are a wife, a husband, a father, a son—on the day you have a glimpse of the Divine, you too will feel, “How have I behaved with my wife until now!” Because then you will see the same One in your wife. You will feel, “How have I behaved with my servant!” Because then you will see the same One in the servant too. You will feel, “Whatever I have done up till now was ignorance. For the one I took him to be—that he is not.” Arjuna’s words are symbolic; every knower experiences this.
Rabindranath wrote that when his Gitanjali was published and he received the Nobel Prize, until the prize no one cared much, but afterward welcome ceremonies began; all of Calcutta honored him; opponents became friends.
Yet there was an old man in his neighborhood who wasn’t impressed by the Nobel Prize at all. He had long been a thorn for Rabindranath. When his poems appeared, that old man would often stop him on the road and ask, “Tell me—have you known God?” For he was writing poems about God. No one else asked such a question. Whether the poem was good or not was one thing. But no one asked, “Have you known God?”
The old man looked with such piercing eyes that Rabindranath said he feared no one as much as he feared that man. Nor did he have the courage to say, “Yes, I have known,” because he had not. And there was no point lying to him; his eyes were frightening.
Rabindranath wrote, “I have sung songs of great love and friendship, yet no goodwill ever arose in me for that old man. I could sing songs of love for the whole world—except for that old man, who lived right next door! And his manner was so harsh.”
“Then one day everything changed. I was walking by the sea. It had rained a little; puddles had formed by the roadside. Evening descended; the full moon appeared; the moon’s reflection began to form in those dirty puddles—very lovely. Then I saw the moon over the ocean. Suddenly a thought arose: the moon is the moon—whether its reflection is in the ocean’s pure water or in a filthy roadside puddle. The filth of the water does not soil the moon’s reflection. Whether the reflection forms in a dirty puddle or in pure water, the reflection itself is not defiled by the water’s impurity.”
“As this thought arose, samadhi descended. It is an extraordinary insight. It means boundaries broke. The reflection of That—whether in Rama or in Ravana—is the same. Ecstasy filled the heart. I began to dance back home. On the road the same old man met me. Today he could not frighten me; seeing him, I felt delighted. I embraced him. He looked into my eyes and, without asking whether I had known God, he said, ‘Good—so it has happened. It seems it has happened.’”
Rabindranath wrote, “For three days thereafter I remained in such a state that whoever I met I wished to embrace—friend or foe, stranger or familiar, servant or companion. When people ran out, I began to embrace cows and horses. When they were done, trees, stones, walls—and even with a wall I felt the same as with my beloved.”
But that day he felt that until then his behavior with people had been very bad. He went to the old man to ask forgiveness: “Forgive me. I did not recognize who you are. Today I have recognized; now there is nothing for me to do but seek forgiveness from everyone.”
The day you too have even a little glimpse, you will have no option but to ask forgiveness—because the Vast is present on every side, and the way we behave with it is very petty. How can our behavior be otherwise? Our vision is petty. The Vast does not appear to us anywhere.
I have heard a Sufi story. An emperor grew angry with his son, who was unruly and headstrong. He became so angry that he banished him from the kingdom: “Leave the realm.” He had only one son; it was a great pain, but it had to be done. The father was stubborn, and the son was stubborn—the son of his father, both with the same temperament; both egoistic. The son left the realm and went to another kingdom.
He was a prince. He had never walked on the ground, never worked. He had no option but to beg. He knew a little of the tambura, liked to sing, so he sang and played for alms.
Ten years passed. The father grew old, near death. He thought to find the boy and bring him back. He sent ministers: “Wherever he is, bring him quickly. My death is near; he alone is heir.”
That day, in a small village, the future emperor was begging outside a tea shop. It was summer; the sky rained fire; the roads were burning; walking barefoot was hard. He had no shoes. He begged with a small bowl, asking for money to buy shoes. Poor folk were drinking tea in the shop; they dropped a coin or two; some small change lay in his bowl.
A minister’s chariot stopped. He saw and recognized the prince. He still wore the same clothes from ten years back—now torn, ragged, filthy—unrecognizable as royal. But the minister knew—the eyes were the same. The face had darkened; the body had withered; a begging bowl in hand; blisters on his feet.
The minister alighted. The beggar extended his bowl toward the chariot. Seeing the minister, the bowl fell from his hand. In a moment, ten years vanished.
The minister fell at his feet: “Sire, let us go back.”
A crowd gathered; the whole village came. They fell at his feet. A moment before they were reluctant to give alms, now they fell at his feet: “Forgive us; how were we to know!”
In an instant everything changed—the village’s attitude; and the prince’s too. A moment ago he was a beggar; in a moment, a king. The clothes remained the same, the body the same; the eyes changed; a new radiance dawned.
Life, as we see it, appears as it does because of our eyes. Change the eyes and the whole of life changes. Then nothing remains but to ask forgiveness.
The whole village fell at his feet: “Forgive us. Surely we have committed many mistakes. We took you for a beggar—that alone was the great mistake!”
This is what Arjuna is saying: “We took you for a friend—that was the great mistake. And taking you as a friend we must have said things that are said in friendship.”
Friends even hurl insults at each other. In fact, people don’t consider it true friendship until they can abuse each other. Until you start abusing, you are still strangers; there is not yet the sense of one’s own.
“So, taking you as friend, sometimes I said, ‘Hey, Krishna!’ sometimes, ‘Hey, Yadava!’ sometimes, ‘Hey, friend!’ Forgive me. I must have said many things obstinately. I must have insisted on my way. I must have denied your word. I must have argued with you. I must have said, ‘You are wrong,’ and even proved you wrong. I must have slighted you. I must have rejected your counsel.
“And, O Achyuta, even in joking, I must have said things that should not have been said—to you. In play, on the couch, on the seat, at meals, among friends, in the crowd, in solitude—I don’t know what all I must have said! I don’t know in how many ways I must have insulted you—or when others insulted you, I may have agreed silently and not opposed them. All these offenses, O Immeasurable, O Inconceivable, I beg you to forgive.
“As I see you now, and as I saw you until now—between these two there is the distance of earth and sky. So for all that I did unknowingly—without knowing you, without recognizing you—forgive me.”
We will ask forgiveness from the world too, for the world is the Divine. And the way we behave with it is not the way to behave with the Divine. Even if you only assume it—suppose you do not yet know, but you assume for twenty-four hours that everyone you meet is the Divine and behave accordingly—you will find that you begin to change, you become a different person. Your inner quality will change.
The Sufis have a method of practice: whatever appears, take it to be God and proceed accordingly. Even if you have not realized it, imagine it. That imagination will one day become truth. And on the day it becomes true, you will have no one from whom to ask forgiveness.
Mansoor said: “Even if God met me, I would not have to ask forgiveness—because I have never seen anything but Him in anyone.”
Arjuna must ask, because until now even in the Divine he has seen Krishna, a friend. And with a friend, what sort of relation?
Remember, no matter how deep friendship is, enmity hides within it. And however close, some distance remains.
The mind’s dualities enter all relations. You cannot make someone an enemy directly. To make an enemy, you have to first make a friend. Can you make someone an enemy straightaway? There is no way. Even enmity comes through the door of friendship. In truth, enmity is concealed within friendship.
So the wise have said: if you do not wish to make enemies, avoid making friends. If you make friends, enemies will arise too. For friend and enemy are not two different things—perhaps two densities of the same wave.
So Arjuna is saying: “In friendship I have often been hostile. And in friendship I have sometimes said things that shouldn’t be said even to an enemy. For all that I ask forgiveness.”
“O Lord of the Universe! You are the Father of the moving and unmoving world, greater than any guru, most worthy of worship. O One of unsurpassed glory, in all three worlds there is none equal to you. How then could there be someone greater? Therefore, O Master, placing my body well at your feet and bowing, I pray to you, worthy of praise, to be pleased with me. O Deva, as a father forgives his son, as a friend forgives a friend, as a husband forgives his beloved—so you too are fit to bear with my offense.”
“I know you will forgive. I know you will not take ill what has happened in the past. I know you are vast in forgiveness and, as a dear one is forgiven, you will forgive me. Even so, I ask your forgiveness—placing my body properly at your feet.”
Understand this a little.
We do not realize that every posture of the body is linked to a state of mind. Body and mind are not two. Hence today science prefers not to say “body and mind,” but “psychosomatic”—mindbody, one word. It is right, because body and mind function together. Whatever happens in the one affects the other instantly. Think a little.
In the West two thinkers—Lange and William James—developed what is called the James-Lange theory. It says something inverted, yet very important. Ordinarily we think a person is afraid, therefore he runs. James-Lange say he runs, therefore he is afraid. Ordinarily we think a person is happy, therefore he laughs. James-Lange say he laughs, therefore he is happy. And they say: if this is not true, then show me how you can be happy without laughing—or frightened without running!
Their point is true—half true. And the common view is also half true.
In fact fear and running are not two things. Fear is of the mind; running is of the body. Happiness and laughter are not two things. Happiness is of the mind; laughter is of the body. And body and mind influence each other instantly—otherwise, why would your mind become intoxicated when you drink alcohol? Alcohol goes into the body; how does the mind get drunk? You could drink happily; the body might be harmed, but why the mind? Yet the mind is immediately intoxicated. And when your mind is unhappy, the body becomes ill.
Now physiologists say that when the mind is unhappy, the body’s resistance drops. If malarial germs are abroad, the one who is inwardly unhappy will be caught sooner; the cheerful one will not.
You will be surprised: during a plague, everyone is being infected, yet the doctor working day and night is not infected. Why? He is delighted with his work. The service he renders gives him joy. Plague is not a disease to him; it is an experiment. Not a threat, but a challenge to grapple with. He is cheerful, joyful; he will not fall ill. Because the body’s resistance is higher when you are cheerful; when you are low, unhappy, afflicted within, it falls.
Even germs cannot attack until you open the door: “Come, I am ready.” And when you are full of joy, around you there is an aura into which germs cannot easily enter.
Even within twenty-four hours there are hours when your susceptibility peaks. Inner research shows that within the day there are times when you are at your peak of cheerfulness; and once in the day you reach a nadir, a low point. At that low point illness catches easily; at the peak, never.
That peak of inner joy is one for both body and mind; the valley too is one.
Body and mind are joined. When you fill with anger, your fists clench, your teeth grind, your eyes redden, and in your blood adrenaline and other substances spread—poisons that drive you mad. Your body is being readied.
Do you know why fists clench, why teeth grind? Man was an animal. An animal, when enraged, tears with claws and bites with teeth. Man was an animal; his body’s ways are still animal. Hence teeth clench, hands tighten. Poisons spread in the blood, preparing you for killing. You know in rage you can lift a stone you couldn’t dream of lifting calmly, because you are insane; in that moment anything can happen.
When it is so in anger, in love the opposite occurs. When filled with love you become totally relaxed; the whole body goes loose, as if there is no longer any fear. In anger the body tightens; in love it loosens. When, in someone’s embrace, filled with love, you become like a small child at his mother’s breast—utterly lax, limp—there is no tension anywhere.
Mind and body change together. Try to love while staying tense—you will see it is impossible. Or try to be loose and relaxed while raging—you will see it is impossible.
Have you noticed that when you want to insult someone, you feel like taking off your shoe and hitting them on the head? Why is that? Not in one country—everywhere. Not in one race—all races. Not in one religion—all religions. In every corner of the world, despite cultural differences, when people want to insult, they wish to put their shoe on the other’s head.
The shoe is only a symbol. You want to put your foot on the head. But that is a bit awkward—placing your foot on someone’s head requires gymnastics, yoga. Not easy to do at once—circus skills are needed. So the symbol is used—the shoe. We hit with the shoe to say, “Your head under my foot.” And what does it mean? The same sentiment exists everywhere.
The opposite of this is reverence: placing one’s head at someone’s feet.
It is a remarkable thing that the world over there is the sentiment of putting the foot on the head to insult, but to honor someone by placing the head at the feet is unique to India. In this respect India has a deep grasp of the human mind.
It means: throughout the world we have devised ways to insult, but not to honor. And if it is true that in every land people feel like humiliating with the foot on the head, then the other must also be true—that in a moment of reverence one feels like placing one’s head at someone’s feet. That would arise only if the inner happening occurred.
Which means: of reverence, perhaps, we have had a deeper experience here than any other land. Had others experienced it, they would have found a bodily expression for it.
So this is one expression of reverence, of asking forgiveness. Arjuna says, “Placing my whole body at your feet in every way, I ask your pardon. Forgive me.”
But it is not only this. Go a little deeper. When the head is placed at someone’s feet…
Now that much work has been done on bioelectricity, this can be understood. You may not be aware, but it will be useful to know; a little information will help you.
All the body’s activity runs on electricity. Your body is an electrical instrument; electrical waves run through it. You are a battery in which low-voltage electricity flows—a very delicate charge—but it is a wondrous mechanism that runs on such low voltage.
In England a scientist has developed some copper meshes—useful things. He places a copper mesh beneath your body and binds copper wires to your hands and feet. He connects your body’s negative electricity to its positive, joining the inner poles. As soon as they are joined, you begin to relax. This is being used in English hospitals now. Howsoever disturbed a person is, within thirty minutes he falls into deep sleep. Because the two electrical forces pacify each other. If the wires are cross-connected, a calm person becomes disturbed; his inner electricity is thrown into disorder.
And not only one person. If you want to go deeper, lay a woman on one mesh and a man on another, join their negatives and positives, and the relaxation comes even more quickly, more deeply.
The calm you feel sitting close to your wife or beloved owes less to spirituality and more to electricity. Your negative and positive currents join. If love is deep, they join more fully, because you wish to come closer and closer. If love is not deep, though physically close you hold yourself apart; a kind of guard remains—that becomes a barrier.
This is done even in groups—ten or twenty-five people are linked in a chain; results come even quicker.
India has known this secret from another angle since ancient times. Placing the head at the guru’s feet is to link to his current. The moment your head is at his feet, the guru’s current begins to flow into the disciple.
Note: electricity flows out from two places—hands and feet—the fingers. A pointed end is needed for the current to go out. And to receive, the best place is the head—a rounded receptacle. The head is excellent for receptivity; the fingers are excellent for giving.
The whole arrangement was this—England has now made electrical devices and gained benefit; we have been taking this benefit for thousands of years—the disciple places his head at the guru’s feet: head meaning the receptive part; feet meaning the giving part. And the guru places his hands in blessing upon the head. Thus from both sides—fingers of feet and hands—the guru becomes the giver. And the one below receives easily. Hence the disciple below, the guru above.
If genuine reverence arises in you, you will immediately experience different kinds of waves flowing from the guru’s feet into your head. Your head becomes serene; something flows and calms it.
Man’s body is an electrical instrument. Small devices have now been made that, when placed on the brain, send slow electrical waves; those waves calm you.
For sleep Russia has nearly stopped tranquilizers. They use electrical instruments. They say tranquilizers disturb the body internally, whereas the electrical devices do not. And not only in humans; animals too—if current is given to the brain—become calm.
An American researcher, Salter, was experimenting on his cat. I was amazed. He sent electrical waves into the cat’s brain and produced the condition called alpha waves by scientists.
There are four kinds of brain waves. One is what runs when you are normally thinking; they have a measurable frequency. Then comes alpha—when you are at rest, relaxed, or in meditation. Then deeper waves—when you are in deep dreamless sleep. And beyond that waves about which the West has not yet developed an understanding. Of the three, much is known.
So now whether you are in meditation can be measured by a device. The instrument indicates: alpha waves—then you are in meditation.
Salter was experimenting whether only humans can enter meditation, or animals too! He would bring a cat into alpha by electrical stimulus, keep it hungry, and when alpha appeared—his instrument showed it—he would give it milk, sweets.
The cat learned the trick: only when alpha came would it get treats. Whenever it felt hungry, it would quietly stand, close its eyes, and begin to meditate—because it had learned inwardly what state of mind brought milk. It would close its eyes and stand—and the cat began to produce alpha waves without electrical aid!
This gives me great hope. If a cat can, why can’t you? What difficulty is there?
Arjuna says: “Placing my head at your feet, I pray you be pleased and forgive me. I know you will forgive. But what I have done in the past is a weight upon me. I must be freed of that weight. For that I leave everything at your feet.”
That’s enough for today.
Wait five minutes. Join the kirtan, and then go.