Geeta Darshan #6

Look at yourself with the same love with which you look at me. Look at yourself with the same reverence with which you look at me. Then not even a small distance will remain. Then you will see within yourself the same that you see within me.

Eyes of love are needed. The essential thing is a reverent heart, eyes filled with love. But in this world the hardest thing is precisely this: to look at oneself with love. To have love for another is not that hard. To have reverence for another is very hard, yet not impossible; with practice it settles. But to look toward oneself with reverence seems almost impossible. The day that “impossible” happens, know that on that very day something has truly happened in life.

Your eyes can see the other because the other is outside; they cannot see yourself because you are hidden within the eyes. To go there you must close the eyes. To go toward another, life-energy has to travel; to come to yourself all travel must stop—you must sit still and silent. Only in that still moment will the meeting with yourself happen.

It is very difficult, but not impossible; it happens. And I tell you this: until it happens within you, however much reverence you have for someone, it may give you support, but it will not take you to the goal. You will have to bring reverence to yourself.

The difficulty has been increased because your so-called religious teachers, your mahatmas, have taught you self-condemnation; they have taught you to insult yourself; they have taught you to nurture a feeling of despising yourself. They tell you you are great sinners—thieves, dishonest, liars, in darkness, violent. Within you they have painted hell, only tongues of fire. They have not pointed toward the kingdom of heaven within you. Now and then a Jesus, a Buddha, a Mahavira points to it, but that voice is lost in the clamor of millions of mahatmas.

The entire business of the mahatma depends on condemning you. The more condemned, the more frightened, the more nervous you become, the more you run to the shelter of the mahatma. The fuller you are with guilt, the more you can be exploited.

In temples, mosques, and gurdwaras, the bowed heads are bent with a deep sense of guilt. They pray: “We are fallen; you are the purifier of the fallen!”

Be alert: if you are fallen, then you will never meet the purifier of the fallen—because only like meets like. If you are fallen, union is not possible. You too must become purifier of the fallen. If you want to meet the Divine, you will have to evoke the Divine’s fragrance within you. That will be your qualification. The day you are filled with the proclamation, “I too am God,” that day…

This is not ego. It is plain truth. You are also the Divine, of the same essence. Drop condemnation; drop the tainted, polluted attitude toward yourself. Forget hell.

As you fill with goodwill toward yourself and accept yourself, you will find the gates of the kingdom of heaven begin to open. And the great miracle is this: the more you take yourself to be fallen, the more fallen you become, because your thoughts create your life. The more you think yourself bad, the more you will have to prove yourself bad in your conduct, otherwise your own understanding will seem wrong.

If you think yourself dishonest, more dishonesty is created. More dishonesty arises, and you think yourself even more dishonest; that creates still more dishonesty.

Psychologists say that even if a person is sinful, bad, if everyone around him keeps reminding him, “You are not a sinner,” if the very air around him keeps saying, “You are Divine, you are virtuous,” then even if sin has occurred, it is only an act; it is not your nature. It is a mistake, not your being.

A man does a thousand things; one mistake happens—no one becomes a sinner because of that! Sometimes one falls ill; but illness does not become your nature. If you once had a fever, does fever become your nature? Should you, whenever you go to the temple, say to God, “I am a fever, and you are the Great Physician”?

Stop this nonsense. Sometimes a man is filled with fever; sometimes he is also filled with anger—but these are accidents; they are not your nature. At most they are mistakes; there is nothing criminal in them. There will be weaknesses, but no sin. Make them secondary; do not give them too much attention. If you focus on them, you will nourish them.

Give your attention to your nature, to your stainlessness, to your innocence. Slowly you will find yourself falling in love with yourself. You will fall in love with yourself; the juice of your own being will begin to flow; the inner undertone of your life will arise; a fragrance will begin to be felt within. And as that inner fragrance is felt, it keeps growing. Then the current of your life-consciousness changes course.

The wise repeat only one thing: Tattvamasi, Shvetaketu! You are That, Shvetaketu. That which is in the sky is the same in your inner sky. Do not demean it, do not make it small, do not condemn it.

What difference does it make if the God within you one day chewed paan? No sin has happened. If, on seeing a beautiful woman pass, a small cloud drifted over your inner God, no sin has happened. Clouds have covered the sun countless times; the sun’s light is not destroyed by that. The sun does not beat his chest crying out, “Clouds have covered me; I have become a great sinner!” The sun’s sun-ness remains unchanged. Clouds come and go; the sun’s sun-ness is eternal.

Your godliness is eternal. With the same love with which you have looked at me, look at yourself. If in my presence you simply learn to love—that is enough: to love yourself.

This will seem upside down, because your mahatmas instruct you: love others. I instruct you: love yourself. Because if one has not loved oneself, how will he love another? In that doing there will be deception somewhere. If there is no light at home, how will you throw it on another? If the lamp is lit within, the reflection of that light can be seen in another’s eyes. If the inner lamp is not lit, how will you cast light on others?

I do not tell you to love others. That is precisely how you have gone astray. I tell you: love yourself. The day you love yourself, you will find that nothing remains but to love others. Waves of love will rise within you. You will have nothing else left to give.

I tell you: be selfish. Those who tried to make you altruistic have completely spoiled you. I tell you: be selfish. For to know the Self—swa-arth—is religion and nothing else. Self-interest is dharma.

But you get scared at the very word self-interest. You think it is about sin. Altruism! And if one has not realized his own self-interest, how will altruism arise? One who has not become his own, how will he become anyone’s? One who has not filled himself with dignity and glory, whose glory-song will he sing? He has no seed in his life—forget the tree. If there is no foundation laid on the ground, where will the building stand?

If one thing should happen at the feet of the Master, it is this: that through love for the Master you slowly understand your own love. You see the Master outside, and the true Master is one who gradually immerses you in your own love. And one day that movement comes into your feet, that light into your eyes, and your heart begins to beat with a new “ah!”

Then you will find the whole process of life has changed. Till yesterday you paid attention to mistakes; now you attend to nature.

What you attend to is what is strengthened. Where attention goes, there your life-current gives nourishment. Pay attention to mistakes and they will increase; mistakes will be strengthened. Attention is food.

Make mistakes secondary. Give attention to the Self, to Existence. Not to acts, but to nature. In acts, mistakes can happen; in your nature, day and night, God dwells. There no mistake has ever occurred. In your being there is no mistake; in your doing mistakes can be.

The mistake in doing is no more than a dream. At night you dream that you murdered someone. In the morning you do not beat your chest and weep; nor do you run around shouting, “I am a great sinner.” A dream was just a dream.

Doing is no more than a dream—that is the doctrine of maya. What you do is no more than a dream; what you are is truth. What you do is a dream, ripples of thought. They come and go. You remain beyond them, untouched.

So it seems quite right: if, looking at me, the miracle of desireless action appears to you, and looking at yourself it looks impossible, the only plain reason is this: you have not looked at yourself with the same feeling and love with which you look at me. With the feeling with which you have touched my feet, you have not touched your own feet.

With the feeling with which you have bowed before me, bow in the same feeling before yourself. Because what I am outside you, that same is also within you.

Consider this sometime: if you were to bend to touch your own feet, what a revolution would happen in your life! Then you would carry the Divine within as a pregnant woman walks—carefully, mindful of every step. A new life has appeared within; she places each step with care and awareness. Her entire life-current begins to revolve around the coming child, to circumambulate it. That which is to be born becomes like a temple; and around it the circumambulation begins.

One day touch your own feet; bow your head before yourself. And you will be amazed to find: within sits the emperor of emperors. You had become a beggar for nothing.

But you have been made a beggar. Because until you become a beggar, the priest’s business cannot run. If you are a beggar, then you will go to the temple. If you are an emperor, you yourself are the temple. If you are a beggar, only then will you search for gurus. If you yourself become an emperor, what need remains to search for a guru?

This is religion—such a vast net runs in the name of religion; it runs on your beggary. Therefore religion—so-called religion—keeps explaining to you that you are a sinner, a great sinner; you are a burden upon the earth. You have accepted this. From childhood this is what you are taught.

A child is born—and the greatest accident begins. As soon as a child is born, the parents emphasize not his being but his doing. If the child does something, they say, “Wrong.” If he does something else, they say, “Right.” When the child does right, they praise him, give him sweets, toys. When he does wrong, they beat him, scold him.

At first the child does not understand, because the child’s language is of being, not of doing. He cannot grasp what is going on! Sometimes they beat him; sometimes they give him sweets. “I am the same. Yet sometimes they start beating and yelling, sometimes they embrace me with great joy!” The child is in a great predicament. His mind cannot understand the secret here: what trick will keep them always pleased? Because he depends on them.

So slowly he begins to do only those things for which he receives praise; and he stops those for which he is blamed. Not only does he stop them—he suppresses them, because the urge to do them still arises. They, too, have a natural meaning. He wants to do them but does not. Then in loneliness, in secret, he begins to do those same acts. Then guilt arises: “I am committing a crime; I am a great sinner.”

Then one understanding becomes clear to every child like a sutra. The day it becomes clear, know that on that day the child dies; innocence dies; from that day corruption begins within the child. What is that belief?

It is this: “As I am, I am not acceptable. To be accepted I must do certain things. As I am, I am not worthy of love. To be worthy of love I must fulfill certain conditions; otherwise I will be worthy of contempt.”

There the error begins. Then that error dogs you. First parents create it, then pandits and priests reinforce it, then schoolteachers, politicians, mahatmas. Your whole life’s web keeps revolving around one point: “As you are, you are not acceptable; you must do something. Being is not enough; doing has value. And even among acts there are distinctions: some are sins, some are virtues.” And sometimes even absolutely ordinary acts…

Yesterday a young man asked me. He is returning to Denmark. He said, “Here in India I have learned to snap my fingers. I like it. And in India no one objects. But in the West snapping fingers is considered very bad. When I go back, I will be in trouble. If I snap my fingers, people take it badly; it is a bad omen.”

In the East there is no objection; in fact there is a use for it. When you are tired you snap your fingers, and the hands are again filled with energy, fresh again. But in the West it is opposed. The reason is the same: if you snap your fingers in front of someone, it means he is tiring you. You are expressing boredom. Someone is talking to you and you snap your fingers; it is like yawning in his face—bad manners, inauspicious.

The reason is the same in both places, but one side accepts it, the other rejects it.

“So in the West,” that young man said, “if I want to snap my fingers, I will have to do it in private. I cannot snap openly in front of everyone.”

A simple act, neutral—neither harming nor hurting anyone—still gets weighed in the world of acceptance and rejection. You accept and reject such things that have no intrinsic value at all.

The result is that a crack appears within the child. Half of him becomes rejected; half accepted. Then he is surprised to find that sometimes the same act is rejected before outsiders, not rejected before the family.

A child is playing, running, making mischief. The family pays no mind; but as soon as guests arrive, the scolding begins. It is beyond his understanding: what was fine a moment ago suddenly became wrong the next! What difference do the guests make?

It means you are creating another belief in him: you may be one way in private, but before others you must be another way. You are creating a false man who must wear a false face. To go into the world, into the market, into society, he must use many masks.

In those masks your soul is lost. And a very precious truth is forgotten: as you are, you are accepted by God. Otherwise you would not be. The Upanishads declare: Tattvamasi, Shvetaketu! On this one declaration an entire system of education could be transformed. On this one declaration a completely different culture could be created.

It means: “O Shvetaketu, as you are, that is the Divine.” You have nothing to do to become Divine. And what you do has no congruence or incongruence with your being Divine.

Does this mean I am saying we should tell children, “Do whatever you want”? No, that would not be possible, nor practical. We should give the child this understanding: you are accepted; our love for you is unconditional. Your doing or not-doing makes no difference to our love. But we love you; the whole world does not. If you want love from the world, you will have to mind what to do and what not to do.

But from our side you are wholly accepted. Even if you sin, sin greatly, not a drop will lessen from the stream of our love. We will keep loving you just the same. Whether you sit on a throne in a temple or remain locked in a prison, our love toward you will remain the same. Love has nothing to do with your actions.

But the world has no love for you. The world is concerned with your actions. The world is not your parents, nor your friends, nor your lovers. When you go there, your relationship with them is of doing. With us your relationship is of being.

Once a child knows there is someone who accepts his being totally, you have removed condemnation from his life. Then there will never be self-condemnation in his life.

I call him a true Master who does what the parents could not. You come to him, and he does not condemn you.

This happens every day. The day before yesterday a young man came and said, “I have fallen into the habit of drinking. I am very worried. I can’t give it up.”

I said to him, “Don’t worry. For such a small habit, why so much worry? Why take so much anxiety? You drink wine, not someone’s blood!”

His bowed head lifted. He said, “Yes, I am not harming anyone else; I am only harming myself. But I cannot quit.”

I said, “Don’t put your attention on it. Put your energy into meditation. The very thought of ‘quitting’ is wrong. The language of ‘giving up’ is wrong in this world. We should speak of attaining. Whenever you attain the vast, the petty will fall away. When you attain the higher, the lower drops. You drink because within you there is a deep longing for samadhi. You don’t know how to enter samadhi, so you are trying in a wrong way.”

Wine means only this: man wants to drown. That is why fakirs and saints have even called the Divine “wine.”

Kabir has said: “The whole tavern went mad; they drank the wine without measuring.” The entire tavern went crazy because people drank without weighing and measuring.

Is the Divine’s wine also to be sipped by weighing? Is that something to be measured? When it is drunk, it is drunk—wholly drunk.

Saints have called the Divine wine; they have called samadhi wine. There is a reason. There is something about wine.

In my observation, those who are drawn toward alcohol are committing only a tiny mistake—just tiny. They should have been drawn toward meditation. Their deep longing is for meditation.

Therefore, in my experience, one who has never drunk may perhaps not even be able to meditate. He has no longing. He has not even drunk wine—what meditation will he do! He has no notion of being lost, of being intoxicated. He has never known the joy of drowning; he has not tasted the flavor, caught the taste.

So people of that kind also come to me. They say, “We don’t drink, we don’t smoke, we don’t chew paan, we are vegetarians, we sleep on time and rise on time—but there is no joy in life.”

Do you think any of these things have any connection with joy? If you don’t smoke, what connection does that have with joy? What idiot taught you that because you rise on time every morning there will be joy in your life? No—you do not know.

The drunkard is acceptable to me, because I know that in the act of drinking there may be a mistake, but in the longing for wine there is no mistake. He has chosen the wrong wine—that is all. He needed to choose the right wine—this we will help him choose; we will place it in his hand. He has come to the right tavern now—he will not be able to escape.

That alcoholic youth said to me, “That is the trouble: there is no way to escape you. Many times I think, ‘Let me drop sannyas; I cannot drop alcohol, so let me drop sannyas.’ But how can I drop it?”

I do not even tell him to drop drinking. I say, “We teach the art of making the great wine—and the art of opening a still in every home. Brew your own and drink—and drink without measuring. The outer wine will fall away.”

In my view, wrong acts exist only because through them you want to attain something; you are unconscious that it will not be attained that way.

Has anyone ever attained samadhi through alcohol? For a little while you will get forgetfulness, and at a great price. The body will be harmed, the mind will be harmed. And there is the possibility that if this continues too much, your awareness will be so lost that your feet will wobble when you try to go toward samadhi—you may never reach that way at all.

An act has little value; your being has value. Your being is so valuable, of such supreme worth, that what you do—why should we keep accounts of it! If we place attention within, the Divine stands revealed. Whether in your hand you are smoking a cigarette or not—shall we attend to the cigarette in your hand or to the Divine within?

The priest’s emphasis is on the cigarette in your hand. The wise emphasize the Divine within.

We will call to the Divine within. If that call is heard, the cigarette will fall from the hand. It should fall. There should be no need to “give it up”—it should fall by itself.

Look at yourself with the same eyes with which you have looked at me. And with the same hands and the same reverence with which you have touched my feet, touch your own feet. I am within you too. On that very day, transformation begins.

For one in whose life morning has dawned, evening does come—but it no longer feels like evening. For one in whose life bliss has happened, sorrow also comes—but it no longer feels like sorrow.

If a thorn pricks the Buddha’s foot, there will be pain—perhaps even a little more than for you, because your sensitivity cannot be like the Buddha’s. The Buddha’s sensitivity is utterly pure; yours is coarse, hardened. A thorn pricking the Buddha’s foot is like a thorn pricking a lotus petal. Your foot is almost wooden.

The Buddha will have pain—and yet will not have pain. This paradox must be rightly understood.

The Buddha will know the pain, but the Buddha will not be pained. Evening will come, but the morning will abide. Evening may gather all around the morning, but it will not displace it. Evening will not take the morning’s place. The morning will go on shining within. The Buddha’s bliss remains just as it is. This cloud of pain makes no difference.

Pain will arise, and the pain will be noticed. “A thorn is pricking; it is hurting”—all this will be in awareness. If not to the Buddha, then to whom would this awareness belong! It may even be keener, because the awareness is total. Where silence is profound, even the fall of a needle is heard. Such is the Buddha’s silence. There, even a needle falling is heard.

You are like a marketplace. Only when a band plays there do you barely catch that something is happening. You are a crowd. The small inner happenings you cannot detect. How will you ever know a needle has fallen? You won’t. But the Buddha will know—and yet, even as he knows, he remains beyond it.

For morning to happen means the art of going beyond. Morning means transcendence. Pain is occurring; a thorn is pricking. But it will not prick the Buddha; it will prick only the body. Pain will happen only in the body. The Buddha will remain as a witness.

The Buddha will have the kind of pain anyone might have. Certainly he will not neglect it, because Buddhahood means supreme compassion. If their compassion flows toward another’s pain, will it not also flow toward their own body’s pain? If a thorn pricks your foot, the Buddha will run to remove it; if it pricks his own foot, will he not hurry just the same? Of course he will.

You are as distant as his own body is distant. You are as “other” as his own body is “other.” The Buddha will remove the thorn, pain will be there, and the Buddha will remain outside it. This event will not drown the Buddha. He will not lose awareness. It will not be that this cloud of pain so covers awareness that awareness disappears and only pain remains. That will not happen.

When morning has happened in someone’s life, evening will keep coming—but it cannot erase the morning.

And here is a delightful thing: when morning is within and evening is without, the inner morning appears with a depth it never had before. Because when darkness and light are side by side, darkness becomes a background, and upon that backdrop the inner flame burns more vividly.

Light a lamp in the day—it seems faint. Let night come, let darkness gather and surround; the lamp’s light deepens. The flame acquires a distinct outline. The denser the darkness all around, the more gold seems to rain from the lamp’s flame.

In moments of pain, the lamp of Buddhahood also burns more intensely. When evening comes, the morning grows even deeper.

Morning and evening will continue as long as there is a body—because morning and evening relate to the body. The body is a part of this earth. On this earth, morning and evening come; pleasure and pain come. As long as we partake of this earthly portion, pleasure and pain will continue.

When the body drops for an enlightened one, what then happens cannot rightly be called morning—because when evening never comes, what is the point of calling it morning? Then neither morning comes nor evening comes.

Therefore the Buddha spoke of two stages of nirvana. One was what happened to him at the age of forty: he attained nirvana, samadhi, full awakening—he knew. Then, for forty years, the journey of the body continued. Here on this very earth the chariot kept rolling; on the rough roads of earth the chariot had to feel the dips and rises.

Then came Mahaparinirvana: the body, too, was shed. With the body gone, both morning and evening vanished. Then a certain kind of light manifests—but how to call it “light,” for it has no relation to darkness. Then a certain kind of life manifests—but how to call it “life,” for it has no relation to death. Therefore the Buddha remains utterly silent about it, says nothing at all; whatever he might say would be an error.

All our words are bound to their opposites. Say “light,” and darkness is remembered. Say “love,” hatred comes to mind. Say “friend,” the memory of an enemy arises. All our words are linked to their contraries. Say “life,” and death stands there. Whatever you say in words, its opposite word sets its limit, provides its definition.

If someone asks you, “What is light?” you will say, “That which is not darkness.” So darkness becomes the definition of light! What a foolish arrangement! Ask, “What is life?” and you say, “That which is not death.” We end up defining life by death!

All our words take their meaning from the opposite. That is why we cannot define the Divine, because there is nothing opposed to it. It is indefinable. We cannot bind it in language; the very attempt becomes a mistake.

Hence the wise continually say: whatever can be said is no longer the Truth. That which cannot be said—cannot be said at any time—that alone is Truth. Still, the wise speak. Their speaking is to awaken you, not to state the Truth.

You are asleep; morning has come; the birds are singing; the sun is rising; flowers have blossomed; fragrance has arisen; the world is transformed; the night’s darkness, its torpor, has gone—and you lie there asleep.

There is no way to explain to a sleeping person that flowers are fragrant, birds are singing, the sun has risen. His eyes are closed; his awareness is lost. There is no way to tell him, “It is morning—wake up and see.”

There is only one device: shake him, startle him, break his sleep. Once the sleep is broken, he will see for himself.

Truth cannot be said. And whatever is said is only a device to break your sleep. Once you open, you will see the Truth; no one has ever said it. Truth has always been unsaid and will forever remain unsaid. That is good, because words become stale; they pass through so many lips, they become dirty.

Truth is a virgin. It has never passed through any lips, never gone stale. It is not a coin that passes from hand to hand and grows worn. It has not circulated at all; it has not even been minted. It is pure gold, hidden in its own mine—and there is no way to find it through words, unless we simply take the plunge into it.

You can be Truth; you cannot know Truth. Truth can be indicated; it cannot be said.

That is a very great practice—to take up nothing. If that is accomplished, everything is accomplished.

But don’t get lost in a tangle of words. “Taking up nothing” does not mean sitting idle. For when you sit idle, where are you empty? A thousand thoughts run. You may be sitting silent, but where is the silence? The mind goes on weaving—who knows how many stories, how many desires, how many nets! Even when you say you are doing nothing, are you really doing nothing? How many actions, how much restlessness boil within!

If your non-doing is truly non-doing, it is the supreme state—nothing beyond it. If you can master non-doing, there is no higher practice; that is the ultimate yoga. Master that one. At least master something—master non-doing.

Do not think that because there is “nothing to do,” you will remain as you are. Then you are deceiving yourself, hiding behind a word.

A German thinker, Herrigel, was learning archery from a Zen master. The master said, “Shoot the arrow in such a way that you are not the one who shoots. Let the arrow be shot—don’t shoot it.”

Now Herrigel, a German rationalist, thought: this is madness. He said, “If I don’t shoot, it won’t go. If I do shoot, you’re not satisfied. What am I to do? You leave me no way. If you say, ‘Don’t shoot,’ then I’ll just sit—and then nothing happens. Then you say, ‘Why are you sitting? Get up; practice the bow.’ And even when I take aim and hit perfectly, still you are not satisfied, because you say, ‘Let the arrow go; don’t make it go.’”

He worked hard for three years and was exhausted. Three years is a long time, yet there was no result. He could hit the bull’s-eye a hundred percent, but every day the master said, “No, not this.”

The master told him, “We are not concerned with the target. You are our target. We are looking at you. You are looking out there at the target. You think that once you hit it, the work is done. You have learned archery, but not meditation. You came to learn meditation, and for us archery is only a device to teach meditation—that you have not learned.”

By then Herrigel was of course in a bind. According to Western thinking he should have received a certificate—his aim was perfect. What more was left to learn? But the master, far from giving a certificate, would not even concede that he had taken the first step.

After three years he gave up and went to take leave on the last day. Since he was leaving anyway, his mind was unburdened. He sat down where the master was teaching others and simply watched, waiting to say goodbye when they finished.

For the first time he watched closely, because now there was no personal anxiety—the inner race had stopped. “I’m leaving; it’s over.” No stake remained. For the first time, without being entangled, he saw how the master was shooting. “I had never noticed this! He is shooting in an entirely different way.” He experienced for the first time that the arrow was shooting; the master was not shooting. He set the bow, drew the string—but the master was not there; as if some other energy was shooting.

He stood up—indeed, it is not even right to say “he stood,” because he did not know when he rose—and went to the master. He took the bowstring in his hands, nocked an arrow. The arrow had not yet flown when the master said, “Bravo! Enough. Whether it hits or not—you have understood. This is the moment I was waiting for.”

The arrow had not even been released, and the master was fulfilled. What had not happened in three years happened in a single instant.

Herrigel said, “Now I can say it was altogether different, a different experience. Before this I myself could not have believed that such a possessed state could come—where you do not act and yet it happens.”

I was reading the life of an American seeker. He went to meet a true master—without any reason, just accidentally. Often such things happen without cause, because when you go for a reason you are tense; when you go without a reason, there is no tension.

He was out for a walk, saw a sign at a doorway—a meditation center. He had never been interested in meditation. Suddenly that day he felt, “Let me skip the stroll and go in to see what’s happening here.” Curiosity took him inside.

Ten or twelve people were sitting in meditation. He sat with them to see what was going on. He had come with no great purpose. The master looked at him and met his eyes. He had no idea what was happening, so he too looked steadily into the master’s eyes to see what the man was seeing. In that moment something happened: a jolt struck his belly; there was much delight. But from that day a pain began in his stomach.

For five to seven days he was troubled and went to doctors. They said, “We can’t find any cause. Wherever it came from, go back there.” He thought, “What a mess! I went there for no reason—just curiosity on the way!”

He went to the master. “There is pain, and it won’t go.” The master said, “As it came, it will go. Don’t worry.”

That did not sit well with him—it felt like neglect, as if the master took no interest. But there was no other way; the pain went on increasing.

He was a student of music, learning the tabla. For about two years the pain remained. Physicians could not find it; and the times he went to the master, the master kept the same seeming indifference: “It will be fine. As it came, so it will go. You did not produce it by your effort; you cannot remove it. Be a witness.” It felt like evasion.

But one day, two years later, while playing the tabla, suddenly something happened. His hands began to move of themselves, as if he himself was not playing. He was possessed. For the first time he saw the tabla being played by itself—he was not playing. For about half an hour the melody continued. Great bliss was felt.

He had heard that such a thing sometimes happens to a musician—and only then is music born: when the musician disappears and some vast energy takes possession. Then he does not play; someone plays through him. The hands falling on the drum are not his; some other hands fall through his. He had heard it, but did not trust it. Yet it happened.

After half an hour he lay down, exhausted by the unique experience, and suddenly found that the stomach pain had gone. What had not left for two years departed just as it had come. And with that pain, much else left his life—as if all the ills of life had gathered into it.

Not doing anything means giving the divine a doorway. Let it possess you. Make space. Let it be enthroned on your seat.

If you can master non-doing, you have mastered the greatest thing in the world. There is no higher practice. The sages have called it Sahaj Yoga—effortless union.

Kabir says, Practice the effortless samadhi; it is best.

This is effortless samadhi: you are empty. You are eager only to give space to the divine; you wait. When you walk you think, “Let him walk within me.” When you eat you think, “Let him eat within me.” When you sleep you think, “I make the bed for him; let him sleep within me.” Slowly in this way you become a temple of God. You do nothing; you hand your doing over to him.

A moment comes—the great moment—when all your actions are his actions. Only then understand that non-doing has been accomplished. Before that, non-doing has not been attained. As long as the doer is inside, how can non-doing be? The doer will keep doing.

This is Krishna’s whole teaching to Arjuna: Do not be the doer. Move into non-doing. Let him draw the bowstring with your hands; let him lift the Gandiva; let him release the arrow; let him fight the war; let him win; let him lose. Do not come in between. Become a mere instrument.

He cannot—on his own he cannot enter into it. But if it is the Divine’s will, he cannot prevent it either. Because once you are effaced, neither the doer remains nor the one who can restrain. Then whatever happens, happens. Such a person becomes like a cloud—wherever the winds carry it.

You cannot say what he cannot do or what he will do. He is no longer there. All his impurities have become zero. He has become an empty, void house. Now within it the winds of the Divine can blow in whatever way they blow. Neither a doer remains nor a resister. The one who tries to resist is also a kind of doer.

So it is not necessary that such acts happen through him; but if it is the Divine’s will, they will. Yet he will not say, “I have done them.” He will neither take virtue and glory from his acts nor accept blame for them. He will not think, while giving, “I am doing something great,” nor, while violence happens, think, “I am committing a great sin.” He is not there. He has stepped aside. Now whatever the Divine wills, it gets done.

It is possible that the Divine has a need—whenever I say “the Divine,” I mean the totality, the whole of existence—that there is a need for something to be erased, for someone to be removed; then he will come into use. But not even a line will be drawn inside him that “I did something.”

That, in essence, is Krishna’s whole message to Arjuna: Do not come in between. Do not think that you will kill. Do not think about what the result will be. Let go—let the whole matter go.

If, at that very moment of letting go—when Arjuna said, “All my doubts have vanished, O mighty-armed, all my misgivings have faded”—if the totality’s longing had been for him to renounce, he would have risen, stepped down from the chariot, and gone to the forest.

That was not the desire. What Arjuna was thinking of doing was not the will of the total. Hence Krishna kept speaking to him.

I often think: if someone like Mahavira had been in Arjuna’s place, would Krishna have said so much? Absolutely not. Seeing Mahavira, he would have understood at once that this is the happening of existence; existence wants Mahavira to become naked, to wander in the forests. War is not for Mahavira; it is not his swadharma.

Krishna spoke the Gita looking at Arjuna. Seeing Mahavira, he would have remained silent—because Mahavira’s going was not Mahavira’s own doing.

There is a very sweet episode in Mahavira’s life. He wanted to renounce. His mother said, “Not while I am alive.” He fell silent. He dropped the very talk of sannyas—as if there were no insistence for renunciation at all.

Insistence belongs to the ego. What insistence even about sannyas! What insistence even about letting go! Once you are free of the urge to grasp, you should also drop the urge to renounce. If it had been someone else, he would have become obstinate. The more the mother stopped him, the more stubborn he would become. The more the family fretted, the more stiff-necked he would grow: “I will be a sannyasin come what may.”

Ninety-nine out of a hundred sannyasins in the world become so because of others—because of those who try to stop them. Whenever someone tries to prevent you, the ego gets great pleasure thinking, “I am going to do something great.”

But Mahavira simply kept quiet. His mother must have thought, “What kind of sannyas is this! I said it once and he fell silent!” All mothers say such things; it was nothing new that Mahavira’s mother said, “Do not take sannyas while I live. I will die.” All mothers say so. Has any mother ever died because someone took sannyas? These are just the ways of parents; they have no real weight. The mother too must have felt a bit puzzled: “What sort of sannyas was this!”

Then the mother died. Returning from the cremation ground, on the way he said to his elder brother, “Now I can take sannyas, can I not?” Right there on the road, while they were just returning from the last rites. The elder brother said, “What kind of talk is this! Mother has just died, we are distressed, and you are thinking of sannyas! One grief is enough; do not bring this grief upon me as well. Be quiet; do not even raise this topic.”

When the elder brother said, “Be quiet,” he became quiet. We, too, might think: what kind of sannyasin is this? If it goes on like this, it will never happen—because there will always be someone. It was a big household, a royal family, with many relatives. If he were to stop at everyone’s say-so, lifetimes would pass and Mahavira’s renunciation would never happen. The brother too must have thought, “What sort of sannyas is this! Say no once and he falls silent. As if he is only looking for a pretext: you stop me and I stop.”

But no, it was something else. Mahavira was not insistent. What is there to insist upon even about sannyas? What is there to insist upon even about letting go? Otherwise it becomes another form of grasping. Why grasp at sannyas too? When the world itself is being dropped, why cling to renunciation? That was right.

But gradually the people at home felt that he was not really in the house. He lived there—ate, rose, sat—but he was becoming so like a void that no one could feel his presence.

At last the brother and the family conferred. They said, “Now it is useless to restrain him. He has already gone. Only the body is in the house. Why should we become sinners by holding back even the body? Otherwise people will say that because of us he did not renounce. And it has already happened—he is not here. His presence is not felt here. Days and months go by and no one knows where Mahavira is; he is absorbed in himself.”

So the family themselves folded their hands and said, “Since you have already gone, do not make us guilty for no reason. Now you should go. You are not here any longer—whom are we to restrain? Whom to stop!” When they said this, Mahavira rose and left.

Such a renunciation Krishna could not have stopped. Arjuna’s renunciation was on the surface—he was running away out of fear, not out of knowing. He was fleeing on his own; the Divine was not making him flee. Hence, when all his doubts dropped and he let go, then whatever happened, happened: he could not go to the forest, because that was not the Divine’s will.

Krishna’s contention with Arjuna is against Arjuna’s will and in favor of the Divine’s will—that is all he is saying. Krishna too would not have stopped him if, after all his doubts had fallen and his ego had been set aside, Arjuna had stepped down, touched his feet, and said, “Now I am going; all doubts are over, the matter is finished.” I know Krishna could not have stopped him; there would have been no need to stop.

We can restrain only him who is going by himself. The need to restrain is only for one who is going against existence.

People have not understood the Gita. Some have taken it to be a message to go to war—wrong. Some have taken it to be a message to stick to worldly life—wrong. On one side this is the mistake of those who revere the Gita. On the other, the Jains have taken it to be against renunciation—wrong. That the Gita saves you from renunciation—this too is wrong.

The Gita says only this: whatever the Supreme’s longing is, flow with it; do not flow against it. Whatever that longing may be. Sometimes it will be for renunciation—it was so for Mahavira; it was not so for Arjuna. Whatever the Supreme’s longing is.

Do not swim against the current. Stay with the river’s flow. If the river is moving east, then east; if it is moving west, then west.

Some rivers go west, some go east. The Ganges rushes eastward, the Narmada rushes westward. They are not contrary. The person floating in the Ganges will go toward the east; the one floating in the Narmada will go toward the west. But both are flowing with the river. The two are one.

One who understands the Gita rightly will see it has no other message than this: do not flow against the current of the Divine; flow in accord with your swabhava. That is why Krishna says again and again, “Swadharme nidhanam shreyah”—in one’s own innermost dharma, even death is preferable. “Paradharmo bhayavahah”—the dharma of another, even if it brings success, even life, is full of fear. Do not go into it.

To flow in swabhava means to flow surrendered into the Divine. Swabhava means the Divine—what Lao Tzu calls the Tao.

This is a little subtle, yet understandable and extremely necessary. What you say is perfectly right. You have attained knowing. The will of the Ultimate was that you go to war; you went. You fought the Mahabharata like Arjuna. People died. You cut them down. They felt pain.

Your knowing will not stop their pain. Because you act in the attitude of witnessing, it won’t give them any pleasure in dying. The pain in dying will be just the same. Whether you do it with witnessing or with dullness; whether you leave it to the Divine or do it yourself—none of this makes any difference to the one who is dying. In both cases he will suffer. So the question is: the pain that is happening to him—what will be its result?

Its result will be—and it will be for him. The pain is happening to him; he is responsible. Now understand this a little.

Suppose Arjuna is the killer and Buddha is the one being killed. Will Buddha suffer? Arjuna will kill according to the will of the Supreme; Buddha will die according to the will of the Supreme; the event of pain simply will not occur.

So if you are being killed by Arjuna and you are feeling pain, then you are responsible, not Arjuna. Arjuna is responsible only when he is killing; when he is killing out of his own desire, then he is responsible; then karmic bondage will accrue to him.

And remember: if Arjuna is killing Buddha out of his own will, and Buddha feels no pain, even then the sin-bondage for that pain—which never actually occurred—will accrue to Arjuna.

If ego has killed, then Arjuna’s very notion, “I am killing,” will be the cause of his sin-bondage. Whether Buddha felt pain or not is not the issue. You desired to kill, you killed, you did not leave yourself in the hands of God, you remained the doer—then karmic bondage will be yours.

As for the person who is dying because you kill him, for his pain he himself is responsible. Because it may well happen that if he is in the form of a witness, there will be no pain. He will see that dying is happening, but he will not be entangled in pain. If he does become entangled, then he alone is responsible.

If you have left it to God and killed someone—note this well. And do not think that whomever you kill, you are killing having left it to God. It is not so easy. To deceive is easy. You can recognize very clearly within whether you are killing, or whether this act is being done through you by the Divine.

- If, through killing, any past revenge is being taken, then you are killing; what revenge could the Divine have!
- If, through killing, any future fruit is being sought, then you are killing; what has the Divine to do with the future!
- If, should this man die, you will be pleased, and if he does not die, you will be displeased, then you are killing; what are pleasure and displeasure to the Divine!

If you have neither any past desire for revenge, nor any future expectation of fruit; if whether you lose or win makes no difference; then understand that you are fulfilling the will of the Divine; you are a mere instrument.

In such a state, if this man, at the time of death, suffers and feels pain, then that is his ignorance. He is taking his body to be “I am,” and therefore he takes the cutting of the body to be “I am dying.” Because of this ignorance he suffers; and because of this suffering he will gather further suffering in the future, will make his ignorance more dense, and will be tormented. You stand completely outside of this; you have nothing to do with it.