Geeta Darshan #11

In the search for the Lord, in the search for the ultimate truth, we have understood that there are two paths. About that, two or three more points must be kept in mind. Then it will be easier to understand the final two sutras of today’s chapter, Akshara Brahma Yoga.
In the last half-century Sigmund Freud has perhaps left the deepest impact upon the human mind. In the last three hundred years Freud is one of three great names: one is Galileo, the second is Charles Darwin, and the third is Sigmund Freud. These three gave a vision that fundamentally altered human consciousness and human life.
Freud’s most significant discovery is the discovery of the unconscious—the continent of the unconscious within man. The mind as we ordinarily know it is only the upper layer, the conscious mind. Below it lies a deeper layer, pressed down, far more important, more powerful, hidden in the roots—and by which we are driven our whole life: we walk, stand, sit and act moved by it. That deeper mind is the unconscious. Freud discovered that great continent of the unconscious.
This discovery was rather accidental. Freud was researching sexual perversions, the roots of man’s psychic derangements in relation to sex. Ninety percent of the disturbances in man’s psyche are distortions of his sexual energy. So Freud, like a physician, was inquiring why sexual perversions arise.
Descending into that inquiry he suddenly stumbled upon the mind hidden beneath the mind. That mind is far bigger than the mind we take as “I am.” If you drop an iceberg into water, nine parts sink below and one remains above. Freud realized that the mind we take to be our all is only one part, and nine parts—our real mind—are sunk in darkness below.
Freud’s disciple—later separated and in opposition—Carl Gustav Jung, pursued this unconscious even more deeply. He found another, deeper layer beneath the unconscious, which he named the collective unconscious. He said: beneath the individual mind there is a mind that is unconscious; and beneath this unconscious there appears an even deeper mind, the collective unconscious. Everybody’s unconscious is linked.
I say this so that the entire concept of Dakshinayan be understood scientifically by you. What Freud and Jung have done belongs to the path of descent, Dakshinayan.
If we enter man’s unconscious, we go downward. But just as man has an unconscious, he also has a super-conscious mind. If we journey upward, then the journey of the super-conscious begins.
Let us understand: the mind we are familiar with is the conscious; go below it—you reach the unconscious; go deeper still—the collective unconscious. Move upward—the super-conscious; higher still—Brahman-consciousness.
The path of Uttarayan is not yet scientifically discovered. The path of Dakshinayan has been discovered even scientifically. And if only the path of descent remains discovered, the West will commit suicide. Because if the way down is known but the way up is not; and it begins to be felt in experience that going down is “natural,” then all the possibilities of the human race will vanish.
The moral decay and spiritual decline visible in the West today is not really because of Western materialism. In fact, whenever a society becomes very material, a spiritual awakening begins there. Because as soon as material comforts are available, their futility also begins to appear. The moment wealth comes, the meaningfulness of wealth is lost. And as soon as we obtain everything in the world of objects, we discover that the soul is surrounded by objects but has become utterly empty, vacant, meaningless. Materialism becomes a deep provocation toward spirituality.
Therefore whenever a society becomes materially rich, its final summit is spiritual. A poor society finds it very difficult to be spiritual, because for the poor man nonattachment appears extremely hard. One who has nothing to renounce finds renunciation very difficult indeed. And if one has nothing, his nonattachment does not seem of much value either. And one who has nothing—his nonattachment, deep down, is a consolation. But one who has, his nonattachment is not a consolation; his nonattachment is an inner attainment.
This does not mean a poor man cannot realize the spiritual. A poor person can realize; a poor society cannot. A person is personal. But even that poor person could be free of wealth only if he has known wealth in other lives. We become free only of that which we have known. Apart from knowing, there is no way to liberation.
But a wealthy society as a whole becomes filled with deep disillusionment toward wealth, objects, matter.
The West’s fall, its moral collapse, is not the result of materialism. The root reason is that the West has discovered the method and path of Dakshinayan—going downward; but the first ray of the method of going upward has not yet dawned in the West.
Yet the thoughtful in the West have begun to doubt. If there can be layers beneath the mind, there can also be layers above. Until only sixty or seventy years ago, no Western thinker was willing to accept that there could be any mind other than the one we know. But having gone down, the West has experienced that very dark layers exist in man; they too are there—and they are more powerful, and man’s neck is in their hands. If this alone remains our experience…
And Western thought is spreading over the East too. Today the educated, cultured, “thoughtful” person of the East is no longer truly Eastern. He too is a by-product of the West. The universities of the East, the educationists of the East, hardly know anything of the East. Whatever they know has been imported from the West—and second-hand, stale. What becomes twenty or thirty years old in the West, by the time it arrives in the East—so much time has passed—there it is out of date, cast into the garbage, and then here our universities begin to put it into their textbooks.
This is natural. Those who live on borrowed bread must live behind. What falls from the Western table into the crumbs drops into the begging bowl of the East. When the West discards something as useless, by the time it can discard it, it is just then that we become capable of believing it meaningful.
The discoveries of Freud and Jung have made the steps of descent very clear, but a very dangerous situation has arisen. Having known this lower mind, Western psychologists have begun to feel that a man’s going down is utterly natural, and that the conscious mind has no power. The unconscious is powerful, and living in its hands is the way to health. And whoever fights his unconscious will become deranged, perverted, distorted, sick.
I have heard about a mental patient. He had one habit, an obsession: whenever he entered a bar, tea shop, or coffee house, he would drink half a glass—and pour the other half over the owner. Many advised him. Then he would apologize and say, “I’m helpless; I can’t do otherwise. Something inside does it through me.”
In one bar he did the same—poured half the glass over the owner. The owner grew angry and said, “You should consult a psychologist, a psychoanalyst. This is dangerous!”
Six months later the man returned. He looked very cheerful. Again he took a drink, drank half, and with great delight poured the other half upon the owner. The owner said, “This is the limit! I heard you were undergoing analysis for six months!” The man said, “Certainly—for six months—and I’ve benefited greatly.” The owner said, “I don’t see any benefit.” He replied, “Yes, I did the same thing, but now I don’t feel guilty. The psychologist explained it’s entirely natural. It will happen. Consider it normal; there’s nothing abnormal in it. Now I don’t feel any remorse.”
The entire tangle of Western perversion has this cause—not materialism, but Freud’s discovery—and its incompleteness—the deadly, natural outcome of an incomplete discovery. Incomplete discovery is always hazardous. Half-knowledge always proves dangerous—sometimes even suicidal.
Krishna speaks plainly of both paths. If the upper path is not clear, it’s better we not become acquainted with the lower. If the upper way becomes clear, the difficulty of the lower disappears.
So Krishna says: O Partha, in this way, knowing both paths in their essence, no yogi is deluded.
Knowing both paths in their essence, no yogi is deluded. Whoever has known both in their inner depth, recognized them, experienced them—he is not deluded.
Consider this non-delusion. What will it mean? One who knows both paths is not deluded. One who knows only one can be deluded.
Let us understand the mechanism of delusion—its mechanical process.
We are always deluded by the opposite. The opposite is always the attraction. And each person is enchanted by that which is opposite to him. This law of opposites applies to every aspect of life. Men are attracted to women because of their opposite-ness. Women are drawn to men for the same reason.
You will be surprised to know that whatever you like in life, whatever you say, “I like very much,”—you may not be aware—that thing is the opposite of you. Therefore if you stay away from what you like, your liking may continue. But if you begin to live with what you like, conflict is inevitable. Because you can be attracted to the opposite, you cannot live with it. Living together, the opposite triggers conflict. With the opposite, struggle is certain.
This is a delightful paradox of the human mind: drawn to the opposite, yet unable to live with it. Attraction happens at a distance; when you come close, struggle begins. In truth, that which attracts us also frightens us deep down. And what attracts us feels like an enemy deep down—because we become enslaved, and its attraction becomes a possession over us.
All infatuations, all attachments, arise from the opposite. You cannot love a person who is exactly like you. Identicals repel one another. As with magnets: negative and positive attract. Positive and positive do not pull each other; negative and negative do not attract. For attraction, negative and positive poles are needed. Like-natured people do not draw one another.
Therefore it is not surprising that men like Buddha and Mahavira could exist in the same time, yet not come close. There is no polarity. Often it happens that like-natured beings remain at a distance from each other. Opposites are attracted and come near. The opposite is the key to attraction.
Hence Krishna says, one who knows both paths in their essence!
To know in essence means: one who has experienced. Only he knows in essence. One who has not known by experience only knows by theory, not in essence. Theoretically anyone can read and know. But that knowing is not essential knowing. It is not knowledge; it is mere acquaintance.
Bertrand Russell divided knowing into two: knowledge, and acquaintance. What we know by theory is mere acquaintance, mere acquaintance. It is not knowledge. What Russell calls knowledge, Krishna calls knowing in essence: to know a thing in its element—in its deepest foundation. Other than experience, there is no way to know at the foundation.
One who knows both paths by experience is not deluded, because once both are known, the attraction of the opposite dissolves.
Understand it so: one who walks on the path of Dakshinayan will keep walking, yet in his consciousness a constant pull toward Uttarayan will persist; the opposite will tug. One who moves straight toward Uttarayan without the experience of Dakshinayan will be constantly attracted, called, beckoned by the path of descent, hindered by it. Again and again obstacles will arise; he will sway—now toward Uttarayan, now toward Dakshinayan. One who keeps wavering toward the opposite cannot advance.
One who knows both in their essence is no longer deluded. Not only is he free of infatuation with these two paths—he is free of the entire circle of opposites.
The deepest meaning of being free of the world is to be free of the law of the opposite—the law of the opposite that pulls.
Therefore a yogi does not leave a woman because she is a woman. Nor, living with a woman, does he drop the woman because she is a woman. If she is a yogini, she does not leave a man because he is a man; nor, living with a man, does she drop his attraction because he is a man—but because he is the opposite.
Without freedom from the opposite, no one can be at peace. Without freedom from infatuation, without non-delusion, no one can be at peace. For the other will keep calling. When you are on one side, the other pulls you; when you move to the other side, that which you left begins to pull again. The whole life swings like a pendulum between two extremes. What you abandon becomes attractive again, begins to call.
Western psychologists even advise couples that if things are not going well with your wife or husband, then for a while create temporary love relations with another man or woman.
It is astonishing. No woman can think that if her husband, when things are not going well, falls for another woman for a few days, something good will result. It will break everything.
Yet the Western psychologist is, in a way, right. He says that by relating for a few days with another woman, the husband again becomes attracted to his wife—he swings between extremes.
Therefore a strange phenomenon runs in the West: wife-swapping, “swapping clubs,” where friends secretly exchange their wives. Astonishingly, couples who could not get along can sometimes get along again.
In truth, as we move away from something, we become attracted to it again. Moving away is a device to come close; coming close sets up the arrangement to go far. Everything pulls like this.
Today the children of millionaire families in America wander the world like beggars in the streets. Poverty has become an attraction. With too much wealth, poverty calls—the opposite pulls again.
One who seeks supreme liberation must be free of the opposite.
These two opposite paths dwell within man. If one knows them in essence, both lose their attraction. And when both no longer attract, when neither calls, when their opposition is dissolved and both look like the two sides of one coin—at that very moment one attains supreme liberation. After that, the world has no meaning for him. After that, there is no way for delusion, lust, craving.
So Krishna says: knowing in essence, no yogi is deluded. Therefore, Arjuna, be yoga-yukta at all times.
At all times, in all situations, be yoked to yoga. Here yoga-yukta means to be stilled in the middle between two extremes—to be without delusion.
Those points that call with attraction—moving from one to the other is easy. One who overeats will be attracted to fasting. Hence wherever fasting is recommended, gluttons often gather for treatment. In your Urulikanchan you will always find that those who come for treatment are those who have overeaten—overfed.
It is interesting: a wealthy society overeats, thus fasting becomes natural there. In India among Jains fasting is a big thing—not because fasting is big, but because among Indians the overfed society is the Jains. Wherever there is more eating, fasting will attract.
It is also interesting that when a poor society’s religious day comes, they prepare good food; when a rich society’s religious day comes, they fast—the opposite. If a poor man’s religious day comes, say for a Muslim, he will wear new, colorful clothes and come out on the street. If a wealthy religious man’s festival arrives, he will adopt simplicity, be plain that day.
The opposite finds space in our mind; it keeps pulling us. So the big eater becomes keen on fasting. One who dresses richly may even show readiness to go naked.
But going to the opposite is not the end. One who goes to the opposite goes bound by delusion. Do not choose the reverse. The reverse is dangerous. If you must choose, choose the middle. The exact middle is the point of freedom. Between two extremes, the precise center is the place of liberation.
If you eat too much, do not choose fasting; choose right eating—stop in the middle. That will be difficult. Fasting is easier, because the extreme is always easy. If a man is prone to anger, becoming forgiving is easier; being free of anger is difficult. Going to the other side is always easy—because after standing on one extreme we have gathered momentum. Then release the pendulum—it will go by itself to the other side. Stopping in the middle is very difficult.
To be yoga-yukta means: one who always stands in the middle between extremes—that alone is a yogi. He has discovered the point where the dimension of liberation begins.
Krishna says: therefore, Arjuna, be yoga-yukta at all times—and always strive for My attainment.
This point too is a little subtle. We always place God as the opposite of the world. We always place moksha as the opposite of the world. We think, “Abandon the world and attain God.” In our mind even God becomes an opposite, a polarity to the world. One who is tired of the world says, “Now I must attain God.” We erect God as the polarity to the world—a polar opposite. A man says, “Enough of wealth; now religion.”
But God is not the opposite. And for one whose God is opposite the world, his God will be worldly. For one whose God is the reverse of the world, his God is not beyond the world; it lies within the polar opposite—the opposite itself. That too is one extreme of the world.
That is why Krishna’s life is so wondrous—among the few lives that are not in opposition to the world. Krishna’s life is not the life of a renunciate; nor is it the life of attachment. Krishna stands where the attached stand; and he stands as the renunciate stands. Krishna’s life is the search for the middle between two opposites. Perhaps there has never been another so utterly centered person on earth.
Ordinarily we would say: if Krishna is a pacifist, he should not step into war. And if he is warlike, he should not speak of God, divinity, Brahman. Choose one of the two clearly.
We would say: if Krishna says nonattachment is the sutra of life, then this dancing among the gopis is inconsistent—it should not go on; it should stop. And if he must dance among the gopis, play the flute, crown himself with peacock feathers, then let talk of nonattachment, yoga, Samadhi, Brahman cease. Choose one clearly.
Krishna says: we will not choose. Therefore Krishna is very baffling, very mysterious. Not as clear-cut as mathematics—mysterious like poetry. Not dissected like logic—mysterious like love. Both together—and neither. This is the meaning of yoga-yukta.
Therefore we could call Krishna a Mahayogi. The reason is that Krishna is perhaps the first to provide the device of standing exactly between two extremes. Even if we stand exactly in the middle, the mind wavers a little. Even then, we stand there to be free of the world—if this is our inner motive, you will stand leaning slightly; you cannot stand exactly in the middle.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin had two wives. Whoever has two wives knows what trouble that can be! With one wife, multiply by a thousand; do not add a second—because with two there is no addition, there is multiplication. He was in great trouble, and there was a constant question; both wives would ask him face to face, “Tell us, which of us is more beautiful?” Nasruddin would say, “Both of you are more beautiful than the other!”
But the wives suspected he must be leaning a little toward one. No two women can accept that if a man stands between them he will not be a little tilted. And in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, it is true. Their suspicion is largely valid. We cannot stand in the middle.
When the first wife was dying, she said, “Whatever happened in life, promise me one thing: after I die, build two graves for us—and place your grave exactly in the middle—just right in the middle. In life I suffered; but after death, until Doomsday, I don’t want to be disturbed in my grave, suspecting you tilt a little to her side. Exactly by geometry, by arithmetic, set it right.” Nasruddin promised.
The second wife had the same insistence. He never revealed it. The first wife’s name was Fatima, the second Sultana. His heart always leaned a little toward the second, but he never found the courage to say so.
When both died, Nasruddin told the grave-digger: “Build my grave exactly in the middle—but make it just a little tilted toward Sultana—just a bit leaning toward Sultana. Make it in the middle, but a little slanted.”
The mason said, “Both wives have written in their wills: exactly in the middle. I will not trouble two dead souls. And who wants to be caught in your mess? I will build it exactly in the middle—not tilted.”
Nasruddin said, “Then lay me on my side within—on my side facing Sultana; don’t lay me flat!”
Standing in the middle is very difficult. Our taste wants to choose. Even when we choose God, we choose Him against the world. But one who chooses God against the world does not choose God. Only one who has abandoned all choosing—become choiceless—can choose God. One who says, “The world too is God to me; and God too is the world to me—now there is no difference.” One who says, “Life is death to me; death is life.” One who says, “Wealth is poverty to me, and poverty is wealth.” Only such a person stands exactly in the middle. Such a centered person is called yoga-yukta.
Yoga-yukta means: one who has become wholly balanced. As the needle of a scale stands upright, both pans equal, not tilted at all—when the pointer stands exactly in the middle, it is yoga-yukta. Likewise when your consciousness stands exactly in the middle, you are yoga-yukta.
To stand in the middle of life’s contradictions is yoga. To be choiceless amidst all opposites is to be yoga-yukta. And such a yoga-yukta one, says Krishna, alone is qualified to attain Me.
Keep this well in mind.
Never make God a goal opposite to the world. Never set moksha against the world. Moksha is against nothing. Moksha is only against choosing. Do not choose. And the very moment you are choiceless, that supreme event of which Krishna speaks happens.
Because the yogi, having known this secret in essence, oversteps without doubt all the merit said to accrue from the study of the Vedas, and from sacrifice, austerity and charity—and attains the eternal supreme state.
This is a revolutionary statement. One would not expect it in the Gita. Krishna is saying: one who knows this essential secret, for him the knowledge of the Vedas, the fruits of sacrifice, the merit of charity—become meaningless. He transcends them all.
The knowledge of the Vedas has no worth to one who has known in essence. Then the Vedas become parrot-talk. The Veda-reader is a knower of words only, a mere pundit. And there is no condition more pitiable than that of a mere pundit—not even that of an ignorant man.
Even for the ignorant there is a way; for the pundit there remains none. Because the ignorant at least has the humility to know, “I do not know.” The pundit loses even that. He feels, “I know,” and knows not at all.
The pundit’s ignorance becomes arrogant ignorance—feeling he knows, falsely. Truth is never known by knowing words. Yes, knowing the truth, one can find truth in the words—that is another matter. But by knowing words, truth has never been known. Knowing truth, the words become known. One who knows by essence, by direct experience, for him the Vedas become a foundation of supreme knowledge. But one who knows only the Vedas—he is in this situation…
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin passed by a well, bent to draw water, slipped, and fell in. For a long time he floundered and shouted. A rustic, a simpleton, happened to pass. He peered in: “Oh! It’s you! I’ll pull you out at once.” Nasruddin said, “Your speech is uncultured. Is this how you address a stranger—‘you’ and ‘I’? The man said, “Wait! I’ll return cultured in a fortnight.” Nasruddin said, “I can wait two weeks—but to be pulled out by a man who doesn’t even know proper words, whose speech is crude—I cannot accept it.”
People encased in words lie in the world like Nasruddin in the well. If someone like Kabir comes knocking at their door, they won’t like it. Because Kabir knows nothing of the Vedas. If Nanak extends his hand to pull them out, they will ask, “How much Sanskrit have you studied? How long did you live in Kashi? How many Vedas do you know?” Nanak knows no Veda—and yet he knows all that the Vedas contain. Kabir has not studied the Vedas—yet what the Vedas intend, the Veda-chanter does not know as Kabir knows.
There is another door to knowing—direct, immediate, free of mediator, free of words. This is called essential knowing—tattva-jnana. One who attains that then transcends the reading of the Vedas, the performance of sacrifice, austerity and charity. These have no meaning left. They are for those who have not yet begun the real journey of knowing—who have only set their first foot upon inquiry.
Many there are who mistake the collection of words for the attainment of wisdom. They pile up words, scriptures, and think liberation is near. They do not know that they are being buried under the burden of words. Liberation may be receding. Perhaps the load of scriptures will drown them deeper into the world. Scriptures become burdens; truth alone becomes liberation.
This is not to say the Vedas are useless. Nor that no mysteries are hidden in them. Nor that words have no power. But the power of words is only for one who will not stop at words—who wants to go beyond. The Vedas become a support for him who can go beyond the Vedas. And gurus are gurus only for those who are courageous enough to be free even of the guru.
Otherwise the guru becomes bondage. Otherwise the scripture becomes bondage. Even words used for truth become a prison.
Krishna says: one who knows in essence—the yogi—becomes free of all.
Not only of the Vedas. He says more: he becomes free of yajna as well. By yajna is meant the whole ritualistic apparatus of religions. The entire scriptural knowledge of religions means the Vedas; the entire ritualistic practices are meant by yajna. Free of that too. One who has known the Divine within no longer needs any act, any ritual, any form of worship. There is no use running outside.
One who has known the inner fire—if he sits lighting fires outside to worship them, he is a fool. If he sometimes does sit, it is only so that those who have not lit the inner fire may be helped. If he does not condemn the outer fire as useless, it is only because for those who know nothing inside, even the outer fire might become a symbol, a support, a companion on the path.
But whenever such a person sees that the outer fire is no longer a support to reach the inner, but a hindrance, he will oppose and refute it. Therefore religious people are continually seen opposing old rituals and practices. Yet it is hard to predict what he will do.
If you are performing a yajna, what would the one who knows essentially do? Hard to say. If he catches even a glimpse of the inner fire in you as you light the outer, he will support your yajna. But if he sees only smoke and darkness inside, and the outer fire only increases that darkness, he will surely oppose it.
Therefore the statements of such a person will appear inconsistent. Sometimes he will say the temple is right; sometimes he will say it is useless. Sometimes he will say the Divine is in the idol; sometimes he will say, “Break the idol—for this idol is why the Divine is not seen.” It depends on to whom he is speaking.
He does not speak only of leaving yajna; he says tapas—austerity—also becomes useless. One who has seen the inner source will not engage in tormenting himself.
Often those who torment themselves enjoy the torment—they are sadists or masochists. Those who revere austerity are frequently masochists: they relish self-torture.
There was a writer, Masoch: he could feel elated only when he whipped himself—pierced himself with thorns, starved himself, cut his veins. And another writer, Marquis de Sade: he could not feel pleasure unless he tortured the other. He kept a whip to beat his lovers; he carried tools to torment his beloveds. He would lock the door, then begin love; the end was often that he left them bleeding. Until he made the other bleed, he felt no pleasure.
These are perversions. They enter the spiritual field too. Some people enjoy tormenting themselves. Around such self-torturers, the sadists gather who enjoy the suffering of others.
If a man fasts twenty days, scores will gather to form a procession in his honor. Observe: the faster is a masochist; those in the procession are sadists. They relish that he has fasted—they enjoy that he is starving. He took pleasure in torturing himself; they are taking pleasure in his being tortured. It gives them a thrill.
In the name of tapas, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, the mentally ill become involved. But there is one out of a hundred who does not approach austerity as a sickness. He simply shows a readiness to endure whatever hardships arise in the search for truth. That is tapas: whatever hardships arise in seeking truth. He does not manufacture hardships. If, while meditating, the sun beats down, he is ready to bear it—but he does not go in search of sun saying that in the shade he cannot meditate. If he finds that meditation deepens when he has not eaten, he fasts—but he does not proclaim that fasting is necessary for meditation. Whatever hardships naturally occur in the search for the ultimate truth, he accepts them—joyfully.
But then he does not care for your praises. If you say, “You did a great thing standing in the sun; we will worship you,” he will say, “You’re mad. Standing in the sun I did nothing. The work was within; the sun happened—I did not reject its disturbance. I accepted it. The work was within. Hunger arose—if I went to eat, disturbance would come, so I did not go; I accepted hunger. The work was within. I was not hungry; I was not standing in the sun. They were circumstances; I bore them peacefully.”
The real meaning of tapas is a readiness to accept naturally whatever pain comes in the search for truth—but not deviating from the search, not moving an inch away, however many thorns are on the path.
But sick minds will not walk any path where there are no thorns. They will say, “Where are the thorns? First spread the thorns, then we will walk.” Understand this difference. A seeker of truth, if there are thorns, will bear them; but the perverted mind, sadist or masochist, will say, “This cannot be the path of truth—there are no thorns. First lay thorns, then we will walk. If he finds a path strewn with flowers, he will refuse: ‘We will not go; on the path of truth there is only the cross—where are the flowers!’” This man is eager for the cross, not for truth. He is eager for thorns, not for truth. He will keep manufacturing thorns. Such tapas is diseased.
But even that one percent of tapas, Krishna says, is also transcended.
Certainly. When the essence is realized, what need of austerity remains? When the goal is reached, what need remains to run on the road? None. If one who has realized truth still practices austerities, it is only to create the strength in others to endure austerity. There is no other purpose.
If Mahavira fasted even after enlightenment, it is not that he needed fasting; if he remained naked after realization, it is not that he feared clothes or needed nakedness. But for those coming behind—if Mahavira were to leave fasting and nakedness and return to the palace—the followers might never undertake the journey. They may think, “Mahavira realized his mistake—he returned home. Good that we did not get entangled.” Mahavira no longer fears the palace. For him palace and forest are the same. Still he remains in the forest out of compassion for those who have to rise above the prison of the palace.
If such a one continues tapas, it is only for this; if he continues speaking of the Vedas, it is only so it may help someone. If he assists in yajna, it is only so those who cannot yet reach essence may find support through ritual, worship, some practice, and rise upward.
Krishna says: such a one becomes free of charity too.
Charity is also a supporting path in the search for truth. Charity means: whatever we can give, we give—to those who need. Its fundamental meaning is non-possessiveness: do not hoard what is useless. What is necessary is enough; the rest give to those who need it. And if a moment comes when someone needs more than we do, give even then.
Krishna says: such a one becomes free of charity too. This will seem harder. It seems to mean such a person does not give.
No—it means he no longer finds anyone “other.” He no longer feels separate. He no longer experiences any gap between himself and the world. He does not “give charity”—because he has nothing left to give; he has already given himself. Everything is surrendered, dissolved. A small incident may help.
Each day many gathered at Kabir’s house. He fed them daily. His son was troubled. “We are falling into debt. People come daily; as they leave you say, ‘Take your meal.’ They come for bhajan and kirtan—let them go; do not stop them for food.” Kabir would say, “I’ll remember tomorrow.” The next day the same. They would come for singing and when leaving Kabir would say, “At least eat!”
At last the son said, “This cannot go on. Shall I begin stealing? The debt keeps increasing!”
Kabir became joyous. “Fool, if it could be solved by stealing, why did you not think of it earlier?” The son, Kamal, was shocked. Perhaps Kabir had not understood. He said, “Did you hear? I said, shall I steal?” Kabir said, “I understood well. Where was your intelligence till now?”
Kamal said, “Then today I will go to steal.”
At midnight he rose: “I’m going. Do I have your permission—your blessing?” Kabir said, “May the Lord help you in every way.” Kamal was testing how far this would go. “Perhaps I will steal so much that alone I cannot carry it. Will you come to help?” Kabir said, “Now that I’m awake, let’s go.”
Kamal’s restlessness grew. What is happening—Kabir going to steal! But being Kabir’s son, he decided to see it through. He broke a wall; Kabir stood by. Kamal’s hand trembled—he had never stolen. Kabir said, “Why are your hands shaking? We’re only stealing—nothing wrong!” Kamal slapped his forehead: “Nothing wrong! What could be more wrong?” Kabir said, “This trembling is wrong. If you steal, do it skillfully. Yoga is skill in action; the hand should not tremble.”
Kamal went in, pulled out a sack of wheat. Kabir helped him drag it. As Kamal hoisted it on his shoulder, Kabir said, “Wait. Did you inform the household? At least tell them we’re taking a sack.” Kamal said, “Is this stealing or what?”
When Kamal asked what it all meant, Kabir said, “Since ‘we’ have ceased to be, only That remains—whose stealing, and who steals? Who gives, who receives? All is His. He is the one sleeping there thinking ‘it is mine.’ I too am His. He within me says, ‘Take it.’ He will come in the morning for kirtan. How can I tell him to go without food? All is His.”
A knower can rise to this plane—indeed he rises—where stealing is no longer stealing; charity is no longer charity; where all boundaries of ethics and non-ethics are crossed; where all that we call religion falls like trash, and the person becomes so one with that supreme consciousness that the One who makes do—is. The one who does—is. The one upon whom it is done—is. Where there is no division, where is ethics? Where there is no division, where are charity, religion, merit?
Where there is no division—there Krishna tells Arjuna—if you become a knower of essence, who kills and who is killed? Madness! No one is killed, no one kills. In those standing before you, the same One is who never dies. In you who are to fight, the same One is who never dies. These bodies do die.
Krishna’s message is very amoral—supra-moral. Therefore when Deussen or Schopenhauer first read the Gita, they were frightened. What does it mean? If it is so amoral, what of our morality? If charity becomes useless, austerity useless, sacrifice useless, the Vedas useless—then all the bases we rely upon are useless.
Certainly, for one who moves toward the ultimate base, all our social bases become useless. But he does not become immoral; he becomes supra-moral. He is not immoral—he becomes amoral or super-moral. Perhaps that is the supreme morality. To go beyond all morality may be the highest morality. To rise above all religions may be the supreme religion.
Krishna says: transcending all this, he attains the eternal state—the supreme state. He becomes like Brahman—he becomes Brahman.
Enough for today.
But do not get up yet. Sit for five more minutes—right where you are. Our sannyasins will sing kirtan. Take with you their prasad of this final day. Join the kirtan right where you sit.