Focus On Giving – In Gita Verse 9.26 If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I will accept it.
From this verse Krishna is guiding us to focus on giving without any expectation.
Really, unless you cease this craving to get you will never be mature. So look at it in this way: a child is born and the first state of mind is one of getting. The child is getting everything – the milk, the food, the love. He is not giving anything: he is just getting. This is the most immature state of mind – just getting. When an old man is also trying to get, he has remained just an immature person. It is okay for a child to be in a state of constant getting, he is getting everything. The child cannot even conceive of what giving means. So when you say to a child, “Give your toy to this boy,” he cannot even conceive of what you mean. The language is unknown, the language of giving is unknown. He can only get it.
You have to train the child according to his language. So you say, “Give this toy to this boy, then I will give you more love.” Now you have to translate even giving into getting. “If you don’t give, then we will not give you love.” So a child begins to learn that if you want to get you will have to give. This giving becomes just a stepping-stone to get more. This is the state of our minds always; then we remain just immature. We are in a state of getting; if sometimes we have to give, it is only to get something else.
This purity of heart means quite the opposite of getting – just giving. That is the most mature mind. A child, the immature mind, is always concerned with getting. A Buddha, a Jesus, is always giving. That is the other extreme – giving not to get something, but giving because giving is a play, a bliss in itself. When Krishna says understand desire, Krishna means understand getting, understand giving. Understand that your state is just of getting, getting and getting, and you will never be fulfilled – mm? – Because there is no end.
Understand this: What have you got through this constant, eternal getting? What have you got? You are as poor as ever, as much a beggar as ever – rather, more. The more you get, the more you become a greater beggar, the more is the desire to get. So you only learn by getting, more getting. Where have you reached? What have you found? What is there which you can say is the achievement of this constant, mad getting? Nothing!
If you can understand this, the very understanding becomes a transformation; the getting drops. The moment getting drops a new dimension opens; you begin to give. This is the paradox: you have not got anything through getting – but when you give, you get. But that “get” is not concerned with your getting at all. The giving itself is a deep achievement, a deep fulfilment.
When Krishna is saying this, he is afraid you may again translate it. You may say, “Okay. So to achieve that fulfilment we must leave this constant desire to get.” Understand this; don’t translate it. Your mind can distort anything. It has distorted everything. It distorts a Buddha, it distorts a Krishna, it distorts a Jesus, it distorts a Zarathustra – it goes on distorting. They say something, you translate it, and then it is something else altogether different – diametrically opposite even.
The understanding of desire becomes desirelessness; the knowing of desire is the cessation of desire. So know deeply, understand deeply. Don’t take any hurried step, and then a purity is discovered which is always there, which has always been there. The heart is pure already, but only covered with desires, with smoke, and you cannot look deeply.
This is invocation: if you are pure you have been invoked. So be pure and the divine will be invoked. Nothing else is needed, not even a belief in the divine is needed. You need not believe that there is divine energy. You need not believe that there is someone – no need. Just be pure, and you will come to know. The divine is not a belief, it is a knowledge, a knowing.
When Krishna says “purity” you may again misunderstand, because for “purity” we have very moralistic connotations. We say a man is pure because he is moral, a man is pure because he is not a thief, a man is pure because he is not dishonest, a man is pure because he lives under the rules and regulations of his society; but if the society itself is impure, then by living according to its rules and regulations how can you be pure? If the society itself is dishonest, then by following it how can you be honest? If the whole foundation and structure is just immoral, then to adjust to it is the most immoral act possible.
What Krishna says – The great love only knows giving. Not that nothing comes back – a thousandfold it comes back, a million-fold it comes back, but that is not the motivation. If it comes it is a surprise to the great lover; if it doesn’t come there is no grudge. If it comes it always comes as a surprise, because one was not waiting for it. If it doesn’t come there is no question, because one was not waiting for it; nothing has gone wrong. There is never frustration with great love. With great love there is always fulfilment, always and always. The small love continuously leads one into frustration.
Renouncing the world brings no transformation, but renouncing the small love certainly brings transformation. So slowly slowly one has to grow into giving. A moment comes when the gestalt changes, when you simply give and you are joyous because your gift has been accepted. In that moment love starts taking on the colour of prayer. And unless love becomes prayer, we have not lived it truly. Unless love becomes prayer, we will not know the mystery of life, because love is the key that unlocks the door.
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