Geeta Darshan #15

Certainly, if one is perfected, all is perfected—but that “one” will be different for each person. For someone it will be firm dispassion; for another, meditation-yoga; for another, equanimity; for someone else, something different. That is why Krishna listed them all. If you master even one among them, everything is accomplished.

It is not that you must practice them all. People are of many kinds; their ways of life differ; their temperaments differ. There cannot be a single path for everyone. So do not get worried about how you will master so many! From among them choose the one with which the veena of your heart begins to sing. Choose the one with which you feel attuned.

For example, if you are an intellect-centered person, the language of devotion will not suit you. To be dedicated to someone, to surrender to someone, to lay yourself at someone’s feet—this will not feel right. Even if you manage it, it will be half-hearted. And from the incomplete, the complete can never be attained. If by persuading yourself you do what is contrary to your nature, it will only be on the surface. A coat of paint on top; within, you will remain what you were.

So never, even by mistake, undertake what does not resonate with you. If from the very beginning it doesn’t appeal, in the end it will not take you anywhere. Drop it at once. And there is no need to be anxious, because there are other paths; among them one will fit you, one will feel right.

If you are a rational, intellectual person, then the talk of the heart will seem absurd to you. Your way, then, is to set about purifying your intelligence. Refine the gold of the intellect. Drop all the rubbish of thought; become pure intelligence. Let your intellect become a mirror in which no ripples arise—like a silent lake in which the full moon is reflected.

That is pure intelligence. And by that you will attain the same as a heart-oriented person attains through devotion, worship, and prayer. What the lover attains through love, you will attain through purified intelligence.

For if it were available through only one door, it would be a great difficulty. Its doors are infinite. In truth, there are as many doors as there are persons. From wherever you stand, the path to it begins there. You do not have to become like someone else. You need not wear someone else’s clothes, nor adopt someone else’s ideas. You have to understand yourself—and from that understanding your door will open.

But if you are not an intellectual type, there is no cause for worry. Then choose devotion—choose love, prayer, worship. Let adoration become your way of life; let reverence become the state of your feeling. From there too you will reach the same.

If your heart becomes pure, the intellect becomes pure. If your intellect becomes pure, the heart becomes pure. Let a single ray of purification descend anywhere within you—where it descends is secondary. Once it descends, the inner darkness will break.

Understand it this way: your house has many doors, many windows, many ventilators. The room is full of darkness. Whether the sun’s ray comes in through the eastern window, or through the western window, or through the southern window—what difference does it make? From whichever window a ray enters, the inner darkness is dispelled.

So give your attention to the removal of the inner darkness. That is why Krishna has spoken of all the paths.

There are two kinds of people. Some catch a glimpse of the Divine within the web of relationships. The moment they are alone, they become like a desert; they dry up within. For them, the stream of life flows only in relatedness. If such people stand in solitude in the mountains like Mahavira, they will only wither and shrivel. The lotus of their life will not bloom. That way was never for them. Their lives will not become radiant. You will see that they have wilted; having gone to the forest they have become even less than they were in the marketplace. Something in them has broken, been lost. For them it would have been right to seek in the struggle of life itself, in the crowd, in relationships. Solitude will not suit them.

But there are also people of the other kind: the moment they enter a crowd they feel their life is in danger. Another’s presence pricks them like a thorn. Relationships bring only sorrow; crowds feel like sheer disturbance. They find no juice in society. Whenever they discover a corner, a solitude, a few moments of being alone, their inner splendor blossoms. For them, there is no need to search within relationships.

Krishnamurti keeps telling people: relationship is a mirror; within relationship, find your awareness. For some people this is exactly right; for all it is not. Those for whom it is not right will have to seek solitude. Only when they are utterly alone—in that supreme aloneness—will they hear the inner sound. They do not need to go via the other.

But there are some who will hear nothing in solitude, to whom solitude will feel frightening, who in aloneness will experience only death; no glimpse of life will come. Therefore Krishna says: pure intelligence, solitude, mastery over the mind, firm dispassion, wholehearted dedication to meditation-yoga—anything that feels right to you. And he also says you do not yet know exactly which one will fit. You will have to experiment.

Life is a continual experiment. It does not contain mathematical formulae where you grab a line and march along it. First you must find which path suits you. Many times you will wander; many times you will take a wrong road, turn back, return again. There will be many mistakes and slips—only then will the right attunement be set. Therefore, if only one path were prescribed, there would be the danger that you might never arrive.

It so happened, a delightful incident occurred. I was a guest at Bajajwadi in Wardha—the guesthouse of Jamnalalji. Jamnalalji’s old accountant, elderly, very experienced and unusual gentleman, Chiranjilal Barjatya, was looking after me.

The day I had to leave Bajajwadi, my train was at three in the night. I told him, “I have to go at three.” He said, “Don’t worry. I will make all the arrangements.” I asked, “All the arrangements?” He said, “Stay; you will see.”

He called the driver and said, “Have the car at the door at exactly two o’clock.” Then he called a tanga-walla and told him, “Have your horse carriage ready at exactly two.” Then he called a rickshaw-puller and said, “You bring your rickshaw now and sleep right here.”

I said to him, “For me alone, three are far too many. No need.” He said, “I learned a few things from Jamnalalji; one of them is that for a single task you should make three arrangements. If the car comes, fine. But who knows—the driver may doze off; it’s a cold night; the car might not start. Then the carriage will come. But the horse may fall ill; the tanga-walla may get tied up in something, forget, and not come. So this rickshaw-walla is sleeping right here. And if none of them is available, I am here anyway. I will carry the luggage; we will walk. So I have made all the arrangements!”

Krishna is making all the arrangements. That is why he repeats many words again and again. You will say: it would have been enough to say it once—why repeat so much? He is making all the arrangements so that no possibility is left out by which you might have reached—and which you did not know. He opens all the doors. Then come by whichever door you like, whichever suits you.

All the paths are his. All paths lead to him. But one path will lead one person, another path another.

If a feeling of inferiority has arisen, worthiness will not grow—unworthiness will only be reinforced. You are setting out to attain the divine; with a low self-image you will not succeed. In inferiority a person shrinks. In inferiority one loses trust in oneself. In inferiority one becomes afraid: “I won’t be able to make it! I don’t have the capacity!” Even if God were willing to meet you, you would run away, thinking, “This can’t be. I—and attain God? Impossible. I am unworthy, a great sinner, poor and lowly, a criminal!”

When I say that it is raining upon you day and night, I say it as truth. Because there is nothing except that. In the winds, it is what is blowing; in the flowers, it is what is blooming; in the moon and stars, it is the light; in the waterfalls, it is the resonance. When I speak, it is what speaks; when you listen, it is what listens. There is nothing other than it. So it is continuously showering, showering upon itself—because there is nothing else. It goes on offering itself to itself, for there is no second to receive.

But this too I know: you keep missing it. The rain is falling and you do not recognize it. It knocks at your door and you do not understand. You are asleep, in a stupor. Even if it stands before you, recognition does not arise. You pass by a flower; you see only the flower, not that which is. In the stream there is sound; you hear the water, not that.

I have heard: two Christian monks were walking a mountain path. From a church perched on a distant peak, the evening bells began to ring—so sweet a sound that the whole mountain filled with overtones, the valleys with echoes. One monk, delighted, said to the other, “Do you hear how sweet this resonance is? I’ve never heard lovelier bells! And the valleys—what a welcome in their returning echo!” The other said, “Until this nuisance of bells stops, I will hear nothing at all. I can’t even hear what you’re saying. Let the bells cease first.”

At the waterfall you hear the sound of the river, of water. And if I say to you, “Listen to the sound of the divine!” you will say, “First let this water’s babble stop—then I’ll be able to listen.” And that very “babble” is its sound.

Wherever you look, you look at that; you just do not recognize. You are seeing only that; if there is a mistake, it is a mistake of recognition. But do not conclude from this that you are unworthy. You are wholly worthy—only a little awareness is needed. You have eyes; they just need to open. You have hands; they just need to reach. You have a heart; it just needs to throb. You have everything. A little alignment—and music will be born.

Therefore, when I say that you meet or do not meet because of your worthiness, do not be filled with guilt that “I am unworthy,” or else you have taken me to mean the very opposite. The more remorse you generate, the more certain your unworthiness becomes.

When I say it is showering day and night, then dance—there is nothing to worry about. I may not yet be worthy, but it is raining; I will create worthiness. Had I been worthy and the rain not been eternal, what would I do then? That would be a more tragic situation. Now it is showering, it is present. We are not recognizing. We will recognize—if not today, then tomorrow.

It depends on the way of seeing. Be delighted that only your worthiness is in question—there is no obstacle on its side.

Think a little: if the obstacle were on its side and you were worthy—what then?

I have heard: a Japanese shoe company sent an agent to Africa about a hundred years ago, and an American shoe company sent their agent as well. Both arrived the same day, both surveyed the market, both went to the post office and wired their respective owners. The American wrote, “Returning immediately on the next plane. No possibility of selling shoes here. Nobody wears shoes.” The Japanese wrote, “I will need two or three months. Immense potential. We can sell more shoes than you can imagine—because nobody has any!”

The fact was the same: people did not wear shoes. One saw, “They don’t wear them—who will buy?” and was discouraged and prepared to return. The other saw, “No one has shoes—what a perfect market!” It will take some time to explain to people, “You are barefoot,” but the potential is great.

The fact is one; the ways of seeing differ. Do not turn your unworthiness into self-reproach. Take your unworthiness as good news: the divine is present, and only a small mistake on your part is causing the miss. Then the mistake can be corrected. As soon as it is corrected, all will be well.

And remember: you are not committing a sin; you are making a mistake. Here lies the difference between the Indian outlook on life and the Jewish-Christian outlook. Jews and Christians say man is a sinner. We say man is ignorant. There is a great difference. If we call someone a sinner, we have judged and closed the door to correction. We have declared there is no possibility; we have made a value-pronouncement; we have insulted. In India we say only this: man makes mistakes; there is no sin.

A small child adds two and two and writes five. Will you call it sin or mistake? Two and two are four—agreed. The child writes five. Is that a sin or a mistake? You will call it a mistake. To call it sin would be overdoing it. And even the mistake is not so big, for how far apart are four and five? Just a small distance—the child has come quite close. One small step here or there, and all will be right.

We say: in life there are human mistakes; there is no sin. Mistakes can be corrected. Even if you correct a “sin,” some sting remains. Even if you correct it, a stain remains. Even if you correct it, the thought remains: I was once a sinner. A mistake disappears like a line drawn on water. “Sin” is like a line carved on stone.

If you understand the spirit of the East, we have not really acknowledged sin at all; even what is called sin, we call a mistake. That’s all. We are small children; mistakes will happen—naturally. There is no need to be flooded with self-reproach.

If you are missing the divine, it is quite natural. Do not take any wound from it; do not carry it as a burden on your head.

If you move filled with ahobhava—with thankful wonder—and with an affirmative outlook, worthiness will begin to arise. The lighter you become of burden, the more worthy you become; the more your wings grow; then you can fly.

No—if, hearing me, a feeling of self-abasement begins to arise, you have missed my point. You have understood something I never said.

This is precisely the difference between me and your other “great men.” Their effort is to prove you guilty, to prove you lowly, to fill you with shame, to send you to hell. I tell you there is no hell anywhere; it is only heaven seen wrongly. Hell is your deluded vision. Like going near a rosebush in full bloom: you do not look at the flowers; you get entangled with the thorns and start counting them—and while counting, a thorn pricks you. Then you get frightened—“Even going near a flower is not wise.” You panic. You know neither the fragrance, nor the tenderness and virginity, nor the freshness, nor the song of the flower. You got stuck in thorns. As a rose has thorns, so if someone enters heaven from the wrong side, it becomes hell. By your vision you turn even happiness into misery; by a transformation of vision, even suffering becomes joy.

A Muslim fakir, Bayazid, was walking along a road. He was praying, eyes lifted to the sky, remembering the Lord. His foot struck a stone; a wound opened and bled. He knelt there on the spot—tears of joy streaming from his eyes. His devotees said, “This is a bit much. The one you pray to doesn’t even care enough to protect your foot when you are looking up! There is no one there—you are talking to empty sky. And now why are you rejoicing? Your foot is bleeding!” Bayazid said, “Fools, you don’t know. It could have been the gallows—he saved me! Given the evils and mistakes I have made, even a hanging would have been too little. But only a slight wound, a little blood—his great grace! The prayer has been heard.” He said, “You don’t know what could have happened. I know what could have happened. Without prayer to shelter me, I would have been hanged. Prayer covered me like an umbrella, saved me. A little hurt and I am spared—should I not give thanks, should I not dance with joy?”

If your way of seeing is affirmative, you will find gratitude even within complaint. If your way of seeing is negative, you will find complaint even within gratitude. It depends on you. Heaven is your vision; hell is your vision.

Hearing me, do not fill yourself with a sense of unworthiness and shame. Hearing me, be filled with the joy that the divine is showering day and night. It is only a small mistake.

Buddha used to say: if rain is falling and you keep your pot upside down, the water will keep falling, but the pot will remain empty. It was just a small matter. Had you kept it this way instead of that way—had you not kept it inverted. Not a great mistake—but even so, the pot remains empty. Upside down.

Your unworthiness is just like that—like an upside-down pot. Do not make it into a big problem.

In my experience, you make even small problems big. Your ego has become skilled at magnifying everything; it does not accept small things. A boil or a pimple appears—and you start talking of cancer. Your ego cannot accept that such a great person as you could have a mere pimple! If there is an illness, it must be cancer.

I was a professor in a college. A lady professor was there too. I had to hear her chatter daily. Whenever I came near, she would begin her lament. One day her husband telephoned me: “Please don’t take my wife’s words too seriously—she exaggerates.” I said, “Today she told me she has cancer!” Her husband laughed, “There’s no illness at all. But her ego does not like small things. She never has small ailments—only big illnesses.”

Your ego is such that you make everything big—you magnify even wrongdoing. And this is very strange. Saint Augustine wrote his Confessions. Reading them, again and again it seems he is exaggerating—no man can commit so many sins; it is beyond human capacity. I always suspected some exaggeration. But why would anyone exaggerate his sins? Now psychologists agree: the more they study the Confessions, the more they say he has overdone it. Gandhi too, in his autobiography, has described his “sins” with considerable exaggeration—he did not do that many.

You will say: it makes sense if a man exaggerates his virtues. Why would he exaggerate his vices? People usually cover their vices! True—people conceal them, and that too for the sake of ego, so that no one knows. But people also expose them—and that too for the sake of ego—so that everyone knows: “I committed so many, and I overcame them; now I have left everything behind.”

I was reading about one saint—he was very humble. But the words he spoke at the time of death—his devotees take them as great humility, but I was a bit surprised. On his deathbed he lifted his eyes toward God and said, “See, there is no sinner greater than me.” Devotees think, “How humble!” But what he is saying is: “There is no sinner greater than me. Among sinners I am chief. No one can defeat me.” The ego is astonishing: it wants to stand first in virtue and first in sin as well! In fact, the ego enjoys only this—standing first. Put it anywhere—but put it first.

Bernard Shaw has said: I would not like to go to heaven after death if I had to stand second. I would even prefer to go to hell, if I could stand number one there. He is ready for hell—provided he is first. To stand second in heaven—Jesus first and Bernard Shaw behind—doesn’t suit him. Better hell—at least there he would stand in front, number one.

The ego wants to be number one, by any means. Keep this in mind.

Excessive self-reproach may simply be one more style of the ego. By taking your sins as too great, don’t go on feeding your ego. Such is the complexity.

Therefore, when I say the divine is showering, put your attention on the rain. And if your worthiness isn’t aligning, it only means you’ve kept the vessel tilted, or upside down, or with its mouth covered. These are small mistakes—nothing that deserves great prestige. They can be corrected as easily as someone who first adds two and two to make five, then adds two and two to make four—and everything is fine.

Do not give yourself too much importance—not even for your unworthiness.

Only then are they possible. If love carries attachment, it becomes moha—infatuation. If love is free of attachment, it becomes bhakti—devotion. Love stands between the two: moha and bhakti. If love falls into attachment, it turns into moha; if it is freed from attachment, it becomes bhakti. Love is in the middle.

Understand it rightly: love is not a fixed state, it is a transition. If you do not move in time, love sinks downward and becomes moha. If you move swiftly, love rises and becomes bhakti. Love in itself is a journey; not a static condition, but a passage—the journey between moha and bhakti.

And if you have loved anyone—anyone at all—you will have known both possibilities. If you have loved your son, if you are a mother and have loved your son; or you are a wife and have loved your husband; or a husband and have loved your wife; or you have loved a friend—if you have loved, you will have known it all. Sometimes you will have found that love turns into moha and then it hurts. And sometimes you will also have found that love suddenly becomes devotion and then it is sheer grace.

If a mother can love her son without attachment, she will begin to see Krishna in him. Her child will walk, his anklets will tinkle, and Krishna will be remembered. In that tiny image of the son, the divine will be seen enthroned.

Wherever your love is freed from attachment, a door opens to the vision of the divine. If you have loved your wife, and attachment has slowly dissolved, you will begin to see the divine shining through her consciousness.

When love rises to a height, wings grow upon it; the stones of attachment are removed, the snare slips off, and it starts flying toward devotion. But when the bird of love is pressed down by stones, a noose tightens round its neck, and it is encircled by attachment, then it becomes moha.

Love is between the two. And remember: if you do nothing, love naturally falls downward. Everything by itself goes down—this is natural. Water flows downward: leave it alone and it keeps flowing; wherever it finds a lower place, it will go there; it will reach the pits on its own. To go into pits no arrangement is needed. But to raise it up, to take it to a mountain, then arrangements must be made to lift the water; then energy must be applied. There sadhana begins. There tapas begins.

Krishna is right: through love and devotion one attains the divine; and through attachment and possessiveness one misses the divine.

They look alike to you. You see no difference. You think love, moha, bhakti—what real distinction is there? In truth you know neither love nor devotion; you only know moha. You have known the lowest condition of love.

Your situation is like a man who has known only ice: he has not known water, nor steam. He knows ice—hard, stone-like, frozen. Even if you explain to him that there is a state in which this ice becomes water—melts and flows—he won’t believe how a stone-like thing could melt and flow.

But if you have known water, you find it flows. Ice is congealed, hard, dead; water has life in it.

And there is yet another state: steam—when water vaporizes, rises toward the sky, and disappears into the invisible. That is devotion.

And in life everything has three forms. It is not only scientists who say so; the spiritual ones say the same: in life each thing has three forms—frozen like ice, melted like water, and rising like steam.

Moha is ice, love is water, devotion is steam.

Reading the Gita does not bring song into one’s life. Reading the Gita is not the same as becoming suffused with song. That is where the mistake happened.

Hearing these unique words from Krishna, Arjuna awakened. We thought there was some magic in the words. We thought the words contained certain keys. We thought: if these words opened the lock of Arjuna’s heart, they will open the locks of our hearts too. So the recitation of the Gita began.

For five thousand years we have been reciting the Gita. No one’s lock opens. It seems there is no key in the words. Not only does the lock not open; by repeating the Gita the lock becomes more and more rusty. It does not open, and even the hope of opening breaks.

There is a reason behind this delusion. The first time, the event truly happened: the lock opened. We saw Arjuna wake up—he became unique, new, incomparable. He rose from the abyss of darkness and there was light. Certainly his doubts were dispelled and he attained the sense of the Self; he became Krishna-like. We saw this. Naturally, on seeing it we felt that we too should repeat those words.

But what happened was not of the words. What Krishna was saying was a pretext. Krishna’s being was the real thing.

Arjuna did not awaken because Krishna spoke; he awakened because Krishna was. He did not awaken due to Krishna’s words; he awakened by drinking Krishna. The words were only an excuse. The journey of the word was on the surface; within, a deep exchange was taking place—heart to heart, life-breath to life-breath. The real Gita was being communicated there. That slipped from our hands.

I am speaking here. There will be some who will leave having heard only my words. In their hands only trash will remain. However beautiful words may be, they are still trash. The value is of the wordless, of silence. But certainly there are some here who, while listening, are not concerned with the words. They sit here under the pretext of the word, but they are listening to me.

If I were to stop speaking, those who were listening to words would stop coming. Only a few would remain—two or four—who were hearing the silence. Only in their lives will revolution happen.

The word is a toy given to your mind. The mind does not fall silent; while I speak, for that while it becomes engaged. As the mind gets engaged and entangled, the opportunity arises to make a connection with the heart.

With one hand I keep speaking so that your mind remains engaged; with the other I touch your heart. That cannot be seen. Only the one whose heart is touched will know. The experience is such that only the knower knows. It is like jaggery to a dumb man; it is direct realization.

Thus, what Krishna said to Arjuna is secondary. What he did not say, and gave, is the essence. From that Arjuna awakened. But we heard only the words.

The story of the Gita is very unique. Try to understand it.

The father of the Kauravas is blind. Being blind, he cannot go to the war. He sits at home. And yet, blind though he is, a father’s ambition remains: that his sons win, attain the kingdom—his ambition stands behind. The blind father is restless to know what is happening. He cannot go himself, he has no eyes to see, but there is an urgency to know—what is happening! He asks Sanjaya.

Sanjaya is also not present there. From far away, hundreds of miles away, Sanjaya sees what is happening there. What Arjuna asked, what Krishna said—Sanjaya repeats it to Dhritarashtra. These symbols are very precious.

Krishna said something to Arjuna. What was said is superficial; what was not said is the real. What was poured without saying—that is the real. He set Arjuna’s vessel upright and then poured himself into it. The speaking was only to get the vessel to sit upright. It was to coax him. It was to bring him to a point where he would drop his doubts, stop wavering, settle—so that Krishna could enter him completely.

This event occurred in the invisible. Even those with eyes would not see it, let alone the blind! Even those standing on the battlefield could not see it. They too must have heard only the words.

Hundreds of miles away, Sanjaya heard these words. Perhaps he heard them through telepathy; or perhaps by radio—the same thing. What matters is that he heard from far away.

When a person like Krishna speaks, there is, first, Arjuna who hears from near—near meaning, he hears from the heart. And then there is Sanjaya who hears from afar, hundreds of miles away. Only the words reach him. And Sanjaya then tells the blind one, the blind Dhritarashtra, what happened.

Everything keeps becoming more and more borrowed: thousands of miles of distance, words that are heard. And Sanjaya is a technical man. He is not a man of the heart. He must have been a scientist, a radio specialist, skilled in telepathy—an expert. He has technique. He knows how to hear from hundreds of miles away. But he does not have the art of nearness. Otherwise Sanjaya himself would have attained knowledge. He is only a reporter, a newspaperman.

Nothing happened to him. He remained untouched. He was like a smooth-surfaced pot—nothing left a mark. Here Arjuna was asleep—he awoke. Here Krishna poured himself into Arjuna. One of the unique events that happen on this earth took place.

Sanjaya is receiving all the news, but it is all technical. With Sanjaya it became distant, it became of words, it became about gaps; it was no longer of the heart, it became of the head. Then Sanjaya told Dhritarashtra. And what did the blind Dhritarashtra understand? Bare words remained, from which even the resonance of the wordless was lost.

And then blind Dhritarashtras have been chanting the Gita for thousands of years. They have no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no heart to experience. They have the Gita in their hands; they sit holding it. They keep muttering it, repeating it. It gets committed to memory, but it does not become grounded in the Self.

This has always happened and will always happen. For very few will there be who can listen with their heart, holding their vessel upright. Great courage is needed, because the greatest risk is there, a kind of audacity—to invite another into oneself, to be possessed by another, to hand oneself over wholly into another’s hands.

That is what Krishna wanted of Arjuna: sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. Abandon everything, and come into my refuge. It is a matter of great courage. For the dishonest, cunning mind keeps saying, “What if there is deception? Who knows whether this man knows anything or not; what if we are simply cheated!” And you have nothing with which to be cheated anyway. Still the fear persists—what if something is stolen? One even fears losing what is not there!

Arjuna had the courage. If you do not have that much courage, you may go on memorizing the Gita and you will become a pundit, but song will not be born. And in a pundit’s life there is never a song. His life may have prose in abundance, but not poetry; there is no poem, no song, no note, no music. There will be grammar, mathematics, logic—but no poetry.

For poetry one needs a lover, not a pundit. And for poetry an altogether different kind of sensitivity is needed, one that can discern beauty.

That is why, though the Gita has been most read and heard in this land, nothing happened. The song kept disappearing. In our hands remains a streak of smoke. As a jet passes across the sky and leaves a trail of smoke, so the life-breath of the Gita departed long ago; a streak of smoke was left. And that streak is what we keep clutching.

That worship too is false. Krishna is the most difficult to worship. Mahavira is easy to worship, Buddha is easy to worship, Christ is easy to worship, Mohammed is easy to worship—but Krishna is very difficult. Because in Mahavira’s life there is an order. You can also understand that order: an ethic, a rule, a discipline, a boundary.

Krishna is beyond boundaries. There is no boundary in his life. He is a free wind, unpredictable; no prophecy can be made about him. You cannot say what Krishna will do. Not even what he will do a moment later is certain. You cannot rely even on his word. He can break his word too—because he lives moment to moment; there is no fixed framework in his life.

He is not a canal; he is like a river. Floods come; in the heat it can run dry. In the heat it shrinks to a thin stream. In flood it sweeps away villages and leaves its course. Krishna’s life is not like railway tracks, running on one fixed line.

That is why Krishna is so inscrutable. He is not easy to worship. So you are right that people have worshipped Krishna—but without understanding. What value can worship have if done without understanding!

My own understanding is that you worship for two reasons. First, to get rid of someone. Whoever you want to be rid of, you say, “All right, Baba,” fold your hands, touch his feet—then let me be on my way.

Krishna’s worship is like that “All right, Baba” kind of worship: “Forgive us; you are fine, perfectly fine; it isn’t proper to argue with you—also, it isn’t right to stand too close to you for long.”

Think a little about Krishna’s life—from beginning to end. You will find so many contradictions, so many inconsistencies, that your mind will say, “Is this man worthy of worship? Is this man religious?” Even that begins to seem doubtful. He seems a strategist, a politician, immoral. This man has no bounds. He cannot be relied upon. And yet you say there is worship—so there must be something to it.

That worship is to get rid of him: “All right.” You fold your hands—and you’re free! It has always been so. If you were to meet Krishna alive, you would run away. Because all your notions would be shattered.

Think a little: suppose you met Krishna somewhere playing the flute. Radha—who is not his wife—stands near. Other men’s wives are dancing around; the rasa-lila is on. Would you inform the police or would you worship?

You would inform the police. You would say, “This Krishna is fine in stories.” If he came to your home as a guest today wearing a peacock crown, you would say, “It would be better if you stayed somewhere else. After all, we have to live in this world, and there are neighbors too. If someone sees, if someone comes to know that you have arrived...”

Those who have known this person have called him a complete incarnation. A complete incarnation will be beyond bounds. All bounds are for man; what bounds can there be for God? All limits are man’s; what limit can there be for God? All rules are man’s; what rule can bind God?

This is the great mystery: that we have known Krishna’s life as unbounded—because God must be above rules. If God is under rules, then there is no need for God at all; the rules are enough.

God must be above rules.

That is why the Jains denied God. There is great meaning in their denial. They say: if we accept God, what happens to the rule? Their argument is: if God too acts according to rules, then he is superfluous—no need for him. The rule is enough. And if God can break the rules, then there is absolutely no need for him either, because then everything becomes unruly; life becomes anarchic. Then a sinner could be sent to heaven; a virtuous man could be roasted in hell. Then the renunciate could be thrown back into the world; the indulger could be placed in liberation—if God is above rules.

So the Jains said, “We will not take that risk. We just won’t keep God in the picture. Rules are enough. And no one is above the rule.”

But the Hindus took that risk. Only the Hindus in the whole world have given God an image in Krishna—unbounded. It is a very deep point. It goes beyond understanding. Understanding will say, “There must at least be some bounds—otherwise what will happen to us all!”

But a moment must come when all bounds are lost—when the river breaks all its banks and merges into the ocean. The ocean should have no banks.

Krishna points to that unbounded state. He is our indication toward the ultimate, the final truth. You worship him without understanding. If you worship with understanding, you will be transformed. But your worship is blind. You close your eyes, ring the bell, lay down flowers and leaves—and run off. You have never looked closely into Krishna’s eyes. Otherwise, either you would change or you would pick Krishna up and throw him away. One of the two would happen.

You worship without raising your eyes—without even seeing clearly whom you are worshipping! Because you yourself are afraid that if you really look, you will have to settle it: either this Krishna will have to go, or I will have to change. Then all argument will have to be dropped.

Krishna belongs to the world of madmen—the unreasoned, the wild. Meera said, “I have dropped all concern for public opinion.” Chaitanya began to dance in the streets when the current of Krishna-consciousness touched him. Chaitanya worshipped—and he became Krishna-like. Meera worshipped—and she became Krishna-like.

But the rest are deceiving—deceiving themselves. It is not worship; it is all a pretense. “It should be done”; a formal act. You were born in a Hindu home; Krishna’s worship has been going on; you might as well do it—who knows, it may come in handy sometime!

I have heard: an old woman in church would quickly bow her head whenever the devil’s name was mentioned. Whenever the priest spoke of the devil, she promptly bowed. The priest was puzzled; his curiosity grew. One day he caught the old woman outside the church and said, “I don’t understand. When I take God’s name, you bow—fine. But when I take the devil’s name, you bow too!” She said, “Who knows—he may be needed in a pinch. You can’t say!”

That is how you do your worship. Who knows—sometime it may be needed! But this is not worship of the heart. It is a formality, carried on. You keep tracing the same line, because your fathers did it and their fathers did it.

What has worship to do with someone’s father? Worship is the feeling of one’s own heart. When it rises, it breaks all dams. Then you won’t be able to keep accounts. As love is mad, devotion is even more mad. It is far more wild.

In Bengal there is a sect of devotees called Baul. Baul means “mad ones.” They only dance and sing. They do not offer flowers to Krishna; they have offered themselves. They don’t even keep an image of Krishna. They say, “What image should we keep! Wherever we dance, Krishna becomes embodied.” There is no rule, no ritual to their worship—because they say, “What ritual can there be for Krishna’s worship? The man whose very life had no ritual—what rules shall we make for his worship! When the mood rises, when the wave seizes us, worship happens.”

You have read the Gita, you have listened to it, you have worshipped too—everything is on the surface. It is all worth two pennies. That is why this country lost its song, lost its dance, lost its festivity; and even in renunciation that fragrance is no longer there which Krishna wanted it to have.

Krishna’s sannyas is not against the world. Krishna’s sannyas is in the midst of the world.

And any sannyas that is opposed to the world will rot—if not today, then tomorrow. Its roots will be uprooted. It cannot be very expansive—because it will have to depend on others.

If a renunciate has to depend on the householder, how many days can that renunciation last! If the renunciate must depend on the market, on the shop, how long can it endure!

Therefore all traditions of sannyas slowly rot—because they must depend on their opposites; they must be beholden.

Krishna gave a wholly different conception of sannyas: acting, living—and only break the craving for the fruit; let it go. Keep doing action; only let the hunger for the fruit not remain. No one will even get wind of it that you have become a renunciate. It will be an inner state of feeling. Such sannyas will never rot—because its roots will be in the soil of the world.

Sannyas should be a tree whose roots are in the world and whose branches are in the sky—joining earth and heaven. Then it does not rot; then new flowers keep coming.