Geeta Darshan #8

It is not important with which name someone sets out on the search for the Lord; nor from which temple he makes his entry. Which scripture he followed is not important either. Only one thing matters: that his feeling was of shraddha. Whether he sings the praises of Ram, or of Krishna, or of Jesus — it makes little difference. That he worships — that is what matters. Whatever pretext by which he builds a bridge between the Divine and himself — those pretexts are beside the point. The real thing is that he is eager for union with the Divine; only that shraddha is meaningful.
Understand it this way: even if there were no question of Paramatma at all, and someone were filled with supreme shraddha — not toward anyone in particular, but shraddha simply arising in his heart, radiating from his heart; not at anyone’s feet, yet a fountain of shraddha flowing within — even then he would attain the Divine. An atheist too can arrive there if flowers of shraddha fall from his heart. And a theist will not arrive there if there is no stream of shraddha in his life.
So it is necessary to understand this sutra of shraddha correctly.
What is meant by shraddha? Shraddha does not mean belief.
It is a curious fact that those who believe are, in truth, unbelievers. Unbelief is hiding within them. To suppress that unbelief they believe. Because unbelief exists inside, to suppress it, to deny it, to forget it, to erase it, they manufacture belief. But the inner unbelief only sinks deeper; it is not erased.
A believer never manages to eradicate unbelief. Because belief exists only against some unbelief. One needs belief precisely because there is unbelief within.
Shraddha is something greater. Shraddha is not belief; it is the absence of unbelief.
Understand this rightly.
Shraddha is not belief; it is the absence of unbelief. In the heart where unbelief does not arise, there is no believing either — because what would one believe for? When a man says, “I believe in God,” know that the more vehemently he asserts it, the stronger the unbelief sitting inside. With that very force he is pushing down his unbelief. Otherwise, if there were no unbelief, there would be no reason at all to believe.
You never say, “I believe in the sun.” But you do say, “I believe in God.” You never say, “This sky all around me — I believe in it.” But you say, “I believe in God.” And if someone came and said, “I believe in the sun,” would his belief not be proof that the man is blind? Only the blind can believe in the sun. Those who have eyes have shraddha in the sun. Shraddha means: there is no unbelief.
You do not believe in the sun; you know the sun is. Having never doubted, there is no question of believing. If you have never been ill, there is no need to take medicine.
Belief is the antidote to doubt. Belief is the arrangement to press down the doubt that sits within. That is why a man says, “I believe in God.” But he never says, “I believe in matter.” There is no unbelief about matter, so there is no need of belief. And if anyone were to say it, you would suspect the man is blind. One with eyes does not believe in the sun; he has shraddha.
Grasp this difference clearly.
Shraddha means: unbelief does not arise. Belief means: unbelief is present. Out of some fear, some greed, we want to suppress that unbelief, to hide it, to falsify it, to forget it.
On the religious journey, belief will not do. Belief is a substitute for shraddha; but an imitation, a counterfeit — and it will not serve. Hence there are so many believers in the world, and yet religion is nowhere to be seen. Is there any shortage of believers? To tell the truth, the majority are believers. Those who seem to be unbelievers are believers too — only their beliefs are negative.
The earth is full of believers, yet no light of religion appears. Believers are praying in temples, mosques and churches, yet the joy of prayer is nowhere radiating. That greenery which prayer should spread over our hearts does not arise. We remain as arid as ever, dry and desert-like. We say we have prayed, yet the desert remains a desert; no rain falls upon it.
Belief is a fraud upon shraddha, but fraud will not work.
A man returns home in the evening. It is his wife’s birthday. He says at once, “Look, I have brought a diamond ring for you.” The wife says, “Why spend so much on a diamond? For so long we have thought it would be good if you bought a car and gifted it to me.” The man closes his eyes, bangs his head, and says, “What can I do? Imitation cars are not available; fake cars don’t exist. A fake diamond can be had. If a fake car were available, I would have brought that.”
Whoever has taken belief in place of shraddha is clutching a fake diamond. He has no taste of the real jewel. Therefore the believer is terribly afraid that someone might demolish his belief; that someone might present an opposing argument; that someone might say a contrary thing; that his belief might totter.
Remember, belief will keep tottering, because it has no roots. Shraddha does not totter. Hence nothing in this world is more fearless than shraddha. Even if God himself were to come and say to a heart filled with shraddha that there is no God, he would say, “Step aside!” But your belief — even a small child can shake it. A little child raises a question, and your beliefs roll in the dust.
Therefore no one wants to discuss his beliefs. To discuss belief is dangerous. There are no roots beneath it. Everything is on the surface. It will fall at the slightest touch.
Krishna says: one who lives in shraddha. Then he says, even if his shraddha, impelled by desire, is toward some deity — here he says something very precious! He says, even if impelled by desire, by being an artha-arthi, by some craving, he places shraddha in a deity, I do not destroy his shraddha. I nurture and strengthen his shraddha.
Two paths are possible.
Krishna knows well that shraddha toward a deity will not lead to liberation, to truth, to the ultimate truth. He also knows well that the man whose shraddha is driven by desire has a very worldly shraddha. In his attachment the flow toward Paramatma is slight; he seeks more the help of the Divine in order to keep flowing in the world. This too he knows well.
Two ways exist. Krishna could say: abandon lust, abandon cravings, remove desires; abandon the deities, for deities will not bring ultimate liberation. Come to me, abandoning all desires, to the supreme energy. That alone is freedom, that alone is emancipation, that alone is nectar. That is one way.
But Krishna knows well that if he says this, there is at most one chance in a hundred that anyone will abandon deities and desires and come to Krishna. There are ninety-nine chances in a hundred that he will not come to Krishna and will also stop going to the deity. The likelihood is ninety-nine in a hundred.
Therefore Krishna says, I establish his shraddha in his own deity. Because if shraddha is established today in a deity, tomorrow it can be led one step further. Krishna says, even to the man full of desire I do not say at once that your desire is wrong. I say, all right. My energy will also cooperate in the fulfillment of your desires.
This confidence — of even assisting his desire — is worth pondering; there is a secret in it. The secret is: fulfill your desire. Fulfill it and you will find that nothing was fulfilled. Fulfill your cravings. Fulfill them and you will discover that you asked in vain. Fulfill them and you will discover that the very energy of the Divine given for the fulfillment of your desires could have made you yourself the Divine. You squandered it uselessly.
With this confidence Krishna says, I strengthen his shraddha in the very deity toward whom he is drawn. And for that very desire I say, all right. Come, let this be so. Perhaps the energy of the Divine will begin to flow to him. You may have asked for something else, but when it arrives and its joy begins to rain on all sides, it may happen that what you had asked for you yourself forget, and what is showering remains in remembrance, and the journey begins toward that.
Two ways exist. One way is that first the false be taken away from you and then the true be given. The second way is that the true be given so that the false falls away from you. Krishna is eager to give the true. Because he knows that once the true begins to be received, the false begins to drop.
And making people drop the false is very difficult, because those who have no true live by the support of the false. If we begin by snatching away their false, the chances are slim that they will let go of it and set out toward the true. The greater likelihood is that they will stop listening to us and cling to their false. Or there is the danger that they may drop the false and still not set out toward the true — then, in a Trishanku condition, they hang in mid-air, suspended between. This is almost what has happened in the West today.
In the last three hundred years Western thinkers discussed “what is wrong” so much that the wrong fell away — but what is right remained unknown. The result of three hundred years of good people in the West is that the Western mind today is anti-all and pro-nothing — against everything and for nothing.
Those who listen to Krishnamurti also come to be in the same condition — anti-all, pro-nothing. Opposed to everything, negating everything. This is wrong, that is wrong, everything is wrong; and what is right — no ray descends. Then a person remains stuck in the middle.
Krishna’s method is entirely different. He says, you are wrong, and you will be wrong — because until the Divine is found, how will you be right? You clutch pebbles — it is natural. Until diamonds are found, how will you drop the pebbles? You build houses of clay — it is natural. Until the house of nectar is found, what else will you do?
Krishna’s compassion is boundless. He says, all right, you are children, therefore you are gathering shells and stones. All right. I will not snatch away your shells; I will try to make you mature, so that one day shells fall from your hands and you set to digging the mine of diamonds.
Remember, Krishna’s method is positive, creative. In these last three hundred years the intelligence of the world has become accustomed to thinking negatively. And we go on feeling that if we remove the darkness, then light will come. But the truth is the reverse: let light come, and darkness dissolves.
A man sits in darkness trying to light a lamp; he will do it in the dark, because the lamp is not yet lit. And efforts in the dark will inevitably be full of mistakes — that is certain. Sometimes the wick won’t sit in the right place, sometimes the oil will spill, sometimes he will search for the matchbox and not find it, because it is dark, the lamp is not lit.
In darkness, mistakes are utterly natural. If we become very angry about the mistakes and tell the man, “Stop! First banish the darkness, then light the lamp; then there will be no mistakes,”
Then indeed there will be no mistakes — but the darkness cannot be banished, and the lamp cannot be lit. Only by groping in the dark, committing mistakes, does the lamp get lit. Once the lamp is lit, the mistakes cease.
This is the stance of looking at life positively, creatively. Therefore Krishna even supports the wrong. Knowing full well that a mind filled with desires is wrong. Knowing also that a mind that has taken refuge in deities goes only for the fulfillment of desires. Knowing too that the man who sits at the feet of deities has not yet begun the ultimate search. And knowing that what he has come to ask for is childish; not worth giving. Still Krishna says, that too we shall give you. We will establish you in your very deity. We will increase your attachment to your deity. Even through your deity my energy will flow and reach you, so that you become steadfast in your shraddha.
And if a man becomes firm in shraddha step by step, then one day that inexpressible event also occurs, that explosion too — when shraddha is complete, when not a single line of doubt remains within. In that undoubting shraddha, the journey to the Ultimate happens on its own.
This statement is given seeing the weak man.
A person like Krishnamurti seems not to care in the least for the weak. His statements are for those who never err. But those who never err have no need of anyone’s statements. For those who do err, who stand in the dark, such statements are dangerous. Dangerous because such talk will be remembered intellectually by them. They will cram those sayings. They will say, the lamp cannot be lit so long as there is darkness, because any lamp lit in darkness will be wrong.
Krishnamurti says, you cannot take any step in confusion, because a step taken in confusion must be confused. In confusion you cannot move a step — in a state of confusion, any step taken will only take you deeper into confusion. The same thing: you cannot light a lamp in darkness, because any lamp you light in the dark will be accompanied by mistakes.
But all lamps are lit in darkness; and in this world all steps are taken in confusion.
(Now a few drops of rain begin to fall at the place of discourse. Bhagwan continues speaking.)
Do not be alarmed. If a little water falls, do not get so flustered. If you have come to listen to Krishna, do not be so disturbed that two or four drops fall on your clothes and you will be finished, or die, or be destroyed. A few drops fall — let them fall. Such weak people should not come to hear the Gita.
He, Krishna, is explaining that the Atman does not burn by fire. If he looks in your direction, he will be very disappointed — that it dissolves in water! Just two or four drops! Not even any real rain yet. Only the signs of water. The clouds are making a little noise, just to see what sort of people are gathered here!
So remain seated in your places. If anyone stands up, those nearby should catch him and seat him back down. Because for no reason so many people will see that such a weak person is here. Have a little compassion on him — catch him and seat him where he is. No need to say anything; quietly seat him down.
Let the water fall — then we shall find out about Krishna’s teaching: does the Atman dissolve or not? If it does not dissolve, understand that Krishna speaks rightly. And if it dissolves, understand that Krishna speaks wrongly. Today we shall proceed by experiment. Let the water fall. We shall see whether you dissolve or not.
Do not behave like children. And if you must behave like children, then you should not come to listen to the words of those few who are wise in the world.
Krishna’s compassion is for those who in every way are full of mistakes; from whom there is every fear that only the wrong will be done; who will not be able to do the right. He says, I will accept even your mistake. You will go to the temple in error — that too I will accept. You will pray in foolishness — that too I will accept.
Seat them; whoever runs toward you, those nearby should catch him and seat him. And you do not worry. I am sitting here on the stage, so no water is falling here. I will go stand in the bathroom, clothes on, for half an hour — on your behalf. I will endure it. You do not be troubled. In five minutes the water will pass and give joy.
Now read the second sutra, hm.