To Act or Not to Act is the Question
3.1 Arjuna said:
O Janardana, O Kesava, Why do You make me engage in this terrible war
If You think that knowledge is superior to action?
3.2 My intelligence is confused by Your conflicting words.
Tell me clearly what is best for me.
3.3 The Lord said,
'O sinless Arjuna, as I said before, in this world there are two paths;
Self-knowledge, for the intellectual and the Path of Action of the knowing.
3.4 A person does not attain freedom from action by abstaining from work,
Nor does he attain fulfillment by giving up action.
In the previous chapter, the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that knowledge of the Self is the supreme path to enlightenment. Krishna explains to Arjuna about the nature of the indestructible Self, which cannot be destroyed. 'It cannot be cleaved by weapons, burnt by fire, dried by the wind, and wetted by water,' says Krishna. The Self is untouched and untouchable.
Krishna explains to Arjuna that those whom he thinks he is about to slay have already been slain. It is the nature of the perishable body to be destroyed. The indestructible spirit moves on. This spirit takes on a new body as if one changes an outer garment. Krishna tells Arjuna to shed all fears and desires, and to focus on the reality of the Self.
A few days ago, a young man came to me and asked, 'Master, should I marry as per my wish or should I listen to my father?'
I said, 'Listen to your father's words and go for an arranged marriage.'
He asked, 'Why Master? Won't I be happy if I marry as per my wish?'
I told him, 'You see, with arranged marriage, at least you will have somebody you can continuously blame!'
If you marry as per your wish, you can't blame anybody! So it is better to go for an arranged marriage. After two to three years, continuously, you can blame your parents and be happy. You will feel you are not responsible for the misery. At least you will have somebody on whom you can put the blame! With your own decision you can't blame anybody. At least if you have somebody to blame, you will be a little relaxed.
When you have somebody to blame you will feel safe in some way.
Arjuna is still very much in this mode. He is confused as to what he should do. At one level, he understands what Krishna says to him. However, all this philosophical talk about the spirit living on while the body dies and that all those he is about to fight with and destroy having been destroyed already in the cosmic sense, does not appeal to him. Arjuna is a warrior. To him, what is seen in front of him exists. He sees all his elders and relatives arrayed against him in battle and he has to make a choice to kill or be killed. This is the physical reality that he faces.
On the other hand, Krishna tells him not to take this reality seriously. Krishna says that all the living people in front of him are already dead, and therefore there is no sin that he is committing by killing them again. In fact, if he does not fight them, he incurs the calumny of having run away from battle as a coward.
Krishna advises Arjuna to control his senses and shed his desires. One who controls all his senses is like the ocean in which all rivers are consummated. Krishna advises Arjuna that from anger arises delusion; from delusion, loss of memory; from loss of memory, the destruction of discrimination; and from destruction of discrimination, one perishes.
Krishna also tells Arjuna that he has the right only to do his duty, but no right to its results. 'Let not the fruit of action be your motive or let your attachment be to inaction,' Krishna warns him.
Arjuna is totally confused.
He asks Krishna, 'I do not understand what you are saying. You are telling me to fight. Then you are telling me to shed anger. You say I must kill my enemies, who are my elders and relatives, but then you say I should not worry about the end result.' Arjuna says. 'All I need to know is whether I should act or not. You say that knowledge is superior to action, and yet, you say I must act. What should I do?' he asks plaintively.
What Arjuna leaves unsaid is, 'What use is knowledge if it cannot be used in action?' Arjuna is a kshatriya, a warrior, not a brahmin, a scholar philosopher. Philosophers can keep arguing from both sides of an issue, without bothering about any logic. Philosophers are only interested in advertising their knowledge, their so-called knowledge. But, warriors are men of action. They have no time to waste in idle talk.
So, Arjuna says, 'Cut out all this superficiality; tell me as it is; tell me the truth. Tell me what I should do.'
Your whole life is purposeless, but again and again, you are conditioned to run towards something, to go towards something, some goal! From a young age, some goals are always put in front of you, whether it is in material life or spiritual life. Both ways, always some goal is put in front of you. The so-called goals in material life or the so-called goals in spiritual life, both continuously make you feel that you are not enough.
Just understand, whatever you think as your purpose in life, whether it is money or relationships or name and fame, even if you have complete fulfillment in that dimension, you will not rest!
For example, if money is your goal, if you become a multimillionaire as you want to, do you think you will be able to rest? Or if name and fame are your goal, and you become a person with many people following you, if you become a person who is world famous as you wished to become, do you think you will be able to rest? Never!
By the time you reach the top rung of the ladder, climbing will become your habit. When climbing becomes your habit, you can't rest within yourself. Please be very clear, climbing or running will become your lifestyle. Running will become your trend. When running has become your trend, you don't even know what for you are running, but you will start running. You will be running even if you don't know why you are running. You will be continuously running, running, running; the reason 'why' you will not know.
Some one told me this, I believe a management consultant said it, 'If you place a ladder somewhere and climb as fast as you can, you will quickly reach the top of the ladder. But, unless the ladder is placed where you want, where you reached will be of no consequence.' Climbing as fast as you can is efficiency. We all think we are very efficient. Placing the ladder where you want is effectiveness. Not all of us know where to place the ladder. So, the consultant says to focus on where to place the ladder.
But the management guru is mistaken.
It does not matter where you place the ladder, as long as you enjoy the climb. The trouble is that we spend the entire climbing time being obsessed about where we will reach and what we will do. If we spend time enjoying the journey, any destination we reach will be the right destination. The destination is not important; the journey is. The goal is not important; the process is.
A small story:
One guy wanted to have one acre of land so that he could do some agriculture and live happily. He prayed to the Goddess of Earth, 'Oh Mother! Please give me one acre of land so that I can do some agriculture and live happily.'
Goddess appeared and said, 'Don't worry my son. Why only an acre? From sunrise to sunset tomorrow whatever you cover by foot, however much land you can cover, that land will belong to you.'
This is a big problem. Boons create very big problems. Blessings without maturity, or power without maturity, always create problems. Let me tell you one more story and then I will continue with this story.
A man once hit a jackpot of ten million dollars in a lottery. This person had a heart problem, so his wife was very worried about how to break this news to him. He might get a cardiac arrest and die! She was afraid to break this news to him.
She thought and thought, but somehow she felt it was too dangerous. She could not take the risk of giving him the news. She went to the priest at the local church.
She said, 'Father, can you help me?' and told him the problem. He said, 'Don't worry. I have known your husband for the last thirty years. I can surely come and tell him the news in a very nice way.'
She said, 'Oh, no! It is too risky. Please understand. He is a heart patient, so you have to be careful.' The priest said, 'I will take care, don't worry.' The priest went up to this man and started a conversation, 'My son, I think you are going to be blessed with a great fortune by God.'
This man said, 'What are you saying Father? My whole life I have lived in poverty.'
The Father said, 'No, no! Don't think like that. God is going to bless you. Alright, suddenly, if you got ten million dollars in lottery what would you do with it?'
The priest was giving a hint before breaking the news. 'Suddenly if you got ten million dollars in the lottery what would you do?' he again asked.
The man said, 'Ten million dollars? I will give half of it to your church!'
The priest fell down and died!
The priest fell down and died on hearing that! So please be very clear, even if a blessing comes, without maturity, it will be very difficult to handle it.
Coming back to the earlier story, Earth Goddess tells the man who had prayed to her, 'run as much as you can tomorrow. You will have all that land for yourself.'
This man thought, 'Alright! I will run through ten acres so that I can do farming and have a small farmhouse and live happily.' After half an hour, he thought, 'Why only ten acres? If I can walk up to hundred acres, not only me, but my kids also will have enough land.'
Late at night, he started thinking, 'Why walk just a hundred acres? Why not walk as much as possible? Then I can even sell some of it and become a multimillionaire! I will need money for construction. I can sell a little bit of land. Why not walk as much as possible?'
He decided that the next day he would walk as much as possible. Early next morning, the moment the sun rose, he started. He started his journey: walking, walking, walking, and walking with all his energy and enthusiasm.
After five hours, suddenly he realized, 'Why should I walk, why not start running?' So, he started running. He was running, running and running. At around three in the afternoon, his body was asking for some food. His body was hungry, asking for food, but he said, 'No, today I should not waste time in eating. Today I will make money. Today I will get land. Today I will work as much as possible so that from tomorrow onwards I can sit and enjoy.'
He started running faster. Running, running, running… around four in the afternoon, his body was begging for at least a glass of water.
He decided, 'Today I don't have time for anything, I should not waste even a single moment. I cannot waste even a single minute. No water, no food. Today I have to cover as much land as possible.'
He started running at full speed, running, running, running. By evening 6:30, the sun was about to set. By that time he had come near a beautiful river. He had almost covered enough land for one full state. He was near the river and the sun was about to set; in half an hour the sun would set.
This man thought, 'If I cross this river also it will be really nice. I will have both sides of the river for myself, in my country.' He started crossing the river.
After crossing the river, just nearby he saw a burial ground. He thought, 'Now I have enough land for people to live. I should get the burial ground also; only then I will have enough land for people who are dead. Now I have enough land for people who are going to live in my state. Next I should have enough land for people who will die.'
He wanted to cover that place also. He started running, running, running. The sun was about to set. His body said, 'No! Enough! I can't run anymore. Enough, relax!' He said, 'No, no, just ten minutes, ten more minutes. Let me cross this cemetery also.'
He was running, running. His body said, 'No! I cannot put even another single step forward; I am exhausted.'
He said, 'No, let me just finish this one part.' As he ran, the sun was about to set. Suddenly, he hit a stone and his body was not able to balance; he fell and died. He simply dropped dead!
Exactly the same thing happens in our lives. Please be very clear. You may be thinking in your mind, 'What a fool! How could he miss his whole life?'
Don't think he is a fool. We are also doing the same thing in our lives.
Maybe we are doing it in a slightly more polished way. He has done it in a physical way; we are doing the same thing in a mental way. But be very clear, we are also doing exactly the same thing.
You never relax within yourself. You never settle within yourself; you never sit with yourself. That is the reason, even in your old age, when you want to relax; you will not be able to relax.
Have you seen a single man above seventy relaxing? Never! At the most he will be sitting with the television. They can never sit with themselves. If they have company, they will start talking about their golden past.
If they don't have company, they will be sitting watching television, or with a big magnifying glass they
will be reading the same old newspaper, first line to the last! They can't sit with themselves.
I have seen many elderly people in Bharat - their sons will be married, daughters will be married, grandchildren also married! But they will be sitting and reading the matrimonial column in the newspaper! They will be sitting and reading the classified ads for brides, not for any purpose; but because they can't sit with themselves.
A man who can't sit with himself misses one of the major dimensions of his being. Continuously running, running, running, thinking that there is some purpose, his whole being is conditioned for tension, conditioned for running. Ego means thinking that there is some purpose in life.
Ego is nothing but social conditioning which gives you the idea that there is some purpose in life. Life has no purpose. Even if you achieve whatever you want, you can't take it with you. You can't carry even a single dollar. Nothing will come with you.
There is no exchange offer, please be very clear. If you give forty rupees in Bharat, you will have one dollar in USA. But no matter how much money you give in this world, you cannot have a single rupee in heaven. There is no exchange counter or exchange offer. Please be very clear, no exchange offer exists!
A small story:
In some remote village there lived a man. He distributed his property among his three sons and told them, 'Each of you should put one million rupees in my coffin when I die. Please put one million rupees each with my body and bury me.'
All three agreed, 'Yes, we will do so father.' One was an accountant, another one was a doctor and the third one was a lawyer. After the father's death, the first son came and said, 'I should be honest. Father has given me so much property.' Saying so, he put one million rupees in cash in the coffin.
The second son came and said, 'I also should be honest. Let me put my share.' He thus put his share of one million rupees in cash into the coffin.
The third son came. He just put in a cheque for three million rupees and took back the two million rupees cash his brothers had put in and said, 'Let him cash this cheque out there and spend it!'
You can't carry anything. No cheque will be useful. Your money will not be useful and nothing of it can be carried over to the next world.
As of now, this whole world, this material world, looks to be four-dimensional as you enjoy it with all your senses. The moment you leave the body, the whole experience will become black and white, uni-dimensional, flat and uninteresting. For example, as of now, the dream which you dreamt last night, that dream looks black and white and this world looks real. However, when you were dreaming, the dream looked like reality and this world had become black and white.
Please be very clear, when you are dreaming, your dreams look real and the world outside of it seems black and white. When you are awake, this world around you looks like reality and the dream is black and white. But there is no scale to measure which is reality and which is a dream.
A small story:
A great Zen Master, an enlightened Master, one morning comes out of his bedroom and suddenly starts crying, weeping.
His disciples ask him, 'What is this Master? You are an enlightened man. How can you weep? Why are you weeping? What happened?'
He says, 'Last night I dreamt that I became a butterfly.'
The disciples laugh and say, 'What is the problem? It is after all a dream. Why are you weeping for that? It is after all a dream. Why do you bother? Forget about it'.
He says, 'No, no! Now I have a big problem. I don't know whether I dreamt that I have become a butterfly or whether that butterfly is now dreaming that it has become a Zen Master!'
Please be very clear, there is no scale. There is no scale to prove whether the dream is reality, or what you think as reality is really the reality. We don't know!
As of now, the material world looks like a 4D, four-dimensional one. 3D movies are no longer the ultimate; now there are 4D movies. At Universal Studios, where they took me, they showed a film called Shrek in 4D. They show the Shrek movie and while watching some scenes not only do you see it in 3D with the spectacles provided, they also rock your chair and sprinkle water on you to give some more special effects! You really feel that the movie is happening around you; you really feel you are given the experience. That is what 4D is.
Now, as of now, when you are here, it looks as if this is 4D and dreams look like black and white. But when you enter into the dream, this becomes black and white and that looks like 4D.
Please be very clear, we don't know which is true, which is reality. You may be dreaming that you are sitting in a temple and listening to the Gita. We don't know! There is no scale with which we can measure and say whether it is dream or reality.
People tell me, 'No, no, everyday when we enter into the dream we are not entering into the same dream. On the other hand, everyday when we come to reality we are entering into the same reality. So with this scale we can say when it is reality and when it is a dream.'
Please be very clear, in one night's dream you live even 20 years of life, am I right? In one night's dream don't you live even 20 years of life? In that 20-year span, you are in the same consistent dream, is it not?
Be very clear, this whole life, this whole time span, which you think is reality may be part of one dream! This whole span, which you imagine to be real, can be part of one dream. So be very clear, there is no scale to prove which one is reality and which one is a dream. When you leave the body, whatever you see now, the whole thing will become black and white.
As I stated earlier, nothing can be carried with you at the time of leaving the body. You can't take anything with you. You can't sign your cheque! You can't talk to your relatives. If you speak they will run away! Your car will not be useful anymore. When you are not able to take anything with you, what is the purpose of life?
What is the purpose of life? The moment you understand life is purposeless, the moment you accept the beauty of purposelessness, you will realize the meaning of living.
Life has no purpose, but it has meaning to it.
Purpose is different; meaning is different. Purpose means goal orientation. You always think about the goal; running, running, running and suddenly one day you just drop dead! The more goal-oriented you are, the more you will miss life.
Purpose is different and meaning is different. When I say the word 'meaning', living itself becomes meaningful. Come to this present moment and the path itself is life; the path itself is a meaningful thing.
There is no such thing as, 'in the end you will be happy'. You always postpone joy; you always postpone bliss and you always postpone living. Life is lived in a very superficial way because you think life has got purpose.
Be very clear: the man who works just for his salary, just for money, for him only the payday will be a beautiful day. He will be happy only on that one day. He is selling his 29 days for that one day. He is selling his 29 days just for that one day of happiness.
Please be very clear: the man who is running behind some goal will never be able to live life happily. If you are working just for a salary, you will never be able to experience the meaning of living; you will only be able to run behind the purpose.
I don't say, 'Don't take the salary.' But let it not be the only goal in your life. Let it not play a major role in your consciousness. That is what Krishna says, that is what Krishna means by these words: karmanye vaa adhikaaraste maa phaleshu kadaachana - you can do only your duty, you have no right to its fruit. If you think of the fruit, you will lose the joy of living!
The meaning of living is experienced only when you understand the beauty of purposelessness. The beauty of purposelessness makes you realize the meaning of living. This is a beautiful verse! It is the essence of the Gita!
Two things you need to understand from this: one, He says, let your inner space be not contaminated by the purpose of life. Please understand, when I say inner space, I mean your mind. When you close your eyes, what comes in your mind is your inner space.
If your inner space is filled with the purposes of life, be very clear you are running behind something, which will never give you fulfillment. He says, 'Let your inner space be not disturbed or filled with purposes.'
One important thing you must understand, by nature your inner space is filled with energy; your inner space, what you refer to as atman, spirit or soul is filled with blissful energy, eternal bliss. The more you free your inner space of other furniture or 'purposes', the more you empty yourself of goals, the larger is your inner space of bliss.
For example, this room is filled with space. The more furniture you put in it, the more space will leave this room. Please understand this room is not empty; no place is empty. It is filled with space. It is filled with ether. This room is filled with the energy of ether. The more furniture you bring in, the more ether will be taken away; the ether will be moved away. It will be less filled with ether; it will be less filled by space and air energy.
Your inner space by nature is filled with bliss. The more furniture you bring in, meaning more 'purposes of life' you bring in, more you think life has got purpose, and hence, more furniture you will bring in and arrange. The more you furnish your inner space, the less blissful it will be.
In the outer place, if you furnish your home, it will look very nice. In the inner space, if you furnish, it will look very ugly.
Don't furnish your inner space. Don't bring more furniture into your inner space. Let your inner space be empty. Of course, it will never be empty. It will be filled with bliss. The more inner space you create, the more your life will be blissful, the more it will be ecstatic, the more it will be joyful. Your inner space needs to be empty. That is what Krishna means by, 'Don't be attached to results.'
Continuously, if you think about money, you will never be able to perform your action completely; you will always be goal-oriented; you will never enjoy the path. Not enjoying the path is the greatest hell, the worst hell that can happen to any human being!
Again and again Krishna says, 'Paritraanaaya saadhunaam vinaashaaya cha dushkrutaam dharma samsthaapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yuge yuge', I come down to save the innocent, good people, and to destroy the evil-minded people again and again.
People ask me, 'You also say dharma (duty) is the only thing to be practiced, but in our lives, we see people who
are not living according to dharma, but who are living more happily; they have more property, more wealth. Why is that?'
Please be very clear, they may have more property, they may have more things in the outer space, but never think they are happy; never think they are blissful. When does someone not follow dharma? When he follows his ambition! Ambition is the thing that causes you to commit all mistakes, do all possible sins. Ambition is hell.
Don't think we will go to hell by making mistakes. No! We make mistakes because we are in hell. The very ambitiousness is hell; there is no need for a separate hell. Don't think we will reach a separate place called 'hell' at the end of life. The very ambitiousness is hell. People make mistakes because they are in hell.
If you are happy and blissful, you will never disturb others. If you are unhappy, naturally you will vomit that violence on others. Ambitiousness itself is hell. The very ambitiousness is enough punishment. You don't need to curse the guy who is not following dharma and you don't need to think that he should be punished. Just because of ambitiousness, he misses his whole life.
You can easily miss life by having a purpose to life. If you have salary as the purpose, you will miss twenty-nine days of your life just for that one day, your payday. If you work just for the sake of the weekend, you will miss five days for those two days. Unless your life itself becomes joyful, unless your working itself becomes