1. Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by Nithyananda - Chapter 13 - East before you are eaten

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.

This reading is meant to help every individual in daily life as well as in the endeavour to realize the Ultimate Truth. It creates every possibility to attain nithyananda, eternal bliss!

In this chapter, Krishna speaks to Arjuna about kshetra (Field) and kshetragna (Knower of the Field). This chapter is known as the kshetra kshetragna vibhaga yoga, or the yoga of discrimination of the kshetra, the field, and kshetragna, knower of the field.

Krishna clearly talks about the physical matter in which we exist as well as the Consciousness that stays in the matter. In some way or other all of us are related to this whole universe, whether we understand it or not, whether we experience it or not. The Consciousness is the adi-moola, root cause. It is not only the origin, but also the cause. Please understand it is the origin and cause. It is the Source from which we come and in which we stay. The whole universe, the universal Consciousness, is the space in which we all happen.

Krishna uses the wave and the ocean as an analogy. The ocean is the universal Consciousness or God, Atman or whatever we may call it. Buddhists use Nirvana, Vedantis say Brahman and Muslims say Allah. Whatever names we may use, we mean the same thing when we refer to the cosmic energy or universal Consciousness. Krishna reveals the secret that we are like the waves, and the whole is the ocean. He explains how we can experience oneness with the ocean.

Our only problem in life is that somehow we have forgotten that we are a part of the ocean. We forgot that we belong to the ocean. We forgot that we belong to the kshetragna. The word kshetragna means Consciousness, which is the cause for the field to function. Kshetra means field and kshetragna means knower of the field. Kshetra means body and kshetragna means the Consciousness that knows it has a body. Our consciousness is kshetragna and our body or matter is kshetra.

In this chapter, Krishna reveals the secrets of kshetra and kshetragna. If we don't know the secrets of kshetragna, kshetra acts as if it is the owner.

A small example:

You buy a new car. You sit in the car and start driving. Suddenly, after ten minutes you realize that you do not know how to stop. If you don't know how to stop the car, you are not driving the car; the car is driving you.

In the same way, we get into this mind and into this body and start living. Suddenly at one point, we find that we are unable to stop the body or mind. It goes on as it wants and it is uncontrollable.

If we have the habit of drinking coffee in the morning at seven am, we don't need to remember to do it by checking our watch. The moment it becomes seven, a 'coffee bell' will ring inside the mind. And if we are habituated to smoking, the moment that mood comes, or any situation related to that mood comes, immediately we feel like smoking.

Throughout our whole life, our whole system is not under our control. The body and the mind are controlling us instead of us controlling them. It is similar to the car driving us instead of us driving the car. We get into this car of the body and mind. When we are unable to control them as we want, when we are unable to handle them, we are not driving the body and mind; body and mind are driving us. At that point, we are not the owner of body and mind, body and mind owns us.

Control the body and mind or else the body and mind will control you. Bring the body and mind under your conscious awareness. Body and mind are good servants but not good leaders. As servants, they are great. Of course, without the body and mind you cannot live life, you cannot enjoy life. They are needed. But, unless they are under your control, they will be controlling you!

Only two options are possible: Either you enjoy them or they enjoy you. In the beginning you may start smoking. After some time, you will not be enjoying the smoke; the smoke will be enjoying you. Similarly, in the beginning you may start drinking alcohol. After some time, alcohol will be drinking you. In the beginning you start a habit and after some time that habit takes over your life. The habit will be enjoying your life. You are no longer a person with choices: you are a set of habits that is continuously repeated without your control.

It is like getting into a car without reading the owner's manual. When we start using a car without reading the owner's manual, suddenly we realize that we do not know where the hand break is. We don't know how to turn left or right. When we enter into the body and mind without knowing how to handle them, we are in the same situation. Bring the body and mind under your control before you are brought under their control.

Whether it is a material life or a spiritual life, unless the body and mind are under our control, whatever we think or whatever we want to do is a waste. Suppose we sit down in the morning and draw out a big plan for the day, analyzing all the data, 'I must do this,' 'I must do that,' but at the end of the day, beyond our control, we automatically indulge in drink and sleep or this and that distraction. What is the use of the whole day's plan? Nothing! We go on creating what we want to do, but at the end of the day, the body behaves the way it wants. Even the mind behaves as it wants. We get nowhere!

Naturally, your whole life moves in a 'logic-less' way. You work so much to elevate your life. Yet your body and mind do what they want. Of course then we end up in suffering. 'Life,' the very word 'life,' can happen only when the body and mind are under your control. As long as the body and mind are not under your control, you will not experience even the word 'life.' Until the body and mind are under your control, you are not living. The engraved memories are living you.

Until we experience the kshetragna, the knower of the field, the real life never begins. This is why the Vedic system considers a person to be born only when his individual consciousness is awakened. Until then his physical birth is not accepted nor is he considered a human being or a manusya. According to the Vedas, when someone's inner consciousness is awakened he is considered a human being or a person who has taken birth. Until then he is one among the animals. Until then he is not called a manusya.

The Sanskrit word manusya has two meanings. One is 'descendant of Manu,' and the other is 'man who can handle the mind or one who has gone beyond the mind.' Manu is supposed to be the forefather. Only when we can handle the mind, we become manusya. In Sanskrit they say, 'Pratyagatma Chaitanya Jagritam.' It means that only when the individual consciousness is awakened is one considered to be a person.

In the Hindu Vedic system, the moment a child turns seven he is initiated into the gayatri, a sacred mantra chant. You should understand one important thing. Vedic religion, or Hinduism, or the Sanatana Dharma, is the only religion in which there is no baptism, no initiation. You are not given any faith, you are not given any concept and you are not given any philosophy. No. You are not asked to believe anything. You are just given a technique to control your body and mind. That's all.

The gayatri mantra is taught to the child when he turns six or seven years of age. The gayatri mantra means 'Let me meditate on the energy which awakens the Consciousness in me, and let that Consciousness help me to meditate on it.' That's all.

OM bhûr bhuvah svah tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dheemahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat

This mantra does not have any other meaning. It is not related to any devata, deities. There is no mention of Gayatri Devi or a deity with five faces. No. This mantra means 'Let me meditate on that Consciousness which awakens my intelligence and let that Consciousness help me to meditate on it.' That's all.

The first thing that our rishis or enlightened Masters want us to do is to bring our body and mind under our control. They want us to learn how to live with our body and mind. Gayatri mantra is like an owner's manual for the body and mind. If we have a car, an owner's manual is a basic need. Without reading the owner's manual, if we start driving a car, then whose mistake is it?

In all vehicles we can see important instructions and warnings on the airbags. 'Airbags may cause serious injury.' 'Kids under the age of twelve should not sit in the front seat.' 'Please read owner's manual to know more about the airbag.' In the same way, only at around the age of seven do we start to handle our body. Until the age of seven, we live at the instinct level. After the age of seven the intellect starts working and we start making decisions. The moment we start making decisions, we should first know how to bring the body and mind under control. That is why the Vedic Masters teach the technique to awaken the inner intelligence and to master the consciousness. It is similar to reading the owner's manual before using the car.

Q: Master, you said that unless a person has the spark of enlightenment within him, he wouldl not be attracted to an enlightened Master. You have also said that all of us are enlightened but we are not aware of it. So, why is it that all of us are not attracted in the same way to you or other enlightened Masters?

An excellent question!

Yes, it is true that all human beings have the potential to be enlightened. Every person carries that spark of divinity within. There is no sinner amongst you. There is no doubt about that.

You have free will as a human being to work through your senses. By and large, most people choose to be led by the senses rather than to lead their senses. Senses create desires for the outer world. However many times you may enjoy them, these desires are never fulfilled unless you are in control of the senses..The senses will simply bring you back to the same scene again and again, like an animal returns instinctively to what it considers its home.

These unfulfilled desires are your samskaras, the baggage of experiences and memories that build up within you. These samskaras leave deep grooves in your brain and control you unconsciously. What you originally thought was free will is no not really free will at all. You are like an ox that follows the same ploughed groove in the field. You are caught. You are addicted.

Without exception, all your sensory pleasures are of this nature. Whether you call that pleasure lust or love, it makes no difference. These are just your dictionary words. These are words you use to justify the moral standards of your society and religion. Any attachment that you form that arises out of emotions or sensory pleasures is bondage, be it the love for your children, parents, spouse or any other person. The object of attention does not change the bondage of attachment.

Even the attachment to God or Master is a form of bondage. Only when the relationship develops without attachment, when it becomes a relationship that is not based on give and take or pleasure and enjoyment, does it become a devotional relationship. In such a relationship, one identifies oneself with the object and surrenders. This is what renunciation is about. It is total surrender with no expectation.

It takes many births and rebirths to reach this state of surrender. There are those who have come to me many times before. There is no guarantee that they will stay with me in this lifetime! It is their choice.

When they don't choose to stay with me, their spirit experiences pangs of regret as it leaves the field, the mind body. At death, when the spirit crosses the seven energy layers around the body the entire life experience is played back to it. The spirit witnesses all those material pleasures with no joy. During life, those scenes gave a lot of joy to the senses. During the life these scenes were in glorious color and four dimensions. During the transition of death, these scenes are colorless, one-dimensional and have no attraction any more.

However, if we have had even one or two spiritual experiences in our lifetime, such as time spent with an enlightened Master, or reading this book in deep awareness, such a scene will be played back to the spirit in glorious multi-dimensional color. The spirit then longs to return to such an experience.

As the spirit crosses the causal layer of energy, the entire mind-body system goes into a deep coma forgetting all that happened in the previous lifetime. The next birth takes place in an unconscious state, unconscious of the experiences, memories and desires of the past lives. The cycle repeats.

At some point, the longing of the spirit for the spiritual experience that it keeps missing is so intense that it resolves to reach it at whatever cost. Such a spirit is born in a body with a deep desire and a deep need to reach an enlightened Master so that it can seek its release from unfulfilled desires. Such a person may even choose a body that will have an incurable disease that no medical system can cure. That is why many who come to me for healing become my disciples. That is how their spirit led them to me.

Do not think it is an accident that you are with me, or reading my books, listening to my tape or watching my videos. There is no accident in this universe. Everything happens with a cause and for a reason. However, it is your choice whether you wish to follow it up in this lifetime or let your spirit yearn for the experience for many more births.

13.1 Arjuna said: O Krishna, I wish to know and understand about prakriti and purusha, passive and active energies,

The field and the knower of the field, and of knowledge and of the end of knowledge.

13.2 Lord Krishna replies to Arjuna saying: This body, O son of Kunti, is called the field,

Anyone who knows this body is called the knower of the field.

13.3 O Bharata, we should understand that I am the Knower in all bodies, the Creator.

In my opinion knowledge means to understand this body or the field of creation as well as the Creator, one who knows this field.

Krishna explains, 'O Kaunteya (son of Kunti), O Arjuna, this body is called the field; a person who knows this body is called the knower of the field or kshetragna.'

Whatever you know is not you. If you know something, it is not you. For instance, you can read this book because it is separate and apart from you. Similarly, if you can know your body, then it is not you. If you can know your mind, then it is not you. If you can know your thoughts, then they are not you. Whatever you know is not you. You are separate from that or above that. That is why you are able to know it. Whether it is the body, thoughts or emotions, whatever you know is not you.

Krishna clearly says the body is kshetra, matter, the field. Consciousness or one who experiences the body is kshetragna, the knower of the field.

Now we need to separate these two, the field from the knower of the field. Once we separate these two, the body will be blissful and joyful. Consciousness will be liberated. When these two join, that is where the problem starts.

A one-liner:

A man tells his friend, 'My sign is earth and my wife's sign is water. Together we make mud!'

Water and earth are beautiful as they are. Only when they are mixed do we get mud.

Similarly, Consciousness, as it is, is beautiful and so is the body. When the two meet, that is where the trouble starts. All we need to do is to understand the field and the knower, i.e., what we are and what we are not. The problem in our lives is that when we identify ourselves with something, we believe we are that. Instead of understanding that we possess a mind, we believe we are the mind. The mind then becomes 'I.'

As long as this table is mine, there is no problem. If I start thinking that I am this table, the problem starts. As long as we think that our body and mind are ours, there is no problem. But the problem appears the moment we identify with them. Krishna says, 'We must understand that whatever we know is not us.' Inch by inch He starts to explain the difference between kshetra and kshetragna.

One more thing, when we understand that something is separate from us, we never feel that we must renounce it. We simply need to renounce the idea that we are that thing. In fact, we don't even need to renounce; we will simply know by being aware of the way in which our body or the mind works. Neither we will feel tortured by them, nor we will feel like torturing them. The people who are tortured by the body and mind are caught in this world and its troubles. Another group of people continuously torture the body and mind in the name of tapas, penance.

I have seen people in Bharat practicing yoga by sitting or standing on nails for five years! I have seen people torturing the body by standing on one leg, rolling on the ground or walking on fire. There is no need to torture the body. Actually we torture the body because we think that it is torturing us. We take revenge. At one extreme, people are caught in sense pleasures and killing themselves. At the other extreme, people torture the body in the name of penance. Neither knows how to handle body and mind.

A person who knows how to handle his body and mind enjoys. He is totally at ease with himself. He feels completely relaxed with his body and mind. He intensely enjoys all pleasures and comforts but he never abuses the body. Enjoying and abusing are two different things. Enjoying is when the mind and the body are in tune. We feel ease, comfort, a deep sense of relaxation and a feeling of being at home with ourselves.

Many times we think we are enjoying but the body and mind are not in tune. For example, we watch a latenight movie or a soccer match on television until two am. Our eyes will be burning, our body will be begging, 'Please, give me some rest.' Automatically our eyes close during a commercial break and we want to go to sleep. Still we say, 'No, I will sit and watch this.' Don't think these are pleasures and enjoyment. We are not using our body. We are simply abusing our body. A person who knows his body and mind and can keep them under control never abuses the body.

Why do we sit and watch television until two am? Our mind is not under our control. The mind tempts us to do something, and for the sake of the mind, we abuse the body. Abusing the body for the sake of the mind is pleasure at its extreme. There is nothing wrong in real pleasure in the right amount, but going against our body for the sake of the mind is, in fact, too much pleasure. This is one category of people.

Another category of people tortures the body for the sake of the mind, in the name of penance or tapas. These people are in search of peace. They have not experienced peace or bliss. These people go on disrespecting and torturing the body: standing on one leg, standing on nails, or walking on fire. They continuously abuse the body or mind in one way or the other.

Masochists! Sadists! Sadists are always masochists. Masochists are always sadists. Torturing others happens when we torture ourselves. If we torture ourselves, naturally we will torture others. Please understand that we torture others when we do not feel comfortable

within ourselves. We torture others when we are not at ease with ourselves because we are in a low mood or depressed. Torturing others is directly related to torturing ourselves.

If we think that we are the mind, we torture our body; and if we think we are the body, we torture our mind. The person who knows the secrets of the body and mind neither tortures nor abuses them. He knows how to use them and live blissfully with them. His inner space overflows with bliss, and his outer space enjoys comforts and real pleasures. Krishna reveals the secrets of how to keep the body and mind in beautiful and blissful energy, and the inner space flowing in blissful Consciousness.

Krishna says further, 'O Bharata, I am also the Knower in all bodies. To understand this body and the knower is called knowledge.'

Beautiful! Here, He makes two statements. He says, 'I am the Knower in all the bodies, and to understand the knower and the body is knowledge.' He says that understanding the field or the body-mind and the Consciousness is knowledge. He says, 'I myself reside as the Consciousness inside the beings.'

Our Consciousness is God and there is no separate thing. The problem arises when we start thinking that we are the body and the mind! A person who understands that he is Consciousness liberates himself. He is enlightened. He becomes the Buddha. Consciousness is God.

The Equation is:

God + Body Mind = Man

Man – Body Mind = God!

Whether we believe it or not, we are Consciousness. Let's see how we miss it, how we miss our life and how we mess our life! Here is a beautiful story about knowing the body and the mind and how we miss that we are Consciousness.

A pregnant lioness was hunting for food one day when she came across a flock of sheep. She tried to attack but the effort was too much. She fell on the ground, giving birth to her cub and died due to the shock.

The flock of sheep saw the newborn lion cub. They started playing with it. They felt that they should take care of this cub, as one species often does for a newborn of another species. They just took pity on it and adopted him. The sheep started taking care of the cub in the same way they care for their young, feeding it with milk and grass. The cub also started behaving in the same way and grew up along with the sheep. He lived happily amongst them, not knowing that they were different from him. After some time the problem started slowly, it had to. The mother sheep started receiving complaints about the behavior of the cub, 'He is too arrogant,' 'He is beating us all,' 'He is not playing properly with us.'

Naturally he was sidelined. Whenever any argument arose, they decided to punish him.

After a few days, the lion cub started to wonder, 'What is this? I don't feel that I am really living. Is this all a lie? Is this all that there is to life - eating grass, jumping around and bleating, just going around the grasslands? I don't feel I am leading a full life.' He felt that he was unlike the others, that somehow he was different. He did not feel that he was being himself.

Whenever he saw a forest, he was tempted to go and explore the forest. But his sheep mother had warned him that it was the one thing he should not do. She forbade him from straying away from the flock, obviously now considering him to be one of the sheep. She cautioned him that if he did so, the lions inside the forest would kill him.

Please understand that this whole story is about the spiritual seeker. It is about how a person takes birth and starts seeking and how he achieves fulfillment. It's a wonderful story. I love this story. Again and again, I repeat this story!

The mother said, 'You cannot go there, there are lions.' The cub somehow suppressed his search or feeling of emptiness even though he felt drawn in and was tempted to go into the forest to explore. After some time he decided, 'I think this life is not for me.' But somehow the mother sheep managed to

pressure and control him. She did some drama weeping, crying, convincing, and finally she got this lion married!

One more, small story:

There was a big marriage going on in the forest. King lion and a lioness were getting married. All the animals of the forest gathered for the ceremony and were celebrating. At the center, there was a dance floor where a big party was going on but only the lions were dancing and enjoying. The rest of the animals were scared to join them, so they were standing out and watching. Amidst this celebration, suddenly a rat jumped onto the dance floor and started dancing.

A lion caught the rat and roared, 'How dare you come onto the dance floor? Don't you see that all the animals are standing outside? Only lions dance here!'

The rat said sternly, 'Keep quiet! I was also a lion before I married!'

Now, coming back to the sheep-lion story. The lion cub got married and the years passed by. After some while he again started thinking and analyzing, 'What is going on? I am leading the same old life, eating, bleating, and jumping around! I feel something is seriously missing! I have found whatever best one can get, a good mother, good wife, nice life, but deep inside me, there is only emptiness. I don't feel fulfilled. What is happening to me?'

Again he started searching. The seeking started. Maybe he was around the age of forty!

Then suddenly one day, a lion from the nearby forest attacked the flock of sheep. When this happened all the sheep ran away. This lion-sheep (who was neither a lion nor a sheep), neither felt like running away nor did he have courage to stand and face the lion. He knew the lion was trying to attack, but he thought, 'He looks so graceful. Something about him is different.' He had never seen such a majestic beast before,. So, slowly, somehow, unconsciously this lion-sheep felt attracted and drawn towards the lion. Because of the attraction, neither did he run away, nor did he have the courage to stand, because he thought he was a sheep under attack.

He started walking away slowly but kept his face and gaze fixed on the lion. The lion straightaway came near him and caught him. The sheep-lion started bleating, 'Oh, please leave me alone and do not kill me!' The lion said, 'Fool, I have not come to kill you! You are a lion, why are you bleating and shouting for help? Why do you think I will kill you?'

'Lion?' the sheep-lion suspected that the lion was trying to cheat him and take him to the forest. So he became frightened, 'No, no, no, leave me, leave me.' The lion again said, 'Fool! You are a lion, why don't you understand?' The sheep-lion refused to believe the lion. He somehow escaped and ran away.

Even though he ran away he was unable to forget the lion. For a week he was afraid. Fear usually is there after the first glimpse, the first experience. He had had the first glimpse of the lion! This is how Arjuna felt after his first experience of the Divine, his first glimpse of Krishna. It is an experience that evokes fear as well as a blissful attraction.

A week passed by and the fear slowly subsided. He felt drawn to the lion once again. The sheep-lion felt like meeting the lion. 'I think I should meet the lion once more,' He thought. One part of his mind was saying, 'No, no, no, I am afraid that he may kill me,' while another part was saying, 'No, it was such a blissful experience with him. He is so graceful and I want to meet him again.'

Please be very clear that unless you have enlightenment within yourself, you will not feel attracted towards an enlightened person. If we feel attached or connected to an enlightened person and in tune with him, understand that it is a sign that we have enlightenment within us already. However, if we don't have it in us or if we have not matured or grown to that level, we will not even feel a slight connection with an enlightened person.

There are millions of people living in this city. Why are only a few hundred sitting here for these lectures? Not only that, thousands came at least once and have not come back. Why do only a few come regularly? The moment you feel attracted to an enlightened Master's teachings, be very clear that the enlightenment in you has started expressing or flowering.

That is the reason why the sheep-lion remembered the lion and felt attracted to it. He felt the intense urge to see the lion again and finally decided to meet him. But how would he meet him? The lion never sent out flyers saying, 'Here, I am doing a program. You can meet me here.' The sheep-lion came to the edge of the meadow where the forest started, and waited expectantly every day for the lion to appear.

After a few months the lion appeared. The moment the sheep-lion saw him, his fear surfaced and he was caught in the dilemma once again despite having waited for months to see him. This time the lion came towards him and asked, 'How are you doing?' The sheep-lion started bleating again, 'I am, I am, I am….'

He was unable to answer, but did not run away, as he had done earlier. The lion said, 'Don't worry. If you are afraid, I will go away. I am not going to eat you because you are a lion. And because I can't eat you, I won't kill you. Also since I have no use for you, there is no reason for me to stay here if you are afraid.' Saying this, the lion started walking back towards the forest.

The sheep-lion immediately pleaded with the lion to stay and spend a few moments with him. He also added, 'Don't come too close. You can stand at a distance and talk. Please stand ten feet away and I will stand here. But please spend some time with me.' The sheep-lion now was neither able to forget the lion and escape nor did he have the courage to go near him.

This is the next phase of growth for a seeker.

With around ten or fifteen feet between them they stood and talked. However, again and again the lion says, 'you are a lion. Fool! You are thinking you are a sheep! You are not like the friends you live with. This is not the way you are supposed to live.'

The sheep-lion started to think about what the lion said. Slowly the doubt it had that the lion was going to take him to the forest and eat him disappeared. Now the sheep-lion was convinced that the lion did not have an ulterior motive. He understood that the lion did not benefit in any way because of him. He thought, 'I have nothing to offer him and I am of no use to him.'

Only when that confidence comes into the mind of the disciple does he trusts the words of the Master.

That is why in the Vedic system spiritual knowledge is free. We start trusting the Master only when we realize that we are not going to contribute to the Master, that the Master has nothing to gain from us, and he is not missing us. The trust between the Master and disciple starts when the disciple understands that he has nothing to add to what the Master already has in his being. The Master has everything and is overflowing. The Master is sharing because he is overflowing. He is not giving in order to take something from us. His very being is overflowing. Only when you understand that, will you start trusting the Master's words.

So then, the sheep-lion had developed that much trust in the lion, 'Lion is not going to kill and eat me. If he wanted to do that, he would have done it long ago. One thing is certain. He is not going to gain anything from me. So why does he say I am a lion?'

Then, the sheep-lion thought about what the lion said. When we understand that we have nothing to give the Master, that he is overflowing out of his ecstasy and sharing the joy and bliss, we start analyzing. Until we understand that whatever the Master says is only for our own benefit we never try to experiment with his words.

The sheep-lion thought about the lion, 'He looks so courageous, so graceful, so bold, and he is radiating so much confidence. It doesn't look like he is lying.' We can clearly tell whether someone is lying or not by seeing the eyes of a person. We don't need a lie detector! All we need to do is look into his eyes. So the sheep-lion thought, 'He doesn't look like a liar. Then why is he again and again telling me that I am a lion? I know I am a sheep.'

The lion then said, 'I think you are not interested in believing me. And I am not interested in wasting my time. I am going.' But the sheep-lion begged, 'No, no, no! Please, please, at least give me an appointment.' Lion asked why he wanted the appointment.

The sheep-lion replied, 'I will go back home and think about whatever you have told me. Then I will come back and clear my doubts with you.' The lion agreed, saying he would meet him at the same place in one month's time.

The sheep-lion then started to contemplate, 'How can I be a lion? I know for sure I am a sheep. I eat grass. I bleat like sheep and go around with sheep. So, how can I be a lion?' He thought and thought. He considered all the great philosophical questions. All the questions I am answering, they were just the same.

There must have been some books: 'sheep-philosophy,' 'sheep-bible,' 'sheep-gita.' He read all of them and thought of questions. He made a big list of questions that his mother and father never answered. One important thing though is that he never told his mother that he met the lion because if she knew, she would stop him. She would not have allowed him to go to the edge of the forest. She would have told him, 'Never go there! You must stay in the meadows. You cannot go to the other side into the forest.'

Parents are afraid for their young ones. They send their children to the temples but never to a swami, never to a spiritual Master! To them there is always a danger. See, Swami Vivekananda is great as long as he takes birth in the neighbor's house, not in our house.

Anyhow, finally after one month, the appointment date arrived. The sheep-lion collected the best grass, whatever

he thought was best as an offering to the lion and gave it. 'Please have all these things. I preserved them carefully for you.' Seeing the love of the sheep-lion, the lion also acted as if he was eating and enjoying, just so that he could please the sheep-lion and make him feel connected. He was zeroing down the distance. He wanted the sheeplion to feel comfortable and connected in his presence. Only then could any transformation or transmission of knowledge happen. Just to make the sheep-lion comfortable, the lion acted like he was eating.

Naturally, the sheep-lion asked, 'Is it good? Is it tasty?' Lion said, 'Yes, yes, it is tasty. I am happy. You cook well; you have done a great job.' Some compliment is given!

After accepting the grass offering, the lion started once more, 'I am telling you again and again, but you are not ready to listen.' By now, the sheep-lion knew that what he was thinking was wrong. Still he was unable to accept that what the lion was saying was right. How could he be a lion? He knew by now he was not a sheep. He applied logic, 'my color is different. If I am a sheep, I should be like my friends. I think differently. I do not feel satisfied or comfortable with that life. This means I am something more. But I am unable to understand how I could be a lion.' He was not able to comprehend what the lion said. At the same time he was not sure about what he had been thinking all along.

The lion called him, 'Come, and let's go to a nearby lake for a picnic.' By now the sheep-lion was comfortable with the lion and agreed. When they reached the lake, the lion suddenly grabbed the neck of the sheep-lion, dragged him to the water, and told him to look at the reflection in the water.

The lion asked him, 'Do you see an image of a lion in the reflection?'

The sheep-lion replied, 'Yes, I see your reflection. You are standing.'

The lion asked, 'Do you see another reflection?'

The sheep-lion said, 'Yes, I see another small lion, your baby. Where is the baby? Your baby is not here but his reflection is here. Is he inside the water?'

The lion roared and said, 'Fool, it is you!'

The sheep-lion refused to believe and said, 'No, no, no, maybe your baby is hiding inside the water. Call him.'

The lion said, 'Fool, it is not my baby. It is you.'

The lion then told him, 'Look, I am now moving away. Only you are standing there. See what is happening!'

The sheep-lion then saw the reflection. Suddenly, the first shock happened to him, 'I think there is some truth in what the lion says.'

Again, he was frightened, 'If I am a lion, I must live in the forest. I cannot take that responsibility. If I am a sheep, I am so comfortable. Already, I know all my sheep

friends and I get regular food. I know where food is available. I know where I cook. I know where I eat. I know where my house is. I know where my wife is. I know where my life is. I know and am completely accustomed to the life of a sheep. But if I understand that I am a lion, the whole thing must be dropped. I must renounce the whole thing. I must take a big jump. It's difficult.' That fear came up and he simply ran away and escaped.

After a few months, the lion came in search of the sheep-lion. This time the sheep-lion did not bring him any offerings. Instead the lion brought an offering of meat to the sheep-lion! The moment he saw the sheep-lion, he didn't talk. There were no intellectual discourses, philosophical discussions or question and answer sessions. Straightaway, he caught hold of the sheep-lion, opened his mouth, and put the meat inside.

The moment the sheep-lion tasted the blood, the moment he tasted the meat, something reeled inside him. Something happened to his being. Something happened to his consciousness. Suddenly he swallowed the meat and roared!

By roaring, he achieved what we call enlightenment! And he realized that he had been a lion from the beginning, from day one.

The same thing happens in our lives. Again and again, we think we are sheep. At some point, we start suspecting, 'I am not feeling satisfied with this life. What is happening?' And after time, suddenly we see a lion that teaches us, 'You are God. You are that energy. You are Consciousness.' We get scared and run away. At home we start thinking, 'I think he has some plans. He wants to build an ashram and that is why he says these things.'

After a few days we realize that he already has an ashram. We don't need to build one for him or contribute to his ashram. We realize that he has everything and doesn't need anything. Then slowly we start analyzing, 'Why is he coming everyday and saying the same thing? Everyday he comes and for two or three hours he shouts and says the same thing. Why?' After a few days we think, 'One thing is certain, whatever I think about me is wrong. But I don't know whether whatever he says is right or not.'

During meditation one glimpse of Consciousness happens. When that happens we again run away with a fear, 'No, no, no. This is not for me. If the same thing happens again, I may leave everything and go after him.' At this stage, the Master suddenly catches hold of us and puts the meat of solid spiritual experience into our mouth. Consequently something happens in our system, in our Consciousness. Suddenly we open our eyes and roar, declaring the experience that happened in our being. We realize that from day one, from the beginning, we have been that. The lion-sheep has always been a lion.

But it requires another lion to make a sheep-lion realize that he is indeed a lion.

From day one, we are the knower or the kshetragna, the Consciousness. But by mistake we start thinking that we are the body-mind, in the same way that the sheep-lion thought that he was a sheep. Suddenly a person who has already experienced that he is Consciousness guides us, saying, 'This is Consciousness and that is body-mind. Understand that you are Consciousness.'

Here, the same story is happening between Krishna and Arjuna. Krishna explains kshetra and kshetragna. He tells Arjuna that he is not a sheep but a lion. He is not merely the field; he is the knower of the field.

Q: You have spoken about the need to be in the present moment so that one is aware. What does that mean? How do I know I am in the present? Will others know I am in the present?

To be completely immersed in whatever you do at any particular moment without bothering about what is going to happen is being in the present.

As I have often said, focus on the food when you eat. Do not talk, do not read, do not watch TV or do whatever else you normally do when you eat. You neglect the food. You disrespect the food. So it turns into garbage. If you focus on the food when you eat, you would probably eat half as much and stay healthy. When you eat unconsciously, you become obese.

It is as simple as that.

Numerous Masters have spoken of being in the present. They teach various ways to be in the present. Many of you have ideas of what it is to be in the present.

When you are in the present, there is no need to announce that you are in the now or in the present. If that need arises, be sure that you are not in the present. And your presence will disturb, confuse and threaten others. Your inner chatter will be so loud that though you cannot hear it, others will want to run away.

You may become like some people who insist that everything around them be silent and undisturbed when they meditate. They create chaos so that they can be centered. This does not work. You need to bring your own mind to order, not the minds of other people.

People smell you if you are in the present. They smell the fragrance and feel your presence. If they don't, you are not in the present. When you are in the present moment, your presence centers, calms, and moves others into the present moment. You have no need to advertise that fact.

If you constantly tell people how much you are in the present moment, you are not where you think you are. You are caught in your own inner chatter. You are caught in the greed of your speculative future and the regrets of your unlived past.

The more you are caught in your past and future, the higher the frequencies of your thoughts and the louder and faster your inner chatter will be. So you have read about being in the present. You wish to be in the present. You feel guilty that you are not. Therefore, you announce to the world that you have arrived, though you have not even started.

Presence and being in the present do not happen through seeking. They just happen. They happen when you do not seek, when you do not try, when you relax into it and when you let go. Understand that your thoughts are not logical or connected. One thought does not lead to another. Each is independent. We connect one thought with another and create shafts of pain and pleasure or shafts of fear and greed. Instead of witnessing the thought in the present moment and letting it go, we extend it to the past or future.

Once you understand this truth, you move naturally into the present. I call this being in the unclutched state, the state of nithyananda, eternal bliss.

Part 2: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

13.4 Understand my summary of this field of activity and how it is constituted; what its changes are, how it is produced,

Who that knower of the field of activities is, and what his influences are.

13.5 That knowledge of the field of activities and of the knower of activities is described by various sages in the scriptures.

It is presented with all reasoning as to cause and effect.

13.6,7 The field of activities and its interactions are said to be: the five elements of nature, false ego, intelligence, the mind, the formless, the ten senses of perception and action, as well as

The five objects of senses and desire, hatred, happiness, distress, the aggregate, the life symptoms, and convictions.

Krishna asks Arjuna to listen carefully to His explanation of what constitutes kshetra and its activities, its changes, and how they are produced. These truths have been explained by many rishis, sages, from time to time. The Vedic scriptures, the Brahma Sutras, express these truths with clarity, using sharp reasoning.

Thousands of years of research done by millions of inner scientists, rishis, in millions of inner science laboratories have led to the same truth: the true nature of man is pure Consciousness, kshetragna, and man is the knower or witness to the field, kshetra, the body-mind.

Again and again throughout this chapter, Krishna cautions Arjuna not to confuse the body with the knower of the body and not to confuse the mind with the knower of the mind. The whole problem arises when we mix the knower of the field with the field.

We have forgotten that we have taken this body and mind for a purpose i.e., to live our desires, samskaras. We have forgotten that we have rented this costume body and mind costume for this birth and we gradually associate ourselves with them! After a while, this costume becomes more important and dear to us than anything else. Once the costume begins to wear out, we start to worry.

Actually it is not our fault. Society has applied layers of conditioning on us and has fooled us into believing that we are this body and mind. From childhood, we are told that we are this body-mind entity. This body and mind is given a name also. And after a few years, we start to relate with that name. We identify ourselves with our profession, with our friends and with our relatives, 'My name is so-and-so, I am the son of so-and-so, and I am a doctor.'

It is like a parcel with many stamps on it. If I send a parcel from here to Thiruvannamalai, a village town in South Bharat, it gets stamped at the post office before it is sent out. Similarly, it gets a stamp at all the stops along the way. By the time it reaches Thiruvannamalai it is full of these stamps. Now the parcel thinks it is the stamps on the outside cover. It has forgotten that it is the stuff inside.

This is what happens when we associate ourselves with the body and mind, instead of associating with the Consciousness that runs it. We have forgotten that we are the stuff, kshetragna. We are not the stamps, kshetra. We confuse kshetragna with kshetra. Naturally, all the problems

that arise at the body-mind level start to affect us. The activities that happen to the kshetra appear to be having a direct influence on our lives.

In the next few verses, Krishna takes Arjuna step-bystep into what these activities are and how they interact with each other.

Krishna talks about the five great elements, the false ego, the intelligence or the mind that makes decisions and all ten senses. Please understand, He says, 'ten senses,' indriyani dasikam cha. We think we have five senses. No. We have five karma-indriya and five gnana-indriya. Karmaindriya are senses responsible for action such as our hands and legs. Gnana-indriya are senses that receive knowledge, including eyes, nose, and others. So, all the ten senses, desire, aversion, joy, sorrow, the body, mutual attraction, and the consciousness contribute to the field of activities.

Actually the word 'Consciousness' cannot be used. When our Consciousness becomes rigid, it becomes conscience. There's a difference between conscience and Consciousness. For example, we do something based upon what we think is right or wrong according to our Consciousness. If we give these same teachings to the next generation, it will not work because something else may be right or wrong for them. We give them conscience if we force them to follow the same thing if we give them what is right or wrong according to our conscience. We give them conscience if we give it as a morality to be followed. We give them a law without the spirit. On the other hand, when we give understanding about life to the next generation, we give them Consciousness.

Please be very clear that a person with only conscience always suffers. He can never be happy even if he enjoys or renounces. If he enjoys, he suffers from guilt. If he renounces, he feels the lack of it. He suffers either way. Please never give conscience to the next generation. Always give them understanding about life or Consciousness. Let them experience and explore.

I do not believe in morality. I believe in conscious experience.

I do not believe in conscientiousness. I believe in Consciousness.

Conscience is given to us by the society. God gives consciousness to us.

Consciousness is our nature. Conscience is social conditioning.

Here, Krishna speaks about Consciousness as it is expressed in a rigid way. It actually means the conscience given by the society. Conscience naturally makes our whole life into a ritual. We should know what we are doing before doing anything. Only then will we can do it intensely. If we do not know the logic behind what we are doing, we will not completely put ourselves into it and dedicate ourselves to it.

Krishna says that the rigid sense of conscience, all the rules that form the kshetra, are also the field. They are matter. They are not energy. They are not your being. They are not you. Whatever is mentioned here is not you. We should understand we are liberated the moment we know what we are not. We are liberated even if we live with what is not us. Even if we live with our bodymind, having known that we are not the body and the mind, we are not their slaves.

Please understand that the word 'slavery' can be used as long as something goes against your will. With awareness, even if you live with the body-mind, you are not their slave.

Let me tell you a small story about the life of a Greek sage named Diogenes.

Diogenes was a great, enlightened Master. A group of people plotted against him and attacked him. He did not react as they had expected. They went prepared to capture him and expected him to retaliate. They were shocked at his response.

He maintained his composure and asked his attackers, 'What do you want?' He asked them like a Master.

The attackers were shaken. One of them said that they wanted to capture him and sell him in the slave market.

Diogenes replied, 'Oh, you should have told me straightaway. Why did you waste your time standing there making plans and talking? Come, put on the handcuffs. Where are they?'

These guys were completely taken aback. For the first time they saw a man ordering them to handcuff him. He spoke like a Master when he asked them to put the handcuffs on. Finally, they somehow took out the handcuffs, cuffed his wrist on one side, and locked their own hands on the other.

Diogenes said, 'Fools, why are you tying up yourselves? Don't you believe me? I was the one who gave the order to handcuff me. Come, let's go wherever you want to take me and sell me. But be very clear, don't run away from me.'

The people who caught him were now slightly frightened. They couldn't understand what was going on. Slowly, they started feeling small. Diogenes said, 'Fools, I know the technique of freedom. I know the basic rules of freedom. I constantly experience tremendous inner freedom. Nothing can bind me. Try your best to play your game and let's see where it leads.'

Saying thus, he walked onto the road like a king. His captors followed behind like slaves.

He told the people standing on the road looking at the curious sight, 'They are my slaves because they cannot leave me.' They retorted that Diogenes was the slave.

He replied, 'See, even now if you leave me, I will run away, but now I am letting you go. Will you run away? I am setting you free from this handcuff. Will you run?' He continued, 'you won't. You need something from me and that makes you my slaves, whereas I want nothing from you. Therefore, I am the Master; I am liberated.'

You may not be handcuffed physically but still you can be a slave. Slavery is related to the being and not the body.

They took him to the market. Straightaway, he walked to the table where slaves are sold. The auction began. The auctioneer called out, 'Here is a slave. Bidders are welcome and the highest bidder can claim him.'

Diogenes at that point said, "Stop! Don't say, 'Here is a slave.' Say instead 'Here is a Master. If you can afford to bid on him, come."' Nobody dared to bid for a Master and therefore nobody bought him. After three days his captors felt burdened that they had to unnecessarily feed him, knowing that nobody would buy him. They felt, 'If we continue to sit here he may sell us. We don't know what he is capable of.'

So they set him free.

This may be a story. Yet the truth behind the story is that nothing can enslave us once we understand that we are not body and mind. We can never become a slave to anything. Even slavery cannot enslave us. Slavery can enslave as long as we are not ready to cooperate with slavery. This is a subtle point. When we understand that we are beyond body and mind, we will feel no need to resist when somebody tries to enslave us. We know that we can never be slaves.

Only that which goes against our will can enslave us. Here we are in a totally different space, a totally different Consciousness, and nothing can go against our will. And we will never have a will that would make us feel like a slave. We will be flowing with the river, flowing with the current. We will disappear into the Divine. So slavery cannot happen to us. Our Consciousness is beyond any form of slavery. Our being is beyond slavery. Nothing can enslave us.

That is why Krishna teaches the secret of understanding the body-mind and Consciousness, kshetra and kshetragna. In ancient times, man was only subjected to physical slavery. In the present day, man is subjected to psychological slavery. Understand, we are the psychological slaves of countless things.

When some product is advertised on television, straightaway it sits in our head. Within a few days, we somehow get money and buy that thing. We live in a world of psychological slavery. Once we understand that we are not the body-mind and are beyond it, we will be totally free from physical and psychological slavery.

See, it is like this. When we badly want a particular object or event to happen, our happiness is in the hands of that object or event. That external object or event has the power to control our happiness. We feel depressed

when things turn out other then the way we desired. We feel the world is unfair. Many people ask me, 'Why has God been so unfair to me? Why is it that only I face these difficulties?' Please understand, the moment you place your happiness in the hands of something or someone, you have become their slave. They can exploit you.

One more thing is that even the thought of wanting freedom can exploit us if we allow it. Many times we chase freedom in the name of spiritual seeking. Freedom happens only when we realize that there is no need to chase. We must drop the idea of wanting freedom and just trust that freedom. We will then experience it. Otherwise, craving for freedom can enslave us. We realize the futility of this struggle and experience freedom only when we become aware that we are already free.

The minute we accept whatever we have, we start flowing and stop resisting. We stop giving someone or something the power to control our happiness. Nothing can enslave us. We experience the consciousness of freedom.

Q: Master, is the difference between religion and spirituality the difference between conscience and Consciousness?

You have got it! That is exactly it!

Please understand that when Moses met his Master the Ten Commandments came out as the metaphorical explanation of his spiritual experience. With his spiritual transformation, he became aware of nonviolence, noncovetousness, and the other points of the commandments. They were not mere words or instructions; they were the beautiful outpouring and expression of how an enlightened being lives. These became his Consciousness as a result of merging with his Master.

Because these truths became his conviction following his experience, Moses could follow them. A few people close to him also understood what he had experienced and were able to also follow these truths. Therefore, for them as well, these were expressions of their Consciousness.

But there was no experience for millions of others who followed Moses. They only had the expressions of Moses to go by. Without their own experiences, the expressions were mere rules. The Ten Commandments, instead of being the liberating truths that they had been for Moses, became bondages for his followers. They became rules of conscience. They degenerated from spiritual truths to religious dogma.

So it is with all religions. The truths of Jesus' experience are diluted into Biblical dogma. The truths of Buddha get watered down into the teachings of Dhammapada. The Vedic truths become the rules and regulations of manu smriti.

However, the Hindu culture, Sanatana Dharma, the eternal path of righteousness, clearly differentiates between expressions of spirituality and the rules and regulation of religion and society. Truths are the sruti and rules are smriti. Sruti are experienced truths of great masters and smriti are the regulators of conscience. There is a clear injunction that smriti can be changed based upon time and space, implying that these are not truths.

Krishna tells Arjuna elsewhere in Bhagavad Gita that the mere reading of the scriptures does not lead to Him, i.e., enlightenment. The scriptures, the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Gita need to be experienced in the inner space. They need to become the truths of the individual. Then and only then, can be they become your consciousness, your own spiritual truths.

Otherwise they remain no better than any other rule and regulation. Man and woman are conditioned to break rules and regulations. They will once they get the chance. However, when it becomes a part of one's experience, one's inner spiritual experience, living by these truths is blissful.

13.8,9,10,11,12 Humility, absence of pride, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, service to an enlightened spiritual Master, cleanliness, steadiness, and self-control; renunciation of the objects of sense gratification; absence of ego, the perception of the pain of the cycle of birth and death, old age and disease;

Nonattachment to children, wife, home and the rest, and evenmindedness amid pleasant and

unpleasant events; constant and unalloyed devotion to Me, resorting to solitary places, detachment from the general mass of people; accepting the importance of self realization, and philosophical search for the absolute truth:

13.13 I shall fully give you the understanding about the knowable with which one can taste eternal bliss or the being or the Consciousness that has no beginning.

A life beyond the law of cause, effect and the material world.

13.14 With hands and feet everywhere, with eyes, heads and mouths everywhere, with ears everywhere, He exists in the worlds, enveloping all.

The Paramatman (supreme Spirit) is all pervading. He exists everywhere.

13.15 The Paramatman is the original source of all the senses. Yet, He is beyond all the senses. He is unattached.

Although the Consciousness is the maintainer of all the living beings, yet He transcends the modes of the nature and at the same time He is the Master of the modes of our material nature.

13.16 The Supreme Truth exists both internally and externally, in the moving and nonmoving. He is beyond the power of the material senses to see or to know.

Although far, far away, He is also near to all.

13.17 Although the Paramatman appears to be divided, He is never divided. He is situated as one.

Although He is the maintainer of every living entity, it is to be understood that He consumes and creates all.

13.18 He is the source of light in all luminous objects. He is beyond the darkness of matter and is formless.

He is knowledge, He is the object of knowledge, and He is the goal of knowledge. He is situated in everyone's heart.

Krishna says, 'I shall explain the knowable, knowing which, you will taste the eternal Being: the beginning-less Consciousness that lies beyond the causes and effects of this material world.' In the previous verses, Krishna talks about the qualities that happen with the flowering of the Divine Consciousness within. Now He reveals to Arjuna that this Consciousness is eternal.

Please understand that our mind associates a time and space for every incident or event. The mind can only think chronologically. It is like an inner reference chart and all incidents are placed in this chart of time and space. Modern science asks questions like, 'How did this happen? What was there before that? What came after this? What triggered this?' When they asked about the creation of this universe, they best explained it with the Big Bang theory.

They said that a tiny mass of fire exploded and gave rise to our universe. What they could not answer was, 'What existed before that?' Krishna says that this universal energy, the ultimate Consciousness, always existed. It manifested in various forms as planets, as humans and so on, but it is eternal. It will continue to manifest itself and return to the Source and it will always exist.

The concept of time and space that we have is based on our mind and senses. Whatever we perceive is a projection of our mind. This understanding of time is different from an enlightened Master's understanding. He measures time in terms of kshana. Kshana is the time between two thoughts. It is the space between two thoughts. Buddha referred to this time and space as sunya. Sankara referred to it as purna. It is the no-mind zone, the mindful zone, in which we touch base with ourselves. It is that present moment in which we come face to face with the divinity within, by which we recognize the Cosmic Energy that is our essential nature.

When we are caught up chasing one material pleasure after another we have so many stresses, tensions, and worries bombarding our heads every second. Our kshana is very small because of the high number of thoughts inside. This is why we get a suffocated, panicking feeling. We are running in a rat race. We constantly feel time is running out. We are greedy for more and more experiences before this body dies and we're afraid that we might lose whatever we've come to possess.

We feel this way because we associate ourselves with the kshetra, the temporary body and mind. Please understand that the body and mind are made up of the five elements and they return to their source once they have served their purpose.

On the other hand, an enlightened Master knows he is kshetragna. He knows that he is not the body mind system. He has realized that he is Ultimate Consciousness. He has no urgency to run in the rat race because he knows that life goes on, even if this body perishes. He has become a witness to the mind. Any thought that springs up inside immediately expresses itself as an action. No thoughts accumulate inside. He experiences eternity because of this thoughtless zone that he stays in. This is the truth.

This is the beginninglessness of the Consciousness that Krishna explains here.

When we are in front of an enlightened Master, one who is in a no-mind state without thoughts, our thought level comes down and our kshana becomes longer. The gaps between thoughts extend. So without even trying, we become calmer, more peaceful, and more aware.

Our logical mind tries to reason things out. We rationally want to convince ourselves why something is a particular way. But all our logical understanding and all our knowledge through books only gives information about the changing world around us. The knowable that Krishna explains is beyond these changes. It is eternal because it does not follow the properties of creation and destruction like other objects around us. It has always been there and will always continue to exist.

Whatever physical matter we see around us follows a particular cause-effect relationship. However, our deepest core is untouched by these changes. Please understand that every thought inside us affects the functioning of the whole cosmos. Whether we want to accept it or not, we do not operate as separate islands. Thoughts that are present in the space that we live in affect our mental setup as well as the way we think and operate.

If we go online and search for 'Hidden Messages in Water,' we can read the research findings by a Japanese scientist on samples of water. He took many samples from the same water source and started talking to each sample with a different emotion. He labeled one sample 'love' and spoke words of love to it. Similarly, he labeled another sample 'hate' and spoke with vengeance and violence to it. He later crystallized these samples and observed them under an electron microscope. The sample labeled 'love' showed beautiful crystals that sparkled. The one labeled 'hate' was ugly and repelling.

If one man's thoughts could have so much impact on a sample of water, can you imagine what impact the collective emotions of humanity have on the universe? Today there has been a rise in the collective unconscious, the collective negativity. The universe responds to that. People ask me, 'Master, why did the tsunami kill so many innocent people?' Please understand that these natural disasters are a projection of our collective unconscious in the form of earthquakes, tsunami, wars, and other forms of mass destruction.

In exactly the same way, collective consciousness does mass purifying. It is not to say that those were killed were impure. It is that the total collective negativity must get expressed somehow, somewhere through these natural events. That is why sages and yogis started the concept of Kumbh Mela where the energy of millions of enlightened Masters comes together at the waters of Ganga and Yamuna. Imagine the purification process that occurs when the enlightened energy of millions of Masters touches the waters of these rivers. It has a counterbalancing effect. That is why taking a dip in the Ganga during Kumbh Mela has so much significance.

Last year, on September 21st, the United Nations World Peace Day, the worldwide centers of our THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM Mission organized twenty-four hour meditation rallies for world peace. The concept is the same: when thoughts with the sankalpa, or intention of peace and harmony come together, it results in a sweet mood of peace and adds to the collective positive consciousness of planet Earth.

This positivity and negativity, creation and destruction, are all properties of the changing world around us, of the kshetra that we live in. The minute we know that we are not this changing kshetra but that we are the eternal and unmoving kshetragna, the Consciousness that runs the kshetra, we are liberated.

Krishna calls this eternal bliss jneya, knowable. When the knowing happens, the knowable (jneya), knower (jnata), and the knowledge (jnana) merge. In this experience knower, known, and knowledge become one. No separate experience, experiencer or object of experience exists. It is called triputi, where no difference between the three entities exists.

You see, it is like this: Imagine that you love driving and are sitting in a nice new car with all automatic systems and you are driving on a highway at full speed. You are so immersed in that joy of driving the car that you forget yourself. After some time you suddenly realize you are not even driving; the driving is simply happening. You have become the experience of driving and there is no more a sense of you doing the driving. The car is moving forward on its own and you have become the experience. Similarly, if you are immersed and involved deeply in any other passion, the experience, experiencer and object of experience suddenly merge into the eternal Consciousness. You call it being 'in the Zone.'

Krishna explained that His eternal nature, the eternal Self, is not bound by time. Now He says that He exists everywhere and He is not bound by space. Normally we understand the presence or absence of an object or person in terms of physical attributes. We function in our lives based upon what we see, smell, touch, taste and hear. If our pancha indriya, five senses, cannot sense anything, we think nothing exists.

One important and surprising thing is that an enlightened Master is more present in his absence than just only his physical presence. This means that his energy never dies nor does it know any barriers. Many disciples in different parts of the world tell me, 'Master, we wish to be with you more often, please visit us.' I tell them, 'Truly, sixty six percent of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM is in the mission and the message; only thirty three percent is in this body.' If we limit an enlightened Master to his form, we miss him completely. His energy transcends time and space and is always available everywhere forever!

When you are in the energy field of an enlightened Master who is no longer in his body, as in a jiva samadhi, the place where the Master's body has been buried, without even trying you become calmer and experience that space of peace within. Many great temples such as Tirupati, Thiruvannamalai, Mantralaya and Palani are built around the burial spots of enlightened Masters. That is why we feel the sanctity and peace-giving properties of these locations.

Although physically the Master is no longer in the body, we feel his presence. Why? He is not bound in space by the body. The cosmic energy that he manifests transcends space and time. Only we know physical barriers. Here, Krishna uses the phrase, 'eyes everywhere.'

During my travels during parivrajaka (monastic wandering), I stayed with and had the opportunity to learn from a great Master in the Himalayas, a naga baba. He had a unique method of teaching. Whenever people came to learn, he would stick his trishul, the trident that Shiva carries, in the ground and ask them to look at all three tips simultaneously. Sometimes his students would sit for three months staring at the trishul all day, trying to perfect themselves. It is much harder than it appears. One moment you can see one tip in your vision, and the next moment the next tip, and the next moment the third tip. I first thought it would be easy! But when I started practicing, I was shocked, 'Oh God, I can't even see this small trishul entirely, all at once!' Only then did I understand that without moving the eyeballs, without shifting the gaze, we couldn't see more than one point.

The trishul is a great weapon to create awareness of the third eye and a way to expand awareness. Right now, your field of vision is 120 degrees. If you start concentrating at one particular point, it will slowly become 30 degrees. The more you concentrate, the narrower the field of vision becomes. However, if you center yourself on the third eye, your awareness will slowly expand beyond 120 degrees, and you will first see 180 degrees, then 240 degrees, and ultimately 360 degrees. To create awareness by centering yourself on the third eye means to awaken your Consciousness.

When Krishna says, 'hands and feet everywhere, eyes, heads, ears and mouths everywhere,' what does He mean?

This is beyond the comprehension of the human mind and needs a little bit of internalization. We understand only one body because we associate ourselves with it completely. Let me explain with a small diagram:

This diagram shows the seven energy bodies or layers that we have. You see the outermost layer is the physical layer, with which we associate ourselves. We only know the gross layer where we have this body with one pair of eyes, hands, legs and one nose, head, etc. Now let us take a few points on that layer. Let us call them 'you,' 'me,' 'your neighbor,' 'Krishna,' 'Buddha,' etc. So, at the gross layer, you are different from your neighbor; your neighbor is different from me and different from the various forms of god. You can see each point being distinct from the others. We are so rooted in this physical gross layer that we see barriers because everything appears to be different from the other in this layer.

Now, for each point, if we follow the corresponding points in the inner layers, as we go deeper and deeper,

we suddenly realize that we all merge in the nirvanic layer. It is here that that Universal Energy connects every being. There is no difference in this space between you and me. This is the space of Consciousness that Krishna talks about. Here, Krishna and Buddha are no different. All are various forms of God are all manifestations of the same divinity.

The women who used to look after the cowherds during Krishna's time, the gopi, were great devotees of Krishna. Despite their other household chores, they were soaked in that devotion for Krishna all the time. It is said in the rasa leela that Krishna danced with each of the hundred thousand gopis in Brindavan. Krishna manifested a form for each of the gopis in order to dance with them. It was not merely one form, one body of Krishna, but He was present simultaneously in one hundred thousand forms.

Please understand the deeper meaning in this. Each gopi was so deeply connected with that Divine Consciousness, the Krishna Consciousness, that each one felt His presence. When we go within, into our core, we see divinity in everything. The gopis saw Krishna everywhere and in everything they did. This Universal Consciousness knows no physical barriers. That is why Krishna says He is 'all pervading.' He is all enveloping. He is omnipresent.

That is why I say, 'All healers are my hands, all acharyas (teachers), are my vak (energy of verbal expression), and all organizers are my mind.' I can only heal a limited number of people with these two physical hands. I can only conduct a limited number of discourses and programs with this one mouth, and I can only organize a limited number of events with one brain. That is why I operate through my healers, acharyas, and organizers. The cosmic THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM operates through them.

For a phone connection to happen from one country to another, we need to have the infrastructure: all the cables installed below the sea and so forth. But for this cosmic connection to happen, nothing is needed. We connect to the Self within, and suddenly there are no barriers. We simply fly.

Krishna goes on to give further qualities of the Self. You see all this is a theory and useless until one experiences the Self. If somebody asks, 'What does sugar taste like?' and if he has never tasted anything sweet before, how will you explain to him? You may explain as much as you want, 'It is in the form of white cubes, transparent and tastes very sweet.' When he asks, 'What does 'sweet' mean?', what will you say? You can continue to tell him other things about it, 'Sugar is made from sugar cane. Sugar cane is full of sugary syrup, it is fibrous, and you can chew on it.' What is the use?

Only if you put some sugar in his mouth and say, 'Here, this is how sugar tastes. This is how something sweet tastes,' does he experience what 'sweet' means. Until then it is theory with no practical, experiential value.

But the problem for intellectuals is that they are clouded with doubts and skepticism so a theoretical explanation is important. We want to measure everything based on what we know. Krishna is compassionate. He is patient.

In Chapter 11, He revealed to Arjuna His cosmic form, the viswa rupa darshan. But soon after that Arjuna feels intimidated and cannot handle the energy. He pleads to Krishna, 'I cannot understand You. I cannot withstand Your glory.' But Arjuna wants to know what Krishna is talking about. So once again Krishna gives all kinds of descriptions to penetrate Arjuna's doubts and fears.

The compassion of an enlightened Master is so great.

In spite of the doubts and skepticism, he quietly and patiently sits with the disciple until, one by one, all doubts are washed away. You see, our doubts and questions arise from our mind, forming a thick layer over us. A Master's grace gently dissolves this layer.

A small story:

A blind man argued with everyone that there is no such thing as light. If someone said that there was light, he asked that person to catch hold of it and show it to him. He said, 'If there is something called light, I want to touch it, taste it, go around it, play with it. Only then I will believe that there is light.' He argued with everyone until they gave up and accepted that he was right.

One day he went to Buddha. Buddha did not argue with him. Without a word, Buddha asked his doctor to examine and treat him. The blind man received his vision. As soon as he could see, the blind man's joy knew no bounds. He enjoyed seeing all the colors. Then he brought some flowers and fruits and offered them at the feet of Buddha and prostrated.

The blind man spoke from the depth of his heart, 'O Lord Buddha! Blindly I have been arguing with everybody. Others also argued with me and destroyed me. It is good that you have not argued with me. If you also had argued, I too would have argued with you and I might have been ruined. But now I understand that light exists.'

Out of the same compassion that Buddha had for the blind man, Krishna explains to Arjuna the same truth in many ways so that something might trigger the spark inside. In this verse, He says that He is responsible for the functioning of all senses but is beyond them. He is responsible for any life that happens, but is detached from them. He is the one who causes the three guna, qualities, to happen, but is beyond them; He is without them, nirguna.

Krishna says all life happens because of the thread of Him, the Universal Energy flowing in all beings. You see, so many things are happening around us, on their own, beyond our awareness. When we put a piece of bread in our mouth, we chew and swallow it. After that, the whole process of converting this to energy happens without us giving instructions. Forget giving instructions, we don't even know what is happening inside. Today, scientists may understand the chemical reactions, but they still don't know what differentiates a dead cell from a living cell. How then can one understand the universe and all the millions of stars and planets in the galaxies, running in perfect synchronization without any policeman sitting in space controlling them?

Please understand that the life force that runs us, the Parasakti, that controls every breath we take, the same energy that maintains an order in the chaos of the universe, is pure Intelligence. In Sanskrit, there is a saying, 'thena vina trunam api na chalati.' It means not even a blade of grass can move without the will of the Divine.

Krishna is sending a message to us about how much we depend on Him, that cosmic Intelligence, for anything to happen. At the same time, without getting involved, the Universal Energy is a witness to all activities and all life forms.

If we look deeper, we realize that whatever we see and perceive as objects, are creations of the mind along with the senses. We create a world of our own. Deep down, the true Self watches the whole thing without getting involved. Our mind reacts to a particular situation, causing pain or happiness. The mind projects some people as good, some as bad, and qualifies incidents and people as good, bad, painful, joyful, etc. and then runs after or away from experiences.

Earlier Krishna explained about the three qualities: tamas (lethargy), rajas (activity) and satva (harmony). These form the triguna, the three qualities. Any food that we eat, or action, or object can be classified as belonging to one of these categories. As long as we identify ourselves with this body and see everything in terms of names of forms, we keep classifying them – meditation is good, overeating is bad, etc.

For a jnani, a knower of the truth, everything is the same. He stops labeling because he has moved beyond names and forms, and beyond the dualities of good and bad.

Ramakrishna gives a beautiful analogy. When we stand in a valley, we see pits and depressions on the ground

when we look down and we see mountain cliffs when we raise our head. But when we climb up to the summit, we observe that all the ups and downs below no longer matter. We have transcended the ups and downs that we saw when we were on the ground, before we climbed to the summit.

How to climb to the summit? How to fly into the sky above all the ups and downs? You must relax. You must realize that you are already on the summit. You are beyond the ups and downs. You are beyond the three gunas. But no, we don't want to believe. Our mind tells us, 'No, no no. What is he saying? I have important things to do in life. How can I relax?' We love our tensions and problems too much. We like to clutch onto our lives and we do not want to let go because we think this is all there is. We do not relax. We do not realize that if we relax, we can fly. We can become the nirguna that Krishna speaks about.

A small story:

A hunter in a forest came across a clearing where there were many birds. He took a twig and tied a rope at the center of the twig. Then he took the two ends of the rope and tied them firmly to a pole on each side. Now the twig was hanging by the rope. He sprinkled a few grains around the setup. He was a clever hunter. Happily, he went away for a nap.

After some time, a bird was attracted by the grains and sat on the twig. The minute it sat on one side of the twig, the whole twig turned upside down due to the bird's weight. The bird now saw the whole world upside down and became frightened. It thought it was trapped! It clasped to the twig harder than ever and prayed to God to be set free.

After an hour, the hunter returned leisurely and caught hold of the bird. After that, you know what happened.

This is what we do in our lives. The bird did not realize that it was always free. All it needed to do was let go of the twig and fly away. Instead, what did it do? It held onto the twig harder and harder, thinking it was trapped. We do the same thing. We grasp and clutch onto our past. We clutch onto the pains and joys and keep missing the point. We keep missing the present moment. We miss eternity. We miss our Consciousness inside.

At the end of this discourse, we will do a meditation that will help us unclutch and go beyond.

The supreme truth is inside and outside all living entities. It is moving and non-moving on account of being subtle. It is near and far. Krishna uses all these terms and concepts such as moving, non-moving, near, far, inside and outside because these are the only terms we can understand and comprehend. He is giving us an idea to tell us that supreme Consciousness is beyond these concepts and terms that we know.

We always evaluate whatever we see with a fixed frame of reference, based upon a physical reference such

as near, far, inside, outside, etc. Please understand that these adjectives are relative. They happen when we use a fixed set of references to compare against. What is near for somebody may be far for somebody else. What is inside for something can be outside for something else. For example, we can say that the television is inside the house and the tree is outside. However at the same time, we can say that the tree is inside that town or city. With relation to the house the tree is outside, and with relation to the city the tree is inside. So it is relative to which objects, spaces or locations we use as our reference.

You see the world full of objects with different qualifiers because you associate yourself with a fixed entity. You think you are this body with a fixed boundary that is watching the rest of the world. When you cut yourself off from the rest of the objects around you, you label everything else based on this reference you have created. You say something is far or near, based on the physical boundaries with respect to the coordinates of your body. You have created a reference point. Whatever you do, however you think, is based on this reference point. You live in this space enclosed by your physical boundary or ghata akasa.

You see, there are three spaces we can live in: space that is covered by the body, space that is covered by the mind, and space that cannot be covered by body and mind. The first is ghata akasa, or the space enclosed by this physical body. This space exists inside our physical body. Most of us live in this space nearly all the time. The next is chidaakasa, the space that you are aware and conscious of. Right now, if you are aware of this hall it is your chidaakasa. This is the space of the thoughts and mind. The third is the maha akasa. This is the whole space, cosmos, everything put together.

The ghata akasa is made of the pancha bhuta, the five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether. These elements become subtler as we move up from earth, to water, to fire, to air, to ether. None of the first four reflect Consciousness. Ether, the subtlest element, connects with Consciousness. It reflects Consciousness. And that is the reason we are alive. The problem is, we think Consciousness is bound by ghata akasa. We think it is limited to this body.

That is why we make this body the reference when we view the outer world. We think this body is the 'I' that sees the rest of the world. You see, all science had this as its basic foundation: we are separate entities defined by physical boundaries. Enlightened Masters that have moved beyond ghata akasa into the maha akasa understand that all this division of space is due to our ignorance.

Please understand that space can never be divided. Yet we divide it into boundaries and associate terms: within, inside, outside, near, far, etc. because of our limited understanding. This is the cause for our sufferings. First of all, we divide the space because of our ignorance. Second, we try to possess the space that we think is in our control. And third, we fear that the space might be taken from us. All fears, including the fear of death,

happen because we constantly try to protect the space covered by our body and mind. Such foolishness!

We must understand the basic truth that space cannot be divided. When we understand that we are maha akasa, we transcend all boundaries. When the jump from ghata akasa to chida akasa, and from chida akasa to maha akasa happens, we realize that there is no such thing as inside, outside, near or far.

Whatever space we may be in, the possibility of achieving a higher space is available to every one of us. Man, as such, is only potentiality. He is not actuality. He is not what he is supposed to be. As of now we are in potential or seed form and have not expressed our potential fully. We have not become trees yet. But that does not mean we cannot grow and become trees. When we transcend these relative boundaries we will understand through experience what Krishna says.

Krishna says that the supreme truth is inside and outside all living entities. It is moving and non-moving on account of being subtle. This is the space of maha akasa, which includes the space of everything. This space is absolute. Everything is included in this space. When there is no 'two,' how can we compare? How can we say something is near or far when there is only one? The truth is absolute and one.

Although the supreme Spirit, Paramatman, appears to be divided as the cosmic and individual entities, it is never divided. It is to be known that this is the basis of generation, maintenance, and destruction of life. The same Universal Energy that has no names or forms manifests itself into this world as various shapes, names, and forms. What is integrated and one appears as many.

When we pour water into containers of different shapes and sizes, it takes on their shapes. Water in each of the jars appears to be different from the others. If we carefully examine their contents, all of them contain the same water. Similarly, the world of many forms and shapes, so many species of plants and animals, make it appear as though there is so much variety. Underlying them all is the same energy. The prana shakti, life force, running in each of them is the same.

In the Upanishads there is the analogy of the waves and the ocean that I spoke of earlier. Each wave arises from the same mass of water and falls back into it. In this brief period of time, from the time it rises until the time it falls, it thinks that it is different from the rest of the ocean. Similarly, each wave thinks it is independent and disconnected. The baby wave that is just born is given a name by the other waves, which are already present. Not only that, after a while this wave starts to define itself an identity: 'This is my father wave,' 'This my mother wave,' 'These are my friends,' 'These are my teachers,' 'These are my enemies,' and so on.

After a while, the wave has forgotten that it has risen from the ocean. It gets busy in carving this false identity for itself. And before it realizes, it falls back into the ocean. Whether the wave likes it or not, whether it wants to believe it or not, it must fall back into the ocean because that is where it came from. It has no choice. It came from the ocean and it must go back into the ocean. All problems arise when the wave thinks it is different from the ocean and resists it. Different waves start to compare themselves with each other about which one is better and even fight wars with each other.

If the wave understands that once it falls back it will emerge elsewhere as another wave, then there is no need to resist the fall. It will relax and enjoy. The wave will suddenly start to enjoy its play in the ocean. If the wave understands that other waves present in that vast mighty ocean are the same water, the wave will suddenly feel a deep connection with other waves because it knows that at the core, they are all one.

If we understand this simple theory of life — that we came from the same Source and we return to it — we realize that we are connected to something much greater than our individual self.

A small story:

Five blind men were stuck in a forest. They were lost and trying to find their way out. They used their hands to feel things around them to tell them where they were. As they walked, they stumbled into an elephant.

One of the blind men happened to be near the legs of the elephant. After feeling them for a while he said to the others, 'These are tree trunks, the bark is so rough, but it's okay. We can get some shelter below these trees for the day.'

Another blind man who was near one of the bulky sides of the elephant said, 'My God, such a huge wall! It looks like we have come to some mansion, let us go inside and explore.'

Then suddenly another blind man started feeling the smooth and sharp tusk of the elephant. He exclaimed, 'Hey, look at what I found, a spear! This will help us if any animal attacks us in this forest.'

His other friend was near the ears of the elephant. He jumped with joy, 'These are some nice big fans I found. It is so breezy here!'

The last of the blind men happened to be near the trunk of the elephant. He felt the trunk and quickly screamed, 'Snake, snake!'

By now, everybody was confused. None of them knew who was correct. After a while, they each started to get angry that their friends were not listening to them. They started to fight over their different ideas of what they thought they had found.

This is the same state in our lives. When we are in ignorance, we are fooled by everything in the world and we miss what it really is. The blind men fought with each other because they did not understand that the different things they perceived belonged to the same

elephant. If we don't catch the thread that connects the entire universe, we miss the beauty and the bliss. It's only when we realize that each of us is a manifestation of the same Divine Energy that we feel a deep connection with everything and everyone.

The universal Consciousness manifests in numerous ways and is also responsible for its destruction. When the same universal energy is unmanifest, unexpressed, it exists in potential form. This is referred to as purusha in the scriptures. When this energy manifests itself in this world, taking various names, forms, and shapes, it expresses itself as prakriti. Prakriti is the creative expression of purusha.

Purusha, or the unmanifest energy, is beyond Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the maintainer, and Shiva, the rejuvenator. The universal Consciousness that runs in all beings is beyond names and forms. However, this same universal Consciousness in manifestation becomes Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. The creation, maintenance, and destruction happen when this very same energy manifests as prakriti.

The life force that caused us to be born also maintains us. Every little thing happening within us is carried out by the same Intelligence that brought us into this world. Similarly, the same Intelligence accompanies us when we leave the body.

The water of the ocean is the purusha and the waves that dance and play are prakriti. The water appears to be divided in the form of waves of many shapes and sizes.

Part 3: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM

In reality it is one mass of the same water. Similarly, Krishna reminds Arjuna that the Paramatman, the supreme Spirit, appears to be divided into purusha and prakriti because of the different creations and expressions of prakriti. However, He is beyond all this and exists as undivided. At their core, all are creations of the Universal Energy.

Krishna says that He is the supreme Self, or witnessing Consciousness that is the source of all light in all luminous objects.

There is a beautiful verse in the Katopanishad:

na tatra suryo bhaati na chandra taar kam nemaa vidhyuto bhaanti kuto yamagni tamewa bhaantamanu bhaati sarwam tasya bhaasa sarwamidham vibhaati

This means: the sun, moon, and stars cannot illumine that self-illuminating Consciousness, what to say of fire? But by following that self-illuminating Consciousness, sun, moon, and others become bright. From the brightness of the body of the Supreme Lord, the whole universe becomes bright.

The sources of light as we understand them are the sun, moon, lightning, fire or the artificial means of electricity. All these produce light, which makes life possible. An object that is around us becomes visible because of the light energy. The chakshu, the energy behind vision, can perceive that object when the surroundings are lit up. The light energy from the sun is responsible for the birth and growth of all living beings. All beings on planet Earth depend on the sun for their survival.

What gives these sources of light the energy to run? What drives them? The universal Consciousness gives energy to all sources of light. Krishna calls this Self the 'Source of light.' The sources of light - sun, moon and lightning derive their energy from that self-luminous Self. That is why there is a common adjective given to the Self as 'effulgent' or 'luminous.'

In a deeper sense, when the Self is referred to as luminous, it is not what we normally understand. The Self is pure Intelligence and this knowledge dispels ignorance. An enlightened Master sees everything with clarity. He sees truth as it is. You see, when you are in a dark room you are ignorant of what is present in that room. When the lights are switched on, you become aware of things around you.

An enlightened Master uses the lamp of Consciousness to see the truth as it is, without any filters. Using this lamp, he experiences his surroundings in totality. This lamp is not like any other lamp; it cuts the layers of ignorance, however deep they may be. He sees 360 degrees. He does not filter what he sees like we do. Please understand, the filtering that we do is the cause for our problems. We do not see whatever exists as it exists. We distort it to suit our ideas born out of our engraved memories.

Our ego, which is loaded with emotions and memories, does not allow us to see and experience reality as it is. It is like when your computer is overloaded with highresolution images. What happens? It can't process whatever information is passed to it. Similarly, we use a filter of past emotions, ideas, and memories to see the world. As a result we stop seeing things as they are. When we operate from our ego, we live in a fantasy world of our own without knowing what truly exists.

The ego is like darkness; it has no positive existence. Just as darkness is the absence of light, the ego is the absence of awareness. To struggle to kill the ego is like struggling to push darkness out of the room.

So how do we see things as they are and experience the truth? To expel the darkness, what you need to do is to forget about dealing with the darkness. Focus your energy on light instead. Bring a small lamp into the room and the darkness will leave on its own! This lamp of Consciousness and awareness is available to all of us. It lies within us.

Forget all about the ego. Instead, focus on bringing a lamp of awareness into your being. When your entire Consciousness has become a flame, the ego is no more.

Q: Master, I have been confused by what I have read about purusha and prakriti. You said purusha is the water of the ocean and prakriti is the waves. It is so simple. Why are other explanations so complicated?

All truths are simple. We complicate them because we do not understand the truths ourselves. We are full of self-doubts so we wish to cover all bets. We want the reader and the listener confused so that they do not ask more questions. The objective of all philosophers is to confuse others so that they cannot make out how confused they themselves are!

Don't get tied up in knots trying to understand these words. There is no need. Scholars and philosophers can worry about them. What you need to know is that there is one energy source. It is the same source that runs this universe and each of us. The absence of this awareness causes our problems and suffering.

This energy source is what Krishna calls Paramatman, which loosely translated is 'the supreme Spirit.' This is Krishna Consciousness, God, or whatever else you wish to call it. It pervades everything and everyone, and without this energy nothing can work. This energy is intelligent. It is buddhi and shakti, intelligence and power, or powerful intelligence.

The Sankhya philosophers, such as Kapila, dissected this concept further. They termed purusha as the unmoving part of this intelligent energy. This is the base, the foundation, the unseen, unmanifest energy. As an analogy, this is the ether of the space, the water of the ocean and the soil of the earth. Prakriti is the manifestation of this potential energy. Purusha is pure energy; prakriti is its manifestation as matter, so to speak. Prakriti represents the waves in the ocean and the plants in the soil.

Understanding that it is all the same undifferentiated purusha is Self-realization, nothing else. Enlightenment is directly experiencing that you are one with that intelligent energy, the Paramatman. That is why there is no need to achieve enlightenment. You only need to be aware that you are that. You need to understand that you are not the separated wave, different from the waters of the ocean. You are the ocean. You are the wave and the ocean.

This is all there is to it. Let the philosophers worry about all the attributes of prakriti and so on. You relax!

13.19 Thus the field of activities, knowledge and the knowable has been summarily described by Me.

It is only when we can understand the true nature of our supreme Self and the material world with which we have created false identities that we can go beyond this and attain the supreme Self itself.

13.20 Prakriti or the field and its attributes and the purusha or the knower or the supreme Consciousness are both without beginning.

All the transformations of nature that we see are produced by the field or prakriti.

13.21 In the production of the body and the senses, prakriti is said to be the cause;

In the experience of pleasure and pain, purusha is said to be the cause.

13.22 The living entity in the material nature follows the way of life, enjoying the moods of nature.

Due to association with the material nature, it meets the good or evil among various species.

13.23 Yet, in this body there is a transcendental energy.

He who is divine, who exists as an owner or the witness, supporter, enjoyer and the pure witnessing Consciousness, is known as the Paramatman.

13.24 One who understands this philosophy concerning material nature, the living entity and the interaction of the modes of nature is sure to attain liberation.

He will not take birth here again, regardless of his present position.

Krishna delivers this discourse of Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna standing in a chariot on the battlefield of

Kurukshetra. If you look a little deeper, this is a beautiful picture of each of us. Krishna represents the Self, the charioteer, knower of the field, the one who runs the show. If the charioteer does not know how to take charge, the horses start to pull the chariot in different directions.

These horses symbolize the senses and the mind pulling us to different places as they please, thus leaving us in a state of confusion in everything that we do. If we are not ready to control the horses, the horses control us. This is what happens in our lives. Due to our lack of understanding about how to drive the chariot, we conveniently give the horses the authority.

The very understanding about the kshetra, the material things around us, teaches us how to control them. The minute we understand kshetra, body-mind, we realize we are not the kshetra. If we are the kshetra, then how can we understand it? You see, we can read this book because we are not the book. There is a separation between the book and us. In the same way, only when we understand the kshetra, do we understand that we are not the kshetra. This understanding that we are not kshetra brings with it the understanding that we are kshetragna. When we realize that we are kshetragna, we have transcended the kshetra.

How do we understand kshetra? It is important to gain knowledge about our material world or kshetra. Until then, we are in ignorance. When we are in ignorance our senses and societal conditioning drive us. We end up believing that we are the material world or the kshetra itself. We become so engrossed in the material world that we identify with it completely. We become part of it. We attach seriousness with every event that happens in the kshetra because we have forgotten that we are kshetragna watching the kshetra.

Actually, there is no such thing as kshetra. It is a projection of the mind, just like a dream. You see, when we go to bed we know that we are so-and-so, husband or wife of so-and-so, working in such-and-such company, etc. We know our whole identity with solid clarity when we go to sleep. We know that even if we have dreams, they are not real. We will wake up the next day and continue our life at the office, with our children and so on.

But the minute we drift into the dream state, we start to think that the dream is real. The more we get into the dream, the more our identity completely changes to suit the role in the dream. What happens in the dream may not be related to what we do in real life. Yet we start to believe it all. If a lion in the dream attacks us, we feel fear and worry and we may even sweat as though it is really happening to us.

In the same way, we think this life is real. If I tell you now that the life that you are leading is nothing but a creation of your mind, will you believe me? No! You are so immersed in this dream that you think is real.

See, when we wake up from a dream, why do we suddenly understand that it was not real? It is because suddenly we perceive a separation between the dream and us. The understanding that it was merely a dream wakes us into reality. Similarly, the understanding that this world is nothing but a projection of the mind, the understanding that this is not our real identity will wake us into reality.

A small story:

A Zen master woke up crying one morning. His disciples rushed to him. They enquired, 'What happened, Master?' The Master said, 'In my dream last night, I was a butterfly.'

The disciples did not understand. They asked, 'So what, Master? It was a dream and it is over. What bothers you?'

The Master replied, 'You do not understand my problem. I am unable to tell whether I am a Zen Master who dreamed that I was a butterfly, or whether I am actually a butterfly who is dreaming that I am a Zen Master.'

When we are dreaming, we are unaware of who we are because the dream is so real when it happens. For that reason, what makes us assume that the socalled real world that we are living in is real? It could well be another dream. When we dream we create the whole world inside, don't we? The whole setting is created by our mind. We are not creating just our identity, but we create everything that surrounds us also.

Let us say we dream of winning some award in front of thousands of people. The mind is so powerful that it can create the entire picture including every detail of the auditorium, all the thousand people sitting and clapping, the speech and all that we perceive as reality while we are dreaming. The mind is so powerful to be able to give life to the scene around us and not just to our identity in the dream.

This is what the mind does in the so-called real world also. The only difference is that we wake up easily from our ordinary dreams. However, we do not know how to wake up from this bigger dream that we now think is reality. As long as we think this world is real, we suffer. The minute we realize this world is not real, we create a distance between the suffering and us. Only an enlightened Master that has experienced the truth can wake us up to reality. Out of their compassion, these Masters descend on planet Earth to tell us that everything we see around us in a projection of our minds.

The understanding of the kshetra, the illusory world created by our minds, is important in helping us to differentiate between reality and non-reality. Krishna says that we need to understand what kshetra and kshetragna are in order to realize the truth. Until then we blindly believe that the projection of our mind, the drama, is reality. We have created our own drama and are acting in it. By and by, we forget that we created the drama. We forget that we are not the roles or characters we enact onstage. We start judging and reacting to everything about it.

We are so engrossed in the material world that we have no awareness of our true self. This is also due to our upbringing. Parents and teachers don't tell us that we are divine beings having a human experience and that everything around us is a drama. The environment where we are brought up, our families and societal setup, do not encourage us in pursuing the path of Self-realization. This is because they are also caught under the false identities. They do not tell us that we are the kshetragna because they do not know that themselves.

If a child is constantly reminded about the divinity within right from birth, it grows up to be a jivanmukta, liberated while still in the body. This is how children were brought up in the Vedic tradition. That is why the level of consciousness was so high.

Queen Madalasa brought up her son Vikranta this way, by constantly singing and speaking about the divinity within the child and reminding him that he was pure Consciousness. When Vikrant would cry, Madalasa sang words of wisdom to keep him quiet. She sang that he was a pure soul, he had no real name and his body was merely a vehicle made of the five elements. She consoled him saying, 'You are the soul that is eternally free, so why do you cry?' Thus, because of the enlightening words of Madalasa, King Vikrant grew up with a high degree of consciousness, free from worldly attachments.

The prakriti, the material world that we see, is without beginning. The purusha or supreme Consciousness is also without beginning. All changes and transformations are produced by the prakriti.

In a movie theatre, different movies are projected on the same white screen. The screen remains unaffected by the happenings of the movies that are played on it. It remains white and blank before and after the movie. In one scene, there may be happiness, with everyone celebrating. In the next, there may be sadness. Yet the screen is always the same, totally unclutched from the joys and sorrows of the movie. It remains completely unaffected by the different moods that are projected. In the same way, deep down, our core is completely unclutched. This is the purusha that Krishna refers to here. All changing, transient things around us are the play of prakriti.

All the transformations that we see, such as the change in seasons, concepts of time and space, our body, mind or anything that changes are different attributes of prakriti. It is like the ebb and flow of the waves in an ocean. These attributes rise and fall. The time and space of the rise and fall is totally relative. The duration of the rise and fall of these attributes is also highly relative because it is purely a concept created by our senses. Our senses perceive time as moving. Our senses perceive the motion of time with respect to the material world, with relation to the speed of the planets, etc. We have created this concept of time for our sensory perceptions. We have created the space and location also with the concept of comparative reality.

The more we attach ourselves to the outer world and the play of prakriti with respect to events, emotions, ego, body and mind, the more we get entangled in the world of time and space.

Albert Einstein said, 'Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.' This illustrates that modern science is proving and agreeing with what the mystics and rishis have said for thousands of years. Time and space are relative concepts created in our mind. Movement of time and movement of the mind are directly related to each other.

For example, if we are sitting with someone we love, no matter how much time passes, we feel as if we were with that person for a short duration. We will not be aware how time passed so quickly. On the other hand, if we are sitting with a person who bores us or bothers us, we will feel like looking at our watch constantly.

As long as our mind moves, time moves. When we look deeply, we realize that the mind is a constant movement between past and future. Mind is a dilemma; it is constantly reviewing the past and planning for the future. We are constantly pulled towards the past or future and it is never in the present moment. Time is like a shaft. This shaft can be penetrated only when we fall into the present moment. Penetrating the time shaft means falling into eternity, the present moment.

We can try a small experiment. For three days decide to completely stay in the present moment without bothering about the past or future. Surely, if we live in the present for three days, we will not lose all our belongings and attachments. So let's decide to stay in the present moment for three days. We can simply fall into the present moment. When we fall into the present moment, the time shaft becomes a servant for us. We can penetrate the time shaft. This means we will have complete visibility to the entire past and the entire future. Deciding to stay in the present moment for three days means that we must accept whatever we have in the outer and inner worlds.

Whether it is outer world or inner world, any craving is a craving. Any craving means that we are being pulled into the future. A craving for enlightenment is also a craving and a hope for the future. The moment we drop all cravings and all reviews about the past, we fall into the present moment and penetrate the time shaft. Falling into the present moment is called falling into the gap. This is the gap between two thoughts, the kshana.

When we fall into the present moment, we fall into eternity and that eternity is a combination of past, present and future. There is no distinction. In this state we become the witness of all time and space-related happenings. We become the witnessing Consciousness. We become the knower and we witness the field or kshetra with complete detachment. We realize that everything in the outer world is a drama or a dream, and anything that we attempt to do in our lives is housekeeping in this dream.

Any effort that we make is another act in this dream. The whole idea is to not become entangled and emotionally attached to the housekeeping in this dream. The idea is to enjoy it and watch it by becoming one with our true self.

Knowledge about the material world is necessary to help us step back from the dream and realize that we are unnecessarily attached and entangled in the field or kshetra. All transformations in the field are related to time and space, which are in turn related to our mind. When we penetrate the time shaft, time becomes our servant. We also see that the whole time shaft is our projection. When we penetrate the time shaft and become witnessing Consciousness, we completely control our past and future. The past and future are transformations of the material world. All transformations are the play of prakriti or the field. Mind is a part of prakriti.

Becoming the watcher and having complete awareness to become the watcher of the prakriti means dropping preconceived notions, ideas, concepts, ego, attachments of the mind and the mind itself. We become the watcher when we are completely aware of what is happening inside us whenever we perceive information through our senses. We watch the process of how it happens. The moment we put attention on it, the mind ceases. The moment we decide to put our attention, we have decided to become the watcher. It then depends on how long we can remain the watcher without becoming entangled in what is being watched. The more we practice this, the longer we experience being the watcher. We realize that we are purusha.

'Nature is the cause of all material cause and its effects, whereas the living entity is the cause of everything, i.e. sukha (pleasure), dukha (pain) and everything that is of the world.'

Krishna puts us back into our Consciousness through this sutra. This contains the gist of what He has been saying in the previous verses. He makes a clear statement that whatever we see is not us.

He says, 'Go beyond and beyond and beyond and beyond. When you are able to see the body, move beyond. If you are able to witness your thoughts, go further beyond. If you are able to see your moods, go further beyond. If you are able to witness your emotions, go further beyond. You are not that also.'

At one point we cannot go further. We realize that there's nothing beyond. We are not what we witness. Suddenly, at that moment, pure Consciousness starts happening in us.

Ramana Maharishi says beautifully, 'Whatever can be dropped, drop it. At some point we will not be able to drop anything. There will be nothing to drop. Then hold that, that's all.'

Witness the Consciousness that is witnessing. When you watch, detach from the thoughts, sit back, relax and watch. Do not try to create, nourish or destroy them. The ultimate Consciousness that witnesses is beyond Brahma (creator), Vishnu (sustainer) or Shiva (rejuvenator). When we learn to welcome thoughts, they merely come and go.

It's like watching clouds in the sky. The next time that you sit by a window with clouds passing by, try this exercise. Watch the clouds without giving qualifiers to them. Normally, when we watch clouds, we think, 'Oh, that cloud looks like an animal, that cloud resembles a face, the color of that cloud reminds me of my dress,' and so on. If we can watch them without giving them any attributes, in a completely detached manner, only one thought remains in the end: the thought that you are watching clouds. Even this thought should dissolve to be a complete witness.

Even if there is a thought saying that you are witnessing, watch that thought also. Watch the witnessing until that thought also disappears. Go beyond, beyond, deep into your being. Go beyond the thought that you are witnessing. Please be very clear that as long as you think in your mind that you are witnessing, you are not witnessing. When the thought that you are witnessing exists, then no, you are not witnessing. You are now caught in the thought, 'I am witnessing.' Drop that!

This last thought that you are witnessing is like a bridge between you and God, between you and the thoughtless zone. Initially, when you try to witness your actions and your thoughts, it is natural to think that you are watching. Let it be. Having this thought is better than having a hundred thoughts bombarding your inner space.

But go beyond. Do not stop there. Witness the thought that you are witnessing. Then the pure, uncorrupted and untouched inner space happens in you. It is only in the uncorrupted and pure inner space that God manifests and the Divine Consciousness is perceived.

This is the secret or true meaning of the story of the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus. Understand, when we make our inner space pure like a virgin, we give birth to Christ or the Christ Consciousness. We become divine.

Normally, the space in which thoughts happen in us is filled with conditionings and past memories, what we call engraved memories or engrams. If the Divine is like 24 carat gold in our inner space, copper is added to the pure 24-carat gold because of all the conditioning, making it 18 carat or less. Sometimes there is so much conditioning that what comes out is only pure copper. If we flood this space with awareness, if we flood this space with Consciousness, it gets cleansed. When we cleanse our inner space, we allow 24-carat gold to happen within.

Then, whatever we think, speak or do is directly in alignment with the will of universal Consciousness. Then we become in tune with the Divine. We become a hollow bamboo and allow the Divine to operate through us.

Here Krishna gives us the technique. As of now, we are like 18-carat gold, copper and gold mixed together. When we repeatedly put the18-carat gold into the fire of witnessing Consciousness, eventually it becomes 22-carat gold. If we continue to put that gold into the fire, the 22 carat gold becomes pure 24-carat gold. In the same way, if we put ourselves into the fire of witnessing Consciousness, we become purified to a certain extent. Again and again, if we constantly put ourselves into this fire of witnessing Consciousness, our inner space eventually becomes completely pure, like 24-carat gold.

A real incident that happened when I was in the Himalayas:

I met an elderly naga sadhu, a sect of wandering monks who wear no clothes and have no possessions. He was sitting on the banks of the river Ganga in the forest. He was calm and serene so I felt I should go and spend some time around him. He had a pipe with which they smoke ganja.

He said, 'Baitiye, baitiye,' sit, sit (in Hindi). Before smoking the pipe, he put a few copper coins inside. Then he added the ganja, lit it and started smoking. After smoking, he emptied the pipe. Gold coins fell out of the pipe.

I couldn't believe my eyes. He sold the gold coins and purchased more ganja. Then, again he showed me that ordinary copper coins were being turned into pure gold coins. I stayed with him for one or two days. I saw him do this more than ten times.

The turning of the copper coins into gold is called alchemy i.e., changing lower level metals into higher-level metals. I asked him, 'Baba, how do you do this?' I had never told him that I was from South Bharat and I was speaking in broken Hindi and not in Tamil, my native language.

That sadhu suddenly replied in Tamil, 'Angam pazzhuthaal, thangam pazzhukkum.' It means, 'If your Being ripens, gold can be made to appear.'

This means that when we fill our inner space with witnessing Consciousness, our lower base energy gets transformed into spiritual energy. This inner alchemy makes the outer alchemy possible. Your inner space starts radiating by witnessing the witnessing Consciousness.

The essence of all religions and all spirituality, the whole thing is reduced into this single sloka that Krishna presents. Krishna presents the master key that opens all locks, in this chapter: Witnessing the body and the mind, witnessing your being. Witnessing is the master key.

If we can enter the witnessing technique and experience the witnessing mode for at least a few minutes, we will know the taste of it. However much we hear about witnessing, however much we talk about witnessing or however much we analyze the art of witnessing, we will never benefit. Believing will not do. We must experience.

A small story:

A man is driving on the highway around midnight. A cop stops and asks him, 'Sir, I think you are drunk. Have you been drinking?'

The man replies, 'Yes, I have just had six drinks. Do you want the names? A few cans of beers, a few brandies…' He starts listing the drinks.

The cop says, 'Stop, I need to take a breath analyzer test. Please get out of the car.'

The man says, 'Why do you need a test? Don't you believe me?'

The cop was required to do the test whether he believed the driver or not.

Similarly, you cannot simply take my word. You must do the test. You must test it on yourself. You must test it with your being. Reading or listening will not transform you. Reading or listening is like reading the menu and leaving the restaurant without tasting the food on the menu! If you listen to what I say without testing, it is like going away from a restaurant without eating.

So now since we have read the menu card, it is time to taste the preparation.

Krishna goes one step further. All along He told us how to cleanse our inner space and how to realize that Divine Consciousness within. Now, in the last verse He says that one who does so attains liberation, regardless of his present position.

Every being is moving towards the Divine, whether or not the being is aware of it. We take on this body to fulfill certain desires. If we truly put our energies into dissolving these desires, we have no reason to take another birth to fulfill those desires. The problem happens when we start to lead somebody else's life and forget we are here to live our desires and not others' desires. We constantly borrow other people's desires and accumulate them in us.

Then, before we realize our true nature, we must leave this body. We take with us the entire baggage of unfulfilled desires and take another body again. The universe again and again tries to help us dissolve our desires so that we become free of them. But we resist by not accepting what happens within and around us.

Krishna says that an understanding of kshetra or prakriti straightaway liberates us. We are caught up in pursuing sense pleasures and accumulating desires as long as we associate ourselves with this body. The minute we understand that we are beyond body and mind, we suddenly realize, 'What stupidity to run in this rat race!'

All our problems arise due to the ignorance of our true nature. The understanding that we are beyond all petty things like fighting for name, fame, money or power liberates us from them. A cognitive shift happens and frees us from the bondages of material things. When the understanding happens about the futility of acquiring material possessions and relationships, a sudden shift happens in the inner consciousness.

It can happen any time, to anyone. It is not necessary that you be brought up in an ashram, listening to God's name all the time. You could be anywhere, doing anything. The cognitive shift can happen to anyone at any time. And when it happens, it is a quantum jump in the level of consciousness. It is like pressing a switch and the whole room is lit up in one shot. It does not happen gradually.

There are a number of saints in Bharat in whom this cognitive shift happened. Before a great saint in South Bharat became Purandara Dasa, he was a goldsmith by profession. He was immersed day and night in counting how much he had earned. He was so miserly that he never bothered to share his wealth with the needy.

On the other hand, his wife was generous. She never hesitated to give anything that she had to someone who needed it more than her. However, she did so secretly because her husband objected.

One day she gave her diamond nose ring to someone who asked for money. Purandara Dasa somehow found out about this incident. He disliked the fact that such a precious ring had been given away. He marched home to express his boiling anger to his wife.

In the meantime his wife, not knowing what to do, pleaded to God to help her. By the time Purandara Dasa arrived home, his wife had her ring intact. It was a play of the Divine.

Her husband could not understand what was going on. Suddenly, deep down a shift happened within him. He realized how much he had wasted his energies going after money. It had brought him nowhere. He realized the futility of his life until then. And he set out on a deep quest for self-realization.

So, irrespective of our profession or wherever we may be situated spiritually, simply an understanding of the play of nature is enough to heal us. Just an understanding that we are beyond material pursuits is enough to liberate us.

Q: Master, are we talking about an intellectual understanding here? I understand that none of my material possessions are permanent. In any case, when I die I cannot take anything with me. But as long as I live in this body, I need sustenance and I need to work for material benefits. This work is reality, not an illusion. What is the answer?

You have provided the answer yourself. You are aware that you cannot carry anything with you when you die. You know that nothing you acquire is permanent. This is a good understanding.

All you must work on now is your intellect. Develop this understanding further. It will penetrate you sooner or later.

There are different ways to look at material acquisition. Most of us keep acquiring whether we need the material possessions are not. We do it because it seems to give us status and name and fame since society respects you based on what you have. There is no end to this. This is a competition, a rat race. Even if you win this rat race, you will still be a rat!

This game will end only one way - with you in misery. You do not enjoy what you work for because you are so caught up in acquiring more. There is always someone else who has more than you, so you cannot stop. You are a robot with the stop button removed! You are out of control.

Another way to look at it is with logic, as you are doing now. This is good. You do not acquire for the sake of acquiring but because you need to survive. The problem, however, is that each of us has our own definition of survival. One person can walk to work; another person must drive; a third person must be driven!

You are still working towards a result and you are still attached to an outcome. If the outcome is in your favor, you are happy. If not, you are in misery. You are still in bondage.

There is a third way of looking at this. You have been brought into this world by intelligent energy. You can trust that energy to take care of you. When you pray to God, you pray with an objective. You know that God can give; however, you do not believe that God knows what to give you. So, you make a petition that God can listen to. Why? When the Divine has the power to give, don't you think it has Intelligence to know what to give?

I agree you need to work; no one can remain idle for long. However, you can work without becoming attached to the outcome of work. When you do this, you are in a witnessing mode. You work and yet, you are not attached to the outcome of the work. You know that whatever happens, it will be okay. You know deep within, that the intelligent energy will take care of you.

13.25 Some perceive the Paramatman in their inner psyche through mind and intellect that have been purified by meditation

Or by metaphysical knowledge or by karma yoga.

13.26 There are those who, although not conversant in spiritual knowledge, begin to worship the supreme personality upon hearing about Him from others.

Through the process of hearing about the supreme Self, they also transcend the path of birth and death.

13.27 Bharata, know that whatever that is movable or immovable is born,

13.28 One who sees the supreme Spirit accompanying the individual soul in all bodies,

Who understands that neither the individual soul nor the supreme Spirit is ever destroyed, actually sees.

13.29 When one does not get degraded or influenced by the mind and when he can see the supreme Spirit in all living and non-living things,

One reaches the transcendental destination.

13.30 One who can see that all activities are performed by the body, which is created of material nature,

Sees that the Self does nothing, actually sees.

13.31 When a person can see the supreme Self in all living entities, then he will cease to see the separateness among the living entities.

He will see that the whole universe is an expansion and expression of the same truth.

Krishna says, 'anyone who has reached Self-realization or the ultimate Consciousness sees that the supreme Self is present in all living and non-living entities. He perceives the supreme Self as the indestructible, beginning-less witnessing Consciousness.'

The existence that we see is not comprised of individual entities. We think that we are separate from others around us. In reality, we all are one. The same Paramatman that Krishna speaks about is present in all of us and in everything we see around us.

As I tell everyone, 'I am not here to prove that I am God, I am here to prove you are God.'

This is the truth. When I say this, people say, 'No, no, Master. How can we be God? We have done many sins. We agree that you are God because you have healing powers. But how can we be God?'

Please understand one thing. It is not that you are not God because you have committed sins. Understand that you do not become a devil if you commit a sin. You are still God. Sins do not qualify or disqualify you from being a God. Your nature is godliness. Sin is a concept developed by society to control people. The soul of a robber has the same qualification to reach the truth as a priest in a temple.

We create a barrier between God and us. We are not ready to believe that what we call God is inside us also. We happily accept someone else standing in front of us as God; however, we cannot accept that the same God is inside us.

Society would find it difficult to keep us under control if we were to call ourselves gods.

An incident:

I left home at seventeen with nothing, nothing at all, and traveled northwards in Bharat. As I had vowed to carry no money I traveled without a ticket on trains. In the Northern part of Bharat, my saffron robe was a passport to free travel. No one bothered me.

However, once when I was traveling towards Kolkata, a ticket examiner asked for my ticket. In my broken Hindi mixed with the local language of Bengali, I asked him, 'What ticket? I am Brahman (Universal Energy). This train is Brahman. You are Brahman. Why ticket?'

He was a good man. Not only did he let me travel with no ticket, he also bought food for me!

Yes, we are all Brahman. God is everywhere. Divine energy fills and overflows at all places. The only problem is we do not see this. We only see one thing at a time. We see God as someone different and powerful. We create a big gap between God and us.

People in the West call Hindus 'idol worshippers.' They make fun of them. Actually there are people in Bharat, too, who make fun of idol worship. All the so-called intellectuals and scientific people look down upon people who worship idols. Some so-called neoVedantis preach Vedanta but consider idol worship unscientific. The same is true about performing rituals like homa (fire rituals) or abishekam (water rituals).

We should understand there is more than an idol in front of us when we worship. When we worship, we worship through the idol. We do not worship the idol itself. When we see the Energy behind the idol and worship that Energy, that worship has value. If we blindly worship the rock without feeling the Energy behind the rock, there is no point.

Let me ask you, why do we feel a great sense of relief after we pray to God sincerely? Why do we feel a sense of satisfaction when we come out of the temple after prayers? Why do we feel light? When we see the Energy behind the idol and worship that Energy, we connect with that Energy.

When I say we connect to that Energy, we create a channel for the soul that is inside us to connect to the Paramatman. This brief time of connection relieves us from our burdens of responsibility. We see this supreme Spirit in the idol and pour out our problems to Him in the form of prayers.

We feel relieved because we have full faith in the supreme Spirit. We have full confidence that the supreme Spirit will take care of us. We believe in the supreme Spirit but we do not believe that the soul that we see in us is also the supreme Spirit. We are not able to internalize this truth.

Krishna says the soul that is in us and the soul that is in others is the supreme Spirit and the supreme Soul. But what do we do? We isolate our soul. We define a boundary for our soul and separate it from the supreme Spirit. It is like this. There are ten pots of water and there is reflection of the sun in all the ten pots. Each pot thinks that it holds the sun. All ten pots think that each one is holding a different sun.

In the same way, we think the soul inside us is different from the soul outside us. We create a separation. When we see the same soul everywhere in everything, when we can break the pots, we see what the supreme Self is.

Ramakrishna says beautifully, 'What is there in the microcosm is in the macrocosm.' The same energy inside the microcosm or the gross matter that we see is inside the macrocosm or the subtle matter that we can't comprehend. Krishna says that only when we see this energy in everything around us do we actually see.

Krishna says, 'When we see that the soul that resides in us and in everything around us is indestructible, we see the truth.' The only thing that lives forever is the soul. We should understand that. Everything else must die one day. When we realize this truth, when we understand that only the soul can remain forever, our whole run to get more and more becomes worthless. We realize, 'What is the use of running after things that we know are not going to be with us forever?'

When this is realized, we see the truth.

Mind is the only obstacle in the path to reach the ultimate goal. In the previous verse, Krishna tells us how we can see the truth. Here Krishna talks about the hurdle that we must cross. He says that when we are not degraded or influenced by the mind, we can see the supreme Spirit in everything. Only when we can do that, can we reach the final destination.

The only thing that prevents us from seeing the truth is our mind. Even if I say that the soul that is inside each of us is the same soul, the supreme Self, our mind will not agree. It will influence us to disbelieve this. As long as the mind comes into the path of our decision, we will not see the correct picture.

You should first understand what mind is. When people are sitting idle and we ask them, 'What is the matter?' They say all kinds of things related to the mind.

They say, 'I am not feeling well mentally.' Some say, 'Oh, lots of things are happening in my mind. It is very busy thinking.'

We talk about mind as separate from ourselves. We say, 'It is thinking a lot.' We do not understand what mind is and we start talking about it. What is mind actually? It is only an organized structure gifted by God to man as a tool for his use. The mind is man's servant that helps satisfy the needs and necessities in order to lead a happy life.

The reason for problems is that the mind, which should be under the control of man, has become a structure that controls man. If a servant behaves like a master, what will happen? An immature servant becoming a master is like catching a monkey and seating it on a throne. That is why enlightened Masters compare the mind to a monkey and even call it a 'monkey mind.' Until the monkey is removed from the throne, problems and worries are bound to follow.

Here Krishna tells how the mind can influence or degrade our perception. In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali writes about the mind and perception. Yoga Sutras is a beautiful book written with so much clarity. The aphorisms or sutras in this book are relevant even today and will be relevant in future generations as well.

Patanjali talks about how our mind is deceived by wrong perceptions and wrong comprehensions. Patanjali talks about incorrect comprehensions or avidya, which our mind uses to decide or draw conclusions. Our perception

Part 4: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - Chapter 13 - East before you are eaten

of what we see or feel is based on these comprehensions. There are four branches of avidya. The first branch is ego or asmita, which always says, 'I am better than others.' If our mind decides based on ego, if it thinks only of 'I,' all our decisions are biased. We do not see the complete picture.

The next branch of avidya is raga, attachment. This branch demands something based upon our past experience. If the past experience has been good, our mind wants that more and more. Even if we do not need it, our mind asks for more. For example, we had a heavy meal, we are already full; our body cannot take in any more. However, if we had a particular sweet ten days ago and liked it, now the mind will ask for more sweet, 'I enjoyed it before, I want more. Please give me more.' You see, this is the play of mind. Just based on past experience, the mind wants to have more and more.

The third branch of avidya is dvesha, dislike. This is the exact opposite of raga, wherein the mind rejects based upon the past experience. We did not like something in the past. When we see it now, the mind decides, 'It was not good last time. You did not have a good experience before. So do not take it.' A lot of times we do this. Just because we had a bad experience before, we completely boycott it when we see the same thing next time.

The fourth branch is abhinivesa, or fear, that creates doubts in us. We wonder whether others will accept what we are doing. We start having doubts. So many people, especially women, want to look young. They claim they are thirty when they are actually fifty. They want to appear young to others. This is based upon fear of not being accepted by others.

When our mind acts based on these incorrect comprehensions or influences, our decisions are degraded. During the first-level meditation programs, I discuss how the mind works. We see something and we react to it. The reaction is generally based upon past experiences called samskaras. If the past experiences are good, the mind decides, 'Okay, good, I can continue.' Otherwise, it rejects it.

Krishna says, if our mind comes in the way of seeing what the truth is, our decisions are based on incorrect comprehensions. When we are influenced by our mind, we fail to see the supreme Soul in everything around us.

If we can keep the mind aside for a while, we see the truth as it is. Our mind cannot accept that the supreme Soul is in everything around us. The soul inside us knows the truth. Our soul inside us knows that the supreme Soul is everywhere. But our mind creates a strong sheath around it. Our mind takes control over us. It creates an illusion that leads to wrong comprehensions based upon our samskaras.

When we were children, the mind did not have power. When we were children, we did not build new samskaras. The conditioning by society builds layers and layers of these samskaras that give power to the mind. Actually when people say that a child is growing up, I say that is not true. The child is growing smaller and smaller, only the mind is growing up. The soul is being pushed into a corner and the mind is given more and more power.

This mind prevents us from seeing the truth. It stops us from seeing the supreme Soul in everything around us. Be very clear, if we are out of the clutches of the mind, we see the reality.

We are safe as long as we can separate the Self from the body and watch as the body reacts to materialistic things. As long as we know that the soul is supreme and the body is a means to fulfill our worldly desires, we are safe. We are on the right path. However, when we place the body over the soul, the problem starts.

We give so much importance to this body. Actually we don't give importance to the body, like respecting it. Instead we make use of it. We abuse our body. We watch TV for long hours in the night. Our eyes call for rest, but we don't listen because our eyes give us the pleasure of watching programs on TV. When there is food in front of us, we continue eating. We may be full yet we eat because we like the taste. We want to enjoy the taste. So we eat and eat, even if the body rejects it.

So many people go to beauty parlors and spas. That is the fashion these days. Women go to beauty parlors and do their makeup. They put on layers and layers of makeup and artificial nails in an attempt to appear beautiful to others.

A small story:

A newly married couple visited the husband's village for the first time. The wife was from the city and had never been to a village. They decided to go to the temple at seven o'clock in the morning. Generally in Bharat, people attend the temple early before starting their daily activities. So they wanted to be at the temple at seven o'clock. The wife is fond of makeup. For this, the wife started putting on her makeup at five o'clock in the morning.

Anyhow, she finished her makeup and they went to the temple. In Hindu temples, especially village temples, you see monkeys, peacocks, rabbits and other animals. This was the first time the wife saw such a temple. She was amused to see all these animals. She commented to her husband about the monkeys.

The husband told her with a smile on his face, 'Yes, I see one big monkey beside me.'

Women compete with the amount of makeup they apply. They think they are taking care of their body by going to beauty parlors and spas. Instead, they abuse the body. They apply so many chemicals on their skin.

Why do we do this? Why do we abuse our body? Through the senses of the body, we experience some pleasures. These are sense pleasures. These sense pleasures make us happy. So we catch onto those sense pleasures that we experience through our body.

But we fail to realize that they are momentary. Please be clear, all sense pleasures are momentary. If we feel happy, be aware that there is sorrow right behind it. It is like those rotating doors. We stand and push one side and the other side will push us outside the door. If we stay near the door too long, the door will rotate and push us back inside.

We consider our body to be a tool to experience the sense pleasures. We use our body to feel the pleasures from the outside world. We want to feel those sense pleasures again and again. That is why we abuse our body. We want our body to be safe so that we can enjoy. We want our body to look good all the time.

We must understand why we take up this body. Only then we will know the correct way to use the body and know our body. First, the body that we have now is one of the many bodies that our soul has taken. Whether we believe it or not, accept it or not, like it or not, that is the truth. We have taken many births before this life. We have possessed many bodies before this birth. Now, whether we take up another birth, whether we have another body, depends upon how we lead this life.

This birth that we have taken is to fulfill the carriedover desires of our previous birth. These desires are prarabdha karma. Our soul has taken this body to fulfill our prarabdha karma. When we die, our last thought decides our next birth. Our soul chooses the body that can fulfill the desires of our last birth. This is the truth.

A small story:

This incident actually happened to me. I visited the home of devotees in America. They were a Hindu family with an autistic child. They asked me to give the child healing. I asked the child to come towards me and I put my hand on his head.

Suddenly the child shouted in Tamil, 'Remove your hand.' Actually I am putting the statement politely. He said it in slang Tamil. I was shocked. You see, the family is not from Tamilnadu. They did not know Tamil. Their child had never visited Bharat. How could he talk like that? I was shocked.

After a few seconds, I saw what was going on. In his previous life he lived in Bharat and now it was coming out. I asked him, 'You have such good parents. They look after you so well. Why are you doing this to them?'

He simply replied, 'I knew that they would take care of me. That is why I took this body and chose them for my parents.'

Understand that we take a body to fulfill the desires carried over from our previous life. It is the prarabdha karma. However, what happens is that we create new desires in this life. We use our body to experience the sense pleasures and we create more and more desires. Because of this, we fall into the cycle of birth and death. Once we realize that our soul takes this body to complete a mission that it left unfinished in our previous birth, our attitude towards our body changes.

Our body is like a cloth. This morning when we woke up, we discarded what we were wearing and put on fresh clothes. In the same way, when we die, we discard this body and take a new body to fulfill our unfulfilled desires.

People ask me, 'Master, why do enlightened Masters take human birth? Why do they need a body if they are already enlightened, if they have fulfilled all their desires?'

There is a beautiful incident from Ramakrishna's life. Sri Ramakrishna was an enlightened Master. He had regular discussions with his close disciples. He told his disciples, 'Once when I was returning from my village in an ox cart, some robbers stopped us. I started repeating all the names of gods so that at least one would work.' He then explains why even enlightened Masters hold onto their body.

He says beautifully, 'A little of my mind is attached to the body so that it can enjoy the love of God and the company of the devotees.' See how beautifully he says it. Please be very clear, an enlightened Master holds onto his body out of pure compassion for others. An enlightened Master wants to see transformation in others and he can do it more effectively when he is in the body. He does not have any other desire. He can leave his body any time. He holds his body through a thin thread of ego for the benefit of others.

We always want to get more and more out of our body. We want our eyes to see more TV; we want our stomach to hold more food; we want our ears to hear loud music. We do this out of greed. We want to experience more and more sense pleasures. When we look at our body with gratitude, when we thank our body every second for the support it has given us, we connect with our body at a deeper level.

Our body is a temple of our soul. We should respect our body. We should look at our body with gratitude, not greed. We should thank our body for holding our spirit, our soul. We then see a different dimension of our body.

In our yoga course, there is a beautiful meditation that we do at the end of class. It is called body gratitude meditation. You just lie down on the ground and relax every part of your body from your toes to your head. At the same time, you thank every part of your body. You pay gratitude to your body for letting you do what you have been doing during the day. It is a beautiful meditation. At the end of the meditation, the truth strikes you. You realize what your body really is.

Here Krishna says, whatever we think we are enjoying, actually it is the body that is enjoying. Our body enjoys all the material comforts. Our soul can live without them. Our soul is pure Consciousness. It does not need anything external to keep it happy.

Actually our soul is always in a state of bliss. It is bliss. It is always ecstatic. Our body is an embodiment of bliss. Whatever material thing we think we need, whatever material comforts we think we enjoy, they are needed and enjoyed by our body. Our soul does not need any of them.

The problem starts when we think that our soul needs these material things. We associate the happiness from the external materials with our soul. That is where the problem begins. We think the happiness that we feel from materialistic things is because our soul feels happy to have them. That is when we accumulate more and more of these material comforts. We run after them.

Please understand that our soul does not require anything. It is free. It is bliss. It is energy. It is pure Consciousness. Our body enjoys those pleasures, not our soul. When we observe this, we start to see the truth.

Krishna gives us a technique here. When we watch our body enjoying the sense pleasures, when we watch only our body being associated with the external materialistic comforts and not our soul, we see the truth. Just witness the body. Be aware of your body. Observe the body when it reacts to external things. You will notice a sense of separation from the body. You will see what your body is. You see that your soul has nothing to do with the pleasures you are enjoying.

When you do this, you witness your body and mind as if you are an outsider. It is like watching a movie. When you watch a movie, you watch what happens on the screen. In the same way, when you watch your body and mind, when you witness, you understand what Krishna speaks about. Only when you witness that the body experiences materialistic pleasures and the body does everything and the soul does not need anything, you see the truth.

Krishna gives a great truth in this verse. He talks about collective consciousness. He says when we see the supreme Soul in all living beings we no longer see the separateness. We see everything as one single entity. We see the whole universe as one single body, as one entity expressing the same truth.

Please be very clear, we are all connected. Each and every living entity is connected. Your thoughts affect the thoughts of the person sitting beside you. Whether or not you believe it, this is the truth. Each and every living entity of this universe is connected.

We think we are individual consciousness. We think we are separate islands. We think our thoughts are limited to us. We think nobody watches our thoughts. Please understand that the whole universe constantly responds to your thoughts. The whole universe is made up of the same universal Consciousness.

Actually there is nothing but universal Consciousness. All individual consciousness is a piece of the hologram of the universal collective consciousness. Have you seen a hologram? What happens when you break a hologram into five pieces? Each piece becomes a hologram again. Each piece shows the same thing as the whole piece showed you before.

Our individual consciousness is like that hologram. The universal Consciousness hologram is broken into many small holograms or individual living things. But each one of us has the same consciousness as the universal Consciousness.

All of us are connected by this universal Consciousness. This is what I call collective consciousness. Each and every living entity in this universe is interlinked. All the individual minds are interlinked. Any of your thoughts can influence me. Any of my thoughts can influence you.

Not only at the thought or mental level is this true; the deeper you go, the deeper you are connected to each other. We have seen the different layers of energy bodies in our system –physical layer, pranic layer, mental layer, ethereal layer, causal layer, cosmic layer and nirvanic layer. At the physical layer, we see ourselves as different individuals. As we go to deeper layers, we see that each of us is connected to each other. The deeper we go, the deeper the connection becomes.

You see, in the seven energy layers surrounding the body, at the level of pranic and mental layers, the thoughts of one person affect the other. Even when a person does not say anything, the thought structure of the other person influences your thoughts. When you go to the office, just by looking at your boss, by knowing your boss's thought structure, your thoughts and energy will be influenced. Your boss need not say anything. Your boss need not do anything physical. No body language is needed. His thoughts are enough to affect your thoughts and energy. So as we go slightly further to a deeper layer, we connect at a slightly deeper level. When we go to the nirvanic layer, all of us connect at the Consciousness level. The distance between you, God and me becomes zero.

The problem is that we associate ourselves with the physical layer. We think we are this body. We believe that what we see is the only truth. Naturally we think we are different from one another. We create boundaries between others and us. When we are stuck at this level, we miss the greatest truth. When we break these boundaries created by our mind and when we see that all of us connected, all of the separate entities are one and the same, we realize what we are.

You see, your individual consciousness is like an onion. Each one of us is an onion. What do you see in an onion? There are layers over layers of skin. When you peel the onion layer by layer, what is there inside? Nothing. You are just like that onion. You think the onion is solid. Only when you peel, you see that there is nothing inside it. In the same manner we are like onions. If you peel all the seven layers, you experience that you are collective consciousness. Once you remove all the layers, you see that every entity around you has the same consciousness. Everything is the same.

From the beginning, from your birth, society starts creating new layers on you. All society does is remove the innocent, childlike nature that sees the Self in everything. As a child you do lots of things through which you connect to the Self. You do not know you are different from soil or earth. That is why you play with soil and mud. But what do parents do? They scold the children. 'Don't do this. Don't do that.' They say 'You will get dirty. Your clothes will become dirty.'

We continuously impose societal conditions on the child. The child does not know what is dirty or what is clean. The child sees the soil and the ground just the same as a clean floor. He does not see any difference. He connects to the same energy when he plays on the dusty road or inside a clean house. Adults condition children to see a difference.

Let me tell you about the gurukulam system as it existed in ancient Bharat. The gurukulam system helped children connect to all the entities. There were no barriers put on children. At the age of three, children were handed over to Masters for further education. The Master took care of the children. There were no parents or relatives. All the children lived in a gurukulam similar to modern hostels.

Until the age of seven, the children did not wear anything. They were allowed to express themselves. They were allowed to connect to their surroundings in the best possible way. You see how easily they could apply Krishna's teaching in a gurukulam. They were allowed to connect to the universe at deep levels without barriers of shame or gender. In this way, when the children were naked they could express their innate nature fully.

If a child is conditioned about gender or shame, it will not express itself fully. It will start creating rules for itself. If I am a boy I should not do this. If I am a girl, I should not do this. This conditioning did not exist in the gurukulam. Children could express themselves completely. They were allowed to connect fully.

At the age of seven, children were given a meditation technique to keep them connected to the ultimate Consciousness. If an idea came to them that they were different from others, this meditation technique diluted that idea. This meditation kept them free from ideas that took them away from the Consciousness. This meditation technique is gayatri mantra. They continuously related with the collective consciousness through this mantra. By the age of fourteen, they had a glimpse of collective consciousness, a glimpse of enlightenment or satori.

What do we do today? We buy shorts and t-shirt for a boy child, and we buy a dress for a girl child. We buy blue for boys and pink for girls. We create the layer of gender when the child is barely one year old, or sometimes sooner. If the child is a boy, we buy him blue clothes. If the child is a girl, we buy her pink clothes. We again and again pull them away. We do not allow them to be themselves.

When we remove these conditionings, we see that everything is pure Consciousness. Only then we see that we are the same. That is what Krishna says here. When we see that the supreme Soul resides in each of us, we see that all of us are connected to each other. When we see this, we see the truth. We see that the whole universe is the expansion of the same consciousness. The whole universe is the expression of the same truth.

Q: You talked about the Vedic system of education, the gurukulam. How practical is it to have a system where children can move about without wearing clothes?

A: In Western countries, some people take off their clothes in private settings and call such places nudist colonies. When they can afford to do it outside the prying eyes of people, they make it a fashion statement that others can only aspire to. The purpose here is for sensual pleasure and they justify it by saying they want to get back to nature.

Children have no inhibitions until the age of six or seven. They have no understanding of gender differentiation. They are absorbed in their own selves until that age. Their interest in the external world is one of learning.

It is possible to develop such communities where children can roam unclothed. It is the adults that you must worry about. They are the ones with samskaras. So, when you ask if this is practical, you are imposing your own judgment based on your tainted upbringing.

There are people who want to clothe animals, their pet dogs and cats for instance. They say that these animals are obscene. These people are obscene; they are the perverted ones. Nudity is your natural state. I have roamed around without clothes in the Himalayan Mountains in the dead of winter. Neither people nor nature bothered me.

Imagine the society that will arise, the generation that will grow up, when children are brought up this way. They will grow up unafraid and completely balanced. They will be the most sensual people on earth without being sexually driven by lust. As of now your educational system brings children down instead of bringing them up. They grow up with inhibitions, fear, greed, jealousy and a host of negative elements.

If you observe young children who have been brought up by wise parents who do not control and inhibit them, all their energy centers are open. They have no fear of anything. What they want at that moment they ask for, and they do not have unfulfilled desires. They are not stressed by being suppressed. They do not compare themselves with others and accumulate borrowed desires.

In the gurukulam education, they are not taught anything formally until the age of seven. At this age they are taught gayatri mantra. This awakens inner intelligence. They are then taught various life skills along with scriptural truths. The education is well rounded.

The children are supported based upon aptitudes. They are not rated based on intelligence tests that measure crammed knowledge. They are allowed to progress based on their own aptitude, at their own pace, and choose what they are good at. There is no compulsion to perform based on someone else's expectation. Again, you may ask, 'how practical is this? These kids need to earn a living.'

Please understand and reflect on your own life. How many have been pushed into doing things that you hate doing? How many dislike your work? If you are honest, the vast majority of you will say 'yes'. You have been pushed into doing what you are doing by your elders based on their concept of what you must do. You never had a choice to do what you wanted to do.

I meet youngsters who say, 'I wanted to be an athlete, but my parents wanted me to be an engineer. I hate my studies.' Don't think this happens only in Bharat or Asia. Even in the USA where children pay for their education, they are often pushed into studies based on peer pressure or what others influence them to do. They end up hating what they are forced into. We then develop a generation of mavericks who break away from society, like the hippies.

When you do something you like, that passion shows in the outcome. What you deliver and how you perform is a reflection of your passion, as excellence in whatever you do. You are automatically successful in what you do. You will be materially successful without needing to make that a stated objective.

You don't need to believe me. Look around and see for yourself. Statistics show that eighty percent of wealthy people who accumulated their own wealth broke away from the crowd. They are dropouts or those who chose to do things based on their rules rather than expectations of society.

Without understanding and acceptance, if you follow rules of society out of fear and greed you will get nowhere. Understand what your passion is and follow it. Teach your children to follow their passion. Don't limit them with the conditioning that limited you.

13.32 Those with the vision of eternity can see that the soul is transcendental, eternal, and beyond the modes of nature.

Despite contact with the material body, O Arjuna, the soul neither does anything nor is attached.

13.33 The sky, due to its subtle nature, does not mix with anything, although it is all pervading.

Similarly, the soul, situated in Brahman, does not mix with the body, though situated in that body.

13.34 O son of Bharata, as the Sun alone illuminates the entire universe, so does the living entity,

One within the body, illuminate the entire consciousness.

13.35 Those, who see with the eyes of knowledge the difference between the body-mind and the Knower of the body-mind, can understand the process

Are liberated from the bondages of the material nature and attain the Paramatman.

Krishna again and again talks about the true nature of the Self. He tells Kaunteya, Arjuna, that the soul is free from all entanglements. It is eternal and it is transcendental. Krishna says though the soul has come into contact with the material body, it still is free.

In the previous verses, we talked about how the body is a temple of our soul. We saw how the soul takes this body to fulfill the desires of our past birth. The soul actually does nothing. It does not entangle itself in the web of greed and fear. It is the mind that continuously adds new desires to the list and keeps the body running after them. Internally, the soul is always free. It has no bondage.

It is like the lotus plant in a lake. Water droplets that fall on the lotus leaves do not get attached to the leaves. They simply roll off and merge with the water again.

In the same way, the soul that rests inside this body is completely free from worldly joys and sorrows. It is like the drops of water. The soul can simply merge into the supreme Soul. Only the body is related to the worldly happenings. The soul is not involved at all.

Krishna says nirguna. The three attributes of calmness, passion and inactivity are related to mind and body. The soul is free from these gunas. It is neither restless nor is it lazy. It is pure. Actually it is beyond pure. When we say pure, then the soul can be associated with the guna of satva. That is why I say it is beyond purity. Nothing can circumscribe it.

One important thing we should know. Only when something is seen by the mind, do words come out. Words are an expression of the chatter that happens in our mind. When there is no mind, there are no words. When you go to the Himalayas surrounded by mountains, the first thing that happens is awe. No words come out. We are silent. Our being enjoys the beauty. Our being does not try to relate it to anything. Our mind has not yet associated any word to it. After a few seconds we experience the 'wow' feeling; it cannot be expressed.

In the same way, enlightenment cannot be expressed in words. There is no enlightened Master that can adequately explain what enlightenment is in words.

You see, associating even the word satva, calmness, also requires mind. The soul is beyond this guna also. No word can describe it. It just is. That's all. All enlightened Masters are triguna rahita. It means that they have gone beyond the three gunas. They know that the soul is free from everything. They know that the body is a temple of the soul. They know that the body does not affect the soul.

Krishna gives an example to make this point clear. He says the space that is everywhere is unaffected by anything that is in that space. The subtle energy, space or ether, is present everywhere. Every molecule and atom has this subtle energy. Though it is present in everything that we see, it does not inherit the properties of what it resides in. Even if it is in a flower, it does not take up the scent of the flower.

In the same way, the soul is not affected by where it resides. People think that their soul will go to hell if they have committed sins. They think if they have lived a pious life, their soul will go to heaven. They think that the soul is affected by the deeds of the body.

Please be very clear that our external deeds do not affect our soul. One more thing that I will repeat: there is nothing called heaven or hell. They are not physical locations. They are simply psychological states. If we do something without awareness, we are in hell. If we act with consciousness, we are in heaven. Automatically our deeds will be for the benefit of all.

The external deeds of the body do not affect the destination of our soul. Our sins do not affect the nature of our soul. Please understand that by infusing awareness into what we do, we realize that the body only does whatever we do. The soul is completely free from it. The soul is not affected by it.

Krishna says that just as the sun illuminates our whole world, one supreme Self, one kshetragna, illuminates all beings in the universe, whether they are animate or inanimate. He says everything has the same Consciousness.

Krishna gives more and more examples. The Sun sheds light on the surrounding planets. The darkness on the planets is removed by the sun's light. In the same way, the supreme Self, kshetragna, lights up all beings in the universe. The ultimate Consciousness lights up the entire universe. All beings of the universe have this Consciousness.

Krishna says one more thing here. We may think He says the same thing over and over but He is trying to make the concept of kshetra and kshetragna clear to Arjuna. Krishna knows that this is important and He wants Arjuna to understand it completely.

Anyhow, Krishna says something new here. He says that just as the sun illumines the universe, the soul in this body illumines not only this body but also everything surrounding it, the entire universe. He says:

kshetram kshetri tatha krtsnam prakasayati bharata

Kshetri is the Self. This Self illumines all the kshetra, all the bodies. Not just our body or kshetra is illumined but all the kshetra are illumined. The consciousness present in each of us is the hologram of the supreme Self. So there is no separation between the consciousness present in our body and the consciousness present in some plant or a rock. Everything is the same energy.

The sun lights up everything that is around. There is no partiality. It does not discriminate. Whatever comes its way, it removes the darkness from it. In the same way, the supreme Self present in us illuminates everything in the universe. Our ignorance separates the soul from the supreme Soul.

Actually to even use two different words — soul and supreme Soul — is not correct.

There are not two separate entities called soul or supreme Soul. There is only Soul. There is only one. Everything in this universe has the supreme Soul. We can't even say, 'Everything has the same supreme Soul,' because when we use the word same, it means there are copies of the supreme Soul in all of us.

No, it is not like that. There is just supreme Soul and nothing else. Everything in this universe has the supreme Soul. Our mind draws boundaries. It is like creating borders between two countries. So many countries fight over boundaries. One country fights with the other to acquire more land. They are drawing and erasing boundaries.

We think we can draw boundaries between the Self, which is present in us, and the supreme Self. We try to put our soul in a tight container made of greed and fear. We close the lid and are afraid to open it. Actually, we fear losing our identity. We associate ourselves with our individual ego. We want to show others how different we are.

Our mind knows that if it opens the lid, the soul and the supreme Soul will become one. Our mind knows that the soul in this body and the supreme Soul are one and the same; there is no difference between the two. So our mind fears that if it opens the lid, our whole identity will be lost. We will become the same as everyone else. You see, our mind does not want this to happen.

So we continuously hold onto our individual ego. Only when we realize that we are all connected, that everything in this universe is the same universal Consciousness, will we break open the container and merge with the supreme Self.

Here Krishna ends by saying, 'If we can witness as pure Consciousness, we will be liberated from the bondages of the body-mind and achieve the eternal Consciousness.' Krishna gives a technique to realize the eternal Consciousness.

Please know that becoming the witness of the kshetra is the only way to keep us away from the bondages of the body-mind. We must witness as the kshetragna, Consciousness. When we do that we will see the separation of the Self from the body and mind.

Understand that all our movements, reactions and emotions are related to the body-mind system. The way we move our body is a reaction by our body-mind system. Our emotions like anger, laughter, sadness and happiness are reactions of our mind. All of them are movements created by our body-mind system.

When we witness these movements happening in our system, we separate ourselves from the body-mind system. When we watch them like clouds in the sky, when we watch them like a movie on a screen, without getting attached, we see the truth.

Even the thought of witnessing our thoughts and our emotions is a thought that is controlled by our mind. Even that is our thought and our mind is still acting. Only when we go beyond that thought, do we experience the eternal Consciousness.

Let me explain the technique. The technique may take at the least ten minutes.

You are going to witness your body movements, breath movements and mind movements: movements of your body, movements of your breath and movements of your mind. You may ask what kind of body movements do we have? Understand that by inhaling and exhaling, your belly will be moving continuously up and down. There will be a slight movement of your belly during your breathing.

Witness that movement.

Next, watch the flow of your breath during inhaling and exhaling, without any attempt to control.

Third, watch your mind. Thoughts will be going on. Please do not judge your thoughts as right or wrong. For a few minutes, sit next to your mind, like a close friend. Let it tell you whatever it wants to. Let it speak about whatever it wants.

Witness all these with no attachment. Do not stop, control or follow them.

We continuously fight with our body and mind. We cannot get rid of the body and mind by constantly fighting with them. We can only get rid of them by friendliness. Only if we feel deeply friendly towards them, will we be able to go beyond body and mind. If we have a negative emotion towards the body mind, we will naturally abuse and only have a violent relationship with it. Accept the body and the mind. Witness the mind like a friend. Let whatever that is inside come out. There's nothing wrong. Neither support nor suppress. If we support, we'll go behind the garbage. If we suppress, we'll end up analyzing the garbage and pushing it aside. Neither approach is going to work. Just witness.

Witnessing acts like fire. All the thoughts are burned away. Understand, neither suppressing nor supporting your thoughts will work. Only witnessing works.

When we go deep into our being, the witnessing Consciousness automatically creates intelligence. Understand that we don't need to be in that mood throughout the twenty-four hours of each day. Even if we add a few glimpses, that is enough. That energy will guide our whole life. If we understand the silence that happens to us when we are witnessing, even for a few seconds, we will taste it and start acting on it. Only out of these few moments does the energy of great achievement happen.

All great things are achieved from the consciousness and intuition that is beyond the body mind consciousness, whether it is Einstein's Theory of Relativity or some other great scientific discovery. They are products of the witnessing Consciousness. This is true not only in the field of science but in the arts, spirituality or any field. When we are beyond the body and mind, we bring the maximum out of our being. The ultimate expression of our being happens when we are whole. Whenever we are whole, we are holy. Understand that witnessing is the only path to wholeness or holiness.

Let us pray to the Parabrahman, Lord Krishna, the ultimate universal Consciousness, to give us the inner space or the pure witnessing Consciousness, to give us the ultimate experience and establish us in eternal bliss, nithyananda.

Q: Master, why do your disciples and people in your ashram communities wear white? What is the qualification for them to wear the saffron cloth?

Different colors have different physiological and emotional effects. Different colors affect your energy in different ways.

White calms you. White allows you to absorb positive energy easily and retain it. We are not talking about the commonly understood principle of white reflecting light and heat, and black absorbing energy. When you meditate upon the cosmic energy or upon the Master, you can experiment with different colors. You will find that when you wear white, your ability to center and focus is higher. That is the reason we recommend that people wear white during our programs.

On a lighter note, when they wear white, it is easier for us to see if our ashramites have not washed their clothes!

Pastel colors are better for calmness, a satvic state of mind. Brighter colors bring out aggression and passion in you, the rajasic state of mind. Dark colors such as black enhance passive qualities, the tamasic state of mind in you. Depending on what you plan to do, you can choose the color that will help you reach that state of mind.

Similar principles apply with music and sound, with aroma and smells, with food and taste. That is why devotional songs follow a particular rhythm and meter, while rock music follows another. Music such as techno has been tested to be detrimental to mental health, as well as to the hearing.

Saffron, or kavi as we call it, is a one-of-a-kind color. I doubt if this color is popular anywhere except in Bharat. It is the color of renunciation. It indicates that you have surrendered yourself to the Cosmic Energy and have lost your identity. It means that you have lost your mind!

At various levels of renunciation, I give disciples saffron-colored clothing to indicate their levels of renunciation and to remind them of the need to commit to the path that they have undertaken. When energized and given with the blessings of the Master, this cloth has a mystical significance!

This color has its own majesty. I think this color is far more regal and majestic when worn by the right individual than the purple color associated with royalty. The grace that saffron provides cannot be matched by any color. This color makes you one with the Universe. What greater power and energy can one have?