The Bhagavad Gita’s Approach to Ethics

True Religiousness

True religiousness has nothing to do with churches, mosques, priests – they are all technicians exploiting you. Their ideologies, theologies, are simply supplies to fill this longing within you. They cannot fulfill it. So people are Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, but still in some corner of their heart there is a search, an ongoing quest. And if they can understand that, that is the true direction of religion, then they will drop Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, and they will follow the longing. It is a longing to make your life more creative, so that it becomes a music, so that life itself becomes a sunset. It is a longing to make it so meditative that life itself becomes the presence of the unknown surrounding you, releasing a fragrance that is not of this world.

Love is our deepest longing: Love is our deepest longing. Just as the body needs food the soul needs love – it is nourishment, spiritual nourishment. Without the food, air and water, the body will deteriorate; without love the soul starts shrinking. And everybody is living with a very small soul for the simple reason that they have not loved.

And why have they not loved? If you inquire into the question you will be surprised, because for the whole of their life everybody is trying to get love. But people are trying to get, not to give, and the law of love is that you get only when you give. Giving comes first, getting is only a consequence.

Liberation From Bondage

Krishna says that one who has known himself means his emptiness, has understood the process of liberation from bondage.

All the religions say, ‘Liberate yourself from your attachments.’ Only Zen has the strange courage to say, ‘Liberate yourself from yourself!’ Liberating yourself from your attachments is child’s play. The real, authentic seeker finally liberates himself not only from other things but even from himself. He drops the very idea that ‘I am.’

Buddha himself had great difficulty. Perhaps no man has had such a great difficulty in explaining his experience. In this country, the self, atma, has been considered to be the ultimate experience. The two other religions of this country, Hinduism and Jainism, have both emphasized that to know yourself is all, there is nothing beyond it. Now, Buddha was going against all of India’s traditions by saying that the self is only a door to no-self. Don’t stop at the door, it is a bridge to be passed. Don’t make your house on the bridge because a vast universe is ready to welcome you if you can leave this small idea of yourself.