Bhagavagd Gita - Session 9- Track 905

The second stage is: you begin to have the knowledge of the events in the world, why events happen. And when you really know the secret of the happenings of the events, then you really begin to feel that your state of consciousness finds that both actually are good fortune: what you were calling ill fortune and you were calling good fortune, both the judgements were wrong. Your so-called ‘good fortune’ was not good fortune in the sense in which it is really good fortune. It was not ill fortune in the sense in which you were taking to be ill fortune. We will really realise that every event that happens is fundamentally in the making, it is not as if it is final. It is a process of learning.

In simpler terms, we say that all difficulties are opportunities, and this is a very valid statement. When you really understand the world, you find that every situation is an opportunity; and therefore, if anything happens, you can always turn it, if you rightly understand it, then you will find that you have just to look at it in the right manner. The moment you look in the right manner, it will turn into the right consequence. If you don’t do it, it will get more and more complicated. That is what we normally do; we get things more and more complicated. But if you really remain quiet, then you will try to understand, and the knowledge will be so that it is the measure of knowledge. If after getting the knowledge, your state becomes really equal automatically that means that you have now the right knowledge. This is called the stage of the ‘sage’.

The first stage is called that of the ‘stoic’: a stoic is one who can endure with will. A ‘sage’ is one who looks upon all events with equal mind, with knowledge that everything has a design and if you know the purpose of it, then you really become completely equal and you know also how to deal with it rightly. In the first stage, you do not know how to deal with it: that is the limitation of the first stage; you simply endure. But you do not have as yet the knowledge as how to deal with the situation. But in the second stage, when the knowledge comes, you know how to deal with it.

The third stage is that anything that happens, you learn how to resign it, in the hands of God. This requires the higher development. It is a ‘resignation’. But here again resignation can be quite wrong kind of resignation. We do not really resign: we go on thinking, but we still go on planning, plotting, conspiring; we go on doing all our activities. But it is not the real resignation.

The real resignation is: really to go in the inner chamber of the heart, very, very quietly. Therefore, it is more difficult than even jñāna. To go in the very heart, your heart should be torn as it were; the walls of your heart should be torn, you should be able to go into the chamber of heart where the Divine is seated, and where He is awaiting you; because as Sri Aurobindo says: “Just as you are in search of God, God is in a greater passion to receive you, and to give all Himself to you”. He is awaiting your call. And when you go to Him you say, “Here is my fate today, this is what has happened to me, this is the situation, I put everything in your hands, and I will do nothing; let Your will be done.” There should be such a tremendous meeting with the Divine, what we call ‘trust’ or ‘faith’ is a minor term, but this is the meaning, at least minimum, that you should have trust that when you have put in His hands be sure you have put in the hands of the omnipotent. And He will do it. You do nothing absolutely, that is the real resignation.

Resign it to the Divine’s will, but after putting the whole thing into the Divine’s hands that much you should do; do not have illusion that without putting everything in His hands, still He will do it. You have to take the trouble of going to the Divine, open the chamber, meet Him, and put in His hands and say…even if you do not see Him, imagine that He is because He really is, and say: “You are the omnipotent, I put the whole thing and I will do nothing; You do it in the best possible manner.” Or even if you still cannot remain without doing something, because we are so active in our consciousness, you still say, “Let my action succeed only if You so will it, let it fail if You so will it, I am only doing it because I cannot do without it, but I really want only your will to be done.” This is resignation. Then everything is equal. It gives you all the strength of receiving all the impacts of the world as they come upon you. This is the method. This is the second step of the method.

The Knowledge as to what is karma; what is akarma; what is vikarma. Second is titikṣā, then the knowledge of events, and thirdly resignation. And then when all this happens, there is one important instrument in our will, which is always present, and that is: ahaṁ kartāsmi, ‘I am the doer’. This is one fundamental aspect of all psychology. But when your knowledge of ‘what is Karma, what is the beginning, what is the middle, what is the end’, when you have known this, when you have endured, when you have known the eventology, when you have resigned, then this idea ‘I am the doer’ will be transformed. “I”, as a doer will be annihilated, particularly when you have resigned to the Divine’s will, now we are not doing anything, it is the Divine which is doing. Then, you will really know that you are not the doer. It is the Divine who is doing. The ego will be annihilated. This is the second stage of our method.

The third stage of this method is the most difficult. Very often when we resign everything to the Divine, and you really do nothing at all, there is a tendency to fall into such quietude that even when the Divine wants to do something you prevent it. There is so much of silence that when the Divine wants to use your instrument, they have become so stilled that they are incapable of carrying out the operation of the Divine. Therefore, in order that Divine’s will may pass through you, your instruments, (body, life and mind), you have to be so trained that your instruments are not found to be stilled.

If Arjuna has to shoot the arrow, it not as if the hand should say that now we are so stilled that now the hands will not move. Therefore, exercise of the body, life and mind, it has to be so…..