Today, a little must be said about Karma Yoga. The greatest delusion is tied to action—and it is very natural that this delusion gets attached.
The human personality can be seen in two dimensions. One dimension is of Being—of the Atman, of sheer is-ness. The other is of Doing—of action, of karma. One is: I am. And the other is: that realm of my world where I do something.
But remember: before doing, Being is essential. And take to heart as well that all doing arises out of Being. Being does not arise out of doing. Before any doing, my Being is necessary. But before my Being, no doing is necessary.
Karma is the circumference. Existence is the center.
Existence is the soul—the Atman. Karma is our relationship with the world.
Understand it this way: on an ocean there are many waves. On the surface there is much commotion. Waves rise, waves fall. That vast mesh of waves is the net of karma. The ocean on the surface seems very busy doing, but go deeper and there is silence. Go deeper still and there is utter silence—no wave, no movement—just a deep quiet. Beneath the waves of the ocean is the ocean’s Being.
Being is in the depths. The web of karma, the web of waves, is on the upper circumference.
At every person’s circumference, at the rim, there is the net of karma. And at every person’s center there is the ocean of Being.
Yet when we look at someone, we do not see his Being; we see only his doing. Being cannot be seen.
When you go to the ocean you say, “I see the ocean.” You do not see the ocean—you see only waves. You have never actually seen the ocean; you have seen only waves. Waves are not the ocean, because no wave can exist without the ocean. If we try to separate the wave and save it apart from the ocean, the wave will die. But the ocean can be without waves; it will not die without waves. Hence the ocean is fundamental; the wave is a by-product, a secondary offshoot. The wave cannot be without the ocean; the ocean can be without the wave.
So, karma cannot be without the soul. But the soul can be without karma. If I am not, all my actions are lost. But if all my actions are lost, I am not lost.
This fundamental distinction must be understood first of all.
And yet what I am does not appear to you; what you are does not appear to me. What appears is what you do; what I do appears. Doing is visible; Being is hidden. Doing is seen; Being is unseen. Doing is known; Being is unknown.
Within us are these two directions: one of doing—the visible, the waves—what can be seen, what can be known by others; and one of Being—what no one can ever know in that way, what no one can ever see; that which is forever hidden, forever in the depth, the hidden—forever veiled, mysterious.
These are our two directions: of Being, of existence; and of doing. If we fail to recognize which of these two is primary, we fall into great error. Because there is a great law: by the secondary the primary cannot be attained; by the primary, the secondary can be attained.
Like this: we sow wheat. Then the crop comes, and with the wheat comes the chaff. Chaff is not basic; it is the outer husk, the periphery. The grain is basic—the inner, hidden kernel. Chaff appears with the grain. But if you sow chaff, no grain will come. Sow grain, and chaff will come on its own. But sow chaff and neither grain will come, nor will the chaff be of any use.
Human action is like the chaff. Human Being is like the grain. If within there is Being, action will be transformed. As the Being is, so will the action be. But if you change the action from the outside, the Being will not thereby change.
My emphasis is on Being. But the emphasis of Karma Yoga is on doing—on karma—not on Being. Karma Yoga says: Do—do like this. Do thus, and you will become thus. This is wrong.
Become thus—and thus action will happen. But do thus—and you will not become thus. Because doing is visible, the delusion arises.
If a Mahavira passes among us, it will be seen that Mahavira became naked. That is an act. Wearing clothes is an act. Going naked is an act. We see Mahavira naked—and then we see Mahavira’s peace, Mahavira’s bliss, the mysterious breeze flowing around him, the depth in his eyes. All that we see. And we see that act: Mahavira has gone naked. The thought may arise in our mind: If I too go naked, what came to Mahavira will come to me.
We move from chaff to grain. We have grasped the action. What does Mahavira eat, what does he drink—this is karma. We observe: what does he eat, what does he drink? When does he eat, how does he eat? When does he not eat? How does he walk? How does he sit and rise? These are actions. How does he speak? How does he not speak? We have examined the circumference in full. Then we say: If we complete this circumference too, what happened within this man will happen within us as well.
So we too begin to rise at Brahmamuhurta, become naked, eat this and not that, walk like this and not like that—we imitate it all, exactly as Mahavira does, not an inch of difference. Yet even then that which was born within Mahavira will not be born within us—because we are moving in reverse. We have seen the happening backwards. In Mahavira—first something happened within, and only then did it spread without. We have grasped the outside and are marching inward. From within one can move to the without; from without one cannot move to the within. Outside is chaff; inside is grain.
The peace seen in Mahavira’s eyes, the clarity seen in his presence, that ocean of innocence in his very Being—that is first. Because within, an innocent Being is born, therefore he could be naked without. The innocence within became nakedness without. But the nakedness without cannot become the innocence within.
The clearer we understand this, the easier it is to move in the direction of truth. The greatest entanglement arises from missing this. People come to me and ask, “What should we do?” They never ask, “What should we become?” They ask, “What should we do?”
Recently I stayed in a village. The town’s collector came to meet me and asked, “If I wear a shawl like yours, will there be any benefit?” None at all—except the shawl may suffer a little.
He said, “No, you are joking. Tell me properly. When do you wake? What do you eat? I will do exactly that.”
The man is sincere, a seeker—only he is seeking from the wrong end.
But for thousands of years humanity has been seeking from the wrong end. He alone is not at fault. And the mistake is natural—because action is visible; Being is not visible. What can one do? With what is seen, one thinks to begin. How to begin from what is not seen?
I want to tell you: if it becomes clear to us that what is visible are waves—the outer—then within is the ocean, where there are no waves, the wave-less. From there all movement arises; from there all Being is.
Our personality spreads from within. We are continuously unfolding from the inside out. A small seed we plant—then it sprouts and grows into a great tree. A tiny seed keeps spreading outward. In a mother’s womb, a minute cell arrives, unseen by the eye—then it expands and expands and a person comes into being. Everything is streaming from within toward the without.
Scientists have made a very recent discovery which is important: the expanding universe. Earlier we thought the cosmos is as it is—static. But the latest findings have astonished: the universe is expanding, as if air is being blown into a balloon and the balloon is growing, expanding and expanding. The cosmos is expanding; every moment stars are receding at incredible speeds—moving toward the periphery, away from the center.
The universe is expanding. Twenty million years ago it was smaller; the stars were closer. Today it is larger; tomorrow it will be larger still—an endless expansion!
We have a word—Brahman. Brahman is a precious word. If not today, tomorrow science will have to accept it—because Brahman means the Expanding—the ever-expanding, that which goes on spreading with no end, never stopping, forever unfolding.
It can be understood that once the whole universe—like a tiny child in the womb, like the little seed of a great tree—must have been a small seed. It went on expanding and expanding. Today it is so vast; tomorrow vaster still. From within, power-springs keep bursting forth and spreading outward.
But in human life a mistake happens: we look outside and think to move from the outside in.
Karma Yoga is this very delusion—moving from the outside toward the inside.
Karma Yoga holds that you must do something. By doing, you will become. The karma yogi says, Do not sit idle, do not rest. If you sit and rest, you will not arrive. Do something—and do it rightly, for if you do wrongly you will go astray. Hence Karma Yoga, in its depths, is the choosing between auspicious and inauspicious, a choice—this is right, that is wrong. Abandon the wrong and do the right. Keep dropping the wrong and doing the right. A day will come when only the right remains. The day only the right remains, that day Paramatman will be realized. So Karma Yoga believes.
This belief is utterly wrong. Utterly wrong because it contains many hidden implications. These must be opened. First: what is auspicious and what is inauspicious?
Until one has known oneself, how can one know what is auspicious and what is inauspicious?
It is impossible to know—what is right? What shall we call right? Mahavira says, “Let not even an ant be killed! If an ant dies, it is very inauspicious.” Krishna says to Arjuna, “Strike without concern, for no one dies at all! Even if you kill, none is the one who dies.” What then is auspicious?
Krishna says to Arjuna, “Kill. Strike without worry. Have no anxiety—for no one ever dies. The Atman is immortal. Swing your sword. Nothing can be cut by weapons. Cut—drop the delusion that anyone dies. None dies; the Atman is deathless.”
Mahavira says, “Walk as if blowing before your feet—lest an ant be crushed. Lest violence happen, or else sin will befall.”
What is auspicious? Is Mahavira’s counsel auspicious or Krishna’s?
Those who follow Mahavira have consigned Krishna to hell—because in this tangle of right and wrong, Krishna is saying something very inauspicious: he says, “Kill!”
Perhaps the Mahabharata might have been averted if Arjuna had fled and become a sannyasi—the state of Being had come near! He was ready to escape. But Krishna asked, “Where will you run?”
So the followers of Mahavira put Krishna in hell—no release for him in this cosmic cycle, for he caused such violence. But those who follow Krishna say: “Never has there been a fuller avatar than Krishna!”
Who then is auspicious? Who is inauspicious?
No, it cannot be decided at the circumference of action.
But you will ask: If at the center Mahavira arrived, and Krishna also arrived—if both reached the Atman, reached Being—why then is there this difference? The day you arrive you will find there is no difference. Both are saying the same from two sides.
Mahavira says, “Place your feet as if blowing lest an ant be crushed.” He too knows that nothing dies—not even the ant. Nothing is ever destroyed. The Atman is immortal—he knows this. Then why does he say, “Do not kill”? He says it because nothing will be destroyed, but your notion “I have killed” will create great difficulty for you. Nothing is going to die; the issue is not death. The issue is your thought “I killed.” This thought will be trouble for you. You do not know yet that nothing dies.
He speaks from one end, to those who are eager to kill. He is not speaking to Arjuna, who has become eager not to kill. Mahavira speaks to those who hanker to kill, who are waiting for someone to convince them that nothing dies, so they may kill freely. To them Mahavira says, “Place your feet blowing gently, for your eagerness to kill will become trouble for you. Nothing will die, but ‘I killed’—this thought will be a source of calamity.”
Krishna speaks to quite another man—the one who has become eager not to kill, who says, “I will not kill.”
Why has he become eager not to kill?
He says, “If someone dies, I will incur sin.”
The person Mahavira addresses bears the wrong notion “I kill, I am the killer!” That is his error.
Arjuna’s wrong notion is: “If someone dies, I will incur sin.” His notion is not “By my killing I incur sin”; his notion is “If someone dies, I incur sin.” To him Krishna says, “No one dies—strike without worry.”
These two speak the same truth. They do not speak different truths. But seen from the periphery their words are as far apart as can be; no reconciliation seems possible.
In fact, if you place a compass point and draw a circle, then mark fifty points on the circumference and draw lines from each to the center, on the periphery the lines are far apart; as they move toward the center the distance diminishes. Those two lines that are farthest apart on the circumference stand at a single point at the center.
Those who have reached Being—who have known the Atman—have no differences there. But on the circumference there are many differences; and since all religions have been made by looking at the periphery, therefore religions differ.
If some day a religion is born from the vision of the Atman, then only one religion can be in the world, not many.
But Mohammed’s circumference is different, Mahavira’s circumference different, Krishna’s circumference different. It will be so. Every wave will be different. Even on the same ocean no two waves are alike. All waves will be different—inevitably.
But beneath the waves there is the one ocean—and our attention does not go there. Then we begin to clutch at waves. Someone follows the conduct of Mahavira and becomes a Jain; someone follows the conduct of Buddha and becomes a Buddhist; someone follows Krishna’s conduct and becomes a Hindu; someone follows Jesus’ conduct and becomes a Christian. All these religions are made by those who follow conduct—by looking at action.
The whole world is karma-oriented. Because we look at action and move accordingly, there is so much confusion. How will you decide auspicious and inauspicious? How will you know what is right and what is wrong? You cannot know. One who has not yet known oneself cannot know what is right, what is wrong. Yet Karma Yoga says, “Walk by discerning right and wrong!” Who will decide? How will you decide what is right and what is wrong?
Many gathered at Kabir’s home. When the morning bhajans ended and people began to leave, Kabir would say, “Eat before you go!”
Kabir’s son became troubled—how to feed so many? Sometimes two hundred gathered, sometimes five hundred. How to feed them every day? He told Kabir many times, “Please, tomorrow do not say this when people depart: ‘Eat before you go’—from where shall I provide so much? How will I arrange it? We are poor; why do you forget?”
Kabir would forget again and again. For one who has seen the inner wealth, the thought of poverty does not remain. He would forget daily.
Each evening the son would seize his neck: “What kind of man are you! We are poor. We are starving. How shall we feed the people? We are drowning in debt. We have begged so much that none in the village is willing to give anymore!” Kabir said, “I will try.” The trying would end—and in the morning, as people came, Kabir would say, “Where are you going—eat before you go!”
One who has seen the inner treasure finds it hard to remember outer poverty. However much he tries, it slips. And one who has not attained the inner treasure—no matter how much outer wealth he piles up—his poverty does not end. Within he remains a pauper, always saying, “I still have nothing, I still lack. Let there be more.” Outer wealth does not end the inner poverty. Often it happens: the more wealth, the more inner beggary, the more destitute.
At last one night the son told Kabir, “Enough! This is the last—an ultimate ultimatum. From tomorrow I will not live in this house. Shall I begin stealing?” He said it in anger, hoping Kabir might gain some sense. But those who have gone beyond the mind become very mindless. Those below the mind are also mindless. Those above the mind are mindless too. There is great difference between them, yet they appear almost alike; it is hard to distinguish at a glance.
Kabir said, “Fool, why didn’t this occur to you earlier? If you had to steal, why trouble me all these days?—Go steal!”
The son was shocked. “You are telling me to steal? You say that! No sense of right and wrong? Stealing is inauspicious.”
Kabir said, “Stealing is inauspicious?” He closed his eyes and pondered. “I do not understand.”
The son said, “Let us complete the test. Get up then! Why should I alone steal—come with me!”
Kabir said, “I will come—but do not load too much onto me; I am old.” Kabir behind, his son ahead—they went to steal.
The son showed great courage; he was truly bold. “Let us test to the very end—what is this man saying? Has he no sense even of right and wrong!” They broke the wall, made a breach. The son asked, “What do you propose?”
Kabir said, “Enter.” The son thought, “Must I really steal!” He went inside, dragged out a sack of wheat. “Help me,” he said. Kabir helped. The son asked, “Shall we take it home?”
Kabir said, “For what else have we worked so hard? But did you inform the household?” Kabir asked, “Did you inform the household?”
The son beat his head. “We are stealing—and you speak of informing the household!”
Kabir said, “No, that does not feel right. Go tell them that we are stealing, that we are taking away a sack of wheat.”
The son said, “Then what kind of stealing is this! Don’t you understand that stealing is bad?”
Kabir said, “Now I think, since you did not inform them, something has gone wrong. But I forgot because for a long time I have had no sense of mine and thine. It does not occur to me—whose stealing, by whom? Who will steal, and whose will it be? All is His. We are His; they are His; the goods are His—everything belongs to Paramatman. No—better inform them. Tell them, so that in the morning they do not search and worry over the missing sack—where will they look?”
The son said, “Enough of stealing! Let us go back. This is no way to steal. If one must inform, better to go home.”
This Kabir—what is right, what is wrong?—is saying: All is His. What theft! Where there is no sense of mine and thine, how can there be theft? Theft requires the division of mine and yours.
If one believes property belongs to someone, not to me—then one also believes that some property belongs to me and should not be stolen. But there is a place where nothing belongs to anyone—where even ‘we’ do not remain. All belongs only to Him. What then will be? How will you decide what is auspicious, what inauspicious?
Right and wrong cannot be decided on the periphery; only in the depths.
I take it that when Kabir’s son was saying, “Stealing is inauspicious,” he said so because he believed in proprietary ownership. The ego was alive. And
it is the ego that is inauspicious—not the theft. Because of ego the theft appears inauspicious.
Kabir’s ego had dissolved. He no longer sensed who is whose, or what is what. Is this man inauspicious? Will you say Kabir’s going to steal was inauspicious? I cannot say so. It is hard for me—because Kabir never went to steal at all. One can only go to steal when property belongs to someone and we have divided the world in ego.
Kabir did not go to steal; he was traveling in another dimension. The son was traveling elsewhere. They never truly went together—though they appeared together in the world of action. The son was going to a different place; Kabir was going to God’s own house. As this house is, so is that house—bring from there! But inform the guards of the house that we are going to steal; we are taking the goods!
Kabir did not go to steal—only the son went. And the son knows right and wrong, and Kabir does not. How then will you decide on the periphery?
If we examine codes of morality, of right and wrong, across the world we will be amazed. What is right here may be wrong fifty miles away; what is wrong fifty miles away may be right here.
One of my professors lived in Peshawar, before Partition. He once told me, “Perhaps what you say is true—an event in my life lends weight to your view.
“I was in Peshawar. For the first time a Pakhtun boy graduated under me. I had worked hard to educate him. He was the first graduate among the Pakhtuns, barely passed in third class. The Pakhtuns rejoiced. The day the result came, eight or ten Pakhtun elders—simple and innocent, with naked swords—came to me. I was frightened. They laid their swords before me, touched my feet, and said, ‘If you have an enemy, give us his name.’
“‘What will you do with my enemy?’
“‘We poor Pakhtuns—how else can we serve? We shall bring you his severed head! You have been gracious; our boy has become a graduate. We are poor—how else can we thank you? Please do not delay—give a name. Before dusk a head will lie at your door!’
“They were so innocent. Not bad men—how can we say that men who cut off heads are bad? Innocent people—so simply they caught my feet: ‘Please give a name—at least one. Before evening a head will be at your door. We poor Pakhtuns—how else can we express gratitude!’
“I said, ‘Do me this kindness—never cut off my head. Go now—I have no such enemy whose head I want severed.’ Yet they kept coming back again and again, ‘Perhaps you are not pleased with us? Just give a name. Only the name is needed; the rest we will do—no time at all!’
“When I looked in their eyes, I saw they were utterly simple. And yet what they said—bringing a severed head—felt so terrible. But among the Pakhtuns, cutting off a head is not inauspicious; to run from cutting or from getting cut is inauspicious.”
Across the earth there are such tribes that if you go to judge their right and wrong you will be bewildered—what is right, what is wrong?
When the English came to India, there were many tribal peoples near the Himalayas who, if a guest came to their house, would serve him in every way—and at night offer their wife as well. Because if a guest has come, will he not remember a woman at night? What sort of hospitality would it be if he is not given the wife? So their wife would simply go to the guest for the night—because a guest is God in the house.
They were so simple that the English began to lodge with them—because their beautiful women greatly attracted them.
Now who was doing wrong? Those who were so innocent that they would say, “A guest has come to our home—if he longs for a woman at night, what will he do? Since he is our guest, he should receive our wife”—and the wife would simply go. Were they wrong? Or the man who became a guest only to lay his hands on the woman of the house?
Gradually that tribe learned cunning and said, “This is wrong—giving one’s wife to a guest is wrong, inauspicious.” But that was when they had become cunning. Is cunning auspicious? Or was their innocence inauspicious? Hard to decide.
On the circumference nothing can be decisively settled. But the karma-oriented person says, “Decide on the circumference—this is right, this is wrong. Make firm divisions, compartments. Raise walls—this we will do, that we will not do.” Thus the karma-oriented becomes rigid; he loses the fluidity of personality. Fixed: this is right, that is wrong—and he sticks to it.
But life is very fluid. What is right in the morning may be wrong by evening; what is wrong in the evening may be right by morning. What was right a moment ago may be wrong in the next. The question is not to fix right and wrong forever, but to recognize right and wrong in each living situation. Who will recognize it? Being can recognize it. If the inner soul is awake, it can see what is right, what is wrong.
And there is no final labeling—that this is always right, that is always wrong. In some moment nonviolence may be right; in some moment it may be wrong. In some moment violence may be right; in some moment nonviolence may be right. But the karma-oriented insists, “Ahimsa is always right, violence always wrong.”
Life is not so stony; it is fluid—like a river that sometimes flows left, sometimes right. Life is like that—not like a train on fixed rails. Those who take such rigid rules in life get into great trouble.
If nonviolence is always right, then many wrong things become right. If nonviolence is always right, and someone comes to enslave me and you, what will nonviolence do? If nonviolence is always right, then slavery becomes right. But how can slavery be right? And can a slave be nonviolent? One who has sold his soul—how long will he preserve nonviolence? Even nonviolence will be sold. Hard to say.
A small story comes to mind.
There was a fakir—Mulla Nasruddin. The king of his town decided to uproot all falsehood from his kingdom. He called the fakir and said, “I want your counsel. I have decided to eliminate untruth from my realm.”
The fakir asked, “First be sure you know what untruth is—because untruth changes its face every day.”
The king said, “That is why I have called you—tell me what untruth is. I have decided that from tomorrow, each day one man will be hung on the gallows at the city’s main crossroads—whoever tells a lie will be hanged—so that all may see and know the fate of the liar.”
The fakir asked, “Where have you built the gallows?”
The king said, “At the great gate of the city.”
The fakir said, “I will meet you there in the morning.”
The king said, “What do you mean? I called you for advice!”
The fakir said, “I will tell you there—keep the gallows ready!”
The gallows was made ready. At daybreak the city gates opened and the fakir was the first to enter, riding his donkey.
The king asked, “Where are you going?”
The fakir said, “To be hanged on the gallows.”
The king said, “You are speaking an outright lie—who will hang you?”
The fakir said, “If I am lying, then hang me—the gallows is ready.”
The king said, “You have put me in a great difficulty. If I hang you, people will say I hung a truth-speaker—for he said he was going to be hanged and I hung him. And if I let you go, then you are a liar—for you say you are going to be hanged, and if I release you, you won’t be hanged, so it becomes a lie.”
The fakir said, “I wait—decide what you will do. If decided, hang me; if decided, release me.”
The king said, “You have put me in a great quandary.”
The fakir said, “Life puts everyone in such quandaries—those who decide once and for all that this is truth and that is falsehood.”
Life is very fluid. On the periphery it cannot be fixed what is right and what is wrong. One who tries to fix it there is ruined. At most he can create a deception of being moral, but he can never be religious. Daily life will present situations that confound him: What shall I do, what shall I not? Gradually he will stop seeing life’s fluidity and live in rigid patterns: “This alone is right.” Blindly he will do that—and he will be wrong, for no inner transformation has happened.
When a right thing is tied to a wrong person, the right itself becomes a tool for wrong.
People saw Mahavira and concluded that ahimsa is right. So his followers abandoned farming. A Jain does not farm—he left agriculture, because farming seemed violent: plants would be cut; plants have life.
Mahavira realized that plants have life. They do. What Mahavira knew, later Jagadish Chandra (Bose) verified often with science—that plants have life, have soul. So if one harvests wheat, thousands of plants will be cut—thousands of lives taken. So the Jains left farming.
But what could come of that? Someone had to farm; wheat had to be eaten. If I do not farm, you will farm. I will eat the wheat, and you will incur the violence. What a strange logic! I eat the wheat and you incur the sin! So the Jains left farming to others. But inside, the man remained violent.
It is interesting that farmers are less violent. Because in cutting and hacking much of the aggressive urge finds release. One who has for three hours in the morning swung an axe at a tree will not find taste in swinging it at someone’s neck. He is satiated in the act of cutting wood.
When Mahavira’s followers stopped farming—and they could not fight on the battlefield either, so they could not be kshatriyas. Yet they were kshatriyas by birth—Mahavira himself was a kshatriya; his followers were kshatriyas. They would not fight; they left war and left farming. Two options remained: become sweepers or merchants. They did not want to be sweepers, so they became merchants.
But note: a merchant can be very violent—and they became so. Hence they amassed great wealth. Wealth cannot be amassed without violence. They stopped crude cutting; they devised subtler ways: don’t cut the neck—cut the pocket. By cutting the pocket the neck is cut. Sometimes beheading might be more merciful; cutting the pocket can be more cruel. If the neck is cut, the matter ends at once. If the pocket is cut, the neck remains, the pocket is cut, and one must go on living—living as the dead.
Those who stopped cutting necks on the circumference invented new techniques of cutting. Therefore in India the followers of Mahavira hold the greatest wealth. The reason: all their violence became concentrated. Violence stopped in every direction—only one direction remained: money. Upon money they unleashed their entire violence and amassed it.
They are few—perhaps no more than two and a half million. But their wealth is immense. How did this wealth come? If the realization had truly arisen within—if it had flowered in their life—it would have been impossible for this new kind of violence to develop. But within there was no realization. This is not about one group; it is about all.
I have heard of a priest of Jesus. He had read in the Bible: if an enemy slaps you on one cheek, offer the other. Who has no enemies? One enemy slapped him—and did so because he had heard the priest’s sermon that very day: “If someone slaps your left cheek, offer the right.”
Outside the church the priest emerged; the enemy gave a sharp slap on the left. A crowd gathered. The priest could not immediately react, because he had just said: offer the right. So he presented the right cheek. The enemy gave a hard slap on that too. Then the priest lifted a stick and broke the man’s head. The man cried, “What are you doing?”
The priest said, “Jesus said: if someone slaps your left cheek, offer the right. But about the right, he said nothing. If he slaps the right—then I will decide. The book says nothing further. Had you struck only the left and gone, all was finished.”
What else could Jesus have done? What more could he prescribe? There are only two cheeks; if there were a third, we could settle it as well. Which cheek shall we offer now? One you struck, the other I offered. There is no third. Now the third is with me.
Thus it happens—and must happen. Decisions on the circumference lead to such absurdities. The morality and religion born of action is born on the periphery. But what to do? Our difficulty is that the periphery is what we see. Our questions are: what to do, what not to do.
My own understanding is: do not worry about doing. Be concerned with: Who is the doer? Who is that within who offers the right cheek like the left? Who is that who lifts the hand and strikes on a third cheek? Who is that who uses violence in the field? Who then sits in the shop and cuts throats? Who is that within? Not the action—who is the doer? Seek the doer. Who is the karta?
When I rise, drop the worry about rising. Who is it that rises? When I eat, forget the anxiety about what I eat. Who is it that eats? When I speak, the significant question is not what I speak, but: Who is speaking? Who is within? In every act—who is there? Behind every act—who?
And remember: that which is hidden behind action is utterly non-action. It is akarma. Only then can it be within action.
A wheel turns; a single peg at the center stands still. On that peg the wheel revolves.
The wheel of karma revolves upon the motionless Atman. Otherwise it could not move. For action to move, non-action must be present at the center.
Try to grasp that inner center—not the wheel, the peg; not karma, akarma. Not doing—Being. Who am I, who, while rising, rises; while walking, walks; while eating, eats; while speaking, speaks; while silent, falls into silence?
If you care even a little to search—eyes closed, eyes open—a wondrous experience will be available. When you rise, there is within you someone who does not rise. When you walk, within there is one who does not walk. When you eat, within there is one who does not eat. When you speak, within there is one who remains forever unspeaking. While you live, within there is one who stands utterly beyond life. When you die, within there is one who does not die.
Within all your actions there is a point utterly at rest—non-acting. That point is Being—that point is the Atman. The recognition of that point is essential.
Not Karma Yoga—but akarma: the non-doer standing amidst all doings.
While walking on the road, just peer within and see: Is there someone within who walks? You will be astonished: outside, someone walks; inside, no one walks. Inside there is silence. Inside no one has ever walked.
From birth till old age—you will be child, youth, sick, healthy, old; you will be born and you will die. And within is one who neither is born nor grows old nor becomes young; who is neither sick nor healthy; who does not die.
That inner point—the silent ocean beneath all waves—if even for a single instant it is recognized, life becomes different. Thereafter forgetting is impossible—utterly impossible.
In these four days I have tried to say three things. Not knowledge—but that within which is not knowledge, but the knower. Not devotion, not feeling—but that within where there is no feeling, utter feelinglessness. Not action—but that within where there is no action, only non-action.
If these three—no-thought, no-feeling, non-action—happen together in a single second, then in that single second the boiling point will be reached in your life, where water becomes vapor.
In human life too there is that point; it results from the sum of these three. Where man becomes vaporized—where water remains no more, only steam. Where we are no more, only Paramatman remains. We evaporate; ‘we’ are nowhere to be found. What is found is Paramatman.
Neither knowledge will take you there, nor devotion, nor action. Knowledge, devotion, and action are all games of the mind.
One who goes beyond these three—beyond-mind, no-mind—only he comes to the experience of the Atman, of the supreme truth.
Then do not ask me, “What is the path?” All paths are of the mind. Drop the path—because mind has to be dropped.
Drop karma—it is the outermost circumference of mind. Drop thought—it is the middle circumference. Drop feeling—it is the innermost circumference. Drop all three together. And know That which is beyond the three—the Beyond. That which forever stands behind, beyond—knowing That, all that is worth knowing is known. Meeting That, nothing remains to be met. Attaining That, nothing remains to be attained.
That for which all scriptures cry out and shout; that to which all the wise raise their fingers and yet cannot point; that which all words try to say and cannot; that which all eyes seek and cannot see; that which all hands grope for and cannot grasp—that is ever-present beyond these three. Let but a small door open through the three—and it is available.
There is no path—because it is not far. It is near, nearest—nearer than the near. It is That.
There is no path—because it is not there—it is here.
There is no path—because it is not tomorrow—it is now, here and now—here and here.
Therefore do not wander on paths. All paths lead astray.
Abandon all paths. Stand still—even for a single second. Keep attempting to stand still.
Try to rise above feeling, thought, and action—over and over. By your trying, it will not be that slowly you will rise. No. Keep trying. You will not rise—until you rise. But trying, trying—suddenly that turning point comes when all three stop for a second—and you find you have risen.
Even at ninety-nine degrees, water does not become steam. It only keeps getting warmer—at ninety-eight warm, at ninety-seven warm, at ninety warm, at ninety-nine warm, even at ninety-nine-and-a-half it is only warm. At precisely one hundred degrees everything changes in a single instant—water disappears, vapor is.
So keep doing—keep searching beyond feeling, beyond thought, beyond action. Unknown is that moment when it comes. Any day, suddenly you will find the one hundred degrees complete.
And there is no thermometer by which someone outside can tell you that your one hundred degrees are complete. Nor is there hope that such a thermometer will ever be. Neither you know, nor I know, nor does anyone know when whose one hundred degrees will be complete. In which instant? And the instant it completes, you will be lost. And that which happens—that is truth, that is Paramatman.
Man does not meet Paramatman. Does water ever meet steam? How can water meet steam? Only when water ceases, steam is. Therefore water never meets steam.
Man never meets God. Man becomes vapor—dissolves—and what remains is Paramatman.
Dissolve to attain. Lose yourself to discover.
The seed dissolves—and becomes the tree. The drop dissolves—and becomes the ocean.
For having listened to my words with such silence and love, I am grateful. And in the end, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
Today, a little must be said about Karma Yoga. The greatest delusion is tied to action—and it is very natural that this delusion gets attached.
The human personality can be seen in two dimensions. One dimension is of Being—of the Atman, of sheer is-ness. The other is of Doing—of action, of karma. One is: I am. And the other is: that realm of my world where I do something.
But remember: before doing, Being is essential. And take to heart as well that all doing arises out of Being. Being does not arise out of doing. Before any doing, my Being is necessary. But before my Being, no doing is necessary.
Karma is the circumference. Existence is the center.
Existence is the soul—the Atman. Karma is our relationship with the world.
Understand it this way: on an ocean there are many waves. On the surface there is much commotion. Waves rise, waves fall. That vast mesh of waves is the net of karma. The ocean on the surface seems very busy doing, but go deeper and there is silence. Go deeper still and there is utter silence—no wave, no movement—just a deep quiet. Beneath the waves of the ocean is the ocean’s Being.
Being is in the depths. The web of karma, the web of waves, is on the upper circumference.
At every person’s circumference, at the rim, there is the net of karma. And at every person’s center there is the ocean of Being.
Yet when we look at someone, we do not see his Being; we see only his doing. Being cannot be seen.
When you go to the ocean you say, “I see the ocean.” You do not see the ocean—you see only waves. You have never actually seen the ocean; you have seen only waves. Waves are not the ocean, because no wave can exist without the ocean. If we try to separate the wave and save it apart from the ocean, the wave will die. But the ocean can be without waves; it will not die without waves. Hence the ocean is fundamental; the wave is a by-product, a secondary offshoot. The wave cannot be without the ocean; the ocean can be without the wave.
So, karma cannot be without the soul. But the soul can be without karma. If I am not, all my actions are lost. But if all my actions are lost, I am not lost.
This fundamental distinction must be understood first of all.
And yet what I am does not appear to you; what you are does not appear to me. What appears is what you do; what I do appears. Doing is visible; Being is hidden. Doing is seen; Being is unseen. Doing is known; Being is unknown.
Within us are these two directions: one of doing—the visible, the waves—what can be seen, what can be known by others; and one of Being—what no one can ever know in that way, what no one can ever see; that which is forever hidden, forever in the depth, the hidden—forever veiled, mysterious.
These are our two directions: of Being, of existence; and of doing. If we fail to recognize which of these two is primary, we fall into great error. Because there is a great law: by the secondary the primary cannot be attained; by the primary, the secondary can be attained.
Like this: we sow wheat. Then the crop comes, and with the wheat comes the chaff. Chaff is not basic; it is the outer husk, the periphery. The grain is basic—the inner, hidden kernel. Chaff appears with the grain. But if you sow chaff, no grain will come. Sow grain, and chaff will come on its own. But sow chaff and neither grain will come, nor will the chaff be of any use.
Human action is like the chaff. Human Being is like the grain. If within there is Being, action will be transformed. As the Being is, so will the action be. But if you change the action from the outside, the Being will not thereby change.
My emphasis is on Being. But the emphasis of Karma Yoga is on doing—on karma—not on Being. Karma Yoga says: Do—do like this. Do thus, and you will become thus. This is wrong.
Become thus—and thus action will happen. But do thus—and you will not become thus. Because doing is visible, the delusion arises.
If a Mahavira passes among us, it will be seen that Mahavira became naked. That is an act. Wearing clothes is an act. Going naked is an act. We see Mahavira naked—and then we see Mahavira’s peace, Mahavira’s bliss, the mysterious breeze flowing around him, the depth in his eyes. All that we see. And we see that act: Mahavira has gone naked. The thought may arise in our mind: If I too go naked, what came to Mahavira will come to me.
We move from chaff to grain. We have grasped the action. What does Mahavira eat, what does he drink—this is karma. We observe: what does he eat, what does he drink? When does he eat, how does he eat? When does he not eat? How does he walk? How does he sit and rise? These are actions. How does he speak? How does he not speak? We have examined the circumference in full. Then we say: If we complete this circumference too, what happened within this man will happen within us as well.
So we too begin to rise at Brahmamuhurta, become naked, eat this and not that, walk like this and not like that—we imitate it all, exactly as Mahavira does, not an inch of difference. Yet even then that which was born within Mahavira will not be born within us—because we are moving in reverse. We have seen the happening backwards. In Mahavira—first something happened within, and only then did it spread without. We have grasped the outside and are marching inward. From within one can move to the without; from without one cannot move to the within. Outside is chaff; inside is grain.
The peace seen in Mahavira’s eyes, the clarity seen in his presence, that ocean of innocence in his very Being—that is first. Because within, an innocent Being is born, therefore he could be naked without. The innocence within became nakedness without. But the nakedness without cannot become the innocence within.
The clearer we understand this, the easier it is to move in the direction of truth. The greatest entanglement arises from missing this. People come to me and ask, “What should we do?” They never ask, “What should we become?” They ask, “What should we do?”
Recently I stayed in a village. The town’s collector came to meet me and asked, “If I wear a shawl like yours, will there be any benefit?” None at all—except the shawl may suffer a little.
He said, “No, you are joking. Tell me properly. When do you wake? What do you eat? I will do exactly that.”
The man is sincere, a seeker—only he is seeking from the wrong end.
But for thousands of years humanity has been seeking from the wrong end. He alone is not at fault. And the mistake is natural—because action is visible; Being is not visible. What can one do? With what is seen, one thinks to begin. How to begin from what is not seen?
I want to tell you: if it becomes clear to us that what is visible are waves—the outer—then within is the ocean, where there are no waves, the wave-less. From there all movement arises; from there all Being is.
Our personality spreads from within. We are continuously unfolding from the inside out. A small seed we plant—then it sprouts and grows into a great tree. A tiny seed keeps spreading outward. In a mother’s womb, a minute cell arrives, unseen by the eye—then it expands and expands and a person comes into being. Everything is streaming from within toward the without.
Scientists have made a very recent discovery which is important: the expanding universe. Earlier we thought the cosmos is as it is—static. But the latest findings have astonished: the universe is expanding, as if air is being blown into a balloon and the balloon is growing, expanding and expanding. The cosmos is expanding; every moment stars are receding at incredible speeds—moving toward the periphery, away from the center.
The universe is expanding. Twenty million years ago it was smaller; the stars were closer. Today it is larger; tomorrow it will be larger still—an endless expansion!
We have a word—Brahman. Brahman is a precious word. If not today, tomorrow science will have to accept it—because Brahman means the Expanding—the ever-expanding, that which goes on spreading with no end, never stopping, forever unfolding.
It can be understood that once the whole universe—like a tiny child in the womb, like the little seed of a great tree—must have been a small seed. It went on expanding and expanding. Today it is so vast; tomorrow vaster still. From within, power-springs keep bursting forth and spreading outward.
But in human life a mistake happens: we look outside and think to move from the outside in.
Karma Yoga is this very delusion—moving from the outside toward the inside.
Karma Yoga holds that you must do something. By doing, you will become. The karma yogi says, Do not sit idle, do not rest. If you sit and rest, you will not arrive. Do something—and do it rightly, for if you do wrongly you will go astray. Hence Karma Yoga, in its depths, is the choosing between auspicious and inauspicious, a choice—this is right, that is wrong. Abandon the wrong and do the right. Keep dropping the wrong and doing the right. A day will come when only the right remains. The day only the right remains, that day Paramatman will be realized. So Karma Yoga believes.
This belief is utterly wrong. Utterly wrong because it contains many hidden implications. These must be opened. First: what is auspicious and what is inauspicious?
Until one has known oneself, how can one know what is auspicious and what is inauspicious?
It is impossible to know—what is right? What shall we call right? Mahavira says, “Let not even an ant be killed! If an ant dies, it is very inauspicious.” Krishna says to Arjuna, “Strike without concern, for no one dies at all! Even if you kill, none is the one who dies.” What then is auspicious?
Krishna says to Arjuna, “Kill. Strike without worry. Have no anxiety—for no one ever dies. The Atman is immortal. Swing your sword. Nothing can be cut by weapons. Cut—drop the delusion that anyone dies. None dies; the Atman is deathless.”
Mahavira says, “Walk as if blowing before your feet—lest an ant be crushed. Lest violence happen, or else sin will befall.”
What is auspicious? Is Mahavira’s counsel auspicious or Krishna’s?
Those who follow Mahavira have consigned Krishna to hell—because in this tangle of right and wrong, Krishna is saying something very inauspicious: he says, “Kill!”
Perhaps the Mahabharata might have been averted if Arjuna had fled and become a sannyasi—the state of Being had come near! He was ready to escape. But Krishna asked, “Where will you run?”
So the followers of Mahavira put Krishna in hell—no release for him in this cosmic cycle, for he caused such violence. But those who follow Krishna say: “Never has there been a fuller avatar than Krishna!”
Who then is auspicious? Who is inauspicious?
No, it cannot be decided at the circumference of action.
But you will ask: If at the center Mahavira arrived, and Krishna also arrived—if both reached the Atman, reached Being—why then is there this difference? The day you arrive you will find there is no difference. Both are saying the same from two sides.
Mahavira says, “Place your feet as if blowing lest an ant be crushed.” He too knows that nothing dies—not even the ant. Nothing is ever destroyed. The Atman is immortal—he knows this. Then why does he say, “Do not kill”? He says it because nothing will be destroyed, but your notion “I have killed” will create great difficulty for you. Nothing is going to die; the issue is not death. The issue is your thought “I killed.” This thought will be trouble for you. You do not know yet that nothing dies.
He speaks from one end, to those who are eager to kill. He is not speaking to Arjuna, who has become eager not to kill. Mahavira speaks to those who hanker to kill, who are waiting for someone to convince them that nothing dies, so they may kill freely. To them Mahavira says, “Place your feet blowing gently, for your eagerness to kill will become trouble for you. Nothing will die, but ‘I killed’—this thought will be a source of calamity.”
Krishna speaks to quite another man—the one who has become eager not to kill, who says, “I will not kill.”
Why has he become eager not to kill?
He says, “If someone dies, I will incur sin.”
The person Mahavira addresses bears the wrong notion “I kill, I am the killer!” That is his error.
Arjuna’s wrong notion is: “If someone dies, I will incur sin.” His notion is not “By my killing I incur sin”; his notion is “If someone dies, I incur sin.” To him Krishna says, “No one dies—strike without worry.”
These two speak the same truth. They do not speak different truths. But seen from the periphery their words are as far apart as can be; no reconciliation seems possible.
In fact, if you place a compass point and draw a circle, then mark fifty points on the circumference and draw lines from each to the center, on the periphery the lines are far apart; as they move toward the center the distance diminishes. Those two lines that are farthest apart on the circumference stand at a single point at the center.
Those who have reached Being—who have known the Atman—have no differences there. But on the circumference there are many differences; and since all religions have been made by looking at the periphery, therefore religions differ.
If some day a religion is born from the vision of the Atman, then only one religion can be in the world, not many.
But Mohammed’s circumference is different, Mahavira’s circumference different, Krishna’s circumference different. It will be so. Every wave will be different. Even on the same ocean no two waves are alike. All waves will be different—inevitably.
But beneath the waves there is the one ocean—and our attention does not go there. Then we begin to clutch at waves. Someone follows the conduct of Mahavira and becomes a Jain; someone follows the conduct of Buddha and becomes a Buddhist; someone follows Krishna’s conduct and becomes a Hindu; someone follows Jesus’ conduct and becomes a Christian. All these religions are made by those who follow conduct—by looking at action.
The whole world is karma-oriented. Because we look at action and move accordingly, there is so much confusion. How will you decide auspicious and inauspicious? How will you know what is right and what is wrong? You cannot know. One who has not yet known oneself cannot know what is right, what is wrong. Yet Karma Yoga says, “Walk by discerning right and wrong!” Who will decide? How will you decide what is right and what is wrong?
Many gathered at Kabir’s home. When the morning bhajans ended and people began to leave, Kabir would say, “Eat before you go!”
Kabir’s son became troubled—how to feed so many? Sometimes two hundred gathered, sometimes five hundred. How to feed them every day? He told Kabir many times, “Please, tomorrow do not say this when people depart: ‘Eat before you go’—from where shall I provide so much? How will I arrange it? We are poor; why do you forget?”
Kabir would forget again and again. For one who has seen the inner wealth, the thought of poverty does not remain. He would forget daily.
Each evening the son would seize his neck: “What kind of man are you! We are poor. We are starving. How shall we feed the people? We are drowning in debt. We have begged so much that none in the village is willing to give anymore!” Kabir said, “I will try.” The trying would end—and in the morning, as people came, Kabir would say, “Where are you going—eat before you go!”
One who has seen the inner treasure finds it hard to remember outer poverty. However much he tries, it slips. And one who has not attained the inner treasure—no matter how much outer wealth he piles up—his poverty does not end. Within he remains a pauper, always saying, “I still have nothing, I still lack. Let there be more.” Outer wealth does not end the inner poverty. Often it happens: the more wealth, the more inner beggary, the more destitute.
At last one night the son told Kabir, “Enough! This is the last—an ultimate ultimatum. From tomorrow I will not live in this house. Shall I begin stealing?” He said it in anger, hoping Kabir might gain some sense. But those who have gone beyond the mind become very mindless. Those below the mind are also mindless. Those above the mind are mindless too. There is great difference between them, yet they appear almost alike; it is hard to distinguish at a glance.
Kabir said, “Fool, why didn’t this occur to you earlier? If you had to steal, why trouble me all these days?—Go steal!”
The son was shocked. “You are telling me to steal? You say that! No sense of right and wrong? Stealing is inauspicious.”
Kabir said, “Stealing is inauspicious?” He closed his eyes and pondered. “I do not understand.”
The son said, “Let us complete the test. Get up then! Why should I alone steal—come with me!”
Kabir said, “I will come—but do not load too much onto me; I am old.” Kabir behind, his son ahead—they went to steal.
The son showed great courage; he was truly bold. “Let us test to the very end—what is this man saying? Has he no sense even of right and wrong!” They broke the wall, made a breach. The son asked, “What do you propose?”
Kabir said, “Enter.” The son thought, “Must I really steal!” He went inside, dragged out a sack of wheat. “Help me,” he said. Kabir helped. The son asked, “Shall we take it home?”
Kabir said, “For what else have we worked so hard? But did you inform the household?” Kabir asked, “Did you inform the household?”
The son beat his head. “We are stealing—and you speak of informing the household!”
Kabir said, “No, that does not feel right. Go tell them that we are stealing, that we are taking away a sack of wheat.”
The son said, “Then what kind of stealing is this! Don’t you understand that stealing is bad?”
Kabir said, “Now I think, since you did not inform them, something has gone wrong. But I forgot because for a long time I have had no sense of mine and thine. It does not occur to me—whose stealing, by whom? Who will steal, and whose will it be? All is His. We are His; they are His; the goods are His—everything belongs to Paramatman. No—better inform them. Tell them, so that in the morning they do not search and worry over the missing sack—where will they look?”
The son said, “Enough of stealing! Let us go back. This is no way to steal. If one must inform, better to go home.”
This Kabir—what is right, what is wrong?—is saying: All is His. What theft! Where there is no sense of mine and thine, how can there be theft? Theft requires the division of mine and yours.
If one believes property belongs to someone, not to me—then one also believes that some property belongs to me and should not be stolen. But there is a place where nothing belongs to anyone—where even ‘we’ do not remain. All belongs only to Him. What then will be? How will you decide what is auspicious, what inauspicious?
Right and wrong cannot be decided on the periphery; only in the depths.
I take it that when Kabir’s son was saying, “Stealing is inauspicious,” he said so because he believed in proprietary ownership. The ego was alive. And
it is the ego that is inauspicious—not the theft. Because of ego the theft appears inauspicious.
Kabir’s ego had dissolved. He no longer sensed who is whose, or what is what. Is this man inauspicious? Will you say Kabir’s going to steal was inauspicious? I cannot say so. It is hard for me—because Kabir never went to steal at all. One can only go to steal when property belongs to someone and we have divided the world in ego.
Kabir did not go to steal; he was traveling in another dimension. The son was traveling elsewhere. They never truly went together—though they appeared together in the world of action. The son was going to a different place; Kabir was going to God’s own house. As this house is, so is that house—bring from there! But inform the guards of the house that we are going to steal; we are taking the goods!
Kabir did not go to steal—only the son went. And the son knows right and wrong, and Kabir does not. How then will you decide on the periphery?
If we examine codes of morality, of right and wrong, across the world we will be amazed. What is right here may be wrong fifty miles away; what is wrong fifty miles away may be right here.
One of my professors lived in Peshawar, before Partition. He once told me, “Perhaps what you say is true—an event in my life lends weight to your view.
“I was in Peshawar. For the first time a Pakhtun boy graduated under me. I had worked hard to educate him. He was the first graduate among the Pakhtuns, barely passed in third class. The Pakhtuns rejoiced. The day the result came, eight or ten Pakhtun elders—simple and innocent, with naked swords—came to me. I was frightened. They laid their swords before me, touched my feet, and said, ‘If you have an enemy, give us his name.’
“‘What will you do with my enemy?’
“‘We poor Pakhtuns—how else can we serve? We shall bring you his severed head! You have been gracious; our boy has become a graduate. We are poor—how else can we thank you? Please do not delay—give a name. Before dusk a head will lie at your door!’
“They were so innocent. Not bad men—how can we say that men who cut off heads are bad? Innocent people—so simply they caught my feet: ‘Please give a name—at least one. Before evening a head will be at your door. We poor Pakhtuns—how else can we express gratitude!’
“I said, ‘Do me this kindness—never cut off my head. Go now—I have no such enemy whose head I want severed.’ Yet they kept coming back again and again, ‘Perhaps you are not pleased with us? Just give a name. Only the name is needed; the rest we will do—no time at all!’
“When I looked in their eyes, I saw they were utterly simple. And yet what they said—bringing a severed head—felt so terrible. But among the Pakhtuns, cutting off a head is not inauspicious; to run from cutting or from getting cut is inauspicious.”
Across the earth there are such tribes that if you go to judge their right and wrong you will be bewildered—what is right, what is wrong?
When the English came to India, there were many tribal peoples near the Himalayas who, if a guest came to their house, would serve him in every way—and at night offer their wife as well. Because if a guest has come, will he not remember a woman at night? What sort of hospitality would it be if he is not given the wife? So their wife would simply go to the guest for the night—because a guest is God in the house.
They were so simple that the English began to lodge with them—because their beautiful women greatly attracted them.
Now who was doing wrong? Those who were so innocent that they would say, “A guest has come to our home—if he longs for a woman at night, what will he do? Since he is our guest, he should receive our wife”—and the wife would simply go. Were they wrong? Or the man who became a guest only to lay his hands on the woman of the house?
Gradually that tribe learned cunning and said, “This is wrong—giving one’s wife to a guest is wrong, inauspicious.” But that was when they had become cunning. Is cunning auspicious? Or was their innocence inauspicious? Hard to decide.
On the circumference nothing can be decisively settled. But the karma-oriented person says, “Decide on the circumference—this is right, this is wrong. Make firm divisions, compartments. Raise walls—this we will do, that we will not do.” Thus the karma-oriented becomes rigid; he loses the fluidity of personality. Fixed: this is right, that is wrong—and he sticks to it.
But life is very fluid. What is right in the morning may be wrong by evening; what is wrong in the evening may be right by morning. What was right a moment ago may be wrong in the next. The question is not to fix right and wrong forever, but to recognize right and wrong in each living situation. Who will recognize it? Being can recognize it. If the inner soul is awake, it can see what is right, what is wrong.
And there is no final labeling—that this is always right, that is always wrong. In some moment nonviolence may be right; in some moment it may be wrong. In some moment violence may be right; in some moment nonviolence may be right. But the karma-oriented insists, “Ahimsa is always right, violence always wrong.”
Life is not so stony; it is fluid—like a river that sometimes flows left, sometimes right. Life is like that—not like a train on fixed rails. Those who take such rigid rules in life get into great trouble.
If nonviolence is always right, then many wrong things become right. If nonviolence is always right, and someone comes to enslave me and you, what will nonviolence do? If nonviolence is always right, then slavery becomes right. But how can slavery be right? And can a slave be nonviolent? One who has sold his soul—how long will he preserve nonviolence? Even nonviolence will be sold. Hard to say.
A small story comes to mind.
There was a fakir—Mulla Nasruddin. The king of his town decided to uproot all falsehood from his kingdom. He called the fakir and said, “I want your counsel. I have decided to eliminate untruth from my realm.”
The fakir asked, “First be sure you know what untruth is—because untruth changes its face every day.”
The king said, “That is why I have called you—tell me what untruth is. I have decided that from tomorrow, each day one man will be hung on the gallows at the city’s main crossroads—whoever tells a lie will be hanged—so that all may see and know the fate of the liar.”
The fakir asked, “Where have you built the gallows?”
The king said, “At the great gate of the city.”
The fakir said, “I will meet you there in the morning.”
The king said, “What do you mean? I called you for advice!”
The fakir said, “I will tell you there—keep the gallows ready!”
The gallows was made ready. At daybreak the city gates opened and the fakir was the first to enter, riding his donkey.
The king asked, “Where are you going?”
The fakir said, “To be hanged on the gallows.”
The king said, “You are speaking an outright lie—who will hang you?”
The fakir said, “If I am lying, then hang me—the gallows is ready.”
The king said, “You have put me in a great difficulty. If I hang you, people will say I hung a truth-speaker—for he said he was going to be hanged and I hung him. And if I let you go, then you are a liar—for you say you are going to be hanged, and if I release you, you won’t be hanged, so it becomes a lie.”
The fakir said, “I wait—decide what you will do. If decided, hang me; if decided, release me.”
The king said, “You have put me in a great quandary.”
The fakir said, “Life puts everyone in such quandaries—those who decide once and for all that this is truth and that is falsehood.”
Life is very fluid. On the periphery it cannot be fixed what is right and what is wrong. One who tries to fix it there is ruined. At most he can create a deception of being moral, but he can never be religious. Daily life will present situations that confound him: What shall I do, what shall I not? Gradually he will stop seeing life’s fluidity and live in rigid patterns: “This alone is right.” Blindly he will do that—and he will be wrong, for no inner transformation has happened.
When a right thing is tied to a wrong person, the right itself becomes a tool for wrong.
People saw Mahavira and concluded that ahimsa is right. So his followers abandoned farming. A Jain does not farm—he left agriculture, because farming seemed violent: plants would be cut; plants have life.
Mahavira realized that plants have life. They do. What Mahavira knew, later Jagadish Chandra (Bose) verified often with science—that plants have life, have soul. So if one harvests wheat, thousands of plants will be cut—thousands of lives taken. So the Jains left farming.
But what could come of that? Someone had to farm; wheat had to be eaten. If I do not farm, you will farm. I will eat the wheat, and you will incur the violence. What a strange logic! I eat the wheat and you incur the sin! So the Jains left farming to others. But inside, the man remained violent.
It is interesting that farmers are less violent. Because in cutting and hacking much of the aggressive urge finds release. One who has for three hours in the morning swung an axe at a tree will not find taste in swinging it at someone’s neck. He is satiated in the act of cutting wood.
When Mahavira’s followers stopped farming—and they could not fight on the battlefield either, so they could not be kshatriyas. Yet they were kshatriyas by birth—Mahavira himself was a kshatriya; his followers were kshatriyas. They would not fight; they left war and left farming. Two options remained: become sweepers or merchants. They did not want to be sweepers, so they became merchants.
But note: a merchant can be very violent—and they became so. Hence they amassed great wealth. Wealth cannot be amassed without violence. They stopped crude cutting; they devised subtler ways: don’t cut the neck—cut the pocket. By cutting the pocket the neck is cut. Sometimes beheading might be more merciful; cutting the pocket can be more cruel. If the neck is cut, the matter ends at once. If the pocket is cut, the neck remains, the pocket is cut, and one must go on living—living as the dead.
Those who stopped cutting necks on the circumference invented new techniques of cutting. Therefore in India the followers of Mahavira hold the greatest wealth. The reason: all their violence became concentrated. Violence stopped in every direction—only one direction remained: money. Upon money they unleashed their entire violence and amassed it.
They are few—perhaps no more than two and a half million. But their wealth is immense. How did this wealth come? If the realization had truly arisen within—if it had flowered in their life—it would have been impossible for this new kind of violence to develop. But within there was no realization. This is not about one group; it is about all.
I have heard of a priest of Jesus. He had read in the Bible: if an enemy slaps you on one cheek, offer the other. Who has no enemies? One enemy slapped him—and did so because he had heard the priest’s sermon that very day: “If someone slaps your left cheek, offer the right.”
Outside the church the priest emerged; the enemy gave a sharp slap on the left. A crowd gathered. The priest could not immediately react, because he had just said: offer the right. So he presented the right cheek. The enemy gave a hard slap on that too. Then the priest lifted a stick and broke the man’s head. The man cried, “What are you doing?”
The priest said, “Jesus said: if someone slaps your left cheek, offer the right. But about the right, he said nothing. If he slaps the right—then I will decide. The book says nothing further. Had you struck only the left and gone, all was finished.”
What else could Jesus have done? What more could he prescribe? There are only two cheeks; if there were a third, we could settle it as well. Which cheek shall we offer now? One you struck, the other I offered. There is no third. Now the third is with me.
Thus it happens—and must happen. Decisions on the circumference lead to such absurdities. The morality and religion born of action is born on the periphery. But what to do? Our difficulty is that the periphery is what we see. Our questions are: what to do, what not to do.
My own understanding is: do not worry about doing. Be concerned with: Who is the doer? Who is that within who offers the right cheek like the left? Who is that who lifts the hand and strikes on a third cheek? Who is that who uses violence in the field? Who then sits in the shop and cuts throats? Who is that within? Not the action—who is the doer? Seek the doer. Who is the karta?
When I rise, drop the worry about rising. Who is it that rises? When I eat, forget the anxiety about what I eat. Who is it that eats? When I speak, the significant question is not what I speak, but: Who is speaking? Who is within? In every act—who is there? Behind every act—who?
And remember: that which is hidden behind action is utterly non-action. It is akarma. Only then can it be within action.
A wheel turns; a single peg at the center stands still. On that peg the wheel revolves.
The wheel of karma revolves upon the motionless Atman. Otherwise it could not move. For action to move, non-action must be present at the center.
Try to grasp that inner center—not the wheel, the peg; not karma, akarma. Not doing—Being. Who am I, who, while rising, rises; while walking, walks; while eating, eats; while speaking, speaks; while silent, falls into silence?
If you care even a little to search—eyes closed, eyes open—a wondrous experience will be available. When you rise, there is within you someone who does not rise. When you walk, within there is one who does not walk. When you eat, within there is one who does not eat. When you speak, within there is one who remains forever unspeaking. While you live, within there is one who stands utterly beyond life. When you die, within there is one who does not die.
Within all your actions there is a point utterly at rest—non-acting. That point is Being—that point is the Atman. The recognition of that point is essential.
Not Karma Yoga—but akarma: the non-doer standing amidst all doings.
While walking on the road, just peer within and see: Is there someone within who walks? You will be astonished: outside, someone walks; inside, no one walks. Inside there is silence. Inside no one has ever walked.
From birth till old age—you will be child, youth, sick, healthy, old; you will be born and you will die. And within is one who neither is born nor grows old nor becomes young; who is neither sick nor healthy; who does not die.
That inner point—the silent ocean beneath all waves—if even for a single instant it is recognized, life becomes different. Thereafter forgetting is impossible—utterly impossible.
In these four days I have tried to say three things. Not knowledge—but that within which is not knowledge, but the knower. Not devotion, not feeling—but that within where there is no feeling, utter feelinglessness. Not action—but that within where there is no action, only non-action.
If these three—no-thought, no-feeling, non-action—happen together in a single second, then in that single second the boiling point will be reached in your life, where water becomes vapor.
In human life too there is that point; it results from the sum of these three. Where man becomes vaporized—where water remains no more, only steam. Where we are no more, only Paramatman remains. We evaporate; ‘we’ are nowhere to be found. What is found is Paramatman.
Neither knowledge will take you there, nor devotion, nor action. Knowledge, devotion, and action are all games of the mind.
One who goes beyond these three—beyond-mind, no-mind—only he comes to the experience of the Atman, of the supreme truth.
Then do not ask me, “What is the path?” All paths are of the mind. Drop the path—because mind has to be dropped.
Drop karma—it is the outermost circumference of mind. Drop thought—it is the middle circumference. Drop feeling—it is the innermost circumference. Drop all three together. And know That which is beyond the three—the Beyond. That which forever stands behind, beyond—knowing That, all that is worth knowing is known. Meeting That, nothing remains to be met. Attaining That, nothing remains to be attained.
That for which all scriptures cry out and shout; that to which all the wise raise their fingers and yet cannot point; that which all words try to say and cannot; that which all eyes seek and cannot see; that which all hands grope for and cannot grasp—that is ever-present beyond these three. Let but a small door open through the three—and it is available.
There is no path—because it is not far. It is near, nearest—nearer than the near. It is That.
There is no path—because it is not there—it is here.
There is no path—because it is not tomorrow—it is now, here and now—here and here.
Therefore do not wander on paths. All paths lead astray.
Abandon all paths. Stand still—even for a single second. Keep attempting to stand still.
Try to rise above feeling, thought, and action—over and over. By your trying, it will not be that slowly you will rise. No. Keep trying. You will not rise—until you rise. But trying, trying—suddenly that turning point comes when all three stop for a second—and you find you have risen.
Even at ninety-nine degrees, water does not become steam. It only keeps getting warmer—at ninety-eight warm, at ninety-seven warm, at ninety warm, at ninety-nine warm, even at ninety-nine-and-a-half it is only warm. At precisely one hundred degrees everything changes in a single instant—water disappears, vapor is.
So keep doing—keep searching beyond feeling, beyond thought, beyond action. Unknown is that moment when it comes. Any day, suddenly you will find the one hundred degrees complete.
And there is no thermometer by which someone outside can tell you that your one hundred degrees are complete. Nor is there hope that such a thermometer will ever be. Neither you know, nor I know, nor does anyone know when whose one hundred degrees will be complete. In which instant? And the instant it completes, you will be lost. And that which happens—that is truth, that is Paramatman.
Man does not meet Paramatman. Does water ever meet steam? How can water meet steam? Only when water ceases, steam is. Therefore water never meets steam.
Man never meets God. Man becomes vapor—dissolves—and what remains is Paramatman.
Dissolve to attain. Lose yourself to discover.
The seed dissolves—and becomes the tree. The drop dissolves—and becomes the ocean.
For having listened to my words with such silence and love, I am grateful. And in the end, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.