Once more, hear from me my supreme word—the deepest secret of all।
Indeed you are dear to me; therefore I will speak what is for your good।। 64।।
Fix your mind on me; be my devotee; worship me; bow to me।
You shall come to me alone—this I truly promise you—for you are dear to me।। 65।।
Abandon all duties; take refuge in me alone।
I shall free you from all sin; do not grieve।। 66।।
Geeta Darshan #17
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
सर्वगुह्यतमं भूयः श्रृणु मे परमं वचः।
इष्टोऽसि मे दृढमिति ततो वक्ष्यामि ते हितम्।। 64।।
मन्मना भव मद्भक्तो मद्याजी मां नमस्कुरु।
मामेवैष्यसि सत्यं ते प्रतिजाने प्रियोऽसि मे।। 65।।
सर्वधर्मान्परित्यज्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज।
अहं त्वा सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः।। 66।।
इष्टोऽसि मे दृढमिति ततो वक्ष्यामि ते हितम्।। 64।।
मन्मना भव मद्भक्तो मद्याजी मां नमस्कुरु।
मामेवैष्यसि सत्यं ते प्रतिजाने प्रियोऽसि मे।। 65।।
सर्वधर्मान्परित्यज्य मामेकं शरणं व्रज।
अहं त्वा सर्वपापेभ्यो मोक्षयिष्यामि मा शुचः।। 66।।
Transliteration:
sarvaguhyatamaṃ bhūyaḥ śrṛṇu me paramaṃ vacaḥ|
iṣṭo'si me dṛḍhamiti tato vakṣyāmi te hitam|| 64||
manmanā bhava madbhakto madyājī māṃ namaskuru|
māmevaiṣyasi satyaṃ te pratijāne priyo'si me|| 65||
sarvadharmānparityajya māmekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja|
ahaṃ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ|| 66||
sarvaguhyatamaṃ bhūyaḥ śrṛṇu me paramaṃ vacaḥ|
iṣṭo'si me dṛḍhamiti tato vakṣyāmi te hitam|| 64||
manmanā bhava madbhakto madyājī māṃ namaskuru|
māmevaiṣyasi satyaṃ te pratijāne priyo'si me|| 65||
sarvadharmānparityajya māmekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja|
ahaṃ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ|| 66||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
First question:
Osho, Krishna says, “If you keep your mind constantly in me, by my grace you will effortlessly cross over all the perils of birth and death.” Why has Krishna joined “effortlessly” with grace?
Osho, Krishna says, “If you keep your mind constantly in me, by my grace you will effortlessly cross over all the perils of birth and death.” Why has Krishna joined “effortlessly” with grace?
He has joined it with reason—deliberately, thoughtfully.
There are two possibilities of crossing over. One possibility is that a person crosses by his own effort. Then there is no need of the Lord’s grace, no cause to invoke divine compassion. That path is of resolve, of will. One crosses through one’s own endeavor; one asks for no support.
The other path is that of surrender. Krishna is speaking of the path of surrender. There the seeker only surrenders; the rest happens of itself, effortlessly. For that “rest,” the seeker has nothing to do. There is only one “doing”: to leave everything to the Divine. Then all else happens effortlessly.
These are the two paths. On the first path there is not even any need for God. This does not mean that God is not; it only means that the seeker attains through his own effort and seeks no other support beyond that.
The path of the Jains and the Buddhists is that. There is no worship, no prayer—only practice, only meditation. Not a drop of prayer. Naturally, the path is very dry, desert-like. No greenery appears anywhere. Where prayer does not enter, how can an oasis be? Where prayer does not come, what place is there for love? Where there is no prayer, no current of rasa flows. That’s why when you read the Jain scriptures you feel as if you are reading a book of mathematics.
Lovers of Jain scriptures keep asking me to speak on Kundakunda or on Umasvati. Many times I think of it, and then I stop. Because to speak on Kundakunda leaves no space for poetry. What Kundakunda says is absolutely right—but the way of saying it is not verse, it is prose; it is not poetry, it is mathematics. There is logic there—naturally the dryness of logic. Nothing that touches the heart: no love, no prayer, no grace.
It can be spoken about—but the speaking will be very dry; so I hold myself back. There is tattva-jnana—essential knowledge—but not tattva-rasa—its nectar. And it cannot be otherwise, because the entire vision there is of resolve. The seeker must do everything with his own hands and feet.
There are some who will arrive by that path. Some will not reach through the heart; they will reach only through thought. But they will be few. For most people that path cannot have much impact, because most people throb from the heart. And it is good that most people throb from the heart. It gives life beauty, dance, festivity.
The one who moves from the heart is not a seeker, he is a devotee. His “practice” amounts only to this: he has let go. Do not think it a small practice either. Letting go is also a great difficulty. But a lover can let go—because there is so much trust in the other, so much faith, that with eyes closed he can hold someone’s hand and walk.
In the West, psychologists do a small experiment. When a husband and wife quarrel, they go to a psychologist. He is expected to resolve it. Still, husband and wife both hide and both show. So the psychologist devises a small experiment. Whenever a couple comes with a conflict, he says: let the husband close his eyes, bind them with a bandage, take his wife’s hand, and let him go wherever she leads—in the garden, in the house. Then the reverse: the wife binds her eyes and takes the husband’s hand.
Between those who have no love, there is hesitation. It is a small matter. No husband will lead his wife into a well, nor will a wife bang her husband into a rock. But those who do not trust one another, however much they display otherwise, hesitate to do even this small experiment.
And if even this small experiment is not possible—that you can trust someone enough to close your eyes, hold a hand, and go wherever you are led—then how will the final experiment of surrender be possible? There you are to hold the hand of the Divine who is not even visible; whether he is or not cannot be asserted with certainty.
His being is also only in the heart’s faith. Outside, there is no proof to be found. Yet someone holds his hand and sets out. He closes his own eyes and says, “Why do I need my eyes? You are, that is enough. Why should I worry about maps and routes? Why should I fuss over whether I will reach or not? Which method will work and which will not? You are, that is enough; I’ll hold your hand.”
As a small child holds his father’s hand and sets out. The father may be anxious, but the little boy, hand in hand, walks along singing, dancing, delighted. He has no worry. Father is here—end of the matter. What need is there now to be anxious!
The path of surrender is to leave everything to the Divine.
For those filled with doubt, surrender may not be possible. For them, only the path of resolve remains. They will wander much. What could have happened in a moment, could have happened effortlessly—they will toil for it needlessly. If they arrive, it is good fortune. A thousand set out, one arrives. Because to walk on one’s own feet in this trackless forest, in the infinite expanse of life, without any support, in the helpless state of man, does not seem possible.
But for those in whose lives the shadow of doubt is very deep, whose skies are overcast with doubt, that is the only means. Perhaps when they are tired and worn from there, surrender will also become possible.
Here Krishna speaks only of surrender. And Krishna is present—embodied, in the flesh—yet Arjuna cannot let go. So I can understand your difficulty, the difficulty of millions, for whom no one is tangibly present; or if present, faith does not arise; if present, love does not awaken.
And Arjuna is full of love for Krishna; they are childhood friends—and still he cannot trust. The very Krishna whom he has made his charioteer in the terrible situation of war, in a time of crisis, Arjuna does not dare to make his charioteer in the inner journey of life. For war he has trusted him—wherever he takes me will be right. But there are even deeper wars in life; there even Krishna does not become the object of trust. Here, in Kurukshetra, he has made him his charioteer for the outer war. But in the great war of life that has been going on from beginningless time, the inner war, Arjuna is afraid to put the reins in Krishna’s hands.
There is love, the feeling of friendship. There is no memory of any event where Krishna deceived Arjuna. Whenever there has been need he has stood by him. Whenever a crisis has come he has given company. In every difficult hour he has found the way out. And still trust does not come.
Krishna tells Arjuna: If you leave everything to me, then by my grace you will cross effortlessly. “Effortlessly” means you will have nothing to do then. You will cross as if nothing was done and it happened. Crossing over will be an event, not a deed.
But before that there is a great condition—the supreme condition—and that is surrender. If there is love in the heart, even a little possibility of love, then choose surrender.
To choose surrender will mean to drop doubt, to drop ego. And the energy of your life that is entangled in ego and doubt—that too must be gathered onto the path of surrender. Let there be no divided energy; let the whole current of life be poured into surrender and faith. Slowly, the Ganga that issues as a very small stream at Gangotri begins to grow.
If there is even a little possibility of love—and there is; in fact it is hard to find a person in whom even a Gangotri-like trickle is not—then that much is there. Even if you cannot hear its tinkling song—because the stream is so tiny—or perhaps you are so full of thought and inner noise that in your own clamor you cannot hear that faint, thin call of the river—if you become a little aware, a little careful, if you look within, you will begin to hear.
The Ganga that is now dripping drop by drop can become a great river if you gather the scattered energies of your life and let them all flow that way.
And then, Krishna says, everything will happen effortlessly.
Both paths are open. If you feel it is not possible to surrender your doubt to love, to bend your ego before the Divine, then there is the other way. Forget God altogether. Let your ego be everything. Let only you remain.
That is why the Jains do not speak of God; they speak only of the self. You are; God is not.
This is fine—then lift up all the doubt you can lift, and the little stream of love that still flows in you, dry that up too. Turn even that current of love into logic. Let your whole life become thought, logic, doubt, resolve. You will arrive even then.
But no one arrives half-and-half—that much is certain. Entirely—either on this shore or that. Either aboard this boat or that. Do not journey standing with a foot in two boats.
And I see you all standing in two boats. You do not surrender; you preserve yourself. Yet you do not drop the hope of the blessing of God. You do not let go of the feeling that it might happen by his grace. And the insistence, “I will do it and show it,” also does not leave. Thus you are astride two boats.
Half doubt, half faith—there is no state more ironic. Half surrender, half resolve—what could be more fragmented and distracted! In this you become two. The inner unity, the sur-tan, the string of melody breaks. Many notes begin to sound within, without any harmony. This is the state of derangement. It must be changed.
Krishna says: Arjuna, leave everything to me.
This is Krishna’s path. But do not be disheartened. If you cannot leave it, there is no need to panic. For you there is Mahavira. No one has any reason to despair. Whatever kind you are, there is a boat somewhere suited to you.
But choose your boat rightly. Otherwise you will travel and not arrive. No one reaches anywhere in another’s boat, however beautiful it may look. Do not make another’s journey your own.
That is why Krishna repeats so often: svadharme nidhanam shreyah—better to die in one’s own dharma. It is better to drown in one’s own boat; even arriving in another’s is not right. So examine yourself very carefully within—test, observe, diagnose.
And one thing must be decided: either resolve or surrender; either logic or love. Once you decide there, and then move according to that decision and do not lean to the other side, do not change midway, you will certainly arrive.
There are two possibilities of crossing over. One possibility is that a person crosses by his own effort. Then there is no need of the Lord’s grace, no cause to invoke divine compassion. That path is of resolve, of will. One crosses through one’s own endeavor; one asks for no support.
The other path is that of surrender. Krishna is speaking of the path of surrender. There the seeker only surrenders; the rest happens of itself, effortlessly. For that “rest,” the seeker has nothing to do. There is only one “doing”: to leave everything to the Divine. Then all else happens effortlessly.
These are the two paths. On the first path there is not even any need for God. This does not mean that God is not; it only means that the seeker attains through his own effort and seeks no other support beyond that.
The path of the Jains and the Buddhists is that. There is no worship, no prayer—only practice, only meditation. Not a drop of prayer. Naturally, the path is very dry, desert-like. No greenery appears anywhere. Where prayer does not enter, how can an oasis be? Where prayer does not come, what place is there for love? Where there is no prayer, no current of rasa flows. That’s why when you read the Jain scriptures you feel as if you are reading a book of mathematics.
Lovers of Jain scriptures keep asking me to speak on Kundakunda or on Umasvati. Many times I think of it, and then I stop. Because to speak on Kundakunda leaves no space for poetry. What Kundakunda says is absolutely right—but the way of saying it is not verse, it is prose; it is not poetry, it is mathematics. There is logic there—naturally the dryness of logic. Nothing that touches the heart: no love, no prayer, no grace.
It can be spoken about—but the speaking will be very dry; so I hold myself back. There is tattva-jnana—essential knowledge—but not tattva-rasa—its nectar. And it cannot be otherwise, because the entire vision there is of resolve. The seeker must do everything with his own hands and feet.
There are some who will arrive by that path. Some will not reach through the heart; they will reach only through thought. But they will be few. For most people that path cannot have much impact, because most people throb from the heart. And it is good that most people throb from the heart. It gives life beauty, dance, festivity.
The one who moves from the heart is not a seeker, he is a devotee. His “practice” amounts only to this: he has let go. Do not think it a small practice either. Letting go is also a great difficulty. But a lover can let go—because there is so much trust in the other, so much faith, that with eyes closed he can hold someone’s hand and walk.
In the West, psychologists do a small experiment. When a husband and wife quarrel, they go to a psychologist. He is expected to resolve it. Still, husband and wife both hide and both show. So the psychologist devises a small experiment. Whenever a couple comes with a conflict, he says: let the husband close his eyes, bind them with a bandage, take his wife’s hand, and let him go wherever she leads—in the garden, in the house. Then the reverse: the wife binds her eyes and takes the husband’s hand.
Between those who have no love, there is hesitation. It is a small matter. No husband will lead his wife into a well, nor will a wife bang her husband into a rock. But those who do not trust one another, however much they display otherwise, hesitate to do even this small experiment.
And if even this small experiment is not possible—that you can trust someone enough to close your eyes, hold a hand, and go wherever you are led—then how will the final experiment of surrender be possible? There you are to hold the hand of the Divine who is not even visible; whether he is or not cannot be asserted with certainty.
His being is also only in the heart’s faith. Outside, there is no proof to be found. Yet someone holds his hand and sets out. He closes his own eyes and says, “Why do I need my eyes? You are, that is enough. Why should I worry about maps and routes? Why should I fuss over whether I will reach or not? Which method will work and which will not? You are, that is enough; I’ll hold your hand.”
As a small child holds his father’s hand and sets out. The father may be anxious, but the little boy, hand in hand, walks along singing, dancing, delighted. He has no worry. Father is here—end of the matter. What need is there now to be anxious!
The path of surrender is to leave everything to the Divine.
For those filled with doubt, surrender may not be possible. For them, only the path of resolve remains. They will wander much. What could have happened in a moment, could have happened effortlessly—they will toil for it needlessly. If they arrive, it is good fortune. A thousand set out, one arrives. Because to walk on one’s own feet in this trackless forest, in the infinite expanse of life, without any support, in the helpless state of man, does not seem possible.
But for those in whose lives the shadow of doubt is very deep, whose skies are overcast with doubt, that is the only means. Perhaps when they are tired and worn from there, surrender will also become possible.
Here Krishna speaks only of surrender. And Krishna is present—embodied, in the flesh—yet Arjuna cannot let go. So I can understand your difficulty, the difficulty of millions, for whom no one is tangibly present; or if present, faith does not arise; if present, love does not awaken.
And Arjuna is full of love for Krishna; they are childhood friends—and still he cannot trust. The very Krishna whom he has made his charioteer in the terrible situation of war, in a time of crisis, Arjuna does not dare to make his charioteer in the inner journey of life. For war he has trusted him—wherever he takes me will be right. But there are even deeper wars in life; there even Krishna does not become the object of trust. Here, in Kurukshetra, he has made him his charioteer for the outer war. But in the great war of life that has been going on from beginningless time, the inner war, Arjuna is afraid to put the reins in Krishna’s hands.
There is love, the feeling of friendship. There is no memory of any event where Krishna deceived Arjuna. Whenever there has been need he has stood by him. Whenever a crisis has come he has given company. In every difficult hour he has found the way out. And still trust does not come.
Krishna tells Arjuna: If you leave everything to me, then by my grace you will cross effortlessly. “Effortlessly” means you will have nothing to do then. You will cross as if nothing was done and it happened. Crossing over will be an event, not a deed.
But before that there is a great condition—the supreme condition—and that is surrender. If there is love in the heart, even a little possibility of love, then choose surrender.
To choose surrender will mean to drop doubt, to drop ego. And the energy of your life that is entangled in ego and doubt—that too must be gathered onto the path of surrender. Let there be no divided energy; let the whole current of life be poured into surrender and faith. Slowly, the Ganga that issues as a very small stream at Gangotri begins to grow.
If there is even a little possibility of love—and there is; in fact it is hard to find a person in whom even a Gangotri-like trickle is not—then that much is there. Even if you cannot hear its tinkling song—because the stream is so tiny—or perhaps you are so full of thought and inner noise that in your own clamor you cannot hear that faint, thin call of the river—if you become a little aware, a little careful, if you look within, you will begin to hear.
The Ganga that is now dripping drop by drop can become a great river if you gather the scattered energies of your life and let them all flow that way.
And then, Krishna says, everything will happen effortlessly.
Both paths are open. If you feel it is not possible to surrender your doubt to love, to bend your ego before the Divine, then there is the other way. Forget God altogether. Let your ego be everything. Let only you remain.
That is why the Jains do not speak of God; they speak only of the self. You are; God is not.
This is fine—then lift up all the doubt you can lift, and the little stream of love that still flows in you, dry that up too. Turn even that current of love into logic. Let your whole life become thought, logic, doubt, resolve. You will arrive even then.
But no one arrives half-and-half—that much is certain. Entirely—either on this shore or that. Either aboard this boat or that. Do not journey standing with a foot in two boats.
And I see you all standing in two boats. You do not surrender; you preserve yourself. Yet you do not drop the hope of the blessing of God. You do not let go of the feeling that it might happen by his grace. And the insistence, “I will do it and show it,” also does not leave. Thus you are astride two boats.
Half doubt, half faith—there is no state more ironic. Half surrender, half resolve—what could be more fragmented and distracted! In this you become two. The inner unity, the sur-tan, the string of melody breaks. Many notes begin to sound within, without any harmony. This is the state of derangement. It must be changed.
Krishna says: Arjuna, leave everything to me.
This is Krishna’s path. But do not be disheartened. If you cannot leave it, there is no need to panic. For you there is Mahavira. No one has any reason to despair. Whatever kind you are, there is a boat somewhere suited to you.
But choose your boat rightly. Otherwise you will travel and not arrive. No one reaches anywhere in another’s boat, however beautiful it may look. Do not make another’s journey your own.
That is why Krishna repeats so often: svadharme nidhanam shreyah—better to die in one’s own dharma. It is better to drown in one’s own boat; even arriving in another’s is not right. So examine yourself very carefully within—test, observe, diagnose.
And one thing must be decided: either resolve or surrender; either logic or love. Once you decide there, and then move according to that decision and do not lean to the other side, do not change midway, you will certainly arrive.
Second question:
Osho, like Krishna, do you also tell us that all our resolves are false?
Osho, like Krishna, do you also tell us that all our resolves are false?
Certainly—because you are false. Your true nature has not yet manifested. So whatever decision you make in this deranged state will also be deranged.
It is like asking a drunk to decide. He may decide something, but what value can it have! It won’t last till morning, when he comes to his senses. By morning he will be a different man; he won’t even admit he ever said it.
Given the present state of your mind, all your decisions will be false—because you are false. From your falseness your decisions arise; how can they be true? Therefore, before taking any decision, you must discover the authenticity of your being. If you can grasp even a grain of your authenticity, the decision that arises from it will be true.
It is not a matter of much thinking; it is a matter of a quiet gaze.
What will you think? You have been thinking all along. It is by thinking that you have become entangled. Thinking will not untangle you. No solution will come from thought. Thought has created the problems. Thought bound you, tormented you; thought itself gave you the disease. Thought cannot become the medicine.
If you want a decision that is not false, abandon thought; learn to be a little quiet and thought-free. That is meditation. In that meditation, the decision that comes is not something you have made. It rises from your own dharma, from your own nature. As a sprout emerges from the seed, so will a decision be born from your own dharma.
That decision will not be false. But remember: it will not be “yours” either. Then you can say, “The Divine has taken this decision within me.” You can say, “The Whole has drawn this conclusion within me.” Because in that thoughtless moment, where will you be!
You are a sum, a crowd, of thoughts. And that sum of thoughts you have till now mistaken for your being. That is not your being. Beneath the layers of thoughts your being lies buried. Find your own silence and let decisions arise from that—and you will never go wrong in life.
This is a great wonder. While thinking, there are alternatives—shall I do this or not; how shall I do it, this way or that; shall I go east or west; shall I go or not go; shall I rise or remain seated—thinking is full of options. In no-thought there are no options; there is only decision.
In no-thought a single impulse arises and seizes your entire life-energy. It is not a question of “shall I go or not?” You suddenly find you are walking. Or suddenly you find you are sitting; movement has disappeared.
Decision is in no-thought. And there, there are no options; it is an optionless state. Only one thing arises—and it arises with such totality that it possesses every fiber of your being. Your body and mind surrender into it. You suddenly find this is not a decision you have taken; it is more accurate to say the decision has taken you. Where did you take it? You are not above decision; decision itself has taken hold of you. You are enclosed within the decision.
And when a decision happens like this, there is no regret. Wherever it takes you, you will always find yourself blessed. A decision taken by thinking—by choosing among alternatives—will be false, because it is taken by a deranged mind. A decision arising in no-thought, manifest from your nature, will not be fragmented; there will not be two. It will seize you with your whole life-force. You will never repent. You will never look back, because otherwise there was simply no other way to act. What you did is what alone could have been. There was no other voice within that could now say, “Look, I told you not to do it.”
Right now your condition is such that whatever you do, you repent. Do it, and you repent; don’t do it, and you repent.
People come to me and say they are in great difficulty. If they do not take sannyas, day and night there is regret: “We are falling behind; others are moving ahead. Others are courageous; we are weak, cowardly; others are daring.” So guilt persists in the mind; there is pain. If they do take it, then troubles arise: “What mistake have I made!” People ridicule them. People say, “He too has gone mad. You have dropped your mind! Lost your intelligence!” Don’t take it, and regret catches you; take it, and regret catches you.
Then what will you do? Whatever you do, regret will seize you. The meaning of regret is only this: you are divided. One part of the mind says, “Take it”; another part says, “Don’t.” Whichever of the two you obey, the one you did not obey sits inside, waiting for the right moment to say to you, “See! I told you, you didn’t listen; now suffer.” Because there are two, you will always repent.
As I see it, you do nothing but repent. Your life is always filled with the smoke of a deep remorse.
The day you know the decision of no-thought, that day you will not repent, because there was no other voice at all. Even if you wanted to do something else, you could not. Only in such a state does the meaning of destiny become clear. Only then can you say, “What was to be, happened. It was fate; otherwise nothing else could have happened. If something bad happened—happened. If something good happened—happened. It could not have been otherwise; what the Divine willed, happened.”
The day you are in no-thought, that very day the Divine becomes active within you. Give him a little chance.
But you are very clever. You want to take decisions yourself. All your decisions will be false. Only his decision will be true. Make way; get out of the middle. Let his voice come; let his inner sound arise. Let him take the decision within you; you silently go along with it. Become the shadow. Do not parade in front; stay a step behind. Then wherever he takes you, go. And in your life you will never meet repentance again.
And only such a life is a life of virtue, in which there is no repentance. If you ask me which life I call virtuous, I would say: the life in which there is no repentance. Where there is repentance, there is sin.
People say one has to repent for sin. I tell you, whatever you have to repent for is sin. Even if you have given charity, and after giving you begin to regret—“It would have been better had I not given”—then that too became sin. Whatever you have to repent for is sin; and that for which there is no repentance is virtue.
But how will that moment come when you will not repent?
If you decide by thought, you will certainly repent. Let decision arise from no-thought! Then Krishna says: by grace, effortlessly, what cannot be done by doing, happens without doing.
It is like asking a drunk to decide. He may decide something, but what value can it have! It won’t last till morning, when he comes to his senses. By morning he will be a different man; he won’t even admit he ever said it.
Given the present state of your mind, all your decisions will be false—because you are false. From your falseness your decisions arise; how can they be true? Therefore, before taking any decision, you must discover the authenticity of your being. If you can grasp even a grain of your authenticity, the decision that arises from it will be true.
It is not a matter of much thinking; it is a matter of a quiet gaze.
What will you think? You have been thinking all along. It is by thinking that you have become entangled. Thinking will not untangle you. No solution will come from thought. Thought has created the problems. Thought bound you, tormented you; thought itself gave you the disease. Thought cannot become the medicine.
If you want a decision that is not false, abandon thought; learn to be a little quiet and thought-free. That is meditation. In that meditation, the decision that comes is not something you have made. It rises from your own dharma, from your own nature. As a sprout emerges from the seed, so will a decision be born from your own dharma.
That decision will not be false. But remember: it will not be “yours” either. Then you can say, “The Divine has taken this decision within me.” You can say, “The Whole has drawn this conclusion within me.” Because in that thoughtless moment, where will you be!
You are a sum, a crowd, of thoughts. And that sum of thoughts you have till now mistaken for your being. That is not your being. Beneath the layers of thoughts your being lies buried. Find your own silence and let decisions arise from that—and you will never go wrong in life.
This is a great wonder. While thinking, there are alternatives—shall I do this or not; how shall I do it, this way or that; shall I go east or west; shall I go or not go; shall I rise or remain seated—thinking is full of options. In no-thought there are no options; there is only decision.
In no-thought a single impulse arises and seizes your entire life-energy. It is not a question of “shall I go or not?” You suddenly find you are walking. Or suddenly you find you are sitting; movement has disappeared.
Decision is in no-thought. And there, there are no options; it is an optionless state. Only one thing arises—and it arises with such totality that it possesses every fiber of your being. Your body and mind surrender into it. You suddenly find this is not a decision you have taken; it is more accurate to say the decision has taken you. Where did you take it? You are not above decision; decision itself has taken hold of you. You are enclosed within the decision.
And when a decision happens like this, there is no regret. Wherever it takes you, you will always find yourself blessed. A decision taken by thinking—by choosing among alternatives—will be false, because it is taken by a deranged mind. A decision arising in no-thought, manifest from your nature, will not be fragmented; there will not be two. It will seize you with your whole life-force. You will never repent. You will never look back, because otherwise there was simply no other way to act. What you did is what alone could have been. There was no other voice within that could now say, “Look, I told you not to do it.”
Right now your condition is such that whatever you do, you repent. Do it, and you repent; don’t do it, and you repent.
People come to me and say they are in great difficulty. If they do not take sannyas, day and night there is regret: “We are falling behind; others are moving ahead. Others are courageous; we are weak, cowardly; others are daring.” So guilt persists in the mind; there is pain. If they do take it, then troubles arise: “What mistake have I made!” People ridicule them. People say, “He too has gone mad. You have dropped your mind! Lost your intelligence!” Don’t take it, and regret catches you; take it, and regret catches you.
Then what will you do? Whatever you do, regret will seize you. The meaning of regret is only this: you are divided. One part of the mind says, “Take it”; another part says, “Don’t.” Whichever of the two you obey, the one you did not obey sits inside, waiting for the right moment to say to you, “See! I told you, you didn’t listen; now suffer.” Because there are two, you will always repent.
As I see it, you do nothing but repent. Your life is always filled with the smoke of a deep remorse.
The day you know the decision of no-thought, that day you will not repent, because there was no other voice at all. Even if you wanted to do something else, you could not. Only in such a state does the meaning of destiny become clear. Only then can you say, “What was to be, happened. It was fate; otherwise nothing else could have happened. If something bad happened—happened. If something good happened—happened. It could not have been otherwise; what the Divine willed, happened.”
The day you are in no-thought, that very day the Divine becomes active within you. Give him a little chance.
But you are very clever. You want to take decisions yourself. All your decisions will be false. Only his decision will be true. Make way; get out of the middle. Let his voice come; let his inner sound arise. Let him take the decision within you; you silently go along with it. Become the shadow. Do not parade in front; stay a step behind. Then wherever he takes you, go. And in your life you will never meet repentance again.
And only such a life is a life of virtue, in which there is no repentance. If you ask me which life I call virtuous, I would say: the life in which there is no repentance. Where there is repentance, there is sin.
People say one has to repent for sin. I tell you, whatever you have to repent for is sin. Even if you have given charity, and after giving you begin to regret—“It would have been better had I not given”—then that too became sin. Whatever you have to repent for is sin; and that for which there is no repentance is virtue.
But how will that moment come when you will not repent?
If you decide by thought, you will certainly repent. Let decision arise from no-thought! Then Krishna says: by grace, effortlessly, what cannot be done by doing, happens without doing.
Third question:
Osho, throughout the Gita Krishna tells Arjuna to be an instrument and to move according to the Lord’s will; but at the very end he also adds, “Do as you wish.” Can Arjuna, at that moment, have any wish of his own? Or did Krishna deliberately add that to test him?
Osho, throughout the Gita Krishna tells Arjuna to be an instrument and to move according to the Lord’s will; but at the very end he also adds, “Do as you wish.” Can Arjuna, at that moment, have any wish of his own? Or did Krishna deliberately add that to test him?
He added it deliberately.
If Arjuna has understood Krishna, he will say, “You also take care of the desire. Why are you giving me this burden? Now that I have learned the knack of being unburdened, you cannot trap me anymore. You take care of this as well.”
If Arjuna has understood, he will say, “Now whatever is your will.” Arjuna will laugh and say, “This is really something! All the while you taught me to drop, and now at the end you say, ‘Do as you wish!’ Don’t make such a joke.”
But Arjuna did not understand. He fell into thought. He began to think.
With people like Krishna one must speak with care, with great alertness. For what they say is not so straightforward that you can grasp it merely from the words. There are twists and turns in it. Such stratagems are natural, because they are trying to descend into the depths of your mind.
They will deceive you at many points. And their deception is precisely to see whether you can catch it or not—recognize it or not. If you do not recognize, you miss. Then it has to be explained again. The whole thing goes in vain.
Krishna has brought Arjuna to a place where Arjuna too feels that understanding is dawning. A moment has come in the dialogue; it has reached a point where Arjuna appears calm. His wavering is thinning out; the waves have subsided. The storm is no longer there, the gale is no more; the sorrow from which the story began is no more. The clouds of anxiety have cleared; the sun’s rays have begun to show.
This is the moment. For a person like Krishna takes each step consciously. Much depends on his step. At this moment Arjuna may get the idea, “I have understood. Now the matter is clear.”
How many times, listening to me, do you not feel that now you have understood? That too may be the ego’s last device: “I have understood.” I may be trying now to save myself by means of understanding: “Look, I have understood. Look, no one else has understood. See how many tried to understand and got lost—and I have understood.”
A subtle ripple like that must have arisen in Arjuna: “I have understood.” Even to Arjuna that ripple is not clear. Arjuna too has no knowledge of his unconscious—what is organizing itself there.
But to slip past Krishna is difficult. Krishna’s eyes pierce you to your last depth. There is no layer of your conscious or unconscious where Krishna’s gaze does not reach. Instantly Krishna threw the net and said, “Look, now I have told you everything. You have understood everything as well. Now you yourself think it over—do as you wish.”
Arjuna did not recognize the net. He began to think. Perhaps he even closed his eyes and began to ponder: What should I do, what should I not do!
He missed. For this was precisely what had been explained all along. It is like explaining the story of Rama all night, and in the morning you ask, “Who is Sita to Ram?”
All of the Gita up to now is a scripture of surrender, and in the end Krishna threw the dice and Arjuna got caught. He began to think, to deliberate; he missed. Krishna will have to begin the story again. He will have to speak again, knock at some other door, fashion a path from somewhere else. This time too the point was missed.
If Arjuna had really understood, he would have said, “Now stop. Do not play this trick now. I have understood. What now of my will? Now only His will. Now only your will. Now whatever is your will, I am content with it. Do not entangle me any further. You cannot ensnare me now.” And the Gita would have ended right there.
But once again Arjuna missed. It is natural. The net of life is very intricate. Even as you are about to attain, you miss. As you draw near, you slip away. The hand was just about to reach—just about to reach—and the distance grows vast. A tiny mistake!
Have you seen the children’s game, Snakes and Ladders? Life is just like that. You throw the dice; if the number falls on a ladder, you climb, and if it falls on a snake, you come down. Climbing, climbing, you were close to arriving—the final goal was near, two or four squares remained—and you fall into the snake’s mouth. Then down you go, where the snake’s tail is. The journey begins again!
Life is a game of snakes and ladders. Krishna places the ladder and makes Arjuna climb. But until you learn to recognize the snake properly, no one can ascend merely by the ladder. The snake too must be recognized, for it sits in the squares alongside every ladder. Along with every ladder there is also the snake’s mouth. With every high peak there is a deep abyss. Right beside understanding is the pit of non-understanding. A slight lapse, a small mistake, and you will find yourself in a bottomless chasm. The labor of many days goes in vain.
But perhaps this too is necessary for maturity—to lose many times, to rise and fall, to fall and rise. The ladder is necessary, the snake is necessary; only then do you ripen. The ladder gives success, binds hope. The snake brings failure, gives despair. The balance remains.
This was the snake—when Krishna said, “Now, whatever is your wish. I have told you everything. The ladder has been placed. Nothing remains to be said; everything is clear, Arjuna. Now you choose, now consider for yourself.”
And Arjuna began to think. That was the miss. Had he begun to laugh; had he lifted the Gandiva and said to Krishna, “Drive the chariot where you will. If the intent is renunciation, take me toward the Himalayas. If the intent is battle, blow the conch—let the Panchajanya resound; let me descend into war. Now, whatever is your will. Do not deceive me any further. I have seen many ladders, many snakes. Now I have recognized.”
He did not recognize. He again closed his eyes and began to think: What decision should I make! All the options rose up. “Shall I fight, shall I not fight?” The matter returned to where it was in the first chapter: “Shall I fight or not fight? These are my loved ones—shall I kill them or not? Is this kingdom worth gaining? Is it worthy of war? Is it worth so much sacrifice?” The whole tempest rose again. Clouds gathered again; the sun was lost again.
If Arjuna has understood Krishna, he will say, “You also take care of the desire. Why are you giving me this burden? Now that I have learned the knack of being unburdened, you cannot trap me anymore. You take care of this as well.”
If Arjuna has understood, he will say, “Now whatever is your will.” Arjuna will laugh and say, “This is really something! All the while you taught me to drop, and now at the end you say, ‘Do as you wish!’ Don’t make such a joke.”
But Arjuna did not understand. He fell into thought. He began to think.
With people like Krishna one must speak with care, with great alertness. For what they say is not so straightforward that you can grasp it merely from the words. There are twists and turns in it. Such stratagems are natural, because they are trying to descend into the depths of your mind.
They will deceive you at many points. And their deception is precisely to see whether you can catch it or not—recognize it or not. If you do not recognize, you miss. Then it has to be explained again. The whole thing goes in vain.
Krishna has brought Arjuna to a place where Arjuna too feels that understanding is dawning. A moment has come in the dialogue; it has reached a point where Arjuna appears calm. His wavering is thinning out; the waves have subsided. The storm is no longer there, the gale is no more; the sorrow from which the story began is no more. The clouds of anxiety have cleared; the sun’s rays have begun to show.
This is the moment. For a person like Krishna takes each step consciously. Much depends on his step. At this moment Arjuna may get the idea, “I have understood. Now the matter is clear.”
How many times, listening to me, do you not feel that now you have understood? That too may be the ego’s last device: “I have understood.” I may be trying now to save myself by means of understanding: “Look, I have understood. Look, no one else has understood. See how many tried to understand and got lost—and I have understood.”
A subtle ripple like that must have arisen in Arjuna: “I have understood.” Even to Arjuna that ripple is not clear. Arjuna too has no knowledge of his unconscious—what is organizing itself there.
But to slip past Krishna is difficult. Krishna’s eyes pierce you to your last depth. There is no layer of your conscious or unconscious where Krishna’s gaze does not reach. Instantly Krishna threw the net and said, “Look, now I have told you everything. You have understood everything as well. Now you yourself think it over—do as you wish.”
Arjuna did not recognize the net. He began to think. Perhaps he even closed his eyes and began to ponder: What should I do, what should I not do!
He missed. For this was precisely what had been explained all along. It is like explaining the story of Rama all night, and in the morning you ask, “Who is Sita to Ram?”
All of the Gita up to now is a scripture of surrender, and in the end Krishna threw the dice and Arjuna got caught. He began to think, to deliberate; he missed. Krishna will have to begin the story again. He will have to speak again, knock at some other door, fashion a path from somewhere else. This time too the point was missed.
If Arjuna had really understood, he would have said, “Now stop. Do not play this trick now. I have understood. What now of my will? Now only His will. Now only your will. Now whatever is your will, I am content with it. Do not entangle me any further. You cannot ensnare me now.” And the Gita would have ended right there.
But once again Arjuna missed. It is natural. The net of life is very intricate. Even as you are about to attain, you miss. As you draw near, you slip away. The hand was just about to reach—just about to reach—and the distance grows vast. A tiny mistake!
Have you seen the children’s game, Snakes and Ladders? Life is just like that. You throw the dice; if the number falls on a ladder, you climb, and if it falls on a snake, you come down. Climbing, climbing, you were close to arriving—the final goal was near, two or four squares remained—and you fall into the snake’s mouth. Then down you go, where the snake’s tail is. The journey begins again!
Life is a game of snakes and ladders. Krishna places the ladder and makes Arjuna climb. But until you learn to recognize the snake properly, no one can ascend merely by the ladder. The snake too must be recognized, for it sits in the squares alongside every ladder. Along with every ladder there is also the snake’s mouth. With every high peak there is a deep abyss. Right beside understanding is the pit of non-understanding. A slight lapse, a small mistake, and you will find yourself in a bottomless chasm. The labor of many days goes in vain.
But perhaps this too is necessary for maturity—to lose many times, to rise and fall, to fall and rise. The ladder is necessary, the snake is necessary; only then do you ripen. The ladder gives success, binds hope. The snake brings failure, gives despair. The balance remains.
This was the snake—when Krishna said, “Now, whatever is your wish. I have told you everything. The ladder has been placed. Nothing remains to be said; everything is clear, Arjuna. Now you choose, now consider for yourself.”
And Arjuna began to think. That was the miss. Had he begun to laugh; had he lifted the Gandiva and said to Krishna, “Drive the chariot where you will. If the intent is renunciation, take me toward the Himalayas. If the intent is battle, blow the conch—let the Panchajanya resound; let me descend into war. Now, whatever is your will. Do not deceive me any further. I have seen many ladders, many snakes. Now I have recognized.”
He did not recognize. He again closed his eyes and began to think: What decision should I make! All the options rose up. “Shall I fight, shall I not fight?” The matter returned to where it was in the first chapter: “Shall I fight or not fight? These are my loved ones—shall I kill them or not? Is this kingdom worth gaining? Is it worthy of war? Is it worth so much sacrifice?” The whole tempest rose again. Clouds gathered again; the sun was lost again.
The fourth question:
Osho, when the mind becomes completely thoughtless, then what will it think about? To think, one still needs something to think about, at least as a problem, isn’t it?
Osho, when the mind becomes completely thoughtless, then what will it think about? To think, one still needs something to think about, at least as a problem, isn’t it?
When the mind becomes utterly empty, it doesn’t think of anything; vision becomes available. You think because there is no seeing. Understand this a little.
If there were vision, you would not think. One has to think only to compensate for the lack of vision.
A blind man has to go somewhere. He asks, Where should I go? Where is the path? East or west? Then he picks up a stick and feels his way. Thought is like that. It is the stick in a blind man’s hand. With it you grope.
But one who has eyes—does he feel his way with a stick? He has to go, he simply gets up and goes. He doesn’t even think once, Which way should I go? Where is the door? If there are eyes, the door is seen. He does not grope, because groping is meaningless.
Thought is groping; meditation is the eye. Thoughtlessness is the eye; thought is the blind man’s stick.
You think and think because nothing is seen, nothing is clear. Since there is no insight, you try to make up for it with thought. You think and think in order to decide so that a mistake might not happen. And yet it does. However carefully a blind man walks, he still bumps into things.
There is an old Zen story. A blind man was leaving a friend’s house at night. The friend said, Take a lantern with you. The road is dark, and your home is far. The blind man began to laugh. Are you joking? What difference does a lantern make to a blind man like me? Lantern or no lantern, the road will remain dark. I will have to grope anyway.
But the friend was very logical, a great scholar. He said, I know you are blind. Don’t try to explain that to me—I know that a lantern in your hand makes no difference to you. But it will make a difference to others; they will avoid colliding with you. And that will benefit you too. In the dark someone may run into you. If you carry a lantern, no one will crash into you.
The argument carried weight. Even the blind man could not refuse. That is the trouble with arguments: they have weight—and there is great deception in weight.
The blind man said, That is true. I have never in my life walked with a lantern. But since you insist, it makes sense; I cannot say you are wrong. I will take it.
He took the lantern and had hardly gone ten steps when a man came and banged into him. The blind man said, What is this? Can an argument be this wrong? Are you blind too, brother? Only one thing could explain it—that this man is also blind and can’t see the lantern.
The man said, I am not blind; I have eyes. You are blind—do you take the whole world to be blind? The blind man said, If you have eyes, can’t you see the lantern in my hand? The man said, The flame inside your lantern went out some time ago. You are carrying a dead lantern.
And now there was danger. This blind man had walked his whole life and no one had ever collided with him, because he walked carefully—like a blind man, tapping his stick. If he heard the slightest sound he would call out, Brother, I am a blind man! But today he was strutting along. He had a lantern in his hand—what was there to worry about? That swagger landed him in trouble. And the lantern had gone out.
Your thought is the blind man’s stick. And those within you who are very great thinkers are carrying a lantern whose flame is extinguished. And those who are extreme thinkers go mad. Meet them in the asylums—they are great thinkers. They think and think. They are such great thinkers that they never reach a decision!
You manage to arrive because you are not great thinkers. Your thinking comes to an end; you reach some conclusion or other. But they go on thinking and go on thinking; they never arrive at a decision. Their chain of thought is very long.
The thought-free does not think because of a problem. In thoughtlessness, thinking simply does not happen. Thoughtlessness sees.
If you understand rightly, thoughtlessness does not see problems; it sees solutions. Thought sees problems and then has to think up solutions. The solution is self-fabricated; the problem is outside.
For a mind full of thought, the problem is outside and the solution is concocted within. For a thought-free consciousness the problem is not seen at all; only the solution is seen. Therefore there is no need to think.
If you like, you can call this right thinking. This, in truth, is what thinking should be: where seeing happens—where there is no problem, only the solution.
Understand it like this: when first the problem is seen and then you have to make a solution, that is thought. But if, the very moment the problem is seen, the solution appears—no gap at all between problem and solution, not even a moment left over for cogitation—then know it is thoughtlessness.
Therefore, do not call Buddha, Mahavira, or Krishna thinkers. They are not thinkers. Aristotle is a thinker; Plato is a thinker. Buddha and Mahavira are not like that. Plato is a great thinker; Aristotle is a great thinker. Mahavira and Buddha are not thinkers at all; they are established in thoughtlessness. They do not encounter problems. Wherever they go, they find only solutions.
This very state is what we call samadhi. In one whose within is samadhi, life outside is always a solution. And one whose within is the restlessness of thought finds only problems outside.
What Krishna said to Arjuna—Now you think it over for yourself—if understanding had become certain, if prajna had dawned, if he had not taken the talk as mere talk but grasped the essence, then he would have been illumined. In that very instant of true thinking a rain of decision would have happened, the conclusion would have come. Arjuna would have said to Krishna, What is there to think now? It has begun to be seen. Why do you tell me to think? My eyes have opened; why should I grope with a stick? My surrender has happened; why should I carry the burden of worry? Let it be according to his will.
But it is easy to understand the words. To understand the meaning hidden within the words is difficult.
There is a line of Tulsidas, very sweet:
In the middle of the night, by talking about a lamp, the darkness does not depart.
If it is a dark night and the house is full of darkness, darkness is not dispelled by talking about light.
By talk of a lamp the darkness does not go.
So discuss light as much as you like—no darkness will be removed by it. Light the lamp. Darkness goes not by talk of the lamp, but by lighting it. Even if you do not talk, light the lamp.
Krishna is trying to light the lamp; Arjuna is taking it as talk. And he thinks that by understanding the talk, the darkness will go.
Then again he began to think, to deliberate. He must have thought, All right. Perhaps up to now even a fear had arisen: Krishna keeps saying, Surrender, surrender, surrender—perhaps I will have to do it. He must have felt reassured: no. The ego must have said, Don’t be afraid; this man is kind. He is saying, Now whatever you wish, you decide.
The ego would have been pleased, planted its feet again. And the ego would have said, Right. No—we were mistaken. We thought this man would entangle us in surrender. He kept on saying, Drop everything, drop, bow your head; let the other do it—don’t come in between. He talked so much that we feared he might trap us. No, we were wrong. This man is good. Now he has said the final thing: Now you think for yourself.
If there were vision, you would not think. One has to think only to compensate for the lack of vision.
A blind man has to go somewhere. He asks, Where should I go? Where is the path? East or west? Then he picks up a stick and feels his way. Thought is like that. It is the stick in a blind man’s hand. With it you grope.
But one who has eyes—does he feel his way with a stick? He has to go, he simply gets up and goes. He doesn’t even think once, Which way should I go? Where is the door? If there are eyes, the door is seen. He does not grope, because groping is meaningless.
Thought is groping; meditation is the eye. Thoughtlessness is the eye; thought is the blind man’s stick.
You think and think because nothing is seen, nothing is clear. Since there is no insight, you try to make up for it with thought. You think and think in order to decide so that a mistake might not happen. And yet it does. However carefully a blind man walks, he still bumps into things.
There is an old Zen story. A blind man was leaving a friend’s house at night. The friend said, Take a lantern with you. The road is dark, and your home is far. The blind man began to laugh. Are you joking? What difference does a lantern make to a blind man like me? Lantern or no lantern, the road will remain dark. I will have to grope anyway.
But the friend was very logical, a great scholar. He said, I know you are blind. Don’t try to explain that to me—I know that a lantern in your hand makes no difference to you. But it will make a difference to others; they will avoid colliding with you. And that will benefit you too. In the dark someone may run into you. If you carry a lantern, no one will crash into you.
The argument carried weight. Even the blind man could not refuse. That is the trouble with arguments: they have weight—and there is great deception in weight.
The blind man said, That is true. I have never in my life walked with a lantern. But since you insist, it makes sense; I cannot say you are wrong. I will take it.
He took the lantern and had hardly gone ten steps when a man came and banged into him. The blind man said, What is this? Can an argument be this wrong? Are you blind too, brother? Only one thing could explain it—that this man is also blind and can’t see the lantern.
The man said, I am not blind; I have eyes. You are blind—do you take the whole world to be blind? The blind man said, If you have eyes, can’t you see the lantern in my hand? The man said, The flame inside your lantern went out some time ago. You are carrying a dead lantern.
And now there was danger. This blind man had walked his whole life and no one had ever collided with him, because he walked carefully—like a blind man, tapping his stick. If he heard the slightest sound he would call out, Brother, I am a blind man! But today he was strutting along. He had a lantern in his hand—what was there to worry about? That swagger landed him in trouble. And the lantern had gone out.
Your thought is the blind man’s stick. And those within you who are very great thinkers are carrying a lantern whose flame is extinguished. And those who are extreme thinkers go mad. Meet them in the asylums—they are great thinkers. They think and think. They are such great thinkers that they never reach a decision!
You manage to arrive because you are not great thinkers. Your thinking comes to an end; you reach some conclusion or other. But they go on thinking and go on thinking; they never arrive at a decision. Their chain of thought is very long.
The thought-free does not think because of a problem. In thoughtlessness, thinking simply does not happen. Thoughtlessness sees.
If you understand rightly, thoughtlessness does not see problems; it sees solutions. Thought sees problems and then has to think up solutions. The solution is self-fabricated; the problem is outside.
For a mind full of thought, the problem is outside and the solution is concocted within. For a thought-free consciousness the problem is not seen at all; only the solution is seen. Therefore there is no need to think.
If you like, you can call this right thinking. This, in truth, is what thinking should be: where seeing happens—where there is no problem, only the solution.
Understand it like this: when first the problem is seen and then you have to make a solution, that is thought. But if, the very moment the problem is seen, the solution appears—no gap at all between problem and solution, not even a moment left over for cogitation—then know it is thoughtlessness.
Therefore, do not call Buddha, Mahavira, or Krishna thinkers. They are not thinkers. Aristotle is a thinker; Plato is a thinker. Buddha and Mahavira are not like that. Plato is a great thinker; Aristotle is a great thinker. Mahavira and Buddha are not thinkers at all; they are established in thoughtlessness. They do not encounter problems. Wherever they go, they find only solutions.
This very state is what we call samadhi. In one whose within is samadhi, life outside is always a solution. And one whose within is the restlessness of thought finds only problems outside.
What Krishna said to Arjuna—Now you think it over for yourself—if understanding had become certain, if prajna had dawned, if he had not taken the talk as mere talk but grasped the essence, then he would have been illumined. In that very instant of true thinking a rain of decision would have happened, the conclusion would have come. Arjuna would have said to Krishna, What is there to think now? It has begun to be seen. Why do you tell me to think? My eyes have opened; why should I grope with a stick? My surrender has happened; why should I carry the burden of worry? Let it be according to his will.
But it is easy to understand the words. To understand the meaning hidden within the words is difficult.
There is a line of Tulsidas, very sweet:
In the middle of the night, by talking about a lamp, the darkness does not depart.
If it is a dark night and the house is full of darkness, darkness is not dispelled by talking about light.
By talk of a lamp the darkness does not go.
So discuss light as much as you like—no darkness will be removed by it. Light the lamp. Darkness goes not by talk of the lamp, but by lighting it. Even if you do not talk, light the lamp.
Krishna is trying to light the lamp; Arjuna is taking it as talk. And he thinks that by understanding the talk, the darkness will go.
Then again he began to think, to deliberate. He must have thought, All right. Perhaps up to now even a fear had arisen: Krishna keeps saying, Surrender, surrender, surrender—perhaps I will have to do it. He must have felt reassured: no. The ego must have said, Don’t be afraid; this man is kind. He is saying, Now whatever you wish, you decide.
The ego would have been pleased, planted its feet again. And the ego would have said, Right. No—we were mistaken. We thought this man would entangle us in surrender. He kept on saying, Drop everything, drop, bow your head; let the other do it—don’t come in between. He talked so much that we feared he might trap us. No, we were wrong. This man is good. Now he has said the final thing: Now you think for yourself.
Fifth question:
Osho, the Gita begins with Vishada-Yoga and ends with Moksha-Sannyasa-Yoga. In life, does despair ultimately lead one to Moksha-Sannyasa?
Osho, the Gita begins with Vishada-Yoga and ends with Moksha-Sannyasa-Yoga. In life, does despair ultimately lead one to Moksha-Sannyasa?
Certainly. But the despair must be total. A little bit of despair won’t do. If it’s only partial, you’ll find some consolation or other, raise some tent of hope, and the despair will hide inside it.
Only when despair is complete—when the whole of life is at stake, when it feels like life-or-death—does the journey from despair to liberation begin. Despair is the primary stage. The awareness of suffering is the first step.
Buddha spoke of four noble truths—just four—in which all the scriptures are contained. The first truth is the awareness of suffering: that life is suffering. The second truth is that one can be free from suffering; then hope arises. If freedom were not possible, you would drown in despair and go mad.
It is from the Buddhas that hope is born—that yes, it is possible to be free of suffering. There are such people; we have seen some dance in bliss. We have heard the flute of celebration on their lips. We have watched the gait of Krishna and Buddha; seen how they sit and rise; known the great festival their lives are.
So: there is suffering—that’s the first thing. One who hasn’t yet seen this hasn’t even begun the journey; Vishada-Yoga hasn’t started for him. He is still childish, not mature. He has not yet seen the ultimate fact of life: that there is suffering, that suffering encircles us on all sides.
But if someone has only seen suffering and not the other thing—if he sees the dark clouds but not the bright streak of lightning; the dark night but not the morning hidden in the womb of every night—then he will be crushed under despair and die; he will not be liberated. He may even commit suicide.
This is what is happening in the West: a Yoga of despair has arisen. Sartre is surrounded by despair; his whole life he speaks of it. But neither liberation comes through it nor the tone of moksha is heard. All that comes is: life is suffering. And the most “significant” conclusion he reached after a lifetime of searching is this: man should be courageous; he should try to live in spite of suffering. That’s all.
So, yes, there is despair. The whole movement of existentialism in the West is Vishada-Yoga. Great thinkers have appeared, but they are stuck at Arjuna. Krishna is nowhere to be seen for them. Their Gandiva has gone slack and slipped from the hand; their limbs have become weak. At most, Sartre gives this much hope: nothing else can be done. Life is such that it is suffering. At best, fight bravely, though defeat is certain.
He calls this the mark of a brave man: knowing that defeat and death are inevitable, he still fights on. There is no consolation; there is only suffering. But there is no remedy either. Being without remedy, one must increase the capacity to endure suffering.
Arjuna is present; there is no news of Krishna. The dark night is visible; there is no news of dawn, no rooster crowing. The sky is covered with clouds; you see the clouds but not the flashing of lightning.
And even if lightning does appear, it doesn’t create trust that this lightning could become a steady light. It flashes, yes, sometimes—accidentally. From that we cannot make a stable source of light. And Krishna and Buddha, they think, are like that: at times they flash like lightning.
But if you understand lightning rightly, the lamp in your house can become electricity; it can become light upon your path. If you take lightning to be a momentary flicker, you will be surrounded by dark clouds. Then your life will be despair, but not a journey toward liberation.
So Buddha says, the second truth is: one can be freed from suffering. The eye lifts toward this possibility.
When despair arises, the search for a master begins. If the recognition of a master happens—if somewhere reverence is born, if at someone’s feet you catch even a faint footfall of the Divine—then the second truth is understood: there is a possibility. There is despair, but no reason to be dejected. There is despair, and there is a way across. Granted, it is a dark night, but morning will come. However long it takes, morning will come.
And as trust in the morning deepens, the delay becomes meaningless. And when trust becomes profound, there have been people for whom dawn arrived in the middle of the night. Morning rose in their hearts. Even if night still surrounded them outside, it made no difference. Even if sorrow remained without, it made no difference—they began to dance. The inner veena began to sing. The outer marketplace became unheard and unseen. The outer sounds gradually grew distant and faded. The inner sound became their whole life.
The third truth is that there are methods to be free of suffering. Because it can happen that you encounter a person who has attained bliss; you recognize that you are in sorrow, in despair, and another is in joy; and yet you may not understand the method. Then you may say, “It’s just an accident—an accident that I am in sorrow and you in joy. There is no bridge.” You found yourself on this shore, he found himself on the far shore; it’s mere coincidence. There is no science for crossing from suffering to joy, no method for transforming oneself.
Many people think like this. And often you too may wonder: perhaps the Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas, Zarathustras—those few who can be counted on the fingers—are nature’s mistakes! Mere anomalies. Is there a science to reach where they reached? Is there a method by which one can transform oneself? They say there is; but our ordinary observation seems to show that some are born laughing and happy, and some are born carrying sorrow.
Doctors—those who deliver children, who are present at the moment of birth—say that from the very first moment, a child behaves differently. Some babies are born smiling; as if joy is natural to them. In the very first moment, the child opens his eyes and you can see his spirit is cheerful. And some arrive already long-faced; for them life is a burden, a sorrow, from the first instant.
So perhaps, you think, some are pebbles and some are diamonds. But there is no way for a diamond to become a pebble, and no way for a pebble to become a diamond.
So, even if you meet a true master, the thought may still linger that it was all a fluke. It just happened!
People come to me and ask, “All right; suppose we grant that you have awakened—but has any disciple of yours awakened?” I ask them, “Doesn’t seeing me give you trust?” They say, “We concede it happened to you. But until it happens to your disciples, how can we be sure it can happen to us?”
What they say has a point. They are saying, “Perhaps yours was from birth; not through any method. You simply found yourself like that. But unless we see a person who was in great suffering and, through methods, crossed beyond to great bliss, we won’t have trust.”
So Buddha’s third noble truth is: there is a method to be free from suffering.
But I tell you: even if one of my disciples becomes free—what difference will it make? You will say, “It happened to you—granted. And to one disciple—granted. But what about the others?” Until it happens to many, you won’t trust it can happen to you. You are one among the crowd. Perhaps it happened to one or two; maybe they were like you.
When will trust arise? In truth, trust arises only when you use a method and within you the rim of darkness begins to move back a little; the light increases a little; restlessness subsides somewhat and peace begins to appear. When a delicate thrill of joy arises within you; when, even for a moment, some method touches you with life—then trust arises.
Thus the third noble truth is understood only when you use the methods. The Buddhas say methods exist—but you will trust only by practicing them.
Then Buddha says, the fourth noble truth is: suffering ceases. By methods one goes beyond great sorrow. In the company of the awakened, walking in their shadow, methods are found; through methods one crosses. The fourth noble truth is the state of the cessation of suffering.
Because the question is: even if suffering ends today, is there any guarantee it won’t come back tomorrow? Many times you have felt happy—even a little—but you lost it. Sometimes peace seems to come—but it goes. Barely arrives, and it is gone. Sometimes it feels everything is fine; before you can grasp it, everything is in disarray.
So Buddha says, there is a fourth, great truth to know: there is a state where, once suffering is gone, it is gone—it does not return. Once morning happens, it happens—there is no night after that.
But that can only be known by experience. Most people die in despair. Krishna is trying to take Arjuna from despair all the way to moksha—to the fourth state, Buddha’s fourth noble truth.
Blessed are those in whose lives despair begins to be felt—more blessed than those who don’t even know there is suffering, who don’t even know there is darkness.
More blessed still are those who have been touched by the proximity of one in whom that event has happened; for them the dawn has had a proof.
More blessed still are those who, following such a dawn, begin to experience and taste a little light. They have had a taste; methods exist.
And supremely blessed are those who attain the state where suffering is lost forever—for suffering is not your nature; moksha is your nature.
Only when despair is complete—when the whole of life is at stake, when it feels like life-or-death—does the journey from despair to liberation begin. Despair is the primary stage. The awareness of suffering is the first step.
Buddha spoke of four noble truths—just four—in which all the scriptures are contained. The first truth is the awareness of suffering: that life is suffering. The second truth is that one can be free from suffering; then hope arises. If freedom were not possible, you would drown in despair and go mad.
It is from the Buddhas that hope is born—that yes, it is possible to be free of suffering. There are such people; we have seen some dance in bliss. We have heard the flute of celebration on their lips. We have watched the gait of Krishna and Buddha; seen how they sit and rise; known the great festival their lives are.
So: there is suffering—that’s the first thing. One who hasn’t yet seen this hasn’t even begun the journey; Vishada-Yoga hasn’t started for him. He is still childish, not mature. He has not yet seen the ultimate fact of life: that there is suffering, that suffering encircles us on all sides.
But if someone has only seen suffering and not the other thing—if he sees the dark clouds but not the bright streak of lightning; the dark night but not the morning hidden in the womb of every night—then he will be crushed under despair and die; he will not be liberated. He may even commit suicide.
This is what is happening in the West: a Yoga of despair has arisen. Sartre is surrounded by despair; his whole life he speaks of it. But neither liberation comes through it nor the tone of moksha is heard. All that comes is: life is suffering. And the most “significant” conclusion he reached after a lifetime of searching is this: man should be courageous; he should try to live in spite of suffering. That’s all.
So, yes, there is despair. The whole movement of existentialism in the West is Vishada-Yoga. Great thinkers have appeared, but they are stuck at Arjuna. Krishna is nowhere to be seen for them. Their Gandiva has gone slack and slipped from the hand; their limbs have become weak. At most, Sartre gives this much hope: nothing else can be done. Life is such that it is suffering. At best, fight bravely, though defeat is certain.
He calls this the mark of a brave man: knowing that defeat and death are inevitable, he still fights on. There is no consolation; there is only suffering. But there is no remedy either. Being without remedy, one must increase the capacity to endure suffering.
Arjuna is present; there is no news of Krishna. The dark night is visible; there is no news of dawn, no rooster crowing. The sky is covered with clouds; you see the clouds but not the flashing of lightning.
And even if lightning does appear, it doesn’t create trust that this lightning could become a steady light. It flashes, yes, sometimes—accidentally. From that we cannot make a stable source of light. And Krishna and Buddha, they think, are like that: at times they flash like lightning.
But if you understand lightning rightly, the lamp in your house can become electricity; it can become light upon your path. If you take lightning to be a momentary flicker, you will be surrounded by dark clouds. Then your life will be despair, but not a journey toward liberation.
So Buddha says, the second truth is: one can be freed from suffering. The eye lifts toward this possibility.
When despair arises, the search for a master begins. If the recognition of a master happens—if somewhere reverence is born, if at someone’s feet you catch even a faint footfall of the Divine—then the second truth is understood: there is a possibility. There is despair, but no reason to be dejected. There is despair, and there is a way across. Granted, it is a dark night, but morning will come. However long it takes, morning will come.
And as trust in the morning deepens, the delay becomes meaningless. And when trust becomes profound, there have been people for whom dawn arrived in the middle of the night. Morning rose in their hearts. Even if night still surrounded them outside, it made no difference. Even if sorrow remained without, it made no difference—they began to dance. The inner veena began to sing. The outer marketplace became unheard and unseen. The outer sounds gradually grew distant and faded. The inner sound became their whole life.
The third truth is that there are methods to be free of suffering. Because it can happen that you encounter a person who has attained bliss; you recognize that you are in sorrow, in despair, and another is in joy; and yet you may not understand the method. Then you may say, “It’s just an accident—an accident that I am in sorrow and you in joy. There is no bridge.” You found yourself on this shore, he found himself on the far shore; it’s mere coincidence. There is no science for crossing from suffering to joy, no method for transforming oneself.
Many people think like this. And often you too may wonder: perhaps the Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas, Zarathustras—those few who can be counted on the fingers—are nature’s mistakes! Mere anomalies. Is there a science to reach where they reached? Is there a method by which one can transform oneself? They say there is; but our ordinary observation seems to show that some are born laughing and happy, and some are born carrying sorrow.
Doctors—those who deliver children, who are present at the moment of birth—say that from the very first moment, a child behaves differently. Some babies are born smiling; as if joy is natural to them. In the very first moment, the child opens his eyes and you can see his spirit is cheerful. And some arrive already long-faced; for them life is a burden, a sorrow, from the first instant.
So perhaps, you think, some are pebbles and some are diamonds. But there is no way for a diamond to become a pebble, and no way for a pebble to become a diamond.
So, even if you meet a true master, the thought may still linger that it was all a fluke. It just happened!
People come to me and ask, “All right; suppose we grant that you have awakened—but has any disciple of yours awakened?” I ask them, “Doesn’t seeing me give you trust?” They say, “We concede it happened to you. But until it happens to your disciples, how can we be sure it can happen to us?”
What they say has a point. They are saying, “Perhaps yours was from birth; not through any method. You simply found yourself like that. But unless we see a person who was in great suffering and, through methods, crossed beyond to great bliss, we won’t have trust.”
So Buddha’s third noble truth is: there is a method to be free from suffering.
But I tell you: even if one of my disciples becomes free—what difference will it make? You will say, “It happened to you—granted. And to one disciple—granted. But what about the others?” Until it happens to many, you won’t trust it can happen to you. You are one among the crowd. Perhaps it happened to one or two; maybe they were like you.
When will trust arise? In truth, trust arises only when you use a method and within you the rim of darkness begins to move back a little; the light increases a little; restlessness subsides somewhat and peace begins to appear. When a delicate thrill of joy arises within you; when, even for a moment, some method touches you with life—then trust arises.
Thus the third noble truth is understood only when you use the methods. The Buddhas say methods exist—but you will trust only by practicing them.
Then Buddha says, the fourth noble truth is: suffering ceases. By methods one goes beyond great sorrow. In the company of the awakened, walking in their shadow, methods are found; through methods one crosses. The fourth noble truth is the state of the cessation of suffering.
Because the question is: even if suffering ends today, is there any guarantee it won’t come back tomorrow? Many times you have felt happy—even a little—but you lost it. Sometimes peace seems to come—but it goes. Barely arrives, and it is gone. Sometimes it feels everything is fine; before you can grasp it, everything is in disarray.
So Buddha says, there is a fourth, great truth to know: there is a state where, once suffering is gone, it is gone—it does not return. Once morning happens, it happens—there is no night after that.
But that can only be known by experience. Most people die in despair. Krishna is trying to take Arjuna from despair all the way to moksha—to the fourth state, Buddha’s fourth noble truth.
Blessed are those in whose lives despair begins to be felt—more blessed than those who don’t even know there is suffering, who don’t even know there is darkness.
More blessed still are those who have been touched by the proximity of one in whom that event has happened; for them the dawn has had a proof.
More blessed still are those who, following such a dawn, begin to experience and taste a little light. They have had a taste; methods exist.
And supremely blessed are those who attain the state where suffering is lost forever—for suffering is not your nature; moksha is your nature.
Osho's Commentary
Even after saying so much, as Arjuna gave no answer, Krishna spoke again: “Arjuna, listen yet again to my supreme secret, more secret than all secrets, the words of my highest mystery. Because you are exceedingly dear to me, I will speak this for your utmost good once again.”
Arjuna fell silent—began to think, “What should I do? What should I not do?” He started searching, “What is my will?”
He slid down the snake again. To climb takes years; to slide down takes but a moment. Building takes years; falling and destroying do not.
And this journey of life is so fine, so subtle, that you reach inch by inch, with difficulty; and when you lose, you lose miles at once. Descent is easy; ascent is arduous.
Even after saying so much, when Arjuna gave no answer...
Krishna said, “Now speak. Whatever your will is, say it. Choose what you want to do.”
Had Arjuna understood, he would have laughed and said, “All right, end the game now. I know for certain—you are an old player—but that’s enough. Don’t delude me further; don’t distract me. What ‘my will’ now? Now it is His will.”
Krishna must have waited for his answer—but he began to think. And has an answer ever come by thinking? If thinking brought answers, the Buddhas were mad to teach no-thought! He fell into thought—missed—got tangled in the net again. Krishna must have watched and waited.
When, even after so much, no answer came and Arjuna got lost again in the web of thoughts, he spoke again: “O Arjuna...”
The whole story of the Gita is the story of the master’s tirelessness. The disciple may get tired again and again; the master doesn’t tire. However often the disciple misses, the master calls him back again and again. For the master knows well: it is natural. To go astray many times is natural. Even if one wanders infinitely and, in the end, returns to the path—that is still soon enough.
Krishna said, “O Arjuna, I will tell you once more. Listen again to the supreme, most secret word.”
He woke him again, handed him the ladder again.
“Because you are exceedingly dear to me...”
Why does Krishna keep repeating to Arjuna, “You are exceedingly dear to me”? Why does he keep making him aware of his love? So that Arjuna’s love may manifest. He speaks of his own love again and again so that such faith may be born in the disciple’s heart.
What is love from the master’s side for the disciple is faith from the disciple’s side for the master. The master sows seeds of love in the disciple’s heart so that the disciple may reap a harvest of trust.
That is why Krishna repeats this again and again—at every opportunity: “Because you are exceedingly dear to me.” He repeats love so that Arjuna gains trust.
Only love can bring trust. Only love can give birth to reverence. And only love can open the possibility of surrender.
“Therefore I will speak this word for your utmost good...”
Do not think—as disciples often mistakenly do—that Krishna says this only to Arjuna. He must have had other disciples, and he would have said the same to them: “You are exceedingly dear to me. I tell you this saving word again and again because my love for you is deep, inexhaustible.”
Every master says this to every disciple. Do not think the master loves one disciple specially and another less. More to some, less to others—this is not the question. But the master says to each disciple, “My love for you is extraordinary.” Because unless the disciple gains this trust—that the master’s love is extraordinary, exceptional, as if only for him—the surge of faith within will not arise; it will remain repressed. It can rise only in the atmosphere of extraordinary, exceptional love.
“O Arjuna, fix your unwavering mind solely in Me, love Me alone with undivided devotion, worship Me ceaselessly with supreme reverence; offer all with mind, speech, and body and bow to Me—Vasudeva, the One full of all virtues, the refuge of all. Doing so, you will attain Me—this is my solemn truth for you—for you are my most beloved friend.”
Seeing that Arjuna had begun to think again... And can surrender be thought about? It is done. Thinking is cleverness; in thinking your trust is in yourself.
If you “surrender” after thinking, will it be surrender? If you do it after thinking it through, you have not surrendered at all—because you decided it was right. You found it right, therefore you surrendered. But finally, the decider remained you; the ego remained the final authority.
And such a “surrender,” if you wish someday to take it back, you will. You’ll go and say, “Enough—the surrender is over. I am not doing it anymore.” Because you remained intact. You remained intact the very first day. You stood behind the surrender. You did the surrender—it was your act; the doer stood intact.
True surrender happens only when the doer dissolves. Therefore, you cannot take surrender back. If it is taken back, was it surrender at all? There is no going back from surrender. The commitment is final. How could you return? Who would return? For the one who could return has been surrendered.
When Arjuna started thinking again, great compassion must have arisen in Krishna’s heart: “This poor fellow has begun to think again! He missed again! I gave him an opportunity to say, without thinking, ‘Enough—now I have thought too much. Thinking has landed me in despair. Don’t delude me any more. Let it be as You will. I come to Your shelter with undivided heart; You are my very life, my soul. Wherever You lead, I will go; if You do not, I will not move.’”
Surrender is the ego’s self-annihilation—like cutting off one’s own head. There is no way to attach it back.
No—but seeing Arjuna thinking, Krishna had to say again: “Offer your all to Me with mind, speech, and body. Doing so, you will attain Me.”
There is no other way. Only when the river falls into the ocean can it become the ocean. Only when the seed breaks in the earth can it sprout.
“This I pledge to you in truth.”
A master must speak even such things to a disciple as shouldn’t need saying—but the disciple has his own world. The master must speak in the disciple’s language. Even a man like Krishna must make a pledge to a disciple: “I pledge.” Because you can understand only such language.
You have no trust. Otherwise, would you want pledges? Otherwise, would you force Krishna to say, “I assure you”?
If it were up to you, you’d take Krishna to the registry office to sign on stamp paper: “Write it down—if You don’t fulfill it, I’ll collect damages in court.”
“I pledge this truth to you.”
Great compassion, because of your mistakes and your unawareness, descends into your darkness to find you. It takes the support of your language; it uses your words. To reach you, a Krishna must come to your place—only then can he take you.
“Therefore, abandoning all dharmas, take refuge in Me alone—Vasudeva, the very embodiment of sat-chit-ananda. I will free you from all sins; do not grieve.”
Arjuna began to think again and was filled with sorrow. Thinking brings despair; non-thinking brings a shower of joy. Thinking is despair.
He began to spin thoughts; sorrow gathered all around; fear of sin, greed for merit, craving. “Should I kill? Should I not? Should I do? Should I not? They are mine, they are others!” The whole net rose again.
Right to the very end—until you leap—samsara keeps grabbing you to your last breath. The eighteenth chapter has arrived; the Gita is near its end; just a few aphorisms remain—and Arjuna is still missing!
“I will free you from all sins; don’t grieve. Do not entangle yourself in despair. Abandon all dharmas, all shelters of action, all ideologies, and come to My refuge with undivided heart.”
Krishna’s invitation is the invitation to surrender—to dissolve, to disappear utterly, to be lost in every way.
As long as you are, the world is. As long as you are, there is mine and thine. As long as you are, there is birth and death. As long as you are, there is sin and merit. When the “I” breaks within and disappears, there is neither sin nor merit.
Therefore Krishna can say—and rightly so. Do not take it to mean what people have understood; people always misunderstand. They have thought, “Fine—then let us keep singing Krishna’s name; he will free us from all sins. And let us go on sinning, because once we have found the one who frees, why avoid sin!”
You are playing a trick; you have not understood Krishna at all. The whole meaning of Krishna is only this: if surrender is total, sins are gone. No one “erases” them; he speaks like that only because of your language: “I will erase your sins; do not grieve.” There is no other way to say it to you. Otherwise, who erases sin? Sin simply no longer survives.
When the ego goes, sin goes—they are companions; without the ego they cannot exist. When the ego goes, the entire world is transformed. Then only One remains. Who will sin? Against whom? The One who kills is the One who gives life. The One sits in the dying, and the One sits in the killer. All hands are His hands. The hand that holds the sword is His, and the neck on which the sword falls is His. What sin? What merit?
With the falling of the “I,” the old world of words vanishes—sin and merit, division and duality; good and bad; auspicious and inauspicious—everything is gone. A state beyond duality arises.
This is Krishna’s meaning when he says, “I will free you from all sins.” It does not mean, “Sin merrily and I will free you.” It means only this: if you drop the “I,” you will find that sin simply doesn’t remain. Only then will you understand that no one forgives and no one erases; sin never was. In your delusion, you took it to be.
A friend of mine had a raging fever. I went to see him. He was in delirium—one hundred and seven or eight degrees; near death. He was asking nonsense questions; the family was worried. They fetched me from the neighborhood: “You are used to answering nonsense—please come.”
I said, “That is my profession. My whole connection is with delirious people. They ask; I explain.”
I went. He was asking, and the family was troubled. “Why is my cot flying? Why have I grown wings?” The family said, “What can we say!”
In delirium, what one sees isn’t there. He is neither flying, nor has he grown wings, nor is the cot going to the sky. If you’ve ever had a high fever, you too must have felt you were flying; the cot was moving through the air. Going here, going there; ghosts stand in the corners.
He said, “Look, in that corner stands a huge ghost. He wants to kill me.” I said, “Don’t worry. We’ll kill him.”
Hearing me say, “We’ll kill him,” he was reassured; but his wife was startled: “What are you saying? Is there someone standing there?” She was frightened that perhaps someone was there whom they couldn’t see, and her husband could.
I said, “No one is there. But it is not possible to explain that to him now. Right now there is no meeting point between his delirious language and ours. He is seeing it.
“So I am saying to him, ‘Don’t worry; drink this medicine. We’ll take care of them. We’ll clear out these ghosts and goblins. You close your eyes and sleep; leave them to me. Do not grieve. Don’t bother with them. I will deal with them. You are already in fever; if you start fighting with them, it’ll be more trouble.’”
He agreed to take the medicine. Seeing that I would handle the ghosts, he took the dose and slept peacefully. When his fever came down—say to one hundred and four—I told him, “Look, I’ve finished all the ghosts and goblins.”
He looked around and said, “Yes, there is none now. You fulfilled your assurance. But these people in my house would not listen!”
Arjuna is in a delirium of ego. Krishna tells him, “Don’t worry; I will free you from all sins. Do not grieve.” He wants to bring him down from his delirium. “Just drop this fever of ego; become calm and cool; I will do the rest.”
Krishna will not have to do anything; there is nothing to do there.
I did not have to kill any ghosts; there were none. I did not have to grab his cot from the sky and bring it down; it wasn’t flying. But when, in delirium, one sees it flying, it is difficult to contradict that experience.
What Arjuna sees cannot be contradicted easily. Hence Krishna says, “Leave it to Me. I’ll handle it. You go on sinning carefree—only listen to this one thing: drop the ego.”
Once the ego is dropped, no one can sin. All sins arise from the ego. If the ego goes, the root of sin is cut. Then the tree bears neither fruit nor leaves nor flowers.
If you go plucking leaves one by one, you will be wandering in vain—because the root remains, and new leaves sprout. You pluck one; ten emerge. The tree thinks you are pruning it and grows more dense.
If you try to cut off deeds one by one—cut the bad and do the good—you will keep wandering. Cut the root. The one who cuts the root suddenly finds the whole tree falls.
Ego is the root; surrender is the cutting of that root.
That’s all for today.