Geeta Darshan #11

Even if one wishes to worship the Paramatma, what do we really have to give that we can call our own? And what meaning is there in offering what is not ours? Whatever is, is his. So even at his door, whatever we place there, we are merely returning his own.
What does man possess that is not given by the Paramatma? If we are returning what is his, it carries little meaning. Give him something that is not his gift, only then can it be called an offering in worship.
This needs to be understood a little. It is hard to find—because what exists in the world that is not his? If I pluck flowers from a tree and lay them at his feet, those flowers were already lying at his feet! If I draw water from the river and pour it at his feet, the river has been pouring all its waters at his feet since forever! What am I doing in this? And how will this doing transform the shape of my life?
But there is one thing a human being does have which is not given by the Paramatma. Only one. The sense of being the doer—I am doing something—this is not God-given; this is man’s own acquisition. This ego that says I am doing something is man’s discovery, man’s invention. And until a person places this very notion at his feet, the transformation Krishna is speaking about does not take place.
Therefore he says: When you eat, when you walk, when you sit, when you perform a fire-offering, whatever you do—offer it all to me. Offer your actions to me. Offer me the feeling of being the doer. And the very moment you can do this, in that moment you are sannyast—you have renounced.
This is a most wondrous statement. For ordinarily sannyas means dropping action, renouncing action. Krishna does not ask for the renunciation of action. He says: Do the action, but as an offering to me. Do not abandon action; keep doing it. But drop the one who claims to do; dissolve that which stands within as the doer.
Ego is the only thing in man’s hands that can truly be placed on the altar. That belongs to man; all else belongs to the Paramatma. Yet, a few more points must be understood here. It is precisely this that is difficult to offer. A man can offer wealth. In a surge of zeal he can offer even his life; he can lay his head on the block. This is not so hard. There have been devotees who have cut off their heads, surrendered their very lives. That is not so difficult, because life itself belongs to him. But even the person who lays down his head continues within to think, I am laying down my head. Remember, do not forget—it is I who am offering my head!
Even when the head is cut off, the I remains standing within. One can offer the head while preserving the I. And if the I survives, then what needed to be offered has been preserved; and what was already his has been returned. Wealth can be offered, life can be offered, status and prestige can be offered—everything can be offered—but if the I remains behind, then what had to be offered has been kept back, and what was already dedicated has been offered again. And by offering what was already his, we strengthen our I still more: I have offered so much. Those who offer keep accounts!
A man came to me some days ago. He said, I have chanted the name of Ram so many hundred thousand times. He keeps a ledger! He has a notebook tallying how many lakhs of times he has taken the name of Ram. This man will go to Ram even with his notebook in hand. And he will say, Remember? How much I shouted your name! How many times I chanted! I have all the accounts with me.
People drag arithmetic even into love! People keep accounts, ledgers even in prayer! All is wasted. For the one who keeps accounts is the ego. The saying I have recited so many names—now even the names become a possession, a hoard of coins. And with that hoard I will go to him.
Kierkegaard, a Christian faqir and a remarkable thinker, wrote in his diary: I surrendered everything to him; I left all evil deeds; I protected myself from sin; I kept myself far from every form of wrongdoing. There remained no vice in me. And then one day it so happened that I discovered I am full of virtues! And I found my ego standing like a flame. And then I saw that my virtues too had become food for my ego. My righteous conduct, my moral life, all had become nourishment to my ego. And that day I wept the whole night, he writes: O God, it would have been better if I had remained sinful, bad; at least this ego would not have arisen. I have been freed from evil, now free me from goodness. This goodness has become a new prison.
Remember, the ego of a bad man is feeble; the ego of a good man becomes powerful. The bad person’s evils are on the outside; the good person’s evil shifts within.
The bad man steals, deceives, cheats—his evils are outside. The good man neither steals nor deceives. He worships and prays on time. He keeps rules. He lives within propriety. Outwardly there is no evil. But in place of all that, within, a single evil stands up: I am a good man. Wherever he goes, the ego of goodness walks beside him. That is why, when a good man looks at others—if you look deeply into it—you will find that he looks as if the other is an insect, a worm.
This is to become worse than the bad man. The evil has deepened. And the bad man did wrong to others; the so-called good man has done wrong to himself as well. The bad man deceived others; this good man has deceived himself too.
The one who worships and prays grows a very subtle, sattvic ego—strong and deadly. And remember: when ego becomes sattvic, it becomes very poisonous.
Krishna says: Drop all of it. Place the good and the bad both on me. Whatever you are doing, do not remain the doer in it. Know that I am doing it through you. Become so offered.
He does not ask you to abandon action. Therefore what Krishna says is supremely revolutionary. To drop action is not so difficult. A man can leave action and go to the forest. But to drop the doer—that is the real difficulty. And even if a man goes to the jungle leaving action behind, the stiffness, the pride goes with him: I have left all actions. The doer follows behind.
Action can be left in the town; the doer will not be left. The doer travels with you. He is your inner condition. You may leave the house, the shop, the work, withdraw from all sides and escape to the forest, but the inner doer will ride on your renunciation itself. Renunciation will become his vehicle. And reaching the forest he will announce with arrogance: I have left everything. This leaving remains an action. This renouncing remains an action. And the ego feeds on this too.
Therefore Krishna says: By merely dropping action nothing will happen, Arjuna—drop the doer!
This is arduous, supremely difficult. Because actions are outside. Whatever is outside is easy to grasp and also easy to drop. What is inside—grasping it takes lifetimes; letting it go is equally difficult.
If there is something in my hand, I can drop it easily. If something is in my skull, it becomes harder to drop. If it is in the skull it can still be dropped. But when something penetrates my very consciousness, then dropping it becomes even more difficult.
Ego is the deepest arrow of the world driven into us. The wound’s name is ego. It is inside us. It is inside us. And our strange mischief is this: we keep pressing that arrow deeper so that the ego goes further in. When someone has an itch, even scratching feels like pleasure.
Ego is a spiritual itch; scratching it also seems pleasurable. No matter how much pain follows, while scratching there seems to be great delight. Whoever has ever had an itch knows this. But ego—everyone has it—so all know. In scratching it there is a pleasure, though all suffering is born of that scratching.
Scratch an itch and the body is left raw and bleeding; pain follows. Scratch the ego and the soul is left raw and bleeding—and a chain of suffering stretches on across lifetimes. Still we keep scratching, driving the arrow deeper. Even the wound’s arrow, we relish.
Krishna says: Drop this very thing. Drop the feeling I am doing this.
To drop this feeling, two indispensable conditions have been given.
Krishna says: Whatever a devotee with shuddha buddhi and nishkama love offers me with love, I accept.
Two terms he uses: shuddha buddhi, and nishkama prem.
When is intelligence pure? And when is love pure? Intelligence is not purified in the way we ordinarily think. We think if there are pure thoughts in the mind, the intellect is pure. Nothing could be a greater misunderstanding. This will be hard to grasp. We imagine purity of intellect means pure thoughts, good thoughts, sattvic thoughts—if righteous thoughts are there, the intellect is pure. But the intellect is not pure so long as there are thoughts at all—even if they are righteous thoughts. Only when thought itself ceases is the intellect pure.
Like a man with iron chains on his hands. He is in prison. Tomorrow we place golden chains on him. Perhaps he rejoices that now he is free—because his chains are golden, studded with jewels. But he is not free. He is free only when the chains are not better—but when the chains are not at all.
Remember, thought has three states. One is the state of thought we will call impure thought. Impure thought means thought that runs behind desire and craving; that treats the body as master and becomes a slave itself. Where desire is master and thought is slave, there thought is bad, unrighteous, inauspicious.
This can be changed. Change means: thought becomes the master, desire becomes the slave. Now thought does not run behind desire; desire must obey thought. This is auspicious thought, good thought. But thought is still present, desire is still present; only the relation has flipped. Yesterday desire was master and thought the slave; now thought is master and desire the slave.
But remember: even if you become the master of a slave, you remain bound to him. Even if you sit upon the slave’s chest, still the slave holds you. You cannot simply get up and walk away. The slave cannot move because you are sitting on his chest. You too cannot move because to move you must get up. You must remain seated, suppressing the slave. You may think the slave is bound to you; the slave knows you are bound to him—you cannot depart.
It is told that a man was leading a cow home, tied with a rope. The fakir Hasan met him on the road and asked: My friend, I wish to know one thing. Are you bound to the cow or is the cow bound to you?
The man said, You seem mad! Is this something to ask? Obviously the cow is bound to me; I am leading her.
Hasan said, Do one thing. If the cow is bound to you, then let go and see. Release the rope. If the cow follows you, we will understand.
The man said, If I let go, the cow will run off; I will have to run after her.
Hasan said, Then understand well. Do not be deluded by the rope in your hand. If the cow runs, you will run behind her; she will not run behind you. If you let go, the cow will not come looking for you; you will go looking for her. You are under the illusion that you hold the cow bound.
Whatever we bind, binds us in return. It is a law of life. He who seeks freedom will not bind anyone.
If you have suppressed your desires and enthroned good thought above them, still desire will wriggle and ferment below; its flames will shoot up. You will have to suppress it day after day. What you suppress once you will have to suppress again and again. And suppression does not end a desire; it may flare up more fiercely, for repression creates its own flavor. Whatever we suppress gathers an intensified attraction. It also accumulates strength. Then the struggle is continuous.
Therefore the man we call bad keeps fighting outwardly with others; the man we call good keeps fighting inwardly with himself. The bad man tries to torment others; the good man tries to torment himself. The bad man is bad because he is dragged by desire; the good man we call good because he sits upon the chest of his desire. But this sitting is static. It is a kind of death, a stoppage.
There is a third state of intelligence, where neither thought nor desire remains. That state is called shuddha buddhi. Shuddha buddhi means the struggle has vanished; those who fought are no more. There is no longer the binder, and no longer the bound. No master, no slave—because wherever master and slave exist, an inner struggle will continue.
So long as society has masters and slaves, a struggle will continue. Marx calls it class struggle. The struggle of classes goes on.
Exactly the same occurs within. So long as there is division inside between master and slave, a partition, an inner struggle persists—an inner conflict, an inner war. That state is not pure.
Krishna says: shuddha buddhi.
It means an intelligence so purified that not a ripple of thought remains. Like a crystal-clear lake. The dirty wave has gone—that much we understand—but now even the clean wave is not there. There is no wave at all. The mind is silent like a lake without a single ripple upon it.
Understand this well.
Morality concerns itself only with this much—that your intellect become auspicious in the sense that the inauspicious is pressed down and the auspicious rises above. Morality goes this far. Hence morality is not religion. Religion is a much larger thing. An irreligious man can also be moral; there is no obstacle. An atheist can be moral; there is no obstacle.
Morality means you have brought your desires under the control of thought. A certain restraint is achieved. Your desires cannot pull you now; you can hold them back. The reins of desire have come into your hands. The horse is alive; with the reins you steer it. But your energy is spent in steering, and the horse waits for a moment to break loose. All day long you have to remain watchful.
And no one can be in ceaseless effort twenty-four hours a day. Every effort demands rest. He who has been awake by day must sleep at night. He who has dug a ditch all day must rest his limbs.
So the moral man must take breaks. In those very breaks his immorality appears. He finds pretexts for holidays. Sometimes he says, We are celebrating Holi—and then he allows himself to hurl abuses. What obscenities he suppressed all year, now he does with relish.
The moral man must keep finding excuses to give his immorality a holiday. Because he will be tired; he needs rest, a day off. And if not in waking, then the holiday is granted in sleep. In dreams he commits all the bad deeds; what he held down by day, at night appears in dreams.
If we look at the dreams of a good man, inevitably they are bad. The bad man’s dreams are not so bad. There is no need. The bad man does his bad deeds by day; by night he sleeps well. Often the bad man sees beautiful dreams at night—complementary. He remains agitated all day; many times the thought arises, Let me be good. He fails; the desire for goodness remains unfulfilled. He does the bad he wants to; the desire to be good remains unsatisfied and becomes the dream.
The good man sees bad dreams. By day he manages to act good; but within, the color and melody of the bad keeps playing. The inner sound of the bad resounds; it demands a little holiday. Do not pull the reins so tight; give me a little space to run. The winds are fair, the road is open, it is morning—let me run awhile. He does not allow it. Then at night, when he sleeps and the reins slacken, the mind begins to run.
A curious fact: whatever a man has suppressed by day appears in his dreams at night. Exactly that which is suppressed manifests. Dreams are allies, says Freud. They cooperate.
If the good man could not sleep, he would go mad. If the bad man could not sleep, he too would go mad. Because rest is needed. The other half you suppress also asks for its share. It too is part of you.
Krishna would not call this shuddha buddhi. He would say both are the same; only what was below is above; what was above has gone below. But the total is unchanged.
I have heard of a circus that kept a troupe of monkeys. The keeper used to give them four flatbreads in the morning and three in the evening. One day bread was short, so he changed the arrangement. He called them and said, From today the rule changes: three breads in the morning and four in the evening.
The monkeys revolted. They were furious. They said, This will not do. It cannot be. We want four in the morning and three in the evening.
The man explained: You are mad. Do the sum—the total is seven. The monkeys said, We do not care for sums. We want four in the morning and three in the evening. If you give three in the morning and four in the evening, we are very angry.
Monkeys do not know sums; they can be forgiven. Man too does not know sums! He flips the below to above, the above to below—and thinks everything is fine. But the total remains the same.
The total of the good man and the bad man is equal. This may sound difficult, but I must say it: the total is equal; only the ordering differs. One has four breads in the morning and three in the evening; the other has three in the morning and four in the evening.
This does not mean I am telling you that if you are good you should become bad. Not at all. I mean that if you are good, do not stop at being good.
Goodness has its utility. For society, the task is done. Society does not care about your inner total. Your good face has come to the front; your bad face has gone inside. That is your affair; society is not concerned. Society knows you as a good person; society’s matter is settled.
Society is not much concerned that you become something more. Society is satisfied if you are good. It wants you not to be bad. Let your bad aspect be inside, your good aspect outside—because society is the meeting of our outer aspects.
My soul may be dirty—this does not matter to you; if I come bathed, in clean clothes, it is enough. For your meeting with me will be with my body and clothes, not with my soul. If I say, My soul is very pure but I will come to you covered in filth—you will say, Your soul is your affair; please do not bring this filth here.
Society is the arena of the meeting of our outer personalities. Society cares that your outside be in order; the inside is your private issue.
But religion does not stop there. Religion says the real, the private issue must be resolved. Good that you are good, not bad—better. But religion says: not sufficient. Necessary, but not sufficient. If you stop at the good, you are deceived. You must go beyond even the good.
Shuddha buddhi means where neither desire remains nor thought; both are gone. Then only pure consciousness remains.
So one condition Krishna gives is that the intelligence be pure. The second is that love be nishkama. Love must be without desire.
Intelligence is defiled by thought; love is defiled by passion, by craving. Understand it thus: buddhi means your capacity for thinking; love means your heart’s capacity for experiencing. Your head is sullied by thought; your heart is sullied by desire, by lust. Until both heart and intellect are purified, the birth of the bhakta does not happen.
Therefore I say again and again: do not think that to be a bhakta is a simple matter. People often say, Bhakti is easy; jnana is difficult.
Remember, jnana has only one condition: shuddha buddhi, a pure intelligence. Bhakti has a double condition: intellect pure and heart without desire. How can people say bhakti is easy? Whatever jnana demands of buddhi, bhakti demands at least that much—and a little more. The capacity for love must be free of lust.
So the bhakta is not a simple affair. But it looks simple because we have attached childish things to bhakti. Someone is turning a rosary—we think he has become a devotee. Someone rings the bell in the temple—we think he has become a devotee. Someone waves a lamp before an idol—we think he has become a devotee.
If bhakti were only this, then I tell you, you would never reach by bhakti. This path cannot be so cheap. Bhakti is supremely subtle, supremely difficult.
Therefore, if we search honestly, we will find that there have been many more jnanis in the world than bhaktas. It will surprise you. Among the names shining at the heights—Buddha, Mahavira, Shankara, Yajnavalkya—you will find it hard to place devotees in that blazing category. The reason is that to be a bhakta is arduous. The conditions are doubled.
And to purify the intellect is easier; to purify the heart is more complex. The intellect is on the surface; the heart is deep. The intellect can be manipulated; it is a tool in our hands. But the heart feels so much as our very own that there is no distance; doing anything with it becomes very difficult.
Understand it this way. If I ask you: Try to love a certain person—then you will realize how difficult it is! How will you try to love? Has anyone ever loved by trying? The more you try, the more love recedes.
Any question of the intellect can be solved by effort. However complex an idea, effort can unravel it. But love does not happen through effort; effort is futile.
Therefore we call the lover blind. We say: If it is, it is; if it is not, it is not. There is no method. Love is or it is not—there is no device. Hence the lover seems helpless, in the hands of a vast power—he cannot control it. He is drawn, he is carried. His own control fails.
Thus to be a devotee is arduous. But if the intellect is pure and love is nishkama, then the great event happens and the flower of bhakti blooms. It blooms—sometimes in a Chaitanya, sometimes in a Meera. But it is a rare flowering.
Therefore I say: however difficult it may be to be a Buddha or a Mahavira, it is still not the most difficult. There is but one condition: the intellect be utterly pure. But to be a Meera is a little unique, to be a Chaitanya is a little unique. A new element enters, another dimension is added—the heart must also be free of desire.
Hence Buddha will be serene, deeply peaceful, without distortion, pure—but in one sense he will seem negative. We can say his restlessness is gone; we can say his sorrow has disappeared; we can say all his pain and torment have vanished; we can say worry no longer remains—but all this is negation. We can say what is not; it is hard to say what has happened.
In Meera we see not only that her restlessness is gone, that worry and torment have gone, that sorrow has disappeared—we see, in addition, a dancing joy, affirmative, positive. What has happened is visible. What has been lost is visible; what has been gained is also visible.
What happened to Buddha is inner; it does not easily overflow outward. Without the heart nothing overflows outward. The heart is the door of expression. What has happened to Buddha has happened within; what has fallen away has fallen outside. We saw him earlier as restless, now restlessness is gone; earlier we saw worry, now there is none; earlier furrows of suffering and pain were on his brow, now they are gone. But all this is negation. What has flowered within—only he knows.
But Meera’s dance bursts outward. The stream flows outward too. What has happened within breaks through without; its waves travel far. Surely something else too has happened. That happens when the second condition is fulfilled.
We cannot even imagine Buddha dancing. When the intellect is utterly pure the realization is entirely inner; it has no doorway to the outer. When the heart is also freed of desire, the door opens by which it flows outward.
Understand it thus: until you have heart, you cannot relate to another. All relationships are of the heart. The larger the heart, the wider the circle of relationship. Through the heart we communicate. Our communion with the other is through the heart.
When Meera dances, what Buddha cannot say is said by the jingle of her anklets. When Chaitanya is drowned in kirtan, what Buddha could not convey despite a lifetime of effort—Chaitanya conveys by tears, by dance, by running into the streets. Expression comes easily to Chaitanya.
But a superstition got attached to bhakti, and confusion followed. We made bhakti very cheap. We thought: jnana is not for everyone; bhakti is for all. This is a mistake. I tell you: jnana is within reach of more people; bhakti is within reach of fewer. For a fine intellect is not too difficult to obtain; a fine heart is very difficult. And for the intellect there are universities, teachers, methods. For the heart there is no university, no teacher, no curriculum. The heart remains untouched—an unknown continent into which only rarely someone descends.
Yet if the second condition can be fulfilled—that there is love, and that it is without desire—it is a most difficult condition. It is like my saying: Cross the river, but do not let your feet touch water; walk through fire, but do not be burned. You will say: If I avoid fire there is no burning; I will avoid the fire. But the condition says: Pass through the fire and do not be burned.
Remember, one may avoid love and thus avoid lust. That is the difficulty. If you do not enter the fire, no burning occurs. If you do not enter water, there is no wetness. Many have feared love for this reason: in love one is singed, soaked; where there is love, there is lust.
Hence those who walked the path of jnana warned: Beware of love; do not fall into it. Because there is little hope that you will love and not fall into lust. The connection between love and lust is so intimate that if you go into love you go into lust. So the jnanis said: lust must be avoided; if you avoid love you will avoid lust.
The bhakta’s condition is far harder. Krishna says: Enter love, but be free of lust; walk in fire, do not be burned; step into water, do not be wet.
Therefore I say, bhakti is a little difficult. But it is a great revolution too.
Now let us understand why love almost inevitably becomes lust. Is this inevitability in love itself? If it were inherent, Krishna would not set this condition. The inevitability is not in love; it is in a basic error of our understanding.
In truth, whenever we love, we do so because of lust. Lust comes first; love trails behind. Lust knocks first at our door; then love enters. All the love we have known has followed behind lust—like its shadow. Hence our experience of love is clouded by lust. For lifetimes our love has been nothing but the shadow of our craving. Therefore we fear that to enter love is to have lust at our heels.
There is another love which is not known as a shadow of lust, but as an inner state.
Understand this.
Whenever I say love, I mean love for someone. Whenever I say jnana, I mean something that happens within me. When I say love, the arrow points to another; when I say jnana, the arrow does not point outward. Jnana is mine. So when I say love, another enters; the very word love brings another into the picture—I am no longer alone.
This means all our experience of love is not of an inner state but only of relationships between persons under the sway of lust. That is why if I say to you while sitting alone in my room, I was in jnana, you will not look around the room. But if I say, I was in great love, you will glance around to see if someone else is there. You were alone—and in love? You may think perhaps he was imagining with eyes closed. The other seems necessary—even if only in imagination.
The love Krishna speaks of is like jnana, like dhyana. It is not a relation to another; it is a self-revelation. Understand it as there being a sadhana of love, just as there is a sadhana of meditation.
Sit in your room and experience love. Feel love spreading around you. Feel your inside filling with love. Let your love expand to worlds upon worlds—but do not bring the expectation of another into the picture. For one hour each day, do not allow the expectation of the other.
Love is not a relationship with another; it is an event within me that radiates outward like light from a lamp. Sit for an hour like that. Love is spreading from me in all directions. Passing through the walls of the room, it fills the town. Passing through the town’s walls, it embraces the nation. Passing beyond the nation, it envelops the whole earth. It streams further—to the moon and the stars. The whole sky is filled with my love.
If for one hour daily you keep this remembrance, then gradually your belief that love is a relationship with another will break. A moment will arrive within when you will feel: love is my inner state. Then you will not do love; you will be love. Then you will not need another in order to love. Whether another is present or not, you will remain in love. When you walk, your love will walk with you; when you rise, your love will rise; when you sit, it will sit.
Sometimes you meet a person and all at once you feel a repulsion—move away, keep distance. Another time, with a stranger, you suddenly feel like embracing. You do not know him, you know nothing of his virtue or vice. Yet you feel a pull.
Where you feel a magnetic attraction, understand that the person carries a certain capacity, a certain quantum of love. Even if small, it is there. Where you feel repulsion, as if some energy pushes you away, a field stands in between—understand that there is an absence of love; the power to draw is missing. You are thrust away. It may also be that, along with the absence of love, hatred has arisen through long practice—hatred has become a state.
Now there are instruments through which even this state of mind can be measured. You will be surprised. There are devices before which we can see whether a person draws others or repels them. The inner energy of love is magnetic. If a love-filled person stands before that instrument, the needle reports: this man attracts others. If he is filled with hatred, the needle moves the other way and reports: the energy radiating from this man pushes others away.
Now it can be measured. But religion has always known that love is not a relationship; it is an inner energy.
When I say love is a power, an energy, then to relate it to another is to corrupt it with lust. To bind it to another is to make it impure, distorted, ugly.
Nishkama love means: the energy of love is present with no binding to anyone, with no craving for any end.
So Krishna says: Let the intellect be pure—the vibration of thought absent; let the heart be full of love—with not even a trace of lust. Then a bhakta is born.
And only such a bhakta can drop everything at the feet of the Paramatma—can drop his doer-ship.
Now let us look at the sutra as a whole.
O Arjuna! In my worship, whatever a devotee offers—leaf, flower, fruit, water—if he offers it with love, I accept what is lovingly offered by the devotee of shuddha buddhi and nishkama love.
On the surface this seems very simple. Leaf, flower, fruit, water—we all know these; we have all offered them. We have poured water, placed flowers and leaves. But men like Krishna do not speak in such petty terms. What is the meaning of offering leaf, flower, fruit?
The meaning you know is not the meaning. The meaning you do not know is the meaning. Let me tell you.
Leaf, flower, fruit are three stages of the blossoming of personality. Krishna says: however you are—if you are only a leaf as yet, not yet become a flower—still, no worry, offer the leaf. If you have progressed beyond the leaf and become a flower, do not wait for the fruit—do not say, When I become the fruit I will offer myself. Offer the flower. If you have become the fruit, offer the fruit.
Then perhaps it occurred to him: There are those who are not even leaves yet—only water. So he said: If you are as yet only water…
Water is the very primary stage; there is nothing below it. It is water that becomes leaf; growing, the leaf becomes flower; growing further, the flower becomes fruit.
So Krishna says: If you are a leaf, or a flower, or a fruit—whatever you are—offer that; come as you are.
Many of us say—this is part of our dishonesty—many say: I have nothing as yet; what can I offer to the Paramatma now?
It will never happen that one day you will feel you have something worthy to offer. You will keep postponing.
These are the three—or four—stages. Water is the stage where your consciousness has not developed at all. But Krishna says: I will accept even that. I accept whatever is offered to me. The question is not what you offer, but that you offer. If you are a leaf, come as a leaf; if a flower, come as a flower; if a fruit, then as a fruit. In whatever state you are.
These are four stages of consciousness. Water is the primitive state of your consciousness. Leaf is where your consciousness has taken a little form, shape. Flower is where it has not only taken shape, but has attained to beauty. Fruit is where your consciousness has not only attained beauty, but also the capacity to give birth to other consciousnesses—ripeness.
Nietzsche has said: Ripeness is all.
Krishna will not say this. Krishna will say: Ripeness is not all; surrender is all.
Nietzsche is right in his own way, for there is no God in his vision. He says: Man should ripen, fully ripen. His intellect, his genius, his personality should become a ripe fruit—that is all. Ripeness is all. The superman is born, the great man ripened.
Krishna will not say ripeness is all. He will say: Surrender is all. And he says: For surrender, there is no need to wait till fruit. It is not that only the fruit can be offered; the leaf can be offered, water can be offered, the flower can be offered. Wherever you are, offer yourself from there. Do not wait for tomorrow. Do not postpone. That is the meaning.
I am not saying stop offering leaves and flowers. I say only this: when you offer a flower, remember, the offering of the flower is but a gesture, not the solution. When you pour water at the feet of the divine, keep pouring—but remember, this pouring is only a symbol. How long will you keep pouring this water? One day prepare to pour your own water—your very being. One day offer your own flower. One day surrender your fruit.
Whatever the devotee with shuddha buddhi and nishkama love lovingly offers—I accept it.
We see that when we offer fruit, the priest accepts it—that much is certain. We see that the flowers we offer return to the market.
I know a temple shopkeeper, an acquaintance. When the temple was built—fifteen years ago—he bought the first coconuts for sale. The same coconuts have sustained his shop ever since. They are offered by day, and return to his shop by night. Next day they are sold again and offered again—by night they return! He has never had to buy coconuts again because the priest sells them back at night. The price of coconuts has risen all over the world; at his shop it has not. He sells them cheap. Nothing remains inside the coconuts anymore!
We know that if we offer flowers, they cannot reach him. Until the flower of consciousness is offered, the Paramatma cannot be fed. Until we offer ourselves, we do not become part of him.
Krishna says: Whatever is offered to me I accept; it becomes my very limb.
Therefore, Arjuna, whatever actions you do, whatever you eat, whatever oblation you offer, whatever you give, whatever austerity you perform as swadharmacharana—offer it all to me. In this way, with a mind yoked to the sannyas-yoga of offering all actions to me, you will be freed from the bondage of the auspicious and the inauspicious fruits, and, freed from them, you will attain me.
A few final points in this sutra. He who surrenders everything—without keeping back even a fragment, with no withholding—he who offers himself totally, in entirety, becomes a part of the divine. To say part is not accurate—language fails—he becomes the divine. For in the divine there are no parts, no divisions.
When a river falls into the ocean, it does not become a part of the ocean—it becomes the ocean. We could speak of a part if some distinct form remained. If one could go searching and find the Ganga flowing separately within the sea—but nothing remains; it has become the sea, spread, one.
So remember, when one becomes one with the divine, he is not a portion—he becomes the divine. He becomes the whole ocean, spread, one. We cannot be a piece of the divine; the divine is not a machine of which we can be parts. The divine is like an ocean of consciousness—no walls, no partitions. When we enter it, we become whole with it.
Therefore, if Krishna can speak so boldly to Arjuna, I am that—there is a reason. If he can say with such courage, Abandon all and be devoted to me—it is not the person standing before Arjuna who says this. It is spoken by one who has fallen into the ocean and become the ocean. It is the ocean speaking. But since the river is no longer separate, the river speaks directly: Become one with me. For the river is now the sea. Krishna does not even say: Become one with God; he says: Become one with me.
To many, this statement has seemed full of ego for centuries. Those who do not understand feel some discomfort: What kind of man is Krishna? He should have shown some modesty! He keeps saying directly: Leave all and come to me! Abandon all dharmas and come into my refuge!
Surely Krishna speaks from another consciousness. It is the voice of a river merged in the sea. If he were to say, Merge in the ocean, it would be false. Now the river can only say: Merge in me, the ocean.
Arjuna had no difficulty with this. Whoever has read the Gita feels some difficulty at some point. Even great lovers of the Gita feel a small unease within: What is this? Krishna should have said it differently. Does Krishna too have ego? Why does he keep saying I? He tells Arjuna: Drop your I—but he himself does not drop his I at all!
Doubt naturally arises. But Arjuna felt none. He asked many questions—never this one. He did not say: What is this? You are my friend, my comrade—right now even my charioteer—at least note that I sit above and you below; I have brought you only to hold my reins—yet you say, Drop all and come into my refuge!
When Krishna said, Come into my refuge, Arjuna must have seen the ocean in his eyes. Had he seen the river, he would have questioned. He did not see the river.
It was a deeply intimate bond—between a disciple and a master, between friends. If a crowd had stood there, someone would surely have shouted from the crowd, Stop! What are you saying? Praising yourself—come to me, I am God!
It was a private communication between Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna must have seen the eyes in which no I remained. I is only a convenience of language.
Drop everything and you will become one with me. This offering—Krishna calls it sannyas. No one has defined sannyas with such courage.
Arjuna is thoroughly worldly. What could be more worldly? He is being sent into war—and Krishna says, This is what I call being yoked to sannyas. Go into the war and leave the doer to me. You fight and know that I am fighting. The sword may be in your hand—know it is in mine. If you behead another, know that I behead. And if your head is cut, know that I have cut it. Hand over both action and doer-ship to me—then you are endowed with sannyas.
Arjuna wanted to be a sannyasin, but of the old kind. He too wanted sannyas—that is what he was asking for—Save me. He asked the wrong man. He should have chosen someone who would say, Absolutely right! That is the very sign of wisdom. Give up everything. Come to the forest!
He asked the wrong man. Before asking he should have thought: this man, who can be supremely enlightened and yet play the flute—I must take care. He asked, because perhaps there was no one else there; what could he do? He must have also thought Krishna would say: Right. The world is maya and delusion; leave it; what is war; of what use? You will gain nothing. It is clear that violence brings sin. Withdraw.
In that hope he asked with such simplicity. But Krishna spoke of another kind of sannyas, a unique sannyas—perhaps for the first time on earth so explicitly. He said: Do all actions; only drop the doer, and you are endowed with sannyas. Then there is no need to go to forests or to the Himalayas. Standing right here on the battlefield, you become a sannyasin.
For the first time such deep trust in inner transformation. Do not worry about changing the outer; remain as you are outside. Change within. And there is only one inner change! The inner center can be either ego or the divine—only these two centers are possible. Either the Paramatma is the center, or I, the ego, is the center. Those for whom the Paramatma is not the center still require a center and so must use the ego as a substitute.
Ego is a pseudo-center. It is not the real center, but we make do. It is a substitute. The moment someone makes the divine the center, the substitute is no longer needed and departs.
Therefore Krishna insists: Surrender the entire feeling of doer-ship to me. He who can do so becomes free of all fruits of action—both auspicious and inauspicious. He is free from the results of his bad deeds—and also from the results of his good deeds.
We would like to be free of bad deeds, but to be free of good deeds causes us some pain. What of the temple I built? The medicines I gave to the sick? The money I sent during the famine? Shall I be freed from even these? They are my total wealth!
Let me drop the bad. I stole, I cheated—for if I had not cheated, how could I have sent money in the famine? If I had not stolen, how would a temple have been built? Yes, free me from the cheating, the black-marketing. But let the temple remain; let the charity remain.
Krishna says: From both—auspicious and inauspicious.
Because he knows well that even in doing good, the bad creeps in. Try to do pure good, and still the inauspicious happens along with it. They are coupled. If I run to lift you up when you fall, in the time it takes to run who knows how many insects I crush underfoot; how many life-forms die with each breath? Whatever we do in this world, the auspicious and the inauspicious are intertwined. Pure good cannot be done; pure evil cannot be done either. When one goes to do evil, some good happens; when one goes to do good, some evil happens. They are coupled—two ends of a single thing. The division is of the mind; there is no division in existence.
Therefore Krishna says: one is freed from both, good and bad. And freed from them, one attains me. For the Paramatma means freedom.
Those who emphasized freedom did not even wish to use the word God. Mahavira did not use the word Paramatma. He said: moksha is sufficient. The word moksha suffices. Be free and all is done; it is not appropriate to stir further talk.
But what Mahavira calls moksha is what Hindus and Muslims call God. God has no other meaning than the ultimate freedom.
As long as ego remains, I can never be free. Ego has boundaries, weaknesses, capacities and incapacities. Bondage remains; limitation remains.
Only when the Paramatma becomes my center do all my limitations drop. With that, I am free. That is freedom. That is the very meaning of God—freedom.
Enough for today.
We will sit for five minutes. Do not hurry. Join the kirtan for five minutes. And in between, for those five minutes, no one should get up; otherwise it disturbs those who are sitting.