Growing Up – In Gita Verse 10.22 Of the Vedas I am the Sāma Veda; of the demigods I am Indra, the king of heaven; of the senses I am the mind; and in living beings I am the living force [consciousness].
Krishna says that everything is incomplete. That’s why things are growing.
He is starting from words and ending with consciousness in us. He says that because everything is incomplete it is growing.
Words are incomplete till the time through your awareness it becomes your knowing, which is Me. Your Demigods are incomplete till the time you become aware through the Demigod that I am the ruling force inside the Demigod. Once you transcend your senses and become no-mind you will know I am. Before transcending senses you will be incomplete as your senses will drive your life, that is your consciousness which is Me.
In life, Growing up means growing deep within yourself; that is where your roots are.
What does growing up really mean?
Man is born to achieve life, but it all depends on him. He can miss it. He can go on breathing, he can go on eating, he can go on growing old, he can go on moving towards the grave – but this is not life. This is gradual death from the cradle to the grave, a seventy-year-long gradual death. And because millions of people around you are dying in this gradual, slow death, you also start imitating them. Children learn everything from those who are around them; and we are surrounded by the dead.
So first we have to understand what Krishna means by life. It must not be simply growing old; it must be growing up. And these are two different things. Any animal is capable of growing old. Growing up is the prerogative of human beings. Only a few claim the right.
Growing up means moving deeper into the principle of life every moment; it means going farther away from death – not towards death. The deeper you go into life, the more you understand the immortality within you. You are going away from death; a moment comes when you can see that death is nothing but changing clothes, or changing houses, changing forms – nothing dies, nothing can die; death is the greatest illusion there is.
For growing up, just watch a tree. As the tree grows up, its roots are growing down, deeper. There is a balance: the higher the tree goes, the deeper the roots will go. You cannot have a tree one hundred and fifty feet high with small roots; they could not support such a huge tree. In life, growing up means growing deep within yourself – that’s where your roots are.
To me, the first principle of life is meditation.
Everything else comes second. And childhood is the best time. As you grow older, it means you are coming closer to death, and it becomes more and more difficult to go into meditation. Meditation means going into your immortality, going into your eternity, going into your godliness. And the child is the most qualified person because he is still unburdened by knowledge, unburdened by religion, unburdened by education, unburdened by all kinds of rubbish. He is innocent.
But unfortunately his innocence is being condemned as ignorance. Ignorance and innocence have a similarity, but they are not the same. Ignorance is also a state of not knowing, just as innocence is. But there is a great difference too, which has been overlooked by the whole of humanity up to now. Innocence is not knowledgeable, but it is not desirous of being knowledgeable either. It is utterly content, fulfilled. A small child has no ambitions; he has no desires. He is so absorbed in the moment: a bird on the wing catches his eye so totally; just a butterfly, its beautiful colors, and he is enchanted; the rainbow in the sky And he cannot conceive that there can be anything more significant, richer than this rainbow.
Krishna in this verse says you can start from Veda, Demigods, your own senses or your life and you will be connected with Me if you are meditative. As with all these I am a driving force, of within. In meditation you go inside of you. You touch your roots, which is Me.
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