Geeta Darshan #6

What is karma and what is akarma — even an intelligent person cannot decide. Krishna says: I shall tell you that arcane principle; knowing it, one becomes free.

It will sound strange; because what is karma and what is akarma — even the dull-witted seem to know this. Yet Krishna says: what is karma and what is akarma, even the wise do not know.

We all carry the notion that we know what action is and what is not action. Karma and akarma seem familiar to us. But Krishna says that even the wise cannot determine what is karma and what is akarma. This principle is subtle, hidden. Then a re‑consideration is essential. What we take to be karma may not be karma; what we take to be akarma may not be akarma.

What do we call karma? We have mistaken reaction for action. Someone abuses you, and in return you abuse. What you are doing is not karma; it is reaction. Someone praises you, and you smile, you feel delighted — that delight is not karma; it is reaction.

Have you ever truly acted? Or have you only reacted?

Twenty‑four hours a day, from birth to death, we only react. We live in reaction. None of our doing is born from within, is not spontaneous. Our doing is produced from outside, provoked by the outer.

Someone pushes you — anger arises. Someone garlands you — the ego stands up. Someone insults — an insult escapes your lips. Someone speaks words of love — you melt and love begins to flow. But all of this is reaction.

These reactions are just like this: a button is pressed and the electric bulb lights up; the button is switched off and the bulb goes dark. Perhaps the bulb also thinks, I am doing the acts of glowing and going dark. But the bulb does not act; it is made to act. If the button is pressed, it must light; if the button is turned off, it must go dark. It is not its freedom.

Take it this way: someone abuses you. And if you answer with abuse, reflect a little — did you give the answer, or did it have to be given? If you gave it, it may be karma; if it had to be given, it is reaction.

You will say, I gave it, I could have refrained. Then try refraining, and you will know. Perhaps you hold the lips, but the abuse will be hurled inside. You will see that the abuse is a compulsion; someone has pressed a button. And if someone abuses you and no abuse arises within, then it is karma. Then you can say, I did the karma of not abusing.

Karma means the spontaneous. Reaction means the provoked, the inspired from outside. Wherever the cause is outside and the doing rises from within because of it, there is no karma.

We live twenty‑four hours a day only in reaction. A Buddha, or a Mahavira, or a Krishna, or a Christ lives in karma. You will not find reaction in their lives, even if you look for it.

A man came and spat on Buddha. Buddha smiled. He wiped the spit with his robe and asked the man: Anything more you would like to say?

The man must have been shaken. For when you spit on someone, perhaps never before on this earth has anyone said: Anything more to say?

The man hesitated. An answer did not occur; Buddha had put him in a real bind. If Buddha had reacted, the man had surely come prepared with responses. We are all rehearsed for reaction. If Buddha had asked, Why did you spit? he might have had a ready answer. Just as examinees carry prepared answers to an exam, we rehearse life step by step. We prepare in advance that if I spit, and someone says this, I will say that. But preparations are always for reaction.

A man like Buddha appears only once in a thousand years. For such a man there is no preparation. A two‑ or three‑year‑old examinee can preview question papers; prepare answers. But a question like Buddha arises perhaps once in millions of years. For true karma happens in millions of years to one man; all the rest only react.

The man got into difficulty. He said: What kind of question is this of yours! He could think of nothing else.

Buddha said: I am asking rightly. Anything more to say? The man said: I said nothing; I only spat on you.

Buddha said: You spat, but I understood you had said something. Spitting too is a way of speaking. Perhaps the anger in your heart is so much that you cannot put it into words, so you spoke by spitting.

Many times words are inadequate, Buddha said. Often I too want to say many things and cannot in words; then I must speak in gestures. You gestured — I understood.

The man said: You have understood nothing. I was angry. Buddha said: I understood exactly that you were angry. Then the man asked: Why do you not get angry?

Buddha said: You are not my master. Because you got angry, why should I also get angry? Then I would be your slave. I do not walk behind you. I am not your shadow. You got angry — the matter is finished. Now, what I have to do, I will do.

Buddha did nothing. The man went away. The next day he came to ask forgiveness. He placed his head at Buddha’s feet; tears fell from his eyes. When he lifted his head, Buddha said: Anything more to say?

The man said: What kind of man are you!

Buddha said: I understand. Some feeling is so dense in your heart that you cannot say it in words; you say it with tears, with your head at my feet — in gestures, in mudras. Yesterday too you wanted to say something and could not; today also you want to say something and cannot.

The man said: I have come to ask forgiveness. Forgive me.

Buddha said: I did not get angry with you, so there is no way to forgive. Just as yesterday I saw that you spat, so today I see that you placed your head at my feet. The matter is finished. I do not enter any further into this karmic tangle.

Buddha said: I am not your slave.

Reaction is slavery; the other makes you do. When the other can make you do, you are a slave, not a master. Only those who are not slaves can do karma.

Therefore, if Krishna says this, he is right — even the wise do not understand what is karma and what is akarma.

Akarma is even more difficult. We do not understand karma at all. We take reaction to be karma; and we take akarmanyata — doing nothing, idleness, inaction — to be akarma. Doing nothing, we think, is akarma. A man says, I do nothing — and he thinks akarma has happened.

But akarma is a great revolutionary event, a mutation. By merely not doing, akarma does not happen. Because when you stop outward doing, the mind keeps doing within. When you cease outward action, the mind begins inner action.

You must have seen it: you sit in an armchair, loosen your limbs — by our definitions you have entered akarma. The man is doing nothing, inactive, lying in an easy chair. But if a window could be opened into his skull, you would find how many things he is doing.

Perhaps he is contesting an election; he has won; he has reached Delhi. Who knows what all he is doing! More than he could have done by running from that chair, he can do while lying upon it. If he had run to do, time would have obstructed. He could not reach Delhi so quickly. But lying in the chair, there is no hindrance of time in reaching Delhi, no barrier of space; no need to catch a train, no need to catch a plane, no need to climb steps made of voters’ heads — nothing is to be done. Reclining in the easy chair — he reaches Delhi. Mere desire becomes karma.

Those who stop outer work and sit, they may become inactive outwardly, appear actionless; but within a great activity begins, a dense web of karma.

At night you lie down and sleep. From outside it appears you are utterly in akarma; but within you are weaving the net of dreams. What you could not weave through the day, you will weave through the night. Murders you could not commit in the day, you will commit at night. Adulteries you could not enact in the day, you will enact at night. What could not be done by day will be completed at night. All night long consciousness passes through intense doing.

So Krishna would not call even a sleeping man one in akarma. He says: akarma will be known only when, in the inner depths, the urge to act does not remain; when, deep within, the mind becomes empty and silent; when, deep within, no subtle ripples of karma arise — then there is akarma.

And here is a delightful thing — truly delightful: wherever there is akarma within, there is never reaction without. Where there is akarma within, there is karma without.

Karma is the spontaneous — not a response to the other, not a counter‑move to the other — spontaneous, arising from one’s own within, born from there.

In the person whose within is akarma, without there is karma. And in the person whose within is dense activity, without there is reaction.

Therefore, if Krishna says it, he is right: deep is this secret, profound this mystery; even the wise cannot decide what karma is and what akarma is. Arjuna, I shall tell you that subtle secret; for the one who knows it attains liberation.

Whoever recognizes the fine line between karma and akarma recognizes the path to heaven. Whoever sees that delicate, subtle distinction between karma and akarma — for him nothing subtler remains to be known in this world.

So keep two things in remembrance. What we call karma is reaction, not karma. What we call akarma is akarmanyata, not akarma. What Krishna calls akarma is inner silence; it is the absence of inner waves of doing — but it is not the absence of doing without.

When the inner waves of doing are absent, the doer disappears. For the doer is a compound of those inner waves of doing, a heap of them. The craving to act within collects and becomes the doer. If there are no inner waves of doing, the inner doer also departs. Then outer actions remain — but they are actions without a doer behind them. Behind them is the non‑doer, akarma. And because the one behind is a non‑doer, these doings are not born of countering anything. They are spontaneous. As flowers come to the trees, so actions set upon that person. In you, actions do not set; they are pulled out by others.

Reflect a little. If, like Robinson Crusoe, you were left on a desolate island, how many of your actions would immediately cease? You are alone. Your love would stop; your hatred would stop. Your anger would stop. To whom will you show your ego? Before whom will you adorn yourself? All will stop. Before whom will you strut? All will stop. From the outside, all will fall away.

I have heard this: when Robinson Crusoe’s ship sank and he reached a deserted island, after landing he noticed the ship still half visible, half sunk. He thought, if some useful things are there, let me fetch them. A deserted island, I am alone; if some supplies can be saved, let me bring them.

He went back. He lifted a chest. He opened it; his mind rejoiced — gold coins upon gold coins. Then suddenly the joy vanished; his mind became sad. He closed the chest and left it there.

What happened? At the sight of the gold, he was delighted — good that these coins were found. But a moment later it occurred: the island is deserted; there is no market, no other person. What will I do with these coins? The very coins that were so precious, he left there in the sinking ship; and sitting on the shore he watched the ship go down, the coins go down. The desire to rescue them did not arise.

If your boat were sinking near Poona, would you be able to leave the gold like that? You would not. And when you are returning from the river having saved the coins, and I ask you, did you perform the act of saving the gold coins? you would say, yes. But Krishna would say, you only reacted. Saving gold coins is also your reaction, because it happens in reference to a vast marketplace. Had it been a deserted island, you would not have done it. Therefore it is not karma.

That is why a man like Buddha will not save gold coins even in the crowd of the marketplace. If Buddha and Mahavira renounced all wealth and stood in this vast world like beggars on the road, there is a reason: to save wealth and property is reaction, not karma. Because Robinson Crusoe did not save them on the lonely island, Buddha will not save them in this great ocean of crowds either. He knows that coins are saved by keeping someone else in view. They are useless. Buddha will save only that which is worth saving even on a deserted island. Buddha will save only himself, and let go of everything else.

If it is seen rightly that our entire karma is reaction, then it will also be seen that our entire akarma turns into inner doing.

And Krishna says: by seeing the exact middle line one becomes free. Therefore, Arjuna, I shall speak to you about the dividing line between karma and akarma.

He will speak of it in the next sutras.

Consider two or three points. First, if we went back three thousand years from today and the same question were put to me, I would say: if one is born in a Shudra home, he should fulfill the work of a Shudra. But I will not say that today. Why? There is a reason.

When India had scientifically organized the varna system, the divisions were clear. There was no movement, no intermarriage, no traffic between Shudra, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Brahmin. The bloodlines were unmixed, separate. So, as soon as a soul died, it had clear channels to choose from after death. A soul, as soon as it died, would be born in a Shudra or a Brahmin household according to its qualities and actions.

India had given channels for the soul to take rebirth—channels given nowhere else on earth. Therefore India conducted deep psychological experiments concerning the soul and birth such as existed nowhere else in the world.

It is like a river flowing. A river’s flow is uncontrolled. Then we construct a canal; the canal’s flow is controlled and regulated. India built canals in place of rivers, very systematized, based on qualities and actions. The division of these regulated canals was made so clear that when a person died, the soul had a direct, explicit route to choose its appropriate birth. Hence it was only very rarely—perhaps one in tens of millions—that a Shudra would be born with the qualities of a Brahmin. Sometimes, in tens of millions, a Brahmin would be born with the qualities of a Shudra. Exceptions! One does not make rules for exceptions. And whenever such an exception occurred, there was no need to fret over rules.

A Vishwamitra might pass from Kshatriya to Brahminhood. There was no worry about rules. Because whenever such an exception happened, the talent was so evident that there was no reason to obstruct it. But it was an exception; there was no need to frame rules for it. It worked even without rules.

But today the situation is not like that. That system of division—those channels for the soul’s choice—has fallen apart. Well-meaning people dismantled it! Many times the “good” do such harmful things that it is hard to account for them, because the vision of good people is not necessarily deep, nor their grasp necessarily scientific. A good man can also be superficial.

The whole arrangement was uprooted. Now the canals are no longer clear; things have become like rivers again. The canals remain, but they are ruins; the water spills this way and that. There is no clear order anymore. So the matter cannot be stated so clearly now.

But the principle remains the same. The principle does not change. What has changed is due to the decay and dilapidation of the system. Even today, fundamentally, in principle, wherever a person is born, there is a very high probability—nine times out of ten—that if he searches for the order of his life along those same pathways, he will more quickly attain peace and repose; otherwise he will fall into restlessness and suffering.

One of the reasons for the widespread restlessness and suffering in society today is the collapse of the varna order.

There was a well-planned arrangement. Things naturally found their path, each to its own rest. Now everyone has to find a path, has to judge, has to decide. In that deciding there will be great restlessness, intense rivalry, fierce competition. Great anxiety and great unease will arise.

Nothing is settled. Everything has to be settled. And a person’s life is almost spent in trying to settle things—yet even then nothing quite gets settled. But the system has broken. And I think restoring it is almost impossible. Why?

Because the experiment India made was small and local, confined within India’s borders. Today all borders have broken. Today the whole earth has come together. The nations that never conducted any experiment with varna have all come together with us; their perspectives have merged with ours. Today the non-varna world is vast, and those who experimented with varna have become very small.

And even among those few, the supporters of varna are unintelligent, while the opponents are very clever. The supporters are utterly undiscerning. They support it merely because it is written in their scriptures. But even the supporters do not have a scientific outlook, nor any psychological reach to understand what is at stake. They only repeat what the forefathers said. No one will listen to that now. In the future, nothing will be accepted as true merely because the ancestors said it.

The fear is that if we invoke the forefathers too much, then even what is true will be taken as false. “If the forefathers said it, it must be wrong”—this is the present mood.

And those who oppose the varna system today are very smart. Smart does not mean wise; smart means very argumentative. They present a thousand arguments. The old tradition has no answers to their arguments. And those rare ones who can think with modern reason and yet have ancient insight—such people are almost nonexistent. Hence the matter has become difficult.

If it were up to me, I would like that worn and dilapidated order to be re-established. Let me give you one or two examples of how difficulties arise.

Fifty years ago, all of Europe and America dismantled child marriage. In India too, the “smart” Indians—who for the last hundred years have been tag-along smart—joined in. They have no original genius of their own; whatever happens in the West, they begin to cite it here. But when something happens in the West, Westerners provide a full reasoning for it. Our people also trumpeted that child marriage is bad. Then we too passed laws against child marriage. The arrangement was broken. Now, if anyone marries children today, it is a crime!

But you will be surprised to know that in the past fifteen years, a commission of America’s hundred leading psychologists submitted a report saying that if America is to be saved from going insane, it should revert to child marriage.

India’s “smart” people have not yet heard this. They will hear it fifty years later! Why return to child marriage? Because in fifty years the experiences have turned out the opposite. We thought one thing; something else happened.

First, it was found that marriages contracted in childhood remain stable. Marriages contracted after twenty-four do not remain stable. Because by twenty-four, both persons—man and woman—become so set that they cannot harmonize. Each becomes so fixed in his or her ways that compromise becomes impossible.

Therefore divorces have kept increasing in the West. Today in America forty-five percent of marriages end in divorce—almost half. As many marriages as occur in a year, half as many break in the same year. This number will keep rising.

Child marriage was a deeply psychological fact. The fact was that small children can bend; they are pliable. When a young man and a young woman are already mature, bending becomes impossible. Then they can only fight; they cannot bend. They can break, but they cannot bend. That is why in the West today man and woman stand like enemies. Husband and wife—one kind of war, one kind of battle.

An American psychologist has written a book, Intimate War—an inner war, a so-called love-war; that is, marriage. Intimate War is a book about marriage: two people, under the pretense of love, fight together twenty-four hours a day! What is the reason?

The reason is only this. No son ever thinks of changing his mother—“If only I had another mother.” No son thinks of changing his father—“If only I had another father.” No brother thinks of changing his sister—“If only I had another sister.” Why? Couldn’t there be better sisters? Couldn’t there be better fathers? On this vast earth, is there any difficulty in finding a better mother? No, such a thought does not arise, because in that tender childhood when the mind is delicate and soft, the child becomes contented with his mother.

Behind child marriage there was a psychological process: just as a child becomes contented with his mother, so he becomes contented with his wife. Then the thought of “another wife” does not even arise. Just as one doesn’t think of another mother or another father, so too the wife grows up alongside with such intimacy that naturally the idea of another wife—or another husband—does not arise.

But if the marriage takes place at twenty-four, twenty-five, or thirty, it is impossible that the thought does not arise. If it does not arise, the person will be ill; his mind will be unsound. By thirty, a young man has seen and known thousands of women, a thousand times wondering, “Should I marry this one or that one?” He marries at thirty—and then the quarrels and disturbances begin. Will he not think, “If only I had married the woman next door, it would have been better”?

I have heard: a wife, while sending her husband off to the office in the morning, says, “Your behavior is not right. Look across at the porch opposite.” The husband looks up. The wife says, “See? When he takes leave of his wife, look how warmly he embraces and kisses her. You never do that!” The husband replies, “I don’t even know that woman. I too feel like doing that, but I have no acquaintance with her.”

Such jokes can happen in America. Tomorrow they will happen in India too. But India could never even imagine such a thing before; it would have seemed not merely a joke but sheer vulgarity. There were reasons for that—very psychological, very deep.

There is another point. Child marriage means there is no thought of sex between two children; there is no question of lust. If two small children are married, there is no sexuality between them. Before sexuality arises, friendship is formed.

But when two are not children but already young, and we marry them, friendship does not arise first; lust arises first. And when lust comes first, the relationship will quickly become distorted and repellent. There will be no depth; it will be shallow. And when lust is spent, the relationship will be on the verge of breaking, because there is no other bond.

Those two who established friendship before lust awakened—when lust departs tomorrow, friendship will remain. But those two who form “friendship” after lust—their friendship never truly forms; it is only an excuse for lust. When lust wanes, the friendship will also break.

Today a psychologist like Kinsey says that society must return to child marriage; otherwise society as a whole will become diseased.

I say to you: fifty years from now the psychologists of the world will say that the varna system should be restored. But they will say it fifty years later. And Indian thinkers—after a hundred years! When they have said it, then some tiny movement will stir in our thinkers’ brains.

The varna system is a very deep psychological arrangement. You will be amazed: if the findings of today’s psychology were to come to your mind, you would be astonished. Psychologists say that by the age of three, a child has learned fifty percent of his life’s knowledge—fifty percent! By three, a child has learned half of life’s lessons. In the rest of life—seventy years—he learns the other fifty percent.

And note this too: that fifty percent learned by age three is the foundation. It can never be changed. What is learned later is the structure built upon it; that can be altered. What can be altered is not the foundation. And if the foundation is altered, the child will become deranged.

Therefore, if the varna system says that a child born in a Shudra home should strive to attain his destiny by the order and style of life of his own family, and a Brahmin child should seek by his own order and destiny, this is profoundly psychological. Because by age three half the learning is complete, and by thirteen or fourteen almost all learning is complete.

You will be startled to know that during the last world war, when mental tests were conducted on graduates entering the U.S. military, the average mental age of those university graduates turned out to be thirteen and a half years. Their physical age might be twenty-two, twenty-four, or twenty—but the mental age came out to be thirteen and a half! Then psychologists worldwide grew alarmed. What did this mean?

It meant that if we assessed the mental age of all humanity, it would not exceed nine or ten years. It meant that by thirteen or fourteen the human mind become nearly fixed and solid. If one chooses a path contrary to that mind, his life will become a road of frustration and sorrow.

But where is the difficulty?

The difficulty is not in being a Shudra. The difficulty is not in being a Brahmin. The difficulty arose the day we imagined that the Brahmin is “higher” and the Shudra “lower.” That day desire arose in the Shudra’s mind to go “up,” and fear arose in the Brahmin’s mind that someone might pull him “down.” Then things ceased to be wholesome; everything became sick.

If the varna system ever returns—and I feel that if humanity is to be healthy, it will return—it will not return as a hierarchy of higher and lower.

Four people standing on four steps—one on the top step, one on the bottom, two in between—varna will not return step by step like that. Krishna did not envision it that way; no truly understanding person did.

It will return as four people standing on the same level ground—on a flat plain. If varna can stand on level ground, it can return. And then, for each person, searching along the very path in which his life has grown and as it has grown will be beneficial for peace, joy, contentment, and ultimately the attainment of consciousness. But if he wanders here and there…

This question is almost like this—if we understand it technologically, in technical terms: someone asks us, “If a doctor wants to practice law, what harm is there?”

Absurd! If he has trained to be a doctor and spent the precious time of his life in becoming one, then if he goes to practice law, there will only be trouble. No court will permit him to practice law. The court will say, “First take training to be a lawyer, then return.” And even then there will be difficulty. Because whatever training we have undergone cannot be untrained. Whatever we have learned cannot be forgotten.

The varna system was a very technical system. The Shudra’s life has its own style and order; the Brahmin’s life has its own style and order; the Kshatriya’s life has its own style and order. The whole system is a training. It is received in the home from childhood. The child grows up receiving training. He grows up with father, mother, brothers—and the training continues. He is being trained; things are being poured into his blood, bone, flesh, marrow. When he becomes a youth, he has been shaped. Then it is fitting that he should seek in the direction that has been formed within him.

The difficulty arises only when nothing can be found in that direction. But it can be found. No Brahmin has attained a truth that a Shudra cannot attain while remaining a Shudra. No Shudra has attained a peace that a Brahmin cannot attain while remaining a Brahmin. No Kshatriya has attained something that a Shudra cannot attain while remaining a Shudra.

If it could not be attained, then the question would arise. But as far as spiritual experience is concerned, as far as the search for the divine is concerned, it can be attained from anywhere. And by acting in one’s own work and according to one’s own qualities, it can be attained with simplicity; otherwise things needlessly become complex.

The order has become distorted. Things are in disarray. Today, a son born in a shudra home will, first of all, not come to ask me what he should do. He will not depend on our answers. He is not even willing to accept, to begin with, that “a shudra’s son is a shudra’s son.” He has already refused. He has begun trying to become a brahmin. The brahmin has begun trying to become a vaishya. The vaishya has begun trying to become something else. Everyone is busy trying to become something other than what they are. They are all trying to become something else.

The whole society is unwilling to stand where it stands; it is restless to go elsewhere. There is a kind of craziness in society today. No one is willing to remain where they are; everyone is running. The harmful consequences of that race are visible.

I am not on the side of those brahmins who are afraid that if the shudras become brahmins—if shudras too become knowledgeable—their ancestral preserve will be snatched away. I am not on their side. Those brahmins who fear their preserve will be taken away have no preserve at all. Those brahmins who fear that if someone else comes to know, something will be taken from them—such people have not known anything. Brahman is no one’s private property. Knowledge and truth are no one’s private property.

A brahmin need not be afraid. If he is afraid, it is precisely because he is not a brahmin. A shudra too need not be afraid and try to become something else. The need arises only because he too is not understanding what it means to be a shudra. The very word shudra has become an insult; the word brahmin has become an object of worship. When such distortion sets in, shudras cannot be stopped; they will run and join the ranks of the brahmins. They will run and become vaishyas. They will run and become kshatriyas. And this entire race will give the whole society a mixed character. As it is everywhere in the world. Only in India there was an unmixed arrangement where things were divided—parallel, side-by-side. And we had undertaken a profound experiment.

For my part, I would suggest that a shudra understand the meaning of being a shudra in terms of qualities and actions—guna and karma. It is very meaningful. And if he feels that no, that is not the destiny of his life—let it be felt from within that this is not his destiny—then whatever destiny he feels, he should move in that direction. But he should not move out of competition with another. He should not want to be a brahmin because brahmins are having a good time, so “let me become a brahmin.” Then he is not considering his own guna and karma.

Nor should any brahmin become a shudra because shudras are getting great preference today! At this moment shudras are the privileged class. Just as once brahmins were privileged, today shudras are. Today, I know very well how many in how many universities, how many colleges and schools, how many boys have listed themselves as shudras who are not shudras. Because a shudra gets a scholarship; a shudra has reserved places in jobs. So tomorrow, even a brahmin may be eager to become a shudra.

Why is a shudra eager to become a brahmin? Because the brahmin was the privileged class until yesterday; he was important. His being a brahmin was enough. Tomorrow, being a shudra may also be important. And at the rate things are going, it will be so. And one not born in a shudra household will curse God: “This is totally wrong. You should have given me birth in a shudra home; then even in elections the seat was assured.” Ask Jagjivan Ram! Being a shudra is a qualification! Even if there is no other qualification, being a shudra is now a qualification—as once being a brahmin was.

So I would say: don’t be in too much of a hurry, shudras, to become brahmins. The brahmins will become shudras. Who would not want to be Jagjivan Ram? Even if Jagjivan Ram had no other qualities, being a shudra is a great quality!

In this distorted situation today, no one is going to stop because of my advice. But this is my understanding. The race has begun. The sickness has taken hold. It is almost impossible to stop it. But I must say what I find right. To me it seems right that each person should carefully examine his own guna and karma, and then move forward.

Now Western psychologists—Sullivan, or Perls, or other psychologists—stand on the suggestion that each school must have a psychologist, compulsorily, each primary school. Why? Because they say that until the child’s nature is understood, one should not decide what education should be given. The father should not decide; for what does the father know of the child’s nature? Can this child become a mathematician or a musician—how will the father decide? Based on inclination, that the father likes music, so he decides that “my son should become a musician”? But does the boy have the nature for it? Or the father decides the boy should become an engineer, because engineers have market value! Then, does the boy possess the nature to be an engineer or not?

Western psychologists say that the total cause of so much suffering in the world today is that no one is in his right place. What does that mean? Therefore they say: place a psychologist in every primary school, who will observe children for four years and write what this child can become, what his inclination is, what his aptitude is.

That is the same thing again. If the psychologist decides the aptitude and says this child should be a shudra, this one should be a laborer—then what happened? The varna system has returned!

We had it decided by birth; now it will not be decided by birth. Leaving it to birth was leaving it in God’s hands. Leaving it to a psychologist in a primary school—those hands cannot be as skillful as God’s. At the very least, the psychologist’s hands—psychologists themselves are half mad—and you want them to decide what a child should become: shudra, brahmin, kshatriya, or vaishya—what should he become? Where should he go? What should be his life’s journey? A psychologist will decide!

What we had thought was deeper. We thought: this arrangement of life is the soul’s own inclination. And according to God’s laws, why should it not be decided at birth? Why should the soul not, by its own choice, be born in the house where its aptitude lies, where its inclination is?

It is very surprising. In India there have been shudras for some ten thousand years. In ten thousand years, shudras did not rebel, did not revolt. If shudras were very unhappy with their lot, there should have been revolt. But they were not unhappy. Their aptitude matched; they were not unhappy, not discontented.

In these last two hundred years, after the English system, they began to be unhappy. For the first time, a social order came to power in this country which had no idea of the inner conception of varna. It began to break things. It set varnas and classes to fight. It made the Hindu fight the Muslim, and not only that; it made the shudra fight the brahmin. It threw everything into disorder. It shook the very deep roots of India that we had implanted over thousands of years. Today everything is disorganized.

Even so, I would still say: a person should think only of his own nature. Even if he does not care much about birth, still, with deep inner consideration—with introspection—let him ponder: what can I be? If he feels he can be a brahmin, let him set out on the journey of a brahmin. If he feels he can be a shudra, let him set out on the journey of a shudra. Otherwise, ask a psychologist. But do not ask a politician. Right now people are asking politicians. When the blind lead the blind, whatever can happen is exactly what is happening.

Doctors, engineers—into which varna will you put them! Politicians? Politicians? Varna-sankara! Does a politician have any varna? A politician has no varna—varna-sankara! Because politics is not really a vocation; just as prostitution is not a vocation.

A technician belongs to the shudra varna—any kind of technician. Shudra: all kinds of crafts fall there. An engineer goes to the shudra varna. All kinds of technicians—those who live by a technique, a craft, a skill of doing—are shudras.

Shudra is not a “low” varna; it is remarkable, vast, and precious. It has its own dignity. All artisans belong to the shudra varna.

But if an engineer is not doing engineering—if he is a pure engineer the way there is a pure mathematician—then it changes. The applied mathematician goes to the shudra varna; the pure mathematician goes to the brahmin varna. An engineer who builds no houses, constructs no roads, does no applied work, but engages only in conceptual inquiry and research into the principles of engineering—that one goes to the brahmin varna.

A doctor who cuts and stitches, who bandages and dresses wounds—he goes to the shudra varna: a craftsman. But a doctor who neither cuts nor bandages, who only researches medicines—he goes to the brahmin varna. And a doctor who neither researches nor treats, but only sells medicines—he goes to the vaishya varna.

It depends—what does a person actually do? His doing decides his varna. If he is a craftsman and the work itself is central, he goes to the shudra varna. If he is a trader and wealth is central, he goes to the vaishya varna. If he is only after power, seeking authority—whatever he is doing is just a means to worship power—then he is a kshatriya. If a physicist explodes the atom in order to conquer nature, he is a kshatriya. But if he explodes the atom out of pure inquiry, to come close to the primordial power of existence, he is a brahmin.

These four varnas are aptitudes, inner leanings. And of course there will be mixed-varna people—those who do two, three, four kinds of things. They will be mixed; all four leanings may be present. But still, one varna will be central, the dominant note.

As for the politician, I said he does not fall into any varna. There is no way to assign him to a varna.

I have heard: a very prominent politician was on stage during an election. He was in a tight spot—as politicians always are. The difficulty was that the constituency before him was split; half were leftists, half rightists. Someone stood up and asked, “Are you a leftist? Rightist? Who are you?” He got into trouble. If he said leftist, the rightists would be upset; if he said rightist, the leftists would be upset. He tried to dodge. Then someone pressed him: “Answer plainly—will you go left or right?” He said, “I will go straight. I don’t go left or right at all.”

Lloyd George was contesting an election. In the previous election he had run with one party; this time with another. Someone asked, “What are you? Conservative? Liberal? Socialist? Communist—what?” He said, “I am a politician; I am only a politician. I am nothing else.”

A politician has no real trade. In fact, it is the trade of the un-traded—of those who have no vocation, no varna, no aptitude; who find themselves unfit to do anything else in life.

But if there were a right order, a sound order—those who think about politics, the political thinkers, not the politicians—they would be brahmins. And those who operate the machinery of politics, if the order were truly coherent, would be technicians—they would go to the shudra varna.

As of now they have no true place. They are varna-sankara. That is why I called them mixed-varna.

Karmano hyapi boddhavyam boddhavyam cha vikarmanah. Akarmanash cha boddhavyam gahana karmano gatih. (4:17)

One should know the nature of action, one should also know the nature of wrong action, and one should know the nature of inaction—because the course of action is profound.

Krishna says: know the nature of action, the nature of inaction, and also the nature of prohibited action—because the movement of karma is deep.

Prohibited actions—the actions one ought not to do—their nature must also be known.

In the previous sutra he spoke of karma and akarma; now he adds a third element: prohibited action. Because the movement of action is subtle, fine, mysterious. It is already hard enough to see when action is action and when inaction is inaction. Add to this that sometimes action is prohibited action—and the difficulty increases. We should bring a few things about prohibited action into view.

Prohibited action can be conceived in two ways. One: we may decide a list of actions that are prohibited—like courts and laws do. The law defines certain acts as prohibited: theft is prohibited, murder is prohibited, suicide is prohibited. A fixed list: these are forbidden.

But the law is not very subtle. Dharma inquires more finely. Dharma knows that an act can be prohibited in one situation and not prohibited in another. Killing is ordinarily prohibited; on the battlefield it is not.

The prohibited is not a fixed thing; it shifts with circumstances. At times you are forced to choose between two prohibitions. What to do? If you tell the truth, you may cause violence; if you avoid violence, you may have to lie. Which way now? Two prohibitions stand in your path. Save one, and you fall into the other. Save the other, and you fall into the first.

There is an old logical puzzle. A simple, straight Brahmin is walking along. A butcher comes running, searching for his cow that escaped. He asks the Brahmin, “Did a cow run this way? Which way did she go?” In his hand is the butcher’s cleaver. The Brahmin can see from his eyes, from the cleaver, from the bloodstains who he is. If the Brahmin tells the truth, the butcher will catch and kill the cow. He’ll become a participant in the killing. Cow-killing is prohibited; in fact all killing is prohibited. Being a party to murder is prohibited. But if he lies—that too is prohibited. Truth or lie, he seems trapped. The Brahmin is in a real fix.

The butcher says, “Speak quickly. If you know, say so; if you don’t, say you don’t.” The Brahmin replies, “I am in great difficulty. Give me a moment to think. It’s a matter of prohibited acts.” The butcher says, “Fool, I’m asking where my cow is! There is no question of prohibited acts—only the cow. Did you see her or not? Speak!” The Brahmin says, “Wait. It is a question of forbidden acts.”

Life is complex. Things are not as simple as in the scriptures. Scriptures are simple—though people think scriptures are complex and life is simple. Scriptures are straightforward; life is intricate. In scriptures, questions are decided; in life, questions are undecided. At every moment one has to determine: what shall I do? And such moments come daily when no scripture helps, and one must decide for oneself.

Therefore Krishna says: the course of action is deep, subtle. To grasp it rightly, first understand well the element of prohibited action. One must understand action and inaction—and also prohibited action. Because action and inaction are the ultimate categories, the final question. But what is prohibited is day-to-day, immediate—the daily question. You get up and at once you have to decide.

At night you turn over in bed—you commit a prohibited act by turning over! You’ll say, what madness is this? If you don’t turn over, what then? Read Mahavira’s scripture. Mahavira says turning over at night is prohibited. He did not turn over—slept the whole night on one side. Turning over, you might crush an insect in the dark and kill it—there is such a possibility. So, sleep on one side; at least you minimize the chance of violence. One side you must sleep on anyway—if some die, so be it. But avoid turning; it is prohibited.

Mahavira would place his feet only after blowing gently on the ground; he walked on dry earth; hence he did not travel in the rains. Moist ground breeds organisms; water falls, the soil is wet, life arises. So do not place your feet in the rainy season—it is prohibited.

What shall we call prohibited? Ask Jesus, ask Mohammed, ask Mahavira, ask Rama, ask Confucius. If you heed all of them, a man wouldn’t even be able to move or breathe. You have seen Jain monks with cloth over their mouths—that is to prevent the warm breath from killing tiny organisms; otherwise a prohibited act! So they cover the nose and mouth—let the heat be trapped in the cloth; perhaps a few airborne organisms will be spared. It is difficult!

And the difficulty is not because these great tirthankaras, avatars, wise ones are wrong. Life itself is complex. Each is right, but each touches some definite facet—while life, every day, is indefinite. Everything shifts.

Mahavira said: do not farm; farming is prohibited—there is great violence in it, inevitably. So his followers gave up farming. They gave up the sword too—most of Mahavira’s followers were kshatriyas, as he was. They could not be soldiers; they could not be farmers. What remained? They had no will to be shudras. The brahmins had closed their doors; they would not let them in. Except becoming vaishyas, they had no path left. So Mahavira’s followers all became traders.

But as traders they perpetrated more violence than they would ever have done as farmers—far more. Only, it does not show. Take money in your hand—there is no sign of violence. It looks perfectly clean. Yet there is no other thing so stained with blood as money. But you cannot see it. Spotless!

You could call it “clean violence”—neat, sanitised. No blot, no stain. Notes washed, stacked in the safe. You cannot tell whose throat was cut for it, whose life was lost, who was crucified, whose land was taken, whose house erased, who was widowed—nothing is visible.

Money is strange: it may pass through all kinds of blood and crime and still always comes out fresh. It never goes stale. No matter how many hands it passes through, whatever may have happened around it, it emerges washed and clean. When it reaches your hand, it carries no history. The history is gone. Money stands plain and simple, with no past.

So they accumulated money. Mahavira could never have imagined that his followers—he who stood naked by the roadside, having renounced all wealth—would gather more wealth than anyone in the land. But it happened via the route of the prohibited. What he said was right; he pointed to a prohibited act rightly. But he could not have foreseen that if you block one side, it may erupt on another.

Therefore Krishna says: the movement of karma is profound. Avoid it here, it takes you there; avoid it there, it seizes you here. So it is essential to understand prohibited action rightly. If you do not, then knowing action and inaction is far away—you will squander your life among prohibitions: escaping one, entangled in another. The path of life runs between a well and a precipice. Fall this side, there is the well; that side, the abyss. Walking the middle is very difficult—razor’s edge subtle.

What will Krishna call prohibited? We shall understand his explanation in the sutra that follows.

Let us take the last sutra; then we will continue in the morning.

Karmany akarma yah pashyed akarmani cha karma yah; Sa buddhiman manushyeshu sa yuktah kritsnakarmakrit. (4:18)

He who sees inaction in action and action in inaction—such a man is wise among men; he is the yogi who has accomplished all action.

A little understanding here.

Krishna says: he who sees inaction within action, and action within inaction—he is a knower.

To see inaction in action—an inversion. It means: while doing, to know “I am not the doer.” While doing, to know “I am not doing.” This is known only when the sense of witnessing is present.

You are eating. Even while eating it can be known that you are not eating. If you are a witness, you will see: it is only the body that is hungry; the body is eating; I am seeing. Not difficult—just a touch of awakened seeing.

Swami Ram was walking down a street in America. Some people hurled abuse, mocked him. He came back home laughing. The hosts grew concerned. “What happened? You’re laughing for no reason!” Ram said, “Not without reason. Today I had great fun. On the way, some people met Ram.”

The hosts were puzzled. Unfamiliar with his language. Met Ram—Ram himself saying so?

“And then they started to mock and abuse Ram. Ram got into a tight spot—so Ram says—caught between their taunts and abuse. We stood aside and watched.” The hosts said, “What are you saying? Are you in your senses? Not intoxicated, are you?”

Ram said, “You are the drunk ones! I am in my senses—that is why I speak like this. Had I been drunk, fire would be coming from my eyes and abuses from my mouth. Drunk, I would have believed they were abusing me, laughing at me. Because I was alert, I saw: Ram is being abused; they are laughing at Ram. We stood aside and watched.”

Ram—and we stood and watched: two different things.

When you are eating, Ram is eating; you step back and watch. Stand a little behind and see: Ram is eating; Ram is sleepy—you are the watcher behind. This art of standing behind turns action into inaction. One becomes like a non-doer while doing.

And Krishna adds a subtler point: then even while not doing, one is like the doer. Harder to grasp. The first is understandable: with witnessing, even while doing it does not feel “I am doing”; you watch it happening. The second is deeper: while not doing, you feel “I am doing.” What does this mean?

Once a person realizes the first—doing yet not-doing—inevitably the second depth arrives: even in not-doing, the sense of doing appears. Why? Because the one who knows “I am the witness” is severed from the little self and joined to the Whole. He sees: I am not doing; all is happening; I am watching—then a oneness with the divine arises.

He himself does nothing. The winds blow—and he knows: it is I who move them. The moon and stars revolve—and he knows: I turn them.

One day Ram, in great joy, laughed and said, “Do you know? I was the first to set the stars in motion. I gave them the initial signal.” People said, “You? Hard to believe.” Ram said, “If you think Ram did it, you are right not to believe. But I say: I did it—not Ram.” Again, the same thing.

When the one within knows “I am the witness,” he becomes one with God. Then whatever happens, He is doing. So even if he sits empty, still He is doing; He moves the winds, grows the trees, blossoms the flowers. The one sitting under the tree with eyes closed is the same one who moves the sun, moon, and stars.

But that is the second happening. First comes the experience of inaction in action; only then comes the experience of action in inaction.

And one who attains this deep realization, Krishna says, attains knowledge, truth, the experience of truth.

And let me add: for a witness, what is prohibited need not be decided in advance. Whenever needed, the moment he is a witness, it becomes visible: this is prohibited, this is not. No thinking is required. His situation becomes like this:

A room is dark. A blind man wants to go out. He asks, “Where is the door?” Naturally—he cannot know. Even if someone tells him, it doesn’t help much. He guesses, he probes with a stick—touching a window here, a chair there—until he finds the door.

But a man with eyes does not ask, “Where is the door?” He needs to go out—he simply gets up and goes. Have you noticed? When you leave a room, do you first think, “Where is the door?” then look, “Ah, here it is,” then decide, “Let’s go out this way”? No such process. You don’t even notice—because you can see.

In just the same way, the one whose witnessing deepens sees what is prohibited. He does not need to grope, ask, think, or open scriptures. He simply sees. And what is prohibited—then cannot be done. What is not prohibited—only that can be done. He just goes out through the door. If you ask him later, he may realize he did not do that act; even that much noticing is only for the blind. Witnessing becomes the eye.

We will speak further on this in the morning.

Please wait for five minutes. The sannyasins will sing and dance a song of surrender to the divine for five minutes. Any friends who wish may join them. Otherwise, sit quietly for five minutes, just watch—and then take your leave.