Geeta Darshan #12

The mind is restless. That is its usefulness—and that is its danger. The mind will be restless, because its very function demands it. Its restlessness is like the feather fixed atop a house to show the wind’s direction. If the feather does not flutter, it cannot tell the way the wind is blowing. Wherever the wind shifts, the feather must turn with it; only then can it report the wind’s course.
The mind is the instrument that reports the ongoing differences, within and around the human personality. Therefore it has to be restless. Only then is it meaningful; otherwise it has no meaning. Outside, winter turns into summer—if the mind does not report it, life becomes impossible. There is a thorn on the path—if the mind does not report it; the foot is hurt—if the mind does not report it; a friend has become an enemy—if the mind does not report it; hunger arises—if the mind does not report it—then life becomes impossible.
So the mind has to report, at every moment, a thousand kinds of news. And it can do that only if it is stirred by each small event—only then can it give the news.
The mind’s very purpose is to keep your life in existence. And existence is changing every moment. Not even a single moment is the same as the moment before. Everything is changing. Every hour, every moment, all around there is a flow of change.
You must be informed of this change, otherwise you will not be able to live. And whatever informs you of change must, like that feather, keep trembling—ready for the wind’s turn. A delay of a single instant, and life can be in danger.
This is the mind’s utility—its very raison d’être. It exists to keep informing you, moment to moment, of the changes happening in life. That is its function. But right here its danger also begins. Because we try to know Paramatma with the same mind by which the world is known. There the mistake happens. For the world is change from moment to moment, and Paramatma is eternal, timeless. He never changes. He is ever the same. While the world is never what it was a moment ago. The world is a flowing Ganges; nothing stands still for even an instant—pure flux, pure flow. And Paramatma is ever the same, where not even a particle has ever changed.
So the mind is utterly capable and cooperative in knowing the world, and utterly useless and obstructive in knowing Paramatma. If you try to know Paramatma with this very mind, you will never know. There is no way to know the Divine through it.
Understand this rightly. There is no need to become the mind’s enemy—only a need to understand its purpose.
The mind’s function is to know that which is restless, therefore the mind is restless. Its function is not to know that which is eternal, the nitya. Hence to employ the mind toward the eternal is madness. The dimension of Paramatma is mismatched for the mind—and the mind is a mismatched method for Paramatma.
Therefore whoever journeys toward Paramatma, toward truth, toward the immutable, the eternal, must move by letting go of the mind’s restlessness—by bringing the mind to a halt.
This does not mean you become stone-like. This does not mean your mind should turn to rock. It only means you should have the art to switch the mind on and off. When you wish, its speed can be brought to zero; when you wish, its speed can be made complete. Let there be no slavery to it, no helplessness before it; become its master so that when you press the button, the mind stops working—so you may know the eternal. And when you press the button, the mind becomes active—so you may live in the world.
Existence is twofold. Outwardly, the world; inwardly, Paramatma. Hence there is a constant danger of a mistake: those who turn toward Paramatma sometimes shut the mind in such a way that they are cut off from the world. That is the same mistake as before—making the mind so mobile that it becomes unmanageable and you are cut off from Paramatma.
Samyak! The right personality, Krishna is saying, is one who becomes master of the mind. Mastery does not mean killing the mind. What sense is there in being master of a corpse? You kill an enemy and sit upon his chest—what meaning is there in that? Mastery over the dead has no meaning. Mastery over the living has meaning.
Hence mastery does not mean killing the mind. Mastery means the capacity to set the mind in motion, or motionless—at will, whenever you wish. As a person steps outside his house when he wants, and goes back inside when he wants. He does not get stuck outside so that he cannot return in. Nor, having gone in, does he get stuck so that he cannot go out.
Just as you move easily in and out of the house, so let there be an easy, voluntary movement in and out of yourself—that is mastery of the mind. Then it can be said, the mind is restrained. But the mind is fully alive. And when needed, it can be quickened. And you will need it twenty-four hours a day. Existence is in the world; the mind will be needed. But when the mind becomes an instrument in your hand, you have become the master.
Right now we are an instrument in the mind’s hands. The mind runs; we say to it, please, don’t run! It doesn’t listen. It keeps running! Our condition with the mind is like a man whose legs have become independent. He does not want to walk, but the legs say, we will walk! He wants to rest in a chair, but the legs keep walking. We would call such a man deranged. We would say, his legs have become his masters. He says, stop. But the legs do not stop. When he says, walk! the legs say, we will not; we will stop.
No, you are master of your legs. When you want to walk, they walk. When you want to stop, they become still. Just so should there be mastery over the mind. The mind too is an instrument, as the legs are an instrument.
But at night you lie down to sleep. You say to the mind, now be quiet; now switch off; let me sleep. Yet it goes on running! It does not listen to you. The mind is not at fault, remember this. Otherwise you will think, ah, this mind is a wretched thing. The mind is not to blame. Not at all. Those who keep abusing the mind are downright ignorant.
You yourself have arranged your mind like this. You have trained it so, your whole life long. You have never declared your mastery over it. You have never practiced any way to switch it off. You just kept the mind running—for cause or no cause. You have kept it running. Its track has been laid down.
The mind, for lifetimes, has become habituated to running. It has no information about stopping. It does not know there is such a thing as stopping. Therefore when one day you suddenly say to the mind, stop, it does not stop. And it will not stop just because you say so.
In truth, the more flustered you are in saying stop, that too is the mind’s running. Your anxious cry to stop is another motion of the mind. It will not stop for your words; you must know the art of stopping.
If you drive a car and do not know how to brake, and you shout stop!—that is insanity. Shout as you will, the car will not stop. Meanwhile your foot remains on the accelerator! And you are screaming, stop! You do not know how to apply the brake. You never used it; it is seized. Today, even if you place your foot on it, it is rusted. It needs oil—brake oil. It must be made smooth, simple, loose again. You never used it; you always pressed the accelerator—and kept on shouting. Then slowly you conclude, no matter how much we shout, this car is awful; it never stops.
There is no fault in the car. None. And the irony is that even while you are shouting, your foot is still pressing the accelerator! Exactly this do we do with the mind. And thus we keep blaming the mind our whole life—but nothing is solved.
Krishna says, the mind is restless. Restlessness is its nature. It must be restless, otherwise it has no meaning. That is its very function. But in the mind’s mechanism there is also an arrangement for stopping it. One should understand that arrangement—that brake system—properly. What is that arrangement which can also bring the mind to a halt?
Two points must be noted. First: when you want to stop the mind, your foot should not remain on the accelerator. Therefore in a car we do two jobs with one foot, so we do not make a mistake. Otherwise one could brake with one foot and accelerate with the other. But we use one foot, so that when we press the brake, we must necessarily leave the accelerator. If both feet are used, there is grave danger—pressing both brake and accelerator. So we use one foot—placing it on the brake so that the accelerator is necessarily released.
In the mind there is exactly such an arrangement. The same arrangement. In the way we press the mind to make it work, in just that way we must employ the same mechanism to stop it. The foot must shift a little—just a little. Understand what that arrangement is.
When you want the mind to run, what do you do? What is the mind’s accelerator? What is the structure that sets it in motion? We all make it run, so begin from what is familiar. When you want to make it run, what do you do?
Perhaps you never noticed: to make the mind run, you must establish identification with it. The more you identify, the faster the mind runs. Identification is the accelerator. Identification means, with whatever tendency you wish the mind to pursue, you must become one with it.
If you want the mind to run with sex, you will not stand apart; otherwise the mind will not run. That would be like starting the car but not pressing the accelerator—it will sputter and die. If you want to run with lust, do not think, I am thinking of sex. Think, I am sex. Then the mind will start to run. Soon sex will engulf your whole being. You will become one with it. And the more one you become, the faster the mind’s speed.
The brake is the exact opposite; you must break identification. The more you stand at a distance from any tendency—beyond it, separate from it—able to feel, I am different—the more the brake is applied.
Use the same foot—identification. If you press identification, become one, speed increases; the mind grows more restless. If you withdraw identification, the mind becomes still. Without your cooperation it cannot be restless; without your non-cooperation it cannot be still. To cooperate—and not to cooperate.
Cooperation gives speed; non-cooperation breaks speed.
So if you wish to run any tendency, cooperate with it—so much that you become colored by it. The technical word is raga—coloring. Fall into the coloring of any tendency; let its color spread all over you, and the mind’s motion becomes intense.
Many murderers in court say they did not commit the murder. They are not merely trying to mislead. Psychologists now say—in many senses they are right.
When the murderer kills, the murderer as a person is not present. He is so colored by the act that no accounting is possible. Not a single point of thought, of discernment, remains outside to say, I killed. The murder happened. He does not remain separate enough to be able to say, I did it. He can only say, the mood to kill seized me so completely that I was not there. The killing happened through me; I did not do it. Psychologists say he is right.
In truth, many murderers forget after the act that they have killed—utterly forget. After much probing it is found that there is no memory in them that they killed. Why does no memory remain?
For memory to form, a little distance is needed; otherwise memory cannot form. If you are fully colored by the tendency, the event will happen but memory will not be created. Memory belongs to one who remains. If I do not remain to note that the killing is happening, no memory can form. My conscious mind becomes so absorbed it records nothing. Unconscious memory is formed.
Hence the murderer, when sober, says, I did not kill. Hypnotize him—make him unconscious—and he will say, I killed. Give him alcohol, make him drunk, and he will say, I killed. When he is in ordinary awareness he says, I did not. The conscious mind has no news—news needs distance; it was not there.
You may not have killed, but many times you have thought of it. It is hard to find a person who has never thought of killing someone—if not another, then oneself. Those who know say that in seventy years, on average, each person thinks at least ten times of killing someone—oneself included. He does not do it—that is another matter. Why is it not done? The same reason: the accelerator is not fully pressed. Some distance remains. Some inner deliberation persists—what am I thinking!—or fear prevents you from pressing the pedal fully, lest the speed become too great and there be an accident. So you drive slowly.
If distance remains, the tendency cannot act; if distance disappears, the tendency acts. Identification with a tendency gives the mind blood and breath. Breaking identification brings inhibition and stillness to the mind.
Try it and you will see. When the mind is running with a tendency, do not say, stop. Saying stop is useless. Break identification with that tendency. Anger is arising—do not think, I am angry. See it thus: anger is arising in the mind; I am standing apart and watching—a witness. I see the mind saying, be angry; the mind saying, wring his neck; the mind saying, set fire—while I watch.
And the very moment the flavor of watching comes, you will find your foot has moved off the accelerator; the mind’s speed is slowing. This experience is so immediate and simple that all can have it. Only practice is needed in the process of standing as the watcher.
You can practice easily; you get a chance every day. At night when thoughts are moving in the mind, do not toss and turn in frustration, wishing the mind would stop so you can sleep. No. When thoughts are moving, begin to watch. Do not ask them to stop. Look at the thoughts moving; I am standing at a distance, watching. I am a witness. I will just watch; you go on.
And you will find, as soon as you decide to watch and let them go on, their power to run diminishes, their legs grow weak, their speed drops. And the moment you stand wholly as the watcher, the mind becomes utterly silent. Here enters the witness, there departs the mind. As this door receives the witness, that door sees the mind off. It happens together—simultaneously.
There is no need to fight the mind. The fighter is insane. There is a need to awaken toward the mind. Through awakening, restraint happens.
And until the restraint of the mind is attained, the journey toward the Lord does not begin. Because the mind is the means for the world and the obstacle for the Lord. A friend for the world, an adversary for the Lord.
There is no fault in this. It is merely a matter of mechanism. It is inevitable. There cannot be a mechanism that suits both. For the world requires a different kind of tool—everything is changing there; you need a consciousness that can change its focus continuously.
Remember: the faster a consciousness can change within the world, the more assured is its survival; the more secure is its existence.
Man has triumphed on earth while animals have lost—not for any other reason. Animals do not have such a restless mind. Man’s mind is restless; thus he has triumphed.
On this earth, mighty animals have become extinct—whole species vanished. Their bodies were immensely powerful. Scientists say that a million years ago—skeletons are found—our elephant is a small creature compared to those of that age, a miniature. There were animals ten to fifteen times larger than elephants. All of them disappeared. Why?
They had vast bodies and great strength—able to push small hills. But they did not have a mind agile enough to change with circumstances. Circumstances changed; their minds did not. Circumstances changed; the mind did not; they died. Whoever’s mind will not change with changing conditions will perish.
Only by changing with conditions does adjustment happen. Otherwise you are mal-adjusted. Your age increases, but you keep wearing the pajamas of childhood—that kind of trouble will be there. You must change the pajamas. Youth arrives, but the intelligence remains childish—your mind has not changed; you will be in difficulty. What a child does delights us; the same in a youth puts him in jail. Why? Because the child’s mind is adjusted to his situation. But the man has grown and is doing the same—intolerable. It means his mind is retarded—he grew, but the mind was left behind. Most of our life’s pains are this.
In the last world war, when American soldiers were recruited, their IQs were tested for the first time on a large scale. There was great surprise—no one’s intelligence exceeded thirteen years. The average mind stops at thirteen. Disturbing! A man reaches seventy, but his mind stays around thirteen. Hence all the difficulties. When an old man gets angry he stamps his foot like a child—the thirteen-year mind begins to function. Regression becomes easy.
Your house catches fire—you beat your chest and cry, just like a child of three whose toy breaks. What is the difference? Only that in ordinary situations you maintain gravity; in extraordinary ones your childishness appears. The juvenile within shows up in the unusual. In ordinary times you keep yourself gathered. A small event and the inner child is revealed.
The mind stops at thirteen! The one whose mind does not stop is a genius. But not stopping means the motion continues—the intelligence remains so mobile that it never halts; it changes with each new situation, becomes new for each new situation.
So the mind must change. A changing mind is auspicious. But it must remain within your capacity so that when you wish you can say, enough. And the mind sits quietly. And you can turn your face toward that direction where the immutable abides, where the eternal dwells. You can lift your eyes to that temple where He lives who never changes.
At the very sight of That, a wondrous peace surrounds your being. With change there can never be peace. With change, there will be unrest. With change there will be tension. Only with the Immutable does eternal peace descend.
Once one becomes skillful in this art—that when he wishes he can still the mind, and when he wishes he can set it in motion—he lives equally in the world and in Paramatma. And then such a person can say, the world too is a form of Paramatma. For such a person the world and the Divine are not enemies.
We see enmity because our mind cannot turn both ways. Our consciousness gets fixed in one direction. Our condition is like a man whose neck is paralyzed and he can only look one way; he cannot turn his head. Our mind is similarly paralyzed; we can only see the world. When we want to look within, nothing turns. But this is not the mind’s fault; it is yours.
Yet I see that overly religious people blame the mind and keep abusing it. The one who hurls the abuse—that too is mind. The one who says, the mind is restless—that too is mind. Because that which is not mind has never spoken; it is wordless. It has never hurled abuse, nor even praise. From it no word has ever arisen. The religious man who is restless, saying—this mind is terrible, wicked; how can I be free of it—that too is mind speaking. Because beyond mind there is only silence, perpetual silence—no jingle of words. There resides the soundless.
It is the mind speaking. And the mind has this knack—it also speaks against itself. It must. That which must change daily will have to speak against its own previous statements. A moment ago it said, I would give my life for you. A moment later it thinks, I should take your life! A moment ago, I cannot live a moment without you; a moment later, how to get rid of this one!
Circumstances change; the mind changes. The mind can never be consistent. There is no way. It has to be inconsistent. It must change forms again and again. So the mind will keep speaking against itself. It will be restless, and it will say, I want peace. The mind will say, give me peace. And you will set one part of the mind against another. One part will say, I want peace; another will weave unrest. Then you are placing your feet on both pedals—accelerator and brake. An accident is certain.
Most of us are accidents. Not men—mishaps. Because what we could have become, we have not; and what we should not have become, we are.
Hence so much pain, so much sorrow, so much trouble. Our whole life is a long accident. Everything is an accident. You go to love and hatred lands in your hand. You make friendship and enmity happens. You try to bring happiness and deliver only sorrow. You speak a kind word, the other understands something else. He speaks a kind word, we understand something else. No one understands another, no one sympathizes, no one feels compassion. All run about like deranged, and everything gets entangled.
Thus old people say, childhood was blissful. What was there in childhood that made it blissful? Only that the complexities you have now created in old age were not there. Nothing special. If there had been some positive diamonds in childhood, old age would not become so entangled—those diamonds would have grown brighter. There was nothing—only a blank slate.
Yes, in old age it hurts. Nothing was inscribed on it—no nectar-words, no Veda—only a blank slate. But in old age it seems as if too much carbon paper has been used—the script has become smudged; the whole mind looks like that.
Nothing can be read. Yet you keep writing over it—making it more complex—until in the end nothing remains but madness. You cannot read it yourself—let alone another. After life, what did life gain, what conclusions were drawn, where did life reach—you cannot even tell yourself, let alone another.
I have heard of a wondrous fakir, Mulla Nasruddin. He was the only literate man in the village. People got letters written by him. Two incidents I want to tell you—he was a precious man; his jokes are deep jests on man.
An old woman came to get a letter written. Nasruddin said, forgive me. Today I cannot write a letter. There is much pain in my big toe. The woman said, I have never heard that anyone writes letters with the big toe! If the toe pains, let it be; write my letter. He said, Mother, you do not understand. Do not put me in a fix. She said, what fix is in this? Your hand is fine. He said, the hand is perfectly fine. Everything is fine. But my big toe hurts. The old woman said, I am uneducated, but even I understand that the big toe has nothing to do with writing.
Nasruddin said, if you won’t relent, I will tell you. I may write the letter—but who will read it in the other village? After writing, I have to go read it too! And many times, do not tell anyone, even I cannot read what I have written! My foot hurts; don’t involve me now.
Another time, a man got a letter written. Afterward he said, now read it to me, in case I forgot anything. Nasruddin was in a fix. He said, look, this is illegal. The man said, what is illegal in it? Nasruddin said, tell me whose name the letter is written to. Only he has the right to read it. I cannot. The man said, that’s true—only the addressee should read it; I cannot. As the man was leaving agreeing, Nasruddin said, listen, the real thing is writing is easy—reading is very difficult. Even I cannot read what I have written!
These are jests about life. In the end, when you look at your life, you will find you cannot make sense of what is written! Neither beginning nor end to this story. No rhyme, no reason. What have I done? It is almost like what a madman would write—and the result is mine.
This will be—and is bound to be. That is why in old age we recall childhood as bliss—paradise! We speak so because old age has become hell—no other reason. We craft our own hell.
Until this deranged state of mind is brought under discipline—until restraint is attained—the journey to the Lord cannot begin. And the method to attain restraint is sakshi-bhava, witnessing—breaking identification. Breaking identification is Yoga. Yoga means union.
Whoever learns the art of breaking from the world learns the art of uniting with the Lord. They are two names of one thing. That is why the Jain scriptures have used Yoga differently—and many confusions arise.
Those acquainted with the Hindu scriptures and their definition of Yoga, if they read the Jain scriptures, will be surprised. The Jains say, the Tirthankara attains A-yoga—not Yoga!
But the Jains define Yoga as union with the world. So the Tirthankara attains A-yoga—he is disconnected from the world. The Hindu scriptures define Yoga as union with Paramatma. Hence the supreme knower attains Yoga—union with the Divine.
If you read the Jain scriptures you will be restless—these Jains say, drop Yoga, attain A-yoga. The Hindus say, attain Yoga.
Both usages are possible. Because leaving one side is union with the other. If you leave the world—A-yoga happens—union with Paramatma happens. If you unite with the world, then A-yoga from Paramatma happens.
The art of life is only this—be the master. When you wish, you can join; when you wish, you can break. Such mastery that at a gesture of the moment, the flow changes direction, consciousness begins to move the other way. Only such a free spirit attains the Lord.
Prashantamanasam hy enam yoginam sukham uttamam.
Upaiti shantarajasam brahmabhutam akalmasham. 27.
Because the yogi whose mind is well pacified, whose rajas has become quiet, who is sinless and who is one with the sat-chit-ananda Brahman—such a one is reached by the supreme bliss.
One who is free of sin; one whose rajas has become quiet—these two must be understood here.
Free of sin—what is sin? We keep a rough account: theft is sin, violence is sin, untruth is sin. But these are forms of sin, not sin itself. When I say forms and not sin, I mean as when we say this is a necklace, this a bangle, this an anklet—these are forms of gold, ornaments of gold—shapes of gold.
Understand gold and you will understand all forms. If you understand the forms, you will be deceived. For if a new form of gold appears, you will not know it is gold. The forms are infinite. If you think the bangle is gold and you see a necklace, you may not recognize it as gold.
If you fix on one thing as sin and do not recognize another, when that comes into life you will not know it as sin. To bind sin in form is to err. Understand the formless. Understand the gold, not the ornament.
Sin is one; its forms are many. Gold is one; the ornaments are many. Grasp the root rightly and you will recognize sin everywhere. If you seize the form—forms differ from society to society. Because we cling to forms, societies differ about what is sin.
What is sin in one culture is not in another. Even what is virtue in one can be sin in another. What is sin in one age can appear virtue in another. Great confusion arises.
If you cling to the form, confusion will be. Because forms change. Sin too changes fashion—not only ornaments. If you cling to old definitions, sin will take new forms—it also changes fashion; the mind tires of old sins and seeks new ones—and the new sins do not come under your old definitions, so you commit them with ease. See how this happens!
Every age is in trouble. The definitions are old; sins are new. By the time a definition is made—based on experience—sin’s fashion has changed. Now the fashion of sin is changing so fast that no definition will work.
It is like this: a man is running down a street in Paris. A friend stops him—where are you rushing? He says, I have my wife’s clothes in my hand. Why such a hurry? Is she in trouble? Not in trouble—the tailor delayed. If I am late, the fashion will change before I get there. I have spent a lot; what if the fashion changes before we arrive! Forgive me—another time; I am in haste now.
He is right. In Paris the fashion changes that fast. All over the world it does. If clothing fashion changes, not much trouble. But sin too changes its fashion. And when sin changes fashion it becomes very difficult to catch—difficult to recognize it as sin.
So only by understanding the root of sin can you be saved; otherwise it is difficult.
Take any arrangement—what was sin yesterday may not seem sin today; what was virtue may become sin. There was a time when charity was virtue; the donor was virtuous. Today everyone knows that without committing sin you cannot gather wealth to donate. First sin, then accumulate, then donate. Today a donor only announces he is a sinner—or at most is doing penance—nothing else.
To be born in a rich house was virtue—wealth came from merit. That was the old definition. Now being born in a wealthy home brings inner guilt—some sin, some crime, some guilt seems to be there.
Proudhon, a great Western thinker, wrote: all property is theft. The old thinkers said wealth comes from virtue. Proudhon says, all wealth is theft. Then births in rich homes cannot be from merit; they must be from sin. If Proudhon is right, then birth in a poor house is great merit.
Ages change; definitions change—but sin does not change. Ornaments change; the gold remains. Forms change; the error remains.
Therefore Krishna immediately adds the second point—the root: after saying free from sin, he says one whose rajas has become quiet. For rajas is the very basis of sin.
If rajas is in you, it will find new sins; it will drop the old, discover the new. But if rajas is lost within, the very way to seek sin is lost—the energy by which sin is manufactured is gone. Deeply, the capacity called rajas is sin.
What is rajas? The seers of this land discovered three gunas—profound insights: sattva, rajas, tamas. The mind functions through these three.
Tamas means the force that obstructs, produces stagnation—stops things. It is a static force. Without a static force, you could not settle anywhere—not even in Paramatma.
Tamas is only a stopping force. Throw a stone upward from the ground; soon it falls, for the earth has a pull—a restraint. Otherwise the stone would go on forever—never falling. Some obstructive force is needed. Otherwise you leave home and never return. Yes, there is some tamas at home that pulls you back—wife and children are a static force.
Those who study civilization say: the home was not made by man, but by woman. That is why she is called homemaker; you are not. The home is hers. Without woman, man is a born nomad. He will wander; he cannot settle. Woman becomes the peg; around it he is tied and goes round like the ox at the oil press.
Man, rightly understood, is rajas—motion. Woman, rightly understood, is tamas—non-motion. Whatever must be stabilized needs a woman’s support; whatever must be set in motion needs a man’s.
Curiously, everything is started by men and preserved by women. Many religions have been born; not one by a woman—all by men. Yet whatever religions have survived, survive because of women; none because of men.
Men start religions—Jain, Hindu, Buddhist, Islam, Christian, Zoroastrian—men. But their protection is by women. Go to the temple and see—no men. If some man comes, he is trailing his wife! Women are there.
Once something is set in motion, the place to stabilize it is in the feminine, not in the masculine. He gives motion and moves on to give motion elsewhere; he does not stop.
The mind has the same two forces—one that stops, one that drives. Tamas is the obstructing force; rajas is the driving force.
Remember, as said before, mind is motion. If too much rajas is in you, you will not be able to stop the mind; it will keep running.
I told you—the car moves when you press the accelerator. But there must be petrol. Without petrol, do not keep pressing the accelerator; the car will not move. The energy by which it can move is called rajas—movement. Tamas is rest. Both cause man to move and to stop.
Sattva is the state. It is neither motion nor rest; it is one’s nature. If rajas is too much in you, you cannot abide in sattva—rajas will keep pushing. Rajas must be less. But if rajas becomes zero, you will abide in sattva like in deep sleep—unconscious. Knowing itself is also a movement; knowing is a motion. So in deep sleep nothing remains—you are inert.
Samadhi means rajas and tamas come into such balance that they negate each other. Rajas and tamas fall into equilibrium and cancel. Negative and positive in equal strength produce zero. In that zero, sattva flowers. In that zero you abide in sattva and you also know. So much rajas remains that you can know; so much tamas remains that you can stand still. You can stand and you can know. And there is establishment in sattva—your very nature.
All sins arise from excess rajas. Rajas-excess produces sin. And sometimes sin happens without cause.
There is a story of Sartre: a man is on trial for stabbing someone lying on the beach in the back as he was sunning. The case is important because the assailant had never seen the victim’s face; there was no quarrel, no enmity, no acquaintance—he did not even know the name. He only saw the back—which is faceless—and stabbed!
The court asks, why did you stab? You do not know him, have no enmity.
The man says, I was simply restless to do something. Restless! For days I was so restless—I wanted to do something that could be called an event! The mind was very restless. I am delighted—my photo is in the paper; there is talk. I have done something. When a man does something, he becomes somebody. I am happy—do not ask reasons.
The magistrate says, there must be some reason.
The man says, tell me, what is the reason for my birth? And when I die, will there be a reason? None. What is the reason I grew to youth? I fell in love with a woman—can the court say what the reason was? When nothing has a reason, why inflate this small incident with reasons—that I stabbed his back!
The magistrate is at a loss—what sentence to pass!
This is pure sin. For pure sin, the law has no sentence. The laws punish the ornaments, not the gold. This is pure sin born of sheer energy in motion.
The magistrate says, still, I must give you the gallows. The man says, give me the gallows—do not give a reason. No need. I accept. But the judge says, I must write a judgment; a reason is necessary. The prisoner says, so all this argument is to find a reason to hang me! And I tell you, I stabbed without reason—stabbed for the joy of stabbing. And when the knife went in and the fountain of blood sprang, for the first time in life I felt thrill. I am happy.
Reflect—are not all sins born of such thrill? You afterwards find reasons—and rationalize. You say, I did it because. But if you go deep, sin is done for its own doing—no other reason. Energy is within—rajas—that wants to do, to push. That doing takes the form of sin.
Krishna says, one must go beyond rajas.
But beyond—how? Let rajas and tamas come into such balance that they become zero. If you try to eliminate rajas completely, it is not possible—who will do the eliminating? The work of eliminating is rajas; all effort is from rajas. Who will cut it? The cutter remains. Do not get into cutting; balance is enough. When rajas and tamas come into equal ratio in life, your establishment happens in sattva.
Such a one, Krishna says, attains the highest bliss. To blossom in sattva is to blossom like a flower. The secret of that flowering is the balancing of tamas and rajas.
This is the triangle of life’s forces. The two lower angles are rajas and tamas. If they are fully balanced—sixty degrees and sixty degrees—the upper angle of sattva appears.
That third angle of sattva is flowering—the bloom. This flowering of sattva touches the summit of supreme bliss. That summit.
What to do to touch this summit? Bring motion and non-motion into balance. How? What path, what method will prevent one from overflowing and becoming excessive?
Only one way. As said earlier—if your mind comes under your mastery, and whenever you wish you can still it, and whenever you wish you can set it in motion—then movement and stillness will be balanced. Because they will be in your hands. Until they are in your hands, balance is impossible. We all remain unbalanced. One gets stuck in one thing.
One man we call tamasic—lazy, sluggish—does not get up; he lies in bed. Tamas has overwhelmed him; there is no rajas. Even if he wishes to get up, at most he turns over—and sleeps again.
Another man simply runs. At night he goes to bed but, except for turning over, he cannot sleep. One is tamasic—turns over and sleeps again. One is rajasic—so much runs in his mind that at night, even wanting sleep, he only keeps turning over.
The whole human personality is imbalanced between these two. And if this balance is not restored, all complications of life are born—all complications.
All complexities are fruits of imbalance. All sins are fruits of imbalance. And there are two kinds of sin. One born of rajas—positive. Like the man who stabbed. Another born of tamas—negative. For example, you too were sitting there when the stabbing happened. But you kept sitting. You did not even say, what are you doing? Instead you closed your eyes and began to meditate.
You too are a partner in sin—but negatively. This is tamasic sin. You too are responsible. The event is happening also due to your negative cooperation.
There are two kinds of sinners—positive and negative. Positive—those who do. Negative—those who stand and watch.
In Bengal, a village of five thousand—five become Naxalites and kill daily; five thousand sit watching. They are negative Naxalites. Five kill; five thousand watch! I go to Calcutta and am amazed: a tram is full—one hundred hanging at the doors. Two boys come and set the train on fire. The rest stand watching—and later go home to say, the Naxalites are making a lot of trouble.
This is negative sin—born of excess tamas. It does nothing, but much getting-done happens through its cooperation. It acts not; it watches. We catch the positive sinner and jail him. But for the negative sinner there is yet no jail. Yet he is no small sinner.
Hence I said, do not seize the ornaments of sin; recognize its root.
If your mind leans too much toward tamas, you will fall into negative sins. If it leans toward rajas, you will fall into positive sins. To be outside sin, rajas and tamas must both be balanced—then your flowering is in sattva. And only sattva is virtue.
But those whom we call virtuous are often not. If we understand rightly, so-called virtues also are of two kinds, as sins are. Some seem virtuous because their tamas is so much they cannot even sin—negative.
A man says, I never stole. That does not mean he is not a thief. Being truly non-thief is difficult. It may only be that he is so tamasic he could not even go to steal—too lazy for the effort theft takes.
Field Marshal Montgomery wrote in his memoirs: there are four kinds of people. One—wise but inactive; their wisdom benefits no one; even themselves—doubtful. Two—ignorant but very active; they harm the world in a thousand ways, and themselves too. Three—wise and active; rare—seldom born. Four—ignorant and inactive; also rare. These two extremes are rare.
The best is the one wise and active. Second best, ignorant and inactive—at least he will not actively wreak havoc. Third, wise and inactive. Fourth, ignorant and active—and these are ninety-nine percent of the earth.
This division too, rightly seen, is of tamas and rajas. The sattvic man is the one wise and active—but his creative knowledge flowers only when tamas and rajas are balanced like the pans of a scale.
In such a state, Krishna says, the yogi attains supreme bliss.
We will take the rest at night.
For now, let us move a little toward balance—bring the two pans of the scale together. Let no one leave. For five minutes, sannyasins, drown here in bliss. To the sannyasins I say, drown utterly in bliss—forget yourself. And I say to you all, be cooperative in their forgetting—clap your hands, sing. Sway where you are. For five minutes forget all that you have thought, understood, reasoned. For five minutes be absorbed in the Lord.