Geeta Darshan #2

Now let us take the sutra.

“The form of this world-tree is not found here as it has been described, for it has neither beginning nor end nor a well-founded stand. Therefore, cutting with the firm sword of dispassion this Peepal-like world-tree whose very strong roots are egoism, possessiveness and desire...”

This image of the inverted tree that Krishna gives—if you go searching for it, you will not find it. For several reasons.

First, we are a small branch of that tree. We cannot go searching; we cannot stand apart and look. We are organs of that tree. How then can we see that the tree stands upside down—with its roots above and the leaves below? We are leaves or branches; we are parts of the tree; we cannot be apart from it.

Therefore, this inverted state of the world-tree is seen only in the most secret state of meditation. Not before that. Why? Because in that secret state you are no longer a part of the tree; you are no longer a part of the world. Only in samadhi is the full form of this inverted tree seen. It is the experience of a mind in samadhi.

Understand this with the intellect; that is enough. You will not be able to see it. The tree is vast. Scientists say we cannot reach its limits. The more research grows, the more vast the tree appears. New stars are discovered daily; new suns discovered daily.

By now, some four billion suns have been charted. Once it seemed there would be a boundary where exploration would end, where we would reach the final limit. But no boundary is visible. The farther we go, the more we discover.

The tree seems immense, vast. And we are its parts, so we cannot stand far away and see it. There is no possibility of seeing it.

Moreover, it has neither beginning nor end. If it had a beginning, it would be easier to see. If ever it had an end, it would also be easier. It is an infinite series. On one side a planet perishes, on another a planet is formed. On one side a sun is extinguished, in another a sun is enlivened.

Scientists think that perhaps five thousand years from now our sun will cool, as its heat is being spent every day. But some other suns that lay cold are warming up. As our sun cools, another sun will heat up. As soon as this sun cools, life will disappear from this earth. But on some other earth, the sprouting of life will begin.

By scientific reckoning, life exists—should exist—on some fifty thousand earths. One branch of the tree dries, another shoots forth. The tree withers, and new sprouts appear. The old leaves do not even finish falling before the new leaves begin to show.

The chain is infinite. There is no way to stand behind it or ahead of it; no way to stand beside it—because we are its parts; we are the chain.

Nor can it be well understood because it has no fixed “position.” Understand this word. Stithi—position or state—belongs only to God; the world has only movement, not stasis.

Here everything is happening; nothing is in the state of “is.” Hence Buddha said: do not use the word “is.” When we say, “The tree is,” Buddha says, do not speak so, because there is no state of “is.” The tree is “becoming.” When you say, “He is young,” you are wrong; he is becoming young, or he is becoming old. There is no state of “is.” There is always becoming—bhavati. Everything is becoming. Nothing has come to a halt anywhere.

Stithi means halt. Apart from God, nothing and no one has stithi. Everything else is flow. Like a river flowing, you too are flowing. Everything is flowing.

This tree is a flow; therefore it is very difficult to see. Because everything changes. Before you can see, it has changed. Before you can understand, the situation has changed. Before you can grasp, what you were trying to grasp is no longer there; it has become something else. All is smoky here, like clouds. In clouds you cannot hold an outline. You see an elephant forming; before you can really see, it scatters into something else.

The whole world is smoky. Stithi belongs only to God. And until stithi is attained, there can be no stability of understanding, no state of knowing.

Therefore the whole Hindu effort has been: how to free you from movement and make you attain stithi. How the running stops and standing happens. How the river, while flowing, suddenly freezes—becomes ice. How everything becomes still.

This stopping of the inner mind’s race is called meditation. When nothing moves within, no motion remains, no flow remains—everything freezes, becomes still; all vibrations cease—at that very instant you have become God. As long as you flow, there is the world. When you are still, you are God.

Only God can be understood. This will seem very paradoxical. Science says the world can be understood; there is no way to understand God. We cannot even determine whether He is, much less understand Him. And the Gita says only God can be understood, because He is steady. He can be known; He can be relied upon. It is not that you look once and when you look again He has changed. He will be the same—this birth, the next birth, aeons after, ages after—whenever you return, He will be the same.

He is kutastha—unmoving. Nothing changes there. Roam as you will, pass as much time as you will, whenever you return you will find the home just the same. Not a grain has changed.

Only the unchanging can be understood. Because it is trustworthy. It can be held in faith. The world is not trustworthy; it is like a shadow.

There is a famous story by Khalil Gibran. A fox rose early in the morning, seeking food. The sun was rising behind her. A long shadow of the fox was cast. Seeing her shadow, she thought, “Only if I find an elephant today will my tummy be filled!” Such a long shadow—without an elephant there is no hope. And only from the shadow could the fox know how big she was. Otherwise how to know? You too know yourself from a mirror—your shadow!

The fox grew anxious: where to find an elephant? Her hunger grew; she searched and searched. It was noon; the sun went overhead; still no food. And the idea of an elephant made the hunger elephant-sized, fit to digest an elephant—because it is all the mind’s game.

But the elephant did not appear; food was not found. She bent down again to see her shadow. Now the sun was overhead; the shadow had nearly vanished. The fox said, “Even an ant will do now.”

The world is like a shadow. In childhood every person thinks that without an elephant it will not do. In old age every person knows that even an ant will do. The shadow keeps shrinking.

Every child wants to be an Alexander. Every old man says, “The grapes are sour.” Every child sets out to conquer the world. Every old man begins to speak of renunciation—not because renunciation has happened, but because the shadow has shrunk. And now even this little will do. Even if nothing is gained, it will do.

Renunciation here means only that the shadow has shrunk. This is not real renunciation. If it were real, it could come even in youth. There would be no need to wait for old age.

This statement of the fox—that even an ant will do—is not wisdom. If it were wisdom, there would have been no purpose in being deceived by the shadow in the morning. Only the shadow has shrunk.

There is no precise way to understand this world, because it changes every moment. Therefore: “cut with the firm sword of dispassion this Peepal-like world-tree whose very strong roots are I-ness, mine-ness and desire...”

There is no need to be entangled in knowing it; even by knowing and knowing, no one ever knows it.

A hundred years ago science thought a day would soon come when we would know everything. Now scientists say that day will never come. Because the more we know, the more we find there is yet to know. One problem is not solved before fifty others arise. Precisely by solving one, fifty new questions emerge.

Science’s confidence has wavered. Now it too admits that there is no hope of a final knowledge. All knowledge is provisional. That is the meaning of relativity: all knowledge is workable. What we know works up to a point. Beyond that, when we know more, everything goes awry again.

Only God can be known—because there is stithi there. Therefore, apart from religion there is no door to knowledge.

Science opens the door of practical utility, not of knowledge. What we know through it is approximately true. But approximate truth has no meaning; approximate truth is only another name for untruth. Either something is true or it is not. Approximate truth has no value. Utility belongs to science.

Knowledge will be attained through religion—and only when we attain stithi. If God is stithi and we are gati, there can be no union. Only the similar meets the similar. When we too become still, union happens. When we become like Him, then union with Him happens.

The very moment you are still, the experience of the Stilled begins. And there is only one way to be still: understanding the tree will do nothing; rather, cut the three—ego, possessiveness and desire—with the sword of dispassion, and thereafter seek that Supreme State, God.

Do not get into searching the tree. Cut the tree. And set out to seek That of which the tree is the fall—that from which, having fallen, the tree appears. Catch the seed, the source.

Have you ever broken open a seed? You sow a seed; a tree emerges. But does the tree emerge from the very seed you sow? That seed rots, decays, mixes with the soil. The tree does not come from that seed as such. If you break open the seed will you find this tree inside? Even if you search you will not find the tree in the seed.

Botanists say: the tree emerges from the nothingness—the shunya—hidden within the seed. The seed only hides that void within itself; it is just a shell. The shell breaks and mixes with the soil; out of that void the tree emerges.

So the void hidden within the seed is the origin. And until we enter that void, there can be no experience of the root, of truth.

Therefore Buddha bathed his entire teaching in the color of shunyata—emptiness—and said: Enter the void, and Brahman is attained. There is no other Brahman.

Whatever is visible is shell. Within the shell the invisible is hidden. To know that invisible, Krishna says two things. First, by dispassion cut off ego, mine-ness, and desire.

What is dispassion? Dispassion means the realization that wherever I imagine happiness to be, there happiness is not. This will not come by reading scriptures; it will come by understanding the world in its very essence.

You have made many experiments. Wherever a shadow of happiness appeared, you ran. Did you find happiness there? If you never found it—wherever the reflection showed, you went, and it proved to be a mirage. Wherever a sound called, you went, and discovered it was only an echo in empty valleys. You sought rainbows—so colorful from afar; as you came near they vanished; nothing came into your hands. The distillate of these experiences is dispassion.

So dispassion will not arise from reading scripture; that you read Bhartrihari’s Vairagya Shataka and think dispassion will come. Bhartrihari’s Vairagya Shataka arose out of deep indulgence.

Bhartrihari wrote two books. One is called Shringara Shataka—his first experience, the world’s experience. Then he indulged. He committed all the mistakes any “sensible” and courageous man would commit. He did not save himself from mistakes, because one who saves himself from mistakes saves himself from experience. He wandered all the lanes and byways of the world. He trod every footpath. He did not even distinguish between good and bad; wherever his desire led, he went. But he kept alertness and kept testing whether anything was found where desire led him.

Every time, failure. Happiness was never found. It proved delusion every time. Wherever desire showed the path, there futility was found; there sorrow was found.

After walking thousands of desire-paths and arriving at the same experience without exception, dispassion is born. Dispassion is the continuous experience of the failure of desire, its essence and distillate. Then it is not at all difficult to cut ego, mine-ness, and desire.

The realization of dispassion means: wherever desire says happiness is, there happiness is not. Wherever desire says happiness is, there suffering is. And wherever desire says suffering is, there happiness may be. Desire deceives—the great deceiver. This realization is called dispassion. Then seeking in pleasure stops and seeking in pain begins.

We call the search in pain tapas—austerity. Tapas means: now I do not search in pleasure. I searched in pleasure and did not find; now I will search in pain. Because if searching in pleasure brought suffering, perhaps searching in suffering will bring happiness. I will make the reverse journey.

Dispassion is the experienced failure of desire. And as soon as this experience deepens, it becomes a sword. The seeker carries within him the sword of dispassion. As soon as desire says “there is happiness,” he cuts it down: “I know—this has happened many times.”

When Buddha entered the first samadhi, the first words he spoke within—not to anyone else—were these: “Enough, O god of desire; now you need not suffer on my account. I too ran, and because of me you too ran. Now you need not build new houses for me. For I have dropped the foundation; no base is left.”

The sword of dispassion means an inner alertness. Wherever desire begins to cheat, that alertness becomes a barrier. There we can remember again and again that we have been led into this kind of desire many times before.

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife was near death. She said to Mulla, “You will get married after I die—this is certain.” Nasruddin said, “Not quickly. First I will rest a few days.”

This marriage has tired him greatly; it has given much suffering. But no dispassion has arisen. After a little rest, desire becomes alert again. After rest, desire’s demand arises again.

You too are often filled with a faint flash of dispassion. After every desire, after every sexual climax, for a moment every man and woman feels: enough; futile. But after a little rest, desire becomes fresh again. That momentary experience does not become a sword. That drop is not collected in a pitcher. It is lost drop by drop; the pitcher is never filled. The seeker gathers each drop of experience and fills the pitcher. He does not let the drops be lost.

There is not much difference between your experience and Buddha’s. The only difference is that you have no pitcher in which to collect your drops. You have had just as many experiences—more, perhaps, because Buddha died twenty-five centuries ago. You have had more experiences than Buddha. But they occur drop by drop and are lost; they do not gather; they do not become a cutting edge; no sword is forged.

Gather your experiences. Do not let them be lost. Because apart from them there is no other way to wisdom. Drop by drop, you will develop such capacity that desire will grow weak. One does not even have to fight; experience itself is sufficient. Desire gradually becomes impotent.

“Cutting this tree with the sword of dispassion, thereafter one should thoroughly seek that Supreme State of God, having gone to which men do not return. And from whom this ancient tendency of the world-tree has expanded—of that Primal Person I am in refuge,” thus, making a firm resolve...

Understand this process a little carefully.

We are born again and again; we die again and again. But every death is in unconsciousness, and every birth too is in unconsciousness. Therefore you remember nothing of your past; this birth seems the first to you, and the death that comes seems the last. Because there is darkness on both sides; memory is lost. If you can die consciously, you will be born consciously.

But death is still ahead; it lies in the future. You can return backward. The birth you had forty, fifty, sixty years ago can be re-seen consciously. The whole film is stored within you. As I am speaking, the tape recorder is recording. When I have finished speaking, you can rewind the tape and hear it again.

Your brain is exactly such a tape machine; it is recording everything. Nothing is lost there. Whatever you have ever known is imprinted there. If you learn to use this record backward, learn to rewind and play it, you can pass again through the experiences you passed through in unconsciousness. You can go back into the previous birth, and beyond that into death. Then the gateway of the journey opens.

In this way, one who returns backward consciously develops the capacity to be conscious forward as well. He will die—but consciously. He will be born—but consciously. He will live—but consciously. And one who begins to live consciously cannot be bound by the world. It is our unconsciousness that binds us.

By dispassion, cutting mine-ness, ego, and desire, one who seeks God, the primal source, does not return again to the world.

Then there remains no reason to return. We return again and again because of unconsciousness—because we sleep.

“And, having thus firmly resolved ‘I am in the refuge of that Primal Person from whom this ancient world-tree has received its expansion,’ those whose pride and delusion are destroyed, who have conquered the defect of attachment, who dwell steadily in the nature of the Supreme, whose cravings are completely dissolved—such wise ones, freed from the pairs called pleasure and pain, attain that imperishable Supreme State.”

This sutra—“Of that Primal Person, of that primal source, I am in refuge”—is priceless. The feeling of refuge—sharan—is precious. Because even if desire can be cut by dispassion, the ego remains. Desire can be destroyed by dispassion, but then the ego of dispassion becomes dense: “I am a renunciate; I am a sacrificer; I have given up so much; I have destroyed desire.” A deep fire starts burning. Ego takes new forms—subtle, but even more solid.

Therefore Krishna adds one condition: having cut with the sword of dispassion, make a firm resolve, “I am in the refuge of that Primal Person.”

Let this dispassion not become a cause of feeding my ego. Because as long as I am, losing myself in the primal source is not easy; the drop keeps holding itself, and is not willing to dissolve into the ocean.

In the primal source, I will not remain as “I.” My essence will remain; my consciousness will remain. But the form of the “I” will be lost, the name of the “I” will be lost. All name and form will be dissolved.

If the seeker cultivates dispassion and does not cultivate alongside it the feeling of surrender, he goes astray. He may become pure, but even in his purity there will be poison. He may become virtuous, truthful, moral; but his morality, his truth, his purity will stand upon a fundamentally wrong wall—the wall of I-ness: “I am pure, I am virtuous, I am moral.” And this becomes the last wall. So long as “I am,” God is not.

People ask me, “We are seeking God; He is not found.” I tell them, so long as you are the seeker, there is no way He can be found! Because you are the obstacle. The seeker himself is the disturbance. Until the seeker is lost, there is no hope of finding.

Buddha denied God, saying there is no God.

Philosophically there is no difficulty in denying God—but then how will you create the feeling of surrender in the seeker? Whether God is or is not is not what is valuable. There is no need to prove He is.

Buddha said there is no God. But then a snag arose: how to bring about surrender? For that, new formulas had to be found. And those formulas ended up the same; nothing really changed.

So the Buddhist monk says, Buddham sharanam gacchhami, sangham sharanam gacchhami, dhammam sharanam gacchhami—“I go for refuge to the Buddha, to the Sangha, to the Dharma.” There is no escaping “I go for refuge”!

Buddha says there is no God. But the seeker of Buddha has to call Buddha “God” in effect. And Buddha does not refuse saying, “Do not call me God,” because Buddha clearly sees the difficulty. He could say, “Don’t call me God”—as if he would enjoy being called God; such a notion is foolish. But why does he not forbid it? Because a path must be found for the one who is going into refuge. Having dismissed God, someone is needed in whose refuge one can go.

But Buddha will die tomorrow; God never dies. Then what? To whom will you go for refuge? If you say Buddha is somewhere in the sky and will help from there, he becomes God. If you say he abides and helps, he becomes God.

So: sangham sharanam gacchhami. Hence a second formula had to be added—that the community of monks, the Sangha of seekers and siddhas—go to its refuge. It will remain.

But even that need not remain forever. From India the Buddhist Sangha disappeared. Then to whom will one go? So Buddha had to find a third formula: dhammam sharanam gacchhami—go to the refuge of the Dharma. The Dharma will remain.

But what difference does it make! One must go into refuge, for without refuge the seeker’s ego does not dissolve. Therefore Patanjali said a unique thing: God is a method to lose oneself. Whether God exists or not is not the question. “God” is only a device for losing oneself. For Hindus, the philosophical discussion whether God exists or not has no value.

Christians worked hard to prove that God exists—but nothing is proved by their labor. The arguments by which you prove can be cut; they are cut. There is no argument so great that it cannot be cut.

Hindus have never tried to prove God—because they say God is only a trick, a device, a method: a method so that you can go into refuge.

Therefore when Christians or Muslims first came to India, they were greatly puzzled: how foolish these Hindus are! Someone is worshipping a stone; someone is worshipping a tree; someone is worshipping a river. A stone! Not even a statue—just a rough rock smeared with vermilion—Hanuman-ji! It looked very strange: what is all this?

But they did not know that Hindus have discovered a profound principle. They say: it does not matter whom you worship; the question is that you worship. It is meaningless where you bow; what matters is that you bow.

So bow before a Peepal tree. It is a pretext. The Peepal tree is a pretext; God too is a pretext. Whether He is or is not is secondary. If it helps you to bow, then bow. Because by bowing you will know That which without bowing you can never know. And That is hidden within you.

Therefore Hinduism has been the most difficult religion for the world to understand. It is the least understood religion—because its forms appear so rough. But there is a reason for their roughness: a very deep truth has come into Hindu hands. God is not important; the bowed seeker, the surrendered seeker is important.

Wherever refuge is found, by whatever medium it is found—whether that medium is or is not is secondary. If refuge is found, everything is accomplished.

Krishna says: “Having firmly resolved, ‘I am in the refuge of that Primal Person,’ pride and delusion are destroyed...”

Naturally—whoever goes into refuge loses pride and delusion. One who does not go into refuge never loses pride and delusion.

That is why I am often amazed: Jain or Buddhist monks become filled with deep pride. Jains have even less chance of refuge; Buddhists at least found a way to go into the refuge of Buddha. Mahavira said: remain without refuge; go to no one’s refuge.

There is no mistake in the statement: if, without taking refuge, you can be without ego, nothing is greater than this; then there is no need of refuge. But who will be egoless without refuge? Once in millions perhaps, one person who has not gone into refuge becomes egoless. Even by going again and again into refuge, ego does not dissolve; then without bowing it is very difficult. Mahavira’s ego must have dissolved; those who follow Mahavira face the difficulty; they cannot bow.

Therefore the Jain monk practices tremendous austerity—perhaps none in any religion matches it. His practice is intense. But his ego is equally intense. A Jain monk’s stiff pride—one cannot even imagine such stiffness in a Sufi fakir. The Sufi would be astonished: what are you doing? Such stiffness! A Jain monk cannot greet anyone—because there is no one to whom one should go for refuge.

I was with a great Jain monk, Acharya Tulsi, many years ago. Morarji Desai came to see him—then he held power. Nehru was alive, and Morarji was in office. Morarji folded his hands to the Acharya. The Acharya cannot fold his hands to anyone; he can only bless.

Morarji is no less of a monk than any; a thorough moralist, hard as stone. He was immediately hurt. The first question he asked was: “I folded my hands in greeting; why did you not fold yours in return? Why are you seated above, and why am I made to sit below?”

Both are saintly men! And a big snag arose. Ten or twenty scholars from across the country had been invited to a colloquy; I too had been invited. I thought the meeting is over—how will it proceed now! Morarji said, “Until I get an answer to this, there is no point in talking further.”

Tulsi-ji remained silent. What could he say? A Jain monk is not permitted to greet anyone. No one is worthy of greeting. There is no one whose refuge one goes to.

I said: “If this is the rule, then you should also stop the other from greeting you. To accept another’s greeting and not return it is a bit dishonest as a rule. Or you should warn him: ‘Be careful! Do as you wish, but we will not return it.’”

And I said to Morarji: “Is it that his sitting above offends you—or that your sitting below offends you? This needs to be clarified first, then we can proceed. After all, a lizard too is walking above; that does not offend you. You being seated below—that pricks. Had you too been seated above, there would be no difficulty.”

A moralist, however moral, does not become religious. There is no doubt about Morarji’s morality, nor about Acharya Tulsi’s. Both are saintly men—but the ego is dense. And when a saint’s ego is dense, it is more dangerous than a sinner’s. He cannot be made to bow. A sinner has a little fear: “I am a sinner”—he bows. A saint has no fear. How will you make him bow? The sinner, out of his own fear, remains bowed. The saint’s stiffness is rigid: he will break, he will not bend.

But Hindus have grasped the fundamental principle: if by any means you can learn to bow, if by any means the feeling of refuge can arise, that alone is the supreme practice.

Naturally, pride and delusion will be destroyed. And as pride, attachment and delusion are destroyed, one begins to be established in the nature of God. For these are what shake you. Because of these there is vibration; because of these there is restlessness and unease; because of these there is motion.

One whose being begins to be established in God attains the imperishable state—such wise ones, free from the dualities called pleasure and pain, attain that Supreme, imperishable state.

That Supreme State is hidden within. As soon as our inner trembling stops, the vibration ceases, the flame becomes steady—that Supreme State becomes available to us. What has always been ours is recognized—we are filled with pratyabhijna, recognition of who we are. As soon as the “I” dissolves, the knowing of “Who am I?” arises.

Enough for today.