Bhagavagd Gita - Session 28- Track 2802

Now, the moment you bring about an objectivity, a dialogue starts. Monologue stops because there is not any more one actor acting alone: now there are many, multiplicity is created and all the multiple faces are the ‘objective’ faces of the one Reality, because Reality is one. Now, these ‘objective’ realities enter into dialogue with the ‘subject’: this is all that is called ‘play’. It is play because basically it is the same reality; same reality is here and the object is also the same reality, but now his position is different. It is his position which makes the difference in the way in which interaction can take place. In the beginning there was no interaction at all because He was the only one: interaction with whom?

Now interaction takes place with His own objective selves: this interaction is the interaction of ‘mutual sacrifice’. Sacrifice as Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita is a universal law: whether you like it or not the whole world is a pulsation, and that pulsation is not of a nature of a monologue; this pulsation is of a nature of a dialogue, of multi-dialogue: therefore there is interaction. In the interaction what happens is: the Lord gives Himself to the object and the object gives himself to the Lord. It is the same Lord in both the forms, here and there. Now, this interaction is what is called ‘offering’. God offers Himself to the Bhakta and the Bhakta offers himself to the Bhagavan.

So, even in the case of a Karmayogi who is established from the top, who really does nothing, even in his case, for the sake of the play, there is this interaction. There is not necessity of doing it, that you must now interact in this way because here is a plane of freedom: you may offer, you may not offer; you may play, you may not play; but even without your playing, your very movement will be that of offering. You are not required to offer as it were, but it is also a kind of a play in which you offer. So, even in the case of an accomplished Karmayogi in which there is no distinction between the Lord who acts and the instrument through which He acts, even there the instrument who acts can play the game of offering whatever passes through him back to the Lord, although it goes back automatically even if you do not give it back, it goes automatically to the Lord, but you can also accompany with it a kind of a play that it is as if coming from you and being given to the Lord.

Now, in the world that is designed, since it is designed on a ground of a play, this relationship is, you might say, a luxury: it is not necessary, it is not absolutely inevitable, but it is played as a luxury. So, when the supreme Bhakta, one who is really a Karmayogi who is a great Bhakta, he constantly goes on saying “O Lord! Take it, take it from me; what is being built by You in me, is once again given to You ‘as if from me’, not from me, ‘as if’ from me”, because now it comes from the objective angle. Now, this is as far as the ??? ??? concerned, when you are an accomplished Bhakta or an accomplished Karmayogi.

But when you are at a lower level of consciousness, when you are just learnt, or when you are ignorant that such is the scheme of the world, when you do not know that the world is nothing but subjective consciousness of the Lord manifesting by the creation of objective faces of Himself and then creating an interaction and that the whole world is nothing but the play between the subjective and the objective, when we do not know this, then, what should be our procedure of arriving at this realisation.

Now, one principle of Yoga is that of ‘imitation’: when we are ignorant, we do not see: we do not see the Divine as objective and subjective, we do not see the play in the world and actually the world seems so horrible, that we cannot even call it a ‘play’; but when we do not know that it is a play, at that time how shall we move towards this real perception that it is a play. So, all Yoga is a process of move from where we are to the highest state where we have to reach, where we can consciously know that this is a play and experience it to be a play. The answer is: you imitate the ideal at the present moment: you behave as if it is a play; you do it ‘as if’ because really speaking it is so.

There is a very nice one sentence of Sri Aurobindo: “Behave as if Mother is present, because indeed She is always present”. “Behave ‘as if’ the Mother is present, because ‘indeed’ She is always present”. Since I do not know that Mother is present, I am told ‘you act as if She is present’, but you are told not to do something that is false! You do it because really speaking, it is so. So the process of ‘imitation’ is basically not an artificial process: it is not based upon a fiction. You are told ‘as if’ because you do not know that it is so. The child does not know that when it cries the mother will respond and the child cries out to get the response of the mother, that is because the mother will indeed respond, it is really so, the mother is there to respond to it, the very function of the mother is to respond to the needs of the child. Such is the nature of the world, but when the child does not know, then, he learns that if the child cries then this will happen.

So, at different levels of our consciousness all Yoga is ‘imitation’; to do ‘as if’ the Reality was what it is proposed to be, that is because it is really so. Therefore in the process of Yoga, you start doing what you would do at the highest level. At the highest level you are bound to play the game because that is the Lord’s wish that He has stated the whole world only for the sake of the play. In that play He gives something and you return. Now, you at present are ignorant ego, but at the highest level you do not mean at ignorant egoistic individual, but the object which is the divine himself offering himself back to the Divine. Now, if this is true at the highest level, that even at the lowest level you imitate that movement, and you do it until the imitation element will automatically disappear and the real thing will remain. The more you become aware of it, the imitation level will more and more diminished.

Now, the conclusion of the whole description of this is that the whole world is made for a play in which each individual will be offering from its objective side to the supreme Lord who is your subject, who is your soul, who is your real being. So, if you do it even at the lower level, you will be only playing the game that Lord wants you to play, but since it is a play it is not inevitable, therefore your basic proposition: “Why should I pray to the Lord, why should I offer to the Lord, when He knows Himself, when He is omnipotent, He is omniscient?” Logically what you say is true and really speaking at that level you do not feel the necessity or compulsion of it. If you do it, it is simply for the sake of the play, but in our gradual process of development, it helps a great deal if you go on offering to the Divine: it gives you a condition more and more natural in which you will constantly play with the Divine as if you are not playing, as if there is no compulsion in it at all, but still nonetheless, even at the highest level from you there will be ‘prayer’ and there will be that ‘self giving’ and ‘self offering’, even at the highest level.

I don’t know if I have answered the question to your satisfaction. But if you have any question…what is your question? It was her question?…all right.