Religionless Religion – In Gita Verse 10.32 Of all creations I am the beginning and the end and also the middle, O Arjuna. Of all sciences I am the spiritual science of the self, and among logicians I am the conclusive truth.
Krishna is using symbolic language so that we not only can understand religiousness but also can practice.
When he says that I am beginning, end and middle – he says that we are inseparable. Take either the example of river or seed. Can you say that the mouth of the river from where it started and merged into the ocean river’s beginning, middle and end are separate. In the case of the seed – when we sow the seed in the earth and the fruits we get can we say that seed ends here and begins there. Life is a continuum.
Krishna is Teaching a Religionless Religion: Krishna teaches only that religion. Hence if somebody asks you what Krishna’s teaching is, in short, you will not be able to say – because Krishna doesn’t teach principles, ideologies, dogmas, doctrines. Krishna teaches you a religionless religion, Krishna teaches you the taste of it. Krishna gives you the method to become receptive to the divine. Krishna doesn’t say anything about the divine, Krishna simply tells you “This is the window – open it and you will see the starry night.”
Now, that starry night is indefinable. Once you see it through the open window you will know it. Seeing is knowing – and seeing should be being, too. There should be no other belief.
So Krishna’s whole effort is existential, not intellectual at all. And the true religion is existential. It has always happened to only a few people and then it disappears from the earth because the intellectuals immediately grab it and they start making beautiful ideologies out of it – neat and clean, logical. In that very effort they destroy its beauty. They create philosophies, and religion disappears. The pundit, the scholar, the theologian, is the enemy of religion.
So remember it: you are not getting initiated into a certain religion; you are getting initiated into just religiousness. It is vast, immense, unbounded – it is like the whole sky.
Even the sky is not the limit, so open your wings without any fear. This whole existence belongs to us; this is our temple, this is our scripture. Less than that is manmade, manufactured by man. Where it is manufactured does not matter much – beware of manufactured religions so that you can know the truth, which is not man made. And it is available in the trees, in the mountains, in the rivers, in the stars – in you, in people that surround you – it is available everywhere.
The Search for Truth in Both Science and Religion: Science is the search for truth in the objective world and religion is the search for the truth in the subjective world. In fact, they are two wings of one bird, of one inquiry – two sides. Ultimately there is no need to have two names. My own suggestion is that “science” is a perfectly beautiful name, because it means “knowing.” So science has two sides, just like every coin has two sides. Knowing in the dimension of matter you can call objective science, and knowing in the dimension of your interiority – of your inner being, of your consciousness – you can call subjective science. There is no need for the word religion.
Science is perfectly good – and it is the same search, just the directions are different. And it will be good that we make one supreme science, which is a synthesis, a synchronicity of the outer science and the inner science. There will be no need for so many religions then, and there will be no need then even for somebody to be an atheist. When theists are gone, then there is no need for atheists – they are only reactions. There are believers in God so there are disbelievers in God. When the believers are gone, what is the need of disbelievers?
There is no need to believe in anything – that is the fundamental of science. That is the scientific approach to reality: do not believe, inquire. The moment you believe, inquiry stops. Keep your mind open – neither believe nor disbelieve. Just remain alert and search and doubt everything until you come to a point which is indubitable – that’s what truth is. You cannot doubt it. It is not a question of believing in it, it is a totally different phenomenon. It is so much a certainty, overwhelming you so much, that there is no way to doubt it.
Krishna through symbolic language says that this is knowing. And this knowing, transforms a man into a buddha, into an enlightened one. This is the goal of all human growth.
Tags: Religionless Religion
