3. Chapter 3 — Karma Yogaḥ · The Yoga of Action

3.1

अर्जुन उवाच | ज्यायसी चेत्कर्मणस्ते मता बुद्धिर्जनार्दन | तत्किं कर्मणि घोरे मां नियोजयसि केशव

arjuna uvāca jyāyasī cetkarmaṇaste matā buddhirjanārdana / tatkiṁ karmaṇi ghore māṁ niyojayasi keśava / / 3.1

Arjuna says: O Janārdana, O Keśava, Why do You make me engage in this terrible war if You think that knowledge is superior to action?

arjuna — Arjuna · uvāca — says · jyāyasī — speaking highly · cet — although · karmaṇaḥ — action · te — your · matā — opinion · buddhir — knowledge · janārdana — Janārdana · tat — therefore · kiṁ — why · karmaṇi — in action · ghore — terrible · māṁ — me · niyojayasi — engaging me · keśava — Keśava (slayer of the demon Keśi)

3.2

व्यामिश्रेणेव वाक्येन बुद्धिं मोहयसीव मे | तदेकं वद निश्चित्य येन श्रेयोऽहमाप्नुयाम्

vyāmiśreṇeva vākyena buddhiṁ mohayasīva me / tadekaṁ vada niścitya yena śreyohamāpnuyām / / 3.2

My intelligence is confused by Your conflicting words. Tell me clearly what is best for me.

vyāmiśreṇa — by ambiguous · iva — as · vākyena — words · buddhiṁ — intelligence · mohayasi — confusing · iva — as · me — my · tat — therefore · ekaṁ — one · vada — tell · niśc- itya — for certain · yena — by which · śreyaḥ — benefit · ahaṁ — I · āpnuyāṁ — may have

3.3

श्रीभगवानुवाच | लोकेऽस्मिन्द्विविधा निष्ठा पुरा प्रोक्ता मयानघ | ज्ञानयोगेन साङ्ख्यानां कर्मयोगेन योगिनाम्

śrībhagavānuvāca loke’smindvividhā niṣṭhā purā proktā mayānagha / jñānayogena sāṁkhyānāṁ karmayogena yoginām / / 3.3

The Lord says, ‘O sinless Arjuna, as I said before, in this world there are two paths; Self knowledge for the intellectual and the path of action of the knowing.

śrī bhagavān uvāca — the Lord says · loke — in the world · asmin — this · dvividhā — two kinds of · niṣṭhā — faith · purā — before · proktā — were said · mayā — by Me · anagha — O sinless one · jñānayogena — by the yoga of knowledge · sāṁkhyānāṁ — of the Sāṅkhya · karmayogena — by the yoga of action · yoginām — of the yoga practitioners

3.4

न कर्मणामनारम्भान्नैष्कर्म्यं पुरुषोऽश्नुते | न च संन्यसनादेव सिद्धिं समधिगच्छति

na karmaṇāmanārambhānnaiṣkarmyaṁ puruṣo’śnute / na ca sannyasanādeva siddhiṁ samadhigacchati / / 3.4

A person does not attain freedom from action by abstaining from work, nor does he attain fulfillment by giving up action.

na — without · karmaṇām — of the actions · anārambhāt — abstaining · naiṣkarmyaṁ — freedom from action · puruṣaḥ — man · aśnute — achieve · na — not · ca — also · sanny- asanāt — by renunciation · eva — surely · siddhiṁ — success · samadhigacchati — attain

In the previous chapter on Sāṅkhya Yogaḥ, Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna that knowledge of the Self is the supreme path to Enlightenment. He explains the nature of the indestructible Self. Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna to shed all root patterns of fear, abandon his desires and go beyond success and failure; to practice authenticity in action, to be unattached and steady in completion of the Self, the state of Brahman. Arjuna is still in the space of inauthenticity. He is confused as to what he should do. At one level, he understands what Kṛṣṇa says to him. However, the explanation about the spirit living on while the body dies, and the idea that all those he is about to fight and destroy have already been destroyed in the cosmic sense, does not appeal to him.

Arjuna is a warrior. To him, what is seen in front of him is what exists. He sees all his elders and relatives arrayed against him in battle and he has to make a choice to kill or be killed. This is the physical reality that he faces. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 181 Kṛṣṇa tells him not to take this reality seriously. He says all the living people in front of him are already dead, and therefore he is committing no sin by killing them again. In fact, if he does not fight them, he is being out of integrity; by running away from the battle as an inauthentic coward.

He also tells Arjuna that he has the right to do his duty but no right to its results. ‘Let not the fruit of action be your motive and let not your attachment be to inaction either,’ Kṛṣṇa warns him. Violence Asks for Single Instruction Arjuna is totally confused. He tells Kṛṣṇa, ‘I do not understand what you are saying. First, you tell me to fight. Then you tell me to shed anger. You say I must kill my enemies, who are my elders and relatives, but then you say I should not worry about the end result.’ Arjuna says, ‘All I need to know is whether I should act or not.

You say knowledge is superior to action and yet you say I must act. What should I do?’ he asks. Arjuna is clearly in violence. Asking, expecting or thinking only one act can be important IS violence. Only violence asks for instruction without inspiration. A violent person cannot be inspired. He can only be instructed. Arjuna is asking for a single instruction from Kṛṣṇa, he says, ‘Tell me clearly what is best for me?’ Arjuna’s pattern of asking for only a single best instruction is the pattern of violence. By asking for a clear instruction, he can hold Kṛṣṇa responsible for his own inauthenticity and escape the responsibility for his actions.

I want you to understand that asking for a single instruction itself is from the violence. And if the single instruction is given, that is encouraging your violence., only inspiration should be given. Before you take up any philosophy the first quality you should check for in that philosophy is this—how does it introduce yourself to you? If any religion gives you a manual, that religion is born from violence and will continue to flourish in violence. In the Bhagavad Gītā, you will rarely see Kṛṣṇa giving Arjuna instructions. All seven hundred verses are literally nectars of inspiration uttered out of Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa’s love and compassion. They are all inspiring, empowering and enriching.

Nowhere will you see instructions! You see, in the beginning of Gītā when Arjuna says, ‘Leave me, I am going and becoming Sannyāsi.’ Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa says, ‘No!’ He asks him to fight. Later, when Arjuna is asking, ‘Why should I act? How can I fight?’ Bhagavān tells him about Sannyāsa, how to become a Sannyāsi. Arjuna is supposed to fight, but he is being taught the knowledge of completion with Sāṅkhya Yoga! He is being taught to meditate with one full chapter for dhyāna yoga and he is being taught the different great aspects of Sannyāsa yoga! Karma-Sannyāsa Yoga! Jñānakarma-Sannyāsa Yoga! This is the beauty of Hinduism! No single instruction can work because the root pattern of asking for a single instruction is violence.

Why? Because we feel either we should be alive or the other person should be alive. The mentality of fighting and violence always excludes. The root of the problem should be solved. Anything that talks about one and only one solution is born out of survival instinct, never out of inspiration. What Arjuna leaves unsaid is, ‘What use is knowledge if it cannot be used in action?’ Arjuna is a kṣatriya, a warrior, not a brāhmin, a scholar or a philosopher. Philosophers can keep arguing for both sides of an issue, without bothering about any logic. They are only interested in advertising their so-called knowledge. But warriors are men of action.

They have no timetowasteinidletalk.So Arjuna says, ‘Cut out all this superficiality; tell me the truth as it is. Tell me what I should do.’ True to his conditioning, Arjuna is uncomfortable when he is not in action; when he has no clearly defined purpose and motivated instructions before him. Fulfillment in Purpose, an Illusion! Your whole life is purposeless, but again and again, you are conditioned to run towards something—whether it is in material life or spiritual life. Some goal is always put in front of you. The so-called goals in material life or spiritual life continuously make you feel you are not good enough. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 183 Just understand, whatever you think of as your purpose in life, whether it is money or relationships or name and fame, even if you have fulfillment in that dimension, you will not rest, you will not be complete!

Someone told me this, I believe a management consultant said it, ‘If you place a ladder somewhere and climb as fast as you can, you will quickly reach the top of the ladder. But unless the ladder is placed where you want, where you reach will be of no consequence!’ Climbing as fast as you can is efficiency. We all think we are very efficient. Placing the ladder where you want is effectiveness. Not all of us know where to place the ladder. So, the consultant says to focus on where to place the ladder. But I say even he is mistaken. It does not matter where you place the ladder as long as you enjoy the climb!

As long as your ‘why’ is with the right context, with completion as your root cognition, ‘what’ and ‘where’ does not matter. More than your actions, it is the space from which the actions are done, and the context and reason from which the actions are done that matter! The trouble is that we spend the entire climb obsessed with where we will reach and what we will do there. If we spend that time enjoying and being enriched by the journey, any destination we reach will be the right destination. The destination is not important; the journey is. The goal is not important; the process, the path is. We are always greedy for more.

We continuously pursue material goals. As a result, we never relax within ourselves. That is why even when we become old we are unable to relax. Have you seen a single man above seventy relaxing? People can never sit with themselves! If they have company, they will start talking about their golden past. If they don’t have company, they will watch television or read the same old newspaper, from the first line to the last with a big magnifying glass! They just can’t sit with themselves. A man who can’t sit with himself misses one of the major dimensions of his being. Continuously running, thinking there is some purpose to life, his whole being will be in a state of tension, conditioned to running out of compulsion, never out of completion.

Root thought pattern is nothing but this first social conditioning, this strong cognition which imbalances you from your purposeless space and gives birth to the mind, the idea that there is some purpose to life. Life has no purpose. Even if you achieve whatever you want, you can’t take it with you. You can’t carry even a single dollar when you leave. Nothing will come with you. There is no exchange offer. If you give fifty rupees in India, you will get one dollar in USA. But no matter how much money you give in this world, you cannot get a single rupee in heaven or anywhere else. No cheque will be useful.

None of your money can be carried over to the next world. The only currency that works everywhere in existence is completion. As of now, this material world appears four-dimensional and multi-colored as you enjoy it with all your senses. The moment you leave the body, the same world will appear black and white, one dimensional. When you are dreaming, your dream looks and feels very real. When you are awake, this worldaroundyoulookslikerealityandthedreamlooksdull.Butthereisno scale to determine the reality and the dream. People tell me, ‘But everyday when we enter a dream, we are not entering the same dream, Swamiji. Yet, everyday when we return to reality we are entering the same reality.

So with this scale we can tell the reality apart from the dream.’ Listen, in one night’s dream you can live even 20 years of life, am I right? Don’t you sometimes have such dreams where in one night’s dream you live 20 years of life? Then why can’t your dream be reality, because of its consistency? This whole life time span, which you think is reality, may be part of the dream! There is no scale to prove reality and the dream. When you leave the body, all you see now as multi-colour will become black and white. Nothing can be carried with you at the time of leaving the body.

You can’t cash your cheques! You can’t talk to your relatives. If you speak, they Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 185 will run away! Your car will not be useful to you anymore. When you are not able to take anything with you, what is the purpose of life then? The moment you accept the beauty of purposelessness, you will realize the meaning of living. Life Has No Purpose, Only Meaning Life has no purpose, but it has meaning. Purpose means goal orientation. You always think about the goal; you keep running and one day you just drop dead! The more goal-oriented you are, the more you will miss life and the more you will be incomplete.

Purpose is different from meaning. When I say ‘meaning’, living itself becomes meaningful. Come to this present moment of completion and the path itself is life; the path itself is meaningful. There is no such thing as, ‘in the end you will be happy.’ You always postpone joy and so you always postpone living. Life is lived in a very superficial way because you think life has a purpose. For the man who works just for his salary, only payday will be a beautiful day. He will be happy only on that day. He sells 29 days every month for that one day of happiness. I don’t say, ‘Don’t take your salary.’

But let it not be the only goal in your life. Let it not play a major role in your consciousness. That is what Kṛṣṇa means by these words: karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana (2.47)—you can do only your duty, you have no right to its fruit. If you think of the fruit, you will lose the joy of doing, living, enriching! The meaning of living is experienced only when you understand the beauty of purposelessness. This is a beautiful verse! It is the essence of the Gītā! Your Inner Space is the Space of Completion Two things you need to understand from this: One, He says, let your inner space not be contaminated by the purpose of life.

When I say inner space, I mean your mind and how you feel about yourself, about things and life inside you. When you close your eyes, what comes into your mind is your inner space. If your inner space is filled with the purposes of life, be very clear you are running behind something which will never give you completion. He says, ‘Let your inner space not be disturbed or filled with purposes or incompletions.’ By nature, your inner space is the space of completion, it is filled with energy; your inner space, what you refer to as ātman, spirit or soul, is filled with blissful energy. The more you empty yourself of goals or incompletions, the more the space for completion and bliss.

For example, this room is filled with space. The more furniture you put in it, the more space will leave this room. This room is not empty; no place is empty. It is filled with space. This room is filled with the energy of ether. The more furniture you bring in, the more ether will be pushed out; the lesser will be the ether energy. In the outer space, if you furnish your home, it will look very nice. But if you furnish your inner space, it will look very ugly. Completion straightaway gives you whatever you want and takes away whatever is not. The whole problem of humanity is what you want outside is not with you and what you don’t need inside in your inner space is with you.

You need to empty your inside, which is filled with unnecessary furniture. You need to have all the necessary things outside. Creating the inner space of completion with integrity and authenticity will immediately do that job. Completion will clear out all unnecessary things from your inner space. It will get you all that you need in the outer world. Don’t furnish your inner space. Let your inner space be empty. Of course then, it will never be empty. It will be filled with completion, pūrṇatva. It will be filled with bliss! The more complete inner space you create, the more blissful your life will be. That is what Kṛṣṇa means by saying, ‘Don’t be attached to results.’

If you continuously think about the result, you will never be able to perform your action with completion. You will always be goal-oriented and you will never enjoy and enrich the path of completion. Not enjoying and enriching the path is the worst hell you can be trapped in. Again and again Kṛṣṇa says, ‘paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 187 duṣkṛtām dharma saṁsthāpanārthāya saṁbhavāmi yuge-yuge (4.8).’ It means: I come down again and again to save the integrated and authentic, the complete and innocent people, and to destroy the evil-minded incomplete people. People ask me, ‘You say dharma (responsibility to enrich) is the only thingtobepracticedwithintegrityandauthenticity,butinourliveswesee people who are not living according to dharma, yet they are living more happily; they have more property, more wealth.

Why is that?’ Understand, they may have more property, they may have more things in the outer space, but never think they are happy in their inner space; never think they are blissful. When does someone not follow dharma? When he follows his ambition! Ambition causes you to go out of integrity and authenticity. Don’t think we go to hell because we commit sins. We commit sins because we are in hell. The very ambition is hell; there is no need for a separate hell. Don’t think we will reach a separate place called ‘hell’ at the end of our life. If you are complete and blissful, you will never disturb others.

If you are unhappy, naturally you will vomit that violence on others. The very ambition is punishment enough. Just because of their ambition, they miss authenticity in action, their whole life’s possibility. You can easily miss life’s possibility by having a purpose to Life. Unless your thinking itself becomes integrated to your positivity, unless your working itself becomes authentic to the peak of your possibility, unless your life itself becomes the responsibility to enrich yourself and others, unless that itself becomes completion and bliss, you cannot experience what Kṛṣṇa says in this verse: karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana (2.47). Purpose can be fulfilled, but through purpose, your life can never be fulfilled.

When you carry purposes in your life, you are not living; purposes are living through you, that’s all. In your childhood somebody gives you some purpose like, ‘You should become a lawyer or a doctor.’ You are given a purpose and that purpose is fulfilled through your life, but you will never feel fulfilled or complete. Never make the mistake of thinking that you will be fulfilled when your purpose is fulfilled. Your fulfillment is completely different from the fulfillmentofyourpurpose.Ifyouwanttoexperiencefulfillment,thespace of completion, you have to work in a totally different dimension of your life. If you want completion of your being, listen to what Kṛṣṇa says here. Kṛṣṇa’s Technique for Success in Inner-Outer Worlds Kṛṣṇa is the first and the last Master who declared the truth as it is.

There are two things to understand: Always, people who are active in the outer world know the techniques to achieve success in the outer world. People who are active in the inner world know the techniques to achieve success in the inner world. But Kṛṣṇa knows both! He is the only Master who is an enlightened man and a king as well. He knows how to achieve total success in the outer world and in the inner world. He shows you how to furnish your outer space with enriching, and how to keep your inner space empty with completion. That is life in totality. The entire Gītā is only about this one idea: how to furnish your outer space with the ultimate luxuries and how to keep your inner space in the ultimate bliss.

Kṛṣṇa is the only one who has produced a formula for inner space and outer space together. He teaches you how to keep your inner space in eternal bliss and keep your outer space in ultimate luxury at the same time. You can’t expect this from a Buddha because Buddha gave up the outer space. He lived with just three pieces of clothing and he lived the life of a monk. So he taught us how to remain simple and blissful. But Kṛṣṇa lived as a king. He wasn’t just like a king, he was a king. Only Kṛṣṇa can give a complete solution for practical spiritual living. Kṛṣṇa gives immediate solutions, permanent solutions, not long-term solutions.

Only Kṛṣṇa’s solution is useful for people who are living a regular lifestyle. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 189 Here He says, ‘Not merely by abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from action. Nor can fulfillment come by giving up action.’ You can’t achieve freedom from action by moving away from work. na karmanāṅ anārambhān naiṣkarmyaṁ puruṣo ‘śnute I na ca sannyasanād eva siddhiṁ samadhigacchati II 3.4 Every step in your life, anything you try to protect by hiding only becomes more and more powerlessness and more and more suffering. You move out of your life more and more. Moving away from your spouse, business partner, family or any of the forces that exist in your life is not an intelligent decision.

We always think moving away from people or actions to protect our habits and patterns is freedom. That is the biggest bondage! People who move away from life, work and people to save their pattern are in the worst bondage! Abstaining from work or moving away from work cannot give you freedom from action. It puts you in the biggest bondage. To have freedom from action, your inner space needs to be purified. Your inner space should become empty to allow the natural space of completion in you. You need to remove the furniture of incompletions from your complete inner space. Renouncing furniture in the outer world is not going to help you.

Only removing furniture from the inner world is going to enrich you. Please understand, whether you are hiding something inside you from life or trying to hide something outside you from life, your own incompletions will destroy you. You don’t need a separate punishment. Life is too powerful to cheat it with your logic. It functions with a simple, natural law of Existence, a natural dharma. The power of the natural law of Existence is such that nobody needs to teach you. By your very birth, if you start growing, you will get it! The inauthentic idea that life has a purpose should be renounced. Life is a possibility, not purpose.

That is why Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Just by renouncing, just by outer renunciation, authenticity in action, karma yoga can never be achieved.’ What is authenticity? Building your own identity to the peak possibility and renouncing the identity built on purpose. What do you want to become? Every one of you, deep down, has a fantasy about becoming all-powerful, all-knowing, sarvajña. So now build that peak inner image, project the peak outer image, and take the responsibility to fulfill others’ image of you. I tell you, authenticity in action is the strategy plan for your life. The quality of cunningness may be useful for a short time—a few days, a few years, a few lives, but not for all lives!

If you learn and develop the quality of authenticity in action, it is the strategy planning for life after life. Authenticity will help you identify your real enemy. Your real enemy is not the powerlessness you experience in moving away or running after a purpose; it is ignorance of your purposelessness! One more thing, if you renounce the outer world, you will think about the outer world even more. A small story: An Enlightened Master and his disciple were walking near a river. They were supposed to cross the river to go to their monastery (ashram). On the way, a young lady was standing near a river. She wanted to cross the river but was afraid to do so.

She asked the Master, ‘Master, can you help me cross this river?’ He said, ‘Why not? Please come.’ He just lifted her, crossed the river, left her on the other bank, and continued walking towards the ashram. The disciple was observing the whole scene. He was not able to digest what he saw. He was angry. Maybe he was jealous! After reaching the ashram he was not able to control himself and asked his master, ‘Master, you are a Sannyāsi Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 191 (monk). How can you touch a woman, that too a young woman, and carry her through the river?’ The Master turned, smiled at him and said, ‘I left her long ago.

Why are you still carrying her?’ Please understand, renouncing your identity in the inner space, or emptying your inner space and creating the space of completion and creation is the real thing to be achieved. That is yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam, authenticity in action! That is what Kṛṣṇa says here. Once you have renounced in the inner space, it doesn’t matter what you do in the outer world. Nothing will touch you. To Act Is Human Nature

3.5

न हि कश्चित्क्षणमपि जातु तिष्ठत्यकर्मकृत् | कार्यते ह्यवश: कर्म सर्व: प्रकृतिजैर्गुणै:

na hi kaścitkṣaṇamapi jātu tiṣṭhatyakarmakṛt / kāryate hyavaśaḥ karma sarvaḥ prakṛtijairguṇaiḥ / / 3.5

Surely, not even for a moment can anyone stand without doing something. He is always in action, despite himself, as this is his very nature.

na — not · hi — surely · kaścit — anyone · kṣaṇam — for a moment · api — also · jātu — even · tiṣṭhati — stands · akarmakṛt — without doing something · kāryate — forced to work · hi — surely · avaśaḥ — helplessly · karma — action · sarvaḥ — all · prakṛtijaih — of the modes of material nature · guṇaiḥ — by the attributes

3.6

कर्मेन्द्रियाणि संयम्य य आस्ते मनसा स्मरन् | इन्द्रियार्थान्विमूढात्मा मिथ्याचार: स उच्यते

karmendriyāṇi saṁyamya ya āste manasā smaran / indriyārthānvimūḍhātmā mithyācāraḥ sa ucyate / / 3.6

He who restrains the sense organs, but who still thinks of the objects of the senses is deluded and is called a hypocrite.

karmendriyāṇi — the five working sense organs · saṁyamya — restraining · ya — who · āste — remains · manasā — mentally · smaran — recollecting · indriyārthān — objects of the senses · vimūḍha — foolish · atma — soul · mithyācāraḥ — hypocrite · saḥ — he · ucyate — is called

3.7

यस्त्विन्द्रियाणि मनसा नियम्यारभतेऽर्जुन | कर्मेन्द्रियै: कर्मयोगमसक्त: स विशिष्यते

yastvindriyāṇi manasā niyamyārabhate ’rjuna / karmendriyaiḥ karmayogamasaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate / / 3.7

He who begins controlling the senses by the mind and performs selfless work through the sense organs is superior, O Arjuna.

yaḥ — who · tu — but · indriyāṇi — senses · manasā — by the mind · niyamya — con- trolling · ārabhate — begins · arjuna — O Arjuna · karmendriyaiḥ — by the active sense organs · karmayogam — work of devotion · asaktaḥ — without attachment · saḥ — he · viśiṣyate — superior

3.8

नियतं कुरु कर्म त्वं कर्म ज्यायो ह्यकर्मण: | शरीरयात्रापि च ते न प्रसिद्ध्येदकर्मण:

niyataṁ kuru karma tvaṁ karma jyāyo hyakarmaṇaḥ / śarīrayātrāpi ca te na prasiddhyedakarmaṇaḥ / / 3.8

Do your prescribed work, as doing work is better than being idle. Even your own body cannot be maintained without work.

niyataṁ — prescribed · kuru — do · karma — work · tvaṁ — you · karma — work · jyāyaḥ — better · hi — than · akarmaṇaḥ — without work · śarīra — body · yātrā — maintenance · api — even · ca — also · te — your · na — never · prasiddhyet — possible · akarmaṇaḥ — without work

Usually people ask, ‘Swamiji, you say that life is purposeless. Then I may as well just lie down and relax. Who will give me food? Who will pay my bills?’ Let me tell you, you can never lie down forever. You may lie down for the next four or five days or for a week at the most, because you always go to the extreme, like a pendulum. After that, you will not be able to lie down. By your very nature you will start doing some work. When I say life is purposeless, I am not asking you to just lie down and relax in your house. All I am saying is, ‘Let your body and mind work without disturbing your inner space of completion.

You don’t have to sell your inner space to enjoy the outer place. You don’t have to sell your inner bliss to have outer comforts.’ Here, Kṛṣṇa assures you, ‘By your very nature, your body and mind will work. If you just keep quiet, it is enough.’ Somebody asked me, ‘Swamiji, how should I train my mind to do the right thing?’ I told him, ‘Just keep quiet. Automatically your body and mind will do the right Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 193 thing. If you just get out of your system, it is enough, the Divine will get in.’ All we need to do is just get out for the Divine to enter.

‘By nature,’ He says, ‘sarvaḥ prakṛti-jair-guṇaiḥ—by their very nature your body and mind know the right thing to do.’ The problem is that you never trust your body and mind. You always trust your ego and it finally dumps you! Yet you never trust your body and mind. Be very clear, your body and mind will do their work. All you need to do is keep quiet and relax from your ego. Don’t think your inner space is needed for outer work. The person who understands what nitya (eternal) is, and what anitya (ephemeral) is relaxes into Existence and is always in eternal consciousness. He always resides in nitya ānanda—eternal bliss!

Karma Yogi Works with Courage of Authenticity Śrī Kṛṣṇa says, ‘A karma yogi, one who lives the path of authenticity in action, is a man who relaxes into nitya ānanda and does his work from the space of completion.’ Just relax into your inner space and be complete, you will automatically be guided. You always think, ‘If I relax mentally thinking life is purposeless, how will I know what is right and what is wrong? How will I finish my work on time?’ When you worry about what is right and what is wrong, you will not make small mistakes, you will commit big blunders. The person who doesn’t worry may make small mistakes.

But the person who continuously worries will never make small mistakes; he will commit big blunders. And to take this leap of faith needs the courage of authenticity. Even if you make one or two mistakes, what is wrong? Taking the risk and jumping into the space of completion, and living without worry and self-doubt is what I call courage of authenticity, the courage to enter spiritual life. When you take the jump, you will naturally make some small mistakes. Don’t worry about them. Putting up with that mistake is what I call penance, tapas. Penance is nothing but accepting and completing with the small mistakes you make and restoring your integrity and authenticity when the conscious transition happens in your being.

When you move from worry to bliss, when you move from falsehood to truth, when you move from incompletion to completion, you will make a few mistakes. You will fall and rise just like a baby learning to walk. When babies learn to walk, they always fall the first few times. But just because of that, can you say they should never walk? Even if they make one or two small mistakes, they have to stand up and start walking. Those small mistakes of falling and trying to stand up are the penance done to learn how to walk. In the same way, when you start trying to live with integrity and authenticity without the root patterns, initially you may commit mistakes.

Butdon’tworryaboutthat.Thatispenance.Havecourageofauthenticityand just enter the space of completion. Enter the space of eternal consciousness. Decide consciously, ‘From today onwards, I will live without worry and incompletions. I complete with all my worries and incompletions.’ Life is too short to be spent worrying about your incompletions. Don’t bother about the goals—just drop them. The moment you understand the beauty of purposelessness, all the wounds you have created in your inner space will be healed. You will fall into the comfort of Eternal Bliss. A man who keeps his senses under control but who is not able to keep his inner space under control by completing with his patterns related to senses is called a hypocrite, indriyārthān vimūḍhātmā mithyācāraḥ sa ucyate (3.6), says Kṛṣṇa.

Please listen, the quality of your life will be judged only based on the quality of your inner space, not the quality of your outer space. When you leave your body and enter your next life, nobody is going to keep a count of the car you drove, of the house you lived in or your bank balance. These details will not come with you. How you lived and the quality of your inner space is what will carry forward with you. That is why the scriptures state, ‘You are going to carry with you only the saṃskāra (root thought patterns), the karma (unfulfilled desires) and the Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 195 vāsana (mindset) of your inner space—not the outer space.’

A beautiful story from Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahamsa. A monk was living in a temple, preaching the glory of the Lord. Opposite to his dwelling lived a prostitute who was busy all day long. She was deeply devoted to the Lord. No matter what her business was, she was immersed in the silent contemplation of His glory. Everyday, this monk would notice everyone who entered the prostitute’s house. He maintained a complete diary of who came and who left because he had no other work. But the prostitute lived in a different way. She thought, ‘My life, my natural duty is this. This has been given to me in this life.

I don’t know any other profession. But please save me, O Lord! Let my mind and heart always be at Your feet.’ She was deeply devoted to Kṛṣṇa. Her inner space was filled with Divine love and His name. Life went on. After many years, suddenly, both the monk and the prostitute died on the same day. Both of them reached Yama Dharma’s (Lord of death) court for judgment. First, the prostitute came in. Yama Dharma saw her list of sins and merits and said, ‘Alright! Don’t worry. You lived all your life thinking of the Divine, so you can go to heaven.’ She was sent to heaven. It was then the turn of the monk.

The moment the monk arrived, Yama Dharma said, ‘This is your list of sins and merits. Throughout your life you thought about the wrong things, so you must go to hell.’ The monk started shouting, ‘How dare you send me to hell!’ He was a professional preacher, so he knew how to shout! He started shouting, ‘I will sue you.’ Yama Dharma said, ‘Please relax. Up here in heaven we don’t bother about what you do in life; we bother about how you live. Through your body you lived a pure life. Look at planet Earth and see how your body is being honored.’ There the monk saw that his body was being honored like that of a celebrity; people were falling at the feet of his body.

Big garlands and grand worship was being offered. Yama continued, ‘Through your body you lived a pure life and your body is now getting the rewards. But through your mind you lived an impure life so you have to go to hell.’ Yama continued, ‘Similarly, she lived an impure life through the body. Look at her body.’ Because she was a prostitute, there was no one to do the last rites. The scavengers came and dragged the body and dumped it somewhere. Yama concludes, ‘See! Through the body she lived an impure life. Her body is suffering. But through the mind she lived a pure life, a divine life. She is therefore going to the Divine.’

It is important how you live in your inner space; whether your inner space is established in completion or incompletion, only that matters. Master Your Senses Please be very clear, again and again Kṛṣṇa declares: karmendriyāṇi saṁyamya ya āste manasā smaran I indriyārthān vimūḍhātmā mithyācāraḥ sa ucyate II 3.6 If you can’t create completion in your inner space, even if you control your body or your senses, you are just a hypocrite. Your life will not be a complete, blissful life. Not only will it not be a spiritual life, it will not even be life! The meaning of living is bliss, but there is no purpose. The more you think about purposes, the more worries you will create; the more will Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 197 you try to squeeze the most out of life.

But life is much more intelligent than you. When you try to squeeze the maximum out of life, it just slips through your fingers. Life is like a river. If you place your hands in the river and keep them open, the river will always be there in your hands. But if you try to hold it, you will have only empty hands! If you just allow it to happen it will continuously flow through you. The moment you try to possess it, you will have only empty hands. You will not be able to have life itself. The moment you experience, in your inner space, that nothing is going to be with you permanently, a deep healing, a breeze enters your consciousness.

Your whole inner space is healed. You have so many wounds of incompletions in your inner space. Wounds created by your incomplete desires, by your failures, and by your near and dear ones. All these wounds will be healed with this one medicine. This one understanding that life is purposeless, that whatever you achieve is just nothing, and that nothing is going to be with you, is enough. A small story: Alexander, who committed so many murders, can never be called ‘the Great.’ Please be very clear: never teach your kids that Alexander is great. You are inspiring them to commit murders! Unconsciously, you are putting all these ideas into their heads.

Of course, fortunately or unfortunately, he met an enlightened Master in India. Somehow, his teacher in Greece gave him the idea, ‘Bring one Enlightened Master and the Vedas from India, and I will change the whole society.’ So, Alexander decided he would take at least one enlightened person from India. He invited him to his country. The Master just laughed and said, ‘No, no! I don’t want to come anywhere. I am happy here.’ Alexander said, ‘No! Please come with me. I will give you a big palace and all the comforts. Here you are living like a beggar without clothes or food.’ The Master just laughed and said, ‘No.

I am quite happy here, I don’t want to come.’ You know the next step a king will take. First, he tried to entice him. When it did not work out, the next step, he tried the fear factor. He simply took out his sword, pointed it at the Master and said, ‘If you are not ready to come, you will be killed.’ Faced with the naked sword, the master just laughed. Laughing now is very easy, but laughing when faced with a naked sword is very difficult, especially when the person who is holding the sword is a king— if he kills nobody will even question him. Butinfrontofthenakedsword,theMasterlaughedandsaid, ‘Fool!

You are a liar.’ He straightaway looked into the eyes of Alexander and said, ‘Fool! You are a liar.’ For the first time Alexander was shaken. He asked the Master, ‘Are you not afraid?’ The Master replied, ‘Afraid of what? You can never kill me. You may destroy this body, but you cannot kill me.’ That is the courage of authenticity and the confidence of integrity gained by the spiritual experience of completion as we study in Sāṅkhya Yogaḥ: nai ’naṁ chindanti śastrāṇi nai ’naṁ dahati pāvakaḥ I na cai ’naṁ kledayantyāpo na śoṣayati mārutaḥ II 2.23 It means: ātman or the soul cannot be killed or destroyed; it cannot be burned.

This had become an experience for the Master. That is why he had such courage and confidence. He just laughed. Slowly, Alexander started thinking, ‘If he can laugh in front of my naked sword, how courageous he must be!’ For the first time he was shaken, because he had never seen Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 199 anybody who could laugh in front of a naked sword, in the face of death. Even he was afraid. Listen. All the so-called great warriors are cowards. They kill others before they are killed, that’s all. They live in constant fear of death. Alexander was totally shaken and shocked to see the courage of this Master.

He asked him, ‘Please tell me something. How are you so courageous, so bold?’ The Master asked him in return, ‘Tell me, why did you come to India?’ Alexander replied, ‘To conquer India.’ The Master continued, ‘After that, what are you going to do?’ Alexander replied confidently, ‘I will conquer the next country.’ The Master again asked, ‘After that, what are you going to do?’ Alexander continued, ‘I will conquer the next country.’ The Master persisted, ‘And after that?’ Alexander replied as if the answer was obvious, ‘I will conquer the whole world.’The Master questioned further, ‘After that?’ Alexander replied, ‘I will relax and enjoy.’ The Master said, ‘Fool! Don’t you see, that is what I am doing now in front of your eyes?

Why do you need to go around and conquer the whole world to relax and enjoy?’ Only a man who has understood the impermanence of life can relax and surrender totally even in the face of death. The Master gave a glimpse of the Truth to Alexander. That is why Alexander said to his ministers, ‘After my death, during the funeral procession, please let both my hands hang out of the coffin, visible to all. Let people know that even the great Alexander could not carry anything with him’. A beautiful story! You need to understand three things. The first thing is the courage of authenticity, the space of possibility and confidence of integrity, the space of positivity radiated by an enlightened person, the one established in space of completion.

The next thing is the purposelessness of our running. Why was Alexander running? To relax and enjoy, to be complete in the Self. This Master was already doing the same thing! The third thing is that we are not going to carry anything with us when we leave. Even if the whole world worships you as a king, you cannot carry that with you! You have to go empty handed. Never think that having comforts in the outer world will give you inner completion. All developed countries are filled with depression. They have the best roads, the best infrastructure, but their people are depressed. Never think outer space will give you inner space.

If you want inner space, you need to work towards creating it. You need to understand the science of completion and the creation of inner space. Science of Creating the Right Inner Space Here, Kṛṣṇa is giving you the science of creating the right inner space. Let us see how we work, or how our mind moves. This graph represents your being. Material life is the horizontal line and spiritual life is the vertical line. You continuously worry about whether to choose the horizontal line or the vertical line; whether to go on this (horizontal) path, or that (vertical) path. You are always stuck somewhere on the horizontal line or somewhere on the vertical line.

You try to move but you are always caught in the dilemma of whether to go this way or that way. Mind is nothing but dilemma. Whaever you choose, whether material life or spiritual life, you will always feel you are missing the other part. You will continously feel you are missing something. As long as you think you are the mind, as long as you live with the mind, you will have this problem of material life verses spiritual life. Material Life Spiritual Life Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 201 Just like people have goals in material life, they have goals in spiritual life too. There are so many people who say, ‘I should meditate for seven hours daily.

I should become enlightened. I should become that, I should do this.’ Please listen, goals in material life and in spiritual life; both drive you mad. If you want to become mad, continuously think of some goal. But if you can just withdraw into your being, you will just forget about the goal. And you can still work. By withdrawing into your being, you stop trying to locate a purpose somewhere all the time and running towards it. The man who runs behind the material goals, will always feel he is missing the spiritual goal. That is why all rich communities invariably follow spiritual masters. They carry a deep guilt and fear that they are missing spirituality.

The person who travels along the horizontal line feels he is missing the spiritual life and the person who travels along the vertical line feels he is missing the material life. Both are trying to fulfill each other cerebrally. The materialist fulfills the spiritualist’s ideal and the spiritualist fulfills the materialist’s ideal. The man who realizes the purposelessness of both these goals, the purposelessness of the running, just falls back into his being. When you realize that whatever you consider the purpose or goal of your life is ultimately meaningless, the very moment you realize this and the glamour is gone, that very moment the need for perspiration is also gone; you stop running.

Mind you, it is not inspiration; it is just perspiration that you give up! The moment all respect for the purpose is gone from your life, you will simply fall into your being. One important thing: The moment you fall into your being, you explode! Not only do you start flowing in the direction of both horizontal and vertical lines, but you also explode in 360 degrees in all dimensions. Whatever you can imagine and whatever you can’t even imagine will start happening. Only then do you become a truly multi-dimensional being. A man who has fallen into his being, one who has dropped goals, who has tasted the beauty of purposelessness of Existence, who has realized the space of completion, who has fallen into his being, explodes in 360 degrees, in all dimensions.

He simply radiates completion in all directions! The space of completion or incompletion, purposelessness or purposefulness does not work horizontally, logically. It works vertically and explodes in all dimensions. A man who is in the space of incompletion can fall vertically down. A man in the space of completion flies vertically up. He starts experiencing the ultimate bliss of spiritual life and the ultimate happiness of material life and something more! Only he enters into eternal bliss or Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Travel with completion or incompletion is not horizontal, it is vertical. Whether you fall vertically down or fly vertically up, your idea of horizontal or linear traveling is wrong! As long as you are caught up with material goals or spiritual goals, you travel only in one horizontal direction of incompletion, because you think you are body or mind.

Sometimes people tell me, ‘I don’t want spiritual life. I don’t want these four tattvas, life principles.’ It is like saying, ‘I don’t want to breathe. I don’t want blood circulation.’ You need to understand that there is no such thing as spiritual life and normal life. Life has no purpose. Life is Life! The more you are caught up with purposes, the more you think you are the body or the mind. When you realize the purposelessness of it all, you will straightaway fall into the depths of your being. Actually, to become complete and enlightened, you don’t need the whole Gītā. This single verse is enough to make an individual enlightened.

Then why am I talking about all the verses? It is only because there are so many different kinds of individuals. Bring Completion and Become One If you can, just look into yourself and understand this one verse for your self. Whenever I speak, understand that I am speaking to you. Don’t prepare notes in your mind to go and repeat it to somebody else. When you do this, you are sure to miss the experience yourself! Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 203 Just allow this one idea to work on you: the truth of the purposelessness of life. You can just close your eyes and think, contemplate for two or three minutes: ‘What is really the purpose of my life?

Why am I doing what I am doing? Where am I going? What is happening?’ Many times you do not even know what you want to achieve in life; what the purpose of life is. It is just because of incompletions. See, it is like each part of your incompletion claims, ‘I am you!’ For example, if your name is Sundar, each part of the broken you claims, ‘I am Sundar!’ ‘I am Sundar!’ and who screams loudly, he thinks he is Sundar. And one of the worst things is one part of you spends so much of energy to disprove that the other part is not you. So finally, whoever wins, whoever loses, who is the loser?

You! One part of you winning is not you winning. Even if one part of you wins, you are the loser! Unless your whole wins, you are a loser! Understand, each part of you screaming that that part is you finally lands you in deep confusion. Unless you heal yourself and bring yourself to purposelessness, unless you align yourself as one being, life doesn’t start for you! Only with deep completion you even become one being. The purpose of all great spiritual practices is for you to become ONE; for you to be complete, integrated! If your inner eye opens, if your inner space experiences the beauty of purposelessness, that is enough to experience the space of completion.

You will fall into your being. As of now, you can experience neither material life nor spiritual life because when you are here, you are looking there and when you are there, you are looking here. When you don’t have integrity, the life you want to have around you will change hour by hour. In the morning you will have one idea of a certain kind of life, at noon you will have a different idea and the next morning you will have some other idea. With lack of integrity, there is such a huge confusion. Your mind is not where your body is. You are not living inside your boundary.

The grass on the other side of the river always looks greener. Something else is always calling you. Only when you align yourself to integrity, you will experience the beauty of purposelessness, only then will you be able to understand what Kṛṣṇa says throughout Karma Yoga. When you bring integrity into your thinking, you become aware of every anxiety you go through, every fear you go through; you see how you are responsible for creating negativity in your life, and you also see how you can align yourself with yourself, and the world can just align itself with you. When you are one being, the reality you want, the reality you need and the highest Reality, all three become one and the same.

Relax! This one idea can transform your whole way of thinking with integrity, working with authenticity, and living with responsibility. When you understand there is no purpose of life, you will start enriching and enjoying every single moment; you will start living intensely in every single inch of your body. Every moment will become meaningful. When you think that life as a whole has a purpose, the individual moment will lose its meaning. If you think one month of your working time is worth 50 thousand dollars, you will judge the value of that one month as being only 50 thousand dollars. Suddenly, if someone says, ‘I will give you 50 million dollars, give me your life,’ will you be able to give him your life?

No! But, this is the way you are calculating and working! We are ready to sell our mind, our moments, our inner space by calculating the value of our lives. You forget the work itself or living itself. If you think the whole has a purpose, then the part loses its meaning. When you realize that the whole has no purpose, the part will become meaningful. Your very living, every day itself, will become very beautiful. Your life every day, your living, your sitting, your walking, your standing, everything will become a joyful, complete experience.That is why they say Sat-Cit-Ānanda, which means ‘the bliss of the very Existence.’ Your very existence is blissful.

You don’t have to think that at the end of your life you will have bliss. Your very Existence is blissful. The meaning of existence is bliss, eternal bliss, Nityānanda. But you need to take steps towards that bliss. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 205 Do Work with Devotion, Drop Expectation By nature, man has to work. The senses have to be engaged in some action. Even if you try and control them and do nothing externally, the very act of restraint is an action in itself. Kṛṣṇa says very beautifully, ‘By nature, the senses are tuned to be extrovert.’ ‘Extrovert’ is not something negative. Extrovert senses will always be alive, creative, active and contributing.

All great creative persons took the responsibility for their extrovert senses. If you want to be wealthy, have the company of wealthy people, or make the people in your company wealthy! If you want to be spiritual, have the company of spiritual people, or make the people in your company spiritual. There is no other way. Intranalyze what I am saying. To experience the reality of your choice in your life, you should first work to transform and enrich the reality of others around you. Kṛṣṇa says, your senses, by nature are programmed to go out! You are programmed to work, to go out. Going out can happen only in two ways: either to enrich or to swindle!

Surely, swindling others is not going to transform you. Only enriching others is going to transform you. The choice is really about how to work. Here, Kṛṣṇa gives the answer to that. He says that we should perform work with devotion with authenticity in our actions, only to enrich, and without attachment to the results, karmendriyaiḥ karma-yogam asaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate (3.7). Work without unnecessarily being bothered about whether or not it will fetch the results that you expect. When we work, our thoughts are on the future, we are not in the present moment. Am I right? Then how can we perform to our fullest potential? How can I say that I am doing my work with full devotion if my mind is not totally merged with the task at hand?

It’s not possible. When do you get worried or afraid? It is when you have an expected result, when there is an unwritten expectation, an unconscious desire to achieve something as the result of an action. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Drop the very desire and drop the very expectation.’ We wonder, ‘How can we function if we drop expectations?’ I am not saying you should not plan and or you should do something without thinking. I am saying, ‘Plan, but plan chronologically, not psychologically.’ You see, there are two things: chronological planning and psychological planning. Chronological planning is planning on a timescale. You decide you to get up at a particular time, finish the list of tasks you planned at the office by a certain time, and so on.

This is a practical way to organize your work in a way that it can give the best results. This is fine. But what do we do? We don’t stop at this. We review the plan in our head over and over again, thinking in different ways, internally preparingforeventualities,expectingresultsfromourplanevenbeforethe action. We keep supposing, ‘What if this happens? What if that happens?’ Psychological planning boosts your ego, your root pattern. It makes you feel great and worthy. It makes you stay serious and feel that you are handling great things. It is very unfortunate, but we carry a strong pattern that we should be ready to accept failure, because failure is a part of life.

Then you are constantlygivingacommitmenttoyouthatthereisgoingtobefailure.You always internally prepare yourself for failure. When you prepare, you usually remind yourself of the worst possibilities and then prepare tools and weapons to handle it. In the name of contingency planning, we just worry and give a commitment to failure. Instead, if we apply our awareness to the problem with integrity in thinking and authenticity in action, the solution will be visible. But we complicate the whole process. We get worked up about contingency situations and introduce a complex negativity in the whole thinking process. It is the power of completion that empowers you to face the worst eventualities. Preparation for the worst eventualities mentally strengthens your belief in failure.

Are you successful in handling any eventualities by preparation? So, from today, decide, you will not mentally prepare yourself for the worst eventualities. You will spend all your energy removing the weed of the worst eventuality from your inner space. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 207 Nowhaveawarenessinside.Youhaveneverhandledtheworstpossibilities because of preparation. You always handled the worst possibilities because of your completion! If you are in the space of completion, you face the worst possibilities in completion and win! Kṛṣṇa says, ‘One who does devotional work with authenticity, without attachment, and controlling the senses—yas tv indriyāṇi manasā niyamyārabhate arjuna, is superior to one who merely pretends to be in control of his senses and acts in renunciation, karmendriyaiḥ karmayogam asaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate (3.7).’

There are intellectual type of people, the philosophers, well versed in the scriptures, who look down upon the devotional and emotional practitioners! Intellectuals believe that their dry understanding of the non-duality of the Self is superior to that of those who fall at the feet of the Divine. Kṛṣṇa firmly says, ‘No, it is not so!’ Kṛṣṇa says that what makes the difference is your space of completion that brings lack of expectations of either failure or success, the sense of purposelessness that defines your state. Listen, listen! The senses are extrovert, flowing naturally. By nature, they function towards achieving, purposelessly. It means that you are programmed by nature to be successful.

The natural programming is for you to be successful. Lack of integrity allows the poison of preparing for failure, for the worst eventualities to grow in your system. The first thing a human being needs to do is weed out all worst possibilities. Sannyāsa, renunciation, is a state, not a label. The state of renunciation is not a state of doing nothing. You can never sit without doing anything. Even if you sit still in one place, you are sitting, you are breathing, is it not? The internal functions in your body are happening. Maintaining this very body requires that work be done. The breath that you take in carries prāna, the life energy that sustains you.

So, you cannot say you are not doing anything. You may think it is better not to do any work rather than to analyze what work you should do, how to do it, whether it will suit you etc. You can take this as an excuse for laziness, for your tamas. Tamas means laziness, lethargy. When Kṛṣṇa says, ‘I am not the doer, it is just the senses performing the actions according to their nature,’ you say, ‘Why should I even bother to do anything? ‘ Be very clear, by your very nature, you will act. Your body and mind are by nature, forced and programmed to do something. Just try to sit with a completely blank mind, with no mental activity.

Just relax and try this simple exercise. You will initially try not to think about anything and try to be aware if any thought comes to your mind. But, after a few moments, you will find yourself having some random thoughts, about something from the past or the future. By nature, your mind will think about something or the other. If you try to force silence upon your mind, you will be forcing a dead silence, the silence of suppression. How long can you sustain that? The moment you drop your guard, your mind will express its nature and start wandering. So, neither expression nor suppression is the solution. Only completion is the solution.

It is better to—complete with yourself to bring integrity to the nature of the senses and the mind, and be engaged with authenticity in action, with a sense of devotion to enrich others and yourself. Be aware that when you are in action, it is the senses acting. Then you will not get attached to the action or its result. Then you are free; you are liberated from the bondage of action. Action binds you only when you consider yourself ‘the doer’ and have expectations about things being a certain way. Selfless Enriching Liberates

3.9

यज्ञार्थात्कर्मणोऽन्यत्र लोकोऽयं कर्मबन्धन: | तदर्थं कर्म कौन्तेय मुक्तसङ्ग: समाचर

yajñārthātkarmaṇo’nyatra loko’yam karmabandhanaḥ / tadarthaṁ karma kaunteya mukta saṅgaḥ samācara / / 3.9

Work has to be performed selflessly; otherwise, work binds one to this world. O son of Kuntī, perform your work for Me and you will do it authentically, liberated and without attachment.

yajñārthāt — sacrifice for · karmaṇaḥ — work done · anyatra — other- wise · lokaḥ — world · ayaṁ — this · karma bandhanaḥ — bondage by work · tad — that · arthaṁ — for · karma — work · kaunteya — O son of Kuntī · mukta — liberated · saṅgaḥ — attachment · samācara — do perfectly

3.10

सहयज्ञा: प्रजा: सृष्ट्वा पुरोवाच प्रजापति: | अनेन प्रसविष्यध्वमेष वोऽस्त्विष्टकामधुक्

sahayajñāḥ prajāḥ sṛṣṭvā puro’vāca prajāpatiḥ / anena prasaviṣyadhvameṣa vo’stviṣṭakāmadhuk / / 3.10

Brahma, the lord of creation before creating human kind as selfless sacrifice said, ‘By this selfless enriching, be more and more prosperous and let it bestow all the desired gifts.’

sah — along with · yajñāḥ — sacrifices · prajāḥ — people · sṛṣṭvā — creating · purā — before · uvāca — said · prajāpatiḥ — the lord of creation · anena — by this · prasaviṣyadhvaṁ — be more and more prosperous · eṣaḥ — certainly · vaḥ — your · astu — let it be · iṣṭa — desired · kāma dhuk — bestower of gifts

3.11

देवान्भावयतानेन ते देवा भावयन्तु व: | परस्परं भावयन्त: श्रेय: परमवाप्स्यथ

devān bhāvayatā’nena te devā bhāvayantu vaḥ / parasparaṁ bhāvayantaḥ śreyaḥ paramavāpsyatha / / 3.11

The celestial beings, being pleased by this sacrifice, will also nourish you; with this mutual nourishing of one another, you will achieve supreme prosperity.

devān — celestial beings · bhāvayata — having pleased · anena — by this sacrifice · te — those · devāḥ — demigods · bhāvayantu — will please · vaḥ — you · parasparaṁ — mu- tual · bhāvayantaḥ — pleasing one another · śreyaḥ — prosperity · paraṁ — supreme · avāpsyatha — achieve

3.12

इष्टान्भोगान्हि वो देवा दास्यन्ते यज्ञभाविता: | तैर्दत्तानप्रदायैभ्यो यो भुङ्क्ते स्तेन एव स:

iṣṭānbhogān hi vo devā dāsyante yajñabhāvitāḥ / tairdattānapradāyaibhyo yo bhuṅkte stena eva saḥ / / 3.12

Satisfied with the selfless enriching service, the celestial beings certainly award you the desired necessities of life. He who enjoys the things given by them without offering to the celestial beings is certainly a thief.

iṣṭān — desired · bhogān — necessities of life · hi — certainly · vaḥ — to you · devāḥ — demigods · dāsyante — award · yajña — sacrifice · bhāvitāḥ — satisfied · taiḥ — by them · dattān — things given · apradāya — without offering · ebhyaḥ — to the celestial beings · yaḥ — who · bhuṅkte — enjoys · stenaḥ — thief · eva — certainly · saḥ — he

3.13

यज्ञशिष्टाशिन: सन्तो मुच्यन्ते सर्वकिल्बिषै: | भुञ्जते ते त्वघं पापा ये पचन्त्यात्मकारणात्

yajñaśiṣṭāśinaḥ santo mucyante sarvakilbiṣaiḥ / bhuñjate te tvaghaṁ pāpā ye pacantyātmakāraṇāt / / 3.13

Those who eat food after selfless enriching service are free of all sins. Those who prepare food for sense enjoyment do grievous sin.

yajñaśiṣṭāśinaḥ — those who eat the food remnants of sacrifice · santaḥ — devo- tees · mucyante — get relief from · sarva — all · kilbiṣaiḥ — sins · bhuñjate — enjoy · te — they · tu — but · aghaṁ — grievous · pāpāḥ — sins · ye — those · pacanti — prepare food · ātmakāraṇāt — for sense enjoyment

There are two techniques by which one can liberate oneself from attachment to work. One is by telling oneself, ‘I am not the doer.’ By continuously reminding yourself that it is the senses and not you who is doing something, you distance yourself from the action. This is what Kṛṣṇa explains in the previous verses. The other way is by surrendering the fruits of one’s work to the Divine to the ultimate life force that is conducting this Universe. This is the technique that Kṛṣṇa talks about here. Bhagavān says, ‘O Kaunteya, perform your work for Me and you will do it with authenticity, liberated and without attachment, tad-arthaṁ karma kaunteya mukta-saṅgaḥ samācara (3.9).’

When you do work as a sincere, humble offering to the Divine, the very attitude of this surrender will make you do the job authentically to your peak capability and you will be liberated. When you are excessively bothered about the results, you actually think you are the doer of the action! That is why you get attached to the work and its results. This is when you start getting stressed and tensed about results. Naturally, when you are tensed, you are not performing at your maximum efficiency because so much of your valuable energy is getting wasted in being tense. How will you then be able to get your job properly done?

I always tell people, ‘When you are afraid to make small mistakes and are overcautious, you end up making big blunders.’ You waste your entire life trying to avoid making mistakes and attempting to be perfect, and your life becomes a blunder. This doesn’t mean you can be careless about your work. I am only sayingthatyoushouldhavethecourageofauthenticitytomakemistakesand learn to not give up on yourself. Only when you make mistakes can you learn from them and complete with your unconscious inauthenticies. Only then haveyoubeenexposedtoyourinauthenticityandseenbothsidesofthecoin. Then, with experience, when you have learnt from the mistake and stood up powerfully with completion, you will have the cognition of both sides. Otherwise,justatthecrucialtime,yourinauthenticitiesthathavebeenhiding from you will make you commit mistakes and you will powerlessly give up on yourself.

You can have this courage of authenticity only when you are not attached to the ownership of tasks and results. When you see that Existence is purposeless and you are living in the loving, caring arms of Existence, you will relax and surrender to that very Existence. When you are in this relaxed mood, you can function at your best and enjoy every moment of life without feeling like the doer and therefore not worrying about making small mistakes. Real surrender happens when this understanding becomes your experience. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 211 Surrender—The Ultimate Relaxation Utmost integrity and authenticity is enough for surrender. Nothing else is needed. Surrender has a tremendous power, a tremendous energy.

Whether you surrender to an idol or to a person or to your Guru, or even a rock, is not important. What is important is surrender itself. Vivekananda says beautifully: ‘When you pray to God, your prayers actually awaken your own inner potential and it showers blessings on you.’ Even if you see logically, surrender helps you to simply relax. When you are relaxed, you can work beautifully, with intelligence, rather than with your pre-programmed intellect. A small story: There was once a bank cashier who used to take all the cash home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning. He had done this for a month and could not do it anymore.

He found himself trembling all the way while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with all the money in his custody. He finally asked his boss to relieve him of the job since he could not bear the stress any longer. His boss told him that even if the money were to be lost, he would not be blamed and he could continue with his job. The cashier slept peacefully from that day onwards. What was the difference in him? He was doing the same job, but why was the fear and tension not there anymore? It was because the responsibility had been shifted to a higher authority, that’s all.

This is surrender! Do your work with authenticity and responsibility to enrich others and yourself, surrendering the responsibility of the results to Existence. Understand, Existence loves you and understands you better than you understand yourself. See the example of Arjuna; Kṛṣṇa knew Arjuna better than Arjuna knew himself. The very trust, the very connection enabled Arjuna to relate with Kṛṣṇa, who took him to the Ultimate Consciousness. Have simple trust in Existence, in the intelligence of the life force. This is the very life force, the energy that is keeping you alive. This is the energy behind the marvelous functioning of your brain, of your digestive system, of your nervous system.

This is the energy that runs our solar system, all the galaxies and the entire Universe so smoothly. Imagine, is it possible for so many billions of stars and planets to move in such beautiful order even if you had the most modern traffic control system in place? Such a beautiful order, in what appears to be chaos when seen superficially! Enrich Others Because They Are Part Of You A very beautiful story from the great Indian epic history, Mahābhārat: King Yudhiṣṭra, the eldest of the Pāṇḍavas, performed a great sacrifice after the battle of Kurukṣetra was over. He gave very rich offerings to the priests and the poor. They were all impressed by the grandeur of this sacrifice.

They praised him saying, ‘We have never seen such a great sacrifice in our lifetime.’ Just then, a small mongoose appeared. Half of his body was golden and the other half was brown. He rolled on the ground where the sacrifice was performed. He then exclaimed with sorrow, ‘This is no sacrifice at all. Why do you praise this sacrifice?’ The priests were aghast and angry, ‘What! You silly mongoose! Did you not see the sacrifice? Thousands of poor people have become very rich. Millions of people have been sumptuously fed. So many jewels and clothes have been distributed!’ The mongoose replied, ‘That may be a big sacrifice for you.

But to me the sacrifice offered by the poor brāhmin was much bigger.’ Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 213 ‘What brāhmin and what sacrifice are you talking about? We never heard of this!’ said the priests. The mongoose continued, ‘There was a poor brāhmin in a village. He lived in a small hut with his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Once, there was a great famine. The whole family starved for days on end. One day, the poor man brought some food home. When they were ready to eat, they heard a voice at their door. The brāhmin opened the door and found a guest at the doorstep. In India, we say, atithi devo bhava, which means ‘the guest is God Himself’.

The brāhmin said, ‘O Sir! Please come inside. Please have a seat and have some food.’ He gave his portion of the food to the guest. The guest said, ‘Sir, I am still hungry. I have been starving for the last fifteen days.’ The wife gave her share also to the guest. The guest ate this portion also, but he was still hungry. The son said, ‘Father, please give him my share also.’ The guest ate this and yet he remained dissatisfied. The wife of the son said, ‘O Sir, please have my portion too.’ The guest ate this portion also and was fully satisfied. He then blessed the poor brāhmin and his family and departed in great joy.

I entered the hut that day and found that four persons had died of starvation. A few grains of rice were found on the ground where the guest had eaten. I rolled myself on those grains. Half of my body became golden. Since then I have been traveling all over the world to find another sacrifice like that. Nowhere have I found one. Nowhere have I been able to convert the other half of my body into gold. This sacrifice of Yudhiṣṭra has not turned the other half of my body into gold; That is why I say that this is no sacrifice at all.’ The sacrifice that Kṛṣṇa refers to comes from a true sense of surrender to the Universe.

When we enrich others what we can afford to give, it is no sacrifice. When we enrich others by denying ourselves, then it is a sacrifice. That is why most of the charitable work done by people, even with good intentions, does not fit into the essence of what Kṛṣṇa says here. Of course, it is better to enrich others rather than foolishly stuff yourself. Enrich others for the sake of enriching. When you enrich others at your own expense, by denying yourself, you function at the level of the Universal energy; you function as part of the principle of Vasudaiva kuṭuṁbakaṁ meaning ‘The whole world is my family’ as said by Kṛṣṇa; you operate out of compassion.

Then there is no compulsion or no moral injunction to give. There is no expectation that you will go to heaven if you give and to hell if you don’t. That’s why, time and again, I tell people, ‘Do not donate anything to the mission in the belief that I will help you pass through the gates of heaven. First of all, there is no heaven, and second, I am not its gatekeeper!’ Many times even your enriching others has a selfish motive. You think, ‘If I enrich, I may get this, this, and this back!’ Do not enrich with purpose. Let enriching be a purposeless happening. Now, I am giving the right and complete reason for enriching.

Because everyone is part of you, enriching every being is nothing but enriching some part of you. Only then are you practicing the tattva of enriching Vasudaiva kuṭuṁbakaṁ, the whole world as your family. Enrich others. Anything you see, anything you experience is extension of you. Anybody whom you experience in your life is extension of you. Your wife is the extension of your unbending logic. Your husband is theextensionofyourconfusion.So,whenyouenrichthem,thepartsofyou areenriched.Whentheyfeelcompletion,partofyouwillbecomecomplete. Somehow, even in enriching you continuously have your own small understandings, small goals and small purposes. If you do the same work Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 215 with a small reason, you will have small result. If you do it with higher reason, you will have higher result.

That is why it is said, ‘You serving and an enlightened being serving, brings totally different result, even if both do the same action.’ Everyone, whether you accept or not, realize or not, everyone is part of you. When people come and ask me, ‘Swamiji, my spouse is torturing me. Please somehow stop it.’ I tell them, ‘actually you torturing yourself is ten times more than your spouse torturing you. Please stop torturing yourself first.’ Kṛṣṇa says that enriching should be practiced because everyone is part of us. Nobody is separate from us. Only then does enriching become a selfless sacrifice, yajña bhāvitaḥ. There is a joy, a bliss that enters your being when you act out of sacrifice, selflessly to enrich others.

The bliss is always there, but when you are free from the filtering root pattern and mind, you start experiencing that bliss. The garbage of expectations disappears and bliss is experienced. This was the principle on which various sacrificial rituals came into existence in the vedic culture. These were instruments of mass meditation. The energy of the cosmic space (ākāśa) was captured by the vibrations of the air created by chanting mantras. This energized air fueled the sacred fire in the sacrificial fire pit (homa kunḍa). This energy was transferred to pots of water by physically linking the pots to the fire pit through many threads. This energized holy water was then sprinkled on bodies, deities and the earth to complete the energy cycle.

All five energy points: space, air, fire, water and earth were connected through such a ritual to benefit humanity! It was only a metaphoric offering of all that was sacrificed to the fire. During these rituals, great kings and nobles who performed the rituals gave away to those who lacked material wealth. These rituals helped to maintain material balance. But, as the mongoose said, even the rājasūya yāga of Yudhiṣṭra, performed to celebrate his victory, lacked the spirit of enriching as the sacrifice of the poor brāhmin family. So enrich to give away what you need, not what you do not need! We very conveniently forget an important fact, and take life happening for us with others for granted.

Anything you receive without enriching, is stolen! Kṛṣṇa explains enriching beautifully to Arjuna, iṣtān bhogān hi vo devā dāsyante yajña bhāvitaḥ I tair dattān apardāyaibhyo yo bhuṅkte stena eva saḥ II 3.12 ‘Satisfied with the selfless enriching, the celestial beings certainly bestow upon you the desired enjoyments of life. He who enjoys the things given by them without offering anything to the celestial beings is certainly a thief, yo bhuṅkte stena eva saḥ‘ Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa says, ‘If you don’t do yajña and give back to the divine energy, you are certainly a thief!’ Kṛṣṇa does not mean just pouring some offerings into a fire; He also means doing the proper authentic action.

For example, if you are cutting a tree, you have to plant at least five trees. If you are taking water from the river, you should make sure that the recycled water is purified and added to the river. Constantly enriching the source and keeping it alive for the next generation is yajña. Do not touch anything which you can’t replace, like sources which can be exhausted but not replenished. Do not use nonrenewable energy sources. Use only renewable energy sources. That is part of enriching yajña. Kṛṣṇa is very clear. Listen! If you are not enriching, but only taking and enjoying, you are a thief. Asteya (non-stealing), one of the important vows of Sannyāsa, can be maintained only by enriching.

Only when you continuously enrich others will non-stealing be maintained. Enriching is where life happens to you. I can say that enriching means infusing all the three tattvas of integrity, authenticity, responsibility into satya, truth. Life happens to us with others. Whether it is Sannyāsa or Saṃsāra, Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 217 the joys of spirituality or the joys of the world, everything happens with company, with sanga! Understand, whether it is satsanga or dussanga, good or bad association, you need a sanga. Whether it is basic food or the ultimate luxury, everything happens to you with others. If you don’t enrich others, it is stealing and life does not happen to you.

I tell you, decide to enrich everyone you see with these tattvas; in just a few months you will see that you are surrounded by gods and you are living in heaven. Go on enriching people. Enriching Sacrifice Or Sin

3.14

अन्नाद्भवन्ति भूतानि पर्जन्यादन्नसम्भव: | यज्ञाद्भवति पर्जन्यो यज्ञ: कर्मसमुद्भव:

annādbhavanti bhūtāni parjanyādannasaṁbhavaḥ / yajñādbhavati parjanyo yajñaḥ karmasamudbhavaḥ / / 3.14

All beings grow from food grains, from rains the food grains become possible, the rains become possible from selfless sacrifice of enriching.

annāt — from grains · bhavanti — grow · bhūtāni — beings · parjanyāt — from rains · anna — food grains · saṁbhavaḥ — possible · yajñāt — from sacrifice · bhavati — becomes pos- sible · parjanyaḥ — rains · yajñaḥ — sacrifice · karma — work · samudbhavaḥ — born of

3.15

कर्म ब्रह्मोद्भवं विद्धि ब्रह्माक्षरसमुद्भवम् | तस्मात्सर्वगतं ब्रह्म नित्यं यज्ञे प्रतिष्ठितम्

karma brahmodbhavaṁ viddhi brahmākṣarasamudbhavam / tasmātsarvagataṁ brahma nityaṁ yajñe pratiṣṭhitam / / 3.15

Know that work is born of the Creator and He is born of the Supreme. The all-pervading Supreme is eternally situated in sacrifice of enriching.

karma — work · brahmodbhavaṁ — Creator born of · viddhi — know · brahma — Creator · akṣarasamudbhavaṁ — Supreme born of · tasmāt — therefore · sarvaga- taṁ — all-pervading · brahma — Supreme · nityaṁ — eternally · yajñe — in sacrifice · pratiṣṭhitaṁ — situated

3.16

एवं प्रवर्तितं चक्रं नानुवर्तयतीह य: | अघायुरिन्द्रियारामो मोघं पार्थ स जीवति

evaṁ pravartitaṁ cakraṁ nānuvartayatīha yaḥ / aghāyurindriyārāmo moghaṁ pārtha sa jīvati / / 3.16

O Pārtha, he who does not adopt the prescribed, established cycle lives a life full of sins. Rejoicing in sense gratification, he lives a useless life.

evaṁ — prescribed · pravartitaṁ — established · cakraṁ — cycle · na — not · anuvar- tayati — adopt · iha — in this · yaḥ — who · aghāyuḥ — life full of sins · indriyārāmaḥ — satisfied in sense gratification · moghaṁ — useless · pārtha — O son of Pritā · saḥ — he · jīvati — lives

This metaphorical explanation in a few verses actually has a deep meaning about life, about how we connect with life, how we depend on the Universe, and how we affect the whole Universe. Just this concept that Kṛṣṇa explains in a few verses here is explained in detail in the Chāndogyopaniṣad. Our relationship with the activity of Nature is a very deep one. Our actions are like oblations offered in a fire sacrifice. Our activities are not just movements of the limbs. When we perform a yajña, a fire sacrifice of enriching the Source, the Cosmic Energy we pour various offerings into the fire. We do so to tap the Cosmic Energy and to flow in tune with Existence, with Nature.

The subtlest, most powerful and all-pervasive Cosmic Energy is invoked through the slightly less subtle air element when we chant the mantra and we connect and enrich the still, less subtle fire energy through the fire ritual. Energy is then transferred to water, a grosser energy, and then the water in the pots is poured over plants, idols and humans as well as the earth, which is the grossest form of energy. When we chant the mantra, it is a very powerful way to enrich the Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 219 world, through our integrity and authenticity. You take the responsibility for the words, and for making the mantra into reality.

When you take the responsibility for the words you utter and start working, you enrich the world mystically and physically, metaphysically and physically. A physical action is a gross expressed action, something that can be seen on the physical plane. Thoughts, mental actions, are subtler unexpressed actions, and they cannot be seen on the physical plane. Enrich to Relate with Expressed and Unexpressed God Enriching is the way in which you relate with the expressed component of God, the expressed part of God. Integrity and Authenticity are the ways in which you relate with the unexpressed, avyakta part of God. Responsibility and Enriching are the ways in which you relate with vyakta, the expressed part of God.

When we perform a sacrifice, we perform certain invocations to the higher energies. So, we attract corresponding effects for our actions. Our actions are like offerings in a sacrifice. When the actions are in tune with tattvas of integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching, which is the flow of Existence, it is like offering ghee (clarified butter) into the fire. When we do not flow in tune with Existence, it is like offering mud into the fire. You know the kind of smoke comes out of the fire when you offer ghee and the kind of smoke that comes out when you offer mud. Just like you can determine the quality of the offering you gave to the fire from the quality of the smoke, the result of your actions can be determined from the quality of your actions.

The quality of the end result is based on our input, our offerings, our enriching. Integrity and Authenticity are the right ways to relate with the unexpressed part of God, avyakta. Responsibility and Enriching are the right ways to relate with the expressed part of God, the world, vyakta.Ifyoudonotenrich,youactivelycreateaselfishpatternandyour offerings bring that same result. Be very clear, either you give or you swindle. There is no middle. Kṛṣṇa says that rains become possible from the enriching sacrifice, yajñād bhavati parjanyo and the enriching sacrifice is born of actions, yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ (3.14). Rain is a grosser form of energy that is activated by the subtler unexpressed energies which are influenced by our authenticity in actions and integrity in words, thoughts and vibrations.

Rain is the cause, the source which is responsible for the growth of food grains. Food is the enrichment needed to sustain our bodies and minds, which give rise to further authentic action and integrated thinking. So, you see this cycle now, of how the subtle energy, avyakta, the unexpressed part of God manifests itself in the grosser world as vyakta, the expressed part of God, and how the actions in the grosser world affect the subtler elements. If we just understand this, we will realize that everything that we do and experience is caused by our own actions. We realize that we are the source of everything, and therefore responsible for everything that is happening.

We invite our destiny. As we sow, so shall we reap. Enriching is sowing the seed for the fruit to happen. Integrity is the root, authenticity is the tree, responsibility is the fruit, enriching is sharing the fruit to create more fruits. Every person who eats the fruit is responsible for sowing the seed for more fruits to happen. Understand, this is what Kṛṣṇa says, ‘O Pārtha, he who does not adopt the prescribed, established cycle lives a life full of sins, aghāyur idriyārāmo.Rejoicinginsensegratification,helivesauselesslife,moghaṁ pārtha sa jīvati (3.16).’ When you do not enrich every person with the fruit of enriching after constantly being enriched by the sacrifice of the Existence, the Supreme, your life becomes full of sins and you live a useless, incomplete life.

That in turn brings the cycle of more and more incompletions! If you are rich, be the ground on which the seed can be sown. If not, at least pour water for the seed to become a tree. If not, at least be a gardener to weed out the unnecessary things for the seed to become fruit again. Either offer your time, talent, or treasure. If you have eaten the Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 221 fruit, it is your responsibility to make the seed again into a fruit. After eating the fruit, be responsible to sow the seed and make sure the seed again brings more fruits for more people to enjoy.

Our body-mind is highly influenced by our thoughts and words. The words you constantly repeat to yourself, have to be enriching you, inspiring you, exciting you and enlightening you. The words you give to you are āhara (food), what you consume to create life in you. Power of Creating the Space of Enriching Bliss attracts fortune. You may wonder, ‘Fortune can bring us bliss but how can bliss bring us fortune?’ In India, when any new activity is started, be it a business or construction or education, the first thing that we do is sit down and create the space for a few moments; we close our eyes and remain in a meditative mood.

We try to bring about some kind of an energy play or transformation inside us. Of course, over the years, this has become a prayer and a ritual. That is a different issue. But the first thing that we do is sit down and try to kindle the energy flow, the space of completion in us. You need to know an important lesson, when you decide to become responsible, the whole Cosmos simply listens to you; it simply follows you! With responsibility, even if you sit in one corner, your very space changes the way the world responds to you! Swami Vivekananda says beautifully, ’In India, even if we want wealth, we sit under a tree and create the space.

It happens around us!’ He said these words in America, the country which teaches you that you have to work hard to accumulate wealth. If you sit with yourself, you may accumulate peace but not even a piece of bread! Yet, He says, ‘In India, even to accumulate wealth, we just sit and create the space, and it happens!’So, when you take responsibility, sit by creating the space and be ready to sacrifice. The world will simply move based on your word! The world will move as you want! When the energy flow, the space in us becomes complete, it has the property of influencing and causing external incidents as we want.

Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, like it or not, want it or not, you are deeply connected to Existence. You are an integral part of Existence, not an independent island as you think. Every subtle movement or subtle thought in one part of the Universe causesacounter-effectatthatsamemomentelsewhereintheUniverse.Our thoughts and energy flow have the capacity to create and attract incidents and people of the same nature. What I have said here is one of the age-old truths expounded by our ṛṣis, sages in Upaniṣad, the Vedic experience. It is interesting that modern science is coming up with some startling evidence that reveals some of these truths now.

Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese doctor and research scientist is renowned for his book, The Hidden Messages in Water. He conducted extensive experiments on water samples taken from all over the world. He took similar samples of water and exposed the water to different influences. To one set of samples, he spoke positive words such as ‘love’ and ‘gratitude,’ to some he recited Buddhist chants. To another set, he spoke words such as ‘anger’ and ‘war’. Then he froze the different water samples so that he could photograph their crystal form. In the samples that had been exposed to positive energy, beautiful clear crystals were formed, like diamonds! The water exposed to negative energies did not form into crystals; they looked like a tumor: dark, cloudy and without any distinct geometrical pattern.

Several hundred experiments were conducted to prove the effects of the vibrations created by our words and thoughts on matter. Water being the most common molecule in our bodies, we can now see the obvious and dramatic effect our thoughts have on ourselves and others! It doesn’t stop there. Our thoughts have the capacity to affect the oceans and the seas. Recent research by Russian scientists throws an entirely new light on how our DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies. They did experiments where they superimposed certain Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 223 frequencies onto a laser ray and with it influenced the DNA frequency and thus the genetic information itself!

Science is beginning to touch what our Vedic Seers have declared thousands of years ago about collective consciousness. What we do in any plane, physical or mental, expressed or unexpressed affects our consciousness. And since we are all a part of the common fabric called Existence, our consciousness is a part of the collective consciousness, which also gets affected by our thoughts and actions. Weather is strongly influenced by earth resonance frequencies, and the same frequencies are also produced in our brains. When many people take the responsibility to bring integrity and authenticity to their thinking and actions, the individual consciousness aligns and expands to affect the collective consciousness. So we can actually even influence the weather by our thoughts.

This is what Kṛṣṇa means when He says that rains are caused by sacrifice—yajñād bhavati parjanyo and enriching sacrifice is born of actions—yajñaḥ karma-samudbhavaḥ (3.14). It is an ultimate statement that proves the power of enriching, the power of living. When a large number of people collectively integrate their thoughts and align their actions to enrich others with no expectations and with full faith in the abundance of the Universe, the Universe responds. Rain falls, grains grow, and abundance results. It has actually been revealed by various studies that when a number of people integrate their thoughts with something similar, like during celebrations or a football world championship, then certain random number generators in computers start to deliver ordered numbers instead of random ones!

Also understand, all so-called natural calamities are nothing but the effects of global collective negative thoughts. At a young age, we were trained in ‘mathematical logic’ but never in ‘Existential logic’. Mathematical logic is very straightforward and should be applied only where it is appropriate. In matters concerning life and relationships, mathematical logic will only cause chaos. With it, we will always look to conclude with a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ judgment. There is something deeper than this—and that is Existential logic. This comes with a mature understanding and flowering from within. Your integrity, the thoughts and energy directly affect your body, your cell structure, your decisions, your capacity to fulfill your decisions, the outer world incidents, and even accidents.

Integrity is the mathematics of Life. It is simple, straightforward mathematics. If you add one thing and another, this is the result. You can simply practice it like mathematics. If you add two negative statements, two negative commitments to your thinking, you will have two negative happenings. If you repeat a negative commitment hundreds of times, it will be strong, equivalent to a hundred times! So, you have to complete until your negative commitments are dropped. But even if you have millions of negativities, if you just multiply it by zero, the whole thing will become zero! Master’s initiation is like multiplying by zero! Currently, you are always centered in either greed or fear.

Every action is performed either out of desire or out of fear. It becomes very easy for others to exploit you because of this. You become very vulnerable. Some people have become so selfish that they care only about their personal pleasure or pain. Only when life hits at them there, they understand the constitution of Life, not otherwise. They create a powerless space that attracts similar incidents into their life. They also corrupt the energy flow of their inner space this way. If you are sensitive enough to understand life and the facts, and the truth, the Cosmos does not teach you in a very hard way; it teaches you in a mild way.

If you can change your inner space from this incomplete space to the space of completion, the space of bliss, Ānanda, then the energy flow in your inner space will start brimming and your thoughts will become declarations of integrity, which is like multiplying all your past negativity by zero. Then you will be complete in the present moment. When you do this, you have power to control external incidents because you and Existence have a very deep connection at the energy level. This is the thread you need to catch in order to understand that bliss Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 225 attracts fortune. When you are blissful, when your inner space is not one of worry, fear and greed patterns but one that is in the space of completion in the present, you will automatically attract the best of things.

If you divide it by zero, then even if your negative commitments land into infinity, they become positive, because there is no infinity in negativity. Darkness can never be infinite. Light can be infinite, negativity can never be infinite; only positivity can be infinite because infinity needs to exist. Negativity does not exist. When you throw a pebble into a lake, ripples start from that point to the edge of the lake. Similarly, your thoughts have a permanent effect on the Universe. Imagine if the lake were infinite light. Ripples with a continuous effect would be created, even though the magnitude of each ripple would be different. The Universe is a huge wave of ‘Tathāstu!—so be it!’

So everything is as you create, as you organize, as you arrange! Put a little intelligence, time and energy into creating the right space in you. If you carry the space of many births, you will have many births! If you carry the space of a soul, you will have a soul! If you carry the space of no-soul, you will NOT have a soul! That is why I say this—decide to create the space for the best possibility. You have a soul, and it can do anything you want! This is the best space. Create it! That will be your reality! I don’t want to say it will become your reality; it will be your reality!

Every action has a cause and an effect. Using the same principle, I can say that you can actually create the desired effect by just causing its visualization in your inner space. For example, when you meditate, if you visualize you are bliss, bliss is bound to happen in and around you as an effect. It would seem that the cause has created the effect. But in life, cause and effect are actually a cycle, each generating and being generated by the other. Understand, anything that has not made its effect completely in you is cause. Anything caused which has made its completion in you is effect. Anything which has not caused its complete effect in you is cause.

This is the endless cycle Kṛṣṇa refers to when He says that work originates with the Creator, who in turn originates from the Supreme Existence, and therefore all sacrifices are from the Supreme to the Supreme. Live the tattvas intensely! Bring them into your life layer by layer. Your body will listen to you. Your mind will listen to you. The world will listen to you. The Universe will listen to you. Humanity will listen to you. You will enrich the Universe and the Universe will enrich you. When we are in the mood and space of surrender to these tattvas, we no longer retain our identity. We are one with Existence. Whatever we do, we do by Existence and for Existence. There is no separation. Act Without Attachment

3.17

यस्त्वात्मरतिरेव स्यादात्मतृप्तश्च मानव: | आत्मन्येव च सन्तुष्टस्तस्य कार्यं न विद्यते

yastvātmaratireva syādātmatṛptaśca mānavaḥ / ātmanyeva ca santuṣṭastasya kāryaṁ na vidyate / / 3.17

One who takes pleasure in the Self, who is satisfied in the Self and who is content in one’s Self, for him certainly, no work exists.

yaḥ — who · tu — but · ātmaratiḥ — takes pleasure · eva — certainly · syāt — remains · ātmatṛptaḥ — satisfied in self · ca — and · mānavaḥ — man · ātmani — in oneself · eva — certainly · ca — and · saṁtuṣṭaḥ — satiated · tasya — his · kāryaṁ — work · na — not · vidyate — exist

3.18

नैव तस्य कृतेनार्थो नाकृतेनेह कश्चन | न चास्य सर्वभूतेषु कश्चिदर्थव्यपाश्रय:

naiva tasya kṛtenārtho nākṛteneha kaścana / na cāsya sarvabhūteṣu kaścidarthavyapāśrayaḥ / / 3.18

Certainly, he never has any purpose for doing his duty or for not doing his duty in this world. He does not depend on any living being.

na — never · eva — certainly · tasya — his · kṛtena — by doing duty · arthaḥ — purpose · na — not · akṛtena — without doing duty · iha — in this world · kaścana — whatever · na — never · ca — and · asya — of him · sarvabhūteṣu — all living beings · kaścit — any · artha — purpose · vyapāśrayaḥ — taking shelter of

3.19

तस्मादसक्त: सततं कार्यं कर्म समाचर | असक्तो ह्याचरन्कर्म परमाप्नोति पूरुष:

tasmādasaktaḥ satataṁ kāryaṁ karma samācara / asakto hyācaran karma paramāpnoti pūruṣaḥ / / 3.19

Therefore, one should work always without attachment. Performing work without attachment, certainly, man achieves the Supreme.

tasmāt — therefore, asaktaḥ: without attachment, satataṁ: always, kāryaṁ: work, karma: work, samācara: perform, asaktaḥ: not attached, hi: certainly, ācaran: performing, karma: work, paraṁ: supreme, āpnoti: achieves, pūruṣaḥ: man

3.20

कर्मणैव हि संसिद्धिमास्थिता जनकादय: | लोकसंग्रहमेवापि सम्पश्यन्कर्तुमर्हसि

karmaṇaiva hi saṁsiddhimāsthitā janakādayaḥ / lokasaṁgrahamevāpi sampaśyankartumarhasi / / 3.20

King Janaka and others attained perfection by selfless enriching. To guide others you too must act selflessly.

karmaṇā — by work · eva — also · hi — certainly · saṁsiddhiṁ — perfection · āsthitāḥ — situated · janakādayaḥ — Janaka and other kings · lokasaṁgrahaṁ — educating people · eva — also · api — therefore · saṁpaśyan — considering · kartuṁ — act · arhasi — deserve

Our Eastern Masters have declared again and again, ‘You are bliss. You are love. You are eternal bliss itself.’ When you are bliss itself, what more can you ask for? When you understand and experience this truth, you are enough unto yourself; you are completely satisfied. Nothing exists for you to achieve because you are already the ultimate you can achieve! As of now, you are running behind something out of greed, thinking you will have bliss when you possess it. Either you are running behind something out of greed or you are running away from something out of fear. You are afraid something will take away your joy, your life.

Both running towards something and running away from something become irrelevant when you understand you are a part of this loving Existence, taking care of you every moment. Existence is Taking Care of You Every Moment Existence is taking care of you every moment. Do you think you can be alive even for one moment if Existence does not want you to be alive? The very fact that you are alive proves that Existence wants you here, now, in this form, in this place. This is the ultimate cause for celebration! What more do you want? Existence has provided, is providing and will provide for each and every one of your needs.

Your suffering, your struggle, your incompletion is only because you don’t trust that you are being provided all that you need; because you carry a deep self-doubt and consider yourself separate from Existence, who you think is your enemy. People often look at my feet and tell me that I have such smooth and soft feet. They do not know I have wandered thousands of miles barefoot in all types of terrain. When you walk upon Mother Earth with great respect, trust and love, She will simply cherish you. I never wore footwear in the early years of my life. Even now when I enter Tiruvannamalai, my birth town, I don’t wear footwear.

I was once on an elephant safari on a jungle path. The guide showed me a path which was used by humans, alongside the one on which the elephant was walking. The guide’s path had no grass on it. The guide said where man walks, no grass grows, but where the elephant walks, the grass does not die! As humans we have lost touch with Nature, with Existence. We have fallen out of tune with ourselves and with Nature. That is why we experience Nature unpleasantly. Even in our prayers there is no gratitude, there is only asking. We have become beggars. Also, you are not satisfied with how Existence chooses to take care of your needs.

You look at others and have a big list of wants based on what others have. You fail to understand that each of us is unique and each of us has been provided with exactly what we need. Instead, you start looking at what others have and want that also. Greed sets in. This is how you waste your entire life running behind desires and running away from reality. We are focused only on the outer world. As long as the outer world is responsible for your happiness, there can be Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 229 no permanent happiness. The person centered in completion does not depend on external causes or people to feel joyful, blissful.

Constantly, the fountain of bliss is happening within him. He is enjoyment itself! Selfless, Unattached Enriching Here Kṛṣṇa says a beautiful thing: King Janaka was a beautiful example of a true karma yogi, a man of selfless authenticity in action with a continuous commitment to enriching life in and around him. He was a king. He ruled a kingdom and yet was unattached, liberated. Just like Kṛṣṇa who ruled a kingdom and yet was a Sannyāsi in the truest sense of the word, Janaka was a model king who was complete unto himself, untouched by the external world. Once, an ascetic went to the court of King Janaka and saw how Janaka was neck-deep in the activities of his kingdom, living like a king.

He then thought to himself, ‘Janaka seems to be a materialistic person. He is entrapped in so many worldly matters.’ Janaka understood what the ascetic was thinking. Janaka called him and asked him, ‘What kind of an ascetic are you? Instead of being happy and content within yourself you are trying to find fault with others? This is a grave sin especially for an ascetic, a person who is supposed to know about these things. For this, I have to give you the most severe punishment. You will be hanged to death next week.’ Now, the ascetic was terrified. He could not sit in peace. He spent sleepless nights thinking of the gallows.

He dreamt daily that his neck was being tied to a rope. He became very thin and pale. Janaka sent a servant to call him on the day of the execution. The ascetic was unable to stand before the king. He trembled and fell on the ground. Janaka offered him some fruits and a cup of milk. He ate the food, but his mind was on the gallows. Janaka asked him, ‘How do you like the taste of the milk now? Is it good? Did you relish your food these past seven days?’ The ascetic replied, ‘Oh king! I could not taste the food or milk that you offered me just now.

My mind is only on the gallows all the time.’ Janaka said, ‘Just like your mind is always on the gallows, my mind is always fixed on the Divine, even though I am involved in worldly activities. Though I am in this world, I am out of the world. Work for the world, unattached like myself.’ Janaka, though neck-deep in the administration of his kingdom, was completely unattached, liberated. Once, Janaka was brought news that there was a fire in the city. Ordinarily, a king would have been agitated that a part of his kingdom was in danger. But Janaka said, ‘My wealth is unlimited and yet I have nothing.

Even if the whole of my capital Mithilā is burnt, nothing is lost to me.’ It is not that Janaka was not bothered that there was a fire in his kingdom. He was completely involved in what he had to do, but at the same time was completely detached from the incident. He was complete in his being, not attached to the world. Only when you are completely detached can you be completely involved. Otherwise, your very sense of ownership and emotional attachment will be a hindrance to plunging headlong into the task. Only when you work without any incompletion, can you perform the task authentically to your peak possibility, without expectation and without being concerned about the results. Responsibility, The Space Of Leadership

3.21

यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जन: | स यत्प्रमाणं कुरुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते

yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tat tad evetaro janaḥ / sa yatpramāṇaṁ kurute lokastadanuvartate / / 3.21

Whatever action is performed by a great person, others follow. They follow the example set by him.

yad-yat — what · ācarati — act · śreṣṭhaḥ — great · tat-tat — that · eva — certainly · itaraḥ — common · janaḥ — persons · saḥ — he · yat — what · pramāṇaṁ — evidence · kurute — perform · lokaḥ — world · tat — that · anuvartate — follow in footsteps

3.22

न मे पार्थास्ति कर्तव्यं त्रिषु लोकेषु किञ्चन | नानवाप्तमवाप्तव्यं वर्त एव च कर्मणि

na me pārthāsti kartavyaṁ triṣu lokeṣu kiñcana / nānavāptamavāptavyaṁ varta eva ca karmaṇi / / 3.22

O Pārtha, there is nothing that I must do in the three worlds. Neither am I in want of anything nor do I have anything to gain. Yet, I am always in action.

na — not · me — mine · pārtha — O son of Pritā · asti — is · kartavyaṁ — duty · triṣu — in the three · lokeṣu — worlds · kiṁcana — anything · na — no · anavāptaṁ — in want · avāptavyaṁ — to be gained · varte — engaged · eva — only · ca — and · karmaṇi — work

3.23

यदि ह्यहं न वर्तेयं जातु कर्मण्यतन्द्रित: | मम वर्त्मानुवर्तन्ते मनुष्या: पार्थ सर्वश:

yadi hyahaṁ na varteyaṁ jātu karmaṇyatandritaḥ / mama vartmānuvartante manuṣyāḥ pārtha sarvaśaḥ / / 3.23

If I did not engage in work with care, O Pārtha, certainly, people would follow My path in all respects.

yadi — if · hi — certainly · ahaṁ — I · na — not · varteyaṁ — engage · jātu — ever · karmaṇi — work · atandritaḥ — with care · mama — My · vartma — path · anuvartante — follow · manuṣyāḥ — persons · pārtha — Pārtha · sarvaśaḥ — in all respects

3.24

उत्सीदेयुरिमे लोका न कुर्यां कर्म चेदहम् | सङ्करस्य च कर्ता स्यामुपहन्यामिमा: प्रजा:

utsīdeyurime lokā na kuryāṁ karma cedaham / sakarasya ca kartā syāmupahanyāmimāḥ prajāḥ / / 3.24

If I do not work, then these worlds would be ruined. I would be the cause of creating confusion and destruction.

utsīdeyuḥ — ruin · ime — these · lokāḥ — worlds · na — not · kuryāṁ — do · karma — work · cet — if · ahaṁ — I · sakarasya — confusion of species · ca — and · kartā — doer · syāṁ — shall be · upahanyāṁ — destroy · imāḥ — these · prajāḥ — beings

3.25

सक्ता: कर्मण्यविद्वांसो यथा कुर्वन्ति भारत | कुर्याद्विद्वांस्तथासक्तश्चिकीर्षुर्लोकसंग्रहम्

saktāḥ karmaṇyavidvāṁso yathā kurvanti bhārata / kuryādvidvāṁstathāsaktaścikīrṣurlokasaṁgraham / / 3.25

As the ignorant do their work with attachment to the results, O Bhārata, the wise do so without attachment, for the enrichment (welfare) of people.

saktāḥ — attached · karmaṇi — work · avidvāṁsaḥ — ignorant · yathā — as · kurvanti — do · bhārata — Bhārata · kuryāt — do · vidvān — wise · tathā — and · asaktaḥ — without attachment · cikīrṣuḥ — desiring · lokasaṁgrahaṁ — leading people

Here, Kṛṣṇa talks about the practical aspects of why a leader needs to act in a responsible manner. With responsibility, you experience the space of leadership consciousness, Īśvaratva. There is a difference between the state of a leader and the status of a leader. Most of us want to attain the status of a leader but not the state. When you achieve the status of the leader, it is ego-fulfilling and you feel great. Some politicians are good examples for this. They exert the power of their position on others without even feeling responsible. They were a little more dominating and convincing than the people whom they were trying to dominate, that’s all.

It is not that they were more intelligent or more capable. The state of the leader is something totally different. It is the state of the leader born from the principle of responsibility that enriches people to become responsible. Problems of all kinds, ranging from stress to discontentment and violence, result because the leader has achieved the status and not the state. Leader Creates More Responsible Leaders A leader with the status remains only as a slave. A leader with the state takes the responsibility to create more and more responsible leaders. Only when you express all the possibilities out of liberation cognition, are you living your life. Life is lived when jīvanmukta saṁbhāvana,thespaceofpossibility,thespaceofleadershipbecomesyour lifestyle.

Nothing else is required for you to be a leader; just leadership consciousness is enough. When Vivekananda walked the length and breadth of India, he did not have anything other than leadership consciousness in his life. But wherever he went, kings washed his feet, gave their own thrones for him to sit on, received his blessings and guidance, and requested his spiritual support. Responsibility is thinking, feeling, acting, responding and cognizing from the truth that you are the Source of everything! It is responsibility that makes you realize all possibilities. It is leadership consciousness that brings not just success, but fulfillment in you. I have seen thousands of politicians who have power without having the state of leadership consciousness.

Sometimes, people sit on the throne or get the power and become power centers, without having the state of a leader. I have seen them dying in depression or suffering in suffocation, due to the power! They never enjoy the power. Unless you achieve the state, the status is a liability! If you have not achieved the state, the status binds you and also brings suffering to others. The state of responsibility, the state of leadership consciousness, Īśvaratva has to be achieved first. When you do not carry the consciousness of a leader, even if you get the powers of the leader, you are bound by it and you also bind the people who accept you as leader and follow you.

Leadership consciousness is an independent intelligence; it cannot be Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 233 hidden from others. Once you have it, the whole world will know that you have it; the world simply listens to you! You do not need any power, political strength or infrastructure for the world to know that you are a leader. Even if you walk on the street, you will stand tall—as a man among men; what Kṛṣṇa names Arjuna as puṛuṣarṣabha, the best among men. And the world will respect you! Listen! I am not talking to you about some corporate values and principles, or on something that Ṛṣis, Vedic Seers have uttered in the Upaniṣads.

I am talking to you about what I have directly experienced, which you have to experience. I am talking from the context of being responsible for making you responsible. Be very clear, the person who talks has only one reason—making you responsible. I am responsible to make you experience responsibility as I have experienced it. A person with wealth is responsible to guide a poor man to wealth. A person with knowledge is responsible to make ignorant people knowledgeable! When you own, you become responsible to make everyone own. Because I own responsibility, I own the responsibility of making everyone own responsibility. Kṛṣṇa, who owns responsibility, the space of leadership consciousness, Īśvaratva, is making Arjuna own responsibility.

Kṛṣṇa says, ‘Whatever action is performed by a great person, others follow. O Pārtha, there is nothing that I must do in the three worlds. Neither am I in want of anything. Yet, I am always in action.’ yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas tad tad evetaro janaḥ I sa yat pramāṇaṁ kurute lokas tad anuvartate II 3.21 na me pārthāsti kartavyaṁ triṣu lokeṣu kiñcana I nānavāptam avāptavyaṁ varta eva ca karmaṇi II 3.22 There are only two types of human beings on planet Earth—those who feel responsible for everything and those who don’t feel responsible for anything. People who feel responsible become leaders. People who don’t feel responsible continue to be slaves.

There are some people who don’t feel responsible even for their own actions because they forget their action is going to bring its result. Many times, even when they plan out a business, they only plan out the people they will hold responsible if it fails! They don’t plan to make it successful. Plan for success! Don’t plan for failure. Right when you start planning, if you wonder ‘If this fails what do I do?’, you immediately think, ‘I will hold him responsible!’ But holding the other responsible is not going to bring you success. Even as the thought—‘I will hold him responsible’ arises, cut it. I always tell my disciples, ‘Take responsibility for practicing what I teach you by bringing authenticity into every action.

Don’t just preach what I teach. Only by example can you cause others’ reality and radiate the teachings powerfully.’ Deep understanding and experiential expression of the truth happens only with taking responsibility for all your actions. Only when the space of leadership becomes your own experience does the responsibility become complete. Otherwise, if the understanding is just based on someone else’s words and experience, then there is always the possibility that anyone can come and shake your belief and you will either hold the situation or others responsible. The roots of responsibility, in this case, are not deep and strong enough to withstand all kinds of questions. Others’ questions are nothing but your own unanswered questions that you chose to suppress within you!

That is what happens to Arjuna as kurusattama, the leader of all Kuru warriors, as bharataṛṣabha, the best of Bhārata. Even though he takes the responsibility to fight and avenge the collective irresponsibility of the Kauravas, he falls from his space of leadership and gives reasons to escape his responsibility. Arjuna, the one of taintless, pure fame, becomes a slave to his incompletions. Only when he allows the Master to enrich him does he surrender to the Master of all masters, Jagadguru Kṛṣṇa as His disciple! Unless we enrich ourselves and allow ourselves to be enriched by the Master, nothing good can happen to us. Allowing the Master to enrich you is the best way of enriching yourself.

If you don’t enrich yourself, Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 235 no one can save you. If you enrich yourself, whatever you touch will be successful. If you are in the space of completion, anything you touch will be successful. Powerfulness always showers success, it never brings failure. It is a law of life! There are three types of people: the disciples (or the followers), the Masters, and the leaders (or guides). The disciple is one who has not yet experienced and enriched himself with the teachings of the Masters, but who is authentically interested and has responsibly embarked upon the path. He needs some guidance on the path. He does not yet know how to practice what is being taught.

The Master is one who is in the eternal space of Īśvaratva, leadership consciousness and is in the ultimate experience of Enlightenment. Out of compassion, He enriches by showing the path of responsibility to reach His state to all those who would like to be in that state. It is not necessary for the Master to practice what He preaches because he is beyond the common rules of conduct. Masters need not follow what they tell you to do to reach their state. They understand the illusion of the physical plane that their body-mind system operates in. Whatever they may do physically is in a state of complete awareness. I always tell people that they need to be aware and completely present when they eat.

But if you have been around me, you will see that I never concentrate on my food when I eat. When I eat, I am reading or talking to someone. It is like this: For you, you have to meditate to be aware of the food you are consuming so that you eat only as much as is needed. But for me, if I am aware, I will not be able to eat the amount of food my body needs. I have to distract myself and remove the awareness, the self-remembrance, and only then will the food go inside! An enlightened being’s system is totally different from an ordinary person’s system.

A leader or guide is someone who is a spiritual activist, he is between the Master and the follower. He has not yet reached the ultimate state of the Master but he has had glimpses of that state. He is not as inexperienced as the follower. He is the bridge of responsibility to lead the follower to the Master. One more thing: It is not that you need to practice the tattvas just so that others get inspired and enriched. Understand that the very practice will give deep understanding and completion to you. Automatically you cause what you want to cause in your life. That is the first effect, the actual result.

Being an inspiration and causing the reality for others will be just a by-product. It will automatically result from the confidence of authenticity you radiate in your body language and the power of integrity you express in your words, when you enrich people out of the intelligence and strength of your own responsibility as a leader. Nothing Binds Me, Yet I Engage in Responsible Work In these verses, Kṛṣṇa beautifully explains what walking the talk means through His own example. He says there is nothing in the three worldsthe nether world, earth or heaven, for Him to achieve. There is no duty that binds Him. Even though He has nothing to gain, lose or even to do, He is constantly engaged in action and enriching the three worlds.

Why? Because people look up to Him as God, they would obviously follow the path He sets. People’s anyakāra, the expectation that world has from Kṛṣṇa is that He is God, He is Bhagavān. They would simply follow what He does. He is now responsible to fulfill even others’ image about Him for leading them on the correct path. That is Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa’s authenticity and responsibility! I tell you, the one who takes responsibility for the whole world’s anyakāra is God. God takes responsibility for the anyakāra of even atheists. That is why when they say God never helps, He never helps them, and makes sure that He fulfills even their anyakāra!

So, even though Kṛṣṇa Himself has no reason to engage in work, He does so for the sake of enriching the people who will follow Him. If He did not engage in action and did not take the responsibility to make others’ responsible, people would follow His example and fall into irresponsibility, inaction or tamas. Listen! By taking responsibility to enrich Arjuna with the science and Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 237 direct experience of Enlightenment, Kṛṣṇa fulfills the anyakāra of not just Arjuna but of the whole humanity embodied by him; relieving the planet Earth from bhūbhāra, the burden of the collective unconscious, incomplete beings. Understand, others’ anyakāra about you has two dimensions—how they perceive you and how they want you to be in their life!

For example, they may perceive you as a fool and a cheat, but they may want you to be intelligent and authentic! When you take responsibility for both parts of others’ anyakāra, life just oozes out of your ānanda gandha, your blissful inner space. Listen. Taking responsibility for what others perceive and what others want just makes life ooze, explode and express through you. If you want your skin to shine, your eyes lit and your body radiating grace and joy, take responsibility for others’ anyakāra in both directions. If others perceive you as a cheat and fool, don’t be angry. It means that you have not raised yourself in some way.

Every year, I guide people on spiritual yātras. It is a lifetime experience to be in the lap of nature. In the Himalayas, the living energy field, we do various types of rituals at the cārdhām (four sacred pilgrimages). Of what use are the rituals to me? But I do them for you so that you understand their significance, get enriched to do them, and take the responsibility to enrich others with them. After Enlightenment, I came from the Himalayas to be amidst the people to enrich them with Enlightenment. I could have just stayed there happily and blissfully. But I have come here because of my responsibility to guide people with the right path of living Enlightenment.

That is why Masters come to planet Earth out of their deep responsibility, their love and compassion to enrich people with Enlightenment. Listen! When responsibility expresses through your head, it is leadership. When responsibility expresses through your heart, it is compassion. When responsibility expresses through your being, it is Enlightenment, Sātori. Seeing me work constantly, being intensely involved in work, whether it is administration or giving satsanghs or planning activities or healing people, whatever the action may be, people are inspired and enriched to be engaged in authentic work and responsible leadership constantly, blissfully enjoying every moment. I don’t have to give you my words. You can see me, learn and be enriched from my body language much more than from my words.

Stretching to Others’ Expectations is Authenticity Please understand, what you feel as you, the idea you believe as you, is mamakāra. For example, I can very authentically say I feel that I am a pure empty space. There is something in front of the pure empty space which operates to create the Sangha. I believe myself as a pure space, I project myself as an Incarnation who wants to give this pure space to you. My belief as me, my cognizance of me as a pure space is my mamakāra. My decision to project myself as an incarnation who shares this space to be experienced by others is my ahaṁkāra.

What others believe and perceive as me, is anyakāra. When somebody looks at me as Śiva, I need to take the responsibility of Śiva and do for him whatever Śiva will do for him by stretching my ability. He may expect some boons from Śiva. So now it is my responsibility to stretch my super-consciousness to give him those boons. That is authenticity. I go on stretching. Then people ask me, ‘What will happen, Swamiji? Then you will almost become like a slave to other people!’ You will be a slave only if you are forced. If you are a Master, you will take it on willingly. I decide to fulfill whatever people project on me.

Even if it is a negative anyakāra, stand up, face it and take responsibility even for that. Don’t give up on people! Only when you take responsibility, you will feel powerful enough to solve the problem. As Kṛṣṇa says, I need to be responsible for what I do for the sake of enriching those who follow. The problem is, what I do is an expression of my experience, my pure empty inner space. Unless you Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 239 experience it yourself, it cannot become your truth. The same action will have a completely different meaning and effect when done by a disciple than when done by a Master.

But if you follow the Master’s teachings and watch his body language, you will imbibe and be enriched with Enlightenment itself. It is the energy behind the action, the energy of the being that decides the quality and hence, the effect of the action. It is not the action itself that decides the quality. Masters act out of pure compassion in whatever they do. That is why so often, even when I scold people, the person does not carry vengeance towards me. Scolding is also for your good, for your ego to be removed. It will seem painful because the ego, which you have been thinking is you, is being pulled out.

But your being understands that what is not you is being removed. That is why in the very next moment after scolding, I can be completely different, showering love. It was just complete truth at that moment, pure compassionate energy. But what happens when you get angry with someone and scold him, say your child? Instead of you controlling the anger, it controls you and you misuse it because you are not conscious during the action. Be very clear, the other person’s vengeance is the result of your very own vengeance, which you did not realize was there in your own action because you were not in the space of completion when you were scolding.

Please listen. Your own suppressed part, which is yet to be realized, goes and sits in the other’s heart. When you fulfill the expectation of others, only then you realize that it is your own expectations that are fulfilled. Others’ expectations are a wake-up call based on the time you fixed the alarm! The alarm is not your enemy, you fixed it. The alarm is only helping you to wake up, because you requested it. Others’ expectation about you is only your friend helping you to wake up. So when others have expectations towards you, bow down to them as the embodiment of Mahādeva; the Antaryāmi who is inside you, waking you up!

I always tell people, ‘When I am compassionate, I cheat you. When I scold you, I teach you. Either way, you grow.’ When I scold you, you are jolted into the present moment. Suddenly, in a flash, you get the awareness that you have been missing your natural space of completion. The energy behind my words is purely for your transformation. There is only pure compassion. Role Of The Wise

3.26

न बुद्धिभेदं जनयेदज्ञानां कर्मसङ्गिनाम् | जोषयेत्सर्वकर्माणि विद्वान्युक्त: समाचरन्

na buddhi bhedaṁ janayedajñānāṁ karmasaginām / joṣayetsarvakarmāṇi vidvānyuktaḥ samācaran / / 3.26

Let not the wise disturb the minds of the ignorant who are attached to the results of work. They should encourage them to act without attachment.

na — not · buddhi — intelligence · bhedaṁ — disrupt · janayet — do · ajñānāṁ — ignorant · karma — work sagināṁ: attached · joṣayet — engaged · sarva — all · karmāṇi — work · vidvān — wise · yuktaḥ — balanced · samācaran — practising

3.27

प्रकृते: क्रियमाणानि गुणै: कर्माणि सर्वश: | अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ / ahakāravimūdhātmā kartāhamiti manyate / / 3.27

People, confused by ego, think they are the doers of all kinds of work while it is being done by the energy of nature.

prakṛteḥ — of material nature · kriyamāṇāni — all being done · guṇaiḥ — by the at- tributes · karmāṇi — work · sarvaśaḥ — all kinds of · ahaṁkāra — ego · vimūdhātmā — confused being · kartā — doer · ahaṁ — I · iti — thus · manyate — thinks

3.28

तत्ववित्तु महाबाहो गुणकर्मविभागयो: | गुणा गुणेषु वर्तन्त इति मत्वा न सज्जते

tattvavittu mahābāho guṇakarmavibhāgayoḥ / guṇā guṇeṣu vartanta iti matvā na sajjate / / 3.28

One who knows the Truth, O mighty-armed one, knows the differences between the attributes of nature and work. Knowing well about the attributes and sense gratification, he never becomes attached.

tattvavit — one who knows the truth · tu — but · mahābāho — mighty-armed one · guṇa — attributes · karma — work · vibhāgayoḥ — differences · guṇāḥ — attributes · guṇeṣu — in sense gratification · vartante — engaged · iti — thus · matvā — thinking · na — never · sajjate — becomes attached

3.29

प्रकृतेर्गुणसम्मूढा: सज्जन्ते गुणकर्मसु | तानकृत्स्नविदो मन्दान्कृत्स्नविन्न विचालयेत्

prakṛterguṇasaṁmūḍhāḥ sajjante guṇa karmasu / tānakṛtsnavido mandānkṛtsnavinna vicālayet / / 3.29

Fooled by the attributes of nature, those people with less wisdom or who are lazy become engaged in actions driven by these attributes. But, the wise should not unsettle them.

prakṛteḥ — by the material nature · guṇa — attributes · saṁmūḍhāḥ — fooled · sajjante — become engaged · guṇa — attributes · karmasu — actions · tān — those · akṛtsnavidaḥ — persons with less wisdom · mandān — lazy · kṛtsnavit — who has wisdom · na — not · vicālayet — unsettle

An ignorant man says to himself, ‘I shall do this action and thereby enjoy its result.’ A wise man should not unsettle this belief. Instead, he himself should set an example by performing his responsibilities diligently from the space of leadership, but without attachment. If the wise man condemns the actions performed with attachment, the ignorant person may simply decide to neglect his responsibilities. It is like this. Can you explain to a child that his toys are not precious? No! The child will never be able to understand that. It has to grow and automatically its attachment to toys will drop when maturity happens. Similarly, the ignorant person can first do the action only with attachment.

But upon seeing the wise person being unaffected by his own actions and being always blissful, naturally, the ignorant one will get curious to know the secret behind happiness. The example of the wise man will automatically pull him towards work with detachment. Take the example of relating to God. Most of us pray to God to get something. All our prayers to God are asking Him to fulfill some desire or to protect us from something. It is perfectly all right to start a relationship with God like this. When you get what you asked for, your trust towards Him grows. This is important. If you ask a person who has not eaten food for three days to meditate, will he be able to?

You will be foolish to tell this person to meditate. What he needs now is some means to get food and then he can be told about meditation. When a person is doing work and expecting certain results, the wise person should not disturb him, even though he knows that work should not be done with attachment. At least the person is working and not sitting idle! He is in rajas (aggressive activity), which is better than tamas (laziness). Of course, he needs to be guided from rajas to satva, a state of calmness, a space of detached action, action without expectations. That is the job of a Master. We are all governed by our basic nature, attributes, or guṇa.

The mental set-up, patterns from previous births, called vāsana determines what we are, whatwedointhisbirth,andalsowhathappenstousinourfuturebirths.The desires born out of vāsana carry their own energy for fulfillment. If you are conscious, you will be able to fulfill them. Once fulfilled, these vāsana and karma get dissolved. One who reaches this state of completion with desires also realizes that he is not the doer. The potter’s wheel goes on turning around even after the potter has ceased to turn it. The vāsana or desires with which you took this body and mind will make the body-mind go through whatever activities it was made for. But the wise person goes through all these activities without the inadequate cognition that he is the doer of them.

Actually, your desire to lead life in a particular way is what creates the corresponding mental set-up or pattern. Once you choose to live life in a particular way, your body supports this decision and acts accordingly. You create a vāsana or seed of karma to aid you in living life the way you desire. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 243 Karma is nothing but the unfulfilled or incomplete patterns and desires, which are inside your being, that constantly make you travel in thesamepathagainandagain,tryingtogivetheexperienceofcompletion in your inner space. You are the one who chooses and acts, but any choice comes with effects and side effects. On seeing the side effects, you feel powerless and blame your fateordestiny.Actually,youaretheonewhochoseitinthefirstplace.Youare responsible for the cause and effect, as you are source of everything!

A small story: Once a man went to a restaurant and ordered various items: pasta, drinks, sweets, and so on. He had a hearty meal and relaxed. The waiter brought the bill. The man took a look at the long bill and exclaimed, ‘But I didn’t order this bill!’ When you eat, you don’t think about the bill, but the bill comes only as a result of all that you ate. Similarly, in life, all that you undergo are the effects of your own incomplete actions. Due to lack of integrity and authenticity, you are not aware of what those effects can be and therefore you perform the actions unconsciously.

Then when you do not take responsibility for these actions, the very actions and their effects bind you into further incomplete actions or desires. Please listen! Any karma left incomplete, any action done out of incompletion is pravritti—incompletion leading to more incompletion. It is more and more dangerous, and makes you more and more powerless. You Are Not the Doer To understand, ‘I am not the doer,’ this concept of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ needs to be understood. Śiva says that the concept of ‘I’ itself comes from the concept of ‘mine.’ We think, when the sense of ‘I’ happens, the sense of ‘mine’ happens. But if you look deeply, our idea of what we think of as ‘ours’ is what defines what we think of as ourselves.

Just imagine, if your possessions, your status, your wealth, your relations all are taken away from you, what will you think of as you? How will you define yourself? Your idea of ‘I’ is also relative, is it not? Many devotees feel they are touching a soft pillow or even feel nothing when I initiate them during energy darśan (transfer of bliss energy). Basically, enlightened beings are just energy. In this plane, in these dimensions of space-time, you see them in this six-foot form and say ‘Nithyananda,’ but in truth, this ‘Nithyananda’ does not exist. It is just energy. There is no ‘I.’ When you get attached to anything, you start creating suffering for yourself.

When you understand that it is the mind and the senses doing what is in their nature, you become detached from your bodymind and do things with the clear understanding that just the mind, body and senses are doing their job. When you don’t understand this, you get caught in what you are doing, you get emotionally attached to incidents and people, and you start living without awareness. Do As I Teach With Authenticity

3.30

मयि सर्वाणि कर्माणि संन्यस्याध्यात्मचेतसा | निराशीर्निनर्ममो भूत्वा युध्यस्व विगतज्वर:

mayi sarvāṇi karmāṇi sannyasyādhyātmacetasā / nirāśīrnirmamo bhūtvā yudhyasva vigatajvaraḥ / / 3.30

Dedicating all actions to Me, with consciousness filled with spiritual knowledge of Self, without desire for gain and without sense of ownership, without being lazy, fight.

mayi — to Me · sarvāṇi — all kinds of · karmāṇi — work · saṁnyasya — renouncing · adhyātma — spiritual knowledge · cetasā — consciousness · nirāśīḥ — without desire for gain · nir mamaḥ — without sense of ownership · bhūtvā — being · yudhyasva — fight · vigatajvaraḥ — without being lazy

3.31

ये मे मतमिदं नित्यमनुतिष्ठन्ति मानवा: | श्रद्धावन्तोऽनसूयन्तो मुच्यन्ते तेऽपि कर्मभि:

ye me matamidaṁ nityamanutiṣṭhanti mānavāḥ / śraddhāvanto ’nasūyanto mucyante tepi karmabhiḥ / / 3.31

Those persons who execute their duties according to My teaching and who follow these teachings faithfully with authenticity, without envy, become free from the bondage of fruitive actions.

ye — who · me — My · matam — teaching · idaṁ — these · nityaṁ — always · anutiṣṭhanti — execute regularly · mānavāḥ — persons · śraddhāvantaḥ — with faith · anasūyantaḥ — without envy · mucyante — become free · te — all of them · api — even · karmabhiḥ — from the bondage of fruitive actions

3.32

ये त्वेतदभ्यसूयन्तो नानुतिष्ठन्ति मे मतम् | सर्वज्ञानविमूढांस्तान्विद्धि नष्टानचेतस:

ye tvetad abhyasūyanto nānutiṣṭhanti me matam / sarvajñānavimūḍhāṁstānviddhi naṣṭānacetasaḥ / / 3.32

But those who do not regularly perform their duty ac- cording to My teaching, are ignorant, senseless and ruined.

ye — those · tu — but · etat — this · abhyasūyantaḥ — out of envy · na — not · anutiṣṭhanti — regularly perform · me — My · mataṁ — teaching · sarvajñāna — all kinds of knowl- edge · vimūḍhān — fooled · tān — they · viddhi — know · naṣṭān — ruined · acetasaḥ — without Consciousness

Next Kṛṣṇa makes an important point. Kṛṣṇa says: Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions and who follow this teaching faithfully with authenticity, without envy, become free from the bondage of actions. ye me matam idaṁ nityam anutiṣṭhanti mānavāḥ I śraddhāvanto ‘nasūyanto mucyante ‘pi karmabhiḥ II 3.31 Here you need to understand two things. He says, ‘according to My instructions, My words, ye me matam idaṁ nityam’. It means when you enter into your being, whatever your being says is Kṛṣṇa’s words. When he says My instructions, He means the instructions from the ātman, the being. When you complete and drop the goals and fall into your being, the Divine will guide you and you will become an instrument in His hands.

If you become a hollow bamboo without any blockages inside, you will become a flute in the hands of Kṛṣṇa. Dropping your purposes or dropping your root pattern is what I call becoming a hollow bamboo. If you are a solid bamboo, you will be used only to carry dead bodies. But if you drop the root pattern and fall into the being, you will become an instrument in the hands of the Divine; a divine flute. When you become a flute, the air that enters into you comes out as music. Your words become mantra, sacred words that enrich people, your actions become tantra, sacred techniques to realize the Divine, and your form becomes yantra, sacred form, you become Divine.

Here, He says, ‘Those persons who execute their responsibilities according to My injunctions, according to your inner consciousness...’ Understand, as long as you follow the goals set by society, you will be carrying a social conscience. The moment you drop social conditioning, the purposes taught to you by society, you will drop conscience and start living with consciousness. Please listen, conscience will become consciousness the moment you bring responsibility to it. Conscience means struggling with do’s and don’ts, guilt and desires. Consciousness means the pure flow of life. As long as you do not take the responsibility, you will be struggling with goals, with do’s and don’ts. If you live with goals, you will carry a social conscience in your life.

If you realize the beauty of purposelessness you will carry spiritual consciousness in your life. Śraddha, Your Peak Possibility ‘The man who lives according to his consciousness, believing in and having śraddhā towards these teachings...’ Why does Kṛṣṇa ask for śraddha here? This is the first time Kṛṣṇa says ‘śraddha. Why? Śraddhā cannot really be translated as faith. It means faith plus the courage of authenticity to execute the highest level of possibility. In English, there is no equivalent for śraddha. I will describe śraddha as authenticity, but authenticity is not all-encompassing translation of śraddha. The courage of being established in the peak of your capability, and responding to life from who you perceive to be for yourself, who you project yourself to be for others, what others expect you to be for them and what you expect them to be for you is what is called śraddhā, Authenticity.

Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 247 Here Kṛṣṇa says, ‘śraddhāvanto ‘nasūyanto,’ the man who executes the teachings with śraddhā, with the courage of authenticity to the peak of his capability. Why do we need courage of authenticity? A small story: A man born blind goes to the doctor and asks, ‘Doctor, will you help me gain my eyesight?’ The doctor says, ‘Don’t worry, I will perform an operation. You will get your vision and after that you can walk without your stick.’ Blind people always carry a stick to feel their way around. The doctor tells him that he will be able to walk without the stick. The blind man asks, ‘Doctor, I understand you will do an operation.

I understand I will have my eyesight restored. But I don’t understand how I can walk without the stick?’ By and by, the blind man had forgotten that his stick was just an aid. In the same way, just live without the mind. Just live without purpose and goals, you will be able to walk without the stick. The stick is nothing but your planning and worrying. By and by, worrying has become a part of you, an incomplete default cognition for you. When I say you can live without worrying, you will say ‘No! How can it be possible? If I don’t worry what will happen to my children, my house?

What will happen to my property, my lawsuits?’ Your life is going smoothly in spite of you, not because of you! Courage is the fragrance of authenticity. When you have the courage of authenticity, śraddha towards living these teachings and start living without purpose, only then will you realize that you don’t need the stick to walk. That is when you become authentic to your peak possibility. Once you enter into the depths of your being, you will enter into a totally different dimension. Whatever you think now as spiritual life or material life both lose their meaning and you will enter a new dimension of life. You will be established in authenticity, in the space of possibility.

For example, can you explain life to a four-year-old child? He can understand only toys. Once he becomes older, naturally he will be able to understand what life is. Automatically toys and dolls will leave him. Do you miss your toys? Do you feel you have renounced your toys? When you grow, you start experiencing a different dimension of your life and the toys simply fade away. Similarly, dropping smoking is not important, smoking dropping you is important. When you enter into your being, when you experience the purposelessness of life, the so-called material life and spiritual life both drop you and you enter what I call ‘Quantum spirituality’ or Eternal Consciousness.

You are then in eternal bliss. Only then you will understand you don’t need worries to live. You don’t need your mind. Until you reach the being, you need to have śraddha. Until you gain your vision, you must have śraddha and lie on the operating table. You need to allow the doctor to work on you as per his expectation from you. That is the reason Kṛṣṇa says, ‘śraddhāvanto anasūyanto’. The next word is a beautiful word: ‘anasūyanto,’ which means ‘without envy.’ This is important. We all think, ‘My brother has purchased two houses. My sister is getting a big new car. How can I live like this?’ The moment you get such thoughts, ‘He has that, she has this,’ what happens?

All your spirituality, all your authenticity, all your purposelessness, everything just disappears. You are again in the same rat race. If your neighbor buys a new air-conditioner, the temperature in your house shoots up. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘anasūyanto, without envy.’ Envy is the parasite pattern that puts you back in the same rut of inauthenticity. The problem with the rat race is this—even if you win, you are still a rat! Any pattern you create before the age of seven is the root pattern. Any pattern created after the age of seven is a parasite pattern. First you will have to work on completing with the parasite patterns and then completing with all the root patterns.

The moment the parasite pattern of envy or jealousy enters your being, authenticity disappears, purposelessness disappears. Again, you fall into social conditioning and you start running behind goals like a rat. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 249 Kṛṣṇa is asking Arjuna to bring śraddha or authenticity in action to the peak possibility of what he perceives as himself and what he projects as himself, without the parasite pattern of envy, anasūyanto. When you bring yourself to your peak, there is no wastage of inner power, there are no parasite patterns that can attack you. When you waste your love, it becomes lust. When you waste your responsibility, it becomes jealouly.

The lower dimensions of you are nothing but rejected parts of your higher dimensions. When your higher dimension is not materialized, your lower dimension is empowered! The Power of Illusion There is a beautiful idea from tantra about māyā śakti (the power of illusion). Illusion makes us all dance with this one stick, jealousy. Have you seen guys who make money using monkeys in India? On the roadside, they perform a small show with monkeys. With a small stick they make the monkey dance and do whatever they want it to. In the same way, the power of illusion is making you run as it wants with just one stick called jealousy.

The moment you compare, you just jump into your lower dimensions, the same rut which I call the purposeful life. Then you become a karmi, not karma yogi. The man who lives in eternal consciousness, Nityānanda, and allows his body and mind to work according to their nature is centered in eternal consciousness. He is called a karma yogi, one who has espoused authenticity in action without attachment as the ultimate renunciation. But the man who acts out of jealousy, enters his lower dimensions of social conditioning. He is caught in the rat race, and is called a karmi, one who is focused on inauthentic action arising from patterns of greed.

A karmi is an inauthentic person who rejects his highest possibility. A karma yogi is one established in authenticity in action, empowered to live his highest possibility. The difference between a karmi and a karma yogi is this: The man who is driven by inauthenticity, his lowest possibility, jealousy is a karmi, and the man who allows authentic action, his highest possibility, the eternal consciousness to drive him is a karma yogi. One more thing: When we do things out of comparison, we do only foolish things. Our intelligence stops working and our performance falls short of our peak potential, because we now use someone else’s productivity as our measuring stick.

If you do things out of the parasite patterns of jealousy, you will end up being inauthentic in your actions. Comparison or jealousy is the root from which inauthenticity justifies itself and continues to exist in you! Do not allow it. Tell yourself very clearly, ‘Whatever others do is their responsibility and my life is my responsibility. At the end of the day, even if he is not responsible, I am responsible for his irresponsibility!’ Each one of us is unique. There is no need to compare with any other person. You are unique. The main problem is that you compare only with the nearest person, five inches above you and five inches below you.

You don’t compare yourselves with Bill Gates or Buddha, do you? Why? The problem is not failure, the problem is your worry about failure. That is why you don’t aim for unreachable goals. You aim only for reachable goals. All your joy, the very bliss of living is swallowed by this one illusion called comparison. Just like the Earth is destroyed by the ocean at the time of the final deluge, pralaya, your whole life is destroyed by comparison. Jealousy and comparison have no absolute existence, they are delusory patterns. There are two levels of reality: comparative reality and existential reality. If you build your life based on existential reality, you will never suffer.

If you build your life based on comparative reality, you will continuously suffer till death. Not only at the time of death, even after death. Life is For Realizing Your Highest Possibility When you are in conflict, you will naturally suffer. People constantly say, ‘I am in suffering because of his or her inauthenticity!’ Wherever you are in conflict, be very clear you are in conflict, even though you point at others’ inauthenticity. Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 251 If life is not continuing to happen in the seed, it is dead! If authenticity is not continuously happening in you, you are not a possibility, you are dead! Constantly make authenticity happen in you, in your work, in your thinking, in your health!

Constantly expand your thinking, constantly expand your perception! Constantly practicing authenticity brings you to the space of possibility. Śraddha or Authenticity continuously connects you with yourself and your highest possibility. Life is for realizing that possibility. Life is for realizing the Self. Life is for realizing itself. Authenticity is Life! Life is continuous expansion! Add authenticity to your thinking in every step. Constantly go on expanding! Don’t settle down with the lower perception. What you know about humans, what you know about the world, what you know about you is all imperfect perception, comparative reality. When you settle down with comparative reality, you make the most horrible mistake of your life.

Don’t build your inner space on comparative reality. Let your inner space be built on existential reality which is the space of highest possibility. If you build your life on existential reality, you will live your life blissfully in eternal consciousness, as a karma yogi. By nature, a person with a body and mind has to act in one way or the other. If you follow your nature with authenticity, you can be comfortable and flow in tune with Existence. When you are relaxed, when you are blissful, you express yourself beautifully. When you become possessed by the root pattern of greed or fear and try to be what you are not and project yourself to be what you are not, you suppress yourself and become inauthentic.

What can suppression do? You cannot suppress energy. You can only transform energy. It can never be destroyed or suppressed. Neither expression nor suppression is the solution, only completion with your inauthentic identities is the solution. The solution is to infuse śraddha, the courage of authenticity into this process. For example: your reaction of irritation has nothing to do with what the person has done. If you look a little deeper, you can see it is how you choose to react based on your root and parasite patterns that decides what you feel about the person. You choose to get irritated by what he is doing. Why should you allow yourself to get worked up about the other person’s actions?

Also, factually the person may have a completely different intention. Yet you are already biased by your own past perception about him. Authenticity is the key. If you bring authenticity to what you perceive as you, to what is happening within you and what you project yourself outside you, you will not be controlled by your unconscious patterns. You will be able to see clearly when lower emotions arise or unconscious reactions arise. The awareness of your inauthenticity will itself bring you to your peak capability. Then, you will naturally drop all your lower level emotions and live what Kṛṣṇa calls as śraddhāvanto anasūyanto, authenticity without envy, the space of possibility. Do Your Responsibility

3.33

सदृशं चेष्टते स्वस्या: प्रकृतेर्ज्ञानवानपि | प्रकृतिं यान्ति भूतानि निग्रह: किं करिष्यति

sadṛśaṁ ceṣṭate svasyāḥ prakṛterjñānavānapi / prakṛtiṁ yānti bhūtāni nigrahaḥ kiṁ kariṣyati / / 3.33

Even the wise person tries to act according to the modes of his own nature, for all living beings go through their nature. What can restraint of the senses do?

sadṛśaṁ — according to · ceṣṭate — tries · svasyāḥ — by one’s nature · prakṛteḥ — modes · jñānavān — wise · api — even · prakṛtiṁ — nature · yānti — goes through · bhūtāni — living beings · nigrahaḥ — suppression · kiṁ — what · kariṣyati — can do

3.34

इन्द्रियस्येन्द्रियस्यार्थे रागद्वेषौ व्यवस्थितौ | तयोर्न वशमागच्छेत्तौ ह्यस्य परिपन्थिनौ

indriyasyendriyasyārthe rāgadveṣau vyavasthitau / tayorna vaśamāgacchet tau hyasya paripanthinau / / 3.34

Attachment and repulsion of the senses for sense objects should be put under control. One should never come under their control as they certainly are the stumbling blocks on the path of self-realization.

indriyasya — of the senses · indriyasya arthe — for sense objects · rāga — attachment · dveṣau — repulsion · vyavasthitau — put under control · tayoḥ — of them · na — never · vaśaṁ — control · āgacchet — come · tau — those · hi — certainly · asya — his · paripan- thinau — stumbling blocks

3.35

श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुण: परधर्मात्स्वनुष्ठितात् | स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेय: परधर्मो भयावह:

śreyānsvadharmo viguṇahparadharmātsvanuṣṭhitāt / svadharme nidhanaṁ śreyaḥ paradharmo bhayāvahaḥ / / 3.35

Better it is to do one’s own responsibility, even if it is in a faultily, than to do someone else’s responsibility perfectly. Death in the course of performing one’s own responsibility is better than doing another’s responsibility, as this can be dangerous.

śreyān — better · svadharmaḥ — own duty · viguṇaḥ — in a faulty manner · paradharmāt — other’s duty · svanuṣṭhitāt — perfectly done · svadharme — in one’s duty · nidhanaṁ — death · śreyaḥ — better · paradhamaḥ — other’s duty · bhayāvahaḥ — dangerous

3.36

अर्जुन उवाच | अथ केन प्रयुक्तोऽयं पापं चरति पूरुष: | अनिच्छन्नपि वार्ष्णेय बलादिव नियोजित:

arjuna uvāca atha kena prayukto’yaṁ pāpaṁ carati pūruṣaḥ / anicchannapi vārṣṇeya balādiva niyojitaḥ / / 3.36

Arjuna says, ‘O descendant of Vṛṣṇi, then, by what is man forced to sinful acts, even without desiring, as if impelled by force?’

arjuna uvāca — Arjuna said · atha — then · kena — by what · prayuktaḥ — forced · ayaṁ — this (person) · pāpaṁ — sins · carati — acts · pūruṣaḥ — man · anicchan — without de- siring · api — though · vārṣṇeya — O descendant of Vrishni · balāt — by force · iva — as if · niyojitaḥ — engaged

3.37

श्रीभगवानुवाच | काम एष क्रोध एष रजोगुणसमुद्भव: || महाशनो महापाप्मा विद्ध्येनमिह वैरिणम्

śrībhagavānuvāca kāma eṣa krodha eṣa rajoguṇasamudbhavaḥ / mahāśano mahāpāpmā viddhyenamiha vairiṇam / / 3.37

The Lord says, ‘It is lust and anger born of the attribute of passion, alldevouring and sinful, which is one’s greatest enemy in this world.’

śrī bhagavān uvāca — the Lord said · kāma — lust · eṣa — these · krodha — anger · eṣa — these · rajoguṇa — attribute of passion · samudbhavaḥ — born of · mahāśanaḥ — all- devouring · mahāpāpmā — greatly sinful · viddhi — know · enaṁ — this · iha — in the world · vairiṇaṁ — greatest enemy

Here, it is important to understand what duty means. If I have to do my duty, I need to know how to identify my duty. The idea of duty is different for different people, different countries, different cultures, and different religions. Hence the term ‘duty’ is impossible to clearly define. We have always been trained by society to consider certain acts as duty; some as good and others as bad. Duty and responsibility are totally different. For example, it is our duty to help elderly people, to follow principles of truth, non-violence, non-stealing and such tenets. We are brought up with these concepts of morality, but have we experienced the beauty of implementing them?

Then there are certain principles that get handed down depending on the religion we follow. For example, a starving person who finds a piece of meat has no problem eating it if he is a non-vegetarian. On the other hand, a vegetarian would feel it is his duty not to touch meat even if it means losing his life. These are all socially defined duties. Never judge the customs of other people by your standards. There is no common standard for the Universe. What Kṛṣṇa talks about here is not socially defined duty or conscience. He is talking about responsibility, the leadership consciousness, the law of the cosmos. The Cosmos functions on responsibilism.

The Cosmos does not believe in socialism, communism, capitalism, corporatism or any other ‘ism.’ The law of Cosmos and the natural law of Existence—dharma is not comparison based philosophy of communism, socialism, capitalism or corporatism. The law of the Cosmos is responsibilism. You always measure the result of your responsibility based on the little money and the name and fame you get. That is where you fail. When you take responsibility, the higher energies start expressing through you. That is why I am asking you to not measure the results with your small logic. When you actually take responsibility, Indra entersyourhand;itbecomesvajrāyudha.Yamaentersyourlungs;itmeans ‘not-stopping’. Lakṣmi enters your heart; it means ‘continuously sharing’.

Kubera enters your liver and kidney, keeping the whole thing alive; Mārut, Agnī, Mārīci, all of them enter your intestine, burning anything that is offered and keeping the whole system active and alive! When you take responsibility, when you start expressing authenticity, you get a thousand times more benefit than what you calculate through your small logic. When you start living with responsibility, not only will your monthly earnings move from two lakh to twenty lakh but you also build a space where you live in deathlessness. Your body gets built as you want. Your consciousness gets built beyond your body; you build a space Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 255 of deathlessness.

Unattached Work Liberates You Vivekananda talks about a sage, a yogi in India. He was a peculiar man. If you asked him a question, he would not answer. However, if you asked him a question and waited for some days, in the course of a conversation, he would bring up the subject and throw wonderful light on it. He once told Vivekananda the secret of work. ‘Let the end and the means be joined as one.’ When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond that. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote all your energy to it for that time. The right performance of duty at any point in life, without attachment to the results, leads us to the highest realization.

The worker who is attached to results is the one who grumbles about the nature of the duty. To the unattached worker, all duties are equally good. He takes responsibility and welcomes what he has to do, irrespective of the external nature of the job. He approaches every act with the same enthusiasm and liveliness and becomes completely involved in the task at hand. He is authentic to his authenticity and does the action to his peak capability. In the great epic Mahābharat, there are actually three versions of the Gītā: Bhagavad Gītā and Anugīta, both delivered by Śrī Kṛṣṇa; the third and equally important one is called Vyādha Gītā, the song of a butcher.

A butcher delivered this Vyādha Gītā; a man who is considered as a low caste or a cāndāla delivered this great scripture. There lived a great yogi who had special powers but was not yet enlightened. He was a highly egoistic person. He was meditating under a tree in a forest. A bird sitting on the tree relieved itself and the droppings fell on him. He lost his temper and he opened his eyes, staring at the bird. The bird was killed by the power of his gaze. The yogi was very proud of what he had done. He then went on his daily round of begging for alms. He came to a house and begged for food.

The lady of the house called out from inside the house and asked him to wait as she was serving her husband. The yogi was upset. He thought to himself, ‘Foolish woman! She is serving her husband, an ordinary man, and she is making a great yogi like me wait!’ Suddenly he heard the lady’s voice again as if in answer, ‘I am notlikethebird in the foresttobe killed soeasily.Yourpowers may be used against birds but not against me, so relax!’ The yogi was shocked! The lady actually knew not only what he was thinking, but even what had happened in the forest! The yogi apologized to the lady when she came out to give him food.

He asked her, ‘Mother, how did you know what I was thinking? And how did you know what happened in the forest? Please teach me how I can achieve this.’ She replied, ‘You have attained śakti (power) but not buddhi (intelligence). Go to the butcher who is down the road and he will teach you.’ Now the yogi was even more surprised. He thought, ‘How can ordinary butchers teach me anything about buddhi?’ But what the lady had done was too much for him. So he quietly took the lady’s counsel and went down the road to the butcher’s shop. When he reached the butcher’s shop, he saw that the butcher was busy cutting up the meat of the animal he had just slaughtered.

He could not imagine learning from a butcher. But he wanted intelligence, so he approached the butcher and asked, ‘I was told by a lady living nearby to ask you about intelligence. Can you explain to me how to attain intelligence?’ Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 257 The butcher explained how he himself had achieved intelligence, the ultimate experience. All he did to achieve it was do his job with complete awareness and total authenticity. He did his job with complete integrity and used the money that he earned to take care of his aged parents, which he did with equal devotion. Just the very doing of his responsibility had liberated him.

The nature of his work, the act of slaughtering animals, was not important. The attitude, space from which he did it was what mattered. You may be doing the greatest acts of social service. But if the attitude, the energy behind the act is not out of completion, the action is just hypocritical and inauthentic. Causing Responsibility Out of Completion In the Mahābhārat, Karṇa is a great warrior and close friend of Duryodhana; his acts of charity and generosity are much admired. He is the immaculate son of Surya, the Sun energy and the eldest son of Kuntī, the mother of Pāṇḍavas. Being born before Kuntī’s marriage to King Pānḍu, the unwed Kuntī abandoned him at birth.

Karṇa lived as the adopted son of the royal charioteer of the Kurus, and struggled with misfortune throughout his life. Karṇa’s famous charity was out of a deep incompletion and a feeling that he is not respected. What was Karṇa’s inner image, mamakāra? ‘I am a failure; I am not respected anywhere I go.’ This is because he did not know his parents’ names, his origins. So, his inner image, mamakāra at a young age was ‘I am not respected!’ So he was exploding with the outer image, ahaṁkāra—‘I have to be respected, I am respectable!’ And the best way to be respected was to do charity work. Even his charity came from incompletion.

That is why his death itself was because of his charity. See, at every level, he is destroyed by his acts of charity. First, Indra, the king of gods, comes and takes away his invincible protective shield and earrings, kavaca and kunḍala that he embodied from his birth as the son of Sun.At the end of Karṇa’s life, all his accumulated good karmas out of his charity stand as a shield and protect him. So Lord Kṛṣṇa, in order to liberate Karṇa, comes in the disguise of a poor brāhmaṇa and asks in alms all the good effects of his charity. You see, Karṇa might have done the charity work out of incompletion, but the people who received it were complete.

So their blessings were protecting him. Foolishly, knowing that Kṛṣṇa Himself is asking him for alms, Karṇa thought, ‘I am giving even to Kṛṣṇa!’ Even the great acts like charity, when done out of incompletion, only lead to the wrong effect. Finally, because Karṇa no longer has the protection of his good karma, Arjuna is able to kill him. If you cause anything out of completion, what you get back will be miraculous. If you cause even a great charitable act out of incompletion, what you get back will be hell. Even the so-called moral, good deeds will only have bad effects. The Natural Dharma Each of us is unique in our capabilities and interests.

Accordingly, our responsibilities are different. If you try to imitate others, thinking their responsibility appears more attractive, you will be making the mistake of following somebody else’s path. Comparison literally rules our lives. When we use our energies with authenticity for our peak growth without comparing ourselves with others, we do our responsibility according to our nature. These verses on karma yoga by Kṛṣṇa have been misused by some to defend the caste or varṇa system in the Hindu tradition. They say what Kṛṣṇa means is that one should not swerve from one’s varṇa dharma, the duty of one’s caste. They do not understand the origin of the caste system.

In the vedic culture, a child was taken to a Gurukul, the ancient system of living, learning at the feet of Master, before the age of seven. The Guru taught the child based on his or her abilities. If the child had the aptitude to become a scholar he was trained in scriptures, and became a brāhmaṇa. If the child was aggressive and courageous, he was trained in martial arts, and became a kṣatriya, meaning warrior, and so on. Varṇa or caste classification was based on one’s natural abilities, not on birth. Over time, this practice degenerated into a classification based Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 259 on heredity. One needs to understand Kṛṣṇa’s injunction in the vedic educational context.

Arjuna then asks Kṛṣṇa why even a centered person is led to commit sinful acts, as if forced by unknown powers. Arjuna’s question is the eternal dilemma of expression or suppression. For example, if you see a beautiful woman and you feel attracted to her, you feel this is not right according to what society has taught you and you try to suppress your feelings. Can this inauthenticity work? If you try to suppress something, it will surface with more intensity. We are always conditioned to believe that anyone with passion or lust is a lower human. There is no lower or higher person. Only a transformation of energy needs to happen.

People who pretend to be moralists are either afraid or guilty of their lust. They are completely inauthentic. The moment you think you are a lower human, you start fighting that feeling. Then it becomes very difficult to get out of it and to transform. Anything you resist persists. What you need is to bring completion and allow the transformation, the ultimate reality to happen. The Alchemy Of Possibility Into Reality These four principles of integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching exist in our very DNA. A seed becomes a tree or man realizes his potential only when these four principles are lived. A human has everything needed in him to become the ultimate reality, the divine reality.

The DNA, the very structure with which the human consciousness is built, in Saṃskṛit we call it dharma—are these four principles! As of now, man is only a possibility. Only when these four principles become reality do you experience your actuality. Then the base energy of lust can be transformed into the higher energy of love. It is an alchemic process of changing any base metal to a higher metal. Similarly, changing our base emotion, lust, to the highest emotion we are capable of, love, is alchemy. First, the impurity, an animalistic emotion, should be removed from lust. Your lust is contaminated by all kinds of fantasies, feelings of guilt and desire we have picked up from the society and media.

In earlier times, people were able to drop their lust by the age of forty. Lust simply dropped from them. In Indian marriages, there is a beautiful verse which couples recite. The meaning of the verse is, ‘In the eleventh year of marriage, let the wife become the mother, and the husband the son.’ This may sound strange. What it means is, let the relationship reach ultimate completion. The ultimate completion for a woman is when she expresses the motherliness in her. The ultimate completion for the man is when he comes back to the innocence of the child. So, by the eleventh year, let the relationship mature so that both the husband and wife attain ultimate completion.

First, the impurity in lust needs to be removed so that a deep friendship at the being level and not just at the physical or mental level can be added. When you feel deeply connected to a person, there will be no need for physical proximity to that person. You will feel happy and satisfied with just the feeling connection. For the final transformation of lust into love, the relationship needs to go through the process of patience and perseverance. You need to be patient for the other person to accept your transformation. Then he or she will automatically be transformed as well. Here Kṛṣṇa refers to lust and anger, both born out of passion.

Anger is also an emotion born out of lust. When the other person rejects your lust, it turns into anger towards that person. Anger is a tremendous energy we misuse because we do not understand and respect it. Greed, anger and lust are all rajasic qualities that arise from passion and aggression from the blocked mūlādhāra cakra, the root center. These are instinctive emotions that we inherit from our animal ancestors. Indulging in these base emotions keeps one in bondage to his instinctive nature. This is the reason Kṛṣṇa classifies these as the root causes of sin. A human being is endowed with Consciousness that rises above these instincts. The meaning of a human life is not mere survival; it is the realization of one’s Superconscious nature, one’s highest reality. Anything that stands in the way of Self-realization is a sin. Control Your Senses

3.38

धूमेनाव्रियते वह्निर्यथादर्शो मलेन च | यथोल्बेनावृतो गर्भस्तथा तेनेदमावृतम्

dhūmenāvriyate vanhiryathādarśo malena ca / yatholbenāvṛto garbhastathā tenedamāvṛtam / / 3.38

As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the e bryo is covered by the womb, so also, the living being is covered by lust.

dhūmena — by smoke · āvriyate — covered · vahniḥ — fire · yathā — as · ādarśaḥ — mirror · malena — by dust · ca — also · yathā — as · ulbena — by the womb · āvṛtaḥ — covered · garbhaḥ — embryo · tathā — so · tena — by that · idaṁ — this · āvṛtaṁ — covered

3.39

आवृतं ज्ञानमेतेन ज्ञानिनो नित्यवैरिणा | कामरूपेण कौन्तेय दुष्पूरेणानलेन च

āvṛtaṁ jñānametena jñānino nityavairiṇā / kāmarūpeṇa kaunteya duṣpūreṇānalena ca / / 3.39

The knowledge of the knower is covered by this eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and burns like fire, O son of Kuntī

āvṛtaṁ — covered · jñānam — knowledge · etena — by this · jñāninaḥ — of the knower · nitya — eternal · vairiṇā — enemy · kāma — desire · rū peṇa — in the form of · kaunteya — O son of Kuntī · duṣpūreṇa — never satisfied · analena — by fire · ca — and

3.40

इन्द्रियाणि मनो बुद्धिरस्याधिष्ठानमुच्यते | एतैर्विमोहयत्येष ज्ञानमावृत्य देहिनम्

indriyāṇi mano buddhirasyādhiṣṭhānamucyate / etairvimohayatyeṣa jñānamāvṛtya dehinam / / 3.40

The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the locations of this lust, which confuses the embodied being and covers the knowledge.

indriyāṇi — senses · manaḥ — mind · buddhiḥ — intelligence · asya — of · adhiṣṭhānaṁ — sitting place · ucyate — called · etaiḥ — by these · vimohayati — confuses · eṣaḥ — this · jñānaṁ — knowledge · āvṛtya — covering · dehinam — embodied being

3.41

तस्मात्त्वमिन्द्रियाण्यादौ नियम्य भरतर्षभ | पाप्मानं प्रजहि ह्येनं ज्ञानविज्ञाननाशनम्

tasmāttvamindriyāṇyādau niyamya bharatarṣabha / pāpmānaṁ prajahi hyenaṁ jñānavijñānanāśanam / / 3.41

Therefore, O Bharataṛṣabha, chief amongst the descendants of Bhārata, in the very beginning, control the senses and curb the symbol of sin, which is certainly the destroyer of knowl- edge and consciousness.

tasmāt — therefore · tvam — you · indriyāṇi — senses · ādau — in the beginning · ni- yamya — by controlling · Bharata ṛṣabha — O chief amongst the descendants of Bhārata · pāpmānaṁ — symbol of sin · prajahi — curb · hi — certainly · enaṁ — this · jñāna — knowledge · vijñāna — consciousness · nāśanaṁ — destroyer

3.42

इन्द्रियाणि पराण्याहुरिन्द्रियेभ्य: परं मन: | मनसस्तु परा बुद्धिर्यो बुद्धे: परतस्तु स:

indriyāṇi parāṇyāhurindriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ / manasastu parā buddhiryo buddheḥ paratastu saḥ / / 3.42

It is said that the senses are superior to the body. The mind is superior to the senses. The intelligence is still high- er than the mind and the consciousness is even higher than intelligence.

indriyāṇi — senses · parāṇi — superior · āhuḥ — is said · indriyebhyaḥ — more than the senses · paraṁ — superior · manaḥ — mind · manasaḥ — more than the mind · tu — also · parā — superior · buddhiḥ — intelligence · yaḥ — who · buddheḥ — more than intelligence · parataḥ — superior · tu — but · saḥ — he

3.43

एवं बुद्धे: परं बुद्ध्वा संस्तभ्यात्मानमात्मना | जहि शत्रुं महाबाहो कामरूपं दुरासदम्

evaṁ buddheḥ paraṁ buddhvā saṁstabhyātmānamātmanā / jahi śatruṁ māhābāho kāmarūpaṁ durāsadam / / 3.43

Knowing the Self to be superior to mind and intelligence, by steadying the mind by intelligence, conquer the insatiable enemy in the form of lust, O Mahābāho, mighty-armed one.

evaṁ — and · buddheḥ — of intelligence · paraṁ — superior · buddhvā — knowing · saṁstabhya — by steadying · ātmānaṁ — of the mind · ātmanā — by intelligence · jahi — conquer · śatruṁ — enemy · māhābāho — O mighty-armed one · kāma — lust · rūpaṁ — in the form of · durāsadaṁ — insatiable

Just like smoke veils the fire, just as the dust on the mirror masks your reflection, and just as you cannot see the embryo when it is covered by the placenta in the womb, we are not able to see our true nature of bliss because we are caught in base emotions like lust. Lust is linked intimately to the survival of the species. Without lust, there can be no mutual attraction between genders, no reproduction, and no continuity of the human race. This basic survival instinct is lodged in our primal root energy center, the mūlādhāra cakra. When this cakra is blocked we behave out of instinct, like animals.

When this cakra is energized, we learn to live in intelligence as we are truly meant to. Once a person reaches physical or sexual maturity at adolescence, it is very difficult to control the effects of lust arising out of the mūlādhāra. One needs to be spiritually awakened before sexual maturity so that the energy can flow upwards towards the sahasṛāra or the crown cakra. The mūlādhāra cakra is the seat of all fantasies, primarily sexual fantasies. These fantasies are the ones Kṛṣṇa says are like dust on the mirror, completely clouding our judgment. We live by templates that we carve out in our mind based on these fantasies, and live towards fulfilling these fantasies.

Completion in the present moment is the key to unlocking the mūlādhāra and dissolving lust. It is only completion that brings you in touch with reality as it is and dissolves your fantasies. Kṛṣṇa closes his dialogue with Arjuna in this chapter with these words, ‘Be aware that you have a higher intelligence. Use that intelligence to control your senses and curb your lust, which is your most dangerous enemy on the path to completion.’ Please note that Kṛṣṇa does not say, ‘Arjuna, come here, I shall help you dissolve the lust in your body and mind. You can then be at peace.’ Arjuna started the dialogue saying he was confused by Kṛṣṇa’s words about action and inaction.

Kṛṣṇa then told him to carry out his own responsibility with authenticity and without worrying about the result of his actions. He guides Arjuna to lead a purposeless life, free from obsession with the final goal and to be detached from the result of action. ‘Authentic action is our nature,’ He says, ‘not inaction. Act, work, but surrender the result of action to Me.’ Now, Kṛṣṇa says clearly, ‘Control your senses, be aware, be complete living in the present moment and give up lust.’ Lust, here, not only refers to sexual desire but also to all desires related to the outer world. It is our Karma Yogaḥ Beauty Of Purposelessness 263 sense of identity, the sense of possession that drives us to acquire and enjoy.

The truth, however, is that acquisition only leads to the desire for more acquisition, not to enjoyment and fulfillment. To be blissful we need to keep our inner space clean and empty. Only then can bliss fill that space. The outer space can be filled, that is not a contradiction. As long as the outer material space is filled without attachment, the inner space remains empty. To make this happen, the senses have to be in control, not suppressed. Anything suppressed waits for an opportunity to explode. However, creating the space of completion can transform the mind and senses. When we realize that life has no purpose, that the meaning of life is to enrich others and ourselves and to enjoy the path, we learn to give up attachment to end results.

We drop expectations. We move into the present moment and live in the space of completion. This is the whole essence of Karma Yogaḥ. Be complete and drop your attachment to the goal and the fruit of your actions, and live an enriching life with integrity in words, with authenticity in thinking and action, and with responsibility in feeling. Live life blissfully. You will achieve the Supreme. You will achieve the space of Enlightenment. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘You will achieve the Supreme.’ You will achieve the eternal consciousness, Nityānanda, eternal bliss. So let us pray to the ultimate Divine, Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, to help us understand His message, to help us imbibe Him in our being.

May He guide us. May He enrich us to experience the eternal consciousness, the eternal bliss, Nityānanda! ThusendsthethirdchapternamedKarmaYogaḥ,‘TheYoga of Action,’ of the Bhagavad Gītā Upaniṣad, Brahmavidyā Yogaśāstra, the scripture of yoga dealing with the science of the Absolute in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇārjuna saṃvād, dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna. The Path Of Knowledge Logic can never lead you to Self-Realization. The ultimate Truth is beyond logic. The qualification to receive the Truth is Devotion. Krsna begins revealing the mysterious supreme science of Enlightenment to His devotee and friend, Arjuna. c h a p t e r Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ ... The human psyche longs for continuance. Continuation and perpetuation of one’s identity is of utmost importance to us.

We trace our lineage back as far as we can go in memory and records. We keep looking for something noteworthy there. We are anxious to provide for the weak ones in the family. This is a general anxiety on the account of our own lineage. Arjuna has been driven by the same dilemma. To defend the fears he has about his own identity, he cites historical moral codes that discuss how one’s ancestors and descendants are affected by one’s deeds in this life. It is a simple transference of his present uncertainty to the past and future. People ask me, ‘When was this Universe created? How and why?’ I tell them that the next time God calls for a conference, if I am invited, I shall ask this question and find out the answer!

As far back as I can see this Universe has existed. As far into the future as I can see this Universe will continue to exist. There is no beginning and no end. It has been there forever and will be there forever. The form and identity that we are familiar with is perishable. It is matter subject to creation, destruction and re-creation. But the Universe is formless energy. As it sees fit, it transforms into matter and again back to energy. That energy is imperishable. This is what Kṛṣṇa explains earlier to Arjuna. This energy of the Universe is the same energy that is within us. All religions may not accept this principle of energy in man and the Universe as eternal.

Views of religions change and have to change as new knowledge arises. Scientists now agree that matter and energy are inter-convertible in time and space. Advances in Quantum Physics have The Path Of Knowledge Jñānakarmasannyāsa Yogaḥ The Path Of Knowledge 267 shown that sub-atomic particles can appear in different forms and shapes depending on when they are viewed, how they are viewed and who views them. For example, people think materialization of objects is magic or trickery. It isn’t! It is simple science. It is converting matter into energy, moving the energy and converting it back to matter. We can demonstrate this scientifically with the help of modern technology such as Kirlian photography.

I showed the ashramites (ashram residents) how this can be done. I made them count the number of rudrākṣa necklaces in a cupboard. I produced one from the air as if by magic and showed it to them. Then, I sent them back to count the number of necklaces in the cupboard. They found there was one less in the cupboard! Anyone can do this. All that they need is to know how. No matter can be produced from nowhere. It can only be produced out of energy. Fortunately this energy source is infinite in the Universe. This Universe is known to be constantly growing. The very first verse of the first Hindu scripture, Īśa Vāsya Upaniṣad, says that ‘out of energy arises all matter—īśā vāsyaṁ idaṁ sarvaṁ.’

Upon reading this verse, Albert Einstein, the famous physicist said, ‘It is only now that I could establish that energy arises from matter. Thousands of years ago, Vedic sages knew more. They knew that matter arises from energy. Science has yet to establish this. The last frontier of science is the threshold of spirituality.’ Understand that the constant factor in us as well as in the Universe is this energy that is eternal. Once we understand that there is no separation between the Universe and us, all our confusion will be at rest. There will no longer be any fear of death, and there will no longer be the greed to acquire and hoard. After all, the energy that is who we are is forever. Once we understand, cognize and accept this, we are in eternal bliss, Nityānandam! I Taught This Science To Sun

iti śrīmadbhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyāṁ yogaśāstre śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṁvāde karmayogo nāma tṛtīyo’dhyāyaḥ