Geeta Darshan #5

“Even while doing, I am a non-doer”—Krishna’s statement deserves to be understood deeply. First, action by itself does not create the sense of doership. Action in and of itself does not produce the ego of “I am the doer.” If the feeling of doership exists within, it rides upon actions. If the ego is there, it mounts the action. Thus, action is not the parent of the doer; the ego-sense is.

So, leave Krishna aside for a moment: if we wish, we too can act and yet remain non-doers. Action does not manufacture the doer; the ego-sense does. And ego is so strange that even if you do nothing, it becomes the doer of doing nothing.

You are walking along a road; the activity of walking is happening. If you look very closely at this act of walking, you will not find any walker inside—only the process of walking. Search as you will, you will not find the walker, because that which is present within does not walk. The act of walking happens outside; within there is no walker. Within, that which is, is unmoving, has never moved. You may have traveled thousands of miles; still, that which is within remains where it is—has not moved an inch. But the ego rides on the activity and declares, “I am walking.”

Look carefully as you walk down the road: can you find the walker anywhere? There is the process of walking—true. But the walker is nowhere. Language has allowed certain basic errors to enter because of our egos. We feel that if there is an activity called walking, there must be a walker too.

It is almost like saying, “Lightning flashes in the sky.” From the standpoint of existence this is wrong. It suggests lightning is one thing and flashing is another: “lightning flashes.” The truth is simply that flashing is what lightning is. The sentence creates the illusion of a flasher and the act of flashing. “Lightning flashes” is not right; what flashes is named lightning. The flashing is lightning.

We say, “Rain rains.” That too is quite wrong. Rain means what is raining. “Rain rains” is mere repetition, redundancy—needless.

If we enter into any action whatsoever, we never find a doer; we find only the action. Whom do we find within then? There is surely someone within—but not a doer; a seer, a witness. At the heart of all activities is the witness.

You feel hunger in your stomach. You say, “I am hungry,” as if you are the one who gets hungry, as if you are the doer. The truth is the reverse: you come to know that hunger is present. You do not get hungry; the activity of hunger is occurring, and you only know it. Strictly speaking, you should say, “I am knowing that hunger is present,” not “I am hungry.”

If you have a headache, even then the pain is not in you; you only know there is pain in the head. And when you take a painkiller, don’t think the pain has been annihilated. The pain may still be there, but the path by which the knowledge of pain reaches the knower has been interrupted. Now you do not know that pain is occurring; not knowing, you say, “The headache is gone.”

In the last great war, a soldier in France received a severe injury to his leg and fell unconscious. The damage was such that the part below the knee had to be amputated while he was still unconscious. Before losing consciousness he had terrible pain in the big toe. In the morning, when he regained consciousness, he said, “My big toe hurts terribly.” But the toe was no longer there. The nurse nearby said jokingly, “Think again—your big toe hurts?” He insisted, “It hurts a lot.”

The nurse lifted the blanket to show that the leg below the knee was gone. “How can a toe that isn’t there hurt?” The man looked and said, “I can clearly see that the leg is gone; still I feel the pain in my big toe. What can I do?” Doctors were called, thinking he was confused. He replied, “I am fully conscious. I can see there is no leg, so there should be no pain. That is logical even to me. But what can I do? There is pain!”

Further investigation showed he was right: there was pain. The question was, how can a non-existent toe hurt? It turned out that the nerve fibers that used to carry the toe’s pain signals to the brain were still firing. The toe is far from the brain, with a web of wires in between that carry news by vibrating. They were still vibrating. The brainward ends of those nerves continued to signal: “Pain!” The toe did not exist—and yet there was pain.

In truth, there is no pain in consciousness itself. Consciousness only comes to know. If the knowing continues, even a non-existent pain can appear to be; if the knowing is cut off, even a present pain will not be known.

Consciousness is only the knower, the witness. Only witnessing.

We too are not doers within action. The doer is our delusion. The Divine cannot be deluded in this way. Hence Krishna says, “Even while doing everything, I am a non-doer.” The day we know, we shall discover the same: doing everything, yet a non-doer. But that day is far. When we know this, we become a part of the Divine.

Understand this sutra first from this angle. It is useful for the seeker to become gradually non-doing—to become a witness. Let a moment come when no sense of doership is left in his life; only the knowing remains.

The day that arrives, samadhi flowers. The supreme moment of life’s benediction comes. We reach where we have longed to arrive for lifetimes. The journey ends; the destination is attained. We enter the temple. The pilgrimage culminates the day we know: there is no doer—only the seer, the knower.

There is a second sense to Krishna’s statement. The Divine cannot have ego. Why? Because ego can exist only among egos; it cannot exist alone. There are not two Gods in existence. The feeling of “I” is always tied to the feeling of “you.” If “you” disappears, “I” cannot survive; it becomes meaningless.

Thus, the more you are in a crowd, the more you fill with ego; the more you are in solitude, the more ego dissolves.

If seekers have fled toward solitude, their deep reason was not simply to escape society; they found that aloneness facilitates the dissolution of ego. The moment the other is present, my “I” arises.

Sitting alone in your room, with no one there, the ego becomes very faint. It still lingers because others exist in your mind if not in the room. As long as they live in the mind, a little ego remains.

In deep sleep at night, as long as dreams continue, a thin ego remains. But when even dreaming ceases, no ego remains; there is no “I” within. So in the morning when you say, “I slept so deeply, it was such bliss,” the bliss does not belong to deep sleep; it belongs to the moments free of “I.” If, even for a moment, sleep is so deep that the “I” disappears, you touch a realm of profound bliss—the heaven that belongs to the Divine.

Hence deep sleep is very close to samadhi, and also very far: close, because in both the “I” disappears; far, because in sleep it disappears by natural stupor, in samadhi by heightened awareness.

For “I” to exist, “you” must be. Without “you,” there is no way to form “I.” “I” and “you” are polarities—like electricity which cannot exist without both positive and negative; positive cannot be alone, nor negative without positive. As on earth, men cannot be without women, nor women without men.

Perhaps you have noticed: in the presence of a woman, your inner masculinity becomes active; when no woman is present, it subsides. In front of a man, a woman’s femininity blossoms; without a man, it fades.

The other pole must always be present. The other half of “I” is “you.” “I” and “you” are two ends of one stick. If “you” falls, “I” falls; if “I” falls, “you” falls. For the Divine there is no “you”; therefore there is no way for an “I” to form.

Psychologists say this too—especially the Western psychologist Piaget, who devoted his life to how the child’s sense of “I” arises. His discoveries are striking: in the child, the sense of “you” comes first, and “I” later. A child first becomes aware of others, then of himself. Exactly so. The child first knows “others.”

That is why small children often don’t say, “I am hungry.” They say, “This one is hungry,” referring to themselves as if they were the other. Little ones often use their own name in the third person: “Bablu is hungry,” not “I am hungry.” The “I” is not yet deep; even “Bablu” is third person: “Bablu is sleepy.”

Piaget says: children first discover “you,” then gradually “I.” Hence children appear so innocent—because the “I” has not fully formed. When it does, they become tough and difficult.

When the “I” appears for the first time, rebellion arises; thus there is an age of revolt in children. With the first taste of “I,” they test it everywhere—against father, mother, teacher: “I am.”

If mother says, “Don’t do this,” he does it—to prove “I am.” If father says, “Don’t go there,” he goes, to prove “I am.” It is natural that for a while children fight parents; through this, they strengthen their ego.

I say this to show: for the Divine there is no “I,” because there is no “you.”

Therefore Krishna says, “Even while acting, I am a non-doer. I am—and yet as if I am not. I am, and still I am not.” For whom could God say “you”? There is no place to put a “you.” In this sense too his statement is very meaningful. And there is a third sense.

For the Divine, existence is as our body is for us—an organic unity. I do not call my hand “you,” I say “I.” I do not call my foot “you,” I say “I.” My body is my own extension. For the Divine, all existence is His extension. It is He alone. Therefore, when God creates, even that creation is not something “other.” Understand this creation rightly.

A painter paints a painting. The painting becomes separate; the painter is separate. The painter may die, the painting remains; it now has its own existence. A sculptor makes a statue; the statue stands apart. The sculptor may die; the statue remains. A mother bears a son; even if the mother dies, the son lives. Like that, the sculptor’s statue takes a separate existence—the sculptor must now call it “you,” not “I.”

But a dancer dances: the dance cannot be separated. However long he dances, dancer and dance remain one. That is why we have envisioned God as Nataraja, the cosmic dancer; not as a sculptor or painter. There is a deep reason: as dancer and dance are one—if the dancer stops, the dance stops; and, delightfully, if the dance stops, the dancer is no longer a dancer, for he is a dancer only while the dance is happening—so between dancer and dance there is an identity. The dancer cannot set the dance aside and call it “you,” nor can he be a dancer apart from the dance.

Such is the relation between God and creation. The Creator cannot remain Creator by stopping creation—therefore He cannot stop it; otherwise He would cease to be Creator. It will not stop. Creation goes on eternally. Creator and creation are one—like dancer and dance. Therefore even creation cannot be a “you” to God; there is no space, no gap where a “you” could be placed.

Hence Krishna says, “Doing everything, I remain a non-doer. The doer cannot catch me. The ‘I’ cannot catch me. Actions cannot construct an ego around me.”

It is like this: in summer, you may have seen a dust storm, a whirlwind rising in circular spirals high into the sky. After the whirlwind passes, if you look at the ground you will see its circular traces. In the very center there is an empty, bare spot—void—where no trace is left. Around that emptiness the whole whirlwind revolved, as a potter’s wheel revolves around its peg. Upon that empty center all the storm whirled; the middle remained void.

The Divine is existence like a whirlwind—no “I” at the center, only emptiness; around, the vast cosmic play.

That is why we call the world God’s lila—play. More beautiful than the word “creation” is “play,” because in play there is no ego.

We, however, let ego intrude—even into play. Two people playing cards stiffen with pride; playing chess, they draw swords. The moment ego enters, play becomes work—a shop.

Play remains play only as long as there is no “I” within. Lila is unfolding. Losing is fine; winning is fine. It makes no special difference. Sometimes a father playing with his child shows this: it would be foolish to bring ego against a child; then he is not concerned about winning. Many times he even loses deliberately so the child may taste victory. He lies down, seats the child on his chest; the child overflows with joy, and the child’s joy becomes the father’s joy—by losing. That is play.

For the Divine, the world is a play. Many times He lets us win—like a child. Many times we sit upon His chest—like a child. But within Him, there is no ego. Krishna’s declaration points to such egolessness. Understand it—and if, gently, it descends into your life, it is great fortune.

“Na maam karmaani limpanti, na me karma-phale sprihaa.
Iti maam yo ’bhijaanati, karmabhir na sa badhyate.” 14.

“Actions do not taint Me, nor do I have longing for the fruits of action. He who thus knows Me in essence is not bound by actions either.”

Krishna says: since I have no craving for the fruits of action, actions do not cling to Me. And whoever knows Me so becomes free from the clinging of action.

No craving for fruits; no hankering for results. This is the difference between play and work. If there is desire for results, even play becomes work. If there is no desire for results, even work becomes play. That is all—the difference between karma and lila is the craving for fruits.

You go out early in the morning—just for a walk. Someone asks, “Where are you going?” You say, “Nowhere in particular; I’m just going for a walk”—which means there is no question of a result, no purpose of reaching somewhere. No destination, no goal. Just walking.

Along the same path at noon you go to the shop. Then you are not “just walking,” you are going somewhere. The path is the same, you are the same, your legs the same. Yet the joy of the morning walk is different, and the burden of the noon errand is different. Why? In the morning it was play; at noon it became work. In the morning there was no craving for a result. Action itself was the fruit—an end in itself. There was nothing beyond it to be gained. You walked—and that was enough. Each step was spontaneous; you could stop anywhere, turn back anywhere. No pressure, no push from behind, no pull from ahead. Each step was total in itself.

The Divine is not doing in order to reach somewhere. Existence has no purpose. This is hard to grasp.

Existence is purposeless. Flowers bloom purposelessly. Birds sing purposelessly. Stars move purposelessly. Life arises and dissolves purposelessly. The human mind cannot comprehend anything without purpose. “Without purpose? Then what for?”—which is again asking for purpose. Life is purposeless—in other words, life is joy in itself; there is nowhere to arrive beyond it.

This is what Krishna calls purposelessness. He says: in what I do there is no compulsion, no must—there is joy. Like children who wake up in the morning and dance and play—for no reason. So is all existence: steeped in joy, for joy alone.

That is why we call Krishna’s life lila. Rama’s life we call character—charitra. Rama is grave, purpose-driven, choosing this and not that, right and wrong. In Rama’s life, purpose is clear. In Krishna’s, purpose dissolves—there is a great purposelessness. Therefore Rama could be called a partial incarnation, not full; Krishna we call a full incarnation, because as the Divine is wholly purposeless, so is this person wholly purposeless. Each act is play, not work.

But when Krishna says there is no craving for fruits, it is hard for us to understand. We say, “If there is no desire for results, why take a step at all? If nothing is to be gained, why do anything?” Our entire activity is result-oriented. If a result comes, we act; if not, why act? Our life is not in the present; it is always in the future. We do not live today; we live in tomorrow.

But you can never live in tomorrow; you can only imagine it. Hence we live little, and die more. We say, “Tomorrow.” Fruit is always tomorrow. The fruit cannot be today. Today can only be action; fruit comes tomorrow. And when tomorrow comes, it again pushes fruit into the next tomorrow. Today is always action; fruit is always tomorrow. Today is the present; tomorrow the future. Fruit is always imagination; only action has existence. The Divine does not live in the future, because He does not live in imagination.

Who lives in imagination? Understand this and Krishna’s statement will become clear. Those who are frustrated live in imagination; those whose lives are filled with sorrow live in imagination—because they compensate their sorrow through fantasy.

Today is so dull that the hope of tomorrow’s fruit soothes it. Today there is nothing; we decorate today with the hope of tomorrow’s flowers. Yesterday it was the same; tomorrow it will be the same. Today remains empty; tomorrow seems full. In the final reckoning, life is a sum of todays, not tomorrows. All the empty todays add up to empty hands—because life is today’s sum, not tomorrow’s.

Today exists; tomorrow is only imagination. Yet today is full of pain, and if we were to drop tomorrow too, it would be hard to lift our feet. Our fruit-hunger arises from our misery. The Divine is blissful; He has no need of fruit-hunger. Only the unhappy thirst for results; a blissful mind does not. Whenever you are in joy, the future disappears and only the present remains. If you fall in love and your beloved sits by your side, you do not think, “What will happen tomorrow?” You know only what is happening now. When you melt into music, tomorrow is lost; this very moment becomes enough. When one sinks into bhajan or kirtan, this moment becomes everything; the whole existence concentrates here and now.

All the moments of joy are moments of the present. The Divine is blissful every moment; hence He cannot desire fruits.

Krishna says: the day one understands this truth, that day one ceases to be fruit-oriented.

Let me say another thing. I said: unhappy people crave fruits. Now let me add: those who crave fruits become unhappy. It is a vicious circle. Suffer, and you will hanker for results; hanker for results, and you will suffer. Why? Because when you suffer, to dispel the pain of this moment you see no way other than fantasy about the future. There is another way—Krishna points to it—but we do not see it. We prefer to forget this moment in imagination: “Trust that tomorrow everything will be fine. Today life is a curse; tomorrow it will be a blessing. Today are thorns; tomorrow flowers.” Waiting for tomorrow consoles us.

Because we suffer, we shoot the arrows of desire into the future. We build bridges of longing—rainbow bridges—upon which one cannot walk, that only appear from a distance; go near and they vanish. So do not go close to the rainbow—it disappears.

We build such bridges in tomorrow. They look charming, with all the rainbow’s colors—perhaps more. Then tomorrow comes, and the rainbow is nowhere. Sorrow arises again. Because there was sorrow, we built the rainbow; because the rainbow is not found, sorrow deepens. Then we build even bigger rainbows, thinking, “Perhaps the previous ones were too small; perhaps we didn’t try hard enough; perhaps we were stingy in our running—run harder, spin a wider web of imagination, and tomorrow fulfillment will be.” Tomorrow comes, the web still breaks. The broken rainbows give great pain. Again we enlarge the bridge-building—and from life to death we collect fragments of broken rainbows, until life becomes a ruin useful only to archaeology: nothing in hand but the wreckage of hopes; and death stands before us. Then even building bridges becomes impossible.

That is why we fear death. Not because we know death—how can we fear what we do not know? We fear because death means there will be no more tomorrows—no more “tomorrow” for our rainbows and our dreams. We have always lived in tomorrow; we never lived today. Death says, “Now there is only today.” We are thrown back upon ourselves—with no future to lean on, no dream to weave. We have no habit of living with today; we have lived only with tomorrow. Hence death terrifies us. Death is the death of tomorrow.

Krishna, speaking from the side of the Supreme, says: I live today—here and now. I have no craving for fruits, no longing for tomorrow. Today is enough.

Jesus prays: “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is sufficient.

Newman sings: “I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.”

Krishna says: here and now—this is all. I have no craving for fruits, for two reasons. First, a blissful mind is here and now. And as I said, sorrow breeds tomorrow; and tomorrow, in turn, thickens sorrow. Conversely, in a joyful mind, no tomorrow arises; and where no tomorrow arises, joy deepens. That, too, is its own circle.

The less the longing for tomorrow, the more today fills with dense joy. Infinite bliss begins to condense into today.

The Divine is moment-born; yet His moment is eternity—one moment that is infinite. We are future-bound; our future brings nothing but death—new moons without stars—leaving only unhealed wounds of unlived life.

Krishna says: whoever understands this becomes like me.

If you seek joy, be free of tomorrow. If you seek truth, bid farewell to the future. If you seek sorrow, chase tomorrow. Those who wish to knock at hell’s gate should build bridges of dreams into the future. Those who wish to open heaven’s gate will find it here and now.

What is the secret of here and now? No craving for fruits; action is sufficient. When will action be sufficient? When action becomes play, lila.

But we are so skilled we turn play into work. Krishna says: turn work into play. We are the opposite: we make drama into life. Have you seen people in the cinema? Tears run; handkerchiefs are wet. There is nothing on the screen but shadows—patterns of light and shade on a bare screen. Yet hearts race; blood pressure rises. When they exit the theater, look at their faces: the play has become life. The darkness of the cinema helps—one can weep unnoticed. Better still, watch yourself in the theater to see what is happening.

Krishna says: this whole life is a play. We say: the play is life. If you can see that on the screen there is nothing but a mesh of electrical rays, one day you will see that here too there is nothing but a mesh of energies—then all this becomes drama, mere acting.

Therefore Krishna is a consummate actor: he can play the flute and wield the discus, speak supreme wisdom and dance with cowherd girls, bestow the Gita and steal clothes from the riverbank. No other so “inconsistent” man has walked the earth.

In that inconsistency lies a secret: only one who is utterly non-serious—who knows life as play—can be so free. Give him Rama’s part—he will do it; give him Ravana’s—he will do it. He will not say, “I cannot play Ravana.” If life is a play, what’s the problem? No craving for future or fruit—because life is play. For the Supreme Existence, all is play; there is no future.

One last point from this sutra. We, the human mind, divide time into three: past, present, future. Time itself is not divided. Ask the Divine and He would say, “Three? Time is always present.” There is no past and no future for the Divine—only the present. If we were a little wiser, we would even remove the “present,” because we have no experience of it. We only know either the past—the ash heap of our frustrated desires—or the future—the rainbows of our hopes. We do not know the present at all. For us, time is past and future.

What do we call the present? The instant in which the future passes into the past—the transition, the doorway where the future becomes past, where life becomes death. That threshold we name “present,” but we can’t catch it; when we try, it is already past; until we try, it is future. For the Divine, the situation is entirely different: no future, no past—only the present; pure present. Therefore, for Him, time is eternity, not a flow but a still infinity—like a placid lake.

For the Divine, there is no cause and effect. For us there is: cause means past, effect means future; “present” is where cause becomes effect or effect becomes cause again. Our mind works like this: imagine a small hole in a wall, a cat in a dimly lit room, and we are peering through the hole. The cat passes before the hole: first its head appears, then its back, then its tail. When the cat returns, again head, then back, then tail. We conclude: the head must be the cause and the tail the effect—because we always see tail after head. Wherever the cat roams in the room, our peephole shows first head, then back, then tail. Surely, head is cause, tail is effect.

The poor cat knows nothing of this. For the cat, head and tail are one thing; there is no cause and effect—they are two ends of one.

For the Divine, seed and tree are not cause and effect; they are two aspects of one. Birth and death are not past and future; they are two ends of one—head and tail. Our difficulty comes from our way of seeing, from our tiny peephole—because our present is so tiny. If the present grows, the peephole widens; if only the present remains, the wall falls away. Then we know existence as it is: nothing has passed, nothing will happen—everything is. All is present.

Therefore Krishna says, “I have no craving for fruits.” There is no future—how could there be craving? This very moment is all. Whoever knows this becomes free in the same way.

This sutra needs to be experienced in depth. It is among the essential ones.

Those who desire the fruits of their actions worship the gods! One who craves the fruits of action cannot worship the Divine. One who longs for results can only worship the gods. Why? Because the condition for worshiping the Divine is: do not desire the fruits of action. Worship of the Divine has only one meaning—dropping the desire for results; dropping the hankering for the fruit.

So you cannot worship the Divine for the sake of a result. He does not come under that condition. He is unconditional! The Divine’s one condition is precisely this: you will come to me only when you come without asking for anything. The very moment you ask, distance is created between us. Your asking becomes the distance.

In truth, the very asking shows that we do not need the Divine; we need his services. Services are needed; the Divine is not needed. Someone wants success in his shop; someone wants to win an election. Someone wants to earn wealth; someone wants freedom from illness. Someone wants to marry the person they desire. The Divine’s services are needed: “Get me married to the one I want; seat me on the chair I crave.” But the asking shows the Divine is not needed. The demand itself is the gap. What is needed is the fruit! And the Divine is found by one who has no longing for the fruit.

Therefore, Krishna says, those who desire the fruits of action do not come near me—they cannot come near me—because they do not fulfill my condition. The condition is not fulfilled. The condition is simply this: only if you come desiring nothing can you come to me.

Existence, too, has conditions. Heat water to a hundred degrees and it becomes steam. Heat it to ninety-nine, and it still does not become steam; it remains water. So steam may say: “Reach a hundred degrees, and you will arrive to me.” The sky may say: “Become a hundred degrees hot, turn into clouds, and you will float in me.” If you do not reach a hundred degrees, then remain water and move upon the earth; remain water and flow downward.

Have you ever noticed? Water flows downward; steam rises upward! Just by fulfilling this condition of a hundred degrees, steam begins to rise toward the sky. The ocean starts racing toward the heavens. And water, even if it is on the Himalayas, on Gaurishankar, keeps racing toward depressions; it keeps descending.

The desire for the fruits of action is an obstruction between you and the Divine.

Therefore Krishna says: the one who worships for the fruits of action cannot worship me. In my place he can only worship the gods.

I explained last night what I mean by “gods”: souls that do not take bodies, yet are exceedingly auspicious; still, they are eager to take birth; they are not yet liberated.

Remember, only one is liberated who is neither auspicious nor inauspicious—neither good nor bad. An auspicious soul is not liberated; an inauspicious soul is not liberated. The inauspicious soul is bound by its inauspicious actions—by iron chains. The auspicious soul is bound by its auspicious actions—by golden chains. The chains differ. The wicked soul wears iron chains—ugly, rusted. The good soul wears shining, polished, cultured chains of gold, studded with diamonds and jewels. But bondage is bondage in both cases.

Auspicious souls, too, are not liberated. Liberation comes only when one goes beyond both auspicious and inauspicious, beyond bondage itself, beyond karma itself, beyond the doer himself. Thus auspicious souls are eager to take birth and eager to do good. Therefore those who desire the fruits of action worship the gods: they seek help from such auspicious souls. Help can come from them; there is no difficulty in that.

So Krishna says: for liberation, worship me. If you want power, worship the gods. If you want liberation, worship me.

But the condition for nearing the Divine is very difficult. You must be heated to a hundred degrees, become steam, evaporate. Unless the ego turns into vapor, becomes airy, there is no flight toward the sky. And the ego does not dissolve so long as the desire for results remains.

Thus he says: Arjuna, if you wish to be liberated—liberated from all sorrow, all grief, all pain, all bondage—then worship me.

But what does it mean to worship me? It means: just as I am free of the urge to act, free of the urge for results, free of the hankering for the future, free of the fruit-desire, so you too become free of the fruit-desire. Behave as I do. Act, but do not remain a doer. Walk, but do not remain the walker. Rise and sit, but do not remain the riser or the sitter. Do, but from within bid farewell to the doer. Let what happens, happen. Become merely an instrument in the hands of the Supreme Power—surrendered, immersed. Drop yourself. Then you can be free of all suffering, of all bondage.

And you asked the second question: what does “for the establishment of dharma” mean?

Dharma is never destroyed. Nothing is ever destroyed, so how could dharma be destroyed! Dharma is never destroyed, but it becomes hidden. In the sense of becoming hidden, it seems destroyed. Its re-establishment is needed again and again. Its reinstatement is needed again and again.

Adharma is never existential. Just as dharma is never non-existent, adharma is never truly existent. And yet, again and again, there arises the need to remove that non-existent adharma.

Understand this a little, because it will seem very upside-down! If dharma is never destroyed, why is there any need to establish it? And if adharma never really exists, why is there any need to remove it? Yet it is so.

Darkness is. And yet darkness is not. Every day it must be dispelled, and yet it is absolutely not! Darkness has no existence. Darkness is not existential. Darkness is not a thing. And yet it appears.

This is the fun, the paradox of life: darkness is not, and yet it is. It is quite enough. It thickens. It frightens. It makes one’s very life tremble. And yet it is not! Darkness is only the absence of light. It is mere absence. As when you were in a room and moved outside; we say, “You are no longer in the room.” Darkness is like that. Darkness simply means: light is not present.

Therefore you cannot cut darkness with a sword. You cannot tie it in a bundle and throw it away. You cannot go to an enemy’s house and pour darkness into it, saying, “Let’s throw some darkness into his house.” You cannot throw darkness. If you want to remove darkness from your house, you cannot push it out. If you try, you will push yourself out of the house; the darkness will remain behind.

Darkness is not. It is not substantial. There is no substance in darkness, no content. Darkness is non-thing, no-thing, nothing. There is nothing in darkness. And yet it is. In the night, darkness makes the breath tremble. One feels afraid to walk. It is enough to frighten. Enough to make one shake. Enough to make one fall into a ditch. Enough for hands and feet to break.

Here is the great difficulty: from what is not, a man falls into a ditch! It should not be said—because it sounds absurd—but still: from what is not, a man falls into a ditch! From what is not, hands and feet are broken! From what is not, a thief steals! From what is not, a murderer kills!

It is not at all. Scientists too say it is not. Only light has existence. Yet what has existence has to be brought each day. Each evening you must light a lamp. If you do not, darkness stands ready.

So Krishna says: dharma-samsthapanarthaya—for the establishment of dharma; to light the lamp; to remove the darkness of adharma. Adharma, which is not; dharma, which is ever.

The sun is the source of light. What is the source of darkness? Nowhere. Light comes from the sun. From where does darkness come? From nowhere. It has no source.

Have you ever asked: from where does darkness come? Who spreads the sheet of darkness over this earth? Who fills your house with darkness? Light has a source—the sun. Where is the source of darkness?

There is no source, because darkness is not; otherwise there would be a source too. It would come from somewhere and go somewhere. When in the morning the sun rises, where does darkness go? Does it shrink and hide somewhere? It neither shrinks nor goes anywhere. It is not; it never was. Darkness never is, and yet every day it descends! Light is ever, and yet every evening it must be lit and sought.

So it is with dharma and adharma. Adharma is like darkness; dharma is like light. It must be sought daily, constantly.

Age after age, Krishna says, there must be a return. From the original source, dharma must return to the earth again. From the sun, light must be brought back again. Of course, when the sun’s light does not remain, we light earthen lamps. We light kerosene lanterns. We make do with them. But it is only “making do.” What is the sun, and what are these little lamps! It merely suffices.