Natural Course – In Gita Verse 10.42 But what need is there, Arjuna, for all this detailed knowledge? With a single fragment of Myself I pervade and support this entire universe.
Krishna tells Arjuna what is the use of all this information. Just have the courage to take action. With knowledge you will be clever. Don’t be clever with life. You cannot be cunning with life: all short-cuts are cunning. Let life have its own natural course. You follow it, you don’t force it.
In fact everything can become a sort of meditation, because in everything there are two dimensions – just as there are in the breath: the outer and the inner.
A child breathes in unconsciousness. A sage breathes consciously. He is again a child, a rebirth has happened. Now he breathes but he is aware. This is anapansa-sati yoga Buddha.
This is the way of Tao: how to breathe consciously.
One observes. One relaxes into oneself and looks, looks at the breathing, follows it, moment to moment: incoming, outgoing; and there are beautiful happenings. When you follow the breathing you immediately become calm and quiet. The tranquility is such that you have never known before. Just watch. If you watch the breathing even for a few seconds, you will feel you are settling somewhere. A centering happens.
The breathing goes down. Then there is a gap the breathing stops – a very small interval. In that gap there is no breathing, only you are, only the watcher is – nothing to be watched. In that moment suddenly you know yourself.
These are the techniques of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, The Book of Secrets. They were told to Parvati.
Then when the breathing goes out you follow again; when the breathing moves out of you, then again there is a gap, a very subtle gap. Breathing stops. The object has disappeared. Only consciousness. Only you. Only the seer, the witness. Again suddenly you are elated. This goes on. By and by breathing becomes an outer phenomenon. You know that you are, Whether breathing goes on or stops makes no difference. Then you come to know that you are eternal, deathless.
Such a man while dying will see his breath has left him and will be aware, watching it. He will die watchfully, and one who dies watching, never dies. He has come to know deathlessness. Through breathing he has discovered the vital principle of life. Breathing was just the outer layer of it, the outer shell, now he has come to know the content. Breathing was just the container. The circle is complete. And I am for the whole circle.
Don’t be clever with life. You cannot be cunning with life: all short-cuts are cunning. Let life have its own natural course. You follow it, you don’t force it.
And always remember that whatsoever is done is done by the whole, you are not the doer. If you can remember that, then breath is his thirst, is his hunger, is his sex, is his love, is his whatsoever happens is his, death is his. And you remain completely pure and innocent out of it.
The whole goes on doing, you are not the doer. This is the surrender, surrendering the ego: I am not the doer. This is the whole message of the Gita: Let the whole do, don’t you come in because you are the only barrier. If you come in you commit sin. This is my definition of sin: If you say: “I breathe,” this is a sin. If you say: “I love,” this is a sin. If you say he breathes this is virtue. If you say he loves, this is virtue. And this is not only a saying, you have to feel it in its totality. Then you are unburdened. Then wings grow on you, you can fly. Then the gravitation cannot affect you. Gravitation can affect only the ego.
If he is the doer, then why be worried? Then you are not in any hurry to reach anywhere, then you have no private goal, then his goal is yours, and wherever he is going he is always right because there cannot be any wrong for the whole. The whole alone is.
This is the circle of Tao: from breath, unconscious breath, to conscious breath.
And the emphasis of Lao Tzu is continuously that you can relax. That’s why he praises the weak, not the strong, because the strong cannot relax. That’s why he goes on praising water not rocks, because water is flowing, and water has no shape of its own.
Whatsoever shape is given by the whole, the water takes it. It does not carry its own mind. If you put it in a glass it becomes of that shape. If you put it in a bottle it takes that shape. It does not resist, it does not say: “I have my own shape, what are you doing to me? Don’t force me in, this bottle!” Wherever you put the water, it moves, takes the shape. It is non-resistant. It is non-violent, non-aggressive. It has no mind of its own.
But a rock? A rock has a mind of its own. If you want to force it, it will resist. You will have to fight, you will have to cut it, fight it, much fight will be needed – only then will you be able to give it shape. It has its own mind. Water is mindless. These are symbols.
Lao Tzu says: Be like water, don’t be like a rock, so that you can complete the circle. Move! If God is hungry within you – eat! If God feels sleepy within you – sleep! If God feels like loving – love! Move with God, you don’t come in the way. Let things, the whole, have its own course. You simply follow it. Even to say follow it is not good because even a follower has some resistance. That’s why he says I am for the lower. You simply be one with it.
Krishna tells Arjuna just drop all the knowledge and become conscious of yourself. And With a single fragment of Myself I pervade and support this entire universe.
Tags: Natural Course
