World is a transit lounge

*Q: In the fifteenth chapter of the Gita, there is a description of a tree
which is upside down. The branches are in the ground and the roots are in
the sky. What could be the significance of this?*
A: This is a symbol to signify that your origin is the Divinity; the
consciousness. That is your root. The mind and all its paraphernalia are
like the branches. And all the different types of rhythms in life, all the
different emotions, are like the leaves. They don’t stay permanently, they
wither away. If you are focusing on the leaves, and you forget to water
the roots, then the tree will not remain.

So, it says, ‘Asvattham enam su-virudha-mulam asanga-sastrena drdhena
chittva’ (BG 15:3). Notice that you are not these different emotions, these
different aspects of life. Feel the distance from all these branches and
retrieve back. That is what it is saying.

Otherwise we get so immersed in the outer, that we forget the main root.
You need to prune the tree otherwise it goes here and there. So prune all
that, and know that your origin is somewhere up. Adi Shankaracharya has
said this beautifully, - ‘My original place is in heaven, I have come here
just for few days; just to have fun. Today I have just come for the purpose
of relaxing, but this is not my original place, it is somewhere else.’

The thought itself - My home is somewhere else, I have just come to visit -
creates a distance inside you. This world is a transit lounge.

You know, in airports and railway stations there are lounges, and in a
lounge what do you do? You keep your luggage and start eating. You use the
bathroom and everything, but you don’t open your suitcase and hang your
clothes all over the place. You don’t do that in a transit lounge. You keep
your things packed.

So this world is just a transit lounge. Don’t mistake it to be your home.

*Q: The Ashtavakra Gita says, ‘You can go on reading scriptures, but you
will get liberation only when you forget the scriptures.’ So then what is
the purpose of reading the scriptures?*
A: See, you get into a bus, but then you also need to get out of the bus.
Now if you argue with me that, ‘If I have to get out of the bus then why
should I get into the bus?’ What can I say? You get into the bus from
somewhere else and you get out from somewhere else. If you have to get out
of the bus, why should you get into the bus in the first place - this
argument doesn’t hold.

So, the scriptures are to make you understand your nature, the nature of
the universe, the nature of this mind which is stuck in small things, and
to give it a bigger vision.

Knowledge is like detergent. See, you put soap on your body but at some
point you wash it off as well, isn’t it? Similarly, you have this desire,
’I want to be liberated’, and that desire takes you away from all other
small desires. But if you keep holding on to that thought, then it will
also become a problem at some point. You have to wash that off as well and
become free. A point comes when you say, ‘If I have to get liberation let
it be, otherwise let thy will be done.’ In that moment you are already free.