Geeta Darshan #3

Now let us take the sutra.

And O Partha, hypocrisy, vanity and pride, and also anger, harsh speech and ignorance — these are the marks of one endowed with asuri sampada. Of these two endowments, the daivi sampada is held to be for liberation, and the asuri sampada for bondage. Therefore, O Arjuna, do not grieve, for you have attained to daivi sampada.

And, O Arjuna, in this world the dispositions of beings are understood to be of two kinds: one like the devas, the other like the asuras. Of the nature of the devas I have already spoken at length; therefore now listen from me, in detail, to the nature of the asuras.

Pakhand — hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy means: to show yourself as that which you are not; to present a face that is not your real face.

We all carry masks. As the need arises, we change them. From morning till evening, many times we are compelled to use new faces. As the situation demands, such a face we put on. Slowly, slowly it can also happen that, walking so long in hypocrisy, you forget who you are.

This is what has happened. If you ask yourself, Who am I? no answer comes. For you have displayed so many faces, adopted so many forms, advertised yourself in so many ways that you yourself have fallen into bewilderment: Who am I? What is my truth? Do I have any truth — or is everything about me deception upon deception? From morning till night, we keep projecting what we are not.

Krishna counted among the daivi qualities: truth, authenticity — the man as he is, that alone is his way of being, whatever the consequence. In asuri sampada there are many faces.

We read the story of Ravana, but perhaps the meaning has not reached you. Ravana is Dashanan — ten-faced. Rama has only one face. Rama is authentic, straightforward. You can recognize him, for there is no trick. Ravana is difficult to recognize. He has many faces. Ten means: many. For ten is the last number; beyond ten there is no new number — all numbers are re-arrangements upon ten.

Ten faces means the limit has been reached. Which is his real face becomes hard to discern. Ravana is asuric. And as long as the state of our consciousness is asuric, we too have many faces. We too are dashanan. Through this we deceive others — that is one thing — but we also deceive ourselves. For we ourselves forget what our nature truly is.

Hypocrisy means: to deceive the other and, in the end, by that deception to cast yourself into delusion too.

The nature of a lie is this: to protect one lie, a thousand more must be told. Then there is such an endless chain of lies that we no longer even remember what the first lie was that we uttered.

A second nature of a lie is this: if it is repeated again and again, by constant repetition we become auto-hypnotized, we fall under a spell. And we ourselves begin to feel that it is right. Repeat a lie again and again, and you yourself will start doubting whether it is a lie or the truth — for you have repeated it so often that its imprint has sunk into you.

I was reading of a man who had committed a murder. A case was filed. Proceedings went on for years. It was a complex, tangled matter. Lawyers argued, witnesses spoke, the court kept sitting. In the end, even the magistrate grew tired, for the whole situation was utterly confused; nothing was clear. No two statements matched, no two witnesses agreed. A decision seemed impossible. At last the judge, exhausted, asked the accused: Be kind — tell us yourself, what is the truth of it?

He said: When I first came here, it was clear to me too. Now it is difficult. I myself have become confused. I cannot say plainly whether I killed or did not. For when I hear my lawyer’s arguments, even I feel convinced that I did not kill; some mistake has been made; or perhaps I only dreamed it. So there is no value to my words now. You decide.

This is the situation. If you keep uttering one lie for many years, it becomes hard to be sure afterward whether you lied or it was true. This is the second nature of a lie: repeat it and it begins to appear true. And every lie needs other lies to support it.

I saw a placard in a shop in Kashi — a ghee shop. The board read: Shop of genuine ghee. Below it was written: Pure desi ghee from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab available here. Cash reward of five hundred rupees to anyone who proves it fake. And beneath that, in red letters: Such rewards have been distributed here several times already.

Such becomes the state of our mind.

Hypocrisy means you are one thing, and you are striving to show another. But what you are will keep peeking out through all your efforts. You cannot hide it entirely; you cannot erase it — it is lodged within you. Therefore, even if you do not see it, others do.

Often it happens that what others say about you is more accurate than what you say about yourself. Ninety percent of the time, what others are able to see in you, you cannot. For you have become so absorbed in your own deception. But the other sees you, and through the thin veil of your pretense, the real part of you also shows.

A hypocrite develops many layers. The more hypocritical he is, the more layers will form. And all those layers are a torment. To protect each layer, new layers must be added.

Truth has one convenience: it need not be remembered, it requires no keeping in mind. A lie must be remembered. A lie demands great skill. Truth even a simple man can manage — because there is nothing to remember. Truth is simply truth. Ask him after ten years, he will tell it. But the liar must remember for ten years what lie he told, and how many further lies he told to protect it.

So a lie demands a powerful memory. Hence, a small, ordinary mind cannot manage a grand lie. To run big lies, a wide capacity is needed. Therefore, the more educated a man is, the more logical, the more adept at mathematics, the more skilled he can be in lying.

As education increases in the world, lying increases — because people’s memory skills increase. They can remember, they can manipulate, they can fabricate new lies.

Mulla Nasruddin said to his son, We can no longer tolerate your lies. You tell astonishing lies! The boy said, I — a liar! Nasruddin, to demonstrate in front of a friend standing there, said: All right, tell a lie right now and I’ll give you one rupee as a reward. The boy said, You said five rupees!

He says, I’ll give you one rupee if you tell a lie; and the boy says, You said five! No need to go further to lie.

In such a state of mind, if you set out to seek God, the search is impossible. Even if God sets out to seek you, the search is impossible. Where will he search? Wherever you appear to be, you are not. Where you are, even you do not know. And you have told no one your address.

Among the Jews there is a notion: How will man search for God — weak, ignorant? The Jew believes: God himself searches for man. Someone asked the Jewish mystic Baal Shem, This doctrine is strange. If God seeks man, why has he not found us yet? That we search and do not find — that is understandable. But if God searches, why are we still wandering?

Baal Shem said, Where should he look for you? Wherever you say you are, there you are not found. By the time he reaches there, you have moved elsewhere. He is following after you — but you are like quicksilver, slipping away. You have no fixed address, no identity, no mark by which to be known. How shall you be recognized?

I have heard: In a bank the post of chief cashier was vacant. Many came for interview. It was a big post, a big salary, a great responsibility — a huge bank. When the board of directors met and asked the managing director whom he had chosen, the man he presented disturbed them: the eyes looked in two directions, teeth protruding, nose crooked, face frightening, he limped as he walked. They asked, You found no one else? He said, This one is perfect. Because if ever he runs, he will be caught without difficulty. For a chief cashier, this is perfect. His identity will be unmistakable; wherever in the world he goes, we will catch him.

You have no identity. Even if God wishes to catch hold of you, where will he grasp you?

The greatest mischief of hypocrisy is that your identity is lost; recognition becomes difficult. And this is the first mark of an asuric man.

Vanity and pride.

This will be a little difficult to follow, for we use vanity and pride as the same. The dictionaries also give the same meaning. But Krishna uses them differently.

Vanity is the name for that pride which is not real. Pride is the name for that vanity which has a factual basis. Yet both are sins, both are asuric. Meaning: a man who is not beautiful, but thinks himself beautiful and struts — he is vain. Another is beautiful, knows he is beautiful, and struts — that is pride. But both are asuric.

The first we can understand, for it is simply false; but the second we fail to see, for though factually right, it is still wrong.

What difference does it make whether you are beautiful or not? What matters is that you hold yourself to be beautiful. If one is intelligent and grows stiff with the thought, I am intelligent, the sin is exactly as much as when a fool stiffens and thinks, I am intelligent. It makes no difference, for the core issue is the stiffness.

There is another danger: the one who is not intelligent yet thinks he is may one day be jolted awake; but the one who is intelligent and knows it — to awaken him is very difficult, for you cannot even prove him wrong. His danger is greater. And the danger lies in this: I take myself to be something, and I stiffen in it.

An asuric person always takes himself to be somebody — whether he is or not. Ravana’s arrogance is not merely vanity; it is pride. For he is a man of worth, there is no doubt. A scholar like him is hard to find. His stiffness is not false; there is truth in it. But what difference does that make? If there is truth in the stiffness, the stiffness becomes even stronger. And because of stiffness, man becomes incapable of meeting the Divine.

Ravana comes into conflict with Rama — these are symbols, for wherever there is stiffness, conflict will arise with the Divine. Wherever you stiffen, you will find yourself opposed to Rama.

Where stiffness dissolves, you become fluid; your wave melts, and in that melting your union with the ocean is attained.

So never think: Is my stiffness justified or not? Stiffness is wrong. That stiffness has two names: if it is unjustified, vanity; if justified, pride. Krishna says both are marks of asuri sampada.

Anger and harsh speech.

They are joined, for harsh speech is a form of anger. If there is anger within, a hardness, a dryness enters your words. If there is love within, a sweetness, a melody spreads in your speech.

Speech issues from you and brings the news of your within. As speech comes from within, the winds and fragrances of your within come out with it.

Harsh speech means only this much: within is a stony heart; within you are hard. Sweet speech means: where the winds are arising from, there is coolness, there is melody.

Anger will be a mark of the asuric man; he is always angry, angry at everything. To be offended is his nature. He rises, he sits — he is rising and sitting in anger. Wherever he looks, he looks in anger. He seeks only a mistake — if somewhere a mistake is found, a pretext, a peg to hang his anger upon. If no pretext is available, he will fabricate one. If there is no one to be angry at, he will be angry with himself. But he will be angry; and in his speech the flames of anger will keep flowing. Whatever he speaks will become like an arrow, piercing and wounding someone.

Anger and harsh speech, and ignorance — these are the marks of one endowed with asuri sampada.

Understand ignorance rightly. Ignorance does not mean he will be uneducated. He may be very learned. Ignorance does not mean he will not be a scholar; he may be a scholar. Ravana is a scholar, a great scholar. He may possess much information — but merely information, not wisdom. Knowledge means that which has been known by oneself. Information means that which others have known and you have merely accumulated.

If knowledge is borrowed, it becomes scholarship; if knowledge is one’s own, it becomes prajna — wisdom.

Here ignorance means: whether he knows much or little, he does not know himself. He may know everything, the scriptures of the world may be on his tongue, but he has no recognition of himself — no knowledge of the Atman.

And whatever he does know is all borrowed. He has learned it somewhere; it lies in his memory. But through it his life has not been transformed. He has not burned and been refined in that knowledge. That knowledge has not broken him and made him new. That knowledge has become neither his death nor his birth. It has gathered on him like dust. He has a coating of knowledge, but it has not reached his heart. He carries knowledge, but knowledge has not become his wings to set him free. His knowledge is a weight; it is not weightless.

Here ignorance means: not to know oneself; to be unacquainted with one’s own nature.

Of the two kinds of endowment, daivi sampada is for liberation, and asuri sampada is held to be for bondage.

Asuri sampada will bind; it will imprison you. And the prison is not one built by another; it is a prison you have built for yourself.

Daivi sampada will set you free; the walls will fall, open sky will be revealed. You have wings — but if you have tied fetters around your wings, flight becomes impossible. And if for a long time you have not flown, you may even forget that you have wings.

The eagle lays her eggs on high trees. From the eggs, chicks are born. The trees are very tall. The chicks sit on the edge of the nest and look down. They tremble, they are afraid. They have wings. They do not know that they can fly. And the depth is such that if they fall, life will end. They see their mother, their father, flying in the sky — yet they cannot trust that they too can fly.

So the eagle must do a certain work. How to persuade these little ones into the sky! However much she coaxes and pulls them to the rim, they retreat within. However much she flies before them, showing the delight of flight, their courage does not arise. At most they come to the edge and clutch it tightly.

You will be surprised to know: the eagle must dismantle her own nest. Every twig, every scrap she had gathered, she must pull out and drop. As the nest breaks, the chicks keep sliding inward. Then the last piece remains — the eagle snatches that too. Suddenly the chicks are in the open sky. Not even a moment passes — their wings spread, and they begin circling in the air. In a day or two they become adept. In a day or two they know that the open sky is ours, the wings are ours.

Our condition is almost the same. Someone is needed to topple your nest. Someone is needed to give you a thrust. That is the meaning of the guru.

Krishna is attempting just that with Arjuna. The whole Gita is to break Arjuna’s house, his nest. The whole Gita is to remind Arjuna: You have wings; you can fly. Somehow Arjuna must be shoved so that he opens his wings in the open sky.

Of the two endowments, daivi sampada is for liberation and asuri sampada is for bondage. Therefore, O Arjuna, do not grieve, for you have attained to daivi sampada.

Krishna is giving Arjuna trust: Do not be frightened, do not sorrow, do not worry. You are endowed with the daivi. It is only a matter of opening your wings — the open sky is yours.

Why is Krishna saying that Arjuna is endowed with the daivi?

Arjuna’s inquiry is daivi. That very feeling arising in Arjuna’s mind — Why should I kill? Why commit slaughter? Why descend into this vast tumult of violence? — this feeling is daivi. The thought arises: Through it I may get a kingdom, an empire, the earth may be mine; but what is its essence? This dispassion towards greed, this indifference towards empire, this remorse in the heart at the idea of violence and killing —

Arjuna says, I will leave all this and go to the forest, become a sannyasin — that is better. Arjuna says, These on both sides are my own people. If I, after killing and destroying all these, gain the kingdom, the joy will be so solitary that it will cease to be joy — for joy is to be shared. Those for whom I am striving to win the kingdom, who would be delighted to see me crowned — their corpses will be lying around. A happiness that I cannot share, a happiness I cannot live in companionship with those dear to me — what meaning does such happiness have?

This feeling is daivi. But the reasons he is giving behind these daivi feelings are filled with ignorance. Naturally so — for when the first stirring of the daivi arises, its roots are still in our ignorance. We are ignorant; therefore even when a daivi longing awakens, in it our ignorance has a hand; its shadow falls across it.

Krishna is trying in every way to fill him with trust; that he may drop ignorance too; that the reasons he is giving may also be let go. For if those reasons are held to be right, Arjuna will fall into difficulty. He is saying: They are my own, therefore I fear to kill. This is half daivi and half tainted by ignorance and the asuric.

Daivi is only this much: a distaste for violence has arisen; there is no relish in killing. But the reason — because these are mine — is ignorance. If they were strangers, Arjuna would cut them as a farmer reaps his field. He was no novice at cutting. Many times in life he had killed, he had cut men down. Cutting was easy for him. Never had he thought of what would happen to the soul, heaven, Moksha — no questions had arisen. But those were not his own; these are his own. On that side stands his teacher, Bhishma stands, all cousins and kin. These are mine!

This ‘mine-ness’ is ignorance. ‘I should not kill’ — that is a profoundly daivi feeling. ‘I should not commit violence’ — that is auspicious. But ‘because they are mine I should not’ — that is linked with the inauspicious. Let that inauspicious fall away, and yet may Arjuna move towards divinity — this is Krishna’s whole endeavor.

The feeling of ‘mine’ is sin. Then who is mine and who is not? Either all are mine, or no one is mine. Then Arjuna says, It is not proper to kill them — that is daivi. But that I can kill them — that is filled with ignorance. It is a little subtle.

That I should not kill anyone — that feeling is good; but that I can kill someone, that the Atman can be slain — that feeling is full of ignorance. Even if I wish, I cannot kill; at most I can harm your body. And what harm can truly be done to the body? The body is already dead matter. It cannot be killed; it is clay. Cutting the clay, what is cut? That which is hidden within the body — the conscious, the luminous — cannot be cut. It is not clay. That immortal cannot be slain by any means.

Arjuna says violence is evil. But can violence be? — this notion is full of ignorance. Violence as a pure act cannot be; there is no way. The intention of violence can arise; violence itself cannot be done. The intention of violence is sinful. That violence can be done — this notion is born of ignorance.

In Arjuna, divinity has awakened; but that divinity is still lying upon an asuric bed. The eyes have opened; he has turned on his side — but he has not yet left the bed. Let even that bed be left; let that nest be gone, and may Arjuna fly free in the open sky.

O Arjuna, do not grieve, for you have attained to daivi sampada. And, O Arjuna, in this world the natures of beings are of two kinds: one like the devas and the other like the asuras. Of the nature of the devas I have told at length; therefore now hear from me, in detail, of the nature of the asuras.

Two dispositions — of a single consciousness. A man is bound — chains on his hands, fetters on his feet. Then we cut his bonds; the fetters fall, the chains drop. Now he stands free. Is this man another man — or the same? A moment ago there were chains and fetters; now there are none. A moment ago, not even one step could he take; now he is free to take a thousand. Is he the same man or another?

In one sense, he is the same; nothing has changed. For the chains were not his nature — they were upon him from outside. When the chains fall from the hands, the hands do not change. When the fetters break from the feet, the person does not change. The man is the same.

In another sense, he is not the same. For with the fall of chains he is now free. He can walk, he can run, he is master of his will. Now no one will determine his direction; now there is no one to stop him. A new freedom has been born.

These two states belong to one and the same person. So too are the two states of disposition. Krishna calls that asuric which binds; that daivi which frees. Both are conditions of the same consciousness. And it depends on us in which condition we will live.

It has always been difficult to understand that we are bound by our own hands. Difficult, because none of us wants to be bound — we all want to be free. So the mind resists the understanding that we ourselves have created our bondage. But it must be understood a little.

We desire freedom — but we have never inquired deeply what freedom means. On one side, we want freedom; on the other, from within, we want dependence. For dependence has certain comforts, and we are unwilling to drop them. There is a certain security in dependence.

Nowhere is a man as secure as in prison. Outside there may be riots, mobs, Hindu and Muslim fighting, bullets flying, police and government — all kinds of turmoil. Inside the prison there is no such disturbance. There the man sits in handcuffs and no accidents happen — no motor accident, no airplane falls, no train derails. He is perfectly safe. A prison gives a security which is not possible outside.

We all want security. In the name of security we build our prisons. Freedom is risky, for the open world is full of risk. We want freedom — but we have not the courage to accept risk.

A great Western thinker, Erich Fromm, wrote a valuable book: The Fear of Freedom.

There is a fear of freedom. It is within us all; we all tremble. We say we want freedom — but we are afraid, we shake. We clutch our nest just as the eagle’s chick clutches it. It feels as if we will die; the abyss is so deep, the sky so vast; we are so small; we have no trust in ourselves.

So we seek all kinds of dependencies — of family, of country, of caste, of society. We want to lean on someone. Let someone give us a shoulder; let us put our hand on someone else’s shoulder — perhaps both are weak and are seeking support from each other, but both feel the comfort that someone is with them; we are not alone.

We lose freedom by our own hand; we seek dependence by our own hand.

I have heard: One day Mulla Nasruddin and his wife were quarreling. The wife, very annoyed, said, Who told you to marry me! I wasn’t chasing you. Nasruddin said, That is obvious — the mouse-trap never runs after the mouse. The mouse comes into it by himself; that is clear. No one has ever seen the trap running after the mouse!

All the traps in your life — none of them ran after you. You went in search of them yourself. There is a reason why the trap seems good — there is some security in it. Fear is less there; support is more. Danger is less; risk is nil. Life is bounded. There is a circle; within that circle there is light; beyond the circle, darkness. To step into that darkness makes one afraid. Then one must stand on one’s own feet.

Freedom means to stand on your own feet. Freedom means to take your own decisions.

The many upheavals in the world — behind them lies this: many people seek slavery. Out of a hundred, ninety-nine cannot live without a leader. They want a leader. Everywhere on earth there is a great need for leaders! What is this need?

It is that many cannot walk on their own feet. If someone walks ahead, then they need not worry. If he leads them into a ditch — and leaders have always led into ditches — even then those behind feel assured: the one in front knows; wherever he is going is right. At least this much is certain: the responsibility is not ours; we are merely following.

After the Second World War, the surviving leaders of Germany — Hitler’s associates — were tried. The man who arranged the burning of millions — Eichmann — who built the furnaces in which thousands were incinerated; some thirty million deaths were laid at his door.

But Eichmann was a decent man. He never looked at any woman other than his wife. Every Sunday he went to church and studied the Bible. He did not drink, he did not smoke. He rose daily before dawn. No bad habit. He was not even a meat-eater. Hitler too had these virtues: he did not eat meat, did not drink, did not smoke. All the marks of a respectable man were there.

When Eichmann was tried, people were astonished: how did this man arrange the murder of thirty million? He said: I am merely a subordinate; obedience to orders is my duty. The responsibility is not mine. The command came from above; I executed it. I am just a follower, a soldier.

The weakness of people is that they need a leader. Then where the leader goes is not even a question. The leader himself does not know where he goes. The blind lead the blind. The only difference between leader and follower is this: the follower needs someone to walk ahead of him, and the leader needs someone to walk behind him.

The leader too is dependent on those behind. If no one follows, the leader feels lost. So long as people follow, he feels all is well. If I were not right, how would so many be behind me? As soon as the crowd thins, the leader’s confidence thins. As soon as the followers leave, the leader loses self-trust. He begins to feel: I am going wrong; otherwise people would follow. Therefore the clever leaders have another trick.

I have heard: One day Mulla Nasruddin was riding his donkey at great speed. Some friends stopped him and asked, Where are you going so fast? He said, Do not ask me — ask the donkey. When I try to guide him, he creates obstacles; and in front of people in the bazaar it becomes an embarrassment. I say, Go left — he will not; he goes right. People think even his donkey does not obey him! So I have devised a trick: wherever the donkey goes, I go along. Thus my prestige is saved and the donkey never gets the idea that he can oppose the master.

This is the skill of all leaders. They are always watching where the followers want to go; before the followers turn, the leader turns. Only thus can the leader keep the followers; otherwise they will wander off.

All leaders are followers of their followers — a vicious circle. The leader keeps taking the temperature of the crowd. The crowd wants socialism — so, socialism. The crowd wants poverty abolished — so, abolish poverty. He repeats what the crowd wants to hear. And the followers hear their own voice from his mouth and think, Right! They follow.

Some people cannot move unless someone is ahead of them. Some cannot move unless someone is behind them. Both are dependent.

The free person looks neither ahead nor behind; he walks on his own feet. But this is very difficult — for then no reliance can be sought on another, and no responsibility can be placed on another. All responsibility is one’s own.

Only he who has such courage can be free. Neither leaders are free, nor followers are free. Freedom is the greatest risk in this world.

Krishna says: asuri sampada is for bondage, and daivi sampada is for liberation. And, O Arjuna, do not grieve, for you are endowed with the daivi.

Enough for today.