Geeta Darshan #6

Krishna! Not what he was saying, but Krishna—what he was. That is why you can read the Gita and it will run off you like water off an upturned pot; you will remain untouched. The kind of revolution that happened to Arjuna will not happen to you. Because you have forgotten one thing: Krishna is not present.

Arjuna was transformed by listening to Krishna. If he had been transformed by what Krishna said, then by reading the Gita you too would be transformed. Revolution happens in the presence of one like Krishna. A lit lamp can light an unlit lamp. The Gita contains what Krishna said. But what Krishna was—there is no way to collect that in the Gita; there is no way to put that in any book.

That is why when the Master is present, his words are alive—not because of any special quality in the words, but because of his aliveness. The Master is present in his words, because those words arise from his inner shrine, having touched his very life-breath, carrying his inner fragrance. A little of his inner dance rings in those words and reaches you. It is his presence that transforms.

Therefore only when a true master is not found is scripture of use. If a true master is found, only the uncomprehending cling to scripture. It has no value then. When you have found the living scripture, the written scripture has no meaning. Scripture has a place only when the living scripture is not present—and even then, its usefulness is very doubtful. Because whatever interpretation you give it will depend on you.

When Krishna is present, Krishna himself is doing the interpreting. His very presence becomes his commentary. When Krishna is not present, you will read the Gita—and the meaning you draw from it will be your own.

Understand it this way: I call the guru a lit lamp. Keep drawing closer to him and, one day, the flame will catch in your extinguished wick. Just keep coming close. Beyond coming close, nothing more is required of you.

We have called our supreme scriptures the Upanishads. The word Upanishad means: to come near the guru; to sit close by. All you need do is keep coming closer. The rest will happen on its own. Do not stay at a distance; do not stand apart; do not protect yourself. Pour yourself out—without calculation, without fear, without arranging for safety—and come near. Do not wrap yourself in armor. Your nearness alone is enough; the blaze will take hold.

What are scriptures like? The guru is like a burning lamp. Scriptures are like a box of matches. Fire is hidden in them, but you have to bring it forth.

And you are such ignoramuses that you will sit holding a matchbox and spin such subtle commentaries about it that you will never even remember there is fire hidden in those little sticks, that a striking is needed and fire will appear.

There is fire in the words, but it must be brought out. It is not manifest; it is hidden. Who will bring it out? You will. And your darkness cannot be trusted to manage it. I know for certain you will worship the matchbox. You will smear it with sandalwood and tilak; you will offer flowers to it. Slowly, you will pile on so many offerings that the matchbox itself will be covered—and you will forget that there was a matchbox underneath.

You will bow your head at the feet of the matchbox. If anyone speaks against your matchbox, you will be ready to fight to the death. You will be willing to die for the matchbox—but you will not be able to live according to the matchbox. The fire will remain locked inside.

Scriptures are like matchboxes. The true master is a living fire. With him you need only come close—nothing else. The capacity to be near is qualification enough. As you draw near, the unlit flame becomes one with the lit flame.

Arjuna did not change by hearing Krishna’s words—otherwise anyone could change, the Gita is available. It was Krishna’s presence, Krishna’s very being, the light that had ignited within him.

Krishna spoke so many things to Arjuna. Do you think he did so because he did not know that words would not suffice? Krishna knew perfectly well that words would not do anything. Only one thing would happen: the words would increase trust; Arjuna would gather the courage to come closer.

I talk to you every day. Do I believe that by listening you will become wise? Or that if you understand my words, a revolution will occur in your life?

No. The words are only a lure. The discussion is to entangle you a bit so that, for a little while, you forget your defenses and come close to me. That’s all. The conversation is like toys—so you get engrossed, forget your ego for a moment, and edge nearer.

Clinging to my words will do nothing. If you become absorbed in my words and, in that absorption, come near, the revolution will happen. Then you too will laugh: What was the need for so many words? Why didn’t he just draw me close!

But that was not possible. If I tried to draw you close, you would run away. If you were called directly, you would be afraid. You would think there is some snare, some net.

You cannot be called directly—you are in such an upside-down state. Even to invite you one must be indirect; the invitation cannot be sent straight—“just come”—because you will make a thousand excuses. And you will be afraid: Why am I being called? Surely there is some self-interest. If someone calls, there must be some purpose. Does anyone call anyone without a purpose? You don’t call anyone without purpose.

So you would come only after securing yourself, armored, with your mind closed. Then even a burning lamp can do nothing. If your wick is hidden behind armor and weapons, there is no way.

All the discussion is to coax you. The entire Gita is simply a net to bring Arjuna near—to bring him to the point where he can trust and come close.

And you trust nothing but words. Your connection to life has been severed. You have no living link with existence. You live only in words. Everything is a web of words. Love is a mere word for you. God is a mere word. Truth is a mere word. Prayer is a mere word.

So if you are to be drawn, a formation of words must be woven. By speaking the Gita, Krishna wove that formation of words—like a spider spins its web. A spider’s web can be seen; a web of words is not even that visible.

Bound by words, you are drawn; mesmerized by words, you come near. And there comes a moment when you are so close that the flame can leap and catch hold of your unlit wick—then the event happens.

Krishna is not trying to explain and convince Arjuna; Krishna is trying to call him near: “Do not be afraid, Arjuna—come close. Mamekam sharanam vraja—abandon all and come into my refuge.” All of it is for that.

The very moment he slipped close, in that very moment Arjuna turned within. The moment he came near, Arjuna became Krishna. By coming close, distance disappears, duality dissolves, oneness happens.

The wise one does not seek at all—because all seeking is outward. Seeking itself means “outside.”

Understand this a little; it’s a bit subtle. We tend to think: just as there is an outer search, so there must be an inner search. But within, you are alone—what will you seek? Whom will you seek? The lane there is very narrow; two cannot fit. Who would seek whom?

All seeking is outside. As long as you are seeking, you will remain outside. When the outer search proves futile—when, seeking and seeking, you grow tired, defeated, and see you have searched everywhere and found nothing—when, exhausted, you sit down, in that very moment the so‑called “inner search” has happened. The instant the outer search stops, you arrive within. There is no search inside. You are entangled outside; that’s why you don’t reach within. You are stuck outside; that’s why entry within doesn’t happen.

When there is no outer search left… When Buddha awakened under the Bodhi tree, do you think he was searching within? Nothing at all. The search had ended. He had sought and sought and found nothing; only ashes came to his hands. That night he dropped all search—he dropped the very act of seeking.

Here’s the mystery: the moment you drop seeking, the seeker dissolves. For without search, how can the seeker survive? He lives by search; he is made of search. Hence, the greater the seeker, the greater the ego. When seeking is no more, the ego also falls. When there is nothing left to attain, who is there to attain it?

When there is no search, the future disappears—because searching needs future, needs time. Without the hope of fruit, how would you seek? As long as there is craving for results, future will remain, time will remain. When seeking ends, the question of fruit is gone. The future is relinquished; time breaks, its stream dissolves. The seeker is gone; time is gone.

And when seeking vanishes, why would you preserve the past? People keep last year’s ledgers because they must do business next year. As long as the future stands, we maintain the past—memories of what, where, how, who we were—because we want to become something; we need an address, a reference.

Past and future are yoked together. As long as there is future, you will save the past, for on that foundation the edifice of the future will rise. The past is the foundation, the future the pinnacle. If there is no future at all, if the shop is closed, will you carry account books around? You’ll burn them, throw them on the street—they’re rubbish now. If there is nothing ahead to gain, if no house is to be built, why protect the foundation?

When the outward search ceases, the seeker is lost, the future is lost, the past is lost. What remains is this bare moment of the present—unstained, not soiled by the past, not made restless by the future—quiet, pure, without ripples. All seeking is gone; what remains is this present moment and the profound silence within you. With seeking, all cravings are gone, all waves are stilled. There is nothing left to obtain.

In this very moment the doors of the eternal open; in this moment that which is beginningless and endless, beyond time, peers into you. For the first time, in your emptiness the image of the divine emerges; for the first time, in your temple his advent happens.

The wise does not seek; the one who drops seeking is the wise. And dropping the search is what “inner search” means. The inner search is not a new search; it is the cessation, the stopping of search.

All running is outside. Can you run within? How would you run—what space is there? When all running stops, you sit under a tree—no running, utterly still. In that state, any tree you sit beneath becomes the Bodhi tree, and Buddhahood flowers right there.

You are a Buddha, but you are outside. Sometimes you seek wealth, sometimes position. Sometimes you even seek God—and you seek him outside too.

If you ask me, I will tell you: seeking is the world; not seeking is liberation.

But then those who are tamasic may say, “Then we’re fine—we’re not seeking at all.” No—one who is tamasic cannot attain it. For the tamasic person has not even sought outside yet. The question of stopping search arises only after outer search has happened. The tamasic one hasn’t gone out; how will he go in? To come home you must first travel far. The tamasic hasn’t even set out; how will he return home?

So the tamasic should not think, “Where we sit, there is Buddhahood.” There the journey hasn’t even begun.

Remember this. The outer journey is the training for the inner journey; it is the school. It is absolutely essential. Otherwise people would attain liberation just by lazing about.

Therefore the tamasic must first become rajasic—run in the world outside. Then the rajasic becomes sattvic—he grows weary of running in the world. The Shudra must become a Kshatriya; the Kshatriya a Brahmin. And society should be fluid, so the tamasic has the opportunity to become rajasic, and the rajasic to become sattvic.

Hindus discovered very deep insights, but made society rigid; and because of that rigidity everything got distorted. Here the Shudra was left with no path to become a Kshatriya—so how would the tamasic become rajasic? Here the Kshatriya had no way to become a Brahmin—so how would the rajasic become sattvic?

In truth, everyone must begin the journey from the level of Shudra. The deeper scriptures say: every person is born a Shudra. And if one dies a Shudra, life has been wasted. Everyone is born a Shudra, and everyone should die a Brahmin. If the journey was coherent and well‑ordered, the seed reached the fruit, the path became the goal.

Society should be fluid—giving all the chance to become all, to rise and move. Hindus blocked the Shudra from entering the other paths; then his whole life had to remain Shudra. Millions remained Shudra—who is responsible for that?

The Hindu order committed a great sin. The sages found profound formulas, but they were misused. Like Einstein discovered the atomic principle and it was used to burn Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the whole world now fears a third world war.

Similarly, Hindu seers discovered the deep principle of the three gunas, and on that base people built the caste system. Knowledge fell into the hands of the ignorant. Otherwise, all understanding should have been employed to help everyone see: we are all born tamasic—that is the natural state, inertia. From tamas we must rise to rajas—begin the run.

The tamasic is closed within himself. The rajasic runs in the world, full of ambition. The sattvic returns home. But between this return and the tamasic’s mere staying at home there is a great difference.

The tamasic has no experience of the outer. Without the outer, the inner cannot be known. The tamasic is like drawing a white line on a white wall, or a black line on a blackboard—nothing shows. Without contrast there is no experience, no birth of knowledge. Draw a white line on a blackboard—that is when it appears.

The sattvic is one who has drawn the white line of his life, his consciousness, across the blackboard of the world. Now the soul stands out—by contrast.

The outer journey brings contrast into your life, and in that the soul emerges into view.

The tamasic cannot see the soul at all; he lies inert like a body. He has not even run the race of the body yet. First the body must be seen. Passing again and again through bodily experience—sifting and refining—the soul begins to shine.

So understand it this way: the tamasic lives in the body; the rajasic lives in the mind; the sattvic begins to live in the soul. And the one who goes beyond all three becomes the divine.

Seeking outside is necessary, but it is not necessary to keep seeking forever. Seek outside—and then drop it. Hold—and then renounce. When, after holding, you let go, the freedom you feel in your hands cannot be known by one who never held at all.

Have you ever been to prison? If not, imagine it. When you come out, the handcuffs are opened, the bars unbolted, the guard gives you leave to go; when you stand under the open sky, a cry rises from your whole being: Ah! You were here even before, you stood under this sky before you went in—but never did that cry arise; the sky never felt so vast and free. Your open hands never felt such movement. Only after the walls do you first know what freedom is.

Opposites enrich life. That is why the divine casts you into duality.

People ask me: if the goal is to be free of dualities, why doesn’t God make us that way from the start?

He could. But then you would be utterly useless. You would have no edge. You would be a sword without a blade—fit perhaps for chopping vegetables, not for battle. You would be steel that has never passed through fire. The greater the fire, the greater the temper and strength that arise in steel. Great furnaces are needed. What is raw iron? Something you can break by hand. What is hardened steel? Iron that has passed through fire. Fire gives strength; it gives experience.

The world is fire; the world is a sacrificial flame. If you pass through it with awareness, you will come out as steel. You went in as raw iron; you will emerge as tempered steel. You went in as unrefined gold—mixed with soil and dross so that only an expert could see the gold, while common eyes saw only dirt and stone. Your gold is not visible to you—but it is to me. You say, “Gold in me? Nothing but rubbish!” You have not gone through fire. Fire will burn away the dross. Then you will return home as pure gold. Your fragrance, your flavor will be different.

The wise deals with seeking by dropping it. The unwise either never seeks, or clings to seeking and gets stuck.

There is no search inside. Search outside—and understand the futility of outer search. And don’t be hasty; if you return unripe, you will not be able to enter. The divine does not accept the unripe. Only when you are cooked can you return.

I see many people returning home unripe. They are like students who fail and come back from school. They went to school, yes, but did not pass. They carry no certificate. The divine home will remain closed to them.

You were sent into the world to pass. You must know the world before you can understand God. You must recognize the futile before the meaningful can appear. You must see the insubstantial before you can meet the substantial. Only one who knows the false as false can know the true as true.

It’s true. You are incomplete; all your seeking will remain incomplete. But non-seeking can be complete.
Whatever you seek, you will be the seeker; it will be a search of your own hand, it will be like you. Whatever you make will carry your imprint. Whatever you construct, whatever you create, will be incomplete. If the maker is incomplete, how can the creation be complete? Quite right.
Whatever you think will be incomplete. Whatever ideas you entertain will be fragmentary. Whatever conclusions you draw can never be whole and total. If you have faith, it will be incomplete; if you doubt, that too will be incomplete. You go into the world—half-and-half; you enter the temple—half-and-half. Because you are incomplete. That’s right.
Then is there no way? God is complete and you are incomplete. And whatever you do will be incomplete—prayer incomplete, sadhana incomplete, samadhi incomplete. So how will you find the complete God?
You can. Because there is a way. Thoughts—you will do; they will be incomplete. But how can no-thought be incomplete? Because it is not an act. Thought will be incomplete—hence no one reaches God through thought. How will the incomplete attain the complete? But no-thought? No-thought will not be incomplete, because it is not your doing. No-thought means the doer steps aside; it is absence. And absence can be complete.
If you are present, you will remain incomplete. If you are absent, then you can be whole. Ego will be incomplete; egolessness can be complete. Thought is incomplete; emptiness can be complete. If you seek, it will remain incomplete; if you do not seek—if, having dropped seeking, you sit under a tree, searching for nothing—in that moment you become whole. Your running will remain incomplete; but sitting, not running at all—how can your sitting be incomplete? That can be complete.
That is why there is so much emphasis on non-doing, on emptiness, such insistence on meditation. Because that is the one possibility within you through which the Whole can descend into you.
Become zero. Zero is never incomplete. Either it is, or it is not. Either you cannot become zero—then zero is not—or if zero is, it is complete. Zero is never half.
Have you heard of a half circle? It doesn’t exist. The very meaning of a circle is completeness. If it is half, it is not a circle. How will you call it a circle?
You may have seen people half alive; have you seen anyone half dead? You may feel it’s the same—call him half alive or half dead!
No, it isn’t the same. A half-alive person exists. In truth, people are all half alive. But have you seen someone half dead? How can anyone be half dead? Half dead would mean he is still alive, there is still hope; he can still rise again. The doctors won’t let you take a half-dead man home from the hospital. They will say, wait—we will put him on oxygen, give injections; this man is only half dead. Half dead means he has not died.
When someone dies, he dies totally. You can live half, because living is in your hands. You cannot die half, because dying is in God’s hands.
Understand this a little.
Meditation is a death. There you die. You leave everything to God. There you disappear. A vacant space remains in the heart. That empty space is always complete. There is nothing there. Into that emptiness the Beloved descends; into that empty temple the Dear One comes.
As long as you are, he cannot come. You are occupying the space. When you are not, he will come. Your not-being is the method for God’s being.

Her love is complete. And when love happens, it is complete; it is never half. That is why I say, love is prayer. Jesus even said, God is love.

One without love sees the body; the one in love does not see the body at all. If the body keeps appearing to you, know that it is lust, not love. Then Krishna too would have seen and said: This Kubja—deformed on every side, crippled, crooked—she would have looked very ugly. But Krishna is not seeing the body. The body is only an outer shell. It is as if someone were to reject you seeing your clothes. Clothes are not you; the body is not you either. Whoever rejects you or accepts you on the basis of your body has not yet seen you at all.

This is the lovers’ suffering in the world. Lovers keep telling each other, “You haven’t yet understood me,” endlessly. They live together for years and still say, “You haven’t understood me.” What is the obstacle? Why is understanding so difficult?

The difficulty is this: the lover longs for you not to look at the body but to look at me. I am not the body. The beloved longs for the same: do not look at me as body, do not look at my body. That is not me. Rise a little beyond what is visible; come a little within. That is my real being. Do not get stuck outside.

But she sees that the husband’s love is for the body; and he sees that the wife’s love too is for the body—attachment is to the body, clinging is to the body. No one looks within; hence the anguish. And until you have seen within, the pain is entirely natural, because until then love does not arise at all.

The body’s relation is lust. The mind’s relation is attachment. The soul’s relation is love. And the Divine’s relation is prayer.

So Kubja came in her wholeness. You see her limbs as deformed because you do not have the eyes to see more deeply.

There is a very sweet tale. Janaka once convened a great assembly for scriptural debate, inviting eminent scholars. One Brahmin was not invited, for he was deemed unfit for the assembly.

We have the word sabhya, or sabhyata. It comes from sabha, “assembly.” Sabhya means “fit to sit in an assembly.” And sabhyata means one who is fit to sit in an assembly has attained civilization.

One Brahmin alone in the capital was left uninvited. He was Ashtavakra. His body was bent in eight places. Now why invite a man crooked in eight places only to make the assembly a laughingstock? When he walked, people began to laugh. His whole presence was an irony—more a cartoon than a man. Crooked in eight places! Being crooked in one or two places already creates plenty of trouble; he was crooked in eight. How he walked must itself have been a wonder; his gait like a camel’s. If you were to ride him, you would be in difficulty—like trying to sit on a camel, which needs much practice.

But he had no idea this assembly was happening and that a debate was on. He had some errand and wanted to tell his father something. He searched, but his father was not at home. He asked and learned that his father had gone to the royal court. So he went to meet his father at court. He had been left out at the crucial moment, and he arrived at the crucial moment—a coincidence.

A great debate on Brahma-knowledge was going on. Everything stopped. People started laughing. As soon as he entered the royal court, even Janaka began to laugh, and others covered their mouths. Ashtavakra looked around—and he too burst into laughter. He was an astounding man—such astounding beings have been very few upon the earth, countable on the fingers.

His laughter brought a hush over the court, for no one had imagined he would laugh. Janaka asked, “It is clear why we laugh. Why are you laughing?” He said, “I laugh because at home I heard my mother say a great assembly of pundits, of Brahmins, of knowers of Brahman is gathered here. But here I see only cobblers. Those who see only skin are cobblers. None here sees the soul. It is true my body is bent in eight places. But there is not even a single knower of Brahman among them. Why waste time with these fools! If even one were a knower of Brahman, he would see me—not my body.”

Janaka fell at Ashtavakra’s feet. And it was true. Do the wise gather in assemblies for debate? Do they come to argue, to win competitions? What remains for the wise to win? What prize is left that Janaka could give? Whatever you think Janaka possesses appears so only to the unknowing—only they see it that way.

Ashtavakra went on his way, but he left in Janaka’s heart a tongue of flame. Janaka followed him. And out of Janaka’s quest was born one of the most sublime scriptures on this earth: the Ashtavakra Gita. Krishna’s Gita is pale beside it. I call it the Great Gita. As you become ready, I will speak to you about it.

Krishna’s Gita is pale; the Ashtavakra Gita has no comparison. The reason is: Krishna is speaking to an unknowing one, Arjuna. But Ashtavakra is speaking to Janaka, a person far higher than Arjuna. That is why Janaka left the scholars’ assembly and became a servant at Ashtavakra’s feet. In a single instant he understood—lightning flashed, and the scene was seen to be true: all cobblers gathered; I am wasting my time with them. Awakening happened.
Arjuna is asking from the standpoint from which a rajasic person can ask. And Arjuna is asking from that point at which a rajasic person wants to fall into tamas. Understand this well.
Arjuna says, “Let me take sannyas.” The meaning of his sannyas is only this: I no longer have the courage for all this running around. He is saying, “Let me sink into laziness.” If Arjuna takes sannyas, he will not rise into sattva, because the cause of his sannyas is not dispassion. The cause of his sannyas is attachment to his own. These very dear ones are standing before him, whom he would have to cut down. He is a man possessed by attachment. If he becomes a sannyasin, he will fall into tamas. His sannyas will be tamasic.

Janaka too was a rajasic person. But the presence of Ashtavakra—and his thunderous proclamation, “Why are you wasting time with cobblers?”—flashed like lightning. In a single instant Janaka’s rajasic personality vanished and sattva was born.

Both were rajasic, because both were kshatriyas. Both were emperors—Arjuna and Janaka. But where was the difference? Janaka is not going downward; he is going upward. Both are standing in rajas, standing on the same step. But Janaka’s foot is falling on the higher step, toward sattva; and Arjuna’s foot is falling toward the lower step, toward tamas.

That is why Krishna could not take the Gita as high as Ashtavakra could. Ashtavakra’s Gita has no comparison; it is unparalleled. If, in India, one scripture had to be saved and all others destroyed, then Ashtavakra’s Gita should be saved. Burn all the rest—nothing much would be lost. But if Ashtavakra’s Gita were lost, India’s prime wealth would be lost.

Such a woman is Kubja—like Ashtavakra: equally crooked, askew. Krishna, of course, will see; Krishna is no cobbler. Krishna is a knower of Brahman; he is Brahman. For him crookedness or askewness has no meaning. And whether the body is crooked, askew, or well-proportioned—what difference does it make? Who is within? Within, unbroken love is aflame.

You can reach the Supreme only by becoming whole, because he is whole. The way to meet him is wholeness. If you remain in fragments, how will you meet the Whole? Only the like can meet the like.

This must be understood.
Yawning arises from a specific mechanical arrangement in the body; first understand that. The arrangement is this: whenever you are ready to sleep—whenever sleep approaches because the body is tired from activity and wakefulness—your breathing process changes.

Ordinarily, when you are awake you take in more oxygen; it is needed for wakefulness. If you are running or engaged in heavy work, you have to breathe strongly, because the body burns a lot of oxygen—so more oxygen is required. Sitting idle, you breathe less because the body is not burning much; breath is not needed as much.

When you are about to sleep, very little oxygen is needed in the body. The breath slows down and carbon dioxide begins to accumulate within. The greater the accumulation of carbon dioxide inside, the deeper the sleep. The less the accumulation, the shallower the sleep. And if it does not accumulate at all, sleep will be difficult.

That is why the whole of nature sleeps at night, not in the day. As the sun sets, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increases; trees sleep, birds and animals sleep, and people grow drowsy. As the sun rises, the amount of oxygen increases. Trees, birds, and animals wake up. For sleep, a certain amount of carbon dioxide is necessary; for wakefulness, a certain amount of oxygen is necessary.

You must have read in the newspapers sometimes: in the winter, in a hill town, many people slept in a closed room and died. The carbon dioxide produced by so many sleepers accumulated so much—doors and windows shut—that not just sleep, death came. Or if you seal a room and go to sleep with a fire burning, death can occur, because the fire consumes oxygen and produces carbon dioxide.

If carbon dioxide becomes too abundant, the sleep becomes so deep it may never open—death. If oxygen becomes too abundant, you will not be able to sleep.

Hence a rajasic person often cannot sleep. He runs so much in life, so much hustle and bustle, that his breathing establishes a fixed ratio with oxygen intake. Even when he goes to bed, the same breathing pattern continues—he is habituated; it does not relax.

Buddhist monks practice a meditation called Vipassana, in which one keeps attention on the breath twenty-four hours a day, whenever one is conscious. Buddhist monks’ sleep often becomes very little.

A monk was brought to me from Ceylon; he had not been able to sleep for three years. He was going mad—indeed, had already gone mad. Doctors had given up. But none of them asked what he was doing inside. They gave tranquilizers in heavy doses—everything—but still he could not sleep.

He was brought to me. I asked, “Are you doing Vipassana?” He said, “I am doing Vipassana—because I am a Buddhist monk.”

Vipassana is such that when you watch the breath: as the breath goes in, you go in with it; as it goes out, you go out with it. Consciousness swings with the breath. Because of this coupling, the breath becomes very deep. And if the practice becomes deep, sleep is lost—so much so that it can be completely destroyed.

The man was in a totally deranged state. I said, “Leave Vipassana for three months. Later we will start again—slowly—but for now drop it.”

Within four or five weeks of leaving Vipassana, sleep began to return. By three months he was sleeping fully.

So, when you are approaching sleep, tired from the day’s running, the body collects carbon dioxide. You should go to bed. If you do not go—for whatever reasons, as humans often don’t…

No animal yawns, because when sleep comes, it simply sleeps. Only humans yawn—or animals kept by humans, sometimes. But in the wild, no animal yawns; there is no question of it.

Sleep is coming, but you are watching a film. The body is ready for sleep—the body has nothing to do with the film. Carbon dioxide has accumulated and you are forcing yourself to stay awake. Then the carbon dioxide is expelled with a jolt—that is the yawn. That is why you open the mouth wide; through that wide opening the accumulated carbon dioxide is thrown out and oxygen rushes in.

It is the body’s emergency, crisis action, because there is so much carbon dioxide while you are trying to remain awake.

You are sitting in a religious gathering, or singing hymns, or meditating, but the body wants to sleep. Whenever you go against the body—when the body is preparing to sleep and you do not go—what is the body to do? It has accumulated carbon dioxide; it will throw it out. Throwing out the carbon dioxide produces yawning.

Such yawning also occurs sometimes without sleep, when you are bored. But the process is the same. Suppose you are listening to someone and you get bored. You are sitting in a discourse, someone keeps explaining. You do not want to listen, yet you don’t dare leave—“What will people say?”—you neither can get up nor go; then what will you do?

In such a state—when you are hearing something you do not want to hear, or you are tired, or it is beyond your understanding, above your intelligence, not within your grasp—whenever this happens, your breathing also slows down. There is a reason behind it.

Watch a small child closely. If you try to explain something and he does not want to accept it, he will do two things: he will stiffen his back slightly backward, and he will slow his breath—if he does not want to comply. From his breathing and the way he stands you can know he is not willing. He may be listening out of fear, but he is not consenting.

Whenever you do not want to let something in, you slow the breath—because things enter with the breath. When you want to take something in, you breathe deeply. Because things enter with the breath. When you want to take something in, your spine becomes straight. When you do not want to take something in, your spine bends backward. When you very eagerly want to take something in, you lean forward.

Breathing processes depend on your mental states. If you are sitting with your beloved, you will breathe deeply. If you are sitting with an enemy, your breath will be constrained, slower, because the waves he is emitting around you could enter through your breath.

When you come into a garden, you breathe deeply. When you pass through a foul-smelling alley, you hold the breath; you even cover your nose—because with the breath stench enters, and so does fragrance. With the breath, tamas enters, and sattva too; with the breath, the saint enters, and the un-saint as well. Breath is the bridge for what comes in and goes out of you.

Therefore, standing near an enemy, your breath stiffens. When you are hearing something you do not understand, or do not want to hear, or have come by compulsion, your breath slows and carbon dioxide begins to accumulate. When too much accumulates, the body must throw it out—otherwise you will fall asleep right there. That is a kind of panic, so the body expels it.

Hence, in assemblies or while listening to a boring person, you begin to yawn. Or the wife is narrating something, playing her tune, and the husband yawns—he is saying, “Have mercy.” His whole body is saying, “I don’t want to hear,” though he cannot say it aloud; the body speaks for him. Or a friend arrives, a chatterbox, eating your head; the body starts yawning—it is sending him the message: “Now go.”

I have heard: Albert Einstein once went to a friend’s home for dinner. He was forgetful—as great thinkers often become. The greater the thinker, the more forgetful he becomes; and the greater the meditator, the more settled his memory becomes.

The thinker becomes forgetful because he has to manage so much junk. The meditator’s memory becomes right; he doesn’t forget—without trying to remember anything, he still doesn’t forget. The thinker tries to remember and still keeps forgetting, because he is juggling too many things. The meditator manages nothing; he remains empty—everything manages itself.

Einstein ate, drank, chatted. He kept looking at his watch, worried, yawning. The host too kept checking his watch and yawning. Midnight came. The host grew anxious: “If he would go, we could sleep.” The wife was restless, pacing in and out: “What to do now?” And you cannot tell a great man like Einstein, “Please go now.” It was a blessing he had come; how to ask him to leave?

Finally Einstein himself said to the host, “Seeing you yawn, it seems you are sleepy. Go now, sleep.” The host said, “How can I go? You go and sleep so I can sleep. When the guest leaves, the host can sleep.”

Einstein, embarrassed, stood up. He said, “This is too much. I thought I was in my own house, and kept thinking: when will you go so I can sleep? I kept looking at my watch, yet you didn’t understand! I yawned, yet you didn’t understand! And what amazed me even more was that you too kept checking your watch and yawning, yet still didn’t get up. Couldn’t you say, ‘Shall I go now’?”

Yawning is a language. It says: either this is not for you, it is too difficult; or it is very boring, not juicy; or you already know it and are being told it again—there is no substance here. Yawning is a language.

But the cause is the same—whether it comes from sleepiness or from boredom. In both cases, the lungs have more carbon dioxide than needed, which is harmful. If you go to sleep, fine. If you do not, the body must throw it out. Hence the yawn.

Yawning has no intrinsic connection with tamas—though a tamasic person will yawn more, a rajasic person less, and in a sattvic person it will become almost zero—very rarely, only if some unusual situation arises. Because even a sattvic person may sometimes have to stay awake: however sattvic you are, if the house catches fire you will have to stay awake; if your wife is dying, you will have to sit by her bed. Only in such situations; otherwise a sattvic person ordinarily does not yawn.

In tamas it will occur a lot, because such a person is drowsy twenty-four hours a day. For him, wakefulness is painful. In rajas it will come often too, because he is not ready to sleep—there is so much to do; he is an enemy of sleep. The less he sleeps, the better—he will save time to fulfill some ambition.

The sattvic person has no ambitions to run after. So when sleep comes, he sleeps; when hunger comes, he eats.

Someone asked Rinzai, “What is your practice?” He said, “When I am hungry, I eat; when I am sleepy, I sleep. That’s all.”

One who has attained to sattva lives just like that. Accidentally a yawn may come; otherwise, there is no reason.

First thing: there is nothing wrong in meat-eating in itself. Remember, I am saying in itself. I mean: if scientists can create synthetic meat—and soon they will—artificial meat would be more vegetarian than vegetarianism. Because when you pluck a fruit from a tree, it is hurt. When you cut a vegetable, it is hurt—less, but still.

Plants and vegetables do not have as developed a nervous system as animals. Animals do not have as developed a system as humans. That is why no religious person would agree to someone eating human flesh—no one will accept a man eating the flesh of man—because killing a human is tremendously painful.

The pain a human being experiences in death is far greater than what an animal experiences. Humans can think, they have an awareness of death; they understand “I am dying,” “I am being killed.” And consciousness is much deeper. Therefore, no religion will agree to that.

It seems that Hindus in the past performed human sacrifices in yajnas; naramedha yajnas were done. But gradually even those who performed them realized this was excessive. Such a religion cannot remain religion for long. So they changed the interpretation: naramedha was only nominal; they made an effigy of a man and slaughtered that.

No one is willing to accept human sacrifice. Why? Because nowhere else can you find meat as delicious as human meat if taste is the only question. And as for taste, the flesh of small children is the most delicious—nothing equals it—and the most digestible, too. Because it matches your system; it is like your own; it digests quickly; it is of the same kind.

People even do that; children are kidnapped; they are butchered in hotels. All over the world it is known that children’s flesh is sold in big hotels; and people eat it with great relish.

But no one will agree to this. Why not? Because the human being is highly sensitive. Killing a human is a question. Killing is terrible violence. And one who can agree to such violence for the sake of food is deeply tamasic. To snatch another’s life for your meal—what to say of that tamas!

No, no one does that now. Or if people once did, it has stopped. Animal meat is used.

But animals, too, are quite sensitive. Therefore those with still deeper religious sensitivity—Buddha, Mahavira—said only vegetarianism. They said: leave animals alone. Whether you wield the knife yourself or someone else kills for you, it is done for you. When you know that for the mere taste of food you are committing so much violence to life, then your tamas is very deep; you are blind. Your sensitivity is not adequate. You are not worthy of being human.

So Mahavira absolutely forbade it. Buddha put one small condition. That condition is very valuable. Buddha said there is no harm in eating the meat of an animal that has died naturally.

The point is logical. If it is killing that makes a person tamasic, then eating the meat of an already dead animal has no harm. Therefore Buddhists do not regard eating a naturally dead animal as meat-eating. If a cow dies by itself—we did not kill it—what harm in eating its flesh!

But Krishna does not agree. That is stale meat. And stale food is tamasic. And nothing in the world can be more stale than a dead animal. What could be staler? The moment an animal dies, the properties of its flesh and blood change. The blood dissolves instantly. And decay begins in the meat. The meat lived only while prana was present. With the departure of prana, decay begins; soon a stench will arise. So that is utterly stale food.

Therefore only the shudras accepted it; in India only chamars ate dead animals. And because of this, when Dr. Ambedkar called upon shudras to become Buddhists, he used this as an argument: chamars should be Buddhists, because Lord Buddha permitted eating the flesh of a dead animal, and only chamars eat it. This proves that the chamars were likely Buddhists in ancient times. They have forgotten their Buddhism.

The reasoning appears far-fetched, but there may be substance in it. It is possible that because of eating the flesh of dead animals, Hindus considered the entire group that did so to be shudras. Because this matches Krishna’s description of shudra and tamas.

Buddha permitted it for one reason; he did not consider the second. He permitted it because the dead is not killed; hence no violence. But the flesh of a dead animal is excessively stale, a corpse; eating it produces deep tamas. Buddha’s attention missed that side.

Therefore I say: meat-eating in itself is neither sin, nor bad, nor tamas. It is easily digestible—because it is pre-digested. That is why a lion eats once and forgets about food for twenty-four hours; it is enough. It is highly concentrated food; a little suffices.

If someday scientists create synthetic meat—and they should, quickly; as there is a vegetarian egg, so vegetarian meat will soon be available—then meat-eating, I tell you, will be more vegetarian than vegetarianism. Because then there will be no violence, and it will not be stale. There will not be even the small violence that occurs in plucking a fruit.

Mahavira had made rules for himself: eat only fruits that ripen and fall on their own. Or only the grains that fall of themselves from the ear when ripe.

There was a great ancient rishi, Kanada. He was called Kanada because he lived by gleaning the grains that fell of themselves when ripe—and even that only after the crop had been harvested and the farmer had removed everything; whatever few grains remained scattered, he would pick and eat.

Kanada must have been supremely non-violent: ripe grain fallen on its own—and not even asking the farmer, for why burden the farmer? If birds can live by gleaning, a human can also live so. People forgot his original name; he came to be known as Kanada—the one who lives by gleaning grains.

If artificial meat is made, it will be purer vegetarianism than vegetarianism. But as things are now, there are only two options. Either the animal is killed alive and eaten; then with Krishna that food is rajasic—at least it is fresh. With Buddha and Mahavira it is violent and will lead into tamas. And both are right—half right. Each is right from one angle.

If the dead animal is eaten, then according to Krishna it is tamasic, because it is stale and a corpse. It will increase torpor, bring sleep, increase unconsciousness, produce shudratva in life. Brahminhood’s sattva will not arise. But with Buddha, at least there is no violence. You will not kill anyone; such virtue will remain. That much at least is a movement toward sat, an upward movement toward sattva.

In my reckoning, whether meat is from a carcass or from a slaughtered animal, in ninety percent of cases it will drag you into tamas. In ten percent—or nine percent—it will drive you into rajas. There is only a one percent chance that it can lift someone into sattva.

This needs a little understanding. It is clear that Ramakrishna was a meat-eater; so was Vivekananda. And yet Ramakrishna attained the supreme.

For the Jains—or for all sectarians—these matters are easy to answer. The difficulty is mine. The Jains will simply say it is impossible that he attained; finished. Ramakrishna could not have attained, because he ate fish, he ate meat—how could he attain? So there is no question to answer. Wherever there is meat-eating, the possibility of enlightenment ends.

Hindus have no difficulty either. They say the soul does not die; not even by cutting. You killed the fish—you only freed the soul from the body. It will take another body. Hence no obstacle. Ramakrishna can attain.

My difficulty is this: I hold that Ramakrishna did attain, and he was a meat-eater. It should not be, yet it happened. By the general rule it should not have happened, but it did. So the net is a little complex.

Then my vision is this: Ramakrishna is an exceedingly pure man. Therefore such a small impurity could not obstruct him. You may not be able to conceive this. Exceedingly pure. If you permit me, I would say: purer than Mahavira. Had Mahavira eaten meat or fish, he could not have attained the supreme. But Ramakrishna did.

This means only this: the man is so pure that such a small impurity could not hinder him. Despite that impurity he crossed beyond.

Understand it like this: you climb a mountain. The rule for mountain-climbing is that the less the load, the better. If you climb with loads of weight on your head, climbing becomes hard. You may abandon the idea or stop at some midway camp.

But then a very powerful man, a Hercules, climbs the mountain with a heavy weight—and reaches the top. This man is not the rule. This Hercules is not the rule. He only indicates that he is so powerful that such a load does not hinder him. He climbs with the load. You are weak; you cannot climb with such weight.

Ramakrishna is an exception. Do not make him a rule. Ninety-nine people will have to go only after giving up meat. Mahavira and Buddha went only after giving up meat; so forget about your own case. Do not compute your own account.

How can you even imagine people more pure than Mahavira and Buddha! They too had to give it up. They felt it was a burden; it would obstruct; it would not let the journey complete; you would have to stop at some camp; you would be tired and sit down.

Climbing to the summit of Kailash, all burdens must be dropped. At the final height of sattva, everything should be let go. That is the rule. But sometimes a Jesus, sometimes a Mohammed, sometimes a Ramakrishna reached there even while eating meat. They are Herculeses. Don’t think too much about them. They will not be of much use to you. Regard them as exceptions.

And exceptions only prove the rule. They do not establish an exception; they establish the rule. They only show that in rare moments it is possible that someone becomes so supremely pure that meat-eating does not create impurity for him.

Such pure men have been. For instance Krishna: there is no news that Krishna practiced celibacy. It seems he did not. There was play and color with thousands of women. And yet Krishna was not diminished, did not fall. No obstacle came in his ascent. He reached the summit of Kailash.

But do not think this is the rule. This is an exception. For you, celibacy will be useful. Your energy is so little that if you do not conserve it in celibacy, you will have no energy left for the ascent.

Krishna must have had immense energy. No obstacle arose. He danced with sixteen thousand queens. Thousands of loves flowed; no hindrance came. That is only an exception.

And keep my difficulty in mind. I see that these mutually opposite people all arrived. Therefore I say: a doctrine is not greater than men. And never measure men by doctrine. First look directly at the person, then fit the doctrine to him.

What Mahavira says is right for ninety-nine. And the ninety-nine percent are the real people. Ramakrishna is not to be imitated. If you imitate him, you will go astray. Buddha and Mahavira are to be followed. They will take ninety-nine percent of people closer to Kailash.

If you take Ramakrishna as your guide, you will go on eating fish, keep eating meat—and you will never become a Ramakrishna. And Ramakrishna’s followers are wandering at that very place. After Ramakrishna, not one has attained Ramakrishna’s state—not even Vivekananda. Hundreds of sannyasins of Ramakrishna are there—trash, refuse. Because Ramakrishna is an exception. He is a tricky case.

No religion should be made around people like Ramakrishna; it should not be made. They are outside religion. They are beyond the bounds. They are trespassers—people who enter by breaking the back fence somewhere, not through the front door. You will have to enter through the front door.

Therefore no religion should be made around people like Ramakrishna, no organization. There should be no propaganda like the Ramakrishna Mission. Because such people are exceptions; let them remain unique. They are like Kohinoor diamonds. Do not crowd around them.

Religion should be made around people like Buddha and Mahavira. There should be a great sangha around them. Let there be millions and millions of their followers—the more, the fewer. Because from them, ninety-nine percent will get the path.

Christians have not benefited from Jesus. They cannot. Because Jesus lives accepting everything. He drinks wine; and not only drinks it, he makes it a celebration—a religious celebration. Wherever Jesus is a guest, bottles are opened, food and drink flow. Because life is a festival.

So Jesus opened the way for everyone to drink. In the West, if you try to convince people that alcohol is wrong, they will laugh: “Have you gone mad? If Jesus is not wrong, how can we be wrong?” Even if they accept nothing else in Jesus, this at least they do accept. And even if other matters are hard, this is simple. This much they can follow.

There should be no religion after people like Jesus. But unfortunately the world’s largest religion is around Jesus. The greatest numbers are Christians. And the smallest numbers are Jains—after Mahavira. There is a reason. Mahavira does not give your weaknesses any room. With him you have to travel upward. If you wish to go, only then can you move with him; if you don’t, you cannot find excuses in Mahavira.

But with Jesus, even if you do not wish to travel, you can remain a Christian. Eat meat, drink wine—do it all and still be Christian. It is convenient. Hence Christianity spread like a vast tree. Mahavira is like a date-palm; even its shade is hard to find.

My difficulty is that I find all these people attained. Therefore walk carefully, thoughtfully. Keep your attention on yourself. Do not worry about Ramakrishna having attained while eating fish, so we too will attain; why give up fish? If fish and liberation can be pursued together, let’s do both together.

Only fish will be achieved; liberation will not. Exceptions occur sometimes. They occur because it depends on the person’s capacity—what his capacity is. Someone can attain the supreme even while living in a brothel. For you, attaining even while living in a temple is doubtful.

Think only about yourself, and look only at yourself. And be alert; the mind is very cunning. It finds ways to do the wrong and avoid doing the right; it finds arguments. It is because of this mind that you have been wandering for lifetimes. You have wandered enough; now it is time to wake up.