Chapter 4 The Yoga of Wisdom (Part 2)

 

The secret of right action (Chapter 4, Verse 25-33) 

श्रेयान्द्रव्यमयाद्यज्ञाज्ज्ञानयज्ञः परन्तप।

सर्वं कर्माखिलं पार्थ ज्ञाने परिसमाप्यते।।4.33।।

śhreyān dravya-mayād yajñāj jñāna-yajñaḥ parantapa

sarvaṁ karmākhilaṁ pārtha jñāne parisamāpyate

Knowledge-sacrifice, O scorcher of foes, is superior to sacrifice (performed) with (material) objects. All action in its entirety, O Partha, attains its consummation in knowledge.

~ Chapter 4, Verse 33

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Questioner (Q): From verse 25 to 33 of chapter 4, Shri Krishna speaks of the following sacrifices to gods: sacrifice of self, which is the ego, Aham; sacrifice of organs of senses; sacrifice of objects of senses; sacrifice of functions of senses; sacrifice of wealth; sacrifice by austerities; sacrifice by study of scriptures; sacrifice by restraint of breath, and sacrifice of diet.

What is really meant by ‘sacrifice’ or ‘yagya’, and what is really meant by ‘jnana yagya’ that Krishna says is greater than all the other sacrifices or yagya? Please also help us understand the meaning of verse 33 that says, “All actions in their totality culminate in knowledge.”

Acharya Prashant (AP): No, no. That’s not what verse 33 says; not ‘culminate’ in knowledge, dissolve in knowledge. The word used is ‘parisamāpyate’. An ending, ‘samapti’. The word ‘apti’ means highest, a climax. Samapti means having truly attained the climax; that is samapti.

So, when it is said here that “all actions in their totality culminate in knowledge,” what is meant is that real understanding gives you a dissolution of all actions. All actions dissolve in understanding. What does that mean? What is it that actions leave behind?

Q: Their consequences.

AP: Their fruits, right? Their residues. But in understanding actions do not leave behind any residue, because in understanding you do not act for the sake of the residue. The action itself is chosen so wisely that it will not leave behind any fruit, any clutter, any dirt. It simply means Nishkam Karma. You do not act for the sake of the result. That’s the mark of wisdom or understanding. You just act. Therefore, action leaves you with no obligations, no achievements, nor any heartbreaks.

What is an achievement? What is a feeling of elation? What is this euphoria on the success of an action? It is the fruit of action, right? I acted and my action achieved the target it was directed at, so now I am feeling elated. This is a residue of action. The action has left me with elation. Elation is a residue of the action.

Similarly, what is disappointment or heartbreak? The action did not fetch me what I wanted from it, so what has the action left me with? Despair. Sadness. What is this sadness? It is a residue or fruit of the action. Both of these residues come only to those who act in order to get something. Get something for whom? To whom is the euphoria? To whom is the sadness?

Q: To oneself.

AP: To the actor. So, happiness or sadness come to you only when you act for the sake of your own gratification. When you do not act for the sake of your own personal benefit or gratification, then action leaves you with neither happiness nor sadness; you are free of the action. That’s what Krishna is saying here. Your action has attained closure; your action has attained fulfilment. What if you are left with bitterness after the action? What will that lead to? That will lead to the...?

Q: Next action.

AP: Next action. So, you’re not liberated. You’re still under the obligation to act one more time, because the action has left you with...?

Q: (Inaudible)

AP: Bitterness. What if the action leaves you with a sense of accomplishment? Again, you will be tempted to...?

Q: (Inaudible)

AP: Act one more time. You see, I got something. Can’t I repeat my success? So, you see, you’re not liberated. You’re not liberated, because you are again obligated to...?

Q: Do the next action.

AP: Act one more time and you have created future for yourself, so you’re caught in the cycle of time. If you want to act one more time, what do you require? If you want to act one more time, you require one more time. You require time. And if you require time, then you’re still caught in the clockwork. You’re not free of time. You’re still in Kālacakra. You’re still in? Kālacakra. Kāla is time and kāla is death. And you’ll be afraid. Getting it?

Now, the questioner is saying, “What is meant by ‘sacrifice’ and what is meant by ‘jnana yagya’?”

Sacrifice obviously means giving up or offering. At the root of sacrifice is realization. What realization? Because the questioner says, “What is ‘sacrifice’ and what is ‘jnana yagya’ and why is ‘jnana yagya’ higher than all other sacrifices?” So, we’ll consider sacrifice, and we’ll consider what is jnana or realization.

What is at the root of all sacrifice? When would you sacrifice something for something else?

Q: (Inaudible)

AP: Seeing that the thing you have is of lower value than what you would get post...?

Q: Sacrificing.

AP: Sacrificing it. So in that sense it is actually just a tradeoff. But it’s a very wise tradeoff; it’s a bargain in wisdom. You’re giving up something that has a lower value, and having given this thing up, you attain something that has a higher value. Right? This is yagya. Yagya says, “Of what use is this little self to me? I give this up! Having given this self up, what do I get? I get the greater Self, the real Self, the pure Self. I have given up the false self, the little self, the ego. Having given up the ego, I attain something immensely bigger.” So, it’s a profitable bargain. A small thing has been given, and something big has been attained.

Similarly, sacrifice of organs of senses, objects of senses, function of senses, wealth, this, that. Basically, we are talking of a value system here. We must know how to assess, how to evaluate. We must know what is the right value of one thing vis-a-vis another thing. And we must know that Truth and Freedom are the most valuable; therefore, anything can be sacrificed for their sake. Hence, and then only, this becomes obvious, this thing falls in place.

I can give up my wealth if giving up of wealth brings Freedom to me.

I can give up my knowledge.

I can give up senses, pleasures, ego, concepts; all these things I can give up.

And then, in between, some of the verses have also talked of the way of giving up. Three ways have been listed here by the questioner: sacrifice through austerity; sacrifice through study of scriptures; sacrifice through pranayama or restraint of breath. So, these are the three ways of giving up. There is stuff that you give up, and there are ways in which you give up. So, three ways are also listed here.

What is central is the intention to give up. And remember that giving up in the spiritual sense is not charity. Giving up in the spiritual sense is good business. You have given a smaller thing up and attained something...?

Q: Bigger.

AP: Far bigger. Infinitely more profitable. In fact, that is one way to define ‘joy’. Do not call joy as ‘freedom from pleasure’; just call joy as ‘higher pleasure’. Now, if you call joy as higher pleasure, then it becomes possible to sacrifice the lower pleasures for the sake of the higher pleasure called joy. Otherwise, spirituality remains very scary to people who have been spoken to in the language of renunciation. “Give this up, give that up.” The ego asks, “But why? All I have is this 10 rupee note and you’re asking me to give it up.” You have to, in the same breath, tell him that by giving up this 10 rupee note, you will indeed get something that is worth rupees 500. And you have to really demonstrate it. He must be able to see it in his life that by giving up on smaller pleasures or, you know, the so-called good things of life, he has now attained a state that is far higher, a state that he would not like to exchange in return for anything.

Is any of this making sense? Anything?

Yoga is freedom from that which you think yourself to be (Chapter 4, Verse 38)

न हि ज्ञानेन सदृशं पवित्रमिह विद्यते । 

तत्स्वयं योगसंसिद्ध : कालेनात्मनि विन्दति ।। श्रीमद भगवद गीता (४. ३८)

na hi jñānena sadṛiśhaṁ pavitramiha vidyate

tatsvayaṁ yogasansiddhaḥ kālenātmani vindati

Certainly, there is no purifier in this world like Knowledge. A man who has become perfect in yoga, finds it within himself in course of time.

~ Chapter 4, Verse 38

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Acharya Prashant (AP): Krishna brings us to Yoga along with certain words: ‘knowledge’, ‘time’, the ‘self’. Let us discover what Yoga is, and what is the relationship of Yoga to knowledge, to time and to the self.

न हि ज्ञानेन सदृशं पवित्रमिह विद्यते । 

“Certainly, there is no purifier in this world like Knowledge.”

It is always easy to misinterpret, misunderstand a Krishna, a Buddha. They speak from their highness; we listen from where we are. And they too are confined by language. Though they are artists of language, though their language plays around, though their language breaches the of usual boundaries of meaning, still, language is language, something manmade. And whatever is manmade will always struggle with fully carrying the import of that which is beyond man, which is not man’s creation.

So, Krishna says, “Nothing purifies like knowledge.” In the world of Krishna, ‘knowledge’ has a very special meaning. The word ‘gyana’ there does not refer to the usual, sensual, memory-based knowledge that we are accustomed to. When Krishna says ‘knowledge’, he means that which helps you see the limitation of what you generally call as knowledge. Krishna says, “Knowledge is a great purifier.” But for most of us, knowledge is the prime agent of corruption; for most of us, knowledge is the greatest bondage. Knowledge is what keeps us heavy.

Elsewhere in classical literature, the Shiva Sutras very crisply put it in two words: “Gyanam bandhah”—knowledge is bondage.

You must read the statement of Krishna and the declaration of Shiva Sutras together.

That which we call as ‘knowledge’ is nothing but sensual input. It is not something that arises from within; it is something that is obtained from outside. It is totally a matter of consciousness. It has no Truth, permanence, stability, or originality about it. The moment one’s state of consciousness changes, all the knowledge disappears.

The moment you go to sleep, where is all your knowledge? Does one even remember his name? All knowledge is centered around the ego self. Whatever you know, you know. In fact, liberation, enlightenment, or realization is nothing but a transcendence of knowledge, which is in turn a transcendence of consciousness itself. Because what else is consciousness? The movement of that which we call as knowledge.

But Krishna says that there is no purifier bigger than knowledge—what does he mean then? He means that it is possible to know without the help of senses, and that is real knowledge. He is saying that it is possible to know without knowing how you know it, and that is real knowledge. He says, it is possible to know without having experienced or registered in memory. Knowledge then is not a thing of the outside, but the nature of the inside. Knowing is one’s nature. Knowledge is not.

‘To know’ is different from the tendency to gather knowledge. ‘Knowing’ is spontaneous, real time, causeless. Knowledge always depends on a reason; you might have read a book, you might have heard from someone, you might have experienced something, the eyes saw something, the hands touched something, the intellect inferred something—no, not that.

Most of us live in that which the world has given us. And that is all our identities, our knowledge about us, the world, the purpose of living, the right way of living etc. etc.

And then, there is the yogi who does not live by the ways of the world. His guidance, his knowledge emanates from within. In that sense, it is an originality. Seen a little more clearly, it is a deep rebellion. Seen more aesthetically, it’s an assertion of man’s dignity against the tyranny of the world. That is Yoga.

Why should I live by what you give me? If I am, I am. And that ‘I am-ness’ is independent of anything. Why then must I need you, your guidance, your patterns, your systems, your order to live, to survive, to breathe, to connect, to relate, to love? The yogi is the one whose movement is not dictated by the crowds. That which arises from within him has purified him—purified in the sense that it has burnt down all that which was unoriginal, all that which was not native. 

The Heart is a fire; the Self, the Truth is a fire. Its function is to cleanse. This fire does not like, does not respect anything that is fake, make-believe, secondhanded. Ruthless, the Truth is an obliterator. And that must be very evident to you in this city of Shiva. Shiva stands for annihilation. And that is the first and foremost function of Truth. It destroys. It exposes. It sheds light, and in that light all that which festers in darkness vanishes. Truth is the greatest purifier.

That Truth is not something that your ears can hear, your eyes can see, or your mind can comprehend. Yet that Truth is very-very close to you, it’s the closest; yet that Truth is your very own baby because it arises from your own center. It owns you and you own it. There is a total identity. When you live in that Truth, then you are established in Yoga.

Yoga means ‘not two’. Yoga means, “I do not exist as separate from anything. Because if there is something other than me, then that otherness will necessitate a relationship of violence. Otherness means distance, otherness means limitation and boundaries, and the otherness means that the other will necessarily exercise some influence on me.” Yoga means, the one who could be influenced has been burnt down by the pratibha gyana arising from the Heart.

Dead is the one who would tow the line of the world. He is gone, finished. And here am I, my own man, my own master, my own lord. My own lord, because I have surrendered so completely to the Lord that there is no distance between me and Him. I am Him. Because I am Him, hence I am the Lord. That is the yogi.

Now, that might surprise us a little, because to us Yoga happens to be something of the intellect; it happens to be a spiritual concept; it happens to be something that is sold in shops, read of in books, practiced in secluded corners; certified, taught, obtained, disseminated. No. Krishna is saying none of that.

Yoga is a life of integrity and honesty.

Yoga is a life of burning rebellion.

Yoga is a life in which your movements in life are not dictated by what you know from the world.

Yoga is a life in which your steps are guided by nothing and nobody other than the Heart itself.

Yoga, then, is not a corner of life. Yoga is life itself, total; leaving no space for compromises; leaving no space for doubt; leaving no space for dependence.

If you live by knowledge, you are always going to be dependent because knowledge is external. And external knowledge is never, never absolute, never complete. You always keep asking for more and that is why we are always full of doubt, always uncertain—because we can never really have full knowledge. You want to know how to earn your bread, how to choose your livelihood—how do you know? Are the total facts ever available? And even if they are, how do you know on which criteria to base your choice? Because even the criteria are supplied by the world. How do you know?

Unless there is a direct recognition, a direct and causeless recognition, causeless and instantaneous, instantaneous and crazy, crazy and overpowering, overpowering and final, with no scope left for appeal or consideration of any kind; unless you are in that state, you would be always be full of doubts. You would not know whether you have made the right decision.

And we have just talked of matters of livelihood. How about matters of love? How do you know which way to go? How do you know what to do in a relationship? Which books would you read, which experts would you consult? How deeply would you Google? Which scripture, which master, which guru? It’s your life; it’s your heart.

The yogi is the one who does not need to think twice in matters of life and love. And this is the most direct and practical definition of Yoga that there can be. Everything else is eyewash.

Unless one is living in an inner certainty, life becomes very traumatic; one feels like an estranged alien in a hostile land. One is always looking over his shoulder, “Where am I, who am I? What am I doing? Sir, can you tell me what to do? Where to go, to whom to relate? How to live?” And answers you get a plenty.

Every answer only increases the load of the mind because none of those answers is really yours. Even the answers that you give to yourself are a load on the mind because you are not yourself. So, bad if you take answers from others, and worse if you take answers from yourself—because that ‘yourself’ itself is a function of the outside. That which we so proudly call as me, mine, the self is not genuine, authentic, or self at all. Every cell in the body is conditioned. Every wave in the mind is influenced. Where then is the question of something original coming from us?

I like to say that the slavery of others is bad, but worst still slavery is the slavery of the self. Because when you are being held hostage by others, you can at least see that you are dominated and enslaved. But when your own tendencies, your own mind becomes your lord, then you cannot even see that you are a slave; then you feel that whatever your tendencies are commanding you to do is just an expression of your freedom.

Don’t you see that? People saying, “This is what I want to do, and this is a matter of my personal freedom.” Is it a matter of their personal freedom? Is freedom ever personal? The choice that they want to make—is it really their choice? Or is it a choice tutored by economics, by culture, by religion, by education, by media? But instead of seeing that one’s choices are not at all one’s choices, one’s thoughts are not at all one’s own thoughts, neither are one’s ideologies, one backs them, one gives all his energy to them. One says, “They are mine. And if they are mine, I will live by them.”

The yogi is the one who has stopped following the world. And more importantly the yogi is the one who has stopped following himself. He follows neither the world, nor himself. Whom does he follow? You figure out. He follows the one who follows him; he follows the one who can never leave him. Find out who is the one who would never leave you; find out who is it who always shadows you.

Find out who is it who, in a matter of saying, is always stalking you. The one who always follows you is worth following. The one who is always with you on his own accord is worth being with. Be with the one who is anyway never going to desert you; be with the one who is so identical to you that you cannot know who he is; be with the one who is so very close to you that he cannot be known at all—because knowledge requires some distance, some separation.

The yogi is the one who knows whom to follow. And that knowledge the world never gives you.

All the knowledge that the world gives you has one common theme: ‘follow me’. The world would never say, “Well, we have given this knowledge to you, but this knowledge is limited. This knowledge is only a matter of dualistic comprehension. It has no base in reality. It does not matter how many texts one has read; it does not matter how great one is in her classical indicators of Yoga. The only real test, the only final determinant is life itself. How do you eat, how do you live, how do you relate, how do you sip a cup of tea, how are you sitting here, is the world too heavy on you?”

If sitting here your consciousness is full of the world, then Yoga is still a far cry. If sitting here you can still see the faces of your neighbours, then Yoga is very distant. The yogi is the one for whom the world has de facto disappeared. He lives in the world but does not really see the world. The eyes with which he looks are illuminated by an inner light; not by a reflected light, not by an alien light.

Yoga is not really about this and that. Yoga is about you, you being the authentic you; you being what you were at the time of your birth; you being what you were even before your birth; you being what you would be after your so called death. Yoga is not about this and that. Neither is Yoga about the yoga mat.

Krishna is very-very direct about that. Unless your Heart has burnt up your mind, unless the fire from here has purified the mind, do not call yourself a yogi. It is almost literal; you can almost visualize the Heart as the seat of the fire the flames of which leap up to the mind. All that which is false there is reduced to ashes, like the ashes you see smeared on the forehead of Shiva. And only that remains which cannot be burned down.

The yogi is the one who lives in that which cannot be destroyed.

If your life is full of or dependent on stuff that can be destroyed, that time will take away, then Yoga is still quite far off.

What is it that circulates in our mind? Stuff that is eternal? If it is eternal, it would not circulate because it would give us a total assurance. Why does something present itself to our consciousness? Only that presents itself to our consciousness which is threatened, which is in the nature of a problem. I asked the audience the other day, “How many of you are conscious of your right hand?” Even as I speak right now, how many of you are conscious of your right hand? But if your right hand is problematic, then it would be present in your consciousness. The yogi is the one whose consciousness does not consist of stuff that is bound to remain only a problem.

Yogi is the one who has not identified himself with things, events or people who are anyway not going to be reliable. His life is built on an unshakable foundation; hence he can sleep properly. He does not have to keep worrying, “Will my palace be intact when I wake up? Will the man or woman be still in my life when I wake up? Would the bank still be in business when I wake up? Would my business still be competitive when I wake up?” None of these can stand the test of time.

The yogi is the one who does not depend on that which time anyway is going to take away. If he knows that something is going to go away, he knows that it is not anyways his at all. Because his nature—his own nature—is not time dependent. His own nature is to be, and if you ‘are’, then you cannot conditionally ‘be’. You cannot say that “I am between this and this stretch of time.” I just am. If you just ‘are’, then why do you relate to, get wedded to, get identified with something or someone who has situationally entered your mind and who would be swept away by situations any particular day?

The yogi does not live on shaky foundations. You cannot cheat him or defeat him. You cannot plunge him into sorrow. In fact, you can do nothing to him. That brings us to another definition of a yogi. The yogi is the one you can do nothing to. If you ever come across somebody you cannot really touch, know him to be a yogi. And if there is somebody you cannot really touch, he would give you all the freedom, all the allowance to touch him in whatever way possible, because now he knows that your touch can do nothing to him. Neither can your touch elevate him, nor can your touch enfeeble him. So, he will be totally available and open to relate. And that is called love.

The yogi is then the one who can open himself up totally in love because he knows that he cannot be hurt. Because he knows that, he does not love to gain something, and because he does not love to gain something, hence he cannot lose anything. That empowers him to be totally available; that empowers him to be totally naked. The yogi, then, is the one who can be totally naked in love.

If in your love you find that you are still all decked up and dressed up, if you find that the maximum you can give up is your clothes, then you are cheating your lover and you do not know love, and neither does your lover know love.

The yogi is the one who can give up every bit of himself, all the clothes that surround his being, his body, his mind, his concepts, his ideologies; he is prepared to shed them off because he takes none of them seriously. That is total nakedness: to be able to open your mind to its very core. And you can do that only when you know that you are no more vulnerable. If you know very well that that which sits in your mind is so feeble, so brittle that anybody can come and jerk it, break it, then you will defend your mind.

Have you seen how most people live? They live behind armours because they know that they are feeble, because they know that that which sits at their centre, at their core, is not unbreakable; because they are not yogis, because they do not know Krishna, because the Gita is just a few letters for them.

Yoga lies in the way you love. Yoga lies in the way you live. Yoga lies in the way you go about making your daily choices. Yoga lies in your very relationship with the world. Do you see that?

Now it is extremely dangerous because it is so much. We want a little, right? The immense terrifies us. We go to shops asking for quantities that befit us. We say, “Sir, I have come to get a bit of water and this is as much water as my limited being can hold.” And the mischievous shopkeeper, he hands over an entire ocean to you; you run away. Too much is just too much. Who wants too much?

We are beings who would rather have just a little. Krishna is saying, Yoga is freedom from littleness. As long as you are wedded to the little, you are a viyogi. At most, you are yogabhrashta. Yoga eludes you.

You will have to have the ocean. Krishna is relentless; you cannot come to a compromise with him. He says, “The ocean is your nature, you will have to take the ocean.” Now, how do you take the ocean? If your container is so petty, the only way to take the ocean then is to get rid of the petty. The container is the limitation. The container is the boundary. The container is the falseness.

‘You’ are the container. Yoga then is freedom from that which you think yourself to be.

None of this is going to make sense to you if it is mere knowledge coming from an external person. I do not speak to give you more knowledge. We are already too full of knowledge. We are already sick of knowledge. I speak so that some of these words may strike the centre from where the fire of knowing might arise. I speak so that you may just get a glimpse of something beyond knowledge.

“A man, who has become perfect in Yoga, finds it within himself, in course of time.”

This tells you about the purpose of time. This tells you about the purpose of life. Time exists so that you may come to timelessness. Life exists so that one may come to real life, so that one may really be born someday. Krishna is saying, every moment is an opportunity so that you may move into something that does not tick by the clock. The clock is ticking so that the clock may stop. You are moving so that you may discover that stopping is your nature. You are struggling and striving so that you may discover that relaxation is your nature.

One does not journey for the sake of journey; one journeys for the sake of the destination. The little caveat is that the destination is there prior to the journey. If you take the knowledge from the world, the world will tell you to do the journey so that you may reach the destination. Krishna is saying, “Be firmly seated at the destination so that you may journey in fun.”

That little difference is the difference between heaven and hell. If we live by the knowledge that the world gives us, if we live by the Yoga that the world teaches us, then we are living in hell. And if we live by the blessing that Krishna gives us, and if we live by that which is really Yoga, then that is heaven.

What keeps us away from the Truth is nothing but our attempts to reach the Truth. In every attempt to reach the Truth you reinforce the assumption that the Truth is somewhere far away. What keeps you away from Yoga is your attempt to learn Yoga. The more you try to learn Yoga, and the more there are people who try to teach you Yoga, the more you will remain separated from Yoga.

Krishna is saying, “Yoga is freedom from all that others can give you.”

Do you see the fundamental difference? The ego self moves into anything so that it may improve. It wants to retain its center, and is prepared to change the periphery, rather decorate the periphery. So man says, “I will learn the scriptures so that I meet my objectives in a better way.” Man says, “I will learn Yoga so that my life becomes better.” We do not want to let anything to change our center. In fact, whatever we do, we do in order to protect and further the center even more.

An ambitious man would say that he wants to control his mind so that he can pursue his ambitions with even more focus, and hence he would say, “Yoga is wonderful; it would allow me to be more of what I want to be.” A violent man, a militant might say, “You know what, when I engage in acts of militancy, then there is fear and the mind starts quivering. I want to learn Yoga so that I am still even in the moments of greatest carnage, greatest violence and greatest fear.” Do you see what they are doing? Do you see what we are doing?

We are remaining firm at our center. Our attempts at anything are just attempts to decorate our sicknesses. We do not really want to heal ourselves.

Real Yoga is not about self-improvement; real Yoga is self-annihilation. Real yoga is not self-decoration; it is self-dissolution.

And there is a great difference between the two. Self-decoration is attractive; you will be told that you will become better. Self-dissolution is terrifying when you are told that you will be no more. Who wants to be no more? All of us want to be no more. That is our deepest wish. Who is alright with being herself or himself? Don’t you see you don’t want to be any more? Don’t you see that you want all this to just stop? That is Yoga: coming to a full stop.

Yoga is not about oiling your machinery so that it becomes more productive and even more lethal. Yoga is about getting rid of the machine altogether. Now it is no more mechanical, now nobody can push the button, and demand a product.

Now the existence of A does not automatically mean the existence of B. Now X does not directly imply Y and preclude Z.

I am no more a machine. I am no more a slave of my design. Yoga that becomes an ordered design is no more Yoga because we are anyway living designer lives. Yoga that can be packaged and sold is no Yoga because we are anyway all packaged and sold out. Yoga is to bring all of this to a completion. Yoga is just to see the futility of being what we are and seeing that another totally different way of living is possible, totally different way. Not a minor deviation, not some kind of course correction; a totally different dimension of living is possible, and that is Yoga.

Unless you are prepared to totally get rid of your notions about life, you do not start living; you start moving in the same groove, in the same pattern.

The Real, in spite of being the most intimate, does not really become available to us. But there is time, Krishna is saying, time has been given. A lot of opportunities have been given; every moment is a fresh opportunity. Try as many times as you can, some moment, someday, some point, just randomly, just without knowing, just causelessly, very strangely—you might just hit the jackpot.

You do not know which of the infinite buttons in front of you is the right button—so what? You have also been given infinite chances. Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing, don’t give up, keep faith, something will just happen on its own accord. Not due to your wish, not due to your planning; you will not even know that it is going to happen. It will very suddenly happen. The only way it cannot happen is when you become a cynic, when you give up, when you lose faith. To be a yogi is to keep faith. 

How many times after all can you miss? And where all can you miss? Yoga is chasing you; Krishna is chasing you; Truth is chasing you. It is your destiny. You will have to be extraordinarily stubborn to keep missing for long. And if you are stubborn, Krishna is even more stubborn, “Let’s see who lasts. It is a game of ‘who blinks first’.”

I assure you, Krishna won’t blink. You are going to lose the game. Yes, you are free to try. You are free to validate it for yourself. And that’s good so that when you lose, you don’t feel hurt; you will know that you have lost to a worthy champion. You tried your best and you still lost, 21 – Love. That was after you tried your hundred and ten percent. There is no disgrace in losing that way. So you try. In trying to evade Krishna you will know how all-pervasive Krishna is.

Try to evade the Truth and see how it follows you. In fact, those who evade the Truth come to the Truth far more easily. The real problem is with those who think that they are going towards Truth or Yoga, whereas they are going somewhere else. If you know that you are sick, probably you will go to the doctor who will put you on some treatment. But if you are taking sugar pills thinking them to be medicines, then yours is a little difficult situation.

Those who aren’t introduced to Yoga at all have a good chance of entering Yoga. The trouble lies with those who think that they are practicing Yoga. They are the ones who are likely to be denied for very long. And they would be quite complacent in their own minds; they would say, “Oh, we are Yoga practitioners.” The more you practice Yoga, the more you miss it.

Questioner (Q): How to examine our ego?

AP: The examiner too would be the ego. Don’t examine the ego.

Dive deeply into your experience. And that is no practice, that is no method. Don’t you experience, aren’t you alive? The experience itself is a tell-all story. Remain close to your experience. Don’t be numb, don’t be insensitive. Stay a little green, a little vulnerable. If you are hurt, stay close to the hurt. Don’t just label it and walk away. Don’t just say, “Oh, I am hurt—certified, proved—and now let me move on to other tasks.” Stay with the hurt. If you feel you are attracted or repulsed, stay with the attraction or repulsion. If you feel you are tired, stay with your tiredness. If you feel something is good, stay with that thought, with that feeling. It’s not a matter of examination. Please. It’s not a matter of analysis or critical thinking. Just stay with it, and something happens. That is what I call as seeing. Without your effort—effortlessness is alright—without your intention, without any conscious movement in any direction, you just realize.

That is what Krishna is saying. There is a knowledge that comes from there, and there is a knowledge that just arises from here; you do not know from where. And you will be caught by surprise yourself. You will say, “How did I know this? When did I become so wise?” Your friends will say, “You have changed, you have started talking nonsense.” And then, you will know now that there is something sensible about you. Your parents will say, “Who is teaching you all this?” And you will say, “Well, this, you know, is just coming to me… Probably in my dreams…”

(Laughter)

“…or I read it somewhere!”

You see, to others it has to be justified; others won’t understand. You just start learning a few things and that learning is not acquired learning. That learning is imminent learning.

Q: Sir, you said, stay with the hurt. Does it mean that don’t think that you are affected by it? I should not assume that I am not hurt?

AP: You don’t know hurt, but you assume that you know hurt when you start calling that sensation by the name of hurt. What you know is (spelling out) H U R T. About H U R T you know everything. But you know nothing about that here (pointing to head), which really gets hurt. Now, something has happened here (points to head) and you know nothing of it. But the moment you label it as H U R T, you assume that you know it.

I don’t really know about this (holding a glass of water), but the moment I call it as W A T E R, I know everything; now all the knowledge from the past suddenly kicks in. This is something objective, so here labelling might even work. What happens within is not objective. It is something that happens to the subject himself. So don’t label it, stay with it. When you stay with it, then you are forced to realize what it really is. Naming it is ending it. Naming it is capping it. To name it is to end the story. “Oh, that is hurt. Just remove it!”

It is like this: somebody is coming to you and you do not know that person. Then somebody comes and says, “You know what? He is a German, or an Israeli, or a Christian, or a Jew, or a young man, or an old man, or a rich man, or a poor man, or a radical, or a communist.” And then you say, “Oh, I know him; remove him, remove him. Let us examine something else.” The moment you give yourself the license to name something, you have given yourself the license to shelve it. Now you are complacent. Now you are unnecessarily confident that you know what is going on. You know nothing about what is going on.

Do you really know hurt? If you could know hurt, you would have known God. Do you really know love? Do you really know attachment? You don’t know them; all you know is words. And we have been given words; we have been told, “When such and such signals arise from within, then give them this name.” Based on very superficial signals, we start giving names. How many of us know love? Come on?

But when a certain gooey feeling arises from within, when something of emotions and sexuality and this and that happens, somebody comes and says, “Are all these things happening to you? You have fallen in love!” And you say, “Oh! This is called love? Fine. L O V E.” Now you need not know any further; all your knowing has stopped because you have been given the assumption that you now already know.

Stay with it. Stay with it.

Staying with anything is to reach its root. And the root of everything is the Truth. If you would stay with anything, you would reach the Truth.

Q: We come from different parts of the world, which are all labelled or named. I came to India because I wanted to heal something in me through Yoga. So, is naming of Jews, or Muslims, or Christians not a part of this world?

AP: What you are asking is happening already. Is it not happening all the time? You say, you made the decision to come to India because you wanted to complete something and all that, right? To heal something, right? Is it not that the decision-making ability itself needs to be healed?

You decided that you come to India. To heal what? Your decision-making ability. Now, how sound is your decision to come to India?

My eyes are not quite well. I can’t see anything properly. And then, I go to the market, reading signboards. I am trying to read signboards so that I may read an eye surgeon or eye doctor written somewhere. Which shop am I likely to enter? I might as well enter a confectionery shop because I have read with my own eyes that it is the shop of a doctor of the eyes.

That inner sense of hurt that needs to be healed impedes and impacts everything. How can you make the right decision if the eyes are in need of healing?

I will put it even more bluntly. If my disease itself is that I can never make a right decision—let us say that is my disease, I don’t make a right decision—and then I decide upon a doctor, what am I doing to myself?

Q: I am just deepening my disease.

AP: I am just deepening my disease. I don’t need a doctor; I need to see what is happening to me. I don’t need to move any further; I just need to see what is happening to me right now. Remaining what I am, if I move any further, I would just be deepening my own condition. The snowball would just be fattening even more.

Q: Sir, things are always happening with us, are they not? Be it India or your native land. Something is always happening with us. Life is always in flux. And whatever is happening, is happening with an associated response from our side. This response is who we are. Can we not stay with these responses?

AP: Does life happen only in Rishikesh? Wherever you are, things are happening. And they are happening every moment, are they not? You might be watching TV, you might be feeding your cat, you might be wearing a new dress, you might be visiting a dentist, you might be playing soccer. Something is happening. And whatever is happening is proceeding with an associated response from your side. This response tells everything about the ‘I’. In fact, without the response, the ‘I’ cannot be known. The ‘I’ can be known only through your thoughts and actions. And watching your thoughts and actions is the only way of self-knowledge. If someone suggests any other way, then it is just a story.

(The listener getting up into a standing position)

Can you see what you are doing? And this tells you about how hungry the ‘I’ sense is to reach completion. It is not a body that is rising. It is the ‘I’ sense that is rising in expectation and anticipation, as if to get some welcome news, as if somebody is about to come as a messenger of Truth and the ego sense is rising to welcome it. Can you see what is happening? You are on your knees right now, and you are almost about to get up and stand up.

Q: Yes, I can see that…

AP: And that is happening only right now. Only right now. It could have happened anytime in the last two hours.

(Laughter)

Sir, you are rising because the ego is eager, desperate for good news. It is tired of all the sickness that goes around. You are rising to welcome. Yes?

See how things are. Watch every response that emerges from you. See what is going on. The moment you know what is going on, you are home. Because whatever is going on, is going on in your home.

Q: You said that stay and see what is happening. But staying and seeing what is happening, wouldn’t it become another objective which will be occupying our vital space?

AP: When I say, stay with the object, stay with the happening, all I mean is, don’t cap it. That does not mean that you make it another figure in the memory and let it linger.

Q: Not a subject of analysis.

AP: No, no. Not a subject of analysis. Not an object in memory.

I am sorry if it communicated that.

Staying with something does not mean prolonging it in time. Staying with something only means not concluding it; not concluding it, not bringing it to an abrupt end by unnecessarily claiming that you know it and giving the knowing a name.

We know nothing. And hence, just don’t conclude.

Stay.

Q: When you are saying, stay with that thing—what if you know that it is causing you harm?

AP: It is anyway there. It might be there in the mind and it might be doing whatever it does to the mind. When I say, “You stay with it,” I do not mean that you prolong its stay. Somebody is in your house. Even if you don’t stay with him, he is already there in your house. But if you stay with him, his potential to harm your house would be reduced. An intruder has entered your house. He is there irrespective of whether or not you are with him. He is there in the house. But if you stay with him, what happens? If you have an eye over him, what happens?

His potential for mischief has reduced. He is now under your direct eyesight. You stay with him. You don’t run away. Concluding the matter, he has the opportunity to escape away. The moment you go away, now this intruder can do whatever mischief he wants to. So don’t go away. Stay. Keep watching what he is doing. Keep watching. And he is always doing something because life is always in motion. So, this intruder is always doing something. See what he is doing.

Q: You mean just being in an observing state, not making any conclusions about whatever is happening. Is this what you mean?

AP: Almost. You see, staying is not something complicated. Staying is not something that you need to give a lot of thought to. Staying is our fundamental nature. In fact, we do something against our nature by not staying. Staying is simple and natural. That is why I say, life is always giving experiences, and that is sufficient. If you can just stay with the experience, you know what has happened.

What do you do with experiences? You feel jealous of somebody, and the moment that sensation is labelled as jealousy, what do you do with it? You try to shoo it away. “No, I don’t want this.” Now you have denied it, defied it. Now you have falsified it. Conversely, something is happening, another sensation. And you name it as love. Now you bloat it up. Now you decorate it. Again, you have falsified it. Again, it is not the same what it really is.

Staying with it means being true to the experience. It is a basic inner honesty.

When you are suspicious of someone, you just say, “No, no, no, this is not genuine inquiry. What it is? I will learn only if I stay with it. I am not too eager, and I am also not afraid.” Do you see that you cap it only when you are afraid? When you are not afraid, then you say, whatever it is, “I am available to know.” But when you are afraid, when you don’t want to fall in your own eyes, when your self-worth is under question, then you want to cap it and conclude it.

Stay. Stay.

And that staying is not something that you can practice one hour a day. Life is continuous. It is a way of living. It is an innocent and honest way of living. That comes naturally to us. That was with us when we were kids. The question you need to ask is, where did I drop it along the way and why?

Q: In life, I find that I need many protected things in order to survive. Let us say, jealousy. I find it very difficult to stay with jealousy, to feel it. I have to protect. So, for envy, for ambitions I hear a lot of voices in my head. It is my decision to go and follow those outer voices or not. But those voices are real. And you say, if I step in now, the voices are not there?

AP: What happens to those voices when you go to sleep? What happens to the listener of those voices when you go to sleep?

Q: Gone.

AP: So how real are they?

What happens to those voices if you do not listen to them? Are they still there?

If you have not heard something, has it been said? Go into this, please. It hasn’t been.

Then, is the voice real? Is the listening real? Or are both of them just dependent on each other, the old classical dualistic pair which has no legs of its own?

They are not real! They come from the world and the world depends on you. The world arises every morning when you wake up. Along with you, the world also wakes up. The world disappears every night when you go to sleep. Where was the world before you were born? Where would it be after you are gone?

All these voices are the voices of the world that you have internalized, and you are calling them real. How?

Not only are the voices not real; the voices themselves have constructed the ear that listens to those voices. The ear is equally fake because, please see, you do not listen to everything. Neither do you see everything. When you are passing through a market, do you watch everything? You look selectively, because the objects themselves have constructed the eye. The objects have made the eye and hence the eye would look only at the particular objects. The other objects it is going to ignore.

Your eye is not fundamental at all. The eye is not original at all. The eye itself is factory made and hence it would look only at the factory.

You buy a car from a dealership and back goes the car to the dealership for repair. It goes nowhere else. If the eye is the product of a factory, the eye would keep looking at the factory. Are you getting it?

None of that is real. Both of them are dependent on each other. Unless something is independent, it cannot be called real. The Real is that which is totally independent. The voices exist because you listen to them. And you listen to them because you yourself are a product of those voices. Who are you? The product of the voices of a priest, father, mother, teacher, boss.

All those voices have come together and made ‘you’. Now, it is but obvious that whenever you would hear, you would hear only those voices. You remember the voice of that teacher who made you up; you remember the voice of your grandfather, or your neighbour, or your friend. All these voices are now flowing in your bloodstream. So, it is obvious that whenever we hear, we hear only those voices.

There are some who are products of silence. They listen to silence.

You are one of them.

Just acknowledge that.

Yoga is freedom from the false actor (Chapter 4, Verse 41)

योगसंन्यस्तकर्माणं ज्ञानसंछिन्नसंशयम्।

आत्मवन्तं न कर्माणि निबध्नन्ति धनञ्जय।।4.41।।

yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇaṁ jñāna-sañchhinna-sanśhayam

ātmavantaṁ na karmāṇi nibadhnanti dhanañjaya

Actions do not bind the one, who has renounced actions through Yoga, whose doubts have been fully dispelled by Realization and who is poised in the Self, O Dhananjaya

~ Chapter 4, Verse 41

✥ ✥ ✥

Acharya Prashant (AP): “Actions do not bind the one,” obviously Krishna sees our actions as bondage; that is why he refers to the Yogi as someone whose actions do not bind him. What is this bondage of actions? Let’s go into it, because if we can understand this, then we will know what Yoga is and who that Yogi is who is not held captive by actions.

Actions bind us in two ways which are interrelated, and which are actually one, but for the sake of clarity, we’ll call them two.

Firstly, our actions are not free actions right at the time of their inception. If I push a particular switch and due to that the fan has no option but to act, then surely the movement, the action of the fan cannot be called as free action. The beginning itself is automatic, programmed, designed. And whatever is programmed, externally designed, can also always be controlled by the external. The fan has no right over who would come to push the switch. Anybody can just switch it on, and anybody can come and switch it off. The fan is helpless. The fan would have to act according to the external master’s wishes.

You take two chemicals and drain them together, and what you see is vigorous activity. Do the chemicals have an option there? No, the chemicals are a slave of their properties, a slave of their physical constitution. Action happens without the consent of the actor. The actor has no real say or freedom or independence. The actor is helpless. The actor is designed to act in particular ways in particular situations, and the actor cannot change that.

You boil water to a hundred degrees centigrade, and water has no choice, under normal conditions of pressure, but to evaporate. Water cannot say that “today is a special day, so I won’t evaporate”. Water cannot say that “I am being boiled for irreligious reasons, so I refuse to turn into vapor”. You very well know what you can do to water. The action of the water molecule in turning from the liquid to the gaseous state is predetermined. And anybody who can know this programming of the water molecule can and will control the water. The water will exist just as a hostage of external situations, and all situations are external. Time, place, coincidence, the world, others—these will decide what happens to water.

Same is the case with most of us. We claim that we are acting. But if we are acting, then we must also have an option to not act. When hunger arises, to what extent do we have an option to not eat? The extent to which one can exercise that is probably a determinant of one’s freedom. One belongs to a particular religion and hears a thing or two about that religion. A particular reaction arises from within. It is pre-scripted as to what that reaction would be. If you want to make somebody angry, then you know what to say to him. In fact, others also know what to say to you. They know that your behavior can be controlled through particular types of stimuli.

The biggest proof of that is advertising. Every advertiser knows how to control the behavior of the public at large. Had we really been free beings, how could have advertising succeeded? But advertising succeeds because the actor himself is designed by certain patterns, and those patterns are very common and very easily discoverable; all you have to do is observe.

Observe how people behave and you will know their triggers. Observe how people behave and you will know their keys. Observe how a man behaves and you will know how to decode him. Observe how a woman behaves and you will know how to please her, and therefore control her.

Politicians know that; they know what kinds of promises to make. The priest also knows that; he knows what to offer you, couched in the language of enlightenment of freedom, for emancipation. And because the priest, the advertiser, the politician, the market are not outside of us, it means that all of us in some way know that we are slaves to our own programming, our own designed tendencies. And it’s a very curious thing, a very funny thing. We know that, and yet we are very helpless about it. Someone with the best of intentions will enter your bad books if he behaves in a rough way, and someone whom you know to be crooked would escape with no penalty if he behaves in a pleasant way.

Such is our bondage. In spite of knowing that we are being cheated, we slip. We allow ourselves to be cheated. That is just because chemicals have no control over their reactions, over their responses. The man looks at the woman, and then it’s a matter of the bodily juices, the secretions, the hormones. How would you bring understanding and intelligence to a chemical? You cannot do that. The mother hears the voice of the baby, the kid, and a particular reaction arises almost involuntarily. It is a matter of bodily programming. How would you teach a hormone to be wise, to not be affected by situations?

Hormones can’t turn into a buddha. All that one has been taught and tutored is dead material, and dead material cannot become organic intelligence. So, if one is operating as a fan, if one is operating as a machine or as a computer, then one might be very efficient; one might be very productive—but one is nevertheless still a slave. One might have risen from the status of the primitive abacus to the status of the most advanced supercomputer, but even the most advanced supercomputer is still a slave. The supercomputer is never going to determine what its life is for. The supercomputer is never going to know what Krishna means by Yoga. No machine is ever going to enquire into its own existence. But yes, the machine, by virtue of doing more and more in the dimension of the machine, may gain respectability with other machines because the respectability too is a pattern. We have been taught what to respect and we have no option there.

This is the bondage of actions at the level of the actor. The actor is false. The actor is not the independent ‘I’. The actor is an entity that is a product of circumstances and genes. That which sits as the actor at the center of our ego self is nothing but the one who has as his substratum the physical body that came from the mother’s womb, and then all the experiences that he has accumulated over his lifetime. You can call that his hardwiring and his soft-wiring. You can call that as his hard programming, the operating system itself. And then, the various other programs and applications that sit over the operating system.

What is born from the mother’s body is already programmed and conditioned, and then he keeps on gathering more and more of influences, experiences and conditioning as he moves through time. That is what we are. That is what that actor is. Krishna is saying, “As long as you are that actor, please forget Yoga. Yoga is not for you.” Yoga is freedom from the false actor.

The second kind of bondage with respect to action is the bondage, that attachment to the result of action. The first bondage was the beginning of action. The second bondage is that which we call as the end of action, the result of action. This actor that we take ourselves to be hardly ever acts without an eye on the result. It is not possible for us to ‘just’ act. We act so that we get something. This actor is always hungry; he acts so that he may get something to eat. This actor is always unfulfilled; he acts for the sake of fulfillment. This actor is always a little hollow; he acts to plug in his hollow. This actor is always uncertain and insecure; he acts in order to gain security. So, he’s always wedded to the fruit of his action.

In fact, the more false the actor is, the more certain it is that he would always be looking at the future, always be looking at the fruit of the action. These two things are interrelated. That is why I had said that the bondage of action is twofold, but actually those two folds are just one. Because one begins from the wrong place, hence one ends in the wrong place. And because these two are related, so you need not worry about where you are going to end and what you are going to end up with. You just need to see how you began.

Most of us keep wondering about what the results of our actions would be. You need not wonder. Just honestly look at where the action came from. The beginning of the action is also the end of the action. The first step is the last step. If you can see from where your action is arising, then you have also seen what the fruit of that action is. The fruit of the action is immediate, so you don’t have to wait for two years; you don’t have to wait for the tree to mature and the fruit to appear. If you act from a point of fear, then it is guaranteed that your action will result in more fear. If you act from a point of incompleteness, then it is certain that your action will lead to even more incompleteness. You need not speculate. You need not be hopeful. You need not wish that something against this law may happen because it is not going to happen.

The beginning of the action and the end of the action are one. The source of the action and the fruit of the action are one. This law cannot be violated. We often talk of karmaphala (fruit of action) and that appears quite attractive and mysterious to the ego because karmaphala takes the mind to the future. The ego loves the future. But instead of talking so much about karmaphala, we should rather talk about the Kartā, the actor. The nature of karmaphala is no different from the nature of the Kartā, and the Kartā is who you are. Whatever is your mental state at the time of the action is also going to be the state of the fruit of the action.

This takes away our hopes because we act from a point of fear hoping that the action would take away the fear. Why else does one act? We act from a point of hunger hoping that the action will reduce the hunger. What else is a hungry man going to do? He says, “I’m hungry, so I’m acting so that my hunger may be taken care of.” This hope is always falsified. This wish is always denied. In the apparent world it may so happen that if you are hungry, then your motivation is to get food, and your motivation is fulfilled. So, you start from hunger and end in fulfillment. In the material world it is possible.

In the inner world, in the mental world it does not happen. In the inner world the point that you start from is the point that you end with. So, if you are hungry and you say that “I’m going to a particular person so that he may fulfill my hunger,” then you will find that that relationship leaves you even more hungry. If you start from hunger, then you will end up even more hungry, which means that the only way to gain fulfillment is to be fulfilled right now, is to start as fulfilled. You start as unfulfilled, you remain perpetually unfulfilled.

All methods, all tricks and techniques, all Sadhana (devotional practice), all Tapasya (austerities) are therefore going to fail because the one who enters the techniques—be it Yoga, be it Mantra (verses), be it Tantra (esoteric practice or religious ritualism), be it any other kind of method—he enters assuming that he needs the methods, thereby assuming that he is incomplete. If your basic assumption about yourself is that you are in need of something, that you are incomplete, and because of that assumption you proceed with the action, then that action is only going to give to you more of what you already are—and that is quite incomplete. Hence, all methods are doomed to fail.

You may not have something and you go to a shop and get it, and that makes you feel that the same principle will apply to the inner real life also. It does not happen that way. You keep on feeling an inexplicable insecurity and you feel that the next job would reduce that insecurity, or the next boyfriend or girlfriend would reduce that insecurity, or a new house would reduce that insecurity. That is not going to happen. If insecurity makes you buy a house, that house then stands on and for insecurity; that house pushes you into even deeper insecurity. You may take it for granted that living in that house, you will then be compelled to seek a cure for your insecurity in even bigger ways. You will say, “The house does not suffice now. I need something else to cure my insecurity!”

Krishna is saying, “The Yogi is the one who has realized that Yoga cannot be attained through any method.” Krishna is saying that “the Yogi is the one who has realized that Yoga is one’s nature and trying to practice Yoga is very foolhardy.” Krishna is saying that “the Yogi is the one who does not live in the wish of the future.” Krishna is saying that “the Yogi is the one who has known that Yoga cannot be defined, is not a thing, is not a skill”. Krishna is saying, “The Yogi is the one who is healthy and alright with himself.”

This sentence needs to be heard with caution. When it is said that the Yogi is the one who is alright with himself, it is implied that the Yogi, first of all, realizes who he is. The Yogi is alright seated at the center of his being. His identification with the periphery is just coincidental. For the sake of behavioral convenience he may say that he is an Indian or an Italian, but he does not identify with that. You know an identity? ‘Identity’ means a total unity. ‘Identity’ means A and B are one, which means you could call B as A and A as B and you would be right. The Yogi, just for reasons of convenience, may say that he’s an Indian, but there would always be something extra in him beyond Indian-ness.

So, there is no identity. He identifies only with his empty and full center. He is alright there. He’s seated there. Things keep on happening on the periphery; he places no hopes upon those things. He does not think that whatever is happening at the periphery would enhance him even by one percent, or diminish him even by a centimeter. Not even the smallest increment in his self-worth, in his self-assessment can be brought about by any event that ever happens to him. There are only two abstractions that are impervious to any change. One is an absolute zero, and the other is absolute infinity.

Those who have understood have described the insides of the Yogi, the center of the Yogi using both and neither of these metaphors. Sometimes they have said that he is as empty as the vast sky, and sometimes they have said that he’s as full as the endless ocean. Both are one. You cannot add anything to the sky, and you cannot drain out the oceans. That is who the Yogi is. The Yogi does not wander from place to place hoping to gain enlightenment. The Yogi does not read scripture after scripture. The Yogi does not change job after job. The Yogi does not get into one relationship after the other hoping for something.

Of course, he relates to the entire world—he is totally open and permeable—but he does not relate in order to get a fruit from the relationship. His relationships are instantaneous and fruitless for him. What would an already filled up person want for dinner? What medicine can you give to a healthy man? What riches would attract the one who is already absolutely rich? What can you take away from someone who has nothing? These are all pointers. These point to who the Yogi is.

On one hand, he is the topmost beggar, someone whose net worth is unshakably zero, someone whose trousers have such a large and a gaping hole that whatever you put there is lost. You can never give him even a rupee because whatever you give him is lost from his pocket. His pocket is full of holes—very, very large holes—so his worth remains always zero. Such is the description of the Yogi. He never has anything.

On the other hand, the other description is that of a billionaire. So much he has that in spite of whatever you can take away, he always retains what he has.

Classically, the Shanti Path (peace prayer) of the Upanishads describe the Yogi beautifully. They say that when you take away the Total from the Total, what you have is still the Total. Even if you take away everything that the Yogi stands for, he is still left with everything, which means that he can now be absolutely fearless. He lives in total security. Even if you take away all his possessions, even if you take away all his being, he still remains what he is. Now, who can control such a man? Who can ever dominate such a man? Is the Yogi even a man or a woman?

We must listen to Krishna with utmost sincerity. If we can open up to what he is telling us in these verses, then we would be able to avoid a million traps that lay ready for us. The world is always prepared to lure us into traps. The world is always saying, “Enter my shop, I will improve you! Come to me, I will give you something!” Krishna is saying, “You are the one who cannot be given anything.” The moment you enter a shop, you have reduced yourself. The moment you become hopeful, you have gone away from yourself. Krishna is saying, “Whosoever comes to you and says, ‘Son, there is something wrong with you! I am your well-wisher, I want to help you!’ is your enemy because before he says that he wants to help you, he must say that there is something wrong with you.” Whosoever promises betterment and improvement does you no good. He is giving you a false sense of the self.

To put it more directly, anybody who promises you anything has already betrayed you because all promises are about something that attracts you. Otherwise, it is not a promise at all. Krishna is saying, “To be promised is to be compromised.” Do we see this? Do we see that what he’s talking of is something very-very practical and extremely day-to-day?

The discourse of the Gita was not in some isolated sanctuary or a mountain peak or a yoga center. The discourse of the Gita took place upon a battlefield. The weapons were real. The situation was real. Brothers were fighting for a kingdom. Huge armies stood deranged against each other. So, very immediate, heavy and direct was the situation. It was no time for rhetoric. It was no time for hollow principles. Principles wouldn’t have saved Arjuna.

Just a verbalization of theory, just bookish knowledge would have been of no help. Hence, the Gita is an extremely practical document. But you will have to be an Arjuna to earnestly go into it. You will have to have the state of Arjuna when he was listening to Krishna. Listening to Krishna helped Arjuna beyond measure. It can help you too if you are as devoted to Krishna as Arjuna was. At least in this moment, you should be all ears. If you are, then the Gita will open up something for you that otherwise remains hidden in spite of being extremely immediate. Yes?

In the Gita you have a great discourse because, firstly, it is a great dialogue. Arjuna talks to Krishna. If you are to receive the Gita like an Arjuna, then you must talk. Arjuna is not just a passive recipient. He is an active participant.

Questioner (Q): (Inaudible)

AP: This is the great fallacy of choice. Our friend is saying, “I might be hungry, but I can choose to eat little or I can choose to eat more; I can choose to eat this, I can choose to eat that.” Do you know that even this choice is determined by something outside of you?

There have been experiments that have told that the choice of music in a restaurant determines the order that the customers are going to place. Now, does the customer know where the order is coming from? He will think, “It is my personal choice.” He does not even know that the restaurant owner, by manipulating the music, can actually dictate the choice that you are going to make in terms of food. You will be smug in your belief “I placed this order” because you won’t even know that the order is not yours.

By looking at your life history, by looking at your genetics, it can even be broadly predicted what kind of woman you are going to like. And when you will fall in so-called love, you will think that it is your personal decision. It is not your personal decision. You are programmed to fall in love with that particular woman, broadly. Every little thing influences your choices. But we keep on thinking that these are our choices.

The shape of this hall, the color that you are wearing and the color that I am wearing, the intensity of the light here, a little noise coming from outside—everything is dictating the content of our consciousness. But it is nice to believe that our choices are our choices. The ego takes pride. And if it is proven that our choices are not at all our choices, then it feels very humiliating. You very well know how your hunger drops when you meet with certain disappointments. Does that not happen?

The day has not gone well; you don’t feel like eating. Now, is your choice of food your choice? Somebody messaged you that you have had a huge loss in business. Somebody messaged you. It’s a situation outside of yourself. You receive that message and your hunger evaporates; now you don’t feel like ordering anything. Is it really a choice or is it a compulsion? Go into it clearly, please. Do you really have a choice? Where is the choice?

The ego likes to believe that there is something called ‘free will’. There is not. There is only a conditioned apparatus that keeps on working based on a thousand inputs and a thousand stimuli. Your knowledge of what governs you is very incomplete, hence there is some allowance to live in the hope, the mirage that it is my own life. It is not our own life.

Okay, let me go into food.

(Addressing someone in the audience) Which country do you come from, sir?

Q: Iran.

AP: Iran. How do you like khichdi (Khicṛī)?

Q: Khichdi?

AP: Khichdi.

Q: Khichdi?

AP: Khichdi. You don’t like khichdi because you come from Iran. Had you come from Northern India you probably would have liked it. Do you see how your choice of food is not your choice? And did you choose that your parents must be situated in Iran? A coincidence that you were born and brought up in Iran, right? You were born and brought up in Iran. That’s a coincidence. And that coincidence has dictated that you will not like Khichdi.

How do you like Dal bhat (rice and lentils)? Oh! Too bad. Too bad. And if you ask me a particular Iranian dish, I would be as flat as you are because I was not born in Iran.

Do you see everything starting from our political choices, economic choices, food choices, life choices, job choices are dictated by our circumstances?

Q: (Inaudible)

AP: This thinking that you are talking of—is there choice involved even in a thought? Do you have control over your thoughts? Do you decide what to think about?

Q: (Inaudible)

AP: Alright, I’m going into the subject of thoughts. Let us see how free our thoughts are. Let us see whether our thoughts are our own, or whether they are decided by external situations.

Have you been to Lakshman Jhula (a bridge in India)? How many of us have been to Lakshman Jhula? You haven’t been to Lakshman Jhula? Lakshman Jhula is a particular bridge, like any other bridge.

Now, there are monkeys on the Lakshman Jhula, monkeys of all shapes and sizes. Some of them have long tails, some of them have short tails. Kindly don’t think about those monkeys. Please don’t think about those monkeys. Don’t think about the monkey that has a large face. Don’t think of the monkey that was hopping from rope to rope, from wire to wire. Don’t think about the monkey that looked at you as if it wanted to attack you. Don’t think about those monkeys, please! Don’t even let the face of the monkey come into your thoughts.

Now do you see how free our thoughts are? Now do you see that all thought is dictated by the outside?

Thought is the content of consciousness, and all consciousness comes from outside. We do not observe that because we live in a stupor-like state. Because we are not vigilant enough, so we don’t even know where our thoughts are coming from. Hence, we live in the illusion of “my thoughts are mine”.

No thought is yours, sir. Thought belongs to nobody. Only you belong to yourself. And the Self is not a thought. I know it hurts, it pinches because we live in the belief that our thoughts are our thoughts, our choices are our choices, our life is our life. Is it really?

Change your experiences—would your thoughts remain the same?

Go through a different life history—would your thoughts remain the same?

Don’t you see that your life history is dictating your thoughts? And you didn’t choose your life history.

Change even one percent of what you have been through—would your thoughts remain the same?

And add just a little to what you have been through—would your thoughts remain the same?

In fact, just one small bit of information can make your thoughts stand upside down. Does it not happen daily? And then, you are saying, “My thoughts are my thoughts.” Are they?

The Yogi is the one who has moved out of the delusion of thought. He does not identify with thought anymore because he has realized that thought is not who he is. I know this is scary because so much of our investments are based on thoughts. We thought out our next wife; we think out our next move. Everything that we do is a thought out decision. And if thought does not belong to us, then it proves that all our decisions are just hollow. We do not like to hear that—but please hear that. Better late than never.

If you read a little bit of what is going on in the field of experimental consciousness, then you would realize that it is possible to change your thoughts by connecting two electrodes to your brain. Some trained researcher can give whatever thoughts that he wants to give you under controlled conditions of experiment. You tell what you want to think, and he’ll make you think that way. And you tell what you do not want to think, he’ll make you think that way. And you don’t need to do so much. An extremely attractive woman passes by in front of you—can you resist thinking about her? Don’t you see that the thought is not yours? The thought is situational. She came and the thought came—is the thought yours? Had it been yours, how could it have arisen with the arrival of the woman? How?

One shot of some chemical and you will start thinking things that you don’t normally think of. One little surgery and so many thoughts will be wiped out of your mind. Are your thoughts yours?

But we live in thoughts. We are deeply identified with thoughts, so this statement does not appear sweet. We have invested heavily in thoughts, and no one wants to hear that his investment has been in the wrong thing.

The Yogi is the one who is the master of his thoughts―in the sense that he does not live by his thoughts; his thoughts live by him. Thoughts do not touch him; his being guides his thoughts―rather he lets the thoughts be.

The more one relies on knowledge, the more ignorant one is (Chapter 4, Verse 42)

तस्मादज्ञानसम्भूतं हृत्स्थं ज्ञानासिनात्मन:

छित्त्वैनं संशयं योगमातिष्ठोत्तिष्ठ भारत

tasmād ajñāna-sambhūtaṁ hṛit-sthaṁ jñānāsinātmanaḥ

chhittvainaṁ sanśhayaṁ yogam ātiṣhṭhottiṣhṭha bhārata

Therefore, with the sword of Realisation (of the Self) cut asunder the doubt about the Truth, born of ignorance, residing in your heart and take refuge in Yoga, arise O Bharata!    

~ Chapter 4, Verse 42

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Acharya Prashant (AP): Krishna is saying, ”The mind is full of doubts. The Yogi is the one whose mind has left all doubts behind.” And Krishna is saying, “Those doubts can only be cleared away using the sword of realization.” Krishna says, “Your mind is full of ignorance,” and then he says, “Your mind is full of doubts.” Can we see that these two are one?

Conventionally, ignorance is considered as the absence of knowledge. Krishna is saying, ignorance is not the absence of something; rather, it is the presence of doubts. And all knowledge leaves you with doubts because no knowledge is complete. Whatever you know is always incomplete, and hence leaves scope for doubts. You may know that your work is well secured, but is your knowledge about that security total? Because that knowledge is not total, hence when an opportunity to doubt the security comes, the opportunity succeeds.

You may be greatly assured about your husband, your wife or your child, but can that be total? It can never be total because it is based on some knowledge, and hence when more knowledge, more information comes, then that assurance is shaken up.

Ask yourself, is there anything in your life that cannot be shaken up? You may have the greatest trust in somebody, but ask yourself, can that trust be not shaken up by one piece of evidence?

Such is our life. We live in a very-very terrifying way; we are not certain at all. We know that one particular message in our mobile phones, one email, one floating bit of rumour can totally disturb and unnerve us because our relationships, our security is based on knowledge, and knowledge is never total. That knowledge which is never total gives rise to doubts, and that is called ignorance.

Kindly understand how Krishna is defining ignorance. Ignorance is not the absence of knowledge; ignorance is reliance on knowledge. The more you rely on knowledge, the more ignorant you are. The more you rely on knowledge, the more laden with doubt your life would be. You would say, “I trust this man because of such, such and such reason.” The reason is all knowledge. Are you sure that the list of reasons is exhaustive? Something can be added to the list—will your trust then remain intact? Your trust will be gone along with the elongation of the list—gone!

We live by knowledge; we live by mental stuff; we live by elements of consciousness; we live by what is going around in the mind. Krishna then by implication is saying that whatever goes around in the mind is ignorance, whatever goes around in the mind is doubt. Now this really dents our confidence because our sense of worth, our sense of self, our sense of the world comes from what we know, rather from what is stuffed in the mind. We trust that; we live by that; we depend on that. We make decisions using the content of mind. Krishna is saying, the more you depend on the content of your mind, the more terrible life would you be living.

That is called ignorance; to live by the limited when the unlimited is available to you. Ignorance is to live by information when something far more accurate and immediate than information is available to you. The Yogi is the one who has obtained freedom from the tyranny of the mind, which in turn is the tyranny of consciousness, which in turn is the tyranny of knowledge.

Mind you, all knowledge is external. Try it out! Think of something that has not come from outside. Your language, your thoughts, your emotions—is there anything innate to you? And because it has come from outside, you can never be a hundred percent assured of it. That lurking doubt forever remains and that lurking doubt is the hell of our lives. We cannot sleep properly; we cannot go into total relaxation, which means we will forever be deprived of freedom because freedom is just another name for total relaxation. Enlightenment too is just another name for total relaxation.

How can one relax when one is not sure whether his house would remain at the same place when he returns the next day? How can one relax when he is not sure whether his body would be there the next day?

That which we live by, our body and mind, too are bound to be taken away by time because they have been given to us by external situations. It was a coincidence that your father and mother met and this body was born; you had no choice. Just as you had no choice in birth, you know that death too is going to be a coincidence. How then can you relax? 

Krishna is saying, the Yogi is the one who no more lives by coincidences; instead, he lives by something that is far more fundamental; he lives by something that was not given to him by time and hence would not be taken away by time.

What is this ‘sword of the Self’, the ‘sword of Truth’ that Krishna is imploring Arjuna to use? It is nothing but the basic power to directly know. He is in fact telling Arjuna, “Arjuna, just as you are listening to me with attention, can you move through life with attention? Obviously you are realizing what I am saying at this moment, because if you are not, then what I am saying is going waste, and if you can realize it right now, why can’t you live in that realization every moment?”

The only way to move into the Truth is by examining the false, and false is always available for examination. False is nothing but the total content of our lives. We live in that; we bathe in that; we breathe in that; we wallow in that. To our left is that; to our right is that; outside is that and in our inside too is that. Wherever we look and whatever we look is that. 

Krishna is saying, look at it. This looking is the sword. This seeing is the sword. Look rightly, hear rightly. That rightness is no method; that rightness is no particular way; that rightness is just total honesty. If you can listen with honesty, if you can be present with honesty, if you can look with honesty, then you would have gained the freedom from the world, then you would have gained freedom from all that which lurks as doubt in the mind.

Looking you will find that doubt exists because you have placed your hope upon something limited. In fact, your doubt is certain and your doubts hold true. The moment you put your hope upon something, a doubt arises: “Have I put my hope on the right thing? Have I related to the right person? Am I wedded to the right ideology?” The doubt is right because you have not wedded to the right ideology, because you have placed hope upon the wrong man. That does not mean that there is any right man because whatever be the ideology, job, situation, person, it is going to be limited and what you want is something unlimited.

Seeing exposes that. Seeing exposes that you are wanting the wrong thing in the wrong place; seeing exposes that the shop keeps changing but your knocking does not change; seeing exposes that the shops keep changing, but the limitations of the objects inside the shops rarely change. They never change, but our hope that “the next shop might provide me the unlimited good that I am hunting for” remains intact. This hope, these expectations, this stubborn insistence on not realising is what is doing us in.

Actually, the ego is almost as stubborn as Krishna. Krishna is obstinate, chapter after chapter, verse after verse; he is preaching to Arjuna, and Arjuna, who stands for the ego, is equally stubborn. He says, “I have still not understood, I have still not understood, I have still not understood!” and so are we.

Life keeps on teaching us lessons. Every suffering is a message, every disappointment is a message, every instance of pain is a lesson, but we refuse to learn, we keep on falling in the same hole again and again; we keep on committing the same mistake again and again. The names of mistakes might change, but the nature never changes. Every mistake by its fundamental nature is the same; the mistake is that you are relying upon the wrong thing. That by the way doesn’t mean that there is any ‘right’ thing to rely upon, which means you need not rely upon anything, which means you are someone who needs no support. There is no need to rely upon anything. Do you see the total sense of empowerment that Krishna is coming from, that which Krishna is synonymous with, and do you see how unnecessary it is to live like Arjuna, mired with doubt, shaking with indecision when the totality of living is easily available?

Yogi is the one who is not running from shop to shop. Yogi is the one who is not looking at the world with eyes that are longing for something. The Yogi is the one who has realised that what he wants will never be available in the world. And that does not disappoint him because he realizes that what he wants is something that is not of the world and hence of himself. It is good news. It is not out there; it is not out there; it is not out there.

Questioner (Q): How to understand genuine doubt in accordance with the Faith? Is this genuine doubt like Faith?

AP: They are identical; they are one. Faith and genuine doubt are one.

Genuine doubt is to know that everything that you can trust is only going to betray you; genuine doubt is not to remain unnecessarily hopeful. Doubt taken to its totality is genuine doubt.

Faith is, after all the pillars of belief on which my life stood have collapsed, I still trust.

What do genuine doubts do? They take away all the objects that you used to trust. We all need security, right? So we all trust something or the other. To doubt genuinely is to see that whatever you trust will fail the purpose of your trust and you know that and that's why you are always insecure. Genuine doubt is to know that whatever you trust will never be trustworthy really. Genuine doubt is to see that whatever you really want from the other, the other can never really supply, because what you want is infinite. The other is finite and finite can never give you infinite. That is genuine doubt.

So, genuine doubt takes away everything that you ever trusted. And after everything that you ever trusted and can possibly trust is taken away, you find that you are still trusting. What?

Nothing. Trusting nothing is called Faith. I can still live assuredly; I can still live in security.

Reason? No reason.

Object? No object.

I am purposelessly alright. I am reasonlessly joyful. I am just okay.

This is Faith. 

If your welfare is dependent on an object, then your welfare will always be compromised by the limits of the object. When your welfare is independent of any object, that is Faith.

I am alright and I will continue to be alright.

But why?

The ‘why’ is nonsense—this is Faith. I am just alright for no reason. I was always alright. I will continue to be alright.

Can you explain?

The explanation is nonsense—this is Faith. I cannot be taken away from myself; the real can never be separated from me.

How do you know?

The ‘how’ is nonsense—this is Faith. I just know. I just know. Even if everything betrays me, even if everything that I have ever held to be valuable deserts me, yet nothing will essentially change in me. This is Faith. 

Faith is to love without explanation. Faith is to celebrate without occasion. Faith is to know without knowledge. Faith is to leap without wings. Often when you just leap without wings you find you are flying—that is Faith.

Faith is the ability to live in uncertainty, and that ability is very much needed because the world is always an uncertain place. You must have tremendous certainty in your heart so that you can live in total uncertainty. That is Faith. 

Remember, Faith cannot be dependent on anything because if your faith is dependent on anything, then that thing will belittle your faith. You cannot say, “I will have faith as long as such conditions are met.” Faith has to be unconditional, only then it is Faith. Otherwise, it is petty trust. Otherwise, it is the ego trying to figure out some kind of a refuge.