Krishna is asking Arjuna to “surrender totally, and I will take care of you.” This is certainly destroying the other person’s independence, individuality, his freedom to inquire; you are completely killing the person spiritually. But this has been the way of all the religions. Hence, you see some contradiction between trust and doubt. There is none.

I have taught you trust and the way of the heart so that your heart is open, available; your eyes are there. Now I have to train your intellect. Before I leave I have to complete my work. I have to train your intellect, sharpen it. I have to teach you doubt, because doubt is not a simple thing.

Doubt needs great courage because you will be doubting everything possible. You will be surrounded by all kinds of doubts. All consoling beliefs will be taken away, beliefs which gave you a certain confidence, a certain stability, a certain feeling that you belong to a big tradition, a well-respected religion of holy scriptures, messiahs, representatives of God. You had all these things surrounding you. They gave you a cozy feeling that you are not alone. I am trying to do just this: cut away everything that gives you a false, cozy feeling and that keeps you dozing all your life.

Belief is the opium which all the religions have been giving you in good doses.

I am trying to destroy your addiction to the opium.

My whole effort is to leave you alone.

Yes, you will feel fear, you will feel a certain trembling, you will feel all is lost; but this is just in the beginning. A little patience – it is a passing phase. Soon you will feel a tremendous energy arising in you which would have never arisen in the crowd, with its beliefs, because there was no need: you were spoon-fed; there was no need for you to think about your food on your own.

I am taking every consolation, every comfort – I mean spiritually – so you are completely alone in your being.

And then take the hypothesis:

Meditate, be silent, just watch yourself

Somebody has asked, “How can we be certain that the watcher is not part of the mind?” It is a relevant question but only intellectual. It is not out of meditation, because in his question the man is bringing in three things, of which he is not aware: the mind, the watcher – and who is this third who is thinking whether the mind and the watcher are one thing? There is a third entity which is raising the question.

I say to you: the watcher, your watcher, is part of your mind. And not only that, the second watcher behind it is also part of your mind.

When you realize silent watching you don’t see any mind anywhere; all thoughts stop. That is the beauty and the revolution of the watcher: when you are in a watching state there is nothing to be watched.

This is the trouble: when there is everything to watch, the watcher is not there; when the watcher comes in, there is nothing to watch. Only one can exist, both cannot exist together. The presence of the watcher simply disperses the mind; it is no longer needed. It was just functioning because the watcher was absent.