BHAGAVAD GITA
– The Song of God : Chapter 12
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Published by Nithyananda Foundation, Bangalore, India
Copyright© 2006
First Edition: July 2006
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Printed in India by W Q Judge Press, Bangalore, India
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BHAGAVAD GITA
– The Song of God : Chapter 12
Nithyananda
Talks given in USA on The Bhagavad Gita – Chapter 12
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BHAGAVAD GITA
– The Song of God : Chapter 12
CONTENT
Bhagavad Gita: A Background ............................................... 7
Introduction .............................................................................. 13
Love is your very life .............................................................. 15
Appendix
Science and spirituality ............................................... 184
Offerings from Nithyananda Foundation ................... 192
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BHAGAVAD GITA
– The Song of God : Chapter 12
Bhagavad Gita: A Background
Bhagavad Gita, or Gita, as it is popularly called, is
considered a sacred scripture, a sruti, (that which is
transmitted by hearing) along with the other ancient
scriptures, the Vedas and Upanishads. The Vedas and
Upanishads are not God given as some people believe. They
arose through the insight and awareness of great sages when
they were in a no-mind state.
Gita is a part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, a purana
(Mythical story), unlike the Vedas which are expressions of
the eternal truth internalized by maharishis (great sages), or
the Upanishads, which are the teachings of these great sages.
No other purana, has a status as special as the Gita. Gita
arose from the super consciousness of Krishna, the
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Parabrahma (Supreme Being) and is therefore equally
considered a scripture.
Mahabharata, literally meaning the Great Bharata, refers to
the nation and civilization developed by the descendants of
Bharata, a great King who ruled the region that is today
known as India. The story of this epic is about two warring
clans, Kaurava and Pandava, closely related to one another.
Dhritharashtra, the blind King of Hastinapura was the father
of the one hundred Kaurava and the elder brother of Pandu.
The five children of Pandu were called the Pandava.
Pandu was originally crowned the King of Hastinapura
though Dritharashtra was the elder. However, since he was
blind, the choice of ruling the kingdom fell on Pandu. He
was however, afflicted by the curse of a sage. He therefore
handed over the reins of the kingdom as well as the
upbringing his children to his blind brother Dhritharashtra,
and retired to the forests with his wives Kunti and Madri.
Vyasa, the sage who tells this story, says that all the five
Pandava were born to Kunti and Madri through their union
with divine beings, since Pandu himself was incapable of
siring children as a result of the sage’s curse. Kunti had
received a boon when she was still a young unmarried
adolescent, that she could at will, summon any divine power.
No love was lost between Duryodhana the Kaurava Prince
and his cousins, the five Pandava. Along with his wicked
brother Dushassana, he made many attempts to kill the
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Pandava, without success. Kunti had had another son
through her union with the Sun God, who was elder to the
Pandava. His name was Karna. She had cast him away at
birth as he was born before she was married. By a strange
twist of fate, Karna joined hands with Duryodhana.
On his coming of age, Yudhishtira, the eldest Pandava Prince
was given half the kingdom by Dhritharashtra, being his
rightful share to the throne that Pandu had left behind.
Yudhishtira ruled from his new capital, Indraprastha, with his
brothers - Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva. Arjuna won
the hand of Princess Draupadi, daughter of Drupada, the King
of Panchala. To obey the promise that the five Pandava
brothers had made to their mother Kunti, Draupadi became
the wife of all five Pandava.
Duryodhana persuaded Yudhishtira into playing a game of
dice. Sakuni, playing for Duryodhana, defeated the Pandava
King. One by one, Yudhishtra was made to lose all that he
owned: his kingdom, his brothers, his wife and finally himself,
to Duryodhana. Draupadi was shamed in public by
Dushassana who tried to disrobe her. The Pandava and
Draupadi were forced to go into exile for 14 years, with the
condition that in the last year they should live incognito.
At the end of the fourteen years, the Pandava brothers tried
to reclaim their kingdom. In this effort, they were helped by
Krishna, the divine reincarnation of Vishnu. Their efforts
were in vain as Duryodhana was adamant that he would not
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part with his kingdom. Finally, war resulted - The Great War,
the War of Mahabharata. The rulers of the various kingdoms
aligned with one or the other - the Kaurava or the Pandava.
Krishna, who was also the ruler of the Yadava clan, offered
to join either clan. He said, ‘One of you may have me. I
shall not fight in the war. The other may have my entire
Yadava army’. The offer was first made to Duryodhana, who
predictably chose the vast Yadava army, in preference to an
unarmed Krishna. The armies assembled in the vast field of
Kurukshetra, now in the state of Haryana in modern day
India. Arjuna, one of the commanders of the Pandava army
was charioted by Krishna himself. Facing the Kaurava army
that contained many of his friends, relatives and teachers,
Arjuna was overcome by remorse and guilt, and wanted to
walk away from the battle.
Krishna’s dialogue with Arjuna on the battlefield of
Kurukshetra is the content of the Bhagavad Gita, literally
meaning ‘Song of the Divine’. Krishna persuaded Arjuna to
take up arms and vanquish his enemies. ‘They are already
dead’, says Krishna, ‘all those who are facing you are dead.
Go ahead and do what you have to do. That is your duty’.
Bhagavad Gita has eighteen chapters, and is presented as the
narration of Sanjaya to Dhritharashtra. The blind king who
could not see the ongoing battle had it narrated from
Sanjaya, scene by scene. The war lasted eighteen days. The
Kaurava were defeated in the battle. The Pandava were the
winners and regained their kingdom.
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In this dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, the dialogue is
between man and God; nara (man) and Narayana (the Lord)
as they are termed in Sanskrit. Arjuna’s questions and doubts
are those that lie within each one of us. The answers of the
Divine, Krishna, transcend time and space. Krishna’s message
is as valid today as it was on that fateful battlefield
thousands of years ago.
Like Arjuna many thousand years ago, you are here in a
dialogue with a Master. May the Master’s words resolve your
questions and clear your doubts.
Nithyanandam!
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BHAGAVAD GITA
– The Song of God : Chapter 12
Introduction
In this volume, a young enlightened Master, Nithyananda,
comments on the Gita. Thousands of commentaries on the
Gita have been written over the years. Among the earliest
was that by the great spiritual Master Sankara, over a
thousand years ago. In recent times, great Masters such as
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Bhagwan Sri Ramana
Maharishi have spoken from the Gita extensively. Many
others have written volumes on this great scripture.
We have added here, all the verses in Sanskrit or Devanagari
script along with the Roman or English script transliteration,
a word-by-word meaning, and a summary of the verses’
meaning. Here the comparison with other commentaries stops.
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Nithyananda’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita is not just
a literary translation and explanation of the translation. He
takes the reader through a world tour while talking about
each verse. It is believed that each verse of the Gita has
seven levels of meaning in it. What is commonly rendered is
the first level meaning. Here, an enlightened Master takes us
beyond the common into the uncommon, with equal ease and
simplicity.
To read Nithyananda’s commentary on the Gita is to obtain
an insight that is rare. It is not mere reading; it is an
experience; it is a meditation.
Sankara, the great master philosopher said:
‘Bhagavad gita kinchita dheeta,
Ganga jala lava kanika pita,
Sakrutapi ena murari samarcha,
Kriyate tasya yame na charcha’
‘A little reading of the Gita, a drop of water from the sacred
river Ganga to drink, remembering Krishna once in a while,
all this will ensure that you encounter no problems with the
God of Death.’
May this reading help you in your endeavor to attain to the
Truth.
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Love is your very life
In the last chapter, Arjuna asked for and received the
vishwarupa darshan (the Cosmic Vision), the vision of the
Universal Form of Krishna. Krishna very patiently resolves
Arjuna’s doubts and answers all his questions. Arjuna then
wishes to see the true reality that is Krishna, the form behind
the formless, the imperishable, the Eternal.
Krishna obliges his friend and disciple, Arjuna, the true
representative of the human being, nara. Seeing the cosmic
form of Krishna, and unable to withstand the energy, Arjuna
begs Krishna to revert to His normal friendly form as his
charioteer, and the King of Yadavas. After showing His
cosmic form and having given the experience of cosmic
consciousness to Arjuna, Krishna speaks to him now about
bhakti, devotional love.
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His Universal Form, as displayed by Lord Krishna, is His
cosmic consciousness, which is our collective consciousness.
Arjuna had understood from Krishna that he too was a part
of this cosmic consciousness, and at the same time he was
aware that what he could see of Krishna was a mere fraction
of His eternal cosmic Self.
Arjuna’s experience of the divine form of Krishna raises further
questions in his mind. Was this form that he just witnessed,
the glorious reality of the cosmos, the true reality that he
should focus on, or was it the formless Self that Krishna had
talked to him about earlier that was more important?
Usually people think that it is only after bhakti (devotional
love) that spiritual experience happens. But let me tell you
the truth: it is only after spiritual experience that bhakti
happens. Never can real bhakti happen to you before a
spiritual experience.
The East has always believed that spiritual experience has to
happen first and only then social service. But western religions
believe that social service leads to spiritual experience. This
can never happen! Without our own inner transformation, we
can never hope to help others. When we do that, what ever
we do is just skin deep, superficial. We do that to boost our
ego; to hear others say how kind and good we are.
It is only when our ego disappears through spiritual experience,
that we can relate to others as part of a collective
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consciousness; that we can feel we are one and the same with
everyone else, rich or poor, black or white. Then, and only
then, can we engage in meaningful contribution to others.
Only a person, who experiences every being as a part of the
cosmic consciousness can really radiate love. Only he can
know what love is. Nobody else can know what love is.
Others can think that they love, or act as though they love.
Be very clear: there are so many people who act as if they
love. Sometimes by acting, they start thinking that they really
love. Never can you love by acting.
Love must flow from your very being. Love happens only
when you experience cosmic consciousness, when you have a
spiritual experience; when your ego disappears. Krishna puts
the whole technique down for us, step by step. I tell you:
after a spiritual experience, so much gratitude flows from
your being; so much love overflows from your being that you
start to radiate it. You need not make an effort, it just flows;
you cannot stop it. No one can show or experience love,
unless they have had a spiritual experience.
Love, unconditional love, cannot be made to happen. It
flowers inside you when your mind is silent, clean. What we
commonly call love is always conditional. We negotiate with
our love. It works like this: First, we provide approval to
others for their actions and words. Later on, in return for
such a certification, we expect that they will in turn comply
with us. This, we term as love.
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We talk about loving other people. We are proud of being able
to love the world. In practice, however, we find it difficult to
love our neighbor, especially when he is wealthier or one up
on us on something. There are times when one would lose one
eye gladly so that his neighbor may lose both; such is the
negativity arising out of jealousy and greed. How can we love
the world when we cannot even love our neighbor? How can
we talk about doing service to humanity, when basic charity to
one’s kith and kin is wanting?
People come and ask me, ‘Master, you tell all your devotees to
meditate, meditate, and meditate. What is the use? Isn’t it a
selfish practice? Why don’t you tell them to do social service?
It will benefit a lot of people.’
There are many spiritual organizations; I can’t say spiritual
organizations, only ‘so-called spiritual organizations’ that are
caught in social service, just for name, fame and social
prestige. There are so many organizations; organized charities
like this. You can see the people who run these organizations people involved in these organizations - being photographed
and published in newspapers and magazines.
I always tell people that organized charity is a beautiful way of
cheating yourself and others. Charity can never be organized;
it just has to flow. It is not an external expression; it is an
internal conviction. The moment you try to organize that
conviction, the whole thing gets a different quality, a different
color, and a different purpose. Only when it flows after an
experience is it a solid expression of love.
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The inner transformation has to happen before one tries to
help others to transform. Unless one feels that one is truly
part of the whole, that every other person is linked to him
and her irretrievably, it is not possible to contribute with true
love to other people. One would just be a hypocrite.
We are all part of the large Cosmic Ocean. Each one of us is
a mere drop. As long as we remain droplets and do not
understand the reality of being part of the same ocean, we
remain separate. Our feelings are still driven by ‘I’ and
‘mine’. As long as this separation remains there can be no
true love; there can be no expression of unconditional love.
There’s a beautiful saying in Zen Buddhism: Whatever
Buddha does, whatever an enlightened being does, even if
he kills somebody, it will only do good to him. It will do good
both to Buddha and the person to whom he is doing it to.
Buddha is always driven by the cosmic consciousness; so it
will always be good for everyone.
But an unenlightened man, whatever he does, even if he
does great service, it will only do ill to him and to society,
especially if he does it out of ego. Good or bad is not decided
by doing, it’s decided by the quality of being! With an
enlightened man, even small things lead to great and good
things or good results in the world. When an unenlightened
person acts, even great truths lead to misery and destruction
especially when he does it out deep ignorance.
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See the simple words uttered by Buddha such as, ‘watch your
breath’, or ‘observe’, ‘witness your inhaling and exhaling’.
This simple truth, a technique given by Buddha, has
enlightened thousands of people; just through this simple
technique of vipassana meditation. Through this one simple
technique, vipassana, thousands of people have become
enlightened; their lives have been transformed. As a result,
the universe has benefited.
When Buddha uttered even a seemingly ordinary truth, even
an ordinary, simple truth, it leads thousands of people into a
state of higher consciousness. If an unenlightened person
discovers even a great truth, it leads to destruction. Take the
atomic bomb: it is a great truth; theory of relativity; a great
truth; but when it comes from an unenlightened mind, it
always leads to destruction.
I was just reading a statistics report in a magazine which said
that all the governments of all the countries in the world
have got enough atomic weapons to destroy planet Earth a
thousand times over. Not once or twice, but the atomic
weapons that they have stored, that they have piled up, can
destroy planet Earth a thousand times. This report was old.
Today there must be having twice that power. All this is the
result of one unenlightened mind.
We are now engaged in scientific work related to cloning,
stem cells and so on. The results will be more to do with the
quality of the beings associated with the research, not the
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quality of the minds. Minds are always driven by ego; the
being is driven by consciousness and awareness of universal
love.
A single person with the wrong attitude, if allowed to sit in
a seat of power, can endanger the whole of humanity. We
have everything ready; all we need is somebody to come and
press the button. He should be mad enough and sadistic
enough to press the button. If he does that, global homicide
will happen. That many atomic weapons have been piled up
today.
See, it’s a great truth; the truth of atomic fission; the truth
that atoms can be split and when they split they release
massive amounts of energy. It is such a great truth, but an
expression of an unenlightened mind. It can be put to so
many constructive uses; this truth can change the world for
the better. But, as long as it is evolved from and operated by
unenlightened beings, rooted in their ego, it will always lead
to destruction.
Deeds or words by themselves don’t do good or bad; they do
good or bad based on the consciousness from which they
happen; based on the consciousness from which they are
expressed. This consciousness, this awareness, is related
directly to the feeling one has for others. The quality of the
being’s awareness will decide whether the end result benefits
humanity or whether it destroys humanity.
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Only after an experience does your being feel the gratitude.
It is your solid experience that every living being is God. You
then start radiating love. Your very being becomes love. You
will become helpless with love. Bhakti (devotion) and love
are expressions that flow from that spiritual experience.
Krishna starts his discourse on bhakti yoga after viswarupa
darshan yoga. After the experience, he begins to talk about
the expression; he starts bhakti yoga; he talks about the
expression of devotional love. Now, let us now go into the
sloka (chants).
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arjuna uvaacha :
evam satatayuktaa ye bhaktaastvaam paryupaasate
yechaapyaksharamavyaktam teshaam ke yogavittamaah (12.1)
arjuna uvacha: Arjuna said, evam: thus, satataa: always,
yuktaa: engaged, ye: those, bhaktaa: devotees, tvaam: you,
paryupaasate: worship, ye: those, cha: and, api: also, aksharam:
imperishable, avyaktam: the unmanifest, teshaam: of these, ke:
which, yoga-vit-tamaah: perfect in knowledge of yoga
Arjuna asks: ‘Who are considered perfect, those who are
always engaged sincerely in Your worship in form, or those
who worship the imperishable, invisible, formless You?’
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See, the whole manner in which Arjuna now speaks is totally
different. The very trend, the very manner is different.
He asks, ‘Which of these two types of people are considered
to be better; those who are always engaged in bhakti towards
you, towards your physical manifest form, or those who merge
in the Brahman,(Universal Soul) the unmanifest, formless,
cosmic consciousness?’
Please be clear: here Arjuna is not asking for himself. From
here, the discourse starts like a simple discussion. It is more
like trying to record the truth for future generations. The
questions from here on are neither doubts nor enquiries; he
just tries to put the whole thing down, in a written form, so
that it would be a useful reference for future generations. It
is a flow of Arjuna’s love for humanity, an expression of his
divine experience, which prompts him to seek answers to
these vexing questions and record the answers from the
Godhead Himself.
Arjuna asks, ‘Who is it who is established in you totally; is it
a person who is a devotee or a person who is enlightened?’
There are two things we need to understand: the religious
people, or so-called religious people, always confuse the
common people with this sloka, using this question of Arjuna
‘whether worshipping the form is right or worshipping the
formless is right?. These people are so confused themselves,
they do not know right from wrong, and they use their
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intellectual arrogance in confusing other people through
misinformation.
But let me tell you, that is not what Arjuna means by asking
this question. If you look at the answers of Krishna, you will
understand.
Arjuna asks: Is it good to be established in the experience of
the divine consciousness, just staying it, enjoying the eternal
bliss that flows from that experience, or is it good to express
the love and gratitude which is created by the conscious
experience, towards the whole world and every living being?
Which one is correct? Which one is preferred?
See, when you have a spiritual experience, some people stay
in that same experience, with closed eyes, that’s all. Only
with closed eyes, they can see God. They never wish to open
their eyes, never seek to use their senses, since the bliss
within is so great, so beautiful, that nothing, no sensory input
can even remotely match that bliss.
However, there are others, who are impelled to open their
eyes as it were, by the universe, to communicate that blissful
experience through their expression, to others.
The so-called scholars enter into endless debates upon
savikalpa samadhi and nirvikalpa samadhi. Savikalpa samadhi is
the state where the experience continues. Nirvikalpa samadhi
is when expression starts. Savikalpa samadhi is supposed to be
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a lower state and one is supposed to work towards the second
and higher state of nirvikalpa samadhi. It may be true to some
cases, I do not know; but it is not an iron-clad rule. In my
own case, both happened together. I did not go through two
stages, just one, and reached the state where the experience
was allowed to be expressed. It was the will of the Divine,
Parasakti.
Understand, this is not a choice that these people make. It
is not an option that is presented to those who have such
experiences. Ordinary human beings have their free will to
decide what they wish to do; and their karma (cycle of
unfulfilled desires and actions) follows. Those who experience
the Divine, transcend that point of free will; they are driven
wholly, in each step that they take, b Parasakti, the Universal
Energy; by Krishna, the super conscious Godhead. They have
no choice in that matter; whether to sit with their eyes
closed, or open their eyes and benefit humanity.
It is not that Arjuna does not know this. Having had the
experience of the Divine, Arjuna fully understands the
choicelessness that he and others who have had such an
experience, face. He knows that it is Krishna who decides
what he should do, not he, Arjuna. Yet, he asks, because he
wants everyone else to understand too.
That is the reason why Bhagavad Gita is a living scripture.
That is why its words resonate five thousand or ten thousand
years after Krishna spoke. It is a dialogue that answers every
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question that a seeker would have. Arjuna’s role is to
represent the spiritual seeker.
Arjuna asks, whether that type of person is great, or is a
person who opens his eyes and sees God in every being,
great.
Please understand, he does not ask whether worshiping the
form is greater or worshipping the formless is greater. But the
so-called ‘religious people’ have always interpreted it as this,
and created problems between Sankara and Ramanuja.
Sankara followed gnana, the path of knowledge, and
Ramanuja followed bhakti, the path of devotion. Gnana, by
and large, focused on the formless, through intellectual
queries. Bhakti, focused on the form, sheer devotion, as if the
Divine is alive and kicking, as It indeed is! However, those
who have studied both Sankara and Ramanuja in depth
know that there was a lot of bhakti in Sankara’s approach
and a lot of gnana in Ramanuja’s approach! Both approaches
are convergent. One without the other does not work.
No one who has read Sankara’s Soundarya Lahiri can fail to
be moved by the expression of love of this Master for the
Mother Goddess. It is true that there is tremendous
metaphoric significance in philosophical terms to this work
and other similar devotional works of Sankara, but he was
moved primarily by his devotion to the form that he describes
so beautifully. He describes the Goddess from head to toe as
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though he sees Her in front of him. It is a graphic
description, a loving description, and a devotional rendering
of this expression.
On the other side, the depth of philosophical wisdom and
insight provided by Ramanuja in his commentaries, the
bhashyam (the commentaries) on the sutras - techniques and
scriptures, easily rival that of Sankara, who is considered the
pinnacle of religious philosophy. True gnana cannot exist
without bhakti and true bhakti cannot exist without gnana.
The argument still goes on and on. But, if you see the
answers, it is very clear that this is not what Arjuna asks. He
asks, whether he should just be established in that divine
experience or should he express the gratitude that is
happening within him.
Expressing the gratitude that happens because of the
experience, is bhakti. Having that experience and rejoicing,
staying in that experience is gnana, that’s all.
Krishna’s answer is that both paths are one and the same.
The paths are intertwined; the first one leads to the second
one, and the second one leads back to the first one. You
must have heard about the term ‘vicious circle’- first one
leads to the second and second one leads back to the first
one. Now I want to introduce a new word, ‘virtuous circle’!
Vicious circle leads to low energy or to a lower level of
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consciousness; virtuous circle leads to high energy, a higher
level of consciousness. Bliss and devotion, bliss and gratitude,
gratitude and bliss, these two form the virtuous circle, which
leads you to the state of higher consciousness.
Bliss means the experience that leads you to the expression
of gratitude and service. Again, the expression, the gratitude
of service, leads you to bliss. One leads to the other, which
leads you back to the first. Therefore it is called ‘virtuous
circle’.
Usually, we are caught in a vicious circle; Fear leads to
greed, greed leads to fear. Fear leads to more greed, more
fear leads to more greed and more greed leads to more fear.
More fear leads to more and more greed and more and more
greed leads to more and more fear. This is the vicious circle,
and here, Krishna introduces the virtuous circle. Virtuous
circle is what he calls dharma, righteousness, that which must
be followed in the path of Truth.
Dharma means virtuous circle, which leads you to higher and
higher consciousness, which leads you to higher and higher
levels of experiences. Consciousness and bliss lead to
expression of that consciousness and bliss, which in turn lead
to higher level experiences.
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Let us hear Krishna’s reply:
¸ÉÒ ¦ÉMÉ´ÉÉxÉÖ´ÉÉSÉ :
¨ÉªªÉÉ´Éä¶ªÉ ¨ÉxÉÉä ªÉä ¨ÉÉÆ ÊxÉiªÉªÉÖCiÉÉ ={ÉɺÉiÉä*
¸ÉrùªÉÉ {É®úªÉÉä{ÉäiÉɺiÉä ¨Éä ªÉÖCiÉiɨÉÉ ¨ÉiÉÉ&**12.2**
sri bhagavaan uvaacha :
mayyaavesya mano ye maam nityayuktaa upaasate
sraddhayaa parayopetaaste me yuktatamaa mataah (12.2)
sri bhagavaan uvaacha: Lord Krishna says, mayi: on Me,
aavesya: fixing, manah: the mind, ye: those, maam: Me, nitya:
eternally, yuktaah: engaged, upaasate: worship, sraddhayaa:
with faith, parayaa: supreme; upetaah: endowed, te: these,
me: by Me; yukta-tamaah: perfect in yoga; mataah: opinion
Lord Krishna says:
‘Those, who by fixing their mind on Me eternally, and those
who are steadfast in worshipping Me with supreme faith, I
consider them to be perfect in yoga, ready to be united with
Me.’
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Bhagavan says: Those who are established in the
consciousness, which expresses gratitude, bhakti, are always
engaged in Me; and those who focus on the transcendental
faith, meaning the experience that they undergo at the time of
cosmic experience, are engaged in Me; both are ultimate; both
are united with Me.
Sanskrit is such a beautiful language. You can make any
meaning out of any word. That is why so many thousands of
commentaries on the Gita are possible, but still the Gita is
new! No other book has been commented on by so many
Masters as the Gita. Each one tries to give it one’s own
meaning.
Again, I insist: If a person who has not had a spiritual
experience starts to express, starts to lecture, naturally he
will be in trouble and he will create trouble for others, just
as when the blind leads the blind, both of them land into
trouble. Similarly, when a person without spiritual experience
translates or talks, he automatically does something called
‘text torturing’.
Only when a person has had true spiritual experience and is
free from inner chatter, can he be true to himself and others.
Only then can a person be able to transparently and honestly
bare himself without thinking of others. Till there is inner
chatter, there is always effort to filter; there is always effort
to rehearse. We dare not speak the inner chatter that goes
on inside! We are afraid that what spills out would be
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unacceptable. So, we filter and replace what we feel inside,
with lies. We make our lives full of lies.
Understand a small example: I am now drawing a diagram
and explaining a concept to you. After a few days, you
present only an audio CD of this session to one of your
friends who could not attend the lecture. You have not had
the Experience. You are merely translating my experience.
How much will you explain? How well can you explain? How
much will he grasp? He will not be able to grasp much
because he will miss so many details that are there in the
diagram. You will not be able to explain because you are not
the one who has had the Experience.
I’m explaining through a picture. If you are here seeing, and
listening, you’ll be able to understand; even then it is very
difficult to grasp the truth, to understand it. So if you are
just giving the audio CD to some friend who has not
attended the program, how much will he be able to
understand? In the same way, if he tries to understand the
CD and he wants to give a lecture on this subject to
somebody else, how much of it will be accurate?
In the same way as person who has not attended the lecture,
who has just got an audio recording or only a book cannot
understand, the Bhagavad Gita is also just the audio
recording, actually, the transcription of audio recording. It is
not even the audio recording. If you just listen to the audio
recording, at least you can understand a few more things by
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the voice modulation. Here even the voice modulation is not
there. It is a transcription of an audio recording. How much
can you translate or interpret?
That’s the reason Vivekananda again and again emphasizes,
‘don’t read’, or ‘don’t listen to anything that is expressed by a
person, who has not personally experienced the truth.’
Most importantly, he says, ‘Don’t bother about what he
speaks; first bother about who speaks.’ He emphasizes on the
importance of personal experience. He adds, ‘Not all the
books in all the libraries in this world can lead you to the
Truth. Once you have realized the Truth, you do not need
any books.’
Understanding, intellectually understanding, is not
experiencing. Understanding is a phenomenon of the mind. It
is a by-product of our ego. All our understanding is colored
by the filter of our mind and ego. Only in this fashion can
the mind perceive and understand. Experience is the Truth
that is felt by the being. Experience, spiritual experience,
transcends the mind and ego. It is pure, uncolored and
permanent.
By expressing an understanding, one may at best express a
fact, an opinion; never the Truth. Truth has to be
experienced to be expressed. But intellectual understanding
strengthens one’s conviction about the Truth and this is
required for one to aspire to experience.
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Here Bhagavan says:
mayy aavesya mano ye maam nitya-yuktaa upaasate
sraddhayaa parayopetaaste me yuktatamaa mataah
For those who express their experience as devotion, the word
used here is upasate. The word upassana can be translated in
many ways. When you see the Divine in everybody, when
you express the truth of the spiritual experience, whatever
you do is upassana.
Please be very clear: When you don’t see the Divine in
everybody, you can’t see the Divine in any statue, or in any
Master. So, if you don’t see the Divine in all living beings,
you can’t see the Divine in a God or in a Guru.
Once, a person goes to Ramanuja. Ramanuja is a great
Master. But for Ramanuja, South India would have lost
spirituality completely. Sankara went and settled in North
India. Even though he was born and brought up in the
South, he spent most of his time in the Northern parts of
India. It is because of Ramanuja that devotion and
spirituality thrived in South India. Till his end Ramanuja
stayed in South India. Not only that, Sankara lived only
thirty-two years. But Ramanuja lived for a long time; he lived
on planet Earth for a long time and he inspired thousands of
people into the path of spirituality and meditation.
One young man goes to Ramanuja and asks, ‘Master, please
tell me how to achieve bhakti, how to achieve devotion, how
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to achieve God’? Ramanuja asks, ‘Have you ever loved
anybody in your life’? The man was shaken. He said, ‘I’m a
pure brahmachari*; how can you ask me this question? I
came to you to learn about God, and you are asking me this
question’.
* Brahmachari: This Sanskrit word literally translates as
brahma + acharya, i.e., one who follows or is in tune with
(acharya) Existence (brahma), to mean one who lives with no
expectations. Now commonly, though mistakenly, this word
has been used to mean a person who is a celibate.
Ramanuja says to this man, ‘First go and love somebody; see
how you feel when you love somebody. Then come back, I’ll
teach you about God. I’ll teach you about bhakti.’
This man was of course naturally taken aback. He was not
able to understand what Ramanuja said.
If you have not even been able to feel the emotion of love
for a person that you could see, how will you be able to love
a person whom you have never seen? If you can’t love human
beings, whom you see everyday, how can you love the form of
God whom you’ve never seen? What Ramanuja says is true.
We should also understand that unless we start radiating
love, in the space where we are staying, we can’t truly love
the whole world and above all, God.
Again and again I tell people, loving the whole world is very
easy; loving your wife is very difficult. Loving the whole
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world is very easy because, you don’t have to do anything, all
you have to do is just say ‘I love the whole world’, ‘I love the
whole world.’ But when you love your wife you have to
change your attitude, you have to change your mind, you
have to change your words; you have to do something. You
have to do something to prove it at a tangible level.
To truly love some one you spend your life with, to prevent
familiarity from breeding contempt, you need to drop your ‘I’
and ‘mine’. As long as your spouse is a possession to you,
what arises in your mind and heart is violence, not love. You
need to control the other being, you need to prove that you
are the owner. I tell you: even to comprehend true love, you
need to drop the feeling that you possess.
The Lebanese philosopher poet Khalil Gibran speaks on Love
in his celebrated book Prophet: Share your bread with your
beloved, but do not eat from the same loaf. Share what you
drink with your beloved, but do not drink from the same cup.
You do not own one another.
What many of you say to your spouses - and feel that you
have every right to say whatever you say - would you not be
highly offended if you were told you have no right to say? Or
just think: Would you dare say the same things to a stranger?
No! Social courtesies do not apply to spouses, because you
say you love them. How many of you, with your hand upon
your heart, say honestly, that even 50% of the time what you
say to your spouse springs from true unconditional love?
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But it is only when you love your wife, when you really love
your wife, that you can even begin to comprehend how to love
the world. This is the entire purpose of the rituals associated
with marriages and why that relationship is considered sacred.
By developing that bond - the love between two people who
are united for the rest of their lives - it is possible to develop
that experience which is the truth. This in turn leads to the
expression of that same truth as ‘love to the rest of humanity’.
If there is no true love between husband and wife, how is it
possible for one of the two to profess love for humanity?
Being established in that consciousness or expressing it
towards the universe, both are one and the same. When a
person is merged, when a person is established, automatically
he will radiate. Please be very clear, if the love is not
happening, if the expression is not happening, the person has
not experienced.
When the real experience happens, it automatically expresses.
Experience is not something you can possess and keep in your
cupboard. No. Experience will possess you and sink through
you. It will flow as an expression choicelessly.
A disciple asked a Zen Master, ‘Will an enlightened Master
speak’?
The Master said, ‘No, an enlightened person will never
speak; only a person who doesn’t know will speak’.
Then he asked, ‘Will an enlightened Master keep quiet?’
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The Master said, ‘No, an enlightened Master will never keep
quiet. If he keeps quiet, be very clear he is not enlightened.’
The disciple was puzzled. ‘You say he will neither speak nor
keep quiet; what will he then do?’
The Master replied, ‘He will sing, his very being will sing. He
will neither speak, nor keep quiet; his very being will be a
song.’
This is because you cannot possess experience, experience
will possess you. When experiences possess you, whatever you
do will be a song; any word that comes out of you will be a
song. Your being becomes so light; you float. Your very
walking will be a dance; your very body language will
radiate grace. All your expressions will be a service, great
service to humanity. He says beautifully, an enlightened man,
will never keep quiet nor will he talk, he just sings.
That is why the Gita is given in the form of a song. The
Gita is not prose, it is just a song. Great truths can never be
expressed through logic; they can only be expressed through
poetry. Prose is logic; it is bound; it is rigid. But poetry is
emotion; it is love; it flows.
Krishna says: A person who is established in the
consciousness is great, but the person who expresses, who
shares, who automatically radiates, will be much greater than
he who is established. But the truth is, if a man is
established in the consciousness, he will automatically
radiate; he will sing.
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Let me tell you a small story from a great devotee, a bhakta,
who lived in Varanasi. He was a great bhakta of Krishna. He
had a small Bhagavad Gita book. That was his entire
possession, his entire wealth. Everyday morning he would
bathe in the sacred river Ganga, while reciting Krishna’s
message, the Bhagavad Gita - with all his devotion. He
would spend the whole day sitting and meditating upon
Krishna. He was continuously in the ecstasy of Krishna. He
just radiated Krishna bhakti, devotional love towards Krishna.
Of course, you can see these types of souls only in India.
People who can just sit and be in ecstasy, society never
disturbs them, society takes care of them. In any other
country you would be called homeless, hounded by police
and public, put in a shelter, disrespected. But this culture is
so beautiful; even if you sit, if you are in ecstasy, you are
respected, you are worshipped!
This bhakta, he is in ecstasy, always singing Krishna’s name,
in Krishna dhyana, in Krishna meditation, in Krishna
smarana, repeating Krishna’s name. He is lost in Krishna
consciousness.
One day a beggar comes to him and asks, ‘Oh swami! Please
give me something. For the last three days I’ve not eaten.’
Now this poses a big problem to the bhakta, because he
himself is a beggar and he has got only one belonging with
him - the Gita book. He owns nothing else. He has nothing,
and he is always in ecstasy. If somebody gives him something
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to eat, he eats; otherwise he is just singing Krishna’s name.
His only property is the book, the Gita book.
And this beggar comes and asks for food after not having
eaten for the last three days. He feels very bad, and he looks
around, to see nothing. Only one thing is there and it’s the
Bhagavad Gita, which he has preserved or worshiped so
many years. That’s his sole property; that’s almost like God
for him, which is everything for him.
Suddenly, he gathers courage and takes hold of the book and
tells the beggar, ‘See, I have nothing; to tell you honestly I
have only this book. But I can tell you one thing, if you go
inside the city and tell people that this book is my property
and auction it, surely somebody will buy it. There are so
many people who respect me. In some way they feel devoted
to me. So Krishna’s blessing is there. Just go to the market
and auction this book. Take the money and eat and fulfill
yourself and be happy’.
The beggar just took the book and went away. The next
morning, when he was about to chant the Gita, the bhakta
says, ‘Oh Krishna! I‘ve given away your words to keep your
words. What is your word? Your word is to radiate bhakti, to
radiate devotion, and to radiate service. I just gave away
your words to keep your word.’
This bhakta was a true bhakta. He had seen the Truth; he
had experienced it. So he was able to express it. He was
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able to translate his devotion to Krishna, as love and service
to his fellow men.
Keeping Krishna’s word was much more important than
keeping the book. The bhakta kept Krishna’s words by giving
them away!
Actually, if you really keep the book, if you honestly keep
the book and use it, you will have the experience; you will
radiate His words. Only when you miss keeping His book you
will miss keeping His words also.
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Bhagavan continues:
ªÉä i´ÉIÉ®ú¨ÉÊxÉnæù¶ªÉ¨É´ªÉCiÉÆ {ɪÉÖ{Ç ÉɺÉiÉä*
ºÉ´ÉÇjÉMɨÉÊSÉxiªÉÆ SÉ EÚò]õºlɨÉSɱÉÆ wÉִɨÉÂ**12.3**
ºÉÆÊxɪɨªÉäÎxpùªÉOÉɨÉÆ ºÉ´ÉÇjÉ ºÉ¨É£ÉÖrùªÉ&*
iÉä |ÉÉ{xÉÖ´ÉÎxiÉ ¨ÉɨÉä´É ºÉ´ÉǦÉÚiÉʽþiÉä ®úiÉÉ&**12.4**
ye tvaksaram anirdesyamavyaktam paryupaasate
sarvatra-gam achintyam ca kuttasthamachalam dhruvam (12.3)
sanniyamyendriyagraamam sarvatra sama-buddhayah
te praapnuvanti maam eva sarva-bhuta-hite rataah (12.4)
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ye: those, tu: but, aksharam: imperishable, anirdesyam:
indefinable, avyaktam: unmanifest, paryupaasate: worship,
sarvatra-gam: all pervading, achintyam: inconceivable, ca: also,
kuta-stham: unchanging, achalam: immovable, dhruvam: fixed,
sanniyamya: restrained, indriya-graamam: all the senses,
sarvatra: everywhere, sama-buddhayah: equally disposed, te:
they, praapnuvanti: achieve, maam: Me, eva: only, sarva-bhutahite: for the welfare of all living beings, rataah: engaged.
‘But those who worship with awareness the imperishable, the
unmanifest, that which lies beyond the perception of senses,
the all pervading, inconceivable, unchanging, the non-moving
and permanent, those who worship by restraining their senses,
and are working with an even mind for the benefit of
mankind, they too attain Me.’
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Krishna is the saguna brahman, the physical cosmos, who
showed Himself in this form to Arjuna in His vishwarupa.
Krishna is the nirguna brahman as well, the formless
consciousness. In both the form and the formless, He is
Krishna, the Divine consciousness who has all the attributes
that Krishna talks about here.
Aksharam is the imperishable aspect of the Divine; everything
else material in this universe may come and go, appear and
disappear, while the Divine remains forever. Anirdesyam is
the unique, incomparable aspect that cannot be bench
marked against anything, as it is supreme. Avyaktam means
unmanifest, that which cannot be comprehended by the
senses and therefore not by thoughts and mind, achintyam,
which is why one’s body-mind needs to be transcended to
experience the glimpse of the Divine.
Sarvatragam is the omnipresent aspect, whereby Divinity
resides everywhere.
Says Prahlad, the young Prince to his demonic father
Hiranyakasipu, who dares his son to utter the name of
Narayana, whom he, Hiranyakasipu, hates: ‘Narayana is
everywhere; He is in this twig and He is in this pillar.’
At the time Prahlad says this, in Vaikunta, His heavenly
abode, Vishnu or Narayana as he is called, relaxes with His
consort Lakshmi. He gets up in a hurry. Irritated, Lakshmi
complains as every wife would, ‘Where are you going at this
time of the night?’
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Vishnu responds, ‘My devotee Prahlad is about to call me. I
do not know where he will point his finger at, a twig or a
pillar. Wherever he does, I have to be ready to appear. I
cannot let him down.’
The true devotee sees his Lord everywhere. Ramakrishna says
of the love of a true devotee: It is like the love of a chaste
wife to her husband, the attachment of a miser to his
hoarded wealth, the craving of a worldly person for sensual
pleasures - all rolled into one and directed towards the Lord,
thereby creating devotion!
The Brahman is also kutastham, unchangeable, achalam,
unmoving and dhruvam, permanent in aspect, form and the
formless. The true devotee who follows either path with
awareness, with his senses focused on the Lord, experiences
Him and also experiences the bliss of serving the rest of
humanity. The devotee sees the Lord in everyone he meets. His
experience of His Lord becomes his expression of love to all.
Radha starts telling the gopikas (women cowherds), ‘I don’t
know what has happened. I don’t know what has come over
me. I’m seeing Krishna in everybody; I feel every body is
Krishna. I don’t know what is happening to me.’
To which one gopika answers, ‘You have bhakti; bhakti as
Anjana (black eye shadow) in your eyes.’
It is like this: When you wear dark glasses, everything appears
dark. Similarly, when you wear green tinted glasses,
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everything appears in shades of green. In the same way when
you have bhakti anjana in your eyes, whomsoever you see will
appear as Krishna, will appear Divine.
Here Krishna says, the person who is established in super
consciousness, and the person who radiates devotion is both
one and the same. They are not two different groups.
Understand: Krishna is not making two groups; Arjuna is
presenting two groups as the reality he sees: those that are
established and those that radiate. Here Krishna says both
are one and the same. He is not making two groups: those
that are established and those that radiate. Understand this
clearly.
Krishna says, a person who is established will always radiate,
and the person who radiates will always be established. As I
was telling you, it’s a virtuous circle.
Ramakrishna says, ‘When a bell is rung, each stroke has a
sound form of its own. But then, even when the bell has
stopped ringing, you can continue to hear the sound. That’s
how God appears both as form and formless.’
In his Bhaja Govindam, Sankara says:
Guru chranambuja nirbhara bhaktah
Samsrat achirat bhava muktah
Sendriya manasa niyamat evam
Drikshasi nija hridayatvam devam
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‘One who having controlled all his senses, having focussed
his mind, surrenders completely to his Master, he sees the
Lord in his heart.’
Krishna once again makes the point here that when one has
realized the formless nature of the Divine, its imperishability
and its unmanifest nature, with senses controlled, one would
be working for the good of mankind.
Once the experience of the formless divine happens, it is no
different from the experience of the form. Both lead to the
same truth that one is part of the collective consciousness.
The expression of this realization is one of deep humility and
compassion. It is manifested as utter gratitude and surrender.
One learns to flow with the energy of this universe. One no
longer struggles against the currents of life.
The Chinese philosophy of Tao talks about flowing. The reed
that bends with the flowing water survives and flourishes. The
sapling that is too rigid to bend, disappears. If we are like the
reed, in complete surrender to what is around us, accepting
things as they are, not struggling every moment to redress what
we think are our grievances against nature, we can remain
blissful.
When we are full of ego, we tend to control. We believe we
can restore order to an otherwise chaotic world. It takes only
a moment to realize that this entire universe and this planet
Earth functions not because of us, but in spite of us. Millions
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and billions of stars and planets in this universe function in
apparent chaos. The universe is always in apparent chaos.
We, ego filled, want to be in order. Actually, we are chaotic.
The truth is we are chaotic. It is when we surrender to the
will of the universe that we realize that things happen
smoothly with an order in the chaos. When we give up
wanting, we get what we want. When we get what we truly
want, it benefits mankind. Because, when we surrender,
Krishna takes care.
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Krishna continues to elaborate on this:
C±Éä¶ÉÉä%ÊvÉEòiÉ®úºiÉä¹ÉɨɴªÉCiÉɺÉCiÉSÉäiɺÉɨÉÂ*
+´ªÉCiÉÉ Ê½þ MÉÊiÉnÖùÇ&JÉÆ näù½þ´ÉnÂùʦɮú´ÉÉ{ªÉiÉä**12.5**
Klesho’dhikatarasteshaam avyaktaasaktachetasam
Avyaktaa hi gatirdukham dehavadbhiravaapyate (12.5)
Klesha: trouble, adhikatara: greater, teshaam: of those, avyakta
aasakta chetasaam: whose minds are set on the unmanifest,
avyaktaa: unmanifest, hi: for, gati: goal, dukham: sorrow,
dehavadbhih: for the embodied, avaapyate: is attained
‘For those whose minds are set on the unmanifest, the
formless, it is more difficult to advance; attaining the
formless unmanifest is difficult for the embodied.’
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Krishna says here what many of us know to be true. Those of
the intellect find it more difficult to comprehend the Divine.
Brahma and Vishnu once had an argument as to who was
greater. They could not agree and they went to Siva for
mediation. Siva took upon the form of a shaft of light that
spanned the universe, without ends, and said to them,
‘Whoever among you finds either of my ends is greater.’
Vishnu assumed the form of a boar and dug through the
earth searching for the lower end of this light shaft. Brahma
flew up as a swan trying to reach the upper end. After a
long long time, Vishnu realized that he was getting nowhere;
he returned and sought Siva’s forgiveness for attempting to
look for His ends.
Brahma continued regardless. On his way up he found a
flower floating down. When he enquired, the flower said it
was falling from Siva’s head and it has been falling for many
lifetimes of Brahma. Startled, Brahma realized he had no way
to reach the end of the shaft. He forced the flower to go
with him to Siva and support his claim that he, Brahma, had
picked the flower from Siva’s locks.
When presented with this story, Siva became furious at the
lie in it and cut one of Brahma’s heads off, and forbade him
from being worshipped and cursed the flower not to be ever
used in His worship.
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The metaphoric meaning of the legend is this: Vishnu stands
for wealth and Brahma for intellect. One who has wealth will
find it difficult to reach God, no doubt. But he will have
the humility to accept his short comings and may even drop
his wealth, at some point, to seek the Truth. However, an
intellectual person will find it impossible to shed his ego in
his search for Truth, and therefore will never find it.
In one’s search for Truth, the Divine, the Unmanifest, nirguna
(without attributes) Brahman which is what the intellectual
Truth seeker focuses his attention on, the intellect or the
mind, that is the ego will be the block that would make the
path very difficult to traverse.
The embodied being carries not only the body but the mind
as well; and with the mind it carries the ego. Until and
unless the mind-body is transcended, spiritual advancement is
difficult, as Krishna so clearly points out.
Shedding its ego is the most difficult for the mind-body
system. Ego provides the mind-body with its identity, with its
existence. Not for nothing did the French Philosopher Rene
Descartes say so proudly, ‘I think, therefore I am’. The world,
whether now or in Krishna’s time, revolved around the power
of thought; the power that seemingly provided knowledge and
skills. It was, therefore, essential for one’s recognition and
status in life.
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Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was an incarnation. Yet, in utter
humility, he accepted three people in his life as his Masters.
The truth though was that he was the means to their
deliverance in helping them shed their egos.
Bhairavi who taught Ramakrishna tantric techniques stayed
behind as a disciple. It took her years before she could shed
her ego with the help of Ramakrishna.
Tota Puri, the great advaitic (non-dualistic) scholar, had
never stayed in one place for more than three nights. He
wanted to teach Ramakrishna the non- dual nature of
Existence. In all simplicity Ramakrishna disappeared saying he
had to ask Mother for permission. A surprised Tota Puri
followed him and found him conversing with the idol of
Mother Kali. When Tota Puri forced him to meditate upon
the formless, Ramakrishna demurred saying he could not let
Mother go. Furious, Tota Puri placed a shard of broken glass
between Ramakrishna’s eyebrows, on his third eye point, and
commanded him to cut his Mother Kali into pieces.
Ramakrishna went into a samadhi (no-mind state) that lasted
three weeks. Tota Puri did not know of any one who had
survived that long in a samadhi state and returned to mindbody consciousness. He stayed on with Ramakrishna for
months.
There was Jatadhari, a Ramait baba and a vaishnavite, who
came to Ramakrishna with Ramlala, an idol of Lord
Ramachandra as a child. To Jatadhari, this idol of child
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Rama was a living being; he used to bathe, feed and talk to
Ramlala everyday all the time. After some days of staying
with Ramakrishna, Jatadhari found that Ramlala started
spending more time with Ramakrishna, and he would come
searching petulant that his darling Ramlala had now decided
to play favourite with another person. Jatadhari satyed on at
Dakshineshwar for a long time, because he knew that
Ramlala wanted to be with Ramakrishna. One day finally
Jatadhari came to bid goodbye to Ramakrishna. ‘Ramlala told
me that he wants to be with you, and he loves you. I am
fulfilled that he had at last revealed Himself to me because
of you. I am happy to leave Him with you and go away. I am
full of bliss.’ Ramlala stayed with Ramakrishna ever since
then.
It took the no-mind simplicity of a great Master to provide
guidance to learned scholars in teaching them how to drop
their egos. Dropping the ego is the most difficult for the
mind-body, especially one which is focused on the intellect.
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He says:
ªÉä iÉÖ ºÉ´ÉÉÇÊhÉ Eò¨ÉÉÇÊhÉ ¨É滃 ºÉÆxªÉºªÉ ¨Éi{É®úÉ&*
+xÉxªÉäxÉè´É ªÉÉäMÉäxÉ ¨ÉÉÆ vªÉɪÉxiÉ ={ÉɺÉiÉä**12.6**
iÉä¹ÉɨɽÆþ ºÉ¨ÉÖrùiÉÉÇ ¨ÉÞiªÉÖºÉƺÉÉ®úºÉÉMÉ®úÉiÉÂ*
¦É´ÉÉ欃 xÉÊSÉ®úÉi{ÉÉlÉÇ ¨ÉªªÉÉ´ÉäʶÉiÉSÉäiɺÉɨÉÂ**12.7**
Ye tu sarvaani karmaani mayi samnyasya matparaah
Ananyenaiva yogena maam dhyayanta upaasate (12.6)
Teshamaham samuddhartaa mrutyu samsaara saagaraat
Bhavami nachihraat paartha mayyaaveshita chetasaam (12.7)
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Ye: who, tu: but, sarvaani: all, karmaani: actions, mayi: in me,
samnyasya: renouncing, matparaah: reagrding me as the
supreme goal, ananyena: focussed, eva: even, yogena: with
yoga, maam: me, dhyayanta: meditating, upaasate: worship
Tesham: for them, aham: I, samuddharta: the savior, mrtyu
samsaara sagaraat: from the ocean of life and death cycle,
bhavami: become, na chiraat: before long, paartha: arjuna,
mayi: in me, aaveshita chetasaam: of those whose minds are
set
‘But those worship me with single minded devotion,
renouncing all activities unto Me, regarding Me as their
supreme goal, whose minds are set in Me, them I shall
deliver soon from the ocean of the birth and death cycle.’
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Bhagavan makes a promise here.
Krishna says unequivocally: I shall deliver them from their
material existence; the ocean of samsara; the cycle of life and
death.
All that the Lord asks for is that the devotee be devoted to
Him. Krishna says: If you surrender to Me, surrender all your
actions and the fruits of those actions to Me, do My service,
meditate upon Me, remain single minded upon My
consciousness, I shall redeem you, provide your salvation,
liberate you; I shall make sure you never need to be reborn
again.
It is the roar of a lion. It is the roar of the King of this
Universe: ‘Surrender to Me and I shall redeem you. Serve
Me and I shall liberate you.’
An atheist, a true non-believer, fell of a steep cliff and as he
fell down, he grasped the root of a small plant and was
holding onto it desperately. He was past caring whether he
should worry about God’s existence or not; all he wanted was
to live, to be saved. He shouted out, ‘God, if it is true that
you exist, save me.’
As in response, a voice rang out, ‘Yes, I do exist and I shall
save you. Just let go your grasp. Let go that root. You will
then be saved. I shall hold you.’
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The atheist shouted out, ‘Oh my God, is there any one else
who can save me?’
All our belief in God is skin deep. First of all, to most of us,
God is only a concept. We worship that concept. Most of the
time, we beg of that concept. We keep praying, ‘Give me
this, Oh Lord; give me that, Oh Lord.’ Barely would one
prayer been answered before we begin the next.
As long as God answers our prayers, as long as a Master
provides us with what we ask for, our faith in them lasts. The
moment a prayer goes unanswered, faith dissolves. We move
on to another God, another Master. We ask, ‘Is there any one
else out there who can answer me the way I want?’
We do not realize that often God refrains from answering our
prayers out of sheer compassion, out of sheer love for our
welfare. In our ignorance, we keep asking; we keep begging
without a break. We do not even fully understand the
implications of what will happen if the prayers really got
answered; whether our situation will get better, or whether it
will get worse. That’s why they say: Be careful what you ask
for, you may get it! In His infinite wisdom, God from time to
time turns down our requests such as to get rich, and to
have children and so on. And what do we do? We move
away from Him.
Surrender to the Divine cannot be conditional. It must be
total. There can be no ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. It cannot be, ‘if you
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grant my prayers, I shall be devoted to you’. That is business.
Most of our relationship with God is business.
Surrender is of three kinds.
Surrender of the first kind is surrender of one’s intellect. For
many of us this is possible. Once we understand that there is a
universal energy far greater than us, most of us can accept the
fact that there is this supreme power and can accept and
surrender to that power intellectually. At least, you can say, ‘I
surrender’. That’s how many of prostrate in a temple or before
a Master, the entire body touching the ground, signifying our
surrender. For that moment, our ego takes a vacation.
Surrender at the next level is emotional. One can melt at
the thought of God or the Master. There is love, there is
gratitude pouring out of our hearts, and we feel tears
streaming down. We become a bhakta, devotee.
Ramakrishna has said: If you have tears in your eyes when
you think of God or your Master, be very clear, this is your
last birth. You are ready for liberation.
We are ready, but not liberated till we reach the last and
third step. This step of surrender is the surrender of one’s
senses. Our surrender is total at this stage, unconditional,
spontaneous, instant and natural.
In the Mahabharata, the sage Vyasa talks about an incident,
when Arjuna is walking with Krishna.
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Krishna suddenly points out to a crow sitting on the branch
of a tree and says, ‘Arjuna, can you see that green crow?’
‘Yes, Krishna, I do see that green crow’, says Arjuna.
They walk a little further. Krishna again points out to
another crow on another tree branch, ‘Arjuna, look at that
black crow.’
Arjuna says, ‘I see that black crow, Krishna.’
Krishna turns to Arjuna and says, ‘Arjuna, you are fool. I
thought you were intelligent. How can a crow be green?
Why did you say that first crow was green, when that too
was black? Were you trying to please Me?’
Says Arjuna, ‘My Lord, when You pointed that first crow and
asked me to look at that green crow, all I saw was a green
crow. Krishna, what can I do, I did not see a black crow.
My senses deceived me.’
Arjuna’s senses did not deceive him. They had surrendered
to the Master, to the Divine. Once that stage is reached
there is no coming back. It is a point of no return; it is total
and absolute surrender.
Krishna says, ‘When you surrender to Me, I shall liberate
you.’ To reach Him, we must surrender totally. Our senses
must be surrendered to him. Our entire consciousness, our
complete awareness, must only be of Him, and nothing else.
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Nothing else needs to be done. It is so simple. The
technique is so simple. ‘Surrender and I shall save you. I
shall save you without delay, immediately’, says the Master.
But what do we do? We query, ‘Is there someone else?’
It is so simple. The Lord has made it so simple. Yet, we find
it so difficult; we find it so difficult to believe Him.
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¨ÉªªÉä´É ¨ÉxÉ +ÉvÉiº´É ¨É滃 £ÉÖËrù ÊxÉ´Éä¶ÉªÉ*
ÊxÉ´ÉʺɹªÉ漃 ¨ÉªªÉä´É +iÉ >ðv´ÉÈ xÉ ºÉƶɪÉ&**12.8**
mayyeva mana aadhatsva mayi buddhim nivesaya
nivasishyasi mayyeva ata oordhvam na samsayah (12.8)
mayi: upon Me, eva: only, manah: mind, aadhatsva: fix; mayi:
upon Me, buddhim: mind, nivesaya: apply, nivasisshyasi: you
will live, mayi: in Me; eva: alone, atah oordhvam: thereafter,
na: no, sammsayah: doubt.
‘You fix your mind on Me alone, establish your mind in Me.
You will live in Me always. There is no doubt in it.’
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Just fix your mind upon Me, the supreme personality of the
Divine and engage all your mind, body and senses in Me
and you will thus live in Me always, without a doubt - Na
samsayah.
Now He comes to the technique. At one point the virtuous
circle has to be started. First he explains the virtuous circle,
now he comes to the technique.
Please understand love is not a mood; it is not a mere
emotion. It is your very existence. As long as it’s your mood,
it will come and go. There are two kinds of love - horizontal
love and vertical love.
Let me explain: horizontal love is just like a horizontal line,
flat. It is related to time, it will start and end. Please be
very clear, anything which starts, has to end. If it takes more
time to end, don’t think it is permanent. Anything that starts
has to end; it may take a few years or a few months, but it
ends; it is impermanent and time bound. This is horizontal
love.
Horizontal love is related to time and vertical love is related
to consciousness. Vertical love neither starts nor ends, it does
not discriminate; it is your very quality. It just flows. If you
discriminate and love, please be very clear, it cannot be
called love; it is just infatuation. As long as the other person
fits in your frame, all your love will grow; the moment the
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other person doesn’t fit in your frame, your love will
disappear.
In our meditation camp, in the first session, the first practice
which I make people do is to tell me honestly or make an
honest list of at least one or two persons in their lives who
they really love. Usually in the beginning, people come up
with a big list: husband, wife, father, mother, brother, sister
and so on. All the people who they would like to please or
who need to be pleased for their own happiness, they include
in that list.
When I start talking about real love, one by one, people will
start to cross out names of people from their list. When this
happens, be very clear, it’s not love; but people always get
stuck when they come to their sons or daughters. I tell you:
all your love is for three reasons: either economical benefit,
or psychological support - that you have somebody as your
family, as your community, as your group - at the time of
trouble they may support you. This is psychological
support.
The third reason is the need for a ‘good person’ certificate
unconsciously from each and every person that we are
associated with. Sometimes we do share love, we do show
love. We may not have any economical benefits or
psychological support but may expect a certificate of approval,
a certificate that draws attention to us; a need for attention
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will be there. There is always a dependent need for us to
express love. It is not unconditional.
People say, ‘Master, I don’t love my son or daughter for any of
these three reasons.’ I then ask them, ‘Alright, if suddenly
your son starts doing things on his own; he starts deciding on
his own; if he doesn’t fit your frame; if he doesn’t follow your
words; if he doesn’t live according to your rules, will the love
be the same?’
Enquire honestly. Naturally people start saying no, it will not
be, the love will reduce in quality!
What does this mean? We love our next generation as long
as they are extensions of our life. We fulfill our desires
through them; we fulfill our lives through them. Whatever
we couldn’t accomplish, we try to do through them. As long
as they act and live, as an extension of your life, the
relationship is really beautiful. But the moment they start
deciding on their own, the moment they feel you are
suffocating them and they stand up and say ‘no’, the whole
relationship takes a different turn.
Children feel they are adults only when they say ‘no’ to their
parents; it’s a basic instinct. Only when you say ‘no’, you feel
you are an individual. They don’t bother about what you say.
All they know is one word ‘no’. They do not know anything
else. They feel strong when they say ‘no’. That is why all
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over the world, the youngsters always rebel. Whether it is in
the West, or in the East, in all countries, all over the world,
in all cultures, the youth say ‘no’. Because, when they say
‘no’, they feel that they are very strong. ‘No’ gives a certain
kind of strength to them.
But I tell you, your love is dependant only on ‘yes’; as long as
you receive ‘yes’, your love also is ‘yes’; when you get a ‘no’,
you start saying the same ‘no’. It is horizontal love, that’s
why it ends with some reason. Vertical love never ends,
because it never starts. Suddenly at some point you realize,
just like how you live inside this body, in the same way you
are living inside every other body. That is real love.
There’s a beautiful example given in the Upanishads.
A Master asks a disciple, ‘Do you enjoy all your five senses’?
The disciple says ‘Yes.’
The Master then asks, ‘What if one of your senses was
missing, would you have the same amount of joy’?
The disciple replied, ‘No, it would be twenty percent less,
and if two of my senses were missing, it would be forty
percent less.’
The Master then suddenly says, ‘What if you had five more
senses?’
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The disciple answers saying, ‘Naturally my enjoyment would
be a hundred percent extra. If I am given one more body,
naturally I will enjoy everything twice as much. Or if I am
given five bodies, naturally I will enjoy things five times as
much.’
If you experience that you are living in all the bodies of this
world, how much will be your joy or ecstasy? Immeasurable,
eternal and ultimate, is it not?
That is what enlightened people experience. When they
experience they are the whole universe, or they are in every
body, they experience tremendous ecstasy, tremendous
pleasure or bliss. That is the reason why they don’t need
anything from the outer world.
One elderly person came to one of our programs, after which,
he came up to me and told me with a lot of sympathy, ‘At
such a young age you have become a Master and an ascetic.
You have missed life.’
He was expressing his compassion; he felt that I had really
missed out. I told him, ‘Don’t be sympathetic towards me;
actually I should be sympathetic towards you. Even after sixty
years, you are not able to liberate yourself. Even after sixty
years you are suffering in samsara, the illusion of worldly life.
Don’t be sympathetic towards me. I should be sympathetic
towards you!’
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When you experience ecstasy and bliss inside you, you don’t
feel you are missing anything from the outside world. You
don’t feel you need something.
Real renunciation is not about you renouncing the world; it
is about the world renouncing you. When you have that joy,
ecstasy and bliss in you, automatically you will radiate that
which is within you and you will never feel that you are
missing something, that you’ve lost something.
I always tell people not to renounce the world unless they
feel ecstasy within. Never renounce; work only towards
ecstasy. When ecstasy happens, automatically renunciation
will happen to you.
Be very clear: If you renounce the outer world without
having established the inner world, you will fall into
depression.
I’ve seen so many sanyasis who have taken the path of
renunciation without achieving the inner experience; who
are caught in social service and then fall into depression.
Around the age of forty to forty-five, they get depressed.
They counsel the whole world, while they are depressed. So
many monks have been prey to depression. Never renounce
the world unless you have a solid experience inside.
When you have the experience, you don’t have to renounce;
automatically renunciation will happen. All these things will
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drop you. Instead of you dropping them, they will drop you.
You dropping will always have problems; they dropping you is
the right thing. When you have that joy in you, when you
start experiencing the joy in you, nothing needs to be
renounced, automatically things happen.
Here, Krishna gives techniques, to start the virtuous circle:
Fix your mind on Me; establish your intelligence in Me. In
this way, after acquiring the boundary-less consciousness, you
will live in Me always.
How should we establish our intelligence on Him?
Continuously try to put all these thoughts and ideas inside
you. Ramakrishna says, ‘What odor you belch, depends on
what you eat.’ The same smell of what you eat only will
come out when you belch. For instance, if you eat some kind
of vegetable or fruit, the smell of the same will only come
out when you belch.
In the same way, if you add these solid ideas continuously to
your mind, into your consciousness, naturally you will start
radiating them; they will start shining through your being.
The phrase ‘Let your intelligence be established in His being’
means, when you are in some trouble, automatically the
solution would come from you, based on these ideas.
If you read now and keep referring to books or keep listening
to a Guru in the outer world, if you try and digest all these
ideas, even when you don’t have problems, they will lodge
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themselves in you. When you are faced with problems they
will start guiding you. When you are in trouble, if you try
reading or listening, you will not be able to digest the ideas,
because, your mind will be confused at that time with the
problem. You will not be able to receive them or digest them.
It can’t happen.
When your mind is in the normal state, let receiving these
ideas in your mind become a regular habit. Let it became
part of your normal life style. Just like how you eat everyday,
how you bathe everyday, in the same way, absorb these ideas
regularly.
Beautifully Sankara has written in his commentary on this
Chandogya Upanishad sutra, on ahara sudhi:.
ahara shuddho satva shuddho dhruvaa smrutih
When your ahara is purified, your memory is purified.
Ahara means food. Please be very clear, ahara doesn’t mean
just the food that you partake. It means whatever you take
in through all the five senses. The television program that
you are watching, is ahara; the music that you are listening
to, is ahara; the food that you eat, is ahara. The different
odors that you smell are ahara; the touch that you are
enjoying, is ahara. So all that you intake through the five
senses are ahara and they should be pure; only then can you
radiate purity, you can radiate bliss, you can radiate ecstasy,
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you can radiate divine intelligence. Understand, unless you
purify the ahara, which also goes through the senses, you
cannot expect the purification of memories to happen.
I really feel blessed that I was born and brought up in a
village, where there was no television in those days. People
ask me, ‘Master how do you pick up things so easily?’ Of
course, I somehow pick up things very easily, very quickly.
One small fact: Only two years ago did I start speaking
English; I studied English, but I did my academics in my
mother tongue, Tamil. I started speaking English when I first
came to America, which was two years ago, August 2003.
I was asked how I pick things up. I continuously read.
People frequently ask, ‘How do you read so many pages, so
many books?’ It is just because I never used to watch
television. Television straightaway destroys your consciousness.
Please understand: Not only your eyes, the television
straightaway destroys your consciousness also.
Let me tell you an important thing: Understand this example:
you are traveling in a vehicle. If you are moving at forty
miles per hour you can see everything on the road hoardings, signboards etc. Whatever there is to see on the
road, you will be able to see very clearly. If you are moving
at 100 miles per hour, will you be able to see anything?
You can’t; you will not be able to see clearly. The reason is
because you are now seeing a greater number of frames per
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second. That’s why you can’t see; you can’t discern the
images. Normally your eyes can receive, analyze, process and
file information as long as the given speed is up to six frames
per second. So if up to six frames per second change in front
of your eyes, your eyes can take that message, analyze it,
categorize it and put it in your consciousness, put it in your
memory. But if it is more than six frames per second, your
logic will lose its balance. On television, you witness at least
sixteen frames per second. Information is being forced on you
straight away.
Please be very clear. It is like this: you have security, a
watchman outside your house. A thief turns up, pushes the
watchman aside and kills him, after which he can straight
away walk in to your bedroom. The same thing happens
when you watch television and movies.
Logic is your watchman; he is standing guard. Logic stands;
whatever information comes to you, it analyses it and it says
this is true, this is a lie, this is a toy, this is a real man, this
is a fake, this is a doll, etc. The information is analyzed and
recorded. When you watch a movie, when 16 frames per
second are flowing, when the information is forced on you,
your logic loses its ability to analyze, and straightaway the
information reaches your unconscious zone. Your unconscious
is exploited straight away. Straight away the information
penetrates you. It’s like a robber walking straight into your
bedroom, after killing the watchman.
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One more thing: Because the information reaches you right
away, you lose the logical analyzing capacity and emotional
balance. That is why, even when you know for sure that the
actor is still alive and you know for sure the actress is also
alive, you weep when you see the actor getting killed in the
movie; automatically you start weeping; tears appear from
nowhere. You know for sure that it is not really happening,
that it is not true. But when they laugh you laugh, when
they cry you cry.
According to the scenes your moods also change. If you see
a depressing scene you feel depressed, why? You are an
educated person, you know it is a drama, you know the
person is alive, you might have seen the actor just a few days
earlier in person, but when you watch the movie, you
experience grief. Why? Because the logic that analyses it as
either truth or lies is put to rest or pushed aside and
information is straight way flooded into your system. It is
carried straight away to your unconsciousness. Your
unconscious is influenced straight away So be very clear,
never watch any program that creates depression or misery in
you.
Of course, if you watch some program that gives you joy,
which makes you laugh, that does not hurt your
consciousness directly, you may at the most, waste a little
time or eat a little bit extra at the time of watching the
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movie. Only the threat of obesity is there. Otherwise there’s
no other problem!
Surveys say that 80% of people eat while they watch
television and thus face overweight problems. But with this,
you may only have a small problem that is your weight,
nothing more. But watching something that creates
depression or brings your mood down is not advisable.
Let me answer one more important question: ‘Master, is there
anything such as spirits or the devil?’ This is a question I
face often. Let me tell you very clearly: There is no such
thing as the devil, no such thing as demons, and no such
thing as spirits. Be very clear, you may have one thousand
references. I know your minds are all collecting references,
from movies you saw, from books that you have read; your
mind is collecting references. Please be very clear, once your
unconscious starts believing there are spirits, you project it
and see it. Whatever your unconscious believes, you project
and see that.
Now especially after a lot of research has been done on
hypnotism, they are coming up with great truths. If a person
is hypnotized and given fire in his hands and told by the
hypnotist, ‘you are holding a flower in your hand, you are
holding a rose,’ not only does the hand not get burnt, but
after the fire is removed, the hand smells like a rose!
Hypnotism has so much of power, which means your
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unconscious has so much power. You are unconsciously
hypnotized and taught that things like ghosts exist; you will
end up projecting and seeing ghosts. When you have an
experience, then it becomes a solid faith.
There is an even more disturbing thing that they have
discovered now. In the US at least, in the last decade or so,
many cases of child trauma have come up, with children
claiming sexual abuse by parents. These discoveries are
usually made when, after reaching adulthood, these abused
people go to psychiatrists and such traumatic happenings are
discovered during hypnotic states. Cases are reported and
investigated by the police and regulatory authorities.
It has been found that in a significant number of cases, such
abuses never took place at all. It has been found that the
patients have developed these ideas under hypnosis as a
result of judgmental probing by the psychiatrists. Treatment
which was meant to cure people of their traumas ended up
inducing traumas.
Just watch some horror movies continuously for three days;
you will see ghosts. Even a screen moving will look like a
ghost. Even if your wife walks into the room, it will seem like
a ghost. Of course, for that you don’t have to watch a horror
movie, anyway you will feel disturbed, because you are always
in that consciousness! Anyhow, whatever happens around
you, you will connect that with it.
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For example, lets say that while watching a horror movie, you
feel like drinking some water. You walk in to the kitchen;
suddenly a cat jumps on you. Now, the whole scene is
completed! Now you know for sure that ghosts exist. Be very
clear, it is purely your unconsciousness; because you start
believing it, you start projecting it; once you start projecting
it, your faith is strengthened. It’s a vicious circle and you are
caught in it.
Another thing, ghosts as such don’t have a physical body.
See, you have three bodies: physical, subtle and causal. Even
if they exist, they don’t have a physical body. Of course, first
of all they don’t exist. But for argument’s sake if I collect all
your arguments, and if I have to argue, if I accept they do
exist, they exist only in the subtle body and causal body.
They don’t have a physical body.
No ghost comes to you with a physical body except your
spouse! So this means they have only 66% of your capacity;
you have three bodies which equal 100%; they have a
maximum of two bodies, only 66%. It means they are less
powerful than you. So even if they exist, you don’t have to
be afraid of them.
Understand this logically: Even if they exist you don’t have to
be afraid of them. They are lower level jeevas, beings, they
are lower level entities. Firstly they don’t exist; but, even for
argument’s sake, if I have to argue, they are still lower level
entities; you don’t have to be afraid of them. So be very clear,
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all this talking to ghosts, mediums, talking to your dead
relatives, all these things are purely stories. One story is built
on the other story; next story is built on the second story.
Purely fictional, nothing but fiction!
A small story:
A lady goes to a medium to talk to her recently departed
husband. At first the medium waits, starts to mumble, and
then starts to speak: ‘Oh honey, I’m here, ask me about
whatever you want to.’
The lady asks, ‘Please tell me who has to give us money and
where you have invested your money.’
He replies, ‘The milkman owes us rupees thirty five
thousand.’
The lady asks, ‘What else honey?’
The medium mumbles, ‘I have deposited two hundred
thousand in our bank for you, please take it.’ The medium
continues, ‘Our neighbor owes us one hundred thousand
dollars. Please get it from him.’
All these accounts go on, and the lady listens happily.
Suddenly the husband says, ‘Honey, I have to tell you one
more thing. I owe my friend a million rupees, please return
that to him.’
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Suddenly the wife tells the medium, ‘It doesn’t sound like my
husband’s voice. I don’t think it is him!’
Please be very clear: Only as long as it supports you, all
these ideas are okay. So don’t believe in mediums and all
these things. Don’t waste your time talking to people who are
dead. We barely have time to talk to the people who are
alive, why waste time talking to people who are dead. Let us
first talk to people who are directly related to our business,
to our lives; let us talk to them first; let us work with them
first. Why should we waste our time with other things?
Never allow any of these horrible thing or things that cause
suffering to enter into your consciousness. If you don’t allow
these things into your consciousness, automatically your
intelligence will be established in the divine. Thoughts that
you take inside are going to play a major role. This is the
concept that Krishna speaks of, ‘Establishing your intelligence
in Me.’ Please understand whatever be your intake, your
ahara, you will establish your mind only on that. So let your
ahara be purified, let ahara shuddhi (shuddha – purification)
happen to you; automatically your consciousness will be
established in the divine.
Again and again and again, try to absorb these ideas. Let
these ideas penetrate you, instead of the ideas that make you
feel low, which put you into depression. For example, for the
last eleven days you’ve been listening to these ideas. Now,
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when a problem arises; you will automatically remember that
the Master said this; You will say, ‘I heard this idea; I think
this is what I have to understand now.’ Automatically this
will start to arise from your being.
If it starts to come up, then you have heard what I have
said; otherwise, you are a ‘silent listener’. A ‘silent listener’ is
a person, who sits here and seriously thinks of something
else! Whether you are a silent listener or one that really
heard the discourse, can only be determined by how much
these words playback within you.
I always tell people that when the source of words is
enlightened consciousness, they simply penetrate you and
automatically come into your mind, whenever you need their
help. People ask me, ‘Master, how can we remember all these
ideas and practice them?’ I tell them, never bother about
remembering them; just listen that’s enough. These words are
from my experience. So naturally they will penetrate your
being.
Whenever it is necessary, you don’t have to remember these
words, the words will remember you. You don’t have to
remember them; the words will simply remember you.
Automatically they will come up when needed; they will
automatically erupt in your consciousness, like a pop-up!
Similar to the pop-ups on your computer monitor, they will
automatically come up in your consciousness and guide you.
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You don’t need to do anything; all you need to do is listen, as
a means to put them into your being. Try and listen to these
words repeatedly. Naturally, your consciousness will be
established in the divine.
Krishna says: Immerse your mind completely in Me. Focus
your entire attention upon Me. Without a doubt you will
reach the blissful state.
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+lÉ ÊSÉkÉÆ ºÉ¨ÉÉvÉÉiÉÖÆ xÉ ¶ÉCxÉÉäÊ¹É ¨ÉÊªÉ ÎºlÉ®ú¨ÉÂ*
+¦ªÉɺɪÉÉäMÉäxÉ iÉiÉÉä ¨ÉÉʨÉSUôÉ{iÉÖÆ vÉxÉ\VɪÉ**12.9**
+¦ªÉɺÉä%{ªÉºÉ¨ÉlÉÉæ%漃 ¨ÉiEò¨ÉÇ{É®ú¨ÉÉä ¦É´É*
¨ÉnùlÉǨÉÊ{É Eò¨ÉÉÇÊhÉ EÖò´ÉÇxÉ ʺÉÊrù¨É´ÉÉ{ºªÉʺÉ**12.10**
atha chittam samaadhaatum na saknoshi mayi sthiram
abhyaasa-yogena tato maam icchaaptum dhananjaya (12.9)
abhyaasepyasamarthosi matkarmaparamo bhava
madartham api karmaani kurvan siddhim avaapsyasi (12.10)
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atha: if, chittam: mind, samaadhaatum: to fix, na: not; saknoshi:
you are able, mayi: upon Me, sthiram: steadily, abhyaasayogena: by the practice of yoga, tatah: then, maam: Me,
icchaa: desire, aaptum: to get, dhananjaya: Arjuna
abhyaase: in practice, api: even if, asamarthah: unable, asi: you
are, matkarma: My work, paramah: dedicated to, bhava:
become, mat artham: for Me, api: even, karmaani: work,
kurvan: performing, siddhim: perfection, avaapsyasi: you will
achieve.
‘If you are not able to fix your mind upon Me, then Arjuna,
with the constant practice of Yoga, you try to attain Me. If
you are not able to practice even this yoga, then performing
your duties and surrendering all your actions to Me, you will
attain perfection.’
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Here Krishna talks about abhyasa yoga. What is abhyasa
yoga?
Abhyasa yoga is the practice of the method of yoga; the
practice of holding the mind constantly in a state of union
with divinity. It is the state of complete immersion in the
consciousness of Krishna.
Why does Krishna speak about abhyasa yoga? Because
during vishwarupa darshan yoga, Krishna gives Arjuna a
glimpse of the universal consciousness experience. But Arjuna
is unable to stay there permanently. Out of fear or because of
old samskaras, embedded memories of past desires, Arjuna
comes out of the experience; he slips from that state of
consciousness. Therefore Krishna now speaks about abhyasa
yoga, how to establish himself in that same consciousness.
That’s why he speaks about practice.
‘Oh Arjuna, if you cannot fix your mind upon Me, without
deviation, then follow the regulatory principles of bhakti
(devotion). In this way, through this abhyasa, you will be
established in Me.’
Here, he gives a solid path or a solid solution to take care of
our whole life, to establish ourselves in that consciousness.
Continuously, again and again, in our regular life, let us
receive these ideas, and digest these ideas in our
consciousness, and let our inner space be filled with these
ideas. Let us not waste even a few moments; let our whole
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inner space be filled with these great thoughts. That is the
way to establish ourselves in that consciousness.
Krishna gives some more tips for establishing oneself in that
consciousness and to radiate bhakti or devotion. Krishna starts
to give instructions; continuously over the next four sloka. He
gives various options, step-by-step. He says: if you can’t do
this, do that; if you can’t do this, then do this, something
else. Krishna is giving us various options, he gives us various
instructions and the first thing he says is:
‘Oh Dhananjaya, fix your mind upon Me; with constant
practice, try to attain Me; if you are not able to practice,
then perform actions for Me.’
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was approached by a lady who
said that however much she tried she could not meditate
upon the form of Goddess Kali, as Ramakrishna had advised
her to do. She had tried time and again, and she was always
distracted. She came to Ramakrishna very upset that she
could make no spiritual progress.
Ramakrishna enquired whether the lady’s attention was
diverted to some one or something else. The lady confessed
that she was always thinking of a young nephew, a child,
who she was very fond of. Immediately, Ramakrishna advised
her: ‘Just focus your attention on this child whom you love.
Meditate upon him.’
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The lady came back after a few weeks very satisfied. Having
started her meditation upon the child whom she loved, she
found she could meditate, and once she could meditate she
found that she could transfer her focus to Goddess Kali.
Our mind can be trained. What is important is the
concentration. Once we learn to focus our attention
completely on something, single pointedly, we can train the
mind to be a laser beam. That laser beam can then be
transferred to any other object with equal ease and success.
Vivekananda says: ‘Once you learn all that there is to be
known about a handful of clay by focusing your complete
attention on it, you will know all about all the clay
anywhere in the world.’
Discipline and constant practice are essential for perfection in
any endeavor. While we are willing to accept this for all
material goals and will undergo all pains and discomforts to
achieve targets we set for ourselves in health and wealth, we
often believe that spiritual progress will happen by itself. You
have God’s word now to tell you that it is not so.
Krishna here refers to controlling the mind through constant
practice of meditation, dhyana, which is one part of the yogic
path. Dhyana, meditation, is not about sitting down with
eyes closed for half an hour every day or every other day or
when we get time. Dhyana is incessant and obsessive focus
upon the Divine. Dhyana is a way of life.
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Krishna offers this as an alternative, if the mind cannot be
focused upon Him through the heart, through sheer love and
devotion, He says, ‘If the mind cannot be focused on Me, try
this, practice again and again uniting with Me through
meditation.’
When neither seems possible, Krishna offers one more way:
‘Do whatever you must. Do your duty as you need to and are
able to. But then, surrender what you do to me. Whatever it
is that you do, do it for My sake.’
By performing whatever we do with total faith in Him, and
with a deep feeling of surrender to Him, we reach Him.
Krishna implies two things through his statement here.
First, that whatever is done should be done with an attitude
of surrender to Him. The results of all our actions belong to
him. Our responsibility is to do, and to do well. What we
have the right to is ‘doership’ and not ‘ownership’. The Lord
is the owner of the fruits of actions that we perform on His
behalf.
When we learn to do this, we automatically imbibe the
concept of non-attachment to the end result. What happens
is in His hands, not ours. We then start to focus on the
path, not the goal; we start to focus on the process, not the
product. When we do this we find that our performance gets
better, because we no longer are stressed by what may happen
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to the end result. We no longer are worried; the result is in
safe hands. Whatever happens is right, for the common good.
Whatever path we take, if we take it with awareness,
whatever destination we reach, is the right destination.
In the Tamil epic Periapuranam, the lives of 63 great saints
are described in detail, all enlightened Masters. If one
studies their lives one finds that many of them just did
nothing. They went about their daily chores like many of you
do, but worshipped the Divine with tremendous awareness.
If they plucked flowers for the deity, they did with a singleminded focus and devotion. Nothing else mattered. When
they prayed or sang, their mind, heart and being were all
immersed in the delight that they experienced. They felt
viscerally the form of the formless. The idols of stone and
metal spoke to them, such was their awareness.
But what happens when we offer prayers? Our worship turns
into a chore, work. In the case of these Masters their work
became worship. If you watch people who spend time in
rituals, you will find that they are in a tearing hurry to finish
and move on. Move on to where? Where can they go, away
from the Divine?
The worst culprits can
them worship becomes
sale and they are the
attention one gets is
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be found in places of worship. For
a commercial operation. God is for
merchants. What determines the
the amount one deposits in the
BHAGAVAD GITA
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collection box. The kingdom of heaven comes in economy,
business, and first class rates. If you search well, you can also
get discount fares to heaven!
In the island of Bali whose people follow the Hindu faith,
they follow the caste system as well. However, in their system
the priest is not by his birth, but by qualification. It is not
necessary that a priest be born a brahmin (the priestly caste)
to qualify. In this island, worship is a way of life. Everyday
men and women offer flowers and food both to deities, which
they house inside small home shrines and also at the sea and
the communal temples. Religion and spirituality are part of
their lives.
When worship becomes a way of life, when spirituality
becomes a part of day-to-day life, there is an attitude of
surrender to the Divine. One feels intuitively that whatever
happens will be for common good; and whatever happens for
common good is good for oneself. It does not matter if our
neighbor has all that we have. In fact we rejoice that the
neighbor has all that we have.
We no longer have expectations. Expectations are about what
we hope to get. When surrender happens there is no end
point that one is striving for. Wherever the path takes us is
the right destination. With lack of focus on the goal, and
only on the path, expectations of what may happen, drop.
Whatever happens is good.
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This non-attachment and lack of expectations is the
hallmark of the karma yogi, one who has surrendered his
actions to the Divine.
Krishna implies one more thing. He wants us to do His
service. He wants us to work on His mission. He says,
‘Engage yourself in activities on My behalf, and you will
attain Me.’
I tell people who come to me: ‘Do not worry about whether I
am here physically with you or not. Do not feel unhappy I am
leaving you for another location. If you chase Me, you will
never be one with Me. Work on My mission. In whatever
way you can, work on activities that benefit humanity. Work
on My behalf. Then, instead of you chasing Me, I will chase
you. I will always be with you.’
Working on the mission of the Divine is a sure guarantee to
reach Divinity.
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+lÉèiÉnù{ªÉ¶ÉCiÉÉä%漃 EòiÉÖÈ ¨ÉtÉäMɨÉÉʸÉiÉ&*
ºÉ´ÉÇEò¨ÉÇ¡ò±ÉiªÉÉMÉÆ iÉiÉ& EÖò¯û ªÉiÉÉi¨É´ÉÉxÉÂ**12.11**
athaitad apy asakto’si kartum madyogamaas
sarva-karma-phala-tyaagam tatah kuru yataatmavaan (12.11)
atha: even though, etat: this, api: also, asaktah: unable, asi:
you are, kartum: to perform, mat-yogam: My yoga, aasritah:
taking refuge in, sarva-karma: of all activities, phala: of the
results, tyaagam: renunciation; tatah: then, kuru: do, yataaatma-vaan: self controlled
‘If you are not able to work even this way, surrendering unto
Me, give up all the results of your actions to Me without
ego.’
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Krishna gives various options to Arjuna, one after another. His
compassion for Arjuna’s spiritual evolution knows no limits. If
you cannot do this, then do this; and if you cannot do this do
at least this, Krishna continues. In the last four sloka, He
continuously gives options to Arjuna.
Krishna started saying, ‘Fix your mind upon Me alone. Live in
Me.’ Then He felt that He had to give Arjuna an option in
case Arjuna could not succeed. ‘If you cannot fix your mind
upon Me steadily, practice and practice again’, He advised.
He relented further, ‘If you cannot do this repetitive practice
too, if even this is too much for you, then do My mission work;
whatever you do, do for Me.’
Krishna now says: ‘If you are unable to do even this, that of
working for my sake, then do this: Abandon your ego and turn
over all the results of your actions to Me.’
Krishna relents from His standpoint that Arjuna should work
only on those activities that are Krishna’s. He feels that there
may be conditions that may prevent Arjuna from devoting all
his time only to those activities that are Krishna’s.
See how relevant Krishna’s advice is, even by today’s
standards. No one, none of us can hope to sit idle and be
taken care. We all must do something to occupy ourselves.
In the day-to-day reality of life, not all may be able to work
on God’s mission alone all the time. One may be able to
spend some time on activities that are selfless, activities that
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benefit humanity overall, and activities that are spiritual.
However, one may feel constrained based on material
realities, to spend time, perhaps a lot of time, on activities
that are of material benefits to one and others related.
Nothing is lost, assures the Lord. Krishna provides the bridge
between material pursuits and spiritual pursuits.
Krishna brings in the core concept of Gita here, that of
renunciation.
‘Do what you have to,’ says the Lord, ‘do it with an attitude
of surrender to Me and abandon, sacrifice, all the results of
your actions to Me, with complete control over your self, your
ego.’
We always feel responsible for the results of our actions.
Whether we succeed or fail in what we do, we feel
responsible, either proud and happy, or guilty and sad. It is
our ego that makes us feel responsible. We identify ourselves
with what we do, and the results of what we do. Success
and failure in what we do makes a huge difference to us;
they make a difference in how others perceive us; they make
a difference to our relationships and material status; or so
feel.
Krishna says here: ‘If you cannot do whatever else I have
told you to do, at least do this: drop it; drop your ego; drop
the fruits of your actions; renounce them to Me.’
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The freedom that results from what Krishna advises is true
liberation. Once we realize that we no longer are the masters
of our destiny, deciders of the results of our actions, we can
feel a weight lifting off our shoulders. It is He who is now
responsible for the results of our action; we still are the
‘doers’, but no longer the ‘owners’.
One may wonder: How can I survive in this dog eat dog
world? How can I succeed in this rat race with this kind of
an outlook?
Remember: Even if you win this rat race, you still remain a
rat! It is an illusion of our minds that we and our actions
decide the results of our actions. They do to some extent. In
each one of our activities, there is so much interdependency
with others and what they do, upon which we have little or
no control; it is pure fantasy on our part to believe that we
decide the result of our actions.
We cannot even guarantee that we will survive our next
breath. Our own life is not in our hands. What arrogance,
therefore, to imagine that activities in the outer world are
subject to our control. However, once we realize, and once
we believe that a power higher than us decides the results of
actions, we start to believe in the wisdom of that higher
power. Strange things start happening to us.
All we need to do is to let the universe, Parasakti, Krishna,
the Divine, decide what is best for us and the rest of
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humanity, and surrender the results of all that we do to this
scared power. Whatever then happens to us is for the good,
for our own good, and the good of everyone else in this
universe.
This may seem strange, even weird, to our intellectual
minds, having all our life been ‘educated’ to believe that we
and we alone are responsible for our actions and the results
of our actions.
We are in the universe, the cosmic power that surrounds us,
without which we cannot live out the next breath. Without
surrendering to this primeval force, the shakti, nothing can
be achieved. ‘Do what you think is best for me’ - say this
with deep awareness to the Lord, and see what happens. Not
only at the end do you have the material benefits, but an
immense spiritual relief will come over you as well.
‘Renounce unto Me,’ says Krishna, ‘surrender yourself to Me,
and I shall liberate you.’
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¸ÉäªÉÉä ʽþ YÉÉxɨɦªÉɺÉÉVYÉÉxÉÉnÂùvªÉÉxÉÆ Ê´ÉʶɹªÉiÉä*
vªÉÉxÉÉiEò¨ÉÇ¡ò±ÉiªÉÉMɺiªÉÉMÉÉSUôÉÎxiÉ®úxÉxiÉ®ú¨ÉÂ**12.12**
sreyo hi jnaanam abhyaasaajjnaanaad dhyaanam visishyate
dhyaanaat karma-phala-tyaagas tyaagaahaantir anantaram (12.12)
sreyah: better, hi: indeed, jnaanam: knowledge, abhyaasaat:
than practice, jnaanaat: than knowledge, dhyaanam:
meditation, visisshyate: superior dhyaanaat: than meditation,
karma-phala-tyaagah: renunciation of the fruits of action,
tyaagaat: by such renunciation, saantih: peace, anantaram:
thereafter.
‘Knowledge is better than mere practice. Meditation is
superior to knowledge. Renunciation the fruit of actions is
better than meditation. After renunciation of fruits of
actions, one immediately attains peace.’
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Krishna gives so many instructions; step-by-step, he gives
options. Actually, this is not just for Arjuna, it’s for all kinds
of minds.
Let me tell you a small story from Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi’s
life:
Somebody goes to Bhagavan and asks, ‘Bhagavan what
spiritual technique should I use?’
Bhagavan says, ‘Do atma-vichara, self-inquiry. Start
questioning yourself: Who am I?’
After a few days he comes back and says, ‘It is very difficult
to do self-enquiry, can I just meditate?’ Bhagavan says, ‘All
right, do meditation’.
After a week, he comes back and says, ‘Meditation is also very
difficult. Can I do some japa, repetition of mantras (chants)
and stotra (verses)?’ Bhagavan says, ‘All right. Do that’.
After a few days he comes back saying, ‘Japa is also very
difficult. Can I do some puja, the ritual worship?’ Bhagavan
says, ‘All right. Do puja’.
After a few days he comes back, ‘Puja is also very difficult;
can I start going only to the temple?’ Bhagavan says, ‘All
right, do what you want!’
Masters do not want to close the doors for anybody. Please
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understand they are giving options for everybody. Here in
these four sloka, Krishna is giving options for everybody.
You need to have tremendous spontaneity to understand this.
Only with spontaneity, will you be able to handle these four
instructions. For example, if you don’t feel like meditating
and are in a very low mood, then don’t try sitting in a room
with closed doors, forcing yourself to meditate.
Just go out, go to the temple; spend some time freely
walking, moving around; it will relax you, then you can enter
into meditation. And if you are not able to do that also, do
something else. Do something, which keeps you in a relaxed
mood, which makes you feel relaxed; then you can enter into
meditation.
Here Krishna tries to give you step-by-step instructions up to
the ultimate, the last step, the last step being, just being in
the consciousness, in bliss. But just because you can’t do
that, don’t stop trying altogether; do something at least to
start with.
I‘ve seen people who will speak about meditation, about
atma-sadhana and all sorts of complicated things. But when it
comes to practice, just thinking of meditating, makes them
stop all their puja, all their rituals, everything. In the end
they end up not even meditating.
And when you ask them why they are unable to meditate,
‘Because I don’t have enough time Master; my mind won’t
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concentrate; I’m not able to sit quietly,’ they say. First they
stop everything in the name of meditation; then they drop
meditation also, because of such reasons. Then, they have
neither this nor that. Krishna doesn’t want that to happen to
us. You need spontaneity to decide what to do at that
moment.
Whenever I utter the word spontaneity, I always remember
this one true story.
It’s not just a story, it really happened in my native place. It
was a small village, now it has become a district
headquarters, a town. They used to recite the Mahabharata,
every year. In India, every village has the traditional
recitation of the Mahabharata once a year. They believe that
if they recite the Mahabharata, the rains will come. So as a
result of this, they have the habit of reciting the
Mahabharata. In North India, they recite the Bhagavatam
(Life story of Lord Krishna). In the South, the recitation of
either the Mahabharata or Ramayana takes place.
In my village, they used to recite the Mahabharata, once a
year, for sixty days. In daytime they would recite the story
and at night, a small drama, a village drama would be
enacted. Four people from the village would enact the
drama. More than the drama, their mistakes were more
entertaining.
So people would gather to watch the drama, not for the
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drama’s sake, but more for the mistakes that would happen.
The props were limited and what was used as a veena
(musical instrument) for Saraswati, the Goddess of
Knowledge, would be reused as a gadha (mace) for Arjuna,
or Hanuman, the monkey God. Hanuman would use the
same for gadhayudham (mace), while Saraswati would return
with the same prop, using it as a veena. It used to be really
funny and four to five people would play all the roles.
The casting would be hilarious as well, with Krishna being
played by an eighty-five year old man, with one stick in his
hand and quite incapable of walking. He would be assisted
onto stage where he would come and say, ‘Oh Arjuna, stand
up!’ By the time he could say, ‘Arjuna, stand up’ he himself
would fall. It used to be really entertaining to watch the
whole drama with all their mistakes.
I used to go and watch the drama every night. Only males
were allowed to participate in the acting; it was also done as
a ritual. The people who participated had to wear the sacred
threads on their hands, as it was being done as a ritual.
They had to recite the entire poems completely and only
males participated in the rituals.
One particular day, the scene was supposed to be of the
vastrabharana; Draupadi vastrabharana, the disrobing of
Draupadi, a scene in the Mahabharata. So the person playing
the role had donned make-up and wore seven thin saris. In
the scene, Dushassana, the Kaurava Prince, who insults
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Draupadi - the Pandava Princess - by attempting to disrobe
her in public, was supposed to pull off six saris, and by the
time he pulled off the sixth sari, he was supposed to act
tired, and like as if he was falling down and then fall, at
which point Krishna appears, because the moment
Dushassana is about to fall, Draupadi shouts, ‘Krishna!
Krishna! save me.’
On this occasion the scene was enacted, Dushassana forgot to
count. He was supposed to pull six saris totally; by the sixth
sari, he was supposed to fall. Once he fell, Draupadi was
supposed to call out for Krishna and then Krishna would
appear on stage; this was the scene. The actor, Dushassana
somehow forgot the number while counting, and started to pull
the seventh sari also. Draupadi kept trying to indicate through
her eyes, ‘Hey seventh sari! Seventh sari!’ Dushassana just
didn’t understand; he thought that Draupadi was acting well,
so he kept pulling at the saris.
Then all of a sudden Draupadi started beating Dushassana,
shouting, ‘Hey leave my sari alone, leave my sari! It’s my sari,
my sari.’ Straight away Draupadi attacked Dushassana. And
all of us were surprised. In the morning, the story had said
one thing and in the evening drama, the things were totally
different! We were surprised. Actually by the sixth sari,
Dushassana was supposed to fall and Draupadi was to cry
‘Krishna, Krishna!’ and Krishna was then supposed to jump
onto stage.
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But Krishna, in this case, was waiting behind the screen
smoking a beedi (local version of a cigarette). He was
smoking a beedi waiting for the call, to jump onto the stage.
He was standing behind the stage, waiting for Draupadi to
call. And Draupadi was shouting, ‘Hey Dushassana, let go of
my sari.’ So the actor playing Krishna thought that the scene
was still going on; that the sixth sari had not yet been
pulled.
This Dushassana didn’t understand, even after Draupadi
kicked him. Instead it made him so angry that he just pulled
the sari off completely. Suddenly we saw on stage, Draupadi
standing in a half feminine outfit and a pair of shorts. Below
male, above female; with complete makeup, long hair and
feminine clothes. Luckily this actor was spontaneous; he
quickly turned and said, ‘Krishna, just because you couldn’t
come, you turned me into a male and saved my dignity!’
Through his spontaneity he managed the situation, and
covered up for both Dushassana’s and Krishna’s mistakes.
Krishna never appeared on stage; he was still waiting for
Draupadi’s call while smoking a beedi!
When you are spontaneous, you can manage any situation.
Whenever I remember the word spontaneity, I always
remember this story.
Actually, spontaneity is a spiritual quality. Only a man who is
not caught in his past, who is able to slip away from his past
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can be spontaneous. If you don’t have vested interests in
your past decisions, which means if you are really open to
understanding the mistakes you have made in the past, and
are ready to update and improve yourself, only then can you
be spontaneous.
If you have vested interests in the past, for example one may
think: ‘No, no, no, all these years I’ve lived believing this
idea, and understanding things in this way. Today just
because something is said to me I will not change; I cannot!
I am not going to change. For the last fifty years of my life, I
have lived my life based on this concept, I cannot change it
now.’ Then you can never be spontaneous, you will miss life,
and miss it miserably.
Please be very clear: The very quality of life updates itself. It
can be called intelligence only as long as it updates itself.
When it stops updating itself it is called intellect. It can no
longer be called intelligence. Intelligence is living energy.
In Sanskrit we have a word called dhee which means, that
which is alive. In Sanskrit the word for intelligence is dhee.
Dhee is energy, that is alive; which continuously updates
itself. In the Gayatri mantra, that is central to Hindu
worship, it is this energy that we seek to enhance, when we
pray to the Divine.
Only if you don’t have a vested interest in your past, the
decisions of your past, or the way in which your past was
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lived, the way in which you lived your past life - not a
different birth, but your life until this moment - only then
will you be able to be spontaneous. Spontaneity is a great
spiritual quality.
One more small incident, also about spontaneity:
One time, I was speaking on the Isavasya Upanishad; I was
giving a discourse. An elderly person, who looked like a wellread scholar, an elderly scholar, walked into the hall. When I
had finished giving the discourse, he did not even have the
basic courtesy to put his questions forward in a courteous way.
He just stood up and said, ‘All these fools have not read
anything, which is why you can make them listen to you. You
can’t make learned scholars like me listen to you.’
I just said, ‘Sir, please come nearer; I am not able to hear
what you are saying’.
He came nearer. I then said, ‘Please come this side, what is
it that you wanted to say?’
He moved to that side.
And I said, ‘I think there’s a table in the way, please move
this side.’
Naturally he came nearer. Then I said, ‘Already you’ve listened
to me three times. Now sit and listen to what I have to say.
You seem to be a good person. Just sit and listen!’
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You can never escape from spontaneity! Later on I was
surprised when I read a similar Zen story. After this incident
happened, sometime later I was reading a book, and I read
about a similar thing that happened in a Zen Master’ life. I
was surprised about how history repeats itself. Anyhow, this
person was shocked, shocked about what happened. Actually
when you have spontaneity, nothing can stop you. Spontaneity
is a great spiritual quality.
Here Krishna gives four different instructions. Either you can
establish yourself in bhakti yoga, or live a regular life of
spiritual routine, or sacrifice all the fruits of action to God, or
live in consciousness and then act. You can do whatever you
want. He says at least if not this, do this, if not this, do this,
if not this, do this.
Now, all we need to understand is to not stop at a low level;
to always try to go to a higher level. When you can’t go to a
higher level, at least stay at the lower level; don’t renounce
all efforts completely. Somebody asked me, ‘Master, why do
we have so many Gods in India or in the Eastern religions.’
All Eastern religions have many Gods, whether you consider
Hinduism, Buddhism or Jainism. They all have so many Gods,
so many saints, and so many Gurus, while Western religions
have only one God. Why?
Vivekananda puts it across beautifully, in one discourse:
‘Freedom is the basic condition for growth, in any field; if
growth has to happen, freedom is the basic condition.’
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In the East they have always had inner freedom.
Nobody disturbs your religion; spiritual practice is an option.
That’s why we have the concept Ishtadevata, favorite God.
Ishtadevata means you can worship whatever form suits your
mind. In the scriptures there are mentions of thirty three
crore devatas, demigods, that means three hundred and thirty
million Gods; actually I think at that time, that was the
probable population; so they wanted each one to have their
own customized God. That is why there are three hundred
and thirty million Gods. If the scriptures were written now
they would say, six billion Gods. Each one has the freedom to
choose his own path; each one has the freedom to choose
his own God. Each one has the freedom to consider himself
as God, as the person realizes the divinity in oneself.
People have inner freedom, which is why the East has grown
so much in terms of spirituality. In the West, you can’t have
your own God. People are spoon fed, with ready-made ideas
to consume. In the East anybody can declare himself to be a
saint overnight. All you need is ten rupees to print a poster
or somebody to sponsor the ten rupees. Nothing more is
necessary. You can declare yourself as a saint, no problem.
But in the West you can’t. Only after your death, can it be
declared and that too by the institution. The institution
declares who a saint is.
The attitudes are totally different. Of course both have their
share of the good and bad; in that freedom, there are so
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many good things that happen. Tremendous research has
happened in the inner world because of that freedom. So
much of research has been done in the inner world; and so
many truths related to the inner world are brought to light,
brought to humanity, because so many people have entered
into it. There will always be a few fakes. Please be very
clear: When so many millions of people take the path, and so
many millions of things are expressed, there will always be
one or two black sheep that come about as well.
You may think superstitions exist only in relation to
spirituality. A lot more superstitions exist in science as well.
At least in spirituality there are no vested interests when
something is declared; despite whatever Masters may say,
nothing significant will be added to their personal lives. They
are still going to eat only that much and are going to wear
only those few items of clothing. Nothing is going to change
in their lives.
But when it concerns scientists, whatever they declare is
going to give them name and fame, money, additional comfort
in their lives. So naturally, they have vested interests. With
spiritual people the more they renounce, the less they enjoy
the comforts of the outer world, the more they are respected.
So naturally, whatever truths they declare, whatever research
they do, is not going to add anything new to their personal
lives. The respect they are given is only based on their lives,
not on their words.
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With scientists, it is based on their words. So in science,
there is a greater possibility for black sheep than in
spirituality. And when more and more people take to this life,
there will always be one or two fakes that result, because of
which, we can’t say that religious freedom itself is wrong,
spiritual freedom itself is wrong. There is a lot of good also.
In the West there is social freedom. You can marry as many
times as you want. You can change your house to your taste.
You can change your profession any number of times you
want. You can dress as you want. Nobody would be bothered.
Nobody would mind. Even now I know people in India who
obey family traditions, who have not left their family homes;
they don’t even shift their houses. They don’t change
professions, they don’t change lifestyles. So in the East, they
don’t have social freedom but they have spiritual freedom. In
the West, they have social freedom but not spiritual freedom.
For any growth to happen freedom is a basic necessity.
Here in these four sloka, Krishna expresses spiritual freedom;
he gives spiritual freedom to all of us. He says, ‘There are so
many paths; choose something which suits your mentality,
and practice it, and do something.’ Why do you think, in the
West people rarely go to religious places? The other day I was
reading a statistical survey: Only two percent of America’s
population actually goes to church. In India, at least seventy
percent of its population regularly visits a religious place of
worship. It might be a nearby temple in their street or
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something in their neighborhood. Any which way, seventy
percent of the population is in the habit of visiting a spiritual
place regularly.
Why? Why hasn’t it happened in the West? Because the
West has forgotten one important thing; it did not give its
people choice. It has only one system. If one can accept the
system, one accepts it or is left without a religion, that’s all.
In Eastern traditions many choices are given. If one is
intellectually minded, then Lord Siva is the general choice.
One continuously sits and meditates. If one is inclined
towards bhakti or devotion, Lord Vishnu is the choice. This
path includes singing and dancing like Chaitanya and Meera
– Masters of yester years. One sings the glory of the Lord like
how the azhwars, who were devotional saints of Tamilnadu,
related with Vishnu. If one is inclined towards yoga, if one is
a yogi, then Devi is the deity to worship for them. One
meditates on her, does puja and tantric practices.
There are so many different kinds of techniques, the options
are many. So you are repeatedly given many options. You
have customized ways, customized paths for your personal
growth. So naturally wherever one is, one can grow and
reach the level one is supposed to reach. There are all sizes
of ladders, all kinds of steps. You are continuously given
choices, given options. So naturally, one tends to take up
something or the other.
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The East has explored much and it has done much research
on inner space, because of spiritual freedom. The West has
achieved so much at a social level because of social freedom.
Of course India has struggled because of the lack of social
freedom, but it has gained tremendously because of spiritual
freedom.
Here, Krishna is explaining, giving many choices and spiritual
freedom: Do this, or do this, or do this. One cannot expect
any Master, other than the Eastern Masters to be so
compassionate, so concerned, so caring, and generously giving
so many options. In the West, the law is very compassionate;
it gives you a lot of options. In the East the spiritual system is
very compassionate; it gives you a lot of options.
In the West there are a few areas where you are respected
and every individual is respected, when it comes to areas
like customer care and other such domains. So many options
are given within the social scenario as well. If one is not
able to live with their spouse they can say goodbye. Socially
one is not bound; one has freedom.
But in India, spiritual freedom is given more importance.
These four sloka, are representative of the spiritual freedom
given to society. Here, Krishna gives Arjuna the spiritual
freedom to choose; of course, not only to Arjuna, but through
Arjuna, to all of us.
abhyaasepyasamarthosi mat-karma-paramo bhava
mad-artham api karmaani kurvan siddhim avaapsyasi (12.10)
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If you cannot practice the regulations of bhakti yoga, then
just try to work, for me; because by working for me, you will
come to the perfect stage, siddhim avapsyasi. Then one by one
he gives all options and finally says:
sreyo hi jnaanam abhyaasaaj jnaanaad dhyaanam visisshyate
dhyaanaat karma-phala-tyaagas tyaagaac chaantir anantaram (12.11)
If you can’t follow these practices, then engage yourself in the
cultivation of knowledge. He says, at least collect all these
solutions to life. Cultivation of knowledge means collecting
solutions to life’s conundrums: How to avoid depression, how
to be more courageous, how to be strong, how to avoid desires
and emotions taking over you. This is the kind of knowledge
that you can collect for solutions to life, which can help you,
protect you.
For example, in Los Angeles, California, we speak about earth
quake kits, we speak about hurricane kits; they say that water
bottles and many other vital things should be part of the kit
and present in all the cars. On the website of the fire
department, there is a big list of all the things that one has to
do to prepare oneself in the event of an earthquake; they call
it the earthquake kit.
Here, in the West, they prepare people for all these
eventualities, but they don’t prepare them to face the
earthquakes that happen within, the emotional imbalance
which occurs within. Just like preparing for an earthquake
outside, one also needs to be equipped with an inner
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earthquake kit. This inner earthquake kit is what I refer to
as ‘life solutions’ or knowledge.
Collect all these things now, so when you face depression you
will be prepared. Be very clear: All of us are going to face
some sort of inner earthquake in our lives, at some point in
time or the other. If one dies then there is no problem,
because when one is dead, there can be no earthquake. As
long as one is alive, naturally at some point, some of their
friends will die, some relatives will die, some near and dear
ones will fall sick or even die; all these things are inevitable.
The inevitability of each moment has to be understood.
Understanding the inevitability of life and collecting
knowledge, collecting the tools to support one at those
moments, collecting the ideas to balance one at those
moments is what I call gnana, knowledge. We need to
prepare these ‘earthquake kits’ for our lives; otherwise, we
will be unable to recover successfully from them.
The aftermath will be terrible. Now the aftermath is so
terrible, because the authorities never brainstormed, they
never expected ‘category five’ hurricanes, which is why the
aftermath is so terrible; people are struggling, it is difficult.
In the same way, if you don’t expect life’s eventualities, and
you don’t brainstorm now, when inner earthquakes occur in
your lives, when the inner hurricanes occur in your lives, or
inner storms occur in your lives, the aftermath will be very
difficult to handle. Please prepare for the aftermath now.
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In the Eastern system, people prepare continuously for inner
hurricanes, inner tornadoes, inner earthquakes; gnana is the
earthquake kit, knowledge is the earthquake kit for the
inner space. Now, human beings are developed and advanced
in all aspects; one doesn’t have to choose between inner and
outer spaces. You can simply have an outer earthquake kit in
your car, and the inner earthquake kit in your heart! You
don’t have to choose; now you can have both.
Someone once asked me, ‘Master, it is said that Buddha
made ten thousand people enlightened. What is your aim?’
I replied, ‘Without newspapers, without telegrams, without
the internet, without airplanes, if Buddha could make ten
thousand people enlightened, then with all these amenities,
we should be able to make at least a million people
enlightened. Only then is it worth having all these
amenities.’
Now you can have everything, in the inner world and the
outer world. Have an earthquake kit in your car, similarly,
have an inner earthquake kit in your heart or inner space
and never take inner earthquakes lightly.
Taking inner earthquakes lightly means you are acting out of
ignorance; it means you are inviting big trouble, without
preparing for the aftermath. Be very clear, when quakes come
in the outer world, you can always blame somebody; you can
always blame government officials, directors, politicians; you
can blame somebody and be rid of the responsibility. You can
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put the responsibility on someone else’s shoulders. But when
it comes to the inner world, you can’t blame anybody. It is
you who have to take the responsibility.
As Krishna says in an earlier chapter:
uttare atma natmanam atmanam ava sadhaye
admam yeva bhanduhu aram tribuh pratmai vaha
‘You are the one who must help yourself ascend; if you can
help yourself ascend, then you are your best friend. Otherwise
you are your worst enemy.’
He gives options among the different paths: practicing,
cultivation of knowledge, meditation and renunciation of the
fruits of actions - karma phala yaga.
Among these paths, one is better than the other. First he
mentions the path of knowledge cultivation; better than
knowledge is dhyana, meditation. Better than that is, offering
everything at the feet of God. And he says, by renunciation of
all karma phala, all the fruits of action, immediately one
achieves peace. As long as you think that ‘everything is mine,’
you will suffer. The moment you surrender, the moment you
hand the whole thing over to the divine, something called
inner healing happens within you. Your inner space experiences
the breeze of divine healing.
Often people think that surrender is loss of control; giving up
is an expression of weakness; letting go is irresponsibility.
Understand, control is an expression of ego. All control arises
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out of the need for ‘I’ and ‘mine’. Control seeks power. Power
corrupts.
Surrender is liberation. Surrender is the expression of
choicelessness, leaving the decision to the Divine, after doing
what one can. Unless we let go our expectations, our
attachment to the results of our actions, we just build within
us unproductive stress and tension, which reduce instead of
enhancing our performance.
When we learn to focus totally on what we need to do, work
on the process, walk the path, without worrying about the
destination, the end result - amazingly enough - we shall see
that whatever we do is done better, faster and more
effectively.
Krishna’s teaching is not merely spiritual, it is highly
practical. It is not only after-life enhancing but present-life
enabling.
Santi anantaram - He says that for the person who renounces
the fruits of action, eternal peace is the immediate result.
When one renounces ownership to what one does, hands over
the ownership to the Divine, what descends upon one is peace
and bliss. There is true liberation in giving up attachment to
the results of what one does. This liberation comes out of the
lack of any expectation of the results of action, which allows
one to focus totally on what one has on hand, in the present.
Staying in the present is peace, bliss, liberation, or moksha.
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+uäù¹]õÉ ºÉ´ÉǦÉÚiÉÉxÉÉÆ ¨ÉèjÉ& Eò¯ûhÉ ´É SÉ*
ÊxɨÉǨÉÉä ÊxÉ®ú½þRó EòÉ®ú& ºÉ¨ÉnÖù&JɺÉÖJÉ& IɨÉÒ**12.13**
ºÉxiÉÖ¹]õ& ºÉiÉiÉÆ ªÉÉäMÉÒ ªÉiÉÉi¨ÉÉ oùføÊxɶSɪÉ&*
¨ÉªªÉÌ{ÉiɨÉxÉÉä£ÉÖÊrùªÉÉæ ¨ÉnÂù¦ÉCiÉ& ºÉ ¨Éä Ê|ɪÉ&**12.14**
adveshtaa sarva-bhootaanaam maitra karuna eva cha
nirmamo nirahankaarah sama-dukha-sukhah kshamee (12.13)
santushttaah satatam yataatmaa drdha-nischayah
mayyarpita-mano-buddhiryo mad-bhaktah sa me priyah (12.14)
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advesshtaa: non envious, sarva-bhootaanaam: toward all living
entities, maitrah: friendly, karunnah: kindly, eva: certainly, cha:
also, nirmamah: with no sense of proprietorship, nirahankaarah:
without false ego, sama: equal, dukha: in distress, sukhah: and
happiness, kshamee: forgiving.
santushttah: satisfied, satatam: always, yogee: one engaged in
yoga, yataatmaa: self controlled; drdha-nischayah: with
determination, mayi: upon Me, arpita: engaged, manah: mind,
buddhih: and intelligence, yah: one who, mat-bhaktah: My
devotee, sah: he, me: to Me, priyah: dear.
‘One who has no dislike or envy for any being, who is friendly
and compassionate to everyone, free from the sense of I and
mine, the ego, maintains equanimity of mind both in joy and
sorrow, forgiving, ever satisfied, united with Yoga, has a strong
commitment to Me and has fixed his mind and intellect upon
Me, such a devotee of Mine is very dear to Me.’
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In all these previous sloka, Krishna has been telling Arjuna to
do this or do that. Now he does not say ‘do this or do that’.
He says that those who do all these things are very dear to
me. If you don’t do them also its okay, but if you do, you will
be very dear to me. In other words, he is employing emotional
black mail, not directly, but indirectly! All for a good cause.
‘One who is not envious, but is a kind friend, a kind friend to
all living entities, who does not think of himself as a
proprietor, and who is free from false ego, who is equal in both
happiness and distress, who is tolerant, always satisfied, selfcontrolled, and engaged in devotional service with
determination, his mind and intelligence fixed on Me, such a
devotee of Mine is very dear to Me; such a devotee of Mine is
very dear to Me.’
Understand here: He says, ‘who is not envious and a kind
friend to every living entity.’ These are very important
qualities. Let us analyze our minds. When we honestly
analyze our mind, we realize that, if at any point in time
somebody came up to you and told you he loved you, you
wouldn’t believe it. The first thing you would do is to try to
figure what he wants from you. You don’t even believe you
are worthy of being loved. Next, you don’t believe that
somebody can honestly love you, because you don’t love
anybody honestly. Because you are always calculative, you
expect the other person to also be calculative. All our love is
just skin deep; you know how deep the skin is!
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Here he says, ‘a person who is a friend of everyone, kind
friend of everyone, who honestly serves, feels the friendliness
in everybody and who is free from false ego.’ Now, we should
understand the term ‘false ego’. Ego not only means showing
what you don’t have, but also, hiding what you have.
There are two types of ego: active ego and passive ego.
Active ego is showing what you have and passive ego is
characterized by these kinds of thoughts: ‘Oh, what can I do,
I am a simple person, I cannot achieve anything, and I
cannot do anything.’ Hiding oneself is an outcome of the
passive ego. This is inferiority complex and is also a
manifestation of the ego.
Please be very clear: At least there is one positive point as
regards the superiority complex. Wherever one goes, one gets
a big beating. Society beats down on you; you will realize
that you suffer from a superiority complex. But, with the
inferiority complex, society does not beat you; it is a cunning
way of hiding oneself from life. You will not even know that
you have a problem. So, a person hiding behind inferior ego
will suffer as well, much more deeply than the person who
suffers from superior ego.
A person who looks for fame and name as well as a person
who doesn’t want fame and name, are both egoistic. If you
ask for name you are egoistic. And if you don’t, again it
shows passive ego. While a person who lets things happen, a
person who allows things to flow, only he lives in reality.
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Krishna makes a comment, ‘After all, who is going to know
who you are? Why do you think you are a big person and
your name is so great and that everybody knows your name?
Why are you shying away from everybody knowing your name?
Only because you feel a lot of people know your name, you
shy away from it. That is why you don’t want your name to
be known. I tell you, nobody knows your name, relax.’
Bhagavan says very clearly, ‘nobody knows your name, relax.’
Nobody knows our name. Please be very clear: asking for
name and fame and saying, ‘I don’t want name and fame’
both are different kinds of ego, different varieties of ego. The
inferior ego is also ego, which is why he says ‘false ego.’ You
are not only supposed to be free from active ego, you are
supposed to be free from false ego also. You shouldn’t hide
yourself in inferiority complexes.
A small story:
A Master tells his disciple, ‘Please press my feet, do little
pada seva (service for the foot)’.
The disciple says, ‘Oh, I am a sinner, how can I touch your
feet?’ He just does not want to do it because he is lazy, so
he says, ‘I am a great sinner how can I touch your feet, how
can I do that?’
Later, a devotee brought some fruits and prasad, offerings.
The Master put little of it in his mouth and left the rest.
The next day, he saw nothing on the plate. He asked his
disciple, ‘What happened to the fruits and prasad?’
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The devotee answers, ‘Guru prasad, offering to the Master, how
I can leave it? I finished the whole thing, because it is Guru
prasad.’
Look at the mind, how nicely it manipulates situations with
different concepts. Wherever we want, we play with
whatever concept is convenient to us. When he didn’t want
to work, he says, ‘No, how can I touch your feet, I am not
qualified enough. I am not such a pure soul.’ When he
wants food, it is Guru prasad and he finishes it.
We collect all these concepts, to support our ideology. That is
why it is said that the devil quotes the bible. Please be very
clear, only the devil quotes the bible. When you quote only
specifics, you become the devil. But when you understand
the gist of the bible, you become God. You don’t need to
quote the bible then; instead people will quote your words.
When you have digested the bible, you don’t need to quote
it; people will quote your words. When you have not digested
the bible, whenever you quote it without digesting it, you
are the devil. Only the devil always quotes the bible, never
a person who understands it.
The moment you understand the futility of your goal and
wealth, that nothing is going to be with you forever, when
that is understood, all these qualities will start to radiate
through your being. You will be transformed into a person
who is established in forgiveness, who maintains equanimity of
mind, who is satisfied and united and in yoga. Actually when
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you are blissful inside, you radiate all these qualities. A man
who is totally blissful inside will radiate pleasantness, for
absolutely no reason.
I was recently speaking about this in a lecture. We
continuously carry a sense of slight irritation in our being;
we are just waiting to jump on people. The moment we get a
chance we just scream, shout, throw tantrums and don’t
know what we are doing. We just jump and bite people at
the slightest provocation because of the irritation within us.
We continuously vomit the suffering and misery on others.
This irritation arises within us out of constant worrying,
constant inner chatter that we may not get what we plan,
what we want. All worry is about the future, based on what
happened in the past. Worry is about expectation of what the
future holds for us. Worry arises as a result of the gap
between what we expect and what we think we are capable
of. So, we become anxious about whether things will unfold
the way we expect them to.
Worry is futile, because there are many more factors out there
other than our own capabilities that determine the outcome
of what we do. The expectation of the outcome itself is futile
since the future is speculative. We cannot control even our
own breath; we cannot say with any certainty whether we
would take the next breath. What arrogance then to think
that we can determine our future, or the outcome of our
actions.
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Worry, anxiety and irritation dissolve once we settle into the
present. In the present, and only in the present, are we in a
position to influence our actions, and the immediate outcome
of those actions. When we settle into the present, thoughts
cease, worry and irritation disappear; we realize how
irrelevant and unproductive worry is.
In meditation courses, I used to ask people to write down
what ever they thought worried them at that moment. Some
wrote down volumes. I told them to keep the papers with
them and to tell me after six months how many of these
worries actually materialized. You will be surprised to note
that less than 20% of these worries actually materialized.
Worry and irritation are pointless. Once you understand the
futility of irritation, however irritated you are, what you create
by that irritation or tension will not stay with you. Only how
you live, how consciously you live, with what consciousness you
choose to live, only that remains with you. When you
understand the importance of the state of being, you
automatically start to radiate pleasantness, you start to radiate
joy.
I give people a very simple meditation technique to really
experience bhakti yoga. Practice this simple technique of
radiating pleasantness. How does one do it? From morning till
night whenever you remember, inhale, inhale, and inhale only
the pleasant qualities of bliss. Visualize you are inhaling bliss
and exhaling bliss; your whole being is filled with joy. In the
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beginning you will be visualizing, imagining. But in a few
days you will realize it is your quality.
One more thing you should know: Imagination and
visualization are two very different things. Imagination
translates into kalpana in Sanskrit, while visualization
translates into bhavana. Bhavana is different from kalpana.
Kalpana means imagining things, which cannot happen in
reality. For example, if you imagine an elephant with ten
trunks, that is imagination; so kalpana is that which cannot
be a reality. But bhavana means, visualizing that which is
reality, the present moment.
During daytime, if you sit and visualize stars in the sky, that
is not imagination, it is visualization. Because, stars are there,
you are not able to see them, that’s all. So visualizing stars is
not an imagination. Visualizing what is, though you are not
able to see at this moment, is visualization. Imagining what
can never be, is imagination.
Be very clear: Meditating on Gods and Goddesses is not
imagination, it is visualization. They are there; you have to
fall in tune with them, like tuning your television to some
channel. If you tune your television, you can immediately
start watching the programs. Similarly, visualization is tuning
oneself to what is there as reality.
Just continuously visualize inhaling bliss, exhaling bliss and
prana, which go inside and come outside. Prana is the vital
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life energy and bliss. Understand, prana is not air; prana is
energy, which goes through using air as a medium. For
example, a lorry comes up to your house, unloads luggage
and goes out. The lorry is air, the luggage is prana; prana is
not air. Using air as a medium, prana enters; prana- shakti is
the subtle part of air. Prana-shakti is bliss energy, ananda
shakti.
So whenever you inhale, visualize yourself inhaling bliss;
when you exhale, visualize yourself exhaling bliss. Inhale
light, exhale light. Think of your whole body as a beanbag
filled with light. Imagine your body is a beanbag, filled with
bliss and light. You will automatically start radiating bliss,
instead of irritation. Instead of vomiting the poison of anger
and jealously on others, you will radiate love and bliss.
‘Such a devotee of Mine is very dear to Me,’ says Krishna.
Krishna says that if somebody lives in this manner, that
devotee is close to Him. He doesn’t say ‘do or don’t do.’ He
does not want to make any more rules. He is tired of making
rules. He has reached a point where his attitude is, ‘if you
can, do it; otherwise, what can be done?’ He is in a relaxed
mood.
I think this happens to all Masters. All Masters come to this
position, where after some time they say, ‘all right, do
whatever you want, what can be done?’ We can guide or
show you only to a certain extent. After some time, people
start thinking that Masters have a vested interest in making
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people enlightened. As though, if I make ten more people
enlightened, I will have a special place in heaven, or my
salary will be increased! Understand: we just share what we
have out of joy and bliss.
A small story:
A blind man was walking in the Himalayas. Suddenly his
hands fell upon a snake, which was frozen, because of the
cold. The frozen snake was like a stick, lying in the snow.
The blind man thought ‘Oh, good, a walking stick’. He
picked it up and started walking.
A sanyasi (ascetic) saw the blind man with the ‘stick’ and
shouted ‘Oh blind man! Drop that which is in your hand, it
is not a stick as you think, it’s a snake. In two hours the sun
will come up and the snake will come back to life and bite
you. It will kill you.’
The blind man says, ‘No, I know everything, keep quiet. You
do your work.’
The ascetic tries again, ‘Understand that the stick is a
snake, it will bite you, and you will die’. The blind man
retorts, ‘I think you don’t have a stick. You are asking me to
drop my stick, so you can pick it up. I am not going to drop
this stick, I know all about people like you.’
Then ascetic says, ‘Fool, understand it is not going to help
you, it is going to take your life.’ He tries to snatch the
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stick from the blind man, while the blind man tries to beat
him with the same stick. That’s exactly what happens in life.
When the Master says to drop ‘I and mine,’ people are afraid
that the Master may pick it up and take it! He may take it
away, what to do? They think he is in need of it, which is
why he asks them to drop it. They think ‘He is asking us to
drop it, so he can take it.’ People are always suspicious.
That’s the reason that Masters sometimes say, ‘This is the
way. However, do as you want.’
‘One who has fixed his mind and intellect upon Me,’ says
Krishna. It is so difficult for the devotee and disciple to have
this attitude of surrender to the Master or the universe. As
long as things go the way the person wants, as long as the
Master allows the devotee to do what he wishes, the Master
is a great Master and worthy of celebration. But, once the
Master turns serious and takes up his responsibility of
spiritual surgery on the disciple, the disciple wants to run
away.
I tell people, ‘Decide well in advance whether I am your
right Master.’ A Master takes up his responsibilities seriously.
His major responsibility is surgery; it is the surgery of the
cancer of ego. Once the disciple makes a commitment, the
Master makes his commitment too. It is dangerous to run
away from the operating table. One loses one’s whole life by
running away. One may have to wait many births before one
gets another chance.
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Here, Krishna is in the same mood and He says, ‘such a
devotee of Mine is dear to Me,’ that’s all. He is talking about
the commitment that the devotee makes to Him. He says,
‘One who makes that commitment to Me and fixes his mind
and intellect upon Me, he is dear to Me and he will be
liberated.’ So says the great Master.
Krishna then beautifully ends this chapter. It’s a small
chapter, that’s why we are able to see almost the whole
chapter.
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ªÉº¨ÉÉzÉÉäÊuùVÉiÉä ±ÉÉäEòÉä ±ÉÉäEòÉzÉÉäÊuùVÉiÉä SÉ ªÉ&*
½þ¹ÉÉǨɹÉǦɪÉÉäuùäMÉè¨ÉÖCÇ iÉÉä ªÉ& ºÉ SÉ ¨Éä Ê|ɪÉ&**12.15**
Yasmaanno dwijate loko lokaanno dwijate cha ya
Harshaamarshabhayodhvegairmukto yah sa cha me priyah (12.15)
Yasmat: from whom, na: not, udwijate: is agitated, lokah: the
world, lokat: from the world, na: not, udwijate: is agitated,
cha: and, ya: who, harsha amarsha bhaya udvegaih: from joy,
envy, fear and anxiety, muktah: freed, yah: who, sah: he, cha:
and, me: to me, priyah: dear
‘He, by whom the world is not affected adversely, and who
in turn is not affected by the world adversely, and he who is
free from joy, anger, and anxiety, he is dear to Me.’
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‘He who is not affected adversely or agitated by the world
and who in turn does not affect or cause agitation in this
world…’
Each one of us who is born into this world and who lives in
this world does not live alone. A famous philosopher John
Donne rightly said, ‘No man is an island.’
None of us is an island. We are all interconnected. What we
do, what we think, what we desire, affects others in this
world. Our thoughts, desires and actions cause ripples in the
energy of the Earth and the universe which in turn generate
more ripples as these interact with the intents and actions of
others.
Carl Jung, the well-known psychoanalyst added the concept
of the super ego to the attributes of id and ego that Freud
had defined earlier for him.
According to Freud and Jung, id represents the primal
intelligence of the human being that stores all memories
carried over from the evolutionary path. This part of the
brain is also referred to as the reptilian brain as its stored
memories go back well before mammals appeared on the face
of the Earth.
Id is the instinct part of our mind’s activity, which is the
subconscious and the unconscious. Well over 90% of our
brain’s and mind’s operations are in these regions. It has been
designed this way for a purpose by nature. It is to protect us
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from danger through instantaneous instinctive response to
extreme danger. This part of the brain operates blindingly
fast; perhaps 100 million times faster than our conscious brain.
The ego represents our identity, the part of our mind that
gives us our personality. It is the ego that decides, almost
always without our conscious understanding and based on
embedded memories stored in the id and ego, as to how we
should behave in a particular situation. The problem with
this is that we are not aware of why we decide the way we
decide, though we all would like to believe we do.
The super ego, as Jung thought of it, is the collective
unconscious of the human race. Jung theorized that we all
tend to act in a connected way that cannot be rationally
explained.
Scientists have come up with what is known as the ‘100 th
monkey principle’. Simply put, this is how the 100th monkey
principle works: Assume that there are 100 monkeys isolated
in a remote island that is totally cut off from the mainland.
If now these monkeys learn or are taught a new skill, or a
trick, or there is some change that has happened in their
group, it has been found that this skill or attribute is
transferred without any physical or mental contact to the
monkeys in the mainland.
It is true; there is no need to retrain all the monkeys in the
world! All one needs to do is to train one group of monkeys
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somewhere and soon all monkeys on this planet Earth will
acquire this skill. They need not read books, need not talk
to each other, need not watch television or access the
internet. The knowledge and the skills are transmitted
through a mechanism not yet known to scientists. They know
that it happens but do not know how it happens.
This kind of transference has happened many times in great
scientific discoveries. Within days of Madame Curie
discovering radioactivity in Radium, scientists in other parts
of the world independently announced their findings.
This super ego, this collective unconscious, is not really
unconscious; it is super consciousness. Collective
consciousness is the most important aspect of human
existence. We are all interconnected. We are all the same
energy. We all affect each other. Our thoughts and actions
influence one another. By entering into this space of
collective consciousness we enter the realm of universal
energy. Our individual self, selves, becomes part of the
universal Self. We become Divine.
A strange thing happens when we access the collective
consciousness. Till we do not access, we cause ripples; we
affect each other, often adversely since we have no concept
of selflessness, only of selfishness. However, the moment we
enter the zone of collective consciousness, we are so
integrated with one another, we become the same. In this
state we cannot cause any ripples as we are the same ocean,
the same river flowing indistinguishably with the other.
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When Krishna refers to ‘not being affected and not affecting’
He refers to this state of collective consciousness, the Divine
state, where you and I are the same as Him.
Krishna goes on further, ‘he who is without joy, anger, or
anxiety.’ What does He mean? One can understand at least
anger and anxiety, but joy, never! ‘What is wrong with this
guy?’ we ask, if we see someone being joyful without a reason.
To most of us, joy is a period between experiences of sorrow
and unhappiness. It is like a period of quiet between two
battles that we term ‘peace’; just as impermanent, as unreal.
Joy and temporal pleasure arising out of sensory experiences
of the outer world invariably lead to sorrow. Joy is the byproduct of fulfillment of an expectation. When the
expectation is fulfilled, we feel happy. Chances are, real
chances are, that this may not happen next time around.
When this happens, instead of joy, sorrow follows.
Joy can only be experienced internally, if it is to be long
lasting. Such joy is termed bliss. Bliss is eternal, unlike joy
which is transient. Bliss is eternal as it arises when we drop
expectation, when we stay unconnected, when we are in the
mood and mode of non-attachment.
‘Satsangatve nissangatvam
Nissangatve nirmohatvam
nirmohatve nischalitatvam
nischalitatve jeevan muktihi’
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says Sankara in his popular hymn - Bhaja Govindam. Nonattachment leads to elimination of desires; a no-desire state
leads to a calm and peaceful mind, a mind full of bliss; a
blissful state leads to liberation.
When Krishna refers to a state of not being in joy, he refers
to this temporary transient joy, which is a by-product of our
samskaras; the joy that comes and goes, driven by the bonds
of our samskaras and fuelled by our illusions and fantasies. It
is only when one goes beyond this transient joy of peaks and
valleys that one can truly reach a blissful state.
Both joy and sorrow have to be transcended for us to
experience bliss.
Anxiety: This is the cancer of our spirit. From the moment
we are capable of thought, we are in anxiety. We worry. We
worry all the time. Worry, anxiety and the resultant stress are
our crutches in life.
Our anxiety arises out of our fear that we may not be able to
fulfill our expectations. We have our desires and hopes. We
have our capabilities that we are generally aware of. Very
often our desires have no realistic basis, based upon our
capabilities. There is a gap. This gap manifests as worry.
If we try and close our eyes and try to focus on any object or
event, we shall find that our attempt is immediately
thwarted by thoughts other than what we are trying to focus
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on. This is the inner chatter of our mind. This is what
Buddha refers to as the ‘monkey mind’.
This chatter is the constant flitting of our mind between
past and future. It is the journey that our mind undertakes
between what it has experienced and stored as memories
and the unknown, which is full of expectations and
speculations. This flitting, this journey is what we call
thoughts.
Anxiety arises as our mind realizes that what it desires may not
happen. This loss of something that has not even happened,
which is a product purely of speculation, causes such intense
emotions within us. We anticipate with great anxiety the worst
that can happen, much before anything has happened, and
thereafter wait with bated breath for the event to pass.
Quite often, you would have experienced a sense of relief
when the worst you had imagined had actually come to pass.
You will find that there is no longer any anxiety when the
future moves into the present.
Location of anxiety is the future; its source is our ego. It is
the ego that creates the expectation; the expectation of ‘I’
and ‘mine’; and simultaneously the fear that what is expected
may not happen. To move out of anxiety, move into the
present moment. That is the only point at which our inner
chatter will stop, and our anxiety will disappear.
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When Krishna says, ‘He who is without anxiety will reach
Me,’ He means, ‘He who is in the present moment will reach
Me.’ In the present moment, our thoughts cease and we can
see with clarity the truth of our existence, the Krishna
Consciousness, and then we are one with Him.
‘Let go anger,’ says Krishna, ‘he who is without anger shall
reach me.’
By the literal understanding of this verse, none of us can
reach Krishna. All of us, at some time or another, would have
expressed anger. Anger is a positive energy. Expressing anger
can be very positive; both to the individual expressing the
anger and the person receiving it. This may sound strange.
Anger is often the product of guilt. We feel defensive when
our wife or husband points out something we did not quite
do right. We move into a defensive position, we feel the
guilt when we realize we did wrong. But, instead of accepting
the wrongdoing we get angry. We would like our wrongdoing
to remain our secret and would dislike the other person for
trying to bring it out into the open. It is like a leper not
wishing to see his own sores.
In a sense, such anger is also directed at ourselves. The guilt
we feel is the manifestation of that internal raging against
our own weaknesses. Guilt is the biggest sin we can commit.
Whatever we do at a point in time, we do with the
knowledge and awareness we possess at that time. Once we
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have done what we have done, there is nothing within our
power to change it.
‘The moving hand writes and having writ, moves on,’ says
Omar Khayyam in Rubaiyat, ‘having written it moves on;
neither all your tears nor all your piety can make it move
back.’ The past cannot be undone. But guilt can be. Guilt
can be dropped. You can accept what you have done and
move on. You can even accept that you cannot accept what
you have done and move on. You can let go guilt.
When we let go guilt, we let go anger. When we let go
guilt, we let go suppressed emotions of anger, regret,
defensiveness and the internal fury. Repressed anger can
cause cancer. People who appear calm on the surface,
controlling the anger that they feel without expressing it, are
sitting on a time bomb; either it can explode unexpectedly
causing grave danger to themselves and others unexpectedly
or it can morph into self destruction through cancer.
In the Malayan culture, from childhood one is brought up being
taught not to express negative emotions of grief, anger, irritation
and so on. Every one is supposed to be calm and collected.
Suddenly, however, the fuse blows. They call this ‘running
amok’. This word is now part of the Oxford dictionary. It
means someone going totally out of control and creating havoc.
Trying to control emotions results in total loss of control.
One may ask then, ‘what about road rage, what about havoc
created by violent expressions of anger?’ If one learns to let
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go anger as it arises, there will be no rage, road rage or
home rage. We bottle up emotions and they burst out. Inner
anger keeps building up from childhood for various reasons;
we build up all the negatives we can think of about society.
We are unable to express these for societal reasons because it
is not appropriate, not cultured, not civilized. Then it must
blow sometime or the other.
We should learn to direct anger at issues rather than at
people. When anger rises against people, divert it to issues,
not to the person. The person is only the perceived cause as
you see it. The deeper issue remains covered if you direct
the anger against the person. More dangerously, it comes
back. Anger breeds anger. It is a vicious cycle.
If, however, we need to express anger, express it fully, against
the incident, event, issue, without personalizing it. We can
let go of that anger without harm to ourselves and others. It
is possible; you need to practice, that’s all.
When the emotive memory of that anger is expressed, the
memory dissolves. No anger remains. Over a period of time,
the anger disappears even before it rises.
Krishna refers to this state of beyond anger a way of reaching
Him.
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+xÉ{ÉäIÉ& ¶ÉÖÊSÉnÇùIÉ =nùɺÉÒxÉÉä MÉiÉ´ªÉlÉ&*
ºÉ´ÉÉÇ®ú¨¦É{ÉÊ®úiªÉÉMÉÒ ªÉÉä ¨ÉnÂù¦ÉCiÉ& ºÉ ¨Éä Ê|ɪÉ&**12.16**
Anapekshaha suchirdaksha udaasino gatavyathah
Sarvaarambhaparithyaagi yo madbhaktah sa me priyah (12.16)
Anapekshah: free from expectations, suchih: pure, dakshah:
expert, udaasinah: unconcerned, gatavyatah: untroubled, sarva
aarambha parityaagi: renouncing all undertakings, yah: who,
madbhaktah: my devotee, sa: he, me: to me, priyah: dear
‘He who is free from wants, who is pure and skilled,
unconcerned, untroubled, who is selfless in whatever he does,
he who is devoted to Me, he is dear to Me.’
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Krishna now moves into a higher gear. Once you let go joy,
anxiety and anger, once you transcend these emotions, you
reach a state of calmness that takes you close to Him. Now,
He moves from ‘nissangatvam’ to ‘nirmohatvam’; from nonattachment to emotions to non-attachment to desires.
We need to understand the difference between wants and
needs. Needs are necessary for us to survive upon this planet
Earth; basic needs of food, shelter etc. Mahavira says, ‘The
universe has already provided for all your basic needs when
you are born upon this planet.’
We just have to trust the universe and we shall get what we
need to live. We shall not want anything then.
However, we begin to seek more. Basic needs are no longer
enough. We see others around us living in what we think are
greater comforts. We cannot bear to see others happier than
we are. We are always happy to see people who suffer
because that shows our own state of sorrow in a better light.
If a neighbor buys a new air conditioner, the temperature in
our own house shoots up! If the neighbor buys a refrigerator,
the foodstuff in our house starts rotting automatically in our
minds! If the neighbor buys a new car, our car suddenly slows
down. Everything we have is a match for what others have.
It is a constant chant of ‘what next, what next.’ Even before
we start enjoying what we have acquired, we start planning
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to acquire more. There is no joy in having; the joy is in
chasing. There is no end point to this chase.
When you become the richest in your family, you would need
to become the richest in the street; then the richest in the
town; the richest in the country; the richest in the world.
There is no end.
Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi says so beautifully and
poignantly, ‘This universe can cater to the needs of all its
inhabitants; but it cannot meet the wants of even one
person.’
Wants are endless. Wants are suffering. Wants are born out
of comparison with others. Needs, our basic needs, carry the
energy within them for fulfillment. Wants only carry the seeds
of our own suffering.
During my NSP, the Nithyananda Spurana Program, I take
participants through the seven layers of their energy that the
spirit passes through when one dies. In this process, the
departing spirit recollects all that happened during its tenure
in the body that it had occupied till then. It is all like a fast
replay of all that happened, every incident of which is stored
in the hard disk of our memory.
In one of the sessions, I ask people to write down all their
desires, their needs and wants. They fill pages. I ask them to
review the list many times. Then they meditate. At the end
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of the meditation I ask them to recollect from memory their
list of desires. What they can recollect is usually a fraction of
what they have written.
It is as if they started with a large tree full of leaves, their
desires. During this meditation, the tree sheds almost all its
leaves, as if they are dead leaves. What remain glow like
leaves of gold!
Whatever is left in their memories, those desires glow like
gold. They carry the energy for their fulfillment. These
desires are the true desires that they carry.
These desires - if the process is done with awareness - are
always selfless desires. They may benefit the individual, no
doubt, but they always benefit humanity. Only such selfless
desires carry the energy of the universe with them for
fulfillment.
When our desires are our own true desires, when they
reflect our real needs, when they express our inner energy,
then we shall not feel any desperation in terms of trying to
achieve them. The realization comes to us that as a matter of
natural course of events, these desires will be fulfilled. We
are not driven; we are not troubled. We accept that these
will happen.
Krishna counsels Arjuna, ‘Become free from wants, be selfless and
you shall be untroubled, liberated and reach Me.’
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ªÉÉä xÉ ¾þ¹ªÉÊiÉ xÉ uäùι]õ xÉ ¶ÉÉäSÉÊiÉ xÉ EòÉRÂóIÉÊiÉ*
¶ÉÖ¦ÉɶÉÖ¦É{ÉÊ®úiªÉÉMÉÒ ¦ÉÎCiɨÉÉxªÉ& ºÉ ¨Éä Ê|ɪÉ&**12.17**
Yo na hrushyati na dveshti na sochati na kaankshati
Subhasubhaparityaagi bhatimaanyah sa me priyah (12.17)
Ya: who, na: not, hrushyati: rejoices, na: not, dveshti: hates, na:
not, sochati: grieves, na: not, kaankshati: desires, subha asubha
parityaagi: renouncing good and evil, bhaktiman: full of
devotion, ya: who, sa: he, me: to me, priyah: dear
‘He, who does not rejoice or hate or grieve or desire,
renounces both good and evil, who is full of devotion, he is
dear to Me.’
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Krishna now goes into another level of controlling the mind.
He now refers to one who does not love or hate. He is not
talking about not loving anyone. When we love the way we
do, with conditions and expectations, it works well as long as
these expectations from and about others are fulfilled. When
something does not work the way we wish them to, the love
disappears like a dewdrop in the sun. In its place hate
appears.
Hatred and love are opposite sides of the same coin, as long
the love expressed is conditional. Love can flip into hatred in
a trice, the moment we feel that our expectations are
threatened. In love of this type, there is external rejoicing,
sharing of joy and happiness, and public expression of
happiness as long as the emotion remains.
Often, love or what we feel as love is related to time and
space. So long as the distance is large and the time of
contact minimal, we see very few defects in those we profess
to love. There is insufficient experience of interaction to
establish expectations and gauge their outcome. However,
once we get closer and spend more time, we get to see a
closer picture as it were, for a longer time. Warts begin to
get seen. No wonder, they say familiarity breeds contempt; it
can also convert love into hatred.
To transcend both love and hatred, which are but different
expressions of the same perceived reality, we need to drop
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expectations. We need to develop a sense of non-attachment.
We need to be unconditional in our love.
We all go through several stages of relationships in our
lifetime. As children, we are totally dependent on our
parents. We are influenced by them and our love for parents
is unconditional only because there is no option. To survive, a
child has to depend on its parents. A child’s natural
behavior is very self-centered and whatever emotions it has
for its parents and guardians is conditional upon the survival
of that self. It is one of absolute dependence.
As we grow into adolescence, we open up to the external
environment and start questioning many assumptions we had
taken for granted as children. Adolescents, therefore, rebel.
Adolescents throw away the dependence that they had for
parents and elders. They wish to be independent. They break
rules.
In adulthood, we learn that to survive we need to follow
societal rules and regulations; that we need to coexist. We
therefore develop skills of coexistence. We learn to work with
others, relate to others; otherwise we may become misfits in
society. The single most important lesson most people learn in
adulthood is that it is important to relate to people
meaningfully. The most important of these coexisting
relationships is with one’s spouse or the significant other.
As we grow and mature, the spirit and its development
become important, we seek guidance. We look for a Master.
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With the Master the relationship is the reverse of what we
started with as a child. We are once again concerned about
survival, but it is the survival of the spirit and not mind-body.
To help in this survival of the spirit, the relationship that we
need with the Master is one of absolute dependence once
again, but with a difference. For the relationship to work, it
now needs to be totally unconditional.
The only relationship that will work with the Master, and
Krishna is The Master, is total unconditional love; it is
absolute surrender. Surrender transcends love and hate; only
surrender transcends.
When one is in a mood of total surrender to the Master or
the Divine, both being one and the same, the concept of
good and evil, sin and merit disappear.
In a spiritual sense, there is nothing that is a sin. Our sins
are not measured by some one sitting up there with a
notebook and pencil who decides whether we should go to
hell or heaven. There is no hell or heaven. Hell and heaven
are not geographical regions; they are psychological regions
within our mind and attitude. We commit sins because we
are in our own hell. We do good to others when we are in
our space of heaven.
Religions try and control us through concepts of sin, original
sin, hell and heaven. Please understand, there is no such
thing as sin, hell or heaven. Those who term you sinners are
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sinners themselves; that’s why they call you sinners because
they wish to control you. Religions, all religions, try to
control through fear and greed, through the carrot and stick.
Otherwise religions cannot hold us, cannot survive as
business entities, which is what they are.
Krishna breaks the mould. He tells us, ‘go beyond good and
evil’. He says that because, there is no such thing as good
and evil. It is all in our minds. When we understand this
Truth, we are in His realm. That’s His promise.
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ºÉ¨É& ¶ÉjÉÉè SÉ Ê¨ÉjÉä SÉ iÉlÉÉ ¨ÉÉxÉÉ{ɨÉÉxɪÉÉä&*
¶ÉÒiÉÉä¹hɺÉÖJÉnÖù&JÉä¹ÉÖ ºÉ¨É& ºÉRÂóMÉÊ´É´ÉÌVÉiÉ&**12.18**
samah satrau cha mitre cha tathaa maanaapamaanayoh
seetoshna-sukha-duhkheshu samah sanga-vivarjitah (12.18)
samah: equal, satrau: to an enemy, ca: also, mitre: to a friend,
ca: also, tathaa: so, maana: in honor, apamaanayoh: and
dishonor, sita: in cold, usna: heat, sukha: happiness, dukheshu:
and sorrow, samah: same, sanga-vivarjitah: free from all
association
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iÉÖ±ªÉÊxÉxnùɺiÉÖÊiɨÉÉêxÉÒ ºÉxiÉÖ¹]õÉä ªÉäxÉEäòxÉÊSÉiÉÂ*
+ÊxÉEäòiÉ& κlÉ®ú¨ÉÊiɦÉÇÎCiɨÉÉx¨Éä Ê|ɪÉÉä xÉ®ú&**12.19**
tulya-nindaa-stutir maunee santusshto yena kenachit
aniketah sthira-matir bhaktimaan me priyo narah (12.19)
tulya: equal, nindaa: in defamation, stutih: and repute,
maunee: silent, santushtah: satisfied, yena kenacit: with
anything, aniketah: having no residence, sthira: fixed, matih:
mind, bhakti-maan: engaged in devotion, me: to Me, priyah:
dear, narah: a man.
‘One who treats friends and enemies the same, who faces in
the same manner honor and dishonor, heat and cold,
happiness and sorrow, fame and infamy, one who is always free
from attachment, always silent and satisfied with anything,
without a fixed home, who is fixed in mind and who is
devoted to Me, such a person is very dear to Me.’
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Again Krishna says, ‘such a man full of devotion is dear to
Me.’ He is not ready to put down any more rules, which
means He is almost ending His instructions. He is almost
saying, ‘This is the way. If somebody is like that, I love him,
that’s all. I am not interested in anything else.’
He says, ‘One who is neutral towards friends and enemies,
who is the same in honor and dishonor, heat and cold, joy and
pain, free from attachment to the fruits of action, who remains
the same in criticism and praise, who is thoughtful, who is
content with whatever he gets, who does not care for any
house and is resolute in mind, such a man, full of devotion, is
very dear to Me.’
Here is a beautiful phrase, ‘one who does not care for any
house,’ who doesn’t bother to build a house for himself.
Let me tell you a story: Ravana lived for one kalpa (many
thousand years); Vyasa lived for four kalpas. Ravana was
building Lankapuri, his capital in Sri Lanka. He got
Lankapuri as a gift from Siva and he was developing it.
When Vyasa came to the city, Ravana asked him, ’Oh
Vyasa! Did you see my palace, and my country? How grand
they look.’
Vyasa replied, ‘Yes, I have seen them.’
Ravana takes him around and shows him everything with
pride and asks, ‘Why don’t you also build a house for
yourself?’
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Vyasa smiles and says, ‘My life is just four kalpas, I have no
time to waste building houses. After all, I am going to live
here for only four kalpas. Why should I waste time building
houses?’
Ravana lived for only one kalpa, for which, he built such a
big house. Vyasa who was going to live four times as long,
thought it was unnecessary to waste some part of his life
building houses.
So, ‘A man, who is not concerned about having a house, is
the person who is full of devotion, and he is near to Me,
dear to Me,’ says Krishna.
Let me tell you something: When I go to devotees’ houses,
they ask me, ‘Master, this being a new place, did you sleep
well?’
I tell them, ‘Only when you have attachment to one house,
does another house become a new place and you have to
struggle. When you don’t have attachment to the one house
idea, wherever you go you will feel at home.’
Our ashram records for the last two years show, that I visited
1,200 houses totally. In India, on some days, we visit close to
40 houses. Sometimes I have had pada puja, offering to my
feet, and other puja done in all 40 houses. I just go around
visiting and blessing people. I have stayed in hundreds of
houses around the world, but I have never felt difficulty
about someplace being new to me; I feel totally at home.
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People ask me the next day, ‘Master did you sleep well, are
you comfortable?’
I say to them, ‘What is there? If I stretch my hand, I receive
food; when I stretch my leg, I sleep, that’s all.’ That’s life;
there is nothing else to be done. If you don’t feel attached to
one home, you will feel at home in the entire world; you will
be totally relaxed anywhere in the world.
People ask me sometimes, ‘How can you continuously travel,
Master?’
This question comes especially from people who travel in
relation to business, people who are in business which need a
lot of traveling. They ask me, ‘If we go to one or two places
and come back, it takes us one week to settle down again,
for us to get back to our routine, our life, to feel comfortable,
to feel ourselves. How can you continuously travel?’
I stay for a maximum of one week in any place; now because
we have an ashram here in Los Angeles, I am staying here
for more than a week; otherwise not more than a week.
The secret is to not feel connected to one house; then you
will feel connected to the whole world. You will have a deep
feeling of being at home with the whole world. Wherever you
go, you will experience a deep, relaxed bliss, and ecstasy. As
Krishna says here, ‘who does not care for any house, such a
man full of devotion, is very dear to Me.’
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When one is not fixed in a physical location, only then one
can be fixed in mind.
When people came and asked Ramana Maharishi to suggest
a form of meditation, he would advise them to walk around
the Arunachala Hill and focus on the Hill. They would
wonder, ‘Why is he saying this? How can we meditate while
walking? All meditations must be done while sitting cross
legged with eyes closed.’
No. Understand, when the body is moving, it is easier to
keep the mind stationary. In our Chakra Energization
programs, the Life Bliss Programs, we have a meditation on
the Vishuddhi chakra, the throat chakra. This meditation
involves active movement, actually running, while keeping
the mind focused on the vishuddhi chakra. This is a very
powerful meditation that infuses energy. It is easier to focus
the mind if the body is moving.
When one is truly in the present, when one is aware, when
one’s consciousness is awake, there can be no duality. Our
self merges with the Self; we are one with the Divine. Every
one is us; where is then the question of friends and enemies?
We are one with nature; where is then the question of
feeling heat and cold; feeling uncomfortable because of heat
and cold? When we are one with the universe, when all is
the same, where is the question of feeling honor or dishonor;
from whom to whom, by whom? The experience and the
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experiencer become the same. The expression and the
experience become the same.
Krishna is taking us into that state, the state of Krishna
Consciousness, being one with Him, the Divine, where all
these dualities merge.
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ªÉä iÉÖ vɨªÉÉǨÉÞiÉʨÉnÆù ªÉlÉÉäCiÉÆ {ɪÉÖ{Ç ÉɺÉiÉä*
¸ÉqùvÉÉxÉÉ ¨Éi{É®ú¨ÉÉ ¦ÉCiÉɺiÉä%iÉÒ´É ¨Éä Ê|ɪÉÉ&**12.20**
ye tu dharmaamrtam idam yathoktamm paryupaasate
sraddadhaanaa mat-paramaa bhaktaas teteeva me priyaah (12.20)
ye: who, tu: indeed, dharma: righteous path, amritam: nectar,
idam: this, yathaa: as, uktam: said, paryupaasate: follow,
sraddadhaanaah: with faith, mat-paramaah: taking Me as the
Supreme Lord, bhaktaah: devotees, te: they, ateeva: very much,
me: to Me, priyaah: dear.
‘Those who truly follow this imperishable path of righteousness
with great faith, making Me the supreme goal, are very dear
to Me’
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Krishna concludes this chapter on Bhakti Yoga, Union
through devotion, with these words.
Dharma is spiritual righteousness. It is not, and has nothing
to do with rules and regulations laid down by society and
religion.
Human tendency is always to break rules. If there is a speed
restriction, the driver will always speed when he feels there is
no cop around. Rules, especially societal rules seem to restrict
one’s freedom of expression and movement. Rules are always
a need for others but never for us!
Religious rules and commandments are even worse. They are
based on principles of greed and fear and are designed to
control, totally control. Unlike societal leaders, religious
leaders know that they have no constitutional powers to
control; therefore they have to devise subtler techniques of
control. So, they came up with sins.
Along with sins, religions created heaven and hell.
Understand clearly, there is no heaven or hell. Heaven and
hell are not geographic locations but locations in your minds.
You commit sins because you live in mental hell, not the
other way around. You don’t go to a place called hell because
you committed sins.
But, religions have to survive; to survive they have to
control. If they lead you to believe with awareness that you
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are divine, how then will they survive? So, they have to
brand you as a sinner; a sinner from birth. You have to be
led to believe that only religion can give you salvation; that
you cannot redeem yourself because your nature is evil.
Understand, you are no sinner! Divinity resides within us.
Our only sin, the original sin, is in not recognizing that we
are divine. Therefore we need not strive to attain salvation.
We just have to become aware of our inner divinity.
In Hindu scriptures, the spiritual Truths are called yama and
comprise the following: Satya, Ahimsa, Asteya, Aparagriha
and Brahmacharya.
These are not
Commandments.
that
far
different
from
the
Ten
Satya is Truth; it is truth in thoughts, words and action.
What is inside is shown outside. Truth can only be expressed
when one is in the present, when mind and ego are
disengaged, when what ever is felt is expressed without being
filtered by the ego.
Ahimsa is non-violence, again in thought, words and action.
Ahimsa arises from the realization of the collective
consciousness, that we are one with the universe, that we
are one with every being in this universe. When this
realization dawns, harming anyone else means harming
oneself. Violence then becomes compassion.
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Asteya is not to covet. It is to realize one’s own uniqueness
in the context of the collective consciousness, and not to
seek for ourselves what is rightfully someone else’s.
Aparigraha is to live simply and minimally, within one’s needs
and not to develop wants based on greed.
Brahmacharya is to live in reality. This word is often
translated incorrectly as celibacy. What it means is to drop
one’s fantasies, illusions and expectations and live one’s life
the way life unfolds.
However, to follow these ideals implicitly is humanly
impossible in this day and age. Sanyasis who take these vows
have a tough time fulfilling them. For those in day-to-day
material life, these are almost impossible to achieve.
In my experience, I would say that these rules of yama, of
spiritual conduct, are a product of enlightenment and not a
path to enlightenment. In this modern age, the path of
righteousness that Krishna talks about, leading to Him, is the
path of meditation. When one follows meditation, one
automatically gets into the virtuous cycle of conscious
awareness that takes us to Krishna Consciousness.
Meditation is a process of shutting the mind down. In this
process of reaching the no-mind state, the ego drops, and
when ego drops, the barrier to realization that our true
nature is Divine disappears. We become aware of who we
are. We realize we are one with the Divine.
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Questions answered
We have accumulated questions of many chapters. I will try
to answer a few of these questions, and then we’ll end the
session.
Q: Master you mentioned there is no word like ‘divorce’ in
Sanskrit, but in the West it is a reality. Spiritually, is divorce
possible?
A: Be very clear. If you are spiritual, there is no need for
divorce. If you need a divorce then there is something
seriously wrong. Understand, real spirituality will make you a
better husband, a better wife. Don’t complain saying, ‘No, no
he is not spiritual; he is not falling in tune with me.’ All
these things arise because of your expectations.
Based on our samskara - our past memories - and what we
see in addition around us, each one of us develops a
template, an image of what we wish to see in our life mate,
our soul mate. This search for the partner is genetic,
programmed by nature, to ensure the continuation of the
human species.
What we see is not what we get. We see a rosy picture and
fall in love. Understand, we never say, ‘rise in love’; we
always say ‘fall in love’! It is a descent, never an ascent.
When we get closer, the time span of contact increases and
the space between the two decreases, colors change from rose
to dirty yellow. That is what marriage is about.
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A man presented a newly married couple a pup. After six
months he met the husband and asked him how they were
getting on. The husband said, ‘In the beginning, the pup
used to bark and my wife brought the newspaper. Now, the
pup brings in the newspaper and my wife barks at me!’
We are so full of our expectations, so full of our fantasies that
we cannot let go, appreciate the other person for what he or
she is. God created all of us. Are we trying to make the
other person better than how God created that person? It is
not possible, is it not? Yet, we take a brush and paint and try
to repaint that person to our color scheme. Or we take a
hammer with chisel and sculpt that person to our desired
form. No wonder then that blood flows in marriages.
In the Siva Sutras, Devi Parvati asks Siva, ‘Lord, what makes
a happy couple?’
Says the great Master, ‘In every marriage, there are four
people. In each marital bed there are four people, not two;
the man, the woman, the man’s fantasy of his woman and
the woman’s fantasy of her man. When the man and woman
drop their fantasies, and there are only the two of them in
bed, the marriage becomes happy!’
Let me tell you honestly, you see what you project. It may
hurt your ego. It may hurt you. But look inside you, you will
understand that you also contribute for every problem.
Nobody can hurt you without your permission. Nobody can
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disturb you without your permission. Nobody can possess you
without your permission.
You must have some vested interest, which is why you allow
this type of a person into your life. Allowing, attracting
persons who are not in tune with you, itself is not spiritual.
That means there’s something wrong in your being. Search,
work on it, heal it, everything will clear.
Q: I have read and known some people who have had near
death experiences, out-of-body experiences. All of them have
described them as beautiful experiences. Then why does the
Gita describe it as painful, like a thousand scorpions biting you?
A: Please understand, when I was speaking about death
experiences, I was talking about a normal man’s death
experience. Here you say, ‘I have read and know some people
who have had near death experiences.’ The moment you say
I have read,’ it means you have read about their experiences.
You have heard from them means that they are in some way
or the other, meditators or spiritual people. That’s why they
have had the experience and have come back.
What I was explaining was about leaving once and for all.
What you are speaking about is having an experience and
coming back. Having an experience and coming back means
the experience is spiritual; it is not a death experience. What
I was talking about was actual physical death, not conscious
transformation.
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What Ramana Maharishi experienced was a conscious
experience of death; but what I was describing to you was
the actual death of a normal human being; the physical
death of a normal human being. Understand the difference.
In my experience of the truth, at the time of death, the spirit
passes through seven layers of energy. The entire life one has
had, is played back, with no details being omitted. The
being relives the pains, pleasures, guilt, desires and all such
emotions that it experienced when you were alive. That is
how you pass through hell and heaven.
The pain of that process is like a thousand scorpions stinging
all at once. It is like the body is being ripped open from
head to toe. The only way to escape this pain is to have the
glimpse of truth at least once in one’s life. That is possible
only through meditation.
In the Nithyananda Spurana Program, that is what I do:
Take you through a journey that your spirit will pass at the
time of death, and meditate upon your samskara at each
stage in order to dissolve them. This opens the possibility of
painless death and no rebirth.
Q: Master, Krishna says my devotee never perishes. But if
everything is God, what perishes really? Krishna makes it
sound like his devotee does not perish and others do. Please
explain and remove my doubt.
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A: Understand, the moment you realize that you do not
perish, you become a devotee of Krishna. There are no
categories like Krishna’s devotees and others, or that
Krishna’s devotees will not perish while others will. Whoever
understands that he will not perish becomes Krishna’s
devotee automatically. The moment you understand this
concept, you become his bhakta, His devotee. So, be very
clear: If you understand everything is God, then nothing
perishes.
Na me bhakta pranasyati: He says, ‘My devotee never
perishes.’ This is a relative statement. If you understand
everything is God, nothing perishes. When you understand
that level, if you reach that level, this statement is not for
you. This statement is for a normal person who is on the
path, who is still attempting to understand it. Firstly, if you
have experienced everything is God, you don’t have to bother
about this statement.
Next thing, the moment you understand nothing perishes,
you become a Krishna bhakta. So, Krishna is not making any
partial statements. He’s not showing favoritism, saying that
‘only My devotees will not perish, and others’ devotees will
perish.’
No! He doesn’t mean it that way. Whoever understands this
philosophy will not perish; whoever will understand this
science will not perish. If you understand the science and
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even if you are not devoted to Krishna’s flute or peacock
feather, you will not perish, so don’t bother.
If you think that Krishna means only the flute and peacock
feather, only then will this question rise. If you understand
that Krishna is beyond the peacock feather and flute, you
will not have this doubt. ‘My devotee never perishes. When
he understands this, he never perishes.’ That is what Krishna
means.
Krishna is not the Krishna who you think He is. He is not
the single form that you are used to. He is the super
conscious energy, the cosmic energy, Parasakti.
A group of Krishna devotees, fanatics, attended my discourse
and asked me: You speak on the Gita so elaborately. Do you
believe in Krishna?’
I said, ‘Of course, I do.’
They said, ‘If you do, then how can you talk about other
Gods as Divine. We understand that you have a
Dakshinamurthy temple in your ashram. How can you do that?
Krishna clearly says in the Gita, that He is everything, no
one else matters.’
I explained to them: In the Mahabharata after the war,
Arjuna and Krishna go for a walk. Arjuna turns to Krishna
and says, ‘I do not remember much of what you told me
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before the war started, on the battle field. Can you please
tell me once again.’
Krishna smiles and says, ‘Oh! You forgot? But I am sorry
Arjuna, I also have forgotten!’
Arjuna is bewildered and asks, ‘Krishna, how is that possible?’
Krishna replies, ‘When I taught you on the battlefield, I was
the super conscious Parabrahma Krishna. Now, I am only
Vasudeva Krishna. I cannot remember what I told you in my
formless universal energy mode.’
But compassionate as He was, Krishna did explain once
again to Arjuna the essence of his teachings, in what has
been compiled as the Anu Gita today.
When people understood this principle of the divine
consciousness of Krishna being the same as every other
divinity, however much the forms may differ in the way we
worship, they were satisfied.
Krishna who says, ‘My devotee shall never perish’ is the
Parabrahma Krishna. In that state, he resides in each one of
us. If we realize that truth we become his devotee; we too
become Krishna, one with Krishna Consciousness, never to
perish.
Q: Please explain how one may drop their samskara
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(engraved memories) completely and also, how one drops
everything and surrenders?
A: You are asking how to drop your samskara, how to drop
everything and surrender; come to tomorrow’s and day after
tomorrow’s lecture, I will tell you. The lectures over the next
two days are all about samskara. We are going to work in a
very deep way on every samskara within you. The desire
samskara, the guilt samskara, the pain samskara, we will
work on every samskara separately.
Not only will there be a discourse, there will also be an
interaction. We will work together on samskara for the next
three, four days, especially the guna thraya yoga and all these
chapters that are focused on samskara alone; we will work
on them.
(These chapters are covered in separate books)
Q: Respected Master, is savasana (sleeping posture) okay for
meditation or, should we sit to meditate?
A: If you lie down you will only sleep. Even while you sit
you sleep! Naturally if you lie down, you will sleep. Please
don’t lie down and meditate. See, when you sleep, you can
meditate but don’t sleep when you meditate. There is
nothing wrong if you meditate when you are asleep. But if
you sleep when you meditate, then there is something
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seriously wrong. Don’t do savasana and meditate. But
meditate when you do savasana.
Q: If one dies on Mahashivaratri or any other auspicious day,
does the soul have direct entry into heaven?
A: I think I have already answered this question.
Dakshinayana (Southward movement of the Sun, from June
22nd to December 22nd), uttarayana (Northward movement of
the sun, from December 22nd to June 22nd) all these things
are psychological, not chronological. When I say uttarayana,
when Krishna says uttarayana, it refers to the time when your
energy moves upwards; that is what uttarayana is. When you
are totally at ease with yourself, that state is uttarayana.
So be very clear, it is psychological and there is no such
thing. In places like Disney world, they have a discount on
Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because not much crowd comes
during these days. So on these days they have special offers
and discounts. There is no special offer or discount in
heaven. It is up to the quality of your life. So be very clear,
there is no special offer!
Siva, the word Siva, means auspiciousness; auspiciousness
that occurs spontaneously. It is uncaused, naturally occurring,
Divine auspiciousness. Ratri also means intensity, not just
night as we understand. Sivaratri or mahasivaratri is the time
when this uncaused auspiciousness is at its peak. Your
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sincere prayers, prayed with deep awareness, will be answered
by the Divine, if it be for the good of the Universe.
As I have said before, there is no heaven, except in religious
dictionaries. Heaven is not a geographical space; it is a space
in your own mind. If you reach awareness, you will be in
bliss and you will be in heaven.
Q: If one should have no goal, isn’t achieving bliss a goal by
itself? Please help me understand.
A: Don’t make achieving bliss another one of your goals. You
will miss it and mess it up. Drop all your goals, bliss will
happen automatically. You cannot make a lotus flower to
bloom. You can create the right setting and wait. Then
automatically the lotus will bloom of its own accord. You
cannot do anything; if you force open the petals, it will be a
dead lotus; it will not be a living flower. So don’t attempt
dead bliss with a plastered smile. Let the smile be from your
being, let it overflow as an expression of joy.
If you plant a seed and provide the right conditions, it will
grow and bloom by itself. So it is with bliss. If you keep
pulling the seed out to see whether or not it is blooming, you
will get nothing.
Let me tell you a small story: Three monkeys found a mango
fruit. They didn’t want to share it. They could not agree as
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to who should eat the mango. They went to a learned master
monkey and presented the problem. The master monkey said,
‘Let me eat the fruit. You take the seed and plant it. It will
grow into a tree and bear fruits. There will be so many fruits
and you will have no problem in sharing.’
The monkeys agreed and allowed the master monkey to eat
the fruit and then they planted the seed. One monkey
watered the spot where they planted the seed, another
provided fertilizers and the third kept watch. Even after
many weeks, the seed didn’t sprout. Disappointed the
monkeys went to the master and complained, ‘You ate our
fruit and told us to plant the seed. Nothing happened. You
cheated us.’
The master monkey asked each monkey what it did. The
first said it watered without a break; the second said that it
added fertilizers; the third said, ‘I made sure that no one
took the seed away.’
The master monkey asked the third one, ‘What exactly did
you do?’
The third monkey said, ‘Well, everyday I dug up the seed,
saw if it was alright and put it back!’
So, as long as you keep checking, nothing is going to
happen. Even if you drop the goal of bliss, you should stop
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thinking about it. Follow the path of meditation, and bliss
will happen by itself. It will not happen if you go into your
mind each day to see whether you have achieved bliss inside
or not.
Q: Dear Master, if someone spends his entire life thinking of
money, what kind of life will he have in his next birth? That
of a rich man or that of a poor man?
A: That depends upon your intelligence; how much
responsibility you are willing to take up. If you are intelligent
enough to take responsibility, don’t bother about your next
life. In this life itself you will lead a rich man’s life. If you
are not intelligent enough to take responsibility, and work for
it, not only in this life, you will not lead a rich man’s life in
any life. If you are ready to add all the ingredients that are
needed to lead the life of a rich man then you will be able
to do so.
See, for example, to cook certain dishes, you need to put all
the necessary ingredients, only then will you be able to make
the dish. It is like that. But of course, sometimes things work
out differently.
One lady was cooking; her husband came into the kitchen
and asked her, ‘What are you cooking?’ She replied, ‘I have
not fixed the name yet. Once it is ready, I will give it a
name, now I don’t know the name.’
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So sometimes even if you put all the ingredients, things don’t
turn out as they are meant to, that’s different! But in order
to make any dish, one has to add certain ingredients.
Similarly, in order to lead a rich man’s life, rich life, you
need to add certain ingredients; responsibility, the ability to
take decisions, courage to face life. If you have all these
ingredients, you can make your life rich today, you don’t
have to wait for your next life.
People sometimes ask me, ‘No one would want to be born a
beggar; that is impossible. Then, why are there beggars?’
If during one’s life as a wealthy person the experiences are
such that the soul has no desire to accumulate wealth again,
and wants to take no responsibility, then that is the vasana,
the mindset, that will accompany the spirit as it leaves the
body. It will be such that it may decide to be a beggar, with
no responsibilities.
Q: Respected Master, I worship the formless form of God.
Can I still follow you and become your disciple?
A: Understand, I have already answered this question. Only
if you are worshipping the formless in form, can you
understand me easily, can you relate with me easily. As I
have told you, I have given clear instructions - my disciples
cannot meditate on my form. They should not meditate on
my form. They must only go into conscious experiences. I do
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not want them to be caught up with my form. Not only my
form, never get caught up in any Master’s form.
God to most of you is only a concept. To a realized Master,
God is reality. A Master, an enlightened Master is more than
God for He is reality to you, not just a concept. Whether the
Master is present or not, His presence works.
Do not think I am present when I am in front of you; do not
think as well that I am absent from you when you are not in
my presence.
I tell my disciples: Do not sit in front of me, gazing at me in
adoration. Your chasing me does not work. Work for my
mission, serve my mission; then I shall chase you; I shall be
in your hearts.
That is the message of the super conscious Krishna.
Q: Why do we hear of the rebirth of self-realized saints.
What does it mean?
A: Out of compassion, to help the world, Parasakti (the
female personification of the Existential energy) sends a few
enlightened Masters to Earth. She decides to activate a few
enlightened bodies to help planet Earth. It is her decision; we
can’t do anything about it, and we don’t even know the basis
on which she decides. We can only put in an application
form. You don’t know how it comes, why it comes, why it
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does not come. It’s like an American visa; you just have to
submit the application and wait! When it comes through, why
it comes through, and why it doesn’t come through, nothing
is known. You only have the result, that’s all. You will be
informed as to whether it comes through or not. Nothing
much can be done. In the same way, this is just Parasakti’s
decision, nothing is known about it.
An enlightened Master has dissolved all his samskara. He has
no vasana (desires), no rebirth by design. The choice is not
his to make to be reborn. It is as if there is a vacuum here
on this planet that sucks the energy being of the Master
back into this planet and into a womb.
When I was born, there was a light from the place known as
Arunachala that guided my energy in.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa talks movingly about his rebirth.
Amongst a group of realized sages, an infant appears and it is
blessed by them. The infant is Ramakrishna who then
reappears in human form. One of the sages who blesses him
is Vivekananda. The realized sages form the energy field that
is Divinity; Parasakti decides.
Q: Respected Master, each day I come and learn beautiful
knowledge, and I am so happy. Then I go back and feel a
little confused, even depressed. What is going on?
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A: The right thing is going on, don’t worry! Whatever is
going on is the right thing. In the initial level this is the way
it happens. Don’t count the moments of depression, count the
number of blessings. See, by its own light, the moon shows
the black patches which exist on it. By its own light it shows
the black patches. Similarly, by your own intelligence you
understand how you feel depressed and confused. If you
realize that you are confused and depressed, that itself shows
you are intelligent. That by itself shows that you are growing
in intelligence; that the light has started radiating.
When you are thoughtless, you have no confusion. You have
no clue about the higher purpose of life, and you are happy
about what you have always been doing; eating, drinking,
playing, working, whatever. Thoughtless people are happy in
their own way. They do not think. They behave like animals.
All they seek are the same pleasures that an animal would
seek. They are satisfied at that level. That is how they live
and die.
When you think, you get into problems. You start to realize
that you are not doing what you are here for. You start to
seek a purpose. You are confused. You are unstable. One
moment you are attracted to the pleasures that have
sustained you for so long. Then, you reject them, as they are
not what you think will sustain your happiness. You start
seeing light. Gradually, slowly, very slowly, you move from
darkness to light.
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That is where the Guru, the Master comes in. He leads you
from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth and
reality.
Then you reach the state of no-mind, of no-thoughts. It is
not the same as thoughtless state. Thoughtless state is that of
the animal, of instinct. No-mind, no-thought state is that of
the Divine, of intuition. Thoughtful state is that of the
human, of rational mind.
The entire dialogue in the Gita arises out of the confusion
that Arjuna has as a thoughtful human, which is being
clarified by the no -thought state of Krishna, the super
conscious. Doubts and confusion are human. They are the
result of the movement from the thoughtless state to the nothought state.
Q: Respected Master, I have a question: Would you be
conducting a retreat on mediation in Los Angeles in the
near future, during your current visit?
A: I think I will be doing one meditation camp, after the gita
gnana yagna, Arogya Spurana. It is about health, directing
your body, mind and spirit, towards holistic health - healing
your body, mind and spirit.
According to me, health and spirituality are one and the
same. When you become really spiritual you will radiate a
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special kind of health, which is beyond the body. Body itself
is disease; disease does not attack the body. Body itself is a
disease! So according to me, when you experience boundary
less freedom, only then are you healthy.
This two-day camp is directed towards achieving boundary
less consciousness, towards boundary less freedom. Naturally,
this heals your body also. The ‘Life Bliss Program’ will also be
conducted by the acharyas, the ordained teachers, in the
ashram. I may be present for a couple of sessions in it. But I
myself will be completely conducting the Arogya spurana
program. I am not doing any Nithyananda Spurana Programs
in America, but I am doing one in Vancouver.
I am conducting intense classes for our ashramites. All our
ashramites have regular classes. Any healer can also
participate in these. If you are already an initiated healer you
can come and participate in these classes. I also conduct
classes at night and after the gita gnana yagna every evening,
I will be conducting classes. The morning class is for
everybody, but the evening class is only for healers, as the
meditations which you will be doing, will be of a higher
level, deeper techniques. As I am spending time with the
ashramites, I will not be conducting any other programs,
other than the Arogya Spurana program.
Q Dear Master, during the great war of Mahabharata
everybody was following unlawful methods. Why?
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A: At the beginning of the Mahabharata war, everybody
followed dharma, righteousness. But after a while, you start
seeing adharma, non-righteous behavior such as killing at
nighttime; all the five sons of the Pandava were killed when
they were sleeping. Arjuna attacked Karna when he was
unarmed. Abhimanyu was killed by a group of warriors. He
was alone without a weapon, without a chariot, and he was
killed in the presence of his grand father, by his own
relatives; he was hardly eighteen years old.
The question you are asking is right. What happened exactly
is that when the war started, it was for dharma. Slowly the
Kaurava went one step further so the Pandava also went one
step beyond dharma. The Kaurava broke more dharmic rules
in retaliation. So the Pandava kept pace with the Kaurava.
By the tenth day, all the rules were broken and it turned
into a brutal war. After the tenth day, it could no longer be
called Dharmakshetra, place of dharma. It was called
dharmakshetra as long as Bhishma was alive. The moment
Bhishma moved away from the battlefield, from that day
onward, it could not be called dharmakshetra. It was just a
brutal field, not a battlefield.
Q Master, if every waking and sleeping is akin to birth and
death, and at the time of birth, we create an earthly life, is
each awakening then an opportunity for a new life in your
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current form?
A: Yes, every day is an opportunity to transform your body
and mind. Let me tell you clearly: you can even transform
your body! Not only mind, even your body; because your body
is created by your mind. So be very clear, everyday is an
opportunity given to us to transform our lives. Every sleep is
death, every awakening is birth: it is janana and marana,
birth and death. Be very clear, everyday is an opportunity for
us to transform our lives.
The point of awakening when your subtle body settles into
your gross body, the thoughts that arise in your mind, the
attitude that develops, are what determine your mood and
action for the rest of the day.
When you wake up in the morning, as you wake up, when
you are still in bed, run your hands all over your body from
the top of your head to the tips of your toes. As your hands
feel the top of your head, say to yourself that you have a
lovely head with wonderful hair. Do not worry about the
reality of whether you do have or your perception of whether
you believe you have. Just do it. Then offer gratitude to the
universe for giving you such a lovely head and wonderful
hair. In this way, run through your entire body up to your feet
and toes.
This whole exercise may take ten minutes. It is a very
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powerful Sufi technique that not only determines your mood
for the day, but in addition also infuses a strong self-image
and love for your own self. This translates into love for
others. Yes, each awakening can transform your life, if you
allow it to and if you know how.
Let us pray to the ultimate energy Parabrahma Krishna to
make us all experience the truths of bhakti yoga, to love our
very life. Let us pray to Him, to give us all the conscious
experience of bhakti, love, and make us experience, and
radiate eternal bliss, Nithyananda!
Thank You.
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dgwX{d gwV§ X{d§ H§$gMmUya _X©Z_²
X{dH$s [a_mZÝX§ H¥$îU§ dÝX{ OJÒxé_²
Vasudeva Sutam Devam Kamsa Chanura Mardanam
Devaki Paramaanandam Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum
O son of Vasudeva, thou who art God, who hast killed Kamsa
and Chanoora,
Thou who art the supreme bliss of Devaki, O Krishna, Guru of
the entire Universe, I salute you!
Thus ends the 12 th chapter of the dialogue between Sri
Krishna and Arjuna, called as Bhakti Yoga, in the
Brahmavidya Yogasastra Bhagavad Gita Upanishad.
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Appendix
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Nithyananda...
Paramahamsa Nithyananda is a Master and
modern mystic living amidst us today. Starting
out at a young age, and enduring years of
intense penance, he persevered with the singlepointed vision of experiencing inner bliss. He traversed the
length and breadth of the country studying yoga, tantra and
other Eastern metaphysical sciences with great Masters in
India and Nepal. He had many profound spiritual experiences
before experiencing inner bliss.
His mission is to help each individual actualize his inherent
potential. With a pragmatic and compassionate approach, and
an enlightened insight into the core of human nature, he has
emerged as an inspiring personality who continues to touch
and transform the lives of millions across the world.
His divine healing touch has taken the shape of Nithya
Spiritual Healing – a scientific system of spiritual healing
through meditation. He heals people world over, through his
direct touch and through ordained healers, curing illnesses
ranging from migraine to cancer.
The Nithyananda Foundation is his worldwide movement to
spread his message of meditation and bliss. With its spiritual
nerve center in Bangalore, India and the Western
Hemisphere headquarters in Los Angeles, USA, it operates in
over 800 centers in 24 countries across the world, working
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steadily in transformation of humanity through transformation
of the individual.
His lucid explanation of practical issues and simple and
dynamic meditation techniques, help individuals blossom at
the physical, emotional and spiritual levels. Thousands of
volunteers – Ananda Sevaks work to support the mission world
over.
By offering himself as a living laboratory, he works with
Scientists across the globe to bridge the modern Western
system of logic and evidence and the ancient Eastern system
of mysticism, thus bridging Science and Spirituality for the
benefit of humanity.
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Bridging Science and Spirituality...
Swamiji works with doctors and scientists across the world to
record and analyze the mystic phenomena through modern
technology. He is continuing to intrigue the world of medical
science with results from the study of His own neurological
system. From the results recorded, scientists feel that the
potential for altering the rates and progression of many
diseases like heart ailments, cancer, arthritis, alcoholism etc.
is beginning to look achievable. They are compelled to
declare that there continues to be indications that the
human mind can choose to heal the human body...
For centuries, science and spirituality have been battling it
out on these issues of perennial importance for humanity.
Although spiritual leaders have always maintained that the
no -mind state is a ‘ real’ phenomenon, and a perfectly
realizable goal for all of us, the scientific community has
naturally been unwilling to accept this without solid proof.
For the first time in our century, science has hopefully found
a key to supernormal and paranormal phenomena, with sound
medical evidence that explains why the spiritually superevolved are blessed with ‘powers’ that the rest of us can only
dream about. The following few pages are summaries of
various types of research conducted on Swamiji’s neurological
system during His visits to the United States of America.
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Mind of a Mystic
A report by Dr. R. Murali Krishna, President COO,
INTEGRIS Mental Heath & James L. Hall, Jr. Center for
Mind, Body and Spirit, Oklahoma
A Mind Matters Column™
The Mind of a Mystic
By R. Murali Krishna, M.D.
President COO, INTEGRIS Mental
Health & James L. Hall, Jr. Center for
Mind, Body and Spirit
Paramahamsa Sri Nithyananda Swami is a trim, healthylooking young man with dark, shoulder-length hair.
Handsome and polite, possessing an open manner and a
wealth of curiosity, he could be any ordinary American
college student.
The difference is that ordinary American college students do
not wear saffron robes and turbans, have not experienced
spiritual enlightenment and are not regarded as a teacher, healer
and mystic by millions of people in all corners of the world.
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A mystic? The term is not a bad fit for ‘Swami’, as he is
known. Mystics, popular culture tells us, have direct
communion with God. Through means not understood or
measurable, mystics are thought to have access to ultimate
realities or truths. Picture a mystic and you’ll probably picture
someone full of bliss, someone gifted with lofty thoughts and
insights that the rest of us do not possess.
The very presence of a mystic is thought to bring peace and
healing to others.
That’s an apt description of Swami, a 27-year-old from South
India. He is approached by thousands of people every year
seeking relief from diseases and ailments that conventional
medical approaches have not cured. Swami’s background
lends him the air of a mystic, too. He left his home as a teen,
visited ashrams across India, immersed himself in philosophy,
read extensively and mastered the art of meditation.
When Swami passed through Oklahoma City recently as one
stop in his world travels, I asked him if he would let me use
some of modern medicine’s newest technology to peer into his
brain while he meditated. My goal: to understand, measure
and demystify what happens during the mystic phenomena.
Swami, who believes that meditation has a scientific basis,
happily agreed.
The procedures Swami went through were administered by
some of Oklahoma City’s finest and most experienced
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physicians, neuropsychologists and researchers: Drs. Fordyce,
Ruwe and Higgins of the Jim Thorpe Rehabilitation Center
Neuropsychology Department and Dr. Chacko of the PET
Center of Oklahoma. These doctors were using technology
they use with patients on a routine basis. When they look at
images obtained by their technology, they know what’s normal
and what’s not.
The results from testing Swami? Decidedly not normal!
Imaging Brain Activity
Our first look into Swami’s brain was achieved with the help of
a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) device. Unlike
traditional diagnostic techniques that produce images of the
body’s structure or anatomy, such as X-rays, CT scans or MRI,
PET produces images of the function of the brain through the
metabolic activity of cells. An analog of glucose is attached to
a radioactive PET tracer. The PET scanner then images the
metabolically active brain areas at any given time.
In the case of Swami, the drug was intended to identify
highly active areas of the brain in an alert and conscious
state, in the early stages of meditation and during deep
meditation.
The results of the PET scan tests were stunning. To begin
with, the activity in the frontal lobes of Swami’s brain were
significantly heightened, even in early meditation stages. The
level of activity was several times higher than would be seen
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in the average human brain under any conditions. The
frontal lobes are associated with the functions of intelligence,
attention, wisdom and judgment.
When we then asked Swami to go into the deepest
meditation state, there were two more remarkable findings.
First, the dominant hemisphere of Swami’s brain was more
than 90 percent shut down. It was as if Swami’s brain had
packed up and gone on vacation. It was quiet and still,
completely at peace … and Swami had made it so at will.
A second amazing aspect of Swami’s deep meditation was
that the lower portion of his mesial frontal areas lighted up
in a very significant way. This area roughly corresponds to
the reputed location of the mystical ‘Third Eye’.
When we later asked Swami what he was doing when the
mesial frontal areas lighted up, he said he was opening his
Third Eye.
Associated with both cosmic and inner knowledge, and
thought to be a place of clarity and peace, the Third Eye is
considered by many to be the seat of the soul. Were we
seeing an indication that deep meditation can open an area
of the brain responsible for communicating with the divine,
looking deep into the mysteries of Self or creation? I believe
the PET scan revealed what I call the brain’s ‘D-spot’.
Whether you consider the ‘D’ in D-spot to stand for Delight,
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the Divine or even Dopamine (the chemical through which
our bodies experience pleasure), initial indications are that
meditation can stimulate it.
Measuring Brainwaves
The second procedure we used to look into Swami’s brain is
known as Quantitative Electroencephalography, or QEEG.
QEEG measures electrical patterns in the brain, patterns
commonly referred to as brainwaves.
There are four bandwidths of brainwaves, each different in
speed, and each associated with a different state of mind. For
instance, beta brainwaves are small and fast and linked with
an awake, alert state of mind. Alpha brainwaves are slower
and larger and are connected to feelings of well-being. Theta
waves represent a state of consciousness that is close to
sleep, a stage in which there is a sense of calmness and
serenity without active thought.
In a day’s time, most people will experience all four types of
brainwaves. The progression from one bandwidth to another,
though, is not so easily in their control.
From Swami’s QEEG, though, we can see that he has
complete control over his brainwaves. When in deep
meditation, his brain smoothly shifted from one state to
another, like a talented pianist playing the scales. There was
no hesitation and no retreating, just continuous, fluid shifts
from one type of brainwave to the next. Because the QEEG
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represents the five brainwave bandwidths as colors, it was as
if we were watching Swami float from color to color within a
rainbow!
Conclusions
The brain is the body’s most complex organ, containing more
than 100 billion neurons, each of them in chemical and
electrical conversation with upto 10,000 other neurons. Its
sheer capacity to process information is astonishing.
Remarkably, that complexity presents little difficulty for
Swami in managing his brain activity. Swami’s mind – his
thoughts, emotions and intellect – control his brain. He can,
in a very fluid, easy way, shift his brain function and alter his
brainwaves.
More than answering questions, the voyage we took into the
mind of a mystic brings intriguing questions for study.
Are there techniques we can learn and teach that will bring
balance and peace into people’s lives?
Can we invoke a healing response or accelerate healing
through specific training? Can we learn techniques that will
allow us to control pain or alter the course of a disease?
Can we learn to activate what I call our D- spot, thus
putting us in instant connection to delight or the divine?
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The results from our study of Swami are new pages in our
world’s growing book of research on the brain. There
continue to be indications that the human mind may be able
to choose to heal the body. We’re now looking at the
possibility of people learning and acquiring these healing
capabilities, an event of immense benefit for humankind. The
potential for altering the rates and progression of many
diseases – heart disease, cancer, arthritis, alcoholism and
many others – is beginning to look achievable.
Swami is a bridge between the invisible, ancient world of
mysticism and the modern, visible world of science and
discovery. As brain research continues on a widespread basis,
and as we appropriately bring the phenomena of mysticism
into the realm of science for further study, we are taking
strides on a path of hope and health.
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Offerings from Nithyananda Foundation
Specialized meditation programs are designed and offered
continuously worldwide to benefit millions of people at the
levels of body, mind and spirit. Some of the meditation
programs currently offered are as follows:
Ananda Spurana Program (ASP) / Life Bliss Program (LBP)
- Energize yourself!
The ASP or LBP is a chakra meditation camp.
It introduces us to the 7 vital energy centers in our body
called the chakras, whose functioning has a direct bearing
upon our physical and mental well-being. It explains the
direct relationship between our emotions and these energy
centers and offers simple meditation techniques for effective
handling of our own emotions, better clarity and a positive
mental setup, better interpersonal relationships, renewed and
inspired attitude towards work, and a blissful life.
There is a similar such program designed for students,
referred to as the student ASP or student LBP.
Nithyananda Spurana Program (NSP)
- Death demystified!
Death is the mystery of all mysteries. Our idea and fear of
death pervades every moment of our lives and creates
conflicting emotions in us. We simply miss out on the art of
real living because of this.
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This program clearly explains what happens at the time of
death. It draws the relation between our created emotions of
desire, fear, guilt, pain and pleasure with the seven energy
bodies in us. It explains how each of these emotions arises
from one of these seven bodies and how they work upon the
departing soul as it crosses each of them. It brings to surface
all our conscious and unconscious emotions that have been
accumulated over the past lives, so we may be free from their
clutches. It is like a complete spiritual bath to be reborn,
equipped with the technique to live and leave joyously with
astounding awareness to replace deep ignorance.
Shakti Spurana Program (SSP)
- Cleanse yourself!
This is a meditation program that gives us an insight into
the 3 energy bodies in us that are the physical, subtle and
causal bodies. Suppressed emotions, unfulfilled desires,
restlessness, nervousness, lethargy and similar such emotions
associated with these 3 energy bodies are dealt with. It offers
solutions and techniques to kindle the inner intelligence to
liberate ourselves from these emotions.
Atma Spurana Program (ATSP)
- Connect with your Self
Man is an integral part of Existence. When he realizes this
experientially, he is enlightened. This meditation program
describes the five body sheaths called koshas that stand in the
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way of man realising this truth. It offers techniques that pull
our awareness through these sheaths to reach the Self.
Bhakti Spurana Program (BSP)
- Enrich your emotional Being
Over passing years, the mind has taken over the being.
Humanity has fallen victim to the futility of the intellect.
The emotional being suffers as a result of this.
Bhakti or devotion is the language of the being. It is supreme
love towards Existence or God. It frees us from base
emotions, bringing equanimity of the mind and deep
fulfillment. It fulfills all our wants and takes us beyond them.
The Bhakti Spurana Program is a 4-day program that unfolds
the path of bhakti to the modern man. It steers us from
intellect to the being, from mundane worship to sheer
intimacy - with the Divine.
Nithyanandam
- Enlightenment intensive…
This is an intense meditation camp; a unique and first ever
offering of the technology of Bliss or Nithyanandam. All keys
to the ‘Experience of Enlightenment’, are handed over in
totality by the Master himself. This is an opportunity to go
beyond body and mind and experience pure Consciousness.
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Dhyana Spurana Program (DSP)
- Mind is a myth; realize and liberate!
Our mind is nothing but a collection of our thoughts. By
nature, our thoughts are unconnected, independent and
illogical. But we try to connect all these thoughts and create
suffering for ourselves. The moment we realize that our
thoughts are unconnected and independent, we drop our
mind and become un-clutched. The moment we drop our
mind, we are liberated.
The Dhyana Spurana Program is a meditation program that
helps us drop our mind and remain centered in pure
Consciousness.
Arogya Spurana Program and meditation therapy
- Be healthy!
Arogya or Good Health is not just an absence of disease, it is
a positive well-being ness.
The Arogya Spurana Program is an intense meditation camp,
on the integrated science of body, mind and spirit. It is an
opportunity to understand that our body is not just a biomechanism but one that has its roots in deep Consciousness
and Intelligence.
The Arogya Spurana Meditation therapy is a health and
healing program that takes you through meditation and
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healing to heal specific ailments, besides creating a new
mental setup attuned towards a positive wellbeingness.
Nithya spiritual healing initiation
- become a healer!
The Nithya spiritual healing initiation is a scientific process
by which you are initiated in the Ananda Gandha chakra to
become a channel for the Divine Energy to flow through you
to heal others. It works on the principle that Energy is
Intelligence. The uniqueness of this is that, it not only heals
the patient but also helps in your own spiritual growth.
Outwardly it is Healing and inwardly it is Meditation.
Ananda Yogam
- Expand and explode
Ananda Yogam is a free one-year residential program for youth
between 18 and 30 years of age. With its roots in the Eastern
system of Mysticism and Vedic learning, this program is to
empower the modern youth with
•
Vocational skills
•
Success Formulae and deeper Truths for Life
•
Healing, meditation and yoga for overall well-being
•
The capacity to actualize one’s entire potential
•
Creative intelligence and spontaneity
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This program creates a clear and sound mental makeup in
every individual. It unleashes the untapped and infinite
capacity within, to excel in the outer world while remaining
centered within. It instills in one, the essence of the ancient
Vedic principles and the modern system of Logic. It creates
individuals with a capacity to be economically and spiritually
stable.
Above all, this is a lifetime opportunity to live and learn
under the tutelage of an enlightened Master.
Ananda Galleria (Divine Shop)
The Ananda Galleria offers a wide range of books in English,
Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Telugu, Hindi, Portuguese, French
and other languages, compiled from Nithyananda’s discourses
worldwide. Also available are Nithyananda’s discourses in
cassettes, Audio CDs and Video CDs. In addition are
available a host of items like photographs of the Master,
shawls, chanting boxes, malas, chain dollars, photograph of
His eyes, T-shirts and so on.
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FOR FURTHER READING...
Guaranteed Solutions
Guaranteed Solutions is a book aimed at bringing a radical
understanding of our emotions such as sex, fear, worry,
attention-need, jealousy, ego and discontentment. The
information is a compilation of the worldwide talks that
Nithyananda has given in meditation camps such as the
Ananda Spurana Program (ASP) and Life Bliss Program
(LBP). It introduces us to the 7 vital Energy centers in our
body called the chakras, whose functioning has a direct
bearing upon our physical and mental well-being.
The ASP/ LBP meditation camps explain the direct
relationship between our emotions and these Energy centers.
We are educated on the subtle ways in which these
emotions affect our overall well-being. In a very
comprehensive manner we are taught how these debilitating
emotions are mere shadows without objects. Powerful
meditation techniques are imparted to handle these
emotions. We are given the assurance that it is possible to
lead a life free from the power these emotions wield over us.
These camps provide tremendous scope to liberate ourselves
from the dilemmas of the mind and depression of our Being;
to be free from the mental slavery that is keeping our spirit
in bondage. We are helped to create a space in us to flower
and re-connect with our inner core, with our true Self which is beyond the body and mind, which is pure and
Eternal Bliss Nithyananda! These meditation camps are
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continuously conducted worldwide by trained teachers of the
Foundation.
Bliss is the Path and the Goal
This book is a compilation of Nithyananda’s discourses
covering a range of subjects, from How the Mind Works to
How we abuse our bodies to Coping with the duality of material
and spiritual life. It answers many questions giving an updated
understanding, kindling our inner intelligence, and tuning us
to inner awareness. It is a handbook to guide us through the
workings of the mind, body and being so that we may live
our life in bliss.
Beyond Life and Death
Meditation is the way to unite, to commune between birth
and death. It teaches the art of living and leaving. Else, we
get caught in just one more cycle of life and death. In these
pages, through his discourses, Nithyananda demystifies death
and explains the need to understand it. He states with no
uncertainty that unless we understand death, we will not be
able to live life with richness.
From Ignorance to Enlightenment
In this book, Nithyananda takes us through Patanjali’s Yoga
Sutras. Sutras by definition are epigrams that mean a lot by
saying very little. There are many layers of meanings in each
Sutra. Nithyananda comments on these timeless Truths, giving
an updated understanding to the modern man. He answers
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questions that many spiritual seekers have through the
aphorisms of Patanjali.
Nithyopanishad
Upanishad means ‘sitting at the feet of the Master’.
Nithyopanishad is a compilation of a living enlightened
Master’s talks on the Master-disciple relationship. In a setting
fit for the Gods, amidst the Himalayan mountains, in the lap
of the sacred river Ganga, the Master expounds timeless
Truths in the classic Upanishad tradition. Questions transform
into doubts, doubts dissolve into awareness, as the Master
spreads his energy over the group. Anyone who has himself
the question, ‘Why do I need a Guru?’ will find his answers
here.
For further details and to purchase any of the above items,
please visit www.nithyananda.org.
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OUR MAIN NITHYANANDA MEDITATION ACADAMIES (NMA)
USA
928 Huntington Dr, Duarte,
Los Angeles, CA 91010 USA
Ph.: 1-626-205 3286
Email: [email protected]
India
Dhyanapeetam
Nithyanandapuri, Kallugopahalli
Mysore Road, Bidadi
Bangalore 562109, Karnataka INDIA
Ph.: +91 80 56691844 / 7202085
Fax: +91 80 7288207
Email: [email protected]
Dhyanapeetam
Sri Ananda Rajarajeshwari Temple
Nithyananda Giri
Pashambanda Sathamrai Village
Shamshabad Mandal, Rangareddy District
Andhra Pradesh 501 218, INDIA
Ph.: +91 93470 65288
Dhyanapeetam
36/1, Kamakshiamman Street, Peramanur
Salem 636 007, INDIA
Ph.: +91 427 3098133
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Discourse on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita
4-21 Sep 2005 – Malibu Temple, Los Angeles, USA
Love is your life (before page 15)
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‘I always tell people not to renounce the world unless they feel ecstasy within.
Never renounce; work only towards ecstasy. When ecstasy happens,
automatically renunciation will happen to you.’
before Sloka
12.8
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‘When the Master says to drop ‘I and mine,’ people are afraid that the
Master may pick it up and take it! He may take it away, what to do?
They think he is in need of it...’
before Sloka 12.13 - 12.14
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‘Only when you have attachment to one house, does another house become
a new place and you have to struggle. When you don’t have attachment to
the one house idea, wherever you go you will feel at home.’
before Sloka 12.19
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