Geeta Darshan #3

To come near this sutra, let us travel by two or four pathways; it will be easier. This sutra concerns the most fundamental question in human thought. Man has ceaselessly wanted to know: how is this creation made? How does it dissolve? Who makes it? Who sustains it? Into what does it merge? Is there someone who fashions it—or not? Does this nature have a beginning, an end—or neither beginning nor end? Is there a purpose in nature, a destination toward which the whole existence longs—or is it a purposeless chaos? Is this world an order or a random concatenation? And much of life depends on our answer to this question; for whichever answer we accept, we become that in our way of being.
There have been thinkers who hold that life is a coincidence, a mere accident. There is no order, no goal, nowhere to arrive, not even a cause; life is only a mishap. Whoever embraces such a view—whether he speaks truth or not—his life will certainly become an accident. What he says may not affect the entire world, but it will surely affect his own life.
If it appears to me that this vast expanse, this whole Brahmand, is only an accident, then the very center of my life will scatter. Then the events of my life too will become mere accidents. Whether I do evil or good, whether I live or die, whether I kill someone or show compassion—behind all these, no purpose will remain, no coherence. Those who have said so have made it convenient to render the world anarchic.
And the difficulty is this: however much a thinker may insist that the world is chaotic, his own consciousness refuses to accept it. For when such a thinker proposes that the world is chaos, he proceeds to prove it by very logical means. Even while declaring chaos, he constructs a consistent arrangement for it. He builds a system. If you oppose him, he will present counter-arguments. He will refute your arguments and support his own.
Perhaps it never occurs to them that if the world is chaos, there is no point in persuading anyone; then neither is there right nor wrong.
If the world is chaos, an anarchy, a chaos, then to instruct you about what is right would be stupidity. In chaos, nothing can be right. Right and wrong belong to order.
Then if I say I alone am right and you are wrong, I contradict myself; for right and wrong arise only in relation to some purpose. If I say that this path is wrong, and also say that the path reaches nowhere, I am mad. For if no path reaches anywhere, there can be no question of right or wrong paths. The rightness or wrongness of a path depends on whether there is a destination to be reached. If there is no destination at all, then all paths are the same—neither wrong nor right. When no path arrives anywhere, how will you test or measure which is right and which is wrong?
Those who say the world is chaotic still wish to prove that what they say is true. In chaos there can be neither truth nor untruth. Truth and untruth are matters of order. Hence I say, those who speak thus also accept order. Their consciousness, in its depths, cannot deny order. They cannot make peace with disorder.
Not one person has ever been who, in his innermost heart, consented to disorder. Even if you drive a knife into such a person’s hand, he will ask: why? Why did you stab me?
But if the world is chaos, the question ‘why’ is inappropriate. Here events occur without any cause. I can say it is a coincidence that there is a knife in my hand and your hand is near; a coincidence that my hand thrust the knife into your hand. No cause at all. Yet even the apostle of chaos will ask why he was stabbed. He wants to know the cause.
I am telling you: the very nature of human consciousness is such that it cannot reject order. Even if it rejects order in thought, it will construct an order for its disorder. If a man says the world does not exist, he still tries to prove it. If he says what is is false, he still tries to verify and make it true. From this one comes to know a hidden fact.
In the West there was a thinker, Berkeley. Berkeley says the world is a dream, an idea; there is no world outside. Yet he goes about persuading people that what he says is right.
Whom does he persuade? His own ideas? His own dream-characters? And when someone agrees and claps, he is pleased. Pleased by applause heard from the characters of his own dream? And when someone refuses and denies, he feels hurt and unhappy.
He may say the world is my idea, but his own consciousness does not accept it.
What you say is not so important; what your inner being accepts—that is important.
So let me show you one door, the first door: human consciousness, by its very nature, accepts order. Only if there is an order in this world can we be fulfilled. If there is no order, we cannot be fulfilled; for the demand for order rises from the depths of our life-breath. The very idea of God is the outcome of this demand.
The meaning of the idea of God is that the world is an order, a cosmos, not a chaos. Whatever happens here is purposeful. Whatever happens has a destination. Whatever happens has behind it a well-conceived hand. However coincidental it may appear, it is not accidental; it is bound in cause and effect.
The fundamental basis of the idea of God is this: whatever man may do, whatever he may think, thinking cannot go beyond order. Thought itself is founded on order. Thought is the demand for coherence. To think at all implies there is purpose; otherwise thinking becomes meaningless. To explain at all implies there is a purpose.
And wherever we look we see the footprints of order everywhere in life. Whether we raise our eyes from the tiniest atom to the vast revolving galaxies, in the minuscule and in the immense we witness a deep, tight-knit design.
Eddington wrote shortly before his death—Eddington was a pure scientific thinker—he wrote: when I began thinking about the world, I thought it was a collection of things. But after a lifetime of inquiry, it now appears to me the world is not a collection of things but an arrangement of thought. Eddington said: now the world looks more like a thought than like a thing.
What is the difference between thing and thought? A thing may be in separate pieces, but thought is always an arrangement. Thought has a pattern. Within thought there is an organic unity, a living wholeness. Hold this a little in mind; the sutra will become easy to understand.
This is my hand. These are the five fingers of my hand. This is my foot. This is my head. This is my body. If all these are merely things, there can be no inner unity. Yet a thought arises in my mind and my hand rises to fulfill it. A desire stirs in my mind and my legs are ready to move. My eyes see, and my ears become eager to hear what my eyes have seen. Between my feet and my eyes, and my ears, and my hands, and my mind, there is an inner order, an inner system. They are not just joints. Not mere connections of hand with foot and foot with body. Through all of them flows a unity. That unity is called organic unity.
The idea of God is a declaration that this world too is not a heap of things but an inner unity. An inner oneness runs through the whole. If a tree is growing and stars are moving across the sky, if rain falls and rivers rush toward the sea, if the sun rises at dawn and the moon journeys at night—this is not a mere conjunction of separate events. As in my body my unity pervades, so among all happenings an inner order permeates. The name of that inner order is Ishwar.
God is not a person; God is inner order. The linking thread among all persons and things—that is God.
Now a curious point: if my hand is cut off, the hand will fall and my body will be separate, but the linking thread between them will not be visible, nor will it come into our grasp. Till now it has not. And those who know deeply say: it never will be. The inner order is invisible.
It is certain there is an internal linkage between my hand and me, else a thought would not tremble in the mind and the hand become active. There is a connection between thought and my hand. But when the hand is cut, the link between hand and body can be seen—nerves, muscles, sinews, bones appear—but the linkage between my hand and my thought is nowhere visible! Yet it exists. For here I think, and there the hand moves.
Whenever that linkage is lost, we say the man has become paralysed, stricken by palsy. Now he thinks: my hand should rise—and the hand does not rise. He says: I am paralysed.
Those who do not see order in this world are perceiving a paralysed world—a world stricken by palsy. Hence the atheist’s world is paralysed. The inner order is not visible to him.
Remember: whoever sees a paralysed world will himself become paralysed. Whoever sees the world as a dead assemblage will himself become a dead assemblage within. His soul will scatter. One who cannot see soul in the world will not see soul within either; then he too is only a heap of things. As Charvaka said: man is only a combination of materials, there is nothing like Atman within.
If we cut man apart, the statement seems true. If we break him down, it seems true. Nowhere will the inner order be seen. That order is invisible—therefore the Paramatma is invisible.
First, then: the presence of the Paramatma means a living linkage runs through the whole existence. Not even a leaf trembles here unless the whole supports it. If I utter a single word here, I alone do not speak; I cannot. I am not separate, isolated from the world. A single word can be spoken only when the whole gives its support, when the entire inner order cooperates.
Your eyes would not open if the sun were to set forever. Your breath would not move if the sun died. Ten crore miles away, the sun and your breath are linked. The day the sun ceases, that day we shall cease—and we will not even know the sun has ceased. For to know, we would have to remain—and we will not. We will never know the sun has gone, for with the sun’s ceasing we will cease instantly.
The whole world is an inner linkage, an inner relatedness. Say, the world is a family.
To accept God is to see the world as a family. To deny God is to make each being atomic—no family, only isolated units; no relationships anywhere.
Remember, human consciousness does not accept this. The utter atheist also seeks order in his life. The thoroughgoing atheist also demands order.
I knew an atheist—my neighbour, a university professor of philosophy. He would often come to me saying: there is no order in the world. Only a sum of atoms, no inner sutra, no thread, like pearls in a mala held by an unseen thread—there is no thread here; for that thread is what you call God. Only beads, no link. Everything is accidental.
He would say: seat a monkey at a typewriter and let him hammer at it for eternity, the Gita could be produced. For it is all probability; Gita too is a conjunction of words. If a monkey, for infinite time, goes on striking the keys, then among the infinite combinations there will be one that is the Gita. Not in one try, not in a thousand, not in a million. But imagine infinite time—monkey and typewriter at work—among infinite coincidences there will be one: the Gita.
Mathematically this is so. Probability allows it. No doubt—it is possible. And yet the Gita does not read like a coincidence. It does not feel as if someone randomly threw words together. Within these words one senses an unstrung yet binding thread. But he would not agree. I must have tried a hundred ways to explain; he refused.
One who refuses becomes deaf; he stops hearing. Then I had only one resort left, and I used it. I began speaking to him in non sequiturs. He would ask about the sky; I would answer about the earth. He would raise the topic of God; I would talk about machines. He would bring news of someone’s death; I would start discussing someone’s marriage. He said to me: are you deranged? I say one thing, you say another! There is no connection between the two!
I said to him: your mind also seeks connection? You too search for order? You should abandon this notion of order. If there is no order, why should it trouble you that you bring news of death and I speak of marriage? What obstruction is there? Yet you expect that if you told me of a death, I should speak in relation to it. You too demand at least that much order!
Our consciousness goes on demanding order. Order is the deep thirst of consciousness. God is its ultimate answer. God means: we regard the world as order. Nothing here is causeless.
Therefore Krishna says: at the end of a kalpa all beings attain My Prakriti—are absorbed in My nature. And at the beginning of a kalpa I recreate them again.
Let us walk in by a second door.
Suppose humanity were destroyed. Tomorrow a war—if politicians are gracious, it will happen—and humanity is gone, man is finished. From some unknown planet a traveller lands upon this cremation-ground of man. If he finds a painting made by Michelangelo’s hand, what will he do?
There are two possibilities. Either he will think: someone must have made this; such proportion, such integration, such rhythm, such order of colors, form descending into color, the formless caught in hues—this cannot be accidental, co-incidental. It is not that colors splashed on a canvas became a painting by chance.
One path is that he sees the order of the painting and assumes an artist. The other, that he thinks: it just became so.
Perhaps with one painting in hand, one could still invoke chance. But then he finds sculptures—temples of Khajuraho, the sculptures of Konark. He roams the corners of the earth and finds many instruments, many arrangements. And he keeps on saying: chance! A radio set lies here; by chance, after infinite time, many things came together and it assembled itself.
Even with one radio, perhaps. But if radios lie all over, locomotive engines, ruined factories—signs of order everywhere, signs of a maker everywhere—if that traveller keeps insisting on chance, the insistence is foolishness.
On every inch of earth, in every inch of nature and the universe, the imprint of the maker is there. Not one thing seems purposeless. Within each, a deep proportion. To deny this is to blindfold oneself with one’s own hands.
Look! Open your eyes and see. We sow a seed. If we split a seed, we do not see the map of the tree, no blueprint. But science now accepts that the blueprint is there—else how would a particular tree arise?
Split the tiny seed, nothing is visible. Place it in soil and the tree sprouts—no tree at random, a particular tree. Its branches will not be like every tree’s. It will have its own style of branching, its own leaves, its own flowers. And the wonder is: when the tree comes to fullness, the very seed we sowed returns multiplied into millions. Not just any seed—the very seed reappears, multiplied!
Even within a seed there is a blueprint, an order, the entire outline of the future.
A child is conceived in a mother’s womb. That first cell contains the entire blueprint. The whole life of that person will unfold; the tale is hidden, the primal instruction-codes are hidden, all the suggestions are hidden. The body will obey those suggestions. The color of the eyes—that is hidden in that tiny cell invisible to the naked eye. How much intelligence, what degree of IQ, is hidden there. How long he might live, at what age he will die, what specific diseases may be his lot—all that is hidden in that small seed.
If the whole blueprint of a tree is hidden in a tiny seed, if the whole story of a human life is hidden in a small cell, is it wrong to think the whole universe should also have a blueprint? Is it wrong to think the primal order of this vast existence should be hidden in some seed? The name of that seed is Paramatma. For this immense universe, the primal order of its expanse must be somewhere.
Krishna says: I create it—and then I absorb it back into Myself.
Understand it. From a seed a tree is born; then the tree returns into seeds. First and last moments are always one. The journey begins from the seed and ends in the seed.
If we regard this whole vast existence as one unit, even this unit must have a source hidden somewhere. But if we break a seed, we do not find the tree. If we break the human cell, we do not find the person. One thing becomes clear: the tree is hidden in the seed—but invisibly; in such a manner that till it manifests, it cannot be detected.
So too the Paramatma is known only when, in some sense, He begins to manifest for us. Until then, we cannot know. Even if one accepts theoretically that God is, it serves no purpose until He begins to reveal Himself; until the invisible begins to be seen, until the tree emerges from the seed and flowers appear—we do not have the full feel, the full realization.
Yet the idea is useful; for if the idea is there, then the journey toward realization becomes easier. And we move in the direction we open by our resolve. The direction we close, in that direction travel becomes difficult.
In the West there was a recent thinker who greatly influenced the West—Edmund Husserl. He says: the whole of human life is intentionality. The whole of life is a deep, intense intent. Whichever direction man attaches his intense will, that direction opens; and from the direction he withdraws his will, that closes.
So if a painter wants to be a painter, he gathers all his energies in that direction. A sculptor wants to be a sculptor, a scientist a scientist. But if you don’t want to be anything at all, know this: you will not become anything—because you will not gather your consciousness for any journey. Intentionality will not arise; resolve will not be born. You will be a flaccid person with no center—like a body without a spine, so your soul without a spine.
This world, in all its forms, gives news of a deep intent. Nothing here appears causeless. Everything appears to be in growth.
When Darwin first offered the theory of evolution to the world, Christianity—especially in the West—opposed it vehemently. For Christianity thought evolution was against religion. Hindu thought, however, has always regarded the principle of evolution as part of religion.
In fact, because of evolution we can know that there is Paramatma. Because of evolution we can know that the world moves under the influence of a deep intent. The world is not static; it is dynamic. Everything is growing, everything is rising. Forms do not remain fixed; levels are being transformed. And this evolution is irreversible; it does not fall back. A child cannot be made a child again once he has grown. There is no way. For evolution becomes an assured part of the soul.
Whatever you have known cannot be un-known. Whatever you have learned cannot be erased. It has become a sure part of your soul. Therefore, whatever we become, we cannot fall below it.
If all were mere accident, then fine: an old man wakes some morning and finds he is a child again! A wise man wakes to find there is only darkness and ignorance! A sculptor finds his hands cannot hold the chisel—his grip gone! He cannot recall what he was yesterday!
No. Our today assimilates the total knowledge and experience of all our yesterdays. Not only assimilates the past, it spreads its wings toward the future.
The world is assured evolution—a conscious evolution. If the world is evolution, it means it wants to reach somewhere. Evolution means: to arrive. Life seeks to reach. Life is on a pilgrimage. There is a destination, a goal being sought. We are not wandering aimlessly. We are going somewhere—knowingly or unknowingly; whether we recognize it or not, every act engages us in the direction of growth.
And remember: the moments of joy in our life are precisely those when we take a step of evolution. Whenever our consciousness raises itself to a new rung, it is filled with bliss. When it comes to a halt, is obstructed, loses its movement and finds no path—that is when sorrow, pain, bondage are experienced. Freedom is felt in the step of growth.
When a child for the first time begins to walk, have you seen his elation? That first hesitant, trembling, frightened step—and when he finds he can stand upon the earth, a great step of evolution has happened. It is not merely walking; a new trust has been born in the soul, a new faith. For the first time the child recognizes his power. He will never again be what he was crawling on his knees. Never. The whole world together will not be able to force him back to his knees. A great energy is born.
Hence when someone is defeated we say: he has knelt down. Kneeling is the symbol of defeat. But till yesterday the child was moving on his knees. He did not yet know what he could be—that he could stand on his own and walk by his own strength; that the entire world’s force cannot topple him.
In this child, intentionality—a fierce will—has been born. The day he speaks his first word—lisping, wavering, frightened—that day a new step is taken within. The day the child first speaks, his joy knows no bounds. The soul has gathered the power to express itself.
That is why, when children begin to speak, they often repeat one word the whole day. We think they are eating our brains, harassing us. They are only practicing their freedom. The expression that has come to them—they touch it again and again: yes, I can speak! I am no longer what I was—silent, shut. My soul can go out of me. Now communication is possible. Now I can say something to another. I am no longer a closed prison. My doors have opened!
The child is practicing. Not only practicing; he is relishing it. He repeats the word to relish it again and again. He is saying: great! This child will never again be what he was before the first word. A new journey has begun.
Not only are we not static, we are every moment evolving. Not only individuals—the whole world is evolving. This endless stream of evolution—if it is, then only is there God. For God—Teilhard de Chardin has used the phrase—is the Omega Point. In English, alpha is the first and omega the last. Alpha means first; omega means last. Chardin said: God is the Omega Point. God is the final point of evolution—the ultimate possibility, the supreme form of growth, the utmost we can imagine.
God means: this world is traveling toward a definite point. However much we may wander, deviate, fall into ravines, despite all possibilities of falling—we rise and grow; some direction draws us. Human consciousness goes on evolving.
Let me put it this way. Existence is the name of what is around us. More important and precious than existence—and central within existence—is life. Life is central in existence. Why?
A stone lies there, however beautiful; beside it a flower blooms, however ugly. The flower is more precious than the stone. Why? The flower is evolving, it is living; the stone is dead. The flower is growing. The stone has no possibility; the flower has. The stone will remain a stone tomorrow; the flower is a bud today, it will bloom tomorrow. The flower is dynamic.
The center of existence is life. Say: existence is for life. The end of existence is life. The goal of existence is life. But life too is for something. If we search the center of life, we will find: thinking, contemplation, mind.
As life is the center of existence, so mind is the center of life. Therefore, a flower may bloom, however beautiful; a peacock may dance, however graceful. Yet if a little dull child sits nearby, the child is more valuable. The child may be ugly, yet more valuable than the flower. He may be downright dull, yet more valuable than the peacock. Why? Because this child carries an inner possibility which the flower and peacock do not. However small, there is the doorway of mind within him. He stands on a higher rung of evolution.
From stone to flower is one step up—growth. From flower to child is another step—now not only growth but the capacity for thought; he can think.
Mind is central to life. But however developed the mind—a sitting Einstein with a most evolved mind, who gave the world precious theories, power, science—beside him if there sits an ordinary man absorbed in meditation, he is more valuable than Einstein. An ordinary person absorbed in meditation is more valuable than Einstein.
Why? Because he has completed yet another step. He does not live only in the mind; when the mind too is stilled, when thought falls away, the consciousness that remains—that is where he lives.
Consciousness is central to mind. Consciousness is the summit. Existence is the base; consciousness is the peak. But what is the purpose of consciousness? A man sits silent; thoughts gone, unrest gone—everything gone. He is utterly still, filled with consciousness. Beside him sits another who is not only still—which is mere negation—but who has danced in the experience of the Paramatma.
God is central to consciousness. Being merely silent is negation. The mind has fallen, but nothing new has descended. When consciousness is filled with the Divine, when it is suffused with divinity, a new color appears, a new joy—ecstasy—a rain of nectar. This is the peak of peaks.
These five: existence, life, mind, meditation, Paramatma. And it will be easy to understand: if God is the peak of our experience, then what manifests at the end must be present at the beginning—otherwise it cannot manifest. Hard to grasp perhaps.
But at the end only that is revealed which was present at the beginning—this is an eternal law. If at the end of the flower seeds appear—seeds appear at the end of the tree—those seeds give news that at the first there was seed.
A gardener planted a sapling. The gardener dies. His sons gather seeds from the tree. Yet they can say: since seed is last, so it must have been first. For only what exists at first manifests at last. The end is the expression of the beginning.
So as Chardin used the word: omega—the end. But omega is also the alpha. What is first is also last. If God is the supreme summit of life’s experience, He must be present at first too. Therefore, Krishna’s sutra becomes easy to understand.
He says: at the end of the kalpa all beings attain My nature.
He is saying: in the end everything becomes divine—everything becomes divine. In the end—the end means, when development has happened, when the pilgrimage has run its course—the last temple that arrives, in it stone and life both are absorbed in Me. For I alone am first and I alone last. At the end of the kalpa, all beings attain My nature—that is, they dissolve into My nature. My swabhava, My very being—at last everything is absorbed in it.
Therefore see the kalpa in two ways. Not only as an end—see it as the goal. In a double sense it is the end: it is ending and it is completion. Every completion is an ending; not every ending is a completion, but every completion is an ending.
When the whole of life evolves and arrives at the Lord, the world disappears; only Paramatma-consciousness remains. This is the end of a kalpa.
Krishna says: and at the beginning of a kalpa I create them anew; I bring them forth again.
Remember, this creation too is a journey of evolution. This creation too is not just like the old. This creation is yet another step forward. This fresh creation is another step ahead.
Embracing My trigunamayi Prakriti, helpless under their swabhava, I repeatedly create this entire community of beings according to their karma.
And whatever creation happens, Krishna says, it happens according to each one’s karma. For each person becomes that which he does. And whatever the totality of beings does and undergoes, that doing becomes their soul. That soul—that integrated sum of karma—becomes the blueprint of their new birth. Not only for individuals, but for the whole world.
When the entire world is created anew, all it has done, all it has gained, all the experience, the fruit of the journey—all that becomes seed again.
When seeds come upon a tree, what happens? The whole experience of the tree, the whole journey, the entire life re-enters the seed. In essence, all hides in the seed. Then the seed falls to earth; again the tree is born.
Understand one more thing: Indian, Hindu thought sees the world’s journey as circular. Christian thought sees it as linear. Christianity believes time runs on a straight line—linear. Hindu thought holds that time runs in a circle—circular—like a potter’s wheel.
Curiously, the Hindu view is the scientific one; for in this universe no motion is straight. Time’s motion, too, has no reason to be straight. All motions are circular. Whether the earth circles the sun, or the sun circles great suns; whether myriad stars circle some axis; whether we break an atom and electrons and neutrons circle—wherever there is motion, it is circular.
Till now no motion has been found that is linear. Time’s motion cannot be seen, time cannot be caught. If we could catch it and measure it, the matter would be decided—Christian or Hindu. But time cannot be caught; then how decide?
Hence the Hindu’s thinking seems deeper. He says: show me even one motion we can catch that is straight, linear. Every known motion is circular. The Hindu says: then it is more fitting to assume that the unseen motion of time is also circular. There is no reason for it to be linear. Motion as such is circular.
The child is the first point of the circle. Hence the old become like children again—like them. They do not become children, they become childlike—helpless—again. The circle is complete.
The Hindu says: between child and old man there is not a straight line but a circle. Around thirty-five, a man is at the peak of the circle; then he begins to descend. Returning. By the time he reaches the grave, he has come to where he once lay in his cradle—back. If we observe carefully, we will see the old man slowly becoming childlike—more helpless than the child. For people were compassionate to the child; to him, none are. People think: he is old—why pity him!
Therefore India gave the world the idea: care for the old more than for the child. There was reason. The old man does not appear like a child, but he has become like one. We forgive the child if he is angry; we do not forgive the old if he is angry.
India had a deep understanding: even if you do not forgive the child—he does not know what forgiveness is—at least forgive the old completely. Do not merely forgive, accept that he is right and you are wrong. He knows he is old, but his nature has become exactly like a child. The circle is complete. He will commit the same childish follies—but with a sense of knowing.
Therefore the old become difficult. The same childish obstinacy returns. The same dogmatism. And another danger: he is aware he is not a child.
So the old continually say: I am no child! He feels he is old; he has a lifetime’s experience. He does not know that nature has brought him back to the fullness of the circle. Death occurs at the very point where birth occurred—it is one point. Nature brings him back. But memory, mind, says he knows—and his behavior is as if he knows nothing.
Hence his behavior begins to irk his own children. The children feel: your acts are as if you know nothing, and your words as if you know everything! Thus it becomes hard to bear.
India’s wisdom was: treat the old as children. His obstinacy is right. Whether he is right or wrong—do not bother. Whether right or wrong—always accept him as right. Even if he does wrong, place your head at his feet. He is the returning circle. More pitiable than the child. The child is yet a source of power; power will arise in him. The old has spent it. His energy is gone. Therefore the East accorded such reverence to the old—there was insight. All motions end where they begin.
Krishna says: all dissolves into Me, and from Me all is created afresh. This creation happens according to the karma of the world, of beings.
In this too the Eastern vision is supremely scientific. The East holds: nothing happens without cause. Whatever happens is bound by cause. If we take the entire world as one person, then the karma of one kalpa becomes the beginning of the next kalpa. Vast is the matter; the intellect may not grasp. But if a drop is understood, the ocean is understood.
You are today what the sum of your yesterdays has made you. And what you will be tomorrow will include today. What you speak, think, do—what you do and do not do—will arise from the essence of all your life’s karma. In one sense, this is a self-propagating, automatic order. There is no other way it could be. If we take the whole universe as a person, the same will be true for the whole.
O Arjuna, established like one indifferent, unattached to action, those actions do not bind Me.
This final sutra is worth holding. The question may arise: if a person acts, he is bound by action; and if the Paramatma creates, destroys, sustains—will those acts not bind Him? Will they not become His bondage? If a person is bound, then even the Great Person would be bound by His great deeds.
Hence Krishna says: I do all this, unattached.
In which action can a person remain unattached? Only in play; in all other acts he becomes attached. Only in play can he remain unattached. But even in play, we cannot remain unattached; for we turn even play into work.
Watch two men playing cards—their foreheads wrinkled as if it were a matter of life and death. Two men playing chess—as if the whole future of the world depends on their game! As they move pawns here and there, their lives are stretched taut. Measure their blood pressure—it will have risen. Their hearts beat faster. If a knight is taken, if a bishop falls—how much agony!
Even in chess a man is not in play. It becomes work. If he loses, he cannot sleep all night. The game goes on all night—rearranging, rethinking. Master players say only he can win who can foresee the fifth move—foresee five moves ahead: I move thus, he will reply thus; then I will move thus, then he thus. Only one who anticipates five deep is skilled.
Surely skilled in chess or not—one thing is certain: he will go mad.
I have heard: an Egyptian emperor went mad playing chess. A great player. Every treatment was tried; he could not be cured. Psychologists said: only if a greater player can be found—perhaps then. They searched, ultimately found a man. He refused. Great inducements were offered; tempted, he came. He did not want to play with a madman. Chess itself is maddening; with a mad player across! He resisted. But an emperor’s insistence, great rewards—he came.
They say the game went on for a year. The emperor recovered; but the man who had come to play—he went mad! He was poor. To find a greater player than he was difficult; and he could not offer such rewards. He died mad.
Even in cards, too much tension. If tension is low, they put a little money on the stake. Money immediately converts any play into work. A small stake and the game acquires taste.
Why does taste arise? Because there is no taste for you in play until it turns into work. Without attachment there is no juice. Money serves as a bridge—attachment joins at once. Only one act can be non-attached: the play of little children.
Buddha says: I was passing along a riverbank. I saw children building houses of sand; I stopped. Children make sand-castles—and so do the old. Let me watch their play. They were sand-castles. A gust of wind and some house would slide. A child’s nudge and another would fall. A foot would land and a palace would crumble. They fought, abused, hit each other. If someone toppled another’s house, a quarrel was certain. All quarrels are over houses. Someone nudged, someone’s house fell. Someone had tried with great difficulty to reach the sky—and someone struck, and everything lay on the ground!
Buddha watched. The children kept fighting. Twilight came. The sun began to set. A voice called from the riverbank: your mothers are waiting—come home! Hearing this, the children leapt upon their houses, trampling them, destroying them, and ran home.
Buddha stood watching. He said: the day we can see our whole life as a game of sand, and the day we hear the call that the real home is summoning, we too will demolish and go. They were just fighting: you toppled my house. Now, they break them themselves and run!
When a man can make life a game like those children building in sand, he becomes unattached. For the Paramatma, life is play.
Hence we have used the word Leela. It means play.
No other religion on earth has called creation Leela. The Christian God is very serious. In six days He did such hard work that on the seventh He rested. The Christian notion is: Sunday is the day of rest—a holiday—because God, after six days of creation, was so tired He rested on the seventh. That is why the Christian still prefers not to work on Sunday: if even God does not work, why should we!
But the Christian God is too serious—hence fatigue. Krishna will never say: I get tired. He says: after kalpas I create again. Then all is absorbed into Me; I create again. They dissolve again; I create again—ad infinitum. There is no accounting. He does not tire. He never declared a holiday. There is a reason—He does not appear heavy-serious; else He would tire.
The Hindu vision of God is not grave. It is full of rejoicing—playful. Therefore we called the world Leela.
Leela is a unique word. It cannot be translated into any other language. If we say play—that translates ‘game’. Leela is the play of the Divine. Since no other religion has seen God in the form of play, no language has a word like Leela. It is uniquely Indian. At best: Divine Play; but the phrase does not carry the flavor. Leela suffices—no need to add God to it. Leela means: this entire creation is not a serious act. It is an outpouring of bliss. This whole evolution does not mean furrows on God’s brow. It is a dancing current, a flow in delight—not heavy worry; it is joy.
Hold this a little—very useful. The day you make your life Leela, that day you are free—that day you become godly, that very day you become God.
So long as your life is work, you are a slave—of your anxieties, of your own seriousness. You are crushed under the rocks of your seriousness. These mountains on your head are of your own gravity. Set them down. See life as play, as joy—then no burden on the head. Then you can pass through life dancing. Then a flute can be on your lips. Then a song can be in your breath. And the day this feeling of Leela arises in your life-breath, that day you will understand this sutra: the whole world too is Leela for the Paramatma.
Remember, the world is so beautiful because it is Leela for the Divine. It could not be so beautiful if it were His work. All work turns ugly. All work becomes ugly.
A nurse serves a child—that is work. A mother feeds her child—that is play, Leela, not work. It is her joy. When a mother plays with her child, an incomparable beauty appears. When a nurse plays with that child, a certain ugliness appears. The ugliness is neither the nurse nor the child; it is work. Wherever work enters, the mind grows dull. Wherever play arrives, the mind fills with dance.
But if we look at our so-called mahatmas, we will doubt. Seeing them we feel: they are so woeful! If we have to go to the Divine through such mahatmas, we would have to believe God is ever weeping! If such mahatmas are His doorway—they sit as if dead, with no ripple of life. It is as if they carry cremation grounds within—coffins and graves.
Jesus used this metaphor. He said: you religious leaders—you are whitewashed tombs. What cleanliness is seen in you is only whitewash; within you are rotting corpses.
A mahatma is required to be sad. If a mahatma is found laughing, the devotees will leave. We are unwilling to see joy in a mahatma. We have made religion a grave matter. We have made it so serious that its divine element melts away.
Thus if a man like Krishna were among us today, do not imagine you would be touching his feet. You would not. If this Krishna is found at the crossroads on the seashore playing a flute, you will inform the police! You will say: this is not our Krishna. What is this? Krishna playing the flute? In a book you manage—you can tolerate it. But if he plays at Chowpatty, there will be trouble.
We are accustomed to dead mahatmas. The more dead a man is, the greater he seems. Let not even the slightest thrill of life be seen. The trivial he renders with terrible seriousness. Krishna, by contrast, gives even the immense a carefree joy. The trivial—he will ask: how long has the food been cooked? Was it prepared by a Brahmin? Did a woman touch it?
This is your mahatma! He cannot even take his food with zest. He brings arithmetic even to eating. He asks: how many hours old is this ghee? If more than a certain number, he will not take it. Is this cow’s milk or not?
Such a mind cannot make life Leela. It renders life deadly serious. If a woman has sat here and rises, this mahatma will ask: how long since she rose? He has calculations: when a woman rises from a spot, her ‘influence’ remains for so long; until then he will not sit there. If you hand money to the mahatma, he will not receive it in his own hand—he cannot leave it either. He will keep a disciple with him and have it given to him—because taking money is sin, yet he cannot do without it; so he will get the sin done by another!
These grave gurus sucked the life out of Hindu Dharma. Hindu Dharma stood on the earth alone as a laughing religion with a profound capacity to rejoice. Sorrow was not its aim; bliss was its destination. But the original sutras are lost; we go on doing what we wish to do.
If life is seen through the lens of Leela, Krishna’s sutra becomes clear—how a life-force can weave such an immense web and remain a witness, unattached.
Therefore Krishna says: this does not bind Me. What binds is attachment, not action. If action is unattached, there is no bondage.
We will speak of the remainder tomorrow.
But remain for five minutes. Let no one get up. I have told you before too: those who must leave midway, from tomorrow please do not sit in the middle—sit outside. If anyone gets up from the middle from tomorrow, those seated nearby, have him sit down—playfully! Tell him, sit! Join in five minutes of kirtan, then depart.