Overpowering rajas and tamas, sattva prevails, O Bharata.
Rajas overpowers sattva and tamas; tamas likewise overpowers sattva and rajas।। 10।।
When, in all the gates of this body, radiance arises,
and knowledge dawns, then know that sattva has increased, indeed।। 11।।
Greed, activity, the undertaking of deeds,
restlessness and longing—these arise when rajas has grown, O bull among the Bharatas।। 12।।
Geeta Darshan #4
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
रजस्तमश्चाभिभूय सत्त्वं भवति भारत।
रजः सत्त्वं तमश्चैव तमः सत्त्वं रजस्तथा।। 10।।
सर्वद्वारेषु देहेऽस्मिन्प्रकाश उपजायते।
ज्ञानं यदा तदा विद्याद्विवृद्धं सत्त्वमित्युत।। 11।।
लोभः प्रवृत्तिरारम्भः कर्मणामशमः स्पृहा।
रजस्येतानि जायन्ते विवृद्धे भरतर्षभ।। 12।।
रजः सत्त्वं तमश्चैव तमः सत्त्वं रजस्तथा।। 10।।
सर्वद्वारेषु देहेऽस्मिन्प्रकाश उपजायते।
ज्ञानं यदा तदा विद्याद्विवृद्धं सत्त्वमित्युत।। 11।।
लोभः प्रवृत्तिरारम्भः कर्मणामशमः स्पृहा।
रजस्येतानि जायन्ते विवृद्धे भरतर्षभ।। 12।।
Transliteration:
rajastamaścābhibhūya sattvaṃ bhavati bhārata|
rajaḥ sattvaṃ tamaścaiva tamaḥ sattvaṃ rajastathā|| 10||
sarvadvāreṣu dehe'sminprakāśa upajāyate|
jñānaṃ yadā tadā vidyādvivṛddhaṃ sattvamityuta|| 11||
lobhaḥ pravṛttirārambhaḥ karmaṇāmaśamaḥ spṛhā|
rajasyetāni jāyante vivṛddhe bharatarṣabha|| 12||
rajastamaścābhibhūya sattvaṃ bhavati bhārata|
rajaḥ sattvaṃ tamaścaiva tamaḥ sattvaṃ rajastathā|| 10||
sarvadvāreṣu dehe'sminprakāśa upajāyate|
jñānaṃ yadā tadā vidyādvivṛddhaṃ sattvamityuta|| 11||
lobhaḥ pravṛttirārambhaḥ karmaṇāmaśamaḥ spṛhā|
rajasyetāni jāyante vivṛddhe bharatarṣabha|| 12||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
First question:
Osho, you said that Krishna wants Arjuna to disappear, and therefore in different chapters of the Gita he offers Arjuna different doors, different ways to dissolve. And you also said that Krishna knows Arjuna’s future. So please explain: if Krishna already knows what Arjuna’s future is, what his swadharma is, then why does he instruct him in so many diverse paths? Why does he explain paths that are not aligned with Arjuna’s swadharma?
Osho, you said that Krishna wants Arjuna to disappear, and therefore in different chapters of the Gita he offers Arjuna different doors, different ways to dissolve. And you also said that Krishna knows Arjuna’s future. So please explain: if Krishna already knows what Arjuna’s future is, what his swadharma is, then why does he instruct him in so many diverse paths? Why does he explain paths that are not aligned with Arjuna’s swadharma?
Certainly Krishna knows Arjuna’s future—but not as the future of a person, not of the man called Arjuna. The future of the personality cannot be known. But the future of the consciousness hidden within Arjuna can be known.
In that sense, a being like Krishna knows everyone’s future—yours too. Because the seed hidden within will ultimately flower as liberation. That is the future. It is everyone’s future.
A river flows—whether it is the Ganga, the Yamuna, the Godavari, or the Narmada. The future is known: they will all reach the ocean. Every river will arrive at the sea. But each will take a different course, cut through different mountains, carve a way through different rocks. The routes differ, the end is one.
The future of man is known. Just as the seed’s future is to become a tree, so the human future is to finally attain the supreme state. This is true of Arjuna as well. But Arjuna’s personality is stuffed with ignorance, riddled with doubts, disbeliefs, questions, problems—his mind is sick. No one can know the future of that sick mind. Its journey can take many turns. That is why Krishna speaks of many paths.
First, understand this: even one person can travel in many ways. There are many possibilities. If there were only one fixed path for each person, what need was there for Krishna to speak of so many? But a single person carries many potentialities. All their doors must be left open so that Arjuna can choose. And for choice to be true, every path must be made clear; otherwise there will be confusion. When each path is shown in its fullness, Arjuna’s own awareness will begin to gravitate toward the path that fits his nature.
The choices before you must be complete. Even if one path is not shown to you, you will still choose something—and it may be that the path not placed before you was the closest to your being.
Secondly, Krishna is not choosing a path for Arjuna. He is only showing the paths. The choice Arjuna must make himself.
Keep this in mind: the final choice is always yours. A master can point, can clarify; but the choosing is always yours.
Many people live in the delusion that a master can choose for them. No one can. You will have to choose. The master will clarify all the paths; among those lucid paths you must decide. And even if you decide, “Let the master choose for me,” that too is your decision. Ultimately, you are the final arbiter.
If, after understanding all the paths—including the path of surrendering your choice to the master—you decide, “The master will choose for me,” then it is you who has chosen the master; it is you who has chosen that he should choose. The ultimate decision-maker is always you. The soul’s final decision cannot be taken away.
Therefore the supreme master makes all paths clear. He keeps nothing hidden.
Buddha said again and again, “My fist is open. I have hidden nothing.” Many times his disciples wondered if he was really saying everything he had known, or holding something back. One day Ananda asked, “Have you said it all, or have you kept anything concealed?” Buddha replied, “My fist is open. I have hidden nothing.” But that does not mean that what I have shown you has begun to be seen by you. Your eyes are not fully open. Even if the fist be completely open, the viewer’s eyes must also be fully open.
Krishna’s fist is utterly open. He has placed all the paths before Arjuna, clarified all the alternatives; and he has brought Arjuna to this crossroads to choose. He has praised each path fully. He has analyzed each path in depth. He has shown no favoritism by declaring one path superior to all others. Had he done so, it would have meant he was selling Arjuna a path—trying, not overtly but covertly, to persuade him to pick a particular one.
So Krishna has revealed the dignity of every path, without placing any one above the rest. Arjuna is completely free to choose. That is the first reason.
And there is a second reason too. An old Arabic saying goes: before a man reaches the right door, he must knock on many wrong ones. Before one arrives at the right gate, one has to search among many wrong doors.
In truth, going wrong is a necessary part of coming right. Error is a part of the process of becoming correct.
This is a little paradoxical, because we wish to be handed what is right and clear. But you don’t understand—spiritual life is not an object to be placed in your hand. It is not a commodity; it is a growth, a development.
Remember: whenever anyone has to grow, they must pass through error, through confusion, through wandering. Wandering makes you mature. He who is afraid of making mistakes will never arrive at the right. Fear will keep him from taking a step; fear will paralyze him.
There is always the fear of going wrong. And if there were no risk of error in life, life would have no flavor; it would be dead. Only the dead do not err. The living will err—and the more alive a person is, the more mistakes he will make.
Only one thing to remember: a living person does not repeat the same mistake twice. He will make many mistakes, but never the same one again. The more new mistakes you can make, the more mature you become. Every mistake teaches. Every mistake reduces future mistakes. With each mistake you move closer to what is right.
But the lazy mind longs for a master to hand over something ready-made—so your trouble is saved. Saved? All possibility of growth is finished.
How will you grow? How will your seed sprout? How will you become a tree? There will be storms, winds, rains, burning suns—everything. You need the strength, the courage to stand in the midst of all that.
If someone can hold your hand and escort you to God, then you will be dead—and that God too will be dead to whom you are taken. No one can take you anywhere by holding your hand.
This is Arjuna’s longing too: “Why doesn’t Krishna just say it straight? Take the responsibility himself. Give me a yes-or-no answer.” We all want answers in yes or no. Many come to me and say, “Please tell us plainly in yes or no. Is there a God or not? Say yes or no.” As if God were a mathematical problem or a logical puzzle with a yes-or-no answer!
Only he will reach God who has passed through both no and yes—and gone beyond both. Who comes to that moment where neither yes nor no seems meaningful—that one arrives.
He who thinks, “Let me avoid no and just say yes,” will have a feeble faith. Faith that has not passed through the fire of no is rubbish; the dross has not burned away, the gold has not been refined.
And a no that stops at no without ever reaching yes has no life in it, because there is no life in no. Life comes with yes. Such atheism will remain intellectual; it will not spark a living movement, an inner revolution, a transformation.
He who passes through both yes and no and goes beyond them for the first time becomes religious. But that religiosity is vast.
Arjuna wants Krishna to give him a direct formula. He does not want to grow. No one wants to grow.
People come to me and say, “Do something so that the mind becomes quiet.” You have made it unquiet—over many lives. I have had no hand in that. I should make it quiet? That cannot be. And whoever promises to do so is deceiving you—and arranging for you to spend this life too in restlessness.
If someone else can quiet your mind, remember, that peace is not worth much—because someone else can disturb it again. You will not be the master of that peace which another has given you. It can be taken away. What is the worth of a peace that can be snatched? What is the worth of a spirituality that someone can give and someone can take away? Which can be donated, which can be stolen?
Only what grows within you cannot be taken.
Therefore Krishna does not answer in yes and no. He places all the alternatives before Arjuna. This intensifies Arjuna’s confusion; his questions were many, and Krishna has given even more answers than he asked for. He will be more unsettled. His restlessness will increase. He was already entangled, and so many things will entangle him more.
People come to me and say, “We were better off before we listened to you. Listening to you has tangled us more. You say so many things! Please tell us something clear and definite—and tell us exactly what to do.”
You do not see that you are asking for your own suicide. You are afraid of living. You want prefabricated formulas. No Krishna, no Buddha can cooperate with your suicidal tendency.
Let Arjuna become more restless—there is no harm. If you become truly restless, you will become eager to find the path of repose. Even if he gets more tangled, no harm. What is there to fear? From the effort to untangle this increased complexity, your inner growth will happen, your inner wisdom will awaken. From struggle is born inner insight.
So Krishna lays everything out and leaves the choice to Arjuna. He gives the formulas by which, if Arjuna chooses them, he will get lost—those that do not accord with his swadharma. He also gives those by which, if he chooses, he will be on the path. But Krishna speaks both, utterly without bias.
He is not only speaking; as he speaks, he is also watching—observing Arjuna, testing him: which way does he lean, and why?
For the master it is essential to know where the disciple could lean; what he might choose; whether he can tend toward the wrong, or whether he has a natural inclination toward the right.
If Krishna were only talking, that would be one thing. But throughout, Arjuna is before him like a body on a laboratory table—being dissected; his mind being taken apart. Krishna’s deep eyes are watching: what is happening to him? What impact do the words have? What expression comes to his face? What events happen in his inner aura? What colors spread over the halo around his face?
It is a profound diagnosis: Arjuna stands as if before an X-ray; every hair is being examined. Arjuna himself may not know this. He may think only his questions are being answered. No master merely answers your questions. Through the answers he tests you, probes you, breaks you open, recognizes you. He watches your leanings.
Someone came to me recently and said, “Whatever you say, I am ready to do.” He was saying this, but his whole being was denying it. As he said it, there was no joy on his face, no glimmer of delight. He was deceiving. There was no reason to trust his words. He was speaking formally, perhaps without meaning it, perhaps without thinking what it means to say, “Whatever you say, I will do.”
It is a tremendous statement—possible only to a resolute person.
And immediately after saying it he added, “Please show me a path, because I cannot make decisions. My resolve is weak. I decide in the morning and change by noon.”
He didn’t know what he was saying. And when he spoke of deciding in the morning and changing by noon, of lacking resolve and firmness—then his face was brighter, more at ease. Now he was closer to the truth. His earlier statement was as if in a trance; he was not conscious.
I said, “Repeat your first statement. Because if the second is true, how can you come and say you will do whatever I say? That is a very big decision. I might tell you to jump out the window.”
“No!” he said. “How could you say that? You would never say such a thing.”
Krishna is laying everything out before Arjuna, and watching the effects: when he is delighted, when he is pained, when he fills with gloom, when he inclines, when he stiffens. All this examination is going on.
Before Arjuna comes to a decision, Krishna will already know what it is. The needle of Arjuna’s mind is oscillating the whole time, moving toward a conclusion. Were the mind only conscious, Arjuna would know it first. But the mind is unconscious too. Arjuna will not grasp that; Krishna will.
As soon as Arjuna nears his decision, the needle of his mind will steady; his aura, his fragrance, his very presence will change. Before he says, “I have decided, my doubts have gone, my conclusion has come to me,” Krishna will already know.
Remember, what happens in your deep unconscious takes time even for you to notice—sometimes years.
Just today a young woman came to me. There is a guest in the house where she is staying. She finds him repulsive—no attraction, only aversion. Just to see him makes her uneasy. She does not want to speak to him. If he sits nearby, she tightens up. But last night, feelings of love for that man began to arise in her, and she was terrified.
She came to me in the morning crying, saying, “I am very frightened, because I cannot even look at that person. He is ugly, coarse, disgusting, grotesque. But last night feelings of loving him began to arise. I am frightened of my own mind: how could such a feeling arise?”
It did not arise suddenly. Nothing arises suddenly. Feelings gather in the unconscious. Like a seed sprouting under the earth, it takes time for the shoot to break the surface. News from the unconscious to the conscious takes time.
And perhaps the aversion she feels—“He is unattractive, he fills me with disgust”—is only a defense. A shield erected by the conscious to protect itself from the shoot of attraction rising within. We adopt negative attitudes precisely toward what we are trying to avoid.
In truth, we take on negative feelings only when attraction has arisen. Repulsion does not come first; attraction comes first. Hatred does not come first; love comes first. No one can make an enemy before a friend; you must first befriend, then only can enmity arise.
It often happens that on seeing someone we feel instant enmity—this means that at the unconscious level a feeling of friendship arose at first sight.
Negatives do not arise directly; they arise out of positives. That is why hatred and enmity are negative. The negative cannot come first; the positive is needed beforehand.
Can you imagine someone dying who was never born? Before death, birth is necessary—death is negative. Whose death would it be?
If love has not arisen, how can hatred arise? If attraction has not arisen, how can repulsion arise? If you see someone dead, know that he must have been born. Death is the far edge of birth. Repulsion is the far edge of attraction. Attraction arises in the unconscious; then to protect ourselves we draw a circle of repulsion.
Now that inner impact has reached the conscious, fear has arisen.
It can take you years to discover what is arising within you. But Krishna will not need years to see what is arising within Arjuna. To Krishna, Arjuna is transparent.
That is why the ignorant feel a certain fear in the presence of the wise. The fear is natural. You avoid going near the enlightened because all that you have hidden—even from yourself—begins to surface before their eyes. You cannot hide.
If someone can see you through and through, you will feel uneasy. If someone enters your eyes and grasps you within, you will be worried. You are not assured of your own face; you do not accept yourself without fear. Much of you is disowned, hidden away in your basements. You know it is dirty. If someone sees it, exposes it, recognizes it—you are in trouble. You have hidden your real face and put on masks.
Amidst all this dialogue Krishna is exposing Arjuna in many ways. He is catching his inner responses and sensitivities. He is watching the needle of his mind—how it swings, where it is headed. And before Arjuna comes to a decision…
And that decision will be revolutionary. When doubt drops and doubtlessness, shraddha, arises, a great moment of joy arrives in life. When all distrust falls and supreme trust dawns, it is a birth, a great birth—out of darkness into light. All wandering ends. The goal stands before the eyes. However far it may be, now it is only a matter of walking; there is no doubt about the destination.
When such a moment comes, the master knows it before the disciple does—because the disciple’s aura, his entire being, begins to change. Where there was restlessness, peace begins. Where there was anxiety, a breeze of ease arises around him. Where he was running, he now stands still. Where life felt meaningless, now it feels that the supreme treasure has been found—one that will never be exhausted. Where there was trembling with fear, a steadiness of fearlessness appears.
As if the storm has suddenly stilled and the flame of the lamp stands steady without a flicker—so the inner consciousness of the disciple becomes still. He himself may take time to recognize it, for several reasons. First, because it is a new experience. He has no prior reference to recognize it. If he had known it before, he would recognize at once what is happening.
This is why it has often happened that if a seeker comes near this moment while alone, he misses. Hence the necessity of the master. He cannot recognize what was happening. He may turn off the path even at the very threshold. One step further and he would be inside the temple, but he turns left. He did not know that the temple lay one step ahead.
If the master is near, this wandering can be prevented. He will create a situation so that the foot turns right, not left. He cannot move your feet, but he can present the alternatives.
So, across these eighteen chapters Krishna is gradually presenting many options. It is a subtle process of showing Arjuna the ways. Krishna knows how Arjuna is moving, where he is going. As Arjuna lifts a foot, Krishna opens a new door, reveals a new element, a new vista of life—slowly, gently, as one leads a small child along an unfamiliar path.
The difficulty increases because, with a small child, we could still hold his hand and lead him. On the inner path no compulsion is possible. One must work while preserving the other’s freedom completely.
Therefore the work of the master is supremely arduous. He must give discipline while preserving freedom. He must dissolve you without damaging your dignity. Your glory must remain untouched, yet your ego must be utterly destroyed. Your trash must burn away, but not a speck of your gold be lost.
Thus Krishna knows the future of Arjuna’s interiority. He also sees how, in this very moment, Arjuna wavers, in which directions his mind strays. He also sees the responses and doubts that arise in Arjuna to what he says. And he is weaving a formation.
There was one formation on the battlefield that Arjuna arranged. Krishna is creating a formation around Arjuna for an even greater war—to usher him into the supreme temple without pushing him, and without Arjuna feeling that any force has been used.
Remember: if you are forced into liberation, liberation will become hell. And if you go to hell by your own awareness and your own choice, even hell can become heaven—for freedom is the ultimate thing. With freedom, even hell can be bliss. With bondage, even heaven will be misery.
You must reach the divine by your own innermostness. The master can hint; he can create indirect arrangements; he can engender circumstances. But he cannot drag you there.
In that sense, a being like Krishna knows everyone’s future—yours too. Because the seed hidden within will ultimately flower as liberation. That is the future. It is everyone’s future.
A river flows—whether it is the Ganga, the Yamuna, the Godavari, or the Narmada. The future is known: they will all reach the ocean. Every river will arrive at the sea. But each will take a different course, cut through different mountains, carve a way through different rocks. The routes differ, the end is one.
The future of man is known. Just as the seed’s future is to become a tree, so the human future is to finally attain the supreme state. This is true of Arjuna as well. But Arjuna’s personality is stuffed with ignorance, riddled with doubts, disbeliefs, questions, problems—his mind is sick. No one can know the future of that sick mind. Its journey can take many turns. That is why Krishna speaks of many paths.
First, understand this: even one person can travel in many ways. There are many possibilities. If there were only one fixed path for each person, what need was there for Krishna to speak of so many? But a single person carries many potentialities. All their doors must be left open so that Arjuna can choose. And for choice to be true, every path must be made clear; otherwise there will be confusion. When each path is shown in its fullness, Arjuna’s own awareness will begin to gravitate toward the path that fits his nature.
The choices before you must be complete. Even if one path is not shown to you, you will still choose something—and it may be that the path not placed before you was the closest to your being.
Secondly, Krishna is not choosing a path for Arjuna. He is only showing the paths. The choice Arjuna must make himself.
Keep this in mind: the final choice is always yours. A master can point, can clarify; but the choosing is always yours.
Many people live in the delusion that a master can choose for them. No one can. You will have to choose. The master will clarify all the paths; among those lucid paths you must decide. And even if you decide, “Let the master choose for me,” that too is your decision. Ultimately, you are the final arbiter.
If, after understanding all the paths—including the path of surrendering your choice to the master—you decide, “The master will choose for me,” then it is you who has chosen the master; it is you who has chosen that he should choose. The ultimate decision-maker is always you. The soul’s final decision cannot be taken away.
Therefore the supreme master makes all paths clear. He keeps nothing hidden.
Buddha said again and again, “My fist is open. I have hidden nothing.” Many times his disciples wondered if he was really saying everything he had known, or holding something back. One day Ananda asked, “Have you said it all, or have you kept anything concealed?” Buddha replied, “My fist is open. I have hidden nothing.” But that does not mean that what I have shown you has begun to be seen by you. Your eyes are not fully open. Even if the fist be completely open, the viewer’s eyes must also be fully open.
Krishna’s fist is utterly open. He has placed all the paths before Arjuna, clarified all the alternatives; and he has brought Arjuna to this crossroads to choose. He has praised each path fully. He has analyzed each path in depth. He has shown no favoritism by declaring one path superior to all others. Had he done so, it would have meant he was selling Arjuna a path—trying, not overtly but covertly, to persuade him to pick a particular one.
So Krishna has revealed the dignity of every path, without placing any one above the rest. Arjuna is completely free to choose. That is the first reason.
And there is a second reason too. An old Arabic saying goes: before a man reaches the right door, he must knock on many wrong ones. Before one arrives at the right gate, one has to search among many wrong doors.
In truth, going wrong is a necessary part of coming right. Error is a part of the process of becoming correct.
This is a little paradoxical, because we wish to be handed what is right and clear. But you don’t understand—spiritual life is not an object to be placed in your hand. It is not a commodity; it is a growth, a development.
Remember: whenever anyone has to grow, they must pass through error, through confusion, through wandering. Wandering makes you mature. He who is afraid of making mistakes will never arrive at the right. Fear will keep him from taking a step; fear will paralyze him.
There is always the fear of going wrong. And if there were no risk of error in life, life would have no flavor; it would be dead. Only the dead do not err. The living will err—and the more alive a person is, the more mistakes he will make.
Only one thing to remember: a living person does not repeat the same mistake twice. He will make many mistakes, but never the same one again. The more new mistakes you can make, the more mature you become. Every mistake teaches. Every mistake reduces future mistakes. With each mistake you move closer to what is right.
But the lazy mind longs for a master to hand over something ready-made—so your trouble is saved. Saved? All possibility of growth is finished.
How will you grow? How will your seed sprout? How will you become a tree? There will be storms, winds, rains, burning suns—everything. You need the strength, the courage to stand in the midst of all that.
If someone can hold your hand and escort you to God, then you will be dead—and that God too will be dead to whom you are taken. No one can take you anywhere by holding your hand.
This is Arjuna’s longing too: “Why doesn’t Krishna just say it straight? Take the responsibility himself. Give me a yes-or-no answer.” We all want answers in yes or no. Many come to me and say, “Please tell us plainly in yes or no. Is there a God or not? Say yes or no.” As if God were a mathematical problem or a logical puzzle with a yes-or-no answer!
Only he will reach God who has passed through both no and yes—and gone beyond both. Who comes to that moment where neither yes nor no seems meaningful—that one arrives.
He who thinks, “Let me avoid no and just say yes,” will have a feeble faith. Faith that has not passed through the fire of no is rubbish; the dross has not burned away, the gold has not been refined.
And a no that stops at no without ever reaching yes has no life in it, because there is no life in no. Life comes with yes. Such atheism will remain intellectual; it will not spark a living movement, an inner revolution, a transformation.
He who passes through both yes and no and goes beyond them for the first time becomes religious. But that religiosity is vast.
Arjuna wants Krishna to give him a direct formula. He does not want to grow. No one wants to grow.
People come to me and say, “Do something so that the mind becomes quiet.” You have made it unquiet—over many lives. I have had no hand in that. I should make it quiet? That cannot be. And whoever promises to do so is deceiving you—and arranging for you to spend this life too in restlessness.
If someone else can quiet your mind, remember, that peace is not worth much—because someone else can disturb it again. You will not be the master of that peace which another has given you. It can be taken away. What is the worth of a peace that can be snatched? What is the worth of a spirituality that someone can give and someone can take away? Which can be donated, which can be stolen?
Only what grows within you cannot be taken.
Therefore Krishna does not answer in yes and no. He places all the alternatives before Arjuna. This intensifies Arjuna’s confusion; his questions were many, and Krishna has given even more answers than he asked for. He will be more unsettled. His restlessness will increase. He was already entangled, and so many things will entangle him more.
People come to me and say, “We were better off before we listened to you. Listening to you has tangled us more. You say so many things! Please tell us something clear and definite—and tell us exactly what to do.”
You do not see that you are asking for your own suicide. You are afraid of living. You want prefabricated formulas. No Krishna, no Buddha can cooperate with your suicidal tendency.
Let Arjuna become more restless—there is no harm. If you become truly restless, you will become eager to find the path of repose. Even if he gets more tangled, no harm. What is there to fear? From the effort to untangle this increased complexity, your inner growth will happen, your inner wisdom will awaken. From struggle is born inner insight.
So Krishna lays everything out and leaves the choice to Arjuna. He gives the formulas by which, if Arjuna chooses them, he will get lost—those that do not accord with his swadharma. He also gives those by which, if he chooses, he will be on the path. But Krishna speaks both, utterly without bias.
He is not only speaking; as he speaks, he is also watching—observing Arjuna, testing him: which way does he lean, and why?
For the master it is essential to know where the disciple could lean; what he might choose; whether he can tend toward the wrong, or whether he has a natural inclination toward the right.
If Krishna were only talking, that would be one thing. But throughout, Arjuna is before him like a body on a laboratory table—being dissected; his mind being taken apart. Krishna’s deep eyes are watching: what is happening to him? What impact do the words have? What expression comes to his face? What events happen in his inner aura? What colors spread over the halo around his face?
It is a profound diagnosis: Arjuna stands as if before an X-ray; every hair is being examined. Arjuna himself may not know this. He may think only his questions are being answered. No master merely answers your questions. Through the answers he tests you, probes you, breaks you open, recognizes you. He watches your leanings.
Someone came to me recently and said, “Whatever you say, I am ready to do.” He was saying this, but his whole being was denying it. As he said it, there was no joy on his face, no glimmer of delight. He was deceiving. There was no reason to trust his words. He was speaking formally, perhaps without meaning it, perhaps without thinking what it means to say, “Whatever you say, I will do.”
It is a tremendous statement—possible only to a resolute person.
And immediately after saying it he added, “Please show me a path, because I cannot make decisions. My resolve is weak. I decide in the morning and change by noon.”
He didn’t know what he was saying. And when he spoke of deciding in the morning and changing by noon, of lacking resolve and firmness—then his face was brighter, more at ease. Now he was closer to the truth. His earlier statement was as if in a trance; he was not conscious.
I said, “Repeat your first statement. Because if the second is true, how can you come and say you will do whatever I say? That is a very big decision. I might tell you to jump out the window.”
“No!” he said. “How could you say that? You would never say such a thing.”
Krishna is laying everything out before Arjuna, and watching the effects: when he is delighted, when he is pained, when he fills with gloom, when he inclines, when he stiffens. All this examination is going on.
Before Arjuna comes to a decision, Krishna will already know what it is. The needle of Arjuna’s mind is oscillating the whole time, moving toward a conclusion. Were the mind only conscious, Arjuna would know it first. But the mind is unconscious too. Arjuna will not grasp that; Krishna will.
As soon as Arjuna nears his decision, the needle of his mind will steady; his aura, his fragrance, his very presence will change. Before he says, “I have decided, my doubts have gone, my conclusion has come to me,” Krishna will already know.
Remember, what happens in your deep unconscious takes time even for you to notice—sometimes years.
Just today a young woman came to me. There is a guest in the house where she is staying. She finds him repulsive—no attraction, only aversion. Just to see him makes her uneasy. She does not want to speak to him. If he sits nearby, she tightens up. But last night, feelings of love for that man began to arise in her, and she was terrified.
She came to me in the morning crying, saying, “I am very frightened, because I cannot even look at that person. He is ugly, coarse, disgusting, grotesque. But last night feelings of loving him began to arise. I am frightened of my own mind: how could such a feeling arise?”
It did not arise suddenly. Nothing arises suddenly. Feelings gather in the unconscious. Like a seed sprouting under the earth, it takes time for the shoot to break the surface. News from the unconscious to the conscious takes time.
And perhaps the aversion she feels—“He is unattractive, he fills me with disgust”—is only a defense. A shield erected by the conscious to protect itself from the shoot of attraction rising within. We adopt negative attitudes precisely toward what we are trying to avoid.
In truth, we take on negative feelings only when attraction has arisen. Repulsion does not come first; attraction comes first. Hatred does not come first; love comes first. No one can make an enemy before a friend; you must first befriend, then only can enmity arise.
It often happens that on seeing someone we feel instant enmity—this means that at the unconscious level a feeling of friendship arose at first sight.
Negatives do not arise directly; they arise out of positives. That is why hatred and enmity are negative. The negative cannot come first; the positive is needed beforehand.
Can you imagine someone dying who was never born? Before death, birth is necessary—death is negative. Whose death would it be?
If love has not arisen, how can hatred arise? If attraction has not arisen, how can repulsion arise? If you see someone dead, know that he must have been born. Death is the far edge of birth. Repulsion is the far edge of attraction. Attraction arises in the unconscious; then to protect ourselves we draw a circle of repulsion.
Now that inner impact has reached the conscious, fear has arisen.
It can take you years to discover what is arising within you. But Krishna will not need years to see what is arising within Arjuna. To Krishna, Arjuna is transparent.
That is why the ignorant feel a certain fear in the presence of the wise. The fear is natural. You avoid going near the enlightened because all that you have hidden—even from yourself—begins to surface before their eyes. You cannot hide.
If someone can see you through and through, you will feel uneasy. If someone enters your eyes and grasps you within, you will be worried. You are not assured of your own face; you do not accept yourself without fear. Much of you is disowned, hidden away in your basements. You know it is dirty. If someone sees it, exposes it, recognizes it—you are in trouble. You have hidden your real face and put on masks.
Amidst all this dialogue Krishna is exposing Arjuna in many ways. He is catching his inner responses and sensitivities. He is watching the needle of his mind—how it swings, where it is headed. And before Arjuna comes to a decision…
And that decision will be revolutionary. When doubt drops and doubtlessness, shraddha, arises, a great moment of joy arrives in life. When all distrust falls and supreme trust dawns, it is a birth, a great birth—out of darkness into light. All wandering ends. The goal stands before the eyes. However far it may be, now it is only a matter of walking; there is no doubt about the destination.
When such a moment comes, the master knows it before the disciple does—because the disciple’s aura, his entire being, begins to change. Where there was restlessness, peace begins. Where there was anxiety, a breeze of ease arises around him. Where he was running, he now stands still. Where life felt meaningless, now it feels that the supreme treasure has been found—one that will never be exhausted. Where there was trembling with fear, a steadiness of fearlessness appears.
As if the storm has suddenly stilled and the flame of the lamp stands steady without a flicker—so the inner consciousness of the disciple becomes still. He himself may take time to recognize it, for several reasons. First, because it is a new experience. He has no prior reference to recognize it. If he had known it before, he would recognize at once what is happening.
This is why it has often happened that if a seeker comes near this moment while alone, he misses. Hence the necessity of the master. He cannot recognize what was happening. He may turn off the path even at the very threshold. One step further and he would be inside the temple, but he turns left. He did not know that the temple lay one step ahead.
If the master is near, this wandering can be prevented. He will create a situation so that the foot turns right, not left. He cannot move your feet, but he can present the alternatives.
So, across these eighteen chapters Krishna is gradually presenting many options. It is a subtle process of showing Arjuna the ways. Krishna knows how Arjuna is moving, where he is going. As Arjuna lifts a foot, Krishna opens a new door, reveals a new element, a new vista of life—slowly, gently, as one leads a small child along an unfamiliar path.
The difficulty increases because, with a small child, we could still hold his hand and lead him. On the inner path no compulsion is possible. One must work while preserving the other’s freedom completely.
Therefore the work of the master is supremely arduous. He must give discipline while preserving freedom. He must dissolve you without damaging your dignity. Your glory must remain untouched, yet your ego must be utterly destroyed. Your trash must burn away, but not a speck of your gold be lost.
Thus Krishna knows the future of Arjuna’s interiority. He also sees how, in this very moment, Arjuna wavers, in which directions his mind strays. He also sees the responses and doubts that arise in Arjuna to what he says. And he is weaving a formation.
There was one formation on the battlefield that Arjuna arranged. Krishna is creating a formation around Arjuna for an even greater war—to usher him into the supreme temple without pushing him, and without Arjuna feeling that any force has been used.
Remember: if you are forced into liberation, liberation will become hell. And if you go to hell by your own awareness and your own choice, even hell can become heaven—for freedom is the ultimate thing. With freedom, even hell can be bliss. With bondage, even heaven will be misery.
You must reach the divine by your own innermostness. The master can hint; he can create indirect arrangements; he can engender circumstances. But he cannot drag you there.
Second question:
Osho, I feel that heedlessness weighs heavily on me. What should I do to be light of it?
Osho, I feel that heedlessness weighs heavily on me. What should I do to be light of it?
Awareness of heedlessness!
By doing, heedlessness will not go; it can only hide. A lazy man is sitting. Ordinarily, what do we tell him so that his laziness breaks? We say, “Do something.”
Remember, laziness is tamas; you can put him to work—that is rajas. So to turn a tamasic person into a rajasic one is not very difficult. He is sitting inactive; he can be pushed into activity. But the real question is not becoming rajasic from tamasic. The real question, whether you are rajasic or tamasic, is to become sattvic. And there is only one way to become sattvic: be aware. Whatever the state, be aware of it.
A lazy man is sitting; we would tell him, “Become alert to your laziness. From within, know it, recognize it, watch it. Don’t hide laziness. Don’t cover it with devices and excuses. Don’t look for arguments. See laziness in its nakedness. And do nothing—just watch.”
If this capacity to see, this device of witnessing, is applied to laziness, the person will slide into sattva.
And we will say the same to the rajasic person, who is drowned in activity: “Become aware of your activity—wake up to the madness of your doing; be filled with alertness.” The rajasic too, through awareness, enters sattva. Awareness is the door to sattva.
And remember, the rajasic and the tamasic are only forms of each other. One is doing a headstand; another is standing on one leg. One is mad in activity, and one is sunk, fallen into inertia. Both are unconscious. The one who is lying in laziness is unconscious because an atmosphere of sleep surrounds him. And the one we see active is also unconscious, because activity too brings stupor. If you throw yourself intensely into an activity, you forget yourself.
It often happens that as long as a politician is in office, he looks perfectly healthy. The day he is removed, he begins to fall ill. Politicians, after losing office, do not live very long; they live as long as they are in office. And not only do they live, they appear quite healthy. Many times one is surprised—amid so much madness, they seem uniquely healthy.
But there is a reason. The reason is, they never get around to themselves. They are so drowned in work that work itself is an intoxication, a wine.
You too, as long as you are immersed in work, keep thinking, “When will I get a rest?” But the day you retire, you suddenly find that ten years have dropped from your life.
Psychologists say, one who would have lived to eighty, after retirement will die at seventy. The day retirement happens, ten years vanish from the span—because the intoxication is snatched away. And it was a lifelong intoxication—work, work, work from morning till evening. Suddenly one day you find there is nothing left to do. The intoxication breaks.
Work too is an intoxication. Many people stay engaged in work for the very reason that if they do not, they will be in great trouble. They cannot sit idle. Some are such that they can sit idle, and cannot go to work—because they feel that if they work, their sleep is disturbed. Sleep gives them a sense of pleasure—the pleasure of unconsciousness.
These are not two different kinds of people; they are one kind, facing opposite directions. One is doing a headstand; another is standing on one leg.
The tamasic one lies in his sleep because sleep is his drug. Whenever he goes to work, the drug breaks. The man who is absorbed in work cannot sleep at night either. Even at night his mind works. Sleep is difficult for him. His work has become his drug.
Therefore there is no point in converting the tamasic into the rajasic; no point in converting the rajasic into the tamasic. Both are to be transformed into the sattvic. And the formula to enter sattva is awareness. As we go into Krishna’s words now, it will become clear.
By doing, heedlessness will not go; it can only hide. A lazy man is sitting. Ordinarily, what do we tell him so that his laziness breaks? We say, “Do something.”
Remember, laziness is tamas; you can put him to work—that is rajas. So to turn a tamasic person into a rajasic one is not very difficult. He is sitting inactive; he can be pushed into activity. But the real question is not becoming rajasic from tamasic. The real question, whether you are rajasic or tamasic, is to become sattvic. And there is only one way to become sattvic: be aware. Whatever the state, be aware of it.
A lazy man is sitting; we would tell him, “Become alert to your laziness. From within, know it, recognize it, watch it. Don’t hide laziness. Don’t cover it with devices and excuses. Don’t look for arguments. See laziness in its nakedness. And do nothing—just watch.”
If this capacity to see, this device of witnessing, is applied to laziness, the person will slide into sattva.
And we will say the same to the rajasic person, who is drowned in activity: “Become aware of your activity—wake up to the madness of your doing; be filled with alertness.” The rajasic too, through awareness, enters sattva. Awareness is the door to sattva.
And remember, the rajasic and the tamasic are only forms of each other. One is doing a headstand; another is standing on one leg. One is mad in activity, and one is sunk, fallen into inertia. Both are unconscious. The one who is lying in laziness is unconscious because an atmosphere of sleep surrounds him. And the one we see active is also unconscious, because activity too brings stupor. If you throw yourself intensely into an activity, you forget yourself.
It often happens that as long as a politician is in office, he looks perfectly healthy. The day he is removed, he begins to fall ill. Politicians, after losing office, do not live very long; they live as long as they are in office. And not only do they live, they appear quite healthy. Many times one is surprised—amid so much madness, they seem uniquely healthy.
But there is a reason. The reason is, they never get around to themselves. They are so drowned in work that work itself is an intoxication, a wine.
You too, as long as you are immersed in work, keep thinking, “When will I get a rest?” But the day you retire, you suddenly find that ten years have dropped from your life.
Psychologists say, one who would have lived to eighty, after retirement will die at seventy. The day retirement happens, ten years vanish from the span—because the intoxication is snatched away. And it was a lifelong intoxication—work, work, work from morning till evening. Suddenly one day you find there is nothing left to do. The intoxication breaks.
Work too is an intoxication. Many people stay engaged in work for the very reason that if they do not, they will be in great trouble. They cannot sit idle. Some are such that they can sit idle, and cannot go to work—because they feel that if they work, their sleep is disturbed. Sleep gives them a sense of pleasure—the pleasure of unconsciousness.
These are not two different kinds of people; they are one kind, facing opposite directions. One is doing a headstand; another is standing on one leg.
The tamasic one lies in his sleep because sleep is his drug. Whenever he goes to work, the drug breaks. The man who is absorbed in work cannot sleep at night either. Even at night his mind works. Sleep is difficult for him. His work has become his drug.
Therefore there is no point in converting the tamasic into the rajasic; no point in converting the rajasic into the tamasic. Both are to be transformed into the sattvic. And the formula to enter sattva is awareness. As we go into Krishna’s words now, it will become clear.
Osho's Commentary
And, O Arjuna, by pressing down rajas and tamas, sattva arises—grows; and by pressing down rajas and sattva, tamas grows; likewise, by pressing down tamas and sattva, rajas grows.
When, in this body and in the inner organ and the senses, consciousness and the power of discernment arise, then know that sattva has increased.
So sattva has only one mark: consciousness. When you are filled with awareness, know that sattva has increased. If you want sattva, then the more consciously you can live, the better. Whatever you do—be it the smallest or the greatest—do it consciously; let there be consciousness in it; do it while awake, not asleep. As the measure of awareness increases, sattva will grow within you; you will become that much saintly, that much sattvic.
This is a very delightful point. Because Krishna is saying something that religious people generally do not understand. Religious people think, “Do good deeds, and you will become sattvic.” Krishna, however, gives no place to good deeds. Krishna says, “Be conscious!” Whether you do or don’t do, if you are aware, sattva arises.
So a man may be sitting idle and be full of awareness—he will be sattvic. And a man may be serving society, tending patients in a hospital, but if he is not aware, he will not be sattvic. You may even lay down your life in service; but without awareness you will not be sattvic. And you may not have served anyone in life, you may have been sitting in laziness; yet if awareness of laziness was lit within, you will be sattvic.
This does not mean that the sattvic man will not do good deeds. Only the sattvic can truly do good. But sattva does not come from doing good; good deeds flow from sattva.
The more awakened one is, the more loving he will be, the more compassionate he will be, the more ready to remove another’s suffering if he can—service will arise from his awareness; it will be the outcome of his awareness.
But a great misunderstanding has arisen: it appears that whoever serves has become sattvic. Gandhi strongly reinforced this error in this country: do good works—benefit society, the nation, the poor, the destitute; service is religion, he said.
The words are beautiful. And for those without deeper discrimination, they seem perfectly right. But they are exactly inverted. Religion is service; but service is not religion. Service will arise from the religious person; but to cultivate service in itself and think one becomes religious—there is no need to fall into this illusion. The result is before us, yet the nation does not awaken.
As many servants as Gandhi produced, all proved to be exploiters. Those he had trained to give up everything, to renounce, became power-holders and grabbed everything. The talk of renouncing vanished.
The moment power shifted in the country, the servant suddenly became the ruler. Perhaps service had been compulsion. Now no one is ready to be a servant. Or if someone still serves, it is as a means—because the road to rulership passes through being a servant.
If you want to press someone’s neck, start by pressing his feet. Gradually he becomes assured: the man only presses feet—no danger. As soon as he is assured, the man advances. By the time he reaches the neck, you are asleep—then there is no hindrance to pressing. If someone started with your neck, you would be startled; you would say, “What kind of service is this?”
If you want to be a ruler, starting with foot-massage is easy. Service, too, becomes a device to reach power. It happened in this country. It will happen everywhere. But the error was not in the servants; it was in the root formula taught to them.
Service is not religion, though religion is service.
So, the more a person becomes awakened within, whatever flows from his life will be auspicious. It is not necessary that he must serve in the visible sense. Ramana, as far as we know, did not serve anyone. No one can say he pressed someone’s feet or massaged a leper. Ramana sat utterly silent. In the visible sense he did no service. In the invisible, he did. But only those can see it who know how to see the invisible.
If we count “servers,” Gandhi or Vinoba may be counted. Ramana would not be counted, even by mistake. No visible service is seen. But whoever attains religion, welfare flows from him.
Some engage in gross, visible welfare; some in subtle welfare. Their very presence becomes a vast source of benediction. Those who come near, as far as their winds carry the news of their being, the fragrance of their existence, countless lives are transformed.
Certainly they do not go about removing someone’s bodily illness. But there are diseases deeper than the body. And even if the body is made perfectly healthy, those diseases do not vanish. Arrangements for removing those diseases happen indirectly through their presence. But that is a subtle art; not all can be skilled in it.
There was Buddha’s disciple, Mahakashyapa. Buddha sent all his disciples: “Go—bahujan hitaya, bahujan sukhaya—benefit and awaken people.” But he never sent Mahakashyapa. He sent Sariputta, sent Maudgalyayana, sent hundreds: “Go—awaken people; give them knowledge, meditation; give them the sutra of compassion; make them alert.” But he never sent Mahakashyapa.
Ananda once asked Buddha, “You sent everyone, but you have never told Mahakashyapa to go somewhere and do something.” Buddha said, “Mahakashyapa’s being is his doing. He need not be sent anywhere. Wherever he is, his very being is doing the work. Even if he sits under a tree, the work goes on. Those who pass by that path carry his particles with them.
“That Mahakashyapa, if we understand rightly, is infectious. The Buddhahood he has attained is contagious; it spreads through his presence. He need not plunge into active, direct work.”
Deep consciousnesses work silently too. It will depend on the kind of person. If an introvert attains knowledge, attains sattva, he will become quiet, silent, still. Work will happen through his presence; his effects will be indirect, but very deep and far-reaching.
If an extrovert attains sattva, his effects will be expansive, gross, and many will receive service from him; but they will not be very far-reaching. They will be broad, but not deep. Patients will be healed, someone will be led to donate land, someone money, somewhere a temple will be built, somewhere a rest-house opened, a water-stand put up in summer; but his work will be on the surface. It will be beneficial, but the benefit will be gross.
Ramana neither installed water-stands, nor led land-donation, nor built temples. Yet his impact is far-reaching. For centuries to come, those who succeed in tuning their minds to him will be influenced, stirred, transformed by him. But that is an event of the invisible; not everyone can see it.
When sattva is born, auspicious conduct arises on its own.
O Arjuna, by pressing down rajas and tamas, sattva is born.
One must understand this process—how these gunas operate. By pressing down rajas and tamas, sattva arises. All three gunas are present within everyone. No guna is to be imported from outside. All three are within. And the energy that powers the three is also within—the energy is one; the gunas are three.
Imagine your house has a fixed amount of water, and three holes through which that water can flow out. You can send all the water through one hole—then the stream will be strong. You can let it flow through all three—then the streams will be feeble. Or you can send more through one, less through the second, and still less through the third.
The current of your life-energy is with you. And this three-guna mechanism is with you. When you live without any discipline or practice, circumstances alone determine through which guna your energy will flow—circumstances, not you.
And remember, a person changes moment to moment. In the morning he may be tamasic; at noon he may turn rajasic; by evening he may appear sattvic. But circumstances are the determinant.
Suppose you wake in the morning and find the mind full of laziness—no desire to rise—want to lie in bed all day. And just then you hear the house is on fire. Tamas will depart instantly. At once you will become rajasic. The energy that was flowing through the door of tamas is withdrawn; the whole of it begins to flow through the door of rajas—because the house is on fire; it needs to be put out.
At that time you cannot say, “I am lazy. I don’t feel like getting up.” You will forget that sleep is an element in life, that there is any taste in lying in bed. You will leap up as you never have. But this is happening due to circumstances.
You come out and discover it was a rumor; someone just shouted “Fire!” There is no fire. You return to bed. Rajas slips back into tamas. The energy awakened for activity now settles into rest again.
Outer circumstances are driving you twenty-four hours. This is why, if you have people around you who believe in you… Suppose you are a thief, and you have eight or ten people who believe you are a saint; their belief can make your stream flow through sattva—because twelve people are inflating your ego. They say you are a great saint. Even if you want to steal, your ego prevents you: “Rarely have twelve people believed me a saint. For a few coins, it is not worth losing sainthood.”
It happened. I read the life of a Zen mendicant. He was a thief before he became a monk. He ran after stealing from a mansion. The police were after him. Seeing no way out, no path, he entered a Buddha temple. It was around four in the morning. A monk was asleep; his robe was hanging. He put on the robe and sat in lotus before the image, chanting, “Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya.”
The policemen chased him to the temple. They were on his heels. But there sat a monk, and the sacred mantra was resounding. There was no thief. The policemen bowed at his feet, saluted him, and asked, “Reverend sir, has a thief come here?”
When they bowed at his feet, he was astonished—and a revolution happened. He thought, “I am a fake monk! And yet the fake monk has so much power that those who were to kill me fell at my feet! If false sainthood has such power, how much will true sainthood have!”
He told the policemen, “A thief came, but now you will not find him. The thief is dead.”
They said, “We don’t understand! Don’t speak in mysteries—we are simple men. Where is the thief? How did he die?”
The monk said, “I was that thief; but now I am dead. You will not find that thief anywhere. He is no more. By bowing at my feet, you killed him. You could not have killed him with a bullet—but you have killed him. And if false sainthood holds such meaning, I will now seek the true.”
He became a great Zen master. He would often tell this story: “I had not come to be a saint—circumstance brought the rise of sattva. ‘Namo Buddhaya!’ The empty temple at dawn; the mantra echoing in the walls; incense rising by the image; the fragrant air; the policemen coming and bowing at my feet—my entire energy flowed through sattva. For a moment I had the taste of what saintliness is—the joy, the fragrance, the flower of it.”
You keep changing all the time. With a good man, you become good; with a bad man, you become bad. Fall among the active, and you become active; among the lazy, and sleep overtakes you.
You may not have noticed: if here a few people near you start yawning, it won’t be long before you begin to yawn. One man yawns, and the neighbor begins to itch; a yawn starts rising in his throat—sleep! The lazy fellow sitting beside you infects you with sleep.
There is an incident in Mulla Nasruddin’s life. He was passing through a market—shops of greens, vegetables, fruits. On one shop he saw exquisitely sweet mangoes. He had no money, but his mind was seized. He began to think of a plan. He sat across the street, thinking.
Just then the shopkeeper brought out his pet fox and said to it, “Sit here and mind the shop. If anyone suspicious comes near, give a cry. I’m going inside to eat.”
Nasruddin thought, “This is hard. Deceiving a man is easy; deceiving a fox is harder. If I go near, it will cry out.” So what did he do? From where he sat, he began to slide closer slowly. He closed his eyes and started nodding as if dozing. The fox saw a man sleeping; its eyes too began to droop. Nasruddin kept peeking; when the fox fell fast asleep, he took a mango, ate it, and hid. He thought, “Let’s see what the owner does now!”
The owner came, woke the fox, and said, “Something is wrong. The mangoes seem short. What’s the trouble?” The story says the fox replied, “No one came near. Only a man was there, sleeping.” The owner said, “I told you: any kind of activity around—if anything suspicious, cry out. Sleeping is also an activity! You should have been alert.”
If someone starts sleeping near you, a current begins within you.
I have this experience here as I speak. If one person starts coughing—it may be a real cough—others become contagious. Hearing the cough, they remember they too know how to cough! They can cough; they also have a throat. Then it becomes difficult to refrain. And it isn’t happening consciously—it’s completely unconscious.
Watch: if ten soldiers are drilling on the street, walk behind them a bit—you won’t know when you begin to left-right. Your feet start matching theirs. Then you realize, “What am I doing!”
The mind imitates. Circumstances provide the mind the convenience to imitate.
Even now, you are not in one guna for twenty-four hours. That’s why temples and mosques are useful—because we’ve tried there to create an air of sattva. Even one who has been tamasic or rajasic all day, if he sits in a temple for an hour, a gentle breeze of sattva can arise in him.
That is the meaning of satsang: where for a little while the air of sattva is created and your energy begins to flow through sattva. Whatever you’ve been doing all day, if you get this taste, perhaps it will gradually spread over your twenty-four hours. If you begin to find joy in it and other things taste flat, perhaps you will also find a way to change your life.
But as long as these events happen by circumstance, they have no great value. The great value is when they happen by your resolve. Then you are the master. Whatever the crowd is doing, you can remain in yourself. The whole crowd may fall asleep, but if you choose to be awake, you can be. The whole crowd may be rioting, killing, violent; still you can save yourself from the crowd’s influence.
And the one who saves himself from the influence of the crowd—that person is the master. In him, the soul is born. Before that there is no soul; before that we all move under influence.
From all sides we are being influenced. And we don’t even notice how we are caught by the crowd and carried off—a great current in which we float like straws.
O Arjuna, by pressing down rajas and tamas, sattva is born.
Therefore, if you want to give birth to sattva within, then the tendencies of rajas and tamas—of laziness and of futile hyperactivity…
Rest is not bad; laziness is bad. What is the difference? Rest means what is necessary so the body becomes fresh, the mind becomes cheerful. Rest means that which prepares you for work. Understand this definition well.
Rest means that which prepares you for work. The very purpose of rest is that now we are again fit to work. Labor had broken and tired us; nerves were frayed; the cells damaged—they rejuvenated. Rest gave us new life; now we are fit to work again.
If after rest you are not fit to work, that is laziness. It means rest has prepared you only for more rest. When rest leads to more rest—then there is danger.
Exactly the same applies to work. Work is right only if it makes you fit for rest. If there is a kind of work that never lets you enter rest, that is derangement. It is no longer work. After true work, a man will sleep. He will lay his head on the bed and drop into sleep. After true work.
A farmer works in the fields all day, comes home at dusk, eats, lays his head on the bed, and sleeps. That is work.
A shopkeeper has also worked all day. But when he lays his head on the bed, rest does not come; sleep does not come; the mind keeps up its accounts—how many rupees were earned, how many lost, what happened, what did not happen—it goes on. This means there is some mistake in the shopkeeper’s work. It is not just work; perhaps it is the derangement of greed.
The farmer’s work has no such mistake. It is perhaps simply for food; not for greed, for need. That farmer is not caught in the ninety-nine loop. He is simply working. Tomorrow’s bread is arranged—enough. The shopkeeper is not concerned so much about tomorrow’s bread; he arranged that long ago. He is building some palace in greed.
You will remember the story of the “ninety-nine.” Understand it well.
An emperor could not sleep at night. His barber, who massaged him and shaved him, sometimes would fall asleep even while shaving; sometimes while pressing the emperor’s legs at night. He had come to put the emperor to sleep; but the emperor remained awake and the barber, pressing, dozed off.
The emperor said, “You must have some art! Strange man—you came to put me to sleep and you sleep yourself!” The barber said, “I am uneducated; I have no art.”
The emperor asked his prime minister, “What could be the secret?” The minister was wise. “There is a secret,” he said. “We will see. I’ll answer you tomorrow.”
That night he dropped at the barber’s house a bag filled with ninety-nine rupees. The barber could not sleep all night—because one rupee was missing! He thought, “Tomorrow I must do anything to add one more; then it will be a hundred! Amazing. I never imagined I would have a hundred. I used to earn one a day, eat it, and sleep at night.”
Next morning his eyes were bloodshot from a sleepless night. He pressed the emperor’s legs and the emperor felt a difference—no vigor. Without rest, no one is ready for work. “What’s the matter?” asked the emperor. The barber said, “I don’t understand, but I couldn’t sleep last night.”
The emperor said, “Does the minister have a hand in this? Did he say anything to you?” “No one said anything,” replied the barber. “But since you ask—last night I found at home a bag with ninety-nine rupees. I am in trouble because of it. I could not sleep.” The emperor said, “I understand. The minister is clever. He has put you in the ninety-nine loop. That’s the loop I’m in. Now it’s clear.”
That shopkeeper—or anyone caught in any loop of greed or desire—is not really working. His work is on the surface; inside something else is going on. That something else is his madness. That madness will not allow rest. Without rest, right work cannot arise. Then a vicious circle begins—both go wrong.
The arising of sattva means keeping an eye on rajas and tamas. Use tamas only so much that it gives rest, not laziness. Use rajas only so much that life’s needs are fulfilled, not greed. Then the process of sattva will begin within you.
This is the meaning of “by pressing down rajas and tamas, sattva arises—increases. And by pressing down rajas and sattva, tamas increases. Likewise, by pressing down tamas and sattva, rajas increases.”
Within you, you can press down two; the third is set free. Whichever you want to set free, press down the other two.
We all press down sattva. We suppress the good, the auspicious. As far as possible, we avoid it. If there is an opportunity to do something auspicious, to be quiet, to descend into sattva, we miss it.
If someone says, “Come, sit silently for an hour,” it seems pointless. We say, “Do something. Let’s at least play cards. What will sitting do? Let’s do something.”
Zen masters in Japan teach sitting. They say to the monk, “Learn to sit—that’s all!” But two points must be kept in mind while sitting. The Zen master walks with a stick. Two things to remember: tamas must be suppressed and rajas must be suppressed—both together. He walks with the stick and says, “Sit, but don’t fall asleep.” You cannot deceive by sleeping—your head will begin to nod. As soon as it nods, the stick will land on your head. The master strikes at once. And if the head nods once, eight blows are permitted. He will strike your head eight times mercilessly—so tamas receives a jolt within!
He will neither let you sleep, nor let you do anything. If you start fidgeting, again the stick will fall—because fidgeting means rajas has begun. If you start scratching your leg, the stick will fall. He won’t let you do anything, and he won’t let you sleep. Between the two lies the art of sitting. The one who stops between these two enters the Zen state—the state of meditation.
Six, eight, ten, even twelve hours—gradually the seeker has to just sit.
Think a little: for six hours you are only sitting. You can neither do anything nor sleep. What will happen?
The first tendency will be: do something. From that urge much is born. You will feel an itch in the leg—“What can I do? Legs do itch!” Or “An ant is crawling.” Such things begin to arise—and they are all untrue.
If you are ready to sit, even if an ant crawls, it will make no difference. And if you are not ready, you will imagine the ant. When you look, there will be no ant! If you restrain yourself a little from doing, drowsiness starts to catch you.
Our energy flows in two halves—either tamas or rajas. If you avoid rajas, tamas comes. If you avoid tamas, rajas comes. And if you avoid both, then, from the third door, for the first time the spring bursts forth.
The entire Zen device is contained in this one sutra of Krishna. What the Zen masters are doing is the application of this sutra. Sit; let neither torpor come, nor activity seize you. Non-doing, yet undrowsy!
Where will your consciousness go? It has to go somewhere; consciousness is movement, energy. When it can be neither sleep nor activity, then consciousness becomes meditation, becomes awareness.
Therefore: When, in this body and in the inner organ and the senses, consciousness and the power of discernment arise, then know that sattva has increased.
And, O Arjuna, when rajas increases, greed and worldly striving, initiation of all actions with self-interest, and unrest—the mind’s restlessness, craving for sense-pleasures—all these arise.
These are the marks of rajas.
The mark of sattva is awareness, consciousness, wakefulness. The marks of rajas are greed, worldly striving—“Let me get something in the world,” the tendency to enter any act for profit to me, restlessness, the mind’s chanchalata, craving for pleasures. All these arise.
If you want to be free of rajas, you must be free of these. And freedom has only one meaning: do not cooperate with them. When greed arises, keep watching it. Do not cooperate. Do not go along with it. But we do go along.
I have heard that one night Nasruddin suddenly awoke at midnight and said to his wife, “Quick—bring my glasses.” She knew him well; there was no point in questioning. She handed him the glasses. He put them on, closed his eyes, and lay down again.
After a little while he got up and said, “You were late. Everything is spoiled. I was seeing a dream in which an angel was giving me money—crisp hundred-rupee notes. I began to suspect whether they were genuine or fake, so I asked you for the glasses. And there was another hassle—he was giving nine notes and I was insisting on ten. In that quarrel my sleep broke. Then, with eyes closed and glasses on, I said many times, ‘All right—give me nine!’ But there was no one. The dream was lost. You ruined everything by delaying with the glasses.”
Even in the dream, if nine are coming, the mind wants ten. It is the same mind that is awake which sleeps in the dream. And it is not that if the angel had given ten, the mind would stop—mind would say, “Since they are coming, ask for a few more!”
Mind is a beggar; greed is its nature. If you keep cooperating with it, rajas will grow. The more greed grows, the more you will have to enter activity. To fulfill greed, you must run about. As greed grows, unrest will grow: “Will I get it? Won’t I get it? How will I get it?” All these worries will seize the mind. “How to get it? What trick to use? Lie? Cheat? Steal? What to do, what not to do?” All this arrangement will be needed. Unrest will grow. The mind will be driven hard. Restlessness will grow. Rajas will give birth to all these tendencies within. And these tendencies will make all your energy manifest through the door of rajas.
The final stage of rajas is derangement. Those who sit in madhouses—maniacs—are the embodied images of rajas. They drove the mind so hard that the reins broke. Now even if they want to stop, there is no means to stop. It kept increasing. The horses bolted; the reins snapped; where they take you, off the road—there is no reckoning.
To go mad means you have lost all capacity to control. The mind became so full of greed that it broke all control.
If rajas grows to the full, the final fruit is derangement. If tamas grows to the full, the final fruit is death. If sattva grows to the full, the final fruit is samadhi.
Then seek what you want. If you want death, cultivate laziness. Torpor is only the preliminary stage of death. Lie there like a heap of earth—you will soon be a heap of earth.
If you want derangement, increase greed. Accept no limits; run in boundless greed. You will soon be in an asylum.
And if you press these two down—press down means withdraw cooperation—sattva will arise within. Sattva is great bliss. Sattva leads to the auspicious. Sattva gradually leads into peace. Sattva gradually leads into meditation.
And when you begin to rise beyond even sattva… Sattva brings you to the place from which going beyond is easy. When all impurities are dropping and only the pure impurity of sattva remains, it is not difficult to drop it.
It is almost like a lamp. First the flame burns the oil. When the oil is finished, it burns the wick. When the wick is also burnt, it burns itself into emptiness.
Sattva is like that fire. First it burns rajas and tamas. When they are burnt, it burns itself. And when sattva too is burnt to ashes, what remains is your nature. Krishna calls that the state beyond the gunas—gunatita.
That’s all for today.