Free of attachment, without the claim ‘I am the doer’, endowed with steadfastness and zeal।
Unmoved in success and in failure—the doer is called sattvic।। 26।।
Attached, craving the fruit of action, greedy, violent in nature, impure।
Bound to joy and sorrow—the doer is proclaimed rajasic।। 27।।
Undisciplined, coarse, arrogant, deceitful, malicious, slothful।
Despondent and long-delaying—the doer is called tamasic।। 28।।
Geeta Darshan #8
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
मुक्तसङ्गोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वितः।
सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योर्निर्विकारः कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते।। 26।।
रागी कर्मफलप्रेप्सुर्लुब्धो हिंसात्मकोऽशुचिः।
हर्षशोकान्वितः कर्ता राजसः परिकीर्तितः।। 27।।
अयुक्तः प्राकृतः स्तब्धः शठो नैष्कृतिकोऽलसः।
विषादी दीर्घसूत्री च कर्ता तामस उच्यते।। 28।।
सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योर्निर्विकारः कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते।। 26।।
रागी कर्मफलप्रेप्सुर्लुब्धो हिंसात्मकोऽशुचिः।
हर्षशोकान्वितः कर्ता राजसः परिकीर्तितः।। 27।।
अयुक्तः प्राकृतः स्तब्धः शठो नैष्कृतिकोऽलसः।
विषादी दीर्घसूत्री च कर्ता तामस उच्यते।। 28।।
Transliteration:
muktasaṅgo'nahaṃvādī dhṛtyutsāhasamanvitaḥ|
siddhyasiddhyornirvikāraḥ kartā sāttvika ucyate|| 26||
rāgī karmaphalaprepsurlubdho hiṃsātmako'śuciḥ|
harṣaśokānvitaḥ kartā rājasaḥ parikīrtitaḥ|| 27||
ayuktaḥ prākṛtaḥ stabdhaḥ śaṭho naiṣkṛtiko'lasaḥ|
viṣādī dīrghasūtrī ca kartā tāmasa ucyate|| 28||
muktasaṅgo'nahaṃvādī dhṛtyutsāhasamanvitaḥ|
siddhyasiddhyornirvikāraḥ kartā sāttvika ucyate|| 26||
rāgī karmaphalaprepsurlubdho hiṃsātmako'śuciḥ|
harṣaśokānvitaḥ kartā rājasaḥ parikīrtitaḥ|| 27||
ayuktaḥ prākṛtaḥ stabdhaḥ śaṭho naiṣkṛtiko'lasaḥ|
viṣādī dīrghasūtrī ca kartā tāmasa ucyate|| 28||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
The first question:
Osho, the resolution I get by listening to you—my heart longs for it to remain permanent. If death were to occur in this very longing, would that not be samadhi? Lord Mahavira allowed such a death. Can you not give the same permission?
Osho, the resolution I get by listening to you—my heart longs for it to remain permanent. If death were to occur in this very longing, would that not be samadhi? Lord Mahavira allowed such a death. Can you not give the same permission?
Understand the question in three parts.
First: “The resolution I get by listening to you—my heart longs for it to remain permanent.”
If it is understanding, it is naturally permanent. To ache for permanence is futile. The desire to make something permanent arises only when there is no understanding. What is truly understood is understood; you cannot even manage to forget it. Even if you wanted to drop it, it would not leave you. It is when something has not been understood that the urge to grasp it arises—because there is fear it will slip away. Most likely you are not getting understanding; you are getting consolation. And you are making a mistake.
If you listen and feel consoled, then of course it will pass. It will last only as long as you are listening. Because what you are calling consolation comes from my words. Around my words your mind takes on a different tone for a while. For a little while you forget the world, business, the anxieties and bustle of life. For a little while you sit quietly near me; for a little while you begin to echo me.
But that echo is not yours; it is mine. What you feel then is reflection. As you move away from me, the reflection fades. By the time you reach home, you find yourself again in the old world—the same worries, the same pain, the same unrest, the same turmoil. Then a question arises: “I had attained a resolution, but it did not last.”
Understanding is, by its very nature, enduring. It does not change. What you had was consolation. It is like resting in the shade of a great tree: while you sit there the sun does not strike you; when you resume your journey, the sun beats down again.
Sitting with me you rest in a borrowed shade. For that while you can relax, but that shade cannot become your life’s wealth.
Understanding means that what I am saying is not merely reflected in you; rather, its meaning dawns within you. You are listening to me not only with your intellect but with your totality—every fiber listening, every heartbeat listening. While listening you have vanished. Not that you have merely forgotten the world; while listening, you are not. You are a clear, empty space. Then understanding is born.
Then, as you move away from me, understanding will not diminish—it will grow. Just as a small plant cannot grow under the shade of a large tree; it must move a little away.
As you go away, understanding grows, because the world becomes its touchstone. There the understanding is tested. There will be opportunities where it could be lost—and it won’t. Trust deepens; your feet find firm ground; your faith becomes profound. And that faith will not be in me; it will be in yourself. Until you trust yourself, you will fear that your understanding is borrowed, and may be lost.
So first, never mistake consolation for understanding. Consolation is superficial; it depends on someone else, not on you. Understanding arises because of you; its seed is planted within you; it grows within you. It is the development of your consciousness.
Understanding is your own wealth; consolation belongs to someone else. It is like counting another man’s cattle every evening as they return home and every morning as they go to the river. Buddha said: A man sits by the road and counts other people’s cows and buffaloes. What value is that counting? For a moment you may forget that you are poor; a beggar, standing before a king’s palace, may be dazzled and forget himself for a while. But sooner or later reality appears—the begging bowl is seen, and consolation is gone.
Consolation is of little real use. Care about understanding. It means: don’t drown in the poetry or the music of what I say, but in its meaning. Deepen that meaning in yourself. Test what I say in your life. When the moment comes, that is the test of whether it is consolation or understanding.
I have said about anger: watch it with awareness. The words are understood, but watching with awareness—that is not yet understood. You grasp what I said verbally, but not in its meaning. Go home; your wife says something; the fire of anger flares up—watch with awareness then. That is the real touchstone. Consolation will burn away; understanding will be refined. Consolation is rubbish; it turns to ash. Understanding emerges like pure gold—fire is the test.
That is why I say: don’t run away from the world. Learn from the awakened ones, but live in the world. Take the essence from them, but the touchstone is the marketplace. Meditation is not tested in the Himalayas; it is tested in the bazaar.
Otherwise, by listening you may get lost. The illusion can arise that by listening you have understood. Then you fall into a strange irony: you believe you possess what you do not. Years can be lost like this. Life is precious; do not waste it gathering consolation. The moments gone do not return.
So first, what you get by listening is consolation, not understanding. Hence the desire to make it permanent—because it keeps slipping away. Consolation cannot be made permanent. What should you do?
No need to desire; there is need only to seek understanding. The way to understanding is: test what I say in life’s situations. Give it chances to collide with storms and tempests. Many times your lamp will blow out. Do not be afraid. One day a moment will come when storms rage and the lamp does not go out. That day, understanding has come. One day tempests will rise and there will be no tremor within. That day, understanding has arrived.
It takes time. Understanding is not child’s play; it is mature growth, inner evolution. Understanding ultimately becomes samadhi. It is the preparation for samadhi within you; it is the foundation on which the temple of samadhi stands. It cannot be bought cheap. How will it come merely by listening to me? How many buddhas have there been! How many have listened! If listening were enough, the world would already be transformed. Do not fall into that error.
The Self is attained neither by sermons, nor by intellect, nor by much hearing. Na ayam atma pravachanena labhyo, na medhaya, na bahudha shrutena. However much you listen, you will not attain by listening.
Am I saying stop listening? No. Listen—but by listening alone you will not attain. Live! Listening gives you the sutras for living; by living, understanding arises. The gap between listening and living is exactly the distance between consolation and understanding.
Do not waste time, or you will regret it. While I am with you, I am giving you sutras; use them.
There is an old Arabian tale: three pilgrims were traveling. The desert sun was fierce. They could not travel by day, so they rested then and moved at night. On a moonless night, deep darkness—nothing visible. They came upon a dry riverbed, strewn with stones.
Suddenly a voice from the darkness called: Stop! Trembling, they stopped. The voice said: Do not fear; bend down. They bent. Perhaps a sword would fall on their necks—but the voice said: Pick up these stones and fill your pockets. It seemed absurd, pointless; but in the dark, better not to refuse. They filled their pockets. The voice said: Rise, continue your journey; do not camp anywhere; do not stop before dawn.
They walked on, shaken. And the voice had said: In the morning you will be happy—and you will be sad. All night they wondered: What can this mean? What trouble will the morning bring?
Morning came; the sun rose. They looked into their pockets. They rejoiced—and they wept. The stones were diamonds and jewels. They rejoiced that they had received such treasure for free; they wept that they had not gathered more.
While you are with me, gather as much as you can. Otherwise, one day you will be happy—and you will be sad.
Consolation is not enough. Rise above that illusion. Understanding is essential. And understanding means: what I say must descend into your life. The wonder is, it is not difficult—if you begin. A journey of a thousand miles is completed step by step.
But if you sit thinking, “A thousand miles! My weak body, my small feet—how will I ever make it?” and you do not take the first step, then even the shortest journey is never completed.
Yes, the body may be weak; yes, the feet may be small; perhaps you can take only one step at a time—but step by step a thousand miles are crossed.
Rise from consolation; move toward understanding. The steps may be small, but the goal is reached.
Religion is destroyed by consolation; then it becomes an opium. Marx said rightly that for thousands religion is an opiate. He is right—and nothing more wrong has ever been said than that either.
He is right as far as nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand are concerned—they have taken religion as consolation. Then it is opium: you drink it and doze. Nothing bears fruit; life is wasted, poured down the drain. You lose; you gain nothing. For those nine hundred and ninety-nine, Marx is absolutely right: religion is an opiate.
But there is one in a thousand for whom Marx is wrong—and that one is enough to make Marx wrong. For that one, religion is supreme awakening—not intoxication, but alertness. That is the true measure by which religion should be understood. The nine hundred and ninety-nine are simply misusing it. The fault is theirs, not religion’s.
Religion is to awaken you. But if you keep dozing off to religious talk, whose fault is it?
First, be alert to consolation. Second, do not even raise the issue of “making it permanent.” That desire is wrong. It means you are not in the present; you have moved ahead. You are thinking of tomorrow. Understanding is born today; you are already thinking how to make it permanent tomorrow.
One of my friends comes here. A doctor, well-educated. I do not say anything to him because he is very shy. He sits bent over, taking notes. He knows I am not in favor of it. He knows I know; he hides his diary from me. What is his intention? He is afraid he will forget what he is hearing, so he writes it down.
But if you did not understand me while I am alive and speaking, what will you understand by reading your dead diary at home? Here I speak living words; there the diary will be a corpse. It is not only his mistake; it is the mistake of millions.
The living master is ignored; when the master’s words are turned into scripture—when the diary has been written—then people begin to ponder.
You too were alive in Krishna’s time—how else could it be, for what is has always been. You missed then; now you read the Gita. You were alive in Buddha’s time—you missed then; now you read the Dhammapada. You heard Muhammad’s voice—but it did not descend into your being; now you memorize the Quran, staking even your life on it.
What is the matter? Why can’t you live now? That is the only way to live and to be—and to understand.
Understand what I am saying. Why worry about permanence? Remember: if you truly understand, it will remain—no need to think about it. If you do not, then however much you try to make it permanent, it cannot be. Let it sink into your flesh and bone, into your very breath—so deeply that even if you want to get rid of it, you cannot; even if you want to forget it, you cannot. How will you forget?
My own experience is: what is understood is never forgotten. If it is forgotten, it was never understood.
All that you studied in school, college, university—you have forgotten almost all of it, ninety-nine percent. Because it was never understood. And no one there cared whether you understood. They cared only that it serve you in the examination—that is all. If it stays in memory that long, it is sufficient; if you can write the answers, that’s enough—then forget it.
Could there be a more foolish state of education—everything taught only for the exam? After the exam, the examinee does not care whether anything remains or not. How much time wasted!
Understand just a few things—but understand them—so they become part of your life-breath. Then their lamp will keep burning; you will have light on dark roads. When life’s stench surrounds you, your inner fragrance will save you. When thorns pierce your feet, flowers within will shelter you.
Understanding is the boat, the only way, across the world. Do not be content with the counterfeit coins of consolation. Consolation is opium. Religion is not consolation; religion is samadhi—awakening.
Second: “If death were to occur in this very restlessness, would that not be samadhi?”
How can samadhi happen in restlessness? If there is no understanding yet, how will there be samadhi—which is far beyond? Thousands of understandings flow together and become samadhi—like thousands of rivers becoming the ocean, like thousands of trees becoming a forest. Rivers of understanding from many directions, many dimensions, flow into your being; a moment comes when you are brimming over, overflowing—so full you begin to pour and to share. Then understanding becomes samadhi.
No, restlessness will not do. Restlessness is a sick state—like a beggar with empty hands, crying and pleading. As long as there is asking, how can there be samadhi? As long as there are tears in the eyes, how can there be vision? As long as there is inner agitation, there is a storm—where is the peace, the music through which the Ultimate can be seen?
If you die restless, you will be born restless again; there will be no samadhi. You have died in restlessness many times—still no awakening! Sometimes you died restless for wealth, sometimes for love, sometimes for position. Now you have changed the object—restless for God—but you are still dying in restlessness. The old habit continues. The subject changes; you do not.
Whether you are restless for money or restless for religion—what difference does it make if the heart is restless? Imagine a fish on the sand, flopping in agony. Whether it flops for the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean—what difference does that make? It is flopping; life is burning on the sand.
Restlessness means you are not content with what is; you demand what is not. It means the way you are does not satisfy you, and your ideal of how you should be is not being fulfilled. Between your being and your ideal there is a gap.
So I say: one who yearns for money suffers a smaller restlessness; one who yearns for samadhi suffers a far greater one. For money can be attained; but samadhi?
Money is attained by many—even donkeys attain it. If you have a little intelligence, seeing those who have money, you will fold your hands and decide there is no need to go that way.
Posts and power are attained by fools as well. Anyone can get them; whoever obsesses like a madman will get them. Where is the challenge to your intelligence there? Look at your office-holders, your politicians: if you have intelligence, you will be hindered; if not, you will speed ahead.
I have heard: a brain surgeon operated on a politician. Something in the brain was faulty. He removed the entire brain. The operation would take hours; he closed the skull and set to other work. But can a politician sit in one place? He saw the surgeon busy and, feeling fine, he slipped away. The surgeon was shocked. When all was ready, the man was gone. After years of searching, no trace. Five years later he learned the man had become prime minister. The surgeon took the brain to him: “Sir, we have searched everywhere for you. Now we learn you are prime minister.” The politician said, “You take that brain back. That’s what was causing all the obstacles. Since I lost it, I have made such progress!”
A brain is a hindrance there. If you have a little intelligence, you will be obstructed. There, mindlessness advances. Look closely at politicians—their handsome bodies, their faces—and you will run. Look closely at the wealthy.
No—the ambitions for wealth and power may be fulfilled; their restlessness is not a great storm, merely little gusts. But if you are restless for God, your every pore will tremble.
If you die trembling like that, how will there be samadhi? Samadhi means unmoving. The light of life becomes steady, unwavering. The wise have said: it burns as in a room whose doors and windows are closed, where no breeze enters, and the lamp’s flame burns without a flutter. Such is the state of consciousness. In restlessness, how will it be unwavering? Only when all restlessness has disappeared does that state become available.
Do not think that if you die in restlessness, samadhi will happen—no. Why think of dying now? Are you so tired you see no hope of understanding in life? There is no reason for that.
And remember: what does not happen while living cannot happen in death either. Death is the culmination of life, its conclusion. Death does not come from outside; it is born within you, it grows. In death you will be exactly what you have made of yourself—it is the final resonance of your life’s music, the last climb of its notes. Beyond it there is nothing. Throughout life you are gathering it. Like a wave that rises and rises—the highest crest of the wave is death.
So do not hope to attain in death what you have not attained in life. What you do not realize today, how will you have tomorrow? What you do not gain this moment, from where will it come in the next?
The next moment is born from this one. Tomorrow springs from today. Death arises from within your life. Drop the worry; live this moment totally. Then tomorrow will be transformed. From tomorrow, the day after will be born. Step by step, from within you, it unfolds.
As life is put in order, you will find in death—you are in order. Then death will not seem an enemy; it will be a friend. It is life’s supreme height, its final proclamation. But if it is not in your life, to seek it in death is foolishness.
Third: “Mahavira allowed such a death; can you not grant such permission?”
No. I do not give permission for death; I give permission for life. I want you to live. I want you to live profoundly. I want you to live so deeply that even death is transformed. Your way of living should change death itself—so that death is included in your life, not something separate and alien; so that it becomes part of your celebration.
My emphasis is not on death; it is on life—and such fullness, such depth, such totality of life that even death cannot remain outside; it is included within it.
And the day you live even in death, that day death is finished. When, in the very moment of dying, your life’s depth remains undiminished, when your life’s music plays in its ultimate notes and death too adds its tone to that great symphony—know then, you have gone beyond death. That is life’s victory: to die and yet not die; to find the immortal in the very heart of death.
My emphasis is on life. I do not teach any kind of escape. I do not say: leave the marketplace and go to the forest; leave your home and be homeless; destroy life and embrace death. No. I say: do not choose between opposites; learn the harmony between them.
Mahavira may have given such an injunction because he is world-denying. His renunciation is one-sided; it faces toward death. He says: all is useless—drop it. I say: it is so useless, what is there to drop? Even to drop it suggests there was some substance in it—otherwise, why drop it?
Mahavira says: withdraw—everything is futile. I say: withdraw to where? Wherever you go, you will still be you. Nothing will change. I say: do not withdraw; transform. Mahavira emphasizes changing the situation; I emphasize changing your inner state.
Therefore Mahavira says: if from life the Divine cannot be attained, then die; there is no value in life. I say: even if you die, where will you go? You will be born again. You have died many times—have you understood yet? How many times! Can you count? But man does not learn from experience.
Mulla Nasruddin got married—perhaps the seventh time. Even so, there was band and music—not quite fitting for an old man’s wedding. On the wedding night, lying beside his bride, she asked: “Nasruddin, how many women have lain on this bed before me?” Seconds passed, then minutes; half an hour went by. She said, “I am still waiting; you have not answered.” He said, “Let me finish the counting; I am still counting.” Half an hour more—and he was still counting.
No matter how many times you go through the same act, understanding does not arise. Love a thousand times—if understanding comes, love becomes prayer; if not, it becomes a stench. Take birth a thousand times—if understanding comes, life becomes religion; if not, life remains a foul, decaying condition. When understanding comes, inner transformations begin.
You have died many times. Even now, at the slightest trouble, you prepare to die. Anyone is ready to die. I say: live. Dying is no bravery; it is the coward’s last resort—the final escape. People flee to the forest and cannot escape there either—so they die. Dying is total escape; then no one can pull you back.
But you yourself will return. Where will the escapee go? Running away shows desire is not dead; the craving to attain is not dead. You will return—by another door, in another body, with other garments, other forms—you will show up again.
No one has ever escaped that way. Therefore I never tell you to die. I do not teach self-destruction. I say: live—live to completion. Live so completely that even death cannot break your life. Attain such a life that when death happens, it happens only outside you; within, no ripple reaches. Die untouched by death.
Then there is no way for you to return. You have gone beyond. Then you attain the Great Life—not by dying, but by transforming this life.
First: “The resolution I get by listening to you—my heart longs for it to remain permanent.”
If it is understanding, it is naturally permanent. To ache for permanence is futile. The desire to make something permanent arises only when there is no understanding. What is truly understood is understood; you cannot even manage to forget it. Even if you wanted to drop it, it would not leave you. It is when something has not been understood that the urge to grasp it arises—because there is fear it will slip away. Most likely you are not getting understanding; you are getting consolation. And you are making a mistake.
If you listen and feel consoled, then of course it will pass. It will last only as long as you are listening. Because what you are calling consolation comes from my words. Around my words your mind takes on a different tone for a while. For a little while you forget the world, business, the anxieties and bustle of life. For a little while you sit quietly near me; for a little while you begin to echo me.
But that echo is not yours; it is mine. What you feel then is reflection. As you move away from me, the reflection fades. By the time you reach home, you find yourself again in the old world—the same worries, the same pain, the same unrest, the same turmoil. Then a question arises: “I had attained a resolution, but it did not last.”
Understanding is, by its very nature, enduring. It does not change. What you had was consolation. It is like resting in the shade of a great tree: while you sit there the sun does not strike you; when you resume your journey, the sun beats down again.
Sitting with me you rest in a borrowed shade. For that while you can relax, but that shade cannot become your life’s wealth.
Understanding means that what I am saying is not merely reflected in you; rather, its meaning dawns within you. You are listening to me not only with your intellect but with your totality—every fiber listening, every heartbeat listening. While listening you have vanished. Not that you have merely forgotten the world; while listening, you are not. You are a clear, empty space. Then understanding is born.
Then, as you move away from me, understanding will not diminish—it will grow. Just as a small plant cannot grow under the shade of a large tree; it must move a little away.
As you go away, understanding grows, because the world becomes its touchstone. There the understanding is tested. There will be opportunities where it could be lost—and it won’t. Trust deepens; your feet find firm ground; your faith becomes profound. And that faith will not be in me; it will be in yourself. Until you trust yourself, you will fear that your understanding is borrowed, and may be lost.
So first, never mistake consolation for understanding. Consolation is superficial; it depends on someone else, not on you. Understanding arises because of you; its seed is planted within you; it grows within you. It is the development of your consciousness.
Understanding is your own wealth; consolation belongs to someone else. It is like counting another man’s cattle every evening as they return home and every morning as they go to the river. Buddha said: A man sits by the road and counts other people’s cows and buffaloes. What value is that counting? For a moment you may forget that you are poor; a beggar, standing before a king’s palace, may be dazzled and forget himself for a while. But sooner or later reality appears—the begging bowl is seen, and consolation is gone.
Consolation is of little real use. Care about understanding. It means: don’t drown in the poetry or the music of what I say, but in its meaning. Deepen that meaning in yourself. Test what I say in your life. When the moment comes, that is the test of whether it is consolation or understanding.
I have said about anger: watch it with awareness. The words are understood, but watching with awareness—that is not yet understood. You grasp what I said verbally, but not in its meaning. Go home; your wife says something; the fire of anger flares up—watch with awareness then. That is the real touchstone. Consolation will burn away; understanding will be refined. Consolation is rubbish; it turns to ash. Understanding emerges like pure gold—fire is the test.
That is why I say: don’t run away from the world. Learn from the awakened ones, but live in the world. Take the essence from them, but the touchstone is the marketplace. Meditation is not tested in the Himalayas; it is tested in the bazaar.
Otherwise, by listening you may get lost. The illusion can arise that by listening you have understood. Then you fall into a strange irony: you believe you possess what you do not. Years can be lost like this. Life is precious; do not waste it gathering consolation. The moments gone do not return.
So first, what you get by listening is consolation, not understanding. Hence the desire to make it permanent—because it keeps slipping away. Consolation cannot be made permanent. What should you do?
No need to desire; there is need only to seek understanding. The way to understanding is: test what I say in life’s situations. Give it chances to collide with storms and tempests. Many times your lamp will blow out. Do not be afraid. One day a moment will come when storms rage and the lamp does not go out. That day, understanding has come. One day tempests will rise and there will be no tremor within. That day, understanding has arrived.
It takes time. Understanding is not child’s play; it is mature growth, inner evolution. Understanding ultimately becomes samadhi. It is the preparation for samadhi within you; it is the foundation on which the temple of samadhi stands. It cannot be bought cheap. How will it come merely by listening to me? How many buddhas have there been! How many have listened! If listening were enough, the world would already be transformed. Do not fall into that error.
The Self is attained neither by sermons, nor by intellect, nor by much hearing. Na ayam atma pravachanena labhyo, na medhaya, na bahudha shrutena. However much you listen, you will not attain by listening.
Am I saying stop listening? No. Listen—but by listening alone you will not attain. Live! Listening gives you the sutras for living; by living, understanding arises. The gap between listening and living is exactly the distance between consolation and understanding.
Do not waste time, or you will regret it. While I am with you, I am giving you sutras; use them.
There is an old Arabian tale: three pilgrims were traveling. The desert sun was fierce. They could not travel by day, so they rested then and moved at night. On a moonless night, deep darkness—nothing visible. They came upon a dry riverbed, strewn with stones.
Suddenly a voice from the darkness called: Stop! Trembling, they stopped. The voice said: Do not fear; bend down. They bent. Perhaps a sword would fall on their necks—but the voice said: Pick up these stones and fill your pockets. It seemed absurd, pointless; but in the dark, better not to refuse. They filled their pockets. The voice said: Rise, continue your journey; do not camp anywhere; do not stop before dawn.
They walked on, shaken. And the voice had said: In the morning you will be happy—and you will be sad. All night they wondered: What can this mean? What trouble will the morning bring?
Morning came; the sun rose. They looked into their pockets. They rejoiced—and they wept. The stones were diamonds and jewels. They rejoiced that they had received such treasure for free; they wept that they had not gathered more.
While you are with me, gather as much as you can. Otherwise, one day you will be happy—and you will be sad.
Consolation is not enough. Rise above that illusion. Understanding is essential. And understanding means: what I say must descend into your life. The wonder is, it is not difficult—if you begin. A journey of a thousand miles is completed step by step.
But if you sit thinking, “A thousand miles! My weak body, my small feet—how will I ever make it?” and you do not take the first step, then even the shortest journey is never completed.
Yes, the body may be weak; yes, the feet may be small; perhaps you can take only one step at a time—but step by step a thousand miles are crossed.
Rise from consolation; move toward understanding. The steps may be small, but the goal is reached.
Religion is destroyed by consolation; then it becomes an opium. Marx said rightly that for thousands religion is an opiate. He is right—and nothing more wrong has ever been said than that either.
He is right as far as nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand are concerned—they have taken religion as consolation. Then it is opium: you drink it and doze. Nothing bears fruit; life is wasted, poured down the drain. You lose; you gain nothing. For those nine hundred and ninety-nine, Marx is absolutely right: religion is an opiate.
But there is one in a thousand for whom Marx is wrong—and that one is enough to make Marx wrong. For that one, religion is supreme awakening—not intoxication, but alertness. That is the true measure by which religion should be understood. The nine hundred and ninety-nine are simply misusing it. The fault is theirs, not religion’s.
Religion is to awaken you. But if you keep dozing off to religious talk, whose fault is it?
First, be alert to consolation. Second, do not even raise the issue of “making it permanent.” That desire is wrong. It means you are not in the present; you have moved ahead. You are thinking of tomorrow. Understanding is born today; you are already thinking how to make it permanent tomorrow.
One of my friends comes here. A doctor, well-educated. I do not say anything to him because he is very shy. He sits bent over, taking notes. He knows I am not in favor of it. He knows I know; he hides his diary from me. What is his intention? He is afraid he will forget what he is hearing, so he writes it down.
But if you did not understand me while I am alive and speaking, what will you understand by reading your dead diary at home? Here I speak living words; there the diary will be a corpse. It is not only his mistake; it is the mistake of millions.
The living master is ignored; when the master’s words are turned into scripture—when the diary has been written—then people begin to ponder.
You too were alive in Krishna’s time—how else could it be, for what is has always been. You missed then; now you read the Gita. You were alive in Buddha’s time—you missed then; now you read the Dhammapada. You heard Muhammad’s voice—but it did not descend into your being; now you memorize the Quran, staking even your life on it.
What is the matter? Why can’t you live now? That is the only way to live and to be—and to understand.
Understand what I am saying. Why worry about permanence? Remember: if you truly understand, it will remain—no need to think about it. If you do not, then however much you try to make it permanent, it cannot be. Let it sink into your flesh and bone, into your very breath—so deeply that even if you want to get rid of it, you cannot; even if you want to forget it, you cannot. How will you forget?
My own experience is: what is understood is never forgotten. If it is forgotten, it was never understood.
All that you studied in school, college, university—you have forgotten almost all of it, ninety-nine percent. Because it was never understood. And no one there cared whether you understood. They cared only that it serve you in the examination—that is all. If it stays in memory that long, it is sufficient; if you can write the answers, that’s enough—then forget it.
Could there be a more foolish state of education—everything taught only for the exam? After the exam, the examinee does not care whether anything remains or not. How much time wasted!
Understand just a few things—but understand them—so they become part of your life-breath. Then their lamp will keep burning; you will have light on dark roads. When life’s stench surrounds you, your inner fragrance will save you. When thorns pierce your feet, flowers within will shelter you.
Understanding is the boat, the only way, across the world. Do not be content with the counterfeit coins of consolation. Consolation is opium. Religion is not consolation; religion is samadhi—awakening.
Second: “If death were to occur in this very restlessness, would that not be samadhi?”
How can samadhi happen in restlessness? If there is no understanding yet, how will there be samadhi—which is far beyond? Thousands of understandings flow together and become samadhi—like thousands of rivers becoming the ocean, like thousands of trees becoming a forest. Rivers of understanding from many directions, many dimensions, flow into your being; a moment comes when you are brimming over, overflowing—so full you begin to pour and to share. Then understanding becomes samadhi.
No, restlessness will not do. Restlessness is a sick state—like a beggar with empty hands, crying and pleading. As long as there is asking, how can there be samadhi? As long as there are tears in the eyes, how can there be vision? As long as there is inner agitation, there is a storm—where is the peace, the music through which the Ultimate can be seen?
If you die restless, you will be born restless again; there will be no samadhi. You have died in restlessness many times—still no awakening! Sometimes you died restless for wealth, sometimes for love, sometimes for position. Now you have changed the object—restless for God—but you are still dying in restlessness. The old habit continues. The subject changes; you do not.
Whether you are restless for money or restless for religion—what difference does it make if the heart is restless? Imagine a fish on the sand, flopping in agony. Whether it flops for the Pacific Ocean or the Indian Ocean—what difference does that make? It is flopping; life is burning on the sand.
Restlessness means you are not content with what is; you demand what is not. It means the way you are does not satisfy you, and your ideal of how you should be is not being fulfilled. Between your being and your ideal there is a gap.
So I say: one who yearns for money suffers a smaller restlessness; one who yearns for samadhi suffers a far greater one. For money can be attained; but samadhi?
Money is attained by many—even donkeys attain it. If you have a little intelligence, seeing those who have money, you will fold your hands and decide there is no need to go that way.
Posts and power are attained by fools as well. Anyone can get them; whoever obsesses like a madman will get them. Where is the challenge to your intelligence there? Look at your office-holders, your politicians: if you have intelligence, you will be hindered; if not, you will speed ahead.
I have heard: a brain surgeon operated on a politician. Something in the brain was faulty. He removed the entire brain. The operation would take hours; he closed the skull and set to other work. But can a politician sit in one place? He saw the surgeon busy and, feeling fine, he slipped away. The surgeon was shocked. When all was ready, the man was gone. After years of searching, no trace. Five years later he learned the man had become prime minister. The surgeon took the brain to him: “Sir, we have searched everywhere for you. Now we learn you are prime minister.” The politician said, “You take that brain back. That’s what was causing all the obstacles. Since I lost it, I have made such progress!”
A brain is a hindrance there. If you have a little intelligence, you will be obstructed. There, mindlessness advances. Look closely at politicians—their handsome bodies, their faces—and you will run. Look closely at the wealthy.
No—the ambitions for wealth and power may be fulfilled; their restlessness is not a great storm, merely little gusts. But if you are restless for God, your every pore will tremble.
If you die trembling like that, how will there be samadhi? Samadhi means unmoving. The light of life becomes steady, unwavering. The wise have said: it burns as in a room whose doors and windows are closed, where no breeze enters, and the lamp’s flame burns without a flutter. Such is the state of consciousness. In restlessness, how will it be unwavering? Only when all restlessness has disappeared does that state become available.
Do not think that if you die in restlessness, samadhi will happen—no. Why think of dying now? Are you so tired you see no hope of understanding in life? There is no reason for that.
And remember: what does not happen while living cannot happen in death either. Death is the culmination of life, its conclusion. Death does not come from outside; it is born within you, it grows. In death you will be exactly what you have made of yourself—it is the final resonance of your life’s music, the last climb of its notes. Beyond it there is nothing. Throughout life you are gathering it. Like a wave that rises and rises—the highest crest of the wave is death.
So do not hope to attain in death what you have not attained in life. What you do not realize today, how will you have tomorrow? What you do not gain this moment, from where will it come in the next?
The next moment is born from this one. Tomorrow springs from today. Death arises from within your life. Drop the worry; live this moment totally. Then tomorrow will be transformed. From tomorrow, the day after will be born. Step by step, from within you, it unfolds.
As life is put in order, you will find in death—you are in order. Then death will not seem an enemy; it will be a friend. It is life’s supreme height, its final proclamation. But if it is not in your life, to seek it in death is foolishness.
Third: “Mahavira allowed such a death; can you not grant such permission?”
No. I do not give permission for death; I give permission for life. I want you to live. I want you to live profoundly. I want you to live so deeply that even death is transformed. Your way of living should change death itself—so that death is included in your life, not something separate and alien; so that it becomes part of your celebration.
My emphasis is not on death; it is on life—and such fullness, such depth, such totality of life that even death cannot remain outside; it is included within it.
And the day you live even in death, that day death is finished. When, in the very moment of dying, your life’s depth remains undiminished, when your life’s music plays in its ultimate notes and death too adds its tone to that great symphony—know then, you have gone beyond death. That is life’s victory: to die and yet not die; to find the immortal in the very heart of death.
My emphasis is on life. I do not teach any kind of escape. I do not say: leave the marketplace and go to the forest; leave your home and be homeless; destroy life and embrace death. No. I say: do not choose between opposites; learn the harmony between them.
Mahavira may have given such an injunction because he is world-denying. His renunciation is one-sided; it faces toward death. He says: all is useless—drop it. I say: it is so useless, what is there to drop? Even to drop it suggests there was some substance in it—otherwise, why drop it?
Mahavira says: withdraw—everything is futile. I say: withdraw to where? Wherever you go, you will still be you. Nothing will change. I say: do not withdraw; transform. Mahavira emphasizes changing the situation; I emphasize changing your inner state.
Therefore Mahavira says: if from life the Divine cannot be attained, then die; there is no value in life. I say: even if you die, where will you go? You will be born again. You have died many times—have you understood yet? How many times! Can you count? But man does not learn from experience.
Mulla Nasruddin got married—perhaps the seventh time. Even so, there was band and music—not quite fitting for an old man’s wedding. On the wedding night, lying beside his bride, she asked: “Nasruddin, how many women have lain on this bed before me?” Seconds passed, then minutes; half an hour went by. She said, “I am still waiting; you have not answered.” He said, “Let me finish the counting; I am still counting.” Half an hour more—and he was still counting.
No matter how many times you go through the same act, understanding does not arise. Love a thousand times—if understanding comes, love becomes prayer; if not, it becomes a stench. Take birth a thousand times—if understanding comes, life becomes religion; if not, life remains a foul, decaying condition. When understanding comes, inner transformations begin.
You have died many times. Even now, at the slightest trouble, you prepare to die. Anyone is ready to die. I say: live. Dying is no bravery; it is the coward’s last resort—the final escape. People flee to the forest and cannot escape there either—so they die. Dying is total escape; then no one can pull you back.
But you yourself will return. Where will the escapee go? Running away shows desire is not dead; the craving to attain is not dead. You will return—by another door, in another body, with other garments, other forms—you will show up again.
No one has ever escaped that way. Therefore I never tell you to die. I do not teach self-destruction. I say: live—live to completion. Live so completely that even death cannot break your life. Attain such a life that when death happens, it happens only outside you; within, no ripple reaches. Die untouched by death.
Then there is no way for you to return. You have gone beyond. Then you attain the Great Life—not by dying, but by transforming this life.
Second question:
Osho, the Gita says that for action to be sattvic it must be free of the pride of doership and devoid of desire for fruits, and also prescribed by the scriptures. But isn’t freedom from doership and fruit-desire sufficient for an action to be scripturally sound?
Osho, the Gita says that for action to be sattvic it must be free of the pride of doership and devoid of desire for fruits, and also prescribed by the scriptures. But isn’t freedom from doership and fruit-desire sufficient for an action to be scripturally sound?
Man is very complex and life is very subtle. Therefore one must walk very carefully. At first sight it seems that when action is free of the desire for results, it is free of ego. Then why the need for it to be in accord with scripture? That should be enough. Why has this additional condition—being scripturally sanctioned—been added? This condition too needs to be understood. Since Krishna has placed it, there are profound reasons.
You can deceive yourself in infinitely many ways; hence this condition. If you did not deceive yourself, there would be no need for the sanction of scripture. But to find someone who deceives himself as much as you do is difficult.
You can assume you have become egoless without having become so. In fact, countless people believe they have no ego. And even as they say this, you can see in their eyes the flames of ego burning.
Many say, “We are not acting out of any desire for results; it is God who is doing it through us.” But look closely: they have no acquaintance at all with the God they invoke as the doer. In truth they are using even God for their own interests. Whatever they want to do, they say God is making them do.
And if one keeps deceiving oneself, one gets so entangled in one’s own web that one no longer knows where or how to get out. Your own mind will go on telling you, “It is God who is doing it; keep doing it.”
How will you recognize whether it is your mind speaking or God acting through you? Have you ever heard God’s voice, by which you could test and know that it is not your mind that is speaking but God who is making it happen?
The ego is so skillful it can hide even inside egolessness. It can say, “Who is as humble as I am!” But “Who is as humble as I?” is the very proclamation of ego: “Who is like me?”
People come and say, “I am but the dust of your feet.” They are actually inviting you to deny it: “No, no—how can you be just the dust of my feet!” If you accept it and say, “You are absolutely right; I already knew you are the dust of my feet,” the person will be offended. He will be offended by your accepting exactly what he himself said.
People come to me and say, “We are utterly dishonest, thieves—how can we surrender!” If I tell them, “You are saying it exactly right,” they look at me startled, as if I seem utterly uncultured: “Was that something to say?” They were only observing courtesy, and I accepted it. No—their real hope was that I would say, “You, dishonest? Never!” Then their ego is gratified.
Such are the intricate nets. Therefore Krishna has added the condition that it be in accord with scripture.
What is scripture? Scripture is the utterance of those who have known. If your life aligns with their word, the mind will not be able to deceive you; if it does not align, the mind can deceive you. If you feel your stream of life is flowing wholly in accord with what they have said, it becomes a touchstone for you. Scripture is only a touchstone—a device, an arrangement—so that the mind cannot cheat you.
If you think the scripture creates some obstacle, the meaning is clear: the mind is afraid of scripture. Scripture speaks plainly, and the mind fears that its means of deception will be reduced, that trickery will become difficult, that the possibility of self-delusion will collapse. Hence the mind says, “Leave me to myself. If I alone am, what need is there of any scripture?”
But if you were sufficient by yourself, there would certainly be no need for scripture. You are not sufficient. You need some touchstone within by which you can keep testing yourself and stay protected from deception.
Scripture is the distillation of centuries upon centuries. It is the essence of what hundreds of enlightened ones have known over thousands of years. It is not the fragrance of a single flower; it is a perfume extracted from thousands of flowers—the quintessence of millions of experiences—coming to you after a long journey. The Ganges of scripture flows by your side. Whenever you have doubt or dilemma, you can go to that Ganges and take your decision.
But there is no end to man’s deceptions. One can deceive oneself even through scripture, because scripture is dead. You can impose your own interpretations upon it. When you read scripture, you are hardly reading scripture; you are reading yourself into it. You read what you want to read.
Therefore, above scripture the enlightened master is placed. All these arrangements have had to be made because of your dishonesty. You will not be able to interpret the master; he sits living before you. You cannot deceive yourself with your interpretations. Hence we hold the master as supreme.
If Krishna is available, then do not bother about the Gita—for in the Gita there is danger. There are a thousand commentaries on the Gita. If Krishna himself were to come now, his head would spin—one thousand interpretations of Krishna’s words! That would mean either that what Krishna spoke had a thousand meanings—in which case Arjuna would have gone mad instead of attaining samadhi—or else Krishna had one meaning, one tone, one continuous hammering upon Arjuna.
But how have these thousand interpretations arisen? It is a thousand people’s own experiences being superimposed on the Gita.
If Krishna is available, do not bother about the Gita. The first task is to find Krishna. That is why in olden days the seeker first searched for the master. If the true master could not be found—if it was impossible to meet one—then he turned to scripture. That is number two, second best, not number one.
If even scripture is not available, then one relies on one’s own discernment—that is number three. But there is risk even in relying on one’s own discernment; take support from scripture. There too a little risk remains. If the master is not found, then in compulsion, scripture—otherwise there is no need, for then the master himself is the scripture.
Arjuna asked Krishna. Do you think there were no scriptures that day? The Vedas and Upanishads existed; Arjuna could have gone and consulted them. But no—when the living scripture is present, why ask the Vedas? When the very voice that resounded in the Vedas is present, why ask the Vedas? He asked Krishna. And now, when you are in need, you ask the Gita. You are making the very mistake Arjuna did not make.
Go, search for the true master. Scripture is available cheap—yes, it is sold in the marketplace. Finding the master will be difficult. But the one who finds the master is fortunate, because then self-deception comes to an end.
All these conditions have been laid down because of you. If you did not deceive yourself, there would be no need of guru or scripture. But the great problem is: you not deceiving yourself. It seems almost impossible. You will deceive yourself.
What I am telling you, you hardly hear as I am telling it, for when people come and report to me what I have said, I am startled.
About ten days ago a young man came and said, “Ever since I read your books and listened to you, only one aspiration has arisen in me: how to develop will power.” I said, “You are saying this to my face? I go on shouting about how to surrender—and where did you read about will power?” He said, “In your very books and your very talks.”
He was a little startled when I denied it, yet he had been completely certain when he first said he had learned it from me. I said, “You are making a mistake somewhere. You want to increase will power because somewhere within you there is an inferiority complex. You think of yourself as inferior, as small, as weak.”
“It shows in your manner. When you walk there is no force in it. It shows in your eyes—if someone looks at you closely, you avert your gaze. Even as you speak, your head is bowed. You are hesitant, full of doubt. Your hand is trembling. The paper you have brought with your questions—you hold it in your hand and your hand trembles.
“And why did you come with your questions written on paper? Since you came to meet me, you could have spoken directly. You do not even trust yourself to ask what you want to ask, so you wrote it down. There is a deep inferiority complex within you, and because of it there is a craving to increase will power. I have never taught that. You have come to the wrong man.”
How did this man read this? He is educated, a university man, a lecturer in a college. How did he read what I have never said?
He simply spread his own mind over my words; he colored what I have said with his own mind. So he said, “Let that be, but tell me how to increase will power. Let it be—you may not have said it, I won’t get into that tangle—but please tell me how to increase will power.”
I said, “Then ask directly—why drag me into it? And I am against will power, because my whole message is that all strengthening of the will only nourishes the ego. What is needed is surrender. Ask how to let go. What is there to increase? It has to be erased, lost, dissolved.”
At once the connection snapped—as if he had no relation with me any more, the conversation broke. If even before a living person we try to impose ourselves, what to say of a dead scripture! It is hard to say what abuses you commit with it—you extract whatever meaning you wish.
Therefore I say to you: if you can find Krishna, throw the Gita into the fire; offer it up. If you cannot find him, then what to do? In that compulsion, seek support in words. If even that is not available, there is a still greater compulsion: then try to walk on your own feet as far as you can—perhaps a path will open.
But the true master is always available. In this vastness of the divine it cannot be that for one who truly longs, the master is absent.
If there is hunger, there is food; if there is thirst, there is water. If there is longing, there will be a master—somewhere he will be. Perhaps you will have to search a little. The more precious the thing to be found, the longer it takes, the harder it seems, the more labor it demands. If there are obstacles, they will be because of you. No master has erected obstacles around himself; you carry your obstacles around you.
I was reading a memoir by an American poet. He wrote that one night he boarded a train to go to California. In the compartment there was another young man, about thirty. No one else. At night both slept; in the morning they introduced themselves to each other. The young man said to the poet, “Forgive me, let me sit by that window.” The poet asked, “Why? There are so many windows—why that one? There are only the two of us in this compartment.”
The young man said, “Since you ask, I will tell you. Ten years ago I committed a heinous crime and was sent to prison for ten years. I am now released and returning home. I am anxious. In all these ten years no one from my family came to visit me in jail. I hope it was because they are simple, rural folk, and such a journey of hundreds of miles would have been impossible for them. But who knows—perhaps they have disowned me. In ten years not a single letter came from my family. I hope it is because they are uneducated and could not write; but there is also the fear that perhaps they deliberately did not write. They could have had someone write for them! They are poor and uneducated, but noble and very self-respecting. Because my act brought disgrace to them, perhaps they will not be willing to accept me.
“So I wrote to them: ‘I am coming on such-and-such a train. At daybreak, as the sun rises, the train will enter the village. Just outside the village, to the east of the station, is our field. In it there is a large apple tree very close to the railway line. Tie a white flag on it so I may know I can return home. If I see the white flag, I will get down at the station and come home; if not, I will stay on the train, get off anywhere, and lose myself in the world—you will never hear my name again.’
“So let me sit here—this window will give a clear view of the tree.” The poet too was moved and gave him the seat. But as the village drew near, the young man became restless; tears were streaming from his eyes.
He pleaded again with the poet, “Please, you sit back here. My eyes are so filled with tears I cannot see. Please look for me—lest the flag be there and I fail to see it, or the flag not be there and, because I am so emotional, I imagine it. You sit here and tell me.”
The poet too became emotional and sat there, gazing out. As soon as the tree came into view, tears began to stream from his eyes as well. The young man shook him and asked, “Is there no flag?” He replied, “No—I am not crying because there is no flag. I am crying because the whole tree is covered with flags. I cannot even see the leaves—they have tied thousands of flags.”
If there are obstacles, they can only be because of you. God is waiting for you with thousands of flags tied to the tree. This is only natural—you are born of him. No matter how much you have wandered in the world, no matter how heinous your acts, what difference does it make! Even if he has not come to meet you, what difference! Even if he has not written a letter, what difference! The doors of the heart never close. The one from whom you were born does not close his doors to you.
Search a little. Make a little effort. If you cannot see with your own eyes, then see through the eyes of the master. Perhaps your eyes are too full of pain, of tears, of emotion, of expectations, of fear.
This is all that “master” means: he has clear eyes in which no tears float, no pain descends, no pleasure excites, no sorrow overwhelms. His eyes are now bare, clear, spotless. He can see directly.
If you are trembling, then see through one who is not trembling. He will give you the precise address of your home.
If a master is not available—not because masters do not exist; masters are always there, the earth is never empty of them—if you cannot find one, the reason will be you. For to find a master means learning the art of bowing at someone’s feet. That will be difficult for you. And if that is difficult, know that scripture will not help you either; for if you cannot bow at a master’s feet, how will you bow at the feet of scripture? You may bend your head, but you will not truly bow. You will superimpose yourself on the scripture; you will not allow the scripture to be superimposed on you.
Therefore it is a strange but delightful thing: the one who can benefit from the master can also benefit from scripture; the one who can benefit from scripture can also proceed without scripture. The one who cannot benefit from the master will not be able to benefit from scripture either; and the one who cannot benefit from scripture will not be able to benefit from himself.
Hence I am repeatedly charmed by Jesus’ saying: “To those who have, more will be given; and from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.”
The one who can benefit from the master will be able to benefit from scripture too—more will be given to him. The one who can benefit from scripture will be able to benefit from himself as well—more will be given to him.
Open up—do not fear the conditions. You will have to exercise a little control over the mind, and only for a few days. Once you begin to live apart from the mind, neither master nor scripture is needed. Then you are the master, you are the scripture.
And the whole endeavor of all masters is just this: that the master within you may become available to you.
You can deceive yourself in infinitely many ways; hence this condition. If you did not deceive yourself, there would be no need for the sanction of scripture. But to find someone who deceives himself as much as you do is difficult.
You can assume you have become egoless without having become so. In fact, countless people believe they have no ego. And even as they say this, you can see in their eyes the flames of ego burning.
Many say, “We are not acting out of any desire for results; it is God who is doing it through us.” But look closely: they have no acquaintance at all with the God they invoke as the doer. In truth they are using even God for their own interests. Whatever they want to do, they say God is making them do.
And if one keeps deceiving oneself, one gets so entangled in one’s own web that one no longer knows where or how to get out. Your own mind will go on telling you, “It is God who is doing it; keep doing it.”
How will you recognize whether it is your mind speaking or God acting through you? Have you ever heard God’s voice, by which you could test and know that it is not your mind that is speaking but God who is making it happen?
The ego is so skillful it can hide even inside egolessness. It can say, “Who is as humble as I am!” But “Who is as humble as I?” is the very proclamation of ego: “Who is like me?”
People come and say, “I am but the dust of your feet.” They are actually inviting you to deny it: “No, no—how can you be just the dust of my feet!” If you accept it and say, “You are absolutely right; I already knew you are the dust of my feet,” the person will be offended. He will be offended by your accepting exactly what he himself said.
People come to me and say, “We are utterly dishonest, thieves—how can we surrender!” If I tell them, “You are saying it exactly right,” they look at me startled, as if I seem utterly uncultured: “Was that something to say?” They were only observing courtesy, and I accepted it. No—their real hope was that I would say, “You, dishonest? Never!” Then their ego is gratified.
Such are the intricate nets. Therefore Krishna has added the condition that it be in accord with scripture.
What is scripture? Scripture is the utterance of those who have known. If your life aligns with their word, the mind will not be able to deceive you; if it does not align, the mind can deceive you. If you feel your stream of life is flowing wholly in accord with what they have said, it becomes a touchstone for you. Scripture is only a touchstone—a device, an arrangement—so that the mind cannot cheat you.
If you think the scripture creates some obstacle, the meaning is clear: the mind is afraid of scripture. Scripture speaks plainly, and the mind fears that its means of deception will be reduced, that trickery will become difficult, that the possibility of self-delusion will collapse. Hence the mind says, “Leave me to myself. If I alone am, what need is there of any scripture?”
But if you were sufficient by yourself, there would certainly be no need for scripture. You are not sufficient. You need some touchstone within by which you can keep testing yourself and stay protected from deception.
Scripture is the distillation of centuries upon centuries. It is the essence of what hundreds of enlightened ones have known over thousands of years. It is not the fragrance of a single flower; it is a perfume extracted from thousands of flowers—the quintessence of millions of experiences—coming to you after a long journey. The Ganges of scripture flows by your side. Whenever you have doubt or dilemma, you can go to that Ganges and take your decision.
But there is no end to man’s deceptions. One can deceive oneself even through scripture, because scripture is dead. You can impose your own interpretations upon it. When you read scripture, you are hardly reading scripture; you are reading yourself into it. You read what you want to read.
Therefore, above scripture the enlightened master is placed. All these arrangements have had to be made because of your dishonesty. You will not be able to interpret the master; he sits living before you. You cannot deceive yourself with your interpretations. Hence we hold the master as supreme.
If Krishna is available, then do not bother about the Gita—for in the Gita there is danger. There are a thousand commentaries on the Gita. If Krishna himself were to come now, his head would spin—one thousand interpretations of Krishna’s words! That would mean either that what Krishna spoke had a thousand meanings—in which case Arjuna would have gone mad instead of attaining samadhi—or else Krishna had one meaning, one tone, one continuous hammering upon Arjuna.
But how have these thousand interpretations arisen? It is a thousand people’s own experiences being superimposed on the Gita.
If Krishna is available, do not bother about the Gita. The first task is to find Krishna. That is why in olden days the seeker first searched for the master. If the true master could not be found—if it was impossible to meet one—then he turned to scripture. That is number two, second best, not number one.
If even scripture is not available, then one relies on one’s own discernment—that is number three. But there is risk even in relying on one’s own discernment; take support from scripture. There too a little risk remains. If the master is not found, then in compulsion, scripture—otherwise there is no need, for then the master himself is the scripture.
Arjuna asked Krishna. Do you think there were no scriptures that day? The Vedas and Upanishads existed; Arjuna could have gone and consulted them. But no—when the living scripture is present, why ask the Vedas? When the very voice that resounded in the Vedas is present, why ask the Vedas? He asked Krishna. And now, when you are in need, you ask the Gita. You are making the very mistake Arjuna did not make.
Go, search for the true master. Scripture is available cheap—yes, it is sold in the marketplace. Finding the master will be difficult. But the one who finds the master is fortunate, because then self-deception comes to an end.
All these conditions have been laid down because of you. If you did not deceive yourself, there would be no need of guru or scripture. But the great problem is: you not deceiving yourself. It seems almost impossible. You will deceive yourself.
What I am telling you, you hardly hear as I am telling it, for when people come and report to me what I have said, I am startled.
About ten days ago a young man came and said, “Ever since I read your books and listened to you, only one aspiration has arisen in me: how to develop will power.” I said, “You are saying this to my face? I go on shouting about how to surrender—and where did you read about will power?” He said, “In your very books and your very talks.”
He was a little startled when I denied it, yet he had been completely certain when he first said he had learned it from me. I said, “You are making a mistake somewhere. You want to increase will power because somewhere within you there is an inferiority complex. You think of yourself as inferior, as small, as weak.”
“It shows in your manner. When you walk there is no force in it. It shows in your eyes—if someone looks at you closely, you avert your gaze. Even as you speak, your head is bowed. You are hesitant, full of doubt. Your hand is trembling. The paper you have brought with your questions—you hold it in your hand and your hand trembles.
“And why did you come with your questions written on paper? Since you came to meet me, you could have spoken directly. You do not even trust yourself to ask what you want to ask, so you wrote it down. There is a deep inferiority complex within you, and because of it there is a craving to increase will power. I have never taught that. You have come to the wrong man.”
How did this man read this? He is educated, a university man, a lecturer in a college. How did he read what I have never said?
He simply spread his own mind over my words; he colored what I have said with his own mind. So he said, “Let that be, but tell me how to increase will power. Let it be—you may not have said it, I won’t get into that tangle—but please tell me how to increase will power.”
I said, “Then ask directly—why drag me into it? And I am against will power, because my whole message is that all strengthening of the will only nourishes the ego. What is needed is surrender. Ask how to let go. What is there to increase? It has to be erased, lost, dissolved.”
At once the connection snapped—as if he had no relation with me any more, the conversation broke. If even before a living person we try to impose ourselves, what to say of a dead scripture! It is hard to say what abuses you commit with it—you extract whatever meaning you wish.
Therefore I say to you: if you can find Krishna, throw the Gita into the fire; offer it up. If you cannot find him, then what to do? In that compulsion, seek support in words. If even that is not available, there is a still greater compulsion: then try to walk on your own feet as far as you can—perhaps a path will open.
But the true master is always available. In this vastness of the divine it cannot be that for one who truly longs, the master is absent.
If there is hunger, there is food; if there is thirst, there is water. If there is longing, there will be a master—somewhere he will be. Perhaps you will have to search a little. The more precious the thing to be found, the longer it takes, the harder it seems, the more labor it demands. If there are obstacles, they will be because of you. No master has erected obstacles around himself; you carry your obstacles around you.
I was reading a memoir by an American poet. He wrote that one night he boarded a train to go to California. In the compartment there was another young man, about thirty. No one else. At night both slept; in the morning they introduced themselves to each other. The young man said to the poet, “Forgive me, let me sit by that window.” The poet asked, “Why? There are so many windows—why that one? There are only the two of us in this compartment.”
The young man said, “Since you ask, I will tell you. Ten years ago I committed a heinous crime and was sent to prison for ten years. I am now released and returning home. I am anxious. In all these ten years no one from my family came to visit me in jail. I hope it was because they are simple, rural folk, and such a journey of hundreds of miles would have been impossible for them. But who knows—perhaps they have disowned me. In ten years not a single letter came from my family. I hope it is because they are uneducated and could not write; but there is also the fear that perhaps they deliberately did not write. They could have had someone write for them! They are poor and uneducated, but noble and very self-respecting. Because my act brought disgrace to them, perhaps they will not be willing to accept me.
“So I wrote to them: ‘I am coming on such-and-such a train. At daybreak, as the sun rises, the train will enter the village. Just outside the village, to the east of the station, is our field. In it there is a large apple tree very close to the railway line. Tie a white flag on it so I may know I can return home. If I see the white flag, I will get down at the station and come home; if not, I will stay on the train, get off anywhere, and lose myself in the world—you will never hear my name again.’
“So let me sit here—this window will give a clear view of the tree.” The poet too was moved and gave him the seat. But as the village drew near, the young man became restless; tears were streaming from his eyes.
He pleaded again with the poet, “Please, you sit back here. My eyes are so filled with tears I cannot see. Please look for me—lest the flag be there and I fail to see it, or the flag not be there and, because I am so emotional, I imagine it. You sit here and tell me.”
The poet too became emotional and sat there, gazing out. As soon as the tree came into view, tears began to stream from his eyes as well. The young man shook him and asked, “Is there no flag?” He replied, “No—I am not crying because there is no flag. I am crying because the whole tree is covered with flags. I cannot even see the leaves—they have tied thousands of flags.”
If there are obstacles, they can only be because of you. God is waiting for you with thousands of flags tied to the tree. This is only natural—you are born of him. No matter how much you have wandered in the world, no matter how heinous your acts, what difference does it make! Even if he has not come to meet you, what difference! Even if he has not written a letter, what difference! The doors of the heart never close. The one from whom you were born does not close his doors to you.
Search a little. Make a little effort. If you cannot see with your own eyes, then see through the eyes of the master. Perhaps your eyes are too full of pain, of tears, of emotion, of expectations, of fear.
This is all that “master” means: he has clear eyes in which no tears float, no pain descends, no pleasure excites, no sorrow overwhelms. His eyes are now bare, clear, spotless. He can see directly.
If you are trembling, then see through one who is not trembling. He will give you the precise address of your home.
If a master is not available—not because masters do not exist; masters are always there, the earth is never empty of them—if you cannot find one, the reason will be you. For to find a master means learning the art of bowing at someone’s feet. That will be difficult for you. And if that is difficult, know that scripture will not help you either; for if you cannot bow at a master’s feet, how will you bow at the feet of scripture? You may bend your head, but you will not truly bow. You will superimpose yourself on the scripture; you will not allow the scripture to be superimposed on you.
Therefore it is a strange but delightful thing: the one who can benefit from the master can also benefit from scripture; the one who can benefit from scripture can also proceed without scripture. The one who cannot benefit from the master will not be able to benefit from scripture either; and the one who cannot benefit from scripture will not be able to benefit from himself.
Hence I am repeatedly charmed by Jesus’ saying: “To those who have, more will be given; and from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.”
The one who can benefit from the master will be able to benefit from scripture too—more will be given to him. The one who can benefit from scripture will be able to benefit from himself as well—more will be given to him.
Open up—do not fear the conditions. You will have to exercise a little control over the mind, and only for a few days. Once you begin to live apart from the mind, neither master nor scripture is needed. Then you are the master, you are the scripture.
And the whole endeavor of all masters is just this: that the master within you may become available to you.
The third question:
Osho, the greatest things I have seen so far in life are the Himalayas, the sky, and Rajneesh. And the other day you said that you are also within me. I cannot believe how this vastness could be contained within me, this insignificant one.
Osho, the greatest things I have seen so far in life are the Himalayas, the sky, and Rajneesh. And the other day you said that you are also within me. I cannot believe how this vastness could be contained within me, this insignificant one.
The insignificant is nowhere; only the Vast is. If the insignificant existed, the Vast could not fit—this is true. If the small were anywhere, how could the Vast enter it? That too is exactly right. But the small is nowhere. It is a mistake of your seeing. The boundary is nowhere here. The boundary is an optical illusion of your vision. What is, is the boundless.
A boundary is like this: someone looks at the sky from within a window, and the window’s frame seems to be set on the sky. The frame belongs to the window; there is no frame on the sky. But the window’s limit becomes the sky’s limit. The sky appears as if it were a framed picture of the sky.
A very great Western painter, Salvador Dalí, in the last days of his life stopped putting frames on his paintings. Friends asked, What happened? Dalí said, From life’s experience I came to know that there is no frame anywhere. It is man’s invention. Is there any frame on the sky? Where does the sky begin? Where does it end? On what thing have you ever found there to be a boundary?
This little tree that appears small to you is not small. It is an error of seeing. Its roots are sunk into the earth—it is part of the earth. The earth is vast. Its leaves spread into the sky—it is embraced by the sky. This tree is not small. Its very life is tied to the rays of the sun; that is why at morning it blossoms, and at evening it droops. The sun is a part of it. Everything is connected. Here, nothing is unconnected.
Are you limited? You are linked to your father and to your mother. Your mother is linked to her mother and father; your father to his mother and father. Go back a little, trace the chain, and you will find that at the origin of creation—if ever there was an origin, a beginning—you are connected to that. Your children will be linked to you; their children’s children will be linked to you. If ever there is an end to creation, your hand will be in it; you will still be connected. One hand this side, one hand that side—joined to infinity at both ends.
Are you small? Your very skin is connected to the sun. Every hair of yours is breathing, connected to the winds. Your feet are joined to the earth. Every particle of you is coming from the earth. Sometimes in the form of fruits, sometimes in the form of food, you are eating the earth every day. Where do you end? Where is your beginning?
No, there is nothing petty here. All frames are man’s invention. Life is utterly formless.
Therefore, when I say the Vast is in you, I am not saying that the Vast is in the petty. I am saying, you are the Vast. In fact I am saying—if you can understand more precisely—that you are not; only the Vast is.
A boundary is like this: someone looks at the sky from within a window, and the window’s frame seems to be set on the sky. The frame belongs to the window; there is no frame on the sky. But the window’s limit becomes the sky’s limit. The sky appears as if it were a framed picture of the sky.
A very great Western painter, Salvador Dalí, in the last days of his life stopped putting frames on his paintings. Friends asked, What happened? Dalí said, From life’s experience I came to know that there is no frame anywhere. It is man’s invention. Is there any frame on the sky? Where does the sky begin? Where does it end? On what thing have you ever found there to be a boundary?
This little tree that appears small to you is not small. It is an error of seeing. Its roots are sunk into the earth—it is part of the earth. The earth is vast. Its leaves spread into the sky—it is embraced by the sky. This tree is not small. Its very life is tied to the rays of the sun; that is why at morning it blossoms, and at evening it droops. The sun is a part of it. Everything is connected. Here, nothing is unconnected.
Are you limited? You are linked to your father and to your mother. Your mother is linked to her mother and father; your father to his mother and father. Go back a little, trace the chain, and you will find that at the origin of creation—if ever there was an origin, a beginning—you are connected to that. Your children will be linked to you; their children’s children will be linked to you. If ever there is an end to creation, your hand will be in it; you will still be connected. One hand this side, one hand that side—joined to infinity at both ends.
Are you small? Your very skin is connected to the sun. Every hair of yours is breathing, connected to the winds. Your feet are joined to the earth. Every particle of you is coming from the earth. Sometimes in the form of fruits, sometimes in the form of food, you are eating the earth every day. Where do you end? Where is your beginning?
No, there is nothing petty here. All frames are man’s invention. Life is utterly formless.
Therefore, when I say the Vast is in you, I am not saying that the Vast is in the petty. I am saying, you are the Vast. In fact I am saying—if you can understand more precisely—that you are not; only the Vast is.
Fourth question:
Osho, right now, wherever I taste you from, I find only saltiness. Will the moment ever come when you taste nothing but sweet to me?
Osho, right now, wherever I taste you from, I find only saltiness. Will the moment ever come when you taste nothing but sweet to me?
As long as you are, you will find me only salty. When you dissolve, then you will find me only sweet. It is not my flavor that seems salty to you. If it were my own flavor, then it would remain salty forever; it could never become sweet.
No, this taste is because of your ego. The moment the ego drops, you will find that everything has become sweet. It’s not that I will become sweet; everything will become sweet. The whole existence is filled with a certain sweetness when your ego disappears. Your ego is the element that makes things salty. “Salty” isn’t quite right—it makes them bitter, it poisons them.
Drop it. Then all of nature is brimming with sweetness. In that very sweetness you will hear the first footsteps of the Divine. The Divine is sweet; it’s your tongue that is smeared with salt.
Have you noticed—after a fever, even the sweet doesn’t taste sweet; even the delicious doesn’t taste delicious.
There is a fever of ego that is spoiling your taste. Let it pass. Life is very flavorful, very delicious. Life is nectar.
The last question:
No, this taste is because of your ego. The moment the ego drops, you will find that everything has become sweet. It’s not that I will become sweet; everything will become sweet. The whole existence is filled with a certain sweetness when your ego disappears. Your ego is the element that makes things salty. “Salty” isn’t quite right—it makes them bitter, it poisons them.
Drop it. Then all of nature is brimming with sweetness. In that very sweetness you will hear the first footsteps of the Divine. The Divine is sweet; it’s your tongue that is smeared with salt.
Have you noticed—after a fever, even the sweet doesn’t taste sweet; even the delicious doesn’t taste delicious.
There is a fever of ego that is spoiling your taste. Let it pass. Life is very flavorful, very delicious. Life is nectar.
The last question:
Osho, Zen masters often ask their disciples, How does one hand clap? We, your new disciples, ask you: How does one hand clap?
It happens every day—and you simply don’t hear it. What you don’t want, that is what I am giving you. What you never asked for, that is what I am distributing to you. The clap is sounding with one hand. Even for what you are not yet ready, I am pouring into you. The clap is indeed with a single hand. Try to understand this a little.
Where you don’t wish to go—where you had not even dreamt of going—I am taking you there. The hand from your side that should be there for the clap is missing. My single hand is clapping. And the day your hand appears there, I will withdraw mine. Still, the clap will be of one hand. Then there will be no need of my hand. Then you will have become capable yourself.
“One hand clapping” is a symbol—a very deep symbol of the anahat nad, the unstruck sound.
In the world, everything sounds by two hands; in the divine, it sounds by one hand—because there is no other. Here all sounds are ahata—struck. Play the drum and you must strike it; play the sitar and you must pluck the strings; speech requires the friction of the throat. But the divine is alone: there is no second. There the singer and the song are one; the sculptor and the sculpture are one. There is no other at all. That Oneness we call God. And yet it resounds—resounds from eternity.
Listen to that sound. We have called it the anahat nad—the sound that arises without the collision of two things, the unstruck. We have named that sound Omkar—the sound Om.
I am speaking to you. What I say is struck; but what I want to say is unstruck. What you are hearing is struck; what you should hear is unstruck. As you consent, as you become fluid, melt, you will begin to hear that which cannot be said and yet is resounding. Which no one is playing—and yet night and day it echoes.
Every day the one-hand clap is sounding. Hurry—this opportunity will not last forever. Be ready.
Where you don’t wish to go—where you had not even dreamt of going—I am taking you there. The hand from your side that should be there for the clap is missing. My single hand is clapping. And the day your hand appears there, I will withdraw mine. Still, the clap will be of one hand. Then there will be no need of my hand. Then you will have become capable yourself.
“One hand clapping” is a symbol—a very deep symbol of the anahat nad, the unstruck sound.
In the world, everything sounds by two hands; in the divine, it sounds by one hand—because there is no other. Here all sounds are ahata—struck. Play the drum and you must strike it; play the sitar and you must pluck the strings; speech requires the friction of the throat. But the divine is alone: there is no second. There the singer and the song are one; the sculptor and the sculpture are one. There is no other at all. That Oneness we call God. And yet it resounds—resounds from eternity.
Listen to that sound. We have called it the anahat nad—the sound that arises without the collision of two things, the unstruck. We have named that sound Omkar—the sound Om.
I am speaking to you. What I say is struck; but what I want to say is unstruck. What you are hearing is struck; what you should hear is unstruck. As you consent, as you become fluid, melt, you will begin to hear that which cannot be said and yet is resounding. Which no one is playing—and yet night and day it echoes.
Every day the one-hand clap is sounding. Hurry—this opportunity will not last forever. Be ready.
Osho's Commentary
Thus, Arjuna, the doer who is free of attachment and does not speak in the voice of ego, who is endowed with patience and enthusiasm, and who is free from the disturbances of joy and sorrow in the accomplishment or non-accomplishment of work—that doer is called sattvic.
The doer who is attached, who desires the fruits of action, who is greedy, inclined to cause pain to others, impure in conduct, and bound up in joy and sorrow—that doer is called rajasic.
And the doer whose mind is scattered, who lacks education, who is conceited, deceitful, destructive of others’ livelihood, prone to lamentation, lazy and procrastinating—that doer is called tamasic.
Let us begin from tamas. Krishna always starts from sattva—but it is good to understand from tamas, because that is where, nearby, you are standing. Best to start at the beginning.
A mind full of distraction—almost deranged. You don’t clearly know what you do or why you do it.
Last night a young man came to me and said: “A month ago I happened to meet a girl. I married her. Why I married—honestly, I don’t quite know. Then I came into contact with your words. I have come from faraway California. I took sannyas. Why I took it—again, not clear. It just happened. And now I have come here.
“Now the wife I married—she has two children from her previous husband—she is distressed there. She says, come back, because she is in trouble. I don’t want to go back. Why don’t I want to go? I don’t know. And here I have fallen in love with another woman; what should I do?”
This is a deranged mind. This is your mind. You have lived like this—acting, getting trapped, then carrying the burden. Why you took the first step is not even clear. Life ends, and there is no idea why you began.
Without awareness, this is how it will be. Then any passing wave will carry you away. You will run like a madman—now north, now south. But why you run, where you want to go—nothing is clear.
The mark of a tamasic mind is unawareness, stupor. With awareness, you would think before you act. With awareness comes responsibility. You would consider: I am marrying this woman; I am taking on a responsibility; I shall be father to these children; I will need to care for them. Am I prepared to bear the weight of the future? Is there a love so deep that I will not feel the urge to escape this burden? If so, fine.
But it isn’t even clear whether there is love. A gust of wind came, and you drifted—like a bit of wood floating on the water. There is no harbor to reach; wherever the wind blows you, you arrive a little. You stop somewhere, you drift somewhere—and finally end somewhere, anywhere.
I heard an incident—a true one. In 1949, an American named Jack Wurm sat on the seashore, a ruined gambler, exhausted, having lost everything, thinking of suicide. Restless, he began tossing pebbles into the water, making little sandcastles. He thrust his hand into the sand and pulled out a buried bottle. Curious, he drew it out. It was sealed, with a slip of paper inside. He opened it—and was stunned; he thought someone was joking. The slip read: “I appoint you heir to half my estate. Meet my lawyer”—an address—“I am dying, leaving twelve crore rupees. Half to my lawyer, half to you.” It was signed by a lady, Alexandra.
He thought, surely a prank. He tossed the bottle aside and sat. But then he wondered: in this world the impossible also happens. No harm—let me at least telephone this lawyer. The lawyer was in London.
He called at night. The lawyer said, “It’s true, not a joke. That lady, Alexandra, was a bit eccentric, and lived accordingly. When I asked her on her deathbed, To whom shall I leave your estate? she said, ‘As I have lived, drifting on the winds over water—so let my estate drift in water and find someone. I will not name anyone.’ She sealed the bottle and threw it into the Thames in London.”
It took twelve years for that bottle to reach an American shore. But it arrived. And a man found it. And he became the owner of six crore rupees. The twelve crores were the estate of the owners of the Singer sewing machine; she was their heiress. She died—she would never know to whom it went. But she played a good joke.
She lived like this always. Even when she married, it was the same. She stood outside a hotel—she was a multimillionaire—and said, “The first man who walks out of this hotel, I will request him to marry me.” And she married him. He agreed—because such a wealthy lady! He was a waiter, stepping out of the hotel.
You will say, she was mad. But are the events of your life so very different? If you look closely, you won’t find much difference.
A girl lives next door; you fall in love. The whole cause is that she lived next door. Someone else could have lived there. There is no real reason. You go to school—there are fifty schools in town—you land in one; you fall in love with a girl because she is in your class. Do you see any fundamental difference between this and marrying the first man who steps out of a hotel?
No difference. Life is almost deranged. It goes on like this—drifting. This is what Krishna calls tamasic mind.
Distracted in mind; conceited—steeped in pride, full of ego.
Remember: the rajasic person is proud, and the tamasic too. What is the difference? The tamasic person is proud without cause; the rajasic has a cause. Both are proud, but the tamasic has no basis for pride. That pride we call tamasic in which there is no ground at all.
A man is very intelligent and therefore proud—understandable. Another is a great fool, yet proud, imagining he is a genius. The first we call ego, the second, vanity. Vanity without foundation. If there is some basis, it is a little forgivable.
Deceitful.
He will trust no one, and will give no one a chance to trust him. Everywhere he will resort to trickery. He believes trickery is how everything is obtained. He is lazy, avoids doing, and tries to get by through cunning.
A destroyer of others’ livelihood.
His way of living is destructive. He cannot create—creation needs labor, continuity, dedication, the capacity to give your whole life. He doesn’t have that. His moods change in a moment; the season within him turns at once. So he cannot apply himself to anything for a lifetime, moving it toward success.
He will not be creative, but he will compensate for the lack of creation through destruction. He will enjoy breaking things; he will enjoy spoiling people’s lives. His taste is in erasing, not in making. Therefore the tamasic person never creates—a song will not arise from him, nor will he sculpt a statue. He can break a statue.
You must have heard: a few months ago, in Rome, at the Vatican, the most beautiful statue of Jesus was smashed by an American.
It sounds astonishing. That statue was the most beautiful image of Jesus on earth—the greatest work of Michelangelo. Its value could not be measured in money. Michelangelo had poured his whole soul into it. If only that one statue remained and all his other works were lost, Michelangelo would still be incomparable. No one had ever thought it necessary to post guards over it. Who would go mad and break it?
But an American hid a hammer, entered the Vatican church, and struck the statue of Jesus. Before he was caught, he had broken the hand, the head, several parts.
When asked, “What is your quarrel with this statue?” he said, “If Michelangelo became famous by creating it, I want to become famous by breaking it.”
He did become famous—no doubt. For centuries, as long as that broken statue remains, this madman’s name will be linked with it.
One Michelangelo takes years to create; another man breaks it in a moment. Destruction takes but a moment—so the tamasic can do it, because his mind lives in moments. Creation takes years—he cannot. No feeling abides in him for years. Erasing happens in an instant; creating is the work of a lifetime.
Therefore Krishna calls the tamasic a destroyer.
Prone to lamentation.
He does not need situations to lament; lamentation is his nature. He stays unhappy. You cannot assemble enough reasons to make him happy; he will find reasons for sorrow everywhere. However beautiful and pleasant the circumstance, he will find something to be unhappy about. It is his nature.
To dwell in sorrow is his mode of life, his way. He will remain gloomy. Gloom is his style. Complaints alone will arise from him; gratitude will never arise. Therefore the tamasic can never pray.
Lazy, procrastinating.
Always postponing. “I’ll do it tomorrow, the day after.” What can be done now, he puts off till tomorrow; tomorrow comes, and he puts it off again. Thus his life becomes a long postponement. He never lives—he only thinks, “Someday I will live.”
In this way, he loses life’s opportunity. He ends up holding death, not life. Life belongs to the one who lives now—here, in this moment. He who postpones will end up with the ashes of death in his hands.
Next is the rajasic doer.
Attached, desirous of the fruits of action.
He is full of attachment. He wants the fruits of action; he has no real interest in the action itself. He can work for years, but his excitement is not in doing—it is in getting. He can remain engaged all his life—he is not lazy. He can do the same work for a lifetime, as long as the hope of fruit remains—he will pour in all his energy. But his goal is in the future. He acts because he must; the real thing is the result. His attachment is deep.
Greedy, and inclined to cause pain to others.
Where there is greed, others will suffer—because greed robs, exploits. Understand the difference.
The tamasic person is destructive too, but he relishes destruction. The rajasic person does not relish destruction; greed is his reason. If destruction is needed for greed, he will destroy. But the rajasic will not destroy without a reason. The tamasic destroys without cause—destruction is his relish. The rajasic will do it only if there is gain.
For example, a rajasic person could not smash Jesus’ statue—unless someone said, “We’ll pay you a million.” Then he would. But he would not do it just to break it. He would say, “Am I mad? What will I gain?” He always lives for greed.
Impure in conduct.
Where greed is, conduct cannot be pure. Greed itself is impurity.
Entangled in joy and sorrow.
The tamasic is entangled only in sorrow—he hardly knows joy. The rajasic person does have moments of joy. Sorrow comes, but joy comes too. You will sometimes find him laughing, sometimes crying—but crying is not his style. If he cries, it is only because his attempt to laugh failed. He wanted to laugh; helpless, he cries.
The tamasic wanted to cry—you cannot make him laugh. Try to make him laugh, and he will cry even more loudly. His relish is in crying; crying is his “happiness.”
The doer enmeshed in joy and sorrow is called rajasic. And the highest is the sattvic doer: free of attachment, not speaking in the voice of ego, endowed with patience and enthusiasm, and free from the disturbances of joy and sorrow whether success comes or not—that doer is called sattvic.
He has no attachment. He does not act because of greed, to get something. He acts out of a sense of dharma. He acts because the divine has sent him. He acts because he finds: I am alive, and life is action. He finds himself in the midst of life, and there is no way to avoid action. So he acts.
He does what is his duty. He does what accords with the scriptures. He does what the true master enjoins. But he has no attachment to doing. If death comes today, he will not say, “Let me finish my work.” He will say, “I am ready.”
Free of attachment, not speaking in the voice of ego.
He has no separate selfhood. His unity is with the divine. He says: only That One has the right to say “I.” No one else. The One who is the center of all can say “I.” We are only his circumference, his tendrils, his ripples, his waves. If the ocean says “I,” it is right—how can a wave say “I”?
Patience.
In him you will find supreme patience. In the rajasic you will not find patience. In the tamasic you may see something that looks like patience—but it is not patience, it is laziness. It is a deception. The rajasic is always in a hurry—because he wants the fruit.
The sattvic can wait. He knows the sweet delight of waiting. There is no haste. When it happens, it happens. He does not want to force any event before its time. He does not want out-of-season fruit. When the season ripens, when the fruit comes, until then he can sit and wait. His waiting is not laziness—for he will exert himself fully. His effort lacks the tension of the rajasic—for his effort contains waiting, not feverishness.
Endowed with enthusiasm.
You will always find him light, dancing, full of zest. You will never find him beaten and tired, never half-hearted. You will never find him as the lazy always are—and the rajasic sometimes becomes—depressed, defeated, like someone who has lost everything. You will always find him blooming, like a morning flower; luminous. Because one who has no desire for fruit finds that the very action becomes his fruit. What he is doing becomes his joy. Life is moment to moment. He never postpones; he does not leave things for tomorrow. He does them today.
The sattvic lives as if this were the last day—and also as if life will never end. The sattvic is a paradox. Each morning he rises and thinks, This is the last day; this evening will be the last. Therefore, let me live totally—there is no tomorrow.
Since there is no tomorrow, he lives today completely. And yet he does not live in haste, not trying to cram the whole of life into today because there is no tomorrow. He also lives as if time were endless, without limit. In his step you will find both movement and patience. In his action you will find both enthusiasm and speed—and also waiting.
The sattvic is the greatest music in this world. Beyond him is the one Krishna calls gunatita—beyond the three gunas. That one is beyond this world. The sattvic is the highest peak of this world; the tamasic is the deepest abyss; the sattvic is the final Gaurishankar.
Beyond even that is a different being—the one beyond qualities: Krishna, Buddha. We cannot call them merely sattvic. They have gone beyond; there is no way to label them sattvic.
Endowed with patience and enthusiasm, free from the disturbances of joy and sorrow whether the work succeeds or not.
For him, both joy and sorrow are disorders, sicknesses. He desires neither pleasure nor pain. Then in his life a great bliss happens. This bliss is not “pleasure.” It is not the absence of pain. Great bliss is freedom from both pleasure and pain. Then a profound silence happens in his life—a deep, secret silence which nothing can disturb. Neither sorrow can erase it, nor pleasure.
Have you noticed that pleasure too is a kind of fever? When it seizes you, it exhausts you. Pleasure is a kind of excitement—it makes you restless. Pain is restlessness, of course—but pleasure too is restlessness. And have you noticed—you rarely see anyone die of pain, but many die of pleasure. Excessive pleasure—and the heart stops. It does not happen in excessive pain.
So pleasure is a deep excitation—perhaps deeper than pain. Perhaps we are so accustomed to pain that we have made peace with it. Pleasure visits us only sometimes—a strange guest; when it comes, we become so excited that it breaks us.
Heart attacks occur most between forty and forty-five—because these are the days of success. A man comes near success in business, position, prestige, around forty to forty-five. Whoever misses then—later it is difficult. After forty-five, one who has not attained will likely not attain. Strength is waning, the days of seeking and fighting have passed. Before forty, very few can attain—only those with inherited advantage. One who must stand on his own feet arrives near success between forty and forty-five—and there come the heart attacks, heart failure, the heart stopping.
In America they joke: if a man has reached forty-five without a heart attack, his life has gone to waste, because he is a failure. When success comes, the heart attack comes too.
Next time happiness comes into your life, watch closely how agitated a state it is—how the mind is disturbed!
The sattvic comes to know: pain is restlessness—and pleasure too is restlessness. He also knows: pleasure and pain are not two; they are two faces of the same coin. What is pleasure becomes pain. If pleasure lingers too long, it turns into pain. If pain lingers too long, its pain wears off and it begins to feel like a sort of pleasure. They are not separate; they are two aspects of one thing. He drops them both.
He does not feel elated when work succeeds, nor dejected when it fails. Neither defeat is his, nor victory is his. If he loses, it is God; if he wins, it is God. As He wills. The sattvic remains only an instrument.
Enough for today.