Geeta Darshan #17

First, Jitendriya—the man who has conquered the senses.
Ordinarily we think he must be one who fights the senses and defeats them. There the mistake begins. Whoever fights the senses will be defeated; he will never be Jitendriya. The key to conquering the senses is not to fight them, but to know them. The senses are conquered through direct encounter, through a living recognition of them. The man who engages in fighting the senses goes on being defeated by them. Whoever fights will lose; whoever knows will win.
Knowing is victory. The knowing of the senses is victory.
Through fighting you can at most repress—suppression, repression is all that happens. Whatever you repress returns again and again with greater force. Whatever you push down you lend energy to. Suppress anger—it will surface as deeper violence. Suppress sex—it will appear distorted, poisoned. Suppress ego—press it down on one side and it will start oozing out from ten sides.
The senses cannot be suppressed. Why? Because suppression is done by one who does not know the senses. One who knows does not suppress—because in the very knowing the senses come under his command.
Bacon said, Knowledge is power.
He said it in the context of science—outer nature. He meant: the more we know nature, the more powerful we become. But his statement is equally true of inner nature.
Lightning has flashed in the sky since time immemorial. As long as we did not know what it was, our life-breath trembled and only fear was born. Those who did not know thought: Indra is thundering to punish our sins—Indra hurls his power to punish us. Naturally! The thunder, the blazing fire in the night sky—no wonder one’s life would quake.
Was it possible that those who did not know what electricity is could ever have won by fighting the lightning in the sky? Never. To fight the lightning would be to die, to be broken, to be destroyed. They could not even have fought; victory was out of the question. But those who tried to understand the secret of lightning, who sought the key to its mystery—they became masters. Today that very lightning which once quivered and roared in the sky making life-breaths shiver, now works as light in your homes, as your servant, in your hand. The same lightning has become your attendant! That which seemed to punish has become your servant.
Bacon said, Knowledge is power—in relation to outer nature. Whatever we know, we become its master. To know is to be the master. Not to know is to be a slave; then slavery becomes your fate. Whatever we have known, of that we have become masters. The same holds true in relation to inner nature.
So when Krishna says, Jitendriya, do not misunderstand—as is commonly done—that he means one who has taken control of his senses by force. No, Jitendriya is one who has known all the secrets, the hidden workings of his senses. In knowing, he becomes master—he becomes Jitendriya.
The senses are defeated by knowing; they gain strength from ignorance. One who fights the senses gets caught in their whirl. The path to being Jitendriya is the knowing of inner nature.
For example, do you know what anger is? It is no less mysterious than the lightning that reverberates in the sky. A lightning bolt flashes in your inner sky. Do you know what anger is? You do not. You have done it many times; even when we have seen lightning flash in the sky many times, we still do not know it. To see is not to know. To be apprised is not to know.
We know that anger flares within—but what is anger? What is this lightning that flashes in the inner sky? We do not know. And if we go to fight it, we will lose to anger, not win. How can you win? What you do not know, you cannot conquer.
Yet we fight anger. What can we do by fighting? Only this: when anger arises, we push it down. Where will it go? Within. All repression sinks inward. It rises, we push it down; it enters the inner chambers and is buried in deeper cells. There it waits. Day after day we press it down, and it accumulates.
Psychologists say that those who commit murder are generally people who do not express anger daily. Those who flare up at small things—about them one can predict they will not become murderers. The steam escapes every day; it never accumulates enough to commit murder. To murder, great anger must first accumulate. Then there is an explosion. If it escapes daily there is a leakage; the chance for an explosion does not come. The steam goes off every day.
So, in a certain sense, those who finish their small angers daily are better—better in the sense that there is no likelihood of a great danger from them. But those who look good outwardly are dangerous—because they accumulate. If someone gathers for ten or fifteen days, a month, two months, a year or two, then the explosion comes. And that explosion grows so intense that the person himself doesn’t know what is happening. It happens.
The world’s greatest sins are explosions of gathered sin. Those who make small mischiefs daily cannot commit great sins. Every day things flow away; the Ganga never forms. They are only like a brook; nothing much flows, no flood comes. But when too much accumulates, then the flood comes. And when so much piles up within that, when it explodes, it breaks all the safety valves—there are many inner safety valves—then the personality is forever shattered into fragments like pieces of glass; it becomes hard to rejoin. Split—schizophrenic. Everything breaks. Even if it does not break to that extent, and someone lets anger leak out every day, even then one’s power is depleted—because anger is our own energy, unfamiliar to us.
That very energy which appears as anger becomes forgiveness. That very energy which appears as kama becomes Brahmacharya. That very energy which appears as greed becomes dana. That very energy which appears as hatred transforms into love. So one who hates daily—granted, he may never accumulate enough hatred to murder, to stab—but if he hates every day, the strength to love no longer remains. Because that same energy becomes love. One who gets angry every day will have no energy left to forgive. It runs away. Explosion carries it away in a mass; leakage carries it away slowly—yet a man becomes empty.
A person of daily anger, daily hatred, daily greed is like one who lowers a bucket with a thousand holes into a well. It seems the water is filling—so long as the bucket remains submerged it looks full. But once lifted above the water it starts to drain; there is a great noise in the well, a commotion, a roar; water drips from a thousand holes—but by the time the bucket reaches your hands it has become empty.
Our lives are full of commotion—just like the noise that arises in a well when water is drawn with a bucket full of holes. A great clamor seems to be there. But at the moment of death, when the bucket of life is felt in the hand, not a drop remains; everything is vacant and empty.
There are two dangers with the senses. One is indulgence. Indulgence is like the bucket with a thousand holes. The other is repression. Repression is as if someone sealed the mouth of a tea-kettle, put a stone on top, and kept the fire going beneath—the kettle will burst.
When Krishna says Jitendriya, or Mahavira says Jitendriya, or Buddha says Jitendriya, their point has been understood with great difficulty. We immediately take Jitendriya to mean repression—because we are standing in indulgence. Our mind immediately swings to the other extreme. We are harassed by indulgence. The moment we hear “Conquer the senses,” we say, “Suppress the senses.” In our minds conquest becomes repression—and there the mistake occurs.
Jitendriya means: know the senses. By recognizing the juice of each sense, becoming familiar with it, entering into each sense’s energy—victory happens. Knowing becomes victory. Knowing is victory. How to know?
Sexual desire arises a thousand times. There is no shortage of experience. An ordinary healthy man can have about four thousand acts of intercourse in a lifetime; he passes through the experience of sex four thousand times. A woman can pass through it a hundred thousand times—her capacity is deeper. That is why men could not become prostitutes; women could.
Even after a hundred thousand encounters with sex, we do not know what this sex-energy is—because we never give attention to sex. We never meditate on sex.
Whatever knowledge becomes available in this world becomes available through attention—any knowledge whatsoever! Whether in a scientific laboratory, or in the inner laboratory of yoga. All knowledge in the world is born through attention. Attention is the instrument, the method, the way to knowing.
Have you ever meditated on sex?
You will say, Many times. You have cogitated, not meditated. You think a lot—much more than you do. We pass through the thought of sex a hundred thousand times more than we pass through the experience of sex. Twenty‑four hours, circling around, sex keeps sliding through the mind.
Thinking is done; meditation is not. Thought means: as soon as a desire arises within, you are carried away by it; you cannot stand at a distance and watch. A thought of sex arises in the mind, and you become identified with it; you merge with it. You become the sex. Then it does not happen that the energy of sex has arisen and I stand a little apart, watching—What is it?
A scientist enters a laboratory, tests, searches, experiments, observes; he stands apart and watches—What is happening? If the scientist were to become identified with what he is doing… say, he is researching a chemical substance—and he takes himself to be the chemical itself—then the research is finished! It will never happen. The very man who could seek is lost. If chemicals could research, they would have done it long ago. The condition of a scientist is that he must observe. Observation is the very foundation of science.
What science calls observation—yoga, religion calls dhyana. That is the technical word of religion. Dhyana means: whatever is occurring, be able to stand apart and see—to be a witness. See as a witness; do not become involved.
Whatever sense you become one with, you will never know it. If you drown so deeply in the taste of a sense that you forget you are the watcher—then dhyana does not happen. Then the knowledge of the senses’ juices never becomes available.
When anger arises, stand a little apart and watch—What is it? But we meditate on God, of whom we have no clue. How will you meditate on what you do not know? Meditation can be on that which you in some way know. We try to meditate on God, of whom we have no idea; we never meditate on anger or sex, about which we know.
And the wonder is: one who learns to be meditative toward sex, toward anger, toward the whole storm of the senses—as his meditation grows upon the senses, the senses are steadily defeated; they lose ground. He recovers his territory; wherever the ray of attention enters, there the power of the senses gives way.
One who has known anger cannot be angry. One who has known sex cannot be lustful. One who has known greed cannot fall into greed. One who has recognized ego stands outside ego. What is to be done?
Do not fight—know. Anger comes every day—great is the grace of Paramatma. It comes so that you can meditate. Sex arises—Prabhu’s great compassion—it arises so that you can meditate. Life gives a million chances. But we are experts at missing! We go on missing. A thousand times the target is placed before us, yet we do not lift the bow. We keep missing—this life, not just one, but countless lives. Then missing becomes our habit—our practice grows deep.
I have heard of a circus. A man would daily lay his wife on a board and shoot arrows. He would shoot thirty arrows—so that they grazed her hands and struck the plank; grazed her ears and struck the plank; brushed her head and struck the plank. He would encircle his wife with arrows on every side, yet not a scratch would touch her. Thirty years of practice—he had been doing this for thirty years.
One day—there had been many such days—he had quarreled with his wife in the daytime. Many times it had occurred to him, Today I will shoot straight into her chest. But he had restrained himself; by evening the anger would subside. One evening the fight was so intense that when he came onto the stage and his wife stood on the board, he said, Now enough. He lifted the bow and closed his eyes—because his practice was so deep that if his eyes remained open, most likely the arrow would strike the board, not the wife. Thirty years of practice! He thought, If I shoot with eyes closed, then it will land. He closed his eyes, held his breath, and released the arrow. The hall applauded. Startled, he opened his eyes. The arrow had grazed the wife and struck the board. He shot thirty arrows with closed eyes—yet each reached its place. Even with closed eyes he could not hit the wife. The practice was deep; thirty years! It worked even with closed eyes.
Our practice of missing is of many births—millions of births. Anger arises—and we miss; we forget that here is the opportunity to meditate.
With this sutra I want to say to you: when anger arises, drop concern with the person on whom it has arisen—otherwise you will miss. It is in that very concern that we miss. Someone abused you—forget the abuse; forget the abuser. Tell him for now, Wait a bit; let me finish my work; I will return in half an hour. Close the door and close your eyes. Most likely the same will happen as with the circus man—birth-old practice! Even with closed eyes anger will do exactly what it would have done with eyes open, if someone were in front of you.
No—close your eyes. Forget the outer. Give thanks to the one who provoked anger, for he gave you an opportunity to meditate. Close your eyes and watch: What is anger? Where is it? How does it arise? How does it deepen? How does it spread over the life-breath like smoke? How does it take hold? How does the blood heat up? How does every particle of the blood become poisoned? How does the whole body become feverish? How does the mind become unconscious? Watch—and you will be amazed.
As the capacity to see grows, as the power to recognize increases, as witnessing awakens—anger will disappear. The day you can see anger face to face, in its total nakedness—when you can recognize anger hair by hair, in every corner of the heart, throughout the conscious and the unconscious—on that very day anger will be transformed and forgiveness will be born. The very energy which, without meditation, is anger—through meditation becomes forgiveness.
If you ask me, I will say it in the formula of mathematics: anger + meditation = forgiveness; kama + meditation = Brahmacharya; lobha + meditation = dana. Then you can extend the arithmetic: wherever meditation is added, there transformation happens. Because with meditation comes knowing; knowing is victory.
Jitendriya is he who has explored every nook and cranny of his senses, who has known both their hidden and manifest forms; who has descended into the laboratory of his senses and experienced witnessing—he becomes the victor. Such a Jitendriya becomes available to peace.
But Krishna adds one more condition—Shraddhavan as well. This word is also a little difficult. Just as misconceptions cluster around Jitendriya, even deeper ones cluster around Shraddha. Few try to be Jitendriya, so the confusion there is less. Everyone tries to be “faithful,” so the confusion around Shraddha is even more.
Shraddha is intimately connected to the depths of spirituality. We live on the surface; we know nothing of depth. Hence we translate Shraddha at the surface. And our translation is dangerous. We translate Shraddha as belief.
We call a man of belief “Shraddhavan.” Belief is not Shraddha. Belief is not Shraddha at all; it is exactly the opposite. You will be startled when I say this, because the dictionary says: Shraddha equals belief; belief equals Shraddha. But I have a reason.
Belief is adopted by one in whom doubt exists. Shraddha happens in one in whom doubt is absent. Belief is our doing, an act by us. Shraddha is an event in our absence—a happening, not a doing.
We believe. Why? Because to live with doubt is hard—very hard. There is no austerity greater than living with doubt. It is arduous. You cannot live in doubt twenty‑four hours a day. Where will you doubt? At every inch doubt stands. If you doubt, you cannot take a step; you cannot breathe; you cannot eat. With doubt, to live even a moment is difficult.
Doubt is difficult, very difficult. With doubt, even to accept your father as father becomes hard—for you have no proof he is your father; people say so. To accept your mother as mother becomes hard. With doubt, friendship becomes impossible—every friendship is born of trust toward the unknown. With doubt, the whole world becomes enemy. With doubt, you cannot sleep at night. With doubt, you cannot place a morsel in your mouth—poison is always possible. With doubt, you cannot live; you will fall where you stand.
So we use belief to suppress doubt. With belief one can live conveniently. Belief is convenient; doubt is very inconvenient.
Life runs on belief. One must assume someone is father. One must assume someone is guru. One must assume this and that. All goes on by assuming.
In this realm of assuming, we translate Shraddha as belief. Then as we assume father and friend, we assume Paramatma as well. The worm of doubt keeps crawling within; above it we lay the plaster of belief, spread a coat of belief. Within, the fire of doubt burns; above, the covering of belief is spread.
Hence, put a slight slit into a believer—do a little surgery—and doubt will come out. Belief is only skin-deep; it does not go deeper than the skin. And Shraddha? Shraddha is the name of depth. Belief is the name of skin—created to make things workable.
It is fine—there is no harm in assuming mother. Even if not, not much is lost. Even if untrue, if she has done a mother’s work—well and good. If the so-called father is not the “real” father, what difference does it make? It makes no difference. And in the future it will make none at all, because artificial insemination is possible.
I may die today and ten thousand years later my son can be born. The semen can be preserved; inject it after ten thousand years, and a child will be born. Then the one who injects becomes the father! Even now, fatherhood is little more than an injection—natural injection; later it will be artificial. That’s all. Things go on; no great difficulty arises. These have nothing to do with the abysmal depths of life. Whoever shows fatherliness is father; whoever shows motherliness is mother.
And perhaps not for long—for women will not remain willing to carry a child for nine months. The day a woman’s equality with man becomes complete, that day women will declare constitutionally that carrying a child nine months is wrong. Wrong—because the man walks away; both are equal partners, yet the woman bears nine months. No surprise if some future revolutionary government divides the term into four and a half months each! It is now possible. Or the woman will be freed for nine months and children will be kept in incubators—in the womb of a machine—until they grow.
Before this century ends, children will not remain in women’s bellies. No one could have imagined that women would refuse to nurse children—yet in America they have, because nursing ages them; the body looks less firm; suppleness is lost. Carrying a child nine months brings harm to the body. So arrangements will be made—then the incubator will be mother, the injector father!
It makes no difference. Even now it is so. Now the one we call mother has merely functioned as an incubator; her belly contains the natural arrangement in which a child can remain nine months. Tomorrow we will make artificial arrangements—perhaps even better.
This is a makeshift world. It brings no deep difficulty. But when the same belief is applied to Paramatma, the mistake begins.
When Krishna says Shraddhavan, he does not mean a believer. What does Krishna mean by Shraddhavan? To understand Shraddha, keep two or three points in mind about belief.
Remember: behind belief there is always doubt. Belief is adopted to suppress and erase doubt. Belief is a defense against doubt. Doubt keeps crawling within.
A man says, I believe in God. Ask him to search a little deeper—Do you really believe? If he is honest, if his intention is clean, he will discover within that belief is not there. The deeper the believer, the more he knows that somewhere inside there is a particle of doubt—a question arises: Is there God or not? Is there Atman? Does anything remain after death? Questions arise within. There is doubt there.
Shraddhavan means nish-sanshaya—not “nish-sandeha.” Sandeha means doubt; sanshaya means indecision. Shraddhavan means free of indecision, not free of doubt.
Doubt is intrinsic to man. Questioning is intrinsic; inquiry is intrinsic. Let doubt become inquiry—that is auspicious. Let doubt become belief—that is dangerous. Let doubt become disbelief—that is also dangerous. The right journey of doubt is inquiry.
The wrong journey of doubt takes two forms. If one is rightist, traditional, he converts doubt into belief. If one is leftist, anti-traditional, modernist, he converts doubt into disbelief. But if one is neither right nor left, if he knows how to use doubt rightly, then doubt becomes curiosity, questioning, inquiry.
He who suppresses doubt with belief becomes a so‑called, false theist. He who suppresses doubt with disbelief…
Remember, disbelief too is a way to suppress doubt. In one man, belief does not sit; doubt arises—Is there God? One says, There is! He puts a layer over it and forgets; he gets out of the hassle; he kills inquiry. Another says, There is not! He too lays a layer—of non‑being; he too ends the hassle; inquiry ceases. Whether “is” or “is not,” once you assume, inquiry stops. If you assume it is, there is no need to seek; if you assume it is not, there is no need to seek.
No—let doubt become inquiry. We do not know that He is; we also do not know that He is not. False theists are futile; false atheists are futile. The communion of the atheist and the theist creates true inquiry. Man asks, Is there? His curiosity becomes a question—not acceptance, not rejection—he asks.
Doubt, taken deep, makes one agnostic. What is, is unknowable, unknown. I do not know. Doubt taken deep breaks the ego—because I do not know; I am ignorant.
The theist becomes “knowing” by clutching belief; the atheist becomes “knowing” by clutching disbelief. Only he enters the mystery who says, I am ignorant. I do not know whether He is or He is not. I only know the question; I know nothing else.
This is the right form of doubt—right doubt. Shraddha relates to something else.
Another tendency is in man—sanshaya, indecision—he is always wavering. Wavering means no resolution forms; for a moment to the left, for a moment to the right.
Remember, I said: the theist, by clutching false belief, becomes rightist—he holds one extreme and stays there; he will not let go. The atheist holds the other extreme—leftist, disbelief. He says, There is not. A communist says, There is not. He has grasped an extreme. In one sense they are decisive; there is no indecision on the surface. Inside there is doubt; sanshaya is not seen.
The theist says, Absolutely—there is! I will lay down my life for it. Many theists who knew nothing have laid down their lives—and less their own, more others’! Many atheists have done the same—less their own, more others’ lives they have laid down.
Beware: whoever says, I will lay down my life, is dangerous—because whoever can throw away his own life can take yours too. One who considers his own life of little value—how much value will he give to yours? He values you only as much as he values himself, not more.
The theist appears free of indecision; doubt is within. Hence his decisiveness cannot be true—inside the worm pushes. To suppress it he stands with rigid certainty: I believe God is. And if someone says He is not, it will not be tolerated. Whenever someone cannot tolerate hearing the contrary, know that the worm of his own indecision writhes within.
There are scriptures that say, Do not listen to the opposing view. Such scriptures are weak—because what is the fear in listening to the opponent? Only this fear: that one’s own inner indecision might surface when hearing the contrary. There is no other fear.
The atheist too is nervous; he clings tightly to his disbelief. Atheists and theists are dogmatists, clutching rigid creeds. On the surface there is no indecision, but within is the worm of doubt. They cannot be nish‑sanshaya. Who can be?
Only one who has not suppressed doubt but transformed it—made it inquiry. For him indecision disappears. Indecision arises only in those who believe something. If I believe something, indecision can be. If I believe nothing—not this, not that—neither yes nor no, neither acceptance nor rejection—then indecision does not arise.
Let doubt become inquiry; indecision becomes Shraddha. Shraddha belongs only to one who has inquiry. It may sound difficult, but life is complex.
The inquirer is Shraddhavan. And only a Shraddhavan can inquire. Then what does Shraddha mean?
Only this much: this person has no belief and no disbelief; his mind is free, open. Shraddhavan is vulnerable, open.
Belief closes; Shraddha opens. Belief makes a closed bud; Shraddha is a blossomed flower—receiving the sun from all sides, free of indecision, ready for an encounter with the sun, gone forth to seek, naked under the sun. Shraddhavan means naked, unguarded, sky‑clad within—no closing. No covering over the mind; no layer, neither of belief nor disbelief. Open from every side; all walls broken; standing under the open sky.
Who can stand under the open sky? If there is even a little doubt, you cannot; you will sit hidden in your house. Doubt creates fear. If there is indecision, you will step out with a thousand protections. If free of indecision, you come out.
Such an unhesitating consciousness, such an open mind like a flower before the sun—such an open mind before Paramatma, before truth, before existence—is Shraddhavan. One who, to cover his lack of Shraddha, has not taken on any belief; one who has not entangled doubt in the net of belief and disbelief; one who says, I do not know, I am ignorant; one who stands before existence as a child—that one is Shraddhavan.
Whoever stands before existence clutching any kind of knowledge is not Shraddhavan. Whoever stands holding any doctrine—“I know the truth”—is afraid of encountering existence, therefore hides behind doctrine. He will never know existence; he will impose doctrine upon existence. He will say, Existence must be as my belief says it is.
The Shraddhavan will say, Whatever existence is, I am ready to drink it as it is. I have no belief, no doctrine, no scripture. I am ignorant; I know nothing. So let Prabhu take me where He will. One who knows nothing does not insist on reaching some chosen destination; he will not command Prabhu, Take me there. One without belief says to existence, Wherever you take me, that is the goal; where the boat sinks, there is the shore. Such a state of mind—where the boat sinks, there is the shore. I know no shore, so how can I ask to be taken there? I know no goal. I know no purpose. I do not know who I am. I do not know what the world is. I know nothing; ignorance is total. In such total ignorance how can I say where to be taken? How can I say, Take me to that destination? How can I say I want to go there? How can I order Prabhu?
The faithless commands existence. The Shraddhavan places his hand into existence’s hand—just as a small child places his hand in his father’s hand. He does not even ask, Where are we going? What is the goal? Will you mislead me? No. The small child gives his hand.
Have you ever noticed? The small child, with his hand in his father’s, walks untroubled. He is Shraddhavan, not a believer—for belief arises only when doubt has appeared; before that, no belief. He is Shraddhavan. If the father turns left, he turns left; if straight, he goes straight. If the father seats him on his shoulders, he sits upon his shoulders. He does not ask, Where shall we reach? Won’t you mislead me? Be careful holding my hand! He drops all concern—he gives his hand.
Shraddhavan means: one without the conceit of knowledge. The conceited “knower” is never Shraddhavan. The very people who appear to be Shraddhavan are not; the conceited scholar is never Shraddhavan. Precisely because of lack of Shraddha he spreads the net of pedantry.
The Shraddhavan is childlike. He says, I know nothing; therefore wherever I arrive, that is the destination. If I do not arrive, that too is the destination. Whatever is given is attainment; whatever is not given—that too is attainment. Such a Shraddhavan mind says, Where my boat sinks, where it lands—there is the shore. Such a one—unhesitating, free, open, egoless, humble, without insistence—is Shraddhavan.
Krishna says: Jitendriya and Shraddhavan…
Because if someone becomes Jitendriya without Shraddha, he may fall to ego. If one conquers the senses and lacks Shraddha, the victory of the senses will intensify ego; great stiffness will arise: I have conquered anger; I have conquered sex; I have attained Brahmacharya; I have renounced; I am a sannyasin; I am a saint; I am an ascetic.
Without Shraddha, if one conquers the senses, he falls into the same illusion as the scientist who, conquering outer nature, imagines himself supreme. Conquering inner nature too, ego can arise if there is no Shraddha. Even victory over the senses can become a victory for ego. And victory of ego is defeat of the Atman.
Hence Krishna immediately adds—he does not stop with Jitendriya—Shraddhavan as well. The condition is deep. Without it the Jitendriya can become egotistical.
Often it happens that one who still gets angry a little is less egotistical than one who does not get angry at all. Why? Because one who gets angry is also made humble by anger; he is reminded of his limits—at a small provocation his kettle boils over; his blanket is thin, not thick. One who loses awareness at trifles learns his limits.
Remember, one who gets angry, who becomes subject to sex, who gets greedy—he knows he has limits. Such a person cannot become very egotistical—ego has no firm foundations to stand on; at small things all is upset! He cannot trust himself—what ego can he maintain? And one who gets angry, becomes greedy, even cheats a bit—he is compassionate toward others; he knows, We are weak, others are weak.
Therefore so‑called saints often become harsh and cruel. Because they never get angry, if another becomes angry they feel like hanging him. Because they never allow desire, if another feels desire, they feel like throwing him into hell. Such so‑called saints, not Shraddhavan, but somehow busy trying to conquer the senses—their case often becomes dangerous. Hence it is difficult to find a compassionate saint.
To find a saint who is compassionate is difficult—which means it is difficult to find a true saint. One who, walking on the path, has never felt greed, anger, desire, cannot be compassionate to others—he thinks, What did not happen to me is happening to you—sinner!
But one in whose mind everything has happened that happens to others, inevitably becomes humble. He knows, I am not even master of myself; if another is not master of himself, there is no question of hell—it is human nature; to err is human. He understands that error belongs to man.
If one is Jitendriya without Shraddha, there is danger. Therefore Krishna couples them—Jitendriya and Shraddhavan. With Shraddha, the power gained through conquering the senses will not feed ego but will be received by the Atman. The Jitendriya, Shraddhavan, attains peace—supreme peace.
What is peace? The supreme silence—the ultimate silence. What is this supreme peace?
What is unrest? The trembling of consciousness—excitement. An excited state of mind is unrest. Like a lake in a storm—waves colliding with rocks, winds driving the waves—agitated, distraught—that mind is unpeaceful. A peaceful mind is like a lake in silence—no blows of wind, no noise of waves, no struggle—silence.
In pleasure there is excitement; in pain there is excitement. Hence peace is beyond pleasure and pain. A happy man is not peaceful; the happy man is also unpeaceful. The unhappy man is not peaceful; he too is unpeaceful. Pleasure has its own excitement—pleasant to our bent of mind. Pain has its own excitement—unpleasant to our bent of mind.
And therefore what is pain for one may be pleasure for another. What is pleasure for one may be pain for another. And what is pleasure for you today may be pain tomorrow; what is pain today may be pleasure tomorrow. They are convertible; pleasure can become pain. Both are excitations; the difference lies in perspective—what you call pleasure and what you call pain.
Hearts have failed in pleasure too—you have heard. In pleasure the heartbeat stops. Surely, pleasure must be an intense excitement. Because we seldom meet great pleasure, it seldom happens; and if it comes, it comes in such small doses that we are immunized to it. If it comes all at once—as with a lottery of a million—then there is danger. The lottery may come, the winner may not survive.
A sudden flood of pleasure breaks a man, more than pain—because pain is familiar; we are immunized; it comes daily. However much pain comes, the heartbeat does not stop; the greatest sorrow is borne. Because our vision is so wrong that we have made great sorrow for ourselves, we bear it. But pleasure—because our vision is such that we do not create it—if some pleasure, fitting our vision, overwhelms us, there is danger. Even pleasure’s excitement soon becomes unpleasant. All excitations become unpleasant.
I have heard: Nadir loved a woman. But she never looked at him. Nadir Shah was no ordinary man—extraordinary. Among murderers none was more extraordinary. Recently we have broken some records—Hitler and Stalin—but their murders were indirect; they hardly knew they were killing. Nadir Shah’s murder was direct—he killed with his own hand.
When he learned that the woman loved one of his own guards, a common soldier, he went mad. He called his wise men—Tell me the punishment. The wise were amazed—Nadir was so skilled at inventing punishments, and he asked them? They said, Your skill surpasses ours. You invent such tortures! We cannot advise you. But Nadir insisted—Whatever I think falls short; bring me something no one has done to anyone.
One of them, a psychologist, said, If you will accept my counsel, I will tell you. Nadir agreed, and the punishment was given. It was the first time—and if given many times, the world would be in trouble. The punishment was strange—unthinkable.
Both were stripped naked, bound in an embrace with ropes, and tied to a pole—no food, no water—their faces toward each other. For a moment they felt they had attained heaven, for which they had longed—to reach each other’s arms! They were amazed—What happened to Nadir? They did not know a psychologist had advised him. And when politicians have psychologists as advisers, the world will see disasters like never before.
A minute, two minutes—and restlessness began. If an embrace breaks after a moment, a pleasant memory remains; if it lasts ten minutes, unease begins. Fifteen minutes, half an hour… Those lips in which they had imagined roses bloom—stinks began arising. Nowhere do roses bloom in lips; they bloom only in the poetry of poets who know nothing of lips. Those who know a little know—no flowers bloom. All kinds of odors rise. They began to rise.
A day passed, twenty‑four hours. No sleep. Drowsiness filled their eyes and bodies. They felt as if both had become corpses—not living beings. Then urine and feces began to flow—two days had passed. Filth piled up. They screamed—Release us, forgive us! But Nadir came daily to watch the lovers’ state.
Then the mood arose that, if their hands were free, they would throttle each other. In those moments they must have felt enmity as no lovers ever did.
The greatest good fortune of lovers is that they never meet. When they meet, trouble begins. And to meet like this—utterly—then great difficulty. Think of their state after fifteen days—like dead bodies, mad, deranged!
They say that when, after fifteen days, the psychologist advised, Now release them; now watch the other pleasure, they were freed. They ran back to back—and never met again; never looked at each other.
All pleasures become pain. And with practice, pains become pleasures. The first cigarette never gives pleasure—only bitterness in the mouth, a filthy smoke, coughing, stench, restlessness. The first drink never gives pleasure. But those who serve alcohol say: the taste must be cultivated; you must be trained. This is not ordinary—like classical music, the taste is born of practice. The mouth’s bitterness goes, the burn in the chest subsides, the entire breathing tract, which first protested, stops protesting. With practice, alcohol becomes pleasant.
Pleasure is excitation; pain is excitation; excitations can be transformed into one another—they are.
Peace, supreme peace, is where there is no excitation—neither of pleasure nor of pain. Where there is neither pleasure nor pain—where the mind becomes supremely quiet—there bliss flowers, the gate to Prabhu opens, and entrance into the supreme truth happens.
One who is Jitendriya, endowed with Shraddha, whose mind becomes quiet—enters the supreme, the profound truth.