1. Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12 - Lesson 6 of 14

Srīmad Bhagavad Gītā is the ultimate sacred scripture of yoga, Yogaśastra and the pristine glory of the Vedic culture, the eternal living tradition called sanātana-dharma. It belongs to the whole Universe for it is delivered to the Universe by the source and embodiment of

Universe. We salute and bow down to Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who spoke the Bhagavad Gītā out of His infinite love and compassion for all beings.

Whenever unrighteousness, adharma becomes predominant and dharma, righteous living declines and the Yoga of Enlightenment is lost,

Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Consciousness appears again and again to revive this sacred yoga, to protect and to enrich the devoted beings; and destroys adharma to re-establish the pure and everlasting dharma. Song

Gītā is also called Brahmavidyā the Knowledge of Brahman, the supreme absolute truth; it is Jīvan Mukti Vijñāna the Science of Living Enlightenment.

As with all scriptures, it is the knowledge and experience that is transmitted verbally as Śri Krṣṇārjuna Saṁvād, an intimate dialogue between Master of the world, Jagadguru Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa and His dear devotee and disciple, Arjuna. It is called śruti in Saṃskṛit, meaning something that is heard.

Gītā, as Bhagavad Gītā is generally called, translates literally from Saṃskṛit as 'Sacred Song of God'. Unlike

the Vedas and Upaniṣads, which are stand alone expressions of Truth, the Gītā is written into the greatest Hindu epic, the Mahābhārat, called a purāṇa, an ancient historical happening. It is part of the recorded history of the greatest tradition, the paramount civilization in all its Divine grandeur and its human complexity, so to speak.

No other epic or part of an epic has the special status and space of the Gītā. No other book but the Gītā gives a scientific, systematic, applied science of living joyfully in completion, while empowering the human actionfield with authenticity to evolve into a responsible Divine play-field.

Called the royal supreme knowledge rājavidyā rājaguhyaṁ (9.2), this one sacred book conveys the essence of knowledge contained in all written and oral vedic truths to enrich the simplest to complex humans at all planes. It holds within itself the direct key to every possible human enquiry, the solution to every dilemma of emotions, and the sublime righteous path and goal of every quest of rising or falling civilizations for every age, time or geography. As a consequence of the presence of the Gītā, the Mahābhārat epic itself is considered a sacred Hindu scripture.

Gītā arose from the super consciousness of Śri Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme God, the complete Incarnation Purṇāvatār, and is therefore considered Gītāśastra—the essential scripture, knowing which, one is liberated from all incompletions, yaj jñātvā mokṣyase asubhāt (9.1) and Gītopaniṣad—the essence of all Upaniṣads, the purest and highest knowledge to be ever known and cognized because it gives the direct experience of the Self pavitram idam uttamam pratyakṣāvagaṁ dharmyaṁ (9.2).

Gītā is the ultimate practical teaching on the inner science of spirituality that expresses as outer victory and success in life now and after. 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.

The answers of the Divine, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, transcend time and space. Śrī Kṛṣṇa's message is everlasting and joyfully performed, and is as valid today as it was on that fateful battlefield over five thousand years ago. The science of Gītā is the eternal technique of living in completion; the song of Gītā is the eternal life-enriching nectar, having no expiry date, time or age!

Mahābhārat, literally meaning the great Bhārata, is a grand narration about the nation and civilization, which is now known as Bharat. It was then a nation ruled by king Bhārata and his descendants.

Your whole life is nothing but the Mahābhārat War. The Mahābharāt should be read again and again to understand the intricacies of life, the complications of life, and the ability to handle life. The true story of this perfectly recorded epic is about two warring clans, Kauravas and Pānḍavas, closely related to one another. Dhṛtarāṣṭra, the blind king of Hastināpur and father of the 100 Kaurava brothers was the brother of Pānḍu, whose children were the five Pānḍava princes.

It is a tale of strife between cousins and ultimately between dhārmic and adhārmic,

Since Dhṛtarāṣṭra was blind, Pānḍu was made the king of Hastināpura. Pānḍu 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. Vyāsa says that all the five Pānḍava children were born to their mothers Kuntī and Mādri through the blessing of divine beings. Pānḍu handed over the kingdom and his children to his blind brother.

Kuntī, who is the embodiment of tapas, spiritual penance, 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, Sūrya appeared before her.

Karṇa was born to her as a result. In fear of social reprisals, she cast the newborn away in a river. Yudhiṣṭra, Bhīma and Arjuna were born to Kuntī after her marriage by invocation of her powers, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva were born to Mādri, the second wife of Pānḍu. What happened during the MahabharatA?

Yudhiṣṭra was born to Kuntī as a result of her being blessed by Yama, the god of death, dharma and justice, Bhīma by Vāyu, the god of wind, and Arjuna by Indra, god of all the divine beings. Nakula and Sahadeva, the youngest Pānḍava twins, were born to Mādri, through the Divine Aśvini twins.

Dhṛtarāṣṭra had a hundred sons through his wife Gāndhārī. The eldest of these Kaurava princes was Duryodhana. Duryodhana felt no love for his five Pānḍava cousins. He made many unsuccessful attempts, along with his brother Duśśāsana, to kill the Pānḍava brothers. Kuntī's eldest son Karṇa, 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.

Dhṛtarāṣṭra gave Yudhiṣṭra one half of the Kuru kingdom on his coming of age, since the Pānḍava prince was the rightful heir to the throne that his father Pānḍu had vacated.

Yudhiṣṭra ruled from his new capital Indraprastha, along with his brothers Bhīma, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva.

Arjuna won the hand of princess Draupadī, daughter of the king of Pāñcāla, in a svayaṁvara, a marital contest in which princes fought for the hand of a fair damsel.

In fulfillment of their mother Kuntī's desire that the brothers share everything equally, Draupadī became the wife of all five Pānḍava brothers. Duryodhana persuaded Yudhiṣṭra to join a gambling session, where his cunning uncle Śakunī defeated the Pānḍava king.

Yudhiṣṭra lost all that he owned—his kingdom, his brothers, his wife and himself, to Duryodhana. Duśśāsana shamed Draupadī in public by trying to disrobe her. The Pānḍava brothers and Draupadī were forced to go into exile for fourteen years, with the condition that in the last year they should live incognito or ajyāta vāsa.

At the end of the fourteen years, the Pānḍava brothers tried to reclaim their kingdom. In this effort they were helped by Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the king of the Yādava clan, who is the eighth divine incarnation of Bhagavān Viṣṇu.

However, Duryodhana refused to yield even a needlepoint of land, and as a result, the Great War, the War of Mahābhārat ensued. In this war, various rulers of the entire nation that is modern Bharat aligned with one or the other of these two clans, the Kauravas or the Pānḍavas.

Kṛṣṇa offered to join with either of the two clans. He says, 'One of you may have Me unarmed. I will not take any part in the battle. The other may have my entire Yādava army.'

When the offer was first made to Duryodhana, he predictably chose the large and well-armed Yādava army, Nārāyaṇī Senā, in preference to the unarmed Kṛṣṇa.

Arjuna joyfully and gratefully chose his dearest friend, his life mentor and his Guru, Kṛṣṇa, Nārāyaṇa, to be his unarmed charioteer!

This whole history is such a beautiful happening. Mahābhārat is actually your life! Every character in the Mahābhārat teaches so much! We don't need to go anywhere for our life success or fulfillment or for anything else that we may desire. We don't need to study any other book to learn the human psychology or the science of living and leaving. Whether we seek righteous living—dharma; or we want to learn business or administration, economy or abundance—artha; or we want to create the best rich lifestyle—kāma; or we want to be a leader and want the enriching life of being enlightened mokṣa, for all these purposes, we don't need anything other than the Mahābharāt!

Study each character. We will not find any more characters in our life than the characters described in the Mahābharāt!

Any character we see in our life is mapped to Mahābharāt's one character. They are either half or full representation of some character.

To know how to handle them and even handle yourself, just see how Śrī Kṛṣṇa handles them and handle them the same way. The Mahābharāt war is a representation of life as it was lived in that age.

Vyāsa, its author is an unbiased historian who recorded the whole history as it happened without trying to apply any makeup. People ask whether the Mahābharāt war happened at all!

If the Mahābharāt was a story and not history, Vyāsa should receive multiple Pulitzer prizes for his highly creative work! The Mahābharāt is the longest literary work in the whole world with hundred thousand Saṃskṛit verses—the longest poem ever written with such delicate harmony of unmatched poetic perfection. It is larger than the Greek epics. Vyāsa had no computer, no tape recorder with speech-to-text capabilities. He dictated and Bhagavān Ganeṣa wrote it down!

• Yudhiṣṭra is embodiment of Integrity the power of words, vāk śakti.
• Bhīma is embodiment of Authenticity the power of thoughts, mano śakti.

Arjuna is embodiment of Responsibility—the power of feeling, prema śakti.

• Sahadeva is embodiment of Enriching the power of living, ātma śakti.
  • Nakula is embodiment of causing reality for others.

• Śakuni, the maternal uncle of Duryodhana embodies the pattern of self-hatred, which is cunningness personified.

• Droṇa represents all the best 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, the incarnation steps in and guides us.

• Duryodhana, represents one's ego or root-pattern, the most difficult to conquer as it leads one to self destruction. 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 deny and disconnect from the Master as well.

• Karṇa is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own Enlightenment. Śrī Kṛṣṇa has to take the load of Karṇa'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. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa, the 8th most powerful purnāvatar of Ṃaha Viśnu, is the embodiment of pure celebration, boundless love, compassion, and completion.

Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa is the only incarnation demonstrating and expressing Ṣarva Ṃangalatva all the auspicious qualities and all dimensions of an avatar during His physical happening. The līla Bhagavan Ṣri Krsna is one of sheer innocence and simplicity, in a peace-loving, diplomatic, conflict-free way.

Karṇa is the repository of all good deeds and it is his good deeds that stand in the way of his own Enlightenment. Śrī Kṛṣṇa has to take the load of Karṇa'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 Till now everyone blames Bhagavan Sri Krishna for this Kurukshetra war but that's the greatest sacrifice Bhagavan Sri Krishna did to save the planet Earth. If Kurukshetra was not conducted at that time under the controlled conditions and direct supervision of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, planet Earth would not have survived more than three years.

act of compassion that one can offer to the world. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa, the 8th most powerful purnāvatar of Ṃaha Viśnu, is the embodiment of pure celebration, boundless love, compassion, and completion. Bhagavan Ṣri Kṛṣṇa is the only incarnation demonstrating and expressing Ṣarva Ṃangalatva all the auspicious qualities a nd all dimensions of an avatar during His physical happening. The līla Bhagavan Ṣri Krsna is one of sheer innocence and The wide spread availability of the Astra shastras without Shastra, without the knowledge and vision, was posing a huge threat to the whole of humanity and planet Earth, and for life itself. The greatest achievement of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is destroying all the weapons in one controlled condition and saving planet earth, eliminating the nuclear weapons and the knowledge of these nuclear weapons to save humanity from total annihilation.

conflict-free way.

simplicity, in a peace-loving, diplomatic,

Bhagavad Gītā appears in the heart of Mahābhārat in Bhīṣma Parva, the sixth chapter of its eighteen chapters. Veda Vyāsa, the narrator, in glorifying the Gītā sings, 'the one who drinks the water of Ganges (the sacred river for Hindus) attains liberation, what to speak of the one who drinks the nectar of Gītā?

Gītā is the essential nectar of the Mahābhārat, bhāratamṛta sarvasvam as it is directly spoken by Nārāyaṇa, Bhagavān kṛṣṇa Himself.'

The armies assembled in the vast field of Kurukṣetra, now in the state of Haryana in modern day Bharat. 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 out of total powerlessness unbecoming an invincible warrior among warriors.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa's dialogue with Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra out of His utmost concern and love for him and humanity is the content of Bhagavad Gītā. Of its seven hundred and forty-five (745) verses, Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa sings the Gītā in six hundred and twenty (620) verses responding to Arjuna's fifty-seven (57) enquiries.

Śrī Kṛṣṇa persuades Arjuna to give-up his powerlessness unfitting an Ārya—the spiritually evolved one who understands human life and urges him to raise himself again as Parantapa—the conqueror of enemy, and take up arms and vanquish his enemies. They are already dead,' says Śrī Kṛṣṇa, 'All those who are facing you have been already killed by Me. Go ahead and do what you have to do. That is your responsibility. Do not worry about the outcome. Leave that to Me.'

mayyeva mana ādhatsva mayi buddhiṁ niveśaya I nivasiṣyasi mayyeva ata ūrdhvaṁ na saṁśayaḥ

You fix your mind on Me alone, establish your mind in Me. You will live in Me always. There is no doubt in it.

We must continuously try to enrich ourselves and others with spiritual thoughts and ideas. When our sensory inputs are pure, our consciousness will automatically get established in the divine.

You fix your mind on Me alone, establish your mind in Me. You will live in Me always. There is no doubt in it. Just fix your mind upon Me, the supreme personality of the Divine and engage all your mind, body and senses in Me and you will thus live in Me always, without a doubt, assures Kṛṣṇa.

Now He comes to the technique. At one point the virtuous circle must begin. First, He explains the virtuous circle of the ultimate experience and expression. Now He comes to the technique.

Please understand that love is not a mood. It is not a mere emotion. It is our very Existence. As long as it is our mood, it will come and go. There are two kinds of love, horizontal love and vertical love. Let me explain. Horizontal love is like a horizontal line, flat. It is related to time: it starts and ends. Anything that starts must end. If it takes more time to end, don't think it is permanent. Anything that starts must end. It may take a few years or a few months, but it ends. It is impermanent and time bound. This is horizontal love. Horizontal love is related to time.

Vertical love is related to consciousness. Vertical love neither starts nor ends. It does not discriminate. It is our very quality. It flows.

suddenly, at some point we realize, we are living inside everybody just as we live inside our own body.

There is a beautiful example given in the Upaniṣads. A master asked a disciple, 'Do you enjoy all your five senses?' The disciple said, 'Yes.' The master enquired, 'What if one of your senses was missing, would you have the same amount of joy?'

The disciple replied, 'No, it would be twenty percent less, and if two of my senses were missing, it would be forty percent less.' The master suddenly said, 'What if you had five more senses?' The disciple answered, 'Naturally my enjoyment would be a hundred percent extra. If I am given one more body, naturally I will enjoy everything twice as much. Or if I am given five bodies, naturally I will enjoy things five times as much.'

If we experience that we are living in all the bodies of this world, how much joy or ecstasy would we experience? It would be immeasurable, eternal and ultimate. That is what enlightened people experience all the time—living Advaita! When they experience themselves as the whole Universe, or as being in every body, they experience tremendous ecstasy, pleasure or bliss. That is why they don't need anything from the outer world.

Here, Kṛṣṇa gives techniques to start the virtuous circle. 'Fix your mind on Me, mayy eva mana ādhatsva. Establish your intelligence in Me, mayi buddhiṁ niveśaya. In this way, after acquiring the boundary-less consciousness, you will live in Me always, nivasiṣyasi mayy eva.'

How should we establish our intelligence in Him? Continuously try to enrich yourself and others with these thoughts and ideas that Kṛṣṇa teaches. Rāmakṛṣṇa says that what we belch depends upon what we eat. For instance, if we eat some kind of vegetable or fruit, the smell of that comes out when we belch. In the same way, if we add these ideas continuously to our mind and consciousness, we naturally radiate them. They start shining through our being. When He tells you to let your intelligence be established in Him, it means that when we are in trouble, the solution should automatically come to us based upon these ideas.

As of now we run and refer to a book, which means we have a Guru only in the outer world. If we digest and enrich ourselves with these ideas, even when we don't have problems, they will lodge themselves in us and take us to higher and higher levels of completion.

When we have problems, they will guide and enrich us. If you read books only when you are in trouble or when you are seeking a solution, you will not digest the ideas because your mind will be confused. How will you receive them?

How can you digest them when you are troubled and confused? It can't happen this way. When you protect dharma, it protects you. When you excite dharma, it excites you. When you enrich dharma, it enriches you. When you are integrated to it, it is integrated into you. When you are authentic with it, it is authentic with you. When you take responsibility for it, it takes responsibility for you. Only when you enrich it, will it enrich you. Dharma means the natural law of the Cosmos. It is an independent intelligence.

When your mind is in the normal state, receive these ideas and enrich yourself and others constantly as a regular habit. Let it become your normal life style. Just as you eat and bathe everyday, in the same way, absorb these ideas regularly. Understand, from my daily morning satsangs to Inner Awakening program, and even after that, I continue to speak on the four tattvas to enrich people with this dharma. Then, is it all the same? No! It is neither the same nor is it different! It means that you are being guided deeper and deeper, layer by layer, into the same tattvas!

So, all that we take in through the five senses should be pure. Only then can we radiate purity, can we radiate bliss, can we radiate divine intelligence. Unless we purify the āhāras that is ingested through the other senses as well, we cannot expect purification of our memories.

Each one of us have mechanical parts and non mechanical parts of the brain. Mechanical parts of the brain are responsible for the functioning of your body— like the heart, lungs, liver, kidney, intestine, the functioning of your nervous system, experiencing touch, taste, seeing etc. The non-mechanical parts of your brain are responsible for the extraordinary powers—like telepathy, teleporting, vāk siddhi (the power of words, wherein any blessing given becomes a reality).

Extraordinary powers are not mythological stories or just some blind faith. I have already done enough scientific research to demonstrate the genuineness of the possibility of teleportation, telepathy and materialization.

Only when you take the responsibility, will you find the solution. I tell you, in every situation take the responsibility. You will have leadership consciousness happening in you, īśvaratva. Our brains are hardwired to experience higher possibilities and higher consciousness. It is this part that I call as non-mechanical parts of your brain.

Whether you accept it or not, understand it or not, your body carries at least seventy times more energy and power than what you use in your dayto-day life. Science has proved this through various methods and ways.

Just one small alteration in your brain can make you live without food, for months! I am not giving you any fantasy theory. I am giving you the practical experience of hundreds of my disciples who are living this through nirahara samyama.

The thoughts that you take in, play a major role in the expression of your consciousness. Just take in this one truth that Kṛṣṇa speaks of, 'Establishing your intelligence in Me.' Please understand that whatever you take in as your inputs, you establish your mind only on that. So let your inputs be purified. Let purification of your sensory inputs happen to you. Your consciousness will automatically be established in the Divine. Again and again, try to absorb these ideas. Let these ideas penetrate you.

Don't go behind ideas that make you feel low and that put you into depression. The truth will begin to enrich you from within yourself. I tell people that when the source of the words is enlightened consciousness, the words simply penetrate you and automatically come into your mind whenever you need their help. People ask me, 'Swamiji, how can we remember these ideas and practice them?' I tell them, 'Never bother remembering them.

Just listen, that's enough. These words are from my experience. So naturally they will penetrate your being.' Whenever it is necessary, you won't need to remember these words. The words will remember you. Without effort, these words will stay in you and surface.

Automatically they will come up when needed.

They will erupt into your consciousness, like a pop-up. Similar to the pop-up on your computer monitor, they come up in your consciousness and guide you. You don't need to do anything. All you need to do is authentically listen, as a means to put them into your being. Naturally your consciousness will be established in the

Divine. Kṛṣṇa says, 'Immerse your mind completely in Me. Focus your entire attention upon Me. Without a doubt you will reach the blissful state.

Impress upon the students that when we are complete with the universe, we experience ecstasy and bliss within, we don't feel we are missing anything from the outside world, then renunciation or Saanyas automatically happens.

• ❖ What is the difference between love based on time and love based on consciousness?
• ❖ How do we establish our intelligence in Krishna?
• ❖ What is the benefit of Ahara Shuddhi or purity in intake through all senses? What is īśvaratva or leadership consciousness?

• 1. White flowers (chrysanthemums, roses or daisies would work well) Small containers or jars
• 2. Water
• 3. Food colouring Red, Yellow, Green and Blue

Let's make a quirky flower arrangement display. Fill each jar with half cup water. Add 10 drops of different food colouring to each of the jars. Take the leaves out and cut the stem of the flowers so that they can stand comfortably in the jars. Place the jars at your window sill so that they get indirect sunlight. Slight colouration of the petals starts showing within an hour. The petals acquire a prominent colour by the end of the week.

Whatever you take in as your input through your senses, your mind gets coloured in that.

Part 2: Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12 - Lesson 6 of 14_English_part_2.md

The Sanskrit Shloka "āhāra śuddho satva śiddho dhruvā smṛtiḥ" translates to "When our food, is purified, our memory is purified." List out three steps you will take to ensure that your intake from each of the five senses is purified. Few examples are given below to help you get started: Sight: I will not watch movies or soap operas; Sound: I will listen to soft instrumental music or vedic chants daily; Smell: I will take bath with sandalwood soap;

Taste: I will reduce my sugar intake; and

Touch: I will practice celibacy for the first 21 years of my life.

Ahāra shuddhi means that everything we take in through the five senses should be pure. When the purification of your sensory inputs happens, our consciousness will automatically be established in the Divine.

Activation of the non-mechanical parts of our brain for acquiring superpowers is a myth unconfirmed by scientific experiments.

Extraordinary powers—like telepathy, teleporting, vāk siddhi, ability to live food free, are lying dormant within the non mechanical parts of our brain.