Geeta Darshan #8

Now let us take the sutra.

Arjuna asked: O Purushottama, by what marks is the man who has gone beyond the three gunas endowed? What is his conduct like? And by what means does a man go beyond these three gunas?

Arjuna’s inquiry is almost everyone’s inquiry. We too want to know: by what marks is the man who has gone beyond the three gunas endowed? Arjuna asks this of Krishna; Sariputta asks the Buddha; Gautama asks Mahavira. Whenever an awakened one has appeared, his disciples have certainly asked: What are the marks? Of the divine consciousness you speak, of the godliness you speak—what are its signs? How shall we recognize one who has attained to it? What will his conduct be?

It is necessary to understand this question rightly.

First: marks can be described only from the outside. And every outer recognition is provisional. Because two gunatita persons will not have identical outer marks. This has created a great difficulty.

Those who asked Mahavira for the marks cannot accept Krishna as gunatita. For Mahavira has given the marks as he experienced them, as they appeared in his life. So a follower of Mahavira knows that the one who is beyond the gunas will also renounce clothing—he will be sky-clad.

Thus in the Digambara tradition, being sky-clad is a mark of the gunatita. As long as there are clothes, there is no entry into liberation—because the very attachment to clothes shows you still wish to hide something. The gunatita hides nothing; he is like an open book.

Therefore those who learned the marks from Mahavira do not accept even the Buddha as gunatita. The Buddha lived at the same time, in the same region—Bihar—and at times even in the same village.

A follower of Mahavira does not accept the Buddha as gunatita, as sthitaprajna, because the Buddha wears a robe. Such difficulties arise. Hence Mahavira is called a Jina, a God by the Jains; the Buddha they call a great soul, a Mahatma—almost there. Someday he will surely drop the robe and in some life attain Tirthankara-hood—but not yet.

As for Krishna, there remains no way to accept him. Nor Rama. Nor Mohammed or Christ can be accepted as gunatita if one has learned the marks from Mahavira.

If you learn the marks from Krishna, difficulties also arise. For marks are provisional. Real realization will not occur until one oneself becomes gunatita. But to tell the questioner, “When you become gunatita, you will know,” is futile. He says, “I am not gunatita; that is why I am asking.” His question must be satisfied.

Therefore there are secondary, provisional marks. They can be different, and they will differ for different gunatita people. Their inner state is one; their outer expression differs—depending on a thousand causes.

But our mind insists on asking for marks, because we want to test things from the outside. We want to know who has attained. How shall we recognize? No horns sprout to make him stand out. He looks just like you. In fact, he becomes utterly ordinary, because the madness of being extraordinary is part of the ego. Such a person becomes utterly ordinary. The quest for specialness ends.

All ordinary people are in search of being extraordinary. Therefore the truly extraordinary will look absolutely ordinary.

Zen sages have counted among his qualities one: “most ordinary.” If you hear this Zen mark you will find it very difficult, because they say the first mark of the gunatita is that he is hard to recognize—he will be completely ordinary. He has no temptation to be special. He will not try to show, “I am special, I know more than you, my conduct is superior.” He won’t try.

There was a Zen monk, Nan-in. He went in search of a master. But he had heard: wherever someone claims, “I am the master,” run away. For Zen has said for centuries: the one worthy to be master will not claim it—that is his mark.

Nan-in searched. He went to many masters, but they were claimants; each tried to make him a disciple. He ran away.

One day, passing through a forest, at the mouth of a cave he saw a monk sitting. Tired and worn, he saw that the monk seemed utterly ordinary—no aura, no radiance, nothing like the halo around Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira. Nothing. An ordinary man, sitting silently, doing nothing.

Nan-in was thirsty and hungry, lost on the path. He approached. As he came nearer, he felt a quietness arising within him. He was startled. The man, as he came near, he saw had his eyes closed. He was so silent that Nan-in felt it improper to disturb him by saying, “I am thirsty.” So he sat quietly beside him, thinking: when he opens his eyes, I will speak. But sitting there, he grew so quiet that his own eyes closed. It was evening. The whole night passed.

In the morning the monk rose. He didn’t ask: who are you, how did you come? He got up, made tea, drank it—did not even say to Nan-in, “Have some tea”—and returned to sit with eyes closed.

Nan-in got up too. In the same manner he made tea, drank, and sat. This went on for seven days. On the seventh day, the monk said, “I accept you.” That man became Nan-in’s master.

Nan-in asked, “Why did you accept me?” He replied, “The one worthy to be master does not claim; and the one worthy to be disciple also does not claim. You remained silent; you did not say, ‘I have come to be a disciple.’ And you silently followed like a shadow. For seven days, whatever I did, you did. You didn’t even ask whether to do it or not.

“When I would step out, you stepped out. When I circled the hut, you circled it. When I sat, you sat.”

But Nan-in has said: after seven days there remained nothing to get. Seven days of silent being-with was enough. Most ordinary, utterly simple! There he found the master.

Every tradition counts different marks. They have to, because questioners exist. In the asking there is a small mistake—but a natural one—because we want to know what such a person is like.

Arjuna asks, “By what marks is the man who has gone beyond the three gunas endowed?”

“Marks” means what we can recognize from the outside—by which we can guess. But this gives rise to another danger.

One danger is that different religions list different marks—because each lists the marks found in its own master’s life. Hence mutual antagonism arose among religions. One religion’s Tirthankara is not accepted as another’s avatar. One’s Christ is not another’s Christ. One’s Prophet is not another’s Prophet—because the marks differ, and they do not match.

A second, even greater danger is that, because of the marks, some people impose the marks upon themselves. They then deceive others—and also fall into self-deception. For outer marks can be entirely imitated.

If the mark be that a holy man is silent, you can be silent. If the gunatita does not speak, not speaking is no great difficulty. Whatever marks we make, people can copy them.

And remember: imitation has no real obstacle. Mahavira stood naked, so hundreds stood naked. But nakedness does not produce sky-cladness. “Digambara” means: the sky alone is my garment; I am covered by nothing else; I have become the whole existence. Only the sky is my robe.

But you can stand naked. Then tricks are needed. Where a Digambara monk stays, devotees must make arrangements. They spread straw in his room. He won’t say, “Spread it”—for if he asks, he has fallen below the mark. They spread it; he hides in the straw to sleep—because he cannot use any covering or bedding. They seal the room completely.

Mahavira did not stay in rooms; no one spread straw. And had anyone spread it, he would not hide in it. If someone else spreads it—that is their doing; you need not hide there. And who is telling you to stay in a room? If there is straw, walk out.

But this poor fellow is only naked. He still needs clothing. He feels cold and heat—and there is no objection in that. The problem is that he is pointlessly imposing a mark.

Mahavira said: When you go for alms, do not inform in advance which door you will visit. Whatever food would be cooked expressly for you, the violence involved in it will be upon you. So stand at an unknown door. Whatever has already been cooked in that house may be given. If it is in your prarabdha, someone will give; if not, return hungry—without harboring any ill will that the village is bad and none gave alms.

And Mahavira added a condition: To test whether it is in your destiny, take some sign in the morning itself. On rising, decide, “Today I will ask from that door where a bullock cart stands; in the cart there is jaggery; a bull is poking his horn into the jaggery, and the horn has jaggery smeared on it.” Take any such sign.

This was a mark of Mahavira’s own life—he wandered for three months in a village and received no food. It is strange, of course, that such a morning feeling arose. It is hard indeed that in front of some house there be a cart full of jaggery, and a bull poking his horn into it, and then that the householders agree to give—why would they be obliged? They haven’t vowed anything.

So Mahavira would say, “It is not in your fate; return.” The gunatita does not live by himself; he lives by the gunas. If nature must protect, it will.

And one day—one day it did happen. After three months, it happened exactly so.

Even today a Digambara monk does this. But his signs are fixed—two or four. All the devotees know them. They arrange the signs at their doors. The signs are simple: “a banana hanging at the door.” If there is a banana hanging, he will accept alms there. Everyone knows the monks’ signs.

Mahavira did not say, “Fix your signs.” He said, “Each morning take whatever the first inner feeling is.” Their signs are fixed. So the reverse violence becomes twenty-five-fold. For from one house they would have taken alms; but now twenty-five houses—devotees throughout the village—cook, each hanging the sign. And their signs are met every day; there is no chance of a miss for three months. Marks can be imitated.

A Buddhist monk went for alms. A crow was flying with a piece of meat; it slipped from its beak and fell into the monk’s bowl—pure coincidence. The Buddha had told the monks: whatever is put into your alms bowl, eat it; do not throw it away. The Buddha could not have imagined that someday a crow would drop a piece of meat.

Now the monk faced a dilemma. The Buddha says, “Eat what is put in your bowl.” Should he eat meat or not? It has fallen into the bowl; it is within the rule. He went and asked the Buddha: “What shall I do? A piece of meat is there. If I throw it, I break the rule by rejecting food. I did not ask for it; the crow dropped it.”

The Buddha must have thought: crows won’t do this every day; why would crows harass monks? It is a coincidence. So he said, “It is fine; whatever falls into the bowl, take it.” For if he said, “Throw it away,” then another rule is born: if you don’t like what is in the bowl, throw it. Choice begins. Then the monk will keep what he likes and throw the rest: useless wastage of food; and a habit of choosing will be born.

Today in China and Japan, meat-eating continues. Devotees put meat into the alms bowls, and all know monks prefer meat. That piece dropped by a crow opened the door. All of China and Japan—hundreds of thousands of Buddhist monks—eat meat, saying, “The rule is: do not reject what is placed in the bowl.”

Man is cunning. He can imitate; he can devise tricks; he can find all ways. Because of marks, a great mischief has happened: we can impose the marks; we can act them out.

Yet the mind keeps asking, “What are the marks?”

The marks Krishna gives are precious. Though outward, they are useful for our minds.

By what marks is he endowed? What is his conduct? By what means does a man go beyond the three gunas?

Krishna said: O Arjuna, he who does not dislike the sattva-born functioning of illumination, the rajas-born functioning of activity, or the tamas-born functioning of delusion when they arise, and does not desire them when they subside…

It is a very subtle mark—hence the danger. Because the subtler it is, the more convenient it is for you.

Krishna is saying: Whatever the gunas make happen—when tamas moves into inertia and delusion, he is not pained; when rajas leads into action, he is not pained; when sattva leads into withdrawal, he is not pleased. He is not unhappy with attachment, nor happy with detachment. He leaves both to the gunas and understands, “I am separate.”

What does this mean?

Anger arises in you; rajas is taking you toward violence. You say, “This is a mark of the gunatita—no need to feel bad now; go ahead.” Outwardly, imitation is possible. You can be angry and say, “What can I do? It is only the gunas functioning.” You can be violent and say, “What can I do? It is the gunas acting. The gunas within me did the violence.”

That is why I say the marks are outer; the real thing is inner. Only you can know whether, when anger arose, you were actually enjoying it or witnessing it. For remember: in one who witnesses anger, anger will become seedless by itself. Even if it arises, it will lack vitality—because it is we who pour life into it. There will be smoke, but no fire.

Desire may arise, but with witnessing present it cannot carry you far. It will stir a bit and subside. Without your cooperation—without losing the witness—nothing can go very far. When you join in, things go far. But this is inner; it is hard to determine from outside.

Therefore the Jains did not accept Krishna as gunatita. It is difficult. Krishna is gunatita. But the matter is inner. Though standing on the battlefield, inwardly he is not there. Amid the whole web of activity, within he remains a witness. But the Jain asks, “How are we to know that he is a witness? Who knows—perhaps he is not witnessing but relishing action?”

So the Jains say: if one is a witness to action, action should fall away. We will accept Mahavira, because he left action and departed.

But the danger is the same the other way too. Your impulses may remain; you can go to the forest. What is the difficulty? You may be sitting in meditation—and we may think you are meditating. Who knows what film runs within? What are you doing inside?

There is an account from Mahavira’s life. King Bimbisara, a great emperor of that time, came for Mahavira’s darshan. On his way he met an old friend who had once been a king—Prasanna Kumar by name—who had become Mahavira’s monk, renouncing his kingdom. He and Bimbisara had been childhood friends who studied together. Bimbisara saw Prasanna Kumar standing near a mountain cave, absorbed in meditation, like a stone statue. Bimbisara bowed his head. He thought: “I still wander in the world, and my friend has attained such purity! Naked, standing like a rock, utterly still!”

He offered obeisance without disturbing him and went to see Mahavira, who was deeper in the forest under a tree. He said, “I have a question. My friend Prasanna Kumar has become your monk. He has renounced everything. We worldly ones are ignorant, wandering. Seeing him standing there, my heart rejoiced. A feeling arose: When will such an auspicious moment come that I too renounce all and become so absorbed in peace? One question arises: as he stood there in silence, if he were to die at that very moment, in which celestial realm would he be born?”

Mahavira said, “If he were to die at this moment, he would go to heaven. But when you were bowing to him earlier—had you died then—you would have gone to hell.”

Hardly half an hour had passed! Bimbisara was startled. When he bowed, he had seen such serenity that he thought, “He is already in heaven.” And Mahavira says, “At that very time, if he had died, he would have gone straight to the seventh hell.”

Bimbisara said, “I do not understand; this is a riddle.” Mahavira said: “Your entourage was arriving before you—ministers, horses, generals. One of your ministers reached him a little earlier and said, ‘Look at Prasanna Kumar standing here like a fool. He entrusted his entire kingdom to his ministers. His son is still young. They are looting everything. The whole kingdom is being ruined. And this fool stands here!’”

Prasanna Kumar heard it. Fire flared up. He forgot he was a monk, a Digambara. His hand went to his sword—old habit. He drew it. His eyes were closed; he raised the sword and thought, “What do those ministers think? I am still alive. I will sever each head from its body.”

And while you were bowing, he was cutting off heads within. Outwardly he stood like a statue; inwardly necks were being sent rolling. A former kshatriya—“While I am alive, they deceive my son? I am still alive! What do they think? That I am a monk—what difference does that make? If I go, I will settle them all.”

Mahavira said: “If he had died at that time, he would have gone to hell.” Bimbisara said, “Then tell me the other part of the riddle—what changed so quickly?”

Mahavira said: “When he returned the sword, and his hand went to his head to set his crown right, there was no crown—only a shaven head. When his hand touched his head, he said, ‘I am mad! I have become a monk; Prasanna Kumar is dead. What sword? Whose murder? What am I killing?’ He became aware. He laughed at the mind’s foolishness. Now he is utterly a witness. The identification with the screen has broken. If he dies now, he can go to heaven.”

It is very difficult. Marks are all outside. So do not apply them to others. Apply them only to yourself—then they can be useful.

“He who, when the sattva-born illumination arises, knowledge dawns and dispassion appears; when the rajas-born activity arises, actions surge; when the tamas-born delusion arises, greed and ignorance arise—”

Whether these three move into activity or into quiescence—he neither holds activity as bad nor quiescence as good; he neither tries to avoid activity nor, when activity ceases, tries to bring it back; he does not desire that these should be, nor desire that these should not be. Whatever is happening, he silently regards it as the play of nature and watches. Krishna calls this the fundamental mark of the gunatita.

“And he who, established like a witness, cannot be shaken by the gunas, and, understanding that ‘the gunas alone act upon the gunas,’ remains established in the solid mass of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss—the Supreme—and does not move from that state.”

The gunas are active every moment. He whom they cannot make move—that is the point. Like a lamp is burning; a gust of wind comes and the flame flickers—that is our condition. Any gust of any guna and we immediately tremble. Let storms of the gunas come; within there is no trembling. Let storms come and go; you remain untouched. Neither bad nor good arises. Neither blame nor praise; no choice—choiceless, without selecting, you stand silently.

All ethics teach us to choose; religion teaches choicelessness. Ethics says: this is good, this is bad. When good arises, happily do it. When bad arises, be unhappy and refrain.

This sutra of the Gita is the very opposite. It says: whether bad arises or good arises, do not make any decision. If bad arises, let it arise; if good arises, let it arise. Neither take pride in the good, nor condemnation in the bad. Watch both, as if you have nothing to do with either. People are walking on the road and you stand aside. The river is flowing and you stand on the bank. Clouds move in the sky and you sit below. You have no purpose in it; nothing to take or give. You are totally aloof.

Only when this aloofness descends fully can you be saved from being moved. Otherwise, everything moves you. Every event around you shakes you, changes you. Then you are not the master; you are like a flag’s cloth trembling in the winds.

There is a Zen story. At Bokuju’s monastery, a Buddhist flag flew over the temple. One day Bokuju came out and saw all the monks gathered in heated debate. The question was: Is the flag moving, or the wind moving?

Turmoil ensued. Some said, “The wind is moving—how would the flag move if the wind didn’t?” Others said, “What proof? We say the flag moves; that’s why the wind appears to move. If the flag didn’t move, the wind wouldn’t move.” Some said, “Both are moving.”

Bokuju came and said, “Disperse; go sit under your trees and meditate. Neither the flag is moving, nor the wind is moving, nor both are moving—your minds are moving. When your minds do not move, neither wind nor flag will move. Go from here and take care that your mind does not move.”

The mind will cease moving only when we stop deciding and are ready to accept; and when we know: this is the functioning of the gunas. It is happening; it has nothing to do with me. I am hidden within; it is occurring around me, not in me—outside me, not in me.

“He who, established like a witness, cannot be shaken by the gunas; who understands that the gunas act upon the gunas; who remains established in the solid Existence-Consciousness-Bliss of the Supreme and does not move from that state—”

As soon as one ceases to be moved by the gunas’ functioning—while the gunas go on trembling and he remains unshaken—a double event occurs. The moment our connection with the gunas breaks, our connection with the nirguna is made. Understand this clearly.

As long as we are tied to the gunas, the hidden nirguna—God—does not come into our awareness, because our attention is one-streamed, and it flows entirely toward the gunas. As soon as we break from the gunas, that very attention begins to flow toward the Divine.

The nirguna is hidden within us. The nirguna is what we are, and around us is the net of the gunas. If we remain bound to the gunas, there will be no awareness of the nirguna. If we are freed from the gunas, we become established in the nirguna. And establishment in the nirguna is establishment in the solid mass of Existence-Consciousness-Bliss—the Supreme.

Enough for today.