5. Chapter 5 — Karma-Sannyāsa Yogaḥ · The Yoga of Renunciation of Action

5.1

अर्जुन उवाच | संन्यासं कर्मणां कृष्ण पुनर्योगं च शंससि | यच्छ्रेय एतयोरेकं तन्मे ब्रूहि सुनिश्चितम्

arjuna uvāca sannyāsaṁ karmaṇāṁ kṛṣṇa punaryogaṁ ca śaṁsasi / yacchreya etayorekaṁ tanme brūhi suniścitaṁ / / 5.1

Arjuna says: Oh Kṛṣṇa, you asked me to renounce work first and then you asked me to work with devotion. Will you now please tell me, definetely, which of the two will be more beneficial to me?

arjuna uvāca — Arjuna says · sannyāsaṁ — renunciation · karmaṇāṁ — of all actions · kṛṣṇa — O Kṛṣṇa · punaḥ — again · yogaṁ — devotion · ca — also · śaṁsasi — praising · yat — which · śreyaḥ — beneficial · etayoḥ — of the two · ekaṁ — one · tat — that · me — to me · brūhi — please tell · suniścitaṁ — definitely

5.2

श्रीभगवानुवाच | संन्यास: कर्मयोगश्च नि:श्रेयसकरावुभौ | तयोस्तु कर्मसंन्यासात्कर्मयोगो विशिष्यते

śrībhagavānuvāca sannyāsaḥ karmayogaś ca niḥśreyasakarāvubhau / tayostu karma-sannyāsāt karmayogo viśiṣyate / / 5.2

Bhagavān says: The renunciation of work [sannyāsa] and work in devotion [karmayoga] are both good for liberation. But, of the two, work in devotional service is better than re- nunciation of work.

śrī bhagavān uvāca — Lord Kṛṣṇa says · sannyāsah — renunciation · karmayogaḥ — work in devotion · ca — also · niḥśreyasakarāv — for liberation · ubhau — both · tayoḥ — of the two · tu — but · karmasannyāsāt — between work and renunciation · karmayogaḥ — work in devotion · viśiṣyate — better

5.3

ज्ञेय: स नित्यसंन्यासी यो न द्वेष्टि न काङ् क्षति | निर्द्वन्द्वो हि महाबाहो सुखं बन्धात्प्रमुच्यते

jñeyaḥ sa nityasannyāsī yo na dveṣṭi na kāṅkṣati / nirdvandvo hi mahābāho sukhaṁ bandhātpramucyate / / 5.3

He who neither hates nor desires the fruits of his activities has renounced. Such a person, free from all dualities, easily overcomes material bondage and is completely liberated, Oh Arjuna!

jñeyaḥ — should be known · saḥ — he · nitya — always · saṁnyāsī — renouncer · yaḥ — who · na — never · dveṣṭi — hates · na — never · kāṅkṣati — desires · nirdvandvaḥ — free from all dualities · hi — certainly · mahābāho — mighty-armed one · sukham — easily · bandhāt — from bondage · pramucyate — completely liberated

5.4

साङ्ख्ययोगौ पृथग्बाला: प्रवदन्ति न पण्डिता: | एकमप्यास्थित: सम्यगुभयोर्विन्दते फलम्

sāṅkhyayogau pṛthagbālāḥ pravadanti na paṇḍitāḥ / ekamapyāsthitaḥ samyag ubhayorvindate phalam / / 5.4

Only the ignorant, not the wise, speaks of the path of action [karma-yoga] to be different from the path of renuncia- tion [sāṅkhya yoga]. Those who are actually learned say that one who is firmly established in either of the paths, achieves the fruit of both.

sāṁkhyayogau — sāṁkhya system and yoga · pṛthak — different · bālāḥ — less intelligent · pravadanti — say · na — not · paṇḍitāḥ — learned · ekaṁ — one · api — even · āsthitaḥ — situated · samyak — complete · ubhayoḥ — of both · vindate — enjoys · phalaṁ — result

In all the previous chapters, Kṛṣṇa talks with such clarity and authority that it would dissolve the doubts of anybody listening to Him. And yet Arjuna has come back to the same point. It seems like Arjuna was playing a game so that the Gītā could be delivered to the world. A person who was a great king could never have been so ignorant. There is no other book that is so clear, so direct. There is no other Master who is so straight in giving the Truth and the experiential expression of the Truth. After all the explanations given by Kṛṣṇa, Arjuna continues to ask, ‘Oh Kṛṣṇa, first of all, you asked me to renounce work and then again you recommend work with devotion.

Now, will you kindly tell me clearly, which one of the two is more beneficial?—yac chreya etayor ekaṁ tanme brūhi su-niścitam (5.1).’ We will never get an answer or solve a problem if we start thinking about which would be more beneficial. Before we evaluate the benefits of something, we should be clear about the scale we want to use to measure the benefits. What is beneficial for one person may be completely useless for another. The scale that we use for measuring success is a very important thing. Unless we know the scale, it does not make sense to conclude anything. Even jumping to a conclusion should be done with clear intelligence and completion.

Jumping to a conclusion without intelligence is like falling out of an airplane without a parachute! We just wouldn’t know where we will land. Before measuring life in terms of success or failure, one should know how this success is to be measured in the first place. If we are going to measure our life on a scale of dollars, then we have to work only for dollars. So, from morning to evening, we need to work only for that goal. Based on this, we can conclude whether we are succeeding or failing in our life. But you see, by the time we reach the end of the day, the very scale changes!

We start our life using a certain scale and after a few years we measure it again using a totally different scale. It is fortunate that the scale changes with maturity. If we grow with every mistake in life and complete with it, then the scale with which we measure success in life should also change. If it does not change, we will start our next life from ground zero. It is an endless game unless we learn lessons and move on. If the scale with which we measure our success changes in the right way, it shows we are becoming mature. If the scale stays in the same level of dollars and wealth, not only will we be unable to measure our life clearly but we will also attract unhappiness and incompletions.

This is because there is no end to accumulating money or any material wealth. First of all, we set high standards for ourselves. Even Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 347 if we achieve these, we are not successful in our own eyes because we would have extended our target by comparing ourselves with others. Out of greed we keep saying ‘What next, what next’. There is no end to this. At the end of our lives, we feel we have not done enough. Again we start a whole new game of birth and life with the same incompletions, same limited maturity. Listen! If money and worldly comfort alone is our scale, again and again we will feel we did not do enough and that we missed out in life.

There is no absolute scale that defines success, especially in monetary terms. For any amount of money that we have, we would be happier with a dollar more. Yakṣa’s jar and Brahma’s head Let me tell you a small story: A king’s barber used to live a very happy life. Every morning he would go to the palace, do his work and the king would give him ten gold coins. He led a happy and peaceful life without any worries. One day when he was returning from the king’s palace, suddenly, he heard a booming voice, ‘Dear son, do you want forty gold coins?’ The barber said, ‘Forty gold coins?

What am I going to do with them? My expense is ten gold coins and that is enough. I don’t need anything more.’ The booming voice said, ‘I will give you twenty-four hours to think. You can go home, think about it, come back tomorrow and tell me. If you decide that you want them, I shall give you a magical jar full of gold coins.’ This poor barber went and said this to his wife! She started to scream, ‘You fool! Don’t you have any sense? You should have brought that jar. She raved and ranted, ‘All my life, I am wearing the same clothes and jewelry. You have never taken me on a vacation.

What have I enjoyed after marrying you?’ When she started shouting at him, the barber said, ‘Alright, fine. Don’t worry. The booming voice has given me time till tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, I will talk to him and get the jar.’ The next day morning, he told the voice, ‘Please give me that jar.’ Immediately, a yakṣa (an astral being) appeared before him and said, ‘Have this jar. This jar has got 990 gold coins, just 10 gold coins less than 1000.’ The guy brought the gold jar back to the house. He was very happy that he could spend it for at least 99 days if he spent ten coins per day.

But the moment his wife got the jar, she said, ‘What is this? The jar is not overflowing. There is something missing.’ He said, ‘I don’t know. This is the way I got the jar. The yakṣa told me that it is a little less.’ She started worrying, ‘Had it been full, how nice it would have been!’ The next day, when the barber came back, she hurriedly grabbed all the ten gold coins for that day and put them in the jar. She wanted the jar to overflow. But to her surprise, again the level in the jar was not full. The barber’s wife now waited anxiously for the next day’s wages to fill the jar.

The next evening, again, she took the money from the barber and put them into the jar. Again, it was almost full but not completely full. This went on continuously for a week. She stopped giving the barber food and cut all expenses. She took away all the gold coins from him and desperately waited to see the jar overflow. In one week’s time the barber had become tired and dull. The king started enquiring, ‘What happened? You used to look so fresh. You have started worrying. What happened to you? Did you accept the yakṣa’s jar?’ The barber was shocked at hearing this. He said, ‘Oh king, Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 349 how do you know?’

The king said, ‘Whoever is suffering in this country, all of them have one thing in common. They accepted the yakṣa’s jar at some point in time. When you go back home, get rid of the yakṣa’s jar if you wish to be happy again.’ The man did so and lived in completion, happily and blissfully again from that day on. What the king said applies to all of us. Go back home and see if you have yakṣa’s jar or not, and if you do, complete with it. If you are worrying, if you are suffering with incompletions, there is every chance that you have the yakṣa’s jar of incompletions in your house.

The yakṣa’s jar never gets filled, it is always incomplete! Of course, when I say yakṣa’s jar, I mean it may not literally be there in your house. But it will surely be there in your head as incompletions. Sometimes yakṣa hands over the jar in the form of a bank balance. Sometimes he hands it out as knowledge. Sometimes he hands it out as name and fame! It may be in your mind, in your inner space sitting as complicated patterns, as incompletions claiming over your own power. Listen! Yakṣa’s jar is made out of the Brahmakapāla—meaning one of Lord Brahma’s heads that Lord Śiva, in the form of Māhākāla, destroys.

Mahādeva assumes the form of Kālabhairava to destroy the incompletions of Brahma. Brahma once got into the hypocritical incompletion of thinking he is Sadāśiva. Sadāśiva had five heads, Brahma also had five heads. But Brahma forgot that Sadāśiva had one more space in Him, which is called Adho Mukha—the Superconscious, Enlightenment, avyakta—the unmanifested. Brahma had not realized his unmanifested side. So he suddenly started behaving like Mahādeva, saying, ‘So what? I have five faces. He also has five faces.’ Mahādeva then took the form of Māhākālabhairava and removed one of Brahma’s heads. Once Mahādeva removed the head, Brahma automatically settled into the space of completion. But all the incompletions of Brahma were stuck in Mahādeva’s hand in the form of that Brahmakapāla or skull, which simply swallows anything that is put into it and asks for more.

Then, Devi offered food to that skull and completed it. Viśveshvara, Viśvanātha became Kālabhairava to complete Brahma. Mahādevi became Annapūrni (mother who bestows completion with food) to complete the Brahmakapāla. Understand the truth from this powerful happening! The yakṣa’s jar is the head of Brahma that makes us feel that we are not enough, that we are not complete, that we are not powerful and joyful. Our head makes us continuously feel powerless, insecure that we are not enough unto ourselves and we are not complete. On one side, no matter how much we have, in ten days, we feel it is not sufficient. In ten days, Brahma’s head, our incomplete mind, will take everything for granted.

On other side, it makes us cunningly believe that we know, when we don’t know. Yakṣa refers to an incomplete, powerless person with complicated patterns, who has wealth and the power of completion but neither does he enjoy his powerful space nor does he enrich to share it with the world. In India, they keep a few dogs in many agricultural fields. The dogs will neither eat the grains nor will they allow other animals to come and eat. In the same way, if we have the power of completion and enriching, and we neither enjoy nor share it with others, we are called a yakṣa. One of the biggest problems is, in spite of reminding you again and again, you put all your energy to support your incompletions saying ‘If I don’t support my incompletions, people will exploit me because others are in incompletion.’

If you feel insecurity, be very clear, you have already become Brahma. Now you need Kālabhairava to happen in you. Any form of insecurity is Brahma. Remove that insecurity and incompletion from your life. Be like Kālabhairava when you have to complete with all your incompletions, because your incompletion always behaves like Brahma. Even though it does not know, it acts as if it knows. When accumulation of wealth or knowledge is done greedily, there is never an end, like the yakṣa’s jar, because there is always scope for Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 351 more. And secondly, when one is so preoccupied about accumulating, completion and joy never happens.

The greed of wanting more and more power and the fear of losing the power hinders the true power and joy of the wealth. Why are we accumulating possessions if we do not stop and enjoy them? I tell you, Kālabhairava is power and joy. These two qualities completeallyourincompletions.Allyourincompletionswillbecomplete. Your very DNA should be programmed with the space of Kālabhairava, power and joy! Mahākālabhairava is embodiment of power and joy! Only power and joy brings completion and keeps you alive, awake, aware. I always tell people, ‘Either you do dāna (charity) or you achieve mahādāna (the final and grand sacrifice or death). If you do dāna, you share some of your completion while also enjoying and enriching yourself.

You will be enriched and so will others. If you don’t do some dāna, you will achieve mahādāna. This means you will leave everything and go away carrying the mahādāna of your incompletions once and for all when you die. Ramaṇa Mahaṛṣi says beautifully, ‘Before achieving it, even a mustard seed will look like a mountain.’ It will seem like your life will not move without it. It will seem like it is the basic and most important thing for your life. ‘Once you achieve it, even a mountain will look like a mustard seed.’ This is because something else looks like a mountain now. We get caught in the trap of achieving, and lose the ability to relax and enjoy what we have achieved.

Karma or Sannyāsa, What is my path? Here, Arjuna asks: ‘Kṛṣṇa! Now, will you please tell me surely, which of the two: karma, action or Sannyāsa, renunciation is more beneficial— sannyāsaṁ karmaṇāṁ kṛṣṇa punar yogaṁ ca saṁsasi (5.1)?’ Again and again, all of us ask ourselves this question. The mind is in dilemma! The mind asks for a single instruction! Our mind will be alive as long as we are caught between any two extremes. The moment we come to any single conclusion we will be liberated. We will be ignorant as long as we are moving from one extreme to the other. Don’t say ‘Ignorance is bliss.’ If ignorance is bliss why are so many people suffering on this planet?

Ignorance is not bliss. Innocence is bliss. Innocence means we will not carry a scale with which we are continuously measuring our life. Ignorance means we will have a scale but we will not be able to fulfill our life according to that scale. We have made our mind itself a disease, a dilemma. Dilemma is the disease of incompletions with which man starts his life and ends his life too. Even ‘ends’ is not the right word to use because he is in a dilemma about whether or not to end it! But death comes and his life is just taken away from him. Here, Arjuna is in a dilemma as to which of the two is more beneficial for him.

If we look into life as a utility, as some means to a benefit, then we are creating our own hell. If we reduce life to this, we will be in hell. Listen! Life has no separate benefit. Life itself is a benefit. There are people who have achieved all that they wanted in life. But they feel a deep void, a deep incompletion in them. This is what I mean by the term ‘depression of success.’ They feel something is deeply lacking and are unable to comprehend what it could possibly be. This is because they ran the rat race of life without carrying the space of completion, without stopping to complete with their root patterns of desires, of fear and greed, without any self-inquiry.

They ran foolishly because everyone else was running. They never stopped for a minute to question—‘why am I doing what I am doing’, ‘what do I really want’, ‘why do I feel the way I feel’. So, without finding the root patterns that drive them in the rat race, when they stop running or when they can’t run anymore, they fall back into their incompletions. They suddenly find themselves diseased with their own being. This is what becomes depression or disease. So, if you constantly look for some benefit from life, if you don’t achieve, you will feel life is a failure and if you achieve, you are bound to face the depression of success.

Either way it is trouble. Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 353 Life itself is a benefit. If we constantly try to see which of two things is more beneficial, it means we have a pure business mind. We can’t do business with life. At some point we need to relax from the business mind. I always tell people, ‘For at least half an hour per day, do some enriching which will not get dollars for you­ —some painting, some writing.’ When you start painting, don’t think of a big gallery with your paintings! Do some creative work without bothering about how to show off your artwork to people. Even before starting to paint, we will think, ‘My friend will come home.

I will show him how I developed this concept.’ You will decide how to bore your friend with your plans. Do something enriching just for the sake of enriching, not for any purpose. Enrich just for the sake of enriching. You will see that during that half hour, you will fall into your very being; which is the space of completion! You can also enrich at some place of worship by cleaning it without expecting anything in return. Engage yourself in any form of selfless enriching activity. Serve food to people. Even while volunteering, we do it so that we can tell others about it and get applauded for it.

So now at least for 30 minutes, authentically enrich with responsibility, without the cognition of getting yourself any benefit. No money or name and fame should come to you from that half an hour. If you can just do this, you will start tasting the real power of life. Enriching is the power of living, ātma śakti. Listen! With enriching, you will achieve the ultimate result of establishing your existence into everything. You establishing your existence into everything is what I call ‘serving.’ In any form of serving or enriching, you expand and become part of it. As long as you are in your own head, continuously calculating, you will only be bargaining with life, ‘What is more beneficial?

What am I going to achieve by this?’ You will see the power of living—a different dimension of your being, if you practice this technique of enriching. I promise you that this enriching will lead you to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the consciousness of completion. When you stop calculating for getting benefits, you will start tasting the fruit of life. Listen! Enriching is enjoying and sharing the fruit of life! When you enrich others you will come alive. A mango does not achieve its ultimate, if you just eat the fruit and destroy the seed. The fruit realizes itself only when the seed is able to give more fruits. Life is not and can never be business.

Here, again and again, Arjuna is stuck because he thinks that life is business. Of course, Kṛṣṇa is very compassionate. He is the embodiment of kindness! Literally, inch by inch, He brings Arjuna up without giving up on him. He does not lose His patience. He does not say, ‘I told you earlier…’ I can say that Kṛṣṇa uses at least 100 verses to explain this one concept of Karma-Sannyāsa yoga, the paths of responsibility and renunciation. But He does this without losing His patience at any point. Not once does He shout at Arjuna. He is an embodiment of compassion. He comes down to the plane of Arjuna and gradually transforms him by enriching him with the same teachings in different ways.

The question concerning Karma and Sannyāsa—responsibility and renunciation—has been asked from time immemorial, and each time it has been answered. Yet this question remains. Somebody asked me, ‘Why is the Gītā still relevant today?’ I said, ‘Because we never learned it.’ Although Gītā was uttered at least 5,000 years ago it is still relevant today. Why? It is simply because man has not listened and he has not learnt his lesson yet! History repeats itself. The unconscious process never comes to the conscious energy. Man as such is governed to a large extent by the unconscious. He is not even aware of what he is going after. He thinks he wants something and runs after it.

But by the time he gets his hands on it, he wants something else. So there is a constant restlessness, powerlessness within. This puts man in constant incompletion, dissatisfaction and depression. Listen! By merely flooding completion into this depression you can Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 355 get out of it. I always tell people, if you just allow a single instance of depression, powerlessness to work on you and you face it consciously with the process of completion, in the process you will become enlightened. Nothing else is necessary. A single instance of depression is enough. It will completely burn you and you will become enlightened. But we never allow anything to work on us completely.

We are scared to confront our own selves. We just allow the unconscious space of powerlessness to overpower us instead of boldly facing it with power and joy, and seeing it through its completion. Look into every moment you feel powerless in your life even now. Don’t try to escape from those moments! You can never escape! Life is the greatest Master, it continuously teaches us. But we never learn from it. We never mark the spot where we stopped our journey in this birth. That spot where we stopped life’s journey is the root pattern. When we stop our journey, if we at least mark the spot in this life saying, ‘I covered this distance, I learnt all these things.

In the next birth I will continue from where I left last,’ it is enough. Please listen. The moment your root pattern is born, your life is destroyed! Your growth is stopped! Only when you find your root pattern and complete with it, you come back to life again. When I say birth, I do not mean just the totality of our life. I am referring to each day and night. Each day and night is a birth. It is a life cycle. We die and are reborn every day. Do Self-completion, SvapūrṆatva Everyday at least for forty-two minutes, consciously decide to do the selfcompletion process, svapūrṇatva kriya. Decide consciously to be complete: ‘Let me sit and face my powerlessness and complete with my patterns.

Let me restore my space of completion today.’ Tell yourself, ‘I will allow the cognition of completion to enter into my consciousness this week. I will solve all my problems only with this complete cognition. I create the space of completion.’ If you had completed with all your patterns before sleeping every night and allowed the cognition of completion to enter your consciousness every week, you would have been enlightened by now. Your life would have been blissful. But the problem is we do not take the responsibility for our possibility. Instead, we always mark the spots of our life’s journey in the wrong places—in our patterns. We mark our patterns, not our possibilities.

We never mark where we should in the bigger picture of our lives. We are so caught up with marking our small desires and goals fueled by our incompletions. We never mark the spot of our peak possibilities. These markings of desires and worldly goals continuously get washed away and new markings are made. They update themselves based on inputs from the world around us, based on what society has to say. We forget that these markings are temporary and do not reflect the space of possibility within, which comes only from completion. What truly matters is inner transformation, which we never bother to think about. We never allow any understanding of completion to work on us.

If we are consciously aware of our root patterns, why we are doing what we are doing and what our pitfalls are, we can start to complete with them and grow to be powerful, complete individuals. But again and again we make the same mistakes. The scale may differ but the mistakes are the same! A leader is one who commits mistakes on a large scale and hides them, whereas a follower is one who commits the same mistakes on a smaller scale and justifies them. That is the difference between a leader and a follower. To be honest, we are not intelligent enough to create new patterns. We are not creative and innovative enough to make new mistakes.

Even if you merely decide not to make the same mistake out of the same pattern once more, your life will be transformed. But again and again, we make the same kind of mistakes because our mind works in the same route. That route is only called saṁskāra: a recorded route, an engraved bio-memory or a root pattern. If we take up the life of either karma or sannyāsa based on an incomplete recorded bio-memory, we Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 357 will never achieve completion, bliss. Surrender to experience Karma-Sannyāsa as One Let us deeply analyze these paths of Karma and Sannyāsa. Karma is normally out of greed and desires.

Sannyāsa is always invariably out of fear, bhaya. There is a fear of life. When you are not ready to take the risk, you renounce everything. The fear of getting hurt is the first reason for Sannyāsa. Sannyāsa is a way of escapism, turning away from the responsibilities that life presents. When a person is bogged down by responsibilities of life, he takes Sannyāsa as an easy escape route. In the name of renunciation, he covers his deep fears. This is not true Sannyāsa. Then we have people running after material wealth in the name of karma. On one side are the people who are running away from fear. On the other side are those who are running towards their greed.

Both categories of people are not going to achieve eternal bliss or consciousness. Both are not on the right track of completion. In the entire world, only three types of human beings exist: One who has surrendered to greed, one who has surrendered to fear and the one who has surrendered to the supreme intelligence, divine consciousness. The person who has surrendered to greed gets lost. Such a person runs after many things in life to possess them, which in turn leads to more greed. He literally becomes a slave to greed. There is a beautiful story in Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad: There are two birds on the same tree. One bird, a completely satisfied and fulfilled being, is sitting calmly, enjoying the silence of its own inner space.

Another bird is sitting a little below, busily pecking at the fruits. It keeps flitting from place to place, trying to eat the fruits. When the fruit is tasty, it enjoys. When the fruit is not tasty, it suffers. It continuously oscillates between enjoyment and suffering. Suddenly, this bird looks up and sees the bird that is sitting silently and thinks, ‘How is this bird so calm and beautiful? Let me go closer and see. Let me talk to this bird.’ Slowly, the small bird moves towards the peaceful bird. As it goes closer to the other bird, it continues to taste more fruits and suffers because the fruits are sour.

Suddenly, when it is close enough to the other bird, it realizes that the other bird is nothing but its own self, which is sitting silently and beautifully watching the small bird getting distracted in its path, suffering with sour fruits! The small bird simply becomes one with the other bird. This is a beautiful story! In the same way, as long as you are a jīvātman, an ordinary soul, you struggle between fear and greed. You go from one extreme to another. The moment you realize there is something inside your being that is untouched by your greed and fear, you start traveling towards it. When you get closer to it, you realize you are that Consciousness.

Here, Kṛṣṇa explains the same thing, we are caught between fear and greed. Either we constantly surrender ourselves to fear or we surrender ourselves to greed. Very rare individuals surrender to intelligence, to Divine Consciousness. Arjuna asks here, ‘Which is more beneficial for me?’ Keeping track of accounts is good in business but not in life. People come and ask me, ‘Why should I surrender to the Divine? If I surrender, what will I get?’ If you don’t surrender to the Divine, you will be surrendering to your fear or greed. I am not asking you to surrender to the Divine just to get something out of it. When it comes to life, profit and loss doesn’t work.

Life is beyond calculation. The moment we ask, ‘What will I get by surrendering to the Divine?’, we miss the whole idea of surrender. Venkaṭeśvara (incarnation of Lord Viṣṇu) holds the cakra (discus) in one hand, and this represents fear. In the other hand, He has the śankha (conch), which represents success. The conch is blown when you achieve success or victory. This represents greed because man is constantly Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 359 seeking success in everything and is never satisfied. If you don’t surrender to Venkaṭeśvara’s pāda (feet) and His pāduka (sandals), you will surrender to His conch and discus. In other words, you will surrender to fear or greed.

Those who constantly approach God for fulfillment of their desires or for refuge for their problems are actually surrendering to greed and fear. Only very few surrender to the feet of Venkaṭeśvara, which is the ultimate surrender. Our whole life is spent running behind greed or fear. The path of Karma Yoga, seeking liberation through action or responsibility, happens because of greed. The path of sannyāsa yoga, seeking liberation through renunciation, happens because of fear. Neither the path of karma (action) nor the path of sannyāsa (renunciation) will enrich us unless we complete with our greed and fear and transform our very space into the space of completion. If we change the incomplete space to that of completion, karma or sannyāsa or anything can enrich us.

All we need to know is this—it doesn’t matter if we are a karma yogi or a sannyāsa yogi. It is the attitude, the space from which we approach and live life that is most important. Let your inner space be the space of completion. Listen! When you are in incompletion, you constantly feel powerless and anything you do comes out of powerlessness. Anything done out of incompletion, be it Karma Yoga or Sannyāsa yoga, leads you to more and more incompletion. Anything done out of completion, leads you to more and more completion. I am defining Sannyāsa. Sannyāsa is you living in the space of completion and constantly enriching everyone to be in the space of completion.

Again and again, Kṛṣṇa is placing the emphasis on the space of completion, on the being. If we don’t know the root cause of our actions, why we are living with karma or why we pick up Sannyāsa, we will not be able to solve our problems. Our suffering is neither because of karma nor because of Sannyāsa. Suffering is because of our wrong attitude of incompletion. And with this wrong attitude of incompletion, be it karma or sannyāsa, the path will feel only like a punishment. With the right space of completion, any path will feel like a true blessing for you and for others. With the wrong space of incompletion, if you take the path of karma or sannyāsa, you will struggle and suffer, and make others suffer as well.

If you decide to enter karma, drop the goal. Just enjoy doing the karma and don’t worry about the goal. Living itself is beautiful. Realize that life itself is beautiful. On the other hand, if we decide to take up Sannyāsa, again drop the goal. The goal of a Sannyāsi (monk), which is renunciation, is also a goal and it must be dropped. The karma yogi runs towards the goal, the Sannyāsi runs away from the goal. Kṛṣṇa says—sāṅkhya yogou pṛthagbālāḥ pravadanti na paṇḍitaḥ (5.4). Indirectly He tells Arjuna that he has yet to learn, that he is still ignorant. Only the ignorant man says that karma yoga is different from sāṅkhya yoga, the Sannyāsa.

Here, the words karma and sannyāsa are equated to Karma Yoga and Sāṅkhya Yoga. The experienced say that both karma and sannyāsa lead to the same truth. Through both these paths, one achieves the results of both. If we complete with the pattern of greed in karma yoga and complete with the pattern of fear in Sannyāsa Yoga, we will drop into eternal consciousness. Through both, we will achieve when we create the right space­—the space of completion. So Kṛṣṇa says here, ‘Only the ignorant person says that one is superior to the other or that they are two different paths. Both the paths are one and the same.’ A person who can travel alone, who is courageous enough to live in the space of completion and decides to enrich others with completion takes the life of Sannyāsa.

A person who decides to live in the space of completion and who wants to enrich others by sharing his life takes the life of karma. It is up to us. Both the paths are one and the same. What is important is having the right reason and the right space, not what we are doing. What we are doing is not important, who we are being Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 361 is important. These three words should be understood: being, doing and having. If we are continuously doing only for having, we will never have it. Even when we are having, we will be doing. The man who is doing just for having will never be able to experience or enjoy life because even when he is having, he will be doing.

The man who is established in his being will enjoy both doing and having at the same time. By just being, he will enjoy doing and having. All we need is a simple technique. The whole idea is now reduced to a one-line message. Let all our feelings, let all our mental thoughts, let all our physical deeds be directed towards gratitude to the Divine. Don’t work out of fear or greed, because no matter how much we achieve out of greed, we will not be fulfilled. It is like pouring ghee (clarified butter) into the fire. Can we quench fire by pouring ghee into it? Never! All our actions that are done out of greed will only create more desire and make our senses weak, tired and incomplete.

In the same way, all our laziness born out of fear will only make our mind restless and incomplete. We may not be doing things physically, but our mind will be worrying. If we have become a karma yogi out of greed, our senses will be weakened. How much can we run? If we become a Sannyāsi out of fear, again, we may not do anything physically but the whole day we will be worrying. A simple truth: When a man doesn’t have money, the problem is money. When he gets money, the problem is sex. When he gets sex, the problem is comforts. When he gets comforts and everything is going well, he starts worrying about death.

Some incompletion or the other will always make his mind powerless. Don’t think that all the Sannyasis sitting in the Himalayas are in bliss. No! Unless they create the space of completion, they cannot experience power and joy. Unless the very space changes, they cannot experience bliss. Bliss is directly related to our inner space. Our whole life will be spent in doing and having if we are caught in fear and greed. If we surrender ourselves to being, doing and having both will happen to us with tremendous ecstasy. Never work out of greed because whatever we achieve is going to be taken away at the time of death.

Never become silent and inactive out of fear because there is really nothing to lose. Whether we are afraid or not, everything is going to be taken away at the time of death. So why be afraid? In either case, why not be blissful? One important thing: Working without motivation is completely unheard of today. All psychologists, psychiatrists and scientists always emphasize that we cannot work without motivation. That is why there are so many motivational Gurus today. These people have come to the conclusion that ‘work without motivation is not possible’ after analysis on diseased patients, not on enlightened beings. They never had a specimen of a Buddha! They never encountered an enlightened person.

That is why they say that work without motivation is impossible. I tell you, work without motivation is the only real work. It will never make us tired! Every moment we will be working out of bliss. Devotion Above Action

5.5

यत्साङ्ख्यै: प्राप्यते स्थानं तद्योगैरपि गम्यते | एकं साङ्ख्यं च योगं च य: पश्यति स पश्यति

yat sāṅkhyaiḥ prāpyate sthānaṁ tad yogairapi gamyate / ekaṁ sāṅkhyaṁ ca yogaṁ ca yaḥ paśyati sa paśyati / / 5.5

He who knows, knows that the state reached by renuncia- tion [sāṅkhya] and action [karma] are one and the same. State reached by renunciation can also be achieved by action, know them to be at same level and see them as they are.

yat — what · sāṅkhyaiḥ — by Sāṅkhya system · prāpyate — get · sthānaṁ — position · tat — that · yogaiḥ — by work in devotion · api — also · gamyate — can reach · ekam — one · sāṅkhyaṁ — Sāṅkhya system · ca — and · yogaṁ — work in devotion · ca — and · yaḥ — who · paśyati — sees · saḥ — he · paśyati — sees

5.6

संन्यासस्तु महाबाहो दु:खमाप्तुमयोगत: | योगयुक्तो मुनिर्ब्रह्म नचिरेणाधिगच्छति

sannyāsastu mahābāho duḥkhamāptumayogataḥ / yogayukto munirbrahma na cireṇādhigacchati / / 5.6

Renunciation without devotional service afflicts one withmisery, Oh mighty-armed one. The wise person engaged in devotional service attains the Supreme without delay.

sannyāsaḥ — renunciation · tu — but · mahābāho — mighty-armed one · duḥkham . — misery · āptuṁ — afflicts with · ayogataḥ — without devotion · yogayuktaḥ — en- gaged in devotion · muniḥ — wise · brahma — supreme · nacireṇa — without delay · adhigacchati — attains

5.7

योगयुक्तो विशुद्धात्मा विजितात्मा जितेन्द्रिय: | सर्वभूतात्मभूतात्मा कुर्वन्नपि न लिप्यते

yogayukto viśuddhātmā vijitātmā jitendriyaḥ / sarva-bhūtātma-bhūtātmā kurvannapi na lipyate / / 5.7

The person engaged in devoted service, beyond concepts pure and impure, self-controlled and who has conquered the senses is compassionate and loves everyone, although engaged in work, he is never entangled.

yogayuktaḥ — engaged in work with devotion · viśuddhātmā — a man of purified mind · vijita — self-controlled · atma — soul · jitendriyaḥ — conquered the senses · sarvabhūtātma — to all living beings · bhūtātma — compassionate · kurvan api — though engaged in work, na: never · lipyate — entangled

5.8

नैव किञ्चित्करोमीति युक्तो मन्येत तत्ववित् | पश्यञ्शृण्वन्स्पृशञ्जिघ्रन्नश्नन्गच्छन्स्वपञ्श्वसन्

naiva kiñcitkaromīti yukto manyeta tattvavit / paśyan śṛṇvan spṛśañ jighrann aśnan gacchan svapañ śvasan / / 5.8

One who knows the truth, though engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, dreaming, and breath- ing, always knows within himself that—’I never do anything at all.’ While talking, letting go, receiving, opening, closing, he considers that the senses are engaged with their sense objects.

na — never · eva — certainly · kiṁcit — anything · karomi — I do · iti — thus · yuktaḥ — en- gaged · manyeta — thinks · tattvavit — one who knows the truth · paśyan — seeing · śṛṇvan — hearing · spṛśan — touching · jighran — smelling · aśnan — eating · gacchan — going · svapan — dreaming · śvasan — breathing

5.9

प्रलपन्विसृजन्गृह्ण्न्नुन्मिषन्निमिषन्नपि | इन्द्रियाणीन्द्रियार्थेषु वर्तन्त इति धारयन्

pralapan visṛjan gṛhṇann unmiṣannimiṣannapi / indriyāṇīndriyārtheṣu vartanta iti dhārayan / / 5.9

One who knows the truth, though engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, dreaming, and breath- ing, always knows within himself that—’I never do anything at all.’ While talking, letting go, receiving, opening, closing, he considers that the senses are engaged with their sense objects.

pralapan — talking · visṛjan — giving up · gṛihṇan — accepting · unmishan — opening · nimiṣan — closing · api — though · indriyāṇi — the senses · indriyārtheṣu — in gratifying senses · vartanta — are engaged · iti — thus · dhārayan — considering

Beautiful verse! Not all of us are karma yogi or doers and not all of us are Sannyāsis or monks. No Sannyāsi is a Sannyāsi for 24 hours. When he surrenders himself to the greed, he is a doer. No karma yogi is a doer for 24 hours. When he surrenders to fear, he is a Sannyāsi. So, whenever we make an optimistic decision, we are a karma yogi. Whenever we make a pessimistic decision, we are Sannyāsi. It is we who play both the roles. Who is an optimist and who is a pessimist? An optimist is a man who created the airplane. A pessimist is a man who created the seat-belt.

In life you always play both the roles. Sometimes you are an optimist and sometimes you are a pessimist. Here, both can lead to the same goal if the inner space is pure and complete. Anything created out of greed will create more greed. Anything created out of fear will create more fear. Anything created out of incompletion will create more incompletion. Please listen: Whenever we move our body while feeling a particular emotion, that emotion gets settled inside our system. That emotion will become part of us and get created again and again in our system. Jiḍḍu Kṛṣṇamurti, an Enlightened Master from India, made a wonderful statement about emotions.

He says, ‘If you can, try to remain centered, silent, without moving your body when a particular emotion rises in you, without co-operating with it. Within eleven times, or I can say within eleven emotional upsets, if you have managed to be this way, you will be liberated from that emotion.’ For example, if you are caught in an emotion, say lust or fear, then for eleven cycles, whenever that emotion rises in your being, don’t allow your body to co-operate. Don’t allow your body to flow or move with that emotion. Within eleven cycles, I assure you, you will be liberated from that emotion. You may think, ‘What is this, Swamiji?

Just eleven times! Is it so easy?’ It is easy. All great things are easy. Only we complicate them because we don’t believe that anything is easy. A small story: A person goes to the doctor and asks, ‘Doctor, how much will you charge to pull this tooth out?’ The doctor says, ‘Ninety dollars.’ This person asks, ‘Ninety dollars just for a two minute job?’ The doctor says, ‘I can do it more slowly if you like!’ Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 365 We don’t believe in simplicity. We want to complicate things. I can tell you with integrity and authenticity, eleven times is too much. When that emotion rises in you, don’t cooperate.

Let your body not go after that emotion. Don’t be taken away by that emotion, whether it is anger, irritation, depression, lust, fear or anything else. Just decide, ‘I am not going to be taken away by this emotion. I am completing with it.’ I tell you, within three or four times, you will be liberated from that emotion because you will learn the technique of completion. You will have the key now in your hand: How not to be taken away by that emotion, how to be complete, rooted in your Self, in your being. Whether it is anger or fear or greed, it gets more power and strength if your body cooperates with it.

With whatever emotion your body moves, that emotion gets recorded inside your system. And that emotion will happen again and again, and much more intensely. Both frequency and intensity of that emotion will increase. There is a movie, ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?’ In this movie, they show this idea beautifully. It is a truth from Vedānta. They say that whenever an emotion happens within your system, it is like a shower of rain. The emotion pours like rain. It happens inside your system, in your being. There are particular cells that catch these emotions. For example, if you think with anger, there are particular cells that catch anger as an emotion.

Not only do they catch the emotion, they start reproducing as well. Each cell will create at least four or five more cells that can catch this emotion. Listen. An important truth is that the basic quality of life is reproduction and expansion. This is the survival instinct governed by the svādiṣṭhāna cakra, the fear energy center within our body. Reproduction is governed by the mūlādhāra cakra, the sex energy center in our body. These cells that catch the anger emotion start reproducing and each cell creates five or six more cells. Next time, when the anger shower happens, all these cells will also catch the same emotion. They grow to the same original size.

Now these cells also start reproducing. The third time, when the shower happens, all these cells catch the emotion and start storing it. That is why, every time we experience the same emotion, it becomes stronger and stronger. We are addicted to that emotion. If we are affected by anger for ten minutes the first time, then the next time, it becomes twenty minutes, then half an hour. This is how the emotion becomes stronger and stronger. In our being, again and again, when we cooperate with these negative emotions, we create the same type of mood, the same type of pattern and lifestyle in us. Not only will this emotion get recorded in us, but we will express the same thing to others also.

What we have within us is what we will vomit on others also. Drop Greed and Fear, Live Power and Joy If we are working to strengthen our greed, we will be caught by the emotion of greed and we will radiate that emotion. Next, if we strengthen our fear, again, we will be caught by that emotion of fear and express that emotion, torturing others with it. Be very clear: Warriors are caught in fear. That is why they torture others. They give fear to others. Warriors are the most cowardly people. A real warrior is a person who has conquered his being; who has won his being. Only he can be the only real warrior.

If we do anything out of fear, we will reproduce the same fear in others. Now, take a few minutes to sit and analyze, ‘Throughout this life, all these years I was driven by greed and fear. What have I achieved? What have I got? Where am I standing? What has really happened?’ Consciously and actively think about it. Consciously allow this idea to work on you. Decide, ‘From today, I will not do anything out of greed or out of fear.’ Immediately the fear will rise in you, ‘What will happen to my bills? What will happen to my house? Who will repay the mortgages? What will happen to my car?

My kids, who will feed them? What will happen to my social prestige and name and fame?’ Understand, you have enough energy and strength to maintain yourself without fear and greed. All you need is trust that you don’t need energy from fear or greed to run your life. That is the first thing you need Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 367 to understand. You have enough potential energy to live your life and to achieve what you want. When you come down to this planet, you bring enough energy to live all your desires or to achieve whatever you want to achieve in this life; to create your reality as you want.

You have already brought enough fuel. You don’t need fuel from fear or greed. You always think, ‘If I stop fueling myself with fear or greed, I may stop working.’ No. There is enough reserve fuel in you. But psychologists can never believe that unmotivated action is possible because they have never seen a Buddha. They conclude, ‘Only with motivation can a man work.’ What motivation have birds got to sing? But modern day psychologists are so focused on sex that even for that, they have started giving a meaning! They say that the bird is calling out to its partner. They can’t see anything as it is. That is why here, Kṛṣṇa beautifully says­—‘yaḥ paśyati sa paśyati’.

The man who is beyond the pull of fear and greed is the only one who can see things as they are. If you are caught in fear or greed, you will see things only as you want, never as they are. For example, on seeing a beautiful, tall building, a man who is caught in greed will think ‘If I have at least one building like this, how nice it will be!’ The man caught in fear will think, ‘I should not see these things. They stress me out. I should go and live in the forest.’ But only a person who is liberated from these two emotions will see it as it is..

His seeing will be a pure perception of seeing, beyond any patterns. Now, decide strongly, ‘Throughout my life, I have been either pushed by fear or pulled by greed. Do I want to continue that?’ For someone trained and conditioned by society, it will be very difficult to believe that you don’t need energy from greed or fear to live. I know you are thinking, ‘He is talking, so let us listen. What can be done?’ I know thousands of questions are rising in your mind. But let me tell you: Your whole past, whatever your age may be, you lived only fueled by fear and greed. Just decide, ‘For the next ten days I will trust the words of Kṛṣṇa.

I will practice this truth with integrity and authenticity. I don’t need fuel from fear or greed because I have brought enough energy.’ When the Divine sends you to earth, He sends you with whatever you need. In Vedānta, that is what we call prārabdha karma. When you come down you bring enough of energy for your senses and body to acquire whatever it needs to live life blissfully. The only problem is you don’t trust that you have brought everything. And after coming down, you accumulate more and more desires from others and then you try to fulfill all those desires too. Work only for your desires. Don’t waste your life working for others’ desires.

Decide clearly, ‘For the next ten days, I will work only out of my power, my joy and bliss. I will do everything out of my completion.’ I can assure you, it will transform your life. Anyway, I am going to be here even after ten days. If it does not work out, come and catch me! I tell you, just living ten days out of joy and bliss rather than fear and greed will transform your whole life. This one idea can liberate you straightaway from all bondages. When you start practicing this, for the first few days you will feel a little unsettled because a new inner space is created.

Say ‘No’ to any desire or any fear that comes up. Initially, you will feel some emptiness, a vacuum, but don’t worry. In a few days you will beautifully settle with the new space. Don’t worry when you fail a few times. Starting this way is much better than staying in fear of failure. So start! At least you will know the technique. If you don’t even start, you will not even know where you are failing. I tell you with integrity, it will transform your whole life. It will give you such great strength and courage that invariably you will be liberated. Don’t be bothered about the initial feeling of emptiness.

It is like this: If we don’t have anybody to nag us we will feel we are missing something! So, when you practice this, you will feel you are missing that constant nagging. Don’t worry. You will settle into that new consciousness. Your whole being will become new. It is important that you trust that you have enough energy to run without fear and greed. Only children need candy to make them work. For you, trust in power and joy of completion should be enough. Now, Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 369 you are all grown-up. If you still need fear or greed, then you have grown only physically and not mentally.

One more thing: In just ten days, you will not lose your wealth. Is there anybody who thinks, ‘If I practice for ten days, I may lose all my wealth?’ If that is the case, that wealth is not worth having. It is better to lose it. In ten days if you can lose it, do you think it is worth having it? The earlier it is lost, the better it is for your being. Remove the tremendous stress and load from your inner space. Decide, ‘For ten days, I will do all my actions out of deep bliss, out of a settled mood of powerfulness and joy.’ If you practice this, the constant irritation that remains in you will disappear.

Knowingly or unknowingly, you carry constant irritation in you. That is why all of us are just waiting to burst and explode even for small things. Look into yourself: How many of you can authentically cognize, agree that you carry that constant irritation in you? Raise your hand (A few raise). Others are not authentic! Everyone carries it. This irritation we carry in our inner space is because of fear and greed. There is uneasiness between you and your being. That uneasiness expresses itself continuously to others. That uneasiness is what I call dis-ease. Let you be liberated from it from today. So, decide that just for ten days, you will not fuel yourself with fear and greed.

You will suddenly feel a new energy coming up from your being—pure enthusiasm and causeless auspicious energy. Causeless auspicious energy is what we call Śiva. In Saṃskṛit, ‘Śiva’ means causeless auspiciousness, reasonless energy. It is possible to live with that reasonless, unmotivated energy. Only two things are needed for that. The first thing is trust that you have that energy. The next thing is starting to live it. Only these two things are needed to reach the Divine Consciousness. When we start working with the causeless auspicious energy, we become Śiva. Otherwise, we are Śava (dead body). Here, Kṛṣṇa does not refer to renunciation the way we traditionally understand it.

Normally we think renunciation is giving up everything, especially responsibility. Just by so-called renunciation without completion, if we just go to the Himalayas and try to meditate, we will not become a Sannyāsi. When we use the word ‘renounce’ the way we understand it, we exclude something. Exclusion can never be the solution. When we say ‘I should give up or avoid something’, we exclude some creation of Existence. When we try to renounce the world, we are renouncing the creation of Existence. We are trying to prove that we are more intelligent than Existence. Our renunciation then becomes a show of our ego, even though this may not seem very obvious to us.

Actually, we try to renounce because we want to escape from the situation. The outer world, situations or people are never the cause of trouble in us. How can they control us? It is our patterns of fear and greed and the projections of our mind that are really the cause of all the trouble. Ever minute, our mind continuously creates subtle expectations of how things should be, how people should be, how life should be. The thought pattern needs to change from running away from something due to fear of it to facing the reality. Running away from material pleasures due to fear of facing reality or guilt imposed by society cannot be called renunciation.

Just sit down for five minutes and be aware of how you perceive situations. With completion and awareness, look at everything you think and do, and you can understand what I mean. When we come to an understanding of our own self and are able to live as a witness to everything that goes on around us, unaffected by situations and people around us, we become a realized soul, living enlightenment. If we do things fueled by fear and greed, we become hypocrites. Brahmacarya literally means living with reality. It does not mean celibacy, as you understand it. When we are complete and ecstatic, flowing spontaneously in tune with the wonderful symphony of Existence, we are true brahmacāris.

Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 371 When we are completely in the present space of completion, totally involved in what we are doing, we become the action itself, we no longer exist as the doer. That is when we have truly renounced the sense of ‘I am doing’, or the ego. Then we are true Sannyāsis. All we need is to experience that behind the shallow emotions that exist in the periphery, at the very core of our being is a complete, solid, silent center that is absolutely unaffected by external incidents. It is a pure witness to everything and is eternally pure. Don’t try to go to the Himalayas to escape from the world.

Create the Himalayas within you. Realize the silent, complete center in you. Create the space of completion in you! Look at the cause and address the root pattern in your world rather than addressing the symptoms of the world. You see, renunciation, Sannyāsa is going beyond desires, including ‘desirelessness.’ Apart from material desires, the desire to be spiritual and attain God is also a desire. The mind always hankers after something in the future. Only when we drop all desires, when we are completely at ease and ecstatic in the present moment of completion, we have gone beyond the clutches of the mind. Only then do we see reality as It exists here and now.

Seeing this reality as It exists is what Kṛṣṇa beautifully calls—yaḥ paśyati sa paśyati. Otherwise, we always live in our world of illusion, māya, because the future is unreal; it is an illusion. The real, the present, can never be perceived by the mind because it is beyond logic. That is why Existence can never be understood and experienced by the mind. The truth can only be experienced. How can the limited mind even come close to understanding the vastness and the splendor of Existence? How can we desire God or Enlightenment, which we have never known? We can always desire Enlightenment in a way that fits our limited, inadequate cognition, but that is still our imagination.

Experience Your True Nature You can never possess or achieve Enlightenment. It is only Enlightenment that can possess you. It happens to you when you drop all desires. Actually, our true nature is neither pure nor impure. Whether we accept it or not, believe it or not, we are bliss. Our very nature is bliss. Our true nature itself is self-control. When we realize and experience that our being is pure bliss, the other emotions automatically drop. When we allow ourselves to be our true nature, to be bliss, we live spontaneously and respond with intelligence instead of programmed unconscious reactions. Then there is no need to control the senses because they are under the control of the ultimate Existence.

There is no question of having to control them. In the Mahābhārat war, Kṛṣṇa drives Arjuna’s chariot. The horses represent the senses held beautifully in control by the divine charioteer. He drives the being represented by the warrior, in the body represented by the chariot towards victory, towards bliss. When the individual consciousness surrenders control to the Divine, the Divine controls the body-mind-spirit and steers one towards one’s true nature, bliss. We have programmed reactions, default cognitions about everything. We see a situation and we react based on others’ expectation from us, anyakāra and our expectation from others, svānyakāra. We can only react by looking up our database of the past records, referring to the reaction of people then.

If what we did was appreciated, we will react the same way. If we are not appreciated and there is a gap between others’ expectation from us and our expectation from others, we create a self-doubt and feel uncomfortable and restless. And to remove the discomfort, we now react in a different manner, one that we think will be acceptable to others. We have forgotten what it is to respond with intelligence. No situation can be exactly the same as before. How can it be? Can a river flow in exactly the same way at two different points? The very water would have changed from the time it flows from one point to the other.

Life is like a river. It is continuously changing. Existence is energy. It can never repeat itself. Every moment is unique. We see it from the limited perception of our mind, and organize Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 373 life into different categories. We say, ‘These are pleasant situations, those are unpleasant situations, this is good, that is bad, this is right, that is wrong, this should happen, that should not.’ It is not Existence that makes these distinctions but us. If we can allow this new cognition to penetrate us, we can simply relax. We will then allow our consciousness to respond. Have the courage to live life with intelligence, with consciousness and completion, with spontaneity.

Just this small shift in your space can do wonders for you; every moment will then be a celebration! When the intelligence happens, the compassion also descends. Compassion for the whole world automatically happens in you because you see yourself in every one. How can you feel anything but compassion then? That is why Masters can only feel compassion and responsibility towards the whole world. When we flow in tune with Existence, we become a channel for the divine energy to flow through us. If the bamboo can remain hollow, it will become a beautiful flute and simply the air from the lips of the Divine will come out of the flute as heavenly music.

Instead, if the bamboo is blocked with dirt in the form of ego, it will remain dead and can only be used for carrying a dead body! These verses of Kṛṣṇa are very powerful, but often misinterpreted. ‘One who knows the truth, though engaged in seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, dreaming, and breathing knows that he never does anything.’ It is like you commit a murder and then claim you didn’t do it but your hands did it! Be very clear: Not being the doer does not mean we give up responsibility for our actions. It means exactly the opposite. When we are so involved in the action, when we are completely relaxed, we are overflowing with compassion and love, and we just do out of the blissful energy in us.

Listen. When we are complete and total in what we do, our whole intelligence, our whole energy will be behind the act; we become the action. The action and we are no longer separate. Energy is intelligence. So, when our energy is not total, our intelligence is not completely behind the action. When the energy behind the action is total, whatever we do will always radiate the blissful energy that is behind the action. Another important understanding from this verse: Every moment, every action, whether it is talking or breathing or seeing, should be done with awareness and completion. That is true meditation. Many people claim that they have been meditating for thirty or forty years.

Even after so many years, the person inside remains exactly the same. Absolutely zero transformation has happened. Meditation is actually a quality that needs to be added to our life. It should permeate the very way in which we view life, the space from which we perceive everything. When we infuse the space of completion into every action, we are in meditation. So how to be in completion? We can be complete only when we can distance and disidentify ourselves from what is happening now and what we think happened in the past. When we can witness the past happening without identifying and getting involved in it ourselves, only then can we watch the scene as It Is.

Otherwise we assume some role in the scene. When that happens, we create some incomplete cognitions, some vested interest in it. We have some expectation that things should happen in a certain way. The moment we get involved and identify ourselves with the happening, the distance between the scene and us has dropped and we can no longer be the witness to see things as they are. It is just like when we are in a dream, we don’t realize it is a dream. We think everything that is happening is reality. The moment we wake up from the dream we realize in a flash that it was just a dream.

The way we are living life now is exactly the same. We are living life in the dream of the future and the past. And we think that the dream is reality. The reality is actually in the present, which is the space of completion. When we realize this, we simply wake up to the true reality from the dream of illusion. Then, we understand that the senses, body and mind are not us. We are something much beyond these. With this awareness we become complete and blissful. Controlling The Mind

5.10

ब्रह्मण्याधाय कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा करोति य: | लिप्यते न स पापेन पद्मपत्रमिवाम्भसा

brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā karoti yaḥ / lipyate na sa pāpena padma-patram ivāmbhasā / / 5.10

He, who acts without attachment, giving up and surrender- ing to the eternal consciousness, He is never affected by sin, in the same way that the lotus leaf is not affected by water.

brahmaṇi — Eternal Consciousness · ādhāya — surrendering to · karmāṇi — actions · saṅgaṁ — attachment · tyaktvā — giving up · karoti — does · yaḥ — who · lipyate — af- fected · na — never · saḥ — he · pāpena — by sin · padma — lotus · patraṁ — leaf · iva — like · ambhasā — water

5.11

कायेन मनसा बुद्ध्या केवलैरिन्द्रियैरपि | योगिन: कर्म कुर्वन्ति सङ्गं त्यक्त्वात्मशुद्धये

kāyena manasā buddhyā kevalairindriyairapi / yoginaḥ karma kurvanti saṅgaṁ tyaktvātmaśuddhaye / / 5.11

The yogis, giving up attachment, act with the body, mind, intelligence, even with the senses for the purpose of self-purification.

kāyena — by the body · manasā — by the mind · buddhyā — by the intellect · kevalaiḥ — only · indriyaiḥ — by the senses · api also — yoginaḥ: yogis · karma — action · kurvanti — perform · saṅgaṁ — attachment · ātmaśuddhaye — for the purification of the self

5.12

युक्त: कर्मफलं त्यक्त्वा शान्तिमाप्नोति नैष्ठिकीम् | अयुक्त: कामकारेण फले सक्तो निबध्यते

yuktaḥ karmaphalaṁ tyaktvā śāntimāpnoti naiṣṭhikīm / ayuktaḥ kāma-kāreṇa phale sakto nibadhyate / / 5.12

One who is engaged in devotion, gives up attachment to outcome of one’s actions and is centered, is at peace. One who is not engaged in devotion, attached to the outcome of one’s action becomes entangled.

yuktaḥ — one steadfast in devotion · karma — action · phalaṁ — fruit: tyaktvā: giving up · śāntiṁ — peace · āpnoti — achieves: naiṣṭhikīṁ: established · ayuktaḥ — one not steadfast in devotion · kāmakāreṇa — for enjoying the fruits of the action · phale — fruit · saktaḥ — attached · nibadhyate — becomes entangled

5.13

सर्वकर्माणि मनसा संन्यस्यास्ते सुखं वशी | नवद्वारे पुरे देही नैव कुर्वन्न कारयन्

sarvakarmāṇi manasā sannyasyāste sukhaṁ vaśī / navadvāre pure dehī naiva kurvanna kārayan / / 5.13

One who is controlled, giving up all the activities of the mind, surely remains in happiness in the city of nine gates (body), neither doing anything nor causing anything to be done.

sarva — all · karmāṇi — activities · manasā — by the mind · sannyasya — giving up · āste — remains · sukhaṁ — in happiness · vaśī — who is controlled · navadvāre — of nine gates · pure — in the city · dehī — body · na — never · eva — surely · kurvan — doing · na — never: kārayan: causing to be done

Time and again Kṛṣṇa talks about detachment. This is the whole essence of the Gītā. This detachment is renunciation. Renunciation of attachment is true renunciation. You can give up all material possessions and move into a forest or an ashram, but if the mind still hankers for those possessions, renunciation has not happened. One can still be very much in the material world, busy with wheeling and dealing, and yet be totally detached about the outcome. Kṛṣṇa says here, ‘saṅgaṁ tyaktvā karoti yaḥ (5.10)—Action without attachment is renunciation.’ It is only this renunciation that leads to liberation. If you see the lotus flower, it grows in a dirty pond; its stalk is completely inside the dirty water.

The flower is so beautifully above the water and the dirt around it is hardly noticed! Similarly, when you are neck-deep in the activities of the world and yet unaffected by what goes on, when your core is undisturbed, you have reached the goal of renunciation. A small story: A Master was walking with his disciple when they came to a river. The disciple asked, ‘Master, are we going to cross this river now?’ The Master calmly replied, ‘Yes, we are. And be careful not to wet your feet.’ The Master was trying to tell him that spirituality is all about crossing the ocean of life without getting your feet wet.

Spirituality is not about running away from worldly things. Be very clear about this. A beautiful history about Swāmi Brahmānanda, a direct disciple of Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa Paramahamsa: One day Swāmi Brahmānanda was meditating in Briṇdāvan. A devotee came and placed a costly blanket before him as an offering. Swāmi said nothing. He just silently observed what was going on. A couple of hours later, a thief came by, spotted the blanket, and took away the blanket. Still, the Swami watched in the same way, silently, with no reaction. Some of the junior disciples were very perturbed that a costly blanket had been stolen. However, it made no difference to Brahmānanda.

These realized souls were so centered in themselves that the outer world incidents happening in the periphery did not affect their core in any way. When we can become like this, we won’t identify with outer world incidents. We will not get caught in the sway of emotions. Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 377 The basic truth behind creating this space of centeredness and completion is really this: Existence is a loving Mother caring for us every moment, providing all that we need. When this understanding happens, we surrender to Existence. The wave drops into the ocean, blissfully aware that it is a part of the ocean. It no longer feels it is a separate entity trying to fight Existence, thinking that the ocean, the Whole, is its enemy.

Surrender needs to happen out of a deep understanding, not out of a superficial acceptance of the inevitable. If it happens out of acceptance, it will be just a compromise out of fear. There is no point in saying, ‘Oh, it is destiny. It is written on my forehead and it is foretold by the stars.’ This is not true. We have free will and we can do what we want. We neither have to accept nor reject, but surrender to the flow of life with the true understanding that we are being taken care of. When this completion happens out of deep understanding, it is beautiful, total and it is true.

Listen. One more important truth. To whom or to what we surrender is not important. What is important is the surrender itself. Swāmi Vivekānanda says that all our prayers to God do only one thing: they awaken our own inner potential energy. When we pray intensely, our own inner potential energy is awakened and it showers its blessings on us in the form that we believe as God, irrespective of what form we worship. Having the wisdom or buddhi to understand that Existence cares for us, and surrendering to Existence is the ultimate intelligence. Realizing that Existence is not just a brute force or power but that it is intelligent energy is the key to a life of bliss.

Witness and Be Complete Again and again, Kṛṣṇa is repeating a single point in various ways: action without attachment—saṅgaṁ tyaktvā karoti yaḥ (5.10). He emphasizes that life happens only when we live as a witness to everything that happens, when we do not identify and attach with external incidents. We just have to watch what is happening in and around us without letting what happens outside affect our inner space. The moment we catch this thread and start living life in the space of completion, we will find that all our incompletions simply disappear. It is not that anything outside has changed. It is just that what we wish to see has changed.

Of course, the way in which we live automatically creates an effect, a transformation in others as well. We attract incidents that fall in tune with our desires and thoughts. When we are blissful inside, whatever happens outside will also be blissful. This is because what we see outside is just a projection of what is inside us. It has been scientifically proven that the results of experiments conducted by different researchers under identical conditions vary depending on the mood of the scientists. In one study of elementary particles such as quarks, scientists were amazed that the behavior of these particles varies with different observers. What we see is our reality.

If we see without wishing to change anything, we are in completion with reality. Even the same situation will be seen in a completely different way when we witness it with completion. Automatically, no emotion can sway us because now we are just witnessing, we no longer have any vested interest or incompletion in the situation. Our state is in no way affected by what others say or do. Then, we are Masters unto ourselves. We are never totally involved in anything that we do. The person who is aware, who is complete, who is in the present, is completely involved every moment. He feels the hunger completely through every cell of the body when hunger happens.

He lives the hunger totally. When the food is before him, he enjoys every morsel of the food completely. Just like having the sense of taste is very natural when we eat with awareness, so it is with all the senses. Just being totally involved in whatever we do is meditation. Just living in the space of completion, enjoying the present moment is meditation. You must have experienced in your own life, when you are intensely involved in something, you forget yourself. It can be as simple as painting or reading or anything. When you go deep into it, you Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 379 forget yourself. When we go deeply into any emotion, only that emotion remains and we cease to exist.

This is what we mean by ‘totality.’ This moment of ‘you’ disappearing, you may experience for just a few seconds in your current lifestyle. But if you work on being intense and total in everything, this experience of ‘you’ disappearing will happen more often to you and for longer periods. Soon, you master the art of doing work intensely, and just being absent. We become independent of the work that goes on outside. Here, Kṛṣṇa gives us a technique to realize who we are. By giving up attachment to the sense objects, by dropping all false identifications with the body, senses and mind, we can live life with intelligence and this leads us to self-purification, self-completion.

Kṛṣṇa tells us that our job is only to do the work, not to be concerned about the results. He beautifully says, ‘brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi (5.10)—do the work surrendering to the eternal consciousness.’ We need to keep doing things because we have so much loving energy inside us. We can just exude energy without any reason or any expectation. When we are like this, we are not bothered about the results. When I say we are not bothered about the results, I don’t mean that out of a frustrated or cynical conclusion. What I mean is that we don’t even know to expect results because we are continuously moving and expressing our blissful inner energy, that’s all.

We are just living in the space of completion and doing whatever that comes in our way to do. We are just flowing joyfully, that’s all. We flow with the Universal energy. This flowing energy is real love. When we identify ourselves with our body, mind and ego, we alienate ourselves from the rest of Existence. Instead of playing our role in the divine drama as an actor, we start thinking that we are the actor and we actually go through all the emotional turmoil that we were just supposed to enact. When we become entangle and we miss the whole joy of the divine drama, and feel that life is a big trauma!

In the same way, when we just do what we have at hand, without being bothered about the result, we are always happy. Once we start thinking about the result of our actions, we lose the joy of doing what we are doing at this moment. When we are established in ourselves, we are automatically in peace irrespective of anything that exists or does not exist around us. We are not bothered about the result because we have given our best, to our peak possibility. Once a man went to Ramaṇa Mahaṛṣi, and said, ‘Bhagavān, I want peace!’ Ramaṇa replied, ‘From your own statement, just remove the word ‘I,’ remove the word ‘want’ and what remains is peace!’

All our want for peace is all a want. We don’t know how to be satisfied as we are. Just think, how can we want something like peace, that by its very nature has the absence of want as the criterion to be able to exist? When we start to want peace, we create desires in us. That desire drives us to do various things for getting peace and we once again start to worry about the results of those actions. These worries take us away from peace and then again we want peace. So this becomes a vicious circle. We wanted peace in the first place; so we do something to fulfill that want.

Doing something creates worry and then once again we want to be free from these worries and be peaceful. This is a vicious circle because we want peace. When we drop the idea of wanting peace, when we can just be and let Existence take care, peace automatically happens. So, absence of want is the criterion to be peaceful. Some people say that they want to be left peaceful without worries. The peace they are talking about is not a living peace; it is a dead peace because life is too much for them to handle. Real peace is something that is in us all the time irrespective of what is going on outside.

Our peace is in no way related to or dependent on the people and situations around us. Real peace is nothing but the bliss that we feel inside ourselves. When peace is born out of bliss, it keeps us as well as others in a peaceful state. When we are satisfied and complete with ourselves, we do not depend on anything external to be peaceful. Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 381 We don’t understand that every tomorrow comes only as today. When the tomorrow comes as today, we simply miss it because we are now looking at tomorrow once again! When we work without unnecessarily thinking about the result, all our energies will be used towards realizing the goal.

The energy will not be dissipated in imagining the results. The power of desire, icchā śakti, will be converted to the power of action, kriya śakti. The desire may initially be a goal, but what is important is the path and not the end result. The goal is merely a byproduct. Suppose a child is playing with some small toy and you bring him a new big toy. If you take away the small toy from its hands, what will the child do? It will start yelling and crying. Even if you explain you have a much better, bigger toy, will it listen? No! Just give it the new toy and suddenly, it will forget the old one and start enjoying the new one.

In the same way, Existence also tries to give us a big toy. Just imagine the kind of toy that Existence has given us—the whole of Itself! Enjoy it to the fullest. Celebrate it and express your gratitude! Your mind will always tell you that the small toy, your little dreams, your ego, is the most important thing and you need it to survive. For a few days, decide to drop your expectations, your fears, and your protection of the ego. Just live life in a simple way. Be complete every moment, enjoying the splendor of nature. Enjoy every thing that Existence has created. Start witnessing simple yet wonderful things like the sunrise in the morning; listen to the chirping of the birds.

Look deeply into a flower and you will find God. Just these few moments will show us a whole new dimension of our Being. They will show us what it is to enjoy life without a reason, without running behind or away from something. They will teach us how to relax into the welcoming, embracing arms of Existence. The City of Nine Gates In these verses, Kṛṣṇa refers to the body, which has nine gates to the external world: the two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, mouth and the two organs of evacuation. It may seem strange and absurd that we can just be neither doing nor causing anything to be done.

Here, Kṛṣṇa does not refer to not doing anything out of laziness and indulgence. Actually, if we can become intensely lazy, we can be in meditation! Here, the laziness is a deep mental laziness where the mind has been stilled. It has stopped all activity but the body moves according to the will of the divine. We are in the midst of intense activity and yet are not doing anything. The mind separates the doer from the action. It is the mind that defines who the doer is and what the action is. In the conventional sense, when we say lazy, we are referring to the body. The body is lazing around but the mind is completely active.

It is carrying on its work of creating and linking unrelated thoughts. When the mind becomes lazy, instead of the body, we drop the mind also. That is when we stop identifying the action as being separate from ourselves. Kṛṣṇa is talking of being so completely involved in something that we become the very action itself. First, we become the witness to the action, only then we can become completely involved in it. When we start distancing ourselves and become a witness, only then we can be completely involved in the action and then the doer and the action merge into each other. It is not the action that gives us the joy but the conscious experience of the bliss within us through the action that actually gives us happiness and bliss.

A small story: A dog found a piece of bone and was very happy. It started chewing on the bone but the piece was very dry. It chewed and chewed and after some time, its own gums started bleeding from rubbing against the dry, hard bone. The dog was very happy to finally taste blood. It licked the bone even more, making more blood ooze from its own mouth. Little did the dog realize that the blood it was enjoying was its very own! The bone had nothing to do with the taste of the blood! When we realize through experience or understanding that the bliss Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 383 in life is completely within us, we will get over our wrong cognition that external pleasures are what give us joy.

When we really cognize that we are already all that we can imagine we want to be and much more than that, we have reached the ultimate goal. We will relax into the loving arms of Existence and just flow with it beautifully. Until then it will be a struggle to achieve what we already are. You see, when we leave the ownership to someone else, we are free. The burden is not on us. That is when we can be peaceful and blissful. As long as we think we are the owners, we always have to face the worry that comes with ownership. Why do you want to carry that worry? Let the Universe take care and you carry on with your work! Cleansing Ignorance With Knowledge

5.14

न कर्तृत्वं न कर्माणि लोकस्य सृजति प्रभु: | न कर्मफलसंयोगं स्वभावस्तु प्रवर्तते

na kartṛtvaṁ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ / na karmaphalasaṁyogaṁ svabhāvas tu pravartate / / 5.14

The master does not create activities nor makes people do nor connects with the outcome of the actions. All this is enacted by the material nature.

na — never · kartṛtvaṁ — of doing · na — not · karmāṇi — activities · lokasya — of the people · sṛjati — creates · prabhuḥ — master · na — not · karma — activities · phala — fruit · saṁyogaṁ — connection · svabhāvaḥ — nature · tu — but · pravartate — act

5.15

नादत्ते कस्यचित्पापं न चैव सुकृतं विभु: | अज्ञानेनावृतं ज्ञानं तेन मुह्यन्ति जन्तव:

nādatte kasyacitpāpaṁ na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ / ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ tena muhyanti jantavaḥ / / 5.15

The Lord, surely, neither accepts anyone’s sins nor good deeds. Living beings are confused by the ignorance that covers the knowledge.

na — never · ādatte — accepts · kasyacit — anyone’s · pāpaṁ — sins · na — not · ca — and · eva — surely · sukṛtaṁ — good deeds · vibhuḥ — lord · ajñānena — by ignorance · āvṛtaṁ — covered · jñānaṁ — knowledge · tena — by that · muhyanti — are confused · jantavaḥ — living beings

5.16

ज्ञानेन तु तदज्ञानं येषां नाशितमात्मन: | तेषामादित्यवज्ज्ञानं प्रकाशयति तत्परम्

jñānena tu tadajñānaṁ yeṣāṁ nāśitamātmanaḥ / teṣāmādityavajjñānaṁ prakāśayati tatparam / / 5.16

Whose ignorance is destroyed by the knowledge, their knowledge, like the rising sun, throws light on the supreme consciousness.

jñānena — by knowledge · tu — but · tad — that · ajñānaṁ — ignorance · yeṣāṁ — whose · nāśitaṁ — destroyed · ātmanaḥ — of the self · teṣām — their · ādityavat — like the rising sun · jñānaṁ — knowledge · prakāśayati — throws light on · tat param — that supreme consciousness

5.17

तद्बुद्धयस्तदात्मानस्तन्निष्ठास्तत्परायणा: | गच्छन्त्यपुनरावृत्तिं ज्ञाननिर्धूतकल्मषा:

tadbuddhayas tad-ātmānas tan-niṣṭhās tat parāyaṇāḥ / gacchanty apunar-āvṛttiṁ jñāna-nirdhūta-kalmaṣāḥ / / 5.17

One whose intelligence, mind, faith are in the Supreme and one who has surrendered to the Supreme, his misunder- standings are cleansed through knowledge and he goes towards liberation.

tad buddhyaḥ — one whose intelligence is in the supreme · tad ātmānaḥ — whose mind is in the supreme · tanniṣṭhāḥ — whose faith is in the supreme · tat parāyaṇāḥ — who has surrendered to the supreme · gacchanti — go · apunarāvṛit- tiṁ — liberation · jñāna — knowledge · nirdhūta — cleansed · kalmaṣāḥ — sins

Kṛṣṇa gives a very deep understanding here. He says, ‘I do not create activities or make people do or connect with the fruits of the actions. All this is done by the material nature of humans.’ na kartṛtvaṁ na karmāṇi lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ I na karma phala saṁyogaṁ svabhāvas tu pravartate II 5.14 Kṛṣṇa is talking about the creation of the Universe itself here, not just about individuals. Understand, nothing in this Universe can be created or destroyed. When I say, nothing, I mean nothing. Everything that exists has always existed in some form or the other. It will continue to exist in some form or the other. Science also says the same thing that matter and energy are Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 385 inter-convertible and energy can never be destroyed.

The beauty of the Vedas is that they say what science is now understanding. What is the last line of science was the first line of the Upaniṣads. The End or The Beginning? The Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad opens with the words—Īśā vāsyaṁ idaṁ sarvaṁ—meaning, ‘all that exists arises from energy.’ Now after so much scientific research, quantum physics has concluded that matter and energy are one and the same. But thousands of years ago, this was the first statement in the Īśāvāsya Upaniṣad, which says everything is energy. People ask me, ‘Who created this Universe?’ I tell you, the Universe itself is the creator, the created and the creation. If the creator and the creation were different, it means that the Creator is more intelligent than thecreation.ButthecreationandtheCreatorareoneandthesame;theyare both divine.

That is what is meant by līla, the divine play. The unmanifest, avyakta, the formless Energy made itself manifest, vyakta in the creation. The Universe created itself. Why? We cannot answer the question ‘why’ for this in the logical plane. If we get caught in the ‘why’ in the beginning, we will be stuck with it forever. Understand, these questions cannot be answered by the mind since we cannot answer these questions logically. God created man in His own mould so that He could experience Divinity. You see, God as God, as the avyakta or unmanifest, as pure energy cannot see the Divinity outside of Himself. When He is everything, how can He see Himself separate?

Everything exists as a part of Him; so He cannot look to see the Divine outside. It is like this: Can you say how you experience, how you feel your hand from inside your body? No! On the other hand, can you describe how you feel when you touch your own hand with the other hand? You will have some feeling, do you not? You can feel it because from outside, your two hands are separate; you can perceive them as different parts of your body. Similarly, God can experience and express Himself through man. Man is a part of God just like both the hands are a part of the same body and can be felt separately.

Now, just like one hand in itself cannot understand that the hand it is touching is a part of the same body man cannot understand that he is a part of God. What does it take for the hand to understand that the other hand is actually a part of the bigger whole called the body? It takes the cognition that the entire body is a single entity with the different parts of the body being integrated in it. Similarly, it takes the understanding of our consciousness to see that we, the individual consciousness, are a part of the Whole and are an integral and connected part of the collective consciousness.

The individual ego can never understand the truth that it exists as a part of the Whole. The ego has to dissolve for the truth to be revealed and understood. It is as if we want to see our own beauty, we can do that when we see our own reflection in a mirror. The mirror in which God sees Himself is man. Can the reflection be a separate entity from what it is reflecting? No! Man can experience and express the divine in him. The game of life is all about man trying to realize the Divine in him and the Divine trying to express itself through man. What Kṛṣṇa teaches here is actually a sūtra, a technique.

Understand, when you are disturbed or angered by anything, the disturbance cannot disappear suddenly because it is a physiological happening. Your hormones have been released into your system; the body has been poisoned. But when you remain in the space of completion as a witness, even though the anger cannot go away immediately, there is the awareness in you that will dissipate the effect of the anger that remains in the periphery. The center, the core is untouched. You are now aware of these two points, the core and the periphery as two distinct identities co-existing. This one glimpse will enrich you and become the strong support for you. The next time you see that you are being swayed by incompletions, you will remember this and such awareness will make you conscious and complete.

Only when you are unconscious and ignorant you come Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 387 under the sway of emotions or incompletions. This is what is meant by the term ‘being centered in completion.’ You are no longer a slave to your emotions, or to others. Otherwise, anybody can shake you. They can push and pull you in different directions and you won’t be integrated and whole. Kṛṣṇa separates morality from spirituality in these verses. Heaven and hell are purely psychological. They exist only in our heads. You don’t commit sin and then go to hell. You commit sin because you are in hell. When you are not aware, when you are disturbed and not at peace with yourself, you are in hell.

The quality of your inner space is what decides whether you are in heaven or hell. Please listen: live with the consciousness of completion and you can never make a mistake. Morality is just skin-deep. Understand, there is no such thing as virtue or sin. Everything is energy. What exists is energy. Energy cannot be categorized as good and bad. Emotions such as lust and anger are also energy. These so-called base emotions arise due to our own ignorance. When our awareness and understanding transform the base emotions, they become higher emotions. For instance, lust becomes love when the understanding happens. Just live every moment in bliss. Consciously decide that you will face every moment with deep completion, with deep ecstasy.

The very decision will transform your life. Not only will you feel total and complete, you will radiate the bliss to others as well. As long as the mind comes into play, liberation and bondage cannot exist independently. They depend on each other. Anything can be felt by the mind only in contrast, in opposites. We are in ignorance when we think that liberation is some state that we need to achieve. The moment we want to achieve or possess something, it will simply slip from our hands, like sand or water from our hands the moment we close our fist tightly. The light of knowledge dispels the ignorance and we realize the state in which we have always been.

We cannot remove the darkness directly. This is what I mean by something having a negative existence. Ignorance also can be removed by just shining the light of knowledge on it! Just like the rising sun removes the darkness of the night, the light of knowledge dispels the darkness of ignorance. What is that ignorance that we need to remove by bringing in the light of knowledge? Whatever we do, we want to be happy, right? But the strange truth is, we are already pure bliss. I am not saying we have achieved bliss. I am saying we are bliss. Each one of us is pure bliss. The problem is we are not ready to accept this ultimate truth and relax, because the moment we accept this, we no longer have a separate personality; the ego has no basis to exist.

It is our ego that makes us feel incomplete. The ego needs us to be a solid entity for it to exist. The mind always yearns to be occupied, running behind something. Only then can it survive. When we are pure bliss, we have nothing to run after because we are complete unto ourselves. If we look deeply, we can see clearly that it is us who choose to stay in suffering. We think that we want bliss and that we want to drop our ego. But deep down, we choose to stay with our ego. Surrender Leads to Liberation Kṛṣṇa gives us another technique to liberate ourselves. He says surrender leads to liberation, and happens when one’s intelligence is focused on Him.

When we believe and cognize that there is a life force that is conducting this Universe and is taking care of us, we relax. When we relax, we can live and function at our peak potential. We can express our creativity and live spontaneously. We experience great freedom and liberation. This is surrender. This is true knowledge too. This is the knowledge that cannot be taught or picked up. The Master can simply transmit it when our being is ready to receive it. All we need is the faith, the courage of authenticity to allow the supreme intelligence to guide us, to surrender our mind that oscillates between the extremes.

The knowledge removes the ignorance. All our Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 389 problems are due to lack of knowledge, due to ignorance. Whether it is fear or greed or worry or anger, all these emotions are able to control us because we are not aware. We allow them to unconsciously control us. When we bring a deep completion into anything, the solution simply stands out. When we go deeply into any emotion with deep awareness and complete with it, we can flower out of it. This is true knowledge, the knowledge of completion. In times of extreme self-doubt, doubt your ego. Never doubt the Master. The Master is the only truth you can cling to when all else gives way.

The Master is the only one who can guide you when everything seems to be confusing. So, first of all, you need to complete with this self-doubting pattern of constantly doubting yourself. Because you constantly doubt yourself, you doubt the truths of completion, the four tattvas (principles), you doubt everything. You doubt you. Because you doubt you, you doubt me. Please listen, if you doubt you, you will doubt me also because I am inside you more than you exist in you! If you are occupying twenty to thirty percent of you, I am occupying sixty to seventy percent of you. So, naturally if you doubt you, you will doubt me.

And, if you have anger towards you, you will have anger towards me! Surrender can happen at different levels. Understand that the Masterlivesinallthreeenergies—thebody,histeachingsandmission.The Master has no vested interests, no desires to fulfill in life. Masters come out of sheer compassion for the whole of mankind, to dispel the ignorance of seekers, to show them the light. The Dog And The Dog-eater

5.18

विद्याविनयसम्पन्ने ब्राह्मणे गवि हस्तिनि | शुनि चैव श्वपाके च पण्डिता: समदर्शिन:

vidyā-vinaya-saṁpanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini / śuni caiva śvapāke ca paṇḍitāḥ samadarśinaḥ / / 5.18

One who is full of knowledge and compassion sees equally the learned brāhmaṇa, the cow, the elephant, the dog and the dog-eater.

vidyā — knowledge · vinaya — compassion · saṁpanne — full with · brāhmaṇe — in the brahmana · gavi — in the cow · hastini — in the elephant · śuni — in the dog · ca — and · eva — surely · śvapāke — in the dog-eater · ca — and · paṇḍitāḥ — learned · sama — equal · darśinaḥ — see

5.19

इहैव तैर्जित: सर्गो येषां साम्ये स्थितं मन: | निर्दोषं हि समं ब्रह्म तस्माद् ब्रह्मणि ते स्थिता:

ihaiva tairjitaḥ sargo yeṣāṁ sāmye sthitaṁ manaḥ / nirdoṣaṁ hi samaṁ brahma tasmād brahmaṇi te sthitāḥ / / 5.19

In this life, surely, those whose minds are situated in equanimity have conquered birth and death. They are flawless like the Supreme and therefore, are situated in the Supreme.’

iha — in this life · eva — surely · taiḥ — by them · jitaḥ — conquered · sargaḥ — birth and death · yeṣāṁ — of whose · sāmye — in equanimity · sthitaṁ — situated · manaḥ — mind · nir doṣaṁ — flawless · hi — surely · samaṁ — in equanimity · brahma — supreme · tasmāt — therefore · brahmaṇi — in the supreme · te — they · sthitāḥ — situated

5.20

न प्रहृष्येत्प्रियं प्राप्य नोद्विजेत्प्राप्य चाप्रियम् | स्थिरबुद्धिरसम्मूढो ब्रह्मविद् ब्रह्मणि स्थित:

na prahṛṣyetpriyaṁ prāpya nodvijet prāpya cāpriyam / sthirabuddhir asaṁmūḍho brahmavid brahmaṇi sthitaḥ / / 5.20

One who does not rejoice at achieving something he likes nor gets agitated on getting something he does not like, who is of steady intelligence, who is not deluded, one who knows the Supreme, is situated in the Supreme.

na — never · prahṛṣyet — rejoice · priyaṁ — like · prāpya — achieving · no — not · udvijet — agitated · prāpya — achieving · ca — and · apriyaṁ — the unpleasant · sthirabuddhiḥ — steady intelligence · asaṁmūḍhaḥ — undeluded · brahmavid — one who knows the Supreme · brahmaṇi — in the Supreme · sthitaḥ — situated

5.21

बाह्यस्पर्शेष्वसक्तात्मा विन्दत्यात्मनि यत्सुखम् | स ब्रह्मयोगयुक्तात्मा सुखमक्षयमश्नुते

bāhyasparśeṣvasaktātmā vindatyātmani yatsukham / sa brahma-yoga-yuktātmā sukhamakṣayamaśnute / / 5.21

One who is not attached to the outer world sense pleasures, who enjoys in the Self, in that happiness, he, having identified with his Self by engaging in the Supreme [brahma-yoga], enjoys unlimited happiness.

bāhya — outer · sparśeṣu — sense pleasures · asaktātmā — not attached · vindati — enjoys · ātmani — in the Self · yat — that · sukhaṁ — happiness · saḥ — he · brahma yoga — engaged in the Supreme · yuktātmā — self-connected · sukhaṁ — happiness · akṣayaṁ — unlimited · aśnute — enjoys

Kṛṣṇa succinctly explains the neutrality and equanimity of Existence. Existence has no favorites. All comparative and hierarchical definitions are manmade. Kṛṣṇa says there is no difference between a human and an animal, and that there is no difference between those we consider to be saints and those we consider to be sinners. A learned scholar, the priest and the brāhmaṇa should be seen as equal to an animal or a person who eats dogs. Even more dramatically, He says that one in full knowledge sees the dog and the dog-eater as the same—śuni caiva śva-pāke ca paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ (5.18). Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 391 This is what Ādī Śaṅkara means when he sings the six verses of his Ātma Śatakam.

‘I am not the enjoyer. I am not the enjoyed. I am not the enjoying. I am beyond all that; I am just the embodiment of Śiva.’ This is one of the most beautiful messages from Śaṅkara. ‘I am not the doer, I am not the deed, I am not the doing,’ he says. ‘I am just the witness, beyond all these.’ When we go beyond all three, the subject, object and verb, all connotations disappear. The eater and the eaten merge. We reach the source. There are no thoughts and there is no mind. There is just you, your being. That is the true you, the Supreme. Existence continuously showers bliss upon each of us.

Only we are not open to receive it. Existence sees everyone as equal. It does not discriminate. Everyone is a part of the same Existence. Similarly, Masters see the whole world as one with their own selves. That is why only they can show compassion to anyone and everyone. Every Atom is Divine External appearances are ephemeral. When we see the eternal, blissful being as the core of each and every one of us, we will realize the inherent divine nature of each of us. This knowledge, gained through the experience of the Self, results automatically in deep compassion towards the whole of Existence. Classifications of lower species and higher species, good and bad are all made by society and by our minds, not by Existence.

Only human beings think they are more intelligent than the rest of Nature! A small story: One night, a thief knocked on the door of a monastery located in the middle of a forest. The master opened the door and allowed the man to spend the night in the monastery. The next morning, the thief thanked his host and asked for his permission to leave. He also confessed to the master that he was a thief and had burgled the palace the previous night. The master was aghast. He started weeping loudly, ‘What a great sin I have committed by allowing a thief to spend a night in my monastery!

I gave him food too. What can I do to make up for my sin?’ At that time, he heard a voice from the sky, weeping even louder than him, ‘You are upset and weeping because you have looked after him for one night. What about me? I have been looking after him everyday for all these years!’ The master had actually become egoistic. He started feeling holier than others because of which he looked down upon the thief as a less holy person. God never differentiates between a sinner and a saint. These are all societal. Every atom on Earth is divine. When we just realize this very life is a divine gift to us, our attitude changes from taking life for granted to one of gratitude to Existence for everything!

Have you worked hard to earn this life? With every breath that you take every moment, the life energy flows into you and keeps you alive. We take for granted the life energy that converts bread into blood. The mind continuously runs behind ‘more and more.’ If we make two lists: one list of what we have, what Existence has showered upon us and a second list of what we really want to have to feel happier, we will quickly realize how much longer the first list is. Have we ever strongly considered what our life would be like if we did not have even a small limb? Can you imagine the limitations we would have without a toe or thumb, not to speak of our eyes or ears?

We take so much for granted. We assume that what we have been given is our rightful due and so we only crave for more. We are here as gifts of Nature. Instead of being grateful to Existence for what we have been showered with, we complain about what we do not have. Remember that when God does not grant us what we seek, He is Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 393 doing it out of deep compassion and wisdom. He does not grant many of our prayers because He knows that far better than us. We have no wisdom when it comes to asking. The Divine is far wiser and knows what we really need.

There is a huge difference between what we want and what we need. For the next couple of days, just try living with the attitude of gratitude, with love for everyone and everything around you, with a deep completion. Automatically, you will begin to experience every person and every happening as a unique creation of Existence, as a reflection of the Divine. Just decide consciously that you will respond with love, whatever may be the situation. Just the very attitude change will bring tremendous peace and relaxation into you. Kṛṣṇa says, when you look every single thing without differentiation, without fear or favoritism, without attachment, then you are a true renunciate, a true Sannyāsi.

Death, Only A Passage Can you look at death and birth in the same manner? We celebrate birth, we condole death. Why? Both are passages. Neither is a beginning nor an end. The cycle of life is continuous. We move seamlessly from birth through living into death and again into birth. It is just that in this life, we do not remember what happened in the period between our death in our previous birth and our birth this time. That loss of memory is for our own safety. We are perturbed by that loss of memory. What we do not know frightens us. If we understand that death is no different from birth and that life after death may be no different from our current life, there will be no fear.

This can happen when we have the experience of death while we are still alive. This is what we teach in our programs. An important thing: How we look at death reflects a lot of the way we look at life. I can say our perception of death changes our way of life. Death is feared by most of us because it is considered a discontinuity. When we realize that death is just a continuation in some other form, we will not fear death. Then the joy of birth and the sadness at death will both be seen as the same. Our idea of birth and death is direct evidence of how we look at various situations in life.

That is why understanding about birth and death is actually fundamental to leading a life of realization. Understand, one who knows that what he sees is illusion, just a play of mind, he will not fear death. As long as we hold on to this illusion created by the mind that we call reality, we have a feeling of losing it when we think of death. When we see pain and pleasure as the same and are not affected by either of them, we will be free from the fear of death. Because then we realize that nothing is taken away from us when death comes. Enlightened Masters’ experience about death teaches us a lot.

Bhagavān Ramaṇa Mahaṛṣi got his enlightenment through a conscious experience of death. When Bhagavān was a young boy, one day he was just lying on his bed at his Uncle’s house in Madurai, South India. Suddenly he got the feeling that he was going to die! He had two choices: to resist the feeling or to go through it. He chose the second, to go through death as it is, consciously. He became enlightened after he experienced the process of death. Usually people resist, so they pass into a coma and leave the body in a state of unconsciousness. In our second level program, the Nithya Kriya Yoga or Life Bliss Program Level 2, we go into the complete understanding of death, what happens exactly when we die.

We enrich you to experience the process of death and to understand how and what happens, so that there is no mystery and, therefore, there is no fear. At least once if we go through death with deep consciousness, we will lose our fear for death automatically. Bhagavān was courageous enough to choose the second path. He allowed death to happen without any resistance. He saw clearly one by one, the parts of his body dying. Slowly, his whole body was dead, turning into ashes. Suddenly, he realized that something remained even after that, which cannot be destroyed. At that moment, it hit him that he was pure consciousness, beyond the body and mind!

He was simply a witness to Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 395 the whole thing! That knowledge was tremendous and it never left him. When he came back into his body, he was Bhagavān Ramaṇa Maharṣi, the Enlightened Master! When we conquer the fear of death, we conquer death itself, because death is just one more imagination! When we get over the cycle of greed and fear, we can be in equanimity in all situations in life; then we are situated in the supreme consciousness. It is then we have touched our core, our real Being. Steady Your Intelligence, Go Beyond Opposites Kṛṣṇa goes on to explain the characteristics of one who is Supreme.

He says that one who is of steady intelligence, sthira buddhir asammūḍho; one who does not get caught in the play of opposing emotions or patterns like pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, is truly not deluded and is established in the truth, and in the Supreme, brahma-vid brahmaṇi sthitaḥ (5.20). He is Supreme himself. What do we need to know to get out of the whirlpool of emotions? If we look deeply, we will see that all our emotional incompletions like fear, greed or worry, at the root, are born of an expectation for a certain situation to happen in a certain way. We live in a virtual world of fantasy and when there is a gap between reality and imagination, the trouble starts.

The greater the gap, the more tension and disappointment we experience. We start to like or dislike something based on this gap. The likes and dislikes are a product of the mind, not of the being which is just bliss. Beautifully, Kṛṣṇa says, ‘An object of enjoyment that comes of itself is neither painful nor pleasurable for someone who has eliminated attachment and who is free from the dualism of self and the other and therefore, from desire.’ This is actually a sūtra, a technique that Kṛṣṇa gives. If we put our attention neither on pleasure nor on pain, but between the two, we actually go beyond both and transcend the play of the mind.

What do we normally do? If we are in pain, we try to run away from it. If we are in pleasure, we try to cling onto it. Understand that both pleasure and pain are of the mind. They are based on our saṁskāras, root thought patterns from our past. They are not of the being. Instead of trying to hold onto pleasure or running away from pain, just be with it, just witness it. The nature of the mind is to move to the opposites. Using this technique, we can transcend this nature of the mind. For example, if we have a headache, don’t try to resist it. Just witness it.

As the tree is there, as the night is there, so also the headache is there. On the other hand, if we are very happy, don’t try to cling onto it. Whether it is happiness or pain, just be a witness to it. It is like standing in front of the sun and watching it, with no attachment to the sun rising or setting. Be involved but be aware without resistance to life, neither rejecting nor accepting anything. When we are aware and do not resist anything, we can never be unconsciously pulled into it. Then desire cannot overcome us. We are always the Master. When we are not conscious, then we either start resisting or accepting and we get caught in the cycle of guilt and desires.

After the desire gets fulfilled, we go through guilt for having succumbed to the desire. But we did not live the desire fully with completion, so we can’t get out of it either. Next time, the desire happens and again we go through it incompletely and then feel guilty. The only way to get out of this vicious cycle of desire and guilt is to go through the desire with completion without any resistance to it. Normally we either suppress or express our desires. Suppression does not lead to elimination of that desire. It temporarily blocks access, but that desire will rise with renewed vigor again. Expression also does not mean completion.

Again and again, the desire will rise even after repeated expression because we rarely experience anything with completion. In expression of a desire, once we experience a desire with full awareness and declare completion with it, whether related to food, sex or material desires, we will find that the desire is fulfilled and we will not be bothered by it anymore. We will transcend the desire. It is actually that simple. Listen. This is what I term karma. Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 397 Karma is nothing but unfulfilled desire that makes us repeat the same experience again and again, simply because we do not have the intelligence to enter into that experience with complete awareness.

Once we experience the situation with awareness and complete with it, we will experience what Śaṅkara experienced. We will not be the doer, the deed or the doing. We will transcend all three. We will transcend our karma. We will be supreme. Tune In To Eternal Bliss Kṛṣṇa advises us to turn inwards. Move away from your senses, move into your Source, He says. By nature, by our very being we are tuned inwards. By conditioning, we lose the capability to turn inwards. We will see that most children are blissful, just curious and happy to be what they are. Then unfortunately, they grow up to be adults! They lose that bliss and that natural response to turn inwards.

Society teaches them to trust their senses. One who indulges in sense pleasures is just caught in the push and pull of desires and guilt. He is just under hormonal torture. Again and again, we look outside for solutions that keep us happy. Everything that happens around us gives us sensory pleasures. If we see our list of desires, most of them are not even ours, they are borrowed from others. We will be totally happy with our car until our neighbor gets a new car. We will be totally happy with our job until our colleague gets promoted to a higher post. We constantly update our list of desires by looking at what is going on outside, and we start believing that fulfilling these desires will give us what we define as happiness or pleasure.

So to fulfill these desires, we keep on running the rat race, not knowing what exactly we want. We look for fulfillment and solutions outside. However, the real solution lies inside. We need to be able to connect to our true self. We should realize that our being is blissful by nature. If we realize this, we will always be centered and complete in ourselves. He who is free from being and non-being, who is content, complete, desire-less, and wise, even if in the eyes of the world he does act, does nothing. We must have seen, on the surface, a mad man with tremendous laziness will look very similar to a mystic in deep bliss.

They may seem very similar but inside, they are the complete opposites. A madman is lazy and is lying around with many things occupying his mind. A mystic, however, is sitting completely relaxed because he is centered and complete in his being with no-mind. To us he may seem the same as a madman. But the mind of the mystic is not doing anything. He is complete unto himself. When we are situated in the core of our being, when we are one with the Self, we are not shaken by the emotions that happen on the periphery. It is like a rock that is standing in the ocean. The waves of the emotions are continuously lashing against the rock, but the rock still stands unperturbed, established in completion. The happiness arises from our very being, from our Self. It is unlimited eternal bliss because it cannot be stopped by any external agent, thus says Kṛṣṇa—sukham akṣayam aśnute (5.21). The Path To Self-Realization

5.22

ये हि संस्पर्शजा भोगा दु:खयोनय एव ते | आद्यन्तवन्त: कौन्तेय न तेषु रमते बुध:

ye hi saṁsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya eva te / ādyantavantaḥ kaunteya na teṣu ramate budhaḥ / / 5.22

The intelligent person surely does not enjoy the sense pleasures, enjoyments which are sources of misery and which are subject to beginning and end.

ye — those · hi — surely · saṁsparśajāḥ — by contact with the senses · bhogāḥ — enjoy- ments · duḥkha — misery · yonayaḥ — sources of · eva — surely · te — they are · ādya — beginning · antavantaḥ — subject to end · kaunteya — son of Kuntī · na — not · teṣu — in those · ramate — enjoys · budhaḥ — intelligent person

5.23

शक्नोतीहैव य: सोढुं प्राक्शरीरविमोक्षणात् | कामक्रोधोद्भवं वेगं स युक्त: स सुखी नर:

śaknotīhaiva yaḥ soḍhuṁ prākśarīravimokṣaṇāt / kāma-krodhodbhavaṁ vegaṁ sa yuktaḥ sa sukhī naraḥ / / 5.23

Before leaving this present body, if one is able to tolerate the urges of material senses and check the force of desire and anger, he is well situated and he is happy in this world.

śaknoti — able to do · iha eva — in this body · yaḥ — one who · soḍhuṁ — tolerate · prāk — before · śarīra — body · vimokṣaṇāt — give up · kāma — desire · krodha — anger · udbhavaṁ — generated from · vegaṁ — urge · sa — he · yuktaḥ — well-situated · saḥ — he · sukhī — happy · naraḥ — man

5.24

योऽन्त:सुखोऽन्तरारामस्तथान्तज्र्योतिरेव य: । स योगी ब्रह्मनिर्वाणं ब्रह्मभूतोऽधिगच्छति

yo’ntaḥsukho’ntarārāmas tathāntar-jyotir eva yaḥ / sa yogī brahman-irvāṇaṁ brahmabhūto’dhigacchati / / 5.24

One who is happy from within, active within as well as illumined within, surely, is a Yogi and he is liberated in the Supreme [brahma-nirvāṇa], is Self-realized and attains the Supreme.

yaḥ — who · antaḥ sukhaḥ — happy from within · antarārāmaḥ — active within · tathā — as well as · antarjyotiḥ — illumined within · eva — surely · yaḥ — who · saḥ — he · yogī — mystic · brahma nirvāṇaṁ — liberated in the Supreme · brahma bhūtaḥ — self realized · adhigacchati — attains

5.25

लभन्ते ब्रह्मनिर्वाणमृषय: क्षीणकल्मषा: | छिन्नद्वैधा यतात्मान: सर्वभूतहिते रता:

labhante brahma-nirvāṇam ṛṣayaḥ kṣīṇakalmaṣāḥ / chinn-advaidhā yatātmānaḥ sarvabhūtahite ratāḥ / / 5.25

Those, whose sins have been destroyed, who have dispelled the dualities arising from doubts, whose minds are engaged within, and who are working for the welfare of other beings, attain the eternal liberation in the Supreme [brahma-nirvāṇa].

labhante — achieve · brahma nirvāṇaṁ — liberation in the Supreme · ṛṣayaḥ — who are active within · kṣīṇakalmaṣāḥ — devoid of sins · chinna — torn off · dvaidāḥ — duality · yatātmānaḥ — engaged in self-realization · sarva — all · bhūta — living beings · hite — for the welfare · ratāḥ — engaged

5.26

कामक्रोधवियुक्तानां यतीनां यतचेतसाम् | अभितो ब्रह्मनिर्वाणं वर्तते विदितात्मनाम्

kāmakrodhaviyuktānāṁ yatīnāṁ yatacetasām / abhito brahmanirvāṇaṁ vartate viditātmanām / / 5.26

They who are free from lust and anger, who have subdued the mind and senses, and who have known the Self, easily attain liberation [brahma-nirvāṇa].

kāma — desire · krodha — anger · yata cetasāṁ — with the thoughts controlled · abhitaḥ — on all sides · brahma nirvāṇaṁ — absolute freedom · vartate — exists · viditātmanāṁ — of those who have realized the Self

Kṛṣṇa says that sensory pleasures are bound to end; they do not last forever. Generally, we are controlled by what happens outside us. Our happiness is an emotion that is created by something outside of us—a pleasant situation, the presence of someone we like, and so on. When we experience happiness due to some event outside us, be very sure, sadness is around the corner. When we experience the joy in us because of an external source, we will experience sadness once that external source is taken away from us. We always attach our happiness to something that is external to us. If these things are taken away from us, we are left with sadness.

It is like a pendulum swaying from one extreme of happiness to the other extreme of sadness. The event and the person do not cause happiness and sorrow. It is caused by our sensory perception and by the judgment based on this perception. That is why the same event that may be joyful to one is sorrowful for another, and would leave a third one undisturbed. It is our attachment to that person or event and our judgment based on our patterns that creates the sorrow or happiness. The incident by itself is neutral. There is a beginning and an end to these states of sorrow and happiness. But bliss is something that continuously happens in us for no reason.

Bliss does not depend on external sources. It is inside us. Once we are centered in us, we are always in bliss. When we are constantly experiencing the inner joy or bliss, whatever happens outside us does not affect our space of bliss. Happiness or sadness happens because of our sensory pleasures that are again a result of our mind and ego. Our ego, our false association of ourselves with various emotions is actually the cause of our misery. At the core of our beings is pure bliss. But we are functioning at our periphery and are not able to see this core. The ego is what is really meant by māyā or illusion.

Yā mā iti māyā—that which does not exist but which troubles as if it exists is māyā. We don’t see reality as it is because we are all the time looking at life through glasses tinted with our biased perceptions, through our limited view of life. When we start watching these sources with awareness and complete with our root patterns, we break the chords of attachment of our state of joy with these external sources and desires. When we are aware of what we really want, this dependency on sensory pleasures breaks. When we are centered and complete in ourselves, we start taking things as and when they come. I am not saying you should not enrich yourself with the joy that you Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 401 get from external sources or fulfillment of our desires.

No. All I am saying is, be aware of it when it happens, that’s all. Do not attach your internal state of joy to these sense pleasures. If they happen, let them happen. Let them not dictate your state of happiness. Kṛṣṇa gives us now a beautiful technique to reach that ultimate Kṛṣṇa consciousness, to reach the beautiful space of bliss. He is saying exactly what I said earlier. If we can, at least once, settle inside our being, into our space of completion, when we are attacked by this incomplete emotion of desire and anger, without moving our body, without cooperating, without being taken away by that emotion, we are well-situated.

This means that we achieved what has to be achieved; we are blissful in this world. GĪtā—Owner’s Manual for Body-Mind People ask me again and again, ‘Swamiji, what is the purpose of this body and mind?’ The purpose of body and mind is only one thing: to achieve, to learn how to experience joy without body and mind. If we can learn to have happiness and bliss, without the body and mind, we have achieved the purpose of the body and mind; over! After that, we can throw away the body and mind; we can live without the body and mind. The person who is able to live without the body and mind is called a jīvan mukta—a person living enlightenment.

Even if the body and mind are with him, he will not be touched by them. If we don’t have any need, will you go to Los Angeles? Unless you have some reason, you will not go there. In the same way, unless you have some reason, you will not assume this body. If you had a single glimpse of bliss without this body and mind, the bliss that is beyond this body and mind, you will never be disturbed by this body and mind. Even if it is there, it will be following you; you will not be following it. It is like this: If you don’t know how to put the brakes on when you are driving the car, it means you are not driving the car, the car is driving you!

Without reading the owner’s manual and learning to drive, if you sit in the car, you will only be in trouble. Without the manual, if you directly drive the car, you will make all sorts of mistakes. Only when you know how to start or to stop or apply the brakes properly, you are driving the car. Otherwise, the car is driving you. So read the owner’s manual before getting into the vehicle. The Bhagavad Gītā is the owner’s manual for your body and mind. If you read the owner’s manual before getting into the body and mind, you will be able to stop when you want to stop. You will not get into the accident of repeating the life and death cycle.

Here Kṛṣṇa says: The man who is not moved, who can tolerate the urges of material senses, check the force of desire and anger, is well-situated and he is happy in this world. He knows where he is. He knows his place. In this world, many of us don’t know our place. That is why we feel uprooted. We don’t feel we belong to this life. We don’t feel we are at home because we don’t know our place. Only a person who has gone beyond greed and fear can relax into his being. He will know what his place is in this planet Earth. If we don’t fuel our being with fear and greed, suddenly, we will see a new clarity.

We will start working out of intelligence, out of Divine Consciousness, out of Eternal Bliss. Just decide, ‘Whatever I do out of greed will only result in more greed. I have been getting nowhere. Enough!’ In the same way, if we are escaping from something out of fear, decide, ‘Alright, how long can I escape? This fear will come and attack me in some other form. If I am afraid of this now, I will be afraid of something else later. So let me face it now.’ It is just the fear, not the object about which you are afraid of. You may escape anywhere but you are carrying the canopy of fear and greed with you.

Wherever you go for a picnic, you open your own little canopy. There are so many places for great escapes today! These places showhowmuchofdepressionpeoplearecarryinginsidethem.Ifsomuch entertainment is necessary, it means they are carrying so much depression inside. By his very nature, man doesn’t need so much entertainment. If we need so many things to make us happy, there is Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 403 something seriously wrong with the whole system. We need to look into the system and repair it. Again and again, Kṛṣṇa declares, ‘Let you live in the space of completion. Let you work out of bliss.’ And I tell you, if you are complete and work out of bliss, you will create bliss for yourself and for others; you will never know what tiredness is.

Let me tell you honestly that I still can’t understand the meaning of the word ‘tiredness.’ How can you have tiredness? Tiredness is the inner contradiction between the icchā śakti (power of desire) and kriya śakti (power of action), between your being and your action. Inside, there is a deep problem. Your greed and fear are attacking each other. If we are feeling tired, it means there is a big war going on inside you. The Mahābhārat war between fear and greed is happening within you. Man whose consciousness is complete can never experience tiredness. When I was in college, I used to sit and meditate for four hours every morning and evening.

My roommates would ask me, ‘How are you able to sit for so many hours?’ And I used to tell them, ‘Why not? It is my body, my mind. If you want, can’t you sit? If you can’t even sit with your body and mind, what are you going to achieve?’ Why do we feel tired? We feel tired when we are not integrated within ourselves. One half of our being that wants to express itself but we have suppressed it for various societal reasons. The other half of our being is what is expressing itself in the manner that we are forcing it to. Because we constantly have to put in an inauthentic effort to be what we naturally are not, we become tired at some point.

When we become tired, the suppressed, unconscious half of us becomes more powerful than the conscious, pretentious half, and it starts dominating. Just integrate yourself. Be with completion rather than suppressing yourself, and there will be no unconscious half to fight with. Then where is the question of feeling tired? We feel tired only when we are not completely involved in what we are doing. Become complete, integrated, and whole. Then you can never feel tired, whatever you may do. See how is it that you don’t feel tired aftrer sitting with me for so many hours? It is because when I speak, I speak from my being, with a totality.

When I speak with totality, you automatically receive me and my energy. This is the state from which enlightened Masters operate. That is why there is no sense of tiredness in them even though they are intensely involved in what they do. We feel tired only when there is a gap between what we are doing and what we want to do. When we are driven by greed for something, we are caught up in the goal and the goal is something we want to achieve. What we are doing is not yet the goal and hence, we feel we are running towards the goal. Or we are driven by fear of something; we want to escape from the object of fear and hence we are not completely involved in what we are doing.

Honestly, I can’t understand how a man cannot sit with himself. It is our body, our mind after all. Just sit! You are not able to sit because you continuously pour the wrong fuel into your system. We are continuously chasing power. The hunger for power is so high in us that we are always running behind something to get control over it. First, let us get our body and mind under our control. As of now, it is under the control of fear or greed. Let that be controlled by us. Then, automatically, we can get anything under our control. If our body and mind are not under our control, whatever we wish to bring under our control will never come under our control.

One thought from greed is enough: our body just runs. One thought from fear is enough: our body just runs. Let it be completely under you. May you be complete with your body and mind! Just Be Happy From Within Here is a beautiful sūtra, a beautiful technique from Kṛṣṇa to enter into the supreme consciousness: ‘Just be happy, restful and complete from within’, says Kṛṣṇa, ‘yo’ntaḥ sukho antar-ārāmas tathāntar-jyotir eva yaḥ (5.24).’ Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 405 Just be happy from within. Let your smile be a deep expression of the love in your being. All of us are so used to living an artificial life that we have forgotten our being.

Every moment, we are continuously either in greed by running after our desires or in fear by continuously running away from something. Our happiness in every moment is measured only by greed or fear. This means we are not actually experiencing the moment of completion. We can enjoy something totally only when we are completely in it and we can be complete only when we are totally in the present moment, enjoying what we are doing here and now. When you are in the space of completion in the present moment with full enthusiasm, you are in a state of bliss. Bliss is the state of joy that has no reason and which is not affected by the past or future.

Naturally, the present blissful moment will give birth to future moments of bliss. We enter a virtuous circle rather than being caught up in the vicious cycle of fear and greed that we are now caught in. Why do we run behind our desires or why are we afraid of something? It is because we think life has some goal to be achieved and we continuously run towards the goals. Understand, life in itself has no goal. The very life itself is the goal. The path itself is the goal. If we think the goal and the path are different, we will run towards the goal; we will run towards the horizon.

Can we ever touch the horizon? The more we run towards it, we will find it receding from us, because the horizon is imaginary, it is an illusion. If we are running behind a goal in life, we will be disappointed at the end of life. But when we see life itself as a goal, we make the path itself as the goal. So every moment is blissful! The goal is achieved every moment of our life. So every moment when we live with full completion, with full enthusiasm, with powerfulness, we actually enjoy that moment. When we are completely immersed in the present moment, we enjoy the path. When the path itself becomes the goal, we enjoy the goal also every moment.

The self-realized one is complete, powerful, active and happy because he is completely in the present moment, living in reality. The Divine energy blissfully flows through him and he no longer needs to derive energy for his activities from desire or fear. Here, Kṛṣṇa refers to the state in which we are in the peak of activity yet in the ultimate relaxation. Such a state is indeed possible and is the only state in which we can really be involved in what we are doing, and completely satisfied, complete and blissful in what we are doing. Why To Feel Responsible? This is what Kṛṣṇa says: When we are tuned fully inwards, we no longer have any attachment to what happens outside; we are one with the All, the Existence, and we have transcended all karma.

We are then in brahma nirvāṇa—the ultimate liberation, one with Existence, and we are in nityānanda, eternal bliss. When we feel genuine love for others, we feel responsible for everyone, and we take up more and more responsibility. We want to enrich others and share that love with as many as people as possible. When we are tuned inwards, we live in the present; the past and future do not exist for us. When we are in the present, we are one with Existence. I call this All-one-ness. We are All-in-One. We are in the space of Advaita, non-duality. We encompass everything. In this state, we are at the height of spontaneity; we are at the peak of our possibility.

Spontaneity does not mean creativity. Creativity is a byproduct. Spontaneity is being in the present, being responsible for everything. Nothing is excluded. We flow out, we expand and cover. The more responsibility we take up, the more we expand. Responsibility is something that can be easily shrugged. But if we don’t shrug it and keep on shouldering it with the right reason, we will expand and the divine energy will automatically flow in us. And we can take up more and more responsibility only when we feel overflowing energy in us. With responsibility, we harness the power of feeling. When we feel the space of responsibility, we take it up without any doubts.

Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 407 Usually whenever we are asked to do something, the mind comes in between and the responsibility feels like a load. Without the right context of responsibility, our mind creates dilemma. We start analyzing intellectually and logically. So at the end of it, we act out of greed or fear. As long as we intellectually weigh the situation for good and bad, the mind exists. We have to cross this barrier by completing with our greed and fear patterns. We have to cut across the wall of incompletions and enter the space of feeling the responsibility. The dilemma of wanting or not wanting to do something should not come at all.

Many times when people come to me and I ask them to do something, just by the way they say, ‘Yes, I will do it,’ I can tell whether they really want to do it or not! Our response to take up a responsibility is shaky and inauthentic when we are in a dilemma, when our mind operates. We should take up responsibility spontaneously. Then the mind will not have its say. We just know, that’s all. We operate from an extreme relaxation and spontaneity. The ability to respond spontaneously out of the space of completion is what I call responsibility. Please listen! Responsibility can happen to you only after completion.

If you take responsibility because you have to be a performer, or a leader, or be productive, you will feel responsibility as a weight on you! If responsibility is taken out of wrong reason, you are not going to feel responsible! Listen! Understand, only when you complete, you will know the right reason for taking responsibility. Only then, you taking responsibility will be really useful to you. So understand, responsibility can happen in you only after completion! I’ll now tell you why you need to feel responsibility, why you should take responsibility. Listen. Whatever happens in and around you—you ARE the source! That is why you need to take responsibility for whatever is happening in and around you.

You need to take responsibility because you are responsible, and not for any other reason. Whether you believe it or not, you ARE the source. With this clarity, out of this context, if you take responsibility, every action, whether it is taking your children to the school, attending to your calls or your business meeting, everything will become a spiritual practice leading you to jīvan mukti, living enlightenment. When you learn responsibility, you may naturally perform well in your office, in your business, in your family. You will become responsible, no doubt. I am not against it. I am not against you performing in your office or you taking responsibility for your family.

But all that should be the side effect! The main effect of you feeling responsibility should be— you becoming jīvan mukta, living enlightenment! Live this principle of responsibility. Then you will understand that all your decisions will be out of the experience—‘I am the Source.’ Listen!Ifyoufunctionwiththistruth,‘Iamthesource,soIamresponsible’; everything you do will become a spiritual practice for you to become a jīvan mukta. Only when we go beyond the incompletions of the mind, beyond duality, we see the absolute oneness and synchronicity of the entire Existence and we start living in the state of Advaita. When we reach this state, there is no mind that is acting. We are in a state of deep relaxation, completion and bliss.

And this awakens the power of feeling in us to spontaneously respond to everything with responsibility. When we feel genuine love for others, we will take up responsibility because we want to share that blissful love with others around us. Only when we work out of bliss, we will do things to enrich others and ourselves. Taking responsibility and enriching makes life happen to you! When we take up responsibility spontaneously, we do not act out of fear or greed. We will always be giving. Know Me And Be In Bliss

5.27

स्पर्शान्कृत्वा बहिर्बाह्यांश्चक्षुश्चैवान्तरे भ्रुवो: | प्राणापानौ समौ कृत्वा नासाभ्यन्तरचारिणौ

sparśān kṛtvā bahir bāhyāṁś cakṣuś caivāntare bhruvoḥ / prāṇāpānau samau kṛtvā nāsābhyantara-cāriṇau / / 5.27

Shutting out all external sense objects, keeping the eyes and vision concentrated between the two eyebrows, suspending the inward and outward breaths within the nostrils and thus controlling the mind, senses and intelligence, the transcendental who is aiming at liberation, becomes free from desire, fear and the by-product of desire and fear, anger all three. One who is always in this state is certainly liberated.

sparśān — external sense objects · kṛtvā — keeping · bahiḥ — external · bāhyān — ex- ternal · cakṣuḥ — eyes · ca — and · eva — surely · antare — within · bhruvoḥ — eyebrows · prāṇāpānau — inward and outward breath · samau — suspending · kṛtvā — doing · nāsābhyantara — within the nostrils · cārinau — moving

5.28

यतेन्द्रियमनोबुद्धिर्मुनिर्मोक्षपरायण: | विगतेच्छाभयक्रोधो य: सदा मुक्त एव स:

yatendriya-mano-buddhir munir mokṣaparāyaṇaḥ / vigatecchā-bhaya-krodho yaḥ sadā mukta eva saḥ / / 5.28

Shutting out all external sense objects, keeping the eyes and vision concentrated between the two eyebrows, suspending the inward and outward breaths within the nostrils and thus controlling the mind, senses and intelligence, the transcendental who is aiming at liberation, becomes free from desire, fear and the by-product of desire and fear, anger all three. One who is always in this state is certainly liberated.

yata — controlled · indriya — senses · mano — mind · buddhiḥ — intelligence · muniḥ — the sage · mokṣa — liberation · parāyaṇaḥ — aiming · vigata — free from · icchā — desires · bhaya — fear · krodah — anger · yaḥ — one who · sadā — always · muktaḥ — liberated · eva — certainly · saḥ — he is

5.29

भोक्तारं यज्ञतपसां सर्वलोकमहेश्वरम् | सुहृदं सर्वभूतानां ज्ञात्वा मां शान्तिमृच्छति

bhoktāraṁ yajñatapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram / suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntimṛcchati / / 5.29

One who knowing Me as the purpose of sacrifice and penance, as the lord of all the worlds and the benefactor of all the living beings, achieves peace.

bhoktāraṁ — one who enjoys · yajña — sacrifice · tapasāṁ — penance · sarva — all · loka — worlds · maheśvārāṁ — lord · suhṛdaṁ — benefactor · sarva — all · bhūtānāṁ — living beings · jñātvā — knowing · māṁ — me · śāntiṁ — peace · ṛcchati — achieves

Here, ‘Me’ refers to the supreme witnessing consciousness, the Kṛṣṇa consciousness; it is not the six-feet Kṛṣṇa frame. I always tell people, the outer Guru, the Master is needed only to awaken the inner Guru. Once the inner Guru, the consciousness is awakened, the outer Guru needs to be dropped. Just like after burning the dead body, the very stick that is used to stoke the wood is dropped into the same pyre, so also the outer Guru needs to be dropped. For the first time, Kṛṣṇa gives a beautiful technique to move your energy from fear and greed to divine consciousness, eternal consciousness. Your fear is rooted in the svādiṣṭhāna cakra, the energy center situated two inches below the navel.

Your greed is rooted in the mūlādhāra cakra, the energy center that is in the root of your spinal cord. Kṛṣṇa gives us the technique to elevate ourselves from these two cakras to the eternal consciousness, the ājñā cakra at the brow center, where the eternal consciousness resides. When we have elevated our self toājñā,wegobeyondouregoormind.Weareallcaughtinthemūlādhāra and svādiṣṭhāna, fear and greed. That is why, continuously, we can watch and see that we have a sort of a tensed feeling. We will be continuously holding our mūlādhāra and svādiṣṭhāna tightly. Now, just feel yourself in your mūlādhāra area. You will see that you are tightly holding yourself in tension. Kṛṣṇa explains how to relax that area, how to stop the fuel coming from greed and fear, and get the amṛta-dhāra (flow of nectar) from the eternal consciousness.

Shutting out all external sense objects, keeping the eyes and vision concentrated between the two eyebrows, suspending the inward and outward breaths within the nostrils and thus controlling the mind, senses and intelligence, the transcendental who is aiming at liberation, becomes free from desire, fear, and the byproduct of desire, fear and anger—all three. One who is always in this state is certainly liberated. First, He gives the technique to enter that state. Then He says if you can stay in that state, you are liberated. Now, at least let us try to have a glimpse of this state that Kṛṣṇa explains in this verse. I will guide you step by step through this meditation.

Please try to enter that state. Meditation Please sit straight and close your eyes. Let your head, neck and backbone be in a straight line. Intensely pray to that ultimate energy, Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, to give us the experience of this meditation. First, visualize all your senses completely shut; your eyes are completely closed. Don’t allow any visualization to happen inside your being. You should close the eyes too, because we continue to see things from behind our eyelids even though we shut our eyelids. Visualize that your eyeballs have become completely dark. You are seeing only darkness in front of you. Visualize your ears are shut. Visualize your sense of touch is shut.

Visualize your smelling capacity is shut. Visualize your face to be shut. Feel deeply that all the five senses have been shut down. Sannyāsa Yogaḥ Live All Your Possibilities 411 Inhale and exhale as slowly as possible. Slowly, let your nostrils blow the air. Let your consciousness reside between the two eyebrows. In a very relaxed way, be aware of the space between your two eyebrows. Don’t concentrate; don’t tense yourself. Just be very relaxed, have a deeply relaxed awareness. Let your mūlādhāra cakra, located at the base of your spine, be relaxed. Let your svādiṣṭhāna cakra, located just below the navel center, be relaxed. Let your whole consciousness come up to the ājñā cakra, which is between the eyebrows.

Concentrate on the space between the eyebrows. Visualize cool, soothing light in the ājñā cakra, in the space between the eyebrows. Relax in the ājñā cakra. Forget all other parts of your body. Forget about the body, mind and the world; remember only the ājñā cakra, the space between the two eyebrows. Go deeply into the ājñā cakra, in the space between the two eyebrows. Visualize a beautiful, cooling, soothing light in the ājñā cakra. Let you experience beautiful, blissful light in the ājñā cakra. Don’t tense yourself; let your awareness be in the ājñā cakra in a very relaxed way; let your consciousness rest in the space between the two eyebrows.

Relax in the same space of eternal consciousness. Let you be beyond the body and mind. May your intelligence be awakened. Let you work from your eternal consciousness. Let you have the pleasant awareness of the ājñā cakra. Let you all have the grace of the divine consciousness. Let you be established in the eternal consciousness. Let you all be in, with and radiate eternal bliss, nityānanda. Om śānti, śānti, śāntihi... Om tat sat. Relax. Slowly, very slowly, you can open your eyes. Try to remain in this mood at least for the next ten days. Understand: Don’t concentrate by force. Have a pleasant awareness. When you keep the pleasant awareness around your ājñā cakra, your whole energy will be directed towards the Eternal Consciousness.

You will receive energy from Eternal Consciousness, from immortality, amṛtatva. You will be driven from above by the Eternal Consciousness. If you are driven from below by fear or greed, you are man. If you are driven from above, you are God. Let you learn the science of how to connect yourself with the Divine energy, how to be driven by the Divine Consciousness. Let you live all your possibilities. Let you function through the Eternal Consciousness. Thus ends the fifth chapter named Sannyāsa Yogaḥ, ‘The Yoga of Renunciation,’ 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.

Look In, Be Complete Before Any Conclusion You are your best friend and you are your worst enemy. Whether you wish to degrade yourself or raise yourself by yourself is in your hands. Krsna gives the technique to unite with Him in yoga, the Supreme Consciousness by becoming a Yogi. c h a p t e r Dhyāna Yogaḥ ... We will start with a beautiful history from Mahābhārat: Once the elders of Kuru royal family wanted to test the intelligence of their new generation of princes, the Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas as to—who is more intelligent and wise—Kaurava kids, the hundred sons of King Dhritarāṣṭra or Pāṇḍava kids, the five sons of King Pāṇḍu.

So, they devised a competition. They said to all the Kaurava and Pāṇḍava young princes, ‘You will be given one gold coin. With that one gold coin, you will have to fill your palace house!’ This was the test laid out for them. The Kauravas took the gold coin and sat together. Naturally, hundred brains will mess-up any plan, any program. See, you can have hundred hands but not hundred brains. Be very clear, all great things are done by hundred hands and hundred legs, but not by hundred brains. Brain should be only one. In life, unfortunately, we have thousands of brains, but not a single hand! So, these hundred Kaurava brains all sit together, intensely discuss, argue, and even fight among themselves, ‘How can we fill the whole house with one gold coin?’ they speculated.

Each brain came up with its own strategy, just to be pulled down by the other. Then, finally after enough squabble and confusion, they came to the conclusion, ‘The elders are all cheats, they are abusing us, trying to exploit us, and making us feel we are failures!’ After this whole drama of blaming others, of feeling deprived and cheated, finally they decided that for one gold coin they could get only hay grass, which is the left over chaff of grains and paddy after crop harvesting. Look In, Be Complete Before Any Conclusion Dhyāna Yogaḥ Look In, Be Complete Before Any Conclusion 415 Here, the Pāṇḍavas sat together into the listening of dharma.

Even though each Pāṇḍava is a peerless specialist with unmatched expertise in some field, they all were always aligned under Dharmarāja, dharma! Understand, Yudhiṣṭra, the eldest of the Pāṇḍava brothers is Dharmarāja, the king and embodiment of dharma! Listen! All the five Pāṇḍavas are sons of Nature born as immaculate conceptions of Divine powers. Yudhiṣṭra is dharma incarnate, who along with the four Pāṇḍava brothers, embodies all the four tattvas of integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching, empowered with the powers of words, thinking, feeling and living. Bhīma, the son of Vāyu (wind god), represents the physical valor, the strength of integrity and authenticity. Arjuna, the son of Indra (the king of gods), is Nara incarnate, the highest evolved human energy of Nārāyaṇa, Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Arjuna is physiological power, the power of feeling awakened by responsibility! Both Bhīma and Arjuna are totally different expressions of unique divine powers. The ability to thrash is different, the ability to aim is different! Arjuna, the embodiment of physiological power, has the ability to aim and shoot, which needs mastery over the body, mind and senses. Nakula embodies the sense of intelligence and the space of possibility that is awakened by authenticity, the power of thinking. Nakula is one of the most intelligent strategy planners, who plans all the war strategies. Sahadeva is the aligner of time, he is a great astrologer expressing integrity, the power of words. All of them are always aligned under Dharmarāja Yudhiṣṭra.

Because they are aligned to dharma, Pāṇḍavas are like one brain having ten hands, all together united to express enriching, the power of living. Listen! I am defining Dharma. The power of your words, the power of your thinking, the power of your feeling, and the power of your living, this is Dharma. Dharma is aligning yourself to the flow of the Cosmos. So, they all sit together aligning to Dharmarāja and discuss, ‘What will fill the whole house with one gold coin? When our elders say then it is possible.’ Please understand, you can look at this test of intelligence from two possibilities. One group looks out and wails, ‘I think these elders are all fools.

They don’t know what they are asking us to do. They are just trying to prove we are all small fellows.’ This is the thought trend of Kauravas. Then come the sons of immortality, Pāṇḍavas, who look in and wonder, ‘When elders say, then there must be way. They are trying to teach us, educate us, and enrich us through this. When elders say, it is possible.’ So finally, Pāṇḍavas also decide to fill the house with one gold coin! How they did it, let us see! At the time of supervision, all the Kuru elders—Grandsire Bhīśma, Droṇa, Vidura, and Dhritarāṣṭra assembled; they first went to Duryodhana’s palace house. On reaching, they saw the whole house full of hay and all these Kauravas were standing outside!

They could not even get into the house! Bhīśma asks them, ‘What happened? Why are all of you standing outside?’ Kauravas reply, ‘What can be done? You only told us that we have to fill the whole house with one gold coin; what else can we get with just one gold coin? So we filled it with hay grass. Here you see! We won the competition!’And all these Kauravas are now standing outside! Neither these hundred brains nor the Kuru elders are able to get into the house. Dhṛitarāṣṭra, the father of Kauravas becomes very happy! He hurriedly concludes, ‘See my sons and their intelligence! They filled the whole palace house.

They should be declared victorious!’ Droṇa, the teacher of Kurus and Pāṇḍava princes, once a poor Brāhmaṇa, was supported by King Dhritarāṣṭra. So, whatever Dhṛitaraṣṭra says becomes the conclusion for Droṇa; and so, he simply agrees to the blind king’s conclusion. But, Bhīṣma stops Droṇa, saying, ‘Wait! Let us go to the other house also to see, and then decide who won the game.’ On entering the Pāṇḍava palace home, they see the whole house is Dhyāna Yogaḥ Look In, Be Complete Before Any Conclusion 417 filled with light and perfumed with fragrant incense. Understand, for that one gold coin, they bought earthen lamps and lighted them up along with pleasing, special perfumed incense.

The moment the elders entered, the Pāṇḍavas washed their feet, gave them seat and fruits. Enriching them thus, Pāṇḍavas tell them humbly, ‘Please see, the whole house is filled! Filled with light and perfume, pleasant smell!’ Of course, the blind King Dhṛitarāṣṭra is not ready to accept this! So, he goes to every corner, puts his sharp nose and smells to investigate if every corner is filled with pleasant perfume. He finds that all corners have the pleasant fragrance. Finally, the Kuru elders come to the right conclusion and declare that Pāṇḍavas won the game. Pāṇḍavas stand victorious! Please understand, listen! Completion is creating a space which is full where you can Live!

As the space of Pāṇḍavas is full with light and filled with pleasant fragrance, so is the inner space of completion full with power and filled with the fragrance of bliss­ —ānanda gandha, where you can live. Both palace houses are full. You also always keep yourself full; but the question is do you keep the house full like Kauravas or Pāṇḍavas? Find out that! Is your inner space like Kauravas or Pāṇḍavas? That’s all! Have you brought the hay and filled it all around your house, or have you brought the pleasant smell and the light within? Please understand, completion keeps you full and gives you the fulfilled space to live!

Incompletion keeps you full but never fulfilled; you will never be able to live there. Because of their deep incompletions, Kaurava brains fight violently. Finally when they get tired of fighting with their incompletions, they get utterly confused, and jump to the wrong conclusion of filling their house with hay! The Pāṇḍavas who are full with the space of completion and filled with the power of living, beautifully enrich the elders and enrich themselves, enjoying the light and fragrance! Please understand, the modern day CEOs, leaders are filled with stress. What is stress actually? It is nothing but filling yourself with hay! You are filled not fulfilled. You are occupied but not useful.

Before making one decision, when you think about it two hundred times, you are tired just like the Kaurava brains! Usually, when there are so many incompletions fighting in your brain, either your projects die down, or they take a totally opposite turn! Reduce the incompletions you infuse on yourself; reduce the abusal you do to yourself. Reduce the mental setup of Duryodhanas’ on you. Duryodhanas’ are nothing but bunch of incompletions, no power! Actually, they took the decision of buying the hay and filling the house because they were not able to handle the whole confusion and fight among themselves. So, they just jumped to the wrong conclusion, ‘let’s do something!’

Listen! Any decision made out of incompletion in the mood of ‘let’s do something’ is suicide! So understand, ‘let’s do something’ out of incompletion, restlessness generated by incompletion, is the pesticide! If you do it just for yourself, it is suicide; if you do it for the family, it is homicide; if you do it for many people, it is genocide. What Pāṇḍavas did is out of the pure space of completion. I tell you, when you create the space of completion, every moment you create a new way of thinking, new way of feeling, new way of knowledge, new way of being, and a new way of making yourself available to society and to humanity.

Look in, create the space of completion before coming to any conclusion! This is the message of this chapter. The sixth chapter of the Bhagavad Gītā, Dhyāna Yogaḥ starts with Kṛṣṇa’s words. In this chapter Arjuna is not asking any questions to Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa continues His answers from the previous chapter. Attain The State Of Yoga

iti śrīmadbhagavadgītāsūpaniṣatsu brahmavidyāyāṁ yogaśāstre śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṁvāde karma-sannyāsayogo nāma pañcamo’dhyāyaḥ