PATANJALI SAYS THAT THROUGH IGNORANCE ONE ACCUMULATES IGNORANCE, ONE ACCUMULATES KARMA; AND PREVIOUSLY WE HAVE HEARD YOU SAY THAT UNTIL ONE ATTAINS TO A CERTAIN CRYSTALLIZATION, ONE IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ONE'S ACTIONS - RATHER, THE DIVINE IS THE DOER, THE ONE RESPONSIBLE. WOULD YOU PLEASE CLEAR THESE SEEMING CONTRADICTIONS?

They appear contradictions to you. Rather than clearing the contradictions, I would like to clear you. I would like to clean you so completely that you are not there; then you won't see any contradictions.

To see contradictions is to see through the intellect. Once the intellect is not there interfering & your vision is clear -- no thought floats in your consciousness -- you are in a state of samyama, absolutely empty,  you will never see any contradiction anywhere. All contradictions will look complementary. They are, but the mind has been trained by intellectuals, logicians, by Aristotle.

You have been taught to divide things into polar opposites -- day and night, life and death, good and bad, God and devil, man and woman. Watertight compartments.

Then if I say that in every woman there is a man and in every man there is a woman, you will immediately say, "Wait, there is a contradiction. How can a man be a woman, and how can a woman be a man? A man is man, a woman is woman - clear cut." It is not so. Life does not believe in Aristotle; life is bigger than Aristotle. Man and woman are complementaries, not contradictions.

Have you seen the Taoist symbol of yin and yang? -- contradictions meeting into each other, dissolving into each other: day into night, night into day; life into death, death into life. And that's how it is. Life and death are not two separate entities. There is no gap between them, no interval. It is life that becomes death, and it is death that again becomes life.

You see a wave rising and moving in the ocean. Just in the wake of the wave there is a hollow, an upside-down wave following. They are not two separate things. You see a great mountain: just by the side there is a great valley. They are not two things. Valley is nothing but mountain upside down; the mountain is nothing but the valley downside up.

Man and woman, and all contradictions, are seemingly contradictory. Once you can see this fact, you will always be able to know that I have to talk in contradictions because I have to talk about the total, the whole. Whatsoever I say covers only part; then the other part is left: I have to say that part also. When I say that other part, you say, "Wait, you are being contradictory." Language is still Aristotelean, and I don't think there will ever be a possibility of a non Aristotelean language. It will be very difficult because for day to day, utilitarian purposes we have to divide things into black and white.

Black and white look so separate, but real life is like a rainbow - the whole spectrum. Maybe on one side is white, on another side is black, but in between there are millions of steps, all joined together.

Life is a spectrum. If you drop the midsteps, then things look contradictory. It is your vision which is not yet clear.

I have heard, it happened one day:

One drunkard burst into the office for registration of births and deaths.

"Gentlemen," he hiccuped, "I want to register the birth of twins!"

"Why do you say 'gentlemen'?" inquired the registrar. "Can't you see I am here all alone?"

"You are?" gasped the new father, staggering back. "Maybe I had better go back to the hospital and have another look."

Maybe they are not twins, only one. It is your unconsciousness which is giving you a very distorted view of life. And again and again you will come to feel contradictions in me. They are there, but only in appearances. Deep down they meet.

Now, this particular contradiction: "Patanjali says that through ignorance one accumulates ignorance, one accumulates karma; and previously we have heard you say that until one attains to a certain crystallization, one is not responsible for one's actions - rather, the divine is the doer, the one responsible."

These arc two seemingly contradictory paths. One is that you leave all to God -- but all, total. Then you are not responsible. But remember, it has to be total; it is a total sacrifice, surrender, submission.

Then if you do good, God is the doer; if you do bad, of course, God is the doer.

Remember the totality. That totality will transform you. Don't be clever and cunning, because the possibility is there that whatsoever you don't feel is good, you will say God is responsible.

Whatsoever makes you feel guilty, you will throw it on God, and whatsoever enhances your ego, you will say, "It is I." You may not say so visibly, but deep inside you will say so. If you write a good poem, you will say, "I am the poet." If you paint a beautiful painting, you will say, "I am the painter." And if a Nobel prize is going to be given to you, you will not say, "Give it to God." You will say, "Yes, I have been waiting for it - already it is too late. The recognition-the due recognition - has been delayed too long."

When Bernard Shaw got the Nobel prize he refused, saying, "I have waited too long. Now it is below my prestige." He was one of the most egoistic persons ever -- "Now it is below my prestige. When I was young, I was hankering for it, dreaming for it. Now I am old enough; I don't need it. My recognition in the world is already so great, my applause from people is so great, now I don't need any Nobel prize. It is not going to give any more credit to me."

He was persuaded that it would be an insult to the Nobel prize committee, so he accepted, and then immediately he donated the money that comes with the Nobel prize to some organization. Nobody had ever heard about that organization. He was the only member and the chairman of that organization.

And when asked later on what he had been doing, he said, "If you get a Nobel prize, your name goes in the corners of newspapers once. I rejected it; so another day I was in the headlines. Then I accepted it again; another day I was again in the headlines. Then I donated it; again I was in the headlines. Then I donated it to myself; again I was in the headlines. I used it to its fullest." He took the whole juice out of it.

So the possibility is your ego will go on choosing. Hmm?... whatsoever you feel guilty about, you will say God is responsible. Whatsoever you feel good about, you will say, "Yes, here I am. I have done it." Totality is needed in that too.

Now, look; and now this is another path, of Patanjali, Mahavir, Buddha. They say you are responsible - total responsibility; again. Patanjali does not really believe in God. He is too scientific for that. He says God is also a method to attain to nirvana, to enlightenment. That too is a way -- just a way, not the goal. He is exactly like Buddha, Mahavir, who denied God completely, who said, "There is no God. There is no need; only man is responsible." But total. Not only for good, but for bad also.

Now see how these two contradictions are joined together in the concept of totality. Both demand totality; that is their interlink. Really, totality works: whether you surrender everything to God or you take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders does not matter. That which is really significant is that you are total. So whatsoever you do, be total & and that will become your liberation. To be total is to be liberated.

So these two look contradictory but they are not. They both are based in the same idea of being total.

There are two types of people; that's why two types of methods are needed. It is very easy for the feminine mind to surrender, to submit, to sacrifice. It is very difficult for the male mind to submit, to surrender, to sacrifice. So the male mind will need Patanjali, a path where the total responsibility is yours. The feminine mind will need a path of devotion - the path of Narad, Meera, Chaitanya, Jesus.

All is God's: 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.' Everything is his. Jesus goes on saying, "I am his." That is the meaning when he insists, "He is the father and I am the son. As a son is nothing but an extension of the consciousness of the father, so am I."

For the feminine mind, for the receptive mind, for the passive mind, Patanjali will not be of much help. Something of love is needed -- something of putting oneself totally down, effacing oneself completely, sacrificing oneself completely. Dissolving and disappearing is needed for the feminine mind; but for the male mind Patanjali is perfect. Both are right because both are the minds; and the whole of humanity is divided in these two minds.

The contradiction appears because you cannot understand the whole mind. But through these two paths, whatsoever you choose, whichsoever you choose, you will become total; and by and by the total mind will flower in you.