1. Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by Nithyananda - Chapter 1 - Shastras, stotras, sutras

In this series, a young enlightened Master, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM comments on the Bhagavad Gita.

Many hundreds of commentaries of the Gita have been written over the years. The earliest commentaries were by the great spiritual masters such as Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva, some thousand years ago. In recent times, great masters such as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharishi have spoken from the Gita extensively. Many others have written volumes on this great scripture.

THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's commentary on the 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 the 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 THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's commentary on the Gita is to obtain an insight that is rare. It is not mere reading; it is an experience; it is a meditation.

Sankara, the great master philosopher said:

'A little reading of the 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 THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM through further discussions with Him. For ease of understanding for English speaking readers, and to cater to their academic interest, the original Sanskrit verses in their English translation have been included as an appendix in this book.

There are millions of spiritual scriptures and millions of books on planet Earth. From time immemorial, human beings have created spiritual scriptures and still continue to create spiritual books. The 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 the Bhagavad Gita. No other book is a complete encyclopedia of spirituality. The Bhagavad Gita is the unabridged dictionary and encyclopedia of spirituality.

Spiritual scriptures can be classified into three categories. First we have shastra: shastra give 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.

Sastras logically and intellectually answer all major questions. Through them, we can be logically convinced to follow the ultimate path. Sastras guide us in life. These books give us regulations, do's and don'ts, what should be done and what should not be done.

There are many examples. The Ten Commandments are sastras. The sruti and smriti of Hindu religion, the sacred scriptures such as the Veda and Upanishad, and the guidelines such as the Manusmriti and epics such as Ramayana, are sastras. The Bible, Koran, Dhammapada of Buddha, Zend Avesta of Zoroaster, and Jewish Kabbalah are sastras.

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

When we worship and surrender ourselves to the divine, this form of expression is stotra. The literature from the heart is a stotra; literature from the head is a sastra.

A third type of literature called sutra gives us techniques to realize that state of uniting with the divine.

Sastras gives us intellectual understanding, stotra gives emotional feeling, sutra gives the being level experience.

Sastras 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 by the stotras. Sutras give us techniques to achieve devotion or enlightenment.

Sastras alone cannot lead us to enlightenment, although it can be a good support; it can take us to an enlightened master. Until that point, it is a great help. Stotra is 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 stotra. Sutra means the technique that helps us achieve the goal of the sastra and the goal of the stotra.

Goal of sastra is atman, divinity within; goal of stotra is God. Of course, both are one and the same, but they have two different paths.

People who are intellectually oriented, who are centered on logic, analysis and calculation need sastras, 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.'

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

We cannot just believe, especially in modern days. 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.

Our Vedic seers created sastras to give us intellectual understanding. They logically teach us the path, 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 sastras. The conclusions are given to us.

We need to understand a few things about sastra. Sastras 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. Sastras help us get rid of these doubts intellectually.

One thing we should understand about intellectual clarity is that unless we have complete intellectual clarity, our belief will be a pseudo belief. Please be very clear, 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 sastras.

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

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

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 things? What am I doing?' We will start having doubts about ourselves. We won't believe our faith.

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 sastra, we will not be able to believe in anything.

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 what they think they believe. 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!

That is why we are stuck. To love the whole world is very easy. We can always say Vasudeva Kutumbaha - the world is my family. We say, 'Master, I feel that the whole world is like 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 emotions are not deep; our faith is not deep. This is because we don't have the intellectual conviction.

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. Sastra, the intellectual understanding, gives a base so that all our convictions, all our faith, all our belief can enter into our being and start working.

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.'

Bhakti is a touchstone. The moment bhakti or devotion touches us, we become God, we become divine. The problem is, we never allow devotion to touch us; we never allow devotion to work on us; we never allow devotion to penetrate our being.

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!'

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

A small story:

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.'

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.'

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

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

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 choice. We just choose. It is just one more shop like Wal-Mart 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.

One man was praying to Lord Vishnu.

'Oh Lord, please give me a million dollars. If you give me one million dollars, I will put 200,000 dollars in your donation box. If you don't believe me, please deduct 200,000 dollars and give me the balance of 800,000 dollars. That will also do!'

Our faith is only this much; our spirituality is just a game. As long as things go well according to our chosen route, God is great. I have seen people who pass exams and break coconuts in front of Ganesha temples, but if they fail, they break Ganesha idols!

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

Our faith is very pseudo. If it is not life transforming. We do not allow devotion to work on us. A beautiful verse in the scriptures of Vedanta 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. Sastras give us that intellectual clarity, that intellectual understanding.

All the great devotees, great bhaktas like Chaitanya, Ramanuja and Madhva had a strong intellectual base. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a great nayaika philosopher. Nayaika 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 sastra base.

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

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.

Many people ask, 'Master, 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 give me. Oh stone! Please save me?'

No! We say, 'Oh God, please save me. Oh Lord! Please save me, Oh Master! 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 Vaishnavism, the devotional or bhakti stream of Hinduism, there is a beautiful word archaavataara. This means the idol worshiped in the temple is the incarnation of God.

Archaavataara means incarnation of God. The idol is not just a stone. Incarnation means the divine descending on planet Earth, just like the ten incarnations, the dasavatara of Vishnu. All these idols are like these ten incarnations. Just like these incarnations*,* the stone, the idol that we worship is called archaavataara. We relate to the Divine through the vigraha, the idol, and through the moorthi, the image.

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

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

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.

Next is sutra. Sutra gives us the technique to reach enlightenment. Shastra is from the intellectual level. Stotra is from the emotional level. And Sutra is from the being level.

There are three kinds of human beings: head oriented, heart oriented and being oriented. To fulfill everyone, our enlightened sages have created three kinds of literature shastra, stotra and sutra. Bhagavad Gita is the only book that is shastra, stotra and sutra. In the Bhagavad Gita, all three are combined together, with something more!

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

Just explaining do's and don'ts will not help. Giving the intellectual reason as to why it should be done or not be done is necessary. Many books talk about how many times you can marry or whether you can marry at all. Many literatures lay down all these rules, but give no understanding. 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 to what it says we should do.

No other religion has as many scriptures as Hinduism. Within the Vedic literature, our masters have chosen three books called 'Prasthanathreya'. These books are the ultimate authorities in spirituality. One is Brahmasutra, second is Upanishad and the third is the Bhagavad Gita.

Veda Vyasa, an enlightened master, wrote Brahmasutra. Many enlightened masters taught what is known as Upanishads. However, Gita is directly from God, from a poornavataar - perfect incarnation, Krishna. Among the incarnations, Krishna is considered poorna, complete, a full incarnation.

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

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.

He cried out, 'Oh my God! Such a beautiful paradise.' 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.

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.'

An incarnation is someone who comes down to tell his fellow men 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 tell you about divinity and to make you realize what he has experienced, is an incarnation.

A scientist is a person who creates a formula to understand things of the outer world. For example, Newton saw the apple falling from the tree. Suddenly some understanding came to him, 'Why is this falling? What is happening? Why shouldn't it go up? Why is it coming down?' Newton glimpsed the truth at that moment. He analyzed and created a formula so that everybody could understand what happens when objects fall. Newton created a formula, the theory of gravity. A scientist is a person who creates a formula for the outer world.

In the same way, an enlightened spiritual master is a person who creates a formula to reproduce his inner world experiences. Scientists create formulae for the outer world, whereas a master creates a formula to recreate the experience of the inner world. Meditation techniques are these formulae.

An incarnation is a person who can directly give the experience without even using the formula! All these great incarnations come down to planet Earth to make people realize that they are divine, that they are God, to tell people that the other side is beautiful. 'There's a very big paradise. Come let us go and enjoy. Come join me,' they say.

Incarnation is a person who has descended to teach divinity to the world. Why is Krishna poornavataar? He has all the qualities needed to push human beings to divinity. The person who can push human beings to divinity is called jagat guru – the guru who awakens. He is the teacher, the master of the whole universe.

The invocation verse of the Bhagavad Gita says:

Vasudevasutam Devam Kamsachanura Vardhanam Devaki Paramaanandam Krishnam Vande Jagat Gurum

I salute you Lord Krishna, teacher to the world, son of Vasudeva and Supreme bliss of Devaki, destroyer of Kamsa and Chanura.

The verse says that Krishna is the jagat guru. Jagat guru is a person who can help the whole world, all types of human beings and from all levels. The universe is a place with all types of human beings who are at all levels of experience and maturity. Krishna can help all kinds of people from all levels to experience divinity, to reach the ultimate, to realize the truth.

There are intellectual people, emotional people and people at the being level. Some incarnations, such as Sankara, strongly appeal to intellectual people. Sankara 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 Sankara singing and dancing. We can't imagine Sankara doing raas-leela, cavorting with women like Krishna did*.*

Buddha and Sankara will appeal only to the intellectuals.

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. He can see them dancing, but he cannot see for whom they are dancing. They can never understand these incarnations.

People who are at the being level, centered on their being, find it difficult to relate with intellectual or emotional masters. They straightaway want the experience. They are neither ready to analyze nor ready to believe. A person ready to analyze goes to shastra. A person ready to believe is drawn to stotra,

but a person who wants a straight experience, instant coffee, instant experience, can neither wait for shastra nor stotra. He straightaway wants the technology, the applied science. Shastras are like main theory, the basic science. Stotras are like the marketing department, publicity. Sutras are applied science. They give straight answers.

You still need to understand a bit about this marketing department. A small story:

One guy reaches Yama Dharma's court for judgment. Yama is the God of Death and Justice. Yama says, '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.'

The guy says, 'Alright, I will check out both places and then decide.'

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 things. He wondered, 'What is this? What happened to hell?'

People in hell said, 'All the techies 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, 'Hallelujah! Hallelujah!' Nothing else; nothing new. It was the same old heaven, nothing much is 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 guy 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! This is reality.'

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 is the truth and what is exaggerated. You need to analyze. Of course, when I say we go through the stotra, we need to understand it. Please be very clear, when we go through the Puranas, the epic stories, we need to understand the spirit of the Puranas. We need to understand the spirit.

There is a big difference between fact and truth. Purana, 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 shastra nor stotra; they straightaway want applied science, technology. For them Shiva, who created the Vignana 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 master.

But Krishna can relate to people at all three levels. If you are intellectual, He gives you the Gita, Gita Krishna. If you are emotional, you can have Radha Krishna. He can sing and dance; he can play; he can be naughty; he can fulfill your emotional being; he can give you the ultimate emotional fulfillment. At the being level, you straightaway want the technology of enlightenment. Again, He offers the truth*, Dhyana Yoga* – path of meditation techniques - in the Gita*.*

Krishna is complete fulfillment. His very life is sutra! The very life of Krishna is a technique. Sutra means the technique that leads you to enlightenment. The body language of an enlightened person is sutra. Krishna is the person whose body language straight away 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 straight away have moksha, liberation!

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 Bhagavatam called 'leela dhyana'. Just remembering the leela, the playful pranks of Krishna, is dhyana, meditation.

No other incarnation is given the word leela dhyana. No other incarnation is praised like this. Just remembering His acts is dhyana, meditation. Masters say that remembering the acts of Krishna is meditation.

The great sages were once disturbed by the singing and dancing of the gopikas (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.

They thought, 'Why are the gopikas so happy and always singing and dancing? We sages are sitting with closed eyes trying to meditate with long faces and nothing is happening. Except the beard, nothing else is growing. We have been meditating for a long time, but these gopikas are always happily singing and dancing! What is really happening in that place?'

A small story within this story:

A guy 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.

The next day, at the same time, he heard the sound again. 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.

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

Anyhow, the singing and dancing of the gopikas around Krishna disturbed these sages. They wanted to know what was going on in Vrindavan. They came down to see the gopikas, but the gopikas 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.

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.'

One gopika asked, 'Sages? Who are they?'

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

The gopika 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 forget Him. We are unable to do our work. He has completely filled up our inner space!'

Many people ask, 'Master, should we remember you? Should we take you as our master?'

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.'

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 gopikas say, 'We are unable to forget Him.'

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, Vishwa Roopa Darshana!

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 fulfillment in Krishna.

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

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

One swami in Bharat said to me, 'I am jagat guru.'

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

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

He said, 'No, no, I have one disciple and his name is Jagat. I am the guru for him, so I am called Jagat guru.'

So understand: Jagat guru does not mean just the guru of one person Jagat. Jagat guru leads the whole universe into the Divine Consciousness!

Krishna is a Jagat guru.

To a person who is intellectually oriented, the Upanishad will appeal; the shastra will appeal; the Brahma Sutra will appeal.

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

For a person who is being level oriented, the Vignana Bhairava Tantra or Patanjali Yoga Sutra will appeal.

Krishna appeals to every being.

He is for intellectual people, emotional people, being level people, and something more. He has created keys to open all the locks. He has created methods to give 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 next generations. He is Nithya Ananda – Eternal Bliss. Gita is the Ultimate Scripture - shastra, stotra and sutra.

Krishna is beyond scriptures.

When Krishna says,

Weapons do not cleave, nor fire burns the Atman

Water does not wet it and wind does not dry it

When He talks about the basic truths of life and spirituality, it is shastra.

When Arjuna says,

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

You are infinitely mighty, pervading everything, you are the Ultimate.'

Arjuna is doing the Stotra. Arjuna is praising the lord; he is expressing his devotion.

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

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

The Bhagavad Gita is the only scripture that combines the wisdom of shastra, the depth of feeling of stotra and the practical reality of a sutra. It is a means to enlightenment for all, delivered by the Master of Masters.

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

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.

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 archetypal Kshatriya prince.

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.

Arjuna's dilemma is such that he is now able to be neither a Yogi nor a Commissar.

He loses his detachment as a Yogi. In turn, he loses his courage as a Commissar.

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.

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 do. Our value systems and beliefs are the samskaras that drive our decisions. The problem lies in the fact that these samskaras lie deep in our unconscious. We are not even aware of them.

Arjuna understood his kshatriya code of conduct very well. This code demanded that he not 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 the codes of conduct.

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

All of us are caught in such a dilemma at one time or another. 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 it, violate these rules and regulations.

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.

In almost all cases, if the desires are strong enough, desires win. Rules and regulations can wait, we say. At worst, we can always work out some means of appeasing these godly forces. After all, what are temples and priests for?

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

'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 for the most part. People will violate them; they will stumble. Let us then catch them and control them through fear and greed, through the fear of God.'

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.

In the spiritual sense, there is no such thing as sin. There is nothing that is totally good or bad. As the Tao 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.

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.

Arjuna's progress on this path of self-discovery is the path of the 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 samskaras and we act in total fulfillment of these samskaras in awareness, we have no dilemma. We are in fulfillment.

All of us are born with pre-existing desires; these are the vasanas, the mental set up that the spirit within us carries into our bodies with each new birth. These are also called prarabdha karma, those desires that we choose to fulfill when we take a birth. They carry their own energy for fulfillment in that lifetime.

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 (body). As the energy enters another piece of matter, another body mind, the memory of the prarabdha 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 vasanas and the prarabdha 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!

That is the root cause of our dilemma.

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

Fortunately, it is possible to become aware of our prarabdha karma, our opening balance of desires. We can then work towards its fulfillment during each life without accumulating more karma (agamya karma) in this lifetime. Agamya karma is the 'current account' of desires that we accumulate in this lifetime.

By exhausting the prarabdha that we brought with us and by not accumulating more agamya, we lower the overall 'account' of total karmas that we collect over millions of births. This total account is called sanchita karma.

These karmas or unfulfilled desires are also referred to as samskaras, the engraved memories stored in our unconscious, stirring up these desires. They are also called vasanas 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.

By understanding the nature and types of samskaras, vasanas and karmas that we carry over into this birth, we can work towards their fulfillment. Then, our stock of samskaras diminishes.

The Life Bliss and THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Spurana Programs, the Level 1 and Level 2 courses, address these karmas. In both workshops, participants learn about their samskaras, 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.

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

1.23 Let me see those who have come here to fight,

Wishing to please the evil-minded son of Dhritharashtra.

1.24 Sanjaya said:

O descendant of Bharata, being thus addressed by Arjuna,

Krishna then drew up the fine chariot in the midst of both armies.

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.

Arjuna is being called Gudakesa in this verse, the one who had transcended sleep, or the need to sleep. Sleep, here, also refers to the unconscious mind. All our samskara, 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 samskaras, as a result of his total surrender to Krishna.

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

In a later part of Mahabharata, there is an incident that illustrates this relationship.

One day, Arjuna was walking with Krishna after the war was over. Suddenly Krishna points out to a crow on a tree and says, 'Arjuna, look at that green crow! Can you see it?'

Arjuna responds immediately, 'Yes, Krishna, I see the green crow.'

They walk a little further and again Krishna points to another crow on another tree and exclaims, 'Arjuna, do you see the black crow on that tree?'

This time Arjuna says, 'Yes Krishna, I see that black crow.'

Krishna turns to Arjuna and says, 'Arjuna, you are a fool! How can a crow ever be green? Why did you agree with me when I pointed to a crow and said it was green?'

Arjuna simply answered, 'Krishna, when You pointed out a crow and said it was green, my eyes actually saw a green crow. What can I do?'

The metaphysical importance of this exchange is beautiful. You see, for one who is caught in the sleep of unconscious living, this world of illusion, maya, appears utterly real. But the enlightened master is not fooled. He 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 the source of his happiness, then the surrender is total. Krishna's senses 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.

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.

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.

Questions can never be answered. They are a reflection of one's internal violence, violence of one's ego, wishing to prove one's control over another person. If we analyze our own questions, almost always it is about telling another person about what we know, telling that person that he does not know, rather than it being the desire to know ourselves.

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.

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 the 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.

At the next level, one reaches the state of emotional surrender. From shastra one moves to stotra. 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 forget Him. His memory brings tears to one's eyes, tears of gratitude that are impossible to hide.

Ramakrishna said 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.'

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

At the final level, there is the surrender of the senses. One truly realizes Hrishikesa 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 away.

Arjuna calls Duryodhana evil minded. This was to paint a contrast to his own state of mind from 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 samskaras and the potential awareness of their Consciousness. Which part wins depends on one's ability to surrender to the super conscious Divine or the Master.

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.

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 would find himself. He would be afraid of that darkness, which a person born blind would never fear because that would have always been his experience.

Arjuna is in the state of a person who has had sight and has now lost it. He was an intelligent man, who suddenly realized that what he might be doing is wrong and evil. So he is troubled.

Duryodhana on the other hand has a mind that is always in darkness. He has never experienced true intelligence or awareness. Therefore, anything that others tell him is immoral or unethical would make no sense to him.

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*, the Koran, etc were revealed to sages. Is there historical proof that Krishna was God incarnate?*

A good question. It is a question that naturally rises 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.

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

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.

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 from religious conflicts. Religion is the breeding ground for terrorists today. At least atheists do not wage war. They only argue. Some believers cut the throats of those who do not share their belief!

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 existentially irrelevant this identity may be. However, when it comes to God, your idea of God is based on your conditioning, belief systems, culture and environment.

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 form. To billions of Hindus it is Shiva, Krishna, Vishnu or Kali, with definitive forms and attributes.

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!

For most of you, God is a concept, but you are 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.

A young man came to me once and asked me, 'Can you show me God?'

Vivekananda posed a similar question when he first met Ramakrishna. As you may know, Vivekananda was the first disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, one of the most renowned enlightened masters of this age. Vivekananda's question arose from a deep desire to experience God. So Ramakrishna answered him appropriately.

This young man was imitating Vivekananda from arrogance. He wanted to show that he had read about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. So, I caught him by his collar and said, 'Surely I can. Come with me and I shall show you.'

This man thought I had gone mad and ran away!

I do invite every one of you out of compassion, for all of you to come and experience God with me. It is a promise and not easily given.

I have come down with the technology and the compassion and the intelligence, the sutra, the stotra and the shastra to make what I said happen for you. It is a highly refined process and I know that it is successful.

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

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 convert someone else's belief system.

A while ago I met with a Christian priest in Mumbai, Bharat 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!'

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

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

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

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

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

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!'

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

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

I said to them that Krishna and Shiva were the same energies, as are other enlightened masters and incarnations.

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

I asked them, 'Have you read the Anu Gita?'

They said, 'No, what is it?'

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?'

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

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?'

Krishna says simply, 'At that time I was the Ultimate Consciousness. I was Parabrahma Krishna, God incarnate. Now, I am Vasudeva Krishna, the human son of Vasudeva, your friend. So, I do not remember it now.'

What Krishna once again repeated to satisfy Arjuna is the Anu Gita.

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.

Part 4: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - Chapter 1 - Shastras, stotras, sutras

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!'

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!

1.25 to 1.30

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

Hrishikesa said, Partha, behold all the Kurus who are assembled here.

There Arjuna could see within the armies of both parties,

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

And friends, as well as his fathersin-law and well-wishers

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

He was overwhelmed with deep pity and said:

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

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

My bow, Gandiva, slips from my hands, and my skin burns

I am unable to stand here any longer.

I am forgetting myself, and my mind reels.

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

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

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

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 his relationship. Krishna is also referred to in the Gita as Parthasarathy, the charioteer of Partha, Arjuna.

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 Sakuni, 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.

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

The expression of Arjuna's dilemma starts here.

As a warrior, as a kshatriya, 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.

However, whom he saw in front of him now were not enemies as he had imagined, that 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 or are like his father, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, sons and grandsons, tied to him with bonds of blood lineage. Many others were his friends with whom he had previously enjoyed bonds of loyalty and kinship.

Arjuna's dilemma was not one of nonviolence, ahimsa. As a warrior, as a kshatriya, this word had no place in his dictionary. His dilemma was one of violence, violence born out of his ego, his identity. He could annihilate 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 bond of family was far stronger than Arjuna had imagined. The bond of family that arose from him was rooted in his ego, and to cut this bond was to destroy himself. This was Arjuna's dilemma.

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.

What follows now is a litany 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 samskara, trying to justify its actions.

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

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.

However, the feeling that is referred to in these verses as the emotion that Arjuna experienced upon seeing his kinsmen was not of that noble kind. Arjuna's emotion was discriminatory. He felt pity for those who faced him, thinking that all of them would be killed. He felt pity only because they were his kinsmen, only because he identified with them.

As I mentioned earlier this was not compassion born out of ahimsa, nonviolence, but pity borne out of himsa, violence.

Arjuna's emotions arose from his ego.

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.

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

Arjuna's pity rose 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.

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 kshatriya of kshatriyas, 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 samskaras, 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.

Can something like this really happen? Can a hero lose his composure and exhibit the identical 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?

Arjuna's situation shows how the mind can play games with the best of us, how the samskaras can take over the mind in so powerful a manner without his being even aware of it.

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 action for the rest of his life.

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.

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'.

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

People speak of attachment, liking and love. All these are born out of and valid only as long as possession results. The moment the person wanting to be liked turns around and displays independence and unwillingness to be possessed, the liking and the love disappear.

Possession arises out of our survival need, from our muladhara chakra – 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.

'What I cannot have, let no one have,' we often feel.

Possession leads to violence.

It is also the deep-rooted feeling of possessions giving rise to 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.

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.

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, his kinsmen, would take a massive toll on him. It would be akin to committing suicide.

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.

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.

Many philosophers, existentialists and nihilists, 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.

Arjuna is undergoing a process of transformation. He started off in this war with the basic assumptions of the kshatriya codes of conduct. When challenged, a kshatriya 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.

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 right? Am I not destroying myself and all that I stand for when I wage this war against my own people?'

Arjuna had become a seeker of the Truth. He was no longer satisfied with what he had imbibed all these years - the Shastra, the Stotra and the Sutra. He wished to go beyond. He questioned them, as he had doubts. He was in a dilemma. Vishada, is the name given to this first chapter of the Gita, Arjuna Vishada Yoga. Vishada 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.

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

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

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 ananda and 'who provides salvation to those who surrender to Him.'

Kesava, the name by which he is called in the above verses, refers to the fact that He destroyed the demon Kesin. It also refers to his beautiful hair. The embodiment in Him of the Holy Trinity in the Hindu tradition, the Sanskrit words K referring to Brahma, A to Vishnu and Isa to Shiva is another one of His titles.

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.

Q: Master, 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

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.

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

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.

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 to gain control of all three worlds.

1.36 What pleasure will we get by destroying the sons of Dhritharashtra, Janardhana? Only sin will overcome us if we slay these wrong doers.

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

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

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

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

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 of 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.

Had Arjuna been totally convinced that war against his kinsmen was wrong, he would not have come to the battlefield to begin with. 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.

Arjuna's mind now brings up one more argument. Arjuna agreed that Duryodhana and his allies were the aggressors and wrong doers. 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 wrong doers for what they had done.

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

There are two factors central to Arjuna's dilemma.

The first one is that of connectivity. 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 connection and friendship, there is a danger of loss to that connection if we disrupt it through perceived negative behavior, even when it may be fully justified.

For one 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.

Over the ages, this connectivity 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 war over the ages than for other reasons. 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.'

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.

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.

For instance, outside Bharat, all Hindus gather against another country in a cricket or football match. But once back in Bharat, the same people start talking in terms of north and south Hindus. If one is a south Hindu, and one is back in the south of Bharat, it is a matter of whether one is a Tamil, Telugu, Malayalee or Kannadiga. Once one is Tamil, and if one is a Hindu, the segregating question then becomes one of caste association. If one is brāhmaṇa, the differentiation becomes whether one is an iyer or iyengar, vadakalai or thenkalai.

The differentiation and discrimination continues until the most basic common denominators are identified connection as a tribe or a family. Everyone else is an outsider, potentially unwanted, not as loved, a little unreliable and a dispensable threat.

To overcome this break in connectivity, 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 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.

When we arrive on planet Earth, we are open to all possibilities. We are centered upon ourselves as children in a simplistic 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 just lost inside!

In the material corporate world, it can be even worse. Companies often believe that such walls, such barriers of function - domain and geography - are intrinsic to the success of any enterprise. They believe that unless such specialization, such segregation, such individualization happens people cannot perform efficiently. We forget that performing efficiently but not effectively is far worse. It is like running blindfolded as fast as you can without knowing where you are running and why. Yet, employees today are rewarded for such blind sprinting.

Suddenly, a blind person wakes up and wonders why there is no communication amongst people who apparently work with the same objective. He finds people safely cocooned in silos, alone and pretending to be comfortable and efficient. They do not know who is around them in other silos and, after some time, perhaps they do not care. They believe themselves to be islands when it is not true. At a superficial level, there is isolation and loneliness but at a core level there is unperceived relating. It is like the water in a harbor thinking that it is cut off from the ocean. It can never be possible.

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.

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 result.

Arjuna is yet to reach that stage. He is still in the silo stage, where he has stored all his kinsmen in his own silos.

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 are enough nuclear arsenals stored in the world to destroy the planet many times over. All that needs to be done is for a deranged mind to press that button, with no feeling of responsibility. In this case, destruction is not direct. No one needs to take responsibility. All modern warfare is impersonal and immoral.

This has become true of modern business as well. More and more business, media and agricultural interests are being swallowed up by multinational corporations owned by a few increasingly powerful owners. People who run businesses become, for the most part, faceless, and the people whom they serve are generally faceless, too. Decisions are made at levels where there is no contact with those whom the decisions affect.

This style of business and industry contributes so much environmental damage. No one is responsible. Boards of Directors make the decisions and no one is usually held liable. A business or corporate organization becomes faceless and therefore fearless. It also becomes unscrupulous. It is something created by humans, but which is no longer humane.

People down the line, implementing the decisions, respond like robots, and if questioned, simply reply, 'we are not responsible. We are just obeying orders.' Often when decisions become impersonal, they become immoral and unethical. This is true of all organizations, whether they be corporate, political, societal or religious. When Hitler's Nazi leaders were caught and prosecuted at Nuremburg, the justification that each gave was so simple and similar. They said, 'We were just following orders, so we are not responsible.'

This impersonal nature of slaying one another, causing harm at a long, anonymous distance, has the greatest destructive potential of present day warfare, terrorism and corporate greed. We have seen the impact of immoral CEO's on the health of a corporation and the individuals it serves and employs.

When Hitler ordered the genocide of millions of Jews, he did not have to look into the eye of each one he had killed. Had he done it, it might have been a difficult task for him! Destroying another living being in the vast collective consciousness does destroy something within the one who does the act. With each destruction, something within that killer withers and dies. However, when the killing happens remotely, perhaps it doesn't seem so real and therefore the impact is diminished or delayed.

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.

Arjuna was affected by the combination of these two factors: that of being connected by kinship to his battlefield 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 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 transcended into that state of awareness to be able to take responsibility for such actions.

This was Arjuna's dilemma.

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.

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?'

Arjuna was pleading with Krishna, 'Please tell me, am I right? Please tell me, should I withdraw from this battle?'

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 he held 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.

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.

Arjuna's dilemma now jumps to a larger arena. It's no longer about individuals, it is about 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 reprehensible act, he pleaded.

In Arjuna's mind this was a pertinent 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?

This was how the argument of Arjuna's dilemma shifted.

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?'

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. Was it really fear that caused this confusion?

We have choices in everything that we decide and act upon. In life we have choice in everything, including our birth and death.

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.

Our spirit does decide our death. It is just that we are living deep in our unconscious during the lifetime and so we are unaware of this. Even a hundred years ago in Bharat, 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.

So, we do have choice. So did Arjuna.

At every point Arjuna had a choice, not just in 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.

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.

At 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 kshatriya, when he had to decide and act.

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?'

In greed, Duryodhana chose the Yadava army. On the other hand, Arjuna gladly accepted Krishna unarmed!

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, Yudhishtra, though he was ready to walk away without his kingdom, followed Krishna's advice of fighting for it. He considered the war a responsibility that he had to fulfill. The Mahabharata war, in its essence, was Krishna's making.

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 at the battlefield, the choice that he was presented with now, was not something he had anticipated.

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 samskaras. Why?

As a kshatriya, a fearless warrior, his code of life and his conditioning from birth was to avenge, to fight and to win. What is this samskara that suddenly raises doubts in his mind?

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.

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.

This happens to all of us at 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.

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.

The only way out of his dilemma is with the guidance of his friend and Master, Krishna. It is to Him that Arjuna turns to now for clarity.

1.40 With the destruction of dynasty, the eternal family tradition is destroyed too,

And the rest of the family becomes involved in immoral practices.

1.41 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.

1.42 As these social problems

increase, the family and those who destroy the family tradition are cast in hell,

As these is no offering of food and water to their ancestors.

1.43 Due to the evil deeds of the destroyers of family tradition,

All kinds of rituals and practices of caste and family are devastated.

1.44 O Janardana, I have heard that those who destroy family traditions dwell always in hell.

By now, Arjuna had become desperate. His arguments seemed weak, even to him. And we might wonder if they were making any impression on Krishna at all. His next attempt was to broaden the argument to include the tragic impact this war would have on future generations and the entire Kuru race.

Arjuna starts quoting the scriptures of social laws to explain to Krishna the evil state his destructive actions would bring to future generations of the dynasty.

The destruction of a noble lineage would bring about the decline in commitment to the rites and rituals that make society civilized and moral.

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.

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 Hindu education system called gurukulam. 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 puberty, determined how the youngster was trained – either for sanyas (spiritual fulfillment) or for married life. The child's natural aptitudes formed the basis for the caste classification, varnasrama. Brahmanas (priests/teachers), kshatriyas (kings/ warriors), vaisyas (merchants/tradesmen) and sudras (agricultural/ service) are these four classes.

Even at this level of understanding the truths expounded in the Gita are about personal transformation. Each verse of the Gita is a sutra, a technique that can work on your being and transform you.

The essence of Gita is about the present moment. That is how Krishna brings Arjuna into awareness. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to say that Gita is tagi, a corruption of the word 'tyag' that meant renunciation or surrender. Gita is about surrendering the past and the future to the present.

The Vedic gurukulam system was not concerned with whether the child's parents were brahmana or vaisya. If the

Part 5: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

guru found that the child had the natural aptitude to learn the scriptures, the child would be trained as a brahmana. Irrespective of parentage, boys and girls were taught the gayatri mantra at age seven, which allowed their natural intelligence to blossom. Those whose ability leaned towards the spiritual path and 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.

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.

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 brahmanas and kshatriyas, decided to pass on their caste qualification to their children as if it was their birthright. Such a practice had no scriptural sanction.

The son of a brahmana, who had neither the aptitude nor the knowledge to be a brahmana, ceased to have the right and qualifications to be called a brahmana. The son of a sudra, 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 brahmana. That is the scriptural truth.

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 bemoaned would be destroyed. Satyavati, his great grandmother, was a fisherman's daughter who his great grandfather, Shantanu, became infatuated with.

Arjuna himself had wives who were not of kshatriya lineage by birth.

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.

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 do 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 on their minds.

Arjuna mouthed 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 rest of the masses. This is how, in each culture and religion, the power of the priestly class was established, as if they were the sole intermediaries to God.

Arjuna talked about ancestral worship and implied that the offspring of mixed castes has no right to make offerings to their ancestors, leaving them lost in the 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 dementia was not only Arjuna's, but also of mankind's.

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 kshanas, three moments between thoughts. Spirits do not hang around waiting to be pacified. Nor do they go to hell if they are not pacified.

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 because we are depressed, guilty and in suffering. We are in heaven when we feel and express love, joy and gratitude. Hell and heaven are spaces in our mind, not locations that we travel to after death. 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; we are in them right now.

A small story:

A preacher attracted a large number of disciples promising them that when they died he would take them to heaven. He said, 'Serve me well, and I shall take care of you in the hereafter.'

One day the preacher died. His two closest disciples committed suicide. They were sure he would

go to heaven, and did not want to miss out on their chance to follow him. So they died too.

All three reached the pearly gates. The preacher saw his two disciples and was immensely pleased. 'See. I told you I would take you to heaven. That is where we are now.'

The person who greeted them took them to a large palatial building. He told them, 'whatever you wish will be available to you. Enjoy yourself.'

The preacher and his disciples were ecstatic. All they had to do was think of something and it was there. Food, music, wine and women, everything came to them even as they thought of it. They indulged themselves completely. Many things that they dared not do on Earth were no longer taboo. In any case they could not help it. Even if they tried to suppress a desire, as soon as it arose in their minds it was fulfilled.

After a few days they grew tired of this. There was nothing to do since there was no effort involved in fulfilling their desires. It became a suffering to have things brought to them even before the desire was fully formed. If this was heaven, they had enough of it.

They called for the guard. When he appeared they told him politely that they had had enough of heaven for a while and that they would now like to take a look at hell for a change.

The guard looked confused and then he understood. He smiled broadly at them and said, 'Where do you think you have been all this time? You ARE in hell!'

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.

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.

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.

! Paaqaa-ya pitbaaioQataM Bagavata naaraayaNaona svayaM / vyaasaona ga/iqataM puraNamauinanaa maQyao mahaBaartM AWOtamaRtvaiYa-NaIM BagavatIM AYTadSaaQyaaiyanaIM Amba %vaamanausandQaaima Bagavad\gaIto BavaWoiYaNaIM

Om paarthaaya pratibodhitaam bhagavataa naaraayanena svayam Vyaasena grathitaam puraanamuninaa madhye mahaabhaaratam Advaitaamrutavarshineem Bhagavateem ashtaadsaadhyaayineem Amba tvaamanusandadhaami bhagavadgeete bhavadveshineem

OM, I meditate upon you, Bhagavad Gita the affectionate Mother, the Divine Mother showering the nectar of non duality and destroying rebirth, (who was) incorporated into the Mahaabhaarata of eighteen chapters by sage Vyasa, the author of the Puraanaas, and imparted to Arjuna by Lord Narayana, Himself.

vasaudovasautM dovaM kmsacaaNaUrmad-nama\ dovakIprmaanandM kRYNaM vando jagad\gauruM

Vasudeva Sutam Devam Kamsa Chaanura Mardanam Devakee Paramaanandam Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum

I salute you Lord Krishna, Teacher to the world, son of Vasudeva and Supreme bliss of Devaki, Destroyer of Kamsa and Chaanura.