Beyond Scriptures

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.