We Are Brahman

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.