Geeta Darshan #6

Time changes, circumstances change, but the fundamental truths of life do not change. Whoever denies those fundamentals falls only into suffering, misery, anxiety. Everything changes, but the foundations of life do not. The varna and ashrama arrangements were not built on the rules of some particular society or situation; they rested on the very laws of human consciousness. And they are as useful today as they ever were, and will remain so tomorrow as well. This does not mean that what has been running in the name of the varna system is useful. What runs today is not varna; it is a disease in the name of varna.

Forms rot; truths do not. If we wish to save the truths, we must have the courage to discard the rotten forms again and again. The structure that once was built has decayed; its soul is gone; only the body remains—and a thousand kinds of stench arise in a soulless body.

Two points about varna. First: the day varna became hierarchical—the day “higher” and “lower” entered—putrefaction began. In the truth of varna there was no higher or lower; there was difference of type. The Shudra is not lower than the Brahmin, the Brahmin is not higher than the Shudra. The Kshatriya is not higher than the Shudra, the Vaishya is not lower than the Brahmin. “Higher–lower” proved fatal. Shudra is Shudra, Brahmin is Brahmin; it is a matter of type.

Consider: one man is five feet tall, another is six feet. The five-foot man is not “lower” than the six-foot man; a five-foot man is a five-foot man, a six-foot man is a six-foot man. One person is dark, another fair. The dark person is not lower than the fair. Dark is dark, fair is fair. It is a difference of pigment—two, three, four annas’ worth, you might joke. A little color in the skin—does that change the person? Tomorrow one could inject pigment and make a fair skin dark or a dark skin fair. Fair is fair and dark is dark; there is no distance of superior and inferior. One person has a little more intelligence, another a little less: still no cause for higher–lower. As with pigment, so with the quantity of intelligence—there is a difference.

In varna there was acceptance of difference, not valuation. Acceptance is necessary, because when acceptance is lost, disturbance begins. The current rotten arrangement will not survive today; however much one tries, it cannot. But varna will return. This form will die, but varna will return.

As scientific understanding of human beings grows in the coming century, a varna-like order will reappear—not Hindu society’s old varna, which is gone—but a more scientific typology. The more psychology develops, the clearer it becomes that there are four kinds of people. We cannot deny it. We can try any device to make all people the same—but only by destroying the soul and turning people into machines. The truth of varna will be false only on the day man becomes a machine and ceases to be a person; until then, it cannot be false.

Machines can be identical. Ford can make a million identical cars—no difference at all—because they have no soul. Where there is soul, individuals can never be the same. Soul means difference; individuality means difference. If you have individuality, it means you are distinct from others in some way; if you are not distinct at all, there is no individuality, no soul. As long as humans have soul, the truth of varna cannot be refuted. We can deny it in words.

A man can say, “I don’t accept gravitation.” Don’t accept it—your leg will break; gravitation won’t. One can say, “I don’t accept oxygen; I won’t breathe.” Fine—then you will die; oxygen will not. Life’s laws can be denied, but the laws remain; only we are destroyed.

Yes, we can erect false structures upon life’s laws—and then the laws themselves get a bad name because of those false structures. The hierarchical system we created brought disrepute; it corrupted and condemned the varna vision. Today that system is condemned, but the truth of varna never is.

And I want to say this is the first century in which Western psychology has begun to clarify that complete sameness between two individuals cannot be proved. Unfortunate will be the day science makes all people equal—because that day the soul will be gone.

So the truth of varna has not changed, will not change, must not be allowed to change. Sooner or later humanity will have to fight for the right to be different—for our differences to remain. Politics works in every way to destroy difference. If all difference is destroyed and man behaves like a machine, life becomes easy for politicians: dictatorship, totalitarianism become simple. Individuals need not be considered—there are no individuals. But as long as people are different, there can be democracy. As long as there is soul in individuals, there is flavor, variety, beauty, colorfulness in the world.

The varna vision embraces this colorfulness and variety. “Higher–lower” is wrong. Those who support varna to preserve superior–inferior are dangerous. But I am saying something else: human beings are of four types—whether we accept it or not.

In America there is no varna system. Yet not everyone is a scientist—and the scientist is a pure Brahmin. There is no difference between Einstein and a Brahmin: his search is for truth, and he is ready to endure any hardship for it. But not everyone is eager for truth. Rockefeller is not a Brahmin; nor are Morgan or Rothschild. They are Vaishyas of the purest kind: wealth is their quest and their god. And there is a very large class across the earth eager to fight. The methods of fighting may change, but the eagerness remains.

Nietzsche said, “Whenever I see soldiers’ bayonets flashing in the sun, and whenever I hear the rhythmic tramp of boots on the road, it seems to me there is no music superior to this.” For Nietzsche, Mozart and Beethoven are worthless; the veena is worthless. He says, when bayonets flash in the morning sun, the song in their gleam is the most beautiful. When soldiers march and their boots beat in rhythm, the feeling there is in no other music. The language he speaks is not the Brahmin’s, not the Shudra’s—it is the Kshatriya’s. This will remain. If we deny this man, he will take revenge.

No person can be denied. Every person should find in society the opportunity to fulfill their own type, their own form of individuality. There are Shudras too. Often a Shudra, if born in another house, still finds a way to be Shudra. Born in a Brahmin house he will say, “What good is the search for Brahman? I will serve the leper! Meditation will do nothing—religion means service.”

If we examine our country’s religions, they were fundamentally created by Brahmins. Hence service never entered as a central concept. The religions here never truly emphasized service because they were molded by a single varna; that vision entered them.

So when Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist religions met Christianity for the first time, they were in great difficulty. Christianity came from a house where Jesus was the son of a carpenter—from a Shudra lineage. He was born in a stable. His childhood was spent among the fourth class of society. So when Jesus founded a religion, service became its foundational element. Across the world, for the Christian, service is the highest form of religion—not meditation, not contemplation of Brahman, but service to one’s neighbor. And so Christianity condemned all religions born from Brahmin vision.

Buddha and Mahavira were born in Kshatriya houses, but they had the intellect of Brahmins. And note: though Mahavira came from a Kshatriya family, the eleven Ganadharas who compiled his teachings were all Brahmins. The eleven chief disciples who created the Jaina scriptures were all Brahmins. Therefore there was no way any Indian religion could emphasize service.

Yes, Vivekananda emphasized service because he came from a Shudra family, a Kayastha. He modeled the Ramakrishna Mission exactly after the Christian missionary pattern. Vivekananda brought the word “service” into India’s religious vocabulary; later Gandhi stressed it too.

These are types. Outside a Brahmin’s imagination is the idea that pressing a Shudra’s feet will lead to Brahman. Outside a Shudra’s imagination is that closing the eyes and plunging into emptiness will lead to Brahman. Outside a Kshatriya’s imagination is that without fighting anything can be attained—not even Brahman. Outside a Vaishya’s imagination is that without wealth anything can be reached—not even religion. If a Vaishya reaches religion, it will be through wealth. These are types. And when I say it is a matter of types...

Varna is not a question of low and high in society. Varna is the question of diversity of individuality. Therefore four kinds of people will always exist—and four kinds of pure religious notes will always remain on earth. Yes, many mixed forms will arise by blending these four, but the four pure tones will remain as long as humans have soul. And that society is healthy which does not deny this difference—because denying a law does not erase it; it only harms society—which accepts it.

Now we get reverse situations. In the Ramakrishna Mission, if someone becomes a monk, they tell him to serve. If his type is Brahmin, he will be in difficulty: “Service? What will service do?” And if a service-inclined person begins to practice Buddha’s anapanasati—“just watch the breath”—he will say, “What nonsense is this? What will breathing do? Do something! People are poor, hungry, sick. Serve them.”

These are differences of individuals. If we don’t understand them clearly and scientifically, great difficulty arises. But our age is breaking difference—on many fronts. For example, there is a biological difference between woman and man, and a psychological difference between Brahmin and Kshatriya, Shudra and Vaishya. But we are eager to deny difference. First we tried to break varnas; and now we try to break the biological difference of man and woman.

A curious phenomenon is occurring: girls in Europe and America wear boys’ clothes, and boys grow their hair like girls. They come closer. The attempt is to break biological difference. What will happen? Difference will not break; only girls will become less feminine and boys less masculine—and the relish born out of the polarity between them will thin out. So romance has departed between boys and girls in the West. It cannot remain; it depends on difference. The more the difference, the more the relish. The more the difference is broken, the more the relish disappears.

We are mad to break all kinds of difference. Differences should remain. But this does not mean woman is small and man is great—that is wrong. On the basis of difference, to judge higher–lower is wrong. All differences are horizontal, none are vertical. Neither man nor woman is higher. But they are different, and that difference should remain clear.

A woman should make every effort to be as feminine as possible, a man to be as masculine as possible. The more womanly the woman and the more manly the man, the deeper the flavor and attraction between them; the stronger the current of love flows between them. If both are less than fully masculine or feminine, the woman becomes a second-rate man and the man a second-rate woman. They may come close, but their polarity breaks, and the relish between them breaks. For the first time in the West, the music of the man–woman relationship has been broken.

Varna are psychological differences, and they too produce music in society. A single-note society is like an ektara. It has a little flavor, but is boring. An ektara can charm if it plays with other instruments; alone it becomes irritating.

I heard of a gentleman who plays the veena—but he keeps pressing a single string at a single spot. Months have passed; his wife and children are distressed. One day even the neighbors folded hands and pleaded, “What are you doing? We have seen others play, their hands move, they touch different strings, apply different pressure. What madness is this—pressing the same spot for months?” The gentleman said, “You don’t know—others are searching for the right spot; I have found it! That’s why they move their hands here and there. I have no need. I have reached the goal; I will keep playing this.” Such a man is mad—and will drive the neighborhood mad.

Life is music, but music means an orchestra—many different notes. It needs the Kshatriya’s gleam, the Shudra’s service, the Brahmin’s brilliance, the Vaishya’s quest—everything. And among these, none is above or below. This truth has not become false today and will not become false tomorrow.

Second question: I said life has an order and sannyas is the final stage.

But that order has broken. Now even brahmacharya is not the first stage—indeed, not even the last. People do not reach brahmacharya even at the moment of death. Then sannyas would have to come somewhere beyond the grave. And when even the old do not attain brahmacharya, I say children should take courage and become sannyasis—just to balance things. Perhaps the old will begin to feel ashamed; otherwise they won’t.

Also, in that order many things are implied. Mahavira did not take sannyas in the last stage; nor did Buddha. For those whose journey in previous lives had reached a point where sannyas is possible from the very beginning, to wait till seventy-five is meaningless. This life is not everything. We are not born as a blank slate, tabula rasa, as Rousseau and others thought—that is wrong. We are born with built-in programs. What we did, knew, thought, understood in previous births comes with us. So generally it is true that a man should take sannyas in the fourth stage; but for those who come with a deep experience of sannyas, or who are thoroughly disillusioned with the juice of life, there is no reason to wait. They will always be exceptions.

Therefore Buddha and Mahavira created a path for exceptions. Sometimes rules become fetters; we must leave room for exceptions. If we taught Einstein mathematics the way we teach everyone else, we would waste his power. If we taught Mozart music the way we teach everyone else, we would squander his genius. Mozart, at three, attained a state in music that few can reach even in thirty years of practice. So we must make exceptions for Mozart. Beethoven, at seven, reached where musicians cannot reach even at seventy; he too needs special rules. The same rules will not do for them.

Thus every rule has exceptions; and exceptions do not break a rule—they prove it. The exception proves the rule. There were children in India who took sannyas from childhood; they were exceptions.

Today we have to make the exception the rule. Why? Because things are so diseased and disordered that if we wait for sannyas in old age, our waiting will be futile. For sannyas in old age to bear fruit, the three prior ashramas must have been lived; otherwise it will not. You say flowers will come in spring; but only if the seed was sown, manure added, rains came, and the summer sun shone. If none of that happened, and you still wait for spring flowers!

The fourth ashrama—sannyas—bore fruit when the first three had been lived in order. Today the difficulty is that the three stages have almost no chance. So we have two options: either allow the most beautiful flower of life—none is more beautiful—to wither and never bloom; or take courage and try to make it flower wherever possible, in whatever circumstances possible.

This does not mean everyone can be a sannyasi. In truth, when the longing for sannyas arises in someone’s heart, it is a signal from his being that something earned in past lives is ready to become sannyas.

And I say: to succeed at evil is still bad; to fail at the good is not bad. A man who succeeds at theft is still bad; a man who becomes a sannyasi and fails is not bad. Aspiration and effort toward the good is a great event. To be defeated on the path of the good is still a victory; to win on the path of evil is a defeat. If we lose today, we will win tomorrow; lose in this life, win in the next. But the effort, the longing must be there.

Also, the fourth-stage sannyas was defined very differently: a complete and natural falling away from life—like a ripe fruit falling from the tree, like a dry leaf dropping. Neither the tree notices nor the leaf. It was a natural renunciation. There are reasons for this.

Even today, a seventy-five-year-old breaks away from the house—but not because he wants to. A seventy-five-year-old becomes a burden; no one says so, but everyone feels it. You see it in the son’s eyes, the daughter-in-law’s eyes, the children’s eyes: “Now this old man should depart.” No one says it; etiquette forbids it; behavior conveys it. He breaks, he must. But the old man won’t agree to move; he plants his feet. The more he senses the unspoken hints to remove him, the harder he tries to stay. It is absurd.

Everything has its time—when to join, when to drop away. There is a time of welcome and a time of farewell. He who lacks a sense of timing lacks wisdom. Seventy-five is the right moment because the third and fourth generations are now ready to live. When a fourth generation is ready, you have been cut off from the current of life. The new children entering the home have no real relationship to you; you are almost a ghost to them. Your presence is only an obstruction, occupying space; your words feel cumbersome. Your presence becomes a burden. It is appropriate and scientific to withdraw.

But where to go? The idea has been forgotten—because the first three stages were not lived. Otherwise, before the children push you out, you would yourself step aside. The father who steps aside before being pushed never loses respect. The guest who departs before being seen off is always given a gracious farewell. The guest who sits tight until the family calls the police—everything becomes ugly. The family suffers, the guest suffers, the spirit of hospitality is lost. The truly sensible man leaves when people are still asking him to stay; he leaves behind a sweet memory—sweeter than his difficult presence.

That was the fourth stage. He who lived the three—who tasted the joy of brahmacharya, suffered the sorrows of sex, spent time turning toward the forest and prayer—he would quietly depart in the fourth stage.

Nietzsche has written somewhere: “Ripeness is all.” But now no one ripens. Even the ripe one wants to deceive, to appear raw.

I heard of a school where the teacher asked, “If someone was born in 1900, how old would he be in 1950?” A child stood up and asked, “Is it a man or a woman? If a man—he’s fifty. If a woman—hard to say: could be thirty, forty, or twenty-five!” What applied to women now applies to men too—there is no difference. The ripe one wants to deceive, to seem unripe. The old man wants to frolic with young girls—not because the young girl is so attractive, but to deceive himself that he is still young.

Psychologists say old men are attracted to young women to forget their own old age; if a young woman shows interest, they forget they are old. If Bertrand Russell at eighty marries a twenty-year-old, the real reason is not that a twenty-year-old is attractive—at eighty she should not be for an ordinary old man, much less for a man of Bertrand Russell’s stature. If he had been born in India two thousand years ago, he would have become a rishi at eighty; in England he found a way to marry a twenty-year-old. He is deceiving himself. If a twenty-year-old is eager for him, the self-deception feels complete: “I must still be twenty!” She cannot truly be eager for an eighty-year-old; but the old man believes that only a few years have passed since he was twenty.

Given this mentality, a new conception of sannyas is needed. We cannot wait for the fourth stage. That time will come when the ashrama system returns to the earth; we must work to bring it back. Until then we must work with a transitory conception: do not try to break from the tree—only ripe fruit falls—but even an unripe fruit can be non-attached while still on the tree. If a ripe fruit can pretend to be unripe, why can’t an unripe fruit taste ripeness? So be a sannyasi where you are.

My sannyas is not escapism. My sannyas is close to vanaprastha. I consider vanaprastha essential: without vanaprasthis, where will sannyasis come from? What I am now calling sannyas is, strictly speaking, vanaprastha. Vanaprastha means: you are at home, but your face is toward the temple; at your shop, but your attention is toward the temple; engaged in work, but inwardly oriented to being free of work; in color and attachment, yet your attention runs toward witnessing; your remembrance is in the Divine. I am calling this remembrance—here and now—sannyas.

This is sannyas in its primary sense. Given today’s social condition, if this primary sannyas can bear fruit, we may hope for the ultimate sannyas. If the seed is sown, we can hope for the tree. So I tell everyone to be a sannyasi where you are—at home, in the shop, in the marketplace—doing everything, yet with the resolve of sannyas. That resolve will disconnect you and give birth to the witness. Sooner or later, this vanaprastha will transform into sannyas.

Saktaḥ karmaṇyavidvāṁso yathā kurvanti bhārata.
Kuryād vidvāṁs tathāsaktaś cikīrṣur loka-saṅgraham. || 25 ||

Therefore, O Bharata, as the ignorant act attached to action, so should the wise act without attachment, desiring the welfare of the world.

The ignorant act out of attachment; the wise should act as they do, but without attachment. We find it hard to understand how to act without attachment: “If there is no desire and no attachment, why would I run, strive, labor? Nowadays I crave wealth, pleasure, a big house to satisfy the ego; if attachment disappears, why act at all?”

Krishna gives two points. First: do exactly what the attached person does—make no difference in the action, only in the attachment. What happens then? Life becomes a play. An actor also acts.

When Rama loses Sita, he cries in the forest, calls out, beats his head against the trees. In the Ram Lila, the actor who plays Rama also cries when Sita is lost—perhaps even louder than Rama did! Rama had no audience; loud or soft, it didn’t matter. The actor must cry loudly; he rehearses; he performs year after year. Place the actor and Rama side by side and the actor might win the competition—he has practice. Yet the difference is precisely what Krishna points to: the actor performs the act fully, but without attachment.

Action can be done without attachment. Understand it through acting. That is why we call Krishna’s life a play—leela—and Rama’s life character. Rama’s life is not leela; he is serious; he weighs each thing; life is a task—everything measured. Krishna’s life is play; there is no accounting. He does what he does completely, and yet inwardly stands aloof, as if far away. So we call Krishna’s life leela, not character. Character requires great seriousness; you become joined to what you do. In leela, you remain unjoined. If Krishna weeps, don’t trust it; if he laughs, don’t trust it; if he loves, don’t trust it; if he takes up the Sudarshan to fight, don’t trust it—because he stands outside all acts. For him the whole earth is nothing more than a stage.

This is what he tells Arjuna. Do your work as skillfully as the ignorant, but be unattached. Act—knowing you are acting. Do not think you are waging war or killing people. Think: I am acting. But even in acting we sometimes get so involved that it begins to feel real.

I heard that once, in a Ram Lila, the man playing Ravana and the woman playing Sita were lovers offstage. The troupe didn’t know—and trouble broke out. During the swayamvara, the crowd shouted, “Ravana, go to Lanka—your capital is on fire!” He said, “I won’t go today.” He stood up, grabbed a bow, and broke it: “Where is Sita?” Luckily King Janaka was clever; he whispered to his attendants, “You brought my children’s toy bow; where is Shiva’s bow?” He dropped the curtain and ejected the Ravana, casting another actor in his place. Only later did they learn they were lovers—and since marriage wasn’t possible otherwise, he thought, “Let it happen here!” He forgot he had come to play Ravana. Even in acting, such things happen; conversely, in life you can act.

The ignorant, attached, deluded, seem to be deeply immersed in action. Krishna says: you immerse yourself in the same way—make no difference in immersion, make the difference in the one who immerses. Make no difference outside; make it inside. Krishna’s emphasis is to transform the inner reality.

But Arjuna will still ask, “Why act—even as an actor?” Because Arjuna isn’t yet unattached; Krishna has to give him a reason: “For the welfare of the world—loka-saṅgraha.”

Strictly speaking, even this reason is unnecessary. If the whole world is leela, talk of welfare is redundant. But Krishna must add this condition, because the listener asks, “Why act if no one is watching?” So Krishna says, “For the joy of the audience.”

This “welfare of the world” is added out of necessity, born of Arjuna’s understanding. He cannot yet understand causeless action—unconditional, without why. Our attached mind insists: have a reason, then act; without a reason, rest. Arjuna is attached; Krishna must add a little bait—like flour on a hook to catch a fish. Arjuna cannot grasp pure nonattached action; he would say, “If there is no attachment, why should I act? That’s what I was saying—let me go!” Krishna must put a little flour—loka-saṅgraha—on the hook. If Arjuna were a Brahmin type, “welfare of the world” would not work; it works for a Kshatriya. Had Krishna said to Buddha, “Remain in the palace for the welfare of the world,” Buddha would have said, “There is no such thing; without the soul’s welfare, how can there be the world’s welfare?” This Gita is addressed to Arjuna—a Kshatriya personality. Hence “for the welfare of the world.” The Kshatriya cares deeply about what people say, what happens to people. He looks first into others’ eyes and recognizes his own shine there.

So Krishna keeps saying “for the welfare of the world.” It is not that there will be no welfare; there will be—but it is secondary, a by-product. Krishna must stress it because he knows the man before him might stay for the people’s sake. Slowly, he will lead him to pure nonattachment—until the flour falls away and only the hook remains. One step at a time.

Na buddhi-bhedaṁ janayed ajñānāṁ karma-saṅginām.
Joṣhayet sarva-karmāṇi vidvān yuktaḥ samācaran. || 26 ||

Thus, the wise should not unsettle the minds of the ignorant who are attached to action; rather, established in the Self, he should perform actions well and set them to do the same.

This is a precious sutra—worth understanding from many directions. The wise should not create in the ignorant a lack of faith in action; he should take care that chaos not befall the ignorant. The wise man’s position is delicate—like that of a sane person in a madhouse. The mad are not in as delicate a position as the sane man among them.

I had a friend who went mad. He ran away from home, stole, and did who-knows-what in madness. He forgot his name and address. A court sentenced him to eighteen months in the Lahore asylum. For six months he was fully mad. One day, by mistake of the staff, he got hold of a bottle of phenyl and drank it. The dysentery that followed somehow flushed the madness out. After five–seven days he was sane. But he had to spend a year among the mad. He told me the suffering then was beyond measure. While mad, he had no suffering—whatever others did, he did; all seemed logical. But once sane, the trouble began. He could not pull others’ legs, but they kept pulling his. The more he told the authorities, “I am well,” the more they said, “That’s what all madmen say.” If he didn’t claim he was sane, no one listened; if he did, no one listened—“All madmen say so. What madman admits he is mad?” He spent a year as the only sane man among madmen.

So with the wise among the ignorant. If the wise act simply according to their knowledge, they can become a cause of the ignorant going astray. If they live in pure conduct, they can become the cause of others falling into deeper darkness. If they speak pure truth, they can throw many lives into disorder.

How should the wise act; what should they say; how should they move? This is delicate. Many times, when the wise forget this, harm occurs—often has. Because where the wise man speaks from may not become a doorway of light for the ignorant. His speech and conduct may actually blow out the small flickering lamp by whose light the ignorant were somehow groping along.

It is certain: one who has seen the sun will say, “Extinguish lamps—what can they do?” One who has known nonattached action will say, “You are being foolish.” But calling it foolish does nothing; if the foolish man drops one thing and picks up another, nothing changes; he remains the same. Only forms change.

So Krishna gives a critical sutra—perhaps even more relevant in this century, where the turmoil is caused less by the ignorant and more by the “knowers.” Freud discovered some truths—not new ones; Patanjali knew them, Buddha knew them. Those who delve deep into life have always known them. But never had they been put quite as Freud put them. Freud knew nothing of Krishna’s sutra. So those truths did not bless; they harmed. They did not bring welfare; they brought ill.

What Krishnamurti says was known to Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu, Christ. But they did not say it in the way he says it. Therefore Buddha, Christ, and Mahavira produced blessing in people’s lives; Krishnamurti’s words have not and cannot—not because what he says is false, but because he says it without understanding those to whom he speaks.

People have listened to Krishnamurti for forty years; as a result, they have not understood Krishnamurti—only that Buddha, Mahavira, and Krishna are now beyond their understanding. The sun has not risen in their lives; only the little lamps they had, they have blown out. If the sun rises, lamps go out on their own; even if they remain lit, they do not show—they are meaningless. But if the sun does not rise, small lamps are useful.

Buddha and Mahavira had more compassion than Krishnamurti; Krishna and Christ had more compassion—because they did not speak naked truth as naked truth without considering what would happen to the listener. The important question is not that I utter the truth; it is: what will be the result? I speak so that something happens—and it be auspicious.

Freud, Darwin, Krishnamurti said things that are true; their truth is not in doubt. But they were not said with wisdom. They know what they know—but they do not know those to whom they speak. It is easy to pry something false from someone’s hand; to prove anything wrong is easy. But to bring in the right—to bring its advent—is very difficult.

Krishna says: the unattached one must live with attention to the ignorant surrounding him. Let him not run away; if he runs, nothing harms him—but the ignorant who imitate him will be harmed. The ignorant who leave will still be caught by action where they run to. The shopkeeper who leaves for the temple will not reach the temple; he will turn the temple into a shop. Reading the Gita instead of ledgers, he will still read ledgers in the Gita.

The ignorant misuse truths; they can do so. Falsehoods can be well used; truths can be misused. The wise lets go naturally; the ignorant lets go by effort. Whatever is dropped by effort leaves a wound—like tearing off an unripe leaf. A ripe leaf falls without wound. When the ripe leaf dances in the wind, its freedom can attract unripe leaves too: “Why should we remain bound?” They may break—and then both the tree and the leaf are wounded. And an unripe leaf, once fallen, rots; a ripe one does not. Ripeness is beyond rotting; rawness decays.

Unripe wood makes fuel that smokes; ripe wood burns without smoke. The one who lets go knowingly becomes fuel without smoke; if the unripe let go seeing the ripe, there is only smoke—people’s eyes burn, the food never cooks.

So the wise must walk the razor’s edge—mindful of his knowledge and the ignorance around him. Let him not be a blow to the faith of the ignorant in action; not a wound to their spirit; not a curse where there could be a blessing.

Many times the “wise” became a curse. If there is fear of renunciation today, it is because of this. Seeing Buddha, millions left home. Genghis Khan also destroyed millions of homes—but history will condemn him, not Buddha. Thousands of women were left weeping; thousands of children were orphaned while their fathers lived; thousands of wives were widowed while husbands lived; thousands of household lamps were extinguished. Krishna is saying this. The consequences were harmful and long-lasting. The most harmful was that a fear became associated with sannyas.

If someone comes to me—and my sannyas is entirely different, a blessing, not a curse—he says, “My wife is against it.” The wife will be against it. If a wife comes, she says, “My husband warns me: don’t you dare take sannyas.” The image of sannyas that developed here was of unripe leaves torn off—so there is fear: if my husband becomes a sannyasi, what will happen? Everything will be ruined. If my wife becomes a sannyasini, what will happen? Everything will be ruined.

By Buddha and Mahavira’s unknown influence, unripe leaves also tore off; the wounds remain in our social psyche. Even now, if someone else’s son becomes a sannyasi, we offer flowers; if our own son does, our heart trembles. If our own son becomes a thief, it’s still manageable; if he becomes a sannyasi, it is not. If he becomes a bandit, still manageable—at least he’ll stay home! Two years in jail and he’ll return. If he becomes a sannyasi, he is gone for good. So in this land we gave sannyas much respect—and equally we fear it within. This fear arises when the wise act without attention to the ignorant.

Krishna says: live in such a way that you do not wound the simple faith of the ignorant; and yet let your fragrance—your nonattachment—slowly create the same fragrance in them, so that while living, they too can know nonattachment. Then it is auspicious; otherwise, often in the name of good, evil happens.

Last shloka:

Prakṛiteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ.
Ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate. || 27 ||

In truth, all actions are done by the gunas of nature; the deluded one, whose mind is clouded by ego, thinks, “I am the doer.”

All action is done by nature’s qualities. Even what you call “I do” is nature’s doing. Even what you call “I choose” is nature’s choice. You say some face attracts you and you choose to marry it—but have you ever wondered why that face attracts you? The choice is blind. Why is it attractive? This eye, this nose, this face—why? It just is. Can you say why? Perhaps you say, “She has dark eyes.” Why do dark eyes attract? It is a harmony between your inner nature and that eye’s nature. Where are “you” in this?

You say, “This tastes delicious.” Ever thought why it does? Get a fever and it won’t. It is merely an accord between the juices of your tongue and the flavors of the food. You intrude needlessly.

You say, “I want to live.” But do you want to live—or are you a fragment of the will-to-live? A man says, “I commit suicide.” Is he doing it—or have all the qualities of life converged at that place where suicide happens?

If we look deeply into action and ego, ego is a delusion. Life acts—everything life does. What you find pleasant or painful is nature’s quality. I was once a guest in a palace. First time—and I was in trouble. I couldn’t sleep all night. I had never experienced such luxury. Even luxury needs practice, or it becomes suffering—because harmony cannot form. My hosts provided the best of everything. The mattress swallowed me; if I turned, trouble; sleep fled. Above the bed, a mirror canopy; fans hidden within; whenever my eyes opened, I saw my whole image above—hard to be alone when your image pursues you! Till midnight I struggled, fighting to conquer the mattress; I couldn’t. Finally I slept on the floor and fell asleep. In the morning my friends came, saw me on the floor, and were upset. “Was there a problem? Did we not arrange well?” I said, “You overdid it! I found great comfort on the floor. The mattress was too much; I had no practice; there was no harmony.”

What we call pleasure is harmony; suffering is disharmony. But “I am happy” and “I suffer” are illusions. Only relationships between the nature within and the nature without are happening. Birth is a relationship; so is death. But we say, “I was born, I died.” Youth is a relationship between inner and outer nature; so is old age. Defeat and victory are relationships—but we say, “I win, I lose.” For no reason.

Krishna says: the wise man escapes this ego—this delusion that “I am the doer”—and sees that nature does. As soon as this is seen, pleasure and pain vanish. As soon as we see that the spread of nature’s qualities is all, that we are merely a wave in it, attachment and aversion fall away; one becomes dispassionate and attains knowledge. He tells Arjuna: do not think you are fighting; nature is fighting.

The Kauravas have one nature; the Pandavas another. There is no harmony; conflict arises. A wave strikes the shore—but we don’t say the wave and shore “fight.” If waves had awareness, they would prepare for battle with the shore, and the shore with the wave. Right now neither has awareness; so there is no fight. The wave hits and breaks; the shore wears away. Qualities move, none truly win or lose. But when human waves collide, we forget nature and claim, “We fight.”

For Krishna, it is a struggle of dharma and adharma; for him, it is two waves in nature colliding. Arjuna is merely foam on a wave; Duryodhana as well. Two waves will clash; nature will decide what happens.

The day a person sees life free of ego, victory and defeat, pleasure and pain vanish. The knower then acts but does not become the doer. Everything happens—and yet within, nothing happens. He becomes young and is not young within—the same as he was in childhood. He becomes old and is not old within—the same as in youth. He dies and does not die within—the same as in life. Within, untouched.

But we are touched—by ego. Ego is very sensitive; touch it and it hurts. You are walking down the street, slip on a banana peel, and people laugh. Ego feels touched and hurt. Why be troubled? One wave laughs—let it. One wave has the right to laugh at another. Why are you disturbed? You wouldn’t be if you knew the nature of things. Your foot stepped on a peel and you fell; they laughed—not in their control either. Now you go away hurt and plot to throw peels in their path tomorrow. Now you are caught in a web—born of ego being touched.

Krishna says only this: the wise acts, but does not become the doer. The one who does not become the doer attains the supreme truth of life.

We will talk about the rest tomorrow night.