Geeta Darshan #13

Hearing this sutra, the modern mind will feel a jolt. One will wish this sutra were not there. Contemporary thought will find it very difficult to understand.
Krishna has said: for, O Arjuna, even women, Vaishyas, Shudras, and those born in sin—whoever they may be—taking refuge in me, attain the Supreme State.
It will seem very strange. There will also be a taste of bitterness. We have many difficulties in understanding what is meant by woman, by Vaishya, by Shudra, by “sinful womb.”
The first difficulty is that what we have understood by these words is not what is intended by them. The meanings these words carry in our minds are not Krishna’s meanings. So it is necessary to enter into a right exposition of these words; only then can this sutra be understood.
Man’s Atman is one, but his minds are many. Man’s ultimate state is one, but the intermediate states are diverse. Essentially man is the same, yet in differing states he is profoundly dissimilar.
The first division the Indian intelligence made was into woman and man. But remember, by woman is meant the feminine. If by woman one meant merely the female, this saying would be quite crude. By woman is meant the feminine. And when I say woman means the feminine, I mean that among men too there are those who are like women—feminine; and among women there are personalities who are like men—virile. Man and woman are symbols, symbolic. We must understand their meaning rightly.
In the esoteric science, for those walking in the search of the soul, the feminine means a personality that is not capable of doing anything; one who can wait, but cannot journey; who can watch the path, but cannot search. That is why it is called feminine.
In the relationship of man and woman, man undertakes the search; woman only waits. The initiative too is taken by the man; the woman only keeps watch. Even in love, the woman waits, watches the way. And if ever a woman takes initiative in love, she seems aggressive, shameless. And if a man merely waits, unable to take initiative, he appears effeminate.
But in the past five thousand years, after the Gita, only in the modern age has Carl Gustav Jung made a deep effort to understand this mental difference between woman and man. In these last twenty–twenty-five years Jung has established an unprecedented insight: no man is wholly male and no woman wholly female. Our old notion—that each person belongs to a single sex—is wrong. Every person is bisexual; both sexes are present in each individual. The one we call a man has a greater proportion of the male principle and less of the female. Think of him as sixty percent male and forty percent female. The one we call a woman is sixty percent female and forty percent male.
But it is not possible to find any man who is one hundred percent male, nor any woman who is one hundred percent female. And this is fitting, for every person is born of both woman and man. Thus both enter within. Whether a female is born or a male, their conception requires the union of woman and man; and out of the particles—the germs—of both, the person is formed. Both enter. The difference is one of proportion. It is not absolute; it is relative.
This means the person who outwardly appears male hides within some percentage of the feminine; and the woman who appears outwardly female hides within some measure of the masculine. Therefore it can happen that in certain moments a woman behaves like a man, and in certain moments a man behaves like a woman. It can also happen that in some moments what is within comes to the surface, and what is on the surface goes within.
If you are suddenly attacked, if the house catches fire, then however brave you may be, in a single instant you may find yourself behaving like a woman—crying, tearing at your hair, shouting, panicking! If a child is attacked, even a mother will become ferocious; she will behave with such hardness, such violence, as even a man may not. This is possible because a certain proportion remains hidden within. It can manifest at any moment.
Jung has revealed new meanings of the feminine and the masculine. Krishna’s meaning is the same. When he says, women too attain me, he means: those who do not move a single step—who only wait—Arjuna, they too attain me. Those who have no aggression in their minds; who cannot be aggressive even in the search for the Divine; they too attain me. Those who do not walk even an inch, who only remember me, call to me with exclusive love, who are not ready to pay anything in exchange, who put nothing at stake in return—if I myself stand at their door, they will not even rise and come to the threshold; I must go to them—such ones too attain me.
By feminine is meant a mind that is not capable of doing anything; at most, it can surrender; a receptive mind—receptivity—that can open the door and wait.
If we rightly understand the mind of the woman, it will appear in an image: a door opened, she sits at the threshold, absorbed in waiting for someone; not gone out in search—waiting. And if a man opens the door and, leaning against the wall, waits for someone, we will suspect he is less than a man. He should go out on the search.
That which is awaited must be sought—this is the mark of the masculine mind. That which is sought must be waited for—this is the mark of the feminine mind. This has nothing to do with biological male and female.
Krishna says: those who are feminine, Arjuna, even they become capable of attaining me.
Then he says: the Vaishya and the Shudra too. These two words also need to be understood.
I said our minds are different, our souls are one. And because minds differ, our bodies too are different—for the body is fashioned by the mind; we receive the body through the mind.
India divided personalities into four types: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. These four have no relation to your birth. They are deeply related to the structure of your personality. We also attempted to bring harmony between the structure of personality and the arrangement of birth. On this earth alone we made this experiment—to discover an inner harmony, an inward relation, between birth and the structure of personality. For a little way we succeeded; but the experiment did not succeed fully. It broke down. There were reasons for its breaking; I will speak of them later. First, understand that these four words are symbols of personality. Four types of personality exist.
Shudra we call that person who lives around the body. Beyond the body he sees nothing in existence. The body itself is his God. If the body is comfortable, he is pleased; if the body suffers, he is miserable. If the body’s demands are fulfilled, all demands are fulfilled; if the body’s demands are not fulfilled, his life is anguish and torment. The center of his personality is the body.
A very unique statement the Indian scriptures have made: all persons are Shudra by birth! In one sense, it is true. Everyone is born around the body; the higher elevations are gained gradually. Remember, all are born Shudra-like with regard to the body—this is not a misfortune. The misfortune is that most people die Shudras; even at the moment of death most remain near the body.
Remember, if the Shudra has dissolved within you, then death will not be anguish to you; for the pain of death is the pain of the body dying. And for one in whom the Shudra has vanished, his very outlook regarding the body has changed—he knows well now, “I am not the body.”
In brief, one who takes himself to be only the body is a Shudra. “I am only the body; all is the body; at the body I end. The body is my birth, the body my life, the body my death. Beyond the body I am not; other than the body I am not. I am finished in the body; the body is my limit”—this is the meaning of Shudra.
The Shudra is called lowest for this reason only: being Shudra is but the foundation of life, and upon it the mansion can be raised. If the mansion is not raised, the foundation is useless. If one ends with the body alone, his life is wasted. But our gaze remains fixed on the body.
Krishna says that even the Shudra—who keeps himself alive only in the body, who keeps circling around the body—even he, if with exclusive love he remembers me, Arjuna, is liberated.
Krishna is saying that even in the lowest possible state of mind, if one remembers me while sunk in that darkness, then a ray of light reaches even there. He is lying in a pit, in dense darkness—on all sides darkness; yet if he remembers me, my ray reaches there too. Remembrance itself becomes my presence. Even for the Shudra, he says, it will happen.
The Vaishya is the second category. The Shudra lives around the body; the Vaishya lives around the mind. Therefore the Shudra’s passions and desires will be very solid, very gross. The Vaishya’s desires and passions and longings will be mental, subtle.
The Vaishya will live for wealth. Wealth is a subtle thing; and the juice that comes from wealth is juice for the mind. The Vaishya will live for fame, for rank. The savor that comes from them, the mind relishes. And for wealth, for rank, for status, the Vaishya will even be ready to lose the body. The Shudra will not be ready to risk the body for these. For him the body is the basic value. For the body he can do anything. But the Vaishya will be prepared to sacrifice the body.
In one respect the Shudra will be physically healthier; the Vaishya will begin to be unhealthy. In one respect the Shudra will have a clear and sensitive door to nature; the Vaishya will begin to lose sensitivity to nature. But as his sensitivity to nature lessens, he takes one step upward toward the Divine. For from body to soul the midway station of mind must be crossed—one has to pass through mind. In his journey to the soul, at some point the Shudra must become a Vaishya.
All are born like Shudras; some reach as far as the Vaishya and stop there. That too is a station, not the destination. The mind becomes more valuable than the body, and the juices of the mind begin to seem more precious than the juices of the body. Food will no longer be so valuable, nor sex as valuable, as the mind’s savors will become. Rank, status, fame, glory, dignity—these will begin to be more valuable.
Krishna says: the Vaishya too, if he remembers me, Arjuna, attains me; those who are still enclosed in the mind and have not taken a step toward the soul—if they remember me, my ray reaches them too.
The third category is the Kshatriya. Kshatriya means one who rises beyond both body and mind and begins to live in the soul. India considered the Shudra and the Vaishya as the lower side of the balance—two classes in one pan. The Kshatriya and the Brahmin were esteemed higher—the other pan—those who strive to live in the soul. The body has no value, the mind has no value; only the glory of the Self has value.
Therefore the Kshatriya will kick away wealth, will kick away the body, will drop concern for the mind; but self-respect, the honor of the Self, will be dearest to him. Around that he will live. For the sake of self-respect he can lose everything, but he cannot lose self-respect.
The fourth category is the Brahmin. Brahmin means one who goes even beyond the soul and lives in Brahman. For him now neither body has value, nor mind has value, nor even soul has value—only the Divine remains of worth.
These are four types; for the moment, join them to no caste. These are four mind-types.
Krishna says: if even the first two types attain me, what need then to speak of the latter two! If they remember me, they are certainly capable of attaining me.
If we understand in terms of types of mind, there will be no difficulty in this sutra. But India also made an experiment: that these mind-types be linked to birth through an unprecedented effort. The experiment failed, yet it was a great experiment. And so great that success did not seem likely. The greater the undertaking, the greater the possibility of failure; and when something very great fails, it throws us into a very deep pit.
We made a unique experiment. It was this: not only are people’s minds different, not only are their structures of consciousness different—could it be that each kind of consciousness be given such a birth that from birth itself it may be born in accord with its structure?
A person dies, then his soul wanders in search of a new life. Birth does not happen accidentally anywhere. The soul seeks what is suitable to it; it seeks a suitable womb. When a suitable womb is found, it takes birth.
Thus two events occur in the incident of birth: the father and mother create the womb, and into that womb a consciousness enters. The entry of that consciousness is the fruit of its own past actions. In accord with that it seeks. This seeking is not very conscious; it is unconscious.
Unconscious seeking means: as when we let water flow, it finds the hollow. In our language we say the water seeks the depression. But water does not consciously seek; simply by its nature it flows toward the hollow, toward the low. Water cannot flow upward; it flows toward the depression. Therefore it reaches the deepest hollow. In a room, wherever there is a hollow, water collects. This seeking is unconscious; it happens by the nature of water.
Just so, each soul seeks unconsciously. Wherever the suitable womb is, there a hollow is created; there the soul enters. India attempted this: could it be arranged that for Shudra souls we fix one class in which Shudra souls are born? Could we not fix a class for Brahmin souls where Brahmin souls are born?
It was a very difficult, arduous experiment. Perhaps in the future biology will begin such experiments, but along other lines. For science is now saying that sooner or later we will attempt to produce more beautiful people, to decide that more beautiful persons be born. Science is also saying that the difficulty no longer remains: if we choose to produce a male, we can; if we choose a female, we can. Science says we will decide in advance the child’s intelligence quotient, his IQ. We will also decide his skin color, his lifespan. We will determine all this.
To determine this we will have to regulate breeding. Then not everyone will be able to relate with anyone; relations will have to be restricted, so that only those associate who, according to rule, can produce a particular kind of person.
In just this way India had made experiments along another direction and divided society into four parts. The purpose of dividing into these four was that Shudras should marry Shudras, and generation after generation Brahmins should marry Brahmins. Then, after fifty generations, the union of two Brahmins and the womb thus produced would be far more likely to attract a Brahmin soul than any other womb. This is entirely scientific and logical. If it can be done, it is reasonable.
This grand experiment was made. Every experiment carries dangers. The danger occurred. The experiment did not succeed; society was split into four parts. The experiment collapsed; but society broke into four hostile camps. And slowly the notion of Shudra as a personality vanished; it became a caste-mark. Then if someone was born a Brahmin, even if he had the personality of a Shudra, he sat on people’s heads. And if someone was born in a Shudra’s house yet had the capacity of a Brahmin, he was not given place to worship in any temple. This peril arose.
Every experiment has its danger. When scientists discovered the atomic bomb, they did not think its result would be Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They thought that once atomic energy is in our hands we would make the whole earth prosperous—no one would be hungry, no one poor. Such a great power would come into our hands that we would transform all of life; the earth would become a paradise.
But that did not happen. It could have happened, but it didn’t. What happened was that Hiroshima and Nagasaki became graveyards—one hundred thousand people burned to ash in a single instant. And now the whole world has piled up atomic and hydrogen bombs; any day the entire world can be turned to ash.
Einstein, dying, said: we had never imagined that such a great energy could be so greatly misused. Linus Pauling, who was among the great scientists in the exploration of the atom, in his last years appealed to the scientists of the whole world: never again place a great power in man’s hands! For we search—we do not know for what—and man uses it who knows how.
In this land too the sages discovered a very marvelous principle: that each soul be guided even in its choice of life; that the soul not wander and be born anywhere in any manner; that we be able to give it a definite and ordered pathway, so that with the least time the greatest result be attained, and the deepest hidden within the person be brought to flower. That his parents, his family, his environment—all be Brahmin-like if he is Brahmin; that the Shudra receive what is fitting to the Shudra, the Vaishya to the Vaishya. That is why castes were divided.
But this great experiment could not succeed. Those who made it passed away; those into whose hands they left it used it merely to divide society and to create an instrument of exploitation.
Then the Shudra was exploited. Then the Brahmin sat on people’s chests. Then the Kshatriya took the sword in hand and established lordship over people. Then the Vaishya gathered wealth and sat upon it. And these four classes entered deep enmity with one another. The benefit did not arise; the harm was that if someone was born in a Shudra’s house, there remained no means for his development.
In five thousand years—if we leave aside Dr. Ambedkar—not one truly eminent mind arose among the Shudras. And even Dr. Ambedkar did not arise because of our arrangement. He alone is one who could be called of Brahmin stature; thus he was angry with the Brahmins. To be angry with the Brahmins was natural; his indignation was natural.
How many talents among the Shudras were lost in these five thousand years—we have no idea. The experiment turned wrong, fell into the wrong hands. And how many Shudra-like Brahmins spread across our country’s breast and caused how deep a harm—now it is difficult even to reckon.
I have said all this so that Krishna’s meaning may be made clear to you. In Krishna’s time this great experiment was in motion—healthy, evolving, sprouting; it had not yet decayed.
Krishna says: whether Shudra, or Vaishya, or woman—whoever—they too, taking my refuge, attain the Supreme Goal.
Here there is no tone of disparagement; there is only a statement of fact. Only this fact: those who live near the body—also; those who live near the mind—also; they too, coming into refuge, attain me.
The value of refuge is being explained. What you are is not important; who you are is not important; whether good or bad is not important. If the capacity to go into refuge is yours, you will attain the Divine. Such is Krishna’s condition: refuge—surrender—placing one’s ego before That.
For the meritorious Brahmins and the royal-sage devotees it is assured to attain the Supreme Goal—if they too can place themselves in refuge. Therefore, having come into this joyless and fleeting world, keep ceaselessly in my remembrance alone.
Be one-pointed in me, the Paramatman, with exclusive love; worship me, the Supreme, unceasingly. And with faith, devotion, and love, worship me in an ecstasy of longing; bow to me, the Paramatman. Thus taking my refuge, unifying your soul in me, you will be able to attain me alone.
There are three or four points here to keep in mind.
First, Krishna says: in a joyless and fleeting world.
Where we live there is a great appearance of joy, yet joy is not found. What is found is suffering; the appearance is of happiness. Into the hand comes suffering; hope is formed of joy. From afar happiness is seen; when we come near it is stripped bare and we discover it is suffering. From afar happiness seemed; it was the error of distance. What is seen from afar is not found to be so when near.
Therefore Krishna says: in a joyless world.
Remember, Krishna could have said as well: in this sorrow-laden world. He does not say that. It would have been stronger to say: in this world full of suffering. But Krishna has not used that. Buddha has said: the world is sorrow. Krishna has used another word, and it is more considered.
Krishna has said: this world is joyless.
Why? Because sorrow arises only because we take this world to be happiness. To say “the world is sorrow” is not quite right. Because we assume happiness, therefore we receive sorrow. The world is sorrow—this is not right. If we do not demand happiness, the world gives no sorrow. We assume happiness; therefore sorrow arrives. The world does not give sorrow.
I expect you to honor me, to respect me. Then if you do not honor me, do not respect me, I suffer. You did not give me sorrow. You had no hand in it. You passed by without greeting. You may not even know you gave me sorrow. Yet I received sorrow—without you giving it.
From where did this sorrow arise? It was born from my expectation. I wanted your salutation, your bow, your respect. You did not give it; my expectation broke. A broken expectation becomes sorrow. Happiness shattered becomes sorrow. Happiness not received becomes sorrow.
So to say “the world is sorrow” is not quite right. Krishna’s word is deeper than Buddha’s. Buddha directly says: the world is sorrow. Not exact. Krishna says: the world is joyless. He says there is no happiness in the world. And if one truly knows the world is joyless, then in this world he cannot be made sorrowful. No one in this world can give him sorrow.
You are able to give me sorrow only to the extent that I am eager to receive happiness from you. The measure of my demand for happiness is the measure of your capacity to give me sorrow. If I am not asking anything, you cannot give me sorrow.
Thus sorrow is self-earned; the world is joyless and sorrow is self-earned. Therefore attend to the word: Krishna says the world is joyless. And second he says: it is fleeting—perishable in every single instant.
We do not become aware. It seems to us that the world is very stable. We all feel we are living in a stable world. But the world changes moment by moment—moment by moment! The change is so swift we do not see it.
We stand on a riverbank; the river flows by, we think it is the same river. Even in the river it is visible. We stand by a mountain; then we do not see at all that the mountain is flowing. Mountains too are flowing! Their flow-time is just long. The river’s flow-time is swift; therefore it is seen. The mountains too are flowing, for the mountains of yesterday are not today; and the mountains of today were not yesterday; the mountains of tomorrow—we have no idea about them.
Mountains flow. They too change. Their time-scale is vast. They change in millions of years. A river changes in hours. Only the time-measure differs; otherwise mountains too are flowing.
And now scientists say everything is flowing. Everything is rhythm, movement. Everything runs. Everything is a current. Here, in every instant, everything is changing. Here nothing stays even for a moment. Outside nothing stays; inside nothing stays.
Have you noticed your mind does not remain the same for even a single instant as it was a moment before? A moment before you felt happy; just look within—happiness has vanished. A moment before you felt sorrow; sorrow is gone. A moment before you were anxious; the anxiety has passed. A moment before you were very quiet; now you are restless. Even for a moment the mind does not repeat itself. For two moments the mind is never the same.
Within, the mind is changing; without, the world is changing. Nothing is at rest. And where nothing is at rest, our desire to make it rest creates sorrow. We want to fix, to fasten everything. We work against the law of life; then we are defeated; then we suffer.
A man wants to remain young—remain young. He does not know that even his effort to remain young is making him old; in the effort itself—the time and strength he expends—he too grows old, he too grows old. A man does not wish to die at all. In the very struggle he dies. Against life’s flow we seek the fixed. We want something to stay.
I love someone, then I think: may this love not flow away; may it remain, always remain. Only in the poems of poets does it remain; and often in those poets who have no experience of love. The truth is that those who truly know love do not get into the trouble of writing poetry. Those who have no experience seek satisfaction in poetry.
Only in poems is love immortal; in life nowhere is it immortal. It cannot be. Not that the lover is at fault. No—the law of life is not such. It is fleeting.
That is why lovers fall into great difficulty. When they are in the flow of love and love is at its height, they think it is eternal. Now there will be no end to it. They do not know that eternal is far; of tomorrow, of the morning, there is no certainty.
And then when tomorrow morning the Ganga has flowed away, and the streams slip from the hand, and nothing remains in the hand, the real difficulty begins. Then the vows we ourselves made—“even if I die I will love; whatever happens I will love”—but love has flowed away. For love does not obey your vows; love obeys the laws of life. Love has its own rules. However much I say—my saying has no relevance. Life’s laws make no exceptions.
Love will flow away; then I will have to maintain a deception about love. I will nurture a delusion. I will keep saying I love, and within I will not find love; yet I will continue. I will deceive myself and deceive the other. Then pain will arise from love; distress will come; boredom will be felt, suffocation will be felt, betrayal will be felt. But what can I do now! I must withdraw my vows.
Love cannot be fixed. Nothing can be fixed. Only one thing is fixed: change. Only one thing does not change: change itself. All else changes.
So Krishna says: it is fleeting.
And in this fleetingness we try to save and to stay. In that very struggle we are destroyed.
Knowledge means to live knowing the law of life. Ignorance means to keep striving against the law of life. A man does not know there is gravity in the earth; he keeps leaping to touch the sky and breaks his limbs. He does not know the law—that the earth pulls; the harder you jump, the harder you will be pulled. He will break his limbs and perhaps say life deceived him. He had told the earth so much that she is Mother, and this is how a mother behaves!
No—Mother Earth has nothing to do with it. You do not know the law. Against the law man creates sorrow.
Therefore Krishna says: in this fleeting world, keep ceaselessly in my remembrance. Only then will you attain That which is never lost. Whatever else you gain will be lost. Whether fame, glory, wealth, a kingdom—whatever—in this world whatever you gain, note this well: scarcely have you gained it when losing begins.
Here we do not even win when loss begins. We do not reach when wandering begins. The moment the goal is in the hand, those who will snatch it appear. The reason: life is fleeting.
There is no pessimism in this. Westerners have continually thought about the East that Eastern people are utterly despairing—they have abandoned hope in life. Hence they say there is no happiness, only sorrow. No hope, no expectation—nothing will happen.
But Westerners have not understood rightly. Eastern people are not pessimists. But Eastern people are not foolish either.
If a man is breaking his limbs by leaping on the ground, and I say to him, “Madman! Do you not know the nature of earth is to pull? Whatever you do against pulling—do it thoughtfully; otherwise your limbs will break. And if they break, do not blame the earth—blame your foolishness”—then I am not a pessimist. I am only saying: do not get into the futile struggle against life; there you will be broken. I am also saying: the energy you are wasting fighting life can be applied in another direction; and what you seek can be attained.
There is also a love that is eternal—but it is love of the Divine. That can be attained. Do not try to make the love between human beings eternal—it cannot be. There is no way. There has never been a way. But there is one love that is eternal. Do not get entangled in the trouble of love between human beings; and if you must love between human beings, then seek the Divine even within the human. Love That alone. Make the human a doorway, just a passage. But within him, see the Divine.
Therefore we desired that God be seen in the husband. Because if only the husband is seen, the love hoped for can never be. In the West love will break, marriage will break, family will disperse—it must. It could be built and held firm only on one foundation: that some day a glimpse of the Divine be seen in the husband, or some day a sense of that divinity be felt in the wife. Only then. The day the wife appears as mother somewhere in the depths, the husband as the Lord somewhere in the depths, that day we have entered into the law of the Eternal.
Consider it like this: today we have found ways to go beyond the earth; we can go to the moon. Earlier we could not go. The reason we could not: earth’s gravitation. Up to two hundred miles the earth’s gravity holds you. Within two hundred miles throw anything—the earth will pull it back. Or else you must keep it at such velocity, as an airplane must be kept; such speed that before the earth’s pull takes hold it has moved beyond; and before the moon’s pull takes hold it has moved beyond.
Either keep it in such speed—then the earth cannot pull. Because pulling takes time; my hand is here—by the time the pull of the earth takes effect, the hand has moved forward. That pull is wasted; by the time it takes effect again, the hand has moved forward. Either keep circling at airplane speed in a spiral and you will escape the earth; but the earth’s attraction will keep pulling.
Yes—beyond two hundred miles, if we throw anything, the earth becomes unable to pull it. A second law begins. Outside the two-hundred-mile field—the earth’s energy field—the earth no longer pulls. Then even a small pebble, if released, the earth has not the strength to pull it back. That pebble can wander in the infinite.
Just so there are inner laws of life. As long as within the orbit of the fleeting we seek the Eternal, we will keep being pulled by the fleeting, keep breaking, keep being troubled. The stable will not be available; the sense of the Eternal will not arise.
There is another direction too—beyond man. As beyond the earth there is a way beyond two hundred miles, just so beyond the love of man, beyond the attraction of objects, there is an inner direction toward love of the Divine. The moment you rise in that direction all the laws change. Here all is fleeting; there nothing is fleeting. Here all is joyless; there all is sorrowless.
I will not say there is happiness there, because you will not understand. You have never known happiness. If I say there is happiness there, nothing will be understood; and if anything is, it will be the very happiness you sought here.
No—I will say: this world is joyless; that world—the Divine’s—is sorrowless. Sorrowless, because you know sorrow well. Your sorrows will not be there. Naturally, your happinesses will not be there either, for all your sorrows were born of these happinesses.
This is fleeting; that is eternal. Here everything changes in an instant; there nothing has ever changed.
Certainly, where there is no change at all there can be no time. Time is the medium of change. Where there is time there is change; where there is no change, there is no time.
Here, where we live, we live in time. Understand the process of time, and the other meaning of “fleeting” will be understood.
Have you noticed—life, years, months are never given to you in a heap; only one moment at a time! Have you noticed that two moments are never simultaneously in your hand? One moment—and when it slips away, only then does the next descend into your hand.
More than a single moment is never in your hand. However much one tries to have two moments in hand—it is not possible. Only one moment is in your hand. When it slips, the next comes. If you have seen an hourglass, grains of sand fall one by one; only one grain passes through the narrow hole. When one has passed, then the next passes. Two grains do not pass together.
So too, we receive only one grain of time—a moment. A moment is the atom of time—the ultimate particle. Beyond it there can be no division. We receive one moment; when it is lost, then the next comes to hand.
This means we never have more than a moment of life—whether child, youth, or old; whether poor or rich; whether wise or ignorant—no one has more than a single moment of life at once.
Fleeting also means this: that our whole life is never more than a single moment.
And do you know how small a moment is? You do not. The “second” we call in the clock is very large—very large. Exact investigation of time has not yet been possible, for the matter of time is very subtle.
But think of a “moment” as Democritus, or India’s Vaisheshika sages three or four thousand years ago imagined the atom—the idea of an indivisible unit. But even the atom broke; now the electron is in our hands. The electron is the ultimate particle of matter. How large it is, it is hard to say; how small, hard to say. Whatever is said is conjecture.
Understand it thus: take a drop from an ink-dropper—one drop of water or ink. Scientists say: in one drop, if all the people on earth—three billion at present—if three billion people begin counting the electrons in that one drop, it would take sixty million years! In a drop of water, if all the earth’s three billion people—doing nothing else, not eating, not drinking, not rising, not sleeping—counted day and night, sixty million years! That many electrons in one drop.
It is difficult to say how many moments there are in a second. They cannot be fewer than electrons. The matter is very subtle. What we have is that subtle. We do not even become aware. The moment is so fine that by the time you become aware, it has passed from your hand. The time it takes to become aware, it has gone. You feel “it is one minute past twelve”; by the time you feel it, one past twelve is no more. The moments have slipped.
This means even when the moment is in our hand, we do not know it. So small is the moment, and so fleeting is life, that we do not even know when it passes from our hand. In this changing, racing stream of time, those who try to build eternal mansions of life—if they fall into sorrow, whose fault is it?
Therefore Krishna says: O Arjuna, in this fleeting and joyless world, remember me. And for remembrance he says a few things:
With exclusive love become unwavering in mind; unceasingly worship me, the Supreme. With faith, devotion, and love, worship in an ecstasy of longing. Bow to me, the Paramatman. Taking my refuge, unifying in me, you will attain me alone.
The essence of all this I would say in three words:
First, do not keep your gaze fixed on the world. Nothing there will come into your hand. There is no reason for despair, for That which can come into your hand is just by the corner—right at the bend. Just a turning, and it will be seen. Do not attend to the world; seek That in which the world flows, in which the world arises, in which the world is lost, in which the world is made and into which it will dissolve. Care a little for That. Lift your eyes a little beyond man; see a little beyond the human.
Nietzsche has said: ill-fated will be the day when man becomes satisfied with himself. And it seems that ill-fated day is somewhere around us; man seems satisfied with himself.
Religion means man becoming unsatisfied with himself—a basic discontent in the very breath: that to be man is not enough; to gain the world is not sufficient—another search! That very search raises one toward the Divine.
So first: do not become sated with the world; do not get lost in it, do not drown in it; remember—there is also a Beyond.