Geeta Darshan #5

First, it is essential to understand that no comparison is possible between two enlightened ones. All comparisons are false. Every great being is unique; there is no second like him.

In truth, even an ordinary person is unique. There is no other like you. The great one within you appears when you bring your own nature, your own destiny, to its fullness.

You too are incomparable. There is no other person on earth exactly like you—neither today, nor ever before, nor ever after. Search the whole earth and you won’t find two identical leaves on a tree; not even two identical pebbles. And when your polish deepens and the supreme flowering of your life manifests, then you become like the summit of a Mount Everest. Even now you are unmatched; then you will be utterly unmatched. Now, perhaps, some accord with others is still possible; then there will be none.

Right now the crowd influences you, so you imitate the crowd. You copy. You try to become like your neighbor. Because to live among the crowd, if one is utterly unique, the crowd will not allow it—the crowd destroys the unique. It approves only those who are like itself, in dress, conduct, and behavior. The crowd erases individuality; it levels everyone to one plane.

Therefore a lot in you will resemble others. But as your intrinsic nature is polished, you will be freed of the crowd; the habit of imitation will fall; and the moment will come when there will be nothing in the world like you.

Krishna, Lao Tzu, Buddha—these are people who have reached that supreme summit. Do not fall into the mistake of comparing one with another; that would be unjust. If you like Krishna, you will become unjust to Mahavira. That liking is yours, a private thing. And if you like Mahavira, Krishna will never appeal to you. That is your personal inclination. Do not impose your inclination upon the great ones. There is nothing wrong with your inclination; if Krishna is dear to you, love Krishna—love so totally that your love becomes a fire of transformation for you, and you are refined by it.

If you love Mahavira, love Mahavira. Give his presence a chance to lift you, to hold you, so that you do not drown. Let Mahavira’s being become a boat for you. But do not compare him with other great ones. Comparison will be a mistake. Comparison is possible only among the similar; among them there is no common base. Their modes of expression are utterly distinct.

Think of Meera—she dances. We cannot even imagine Buddha dancing! Krishna plays the flute; a flute at Mahavira’s lips would look absurd, out of place. His life, his being, has no bridge to a flute.

A peacock crown suits Krishna—it announces his personality. Tie that crown on Jesus and it will look ludicrous. A crown of thorns and the cross suit Jesus. Hanging on the cross with the thorns upon his head, Jesus is at his summit. And Krishna is at his summit when, wearing the peacock crown, he plays the flute.

If you understand that each person is unique, then the enlightened ones are absolutely unique. When the event of enlightenment happens, the event is one and the same—but we are many eyes under different lenses. Here, we all sit in one light; the light is identical, yet it appears differently to each because the organ of seeing affects the light.

If someone’s eyes are weak, the light seems dim; if his eyes are keen, the light seems intense. If colored glasses sit on the eyes, the light changes color. If the eyes are shut, there is no light at all.

So when the ultimate experience happens, the experience is one; but the personalities differ. When Krishna attains, he begins to dance—that comes from his personality, not from the experience. When Buddha attains, he falls utterly silent; no movement of limbs, not even a blink. His inner happening is expressed through silence, through emptiness, through stillness. His joy is unvoiced.

Buddha expresses by being quiet; Krishna expresses by dancing. This depends on their personalities; the happening is one.

Understand it this way: a painter watches the sunrise; a musician watches the sunrise; a dancer, a sculptor, a poet—all see the same sun rise. The same beauty stirs each heart; all are filled with delight; something has dawned within. But the painter will paint if you ask what he saw; the poet will weave a song; the dancer will dance.

Nikos Kazantzakis of Greece, a remarkable writer, wrote a unique book, Zorba the Greek, around a natural man, Zorba—one without doctrines, ideals, ethics, or rules, as a man would be if left untutored, in his raw nature. When he is angry, he is fire; when he is in love, he melts and flows. No calculations; he lives moment to moment.

Kazantzakis writes: when Zorba was happy, when something filled him with joy, he would say, “Wait!” He was not much with words; he was uneducated. He would pick up his lute and play—something had arisen within, he had to say it. And when even the lute could not carry it, he would throw it aside and start dancing, and dance until he fell down drenched in sweat.

Kazantzakis says: I could not understand his language—he danced, something vast was happening within him, and he had no other way to express it. But I myself had no such experience. Later, for the first time in my life, I fell in love. When the woman received me with love and I returned home, I found my feet dancing. Words felt futile; the pen was useless. For the first time I danced in front of my room—and then I understood what Zorba had been saying.

Your personality is the medium of expression. The realization is one, but passing through you, its expression changes.

Krishna’s medium of expression is different—shaped over many lives. Over countless lives he has danced; over countless lives he has played the flute.

Buddha, over countless lives—Buddha himself said so. When Buddha returned home, his father said, “You are foolish; and still foolish. I am your father; my doors are open—return. Drop this beggary. No beggar has been born in our lineage.”

Buddha said, “Forgive me, but what is your lineage to me? I have come through you, not from you. As far back as I remember, I have been a beggar for many lifetimes. I have taken alms before; I have been a sannyasin before. This is not the first time. This is a link in a long chain. My acquaintance with you is new; my acquaintance with myself is ancient. I know my lineage: I am a beggar by destiny; being a king was accidental. This monkhood is my nature.”

Buddha has sat beneath trees for lifetimes to reach that place where he is as still as stone.

The first sculptures made were of Buddha—no one ever was so statue-like. If you sculpt Buddha, it must be in stone: cold, silent, motionless, emptied of all actions.

In Urdu and Arabic there is the word “but” for idol; it is a corruption of “Buddha.” To sit “Buddha-like” means to sit “idol-like”—no ripple even; let alone dancing, not even the slightest stir within. Dance is the opposite extreme—where nothing remains still within, everything dances.

So where will you reconcile Buddha and Krishna? Yet the happening is the same. Buddha cultivated silence through lifetimes; when the great event came, he became speechless. Krishna danced with friends and lovers through lifetimes; when the event came, it expressed through dance.

Then, Buddha renounced the world; Krishna did not. Krishna stood in the marketplace. Therefore their conduct differs totally.

If one has to live in a madhouse, it is wise to let the mad believe you are mad too; otherwise, they will kill you. Better to imitate them, act like them. In a madhouse you cannot live as a “sane” man; you will go mad. To keep your sanity, become the leader of the mad—you will remain untouched.

A friend of mine was confined to an asylum for six months by chance. In three months he was well—thanks to an accident. In a bout of insanity he drank a bottle of phenyl; he vomited and purged so much that the madness left. But the authorities wouldn’t accept it—every lunatic claims he is cured. He begged to be released; they laughed him off.

He told me, “Three months of madness were heaven—I had no idea what was happening around me. The last three months were true madness—everyone else was mad; they pulled my leg, patted my head; I was quite sane, and it was unbearable. I couldn’t sleep nights; earlier I was doing the same to others.”

Buddha left the madhouse—not because all must leave, but because that was his destiny, his nature; it happened to him to go to the forest. You won’t become a Buddha by going to the forest. If that is your nature, you won’t be able to remain in the world; you will drift away without effort.

Krishna’s nature is different—he stands in the madhouse, and with delight. Naturally, one who stands there must speak the language of the mad. Thus Krishna will often seem to deceive, to lie, to wage war—that is the language there. Deceit is the rule; battle is the culmination.

Hence Krishna becomes puzzling. We are used to seeing a saint as otherworldly; an otherworldly saint’s behavior is different. Krishna is a saint in the world. Do not weigh his actions against Buddha’s.

If Buddha had to live in the world, he would have to act like Krishna; if Krishna had to sit beneath a tree, he would act like Buddha. Whom to deceive—and why? If you must live among those around you, you must live like them.

The difference is this: you too deceive, but in unconsciousness; Krishna deceives in total awareness. You deceive with doership; Krishna plays a part in a drama. He is an actor; the deceit does not touch him—it is a game.

Like when adults play with children at home—arranging a doll’s wedding, a toy procession—you must behave as the children’s game requires, or they won’t let you in. You cannot break the rules by saying, “This is only a doll; dolls don’t marry.” Then you should stay out of the game. You must treat the doll as if she were a living girl, yet for you she remains a doll; you play so the game can continue.

So Krishna is in the world like a grown-up playing with children. Naturally, followers of Mahavira or Buddha will object to Krishna: “What kind of divinity is this? We cannot imagine God deceiving or lying; he should be absolutely authentic!”

But the gods you measure Krishna against are outside the game. Do not compare the one who is not playing with the one who is. Their rules differ.

Krishna’s experiment is unique. Buddha and Mahavira’s experiment is simple: in the world—madness; leave the world—no madness. Krishna’s experiment is extraordinary: he has dropped the world and yet remains in it; he has wiped out the madness and still behaves with the mad as a madman would. It is an utterly original experiment.

Mahavira and Buddha are traditional sannyasins; Krishna is a revolutionary sannyasin. I am not saying you should therefore choose Krishna. Understand your own destiny. Nor am I saying drop or choose Buddha. Understand what suits you: in what stream you can flow without unnecessary strain—that is your path.

Then do not worry about others. You cannot become Krishna or Buddha by effort; effort will confuse you. Only spontaneity will be healthy for you.

To understand what Krishna did, remember: Krishna, like Buddha, is a sannyasin, yet he stands in the world without leaving it. To relate to you in the world, he must speak your language and move with your conduct. Even to change you, he must walk a little way with you.

Now, regarding sattva, rajas, and tamas:

If someone leaps from tamas directly into the state beyond the gunas, his behavior will be like Lao Tzu’s, because his personality remains tamasic. The consciousness has leaped beyond, but the personality is tamas.

Hence Lao Tzu extols non-doing. He says, to do nothing is mastery; to abide in non-action is the supreme attainment. There is no mention in Lao Tzu’s life of doing anything. If he can sit, he won’t walk; if he can lie down, he won’t sit; if he can sleep, he won’t lie awake. He sinks into the ultimate passivity available.

Lao Tzu is fully enlightened, but his personality is tamasic; laziness becomes his sadhana. And naturally, he teaches what he has known.

So he says, as long as you do, you will wander. Stop—do not do. Do not get lost in what is virtuous and what is not; religion has nothing to do with morality. When Tao was alive in the world, there was no morality, no saints, no sinners. Sink into your spontaneity; the only skill needed is absolute non-action.

If one’s personality is rajasic and he leaps beyond—like Jesus—then his enlightenment immediately becomes action—service. He will be absorbed in vast activity; he will say karma itself is yoga.

Krishna says: skill in action is yoga. And Lao Tzu says: non-action, utter rest, alone is attainment.

If your personality is sattvic—like Mahavira or Buddha—there will be neither Lao Tzu’s slackness nor Jesus’ activism, but a quiet saintliness.

Mahavira, even when he walks, watches the path lest an ant be crushed—such a man cannot be rajasic. He will not even turn in bed in the dark lest a tiny creature be harmed. How will he be a man of action? He breathes carefully, for each breath kills countless microbes. He filters water and drinks only when thirst is extreme. He barely eats, because all eating involves violence; even vegetarian food has life. He declared first that life is everywhere; in taking any food, some death occurs. Therefore only a fruit that has fallen or grain that has dropped from the stalk is worth taking. Yet even there, violence remains—the seed is an egg; it could sprout and become a tree yielding thousands of seeds. If eating eggs is sin, eating grain is too.

So Mahavira eats with great difficulty—if he can walk hungry, he walks hungry; if thirsty, he remains thirsty. In twelve years of austerity he ate no more than three hundred sixty days total—a year out of twelve. He ate only when fasting came close to self-destruction—when the body itself might be lost, and only because realization had not happened yet.

From such a Mahavira you cannot expect Jesus-like action. Jesus enters the temple, sees the usurers’ stalls, picks up a whip—can you imagine Mahavira wielding a whip? He overturns their tables; one man creates such an uproar that hundreds flee. Only later do we understand the arithmetic of such a revolutionary—his crucifixion was inevitable.

We cannot imagine Mahavira on a cross—there is no cause; he hurts no one, interferes with no one, barely touches anyone. In Mahavira’s stream, even obstructing someone’s action is violence. To stop a man on his way is violence. Do not obstruct; become as if you are not. Such a one cannot create an outer revolution; his revolution is invisible.

If sattva predominates, a Mahavira-like person arises. If rajas predominates, a Jesus-like person arises. If tamas predominates, a Lao Tzu-like person arises.

Understand also:

This is why no vast religion could form behind Lao Tzu. How can you organize around non-doing? Who will propagate? His follower sits quietly; even answering is difficult for him. Lao Tzu never spoke publicly; only toward the end he dictated the small Tao Te Ching—under compulsion. He was stopped at a toll gate as he tried to leave for the Himalayas, and told, “We won’t let you go until you write your wisdom.” For three days at the customs post he dictated what he knew. Had the officer missed him, there would be no Tao Te Ching, and we wouldn’t know his name. The credit goes to that unknown customs officer! That is why no great organization formed behind Lao Tzu.

Mahavira loved sattva; his personality was filled with it. His religion didn’t spread far—there is little activism in it. Today there are only two to two-and-a-half million Jains in India. Had Mahavira made twenty-five pairs of Jains, in two thousand years they would have produced that many descendants. It didn’t spread.

Christianity spread because it is rajasic; so did Islam. Both are rajasic. Mohammed is intensely rajasic—sword in hand, determined to spread what he has known.

Today the earth is practically divided between Christianity and Islam; other religions are marginal.

Buddhism’s spread is a unique accident, for it shouldn’t have spread either—like Jainism it should have remained small. Buddha’s personality is sattvic. History’s accident gave Buddhism its chance. If it had remained in India, it would never have spread. There are fewer Buddhists in India than Jains—thirty lakhs counting the new ones. The “new Buddhists” are not truly Buddhists; it was a political move of Ambedkar. He had long considered converting to Christianity with the Harijans. Later he preferred Buddhism and converted many Harijans in Maharashtra—this has nothing to do with Buddha’s dharma.

In India, Buddhism would have shrunk further, but thanks to the Hindus’ ferocity, Buddhists were destroyed and the monks fled; those fleeing monks took Buddhism outside. There they found rajasic patrons. In China there was a vacuum—Confucius influenced ethics, not religion; Lao Tzu was too passive to propagate. Buddhist thought cast a strong shadow; emperors became Buddhist—emperors are rajasic. In India, Ashoka—a rajas person—sent Buddhism abroad. He had fought wars, then inverted—renounced violence after seeing slaughter. He dispatched Buddhism politically—his son to Sri Lanka, his daughter Sanghamitra, as royal envoys. Thus, when a religion spreads, rajas-energy must be behind it.

Now understand Krishna in this context.

In Krishna, none of the three dominates; the three are balanced. Therefore all three modes appear in him. What a tamasic man does—Krishna can; what a rajasic man does—Krishna can; what a sattvic man does—Krishna can.

One of Krishna’s names is Ranchhodas. Hindus are amazing—they honor even this. There are temples to Ranchhodasji. Ranchhod means one who left the battlefield, a deserter; yet we say Ranchhodasji! The one who turned his back in war.

Krishna’s personality is a confluence of three streams. He has dance and color—often seen in tamasic types; he has vigor, capacity for struggle and skill in war—rajasic traits; he has purity, childlike innocence—sattvic traits. But all together. Therefore Krishna becomes puzzling, a riddle.

Buddha is not a riddle—if you have a little intelligence, his teaching is open, straightforward—two and two make four. Mahavira is not mysterious. But Krishna is complex; all three gunas are equal in him. Thus he can seem deceitful; he appears to lie; he breaks promises.

It is as if Krishna were not one person but three. Three currents flow in him simultaneously. He is a triveni, a confluence of three. Anyone who tries to fit him into arithmetic will do him injustice.

Hence some worship the Gita’s Krishna and discard the Bhagavat’s Krishna as a poet’s fancy. Others ignore the Gita’s Krishna and love the Bhagavat’s—the prankster who steals the bathing women’s clothes.

Krishna is a riddle because the three gunas are equal in him; all three tones play together in his music.

The experience itself is beyond the three gunas for all—Buddha, Mahavira, Mohammed, Jesus, Lao Tzu, Krishna. But its expression depends on the personality. Mahavira, Buddha, Lao Tzu have single-toned personalities; Krishna’s has three. His music is therefore complex; to untangle it requires a very subtle eye. Otherwise injustice to Krishna is certain.

One more question: I have said each person must find his own liberation—only then is freedom authentic. Otherwise freedom is false and meaningless. In that light, how is it right for Krishna—or for me—to say, “Surrender, and I will transform you, I will liberate you”?

Krishna tells Arjuna, “Sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja”—abandon all dharmas and take refuge in me; I will liberate you. A question naturally arises. On one hand I say the final decision is yours; your freedom is total; no one can force you into liberation—not even Krishna. That is precisely why Krishna says, “Sarva-dharmān parityajya.” He cannot force liberation on Arjuna. He says, first surrender. The decision to surrender must be Arjuna’s. If he takes it, Krishna can do something.

Surrender is a great decision—the greatest. In this world all other decisions are small. To place yourself wholly in another’s hands is the greatest decision.

Remember, surrender is the supreme resolve. It seems the opposite, because we think resolve means depending on oneself, while surrender means leaving everything to another. But to drop yourself utterly means you have become integrated; you are your own master. Only one who is strong in resolve can surrender. The weak, the impotent, the coward cannot surrender; saying “yes” is not enough. Arjuna can do it.

Krishna asked Arjuna knowingly—he is a kshatriya; he can take a vow—even the vow of surrender.

In Japan there is a warrior caste, the samurai—the purest kshatriyas. Before they are taught how to kill others, they are taught how to kill themselves. Until you are skilled at ending yourself, you have no right to kill another. First learn to erase yourself. They master hara-kiri. Exactly two inches below the navel is the hara center; a slight knife-cut there separates body and soul without pain. A samurai’s face must show no trace of pain—even in death. If it does, he failed—he struck wrong. First they learn to erase themselves; then they are sent to battle—fear cannot grip one who has learned death. Through death he has learned the doorway to the soul.

Arjuna is like a samurai. For his life he can kill all; if life seems futile, he can end himself in a moment. To him Krishna says, “Drop everything.” He can. And surrender cannot be partial—it is total.

Total surrender is a great resolve. To entrust your whole future, your whole life to someone, and accept whatever comes, with no taking it back—surrender cannot be withdrawn. It is the last decision one can take.

And note: Krishna need not do much afterward; in the very process of surrender, transformation happens. One who can so simply consent to dissolve has already been transformed. Thus the second statement—“I will transform you”—is only a natural consequence. Krishna need not “do” anything; indeed he cannot. Let Arjuna understand and let go.

The moment one is ready to let go of all, all pain, sorrow, and tension depart. Because letting go means dropping the ego—and the ego is the root of all trouble. Cut that root and self-knowledge happens.

Masters say, “Surrender all; we will transform you.” In truth, nothing needs to be done afterward. If you return saying, “I surrendered all, yet I have not changed,” it only means you surrendered nothing. Otherwise the second event is inevitable; the master need not do a thing—it is the natural fruit of surrender.

But the decision is ultimately yours; your freedom is intact. No one can take it. When you surrender, that too is an act of your freedom—the last act of freedom. Its consequence is liberation.

Krishna is merely a catalytic agent—an excuse. Hence there is no need to find a “real” Krishna either. Stand before any Krishna in a temple and surrender all—though there may be no one standing there—and the same event will happen. It can happen anywhere; it depends on your letting go. Whom you surrender to is secondary—Jesus, Krishna, Buddha—it makes no difference. The moment you surrender, you are new; a new birth happens.

Surrender is rebirth—not in the body, but in the divine; the whole current of life turns toward the Absolute.