1. isbn 979-8-88572-248-3

Content: VOL 1 CHAPTERS 1 - 6 BhagavadGita demystified by NITHYANANDA

Chapter Number:

Content: oṁ home

oṁ Rome

Chapter Number: A

Content: a fun Q ṭa touch

Chapter Number: Āl

Content: ā car Rl ṭha ant-hill

Chapter Number: B

Content: i pin S da duck

Chapter Number: B

Content: ī feen T1 dha godhook

Chapter Number: C

Content: u put U ṇa thunder

Chapter Number: Dl

Content: ū pool V ṭa (close to) think

Chapter Number: Fl

Content: r rig W ṭha (close to) pathetic

Chapter Number: Fl

Content: ṛ (long r) X da (close to) father

Chapter Number: b

Content: ḷ * Y dha (close to) breathe hard

Chapter Number: E

Content: c play Z na numb

Chapter Number: E

Content: ai high n pa purse

Chapter Number: Āl

Content: o over bl pha sapphire

Chapter Number: Āl

Content: au cow ~ ba but

Chapter Number: A

Content: aṁ ** ^^ bha abhor

Chapter Number: A.

Content: aḥ

— ma mother

Chapter Number: Hl

Content: ka kind ‘ ya young

Chapter Number: l

Content: kha blockhead a ra run

Chapter Number: J

Content: ga gate b la luck

Chapter Number: K

Content: gha log-hut d va virtue

Chapter Number: L

Content: ṇa sing e śa shove

Chapter Number: M

Content: ca chunk f ṣa bushel

Chapter Number: N

Content: cha match g sa sir

Chapter Number: O

Content: ja jug h ha house

Chapter Number: P

Content: jha hedgehog i (Note 1) (close to) world

Chapter Number: Āl

Content: ña bunch j kṣa worksheet

Chapter Number: l

Content: tra three K jña *

Chapter Number: @

Content: unpronounced (a) @@ " Unpronounced (ā)

Chapter Number: Note 1:

Content: "" itself is sometimes used.

• No English Equivalent. ** Nasalisation of the preceding vowel. *** Aspiration of preceding vowel

Content: Bhagavad Gita is a sacred scripture of the vedic culture. As with all scriptures, it was knowledge that was transmitted verbally. It was called śruti in Sanskrit, meaning something that is heard.

Content: Gita, as Bhagavad Gita is generally called, translates literally from Sanskrit as ‘Sacred Song’. Unlike Vedas and Upaniṣads, which are stand alone expressions, Gita is written into the Hindu epic Mahabharata, called a purana, an ancient tale. It is part of a story, so to speak.

Content: As a scripture, Gita is part of the ancient knowledge base of the vedic tradition, which is the expression of the experiences of great sages.

Content: Vedas and Upaniṣads, the foundation of śruti literature, arose from the insight and awareness of these great sages when they went into a no-mind state. These are as old as humanity and the first and truest expressions in the journey of man’s search for truth.

Content: Unlike Vedas, which were revealed to the great sages, or Upaniṣads, which were the teachings of these great sages, Gita is part of a story narrated by Vyasa, one of these great sages. It is narrated as the direct expression of the Divine.

Content: No other epic, or part of an epic, has the special status of Gita. As a consequence of the presence of Gita, the Mahabharata epic itself is considered a sacred Hindu scripture. Gita arose from the super-consciousness of Krishna, the supreme god, and is therefore considered a scripture.

Content: Mahabharata, literally meaning the great Bharata, is a narration about the nation and civilization, which is now known as India. It was then a nation ruled by king Bharata and his descendants.

Content: The story of this epic is about two warring clans, Kauravas and Pandavas, closely related to one another. Dhritarashtra, the blind king of Hastinapura and father of the 100 Kaurava brothers was the brother of Pandu, whose children were the five Pandava princes. It is a tale of strife between cousins.

Content: Since Dhritarashtra was blind, Pandu was made the king of Hastinapura. Pandu was cursed by a sage that he would die if he ever entered into a physical relationship with his wives. He therefore had no children. Vyasa says that all the five Pandava children were born to their mothers Kunti and Madri through the blessing of divine beings. Pandu handed over the kingdom and his children to his blind brother Dhritarashtra and retired to meditate in the forest.

Content: Kunti had received a boon when she was still a young unmarried adolescent, that she could summon any divine power at will to father a child. Before she married, she tested her boon. The Sun god Surya appeared before her. Karna was born to her as a result. In fear of social reprisals, she cast the newborn away in a river. Yudishtira, Bhima, and Arjuna were born to Kunti after her marriage by invocation of her powers, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva were born to Madri, the second wife of Pandu.

Content: Yudishtira was born to Kunti as a result of her being blessed by Yama, the god of death and justice, Bhima by Vayu, the god of wind, and Arjuna by Indra, god of all the divine beings. Nakula and Sahadeva, the youngest Pandava twins, were born to Madri, through the divine Ashwini twins.

Content: Dhritarashtra had a hundred sons through his wife Gandhari. The eldest of these Kaurava princes was Duryodhana. Duryodhana felt no love for his five Pandava cousins. He made many unsuccessful attempts, along with his brother Dussahasana, to kill the Pandava brothers. Kunti's eldest son Karna, whom she had cast away at birth, was found and brought up by a chariot driver in the palace, and by a strange twist of fate, joined hands with Duryodhana.

Content: Dhritarashtra gave Yudhishtira one half of the Kuru kingdom on his coming of age, since the Pandava prince was the rightful heir to the throne that his father Pandu had vacated. Yudhishtira ruled from his new capital Indraprastha, along with his brothers Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva. Arjuna won the hand of princess Draupadi, daughter of the king of Panchala, in a svayamvara, a marital contest in which princes fought for the hand of a fair damsel. In fulfilment of their mother Kunti's desire that the brothers share everything equally, Draupadi became the wife of all five Pandava brothers.

Content: Duryodhana persuaded Yudhishtira to join a gambling session, where his cunning uncle Shakuni defeated the Pandava king. Yudhishtira lost all that he owned - his kingdom, his brothers, his wife and himself, to Duryodhana. Dusshasana shamed Draupadi in public by trying to disrobe her. The Pandava brothers and Draupadi were forced to go into exile for fourteen years, with the condition that in the last year they should live incognito.

Content: At the end of the fourteen years, the Pandava brothers tried to reclaim their kingdom. In this effort they were helped by Krishna, the king of the Yadava clan, who is considered the eighth divine incarnation of Vishnu. However, Duryodhana refused to yield even a needlepoint of land, and as a result, the Great War, the War of Mahabharata ensued. In this war, various rulers of the entire nation that is modern India aligned with one or the other of these two clans, the Kauravas or the Pandavas.

Content: Krishna offered to join with either of the two clans. He said, 'One of you may have me unarmed. I will not take any part in the battle. The other may have my entire Yadava army.' When the offer was made to Duryodhana, he predictably chose the large and well-armed Yadava army, in preference to the unarmed Krishna. Arjuna joyfully and gratefully chose his friend and mentor Krishna to be his unarmed charioteer!

Content: The armies assembled in the vast field of Kurukshetra, now in the state of Haryana in modern day India. All the kings and princes were related to one another, and were often on opposite sides. Facing the Kaurava army and his friends, relatives and teachers, Arjuna was overcome by remorse and guilt, and wanted to walk away from the battle.

Content: Krishna's dialogue with Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra is the content of Bhagavad Gita. Krishna persuaded Arjuna to take up arms and vanquish his enemies. 'They are already dead,' says Krishna, 'All those who are facing you have been already killed by Me. Go ahead and do what you have to do. That is your duty. Do not worry about the outcome. Leave that to Me.'

Content: Gita is the ultimate practical teaching on the inner science of spirituality. It is not as some scholars incorrectly claim, a promotion of violence. It is about the impermanence of the mind and body, and the need to go beyond the mind, ego and logic.

Content: Being blind, king Dhritarashtra does not participate in the war. His minister Sanjaya uses his powers of clairvoyance to 'see' and relate to king Dhritarashtra the goings on on the battlefield. It is in Sanjaya's voice that we hear Gita, the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna.

Content: All the Kaurava princes as well as all their commanders such as Bhishma, Drona and Karna were killed in battle. The five Pandava brothers survived as winners and became the rulers of the combined kingdom.

Content: This dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna is a dialogue between man and God or nara and Narayana as they are termed in Sanskrit. Arjuna’s questions and doubts are those of each one of us. The answers of the Divine, Krishna, transcend time and space. Krishna’s message is as valid today as it was on that fateful battlefield some thousands of years ago.

Content: Nithyananda explains the inner metaphorical meaning of Mahabharata thus:

Content: ‘The Great War of Mahabharata is the fight between the positive and negative thoughts of the mind, called the saṁskāras. The positive thoughts are the Pandava princes and the negative thoughts are the Kaurava princes. Kurukshetra or the battlefield is the body. Arjuna is the individual consciousness and Krishna is the enlightened master.

Content: The various commanders who led the Kaurava army represent the major blocks that the individual consciousness faces in its journey to enlightenment. Bhishma, the grand patriarch of the Guru clan, represents parental and societal conditioning. Drona, the teacher of both the Kauravas and the Pandavas, represents the conditioning from teachers who provide knowledge including spiritual guidance. Karna represents the restrictive influence of good deeds such as charity and compassion, and finally Duryodhana represents the ego, which is the last to fall.

Content: Parental and societal conditioning has to be overcome by rebelling against conventions. This is why, traditionally, those seeking the path of enlightenment are required to renounce the world as sanyāsin and move away from civilization. This conditioning does not die as long as the body lives, but its influence drops.

Content: Drona represents all the knowledge one imbibes and the teachers one encounters, who guide us but are unable to take us through to the ultimate flowering of enlightenment. It is difficult to give them up since one feels grateful to them. This is where the enlightened master steps in and guides us.

Content: Karna is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own enlightenment. Krishna has to take the load of Karna’s puṇya, his meritorious deeds, before he could be liberated. The enlightened master guides one to drop one’s attachment to good deeds arising out of what are perceived to be charitable and compassionate intentions. He also shows us that the quest for and the experience of enlightenment is the ultimate act of compassion that one can offer to the world.

Content: Finally one reaches Duryodhana, one's ego, the most difficult to conquer. One needs the full help of the master here. It is subtle work and even the master's help may not be obvious, since at this point, sometimes the ego makes us disconnect from the master as well.

Content: The Great War was between one hundred and eighty million people - one hundred and ten million on the Kaurava side representing our negative saṁskāras (stored memories) and seventy million on the Pandaya side representing our positive saṁskāras and it lasted eighteen days and nights. The number eighteen has a great mystical significance. It essentially signifies our ten senses that are made up of five jnānendriya - the sensses of perception like taste, sight, smell, hearing and touch, and five karmendriya - the senses initiating action like speech, bodily movements, etc., added to our eight kinds of thoughts like lust, greed, etc. All eighteen need to be dropped for Self-realization!

Content: Mahabharata is not just an epic story. It is not merely the fight between good and evil. It is the dissolution of both positive and negative saṁskāras that reside in our body-mind system, which must happen for the ultimate liberation. It is a tale of the process of enlightenment.

Content: Mahabharata is a living legend. Bhagavad Gita is the manual for enlightenment.

Content: Like Arjuna many thousand years ago, you are here in a dialogue with a living enlightened master in this book. This is a tremendous opportunity to resolve all questions and clear all doubts with the master's words.

Content: In this series, enlightened master, Paramahamsa Nithyananda comments on Bhagavad Gita. Many hundreds of commentaries on Gita have been written over the years. The earliest commentaries were by the great spiritual masters such as Adi Shankaracharya, Ramanuja and Madhva, some thousand years ago. In recent times, great masters such as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi have spoken from Gita extensively. Many others have written volumes on this great scripture. Nithyananda’s commentary on Bhagavad Gita is not just a literary translation and a simple explanation of that translation. He takes the reader through a world tour while talking about each verse. It is believed that each verse of Gita has seven levels of meaning. What is commonly rendered is the first-level meaning. Here, an enlightened master takes us beyond the common into the uncommon, with equal ease and simplicity. To read Nithyananda’s commentary on Gita is to obtain an insight that is rare. It is not mere reading; it is an experience; it is meditation. Shankara, the great master and philosopher said: ‘A little reading of Gita, a drop of Ganga water to drink, remembering Krishna once in a while, all this will ensure that you have no problems with the god of death.’ Editors of these volumes of Bhagavad Gita have expanded upon the original discourses delivered by Nithyananda through further discussions with Him. For ease of understanding for English speaking readers, and in their academic interest, the original Sanskrit verses and their English translation have been included as an appendix to this book. This reading is meant to help every individual in daily life as well as in the endeavour to realize the ultimate Truth. It creates every possibility to attain nityānanda, eternal bliss!

Chapter Number: 1

Content: BhagavadGita Śāstras, Stotras, Sūtras Chapter 1 Life will always be a mix of the good and the bad, the Divine and the devil. Choosing one over the other does not help. We need to go beyond both!

Content: Swamiji, you mentioned that the Mahabharata war is a metaphor. Please elaborate.

Content: What is the relationship between enlightenment and personality development?

Content: What is needed to go beyond Drona, Karna and finally Duryodhana?

Content: How do we differentiate between Drona and Sahadeva?

Content: What do Kunti and Draupadi represent?

Content: What are the roles of Vidura and Balarama?

Content: Swamiji, you talked about people who are physically blind and people who see yet are still blinded by ignorance. If a great king like Dhritarashtra could be blinded by his love for his son, how can ordinary mortals be any better?

Content: Is the Mahabharata war a conflict of egos? If so, is there good ego and bad ego?

Content: Swamiji, conches, mantra and astra, all these seem so unreal in this modern age of science and technology. Even the mālā (rosary) with your picture worn by your followers seems to build a cult-like environment. I would like to believe, but much that I have learned is contradictory. Please help me understand.

Content: You say Gita acquires the authority of the scriptures since it is delivered by Krishna, the perfect incarnation, pūrṇāvatār. Other scriptures such as the Veda. were revealed to sages. Is there historical proof that Krishna was God incarnate?

Content: Swamiji, You explained that Duryodhana acted out of blindness and Arjuna from partial awareness. Yet, if Arjuna were to enter the fight and kill his kinsmen, there would be no difference between him and Duryodhana. You yourself pointed out that rights and wrongs are merely our conditioning. Then in what manner is Arjuna better than Duryodhana?

Content: Arjuna was a successful warrior and yet he goes into depression. At least he had a master who could help him. What can others do?

Content: You talked about Arjuna's dilemma. Was there really a dilemma? Dilemma is when one has choices. In many ways Arjuna had no choice about fighting his cousins. Wasn't it really fear that caused this confusion?

Content: How does an enlightened person react to the physical environment?

Content: People wonder whether they need to be qualified to be enlightened. Do they need to do good deeds? Do they need to be scholars? Do they need to belong to a particular caste or creed or religion?

Content: How does the tale of a war help us in day-to-day issues? There have been hundreds, if not thousands of wars in the history of mankind, and many have been well documented. These have not stopped other wars. They have not helped mankind learn. How does one expect Bhagavad Gita to transform peoples' attitudes?

Content: Beyond Scriptures

Content: There are millions of scriptures and millions of books on planet Earth. From time immemorial, human beings have created scriptures and still continue to create spiritual books. But Bhagavad Gita is incomparable. We cannot compare this book with any other because no other book has penetrated human consciousness so deeply. No other book has contributed to the preparation of so many enlightened beings on planet earth like Bhagavad Gita. No other book is a complete encyclopedia of spirituality. Bhagavad Gita is the unabridged dictionary and encyclopedia of spirituality.

Content: Spiritual literature can be classified into three categories. First we have śāstras: śāstras give us clarity about the aim of life, the goal of human life. They teach us how to live life, the purpose of life, and the goal of life. They give intellectual understanding about the ultimate truth of man and God.

Content: Śāstras logically and intellectually answer all major questions. Through them, we can be logically convinced to follow the ultimate path. Śāstras guide us in life. These books give us regulations, do’s and dont’s, what should be done and what should not be done.

Content: There are many examples. The Ten Commandments are śāstras. The śruti and smṛti of Hindu religion, the sacred scriptures such as the Vedas and Upaniṣads, and the guidelines such as the Manusmriti and epics such as Ramayana, are śāstras. The Bible, Koran, Dhammapada of Buddha, Zend Avesta of Zoroaster, and Jewish Kabbalah are śāstras.

Content: The second category of literature is stotras. It is the expression of someone who has realized the ultimate truth; a person who has had the glimpse of divine love. When such a person expresses his joy, the expression is stotras.

Content: When we worship and surrender ourselves to the Divine, the form of expression is stotras, devotional compositions. The literature from the heart is stotras; literature from the head is śāstras.

Content: The third type of literature called sūtras gives us techniques to realize the state of uniting with the Divine.

Content: Śāstras give us intellectual understanding, stotras give emotional feeling, sūtras give the being level experience.

Content: Śāstras are like signboards, intellectual scriptures that explain the basics of life. Stotras help us surrender to the Divine. The glory of the Divine is expounded on by the stotras. Sūtras give us techniques to achieve devotion or enlightenment.

Content: Śāstras alone cannot lead us to enlightenment, although they can be a good support; they can take us to an enlightened master. Until that point, it is a great help. Stotras are spoken from the level of emotion, feeling. When we have a deep feeling, we just express it. It just flows through us. Our whole being is flowing; that is stotras. Sūtras means the technique that helps us achieve the goal of the śāstras and the stotras.

Content: The goal of śāstra is the soul, divinity within; the goal of stotras is God. Of course, both are one and the same, but they have two different paths.

Content: People who are intellectually oriented, who are centered in logic, analysis and calculation need śāstras, intellectual scriptures. They do not do anything unless they are intellectually convinced, unless they are clear about the whole thing. We cannot say that because of this attitude, they should not seek spirituality. However, there are many scriptures that say, ‘Don’t come inside if you don’t have faith.’

Content: Let me tell you, we should look at man with more compassion. We can’t put faith as the main criterion to enter into spirituality. If we put faith as the first criterion, we are refusing to give spirituality to almost 90% of humanity because for most people it is not easy to believe anything immediately. Faith may not be instantaneous.

Content: Words like belief and faith have limited relevance. These words are outdated. They no longer have the meaning they had ages ago. These words are totally out of our lives. We can’t say that only the person who believes, the one who has faith, can come for spirituality. Spirituality should be open to every being. We should create a system through which we can reach every individual.

Content: Our vedic seers created śāstras to give us intellectual understanding. They logically taught us the path and the goal, and why we are asked to do all these things and why we need spirituality. All these major questions are answered logically and intellectually in śāstras and the conclusions are given to us.

Content: We need to understand a few things about śāstras. Śāstras completely take away our doubts. Doubt is a devil. Once a doubt enters our mind, we can't sleep, we can't rest until we clear it. Śāstras help us get rid of these doubts intellectually.

Content: One thing we should understand about intellectual clarity is that unless we have complete intellectual clarity, our belief will be a pseudo belief; anyone can shake our faith. Our faith does not have a strong base. Our faith is almost like a building without a foundation. If we build without a foundation, what will happen to the building? It will collapse. The same will happen to us if we don't have the base of śāstras.

Content: A person asked the great master Vivekananda, 'Master, what is the importance of Veda and why should we study the scriptures?'

Content: Vivekananda said, 'If you study the scriptures, all your faith and sincerity will become so strong that nobody will be able to shake you.'

Content: Otherwise, any fool can tell us that what we are doing is superstitious and we can start thinking, 'Am I really doing superstitious things? Am I really following the right path? What am I doing?' We will start having doubts about ourselves. We won't have faith in ourselves.

Content: Every human being should understand that we don't believe our belief. We may think we believe in something; we may think we have faith, but our faith or belief is not deep enough. It does not take us anywhere unless we have the foundation of intellectual conviction. Unless we have the deep foundation of śāstras, we will not be able to believe in anything.

Content: Please be very clear, even our emotions are not so deep. We think we have love, we think we believe. I see all types of people who say they believe in what they think. One man said, 'Oh master, I love the whole world.' Again and again, I tell people that to love the world is easy, but to love your wife is very difficult!

Content: That is why we are stuck. To love the whole world is very easy. We can always say Vasudaiva Kuṭumbakam - the world is my family. The problem is that we are not in tune with our own family. We think we love, but we don't really love. Our

Content: emotions are not deep; our faith is not deep. This is because we don't have the intellectual conviction.

Content: If we do not have the intellectual conviction and have only faith, our faith can be shaken by anybody. Just one person is enough to break our faith. We can be totally shaken. Śāstras, the intellectual understanding, give a base so that all our convictions, all our faith, all our belief can enter into our being and start working.

Content: Bhakti, devotion, is just an alchemy process. It is as if a touchstone has touched us. Ramakrishna says beautifully, 'If a touchstone touches any metal it becomes gold; just a touch of the stone is enough for any metal to be converted into gold.'

Content: Devotion is a touchstone. The moment devotion touches us, we become God, we become divine. The problem is, we never allow devotion to work on us; we never allow devotion to penetrate our being.

Content: We think we want God, but we are continuously afraid of the Divine. We may think we want the Divine, but as long as it is superficial, as long as it is under our control, things go well. The moment the devotion enters our being, and starts the process, we say, 'No, no, not that much. This is enough! I think that is too much for me!'

Content: We stop at a certain point; our faith is pseudo faith.

Content: A small story:

Content: One guy lived throughout his life as an atheist. One day he fell from a cliff and was hanging on to a small branch. Slowly, the branch also started giving way. The man started shouting, 'Oh God! I never believed in you, but now I do. Please save me! Please save me, now that I believe in you.'

Content: A booming voice from heaven said, 'Oh my son, don't worry. I will save you. Just let go of the branch! Let go of the branch and I will save you.'

Content: Immediately the man responded, 'Is there anybody else out there who can save me?'

Content: Our faith is just a show. Is there anybody else who can save me? God is only one of the many choices for us.

Content: If there is no good movie on television, then we go to the temple. If we don't have any other commitment, any other party on a particular day, we go to the temple. God is only one more choice in our lives. Till we have an intellectual conviction about life, God is just one more choice; spirituality is just one more

Content: choice. We just choose. It is just one more shop like Walmart and K Mart; it is Spiritual Mart; we decide which shop we should enter! It is just one more shop, nothing more than that. The basic need for life is intellectual conviction.

Content: A small story:

Content: There was a grandmother in a village. She went to the city to visit her five year old grandson who lived with his parents.

Content: At bed time, she went to her grandson's room to wish him good night. The boy was praying.

Content: She asked him, 'Do you say your prayers every night?' He replied, 'Yes.' She asked, 'And what about morning?' The boy replied, 'No. I am not scared in the daytime.'

Content: This is how our relationship with God is. It is only this much! Our spirituality is just a game. We remember God only when we need something. When things go well according to our chosen route, then God is great, else throw away the God. I have seen people who pass exams and break coconuts as an offering in front of Ganesha temples, but if they fail, they break the Ganesha idol itself!

Content: If they pass in their exams, they break coconuts for Ganesha and if they fail they break Ganesha himself!

Content: Our faith is pseudo if it is not life transforming. We do not allow devotion to work on us. A beautiful verse in the scriptures of Vedānta says: To clear your intellect, you must break your intellect; you must open your intellect; you must have a clear intellectual understanding about life, about spirituality, about everything. Śāstras give us that intellectual clarity, that intellectual understanding.

Content: All the great devotional people like Chaitanya, Ramanuja and Madhva had a strong intellectual base. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a great Nyayaika philosopher. Nyayaika means logic; he was a great philosopher of logic. Once you reach that height, those peaks of logic, only then you fall into the valley of love; only then you are qualified to fall in love. Unless you reach the heights of logic, you are not qualified to fall into the valley of love. All great masters and great devotees who reach the peak of intellect have a strong śāstras base.

Content: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Ramanuja, Madhva, all these great masters of devotion, had a strong intellectual base in the first category of scriptures, śāstras.

Content: Next are the stotras. Stotra means expressing our experience, love or devotion to our master or God. Expressing our deep love is stotra. We stand in front of the Divine, feel the energy of the Lord and express our emotions.

Content: Many people ask, 'Swamiji, why does Hinduism have idol worship?' Hinduism does not have idol worship. We don't worship the idol. We worship through the idol. When we stand in front of the idol, do we say, 'Oh stone! Give me a boon. Oh stone! Please save me?'

Content: No! We say, 'Oh God, please save me.' We don't worship the idol. We worship through the idol. So we are not doing idol worship. We worship through the idol. In Vaishnāvism, the devotional stream of Hinduism, there is a beautiful word arcāvatāra. This means the idol worshipped in the temple is the incarnation of God.

Content: Arcāvatāra means incarnation of God. The idol is not just a stone. Incarnation means the Divine descending on planet earth, just like the ten incarnations of Vishnu. All these idols are like these ten incarnations. Just like these incarnations, the stone, the idol that we worship is called arcāvatāra. We relate to the Divine through the idol.

Content: When we stand in front of the idol and pour our heart out through verses, this expression is what is stotras. All the songs written by great devotees like the Alvars, Nayanmars, Meera and Chaitanya - are stotras.

Content: People ask me, 'Swamiji, sometimes I don't feel like chanting these stotras. Should I do it mechanically even if I don't like doing it?'

Content: I say, 'Do it. You may feel it is a mechanical exercise for one or two days. However, it will become your being once you start enjoying the meaning and experiencing what you express. It will become your feeling.' When you express your heart, it becomes stotra.

Content: Next is sūtras. Sūtras give us the technique to reach enlightenment. Śāstras are from the intellectual level. Stotras are from the emotional level. Sūtras are from the being level.

Content: There are three kinds of human beings: head oriented, heart oriented and being oriented. To fulfil everyone, our enlightened sages have created three kinds of literature - śāstras, stotras and sūtras. Bhagavad Gita is the only book that is a combination of śāstras, stotras and sūtras! In Bhagavad Gita, all three are combined together, with something more!

Content: Gita is śāstras; it gives a clear intellectual understanding about life, soul, as well as the do's and don'ts, rules and regulations. I have not seen any other book explain these concepts so deeply.

Content: Just explaining do's and don'ts will not help. Giving the intellectual reason as to why it should be done or not done is necessary. Many books talk about how many times you can marry or whether you can marry at all. Many books lay down all these rules, but give no explanation. Very few books give reasons why we should or should not do something. Gita is the only book I know that gives a strong intellectual base, intellectual clarity and understanding about what we should do.

Content: No other religion has as many scriptures as Hinduism. Within the vedic literature, our masters have chosen three books called 'prasthānatraya'. These books are the ultimate authorities in spirituality. One is the Brahma Sutra, the second is Upaniṣads and the third is the Bhagavad Gita.

Content: Veda Vyasa, an enlightened master, wrote the Brahma Sutra. Many enlightened masters taught what is known as Upaniṣad. However, Gita is directly from God, from a pūrṇāvatār - a perfect incarnation, Krishna. Among the incarnations, Krishna is considered pūrṇā, complete, a full incarnation.

Content: Why is Krishna considered the only perfect incarnation? Why can't he be just one more incarnation? First understand why incarnations come to planet earth.

Content: Ramakrishna recounts beautifully: There was a beautiful paradise with many trees and varieties of flowers and fruits. Three friends were walking near this paradise that had a big wall around it. One of them climbed the wall and peeped inside.

Content: He cried out, 'Oh my God! Such a beautiful place!' He jumped into the garden and started enjoying the fruits. The second man climbed the wall and saw the garden. He too felt it was beautiful, but he had a little bit of courtesy. He turned and said to the third man who was below, 'Dear friend, there is a beautiful paradise below. Come, I am going in.' Saying this, he jumped over and started enjoying the fruits.

Content: The third man climbed the wall and saw the paradise. He saw his two friends and understood the level of joy and bliss that they were enjoying. Then he said to himself, 'Let me go down and tell all the people about this beautiful paradise. I will bring them all to enjoy this garden.'

Content: An incarnation is someone who comes down to tell others about the blissful place that he experienced. The man who descends from the Divine to express the bliss of that divinity is an incarnation. The person who returns to planet earth to

Content: Vasudeva sutam devam kamsa cānūra mardanam / Devakī paramānandam krṣṇam vande jagad gurum //

Content: There are intellectual people, emotional people and people at the being level. Some incarnations, such as Shankara, strongly appeal to intellectual people. Shankara suits intellectual people. Buddha suits intellectual people. Intellectual people can easily relate to Buddha, but it is difficult for emotional people to relate to Him. We can't imagine Buddha with a flute! We can't imagine Buddha singing and dancing. We can't imagine Shankara singing and dancing. We can't imagine Shankara doing rās-līla!

Content: Buddha and Shankara will appeal only to the intellectuals.

Content: There are some incarnations for emotional people. Emotional people relate to Meera and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who are always singing, dancing and celebrating. An intellectual man can never understand Meera or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He can never understand Aandal, another great devotional type of person. He can see them dancing, but he cannot see for whom they are dancing. They can never understand these incarnations.

Content: People who are at the being level, centered on their being, find it difficult to relate with intellectual or emotional masters. They are neither ready to analyze nor ready to believe. A person ready to analyze goes to shāstras. A person who wants a straight experience, instant coffee, instant experience, can neither wait for shāstras nor stotras. He straightaway wants the technology, the applied science. shāstras are like the main theory, the basic science. Stotras are like the marketing department, publicity. Sūtras are applied science. They give straight answers.

Content: You need to understand a bit about this marketing department.

Content: A small story:

Content: One man died and reached Yamadharma's court for judgment. Yama is the God of death and justice. Yama said, 'You have committed some sins and you also have some merit. You are allowed to be in heaven and in hell. You have a choice. You can see both the places and choose which one you want.'

Content: The man said, 'Alright, I will check out both places and then decide.'

Content: He went to hell first. The people were so beautiful, dancing and singing. It had become completely hi-tech. Computers were available. Internet was available. They watched the news everyday. Everything was so new, air-conditioned, and people were serving so many types of food. He wondered,

Content: 'What is this? What happened to hell?' People in hell said, 'All the technical experts are here. So we changed the whole setup. Now we have updated the whole system. It is no more like old times. Now, everything is new.' Then the man said, 'Alright, let me go and see heaven. There is a chance that some techies would have gone there as well. There is a possibility.' In heaven, he saw the same old saints with long beards, sitting on clouds and singing! Nothing else; nothing new. It was the same old heaven, nothing much was happening. He went to Yama and said, 'I think I will go to hell.' Yama said, 'Please be certain. You cannot change your mind. Are you sure?' The man said, 'Yes, I will go to hell. It's so cool!' As soon as he decided, a door suddenly opened and he fell into hell. He was shocked! There was the conventional hell - people being tortured by devils. It was the traditional hell. He asked, 'What is happening? What is this? When I came half an hour ago, hell was different. Now the whole thing has changed.' They all gathered around him and one of them said, 'No, no, that was the promotional feature from our marketing department!' Be very clear, sometimes we are caught in the marketing department. Don't be caught in the marketing department, and when you do go to the marketing department, be clear about what the truth is and what exaggeration is. You need to analyze. Of course, when I say we go through the stotras, we need to understand it. Please be very clear, when we go through the purānas, the epic stories, we need to understand the spirit of the purānas. There is a big difference between fact and truth. Purānas, our epics, are truths. They are showing us, leading us to the truth. So while understanding stotras we should understand the spirit of the stotras. The next level people, the being-level people, neither want shāstras nor stotras; they straightaway want the applied science, technology. For them Shiva, who created the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra, is the answer. All the great meditation techniques he delivered are for those people who are being-oriented. Zen masters are ideal for these kind of people. They will be able to relate well with Zen masters. For the intellectual crowd, there is one kind of incarnation, for the emotional crowd, there is another kind of incarnation, and for being-level people, yet another kind of incarnation.

Content: But Krishna can relate to people at all three levels. If you are intellectual, He gives you the Gita; he is Gita Krishna. If you are emotional, you can have Radha Krishna, the beloved of Radha! He can sing and dance; he can play; he can be naughty; he can fulfil your emotional being; he can give you the ultimate emotional fulfilment. At the being level, you straightaway want the technology of enlightenment. Again, He offers the truth, Dhyāna Yoga - the path of meditation techniques - in the Gita.

Content: Krishna is complete fulfilment. His very life is a technique! The very life of Krishna is a technique that leads you to enlightenment. The body language of an enlightened person is a sūtra, a technique. Krishna is the person whose body language straightaway leads you to enlightenment. Understand that Rama will lead you to dharma, righteousness. If you follow what Rama did, you will have dharma, but with Krishna, you will straightaway have mokṣa, liberation!

Content: When we experience the being of Krishna, when we understand Krishna, His very being is a technique. His very life is a technique. That is why there is a word in the Bhāgavatam (ancient Indian epic) called ‘līla dhyāna’. Just remembering the līla, the playful pranks of Krishna, is dhyāna, meditation.

Content: No other incarnation is given the word līla dhyāna. No other incarnation is praised like this. Just remembering His acts is meditation!

Content: The great sages were once disturbed by the singing and dancing of the gopikās (cowgirls who were Krishna’s playmates). So they went to Krishna’s birthplace, Vrindavan, to see what was happening. They just wanted to see for themselves.

Content: They thought, ‘Why are the gopikās so happy and always singing and dancing? We sages are sitting with closed eyes trying to meditate with long faces and nothing is happening. We have been meditating for a long time, but these gopikās are always happily singing and dancing! What is really happening in that place?’

Content: A small story within this story:

Content: A man was sitting on the riverbank trying to meditate. He heard the sound of anklets. He opened his eyes and saw a young woman walking towards the river to fetch some water. He asked, ‘What is this? What kind of disturbance is this?’ Then he closed his eyes and started meditating again.

Content: The next day, at the same time, he heard the sound. Unconsciously he opened his eyes, saw the girl, and asked her, 'What kind of disturbance are you creating?' Again, he closed his eyes and started meditating.

Content: On the third day, he became anxious when the exact time came, and started waiting for the sound of the anklets!

Content: Back to the story, the singing and dancing of the gopikās around Krishna disturbed these sages. They wanted to know what was going on in Vrindavan. They came down to see the gopikās, but the gopikās did not receive them properly, nor did they care to listen to what the sages had to say. They were happy, completely fulfilled, and in total contentment in their reminiscences with Krishna.

Content: The sages asked, 'What is this? We are great sages. We have come all the way to see you and you are not even receiving us properly.'

Content: One gopikā asked, 'Sages? Who are they?'

Content: 'We meditate on His feet in our heart,' explained one of the sages.

Content: The gopikā said, 'Meditate on His feet? Come, we will show you. We are playing with His entire form! You are meditating on Him. Why? Come, we will show you how we are playing with Him. You say you are trying to remember Him. We are trying to forget Him! He is so much in our being. We are unable to do our work. He has completely filled up our inner space!'

Content: Many people ask, 'Swamiji, should we remember you? Should we take you as our master?'

Content: I tell them, 'Never make that mistake. If I am going to help you, if I am your master, you will not be able to forget me! That is the real scale to know if I am your master or not.'

Content: If you must remember me with effort, then I am not your master. Forget me. Carry on doing your work. Carry on with your life. If you must remember something consciously, with effort, it is ugly. Only when you can't forget, only then, devotion happens in you. These gopikās say, 'We are unable to forget Him.'

Content: Krishna appeals to the being level people. They are continually aspiring, seeking an experience straightaway. Just by His will, He can give that experience to them. He can give experience of enlightenment to Arjuna, by just showing him His cosmic form, Viśvarūpa darśan!

Content: Krishna shows that He is in everybody, that everybody is in Him. Just by will, Krishna is able to give an experience of the Divine, eternal bliss, to Arjuna. Whether we are intellectually oriented, emotionally oriented or being level oriented, we can find our fulfilment in Krishna.

Content: Krishna can give us fulfilment. When intellect ripens, it becomes intelligence; when emotion ripens, it becomes devotion; when our being ripens, we become enlightened.

Content: All these three enlightenment modes - being, devotion and intelligence - express at their peak in Krishna. Hence, Krishna can fulfil every being. That is why He is called jagat guru, master of the whole universe.

Content: One man in India said to me, 'I am a jagat guru.'

Content: I was surprised! I wondered, 'What is this? It is like having a small hotel on the roadside and naming it the Sheraton!'

Content: I asked him, 'Jagat guru? What do you mean by that word? Do you know the qualifications of a jagat guru?'

Content: He said, 'I have one disciple and his name is Jagat. I am his guru!'

Content: So understand: Jagat guru does not mean just the guru of one person Jagat. Jagat guru leads the whole universe into the divine consciousness!

Content: Krishna is a Jagat guru.

Content: To a person who is intellectually oriented, the Upanisads will appeal; the śāstras will appeal; the Brahma Sutra will appeal.

Content: To a person who is emotionally oriented, the stotras will appeal. The songs of Chaitanya, Meera and Tulsidas will appeal.

Content: For a person who is being-oriented, the Vignana Bhairava Tantra or Patanjali Yoga sutra will appeal.

Content: Krishna appeals to every being.

Content: He is for the intellectual people, the emotional people, the being level people, and something more. He has created keys to open all the locks. He has created methods to give the spiritual experience to the whole of humanity, to people who have come, people who are here, and those yet to come. He has created the technology even for the future generations. He is nitya ānanda - eternal bliss. Gita is the ultimate scripture - śāstra, jagat guru and sūtra.

Content: Krishna is beyond scriptures.

Content: When Krishna says,

Content: 'Weapons do not cleave, nor fire burns the Atman

Content: Water does not wet it and wind does not dry it'

Content: When He talks about the basic truths of life and spirituality, it is śāstra. He is giving intellectual knowledge.

Content: When Arjuna says,

Content: 'Oh Lord, I bow down to you from the front, from behind, from all sides;

Content: You are infinitely mighty, pervading everything, you are the Ultimate'

Content: Arjuna is doing the stotra. Arjuna is praising the lord; he is expressing his devotion.

Content: When Krishna says,

Content: 'Whatever your thought is when you leave this body, absorbed in that thought, that alone you attain, Arjuna!'

Content: Here Krishna provides Arjuna the technique, the most powerful sūtra that helps anyone attain what he wants to.

Content: Bhagavad Gita is the only scripture that combines the wisdom of śāstras, the depth of feeling of stotras and the practical reality of sūtras. It is a means to enlightenment for all, delivered by the master of masters.

Content: In this first chapter of Bhagavad Gita, we see Arjuna, the most courageous fighter amongst the Pandava princes and the darling of all his teachers, winner of Draupadi and the close friend of Krishna, in deep dilemma.

Content: Years ago, a man called Arthur Koestler wrote an article about Communism titled 'Yogi and the Commissar.' We do not know whether he had read the Gita, but he had certainly captured Arjuna and his plight with his title.

Content: Arjuna is both the yogi and the commissar. As a yogi, he is deeply spiritual, centered within himself, and deeply aware of his moral and ethical obligations. As the commissar, Arjuna is the warrior, ready to avenge, ready to impose order and control; he is the typical kṣatriya prince.

Content: Only with enlightenment is it possible to continuously and consistently proceed with both these personalities without faltering. Arjuna falters as he faces his enemies on the battlefield of the great Mahabharata War. His dilemma unfolds.

Content: Arjuna’s dilemma is such that he is now able to be neither a yogi nor a Commissar.

Content: He loses his detachment as a yogi. In turn, he loses his courage as a commissar.

Content: He sees his enemies and identifies himself with them. In front of him are his mentors, family and friends. They are his extension, his lineage and his identity. He can no longer pretend that he is the ultimate warrior, the commissar, who can dispassionately dispatch them to death.

Content: Arjuna’s dilemma is the dilemma of humanity. It is an internal conflict between what we perceive as our value systems and beliefs, and what we feel we can actually do. Our value systems and beliefs are the saṁskāras that drive our decisions. The problem lies in the fact that these saṁskāras lie deep in our unconscious zone. We are not even aware of them.

Content: Arjuna understood his kṣatriya code of conduct very well. This code demanded that he cannot turn down a righteous challenge to fight and gamble. However, his deep-rooted attachment to his clan and lineage proved stronger than what he considered to be his duties. These feelings were far stronger than code of his conduct.

Content: Arjuna’s saṁskāras were primal. They related to survival issues, identity issues. By his killing clan members, he was in effect destroying a part of himself. No code of conduct was worth that destruction. That was his dilemma.

Content: Each of us is caught in such a dilemma at one time or the other. We are taught to follow certain societal rules and regulations. As long as our basic desires are in tune with these societal and religious rules and regulations, we have no problems, no confusion, and no dilemma. However, our dilemmas start when what we seek and the path we need to follow to achieve them, violate these rules and regulations.

Content: Everyone, without exception, has inbuilt guilt for violating the commandments of religion and society. That is why Jesus said, ‘He amongst you, he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’ That guilt is sin. And we fear that unknown and unseen forces will rise against us to punish us for these violations. Desire versus guilt is our dilemma, always.

Content: In almost all cases, if the desires are strong enough, desires win. Rules and regulations can wait, we say. Worst come worse, we can always work out some means of appeasing these godly forces. We think, after all, what are temples and priests for?

Content: The truth is that society and religion encourage us to think this way. They know that no one can be controlled one hundred percent.

Content: 'Let us just put on speed breakers,' they say. 'Let us control them through fear and greed. If they are good all the time, that would be difficult. We shall be out of business. They can then deal directly with the unseen forces. That cannot be allowed. So let us install rules and regulations that cannot be observed by most of them. People will violate them; they will stumble. Let us then catch them and control them through the fear of God.'

Content: Such is the genesis of religious guidelines and societal regulations. Some religions are based only on such guidelines, without any intelligent and acceptable reasoning to support the regulations. It is almost as though they are established so that we break them and feel guilty. Once we feel guilty, we are caught.

Content: In the spiritual sense, there is no such thing as sin. There is nothing that is totally good or bad. As the Tao religion says, good is mixed with bad; there can be no light without darkness, or good without evil. When you become truly aware, you realize that there are no sins.

Content: Whatever happens to us happens as a result of natural laws. The realized ones flow with that realization. When one has compassion for humanity, when one feels for every living being the same compassion that one feels for oneself, one can do no harm to another. There can be no sin. And therefore, there is no guilt either.

Content: Arjuna's progress on this path of self-discovery is the path of Bhagavad Gita. That can also be our path if we internalize the message of the Gita. When there is no variation between what we wish to do and what we believe in, when we are aware of our saṁskāras and we act in total fulfilment and awareness of these saṁskāras, we have no dilemma. We are in fulfilment.

Content: All of us are born with pre-existing desires; these are the vāsanās, the mental setup that the spirit within us enters into our bodies with each new birth. These are also called prārabdha karma (for detailed explanation, please refer karma diagrams), those desires that we choose to fulfil when we take birth. They carry their own energy for fulfillment in that lifetime.

Content: The trouble is that the time between death and the next birth is quick and painful. The body-mind system lapses into unconsciousness, a coma, as the energy leaves matter (the body). As the energy enters another piece of matter, another body-mind, the memory of the prārabdha karma is erased. When the spirit passes through the causal energy layer as it crosses the seven mind-body energy layers at death, we lose memory of our unfulfilled desires of that birth, the last thoughts, the vāsanas and the prārabdha karma. Therefore, when we are reborn in another body, we no longer remember why we were born or with what desires and purpose we have chosen this birth!

Content: This is the root cause of our dilemma.

Content: Incarnations and enlightened beings choose a conscious birth with full awareness of their reason for birth. They know what they are here for. They have no confusion, no dilemma. Arjuna is not at that stage, nor are most of us.

Content: Fortunately, it is possible to become aware of our prārabdha karma, our opening balance of desires. We can then work towards their fulfilment during each life without accumulating more karma (āgāmya karma) in this lifetime. Āgāmya karma is the 'current account' of desires that we accumulate this lifetime.

Content: By exhausting the prārabdha that we brought with us and by not accumulating more āgāmya, we reduce the overall 'account' of total karmas that we collect over millions of births. This total account is called sañcita karma.

Content: These karmas or unfulfilled desires are also referred to as saṁskāras, the engraved memories stored in our unconscious zone, stirring up these desires. They are also called vāsanas or mindset, which in turn create the desires and store them as memories. These three words can be used interchangeably for all practical purposes, although they do have separate deeper meanings.

Content: By understanding the nature and types of saṁskāras, vāsanas and karmas that we carry over into this birth, we can work towards their fulfilment. Then, our stock of saṁskāras diminishes.

Content: The Ananda Spurana and Nithyananda Spurana Programs, the Life Bliss Level 1 and Level 2 courses, address these karmas. In both workshops, participants learn about their saṁskāras, what motivates their behavior and how to dissolve these karmas. In a sense, we begin to understand our opening balance of desires in this life, the karma we accumulate during this lifetime and how to work upon and release them while alive.

Content: This is also the process of yoga that Krishna takes Arjuna through in these eighteen chapters of Bhagavad Gita. These teachings are not meant for Arjuna alone. They are meant for us, so that we dissolve our saṁskāras, resolve our dilemmas and experience the ultimate truth.

Content: Q: Swamiji, you mentioned that the Mahabharata war is a metaphor. Please elaborate.

Content: If you know the story, I can elaborate on the metaphor. Since many may not have read this epic in detail, let me cover only a few important points.

Content: The Mahabharata war lasted eighteen days. Bhagavad Gita was delivered as eighteen chapters. In the war there were totally eighteen akṣouhiṇis or divisions. The number eighteen is a mystical number. Now let me give you the theory of counting numbers. The more numbers you have started counting, the deeper the vengeance or logic which has developed in your system.

Content: In ancient times, which we call the age of truth or Satya Yuga, people were able to count only till number three. In the following age of Treta Yuga, people were able to count up to seven. In the period that followed, Dvāpara Yuga, people were able to count upto eight. When people started counting till nine, it was the age of strife, Kali Yuga, which we live in today! Keeping account of more than eight thoughts in your memory space creates discomfort.

Content: The ability to count more means that logic is able to advance step-by-step and more thoughts are able to flow. If eight thoughts can flow from you towards the outer world without any break, then you are materialistic; you are focused on the external world, the periphery.

Content: Understand that if you are able to produce eight continuous thoughts without your being reminded to move inwards, it means that you are materially focused, and this leads you to depression. You will be in depression. The ability to have eight continuous thoughts without having self-recovery, without self-healing thoughts intervening to remind you of your true nature, is the pathway to hell.

Content: Whenever your ten senses, which are your gateways to the external world, are added to the eight thoughts, you are in depression and you are in difficulty.

Content: See, as long as you don’t add thoughts to your hardware, your senses, you are okay. You don’t have only five senses as you think. You have ten senses. There are five senses of perception called jñānendriya, and five senses of action called karmendriya. Your tongue when it engages in talk is being a karmendriya; when it does the act of tasting, it is a jñānendriya.

Content: There are five input and five output senses, totally ten senses. When your ten senses are added to your mind, which can count to eight, you are in depression. Either you should not be able to count to eight or all ten senses should not be active. If both are happening you are in deep trouble.

Content: All ten senses are not active in some animals; they are saved. If your ten senses are active and you can count to eight, you are depressed. That is why the number eighteen plays a major role.

Content: What happens when your mind can count to eight, when it can continuously have eight externally focused thoughts? When the mind touches the eyes, it creates millions of thoughts related to the eyes. When it touches the nose, it creates millions of thoughts based on the nose. When it touches the tongue, it creates millions of thoughts related to the tongue. You are overwhelmed by thoughts, and actions driven through these thoughts.

Content: In the Mahabharata War, there were eighteen divisions called akṣauhinīs, which consisted of soldiers, elepphants, horses and so on. Of these the Kaurava army had eleven and the Pandava army had seven divisions. Put together, these symbolically represent eighteen million thoughts. When thoughts are high, the larger number of thoughts will be depression oriented. So, eleven million joined the negative group - the Kauravas, and only seven million were self-healing thoughts, self-recovery thoughts belonging to the Pandavas.

Content: Let me give a description of destructive thoughts and self-healing thoughts.

Content: You receive a message that a thief entered your home and took your money and valuables. Now this is a loss. The moment you hear this you think, ‘Oh God, what will happen to me? Everything is lost; nothing is there.’ All kinds of depressive thoughts are generated. A depressive thought trend starts.

Content: On the other hand, you can choose to respond with self-healing thoughts also. For example, you may think, ‘Alright, even if I lose that money, it does not matter, I can always earn more. Even if I have ten times more wealth, what is the point? I am going to leave all that one day and die.’

Content: The person who has renounced everything enjoys everything! Understand that. Such thoughts are self-healing thoughts. You should have had some click with these self-healing thoughts, by listening to a master or by contemplating and experiencing it yourself. There should have been an inner change, a cognitive shift, a transformation, a psychological revolution; these are what I mean by 'clicks'. The sudden and bright thoughts that you had when you heard a living master talk, are clicks. You were actually initiated when you got the click. You would have suddenly felt, 'Yes, what He says is right!' Or you yourself might have contemplated and got initiated, become self-illumined. An inner voice would have said, 'Yes, right!' Those thoughts are self-healing thoughts.

Content: So in the Mahabharata, the self-healing thoughts are seven million and the destructive thoughts are eleven million, and the fight starts! Arjuna is the individual consciousness; he is oscillating between what he sees as good and what he sees as bad. Your laziness to fight with the negative thoughts is tamas, inaction. You justify yourself and say, 'What is the need to fight with all these negative thoughts? It is okay, let them rule.' Your body is the land for which the eleven million and seven million are fighting. This is symbolised by Arjuna's hesitation to fight in the war.

Content: There were one hundred Kaurava brothers: one hundred negative entities. One hundred brothers mean the cloning of one main thought into one hundred parts. Yes, it was cloning; the first cloning on planet earth was that of the Kauravas! Who are the five Pandavas? They are the sons of Nature, born of immaculate conception: Yudhishtira from Yama, god of death and justice; Arjuna from Indra, god of the heavenly beings; Bhima from Vayu, god of wind; and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva, from the Ashwini putras, divine beings. All the Pandavas are sons of Nature!

Content: The sons of Nature will always be self-healing thoughts, and the cloning of negative thoughts will always be depressing and destructive. Among the Kauravas, Duryodhana is possessiveness. Shakuni, Duryodhana's uncle, is the energy that fans possessiveness and exploits it. Shakuni is cunningness. They gather together with the help of eleven million self-destructive thoughts (their army). The problem is that Arjuna, the individual consciousness, at the time of fighting the negative thoughts, goes into depression. He says, 'God! I have done so many sins and I have so many negative thoughts. When will I conquer and exhaust them?'

Content: That is when a master, a Krishna, is needed to say, 'Don't bother. These thoughts do not have life. They are all unconnected, random, illogical and meaningless words.' Your negative thoughts do not have power over you once you understand that they are meaningless and unconnected. Once you distance yourself from them, once you unclutch from them, they become powerless!

Content: This is the truth you need to learn. This is the essence of the Gita. If you have done the Nithyanandam course and know the Mahabharata story, you can understand the whole scene. On one side, there are eleven million negative thoughts. Naturally when an individual consciousness sees eleven million negative thoughts, he thinks, 'How can I ever become enlightened? When and how will I get all these guys out of me? And what is the need anyway? After all I am a householder. It's okay. Let them be there as they are. I have responsibilities; I have duties. Why should I kill all these thoughts? I cannot leave my people. I cannot give up my possessions.' You are simply unable to muster the courage. Not only that, you will ascribe your cowardice as a commitment to your parents or family! That is the cunningness!

Content: See, a real commitment will never have a contradiction or conflict. But whenever a master tells you to do something and you say you have a commitment, you are simply justifying your laziness. It is purely because of your laziness and inaction that you justify it. You are in the same place as Arjuna is before the war. That is why the first chapter of Gita is called 'Arjuna viṣāda yoga,' Arjuna's depression.

Content: The arrows that Arjuna releases when he follows Krishna's advice are thoughts he is unclutching from and disengaging from. Every time you unclutch from a thought, you have released one arrow! One thought has left you! One guy is down!

Content: Arjuna justifies his cowardice as compassion. He expresses his cowardice as compassion. He falls into depression and confusion. When you are depressed, you say, 'No, this is not possible; why should I then act?' That is the time you need the master who will tell you, 'No, it is possible. You must finish it off!'

Content: Why are Bhishma and Drona, the great teachers and elders on the negative side of the war? This is important to understand. Sometimes some self-healing thoughts get surrounded by negative thoughts and support negative thoughts.

Content: Let me give some examples, though some of them may hurt some of your feelings.

Content: Some techniques would have helped you grow in the past. However, they will not be helping you grow anymore. When such techniques continue to influence you,

Content: you need to fight them. They are the Bhishmas and Dronas who stand as part of the negative thoughts in the war.

Content: For example, you are with a guru, and you practice some techniques or follow some system of belief with him. After some time, the guru’s teaching does not help you grow further. But just because he did something good for you in the past, you stick to him. You are unable to go or grow beyond him. Such attitudes or thoughts are the Bhishmas and Dronas. They are just as dangerous as Duryodhana and Dusshasana!

Content: Understand: They are as dangerous as Duryodhana and Dusshasana.

Content: Who is Bhishma? He is the embodiment of your parents and elders. He symbolizes all your past conditioning, your parental conditioning. The moment you try to unclutch from your mind, the first one who comes up is Bhishma. He is your conditioning; he is your embedded memory bank. He is Bhishma Pitāmaha, the great father; he stands up in front of you first. That is why Bhishma came to the war first, with his big, fresh, eleven million strong army: eleven million thoughts!

Content: So Bhishma is your parental conditioning and the societal conditioning from a young age. He is whatever you respect as your elders. You need to overcome him in your journey of enlightenment!

Content: After parental conditioning comes the person who gave you the spiritual fire. Whoever it was who raised your frequency by a few levels, will come. Who is Drona? Drona taught Arjuna the art of archery. He was the initial level guru who gave Arjuna the inspiration. Drona taught logic and spiritual enquiry to Arjuna. All the intellectual material that you have read so far that keeps you away from an enlightened master, is what Drona stands for. After some time, he himself may become the obstruction to your growth. When Arjuna is with the ultimate master, Krishna, even this initial level guru is an enemy. He is just as dangerous as Shakuni and Duryodhana. He is equally dangerous!

Content: After Drona, your charitible attitude will surface and stand as your enemy in your progress. This is Karna. Who is Karna? He is the embodiment of charity. There are people who are caught in creating wealth just to do charity. Understand that this is also an undesireable attitude. Many people think, ‘I will make money and do charity.’ Understand, they are caught in the disguise of charity! They will never become enlightened! They need to move beyond their so-called idea of charity, only then will they attain enlightenment.

Content: You can be a Karna and feel good, but that does not mean you will become enlightened. No! However, if in the last few moments of your life, you give away something to an enlightened master, like Karna who handed everything over to Krishna, then there is a possibility of enlightenment for you.

Content: What does this mean? The master takes away all your possessions and attachments. Krishna did not become rich by taking things from Karna. Understand this very clearly. Can you say Krishna became rich by taking things from Karna? No! The master accepting something from you is not for him to become rich, but to liberate you from something in which you are caught.

Content: Karna was not able to die. The god of death who is also the god of justice was not allowing him to die because of the merits he had obtained and carried on account of his charity. That was why Krishna was unable to liberate Karna until He said, 'Give me all your good deeds.' Karna gave away all the merits to Krishna and became liberated that very moment.

Content: That is why we call it Karna mokṣa, not Karna vadha: Karna's liberation, not Karna's destruction. For the evil ones like Kamsa, it is Kamsa vadha, destruction; but for Karna, it is Karna mokṣa, liberation, because he was stuck in compassion not in anything demonic.

Content: Once you surpass Karna or compassion, your unguarded and pure ego will come and stand for the final fight: symbolized by Duryodhana in the war. And of course, Krishna plays the master game and slays Duryodhana as well.

Content: Only after all these traits in you are gone, will you see enlightenment. Both positivity and negativity must die before enlightenment. The mind load has to reduce and thoughts have to reduce to zero. That is the way the Mahabharata unravels. That is the way the whole Mahabharata opens up.

Content: Your negative thoughts never oppose you directly. They never come and stand in front of you without a positive front. They can never justify themselves as they are. They need a positive front to impose themselves upon you. The eleven million depressive thoughts will not attack you without the support of a Bhishma, Drona or Karna. These three are the positive fronts - parental conditioning, your teacher and your compassion.

Content: So beware of the Bhishmas, Dronas and Karnas. If you overcome them, you are enlightened! If you are hypnotized, or lose confidence seeing them, you are lost. You are Arjuna, gone into depression!

Content: Now, who are Arjuna’s assistants in the war? Yudhishti­ra, or dharma, signifies morality. Even while you are unclutching, you must have morality as the base. Just because you are unclutching, you should not start womanizing or using drugs! You will tend to think, 'After all I am unclutched, let me start doing these things.' No! Dharma must be the base.

Content: The next assistant is Bhima, courage. The courage of the individual consciousness is Bhima. Unclutch with strength and courage. Decide, 'Whatever happens, I am going to unclutch. I may have knee pain, I may have back pain, I may have any pain, still I will unclutch.' And what is unclutching? It is Arjuna wielding the arrow to slay the negative thoughts. That courage is Bhima.

Content: Who is Sahadeva, the other support for Arjuna? Sahadeva is the knowledge of enlightened masters gained by reading books and biographies of enlightened masters. Sahadeva gives you tips from enlightened masters. Sahadeva is the embodiment of your knowledge. Sahadeva’s brother is Nakula. Nakula is the science of keeping your body strong till you become enlightened. So there is a need for maintenance of health through yoga and various techniques till you become enlightened.

Content: These are all the ones you need as assistants! Above all of them is the person driving your chariot - your friend, philosopher, guide and master, Krishna!

Content: Now, when you start the war, eleven million are standing in front of you. All the conditioning, teachers, parents and elders are standing in front of you. Those who were teaching you what you should and should not do from day one are standing in front of you. Who else is standing? The person who gave you spiritual inspiration in your life is there. Third, all your charitable attitudes are standing in front of you. What will you do now? Not only that, Shakuni, Duryodhana and all the negative persons are hiding behind these persons as well; they are not in the forefront. They confront through positivism so you may be put into illusion.

Content: Now the war starts and you see the whole army arrayed against you. You think, 'Oh, God! Eleven million of them; what will I do?' You turn to Krishna and say, 'Krishna, I don’t need to do anything of this sort. No! I don’t feel like fighting. Say whatever you say but I am leaving now. I am going to disappear from here. Even if I have to beg and eat, it is alright, but I don’t want to be a part of this drama. No!'

Content: Krishna says, 'Fool! Whether you kill these eleven million thoughts or not, it is of no consequence. They anyway have no life; they are dead already!'

Content: Krishna says, 'Whether you kill them or not, they are dead already! You just take your arrow and act as if you are killing them! Just unclutch a few times. They are actually not there! It is just your fear that is giving power to these eleven million thoughts (people).

Content: Arjuna never bothered to look at the seven million people standing behind him: the self-healing thoughts. Arjuna never bothered to notice that. That is why I tell people, 'You clutch only to the negativity and suffer; you do not clutch to the positivity and experience bliss. The first thing you need to do is clutch to the positivity.'

Content: Even after all these repeated teachings, you remain unconvinced. Then finally, the master gives you energy darśan - he reveals His Viśvarūpa darśan (His cosmic energy form) to you. He says, 'Alright you fool, you are unable to intellectually understand what I say. Now see who is talking to you about these things,' He then reveals His cosmic form to you. Then you get totally shaken up! You say, 'Oh, God...!' You see that the master is the embodiment of all the positive and negative perceptions and beyond everything as well. He is everything and He is beyond everything. His cosmic form, the Viśvarūpa, is the ultimate experience.

Content: You then get the courage, 'After all, I will not be lost.' You get the courage and take your gāndīva, the bow of Arjuna! Understand this important Sanskrit word: gāndīva. It means 'something that cannot be taken away from you'. Unclutching is a technique that can never be taken away from you! It is said that Arjuna's bow and arrow were such that his quiver of arrows could never be exhausted. He was a born archer. Any mantra (powerful chant) can be taken away from you. But the technique of unclutching can never be taken away from you because it is your very nature. All you need to do is unclutch, unclutch and unclutch.

Content: In ten days, Bhishma is lying on a bed of arrows. All your conditioning disappears. All the parental influence disappears and along with that, a few million thoughts disappear. It was Shikhandi who killed Bhishma. Understand who Shikhandi was. He was a transsexual. See, the first and basic parental conditioning that enters your system is the teaching that you are either a male or a female. You are taught to be very strongly associated with a particular gender. In reality, you have both male and female energies in you, but parental conditioning does not encourage this idea. Shikhandi is a rebel, who does not accept parental conditioning. Symbolically he is brought in to kill Bhishma! No one else can conquer Bhishma. Gender differentiation such as male or female is the first societal conditioning. Becoming gay or transsexual is the rebellion against that basic conditioning. Being a little crazy is good at certain times! The attitude of saying 'no'

Content: is good to overcome parental conditioning. That is why in India you must leave home in order to break your societal conditioning and seek enlightenment. After you have conquered Bhishma, your parental and societal conditioning, you have to drop the attitude of Shikhandi; you have to drop Shikhandi, because he will not work against Drona, the next in line to be killed!

Content: Removal of parental conditioning is a big success. Now, understand that parental conditioning will never die completely because the language that you have learned will never die till you leave the body. That is why Bhishma never really died. He was lying in a corner, on a bed of arrows, inactive, that's all. He cannot attack you any more. He will just be lying in one corner. You move beyond the influence of parental conditioning.

Content: So the thoughts attacking you from parental conditioning lose power and lie incapacitated in one corner. The inner chatter and genetic structure of your parents will be with you until you leave the body. But they will not have the negative influence they once had. This is what the incapacitated body of Bhishma represents.

Content: Once the Mahabharata War is over, all the Pandavas, the good thoughts, ask Bhishma who was lying on the bed of arrows to bless their coronation. Bhishma beautifully teaches them how to rule the country.

Content: Draupadi, the common wife of the Pandavas, is unable to bear this. She says to Bhishma, 'Father, please keep quiet. I feel so disgusted listening to your words. You talk about noble things, but what happened sari was being ripped off and I was abused in public? What happened to your dharma, your moral code? Come on, answer me!'

Content: Bhishma says, 'At that time, I was unable to talk. I did not have intelligence because I ate the food of Duryodhana. I committed aśraya doṣa, the sin of consuming impure food.'

Content: Whoever pays you or paves your way in life, their quality will become your quality. Blessed are those who work under enlightened masters! Blessed are those whose boss is an enlightened master. Whoever pays you, their quality will enter into your head and become yours. Whether you believe it or not, unconsciously, you imbibe their quality. Bhishma says, 'I ate Duryodhana's food. I committed aśraya doṣa, the sin of taking food from an impure person. So, my intelligence never worked at that time. But now, because of Arjuna's arrows, because the individual consciousness has showered so many arrows of unclutching on me, all my impure blood has gone!'

Content: If you constantly unclutch from parental conditioning, thoughts that enrich parental conditioning start to leave you. Then dharma, righteous awareness, emerges from your parental conditioning. Parental conditioning can put you in depression if you are constantly influenced by the negative thoughts that it generally brings with it. Instead, if you constantly unclutch from it, the same parental conditioning can help you maintain your dharma; it will teach you dharma! That is the story of Bhishma.

Content: Bhishma is parental conditioning. He says, 'All the negative blood generated by impure food has left my body and that is why now, I can tell you what to do and what not to do.' Parental conditioning will be available to guide and help you only by the tenth day of continuously unclutching (tenth day of the Mahabharata war). It is only then that it will lose its negativity.

Content: Once you overcome parental conditioning, your book-based spiritual knowledge surfaces next for you to fight! This is logical knowledge acquired through education. It is the intellectual stuff about spirituality that has not become a direct experience for you. It is still at the intellectual level. It becomes the reason that is stopping you from surrendering to an enlightened master. You are caught in educational conditioning. At this stage, you are fighting the character Drona (Arjuna's teacher) in the war!

Content: People who have gained some spiritual knowledge through teachers or books, are unable to surrender to a living master because their previous teacher, in the form of the spiritual knowledge acquired so far, stands in front of them blocking the path to liberation. That is Drona.

Content: Let me give the essence now.

Content: The number eighteen is a mystical number. You cannot count more than eight with logic. In Satya Yuga, the first quarter of time, you could count only up to three; in Treta Yuga, the second quarter of time, you could count only up to seven; in Dwapara Yuga, the third quarter of time, you could count up to eight; in Kali Yuga, the fourth quarter of time, you started counting more than ten. Depression is sure to result if you have more than eight thoughts without going into your self-healing mode to remind you of your true nature.

Content: When the ten senses of perception and action, jñānendriya and karmendriya, are added to the eight thoughts of the mind, it leads to depression. Either you should not count up to eight thoughts or your senses should not be active. Each sense creates millions of thoughts. You need to break from this eighteen in order to be enlightened.

Content: The reference to eighteen million soldiers in the Mahabharata war is to the eighteen million thoughts in your system; eleven million on the negative side, and seven million self-healing ones. The moment you hear about a financial loss, you are depressed. It is negative. On the other hand, it is self-healing if you think, 'It does not matter,' and you let go. This attitude arises either as a click from a living master or as a self-illuminating healing thought.

Content: Arjuna represents the individual consciousness. The laziness to fight with negative thoughts is what is called tamas - our attitude that delays our own enlightenment. The body is the land for which the fight is going on between the negative and positive thoughts. One hundred brothers are cloned as one hundred negative thoughts, the Kauravas. The Pandavas are sons of Nature, from Yama, Indra, Vayu and Ashwini Kumaras. The sons of Nature are always self-healing; the cloned ones are destructive.

Content: Duryodhana is ego and possessiveness. Shakuni is cunningness. When Arjuna wonders how he can cope with these negative thoughts, he gives up in depression. He needs an enlightened master who tells him to unclutch. Arjuna, instead of owning up to his own cowardice, talks about his commitments to his family and his clan. He justifies his tamas. That is Arjuna's vishāda: his dilemma and depression. He tries to justify cowardice as compassion; compassion towards his fellow beings who are actually negative influences. Each arrow that Arjuna later shoots is one act of unclutching from the negative thoughts.

Content: Why are Bhishma and Drona, a parent and a teacher, on the negative side? Self-healing thoughts can turn negative when they are surrounded by negative thoughts. If you are caught in something that has helped you grow in the past, but over time has lost the ability to teach you more, you get stuck in it, not knowing how to go past it. That is what Drona and Bhishma represent. They are as dangerous as Duryodhana and Dussassana who are readily seen as evil. Drona taught archery and inspired Arjuna but in front of Krishna, Drona is also an enemy.

Content: Next in the war to confront Arjuna is Karna who represents charity for selfish purposes towards material ends. He could not become enlightened through 'noble' acts. He became liberated only when he surrendered everything to the enlightened master Krishna. The master takes what you give in order to liberate you. Karna's good deeds stand in the way of his own enlightenment. Krishna asked for them and liberated him! That is why, it is Karna mokṣa, liberation, and not Karna vadha, destruction.

Content: Bhishma is the embodiment of conditioning due to parents and elders. The first thing to come up when you try to unclutch is your early years of conditioning. That is why Bhishma comes up as the first commander in the war. After him comes Drona, the first teacher. After Drona was the charitable attitude, Karna. After Karna was the ego in the form of Duryodhana. This is how the leadership of the Kauravas opens up. Negative thoughts cannot stand by themselves. They need the support of Bhishma, Drona and Karna.

Content: Dharma is the morality we must hold on to even if we are unclutched. We cannot slip into immoral activities (There were several people who come to support Arjuna in the war). Bhima is courage. Sahadeva is the embodiment of knowledge. Nakula has techniques to keep our bodies fit through yoga, etc. These are all Arjuna’s supporters.

Content: Finally, he who drives the chariot of Arjuna is the master, Krishna!

Content: Your elders and teachers stand in front of you and prevent you from unclutching. Your good deeds and ego also stand in front of you. All the negativities are hiding behind these elders and good deeds. So you say, ‘I don’t want to fight; I would live by begging, but I don’t want to fight.’ Krishna tells Arjuna that these thoughts have no solid substance anyway, and all Arjuna needs to do is just shoot an arrow and act as if they need to die. When Arjuna is still not convinced with Krishna’s words, He gives him darśan, His cosmic vision. The master shows himself as all positive and negative thoughts and beyond.

Content: Gandīva is the tool that cannot be taken away from oneself. Arjuna’s unclutching is represented by his gandīva that is believed to have an inexhaustible quiver of arrows. It means that the unclutching technique cannot be taken away from you because it is your very nature.

Content: After ten days, parental conditioning becomes non-functional. It will never die, but it can be made inactive. This is what is represented by Bhishma lying on a bed of arrows, incapacitated. The Mahabharata war is over and Bhishma is lying on a bed of arrows. Bhishma teaches the Pandavas how to rule the country. Draupadi says, ‘Why don’t you keep quiet? What happened to all your righteousness when I was about to be disrobed in public?’

Content: Bhishma says, ‘I could not talk then. I was overwhelmed by negative thoughts. I was eating Duryodhana’s food. Therefore, I could not think positively. I was overwhelmed by aśraya doṣa, the sin of impure food. Arjuna’s arrows removed all the impure blood from me. Now I can think intelligently.’

Content: Parental conditioning can make you depressed. If you unclutch from it, it can guide you like how Bhishma did, and lead you into righteous awareness.

Content: These are the metaphors of Mahabharata.

Content: The master creates the war within the disciple so that he can conquer his own negativity. Until that war is started, you live in hiding, agnatavasa, without your rightful kingdom, which is enlightenment!

Content: Q: Swamiji, what is the relationship between enlightenment and personality development?

Content: Enlightenment is not about developing your personality; it is about dropping your personality. What is personality development? A bunch of thoughts that provide clicks, or shifts in our thought pattern, so that our so-called problems disappear. Those 'self-help' thoughts will be alive only for a few days. Visualization and positive thinking have power only for a few days. These may provide temporary development but never a permanent solution. Only an enlightened master can continuously provide clicks and initiations to solve your problems. Not only that, a master continues to support you even after the clicks stop working.

Content: A person who solves your problems even when the clicks stop working is an enlightened person.

Content: Any book with a click will be a bestseller. When the clicks stop working, people blame themselves to be inadequate. They don't suspect the person who provided the clicks. They consider themselves to be at fault.

Content: This is the real danger of swallowing material provided by unenlightened people. You fall into the danger of suspecting your own capability. The struggle to make an unworkable click function as a transformation technique becomes a rigorous practice, a sadhana.

Content: Q: Swamiji, what is needed to go beyond Drona, Karna and finally Duryodhana?

Content: Drona's killing required the involvement of four people - Arjuna who represents the individual consciousness; Krishna who represents the universal consciousness;

Content: Yudhishtira who represents morality; Bhima who represents courage. The moral code of not acting against the teacher has to be dropped in order to go beyond the teacher. Here, the master takes charge of the situation. He absolves Arjuna and Yudhishtira of their guilt. Unless Drona falls, you cannot be enlightened. The strategy that Krishna employs to kill Drona is: Do not tell a lie, but twist the truth enough to make it work.

Content: Understand, for me to tell you to drop your earlier bondages like your teacher, I must trust your individual consciousness so that you will not apply the same thing to me! It is a subtle game. This cannot be done verbally. Krishna tells Bhima to kill an elephant called Ashwatthama. Ashwatthama is also the name of Drona’s son, who is everything to him. Krishna tells Yudhishtira, ‘Announce that an elephant named Ashwatthama died in the war.’ When Yudhishtira says, ‘The elephant named Ashwatthama has died,’ Krishna simultaneously blows his conch so that Drona does not hear the word ‘elephant’. He only hears ‘Ashwatthama has died.’ Drona lays down his weapons in grief and gets killed.

Content: Your morality has to agree to drop Drona. Here you cross morality, society’s moral codes, for the sake of your ultimate master and enlightenment!

Content: Next is Karna, who is good, compassionate and charitable. He is goodness, satva. You think the external world and people are real and so you show compassion. But this premise is not true. The external world outside and around you is not real as you think. You think that the ‘seer’ and the objects seen are different. The shift back and forth between the seer and what is seen is the process of seeing. The person who drops this shift is the one who has renounced. The shift stops, renunciation results and enlightenment occurs. The seer dissolves out of devotion, and only the seen remains. Then enlightenment, the seeing, happens.

Content: You have to remove the weapons of compassion, such as the internal struggle with questions like, ‘Is it reasonable to work for my own enlightenment while millions of people are starving out there?’ This is a manifestation of what you perceive to be compassion. If this is your dilemma, then you are stuck in the fourteenth day of the Mahabharata War when Karna confronted Arjuna!

Content: Because of Karna’s compassionate deeds, all the arrows showered on him by Arjuna become flowers. When you are stuck in compassion, you cannot be directly killed. You are said to be in the space of heaven. But it is still not the enlightened space! A person may live a good, charitable and noble life and yet not be enlightened. They continue to live under the burden of engraved memories. Zen

Content: masters say that even if an enlightened being kills, he causes only good through it; whereas with an unenlightened being, even if he does good, he may cause harm. If this truth is understood, then one will not question Krishna's actions in the war.

Content: Krishna renders the satvic (goodness) quality of compassion harmless. Shalya, Karna's charioteer, represents spontaneity. Compassion is always driven by spontaneity. Compassion happens only when spontaneity is there. Krishna creates trouble between spontaneity and compassion. He separates Karna and Shalya - compassion and spontaneity.

Content: Goodness is the brother of Nature, but it is standing in the way of Realization! So the master says, 'Finish this goodness. You cannot be stuck with compassion; even that is an attachment.' Overcoming Bhishma is on par with becoming an ashramite (living within a spiritual community and unclutching from parental conditioning) - the first step in dropping your bondages. Going past Drona is like taking sanyās - renouncing all attachments. Going past Karna is like living enlightenment and dropping even what we traditionally consider as 'being good'. Arjuna had to go past his elder brother Yudhishtira, who was goodness personified.

Content: Finally you face your unguarded ego. You come face to face with yourself. Suddenly, you find that you do not want to stay with the master anymore. You feel disconnected from him. When you are at this stage, you are facing Duryodhana in the war. You cannot do much to break Duryodhana. The individual consciousness cannot do anything with the ego. Then, how can you fight and win?

Content: This is when you need the complete protection of the master. When the last fight between you and your ego takes place, even the master cannot work directly on you. He has to wait until the ego is tired. When people say they feel disconnected, I talk and talk and tire their intellect and ego. Suddenly the ego falls and enlightenment happens!

Content: After he falls, the blood of Duryodhana, the ego, becomes nectar, amṛta! That is why Draupadi applies it to her hair and ties her hair up, thus fulfilling a vow that she had taken. Without the ego, your logic can become an aid to teaching and preaching without ensnaring you. Without the ego, you can take guidance from parental conditioning without being influenced by it. You will find that the parental conditioning has lost its negativity and only the righteous qualities in it remain. Then you can take tips from your parents as to how to lead your life.

Content: Q: Swamiji, how do we differentiate between Drona and Sahadeva?

Content: Sahadeva was a master of astrology. Duryodhana goes to Sahadeva to fix an auspicious date to start the war. Sahadeva obliges and gives him the date, a new moon day. This means that if Duryodhana starts the war on this date, he will be victorious. Krishna is troubled since He knows that what Sahadeva says will come true. To change the course of the war, Krishna offers a traditional ancestral offering on the day before the new moon, instead of on the new moon day itself. The sun and moon are shocked. They come running together to Krishna to find out why He appears to be going against tradition.

Content: Krishna asks them, 'What is the definition for the new moon day?'

Content: They respond saying, 'It is the time when the sun and moon meet.'

Content: Krishna says, 'Are not the two of you meeting now? So this is the new moon day!'

Content: Thanks to Krishna's intervention, the war started one day in advance - the day before new moon, and Duryodhana was defeated.

Content: Sahadeva was not bothered about whether Duryodhana was victorious or was defeated. He considered it his responsibility to give him the right guidance. That is his specialty.

Content: I know that some disciples may go against me. Still I teach them and allow them in my ashram. I work on the possibility that they may benefit and be transformed. Drona will never do such a thing. That is the difference between Sahadeva and Drona.

Content: Q: Swamiji, what do Kunti and Draupadi represent?

Content: Kunti, mother of the five Pandavas, is innocent. She is the mother of individual consciousness (Arjuna). She provides a body into which the individual consciousness can land. She has no other role.

Content: Draupadi, wife of the Pandavas, is māyā or illusion. Maya is the non-reality that is perceived as reality, and which can bind you as well as liberate you. Until she is wounded, Draupadi will bind you. If she is wounded she will work on the individual consciousness to liberate you. The very home you are in may drive you

Content: to enlightenment when all the juice of life is lost. She is the sister of an enlightened master (Krishna), a subtle character. She can bind you or enlighten you. This is the meaning of the attempt made to disrobe her, which is a turning point in Mahabarata.

Content: Q: Swamiji, what are the roles of Vidura and Balarama?

Content: Vidura and Balarama are enlightened mystics who cannot help anyone. They disappear once the war begins.

Chapter Number: 1.1

Content: Dhritarashtra said: Sanjaya, What are my sons and the sons of Pandu up to, On this holy land of Kurukshetra, eager and raring to fight?

Chapter Number: 1.2

Content: Sanjaya said: Sire, Seeing the Pandava army in full formation, Duryodhana approaches his teacher, saying:

Chapter Number: 1.3

Content: My teacher, Look at the great army of the sons of Pandu, Expertly arranged by your intelligent disciple, the son of Drupada,

Chapter Number: 1.4, 1.5, 1.6

Content: Many are the heroes and mighty archers equal to Bhima and Arjuna in war; Yuyudhana, Viraata, and the great warrior Drupada, Dhristaketu, Chekitaana, and the heroic king of Kaashi; Also Purujit, Kuntibhoja, and the great man Shaibya; the valiant Yudhaamanyu, The formidable Uttamauja, the son of Subhadra, and the sons of Draupadi, all great warriors.

Chapter Number: 1.7

Content: 1.7 Best of the Brahmanas, let me tell you about the powerful leaders who command my army, so that you know.

Content: It is significant that the opening statement of this great scripture was from a blind man. He had not only lost the power of sight, but also the power of insight, the wisdom to distinguish between right and wrong.

Content: Dhritarashtra's brother Pandu handed over to him his throne, as well as the care of his five children. From the point of view of any righteous person, these five Pandava princes were Dhritarashtra's responsibility as well. However, the separation in Dhritarashtra's mind was clear when he said, 'My sons and the sons of Pandu.'

Content: 'What are they doing?' he asked Sanjaya plaintively, 'These sons of mine, the hundred Kaurava princes, and those five sons of Pandu, the Pandava princes?' He claimed no ownership of the Pandava princes and no responsibility or concern for their welfare. His concern was for his own sons.

Content: Dhritarashtra's attachment to his sons, especially the crown prince Duryodhana, had blinded his powers of reasoning. Whatever his son did received his endorsement. From early adolescence, Duryodhana had been plotting to kill his Pandava cousins. Although Dhritarashtra pretended ignorance of his son's evil deeds, he was aware of what his son was up to.

Content: Even when Duryodhana and his brother Dusshassana went to the extreme extent of disgracing Draupadi, the wife of the Pandava princes, by trying to disrobe her in public in his court, Dhritarashtra seemed powerless to act. When Duryodhana finally refused to give the Pandavas even a needlepoint of land, still Dhritarashtra kept quiet, ensuring that blood would be shed.

Content: The sad part of the tale was that Dhritarashtra was aware that he was following the path of evil and that it would result in the destruction of his clan. Yet he seemed powerless to act otherwise. Dhritarashtra's tale is common to humankind. Often, we follow wrong paths even though we know it is wrong, almost as if under a hypnotic spell. We know that the result may not be in our best interests in the long term but we can't stop ourselves. Gita, therefore, begins from this premise.

Content: It is not merely the fight between good and evil. It is far more than that. It is about our inner conflict in being unable to do the right thing, not being courageous enough to stand for what is right. It is about the lack of awareness, clarity and courage to follow the path of righteousness. It is a fight between good and evil within us, not merely the good and evil outside of us. Krishna, the Superconscious,

Content: constantly looms over our being, yet we ignore this divine call within us, caught in the illusion that what we choose to do instead will make us happy.

Content: Dhritarashtra refers to Kurukshetra, the site of this war, as a holy land or place of righteousness, dharmakṣetra. People ask, 'How can a battlefield be called a holy land?' If you study the history of humanity, you find that it has always been a battlefield. Whether these wars were morally guided or misguided is a matter of opinion. What is right for one need not be right for another.

Content: Practically every century, if not every decade, there have been battles in some part of the world. Almost all were created out of the belief that one party was morally right and the other wrong. In that sense, each battle was fought to restore righteousness, as believed by both parties. So, in that sense every battlefield was a holy site according to someone's belief, restoring the highest values and beliefs.

Content: In the case of Dhritarashtra, he had an additional reason. He implicitly recognized the divinity of Krishna, whose mere presence on this battlefield conferred upon it the mantle of righteousness. Wherever Krishna was, that was where righteousness would prevail. Even in his confused state of thinking, there was enough clarity in Dhritarashtra's mind to acknowledge the supremacy of Krishna. This revealed itself in his choice of words. It was as if, at one level, Dhritarashtra knew that the fate of his Kaurava clan was sealed.

Content: If Krishna was the epitome of righteousness, and Krishna was on the side of the Pandavas, how could the Pandavas lose? The tragic fate of Dhritarashtra was that he knew that the destruction of his clan was inevitable, and yet he was powerless to do anything about it.

Content: Sanjaya was Dhritarashtra's minister and charioteer. By the grace of sage Vyasa, Sanjaya was given the power to see whatever was going on in the battlefield, so that he could faithfully convey to king Dhritarashtra and queen Gandhari the tragic happenings therein. His third eye or centre of intuition was opened, and not only could he see what was happening at a faraway location, but he had the power of intuition as well, to know what would unfold.

Content: We are all blind in one sense or another, and Dhritarashtra represents the majority of mankind in this aspect. Blindness in this case is not only the physical inability to see. It essentially represents the inability to discriminate between right and wrong, and the absence of the desire to distinguish between right and wrong.

Content: We can all be like Sanjaya, with our third eyes open instead of being blind like Dhritarashtra. This is one of the messages of Gita. Becoming aware of our inner

Content: conflicts is the first step in opening the third eye, the energy center located between the eyebrows.

Content: Again, it is interesting the way Sanjaya started his description of the proceedings.

Content: Duryodhana was the crown prince, and for all practical purposes the king as well, since his father was both blind and powerless to stop him. Duryodhana saw the soldiers of the Pandava army arrayed in front of him. There were many ways he could have responded to the sight. As the person who single-handedly instigated this war, Duryodhana could have gloated, that surely he would vanquish his cousins. As a measure to reassure himself and his army, Duryodhana could have roared out in anger and in defiance. Yet, after seeing the army he chose to approach his teacher and mentor, Drona, one of the commanders of the Kaurava army, to seek his blessings.

Content: As we shall see, the move was to ensure that any blame for the outcome of the war would fall on Drona's shoulders. Duryodhana approaching his mentor was more to hold him responsible than to seek reassurance or blessings.

Content: This is how most people act when they go forward with a plan of action, knowing fully well that it is wrong and can lead to serious consequences. They find something or someone else to blame. It is well understood that whatever follows will be unpleasant, and what triggered it is their foolish action. Yet, there is solace in the belief that they can lay the blame on someone else, however illogical it may be.

Content: Duryodhana understood well the modern management concept of delegation. Like many managers today, he delegated so that he could abdicate responsibility.

Content: One man from the IT industry was telling me how things work in his company. He said:

Content: When a customer asks our big boss, the CEO, if we can complete a difficult project for them within a week, our CEO first sends the request to the Divisional Manager, who then sends it down to a Project Manager, who in turn sends it to a team of programmers to study the cost.

Content: When the project seems ambitious and not worth our while, we at the programmer level tell our boss, the Project Manager, 'It is impossible and foolish to take this on. There is no way we can do it in even a month.'

Content: The Project Manager then tells the Divisional Manager, 'It is a difficult and expensive project and it cannot be done within a fortnight.'

Content: The Divisional Manager in turn tells the CEO, 'It is a huge challenge and with a lot of overtime it could be done in a week.'

Content: The CEO informs the customer, 'Our company will deliver it in three days!' - thereby making the programming team responsible for it.

Content: Delegation can work miracles, as long as the person who delegates does not know what needs to be done!

Content: Duryodhana was now exhibiting his mastery in this field of management. He was aware that there was no hope to win the war. However, his greed for power and wealth blinded him to a point where he could not face reality. He wished to change reality so that he could control the outcome. He could not take responsibility for the situation as it was, since he did not know how to. All he could do was turn to his mentors and tell them they were responsible for ensuring his success.

Content: Duryodhana was blunt in his message to Drona on the battlefield. Drona was not a typical warrior. He was a brāhmaṇa, a scholar, and learned his skills of archery and warfare from his father, sage Bharadwaja. Drupada, the prince of Panchala, was a fellow disciple of Bharadwaja, and he had promised his childhood friend Drona part of his kingdom when he came to power. When Drona was in serious financial trouble and approached Drupada for help, Drupada insulted him and turned him away from his court. Drona became the teacher of the Pandava and Kaurava princes. At the end of their training, he demanded his fees as a teacher, his gurudakṣiṇā, as was the tradition. Instead of anything material, he asked them to capture Drupada and bring the king to him. Of his disciples, only Arjuna was ready to do this. Arjuna did as he was asked and brought Drupada as his prisoner of war to his guru Drona, as a gift.

Content: Drona released Drupada and handed his kingdom back. Drupada was mortified at his capture and submission to Drona. He went into deep penance and sought a child who would kill Drona. Drishtadyumna was born to Drupada as a result of this penance, and he became, ironically, a disciple of Drona along with the Pandava and Kaurava princes. Though Drona was aware of the background of Drishtadyumṇa's birth, he still accepted him as a disciple and trained him in warfare. Dhṛishtadyumna became the Commander-in-Chief of the Pandava army in this great war, and Drona was one of the opposing Commanders in the Kaurava army.

Content: Duryodhana pointedly referred to Drona's lack of foresight in training his potential killer, who now led the opposing army. It was as though he was warning Drona not to be so trusting again and not to go easy on the opponent, who was once his student. Duryodhana then pointed out the other great Pandava warriors,

Content: such as Bhima and Arjuna, who too were students of Drona, as well as a number of other great warriors fighting for the Pandavas. Duryodhana then decided to explain to Drona about the great warriors on the Kaurava side. Duryodhana was no longer a disciple addressing his mentor. It was as if Duryodhana had hired Drona as a mercenary to wage a battle for him. Duryodhana alternately berated Drona for having trained the warriors of the opposing army and then pacified him by listing him at the head of his own great warriors.

Content: Duryodhana was totally confused. He started off praising the strength of the Pandava army. This was not because he genuinely wanted to, but mainly to point out to Drona the mistakes Duryodhana felt Drona had committed.

Content: At one level, as a kṣatriya, Duryodhana did not have respect for Drona, a brāhmaṇa scholar; he felt that a brāhmaṇa had no business engaging in warfare. However, knowing the skill of Drona as a warrior, Duryodhana had no choice but to keep him on his side; it would have been too dangerous for Duryodhana if Drona were to take sides with the Pandava princes.

Content: At another level, Duryodhana had no trust in Drona. He always felt that Drona was partial to the Pandava princes and that Arjuna was his favorite. Duryodhana knew in his heart that given the choice, Drona would not support him. He knew that Drona had no respect for him, and considered him to be in the wrong. He also knew that Drona held Krishna in great esteem and did not believe that Duryodhana could succeed in this war.

Content: Duryodhana was in deep inner conflict. He had no sense of guilt going to war against his brethren, as he desperately wanted to keep the kingdom for himself and did not believe that he would be safe as long as the Pandava princes were alive. His problem was not one of doing right or wrong. Whatever he did was right, according to him. He was not a man given to deep thinking.

Content: However, Duryodhana had no trust in many of the great warriors who had taken his side. He knew that many, especially Drona, Bhishma, and Kripa, who were also the teachers of the Pandava princes, did not want to fight the Pandava army. He knew that they were compelled from a moral standpoint to fight for him and not as directed by their consciousness. This was the source of his conflict and uncertainty.

Content: It was also strange that at the beginning of the war Duryodhana chose to go to Drona, and not Bhishma, his great grandfather and Commander-in-Chief. It was as if Duryodhana was afraid to tell Bhishma what he said to Drona.

Content: Drona was a subject of the king, to whom Duryodhana could talk abrasively. Bhishma, on the other hand, was his great grandfather, the one who had given up his chance to be king to fulfill his own father's moral obligations, and to satisfy his father's lust. There was no way that Duryodhana could have said the same words to Bhishma at this stage of the war.

Content: Duryodhana was not yet feeling desperate enough about the situation to confront Bhishma. At a later stage in the war, when it became clearer that the Kaurava army was in deep trouble, Duryodhana approached Bhishma and blamed him for being partial to the Pandava princes.

Content: Q: Swamiji, you talked about people who are physically blind and people who see yet are still blinded by ignorance. If a great king like Dhritarashtra could be blinded by his love for his son, how can ordinary mortals be any better?

Content: Dhritarashtra is a metaphor for the rest of humanity in the same way as the Mahabharata is a metaphor for life. One can learn to cope with physical blindness, although with difficulty. One is aware of one's blindness and takes the necessary action to circumvent any limitations imposed by this affliction.

Content: Psychological blindness is far more difficult to cope with. Most of the time, you are not even aware that you are blind. There lies the problem. You can only look for a solution if you know that you have a problem. If you are unaware, you think you are normal and that all the problems you face as a result are normal too.

Content: Look around you. There are many examples that you can see in real life. To many parents, their children can do no wrong, even when they are confronted with evidence.

Content: A father once narrated a real life incident to me:

Content: He borrowed money so that his intelligent son could attend a top boarding school in India. Even though it was a financial burden, the father wanted to ensure that his son was educated in the best school and could mix with children of well-connected and rich parents.

Content: The son also excelled in sports and was even a captain of several teams. In his pre-final year at school, the warden in the hostel caught him with drugs and the young man was expelled. The father tried his best to prevent the expulsion,

Content: but could not succeed. His son told him he was innocent, even though the warden and other children told the father that his son had a drug-related problem.

Content: The boy was kept at home and went to a local school. Again teachers reported to the parents that the boy kept bad company and that they should be careful. The son told his father a different story. The father believed the son and refused to take him for the prescribed treatment.

Content: Today this young man is over twenty-five years old. He barely managed to scrape through college, and cannot stick to any job and is a burden to the parents. He still has a drug problem, and yet the father finds it difficult to accept it and take him for treatment.

Content: Is this an unusual incident? No, not at all. In many households there are similar issues with a child, where the parents find it impossible to face the reality of the situation. Reality is too harsh and they prefer to hide behind lies, often knowing that these are lies.

Content: Why? Why are there so many Dhritarashtras amongst us? One prominent reason is that we employ denial to protect our ego. Other people may know that the son is a drug addict, but once the father accepts it, it becomes a publicly acknowledged fact. Until then, even if the rest of the world talks about it, he can hide under a bunch of lies and feel that all is well. Taking the child for treatment is like accepting the problem, which will result in shame and the need to accept some measure of responsibility, as the father sees it.

Content: Social acceptance is of paramount importance for most people. If they lose that, they lose everything. Their entire life depends upon recognition and acceptance. People have such a low opinion of themselves or place such a low value on their own judgments that they act upon what others say or think. They dance to other peoples’ tunes.

Content: From childhood we are trained and conditioned not to believe in ourselves. We are forever told to do this or that, or more often not to do that or this. Children are rewarded if they obey and punished if they do not. They don’t have a choice. Only the most rebellious of children may get away with what he or she chooses to do. For most others it is better, simpler and safer just to conform.

Content: This basic acceptance of what your parents and elders decide as right and wrong for you carries over into adult life. Your role and path in life is defined for you as a child. You are given a manual of do’s and dont’s for life. This manual may be a list of ten, or one hundred or a thousand commandments.

Content: This is the reason why most people are lifeless and dull. You are brought up... actually brought down from childhood, from the natural joy and curiosity of a child, to the dull state of an adult who can only live with the help of a manual. You are afraid to do anything that is not in the manual. You are scared to do anything that is different from what you are used to doing. You feel safe and secure only if you follow certain patterns.

Content: Some people will occupy the same place at the dining table throughout their life. They will shop at the same places in their neighborhood. They will be proud that they have only a few selected friends throughout their life. Such people are already dead while they are still living.

Content: If we think deeply, it is a simple reflection of our own insecurity. We are so afraid even to take the risk of changing our position at the dinner table, or adding to our circle of friends or considering a new routine. We are frozen in time and space. Of course, this will give us comfort; but this is the comfort of the dead. We become like buffaloes wallowing in the same spot in the mud, come what may. The buffalo is so conditioned that it will go back to that same spot. It is an animal and follows its instincts, but what about us?

Content: Our habit is to establish ourselves in an identity and then get bound by that identity. We dare not question who we really are. The role that we play and the position that we have assigned to ourselves, or whatever society has assigned to us, becomes the most important thing in our life. To break that is to lose society's respect. That is truly worse than death for many of us.

Content: There are people who say that honor is more important than life; death over dishonor was a favorite motto of some kings. Does anyone stop to think about the meaning of honor? Who defines honor for you? Why is the life and joy of a daughter less important than the opinion of society? Why does the character of a wife have to be defined by what a passerby says?

Content: Honor is a code that society lays down to control us through fear and greed. It is a moral code, a code of conscience, a code being imposed from outside. It is not a voice from your inner space. It is not a signal from your consciousness.

Content: Be very clear, conscience is not consciousness. Conscience is a convenient anchor for you to hang feelings of guilt upon. If you do not punish your daughter or wife because they seem to be violating your societal code, you would feel guilty. You justify your inhumanity by your need to absolve yourself of societal guilt.

Content: When we operate in this mode we operate under assumptions of some duty that we owe to life and society. Life does not expect us to fulfill any obligations on its

Content: behalf, but society does. There is no duty that we owe to anybody - to our spouses, sons and daughters, parents or anyone else. As long as we operate in a mode of being obligated, we behave in a business mode, on a conditional basis.

Content: When we shift to unconditional relationships, there is no such thing as duty. When you do things out of deep awareness and without expectation of reward, the word duty will leave you forever.

Content: It is a responsibility that we have as human beings to be compassionate towards others, and in that mode of compassion we can never harm anyone or tolerate harm coming to another. When we operate out of compassion, we operate out of intelligence. When we operate out of a need to fulfill some duty or moral obligation, we operate out of blind conditioning. We operate without awareness.

Content: That is what Dhritarashtra does here. In addition to being visually handicapped, he is also burdened by his duty to his sons, especially his eldest. After all, Duryodhana is the crown prince and as his father, Dhritarashtra feels he owes the prince his support irrespective of what harm he causes.

Content: Unfortunately for him, Dhritarashtra never transcends the role of dutiful love towards his son. If Dhritarashtra's boundaries of compassion had extended beyond Duryodhana to cover others, such as the Pandava princes, this epic would have ended differently.

Content: We too can have a different ending to our life's story if we expand the boundaries of our relationships with awareness. Our eyes will be truly opened. We will not only see but we will see intelligently too.

Content: This attitude has nothing to do with one's position in life. It depends only on whether we allow ourselves to be blinded by ignorance, by what we consider to be our duty based on societal regulations, or whether we act in awareness of our true responsibilities in life.

Chapter Number: 1.8

Content: 1.8 You, Bhishma, Karna, Kripa, Aswatthama, Vikarna and the son of Somadatta,

Content: All always victorious in battle.

Chapter Number: 1.9

Content: 1.9 Many other heroes there are who are prepared to lay down their lives for my sake; all well equipped with different weapons, and well experienced in warfare.

Chapter Number: 1.10

Content: 1.10 Our unlimited army is protected by Grandsire Bhishma,

Content: Their limited army is protected by Bhima.

Chapter Number: 1.11

Content: 1.11 Now all of you, wherever you are positioned,

Content: Promise full protection to Bhishma.

Chapter Number: 1.12

Content: 1.12 Bhishma, the mighty patriarch of the Kuru dynasty and grandsire,

Content: Then blew upon his conch loudly, roaring like a lion and Duryodhana was joyful.

Content: Duryodhana was a coward by nature, suffering from a deep inferiority complex and a strong need for attention. He had always been threatened by the fact that his Pandava cousins were superior to him and his brothers. He was especially afraid of Arjuna and Bhima, who were physically stronger and more skilled than him. Like all bullies through the ages, Duryodhana was only afraid of being overpowered by someone whose physical power was greater than his own.

Content: Duryodhana felt secure only when surrounded by cronies. His strength and valor arose from the feeling of being supported by his clan and the army around him. On the positive side, Duryodhana was an extremely generous friend who gave

Content: his all for the sake of someone he trusted. This quality had attracted strong men like Karna to him who swore undying loyalty. Even though Karna knew that Arjuna was his own brother, all he could say to his mother Kunti was that she would finally be left with five sons, implying that one of her sons, either Arjuna or Karna, would perish in the war. Such was the loyalty that Duryodhana evoked in his friends.

Content: Duryodhana now rightly went on to claim that there were a number of people, who were great warriors, who would willingly lay down their lives for him. These warriors might have been aware that Duryodhana was an immortal person, but such was their commitment to him that it did not matter.

Content: Duryodhana then began to boost his own morale by saying that the power of the Kaurava army led by Bhishma was immense, whereas the Pandava army with Bhima as one of the commanders was limited in power. Duryodhana's reference to Bhima alongside Bhishma was due to the fear that he had, of the oath that Bhima had taken - to break Duryodhana's thigh and drink his blood to avenge the insult to Draupadi. Duryodhana knew in his heart that this would happen and the only factor that could prevent it would be the protection of Bhishma.

Content: Duryodhana then addressed the Kaurava army, exhorting them to support their Commander-in-Chief Bhishma. In response, Bhishma blew his conch like a lion, making Duryodhana joyful.

Content: Bhishma was the first Kaurava Commander-in-Chief and Duryodhana wanted to make sure that the entire Kaurava army was committed to his leadership. In the past, Duryodhana had not hidden his feelings that Bhishma was partial to the Pandavas. Now, however, the die was cast, and Bhishma, the greatest warrior either side had known, was leading the Kaurava army. Duryodhana wanted to take no chances that his past hatred towards Bhishma would affect his assembled supporters.

Content: In some ways Duryodhana had no choice. Though he knew that Bhishma, as well as Drona, would have gone with the Pandava princes and Krishna had they not been bound by their strong bonds of duty, he could not afford to antagonize them.

Content: Bhishma was the grand sire and patriarch of the Pandava and Kaurava clan. Bhishma was born to Ganga as Devavrata. He was the only surviving son of eight sons whom Ganga had given birth to. When his father king Shantanu wanted to marry Satyavati, a daughter of a fisherman, Devavrata swore never to marry so that his stepmother Satyavati's children could have access to his father's throne.

Content: Satyavati was the grandmother of both Pandu and Dhritarashtra. Bhishma was highly respected for his valor and sagacity. It is one of the greatest ironies of Mahabharata that wise men like Bhishma and Drona chose to be on Duryodhana's side, knowing fully well that whatever path Duryodhana was following was morally incorrect.

Content: In the highest spiritual sense there is no right or wrong morally. Everything is neutral. Bhishma and Drona were not ordinary people. They were highly learned in the scriptural truths. Moreover, they were fully aware that Krishna was an incarnation, and the very fact that Krishna sided with the Pandavas was a clear indication to them as to how the war would unfold. As great warriors themselves, they had no fears about their own deaths; and more importantly they had no guilt about what they had embarked upon.

Content: Men like Bhishma and Drona, as well as others such as Kripacharya, trusted their awareness. Duryodhana was their prince and they were committed to him. They were not concerned about the result of the war; to them it was a certainty that Duryodhana would perish and they would too, along with him. In fact, there is a point in the war when Krishna was greatly angered at the rout that Bhishma was causing in the Pandava army and unhappy at the deferential way Arjuna was treating Bhishma. Krishna got down from Arjuna's chariot that He was driving and advanced menacingly towards Bhishma.

Content: Bhishma instantly laid down his arms, joined his palms in prayer to the advancing Krishna who was wielding His sudarśana cakra, the divine discus weapon on His finger, and greeted Him. 'Lord, it will be the greatest blessing for me to die at Your hands.'

Content: To these great warriors, dying on the battlefield was the duty of a kṣatriya, a warrior. What was more important to them was that they were rooted in the awareness of the present moment, carrying out their duty. They weren't concerned with the righteousness of Duryodhana's motives. Their awareness transcended the moral rights and wrongs established by society and religion. They disapproved of Duryodhana's insult of the Pandava princes and Draupadi in the court but did not protest. They disapproved of Duryodhana's instigation of this war and yet took his side, knowing fully well that what lay ahead was destruction.

Content: This was not foolishness or resignation. This was surrender to the inevitable, surrender to the Divine. At the level of their consciousness, these great masters allowed Nature to take its own course, and allowed themselves to be swept along with the tide.

Content: To relax and allow whatever happens to happen is the sure sign of an evolved spirit. Ordinary human beings have the freedom to think, choose and act. As a result, they think they are in control of their destinies. In a sense they are; they make their decisions and act upon them. But it is their unconscious saṁskāras, the memories, value systems and beliefs that drive them into and through all these decisions.

Content: A cycle is created as the saṁskāras lead to certain actions and those actions in turn mould their mental set-up and reinforce these saṁskāras. Yet, a human being has the choice to break out of this cycle and live in freedom from his saṁskāras.

Content: It is our constant conflict with Nature that leads to our suffering. We believe that we act out of intelligence, when most of the time our actions are driven by instinct, the unconsciousness where the saṁskāras reside. The unconscious mind operates at a much higher speed and stores far more data than our conscious mind. Typically, if the unconscious mind is capable of storing and accessing 60 million images within a short time, the conscious mind during the same period can process 60 at best. The speed of the unconscious mind has been designed by Nature to cope with life or death issues. Unfortunately, this system gets misused for all other mundane issues as well.

Content: If we learn to flow with Nature, like the reeds in a river, as they say in Tao, we will always do the right thing. We suffer when we resist Nature and therefore limit our options. There are two ways to live life. One is to accept the world and life as it is, what in Sanskrit is termed sṛṣṭi dṛṣṭi. The other way is to try to make circumstances evolve according to our viewpoint, called dṛṣṭi sṛṣṭi.

Content: The first attitude, one of acceptance, brings happiness; the second, one of resistance, brings suffering. No one can change the world according to his viewpoint. It is an exercise doomed to encounter failure.

Content: In our lives, we cannot even change the attitude of our neighbor or our spouse.

Content: At best, we can transform ourselves, that's all.

Content: All talk about revolutionizing the world is just useless talk. No revolution has ever succeeded in bringing about any significant, positive change. Revolutionaries who claim that they are against dictatorship become dictators themselves. That has always been history.

Content: Ironically, an enlightened master has no such freedom. He is a faithful channel of the universal energy, Parāśakti, the divine Existence. Every move and every

Content: thought is at the behest of the Divine. An enlightened being is beyond choice. An enlightened being is in complete surrender to the Divine.

Content: The scale that is applied to ordinary humans cannot measure the motives and actions of an enlightened being. Their actions are taken in a no-mind, thought-free state that flows constantly in the present, with no expectations of what may happen in the future and no regrets about what happened in the past. Their actions may seem immoral or at least strange when perceived through the lens of the rules and regulations of society. But they are beyond society.

Content: Bhishma was of divine origin, the son of Ganga. He had the gift of living as long as he wanted and to die when he wanted. His integrity and morality were the standard for his era. Yet Bhishma kept quiet when Draupadi was attempted to be disrobed and insulted. He did not act when Duryodhana denied the Pandava princes even a patch of land. He chose to fight for Duryodhana.

Content: However, when Duryodhana requested him to lead the Kaurava army, Bhishma told him that the Pandava princes were as dear to him as Duryodhana was, and while he would wage war against their army, he could not take their lives. This was the condition under which Bhishma agreed to fight against the Pandava army on Duryodhana’s behalf.

Content: Bhishma had repeatedly counseled Duryodhana against his evil deeds towards the Pandava princes and Duryodhana was aware of how Bhishma opposed his acts. Yet, in this instance, Bhishma’s compassion for Duryodhana overcame his distaste for his actions and behavior. Bhishma understood the desperate fears running through Duryodhana’s mind and felt the need to reassure him.

Content: In response to these exaggerated claims of Duryodhana, Bhishma blew his conch as a sign of resounding affirmation of whatever had been said by Duryodhana. Sanjaya said that Bhishma’s conch sounded like the roar of a lion, coming from the oldest and the bravest of all the warriors assembled on the battlefield. It was also an affirmation of Bhishma’s own support to the Kaurava prince and the signal for the war to begin. Bhishma’s conch was a celebratory signal, seeking victory.

Content: Q: Swamiji, how can there be no right and wrong in what we do? Can we then do whatever we wish without fear? Need someone have no fear of the hereafter if one is powerful enough to overcome societal authority?

Content: At the highest spiritual level, at the level of Existence, right and wrong do not happen in the way we think. Nature does not follow our societal rules of right and wrong. This is why we are often in anger and sorrow when thousands are destroyed in natural calamities or when young ones die in accidents.

Content: We say Nature is cruel. We ask, 'Does God exist? God is supposed to be compassionate. How can He allow these things to happen?'

Content: We have no understanding of how Nature operates. Nature just is. It does not accept any conditions known to our logic. People only dimly understand the laws of Nature.

Content: Let us imagine a situation where you are driving a car and you run over an anthill. The car destroys a whole colony of ants. Would you have even noticed it? You would drive on without being aware of what havoc you had caused upon this colony of ants. Had you run into a moose or a deer, you certainly would have known because your car would have been damaged, but not so with an anthill.

Content: Nature takes as much notice of us as we do of ants. The frequencies are different, just like how our size and frequency are different from those of ants. Enlightened beings operate at the frequency of Existence. They follow the laws of Nature, not of humans. When I said there is no right and wrong in Nature, it applies at the level of Existence and enlightened masters.

Content: It is true that at the level of human beings you need to have guidelines of right and wrong, of what to do and what not to do. But be careful. When these are enforced without understanding they will never work. Most of the regulations laid down by many religions are beyond understanding. One religion says you cannot eat pork. Another prohibits beef and yet another stipulates that everything can be and must be eaten. One religion says that you can marry only once and must stay with that spouse for the duration of your life. Another says you can leave one spouse and take another; some say you can be married to four at a time.

Content: Different religions say contradictory things about what is right and wrong, and they have different gods and different versions of heaven and hell. It is as if each religion issues a different passport and visa when you die!

Content: If one thinks about all this with awareness, the underlying reasons will become clear. The rights and wrongs that society and religions lay down have nothing to do with the truth of existential reality. These regulations, which define our conduct, be they right or wrong, are in place for the sake of self-preservation. It is like saying, 'I agree not to kill you and in turn you agree not to kill me.' This is

Content: gradually extended across society. Such regulations are needed to provide safety to all those who live within that society.

Content: What about those actions that extend beyond the individual? When one group attacks another group and kills its people, with or without provocation, how can you justify it? When you kill someone else in defense of your country you are called patriotic, and you are celebrated as a hero. But you are still a murderer! If the murder is carried out in the name of patriotism, does it become justifiable?

Content: Throughout the history of mankind there have been hundreds, if not thousands of wars. In each war the victor was always considered to be in the right. All these wars were in defense of so-called noble principles. Whoever won had a nobler principle, that's all. If Hitler had won world War II, history would have been rewritten and he would have been a hero.

Content: It is as the Tao says: There is no right and wrong, no good and bad, no light and darkness. Everything that is terribly wrong has something right in it for someone. Everything wonderfully right has something wrong in it for someone. Such is the truth of life.

Content: What has been considered right at one point in time and space, is considered wrong at another point in time and space. What is considered absolutely incorrect at one time becomes universally acceptable in another era. At one time in India, it was considered a duty and an honor for a woman to commit suicide by walking into the funeral pyre of her dead husband. If she did not voluntarily walk into the pyre, she was forcibly burnt. At one time, so-called witches were burnt at the stake and it was considered justifiable. Today these acts are considered barbaric aberrations.

Content: Fundamental, existential truths cannot oscillate between right and wrong. They have to be one or the other at all times and in all space. Unfortunately, in the true existential sense, there is no such definition. It is simply because Existence does not operate that way. Existence is random, truly random. Randomness cannot be differentiated as right random and wrong random.

Content: Human nature is such that whenever rules are made, the first impulse is to break the rule. This impulse is deeply rooted in us and is part of our desire to be free of all bondages. If there is a speed limit, and if you do not see a cop, you will speed. If you happen to get caught speeding and you are in a country where corruption is an acceptable practice, you may try to wriggle your way out through a bribe.

Content: One can understand a child doing such a thing. A child is driven by curiosity and does things that may seem dangerous and incorrect to an adult. But why does a conditioned adult break rules? First of all he does not believe that the rule applies to him. He is perfectly happy to have the rule applied to everyone except himself. Each man and woman would like to be free from rules that bind them, but want them to be applied to others so that they can be free from interference.

Content: Anything that you do out of a sense of duty to your conscience is always forced, because it is based only on what you have been taught as right or wrong. Because it is forced, you will always want to break away in some way or other from some of those rules. It is only when you consider something to be right or wrong based upon a deep internal awareness, that you do it with earnestness. You do it because something deep inside you tells you it is the right thing to do. Conscience is societal. consciousness is natural.

Content: As an adult, whatever you do must be done in awareness, not out of force.

Content: Unfortunately, we always get caught in this game of choosing between right and wrong. We are conditioned from early childhood to play this game. Our emotional strings are controlled as if by a master puppeteer, through greed and fear. It could be our temple telling us that if we covet our neighbor's wife we will go to hell. Or it could be our legal system that tells us that if we do not pay taxes we will go to jail.

Content: We are invariably ruled either by fear or by greed. Fear and greed are embedded deeply into our psyche through conditioned mindsets of good and bad. Be very clear, it is not the conscious mind directing us, not at all. It is the unconscious mind driving us through embedded memories, memories that we have limited access to.

Content: If we act out of greed, we have temporary pleasure. Often, even that pleasure is tinged with guilt. For example, if you give alms to a beggar, you will wonder at the back of your mind whether you are doing the right thing, or possibly supporting one of their bad habits. You will wonder if you are encouraging other able-bodied people to beg. If the beggar is disabled, you will remember stories about how children are maimed and used by beggar mafia in some countries! For every well-intentioned action, your mind can bring up at least a few arguments against it.

Content: Our concepts of right and wrong seem absolute to us, or at least absolute in relation to our conditioning. First, we need to drop our judgment about something or someone being right or wrong. We are no one to judge and in any case, our

Content: judgments are based purely upon our own social conditioning. God Almighty does not judge, contrary to what religions may say. So we can very well drop our negativities first. Then we will realize that our impressions about other people's negativities will also drop. We will start seeing good in each person and in every situation.

Content: Second, we need to raise our awareness through meditation. We need to look inwards and connect with our consciousness. There is no other way for us to understand and accept the ways of Nature. There is no absolute right or wrong in Nature. Nature just flows. With meditation, we too learn to flow.

Content: As you flow, you learn to act in awareness. You learn to extend a helping hand to a passerby even if it seems to involve personal danger. Actually, you will fall so much in tune with Existence that you won't even feel that there is any danger that can threaten you. You will begin to experience that everything is happening only for the good.

Content: One of our healers told us this incident recently.

Content: As he was walking to a meeting he passed a man lying face down on the road. Normally he would have walked by, and he almost did. Then something strange happened. He thought of me and his legs couldn't move! They in fact moved backwards to the spot where the man lay. Despite the delay, he stayed till an ambulance came to pick up the man.

Content: This is not about right and wrong. This is about awareness. This is not about what others would say or do. He said, a few hundred people passed by looking and not doing anything. If so many people chose to do nothing, then some would consider the right action based on that alone, is it not? But for the person who stopped to help, the correct action was to be of service.

Content: There are people who interpret their religious scriptures to mean that they can destroy those who do not believe in their God or their principles. How can you call these people or their religious leaders who encourage this attitude spiritual? There are millions, perhaps billions, who believe this implicitly and therefore act without awareness. How can spirituality be exclusive? It is never exclusive. It is inclusive, always inclusive. This divisiveness is what causes the collective unconsciousness to rise in our society.

Content: Whenever something is collective, it will be from the unconscious. It can never be from awareness. To be in consciousness, you need to work individually. Conscience can be collective; consciousness is the path of aloneness.

Content: Do not worry about what others say about right and wrong, including me. That is my awareness, not yours. Go into your inner space and find out your own answers through a process of connecting with your awareness. Only then can you be free from your bondages of fear and greed, as well as guilt. Only then will you be liberated.

Chapter Number: 1.13

Content: 1.13 Conches, bugles, trumpets, drums and horns all suddenly sounded, Their combined sound rending the skies.

Chapter Number: 1.14

Content: 1.14 Seated on a magnificent chariot drawn by white horses, Krishna and Arjuna sounded their divine conches.

Chapter Number: 1.15

Content: 1.15 Krishna blew on His conch, the Panchajanya; Arjuna sounded the Devadatta, and Bhima sounded his great conch called Paundra.

Chapter Number: 1.16, 17, 18

Content: 1.16, 17, 18 King Yudhishtira, the son of Kunti, blew his conch, the Anantavijaya, Nakula and Sahadeva blew the Sughosha and Manipushpaka. That great archer, the king of Kashi, the great fighter Shikhandi, Drishtadyumna, Virata and the invincible Satyaki, Drupada, the sons of Draupadi, and the others, Such as the mighty-armed son of Subhadra all sounded their conches.

Content: Conches, called śankha in Sanskrit, are the shells of mollusks that live in the sea. From time immemorial, Hindu scriptures have referred to the use of conches during ritualistic, devotional and celebratory occasions. In general, a conch was blown to signify obeisance to the Divine or royalty, or in celebration of an auspicious and victorious occasion. Blowing the conch signified joy.

Content: It is said that the valampuri śankha, the conch that describes a right hand spiral, has exceptional supernatural properties. Blowing into a valampuri śankha produces the sound auṁ, the pranava mantra, which is the sound of creation. Experiments have

Content: shown that when the sound of auṁ is recorded digitally, the shape of the sound wave is a spiral similar to that of a valampuri śankha!

Content: Each of the great warriors in the Mahabharata war had his own personal conch, and each one's signature was the sound produced by his conch. Most of the great warriors also had their own flags that flew on their chariots and their weapons, especially their bows, had great spiritual significance. They were often bestowed upon the warrior by the Divine after a long penance. It is said that even if his flag were masked by dust and distance, Arjuna's presence in any part of the battlefield would be known by the sound of his conch and the twang of his bow!

Content: When Bhishma blew his conch in support of Duryodhana, the response was tumultuous on both sides. Every warrior on the battlefield took out his conch and blew his signature note. Of all the sounds that emanated at that moment, a few were heard above the rest. Krishna sounded his Pañcajan ya, the conch of Vishnu. The sound of Krishna's Pañcajanya drowned out all other sounds on the battlefield. It was the announcement for all that the Divine was already present with the Pandava army.

Content: Vyasa, through Sanjaya, says that Krishna sounded His divine conch. This is significant since Vyasa attributes divinity only to Krishna's conch, not to anyone else's. He refers to Krishna as Madhava, and later as Hrishikesha. Madhava signifies that Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu, who is the husband of Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and fortune. In this context, it signifies that whoever Krishna sides with would be invincible. Krishna is then referred to as Hrishikesha, controller of the senses, the superconscious, who has created the māyā, the illusion that is this great war of Mahabharata.

Content: Vyasa implies that all that happens is a creation of Krishna. For what purpose? He alone knows. The Divine truly has no purpose. The Divine IS, that's all.

Content: Krishna was Arjuna's charioteer. The chariot was a blessing from Agni, the fire god. This chariot was said to be capable of traversing all the three worlds. His bow Gāṇḍīva was also a gift from Agni. Arjuna is referred to as Dhananjaya, winner of wealth, in reference to his ability to generate the wealth needed by his brother Yudhishti ra.

Content: Not to be outdone, Bhima blew on his conch Paundra, a fearsome sound that invoked dread amongst the Kaurava army. Here Bhima is called Vrikodara, one with the stomach of a wolf; Bhima was forever hungry and ate more than all his

Content: brothers combined, and yet had a lean and flat stomach of a wolf, and like that predator, he was feared by his enemies for his strength and anger.

Content: Bhima's conch was followed by that of the other three Pandava princes, Yudhishtira, Nakula and Sahadeva and then by the great warriors, Drupada, Virata, Satyaki, Shikhandi, Dhrishtadyumna, Abhimanyu and others, all blowing their conches in celebration of their impending victory.

Content: Each of these warriors had a great history. Yudhishtira, the eldest of the Pandava princes, was born to his mother Kunti through the grace of Yama, the god of justice and death, and was universally known as Dharmaraja, the king of truth, as he was never known to tell a lie. Nakula and Sahadeva were born to Madri, the second wife of Pandu, through the grace of the Ashwini Kumaras, celestial beings.

Content: Drupada, the king of Panchala, was the father of Drishtadyumna and Draupadi, wife of the Pandavas. Drishtadyumna was born to Drupada, when he prayed to Shiva to give him a son who would match Drona in valor and vanquish him in battle. Virata was the king in whose kingdom the five Pandava princes and Draupadi spent a year in hiding. His daughter married Abhimanyu, Arjuna's son by Subhadra, Krishna's sister.

Content: Shikhandi was born as Bhishma's nemesis, when Amba, a princess whom Bhishma captured as a bride for his stepbrother Vichitravirya, immolated herself to be reborn to avenge her shame.

Content: It is as if Sanjaya, the narrator of the incidents of war, repeatedly tries to impress upon the blind king Dhritarashtra the caliber of the Pandava warriors and their glorious antecedents, so that the shock of the impending disaster to the Kuru clan of Dhritarashtra would not be so unexpected. Sanjaya specifically refers to these warriors as 'aparājita', invincible, always victorious in whatever task they undertook, with the clear implication that they would be victorious in this war that they had embarked upon as well.

Content: It is significant that Bhishma's conch, which was sounded by him as the Commander-in-Chief of the Kaurava army, to signify the beginning of the war, was responded to by Krishna, and not by Drishtadyumna, the Pandava Commander-in-Chief, or any of the other Pandava princes. Krishna's was a response, not a reaction to the challenge issued by Bhishma. It was an acceptance of the fact that whatever was thrown at the Pandava army was being accepted by Him, Divinity Incarnate.

Content: Krishna, as the superconscious guide of the Pandava princes, absolves them of any guilt or wrongdoing by taking upon Himself the responsibility for whatever is to happen. The rest of the Pandava army, including Arjuna, follow His lead by blowing their conches.

Content: Q: Is the Mahabharata war a conflict of egos? If so, is there good ego and bad ego?

Content: This is a beautiful question. As I mentioned in the introduction, Mahabharata is not a fight between what is good and what is evil. In a spiritual sense there is nothing that is absolutely good or inherently evil. As you said, not only may it be a mix, as Tao puts it, but more importantly, Existence is nonjudgmental. Whatever happens just happens and in turn causes something else to happen.

Content: Mahabharata is the metaphorical war between the positive and negative beliefs, thoughts and value systems collectively termed saṁskāras. The nearest equivalent English word may be 'engrams', engraved memories that lie deep in our unconscious mind. These engrams trigger what we call karmas, action arising out of unfulfilled desires. They are responsible for the mindset or vāasanas that cling to the spirit departing the dead body-mind system.

Content: To be free of engraved memories, unfulfilled desires and the mindset arising out of these is the route to liberation and bliss. This state when one is free of saṁskāras, vāasanas and karmas is the state of enlightenment. Krishna’s prescription to Arjuna is the process that leads to this enlightenment. That is the yoga, the uniting of mind, body and spirit without a trace of these negative and positive tendencies within us, which is the message of the Gita.

Content: The simplest way to this uniting that results in bliss is the clear understanding of jīva, īshvara and jagat - self, God and the world - and that they are one and the same.

Content: We are all a creation of the interaction between these three entities. When we celebrate their existence, all three will reveal their mysteries to us. Please understand that this is not a moral advice. It is a spiritual technique.

Content: We will never be able to realize our Self, understand ourselves, until we accept ourselves and celebrate what we are. As long as we are fighting with what we are, we will never be able to realize our self, jīva.

Content: Usually we carry two identities, one is ahankāra, outer ego, and the other is mamakāra, inner ego. Outer ego is the identity that we present to the world, project to the world. This is how we want the world to see us. The other is inner ego. This is the identity we truly believe to be us.

Content: Our whole life is nothing but the fight between these outer and inner egos. The struggle between you and you eats your whole life. Stop. Just accept and celebrate whatever you are. You will see that you are realizing the Self. The self-realization is postponed again and again just because of the fight between you and you. The moment you stop fighting, suddenly you see both the identities disappear into the realization that outer and inner egos exist just because of the tension between them. Whatever you are, accept it and say a resounding 'yes' to yourself as you are. Suddenly you will see that both these egos just disappear. Accept and celebrate the existence of your Self as it is. Neither do you need to develop the self in the outer world, nor do you need to develop it in the inner world. Accept and celebrate, suddenly you will see the Self will be realized.

Content: Next, let us look at jagat, the world. Understand that all the difficulties and problems between you and the world are just because you do not look at the world as a mystery. Continuously you are trying to overrule the world with your logic. You are trying to understand the world with your intellect, instead of celebrating, instead of accepting, and instead of enjoying. You are just analyzing, segregating and trying to bring it under your control. If you are continuously using your logic, analyzing and judging, trying to bring things under your control, you will miss it. Just accept and celebrate Existence, Nature, the world, with all its different dimensions and paradoxes.

Content: Do not judge. Continuously we keep judging that something is right, or something is wrong. We feel that something is supposed to happen or something is not supposed to happen. Understand: whatever happens is auspicious. In Sanskrit, the word Shiva, that refers to the god of rejuvenation and one of the Hindu trinity, means causeless auspiciousness, it is also called maṅgalatva. For no reason, this auspiciousness is overflowing. Everything that is happening in your life is increasing your frequency, raising your intelligence. Causeless expansion is happening.

Content: In the whole world there are only two kinds of people living. One, the person who feels that whatever is happening in the world is against his will and has to be changed. He is constantly trying to alter, trying to judge, trying to criticize things happening in the world. There is another group, a rare group that feels that

Content: whatever is happening is causeless auspiciousness. Whoever feels whatever is happening is auspicious inside and outside, lives like Shiva. They live in Shiva consciousness. They live in eternal bliss. They live in celebration.

Content: Understand, every happening including disease and death has a message for us. They have something to teach us. They raise our intelligence, raise the frequency of our consciousness. In the whole drama of the cosmos, everything that happens in your life brings auspiciousness to you. It brings mangalatva to you, it adds to you.

Content: Look at the world as a mystery, as an intelligent mystery. When you understand it is an independent intelligence, a mystery, everything happening in your life will open itself and teach you the lesson it has brought. When suffering comes to you, if you approach it with non-acceptance, or resistance, it will create only pain in you. It will only add suffering to you. If you approach the same incident, the same suffering, with deep respect and acceptance, suddenly you will see the same suffering reveals its mysteries to you. It will show you the cause, why it happened in your life and the lesson it brought to your life.

Content: Everything happening in the world is auspiciousness, including what you call natural calamities. There is no such thing as inauspiciousness. One group lives like Shiva. The other lives like shava or a dead body. Whether you live like Shiva, as God, or śava, a corpse, only you can decide. Understand, the cosmos is causeless auspiciousness. The universe is reasonless, causeless auspiciousness. Accept and celebrate the very existence of the world.

Content: The third, Īshvara, God, is the source of both jīva and jagat - the self and the world. As long as you carry doubt or faith about the existence of God, you don’t experience God. Understand, just like doubt, faith is also an obstruction. I have seen people who believe but never try to experience. They continue to believe, believe, and believe but do not do anything to experience.

Content: So now, drop both your doubt and your faith. The moment you see an object in front of you, you know the Creator exists. If creation exists, its Creator also exists. The very presence of the creation in front of you proves the existence of the Creator. He is just creativity overflowing for no reason. He is just constant creativity, which is expanding, expanding, and expanding - a constant Big Bang.

Content: He is creation, created and creator, all three expressed as creativity. Celebrate the existence of creativity. The very existence of creation is the solid proof that the Creator exists.

Content: Creator or creativity exists. Just celebrate the existence of the independent intelligence. Celebrate the existence of God as creativity.

Content: When you celebrate the existence of these three - self, God and the world, suddenly you realize that the perception of these three entities being independent and separated by barriers is created by your unconscious mind. There is no barrier, it is just one pure existence, pure consciousness, pure celebration of what we call sat, chit and ānanda - truth, consciousness and bliss. Understanding that self, world and God are not three different entities, and then celebrating the existence of this ONE core is what I call Living Enlightenment.

Content: Understand and celebrate the existence of all three. Suddenly you will see only celebration will exist, all three will disappear into the celebration. When that happens, that is what I call nityānanda, eternal bliss.

Content: Live enlightenment, live eternal bliss, live nityānanda. Let you all achieve, radiate, and celebrate eternal bliss, nityānanda.

Chapter Number: 1.19

Content: This tumultuous sounding of the conches reverberated in the sky and the earth, and shattered the hearts of the sons of Dhritarashtra.

Chapter Number: 1.20

Content: Then, seated in his chariot, which bore the flag of Hanuman, Arjuna lifted his bow, fixed his arrows and looking at the sons of Dhritarashtra spoke to Krishna.

Chapter Number: 1.21, 1.22

Content: Arjuna said: O Infallible One, please position my chariot between the two armies and let me see the warmongers gathered here with whom I must wage this battle.

Content: When Bhishma sounded his conch, it invited in return the resounding response of the conches of the Pandava warriors. There is no mention by Sanjaya that Bhishma's conch or the accompanying sounds of drums and trumpets from the Kaurava army caused any concern amongst the Pandava army.

Content: What he says now is different. With the roar of the conches of the Pandava warriors, led by Krishna and Arjuna, Sanjaya says that the hearts of the sons of Dhritarashtra were shattered.

Content: The words used here are significant. He says that the blowing of the conches created vibrations in the sky and upon the earth. The conches of the Pandava princes and the great warriors were not mere musical instruments. They were imbued with divine presence. The sound that they produced when activated by their owners, to whom they were gifted by celestial beings, were filled with great spiritual power. They were in fact mantra, or sacred sounds, which created powerful vibrations affecting the environment. That is the uproar Sanjaya was talking about.

Content: In the Hindu epics, one hears of references to weapons called 'astra'. An astra was not a physical weapon. It was a thought or a word that was given enormous power by its creator to destroy. These were mantra that created vibrations or energy forces to destroy, the same as a nuclear device. Metaphorically speaking, these are meditative techniques to destroy the saṁskāras or engraved memories that resided within the individual.

Content: At a later stage in the Mahabharata war, when the Kaurava army had been routed, one of the remaining warriors, Ashvatthama, son of Drona, in revenge and out of despair, released the Brahmāstra, deadliest of all the astra. It is said that the Brahmāstra was like a nuclear weapon, capable of delivering terrible heat and destruction and which could bring at least 12 years of famine to the land. Brahmāstra was a weapon that was obtained from Brahma, the Creator, after severe penances by Ashvatthama.

Content: Arjuna countered the Brahmāstra with Pashupatāstra, which he had obtained from Shiva. To prevent massive damage to the world, both warriors were advised to retract their weapons. While Arjuna could and did retract his astra, Ashvatthama could not. It is said that Krishna received the Brahmāstra as his own before it could do any damage.

Content: The conches that the Pandava warriors used were not meant to destroy physically, but they were clearly successful in destroying the fantasies that the Kaurava princes nurtured in their minds. The purpose of sounding conches was to set the stage for the battle and to define its boundaries. They were clearly successful in establishing these boundaries. The Pandava princes and warriors had the comfort of knowing that they were doing what was right, both in their own hearts and minds and in the eyes of God, since they had the support of Krishna Himself. The Kaurava princes were afraid. All that motivated them was greed and envy. They did not have divine purpose as their motivation.

Content: We should remember that Sanjaya was able to see far beyond the superficial responses of individuals on the battlefield. With his powerful ājñā, third eye vision, Sanjaya was able to fathom the subconscious and unravel the deep emotions and responses of the warriors. Whatever may have been the perceived reaction of the Kaurava army to the response from the Pandava warriors, Sanjaya concludes that the Kaurava princes were demoralized.

Content: The armies went face-to-face. They were in military formation. The conches had sounded in anticipation. The warriors on both sides were waiting for their commanders to signal the first move in offense.

Content: Arjuna was at the forefront of the Pandava army. He had blown his conch, Devadatta, at the same time as Krishna. Arjuna had taken up his divine bow Gāndīva, and had fixed the arrow to the bow. However, instead of releasing the arrow, Arjuna looked at the Kaurava army amassed in front of him, with all the Kaurava princes, his cousins, facing him. He then addressed Krishna, his friend, mentor, divine guide and charioteer.

Content: Arjuna’s chariot as we saw earlier was a gift from Agni, the fire god. The chariot flew the flag of Hanuman, the monkey god, son of the wind god Vayu, and the close confidante and disciple of Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu prior to Krishna.

Content: The fire god Agni had requested Krishna’s help when Indra, Chief of the demigods threatened to quench his fire with rain. Krishna, accompanied by Arjuna, helped him by offering a forest that Agni could consume. Very pleased with this help, Agni gifted Arjuna with the Gāndīva bow, a team of four horses, a chariot and two inexhaustible quivers and armor.

Content: Once, when Bhima was walking through a forest, he found an old frail monkey lying on his path. Bhima asked the monkey to move and give him way. The monkey pleaded that it was too weak to move and suggested Bhima shift him. Bhima first tried to pick up the monkey’s tail with his fingers. When the tail would not budge, he tried harder. Even with all his might Bhima, who was known to have the strength of eight thousand elephants, could not move the monkey’s tail even an inch! Bhima understood that this was no ordinary monkey, and so paid respects by saluting the monkey, and asked its identity.

Content: The monkey revealed itself as Hanuman, who as another son of the wind god, was in fact Bhima’s brother. Hanuman blessed Bhima saying that he would be with the Pandava princes at all times, and that he himself would ride upon Arjuna’s flag, on his chariot.

Content: It is said that wherever Hanuman is, Rama is present. Therefore Arjuna is accompanied not only by Krishna, but also by His earlier incarnation Rama! Arjuna and the Pandava princes were twice blessed!

Content: For the first time in this scripture, Arjuna speaks. Arjuna is not the mere hero of Mahabharata in this Gita scripture. He is the embodiment of all humanity. He is nara, the human aspect of Narayana, Lord Vishnu, who in turn is Krishna. Krishna and Arjuna, as Narayana and nara, as the Divine and mortal, is the theme that runs throughout Bhagavad Gita and also much of the epic Mahabharata.

Content: 'Infallible One,' said Arjuna to his friend and mentor, 'Please take me to a vantage point between the two armies so that I can see for myself who I am fighting with. Let me see who is assembled here on this battlefield. Who has taken up arms to fight, and who are those I must be prepared to fight. Krishna, please show me,' he says. 'Show me who I must vanquish.'

Content: Arjuna already knew to the last man, each one who was on that battlefield at Kurukshetra. He had no confusion about whom he was fighting and whom he had to face. All these decisions, the changing of loyalties, the dropouts, all these happened in the days before the war. The negotiations had all come to an end; the lines had been drawn very clearly, even if unwillingly in some cases.

Content: It made no sense at all for Arjuna to ask Krishna at this last minute to show him clearly who he was fighting against. It was as if he was hoping that at the last minute something would occur to change the course of events. If that were to happen, he knew that it could only take place through the grace of his charioteer, friend and guide.

Content: It is as if Arjuna was making a desperate plea to Krishna, 'Please show me something that I do not know. Show me something that You alone know, Oh Infallible Divine. Take me there, where You will, and show me.'

Content: Q: Swamiji, conches, mantra and astra, all these seem so unreal in this modern age of science and technology. Even the mālā (rosary) with your picture worn by your followers seems to build a cult-like environment. I would like to believe, but much that I have learned is contradictory. Please help me understand.

Content: This is an honest question. Your question comes from a genuine struggle between what you have been taught to believe and what you are now seeing and hearing, which seems so totally different.

Content: Science and technology are not in opposition to spirituality. Some scientists and technologists may be opposed, but the concepts are not. Einstein, one of the world's greatest scientists, said that the last step in science is the first step in spirituality. He had discovered the link between matter and energy, and this was being used for destructive purposes. He moved towards spiritual literature for solace and read the Veda and Upanisad.

Content: The very first verse of the first Upaniṣad declares: īśā vāsyam idaṁ sarvam All matter arises from energy.

Content: Science and spirituality are congruent when we understand that we do not have to make choices between them. They are not merely parallel paths but congruent and identical. Thousands of years ago enlightened masters knew what is being discovered today. They looked within. Today, scientists look out into the world. That is the difference.

Content: Even fifty years ago people would have laughed if they had been told that atomic and sub-atomic particles behaved differently at different times. This would have been like shaking the foundations of science. Science stated that matter and energy were different and could not occupy the same space at the same time.

Content: This is what you have been taught since childhood, is it not? But this is proven to be untrue by the scientific community today. These scientists, who have been brave enough to challenge that assumption with research, have come forward with data that proves the truth of our physical world. These are the scientists at the forefront of quantum physics and molecular biology, the most advanced frontiers of science and technology today.

Content: Quantum physicists have found for years now that sub-atomic particles do not behave in any predictable manner. You cannot say anything certain about them. The same particle being observed in the same time and space by two different scientists appears to be in a different state depending upon who is watching it!

Content: The Hindu philosopher and enlightened master Adi Shankaracharya said the same thing a thousand years ago. 'Nothing is real,' he said. 'Everything is relative.' The interaction between the observer, observed and the observation decided what would be perceived. He stated that the truth reveals itself when all three, that is the observing person, the observed object or event and the sense of observation, collapse into one experience, and all three become congruent. That is the only reality, which is the reality beyond illusion, which he termed māyā.

Content: Māyā, the word sounds exotic. It means 'that which is not.' What is not real but appears to be real is māyā, illusion.

Content: People laughed at this. 'I can wound you now. I can kill you now. Is that not real?' they asked. No, it is not; not from the perspective of reality that the great inner scientists discovered.

Content: You can destroy what you see as my body. Nothing of my energy is destroyed or even affected. Matter moves into the plane of energy. That is all. But as long as you feel bound in the material plane and cannot see or feel beyond that plane, this will not make any sense to you. The same way, it would make no sense to a Newtonian scientist if a quantum physicist were to explain the phenomena of a sub-atomic particle behaving differently to different observers in the same time and space dimension.

Content: To most of us, our conditioning is what is real. What we have learned all these years, what we have been told by others since childhood is real. If the information comes from an authority, we are prepared to trust. It becomes our truth, our value system and belief. These value systems and beliefs collectively are what Shankara and other enlightened rsis called saṃskāras, our conditioned, unconscious memories. Today's neuroscientists accept that this is what drives all our decisions and actions, and not our logical and rational mind as we have been led to believe.

Content: As long as we live with the illusion that we control our lives, we live in suffering. So long as we think that by some logical process we arrive at the decisions we make, based upon which we act, based upon which things happen, not only are we steeped in total ignorance but we suffer deeply as well. Less than ten percent of our mind behaves in a conscious manner that we can follow; the rest of it is the deep unconscious, instinctively pulling us along.

Content: We are driven by an instinct that is primal. The reptilian brain stores memories of a million years and controls us at times of physical danger. We have no control whatsoever over this. We cannot prevent ourselves from fleeing from a danger that seems too great to handle. We cannot prevent ourselves from attacking a danger that seems surmountable. We cannot stop ourselves from getting excited sexually when we perceive the right opportunity to procreate.

Content: Our unconscious brain operates much faster and more reliably than the conscious part. That is the only reason we are still alive. We are alive not because of ourselves, but in spite of ourselves!

Content: Science and technology are tools. As long as we use them as tools, they can enhance our lives. Once we allow them to dictate our lives and our beliefs, we are in danger. We are in far greater danger than if we were to believe a self styled holy man!

Content: Let me explain the significance of conches, mantra and astra...! One thing you need to understand. All these scriptures and purāṇa, the epics, are about truths and

Content: not facts. There is a major difference between these two - truth and fact. Fact is historical and measurable. Facts are bound in three dimensions as well as in time and space. Truth is beyond these dimensions. Truth is about awareness. Truth is about consciousness.

Content: While giving bread and wine, Jesus said, 'Eat my body and drink my blood.' These are truths, absolute truths coming from an enlightened being. These are not facts as you interpret them. They are metaphorical truths from a master who lived beyond His physical boundary, to whom every being, living or non-living, was an extension of His own spirit. If you do not understand that, and make His words into a ritual, it becomes meaningless as it has become today.

Content: We have lost the key to metaphorical truths. That is why rituals that are steeped in truth have degenerated into superstitions and mechanical repetitive actions. If you were to eat every morsel as if you were consuming the energy of Christ and drink every sip of water as the energy of Christ, you would never need to step into a church in your life again. You will be steeped in Christ consciousness. You would be another Christ!

Content: That is what truths are about. The sound of the conches of these great warriors, especially Krishna and Arjuna, was not mere sound. These were cosmic vibrations, vibrations that keep the universe alive and functional. That was the purpose of blowing these conches in temples and at prayer. They help us resonate with the energy vibrations of the universe. They are meant to tune us to the vibration of pure cosmic energy.

Content: So it is with mantras, the chants with sacred syllables. The sounds of the mantras create vibrations within you that help you get in tune with the cosmic energy. You need not even understand the meaning of the chants. However, the pronunciation and rhythm are important. They can quickly raise your energy, and a number of scientific experiments conducted for many years now have substantiated this. Your health - physically, psychologically and emotionally, improve and your material life also improves as a result.

Content: Astra, the mystical weapons, actually existed. These weapons were not physical or material. They were powerfully focused thoughts of a trained master who could create and destroy using the energy of these thoughts. The power of intention is now a widely researched field and dozens of books have been written based on scientific experiments in this field. Hindu yogis as well as Chinese and Japanese masters have shown that by merely focusing their thoughts, they can throw a person many feet away and can move objects to any distance. Parlor tricks such as

Content: bending spoons with the power of thought are an extension of this, and millions of people have experienced such powers.

Content: Can you guarantee that a person will continue to breathe in the next moment? You can state a probability, but never the certainty. That is what intelligent scientists have found today. They say that you can only talk about the probability of an event even in this material world, never with certainty.

Content: The whole concept of what we were taught as science has now been turned around. Science is not about guaranteed repeatability. It is about the probability of repeatability. That is all. A low probability of repetition does not mean that an event is not scientific. Even if it happens once and we are able to verify its authenticity, it is no longer a fantasy, it is a scientific reality.

Content: You asked about the mālā, the necklace. These mālā carry the cosmic energy. They are like batteries that recharge you when you need the energy. There is no need to blindly believe this. We can use scientific instruments and show that they radiate energy. When a person wearing these mālā meditates, he or she charges these batteries further. These are inexhaustible sources of psychic energy supply to a person. You need not believe in them; they will still work. They will heal you.

Content: When a person is in tune with me, has faith in me, specifically if that person has been initiated by me, they can communicate with me through the mālā. I call the mālā my cell phone! Any number of people will testify to this. Again, this is not blind belief. There is scientific evidence to back such phenomena of thought exchange. They call it Zero Point Field in Quantum Physics. My mālā is just an instrument that makes this happen.

Content: The mālā is a psychic defense. In many cultures around the world, people believe that others can harm them through their thoughts, black magic, etc. Yes, this can happen when your psychic defenses are down, and when you allow someone to enter your psychic field. My mālā is your defense.

Content: What I am about to tell you now is a real life incident, in a Western country.

Content: In 2005 and 2006, a number of people from the French colony of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies started coming to our classes. Many French people came for the discourses and started wearing the mālā.

Content: A divorced lady who was living with her young son reported this incident in France. One night she woke up from sleep and it was as if someone was telling her to put on her clothes. She put on a dress and went back to sleep.

Content: She woke up to the sight of a man holding a knife standing at her bedside. Instinctively she held up the mālā in defense. This man tried to stab her, but he could not move. He seemed suddenly paralyzed!

Content: Meanwhile, the son woke up and came into the room. Seeing him, the intruder turned to him and wounded him. As they were struggling, the mother once again held up her mālā, and the intruder was paralyzed again. Eventually the intruder jumped out of an open window. The lady reported this to the police.

Content: After a day or two, the police called her to identify a person who may have been her attacker. When she went to identify the person, and he saw her, he cowered and complained to the police that she was a witch with supernatural powers and he did not want to mess around with her again!

Content: The mālā is made from special organic material. rudrākṣa mālā is strung with rudrākṣa - the seed of a tree that grows in Nepal and Indonesia. The word rudrākṣa means ‘tears of Rudra, or Shiva.’ From time immemorial these seeds have been prized in India and parts of Asia as sacred and healing. The other type of mālā is the red sandalwood mālā. Both of these are energizing and good for your mind-body system, especially since they have passed through the hands of an enlightened master. They work on your throat and heart energy centers, the viśuddhi and anāhata cakras, which means they work on your thyroid and thymus glands. Your growth and immune functions are boosted.

Content: In recent times I have also been giving energized copper bracelets for protection. These too are for physical, psychological and psychic protection. Made of specially treated copper, they benefit many who have arthritic and rheumatic complaints. I am sure that over time, all of these will be scientifically validated. They are based on vedic principles, which are scientific in nature.

Content: You mentioned cults. Cults are led by fear and greed. Though they claim to be alternatives to other institutions, cults themselves are bondages. And although my form is worshipped in all our ashrams, if you know our institution well enough, you know that at every level there are strict injunctions to move away from my form into the formless. All our meditation techniques and teachings are based on the formless. People are free to move in and out as they want. The form is used as the first step in your journey.

Content: I always tell people, ‘Once you have come into the ashram gates, you are always with me. Whenever you wish to leave physically, you are free to go. You will go

Content: with my blessings. Many people who have left for one reason or another will tell you that. They come and go, but they always come again with joy to see me. This cannot happen in a cult; you are bound hand and foot.

Content: Each of you has a path. You have your own path to awareness and liberation. Those in whose path I play a role seek me out and I am there for them. Sometimes things turn out differently and even if I am your master, this may not be the right time. So you may move away. I see that happen with regret, only because I know that your spirit longs for that liberation. It will suffer as it leaves the body. But there is little I can do. Your transformation is in your hands.

Content: There are so many Westerners who come to the ashram. Why should they come from all over the world while many Indians and Hindus, far more familiar with the background of my teachings, hesitate? This is not because Westerners are gullible. They come because there is a connection; there is a spiritual connection that brings them. I am here to fulfill and liberate them so that they need not suffer another birth again.

Content: We provide free boarding, lodging and all facilities to those interested in spending a year with us learning about the vedic culture. If you do not find it a good fit, it is your choice to leave. There is no pressure either to come in or to stay.

Content: All I teach you is to experience the truth for yourself, and not to simply believe anyone's words, even mine. When you experience the truth, it is your truth. That is the truth that liberates you and no one can ever take away from you.

Chapter Number: 1.23

Content: Let me see those who have come here to fight, Wishing to please the evil-minded son of Dhritarashtra.

Chapter Number: 1.24

Content: Sanjaya said: O descendant of Bharata, being thus addressed by Arjuna, Krishna then drew up the fine chariot in the midst of both armies.

Content: Arjuna starts out on a challenging note. He says he would like to see all those who had assembled to fight him, in support of the evil minded Duryodhana. Accordingly, Krishna drew up the chariot between the two armies so that Arjuna could have a good look at all those who had gathered.

Content: Arjuna is being called Gudakesha in this verse, the one who has transcended sleep, or the need to sleep. Sleep, here, also refers to the unconscious mind. All our saṃskāras, the embedded memories, our value systems and the beliefs that drive our actions, reside in our unconscious. Arjuna is being referred to here as one who has conquered his saṃskāras, as a result of his total surrender to Krishna.

Content: Krishna has been called Hrishikesha, one who controls the senses. The relationship between Krishna and Arjuna is the highest form of interaction between the Divine and the human.

Content: You see, for one who is caught in the sleep of unconscious living, this world of illusion, māyā, appears utterly real. But the enlightened master has awakened to the level of pure consciousness and knows that this world is just another type of dream. When the disciple is able to completely trust the master's senses that this world is illusion, and not his own senses that give the idea that this world is real and is the source of his happiness, then the surrender is total. Krishna's senses

Content: were controlled in the sense He knew that what He experienced through them was not the source of His happiness and therefore He didn't run after sensual pleasures for His fulfillment.

Content: When approaching the Divine or one's master, the ultimate step is one of complete surrender. This surrender happens in three stages. At the first level it is an intellectual surrender - the intellectual acceptance of what is divine, what the master represents and what he means to you. A true seeker reaches this stage when he encounters the real master destined for him. The seeker sees in the master, qualities he has been searching for, and answers to questions that have long arisen in his mind.

Content: At this stage of intellectual surrender, when the disciple meets the master, questions start dying down. It is as if answers come to one's mind even before questions happen.

Content: Questions can never be answered. They are a reflection of one's internal violence, the violence of one's ego, wishing to prove one's control over another person. If we analyze our own questions, we will realise that we ask the questions only to tell the other person that we know something.

Content: Rarely are our questions like that of an innocent child, who asks out of curiosity. A child may ask, 'Why is the sky blue?' An adult would rarely ask such a question, unless he is a wise scientist whose curiosity transcends his knowledge base and he truly seeks to know.

Content: Intellectual surrender to the master replaces questions with doubts. Doubts are not violent like questions. They do not arise from the ego. They arise from a genuine need to know and to understand. Doubt and faith are two sides of the same coin. One cannot develop faith in one's master without having doubts about him. Despite his high level of surrender, one does see Arjuna initially in this state of questioning as well, perhaps as a lesson to us ordinary mortals. Arjuna progresses during Gita from the stage of questioning, to the higher stage of intellectual surrender and doubts. Ultimately, we must move beyond both doubt and faith to a deep trust in the master, recognizing that everything the master expresses is for our liberation.

Content: At the next level, one reaches the state of emotional surrender. From śāstras one moves to stotras. One moves from the head to the heart. It is like coming home when the heart surrenders. The person feels a deep connection with the master. One does not have to make an effort to remember the master. It is impossible to

Content: forget Him. His memory brings tears to one's eyes, tears of gratitude that are impossible to hide.

Content: Ramakrishna says so beautifully, 'When thinking of the Divine or the master, if you have tears streaming down your cheeks, be very sure that this is your last birth.'

Content: Emotional surrender leads one close to liberation. It brings you home.

Content: At the final level, there is the surrender of the senses. One truly realizes Hrishikesha and gives up one's distorted sense of reality and embraces the truth of absolute reality that the master and every enlightened sage have expressed. Arjuna is at that level of surrender and through the progression of the Gita, layers of Arjuna's surrender peel off.

Content: Arjuna calls Duryodhana evil minded. This was to paint a contrast of his own state of mind to that of Duryodhana, the Kaurava princes and the Kaurava warriors. When one's mind is filled with greed, lust, envy and fear, there is a single-minded focus on the potential material benefits of these negative and evil emotions. There was no confusion in Duryodhana's mind as to what he should do. His objectives were clear - do away with the Pandava princes and usurp the entire kingdom, that's all.

Content: Duryodhana was like an animal, operating out of instinct. Unlike Arjuna, he was not an intelligent man and did not suffer from doubts and guilt. Animals suffer no guilt. They do what comes to them naturally. They do not consider hunting their prey as something that needs discussion. If they are hungry, they hunt, kill and eat. So it is with Duryodhana. He needs power, and whatever might be the means to achieve that power he will employ without any reservation.

Content: A human being has a level of consciousness higher than that of animals. A human can discriminate between right and wrong and has the free will to act based on such awareness. When a human behaves the way Duryodhana does, he is in the unconscious and unaware state.

Content: With such an unaware and unconscious mind, Duryodhana and his allies did not suffer from any doubts. Mired totally in the darkness of unawareness, these Kaurava warriors followed Duryodhana blindly, unaware that the person they followed was blind himself.

Content: Arjuna, on the other hand, is in turmoil. As Krishna brings the chariot to a stop between the two armies, in a metaphoric sense, He brings Arjuna's mind to a steady state.

Content: Duryodhana is in darkness. He is operating out of the instincts of an animal. His moves are totally unconscious, driven completely by his saṃskāras. In a sense, he is not in control of himself, his saṃskāras control him. So strong is his delusion that the wise counsel of the few who told him that the path he is following is one of self destruction, falls on deaf ears.

Content: Arjuna, on the other hand, is in a twilight zone. Unlike Duryodhana, Arjuna has become aware of his saṃskāras, and is working to free himself from their bondage. However, he is not in the zone of light yet.

Content: The conflict between Arjuna and Duryodhana is the conflict that all humans face within themselves. It is a conflict between their deep unconscious desires driven by their saṃskāras and the potential awareness of their consciousnessness. Which part wins depends on one's ability to surrender to the superconscious Divine or the master.

Content: As long as one is in darkness, one does not miss light. A person born blind has no idea what sight is, what light is and what he is missing. Whatever he may think he is missing is based on what others tell him, not because of any experience of his own.

Content: However, someone who has been born with sight and subsequently lost it would miss it. He would miss the light. He would regret the darkness where he finds himself. He would be afraid of that darkness, which a person born blind would never fear because that would have always been his experience.

Content: Arjuna is in the state of a person who has had sight and has now lost it. He was an intelligent man, but suddenly wondered whether what he was doing might be wrong and evil. So he is disturbed.

Content: Duryodhana on the other hand has a mind that is always in darkness. He has never experienced true intelligence or awareness. Therefore, words like 'immoral' or 'unethical' would make no sense to him.

Content: Q: You say Gita acquires the authority of the scriptures since it is delivered by Krishna, the perfect incarnation, poornavataar. Other scriptures such as the Veda. were revealed to sages. Is there historical proof that Krishna was God incarnate?

Content: A good question. It is a question that naturally arises in a rational mind. If I were to say that there was some proof or other, the next question will be to show proof that God exists. Only if I can prove that God exists can I prove that Krishna too is God.

Content: Our entire belief in God or its absence is based on some assumptions we make about God. We cast God in our own image. Whatever we do, it is an identity that we create. It is a hallucination, it is a fantasy; it is not an experience.

Content: Since different people have different fantasies and some have fantasies that they themselves are God, there is this continuous argument about whether God exists or not. If some people agree that God exists, then they argue about their God being better, faster and stronger than the other persons' God.

Content: Sometimes I feel it is better that people do not believe in God! There will be far less violence and bloodshed on this planet. The vast majority of wars originated in religious conflicts. Religion is the breeding ground for terrorists today. At least atheists do not wage war. They only argue.

Content: Most of you have only a concept of God. You are sure of your own identity. At least you are able to convincingly articulate about who you think you are. However, when it comes to God, your idea of God is based on your conditioning, belief systems, culture and environment.

Content: This is a powerful unconscious belief. It is difficult to change this belief. For some, God is a bearded old soul with kind eyes. To some there is no form at all and it is sacrilegious to cast Him in any form. To billions of Hindus it is Shiva, Krishna, Vishnu or Kali, with definitive forms and attributes.

Content: Buddha denied God. He went beyond the concept of God. For hundreds of years, the Bodhi tree alone represented Buddha. The ultimate irony is that his followers turned him into God!

Content: For most of you, God is a concept, but concept of 'you' is real. To me, I, this form, is unreal, but God is reality! Every movement I make is sanctioned by that ultimate energy. So I have no doubt in telling you that God exists and that Krishna is indeed God. I have seen Him, so I know.

Content: I invite every one of you to come and experience God with me. It is a promise and not easily given.

Content: I have come down with the technology and the compassion and the intelligence, the sūtras, the stotras and the shāstras to make what I said happen for you. It is a highly refined process and I know that it is successful.

Content: God is not the prerogative of any one religion. You do not have to be part of one religious belief or another to be a believer. God belongs to all, by whatever name you wish to call Him and in whatever form you wish to see Him. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, the experiencing of God will make

Content: you a better Christian, a better Muslim, a better Hindu or a better Buddhist. None of you will be converted from your own religion into another.

Content: The concept of God should not be about conversion. Only those who are insecure in their own beliefs about God would want to force their beliefs on others. No confident religion would want to change someone else's belief system.

Content: A while ago I met with a preacher in Mumbai, India in an inter-religious conference. I told him proudly about the programs that we run and how it attracts hundreds of people. He listened politely and said that the programs that he runs usually have thousands attending them! Later during the conference, he became quite friendly and confided in me a number of his problems. I gave him some advice and techniques. They seem to have worked because he sought me out towards the end of the conference and thanked me. One of the problems he expressed was that he was himself unsure of what he preached to others. I had asked him in surprise, 'How do you then manage to convince them if you yourself are not sure?' His answer was revealing. He said, 'When so many people come to listen to me and pay respect to me, I become convinced that whatever I am saying must be right!'

Content: It is quite easy to brainwash yourself or be brainwashed and still continuously carry the guilt of not having understood.

Content: God cannot be proved by logic. He transcends logic. You need to lose your mind to find Him!

Content: Therefore, any amount of rational arguments will only warm up the environment.

Content: A small story:

Content: There was once an atheist and a believer in a village who were constantly fighting. The villagers got fed up and told them to sort it out between themselves, once and for all.

Content: The two argued for days. At the end of the argument the atheist declared that he was convinced that there indeed was a God.

Content: Before the villagers recovered from this shock, the believer stood up and said, 'No, I don't agree. I am now fully convinced that there is no God!'

Content: You asked whether Krishna was real. Yes, He was and is! The Bhagavad Gita did not get scriptural authority on the basis of any proof that Krishna was God. Gita was acknowledged as a scripture of the highest order because of the

Content: indisputable truths that it laid out. It did not matter who delivered the dialogue. Anyone who did that delivered it from Krishna consciousness. Therefore, He was Krishna!

Content: A fervent group of Krishna devotees once cornered me after a discourse and heatedly asked me, 'You delivered such a profound discourse about on Gita. However, we understand that you worship Shiva! How is this possible? You are committing sacrilege'

Content: I said to them that Krishna and Shiva are the same Energies, as are other enlightened masters and incarnations.

Content: They were not satisfied. They said I should desist from worshipping Shiva.

Content: I asked them, 'Have you read the Gita?'

Content: They said, 'No, what is it?'

Content: I told them that after the Mahabharata war, when Arjuna was alone with Krishna, he asked Krishna, 'Krishna, I have forgotten what you advised me during the war. Can you tell me again, please?'

Content: Krishna said, 'Oh, you forgot Arjuna! I too have forgotten!'

Content: Arjuna asked in surprise, 'Krishna, how is that possible? You are the greatest master of them all. How can you forget the truths you yourself have established?'

Content: Krishna says simply, 'While delivering the Gita, I was in the ultimate consciousness. I was Parabrahma Krishna, God incarnate. Now, I am Vasudeva Krishna, the human son of Vasudeva, and your friend. So, I do not remember it now.'

Content: What Krishna once again repeated to satisfy Arjuna is what is called 'Anu Gita'.

Content: I told them that at the level of the Parabrahman, the ultimate consciousness that we term as Shiva, Krishna, Buddha and so on, are all the same energy.

Content: One of the elders in the group told me, 'Sir, we thought you were such a young person and therefore probably misguided. However, now you have taught us the truth!'

Content: There is no need for historical proof that Krishna existed or that Gita is considered a scripture because Krishna was God. Gita is Krishna consciousness. Any one who delivered Gita was Krishna!

Content: 1.25 to 1.30

Content: In the presence of Bhishma, Drona and other rulers of the world,

Content: Hrishikesha said, Partha, behold all the Kurus who are assembled here.

Content: There Arjuna could see within the armies of both parties,

Content: His elders, grandfathers, teachers, maternal uncles, cousins, sons, grandsons

Content: And friends, as well as his fathers-in-law and well-wishers.

Content: When Arjuna, the son of Kunti, saw all these friends and relatives present there,

Content: He was overwhelmed with deep pity and said:

Content: Krishna, seeing my friends and relatives present before me, eager to wage war,

Content: I feel my limbs trembling, my mouth drying, and my hair standing on end.

Content: My bow, Gandiva, slips from my hands, and my skin burns.

Content: I am unable to stand here any longer.

Content: I am forgetting myself, and my mind reels.

Content: I foresee only evil omens, O killer of the Kesi demon.

Content: Krishna parked the chariot between the two armies and said to Arjuna, 'Here are the people you wished to see.'

Content: There, in front of Arjuna are his friends and relatives. Krishna pulls no punches here. Arjuna wanted to see those who were about to fight him and die, and

Chapter Number: 1.25

Chapter Number: 1.26

Chapter Number: 1.27

Chapter Number: 1.28

Chapter Number: 1.29

Chapter Number: 1.30

Content: Krishna, with no mercy at all, showed him that these were Arjuna’s near and dear ones.

Content: Krishna Himself was related to Arjuna. Kunti, Arjuna’s mother, also known as Pritha, was Krishna’s aunt, sister of Krishna’s father Vasudeva; so He addresses Arjuna here as Partha, the son of Pritha, emphasizing their relationship. Krishna is also referred to in Gita as Parthasarathy, the charioteer of Partha, Arjuna.

Content: Assembled in front of Arjuna were compatriots of his father Pandu, grandfathers and great grandfathers such as Bhishma, his own teachers such as Drona and Kripa, uncles such as Shakuni, brothers and cousins as all the Kaurava princes were, friends and well wishers. He knew every one of them. At one time or another, each of them had been an object of affection and respect to Arjuna. Now, they were part of this enemy army.

Content: The theme of Gita is the story of Arjuna’s dilemma and its resolution by Krishna.

Content: The expression of Arjuna’s dilemma starts here.

Content: As a warrior, as a kṣatriya, Arjuna was used to killing in battle. He was no stranger to death and violence. As long as his mind accepted the fact that those who faced him were his enemies and therefore deserved to be killed, Arjuna had no difficulty in carrying out the execution.

Content: However, those whom he saw in front of him now were not enemies as he had imagined, as his mind would expect, but instead people with whom he had shared common bonds over the years. These were people whom he had regarded with love and affection. They were his relatives, people who actually were like his father, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, sons and grandsons, tied to him with bonds of blood. Many others were his friends with whom he had previously enjoyed bonds of loyalty and kinship.

Content: Arjuna’s dilemma was not one of nonviolence, ahimsa. As a warrior, as a kṣatriya, this word had no place in his dictionary. His dilemma was one of violence, violence born out of his ego, his identity. He could kill people he did not identify with, but he could not bear to kill those whom he could relate with himself in one way or another. The bonds of family were far stronger than Arjuna had imagined. The bonds of family that were rooted in his ego, and to cut these bonds was to destroy himself. This was Arjuna’s dilemma.

Content: The great war of Mahabharata was not merely about the fight between the hundred Kaurava princes and the five Pandava princes. It was not just about good and evil and the fight between the two. It was the war waged within the mind of man, nara, represented here by Arjuna, while coming to terms with what was perceived as good and what was perceived as evil.

Content: What follows now is a bunch of fantasies that Arjuna's mind weaves in an attempt to justify his dilemma. It is what the human mind conjures up time and again as its projection of the unconscious saṁskāras, trying to justify its actions.

Content: Sanjaya says that Arjuna was overwhelmed with pity. Some translate this as compassion.

Content: Compassion, true compassion, which is the hallmark of an enlightened being, is non-discriminatory; it does not differentiate. To the truly compassionate person, the whole world, of both living and nonliving beings, is an extension of his own self. Anything that hurts any object around such a person would hurt him, and he too would feel the pain.

Content: However, what Arjuna experienced here upon seeing his kinsmen was not of that noble kind. Arjuna's emotion was discriminatory. He felt pity only because they were his kinsmen, only because he identified with them.

Content: As I mentioned earlier this was not compassion born out of ahiṁsā, nonviolence, but pity born out of hiṁsā, violence.

Content: Arjuna's emotions arose from his ego.

Content: True compassion arises from a state of absence of ego, from a state of no-mind and no-thought, where the feelings of 'I' and 'mine' have disappeared. True compassion is a state of bliss, one of true surrender to the Universe.

Content: When the individual self merges with the universal Self, true compassion happens out of an awareness of the cosmic consciousness and the awareness that one is part of that Brahman.

Content: Arjuna's pity arose out of fear, fear of losing his identity, his ego. Arjuna was afraid, mortally afraid. He claimed that his throat was parched, his hair was standing on edge and his divine bow was slipping from his sweaty hands. If one did not know Arjuna better, one would have considered him a coward.

Content: Arjuna was no coward. He had no fear for his own physical safety. He was not concerned that he might be injured or that he might die. As a warrior of warriors,

Content: these feelings were beneath him. But, Arjuna was afraid. He was afraid of breaking social and ethical laws. His values and beliefs, his subconscious memories, his saṁskāras, told him that what he was doing was wrong and unacceptable. So powerful was this feeling that he was reeling, quivering, dazed and unable to think or function.

Content: Can something like this really happen? Can a hero lose his composure and exhibit the physical symptoms of a frightened coward? A true hero to whom death is play, who is trained from childhood by the greatest of masters not only in the control of his body but of his mind as well?

Content: Arjuna’s situation shows how the mind can play games with the best of us, how the saṁskāras can take over the mind in so powerful a manner without our being even aware of it.

Content: Arjuna was frightened that he would be held responsible for the death of his kinsmen, people who were father, grandfather and other such important figures to him. He was afraid that even if others did not blame him, he would suffer the guilt and regret for his actions for the rest of his life.

Content: So great was this fear of potential guilt, that it drove Arjuna into behaving like a coward. All he could foresee was disaster and evil; disaster to him and his clan; disaster to his reputation, and material destruction all around him.

Content: At another, far deeper level, Arjuna was terrified of his own destruction. The moment one starts identifying with kinsmen, family, friends and relatives, it is a material identification. It is an identification born out of possession. This identification arises from one’s ego, from the feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’.

Content: Possession is born of attachment, and leads to attachment as well. There can be no feeling of possessing something unless one is attached to it.

Content: People speak of attachment, liking and love. All these are born out of and valid only as long as a sense of possession exists. The moment the object of love turns around and displays independence and unwillingness to be possessed, the liking and the love disappear.

Content: Possession arises out of our survival need, from our mūlādhāra cakra, an energy center located at the base of the spine. It is a primal feeling that yokes us to mother Earth. Out of the need for possession, feelings of lust, greed and anger arise. Often what one cannot possess, one wants to destroy.

Content: ‘What I cannot have, let no one have,’ we often feel.

Content: Possession leads to violence.

Content: It is also the deep-rooted desire for possessions, the feeling of 'mine', that gives rise to your identity 'I'. Please understand that the need to possess does not stem from your identity. It is the other way around. 'Mine' leads to 'I', not 'I' to 'mine'. This is why you cannot eliminate your identity till you renounce your attachment to all your desires and possessions. You need to get rid of the 'mine' first. Only then the 'I' disappears.

Content: Arjuna is in this mood and frame of mind. It strikes him at this eleventh hour, at the moment of waging war, that what he is about to destroy are his own possessions. These are his own kinsmen and part of his own identity. If he were to destroy them he will be destroying a part of his own self. By destroying those who are akin to his father, grandfather, son, brother, uncle and friend, he is effectively destroying his own mind-body system.

Content: It is true that when someone dear to us dies, a part of our mind-body system dies with them. Arjuna was aware of this. He knew that the destruction of so many of his near and dear ones, his kinsmen, would take a massive toll on him. It would be akin to committing suicide.

Content: Arjuna's dilemma was an existential one. What is the point of eliminating others, if it results in one's own elimination? It is a dilemma born out of partial understanding, a peek into the truth of collective consciousness. If Arjuna were to be as unaware as Duryodhana, this doubt would have never entered his mind. Were he enlightened as Krishna was, the answer would have been obvious. Arjuna was in between, hence his dilemma.

Content: Why should I destroy myself? What for? These are the questions that naturally follow this line of reasoning. Arjuna was far wiser than many modern philosophers in posing this as a doubt, without venturing any answers.

Content: Many philosophers have concluded that there is no meaning to life when they encountered similar doubts. Since they did not have the humility of Arjuna, or the guidance of a Krishna, they provided their own answers created out of logical reasoning. Their reasoning had no experiential backing. Hence, they were wrong.

Content: Arjuna is undergoing a process of transformation. He started off in this war with the basic assumptions of the kṣatriya codes of conduct. When challenged, a kṣatriya must fight; that is his code of honor, as with the samurai. Arjuna had no compunctions in doing this as he was brought up in this belief system.

Content: However, the problem was that Arjuna was a thinking man. Unlike Duryodhana, or his own brother Bhima, he was not a thoughtless man. This ability to think, to be aware, was what had got him into trouble now. Doubts assailed him. 'Am I really doing the right thing? Am I not destroying myself and all that I stand for when I wage this war against my own people?'

Content: Arjuna had become a seeker of Truth. He was no longer satisfied with what he had imbibed all these years - the śāstras, the stotras and the sūtras. He wished to go beyond. He questioned them, as he had doubts. He was in a dilemma. Arjuna Vishāda Yoga, is the name given to this first chapter of Gita. Vishāda can mean many things in Sanskrit - grief, sorrow, despondency, despair, depression, dilemma and such. Here what we see is the dilemma that Arjuna was in, not knowing whether what he had been taught all his life, and what he had believed to be true, was really true after all.

Content: The transformation that Krishna leads him to over the eighteen chapters is the revelation of truth to Arjuna, and to all humanity.

Content: Krishna is referred to by many names thus far. Some of them and their meanings are included here.

Content: The word 'Krishna' itself refers to His dark blue color, the color of the sky, and as infinite as the sky. It also means existence and bliss, sat chit ānanda and 'who provides salvation to those who surrender to Him.'

Content: Keshava, the name by which he is called in the above verses, refers to the fact that He destroyed the demon Keshi. It also refers to his beautiful hair. The embodiment in Him of the holy trinity of the Hindu tradition (the Sanskrit words K referring to Brahma, A to Vishnu and Īśā to Shiva) is another meaning of this name.

Content: Govinda is a combination of go referring to all living beings and vinda which means knower, Krishna being the ultimate knower of the mind, body and being of all living creatures.

Content: Q: Swamiji, You explained that Duryodhana acted out of blindness and Arjuna from partial awareness. Yet, if Arjuna were to enter the fight and kill his kinsmen, there would be no difference between him and Duryodhana. You yourself pointed out that rights and wrongs are merely our conditioning. Then in what manner is Arjuna better than Duryodhana?

Content: Here is an excellent question. It is correct that Duryodhana was like a blind man and therefore rights and wrongs had no meaning to him. He is at one end of a spectrum in his total unawareness. He is in the same state as an enlightened being in not distinguishing between right and wrong. But, here the similarity ends.

Content: Arjuna, on the other hand, is an average human being, conditioned to accept the reality of right and wrong as taught to him by society. Moreover, he has deep faith in the code of the kṣatriya, which commits him to fair play, justice and so on.

Content: We differentiate between two individuals based on our own conditioning and judgment. Each individual is unique. No human being and no being, living or inanimate, can be evil. Existence, which is compassion itself, cannot produce something that is out of its character.

Content: When we are born and as young children, we are able to see people without differentiation. If you watch a very young child, you will see that the child will go towards anyone, whether that person is holding a gun or a candy. It is immaterial to the child, as the child operates from curiosity. The child makes no judgment.

Content: However, as the child grows up, it is 'educated'; educated by its elders that certain things are right or wrong, safe or dangerous. The child may be taught that people who come from a background similar to its own parents are good people, and people who come from a dissimilar background are bad people. A child does not differentiate; an adult differentiates and excludes.

Content: Good and bad, right and wrong, likes and dislikes, love and hatred arise out of differentiation. All these are adult qualities. All these are qualities that each generation imbibes from another with the assumed notion that it helps that generation and culture be safe.

Content: Yet, crime records show that people known to the victim commit the vast majority of rapes, murders and other violent crimes. That is why the first suspect in the murder of a person is always the spouse. This is reality. Strangers are much less likely to harm you. Your own people do. Yet xenophobia, fear of strangers, is built into the human psyche.

Content: Part of this xenophobia arises from our animal roots and tribal roots. Animals and tribes exist by grouping together for survival. Their very survival, the survival of the fittest, depends on how well they resist intruders. Ironically, this behavior has been scientifically shown to be dangerous to the long-term survival of any race. Inbreeding decreases the chances of survival. It does not enhance it.

Content: In this day and age, where the entire globe is so well connected, no man can live as an island. No group or race or country can isolate itself from others and expect to survive and thrive. We have to learn to live with one another. Cooperation and interdependence are the factors best suited to survival and growth in this age, not violent competition and conflicts.

Content: Studies at the cellular level have shown that cells like to link to other cells; they do not isolate themselves. Nature's way of evolution was not by competition and survival of the fittest, but by coming together and sharing. Darwin was wrong in that part of his theory that states that a species survives through conflict and elimination.

Content: Whatever we apply as differentiated standards to those whom we do not know, we also apply to those whom we know. We develop a common standard based on our experience, and those who abide by it are good and those who do not are bad. This is developing a base of the lowest common denominator. Anything that is developed as averages or lowest common denominators will contribute to degeneration and not enhancement.

Content: If you keep your head in boiling water and your feet on ice, your average temperature may be near the normal temperature for a human being, but then you won't be alive for long. We have been taught to think in terms of averages in everything. The average family size is 4.2. Does this make any sense in real terms? No!

Content: Our unconscious is packed with emotion-filled memories, saṁskāras, which drive our decisions and actions and cause us to create separation and isolation. We would be shocked to know that there is no rationality to these decisions. Neither our senses nor our mind are dependable. Their judgments are questionable.

Content: You may say, 'That is all that we have. What else can we use?'

Content: That is not all that we have. At the highest level of expression, we are pure intelligence. Intuition is available to us at every moment, but we have not been taught this and so we never draw upon this innate intelligence. We choose to rely upon our senses and our mind. The pleasures that our senses seem to provide us from the external world are our sustenance, and we are so addicted to them that we do not turn our attention inwards. We don't know how to, so much so that the prospect of just sitting with ourselves is actually frightening!

Content: Your fundamental nature is one of awareness and intelligence. That is your core, your very center. But your mind is attracted through your senses towards peripheral pleasures, which are transient. From time to time, you realize that the periphery is not your real home and you move towards the center. The periphery attracts you again. So, you oscillate. You are never at the center for long.

Content: You become eccentric!

Content: Duryodhana operates near the periphery, coming very rarely towards his center. He is controlled by his senses and his mind. He has no control over them. Arjuna, on the other hand, tries to move to the center as much as he can. He tries to control his mind and his senses. This is the difference between the two. Who is better and who is worse? Who can pass any judgment?

Content: If you were to ask for my advice, of course I shall say, be like Arjuna. Arjuna is a seeker. He is a disciple and he is working to drop his ego. But until he reaches the center, there is no fundamental difference between him and Duryodhana.

Content: Like Arjuna and Duryodhana, every one of you is maintaining the same distance from enlightenment. Attending a few discourses, reading many books and even understanding some of them intellectually is not the experience of enlightenment itself. Both these warriors are in darkness, but just to different degrees, that's all.

Content: Existence does not differentiate between saints and sinners as we classify them. Existence does not care. When you turn your attention inward and you are at the center of your being, you become Existence; you become enlightened. I always say that enlightenment is your natural state; it is not something that you need to work towards. You just have to be, that is all.

Content: You may be Duryodhana or Arjuna. It makes no difference!

Content: I have said time and again: I needed to experiment with ten thousand keys before I could find the right key to open the door to the truth. I now offer you that key so that you do not need to struggle.

Content: It does make some difference in the path when you are an Arjuna. Not because you are closer to the center instead of the periphery, but because you are guided by a master. The redeeming factor for Arjuna was that Krishna was his master. Nothing else. It is Arjuna's surrender to Krishna that makes the difference. Nothing else.

Content: Do not try to judge Arjuna and Duryodhana. There is nothing to differentiate and judge. But act like Arjuna, if you can. Become a seeker. Seek a master. Your path will be easier. You can learn from life or you can learn from the master. With the master it is faster, easier and more compassionate for you.

Chapter Number: 1.31

Content: 1.31 I do not see how any good can come from killing my own kinsmen in this battle, nor can I, my dear Krishna, desire any subsequent victory, kingdom or happiness.

Chapter Number: 1.32

Content: 1.32 What use is kingdom, pleasures or even life, Krishna?

Chapter Number: 1.33

Content: 1.33 Those for whose sake we seek kingdoms, enjoyment and happiness Now are arrayed in this battlefield ready to lose their lives and wealth.

Chapter Number: 1.34, 1.35

Content: 1.34, 1.35 Even if I am about to be slain by my teachers, fathers, sons, grandfathers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law and all relatives, I would not like to slay them even to gain control of all three worlds.

Content: Why then, Madhusudana, would I wish to kill them for control of this earth?

Content: Arjuna now started developing his theme in detail. He started expressing his doubts with clarity. One may ask, 'How can such doubts be clear?' Doubts need to be clear if they are to be resolved. Unclear doubts lead only to more confusion. Unintelligent beings have unclear doubts. Arjuna's doubts were precise.

Content: How could he seek happiness through destruction of his kinsmen, he asked. How could any good come out of this action? How could he desire power, possessions and pleasures through such action? And if he did gain those things as a result of killing his family, of what use would such a life be to him?

Content: Though Arjuna was in a dilemma, it was a dilemma born out of intelligence, not out of ignorance.

Content: Arjuna had been taught all his life to seek power, possessions and pleasures, and he had done it. Up to this point, he had not come across a single situation where the cost of acquiring these had seemed to be greater than the accruing profit, the resulting enjoyment. Perhaps he had never bothered to evaluate the cost and benefits.

Content: For the first time in his life, he has encountered a situation that forces him to evaluate his options.

Content: 'Do I forge ahead and destroy what is dear to me so that I get more power and possibly more pleasure?' he asks. What a fundamental question, one that each one of us should ask ourselves. How often do we go behind activities that promise us more material benefits, even though we know that these may in some way damage our life or the lives of those we care about?

Content: Life becomes mechanical for most people. Rather than live in the spontaneity of the present, our past is vividly remembered and it is used to forget the present. If the past event was one of sorrow, we try to avoid it in future. If the past event was joyful, we try to replicate it. We try to avoid regret and guilt in the future, and embrace happiness. The problem is that life is not so predictable. Yet we try to control it as if it is. The bigger problem is that we are so conditioned by our behavioral patterns, that in spite of all precautions, we keep making the same mistakes. Our saṁskāras, our unconscious, ensures this.

Content: Very few of us stop to think and question the purpose and value of our actions. With few exceptions, we are taught how to live and what to do with our lives, first by our families and later by society. We do our best to seek fulfillment and make a contribution in the way that we have learned. Most often we are so busy just trying to keep up with our personal and professional commitments, that it never occurs to us to ask ourselves whether we are truly fulfilled. Our lives become a constant series of 'What next, what next?'

Content: For example, as youngsters we think, 'As soon as I get out of my parents' house and into college, I will be happy.' When that is accomplished, our minds immediately rush to the next goal, 'As soon as I graduate and get a good job I will be happy.' Once that is done, it is marriage, home, children, vacation. On and on it goes, until we have all the things that we want but not the sustained satisfaction for which we worked. Invariably we realise only in our old age that something is wrong in the way we worked.

Content: It takes a lot of courage to stop and question our lives, our actions and society's plan for us. It takes inner fortitude to say to the world, 'Stop, I want to get off; I want to retire seek true inner bliss!'

Content: Sanyāsis are courageous people. They are not cowards who walk away from society because they can't succeed by society's rules. No! It takes tremendous courage and insight to recognize the transitory nature of life and its limited offer of happiness, to say 'I want something more.' It takes enormous courage to escape from the materialism of the world with an attitude of seeking one's true purpose in life.

Content: 'What is the purpose of my life, Krishna?' wailed Arjuna.

Content: Arjuna is now questioning himself, his training and his purpose when faced with the task of fighting against his kinsmen. The scene from his chariot has taken him off balance! In his heart he knows that what he is about to do is correct. All of his training as a kṣatriya confirms this as well. But when faced with the reality of actually killing those who have been near and dear to him, he loses his will. Why?

Content: Arjuna is a courageous man. Only a courageous person will have the confidence to open himself up so transparently and expose his innermost fears and seek help. Arjuna was not depressed. He was not frustrated. He was not afraid in the obvious sense.

Content: Arjuna was confused, but in a way that was different from what we see in Duryodhana's behavior. Based upon all his training and society's guidance, Arjuna could certainly differentiate between actions that are right or wrong. His sudden confusion grew out of a concern that what he had been taught throughout his life, the very foundation upon which he stood, might be wrong. 'Could this be possible?' he asked himself for the first time.

Content: Fortunately for Arjuna, his charioteer is none other than Krishna Himself, Lord of all beings and knower of all! Only He can see what is at the heart of Arjuna's grief. Only He could provide answers to Arjuna's doubts and the right solutions to Arjuna's dilemma.

Content: Arjuna argues that the reason one would fight to gain power and wealth was for the sake of one's near and dear ones. However, these people who were now gathered in battle, ready to lay down their lives and lose their possessions, were the ones with whom Arjuna should fight! As we saw, they were his teachers, fathers, grandfathers, uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law and other relatives.

Content: Arjuna declared that even if they killed him, he would not consider killing them at any cost, even if he gained the possession of all three worlds as his reward. He then questioned Krishna rhetorically, that if he would not kill them for all the riches of the three worlds, why would he destroy them for the sake of earth, this one world, alone?

Content: When asking this question, Arjuna calls Krishna Madhusudana, which means the slayer of the demon Madhu. Arjuna implies that Krishna may be a destroyer, but Arjuna himself would not like to be one like Him.

Content: Arjuna’s dilemma had now become deeper and more complicated. He had now got into justifications as to why he should not kill, justifications that have no merit from the standpoint of a warrior.

Content: Arjuna’s initial dilemma was with his value system. As a kṣatriya he was bound by duty to destroy enemies and acquire material possessions. The dilemma was created by the fact that his enemies were his kinsmen, teachers and friends. To any observer, his dilemma had validity. But now, he tries to convince himself through further arguments that actually lack strength.

Content: Arjuna’s mind was playing tricks on him. This is a common game we all play with ourselves. When the stakes are high in any competitive environment, when they are too high for comfort, we play this game. We fantasize about rewards far greater than what could possibly materialize. The more unrealistic and unlikely the reward, the easier it is to refuse it.

Content: Once we convince ourselves of this imaginary sacrifice of imaginary rewards, we find it easier to walk away from the more realistic and tougher challenges that we have at hand. Arjuna is playing the same game.

Content: Arjuna said he would not kill even if he were to be killed. This is just a lie that his mind is imposing on him. It is his own loss of identity that is bothering him, the loss of identity that would result from the destruction of his lineage.

Content: Arjuna then went on to say that he would not consider killing his kinsmen and teachers, even if he were offered all the three worlds of this universe in return; even such a great reward would not attract him. Why then, he queries, would the reward of just this planet earth, be attractive to him?

Content: Who was offering Arjuna the three worlds anyway? The notion was a pure figment of his overexcited imagination. If Krishna had turned around and offered Arjuna the control of the universe, Arjuna’s dilemma would have actually become

Content: far worse! However, posing it as a symbolic question as Arjuna did, made him look noble.

Content: There is a folk tale in Tamil, in which a jackal offers a crow fruits to eat while trying to entice the bird and capture it. The crow is interested in the fruit but it is smart also! It refuses the offer and consoles itself by saying that the fruit was probably sour, otherwise the jackal itself would have eaten it. 'Oh, oh, this fruit is sour,' the bird says, 'I don't want it.'

Content: Arjuna's tale is similar. He is consoling himself with the idea that the rewards of winning this battle are too small and that even if he were to be offered control of the universe, he would not be tempted. It is a safe position he is taking, since the chances of his being offered the control of the universe are infinitely small. What matters is that it calms his bruised mind and keeps the focus off the real source of his fear.

Content: Time and again, people play this game with themselves and others. It starts when we cannot face the truth and therefore cannot tell the truth. Whatever be the reason, the truth is dangerous, both to the one who speaks it and to the one who hears it. So we camouflage the truth in a more acceptable presentation. Then we are caught in denial.

Content: Arjuna was afraid to lose his own identity through the loss of so many well-established relationships in his life. However, that truth would hurt him and he was not prepared to see it. Perhaps he was not even aware of this truth. It might have been well hidden in his unconscious. For the majority of us, our identity lies in the roles we play, the responsibilities that we have, the worrying we do and the acceptance that we receive from others. Without these possessions and relationships to form the foundation of our personalities, without the foundation of 'mine', we feel lost and have no 'I'. Like us, Arjuna found it better to invent a host of other reasons to avoid facing the truth.

Content: A senior government official, a devotee, once called me in the middle of the night, desperate to see me. 'I must see you now,' he said. 'I am desperate. I am so bogged down by problems and so depressed, I may even commit suicide. It is a matter of life and death. I need to see you immediately.'

Content: I talked to him for a while and managed to calm him down and suggested that he could come the next morning and that I would see him.

Content: 'No, no,' he replied. 'I cannot come tomorrow morning. I have urgent meetings that I cannot miss. I will come some other time.'

Content: A few minutes earlier, seeing me immediately was a matter of life and death to him. Now, his meeting in the morning was more critical!

Content: We create illusions in our mind about the situations we face, about how critical they are to our existence. Then we create fantasies in our minds about what is going to happen to us, be it an imagined good result or a difficulty. We do everything except face the present moment with awareness.

Content: As we will see later, facing the present moment is precisely what Krishna forces Arjuna to do. When Arjuna is able to surrender to Krishna's teachings and bring his attention to the present, his doubts and illusions dissolve. Arjuna then understands what he needs to do and goes about doing it with purpose and full commitment.

Content: Q: Arjuna was a successful warrior and yet he goes into depression. At least he had a master who could help him. What can others do?

Content: There are two kinds of depression. One is 'depression of failure'. Time and again you try for some end result and you fail. You then get frustrated. After a while, depending upon how persevering you are, you may keep trying and succeed or give up and move to another objective.

Content: This is why patience and perseverance are considered great virtues. Each attempt is a new attempt and not linked to what happened before. This is what I call 'unclutching'. So long as you do not relate a past failure to your current failure, you can continue to be energized and keep trying and ultimately be successful.

Content: Most of what you do is like tossing a coin! The end result is one of probability. The more you attempt, the more the chance of your success.

Content: In the so-called less developed countries, more people suffer from this depression of failure. They would like to acquire more material possessions, and until they acquire these they are constantly striving and sometimes become depressed.

Content: The other kind of depression is 'depression of success'. This is common in developed societies. Here, you are successful in acquiring all that you have dreamed of, but then start wondering what the purpose of all these acquisitions is!

Content: Wealth, relationships, pleasures and all these external acquisitions create more wants. Enjoyment of what one acquires is no longer the purpose. Acquisition itself wants.

Content: becomes the purpose. This can never end. It becomes an addiction. The more one acquires, the less one derives pleasure.

Content: People ask me time and again in the USA, 'Swami, we have everything that we ever wanted, far more than we ever dreamt as possible. Yet we are dissatisfied. We have all that we always wanted, but now we do not understand why we wanted them. There is no joy.'

Content: Of course, there is no joy. You think joy comes from outside. So, you change cars every year, houses every three years and spouses every five years! No, joy comes from within.

Content: That is why in the vedic culture there was no word for divorce! The concept itself was unknown! In those days, you never attempted to change your spouse; you worked on changing your perception and personality instead. The external change will never bring you happiness; the inner transformation always will.

Content: How do people cope with depression of success?

Content: The first is through addiction. One keeps acquiring without even knowing why. This is the classic example of decreasing value with increasing inputs. It never works. Whether it is alcohol, drugs, sex or wealth, more and more delivers less and less. In fact, it delivers more and more suffering, that's all.

Content: Depression of success can lead to suicide, either just killing oneself or slowly dying within, and becoming the living dead. Addiction is an active way of inviting suffering, and depression is a passive way of inviting suffering. Both methods are dead ends. The third method, which only a few intelligent people choose, is that of meditation. You have to go into the depression to get to know it, to analyze it and come out of it. These are the three ways to cope with depression. You have to choose your own path.

Content: You may ask, 'But is it not difficult?'

Content: It is not!

Content: Just change the programming in your mind! Instead of always saying it is difficult, start saying it is easy! It is you who creates the word 'difficult' in your mind. In the beginning your mind will not accept that it is easy. It will resist. But if you go on telling yourself that it is easy, you will find that you have become more positive in your whole outlook.

Content: Ramana Maharshi, an enlightened master from India, sings so beautifully: 'So easy is this Self-Realization, so easy this enlightenment!' His followers ask, 'How can you say it is easy?' He explains that we need to work hard to achieve anything in the outer world, to have a good lifestyle. But we only have to relax and be quiet to achieve in the inner world, and that is enough! You have been trained to achieve many difficult things but you forget the simple thing. All you need to do is look into yourself. You cannot say that you are so poor that you cannot even address your mind with good words, or speak kindly to yourself. Of course, you can! You do not need complicated techniques to achieve this. People talk of 'stillness of mind', 'prāṇāyāma', and all such big words. These create more complications. Meditation is simple. Now, as you are sitting, just become aware of your boundary. Not going where you are not is meditation. Being where you are is meditation. Usually when you are here, you are thinking of your home. When you are at home, you are thinking of the evening discourse. At the discourse you are thinking of when you can return home. At home you are thinking of the next day's office work. At the office you are planning an evening outing. When outside, you start thinking of home again. We are never where our body is. So being in the present, living with awareness and consciousness is what I call meditation. We are always disturbed by too many words and ideas. Just relax and be where you are. Feel the ground, feel how you are sitting, and feel all the parts of your body. Just experience the present. By just being totally in the body you will start experiencing life. Because this idea is so simple, it is difficult to understand.

Content: There is a Zen koan about the Truth. It says: It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, He could have cooked his rice much sooner! The truth is too simple and is right there for us to see, but we make it so complicated!

Content: All our life we are used to moving out of our body in search of pleasures and so it is difficult to come out of it.

Content: We are used to living either thinking about or regretting whatever we have done in the past, or in the future speculating about what can happen. If you are used to living in the past and in the future, don't be bothered by it.

Content: Here is a logical example: when you have a headache, you try to come out of it. You take medicine to come out of it because painlessness is your nature and you want to come back to that state quickly. In the same way, if worrying and thinking about the past and the future is your nature, then why do you want to come out of it? You want to come out because it is not your nature.

Content: Why then are you associating yourself with the worrying? Associate yourself with living in the present.

Content: You have come from France and settled in the USA for the past 30 years. As you no longer practice speaking French, you have forgotten how to speak French. Suddenly if somebody starts speaking in French, will you not remember? In the same way, bliss and living in the present is a language closer to you than your mother tongue. Up to the age of seven, you were in that state. So start reclaiming that forgotten language, that forgotten state.

Content: Moving into the present allows you to disassociate from guilt, regret, greed and speculation. It will allow you to disengage from past happenings that you project into the future. These are the projections that invite suffering. You understand that success and failure are both in your mind. You learn to perform without attachment to the end result.

Content: You then walk out of any possibility of depression!

Chapter Number: 1.36

Content: 1.36 What pleasure will we get by destroying the sons of Dhritarashtra, Janardana? Only sin will overcome us if we slay these wrongdoers.

Chapter Number: 1.37

Content: 1.37 It is not proper for us to kill the sons of Dhritarashtra and our friends.

Content: How could we be happy by killing our own kinsmen, Madhava?

Chapter Number: 1.38, 1.39

Content: 1.38, 1.39 O Janardana, although these men are consumed by greed and they see no fault in killing one's family or quarreling with friends,

Content: Why should we, who understand the evil of the destruction of a dynasty, not turn away from these acts?

Content: Here is Arjuna's dilemma spoken plainly. He had two options and is looking to be convinced of one or the other. The first was that going to battle was wrong, especially against his kinsmen. Therefore he should cease and desist, walk away from the war before it starts. All his arguments up to this point were in this line of thinking. At the same time, Arjuna was open to the possibility that what he had set out to do was indeed correct, in which case he would go back into battle mode, as a true kṣatriya would do.

Content: To begin with had Arjuna been totally convinced that war against his kinsmen was wrong, he would not have come to the battlefield. It was his degree of awareness that raised within him the question of retreat from his duty. To Arjuna's credit, he listened to what his mind had to say and turned to the master for guidance and resolution.

Content: Arjuna's mind now brings up one more argument. Arjuna agreed that Duryodhana and his allies were the aggressors and wrongdoers. Whatever they had done to him, his brothers and his wife was not pardonable, and they needed to be punished for that. The laws of the land would concur. By all rights Arjuna would have been quite justified in attacking and killing those wrongdoers for what they had done.

Content: 'But,' Arjuna asked, 'Would one wrong be corrected by another wrong? How can I be happy killing my kinsmen, however justified I might be in doing that? Their misdeeds cannot be remedied by my misdeed and that would only make me miserable.'

Content: There are two factors central to Arjuna's dilemma.

Content: The first one is that of relationship. The problem that Arjuna faced is one that we all face when asked to do unpleasant things to people we know. It is always easier to criticize and punish people one does not know. To be faceless is to be fearless. With people one knows, with whom one has established bonds of friendship, there is a danger of breaking it through perceived negative behavior, even when it may be fully justified.

Content: To face this factor in one's dilemma, one must first break the connection or develop a sense of detachment that allows action without worrying about the consequences. One follows the process and the path and leaves the result to the process. As long as the path is right, whatever destination the path takes one to, will also be right.

Content: Over the ages, this sense of connection had been broken by religious and societal separation. Contrary to what anyone may say, religion separates. It segregates and it destroys. More people have been killed in religious wars over the ages than for any other reason. As Lenin famously remarked, 'Religion is the opium that blunts one's sensitivity to another human and allows one to ill-treat, maim and kill another human.'

Content: Terrorists are only the modern representation of what has gone on for centuries in many nations in the name of religion. It is nothing new. Destroying one another has happened through the ages, within religions through artificially created separations, and between religions in the name and defense of my god versus your god.

Content: When religion was deemed insufficient reason to kill, man found other 'rational' reasons to segregate and kill: color of the skin, language and cultural differences, territorial disputes and more. Anything that could differentiate, anything that created the possibility of fear or threat was a good enough reason to discriminate and destroy. As one present day activist has put it, ignorance breeds fear, fear breeds hatred and hatred breeds violence. It begins with our ignorance.

Content: To overcome this isolation, we need to realize that no man is an island. We are all connected. We are interconnected at the spiritual level, and recent discoveries show that we are also interconnected at the cellular level. Studies in molecular

Content: cellular biology by path-breaking scientists such as Bruce Lipton show that Darwin was wrong when he said we must compete to survive. In fact, we need to collaborate to survive. That is what cells do. They know intuitively that they are interconnected, that they are part of a larger system.

Content: When we arrive on planet earth, we are open to all possibilities. As children, we are centered upon ourselves as children in a simple and beautiful way, and open to all connections. It is as if we are a large open area that anyone can access. Over time, we build walls. We build walls believing that these walls will keep us safe and that the connections that we have established inside the walls are ours to keep. Bit by bit, the open space we started with becomes a maze. We do not know how to exit and if we do exit, we do not know how to enter again. We are lost inside!

Content: The silos need to be broken. The islands need to be bridged. People need to communicate and collaborate instead of isolating themselves and competing. At the basic cellular level, it is now found that cells like to cluster together, and form clumps that can communicate. It is found that cells communicate through their boundary membranes and not through their nuclei as had been assumed. Competition does not ensure survival; collaboration does. Communication does.

Content: However, when we work valuing only the results, our efforts become counterproductive. As long as this collaboration is selfless, as long as it is for the collective good and collective survival, from the awareness that we all are a part of the collective consciousness, this collaboration is extremely effective. We must consider process and source along with the result.

Content: The other factor that Arjuna faces is the problem of directness of action. In a war of this type, Arjuna was faced with the transparent consequences of his action. If he shot an arrow and killed a kinsman, death was a direct result of his action. This is far different from modern warfare. Pressing a button could result in the death of millions. There is enough nuclear arsenal stored in the world to destroy the planet many times over.

Content: Arjuna did not have the luxury of remote destruction. He had to look the victim in the eye before releasing his arrow. He was aware of whom he was killing and why. He felt the destruction within himself when he killed someone else.

Content: Arjuna was affected by the combination of these two factors: that of being connected by kinship to his enemies and the fact that he had to kill them directly and personally. It affected him because he was not a Duryodhana, who denied to himself and others the consequences of his actions. It affected Arjuna because he

Content: was not a Krishna who would have taken responsibility for his actions, being aware all the time. Arjuna was neither Krishna nor Duryodhana. His mind was pointing out that he might be doing wrong, but his mind had not yet ascended into that state of awareness to be able to take responsibility for such actions.

Content: This was Arjuna’s dilemma.

Content: Arjuna has now distanced himself further from his kinsmen. He earlier said that even if his kinsmen had made big mistakes, he should not repeat the same mistakes; he would not, even if he were to be offered the entire universe. He wondered what joy he would get by destroying his kinsmen and what would be the point of living as a king if he was alone to enjoy it.

Content: He said that his kinsmen were in darkness. They saw nothing wrong in destroying one another and their own kinsmen. They were blinded by greed for power and control. They were ruled by blind ego. He asked Krishna, ‘Shouldn’t we be distancing ourselves from these people and their attitudes, we who are not ignorant, not in darkness and not blinded?’

Content: Arjuna was pleading with Krishna, ‘Please tell me, am I right? Please tell me, should I withdraw from this battle?’

Content: But now, he condemned the same fathers, grandfathers, teachers, uncles and friends that he had referred to so passionately a few moments earlier. These are the same people who he claimed to hold in great respect and affection and therefore did not wish to kill. He shifted gears now and moved from the position of not killing them because they were his flesh and blood to a greater moral position of not wishing to kill them because it was morally reprehensible.

Content: Arjuna said that destruction of the lineage, the dynasty, is evil, and that he recoiled from such a deed even though his opponents had no such compunction, blinded as they were by greed. Arjuna moved to higher ground from arguments of family to lineage and dynasty. It was now a matter of tradition and respect for the lineage that could be traced back to the moon, and an old, established tradition that would be a sin to dismantle and destroy.

Content: Arjuna’s dilemma now jumps to a larger arena. It’s no longer about individuals, it is about the destruction of a race that had existed for thousands of years, tracing its roots back to celestial beings. How could he be expected to carry out such a horrible act, he pleaded.

Content: In Arjuna's mind this was a big doubt. Killing a few individuals, even if kinsmen, was a mistake. Killing a whole generation was a far bigger sin, and now he was expected to destroy a whole race, the foundations of a proud and legendary dynasty. How could the future generations forgive him?

Content: This was how the argument of Arjuna's dilemma shifted.

Content: When Arjuna talks about the threat to his dynasty, it arises out of a fear of his own mortality. He has asked, 'Even if I am to die, as I must, should I not ensure the continuance of my dynasty that bears my signature, my identity, my DNA?'

Content: Q: You talked about Arjuna's dilemma. Was there really a dilemma? Dilemma is when one has choices. In many ways Arjuna had no choice about fighting his cousins. Wasn't it really fear that caused this confusion?

Content: We have choices in everything that we decide and act upon. In life we have choice in everything, including our birth and death.

Content: Even in birth and death our spirit does have a choice. It is our undying spirit that decides where and to whom we will be born in the next birth. We choose our parents before birth just as we choose spouses and work once we are alive. We do not choose our children. They choose us.

Content: Our spirit does decide our death. It is just that we are living deep in our unconscious during our lifetime and so we are unaware of this. Even a hundred years ago in India, old people had the capacity to foretell how and when they would die. Today there are people who can tell you when you are going to die and how to change that.

Content: So, we do have choice. So did Arjuna.

Content: At every point Arjuna had a choice, not just on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. In all earlier events, he allowed himself to be carried along with whatever happened around him. He was a wise man and understood that in life choices are fruitless.

Content: Living in the realm of dilemmas is living in the realm of the mind, the outer edges of our personality. Since we have not been exposed to any other way, we consider this normal and efficient. But that is not true. When we operate from the center of our being, we move beautifully with the flow of life operating out of a place of clarity and intuition. It is much more efficient and creative.

Content: In the battlefield of Kurukshetra Arjuna found it difficult to make the choice. So far, in everything he did he went by whatever was good for his brother or wife or loved ones. Everything he did was for others. He did not see the need to choose. Whatever option presented itself he chose. He was guided by the code of conduct of the kṣatriya, when he had to decide and act.

Content: Even choosing Krishna was not his decision. Krishna made the offer to Duryodhana: ‘Would you like me to be with you unarmed or would you like my unmatched Yadava army?’

Content: In greed, Duryodhana chose the Yadava army. On the other hand, Arjuna gladly accepted Krishna unarmed!

Content: For the first time now, Arjuna had a problem. He thought that the point of decision-making was over. The decision to wage war was a done deal. Of his brothers, Bhima was focused on the war because of his hatred for Duryodhana and what he had done to Draupadi. The two younger brothers went along with the others. Even the eldest, Yudhishtira, though he was ready to walk away without his kingdom, followed Krishna’s advice to fight for it. He considered the war a responsibility that he had to fulfill. The Mahabharata war, in its essence, was Krishna’s making.

Content: Arjuna probably thought the same also. It was his responsibility to avenge the dishonor heaped on his clan. Unmatched in valor and skill, he was not afraid in any ordinary sense of the word. He was a man without fear. What happened to him on the battlefield, the choice that he was presented with now, was not something he had anticipated.

Content: The sight of his kinsmen and his elders, ready for slaughter, presented for the first time the choice of either going ahead as he had planned or walking away from the battlefield. This was a choice that came from the depths of his unconscious, as we said before, his saṃskāras. Why?

Content: As a kṣatriya, a fearless warrior, his code of life and his conditioning from birth was to avenge, to fight and to win. What is this saṃskāra that suddenly raises doubts in his mind?

Content: The fact is that at this crucial moment, when the armies are all set to clash, the one moment when it is necessary to be focused and aware, Arjuna slips out of the present moment. That creates the dilemma. Arjuna’s dilemma is one of being caught in the regrets of the past and the speculative prospects of the future.

Content: Arjuna is upset that he has to fight against his elders, who are a part of his past. He is upset that many things will go wrong in the future. He is no longer focused in the present moment.

Content: This happens to all of us in times of crisis. Because of the intensity of the situation, when we need to be the most focused, we are often the most flustered. We somehow think that we must bring the past and future into the equation for a successful outcome in the present situation. You need to remember that nothing of what has happened and what may happen are of any help or relevance to us in the present moment. The best decision comes from the spontaneous, creative intelligence available only in the present.

Content: Usually when we are in a panic, we don't think clearly. Our minds are clouded with memories and fantasies that distract us. Our negative ideas about our potential future also keep us from giving all our attention to the internal intelligence always available to guide us. As of now, fantasies and fear rule Arjuna's mind. His unconscious mind in turn rules him. This creates his dilemma.

Content: The only way out of his dilemma is with the guidance of his friend and master, Krishna. It is to Him that Arjuna turns now for clarity.

Chapter Number: 1.40

Content: With the destruction of dynasty, the eternal family tradition is destroyed too, And the rest of the family becomes involved in immoral practices.

Chapter Number: 1.41

Content: When immoral practices become common in the family, O Krishna, The women of the family become corrupted, And from the degradation of womanhood, O descendant of Varshni, arise social problems.

Chapter Number: 1.42

Content: As these social problems increase, the family and those who destroy the family tradition are cast in hell, As there is no offering of food and water to their ancestors.

Chapter Number: 1.43

Content: Due to the evil deeds of the destroyers of family tradition, All kinds of rituals and practices of caste and family are devastated.

Chapter Number: 1.44

Content: O Janardana, I have heard that those who destroy family traditions dwell always in hell.

Content: Arjuna then elaborated upon these immoral and unrighteous acts. He said that women in the family would become unchaste and that mixing with other castes would follow, resulting in children of mixed castes, which would be undesirable. Those who destroy family traditions would ruin all sacred practices and lead the families into polluted progeny, and such people had no place to go but hell.

Content: To understand what Arjuna said, it is important to understand the origin of the caste tradition in Hindu religion. At the age of five, a child was given to the care of a spiritual master by the parents in the ancient Indian education system called gurukul. The master became mother, father and teacher to the child. By living in close proximity to an enlightened master, the child's personality and expression was observed. These factors, along with any spiritual experiences before physical maturity, determined how the youngster was trained - either for sanyās (spiritual fulfillment) or for married life. The child's natural aptitudes formed the basis for the caste classification, varnāśrama. Brāhmaṇas (priests/teachers), kṣatriyas (kings/warriors), vaiśyas (merchants/tradesmen) and śūdras (agricultural/service) are these four classes.

Content: Even at this level of understanding, the truths expounded in the Gita are about personal transformation. Each verse of the Gita is a sūtra, a technique that can work on your being and transform you.

Content: The essence of the Gita is about the present moment. That is how Krishna brings Arjuna into awareness. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to say that the Gita is tagi, a corruption of the word 'tyāg' that meant renunciation or surrender. Gita is about surrendering the past and the future to the present.

Content: The vedic gurukul system was not concerned with whether the child's parents were brāhmaṇa or vaiśya. If the guru found that the child had the natural aptitude to learn the scriptures, the child would be trained as a brāhmaṇa. Irrespective of parentage, boys and girls were taught the Gāyatri mantra at age seven, which allowed their natural intelligence to blossom. Those whose ability leaned towards the spiritual path and who expressed this aptitude through personal development and experiences were trained in the scriptures. Others were trained in materially relevant arts and sciences so that they could re-enter the world with a mature, integrated personality.

Content: Such was the origin of the caste system. This system was similar to the Guild system that prevailed in England thousands of years later. It is said to have contributed much to the Industrial Revolution that made England a super colonial power at one time.

Content: Over time, this caste system was corrupted through human greed. Those who believed that they were doing more responsible work, and therefore were more respected, such as the brāhmaṇas and kṣatriyas, decided to pass on their caste qualification to their children as if it was their birthright. Such a practice had no scriptural sanction.

Content: The son of a brāhmaṇa, who had neither the aptitude nor the knowledge to be a brāhmaṇa, ceased to have the right and qualifications to be called a brāhmaṇa. The son of a śūdra, if he exhibited the aptitude and developed the skills to learn the scriptures and decided to lead a spiritual life, had every right and qualification to be called a brāhmaṇa. That is the scriptural truth.

Content: Arjuna’s doubts about caste pollution had no scriptural base or merit. What he referred to became the societal norm because of human greed. There were many instances of caste mixture even in the great Kuru lineage that Arjuna claimed would be destroyed. Satyavatī, his great grandmother, was a fisherman’s daughter who his great grandfather, Shantanu, became infatuated with.

Content: Arjuna himself had wives who were not of kṣatriya lineage by birth.

Content: Arjuna talked as if mired in total confusion when he linked practice of rites and rituals with morality and chastity. He talked about women becoming unchaste as a result of families not following rites and rituals. His logic was distorted.

Content: Rites and rituals, as prescribed in the scriptures, are an expression of one’s inner awareness. They become useful when one is aware. Awareness is not created by blind practice of rites and rituals. How many people we see muttering their prayers and mantra, rolling their rosary beads while thinking of something else! God’s name is on their tongues but their shopping lists are in their minds!

Content: Arjuna voiced the sentiments of organized religion and priesthood, which derive their power and monetary base from such rites and rituals. They use these rites and rituals, and their sole authority to perform them, as a factor of control over the masses. This is how, in each culture and religion, the power of the priestly class was established, as if they were the sole mediators to God.

Content: Arjuna talked about ancestral worship and implied that the offspring of mixed caste have no right to make offerings to their ancestors, leaving them lost in the

Content: realms beyond death. It is the confusion that has prevailed over the ages that Arjuna captured and presented. He raises doubts on behalf of mankind and seeks clarification. The dilemma was not only Arjuna's, but also of mankind.

Content: There are no ancestral spirits waiting to be pacified by us. If the spirit is enlightened it merges with the infinite energy. If not, it gets reborn within three kṣaṇas, three moments. Spirits do not hang around waiting to be pacified. Nor do they go to hell if they are not pacified.

Content: There is no hell or heaven in the sense that we have been taught. Hell and heaven are in our minds. They are psychological spaces, not geographical places. We are in hell when we are depressed, guilty and in suffering. We are in heaven when we feel and express love, joy and gratitude. We pass through hell and heaven even as we live, day-to-day, hour-to-hour and minute-by-minute. We do not have to wait for our death to taste hell or heaven.

Content: Religions and religious authorities have created the concepts of hell and heaven, to insert guilt and motivation in people, to control others. They have also created the concept of sin. There is no sin in true spiritual terms. Where there is sin there is also merit. It is the principle of Tao. There can be no good without evil, and no evil without good. The only sin we are in, the original sin, is the ignorance of our own divinity.

Content: Arjuna is not a fool. He understands all this perfectly. Yet, he voices his doubts as if ignorant, as if confused. He acts out of compassion for humanity when he articulates these doubts so that the divine Krishna can answer, to everyone's benefit.

Content: A thoughtful man like Arjuna cannot talk about the lack of chastity of women without blaming the men who are equally responsible. He reflects here the superior attitude of men over the ages, those who have treated women with undue superiority. The doubts he voices are those of the society he lives in, and those doubts have not changed in thousands of years.

Content: Q: How does an enlightened person react to the physical environment?

Content: He responds in the same way as an ordinary person.

Content: There is a beautiful Zen statement: before enlightenment, a mountain is a mountain, a tree is a tree, a river is a river. While seeking, a mountain is not a

Content: mountain, a tree is not a tree, a river is not a river; one is confused, and searching for meanings and significance everywhere. After enlightenment, again a mountain is a mountain, a tree is a tree, a river is a river!

Content: Although the enlightened being reacts the same way to the different things around us, after enlightenment he sees it all from a different plane. A normal person always sees in a distorted way, as he wants to see it.

Content: A small story:

Content: Two elderly women met after many years.

Content: One of them asked, 'What happened to your son?'

Content: The other woman replied, 'My son? He is so unlucky. Unfortunately he got married to a girl who won't do any work in the house. She won't cook, she won't sew, she won't even wash or clean. All she does is eat, sleep and read in bed. My poor son even has to bring her breakfast to her bed.'

Content: 'That's very bad! And how is your daughter?'

Content: 'She is a lucky girl! She has married a very nice person. He won't let her do a thing in the house. He does all the cooking, sewing, washing and cleaning. And every morning he brings her breakfast to the bed. All she does is sleep for as long as she wants and spend the rest of the day relaxing and reading.'

Content: Just observe how we see things! Same situation, same person, but the reactions are different depending on whether its the son or the son-in-law who does the house work! This is what we mean when we say we see according to our perception. But an enlightened person sees things as they are, with neither attachment nor detachment.

Content: An enlightened being takes life as it flows. He does not attempt to change it according to his convenience. He is passively active, not lazy.

Content: How do we distinguish between letting life flow and laziness? In laziness you will always be tired. The more you rest, the more you will be tired; you will become tired from resting. Letting go and allowing life to flow, you will be bubbling, alive, fresh and radiating energy. If you are confused, you are in laziness. The moment you surrender, you will have no confusion, and automatically you will cooperate to let life flow. You will only be in ecstasy.

Content: Q: People wonder whether they need to be qualified to be enlightened. Do they need to do good deeds? Do they need to be scholars? Do they need to belong to a particular caste or creed or religion?

Content: Someone in India asked me if those in the 'untouchable' caste could ever find enlightenment?

Content: As long as you have an idea that you are untouchable, and you are unfit, you can't find enlightenment. The moment you drop that idea, you can find enlightenment. Nobody is untouchable. The idea is wrong, and happens due to some inferiority complex. If somebody claims you can't touch him because he is holier than you, then be sure only he is the untouchable one.

Content: Understand that saints and sinners are both the same distance from enlightenment. The saint has no advantage so long as the sinner has the same craving for enlightenment as the saint.

Content: People often ask me why we are not working on projects such as environment improvement, population management and stopping wars. A socially correct answer would be, 'Yes, we must work for global peace, a better environment, equal distribution of wealth and so on.' But my honest answer is this: transform yourself. Only individual transformation can ensure all these at the same time. You can't do otherwise.

Content: If society could do anything else it would have done it by now. Let us be honest that we are not able to do anything much socially. We always feel the world is totally spoiled now and that in ancient times the world was beautiful.

Content: From the Harappa-Mohenjodaro culture, which is thousands of years old, they found writings crying about the state of affairs at that time itself. They have unearthed writings from those days that say, 'There is so much war, society is deteriorating, but in olden times society was much better.' Even thousands of years ago, people thought that the past was better!

Content: There was no such time when only good prevailed! The idea of a golden past is used only to postpone accepting reality. Maybe the news did not reach others so people did not know about it. But both good and bad existed in the past and will always exist in future also. If you awaken yourself, you can go beyond it. If you become enlightened, you can take yourself out of the collective negative consciousness, thereby reducing it. Everybody wants to spread peace according to his own perception, not according to others' perceptions.

Content: I was in an inter-religion conference where one person was preaching, 'All of you accept and convert to my religion so that we won't fight.' The very statement clearly misses the whole thing! The point is not to convert everybody to your religion but to acknowledge that all religions are one and go beyond that also into pure spirituality. The problem is, every religion takes the sword to spread peace! But no revolution will help. It will only make matters worse. Only individual evolution will help, because as you raise your consciousness, you add to the collective positive energy on earth and diminish the collective negative energy.

Content: I often say that what you need to evolve in is consciousness, not conscience. People ask how I can make such a statement when Hitler, Saddam and serial killers have no conscience, and cause havoc. They ask me if it is not essential to have a conscience that tells us what is right and wrong.

Content: Please understand, a person who has real consciousness, cannot hurt others or kill others, because he feels others to be extensions of himself. A person with conscience may not kill with the knife, but he will kill with words because his being can still be violent. With conscience, you will be socially nonviolent, but with consciousness, your being itself will be nonviolent.

Content: According to me, morality should be based on consciousness, not on conscience. Conscience is a poor substitute for consciousness. In our meditation program called Nithyananda Spurana Program, also called Life Bliss Program Level II, we help people experience at least one glimpse of consciousness, so they can start living with consciousness instead of conscience.

Content: Anything based on conscience is skin deep. It is not eternal. Anything based on consciousness is eternal. We should work for a conscious experience. Just because we have not had a conscious experience, we should not compromise and settle for having only a good conscience.

Content: Our morality, understanding, lifestyle, everything, should be based on consciousness. When it is based on conscience, it is based on fear and greed. If the idea that you should not speed is based on fear, when you don't see a cop's car you will speed. It becomes tasty to break laws and you feel courageous also. Whenever any rule is followed because of fear and greed, you will be waiting for the chance to break the rule. Children saying 'no' to parents is because they feel good breaking rules. It makes them feel they have proved themselves. If morality is based on conscience, you will always do something to violate it, directly or indirectly.

Content: Consciousness is the guru, the master; conscience is not. With conscience, always a set of do's and don'ts will be given, and you will always be fighting it. The more conscience you have, the more dead you will be; the more schizophrenic you will be. With consciousness you will never have a doubt. You will just do what has to be done.

Content: People ask, how does one know that one is enlightened?

Content: The moment you become enlightened, the doubt itself disappears! Just as you have no doubt that you are seeing me, enlightenment is a clear experience, and the question itself disappears. As long as the question is there, you are not enlightened.

Content: Then the next question is, 'How does one become enlightened?'

Content: It is as simple as 1, 2 and 3:

Content:

1. Start meditating

Content: 2. Continue meditating

Content: 3. Continue meditating!

Content: Meditation is the only key to the experience that you are enlightened. Start with some meditation technique. Surely you will see the ultimate truth. Even though you don't believe you are a lion, you are a lion.

Content: In fact, you are already enlightened! That is your true nature. You are not aware of it, that is all. So, enlightenment can never be a goal to work towards, because you are already there.

Content: Awake, arise and stop! You have arrived! Drop your doubts.

Content: Surrender to the Divine by saying, 'You are the one who gave me belief and doubt. You keep both and let me be free.'

Content: A part of you believes in you, a part of you has doubts about you. Surrender both the doubt and the faith to the Divine. You want to keep only belief, but leave the doubt. That's where the trouble begins. Surrender both, then you will go beyond both. You will experience nityānanda, eternal bliss!

Chapter Number: 1.45

Content: Alas, we are preparing to commit greatly sinful acts by killing our kinsmen, Driven by the desire to enjoy royal happiness.

Chapter Number: 1.46

Content: I would consider it better for the Kaurava to kill me unarmed and unresisting, rather than for me to fight them.

Chapter Number: 1.47

Content: Sanjaya said: Having said this on the battlefield, Arjuna cast aside his bow and arrows And sat down on the chariot, his mind overwhelmed with grief.

Content: Arjuna was ready to give up. He was all set to run away from the battlefield and escape from the reality of his duty.

Content: He had convinced himself through his own illusory arguments that what he had embarked upon was pure evil, nothing but evil, and therefore he wanted no part of it. He said, 'I am ready to lay down arms and be defenseless. Let Duryodhana and his men kill me.'

Content: For a kṣatriya to say this means one of two things: His act is one of total surrender, or the helplessness of extreme confusion. A kṣatriya warrior, a supreme warrior such as Arjuna knows no fear. It is neither fear of death nor fear of injury that compels him to say what he did.

Content: As I remarked earlier, Arjuna was not in the mode of total surrender, not yet. He was not in the mode of ahimsa, nonviolence. He was not in tune with the cosmic consciousness to say that 'Killing others is killing myself, as I feel they are one with me.' His arguments about killing his kinsmen being like killing himself were born out of his ego and not out of self-realization.

Content: Arjuna's desperation, his feeling of helplessness arose from his dilemma, which was becoming more extreme by the minute. Arjuna was an intelligent man, a thoughtful man. He was a man accustomed to the light of clarity but who was now in darkness. He did not know where he was headed. He was torn between his duty as a kṣatriya prince, and the scriptural codes of morality.

Content: Arjuna's distress was complete. He sat down, unable to bear the weight of his emotions. He put down his bow and arrows, which signified that he was out of the battle.

Content: Arjuna's delusion was complete. He was as far away from reality as he could possibly get. The greatest of warriors of his time, the greatest of men, was in the depths of despair due to the inner turmoil that he was going through.

Content: The inner conflict between his upbringing and value systems, his saṁskāras and what he was about to do by waging war against his kinsmen, had reduced him to a pitiable wreck, who had now abandoned his weapons and collapsed inside his chariot. Arjuna, at this point, was no example of a true kṣatriya.

Content: Arjuna was now a true example of mankind. He was being human. He was torn between darkness and light. He was experiencing the deep conflict between the unconscious saṁskāras that were driving him and the reality of what he ought to do. The clarity that would come about with the help of the great master, would be his enlightenment.

Content: The darkness that surrounded Arjuna at this stage was māyā, the illusion that prevents all human beings from perceiving the Truth of Reality that pervades all our experiences. Yā mā iti māyā, that which is not real but appears as absolute is māyā. Māyā is not unreal in the sense that it does not exist. Māyā truly exists as reality. It veils, it covers Reality, the ultimate Truth, the Truth of our inner awareness, the Truth of our inner divinity; and therefore it is unreal, an illusion.

Content: Had Arjuna been Krishna, had Arjuna been enlightened, he would not have been tormented by the play of his māyā. Had Arjuna been a Duryodhana, or even a Bhima whose individual consciousness was not awakened, he would have accepted the māyā without question, and again not been tormented by it. But, Arjuna is intelligent. He is partially awakened, a seeker. He is in the presence of the greatest of all masters. He is struggling to rid himself of his māyā and seek clarity.

Content: It is Arjuna's ego that created the māyā in him. His own identity and his own identification with who he was, along with his conviction that he should preserve his lineage - all these factors created the illusion in him that he was something other than who he was. These created the doubt in him that he should do something other than what he was there to do.

Content: All of us come into this world with no identity. As we grow we collect labels describing ourselves - mother, father, brother, sister, relative, employer, employee, colleague, enemy and so on. We become so associated with the labels and their accessories that we forget who we really are. Our life is then about seeking fulfillment in the wrong places.

Content: A small story:

Content: A worried man went to see a psychiatrist. He was smoking a pipe and wearing strange beads. He had long hair and his trousers were torn in some places.

Content: Seeing him, the psychiatrist said, 'You say you're not a hippie. Then why are your clothes and hair like this?'

Content: The worried man replied, 'That's what I'm here to find out, doctor.'

Content: This is how it is for most of us! Like the hippie who went to the doctor to know himself, we search for happiness in the external world because that is where we have been taught to look for fulfillment. We only know how to look outside. Unfortunately, we keep believing that our bliss is outside of ourselves rather than at the core of our being. We have not learned how to look within and experience it.

Content: Happiness comes from within. Eternal happiness that constantly flows as bliss is always within. You cannot find it outside. You cannot reach it through material possessions, through relationships, through selfish philanthropy. It is a state of no-mind that you experience within yourself.

Content: As very young children we were all in bliss. Have you ever seen an unhappy baby, except when it is physically disturbed by hunger, thirst or pain? A young child is forever in bliss, always curious, always seeking, always energetic. As we grow, as we learn from others, we are taught to shift our attention away from that bliss. We learn from elders, from teachers, from people around us who have been at it longer than us. In short, we learn how to stop feeling blissful.

Content: Just as we learned how to stop feeling blissful, we can also learn how to 'un-stop' that stopping of bliss. We can relearn how to connect with our blissful nature again. We can learn to become aware of who we really are.

Content: That is the process Arjuna was going through. He had lost his awareness of inner bliss because of his saṁskāras and was in the deep throes of despair. The process of relearning, the process of transformation at the hands of the master was about to begin. If we become aware of that process, if we follow that process carefully over the eighteen chapters that the master takes His disciple through, we too can become aware.

Content: Shankara says beautifully: If you imbibe even a little of Bhagavad Gita, if you drink even a drop of Ganga water, if you think even once about that great master Krishna, you will never have to face death.

Content: Q: Swamiji, how does the tale of a war help us in day-to-day issues? There have been hundreds, if not thousands of wars in the history of mankind, and many have been well documented. These have not stopped other wars. They have not helped mankind learn. How does one expect Bhagavad Gita to transform peoples' attitudes?

Content: Mahabharata is not merely the tale of a war. It is a tale of many lives, which get involved in a war. The war itself is incidental to the story of the Pandava and Kaurava princes. What led to the war, how it could have been avoided and most importantly, why it was not avoided are the experiences from this epic.

Content: Contrary to most accounts of wars, written as historical documents, Bhagavad Gita is about how an expression of the Divine convinces its human aspect to go to war as a part of fulfilling its responsibilities.

Content: Bhagavad Gita is not about war; it is about how one should act in awareness, whatever be the circumstances before us. We cannot always choose the events of our lives, but we can choose to live them with awareness and spiritual maturity.

Content: The scriptural authority of Gita stems from the assurance of Krishna guaranteeing Arjuna that His words are the Truth. It is the Divine instructing the human. You may not know or even believe that someone like Krishna ever lived on this planet earth. But many great masters throughout the ages have meditated upon these truths expounded by Krishna and affirmed them with their own direct experiences. I affirm them with my own inner experiences of the cosmic truth. Every word of this scripture resounds with Truth.

Content: The truth of Bhagavad Gita exists at many levels. What you read from a translation or even a commentary is still only superficial. It is at the physical level. There are many more energy levels at which the Bhagavad Gita needs to be understood. These can only be conveyed in the intimacy of the master-disciple relationship.

Content: Any personal transformation is dependent upon two things. First, we must want to be transformed. No master, no book, nothing can be of help if we do not wish to transform ourselves. We must seek to be transformed. The universe is not bothered about whether we are transformed or not; it is up to us. Second, we must be in the present moment in order for that transformation, that alchemy to happen. You cannot live in the past or fantasize about the future and expect to be transformed.

Content: That is why meditation is such a powerful tool of personal transformation. In fact it is the only real tool of personal transformation, in addition to the enlightened master. No one can meditate on our behalf; we need to do it for ourselves. With practice, meditation immediately brings us into the present moment. We can be transformed, liberated, enlightened.

Content: Unlike addictions that lower our consciousness and require more and more for the same effect, meditation raises our consciousness and takes less and less to get the same and deeper benefits. With experience, we will find that we flow through our days in mindful awareness and bliss.

Content: Bhagavad Gita is meditation. Each verse is a sūtra that we can meditate upon. These verses, these profound truths, will take us deeper into inner awareness in meditation. As we contemplate upon them, they can transform us as nothing else can. That is why Shankara says that even a little reading of the Bhagavad Gita will liberate us.

Content: Metaphorically, this epic is the story of our own inner war. It is the fight between our positive and negative tendencies, our fear and greed. In many ways we are at war from the moment we are socialized and conditioned.

Content: Unfortunately, we are constantly at odds with ourselves. We do not know how to accept and celebrate everything that happens in the inner world and the outer world. We have yet to learn that life is good and our nature is bliss. So we struggle to define and bring 'order' to everything in life with the hope that we can succeed in being happy or at least not unhappy. In doing this we only bring chaos and suffering to ourselves and others.

Content: Mahabharata is the story of this inner war. That is why this great expression, Bhagavad Gita, touches and transforms us even today. It is Arjuna's story but it is our story as well!

Content: Thus ends the first chapter of the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, called Arjunaviṣāda Yogaḥ, in the Brahmavidya Yogashastra Bhagavad Gita Upaniṣad.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: Make no mistake, you are divine! Whatever state you are in now, you are still divine within! Let Krishna tell you how to unleash your divine potential.

Content: Swamiji, you have used the word 'pity' in describing Arjuna's state. Some people call it compassion that does not allow him to fight his kinsmen. Is there a difference?

Content: Krishna uses the term ārya. People say that Aryans were invaders of the ancient Indian people. Is that true?

Content: Why did Krishna choose the battlefield to deliver the great knowledge of Gita?

Content: How does the guru help the disciple? What is the process?

Content: When will Gita be accepted universally as a scripture?

Content: Why is Krishna wasting His time with Arjuna? Again and again Arjuna is coming up with the same questions. Obviously Arjuna does not have what it takes to understand the truth.

Content: You have been critical of philosophers. Isn't it a bit unfair? There have been many great philosophers who have contributed highly to human consciousness.

Content: When Arjuna says that he cannot attack his revered teachers like Drona and Bhishma, is he not saying what needs to be said by any intelligent and righteous person?

Content: The question I have is about the past and the future. This has to do with astrologers and palmist who tell us our past and future. Some of them are correct and some of them are wrong. Does astrology have validity?

Content: How can we not grieve for the dead? Perhaps it is possible for Krishna and great masters like you, but for ordinary mortals this is not feasible.

Content: You said earlier that you are repeating Gita. Do you mean you are Krishna? Many proclaim they are God. Are you also in the same business?

Content: Is death the thoughtless state that you talked about? Does that mean death is the ultimate present moment?

Content: Why is it that we do not have memories of our past lives? It would be so easy to know what to do if we knew what mistakes we made in our past lives.

Content: Some masters talk of the Self as pūrṇa and some as śūnya. These have contradictory meanings. How can both be correct?

Content: Krishna urges Arjuna to fight. Many Westerners say that Krishna preached and practiced violence. Is this correct?

Content: The concept of reincarnation gets even more complicated when we are told that we can be reborn as animals or even insects. That is pretty tough to understand, is it not?

Content: Based on the beliefs of Christianity and Islam, rebirth or reincarnation is denied by the majority of the world's population today. Why do these religions deny this phenomenon if this is true?

Content: Swamiji, you talked earlier about the depression of success, which affects many people around the world. What if a young person has experienced this several times? Is there hope?

Content: In many countries the death penalty has been banned as being inhumane. In others it is maintained as being essential to law and order. Which approach is correct?

Content: Swamiji, please comment on desires. Most masters recommend sealing of desires. How can this be done?

Content: If the Self cannot be destroyed or harmed, it cannot be hurt. Why then do we feel pain and why does the body get hurt?

Content: If the body one takes is determined by what one does in the previous life, would it mean that evil persons like Hitler will continue to be reborn as evil persons? Is there no redemption for such people under this scheme of things?

Content: Are Krishna and Christ the same? Both were born in confined places. Krishna was born in Mathura; Christ in a place called Mathiria. Both were shepherds and so on. If so, please explain.

Content: Krishna says that the truth is seemingly tangible in the middle and intangible in the beginning and the end. If he is referring to past, present and future, the past is also clear to us. Why is the beginning unclear then?

Content: I read somewhere that the whole concept of rebirth is negative. It is all about the continuance of suffering. All those who believe in rebirth are desperately trying to get out of it. So, what is the point in believing in it?

Content: Is it normal to speak less and seek silence as Sādhanā or spiritual practice progresses?

Content: I have read that we have three bodies. You had talked about seven energy layers. Are these similar?

Content: If Krishna is the Jagat Guru, Lord of the universe, why was he only with the Pandava and Kaurava princes? Why did he not help the world?

Content: How can Krishna who is Vedas Himself denigrate the Vedas saying that they are useless?

Content: Krishna mentions Sāñkhya as the knowledge that has been taught to Arjuna. He says He wants to take Arjuna through yoga. What is the difference?

Content: It is a natural response to look towards the end result whenever we do something. How can we give up thinking about the outcome?

Content: In the corporate world everything revolves around budgets and objectives. How realistic is it to work without goals in such an environment?

Content: Swamiji, you spoke about needs and wants, and that needs carry their own energy for fulfillment. Does this mean that we can do nothing and things will happen?

Content: When Krishna advises Arjuna to withdraw his senses as a tortoise does, is He advocating the practice of pratyāhāra?

Content: Swamiji, you have said that the mind can never be stopped. Yet you speak of the no-mind state as the ideal. How can we reach the no-mind state if the mind cannot be stopped?

Content: How can Krishna generalize saying that desire leads to destruction? The world cannot operate if we have no desires and if everybody only meditates!

Content: Swamiji, when you say that we should live without ego, is it really possible to do that when we live in the material world? Wouldn't we then become failures materially?

Content: You described four states of mind. How does one distinguish between the state of deep sleep, suṣupti, and the mindless state of awareness, turīya, the fourth state?

Content: It is here that we enter into the real Gita. It is from here that Bhagavān or God starts speaking.

Content: Until now Krishna was speaking as a man, as Vasudeva Krishna, in His human form, but it is only from here that Krishna speaks as Parabrahma Krishna, as Bhagavān, as the universal Krishna, in His divine state.

Content: An important point we all need to understand is that only an intelligent man will allow the other person to speak. We all speak continuously to each other, but a conversation does not really happen. The two are quite different. We don’t have conversations. We simply carry out simultaneous monologues with each other. When the other person speaks we do not listen; we are busy preparing our own reply. Similarly, when we speak, the other person is actually preparing his response.

Content: We are polite enough to pretend that we are listening so that we will, in turn, be heard. A conversation does not happen. You need intelligence to allow the other person to speak. Please understand that you do not need intelligence to speak; you need it only to listen.

Content: A small story:

Content: A person was telling his friend that he had not spoken to his wife for a whole week. His friend asked him whether he was angry with her or if he had fought with her.

Content: The man replied, ‘No, I am afraid of interrupting her!’

Content: Maybe because Krishna is a male, he allowed Arjuna to speak!

Content: We may either speak verbally or mentally, but in any case, we are speaking continuously. Why do you think psychiatrists are paid so well? The professions of

Content: psychiatry and psychoanalysis are nothing but the art of listening. A psychiatrist is a person who asks expensive questions and just listens, nothing else!

Content: We speak continuously. Even when we keep quiet, we are not listening.

Content: A real incident:

Content: A young trainee in psychiatry was overwhelmed by the ease with which his experienced mentor counseled patients. They poured their hearts out to him. The trainee was deeply disturbed by these traumatic experiences that were shared. Yet, his mentor went from one patient to another calmly and without being affected.

Content: After a few weeks of this training the younger doctor approached his mentor and said, 'I am not sure I can bear this much longer. I am getting depressed. How can you listen to all these people without getting disturbed? What is the trick?'

Content: His mentor calmly responded, 'Who listens!'

Content: Krishna does listen. He listens carefully and answers compassionately. Of the original seven hundred and forty five verses in Gita, as part of the Bhīṣma Purāṇa of Mahabharata, He responds in depth to Arjuna's fifty-seven questions through six hundred and twenty verses.

Content: In the first chapter Krishna does not say a word to interrupt Arjuna. He allows Arjuna to speak fully for one whole chapter. He keeps quiet even on seeing the depth of Arjuna's confusion and depression. He consciously analyzes the origin of Arjuna's thoughts to determine the platform of confusion upon which Arjuna is standing.

Content: It is possible to become a successful businessman just by studying the first few chapters of Gita. You can reach the peak of your profession just by learning the art of listening. Once you listen clearly, you will automatically be able to answer clearly as well. A devotee once asked me, 'Swamiji, how is it that you are able to answer so many questions?' There is only one secret to this. I know how to listen to the question, that's all. If you know the technique of listening, the reply is immediately ready in your being.

Content: The problem is that we do not trust ourselves and our innate intelligence to respond to a question without preparation. That is why we start preparing the reply even before listening to the question. We do not have the patience to listen

Content: to the problem. Before we listen to it, we already start judging the speaker and develop the solution to the query. We are only interested in expressing what we know, not in addressing the real problem or even in understanding what the other person has to say.

Content: We hear mechanically at best; we never really listen.

Content: Here, Krishna is interested in the real problem and not interested in expressing what He knows. He wants Arjuna to have clarity of mind and is interested in helping him find a solution to his problem. He allows Arjuna to speak so that He can go to the root of the problem and address the issue.

Content: One needs intelligence, or I may say enlightenment, to listen.

Content: Only an enlightened master like Krishna can listen. In the first chapter He listens fully and completely. Even in the second chapter, He allows Arjuna to speak in many verses.

Content: He knows that once He allows Arjuna to express his problems, Arjuna could himself find a solution to them.

Content: People come to me and say, 'Swamiji, you know our problems; please give us the answer.' I ask them to state their problems clearly.

Content: They say, 'You are enlightened, you already know our problems; please give us the answer.'

Content: I say, 'Yes, I know your problem even if you don't speak, but you will not know your own problem if you do not speak!'

Content: Even if, in some cases, we may not be able to speak out in detail with clarity, we should be able to think through our problem, so that at least we understand what the problem is. Our mind should be open to possibilities.

Content: I tell people during the Ānanda Darśan (energy awakening) in our programs that they can ask me for advice on problems that they face.

Content: When you speak, the master listens. More importantly, you listen within yourself. Actually, it is not even necessary to speak and hold up people who are queuing up behind you. All that is needed is to keep your mind open so that the transmission can take place. Even if you do not verbalize, you can visualize your needs and problems and this will be even more powerful than your speech itself.

Content: That is what happens on the Kurukshetra battlefield where Krishna is delivering the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna. People who have the rationality to compute time may wonder, 'Arjuna spoke for so long. Now Krishna speaks for so long. How is it possible for these two to hold such a long conversation in the middle of a battlefield? What were all the others doing? Wasn't Duryodhana fed up or didn't he think that this was a good opportunity to get rid of Arjuna and Krishna, as they talked and wasted everybody's time?'

Content: That's how the logical, rational, unaware mind thinks. Such a mind cannot conceive of the possibility that a conversation can indeed take place in silence. People are not used to visualization. They lose this skill as they grow up. Children can visualize beautifully. That is why they can keep themselves busy talking silently to themselves and talking silently with imaginary friends. Education and logic rob us of this skill.

Content: At the higher level of communication your mind needs to be still to allow the grace to move in. This is the subtlest and most powerful of all communication. At this level communication becomes communion.

Content: When they talk of great masters like Ramana Maharshi communicating in silence, it was indeed true. To communicate, you need not open your mouth. You only need to open up your mind. When the mind is open and free of disturbing thoughts, especially in front of the master, communication can take place at the speed of light. The presence of the master will help still your mind. Answers will appear even before your questions are asked.

Content: Seekers, intellectual seekers, with years of questioning and doubting behind them, come to me and ask, 'Swamiji, why is it that when I come to you with hundreds of questions, when I am in front of you, there is no need to ask you about them? I feel as if the answers are already there!'

Content: This is not imagination; this is the truth. Questions can only raise more questions. Questions are a reflection of your inner ego, which is violence. When you are in front of the master, a master you truly believe in, the first thing that happens is the melting of your ego. The ego just disappears like snow in the sun. Therefore, questions also disappear. In their place the answers, previously hidden by the veil of your ego and ignorance, surface. You start feeling that magically, miraculously, the answers appear in front of the master.

Content: The truth is that the answers were all there, already there. Our ego would not allow us to accept and be aware of those answers. The master's presence dissolved the ego and let the answers out.

Content: There is an interesting Zen story.

Content: A soldier went to the master Nansen, with this problem.

Content: A man kept a goose in a bottle, feeding it until it grew too large to get out of the neck of the bottle. Now, how did he get the goose out without killing the goose or breaking the bottle?

Content: Nansen said to him, 'Oh Officer!'

Content: The soldier responded, 'Yes master?'

Content: Nansen exclaimed, 'There, the goose is out of the bottle!'

Content: The moment the soldier addressed Nansen as master, accepted that he was his master, the goose, the ego, was out of the bottle, his body-mind!

Content: Only when you open up to the master do you actually come to know your problem clearly and the answers come as if from nowhere. You can converse and convey through words and the master will listen. At the next level you can communicate from the heart in silence; you can visualize instead of verbalizing in speech. Finally, you can commune in silence and the master will grasp this even more powerfully.

Content: Here Krishna allowed Arjuna to verbalize, so that to begin with, Arjuna himself had the clarity to understand his problem. Once Arjuna expressed his confusion, he could relapse into silence and commune with the master.

Chapter Number: 2.1

Content: Sanjaya said, As Arjuna's eyes overflowed with tears of pity and despair, Krishna spoke to him thus.

Chapter Number: 2.2

Content: Krishna said, Wherefrom has this dejection descended on you at this critical time, Arjuna! You behave unlike a nobleman and this will keep you away from realization.

Chapter Number: 2.3

Content: Do not yield to fear, Partha! It does not befit you. Drop this faint-heartedness and stand up, destroyer of enemies!

Content: This verse is connected to the next one.

Content: 'O Partha! Do not yield to this degrading impotence. It does not become you. Give up such petty weakness of heart and arise, O destroyer of the enemy.'

Content: I may say that this is the direction of the whole of Gita. Krishna is the true Zen master and does not beat around the bush. Understand that Krishna is not a philosopher; He addresses the issue straightaway.

Content: Krishna asks Arjuna directly, 'How did such impurities come upon you? They are not for a man like you. They will not lead you to higher planes but only defame you.' In the next verse He asks Arjuna to give up this weakness and asks him to arise, addressing him as 'destroyer of the enemy'.

Content: This is a straight Zen response.

Content: A disciple goes to an enlightened Zen master and asks, 'Master, what is Buddha? How can I become Buddha? Please teach me.'

Content: The master slaps him hard on his face.

Content: The disciple is shocked, as he expected to receive some kind of meditation technique, a blessing or guidance. It was like going to a svāmi and asking him how to realize God or ātman and receiving a blow in return! But the disciple, being mature, does not speak ill of his master.

Content: He says, 'Master, I know that you do not do anything without a meaning. Though I am unable to understand the reason for your action, I cannot say it is wrong. Please explain.'

Content: The master says, 'Fool, you are Buddha. Why do you try to become something you are already? If a horse comes to me and asks how it can become a horse, how to eat grass and drink water, what can I do? You are already that and nothing else needs to be added to you. That's why I slapped you, to awaken you. That's all.'

Content: Similarly, Krishna gives the direction to the whole Gita with this one 'slap'.

Content: Krishna knows Arjuna's problem. Please understand that Arjuna is not depressed because of a spiritual search. It is just that he does not want a solution; he wants only support.

Content: Understand, asking for solutions and asking for support are two different things.

Content: What Arjuna needs is support, not a solution. This is why Krishna does not speak of spirituality in these two verses. Arjuna's problem originates from fear and worry. His manipūraka cakra (navel center) and svādiṣṭhāna cakra (being center), energy centers within the body that get locked due to worry and fear, are now completely locked! Because of his fear, he has deep seated complexes, stress and worry. Krishna addresses Arjuna's deep fear straightaway without any philosophy, and asks him to give up his foolish weakness and get up and fight. He does not offer any consolation, just a straightforward scolding, and a slap to awaken him!

Content: If Arjuna had been in a mood of stotra, meaning devotional surrender that he reaches only later on, these two verses would have served as sūtra or techniques for him. If Arjuna had been without fear and expressed full faith and devotion in Krishna, these two verses would have been enough to get him up and going. He would have become enlightened or would have achieved the Ultimate just with these two verses.

Content: The entire Gita would have been encapsulated here, and there would have been no need to continue. None of us would need to come here for eighteen days!

Content: I spoke to you about śāstra, stotra and sūtra (wisdom, devotion and technique) in the first chapter.

Content: All three can be a means to enlightenment for people of corresponding aptitudes.

Content: Śāstras are the wisdom of scriptural inputs aimed at the intellectual seeker, the one centered in the head. Stotras are devotional songs and stories aimed at the emotional seeker who operates from the heart. Sūtras are techniques of meditation and yoga for the being level people. These are not exclusive, in that one must be practiced to the exclusion of another. The same person may be in a state to receive a stotra today and a śāstra tomorrow. At this point, Arjuna is in the state to be intellectually convinced and Krishna employs śāstra as the right approach.

Content: Since he was not in the mood of stotra, not yet ready with devotion and faith, Krishna had to create the śāstra or method, to bring him to the stotra state. The whole issue was due to fear plus worry and depression because of this fear.

Content: All our depressions have their roots in anxiety and fear. You need to stand up to them to be rid of them.

Content: A small story:

Content: A presidential candidate was addressing a press conference. He told the press persons, 'I am very optimistic about my future.'

Content: The journalist asked, 'Then why do you look so worried?'

Content: The candidate replied, 'My optimism is not warranted. So, I am worried.'

Content: We constantly expect our optimism to be warranted and when we do not get the warranty, we start worrying. All our depression, worry and anxiety are nothing but a deep fear of life and fear of losing something.

Content: There are many levels of fear: fear of losing our wealth and status, fear of losing a limb or our health, fear of losing our near and dear ones and fear of the unknown or death. That is why Krishna says that Arjuna is not behaving as an ārya, a word that can be interpreted as a nobleman. The term ārya is applied here to denote an aware human being, not a particular race or caste. Vedic literature says that an ārya is one who is evolved, cultured, a prince amongst men.

Content: Here Krishna tells Arjuna that he is confronted with all the four fears: fear that he may lose whatever he possesses, that he may be maimed in the war, that he may lose his near and dear ones, and fourth, that he may lose his very life. These fears have in turn led to his worry.

Content: Krishna directly addresses this worry and fear with the śāstra, the explanation of wisdom that is directed to the head, the intellect.

Content: Later on in the Gita, in the eleventh chapter, after beholding Krishna’s cosmic vision, Arjuna realizes who Krishna truly is. He understands that Krishna is beyond everything and beyond his imagination, his comprehension. He is not surprised any longer that all the deities worship Him and surrender to Him. Krishna then repeats the same words that He says now, after which the Gita ends and Arjuna engages in the war.

Content: These same words uttered by Krishna later on, when Arjuna is in the state of stotra, when he is in a state of pure devotion and faith, become the sūtra, the technique of enlightenment for Arjuna. That stage is yet to happen. Since Arjuna is not yet in the devotional state now, these words are only plain wisdom.

Content: Krishna is not a philosopher. All philosophy is an attempt to convince the other to do what the philosopher wants of him. It may be a very slow process, but still a process of trying to convince the other person of what to do.

Content: Hitler, in his autobiography says that if a lie is repeated a hundred times, it becomes the truth and if a truth is expressed for the first time, people think it is a lie. Whether something is true or false does not depend on the actual fact, but on how many times it is repeated!

Content: 142

Content: All philosophies, whether they are of communism or religion or politics, are the same. Philosophers invent logical reasons as to why you should follow their words.

Content: Here Krishna is not a philosopher and does not want to create any philosophy.

Content: He tries to give the conclusion directly to Arjuna. However, as Arjuna is not in the mood to receive it because he is not mature enough to assimilate it, Krishna needs to give Arjuna the experience.

Content: There is a beautiful story in the Upaniṣads:

Content: A disciple goes to the master and asks, 'O master! Teach me atmagnana, knowledge of the inner Self.'

Content: The master says, 'Thou art that! tatvamasi, You are God.'

Content: The disciple, unable to believe this, thinks to himself, 'How can I be God? I am still afraid of my wife. I have all these problems and a thousand questions!'

Content: Only when the master proves to him that the master himself is God, the disciple trusts the master's words.

Content: The master needs to first prove that he is God in order to make you understand that you are God. Here Krishna does the same thing by repeating that He is all of this.

Content: Krishna later explains His glory and that all the deities, Vedas, the scriptural wisdom, are worshipping at His feet; the whole world is in Him. He makes these incredible statements that would appear egoistic to a normal person. And yet Krishna says all this, even at the risk of being misunderstood. He repeats that He is God to make you realize that you are God.

Content: With authority He states, 'I am God' to make you realize that you are God.

Content: You would not believe the words of ordinary people. You need to hear the words from a source of authority that has the right to say them. Here Krishna says the same words that He repeats throughout the entire Gita. But as of now Arjuna is not able to take it all in. It is too much for him to grasp in his present condition.

Content: Once Krishna proves His divinity, Arjuna believes His words and is ready to follow them.

Content: Similarly, when masters prove their divinity and perform great deeds or miracles, they do not do so for their ego satisfaction. They do them to prove that

Content: they are God, so that you believe their words and experience that you are God. This is the reason why masters repeatedly prove their divinity through expression of their energies.

Content: Bhagavad Gita is not part of the Vedas or Upaniṣads that are traditionally classified as sacred scriptures, or the śruti which are believed to have had divine origin. The Gita is part of an epic, a purana, the Mahabharata. Some even believe that Gita was a later addition to Mahabharata. Despite all that, Gita and Mahabharata are accepted universally as scriptures by all Hindu scholars. It is the authority with which Krishna is seen to deliver the Gita that makes it a scripture.

Content: 'I am the Divine,' says Krishna. 'If you believe in Me, you too shall realize your inner divinity.'

Content: It is this profound and yet simple message, that has resounded so deeply in the hearts, minds and beings of generations of Hindus, in turn establishing the scriptural sanctity of the Gita.

Content: A great author wrote a book of just forty pages giving the gist of his philosophy. One reader asked him why the book was only forty pages long. The author replied that if he had the time he would have written a book of only twenty pages!

Content: It requires intelligence to put anything into a clear, simple form or in a nutshell.

Content: To go on and on, not much intelligence is required. Intelligent people express the same content in a few words. The less you know of something the more you speak and write about it.

Content: Here all the verses of the Gita are reduced to just two verses by Krishna.

Content: He straightaway addresses and clears the point where Arjuna is stuck, that is in his need for name and fame or rajas. A man who is centered on satva, goodness, who has neither greed nor lethargy but a neutral attitude, will work out of compassion. A man who is centered on rajas will work only for name and fame. A man who is centered on tamas, lethargy, will work only for sensual pleasures.

Content: Duryodhana works only through tamas, which explains his cruel and gross behavior. Dharmaraja Yudhishtira works on satva, out of compassion. Here Arjuna is centered on rajas, therefore he is working only for name and fame. This is why Krishna asks him not to work in this way as it would ultimately bring Arjuna a bad

Content: name. This is how He straightaway puts His hand on the tumor, the tumor that is the subtle ego working within Arjuna.

Content: Fortunately for us, Arjuna is not intelligent enough. Or rather, he acts as if he is not intelligent enough to understand these words. He has lived with Krishna for more than thirty years and must have intelligence. He puts his questions and doubts not for himself but for the future generations and for the whole of humankind.

Content: Krishna again comes to the point straightaway. He is not creating a philosophy and does not beat around the bush. He declares, 'O Arjuna! Enter not into this degrading weakness, do not behave like this. Come out!'

Content: A small story I read in a magazine recently:

Content: There was a person who had an obsessive-compulsive disorder of tearing up whatever paper he laid his hands on. His family was worried and took him to many psychoanalysts. They spent a lot of money and tried all possible treatments but nothing worked.

Content: One day they read about a young and innovative psychotherapist in the newspaper and decided to try him. The therapist said he wanted to spend a few minutes alone with the patient. He and the patient simply walked up and down for a few minutes, after which the therapist returned and pronounced that the patient was now cured of his malady and could be taken home.

Content: His family was surprised when they found that he really was cured. Even after a year he was found to be perfectly alright. However, no one knew how the problem disappeared. The family returned to the doctor to express their gratitude. They wanted to know what the doctor had really done to cure him of the problem that others could not solve.

Content: He replied that he had simply asked the patient not to tear any more paper and that if he did so even once more, the patient would be brought to the doctor again, whereupon he would be thrown out of the window!

Content: Most of the time our problems are very simple. We complicate them by analyzing them. When we verbalize and analyze a problem, we complicate it and give power to it. Our problems are not as big as we think they are. When we verbalize, analyze, label and categorize them, we have created a whole new problem that had not existed earlier in our being. This is how psychiatrists continue to invent new diseases!

Content: The more we analyze, the more problems and difficulties we create.

Content: The simple and direct approach of the young doctor solved the problem which all the detailed analysis and lying down on couches did not.

Content: You have only one mind. You can either use it to solve the problem, or it will naturally be used to create more problems. Understand that if you are not solving your existing problems, you will be creating more problems. At the level of the mind, there is no position of simply standing, no status quo - you either climb or fall.

Content: Here Krishna straightaway addresses Arjuna’s problem.

Content: Another small story:

Content: A man walks into a bar with his pet pig. The bartender notices that the pig has a wooden leg. He is surprised that a pig is brought into the bar and that too one with a wooden leg. He asks the customer about the pig’s wooden leg. The man realizes that he could cash in on the bartender’s curiosity and replies that if he could get a free drink, he would relate the whole story. The bartender agrees.

Content: After the first drink the man says that this is a special pig that saved him, his wife and his family when his house was on fire. The bartender nods but says that he still cannot understand why the pig has a wooden leg. The man replies that he will continue with the story if he gets another free drink.

Content: The bartender agrees. The man says that when he fell into a lake, the pig rushed to his wife, called her and the man was again saved. The bartender is not able to take it anymore. He says he understands that the pig is special but still does not know why it has a wooden leg. The man asks for one more free drink.

Content: The bartender agrees to give him one last drink.

Content: The man begins yet another story of how the pig once again saved him from a tornado. The bartender would have no more of it. He catches hold of the man by his neck and demands to know why the pig has a wooden leg.

Content: The man replies calmly, ‘Such a special pig! Who could eat it all at once? I’m eating it part by part!’

Content: The man narrated the whole thing as a story that he could have finished in just one line. He must have been a great philosopher!

Content: Here Krishna is not creating any philosophy but gives the answer straightaway in just one line. However, as Arjuna is not mature enough, He has to give an intellectual explanation.

Content: All Western philosophies begin with logical analysis and end with the conclusion. All Eastern processes begin with the conclusion and then give the analysis.

Content: Eastern masters are compassionate. They first give us the option of grasping the solution if we have the intelligence.

Content: If we do not have the intelligence, they have no other option but to go into detailed explanation and analysis.

Content: They expect us to transform with just the trust in them. When they find that we do not have this qualification in us, they start the regular process.

Content: Here Krishna tries the first method of sudden enlightenment, the immediate liberation, but Arjuna is not mature enough to receive it or comprehend it. So Krishna now starts the process of explaining it to him step-by-step.

Content: There are two ways in which people react to the sanctity and divinity of Krishna in Bhagavad Gita.

Content: To one set of people, Krishna has no special qualification to be called divine and these people may not even believe in anything such as the Divine. As atheists or agnostics, the only way such people can be convinced is initially through the rationale of the dialogue in the Gita. The dialogue surpasses anything written in any language at any point in time in its clarity and wisdom. The message of Krishna is universal and timeless. Those who do not accept and understand, it just means that as of now, it is not their time to accept, understand and transform.

Content: The laws of nature do not change just because we do not accept and understand them. The earth was always round and never flat and it always revolved around the sun and not the other way around, even when the societal leaders denied these truths and killed people for expounding these truths.

Content: There is another class of people who say that there is only Krishna, who is divine and all other divine manifestations have no relevance.

Content: One such group of people came to me after I had spoken about the Gita, very perturbed. They said, 'From what you say, we see that you accept the divinity of Krishna.' I said, 'Yes, I very much do. He is the Pūrṇāvatār, the complete incarnation.'

Content: They complained, 'Then how can you worship Shiva in your ashram? We believe you have a Dakshinamurthy (Shiva) temple in your Bidadi ashram in India. How can you do this?'

Content: I asked them, 'Have you read Anu Gita which is also another part of Mahabharata?' They said, 'No.'

Content: I then explained to them about Anu Gita: After the war, Arjuna and Krishna are together and Arjuna says, 'Krishna, I do not remember all of what you taught me at the battlefield, when you delivered the Gita to me. Can you please enlighten me again?'

Content: Krishna says, 'Oh, you have forgotten? I too have forgotten what I then said!'

Content: Arjuna exclaims, 'Krishna, how is that possible?'

Content: Krishna says, 'At that point I was Parabraḥma Krishna, the universal Krishna. I was Bhagavan. I was the superconsciousness. I was the Divine. Now, I am Vasudeva Krishna, son of Vasudeva. So, I do not remember what I spoke to you as Parabraḥma Krishna. I shall try and remember.'

Content: What he remembered and recounted was Anu Gita.

Content: Krishna, as Parabraḥma Krishna, is the Divine energy, the formless Brahman, the same as Shiva, Vishnu or Devi. He is the ultimate Truth, the Puruṣottama, as are these other manifestations of the same Brahman.

Content: It is only the ignorant cows of Krishna who fight with the equally ignorant monkeys of Rama, forgetting that Rama and Krishna are both the same energy.

Content: Krishna is no doubt the poornam, the Whole and the Infinite, as was enunciated in the Upaniṣads:

Content: That is Infinite. This is Infinite. From that Infinite arises this Infinite.

Content: If this Infinite is taken out of that Infinite, Infinite still remains Infinite.

Content: As the Infinite, the Brahman, Krishna too, is Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi, as well as all other divine manifestations.

Content: The ultimate energy behind all of them has no name and no form; that is the truth.

Content: The constant, repetitive reference to Bhagavan in the Gita is to emphasize this point that Krishna is not just the mere charioteer of Arjuna, Parthasarathy, or

Content: Kesava, destroyer of the demon Kesin or Madhusudana, destroyer of the demon Madhu, but that He is Parabrahma Krishna, the supreme energy, who is formless and nameless.

Content: This constant repetition is also to reinforce the concept that you too, like Arjuna, are God and no less.

Content: Understanding the divinity of Krishna is a step to accepting and understanding one's own divinity. That awareness is what liberates. That is why Adi Shankaracharya, the enlightened master from India says in the verses of Bhaja Govindam, 'Even a little reading of the Bhagavad Gita will liberate you from death.'

Content: Q: Swamiji, you have used the word 'pity' in describing Arjuna's state. Some people call it compassion that does not allow him to fight his kinsmen. Is there a difference?

Content: There is a huge difference between pity and compassion. Pity is what you feel for someone whom you consider lesser than yourself, such as a beggar. Pity needs an object.

Content: In the dictionary, compassion may be shown as a synonym for pity. It is actually an expression of misunderstanding. Most of us are only capable of pity. Pity arises out of ego, one's identity. We believe that we have to express our superiority to others to prove our worth. Pity arises through comparison. You cannot feel pity unless you place yourself in a situation that is superior to that of the person for whom you feel pity.

Content: Ego breeds violence. Pity has an undertone of violence. Arjuna is in a state of violence. It is his ego that creates the fear in him about the loss of his identity. That fear of loss of identity is being expressed as pity or sympathy for his kinsmen and elders. Arjuna has shifted his focus from the inner self to the outer object. That's all. The fear for his identity has been hidden and expressed as sympathy for his opposition.

Content: For pity to become compassion, ego must disappear. Until then any effort at compassion is only hypocrisy.

Content: Compassion needs no object, it just flows.

Content: Only an enlightened master can express compassion. It is a natural outpouring of his state. It does not matter who is in front of him and in what state they are in. A master expresses and radiates compassion as his very energy.

Content: Compassion is an expression arising out of the experience of boundarilessness. When a person realizes that he is indeed a part of the universal existence and that he too is divine, he automatically becomes a part of all the beings that populate this universe. There is a natural empathy that reaches out to everyone and everything around such a person. This is compassion.

Content: Compassion is possible only when one's ego drops and identity disappears; compassion is the very opposite of pity.

Content: Q: Krishna uses the term ārya. People say that Aryans were invaders of the ancient Indian people. Is that true?

Content: In Sanskrit, the word ārya is used to denote a person of true nobility. It is not merely nobility of birth but the expression of noble qualities in one's behavior. This has nothing to do with any foreign invader.

Content: Recent scientific investigations have shown that there was no such Aryan invasion of India from European stock. This was misinformation spread by the British colonizers to sow the seeds of separation between the inhabitants of different parts of India. This was their planned strategy to destroy Indian culture.

Content: In fact, they succeeded quite well. For over 60 years this misinformation has turned many people in the south of India into atheists simply because they associated religion with invasion. Just a small part of Tamil Nadu has more temples than almost all of the rest of India, and indigenous kings built these places of worship. But people have been brainwashed to believe that they need to deny their religion to return to their roots.

Content: Sanatana Dharma, the vedic science, evolved in many parts of India simultaneously. Many religions developed from this science; Hinduism is one of them. Buddhism, Jainism and other such major religions have their roots in the same philosophy.

Content: An aryan is one who has a thorough understanding of this vedic science. An aryan is one who, by understanding the tenets of this science, is able to practice them. An aryan is one who by practicing the truths of this noble science, radiates noble and enlightened qualities through his behavior.

Content: Q: Swamiji, why did Krishna choose the battlefield to deliver the great knowledge of Gita?

Content: Krishna delivered Gita in a battlefield because planet Earth is a battlefield!

Content: Please be very clear: In the last two thousand years of recorded history, we have fought more than five thousand wars. We are doing nothing except fighting wars. The gap between one war and another cannot be called peace because it is simply the preparation time for the next war!

Content: You do only one of two things, either fight a war or prepare for the next one. If, in the morning, you go to the office after a fight with your spouse, you know by evening that other arguments will be ready! This is the reason planet Earth is a battlefield. This is the reason Krishna chose the battlefield to deliver His message.

Content: There are three game situations on planet Earth - 'win-win', 'win-lose' and 'lose-lose'.

Content: 'Win-win' situation is between the master and disciple, where the master wins the disciple and the disciple also wins enlightenment. Both achieve something and neither of them loses. The master does not lose anything as he enjoys the act of giving enlightenment. The disciple too does not lose, as he gets enlightenment.

Content: The next one is the 'win-lose' scenario. All our business dealings are 'win-lose' situations. When somebody wins, the other person loses.

Content: The third situation is the worst of all - 'lose-lose'. Both the parties lose. The battlefield is a 'lose-lose' situation where even the so-called winning is not winning. Krishna delivers Gita in the battlefield because he gives a solution for the worst situations. Even the worst situations in life are addressed by Gita.

Content: The battlefield is indeed the right place to deliver this spiritual message, because if something cannot be used in the worst situations, it cannot be taken as the ultimate message. If it can be used in the worst situation, you can be sure that it can be used anywhere else. It is like a master key. If it can open the most difficult lock, it can open all other locks. Krishna gives life solutions for the worst situations.

Chapter Number: 2.4

Content: Arjuna said: O killer of Madhu, how can I oppose in battle, Bhishma and Drona, who are worthy of my worship?

Chapter Number: 2.5

Content: I would rather beg for my food in this world than kill the most noble of teachers. If I kill them, all my enjoyment of wealth and desires will be stained with blood.

Chapter Number: 2.6

Content: I cannot say which is better; their defeating us or us defeating them. We do not wish to live after slaying the sons of Dhritarashtra who stand before us.

Chapter Number: 2.7

Content: My heart is overwhelmed with pity and my mind is confused about what my duty is. I beg of you, please tell me what is best for me. I am your disciple. Instruct me as I seek refuge in you.

Chapter Number: 2.8

Content: Even if I were to attain unrivalled dominion and prosperity on Earth or even lordship over the Gods, How would that remove this sorrow that burns my senses?

Content: Despite what Krishna had said to him with total clarity, that Arjuna should get up and fight, Arjuna now recounts all his previous arguments. It is as if he had not heard Krishna at all or not heard him right.

Content: He once again implores Krishna, 'You, as the Lord of the universe, have the right to destroy what you please. You destroyed the demons Madhu and Kesin and you destroyed many other enemies. You are justified because you are the Lord. How can I, a mere mortal, be bold enough to wage war against my grandfather and my teacher, with the intent to kill them? They are ones I should worship, not destroy. I shall be condemned if I fight them.'

Content: He continues, 'It is better for me to seek alms as an ascetic or even a beggar than kill these elders. Once my hands are stained with their blood, how can I enjoy worldly pleasures? I am confused as to which would be better, for them to slay me or for me to slay them? How can we live after slaying our kinsmen and elders?'

Content: Arjuna says further, 'Now I am confused about my duty and have lost all composure because of misery and weakness. I can see no solution to my dilemma. Even if I slay these people and gain control over the Earth, or even control over the heavens, what good will it do me? In this condition, I ask you to tell me for certain what is best for me. Now I am your disciple and the soul is surrendered unto you. Please instruct me.'

Content: I must now tell you an important truth. Here Arjuna says, 'My soul is surrendered unto you.' This is a lie.

Content: Had his soul been truly surrendered to Krishna, he would simply have followed what Krishna said and would not have waited for an intellectual explanation.

Content: I have seen many people in the same situation.

Content: A small story or rather, a piece of history:

Content: One night around midnight I got a call from one of our devotees who was a government officer, pleading for my help for a serious problem. He said that if he could not have my help, suicide was the only alternative for him. I asked him to come the following morning and said that we would do whatever had to be done to take care of his problem. He, however insisted on a solution right then.

Content: After hearing the details of the problem I assured him that his problem would be taken care of, but he should come the following morning anyway, so that the problem could be analyzed properly, and to ensure it did not repeat itself. He replied that coming the following morning was not possible, because he had to go to work!

Content: When he was speaking of his problem, he said his life itself was at my feet and that as my disciple he had surrendered completely and only I could save him. But when I asked him to come on the following day, he said he had to go to office!

Content: Arjuna is in exactly the same position. He says his soul is surrendered to Krishna but when Krishna asks him to do His bidding, he is not ready to do so and is confused!

Content: Surrender out of confusion is not surrender, as you do not even know if you are doing the right thing.

Content: Understand that surrender after clarity of śāstras, or intelligence, is true surrender.

Content: Here Arjuna surrenders only verbally as he says that he is confused.

Content: You must either do what you think is right or do as the master instructs.

Content: Here Arjuna wants the master to say what he wants to hear, not what the master wants to say. So, although Arjuna says he has surrendered, he has not done so.

Content: Time and again, people come to me for advice and ask me, 'Swamiji, I have this problem. Please advise me what to do. Whatever you tell me I shall do.' Then, if I ask them to come to the ashram for a few days or attend a meditation course because I know it will help them, they give me a dozen reasons why it cannot be done. They cite all other important tasks that they need to complete before they undertake anything that I suggest to them.

Content: Some even say, 'Swamiji, the time has to be right before we do that. Perhaps the time is not right.'

Content: Nonsense... simply nonsense! Understand, you are not controlled by some unknown destiny that you can conveniently blame just because you cannot do something right. Your destiny is in your own hands.

Content: An enlightened master, on the other hand, has no control over what he does. Everything that he does is in the hands of the universal power, Parāśakti.

Content: I cannot move a little finger or utter a word without the active direction of the universal energy, but each one of you, every one of you, has the power to decide what you want to do. So does Arjuna.

Content: Arjuna is asking Krishna to tell him what he needs to do in the same way that I just described to you how people come and ask me. If what I tell them is in line with what they want, they will agree. So will Arjuna. Krishna knows this only too well.

Content: However, only out of compassion, Krishna continues to express and teach him the Truth. Here begins the śāstra. The two verses that Krishna speaks are sutra, techniques. But as Arjuna is not ready to receive them, he has to commence the śāstra, the background knowledge.

Content: At this point Arjuna has not yet completely surrendered to Krishna. He is confused. He is in dilemma. He knows that his duty is to defeat his enemies and kill them if needed, but his enemies are his kinsmen, his elders and his teachers. The relationship, the saṁskāra of his relationship with them, makes him hesitate. Arjuna brings up all that he knows from scriptures, from tradition and from hearsay, doing whatever he can to avoid the unpleasant decision to fight his own kith and kin.

Content: Krishna, fully aware of his dilemma, moves forward in his mission to destroy that identity. The master is a surgeon who removes the cancer of ego. This is what Krishna does throughout the Gita dialogue. To give Arjuna credit, he stays through this surgery. Many weaker men would have run away from the operation theatre, this battlefield, with no desire to let go of their identities. The greatness of Arjuna lies in his determination to listen to his master and be guided by him.

Content: So he implores his master, ‘Krishna, please tell me what to do. I am your disciple. You are my refuge.’

Content: It is this readiness to surrender to the master that redeems Arjuna and helps him win the war, which in reality is the war within himself.

Content: This is the war that each one of us is fighting each day, if we are truly aware. This is the war that we need to fight to drop our ego, our mind, and the identity that binds us to all the bondages upon this earth.

Content: Whatever you think is yours and whatever you think is you, is different from the truth.

Content: It is the master who can lead you through the path of this self-discovery, as Krishna is now leading Arjuna.

Content: To be led, you need the attitude of surrender.

Content: The Master Is Your Bridge To Divinity Q: Swamiji, how does the Guru help the disciple? What is the process? The whole Gita is the answer to this question. The whole Gita is the process. It starts with the master providing the intellectual clarity, then giving the experience, taking the disciple through the whole path and putting him in the same consciousness in which the master lives. The whole Gita explains the process, and if you listen to it, you will be able to understand the whole process. The whole Gita is the answer to your question. Guru, the master, is the link between God and humanity. Seeing the state of the master, the disciple gets encouraged and feels that he too can elevate himself to that level and that he too can aspire. That is why time and again I tell you all, I am not here to prove my divinity; I am here to prove your divinity. The very mission of a guru is to remove the layer of ignorance that surrounds you, which prevents you from seeing your own divine nature. That is what the word 'guru' means; it means, leading from darkness to light, from ignorance to wisdom, to the wisdom of who you really are. The Guru can assist with a glance, with a touch, with a word, without a word, in many ways, to gift his grace upon you. This is what is referred to as dīkṣa or initiation. This is the process of bestowing his grace upon the initiate. All that the disciple needs to do is to accept with an open mind. But that is the difficult part. The Original Sin that the Old Testament refers to is the loss of memory of their divine nature by Adam and Eve. It is a sin that a master can rectify. He can restore you to your divine nature, if you let him.

Content: This is what Krishna does for Arjuna through the course of His teaching in the Gita. He listens to Arjuna patiently, answers his questions, clarifies his doubts, chides him as needed and finally reveals to him His own true form.

Content: The nature of the Guru is compassion. He is not satisfied until the disciple is liberated. The only way for liberation is the destruction of all ego. That is the painful part. The process therefore becomes a surgery, with the master as the master surgeon. The disciple who has the wisdom to realize this, undergoes the surgery and realizes himself.

Content: Q: When will Gita be accepted universally as a scripture?

Content: There is a book written by Dr. David Hawkins, a renowned psychiatrist, about a system that evaluates the absolute truth of a scripture or a person through a scientifically validated system. In this, he rates Gita at the highest level of truth.

Content: When you are open to the truths propounded in the Gita, they penetrate your being with an energy that no other literature can match. That is why I call Gita a śāstra, stotra and sūtra; a scripture of wisdom, a devotional book and a book of techniques, all combined in one.

Content: There is an ancient Chinese book called I Ching that people in China use as a guide. They either open a page at random or use sticks to generate the page number to obtain an answer to the problem that troubles them. They use it as a book of predictions. Many Christians use the Bible in this manner. Gita can be used in a similar way. Gita will answer any and all of your questions. It is the ultimate book of truth.

Content: Q: Why is Krishna wasting His time with Arjuna? Again and again Arjuna is coming up with the same questions. Obviously Arjuna does not have what it takes to understand the truth.

Content: Arjuna is not only the representation of all of humanity in the Mahabharata and Gita, but he is also a prince.

Content: As a human being Arjuna has all the weaknesses that all of us possess in the body and the mind. These are the weaknesses, the conditioned memories or saṁskāras that are being released, as he is in dialogue with Krishna. This is the reason why Krishna is so patient with Arjuna. The entire humanity is in need of the compassion of the master.

Content: As a prince and warrior, Arjuna is ego incarnate. There is a saying in Tamil, and I am sure in other languages too, that only when a fruit is ripe can it fall. Unless the ego is ripe it cannot be dropped. People who practice humility without understanding will carry negative ego with them and it will be impossible to drop it.

Content: A small story:

Content: Birbal was a very wise man, a minister in the court of the great Moghul emperor Akbar.

Content: One day Akbar asked Birbal to bring the four biggest fools of the kingdom to him.

Content: Birbal started looking for fools. He saw a man carrying a large plate on his head. It had some clothes, food and toys. Birbal asked the man where he was going. The man said that he was taking this to his wife who had left him, remarried and now had a child from her new husband. These were gifts for the child.

Content: Birbal was happy to find this fool to take to Akbar.

Content: The next day Birbal saw a man traveling with a donkey, the man carrying a bundle of grass on his head. Birbal asked him why he was holding the bundle instead of tying it to the donkey. The man said that his donkey was pregnant so he did not want to overload the animal!

Content: Birbal was happy to find another fool to take to Akbar.

Content: The next morning Birbal took both these men to Akbar and introduced them, describing how he found them. Akbar asked: I told you to bring four fools. Where are the other two?

Content: With folded hands Birbal said: Sire, the third fool brought you the two fools. The fourth asked for them!

Content: Akbar was a wise and humorous man. He laughed and sent all of them away with gifts. He was a king who had everything except ego.

Content: A prince has all the powers to do anything he wishes. When he decides to drop his mind he will apply the same energy and the same focus to this effort as he does to every other undertaking in his life. Some of the most celebrated sages of our ancient culture were kings, like Janaka for example. When a king detaches himself from the outcome and focuses on the path and process, there can be no one more powerful.

Content: Krishna is exemplifying humanity and the select class of humanity through Arjuna.

Content: Q: You have been critical of philosophers. Isn't it a bit unfair? There have been many great philosophers who have contributed highly to human consciousness.

Content: When philosophers contribute to enhancement of human consciousness, they are no longer philosophers; they become teachers and sages.

Content: You may think I am playing with words but I am not. From time immemorial you will find two classes of scholars; one, who taught based on their inner and outer experience, with deep honesty and respect for the other person. Then there were those whose teachings and writings were based partially on reading and partially on observing others. They had not internalized what they read or observed and they had no inner experience of what they propounded. I call this latter class of scholars as philosophers.

Content: To observe others partially and selectively requires no intelligence. One has already formed a hypothesis; one has already made a judgment. All that one does is collect evidence to support that hypothesis and judgment. If one finds any evidence to the contrary, it is ignored. Most modern research works seem to be done this way. That is why there is so much controversy in the academic field.

Content: Sigmund Freud declared that man is unhappy by nature. This is because he never met any enlightened master. He had already made up his mind that all humans were unhappy and his mission was to collect evidence to prove this. Freud's colleague and friend, Carl Jung came to India, heard about Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, the great enlightened sage, but did not meet him. He later

Content: admitted that he was scared to meet this blissful enlightened master for fear that his hypothesis and life's work would be demolished!

Content: Rene Descartes, the renowned French philosopher, single handedly established the Western philosophy of rationalism. 'I think, therefore I am,' he said. It is a pity that an intelligent man like him did not want to go deeper and understand that it is only when you stop thinking that you understand who you are. Until then you are a mere plaything in the hands of your mind. You are the slave of your mind, not its master. What is there to be proud of in being a slave?

Content: Of course there were men like Socrates, the Greek philosopher, who were willing to sacrifice their own lives for their convictions. Such people surely enhanced human consciousness and are to be ranked as sages.

Content: Q: When Arjuna says that he cannot attack his revered teachers like Drona and Bhishma, is he not saying what needs to be said by any intelligent and righteous person?

Content: You are right. That is the reason why Arjuna says what he says.

Content: Arjuna knows that he will be evaluated at a later period by humanity based on his behavior towards his elders and teachers. People will say, 'What kind of a person was this? He claimed to be a noble and righteous prince and great warrior and yet he went ahead and killed his teachers.' Arjuna is trying to protect himself, his reputation, his name and fame; he is protecting his identity. He is issuing a disclaimer: 'I am not responsible for killing my teachers. I said so in public. This Krishna made me kill them.'

Content: If Arjuna truly had such respect for his elders and teachers, he would not have come as far as the battlefield. In fact, Yudhishtira never wanted to fight. He was persuaded to fight by his brothers. His brothers wanted vengeance. Draupadi wanted to be avenged. Arjuna wanted the kingdom. Had Arjuna been aware and conscious he would have done one of two things; either he would not have come into the battlefield or he would have attacked his enemies without any mercy. Here he stands confused, torn between greed and fear. Arjuna is just being human.

Content: Metaphorically speaking, Arjuna, like all of us, is bound by his conditioning of respect towards elders and teachers. Bhishma represents the saṁskāras (engraved

Content: memories) towards elders, and Drona represents the saṁskāras towards teachers. Both these saṁskāras need to be destroyed before he can move towards the ultimate Truth. As long as one is ruled by this conditioning of elders and teachers, it is impossible to find one's own truth. Truth conveyed by anyone else, even an enlightened master, must be internalized through one's own experience before it can become one's own truth. Even a master can only guide; he can light the lamp to drive out the ignorance; but the realization must happen within oneself.

Chapter Number: 2.9

Content: Sanjaya said: Arjuna then said to Krishna, 'Govinda, I shall not fight,' and fell silent.

Chapter Number: 2.10

Content: Krishna smilingly spoke the following words to the grief-stricken Arjuna, as they were placed in the middle of both armies.

Chapter Number: 2.11

Content: Bhagavan said: You grieve for those who should not be grieved for and yet, you speak words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead.

Chapter Number: 2.12

Content: It is not that at any time in the past I did not exist; so did you and these rulers exist, And we shall not ever cease to be hereafter.

Chapter Number: 2.13

Content: Just as the spirit in this body passes through childhood, youth and old age, So does it pass into another body; the man centered within himself does not fear this.

Content: He is seeking an explanation.

Content: Krishna says to him gently and smilingly, 'While speaking learned words, you are mourning for what is not worthy of grief. Those who are wise lament neither for the living nor for the dead.'

Content: Again, Krishna addresses the issue directly, 'O Arjuna! You speak as if you are intelligent, enlightened. You speak the words without having experienced them. Therefore, your words do not carry conviction.

Content: Your emotion, your being, shows that you are not enlightened, that you have not understood, that you have not experienced. A truly enlightened person will never worry for the living or the dead.'

Content: If you worry for somebody living or dead, you cannot be an intelligent person. What is death and life after all? There are thousands, rather millions, who have lived and gone.

Content: Someone once asked me, 'Why is it that natural calamities happen? Why is it that so many people die in wars and calamities? Why is God doing these things and why is God being mean?'

Content: I told him, 'To give you an honest answer, I do not know. But if you insist on an answer, I can give you an answer the next time God calls for a conference. I can ask Him to give me an answer!'

Content: These questions have no answer in Existence. The question is asked from a very low level, from your logic, but God is beyond your logic.

Content: You can never have an answer for these questions.

Content: For example, a small ant asks the elephant, 'Why are you as dark as I am? How is it that we both have the same skin color?' Will the elephant be able to answer? The elephant will not even know that it is being asked this question. He will not even be aware of the ant or its question!

Content: Likewise, it is important to understand the rules of Existence, of the Divine.

Content: Only the ignorant worry about people who are living or dead. A truly intelligent person does not bother about death.

Content: Often people ask me, 'How was the universe created? Was it by Brahma, as Hindu scriptures say? Or was it created in six days by a nameless God as said in the Old Testament?'

Content: I say to them what Buddha said thousands of years ago based on his personal perception. 'The universe,' Buddha said, 'has neither been created nor will it ever be destroyed. It always has been.'

Content: The universe created itself. It is the creation that embodies the creator and results in what has been created.

Content: Our questions regarding the 'right' and 'wrong' of what happens around us arise only when they threaten us in some manner or another. These questions, these issues about the morality of the universe, spring forth only when our ego is threatened, when our identity is threatened, when our life is threatened.

Content: Every person stricken with an incurable and fatal affliction such as cancer, would invariably ask the question, 'Why me?' If it is a young child, then certainly the parents, relatives and friends are bound to question the justice and fairness of God.

Content: What do we know about the fairness of God? What do we know at all about God? All we know and care about is our own welfare. All we wish is to be secure in the comforts of our own well-being and that of our near and dear ones. Any concern about the rest of humanity is only after one's own comfort zone is managed.

Content: The creator is also the destroyer. What is created will be destroyed. We have no agreement with God that when we are born we will be assured of so many years of life along with the knowledge of the timing and nature of our death.

Content: When you truly realize your Self, when you are enlightened, you will be aware of when you will die and how you will die. It will then make no difference to you whether your body is alive or dead. Living and dying are no longer issues in which you feel you need to play a part. They are progressions of nature and being enlightened, you flow with nature.

Content: We are just playing with words when we talk about karma and destiny, saying that they are responsible for everything that happens to us and for everything that we do.

Content: Let me tell you this: We are responsible for what happens to us. We are responsible for what we do. It is a misrepresentation of Nature's law to blame nature for what happens to us.

Content: Earthquakes and tsunamis occur because man has plundered Nature. Looking for oil and minerals, we have drilled tunnels tens of thousands of meters into the bowels of the Earth, on land and in the ocean. We have ruthlessly destroyed forests

Content: and hills. We have drilled holes through the ozone layer in search of our comfort zone. Then we wonder why Nature misbehaves. Nature only behaves. She never misbehaves.

Content: Nature does not guarantee that the person who creates havoc and destroys will suffer in that body. Nature is patient and all knowing. Nature's law strikes without fear or favor. What one generation does to destroy Nature may impact another generation. From Nature's standpoint we never die. We just disappear and reappear. In whichever scene we reappear, we still bear responsibility for what we have done in an earlier scene.

Content: That's why questions of why a ten-year-old should die or contract cancer have neither meaning nor relevance. The ten-year-old is only the reappearance of someone who has been here before and probably will reincarnate to be here again. We are not normally aware of what one has done before and what one is therefore responsible for.

Content: Some people question, 'Is it fair that we are held responsible for what we did in another lifetime and are not even aware of now?'

Content: What do we mean by fairness? What do we know of fairness except what we determine to be fair out of our own selfishness? It is possible to be conscious of what one has done in previous births; it is even possible to have a conscious birth, coming into this world fully conscious and aware. Before that happens, we need to drop our ego and merge with Nature. We need to surrender our existence to Nature. When we do so, Nature responds and opens up.

Content: Sanjaya says Krishna was smiling as He uttered these words. Krishna must have been laughing at Arjuna. 'You fool, you pretend to be wise and quote the scriptures. Who do you think you are quoting the scriptures to? What can you understand of what I Myself have said?'

Content: Krishna continues: 'Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you and all these kings, and never in the future shall any of us cease to be.'

Content: With this verse begins the essence of the whole Gita.

Content: This is the gist of the whole Gita. This is ātmajñāna, Self Realization. If you can understand this one verse, you can become enlightened straightaway and enter into eternal bliss.

Content: Krishna says there was never a time when I, you and all the kings did not exist. If you think our souls will also die with our bodies, you are wrong. We were

Content: there before our birth and will remain after death. It is not true that any of us will not be in the future.

Content: In Zen Buddhism, there is a beautiful meditation technique to achieve enlightenment.

Content: You are asked to meditate on the face you had before your birth. The koan or sutra, a technique for meditation, says, 'What was your face like before your father and mother were born?'

Content: Upon meditating on this koan you realize that you existed in the past, exist in the present and will exist in the future. Your face and body may change but you continue to exist. Then why do we think we will die and why do we fear death? If what Krishna says is true, why are we worried about this life and about death? You need to first understand the concept of the past, present and future to enable you to understand what Krishna says.

Content: Let me explain this concept first.

Content: Time is like a shaft continuously moving from the future on the right into the past on the left (see diagram). The future is on your right and the past is on your left. The future is continuously moving into the past; every moment and every second it is turning into the past. The present is the point where the future and the past meet. Your mind as such is nothing but movements between the past and the future.

Content: You cannot have any thoughts if you stop thinking about the past and the future. Your thoughts consist of nothing but the constant movements between the past and the future. The more your thoughts shift from past to future or future to past, the higher the frequency of thoughts. The less you shift from past to future or future to past, the lesser the number of thoughts. Try to think of something in the present, you will find that you cannot. You can think of it only by taking it into the past or future. You are either worrying about the future or remembering the past.

Content: 167

Content: The higher the frequency of thoughts, the more you are caught in the physical and material world.

Content: For example, if you have 100 Thoughts Per Second (TPS), it means you have jumped 100 times back and forth between the past and future in one second! If you have 80 TPS, it means you have jumped 80 times between these two dimensions. The higher the frequency, the more you will be away from the present. The higher the frequency of thoughts, the more worries and problems you have. If the number of thoughts reduces, you fall into the present moment.

Content: The Upaniṣads talk of these five body layers called kośas. When your frequency of thoughts is high, you are in the physical body or the grossest layer called annamaya kośa. When the frequency is a little less, you move into a higher energy layer called prāṇamaya kośa. When your TPS is say 60 (here the reference is just proportional), you move into the mental layer or manomaya kośa. When the TPS is still less, say 40, you enter the pleasure layer or the vijñānamaya kośa; you come a little close to the soul. If you fall into the present moment, you are in the innermost layer, that is the ānandamaya kośa; you are ātman or the soul.

Content: The past, present and future, all the three put together are eternal, nitya or ātman. Only when you come to the present moment do you experience ātman - your true Self, but as of now you are constantly shuttling between the past and future.

Content: When the number of thoughts reduces, you will not even be aware of the passage of time. For example, when you are with someone you love, even two or three hours will seem like a short while. On the contrary, when you are with someone whose company is boring, even a short time seems very long. You will keep glancing at your watch and wondering why time does not move!

Content: Time is more psychological than chronological. That is why, in our scriptures or Vedas, we have the word kṣaṇa to describe the unit of time. Kṣaṇa does not denote one second, but is defined as the gap or time interval between two thoughts. The larger the kṣaṇa or the gap between two thoughts, the more in the present we are. Each person's kṣaṇa will be different depending on how busy his mind is! Normally, our kṣaṇa will be in the range of microseconds because we are continuously flooded with thoughts.

Content: When our TPS is lower, we will naturally be in ecstasy, in bliss. When our thoughts are less, we do not know how much time has passed and we live in the present.

Content: heaven. When the number of our thoughts is high, we are in hell. Hell and heaven are nothing but the number of thoughts that we entertain, that's all. That is why I say heaven and hell are not geographical places, but psychological spaces.

Content: With a higher frequency of thoughts, you are in hell, caught in the physical layer; you think you are the body. When the frequency of thoughts reduces, you think you are the mind and just emotion. When the thoughts become zero, you realize you are ātman - Self; you are there in the past, present and future. Only a man whose TPS is zero can realize what Krishna says - You will be there forever. The past, present and future are just words; you exist throughout.

Content: But right now the frequency of thoughts is very high. You do not have the patience or the energy to understand who you are, your base and your nature. When you fall into the present moment, you experience that you were there in the past, are in the present and will be in the future. Krishna says, 'You were there in the past, you are in the present and you will be in the future; you do not die.'

Content: When He says that, He means that you are nitya ātman, eternal consciousness; you are beyond your mind and body. But you are restless and know only this space of moving from past to future, that is why you are unable to believe that this space of the present exists within you. You are away from the present moment, away from the eternal consciousness, therefore unable to see the truth of eternal consciousness. The higher the TPS, the farther away you are from the present and from there, you cannot see it clearly. When your TPS comes down, you can see and experience your nature more clearly, more deeply.

Content: When Krishna says, 'You are the eternal soul', He means that as a being, you are beyond time, but as of now, you are caught in the mind between the past and the future.

Content: He says beautifully, 'There was never a time when I, you and all these kings did not exist. If you think that our souls will also die along with our bodies, you are wrong. We existed before our birth and will remain after our death. It is also not true that any of us will not be in the future.' We will be in the future as there is no death of our being or consciousness. Whatever dies, can never live. Whatever lives can never die.'

Content: Here, your deep consciousness says that something is living in you. This quality you attribute to your body and mind. Do not misunderstand your consciousness to be your body and mind.

Content: You are not the body or the mind. As long as you are caught in the past and the future, you think that you are the body and mind. The moment you come down to the present moment, you experience that you are beyond the body, beyond the mind.

Content: Krishna does not mean that we existed in the form that we are here now, or that He was present always as Krishna in the form we imagine Him to be, with a flute in His hand and a peacock feather on His head. He means that our spirits which are eternal, always existed and will always exist. In our spiritual state, that of our soul, we are divine, one with the universal energy, Brahman.

Content: The gist of the second chapter is that you are the soul, that you are divine and that you are God.

Content: Even as the spirit resides in this body, the body passes through its seasons of childhood, youth, middle age and old age as the seasons of Nature do in each year. Finally, it passes through death, and then reappears, just as trees shed leaves in autumn and produce new leaves in spring.

Content: Transition of the spirit through the body as it ages is no different from the transition of time through the seasons. One does not grieve as one enjoys the pleasures of childhood, youth and middle age. Why then should one grieve the onset of old age and then death?

Content: At death, the spirit passes from one body into another body. It has three ksana to achieve this, each ksana being the time period between thoughts. A person who is in a high thought frequency state, a high TPS state, has a much shorter time to shift from one body to another compared to another person whose TPS is low, whose frequency of thoughts is low.

Content: A person in a no-mind, no-thought state has infinite time, as the time between thoughts is infinite. His spirit is at liberty to stay free without taking another body as long as he chooses, or more correctly, as the universe chooses.

Content: All enlightened masters are in this category. When the spirit leaves the mind-body system, it becomes one with the universal energy.

Content: Imagine a number of circles drawn on a whiteboard. Think of the whiteboard space as the universal energy. Individual body-mind systems are represented by the circles drawn on the whiteboard. The white space enclosed in the circles is the spirit and this is the same energy as the white space outside the circles. The space within is the individual soul, and the space outside is brahman.

Content: BRAHMAN

Content: ATMAN

Content: When a body-mind dies, when an individual dies, all that happens is that these perimeter lines get erased, that is all. The space within the circle merges with the space outside the circle. White merges with white. Energy merges with energy.

Content: When the spirit, the energy, is ready to move into another mind-body system, it enters another circle. It is a continuous, ongoing process and a natural process. One who understands this process and accepts it is an integrated person. Krishna refers to him as a ‘dhīrah’, one who is firm, centered and aware.

Content: When You Mourn, You Mourn For Yourself

Content: Q: The question I have is about the past and the future. This has to do with astrologers and palmists who tell us our past and future. Some of them are correct and some of them are wrong. Does astrology have validity?

Content: A: See, if you are sitting in a low point or a valley, can you see what is there at a distance? You cannot. That is how it is when your thoughts crowd your mind and the TPS (thoughts per second) is high. If you sit higher or closer you can see a little more clearly, like the Indian television Doordarshan! Closer still, with fewer thoughts, you can see still more clearly like a private television channel. From up close, you can see like your own personal computer.

Content: A person with a low TPS can see very clearly. He can see through time. He can predict your past and future properly and clearly. If the person's TPS is high, he cannot predict at all because his mind is constantly moving between past and future. A person who has established himself in the nitya ātman or eternal consciousness can not only predict but also change the future!

Content: There is a beautiful verse in the vedic scriptures that says that all the letters of your destiny so painstakingly written by Brahma, the Lord of Creation, on your forehead, can simply be erased by the Master's left toe when the Master casually walks past! The man who is established in the eternal consciousness can recreate the future.

Content: Astrology, Jyotiṣa in Sanskrit, and any form of prediction, whether palmistry or tarot cards, is not so much about the science as it is about what state the individual who predicts is in. Yes, astrology is a science and it is based on valid principles of how the universal energy field affects individuals. In the vedic culture, astrology was rarely used beyond adolescence and even then only as a guidance to evaluate the aptitude of a student. A guru at the gurukul - vedic school, used

Content: astrology to determine the aptitude and potential of a young student, much as you would use SAT tests today, the Student Aptitude Tests.

Content: Using astrology to decide what you have to do day after day is a misuse of that knowledge. When you understand that you are part of the flow of the cosmic energy, which is what astrology teaches, you need to have the intelligence to flow with that energy and allow what happens to happen.

Content: Q: How can we not grieve for the dead? Perhaps it is possible for Krishna and great masters like you, but for ordinary mortals this is not feasible.

Content: Please understand that you not only grieve for the dead but for the living as well. Constantly you grieve, you suffer, you regret because you expect and you get attached. Do you grieve for those who you think are evil? You celebrate, don't you? You only grieve for those who are close to you, those whom you consider your possessions.

Content: What you grieve for has to be connected with the 'I' and 'mine', otherwise there is no grief. Grief can arise only from your perceived loss. You feel pain only when you think you have lost something you consider valuable. It need not be death; it can be anything that you consider you must have and you feel you are losing. It could be material possessions, relationships, name and fame and many other things that are totally insignificant but have assumed serious value for you because of your attachment to them.

Content: If you truly are compassionate and you think that death is a punishment, you should grieve for all who die, be it a gangster or a murderer. No, your grief is selective and judgmental. That grief also happens whenever something does not go the way you wish for yourself and those whom you are attached to.

Content: You may ask what is wrong with that behavior. What is wrong with that behavior is that it brings you grief! Instead of centering in on your blissful natural state, you settle into an unnatural state of grief and sorrow. What is it that brings about this state of sorrow?

Content: All your grief for someone's death arises out of selfishness, nothing else. The person who has died has gone. He no longer has any problems. You have problems about that person leaving you. So you grieve. Psychologists say that the mourning process goes through stages of grief and anger before there is acceptance. Both grief and anger arise from selfish reasons.

Content: The newly widowed lady was loudly lamenting her loss. Neighbors were surprised because she always quarreled with her husband and every day would curse him to die.

Content: 'You are now free', they said, 'you can do what you want. Why are you crying?'

Content: The lady asked, 'But who will I curse now?' and wailed some more!

Content: In the case of Arjuna, his grieving is based on his perceived attachment to his kinsmen and elders and the fear of losing them. Ultimately this fear is related to the fear of losing himself and his identity. Krishna gets him out of this primal fear of losing his identity by showing Arjuna that he is much bigger than his body-mind.

Content: So it is with all of us. We are all far greater than our body-mind systems. When the body and mind perish at death, we do not perish. Our energy lives on and reappears in another body again as matter. What is there to grieve once you understand this simple truth?

Content: Everyone can understand and accept this truth. What is feasible for Arjuna is feasible for you. What was feasible for me is feasible for you. What is the alternative? What is the point in wallowing in sorrow when you can be liberated into bliss?

Content: Q : You said earlier that you are repeating Gita. Do you mean you are Krishna? Many proclaim they are God. Are you also in the same business?

Content: Nice question! I am not here to proclaim that I am God. I am here to proclaim that you are God. When Krishna says he is God and proclaims or proves His divinity, He creates a situation and prepares you to receive His message and realize that you too are divine. That is why Krishna has to prove and express his divinity.

Content: So understand that I am not here to prove that I am God, I am here to show that you are God. If you can experience that you are God, it is enough; nothing more is necessary. You do not need to accept or believe I am God. You do not even need to bother about my divinity. Just understand and experience that you are God; nothing more is necessary.

Content: I answered a question earlier on the process of the Guru-disciple relationship. I said that the Guru is a bridge between man and God. This bridge is a short cut. It is not essential that you use this bridge. There are masters who have realized themselves, who realized the truth of their divinity, without any external assistance from another master. I am one myself.

Content: Understand, this is not a business. Business implies that there is some kind of a two-way transaction. As I mentioned earlier, any business is a win-lose relationship. One has to lose if the other wins. A Guru-disciple relationship is a win-win relationship. Neither can lose.

Content: If a master treats his mission as a business, it will be a lose-lose relationship, similar to warfare. The Guru will not gain ultimately. In fact from a psychic perspective he will invite deep suffering. The disciple of course will be misled and will suffer.

Content: How does one determine whether one is with the right master? More importantly, how does one determine whether the master, however good he may be, is the right one for you?

Content: Ask my disciples and they can tell you. Whatever I say may not be convincing to you, since your query itself is one of doubt.

Content: Some say that all questions that they have just disappear when they come in front of me, like dewdrops in front of the morning sun. Many ask me at first how they can remember me, what should they focus on? I tell them, 'If I am truly your master, your problem will not be in trying to remember me, but in forgetting me!'

Content: There are others who tell me that for the first time they felt they had come home. They had been searching ceaselessly, not even knowing what it was that they were searching for, and suddenly the search ended. It was a deep feeling of fulfillment, as if they had come home.

Content: Spirituality can never be a business. It is a mission. It is a mission of compassion. What a master gives is unconditional, with no expectation of return.

Content: You say I implied I am God. I am one with the divine energy; so are you. The difference is that I am aware of this truth; perhaps you need to realize this truth. When you do, there will be no difference between you and me.

Content: For you the word God is a mere concept, something intangible. All you are focused on is your identity - your name, your status, your family etc. Without these

Content: you think you are nobody. You cannot introduce yourself to anyone else in any other way except through your material identity.

Content: To me, God is reality. Every movement I make is with the permission of Existence. I am part and parcel of that Existence. I am aware every moment that I am one with that Existence. This body means nothing to me. Even my name is borrowed. The clothes that I wear are as irrelevant as my skin is to me. Every home on this planet is my home.

Content: When you reach that awareness, you too will realize that you are nothing short of divine, that you too are God.

Content: This is my mission. My mission is to create that personal transformation in individuals so that they too realize that they are God, and nothing less.

Content: Q: Is death the thoughtless state that you talked about? Does that mean death is the ultimate present moment?

Content: The thoughtless, no mind state is beyond death and beyond life. Death is a mere rite of passage. It is a transition between one life and another. As I explained, the spirit has only three kṣanas to leave one body and take up another. When the spirit is without body and mind, it has no thoughts. It is the body-mind system that is responsible for creation of thoughts.

Content: Death can become a permanent passage into liberation and a celebration if you are prepared to let go. If you let go of all your attachments and all your desires, your inner space becomes pure. It can then merge effortlessly with the outer cosmic energy.

Content: I described this earlier by drawing circles on a whiteboard. The whiteboard is the brahman, universal energy and the space within the circles is ātman, individual energy. In a situation where the inner space is pure, the space within the circles seamlessly merges with the space outside. There is no distinction. There is no taint that separates the inner space from the outer space when the body-mind perimeter disappears. The spirit that leaves the body does not have to look for another body to move into. It stays in the thoughtless pure energy space.

Content: Thoughts, memories and desires are all creations of matter. They are part of the body-mind system. Bodies buried after death can still hold these memories. That is

Content: why people see spirit forms in burial locations. One of the reasons that Hindu customs require the body to be burnt after death is to remove these memories. Only the bodies of enlightened beings are buried under Hindu customs since these are no longer matter but pure energy. Many Hindu temples are built on such final resting spots, jīva samādhi, of enlightened masters and still radiate the enlightenment energy.

Content: The thoughtless state can be achieved while living. One does not have to wait until death to reach the present moment! Meditation is the key to the thoughtless state. Meditation brings you to the present moment. This is the reason why meditation is often equated to death.

Content: Through meditation you touch your inner space. You realize that you are no longer merely the body-mind that perishes, but the undying spirit. When that realization happens you are indeed reborn. You come out of the womb of knowledge, jñāna garbha. Until then you have only experienced bhū garbha, the physical womb.

Content: Death is a rite of passage. Krishna says that in the same manner as the body passes through infancy, childhood, youth and middle age into old age, it also passes into death and then into another body. Shakespeare has described this beautifully in his piece 'All the world is a stage' in his play 'As You Like It'. He talks about the seven stages of life from the crying infant through the reluctant school going child, and finally to the old man, as seven acts in a play. This wise poet rightly compares life to a play and each stage in life as an act in the play.

Content: Adi Shankaracharya in the verses of his Bhaja Govindam says that even when the hair is white, the teeth are gone and the old man needs a stick just to stand, he is full of desires! The problem is that we cannot accept getting old and leaving the body. As children we are all rushing to grow up and be adults and there we would like to stay. It does not work like that. The body-mind is dying every second and is getting reborn every second. Of the many trillion cells that we have in our system, many millions die every second and as we grow older some do not get replaced. This is a biological fact.

Content: What is there to worry about it? You throw away a piece of cheese when it gets old and moldy. However much you may like that cheese, if you have any intelligence, you do not frame it and gaze at it, but just throw it away and move on. Treat your body the same way. You do not own it. Don’t get attached to it. You are only a tenant in the body. Your spirit is the owner. Identify with your

Content: spirit. Forget about the body. When it gets to be a problem, when it is time to leave, just leave without packing your bags. There is no need to pack for where you are going. You will be provided for.

Content: Yogi Baba was sowing seeds in his garden. His wife watched him for a while and saw that he was planting the seeds faster and faster as he went along.

Content: 'Yogi,' she cried out, 'What is the hurry, why don't you plant more carefully and slowly?'

Content: 'Oh no, I cannot,' Yogi shouted back. 'I don't have too many seeds left and I have to finish before I run out of seeds!'

Content: We are just like Yogi. The seeds will take care of themselves. Whether you plant slower or faster, there are only a certain number of seeds in the bag. When you finish this bag of seeds, another will come to you. Where is the rush?

Content: Death is not the only present moment. Every second of your life is a present moment to savor and treasure. It is because we do not live life in the present moment that we are afraid to let go. This is why we are afraid of death.

Content: Q: Why is it that we do not have memories of our past lives? It would be so easy to know what to do if we knew what mistakes we made in our past lives.

Content: Please believe me, you are very much better off not knowing what happened in your past lives!

Content: What you have experienced and remember in this life itself is enough to drive you crazy. Why do you want to remember what you did in other bodies earlier? Nature is being kind to you by letting you not remember all this.

Content: What happens is this: When the body experiences death and the spirit leaves the body, the spirit travels through seven layers of energy starting from the physical body layer. In each layer it experiences emotions and memories associated with that layer. When it reaches the subtle body layer, the fourth layer, all the painful memories of the past life surface. Immediately after this, the spirit enters the fifth layer, the causal energy body, and the body-mind goes into a coma. This layer is the layer of darkness which people experience when they go through Near Death

Content: Experiences (NDE). The light they see at the end of this layer is the sixth layer of energy, the cosmic energy layer.

Content: The fifth layer or causal energy body is when the spirit detaches from the body. Until this point, the spirit has the option to return to the body-mind. That is how many people come back to life after having been in coma for years. They had stayed in their causal layer. Once the spirit crosses this layer into the cosmic layer, it has no option but to move on.

Content: If it is a spirit that has fulfilled all the desires in its lifetime, it moves on to the final energy layer of nirvanic energy. A spirit which has not yet fulfilled the desires with which it took birth originally, will move into another body to fulfill these desires. The spirit will seek a body that has similar inclinations in terms of environment, culture, parental background and so on.

Content: When the spirit moves through the pain and coma in the fourth and fifth layers, all memories of the previous life are lost along with the body-mind. This passage through the darkness of the fifth or causal layer corresponds to the passage through the mother's womb. This is the point at which the spirit enters the new body. This is the reason why you do not remember what you experienced in your past lives.

Content: However, there are points in everyone's lives when some experiences are recovered when a state of intuition is reached. Suddenly when your TPS drops, that is suddenly when you touch a low thought-frequency state, you enter into intuition. Such experiences are recounted by Dr.Brian Weiss and others in their work with regression of people into past lives, using techniques to induce such states.

Content: In general, such adventures into past life memories may be quite harmful unless undertaken by someone who is spiritually aware and understands the implications. Someone who is spiritually aware may be able to use less harmful techniques to heal a person without having to put them through past life experiences.

Content: There are people who say that Existence is not fair in subjecting them to karma (unfulfilled actions from their past) and the effects of karma, without their being aware of what brought about that karma. All I can say is that there is no such thing as fairness in Existence as these people imply. Existence just is. It does not judge. It is you who causes what happens to you. There is no accident in nature. Everything is an incident caused by another incident.

Content: Nature is protecting you by helping you not remember all your past memories. If you did, your entire life would be spent on a psychiatrist's couch!

Chapter Number: 2.14

Content: O son of Kunti, contact with sense objects causes heat and cold, pleasure and pain, and these have a beginning and an end. O Bharata, these are not permanent; endure them bravely.

Chapter Number: 2.15

Content: O chief among men, these surely do not afflict the man who is centered, Pleasure and pain are the same to him and he is ready for enlightenment.

Chapter Number: 2.16

Content: The non-existent has no being; that which exists never ceases to exist; This truth about both is perceived by those who know the Truth.

Chapter Number: 2.17

Content: Know It to be indestructible, by which this body is pervaded. Nothing can destroy It, the Imperishable.

Chapter Number: 2.18

Content: These bodies of material energy are perishable. The energy itself is eternal, incomprehensible and indestructible. Therefore, fight, O Bharata.

Content: the conclusions that heat is pleasurable or cold is pleasurable are both specific to individuals and circumstances. These are related to time, space and individuals.

Content: There are many sādhus or ascetics, who stay in the higher reaches of the Himalayan mountains with very little clothing, in what everyone would consider bitter cold. There are those who carry out the parikrama, circumambulation, of Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar with meager clothing and footwear. Studies have been conducted on Tibetan Lamas in their high altitude snow-covered monasteries that show how the Lamas can bear extreme cold without any discomfort. Renowned scientists from reputed institutions such as the Harvard Medical School have conducted such studies.

Content: When Nature is accepted totally, heat, cold, rain, dryness and all these changes do not affect the body-mind system. If we walk around without footwear, the earth that we walk upon becomes our friend. As long as we wear footwear with the intention of protecting ourselves from Nature, we are treating Nature as an outsider, as an enemy. We can therefore never be comfortable with Nature because of this attitude.

Content: One who is firmly grounded in himself is grounded in Nature. To such a person, changes in Nature's parameters such as heat and cold, rain and shine, make no difference. They do not give him either pleasure or pain. Such a person treats them naturally, equally, with no difference.

Content: Krishna says that such a person is qualified and ready for enlightenment. Such persons have brought their senses under control, and as a result have their mind too under control.

Content: What Krishna says here, and what has been understood by the wise sages of the East for thousands of years, is only now being grasped by scientists and researchers.

Content: The body-mind system that we are born with is transient, in the sense that it is perishable and ceases to exist at death. No human being, or for that matter, no living being on this planet Earth is exempt from this rule. Everything in material form ceases to exist in that form at some point in time, and in that sense, does not have permanence or a basis in Truth.

Content: It is now accepted by medical science that the body-mind dies many deaths before its final exit. Cells within our body die in thousands everyday and get reborn. Over a period of a few years, every single cell in the body-mind system is

Content: replaced and renewed. What you were two or three years ago is not what you are today. What you are today is not what you will be two or three years from now. Every single cell in your body-mind system, and therefore, every single bone, muscle, tissue, artery, vein, limb and body part is new, completely different from what it was two or three years ago.

Content: The body-mind continually ceases to exist and gets recreated. It is not permanent. It is transient.

Content: Separate from the body-mind system is our spirit that lives on eternally. The spirit remains the same throughout our life with no change, despite all the changes in the body-mind system. It continues to be, to exist, even after our death. The spirit does not die with the body. It lives on. It is permanent and true.

Content: When one understands this difference between what is eternal - nitya, and what is transient - mitya, one becomes a seer and knower of Truth.

Content: Nitya and mitya do not translate into real and unreal. In the same way māyā or what is loosely translated as illusion, is not unreal. Māyā and mitya are real and perceived by our senses but they refer to things that are not true, that are not lasting, that are not the truth, that are the untruth. They are factually real but truthfully unreal! That which is true will always be true; it cannot cease to exist. Truth here refers to the state of permanence, of being eternal.

Content: I say a living master is not present as you feel, and a dead master is not absent as you think. The presence of a dead master, an enlightened dead master, is permanent and always real. A living master's form is not His only presence. He is present in His absence as well.

Content: Our perceptions through our senses may be real but not necessarily true. What is an observed fact is not necessarily true. A dream is very real when it happens. You may get angry, frightened, excited, lustful and all of these when you dream. Your body responds to these emotions that you feel in a dream and your senses react to what you observe in the dream. Yet the moment you start witnessing the dream, you awaken. You cannot dream when you become aware. The dream is not true, though it seemed real.

Content: The same happens when you are awake and daydreaming, which is most of the time! You are awake but you fantasize. The fantasies are real when you undergo the experience; they exist in your mind and are even experienced by your senses but they are not true. They are not permanent and you cannot do anything tangible with them.

Content: Even when you think you are fully awake, what you perceive through your senses may not be what you interpret it to mean. Your mind always filters through its own lens of the ego. You judge whatever you perceive through your conditioned memories. In almost all cases, your judgment has already been made. All that you do is selectively put together pieces of what you perceive, to support your judgment.

Content: That is the reason why the great masters have always urged their disciples to wake up. Jāgrat is the word used to awaken them. This is not the call to wake up from sleep but the call to wake up into awareness! It is the call to emerge from the non-existent reality of facts and observation into the truly existent Truth of self-experience.

Content: Most of the time we exist in our past or future. We are constantly caught in the experiences of the past, reliving them under the excuse of learning from them, but in actuality, we are caught in guilt, regret or pleasure from remembering the past experiences and memories with no ability whatsoever to do anything about them. They are the ghosts hovering in our lives. The past is history. It is gone. The moving finger has written and moved on. There is no way that it will erase even a single thing that has been written. Our intelligence, creativity and bliss can be accessed only in this present moment, not in reviewing the past.

Content: Our other mistake is to speculate about the future. The future is just as unreal as the past. If anything, it is more unreal, as it has not even happened. Yet, we build castles, we plan, we dream, and we fantasize about the future without the capacity to execute any of it. We are not even sure we will take our next breath. Even that is not under our control. How can we control events of the future when we cannot control our next breath?

Content: The futility of our constant movement between past and future and back again is the greatest wonder of all. It is merely the stuff of our thoughts, supported by our belief that it is real. And it is the source of all of our suffering!

Content: The only truth, the only true reality, is the truth of this very moment. As long as we focus on this present moment, we are truly aware and centered. The present moment never ceases to exist. In fact, that is all that does exist. The present moment alone is sat, truth, everything else is asat, untruth.

Content: One who realizes this and acts accordingly, says Krishna, is enlightened.

Content: We are all made of body, mind and spirit. The body is tangible; we can feel its boundaries. When a part of the body is sick, we can feel the discomfort. As long as we feel the body working smoothly, we say we are in good health.

Content: Our mind is subtle. We do not feel the mind in the same way as we feel the body. We do not feel its boundaries. Yet, we feel the effects of the mind: thoughts, desires, emotions etc. Modern scientific studies have shown that what we term as mind is spread all over the body. Mind and its intelligence are inbuilt into our cellular structure.

Content: Recent studies have shown that it is our belief systems, which in turn arise from our experiences, that define the development of our mind, and in turn influence the cellular structure. Earlier it was believed that genetic modifications to the cellular structure influenced the way we behaved. Now it is proven that it is our behavior that leads to our beliefs and thereafter determines our genetics.

Content: Even subtler is the spirit. In fact, many people question this entity called spirit. What is it, they ask. What is this thing called spirit or soul? We cannot see it and we cannot touch it. Becoming aware of this subtle spirit or soul is just what Self-realization is all about.

Content: In these verses, Krishna says first that the spirit pervades the body. His definition of body is the body-mind system. Secondly, He states that the body and mind are destroyed at death. Thirdly, He declares that the spirit does not die at death. Fourthly, He explains that the spirit is beyond our mental comprehension.

Content: When death happens, bodily functions stop. The senses which are a function of the mind, stop working. The brain which processes thoughts stops working. The entire body-mind system is then left by itself and it degenerates. This part is clear to all of us who have seen death.

Content: What is unclear or unknown to us is that there is something within us that does not perish at death. Krishna clarifies here that this is the Self, the Ātman, the energy that never dies.

Content: The Upaniṣads talk about this spirit as dwelling deep in our hearts and being of such minute proportions that it is smaller than a fraction of a fraction of one’s hair!

Content: What is death? Is it the spirit leaving the body that causes death, or is it that death forces the spirit into leaving the body? This argument becomes irrelevant once one understands that the body-mind system is perishable, that it has a definite shelf life. It comes with an expiry date, whatever that date may be. However, beyond this expiry date, there is something that lives on and that is the spirit.

Content: This spirit is energy; it is the energy of life. As I explained before, after death this energy moves from within the body that it occupied temporarily to the energy that is outside the body, the universal energy that surrounds the body.

Content: Krishna urges Arjuna to fight, with the full understanding that what he thinks of as real is unreal, that what he thinks of as permanent is impermanent, and what he thinks he is about to destroy can, in truth, never be destroyed.

Content: Arjuna is overcome with remorse, guilt, pity and insecurity at the very thought of killing his kinsmen. He believes that he is committing a mortal sin by killing them, since he thinks it will be the end of them. Krishna tells him to open his eyes. He tells Arjuna that what he is about to do will only destroy that which is going to perish anyway. Even if he wants to, Arjuna cannot destroy the imperishable spirit that lives on.

Content: Arjuna's concern about the death of his kinsmen and elders arises out of his insecurity about his own death. He does not realize his true imperishable nature and therefore he is afraid of dying. By extension of this fear, he is afraid of others' deaths as well, especially at his own hands. Krishna tells him that there is no such thing as death. He tells him that death is unreal.

Content: All our lives we see people around us dying. We all know that there is no one who is immortal. We all know that death is the only certainty in this otherwise uncertain world. Everyone, whether a beggar or a prince, must die.

Content: When we wake up from a dream, we don't mourn our dream lives, as real as they felt at the time. Do we? No. In the same way, when we awaken into the highest state of consciousness, we have the same experience that this 'real' life was only a dream. There is nothing to mourn or fret over. The lineage of all enlightened masters the world over has again and again supported Krishna's declarations with their own direct experience. The body is just the shell that houses your spirit. Even when the body perishes, you do not. It is impossible because you are eternal. You are bliss.

Content: Krishna is stating this reality straight out. He says firmly that there is no such thing as death. He says what dies or seems to perish is unreal; it had no permanent existence anyway.

Content: What does have existence, what is truly real, exists now, has always existed and will exist forever!

Content: Q: Is it possible to be detached without being indifferent? How do we keep our hearts open along the spiritual path?

Content: Please be very clear: Only a person with an open heart can be detached.

Content: If you are indifferent, you will only be dull, not detached. Only a person who can give himself completely can also detach himself completely. Understand that you never shower yourself on anybody because you are afraid that you may not be able to detach yourself from them. The power to share and detach is one and the same. If you cannot share yourself intensely, you cannot detach yourself. The person who struggles is half of everything, being able to neither attach nor detach. The one who can attach fully can also detach himself.

Content: Many of you are so much in need of attention yourselves that it is difficult to express love and affection to others all the time. Your heart energy center, the anāhata cakra, is blocked by a desperate need for attention. You suck energy from others, since attention is energy. The main reason for this is your upbringing. Since childhood you are conditioned to please others and over time you cannot exist without approval from others.

Content: Many of you may have experienced this. When someone is bitter and grieving and you give him or her a shoulder to cry on, you are left feeling drained of energy. You are not doing anything physical. You are not even experiencing anything emotional directly. You are only listening to someone cry. Yet, it affects you, it drains you. This is real. People suck energy from you. If you are not centered in your heart center and your heart center is not open, you will feel drained. This may then affect you physically.

Content: By unblocking and energizing your anāhata cakra, the heart center, you become a permanent source of energy and become capable of showering attention and

Content: affection on others without expecting anything in return and without feeling drained. We teach a simple meditation technique to activate and energize the anāhata cakra in our first level cakra energization course, the Life Bliss Program level 1. Not only does it make you capable of giving love without expectation, it is also a powerful self-healing meditation.

Content: When you do not expect anything in return, you have no attachment and you become detached. Detachment does not refer to a state of non-caring, it is in fact just the opposite. The right word is non-attachment, not detachment. When you are not attached, you do not differentiate between strangers and family and friends. You shower attention and affection equally. There is no boundary to your circle of care; it is infinite.

Content: Attachment binds you to the past and future. Non-attachment centers you in the present. When you genuinely care, and care unconditionally, you are no longer bothered about what a person did in the past and how he or she behaved with you. You are also no longer concerned about how they may act with you in the future. All that matters is that you care now.

Content: That is why true love is always in the present. That is why it is blind; it is blind to the past and future. Real love only has eyes to see in the present moment. So long as the love has a fixed object, it cannot be called real love.

Content: When you let go the object and let the love flow wherever, to whomever and however, love blossoms into compassion; it is love expressed in a state of total awareness.

Content: Q: Some masters talk of the Self as pūrṇa and some as shūnya. These have contradictory meanings. How can both be correct?

Content: Buddha refers to the ultimate stage as shūnya, nothingness. Adi Shankaracharya refers to the same stage as pūrṇa, fullness. Both masters refer to the same state. Shankara refers to Self-realization as liberation from all bondages of life and death. Buddha also refers to liberation from all bondages though he says there is no Self and all that there is, is nothingness.

Content: Nothingness and fullness are opposite sides of the same state. They are not different from each other. They are just being viewed differently. When we refer to shūnya, we negate; when we refer to pūrṇa we include, that’s all.

Content: The vedic chant 'pūrṇamadah pūrṇamidam' says that from fullness arises fullness; when fullness comes out of fullness, fullness still remains. One can replace the word fullness in this chant with nothingness and the meaning will not change. Just as there is nothing beyond nothing, there is nothing beyond fullness.

Content: Whatever you may add or subtract or multiply or divide from infinity, it will remain infinity. In mathematics if you add to zero you may get something, but if you add anything to nothingness, it will absorb the nothingness into it like a black hole and there will be nothing to show.

Content: Shankara, who talked about pūrṇa, fullness, was the ultimate denier of everything. 'Neti, neti, not this, not this,' was his motto. At eight years of age, he responded to the questions of his Guru Govindapada, on the banks of the river Tungabhadra with six verses that form Ātmaśataka. Every verse in this response is denial. 'I am not this, I am not that,' Shankara says, 'I am not the five elements. I am not the emotions. I am not the enjoyment.' He then says, 'I am Shiva. Nothingness leads to fullness.'

Content: Q: Krishna urges Arjuna to fight. Many Westerners say that Krishna preached and practiced violence. Is this correct?

Content: People whose mental tendencies are violent pretend to be shocked at what they perceive as physical violence. They do not understand that there is no difference between physical and mental violence; one cannot exist without the other.

Content: In so-called civilized societies, the law controls and inhibits people from exercising the violence in their minds. You do not even find people smiling. If at all they do smile, the smile does not move beyond their lips. The smile is a dead smile. Suppression of mental violence does not make a person nonviolent; it does not make a person peaceful. It just makes the person a time bomb.

Content: People call this privacy. Suppression of feelings is not privacy. It is a disaster waiting to happen. Not letting others into you is not privacy. It is an invitation to depression. You cannot become free by encasing yourself in seclusion.

Content: It is like a monk running away from home thinking that he has renounced everything and that he will be free of all desires. Desires spring from the mind. If the inner maturity does not happen, then even if the monk sits far away from everything in a forest, fantasies will crowd his mind.

Content: You need not run away from your family and become a monk. You can be with your family and renounce. You have to be awake and aware to renounce and be a true monk. You do not need to run away to the forests or the mountains to be awake. You can be awake wherever you are.

Content: The master awakens you most often with a hard jolt! Ramana Maharshi says that the master is a simha swapna, a lion nightmare! The master is a nightmare that wakes you up from unreality into reality.

Content: Krishna is removing the fantasies in Arjuna’s mind. He is clearing the cobwebs of pretension that Arjuna and mankind have about what is good and what is evil. Truth is beyond good and evil. Dharma, the universal law of righteousness, is far different from society’s law of morality and immorality.

Content: We are all brought up with role models and behavior templates of what is right and what is wrong. This is based on societal conditioning. These guidelines and regulations are to ensure that society operates as smoothly as possible. When we do not have the awareness and intelligence to see beyond these rules and regulations and understand the reason behind them, we are constantly tempted and yet afraid to break them. We are like the toddler testing the parent’s rules.

Content: The Ten Commandments arose from the truth that Moses experienced. They were expressions of his experience. For his followers they were mere commandments that had to be enforced through fear and greed. What was a deep spiritual experience of awareness for one enlightened person, degenerated into guidelines for sin and merit, and gateways to hell and heaven.

Content: Many Eastern scholars also have not understood Krishna. They either say Krishna is saying something metaphorical and they escape from His statements, or they criticize Him for advocating violence.

Content: Krishna is not advocating violence. He is advocating awareness. He says that what we perceive as life and death is a dream. He says that what we perceive as good and evil and as right and wrong are relative, culture-based, impermanent and unreal. These dualities are born out of our conditioning and our ignorance. In reality there is no duality. There is no right or wrong, there is no good or evil.

Content: It is this conditioning that makes people constantly ask why God is so cruel. This is why people question situations in the world like the death of a young child or the natural disasters that kill thousands. There are no logical answers except that this is the way of Nature. Nature’s way is impermanence. Nature’s way is unpredictable.

Content: Krishna takes a sledgehammer to break our conditioning. He tells Arjuna, 'Fight!' knowing fully well that much of humanity will be shocked. People are shocked because this is what they have in their minds but are afraid to reveal. Constant suppression of violence in the mind breeds depression and leads to violence towards oneself. Some destroy themselves while some are in the process of destroying themselves and others.

Content: It is good to accept the violence within. It is good to reflect upon and examine the violence within in order to understand wherefrom this violence springs. Once the understanding happens the violence will disappear.

Content: A person who has the awareness to realize the impermanence of body-mind and the permanence of the spirit within, has already developed within himself the intelligence to know whether the fight and the killing are needed or not. That is why it is said that even if Buddha kills, it is no sin. It is an act born out of awareness that had to happen.

Content: People who preach non-violence need to understand that ahim̄sā, the vedic concept of non-violence, goes well beyond physical non-violence. It is a comprehensive expression of an integrated person. It is non-violence of thoughts, words and from that, non-violence in action. Such non-violence can only happen through complete awareness. It can only happen when there is awareness that every being, animate and inanimate, is part of the same, interconnected cosmic energy. It can only happen when there is the awareness of boundarilessness.

Content: In such a situation, with such awareness, when destruction happens, it is an integral part of creation; without such destruction there can be no further creation.

Content: What Krishna says here cannot be understood just through simple logic, by reading or listening. It can only be understood through experience. Krishna is not saying that you logically determine what is right and what is wrong and then decide to fight against what is wrong. He does not give that choice to Arjuna because he does not trust Arjuna's logic. He does not trust any logic. He says that whatever you think of as good and bad, right and wrong, moral and evil, whatever you think of as opposing dualities are only figments of your own imagination.

Content: There is no duality, there is no difference. The difference is in your awareness. When you shift your awareness beyond this duality, you are in a state of Oneness, Wholeness. In that state of Oneness there can be no violence.

Content: Q: Based on the beliefs of Christianity and Islam, rebirth or reincarnation is denied by the majority of the world's population today. Why do these religions deny this phenomenon if this is true?

Content: The socially correct answer to this would be not to get into this controversy and carry on with one's own belief systems!

Content: Judaism, the religion that spawned both Christianity and Islam, believed in the concept of the spirit living on, moving from one body into another. The concept was called gilgulim. While modern Jews may discount this concept, orthodox Jews still believe in reincarnation.

Content: Christian groups such as Gnostics and Islamic groups such as Sufis have repeatedly confirmed their belief in reincarnation. The Bible as it is read today was recompiled in the fourth century A.D. and in this process many statements that did not appeal to the Romans were discarded. This is a historical fact. Similarly, in the Koran there are verses that refer to a life before and after birth.

Content: It is true that in these religions, reincarnation is not as central a concept as it is in the vedic tradition. There can be no doubt about this.

Content: Disregarding what religions may say for or against reincarnation, one should look at this concept empirically and scientifically. Instead of dismissing the evidence of people with past life memories as hallucination, it is necessary to keep an open mind and investigate. Science today confirms that matter and energy are interconvertible and while matter can be destroyed, energy cannot be destroyed. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the human system operates on energy. So what happens to this energy at death? It has to go someplace.

Content: Even if one assumes that energy does not move from body to body, one has to concede that it goes into a central pool of energy. This is what we call Brahman in the vedic tradition. Since the newborn has to derive energy from somewhere, that energy has to come from a central pool, the same Brahman. Whichever way one argues, the energy of the spirit lives on and moves from one body to another, if not directly, then indirectly through a storehouse of energy.

Content: From this agreement to actual reincarnation is a leap of faith. Actually it is a leap of experience. Every great master who has realized his Self has declared that he was one with Existence, one with Brahman. From this the concept of the individual Self, the ātman, developed, which is the same energy but contained in that individual.

Content: Krishna says that the individual energy, the ātman, has the choice to move either into another body, like a person changing clothes, or to be liberated into Brahman. When the desires of the individual energy have been completely fulfilled, it merges into Brahman. When it has unfulfilled desires it enters into another body.

Content: Q: Swamiji, the concept of reincarnation gets even more complicated when we are told that we can be reborn as animals or even insects. That is pretty tough to understand, is it not?

Content: Yes, it does get more complicated.

Content: We can so easily accept the concept of evolution which states that human beings evolved from single cell beings. However, even for those of us who can accept reincarnation it is very difficult to accept that human beings can also devolve into what we consider 'lower' forms. It is a threat to our identity. We think, 'How can I turn into a fly or a fish or whatever?'

Content: What the spirit chooses in the future body depends upon the mental setup or tendencies of that person during the previous incarnation. It all depends on what kind of a life one led and with what unfulfilled desires one left the body. I say jokingly to people sometimes that if they are over-fond of sleeping they may be reborn as a buffalo and if they are gluttons they may take birth as pigs! There is an element of truth in this.

Content: Do not imagine that human beings are so unique. They are unique to the extent that they are the only species that can think, and have the consciousness that can elevate them beyond this body-mind. Animals need to pass through the human body to be liberated. However, we have the same energy as animals, just in a different form. The highest energy center of an animal is our base energy center or mūlādhāra cakra. When the spirit of an animal evolves into a human, the higher cakras are developed. If a person lives throughout his life only in the mūlādhāra cakra, in lust and greed, there is every possibility that the person can be reborn as an animal. The spirit will move towards the lower energy centers at the time of death.

Content: What is more difficult to grasp is how an animal moves up to become a human. Even though they lack the consciousness of a human to be liberated, animals can reach the highest levels of their own existence and can move up in the next birth. That is how evolution works.

Content: People ask: A few centuries ago there was only a fraction of the current world population. Even if you add the animal population there would not have been six billion spirits. So, how did the population grow to six billion and how does it continue to grow? If new lives are based on rebirth where did all these new bodies come from?

Content: Relax. All living beings are energy. Moreover this universe extends far beyond planet Earth. The entire space is energy. So there is enough energy to populate many planets, not only to overpopulate this Earth!

Chapter Number: 2.19

Content: Neither understands, he who takes the Self to be slayer nor he who thinks he is slain.

Content: He who knows the truth understands that the Self does not slay, nor is It slain.

Chapter Number: 2.20

Content: The Self is neither born nor does It ever die. After having been, It never ceases not to be.

Content: It is Unborn, Eternal, Changeless and Ancient. It is not killed when the body is killed.

Chapter Number: 2.21

Content: O Partha, how can man slay or cause others to be slain,

Content: When he knows It to be indestructible, eternal, unborn, and unchangeable?

Chapter Number: 2.22

Content: Just as man casts off his worn-out clothes and puts on new ones,

Content: The Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters newer ones.

Chapter Number: 2.23

Content: Weapons do not cleave the Self, fire does not burn It, water does not moisten It

Content: And wind does not dry It.

Chapter Number: 2.24

Content: The Self can neither be broken, nor burnt, nor dissolved, nor dried up.

Content: It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable and ancient.

Chapter Number: 2.25

Content: The Self is said to be unmanifest, unthinkable and unchangeable.

Content: Knowing this to be such, you should not grieve.

Content: Krishna directly addresses some of Arjuna’s earlier doubts in these verses. Arjuna has claimed that destroying his relatives and his mentors will bring him untold grief, not only in this world but in future births as well. He claims that his future generations will suffer as a result of such evil deeds.

Content: Krishna explains to Arjuna that all his fears are misplaced. There is no death in reality. What is seen as death is the destruction of the impermanent body. No one therefore can kill another person or be killed by another person. Both are illusions.

Content: The spirit that occupies the body lives on forever. It occupies the body temporarily, but by itself the Self is eternal, indestructible, and has no births and deaths. It is the body, the sheath that covers it, that dies and is reborn. The spirit or the Self lives on forever.

Content: What Krishna says here is radically different from what any other scripture has said. Krishna denies the concept of death here. He says there is no such thing as death. He is not saying: be good, and you will be taken care of when you die and if you are bad, you will suffer. He says there is no death, that’s all.

Content: Just imagine that as an infant, you are cast away on an island with no other living being. As you grow older, will you have any idea of what it is to die? When indeed your body dies what will happen? Nothing. You will not know anything, that’s all. It is as Socrates, the Greek philosopher said as he died, 'How does it matter if I am going into nothingness and I never come back?' Birth, rebirth and all this will also not make a difference.

Content: Here Krishna is talking to someone who has witnessed death. So, He has to explain to him that death does not exist; that it is a mere passage from one shell into another; it is a transfer from one body into another.

Content: It is the individual’s attachment to the body that creates the illusion that the individual also perishes with the body.

Content: Attachment to the body is the most intense of all attachments. We also get attached to material possessions as well as our relationships. The potential loss of these leads to fears similar to that of losing one’s body.

Content: One who understands that all these attachments are temporary and are the cause of all our suffering, understands the truth.

Content: Understanding this truth removes all fears.

Content: Cultures that do not accept the concept of the continuance of the spirit inculcate this fear of loss of identity deeply in the individual psyche. People are bred on the

Content: belief that one's life ends at death. It is a permanent end. This belief leads to desperate behavior, as if there is no further time for the individual to seek happiness. Hell and heaven have been created based on this concept of having a single life and the permanence of death. Concepts of hell and heaven are used by all cultures to control people through fear and greed.

Content: Once a person understands that death, like birth, is merely a passage, and sees the continuity of being, the fear of losing one's identity disappears. One is relaxed. One is no longer terrorized and controlled by fears of sin and hell.

Content: This is why religions that accept the continuance of life after death, as Hinduism and Buddhism do, breed a culture of tolerance amongst their followers. There is no rush to live and extract the maximum juice out of one's life in a single birth. These religions state that we all come from a common energy source and we go back to this source, and the cycle continues. Those who understand this spiritual truth preach acceptance, inclusion and compassion, and they have no desire to convert others to their beliefs.

Content: It is easy to misinterpret these verses and say that if there is no one really killing or being killed, then what stops us from mindless killing? That is not what Krishna intends.

Content: One who truly understands that death is not the end of the path, but only a milestone in the journey, is not perturbed by death when it happens naturally or when it is caused for a purpose.

Content: These truths are spoken to Arjuna who already understands the basic truths of yama (the first step of the philosophy formulated by Patanjali, a great ancient master of yoga). These are the principles of satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence), aparigraha (living simply), āsteya (non covetousness) and brahmacarya (living without fantasies). Arjuna fully understands the implications of killing, and that, as a kṣatriya, it is his dharmic code of conduct that requires him to slay his enemies.

Content: Here Krishna reveals to him a more subtle level of truth that he hasn't yet grasped. Arjuna shies away from killing, not because of his conviction of ahimsa, non-violence, but because he identifies with the people he has to destroy. His hesitation is from ignorance, attachment and fantasy, not from the wisdom of non-violent compassion.

Content: Krishna's message to Arjuna is as it would be to someone who has to uphold dharma at all costs, and in today's context that would apply to a soldier or a policeman. However, it would not be a blind acceptance of orders that would

Content: compel such people to take lives. It would not be an action driven by fear and greed. It would not be killing for gain and it would not be killing out of fear that one would be killed. It would be an ultimate action, born out of the knowledge that such destruction is needed for universal good and that such destruction would lead to creation.

Content: Such is the destructive aspect of Nature. Nature destroys to recreate. Shiva is the Rejuvenator not the destroyer as we normally refer to him. This is what Krishna preaches to Arjuna within this context.

Content: You may ask, 'If nothing is destroyed and nothing can be destroyed, is there no sin in killing at all? All the people whom we call villains like Hitler, Bin Laden and others, do they commit no sin by killing? They are only killing bodies that will perish anyway. So Krishna is indifferent to mass violence?'

Content: No, He is not. For one thing, Krishna speaks as an enlightened master from an existentialist perspective and says that, even when the body perishes, the spirit lives on, and therefore, there is no death.

Content: Violence and killing are not merely physical acts. They are psychological compulsions acted out. A person with Hitler's mindset but without Hitler's power, would have behaved similarly but on a smaller scale. The generals who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima were far more violent than the pilot who actually pressed the button that dropped the bomb. The ruler of a country who orders warfare against others is the violent one, even if he hides behind his throne.

Content: Violence of the mind carries on as the vāsana or desires; the essence of the spirit, that incarnates from birth to birth. That is the horror that does not end with death. The spirit is violated, degraded, and degenerated by this attitude of violence.

Content: A violent man is always a coward. He does not have the courage to face the truth. He does not have the sensitivity to treat others as he expects to be treated.

Content: He isolates himself in a cocoon of lies, using the excuse of defending himself, and commits violence against others.

Content: In modern times, violence has increased because it is so much easier to kill than to work through problems and find solutions.

Content: Most often we do not even have to face the person we want to kill. We can fire a pistol or a rifle; we can throw bombs; and if one is a ruler with power, he or she can press a button or convince a nation that unleashing havoc is the best option

Content: available. We do not have to face the consequences of what we are doing and can pretend we know nothing about it. We can even pretend that we are committing these acts in the name of God and righteousness.

Content: When we become aware, when we become conscious that the person next to us is actually an expression of the energy of God, how can we possibly respond with violence? It has nothing to do with whether someone is familly, part of our culture, part of our religion or part of our nation. It does not matter if the other person shares our history, habits or beliefs. The other person may oppose all that we believe in. Yet he is as much a part of this universe as we are.

Content: That is why Krishna says, 'How can that man slay or cause others to be slain, who knows Him to be indestructible, eternal, unborn, unchangeable?'

Content: How can we? How can violence develop in us when we recognize ourselves to be God, which automatically enables us to be aware that every other living being, animate and inanimate too is God's image?

Content: If this message of Krishna is truly understood, there can be no violence in this world, no killing at all. You will not even kill an insect. You will not kill even in self-defense because once you are in awareness, your awareness is transmitted to the other being and that being will not even attack you.

Content: Once in Omkareshwar, a forest region, I saw this huge bear when I got up from meditation. It was very close to me. I felt no fear. The bear looked at me and walked away. I have come across deadly cobras many times. They just look and go away. When I feel no fear, and therefore no enmity with them, they understand and accept. All this talk about killing others in self-defense is a lie.

Content: All the nations in this world claim they have standing armies because they need to defend themselves. The right to defend is enshrined in all self-respecting constitutions. So, if everybody is only defending, who then is offending? Does anyone think about that?

Content: Even a domesticated dog reacts in anger only when it detects our fear. Our violence arises out of our own fear. Even a dog knows that, because it is intelligent, naturally intelligent, unlike us humans. Only humans have the choice to deny nature and be idiotic.

Content: Understand what Krishna says and you will never have fear, either for yourself or for others. You are imperishable; everyone around you is imperishable. Shed your fear and violence. Let love for others fill your being.

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Content: Krishna continues: Just as man casts off his worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, the Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters newer ones. Weapons do not cleave the Self, fire does not burn It, water does not moisten It, and wind does not dry It. The Self can neither be broken, nor burnt, nor dissolved, nor dried up. It is eternal, all-pervading, stable, immovable and ancient.

Content: These verses are amongst the most quoted verses of Bhagavad Gita. Here, in very few words, Krishna expounds upon the entire truth of life and death, mind, body and spirit. He clarifies why we should accept death gladly, as a matter of fact and course, instead of grieving over it.

Content: He says this so simply that even an innocent child can understand this truth.

Content: One does not have to be learned in the scriptures. In fact, it is a great liability to read the Gita when one is well versed in scriptures. We then miss the truth, the simplicity, the innocence of what Krishna says.

Content: What makes Gita stand apart from all other scriptures, and yet be considered one of the most sacred scriptures alongside the Vedas and Upaniṣads, is this simple authority and clarity with which this master of the universe, this complete incarnation, speaks.

Content: So simply He says: 'Just as you cast off your shirt when it is dirty and put on a new one, so does the spirit cast off this body and enter into a new one.'

Content: Do we grieve over a dirty shirt that we have cast away when we know we will have a new one? Do we say, 'Oh, I am so attached to this shirt. I cannot let it go. Let me keep wearing it. I shall be heartbroken if I have to take off this shirt?'

Content: When we see a new shirt, a new garment, the feeling is automatic. We let go the old and take on the new. Why then this hesitation, this fear, when the spirit says, 'Let me get out of this body; it is so old and decrepit; it is diseased and foul. Let me go find a newer, better body.'

Content: If only we understand that a body needs to be changed when it grows old, in just the same way as the shirt does when it is dirty, there would be no grief, no attachment.

Content: This simple truth is so profound that it takes the greatest master of all to say it.

Content: 'Don't worry', He says, 'what you will find is a newer, better and more attractive model! Let go of your fears; let go of your attachment. Look forward to

Content: what is to follow with joy and a sense of anticipation and celebration. Celebrate death. Do not mourn over it.

Content: Krishna goes on to explain further what that unchanging continuity is, even as the spirit moves from one body to another. What is the nature of that spirit? How is it that it is everlasting?

Content: Krishna says, 'Please understand, Arjuna, the Soul is not destroyed as you think. It cannot be destroyed at all. No weapon can destroy It. No astra, no brahmāstra, no nuclear weapon can destroy the energy within the body. Fire cannot burn It, water cannot wet It, and air cannot dry It. It is not made of the elements and cannot be destroyed by the elements. Neither can the absence of the elements destroy It. It is beyond the five elements. It is the energy behind the elements. It is the energy that creates the elements. How can It then die?'

Content: 'It cannot be disintegrated in any manner, by breaking, dissolving, burning or drying, as one could do to any other substance made of the five elements of nature. It is eternal. It transcends all the elemental powers. It pervades the universe. It has been there always. It never had to be created. Therefore, It never can be destroyed.'

Content: An understanding of the truth that Krishna unveils here is the key to immortality. It is the key to liberation from the bondage of life and death. It is the doorway to enlightenment.

Content: 'Do not fear death,' Krishna says, 'neither yours nor that of others. It is just a passage. It is the disappearance of this material body. However, you are beyond this material body. Even if the body perishes, you live on, so you do not have to worry or fear.'

Content: What survives death is the sacred spirit in you that can never be destroyed. This spirit is not matter; it is pure energy. How can you destroy energy? Science states that energy can only appear in another form; it cannot be destroyed. As I have said, the energy of the spirit reappears in another form as matter, or it stays as energy.

Content: It is the energy behind the elements; it is that source which creates the elements. It is the energy that has always been and will be, never created, never destroyed. It is unchanging, neutral, eternal and all pervading. The experience of every enlightened being verifies the truth that Krishna is uttering.

Content: 'When you are that spirit, that energy,' asks Krishna, 'what is there to grieve about? When you are the Divine yourself, what can you fear? What can you want? What more can you ask for?' The same answer, the same explanation holds good for every one of us. We are divine. We are the universe. We cannot be destroyed. We live on despite what we see to be the destruction of our body and identity. Once we understand this truth, nothing can disturb us. We can be in bliss. In the Mundakopanishad there is a story of two birds. Two birds were sitting on a large fruit-bearing tree that had many branches. It had many fruits on each of its branches. One of the birds was a golden-hued bird with a lovely plumage. It had a serene calmness about it and was perched silently upon one of the upper branches, which had fewer fruits. It spent most of its time unmoving, showing no interest in the fruits around it. The second bird was smaller and livelier. This bird was always restless and kept jumping from one branch to another searching for fruits to eat. The second bird felt very happy when it tasted sweet fruits and chirped happily. When it came across a bitter or sour fruit which was often, it made irritated noises and looked unhappy. The more the sour and bitter fruits that it tasted, the more sorrowful this bird became. It said to itself that there is no joy in these fruits and there is no joy at all in living like this. It then looked up and saw the blissful golden bird perched above it, sitting in silence, calm and relaxed. The golden bird seemed to light up the entire tree. The smaller bird flew up to look at the golden bird more closely. On the way up it saw some juicy fruits and it stopped to peck at them. The fruits were tasty and it settled down to eat more. Then some fruits turned bitter and some sour, and it grew disappointed. It looked up and saw the golden bird again, calm, happy, and relaxed. It moved up again. It flitted up and down, right and left. Each time it saw the golden bird it would fly up closer. It would then stop to taste a fruit that first tasted sweet, only to move on to bitter and sour fruits as it stayed on to eat more. Finally, it reached the treetop where the golden bird was perched. It looked at it closely and was startled to find that the golden bird was none other than its own self! It went closer and closer, becoming happier and more relaxed. The smaller bird felt a deep connection with the golden-hued bird. It was love, not

Content: falling in love, but rising in love. Soon it lost its own identity and merged with the golden bird. When we realize that we are one with the golden bird, our inner divinity, there is no longer any fear of death. There is no longer any question about who we are. We know. 'Weapons cannot cleave It, fire cannot burn It.' If only the so-called leaders of this world understood what Krishna is saying! Then, there would be no need for United Nations, Peace Days, Friendship Days and so on. Everyday would be a Peace Day.

Content: What are we trying to do by killing people, by eliminating the physical evidence of their existence? We are trying to eliminate the evidence of people who do not believe us, who dare to question us, and who dare to laugh at us. We would only like to be surrounded by people who fear us, and out of that fear, pretend to respect us, like us, love us. Great leaders killed people not because they were offended by them but because they were afraid of them. The great dictators killed to protect themselves, out of fear. Externally they projected an image of great courage, but inside they were cowards. These dictators would have other people taste their food first in case it was poisoned. They would have their 'twins' following them to mislead people. They all live their lives in utter fear.

Content: At the heart of all torture and killing is fear and greed. When we sincerely contemplate these teachings, and this verse of the Gita in particular, such concerns dissolve and we live peacefully with ourselves and others.

Content: If you are courageous, you will face anyone and state your case. In the event that you cannot convince the other person, you will accept the situation and walk away. In life, in this world, there is enough room for different opinions. It is when we get opinionated, fixed in obsessive beliefs and become intolerant of other beliefs, that we become afraid. We become afraid that we too may lose our belief, that we may lose our identity. That insecurity and fear of loss of identity is greater than the fear of death. It is in fact nothing but the fear of death, since we see death as the ultimate elimination of our identity. So we respond violently. To avoid being killed, we kill.

Content: Once we understand what Krishna says, that death is like changing a worn-out garment, our fears will disappear. If we are truly wise, this false identity itself will disappear. Why do we need that garment at all? We will feel freer, fully liberated when we do not have that garment. Then there is no need even to worry about that change.

Content: In fact, the deeper level understanding of this truth is that there is really no need to change the garment. It is only when we have the garment that we have to worry about whether the garment is dirty or torn and how to replace it. If there is no garment at all, there are no more concerns. Going beyond the garment is going beyond the body-mind. It is going beyond the cycle of life and death, the cycle of samsāra. It is going to the ultimate liberation in this life itself. It is the ultimate relaxation.

Content: Shankara says hauntingly in Bhaja Govindam: Again and again one is born and one dies; one keeps going back into the mother's womb. Oh Lord, the rower of the boat that would help me cross this ocean of life and death, please help me across.

Content: Be Aware Of The Depression Of Success! Q: Swamiji, You talked earlier about the depression of success, which affects many people around the world. What if a young person has experienced this several times? Is there hope? Please be very clear: Whatever you may have experienced is not depression based on success but depression based on failure. If you are still struggling to reach the material goals that you have set for yourself and you have failed repeatedly, then you have yet to experience the depression of success. The depression of success happens only to mature people. It is a gift from the Divine and a luxury in life. I tell you, the depression of success is the ultimate luxury; all cannot afford it. To experience this depression you need two things - all your material needs must be fulfilled, and you need to have intelligence. Only when you have both, the external comforts and the intelligence to look beyond, will you experience the depression of success. If you are depressed because of failure, it cannot be called depression. It is just failure. There are people who come to me and say that when they came to the USA as immigrants, they had hardly any money, but they are millionaires today. They have everything that they always wanted, but now have forgotten why they wanted all this in the first place! Of course, the easiest answer to why you want wealth is to say that you want to be happy. But when you have amassed wealth far beyond your expectations, and still happiness seems far away, it should make you wonder why you worked so hard. People keep acquiring, but possessions no longer bring enjoyment to them. There is no time for enjoyment since acquisition takes up all their time and effort. Then

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Content: they experiment and keep changing all that they have, in the hope that the next possession may bring about happiness.

Content: This happens a lot with modern day men and women. They change cars every year, homes every three years and their spouses every fifth year! And after all that, although the latest models should bring in greatest joy, unfortunately they don't feel satisfied.

Content: In the vedic tradition there is no concept of divorce. There is no word in Sanskrit for divorce. It is not that our ancient vedic sages lived an unreal life and expected that there will be no marital problems. Their tradition was not based on changing the other person but changing one's own personality!

Content: You can keep changing the objects and persons; there will be no end to it and no satisfaction either. With each change, your mind will demand more change. In French, I am told there is a saying: change leads to more change. Unless your mind changes you cannot reach satisfaction and fulfilment. It is this change of mind, this transformation, that the vedic tradition suggests and trains you for.

Content: Depression of failure is easier to solve. Just work hard and smart. Focus on the present moment without worrying about the end result. This is what Krishna advises and it works. Non-attachment to possessions works just as well as non-attachment to people and relationships. It takes the stress out of your action. Instead of chasing deadlines and goals, you focus more on what needs to be done now, and make sure it gets done. This will solve your failure issues.

Content: Giving up attachment to what you acquire and enjoying what you have in the present moment will solve your problem of depression of success.

Content: Q: In many countries the death penalty has been banned as being inhumane. In others it is maintained as being essential to law and order. Which approach is correct?

Content: In ancient Sumerian civilization the code of Hammurabhi declared: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Content: Some cultures still follow this logic. If everyone were to demand the next person's eye, soon the entire world would be one eyed at best!

Content: Will it solve any problems? No.

Content: Has the death penalty reduced homicial crime rates anywhere? Statistics show otherwise. In fact, the most peaceful cultures are the tribal cultures in which all problems are resolved through mutual discussion and agreement. Courts of law, prisons and such other civilized societal solutions have not helped lower crime rates.

Content: It has been established that meditation reduces crime rates. The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Institute has done remarkable work in this field. They say that even if the square root of 1% of the population of an area meditates together, then in that location, mental attitudes change and crime rates are reduced. Experiments have been conducted successfully in Washington D.C. using this approach.

Content: If a group of just about 10,000 people were to meditate together, they can bring about a beneficial change in the attitudes of people and in the environment. But this is too easy for most people. Our conditioning is such that we cannot believe such things can work. The human ego is violent by nature. We demand an eye for an eye, a body for a body. It is this inner violence that fosters crime. Rules and regulation, courts and prison cells can do nothing to change this. Violence cannot cure violence.

Content: Transformation needs to happen within. No one can transform another person, especially by force. However, you can transform people by example. That is what Buddha meant when he urged his followers to light more lamps with the lamps that he had lit within them.

Content: We have been doing meditation courses in prisons. Other organizations have also done this. We find that we are able to make a difference. Through the process of meditation, inner violence and negativities can be dissolved and genuine transformation can happen.

Content: Instead of finding lasting solutions to the issue of why inner violence builds up and how it can be diffused, there is a lot of debate that goes on about how to execute death by law painlessly! When we condemn people to death by law we are still killing people. We are not in the enlightened state of Krishna to proclaim that the spirit lives on forever and therefore governments are free to kill in the name of justice!

Content: Q: Swamiji, please comment on desires. Most masters recommend sealing of desires. How can this be done?

Content: I can comment on desires but do not want to comment on what most masters recommend! I tell you honestly that sealing of desires cannot be done. Suppression will only lead to perversion and other difficulties. Transformation is the only possibility; suppression cannot be practised. Whether it is related to the senses, enjoyment, name and fame or anything, the more you suppress, the more you poison your system. All you can do is transform the desires. If you want this to happen, enter into meditation and let your energies be transformed. Except transformation, there is no other way to escape from desires. Just divert the energy and let it become pure. When you transform, you will have pure desire without it being directed towards any object.

Content: Desire without object is energy. When your energy is attached to an object, it becomes desire and when the desire is detached from the object it becomes energy. That is why in vedic systems we call desire icchā shakti or desire energy. As long as there is no object, it leads you to bliss. When there is an object, it leads you to bondage. You can only transform or purify it through meditation. Never suppress it. Suppression only leads to more problems. Work for transformation, not for suppression.

Content: Q: If the Self cannot be destroyed or harmed, it cannot be hurt. Why then do we feel pain and why does the body get hurt?

Content: This was the question that in a way sparked off my spiritual quest!

Content: When I was about ten, I went to listen to Annamalai Swamigal, an enlightened saint in my native place of Tiruvannamalai. He was giving a discourse on the great Vedantic truths and said that we are immortal and do not feel pain. That surprised me! I thought, 'I have pain. If I am yelled at or if someone beats me, I feel pain. Then how can this statement be true?' I already had a passion for the truth and the willingness to experiment to realise it. So I went home and cut myself on my thigh to check it out! It pained like crazy. I was scolded and taken to the doctor to be sewn up. It took something like thirteen stitches. The scar is still there! I went back to Annamalai Swamigal and asked why he told me there is no pain. He laughed and lovingly said, 'Don’t worry my son. Your courage to test these truths will be enough to lead you to experience them.' He then initiated me into a simple but powerful meditation technique that eventually led me to my first glimpse of the truth.

Content: The body is the material aspect of the spirit; the body is matter and the spirit or Self is energy. The body is the shell of the energy or light of being. Body and matter perish, while the Self, the energy lives on. This body or body-mind is the collection of all our thoughts, desires, emotions and experiences. It is usually driven by our senses.

Content: As long as we feel the difference between matter and energy, body, mind and spirit, we shall continue to feel the pain. When the understanding dawns that matter and energy are one and the same, that the Self is what drives the body-mind, then all the differentiation stops. You may still feel some pain in your body that is matter, but there will be no suffering.

Content: This is why, when great masters like Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa had cancer, they were still blissful; they had no suffering at all. Bhagavan used to say, 'Whose body is this?'

Content: When the boundarilessness happens, as in enlightenment, when there is bodily pain, the awareness also happens that the body is mere matter; it is anyway perishable; there is something beyond that matter. Then there is no pain.

Content: The next time you have pain, intensely focus on the pain. People normally advise you to divert yourself from the pain. That does not work; it returns the moment the diversion stops. Instead, focus on where the pain is.

Content: Initially you will feel pain all over. When you focus, it will get limited to a certain spot. Finally it will reduce to a tiny spot. If you focus further, the pain will go away. The very attention you bestow on the body will provide the energy to eliminate the pain.

Content: This is an excellent meditation. The focus that you give the pain will make you realize that you are more than the mere body. You will touch your energy base and realize that you are more than the body-mind.

Content: You then enter the space that Krishna describes; you enter nityānanda, eternal bliss.

Content: Q: If the body one takes is determined by what one does in the previous life, would it mean that evil persons like Hitler will continue to be reborn as evil persons? Is there no redemption for such people under this scheme of things?

Content: One thing is certain; spirits of exceptionally 'good' people and exceptionally 'evil' people will have a more difficult time finding a suitable body than other more average spirits.

Content: This does not mean that they have to continue with the same cycle. The cycle need not be always a virtuous or vicious cycle; it need not be one that constantly descends or ascends. Reversals are possible.

Content: In Hindu mythology we have stories of many divine beings who are born as demons because of their mindsets, who after working off their vāsana become divine again. The great sage Valmiki who wrote the epic Ramayana was a robber. He was a ruthless killer who was transformed by the name 'Narayana,' (a name of Lord Vishnu) and while meditating upon that name was liberated. In Buddhist tradition there is the story of Angulimal, a dacoit who had vowed to kill a thousand people. He met Buddha and became a monk and a disciple.

Content: Please understand that the creation of this mindset is not something that is destined. It is a choice we all have and it is a choice that all of us exercise knowingly or unknowingly. The problem is that most of us exercise it unknowingly. We let our mind drive us and form this mindset. We are like drivers who are driven by the car. But, we have a choice. We can take over and become the master of our minds. It may seem difficult initially but this is what the mind wants. Once you exercise control it becomes your valuable servant. You realize the unlimited potential of what your body-mind can do.

Content: That is why in the true spiritual sense there is nothing that is inherently good or evil. It is all real only within a certain time and space. No one remains evil all the time and no one stays good all the time. We can rewrite our fate. Our destiny is in our hands.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.26 O mighty-armed, even if you should think of the soul as being constantly born and constantly dying, Even then, you should not lament.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.27 Indeed, death is certain for the born and birth is certain for the dead. Therefore, you should not grieve over the inevitable.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.28 O Bharata, Beings are unmanifest in their beginning, unmanifest again in their end, and seemingly manifest in their middle state. What are we grieving about?

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.29 One sees It as a wonder, another speaks of It as a wonder, another hears of It as a wonder. Yet, having heard, none understands It at all!

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.30 O Bharata, This that dwells in the body of everyone can never be destroyed; Do not grieve for any creature.

Content: heartbroken; especially as in the case of my mother and father, who were very close to each other. His departure would have been a great loss to her. She understood the meaning of these verses of Krishna without my ever having to explain them to her.

Content: When I told her my father, her husband, is now in the energy form that is eternal, she trusted my words implicitly and joined me in celebrating his release. Many of our followers have seen the video recording of this event. It was made specifically to explain what Krishna is saying here. They could see it in action and get over any fear that they may have still had about death.

Content: Even more interestingly, another incident reinforced this truth. Soon after my father's death, the father of a disciple died and the family requested that the body be cremated at our Bidadi ashram and that I do the last rites. People who met the widow after the cremation were astounded to see the peace and calm in her, unlike what one would see in a traditional Hindu widow. When people asked her how she felt, she simply replied that she fully believed that her husband's energy survived the destruction of the body and she was happy that he had found peace.

Content: We are not talking about philosophers and saints here. We are talking about very ordinary people whose lifestyle was all about fear of death and grief at death. They understood very easily what Krishna was saying. They understood that the spirit lives on after the body perishes and death is indeed an event to celebrate and not to grieve. It is only the scholars who have a mere intellectual understanding of what Gita says with no trust in Krishna, and still suffer from the fear of death. They may talk philosophically about how to detach from death as long as it does not affect them. The moment they face the death of a beloved or worse still, their own, their logical defenses crumble.

Content: Krishna's words are not about logic; they are about trust in the master.

Content: The celebrated Greek philosopher, Socrates, was sentenced to death because the Greek society could not accept his views and his constant questioning attitude. He was asked to take back his sayings, failing which he was sentenced to die by drinking poison. Since he refused to reject his own philosophy, Socrates was sentenced to death.

Content: As he calmly awaited his death, his disciples asked him, 'Master, are you not afraid of dying?' Socrates said, 'There are two possibilities. One, that there is indeed life after death. In that case I shall continue to exist in the same form. The

Content: other is that there is no life after death. In that case I shall not be aware of anything that would happen after death. In either case, what is there to worry about?'

Content: Death is inevitable. Whether the spirit lives on after the body perishes and locates itself in another body may be a debatable point to some. Krishna says that this is not a reason to lament death. In either case, death can be a passage that one can look forward to as Socrates did.

Content: Whether the spirit goes to a region called hell or another region called heaven is as debatable a point as whether there is an undying spirit at all, or whether that spirit reincarnates. You may believe whatever you like to believe. Occidental religions don't believe in the cycle of life and death. They seem to believe that death is once and for all. Even then what is there to worry about?

Content: We all know death is inevitable.

Content: A deeply disturbed woman approached Buddha one morning. She brought the body of her dead son to Buddha and said, 'Master, they tell me that you are the only one in this world with the power to revive the dead. Please give life back to my son.'

Content: Buddha knew that no words of His could console the mother. He merely said, 'Mother, please bring me a handful of mustard seeds from any household that has not experienced death so far and I shall revive your son.'

Content: The woman went door-to-door seeking a handful of mustard seeds. Every household she visited was only too glad to give her what she asked for. However, they all said that they too had suffered such a loss in their household. She went to neighboring villages and got the same reply.

Content: She came back to Buddha and said, 'Master, I now understand that death is inevitable and that there can be no life without death. Thank you for teaching me this invaluable truth. I would like to sit at your feet for the rest of my life. Please accept me as your disciple.'

Content: Bringing the dead back to life is not a miracle. It can be done under certain circumstances, but to transform individuals and to instill truth in them is indeed the miracle that only a true master can perform.

Content: Many of us do believe that life is a wonder; truly so. Life is wondrous! We do not understand how life is created. We may have a biological explanation as to how a new life is created.

Content: Even today there is no absolute proof as to how the universe was created. All one has are theories such as Big Bang etc. What was there before the Big Bang? No one knows.

Content: Buddha rightly observed, 'The universe creates itself. It always was and always will be.' No one knows as well, how the first life form originated. Again, there are only theories. The explanation for 'abiogenesis', creation of life from non-living matter, has no scientific proof as yet. The first life form just seems to have happened. One fine morning or evening or night, the first amino acid, the first life block, seems to have sprung up from nowhere.

Content: All that we know is that life exists. All we can observe and wonder about is the life form that is in front of us, that is manifest. What was there before and what happened to it thereafter are shrouded in questions and mystery. We can believe in what we believe but we do not know as we have not observed it personally.

Content: From time immemorial this has been the human quest. What happens after life, or more correctly, after death? Conversely, what were we before we were born?

Content: I mentioned the famous Zen koan, 'What was your face like before your father and mother were born?' What was it? If only you knew, you would have solved the mystery of life and death, wouldn't you?

Content: The very effort of visualizing the possibility of an existence before this life opens doors. That is what this koan tries to do. There is no need to see your face. The fact that you understand and realize that you existed before, exist now and will exist again makes a difference to how you live your life from now on. You will no longer fear death because you have been there before!

Content: It is unfortunate that the present day version of the Bible discounts the statement of Jesus when He says, 'I was there before Abraham.' It is the same as Krishna saying in Gita that He taught Surya, the Sun god. Jesus implies that the spirit energy lives on and the death of the body is not final.

Content: The cycle of life and death is a mystery and a wonder. As yet there is no 'scientific' proof as the logical mind would demand, though there is plenty of empirical evidence. Quantum Physics and Molecular Biology are making rapid advances in this area and it is possible that there would be some 'proof' soon.

Content: Those who are confident enough to accept the truth of the eternal nature of the spirit are the fortunate, the blessed. Those who fight and grieve are the wretched, the miserable. You cannot fight life or death. They are both beyond you, out of

Content: your control. You can marvel at them and be happy and joyous. Or you can keep questioning them and be miserable. This is the choice and free will you have.

Content: The illustrious King Yayati lived for hundreds of years. Bhagavatam, the Hindu epic, says that when Yama, the god of death, came to Yayati at his appointed time of death, Yayati begged to be allowed to live on. He said he had not lived life enough and he needed more time. Yama relented and said that if one of his sons would give Yayati the rest of his life, then he could live that long. Using the life span of his son, Yayati lived many more years. Finally the realization dawned on him that no matter how long he lived, his desires would never cease and that fulfillment would never happen through material enjoyment. Yayati gave himself up to Yama once he realized this truth.

Content: It is not death that frightens us. It is leaving our desires and unlived life that frightens us.

Content: The problem is that we do not know how to live a fulfilled life, how to genuinely enjoy ourselves so that our desires are fulfilled. All our desires are partially fulfilled because, before they are fulfilled, we move on to other desires. We do not give our attention or awareness fully to what we are doing and experiencing. The simple fact is that we do not know how to be joyful.

Content: To be truly joyful, to be eternally blissful, is to understand the truth that you are indestructible, that your spirit lives on.

Content: Death is not an end; it is a passage of sorts. The truth is that the spirit is not satisfied with mere material pleasures. However much you please your senses, you cannot achieve satisfaction. The more you enjoy through your senses, the more the need for enjoyment. It never stops. Discontentment with material pleasures alone is hardwired into the human psyche.

Content: People are really confused about the concept of spirituality. Spirituality is not something intangible or something mysterious.

Content: Spirituality is the total understanding and enjoyment of life - materially, physically, emotionally, relationally and in all senses without discontent and with responsibility. This enjoyment and responsibility arise out of awareness. This awareness arises out of our ability to focus on the present moment. That is when our mind stops flitting from the past to the future, from regrets to speculation.

Content: The present moment is the only moment when we are truly alive. That is the only moment we are awake. The rest of the time we are in deep sleep, even if our eyes are open; we are in virtual death. Yet, we, the walking dead are afraid to die.

Content: Whether one believes in God or not, and accepts the inner divinity within oneself or not, is irrelevant to how one understands life after death.

Content: If, instead of believing in God, we choose to believe in science, we still need to accept that there are no answers to what we were before we were born and what we will be once we are dead. It is still unmanifest at both ends; it is still a mystery before and after, with no answers. This understanding can only come with the understanding that we live on in spirit.

Content: A Zen master was asked, 'Now that you are enlightened, what is the difference in your perception of things around you?'

Content: The master said, 'Before enlightenment, I saw a mountain as a mountain and a river as a river. During the process towards enlightenment the mountain was not a mountain and the river was not a river. Now again, the mountain is a mountain and the river is a river.'

Content: The master here means that before he set out on his spiritual journey, he just saw the physical forms of the mountains, rivers etc. But once he started experiencing the energy behind them, he saw them all as manifestations of the very same energy.

Content: Upon enlightenment, he saw that all matter was the very energy itself, that is the real nature of them all.

Content: Krishna says whatever is permanent and real was intangible before it became tangible and again it will become intangible. Everything is in a state of becoming something else. At every moment we die and are reborn; millions of cells in our body-mind system die everyday and are reborn. Yet, through all this change there is continuity. There is a continuity that we cannot see, touch or feel. What we see as manifested, as this body and mind, hides from us the process of constant change that happens within us, as well as the continuous thread that holds the whole process together.

Content: The Present Alone Matters!

Content: Q: Swamiji, please be very clear (Swamiji comments: Oh! here we are getting instructions first!). Are Krishna and Christ the same? Both were born in confined places. Krishna was born in Mathura; Christ in a place called Mathiria. Both were shepherds and so on. If so, please explain.

Content: A historical controversy! I do not know the historical part because I am not a historian! I can only say that spiritually they are one and the same. I can only say in terms of spirituality, not historically. As I do not know history, I cannot make a controversial statement. At the level of consciousness, they are the same.

Content: There are stories that the idea of Christ's life is built around the Bhāgavatam, the famous book of Hindu mythology which includes the life of Krishna. We do not know the truth behind these stories. You may have heard of this beautiful book, The Da Vinci Code. If any of you have read this book, you will find it is controversial, but at the same time solid. The writer is clear about what he says. We are not able to deny it completely. I read it, and honestly, I am not able to deny the contents. There are so many things he says which make sense.

Content: There are books written and research done about Christ's time and life after crucifixion, where he was between the ages of 13 and 29.

Content: A couple of interesting things I read in the book:

Content: The theory goes that Christ had his training in a Buddhist monastery in Puri. The Sermon on the Mount is an exact replication of a Pali sutra which is repeated every morning in that monastery as a prayer. In this way, many research reports keep coming out but the only thing I can say is that at the consciousness level, they are both the same.

Content: Recently, there have been documentaries aired on BBC that Christ after crucifixion, was taken to Kashmir, where he lived till he was eighty. They even showed the tomb where he was buried. This was based on a lot of researched data.

Content: The fact is that the earliest documentation of the life and death of Christ was made a few centuries after he died. It is known that there was a lot of selection in terms of what was officially accepted by the Christian Church, from the vast material that was available as the historical evidence relating to Jesus.

Content: But as I said, the energy of all enlightened masters is one and the same. Their consciousness is identical.

Content: Q: Krishna says that the truth is seemingly tangible in the middle and intangible in the beginning and the end. If he is referring to past, present and future, the past is also clear to us. Why is the beginning unclear then?

Content: We arise from energy; we disappear into energy; for a while we live as matter even though we are energy.

Content: Our senses can perceive only the material world as long as they are focused on external objects. They can only interact with material objects and experience material pleasures. That is the way our mind is programmed. So tangibility to us is what we can perceive through our senses.

Content: It is when we go inwards that we can feel the energy within. When we lose our external identity and open ourselves to the universal energy, we too can feel that we are energy. We can understand who we truly are now, in the past and in the future. That is what meditation can do for you. It can take you through the inner journey of awareness that makes the truth tangible in the past and future as well.

Content: When you say that the past is clear to you, even what you remember of your own past life is actually very selective. Only 5-10% of what your senses perceive is stored consciously. The rest is buried deep within. Ironically, the most powerful experiences, whether of pain or pleasure, are rarely in the conscious realm. They are buried deep within and come up without any conscious effort when the unconscious decides it is the right time to reveal them. This is why we are driven by addictions and phobias that are so difficult to let go of.

Content: Most of the time, we look into the future that is totally hazy through the mirror of our past. It is like driving a car while watching only the rear view mirror. You know where you will end up if you do that! Yet, that is how we drive our own lives.

Content: The present is the only tangible moment. Not because it is about the material body-mind which exists in the present moment, but because only when you are in the present you are centered in your energy. Your body-mind system can focus inwards into your inner energy system only when you are in the present moment. It is because only in this state does your inner chatter stop.

Content: Your thoughts are nothing but the movement of your mind from past to future and back from future to past. It is the constant oscillation of the mind that you call thought and which I term inner chatter. Once you settle into the present moment your thoughts cease and inner chatter stops. You are then in sync with your own energy.

Content: Meditation is the key to bring you into this state.

Content: Q: I read somewhere that the whole concept of rebirth is negative. It is all about the continuance of suffering. All those who believe in rebirth are desperately trying to get out of it. So, what is the point in believing in it?

Content: Rebirth is neither negative nor positive. It is a phenomenon of existence in which the spirit continues to exist as energy and the body-mind perishes as matter. There is nothing that anyone can do about it, in the same manner that there is nothing that can be done about death. Death happens and so does rebirth.

Content: If you are at least aware that you are born again and again as a result of unfulfilled desires, then you can make an attempt to fulfill or transcend your desires so that you can be free from this cycle of life, birth and death, called samsāra in vedic science. One part of what you said is correct. People who are wise try to get out of this cycle of life and death so that they are liberated into energy forever. The concept of Self-realization and enlightenment follows from this effort.

Content: Buddha refers to this again and again. He attributes suffering to desires and teaches methods to overcome these desires and get out of the cycle of birth and death. As I have mentioned elsewhere, the desires Buddha talks about are the

Content: wants that we pick up through our conditioning in this lifetime, the saṃskāras that bind us. Once these saṃskāras are dissolved we are out of the clutches of samsāra.

Content: It is not a matter of believing or not believing. Truth does not change if you do not believe it. Medieval Europe believed that the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around the Earth. So, you too are at liberty to believe that there is no rebirth and that this lifetime is the end of the road for you.

Content: If you believe so, would that make you a better person? Would that belief make you happier? In reality it makes you desperate. All that you wish to acquire, enjoy and fulfill has to be done during this one lifetime. This obsession fills you with greed and fear. The understanding that one's spirit lives on as energy even after the body-mind perishes, gives one far greater freedom.

Content: When you realize that you are forever and do not live and die only once, you don't need to be desperate and make choices that you regret later. There is no last train that you need to catch. You can lead a choiceless life, because life is forever.

Content: This is the freedom that our vedic sages experienced and transmitted so that others can experience the same bliss.

Chapter Number: 2.31

Content: You should look at your own duty as a kṣatriya. There is nothing higher for a ksatriya than a righteous war. You ought not to hesitate.

Chapter Number: 2.32

Content: O Partha, happy indeed are the kṣatriya who are called to fight in such a battle without seeking; This opens for them the door to heaven.

Chapter Number: 2.33

Content: If you will not fight this righteous war, then you will incur the sin of having abandoned your duty, and you will lose your reputation.

Chapter Number: 2.34

Content: People too will remember your everlasting dishonor, and to one who has been honored, dishonor is worse than death.

Chapter Number: 2.35

Content: The great generals will think that you have withdrawn from the battle because you are a coward. You will be looked down upon by those who had thought much of you and your heroism in the past.

Chapter Number: 2.36

Content: Many unspeakable words would be spoken by your enemies reviling your power. Can there be anything more painful than this?

Chapter Number: 2.37

Content: Slain, you will achieve heaven; victorious, you will enjoy the Earth. O son of Kunti, stand up determined to fight.

Chapter Number: 2.38

Content: Pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat - treat them all the same. Do battle for the sake of battle. You shall incur no sin.

Content: Krishna works on Arjuna at two levels. At one level He talks to Arjuna at the superconscious plane educating him on what the ultimate truth is.

Content: He talks to Arjuna about how life does not end with the death of the body, about how the undying and indestructible spirit lives on. Here, Krishna addresses Arjuna’s fears about killing his relatives and elders and teaches him that what he considers to be the end of life for these people is just one step in their journey.

Content: Krishna then descends to the practical level at which Arjuna exists. Krishna explains to Arjuna why, from a societal point of view, he should not run away from the battlefield, but instead, stay on and fight as behoves a warrior. Krishna here addresses Arjuna as the kṣatriya, the warrior.

Content: In each society there are groups of people who are the designated protectors of that society. They are the warriors, the soldiers, who defend their country and countrymen. In the same manner, there are others who are designated as clerics and priests, as teachers and counselors, as traders and businessmen and as workers and manual laborers.

Content: In most modern societies these are commercial as well as societal divisions. There are commercial classifications to the extent that they are the means to one’s livelihood, based on one’s acquisition of skills and education with the expectation of pursuing such a career and vocation. However, they subsequently become societal classifications as well as these careers become the tools of building wealth and status. Even in modern societies the wealth and name thus acquired are passed on through generations, even if those born subsequently have done nothing to earn the wealth and status and do not have the capability to maintain them.

Content: In ancient India, the system of education was the gurukul system, in which young children stayed with a master and learned both material and spiritual skills. This education started very early, as early as three and latest by seven, when the children were left in the master’s care by their parents. The master gauged the capability and aptitude of each child and trained the child in an appropriate manner. The vocation of the parent or father was not a major criterion in deciding upon the skills to be imparted to the child. The master determined the child’s aptitude by its own behavior and through such studies as astrology.

Content: The varṇa or caste system practiced by the Hindus from time immemorial had its roots in this gurukul education. Unfortunately, over time, caste determination became based on birthright. The son of a warrior was assumed to be a warrior,

Content: irrespective of his capabilities, aptitude or inclination. So, the four varṇa or castes that are brāhmaṇa, the priest and teacher, kṣatriya, the ruler and warrior, vaiśya, the trader and businessman, and śūdra, the worker, became rigid social structures based on birthright.

Content: This corruption of such a scientific practice has led to many social inequalities and injustices. The son of a brāhmaṇa has no right to call himself a brāhmaṇa, unless he has the aptitude and then the learning to be a teacher and a priest. In our ashrams, we now have many young men and women from different castes and religious groups who are being trained in what is considered the prerogative of the brāhmaṇa caste.

Content: When Krishna refers to Arjuna as a kṣatriya, he is referring to the entire personality of Arjuna, the great warrior, which has been decided only partly by birth and mostly by training based on his aptitude. Arjuna is the quintessential warrior, the samurai, who knows no fear, and yet is now disturbed by issues of whether he is doing right or wrong by fighting against his kinsmen. The code of the kṣatriya, as with the code of the samurai (the professional Japanese warriors of earlier days) and all soldiers even today, is a professional code as well. Once you are in the army, you fight irrespective of who the enemy is. Rights and wrongs no longer apply.

Content: Krishna says, ‘Fight! You are a kṣatriya. By fighting as your duty demands, you earn merits and go to heaven. If you run away from this war you commit a sin. You will also be termed a coward and people who know you will laugh at you. You will be dishonored, and for a kṣatriya, dishonor is far worse than death. Do not worry about victory or defeat. If you are defeated and slain you will ascend to heaven. If you are victorious, you will enjoy material benefits in this world itself. Therefore, fight as it is your duty as a kṣatriya.’

Content: Krishna says to treat pain and pleasure, gain and loss, victory and defeat all the same. He says to fight without worrying about the outcome. To fight is your duty. When the Paramātma - supreme Soul says this, it means that Arjuna does not have to worry about right and wrong, about sin or merit.

Content: Isn’t fighting, isn’t killing people a sin, you may ask. Then why is it that Krishna encourages Arjuna, not merely encourages, but actually forces Arjuna to fight and kill? What is the operative logic here, you may ask.

Content: There is no logic. Krishna’s exhortation is beyond human rationale. It is not what you do that matters. It is who you are that matters. An enlightened master can do no wrong even if he kills, because when he kills, it would be with awareness, not

Content: for personal benefit. On the other hand, any average person, even while doing an act of kindness, may be doing something wrong.

Content: You may have seen movies where an undercover policeman with a gun is arresting some dangerous criminals and suddenly a cop in uniform shows up. This uniformed cop asks the undercover cop to put his hands up and in the confusion the criminals escape.

Content: This may seem funny in a movie, but it happens all the time in real life! You think you are doing something very good based on your sense perceptions and yet the reality of the situation may be far different.

Content: The problem is that we do whatever we do with a motive. It is all outcome-based. 'What is in it for me?' is the million dollar question. We do things either out of fear or greed. These are the two most powerful motivators, the carrot and the stick. What applies to a donkey applies even more relevantly to a human being.

Content: Krishna is not worried about what you do, He is concerned only about who you are. If your actions are innocent of motives, whatever you do is right. If what you do is motivated by fear and greed, pain and pleasure, victory and defeat, you can do nothing right. Whatever we do for gain is sinful.

Content: What if you were in a totally strange place for a very short period and you know that nothing you do will have any repercussions? Will you have any inhibitions based on what your conditioning has been? What will your behavior be like?

Content: What happens when the fear of loss of reputation and loss of identity disappears? Will you be the same person?

Content: What happens when you have an Aladdin's lamp with a genie, which makes all your dreams come true? How long will the excitement last when you know that whatever you wish will happen? Will your greed still last?

Content: Fear and greed are strong motivators because we are not centered; we are not sure about ourselves; we do not know who we are. Here Krishna is breaking that mould. Act without fear and greed, He says. Do not worry about consequences. This is against all societal and religious conditioning.

Content: Krishna, as the transcendental Parabrahman, is not concerned about the practical and societal consequences of Arjuna walking out of the battlefield. He is only concerned about what that would do to Arjuna's inner self. If Arjuna had truly been steeped in ahimsa, non-violence, Krishna would have never attempted to

Content: Q: Is it normal to speak less and seek silence as sādhana or spiritual practice progresses?

Content: There is a Zen saying, 'When I was not meditating, a tree was a tree and a mountain was a mountain. When I started meditation, they were both not what they were. When I finished meditation and became enlightened, the tree was again a tree and the mountain was a mountain.'

Content: Before the sādhana you speak a lot. After enlightenment, you may speak a lot but with a totally new awareness, but during sādhana people usually tend to become silent.

Content: As your spiritual awareness progresses, you may find one of two things.

Content: In the past, you had an opinion about everything and you had to express it. If you did not you felt inadequate. You felt that others will not respect you unless you stood up for yourself, expressed yourself loudly and volubly, and most importantly, argued so that the other person felt small and withdrew.

Content: As your energy level increases with spiritual practice, you are more centered and you do not feel the need to prove yourself anymore. You also realize that words can harm far more than physical attacks. So you settle into yourself and become silent.

Content: At another level, you find that you can communicate just as well and perhaps better with others of similar energy just being silent. The need to talk reduces.

Content: Either way, you find silence golden.

Content: Q: Krishna continuously keeps calling Arjuna a kṣatriya and goads him to fight. I still feel Krishna is violent.

Content: I have talked about this partly earlier. Let me explain more clearly.

Content: First let us understand the word non-violence. The moment you say 'I' and 'mine', you are violent. Please understand what kind of beings we are. We can be intellectual or emotional or at the being-level.

Content: During our lives we have stages of each of these three characteristics. How do we know what type of beings we are? The moment you ask this question, be very clear, you are intellectual. Emotional people will never have this question and people at the being-level will not even have this as a doubt.

Content: Before you are married you may be an intellectual. Take the case of young men, especially a young Indian college student. Invariably, he does not prostrate or bow down before anyone and he considers traditional actions unworthy. He simply stands and looks while his parents pay their respects. Of course, I do not expect this from anyone, as this physical action is not of great consequence. But I always say to myself, 'Just wait till you get married, then we shall see!' Two years later the same young man, now married, falls flat at the feet! In just two years he has grown so much and is now so obedient and polite!

Content: So, before marriage you are intellectuals and after marriage you invariably develop your emotional side as well.

Content: Krishna knows very well that Arjuna is talking emotionally. Emotions of fear and greed have taken over and Arjuna is scared to face the consequences if he goes ahead with the fight because the opponents are his own relatives whom he is attached to. Arjuna wants to run away from the battlefield, not because he is a believer in non-violence, but because of his identification with his kinsmen and elders, because of his identification with these people. He would have had no problem battling them had he not known them, had he not been associated with them. Arjuna wants to run away because of this false identification which breeds violence.

Content: Krishna would never persuade Arjuna to stay on and fight if truthfully, Arjuna proceeded from nonviolence. Krishna enlightens Arjuna to the falsehood of his beliefs and destroys his false belief that he is proceeding from nonviolence that had risen out of his attachment to his own identity.

Content: Secondly, you need to have a clear understanding of how the varṇa system that we deride now as the caste system evolved in our vedic culture.

Content: Krishna is referring to Arjuna’s character, his mindset and his conditioning when he addresses him as a kṣatriya. A kṣatriya is fearless; a kṣatriya is power and courage personified; a kṣatriya acts before he thinks. However, now Arjuna does not act and talk as behoves a kṣatriya; he is behaving like a brāhmaṇa.

Content: A brāhmaṇa is an intellectual. A brāhmaṇa is focused on knowledge, inner truth. The scriptures are his guideline. His behavior is based on satva, peace. Instead of being a commissar that is his natural state, Arjuna is now trying to quote scriptures and behave like a saint. Krishna is pulling him back into his natural state.

Content: To a kṣatriya, a warrior, the greatest dishonor is to experience and express fear. Krishna says that such behavior will not only taint Arjuna in this life, but in the lives hereafter as well.

Content: In the ancient vedic system four varṇas were classified. The brāhmaṇa were the intellectuals who read and maintained the knowledge of the scriptures and focused within. Kṣatriya were the warriors and rulers who took care of the brāhmaṇa and other people, their citizens and wards. Brāhmaṇa acted out of satva guṇa (calmness and peace) and kṣatriya out of rajas guṇa (passion and aggression). One acted with his word and the other acted with his sword.

Content: The other two classifications were the vaiśya and śūdras. vaiśyas were focused on wealth creation and maintenance, the traders and businessmen. Śūdras were the workers in various fields focused on service.

Content: There never was an attempt to compare one group with another, positively or negatively. The classification was based on natural aptitude. It was a very advanced system of training a person for the vocation for which that person was best suited. It was not hereditary. The son of a brāhmaṇa could as well be a śūdra if his aptitude was different.

Content: A child was handed over to a master before the age of seven in the vedic gurukul system. The master identified the aptitude of the child and classified him as per the varṇa system. There was no bias. It was a very scientific system. Though the system was not designed to be hereditary, the very conditioning increased the probability of a child born to a brāhmaṇa parent being a brāhmaṇa. It made no difference though, since each group understood its unique purpose and did not in any way consider itself superior or inferior to another group.

Content: Over time the system got corrupted, especially when foreign invaders introduced their cultures into our country. To protect themselves, people made the varṇa system hereditary. This became even worse when the gurukul system was destroyed

Content: by the British in their attempt to conquer the Indians. They realized that the only way to do it was to destroy their culture, and the best way to destroy the culture was to destroy its base of education and knowledge transfer. Millions of gurukul centers that existed even some five hundred years ago have been reduced to the few thousand in existence today.

Content: It is the invaders as well who dramatically vilified and painted the varṇa system black. This system was what they themselves used as the guild system in their country, which helped them prosper. In the same manner that they divided and conquered India, they also divided the different varṇa groups and set them against each other.

Content: The actions of the British still haunt India in many ways. In regions like Tamil Nadu, hatred created between varṇa groups resulted in destructive atheism and a total lack of respect for the vedic culture that had sustained the country for many thousands of years.

Content: In today's society where one's value is measured purely in terms of dollars, it is the vaiśya group who would be the most sought after. Countries are no longer ruled by persons with a warrior mindset. They are ruled by people who are commercially and politically savvy, the vaiśya class. However, in the vedic tradition, there was no superiority of one class over another, unlike what we see throughout the world today.

Content: It is not that someone born in one class could not become an expert in another field. Drona was a brāhmaṇa, but became the most feared of all warriors. Buddha and Mahavira were from the kṣatriya class but became enlightened masters through the path of knowledge. But Krishna is now trying to keep Arjuna on track as a kṣatriya. There must be a reason for this.

Content: Much depends on the desires with which the spirit leaves the earlier body and the prārabdha karma (desires to be fulfilled in this birth) with which it enters the present one. This prārabdha could even lead in a direction different from the environment into which one is born. This is what happened to Buddha, Drona and others. This usually happens fairly early in life before too much conditioning happens through the environment. In the case of Arjuna, this was not so.

Content: Arjuna was a prince who excelled as a kṣatriya. He was the greatest archer and a fearless warrior. His natural state and prārabdha was that of a kṣatriya. This is why Krishna time and again pulls him back into that mould. This is why He tells Arjuna that it is dishonorable for him to run away from the battlefield. He tells him to stand up and fight.

Content: Is Krishna being violent?

Content: Krishna is neither violent by Himself nor is He goading Arjuna to violence. As a master and the greatest of all masters, Krishna is focused on only one thing, which is to help Arjuna realize his own potential. Each of us is unique. A Buddha cannot become an Arjuna. An Arjuna cannot become a Mahavira. The master is fully aware of the inner potential of each individual disciple. He knows where that disciple has to go and how. He chisels him into that form and path, which ultimately takes the disciple to enlightenment.

Content: This is what Krishna is doing here on the battlefield. If for one moment Krishna thought that Arjuna was sincere in his desire to walk away from the fight, He would never have urged him to fight. Arjuna was not shying away from killing. He was reluctant to kill a few people whom he felt attached to. This is not non-violence. This reluctance is arising from the fear of losing one's possessions, one's relationships and ultimately one's own identity.

Content: Arjuna's behavior is based on ego, the fear of losing his identity. This is not nonviolence; it is a form of inner violence that differentiates between one and another. Arjuna's reluctance arises from discrimination between those whom he considers his own and others who do not belong to him.

Content: You may ask how you can call this fear violence. It is this fear of losing one's identity that breeds terrorism. Terrorists are not courageous people. They are cowards who are desperately clinging to some actions and philosophy that can justify their existence and that can justify their importance. Their fear erupts as violence. It is like a rat being cornered. Even a rat will bare its teeth when its identity or life is threatened. Fear and the survival instinct breed violence.

Content: This can be proved scientifically as well with the theory of the fight or flight response. It is the same chemical, adrenalin, which causes both reactions. Any trauma or fear makes a part of the brain, the hypothalamus, trigger the master gland or pituitary which causes the release of adrenalin into the blood stream. Adrenalin activates the extremities, hands and feet. Depending upon the situation, you use one or the other or both!

Content: You either run with fear or fight with fear!

Content: Krishna does not want Arjuna to operate out of fear. He is dissolving the fear that fills Arjuna. He is transforming Arjuna so that he will act out of conscious awareness instead of unconscious patterns and fear. Krishna wants Arjuna to move away from the unconscious fear that has gripped him. The only way to do that is to bring him to his natural state, which is that of the kṣatriya.

Content: Q: I have read that we have three bodies. You had talked about seven energy layers. Are these similar?

Content: In our first level course or Life Bliss Program, LBP Level 1, we cover the seven energy centers in the body, the seven cakras. These cakras govern our emotions and therefore our behavior. They control our emotional and physical wellbeing. When these centers are blocked we feel uncomfortable; we are in dis-ease. When these centers are energized, we get well and we move into ease.

Content: In the second level LBP 2 course, called Nithyananda Spurana Program or NSP, you are taken through the seven energy layers in the body-mind system that the spirit passes through at the time of its departure from the body. The three bodies you refer to are part of these layers.

Content: These three bodies are the physical body, the subtle or etheric body and the causal body, corresponding to the first, fourth and fifth energy layers. These are termed as sthūla śarīra or gross body, sūkṣma śarīra or subtle body and kāraṇa śarīra or causal body. They also correspond to the states of wakefulness, dreaming and deep sleep respectively.

Content: Our body-mind system operates at the first two levels, the gross and subtle layers. The gross body is the material or physical body and the subtle body is the collection of our emotions and thoughts. We can see, touch and feel the physical body; it is made of flesh and blood. In comparison, the subtle body is atomic; it is intangible.

Content: The subtle body comes from the past life, as desire, and becomes the prārabdha karma in the present body. The subtle body enters the gross body in the womb. The subtle body searches and finds a suitable carrier and when it does, it enters that gross body in the womb.

Content: During the process of death and rebirth it is the subtle body layer that travels. It is not the Self, the soul that travels. The soul energizes the subtle layer, the etheric layer, which moves from one physical body to another. It is like a train driven by electricity. The electricity

Content: is the soul, which powers the train system. The train carriages and what is inside are the subtle and gross layers.

Content: At death, the subtle layer and the gross layer perish. The spirit is separated from these two layers. The physical and emotional boundary that was created between the soul and the Brāhman, the individual energy and the cosmic energy, disappears. It is not that the soul and Brāhman were unconnected before; they were not; but the body-mind system, the ego and identity, created a barrier of ignorance between them, veiling the realization that we are one with the cosmic energy.

Content: Without the subtle layer, the physical layer cannot exist. It cannot exist in the fashion that we know. Spiritual efforts aimed at Self-realization are exercises to destroy the subtle layer. Once the subtle layer is destroyed, once the collection of emotions, expectations, unfulfilled desires, thoughts and saṁskāras which form this subtle layer are destroyed, then the boundary between us and the cosmic energy disappears. We become one with the Divine. We reach our natural state.

Content: The causal layer is the transition point between the present life and the next. It is the passage to death. Once this layer is crossed the spirit cannot return to the previous physical and subtle bodies. During the transition one is in a coma and can still return. This experience of the causal layer is the near death experience of those who experience death but do not die. Every night during deep sleep, the body-mind system passes through to this layer and returns. It is a regenerative process without which we cannot survive.

Content: With meditation we transcend these three layers into a fourth state, the state of consciousness with awareness but no mind and no thoughts. This is the state of the soul, realization of the Self.

Chapter Number: 2.39

Content: What has been taught to you concerns the wisdom of Sāṅkhya. Now, listen to the wisdom of yoga.

Chapter Number: 2.39

Content: Having known this, O Partha, you shall cast off the bonds of action.

Chapter Number: 2.40

Content: There is no wasted effort or dangerous effect from this.

Chapter Number: 2.40

Content: Even a little knowledge of this, even a little practice of yoga, protects one from great fear.

Chapter Number: 2.41

Content: O Joy of the Kuru, all you need is single-pointed determination;

Chapter Number: 2.41

Content: The thoughts of the irresolute are many, branched and endless.

Chapter Number: 2.42

Content: Foolish ones speak a lot, taking pleasure in eulogizing the words of Vedas, O Partha, saying, 'There is nothing else.'

Chapter Number: 2.43

Content: Men of little knowledge are very much attached to the flowery words of the Vedas that recommend various fruitful actions for elevation to heavenly planets, resulting in high birth, power, and so forth.

Chapter Number: 2.43

Content: Being desirous of sense gratification and opulent life, they say that there is nothing more than this to living.

Chapter Number: 2.44

Content: Those whose minds are diverted by such teachings and who cling to pleasure and lordship,

Chapter Number: 2.44

Content: Are not determined or resolute and are not fit for steady meditation and samādhi.

Chapter Number: 2.45

Content: O Arjuna! Be you above the three attributes that the Vedas deal in; free yourself from the pairs of opposites and be always in sattva (goodness), Free from all thoughts of acquisition or preservation, be established in the Self.

Chapter Number: 2.46

Content: The sage who has known the Self has little use for the vedic scriptures as these are like a pool of water in a place that is already in flood.

Content: The Vedas, the collection of knowledge as experienced by the great sages, the ṛṣis, was conveyed for generations by word of mouth and was referred to as śruti, 'that which was heard'. This knowledge was really experiential knowledge. The real meaning of the śruti is that it was heard internally, not as an external expression. The moment an experience is expressed, it is no longer the truth of that experience.

Content: All great masters, the enlightened ones, have had the same experience of nityānanda - eternal bliss. However, each expressed it differently. Mahavira walked in ecstacy without clothes. Buddha taught very differently from Mahavira. Both were princes from the same period. The truth of one master is not and cannot be the same as that of another master.

Content: As the masters shared their experiences through body language and verbal language with close disciples, different interpretations arose. Vedānta, Sāṅkhya, Mimamsa and other such philosophical paths had their origins in the Vedas, as learned men over generations contemplated upon these truths and added their own learning and sometimes their experiences.

Content: All the great scriptures, Vedas, Upaniṣads and Gita, exist at different levels of understanding, seven levels, to be precise, depending on the energy level that one dwells in. At the highest level one understands that all that there is, is ONE. There is no experiencer, experienced or experience as separate entities at the highest energy level; ALL is ONE.

Content: Krishna refers to that truth here in these verses, the truth of the highest energy. 'Do not be carried away by the apparent ritualistic approach of the Vedas as propounded by half learned scholars,' the master says, 'go beyond; go beyond duality. All these seem to bring joy but are transient; that joy is the brief intermission between periods of sorrow. Go beyond and seek the firm truth of the ONE, the union, that is yoga,' He says to Arjuna.

Content: 'There is something beyond the superficial understanding,' Krishna says, 'that will take you beyond the three human attributes of satva (calmness), rajas (active action) and tamas (passive inaction) and into liberation arising out of true understanding. At that stage you will be beyond creation, preservation and destruction, as these would have no meaning in the understanding of the permanence of the ultimate energy.'

Content: Krishna finally says, 'Once you understand and realize Brahman, all the knowledge of the Vedas that you quote so passionately, will be of as much relevance to you as a lake in the midst of an ocean.'

Content: Krishna is leading Arjuna step by step as if teaching a baby to walk. One by one the master demolishes Arjuna’s arguments and fears, dispelling his dilemma.

Content: These first baby steps address Arjuna’s intellect, for that’s all Arjuna has been using till now. Krishna shows Arjuna how inadequate and meaningless his intellectual knowledge is. It is all borrowed, with no experiential backing. He now seeks to lead him into experiential knowledge.

Content: Half Knowledge Is More Dangerous Than Ignorance

Content: Q: Swamiji, if Krishna is the Jagat Guru, Lord of the universe, why was he only with the Pandava and Kaurava princes? Why did he not help the world?

Content: Again and again, Krishna happens on planet Earth, but nowadays He simply does not bring his peacock feather! Krishna is the only master who has assured us that He will be here again and again.

Content: To protect the good and to destroy the evil, and to establish righteousness

Content: I shall incarnate again and again.

Content: Krishna always fulfills his promises. It is only you who need a little openness to experience Him, that is all. Never think that He is not here.

Content: A group of devotees was telling Ramakrishna that if they had been there during the period of Chaitanya, then they would have received his divine love. Ramakrishna replied that there were some fools who were sitting before Chaitanya and saying that they missed Krishna! These were the same people who were now before Ramakrishna saying that they had missed Chaitanya! These were the people who told Ramana Maharshi that they had missed Ramakrishna, and today, some of these people are sitting here saying that they missed Ramana!

Content: Understand that all you need is a little openness and sensitivity. If you can, you may listen to Krishna's flute here and now! If you miss it, you are missing it, but Krishna comes down again and again to fulfill His promise. With a little more openness and sensitivity, you can experience Him wherever you are.

Content: Krishna's Gita had very little to do with Pandava and Kaurava princes. He delivered it to every ordinary being, so that this individual mortal can realize that he too is an inherent part of universal energy. Krishna has done His job by giving

Content: you Gita. His purpose is to help the entire world across time and space. It is upto you to sit up and listen.

Content: Do not sit here and complain or wonder what there is for you in Gita. Open your mind and receive. You will be helped. That is the promise of the master.

Content: Q: How can Krishna who is Vedas Himself denigrate the Vedas saying that they are useless?

Content: The differentiation that Krishna makes here is between acquired knowledge and experiential knowledge. He refers to the Vedas and Sānkya as acquired knowledge, at least insofar as Arjuna and the rest of humanity are concerned.

Content: As I mentioned before, no experience remains an experiential truth once it is expressed. Acquired knowledge can never be your truth. It is someone else’s truth, not yours.

Content: In Mahabharata there is this description of how Duryodhana borrowed the invincible armor of his teacher Drona.

Content: Jayadratha killed Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son. Arjuna swore to kill Jayadratha before the next sunset. Arjuna was wreaking havoc in his fury and Duryodhana wailed in frustration to Drona, the Commander of his army. Since Drona was protecting Jayadratha he lent his invincible magical armor to Duryodhana and told him to stop Arjuna’s onslaught.

Content: When Arjuna rained arrows from his mighty gāṇdīva (Arjuna’s bow) at Duryodhana, they seemed to have no effect at all. Arjuna understood what had happened. He cut loose Duryodhana’s chariot from the horses, got Duryodhana down on foot upon the ground and disarmed him. He then pierced parts of his body not covered by the armor till Duryodhana fled the battlefield.

Content: Like borrowed armor, borrowed knowledge is useless; in fact it can be more dangerous. It can boost one’s ego to the point of self-destruction.

Content: That is what happens to many philosophers and preachers. With the superficial knowledge that they have acquired by reading the scriptures, they believe that they have the same powers as the masters who experienced and expressed those scriptures. They consider themselves experts in Vedānta, Sāṅkhya, Mīmamsa and so on, and argue endlessly with no idea of what they are saying.

Content: For someone who understands the oneness of divinity, there is no difference between what Shankara says and what Ramanuja says. There is no difference ultimately. It is only the approach that is different.

Content: A small story:

Content: In a bookstore there was a display of the commentaries of Shankara and Ramanuja on the Gita. A learned scholar went to the bookseller and demanded, 'Do you know the difference between the commentary by Shankara and the one by Ramanuja? I see that you have them both here.'

Content: 'Oh, just forty rupees Sir,' said the bookseller. Just one dollar, that is all!

Content: That is all the difference! No need to be puffed up with knowledge as if one knows the difference. You may say Shankara is steeped in gnana, knowledge, and Ramanuja is steeped in bhakti, devotion. But no work of Ramanuja or anyone else can match the devotion of Sankara in his description of Devi in Soundaryalahiri. And Ramanuja's commentaries are just as logical and convincing as those of Shankara. An enlightened master's experience is always total. There is no separation as devotion, knowledge or meditation; all are paths of excellence. They all lead to the same point.

Content: Krishna tells Arjuna here to go beyond the three attributes explained in the Vedas. Once expressed, even the scriptures are governed by the attributes; they are in satva or goodness. Krishna urges Arjuna to transcend them and also transcend like and dislike, in order to reach the state of equanimity of a sage. In that state, He says the knowledge gained from the Vedas becomes as irrelevant as water to a person sitting in a river.

Content: Krishna is not degrading knowledge; He is not insulting the scriptures. He is telling Arjuna to go beyond acquired knowledge represented by the Vedas and sañkhya into the experiential knowledge of yoga. Here the yoga that Krishna is talking about is not the noun form of union, but the process of uniting.

Content: Yoga is often referred to as union. As long as you call it this, you are only talking about the acquired knowledge of this great science and art. Only when you practice it, it becomes 'uniting'. This is what Krishna is referring to.

Content: When a water drop in the ocean unites with the ocean, it is undifferentiated. It has no attributes anymore. It has merged with the source from where it came. As long as it feels separate and retains its individuality, however much it may know about where it came from, it will remain separate. It has to drop its identity. This

Content: dropping of identity can never be intellectual; it can never be based on knowledge. It must be experiential; it must arise from the being.

Content: Q: Krishna mentions sāñkhya as the knowledge that has been taught to Arjuna. He says He wants to take Arjuna through yoga. What is the difference?

Content: Arjuna had earlier quoted extensively from the scriptures in the first chapter of Gita, Arjuna viṣāda yoga, Arjuna’s dilemma. He said that if he killed his kinsmen, the Kuru race would be destroyed. The destruction of the lineage would bring in social evils. Social evils would then break up families and women would go astray. This would lead to degeneration of morals. Moral degeneration would lead to neglect of ritual offerings to ancestors. Finally there would be destruction. This was the sum and substance of Arjuna’s understanding of what would happen if he continued to battle his foes.

Content: Arjuna quoted the scriptures with his understanding of what he had been taught. Krishna refers to all this as sāñkhya. Sāñkhya here not only means the sāñkhya philosophy developed by Sage Kapila, but encompasses all scriptural knowledge as well. As I said earlier, Krishna does not pull down this knowledge, but implicitly warns that knowledge without experience is dangerous. So, He says he will take Arjuna from knowledge into experience, from sāñkhya into yoga.

Content: The scriptures of all evolved cultures have arisen out of the experiential wisdom of enlightened beings. They get diluted and distorted as others without the same experience start expounding on that experience. Most others understand these scriptures at only the physical or gross level of knowledge, as it is understood literally. There are many other layers of understanding.

Content: For instance, in this verse about sāñkhya alone, one can get into endless arguments about the different interpretations of the scriptures without coming to any practical conclusion. Such argument is the territory of philosophers. What Krishna tries to do is take us beyond these arguments.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.47 You have a right only to work, but never to its outcome. Let not the outcome be your motive; but do not move into inaction.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.48 O Dhananjaya! Do what you have to do with no attachment to outcome, being centered in yoga. Be balanced in success and failure. Evenness of mind is yoga.

Content: The entire teaching of Bhagavad Gita can be summarized in the above two verses. The sheer brilliance of the wisdom of the universal master is reflected in these verses. Whenever I get a chance I refer to these verses to explain how one should lead one's life.

Content: Krishna says many, many things in these few words. He says, 'You have the right and responsibility to work. You have no responsibility or right to the results of that work. Do not focus on the result and make it either an object of greed to chase or fear to stay away from. Do what you have to do with a centered mind without worrying about whether you will succeed or fail.'

Content: Nothing more can be said or ever needs to be said about why and how one should perform.

Content: Many people miscommunicate these verses and misunderstand these verses. There are people who stay away from work that they fear may end in adverse results. As long as the results can be positive either to themselves or others, they will carry out what they are assigned sincerely. But when they think that something bad may happen, they will stop doing whatever they are doing.

Content: There are others who feel that doing nothing and disengaging from all action is the best solution, since all actions result in reactions and they accumulate karma.

Content: Of course, almost all of us go on blindly doing whatever we are told to do when we see money or material rewards in front of us.

Content: Krishna says, 'Stop! Who do you think you are? You are here to do My work. You have no right to take the results that are Mine.' His position is similar to that of a landowner who has sharecroppers working on the land. The sharecroppers have no right to anything but their sustenance wages. They need not worry about whether the land will yield well or not. All that they need to do is meet their own responsibilities in caring for the land. The landlord is the owner and ultimate beneficiary.

Content: Awareness of what Krishna says here is the solution to almost all our day-to-day problems. Do what you have to do, without worrying about the results.

Content: Do not act with hopes of a certain reward. Do not stop doing what you need to do because you are afraid of what may lie ahead.

Content: Many of us in corporate life are focused on results. We will do something only if we think that it will be effective. We get caught in the result even before we start. So how do we define what is effective? For whom should it be effective?

Content: Ninety percent of the time effectiveness is interpreted as something that benefits our self interest. Even if it benefits the organization, we do it because our performance will be recognized and we will be rewarded.

Content: We learn this lesson early in life. Our parents and elders teach us this rule from infancy. 'Do this and we shall reward you; do that and we will punish you.' We are all brought up with the conditioning of what is good for us and what is bad for us, what will be successful or what will be a failure. Both success and failure are based on anticipated rewards or punishments.

Content: Society operates on this principle of greed and fear to prevent us from doing actions that it does not want us to do. Religions do the same. Society threatens you with legal punishment here and now; religion threatens you with punishment in the hereafter, in hell. What is hell or heaven? Do they exist? No, they do not. Be very clear, they exist only in the minds of temple priests and preachers, so that they can download these images into you and control you. In fact, it is these people who are creating circumstances of hell for themselves by misleading people in these ways.

Content: You are not true to yourself, your spirit, your energy, when you say one thing and do another. You do not walk your talk. The word ācārya in Sanskrit is the

Content: word for a true teacher. It means one who walks with the student, one who walks his talk, one who is true to his word. When I ordain teachers of my practices and mission, I tell them only one thing: Walk your talk.

Content: When you walk your talk and your talk is true, then you do not have a problem, but if the talk itself is untrue, then your walk and your actions will also be untrue. Ultimately it is all about the truth, your awareness, and being in the present moment. If what you preach comes from awareness and the truth of your own experience, and you act in accordance with that truth and awareness, then there is no differentiation between thoughts, words and actions. All will be true.

Content: In the Bible there is the beautiful parable of the prodigal son.

Content: A man has two sons. He splits his wealth between the two of them. One of them goes away with the money and spends it foolishly. The other stays with the father, takes care of the wealth and the father. Years later the son who went away comes back penniless. The father greets him warmly and throws a party to welcome him, and kills the 'fatted calf' on this special occasion. The other son is very annoyed and expresses his displeasure. The father says, 'You are always with me and you can count on my love; this boy, this prodigal son, needs my attention.'

Content: If you look deeply into this parable, you will understand that the father is acting on the truth of his experience and the son is acting out of expectation.

Content: The son feels he has been good, so he needs to be rewarded, and the prodigal son has been bad and needs to be punished.

Content: We are all prodigal sons in this world. If the universal energy, which we call God, were to treat us based on what we may seem to deserve, then none of us have any hope! All of us will end in hell as the preachers promise.

Content: What Krishna says here is the law of Nature. Nature just is. Nature just acts. Nature does not think about end results, successes or failures. Nature does not look for rewards, nor is it concerned about punishments.

Content: People ask me, 'Swamiji, why is nature so cruel? Why are there natural disasters? Why do young children die?' The answer is what Krishna gives. Nature goes about its job without any thought about what the end result will be. What happens will happen. It is bound to happen. Nature follows its dharma, its path of righteousness. The problem is that we do not understand the laws of nature; we measure natural actions by our yardstick of logic.

Content: You will then ask me, 'How do we know what to do? How do we know what is the path of righteousness? How do we know what our dharma is? Do we decide we are a kṣatriya, therefore we should fight and kill and not worry about who dies, or, we decide we are a vaiśya, a businessman, in which case our dharma is to make money without worrying about how we make money?'

Content: No, Krishna is not talking about acting in selfishness; the universal master is talking about acting in awareness. He says, 'Be centered in yoga and drop all attachment to results; do what you have to do.'

Content: What beautiful wisdom!

Content: Yoga is union, union of man and divine. It is your realization of your own Self, the state of awareness, the state of truth, the state of the present, when all that you do will be in righteous consciousness. When you perform with this awareness, and with no expectations, you will do what is right and just.

Content: Our thoughts are unconnected, illogical and unpredictable. It is only when we link thoughts together that problems start and suffering happens. We remember a few out of hundreds of events and try to create a link between these few. Ninety percent of what we observe and experience is never recorded by our conscious memory; it just slips into our unconscious. So what we remember is ten percent of what we experience. Within that, what stays in our memory is always that which falls outside the pattern. If it is part of a normal pattern we will almost always ignore and forget the event.

Content: Just think... when you drive to work, if you see a beggar every day at a street corner, after a while his presence is no longer noteworthy, am i right? It is only if he is absent that you will say to yourself, 'Hey, that beggar is not there today!' If your spouse is always in a grumpy mood, it is no surprise if he or she is in a grumpy mood today too. But if your spouse is specially caring and loving today, then that would be a miracle and noteworthy!

Content: The trouble is that our mind picks up these exceptions, because that is what it remembers and uses to form a pattern. It forgets all other evidence and remembers only the exceptions. It then expects that exception to happen again. When it does not happen we are unhappy; if it does, we are happy till the next time when it does not happen.

Content: So, do not link thoughts and create a shaft of thoughts. Unclutch from your thoughts, and automatically the mind will drop. This is the way to stay in the

Content: present. Some of you misunderstand the word unclutched as 'not to do anything.' You think that to drop the mind is to be passive, inactive, doing nothing. No, not at all!

Content: You can be doing nothing and yet occupy your mind fully. That is what they mean by saying that an idle mind is the devil's workshop. When you have nothing to do, what you end up doing is creating fantasies.

Content: Inaction is not what is advised. Understand: When your mind drops, when thoughts cease, and your energy level is high, you cannot be inactive. You will act spontaneously out of sheer necessity. Physical and mental idleness are never produced by a no-thought mind. One must not link idleness with calmness. One with a no-thought mind dwells in peace, calmness and harmony, but is always alert to act spontaneously in the way that would best suit each situation and every moment.

Content: With a no-thought mind comes great awareness and energy; idleness or lethargy is far from it. A confused and furiously overworked mind is constantly occupied with chatter and fantasies that can result in apathy and idleness.

Content: When you are in a state of an unclutched mind, you are in awareness and you are in the present moment. Whatever you do in such a state of awareness would be the right thing to do. When you are in the present moment, regrets of your past and expectations of the future are absent from your mind. You are not influenced either by fear or greed regarding the outcome. You do what you have to do.

Content: That is why Krishna says that you must act in the present moment. He says, 'Do not get attached to the results of your action, nor get attached to inaction, thinking that it could be an easy way out of this problem.'

Content: If Your Path Is Right, Your Destination Will Be Right

Content: Q: Swamiji, it is a natural response to look towards the end result whenever we do something. How can we give up thinking about the outcome?

Content: We always work for an outcome. We don't realize the irrationality of focusing our mind on the result before we even embark on the activity. We are so conditioned to this response that anything else seems impractical. How can we even consider doing something if we do not know what we are going to get out of it, you will ask.

Content: What is wrong if you do something just for the sake of its own enjoyment? What about looking at the sunset or sunrise, for example? Can you even think of a result of watching the sun? Those of you who are so conditioned to the goal response may say, yes, we need to feel happy watching the sun. How then are you going to measure that happiness factor? What are you going to compare it against?

Content: Let us learn from children and from enlightened masters who have become children again. Children are so curious and carefree. They have no expectations. They do things without knowing what will come out of it. They don't even have an idea of what an outcome is. Gradually, unfortunately, they learn from elders that each activity has an outcome. Then they start placing the outcome ahead of the activity. Then, and only then, do they lose their innate happiness.

Content: Can we say that we shall live today only if we have a guarantee of tomorrow? Do we even know for sure that the sun will rise tomorrow? Do we know whether or not we will be breathing to see the sunrise tomorrow?

Content: A small story:

Content: Birbal, the wise minister of emperor Akbar of India, often got into trouble because the other ministers were jealous of him.

Content: 245

Content: They told Akbar that Birbal could do anything. Akbar said, 'How can he do anything, he is only human?' They said, 'No, he is superhuman. See, he can make even a dog talk.' They pointed to a stray dog that was passing by the palace and said, 'Just threaten him, he can do it.'

Content: Akbar called Birbal and told him that he knew Birbal had superhuman powers and unless he made the dog talk he would be put to death.

Content: Birbal said, 'Sire, even with my powers I cannot do it immediately. Give me one year and I shall make the dog talk.'

Content: Birbal's friends were shocked. They said, 'Birbal, what have you done? How can you make a dog talk? You will surely die!'

Content: Birbal said, 'In a year's time many things can happen. The dog may die. The king may die. I may die. Who knows, the dog may even learn to talk!'

Content: When you go with no expectations, whatever happens is a miracle.

Content: There is a very deep truth that is embedded in this statement of Krishna. The core of all Karma Yoga is that you must act without expectation of result.

Content: When we perform with expectation we are always focused on the future. We are in speculation. We are in greed. We are in fear as to whether we can achieve or not. The more we expect the more stressed we become. We cannot focus on what we are doing. The chances of a positive outcome diminish when we place excessive importance on the outcome.

Content: When you are focused on the outcome, you lose the journey. When you are so focused on the destination you miss all the scenery that you pass by. Imagine that you are driving through a beautiful scenic landscape, by a seaside or a mountainside. There is so much to see and enjoy. You can only enjoy the scenery if your mind is attentive to the scenery. If instead, all that you can think of is when you would reach your destination and you are impatient, you may not even notice the landscape you are passing through.

Content: When you are on a project under time pressure and someone is constantly looking over your shoulder to see whether you are performing right and performing on time, do you really think that you can perform well? The next time you are on such an assignment, convince yourself that you have all the time in the world and just focus on what you need to do instead of worrying about when you have to finish. You will find that you will complete the job in less time and in a better manner.

Content: People think that living in an ashram is easy, especially when I have said in public that no one will be pressured to work. That is true, no one is pressured. But if you ask my ashramites they will tell you that they rarely go to bed before two or three in the morning, and they are up again at dawn for the morning routine! There is no pressure. I never ask them why they are not at the morning routine or why they have not completed some work. They do it because that is their passion. When you are engaged in what you are passionate about and yet not worried about the outcome, you can never be stressed. You will only be in bliss instead.

Content: Working without a goal keeps you in the present moment. That is the secret. That is why time and again in the Gita, Krishna pleads with Arjuna to drop all expectations of outcome while in action. Action carried out this way is meditation. That is Karma Yoga. There is no better route to liberation than this.

Content: Activity is a natural attribute of any living being. Otherwise you would be dead. Not acting is the state of tamas, of passive inaction and ignorance. You are in darkness. On the other hand, acting with a goal is rajas, of aggressive intent and activity. When you act without a goal, you are in the present moment, in satva, in peace and bliss. You are in the realm of light.

Content: The master, the supreme guru, is leading you from darkness into light, from tamas into satva and beyond, by telling you to drop all expectations and act.

Content: The highest state of satva is when you act without any expectation and with the outcome dedicated to the Divine. You then transcend satva and go beyond the three attributes. Krishna says, 'Do what you have to do and leave the result to Me.' He says, 'The fruits of your action belong to me.' This is the state of true surrender.

Content: In Mahabharata, one of the most poignant scenes is when Draupadi is insulted in Dhritarashtra's court, when Duryodhana's brother, Dushassana tries to disrobe her. Draupadi cries out to Krishna, 'Krishna, save me, save my honor.' Her garment, the sari that she wears, gets longer and longer and Dushassana gives up finally. When she meets Krishna after that incident, Draupadi complains to Him and asks, 'Krishna, what took you so long to come to my rescue?'

Content: Krishna says, 'My dear Draupadi, while you kept calling me, your hand was still clutching your garment in an attempt to help yourself. It is only when you gave up and completely surrendered, and with your hands held high, you called for Me, that I could come to your rescue. I could only come when you really surrendered to me.'

Content: The Lord can only step in when your ego falls. This is the problem we all have. We are full of ego and the belief that we can control everything around us. We are so sure that we control the outcome of our actions. So, Krishna watches in compassion and waits. There is nothing He can do. Our ego prevents Him from reaching out.

Content: Krishna has nothing to gain by telling you that you should sacrifice the results of your actions to Him. Don't think He wants to get rich and famous by grabbing the results of what you do. Out of deep compassion He tells us, 'Surrender to Me, I am waiting and I shall come to you.'

Content: When we do this, miracles happen!

Chapter Number: 2.48

Content: O Dhananjaya, centered in yoga, balanced in success and failure, act with no attachment

Content: Such evenness of mind is called yoga.

Chapter Number: 2.49

Content: O Dhananjaya, beyond the yoga of wisdom, is action.

Content: Wretched are those whose motive is the outcome; surrender yourself to wisdom.

Chapter Number: 2.50

Content: Endowed with the wisdom of evenness of mind, move away from both good and evil deeds in this life;

Content: Devote yourself to yoga. Skill in action is yoga.

Chapter Number: 2.51

Content: The wise, having abandoned the outcome of their actions and possessed of knowledge, are freed from the cycle of birth and death.

Content: They go to the state which is beyond all sorrow.

Chapter Number: 2.52

Content: When your wisdom takes you beyond delusion,

Content: You shall be indifferent to what has been heard and what is yet to be heard.

Chapter Number: 2.53

Content: When you are not confused by what you have heard and your wisdom stands steady and unmoving in the Self,

Content: You shall attain Self-realization.

Content: Krishna reiterates and emphasizes what He has said before and ends with a punchline.

Content: He says, 'Act without attachment. Do not worry about success or failure in results. Center yourself in wisdom that takes you beyond action and the desire for

Content: fruits of action. Once you are centered in wisdom you will act wisely. Once you give up attachment to results, you will be freed from the cycle of birth and death and you will be beyond sorrow.

Content: He then adds, 'When you are centered in wisdom you will no longer be deluded by what you hear. When you are no longer deluded by what you have heard, you are liberated.'

Content: Krishna's immediate reference here is to the scriptures, the Vedas, an oral tradition. Arjuna earlier quoted these scriptures to Krishna, using them to emphasize the potential implications of his actions. Krishna chides Arjuna and says, 'Don't be confused by what you hear, even if it is supposed to be divine knowledge, the Vedas. Remember: If you are really centered in wisdom, you can never be deluded; you will be in awareness.'

Content: Krishna's words resonate even today, and perhaps are far more relevant today. We are bombarded by information on all sides 24 hours a day, whether we like it or not. When something is stated repeatedly, especially by an authority, we tend to believe and accept it without reservation. No one even needs to force you to believe; your brain can be washed without any pressure, without coercion.

Content: This is what many political and religious institutions use to instill fear and greed in people amd make them obey their commandments. This is also what all marketing and advertising executives do to convince you about their products. This is what someone called a 'Hidden Persuader'.

Content: A small story:

Content: One day a man went to a mental hospital to visit his friend. There, he was chatting with another person for a long time. He asked him how long he had been there, how he was treated and such things. It was only when he returned from the hospital, that he learnt that the person with whom he was talking was a doctor and not a patient as he had assumed.

Content: He rushed back to him and apologised, 'Sorry doctor, I will never go by appearances again.'

Content: Understand, we all go by what we see, hear and read. But what we perceive may not be true at all.

Content: The first response of most of us is to believe rather than doubt. This is especially true when what we see, hear and read was already instilled into us from childhood. If we are told again and again from childhood, as most of us are, that

Content: we must listen to elders and read figures of authority, we grow up tending to do just that. It also happens that when what we see fits our fantasies, we don't bother to question.

Content: Social, business and religious institutions use this power with great effect upon us. All religions and cultures have some book or other that is believed to be divine in origin and which must be obeyed implicitly. Does our inner experience tell us that whatever such a book says is relevant to us? More importantly, do we perceive it to be relevant today?

Content: The vedic scriptures, the śruti, divine in origin, and the smṛti, rules and regulations laid down later by Manu and other sages, make no such claims. In fact, Hindu scriptures have both the humility and the arrogance to challenge us to transform ourselves according to the needs of the day, but stipulate that we first experience what is said. Vedic scriptures are not dead knowledge that is a burden upon us to abide by, but living guidelines that lead us into wisdom and liberation.

Content: 'So,' Krishna says, 'let the Vedas say what they want. You may hear whatever you must, but put what you hear, see, and read to the test of wisdom to go beyond delusion.'

Content: He asks Arjuna to experience what he is exposed to and then decide what he must do. Krishna has already said in the Gita that He is the Vedas; He is knowledge, and yet He asks him to experiment and be guided by his inner wisdom, not by what he merely hears.

Content: What courage, what authority! Only one who is so sure about the truth can say, 'Do not listen to what I say and how I act, but listen to your inner voice of truth born out of your own awareness and experience.'

Content: One can write hundreds and thousands of pages but they will be meaningless when judged against these words of the master.

Content: Some of the social and corporate institutions are quite direct in imposing their truths on us without giving us a chance to verify and accept them. 'You must fall in line with our mission if you want to be included in our corporate family,' they say. That is why sanyāsis, monks, get out of the rule-bound world, seeking the freedom of truth, but unfortunately, many get caught in the rules of religion. In society, wise men have been punished for expressing truths that they experienced which violated the beliefs then held by their leaders. Socrates, Copernicus, Da Vinci and many others suffered when they refused to accept what they heard. They became revered as visionaries years after they passed away.

Content: In today's corporate world, people who stand up to what they believe is right when they see their companies doing unethical things, are referred to as 'whistle blowers'. Today it is a respected word. Even three decades ago this was a derogatory word, referring to traitors.

Content: Why is such a person a traitor? Is it because he sees a truth that is at variance with what his institution, his company, the Government or religion tells him? If, in the wisdom of one's experience, one realizes a truth different from what one has heard, then, he not only has the right but also the responsibility towards humanity to tell them about that truth. The truth may be joyful or painful but it must be told.

Content: Krishna is taking Arjuna on the path of enlightenment through simple steps. He says, 'Don't be inactive, do what you need to do. Do it with no expectations and no attachment to results. Do it with a centered mind and in wisdom. Do it with the wisdom of your own inner calling and not because of something you have heard. You will then go beyond all suffering and be liberated.'

Content: These steps are so simple that everyone can practice them; in fact every one should practice them. Stay in the present moment with total awareness, without worrying about what you have heard and experienced in the past or what you expect to hear and experience in future. Stay fully centered in the experience of the present, and based on the truth of that experience, act. You can never go wrong. I promise you that.

Content: Q: Swamiji, in the corporate world everything revolves around budgets and objectives. How realistic is it to work without goals in such an environment?

Content: Please understand, not only is this possible, but this is also the only way to live in bliss without suffering.

Content: You seem like a professional or a corporate person. You must have worked with some budget, forecast, milestones, goals, objectives and so on. How many times can you honestly say you achieved all that you planned and budgeted for? I have talked to many CEOs. They have been honest in saying that in their budgets what is met is the cost projections but not profit projections! This is a universal truth. Expenses always exceed the budget while profits fall below the budget.

Content: Yet, the whole corporate system goes by budgets and stresses everybody in trying to meet them.

Content: Krishna does not tell you to destroy budgets. He advises you not to be obsessed with budgets and goals. He tells you, 'Do what you have to, act for the sake of action, fight for the sake of the fight, without worrying about the outcome.'

Content: He says to focus on the present moment.

Content: This is the full circle your management science has now come to. Everyone talks about process control. What does that mean? It means to focus on what is happening at this moment! Unless you get what you are doing now right, there is no way you are going to do it right any time in the future. The future becomes the past through the present only.

Content: I am told that it is only recently that the discovery has been made that even if you inspect 100% of what is produced in a factory or office, there will still be about 1% of defectives. You cannot reduce it to zero.

Content: They say that the Japanese developed the method of focusing on the process instead of the product and this led to zero defects! All your great systems of Six Sigma are based on the belief of being in the present moment.

Content: This is what Krishna said over 5000 years ago. 'Forget about the end product,' He said, 'Focus on the process, on what you need to do.' Can anything be simpler?

Content: Krishna's message is very simple. He says: Surrender the outcome to Me and focus on your action. Why is it difficult to do? In fact this will lift a huge weight off your shoulders. You will no longer be constantly stressed about the result. Instead, you will focus on the activity and you will perform better.

Content: Just try this approach. Relax completely and focus totally on what you have at hand at this point in time. Make sure that you do it with awareness. You will see that the results follow automatically without your having to worry about them.

Content: Understand this: When your path is right, your destination will always be right. You will travel light and you will travel in bliss and whichever destination you reach will be the one most suited to you.

Chapter Number: 2.54

Content: O Kesava! What is the description of one who stays in the present moment and is merged in the awareness of truth and wisdom? How does one of steady wisdom speak, how does he sit, how does he walk?

Chapter Number: 2.55

Content: Sri Bhagavan said: O Partha, A man who casts off completely all the desires of the mind and is satisfied in the Self by the Self, He is said to be one of steady wisdom.

Chapter Number: 2.56

Content: He whose mind is not disturbed by adversity, and who in prosperity does not go after other pleasures, He who is free from attachment, fear or anger is called a sage of steady wisdom.

Chapter Number: 2.57

Content: His wisdom is fixed on one who is everywhere without attachment, Meeting with anything good or bad, and who neither rejoices nor hates.

Chapter Number: 2.58

Content: As the tortoise withdraws its limbs from all sides, when a person withdraws his senses from the sense-objects, His wisdom becomes steady.

Chapter Number: 2.59

Content: From the body, the sense objects turn away, but the desires remain; His desires also leave him on seeing the Supreme.

Content: Arjuna is now curious and wants to know more. He asks Krishna, 'You are telling me all this, that is wonderful. You tell me that I must perform without expectations and attachment and that I must be centered in wisdom. I would like to live that way and move on the path of wisdom. Pray, tell me what kind of a person is this, the one who is always in awareness in the present moment? How does he behave, walk and talk? Let me model myself on him.'

Content: For the first time in this dialogue Arjuna expresses serious interest in what Krishna is saying. Arjuna has realised that whatever he said earlier had arisen from his confusion. Arjuna is intelligent enough to know that he does not know. When Krishna tells him to behave in a manner befitting the code of the warriors, this piece of advice certainly makes good sense to Arjuna, since this is the conditioning that he has been brought up in.

Content: However, what Krishna says further confuses Arjuna. Krishna says to do what you have to do without being concerned about the outcome. This is a strange idea to Arjuna. He has rarely done anything in his life without first thinking about what is going to happen as a result of his action.

Content: Arjuna is the greatest of marksmen. Once he fixes his bow on a target, he never misses. He is used to aiming at targets. He is conditioned to first define his target and then act. Krishna has confused him totally now. Krishna says, 'Release your arrow; where it lands is my business.' At least, this is how Arjuna understands what Krishna says.

Content: Arjuna has enough trust in Krishna not to ignore this instruction from the Divine. So he asks, 'Tell me who is it who acts without any interest in the outcome? Who is it who is not concerned about the result, whether it is good or bad, painful or joyful, and how do I identify such a person?'

Content: There is a branch of behavioral psychology called NLP or Neuro Linguistic Programming. In NLP, the basic idea is to model our activities based on those people we wish to emulate. If you talk, move, walk like Gandhi, you too can become like Gandhi, says NLP. There is some truth in this. When you immerse yourself in the mould of another person, imitate him completely, you start thinking like that person and become a lot like that person. Arjuna is asking Krishna for the specifications of the person he should emulate so that he too can become what Krishna wants him to become.

Content: Krishna responds, 'This man is free from desires and emotions. He has neither greed nor fear. He is always centered in himself. Pleasures through the senses do not interest him. He has withdrawn his senses from the external world and has

Content: focused them inwards, directed them towards that supreme Truth which is beyond all pleasures, attachments, emotions and sense objects. Once he realizes that truth, even the longing for that truth leaves him.'

Content: Krishna thus describes the realized yogi to Arjuna so that he too may emulate him and realize himself. Once again Krishna teaches through simple steps.

Content: 'Nirmohatve niscalatatvam,' says Adi Shankaracharya, taking a cue from the master. It means: Absence of desires leads to a clear and still mind, steeped in wisdom. Dropping expectations, letting go of attachments, moving away from the regrets of the past and the fantasies of the future, if one brings the mind to the present, the mind stops and desires drop. When there are no desires, there are no emotions that normally arise from the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of such desires, such as joy, elation, depression, sadness, anger, disappointment, jealousy and so on.

Content: When the mind is without fear and anger, without expectations of success and failure, the unattached mind seeks that which is unattached. It seeks the ultimate Truth, which is beyond all desires, emotions and attachment. The mind and the senses that the mind directs move away from the external objects of attraction to within. First the objects drop, then the desire for the objects disappears as truth dawns.

Content: This may sound complicated, but is as simple as counting '1, 2, 3'.

Content: This universe is responsible for all of us. We exist not because of ourselves and our actions but in spite of it. When we let go, when we listen to the universe, it gives us all that we need to live with abundance, but the problem is that we don't listen. We do not stop with our needs but get greedy with our wants as well. There is no way all our wants can be fulfilled without taking away the needs of other beings in this universe.

Content: The law of the jungle operates beautifully without man. Animals act based on needs and not on wants. A lion kills because it has to eat, not because it sees another lion killing. It would kill only to appease its own hunger or when its own life is threatened. Once the human being enters the scene, this equation changes. Man engages in wanton killing, without caring about what he needs. Man no longer expresses his innate intelligence, unlike animals.

Content: Once we choose to live based on our real needs, we focus on present needs and not futuristic wants. We rise into the present moment. Desires based on past and future dissolve. We start understanding our role in and our relationship with the

Content: universe. We realize that we too are the universe and that we can have all that we need without desire, emotions, fear and greed, and most importantly without suffering.

Content: Krishna aptly provides the example of the tortoise to illustrate how to withdraw one's senses inwards. The tortoise follows its instincts to obey nature; it lives in the present moment. It moves when its sensors report that there is no danger, and it withdraws completely when it senses threat. It lays its eggs, wading out of the sea onto the beach and moves back in when the hatching is done. Its entire cycle of life is tuned to the wisdom of nature. It is not an active and adventurous living being but it is celebrated in all ancient cultures for its longevity and steadiness. So Krishna gives the analogy of the tortoise withdrawing itself completely from the external world into its shell, to explain how man should withdraw from the dictates of the senses and be centered in his Self.

Content: Man is obviously a different being from the rest of the animals. He alone of all living beings has the capability to think and act. He alone has the power to decide whether he follows the wisdom of nature inherent in him as in all other beings, or rejects it and decides to be 'unintelligent'. An animal, when it indulges in any act, whether of mating, caring, killing or saving its own life, does all and any of these with tremendous focus. When it mates, all it does is mate; it does not engage in conversation or watch television out of the corner of its eye. Its lust is all-fulfilling. It consumes its attention and therefore the energy of that moment. The animal always lives in its present moment. Not so the human. For the human, where his body is his mind never is.

Content: Corporate people ask me how to make right decisions. It is simple. When you focus intensely on the job at hand and make a decision based on the information available at that moment, your decisions will always be right. The universal energy guides you in your decision when you settle into yourself, focus inwards and withdraw your senses as the tortoise does.

Content: What do you all do instead? Half the time you postpone decisions because you are afraid of the consequences of the decision. So things happen without your control and which do not favor you. The other half of the time you are led by greed and prejudices based on past experiences and future fantasies and you decide with no relevance to issues of that moment.

Content: Do you even eat properly? When have you last eaten, when can you say with your hand on your heart that you focused only on the food that you ate, instead

Content: of chatting, reading, watching someone or something? When have you last done anything whatsoever with one hundred percent focus on what you did?

Content: You may say that we are only human, we wish to enjoy life and we wish to enjoy sensual pleasures. Please do! However, when you enjoy, enjoy fully. Be fully focused on that object of enjoyment and with all your senses focused only on that activity.

Content: When you do whatever you do with one hundred percent focus, you are in awareness. You become God!

Content: Trust Existence, Not Your Logic

Content: Q: Swamiji, you spoke about needs and wants, and that needs carry their own energy for fulfillment. Does this mean that we can do nothing and things will happen?

Content: When you have unconditional faith in the power of the universe, yes it will happen. Whatever you need you shall receive, without doubt. This is my experience.

Content: When I left home at seventeen, I took a vow never to touch money again. All I had were the clothes on my body, the two-piece saffron cloth I was wearing, a water pot and a staff. With just these, I traveled the length and breadth of India for over six years and a distance of thousands of kilometers.

Content: Not only did I not die, I became enlightened!

Content: I am not the only one who achieved this. There are millions like me in India who choose to give up and surrender themselves to the energy of Existence. In other parts of the world, such people would be called homeless and would probably be hounded. They may be taken to the prison. In India, wandering monks are respected and given free food and shelter. No one says, 'Why are these able bodied people doing no work and begging for food?'

Content: Honestly, I never begged for food. When I was really hungry, someone brought food from nowhere. I stayed under trees and out in the open, even in the Himalayan Mountains at 17,000 feet altitude, at Tapovan and such places. I had absolute trust in Nature. 'Whatever has to happen will happen' - such was my faith.

Content: When you do not have that faith, of course it is a different story. I send some of my disciples on such trips, the monastic wandering, with no money. They too travel all over India and return with wonderful experiences. This is the only way you can understand how the world lives.

Content: There is freedom in whatever you do. You are answerable only to yourself. Western societies are afraid of this. That is why they control such behavior. If too many people do that then society cannot control them. Society loses power and it can collapse.

Content: In fact outside India, even religious institutions do not allow such freedom. I have not seen any wandering monks out on their own space like these sanyāsis - wandering monks of India.

Content: It is bondage if one lives even as a monk in a place that is regulated. You can never be free within a disciplined environment.

Content: That is why our ashrams are not regulated. Each person does what he or she can. No one is forced to do anything. It is a different matter that they perform far above their normal levels, but that is out of freedom and love, not out of greed and fear.

Content: Q: When Krishna advises Arjuna to withdraw his senses as a tortoise does, is He advocating the practice of pratyāhāra?

Content: Patanjali’s concept of Ashtanga Yoga that includes the part of pratyāhāra or sense control is what Krishna refers to here.

Content: Pratyāhāra literally means stopping the feeding of the senses. It does not mean removing the objects that the senses are attracted to, or getting frightened of the field of the senses or even shutting off the senses so that these objects cannot be sensed. No, that will never work.

Content: If one’s senses can be controlled by getting sense objects out of the way, all you need to do is go to the Himalayas and you will be enlightened! Moving out of the range of sense objects is a helpful condition but not the only and essential condition. There are thousands of sanyāsis out there in the mountains, forests and monasteries in seclusion, out of contact with women, who still have not dropped their fantasies of lust.

Content: A young monk went up to his master and asked him how he could get rid of lustful thoughts that kept bothering him and disturbing his meditation.

Content: When the novice finished, the older monk said, 'I am ninety and I still have lustful thoughts, plenty of them. Let us go to my master who is a hundred and twenty. He may perhaps have an answer!'

Content: Shutting your eyes and ears is no solution either. You see people trying to meditate by shushing everyone around them and trying to concentrate. Meditation is not about becoming deaf and dumb. You can close your eyes and plug your ears to shut off all external signals. But then your inner movies will start playing; your inner television will start to play.

Content: You may have heard about people who have had their limbs amputated but feel pain in the empty space where their limbs had been. They call this 'phantom pain'. You do not need the physical entity to feel pain; the nerve endings imagine that lost part and convey pain.

Content: Blind people dream. They have dreams as vivid as any sighted person. With your eyes closed, you dream during the day as well as in the night. Shutting off a sense organ physically has no effect on the perceptions of that sense organ. It plays back from stored memories.

Content: There is an energy behind your five sense organs, the jñānendriya that helps them perceive the world. What this energy reports to your body-mind system is interpreted by your unconscious mind based on your conditioning. You act based on that interpretation. Your actions further reinforce that conditioning, and the cycle continues.

Content: The only way to stop this cycle is to disengage this energy. It does not help if you run away from the scene of action; the action will follow you through the fantasies of your mind. It does not help if you shut down your sense organs physically. Images stored within will still continue to play.

Content: Pratyāhāra or starving the senses refers to starving or stopping the energy behind the sense organs, or stopping it from operating.

Content: What Krishna implies is more. It is not merely stopping the energy; you will then be the walking dead; He does not want you to be a zombie. He wants your energy to be active, but you to be non-judgmental. He wants you to be free of all conditioning. He wants you to be freed from your saṁskāras.

Content: When you can see and hear and touch and taste and smell everything around you without feeling aroused or repulsed, with no feeling of pain or pleasure, with no interest in the outcome, then you are free of saṁskāras. The energy behind your sense organs may function but your mind does not. You perceive but you do not interpret. You move with nature as your awareness dictates. You do what you need to do with awareness, with no interest in the outcome.

Chapter Number: 2.60

Content: O son of Kunti, the turbulent senses carry away the mind of a wise man, Though he is striving to be in control.

Chapter Number: 2.61

Content: Having restrained them all, he should sit steadfast, intent on Me. Whose senses are under control, his mind is steady in the present.

Chapter Number: 2.62

Content: When a man thinks of objects, it gives rise to attachment for them. From attachment, desire arises; from desire, anger is born.

Chapter Number: 2.63

Content: From anger arises delusion, from delusion, loss of memory, from loss of memory, the loss of discrimination, from loss of discrimination, he perishes.

Chapter Number: 2.64

Content: The self-controlled man, moving among objects with his senses under control, free from both attraction and repulsion, attains peace.

Chapter Number: 2.65

Content: All pains are destroyed in that peace, for the intellect of the tranquil-minded soon becomes steady.

Chapter Number: 2.66

Content: A person not in self awareness cannot be wise or happy or peaceful. How can there be happiness to one without peace?

Chapter Number: 2.67

Content: He loses his awareness of the present moment when his mind follows the wandering senses, Just as the wind carries away a boat on the waters.

Content: Krishna continues to explain to Arjuna how difficult it is to control the senses and what happens when one loses control of the senses.

Content: It is like this: Once a monkey spotted a jar full of nuts. The jar was big and heavy with a long and narrow neck. The monkey put his hand into the jar and grabbed lots of nuts, but he was unable to withdraw his fist from the jar! He thought he was trapped with his hand in the jar!

Content: He didn’t realize that all he needed to do was to let go of the nuts, and he would be free.

Content: This is the case with most of us. We all know very well how to kick off our senses into action by engaging them in gear and also accelerating into fantasies, but we have no idea how to slow down and stop the senses. We do not control our senses and the mind. Instead, our mind and senses control us.

Content: Krishna says that our senses are turbulent, and however much we try to control them, they stay out of control. Some of the greatest sages, the ṛṣis, have been known to succumb to sensual pleasures. There is the legendary story of Vishwamitra, a great sage, who was seduced by the celestial maiden Menaka, in the midst of his intense penance.

Content: Do you think the gods above have no other business than sending young women down to disturb people who meditate? In that case, I am sure that all men will start meditating from tonight without any compulsion from my side!

Content: Nothing of that sort will happen, so don’t start meditation for this reason. It was the suppressed fantasies of Vishwamitra’s mind that took the shape of the celestial nymph. His senses were out of control. Hindu scriptures have referred to brahmacarya as a prerequisite to spiritual evolution and many misinterpret this to be celibacy. Brahmacarya is not merely celibacy; it is more than physical celibacy; it is living in reality without fantasies.

Content: There are many people in the robes of monks and sanyāsis, trying to control their minds and trying to be celibate, and many of them fail because they cannot control their senses. Suppression does not work on the mind. Suppressed emotions explode when they get the chance. They just wait for the opportunity.

Content: Krishna says that the only way is to focus one’s mind on Him once the senses are under control and the mind is steady. The mind cannot be stopped. Thoughts cannot be stopped as long as the body exists. You can only focus your mind on something that transcends sensory pleasures and it will become quiet by itself. Once the mind discovers the bliss of this quietness, this solitude, it will never want to stray again. But remember, if you try to stop your thoughts you will only fail.

Content: A small story: A man who was intent on spiritual progress went to a master and begged him to teach him how to control his mind. The master tried to explain that the mind cannot be controlled in the manner he was seeking, by stopping his thoughts, but he wouldn't listen. Fed up, the master gave him a bottle of a liquid and told him to drink three drops three times a day.

Content: The man asked, 'That's it? It will control my mind?' The master said, 'Just one thing, make sure you don't think of a monkey when you drink the medicine.' 'Oh, sure, quite simple!' said the man as he walked out. At the door he turned and asked, 'By the way, in case I do think of a monkey, what should I do?' 'Take a shower,' said the master, 'and try again.'

Content: As soon as the man went home, without wasting time, he took out the medicine and opened his mouth to drink it. Just then he remembered the master's warning - and remembered the monkey! 'Oh, my God!' he said to himself, 'Now I have to take a shower. What else to do!'

Content: You can guess the rest of the story. Each time he opened his bottle of medicine, monkeys invaded his mind and all he did was keep taking showers. It got to a point where as soon as he got out of the shower, thoughts of monkeys arose in his mind.

Content: He ran to the master and pleaded, 'Forget the medicine. Just get rid of the monkeys, please!' You can never destroy thoughts or suppress them. You can only witness thoughts and not get involved in them, and gradually the mind will settle down. When you settle into the present moment with no expectations and no attachments, you will find that your mind becomes quiet and your senses slow down.

Content: Krishna says that from attachment springs desire, from desire arises anger, from anger arises delusion, from delusion comes loss of memory, and from loss of memory develops loss of discrimination which then leads to one's destruction.

Content: The

Content: only way to stop this, the Lord says, is to control one's senses, center oneself in the present and surrender to Him, the universal energy, and achieve everlasting peace.

Content: The map has been so clearly laid down by the greatest master of them all, not because He wants you to follow it, but because in His infinite grace and compassion He is making you aware of what is in store for you if you do. He teaches that if you do not control your senses, you will be destroyed.

Content: Go through each of these stages laid down by the master. The path will be crystal clear. Each one of us develops attachment, liking, hatred and dislike for many things through our experiences. These likes and dislikes stay in our unconscious memory and even without any conscious awareness on our part drive us into actions through desires or into inaction through fears. When the desires are fulfilled, there is temporary satisfaction; then the desires grow. When the desires do not get fulfilled we are disappointed, we get angry.

Content: We should be angry with our own selves for having had the desires or for not having worked wholeheartedly towards fulfilling the desire, but we actually get angry with other people who we think are responsible for our failures. Rarely do we admit that we are the cause of our failures. We normally say, 'Why admit our fault when there are literally millions out there who can carry it for us?' So we create fantasies and delusions about shifting responsibility and gradually erase the memory of our own responsibility for our actions.

Content: The vicious cycle is now almost complete. The moment we fail to take responsibility for our actions, we lose all our powers of intellectual discrimination between right and wrong and resign ourselves to unawareness and unconscious behavior. This is a one-way road.

Content: Observe a Hitler, a Mussolini, or any dictator, and you will note that their path to eventual destruction followed these lines. Lack of discrimination between right and wrong, because of imposed morality instead of conscious awareness, leads to self destruction and destruction of humanity. The vicious spiral that rapidly leads to such destruction of self and others arises always from desires for power, control, wealth, lust and other sensory pleasures which, when suppressed, lead through anger and delusion to this loss of discrimination.

Content: Krishna reveals two very important truths here in the last two verses.

Content: One is that you can never be peaceful unless you are aware and conscious. The other is that you cannot be aware if you are led by your senses.

Content: Therefore, as long as your senses lead you into what you think is a pleasurable journey, you cannot really be happy or peaceful. It is just another trick your mind is playing on you.

Content: There are many who come and ask me, 'Swamiji, I am so happy just fantasizing. I fantasize about you. It is truly blissful. Yet you say not to do that. You ask me to drop your form. Why?'

Content: Even fantasizing about me or fantasizing about your iṣṭadevatā, your favorite god, is not going to lead you to happiness. When you lose that form, you will be in depression.

Content: Your happiness is not real happiness. It is just a gap between two periods of sorrow. All this happens when you fantasize about the master also. Imagine then, your plight when you fantasize about other material objects and desires that can only lead you into more greed.

Content: Your senses are unreliable. What you hear, what you think you hear, what you see, what you think you see, and so on, all these sense inputs are unreliable. You only see and hear what you wish to see and hear, only what your mind, driven by that personal identity, ego, wants you to see and hear. Every single thing that you receive as your inputs through your senses is processed and colored by the filter of your mind and ego and you get to know only what they want you to know.

Content: Your mind is constantly flitting between the future and the past in the form of thoughts; that is what thoughts really are, the journey of your mind between past and future and back, again and again.

Content: This journey never stops all through your life unless you make a serious attempt to stop it. Your mind, on its own, would never want to stay in the present moment, which is the only moment of truth.

Content: Your past is history. Your past is the dumping ground of all your regrets and guilt. There is no greater sin that you can commit than carrying these regrets and guilt. Committing an act labeled sinful by society and religion is less of a sin; carrying the guilt of having committed it is the real sin. That is what carries you into hell, even as you live in this world.

Content: There is no hell in some afterlife. There is no Saint Peter or Yama (Lord of death) waiting at the Pearly Gates to consign you to hell. Those are stories woven into religion to control you through fear.

Content: Do you think God has no other job except to chronicle each and every deed and thought you had in your life, mark them good and bad, give you marks and, like a schoolteacher, send you to suffer in hell because you had poor marks?

Content: He has no time for all that! Hell for you is what you suffer in this life while living. You suffer with guilt, regret and remorse. You live in hell in this life, you don’t go to hell after you die.

Content: Or your mind dwells in the future, a future that does not exist. You speculate, you fantasize, you dream, you create stories and arguments, building a case for your future. If you are questioned, you would say, ‘I need to plan.’

Content: How much of what you plan is based on present reality? There is nothing wrong at all if you are grounded in reality and plan to progress in that reality. That is what I call chronological planning. Chronological planning is necessary if you live in the material world. I do it too. It is just for example, planning the day ahead, with what time you will wake up, what time you will leave your house, what time you will have the meeting at the office, what work you will complete during the day, what time you will return home etc. It is planning just once so that you know the target for the day. But most of the time what you do has nothing to do with reality.

Content: You either worry about things that you have no control over and plan how to escape such worries, or desire things not in your reach out of sheer greed. Just think honestly and carefully.

Content: Our senses aid us very ably in these worries and desires. They make us believe that all this is real and make us react to situations as if they are real. It is the same way that we get up from a nightmare sweating profusely out of fear. Although just a dream, it makes us sweat. In the same manner, these projections of our mind, even when we are fully awake, appear real to us.

Content: Krishna says, ‘Get away from your senses; escape from their control; ground yourself in the awareness of the present moment. Only then can you be at peace.’

Content: What is this present moment? What is this awareness? When our mind is stopped from moving back and forth between the past and future, it will by itself land in the present moment. The present moment is what we are doing now. If you are reading this book, don’t half read this book and half listen to music; don’t half read this book and half watch television; don’t half read this book and half talk with someone.

Content: Either focus completely on what you are reading or don't read at all.

Content: When did you really eat last? When I mean eat, I mean eat with full focus on the eating. When was the last time that you can remember each morsel that went into your mouth, without reading a book, watching television or talking to someone, without the food going into your mouth on auto pilot? If we treat food as junk, it turns into junk in our stomach. So instead of giving us the energy that it should, it makes us want to nap.

Content: The next time you do anything, focus completely on what you are doing at that moment. If you are brushing your teeth, just focus on how the brush moves and how the paste tastes. Stop thinking about the meetings later at your office or getting your children ready for school, or whatever it is that you need to do a few minutes or hours later.

Content: When you settle into the present moment, you are out of the clutches of your senses and mind. You will still see and hear, but none of what you see and hear will divert you from what you are focused on. You will be aware of only what you are doing in that present moment. This is what we call meditation. Meditation is nothing but being focused completely on what you are doing at a particular moment. This is what Buddha calls mindfulness.

Content: This is what Krishna says will lead you into peace. When you are aware, your senses are in your control instead of you being under their control. You become peaceful, you are in bliss.

Content: Q: Swamiji, you have said that the mind can never be stopped. Yet you speak of the no-mind state as the ideal. How can we reach the no-mind state if the mind cannot be stopped?

Content: As long as you are alive, your body-mind system is alive; by definition your mind is active. Your mind is nothing but the distributed intelligence of your system, the collection of your thoughts and memories. So long as you are alive, and your senses are active, you keep collecting data, storing and analyzing them and influencing yourself by all this.

Content: You cannot stop this activity. If you try, you will be like the man who tried to stop thinking about monkeys. What you can do however, is decide not to follow the thoughts. You just witness the thoughts as if you are watching clouds in the sky. Do not get involved. This is possible. You then get out of the clutches of your mind. Instead of your mind controlling you, you can control your mind.

Content: I ask participants in some of the programs to write down their thoughts for about 20 minutes, without editing. When they read what they wrote, they realised that what they have inside them is a madhouse! The thoughts are totally unconnected, illogical, random and meaningless.

Content: Still worse, amongst all these random thoughts, you pick up a few thoughts at random and make pain shafts or pleasure shafts for yourself. All your problems arise as a result of your connecting thoughts in what you think is a logical manner.

Content: The moment you unclutch from your thoughts and therefore stop making the shafts, it means that you accept and realize that your thoughts are unconnected. Then, you gain freedom and you reach the no-mind state.

Content: This is the state that you should achieve in meditation. You should move into the present moment, being aware of what your thoughts are but without connecting with them, and becoming completely unclutched. You then become truly aware.

Content: This is what is also referred to as the witnessing state. You are just a witness to your thoughts without becoming a part of them. You watch your thoughts without becoming involved in the activity. It is as if you are watching the clouds in the sky; you are seeing but you are separate from what you see. This is possible. All you need is some practice.

Content: Q: How can Krishna generalize saying that desire leads to destruction? The world cannot operate if we have no desires and if everybody only meditates!

Content: Well, for one thing, this world was in operation before you and other human beings came onto this planet; it will continue to operate even after all of us are gone. As Buddha says, this universe was always there and will always be there. This world and the universe are in operation not because of us but in spite of us!

Content: We, the humans, are an insignificant part of the entire system. We are just a tiny bit of that energy; but we are so full of ourselves that we feel we help operate this world. That is the irony!

Content: When you realize truly who you are and how you are part of that existential energy, you realize two things simultaneously. Firstly you realize how insignificant you are; that you are just a part of the whole; that you are not separated. At the same time, you also realize that you have immense potential; that you are Existence; and as part of the Whole, you are the Whole yourself.

Content: This may seem contradictory at first, but this is the truth. You need to experience the truth to be able to express it. For the time being, please consider this to be the absolute truth whether you understand it or not, accept it or not, believe it nor not. It makes no difference to the universe what you think.

Content: The route to destruction which Krishna warns us about is this: attachment, desire, anger, delusion, loss of memory, loss of discrimination and destruction. This is the vicious cycle.

Content: There is a virtuous cycle that Shankara presents: getting together to learn the truth, nonattachment, freedom from delusion, equanimity of mind and liberation.

Content: These are one and the same; one goes down, the other goes up. One takes you down to destruction; the other takes you into liberation.

Content: When you take this body, when your spirit, Self, ātman, or soul enters the body, it does so out of desire. It does so out of unfulfilled desires that it carries from its previous life. The mindset that is the essence of these unfulfilled desires is called vāsana and the bundle of carried-over desires in the new body is called prārabdha karma. If you do not have this bundle of karmas, you will not be reborn; you will be liberated from the cycle of life and death.

Content: This collection of unfulfilled desires that you are born with is energy. It is not something negative or something positive; it is pure energy. You come into this life with this energy that will fulfill itself, if you are aware of it. All you have to do is live life as it presents itself and accept what happens to you.

Content: Unfortunately, during the process of death, in the causal layer of energy, one loses this awareness. As a result, we spend our lives collecting other people's desires as if they are our own. Most of our desires are borrowed through comparison, envy and greed. As such greed has no end.

Content: It is this aspect of attachment and desire that Krishna is talking about. It is this bundle of desires that we borrow from others that Buddha says causes suffering. This is what Shankara says we must dissolve in our search for Truth and liberation.

Content: The meaning of our lives is to be aware and fulfill all our carried-over desires so that there is nothing left unfulfilled. This fulfillment leads to mokṣa, liberation, Self-realization, whatever name you wish to give it. As a consequence you will not be reborn, unless you wish to be.

Content: This is not an easy concept to explain in a book. We cover this extensively in our second level meditation program called Life Bliss Program Level 2, also known as Nithyananda Spurana Program. Simply put, when the undying spirit within us leaves the perishable body-mind system at the time of death, it passes through seven layers of energy. At each layer up to the final layer, it experiences and relives the memories of its life. Through the meditation techniques that we use with each layer, these memories called saṃskāras are dissolved.

Content: For now, be clear that all the attachments and desires that you have, ultimately lead to grief and destruction, as Krishna says. You do not have the intelligence to stop at a point and say I have had enough. Even if a person is eighty he still wants to live. If he has grandchildren, he would like to live to see his great-

Content: grandchildren. There is no end to desires, even though you know that you will die; even though you know that you will carry nothing with you when you die. Yet, you do not wish to die empty-handed. You wish to die with name and fame, with possessions, with a dynasty that will carry your name, and many such desires. What for? Do you think you will remember any of this when you are born again? Or even if you do as a result of some malfunctioning of your brain circuitry, do you think you can do anything constructive with all these desires? We are addicted. We are addicted not merely to what we think are addictive drugs, but we are addicted through attachment to many things in this world. When the attachment is positive we are attracted; when the attachment is negative we are repulsed. What attracts us at one time scares us at another. What attracts one repulses another. This is the delusion that Krishna talks about. We are not in touch with reality; we live in a fantasy world that we think is real. Buddha says everything is impermanent, aniccha. When you understand this, when you understand that all the material possessions and relationships which attract and repulse you are all delusions, that they are impermanent, only then can you move towards the truth. Otherwise these delusions corrupt your mind and destroy you. You become rudderless in the vast ocean drifting towards destruction. In His compassion, Krishna offers the solution as well. Restrain your senses, He says, and develop equanimity without like and dislike, without judgment of good or bad, without attachment to pain or joy. You will then attain peace and bliss. You will be in nityānanda - eternal bliss.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.68 O Mighty-armed, his knowledge is therefore steady whose senses are completely detached from sense objects.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.69 The self-controlled man is awake in that which is night to all beings.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: Where all beings are awake, it is night for the sage who sees.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.70 Just as all waters enter the ocean, he attains peace into whom all desires enter, which when filled from all sides, remains unmoved; not the desirer of desires.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.71 The man who moves about abandoning all desires, without longing,

Chapter Number: 2

Content: Without the sense of I and mine, attains peace.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: 2.72 O Partha, this is the state of Brahman; none is deluded after attaining this.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: Even at the end of life, one attains oneness with Brahman when established in this state.

Content: In His concluding words in this chapter, Krishna clarifies to Arjuna once again, how to reach liberation, how to become one with Brahman which is one's true and natural state.

Content: We have seen that a person not centered in self-awareness cannot be peaceful or happy or wise. A person who is led by his senses cannot be self-aware and be in the present. A person who is in control of his senses is firmly in control of his mind. He does not let his senses and mind control him. Only such a person is truly awake.

Content: We all think we are awake; are we really? We live in dreams even if we are awake. The only difference is that we are not asleep in a physical sense. So we pretend that we are awake, that we are intelligent, that we are thinking and that we are making the right decisions.

Content: How then do we wake up? It is said that in King Janaka's kingdom a town crier used to go around shouting, 'wake up, wake up' much after sunrise, to remind people that they should be awake and aware!

Content: The only occasion when we are truly awake is when we are in the present moment, when we are truly aware of what we are doing at that point in time.

Content: A person in such awareness is whom Krishna calls a 'muni', a realized being living in the present. Such a person is always awake, whether physically awake or asleep.

Content: Krishna says that such a person is in sleep when others are awake. The realized person, although he may appear to be living and actively participating in the activities of the same world that we live in, is in reality, in a state of passive alertness. This means that his senses are not immersed in worldliness and he is centered in his Self. He is dead and asleep to this world because he has moved beyond his senses.

Content: A truly realized person is also awake when others are asleep. Even in his sleep he is aware, in what is called the state of supta chittam. We can experience four states of mind - wakefulness, dream, deep sleep and the state of Self-awareness.

Content: When we are awake, we are aware of the 'I' and 'mine' and are ruled by our mind, senses and thoughts. We are controlled by our delusion, māyā. Māyā arises from our identification with the 'I' and 'mine'.

Content: However, a person who is in the present moment is still as the waters in the bed of the ocean. Though there are waves in the surface, they do not disturb the bed of the ocean. Even when desires assail him, they are mere waves in the periphery of his consciousness, and do not disturb him at all. He has abandoned all attachment to 'I' and 'mine'. He is without thoughts and desires and when thoughts and desires come to him, they merge into him without disturbing him.

Content: You may ask how this is possible.

Content: The 'muni', one who is still, in silence, is one who is in total control of his senses. When the senses are controlled, when the ego is out of action, all thoughts

Content: and desires are just witnessed. The 'muni' does not get involved in these thoughts and desires. He does not even try to stop or suppress them, as he knows it is impossible. He just lets them be. He just watches them go past, just like the ocean watches impassively as other waters merge into it.

Content: We are all enlightened because we are all a holographic part of the reality of the universe, Brahman. All that we lack is the awareness of the truth of our enlightenment. There is no path to enlightenment because we already are enlightened.

Content: All that is needed is the awareness of our enlightened state.

Content: What prevents you from realizing that you are enlightened is your ego. This ego is not necessarily about any arrogance. It is the perception of who you think you are; it is the collection of thoughts, experiences and emotions that go to make up that 'I' and 'mine'. This identity is that of the body and mind, not of your spirit. Therefore, it perishes with your body and is transient. This identity with the transient reality of who you think you are and what 'yours' is, is māyā.

Content: Māyā is the illusion that creates a barrier between you and your awareness of your enlightened state.

Content: A person who is in control of his senses, his mind and thoughts, lives in the present moment, in full awareness of his true nature and is one with Brahman. He is the only one who is truly awake, not the rest of us who think we are awake. We are all still in deep sleep. Such a person who is self-aware is fully awake even when he is asleep.

Content: People with a strong consciousness of 'I' live out of their blocked mūlādhāra cakra, the root energy center. They are at the very beginning of their spiritual evolution. Their main concerns will be about their own survival and the survival of their species, and they are caught in lust, anger and greed. These are the qualities that the 'I' evokes in you.

Content: The person with a strong attachment to 'mine,' the possessions belonging to the 'I', constantly lives in fear of losing these possessions. Such people live out of their blocked svādiṣṭhāna or spleen cakra - the energy center that gets locked due to fear. They live in insecurity of losing possessions, of losing identity, and finally, of death.

Content: Energization of the mūlādhāra and svādiṣṭhāna cakra and moving the energy up through the anāhata or heart cakra to the ājñā or third eye cakra (the energy center between the eyebrows which is the seat of intelligence) opens up people to the

Content: reality of looking at others and the rest of the universe as themselves and finally dropping the ego - one's identification with 'I' and 'mine'.

Content: Then, true surrender to the universe and identification with one's true nature occurs, and enlightenment happens. You then do become God!

Content: Krishna completes his description of the person established in yoga whose profile Arjuna has asked for. Krishna concludes by saying that a person steeped in yoga is centered in reality and is one with Brahman. He says that this person is liberated even if he were to reach that state at the end of his life.

Content: Krishna is in the process of showing Arjuna what he truly is and how he can realize that truth. Control over the senses, resting in the state of mindful awareness instead of letting the senses control you, surrendering to the universe instead of fighting the universe, dropping one's mind and identity and staying in the awareness of the present moment are the surest ways to realize the truth, the truth that you indeed are God.

Content: I tell my disciples time and again, 'I am not here to prove my divinity. I am here to prove your divinity.'

Content: This is the timeless message of Krishna. This is the message of Bhagavad Gita.

Content: Arjuna's confusion is slowly reducing. Actually it is good to be confused. It is much better to accept that one is confused than to live in the delusion that one knows everything. Arjuna had the courage to come out and tell Krishna his fears and doubts. This is the first step towards clarity. How long it takes for that clarity to emerge doesn't matter. One is on the path and that is what matters.

Content: In this second chapter of Gita on Sānkhya Yoga or Transcendental Knowledge as it is commonly translated, Krishna sets Arjuna on the path of recovery. May all of you travel that path too!

Content: Let us pray to the ultimate Existence, Parabrahma Krishna, to give us all the experience of eternal bliss, nityānanda. Thank you!

Content: Q: Swamiji, when you say that we should live without ego, is it really possible to do that when we live in the material world? Wouldn't we then become failures materially?

Content: Ego, as I have used the term here, has two aspects. In Sanskrit, we call these ahankāra and mamakāra.

Content: Ahankāra is ego projected outwards. It is about what you convey to others about who you are. This is always more than what you are. You would like people to think that you are more handsome, smarter, richer and in all ways better than what you really are.

Content: Mamakāra is what you think about yourself within you. It is always less than what you really are. People say to me, 'No Swamiji, I have a very high self-esteem.' Remember, as long as you do not realize that you are God, your self-esteem is low!

Content: The gap between ahankāra and mamakāra is what causes trouble. You like to project something that you do not think you are. You may term this differential ego. This is the differential you need to drop.

Content: When you are the same while looking inwards and projecting outwards, there is no problem. You are quite natural. You are the real self. You do not need to boast, you do not need to hide.

Content: If you reach this state, you will in fact do far better materially, because people will have far greater respect for you. You will be doing what you promise and promise what you can deliver. There will be no differential.

Content: Of course, in a deeper sense, as you progress spiritually, you may drop all attachment to your self, your body-mind system. This does not mean that you

Content: cannot function in the material world. Many masters have functioned in such a state. In such a state, one's identification is not with this material body-mind system at all, but with the Existential energy. Then, your ahankāra and mamakāra are harmonized, at the highest possible level of divinity.

Content: Q: Swamiji, you described four states of mind. How does one distinguish between the state of deep sleep, suṣupti, and the mindless state of awareness, turiya, the fourth state?

Content: We have a combination of thoughts and identity to give us four states of the mind.

Content: When we have thoughts in our mind, and we are aware of our identity, we are physically awake. This is the first state, the state in which you are listening to me now.

Content: Various States of Consciousness

Content: With Thoughts Without Thoughts With 'I' Consciousness Jagrat Wakeful State Thinking Turiya Blissful State State of Full Awareness Without 'I' Consciousness Swapna Dream State Dreaming Sushupti Unconscious State Deep Sleep

Content: now. When we are unaware of our identity but still have thoughts, we are dreaming. This is the second state. While dreaming, there is no 'I' identity right? This is why we are startled into wakefulness when a nightmare seems to threaten our life, our identity.

Content: Third, when we are in deep sleep, we have neither thoughts nor a sense of our identity. For all practical purposes we are dead. The body-mind system is refreshing itself by dying and being reborn every night and day.

Content: 279

Content: The fourth state, called by some the Fourth Way, is the state where we are fully aware but have no thoughts! At least there is no attachment to thoughts, no linking of thoughts. It is only witnessing. This is the state called samādhi. Samādhi means returning to one's natural state, or simply put, the realization of Self.

Content: Enlightened beings are in the samādhi state all the time. This does not mean that they are withdrawn with eyes closed continuously, not at all. As Krishna says, they are awake when others are asleep and asleep when others are awake. This means that they are always in awareness and that their senses are controlled or asleep.

Content: Let me give you a simple tip to evaluate how evolved a person is. Watch that person when he is asleep, when he is in really deep sleep and he does not know you are watching. If that person is like a flower when asleep, totally blissful, with no movements and no facial changes, that person is in turīya or samādhi state. The body is asleep but the mind, while without thoughts, is fully aware. The body-mind is at rest and in bliss, nityānanda.

Content: Thank you.

Chapter Number: 2

Content: Thus ends the second chapter named Sāñkhya Yogaḥ of the Upaniṣad of Bhagavad Gita, the scripture of yoga dealing with the science of the Absolute in the form of the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna.

Chapter Number: 3

Content: Life is to enjoy living, not to chase goals. There is no real purpose to life; life in fact is purposeless. Once we create goals to reach, we create sorrow to follow.

Content: Swamiji, you say that skepticism is a big hindrance to learning. But you also urge us to voice our doubts. Why?

Content: If we are to drop the memories of what happened in the past as the master indicates to his disciple, won't there be more problems? People do learn from their past, from their past mistakes. If they drop their impressions of the past, they will suffer. Wouldn't they?

Content: Swamiji, is it possible that meditation can take us into inaction? Even though my intention is to energize myself through meditation, I find I lose interest in things after meditation. Why?

Content: Swamiji, what is suffering? Why do we suffer? Is suffering essential?

Content: Swamiji, whenever I am in your presence, all questions disappear and everything seems possible. But when I am away from you, all the familiar doubts creep in. Why does this happen and what can I do about it?

Content: Swamiji, in India we are brought up to follow rituals and idol worship. Are you for or against these?

Content: Swamiji, can you explain the concept of karma?

Content: Swamiji, when a relationship is not working out, when should we persevere and when should we abandon it and get on with our lives?

Content: Swamiji, you ask us not to suppress our natural passions. But is it right to indulge these passions?

Content: Swamiji, you tell us to 'give our all' in love. But what if the love is not appreciated or returned?

Content: The whole of Existence, the whole universe, is purposeless.

Content: Of course, it would be very shocking to hear this. From a very young age, we are taught and socially conditioned to believe that life has got some purpose. We are always made to run towards some goal, towards some purpose.

Content: 'What is life without purpose?' you may ask. You may wonder, 'How can this statement have any meaning?' We feel that any activity, let alone one's entire life, has to have a purpose, a definition, and an end point. Only then does it become meaningful. That purpose is what drives us, motivates us and adds spice to our day-to-day activities.

Content: 'You are confusing,' you would say. 'All our life we have been brought up to believe that we are here for a purpose. As children we are expected to do well at school, and later at college. Once we grow up, we are supposed to get married and bring up our children. In each phase of our life, we have specific templates, specific guidelines that society and our family has set up for us. How can we let them down? How can we believe that all these expectations are wrong, and that there is no purpose to life?'

Content: You would say, 'You are turning our life upside down!'

Content: The more you run towards a goal, the more you are considered a successful person. The greater the speed, the more you are respected. The greater the speed, the more the rewards. From birth, again and again, you are taught, society teaches you, that life has a purpose and a goal. Life without purpose seems meaningless to us. We cannot even comprehend such a possibility.

Content: Understand that this is only what you have been brought up to believe. This is not the truth of Existence. Life does not need a defined goal to make living

Content: worthwhile, meaningful and happy. The absence of purpose makes our life meaningful. The absence of goals in life makes living worthwhile.

Content: The universe, nature, has no purpose. It just is. It exists. A river runs downhill towards the ocean because it is its nature to run downhill. It is not because it has a purpose, to meet the ocean. Our life too, has no purpose. We were not born for a purpose. We were born to live, to enjoy life and to be happy. Instead, we set ourselves up for unhappiness; we set goals for ourselves, and almost always these goals are based on fantasies and not on realities. In the process, we stop enjoying life.

Content: The more you run towards the goal, the more you miss life itself!

Content: A person who is continuously bothered about goals will never be able to enjoy his life. He lives in the future and ignores the present. When we are in the present moment, the here and now, we do not need a goal to guide us.

Content: Just the awareness of the present moment will help us decide what needs to be done at each point in time. When the present moment is taken care of with awareness, the future gets resolved on its own. As long as the path is right, whatever destination we reach will be right. We do not need to define the destination; the right path defines its own destination.

Content: However, we constantly worry about the future. We constantly think of the past, relate it to the future and define our expectations based on what we have missed in the past, or what we believe will provide us happiness in the future.

Content: For example, when you are studying you think, 'When I get a job, I will be happy.' When you have your job you think, 'After marriage my life will be happy.' After marriage, you think, 'When I have kids and my own house, I will be happy.' After you have kids and your own house you think, 'When the kids grow up and all my responsibilities are over, I will be happy.' By the time your kids are settled, by the time your responsibilities are over, when you want to relax, your being is so conditioned to running that you can't relax!

Content: With this mental attitude, we are constantly running to stay in the same spot. Happiness is where we are. It is not where we think we should be.

Content: A small story:

Content: A very successful investment banker from New York was getting burnt-out. He had been earning millions since his youth by constantly running after goals

Content: and targets. Seeing him getting burnt-out, his friends advised him to take a break.

Content: Knowing that the word 'relaxation' was not in his dictionary, they advised him to go to a distant rural spot well-known for fishing. They told him that fishing was very good for health so he could come back more energetic.

Content: The man agreed and he went out and bought designer gear - clothes, shoes, hat, and of course, the most expensive fishing gear, including a designer bait. He took a flight to the nearest city and then drove down the village. He booked himself in the most comfortable place to stay.

Content: Early next morning, he got dressed, and with all his gear went to the fishing spot. He sat under a shady tree, made himself comfortable and put his fishing line into the water and waited. He waited and waited. An hour passed. There was no sign of any fish being caught. He was getting impatient but he could not accept that he was not successful at something as simple as fishing when he could handle such complex businesses.

Content: Just then, an old man who was living there, dressed in crumpled shorts and a simple shirt, came by and sat a few meters downstream from him.

Content: The banker watched this old man with amusement, wondering what fish this old man intended to catch! The old man had a fishing rod, which was nothing but a long and sturdy twig, and a can of worms for baiting the fish. He settled down and put his fishing rod into the stream.

Content: Within minutes, the old man was catching fish; not just one, but one after another. Without hesitation, the old man was throwing the fish back into the water and laughing. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Content: Suddenly, the old man became aware of the young banker staring at him. He turned to him with a broad smile and greeted him, 'Hi,' he said, 'Why don't you shift over here? This is a better place to catch them.'

Content: The young banker quickly moved next to the old man who guided him as to where to cast his rod. Soon, the young banker was also catching fish. He was very excited.

Content: The banker was a typical businessman. His business mind started to race. He said to the old man, 'You are so brilliant at what you do. You should come to New York. I can introduce you to rich people whom you can teach and you can make a lot of money.'

Content: The old man listened attentively to the banker. He then asked the banker, 'Are you rich?' The banker said, 'Yes, sir. I earn a lot of money.'

Content: The old man asked, 'What do you plan to do now, now that you have a lot of money?' The banker replied, 'I am married to a lovely lady and hope to have a couple of children.'

Content: The old man continued, 'Then?' The banker said, 'Oh, we shall build a lovely house.'

Content: The old man asked, 'Then?' The banker said, 'We shall take vacations. Whenever I need a break from work, I shall come here and fish.'

Content: The old man simply said, 'But that is exactly what I am doing now!'

Content: Most of us need to get stressed out before we can relax. We do not understand what it is to relax. When I tell people to relax during meditation, they ask me, 'Swamiji, please give us detailed guidelines how to relax!' We feel we need to lose our happiness before we can start searching for it.

Content: The tension of running behind something has become a part of our being. It has become part of our conditioning. After that, resting will not be rest anymore. It will not be relaxation anymore. It will be a state of restlessness!

Content: When we run behind goals, all that seems to matter is the achievement of that goal. Any sacrifice seems to be worth it. We don't even feel connected to people around us when we run behind our goal, even those who we claim we love and care for.

Content: When we decide to rest at the end of our lives, we will feel lonely because we have been conditioned to run after something. We have been conditioned to associate ourselves with some activity or the other all our life.

Content: The more you run, the more titles you receive. You are called a 'multi-dimensional personality'. I tell you, this is just another name for schizophrenics.

Content: Only a person who has deeply experienced himself, who rests in himself, who experiences inaction in action, only such a person can be a multidimensional personality. Only such a person understands himself and his many personalities, and is comfortable with all of them.

Content: Only a Krishna can be a multidimensional personality. Only a man who completely rests in himself, who knows how to relax within himself, can be a multidimensional personality.

Content: A person who runs to satisfy society, who is made to run by society, can never experience peace. Be very clear - the more you run, the greater is the possibility of you going mad. But society wants you to run. Only then will you be useful to it.

Content: Society doesn't want you as you are. It wants you as it thinks you should be. It wants you as a useful member of society. If you are a doctor, if you are a lawyer, if you are an accountant, if you are useful to society in some way, then you are rewarded, you are praised. That is why society gives so much importance to your title. It makes you feel inadequate if you don't work for such titles.

Content: You are respected just based on your title, not for what you are. The more titles you have, the more respect you get. The fewer the titles you have, the lesser the respect. The more useful you are to society, the more you are respected.

Content: Please understand: Life is purposeless. Look into your life deeply. Whatever you think of as the goal of your life, even if it were fulfilled, do you think you will be able to rest? Do you think you will feel fulfilled? No! You will only look for the next goal.

Content: As each goal is fulfilled, another springs up in its place. There is no resting point. There is not even time to appreciate what you have achieved, to enjoy your achievement and acquisitions. You are driven from one goal to another, from one desire to another. In the process, there is no fulfillment. There is always a feeling of discontentment. You run not because your being wants to, but because society drives you.

Content: A person came to me and said, 'Earlier I used to smoke and drink. My wife used to fight with me all the time. She always blamed me whenever things went wrong. She would connect anything and everything to my smoking and drinking and blame me. If the kids did not study well, she would say, 'You are a drunkard. You don't care for your kids. That is why they are not studying well.' If something went wrong in the house, again she would find some way of connecting it with my smoking and drinking. I was continuously blamed this way. I was totally disturbed. So finally, somehow, I gave up smoking and drinking.'

Content: I asked, 'Oh! Is she happy now?'

Content: He said, 'No! Now she is unhappy that she is not able to complain about anything anymore!'

Content: When you have something or someone to blame, you can always put the responsibility on them and feel comfortable. You can feel relaxed. When you can't put the responsibility on someone else, you suffer.

Content: It is easy to escape reality by putting the responsibility on someone else. When we can't handle reality, we look for convenient excuses to hide. Here, Arjuna is doing the same thing by asking Krishna this question in the third chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna is shifting responsibility away from him.

Content: Q: Swamiji, you say that skepticism is a big hindrance to learning. But you also urge us to voice our doubts. Why?

Content: You can raise questions due to either skepticism or doubt. But there is a world of difference between the two.

Content: Skepticism is a state where one refuses to believe in anything at all, just like that! The skeptic will raise arguments just for the sake of raising them. In this sense, skepticism itself is an unconscious belief; it is a foregone negative conclusion against anything and everything.

Content: The skeptic has no opinions and no ideology of his own. He only has an argument against whatever idea you place before him. He will argue against an idea for hours, and if you present another idea that is just the opposite, he will argue against that also, equally emphatically!

Content: Actually, he has already settled into a permanent attitude of 'no' towards everything. In this sense, skepticism marks the end of the journey for the learner, because with this attitude it is impossible to get anywhere. The skeptic has closed himself to all possibility of change.

Content: Skepticism arises from inner violence. It surfaces as questions that require no answers, since each answer will automatically be followed by another question. In fact, the questioner will not even be listening to the answer to his questions. He would have already assumed that whatever the answer may be, it will not be the right answer for him!

Content: This is why, when I answer questions, I always say that I do not answer the question but the questioner.

Content: Doubt, on the other hand, is a state of openness and receptivity. Doubt is an acceptance of 'I don't know, but I can learn'. This marks the beginning of the learner's pilgrimage. Doubt is the path of the seeker; it simply seeks to eliminate all that is untrue in order to perceive the Truth.

Content: A man with doubt listens with respect, not with defiance. He possesses the humility of the ignorant. His is the attitude of YES. He is only waiting to experience so that he can trust.

Content: Doubts seek the truth. Doubts arise out of faith.

Content: When a person of sharp intellect turns to skepticism, it is a dangerous sign because it can be very ego-fulfilling to put down all ideas in an effective manner. But ultimately, the skeptic is only burning his own bridges.

Content: Especially with a master, if you adopt the attitude of skepticism, there is just no way He can get through to you. There is no point in going to a doctor just to question the value of every pill in his prescription, is there?

Content: So ask your questions, by all means. But just watch the attitude with which you ask them!

Chapter Number: 3.1

Content: Arjuna said: O Janardana, O Kesava, Why do You make me engage in this terrible war If You think that knowledge is superior to action?

Chapter Number: 3.2

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

Chapter Number: 3.3

Content: The Lord said, 'O sinless Arjuna, as I said before, in this world there are two paths; Self-knowledge for the intellectual, and the Path of Action for the yogi.

Chapter Number: 3.4

Content: A person does not attain freedom from action by abstaining from work, Nor does he attain fulfilment by giving up action.

Content: In the previous chapter, the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that knowledge of the Self is the supreme path to enlightenment. Krishna explains to Arjuna about the nature of the indestructible Self. 'It cannot be cleaved by weapons nor burnt by fire nor dried by the wind nor wetted by water,' says Krishna. The Self is untouched and untouchable. Krishna explains to Arjuna that those whom Arjuna thinks he is about to slay have already been slain, and that it is the nature of the perishable body to be destroyed; the indestructible spirit moves on. This spirit takes on a new body just as one changes a worn-out garment for a new one. Krishna tells Arjuna to shed all fears and desires, and to focus on the reality of the Self.

Content: A few days ago, a young man came to me and asked, 'Swamiji, should I marry as per my wish or should I listen to my father in this regard?'

Content: I said, 'Listen to your father's words and go for an arranged marriage.'

Content: He asked, 'Why master? Won't I be happy if I marry as per my wish?'

Content: I told him, 'If you have enough courage to take the blame yourself for anything that happens later, go in for love marriage. Otherwise, with an arranged marriage, at least you will have somebody you can blame for anything that happens!'

Content: If you marry as per your wish, you can't blame anybody if such a situation arises! If you go for an arranged marriage, after two to three years, even if things don't work out well, you can always put the blame on someone else. I am not advocating this mode of behaviour. I am only telling what is happening in today's world. Generally, with your own decision you can't blame anybody. But if you decide to follow others, even though the decision to follow them is your own decision, you can somehow put the blame on that person and escape. They will not tell you that it was your own decision to follow them.

Content: Arjuna is still very much in this mode. He is confused as to what he should do. At one level, he understands what Krishna says to him. However, the explanation about the spirit living on while the body dies, and the idea that all those he is about to fight and destroy have already been destroyed in the cosmic sense, does not appeal to him. Arjuna is a warrior. To him, what is seen in front of him is what exists. He sees all his elders and relatives arrayed against him in battle and he has to make a choice to kill or be killed. This is the physical reality that he faces.

Content: On the other hand, Krishna tells him not to take this reality seriously. Krishna says that all the living people in front of him are already dead, and therefore he is committing no sin by killing them again. In fact, if he does not fight them, he incurs the calumny of having run away from battle as a coward.

Content: Krishna advises Arjuna to control his senses and shed his desires. One who controls all his senses is like the ocean in which all rivers are consummated. Krishna advises Arjuna that from anger arises delusion; from delusion, loss of memory; from loss of memory, the destruction of discrimination; and from destruction of discrimination, one perishes.

Content: Krishna also tells Arjuna that he has the right only to do his duty, but no right to its results. 'Let not the fruit of action be your motive and let not your attachment be to inaction either,' Krishna warns him.

Content: Arjuna is totally confused. He asks Krishna, 'I do not understand what you are saying. First, you tell me to fight. Then you tell me to shed anger. You say I must kill my enemies, who are my elders and relatives, but then you say I should not worry about the end result.' Arjuna says, 'All I need to know is whether I should act or not. You say that knowledge is superior to action, and yet, you say I must act. What should I do?' he asks simply.

Content: What Arjuna leaves unsaid is, 'What use is knowledge if it cannot be used in action?' Arjuna is a kṣatriya, a warrior, not a brāhmin, a scholar or a philosopher. Philosophers can keep arguing for both sides of an issue, without bothering about any logic. Philosophers are only interested in advertising their so-called knowledge. But warriors are men of action. They have no time to waste in idle talk.

Content: So Arjuna says, 'Cut out all this superficiality; tell me the truth as it is. Tell me what I should do.' To Arjuna, these words are superficiality!

Content: True to his conditioning, Arjuna is uncomfortable when he is not doing something in action; when he has no clearly defined purpose before him.

Content: Your whole life is purposeless, but again and again, you are conditioned to run towards something - whether it is in material life or spiritual life. Some goal is always put in front of you. The so-called goals in material life or spiritual life, both continuously make you feel that you are not good enough.

Content: Just understand, whatever you think of as your purpose in life, whether it is money or relationships or name and fame, even if you have complete fulfillment in that dimension, you will not rest!

Content: By the time you reach the top, climbing will become your habit, When climbing becomes your habit, you can't rest within yourself. Please be very clear, once climbing or running becomes your lifestyle, you will be running even if you don't know why you are running.

Content: Someone told me this, I believe a management consultant said it, 'If you place a ladder somewhere and climb as fast as you can, you will quickly reach the top of the ladder. But unless the ladder is placed where you want, where you reach will be of no consequence!' Climbing as fast as you can is efficiency. We all think we are very efficient. Placing the ladder where you want is effectiveness. Not all of us know where to place the ladder. So, the consultant says to focus on where to place the ladder.

Content: But I say even he is mistaken.

Content: It does not matter where you place the ladder, as long as you enjoy the climb!

Content: The trouble is that we spend the entire climb obsessed about where we will reach and what we will do there. If we spend that time enjoying the journey, any destination we reach will be the right destination. The destination is not important; the journey is. The goal is not important; the process is.

Content: A small story:

Content: A man met his friend on the street. His friend looked very sad and was nearly in tears. So he asked him, 'What happened? Why do you look so sad?'

Content: His friend replied, 'Three weeks ago, my uncle died and left me fifty thousand dollars.'

Content: The man replied, 'That's not bad...'

Content: His friend said, 'Wait till you hear the rest. Two weeks ago, my cousin died and left me ninety-five thousand dollars.'

Content: The man exclaimed, 'Hey, that's great!'

Content: His friend said, 'Last week, my grandfather passed away. I inherited almost a million.'

Content: Now this man became really curious. He asked, 'Then why are you so sad?'

Content: His friend replied, 'This week - nothing!'

Content: Exactly the same thing happens in our lives! We are always greedy for more. We continuously pursue material goals. As a result, we never relax within ourselves. That is the reason why even in old age, when we want to relax, we are unable to relax.

Content: Have you seen a single man above seventy relaxing? Never! At the most he will be sitting with the television. People can never sit with themselves! If they have company, they will start talking about their golden past. If they don't have company, they will be sitting and watching television, or they will be reading the same old newspaper, from the first line to the last with a big magnifying glass! They just can't sit with themselves.

Content: I have seen many elderly people in India - their sons would be married, daughters would be married, grandchildren also would be married! But they will be sitting and reading the matrimonial column in the newspaper! They will be sitting

Content: and reading the classified ads for brides and grooms, not for any purpose, but because they can't sit with themselves.

Content: A man who can't sit with himself misses one of the major dimensions of his being. Continuously running, thinking that there is some purpose to life, his whole being will be in a state of tension, conditioned to running.

Content: Ego is nothing but this social conditioning which gives you the idea that there is some purpose to life. Life has no purpose. Even if you achieve whatever you want, you can't take it with you. You can't carry even a single dollar when you leave. Nothing will come with you.

Content: There is no exchange offer, please be very clear about this. If you give forty rupees in India, you will get one dollar in the USA. But no matter how much money you give in this world, you cannot have a single rupee in heaven. There is no exchange counter or exchange offer.

Content: A small story:

Content: A millionaire was on his deathbed. He distributed his property among his three sons and told them, 'Each of you should put a million rupees in my coffin when I die. Please put a million rupees each with my body and bury me.'

Content: All three agreed, 'Yes, we will do so, father.' One was an accountant, another one was a doctor, and the third one was a lawyer. After the father's death, the first son said, 'I should be honest. Father has given me so much property.' Saying so, he put a million rupees in cash in the coffin.

Content: The second son came and said, 'I should also be honest. Let me put my share.' He put his share of one million rupees cash into the coffin.

Content: The third son came. He just put in a cheque for three million rupees and took back the two million rupees his brothers had put in and said, 'I am paying for all three of us. Let him encash this cheque and spend it!'

Content: You can't carry anything. No cheque will be useful. None of your money can be carried over to the next world.

Content: As of now, this whole world, this material world, appears four-dimensional and multi-colored as you enjoy it with all your senses. The moment you leave the body, the same world will appear black and white, uni-dimensional, flat and uninteresting. For example, as of now, the dream which you had last night, looks black and white and this world looks real. However, while you were dreaming, the dream looked exactly like reality, in colour, is it not?

Content: Please be very clear, when you are dreaming, your dream looks very real. When you are awake, this world around you looks like reality and the dream looks dull and in black and white. But there is no scale to measure which is reality and which is a dream.

Content: A small story:

Content: A great Zen master comes out of his bedroom one morning and suddenly starts weeping.

Content: His disciples ask him, 'What is this, master? You are an enlightened man. How can you weep? Why are you weeping? What happened?'

Content: He says, 'Last night I dreamt that I was a butterfly.'

Content: The disciples laugh and say, 'What is the problem? It was only a dream. Why do you bother? Forget about it.'

Content: The master says, 'No, no! Now I have a big problem. I don't know whether I am a Zen master who dreamt that he became a butterfly or whether I am a butterfly is who is now dreaming that it has become a Zen master!'

Content: Please be very clear, there is no scale to measure reality and dream. There is no scale to prove whether the dream is reality, or what you think as reality is really the reality. We don't know!

Content: As of now, the material world looks like a 4D, four-dimensional one. 3D movies are no longer the ultimate; now there are 4D movies. When I visited the Universal Studios, they were screening a film called Shrek in 4D. While watching some scenes, not only do you see it in 3D with the spectacles provided, but your chair is also rocked and water sprinkled on you to give some real spacial effects! You really feel that the movie is happening around you; you really feel you are undergoing the experience. That is what 4D is.

Content: Now, when you are here, this world appears in 4D and dreams are in black and white. But when you enter into the dream, the dream looks like 4D.

Content: Please be very clear, we don't know which is true, which is reality. Right now you may be dreaming that you are sitting in a temple and listening to the Gita! We don't know! There is no scale with which we can measure dream or reality.

Content: People tell me, 'But everyday when we enter into the dream, we are not entering into the same dream Swamiji. On the other hand, everyday when we

Content: return to reality we are entering into the same reality. So with this scale we can say which is reality and which is a dream.'

Content: Please be very clear, in one night's dream you can live even 20 years of life, am I right? Don't you sometimes have such dreams where in one night's dream you live 20 years of life? In that 20-year span, you are in the same consistent dream, is it not? Then why can't your dream be reality, because of its consistency?

Content: Be very clear, this whole life, this whole time span, which you think is reality, may be part of one dream! So be very clear, there is no scale to prove which is reality and which is a dream. When you leave the body, all that you see now as multi-colour, will become black and white.

Content: As I stated earlier, nothing can be carried with you at the time of leaving the body. You can't encash your cheques! You can't talk to your relatives. If you speak, they will run away! Your car will not be useful to you anymore. When you are not able to take anything with you, what is the purpose of life then?

Content: What is the purpose of life? The moment you understand that life is purposeless, the moment you accept the beauty of purposelessness, you will realize the meaning of living.

Content: Life has no purpose, but it has meaning to it.

Content: Purpose means goal orientation. You always think about the goal; running, running and suddenly one day you just drop dead! The more goal-oriented you are, the more you will miss life.

Content: Purpose is different from meaning. When I say the word 'meaning', living itself becomes meaningful. Come to this present moment and the path itself is life; the path itself is meaningful.

Content: There is no such thing as, 'in the end you will be happy'. You always postpone joy; you always postpone bliss and so you always postpone living. Life is lived in a very superficial way because you think life has a purpose.

Content: Be very clear: The man who works just for his salary, just for money, for him only the payday will be a beautiful day. He will be happy only on that one day. He sells his 29 days every month for that one day. He is selling his 29 days just for that one day of happiness.

Content: I don't say, 'Don't take your salary.' But let it not be the only goal in your life. Let it not play a major role in your consciousness. That is what Krishna means by

Content: these words: karmanyevādhikāraste mā phaleṣu kadācana - you can do only your duty, you have no right to its fruit. If you think of the fruit, you will lose the joy of doing, living! The meaning of living is experienced only when you understand the beauty of purposelessness. This is a beautiful verse! It is the essence of the Gita!

Content: Two things you need to understand from this: One, He says, let your inner space not be contaminated by the purpose of life. Please understand, when I say inner space, I mean your mind. When you close your eyes, what comes into your mind is your inner space.

Content: If your inner space is filled with the purposes of life, be very clear you are running behind something which will never give you fulfillment. He says, 'Let your inner space not be disturbed or filled with purposes.'

Content: One important thing you must understand; by nature, your inner space is filled with energy; your inner space, what you refer to as ātman, spirit or soul, is filled with blissful energy, eternal bliss. The more you free your inner space of other furniture or 'purposes', the more you empty yourself of goals, the more the space for bliss.

Content: For example, this room is filled with space. The more furniture you put in it, the more space will leave this room. Please understand that this room is not empty; no place is empty. It is filled with space. It is filled with ether. This room is filled with the energy of ether. The more furniture you bring in, the more ether will be pushed out; the lesser will be the ether energy.

Content: In the outer space, if you furnish your home, it will look very nice. But if you furnish your inner space, it will look very ugly.

Content: Don't furnish your inner space. Don't bring more furniture into your inner space. Let your inner space be empty. Of course then, it will never be empty. It will be filled with bliss! The more inner space you create, the more blissful your life will be, the more ecstatic your life will be, the more joyful your life will be. Your inner space needs to be empty. That is what Krishna means by saying, 'Don't be attached to results.'

Content: If you continuously think about the result, you will never be able to perform your action completely; you will always be goal-oriented; you will never enjoy the path. Not enjoying the path is the worst hell you can happen be trapped in.

Content: Again and again Krishna says, 'Paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśāya ca duṣkṛtāṁ dharma saṁsthāpanārthāya saṁbhavāmi yuge-yuge'. It means: I come down to save the innocent and good people, and to destroy the evil-minded people again and again.

Content: People ask me, 'You say dharma (duty) is the only thing to be practiced, but in our lives, we see people who are not living according to dharma, but who are living more happily; they have more property, more wealth. Why is that?'

Content: Please be very clear, they may have more property, they may have more things in the outer space, but never think they are happy in their inner space; never think they are blissful. When does someone not follow dharma? When he follows his ambition! Ambition is the thing that causes you to commit all mistakes, commit all possible sins. Ambition is hell. So remember, such people are probably already in hell.

Content: Don't think we go to hell because we commit sins. No! We commit sins because we are in hell. The very ambition is hell; there is no need for a separate hell. Don't think we will reach a separate place called 'hell' at the end of life. The very ambition is hell. People make mistakes because they are in hell.

Content: If you are happy and blissful, you will never disturb others. If you are unhappy, naturally you will vomit that violence on others. The very ambition is enough punishment. You need not wish for him to be punished. Just because of his ambition, he himself misses his whole life.

Content: You can easily miss life by having a purpose to life. If you have salary as the purpose, you will miss twenty-nine days of your life just for that one day, your payday. If you work just for the sake of the weekend, you will miss five days for the sake of those two days. Unless your life itself becomes joyful, unless your working itself becomes ecstasy, unless that itself becomes bliss, you cannot experience what Krishna says in this verse: karmanyevādhikāraste mā phaleṣu kadācana

Content: Purpose can be fulfilled, but through purpose, your life can never be fulfilled.

Content: When you carry purposes in your life, you are not living; purposes are living through you, that's all. In your childhood somebody gives you some purpose like, 'You should become a lawyer, or you should become a doctor.' You are given a purpose and that purpose is fulfilled through your life, but you will never feel fulfilled.

Content: Never make the mistake of thinking that you will be fulfilled when your purpose is fulfilled. No! Your fulfilment is completely different from the fulfilment of your purpose.

Content: If you want to experience fulfillment, you have to work in a different direction. It is a totally different experience. It is a totally different dimension of your life. If you want fulfillment of your being, listen to what Krishna says here.

Content: I think Krishna is the first and the last master who declared the Truth as it is. No statement can be the Ultimate, that is why I say 'as far as I know.' Krishna is the first and last master who declared the truth as it is.

Content: Two things: Always, people who are active in the outer world, know the techniques to achieve success in the outer world. People who are active in the inner world know the techniques to achieve success in the inner world.

Content: But Krishna knows both! He is the only master who is an enlightened man and a king. He knows how to give a technique to achieve total success in the outer world and in the inner world. He shows you how to furnish your outer space and how to keep your inner space empty. That is life in totality.

Content: The whole of Gita is only about this one idea: how to furnish your outer space with the ultimate luxuries and how to keep your inner space in the ultimate bliss.

Content: Krishna is the only one who has produced a formula for inner space and outer space together. He teaches about keeping your inner space in eternal bliss and keeping your outer space in ultimate luxury.

Content: You can't expect this from a Buddha because Buddha gave up the outer space. He lived with just three pieces of clothing and he lived the life of a monk. So he taught how to remain simple and blissful.

Content: But Krishna lived as a king. Krishna lived not like a king, but as a king. Only Krishna can give practical instructions. Only Krishna can give a manual for practical spiritual living. With all other masters, their manual is useful only for monks who are sitting in monasteries. Only Krishna's manual is useful for people who are living a regular lifestyle.

Content: Here He says, 'Not merely by abstaining from work can one achieve freedom from action.' You can't achieve freedom from action by moving away from work.

Content: I saw a monk who was considered a great Paramahansa because he never got angry. His claim to greatness was that he never got angry. There was no need to get angry because he was sitting in the Himalayas!

Content: He was sitting in the Himalayas and people were there to give him food everyday. In the morning somebody brought him breakfast, at noon somebody brought him lunch, at night somebody brought him dinner! Somebody gave him

Content: clothes. What was the need to get angry? He was respected because he never got angry. Usually, human beings respect anyone who does something that they cannot do. If you want to be respected in society, just do something that others can’t do, that’s all.

Content: So this person was considered great because he never shouted at anybody. Of course, nobody realised that there was no need for him to shout at anybody, because he was sitting in the Himalayas and being taken care of by his devotees and disciples.

Content: One year, his disciples requested him, ‘Master, let us go to the Kumbh Mela in Nasik.’ The biggest gathering of humanity happens in India during the Kumbh Mela. Every four years, the biggest gathering of humanity happens in India at this event. It is not just the biggest spiritual gathering, but the biggest gathering in the world - millions of people, tens of millions of people. Seventy million people attended the last Kumbh Mela. Seventy million!

Content: Anyhow, they convinced the monk to go to the Kumbh Mela. After he attended the Kumbh Mela and was about to return to his Himalayan abode, all his disciples left him! When he came down from the Himalayas, his routine got disturbed. Only then did his disciples experience his anger. They realised that he would also shout at others, get irritated and be angry.

Content: Please be very clear, as long as a difficult situation doesn’t arise, all are great saints! Everyone is a saint till a crisis happens. Only when a crisis happens can you judge whether one is a real saint or just an escapist.

Content: Abstaining from work or moving away from work cannot give you freedom from action. To have freedom from action, your inner space needs to be purified. Your inner space should become empty. You need to remove furniture from your inner space. Renouncing furniture in the outer world is not going to help you. Only removing furniture from the inner world is going to help you.

Content: The idea that life has a purpose should be renounced. That is why Krishna says, ‘Just by renouncing, just by outer renunciation, perfection can never be achieved; perfection can never happen.’

Content: One more thing, if you renounce the outer world, you will be thinking about the outer world all the more. If you renounce the outer world, the outer world will fill your inner space even more.

Content: A small story: An enlightened master and his disciple were walking near a river. They were supposed to cross the river to go to their monastery, their ashram. On the way, a young lady was standing near a river. She wanted to cross the river, but was afraid to do so. She asked the master, 'Master, can you help me cross this river?' He said, 'Why not? Please come.' He just lifted her, crossed the river, left her on the other bank, and continued walking towards the ashram. The disciple was observing the whole scene. He was not able to digest what he saw. He was burning inside him. Maybe he was jealous! He was not able to digest it. After reaching the ashram he was not able to control himself and asked his master, 'Master, you are a sanyāsi (monk). How can you touch a woman, that too a young woman, and carry her through the river? How can you do that?' The master turned, smiled at him and said, 'I left her long ago. Why are you still carrying her?' Please be very clear, renouncing in the inner space, or emptying your inner space is the real thing to be achieved. That is what Krishna says here. Once you have renounced in the inner space, it doesn't matter what you do in the outer world. Nothing will touch you.

Content: Q: If we are to drop the memories of what happened in the past as the master indicates to his disciple, won't there be more problems? People do learn from their past, from their past mistakes. If they drop their impressions of the past, they will suffer. Wouldn't they? Think for a moment about your self. Think about all the problems you have. Think about the most serious problems that you have. You will find that these are repetitive. They are caused by the same conditions. You have walked the path before, you have faced the same situation many times earlier, and yet you act in the same manner as before, resulting in the same problem. Do you really ever learn?

Content: Have you learnt to keep quiet when your wife says something to incite you? You know from the past that she is baiting you and you have always fallen for that bait. Yet, you rise to the same bait again. You know that you get angry easily and that makes you do irrational things. Does that knowledge stop you from getting angry?

Content: You may say, 'That is my nature, how can I change it?' If you cannot change it, who can? Who suffers as a result? The truth is that you are not bringing in the intelligence to learn from your past behavior and past errors to rectify them. You act out of a state of unconsciousness based on judgments that your unconscious mind has already made for you.

Content: Carrying the load of your memories does not in any manner help you prevent the same mistakes from being made again. In fact it ensures that you make the same mistakes again.

Content: When the master tells his disciple that he left the woman behind a long time ago, and that the disciple was still carrying her, the master refers to the judgment that the disciple had made. The judgment is based on the past conditioning of the disciple. Every past memory carries a certain conditioning that is attached to it. That is what we call as the emotion associated with the memory. It is not the mere memory of the incident, which in fact is neutral, but the emotion attached to that memory, the judgment that you pass as a result of that emotion, that needs to be dropped.

Content: As long as you retain these incidents as emotion-laden memories, they have the power to rule you and influence your decisions. Also, most decisions are based on memories retained in your unconscious mind, and so they can rarely be useful. They only cause more suffering. For example, you won't even know why you are reacting in a certain way to a certain situation. You don't know because the reaction or emotion will be bound by a memory that is stored in your unconscious. This is what we mean by memories stored in the unconscious.

Content: Dropping the memories is really about dropping your judgments about these events and the emotions connected to these memories. Dropping them enables you to drop your negativities. You will feel clean and you feel liberated.

Content: These emotion-laden memories are embedded in our unconscious and drive our decisions and actions. What we think are rational decisions are in fact mostly illogical decisions driven by unconscious embedded memories. These memories are called saṁskāras.

Content: Samskāras are memories of experiences, mainly of unfulfilled desires, which are buried deep within our unconscious mind. They are extremely powerful. Many of our emotional and physical disturbances are caused by these samskāras, also called engrams by some psychologists. These are a collection of value systems and beliefs that we accumulate from childhood based on upbringing and experiences.

Content: These samskāras, whether you believe it or not, are also carried over from previous lives. Our energy body, the spirit or soul, when it disengages from the material body-mind system at death, carries the mindset arising from the experiences of the life that we lived. This mindset defines the way we are born again. I can tell you in all honesty, based on my experience, that this is absolutely true.

Content: In our Life Bliss programs, we teach you how to identify and dissolve these samskāras. In the Life Bliss Program - level two, also called the Nityānanda Spurana Program, the entire process is one of eliminating your unconscious, embedded memories. Accumulated samskāras are dissolved and those that you brought with you at birth are revealed.

Content: The samskāras that you were born with have the energy needed for fulfillment. Once you understand what these are, you can pursue them to fulfillment. This fulfillment is the ultimate liberation that is actually the meaning of your life. This is why you took this birth.

Content: Dissolution of the wasteful memories is the cleansing of the emotions attached to these memories. In these Life Bliss Programs you are led through techniques to relive your past experiences in a superconscious meditative state. This re-living helps in relieving you of the emotions associated with these memories.

Content: Look at it this way. These emotion-filled memories, caught in your cells as biomemory, are like heavy video files that occupy huge amounts of disk space. When the emotions are stripped away, the files become bare text files and shrink in size to a large extent!

Content: This is what happens. Your memories still remain so that they can be useful. However, all the emotions attached to these memories are stripped off and destroyed. So, when these memories do come back, they do not haunt you. You just witness them and move on.

Content: When this process is internalized, all your negativities are removed. You are no longer judgmental based on your past experiences and memories. Judgmental behavior is not caused by memories, but by the positive and negative emotions

Content: attached to these memories. Even what we imagine to be positive is never positive. The positive quality is a result of your ego and conditioning. An experience that gave you pleasure at one time and is remembered as being positive rarely brings you the same pleasure when repeated!

Content: Dissolution of these emotions, removal of these samskāras, transforms you. It is as if a veil is lifted from your eyes. You start understanding the true meaning of life. You start figuring out who you are and why you are here.

Content: This is what I have defined as my mission. My mission is your transformation.

Chapter Number: 3.5

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

Chapter Number: 3.6

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

Chapter Number: 3.7

Content: He who begins controlling the senses with the mind and performs selfless work through the organs of action is superior, O Arjuna.

Chapter Number: 3.8

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

Content: 'By your very nature,' Krishna gives the assurance here, 'By your very nature, your body and mind will work; if you just keep quiet that is enough; they will function beautifully.'

Content: Somebody asked me, 'Swamiji, how can I do the right thing? How should I train my mind to do the right thing?'

Content: I told him, 'Just keep quiet. Automatically your body and mind will do the right thing. If you just get out of your system, that is enough, the Divine will get in.'

Content: All we need to do is just get out, for the Divine to enter.

Content: 'By nature,' He says, 'prakrti-jair-gunaih' - by their very nature your body and mind know the right thing to do.' The problem however is that you never trust your body and mind fully. You always trust your ego and it finally dumps you! Yet you never trust your body and mind.

Content: Be very clear, your body and mind by nature will do their work. All you need to do is keep quiet, relax from your ego. Don't think your inner space is needed for the outer work. The person who understands what nitya (eternal) is, and what anitya (transient) is, the person who understands what is eternal and what is ephemeral and relaxes into Existence is always in eternal consciousnessness. He always resides in nitya ānanda - eternal bliss!

Content: Krishna says, 'A karma yogi (one who follows the path of action) is a man who relaxes into nitya ānanda and does his work.'

Content: Just relax into your inner space, and automatically you will be guided. You always think, 'If I relax mentally thinking that life is purposeless, how will I know what is right and what is wrong? How will I finish my work on time?'

Content: Please be very clear, when you worry about what is right and what is wrong, you will not make small mistakes; you will commit big blunders. The person who doesn't worry, who never bothers, may make small mistakes. But the person who continuously worries will never make small mistakes; he will commit big blunders. And I tell you, to take this leap of faith needs courage. Even if you make one or two mistakes, what is wrong?

Content: Taking the risk and jumping, and living without worrying, is what I call courage, the courage to enter into spiritual life. When you take the jump, you will naturally make some small mistakes. Don't worry about them.

Content: Putting up with that mistake is what I call penance. Penance is nothing but accepting the small mistakes which you make when the conscious transition happens in your being.

Content: When you move from ephemeral consciousness to eternal consciousness, when you move from worry to bliss, when you move from falsehood to truth, you will make a few mistakes.

Content: You will fall and rise just like a baby learning to walk. When babies learn to walk, they always fall the first few times. But just because of that, can you say they should never walk? No! Even if they make one or two small mistakes, they have to stand up and start walking. Those small mistakes of falling and trying to stand up are the penance done to learn how to walk.

Content: In the same way when you start trying to live without the ego, initially you may commit mistakes. But don’t worry about that. That is penance.

Content: Have courage and just enter into the zone of no-ego. Enter into the zone of eternal consciousness. Simply start living and realize the purposelessness of Existence.

Content: Decide, ‘Today onwards I will live without worrying. Life is too short to be spent worrying.’

Content: Don’t bother about the goals - just drop the goals. The moment you understand the beauty of purposelessness, all the wounds which you have created in your inner space will be healed. You will fall into the comfort of eternal bliss.

Content: A man who keeps his senses under control, but who is not able to keep his inner space under control is called a pretender, a hypocrite, says Krishna.

Content: Please be very clear, the quality of your life will be judged only based on the quality of your inner space, not the quality of your outer space. When you leave your body and enter into your next life, nobody is going to keep accounts of what type of car you drove, in what type of house you lived or what your bank balance was. No! These details will not come with you.

Content: How you lived, how your inner space was, what was the quality of your inner space when you lived, these are what you are going to carry forward with you. That is why the scriptures state, ‘You are going to carry with you only the saṁskāra (engraved memories), the karma (unfulfilled desires) and the vāsana (mindset) of your inner space - not the outer space.’

Content: A beautiful story from Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the enlightened master from India: A monk was living in a temple, doing meditation and preaching the glory of the Lord. Opposite to his dwelling lived a prostitute who was busy all day long. She was deeply devoted to the Lord. No matter what her business was, she was immersed in the silent contemplation of His glory. As was the tradition in earlier times, she and the others from her group would serve the temple by singing and dancing in front of the deity. Everyday this monk would notice everyone who entered the prostitute's house, at what time they entered, at what time they left, how many people entered; he would keep track of everything because he had no other work. When you don't have any work you will be interested in other people's work; Continuously, he kept accounts of how much time each person spent there, etc. He was almost like the diary maintainer for that prostitute! He maintained a complete diary of who came, who left, who visited regularly, who came once in a while or often. The whole day he thought about what was going on in there. But the prostitute lived in a different way. She thought, 'My life, my natural duty is this. This has been given to me in this life. I don't know any other profession. I have to live only like this. For my food I have to live this life. But please save me, O Lord! Let my mind and heart always be at Your feet.' She was deeply devoted to Krishna. Her inner space was filled with the Divine. Her inner space was filled with God's name and Divine love. Life went on. After many years, suddenly, both the monk and the prostitute died on the same day. The story is really beautiful! Both of them reached Yama Dharma's (Lord of death) court for judgment. First, the prostitute came in. Yama Dharma saw her list of sins and merits and said, 'Alright! Don't worry. You lived all your life thinking of the Divine, so you can go to heaven.' She was sent to heaven. It was then the turn of the monk. The moment the monk arrived, Yama Dharma said, 'This is your list of sins and merits. Throughout your life you thought about the wrong things, so you must go to hell.'

Content: The monk started shouting, 'How dare you send me to hell!' He is a professional preacher, so he knows how to shout! He started shouting, 'I will sue you.'

Content: Yama Dharma said, 'Please relax. Up here in heaven we don't bother about what you do in life; we bother about how you live. Through your body you lived a pure life. Look at planet earth and see how your body is being honored.'

Content: There the monk saw that his body was being honored like that of a celebrity; people were falling at the feet of his body. Big garlands were offered. Grand worship was being offered to the body. His body was being carried to a tomb earmarked for holy men and his body was receiving great respect.

Content: Yama continued, 'Through your body you lived a pure life; your body is now getting the rewards. But through the mind, you lived an impure life; so you have to go to hell.'

Content: Yama continued, 'Similarly, she lived an impure life through the body. Look at her body.'

Content: Nobody was there even to care. Because she was a prostitute, no husband, no sons, nobody was there even to do the last rites; the body was stinking. The scavengers just came and dragged the body and dumped it somewhere.

Content: Yama continued, 'See! Through the body she lived an impure life. Her body is suffering. But through the mind she lived a pure life, a divine life. She is therefore going to the Divine.'

Content: It is important how you live in your inner space. It is your inner space which matters. Please be very clear, again and again Krishna declares:

Chapter Number: 3.6

Content: karmendriyāṇi samyamya ya āste manasā smaran | indriyārthān vimūḍhātmā mithyācāraḥ sa ucyate || 3.6

Content: If you can't clear your inner space, even if you control your body, even if you control your senses, you are just a hypocrite. Your life will not be a blissful life; your life will not be a real life. Not only will it not be a spiritual life, it will not even be life!

Content: The meaning of living is bliss, but there is no purpose. The more you think about purposes, the more worries you will create; the more will you try to squeeze the most out of life. But life is much more intelligent than you.

Content: When you try to squeeze the maximum out of life, it just slips through your fingers.

Content: Life is like a river. If you place your hands in the river and keep them open, the river will always be there in your hands. But if you try to hold it, you will have only empty hands!

Content: Life is a flowing river. If you just allow it to happen it will continuously flow through you. The moment you try to possess it, you will have only empty hands. You will not be able to have life itself.

Content: The moment you experience in your inner space that nothing is going to be with you permanently, a deep healing, a breeze enters your consciousness. Your whole inner space is healed.

Content: You have so many wounds in your inner space. Wounds created by your desires, wounds created by your failures, wounds created by your near and dear ones. All these wounds will be healed with this one medicine.

Content: This one understanding that life is purposeless, that whatever you achieve is just nothing, and that nothing is going to be with you, is enough.

Content: A small story about Alexander:

Content: Alexander the Great, who committed so many murders, can never be called 'the Great'. Please be very clear: Never teach your kids that Alexander is great. Then you are inspiring them to commit murders! You are inspiring them to enter into war. Unconsciously, you are putting all these ideas into their heads. Never do that.

Content: Of course, he did one good thing. Fortunately or unfortunately, he met an enlightened master in India. Somehow, his teacher in Greece gave him the idea, 'Bring one enlightened master and the Vedas from India, and I will change the whole society.'

Content: So Alexander decided he would take at least one enlightened person from India. Somehow he got the chance to meet an enlightened person. He invited him, 'Please come to our country.'

Content: The master just laughed and said, 'No, no! I don't want to come anywhere; I am happy here.'

Content: nai 'nam் chindanti śastrāṇi nai 'nam் dahati pāvakaḥ / na cai 'nam் kledayantyāpo na śoṣayati mārutaḥ // 2.23

Content: he had never seen anybody who could laugh in front of a naked sword, who could laugh in the face of death. Even he was afraid.

Content: Please be very clear, all the so-called great warriors are cowards. They kill others before they are killed, that's all. They live in constant fear of death. That is why they kill others. Just to hide their cowardice or to escape from the fear of death, they start killing others. Alexander was totally shaken. He was shocked to see the courage of this master. He asked him, 'Please tell me something. How are you so courageous, so bold?'

Content: The master asked him in return, 'Tell me, why did you come to India?'

Content: Alexander replied, 'To conquer India.'

Content: The master continued, 'After that, what are you going to do?'

Content: Alexander replied confidently, 'I will conquer the next country.'

Content: The master again asked, 'After that, what are you going to do?'

Content: Alexander continued, 'I will conquer the next country.'

Content: The master persisted, 'And after that?'

Content: Alexander replied as if the answer was obvious, 'I will conquer the whole world.'

Content: The master questioned further, 'After that?'

Content: Alexander replied, 'I will relax and enjoy.'

Content: The master said, 'Fool! That is what I am doing now!'

Content: The master said, 'Don't you see that that is what I am doing now? Why do you need to go around and conquer the whole world to relax and enjoy? That is what I am doing now right in front of your eyes!'

Content: Only a man who has understood the impermanence of life can relax and surrender totally even in the face of death. The master gave a glimpse of the Truth to Alexander.

Content: That is why Alexander said to his ministers, 'After my death, during the funeral procession, please let both my hands hang out of the coffin, visible to all. Let people know that even the great Alexander could not carry anything with him'.

Content: Even Alexander could not carry anything with him.

Content: This is a beautiful story.

Content: You need to understand three things. The first thing is the courage and confidence radiated by an enlightened person.

Content: The next thing is the purposelessness of our running. For what was Alexander running? To relax and enjoy. This master was already doing the same thing!

Content: The third thing is that we are not going to carry anything with us when we leave. Even if the whole world worships you as a king, you cannot carry that with you! You have to go empty handed.

Content: Mad people also claim they are kings, while people who are sitting on the throne also claim they are kings. Why is it that the former are put in an asylum and the latter are respected?

Content: If the person is cunning enough to convince others about what he says, he is respected and given a throne. People who are innocent, people who are not so cunning, people who are not able to frighten others into accepting what they say, are put in the asylum, that's all.

Content: In Existence, there is no mad person, and there is no king. Both are one and the same. A person who can make others believe that what he says is the truth sits on the throne. The one who doesn't have that much cunningness sits in the asylum.

Content: A small story:

Content: One man in India suddenly started thinking and claiming that he was Jawaharlal Nehru. At that time, Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of India.

Content: If he had only been claiming, it would have been okay. He started dressing like him, which was also okay. Then he started writing letters to all the officials and signing them, 'Jawaharlal Nehru.' Naturally, he was taken to an asylum and treated for six months.

Content: After the treatment, he started behaving normally. The doctor said, 'I think you can be discharged now.' The day he was about to be discharged, fortunately or unfortunately, Jawaharlal Nehru himself visited the asylum.

Content: They brought this man to Nehru and introduced him. 'Sir, he is the person who used to claim he is Jawaharlal Nehru.'

Content: After the formal introduction, the man asked Nehru, 'Who are you?' Nehru said, 'I am Jawaharlal Nehru.'

Content: The patient said, 'Please stay here for six months. They will cure you!'

Content: Understand that there is no difference between these two. Somehow one is able to convince others that what he says is the truth. The other one is not able to convince others, that's all! There is no other difference.

Content: In Existence, there are no boundaries. In Existence there is no post.

Content: Never think that having comforts in the outer world will give you inner fulfillment. Never! All developed countries are filled with depression. They have the best roads, the best dams, the best bridges, the best infrastructure, but their people are depressed. Never think that outer space will give you inner space.

Content: If you want inner space, you need to work for the inner space. You need to understand the dynamics of inner space.

Content: Here, Krishna is giving you the technology to gain inner space. Let us see how we work, or how our mind moves. This graph represents your being. Material life

Content: Material life Spiritual life

Content: is the horizontal line and spiritual life is the vertical line. You continuously worry about whether to choose the horizontal line or the vertical line; whether to go on this (horizontal) path, or that (vertical) path.

Content: You are always stuck somewhere on the horizontal line or somewhere on the vertical line. You try to move but you are always caught in the dilemma of whether to go this way or that way.

Content: Mind is dilemma. Mind is nothing but dilemma. Whatever you choose, whether material life or spiritual life, you will always feel you are missing the other part. You will continuously feel you are missing something.

Content: As long as you think you are the mind, as long as you live with the mind, you will have this problem of material life verses spiritual life.

Content: Just like how people have goals in material life, they have goals in spiritual life too. There are so many people who say, 'I should meditate for seven hours daily. I should become enlightened. I should become that, I should do this, I should be that.'

Content: Please be very clear, goals in material life and goals in spiritual life, both make you go mad. If you want to become mad, continuously think of some goal. It is the easiest way to go mad! But if you can just withdraw into your being, you will just forget about the goal. And you can still work. By withdrawing into your being, you stop trying to locate a purpose somewhere all the time and running towards it.

Content: The man who runs behind the material goals, will always feel he is missing the spiritual goal. This is the reason all rich communities invariably follow spiritual masters. They carry a deep guilt and fear that they are missing spirituality.

Content: You can see this in every society. If the community is rich, they will have strong gurus, because of the deep guilt that they are missing spirituality.

Content: Please be very clear, that is why the so-called religious men and rich men are always trying to be together. You will always see these two types together because the rich man needs the religious man and the religious man needs the rich man. Both feel that they have missed the other aspect in their own lives.

Content: The person who travels along the horizontal line feels he is missing the spiritual life and the person who travels along the vertical line feels he is missing the material life. Both are trying to fulfill each other cerebrally.

Content: The materialist fulfills the spiritualist's ideal and the spiritualist fulfills the materialist's ideal. The person who chooses the spiritual life feels that if rich men are around him, what he is missing will be fulfilled. In the same way, the person

Content: who chose the worldly life feels that if he goes to a spiritual man or a religious man, he will be fulfilled. Both are helping each other.

Content: The man who realizes the purposelessness of both these goals, the purposelessness of the running, just falls back into his being. When you realize that whatever you consider the purpose or goal of your life is ultimately meaningless, the very moment you realize this and the glamour is gone, that very moment the need for perspiration is also gone; you stop running.

Content: Mind you, it is not inspiration; it is just perspiration that you give up! The moment all respect for the purpose is gone from your life, you will simply fall into your being.

Content: One important thing: The moment you fall into your being, you explode! Not only do you start flowing in the direction of both horizontal and vertical lines, but you also explode in 360 degrees in all dimensions. Whatever you can imagine and whatever you can’t even imagine will start happening. Only then do you become a truly multi-dimensional being.

Content: A man who has fallen into his being, one who has dropped goals, who has tasted the beauty of purposelessness of Existence, who has realized, who has fallen into his being, explodes in 360 degrees, in all dimensions. He simply radiates in all directions!

Content: He starts experiencing the ultimate bliss of spiritual life and the ultimate happiness of material life and something more! Only he enters into eternal bliss or Krishna consciousness.

Content: As long as you are caught up with material goals or spiritual goals, you travel only in one direction, because you think you are body or mind.

Content: The more you are caught up with purposes, the more you will think you are body or mind. When you realize the purposelessness of it all, you will straightaway fall into the depths of your being.

Content: Please be very clear, the Original Sin is thinking of yourself as body and mind. Don’t think that Adam eating the apple was the Original Sin. No! Why should we suffer for Adam’s sin? The Original Sin is not Adam eating the apple; it is you thinking of yourself as body or mind.

Content: Actually, for an individual to become enlightened, you don’t need the whole Gita. This single verse is enough to make an individual enlightened.

Content: Then why am I speaking on all the verses? It is only because there are so many different kinds of individuals. This are different keys for different individuals, which is the reason for explaining all the verses.

Content: If you can fall into yourself, just look into yourself and understand this one verse for yourself, not for the sake of going home and explaining it to your wife, or to your mother-in-law, or to your friend, or to somebody else, but for your own self.

Content: Whenever I speak, understand that I am speaking to you. Don't prepare notes in your mind to go and repeat it to somebody else. When you prepare notes you think, 'I should go and tell this to my husband; he really needs it.' When you do this, you are sure to miss the experience yourself!

Content: Just allow this one idea to work on you: the truth of the purposelessness of life. You can just close your eyes and think, contemplate for two or three minutes: 'What is really the purpose of my life? Why am I doing what I am doing? Where am I going? What is happening?'

Content: If your inner eye opens, if your inner space experiences the beauty of purposelessness, that is enough. You will fall into your being.

Content: As of now, you can experience neither material life nor spiritual life because when you are here, you are looking there and when you are there, you are looking here. You never experience either in a solid way.

Content: Your mind is not where your body is. You are not living inside your boundary. The other side of the river always looks greener. Something else is always calling you. Only when you experience the beauty of purposelessness will you be able to understand what Krishna says throughout Karma Yoga.

Content: Relax! Understand this one thing. Just understanding this one single idea can transform your whole way of thinking, working and living. When you understand there is no purpose of life, you will start enjoying every single moment; you will start living intensely in every single inch of your body. Every moment will become meaningful.

Content: When you think that life as a whole has a purpose, the individual moment will lose its meaning. If you think one month of your working time is worth fifty thousand dollars, you will judge the value of that one month as being only fifty thousand dollars.

Content: Please be very clear, one month of your life is more than just fifty thousand dollars! If you calculate the value of your life at fifty thousand dollars a month, it may come to some 10 million, 20 million or even 100 million dollars.

Content: Suddenly, if someone says, 'I will give you 50 million dollars, give me your life,' will you be able to give him your life? No! But, this is the way you are calculating and working! We are ready to sell our mind, our moments, our inner space by calculating the value of our lives. Logically, you fix the rate for your life. Once you fix the rate, only the rate is on your mind. You forget the work itself, or living itself, which is beautiful. But you miss it.

Content: If you think the whole has a purpose, then the part loses its meaning. When you realize that the whole has no purpose, the part will become meaningful. Your very living, every day itself, will become very beautiful. Your life everyday, your living, your sitting, your walking, your standing, everything will become a joyful experience.

Content: That is why they say sat chit ānanda, which means 'the bliss of the very existence'. Your very existence is blissful. You don't have to think that in the end you will have bliss. No! Your very existence is blissful. The meaning of existence is bliss, eternal bliss, nitya ānanda. But you need to take steps towards that bliss.

Content: By nature, man has to work. What I mean is, by their very nature, the senses have to be engaged in some action. Even if you try and control them and do nothing externally, the very act of restraint is an action in itself.

Content: The choice is really about how to work. Here, Krishna gives the answer to that. He says that we should perform work with devotion and without attachment to the results. Work without unnecessarily being bothered about whether or not it will fetch the results that you expect. If when we work, our thoughts are on the future, then we are not in the present moment. Am I right? Then how can we be performing to our fullest potential? How can I say that I am doing my work with full devotion if my mind is not totally merged with the task at hand? It's not possible. And how can I get the results I want if I'm not working to my full potential?

Content: When do you get worried or afraid? It is when you have an expected result, when there is an unwritten expectation, and an unconscious desire to achieve something as the result of an action. Krishna says, 'Drop the very desire, drop the very expectation.'

Content: We wonder, 'How can we function if we drop expectations?' Be very clear, I am not saying you should not plan and or you should do something without thinking. I am saying, 'Plan, but plan chronologically, not psychologically.'

Content: You see, there are two things: chronological planning and psychological planning.

Content: Chronological planning is planning on a timescale. You decide you to get up at a particular time, finish your morning routine by a particular time, reach the office at a particular time, finish the list of tasks you planned at the office by a certain time, and so on. This is a practical way to organize your work in such a way that it can give the best results. This is fine.

Content: But what do we do? We don't stop at this. We reviewed the plan in our head over and over again, thinking in different ways about whether we will be able to manage it. We keep supposing, 'What if this happens? What if that happens?'

Content: In the name of contingency planning, we just worry. A contingency plan should help come up with alternative solutions. Then it won't sap our energy. But we are thinking about how to handle something if the plan does not go as expected. Instead, if we apply our awareness to the problem in an objective way, the solution will simply stand out.

Content: But we complicate the whole process. We get worked up about contingency situations and introduce a complex negativity in the whole thinking process. We start hoping unconsciously that such a situation will not arise. We start worrying about what the possible unknowns are that have not been accounted for in the plan, and what not!

Content: Psychological planning boosts your ego. It makes you feel great and worthy. It makes you stay serious and feel that you are handling great things.

Content: Krishna says, 'One who does devotional work, without attachment, and controlling the senses, is superior to one who merely pretends to be in control of his senses and acts in renunciation.'

Content: There are people of the intellectual type, who are philosophers, who are well versed in all the scriptures, who look down upon the devotional and emotional practitioners! Intellectuals believe that their dry understanding of the non-duality of the Self is superior to that of those who fall at the feet of the Divine. Krishna firmly says, 'No, it is not so!'

Content: Krishna says that what makes the difference is your lack of expectations, the sense of purposelessness that defines your state. Sanyās (renunciation) is a state, not a label. The state of renunciation is not a state of doing nothing. You can never sit without doing anything. Even if you sit still in one place, you are sitting, you are breathing, is it not? The internal functions in your body are happening. Maintaining this very body requires that work be done.

Content: The breath that you take in carries prāṇa, the life energy that sustains you. Constantly, air that is laden with prāṇa goes in, leaves the prāṇa inside and comes out. From the cosmos, we are taking in prāṇa through air. This is also an action being performed to sustain the body. So, you cannot say you are not doing anything.

Content: You may think that it is better not to do any work rather than analyze what work you should do, how to do it, whether it will suit you etc. You can take this as an excuse for laziness, for your tamas. Tamas means laziness, lethargy. When Krishna says, ‘I am not the doer, it is just the senses performing the actions according to their nature,’ you say, ‘Why should I even bother to do anything?’

Content: Be very clear, by your very nature, you will act. Your body and mind, the gross body and the subtle mind, are, by nature, forced to do something.

Content: Just try telling your mind not to do any work, not to think about anything. Try to sit with a completely blank mind, with no mental activity, not thinking about anything. Just relax and try this simple exercise. You will initially try not to think about anything. You will try to be aware if any thought comes to your mind. But, after a few moments, you will find yourself having some thought, about something from the past or the future. Some random thought about something would pass through the mind.

Content: By nature, your mind will think about something or the other. If you try to force silence upon your mind, you will be forcing a dead silence, the silence of suppression. How long can you sustain that? The moment you drop your guard, mind will express its nature and start the wandering.

Content: So, neither expression nor suppression is the solution. It is better to be aware of the nature of the senses and the mind, and be engaged in work with a sense of devotion. Be aware that when you are in action, it is the senses acting. Then you will not get attached to the action or its result. Then you are free; you are liberated from the bondage of action. Action binds you only when you consider yourself the doer and have expectations about things being a certain way.

Content: Q: Swamiji, is it possible that meditation can take us into inaction? Even though my intention is to energize myself through meditation, I find I lose interest in things after meditation. Why?

Content: This is an interesting and real issue.

Content: Normally, you are in a state of action, which is the state of rajas. When you are in rajas, also described as aggression or passion, you are externally oriented. Your thoughts are focused on action of some sort or another, usually with some goal in mind. This is the state of most human beings, whether in business, academics or looking after the household. You plan your activities and goals and work towards fulfilling them.

Content: When you go into meditation and practice seriously (this happens especially when you are in an ashram environment), you realize the futility of these goal-based actions. Suddenly you will see everything that you are doing with a negative attitude. A lot of negativity will seem to be surfacing in you, telling you that whatever you are doing is meaningless.

Content: When you drop these negativities and do want to have anything to do with them, the state that you move into is tamas, or lazy inaction. Then suddenly you will find that you are uninterested in everything. You may just want to sleep, that is all. It is not quite depression, but a disinclination to act, because all actions seem meaningless.

Content: This may last a while, a few days, but not for long. Let it happen. Allow yourself to go through this process. Let all the negativities work themselves out of you.

Content: Then gradually you will move back into action with awareness, satva. You will act, since you cannot but act, as Krishna says, but now you will act without a purpose! The results of your action will no longer be of relevance to you. Success and failure no longer bother you.

Content: So do not worry if you slip into what you think is laziness while practicing meditation. It is likely to happen. It is a normal process. Just continue and you will move into purposeless action.

Content: People think that moving directly from rajas - aggression to satva - calmness is the natural evolution. It does not work that way. When you move out of your normal active and aggressive behavior, you first fall into tamas, inactivity. This is the movement of the mind when it turns away from aggression; it moves into inaction.

Content: When this shift is caused by meditation, the inaction does not last long. The mind soon moves into a relaxed, calm state.

Content: I have talked about this elsewhere in detail. The mind is constantly looking out through the senses. Its focus is external. It settles on the periphery. However, deep inside there is a longing inwards. So it is constantly getting pulled towards the center from the periphery. It is constantly getting pulled from the material to the spiritual.

Content: Usually it settles somewhere in the middle. That is why I say that all humans are eccentric! Their senses pull them to the periphery and their being attracts them to the center. The mind settles eccentrically in between.

Content: Meditation aids the movement inwards. As attention shifts from the periphery to the core, there is a resistance to what was experienced in the periphery. This leads to temporary inaction and detachment to peripheral experiences.

Content: Once a glimpse of the core is achieved, there is no detachment or dislike. There is neither attachment nor great attraction for something, nor detachment nor dislike for something. All experiences are viewed non-judgmentally and with non-attachment. At the core it is always bliss; it is the state of nityānanda, eternal bliss.

Chapter Number: 3.9

Content: O son of Kunti, perform your work for Me and you will do it perfectly, liberated and without attachment.

Chapter Number: 3.10

Content: Brahma, the lord of creation, before creating humankind along with selfless sacrifice said, 'By this selfless service, be more and more prosperous and let it bestow all desired gifts.'

Chapter Number: 3.11

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

Chapter Number: 3.12

Content: Satisfied with the selfless service, the celestial beings certainly bestow upon you the desired enjoyments of life. He who enjoys the things given by them without offering anything to the celestial beings is certainly a thief.

Chapter Number: 3.13

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

Content: There are two techniques by which one can liberate oneself from attachment to work. One is by telling oneself, 'I am not the doer.' By continuously reminding yourself that it is the senses and not you who are doing something; you distance yourself from the action and you are consciously aware that you are not the doer. This is what Krishna explained in the verse before this one.

Content: The other way is by surrendering the fruits of one's work to the Divine, to the ultimate life force that is conducting this universe. This is the technique that Krishna

Content: talks about here. He says, 'Perform your work for Me and you will do it perfectly, liberated and without attachment.' When you do work as a sincere, humble offering to the Divine, the very attitude of this surrender will make you do the job perfectly and you will be liberated. In your own life you can see this happening. When you are excessively bothered about the results, it is during this time that you actually think you are the doer of the action! That is why you get attached to the work and its results. This is when you start getting stressed and tense about results. Naturally, when you are tensed, you are not performing at your optimum. You are not performing at maximum efficiency because so much of your valuable energy is getting wasted in being tense. How will you then be able to get your job properly done? I always tell people, 'When you are afraid to make small mistakes and are extra careful, you end up making big blunders.' You waste your entire life trying to avoid making mistakes and attempting to be perfect, and your life becomes a blunder. This doesn't mean you can be careless about your work. I am only saying that you should have the courage to make mistakes. Only when you make mistakes can you learn from them. Only then have you seen both sides of the coin. Then, with experience, when you have learnt from the mistake, you will have the perspective of both sides. Otherwise, just at the crucial time, you will make mistakes. You can have this courage only when you are not attached to the ownership of tasks and results. When you see that Existence is purposeless and you are living in the loving, caring arms of Existence, you will relax and surrender to that very Existence. When you are in this relaxed mood, you can function at your best and enjoy every moment of life without feeling like the doer and therefore worrying about making small mistakes. Real surrender happens when this understanding becomes your experience. A beautiful story: A person who had faced a lot of trouble in life felt that he had had enough of his life. He ran away to the forest and wanted to find an enlightened master and achieve liberation. He searched day and night but was not able to find anybody. Then he decided, 'Whoever comes along this road first, whoever I meet on this road first, I shall accept as my master, that's all. I am going to follow his

Content: instructions. Oh God, I know you are here. Send me a proper person and guide me. That's all I ask.'

Content: He sat down and waited patiently. After two days, one evening, a thief came running that way. The man went and caught hold of the thief's feet saying, 'Oh master, please save me. You are my God. You are my guru. Please give me instructions on how to become enlightened.'

Content: The thief said, 'What is this? Leave me! I am a thief. The palace guards are chasing me; I just robbed the palace.'

Content: The man said, 'No! You are my God. You are my guru. You have to guide me on the path towards enlightenment.'

Content: The thief said, 'Fool! Don't you see I have all these stolen items with me? I have just robbed the palace. Let me go. Otherwise, I will kill you.'

Content: The man said, 'I don't know all that. You are my guru; teach me.'

Content: The thief thought, 'Now, what can I do?' Then he said, 'Alright, you say I am your guru. Then listen to me. Will you do whatever I say?'

Content: The man said, 'Yes, surely I will.'

Content: The thief said, 'Sit down.' The man sat down. The thief said, 'Close your eyes.' He closed his eyes. The thief told him, 'Don't open your eyes until I come back and tell you to open your eyes.' The man sat with all sincerity, his eyes closed, and the thief immediately ran away.

Content: The man continued sitting for hours. Then slowly, days passed, then a week passed; a month passed by. The man sat without food or water, absolutely still. The story says, Lord Shiva, seeing the depth of his sincerity, appeared before him and gave him enlightenment!

Content: This may look like a story. But please understand, it has a beautiful meaning and a truth behind it: the Very sincerity is enough. Nothing else is needed.

Content: Surrender has a tremendous power, a tremendous energy. Whether you surrender to an idol or to a person or to your guru, or even a rock, is not important. What is important is the surrender itself.

Content: Vivekananda says beautifully: 'When you pray to God, your prayers actually awaken your own inner potential and it showers blessings on you.'

Content: Even if you see logically, surrender helps you to simply relax. When you are relaxed, you can work beautifully, with intelligence, rather than with your pre-programmed intellect.

Content: A small story:

Content: There was once a bank cashier who used to take all the cash home everyday and bring it back with him the next morning. He had done this for a month and could not do it anymore.

Content: He found himself trembling all the way while driving back home and was not able to sleep at home with all the money in his custody. He finally asked his boss to relieve him of the job since he could not bear the stress any longer.

Content: His boss told him that even if the money were to be lost, he would not be blamed and he could continue with his job. The cashier slept peacefully from that day onwards.

Content: What was the difference in him? He was doing the same job, but why was the fear and tension not there anymore? It was because the responsibility had been shifted to a higher authority, that's all. This is surrender! Do your duty, leaving the responsibility of the results to Existence.

Content: Understand, Existence loves you and understands you better than you understand yourself. See the example of Arjuna; Krishna knew Arjuna better than Arjuna knew himself. The very trust, the very connectedness enabled Arjuna to relate with Krishna, who took him to the ultimate consciousness.

Content: Have simple trust in Existence, in the intelligence of the life force. This is the very life force, the energy that is keeping you alive. This is the energy behind the marvelous functioning of your brain, of your digestive system, of your nervous system.

Content: This is the energy that runs our solar system, all the galaxies and the entire universe, so smoothly. Imagine, is it possible for so many billions of stars and planets to move in such beautiful order even if you had the most modern traffic control system in place? Such a beautiful order, in what appears to be chaos when seen superficially!

Content: Life itself is so unpredictable; you cannot predict what can happen the very next moment! So many billions of living bodies on planet earth, so much diversity!

Content: Logically, it should be an unmanageable chaos. But there is a beautiful order in that very chaos. And in that order, the spontaneity and chaos of Existence fits in so beautifully!

Content: A very beautiful story from the Indian epic Mahabharata:

Content: King Yudhishtira performed a great sacrifice after the battle of Kurukshetra was over. He gave very rich presents to the priests and the poor. They were all impressed by the grandeur of this sacrifice. They praised him saying, 'We have never seen such a great sacrifice in our lifetime.'

Content: Just then, a small mongoose appeared. Half of his body was golden and the other half was brown. He rolled on the ground where the sacrifice was performed. He then exclaimed with sorrow, 'This is no sacrifice at all. Why do you praise this sacrifice?'

Content: The priests were aghast and angry, 'What! You silly mongoose! Did you not see the sacrifice? Thousands of poor people have become very rich. Millions of people have been sumptuously fed. So many jewels and clothes have been distributed!'

Content: The mongoose replied, 'That may be a big sacrifice for you. But to me the sacrifice offered by the poor brāhmin was much bigger.'

Content: 'What brāhmin and what sacrifice are you talking about? We never heard of this!' said the priests.

Content: The mongoose continued, 'There was a poor brāhmin in a village. He lived in a small hut with his wife, son and daughter-in-law. Once, there was a great famine. The whole family starved for days on end.

Content: One day, the poor man brought some food home. When they were ready to eat, they heard a voice at their door. The brāhmin opened the door and found a guest at the doorstep. In India, we say, atithi devo bhava, meaning 'the guest is God Himself'.

Content: The brāhmin said, 'O Sir! Please come inside. Please have a seat and have some food.' He gave his portion of the food to the guest. The guest said, 'Sir, I am still hungry. I have been starving for the last fifteen days.'

Content: The wife said to her husband, 'Please give him my portion also, but he was still hungry. The son said, 'Father, please give him my share also.' The guest ate this and yet he remained dissatisfied. The wife of

Content: the son said, 'O Sir, please have my portion too.' The guest ate this portion also and was fully satisfied. He then blessed the poor brāhmin and his family and departed in great joy.

Content: I entered the hut that day and found that these four persons died of starvation. A few grains of rice were found on the ground where the guest had eaten. I rolled myself on those grains. Half of my body became golden. Since then I have been traveling all over the world to find another sacrifice like that. Nowhere have I found one. Nowhere have I been able to convert the other half of my body into gold. This sacrifice of Yudhishtira has not turned the other half of my body into gold. That is the reason why I say that this is no sacrifice at all.'

Content: The sacrifice that Krishna refers to comes from a true sense of surrender to the universe. When we give to others what we can afford to give, it is no sacrifice. When we give to others by denying ourselves, then it is sacrifice. That is why most of the charitable work done by people, even with good intentions, does not fit into the essence of what Krishna says here. Of course, it is better to give others rather than foolishly stuff yourself. You will get sick with indigestion!

Content: But when you give at your own expense, by denying yourself, by starving yourself, you function at the level of the universal energy; you function as part of the principle of Vasudaiva kuṭumbakam meaning 'The whole world is my family' as told by Krishna; you operate out of compassion. Then there is no compulsion to give. There is no moral injunction to give. There is no expectation that you will go to heaven if you give and to hell if you don't.

Content: That's why, time and again, I tell people, 'Do not donate anything to the mission in the belief that I will help you pass through the gates of heaven. First of all, there is no heaven, and second, I am not its gatekeeper!'

Content: You will be in heaven when you donate after falling fully in tune with the principles of the mission. You do not have to think about a heaven after you die. You will die in heaven on earth if that is your mental attitude.

Content: There is a joy, an eternal joy, and a bliss that enters your being when you act out of sacrifice, selflessly. The bliss is always there, but when you are free from the filtering ego and mind, you start experiencing that bliss. The garbage of expectations disappears and the bliss is experienced.

Content: This was the principle on which various sacrificial rituals came into existence in the vedic culture. These were instruments of mass meditation. The energy of the

Content: cosmic space (ākāśa) was captured by the vibrations of the air created by chanting mantras. This energised air fuelled the sacred fire in the sacrificial fire pit (homa kuṇḍa). This energy was transferred to pots of water by physically linking the pots to the fire pit through many threads. This energised holy water was then sprinkled on bodies, deities and the earth to complete the energy cycle. All five energy points: space, air, fire, water and earth were connected through such a ritual to benefit humanity!

Content: It was only a metaphoric offering of all that was sacrificed to the fire. During these rituals, great kings and nobles who performed the rituals gave away to those who lacked material wealth. These rituals helped to maintain material balance.

Content: But, as the mongoose said, even the rājasūya yāga of Yudhishtiṛa, performed to celebrate his victory, lacked the spirit of sacrifice of the poor brāhmin family. So give away what you need, not what you do not need!

Content: Q: Swamiji, what is suffering? Why do we suffer? Is suffering essential?

Content: In the Buddhist tradition, life itself is considered suffering. This is at variance with what I say - that life is bliss and meant to be lived blissfully.

Content: Buddha talked about how we live our lives. I talk about how we can live our lives.

Content: Buddha does not talk about sins and merits. His code of conduct is the middle path, one of balance. He implies that there is no real right and wrong, and as long as you lead a balanced life, it is fine.

Content: Buddha also says that desires are the root cause of all suffering. I would like to add a condition. Unfulfilled desires are the root cause of all suffering. When a desire is fulfilled, when it brings with it the energy to fulfil itself, and gets fulfilled, it leaves no traces behind. There is no hangover with respect to that desire. Such are the desires that the energy body brings with it to the body it is born in. These are the desires that each one of us is born with. They come with the energy needed to fulfil themselves and this is what we call prārabdha karma.

Content: Prārabdha karma are the real needs we are born with. They are the ‘opening balance’ of energy in the body at birth. They arise out of the mindset (vāsana) with which the energy, the soul or ātman, leaves the previous body-mind system.

Content: To this opening balance we keep adding acquired desires which do not arise from our core. We see what others have, or are influenced by media such as internet, television, radio, billboards etc, and our list of desires grows. We want to be happy and we think that by adding more and more to our lives we will somehow accomplish it. But we have the energy reserves to fulfill only our natural desires, our prārabdha, and not these acquired desires, āgāmya karmas. These āgāmya karmas are our unconscious desires, our samskāras that cause suffering.

Content: These are the desires that Buddha refers to which he says lead to suffering in our life. These desires create expectations of fulfillment, and when they are not fulfilled, they create suffering and linger on within our body-mind system.

Content: It will help you to realize that suffering itself is not an event in your life; it is actually only your response to an event.

Content: Whether or not you suffer in a particular situation depends entirely upon your reaction to that situation. When do you undergo suffering? When you fall ill? When your neighbor's situation improves? When your partner leaves you for someone else?

Content: Well, suppose you decided to just accept these situations without anger or resentment; just as they are, so be it. Would you still suffer as much?

Content: Try to accept the inevitability of the moment, without reaction. It is only your negative response to an experience that allows it to hurt you. Don't you see: no one or nothing can make you suffer without your silent permission? When we have certain expectations or fantasies that aren't fulfilled, we suffer. If we don't learn from the situation and drop the expectations, we go on suffering.

Content: Make a habit of witnessing experiences minus your personal judgment. Learn to recognize with clarity the causes of your suffering - the obvious and the subtle. The ability to do this will come, not in a day but certainly through practice.

Content: One of the most deeply hidden reasons for suffering is that you could be enjoying it! For example, falling ill can become a source of pleasure if it brings you the attention and care you have been craving for. It can also be a means to escape a situation that is distasteful to you. Examine why it sometimes gives pleasure to inflict pain upon yourself or others.

Content: Is there a better channel through which you can receive the same pleasure - without the suffering? Become aware - this is the first step. The second is to accept totally the here and now - without questions and without reaction.

Content: Awareness with acceptance - this is the only way out of suffering.

Content: The second part of the question is, 'is suffering essential?' Yes, in a way it is.

Content: Suffering can be a powerful catalyst for growth. Just like a seed that has to first rupture before a plant can grow and blossom, intense suffering can break down the defenses of your ego, leaving you open and vulnerable to Existence.

Content: With your usual thought patterns shattered, you begin to see things as they actually are. You begin to recognize a subtle distance between you and the pain - that it is not 'your' pain, that it is not something intrinsic to you. In fact, pain is simply the response you have chosen to that particular situation. And once you see that, how can you suffer any more? In consciously accepting your pain, you truly let go of it.

Content: Suffering is not necessarily the key to bliss. But if you learn your lessons well, suffering can certainly open your eyes to the choice of suffering. It can teach you how unnecessary it is to suffer, and how you can move out of it.

Content: This is what I call 'necessary suffering'! The suffering that teaches you that there is no need to suffer is what I call 'necessary suffering'.

Chapter Number: 3.14

Content: All beings grow from food grains, from rains the food grains become possible, the rains become possible from selfless sacrifice.

Chapter Number: 3.15

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

Chapter Number: 3.16

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

Content: These concepts are beautiful concepts explained metaphorically. Great truths are conveyed in our scriptures in very few words because our masters did not depend on communication through words. They imparted knowledge by communion with the disciple.

Content: So, this metaphorical explanation in a few verses actually has a deep meaning about life, about how we connect with life, how we depend on the universe, and how we affect the whole universe. Just this concept that Krishna explains in a few verses here is explained in detail in the Cāndogya Upaniṣad.

Content: Our relationship with the activity of nature outside is a very deep one. Our actions are like oblations offered in a fire sacrifice. Our activities are not just movements of the limbs. When we perform a yajña, a fire sacrifice, we pour various offerings into the fire. We do so to tap the cosmic energy and to flow in tune with Existence, with nature.

Content: The subtlest, most powerful and all-pervasive cosmic energy is invoked through the slightly less subtle air element when we chant the mantra and we connect to the still, less subtle fire energy through the fire ritual. Energy is then transferred to water, a grosser energy, and then the water in the pots is poured over plants, idols and humans as well as the earth, which is the grossest form of energy.

Content: A physical action is a gross action, something that can be seen on the physical plane. Thoughts, mental actions, are subtler and they cannot be seen on the physical plane.

Content: When we perform sacrifice, we perform certain invocations to the higher energies. So, we attract corresponding effects for our actions. Our actions are like offerings in a sacrifice. When the actions are in tune with the flow of Existence, it is like offering ghee (clarified butter) into the fire. When we do not flow in tune with Existence, it is like offering mud into the fire. You know what kind of smoke will come out of the fire when you offer ghee and what kind of smoke will come out when you offer mud. Like how from the quality of the smoke you can determine the quality of the offering you gave to the fire, the result of your actions can be determined from the quality of your actions.

Content: The quality of the end result is based on our input, our offerings.

Content: Krishna says that rains become possible from sacrifice. Rain is a grosser form of energy that is activated by the subtler energies, which are influenced by our actions, thoughts and vibrations.

Content: Rain is the cause for the growth of food grains. Food is needed to sustain our bodies and minds, which give rise to further action.

Content: So you see this cycle now, of how the subtle energy manifests itself in the grosser world and how the actions in the grosser world affect the subtler elements.

Content: If we just understand this, we will realize that everything that we do and experience is caused by our own actions. We invite our destiny. As we sow, so shall we reap.

Content: Our body-mind is highly influenced by our thoughts and words.

Content: Bliss attracts fortune. You may wonder, 'Fortune can bring us bliss but how can bliss bring us fortune?'

Content: In India, when any new activity is started, be it a business or construction or something to do with education, the first thing that we do is sit down for a few

Content: moments, close our eyes and remain in a meditative mood. We try to bring about some kind of an energy play or transformation inside us. Of course, over the years, this has become a prayer and a ritual. That is a different issue. But the first thing that we do is sit down and try to kindle the energy flow in us. When the energy flow in us becomes harmonious, it has the property of influencing external incidents. Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, like it or not, want it or not, you are deeply connected to Existence. You are an integral part of Existence, not an independent island as you think. Every subtle movement or subtle thought in one part of the universe causes a counter-effect at that same moment elsewhere in the universe. Our thoughts and energy flow have the capacity to create and attract incidents and people of the same nature. What I have said here is one of the age-old truths expounded by our ṛṣis, sages in the Upaniṣad, vedic lore. It is interesting that modern science is coming up with some startling evidence that reveals some of these truths now. You should know about this research conducted by Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Japanese doctor and research scientist who has published his findings in the book, The Hidden Messages in Water. He conducted extensive experiments on water samples taken from all over the world. He took similar samples of water and exposed the water to different influences. To one set of samples, he spoke positive words such as 'love' and 'gratitude'. He recited Buddhist chants to another. Over another set, he spoke words such as 'anger' and 'war'. Then he froze the different water samples so that he could photograph their crystal form. In the samples that had been exposed to positive energy, beautiful clear crystals were formed, like diamonds! The water exposed to negative energies did not form into crystals; they looked like a tumor: dark, cloudy and without any distinct geometrical pattern. Several hundred experiments were conducted to prove the effects of the vibrations created by our words and thoughts on matter. Water being the most common molecule in our bodies, we can now see the obvious and dramatic effect

Content: our thoughts have on ourselves and others! It doesn’t stop there. Our thoughts have the capacity to affect the oceans and the seas.

Content: Recent research by Russian scientists throw an entirely new light on how our DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies. They did experiments where they superimposed certain frequencies onto a laser ray and with it influenced the DNA frequency and thus the genetic information itself!

Content: In quantum physics, there is a notion of a wormhole that is essentially like a shortcut in space-time. It is like a tube that can connect two distant locations in the universe by bending space-time. By going from one end to the other through the wormhole, one can travel from one point in the universe to another without going through the usual space-time. One can even access parallel universes if the two ends of the wormhole are in different universes.

Content: Russian scientists showed that wormholes could be built into the DNA, so that information can be transmitted outside of space and time. The DNA attracts these bits of information and passes them on to our consciousness. They give this explanation for the process of hyper-communication or what we call intuition.

Content: Science is beginning to touch what our vedic seers have declared thousands of years ago about collective consciousness. What we do in any plane, physical or mental, affects our consciousness. And since we are all a part of the common fabric called Existence, our consciousness is a part of the collective consciousness, which also gets affected by our thoughts and actions.

Content: Weather is strongly influenced by earth resonance frequencies, and the same frequencies are also produced in our brains. When many people synchronize their thinking, the individual consciousness synchronizes and affects the collective consciousness. So we can actually even influence the weather by our thoughts.

Content: This is what Krishna means when He says rains are caused by sacrifice. It is a metaphorical statement. When a large number of people synchronize and focus their thoughts with no expectations and with full faith in the abundance of the universe, the universe responds. Rain falls, grains grow, and abundance results.

Content: It has actually been reveled by various studies that when a number of people focus their thoughts on something similar, like during communal celebrations or a football world championship, then certain random number generators in computers start to deliver ordered numbers instead of random ones!

Content: Also understand, that all the so-called natural calamities are nothing but the effects of global negative thoughts.

Content: From a young age, we have been trained in 'mathematical logic', never in 'Existential logic'. Mathematical logic is very straightforward and should be applied only to things where it is appropriate. In matters concerning life and relationships, mathematical logic will only cause chaos. With it, we will always look to conclude with a 'good' or 'bad' judgment. There is something beyond and deeper than this - and that is Existential logic. This comes with a mature understanding and flowering from within.

Content: Your thoughts and energy directly affect your body, your cell structure, your decisions, your capacity to fulfill your decisions, the outer world incidents, and even accidents.

Content: Currently, you are always centered in either greed or fear. Every action that you do is out of either desire or fear. It becomes very easy for others to exploit you because of this. You become very vulnerable. You create a mental setup that attracts similar incidents to your life. You also corrupt your energy flow in this way.

Content: If you can change your mental setup from this type to one of bliss, or ānanda, then your energy flow will start brimming and your thoughts will be much clearer and you will be more in the present moment.

Content: When you do this, you have every power to control external incidents because you and Existence have a very deep connection at the energy level. This is the thread that you need to catch in order to understand that bliss attracts fortune. When you are blissful, when your mental setup is not one of worry, fear and greed but one that is in the present, always joyful, you will automatically attract all good things to yourself.

Content: When you throw a pebble into a lake, ripples start from that point to the edge of the lake. So also your thoughts have a permanent effect on the universe. Imagine if the lake were infinite. Ripples with a continuous effect would be created, even though the magnitude of each ripple would be different.

Content: So also every action has an effect. Using the same principle, I can say that you can actually create the desired effect by just visualizing it. For example, if you meditate, if you visualize you are bliss, bliss is bound to happen in and around you as an effect. It would seem that the cause has created the effect. But in life, cause and effect are actually a cycle, each generating and being generated by the other.

Content: This is the endless cycle that Krishna refers to when He says that work originates with the Creator, who in turn originates from the supreme Existence, and therefore all sacrifices are from the Supreme to the Supreme.

Content: When we are in the mood and mode of surrender, we no longer retain our identity. We are one with Existence. Whatever we do, we do by Existence and for Existence. There is no separation.

Content: Q: Swamiji, how can we surrender the ego when this wanting to surrender is itself an expression of the ego?

Content: A question to you: How are you going to surrender the ego, when it does not exist?

Content: Suppose you are sitting in a dark room. You want the darkness to go out. Can you push it out? Can you fight darkness and force it to leave the room? No! No matter how long you keep trying, you are ultimately going to be defeated - and that too by something which does not exist!

Content: Ego is like darkness; it has no positive existence. Just like darkness is simply the absence of light, ego is nothing but the absence of awareness. To struggle to kill the ego is like struggling to push darkness out of the room.

Content: To really expel darkness, what you need to do is forget all about dealing with darkness. Focus your energy on light instead. Just bring a small lamp into the room, and you will find that the darkness has fled on its own!

Content: So, I tell you to forget all about the ego. Instead, focus on bringing a lamp of awareness into your being. Bring the light of your consciousness to your unconscious zone. When your entire consciousness has become a flame, you will find that the ego is no more.

Content: Ego is an illusion. You cannot surrender it when you are unaware - because you don't know how. Of course, you cannot surrender it when you become aware either - because then you realize that there is nothing left to surrender!

Content: What you have heard, read, been taught - 'Surrender the ego in order to attain self-realization' - is an utterly impractical idea. It can happen only the other way round. Self-realization dawns, and suddenly you cannot find the ego anymore. Surrender has already happened, just like that.

Content: However, I am glad that the question has arisen in your being. Ego is the root cause for all your anxieties, sorrows and tensions. It is your doorway to hell. To actively feel that you want to drop the ego, to feel the need to get rid of this burden is in itself a step towards awareness. It shows that you are stirring from your sleep!

Chapter Number: 3.17

Content: 3.17 One who takes pleasure in the Self, who is satisfied in the Self and who is content in his own Self, for him certainly, no work exists.

Chapter Number: 3.18

Content: 3.18 Certainly, he never has any reason for doing his duty or not doing his duty in this world.

Content: He does not depend on any living being.

Chapter Number: 3.19

Content: 3.19 Therefore, one should work always without attachment.

Content: Performing work without attachment, certainly, man achieves the Supreme.

Chapter Number: 3.20

Content: 3.20 King Janaka and others attained perfection by selfless service.

Content: To guide others, you too must act selflessly.

Content: Our Eastern masters have declared again and again, 'You are bliss. You are love. You are eternal bliss itself.' When you understand and experience this truth, you are enough unto yourself; you are completely satisfied and enjoying yourself. Then nothing exists for you to achieve because you are already the ultimate thing you can achieve!

Content: As of now, you are running behind something out of greed, thinking that when you achieve that, when you possess that, it will give you bliss. Either you are running behind something out of greed or you are running away from something out of fear. You are afraid that something will take away your joy, your life.

Content: Both these, running towards something and away from something, become irrelevant when you understand that you are a part of this loving Existence which is taking care of you every moment.

Content: Existence is taking care of you every moment. Do you think you can be alive even for one moment if Existence does not want you to be alive? The very fact that you are alive proves that Existence wants you here, now, in this form, in this place. This is the ultimate cause for celebration! What more do you want?

Content: Existence has provided, is providing and will provide for each and every one of your needs. Your suffering and struggle is only because you don’t trust that you are being provided all that you need, because you consider yourself separate from Existence, who you think is your enemy.

Content: People often look at my feet and tell me that I have such smooth and soft feet. They do not know that I have wandered thousands of miles with no footwear in all possible types of terrain, from the Himalayas in the north to Kanyakumari in the south, from Dwaraka in the west to Ganga Sagar in the east. Understand, when you walk upon mother earth with great respect and love, She will simply cherish you.

Content: I have never worn footwear in my early years of life. Even now when I enter Tiruvannamalai, where I was born and where I grew up, I don’t wear footwear. From childhood I never wore footwear in that town. When I used to go to college by bus, I used to put on the shoes only after the bus left the Tiruvannamalai town, and would take them off when it entered the town again. It is a holy land that one must fall in tune with. Many of our followers take off their shoes when they are in this town.

Content: Once I was on an elephant safari on a jungle path. The guide showed me a path, which was used by humans, alongside the one on which the elephant was walking. The guide’s path had no grass on it. The guide said that where man walks, no grass grows, but where the elephant walks, the grass does not die!

Content: As humans we have lost touch with nature, with Existence. We have fallen out of tune with ourselves and with nature. That is why we experience nature unpleasantly. Even in our prayers there is no gratitude, there is only asking. We have become beggars.

Content: Also, you are not satisfied with how Existence chooses to take care of your needs. You look at others and have a big list of wants based on what others have.

Content: You fail to understand that each of us is unique and each of us has been provided with exactly what we need. Instead, you start looking at what others have and want that also. Greed sets in.

Content: This is how you waste your entire life running behind desires and running away from reality. We are focused only on the outer world. Our joys and sorrows are a result of this. As long as the outer world is responsible for your happiness, there can be no permanent happiness.

Content: The person who is centered does not depend on external causes for enjoyment. He does not depend on other people to feel blissful. He does not need some particular event to happen to feel joyful. Constantly, the fountain of bliss is happening within him. He is enjoying within himself. He is enjoyment itself!

Content: Actually, the fountain of bliss is happening spontaneously in each and every one of us. When I say it is spontaneously happening, I mean that it is happening without any reason.

Content: We always think that joy or happiness can happen only for some reason. On the other hand, we feel we can be sad for no reason! Just like that, for no reason, you can be morose, sad, thinking, ‘What is this life all about?’ But you always feel you need some reason to be happy.

Content: It is you who is making all the effort to stop the fountain of bliss that is happening in your being every moment. The first level meditation program, Ananda Spurana Program, (Life Bliss Program Level 1) which deals with the seven cakras, the seven energy centers in our body, is all about ‘stopping the stopping’ of the fountain of bliss. The second level program, Nithyananda Spurana Program (LBP Level 2) reinforces this and shows you how to keep this fountain of bliss happening eternally in you.

Content: Here Krishna says a beautiful thing:

Content: King Janaka was a beautiful example of a true karma yogi, a man of continuous and selfless action. He was a king. He ruled a kingdom and yet was unattached, liberated. Just like Krishna who ruled a kingdom and yet was a sanyāsi in the truest sense of the word, Janaka was a model king who was untouched by the external world.

Content: Once, an ascetic went to the court of King Janaka and saw how Janaka was neck-deep in the activities of his kingdom, living like a king. He then thought to himself, ‘Janaka seems to be a materialistic person. He is entrapped in so many worldly matters.’

Content: Janaka understood what the ascetic was thinking. Janaka called him and asked him, 'What kind of an ascetic are you? Instead of being happy and content within yourself you are trying to find fault with others? This is a grave sin especially for an ascetic, a person who is supposed to know about these things. For this, I have to give you the most severe punishment. You will be hanged to death next week.'

Content: Now, the ascetic was terrified. He could not sit in peace. He spent sleepless nights thinking of the gallows. He dreamt daily that his neck was being tied to a rope. He became very thin and pale.

Content: Janaka sent a servant to call him on the day of the execution. The ascetic was unable to stand before the king. He trembled and fell on the ground. Janaka offered him some fruits and a cup of milk. He ate the food, but his mind was on the gallows.

Content: Janaka asked him, 'How do you like the taste of the milk now? Is it good? Did you relish your food these past seven days?'

Content: The ascetic replied, 'Oh king! I did not feel any taste in the food or milk that you offered me just now. My mind is only on the gallows all the time. I see only gallows everywhere.'

Content: Janaka said, 'Just as your mind is always on the gallows, so also my mind is always fixed on the Divine, though I am involved in worldly activities discharging my duties as a king. Though I am in this world, I am out of the world. Work for the world, unattached like myself.'

Content: Janaka, though neck-deep in the activities related to the administration of his kingdom, was completely unattached, liberated.

Content: Once, Janaka was brought news that there was a fire in the city. Ordinarily, a king would have been agitated that part of his kingdom was in flames, and in danger.

Content: But Janaka said, 'My wealth is unlimited and yet I have nothing. Even if the whole of my capital Mithila is burnt, nothing is lost to me.'

Content: It is not that Janaka was not bothered that there was a fire in his kingdom. He was completely involved in what he had to do, but at the same time was completely detached from the incident. He was centered on his being, not on the world.

Content: And I tell you, only when you are completely detached can you be completely involved. Otherwise, your very sense of ownership and emotional attachment will be a hindrance to plunging headlong into the task. Only when you remain without internalizing the incident can you perform the task in the best way, without expectation and without being concerned about the results.

Content: Q: Swamiji, whenever I am in your presence, all questions disappear and everything seems possible. But when I am away from you, all the familiar doubts creep in. Why does this happen and what can I do about it?

Content: If a question disappears on its own in my presence, then it is time to realize that it was not a true question at all. It was merely a play of the mind.

Content: When you are with me, mind is no more in control - you simply flow into meditation. You become a loving, serene silence. In this state, only a question that is truly your question, one that is completely relevant to you, will still remain with you.

Content: In my presence, you become so intensely aware, so completely present that there is no space for questions to arise. When you leave my presence, the mind is free to impose the past and the future upon your present - for what else are your questions but the play of the past and the future upon your present?

Content: Just like the ego, there is no point in fighting with or condemning the mind. It is a pointless struggle that you will be sure to lose. Instead, it is enough to be aware that this is the very nature of the mind. It can be expected to behave in no other way. It is bound to bring in anxiety, confusion and doubt.

Content: Just to be conscious of this is enough. Do not pass judgment on the mind. Even to be angry with your mind is to lose your energy to it.

Content: As you witness the workings of the mind, you will slowly become aware that you are not the mind - you are more than the mind, you are the watcher. Slowly, in place of the chaos of thoughts that you call your mind, a clear, intense consciousness arises. At that moment, all questions dissolve and the mind is no more. This is the experience you find yourself having in my presence. And what I have just told you is the way to make it stay with you always - even when you are not with me! It is a slow process; give it time. It will happen.

Chapter Number: 3.21

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

Chapter Number: 3.22

Content: O Partha, there is nothing that I must do in the three worlds. Neither am I in want of anything. Yet, I am always in action.

Chapter Number: 3.23

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

Chapter Number: 3.24

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

Chapter Number: 3.25

Content: Even the ignorant do their work with attachment to the results, O Bharata, the wise do so without attachment, for the welfare of the people.

Content: Here, Krishna talks about the practical aspects of why a leader needs to act in a responsible manner.

Content: There is a difference between the state of a leader and the status of a leader. Most of us want to attain the status of a leader but not the state. When you achieve the status of the leader, it is ego-fulfilling and you feel great. Most politicians are great examples of this status. They exert the power of their position on others.

Content: Understand how they got that position of power first. They were a little more dominating and a little more convincing than the people whom they were trying to

Content: dominate, that's all. It is not that they were more intelligent or more capable. They had greater strength of conviction, whatever it was about, and they were more energetic in convincing others about their conviction. Or probably, because there was no one else to fill in the place, they became the leader!

Content: The state of the leader is something totally different. It is the state of the leader that affects people, whether it is people under a political leader or people in an organization in the corporate world under a CEO. Problems of all kinds, ranging from stress to discontentment and violence, result because the leader has achieved the status and not the state.

Content: I always tell my disciples, 'Practice what I teach you. Don't just preach what I teach. Only by example can you inspire others to follow you.' It is easy to utter words and talk about what you have understood intellectually from my teachings, but that understanding is very shallow.

Content: Deep understanding happens only with experience. Only when it becomes your own experience does the understanding become complete. Then you are unshakeable in your conviction. Otherwise, if the understanding is just based on words, it is based on somebody else's experience and not on your own. Then there is always the possibility that somebody can come and shake your belief. The roots of conviction, in this case, are not deep and strong enough to withstand all kinds of questions.

Content: There are three types of people: the disciples (or the followers), the masters, and the leaders (or guides).

Content: The disciple is one who has not yet experienced the teachings of the masters but who is interested and has embarked upon the path. He needs some guidance on the path. He does not yet know how to practice what is being taught.

Content: The master is one who has had and is in the ultimate experience. He is already in the ultimate state. Out of compassion, he shows the path to reach his state to all those who would like to be in that state. It is not necessary for the master to practice what he preaches because he is beyond the common rules of conduct.

Content: A small story:

Content: Once, there was a Zen master who used to advise people not to smoke. But he himself used to smoke everyday.

Content: One day, a disciple asked him, 'Master, how can you tell people that they should not smoke when you yourself are smoking?'

Content: The master replied beautifully, 'Understand, I am not in the same state, the same plane, as the person whom I am teaching.'

Content: Masters are not in the same plane as the followers or the leaders. They need not follow what they tell you to do to reach their state, because they are in a completely different state altogether. They understand the illusion of the physical plane that their body-mind system operates in. Whatever they may do physically is in a state of complete awareness.

Content: I always tell people, they need to be aware and completely present when they eat. But if you have been around me, you will see that I never concentrate on my food when I eat. When I eat, I will be reading something or talking to someone.

Content: It is like this: For you, you have to meditate to be aware of the food you are consuming, so that you eat only as much as is needed and not more as you usually do. But for me, if I am aware, I will not be able to eat the amount of food my body needs. I have to distract myself and remove the awareness and only then the food will go inside! An enlightened being's system is very different from an ordinary person's system. That is why things that apply for ordinary people cannot be applied to an enlightened being.

Content: A leader or guide is someone who is in between the master and the follower. He has not yet reached the ultimate state of the master but he has had glimpses of that state. He is not as inexperienced as the follower. He is the bridge to lead the follower to the master. I always tell the teachers of the mission that it is their responsibility to practice what they teach because they are the bridges leading the people they teach to come to me.

Content: One more thing: It is not that you need to practice just so that others get inspired. Understand that the very practice will give deep understanding to you. That is the first effect, the actual result. Being an inspiration to others will be just a byproduct. It will result automatically from the confidence that you radiate in your body language and words when you teach people out of the strength of your own conviction.

Content: In these verses, Krishna beautifully explains what walking the talk means through His own example. He says there is nothing in the three worlds, the

Content: nether-world, earth or heaven, for Him to achieve. There is no duty that binds Him. Even though He has nothing to gain, lose or even to do, He is constantly engaged in action. Why?

Content: Because people look up to Him as God, they would obviously follow the path He sets. They would simply follow what He does. He is now responsible for leading them on the correct path.

Content: So even though He Himself has no reason to engage in work, He does so for the sake of the people who will follow Him. If He did not engage in action, people would follow His example and fall into inaction or tamas.

Content: Every year, I take people to the Himalayan mountains. The Himalayas are an energy field; they are living energy. It is a lifetime experience to be in the lap of nature, to be in the amazing energy field there. It can be a tremendous inspiration, a powerful transformation just seeing and living life in the Himalayas for fifteen days.

Content: In the Himalayas, we do various types of rituals at various places, at the cār dhām (the four sacred pilgrimage centers in that area). Of what use are the rituals to me? But I do them for you so that you understand their significance and you get inspired to do them and benefit from them.

Content: After enlightenment, I came from the Himalayas to be amidst the people. I could have just stayed there happily and blissfully. But I have come here because people need to be guided on the right path. That is why masters come to planet earth - to guide people.

Content: Seeing me work constantly, being intensely involved in work, whether it is administration or giving discourses or planning upcoming activities or healing people or teaching, whatever the action may be, people are inspired to be engaged in work constantly, blissfully enjoying every moment.

Content: I don't have to give you my words. You can see me and learn from my body language much more than from my words. I give you words only to silence your mind so that you can absorb my energy. Otherwise, if I don't talk, you will be chattering inside yourself and will miss my message.

Content: As Krishna says, I need to be careful what I do for the sake of those who follow.

Content: The problem is, what I do is my experience. It is an expression of my experience. Unless you experience it yourself, it cannot become your truth. So the same action will have a completely different meaning and effect when done by a disciple than when done by a master. But if you follow the master's teachings and watch his body language, you will imbibe enlightenment itself.

Content: For example, look at a simple teaching by Buddha, 'Watch your breath.' This very simple vipāśanā meditation technique has led thousands of people to enlightenment.

Content: But look at a seemingly powerful discovery of the principle behind the atom bomb: the nuclear fission. It was a great truth, but when it came into the hands of an ignorant person who did not understand the implications of it, it resulted in so many countries piling up so many atomic weapons that the earth can now be destroyed several times over!

Content: It is the energy behind the action, the energy of the being that decides the quality and hence, the effect of the action. It is not the action itself that decides the quality.

Content: You must have seen that there are some people who can get away with anything, even something that would normally appear as a disrespectful action. But somehow, the action does not hurt people. It is because there was no negative attitude or vengeance behind the act.

Content: Children get away with so many things like even hitting you, and you actually enjoy it rather than feel hurt or insulted. Can you imagine feeling like this if an adult hits you? The innocence of the child and the honest simplicity of the child's act is what that makes even the act of hitting beautiful. The energy of the child, its intelligence, is completely behind the action. This is unlike an adult whose intellect may be behind the act, the mind is behind the act, but the intelligence is not there because there is a certain unconscious vengeance in the act.

Content: Masters act out of pure compassion in whatever they do. That is why so often, even when I scold people, the person does not carry vengeance towards me. Scolding is also for your good, for your ego to be removed. It will seem painful because the ego, which you have been thinking is you, is being pulled out. But your being understands that it is for your good that what is not you is being removed. There is pure compassion even in scolding. That is why in the very next

Content: moment after scolding, I can be completely different, showering love. There was no vengeance to hold onto in that act of scolding. It was just complete truth at that moment, pure compassionate energy. That is why it can switch to loving emotion the very next minute. Every instance is pure in its own way.

Content: But what happens when you get angry with someone and scold him, say your child? The anger takes you over. Instead of you controlling the anger, it controls you and you misuse it because you are not conscious during the action.

Content: You are driven by your past perceptions, by your memories of similar incidents in the past when your child did not behave as you expected, and you react with more anger than his current act deserves. Anger is also energy but you need to handle it with respect. Just like you respect money and hence you never pay someone more than necessary, when you realize the power of the anger energy, you respect it and do not pay the other person more anger than necessary.

Content: If you give just the right anger energy, it can be transformational, but your negative attitude behind the action creates an undesired result and the person carries a certain vengeance towards you which even he may not be conscious of.

Content: Be very clear, the other person's vengeance is the result of your very own vengeance, which you did not realize was there in your own action because you were not completely aware when you were scolding.

Content: I always tell people, 'When I am compassionate, I cheat you. When I scold you, I teach you. Either way, you grow.' When I scold you, you are jolted into the present moment. Suddenly, in a flash, you get the awareness that you have been missing. The energy behind my words is purely for your transformation. There is only pure compassion. There is no vengeance against anyone or any vested interest for myself.

Content: Q: Swamiji, in India we are brought up to follow rituals and idol worship. Are you for or against these?

Content: First of all, I am neither for nor against idol worship or rituals - or anything, for that matter!

Content: But there is a reason why idol worship is so common in India and elsewhere in the East. For a beginner on the spiritual journey, it is difficult to conceive of the

Content: Divine in the abstract. When given a form, the concept is crystallized into something he understands and can relate to.

Content: With an idol, he can commune with the Divine in the language that he is familiar with. Our thousands of deities are nothing but expressions of the Divine. And yet anyone can talk to them, pray to or play with them, seek solace or offer gratitude. The whole awesome, indefinable nature of the Divine is scaled down to comforting proportions in the form of the deity. It has to be this way; the Divine without form is simply too terrifying a concept for the ordinary mind.

Content: At a deeper, subtler level, there is one more message being reinforced - the idol before you is cast in the same form as yours, and yet it is divine. What does that say about you? Think about it. It says that you too are divine!

Content: If you are an idol worshipper, there is no need to condemn yourself.

Content: As you grow spiritually, you will find yourself able to commune with the Divine just as well without an idol. Just as children stop playing with dolls once they grow older, you will drop the idols of your own accord when the time comes. But right now if it gives you a sense of wellbeing to worship your favorite deity, do so by all means.

Content: Spirituality is a vast, shoreless ocean. When you are just learning to swim, it certainly helps your confidence to hold onto a lifebuoy, something you can be sure of, something that won't let you down. As you grow stronger and surer, you will naturally shake off its hold and enter the deep waters, freely and fearlessly.

Content: As for rituals, it has been scientifically proved that certain colors, sounds and actions can deeply impact your state of mind, activate desired areas of the brain, and expand your consciousness. Rituals have lost their credibility today only because their true meaning has been lost upon the masses over time. Only the shell of ritual remains; the spirit has departed.

Content: So even if they seem irrelevant to you today, never underestimate the true potential of rituals. Rituals are the distillation of centuries of wisdom and the penance of innumerable enlightened masters. When performed in the proper way, rituals have tremendous power to bring about unimaginable levels of awareness and change within us.

Content: In the ashram, you may often find me performing pūjā (worship) and yāga (fire ritual). The fact is, these mean nothing to me. I don't need a channel to commune with the Divine. These are for the people.

Content: These are done to draw people into a familiar territory, a space where they feel secure and tranquil. In an atmosphere that years of worship have sanctified, bowing before your beloved deities and listening to the chanting of well-known mantras, a silent, meditative state is naturally induced in you.

Content: At this time you are completely open and surrendered, receptive to my energy. This is the time when I can truly work upon you, without your intellect and without your resistance. Can you understand me now?

Content: Of course, I have never given up being a child, and so I perfectly enjoy my play with these dolls, these deities - but that is another matter!

Chapter Number: 3.26

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

Chapter Number: 3.27

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

Chapter Number: 3.28

Content: One who knows the Truth, O mighty-armed one, knows the divisions existing in the attributes of nature and work. Knowing well about the attributes and sense gratification, he never becomes attached.

Chapter Number: 3.29

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

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

Content: can first do the action only with attachment. But upon seeing the wise person being unaffected by his own actions and being always blissful, naturally, the ignorant one will get curious and want to know the secret behind happiness. The example of the wise man will automatically pull him towards work with detachment.

Content: Take the example of relating to God. Most of us pray to God to get something. All our prayers to God are asking for this, asking for that, asking God to fulfill some desire or to protect us from something. It is okay to start a relationship with God like this. It is perfectly alright. When you get what you asked for, your trust grows and you start feeling gratitude towards Him. This is important.

Content: In the beginning, it is very difficult to feel grateful to God for all that has been given to you. So if you ask a person who has not eaten food for three days to meditate, will he be able to? No! His needs are different. You will be foolish, not wise, if you try telling this person to meditate. What he needs now is some means to get food and then he can be told about meditation.

Content: Many people ask me, 'God is everywhere. Then, why do we have to pray? Why do we have to go to temples? Why do we have to do rituals?' To reach the state of understanding that 'God is everywhere', if you start by just saying this and not doing anything, then you will only be fooling yourself.

Content: Loving the world is easy; loving your wife is difficult! It is easy to say you love the whole world because you don't have to do anything to prove it. But to love your wife, you have to do something tangible to prove it. So if you sit and tell yourself that you have reached the ultimate truth, you are actually trying to escape from the effort needed to reach it, from the steps needed to realize it.

Content: When a person is doing work and expecting certain results, the wise person should not go and disturb him, even though he knows that work should not be done with attachment. At least the person is working and not sitting idle! He is in rajas (aggressive activity), which is better than tamas (laziness). Of course, he needs to be guided from rajas to satva, a state of calmness born out of detached action, action without expectations. That is the job of a master.

Content: We are all governed by our basic nature, attributes, or guṇa, as they are termed in the Sanskrit language. These attributes are defined by the kind of life we have led, in this and past lives. The mental set-up or the essence of the mind, called vāsana, carries over from birth to birth and determines what we are and what we do in this birth. We create this mindset by our actions in past births. So in a sense,

Content: we do determine what happens to us in our future births. This mindset determines our nature, our attributes.

Content: The desires born out of vāsana carry their own energy for fulfillment. If you are conscious of your vāsana, you will be able to fulfill them. Once fulfilled, these vāsana and karma get dissolved. One who reaches this state of awareness of fulfilled desires also realizes that he is not the doer.

Content: The potter's wheel goes on turning around even after the potter has ceased to turn it when the pot is finished. In the same way, the electric fan goes on revolving for a few minutes even after we switch off the electricity. The vāsana or desires with which you took this body and mind will make the body-mind go through whatever activities it was made for. But the wise person goes through all these activities without the notion that he is the doer of them.

Content: Actually, your desire to lead life in a particular way is what creates the corresponding mental setup. You are the one who chooses to live life in a particular way, and once you decide this, your body supports this decision and acts accordingly. You create a mental setup to aid you in living life the way you desire. This mental setup that you create to live life in a particular way is your vāsana, or the seed of karma.

Content: You are the one who chooses, but any choice comes with effects and side-effects. Sometimes when you see the side-effects, you feel that you don't want this way of life. It is too costly; it is creating more unwanted effects than you were expecting. Then you say what you are getting is due to fate or destiny. Actually, you are the one who chose it in the first place.

Content: A small story:

Content: Once a man went to a restaurant and ordered various items: hamburgers, steaks, pasta, drinks, ice cream, and so on. He had a hearty meal and relaxed. The waiter brought the bill.

Content: The man took a look at the long bill and exclaimed, 'But didn't order for this bill!'

Content: When you eat, you don't think about the bill, but the bill comes only as a result of all that you ate in the restaurant. You don't have to order for the bill separately. Similarly, in life, all that you undergo are the effects of your own actions. You are not aware of what those effects can be and therefore you perform the actions unconsciously.

Content: To understand, 'I am not the doer', this concept of 'I' and 'mine' needs to be understood. Shiva says that the concept of 'I' itself comes from the concept of 'mine'. We always think it is the other way around. We think, when the sense of 'I' happens, the sense of 'mine' happens. But if you look deeply, our idea of what we think of as 'ours' is what defines what we think of as ourselves. Just imagine, if your possessions, your status, your wealth, your relations all are taken away from you, what will you think of as you? How will you define yourself? Your idea of 'I' is also relative, is it not?

Content: There is a recent theory in quantum physics called 'string theory' which says that the universe is made up fundamentally of strings of an extremely small scale, which vibrate at particular frequencies. So an object is not a particle but a vibration; energy vibrating in different modes. The different modes appear as different particles.

Content: Many devotees feel that they are just touching a soft pillow when I embrace them during Ānanda Darśan (transfer of bliss energy). Sometimes they feel nothing and they are shocked. Basically, enlightened beings are just energy. In this plane, in these dimensions of space-time, you see them in this form. You see them in this six-foot form as say 'Nithyananda', but in truth, this 'Nithyananda' does not exist. It is just energy. There is no 'I'.

Content: When you get attached to anything, when you internalize external incidents, you start creating suffering for yourself. When you understand that it is the mind and the senses doing what is in their nature, you become detached from your body-mind and do things with the clear understanding that what is happening is just the mind, body and senses doing their job.

Content: When you don't understand this, you get caught in what you are doing, you get emotionally attached to incidents and people, and you start living without awareness because your energy is being wasted in getting stressed out and getting emotionally upset over things.

Content: Q: Swamiji, can you explain the concept of karma?

Content: Let me give you an idea about karma.

Content: Whenever an action has been started, but not fulfilled, there exists a force that pulls you to fulfill it, to bring it to completion. This force is karma. Whatever you

Content: have tasted, desired but not experienced totally, will continuously draw you to repeat that very experience until you experience fulfillment.

Content: You will keep repeating that action till you actually become that experience, because you are fulfillment. You enter the body just to fulfill this action. In the course of fulfillment you meet all these things, these ‘troubles’.

Content: This is the explanation that I give for karma. All other words - ‘It is because of my bad karma that I got this disease,’ or ‘It is because of my good karma that I met Swamiji’ - all these are just things we say after the event has happened.

Content: Whatever happens, we give it the name karma.

Content: The word karma is much misunderstood. I am not giving you an explanation for karma as one understands it normally. I don’t accept karma to be fate or destiny as people call it. I don’t mean it as cause and effect.

Content: According to my experience, there is no such thing as fate or destiny. The future is left completely open by Existence. It is we who decide.

Content: Ramakrishna Paramahamsa tells a beautiful story that will give you intellectual clarity on the subject. Of course, no one can give you existential and experiential clarity on karma as it really is - that clarity comes only with enlightenment. And when you are enlightened, you cannot express it!

Content: Ramakrishna explains karma this way:

Content: For example: Imagine a cow tied to a post with a five-meter rope. Within that perimeter it can sit, stand, feed, do whatever it pleases, but it is not free to move beyond that limit. Our life is just the same. We have a limited amount of freedom; the rest is in the hands of Existence. But Ramakrishna also adds, if we use our five-meter freedom intelligently, it is possible that Existence may extend our rope, or even free us completely. That depends on both, the master and us. You can choose whether to remain in bondage or work towards being set free.

Content: Someone once asked me, ‘What if the cow learns to bite and break the rope?’

Content: First of all, do you know where the rope is? To which limb it is tied? Where it begins and ends? Where to bite? How to bite? With an ordinary cow and rope, the cow can see these things. You people don’t even know what or where your rope is! So what I can give you is only a glimpse, an inspiration to enter into the experience! The rest you will know as it happens.

Chapter Number: 3.30

Content: Dedicating the results of work to Me, with consciousness filled with spiritual knowledge, without desire for gain and without sense of ownership, without being lazy, do what you have to do.

Chapter Number: 3.31

Content: Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions and who follow these teachings faithfully, without envy, become free from the bondage of actions.

Chapter Number: 3.32

Content: But those who do not regularly perform their duties according to My teaching, are ignorant, senseless and ruined.

Content: Next Krishna makes an important point. He clarifies one more point.

Content: Krishna says: Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions and who follow this teaching faithfully, without envy, become free from the bondage of actions.

Content: Here you need to understand two things. He says, ‘according to My injunctions’. It means that when you enter into your being, whatever your being says is Krishna’s words. When he says My injunctions, He means the injunctions from the ātman, injunctions from the being.

Content: When you drop the goals and fall into your being, the Divine will guide you. You will be guided by nature. You will be guided by God Himself and you will become an instrument in His hands.

Content: If you become a hollow bamboo without any blockages inside, you will become a flute in the hands of Krishna. Dropping your purposes or dropping your ego is what I call becoming a hollow bamboo. If you become a hollow bamboo, you will become a flute in the hands of Krishna.

Content: If you are a solid bamboo, you will be used only to carry dead bodies. In India, bamboo poles are used only to carry dead bodies. But if you drop the ego and fall into the being, you will become an instrument in the hands of the Divine; you will become a divine flute.

Content: When you become a flute, the air that enters into you comes out as music. In the same way, when you become an instrument in the hands of the Divine, the air that enters into you comes out as śāstra or mantra or music. Whatever comes out of you becomes Divine. Your words become mantra (sacred words), your actions become tantra (sacred techniques), and your form becomes yantra (sacred form).

Content: The moment you drop the ego, your words become mantra or sacred words to guide people. Your form becomes a yantra or sacred form to be meditated upon, your actions become tantra, or techniques to realize the Divine, and you become Divine.

Content: If you carry your ego like a solid bamboo, you can use it only to carry a dead body!

Content: Now it is up to you whether to become a hollow bamboo and become a flute in the hands of Krishna, or to be a solid bamboo and carry the dead body to the cremation ground.

Content: Here, He says, ‘Those persons who execute their duties according to My injunctions, according to your inner consciousness...’ Please be very clear, as long as you follow the goals set by society, you will be carrying a social conscience. The moment you drop social conditioning, the purposes taught to you by society, you will drop conscience and start living with consciousness.

Content: Social conscience is different, spiritual consciousness is different. If you live with goals, you will carry a social conscience in your life. If you realize the beauty of purposelessness you will carry spiritual consciousness in your life.

Content: ‘The man who lives according to his consciousness, believing in and having śraddhā (faith) towards these teachings...’ Why does Krishna ask for śraddhā here? This is the first time Krishna says ‘śraddhā’. Why?

Content: Of course, the word śraddhā cannot really be translated as faith. Faith is a very poor word for śraddhā. In English, there is no equivalent word for śraddhā.

Content: Sraddhā does not mean just faith. It means faith plus the courage to execute the idea. The courage to experiment with the idea is what is called śraddhā. Here Krishna says, ‘śraddhāvanto anusūyanto,’ the man who executes the teachings with śraddhā, with the courage to follow. Why do we need courage to follow?

Content: A small story: A man born blind goes to the doctor and asks, 'Doctor, will you help me gain my eyesight?' The doctor says, 'Don't worry, I will perform an operation. You will get your vision and after that you can walk without your stick.' Blind people always carry a stick to feel their way around. The doctor tells him that he will be able to walk without the stick. The blind man asks, 'Doctor, I understand you will do an operation. I understand I will have my eyesight restored. But I don't understand how I can walk without my stick? How can I walk without my stick?' By and by, the blind man had forgotten that stick was just an aid. He had started thinking that the stick was necessary even just to walk. But until the operation is done, until he gets his eyesight and experiences the truth that the stick is no longer necessary, he has to have śraddhā towards the doctor's words and go with the operation. In the same way, I tell you, just live without the mind. Just live without purpose and goals; you will be able to walk without the stick. The stick is nothing but your planning and worrying. But you never believe that you can live without worrying. By and by, worrying has become a part of you. So you can never imagine that you can survive without worrying. When I say you can live without worrying, you will say, 'No, no, no! How can it be possible? If I don't worry what will happen to my children? What will happen to my house? What will happen to my wife? What will happen to my family? What will happen to my property? What will happen to my lawsuits?' Please be very clear: Never think your life is going smoothly because of you. It is going smoothly in spite of you! Your life is not going smoothly because of you; in spite of you it is going smoothly! When you have the courage, the śraddhā towards these teachings and start living without purpose, only then will you realize you don't need the stick to walk. Once you enter into the depths of your being, you will enter into a totally different dimension. Whatever you think now as spiritual life or material life, both will lose their meaning and you will enter into a new dimension of life.

Content: For example, can you explain about life to a four-year-old child? You can’t. He will not be able to understand. He can understand only toys. He can only play with toys. Once he becomes older, naturally he will be able to understand what life is. Automatically toys and dolls will leave him.

Content: Do you miss your toys? Do you feel that you have renounced your toys? No! When you grow, you start experiencing a different dimension of your life and the toys simply drop.

Content: You dropping smoking is not important, smoking dropping you is important.

Content: When you enter into your being, when you experience the purposelessness of life, the so-called material life and spiritual life both drop you and you enter into what I call ‘Quantum spirituality’ or eternal consciousness. You are then in eternal bliss; you start living in eternal bliss.

Content: Only when you reach the being will you understand that you don’t need worries to live. You don’t need to be harboring any worry to live. Until you reach the being, you need to have śraddhā. Until you gain your vision, you must have śraddhā and lie down on the operating table. You need to allow the doctor to work on you. That is the reason Krishna says, ‘śraddhāvanto anasūyanto’.

Content: The next word is a beautiful word: ‘anasūyanto’, which means ‘without envy’. This is an important thing. Whatever has been said so far, everyone is able to understand and agree with.

Content: But suddenly, a thought comes, ‘My brother has purchased two houses. My sister is getting a big new car. How can I live just like this?’ The moment you get such thoughts, ‘He has that, she has this,’ what happens? All your spirituality, all your purposelessness, everything just disappears. You are again in the same rat race. If your neighbor buys a new air-conditioner, the temperature in your house shoots up.

Content: Krishna says, ‘without envy’. Envy is the thing that puts you again and again in the same rut. The problem with the rat race is, even if you win, you are still a rat! Even if you win, you are only a rat. Nothing more than that!

Content: The moment envy or jealousy enters into your being, purposelessness disappears. Again, you fall into social conditioning; you start running behind goals. Envy or jealousy is what makes you run like a rat.

Content: There is a beautiful idea from Tantra about māyā śakti (the power of illusion). Illusion makes us all dance with just this one stick called jealousy. Have you seen

Content: the guys who make money using monkeys in India? On the roadside, they do a small show with monkeys. They always carry a small stick. They rotate the stick and shout in Tamil, 'Aadu da rama, aadu da rama': dance Rama, dance Rama. They give instructions and the monkey obeys. With a small stick they make the monkey dance and do whatever they want it to.

Content: In the same way, the power of illusion is making you run as it wants with just one stick called jealousy, envy or comparison. The moment you compare, you just jump into the same path again, the same rut, the same routine, which I call the purposeful life. Then you become a karmi, not karma yogi.

Content: The man who lives in eternal consciousness, nitya ānanda, and allows his body and mind to work according to their nature, is centered in eternal consciousness. He is called a karma yogi, one who has espoused action without attachment as the ultimate renunciation.

Content: But the man who acts out of jealousy, out of envy and out of comparison, enters into social conditioning. He is caught in the rat race, and is called a karmi, one who is focused on action arising from greed.

Content: The difference between a karmi and a karma yogi is only this: The man who is driven by jealousy is a karmi, and the man who allows the eternal consciousness to drive him is a karma yogi.

Content: One more thing: When we do things out of comparison, we do only foolish things. Our intelligence stops working. And our performance will definitely fall short of our potential, because now we are using someone else's productivity as our measuring stick. We might be capable of accomplishing much more than what our neighbor has done, but now we are setting our sights on his achievements!

Content: A small story:

Content: A Christian and a Jew were staying opposite each other. Not only were they staying opposite each other but they were great rivals as well. If the Christian made a rose garden in front of his house, within 24 hours the Jew would bring in a new rose garden. If the Jew painted his house white, within 24 hours the Christian's house would also be painted white.

Content: Suddenly, one day a new Mercedes Benz was standing in front of the Jew's house. This was too much for the Christian. Somehow he found the money, and within 24 hours not only did he buy a Rolls Royce, he parked it outside his home and started sprinkling holy water on it as well.

Content: The Jew saw this from his house and asked, 'Hey! What happened to you? You got a new Rolls Royce, that's ok. Until yesterday you were alright. But why are you sprinkling water on the car this morning?'

Content: The Christian said, 'I am baptizing it.'

Content: Now the Jew was in big trouble! What to do? That evening he was seen cutting the exhaust pipe of his Benz with a hacksaw blade!

Content: If you understand, understand. If you have not understood, ask the people who are laughing!

Content: If you do things out of jealousy, out of envy, out of comparison, you will end up doing only these types of things. Your intelligence will stop working. When you start comparing, intelligence stops working.

Content: Please understand that each one of us is unique. There is no need to compare with any other person. You are unique. The main problem is that you compare only with the nearest person, five inches above and five inches below, only with those persons do you compare yourself. You don't compare yourselves with Bill Gates, do you? You compare only with your neighbor. You compare only with your colleague. You compare only with your brother or your sister.

Content: The problem is not even failure; the problem is your worry about failure. That is why you don't aim at unreachable goals, you aim only at reachable goals, and you compare only with those people in your immediate world. Understand that this comparison is what is driving you crazy. Again and again and again it brings up the whole social conditioning in you and eats away your whole life. Your whole life is eaten away by this one illusion called comparison.

Content: Your whole joy, ecstasy, the very bliss or the ecstasy of living is swallowed by this one illusion called comparison. Just like how the whole earth is swallowed by the ocean at the time of the final deluge, in the same way, just this one concept of comparison, swallows your whole life.

Content: Jealousy and comparison have no absolute existence. There are two levels of reality: comparative reality and existential reality. If you build your life based on existential reality, you will never suffer. If you build your life based on comparative reality, you will be continuously suffering till death. Not only at the time of death, even after death.

Content: Don't build your inner space on comparative reality. Let your inner space be built on existential reality. Accept life as it is. If you build your life on existential reality, you will live your life blissfully in eternal consciousness, as a karma yogi.

Content: A small story:

Content: A man comes to the bar with a big grin on his face and asks the bartender to serve drinks for the whole house. 'Serve drinks to everybody. I will pay,' he says. The bartender serves drinks and says, 'This is so nice. I am very happy you did a good thing for everybody. May I know why you did this?'

Content: The man says, 'I am very happy today. I have become taller than my younger brother. My younger brother used to be taller than me, so people used to tease me all the time and ask, 'Are you older or is he older?' So I had a problem. Today, I have become taller than my younger brother.'

Content: Your younger brother being taller than you is a huge problem.

Content: The bartender asked, 'At your age, how did you suddenly grow and become taller than him?'

Content: The man replied, 'Oh, no! I have not grown. He met with an accident and both his legs have been amputated.'

Content: This may seem to you to be in bad taste in a social sense. However, this is how many people react when they see another person doing better than themselves.

Content: When we compare, when we live with jealousy, when our life is based on comparative reality, please be very clear, we end up doing only these types of things. We become blinded by comparison and our very nature becomes dangerous. Let your inner space be built on existential reality, not on comparative reality.

Content: By nature, a person with a body and mind has to act in one way or the other. If you follow your nature, you can be comfortable and flow in tune with Existence. When you are relaxed, when you are blissful, you express yourself beautifully.

Content: When you become possessed by greed or fear and try to be what you are not, you suppress yourself. What can suppression do? You cannot suppress energy. You can only transform energy. It can never be destroyed or suppressed.

Content: For example, if you see someone who generally irritates you, what is your reaction? If you are in a position to show your irritation, you will do so. It may be a person who cannot affect you in terms of your money or position. In that case, you will make your irritation known to the person because you are not afraid of losing anything. He is not in a position to affect you adversely. But, say this person is your boss. Now, you are afraid to make your irritation known because he holds

Content: the power to affect your job, your source of income. So you suppress your emotions.

Content: Neither expression nor suppression can be the solution. The solution is to infuse awareness and understanding into this process. Your reaction of irritation is not because of anything the person has done. If you just look a little deeper, you can see it is how you choose to react that decides what you feel about the person. You choose to get irritated by what he is doing.

Content: Why should you allow yourself to get worked up about the other person's actions? Also, it may not even be that the person has done something which you think is irritating. He may have done the same thing a couple of times before. But this time, he may have come with a completely different intention. Yet you are already biased by your past perception about him. You have decided unconsciously this is what he is going to do and you get irritated even before he comes close to you.

Content: That is why I say that awareness is the key. If you are aware of what is happening both within you and outside you, you will not be controlled by your unconscious. You will be able to see clearly when biased emotions arise or unconscious reactions arise. The very awareness is enough. You don't need to suppress the emotion or express it. The awareness will itself bring the emotion under your control.

Content: Q: Swamiji, when a relationship is not working out, when should we persevere and when should we abandon it and get on with our lives?

Content: I think what you are asking me is, just how much conflict should one be prepared to put up with in a relationship? Right?

Content: Love is the most dangerous path there is! Only those with great courage dare tread this path. At any bend on this path you have to be prepared for great joy, great pain, great beauty, great struggle, great understanding.

Content: Yes, there is bound to be conflict in every relationship, because every individual is unique, and no two personalities fit together so perfectly that no rough edges remain.

Content: If there is conflict, don't sweep it under the carpet out of fear that it will destroy the relationship. On the contrary, ignoring it can do just that. Allow the

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Content: conflict. Examine it. See what you can learn from it. Is it stemming from something in yourself that you are secretly unwilling to acknowledge?

Content: It is only in an intimate relationship that you discover yourself. Your partner is like a mirror reflecting your true nature. After all, who else dares point out your worst flaws with so much clarity!

Content: So examine the nature of your conflict. Also remember, in every relationship, there is a time to stay together and a time to move on. What kind of love do you share? Are you really, truly, surely in love? Do you relate deeply with each other, being to being?

Content: Don't look for reasons and arguments. Don't intellectualize the process - simply turn the question inwards with complete honesty and trust. The answer will arise on its own. If your answer is 'Yes', then understand that the issues of conflict are mere ripples on the surface of your relationship.

Content: These are just situations created by the ego to counter the sense of 'no-self', of surrender, that comes with love. Work around these situations with love and care.

Content: If the answer you are hearing is 'No', then maybe it is time to move on. To remain in a relationship where there is no true relationship, no connection of being to being, is sacrilege, unfair to you both. Love, for you, may be elsewhere. Don't search for it. Just be open to the possibility.

Content: In the meantime, don't let the conflict destroy the relationship, destroy you both. Nobody deserves that. Accept that this is not the person for you, and move away without resentment or bitterness. Don't destroy your own capacity to love. To become bitter will only cause you more suffering, and destroy your faith in love itself. And that is the most dangerous thing that can happen to anyone.

Content: Many people have followed this technique I am about to describe with tremendous healing effect in their relationships. To understand the principles behind this technique it is useful to have attended at least the basic Life Bliss Program Level 1.

Content: We all have seven energy centers in our body-mind system, called cakras in Sanskrit. Each center controls an emotion. When the cakra is blocked in energy you feel the effects of negativity and when it is energized you feel at ease. Simply put, a blocked center leads to dis-ease.

Content: The root cakra or root center is blocked by greed, lust and anger, the spleen center by fear, the navel center by worry, the heart center by attention need, the

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Content: throat center by jealousy, the eyebrow center by ego and the crown center by discontentment. A person who has gone through the LBP 1 course will be able to recognize the blocked center from which the other person is acting, based on the emotions of the interaction with that person.

Content: Normally one would respond from the same energy center or another blocked center. We tend to respond to an angry person with anger or fear. However, we have the capability to respond to all such interactions from an open heart cakra. All that we need to do is respond with unconditional love. Whether a person comes to us in anger, fear, worry or ego, it is possible to respond with love, and with no expectation in return.

Content: You may think that this is impractical. It is not. If you try this, you will find that your relationships improve miraculously. It is especially difficult with people close to you, especially a spouse, and therefore, all the more reason to practice with one's spouse! Many people say, and believe it when they say it, that they love the whole world. When you ask them to prove that they love their spouse, they are stumped!

Content: People talk about Transactional Analysis and other such techniques. They talk about cross-communication between parent and child. Ultimately all communication is based on emotions and feelings. These emotions are linked to the various energy centers. Love is the most powerful emotion. It is the only emotion that can overcome all other emotions, when it is spontaneous and unconditional.

Content: This is why in every culture and religion, love is associated with the Divine and the heart is associated with love. Open your heart, energize your heart center and let unconditional love flow out of you. It will transform you and transform others.

Chapter Number: 3.30

Content: Dedicating the results of work to Me, with consciousness filled with Me Even the wise person acts according to the modes of his own nature, for all living beings go through their nature. What can restraint of the senses do?

Chapter Number: 3.34

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

Chapter Number: 3.35

Content: It is better to do one's own duty, even if it is in a faulty manner, than to do someone else's duty perfectly. Death in the course of performing one's own duty is better than doing another's duty, as this can be dangerous.

Chapter Number: 3.36

Content: Arjuna said, 'O descendant of Vrishni, then, by what is man forced to commit sinful acts, even without desiring, as if engaged by force?'

Chapter Number: 3.37

Content: The Lord said. 'It is lust and anger born of the attribute of passion, all-devouring and sinful, which is one's greatest enemies in this world.' Here, it is important to understand what duty means. If I have to do my duty, I need to know how to identify my duty. The idea of duty is different for different people, different countries, different cultures, and different religions. Hence the term 'duty' is impossible to clearly

Content: define. We have always been trained by society, by conscience, to consider certain acts as duty; some as good and others as bad.

Content: We are brought up with certain ideas of duty. For example, it is our duty to help elderly people. It is our duty to follow principles of truth, non-violence, non-stealing and such tenets. We are brought up with these concepts of morality, but how many of us have experienced the beauty of implementing them?

Content: Then there are certain principles that get handed down depending on the religion we follow. For example, a starving person who finds a piece of meat has no problem eating it if he is a non-vegetarian. On the other hand, a vegetarian would feel it is his duty not to touch meat even if it means losing his life. In some religions, you can marry only once but in some other religions, you can marry multiple times. These are all socially defined duties.

Content: One thing we should remember is never to judge the customs of other people by our standards. There is no common standard for the universe. There is no universal scale by which you can measure people and their actions.

Content: What Krishna talks about here is not socially defined duty or conscience. He is talking about consciousness.

Content: Vivekananda talks about a sage, a yogi in India. He was a peculiar man; he would not teach anyone. If you asked him a question, he would not answer. However, if you asked him a question and waited for some days, in the course of conversation, he would bring up the subject and throw wonderful light on it.

Content: He once told Vivekananda the secret of work. 'Let the end and the means be joined into one.'

Content: When you are doing any work, do not think of anything beyond that. Do it as worship, as the highest worship, and devote your whole energy to it for that time. Give it your full attention. The right performance of duty at any point in life, without attachment to the results, leads us to the highest realization.

Content: The worker who is attached to the results is the one who grumbles about the nature of the duty. To the unattached worker, all duties are equally good. He welcomes what he has to do, irrespective of the external nature of the job. He approaches every act with the same enthusiasm and liveliness and becomes completely involved in the task at hand.

Content: In the great epic Mahabharata, there are actually three versions of the Gita: Bhagavad Gita and Anugita, both delivered by Sri Krishna; the third and equally important one is called Vyadha Gita, the song of a butcher.

Content: A butcher delivered this Vyadha Gita; a man who is considered a sinner or a candāla (low caste person) delivered this great scripture.

Content: There lived a great yogi, a person with special powers but who was not yet enlightened. He was a highly egoistic person. He was meditating under a tree in a forest. A bird sitting on the tree relieved itself and the droppings fell on him. He was disturbed and angry and he opened his eyes and looked at the bird. The bird was killed by the power of his gaze. The yogi was feeling very proud of what he had done.

Content: He then went on his daily round of begging for alms. He came to a house and begged for food. The lady of the house called out from inside the house and asked him to wait as she was serving her husband. The yogi was upset. He thought to himself, 'Foolish woman! She is serving her husband, an ordinary man, and she is making a great yogi like me wait!'