Geeta Darshan #6

For entering the inner cave, for entering that inner sky of the heart, Krishna has indicated a few methods to Arjuna.
All the methods of Yoga begin on the outside and end on the inside. This is natural. Because one must begin from where one stands. One’s present state becomes the first step. And man is outside. Therefore the beginning of any Yoga will, by its very nature, be from the outside. We can set out only from where we are; we cannot begin a journey from where we are not.
A few indispensable points must be understood before we consider Krishna’s method.
It has happened many times: those who know feel like telling you to begin from where they stand. Their statement may be true inch by inch, yet it becomes useless.
If I speak from where I am and tell another to start from there, however true my statement, for the other it becomes futile. What is right and meaningful is to say to the other: start from where you are.
Often even the knowers have made declarations from their own state, which prove of no use to anyone. Worse, such declarations can be harmful; because you can never start from there. You will listen, you will understand, the whole thing will be clear in thought, and yet you will find yourself standing where you always were—unable to move an inch. Because from where you stand the thing is not beginning; it is beginning from where the doer stands. And the journey will start from where you stand.
If I am standing inside the temple, I can tell you, come into the temple. I may even leave aside the talk of steps, because where I stand the steps are of no use. I may not mention doors either, for where I stand there is no door. But you will still need a door, you will need steps, only then can you enter the temple.
Statements that are ultimate—final declarations—though true, are not useful.
Krishna speaks in a way that is not wholly true, yet is useful. And often teachers like Krishna have had to speak in such ways—out of necessity, seeing you, seeing your weakness. Those statements depend upon you, upon your weakness and your limits.
For example, Krishna speaks of the asana: let the seat be neither too high nor too low.
For one who has arrived within, high seat, low seat, no seat—nothing remains. Such a one can say, as Kabir said so often: what will happen by laying out an asana? All vain! Kabir is not wrong. Kabir is absolutely right. But between what Kabir says and where you are there is such a distance, such a gap, that it will never be bridged.
Kabir says, what will come of spreading a deerskin? He is right. Even if you lay down a deerskin and sit on it—then what? From the ultimate point of view Kabir is right: what will happen? Spread any number of deer hides, sit on them—what is to happen?
Yet when Krishna speaks, there is more compassion in him than in Kabir. When he tells Arjuna: sit on a deerskin, let the asana be neither too high nor too low; level; sit thus, gather the mind into one-pointedness; collect the commerce of the senses; become master of the senses—only then does one enter Yoga.
Why this distance between Krishna and Kabir? It seems either Krishna must be wrong if Kabir is right, or Kabir must be wrong if Krishna is right—this is how the world reasons.
We always think: both cannot be right. Yes, both could be wrong, but both cannot be right.
Kabir says: throw all this away. Nothing will come of it. And Krishna tells Arjuna: with all this the journey begins! What is the reason? I say: both are right. The reason is only this: Kabir speaks from where he stands. Krishna speaks from where Arjuna stands. Kabir utters what is true for him. Krishna utters what can become true for Arjuna.
In a deeper sense, what difference does it make? Does the Atman have an asana? If you sit in a pit, will Atman not be found? If you sit on high ground, will Atman not be found? If Atman depended on such small conditions, it would be a cheap affair!
No; Atman can be found from anywhere. And yet, from where we stand, such small things do make a difference—because we are that small. Surrounded by extreme limitations and petty concerns—there even trifles make a difference.
If you have ever sat for meditation you will have noticed: if the ground is a little slanted, the whole time goes to the ground. If a tiny pebble pricks the foot, attention will not go to Paramatman; it will remain on the pebble. If a little ant bites, you discover the ant is bigger than God! However much you strive, attention does not move toward Paramatman; and if you try to restrain it from the ant, it moves to the ant by itself.
Where we stand—hemmed in by limits, by trivialities—where our attention has known nothing but petty objects, there small things matter: how you sit, what ground you choose, what you sit upon. Why do they matter? Because of us. These small things alter us more than can be imagined.
Thus statements like Kabir’s can prove dangerous for us. We say: fine, Kabir says what asana? He is right. It sounds perfectly right. But from where we are, it is not right at all.
All statements in this world are relative. Those who become habituated to making absolute declarations are of no use to us.
Take Krishnamurti: all his statements are absolute; and therefore, though right, they are useless. One may listen for years and remain standing where one stood—without moving an inch. Because all the things by which we could journey are denied. And since the statements are exactly right, the intellect agrees fully: the mind understands perfectly. But nothing happens in experience. And the gap between understanding and experience remains so vast that its bridging seems impossible.
People who have listened to Krishnamurti for forty years come to me. They say: for forty years we have listened. We fully understand what he says—our intellectual understanding is complete. But somehow nothing happens!
If you tell them: set your asana thus—they reply: what has asana to do with the soul? If you say: keep the gaze on this point—they say: what will that do? If you say: use this method—they say: Krishnamurti says there is no method.
He is perfectly right—but you are the wrong person. You should not have listened to him. You have done nothing in your life without method. Your mind, your whole inner arrangement, runs by method.
You have heard a grand statement: no method is needed. Your lazy mind feels delighted: indeed, what need of method! All hassle dropped. No technique, no asana, no mantra, no remembrance—nothing to do. But nothing is exactly what you have always been doing; had arriving been possible that way, you would have arrived long ago. And now you have received a firm conviction that nothing is to be done.
Remember: doing nothing is the most difficult thing on earth. What you take to be non-doing is not non-doing at all.
Thus Krishna’s instruction may appear very simple, but it is not. If the seat is level and both halves of the body rest equally upon the ground—no part higher or lower, no need to bend—there are very scientific reasons.
The earth, every moment, for twenty-four hours, affects the body by its gravitation. When you are perfectly balanced, gravitational strain is minimal. If you are even slightly tilted, gravitation increases, because its relation to the body’s surfaces increases. If I sit absolutely erect, gravity acts in a straight line, affecting chiefly the spine. If I lean, the earth, by an angle, begins to affect more of the body.
Hence, stand tilted and you tire quickly; sit straight and you tire less. Tilted posture tires you faster; the earth pulls more strongly. Lying down brings rest, because lying you are not tilted at all; the earth’s pull is equal everywhere.
Equal gravitation is the basis of Krishna’s statement. Krishna need not have known the term gravity; Newton did not create gravity; even before Newton it was. The word was absent, the fact was known: the earth pulls, and it pulls the body every moment.
We can place the body where the earth’s pull is maximal; there the body tires, grows restless, becomes disturbed—and it becomes difficult to steady the mind—not for Krishna, for you.
We can place the body where gravitational effect is minimal. The postures called Siddhasana, Sukhasana, Padmasana are postures of minimal gravitation. Today even science admits: if one can remain long in Siddhasana, lifespan increases—because the struggle between the body and the earth’s pull is minimized; the body wears out less.
Krishna also says: choose ground for meditation that is neither uneven nor too high or too low. There are reasons. One might sit in a pit; one might build a platform. What are the dangers? If you sit below ground level, another rule comes into play.
I am speaking here; if I lower this microphone to my hand’s level, my voice will pass above it. My sound waves will travel over it, and it will not pick me well. Raise it too high, the waves go below; again, it does not catch. It picks well only when it is parallel to the source of the voice—level with my lips.
The whole earth is flooded at all times with countless kinds of waves—countless vibrations. Among them are waves of different weights. Strangely, the waves of negative thoughts are heavier, weightier; the waves of auspicious, wholesome thoughts are lighter, less dense.
If you meditate in a pit, in a well, you will connect chiefly with the lowest strata of waves arising on the earth. Those descend into the well; the higher waves pass above.
Hence people sought the mountains. There was a reason: height—and the difference of waves at different levels.
Waves have their own planes. Different kinds of waves travel at different levels. One kind travels upon one surface; therefore the pit is refused.
But you may ask: then why refuse the very high? The higher you go the nobler the waves you meet!
Remember that too. Higher levels bring nobler waves; but without the capacity—the vessel—those noble waves will create only turmoil in you. The capacity to endure higher waves grows with your fitness.
From how much can you bear? Where you live now is your bearing level. Where you do your shop, eat, talk, love and quarrel—that is your life’s plane. Begin there—not too low, not too high.
Where you are is where your tuning is. Begin there now. As your capacity grows, you can travel upward. As your capacity grows, you can even sit in a pit to meditate. As capacity grows you may go to the peaks.
The ancient tirthas were designed accordingly: the most exalted shrine was the highest. The seeker would travel slowly, step by step. His final journey would be to Kailash. There he would dissolve in Samadhi. The purest waves are available there; but his capacity must rise continually to endure such purity. Otherwise even the purest can cause havoc. What exceeds your capacity harms, not helps.
Among the Sufis there is a practice of meditating in a pit, in a well, below ground. But permission for this is given only when one is capable of meditating upon the highest peaks. Why? Because only when one has reached the state where all kinds of impure waves may surround him and yet he remains unaffected, is he allowed to sit in a pit.
Seeing Arjuna, Krishna says: choose such an asana—neither too low nor too high, not slanted. There you will find it easy to come to quiet.
He speaks of deerskin as well. There are reasons—clearer today than in Krishna’s time. The effect was observed then, but the scientific basis was not explicit.
For thousands of years sannyasins in this land have used wooden sandals—not without cause; have used deerskin—not without cause; lionskin—not without cause; have meditated upon wooden boards—not without cause. It was gradually observed that such things make a difference.
All substances that are non-conductive for electricity aid meditation. Today the scientific reason is clear. Science says: whatever conducts electricity is unsafe to sit upon in meditation. Why? Because in deep meditation the body generates a very unique inner electricity. When you are fully absorbed, the body’s bioelectricity becomes highly active.
Every body holds a vast store of electricity. We live, move, rise and sit by that electricity. The breath merely supplies oxygen to keep this electricity alive; it oxidizes. Without oxygen the body’s electricity cannot run; hence you cannot live without breath. The body is a generator—constantly producing electricity. In meditation this electricity is conserved.
Ordinarily you throw it away. A hand-wave expends some charge; speaking a word expends some. Walking, moving—each act uses a measure of charge.
But in meditation all movement ceases. Speech falls silent, thought disappears, the body becomes still, the mind becomes quiet, the senses relax into inactivity. The energy that was being dispersed for twenty-four hours is conserved; it begins to gather within.
If you sit where your charge can drain out, you will feel a shock like touching a live wire. Many who have gone a little deep in meditation have experienced this. Hundreds have told me: sitting in a wrong place, they got a shock, a jolt.
Touch a live wire wearing wooden sandals—you will not be shocked. Why? The shock is not caused by the wire itself. The shock comes because the current enters you and, with a jerk, the earth pulls it down. That sudden pull to the earth is the shock. If you stand on wooden sandals, the earth cannot yank it away; the wood returns the current into a circuit.
Shock happens when the circuit breaks. If the current completes a loop, you never feel a jolt. The only way to keep the loop is to sit on a non-conductor.
Deerskin is a non-conductor; lionskin is a non-conductor. Electricity cannot pass through; it is returned. Wood is a non-conductor; it returns the current. Wooden sandals return it as well.
Therefore, for one who meditates, wooden sandals are helpful; a wooden plank to sit on is helpful; a deerskin is supportive.
To the modern ear this may sound foolish. Ask Kabir or Krishnamurti and they will call it nonsense. Ask a scientist and he will say it is meaningful. And it is meaningful.
There comes a moment when it is utterly unnecessary—but that moment has not yet arrived. When it arrives, the inner circuit of the body’s electricity is formed. Whoever attains supreme peace, an inner circuit forms in the heart; the electricity makes its own loop. Then even sitting on bare earth no shock occurs.
But that has not happened to you. No inner circuit is formed. You must rely on external loops. This is a necessity; you cannot bypass it—only pass beyond it. He who tries to bypass will get into trouble. Crossing it is the right way—only by going through does fitness ripen.
Thus Krishna says: sit upon such a seat, on such ground—neither high nor low—and then, then draw in the senses.
To withdraw the senses is easier in such conditions. Once the outer hindrances are denied, it becomes easy to fold the senses back.
You may not have noticed: Yoga discovered postures that aid the turning inward of the senses in a wondrous way; mudras that cooperate with innerization; ways of sitting that press certain centers so that specific senses relax.
In America there was a great thinker and scientist, Theodor Reik. Few have investigated the human body as he did. He said there are points in the body such that pressing them creates fundamental changes in our tendencies. Reik was no yogi; he was a psychoanalyst, a major disciple of Freud, and he helped thousands. He knew nothing of the yogasanas discovered in Tibet and India—had he known, his understanding would have deepened vastly.
He groped in the dark, but touched upon the right places. He discovered bodily points which, when pressed, yield results. For instance, he found zones around the teeth, in the jaws, where violence is stored. You would never imagine it. If a man is very violent, Reik’s therapy was unique: laying the patient down he would press those jaw points so hard that the patient would yell, cry, even beat him up. Often Reik was badly beaten by his patients! But from the next day change began. Their violence seemed fundamentally altered.
Reik said—and rightly—that the primal center of violence lies in the teeth—in animals, and in humans, who are only animals advanced along the line.
Animals commit violence with teeth or claws—two instruments only. Man has invented techniques that need neither. But the body’s mechanism knows nothing of your knives; it knows nothing of the tools that substitute for teeth. The cells keep operating in the old way.
Hence whenever you fill with violence, watch: your teeth begin to tremble; a special current runs there. Teeth grind. You say: I was so angry I gnashed my teeth. What have teeth to do with anger? Go ahead, be angry without grinding! You cannot; electricity has begun to course through the teeth.
But a civilized man does not use teeth. The uncivilized may sometimes bite. Civilization doesn’t bite. The teeth do not know you are civilized. Since you do not bite, the charge that would have been released by biting remains; it accumulates around the gums; pockets form.
Ninety percent of dental disease arises from these pockets of violence. Look at an animal’s teeth—so healthy! A dog never brushes, never uses toothpaste—and what shine! It is less bodily and more psychological.
A dog has no violence pockets. And if ever pockets form, they are released by play. Dogs play-bite—mouths full and then release. They discharge. Thus their teeth remain healthy beyond our imagination.
Around the fingers too violence pockets gather. We have stopped using them. Sometimes in rage we tear a shirt or scratch—but ordinarily we use substitutes. We have ceased to use the primal instruments; therefore violence accumulates around the fingers.
By looking at the fingers one can read how much violence is in the mind. The bends of the fingers reveal it; fingers do not curl without cause.
Thus the curve of Buddha’s fingers will be different—there is no violence within; the hand flowers. No pockets in the fingers.
Similarly, throughout the body there are pockets—points where much is stored. If these points are pressed and released, transformation happens.
The asanas this country discovered—the special ways of sitting… If you have seen the statue of Buddha or Mahavira—and almost all have—you have not seen attentively. Even those who bow daily to Mahavira have not looked closely. The secret lies in the arrangement of the statue.
Look carefully and you will see: the whole body of Mahavira is an electric circuit. Both feet are joined; the cushions of the feet touch near the knees.
Electricity releases from pointed places; from rounded forms it does not escape. The sharper the point, the more the discharge.
The genitals discharge the most; hence after sex one feels exhausted, restless, agitated. The body has lost a great deal of charge. Blood pressure rises, heartbeat quickens, pulse speeds; and then deep fatigue comes. The reason is not semen alone. Along with ejaculation a large electrical discharge through the genitals occurs. There are pockets there as well.
In Siddhasana or Padmasana the heels press the points through which electricity reaches the genitals; that flow gets cut. The two feet are joined with the body; whatever charge tends to leave through them is reabsorbed. The hands are joined so the current travels from one hand into the other, not out. The entire body is in a circuit.
Look at Buddha’s or Mahavira’s statue: the body is a wheel of electricity. In this formed circuit, withdrawing the senses becomes very easy—extremely simple.
This electric circuit becomes a protection, a wall between you and the senses. You are cut off; the senses stay apart.
Remember: the source of electricity is within you; the senses only use it. If a circuit forms in-between—and this is a scientific process—the senses remain outside, you remain inside; and between you and the senses an electric wall stands that cannot be crossed. In that moment, travel into the inner sky becomes easy—very easy.
Therefore, however much Krishnamurti or Kabir may say, listen with caution. Their words can put you in danger. They say: what will asana do? What will this or that method do? From their side they are right. Their inner sky and inner electricity have already begun their journey—perhaps they themselves do not know how.
With Krishnamurti this is certainly so. The experiments done on him in childhood were done almost by knocking him unconscious; hence he knows nothing of what he passed through. Consciously he has no memory—no idea what experiments he underwent, nor by what path he arrived where he awoke.
His condition is like taking a sleeping man from his house and laying his cot in a garden. He opens his eyes in the garden and says: it is fine. Someone asks: how do I come to the garden? He says: there is no way; just come. No path—just come. Wake up, and you will find yourself in the garden. He is not wrong.
But there were people who brought Krishnamurti into the garden—Annie Besant, Leadbeater. They worked on him in childhood, when he had hardly any conscious awareness; therefore he remembers nothing of his childhood. Between him and his childhood stands a heavy barrier, a wall.
He has no remembrance of his mother tongue, though a nine- or ten-year-old never forgets it. At ten a child has learned almost the whole of it. Krishnamurti remembers none of it.
There is a book, At the Feet of the Master—Shri Guru Charanon Mein—under his name, written then. But he says: I have no memory of writing it. It was written through him as a medium. He does not even claim authorship.
Leadbeater, Annie Besant, the Theosophists led Krishnamurti by very unconscious paths to a point where, on awakening, he found no method was needed. Yet he too arrived by methods.
Today, when he says to people: there is no path, no method, no structure—the harm done to listeners is immeasurable.
His truths have caused grievous damage to many—not through his fault. He opened his eyes and found himself in the garden. He says: open your eyes—you will find yourselves in the garden!
No! Sometimes it happens that in past lives a seeker has already journeyed; the water is at ninety-nine degrees—one degree short of steam. He brings that ninety-nine-degree state into this life; one small incident heats the extra degree and he vaporizes. If you ask him how to heat, he says: nothing much—just stand in the open sun; you will become steam. But you are a block of ice. Stand in the sun and nothing will happen. Ice will melt into water and spread more; more trouble will arise.
For you fierce furnaces are needed—atomic furnaces—only then perhaps the steam-point will be reached.
Thus a seeker from a past life, if his work is almost complete and only an inch remains—a slight jerk, any small thing…
Rinzai said he awoke by a small thing. He slept one night under a tree. It was autumn; ripe leaves were falling. He stood and danced and ran through the villages crying: if anyone wants enlightenment, sleep under a tree in autumn; when a ripe leaf falls, enlightenment happens! For him it happened. Seeing a leaf fall, his whole life fell like a leaf. He had come to ninety-nine point nine degrees. A dry leaf fell, and the hundredth degree was reached; he rose like vapor.
It is not his fault that he says: do you want enlightenment? Sit under a dry tree in autumn. Meditate on the falling leaf—and it will happen.
Those who heard tried. For when one like Rinzai speaks, he speaks truth; his eyes witness it; he has no reason to lie. His joy declares something happened. The whole village knows it happened in autumn when leaves were falling at night—by morning he was dancing. He was sad at dusk; he was blissful at dawn. Something exploded at night. He is not lying. His life is the witness; his light, his fragrance are witnesses. Yet many sat under falling leaves; many meditated; nothing happened. Only the leaves kept falling—and they returned home more desolate, sleep lost as well.
People are in different places in their journeys.
Krishna speaks to Arjuna for where Arjuna stands. The journey must begin there.
Asana will be useful. Place and time will be useful. Sit at noon and you will have great difficulty. Not that noon is the enemy of meditation; but difficulty will come.
When the sun is blazing and overhead, it is hard to cool the head. In the morning the sun is waking—a child; there is no heat. Its rays do not fall straight; they fall slanting; they pass through you and do not descend into the head.
At noon the rays fall upon the crown—the Sahasrara—and strike the sex center. The current flows from head to sex.
The journey of meditation is opposite—from the sex center to Sahasrara. At noon the rays flow from crown to sex. It will be like swimming against a river; such strain it will be.
Morning brings no such strain; the rays pass through—you need not struggle with them. Evening is also good; again the rays pass through. Hence prayer took the name Sandhya—twilight—the time when the sun’s rays pass through you, morning or evening, when the sun does not act directly upon you.
But midnight too can be beneficial; yogis have used it. The sun is directly below you; its rays move from the sex center toward Sahasrara. You do not see them, but in space their journey continues. Then the river flows in your direction; just float—you will drift upward.
At noon, when the sun travels downward through you, you cannot float. Even swimming is hard, for the sun is life; to fight it is difficult.
Thus Tratak upon the sun began—a practice of contending with the sun. You may not realize it; even the practitioner does not. He reads it in a book and begins.
Long hours of open-eyed Tratak on the sun is an effort to prepare to swim against its current. One who has practiced Tratak deeply can meditate even at noon—because he has learned to struggle against the rays. Otherwise, not.
If you ask: what time should I meditate? The supreme knower will say: time is irrelevant; meditation is timeless. You go beyond time. Morning, noon, evening—no matter.
He is right. The ultimate state of meditation is beyond time. But the beginning of meditation is within time; its end is beyond. If one does not understand the order of time rightly, one will meet unnecessary difficulties, useless suffering—create trouble for nothing, arrange one’s own defeat, lose the aids that were available for victory.
It is like sailing a boat: when the wind is favorable you open the sail and the boat moves without oars.
Meditation has its weathers. When the winds are favorable—and the winds for meditation are the sun’s rays; when gravitation is favorable; when the waves around are favorable—then open the sail; the journey will be made with little effort.
When everything is adverse, great effort is needed. Even then the far shore is not assured. The wind is strong, the current deep, you are weak—most likely you will tire and be blown back to your own shore, fold your hands and say: this is not for me.
This is what happens. Those who take up meditation, not knowing the right arrangement, the right tuning, suffer needlessly; then conclude that perhaps it is not in their fate, not their destiny, not their karma, not their capacity; and thus they return to the vain business of the world, mooring again on their shore.
Lest this happen, Krishna tells Arjuna the right primary things.