Existence Is Freshness – In Gita Verse 9.16 But it is I who am the ritual, I the sacrifice, the offering to the ancestors, the healing herb, the transcendental chant. I am the butter and the fire and the offering.
Through this verse what Krishna is saying is two things: one I am present in all your five senses and second I am always Here and Now. Unless you are alive in your all five senses you will not feel my presence. To be alive means to be fresh, to be just born.
I will put it differently: Krishna is saying to retain everything in its freshness the whole cycle of the universe is happening – is Mango Seed and Mango Tree different. No they are the same. To give fresh Mango, the whole process of Seed to Mango and Mango to Seed is happening.
It will be very easy for all of us to understand that to keep everything fresh and in it’s originality we see different forms like trees and Mango. But if you understand from Mango and Tree immediately you will understand the presence of Krishna, God or Universe in everything, in this moment. Not in the past or future.
Existence is freshness itself. Existence is fresh because it is always now and here. It is not burdened by the past, it does not gather any dust from the past. It is never old.
Time makes no impact on existence. Time does not exist as far as existence is concerned. Time exists only for the mind; it is a mind invention. In fact, time and mind are synonymous. Stop the mind, and time stops.
Jesus is asked by someone, “What will be the most unique thing in your kingdom of God?” And Jesus says, “There shall be time no longer.” A very unexpected answer; There shall be time no longer. That will be the most unique thing about the kingdom of God – because there will be no mind, how can there be time?
Time does not consist, as ordinarily conceived, of three tenses: past, present and future. Time consists only of two tenses: past and future. The present is not part of time; the present is beyond time. And the present is always fresh. Present is part of eternity. Present is the penetration of the eternal into the dreamy world of time, a ray of light into the darkness of mind.
Past is never fresh – cannot be, obviously. It is always dirty, it is always stinking – stinking of death, stinking of all that is rotten, stinking of tradition, stinking of corpses. The past is a cemetery. And the future is nothing but a projection of the dead past. And out of the dead past the future cannot be alive – the dead can only project the dead. What is your future? – Modified past, touched up here and there; a little better, a little more sophisticated, a little more comfortable, but it is the same past. You are hankering to repeat it. Your future has nothing new about it, it cannot have.
Mind cannot conceive of the new. It is impotent as far as the new and the fresh and the young are concerned. It can move only within the small world of the familiar, the known – and the known is the past. The future is nothing but a desire to repeat it – in a better way, of course. Hence the future is also not fresh. The present is fresh.
“Where does freshness come from?”
Freshness never comes and never goes. It is always here, it is always now. YOU, be here and now, and you are suddenly fresh, bathed in eternity, showered by something which is timeless. Call it God, call it the kingdom of God, call it nirvana, or whatsoever you want. All those names refer to the same unnameable. All those words try to express the inexpressible.
Just put the human mind aside. And by that I mean, put the past aside and the future, and look. This very moment… and the whole heaven descends upon you. You are overwhelmed. The birds are singing and their songs are fresh; they are not repeating old songs. They have no idea of yesterday’s and they are not singing; for the future. They are not rehearsing for tomorrow. And the trees are fresh. All is fresh except for the man.
So don’t ask, “Where does freshness come from?” Ask, “From where does this dullness come, this staleness, this deadness?” Because this deadness comes and goes. Freshness is always there – it is the very nature of existence. It is God’s presence.
Meditation is nothing but a way, a method, to connect you with the eternal, to take you beyond time, beyond that which is born and dies, to take you beyond all the boundaries, to take you to the inconceivable and the unknowable. And it is not far away; it is as close as it can be. Even to say that it is close is not right, because it is exactly your very being, it is you. Freshness is your soul.
Your mind is boring, utterly boring. Get out of the mind. At least for a few moments every day, put the mind aside, be utterly nude of the mind. And then you will know it is welling up within you – the freshness you are asking about. Where does it come from? It comes from the deepest core of your being – and it does not really come. Suddenly you find it has always been the case. It has always been there like an undercurrent, underground, hidden behind many many layers of memories, dreams, desires.
Krishna from this simple verse guides us to transcend all our five senses so we can feel the Freshness is our soul.
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