Geeta Darshan #9

Now let us take the sutra.

O Arjuna, some behold that Supreme Purusha in their hearts by meditation with a purified, subtle intellect; others behold him by the path of jnana-yoga; and still others behold him by the path of nishkama karma-yoga.

Krishna says the state of the Supreme Purusha has many doors for seeing. Some see it in the heart by meditation with a purified, subtle intellect. With a purified, subtle intellect by meditation…

There are processes to make the intellect subtle and pure. Ordinarily, intellect is gross. It is gross because it is tied to gross objects.

What do you think with the intellect? If you analyze your mind, you will discover that in your thinking anywhere from fifty to ninety percent is influenced by sex. That means you think in relation to bodies. A man keeps thinking in relation to women’s bodies.

When you think in relation to bodies, the intellect too becomes gross like the body. Whatever the intellect thinks upon, it becomes of the same nature.

If you think less about bodies, are less obsessed by sex, then you think in relation to money. You think of houses, cars, of land and property. All that too is gross—and the intellect becomes like what you think on. Thinking and thinking, the intellect assumes that form.

Notice it: whatever you think about—has not your intellect become like that? A thief’s intellect becomes thievish. A miser’s intellect becomes miserly. A murderer’s intellect fills with murder. Whatever he is doing, thinking, contemplating, that slowly becomes the very form of his intellect.

To make the intellect subtle means to free it little by little from gross objects and to give it subtler objects. For example, you look at the sun—that is gross. Then close your eyes, and the after-image that remains inside the eye, the negative—focus on that. That image is subtler. Then keep meditating on the image, meditating. You will find that in a little while the image disappears.

But if you practice daily, the image will begin to remain longer. It does not stay long because your intellect is becoming subtle; therefore you can look at it for longer. If you do this daily, you will find you no longer need to look at the sun at all: you close your eyes and the subtle image immediately appears. Now you keep looking at this image, keep looking.

At first, while the intellect remains gross, the image will grow faint. And when the intellect starts becoming subtle, you will be surprised: the more you look within, the more radiant the image becomes.

If at first glance the image seems faint and then its radiance goes on increasing, know that your intellect is becoming subtle. If at first the image seems radiant and then gradually starts fading, understand that your intellect is gross; it cannot grasp the subtle—hence the image is fading.

You listen with the ear to sounds. The louder the sound, the more easily it is heard; the softer the sound, the more difficult to hear. Listening to loud sounds, your faculty of hearing has become gross. Sometimes close your ears and listen to the subtle inner sounds. Gradually, a new world of inner sounds will be revealed—a web of tones will appear. Keep listening ever more subtly. Let your one attention be: I will hear the subtler and subtler.

Try this: you are standing in the marketplace. Close your eyes. The loud sounds will be heard on their own. Standing on the road in the middle of the market, with eyes closed, try to catch among all these sounds the most subtle sound.

You will be amazed: as soon as you try to catch the subtle, the big sounds will drop out of your attention immediately; and subtle sounds will begin to appear. You may even be surprised that a bird on a tree was calling—and amid the traffic and uproar it suddenly becomes audible to you. The whole traffic seems to recede far away, and the soft call of the bird emerges.

Leaving the gross sounds, try to hear the subtle. In that measure your intellect will grow subtle. Then gently close the ear and listen to the inner sounds. As one descends like this, the ultimate most subtle sound, the inner nada—the sound of Om, Omkar—begins to be heard. The day that begins to be heard, know that a pure, subtle intellect has arisen in you. When the nada is heard, that is the sign that a pure intellect has been born within.

Therefore in the schools of this land, the first task used to be this… Now we are engaged in the reverse. Now all the education we give around the world is gross. In this country we were concerned that when a student came to the gurukul, the first task was to make his intellect subtle. As long as he does not have a subtle intellect, what will happen? He has a gross intellect—we can give him gross education. He may become educated, even a pundit, but he will never become wise. First we must refine his intellect from gross to subtle; first we must hone the instrument.

Right now we just send students to school. And the teachers attack them there—begin to teach—without caring whether the instrument for learning has become subtle yet or not; whether an edge has come to it or not. It is still gross; upon that grossness we start throwing things, and it becomes even grosser.

Therefore, by the time they pass out of the university, their intellect has become almost blunted. Students do not return from university carrying intellect—they return having lost it. Yes, they return having memorized some facts, stuffed with memory. They can pass examinations. But even a trace of wisdom is not visible.

So if today there is disturbance in all the universities around the world, its basic reason is that you have taken away their intelligence and given them only memory. There is the uproar of memory. There is no wisdom at all.

And wisdom arises from the subtlety of intellect. Not by how much you know. Not even by what you know. Not by how many exams you have passed. Not by how many Ph.D.s and D.Litts you have. Wisdom is attained by how subtle an intellect you possess.

Therefore, it can happen that a totally unlettered person attains the subtlety of intellect. And it often happens that very well-read people do not appear to attain the subtlety of intellect. In a pundit, to have the subtlety of intellect is rather difficult—very difficult, a rare coincidence. Sometimes in a village rustic, in a shepherd, a glimpse of wisdom can appear. He may not have a store of learned intellect. But he may have a subtle intellect.

Therefore, someone like Kabir, uneducated, becomes available to supreme knowing.

Supreme knowing is not related to how much stock of memory you have. It is related to how much capacity you have to catch the subtlest. How receptive you are. How fine a tone you can catch; how fine a touch, how fine a taste, how fine a fragrance… Because inside, everything is fine; outside, everything is gross. When the inner world is to be experienced, subtlety and purity are needed.

Krishna says: with purified, subtle intellect, by meditation, they see in the heart…

When someone has a subtle intellect within, it is then turned toward the heart. That is not very difficult. But first, the subtle intellect must be there.

Almost as if you had a telescope—you can place it at the eye and turn it toward any star. Then whichever way you turn it, that star will appear magnified and revealed. In just the same way, when a subtle intellect is present within, there is a way to turn it toward the heart, to set that subtle intellect attentively upon the heart—then, in that temple of the heart, one discovers God.

Many others see him by jnana-yoga…

Turning it toward the heart is bhakti-yoga. The heart is the center of devotion, of love. So when someone turns the subtle intellect toward the heart, Meeras and Chaitanyas are born.

Krishna says: many see him by jnana-yoga…

The same subtle intellect—but instead of turning it toward the heart, one turns it toward the ultimate center of the brain, the sahasrar. Then those who behold the Divine in the sahasrar—that is jnana-yoga.

And many see him by nishkama karma-yoga…

Many turn their subtle intellect toward the stream of action. Whatever they do, into that doing they infuse the subtle intellect. Then they are freed from doing—they no longer remain the doer.

These are the three paths: devotion, knowledge, action. Devotion arises from the heart. The intellect is one; the instrument is one. Turn that same instrument toward the heart and a devotee is born. Turn that same instrument toward the sahasrar and a knower is born—Buddhas are born, Mahaviras are born. And turn it toward action and Christs are born, Mohammeds are born.

Mohammed and Christ are neither devotees nor knowers—they are pure karma-yogis. Therefore those who flow in the current of jnana-yoga cannot even think why Mohammed should take up the sword and go into battles! We cannot even think why Christ should hang on the cross! Why get into such disturbances!

Revolutions and such—these are all disturbances. These are for the troublemakers. We cannot even think of a Buddha revolting and being crucified—because Buddha is a jnana-yogi. He is turning his pure, subtle intellect toward the sahasrar; Christ is turning it toward the stream of action.

Therefore the entire current of Christianity turned toward action. Hence service became religion. Therefore a Christian missionary can serve as none from any other religion can. There are deep reasons for this. However much others may imitate…

Here in India there are many Hindu groups trying to imitate. But the imitation proves to be imitation—because that is not their original current. Christ’s entire sadhana is to turn the subtle intellect toward action. Then action becomes everything. That itself is worship, that itself is prayer.

Therefore a Christian fakir can sit by a leper and serve him with such love as no Hindu sannyasi can. A Jain sannyasi cannot even come near—service is far away. Near a leper! He cannot even think of it. In his mind he will think: “We have not committed such sinful acts that we should serve a leper. Let those serve lepers who have committed sinful acts. We have committed no such sins.”

A Hindu sannyasi cannot even think of service, because his notion is that others serve the sannyasi. A sannyasi serving someone! What madness is this—that a sannyasi should press someone’s feet? Everyone presses the feet of the sannyasi.

It is not even his fault—because the current from which he has arisen is the current of jnana-yoga. He has nothing to do with action; his relation is with the sahasrar. He turns his entire consciousness toward the sahasrar. And when someone turns his entire consciousness toward the sahasrar, naturally others have to serve him—because he becomes utterly helpless. He has no concern with food, no concern with the body. Others serve him. We served sannyasis because they were going into samadhi.

Ramakrishna would lie unconscious for six days at a stretch. Others served him. For six days someone had to feed him milk, give him water. He lay unconscious. He had plunged into his center; to bring him back, the body had to be looked after. Otherwise he would be finished; the body would rot.

So we served sannyasis because the sannyasi was turned either toward knowledge or devotion. Christ turned the current toward action.

Krishna says: some, by turning toward action, see God by nishkama karma-yoga.

By nishkama karma-yoga, God appears in others. By nishkama karma-yoga, God begins to appear all around. Whomever you serve, there God begins to appear—because now that subtle instrument of intellect has been set upon action.

The essence is one: wherever the purified intellect is set, there God is seen. And wherever the impure intellect is set, there nothing but matter can be seen.

But others—those of duller intellect—though not knowing in this way themselves, worship simply by hearing from others who know; devoted to hearing, they undoubtedly cross the ocean of worldly death.

But these three are very intense journeys: of knowledge, devotion, and action—very intense journeys. Only men of great mettle can walk on them. Not all can move with such depth, such intensity, such urgency, such restlessness, such longing. What is the way for them?

So Krishna says: those others too, even though not knowing in this way themselves, by hearing from others—those who have known—worship; and becoming devoted to that hearing, they undoubtedly cross the ocean of death and attain the immortal.

This must be understood a little. Because most of us will not fall into those three categories. Most of us will fall into this fourth category—who cannot go on any of the three, who do not even feel the longing to go on any of the three. But even they—if they listen to those who have known—that too is not easy—if they listen to those who have known, directly; and, listening, become devoted to it, drown in it, are absorbed in it, and from that listening their worship is born—then they too cross the ocean of death and attain the immortal.

But there are many conditions. First: listen to those who have known—firsthand. To those who have known! If you yourself can know originally, directly, then fine—those are the three paths. If that is not possible, then listen directly to one who has known. Scriptures will not help much; a guru will be useful. Listen directly to one who has known—because whatever words come from him, their touch, their voice will carry the fresh breeze of his own experience. Therefore there is less emphasis on scripture and more on the guru.

For most people—the fourth path will be theirs—the guru is the way. And the meaning of scripture too will open only through a guru. Because a scripture was written a thousand, ten thousand years ago. In what was said ten thousand years ago, much has been added and subtracted; in the journey of ten thousand years, much rubbish has collected, dust has gathered. The experience that was pure ten thousand years ago is no longer pure; it has become very stale.

Then go to a person in whom the fire is burning now, who is alive now, radiant with his own experience; whose every pore is aware; who has just now known and lived the truth; who has just now met the Divine; in whom Purusha has settled, and whose body and whose world have now become only an acting. Sit by him and listen.

Upasana means: sitting near. The word upasana means: to sit near. The word Upanishad means: sitting near and listening. These are precious words—upasana, upadesh, Upanishad. Sitting near. Near whom? Near where there is a living experience—listening. Listening is very difficult too, because to sit near, you must create the receptivity. If there is even a trace of ego, then even sitting near you will be very far.

To sit near a guru there must be no ego at all, because that alone is the distance. There is no spatial distance between the guru and you; the distance is your ego. People come to learn even as they come with great stiffness. People come to learn—and yet they do not come. They only imagine that they come.

This happened here. In a very big millionaire family—one of India’s biggest—someone died. They sent me a message: “Please come to our home; a death has occurred—tell us something about the nectar of immortality.” I sent word: “If you want to understand, you will have to come to me.” They replied, “But why do you say that? All the other gurus are coming. And we offer each a thousand rupees.”

They intend to buy nectar for a thousand rupees. Or they think someone will tell them about nectar for a thousand. And whoever goes to tell them has nothing to do with nectar either; he too will only be concerned with the thousand rupees.

In truth, a guru cannot come to you. Not because there is any obstacle in it, but because in coming the very point is lost; there is no meaning left. You will have to go to him—because “going” is not a physical process alone; going is a question of the inner ego.

They are millionaires, billionaires—how can they go to someone! If, somehow, they could go to someone—and everyone else comes to them—then one thing is certain: they can never reach a guru. And those so-called gurus who reach them cannot be gurus. Because the relation of approach must be initiated by the disciple; he must bring the nearness; he must become the vessel.

The river does not come to the pot; the pot must go to the river. And the pot must bend into the river—only then can the river fill the pot. The river is ready to fill. But if the pot says, “I will sit here stiff and straight; I will not bend; let the river come and fill me—and I will offer a thousand rupees!”—the river cannot come. Yes, some tap can come. But there is a great difference between taps and rivers. A pundit can come; a guru cannot.

So approaching is an art: humility, egolessness, readiness to learn, eagerness to learn, not getting in the way of learning. Then listen. Because listening itself is very difficult. Even when you listen, you listen little and think much.

And what will you think? Even while listening you think: “Well, is this of use to me? Is this of our sect? Is this written in our scripture or not?”

The teachings of Buddha and Mahavira are ethical and given with the ordinary person in mind. Krishna’s teachings are religious and addressed to a very extraordinary person.

The teachings of Buddha and Mahavira can be understood even by a very ordinary intelligence; there is hardly any obstacle there. They consider the third-rate mind—the last rung of intelligence. Krishna’s teachings can be understood only by first-rate human beings. They are exceedingly subtle, and far higher than the teachings of Buddha and Mahavira. It will be a bit difficult to grasp them.

We all understand that stealing is a sin; even a thief understands it. It is not only you who see it; the thief, too, knows stealing is wrong. But why is stealing wrong?

Stealing can be wrong only if property is real; that’s the first premise. Money must be of great value, and personal ownership must be accepted; only then can stealing be wrong. Whose is wealth? One presumption is that a person has a right over wealth; therefore, whoever takes it from him harms him. A second presumption is that wealth is of great value. If wealth has no intrinsic value, how much value can there be in theft? Understand this a little.

The more value you attribute to wealth, the more value stealing acquires. If wealth is precious, theft becomes significant. But on the plane from which Krishna speaks, wealth is mere earth.

Here is the great irony: Jain monks who follow Mahavira also say, “Money is just dust.” And yet they say, “Stealing is a sin.” Is stealing dust a sin? They call wealth trash and still declare theft a sin! If wealth is trash, how can theft be sinful? No one calls it a sin to steal garbage. Clearly, wealth appears valuable to them.

In truth, those who keep explaining to themselves that wealth is trash do so precisely because, deep down, wealth feels valuable to them. Hence theft, too, appears significant.

Once I was with a Jain monk; he recited a poem he had composed. The words were well-woven; those sitting around him nodded appreciatively. The song had rhythm, but its meaning? Entirely empty.

Its meaning was: “O emperors, remain seated on your golden thrones; I am blissful lying in my dust. I have no desire for your golden throne. For me your throne is like dirt. I kick your golden throne. I am a carefree fakir, content in my dust. I need nothing of your golden thrones.” This refrain repeated again and again.

When the song ended, I asked, “If you truly don’t care about golden thrones, why write this poem at all? I have never seen an emperor write the reverse poem: ‘O fakirs, remain lying in your dust; we feel no envy of you. We kick your fakirhood. We consider your fakirhood worthless. We are content on our golden thrones; we feel no envy of you.’”

In the thousands of years of human history not a single emperor has written such a song. But fakirs have written many like this one. What does this suggest? It suggests that fakirs feel envy. Even to proclaim “this is not envy” is born of envy.

And no matter how much the fakir says he is blissful in dust, he is persuading himself that he is blissful in dust. He, too, knows the emperor enjoys his throne. Otherwise, what purpose is there in bringing the emperor into it? And if the golden throne is truly dust, why keep repeating it?

No one bothers to insist “dust is dust.” Why do people insist “gold is dust”? Because gold looks like gold. To suppress desire, one keeps telling oneself, “It’s just dirt; why desire it?” But the desire is standing within, and one tries to cut it down with auto-suggestion: “It’s dirt; why desire it!”

Of a woman’s body one says, “There is no beauty here—only bone, flesh, marrow,” to persuade oneself. Beauty is seen; desire demands; it rushes. He is contriving ways to cut off desire: “There is only bone, flesh, marrow—nothing at all inside, only filth; a heap of excreta.”

But why is this persuasion needed? No one, upon seeing a heap of excreta, says, “This is a heap of excreta; I should not desire it.” If, in a woman, only filth appeared, the matter would be finished—where would desire be? And what need would there be of a doctrine that one should not desire?

Krishna speaks from a very high place. Mahavira and Buddha stand on that same height, but they speak from much lower down—where you stand. A true master chooses according to his intent: whom he is addressing determines his expression.

Mahavira understands you. He knows you are a thief. If he were to say to you “There is no difference between theft and non-theft,” you would continue stealing. So he teaches that theft is a sin. Though Mahavira also knows that theft can only be a sin if wealth has value; when wealth has no value, theft has no value either.

Let’s see it another way. Mahavira and Buddha teach that violence is sin, while also teaching that the soul is immortal—no one can be cut. There is a contradiction here. If I cannot cut anyone, how can violence happen? Understand this a little.

Mahavira and Buddha say violence is sin; do not kill. And throughout their lives they explain that killing cannot happen, because the soul is deathless. The body is already a corpse; there is no way to kill it.

Within you are two: body and soul. Mahavira and Buddha say the soul is immortal—cannot be killed; the body is already dead—there is no way to kill it. Then what does violence mean? Where is the sin in violence? If the soul cannot die and the body is already dead, how can violence be sinful? And if you cannot kill anyone, how will you save anyone? Understand this too.

How much value remains for nonviolence! If violence has no real possibility, the value of nonviolence disappears. If the soul cannot be cut, what is the point of nonviolence? If you cannot do violence, how will you do nonviolence? Grasp it correctly: only if violence is possible can nonviolence be meaningful. When violence itself is impossible, how will you practice nonviolence?

But Mahavira and Buddha speak looking toward you. They know you know nothing of the immortal soul; you do not know that the body is mortal. You take yourself to be the body—which is mortal. Hence a flash of anger, and you feel like cutting someone in two with a sword. When you think of cutting the other, you are taking the other to be just a body. Hence the impulse toward violence arises.

In the arising of this violent impulse lies your error, your ignorance. Mahavira and Buddha strive to break that ignorance. But Krishna’s message is final, ultimate. It is not given to first graders; it is given to those sitting in the last class.

Thus Krishna tells Arjuna: “Don’t talk nonsense that you can cut people. No one has ever cut anyone. Cutting is impossible. That which is within is not cut by the cutting of the body. That which is within is not burned by the burning of the body. Weapons may pierce the body, but that inner one is not pierced. First drop the illusion that you can cut. Therefore to imagine you can be violent is itself a mistake. And when you cannot be violent, the question of being nonviolent does not arise.”

This is the supreme teaching. It will not be understood by those with a small, worldly mind. No harm; let them walk with Mahavira and Buddha. As their understanding grows, they will begin to see that Mahavira and Buddha also say the same.

As understanding deepens, it will occur to them: they too say the soul is immortal; they too say there is no way to kill the soul; and they too say wealth is merely a convention—its value is only that of agreement. But those who have invested belief in wealth—there is no need to snatch from them and cause needless suffering. Though in truth, they do not suffer because you snatch their wealth; they suffer because they believe wealth has value.

Understand a little. If someone steals my money and I suffer, I do not suffer because of his theft; I suffer because I had believed my money to be of great value. It is due to my ignorance that I suffer, not because of the thief. I suffer because I thought wealth was precious, and someone took it.

Krishna says: wealth has no value at all. Therefore neither theft has any value, nor charity.

Note this: if wealth has value, then both theft and charity have value. Then theft is sin and charity is virtue. But if wealth itself is valueless, theft and charity are both valueless. This is the final message.

This does not mean you should go and steal. Nor does it mean you should not give in charity. It means only this: know that wealth has no intrinsic value.

Krishna is not saying, “Engage in violence,” because Krishna does not accept that violence can happen. How could he say “Be violent”? He is saying violence and nonviolence are illusions. You cannot do them. If you try, you will fall into needless misery.

Let’s approach it another way, because this is very deep; and this is the basic gap between Jains, Buddhists, and Hindus.

Therefore, Jains and Buddhists do not accept the Gita. They have consigned Krishna to hell in their scriptures. And he will not be released easily, they say, because one who teaches such a dangerous doctrine must be in hell: “Arjuna, cut without worry, for no one is cut.” What could be more dangerous!

And the one who says, “Behave in any manner; behavior has no value; only abiding in the inner purusha is needed. Your outer conduct has no price; the only question is where your inner being is established. Your conduct, whatever it is, has no value—neither negative nor positive. It has no congruence; your soul alone is enough.” Such a society-opposed, conduct-opposed, ethics-opposed, nonviolence-opposed teaching!

So the Jains have put him in hell. And he won’t be released until this creation ends. When a new creation is born, he will be freed.

So be it. By Jain standards Krishna is dangerous and must be consigned to hell. But if we try to understand Krishna, he has uttered the most supreme truth possible in this world. And the manner of his saying is as supreme as the content. He has not diluted it for small minds or compromised with the ordinary. He has made no concession to you. He has stated truth as it is, without concern for its consequences. And we certainly need some who will state truth as it is, regardless of consequences; otherwise no truth can ever be spoken.

Mahavira and Buddha explain: do not give suffering to another. And they also explain: whenever you suffer, you suffer due to yourself; no one else makes you suffer. What is the meaning of these two statements?

On the one hand, “Do not cause suffering; causing suffering is sin.” On the other, “When someone ‘causes’ you suffering, you suffer because of your own mind; another does not make you suffer. Another cannot make you suffer.”

These two statements are contradictory. The first is for ordinary minds; the second is the ultimate truth. And if the second is true, the first is false.

When I suffer, Mahavira says, “You suffer due to yourself; no one gives you suffering.” Suppose a man throws a stone at me; Mahavira says, “You suffer because you have taken the body as yourself; therefore the body’s pain you take to be your pain.” Fine. But if I throw a stone at someone else’s head, Mahavira says, “Do not cause suffering to another.”

This becomes contradictory: when someone stones me, the cause of suffering is me; and when I stone someone, the cause of suffering is me again!

These are two different planes. “Do not cause suffering to another” is said for the small-minded person. Because the small-minded person is eager to hurt others; his lifelong ‘joy’ is in how to make others suffer. Even when he thinks, “What would make me happy?” his joy depends upon others’ suffering. Trace your pleasures and you will find that until your pleasure diminishes another’s, it doesn’t feel like pleasure. Build a large house, but until others’ houses look small, you don’t feel joy. In whatever you do, your so-called joy tries to erase the joy of others.

For such a person Mahavira and Buddha say, “Don’t cause suffering.” But this statement is, in a sense, untrue, because no one can make another suffer unless the other agrees to suffer. It depends on the other’s consent. You cannot deliver suffering.

Why, then, is it said? Because in trying to cause suffering to another, you will not be able to; you will only cause suffering to yourself. That is inevitable. You cannot make another suffer, but you will plant seeds of suffering in yourself. What you do “to others” accumulates within you as your own fate.

And when someone seems to make you suffer, understand: no one is making you suffer. It may be that the seeds of suffering you yourself have sown for others are now, with the help of others as instruments, bearing fruit for you. But the root cause of suffering is yourself.

This second statement is spoken from a higher plane. Whoever fulfills the first will be able to understand the second. The one who stops hurting others will realize: no one can hurt me either. Two levels, two classes.

Krishna speaks from one plane only—the summit. He speaks the final word. And the person standing before him is no ordinary man. The Arjuna he addresses is in no way less gifted than Krishna. The potential is the same as Krishna’s—no dull mind here. He is rich in intelligence, with a refined consciousness and deep reasoning. The dialogue is a peak-to-peak encounter.

That is why people memorize the Gita but do not understand it. Even many who revere the Gita find obstacles in it. They accept it, yet it troubles them; it feels difficult.

Even a person like Mahatma Gandhi, who calls the Gita his mother, feels troubled by it—especially on violence and nonviolence. He, too, tries to find a way around, because he cannot muster the courage to accept that what Krishna says is exactly right: “Strike—no one is struck. Kill—no one dies. Do not be afraid; do not fear. You cannot cause suffering to another; therefore even the effort to ‘not cause suffering’ is futile. And to be proud, ‘I have not caused suffering,’ is madness.”

Gandhi, too, feels the difficulty: what to do? On the one hand, nonviolence. In mind and method Gandhi is ninety percent Jain, by birth ten percent Hindu. He cannot let go of the Gita and Krishna; there is love and attachment. But that ninety percent Jainness—because the air of Gujarat is Jain—the thought-forms are built on Jain foundations.

So Gandhi corrupts the Gita. He devises explanations. He says, “This war is not real; it is the inner war between good and evil in man. Krishna is urging the destruction of evil within, not of human beings. The Kauravas symbolize evil; the Pandavas symbolize good. It is the inner conflict of auspicious and inauspicious.” With this allegory, the difficulty vanishes.

But this is simply wrong. As a symbol it is pretty, but it is false. Krishna says exactly what he says. He says: “Killing never happens; therefore you cannot kill—so do not even think in those terms.” First point. “And there is no question of saving either. How will you save?”

You cannot do anything to the other; whatever you do, you do only to yourself. When you ‘kill’ another, you are only killing yourself. When you ‘save’ another, you are only saving yourself. Krishna is saying: you cannot go outside yourself. You remain established in your purusha, your inner being. You go only in feelings.

A man thinks, “I will kill the other, I will hurt him.” He is playing with emotions. He may even reach the body and break it—because the body is already broken, already perishing. But that inner consciousness he will not even touch.

And if you feel you have touched it, it is not because of you; it is due to the other’s inner feeling. If he accepts, “You are hurting me; you are making me suffer,” this is his own feeling. Because of that, it appears you have made him suffer.

Understand it thus: if you go to ‘hurt’ Mahavira, you will not be able to make him suffer. Many hurt him, and could not make him suffer. Someone drove nails into his ears, and still could not make him suffer. Why? Because Mahavira no longer indulges in such feelings. You try to cause suffering, but he does not take it in. Unless he takes it, suffering cannot occur. You may intend to deliver it; the taking is his prerogative. Until he accepts it, you cannot deliver it. Hence you cannot make Mahavira suffer, because he is not willing within to take suffering.

You can ‘hurt’ only one who is willing to be hurt. Which means: he does not suffer because of you; he suffers because he is ready to suffer. If you didn’t ‘cause’ it, someone else would; and if no one could be found, he would imagine and still suffer. He was willing to suffer; he would have found some way.

Lock yourself for seven days in a room where no one can come to hurt you—no abuse, no insult. You will be amazed: within seven days, suddenly at some moment you become miserable with no one there to cause it; at another moment, suddenly filled with anger though no one has insulted you; at another moment, unexpectedly joyous though no one has loved you. Sit in silence and solitude for seven days and you will see: within you, the play of feelings continues regardless. With no one else present, you keep becoming happy and unhappy.

Once you see that you are becoming happy and unhappy without anyone else, you will realize: others serve at most as pegs on which you hang your emotions—nothing more. They are mere instruments.

This is exactly what Krishna tells Arjuna: you are no more than an instrument, a nimitta. Drop the notion that you are the doer. For Krishna, the sense of doership is the sole ignorance.

We can understand that violence is bad. We do not understand that nonviolence is also bad. We think violence is bad because it causes suffering to the other. For Krishna, violence is bad because the doer-sense is bad—“I am doing.” It thickens the ego.

If violence is bad because of the doer, then nonviolence is equally bad because of the doer. Krishna says: cut the root—do not be the doer. You can neither do violence nor nonviolence. You cannot do anything. You can only be. Rest in your being. Then whatever is happening, let it happen.

This is worth thinking about. This question will arise, because all the conduct we know is born of desire.

You walk because there is somewhere to reach. If someone says there is nowhere to reach—then walk as much as you like—you will say, Why would we walk? If walking has no meaning, no purpose, no reason, why walk? We are not mad to walk without cause when there is nowhere to get to—no urge, no desire, no destination.

We act out of some craving. So the friend’s question is perfectly valid: when craving itself is gone, and it is understood that action is just an acting-out; when it is clearly seen that there is nothing to attain and nowhere to arrive—then what does Krishna mean by saying, “Let whatever conduct happen; then there will be neither rebirth nor any karmic result of conduct”? Why would conduct happen at all?

This is a slightly intricate, technical matter. Let us try to understand.

It is roughly like this: you are riding a bicycle, pedaling along. Then you stop pedaling. The moment the pedaling stops, the bicycle does not stop. Though it should, because it moved by pedaling—without pedaling, how could it move? Yet even after you stop, the cycle travels a little farther. How far depends on many things. If it’s downhill, that “little” can be very far; if it’s uphill, it will be very little; on level ground, still a fair distance; on a steep descent, it can go for miles. Because the pedaling you did in the past created momentum; the wheels have taken on motion. That motion will do its work.

The day a person attains knowledge and settles in the Purusha, even then the body retains momentum. The body, like a wheel, has gathered speed over many births. If the journey happens to be on a descent, the body will roll on for a long time.

Therefore, for those who attain realization before thirty-five, it is very difficult to keep the body going long. Thirty-five is the peak; after thirty-five the body begins to descend. That is why Vivekananda, Shankar, or Christ—who realized very early—die before thirty-five. The body has momentum, but in them the body’s journey was still uphill.

Up to thirty-five the body climbs. If death is to come at seventy, the peak is at thirty-five; if at eighty, the peak is at forty; if at a hundred, the peak is at fifty. I am taking thirty-five as an average.

But for those who realize after thirty-five, the body tends to go on for quite long, because then the body is on the descent and the old momentum gives enough speed. Hence many enlightened ones who attain nirvana before thirty-five cannot remain alive very long. It is difficult to remain alive. Or, to remain alive, they have to resort to devices; arrangements have to be made.

If they have a message to transmit, and the person to receive it is not yet present—or time is needed for such people to come into being—then they must make arrangements for those people. But the inner pedaling of desire has stopped; the difficulty begins right there.

That is why, if you find very enlightened people dying of dangerous diseases, there is a reason. The force that would keep the body going—the desire—has ended. Now the body runs only on previously accrued energy; that energy is small. Any illness can seize it swiftly, because resistance becomes low.

Think of it this way: you were pedaling a bicycle, and if someone gave you a shove, you might not fall; if the speed was high, you would handle the shove. But if you are merely gliding, like an eagle in the sky gliding without flapping its wings—your bicycle moving very slowly—and someone gives you the slightest push, you will fall at once. Resistance is low. The faster the speed, the greater the resistance; the slower, the weaker the resistance.

So if Ramakrishna or Ramana die of cancer, there is a reason. Many people worry: such supreme knowers—at least they should not get cancer! We think sinners get cancer—so how could such supreme knowers get it?

Among many reasons is this: for those whose inner linkage of movement with the body has broken—the very linkage that is desire—since there was “somewhere to go,” they used to pedal. Now there is nowhere to go; the pedaling has stopped. But because of old accumulated energy the body will continue.

What Krishna says is that when someone becomes steady in the Purusha, then whatever conduct occurs no longer creates karmic bondage. Because bondage is not caused by conduct; bondage is caused by desire.

And conduct will continue for a little while—on the old track. For a few days the stream of life will keep flowing. But that can last only for this one body.

Therefore the enlightened one has no second birth. Without momentum—without pedaling—a new bicycle will not run. If you mount a fresh bicycle and do not pedal at all, you cannot even mount; if you do, you will fall immediately. A new body will not run; the old body can run for a short while. In that short while, whatever happens will not create karmic bondage. And this is appropriate, because some conduct is bound to happen.

Mahavira attained knowledge at forty and lived to eighty. In those forty years after realization he must have done something. He did not run a shop; he did not rule a kingdom. He did not kill anyone; still, something he did. He breathed—breathing kills microbes. He drank water—organisms die in that too. He walked—walking kills tiny beings. He slept, lay on the ground—that too kills creatures. He ate—there is violence in that. He spoke—even speaking brings some violence. His eyelids blinked—even in that there is violence.

To be alive is itself violence. Without violence one cannot remain alive even for a moment. With one breath you kill at least a hundred thousand microorganisms. So how will you avoid it? Even Mahavira cannot. He may reduce food, but if he eats at all, there will be violence—lessened, but there.

So if for forty years after enlightenment violence continued, how will liberation be possible? Then karmic bondage would follow; for so much violence one would have to be born again. This becomes a complicated vicious circle. If for this violence one must be born again, then from birth new violence will begin. Then there is no way out. How will there be liberation? How will there be release from birth and death?

Mahavira too accepts that the very moment supreme knowledge happens, then whatever happens thereafter does not bind; from that happening no new bondage is produced. Only then is liberation possible; otherwise it is impossible—because if anything remains outstanding, liberation is impossible.

After knowledge, whatever occurs will not bind. It will not bind because we are not doing it. It is happening through the accumulated power of past actions. To tell the truth, it is not even happening in the present; it is a part of the past that is rolling forward. The day your body and your actions begin to roll on like a bicycle without pedaling, and you remain only the witness, from that day there is no future for you—no rebirth, no life.

Who is asking you? No one has asked for your opinion. And Krishna is not God because of your vote. Why are you worrying? If you don’t vote for him, it’s not that he will stop being God. Even if the whole world denies him, nothing changes. And even if the whole world accepts him, nothing changes. Krishna’s being is not affected by what anyone believes. That is your own fuss. It has nothing to do with him. But you are disturbed.

He did not speak of nonviolence; he spoke of violence. You are clutching your doctrine of nonviolence. That doctrine will not let you listen. It will become a wall between you and what is being said. Because of that doctrine, you will derive meanings that were never spoken. You will distort everything. You will insert your own intellect in between, and you will destroy what the Master has said.

Sit nearby, silent, quiet! This is why, very often, the old tradition was that when a disciple came to the Master, for a year or two he asked nothing; he simply sat; he learned just to sit. Learn to sit.

Among the Sufis it is said: first learn to sit. Come to the Master—learn to sit, learn to come. There is no hurry about knowledge. Knowledge is not such an easy thing that you take it, give it, and run home. There is no instant enlightenment. Coffee can be made in a moment and drunk! No samadhi, no knowing happens in an instant. You will have to learn.

Sufis often spend years—simply sitting bowed before the Master. They wait for the Master to ask first, “How have you come? What do you want?” Sometimes years pass. For years a seeker comes every day, regularly sits in his place, closes his eyes, and sits quietly. If the Master feels, he says something; if not, he does not. He speaks with other visitors and passersby; the disciple just sits.

For years, only sitting is needed. The day the Master sees that the sitting has settled, that the disciple has truly arrived and sat down—now there is nothing left in him—worship has happened.

Now he sits. He is simply near—just near. There is no distance now: not of ego, not of thoughts, not of opinions, not of argument, not of scripture. Now there is nothing. He just sits—as if a statue remains, with nothing inside and nothing outside. Now he sits like an empty pitcher. That day the Master pours in whatever is to be poured, whatever is to be said. That day he empties himself into him. That day the river descends into the pitcher.

On the Fourth Way you must learn to sit, learn to be silent, learn to wait, learn patience; and you must seek a living Master.

Even those devoted to such listening surely cross the ocean of this mortal world. O Arjuna, whatever stationary or moving thing comes into being—know it all to arise only from the union of the Field and the Knower of the Field.

Behind all his teaching Krishna keeps repeating: kshetra and kshetrajna—the Field and the Knower of the Field. The knower, and that which is known—these two he repeats again and again. Whatever is born is the Field—what is made and unmade, created and dissolved, all that is the Field. And that which is neither made nor unmade, neither born nor destroyed, which only sees, which is pure capacity for witnessing, which is only knowing, only awareness, pure consciousness, pure mind—that alone is Purusha, that is the supreme liberation.

It is worth pondering. It is not only so with Krishna. Buddha repeats again and again. Christ repeats again and again. Mohammed repeats again and again. There is certainly something in this repetition.

It is not mere repetition; it is a process. One must understand this process, otherwise, taking it as repetition, a person thinks: What is the need! The Gita could be trimmed and printed on a single page. The essential points would fit, because the same things keep being said again and again.

Yes, the essential points would fit—but they would be dead, and bear no fruit. Several things must be understood.

First: when Krishna repeats the same things, you do not see that the words may be the same, but the purpose is different. And the purpose is different because, after so much has been understood, Arjuna himself has changed. What Krishna said at the beginning—when he says it again after a long time of explaining—Arjuna is no longer the same. In the meantime his understanding has grown, his prajna has been polished. Now the same words will carry a different meaning.

If you want to test this, try this: choose a book you like. Read it this year and underline. Mark in red ink whatever you like. Mark in blue ink whatever you dislike. Mark in black ink whatever seems negligible.

Close the book for a year. After a year, open it again and read. Now mark in red whatever you like. You will be astonished: what you did not like last year in the very same book now appeals to you; and what you liked then no longer appeals. What you neglected last year now feels very important; and what you thought extraordinary has become ordinary. From what you disliked, something now seems likable; and from what you liked, much belongs in the dislike pile. The book is the same; you have changed.

And if after a year everything feels just as it did before, understand that your intelligence became stunted a year ago; it is not changing; it has died. There is no flow left in it.

Read the same book again after a year—you will be amazed: new words become meaningful; new sentences stand out; the old ones recede. The whole intention of the book changes; the whole meaning changes.

That is why, in this land, we emphasized paath—regular, repeated reading—more than mere reading. Reading means: read a book once, finished. Paath means: you keep reading the same book throughout life, daily, regularly.

But if you read like a corpse, there is no point. There must be enough awareness in the reading to notice whether the change in you is changing what you are reading. That is paath.

The Gita was read yesterday, is read today, will be read tomorrow, next year, and on. When we were children we read it; when we are old we will read it. But if the old person has truly grown—matured—not just aged in body but ripened in inner consciousness, tasted the juice of experience, awakened, become established as the person, then the Gita read in old age will carry far greater meanings.

So when Krishna repeats, he repeats in step with Arjuna’s change. He repeats the same words he said before, but their meaning for Arjuna is now different.

Second: whatever is important must be struck again and again. Your mind is in such difficulty that it does not truly listen; nothing enters. It needs repeated blows—hammering. So whatever is valuable—like the refrain in a song—Krishna repeats it. He is saying: let me strike once more. No one knows in which tender moment that blow will work and the nail will slide in. Therefore he repeats many times, strikes many times.

He repeats also because the truth of life is one. The ways of saying it can be many, but what is to be said is a very small thing. It can be said in a single word. But you will not understand it in a single word. So it is said in many words, much elaboration. Perhaps by this approach you may understand; if not by this, then by another; if not the second, then the third. Many roads, many approaches are sought.

Only one event has to happen: that you become a witness. You wake up and see the world. The stupor breaks. It dawns on you that I am the knower, and whatever I know—I am not that.

For this tiny event to occur, the whole arrangement exists: so many Upanishads, so many Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, the Gita, and all. Buddha, Mahavira, Zarathustra, Mohammed—all of them. But they are all saying the same thing, in many different ways and structures.

That one thing is valuable. But if it is stated to you straight, you will not even hear it, let alone sense its value.

You have to be tempted in many ways—like a mother tempts a small child and persuades him to eat. The goal is to get him to agree to food; the temptations are of many kinds. Many stories are invented. And then the child is persuaded. Tomorrow she will invent different stories; the day after, still others. But the purpose is one: that the child agree to eat.

Krishna’s purpose is one. He wants to persuade Arjuna toward that supreme revolution. Therefore he speaks in every possible way and then returns to the fundamental note—and repeats it again. At the end, too, he repeats the same:

O Arjuna, whatever beings—moving or unmoving—come into being, know them all to arise from the union of the Field and the Knower of the Field.

That knower within and the field spread without—by the conjunction of these two the whole world of the mind is formed. All pleasures, all pains; liking-disliking, beauty-ugliness, good-bad, success-failure, fame-infamy—they are all the join of these two. And in the joining of the two, it is the purusha who connects through his feeling. Nature has no feeling. Withdraw your feeling—the join breaks. Stop the feeling—supreme liberation is yours.

We will pause for five minutes. No one should get up in between. Rise only when the kirtan is complete.

Never. Because the very meaning of being free is to be free of feeling. Therefore, in the world anything can happen through feeling—except liberation. Liberation is not part of the world.

Feeling is the expansion of the world, or the world is the expansion of feeling. So whatever you want through feeling, that you will become. If you want to be a woman, a woman; a man, a man; an animal, an animal; a bird, a bird. If you want to be a god in heaven or a ghost in hell—whatever you want to be, you can become by feeling—except one thing: liberation.

Liberation means the opposite. Liberation means that now we do not want to become anything. Now we are content with what we are. Now we do not want to become.

So long as you want to become something, you are not content with what you are. You want to become something. The poor want to be rich; a woman wants to be a man; the meek want to be mighty. The animal wants to become human; the human wants to become a god in heaven. But this is the obsession: to become something, to become something.

To want to become means: I am not content with what I am; I want to be something else. And what you are—that is your truth. And whatever you want to become—that is false.

Falsehoods can be produced through feeling; truth cannot be produced. Truth already is. Therefore all feelings give birth to the untrue. The whole world is maya for this very reason—because it is constructed by feeling.

What you want to be, that you become. What you are, you already are. That remains pressed behind this becoming. As an ember lies hidden under ash, so your being, your existence, remains suppressed beneath your becoming.

The day you get tired of becoming and you say, “Now I don’t want to become anything at all. Now I am content with what I am. I don’t want to be anything anymore. Whatever my being is—let that be. My very existence is enough for me. I have no desire, no race to run”—the day your journey of feeling stops, you are free.

Therefore you will not become free through feeling. Feeling is the source of the world. When feeling stops, you are free. It is not quite right even to say “you will become free,” because you are free. It is because of feeling that you are bound. Your freedom is entangled in the net of feeling. The day that net falls, you are free.

You have always been free. Liberation is not some future. Nor is liberation some place. Remember, liberation is your nature. What you are—right now, this very instant—that is your liberation.

But you do not want to be that. You want to be something else. No one is willing to be himself. Someone wants to be something, someone else wants to be something else.

Politicians come to me—they want to be monks. Monks come to me—listening to them it seems they want to be politicians. The poor want to be rich. The rich come and say, “We are badly entangled, in great trouble. Poverty would be better than this.”

We have even known this: Buddha and Mahavira were born in wealthy houses and became poor—left everything and stood on the road.

The rich want to be poor. Today in America there is a race to be poor, because America has become very rich. So the new boys and girls are becoming hippies—they are dropping out. They say, “To hell with your money, your palaces, your cars; we want none of it. We want life—plain, simple.”

The rich want to be poor; the poor want to be rich. Somebody wants to be something; somebody wants to be something else. One thing is certain: no one wants to be himself.

You too keep thinking God knows what inside yourselves. Someone wants to become a Gandhi, someone a Vivekananda, someone a Christ. Only one thing you do not want—to be what you are; everything else you want to become.

The meaning of the world is the race to be something else. The meaning of liberation is consenting to be oneself. No feeling is needed for that. Therefore, if you “feel” your way to liberation, that liberation will be false. It too will be fabricated, a spread of the mind.

Many people keep trying to become free by feeling. They go on persuading themselves: “We are the soul, we are free. This body is not me, this world is not me.” By self-persuasion, by trying, by effort, they take themselves to be free. Their freedom too is fabricated.

Can there be any liberation that is fabricated? That for which effort has to be made cannot be liberation—because effort itself becomes a bondage. And that which has to be managed day after day cannot be liberation—because liberation is precisely that which needs no managing; it already is.

A river does not need to make an effort to be a river. Clouds do not need any effort to be clouds in the sky. Your inner nature is like that—like the river and the clouds. It needs no effort to be. And you are busy making effort.

So understand a very precious point. Whoever has been a messenger of supreme knowing has said that the supreme knowing is effort-free. There is no exertion in it. In it, anything “done” will be a mistake. Do not do anything in it. Stop doing and do nothing. Drop this web of doing; settle into non-doing.

This is exactly what Krishna is saying: that Purusha neither does nor enjoys; he only is. Pure nature.

Know that Purusha in this purity of nature, and understand that everything is done by nature and everything happens in nature and in me nothing happens. I am inactive; nature is active. Actions belong only to nature, and I am non-acting—such a seeing, such a knowing, such an illumination, such a felt sense—and then there is no bondage, then there is no world.