Geeta Darshan #4

Assurance will never come. Because the very mind that asks for assurance is, by nature, never satisfied. It will always find a flaw.

You have passed by Buddha, by Krishna, by Mahavira. You are not on the earth for the first time. No one has ever been able to give you assurance. Had anyone ever satisfied you, you would not be here.

You found faults in all—not because faults were there, but because you are adept, skilled at finding them. You can see errors even where there are none. Then the interpretation is in your hands. Facts are seen only by those whose mind is gone; you interpret the facts. And you see only what you want to see, what you can see.

A friend of mine was a drawing teacher in a high school. For some reason he landed in jail. When he returned and I went to the village, I asked him, “How was prison life?” He said, “Everything was fine, but the corners of my cell were not ninety degrees.” A drawing teacher! It must have been a great torment to him—the corners of the walls were not ninety degrees!

It depends on you—what you will see. It depends on you—how you will interpret.

If you pass by Mahavira, his standing naked may disturb you. You may feel, “How can a good man stand naked? Good people always keep themselves covered with clothes.” Trust won’t arise, assurance won’t arise.

You pass by Jesus—and this Jesus claims, “I am the son of God.” Your ego is hurt: “How can anyone other than me claim to be the son of God? He must be a fraud, dishonest.” And when Jesus is crucified, you will interpret that too: “Who knows what karma he is paying for! And if he truly is the son of God, he should work a miracle on the cross.” No miracle happens.

You pass by Mohammed, and you will still interpret. Mohammed married nine women. You won’t be satisfied. You will think yourself superior: “At least I manage with one. This man married nine! He seems lustful.”

No one will be able to satisfy you. As for Krishna, he will give you absolutely no assurance—none of you will be satisfied with him: so many gopis! So much music and color! Dance; war; trickery; cunning; lies. Everything is there.

If you are looking for assurance, there is no way for surrender to happen. In truth, the search for assurance is a way to avoid surrender. Those who are ready to surrender can surrender even to a stone.

And understand this: whether the person is worthy of surrender or not is beside the point. If you surrender, you will get the fruit. Even if that person is wrong, even if he was not fit for you to bow at his feet—it is not about him. You bowed; you could bow—you will be transformed. If you seek surrender as a way to transform yourself, then do not think of assurance at all.

And another thing: if someone truly gives you complete assurance, what meaning remains in your bowing? If God stands before you and, in every way, you are reassured, then when your head bows, your ego is not bowing. If all is assured, the head is only compelled to bow—where is the virtue in that? What is its value? No inner revolution will happen from it.

That is why many masters live in such a way that you cannot be reassured by them. Their whole way of life is arranged so that they won’t allow you to settle into assurance.

Gurdjieff had a woman with him, Alexandra de Salzmann—the wife of a great musician. Gurdjieff’s habit was that when anyone came to him, he would first say, “Give me all your money, jewelry, property—whatever you have. Then come empty-handed, because only then can I fill you.” Many ran away for this reason: “We came here seeking religion, and this man first asks for all our wealth and jewels!”

De Salzmann and her husband were great devotees. When Gurdjieff said to them, “Leave all your jewelry with me. Become empty-handed, only then can I fill you,” the husband agreed. But as women’s minds are, de Salzmann’s wife had attachment to a few diamonds. She came from a big family. To one diamond in particular she was deeply attached.

She asked her husband, “What should I do?” He said, “You have two options: either give everything—he won’t let you keep that one diamond—or give nothing at all. But then decide, because I am leaving everything and going to his feet. If you leave Gurdjieff, then leave me as well.”

His wife gathered courage. She tied up her diamond, all her jewels—all worth lakhs of rupees—into a bundle and placed it at Gurdjieff’s feet. The next day Gurdjieff called her and returned the whole bundle.

About fifteen days later another woman came, and Gurdjieff said to her too, “Give me all your jewelry.” She asked de Salzmann’s wife, “What should I do?” De Salzmann’s wife said, “I don’t know. I gave mine, and it was returned to me.” So the woman thought, “If it’s going to be returned anyway, why fear?” She gave it to Gurdjieff. He never returned it.

Gurdjieff had no interest in diamonds and jewels—but he did have an interest in the mind that clings and cannot let go. What can be released can be returned. What cannot be released cannot be returned.

And Gurdjieff would take money from one place and give it away somewhere else—ask from one and give to another. From the outside, it would look as if he were money-obsessed.

Gurdjieff said to his disciples, “I try, in every possible way, to create distrust toward me. And if, even after that, someone trusts—then that is surrender; then his ego drops at that very moment.”

Therefore those whom you generally take to be saintly people—who fit all your standards of holiness—will never bring a revolution into your life. You measure them on every criterion and then “surrender.” You don’t surrender at all—your measuring rod remains alive. This man is smaller than you; you have tested him in every way, and your mind is satisfied: “Perfect!” Then you surrender. No revolution of surrender will happen.

The revolution of surrender happens only when the mind is shaky; when the mind is afraid, when it cannot trust—and even as the ego gives every suggestion to run away and withdraw, you still muster courage and jump. In that jump, the ego dies. If you surrender with solid confidence and assurance, the surrender is false; it is not surrender—there is no leap.

You have inspected the road thoroughly—it’s neat and clean; there are no pits, no risk of a jump, no danger of falling into a ravine. It’s a paved highway—you walk upon it.

Only those masters succeed in getting you to surrender who refuse to be tied down by your yardsticks. But a curious thing happens: as soon as such a master dies, his way of living becomes a yardstick for his devotees in the days to come.

Mahavira stood naked. That nakedness was a stumbling block at the time. Those who surrendered to this naked man were revolutionaries; they must have gathered great courage. But after Mahavira’s death, the children of those revolutionary devotees have no revolution. If you take them to Buddha, they will see and think: “This man is wearing clothes, therefore he cannot be a saint.” So they will not surrender to Buddha.

Take a Jain to Rama’s temple—he cannot bow his head: “What sort of God is this, decked in jewelry! What kind of God is this, whose Sita stands beside him!” Impossible. No assurance arises.

Therefore a Jain cannot accept Rama as God. There is no way for his mind to accept it. He has his own yardstick—and he took that yardstick from Mahavira. But Mahavira himself was an utterly revolutionary person, and those who were in accord with him had surrendered.

Around every awakened one, surrendered people gather—but after his death, tradition forms—a track appears. People then walk the track. Everyone carries his own notions, his own standards.

You must have some standard too—hence you ask, “How can I be assured?” What standard do you have? There is no instrument by which to know who has awakened, who is enlightened, whose lamp of knowing is aflame—who has become a Krishna, who has become a Christ. There is no way to test it behaviorally, because hundreds of awakened ones have appeared in the world and their behaviors are all different; each has his own uniqueness, his own individuality.

We cannot even imagine Buddha getting angry; yet Christ gets angry. The one who takes Buddha as his standard will see Christ angry and conclude: “This man is not qualified; he is not yet enlightened.”

Christ became so angry that he took a whip in his hand, entered the Jewish temple, struck the priests, overturned the moneylenders’ tables, and drove them out.

One who holds Buddha as the base will say, “This man may be a revolutionary, but he is not yet at peace.”

But one who holds Christ as the base, who has lived in his love and surrendered to him, seeing Buddha will say, “This peace is lifeless; the man is impotent. With so much social suffering, pain, poverty—he sits silently under a tree! If no revolution arises out of his peace, what value has it?”

How will you find a yardstick? What way is there? Mahavira kicks wealth away; Janaka sits on a throne in a kingdom. Both are enlightened.

Every awakened one is unique, so no yardstick can be made. No essence can be extracted by which to measure. And the measurer never thinks, “Where am I? How will I measure?”

You stand on the shore, trying to measure the depth of the Indian Ocean! You will have to go into that depth. You sit on the ground and try to measure Everest’s height! You will have to climb that height.

There is no way to recognize the awakened unless you have become awakened yourself. How will assurance come? Assurance has never come to anyone. If you wait for assurance, you will be waiting forever.

Have courage. Wherever you feel even a slight attraction, don’t wait saying, “When there is one-hundred-percent assurance, I will jump.” That will never happen. Wherever the mind feels drawn, and in whose presence you feel even a light breeze from the unknown; in whose presence inner doors to heights open; in whose presence new dreams arise; whose presence transforms you; where there is a taste of the unfamiliar, the unknown—there, be courageous and forget assurance. Don’t do arithmetic.

This is a gambler’s work. That is why I often say: shopkeepers fail in religion; gamblers win. This is not a bookkeeping affair where you can be perfectly sure, “If I put in one rupee, how much will I save? Will I save anything?” This is a wager. In it, all can be lost, all can be gained. Small calculations won’t do.

And life is very illogical; it is not like mathematics, it is like a riddle. In this riddle of life, if you are too calculative, religion is not for you—business is for you.

This is pure risk. There is no ironclad guarantee that the one you surrender to will surely be worthy. A mistake is possible. But a mistake carries no danger. Understand this: the revolution does not happen because of the worthiness of the one you surrender to; the revolution happens because of surrender.

That is why if you surrender to a stone lying under a tree, a revolution will happen. The real issue is your bowing, your effacing yourself. The pretext under which you efface yourself is secondary. And I tell you, it has often happened that even with ignorant gurus, disciples have attained to knowing.

This will sound upside down, because the arithmetic doesn’t make sense: “Unless the guru is enlightened, how can the disciple attain?” Disciples have stayed with enlightened masters for years and remained unenlightened!

Therefore I say: life is like a riddle. Even an enlightened master can do nothing for you if you sit with him without surrender. His eyes cannot function for you, nor can his heart beat for you, nor can his experience become your experience. And even an ignorant guru can sometimes be of use—if you surrender. Because surrender is the event; the guru is only the pretext.

It’s like you enter a room, take off your coat, and hang it on a peg. The peg is only a pretext. Any peg will do—red, green, yellow, colorless; small or big; wood, iron, or gold—you don’t need to be overly assured about the peg. It is enough that there is a peg; the coat can be hung. The coat must be there to hang.

Surrender is needed—the readiness to lose and efface yourself. Then any guru will do.

But this question arises in everyone’s mind: “Until there is assurance...” If you carry this mind, you will wander. Assurance will never come. The mind is such that it will never let assurance happen. The whole mechanism of the mind is to produce distrust. Understand this.

The structure of the mind gives birth to doubt. As leaves grow on trees, doubts grow in the mind. Faith never grows in the mind; it is not in that seed. No one attains faith through the mind; through the mind one attains only doubt. Mind means doubt.

So if you go searching through the mind, you will keep finding doubts. And with doubts, how can surrender happen? Only those can surrender who are tired of their mind.

Not because of assurance in another, but because they have lost faith in their own mind; who are bored and harassed by their mind; who have tried all the mind’s pathways, walked them all, obeyed the mind in every way and still found no joy; who are weary of their mind, filled with despondency because of it—those people surrender.

To drop the mind is surrender. The moment the mind drops, trust is born. Where yesterday you saw doubts, today you begin to see faith. Where yesterday assurance would not arise, suddenly it arises—trust happens. A deep feeling is born and you begin to walk the path.

Who asks for assurance? You. If you have arrived somewhere, there is no need for assurance, no need for surrender. If you have not arrived...

There is only one difference between the religious and the irreligious: the irreligious doubts everyone except himself; the religious doubts himself and leaves everyone else.

One who doubts himself will find a master quickly—because he can be assured. One who doubts others will never find a master. Wherever he goes, he trusts himself—the very one who has not taken him anywhere.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was furious one day—jumping about, blazing with anger. His friend, Pandit Ramcharandas, sat with him and asked, “Why are you angry?” He said, “My wife has betrayed me! She is unfaithful, of bad character—fit to be thrown out of the house!”

His friend asked, “Do you have any proof? On what basis do you say she is of bad character? Why are you so angry and going mad?” Nasruddin said, “I have proof. She was out all night. And in the morning when she came and I asked her, she deceived me. She says, ‘I stayed the night at my friend Tara’s house.’ This is outright falsehood.” Pandit asked, “Do you have any proof of that?” Nasruddin said, “Full proof—because I stayed at Tara’s house all night!”

The mind is busy doubting others all the time. It never turns back upon itself.

So if you carry this mind and go searching, you will never meet a master. If you are tired of this mind—or if you are not yet tired, then work a little more and get tired—when you are tired, the meeting with a master will happen.

And you need not go to the Himalayas to find a master. He may be present in your own home. But your mind will not allow the connection.

Let the mind move aside; your eyes will clear, seeking will become simple. You may not even have to search—he may come searching for you. But the mind that seeks assurance never finds.

This mind is like a small child whom you tell, “Sit in the corner; sit quietly; don’t move!” The child is in great trouble then, because all his energy wants to run. He wants to do something. To make him sit is painful. There is only one way to seat him: first tell him, “Run around the house ten times—and as fast as you can.” When he is tired, when he folds his hands and says, “I can’t run anymore; enough!” then tell him to sit.

First, make this mind run. If it has only run halfway, it will never let you stop. Wherever you go, it will find reasons to keep you running. So run it thoroughly.

Doubt as much as you have to—doubt fully. Argue as much as you have to—argue fully. Think as much as you have to—think fully. Don’t be lukewarm; come to a full boil. Let it turn into steam. There will be great pain; hell will rise up.

This is the hindrance: neither do we surrender so that everything becomes quiet, nor do we boil fully so that steam is produced in every way. We do nothing. We simmer in the middle. This lukewarmness is man’s misery.

If you must doubt, complete it. Completed doubt also leads to trust. You will have to pass through hell. There will be great anguish. But passing through that pain, one understanding will come into your hands: this mind leads nowhere except to suffering. This is the gateway to suffering. When this is seen, you will not seek consolation through the mind. You will put the mind aside and make direct contact. Then surrender is easy.

Until surrender happens, as long as the mind goes on seeking consolation, suffer its sorrow totally. And not slowly—don’t take homeopathic doses. Drink the whole poison at once. Either this shore or that shore—cross to one of the two. Do not remain entangled in the middle.

I see many people here who seek a little consolation and also don’t seek a little—this is their state: a state of impotence. Nothing can come of this. Someone comes to me and says, “I feel a little trust in you, and a little distrust too.”

I say, choose one of the two. Even drop that little trust, and be free of me. Because of that little trust you cannot go far from me—needlessly you waste time. And because of that little distrust you cannot come close to me either. A little distrust prevents a relationship with me; a little trust prevents it from breaking. This is a great dilemma. If the relationship with me breaks, another could form elsewhere. Perhaps trust might happen somewhere else. But even that does not happen, because a little trust remains here.

It is like pulling half the roots of a tree out of the soil and leaving half inside. Then there will be neither flowers nor fruits nor green leaves—and the tree will not die either.

Go to the hospitals; in India too this condition is coming now. In Europe and America it is abundant. People have become a hundred, a hundred and twenty-five years old, and they are hanging on in hospitals. They are not allowed to die, and they have no means to live. One is being given oxygen; another’s hands and feet are strapped; they are fed medicines.

They are dead-alive. They cannot die, because the doctors won’t let them; and they cannot live, because giving life is beyond the doctors’ hands. Life has flowed out of them, yet death is not being allowed to come.

In this incomplete condition, people in the West are raising their voices for euthanasia. They say we should have the right to die; and when we have written that we wish to die, attempts to save us should cease. But no state has yet found the courage to grant the right to die.

Doctors also know it would be better if this man passed away. Even so, they keep giving medicines to maintain a flicker of life—because of the pangs of their conscience. If we do not medicate and this man dies, they will feel all their life that they killed him.

The person who has a little faith and a little doubt becomes like those hanging in the hospitals—he can neither live nor die; he can neither go far nor come near.

So either take the leap; or understand that this chasm is not for you—some other chasm will be. Then step away from this one.

You need to be decisive. You need to take your own decision. Even a wrong decision is not bad; but indecision is bad. Because even a wrong decision gives strength—at least something is settled. With that settling, integration is born within you; integrity arrives. But in indecision—nothing settled, indecisiveness—you slowly fall apart inside. The inner self cannot gather; it becomes fragmented. Drop this fragmented state.

So then, first: stop seeking consolation. If you cannot stop, then complete the seeking. Surrender. If surrender does not happen, then fully suffer the misery of non-surrender. Do not stay in the middle. No one has ever attained knowing from the middle. The leap can be taken only from the extreme.

That other people’s experiences are of no use means only this: another’s experience cannot become your experience; another’s realization cannot become your realization. But contact with another can be contagious. Another’s presence can be contagious. If you are open to the other, just as you can catch diseases, you can also catch health.

Experiences do not come from others. If you are with Krishna, Krishna’s experiences cannot become yours. But in Krishna’s presence, if you are surrendered, the growth of your own life begins. In that growth experiences will someday happen. No one else can give them to you, but another’s presence can function as a catalytic agent. It can ignite a spark. It can become inspiration. It can give a push.

For that, it is necessary that you be open. Your heart should not be closed; your mind should not be surrounded by prejudice. You should be willing to go into the unknown, to descend into the unfamiliar; willing to follow someone along a path you have never known. The unprecedented can happen. The unwanted can happen. There must be an inner readiness to take that risk.

It is precisely to avoid risk that we keep ourselves closed.

A friend came to me and said, “I am afraid to come to the camp—what if something really happens? I have children, a wife, a home. I still have to raise them, take care of everything. There are worldly responsibilities to fulfill. I’m afraid that if I go, something might actually happen!”

His fear is natural—and understandable. But because of that fear he is closed. So I told him, “Why have you come to me at all? Coming is futile. Here too the fear will be inside. If you meet me from behind that screen of fear, the meeting cannot happen. That fear sits within, whispering, ‘What if something happens?’ So come only when the fear has gone.

“And there is no hurry. Time is infinite. You have had so many births; you will have just as many more. There is no hurry. But if the wall of fear stands inside, then go to anyone you like—nothing will happen. Mere physical proximity can do nothing. What I have experienced I cannot give to you. But if you are open, if you are willing to flow with me, your own experiences will begin to happen—and they will be yours.”

I can take your hand and lead you outside, saying, “Come—the sun is out beyond the house, the flowers are in bloom, and the sky is full of color!” I can take you outside, but when you open your eyes and see the sun, that experience will be yours; I cannot give it to you. Sitting in this room, I cannot give you that experience. However much I may have seen the sun, the flowers, the colorful sky—sitting here I can talk to you about the sky and the sun, but I cannot give you the experience.

Words are not experiences. And if you become satisfied with my words, then I am your enemy. Because if you take the word “sun” to be the sun, the word “sky” to be the sky, then you will stop going out, stop seeking, stop searching for the sky. You will think you have received it all right here.

But here I can kindle thirst in you—I cannot give you the experience. Or, if you look at my presence, thirst can arise. And if you are willing to take a few steps with me, you can reach the outside as well. Then whatever you see will be your own experience.

Experience is private and can never be transferred. Therefore I have said that other people’s experiences are of no use. But this does not mean you cannot learn from others. You cannot learn the experience, but you can learn all the methods, all the paths by which they came to it.

That is why the awakened ones do not give doctrines; they give only methods. They do not give conclusions; they give only the path. They do not tell you what will happen on arriving there; they tell you only how you can arrive.

Buddha has said: I show the path; you have to walk, you have to arrive, you have to know. I can only point the way.

Those who have traversed the path can give you news of the path. Their experiences are of no use to you, but their presence, their being, their light, their silence—if you are open—become contagious. Just as one catches malaria, one can also catch buddhahood.

But for malaria we are open, ready. If one person coughs here, ten or fifteen will cough. For that we are ready. For disease we are ready! But if one person here becomes silent, ten or fifteen will not become silent.

We are sensitive to sorrow. The same sensitivity toward bliss is what is called surrender.

First thing: the inferiority complex is part of the ego itself. It is because of the ego that we feel inferior. This may sound a bit difficult. If you have no ego, you cannot have inferiority. You feel inferior because inwardly you take yourself to be very great, and you don’t find yourself that great in reality. The more you imagine your greatness, the more reality exposes your smallness. From that, inferiority arises.

The bigger the ego, the stronger the feeling of inferiority. The smaller the ego, the less inferiority. No ego, and inferiority disappears. Inferiority and ego are two sides of the same coin.

That is why a humble person is not inferior. Inferiority cannot get hold of one who is humble. It only clutches the vain.

People come to me in many ways. One says, “How do I increase my self-confidence? I have too much self-doubt.” Another says, “I have an inferiority complex; how do I remove it?” They don’t catch the disease, only the symptom.

If there is self-doubt, accept it as part of you. If your height is six feet or five feet, what do you do? You accept: I am five feet tall. But you think you should have been six feet because someone else is six. Then inferiority begins. You are short by a foot; now you must make it up somehow. So you start walking on your toes. You suffer, you’re in pain.

All over the world women wear high heels—only an attempt to get a man’s height. It’s painful, because walking is not comfortable. The higher the heel, the more the pain. But slowly one gets used to the discomfort; the bones set to it; then walking flat becomes difficult. A little shame sits in the female mind: she is a little shorter than the male. In the East women did not fuss so much about high heels, because there is not yet so much competition with men. In the West, competition is heavy.

The other being bigger is where the trouble starts. But what is the problem? You are six feet, I am five. Neither does one foot more make one truly great, nor one foot less make one small. You sing well; I cannot. Where is the obstruction?

The ego cannot tolerate that something is lacking in me. Then life shows—much is lacking. So inferiority comes, self-doubt comes. Then in order to get rid of it we adopt devices—high heels—and we create more suffering; the whole life becomes distorted.

There is only one way out of all these diseases: accept yourself as you are. You have two eyes—accepted. Their color is black or green—accepted. Someone’s nose is long, another’s short—accepted. These are facts; accept: this is how I am. And from where I am, what can be achieved? Put creative effort there.

If you compete with others, you will go mad. Almost everyone has gone mad. Competition breeds derangement. And that mad chase never ends.

I was once on a journey. A friend was driving. Whenever he saw a car ahead on the road, he would speed up. How could any car be ahead of him! I watched a while: each time a car appeared ahead he went crazy until he overtook it. I asked, “Do you think there will ever come a time on this road when there is no car ahead? You’ll go mad; there will always be some car in front. Go at your own pace. You have to reach your destination; drive accordingly. What is the problem if some car is in front?”

There must be a deep inferiority complex: how can I be behind another! This is how it is on the road of life too. You don’t bother where you need to go—no concern at all about arriving. All that matters is: no one should be ahead of you—even if he’s heading to hell, you must overtake him!

I’ve heard that the great American scientist Oppenheimer advised the U.S. President to hurry, because the Russians were ahead in reaching the moon. In the beginning they were. Oppenheimer said, “We must hurry, otherwise they will get there before us.” The President casually said, “Let them go to hell.” Oppenheimer replied, “At this rate they’ll get there before us too—and that we cannot tolerate!”

Who is going where is not your real concern; only that no one be ahead of you. Many times your path in life has changed simply because, by chance, someone appeared ahead of you who was going somewhere else. If you analyze, you will see clearly: you were going on your way when you saw someone driving a better car—your life changed, because now you needed a better car. You befriended someone with a bigger house—now you’re in trouble: you must have a bigger house than his. And you forget where you wanted to go, what you wanted to be. The ego cannot tolerate anyone ahead of me—hence the feeling of inferiority. And there will always be someone ahead. No one on the path of life has ever experienced being ahead of all.

Even if Napoleon conquers everything, he will be hurt by trifles. One day his clock went wrong. He tried to fix it but he couldn’t reach it. He was only five feet tall. His orderly, a six-foot young man, stepped up and fixed it easily. Napoleon wrote in his diary, “I felt such pain as if I had lost the whole world. The orderly! His hand reached, mine did not!” Put yourself in Napoleon’s place; you too would feel the sting. This is happening daily.

Inferiority arises because the ego is big. If Napoleon accepted, “I am five feet, fine. He is six feet; his hand will reach, mine won’t. It’s a fact; what is the problem? And what lofty height is proved by a hand reaching?” Then there would be no inferiority.

When we insist on surrender, on becoming a zero, it is not to produce inferiority—it is to beget humility. Humility is the exact opposite of inferiority. Humility arises when the ego goes. When the ego goes, inferiority goes by itself; it is only its shadow. You cannot humiliate a humble person.

Lao Tzu has said, “No one has ever been able to defeat me, for I am already defeated. No one has ever been able to insult me, for I never sought respect.” It is said that if he came to a gathering—if he came here to listen—he would sit at the very end, near the place where shoes are left, because he would say, “From there no one can push me further back.” You cannot humiliate Lao Tzu. There is no way. And remember, one needs a great soul to be able to sit last. He is so assured in his being that sitting last does not make him last. The one trying to sit first is not assured; he is afraid. He knows if he doesn’t sit first, people will think he is not first. He has no trust in himself. One who trusts himself—it makes no difference where he sits.

Humility is not inferiority. Humility is the dissolution of the ego. Humility declares, “I am as I am. I have no competition with anyone. If I am to grow, it is my own growth; it is not related to others; it is not in comparison.”

When this understanding dawns—“I am I; you are you. As you are is good for you; as I am is good for me. I have no competition with you, no desire to take your place. I have my own place; existence has given it to me. I have to sprout in my place”—as soon as one drops competing with others, one’s growth in the divine begins. As long as one is entangled with others, there is no growth in God’s world, because one’s attention is on others, not on the divine.

Even if you go to the temple, you worry about praying from the number-one spot. What has prayer to do with number one! Even in the temple there are rows; the ego sits in front; it won’t let others sit ahead.

Now the Kumbha Mela is to be held; the egotists will bathe first. There are riots, murders, sticks fly—and those wielding sticks are sannyasins—because they say, “It is our right to go first.” What has religion to do with being first? If religion has anything to do with anything, it is with the last. The one willing to be last becomes beloved of God.

The one running to be first is fighting with God. Running to be first is trying to swim upstream in the river. Being willing to be last means letting the current carry you, becoming one with the flow. Wherever the river takes us, we are ready to go. Surrender is the art of flowing. This whole existence is the divine. Whoever learns the art of flowing—his temple is not far; he has arrived.

Now the sutra. “But the ignorant do not know him departing the body, nor dwelling in it, nor experiencing the objects, nor associated with the three gunas; only those with the eye of knowledge know the essence.” Departing the body…

When the body is dropped—and you have dropped it many times—that moment is always missed. Because before the body actually falls, you become unconscious. Whenever someone dies, he becomes unconscious before death. So the experience of dying doesn’t happen, and the mysterious phenomenon of death remains unknown. At death the body separates, the soul separates; the petals of the senses are left behind, while fragrance—the subtle desires, impressions—cling around the soul like a scent and it sets off on a new journey. We don’t grasp this event because at the moment we are unconscious. Why do we fall unconscious at death?

Life is arranged so that suffering can be borne up to a limit. When it becomes unbearable, unconsciousness comes. That is why when you say, “I am in unbearable pain,” you are wrong. If it is unbearable, you cannot remain conscious; you will faint. Consciousness remains only as long as it can bear. Whenever pain becomes too much, you will faint. Any deep shock, you will faint. Fainting is pain becoming unbearable. And death is the greatest pain for us—not because of death, but because we are afraid of vanishing. “I will be no more.” The fear, anguish, torment of that thought floods the mind and puts it out.

But those who have practiced the art of surrender while living—death will not be able to make them unconscious. They are already ready to disappear; they are seeking it, searching for the science of non-being. Those who have practiced yoga, tantra, meditation, prayer—their one quest is how to disappear, because the “I” is pain. For such people, at the moment of death there is a glad willingness.

Saint Augustine was building a church. He invited a great painter and said, “Paint Death on the main door, because one who cannot understand death—how will he enter the temple?” The painter painted a dark, terrifying Death holding an axe. When Augustine came to see it he said, “All else is fine, but why an axe in Death’s hand?” The painter said, “It symbolizes that Death’s axe cuts all down.” Augustine said, “Everything else is fine; remove the axe and place a key in the hand.” The painter asked, “A key?” Augustine said, “Our experience is that Death only opens a new door; it erases no one—hence a key.” But it opens a door only for those who die consciously. For those who die in unconsciousness, it cuts the head; for them Death does carry an axe.

We cannot know the moment of leaving the body because we are unconscious. We will know only if awareness is present at death. This needs practice—so much practice that it sinks from the conscious into the unconscious. Until it reaches the unconscious…

Hence yoga uses two words: vairagya and abhyasa—dispassion and practice. The whole process is contained in these two. We spoke of vairagya—what it is. Now the second: deep, daily practice, so that it sinks so much into you that death cannot shake it.

A friend of mine is a major in the army. His wife lived next door to me; he visited occasionally, transfers here and there; his wife taught in a college. Whenever he came, his wife got a little troubled: a lovely man in every way, but he snored terribly, and she had grown used to sleeping alone. When he came for a month or two in the year, her sleep was ruined. She said to me, “Strange situation; it feels improper to say anything—he comes after so long—how can I go sleep in another room? And yet at night I cannot sleep.” I asked for details. She said, “Whenever he lies on his left side, he snores; if he turns to the right, he sleeps fine. But who will turn a heavy sleeping soldier in the night! If I try, he’ll wake up.” I said, “I’ll give you a mantra; practice whispering it in his ear.” Next day she said, “Wonderful mantra!” It was simple. I said, “Whisper in his ear: Right turn!” He is military; a lifetime’s training. It worked: as soon as she said “Right turn,” in his sleep he turned.

You will keep awareness at death only if you have practiced your whole life, and so deeply that even with death standing before you, awareness does not faint. It must reach into the unconscious. Therefore, practice surrender as much as possible, in as many situations as possible. Lose yourself; don’t keep holding yourself together. Each small losing accumulates; grain by grain it becomes a mountain. Then when death comes, you can go with awareness.

One who dies consciously is born consciously, because birth and death are two sides of the same door. From this side, entering is death; exiting on the other side is birth. Like a door that says “In”—from outside you enter in; but once inside, another world begins. Death—out of this body; birth—into another body. The process is one. If you can die consciously, you will be born consciously. Then you will remember the past birth; its essence will be in your hand; you won’t repeat the same mistakes. Otherwise, every time you forget and repeat. This is a vicious circle. What you are doing today—you have done it countless times: the same marriage, children, money, status; the same quarrels, courts, shops—you have done it many times. If only you could remember once, the taste you are taking today would vanish; it would look madness, and you would stop.

He who dies consciously is born consciously, and one who remains conscious in birth and death remains conscious in life—because birth and death are the two ends; life is between, and in all three we are unconscious. That is why even if one tells you, “You are not the body, you are the soul,” it doesn’t settle inside. You may accept it, but it doesn’t sink, because there is no experience. It seems the body is real; the soul sounds like hot air.

Krishna says: “But the ignorant do not know him as he leaves the body, nor as he abides in it, nor as he enjoys the objects, nor as he is associated with the three gunas. Only those with the eyes of wisdom know the essence.” Because stupor persists. Only those with the eye of knowledge see the truth.

What is this eye of knowledge? I call it un-stupor—letting things happen with awareness: death, birth, life. These are the three events. If all three happen consciously, the eye of knowledge is yours.

Begin where you are. Birth is past, death is coming; life is now. Begin with life: live knowingly. Whatever you do, do it with awareness. Again and again you will lose it—catch it again. Walk on the road—with awareness. Eat—with awareness. Speak—with awareness. Keep one thing constant: let nothing happen in stupor. Someone abuses you—first grasp your awareness, then answer. You will be amazed: if awareness is settled, the answer won’t come. Without awareness, even what you don’t want to do slips out.

Mulla Nasruddin was traveling with two friends in a bullock cart. They drew lots to decide who would cook. One’s name came up, with one condition: whoever cooks, the other two cannot complain; if anyone complains, he must cook from that day. Mulla was in trouble. The other man’s name came, so he was happy. But the food he cooked was so rotten it couldn’t be eaten—and they couldn’t complain; if they did, they had to cook. One day, two days, three days… on the third day Mulla lost his mindfulness and blurted, “It tastes like horse shit!” Then he caught himself and added, “But delicious!” because he must not complain.

If you keep watch, you will find many times in a day when half a sentence slips out in unconsciousness—then you will add the other half afterwards, “But delicious.”

Life is in your hands now; now is the time to do something. Practice awareness in speech, thought, conduct. Whatever I say, think, do—let it be conscious. Then slowly stupor will break, and as it breaks, suffering breaks, because in stupor we invite suffering and miss the moments from which bliss could arise.

Mulla Nasruddin had a donkey. The donkey often caught cold; he would shiver, get fever. Mulla took him to a vet. The doctor examined him, gave two pills and a hollow tube. “Put the pills in the tube, one end in the donkey’s mouth, and blow from the other; the pills will go into his stomach. Very hot pills; he’ll be fine in a day.” That evening Nasruddin returned, stick in hand, eyes red, face flushed, sweating. He banged the door: “Where is that son of a doctor?” The doctor asked, “What happened?” Nasruddin said, “Why didn’t you tell me the whole thing?” “What whole thing?” “The donkey blew first—the pills went into my stomach!” The doctor asked, “What were you doing?” “I got into another thought for a moment—just a little delay. I had the pill in the tube at my mouth; I sat down and some other idea came…”

In that distraction, stupor comes. We all live like this: doing one thing, thinking another; wanting one thing, something else happens; the results are different from our intentions. What we want never quite happens—it cannot, unless there is full awareness. One whose awareness is complete—the right thing happens in his life; otherwise there is no way. One living in stupor is like a drunk: he wanted to go home, landed elsewhere; his feet do their own thing. He wanted one thing, something else happened.

I read a drunkard’s memoir. One night he drank too much. To save himself from his wife, he returned quietly. He had fallen many times on the way; his face had scratches and bruises. He went to the bathroom, applied ointment and bandages to his face, slipped into bed, pleased: no noise, his wife didn’t notice; by morning the scratches would be fine. In the morning his wife shouted from the bathroom, “Why have you spoiled the mirror?” He asked, “What mirror?” In stupor he had stuck the ointment and bandages on the mirror where his face was reflected.

Krishna says only those with the eye of knowledge know the essence—only they whose awareness is awake moment to moment, who remain mindful in birth, death, and life.

“Even yogis know this Self dwelling in the heart only by striving; the ignorant, whose inner being is not purified, do not know it even while striving.” Effort alone is not enough. It is necessary, but not sufficient. Intense effort is needed, but by itself it won’t do; purity of heart is also required.

Understand this well. Many people keep on making effort without caring whether the feeling is pure, the heart is pure; the consequences can be dangerous. A man may not purify his heart and yet cultivate concentration—he can. Even the worst person can become concentrated; concentration has nothing to do with goodness. In fact, a bad man may find concentration easier, because one trait of the bad is that whatever he does, he does madly. He is stubborn; evil cannot be carried out without obstinacy. For such a person hatha yoga is easy: once he gets a notion, he clings to it. He can be cruel to others and to himself. If you practice hatha yoga you will feel, “Why torture this body? Why sit so long? Legs ache; eyes water.” The wicked don’t care. They can torment others and themselves equally.

You will be surprised to know that more than half your so-called yogis and mahatmas are wicked—but their wickedness is turned inward. At least they have that much grace; society is not harmed—only they are. If a wicked murderer cultivates concentration, he can succeed; but his concentration will be dangerous. The power will come, and the heart is not pure; the power will be misused. You have read the stories of Durvasa; such a man becomes a Durvasa: power in the word. If a person has practiced deep concentration, there comes a potency to his speech that ordinary speech lacks; his word pierces to your very core; whatever he says carries force. Our myths are not false; there is truth in them.

If such a one says, “You will die tomorrow,” it is hard to escape—not because there is magic in his saying, but because his word enters deep into your heart. His arrow is sharp; his energy is gathered; he has trained himself for years to collect his total force on one thought. That thought becomes a powerful suggestion for you. He says, “You will die tomorrow,” and his eyes, his presence, his unity, his concentration pierce that thought like an arrow into your heart. However you try, it is hard to be free of it. It haunts you, and by the time tomorrow comes you are half dead. You die. The curse is not fulfilled because God is waiting to fulfill curses, but because Durvasa has concentration, without purity of heart.

Therefore Krishna says: effort is not enough. If the inner being is not purified, the ignorant do not know the Self even while striving.

So two things: effort, and along with it, purity of heart. Buddha and Mahavira placed purity first, so that mistakes do not happen: purity of diet, body, conduct—let the person be purified in every way; then strive. Otherwise there is danger.

This is not just in ancient stories; even in this century there was an astonishing man in Russia—Rasputin. A rare talent—of the same order as a Gurdjieff or a Ramana—but with one danger: no purity of heart. Rasputin had done intense sadhana; he had worked with all the Eastern methods, even in Tibet; he acquired extraordinary powers. But the heart was ordinary—so whatever he wanted would happen, but what he wanted was wrong; he could not want the right. He helped drown Russia, because he influenced the Tsar—especially the Tsarina. His power was astounding—admitted even by enemies. When they killed him, they first gave him a lot of poison, but he did not faint; his concentration was so great. They fed him enough poison to kill five hundred men, yet he did not faint, let alone die. They then shot him—some twenty-two bullets—and still he did not die. Then they bound him with stones and threw him into the Volga. When his body was found two days later, he had freed himself from the stones, cut his bonds; doctors said he had not died because of the stones—he survived two hours under water. With all that poison, bullets, stones—still he freed himself; he might have escaped. A man of deep power—but all his power was misapplied. Lenin didn’t have as much to do with the revolution as Rasputin. Rasputin ruined Russia; the rest was easy. Half the work was his, half Lenin’s.

If the heart is not pure, power can come through effort—but the Self will not. Rasputin had power, not soul. That power too was of mind and body.

Purity of heart means clarity of feeling—becoming childlike; hardness drops, anger drops, ego drops, jealousy and hatred drop; the heart becomes clean—and along with it, yogic effort. Effort and pure feeling. You could also say: it is not enough to be a yogi; one must also be a bhakta. The yogi alone is dangerous; the bhakta alone is weak. The bhakta is feeble; he can only pray in poor-me tones: “You are the purifier of the fallen, and I am a sinner—save me.” He can say such things, but he has no power. The yogi can accumulate great power, but he lacks feeling. Where bhakta and yogi meet—where feeling and effort unite—there, the Self is realized.

Enough for today.