Geeta Darshan #7

Now the sutra:
“And also, O Arjuna, the worship of the gods, twice-born, teachers and the wise; purity, simplicity, celibacy, and nonviolence—this is called austerity of the body.
“And speech that does not cause agitation, that is truthful, agreeable and beneficial, and also the practice of study—this indeed is called austerity of speech.
“And serenity of mind, gentleness, silence, self-control, and purity of feeling—this is called austerity of the mind.”

Krishna says there are three kinds of tapas (austerities), because your personality has three layers, and each has its own tapas. And we should understand tapas rightly, because many have misunderstood it badly.

If a lazy, tamasic person takes up austerity, his way will be strange. Even in austerity, the shadow of his negligence, laziness, and darkness remains. He can perform tapas—for instance, he can remain sitting in one place, which a rajasic person would find difficult.

In a village where I was a guest, people said, “There is a supreme yogi here—the ‘Standing Shri Baba.’ He only stands—never sits, never sleeps. At night he sleeps with both hands on crutches, holding a rope hanging from the roof. His legs—ten years of this—have become like elephantiasis; even if he wants, he cannot sit. He is stiff. Blood and flesh have gathered in his legs; even walking is impossible now. Yet people are deeply impressed.”

I asked, “Granted he has stood for ten years, but what else?” They said, “What else? That is tapas! What more is needed?”

As I passed the bazaar I saw him under a tree where he stands—flies swarming on his face; a repulsive, filthy presence, full of tamas. And this is called austerity!

He is doing nothing—but thousands of rupees are offered; a temple is being built; crowds come and go. He only stands—and songs of praise are sung; worship is offered.

But look at his face—no fragrance of sattva, which should have a flower-like freshness, a bird-like lightness, the innocence of the Ganges at Gangotri, a virginal quality in the eyes—so that when you come near, you feel cleansed, light. With this man you feel you came cleaner from home and are leaving soiled. He stands there like a disease, spreading filth—urinating and defecating there; of course flies will gather. He eats there. Everything happens there because he won’t move. This is dreadful tamas, not tapas.

Then there are rajasic ascetics—the sum of whose austerity is rajas. They run and rush about.

A sannyasin came to me. I asked, “What do you do?” “Foot-pilgrimage!” “For what?” “No special reason—this is my austerity.”

One stands; another walks. The walking baba cannot sit still—today here, tomorrow there. “I have been walking twenty-five years. My austerity is to never stop.”

Where will you go? Even if you walk, what will happen? Where will you reach by walking? Why keep measuring the earth?

Yet he has followers: “A sadhu should be like this—never staying more than three nights anywhere. Rain, cold, sun—always moving.” Ask where he is going. He will die walking, collapse—he cannot stop.

Rajas is movement; tamas is immobility. The tamasic cannot walk; he stays put. With pushing and shoving you move him a little. He found a way to stand and made it tapas!

The rajasic cannot be still—childish mind, full of rajas. If you stop him, he runs in his mind.

In the East people are lazy; in the West they are rajasic. Westerners come to me—today they arrive, tomorrow they go to Goa; two days later, back from Goa to Kathmandu; then to Manali—“Why?” “It’s an old desire—to see Kathmandu.” “And what will you do there? Those living in Kathmandu—where have they reached? Is Goa a moksha?” Goa has become their Kaaba, their Kashi. They keep going; they cannot rest.

A rajasic mind is always on the run, making running itself the journey.

Among Hindu sannyasins I found ninety percent tamasic; among Jain sannyasins ninety percent rajasic. Hence Jains don’t build ashrams—they are always on foot. Monsoon’s four months of staying is painful; they keep moving. Hindus settle down; so Hindu orders built ashrams—wealth accumulates, and tamas reigns.

Jains kept moving—until movement itself remained, all else was lost. If you don’t stop, how will you meditate? If I ask a Jain monk to stay a year and meditate, he says, “I cannot stop.”

How to meditate while always journeying? Today this village, tomorrow that—most time goes into walking; the little that remains must be for rest, because tomorrow you walk again. There is no leisure for meditation. So in Jainism meditation and yoga got lost—because they require some facility: an hour or two to sit quietly, to close the eyes. That facility vanished.

So what does a Jain monk do? Neither yoga nor meditation; he just goes from village to village telling people to meditate and do yoga—which he himself has never done, for he has no leisure. Those who listen will someday become like him—foot-pilgrims—and won’t do them either. What meditation can a householder do? It is the monk who does it—and he has no time to stop. It is a kind of madness—no awareness.

One who attains sattva creates a balance between rajas and tamas. When rest is needed, he rests; when needed, he builds an ashram; when needed, he becomes a wanderer.

It is fitting that when a sannyasin is young, he should wander—then rajas is important. As he grows old, he should settle in an ashram. When it is time to carry the message, he goes; when the message has reached and people start coming, he should stop and sit—because now something must be done with them, not just keep carrying news all life.

I ran for fifteen years—didn’t go on foot; otherwise I would have needed one and a half centuries to do this much. Walking isn’t the goal. I had to carry a message to people—now it has reached. Now I am sitting. Now those who come should sit—and do what I intend. For that, sitting is necessary—quietness, cessation of rushing.

Now Krishna expounds tapas—from the standpoint of sattva. There will be rajasic and tamasic versions too. First understand the sattvic—the purest form, the refined gold.

“O Arjuna, worship of gods…”

Wherever you experience divinity—there are gods. “Gods” is symbolic; more exactly, “divinity,” a quality. Wherever divinity is experienced.

Where? If you have eyes, everywhere. If not, it’s hard. At dawn the night breaks—the darkness goes, the sun rises. Have you ever seen the god in the sun? You do not know. He who broke the night, dispelled darkness, is divine—hence Hindus call the sun a deity and bow to it.

This is symbolic. Likewise one day, within you, night will break and the inner sun will rise. But start with the outer symbol so that the door to the inner opens. Bow to the outer sun so the inner sun gains courage: “If I arise, you will not deny me; you are ready.” That is why the sun is a deity.

These are the poetry of symbols. The sun is not a person to be pleased, who will shower more rays on you and less on others; who will darken the sinner and illuminate the virtuous—no. If rightly understood, divinity is your understanding, not the sun’s being. Your benefit comes from your feeling, not from the sun.

When you bow at sunrise, that bow proclaims: “Break the darkness, bring the light.” It is the inner import of “Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya—lead me from darkness to light!” “I bow to light and its source. As the outer night is dispelled, dispel my inner night.” Your feeling benefits you; the sun neither benefits nor harms—but your feeling-state does.

Those who devised sun-salutation were skillful—they created an inner climate, sowed a seed.

See flowers blooming on a tree and a bow arises; you bow—that too is a deity. Hence, for Hindus everything can be a deity: trees, rivers, mountains, the sun—because they understood the secret: deity is not in the object but in your feeling.

So the more places you find deities, the better—because that many times the feeling is born and reinforced; it becomes dense, deep, and settles.

Hindus filled the world with deities: the moon, the sun, trees, Ganga, Himalaya, Kailash—wherever you look, gods dwell so that you cannot escape divinity; it surrounds you. In that encirclement, the inner deity is born.

So Krishna’s first mark is: “Worship of gods, the twice-born, the guru, and the wise.”

First, gods—because they transform your consciousness. The world laughs, not understanding: “How foolish—Hindus worship a river! What is there in a river?” We also know in our homes when a lamp is lit at dusk, we bow—even if it’s kerosene mixed with water. There is nothing in the lamp that warrants bowing. Yet we bow.

The real issue is not the lamp—it is bowing. The lamp is a pretext; wherever it appears, we use it. That pretext changes you instantly.

Suppose you were filled with anger and someone lit a lamp… Even electricity—Hindus bow even then, a bit embarrassed; the educated look around lest someone sees, or bow inwardly. The tulsi plant still bows without fear.

Even if you were angry, and the evening light comes on, you fold your hands—anger melts, your inner state changes. How can you bow and remain angry? A transformation happens—another breeze enters and breaks the chain of anger; it becomes a bow.

A wife touches her husband’s feet as he enters; a son touches the mother’s feet—these gestures lead your life toward divinity.

It is not about the “gods”—it is about going toward the divine. The more deities you can experience, the easier it becomes. Bowing to deities makes you divine. It is a device.

“Dwij…”

Dwij means “twice-born”—Brahmin in the original sense. No other language has such a word, for birth happens once. What is a second birth?

We say the first birth is of the body—from parents. The second is the real birth—where you give birth to consciousness. That is dwij.

Dwij is one who has known Brahman—whose second birth has happened, not of clay but of consciousness; who forgot the lamp and became the flame. One who is meditative, established in samadhi—that is a Brahmin in the true sense.

A Brahmin is not born into it; he becomes it by becoming twice-born. We are all born Shudra; among us, a few become Brahmin.

Dwij means: through samadhi a new life has arisen, the old has gone, the new is born; once again a child of God.

Bow to the dwij—the one in whom revolution has happened—for in bowing there begins your linkage to that revolution. How long can you keep bowing to him and cling to your body? That bow will snap your attachment.

While bowing to a dwij, at some moment you may glimpse his capacity—his grandeur, his eyes, his being, his way. Perhaps at first your bow is formal, because the scriptures say so. But if you keep bowing, a day will come—when your mind is peaceful, joyous, without anger or sorrow—an inner hush—and in that conjunction you will have darshan of the dwij. The body to which you bowed will disappear; the inner light will become visible.

And note: only when you see that light in someone else do you start seeking it in yourself. Otherwise how would you even think to look? Having seen treasure somewhere, you come home and start digging. Without ever seeing treasure, you would not suspect it beneath your own floor.

Dwij means: someone awake—perhaps by being with him, for a moment your sleep will break and you will open your eyes. One spark can become a fire—once you taste, you cannot be the same again. Being near a dwij is being near gunpowder; you are dry grass—one spark and the blaze will consume all that can burn. What remains is that which cannot be burned—na hanyate hanyamane sharire—that which weapons cannot pierce.

Near the dwij you get the first taste; once you have tasted, there is no difficulty.

When I was in school, there was a story in first or second grade about a hunter—why it was there I didn’t know then. The hunter killed a lion and lioness; later found their cubs; he brought two home. One died; the other grew up on milk and vegetables.

It grew up vegetarian, sat like a cat or dog, children played with it; the village knew; he roamed freely; people fed him sweets and loved him.

One day the hunter sat with a minor cut on his foot; a little blood flowed; the lion licked it—and danger began. He tasted blood. He roared; the vegetarian was no more. The hunter’s life was in danger; the lion pounced, though he had never pounced before—he had not known what blood tastes like. Now the taste awakened his sleeping nature down to every hair—he had forgotten he was a lion; suddenly he roared. The house and the village were in danger.

When I first read it, I didn’t see the point. Now I know it must have come from some source of wisdom. The story says: once the taste comes, revolution happens.

Near a dwij you get the taste—Divine flows from him like the hunter’s blood. Once you sip, you cannot be the same—yesterday you were Arjuna; suddenly you become Krishna. All changes in a moment.

How to get the taste of Krishna? There must be an arrangement to come near him; Hindus created it through dwij—bow to the Brahmin, the twice-born; even without your effort, one day the door opens. Just one taste is enough.

“Guru and the wise…”

From whomever you have learned anything—anything at all—bow to them. This is not about the Satguru; that has already been covered under “dwij.” Krishna won’t repeat himself; he never uses a single unnecessary word. “Guru” here means anyone you learned anything from: letters, math, geography. What is there to bow to? In the West, students say, “You get a salary; we pay fees—finished.” Now in India too: “You are an employee—finished. Why bow? Why touch your feet?”

We are missing something vital: bowing to anyone from whom you learned anything. Why? Because the final learning that happens, happens only when you bow. This is mathematics.

What you learned here is of little worth; even if you don’t bow, no harm. But where will you learn bowing? You practice in shallow waters—so however “shallow” a guru may be, bow. A primary-school teacher on a hundred rupees—what is his “status”? You surpassed him long ago; he is middle-school, you are an M.A., Ph.D. or D.Litt. Why bow? He should bow to you! No—bow to anyone you ever learned anything from. Keep bowing—because on the final day you will have to bow to learn. Practice bowing deeply so that before the ultimate instruction, you are not found stiff.

The Hindus created a scripture for the whole life—no people more skillful; but their values are collapsing, and those who guard them seem to lack even common sense—like the Shankaracharya of Puri.

“Guru and the wise…”

The guru is one you learned from. The “wise” are those others have learned from, even if you have not—bow to them too. If you bow only to those from whom you yourself learned, there is ego in it: “I bow because I learned”—a transaction; impurity in the bowing. Bow also to those reputed to be wise; they may not even be wise—no matter. It’s not your responsibility to get certificates from a court that someone is truly wise before you bow. Even if he isn’t, there is no harm; bowing benefits you.

From my experience, if you bow even to an unwise person, both benefit—he feels a stir of conscience: “People bow to me; I must change.” Try it: pick someone, don’t let him know; keep touching his feet. In a month you will have changed him—he won’t be able to steal or drink; even to smoke he will fear: “What if someone bows just then—how ugly I’d look!”

That is why I say Hindus were very skillful. Your bowing benefits you and the one you bow to—because whenever you give someone respect, you awaken in him a longing to become worthy of it.

Thus we used this arithmetic deeply: we helped gurus go deeper into gurudom, and disciples deeper into discipleship—two birds with one stone.

If schoolchildren show respect to teachers, they transform the teachers.

I had a teacher—not a particularly good man. At home they told me: “Bow to others, but not to him.” I said I don’t keep that sort of account. He teaches me geography—and he teaches it well. He gambles; he drinks; he goes to prostitutes; I’ve even seen him in those quarters, in bars—but that’s not my concern. In class he teaches geography well; he doesn’t bring booze or a prostitute to class. I’ll keep touching his feet.

I was the first student to touch his feet; others didn’t. After some days he said, “Please, you too stop touching my feet.” “Why?” I asked. “You don’t know—I’m a bad man. Not fit to be a teacher. I have this job out of compulsion. All vices are in my life; when you touch my feet I feel great distress.” I said, “That is your worry; I’ll continue.” He said, “You are putting me in difficulty. Yesterday in the bar I hid when I saw you—never before have I hidden. I feared what you would think—the one who bows so reverently.”

I changed the man—kept at him.

Krishna says: “Also worship the wise.”

Even if they are not your teachers—worship them.

“Purity, simplicity, brahmacharya, and nonviolence…”

Purity means authenticity. You become impure the moment you are one thing and show another. A man is not impure by stealing; he is impure by stealing and posing as honest. Not by lying, but by lying and claiming to be truthful. The one who lies and says “I am a liar” is pure—there is no mixture of opposites in him; he is straight, simple.

If you want purity, reveal as you are—bad if bad, thief if thief, liar if liar, lustful if lustful—don’t hide. Hiding makes you impure.

And here is the great secret: the more you reveal, the sooner you will begin to change—because how long can a pure person remain a thief? Purity is such a fire it burns theft. Authenticity is so great that a man who lies yet admits “I am a liar” cannot go on lying long; he has taken the biggest step toward truth. In that one step all lies get crushed.

He who admits “I am full of lust” has taken the first step toward brahmacharya. That is precisely why your sadhus cannot be celibate—they never took the first step. They never acknowledged their lust; they claim celibacy from the start. True brahmacharya appears in one among millions because lust pervades the body’s every hair; yet in India millions of sannyasins claim it—there can be no greater lie. Nowhere is there such hypocrisy.

He who accepts lust within is authentic—he will one day attain brahmacharya. He who says “I have no lust” has installed the first lie; now his whole life will be spent in hiding and repressing.

Be authentic.

Thus Krishna says “purity,” then “simplicity.” The pure becomes simple—meaning without tricks or cunning, innocent as a child.

What does “being like a child” mean? A child is angry—you scold him and he blazes as if he would burn the house or the world if he had the power—jumps, throws things; you think he is a terrible troublemaker, a future murderer. And five minutes later he sits peacefully, humming a tune, utterly delightful. You can’t believe he was so angry moments ago. What happened?

He is simple; he has no calculation. When anger arises, he expresses it. He expresses whatever state he is in. You often are angry but smile, because smiling is profitable and anger risky—may cost dearly. In the office you’re angry at your boss, but you wag your tail, chatting sweetly; at home you hide anger at your wife because engaging means two days of trouble—too costly.

You collect lies all around; your smile doesn’t mean inner joy, your tears don’t guarantee inner sorrow. Inside one thing, outside another—complexity.

And this complexity grows with worldly “experience.” Religiousness demands great courage, because you’ll make dangerous bargains: when angry, express anger, regardless of consequences. Calculating consequences is cunning. Simplicity means you will find that anger dissolves; complexity keeps it alive—it sinks into your marrow like an ulcer. How can the fragrance of the Divine arise in such a being? How will the lamp of samadhi be lit? No lotus will bloom there—no soil left; you have tangled it all.

“Purity, simplicity…”

First purity, then simplicity—living all your feelings like a child. Soon you’ll find no harm comes; people sense that though you flare up, you are not a “quarrelsome” person. People forgive your anger because they know you are simple—you boil over in a moment, but you are not complex.

He who never shows anger yet carries it always—no one trusts him. He is complex; he will say something and do something else.

“Simplicity ultimately, though it may be tough at first, brings the supreme gain.”

“Brahmacharya…”

There is a sequence. If you are pure, simplicity is easy; if simple, brahmacharya is easy. First accept lust. Then do not repress it; let it be expressed—live everything fully so that you can go beyond it. Then brahmacharya happens. Brahmacharya is not the opposite of lust; it is the fruit of experience through lust—having lived it, known its pain and futility. Then brahmacharya is no imposed rule; it is a natural fragrance of your life-experience. You no longer fight lust; it is simply gone—lived and finished.

Remember this as a formula: whatever you want to end—live it totally. What you live incompletely persists, circling your head. No one is freed by incomplete experience. An unripe fruit cannot fall of itself; you can knock it down with a stone—but both fruit and tree are wounded, and the unripe fruit is neither edible nor seed-worthy. So too unripe brahmacharya is useless; it brings no experience of Brahman, and you will return to the body again and again. Incomplete experience is the doorway back to the world; complete experience is transcendence.

When lust ripens, brahmacharya arises. When anger ripens, compassion arises. When hatred ripens, love arises. When enjoyment ripens, renunciation arises.

The Upanishads say: tyena tyaktena bhunjitha—only they know renunciation who have known enjoyment. The Upanishads require courage; no weakling’s religion there. Straight like science: know—because knowing is liberation.

And one who attains brahmacharya attains nonviolence. Why? As long as there is lust, there is violence—lust is violence, exploitation, treating the other as an object to be used, to be possessed. Hence husband and wife quarrel like no other pair in the world—because their relation is rooted in lust. Where lust is, there is quarrel and violence. Whoever obstructs your lust, you wish to eliminate.

When lust disappears, nonviolence appears—meaning: now I need nothing from the other; my joy is in me, not in another. The other can neither give nor take it—so why would I harm another? As joy deepens within, all your violent ties of attachment, aversion, friendship, enmity fall away. The nonviolent has neither friend nor foe; he lives alone in himself—inner heaven found; nothing to do with the other.

A lustful man remains violent—because lust requires much: a beautiful woman must be found or taken, for the market is crowded. The poor cannot get a beautiful woman; the richer you are, the more beautiful a woman you can “get.” If you want to marry Jacqueline Kennedy, you must be an Onassis; you need wealth. Without money, how will you satisfy lust? Money becomes necessary; with it, not one but fifty women can be had. Emperors kept thousands; the poor cannot keep even one. The poor ponders a thousand times whether to marry: “Can I afford it?” The rich easily have hundreds of connections.

And don’t think that affluent men with one wife have no other relations—otherwise what is the point of being rich? Wealth buys the convenience of lust. Power too—become a minister and film actresses press your feet. Without money and office, how will you gratify lust? For money and power, you must commit violence, exploitation; wars are fought for women, wealth, status, fame.

Violence ceases only when lust goes. These Krishna calls austerities of the body.

“Speech that causes no agitation, that is agreeable, beneficial and truthful—and the practice of self-study—this is certainly austerity of speech.”

Let your speech be agreeable and beneficial. Speak only if your words will benefit the other; otherwise remain silent. You keep talking without any concern for the other; this is violence. He wants to leave; he has to go to the office; you accost him on the road and pour your words on him—without caring whether he wants to listen. Look at his face; he is ready to flee; you keep going—you are violent with speech.

Say only what benefits the other; otherwise, keep quiet. And say it in a way that is endearing. Even truth can be thrown like an abuse. You can call a one-eyed man one-eyed—that isn’t untrue. No saint will accuse you of lying; you spoke truth to a blind man by calling him blind. But Surdas could have said it—and in Surdas there is sweetness. You hurt with truth as others hurt with lies; you hurled the truth like a stone. Such use of truth will not increase your inner awareness.

Be sensitive: say only what is pleasing to the other. This does not mean lie to please. Hence Krishna adds the condition—let it be non-agitating, pleasing, beneficial, and truthful.

Do not shower false praise to please. That too is harmful; it may breed ego—you have injected poison.

“And that which furthers self-study”—speak only what furthers your own inner observation. Be awake inside while speaking—why am I speaking? For myself or for the other? Is my speaking a madness to empty the garbage within? Keep observing within—why did this arise in me?

Then your speech is sweet and true, causes no agitation in you or the other, and simultaneously your self-study continues—that is austerity of speech.

“Serenity of mind, cheerfulness, silence, self-control, and purity of feeling—this is called austerity of the mind.”

The third is mental austerity.

Cheerfulness of mind. Typically, “religious” people abandon cheerfulness—grow dour, long-faced, as if sadness had something to do with religion. Not so—Krishna says the opposite: cheerfulness is tapas.

A worldly man should be sad—that fits, he lives in hell. But the sadhus in temples wear the faces of hell-dwellers—evidently their hearts belong to the marketplace; by accident they are stuck in temples, hence their sadness. In temples there ought to be dance, song, joy.

Cultivate cheerfulness. The more cheerful your mind, the more you will go beyond mind. Cheerfulness is like a flower’s fragrance—the flower remains below; the scent rises. When your mind is cheerful, the mind stays down; the fragrance rises. Only the cheerful have known the Divine; it is the experience of those who dance—the Divine is the supreme celebration.

Prepare cheerfully; learn a little dancing; tie bells to your feet; sweeten your throat; let the song resound—only then will you be admitted into the great celebration.

“Cheerfulness and quietude of mind.”

Cheerfulness can be shallow, like street laughter—shallow like a noisy shallow stream with pebbles; in a deep river there is silence. Be deep and quiet as well as cheerful. Your cheerfulness will not be a cackle but a gentle smile—with a silent backdrop within, a hush. Your cheerfulness should not “say” anything—only reveal you.

Someone slips on a peel; you laugh—this is not a silent laughter; you are sarcastically hurting him deeper than a verbal abuse. Let your laughter say nothing; let it only express your silence.

“Self-control of mind”—meaning, remain ever aware of the mind; do not identify. When anger comes, stay aware: anger surrounds me, but I am not the anger—I am the witness. Witnessing is self-control.

“Purity of feeling”—whatever happens, don’t pollute your feeling. Someone cheats you—two options: you can pollute your feeling—“He’s bad; I’ll never trust anyone again; he’s a thief.” You have sullied your feeling. The funny thing is: his theft harmed you less than your own pollution of feeling. You could also say, “Poor man, perhaps in trouble, helpless—if I had known, I would have given.” Protect your feeling, for in the end, feeling is your only wealth. Who cheated you or not won’t matter in the end—what feeling you carried is all that remains.

Purity of feeling—this is mental austerity.

If you cultivate these three austerities, sattva will arise within; you can become sattvic.

Enough for today.