What can Man Offer?

WHAT CAN man offer? What can the offering be? We can offer only that which belongs to us. That which does not belong cannot become an offering, and man has always offered that which does not belong to him at all. Man has sacrificed that which is not his at all.

Religion becomes a ritual if you offer something which is not yours. Religion becomes an authentic experience if you offer something which really belongs to you. Rituals are really methods to escape from authentic religiousness. You can find substitutes, but you are deceiving no one except yourself - because how can you offer something which is not yours? You can sacrifice a cow, you can sacrifice a horse, you can offer properties of land, but nothing really belongs to you. So actually, this is theft in the name of religion. How can you offer to the Divine that which is not yours?

So the first thing is to find out what is yours, what belongs to you. Is there anything which belongs to you? Are you the master of anything of which you can say, "This belongs to me and I offer it to the Divine"? This is one of the most difficult questions: "What belongs to man?" Nothing seems to belong. And when nothing seems to belong to you, then you can say only, "I can offer myself." But even that is not right because do you yourself belong to you? Is your being yours? Are you responsible for your own being? Are you responsible to be?

Man comes from somewhere - some unknown source. He is not responsible for his being here. Kierkegaard has said, "When I look at man, I feel that he has been thrown here." He is not even responsible for his own being; the being is grounded in the Divine. Look at it this way: can a tree say, "I offer myself to the earth"? What does it mean? It is meaningless because the tree is rooted in the earth, the tree is just a part of the earth. The tree is just earth and nothing else, so how can a tree say, "I offer myself to the earth"? It is meaningless. The tree is already a part. It is not different, so offering is not possible.

So, first, you can offer something which belongs to you. Second, you can offer if there is a distance, a separateness. The tree cannot offer itself because it is not different from the earth. Or, think of it this way: a river cannot say, "I offer myself to the sea." The river is not rooted in the sea. It is separate. But, still, the river cannot say, "I offer myself to the sea." Why? It cannot say this because it is not the river's choice. The river has to flow to the sea. There is no choice left. The river is just helpless. Even if the river wants to choose not to offer, she cannot choose it; so offering is inevitable. When the offering has no choice it is meaningless.

The river cannot say, "I offer myself to the sea," because she has to come. This coming is just part of nature. The river is not coming to the sea by choice because there is no choice on the river's part. The river is just helpless, she cannot do otherwise. So a third thing: you can offer something only when you can do otherwise. If you are capable of not offering, only then do you become capable of offering. Then this is your choice.

Man is rooted just like a tree. Man is a tree, only with moving roots - rooted in Being, rooted in Existence. And man is not separate: deep down there is no separation. And man is not responsible for his own being: he has to return helplessly, just like a river falling into the sea. So where is the choice? How can you offer? Your death will be a merging whether you choose it or not. Who are you? Where do you stand and where can the offering become possible?

This sutra is very deep. This sutra says:

You cannot offer yourself, but you can offer your mind. That belongs to you and that is your choice. If you do not offer it, the Divine cannot force it to be offered. You are not helpless. It is not like a river falling into the sea. Mind has a choice. You can go on denying the Divine and the Divine cannot force you. Your being is rooted in the Divine, but not your mind. You cannot deny the Divine as far as Existence is concerned. You are part of it.

You can deny the Divine as far as consciousness is concerned. You can deny so much that you can live in a consciousness in which there is nothing like the Divine. So to say, "God is" or "God is not," can be your choice. Even if there is no God you can create one, you can believe. Even if there is God you can deny, and nothing can be forced upon you. So the only choice is with the mind, the only freedom is with the mind. Your being is rooted, but your mind is free.

Of course, your mind comes out of your being, but still it is free, free in the sense that a tree is rooted in the earth - the tree is rooted, the branch and the root, every flower is rooted - but the fragrance of the flower can be free and can move, unrooted. So you are just a tree, but your mind is fragrance. It may be offered, it may not be offered - it depends on you.

Man's freedom is man's mind. Animals are not free only because they do not have a choice: they are just what they are meant to be. They have no choice! They cannot go against nature. Man's mind is man's freedom.

So one thing, the basic one to be understood, is that because the mind is a freedom it can become an offering. You can offer your mind, but you can resist also, you can go against also, and even God cannot force you - that is the glory, that is the beauty of human existence. So man is the only animal who is in a certain way free. This freedom you can use or you can abuse.

If your mind can be arrowed constantly, continuously towards That, you have offered yourself. But because mind has a freedom it is very difficult to tether it somewhere. The very nature of it is freedom, so the moment you try to tether it, it rebels, it becomes rebellious.

It may follow you if you are not trying, but if you try, then it is bound to rebel because the very nature of mind is freedom. And the moment you try to fix it somewhere, it rebels. This is natural. You can offer the mind, but it is not easy. It is the most difficult thing to offer the mind. And when I say, "Mind means freedom," it becomes more difficult. You are trying to put your mind against its nature.

Concentration is against mind because you are trying to narrow it down somewhere - exclusively somewhere. But the mind is freedom, movement, a constant movement. It lives only when it moves. It is only when it is in movement. It is a dynamic force, so the moment you try to fix it you are trying something impossible. So what to do? The religious man has always tried to fix the mind towards the Divine; and the more he tries to fix it, the more the mind goes to the Devil.

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Jesus comes to meet the Devil. The Devil is nowhere except in the effort of Jesus to be constantly arrowed towards the Divine. The Devil doesn't exist. It is just that when you force your mind to be tethered somewhere, it creates the opposite in order to move. So you must understand the law of reverse effect. With the mind, that law is foundational. Whatsoever you try to do, the reverse will be the result. The reverse, the very reverse, will be the result! So try to arrow your mind towards God, and you will come to face the Devil. The reverse will be the effect. Try to steer your mind and your mind will become anarchic, you will be encountering turmoil.

The more stillness is sought, the more unstill the mind becomes. The more you try to make it silent, the more noise it creates. The more you try to make it good, the more sins become tempting. This is the foundational law for the mind. It is as foundational with the mind as Newton's law is with physics: the law of reverse effect.

So whatsoever you are trying to force, you will never achieve. You will achieve the reverse, and then a vicious cycle is created. When you achieve the reverse, you begin to think that the reverse is so powerful that "I am to fight more." The more you fight, the more powerful will be the reverse, the opposite. The opposite is not. You create it only because you try to tether your mind. It is a by-product, a by-product which comes only because you do not understand the law. So what to do to offer the mind to the Divine? If you choose the Divine against something else, you will never be able to offer.

There is only one way: choose the Divine as the All; choose the Divine as the whole; choose the Divine everywhere in everything. Even if the Devil comes to face you, realize the Divine in it. Then you have offered - and then the offering can be continuous, with no break, with no gap, because now no gap is possible. That's why the Upanishads don't use the word "God'. They use 'That', because the moment you say "God", the Devil is created. They don't use any word really: they use just a finger. They say "That, and this "That" is comprehending all - everything everywhere. So if you can conceive of the Divine as the All, then you can offer. Otherwise the contrary will be created: you will offer to God and the offering will go to the Devil.

All the religions have faced the problem, the dichotomy - Christianity or Judaism or Mohammedanism. All the religions born out of India have accepted the dichotomy. They have accepted the God-and-the-Devil dichotomy. So if you see the history of these religions, you will become aware of a very strange phenomenon. Jesus stands for God, but the Devil goes on tempting him also. And whatsoever Jesus stands for, his Church stands quite against it - diametrically against. So Christianity is least concerned with Christ. Rather, Christianity is his enemy, because whatsoever the Church has done, it cannot be said that it is God's work. It can be said that it is the Devil's work. But this had to be due to the law of reverse effect.

Once you accept the dichotomy, the opposite will be the result. Christ preaches love and the Church stands for hate. Christ says, "Don't resist even evil," but the whole history of the Church is a long war. So Nietzsche is right when he says, "The first and the last Christian died on the cross" - the last also! After Jesus there has been no Christian. But, really, St. Paul and others are not so much responsible as they appear to be. The real responsibility goes to the ignorance concerning the law of reverse effect.

If you choose a part as Divine and a part as non-Divine or anti-Divine, then the mind will move. And the mind has its own tricks for moving. It can justify evil in the name of good; it can rationalize war for peace; it can kill and murder because of love. So the mind is very cunning and clever in moving to the opposite. And when it moves it gives you every reason to believe that "I am not moving." So if you choose God as something apart from the world or anti-world, you will never be able to offer the mind. And a partial offering is no offering: this must also be remembered.

A partial offering is mathematically wrong. It is just like a partial circle - which is not a circle. A circle is a circle only when it is full, complete. You cannot call a partial circle a circle. It is not! Either offering is total or it is not. How can you offer partially? That is intrinsically impossible. How can you love partially? Either you love or not. No compromise is possible. No degrees of love are possible. Either it is there or it is not there. All else is just deception.

Offering is a total phenomenon. You give up, you surrender, but you cannot say, "I surrender partly." What do you mean? A partial surrender means that you are still the master and can even take it back. The part which has remained behind can take it back, can say 'no' tomorrow. So a total surrender is that in which nothing has been left behind, no withholding, so you cannot go back. There is no return possible because then no one remains behind to go back. So offering is total.

But if you divide the world, if you divide the Existence into polar opposites, then you will be in a very deep dichotomy and your mind will move to the opposite. And the more you resist, the more attractive it becomes. Negatives are very attractive. When you insist so much on "don'ts", the attraction becomes unbearable. "No" is a very enchanting invitation. So whenever you try to force your mind towards something, the other - which you are trying not to go towards - will become inviting. And sooner or later you will be bored with the part you have chosen, and the mind will move. It always goes on moving.

The Chinese philosophy says that the "yin" goes on moving into the "yang" and the "yang" goes on moving into the "yin", and they make one circle. They are in a constant movement of one into the other. The man goes on moving into the woman and the woman goes on moving into the man, and they make one circle. And the light goes on moving into the darkness and the darkness goes on moving into the light: they make one circle. And when you are bored with the light, you are attracted by darkness, and when you are bored by darkness you are attracted by light.

You go on moving between the opposites. So if your God is also a part of the opposite world, part of the logic of opposites, you will move to the other extreme. That is why the Upanishad says "That". In this "That", everything is implied, nothing is denied. The Upanishads have a very life-affirmative concept, a very life-affirmative philosophy.

Really, this is very strange: Albert Schweitzer has said that Indian philosophy is life negating, but he has really misunderstood the whole thing. In his mind, when he says "Hindu philosophy," he must have been referring to Mahavir and Buddha. But they are not really the main current - they are just rebellious children. Hindu philosophy is not life negating. On the contrary, Albert Schweitzer is a Christian, deeply Christian, and Christian philosophy is life negating! Hindu philosophy is one of the most affirmative.

So it is good to go deep in this life affirmation; only then will you be able to understand the meaning of "That," because this is one of the most affirmative words - not denying anything. "Life denying" means that your God is something against life. Jains are life denying. They say that this world is sin. You must leave it, deny it, renounce it! Unless you renounce it totally you cannot achieve the Divine. So the Divine becomes something you can achieve only conditionally - if you renounce the world.

It is a basic condition. For Buddhists also it is a basic condition: "You must renounce everything; you must choose death! Death must be the goal, not life! You must struggle not to be born again! Life is not of any value: it is of non-value. It exists only because of your sins. It is a punishment, and you must somehow go out of it, not be born again." But this is not the Hindu concept. The Upanishads are not concerned with this at all.

The same life denying attitude is of Christianity also: "Life is sin and man is born in sin." History begins in sin. Adam has been expelled from heaven because he has sinned. He has disobeyed, and now we are born out of the sin. That's why Christians have been insisting that Jesus was not born out of sex, that he was born out of a virgin girl: because if you are born out of sex you are born out of sin, and at least Jesus must not be born out of sin. So everyone is born in sin; mankind lives in sin. So a deep renunciation is needed to reach the Divine.

Christianity is also death-oriented. That's why the cross became so meaningful. Otherwise, the cross should not be so meaningful. It is a symbol of death. Hindus cannot conceive how the cross can become a symbol, and even Jesus became so significant and important because he was crucified. If you don't crucify Jesus and he is just ordinary, Christianity would not be born.

Really, those who were death-oriented became attracted towards Christ because he was crucified. The death of Jesus became the most significant historic moment. So, really, Christianity was born because Jews foolishly crucified Jesus. If he had not been crucified, there would be no Christianity. So Nietzsche is again right. He says Christianity is not really Christianity but is "cross-ianity" - crossoriented.

Albert Scheitzer

Schweitzer says that Hindus are life negating. He is wrong because he is thinking about Buddha. He was as much Hindu as Jesus Christ was Jewish, but just this much. He was born a Hindu as Jesus Christ was born a Jew. But Hindus really have their essence in the Upanishads which precede Buddha, and Buddha has said nothing which is not also in the Upanishads. They are of life affirmation, total life affirmation. And what do I mean when I say total life affirmation? You cannot conceive of Jesus dancing, you cannot conceive of Jesus singing, you cannot conceive of Buddha dancing or singing or loving, you cannot conceive of Mahavir fighting. You cannot! Only Krishna can be conceived of as laughing, dancing, loving, even standing in a war, with no denial - with no denial!

The whole life is Divine. So to choose God is not to renounce the world. To choose God means to choose God through the world. That is the meaning of 'That'. And when you choose God through the world, not against the world, then there is no opposite. Only then can you escape from the law of reverse effect. When you choose That through this, there is no opposition, there is no polarity. And when there is no polarity, mind has no layer in which to move. It is not that it is tethered, it is not that it is in bondage, it is not that you have forced it here. Now there is no possibility for it to move. The opposite is not.

Understand it clearly: when the opposite is not, the mind is free to move, yet it moves not - because where can it move? If it can move, it will move, because movement is its nature. And if you create dichotomy, then it will move to the opposite, it will rebel against you. If there is no duality, if the opposite is not and if you have comprehended the opposite also in the Divine, then where can the mind move? Then wheresoever it moves, it moves only to That. So if Krishna is dancing with a girl, he is dancing with the Divine because the girl is not excluded, the Divine is not against the girl. If the Divine is against the girl, then the girl will become the Devil. Then the girl will tempt, and there is bound to be difficulty.

Christ cannot laugh: he lives in a constant tension. Krishna can laugh because there is no tension at all. When everything is Divine and when through all he has been giving the offering, then where is the tension? Then there is no need. Then Krishna can be at ease anywhere. Even in hell he can be at ease because even hell is That.

 

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