Bhagavad Gita

Well since there are no questions or contributions after the lecture perhaps we could take a minute before and just see what comments you might have for questions that might have arisen. I know some of you have been here for a long time and understand that the process here is quite a bit more involved than simply interesting lectures on delightful subjects. Have any of you questions or of the where we are? No. That's fine. Yes. Field of inquiry should be broad. Usually people are limited by a polarized kind of mentality and seek to present objective information data. It's called grossly and that's useless. It's a no use. And so because the way in which we initially perceive any relational focus is just as important as whatever is manifested. I constantly shy us away from those frozen objectified bits of data data bits that are even called technically because we can't use those. And so we're involved in a long going long term motion. And our motion approximates that. Figure eight That Mobius strip. That infinity sign and symbol. And in our patterned motion again and again we are constantly trying to link up in our retrospect through reflection upon our experience and we can reflect upon our own experience and learn from it. It is not totally nor always suspect. And along with our retrospection we have the inner focus of imagination highly stylized and hermetic terms in the Renaissance as an occult eye but simply the imaginative eye to see where.

Complementary to Introspection. One is moving towards the purpose the direction as well as the purpose the vector upon which one is moving with time space pulling and their familiar pattern and our emotion constantly going through what we call a field of inquiry rather than a subject matter or an agenda or any kind of a categorical arrangement. We have a field of inquiry which we are enriching and constantly expanding but with an eye more and more toward some intelligent patterning which will aid to the quality of retrospection and add to the significance and amplification Of the imagination. And so those of you who've been coming since the very beginning of this concourse this adventure and learning as someone styled it in the Saturday Evening Post one time a long time ago very happy which was taken from Alfred North Whitehead's great statement in the 20s. We're on an adventure and we no longer have things and we no longer have objects or even subjects. We have a process and we have reality. And through consideration of their vicissitudes and modulations and so forth we are increasingly aware and alerted to the Noticeability of quality of order and ordering which becomes manifest more and more. And one of the great linkings together of this figure eight motion. If you remember one of the lectures last year is those figure eights linking together and forming what was stylized in the early Renaissance Hermeticism as the great chain of being.

And also when it accordions into a sense of the present it is what the Egyptians call living time or Plato called. In the Timaeus. Time is the moving image of eternity. Who moves? Who carries that eternity? We do. We are in time the moving image of eternity. We are in our life patterns living time of itself and we are in our adventure of understanding more and more participatory in that great chain of being. In this particular series we've reviewed from the very earliest documentary coherent material in India and China the Rigveda or the writings of Fushi and the Bagua leading to the Jing. And we have made our way through more than a thousand years of sophistication. And we are currently in India. Tonight as we were last week with the Ramayana and the Jataka. Two weeks now we're at the third week here. Fourth week. Dhammapada. We come upon tonight another watershed. The Bhagavad Gita is the first really great synthesis the first conscious blending and interpenetration of traditions which had hitherto seen to the naive mind to be contradictory. Someone once described the Gita as a merging of fire and iron to make a kind of a fluid steel very strong and apt image. The Bhagavad Gita has a position of almost unprecedented insofar as its effect in the 20th century has been at least as great and noticeable as its effect in any century since it was first composed about 400 BC.

And in fact holds a place with the Dao De Jing as being one of the few ancient wisdom texts that was actually used by millions of living human beings in our own time as a guiding star for effective action in their lives individually and collectively to the largest amplification from individuals to families to states to great nations to a world wide vision and movement. And I will close the presentation tonight with a glimpse of the continuing importance and visibility of the Bhagavad Gita and the work especially of Vinoba Bhave who was still alive and still moving on the playing of effective action. I guess the key. Yoga the Gita and the second chapter. And we'll get to this particular part. There's a series of verses in the second chapter especially the last 18 verses which are just the the cream of the Gita. Even mindedness is yoga even mindedness and it's expression and a physiological noticeability. Is that on the inhalation and the exhalation of the breath there is always a moment which could be expanded to a sense of presence between the two processes and if they are evened out the inhalation and the exhalation. Two. A balance brought together around the presence of that pause. That's a beautiful seed of this even mindedness which is yoga. The man of pure vision goes to the abode of eternity.

We are the moving image of eternity in time. Now I think I'd like to introduce the Mahabharata. Is the general context in which the Bhagavad Gita occurs. Mahabharata. This is a condensation. There is another English translation by PC Roy that takes up 12 volumes. This by Rajagopalachari was done oh about 30 years ago and it in about 250 300 pages presents the essence of what you would tell in terms of a story. It's the story telling version something you would speak out loud rather than to read silently or to read in a long protracted ritual. And the Mahabharata is about a war and the location of that war in geographical terms was on a field called Kurukshetra on the outskirts of modern day Delhi along the river and Kurukshetra. This field of battle is an actual physical geographical location in place and it is said in the Mahabharata which was written incidentally by the great sage Bhagavan Vyasa. An easy way to remember Vyasa's name. Think of the word for wind and Vyasa is that wind like intelligence. That's his nature. And not simply just the wind but the shaping wind. Who can take the language and take the meaning and tradition and shape it and mold it and bring it out in a great epic. He is like Valmiki or Homer. He is a great epic poet a seer but one of the seer poets whose epic structures literally create civilizations.

The reverberations of large spiritual endeavors always are manifest in time and space and the manifestation of an epic is a civilization. Corollary there is no civilization without some epic core and until there is one there is no chance for that amplitude to come into possession. The Mahabharata is essentially a story of how relatives in a kingdom through complex vicissitudes found themselves split off father against son uncles against nephews teachers against students brothers against brothers. This whole complicated kingdom split apart and brought into a titanic conflict in the shape of a great battle. And the two conflicting Sides arrayed along the flanks of the great vast plain of Kurukshetra. And the greatest warrior of that day Arjuna seeking as a professional. Warrior to size up the competition and his strategic situation. Has his charioteer drive into the space in between the multitudes. And these are multitudes that are arrayed with great plumes upon elephants. Blowing their conch shells and their chariots with the horse teams champing at the bit. Miles of these and into the space in between this incredible cacophony. Of confusion and confrontation and brutality and imminent death. Arjuna and his charioteer Here right into the center and in that universal synaptic gulf. Arjuna realizing the situation has this realization of the impossibility of it penetrate his awareness and sink like an arrow into his consciousness and he literally collapses. The hair rises on the back of his neck.

He is parched. He lets his bow go. He slumps down into the chariot and he is deathly afraid for his life because he has been split literally split by this realization of the impossibility of it all. And in that moment his charioteer turns to him and the charioteer is none other than an incarnation of Krishna. And Krishna addressing himself to Arjuna begins a dialogue with him seeking to bring him back from this incredible neurotic despair this incredible fear of imminent death this baffled UN easement which is a universal condition of that split. And Krishna begins talking to him. But Vyasa in order to make this a palatable universal theme does not simply write out the situation but rather has a seer Sanjaya who can see only by his inner spiritual eye. And he is describing to one of the kings all of this action and he is going to describe this war and before the war Begins and commences. In that split second he notices the chariot in the middle and overhears with his spiritual ear this conversation between Arjuna and Krishna and it is Sanjaya the blind sage who in his spiritual vision is relating it to the king Dhritarashtra and to all of us for thousands of years who are privileged through Vyasa to overhear this description. A little bit of language conch shells and drums kettledrums cymbals and trumpets all at once were sounded. The sound was tremendous.

Then on the white horse yoked mighty car standing Madhuvan Krishna and the son of Pandu Arjuna blew their wondrous conch shells and they ride into then seeing arrayed I'm skipping then seeing a raid. Did Rashtra Sons the eight bannered one that's Arjuna with the clash of arms had just begun lifted up his bow the son of Pandu. And to Krishna. Then words like these spoke O king between the two armies halt my chariot O unshaken one until I espy these that are drawn up eager to fight and see with whom I must fight in this warlike enterprise. And as he lives and sees this thus speaking Arjuna in the battle sat down in the box of the car letting fall his bow and arrows his heart. Smitten with grief Sanjaya said to him thus by compassion possessed his eyes tearful blurred despondent. This word spoke the slayer of Madhu. The blessed one said whence do thee this faintheartedness and peril has come offensive to the noble not leading to heaven and glorious to Arjuna. Yield not to Unmanliness. Son of Pritha. It is not meet for thee. Petty weakness of heart. Rejecting. Arise! Scorcher of the foe. But Arjuna begins giving reasons of why he cannot participate. Why he cannot see the need to kill. These are his relatives. These are his friends his teachers and Krishna. All the while throughout the Bhagavad Gita is fending off these statements. However true they are they are true and the relative world.

But what Arjuna has is a hold of the dragon's tail. The absolute conundrum. And Krishna speaking to Arjuna pokes through all the veils all the feints all the beautiful sounding rationales and constantly directs Arjuna's attention to the real question the real situation and does not let him go for a minute. Well in book two of the Bhagavad Gita after this has been set up in a raid and the conversation commenced Arjuna says what? Oh Krishna is the description of the man of steady wisdom merged in samadhi. How does the man of steady wisdom speak? How set how moved? And so he has taken the lead of Krishna and he realizes that what is at stake now is indeed everything that he was afraid of at first and even more because it's no longer just a battle involving everything that he knows of in life. It is in fact a primordial conflict which involves everything in the universe. And that Arjuna temporarily is the focus the single person fulcrum upon which this crunch is landsliding into. And he understands that Krishna is saying to him that there is a character that needs to be revived in him and it has a property. It has a mode of being called steadfast wisdom said the Prajna darshan steadfast wisdom. And so Arjuna says what is the man like who has steadfast wisdom? The Lord said Oh Partha! When a man completely casts off all the desires of the mind his self finding satisfaction in itself alone then he is called a man of steady wisdom.

He who is not perturbed by adversary who does not long for happiness who is free from attachment fear and wrath is called a muni of steady wisdom. He who is not attached to anything who neither rejoices nor is vexed when he obtains good or evil. His wisdom is firmly fixed. When he completely withdraws the senses from their objects as a tortoise draws in its limbs then his wisdom is firmly fixed. The objects of the senses fall away from a man practicing abstinence but not the taste for them. But even the taste falls away when the Supreme is seen. And he is. He is alluding to a difference here which we will bring out later on towards the close of the lecture that there is a state of mind in fact a state in which the mind itself is immersed in consciousness and that state is referred to in Sanskrit as samadhi. And there is a samadhi which one achieves through meditation. Diana. Diana and Diana. Meditation. Profound and exact eventually fades away unless it is refreshed and so one must meditate in a continuous basis. But there is another style of samadhi known as dhyana. Samadhi. J m a n a and jhana. Samadhi is not dependent upon any kind of a reoccurring nourishment in time space.

It is that basis of steady wisdom steady being seasoned wisdom being prajna darshan meaning able to be seen taking view of it taking view of the steady wisdom and that steady wisdom has as its experiential mode of manifestation. This jhana samadhi at the time. And so he is saying the objects of the senses fall away from a man practicing abstinence but not the taste for them. But even the taste falls away when the Supremes seen there is no longer any trace whatsoever the turbulent senses of the son of Kunti who was the Queen the mother violently carry off the mind even of a wise man striving for perfection. The Yogi restrains them all and remains intent on me. His wisdom is steady whose senses are under control. When a man dwells on objects he feels an attachment for them. An attachment gives rise to desire like the heat waves coming off the phenomenon and desire breeds anger. That is it's like a force field. And what comes out of that? Not only anger Anchor but in the loss graph all of these phantasmal shapes take their root in that heated forcefield of desire and its nourishing ground. The tension that permits it to occur in the first place is attachment and the polarization of an object. And this difference over here creates the beginnings of it all. Thus the gatorades. When a man dwells on objects he feels an attachment for them.

Attachment gives rise to desire and desire breeds anger. From anger comes delusion. From delusion. The failure of memory. From the failure of memory. The ruin of discrimination. And from the ruin of discrimination. The man perishes. So Arjuna you see has been caught in the crisscross of Krishna's orientation to him and held firm. Exact. Krishna continues the man of self-control moving among objects with his senses under restraint and free from attachment and hate attains serenity of mind. That is to say and this is sort of like the quintessential point in the Geeta that we'll come back to again and again. That one still moves one still has the actions but there is no attachment there is no tension engendered and none of the other phenomena that could come into play occur at all. They simply never occur. And the key to it is for that Movement to be held within as within a yoga and the style and the Geeta is karma yoga the yoga of action and the karma yoga. Who moves moves without any polarization because the eventual fruits of action are disregarded. They have no place within the realm of consciousness for the Karma Yoga. He simply does. And the doing has its form and formation through the recognition of pattern through the development of this jhana. Samadhi. One well knows what is going on but one is not desperate to have this or that outcome happen.

Why? Because there is no guesswork. The laws of the universe are very clear. They make a sense in an ordering. And if one participates in a patterning from the root on up in an intelligent knowing way it's inevitable there never will occur any reality other than that which can be. And so the karma yogin almost like the the person who knows how the deck is stacked knows how the cards will be dealt out each and every time and is no longer in the least bit concerned about the outcome of the games they have. The outcome has no place in the consciousness. The man of self-control moving among objects with his senses under restraint and free from attachment and hate attains serenity of mind in that Serenity. There is an end of all sorrow for the intelligence of the man of serene mind soon becomes steady. That is there is no longer this kind of a fluctuation. And in fact many naive psychologists posit their intelligence upon keeping track of the fluctuations of consciousness as if that were some great achievement. And if as if some therapy could come from that shadow show no such thing. The man whose mind is not under control has no self-knowledge and no contemplation either. Without contemplation he can have no peace. And without peace. How could he have happiness for even one of the roving senses? If the mind yields to it carries away Discrimination as a gale carries away a ship on the waters.

Therefore Almighty. Urging his wisdom is steady whose senses are completely restrained from their. Objects. Not the desire of desires of peace but he into whom all desires enter. As the water enters the ocean which is full to the brim and grounded in stillness. Krishna is saying the sage the person in steady wisdom still in their movement. Of life has all of the attributes that a human being would have. But there is no target. There for the complications of those actions their reverberations to find a hole they. Simply pass through one's being and go back to the ocean of the universe just as water from the millions of streams and rivers and so forth flows back to the ocean. And that ocean is as they say full to the brim at all times and grounded in stillness. So the sense of internal presence which is being encouraged in Arjuna by Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita is a transparent luminescence which will never be a target for the arrows of recrimination because it simply is on a different plane of existence. The man. That man who lives is completely free from desires without longing devoid of the sense of I and mine attains peace and peace. Of course Shanti is forever. The ending of A Discourse of Wisdom from the ancient Upanishadic times all the way through to the time of the Bhagavad Gita. Peace.

Shanti Shanti Shanti is a well-wishing a gift of that fearlessness of the sense of presence. And so it is said devoid of the sense of I mine. That man attains peace. And this is the pragmatic state. V r a h mc from modern Brahmanic state Arjuna and attaining it one is no longer diluted and being established therein. Even in the hour of death one attains final liberation and Brahman. And so these 18 verses at the end of the second book of the Bhagavad Gita the second of the 18 books or chapters of it gives us a description of the man of steady wisdom. The person of steady wisdom would rather say. Now the next. The next development in the Bhagavad Gita that I would like to draw your attention to occurs in book five and I will shift over as I will several times tonight to another translation. There are many fine translations of the Gita. I would say there's probably a dozen really fine translations of it. the one I moved to now is the one done by M.K. Gandhi and it was originally published in his newspaper Young India. And towards the end of the complications of the Second World War 1946 they put out 3000 copies in Ahmedabad. The Navjivan press. Nava Jeevan means new life. Navjivan publishing house and I happen to have one of the 3000 copies that were put out at that time. And it was taken down by his secretary Mahadev Desai.

And Gandhi like Vinoba after him would take advantage of the times in which he appeared in prison. And you have to realize that persons of goodwill in this chaotic time space usually end up in some kind of detention either in life circumstances or physically like a prison or in some kind of a limbo or bind within themselves. It is not a mark of failure but rather an indication that one has been moving in the right way with the wrong company. That sort of thing. It's a sure sign. And one of the first beginning cures of it is the development of a sense of irony that it was indeed a sign that not only nothing was wrong but that something was getting right. So Gandhi put in prison for the umpteenth time made his own translation of the Gita and he always claimed that he did not know Sanskrit and in fact said that his first acquaintance with it was the translation by Sir Edwin Arnold around 1888 1889 in English. But Gandhi of course was acquainted with the Gujarati version the Hindi version and somewhat with the Sanskrit version and he made this translation. I guess I should have my time yet. I think I will. Here's a little something. Gandhi took the Gita as his workbook. And from understanding its strategies. And understanding its positioning of intelligence and its movement of karma yoga.

He literally developed a small band of people who became extremely effective and who later on. Actually brought India into eternal limelight by being the first place in which literally millions of people many of them unable to understand the finer philosophic elements in the Gita but knowing full well as human beings the motions within their own lives and understanding those meanings brought it into the 20th century and literally created a worldwide movement which had reflections in our country too. By the way he writes in here at the in the introduction. The matchless remedy is renunciation of fruits of action renunciation of the fruits of action. This is the center around which the Gita is woven. And this renunciation is the central sound round which devotion knowledge and the rest revolve like planets. The body has been likened to a prison. There must be action where there is body. No one embodied being is exempted from labor and yet all religions proclaim that it is possible for man by treating the body as the temple of God to attain freedom. Every action is tainted be it ever so trivial. So how can the body be made the temple of God? In other words how can one be free from action from the chains of sin? The Gita has answered the question in decisive language by desireless action by renouncing the fruits of action by dedicating all activities to God i.e. surrendering oneself to him body and soul.

But desirelessness or renunciation does not come from the mere talking about it. It is not attained by an intellectual feat. It is attained only by a constant heart churn. Right knowledge is necessary for attaining renunciation. A constant heart churn is necessary. So in the fifth book of the Gita Arjuna again is addressing himself to Krishna. He understands what's at stake. He understands what's been happening but he can't focus himself. He keeps wobbling because his position. I guess we would call it his understanding within his own estimate of his psychology is brittle. It has no continuity. And so he moves from a moment of glimpsing what is happening to a moment where he's again awash. And it's even worse because he now is worried that he understood it a minute ago and now he can't. And then the next minute he sees it in a totally different way and he's completely adrift because he has no sense of continuity to link this together and more and more as he understands and enabled to reflect more accurately upon his experience. It has that phenomenon very characteristic in Stanley of increasing fragmentation of almost an experience. I guess a a metaphysical glimpse of it would be as if you would conceive of yourself as a mountain top and it was completely surrounded by little flecks of sparks of light. And they're supposed to make sunlight and instead they make a static in the darkness.

That kind of an image. But Krishna is there and the sense of his presence is there. And so Arjuna even with this kind of torrential fragmentation still has that trust that the Lord of the universe is there manifest and has engaged him. And he being a warrior is willing to take this on. And that fact in and of itself is the beginning of the cure the rehabilitation of Arjuna from his despondency. So Arjuna says reaching out with these words thou lovest renunciation of actions O Krishna while at the same time thou lovest performance of action. Tell me for a certainty which is the better? The Lord said renunciation and performance of action both lead to salvation. But of the two Karmayoga performance is better than Sannyasa renunciation. In other words don't be concerned by that kind of a question. That kind of a splitting in your your mind about it. Both of them will do. But since you asked this one is better karmayoga him. One should know as ever renouncing who has no dislikes and likes. For he who is free from the pairs of opposites is easily released from bondage. And we've talked about this in other contexts where the mind which is used to polarizing its perception all the time if it can stop that action even for just a little while the glimpse straight through to freedom comes almost as a deja vu kind of a experience.

Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita says for he who is free from the pairs of opposites is easily released from bondage. It is the ignorant who speak of Samkhya and Yoga as different. Not so those who have knowledge knowledge being Jnana. He who has rightly established even in one wins the fruit of both. And we should talk just a minute here about Samkhya and yoga. Yoga of course. The word. I'm sure all of you many times have heard that its derivation is very much like the English word yoke. Huge. It comes from the yoke to position in dedication should be the normal way in which to express it. Now Samkhya was a philosophy that sprang up about the time of the Buddha about 500 BC and the man the sage who was behind the Samkhya philosophy was named Kapila. That is he and his students gathered together built a city called Kapila Last. Year at the time of the Buddha. It was metaphorically observed in one of the sutras that the Buddha was born in Kapilavastu. Kapila's philosophy was the Samkhya and it's one of the six great systems of Indian thought usually thought to be a completely different outlook from yoga. But Krishna in apocalypse is saying there is no split or bifurcation here. None of these philosophic ways are different. They're all interfaced aspects of one pristine diamond like carriage of which I am the charioteer and you are the passenger.

And it doesn't matter what source light comes into this we will harmonize it and it will produce that vision for us. So let it come in from wherever it will. We have no concerns with that. Just as and because it's a corollary to the fact that we have no concerns with the fruits of our actions we will simply do it not blindly just go and do it because we have that steadfast wisdom. We have that jnana samadhi operating all the time. It never fades it never rises or falls. It never has a kind of periodicity where you've got to go to a retreat because you've been losing your touch or you've got to go and see another kind of girl because this one won't do it anymore. None of that. None of that. So this is being presented to Arjuna because he's arguing you see he's saying well what about this? What about that and that kind of differentiation is due to a motion of passion. Rajas. It's called in Sanskrit and in that state of fearfulness in rajas everything is different and everything is fearful because it is different and separate and so forth. And the mind especially loves that state because it can nitpick the universe to death. And so Krishna is right away countering completely Arjuna's fragmenting of things saying well go this way or could go that way which is better? How about this? How about this variation? And he's saying the ignorant who speak of Samkhya and yoga as different not so those who have knowledge jhana samadhi he who has rightly established even in one witness to the fruit of both.

The goal that the Samkhya has attained is also reached by the yogurts. He who truly sees both Samkhya and Yoga as one sees. But renunciation is hard to attain except by yoga. The ascetic equipped with yoga attains Brahma ere long and the Yogi who has cleansed himself has gained mastery over his mind and all his senses. Who has become one with the Atman in all creation? Although he acts he remains unaffected. The individual interior guiding star presence the Atman the Yogi who has seen the truth knows that it is not he that acts while seeing hearing touching smelling eating walking sleeping or breathing. He is not the actor talking letting go holding fast opening or closing the eyes in the conviction that it is the senses that are moving and their respective spheres. He who dedicates his actions dedicates his actions to Brahman the universal Atman. He who dedicates his actions to Brahman and performs them without attachment is not smeared by sin as the lotus leaf is not touched by water. In other words it has no toehold whatsoever. There is no affinity. There are no longer to use a science fiction metaphor. They are no longer in the same universe. They coexist in a time space perception but they are a total different order.

And so there is no effect whatsoever. The one is illusion. Illusory? Completely. Totally. The other is real. Completely. Totally. Later on Krishna will say there never was a time anywhere in the universe that what is was not. And there never ever was a time when what is not ever became. It never happened. No matter what time duration or space extension you care to entertain it never was. There is only this which thou are to and no other. And everything else is an illusion a Maya. Only with the body mind and intellect and also with the senses do the yogins perform action without attachment for the sake of self-purification. A man of yoga obtains everlasting peace by abandoning Abounding the fruit of action. The man ignorant of yoga. Selfishly attached. Attached to the fruit always remains bound. And this is not a casual easy burden. It grows the binding complicates grows. Renouncing with the mind all actions. The dweller in the body who is master of himself rests happily in his city of nine gates neither doing nor getting anything done. The nostrils the eyes the ears the orifices the nine gates. The Lord creates neither agency nor action for the world. Neither does he connect action with its fruit. It is nature that is at work. In other words these patterns that interplay and interact that look like we should participate in trying to direct them and control Children have their natural developments and understanding the patterning of it all.

One need not try to fudge the universe into doing something extra special which it cannot do and then to be angry because it doesn't obtain put in that term. It's easy to see the Lord does not take upon himself anyone's vice or virtue. It is ignorance that veils knowledge and deludes all creatures. And you can see here that in the Bhagavad Gita this great synthesis reverberates with the great conception that we noticed last week in the doctrine of the Bodhisattva. And later on Krishna will indeed bring up to our channel that this presence this reoccurs through many lives and it flows and modulates through many time spaces. And there never is a time when it can die or can live as some objective thing apart. It is always that flow. And Christian says the only difference between thou and me. I remember all my lives and you have forgot even this one. He says that is the only difference. He puts it on that term and that's a reverberation of that influence here. That's what he said for ideals. The Gita being a marvelous song of interpenetration a really great synthesis. It hasn't been really displaced even in our time that kind of quality. it worked in everything. The Vedas the Buddha all of it. And Gandhi translates here in this very body they have conquered the round of birth and death whose mind is anchored in sameness.

For perfect Brahman is same to all. Therefore in Brahman they rest. He whose understanding is secure who is undiluted who knows Brahman and who rests in Brahman will neither be glad to get what is pleasant nor sad to get what is unpleasant. For the joys derived from sense contacts are nothing but minds of misery. And the word there for minds can also mean wombs wombs of misery. They give birth to the complications. Or they are those areas where we have to burrow in minds in that sense or wounds in that sense minds of misery sense contacts are nothing but minds or wounds of misery. They have beginning and end. Arjuna the wise man does not revel therein. In other words in locating one sense of life being you can choose the sense contacts and all those points linked together and that shape. Or you can move over through steadfast wisdom and be in the spaces in between and not participate in the crossing of the focuses at any point whatsoever. It is the same motion but the result for one is being caught netted under the grid of illusion We're on. The other one floats universally free at all times in all places. That kind of difference. The man who is able even here on earth. And the stress in the gate is that none of this need take place in a transcendental realm.

None of this need take place after thousands of lives and so forth. All of this is possible for that. And every human being here and now in this body and not having to go to the mountains and not having to go to the ashram but here and the interplay of this juncture we call the body. The man who is able even here on earth and to be released from the body to hold out against the flood tide of lust and wrath. He is a Yogi. He is happy. Happy being your Shanti. He who finds happiness only within rest. Only within light. Only within. That Yogi having become one with nature attains to oneness with Brahman. They win oneness with Brahman. The seers whose sins are wiped out whose doubts are resolved who have mastered themselves and who are engrossed in the welfare of all beings. Remember that the welfare of all beings the body set for them rid of lust and wrath masters of themselves the ascetics who have realised Atman find oneness with Brahman everywhere around them. And that ascetic is free who having shut out the outward sense contacts sets with his gaze fixed between the brows outward and inward breathing in the nostrils made equal. That's how we begin tonight. Made equal his senses and mind and reason held in check. Rid of longing and fear and wrath and intent on freedom.

And Krishna says to Arjuna knowing me as the acceptor of sacrifice and austerity the great Lord of all the worlds and the friend of all creation the Yogi attains to peace. So ends the fifth book of the Gita and Gandhi's translation. Now the sixth book is an elaboration of the fifth book of the year. The sixth chapter if you like these are such packed that they are often referred to as books with chapters. But I think before we get to that elaboration we must have a break. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. I'm ever alert to that. Thank you. The material is always somewhat magnetic and the inferences from the meaning somewhat electric and it produces a sense of heavy gravity in oneself. Please see it as in the books and not myself. It's all these great things and they have inspired countless generations of people. Every time they rediscovered something wonderful happens in the world. In my own experience one time I was hired to when I was a professor to go up to Canada and they were building a supersonic university is going to be like a spaceship. And it was about 15 acres with no walls all carpeted and beautiful skylights and everything. It was supposed to be a 21st century school and it might have had a chance. At one time I spent enormous sums of money on it almost enough to build a real spaceship.

And they hired me to design some courses. In fact a series of 16 courses. There's a whole program. An integration program is what they called it. Only they didn't realize that when you pop the cork on the genie it really does come out. And I opened up with a series of three lectures on the Bhagavad Gita to about 700 students. And they never recovered. And though in those days I was really convinced that Flamboyancy was part of the whole thing and I closed out with talking and almost like a syncopation to Ravi Shankar composition called tune that was played at the Monterey Pops concert and it literally brought stunned silence into the place because it fit. Exactly. Because India is a place where these traditions are still there. They're alive. There are people who understand them. We're walking today and anyone who is learned at all some of these areas exemplifies it to a tee. One of those people who is still alive who is the true vine I guess. Follower of Gandhi. His name is Vinoba Bhave and I admire Vinoba about as much as any living person. When he was younger and he has a lot to say about the data which is very valuable. And just to tell you a little bit this is him walking. Usually he has some kind of a towel over his head or a cow or something like that. And a marvelous fine individual.

He came to he was a drama of Brahmin family. And he came to Gandhi when he was about 20 years old. And he said he had been following. These words a lot and wanting to do something. He said well let's talk a little bit. And then after they had talked for a number of hours Johnny got up and he said you were a giant. He said but you're too young. He said go and spend a year in the world and then come back and we'll see what we can do. And so characteristically Vinoba spent exactly a year to the day and to the hour and walked in on the minute at age 21. And Gandhi was in a press conference and he looked up and somebody who was there and said he almost lost his glasses because he recognized and remembered everything. And so he said you know you're amazing but you need seasoning and somebody like you takes a while to season. So I want you to go and set yourself up in a place in Gandhi picked a place called Wardha and Wardha is a dead centre of India. And I had in fact the first time I ever heard a live discourse on the guitar. At 17 there was a man who was from Nagpur not too far north in terms of the world from Wardha and he gave me a live 12 hour discourse on the guitar at age 17.

And so I recognized the kind of origins that Vinoba has this incredible dedication. Anyway he went there and under Gandhi's advice he started studying and he studied for years and years and years waiting for God to send for him. And he learned every major language in the world and he read all of the basic material and meditated on it and at the same time did the Gandhian thing of sweeping out your small pot raising some vegetables and spinning khadi and all the handicrafts. The hand is Broinowski says the Son of Man is the cutting edge of the mind and you have to school yourself from the hand up. And so he was there all that time. And finally at the beginning of World War two when Gandhi was initiating one of the large satyagraha movements he sent for Vinoba and Vinoba came immediately and the next day was arrested and put in prison for the duration of the war. And when he came out he was on the out for a couple of years and of course died. And he was left adrift that he prepared himself for a half a century and nothing had happened. And so wandering around India walking he became known as the walking saint. He walked everywhere. And he once observed accurately that walking is the correct pace of thinking. And so in one of his long sojourns he walked all the way down almost to the southern tip of India.

He came into this village and there were two brothers that owned most of this village and they were fighting. And consequently they weren't speaking to each other. And the village was really suffering. All the villagers came to him. They said you've got to help us out. Conditions are really bad here. And none of us can say anything. So Vinoba called the two brothers in and sat them down and sat all together. And after a while they noticed that I want you to remember an old tradition and adopt me as one of your sons. Both of you. Except that I want my share of the inheritance now. And he took that share of the village from each brother and gave it to the villagers and said you don't own it but you're going to keep it in trust because I'm you know of a tradition where I can't own anything. And though technically and legally it's mine I delegate it to you in this perpetual trust which you can assign to your children and to their children. So he walked out of the village and suddenly it dawned on him as it does to somebody who's in that steadfast bosom that that's it right there. That's right. That's what to do. That's the path. And so he began doing that in the next village and the next village and so on and it spread.

And a lot of the whole state of Bihar now is owned in these little panchayats little village trucks by the people themselves. And you never read about it in the newspaper because it threatens all the vested interests in the world to know that 40 or 50 million people in India have got the next thousand years of evolution figured out already socially and are living the decent life. It's a real shock. Well the core of that is the Bhagavad Gita and Vinoba. One of his books is called talks on the Gita. Little homie talks. But in within that Homeyness is sort of like that unbelievable radical diagonal spanning all the levels of meaning that you'd ever want to investigate. He said this once. I made these little pamphlets once upon a time when I had huge budgets. I made thousands of pages of color pamphlets. I've written as much as Alexandre Dumas but has never been published. So then Elvis said that. He said he's talking about the man who or the person who's struggling with all this. But as he does this a point is reached. When he gets tired then the mind begins to say Oh God I've come to the end of my efforts. Give me more strength more power. But until a man realizes that he cannot achieve success by his own efforts however hard he cannot understand the secret. There's a secret in there.

And it's plain as day. No matter how hard or how much power or empire or triumph one has it has nothing whatsoever to do with the steadfast wisdom that just couldn't be farther away at any time or place. Now in addition of the data and I'm trying to skip around and give you some various insights some of you are going to look for these things. The standard edition for a long time was that of Franklin Edgerton Publishing two lines from Harvard University Press which gives the original Sanskrit and a Latin. Transcript and gives the English translation in literal as possible. And then in the second volume he gives you a poetic translation of Sir Edwin Arnold. That translation excellent as it is but it's reprinted in paperback just to give you the one translation that misses everything. It has been somewhat displaced by our sisters by the. Published by Oxford in 1969. In tune with the Gandhi centenary Gandhi was born in 1869. Many people around the world in 1969 worked day and night to try and bring back something of this marvelous spirit that for about 20 years had lain fallow as far as the world was concerned. And this was published in connection with that is a very famous professor at Oxford. He wrote a number of books on mysticism mysticism sacred and profane Muslim and Hindu mysticism and so forth. And his translation is quite excellent. And he gives you the translation a lot of commentary a lot of basis to it.

And just to give you a style of his chapter six of the Bhagavad Gita he ends the first third of the Gita. The Geeta has 18 chapters and the first six chapters one through six give you a universal psychology which is always the case. That is there never will be a civilization for our species in which the psychology delineated in the first six chapters is not the case. It simply is a universal case that our species of sentient being has those patterns and those unfoldings. And that's it. It was delineated perfectly and adequately. And one can do case studies and bring in more data. But the meaning It's always here that books seven through 12 are what are called a theophany. That is a vision of God. And I will read a little bit from book 11 which is the epitome of that in book 11 of the Gita is akin to like in the Book of Job where after job has earned the right to see God in person. The voice out of the world when it comes and says here I am. And so the chapter 11 of the Gita is that wonderful presentation of the reality of God. And then books 13 through 18 are a fortified of the fact that now that we have this understanding of this capacity for ourselves and this universal vision for ourselves.

Here's how we do this and make this effective. Okay so chapter six which is like a watershed it elaborates book five and ends this portrait of the psychology of runs like this Krishna talking to Arjuna the blessed Lord said the man who does the work that is his to do yet covets not its fruits. He it is who at once renounces and yet works on not the man who builds no sacrificial fire and does not work. In other words to think that one could abstract oneself is a basic flaw a Fundamental primordial flaw. We cannot abstract ourselves. You can't take yourself out of it and find out and then think that that'll fit. None of that process has any validity whatsoever. That is it's not sound as a process nor does it have any understandability in terms of meaning. And so and Vyasa has here the blessed Lord because this is the Lord's song the Bhagavad Gita the Lord's song. And it is a song where meaning is presented in this modulation. It's a song. The man who does the work that is his to do yet covets not its fruits. He it is who at once renounces and yet works on. Not the man who builds no sacrificial fire and does not work. What men call renunciation. What they call renunciation is also spiritual exercise. You must know this. For without renouncing all set purpose. No one can engage in spiritual exercise.

So there has to be an element of renunciation of the fruits of action. Take away the polarity for the silent sage who would climb the ladder of spiritual exercise. Works are said to be the means. That is this world here and now. Whatever it is that we're doing let us continue to do it because it's only in that familiar pattern. Have we any chance at all to see through to the transparency? So the thing is not to interrupt that but to progressively spiritualize it For the silence sake that is the inner being. Silent sage who would climb the ladder of spiritual exercise? Works are said to be the means. But for that same sage who has reached the state of integration they say quiescence is the means. That is when one has done this progressively long enough. With enough continuity there is an integration. And in that integration quietude seems to be the amperage that works. Raise self by self. Let not the self drift down. For self friend is self indeed. So too is self's enemy. That is to say we are our own friend and our own enemy at the very same time. So why would one go to all kinds of devious stratagems to muffle or strangle or get rid of a so-called enemy when that is an aspect of ourselves which is indelibly necessary for liberation? Because it is that same so-called demon that becomes the dearest friend later on because the phenomenon has no differentiation except to the mind in a Raja's neurotic inference.

Sorry to mix metaphors. Self is the friend to the self of him whose self is by the self subdued. But for the man bereft of self self will act as an enemy. Indeed. So it's a natural pattern and we get in our own way. We should when those circumstances are operating where we're within the spaces and not at those contact junctures. The shapes of enmity don't occur at all. They are the contours of the friend the eternal companion the higher self of the self subdued quieted is rapt in ecstasy like an egg in cold as in heat and pleasure as in pain. Likewise in honor and disgrace with self-contempt. Wisdom learnt from holy books and wisdom learned from life with sense. Subdued sublime aloof. This man of integration stands integrated. So is he called an athlete of the spirit? An athlete of the spirit. He is in tone. And in posture. And any time. Space. Reality is a graceful flow of effortlessness. Spiritual athlete. The saint to him are clods of earth stones or gold. All the same. Yes they are different as differentiable qualities but they are all the same because they are in the same time space platform. They have no difference in manifestation whatsoever. Outstanding is he whose soul views in the self-same way. Friends comrades enemies those indifferent neutrals.

Men who are hateful and those that are his kin. The good and the evil too. You see this is like Krishna talking to Arjuna about his situation. But it is true in any situation. Bringing it up to date Gandhi always said you're your worst adversary is the best gate to realization. Cherish that enemy because that enemy is exactly that element that is needed. And in fact his whole method of satyagraha which satya means truth sat like Upanishad sat and said truth is something which one has heard at the feet of Satya truth. Grass like grass. Holding truth is easier when someone He is sincere about their enmity to you because then you can have a chance to have I guess what we would call now a dialogue. You know that dialogue of meaningful drama unfold and out of understanding the meaning of that drama a glimpse of truth is only the vacillation of our of our mind that makes it. An infinite morass. Let the athlete of the spirit ever integrate himself standing in a place apart alone his thoughts self-restraint devoid of hope possessing nothing. Let him set up for himself a steady seat in a clean place. Neither too high nor yet too low but strewn with cloth or hide or grass. Remain still. Let him keep body head and neck in a straight line. Unmoving. Let him fix his eye on the tip of his nose not looking round him.

Let him sit himself all stilled his fear all gone. Firm in his vow of chastity. His mind controlled. His thoughts on me. Integrated yet intent on me. Krishna saying of this. Of himself. Intent on me. Thus let the athlete of the spirit be constant in integrating himself his mind restrained. Then will he approach that peace which has nirvana as its end and which subsists in me? So he is describing an experience here where instead of this splayed out ness of our apprehension that it collects in and shapes and what it shapes into is a fulcrum a seat of presence which is unmoving but which vibrates to everything. But this way of integration is not for him who eats too much nor yet for him who does not eat at all nor for him who is always too prone to sleep nor yet for him who always stays awake. In other words all of these are ascetic anomalies are just as bad as the complete slovenliness on the other side because they are still in those opposites. They're all still in that flayed out situation. Rather is this way of integration for him? Who knows the meaning the mean the golden mean in food and recreation? Who knows the mean in his deeds and gestures? Who knows the meaning? And sleeping as in waking. This practice of the mean. It is that slaughters pain or anguish or neurosis. So it's the mean.

Why the mean? Because the mean is the true threat of life. One is living as one would live but all the time seeking to be just one step over so that one doesn't hit the intersections of being attached at the points of sense context to the shapes of desire. One flows in the eternal and thus life in its normal mode becomes increasingly a sacrifice a consecration so that the Bhagavad Gita is stepping way away from the whole idea that one need separate from normal everyday life through some spectacular bidding ritual and then returned from that back to the same old thing. Or perhaps not. If it is saying it's all right here how you grow your food how you do your work how you have your family situation all of that is the fertile ground. All of that and that alone is the mean. There is no ashram to which one could go that's more meaningful than one's own life. And Krishna is telling this to Arjuna. You see he's saying you're going to go in there you're going to fight you're going to kill you're going to be killed. That's not the issue. Something else is the issue. This is him. As a lamb might stand in a windless place and flickering. This likeness has been heard of such men of integration who control their thought and practice integration of the self. And here and Krishna is coming up to the goal of spiritual exercise.

So one thought by the practice of integration is checked and comes to rest. And when of one's self one sees the self in self and finds content therein. See how this this is almost like in the Gospel of John where the the logic is put one parentheses and then another including that. And so what you have is like a reverberating target of understanding coming out of. My thought practice of integration is checked and comes to rest. And when of one's self one sees the self in And so he finds content therein. That is the utmost joy which transcends sense in which soul alone can grasp. When he knows this and knowing it stands still unmoving not an inch from the reality he sees. He wins a prize beyond all others. Or so he thinks. Therein he firmly stands unmoved by any suffering however grievous it may be. This he should know is what is meant by spiritual exercise the unlinking of the link with suffering and pain. This is the act of integration that must be brought about with firm resolve in mind. All undismayed. Let him renounce all desires whose origin lies in the will all of them without remainder. Let him restrain in every way. By mind alone the senses busy throng by salt. Held fast in steadfastness he must make the mind to subsist in the self. Then little by little he will come to rest.

He must think of nothing at all. So that time space ceases to obtain. And he comes back to Arjuna again from another direction. Whenever the fickle mind unsteady roves around from thence the soul will bring it back and subject it to the self. So that whatever happening occurs one has become like a hydrogen bubble chamber and records all of the movements however swiftly but they all occur within the experiment of learning. And because of that understanding of meaning it doesn't matter what happens in the bubble chamber. All of those movements are intelligible and meaningful and mount up to the richness of the sense of what is happening and happening for upon. And this is the phrase for upon this athlete of the spirit whose mind is still the highest joy descends all passion laid to rest free from all strain. Brahman he becomes and thus all flaws transcending the athlete of the spirit. Constant in integrating himself with ease attains unbounded joy. Brahmans saving touch. And I think I think that is a good place that goes on for a little bit more. I think we'll. Pause there and bring in bring in this this translation. Then after being set up for this after having understood this book sex the Gita then commences chapter after chapter to delineate the amplitude of the Godhead. And in chapter 11 the vision of God and His universal form is given. And I picked this translation that Isherwood and Ananda did here in Los Angeles in 1944.

And this is toward the end of chapter 11. I have seen what no man ever saw before me. Deep is my delight. But still my dread is greater. Show me now your other form O Lord be gracious. Thousand membered universal being. Show me now the shape I knew of old. The forearm that is the church with your diadem and mace. The discus barrel and increase your replies. This my form of fire. My worldwide supreme primeval manifest by yoga power alone of all men are I show to you. Because I love you neither through sacrifice nor through study of the Vedas nor strict austerities nor alms nor rituals. Shall this my shape be viewed by any mortal other than you O hero of phantoms. Now you need fear no more. Nor bewildered seeing me so terrible. Be glad. Take courage. Look here I am transformed. Transformed as first you knew me. Then because we're in the hands of a very great epic poet Vyasa. He brings in Sanjaya who is the penultimate narrator of all this said. I am speaking to the king. He says in his vision. Spiritual vision. Having thus spoken to Arjuna Krishna appeared in his own shape the great souled one assuming once more his mild and pleasing form brought peace to him in his terror. In other words he had displayed his whirlwind white forms.

Then Sanjaya relates Arjuna says O Krishna now that I see your pleasant human form I am myself again. Krishna replies that shape of mine which you have seen It's very difficult to behold. Even the deepest themselves are always longing to see it. Neither by study of the Vedas or by austerities nor by almsgiving nor by rituals can I be seen as you have seen me but by single minded and intense devotion. That form of mine may be completely known and seen and entered into. O consumer of the flow. Whosoever works for me alone makes me his only goal and is devoted to me free from attachment and without hatred toward any creature. That man O prince shall enter me. And so the vision is is seen. I'd like to because I think that we've had a long strain of contemplation. I'd like to bring him and close out with the Delta. Yeah. These books are a very small edition. 2000 copies were printed and all the world. And this is a book that was translated out of the Marathi one of the languages that Vinoba writes in in April of 1966. And it was a a marvelous thing to see this come out said the Prajna darshana. The steadfast wisdom of this will be interesting and this will bring into focus everything that has been said about the Gita and give us some kind of a basis to close it out with and go home with.

Vinoba is very homey. Extremely homey. And yet his learning is vast enormous. So there's this wonderful kind of a blend of a universal sage and favorite great grandfather that kind of thing. A very famous part of the Gita describes the distinctive features of the steadfast Wisdom. No other part of the book in either ancient or modern times has been so well known. And there is a reason for this. The steadfast wisdom characterizes the Gita ideal of the perfect man. The word itself belongs to the Gita specifically. It is not found in any earlier book and has been adopted freely in subsequent ones. Various alternative terms have also been used to describe the man of steadfast wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita. He is spoken of as a man of perfect action a karma Yogi. One who is liberated in life. Jivanmukta. Moksha or mukti. Ultimate extinction or liberation. Jiva life. Jivanmukta a master of yoga A yoga. Garuda a man of faith. Bhagavan. Bhakta one beyond attributes. Gunatit a man of gnosis. Jnana nishtha in different passages of the Gita. He is thus described in different ways but these descriptions have been presented by others also in the Gita. They are spoken of in connection with the different spiritual disciplines. They are not alien to the man of steadfast wisdom being aspects of his nature because you see he is at the center. The characteristics of this wisdom have been included in these descriptions as for instance in the fifth chapter where the adjective sarira buddhi or steadiness of Mind is listed among the qualities distinguishing a Sannyasin or a Yogi or in the 12th chapter of the description of a bhakta or a devotee is brought to a conclusion with the adjective samadhi steadiness of conviction.

Without steadiness of conviction no ideal can be realized and I think that's been mentioned here many times that I use the word continuity. And continuity is not just a wonderful strategy of purpose. I'm going to do such and such. I'm going to have this or that but it is doing it day in and day out week in and week out with continuity because it is out of that continuity steadiness and purpose that all the rest of the patterning can arise and without it nothing can arise. There is nothing to arise to or through. So he says here Vinoba Over in steadiness records. Without steadiness of conviction no ideal can be realized. The importance of this section is therefore generally recognized and many commentators like Sankaracharya presents the characteristics of steadfast wisdom as a proof of the achievement of liberation in life. And then he goes on to say that the yogic intelligence first shows itself in the determination of duty until duty has been determined. No spiritual discipline can begin in one certainty in regard to duty has been reached. The next step is the concentration of one's energies in spiritual endeavour.

And that's called sadhana sedan sadhana to rely completely upon one's own efforts. Unconcerned about the outcome without a thought of reward is known as Sadhna nishtha. Complete absorption in one cycle. This is the second step. The third step is the achievement of inner equilibrium and a tranquil state of mind i.e. samadhi. When samadhi becomes so stable that no distraction can disturb it when it is unshakable and unchangeable the steadfast wisdom is achieved. The person of steadfast wisdom is one over whom no impulse thought or even the weight of asana i.e. the commandments of scriptures has any influence and whose samadhi is unswerving and steady. There are therefore four steps in the practice of the art of living in the light of yogic intelligence. One the determination of one's sadhana. Two concentrated effort with no thought of reward equanimity or samadhi and consolidated samadhi. Undivided. Unchangeable unshakable. Natural. This is the steadfast wisdom. And then he goes in here and we'll conclude with this that it is necessary for us to understand the meaning of the word samadhi before we can understand what Krishna says. This is a word that gives rise to much confusion. The self oblivion of meditation is commonly thought to be samadhi but this is dhyana. Samadhi if to be in the condition called samadhi means not to be aware of anything but what one is meditating upon. There would be no occasions for Arjuna's questionings.

He asks how a person in this condition speaks and behaves. Remember at the beginning of tonight's lecture we're asked what are the characteristics of the matter of steadfastness? At the end of book two of the Gita from about 154 on through to the end. What are those characteristics? So. And he's asking this because he's attentive to this. The first concerns itself with the conduct of a person in the state of samadhi. The second with his conduct when not in a state of samadhi. Though this is ingenious it is nonetheless mistaken. It is mistaken for Arjuna to ask how is the man there in steadfast visit? How is he when he is not? Why is he mistaken? Because he doesn't know the quality of the nature of steadfast wisdom. There never is a time when it is not. Thus the differentiation never occurs in any time. Space Never happens. It never is not. And if one approaches it only through this kind of forced effort like a meditation it always seems to fade. It seems fleeting. But when it is achieved through itself as its own universal nature it never is other than it is. And so the nova says the samadhi of the person of the steadfast wisdom is of a different quality being the samadhi of realization. Jnana samadhi. It neither rises nor recedes. No spell can bind one who has it. This is the way in which it is described.

And that's a quotation from a man. In other words it is a stable not a fluctuating state. It has no modulation. It is stable. The samadhi of meditation dhyana. Samadhi is fluctuating though it may last say 4 or 5 days. The possibility of its receding is always present. Jnana samadhi is not like this. The samadhi of the person of the steadfast wisdom is not subject to fluctuation. It is not objective. On the contrary it is reflective subjective enduring. The word reflective frightens some people. Oh they exclaim that means sitting idle inert. But this is not so. To sit quietly without action is also to participate in cyclic activity. There is no movement of this kind in the steadfast wisdom. In other words come back to this phrase again of Plato's. We become as karma common for yogis in the bottom to always participate but always in that mode in the steadfast wisdom where there is no polarized shaping of illusions. And so the attachment never happens because there is there are no poles for it to ground. There's no electricity for it to shape with. There are no purposes for it to occur. They simply do not exist in that world order. This is shown in the durable nature of the realization which accompanies it for the attainment of steadfast wisdom. The yoga of action is the most effective means. And so the nova closes there and I guess I will too. Next week we'll go to somebody entertaining like Mencius and we'll see what Mengzi has to say.