The Act and the Actor🔗

18.1 Arjuna said, 'Krishna, Killer of the demon Kesi, I wish to understand what the purpose of renunciation is and what being a monk is, and the difference between the two.'

Arjuna speaks now after being silent for a long time.

even call these words doubts. He just wants to hear the truth from Krishna again and again.

Sometimes after listening to the whole discourse, disciples ask me to repeat a joke or a story once more! They have heard it once but want to hear it again. Especially from the Master, listening to certain things again and again gives great joy.

Words of a Master are energy. These words drill deep into you and transform you. At the time of listening, you may not realize their impact. But they never fail to impact you. Arjuna asks some of these questions in order to hear from Krishna again.

Arjuna says: ‘O Mighty One, I wish to understand the purpose of renunciation and of the monastic life of sanyas. O Hrishikesa (another name for Krishna meaning one who is in complete control of His senses), please tell me the truth.’

As I told you, it is not that Arjuna does not know. He has just heard the whole thing. Still, he wants to listen to it once more. Sometimes we enjoy listening to the same thing over and over.

A small story:

A man calls the lawyer’s office and asks to speak to his ex-wife’s lawyer.

The secretary says: ‘I’m sorry, Sir, but the lawyer passed away yesterday.’

The man expresses the usual condolences and disconnects. Ten minutes later, for the second time, he calls and asks to speak to his ex-wife’s lawyer.

The secretary says: 'I told you ten minutes ago that he passed away last night.' Once more the man thanks her and disconnects.

Again after another ten minutes, he calls the lawyer's office and asks to talk to his ex-wife's lawyer. Now the secretary becomes a little angry and says: 'I already told you that you cannot talk to him. He died yesterday. Can't you understand?'

The man replies: 'Yes ma'am, I understand. But it gives me such joy to hear it that I am calling again and again!'

So it is not that we do not understand, but it gives us great joy to listen to the same thing again and again! Like that, Arjuna wants to listen to the same truth again and again.

Arjuna wants to know why a person would want to sacrifice everything and what is the process of renunciation.

In India it is often difficult to distinguish a renunciate, a sanyasi, from a common beggar. Both seek alms. Both possess very little. And both are homeless. Many people take the easy path and treat the sanyasi like a beggar and shoo him off. This attitude is far more prevalent in South India, especially Tamilnadu, where there has been a lot of propaganda against the Hindu religion and spirituality.

I tell my disciples, 'When in doubt treat the beggar as if he were a monk. If you have money to give, what harm is there if you give it to benefit another person?' Some people tell me, 'But Master, they are cheating us!'

So what! Get cheated, that's all. When you give, give unconditionally or don't give at all. When you give unconditionally, not expecting anything in return, what difference does it make whether you give to a monk or beggar. If you expect that a monk will bless you if you give and that blessing will have effect, why can't the blessing of a beggar have the same effect? And how do you know that a person wearing a monk's garb is truly leading a monk's life?

Quite often people give to those wearing a monk's garb because they are conditioned to give to them and they are afraid to refuse. They believe that if the monk curses them they will have problems. So, giving alms to a sanyasi is like taking out insurance. You expect that your merits are getting noted down in a cosmic record and will be read on the Day of Judgment to decide whether you go to hell or heaven.

Please understand, there is no hell or heaven. These are illusions used by religions to control you through fear of hell and greed of heaven. No one keeps a list of your merits and offences, your punya and papa. No St. Peter will be at the Pearly Gates waiting for you. Nor will Yama be on a buffalo waiting to pronounce judgment upon you.

I tell people who wish to donate to my mission and ashram, not to do it hoping that they will be guaranteed a place in heaven. 'There will be no Nithyananda waiting to guide you into heavenly suites when you die,' I tell them. There is no exchange offer that you pay now and go to heaven later. When you do good deeds in this world, you

are already in heaven. When you are in hell, you cause problems to everyone and yourself.

Make it simple. Give unconditionally if you can afford it. Give even if you cannot afford it. That is when giving becomes truly effective. When you sacrifice what you cannot afford to sacrifice, by the mere act of giving, you become a renunciate, a sanyasi. How noble it is!

Arjuna is confused about the act and the actor. What is important is the act. Anyone can be the actor.

Q: Master, you said that renouncing one's ego is the ultimate step in renunciation and that compassion is the outcome. Please explain how this occurs?

Love and compassion are the end results in true renunciation. This renunciation needs great courage since the basic requirement for moving into the world of love and compassion is dissolution of your ego. That is not easy to do.

We cling to our ego like an infant monkey to its mother. We are ready to die for it, but we are not ready to let it die because it defines us. It gives us an identity. It gives us a separate existence. It makes us feel important and significant.

But ego is a false phenomenon and these feelings are rooted in fallacy. Deep down we are aware that the identity and importance that ego gives is bogus. We know that they are phony. They are bondage, not support. We know it yet we don't want to know it. We are aware of it yet we don't want to know it. We are aware of it yet we want to be oblivious of it. This is the human dilemma.

Life is a misery with ego because we cannot be joyful if we are rooted in something false. Only truth can release the energies of joy in us. Ego is the greatest lie: all other lies are by-products of it. Because it is a lie, it creates a thousand and one problems around itself. It hides behind those problems. It creates such a great facade of misery that you get involved in that suffering and you forget everything about the root cause.

The moment ego is dropped, your life instantly goes through a radical change. It goes through a revolution. All that it requires is only your decision. If you want to drop it you can drop it right now. Nothing prevents you from dropping it except yourself.

Ego is like darkness. It has no substance on its own. You cannot remove darkness physically, can you? You can only remove darkness by bringing in light. The positive nature of light automatically and effortlessly removes the darkness. So it is with ego. It is the darkness born out of the ignorance of our true self. We fail to realize that we are one with the universe because of the illusion of ego. Love for our fellow beings is the light that destroys this ego. You fall in ego and rise in spirituality.

Ego drops when communion happens between a Master and a disciple in total silence and from heart to heart, not from mind to mind. The Master says nothing. The disciple hears nothing. Yet everything is said and everything is heard. Nothing is said. Nothing is heard, yet everything is understood.

The Master-disciple relationship is the most mysterious phenomenon in Existence. It is not intellectually comprehensible. It cannot be proved in a logical way. It is not logical at all. Those who become sanyasins out of a logical conviction by listening to Masters and becoming convinced that what the Masters say is true are only on the periphery. The true disciple has nothing to do with what the Master is saying; the true disciple has something to do with what the Master is.

The true disciple falls in love. It is not a question of conviction. It is something more mysterious and transcendental. Hence, a real disciple cannot explain to anybody what has happened. Everybody will think that he has gone mad, that he has been hypnotized and that he is no longer in control of his senses.

People who think like that are not to blame. The whole fault is the disciple's, but he cannot explain. What can the disciple do about it? The fault lies with reality itself. Certain things are beyond explanation. They elude rationalization. And in fact, life begins when you come in contact with something incomprehensible, inexplicable, indefinable and unprovable; yet somewhere deep down, your heart says it is so. It is falling totally in love, and it is a love of an entirely new quality.

This love is not limited to the Master but it is experienced toward the entire world. You no longer think in terms of ‘I,’ but in terms of ‘you.’ This is compassion. This feeling of unconditional, uncalled for and uncontrollable love is compassion. This happens when your ego surrenders.