Geeta Darshan #21

That is exactly why it is relevant.
When people become excessively intellect-centered, intellect turns into a wound. To use the intellect is right, but to be run by it is not. Let intellect remain a tool—useful; if it becomes the master, it is fatal.
Because the age is intellect-centered, intellect has become a wound. From it neither joy flowers in life, nor peace dawns, nor does grace shower. Life becomes filled only with anxieties upon anxieties. Thoughts, and the frenzied waves of thoughts, surround a person.
If intellect becomes the master, derangement is the logical outcome. If intellect is the servant, it is incomparable; by its support the search for truth proceeds. Just remember this difference: let intellect not be your master; if it becomes the master, intellect turns into a bondage.
That is why Krishna is relevant. His vision of surrender can become a medicine.
The world has tilted to one side—to the side of intellect. If a little music of devotion, a little song of faith also arises, the imbalance created by intellect will be balanced; this one-sidedness, this isolation, will drop; life will become more musical, more rhythmical.
If heart and intellect begin to move in harmony, you will reach the divine.
Understand it like this: a man sets out on a journey; the left foot goes one way, the right foot another—how will he ever reach the destination? The heart says one thing, the intellect says something else; if there is no coordination between the two, how will you reach? The intellect will carry you into useless thinking, idle dilemmas, curiosities; the heart will ache for love, thirst for reverence. Pulled in two directions, you will be neither here nor there.
Such is the condition of man.
Surrender does not mean that you destroy the intellect. Surrender only means that intellect is enlisted in the service of something higher than itself.
Right now the inferior is driving the superior; that is your suffering. If the superior begins to direct the inferior, that will be your bliss. Right now you are standing on your head; life is nothing but pain, nothing but hell. Stand on your feet. You are upside down.
The intellect is precious—remember that. But intellect is disastrous if it seizes the whole place for itself. And intellect’s tendency is monopoly, one-upmanship. Intellect is very jealous. When it takes over, it gives no one else a chance. When thoughts seize you, they leave no room for no-thought. If, between two thoughts, the silence of no-thought also floats, nothing is lost for thoughts—you will be able to use them too.
Those who are alert, skillful, deny nothing in life; they make use of everything. The skilled craftsman throws away no stone; he finds a use for it in some corner of the temple. And sometimes it has happened that the very stone deemed useless and discarded became the spire at the end.
Nothing in life is to be thrown away, for the divine would not give anything in vain. If something seems throwaway to you, that is your misunderstanding. Everything in life is to be rightly used.
Today man has leaned too much toward intellect. Bias has grown; balance has broken. Man is in a falling state; the boat is almost sinking, tilted to one side. That is why Krishna’s word is apt.
Will also has value, just as intellect has value. In truth, without will within you, how would you even surrender?
Do not start making a choice after hearing these things—otherwise you will repent. These words are not for choosing this or that; they are to give you a bird’s-eye view of the whole of life. You should be able to see life’s totality. And whenever any one thing becomes too much, its opposite has to be emphasized so that balance becomes steady.
Do not think surrender means that those who have no capacity for will are the ones who will surrender. How will they surrender? Is there any vow greater than surrender? “I renounce everything”—can there be a greater resolve than this? “I place everything at the feet of the divine”—can there be a greater resolve than this? This is the great resolve.
The wise one uses will, too. He employs will in the service of surrender. He yokes the oxen of will to the cart of surrender. The journey he undertakes is that of surrender, but he harnesses all the energy of will.
And remember, energy is neutral. Energy is not taking you anywhere; wherever you want to take it, it will go.
I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin went to a car showroom. He examined a car for a long time. The salesman explained a lot. Seeing his curiosity, he felt, “He is a buyer.” In praise he said, “This car will get you to Delhi in two hours—very fast.” Nasruddin said, “Then I will think and come tomorrow.”
He came the next day and said, “No, brother, I won’t buy it.” The salesman asked, “But what happened? Did you find some fault?” He said, “No question of faults. I don’t have to go to Delhi; I have to go to Lucknow! I thought it over all night—any reason to go to Delhi? I can’t see any!”
Now the car does not take you to Delhi or to Lucknow—it only takes you. Energy is neutral.
Will can carry you into ego, and it can carry you into surrender. This is a very esoteric point—understand it carefully.
Will can carry you into ego—it is energy. If you want to puff up your ego, you can direct your entire will to the inflation of ego. You can turn your back on the divine. But even to turn your back takes strength. It requires exactly the same strength as laying your head at the feet.
It takes as much strength to fight the divine as it does to dance, overwhelmed by his bliss. The atheist puts as much energy into finding arguments against the divine as the theist invests in his worship.
The atheist is unwise. For even if it were proved that there is no divine, he would gain nothing. His life-stream is lost in the desert; it will never reach the ocean. With this very stream he could have reached the ocean.
I do not call the atheist wrong, only uncomprehending. I call the theist intelligent. I do not call the atheist a sinner, only one full of mistakes. And in his mistakes he harms no one else; he harms only himself. The energy it takes to fight the divine is enough to find the divine.
Energy is neutral. The same will has to be employed for ego, and the same will has to be employed for surrender.
If you are tired of the ego, if its thorns have pierced your heart and become deep wounds, then the very will you had dedicated to the worship of ego—bring that will now into the service of surrender.
Energy has no destination; the destination is yours; wherever you set out, it goes. If you want to go to hell, your legs will carry you to hell. The legs will not protest, “Why take us to hell?” The legs have no purpose of their own; their purpose is to walk. Take them to heaven, they will carry you to heaven.
Remember: whatever state of life you have created, with the very same energy a wholly different state can be created.
Have you ever noticed how much energy a worried man spends on worrying! That very energy could have become prayer. How much energy a restless person expends on restlessness! From that very energy the void could be born. How much you run after the futile! With that very running the essential could be found—with that much effort you could come back home. How much toil you invest in the marketplace! With that very toil this whole world could become a temple. Keep this well in mind.
This age is the age of intellect and of will—will, that is, of the ego. That is why I say that if the West turns toward religion, as it is turning, it will surpass the East; because it has energy. Up to now it has invested its energy in erecting great buildings, and it has raised skyscrapers of a hundred and a hundred-and-fifty stories. It has invested energy in reaching the moon and the stars—and it has reached the moon and the stars. If tomorrow a revolution happens in its life…
It will happen! Because the moon and stars are not satisfying. Skyscrapers of a hundred and fifty stories take you nowhere; they leave you hanging in midair. Vast wealth has been created. There is energy, there is will, there is power.
If these powerful people turn toward religion tomorrow, their temples will not be as poor and puny as your temples. If they can stake their lives to reach the moon, they will stake their lives to reach samadhi, too. They will not turn out like you—sluggish, indolent “adepts.”
Keep this in remembrance: the one who has great will will have great surrender; only the one whose ego is ripe gains the capacity to bow at the feet.
So I do not tell you to cut the ego off, to melt it away. I say: ripen it, make it sharp, make it radiant; let your ego become a blazing flame—only then will you be able to surrender.
I do not say to you: collapse lazily at the feet because you had no strength to stand. What value is there in the fall of one already fallen? You could not even stand; that is why you fell! You could not raise your head; that is why you bowed it. The surrender of such people, stricken with paralysis, with palsy, has no value.
Value belongs to the one who had raised his head and kept it raised, who stood with head held high beneath all the skies; there was strength—great storms came and he did not bow; great winds blew and could not shake him an inch. He fought, he wrestled in the world.
One needs an ego like Arjuna’s—the ego of a warrior! That is why, when Arjuna bows, in a moment he becomes a mahatma.
Until now Sanjaya does not call Arjuna a mahatma; today suddenly Arjuna becomes a mahatma! At this last hour, the curtain about to fall, the chapter of the Gita about to conclude—suddenly Arjuna becomes a mahatma! What happened? The very energy that made him a warrior now became surrendered.
Do not imagine that if, in place of Arjuna, some shopkeeper had been there he would have become a mahatma so easily. No; he would have kept tally. He would have calculated profit and loss. He would not have staked his life. He would not have said so simply, “As you command!”
It is not that Arjuna did not fight—he fought; only because he fought could he say so. He fought, he struggled; he left nothing undone in contending with Krishna. From every side he put up resistance; from every side he tried to stand firm on his own position. But when he found that his own position was false—when, from every side, he found only loopholes; when he tried to save the boat from all sides and could not—the boat sank; then he bowed.
This bowing is not some mere formality: “All right, I bow.” No; he struggled, he tried to keep his resolve intact; he did not yield to Krishna quickly or easily. He bowed only when there was no other way but to bow. When will itself showed that this is the path; when ego, ripened, itself said, “Now the fruit should fall—ripe, ripe—no longer unripe,” then it fell.
Therefore I say: this age needs Krishna. The ego has ripened. Will has deepened. Immense energy is in man’s hands. This energy will take us to hell. This energy will turn the earth into Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If soon this energy is not transformed—if it does not flow away from will and toward surrender—it will be lost in the desert, lost in the wasteland. And with it man, too, will be lost. There will be a great fire, a great explosion.
Humanity’s maturity is ripe, and at such a moment Krishna’s message is needed.

There is a reason. The divine vision that came to Arjuna was not Arjuna’s own attainment; it was Krishna’s gift. Krishna gave it. It was on loan. It exceeded Arjuna’s capacity. The vessel shook; he was frightened. Arjuna was not yet ready for such an immeasurable event. He had asked for a drop—and the ocean arrived! Had it been a drop, he could have managed; he could not contain an ocean. He shook to his roots, became afraid, and cried, “Now stop this. Return to your enchanting, familiar form. I cannot bear this.”

Krishna gave that jolt knowingly. It was not that he didn’t know Arjuna wasn’t ready; but on the long path of sadhana many shocks are needed. You have become so fixed in the habits of your life that unless a vast shock comes, you don’t move at all. You circle in the grooves of habit like a machine. Until someone comes and shakes you hard, you don’t fall off the track.

Many times a master has to fall upon the disciple like an electric shock. That’s what Krishna did—subtly—the way Zen masters do, staff in hand, falling upon a disciple, beating him, even throwing him out of the door. In just such a subtle way Krishna descended.

Arjuna kept saying again and again, “I cannot trust this, what you say—that you are the center of all existence, that you created it. I doubt. I see only the form I have always seen—you, my friend. If this is true, show me that vast form you speak of.”

A moment came when Krishna had to drop that vast form upon Arjuna. Arjuna trembled, shook; he shook forever—he could never quite fit back into his old mold. His inquiry took a new dimension.

But that vision was borrowed. Krishna had lent him eyes, and through those eyes he saw. When Krishna took those eyes back, again the world appeared, the realm of maya.

This has a very important meaning. It means that even if an awakened one gives you a glimpse, it will not become yours. You must be refined. You must make your own way of seeing that transparent.

So don’t ask awakened ones for a borrowed vision; ask only for ways to cleanse your sight. Don’t say, “Let me once see this world through your eyes.” Even if you see, you will only be thrown into panic. You won’t be able to digest it. What you see will be so vast it won’t fit your courtyard; your courtyard will break, the walls will fall, you will become a ruin.

Do not ask for anything before its time—even though the mind wants to. The mind is like a child. It longs to have even what it has no capacity or preparation for.

Arjuna insisted. Then Krishna thought, “All right—he is a warrior, a kshatriya; let the whole sky fall upon him. Perhaps that will shake him; perhaps it will make him alert to who I am. Otherwise he will go on seeing me as I appear to him.”

You saw Buddha, you saw Mahavira, you saw Krishna—and what did you see? Ordinary men. Not because they were like you, but because you lacked the eye to see differently. Otherwise you would have seen everything in them. All the peaks of consciousness were manifest in them, but your eyes could not go deeper than the skin. You could only see the body of bone, flesh, and marrow—that is the limit of your sight.

Arjuna borrowed eyes. Through them he saw the vast, the Brahman, the expanse. But what you are not prepared for—if it comes even as grace—you will have to let it go. Because you cannot assimilate it. You cannot make it your own. You cannot weave it into your life. The distance between you and it will be so great that it will become like a nightmare. You will want to forget it. You will beg, “Take it back soon.”

In this world almost anything can be lent—divinity cannot. That is the meaning of that incident. For divinity you must slowly polish yourself; you must bring a purity. And yet, even when divinity arrives, it arrives as grace. It does not arrive because of your worthiness—but if it arrives because of your worthiness, then it does not get lost. Had Arjuna been worthy in that moment, the vision given would have become his. The Gita would have ended there. There would have been no need for seven more chapters.

Seven is a symbolic number. At marriage we have the couple circle the fire seven times. Seven means the world. Divine vision was given, and yet the whole circuit of the world continued—seven rounds were made!

We have divided time into seven days. Time means the world. Seven is the circle. Because the divine vision was borrowed, the whole world had to resume; he had to wander that whole circle again, take seven rounds again, and only then reach the point where his own vision arose.

Authentic is only what has sprouted within you, what has grown inside you. Only the flower that blooms within you is true. Yet even for it to bloom the sun’s rays are needed from millions of miles away—it too will not bloom without grace.

Understand the difference! There is a bud—it has waited through the night, it has waited through lifetimes. Once it was hidden in the seed, then it sprouted in the earth, was hidden in the shoot, in the tree; after thousands of hardships it became a bud; it has waited all night, petals ready to open. But the sun’s shower of grace must come!

Morning sun rises, the bud blossoms! Beside it lies a plastic flower, blooming without any sun; it recognizes neither night nor day. It isn’t real at all. It needs no blooming, it needs no dying. It has no fragrance, no play of life, no tremor, no sway, no flow. It is inert, dead. You won’t find anything deader than plastic.

And now scientists say soon we will install plastic hearts. Human organs will be made of plastic.

Man is already so false. Have mercy! Don’t make him more plastic, or he will become even more false. As it is, his bud blooms once in a while near the sun of some Krishna—that too will become difficult. Will a plastic heart ever throb?

Sanjaya says, “These words I heard myself; remembering them my heart is thrilled.”

Had the heart been plastic, he would have said, “I heard the words; in my heart nothing happens.” Can a plastic heart rejoice in remembrance?

This is what thrills Sanjaya. He says, I only heard; I heard from afar; by the grace of the master, by the grace of Vyasa, I heard. I only heard. I was not a participant. The speaker was Krishna; the listener, Arjuna. I was far away; by Vyasa’s grace I had vision and watched. Yet my heart, too, is stirred with joy. Just by hearing, I am thrilled. Such a unique, wondrous event occurred! Such a form of Hari was seen!

Had the heart been plastic, Sanjaya would have seen the way a television sees from afar. Sanjaya would not have been; a television would have been. Nothing would have been thrilled, nothing gladdened. What does it matter to a television whether the image on it is a film actor, a smuggler, Krishna, or Buddha? It makes no difference; it is a machine.

A real flower blossoms from within, yet it needs the sun’s grace. A fake flower never blossoms; it needs no grace at all.

When you blossom, two things will meet. You will be ready like a bud, and the sun will come to wake you from your sleep. The sun will cast a web of rays all around you.

That is what Krishna does, what Buddha does. That is what—if you are willing—I am doing. A net of rays around your bud, caressing you gently with fingers of light, and waking you! The sleep is long, ancient. To rise is difficult. But if the bud is alive, it will rise.

A moment happened in Arjuna’s life when the eyes were on loan. That produced only fear. Arjuna did not become a great soul from that. The great did not descend into his life. He saw the Vast and did not become vast. The great stood at the gate; Arjuna, frightened, closed his eyes. Like when you look at the sun and your eyes blur, nothing can be seen, the eyes close, darkness spreads.

To see the Vast is to see billions upon billions of suns at once. This sun is a very tiny sun, a flickering lamp. Arjuna saw billions of suns within Krishna; he saw suns being born and dissolving; he saw creation arising and subsiding; from the moment of creation to the moment of dissolution he saw everything condensed in a single instant; he saw death hidden in birth, darkness hidden in light, ugliness hidden in beauty. He panicked, trembled: “Stop! Take back these eyes.”

The great stood at the door, but Arjuna could not become great. He was not yet ready. The nectar came, but it came like a flood rising in a river during the rains. You panic. “Mother Ganga, take it back! The house is being washed away! The fields are under water! The animals are dying! My life is in danger!”

The very water that greens the fields—without which the animals would die, without which man and civilization would not be—brings flood and becomes death. All civilizations have grown on riverbanks. That’s why Hindus have worshiped rivers so deeply: all humanity, all culture, all play is by the rivers, beside water.

Ask a scientist and he will tell you: you are eighty-eight percent water; inside you flows nothing but water, Ganga herself.

When water is lost, civilizations vanish, deserts remain, ruins remain. From this same water comes life! And the same water, when it comes like a terrible flood, begins to erase life and becomes death. The water that irrigated the trees, sweeps them away; the water that quenched thirst, drowns; there are screams, nothing can be heard.

Arjuna did receive vision, but that day a flood rose in Krishna. Arjuna was not prepared for so great a flood. He had no dam with which to make use of it. He had not the capacity to store such vast waters. Seven more chapters were needed—an entire world more—before his own vision arose.

There is a great difference between the two. When Arjuna was asking Krishna for vision, he was in ego. In truth he did not believe Krishna could do it. He had no trust; doubt was inside. He was testing—disciple putting the master to the test! Disaster is bound to happen.

If a master tests a disciple, that can be understood. But when Arjuna says, “Show me your vast form,” he is not thinking they can show it. He thinks, “I know him well—childhood companion, friend; we have stood together in good and bad; even in trickery we were aligned; he has been accomplice in intrigue—and suddenly he claims the Vast! God?”

He cannot outright deny it, because Krishna’s presence does, now and then, touch his heart lightly; somewhere it also feels as if it could be true. But he cannot trust; doubt stands firmly rooted—like Angad’s foot, unmoving. Unless a flood arrives, Angad will not budge; unless the sky falls, Angad will not move.

Arjuna asks Krishna. He had no trust. And Krishna did not show the vast form because Arjuna’s surrender qualified him to see it. He showed it because Arjuna’s ego was there—and ego will not be broken until it is crushed under the Vast.

So the first event arose out of ego and doubt. The second, after seven chapters, arose out of surrender. Now he has placed himself at Krishna’s feet. He says, “Whatever your command, whatever your will. I have come to remembrance. My life-breath is steady; wisdom is stabilized. Now I am capable of seeing. The secrets of life are revealed to me by your grace. Now, whatever your command. Now I am not; now only you are. What you do will be done. Even before, what you were doing was being done, but I thought I was doing it. Now the truth is seen.”

What happens is only what the Divine does—whether you accept it or not doesn’t make any difference. Not accepting, you live in ignorance; accepting, you awaken. What is, is what He does. Not a hair’s breadth changes because of your doing. But for you the difference is vast—the difference of earth and sky.

What now has happened has come out of surrender, out of trust. Doubt is gone. Remembrance has come.

It is a very sweet proclamation: “Remembrance has come to me; I am awake; I have seen myself. Now no trouble remains. Now I know I am not.”

This is the great paradox. Those who have not seen themselves believe they are; those who have seen themselves know they are not. Those who have not met themselves are certain they exist; those who have met themselves found that no one is there—the house is empty; only the voice of the Divine echoes—He alone is.

Those who went within found God; they never found the self. Those who remained outside found only themselves.

That is why Kabir speaks in inversions. He says the world is full of upside-down happenings. “I saw fire in the river; I saw fish climbing trees!” He points to this very thing.

He says, “A wonder I saw: the river caught fire.”

He points to this wonder: what cannot be, what is impossible—fire in a river—I saw happening.

You are not, and yet without your being, there is fire in you. You are burning, writhing, tormented; running to fill an ego that does not exist! How can what does not exist ever be filled? If it existed, you could fill it.

And those who have known themselves—here’s the delicious paradox—those who have known themselves have known they are not. They are ignorant, and not the knower!

That is why Lao Tzu keeps saying, “Except for me, all are wise. I alone am naïve; I alone am mad in this town of the clever; everyone else is smart.” Because everyone is sure he is; I alone am in doubt. My very foundation has been cut; my roots have been severed. I alone know I am not. I alone tremble in the gusts of wind; others stand firm, steady, unshakable.

This is the happening. This wonder is occurring every day.

The moment Arjuna saw himself, he said, “Whatever your command!” Because only you are. And even if I refuse, I cannot refuse—because I am not. And all the refusals I made until now have become false; they must have been in a dream. How could it be otherwise? If I never was, how could there be refusal?

This is called, “Remembrance has returned to me!” And with remembrance, wisdom becomes steady.

If I am not, who will tremble? Can any leaf tremble in storms that does not exist? As long as the leaf is there, it will tremble; a small breeze will make it tremble; in storms it will tremble wildly. But if the leaf is not, how will it tremble?

Buddha passed through a village. People abused him. He said, “Good. You have done what you had to do—may I go now? I must reach the next village.” They asked, “What about the abuse we gave?” Buddha laughed, “You came a little late. You should have come ten years ago—then I was. Then replies to your insults would have arisen from me. Now who will reply? You heap abuse; inside there is silence. There is no one there to respond.”

Wisdom becomes steady the very day you disappear. As long as you are, there can be no steadiness. Only he becomes a sthitaprajna who attains the state of emptiness.

That was the interval. Seven chapters earlier the vision was on loan; seven chapters later the vision was his own.

Don’t rely on what is borrowed; it’s not worth two pennies. Seek what is yours.

Take pointers from the awakened, not truth. Truth no one can give to anyone. Take the path from them, not the destination. The destination no one can hand over. They will indicate; walk by their indication—but you must walk. Don’t imagine that the awakened will walk for you, or that you will see with their eyes and reach in their reaching.

No. Even a man like Krishna, by lending his eyes to Arjuna, can only give him pain, not joy. Borrowed eyes have no value.

You will not throb with the heart of the awakened; and if you do, you will be terrified, because that heart is vast, immense. In it you will hear the roar of tempests, the whirling of hurricanes, the crashing of mountains, creation and dissolution. You will not be able to bear that heartbeat. Your little heart, ticking like a clock, cannot bear that vast upheaval. You will be crushed beneath it.

So if Krishna does not quickly withdraw his vision, Arjuna will be lost, burned, reduced to ashes.

No—vision cannot be borrowed. For vision you must refine yourself.

Schopenhauer and Russell’s inner states were utterly different. Schopenhauer stood exactly where Arjuna stood—at the threshold of despondency. He is the West’s most pessimistic philosopher, sorrow-laden: “Life is nothing but suffering!” He was in the very state of Vishada-yoga when the Gita fell into his hands. He had searched everywhere, but his gloom would not lift; it only thickened. He was in Arjuna’s very mood.

Schopenhauer was a very profound thinker. Profound thinkers do arrive at despondency. He could see no ray of light—only darkness upon darkness. It was a night of no moon. He had even lost trust that morning might ever come.

Just then the Gita came into his hands, like a sudden spring to a thirsty traveler in the desert. If, all at once, in the desert you come upon the gurgling of a spring, you won’t prefer to listen to Tansen’s music; all other music will turn pale. That murmur will be miraculous, because it matches your thirst.

It was a coincidence: Schopenhauer was exactly in Arjuna’s state, and the Gita reached him. He read it, and read it in one sitting. He could not blink. His breath was arrested. He lifted the Gita to his head and began to dance.

His family, his friends, his students thought, “Now he has gone completely mad.” They had feared already that so much melancholy would drive him insane. “Now it has happened—this is sheer madness!”

But Schopenhauer said, “I have found trust in a ray I had no trust in. The journey is long; whether the goal is met or not, trust has arrived. In the Gita I have found a ray, a glimpse.”

Not that he became a great soul then and there; he will—some lifetime. For where hope has entered, dawn cannot be far. Sooner or later Schopenhauer will have reached home, or he will reach. He was no longer alone in his gloom; into the dark house of his despondency a sunray had descended. By the support of that ray one can travel to the sun. The journey is long—but the sun must be somewhere, otherwise the ray could not be. Krishna’s ray touched him.

Russell was not in despondency; hence his inner climate was not receptive. Russell was an ordinarily cheerful man; sadness and suffering were not in tune with him. And if there is no despondency, the Gita does not even begin. That is why the Gita opens with Vishada-yoga—the Yoga of Despondency. One who has not yet been wounded by life’s sorrow, who has not recognized life’s night, who has not felt the thorn—such a one will not yet be in tune with the Gita.

Russell must have read it the way water runs past a man who isn’t thirsty. He glanced at it; that is all. Such seeing will not make one dance. Let a brook babble beside a man without thirst—soon he will feel, “Turn off this noise; I can’t get any work done.” He will not hear in that murmur the ultimate music of life.

Remember: only if there is thirst within, can music be heard in the waters without.

Russell was not in the right moment. The right instant for a meeting with the Gita was not there; he missed. He had a little meeting with Buddha, because Buddha is a keen rationalist. Though he takes you beyond reason, he leads you by the very medium of reason.

Krishna’s key is surrender. Buddha’s key is not surrender; his key is meditation. Buddha says: Think with your intelligence as much as possible; think to the uttermost. A moment will come when, by thinking and thinking, you will go beyond thinking—because thought has a limit, and you do not. But you will arrive through thought.

Buddha’s dharma is the dharma of intelligence. That suited Russell. Jesus also did not suit Russell much, though he was born in a Christian home, because Jesus is more attuned to Krishna—surrender, prayer, devotion. Jesus does not lay emphasis on logic. But Buddha is strongly logic-oriented. Therefore anyone in the world who is logic-oriented will certainly be influenced by Buddha.

Yet Russell did not go very far with Buddha either. He went only as far as Buddha came along with Russell. Understand this difference.

As far as Buddha matched Russell, Russell went with him. Beyond that, their paths diverged. He did not go further with Buddha; hence he did not become Buddha’s disciple.

Where Buddha and Russell found accord, Russell said, “Exactly right.” Where the accord broke, Russell said to Buddha, “Your path and mine part here; from now on we go separately. Till here it was fine, but our journey cannot be together forever. Now you talk troublesome things!”

For Russell believes there is nothing above intelligence. On this he is very dogmatic. He says, “Intelligence is the ultimate principle. If you speak of anything beyond it, blind belief begins. If you speak of what lies above, you start mischief; then all kinds of mischief will rush in—ghosts and spirits, God, heaven and hell, sin and virtue, priests and pundits. The moment you abandon reason, the denizens of darkness will enter at once. And we must be saved from them.” Russell says, “We must be saved from religion.”

There is a bit of truth in Russell’s point, because religions have caused much harm—precisely because they ceased to be religion and became sects. Yet harm there has been. They became collaborators in keeping man in darkness. They were to lead toward light; they did not. They became prisons; they were to be liberation and freedom. They forged chains. They did not place wings on your life so you could fly into the sky. Church and temple and mosque and gurdwara ringed you round and stood guard; they became jails. In them you did not hear the music of freedom; you smelled the stench of prison.

Russell is right that going beyond reason carries danger. Therefore he does not go further with Buddha, and he cannot become his disciple either. He does not yet feel the need. For now, thinking seems enough to him.

It is a question of need. A seven-year-old has no need of sexuality; at fourteen the need will arise. Everything has its season.

If Russell were to go on and on in thought alone, one day he would arrive at Schopenhauer’s state. Thought will lead into despondency. And when thought leads into despondency, then a relationship will happen: either he will agree to go beyond thought with Buddha, or he will agree to surrender with Krishna.

Where your thought ends—there stand Buddha, Krishna, Christ. They stand beyond the limit of your thinking. As long as you play with the toys of thought, there will be no relationship with them.

Russell is not a very profound thinker. If he were truly profound, despondency would arise. Whoever looks deeply is bound to see suffering. There is suffering. And one to whom suffering is revealed will inevitably set out in search of bliss, because the life within does not agree to suffering.