Geeta Darshan #5

A few more things need to be known about human foolishness. Only by seeing them clearly can we enter today’s sutra. Krishna names three signs of stupidity: vain hope, vain action, and vain knowledge.
These three words are worth understanding well. For one entangled in useless hope becomes incapable of nurturing hope that has meaning. One caught in useless knowledge cannot lift his eyes toward true knowing. One absorbed in useless action never finds that action by which, when discovered, freedom from the bondage of all actions becomes possible.
What is useless hope? And in the hope we all live by, have we ever found any real substance? Everyone lives by hope. Without hope, living becomes difficult. We live supported by hope. Hope means the future. The past gives us nothing but suffering. If you look back into your past, it seems like a cluster of pain, a heap of failures, the ashes of dreams. Looking back, not even a particle’s glimpse of joy appears anywhere.
If man had to live only on the support of the past, he would collapse this very moment and be unable to go on living. The past contains nothing that can inspire, nothing that can support, nothing that can give momentum to life.
So we cannot live on the past, for in the past we have no true experience of life. The past is a long tale of sorrow. And yet we live—so from where does the inspiration to live arise? The push does not come from behind. Surely the pull must be coming from ahead. The future pulls us, and in that pull we move. Not by the shove of the past, but by the attraction of the future. The name of the future’s attraction is hope.
Hope means: what did not happen yesterday may happen tomorrow. What was not obtained yesterday may be obtained tomorrow. What was not possible before may yet become possible ahead. The dream of this possibility is what keeps us alive. The past went in vain—no matter; meaning will be found in the future. So far failures have been our lot, but tomorrow the flowers of success may also bloom. This possibility, this hope, keeps drawing us on. We live under the sway of hope.
Omar Khayyam says in one stanza of his song: I saw people suffer, and still I saw them live on! I saw people in pain, and still full of the urge to live—and I became very troubled. There is so much suffering that the whole of mankind should have committed suicide. There is so much suffering that life should long ago have become impossible. But life does not become impossible. Even the most miserable keeps living.
So Omar Khayyam says: I asked the learned, the wise, but found no answer. For I saw those learned and wise ones themselves sunk in suffering. I entered their homes and, after all the discussion, had to go back out the same door I came in—exactly the same, empty-handed. Disappointed everywhere, one day I asked the sky: upon this earth, billions upon billions have lived, through who knows how many ages—O sky, you have seen them all; they all lived in suffering. Can you tell me the secret of their living on? What is the secret? So much suffering—why does man still go on living?
Omar Khayyam says: the sky uttered only one word—asha, hope. One small word: hope.
Man keeps living, keeps running. Some dream might be fulfilled—thus the feet keep their pace, the breath retains its energy. But exactly here we must understand what makes hope vain.
Man hopes for the future. What he has made past today was also future yesterday. Today has passed and become past. Twenty-four hours ago, this too was the future, and I had lit the lamp of my hope for these twenty‑four hours; today it too became past. But I never even turn back to see whether the lamp I lit yesterday—the lamp of hope—was it fulfilled in these twenty‑four hours or not!
No, without even bothering about that, I will slide the flame of my lamp into the next twenty‑four hours. Every day time will pass into the past, and I will never turn back to see whether my hope is not futile—for day after day time passes, and it is never fulfilled.
Vain hope means: the recognition never arises that what I am wanting is in itself useless; it will never be fulfilled. The very nature of that desire is to remain unfulfilled. What I am asking for will never be given. But time deceives us! Every day we push it ahead, postpone, push it ahead again—and never reflect that what we now call past was once also future. We had sown countless seeds of hope into it; not one bore fruit, not one sprouted, not a single flower blossomed.
So the first futility of hope is this: time goes on passing, but the mistake we made yesterday, we go on making today, and we will make it again tomorrow. Death will come, but our mistake will not change.
A wise person is he who turns back and looks: I have lived fifty years—what hope has been fulfilled? If I wanted love, did I receive it? If I sought happiness, did I find it? If I desired peace, did it ripen? If I bound myself with the hope of bliss, did I receive even a drop? I have lived fifty years; whatever I wanted—those hopes with which I set out upon life’s journey—none of those destinations occurred upon the road of life. Yet I continue to clutch the very same hopes! Is it not possible that my hopes themselves are wrong hopes? Is it not possible that what I want is simply not in accordance with the law of life; and that what could be had, I never even sought?
Let us look a little more deeply into what we have desired, and it will become clear how wrong-headed our hope is.
What have we desired? Of one thing we can be sure—whatever it was, we have not received it. And it is not that only you have done this. Ask your neighbors! Go back into history. Ask all those who desired the same. No one has attained it. Not a single person upon the earth has ever said, “I received happiness from another.” Yet everyone has sought happiness from another. To this day, not one human being has said, “I have become capable of getting happiness from another.” Those who have said, “I found happiness,” have said, “Only when I searched within did I find it. As long as I tried to obtain happiness from another, I found only sorrow; I did not find happiness.”
But we all go on wanting happiness from the other. The other keeps changing, but the wanting does not change. Today I may want happiness from one woman, tomorrow from another, the day after from a third. Women change. Today I want it from my son, tomorrow from a friend, the day after from someone else. Today I want it from my mother, from my father; tomorrow from my wife. But the other—the Other—remains the center of my happiness. And in the entire history of man there has not been a single exception—not one—who has said, “I received happiness from another.” You have not received it either.
Yet there is a very amusing thing. When happiness is not obtained from the other, you make a second mistake: you decide, “The other has given me suffering.” If happiness cannot come from the other, understand well, neither can suffering. There is one and the same illusion at work.
Someone imagines happiness will come from the other. That cannot be—because the entire possibility of joy opens from oneself, not from another. It simply does not open. It is exactly like trying to press oil from sand and none comes. The sand is not at fault; there is no oil in sand. There is no happiness in the other. But when failure comes from the other—and it will—we think, “The other gave me sorrow.” This is the second mistake. For from whom happiness cannot come, from him suffering cannot come either.
Now listen to a second sutra: all suffering arises from oneself, and all joy arises from oneself. The center of both happiness and sorrow is within oneself. But the arrows of our hope are fixed upon the other. This is vain hope; and such a person is a fool. He is foolish because he cannot understand the law of life. And the law of life is being revealed at every moment.
Whenever you will seek happiness from another, sorrow will be immediate. This sorrow is not given by the other; it comes from desiring happiness from the other. You tried to move against the law, hence sorrow happens. You tried to swim against the current—your leg breaks. You tried to walk against the law—your head collides with the wall. It is not the wall’s fault. A wall is not for passing through. If you want to exit, you must use the door.
But if you strike your head on one wall, immediately you choose another wall to try to pass through. You go on choosing walls your whole life, and miss the door. You tire of one wall and grab another; you tire of the second and seize a third—yet you will not give up the wall!
Every person is miserable. The cause of sorrow is not life. Life is absolutely not the cause of sorrow, because life is the very form of Paramatma. There, sorrow cannot be. The cause of sorrow is our ignorance of the eternal laws of life.
The earth has gravitation. Fall from a tree and you will break your leg. Neither the tree nor the earth is to blame. The earth simply pulls things downward. You should climb a tree carefully. If you fall, you are responsible. You cannot say the earth’s pull broke your leg. The earth is not concerned with you. Had you not fallen, the earth’s pull would have remained in abeyance. The laws are working; when you move against them, sorrow arises; when you flow with them, joy arises.
Remember: happiness has only one meaning—whatever is in harmony with life’s law opens you to joy. Sorrow has only one meaning—whatever is against life’s law will open you to suffering. If you are miserable, remember that you are moving against the foundational law of life. If sometimes, by accident, a glimpse of happiness happens, it is only because by chance you fell in tune with life’s law. Sometimes you forget the wall and go out through the door by mistake; or you take the door to be a wall and exit. But whenever joy happens, it is due to alignment with the law.
Vain hope means hoping against the laws. As I just said, the wish that happiness can be obtained from another is a vain hope. Its inevitable result will be suffering. And when the suffering comes, we will say, “I am getting sorrow from the other.” We will not abandon our illusion—that is stupidity. The suffering itself is proof that what I desired was against the law.
Nothing essential can be obtained from the other. There is no way to obtain it. Whatever is significant in this world is found only by digging within ourselves.
Look from the other side as well. Each person weaves a web of hopes and desires around himself. If hopes break, if the web breaks, if desires do not fulfill, he thinks that Paramatma is displeased, that fate is not favorable. He never thinks, “The web I have woven is wrong.”
Fate is with everyone. Fate means the supreme law of life—the ultimate law. Fate is with all. When you are with the law, you succeed. When you oppose it, you fail. Fate is against none. But basic mistakes live in our web itself. Look a little at your own web.
A man thinks, “If only I get wealth, I will be rich.” Inside, every man has a sense of poverty—an inner poverty. Everyone feels within, “I have nothing; there is a void, an emptiness.” How to fill it? The race begins to fill this emptiness.
Someone tries to fill it with money. A wrong web begins. Remember, wealth cannot go within, and the poverty is within. Wealth will remain outside. It cannot enter.
Hence a strange phenomenon: the more money is amassed, the more inner poverty is exposed. It is difficult to find anyone poorer than a rich man. Many times it has happened that the sons of the wealthy—Buddha, Mahavira—left their riches and went to beg on the road.
It is a great wonder: as soon as a nation’s wealth increases, a deep inner wretchedness grows in that nation. While the nation is materially poor, the inner poverty is not noticed. Today all the thinkers of the West speak of inner destitution—Sartre, Camus, Heidegger. They all say man is empty within. How to fill this emptiness?
The poor man discovers his stomach is empty; the rich man discovers his soul is empty. Filling the stomach is not too difficult; filling the soul is very difficult. In truth, if the stomach is empty, the idea that the soul is empty does not even arise. The real poverty begins the day outer poverty ends. That day the real poverty begins.
There is a deeper poverty, and the urge arises to fill it. No one wants to remain empty. Emptiness is pain. We want fullness, fulfillment.
How to fill it? Man starts accumulating wealth. He is already in error of the law. Wealth will be gathered, but even then the inside cannot be filled. A bank balance cannot become an inner balance. The safe may be filled; how will wealth enter the soul?
So the one who thinks he will attain fullness by collecting money is hoping vainly. If he fails, he will of course be a failure; if he succeeds, he will still end as a failure.
Understand it clearly.
If he fails and does not earn money, he will fail—life will be full of frustration and gloom: so much effort, yet he could not make money! And if he succeeds, an even bigger failure will be felt: I earned money, I wasted my whole life, a mountain of wealth has gathered—and I am still empty!
The difficulty is not in money; there is no evil in money. Money is not at fault. You lack understanding of the law. You wanted to fill an inner lack with something that cannot go within. What fault is it of money? Then the madman starts abusing money—another mistake begins. He starts declaring, “Money is sin, money is bad, I do not want to touch money.” The same error again. Money is not at fault. Money can serve in the outer world; trying to fill the inner with it was your mistake.
Look from a third side.
A man wants fame, prestige, ego—he wants to be known as somebody. In one sense it is right; this too is an inner search. Every person longs to know, “Who am I?” This is a very inner hunger. But he may go on the wrong road. Instead of knowing who I am, he starts making others know who I am. Then the trouble begins! Instead of knowing who I am—a search within—he tries to make others know who he is.
Watch a politician: if you happen to brush against him, he will look up and say, “Don’t you know who I am?” He himself does not know. But when he says, “Don’t you know who I am?” he means, “My photograph appears in the paper every day, and still you don’t know who I am! Even if I am not a minister now, it doesn’t matter—at least I am an ex‑minister!” Don’t you know who I am!
Man longs to know himself—who he is; it is his inner hunger. But he may err against the law. Then he goes out to make others know who he is. Life will be spent explaining to others, “I am this, I am that,” and in the end—if he is successful, he will still be a failure. He will find that everyone has come to know who he is—prime minister, president, this or that—and he himself still does not know who he is. Then a great failure will fall on him. If he fails, he fails. If he succeeds, he still fails.
Vain hope means: success is impossible. Whether you win or lose, defeat is certain. Success is simply not possible. Therefore those who attain great fame in the world are filled with great pain. Their whole life they tried to earn renown. They cut newspaper clippings and kept them in files. Later no one even asks about them. There comes a time when everyone knows them—and the whole thing is finished. Inside, nothing happens. Inside, nothing happens.
Hence the highly prestigious die in deep inner disgrace. The very famous become filled with a sense of inferiority; inferiority grips them. The whole world knows them; they themselves do not know who they are. The whole world recognizes them; they themselves do not recognize themselves. The whole world comes to know them, and they stand strangers to themselves. Pain will arise. Vain hope!
So Krishna says: the first sign of stupidity is vain hope.
Vain action. There are actions which are useless—and yet we go on doing them. Vain action means any deed from which nothing comes but harm. For example, you know anger is a vain action, yet you do it daily. You do it daily, and you repent daily. You even decide in your mind, “I will not do it again,” because its futility is clear. But not even a couple of hours pass before anger arises again.
You do not get any benefit from this action—no one ever has. It cannot be. Because anger means: punishing yourself for someone else’s mistake. A man abuses me—that is his mistake. I become angry—I punish myself. Vain action means: the fault is someone else’s, the offender is someone else, and someone else suffers the punishment.
Someone abused Buddha. Buddha listened and continued on his way. His disciple Ananda said, “This man abused you—won’t you answer him?”
Buddha said, “Long ago I stopped punishing myself for others’ mistakes. Another has erred—abusing is his business; let him do as he wishes. What have I to do with it? Whether he abuses or not, whether he uses heavy abuse or light, whether he exerts himself or not—he has done his labor. He came from the village to the road to abuse; he has completed his task and gone back. What is it to me? I neither provoked him nor inspired him. I am unrelated. Long ago I stopped punishing myself for others’ mistakes. If I become angry, I will burn; fire will arise within me; every fiber will be singed; my very life will tremble; my blood pressure will rise; sleep will not come to me at night—and the man who abused me may well go home and sleep soundly. He has completed his task.”
Vain action means that from it nothing comes but loss, and yet we go on doing it. Why do we go on? For no reason other than mechanical habit, a trance, a sleep has seized us. We did it yesterday; we do it today; there are ninety‑nine chances out of a hundred we will do it tomorrow. If you add up your life’s vain actions, you will discover your entire life is a sum of useless actions.
How many actions do we perform for the sake of the ego! Perhaps ninety‑nine percent of our lives are engaged in such acts as are meant to strengthen the ego and show others “I am.” And I am not ordinary, not a nobody—I am somebody.
We pour our whole life into strengthening this “I.” A man builds a large house only to make others’ houses look small. Suppose he succeeds—others’ houses do look small; your house looks big. Then what? What follows from it?
It is a child’s race. Little boys often stand upon the table beside their father and say, “I am bigger than you.” If your being “bigger” depends on your house being bigger, there is no flaw in the child’s logic. Then the lizard walking across your ceiling has become bigger than you! If you could be big by having a taller house, being big would be very easy. Birds are flying in the sky—great difficulty then! Above them the clouds fly—greater difficulty! And there are the moon and the stars—how far up will you go? Can any outer height have anything to do with inner height?
Often the opposite happens. A man full of inner height has no concern for outer height, because he is so assured of the inner stature that the outer makes no difference. Thus if a son climbs onto a chair and says to his father, “I am bigger than you,” the father is delighted and says, “Quite right—you have become bigger.” If a son wrestles his father, the father falls willingly and lets the son win, because his own victory is so certain he need not prove it. What would be the point of defeating the son? He is already defeated.
But if you come across a father—and there are many—who pins his little son to the ground to prove, “I am your father; you are trying to defeat me?”
This father has been defeated. He has no confidence—even in being a father. The guru who is busy defeating his disciple is already defeated. The guru’s very gurudom lies in that if a disciple comes to quarrel, he loses and says, “Come, sit upon my chest—you have won.”
The greater the assurance of one’s inner reality, the more meaningless the outer becomes. But our actions are all for outer things. And even if we succeed, we find the action was vain, the race futile.
Napoleon at death is as poor and pitiable as Alexander, and as any great beggar can be.
What became of the whole life’s race? What is the outcome? So much hustle—where does it arrive? Much sweat is shed; nothing comes into the hand!
Krishna calls this vain action. He says: fools go on performing useless actions.
What is meaningful action? Meaningful action means: from vain action, no matter how much you do, nothing ever comes; from meaningful action, something arises now, here. From vain action, nothing ever comes; from meaningful action, fruition arises now—no waiting for tomorrow.
As I said, when you get angry you burn inside. You are walking on the road; you look at an unknown child and smile, and inside you blossom. A man is walking; his belongings fall. You pick them up for him and go on your way. The act is very small, but within it carries great meaning. Tiny outer act; deep inner significance. Someone drops an umbrella; you pick it up and hand it to him and move on. No great deed has happened. No newspaper will report it. History will not record it.
But the one who bends to pick up another’s umbrella and places it in his hand—right then something happens within him. The goodwill to do even this much for another gives birth to joy within this very moment—this very moment; there is no waiting for tomorrow.
But we cannot even hand someone’s umbrella so easily. We will pick it up and stand waiting—will he say “thank you” or not? Then we have already begun vain hope—and have missed a moment, a pure act of love. We have sold it for “thank you.” Expectation has destroyed it.
Meaningful action is that which flowers naturally from our soul and in which love is inevitably present. Vain action is that which harms, in which anger is inevitably present; or ego is present; or jealousy is present. These are different names for the same disease.
If meaningful actions increase in our life, we need not hope for tomorrow; we become rich today. But how to recognize meaningful action? Only one way: the action that fills your whole being with joy this very instant—this very instant.
And remember, only those actions can fill you with joy in the instant which the old scriptures called punya. Sin—paap—means vain action from which no fruition will ever come. Punya means action that fills you with joy now.
Yet we are so cunning and so dishonest that we even drag punya down into the category of vain actions. If we do punya, we do it in order to get something later. If a man donates even a penny, he makes sure how many times over it will be returned in heaven.
It is spoiled. The pure act of virtue—even a small deed, like giving a penny to someone—could have been immense if there had been no demand behind it, no hope, no expectation. In this very moment a man was in pain, and because I had, I gave. Nothing more. Then it would have been an act of punya, a flower blossoming in my life whose fragrance would never end; a flower that never withers; an inalienable treasure of my being.
Money cannot fill the soul, but if such flowers go on accumulating, the being becomes full. Fulfillment, a sense of inner fullness, begins to dawn.
But I missed. First I made sure how many times over that penny would come back to me. I dragged even this into the future. I turned it into craving. I dragged the future into it and manufactured hope. Now I will suffer. I have lost this moment; I have lost the penny; and now the future will give me sorrow—because no heaven is going to be given in exchange. Heaven is not so cheap.
Heaven is not obtained by punya; punya itself is heaven. Heaven is not the sum of merits; to be in merit is to be in heaven. Punya is the name of atomic acts, one by one, each moment. “I felt joy—finished.” Do not look beyond. But we always live in hope.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin went to bathe in a Turkish bath. He had come from a journey; his clothes were torn, covered in dust, his face grimy; the fatigue of a long journey; his clothes poor and shabby. So the attendants of the bath assumed he was a poor man.
Naturally—where people live in hope—the rich are served; the poor cannot be served. It should be the opposite—that the poor be served because he needs it more. The rich does not need it so much; he has been served all along. But in the world of hope…
Servants paid him no attention. They gave him a tattered towel; there was no hope of reward. They gave him used soap. No one cared whether the water was hot or cold. The masseur only passed his hand over him as he would not even over a living body.
Nasruddin watched it all. He bathed, came out, put on his clothes. No attendant expected any tips or reward. But he took out from his pocket the most precious gold coin of that land, and gave one gold coin to each attendant, and went on his way.
They were stunned. They beat their chests in grief—grief, I say! If only we had served him well, who knows what would have happened today! Never had anyone given a gold coin. Nawabs had passed from there, ministers had passed. Never had anyone given each servant a gold coin. And we did so much for them! And this man surpassed them all. A snake rolled on their chests. That night the attendants could not sleep. Again and again the thought: what a mistake! If only we had served him well—we didn’t serve him at all—if only we had served him properly, who knows what he would have given!
Mulla Nasruddin appeared again the next day. His clothes were even more tattered, his body even more dusty. But now he was welcomed as an emperor. The finest oil was brought out; the best soap; new fresh towels; hot water. For hours they served him, bathed him, massaged him. He remained quiet, bathing as he had the previous day. When he was leaving, he put his hand in his pocket. All the attendants stood with hands outstretched in hope. Nasruddin gave to each the smallest copper coin of that land!
Stones fell upon their chests. They began shouting, “Are you mad? What are you doing? Yesterday when we did nothing, you gave gold! Today when we did everything, you give us coppers?”
Nasruddin said, “Those were yesterday’s rewards. Today’s reward I gave yesterday.”
That night too the servants could not sleep!
Whichever expectations we weave around ourselves—if we receive a gold coin without doing anything, we still suffer. If we do much and do not receive a gold coin, we suffer. Expectation is suffering; expectation is pain.
Krishna says: and vain knowledge…
What is vain knowledge? Knowledge that does not come to your own use is vain. We all possess such knowledge—knowledge that never comes into use. There is no shortage of knowledge in the world—perhaps there is an excess. And every person has more than enough; thus everyone keeps distributing it freely. No other thing is distributed as generously as knowledge. Though no one takes your knowledge, you keep giving, because the other already has plenty. No one accepts anyone’s advice. The most given thing in the world is advice; the least accepted thing is also advice. No one heeds it, yet you go on giving it.
Has the knowledge you distribute ever come to your use? Have you ever put it into practice? Did it become an intimate part of your life? Did it become your very being, your Atman? Did it ever throb in your heart and flow in your blood? Did it become the marrow of your mind? Or are they mere words resounding inside you? Are you only a gramophone record?
If you observe your intellect you will find you are exactly a gramophone record. Something is put in, then you play it out. This knowledge is vain—because knowledge that does not transform life will be of no use to anyone else either.
The only meaningful knowledge is that which, upon knowing, transforms my life. Knowledge means revolution—know and be changed. If you know and yet remain what you were in unknowing, then what is the difference between knowledge and ignorance?
You may read the Gita and remain exactly the same as you were before—then all labor on the Gita was wasted, and what the Gita gave you is worthless—not worth two pennies—because you are the same; nothing has changed anywhere.
I see Gita‑readers who have been reading it for forty years. Here in Bombay there are many satsangis who do satsang every morning. Regularly they do it. It does not matter who speaks or who does not—doing satsang is their occupation. They do it every morning the way someone takes tea or smokes a cigarette—these people do satsang!
They have been doing it for forty years. Perhaps the smoker at least shows some effect—cancer, tuberculosis—these did not happen to them. Nothing happens to them. They escape unscathed from satsang! And those who conduct it are also sitting, arranging it for them. They too are arranging it! They too have no concern with any outcome.
Some have a disease of conducting satsang; some have the disease of attending it. These two kinds of sick meet, and then the commerce of knowledge goes on! Nowhere does any fruit appear—yes, one fruit is visible: slowly the listeners become speakers. Having listened long, so much knowledge is collected that what to do with it? There seems only one use—to make others “knowledgeable”! It has nothing to do with oneself.
Examine within yourself: what knowledge has touched you, what has truly reached you—after which you were not the same person as before; even by a hair’s breadth something changed.
If nothing seems to change, Krishna says this is vain knowledge. Such a “knower,” such a vain knower, is a fool. A little knowledge is enough—if it changes you. What will you do with a fire kept burning in the house from which not even warmth emerges? You cannot prepare even a cup of tea, and yet you keep the fire going lifelong and shout that the fire is burning! Nothing happens.
Seek only that knowledge by which even an inch of life changes—and trust only such knowledge; allow only such knowledge to enter within. Useless knowledge should not be allowed in, for there is no inner space to fill with rubbish. Whoever fills himself with rubbish—when something meaningful arrives at the door, it cannot enter because of that rubbish.
I see many people like this. They come to me and say, “What you say seems right, but what we heard earlier makes it very difficult!”
I tell them, “If what you heard before has changed your life, then forget what I say. And if what you heard before did not change your life, then throw it out like garbage. Have the courage to put aside any ‘knowledge’ by which nothing in you changed. How long will you go on taking a medicine that brings no benefit, even intensifies the disease?”
But there are dangerous patients in this world: they not only cling to their disease, they cling to the medicine as well! They say, “Let the disease remain or go, but we will not leave the medicine!”
What would you call such a patient? Insane. Knowledge is not to be clung to; it is to be transformed by—to be changed, to enter self‑revolution, transformation.
So Krishna says: the knowledge by which no difference happens is vain. Such a person is a fool. Those filled with vain hope, vain action, and vain knowledge are fools…
After this he speaks of those who are not fools.
He says: O Partha, those great souls who take refuge in daivi prakriti—knowing me as the eternal cause of all beings and the imperishable Akshara—worship me constantly, their minds single‑pointed upon me.
Two things to understand here. First: taking refuge in daivi prakriti—this is the precious part.
In this world there is a current that moves upward and a current that moves downward. Whichever current you choose begins to carry your life. Winds blow eastward and westward. When the wind blows westward and you unfurl your sail, you will reach the west. Winds also blow toward the east. Wait a little and open your sail when the wind moves eastward, and you will reach the east.
At every moment, currents are flowing—one downward, one upward. The current you take support of will be the journey you undertake. Someone abuses you—now the wind is blowing the other way. If you open your sail now, you will land in the world of anger. That is your responsibility, not the abuser’s. Everything is happening in this world; it depends on you. When someone sits in silent meditation, another wind blows. If only you too would sit silently near him a while, perhaps your boat would set out upon another voyage.
Buddha went many times to a village. There was a shopkeeper there. Friends told him, “Buddha has come.” He would say, “But there are many customers in the shop right now.” Sometimes he said, “This time my son’s marriage is on.” Sometimes, “Today the weather is not good; I won’t go out.” Sometimes, “Today I am unwell.”
For thirty years Buddha passed many times through that village, but this man kept giving one reason or another. Yet if someone went and insulted him, he would leave his customers and rush out the door. Even in heavy rain, he would forget all concern. If someone abused him, even if he were sick, almost dead, life would return—he would rush out: “Who abused me?” But when Buddha passed through his village, for thirty years he kept searching for excuses.
I was in Patna; the collector came to see me at eleven in the night. I said, “I am going to sleep now; I am already on the bed—you can see. Let it be; just the moment I put my head down you came. Come tomorrow morning at eight.” He said, “I cannot come at eight; I do not even get up by eight.”
I said, “Then come at nine, because from nine to eleven I will be occupied.” He said, “Nine I absolutely cannot.”
“What is the difficulty?”
“At nine I bathe and get ready for court.”
“So come at five,” I said. “Five I can’t either,” he replied, “because I return from the office at four‑thirty, tired.”
So I asked, “Do you want to meet me, or do I want to meet you? Let that be decided first—who wants to meet whom!”
Many people are like this. They say, “We will unfurl the sail now; the wind must be brought to the east.” Should the wind go eastward, or do you want to go eastward?
I told him, “You cannot leave sleep fifteen minutes early; you cannot bathe fifteen minutes sooner; returning tired from the office, you cannot come. And yet you say you are seeking God—this God seems to be the last item, the last on your list. Sleep is more important, office more important, fatigue more important. It appears that you are doing a great favor to God!”
Krishna says this is foolishness—moodhata.
The wise, the unfoolish, are those who take refuge in daivi prakriti—who for twenty‑four hours remain in search of where the wind blows toward Paramatma, so they may merge with it. By my own strength I may not go; alone I may not have such power; but when the wind blows, I will join it.
We too seek winds, but the winds we seek take us toward hell. The winds are not at fault. You open your sail at the wrong time, then you suffer. The intelligent man knows when to open the sail, when to close it; when to let the boat glide, when to hold it. In a few days he comes to know that in life two currents flow, two magnets work.
As I told you yesterday: man is incomplete. He can go downward to the lowest, and he can go upward to the highest. He can be the basest and the noblest. It depends on which current he allows to possess him.
That current is called daivi which every day increases your divinity. Keep examining within: is my divinity growing or diminishing along the way I live?
Often old people say, “Childhood was so good; it was heaven.” What does this mean? I meet aged poets who sing of childhood. “Childhood was heaven—such peace, such innocence!”
Where then did your life flow? Childhood was only the beginning of the journey; now you are eighty—and you still say childhood was innocent. Then in what direction did you travel your whole life? You flowed backwards; otherwise an old man should be able to say, “Childhood was innocent—now great innocence has ripened. Childhood was joy—but this joy is nothing before what has descended now.” Then the journey is ascending—then you have moved toward the divine.
If a man goes toward a garden, even before he reaches it, cool breezes begin to be felt—confidence grows that the garden is near. The fragrance of flowers begins—confidence grows the garden approaches. The birds’ songs are heard—confidence grows the garden is close. If you are moving toward the garden and the birds’ voices are lost, the fragrance ceases, even the cool breezes are gone, stop and consider whether you are moving toward the garden or away from it.
What we call life keeps taking us into denser sorrow. The life we call life keeps opening the gates of greater hells. Are we evolving or devolving? Falling downward or rising upward?
Daivi current means: wherever you are, in whatever situation or event, search instantly—what is the path here that leads toward the divine? I tell you, there is no event in which both currents are not present.
A man abuses you. You may think, “He abused me—if I tolerate this, everyone will start abusing me. I must shut his mouth.” You have chosen one current. You could also think, standing right there, “He has only abused me; he did not strike me—great compassion. The man is kind; he could have hit me.” You chose the other current.
In every event both currents are present; the choice is yours. There is no person so bad that the glimpse of God is not in him; there is no person so good that you could not find the devil in him. The choice is yours—absolutely yours. And what you choose becomes the flow of your life.
So Krishna says: those great souls who take refuge in daivi prakriti…
And mahātma means only this: one who has taken refuge in the divine current—who now seeks the way of the divine everywhere, who looks for the temple everywhere.
I have seen people go to temples; I do not know what they seek there. Listen to what those sitting in the temple talk about and you will know. The sadhu is preaching; listen to the women sitting around him—what are they talking about?
I say women because men hardly go to listen to sadhus any more; leave them aside. And if they do go, some go behind their wives, some go behind others’ wives! They have nothing to do with the sadhu.
Ask those who sit there—why do you go? What do you talk about? What do you think sitting in the temple? What kind of thinking goes on in a church? What happens inside a mosque? For the mosque will not help—the inner is what will help.
Sitting even in a brothel, if within you the divine current flows, perhaps you may reach God. And sitting in a temple, if within you the current flows the other way, then even God can do nothing. Where you are is not the question; the question is the direction of your inner current.
I have heard: a sadhu and a prostitute died the same day; their houses were opposite. The messengers of death came and were in difficulty; they had to go back to the head office to check, because some mistake seemed likely. The order was to take the sadhu to hell and the prostitute to heaven! They thought, surely there is an error. The sadhu was a great sadhu; the prostitute also was no small prostitute. The arithmetic is simple: the prostitute should go to hell and the sadhu to heaven.
If only life were so simple, all prostitutes would go to hell and all sadhus to heaven. But life is not so simple; it is very complex.
They returned and were told the order was correct: bring the prostitute to heaven and the sadhu to hell. They asked to understand, for they were perplexed. The office replied: “You are new messengers; you have no experience. Ask the older ones—this is how it always is; this is the rule.” Still they asked to understand.
It turned out that whenever there was kirtan in the sadhu’s house in the morning, the prostitute would weep in her house opposite. She would weep: “My life has gone to waste. When will that fortunate hour come when I too may join such kirtan?” Sometimes she would steal out to the gate; she would stand by the wall of the temple and listen, fearing to enter—“How can a sinner like me enter?” She feared the sadhu might find out, so she would secretly listen. The fragrance from the temple rose, incense burned, the news of flowers came, the bell rang; and for twenty‑four hours, her mind circled the temple, circled the temple. She had only one prayer: “In my next birth, even if I have to sweep, let me be born in a temple; at the temple gate!”
The sadhu was not much behind the prostitute. Whenever the prostitute’s house resounded at night, he tossed and turned: “The whole world is enjoying. Where have I gotten stuck? Right in front—O God, right in front—joy is being savored, and I am trapped! What misfortune is this ‘holiness’!” Many times he would slip out and circle the prostitute’s house; even tried to enter, but lacked the courage—“I am a sadhu; how can I go inside? Someone might see.”
The prostitute lived in the temple; the sadhu lived in the brothel. No one saw this, because it is an inner affair; those who measure from the outside cannot see.
Mahātma, says Krishna, is he who is in the divine current—who keeps choosing the auspicious, the beautiful, the true in all directions. His choice is of the auspicious. If the inauspicious also appears, he closes his eyes to it; if the auspicious is not even visible, he still looks for it. Slowly, the whole world becomes auspicious.
Knowing me as the eternal cause of all beings and as the imperishable Akshara, with single‑minded hearts they constantly worship me.
Whatever they do, whatever they think—one thing constantly, everywhere—they see me. Hidden in all as the ultimate cause, present in every being as the eternal root—my remembrance goes on in their consciousness as a single‑pointed chant through all states and conditions.
And those devotees of firm resolve, constantly chanting my name and glories, striving for my attainment, bowing to me again and again—ever absorbed in my meditation—worship me with devotion.
Understand a few things here.
First: whether God exists or not is not important; whether you can be a devotee or not is important. Let me repeat: if God were not, it would do; if you are not a devotee, it will not do. God is not the value; the devotee is the value.
Understand it this way: God is like a peg; the devotee is like the garment hung upon it. No one installs a peg for the peg; one installs it to hang clothes. If there is nothing to hang, the peg is useless. If there is something to hang, anything can serve as a peg. Where there is no peg, people hang clothes on a door, a window, a nail. If there is a peg but no garment, what will you hang? If there is a garment but no peg, you hang it somewhere.
The real question is not God; the real question is the devotee. God is only a device, a support; without it, becoming a devotee becomes difficult. He is a means.
Hence the ancient yogic scriptures are astonishing; they say even God is a means—just a means—for the ultimate attainment, the supreme joy of life. And there have been such people, like the Buddhists and the Jains, who say: “We will manage without God.”
But being a devotee without God is very difficult. Even with God present, becoming a devotee is difficult—without him it will be more difficult. Mahavira managed it, but Mahavira’s followers could not; they had to turn Mahavira himself into God. Mahavira said, “There is no need of God—upasana is enough, sadhana is enough, goodwill is enough, truth is enough. Nothing else is needed.”
Mahavira is a very strong person—he could be a devotee without the notion of God; he attained without it. It is as difficult as being a lover without a beloved, or a beloved without a lover. It is possible. When someone is brimming with love, it makes no difference whether the beloved is present or not. Love does not arise because of the beloved; love is within—because of love the beloved appears. But our love is such that if the beloved withdraws for a moment, love disappears. Then it was not there; it was a deception, a pretense, a face—no inner state.
Buddha sits in a forest. Whether anyone passes on the path or not, his compassion goes on raining; his love goes on flowing. Like a flower blooming in a wilderness—whether anyone passes or not, the flower blooms, the fragrance spreads. The flower will not think, “Close the doors; there are no customers!” A flower is not a shopkeeper.
In just this way, a lover can be without an object of love—but it is very difficult. With a beloved present we cannot become lovers; without one it will be far more difficult. A Mahavira may happen—there is no objection; he attained the ultimate state without the idea of God; he found God without the idea of God. But those who follow after cannot; they found it hard. Since there was no God in the Jain vision, they made Mahavira as God and began to worship him.
A peg is needed. One cannot become a devotee without God; God must be there.
Krishna says: this stream of devotion—this ceaseless, single‑pointed remembrance of Paramatma, this praising of his name and attributes—this is what shapes the devotee’s heart.
Just as when we sow a seed—the tree is hidden in the seed; it does not come from outside. But if water is not poured, if the sun’s warmth does not reach, the hidden will not be revealed. And even if it sprouts, without the gardener’s support and protection the tender sprout will break. What is needed is already in the seed, but auxiliary supports must be provided around it. One day, indeed, the seed becomes such a great tree that then animals are no longer a danger; then no one can break it; if rain does not fall, the seed is no longer dependent. It has spread its roots; it reaches deep underground; it can draw its own water. If the sun does not appear for some days, the tree is not too worried; it has stored the sun’s energy within itself. If the gardener forgets, the tree now can protect itself. But the seed cannot do these things.
Mahavira is like a great tree; without God he manages easily and attains God. But we are tiny seeds; we need many arrangements around us.
So Krishna says: the concept of God, the orientation toward God, upasana, is useful.
Upasana means to sit near him. Wherever you sit, if you feel you are sitting near Paramatma, upasana has happened. Whether at home, in a temple, in the forest—if you can feel his presence, his touch—he touches within the winds; he comes in the sun’s rays; he sings in the birds’ songs; in the trembling of leaves, it is he who trembles; the waves of the sea are his ripples—if such a sense can arise, upasana is fulfilled.
It is not that you go to the temple, ring a bell, perform a ritual and come home. Not that upasana cannot happen there; it can. But the haste with which people ring bells raises doubts. The haste with which prayers are done!
Watch how flexible their prayer time is: whenever they are free, or have quarreled with the wife, or the shop is closed, or there is no court that day, upasana becomes long. If they have to reach the office early, upasana shrinks; they finish it in brief; quickly ringing the bell, quickly doing everything!
Those in even more hurry who can afford it do not do upasana themselves; they hire servants, middlemen—pandits and priests. You strike a deal between you and God: the priest wants your money, you want God; a deal is made. “Give us this much and we will do this much upasana for you.” You remain assured upasana is going on!
But can upasana be outsourced? Upasana means being near him yourself. How will another be near him for you? And that other—he could have been near him for himself; he is not concerned with that—he is concerned with taking your fee. While he is “worshiping” in the temple, he is counting how many days remain in the month—has payday come? He is planning his rounds—after this house, that one, then a third—one priest finishes off five or ten houses a day. He has to “finish them off.”
Remember: priests perhaps remain as far from God as anyone can be—because the priest has no real purpose left; for him it is a profession.
Upasana cannot be done on loan; you will have to do it yourself. And that upasana has no value by which you are near God in the temple but lose him as soon as you step outside. What will such upasana do? If he is, he is everywhere; if he is not, he is nowhere—not even in the temple. If he is not, all temples are vain. If he is, the entire existence is his temple.
Between these two the devotee must choose. Either know that he is not even in the temple; or know that wherever existence is, there he is. And let this search go on—wherever you are…
Sitting by a tree, be near God. Standing by an animal, be near God. A friend is near—God is near; an enemy is near—God is near. Let only him remain for you. As this expands, as the sense of his presence deepens, you are absorbed in upasana.
Speaking of his attributes is useful. But what do we speak? We speak less of his attributes and more of our accounts. In the temple I hear people saying, “We are sinners, and you are the redeemer of sinners.” They are less concerned with him, more with securing a relief from their sins. They are simply looking for an escape. Nor do they reduce their sins after leaving the temple—now they are even more assured that he is the redeemer of sinners. If they do not sin, whom will he redeem? Even God would become unemployed if sinners stopped sinning! So, to keep him employed, they go out and go on sinning.
No, that is not the point. Praise of his attributes is not flattery. You cannot flatter God. Flattery works only where you and the other share the same currency of values. You can tell a man, “No one is as great as you,” and he will be pleased—he seeks ego food. Tell that to God and you will not please him—he has no hunger of ego. However much you say, your words cannot express his vastness, cannot reach his greatness. Your words are meaningless to him.
Then what is the meaning of praise, of prayer, of singing his qualities?
They have a wholly different meaning.
Mansoor, a Sufi fakir, was passing down a lane. A flower had blossomed. He stopped, folded his hands, looked toward the sky. His disciples asked, “To whom are you folding hands? There is no mosque here!” Mansoor said, “A flower has bloomed—God’s grace! How else could a flower bloom?”
This is kirtan.
The sun rises; Mansoor stands with folded hands. Companions say, “What are you doing? Have you become an idol‑worshiper?” Mansoor says, “The sun is rising—so much light, so much light—God’s grace!”
This is praise.
Mansoor is being executed; his hands and feet have been cut off. He lifts his eyes toward the sky and smiles. The crowd asks, “What are you doing? Your enemies are gathered; they are killing you.” Mansoor says, “God’s grace! As you are killing me here, he stands there ready to meet me. As you cast me down here, there I will sink into him. Great is his grace. Perhaps if you had not helped by killing me, I would have been delayed a little in arriving.”
This is praise.
Jesus is on the cross. In the final moment he says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
This is his praise; this is his kirtan. Even here, only compassion arises in Jesus’ heart.
Let there be no moment in life when we do not experience his grace—pain or pleasure, peace or unrest, success or failure, night or day, sunrise or sunset—let his grace be felt, let a scale of his attributes be playing within—that is praise, that is kirtan. However we live, let there be a continuous remembrance of him within. Do not miss his remembrance.
Krishna says: such devotees of firm resolve, constantly chanting me, bowing to me again and again…
How will you bow again and again? Wherever you feel his grace—and where will you not? If only you have eyes to experience, his grace will be everywhere.
Mansoor walks along a path. A stone hits his foot; he is bleeding. He sits right there, folds his hands, kneels. Companions say, “What are you doing? Have you gone mad? Blood is flowing from your foot.”
Mansoor says, “As far as I know, given the kind of man I am, even hanging would have been too little. It is his grace. The hanging was saved; only a small stone struck my foot. Given the kind of man I am, even the gallows would be less. His grace spared me with only a stone.”
If a stone hits your foot, you know what will come from your mouth—a curse. In that moment the whole world becomes meaningless; life becomes void. If you could, you would set the world on fire. You cannot—so you think it. Let there be a little toothache and God disappears from the world. Let there be a little headache and the world fills with atheism—darkness everywhere.
Mansoor is a different kind of man. He folds his hands and says, “Your great grace!” In such a mood, living continuously—if his life gradually begins to flow toward that Paramatma—then…
(Someone stood up and asked something absurd about Mansoor. Those sitting nearby, thinking him mad, made him sit down. Bhagwan laughed, pacified him gently, and continued.)
Do not worry at all. Some lovers of Mansoor have arrived. Do not be angry with them. If you become angry, the current begins to flow toward the demonic. Be happy with them. They have given you a chance to become angry; if you do not, the journey begins the other way.
Life is a choice at every moment. Find God’s way from everywhere. Now these gentlemen have come—you can see the devil in them; you can see madness in them; you can see Paramatma in them. It will depend on us, not on them. Whether they are mad or not is their affair. But even in this tendency of theirs we can see an opportunity—if we experience his grace in them too. They only spoke; they could have thrown stones. They only spoke; they did nothing more. Given the kind of people we are, whatever is done to us is still too little.
At every moment in life, keep choosing that by which his praise and remembrance can happen. Then one day, within, the dense mood of the devotee arises, which is the door to the experience of God.
Enough for today.
But do not get up yet. We will do kirtan for five minutes. One thing: when the kirtan is going on, please do not stand up midway. If one person stands, those behind have to stand too.
Second: those who come and stand here in front—if you wish to dance in the kirtan, then stand. Do not come to stand and watch. If you only want to watch, keep sitting where you are. No one is to come and stand in front. If you wish to participate in the kirtan, then come!”