Geeta Darshan #1

From morning till night I meet countless kinds of sorrowing people. I have been searching for just one person whose suffering has been caused by someone else. I haven’t found such a person yet. Whatever the form of suffering, its cause is always oneself. The shapes of sorrow differ, but the responsibility for sorrow is invariably one’s own.

Suffering may seem to come from outside, but it arises from within. People try to pin it on circumstances, on other people, relationships, the world—but all such causes are false, until the real cause is found. And the real cause is the person himself. Until it becomes clear that I am the cause of my suffering, there is no way out of it. If the true cause is unknown, there can be no right diagnosis, and without a right diagnosis there can be no cure. And as long as I keep hunting for spurious causes, I may keep finding “reasons,” but there will be no solution, no freedom from sorrow.

And here is the surprising thing: everyone seeks happiness—and almost no one attains it. So many search, so many toil, people stake their lives on it, and in the end they get nothing but sorrow. When life runs out, you are left only with the ashes of your hopes. Dreams, shattered; rainbows, crushed; failure, frustration, desolation!

Long before death arrives, a person dies of a thousand sorrows. Death hardly needs to kill you; life itself has done enough. Life fails to become a celebration of bliss; it almost always becomes a frenzied dance of pain.

Then naturally a doubt arises: Could this sorrow-drenched life have been made by God? And if God made a life so full of suffering, he appears less like God and more like a devil. If so much sorrow is the fruit of life, then God seems a sadist, one who delights in tormenting people! No wonder so many reject God because of their suffering.

The more I look into people’s minds, the clearer it becomes: no one becomes an atheist because of logic. People become atheists because of pain. The logic is collected afterward.

There is so much anguish in life that it is hard to be a theist. Seeing such suffering, becoming a theist is almost impossible. Or, if one does become a theist, that theism will be false, superficial, a coat of paint. Such theism cannot have a heart. Genuine theism is born only in the event of bliss. Only when life is seen—and felt—as a celebration of joy can one be truly theistic.

The word “theist” means a heart that says yes to life in its totality. But how can one say yes to suffering? One can say yes only to bliss. With suffering, doubt persists.

Perhaps you have noticed: no one asks, “Why bliss?” But when sorrow comes, a person asks, “Why sorrow?” Questions arise with pain. Bliss is accepted without question. If your life were only bliss, you would not ask why there is bliss. You would be a theist. The question “why” would not even arise.

But when life is mostly pain, being a theist feels hollow. Atheism seems truer there, because it asks, “Why is there suffering?” And that question, going deeper, takes the form: In the presence of so much suffering, the existence of God is impossible. How can such a God be its maker? And even if such a God exists, is he worthy of our acceptance?

As suffering grows in life, atheism grows with it. I regard atheism as a psychological event, not a logical, intellectual one. No one becomes an atheist because of logic—though once one is an atheist, one looks for logic to back it up.

Simone Weil, a French thinker, wrote in her memoirs: “Until the age of thirty I had constant headaches, my body was unhealthy. Then doubts arose in me about God. It never occurred to me that my poor health was the cause of my questions about God. Later, when I became healthy, when my headaches disappeared, I did not even notice when those doubts fell away. Only afterward did I realize that at some moment I had become a theist.”

As the current of health started flowing, as a subtle taste of joy began to glimmer in life, as some meaning and direction appeared—as the flowers, the stars, and the gusts of wind began to whisper a little happiness—Simone Weil’s heart leaned from atheism toward theism. Then she saw that when she was an atheist, she had gathered arguments for atheism; and now that she was a theist, she had gathered arguments for theism.

You collect arguments afterward. First you become a theist or an atheist. Argument is a device of the intellect to justify yourself. Whatever you become, you feel compelled to rationalize it. Otherwise you will appear irrational to yourself. You must explain to yourself why you are an atheist—so the one convenient explanation is: there is no God, therefore I am an atheist.

But let me tell you: if you are an atheist, it is not because God does not exist—it is because you are unhappy. Your atheism springs from your suffering. And if you say, “I am unhappy and yet I am a theist,” I will say your theism is false and superficial. True theism cannot be born out of sorrow, because how can one say yes to suffering? Toward suffering there remains a profound no. And then another trouble arises.

Tolstoy wrote: “Oh God, I accept you, but not your world.” Later he realized: if I truly accept God, how can I reject his world? And if I reject his world, then somewhere there is deception in my acceptance of God.

If one accepts God, one must accept him in his totality. You cannot say, “I reject your world.” You cannot chop God in half. The world of God is God. He is present in what he has made. He hides in what appears before us.

A sorrowful person’s theism will be false; secretly he will remain an atheist. And a joyful person—even if he says, “I am an atheist”—his atheism will be false; secretly he will be a theist.

Buddha denied God. Mahavira said there is no God. Yet it is hard to find greater theists than Mahavira and Buddha. And you say, “God exists,” yet it is hard to find greater atheists than you! Buddha, denying God, remains a theist, because that joy, that dance, that inner music resounding within—that is theism.

I have heard a Jewish tale: God sent one of his messengers to Israel, near the great temple, to the high priest. The messenger said, “I am a messenger of God, come to take stock here.”

The priest replied, “I can give you only one report: I doubt the theism of the so-called theists here. And there are two atheists in this village—I doubt their atheism too. Those two atheists—we have never seen them unhappy. But as for the many theists who come daily to pray in the temple, they bring nothing but stories of sorrow; their prayers contain nothing but complaints. When they ask God for anything, it is only relief from suffering.

“But how can a heart full of sorrow come to God? It is so steeped in pain, its vision is so filled with darkness! There is an outer darkness in this world which we can dispel by lighting a lamp. But there is also an inner darkness, and its name is sorrow. Until we light the lamp of bliss within, we cannot dispel the inner night.”

Then the priest asked, “O messenger of God, tell me: who in this village will enter the kingdom of God?” The messenger said, “You may be shocked, but those two atheists will enter the kingdom. They have never prayed, never performed worship, never come to the temple—but their hearts are filled with joy and celebration; they have no complaint against life. And to have no complaint against life—that is theism.”

Man is unhappy, and his unhappiness has broken him away from God. When man is miserable, his mind has only one urge—to hold someone responsible for his pain. And as long as you hold someone responsible, it is hard to avoid finally holding God responsible. In the end, he will be the one blamed.

As long as I say I am unhappy because of my wife, or my son, or my village, or my neighbor—as long as I say I am unhappy because of someone—if I keep searching, I will end by saying I am unhappy because of God.

The one who blames others cannot avoid ultimately blaming God. You may not have the courage to go that far and stop earlier—that’s another matter. But if you search within, you will find your finger of complaint pointing toward God in the end.

I have heard an Arabic saying: When God created the world, he first thought of building himself a house on earth. But his advisors warned him: “Don’t make that mistake! Not a single window of your house will remain intact, and we doubt you will escape with your life. People will pelt your house with stones. You won’t get a moment’s sleep—people will bring so many complaints! Don’t make the mistake of living on earth—you won’t return in one piece.”

Ask yourself: if you were to meet God, what would you say to him? Search your heart and you will find you would hold him responsible for all your suffering.

The birth of a religious person begins with this recognition, this self-inquiry: No one else is responsible for my suffering—I am. And as soon as this vision begins to clear, liberation from sorrow becomes possible. There is no other path to freedom.

Only if I am responsible can there be a revolution in my life. If someone else is producing my pain, how can I be free of it? The responsibility lies in another’s hands. The power lies elsewhere. Someone else is the master; I merely endure. And until this entire world that gives me pain changes, I cannot be happy.

That is why communism and atheism harmonize. In this Marx had insight: as long as religion holds sway on earth, communism cannot. Therefore religion’s roots must be cut if communism is to prevail. There is value in his point; there is depth in it.

For the fundamental difference between religion and communism is this: communism says someone else is responsible for suffering, while religion says the individual himself is responsible. This is the root of their opposition.

Communism says: change society, and people will be happy; change circumstances, and people will be happy; change the system, and people will be happy. Communism does not call for the person to change. Let everything change—except me—and I will be happy.

But the whole research of religion is that the very idea “the other is my suffering” is itself suffering. Because I believe the other can hurt me, I suffer. With that vision I can suffer forever—even if the other changes. My way of seeing that invites suffering remains intact.

Society changes—society has changed many times. Economic systems have changed many times. How many revolutions have there been! And yet no revolution has happened. Man remains as miserable as before. Everything else has changed. If we go back ten thousand years, what remains the same? Everything has changed—except one thing: suffering. It has perhaps even increased.

This chapter of the Gita is an inquiry into the cause of suffering—and it shows the way to end it. It can lead you toward deep sadhana. If you bring this basic point into your awareness first, entry into this chapter becomes easy.

It feels very difficult to hold oneself responsible—because then there is no excuse, no refuge. If I think I am the cause of my sufferings, then there is no complaint left—whom should I complain to, on whom should I place the blame? And if I am responsible, it no longer seems fitting to ask, “Why am I unhappy?”—because I am making myself unhappy. If I do not make myself unhappy, no power in the world can make me so.

It feels difficult, because then I stand alone. There is no escape, no hiding, no self-deception left. The moment it dawns on me that I am responsible, revolution begins.

Knowing is revolution. And the first formula of knowing is this: whatever is happening in my life is not being done by some God; not by society either; it is being done by me—whether I know it or not.

The prison in which I find myself is my own construction. The chains that bind me I forged myself. The thorns upon which I lie are of my own making. The pits that entangle me—my own digging. Whatever I reap is what I sowed—seen or unseen.

If this begins to be seen, the dissolution of sorrow starts. If this begins to be seen, a ray of bliss also breaks through. With that ray, the realization of essence, of truth—the recognition of what is—comes near.

Now, let us enter this sutra.

Then Krishna spoke: Arjuna, this body is called the field. And the one who knows it is called the Knower of the field by those who have known its essence. And Arjuna, know me to be the Knower in all fields. To know, in truth, both the field and the Knower—that is knowledge; that is my view. Therefore, hear from me briefly what the field is, as it is, with its modifications and their causes; and what the Knower is, and the power by which it acts.

Your mind is gloomy, unhappy, afflicted. One morning you awaken, your mind is bright, peaceful; life feels good. Or you are sick, and life seems futile; meaningless. When you are young life seems to move; it feels like there is much to do; some purpose appears. Then you grow old, tired, your strength is broken; it all feels like a dark dream. No real attainment, nowhere arrived, and death seems near.

Whatever the mood of the mind—child, youth, old age; whether there is a sense of joy or of sorrow—one thing remains constant: whatever state comes upon the mind, you identify with it.

If you feel hungry, you do not say, “I notice the body is hungry.” You say, “I am hungry.” This is not merely a matter of language; it reflects our inner experience. If there is a headache, you don’t think or feel, “I notice there is pain in the head.” You say, “My head aches.”

With every experience you become one with it. The one who knows is not kept apart. The knower is lost in the known. The seer is lost in the seen. The enjoyer is lost in the enjoyment. The doer is lost in the deed. The inner knower cannot remain separate; he merges with what he knows. There is pain in the foot, and you become one with the pain.

This is the only calamity. If there is an “original sin,” as Christianity says—if there is one fundamental fall—it is this: identification. The knower becomes one with what is known.

You are not the pain—you know the pain. You cannot be the pain; for if you were the pain, there would be no one left to know it.

Morning comes, the sun rises—you see the sun, there is light. Evening comes, the sun sets, darkness arrives—you see the night. But the one who sees is neither morning nor evening. The one who sees is neither the sun’s ray nor the night’s darkness. The seer stands apart. He sees the sunrise. He sees the evening. He sees the night and the day. The seer is separate.

But in life we cannot keep him separate. Instantly we become one. Someone insults you—there is a sudden sting. You cannot keep a little distance to see that someone is insulting and to notice the hurt move in the mind.

You can see both: the insult being hurled, and the subtle wound arising within. And you can remain apart from both.

This art of standing apart—that is all that religion is. The knower stands apart from the known; the experiencer stands beyond the experience. Everything experienced is the field. The one who knows is the Knower of the field.

Krishna is making a primary proposition about the distinction between these two. He says: this body is called the field. And the one who knows it is called the Knower of the field by those who have known its essence.

As long as you are one with the body, there is no escaping sorrow.

Now, this is both delightful and astounding: the body cannot suffer. Pains happen in the body, but the body itself cannot suffer—because it has no awareness. You cannot make a corpse suffer. That’s why before an operation a doctor anesthetizes you. Once unconscious, the body feels no pain. But all pains do occur in the body. And in the one who knows—there is no pain.

Understand this well.

Pains happen in the body; and they are known in that which is not the body. The knower is separate, and the place where pain happens is separate. Where pain happens there is no possibility of knowing. And where the knower is, there is no possibility of pain happening.

Someone cuts my leg—the cutting happens in the body. If the knower were not present, there would be no suffering. The knowing happens in me. The cutting of the body and the knowing are so close that they fuse; we do not create space between them. We become one.

When the body begins to be cut, it seems I am being cut. This sense—“I am being cut”—becomes suffering. All our sufferings are borrowed from the body. No matter how many pains occur in the body, if you don’t come to know of them, there is no suffering. And even if no pain occurs in the body—if you are made to believe there is pain—you will suffer. Consider the second point as well: even if there is no pain in the body, if the knower is convinced that pain is happening, suffering begins.

Under hypnosis, tell a subject, “Your foot is in the fire,” and he will start feeling pain. He will scream, cry. The sense arises that the foot is burning.

Say anything to the hypnotized person—he accepts it. The corresponding pain will begin. Nothing is happening in the body, but if the knower believes it, the happening starts.

You may not know this: of all the snakes on earth, only about three percent are venomous. The remaining ninety-seven percent are without venom. And yet people die from the bite of a nonvenomous snake.

How strange! If the snake has no poison, how does the person die? This is why the village “exorcist” of snakebite can succeed so often. In ninety-seven percent of cases, there is no venom—only the idea of venom is killing the person. So if the healer convinces him, “I have removed the poison,” the matter is finished.

Thus a mantra works easily. The snakebite “healer” succeeds. It is only a matter of instilling belief—since the snake too has instilled belief: “I am poisonous.” There was no poison—but belief was lethal, and belief can also save.

The reverse is also possible. A person bitten by a truly venomous snake may be saved by mantra. If belief in false poison can kill, belief can save from real poison too. If the hallucination—“I’ve been bitten, so I must die”—can become death, then the thought—“Yes, the snake bit me, but the mantra has freed me”—can deliver even from real poison.

In the West, psychologists have been experimenting, and are astonished. Thousands of kinds of medicines are in use—and all of them work. Homeopathy saves people; allopathy saves people; Ayurveda too; Unani physicians, naturopathy—people are saved. Mantras cure. Someone’s grace cures. Divine healing cures.

So the question arises: with so many methods, is there any scientific cause at work—or is it simply trust that heals?

You may not know: whenever a new drug comes out, it works better initially, then fades within a year or two. Why does it work more at first? Because “new” suggests: now we have the answer. For six months or a year some patients benefit. Later, fewer do.

A thoughtful doctor commented: whenever a new medicine appears, make the most of it quickly—soon it will stop working.

Why does the new work? Why does its magic fade? Much study has shown: when a drug is new, nothing stands against it; neither doctors nor patients have heard of its failures. Doctors are full of confidence: “It’s new, a wonder drug.” The media proclaim: a miracle cure has been found. The doctor, full of conviction, gives the medicine and says, “Don’t worry. Until now, patients with this disease couldn’t be saved. But now we have the drug; there is no need for this patient to die. You will live.”

That doctor’s confidence works like a mantra. He does not know he is acting as a priest in that moment. The glow in his eyes, the tone of assurance—“Relax”—the patient catches that enthusiasm. The patient is saved.

But within months, researchers investigate whether the drug truly has the claimed effect. Medical journals begin reporting that the drug doesn’t contain elements sufficient to justify such faith. Doubt begins. The doctor’s confidence declines. He still prescribes it but now says, “It may work… or may not.” That “perhaps” kills the mantra. The doctor’s conviction is gone; the patient’s too.

I read about a patient given a certain drug. The doctor was convinced it would work—and it did. The man remained fine for a year. Later, researchers announced that the drug has no relation to curing that disease. The doctor told his patient, “It’s miraculous you got well, because the research says this medicine isn’t effective.” That very day the patient relapsed.

And the story doesn’t end there. Six months later, further research by someone else suggested: no, the drug can work in some cases. The patient recovered again.

So doctors now harbor doubts: do medicines work—or does belief?

In all healing, a kind of magic operates—mantra works. If allopathy works better, it is not because allopathy has more “juice,” but because it has greater publicity, more colleges and universities, the backing of governments and authorities. It has credentials—it works.

Many clinicians have done experiments with placebos. Ten patients with the same ailment are given the drug; another ten receive only water. Astonishingly, if seven improve with the drug, seven improve with water—provided it is given as “medicine.”

The human mind can create illness where none exists; and where illness exists, it can withdraw from it. Understand the freedom of the mind.

You can stand apart from your body and see it, or you can become one with the body and view yourself through that oneness. We all are seeing ourselves through oneness. There lies the root of our sorrows.

Pains occur in the body and we assume we are one with the body. The child thinks, “I am the body.” The youth thinks, “I am the body.” The old man thinks, “I am the body.” So the old man suffers, because he feels his soul has aged. The body has aged; the soul does not age. But with identification to the old body, the one who once believed “I am this youthful body” is compelled now to believe “I am old.” And one who took the body’s life as his own—when death arrives he will have to believe “I am dying.”

From childhood we grow up identifying with the body. The body’s pleasures and pains we take as our own. The body’s hunger and thirst we claim as ours.

Krishna’s sutra says: the body is the field where events occur; and you are the Knower, the one who knows the events.

If this one sutra is realized in life, there is nothing more in religion to know. Then throw away all the scriptures—the Quran, the Bible, the Gita. A small sutra: whatever happens in the body happens in the body and not in me. I am the one who sees, who knows, the witness. This is the essence of all religion. But only by experiment will it be known.

One way is to keep “understanding” the Gita—people keep explaining it. They say: the field is separate, the Knower is separate. We listen and agree—“perhaps.” But until it becomes your experience, it has no meaning. It is not a theory; it is an experiential realization. Try it a little.

While eating, understand: food is being put into the body—you are not the eater; you are the one who is seeing. While walking on the road, understand: you are not walking; the body is walking—you are only the seer. When a thorn pricks your foot, sit down, wait two moments. Then remove it—no hurry. For those two moments, be aware: a thorn has entered, there is pain. It is happening in the body; I am knowing it.

Whenever the opportunity arises to separate field and Knower, don’t miss it—use it.

When the body is ill—do it. When the body is healthy—do it. When success comes—do it; when failure comes—do it. When someone garlands you—remember: the garland is placed on the body; I am only seeing. When someone throws a shoe, insults you—know: the shoe is thrown at the body; I am seeing. You need not go to the Himalayas. Exactly where you are—as you are—you can separate the knower from the known.

No temple or mosque is required—your life itself is the temple and the mosque. Keep doing small experiments there. Remember: brick by brick, palaces rise. Tiny experiments add up to supreme realizations. Drop by drop, an ocean is formed. As small experiences accumulate, one arrives at the ultimate vision. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

So do not think, “What can small experiences do?” They gather; their essence integrates. Gradually a center is born within you from which, effortlessly, you continually see: you are separate, the body is separate.

Many people chant this like a mantra: “I am separate; the body is separate.” Repetition achieves nothing. You must turn it into a field of experiment. Some sit every morning and say, “I am the soul, not the body.” Saying so brings no benefit. With daily repetition, it becomes mechanical, loses impact. You parrot it; the meaning is lost.

In my experience, religious people often kill the meaning of vital words by endless repetition. They repeat them mechanically—like parrots. It has no meaning.

Not as a mantra—but as experiment. Ten, twenty, twenty-five times a day—whenever possible—in any situation, instantly break identification and see from outside. You are bathing—feel the bathing is happening to the body; you are knowing. You are listening now—hearing is happening in your body; you are knowing hearing is happening.

Slowly chisel the knower apart from the known, as a sculptor frees a figure from stone. Separate experience from the experiencer. Certainly, one day a gap will arise, a distance from which things can be seen.

Arjuna, this body is called the field. And the one who knows it is called the Knower of the field by those who have known its essence.

Keep this in mind: in the Eastern lands—especially India—our emphasis is not on thought, but on knowing. Our thrust is not to propound theories, but to extract essence from living experience. These are different matters.

You can propound it as a theory: the soul is separate from the body; the knower is distinct from the known. You can turn it into a philosophy and build arguments for and against it, and huge scriptures around it.

But the Indian mind has no insistence on theory. Its insistence is: do you believe this, or do you know this? Is it your experience—or only your thought?

Thought can deceive; experience rarely does. In thinking there is danger: we often accept what we want to accept. Understand this. Thought becomes wish-fulfillment; it gratifies hidden desires.

Suppose a man fears death—everyone does. He wants to believe the soul is immortal. It is his inner longing that the soul not die. When he reads in the Gita that body and soul are different and the soul does not die, he instantly accepts it. He does not accept because the Gita is right, nor because it is his experience. He accepts because he fears death, and any support that promises immortality of the soul feels “right.”

But truths are not born from your desire. What you want has nothing to do with truth. As long as you keep wanting, you cannot know truth. You will have to know truth by dropping desire.

Thoughts are usually the intellectual form of your cravings. This is why, in this land, you see people who have long been enslaved by anyone who came along—and yet we claim to be believers in the soul. We say the soul is immortal, but we are so afraid of death that anyone could make us slaves. Threaten us with death and we submit to anything.

This is inconsistent. It shouldn’t be so. A nation of soul-believers should be impossible to enslave. One who knows the soul is deathless cannot be frightened; one who cannot be frightened cannot be enslaved.

Fear is the formula for slavery. Frighten a man and you can enslave him. If you cannot frighten him, how will you enslave him? And how can a soul-believer be frightened?

One who knows the soul never dies—how can you terrify him? You may cut his body, but he will laugh and say, “You labor in vain. The one you cut is not me, and I cannot be cut. Your cutting cannot touch me. You may destroy the body, but you cannot make me a slave.”

So why have soul-believers been so easily enslaved? Because our soul-belief is not born of experience. It is born of fear of death. Most people fear death—hence they believe in the immortality of the soul.

But one who fears death will never know the soul is immortal—because death happens to the body, and the one who fears death is identified with the body. So he may go on declaring “I am not the body, I am the soul,” but behind it is not experience—it is a theory; behind the theory lurks a craving.

Thought cannot be free of craving; it is desire translated into the intellect.

India’s emphasis is on experience, not thought. India says: forget whether, in fact, body and soul are distinct—just experiment. When an event occurs in the body, does it occur in the body or in you? Do you know it? Can you stand at a distance and watch? Or do you become one with it?

Anyone who practices a little awareness will begin to sense: I am separate. Then you need not repeat “I am separate from the body.” It will be your experience.

Krishna says: the one who knows this—the body as field, oneself as Knower—such a person is called “knower of essence.” And Arjuna, know me to be the Knower in all fields. To know, in truth, the distinction between field and Knower—the nature of prakriti with its modifications and of purusha—that is knowledge.

A second proposition. First: this realization doesn’t come through thought, only through experience. Second: the day it is realized that “I am not the body; I am consciousness,” it is also realized that that consciousness is one in all.

Imagine many pots placed in a river, each filled. Outside there is the river; inside each pot, river-water. The pot that believes “I am this clay vessel”—for it, the neighboring pot appears “other.” But the pot that realizes “I am the water inside”—instantly the neighbor disappears as “other.” The clay vessel becomes irrelevant; the water within is significant. The water is one in both.

Consciousness is one in all. Lamps are many; the flame within them is one—the light of the one sun.

The same sun burns within every lamp—whether the largest lamp or the smallest. What is in the sun glows even in a firefly at night. The firefly may be tiny; no matter. The sun may be vast; no matter. Size does not matter. The fact of light—the essence of luminosity—is one.

As one steps back a little from the body, stands within to see “I am not the body,” a second door opens: the knower within all is one.

Therefore Krishna says: that Knower within all—know that to be me. It is I who know from within everyone.

This is a new dimension. God is not merely the maker of the world; he is knowing the world from every side, from within all.

A pigeon sits and sees; a small child sees; now they say even a blossoming flower, in its subtle way, sees. They say trees have eyes too—they are seeing. Scientists now say: everything sees; everything experiences; in all there is an experiencer within.

That which knows from within all—Krishna says: that is me.

God is not far away, not at some distance; he is nearer than the nearest.

A Christian mystic, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, suggested a small meditation experiment—precious, if you wish to try it. Sit before someone you love deeply. Bathe, as if entering a temple. Close doors so there’s no disturbance. Then gaze steadily into each other’s eyes. Only into the eyes—forget everything else. Withdraw attention from everywhere and pour yourself through the eyes. It could be your little child, anyone toward whom you feel love.

Affinity helps—because with one you don’t love, you tend to withdraw; with one you love, you want to enter. Our love is a longing to enter one another.

So look into the eyes of one you love. Ask them also to gaze. Let the whole world fade—only those two eyes remain, and you journey in through them.

Even after two to four days—half an hour daily—you will be astonished. Your thoughts will fall away. Thoughts you could not stop despite every effort—now they stop. A strange thing happens: it feels as if you are slipping into the other person, descending through the eyes. The eyes become a path.

If you continue, within fifteen to thirty days a unique realization will come some day: you will not know whether the one within the other is you, or the one within you is you. The bodies will be forgotten; two consciousness-streams, two waters, will merge as the pots disappear.

Once it becomes clear that the one sitting within the other is a consciousness exactly like mine—that it is I sitting there—then you can peep through any door and find the same one hiding within.

You have seen that painting where Krishna is hidden in everything: in cows, trees, leaves, the gopis—this is not a poet’s fancy or a painter’s whim; it is the experience of the experiencers. Once you know yourself as apart from the body, you see that the same consciousness sits everywhere. The presence of this consciousness is the experience of God’s presence.

The moment you step back from the body—that is the first step. In the very next moment you step back from “yourself” as well—that is the second step. Identification with the body creates the ego. When you are not one with the body, the ego breaks.

Think of the ego as the bridge between you and the body; the sense of identification is the “I.” As soon as you are separate, the “I” falls. What remains is the Krishna-element. Call it the Ram-element, the Christ-element—whatever name you wish—or no name at all.

With the body dropped, you are gone; your “I-ness” is gone. In this experience of no-I, Krishna says: know me as the Knower in all fields.

“I peep through everyone’s eyes. Through everyone’s hands I touch. Through everyone’s feet I walk. I am the breath in all; I alone live within all and I alone depart. In birth I enter and in death I take leave.”

The sense of “person” is born from the union of body and consciousness. Identification alone gives birth to I-ness, to ego. Disidentify, and I-ness dissolves; ego disappears.

That is why Buddha went so far as to say: the moment it is known that I am not the body, it is also known that there is no soul.

A difficult statement—subtle, hard to grasp. Buddha says: when identification with the body dissolves, the “soul” too vanishes. But Buddha is stating, in negative terms, the same truth Krishna states affirmatively.

Krishna says: you are not; I am. Krishna says: your disappearance happens, and Krishna remains. Buddha says: I disappear—and says nothing about what remains. He says: speaking of what remains is futile; it must be experienced. We speak as far as therapy goes; about health we say nothing—taste it yourself. We give the diagnosis and the medicine; we do not give words for the flavor of health, because words are limited and bind; what happens is boundless.

So Buddha says: when identification with the body is gone, the “soul” is gone. What remains, Krishna calls God; Buddha calls no-self. “One thing is certain,” he says, “you do not remain. About what remains, better to be silent.”

“To know in essence the distinction between field and Knower”—between prakriti with its modifications and purusha…

Every moment within you a conjunction is happening. You are a confluence of two streams: prakriti—the seen—which science investigates, the matter that the senses and instruments can grasp and analyze; and the element within you that the senses cannot grasp, yet is—if your body is cut and probed, that element eludes; what remains in the hand is matter. But within you there is that which knows matter.

This process of knowing—“There is pain in my hand; I know it”—what is this knowing within me? However much you dissect the body, you cannot seize that knowing element. In the very process of cutting, it may vanish from view. Perhaps it must be felt by another method. The way of science is not its way.

Religion is the search for that. Science searches the known, the field; religion searches the knower, the Knower of the field.

I remember: some days before dying, Einstein said, “I tried to know everything—the farthest star, the power hidden in the atom. But in recent days I am overwhelmed by the mystery: Who was this within me trying to know? Who was splitting the atom? Who was searching out the distant star? Who was conducting this search?”

People often asked Einstein’s wife: “Do you understand your husband’s complex theory of relativity?” Naturally, they thought to ask her. She used to say, “I have no idea about the theory Dr. Einstein created—I don’t understand it at all. But I understand Dr. Einstein very well.”

Einstein once overheard her say this and reflected deeply. On the one hand was Einstein’s own search; on the other, his wife’s. She said, “I understand Dr. Einstein. What he discovered I do not know—his theories are beyond me—but I understand the one hidden within who searches.”

Einstein searches via science; the wife searches via love. Einstein breaks matter to investigate; the wife enters by invisible pathways without breaking anything. Einstein uses the senses and analysis; the wife goes by a supersensory route.

Whether it is love, or prayer, or meditation—all are searches for the invisible hidden within the visible. Until one sets out to find that, one may accumulate the whole visible world and yet remain poor. Build great palaces, enormous walls of security—and remain insecure. Possess everything, and at the end, in death, discover that a pauper dies. Because the true source of wealth is not in the field—but in the Knower hidden within it.

Knowing is man’s dignity. And the essence of knowing lies in this analysis, this discriminative science: to separate myself from that within which I presently am entangled.

As a flower’s fragrance floats off into the distance, so one must learn the art of floating away from the body. As the fragrance vanishes into the invisible and the visible flower remains, so one must extract the essence from the flower of self, and slowly save only the pure knowing.

Mahavira called it keval-gyan—pure and total knowing—where even the notion of a knower does not remain, only the purest event of knowing; where I simply know, and do nothing else.

Take one hour each day, out of twenty-four, for this inner search. Give the body twenty-three hours; save at least one for yourself.

One who has not even an hour for himself is living in vain. One who does not give even an hour to this inner search is not living at all. Because at the end, when the accounting comes due, all that you have earned on the bodily plane is taken by death; only what you have earned within—death cannot take. Only that remains with you.

Keep this in mind: when death comes to take everything, will you have anything worth preserving? If not, hurry. Dedicate at least an hour daily to the search for the Knower.

Do just this: sit for an hour. Do nothing else. A very small experiment: for one hour I will not identify. For one hour, no identification. Sit. An ant bites your foot—experience it as “I am aware an ant is biting.” Not “An ant is biting me.”

This doesn’t mean you let the ant keep biting and sit rigidly. Brush it away—but remain aware: “I know the body is brushing the ant away. I know: the ant bit.” Only I am knowing.

A pain starts in the leg from sitting—know: pain has arisen in the leg. Then stretch the leg. No need to sit rigid and suffer. Stretch—but know: the leg stretches because of discomfort; I know it.

For an hour, do only this: do not join yourself to any action or event. Within three months, you will begin to experience this sutra of the Gita, which you could read for thirty lifetimes and never experience.

For one hour be only the Knower. Whatever happens—even if your wife clatters pots—because when the husband meditates, the wife will bang pots; and when the wife meditates, the husband will turn up the radio, or rustle the newspaper; the children will start mischief.

When the pot crashes, simply know: a pot is falling; sound is happening; I am knowing. If a jolt passes within, know: a jolt has passed; the mind was stirred—I know it. Keep your link only with the Knower; attach to nothing else.

There is no greater meditation method. Then you need no other prayer, no other meditation. Just keep this in mind for one hour. In a few days the art will ripen. It is hard to say how an art ripens; only by doing will you understand.

It is like teaching a child to ride a bicycle. If the child asks, “How does one ride?”—though you have ridden all your life, you cannot explain. He asks for a simple trick: “Tell me an easy way so I can place my feet on the pedals, sit, and go.” You will say, “There is no simple trick I can describe. You will fall a few times. In the falling itself the trick emerges. It is a balance that cannot be told.”

A bicycle runs on two wheels—it is balance. The body constantly adjusts; if the bike tilts slightly this way, the body tilts the other. Balance is only possible with motion—too slow, you lose balance; too fast, you lose balance.

So there are two dimensions to balance: a certain range of speed, and a bodily equilibrium, not leaning too far left or right. You cannot really say how you do it—even though you ride. You don’t even notice—you acquire the art. You fall a few times; in between there are moments you don’t fall, you travel a short distance. An inner sense of balance awakens.

Once a person learns to cycle, he never forgets. Everything else can be forgotten—but not swimming and cycling. Other skills fade and need relearning, though faster the second time. But swimming and cycling—after fifty years, sit on the bike—it moves.

Why? Because swimming and cycling are the same kind of event: balance. And that balance is not intellectual—hence you cannot say how you do it. You can only do it: “I will ride and show you,” but even you do not quite know what you do. You are certainly doing something, but it is so integrated—your whole body and mind participate. And you did not learn it as a theory; you learned it by falling, riding, rising. It became your art.

This is the difference between science and art: science can be learned from books; art only by experience. Science can be written down and handed over; art cannot be transferred in writing.

This is why the guru has such a place in religion. He knows something he cannot say—he can make you do it. You too will fall and rise, and one day you will learn. In his presence you won’t be afraid; even if you fall, you won’t be scared. Trust in him sustains your hope: “If I fall today, I will ride tomorrow.” Under his shelter it is easier to learn the art.

Meditation is an art—the deepest art—and it comes only by doing.

Do this small experiment for an hour—come what may. It will be difficult, because again and again the mind will identify. The ant bites and instantly you feel, “I was bitten.” Without noticing, your hand will flick the ant away and you will think, “I flicked it away.”

But with a few days’ effort—like riding, you will fall and rise—many times identification will happen (that means: you fell). Sometimes it won’t (that means: you rode a few steps). When, for the first time, you ride even two steps—what joy! You are free; an art has come; a new experience! It is as if you float in air.

When someone swims for the first time—two strokes, and he floats; freed from the force of water; water cannot drown him—he becomes master. The joy of that victory over water—only a swimmer knows. Victory over the body happens when you learn to “swim” in meditation. It is the subtlest art—but only if you do it.

This sutra is priceless. It is not like ordinary methods where someone gives you a mantra to grind away at. It is plain, simple, clear—but it takes time.

By chanting mantras, things may begin to happen quickly—but those happenings have little value. Even the one who travels by mantra must, in the end, use this sutra and realize within: the one who is chanting is not me. That ongoing repetition of Om—I am seeing it, hearing it; it is not me.

This sutra must be used. Whatever your method, without this, sooner or later you will fall into self-hypnosis. This sutra is fundamental. At the beginning, middle, or end of all methods—somewhere—it is present.

So it is wiser to forget methods altogether, and work directly with this sutra. Take an hour, no matter how many obstacles arise…

There will be many. You will sweat within—not the body, the within. Every minute you will slip. You will escape one thing and identify with another. But continue. Attach to nothing. Hold only one remembrance: I am the Knower; I am the Knower; I am the Knower.

When I say this, I do not mean you should internally repeat, “I am the Knower, I am the Knower.” If you are repeating, you have gone astray—because the repeater is still the body-mind. Even that repetition is known by me. Keep finely cutting within: this is being repeated—“I am the Knower”—and I am knowing this. Learn to stand at only one point: I am pure knowing. Not words. Not inner repetition—but the knowing that I am knowing. Break all identifications. Then you will know the body is the field, and you—hidden within the body—are the Knower of the field.

And this Knower—Krishna says—is me. The one who knows this distinction is the knower indeed.

Therefore, what the field is—as it is, with its modifications and their causes; and what the Knower is, and the power by which it acts—hear all of this briefly from me.

Krishna says: Now I will tell you, in brief, how this body came to be, what this field is, its nature; and what the Knower within is, and its nature.

But you can hear this from Krishna—you cannot know it by hearing.

Engrave one thing forever and never forget: no one can give you knowing. The deeper this sinks, the better. No one can give you knowing. The path can be shown, but you must walk it. The destination is not reached by being told the path; not by knowing the map; only by walking. And no one can walk for you. Buddha and Krishna are full of compassion; Christ and Mohammed too. If they could walk for you, they would have. If knowing could be given, one Krishna would have sufficed to fill the world with knowing. But despite so many knowers, ignorance seems hardly reduced!

People come to me and ask: “There were Krishnas, Mahaviras, Buddhas—what’s the use? Man is the same. What’s the point?”

They are partly right. They think that once an Einstein appears, knowledge becomes available to all forever. One person discovered electricity—no one else needs to rediscover it. When you press the button at home, you need not be an expert in electricity. Just press—it works. No need for anyone else to know. Others can simply use it.

Scientific knowledge is transferable. It can be given, borrowed—because it concerns external things. It can be handed over.

When your father dies, his outer wealth becomes yours—house, books, safe. But what he knew in his innermost being does not become yours. There is no way to give it. Not even a father can give it to a son. It cannot be given—until you attain it yourself.

Knowing can be attained, not given. It is available—but you must take it. No one can give it to you.

So Krishna will indeed speak—but Arjuna must attain it himself. The danger is that Arjuna, hearing, may think, “All right, I too have known.”

This is the mischief of words. Knowing cannot be given—but words can. Words are easily borrowed and collected; and because of words, you may think you know. If you memorize the Gita, you will have the same words Krishna spoke; you can repeat them. But what you say will be mechanical; what Krishna said was from experience.

This is Arjuna’s danger—that Krishna’s words will please him—they will, because they satisfy many cravings and longings of the mind. Who does not want to be free of the body!

A young woman came from Italy. Her body was heavy, very fat, so that it had become ugly—flesh upon flesh, all fat. She told me something amusing. After practicing meditation here for three months, one day she said: “Today I felt great joy in meditation.” I asked, “What happened?” She said, “I experienced that I am not the body. I have suffered greatly because of this body—no one loves me. A young man once fell in love with me and told me, ‘I love only your soul, not your body.’”

Tell a woman, “I love only your soul, not your body”—what is she to do with that? He said he could not love her body; impossible. He loved her soul. But that brings no fulfillment.

She said, “So today I felt such joy, because I experienced I am not the body. I was freed of my guilt over my body.”

I asked her, “Did this happen because of meditation—or because you have always had the desire to somehow feel ‘I am not the body,’ so you could avoid the trouble of slimming, of bringing the body into shape?”

She replied, “Yes, that desire is in me. In fact, I came to meditate only to know I am the soul, not the body—so the pain I feel because of my body, and the repulsion everyone feels toward me because of it, the sting and hurt I feel—so I might be freed of that hurt.”

I told her, “First drop that concern and that desire; otherwise in meditation you will only imagine you are not the body. Imagination is easy. When theories feed our cravings, we imagine. Who is not unhappy with the body? It is hard to find someone satisfied with it. Someone is ugly; someone overweight; someone too thin; someone has a diseased body; someone is missing a limb; someone has lost eyesight, or hearing—everyone has something. The body is a house of a thousand ailments.

“No one is content with it. So anyone can harbor the wish: ‘Good, let me realize I am not the body.’ But that wish is dangerous. If it hides behind a theory, you will imagine you are not the body. No good will come of it; no solution. You will arrive nowhere; no freedom will be found.”

Experience—free of craving, free of imagination, and one’s own—not borrowed.

What knowers say is worth hearing, worth understanding, worth practicing. But not worth believing. Believe only when practice flowers into experience.

Hear what the knowers say—hear with your whole heart. Take it in with reverence. Absorb it completely. Engage in the search they recommend. Do what they say with courage. But do not believe until it becomes your own experience. Until then, know you are ignorant—do not cover your ignorance with theories. Know you do not know. That is what Krishna says. Because you love Krishna, you may assume what he says is right. Still, how can you say it is right until you know it?

This doesn’t mean be irreverent. No need for irreverence—have full reverence. But do not believe. Do you see the difference?

Belief has a danger: it makes one stop walking. “All right,” he says. Often I feel that people who believe quickly are those who do not want to walk; they adopt a cheap faith. They are actually saying, “Fine; we have no objection. It must be right.” And with that, they imply: there is no need to do anything—we already know it is right.

People can dodge by saying no, and they can dodge by saying yes.

When people come, I say, “Meditate.” They say, “You are absolutely right.” But when they say “absolutely right,” they mean there is nothing to be done; we already know. Another person says, “No, your words don’t appeal at all.” He too is saying: “Since it doesn’t appeal, how can I do it?”

It’s amusing how the mind devises tricks. One says, “It doesn’t appeal”—but the speed with which he says it shows he is afraid it might appeal—then he would have to act. He raises a wall: “It doesn’t appeal; so there’s no question of doing.” Another says, “It appeals one hundred percent”—which also means: “There is no need to do; I already know it is true.”

One can deceive oneself by being a theist or by being an atheist. The only way out of both deceits is practice—experience.

And those who walk this path do not return empty-handed. Those who go this way certainly reach the goal—because the path leads only within, and the destination is hidden within.

Now sit for five minutes—no one should get up midway. For five minutes, drown yourself in kirtan; listen, and then go. Let no one rise in between. And friends who are here—sit and join the kirtan.