Gifts, sacrifice and austerity

For our conduct in life, the teacher says: dhana, there must be gift. Yajna, there must be sacrifice. It must lead to tapas, austerity. Those three: gift – the three gifts – the gift of material things. You give something and then after a short time things are as they were before; it’s gone. The second gift is the gift of courage and that can remain. That’s a real gift. And the last gift is the gift of wisdom. So, there are these three gifts. We try in our lives, in our international conduct especially, to give material things, but as we know quite often the gift of material things can even make things worse.

In one country where it’s known that they have very rich mineral resources, a very clever politician was asked about this: “Surely the country should exploit these mineral resources”. He said, “Yes, we should exploit them but quite slowly. If we exploit them now we shall never be anything. We shall simply live on the income from these mineral resources and my country will make no progress at all. We won’t have to educate ourselves. We won’t have to organise ourselves. We shall just live on this. That gift of nature”, he said, “that won’t be a blessing to us. We should first learn to get courage in ourselves and then we’ll be able to use that gift”. Well, this is one example that is given and the Gita says that the gifts should be made but we should realise that every undertaking has got some defect attached to it. You do some good, but you also do some harm, and that if we hope that by manipulating the circumstances we’ll produce peace and happiness, in the terms of ourselves as we stand, then we shall always be disappointed. There will be a defect. The teacher says as a fire is accompanied by smoke the gift you make will be accompanied by some defect.

Then we must have sacrifice and worship. Worship – we’re now becoming more aware of it to reverence nature. The Chinese were always reluctant to build bridges over the rivers. They used ferries traditionally because they thought in some way it was a lack of reverence for the river to build a bridge. We might think it’s rather childish, but they had – and still more in Japan – an atmosphere of reverence which has been lost sometimes under the pressure of circumstances; but they did have this feeling of reverence for nature. We are supposed to make some contribution to nature every day.

In Chapter 3 of the Gita it’s quite elaborately stated. If we give, as we do it in this country, quite often, a little bit of food to the birds or something like that this is thought to be a peace offering, so to say, for the harm we’ve done. We can’t preserve our bodies without doing constant harm to living beings. Every time we put antiseptic on a wound we’re killing many thousands of bacteria that breed in the wound. When we eat lettuce we may wash it, but still there’s some there, and in the stomach it’s nice and warm and they can breed and sometimes there’s one or two generations of them breeding and then the acid gets them. So, we kill them. We cannot preserve our bodies without killing other beings and, to some extent, by the sacrifice, by the feeling for reverence of nature, we try to return, we try to do some good to nature. It’s very highly approved by the fact that the British people, as like the Japanese, are very fond of gardens and this is a form of reverence for nature, not just to appreciate the rose. The wild rose of Persia is quite a mingy thing compared with these marvellous blossoms that we’ve cultivated here. This is a form of reverence for nature and this is one of the legitimate and creative forms of expression, as distinct from clutching desire which depends on shutting other people out.

Gift, worship and tapas: we must do some austerity everyday and teachers give various examples. Occasionally, if it’s cold to go out without a scarf, to be slightly uncomfortable; to sleep on the ground very occasionally for an hour or so and then you can go back to bed, if you like. To practice a little bit of indifference to circumstances; so, if there’s no salt, you don’t think ‘Aghh, I can’t eat this because there’s no salt!’ – so we’re not thrown off by small things. If we’re not thrown off by small things, then we can gradually become indifferent to the impact of much larger ones.

The professional interrogators tell you that sometimes it’s a quite small deprivation that somebody can find unendurable. It may be not being able to have a cigarette. It can be quite a small thing. There are other people who are independent. But it can be, very often, some quite trivial thing – ‘I’ve got to have this’ – and if the interrogator’s an intelligent man, that particular interrogator I knew, he said torture’s generally no good. They just scream and say what you want them to say. You don’t really get anything. But with these other things sometimes people can be broken down if you can find the thing that they’re dependent on. It can be quite a small thing, then take that away and very often the internal defences can crumble.

So, to practice a little bit of austerity, but the main thing is meditation. There’s nothing like trying these things, so if you’d just like to sit reasonably upright, if you want to try, then touch and press the finger (or the fingernail or pinch) between the eyebrows there and you create a little after-sensation. Then take the hand away and feel the after-sensation there and bring the attention to that point. Now, do it again but when the finger’s taken away, use the after-sensation to bring the attention there and visualise a little flame there, burning quietly and smoothly. So, if you’d just like to try, touch, tap, press the fingernail, use the after-sensation and have a little flame burning steadily there. OM.

This is a way of bringing the attention to the centre. When we’re very nervous, for instance, when we’re waiting for something, the vital energy tends to run into the hands and the face. Before a broadcast they’ve got all their script ready then they’ve got over five minutes to wait. Well, now, the producer goes in and talks to them to try to keep their mind from seizing up, in the case of an amateur speaker. But I saw a Japanese banker, whom I knew well, who used to broadcast and I knew him so I didn’t go into the studio. I just sat in front of the mic and said it would be five minutes for the red light to show and he sat there. Europeans go like this (nervous agitation) but this chap, he got his notes: ‘Hmm..’ (out-breath then silence).

I’ll just present this because it is one that’s given. It’s given also in Zen, as well as in Yoga. By bringing the attention from clutching outward to the middle, periodically being able to drop all that and come to the middle, the mind can be made calm and then it can become able to begin to sense the current and what it’s to do. So there are the gifts, the sacrifice, the reverence for nature and the tapas, the austerity, and lastly, this very elementary form of meditation, which can develop into a very meaningful form of meditation. If one’s very nervous, if you’re going to face pain or shock, now’s the time.

Well, we’ve done some of the Yogic account. The essence of it is that, in terms of our individual lives or in terms of even serving on the basis of our ghost-ridden personality, we’re not really able to find any true satisfaction. Can say, “Well, I give this”. Yes, I give this – but if my own mind is infected then the gift can be infected and we can become disappointed with the results.

Titles in this series are:

Part 1: Yoga, Zen and Peace

Part 2: Ethics and the Cosmic Self

Part 3: Desires beyond our needs are ghosts

Part 4: Gifts, sacrifice and austerity

Part 5: Becoming free

Part 6: The job of the King

Part 7: Seeking for realisation in Yoga and Zen

Part 8: The way of praying the cosmic current

Part 9: Melting Ice

Part 10: No distinction