1. Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by Nithyananda - Chapter 14 - Drop your Samskaras

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!

A small story:

On the last day of the school term students brought gifts to their teacher. The first student presented the teacher with a nicely wrapped gift. The student's father owned the local bakery. The teacher looked at the package, shook it and asked, 'Is this a box of pastries?' The child said, 'Yes.'

Next, a student, whose father was the owner of a clothing store, presented a beautifully decorated gift and again the teacher shook it close to her ears. She then asked, 'Is it a dress?' The child said, 'Yes.'

Another girl came up with a nicely wrapped box. Her father owned a liquor store. The teacher shook the box. She noticed that the package was leaking. She dipped her finger in the leaking fluid and asked the girl curiously, 'Is this some kind of beer?' The child said, 'No.'

The teacher dipped her finger again in the fluid, tasted it carefully and asked, 'Ah, this tastes quite exotic. What is it? Is it some kind of wine?' The child again said, 'No.'

Then the teacher said, 'Alright, I give up. Please tell me, what is it?'

The child said in a worried tone, 'It is a puppy.'

The moral of this story is simple: please don't put anything in your mouth unless you know what it is. At least, do not make major decisions based on your past experiences. Our past experiences are stored in our unconscious as engraved memories or engrams. They will only mislead you. In Sanskrit, these engraved memories are called saṃskāras.

We make faulty decisions when we make major decisions through engraved memories or saṃskāras. The teacher thought that the gift was a bottle of beer or wine since the student's father sold alcohol. In the same way, time and again, we make decisions driven by our engraved memories. The first two decisions of the teacher were correct. The first girl's father was in the business of selling sweets and the teacher guessed that the gift was a box of sweets. Then the second child's father owned a clothing store and the teacher guessed that the gift was a dress. Since the third child's father owned a liquor store, the teacher assumed that the gift was a bottle of alcohol!

Before we put anything into our mouth, be sure to know what it is, else it can lead to a lot of trouble.

This whole chapter of Bhagavad Gita is about engraved memories in our mind.

Engraved memories or engrams are the memories stored in our unconscious that drive almost all our actions. Even though we act upon them, we rarely know or understand where these decisions that force us into action come from since these memories are deeply embedded in our unconscious mind.

We tend to think that our actions are based on a logical sequence of thoughts. However, almost all our decisions have neither logic nor awareness. I will show you later the dynamics of how our mind works.

Modern psychology tells us that almost 90% of our mind is unconscious. This means that we typically use 10% of our conscious mind. In other words, our conscious mind drives only 10% of our thoughts, words and actions. The rest is driven by the unconscious.

We have no control over how our unconscious mind functions since we are unaware of what happens there. Many unconscious memories are based on fear and pain. They rise up in moments of trauma or difficult situations. They influence decisions with no awareness on our part.

Scientists say that only a small fraction of what we perceive through our senses gets consciously recorded. Science says that we are only aware of 5%, perhaps less, of what we see or hear.

A real incident:

Our Bidadi āshram is located about an hour's drive from Bangalore. In the early days of this āshram, I traveled almost everyday from Bidadi to Bangalore. One day I told the driver to take me to a particular place along the way. I explained to him that it was near a mosque, a Muslim house of prayer.

The driver was confused. He insisted that there was no mosque on the route that we normally took everyday. I tried to explain but it was of no avail. Finally, I mentioned another landmark, a Hindu Hanuman temple. He immediately understood and his face lit up with joy and understanding.

'Master, why didn't you tell me that first?' he exclaimed, 'Of course I know where you want to go now!'

This Hindu temple was a small structure compared to the mosque. We traveled past both buildings everyday. Yet, this person was aware of only the Hanuman temple because of his personal preferences and he had no memory of the mosque.

All that we perceive is not true; all that we do not perceive is not unreal. It is a simple truth that what sinks in is only a fraction of what our five senses perceive. The rest goes directly into the unconscious. Yet this does not mean that these perceptions and the memories of these perceptions are forgotten.

Many memories of experiences are recorded even though we are unconscious of them. These memories strongly drive our actions. Surgeons have recently understood that patients on the operating table under anesthesia actually record whatever happens around them. This is not fiction. Famous doctors have written books about this. They caution others to be careful about what they say or do in an operating theatre since the patient may not be unconscious after all.

As an example, doctors discovered the source of an accident victim's problem, years after the incident. The man had crashed his car into a tree and became unconscious. Some witnesses called paramedics to rescue him from the damaged car and he was transported by ambulance to the hospital. As they lifted him out of a car, the paramedics talked about their day-to-day problems. One guy said that he had just left his girlfriend because she was trying to push him into a committed relationship. The words he used were, 'Life is too short to waste it this way.'

The accident victim heard this remark while he was unconscious and it deeply embedded itself in his memory. This caused him serious trouble in his relationships for

years. He typically broke away from commitments without knowing why. This problem caused him serious trouble in his career as well. Finally, he sought treatment and was cured when the memory of this experience surfaced. The source of his troubles was a conversation that entered his memory space though he was technically unconscious.

In fact, many powerful memories do not remain at the conscious level. They go directly into the unconscious. We do not recall that memory. Yet, it powerfully impacts us and influences our decisions and actions. The influence is based on the emotional perception at the time of the experience. What we term perception is not the experience we perceive through the senses; perception is how we respond emotionally to the experience. This response is a conditioned response.

In this chapter, Krishna explains how we respond to perceptions. In this chapter, called Guṇatraya Vibhāga Yoga, Krishna explains the three different guṇas (attributes) to Arjuna. How we act, actually I can't say we 'act': how we 'react' to every situation is based on these three guṇas. This is how we create more and more karmabandha (bondages arising from our actions), which results in more and more trouble for ourselves.

Q: Master, I am not clear how the conscious and unconscious minds work. Can you please explain how THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM helps in creating awareness?

There are two things in you: hardware and software. Your mind is the software and your brain is the hardware. Within the mind, within your software, there are two parts: conscious zone and unconscious zone. Conscious zone is what you normally call the waking state though 90% of the time your thoughts and actions in this state are activated by your unconscious! We shall look at these in detail later.

The conscious zone is the software; the unconscious zone is the virus! The conscious zone can be cleansed by teachings. The unconscious zone can be cleansed by meditation. Now, the hardware, the brain, needs to be then tuned to hold the changes in the software, the new experience that is created through the changed software. This can happen by the blessings of THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, by dīkṣā (initiation) from him.

When you clean the conscious and unconscious and create an effect, the hardware may not be able to hold and sustain that effect from day one. If THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's initiation happens, the hardware also changes to hold that effect. In the absence of a living THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, constant meditation and teaching can change the hardware. Hardware is like grooves created out of saṃskāra (stored memories) in the brain. Once the new software happens, the hardware slowly changes. However if you wish to immediately change the hardware, THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM's presence is the right thing. Straightaway it changes the hardware.

Sometimes, without even changing the software, the hardware can be changed and the person will immediately radiate the correct software's quality! This happens when a disciple is completely open to THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM or if he is in love with THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM for no reason. Sometimes a disciple falls in love with THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM for no reason. He may not be attracted to his teachings or meditation techniques; he simply falls in love. In that case, without delay, the hardware can be changed. Those kinds of disciples radiate the quality of the teachings and meditation without going through all of them. They do not have to go through all these things, yet straightaway the result will be seen.

As of now, your hardware and software are outgoing towards the outer world. If you do the chakra meditation camp, the Life Bliss Program or Ananda Spurana Program, the software suddenly becomes ingoing. It will go in towards spirituality, towards a cleansing process. The cleansing of the conscious portion happens through the teachings and the meditation cleanses the unconscious portion.

However, even if the software turns inside, the hardware will not be able to handle it. Then the hardware tries its best to retain its grooves. If the software is strong and stays in the same tune, the hardware slowly changes. However, if the dīkṣā, the energy blessing from THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM, is immediately given after the teaching and meditation, the hardware changes and holds the new software. It gets prepared to hold onto the new experience. This concept must be understood so that you bring in enough awareness to allow the transformation to happen in you.

14.1 Krishna says, 'I will declare to you again the supreme wisdom,

The knowledge of which has helped all sages attain supreme perfection.'

14.2 By becoming fixed in this knowledge, one can attain the transcendental nature, like My own,

And establish in his eternal Consciousness, that one is not born at the time of creation, or disturbed at the time of dissolution.

14.3 The total material substance, called Brahman, is the source of birth,

It is that Brahman that I impregnate, making possible the births of all living beings, O son of Bhārata.

14.4 Arjuna, Understand that all species of life are made possible by birth in this material nature, and

I am the seed-giving father.

By repeating the truth again and again, Krishna tries to create an engraved memory of truth in Arjuna's mind.

Please try to understand why Krishna repeats Himself. He literally uses the same words again and again. Why? Why should Krishna speak the same thing again and again?

Krishna is a Master who is result-oriented. He persists with what He wants. He is unwilling to compromise. He is not easily satisfied with the attitude, 'I said whatever I had to say; whether he wants to listen or not is up to him.'

No! Again and again, He repeats himself because He wants to create a memory of His teachings in Arjuna's mind. He does this so that even if Arjuna misses a teaching the first time, perhaps he will get it the next time. By creating an engraved memory in Arjuna's mind He wants Arjuna to follow it. That is why He repeats the truth again.

He says, 'Again, I shall declare once more, I speak about the truth to you, through the knowledge of which all the sages have attained supreme perfection.

Whether we believe it or not, man by his nature is a machine. He is a mechanism. Not only at the body level, he is a mechanism even at the level of the mind. At most, we can call it a bio-mechanism, yet he is still a mechanism. He works based on engraved memories or what we call saṃskāras in Sanskrit. He is continuously caught in the web of engraved memories with his mind and his being because he works based on engraved memories that have been stored in his unconscious zone.

I repeat certain words and sentences, not because I have nothing else to do. These words and sentences have the power to go deep within you. If you allow them, they will help you transform. All you need to do is to be open and allow these words to sink into you. Even as you read this book, let the words penetrate you. These words carry energy to uplift you; to transform you.

Many religious rituals are designed to build good saṃskāras in us. Going to a temple, a church, prayer groups or satsang (spiritual gathering) reinforces our desire to move forward spiritually. They create the environment, the mood for the right decision to happen. These events cannot liberate or enlighten us. However, they can condition us and program our unconscious mind to work in a particular way. They can rewire us.

People who have read a little about other religions and faiths feel intellectually superior and question the practices of their own culture. They call this rationalism. Rationalism in their dictionary means that all religious practices, especially Hindu rituals, are foolish and superstitious. They make no

effort to understand the underlying truth of these practices. Because of their intellectual understanding and superficial knowledge about what others say, they decide that what they cannot understand is foolish. This is especially true when other scholars, who have an equally limited awareness of their own culture, criticize Vedic culture.

Bharat has been full of such scholars. Many of these scholars had Western education, whose main tenet is to deride anything that is not 'scientific'. They have very little background of the Vedic culture. Like their role models, the foreign scholars before them, these Hindu scholars learn Sanskrit just to read the Vedic scriptures. Their purpose is not to create any inner awareness, which is what these scriptures are meant for. They simply want to analyze them logically and find fault where logic does not fit the scriptural truth.

Science is about facts that can be recorded. Spirituality is about truth that needs to be experienced. That is why our scriptures never bothered about historical accuracy and factual details. They dealt with issues that affected our consciousness. To understand our scriptures, we cannot use logic. We need to use meditation. Truth has nothing to do with our head. It has everything to do with our being.

People ask me, 'Can you prove the existence of God?'

Before his enlightenment, Vivekananda, upon meeting Ramakrishna, asked whether Ramakrishna could show him God. Vivekananda asked this question not to embarrass Ramakrishna but because he felt deeply attracted to this Master and wanted help in finding out the truth that had eluded him.

A young man who had read about Vivekananda came to one of my discourses in Bharat. I asked him, 'So you read about Vivekananda?' Unlike Vivekananda, this young man had no intention of finding the truth. He wanted to show how smart he was.

He proudly said, 'Yes, and I ask you the same question.' Perhaps he thought I would be as humble as Ramakrishna was.

I caught this fellow by his shirt collar and told him, 'Vivekananda was prepared to follow Ramakrishna. Now, you too prepare yourself to come with me and I will show you God!'

He struggled free from my grip and ran away. He was so scared he didn't even look back!

God can only be experienced when we drop our mind. He is beyond our mind. How can we prove His existence through the logic of our mind? How can we comprehend the one who is beyond our mind through the powers of our mind? If we can comprehend Him through our mind, our logic, how can He be in anyway superior to us? How can He then be God?

When we talk of Divinity or God, we struggle with a concept, a theory with our limited mind power. We are doing nothing more than that. Because it is only a concept, we can prove or disprove that concept. So we become a devotee or an atheist.

It requires more courage to be an atheist than a believer. Believers accept God and ignore Him. They frame him in a picture and hang him in a corner. They hung Jesus from the cross and we hang Krishna from a nail. No difference at all! At least to hang Jesus, they needed to hate him and fear him. To hang Krishna all we need to do is to pretend to believe in Him and then ignore Him.

To be an atheist, we need courage. An atheist probably thinks about God more often than the believer who believes and ignores. When we actively disbelieve we need to be aware. An atheist is more aware of God than a believer.

God can only be experienced. He cannot be proved or disproved. He cannot be believed or disbelieved. If you wish to experience God, come to me and be open. If you have courage, drop your mind and I will show you God. You will experience Him in you.

Krishna wants to take Arjuna there. In fact, He already took him there when He revealed His Cosmic form to Arjuna. Now, Krishna wants to take the rest of humanity to the same level. So again and again He repeats the techniques to realize our divinity. In His deep compassion He gives us a chance to catch the lifeline He is throwing us so that we can be saved.

For the first time, Krishna says that we will reach His state. So far He said, 'Worship Me. Surrender unto Me.' Now He says, 'You will achieve the same state in which I am. One can attain the transcendental nature like My own.'

We can achieve the state in which He is. Krishna was the first Master courageous and bold enough to declare that enlightenment is available to everybody. Anybody can achieve it. Enlightenment is not an accident. It is an incident that we can create.

Until the time of Sri Krishna, the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and other scriptures spoke as if enlightenment was an accident. Some people became enlightened; however, nobody knew why. Nor did they know why others could not get it or how exactly to get it. Nobody knew. They merely knew that some people were blessed, almost as if God was sitting up there and reviewing applications, and to some, He said, 'Alright, yes, granted' and immediately that person became enlightened!

Krishna was the first Master who showed how to write the application or present the resume for enlightenment! He showed how to achieve enlightenment, which is not an accident but an incident. We can experience it through our conscious decision. He says that by being fixed in this knowledge, 'One can attain.' He doesn't say, 'You can attain it,' indicating only Arjuna. He says one can attain it, meaning that anybody can attain it.

After the Vishwarupa Darshan or vision of the Cosmic form of Krishna, whatever Krishna shares with Arjuna is meant for the whole world. Arjuna already achieved what he had to achieve. After that, there was nothing else to say. Arjuna had the vision of Krishna's Cosmic form. In the eleventh chapter, he experienced Vishwarupa Darshan

and from the twelfth chapter onwards, the teachings were recorded for the benefit of the whole world.

A scientist creates a formula to reproduce things in the outer world. A spiritual Master creates a formula to reproduce the experience of the inner world. Krishna says, 'By establishing yourself in this knowledge, you can achieve the experience, or you can establish yourself in the same state in which I am, like My own' or 'mama', which means 'My own'. Krishna declares, 'This truth will directly lead you to the state in which I am established.'

Krishna talks about the truth that one is eternal, and not limited by birth and death. The state of being eternal transcends creation and dissolution. It transcends the past and future. Eternal is to be here and now. Eternal is the present moment.

Brahma is the Lord of creation. Creation is of the past. To exist in the physical plane, we need to have been created. To maintain is the job of Vishnu. Maintenance is about future. It is about how we wish to be, what we wish to have, our desires, our expectations and everything related to the future. Shiva is the Lord of the present. He is the destroyer of the future making it flow into the past, by way of the present. He is the Master of here and now.

Shiva is the rejuvenator, not just the destroyer. The present always rejuvenates. In Sanskrit, Shiva means 'causeless auspiciousness'. The present is the most auspicious; whatever happens in the present is auspicious. We should develop the attitude of accepting what happens in the present as auspicious.

There are two kinds of people. The first type looks at everything suspiciously. They find everything unsatisfactory. These people say, 'All is very well, but…' They cannot say anything without 'butting'. Such people can never be happy. They live with idea of what life should be, rather than accepting it as it is. They are purely materialistic.

The second type finds everything to be auspicious: whatever happens is what it should be. They accept life as it is. These people are spiritual. These are the people whom Krishna says transcend creation and dissolution, past and future. They live in the present moment and in Krishna Consciousness.

Krishna is trying to answer philosophical questions that can never really be answered: how is the whole universe created? If everything is God, how is the whole universe created? How are we born? Whoever tried to answer these questions just created another philosophy.

Out of frustration, someone once asked me such questions, 'Why are we born? Why should we take birth at all? Why is this whole drama of taking birth, meditating, then achieving enlightenment? Why? For who's sake is this drama? If we must end up working out our karma, why do we create karma in the first place? What is the reason for this? Why does this cycle go on and on?'

Krishna tries to answer these questions. However, this answer is not the ultimate truth. He says, 'Please wait until the teachings are over.' Normally when we don't receive an answer for our philosophical question, we will be stuck with that question and not be able to enter into meditation. Again and again we will think of the question. We will come back to that question. Here, Arjuna also comes back to the same question again and again and gets stuck.

For the sake of meditation or just for the sake of giving him an understanding, Krishna gives an answer.

The other day I was sharing the same example using a mathematical formula. Let's say there is a formula 'X + 2 = 4'. In the beginning, the teacher will make an assumption by saying, 'Let us assume that X = 2', then she replaces X with 2 and goes on to show that 2 + 2 = 4. The problem is solved. Then the teacher says, 'Because the problem is solved, we know that our hypothesis that X = 2 is correct.' But until we come to that conclusion through a process, we must assume that X = 2.

If we argue at the hypothesis when she makes the assumption that X = 2, saying, 'Why should X be equal to 2, why not 3, why don't we assume X = 4?' we will not be able to solve the problem. Once we solve the problem, we know that X is 2. We understand it logically. But before solving, when we start, we must assume that X = 2. Some assumption must be made so that we can proceed to solve the problem.

Krishna also makes a small assumption and proceeds to solve the problem. Once He solves the problem, we will understand that what was assumed is the truth. What the teacher assumed was not a wrong assumption, but it was still an assumption. Similarly, Krishna gives an idea that it is not the ultimate truth but a comparative reality. It is a comparative truth. He says, 'I am the father, the pitha, I am the root cause for everything.'

However, Krishna's words can be fully understood only when we experience the Consciousness of Krishna. Until we experience the Consciousness of Krishna, it is an assumption.

Even if it is an assumption, it is okay. Proceed with this assumption into the next chapters, into the next verse. Suddenly, when we see the result, we understand that whatever we have assumed is the truth. Once the problem is solved, all the assumptions that we have made will be understood as the truth. Krishna makes this assumption so that we can understand the truth.

Q: Master, you mentioned that meditation is the way to Being and Krishna Consciousness. Meditation appears complex and difficult. How can we become successful in meditation?

Yes, meditation is the key to self-awareness. There is no other way that you can reach Krishna or Shiva Consciousness, and the state of Causeless Auspiciousness. Meditation is, being in the present. It is not complex or difficult.

Meditation is a simple process. It is dropping the mind: moving away from the mind, seeing the mind as separate from you, watching it, witnessing it, and remembering, 'I am not the mind.' It is not suppressing the mind or senses or thoughts. This is what I call 'unclutching.'

It is breaking the connection between thoughts. Thoughts by themselves are unconnected. They are irrational, illogical and unconnected. We connect them and by connecting them we create shafts of pain and pleasure. Either way we suffer.

By disconnecting thoughts, by un-clutching, we drop the mind and keep remembering that we are not the mind. Slowly the remembrance becomes stronger. The distance between you and the mind becomes bigger. One day you absolutely know that the mind is a mechanism with which you had become identified. You had become clutched and now it is time to wake up from that sleep, that illusion.

To become awakened means to know 'I am not the mind; I am the Master.' Then you can have control over the mind, and you are not used by the mind anymore. When you are free from the bondage of the mind, you are liberated, free and in bliss.

Any skill is acquired with practice. And it is the same with meditation. You spend years acquiring useless skills and information. You attend courses and pay through the nose for bits of information that you never use again. Meditation is a lifesaver. It helps you understand yourself. Unfortunately, it is not diversion of the mind; it is centering the mind. It is about giving up the mind. Naturally the mind does not care to lose itself. It does not like losing control.

The purpose of meditation is to bring you out of the clutches of your mind and out of the bondage of your thoughts. While it is not as easy as being a couch potato and watching the television, it is not difficult either. All you need is discipline to sit for a few days looking inwards. Once you discover the joy of being in control of your mind, you never want to lose control again. This control leads to liberation.

Once in a while someone tells me, 'Master, I am fine as long as someone is not talking within my hearing range. I can meditate well. But I get disturbed by sound.'

Meditation does not make you deaf. You can hear when you meditate. In fact, awareness increases and you hear better than normal. The point is to witness what is going on outside without becoming involved. You cannot shut off your senses. Even when you close your eyes, you have an inner TV playing inside.

Watch your thoughts as if they are clouds floating in the sky. Do not become part of the cloud. With practice you can meditate sitting in a noisy mall. You can meditate with eyes open. All this comes with practice and sincerity. The only difficulty is the assumption that it is difficult.

14.5 Material nature consists of the three modes: goodness, passion and ignorance.

When the living entity comes in contact with nature, it becomes conditioned by these modes.

14.6 O Sinless One, the mode of goodness, sattva, being purer than the others, is illuminating, and it frees one from all sinful reactions.

Those situated in that mode develop knowledge, but they become conditioned by the concept of happiness.

14.7 Arjuna, know that the mode of passion, rajas, is characterized by intense craving and is the source of desire and attachment.

Rajas binds the living entity by attachment to work.

14.8 Know, O Arjuna, that the mode of ignorance, tamas, the deluder of the living entity, is born of inertia.

Tamas binds the living entity by carelessness, laziness, and excessive sleep.

Material nature consists of three modes or attributes: goodness, passion and ignorance. These are called gunas in Sanskrit. This translation is incomplete because there are no relevant English words for sattva, rajas and tamas. We do not have the right word for guna. We cannot aptly translate these words into English. When the eternal living Entity comes in contact with nature, He becomes conditioned by these modes.

We may say that these are the different ways people behave; as the phrase goes, it is the good, the bad and the ugly.

Krishna explains how we are caught in three different mental setups; we operate through three different types of engraved memories. One is sattva, the other is rajas and the third is tamas. These are translated as goodness, passion and ignorance; however, these are not exact translations.

Let me explain these concepts: Sattva refers to the engrams or engraved memories or samskaras that leads us to bliss. These engraved memories lead us to joy and ecstasy. Rajas refers to the engraved memories that lead us to restlessness, excitement and to work intensely. They make us active and materially productive. The third attribute, tamas, means the engraved memories that lead us to depression, laziness and to dullness. Engraved memories that lead to ecstasy and bliss form sattva, engraved memories that lead to restlessness, anger and emotional imbalance form rajas, and engraved memories that lead to depression, dullness and low moods form tamas.

A small example:

We are like passengers riding in a car. Slowly we become lost in thoughts. After a while, we suddenly recall a person or place that disturbs us. The moment the mind feels disturbed, we come back to awareness. Sometimes, we say, 'I should not think about it; let me think of something else.' Sometimes we speak these words aloud. We may make gestures.

The driver may look back and say, 'What happened? What are you doing?'

When we are lost in thoughts and a memory arises that makes us depressed, dull or disturbed, we suddenly come back to awareness. We ask ourselves, 'What am I thinking?'

Sometimes we say it aloud, 'I should not think about this. Oh God, what am I doing? I should think of something else.' Sanskrit has a beautiful word for engraved memories: samskaras.

Those engraved memories that automatically arise and lead to depression are called tamas.

Sometimes a thought suddenly comes up, 'I will not let him off so easily. I will see that he learns a lesson. I will not let him go.' We may unexpectedly make an angry gesture with our hands while engrossed with this thought.

Engrams that make us active or cause anger or violence and imbalance are called rajas. We are normally caught between rajas and tamas. Very rarely do we get sattvic engrams. Sattvic engrams do not disturb us. They give rise to a memory of deep bliss or joy that we have experienced. For example, if we come here everyday, the moment it is 4:30 pm, an engram like this may come up, 'Oh, yesterday the discourse was wonderful. The meditation was beautiful. I should go today as well.'

However, if it is 4.30 pm, instead of that sattvic engram, we typically get the engram to eat a snack or drink a cup of coffee!

If we are pulled inwards, if we are made to do something good that leads to bliss, ecstasy and peace of mind, it is due to engraved memories of sattva, sattvic memories or sattvic engrams. If we go to the Himalayas for a few days, we may experience joy and peace. Then later when we see pictures of a mountain, the memory of the Himalayan experience suddenly comes up and we think, 'Oh I should spend a couple of months in the Himalayas. It was so peaceful.' Engrams that lead us to peace, bliss and ecstasy are sattvic engrams.

These three different types of engraved memories or samskaras rule our entire life. Knowledge of these engraved memories is the basic knowledge that must be possessed by anyone who wants to live successfully. The Vedic science of health and wellness, Ayurveda, is structured around the concept of gunas and their effect on our body-mind system.

It is like an owner's manual for the person who has a mind. Without an owner's manual, when we use a product, either we miss the whole thing, or we miss the knowledge of many of the product's applications and features.

There are so many uses and features of a computer. Even the humble calculator has hundreds of applications that we are unaware of. We may use the calculator for basic features like addition and subtraction; however, we may not take advantage of its other applications. In the same way, if we don't have and don't know the owner's manual of the mind, we do not use it the way we ought to or to its full potential.

Understanding the three different engraved memories or samskaras is the operating manual of the mind*.* Krishna calls it, gunatrayavibhaga yoga. When we don't comprehend this manual, we are not able to catch the whole understanding of life. We miss so many opportunities. Because we have never learned or understood about the gunas, we live only a very small fraction of what's possible in life. We miss the beauty and potential of life when we don't have the owner's manual.

Why should we know about these samskaras? What is the use? How will it help us? We should know them because they are the owner's manuals of the mind. At the outset, samskaras are not dead memories. Here once again we don't have the correct translation of samskaras in English.

We can never understand or fully appreciate Shakespeare's work in another language. If we read the translations of Shakespeare, at the most we will understand what Shakespeare was trying to express. However, we will never understand how he expressed it or the depths that he reached. If we want to enjoy Shakespeare, we must read it in the original language and not today's spoken English. In the same way, if we want to understand these great truths, we must know a little Sanskrit.

When I ask people to learn a bit of Sanskrit they think I'm trying to spread the language. I say, 'No, for spirituality, a little knowledge of Sanskrit helps you understand many technical terms.'

Let me give the exact meaning or the idea expressed by the word samskara.

Samskara is not any dead engraved memory. It is an engraved memory that is alive and active. It has the power to pull us down and make us travel the same path again and again. Usually the word memory is understood as a dead record; however, samskara is not a dead record. It is not dead memory. It is not like the memory of a computer where pictures and word documents are stored. No. Samskaras have the power to pull us down repeatedly and to make us walk the same path over and over. We end up going in dead-end circles.

Samskaras automatically attract us, call us and make us travel the same path. Then, when we do walk down the same path, the engraving becomes even deeper and those memories get further entrenched. Modern science understands this fact. Experiments have shown that repeated emotional experiences create more receptors for that emotion being developed in the brain. Physically, physiologically, the more anger outbursts you have, the more anger receptors your brain develops. This is a horrifying thought but it's true. The great rishis, the inner scientists have known this for thousands of years.

If certain emotions are not expressed, the corresponding brain parts or receptors degenerate and die. So, the more we manage to stay out of negative emotions, the less they bother us. On the contrary, the more we indulge, the more our brain demands the same indulgence. This is the cause of addictions. Our entire life is ruled by samskaras.

Samskaras are living memories, not dead memories. The more we travel with these memories, the more we live with these memories; the more they become a part of our being. They take up residence in deeper levels of our consciousness. They get embedded. They are engraved into our brain structure.

Krishna explains step-by-step how we become caught in these three levels of memories and how, again and again, we are pulled and pushed by these memories. It is almost like having three wives. If we have one woman in our life, enlightenment is a luxury. If we have two women, enlightenment is an option. If we have three women in our life, enlightenment is compulsory! With three wives, or husbands, one cannot live without enlightenment.

Someone asked me, 'Why did Krishna have so many girlfriends?' I answered, 'This is solid proof that He is enlightened! The fact that He survived despite having so many girlfriends is evidence of enlightenment. No doubt, that is also solid proof that He is God. Only God can manage so many women!'

Here, He gives us an understanding of how to live with these engraved memories. Another important point is that these memories are living energies and they are not dead. Because these are living energies, they can be used for bad deeds or good deeds.

When a person has energies to do bad deeds, we can tap into those energies and make him do good deeds. From my experiences of conducting meditation programs in prisons, no one puts in as much effort and goes into such deep meditation as a prisoner. We conduct meditation programs in prisons. They are so involved and go into meditation more deeply in comparison to people outside. When prisoners take up meditation, they really take it up. They are intense. They don't do anything half-heartedly. When they are transformed, their whole life is transformed!

If we look at the lives of Hindu rishis, Valmiki in South Bharat, the great saint Arunagirinadhar and many others were sinners. However, a dramatic change happened and a cognitive shift took place in their being. The cognition usually happens in the way that our mind receives data, processes it and delivers the result. Once the cognitive shift takes place, we receive data, process it and go inside instead of outside. As long as we react externally, we are working towards depression. However, once we go in, we move into bliss.

For example, the death of someone close to us, our near and dear, can lead us to the spiritual path or to frustration. We can think, 'Anyway, I am also going to die, so l should do what I want to.' Or we can decide, 'I too will die some day. Let me learn what I can and grow.'

A small story:

A person was about to be hanged. The officer on duty asked him if he had any last wishes. The prisoner said, 'No.' The officer said, 'You can pray to God. You can ask forgiveness and ask for His blessing. We can bring in a priest.'

The prisoner said, 'I want to remember God, but not in the way you suggest. Had I known earlier I would be executed for these crimes, I would have committed a few more sins.'

The prisoner continued, 'If I had known that I was going to be hanged, I would have committed more sins. So if I pray, I will ask God why He didn't let me know earlier that I was going to be hanged. I don't need a priest for that.'

When some people understand that death is ultimate, they think, 'Death is the ultimate so let me work towards the Divine, achieve God, or realize atman.' Others react differently, 'Anyway we are going to die. Let us do whatever we want and live the way we want to.' One group takes the path of meditation and the other takes the path of the outer world. The path we choose is up to us.

Engrams are living energies. Through engrams we can choose to suffer and torture ourselves again and again. Or we can make our life a blissful experience. If we know the science of how these engraved memories happen in our being and how they can transform our being, we can take the help of these engraved memories to achieve eternal Consciousness, eternal bliss in our being.

Krishna explains how engraved memories disturb our mind and through this understanding, we can transform our being.

Before explaining these verses, let me present a small diagram through which we can understand how engrams affect our decisions and how to come out of the influence of engrams. I have given a basic understanding of this diagram elsewhere, but let me repeat it so that we can connect with samskaras.

Please understand how we receive information or data from the outer world, how we process it and how we make decisions. First, we see something through the eyes. I have taken the example of the eyes but we can replace with any other sense: ears, nose, taste or touch. Among these five jnanendriya (senses of perception), any one of them can be used here.

There are five jnanendriya and five karmendriya (senses of action) that are the means of communication between the external world and us. Jnanendriya are the senses of perception, the five senses of smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing. The karmendriya are five actions of elimination, procreation, locomotion, grasping and speaking. Each indriya, karmendriya and jnanendriya, is related to one of the energy centers (chakras) in our mind-body system. For instance, locomotion is related to the manipuraka chakra, and the energy of fire.

We can take any of the five jnanendriya to replace the eyes in this example. Through the eyes we see a scene. Let us take the example of this situation, the scene of this

Part 2: Bhagavad Gita, Commentary by THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM - Chapter 14 - Drop your Samskaras

discourse. You see me talking to you. First your eye captures this whole scene like a picture and this picture goes to chakshu (energy behind eyes). Understand, we don't see with the eye, we see through the eye. There is an energy that is inside or behind the eye that sees. There is an energy inside or behind the ears that hears. Ears by themselves cannot hear. That is why when we read a book, we may not hear the alarm or doorbell ring. If we are reading, we may not know if our spouse walks into the room. Of course if it is late at night, all wives know when their husbands sneak into the house, that is different!

A small story:

A man goes to the police station to meet a thief who had burglarized his home the previous night and taken all the cash. The officer on duty refuses to allow him to meet the thief saying, 'You cannot talk to him now. You can meet him in court tomorrow." The man pleads, 'I don't want to disturb him. All I want to know is how he entered my home without waking up my wife? I have been trying to do this for years and have not been able to do it! How did he manage?'

So there is energy inside the eyes that sees. We call this energy chakshu. The whole scene is converted into a file like a digital signal processor in a computer so that our mind can process the data.

The chakshu is almost like the digital signal processor or the DSP in electronic systems. If we are to work on sound or light or photograph, it must be first converted into a digital file. In a computer, whether it is an audio or visual file, it must be converted into a digital file. In the same way in our system, whatever we see or hear is converted into a bio-signal file like a digital file. This conversion happens in this chakshu area.

Then the file starts moving up, step-by-step. The file goes to the part of the mind called chitta (memory). If we understand this, our whole life can be transformed. We will know where and how we react. We will realize how we make big decisions based upon our assumptions and consequently suffer.

This is what happened in the story where the teacher imagined that alcohol was the leaking liquid from her gift and tasted it without thinking. We can understand how these mistakes happen by analyzing this diagram.

The file goes to chitta, the place where past memories are collected. Of course, all these places are connected to memories; however, this area is where the work of excluding happens. When the file reaches this place, the excluding process starts - Na iti, Na iti - this is not, this is not. Neti Neti (this is not, this is not) takes place in this area. Upon seeing this file, our chitta starts eliminating what the object is not.

Take the example of this scene: First you see me, the whole scene is photographed. It goes to chakshu and becomes a bio-signal file. The file is then taken to chitta. Chitta says, 'This is not a tree. This is not an animal. This is not a plant. This is not this. This is not that.' The excluding process happens in chitta.

It is like searching for the word 'cow' in a dictionary. You first eliminate all other letters to reach 'c'. Then you search for 'o' and eliminate all other letters. Then you reach 'w' by eliminating all other letters. In this manner, you reach the word 'cow'. This is how chitta works.

Next, the file goes to manas, another part of the mind. The manas tries to positively identify, 'This is a human being. He is wearing a saffron robe. He is standing on a stage.' The identification process*, 'iti, iti'* (this is it, this is it) identification process happens in manas. In chitta, 'netineti' or the 'not this, not this', elimination happens.

Once this positive identification happens, the file goes to a third part of the mind called buddhi or the intelligence. Buddhi is where the trouble starts. Here the analysis starts, 'How am I related to this file? How am I connected to this scene? How is it relevant to me? How should I respond to this scene?'

If past memories about me have been good or pleasant according to your buddhi, you respond in a positive way. You immediately refer to those memories and review, 'It was so good at yesterday's discourse.' Your buddhi refers to the past memory and makes a decision based upon past experiences. If past experiences with me have been positive, your buddhi tells you to stay and listen. If past experiences have been unpleasant and you felt bored, your buddhi tells you that this is not a place for you and that you should leave. These are logical decisions based on conscious memories retained by your mind.

Up to this point, transmission of what is perceived by the senses and what is registered by the mind is relatively straightforward. It is a conscious process. I explained earlier about conscious and unconscious minds. Psychologists talk about a subconscious mind as well. This does not exist. This is a term used to further confuse you.

Mind specialists know that ninety percent of all that we sense goes into an unknown, unconscious zone and we are unaware of what we sense. It is a leap into an abyss. It is a quantum leap into our dark unconscious mind. There is no logic to this leap. This is shocking, but true. As a corollary, ninety percent of what we process mentally happens in an unaware state of the unconscious. The conscious mind is just the tip of an iceberg. Ninety percent is below the surface. We do not see it. We do not sense it and we do not use it.

One problem with this is that it results in a colossal waste. The good news is that in it we have a great potential. Even if we awaken another ten percent of this unconscious mind, the power of our mind can be doubled. Just imagine what can happen. Everyone will be an Einstein. We can also learn to put that extra mind capacity to good use.

If the processing of sensory data is stopped at this conscious level, at buddhi, we make decisions on the conscious level by using our intellect. This is not bad; however, it is limiting because the conscious mind is still only ten percent of the total mind capacity. This is what we call intellect-based decision-making. These decisions are based on logic and rationale. We are proud of this achievement. The French philosopher Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am.' He didn't realize that he limited his potential to only ten percent. What a sad state and tragic fate!

However, what is in store for most of us is far worse. Because of the limited capacity of our conscious mind, nature wires us to use our unconscious mind to decide many things. Unfortunately this unconscious mind is a conditioned mind. It is full of engraved memories, beliefs and value systems drilled into us from childhood. All that parents and elders have taught us plus all that we have been force-fed by religion and society from a deeply impressionable age are stored in this vault that is never open to us. It opens on its own when it chooses to, especially in moments of stress and trauma. Just as viruses and bacteria attack when our immune system is down, the virus of engrams and samskaras influence us when our emotional systems are weakened.

Samskaras do not collect only during this lifetime. The mental attitudes are carried over from previous births. Neural scientists tell us about the part of our brain called the reptilian brain that stores memories of our evolution from marine and amphibian creatures. Religions may not accept this, yet science does.

From the conscious mind, the information is passed to the unconscious region of the mind, the ego.

I call this unconscious region of the mind ego not because it is arrogant, but because it provides you the

identity of who you are. The word 'ego' is derived from a Greek word that means 'a mask'. Your identity is a mask you wear. It is not you.

Your identity stems from your unconscious. You project who you wish to be, never who you are. You do not even know who you are. Who you are is deeply buried in your unconscious. All the major decisions that shape your life are consigned to this unconscious zone. This is the repository of all those emotionally filled memories and beliefs about yourself, which constitute what you are and therefore, create your identity. This is what I call the ego.

The conscious mind does not make important decisions. It makes a few decisions that can be reached by its limited intellect. Anything important moves to the unconscious ego. It is well-known that our unconscious handles all life-threatening situations, the so-called flightor-fight decisions. Our conscious mind is too slow to handle them.

Let us go back to the incident of you watching me here. The problem arises if your conscious mind does not make a direct decision. If you have had past experiences with other persons wearing saffron robes, you will have engrams about that experience. You will not bother to see who this person is. You decide based on that memory, 'No, with that Master I suffered like this; with some other Master, I suffered like that.' It will be a generalized memory. You make a decision based on your past collected samskaras.

That is where we create trouble. When decisions are made with a straight understanding, there is no major problem. However, most of the time we collect and react based on engrams that are unrelated to each other.

For example, you see someone wearing a white dress. You may have been hurt in the past by someone wearing a white dress. The moment you see a white dress, the memory comes back even if you don't want it to. If we are abused or disrespected in a house, the memory comes up automatically the next time we visit that house, even if the person who did it is not there. We experience the same feeling, feel depressed and go into a low mood.

We connect and associate things with places, with triggers, with memories and put them into memory files. We are not able to work spontaneously. We must rely on some technique, some method to reduce our processing work. Naturally, we opt for some kind of arrangement in our memory. Consequently, we miss out on real life.

Only in the first few days of marriage do we respond spontaneously to our spouse. Then within the first few months of living with our spouse, we form a clear idea about him or her. After that, we don't live with our spouse. We live with our imagination of the spouse. We live with our understanding of him or her. After that, whatever our spouse does is wrong. We come to a predetermined conclusion that the spouse is always wrong. If our spouse does something right, we say that it happened by mistake.

After a few months, we come to a conclusion about the other person. We create an engram related to them

based on our judgment. After that, we judge whatever he or she does through the filter of the engram, or engraved memory. Sometimes we create engraved memories in our system based on experiences that others have or from media influences.

A small story:

A funeral procession slowly makes its way down the road. A man is walking two bulldogs as he moves along ahead of the body of the dead woman. There's a long queue of people following slowly behind him.

An onlooker observes the number of people in this procession and thinks, 'She must have been a famous woman.' He approaches the man with the bulldogs and asks, 'Who is the dead lady?'

The man replies, 'She was my mother in law.'

The onlooker asks if the two dogs were the dead woman's pets. The man replies, 'No. They attacked and killed her.'

'Killed her?' the onlooker asks. 'Yes,' says the man. The onlooker asks, 'Can I borrow the dogs for two days?'

The man points to the people following him and says, 'Join the queue.'

We have collected so many memories that we never relate to people as they are. We only relate with the preconceived memory we have of the person.

People ask me, 'Master, is our life pre-destined or open to free will?' The more engrams we have, the more our life is pre-destined. This is because we will go along the same route. The fewer engrams we have, the more freedom we enjoy.

The number of samskaras determines whether we have free will or if our life is pre-destined. For example, the file travels to the ego, and the ego gives the decision, and we execute it. If there are more engrams, the file travels to every table like in a bureaucratic office. Each engram stamps, puts its signature and writes its opinion.

Take the example of attending at this discourse and seeing me. One engram says, 'I had a Master in my life. He was a blessing. He helped me a lot. I think I should sit here.' So this engram signs, 'Yes, I will sit here.' The next engram says, 'I read in newspapers that these Masters do this or do that.' There is enough written in the press, especially in South Bharat, where being abusive to Masters is fashionable. So, the second engram signs off saying, 'doubt'. Then the file goes to the next table, and the third engram says, 'I attended his discourse yesterday. What he says makes sense, I think I should sit.' This engram signs, 'yes'.

The file reaches the ego. Ego comes to a conclusion based on all the 'yes' responses and all the 'no' responses. Yes or no is not a problem; however, we have wasted so much time and energy in this small decision. For example, when we sit in our office, not doing anything, just sitting and worrying, we become stressed. Within fifteen minutes, we have pain in our shoulders.

Worrying about simple decision-making leads to shoulder pain. The more engrams, the more restless and rajasic we will be.

People with many engrams never relax. People with stress cannot sit quietly. So much physical movement and physical restlessness is due to many decisions taking place inside their unconscious. This space between the buddhi and ego is the unconscious mind. Because we do not know what happens here, we don't know how many blocks are here. It is like an Hindu Government office. There may be three hundred tables occupied by people who must sign off as a bureaucrat to approve a decision. The file must move through three hundred tables to get approved. When it will move, who will sign what, and what the final result will be, neither we know nor God knows.

The conscious zone is like an honest office. I don't know what example to give of such an office! I don't think there are any relevant examples. This is a straightforward process and politics are not involved in the conscious area. Politics starts in the unconscious area.

According to the data collected at the conscious level, we know smoking is injurious to health. According to simple, straightforward data that we have assimilated, we know smoking is injurious to health; however, when the time comes, suddenly many decide to smoke.

How does the file take such a quantum leap? How is the decision totally changed? When the file travels to the unconscious area, engrams say, 'No, no! The last time I smoked, I felt really good, I felt relieved from all the stress.'

If we want to eliminate stress, wear a tight shoe instead of smoking. When we wear a tight shoe, we forget other worries. Smoking and wearing a tight shoe are the same. By smoking, we try to forget. By creating bigger problems, we try to forget the smaller problems. The same applies to wearing tight shoes. If we wear tight shoes, we automatically forget smaller worries.

Here, in the unconscious area, all the past memories reside: 'I smoked. I felt good. I felt relieved. All the stress disappeared.' We suddenly make a decision that we did not want to make because of these unconscious memories.

We make countless decisions based upon engraved memories. We repent and suffer later on. Suddenly we shout and after ten minutes, we repent. 'Why did I shout? I always wanted to keep a smiling face. I wanted people to acknowledge that I have a smiling face. Why did I shout?' We repent. We made a sudden decision. We reacted suddenly due to these engrams.

We will see later how engraved memories disturb, torture and twist our decisions*.* Krishna says that we should ask our being how we missed the reality. Why are we deluded by engraved memories?

Krishna speaks of sattva guna samskaras that lead us to bliss and peace, rajas guna samskaras that lead to restlessness and violence and tamasic samskaras that lead to depression. He further explains how these samskaras influence our decision-making process.

Let us say our radio suddenly stops working properly and we simultaneously connect with frequencies from three channels. One channel is playing an advertisement for a cosmetic product. The second channel gives instructions for farming. The third channel is playing a comedy drama. It sounds like this to us, 'Please spray a little bit of pesticide. After that wipe your face clean. Now brush your teeth properly and put on a little more pesticide. Finally jump up and down and laugh flailing your arms and legs.'

If we try to execute decisions based on these mixed, crosswired instructions, we end up in difficulty. Similarly when we try to work with different types of engrams, sattva, rajas and tamas and all three cross each other, they create hell in our lives. Please understand that intelligent people collect arguments to arrive at a judgment while most of us collect arguments to support a preexisting judgment.

If we look into our life, how many times have we accepted mistakes? Of course, to even look into our lives and see how many times we have erred needs intelligence. We usually react out of arrogance or guilt. We say, 'So what if I made a mistake?' We brush it aside. This is one kind of attitude, the attitude of might is right. The other is suffering from guilt.

Please understand that an unintelligent man never feels guilty. Of course I tell you to drop your guilt as well. That is in a different context. Only an intelligent man who thinks of dharma (righteousness) suffers from guilt. Only he feels guilt. A person who only lives and feels at the instinct level never feels guilty. An Arjuna or a Yudhishtra feels guilty. A Duryodhana will not feel guilty.

A person at the intellect level suffers guilt. Someone at the level of intuition goes beyond guilt. He understands the truth as it is. Krishna speaks of how to handle these three gunas properly and use them to the maximum. Getting the maximum out of them is an intelligent process.

A small story:

A young child swallowed a coin and was taken to the doctor. The doctor used different methods to no avail. The nurse also tried, still the coin didn't come out. A friend standing nearby made an attempt without success. A passerby observed this and offered his assistance. The doctor asked, 'What can you do?' The passerby said, 'Give me one moment.' He spoke to the child and came back smiling with the coin. The surprised doctor asked, 'I am a doctor. I could not take the coin out. How did you do it?'

The passerby said, 'I am a con artist. I can extract money out of anybody.'

Krishna gives tips and techniques to get the maximum out of the three gunas. Before entering into these three layers of engrams, samskaras related to sattva, rajas and tamas, let me illustrate how we are caught and how these

engrams work. Then, we will enter into each technique.

These are the seven energy layers of our body-mind system. These are seven parts of our being. The first is the physical body, our flesh and bones.

Next is the pranic layer, the energies of prana, vyaana, udaana, apaana, and samaana, or the five air movements that take place in our body-mind system. The third is the mental body. This is where inner chattering continuously takes place. A continuous recorder goes on as inner chatter inside us whether we are standing, sitting or doing nothing. Sometimes we open our mouth and chatter. At other times, we close our mouth and continue to chatter. Whether we open our mouth or not, talking continues. This is inner chattering or the mental body or chanchala, which means inner movement.

The fourth is the etheric body. This is the space where our intense emotions and painful experiences are stored. Usually intense emotions are of pain and suffering. We do not know any other intense emotion. If we do, we are a spiritual person.

When we look into life, we see that pain gives such an intense feeling. When we are depressed or in pain, we become intense and our whole mind is centered. Our mind does not move towards anything else.

Have you experienced bliss to the same extent or depth that you have experienced pain? No, all we know is pain. We cannot intellectually understand the three bodies beyond the etheric body. They can only be experienced spiritually through meditation.

The pranic layer is the body filled with desires. Mental body is filled with 'I should have' or guilt feelings. The etheric body is pain. Understand these three. Desire, guilt and pain are the feelings of the experiences stored in these layers.

When emotions, desires and feelings arising out of these three attributes are pure, they are called sattva, rajas and tamas. Usually, they are impure. They are mixed with each other. We should know how to purify them. If we can purify our desires, we will be liberated. Please understand that we cannot live without desires. We can only cleanse and purify the desires, directing them

towards the right path. Without desires, we can't breathe. Even inhaling and exhaling cannot happen without desires. We cannot live without desires. Desires must be handled properly. Desires must be straightened. That's what we need to work towards sattva.

Next comes guilt or rajas. Our restlessness is created by thoughts like, 'I should have done that.', 'I should have lived like that.', 'Because I did not, now let me do it.' 'I should have reacted in a certain manner; however, at that time, I did not have the intelligence. Let me teach him a lesson, I know what to do now.' This is how restlessness or rajas operates.

The third is pain. Whether we do right or wrong, we know how to make it painful. Whatever it is, we know how to create suffering through tamas.

The first four mind-body layers are influenced by the three gunas. The mind cannot experience the remaining three layers beyond the fourth level. They can be experienced only through meditation. In the fifth layer, the causal body, we sleep soundly without dreams. It is called karana shareera, the energy layer that we experience during deep sleep. The sixth layer is the cosmic layer, filled with joyful memories and the seventh is the nirvanic layer or the bliss body.

Just remember the first four layers of physical, pranic, mental and etheric energy. That's enough, because we will work only on these. Krishna has already spoken about the physical layer. Now He works on the other three gunas - sattva, rajas and tamas. Sattva is the second layer of prana, rajas is the third layer of manas and the fourth layer is the etheric layer of tamas. In the next chapter when Krishna explains about the other layers we will understand those.

As I was saying, sattva is related to desires and the prana shareera. When our desires change, our prana flow or our airflow changes. For example if we are caught by lust, or an intense desire, our inhaling and exhaling becomes intense. The prana going in and coming out increases. With any desire, the prana flow totally changes. If we are in a silent, peaceful mood, the prana flow will be so mild, we will not know prana is flowing.

Understand that this pranic shareera is filled with desires. What should we learn about sattva, about this pranic layer?

Whether we believe it or not, we are Gods. We are pure Consciousness. Whatever thoughts we create in our pure Consciousness gain power. This space exists in all of us and is called Self, atman, or inner Divinity. Whatever thoughts we create in this space, the deeper they are, the more power they get from this Consciousness. It is like placing a slide in front of the bulb in a slide projector. That slide becomes reality on the screen. This inner Self is also light and any slide we create in this area becomes reality in the outer world.

But, the problem is we create self-contradictory desires. We suffer with our desires because of this. Whether our desires are fulfilled or not, the resulting suffering is inevitable. If the desires are fulfilled, there

will be emptiness and if they are unfulfilled, there will be restlessness. In both cases, we move towards tamas. Why?

Why should we suffer because of desires? First, understand self-contradicting desires. For instance, if we want to get rid of a headache, normally we create an engram that continuously says, 'I should get rid of this headache. I should get rid of this headache.' We think the same word constantly in our unconscious. By continuously thinking that we want to get rid of the headache, we will never be able to get rid of it. When we repeat a word, in this case 'headache', we give power to it. The headache intensifies instead of disappearing.

It is a subtle understanding. Whatever words we repeat unconsciously become reality in our body, mind and in our world. It is because we have power to give life to any word. If the words 'Let me get up and go', come to our mind, with those words, immediately our body will move, we will stand up and go.

One word can make us do whatever we want. Words that appear in our mind are important. Words that appear in our mind are mantra (sacred sounds). When put together, all the words that appear in our mind form our life, especially the words that we repeat unconsciously.

For example, if we observe what happens when we brush our teeth in the morning, our mind is somewhere else. For example, when we are in a shower, the mind is elsewhere. Sometimes we sing. Especially when we take a coldwater shower, we automatically sing to divert our mind. Cold water showers and singing are closely connected. Since nobody is watching us in the bathroom, we talk or sing freely.

Sometimes people even argue with themselves loudly in the bathroom.

One man was standing near the bathroom when his wife came out. He asked, 'Who were you arguing with?'

She said, 'I was talking to myself.'

He asked, 'Why were you arguing?'

She said, 'I know what I was doing, so stay out of it.'

He continued, 'I can understand that you were talking to yourself, but why were you arguing with yourself?'

She said, 'You know me. I don't accept stupid logic. That is why I was arguing with myself!'

We play games. We continuously talk without knowing what's going on. We utter the same words when brushing our teeth everyday of the week. The moment we brush our teeth, we have the same trend of thoughts. When we shower, we have the same type of thoughts. If we observe closely, we will realize this.

Thoughts that we repeat unconsciously are more powerful than words we use consciously. We create many thoughts, so many samskaras that are self-contradictory. 'I should get rid of this headache' is a self-contradictory thought. When we repeat those words we remember the

headache as well. By remembering the word 'headache' again and again, we bring back that memory and we bring back that headache into our mind. How do we expect to get rid of the headache then?

If we constantly repeat, 'I should get rid of this headache,' we bring that memory back every time we utter the word 'headache'. We bring that whole file of suffering back to our mind. How can we get rid of that headache? Instead, create a samskara such as, 'I should become healthy' again and again. Then we can remember the idea of health.

Whatever mantra or word we use, that dhyana or meditation automatically happens in our unconsciousness. If we use the word 'headache' again and again, we will be meditating on headache again and again. If we use the word 'health', again and again, we will be meditating on health again and again.

That is why in all meditation, in the dhyana of gods, we have dhyana sloka. Before meditating, we recite a dhyana sloka, the invocation verses. In these verses we verbalize what we wish to visualize.

Verbalization of visualization is the dhyana sloka. Now, if again and again we verbalize the word headache, headache, headache, what do we visualize? We visualize the person who gives us a headache, or what we feel like when we get a headache. We will continuously visualize the headache scene and that mood.

Whatever we visualize again and again will be inscribed

or engraved in our memory, in our inner space, in our inner being. If we have a disease, please never create and repeat a word that carries the name of the disease. For example, never say, 'Let me get rid of this heart problem. Let me get rid of this diabetes. Let me get rid of this high blood pressure. Let me get rid of this headache.' Use straight words, not selfcontradictory words. If we have pain or an illness, use words like 'Let me become healthy.' Words create a visualization and energy of what we want to happen.

Always use these words, 'Let me become healthy.' Never use words like, 'Let me get rid of this back pain.'

Never use self-contradicting engrams. The more we use self-contradicting engrams, the more we engrave that disease into our inner space. The more we engrave, the more powerful they become. Please do not abuse the inner space or iccha shakti (power of creation). The pranic layer is our iccha shakti. It has energy to make things happen. It has energy to fulfill our desires. Do not waste iccha shakti by creating self-contradicting thoughts or selfcontradicting engrams.

Self-contradicting thoughts corrupt our whole sattva space. When you go home today, spend just ten minutes to do this exercise. Sit for ten minutes with yourself and write down the thoughts that come to your mind regularly. Then see where you are creating selfcontradicting engrams and edit them, clear them. Don't bring self-contradicting thoughts into your mind.

The latest research shows that when psychiatric diseases are analyzed and publicized, millions of people

across the world immediately start suffering from that disease. As long as we don't name the disease, people don't suffer from that disease even if they have it. The moment we inform them that these are the symptoms of the disease, this is what the disease is called, everybody thinks, 'I am suffering from this disease.'

Many people in good health experience symptoms of illness described by medical studies. Almost all of us feel giddy at one time or another, more often if we tend to get angry easily. This does not mean that every attack of giddiness relates to a blood pressure problem. Many people wake up sweating in the night. It does not mean that they are experiencing heart attacks. Yet once it is drilled into them that these are symptoms of dangerous diseases, they become neurotic. They turn into hypochondriacs. They become nervous wrecks.

This is a dangerous game. We should not let words created by pharmaceutical research companies about various diseases create doubts in us. This idea, 'I think I also have this problem,' gets created when we listen to disease reports and commercials. Immediately we create an engram that says, 'I have this problem; I should get rid of it.' By the time we repeat these words ten times we have the problem.

We continuously allow ourselves to be exploited by what we hear and see. People who don't know the truth of the mind and consciousness are influencing us. All these problems arise because they do not know that pure joy of inner space is possible.

Let me make a bold statement that no medicine or chemical can help our mind. All anti-anxiety medicines, all anti-depression medicines are consolations. First, we visualized that we suffered from depression and now we visualize that we have taken some medicine.

Let me share another important secret. It is a business secret. Many people say, 'Master, some person has done some black magic on me. Some people have laid a spell on me. Someone has put an evil spirit behind me. Some evil being possesses me.' There are many people who exploit this fear in others, cashing in on this fear. All negativity has only one power, our faith in it.

All negativity such as black magic or evil or demonic acts, has only one power and that is our faith in it. Our faith in them gives them power. Because we believe in them, we connect all the incidents and make trouble for ourselves. And then we struggle to free ourselves. When people come to me with these fears, I say, 'There is nothing, don't worry. There is no problem.'

Then they think, 'This Master is young. He doesn't know much. Let's go to an older person who will give us some counter-spells, some talisman, someone who will do some exorcism and remove this negativity and remove these blockages.'

They think I don't know anything. So what can I do? I give them some talisman and say, 'You don't have to pay. Just put this under your pillow and you will be healed. You will be cured.' The talisman, the yantra, has nothing in it. I am clear that the yantra has nothing in it. The person has created an idea within him. He has this negativity. By

giving him the yantra, I create an idea in him that he doesn't have any negativity. It is like using one thorn to remove another thorn. There is nothing else.

I say to people, 'Don't think that by having these yantras something will shower from your house roof. Nothing can shower from your house roof except rats!' These are antidotes for their negative faith. They already created faith that they have these problems. Now I am consoling them. I say to them honestly, 'You created this trouble and now I am your help to undo it.' All negativity has one power, our faith in it.

If the person who exploits these fears takes money for it, that's fine, we can earn back that money. The danger is that he creates an engram in us. He creates a samskara that continuously haunts us. For anything and everything, we run to him like slaves. It is better to be caught in the hands of the ghost than in the hands of sorcerers. At least, the ghost will trouble us once in a while; however, this person will exploit us completely.

With the ghost, we have mental suffering. With this person, we have mental and economic suffering! The big problem is that not only does he take our money; he also creates an engraved memory in the form of fear in us. With every small sound we hear at night, we think, 'I think that the effects of that talisman is over. Now I must get a new talisman.'

People in this business also give out talismans that need to get it recharged! After a couple of months, we must take it back to be recharged. I was surprised: a rechargeable talisman! All we need is an advertisement!

I saw an advertisement in a newspaper. A man is standing in a pose as if he is granting blessings and he claims to be an Atharvana Veda scholar. He is continuously releasing big advertisements. I was surprised because this scripture of Atharvana Veda is not about these things. This scripture is pure science to improve our life. It is a pure science to handle our mind blissfully. No scripture teaches exploitation of others.

In fact, the first jyotisha sutra (Vedic astrology) states that intuition happens only to a person whose inner space is pure, who does not expect benefit or return in the form of money, good name or goodwill. So never go to people who engage in these mantra and yantra, spells and talismans. Also understand that evil entities have only one power, our faith in them.

Now, when we create self-contradicting thoughts, we start believing them. Especially when they name a disease in psychoanalysis, it is like the fashion business. In the fashion business, every week they launch a new dress. Similarly here, every month they invent a new disease.

By repeating that negative idea, by meditating on the symptom, we start creating that symptom in us. It is a dangerous game. Don't be caught in that game. We disturb the sattva, the pure space of our being, by creating self-contradicting thoughts. So write down your major thoughts and desires and analyze them. Observe how many thoughts are self-contradicting. This is the first step.

Next, let us see how two desires contradict one another. We want to lead a peaceful life and we want wealth. With wealth comes responsibility as well. Either decide to take responsibility and be happy with that responsibility or decide to relax and accept whatever happens.

Only one thought should be strengthened when two desires conflict. When we have both, we have a selfcontradicting mental setup. In the sattva space, in the sattva energy, when we create self-contradicting engraved memories, we are automatically thrown towards rajas.

Let me describe what Krishna says about rajas. The mode of passion is born of unlimited desires and longings. This is a beautiful verse.

Krishna says, because of this, the embodied living entity is bound to doing results-based actions.

He talks about desires and longings. What is the difference? Desires and longings - raga means desire; trishna means craving, longing. What is the difference? Some memories have our emotional support whereas some memories have been inserted into our being by advertisements.

Advertisements are not only on TV or in a movie. If our father repeats something again and again, that is an advertisement. If our mother says again and again, 'This is right, this is right. This is for us, this is for you,' that becomes an advertisement. Some desires have our mental support. We feel these will give us fulfillment; we feel these are our genuine needs. Some desires have been sold to us by someone else. That is the difference between desires and longings.

Desires are ours and longings have been given to us by society. They are a social conditioning. Desires are inborn. They are our nature. If we fulfill desires, we feel fulfilled and relaxed. With longings, the moment we fulfill them, we will feel empty. This is the difference between desire and longing. Desire gives us fulfillment. Longing gives us emptiness.

Krishna shows us how self-contradicting desires lead us to rajas. When desires contradict each other, we get confused. We fall into rajas, restlessness. When the information about an object comes into our system, it passes through chakshu, chitta, buddhi and then goes to the ego. On its way, before this file reaches ego, it passes through the unconscious space of engrams that write their opinions on this file.

Let us say ten engrams write a decision saying, 'I want to sit and listen to the discourse.' and another ten engrams write, 'No, let us go watch a movie. Today is a weekend.' Ten engrams write one decision on the file, and the other ten engrams write another decision. By the time the file reaches the ego, we are confused. As a result of these contradicting opinions from our engrams, we have inner restlessness.

The more engrams, the more time it takes to make a decision. We will suffer and be in a dilemma. Man is a dilemma. Continuously we think, 'I should have done

this, or I should have done that.' Dilemma is due to too many engrams.

Dilemma is what Krishna calls rajas and restlessness. In rajas, we have tremendous anger, violence and inner restlessness. A person caught in rajas shouts at others and experiences an irritable mood. He has a poisonous tongue. He waits to vomit out his irritation and anger at others.

Once we remove the rajas engrams, we can make one thousand decisions without getting stressed. The file will go straight to the ego without interruption. To make a decision we don't need to cross three hundred tables like an Hindu Government office. There will be two or three tables. One says, 'Yes', the other says, 'Okay'. By the time the file reaches the ego, there will not be many differing opinions. It can decide instantly and send the file back for action.

The process will be easy. Making decisions will be easy and our time and energy will not be wasted. That is why Krishna says that when we don't expect the result, when we don't think of karma phala (result of the work done), we can do the work intensely.

When we don't expect or worry about the result, we work beautifully because there are fewer engrams. We will not suffer or be tortured by engraved memories.

In the next verse Krishna talks about tamas.

He addresses Arjuna, 'Oh son of Bharata, know that the mode of darkness, tamas, is born out of ignorance. It is the delusion of all embodied living entities. The results of this mode are madness, indolence and sleep, which bind the conditioned soul.' This is a beautiful explanation of tamas.

If there are more samskaras or engrams, the file does not reach the ego easily. In fact, the file may not reach the ego. A powerful engram may make the decision. It is similar to a 'non application of mind' in legal terminology.

Why does this happen? Why do you decide unconsciously and regret later?

This unconscious zone is filled with negative memories and restlessness. All our past memories and past thought patterns, samskaras or engrams, are stored in this zone as files. So many files are stored in this zone without any logical connection between them.

This is what happens. When the file takes a quantum leap to this zone, it does not reach the ego properly for a decision because this zone is where all the data that causes restlessness in you is stored. It is as if your computer hard disk is loaded with high-resolution photographs and there is no further scope to work on your hard disk. Like that, when your unconscious is loaded with past thought patterns and memories, it becomes inefficient and makes superficial, illogical decisions.

Take this example: According to data that you have collected, smoking is injurious to health. It is not good for your body or mind. You can hold onto this decision

as long as you are in the conscious level. But once the mind takes the leap to the ego, the engrams instruct you to smoke; you simply decide to smoke! The conscious process says, 'No, it is not good for health.' Yet the unconscious process just makes the decision and you execute it! It is a pure instinct-level decision.

When we have more engrams, we don't know what decision will come out. It is like a Pandora's box. We don't know what will come out since the inner space is full of engrams and samskaras. We are at the level of an animal. We act on instinct.

When there are only a few engrams, it is like not having three hundred tables for the file to have to move through. There are only a few tables, similar to a private corporation. This is the human level or level of intellect.

When there are no engrams, there will be no need for the file to drop into the unconscious zone for a decision. It straightaway meets the buddhi and ego after the mind. There are no blocks. The time taken for the unconscious process will be less than the conscious process. We will be intuitive or at the level of God.

The level of an animal is the level of instinct; the level of man is the level of intellect; and the level of God is the level of intuition. The level of instinct is the level of tamas; the level of intellect is the level of rajas; and the level of intuition is the level of sattva.

In sattva, our mind works continuously and we make decisions, yet we do not become tired. We can be active for twenty-four hours and yet remain peaceful. This is what I call action in inaction and inaction in action. Krishna says we will be centered when we are in sattva. Though lots of activity go on around us, we will remain utterly relaxed.

The whole thing is dependent on one thing: our engrams or engraved memories. The number of engraved memories determines whether we are caught in sattva, rajas or tamas. These three are not enlightenment states. Enlightenment is beyond these three.

If we are caught in tamas, we need to move towards rajas. If we are caught in rajas, make the move towards sattva. If we are caught in satva, it will automatically lead us to enlightenment. How do we do this?

Krishna speaks of tamas. 'Know that the mode of darkness, born of ignorance, is the delusion of all embodied, living entities. The results of this mode are madness, indolence and sleep which bind the conditioned soul.'

For example, we create a self-contradicting desire in the sattva level. Because of that we create restlessness in the rajas level. When we feel too restless, we drop everything. We decide not to take any responsibility and we sleep instead. We fall into tamas.

Tamas is not only sleep or depression. Not taking enough responsibility is also tamas. For example, we are in tamas if we studied to become a doctor and we do not practice our profession out of laziness. If we don't practice for some other reason, that is fine. However, if we are avoiding because of laziness, we are in tamas. Don't drop out from anything due to tamas. If we drop out because of a spiritual reason, that is different. Some people drop out to meditate, go on a pilgrimage or to do spiritual work. That is fine. However, we are caught in tamas when we drop out due to laziness or for no reason at all.

Dropping out due to tamas means that we don't have enough energy and we cannot make a responsible decision. Why? Too many engrams block our decision process. By the time we make one decision, we feel tired and want to sleep. That is why we attempt to escape from life. Escapists are tamasic people.

14.9 The mode of goodness conditions one to happiness,

Passion conditions him to fruits of action, and ignorance to madness.

14.10 Sometimes the mode of passion becomes prominent, defeating the mode of goodness, O son of Bharata.

And sometimes the mode of goodness defeats passion, and at other times the mode of ignorance defeats goodness and passion. In this way there is always competition for supremacy.

14.11 When the light of Self-knowledge illuminates all the senses (or gates) in the body,

Then it should be known that goodness is predominant.

14.12 O chief of Bharata, when there is an increase in the mode of passion, the symptoms of great attachment, uncontrollable desire, hankering, and intense endeavor develop.

Krishna further explains the three modes.

'Oh Bharata, sometimes the mode of goodness, sattva, becomes prominent, defeating the modes of passion and ignorance, and in other times, ignorance defeats goodness and passion, in this way, there is always competition for supremacy.'

All of us are not completely caught in sattva or rajas or tamas. We swing between sattva, rajas and tamas. We go from this end to that end, and from that end to this end.

Sometimes we get up in the morning and feel fresh. We feel as if all our questions are answered; we are fresh, alive and we think we have become almost enlightened. Everything goes beautifully until evening. Suddenly we become restless. Next day, we are in tamas. We don't want to do anything. These mood swings take place continuously.

Obesity and mood swings are closely related. When we allow these mood swings to happen, we torture ourselves. Sometimes we are restless, sometimes we are peaceful and sometimes we are in tamas. When we are in tamas we don't want to do anything. We want to escape from everything; we want to dump everything and run away. We are caught in these three modes of nature: sometimes in instinct, sometimes in intellect and sometimes in intelligence.

Why? Why do we have mood swings?

This happens if we have collected too many saṃskāras about something over many years. For example, we have many engrams about drinking if, from a young age, we were repeatedly taught not to drink and that drinking is a sin. This raises our curiosity and we are tempted to taste alcohol at least once. Never give a law to children. Instead give them understanding and the spirit behind the law.

If we want to bring up children blissfully, we need to bring them up without guilt. Laying down rules without understanding leads them to breaking the rules. Breaking rules creates guilt. Guilt is the worst imaginable sin. To give understanding, we need two things. First we need to be intelligent enough to understand the meaning behind the rules we are trying to enforce. Next we need patience to explain it all to them. Even though it takes more time and energy, focus on giving them understanding.

Never give rules if you want people to follow them. If we give a law, they will do the opposite. Furthermore, we cannot even predict that they will do the exact

opposite. Even though it requires time and energy, take time and raise children with understanding.

People complain to me, 'Master, in these modern times, there is no time. My daughter goes to school. I have a job. How do we find time to make her understand?' I say, 'Why did you give birth to your child if you don't have time to bring her up? You should have become a sannyasin like me!' You should have decided earlier.'

This incident really happened.

A mother brought her child to me and said, 'Master, please advise him. Please ask him to obey me.'

I was a little disturbed and was not keen on giving that advice because I myself didn't listen or obey my mother when I was young! How could I give that advice? But we know how women are. When they decide, they do not take 'no' for an answer.

She continued, 'Master, you must advise him.'

I tried to escape two or three times, but to no avail. Finally I called the boy and gently said, 'Why don't you obey your mother? I am also obeying her right now. Why don't you listen to what she says?'

You will be surprised to hear the boy's reply. He explained, 'Master, she is not happy. If I listen to her advice I will become like her. Why are you asking me to listen to her?'

I was taken aback. He was speaking the truth.

I somehow convinced him and sent him away; however, I was not convinced. He said the truth. If the mother was unhappy how could the son follow her advice?

In the near future, children will sue parents if they don't bring them up properly. They have already started. Kids who are depressed or in prisons claim their problems are due to their parents raising them improperly. Instead of bringing them up, they brought them down.

Before deciding to have children, become enlightened. That is the only qualification we need. Unless we are clear as to how to guide them, we should not plan to have children. The world is populated enough. We have brought many billions of people to planet Earth. If we can't provide food, medicine and shelter to those already here, why bring in more people? Where is the place? Where are the resources?

If you decide to have children, have the intelligence to give them understanding behind all that you tell them. Whatever you give in the form of understanding gets recorded in the sattva layer. This understanding becomes intelligence. Whatever you give as a rule and command sits in the rajas and tamas layer. Even if it is good advice, don't give it as a rule. If good advice is given as a rule, it creates an aversion in them. When these parents bring their kids to me, they force them to touch my feet. I say, 'Never do that. This is your greed.' These parents think that they and their children get puṇya or good credits by touching my feet. They impose this idea on their kids, an idea based on their greed.

By forcing the kids, they make the kids hate me. Some parents push their kids' heads down to my feet, as if they will receive positive current from my feet. I ask these parents not to force them. Namaskar (joining your hands in respect) is more than enough. By forcing them, they make the kids hate me. The next time these kids see the orange robe, they will weep, 'Oh, now we must do all this exercise.'

Never enforce rules on kids. We are suffering from rules given to us by our parents. The rules given by our parents are in our rajas and tamas. They lead us to restlessness and deep depression again and again. They create more and more trouble for us.

Desire and guilt are two forms of the same energy. One is related to the future. The other is related to the past. Desire is related to the future. Guilt is related to the past. 'I should have done that' plays a major role in our 'I should do this.' 'I should do this' is determined by 'I should have done that.'

Guilt that is created by rules handed down to us by our elders creates hell in our life and leads us to tamas. Krishna says we are led to antaha (the end). We fall into ignorance or into the end.

Krishna says the manifestations of the modes of goodness can be experienced when all the gates of the body are illuminated by knowledge. This is the technique. The gates of the body are the gates through which we receive knowledge or information: eyes, ears, nose, tongue and the sense of touch or physical pleasure. These are the files through which we receive information from outside. He says that we should keep these five carefully guarded by prakāśa (illuminated knowledge). We should ensure security at these gates and knowledge is that security.

We should have knowledge about what should be taken in and what should not be taken in. Knowing this, we will reside in sattva forever. We will reside in bliss forever. He says we should appoint a guard for the gates of our body. There is no security system for our body. We have security for our home. If someone breaks in, automatically the call goes to 911. Every neighborhood posts notices saying, 'This neighborhood is being watched by this detective or security system.' In the USA, there are many security systems for a home where people spend only ten or twelve hours per day. People spend a maximum of twelve hours at home and they spend the other twelve hours outside the home. We reside twentyfour hours every day in this house called our body, yet we don't have a security system.

Ramana Maharshi sings a beautiful homage to Arunachala Hill in Thiruvannamalai in Arunachala Aksharamala, 'When these thieves, the five senses, have entered into the house, Oh Arunachala, were you not at home? How did they enter?' He asks Shiva, 'When these five senses entered the house, were you not there? Why did you let them enter?'

Krishna says, let us have the security, the protection of knowledge in the five gates, and we will reside in continuous bliss.

This means that we should not allow thoughts that create suffering into our mind or through the eyes and other senses. This means avoid TV. At least do not watch programs that create depression. We should only watch programs that give joy and that make us blissful. We should never watch anything that makes us cunning, gives us suffering or makes us feel violent.

When we protect our senses with sattva, we will not allow negative engrams to come in. People immediately ask me, 'If we don't know what is happening in society, how we can live?'

Any important or urgent news will reach us through somebody. We are not living in an island. Moreover, by gaining knowledge of criminal activities through media, what can we do? Newspapers carry the same news everyday. Most of it is about murder, rape, theft, and accidents. The only difference is the city or country where it takes place. Instead of reading the news everyday, we can predict what is going to happen and where. Why do we want to read and verify? Only the place and numbers vary.

What difference will it make to our life? If the people who handle the situation know about it, that is enough. When we imbibe continuous knowledge of this kind of information or news, we create engrams. It creates fear strokes and suffering. If we continuously read about kidnapping, once our husband or kid is late a few minutes, what happens to our being? We keep worrying. We become restless. If something wrong happens, we will suffer only on the day when it happens. However, when we create engrams that generate anxiety, we suffer everyday. Can we stop it from happening and if we can, how?

If we can stop it, no problem; then it is intelligence. Whatever can stop this worry from happening is intelligence. But most of the time we collect these engrams that we can neither stop nor do anything with. We suffer, suffer and suffer. We put ourselves into rajas and tamas again and again and again.

Please do not infuse your consciousness with thoughts that create suffering in you. Continuously add thoughts that give bliss and peace. We may think this is impractical. How can we live in society without knowing what's going on in the world? Be very clear, knowing what's going on in the world is a disease. Collecting information is a disease. The other day, someone said, 'Master, we should watch television to get an idea of the culture.' However these TV shows are trash. They are nonsensical. The more we watch, the more we follow negativity.

Watching TV shows creates engrams in our unconscious mind about the standard of life. I tried watching TV but could not watch for more than five minutes. I said, 'Enough, otherwise I will lose my enlightenment! Traditionally we believe enlightenment

cannot be taken away, but now I think TV can take it away. Enough.' Ramakrishna says beautifully that we belch the smell of that which we eat. What we take in via the television is a form of food for the senses. If we continuously see and listen to these negative things, we belch all that negativity into our lives. We set unreasonable standards for ourselves based on what goes inside us.

Life is much too valuable and too short to be spent worrying. Do not allow thoughts that create depression, low mood and longing into your system, especially in sandhya time. Our ancient Masters knew that sandhya time, when day and night meet, is a critical time. There are two sandhyas, dawn and dusk. Our Masters knew that whatever thought seeds are put inside our being at sandhya come out as full-blown trees. That's why the Masters insisted that at sandhya one should spend time in a temple, praying, listening to prayers, reading devotional material or meditating. These spiritual ideas go inside as seeds and become a valuable tree in our life.

These days, we watch TV at sandhya. We put all the trash inside like in a trashcan and the next day we get the smell. Never put negative samskaras inside you.

Protect your senses twenty-four hours a day. If you cannot, protect yourself at least during sandhya. Sandhya is the one and half hours of clairvoyance when day and night meet. In Bharat it is 6:00 – 7:30 in the morning and evening, at sunrise and sunset. This period varies from country to country. During sandhya we should not allow negative engrams to enter our being. Whatever enters our being during sandhya exists or radiates throughout our life. Krishna gives this one advice, this one technique because this is the way we can turn it around. Using this technique we transform and the cognitive shift happens.

As of now, the cognition happens in our mind based upon our negative engrams. If we change the input, if we move our mental setup into a different energy or vibration, the cognitive shift happens. We process data with positive engrams, with a positive base.

Krishna gives one technique, one suggestion. Protect the five senses from negative ideas and infuse positive ideas through the five senses. Whatever we feed upon becomes our being and we radiate that energy. Spend sandhya in a good way. Meditate at home. If you don't meditate, go to a temple or church and do something spiritual. Recite a stotra, say prayers or do some good work instead of wasting time and adding negative engrams. The more negative engrams we put inside, the more we move towards depression.

The more money we deposit into the bank, the higher our bank balance. The more negative engrams we have, the more depression we have. Our Masters knew where man would collect positive engrams and where man would collect negative engrams. They created many spaces where man could collect positive engrams and protect himself. Please understand this one suggestion from Krishna and let us save our body with pure sattvic security. Let us experience bliss.

Krishna explained earlier that when one is aware, one is in sattva. Now He explains what happens to someone in rajas.

Krishna says that attachment, greed, craving and restless action are indications of rajas behavior. This fits most people, but it fits most aptly anyone in business or a corporate career.

Greed is the corporate creed. Every employee will be told the sky is the limit, even if they spend their entire life behind one small table in a dark and dingy room. They may not even have a window to look out at the sky. People who recruit and train employees call themselves Human Resource Specialists. They use motivation as their only tool. What is motivation?

The whole idea of motivating someone is ill-motivated. To motivate someone, we must hold a carrot in front of him or her. Then the carrot becomes the goal. If we are donkeys, we follow the carrot. If we have any intelligence, we realize the carrot will always be dangled in front of us just out of reach.

Even if the carrot is within reach and is eaten by the donkey, will it be satisfied by one carrot? Never. It will ask for more carrots. That is why the man who drives the donkey is clever enough to keep it out of reach.

The donkey runs after the carrot in restless action. It cannot stay still. The carrot is so near and yet so far. So how can it stay still? This is the story of our corporate friends. Business people complain, 'Master, business is so tough. No one is honest these days. Everyone is a cheat. I cannot trust anyone. I am experiencing financial losses. I do not know how long I can afford to continue. Please advise me.'

They are smart. They do not say, 'Please help me.' They say, 'Please advise me.' Then I am caught. If I advise them to do something, they can hold me responsible. They can come back and say, 'Master, you told me to do that. It did not work. Now please help me out.'

I tell them, 'If business is difficult, you cannot trust anybody and you are making no money, what is the point? Stop doing business. Close your business. Relax.'

They explode, 'Oh my God, Master, how can you say that? What will I do then? How will I live?'

On the one hand, they say that they are losing money. On the other hand, when I tell them how to stop the losses, they ask how they can live. What kind of a drama is this? We may laugh, yet each of us is in this kind of a drama, a psychodrama of our own making.

We are like a wind-up toy. We have been fully wound and each time the spring relaxes something inside winds us up again. We are like that battery bunny in TV advertisements. We move continuously. We cannot rest. We think this movement is the purpose of our life.

Our life has no purpose. There is no goal to life. Living itself is the path and the goal. If we are aware, in sattva, we enjoy the path. We enjoy the journey. We do

not care where we are going, so long as the path is enjoyable. So long as we enjoy the path, it is the right path and our destination will be right.

Instead of enjoying the path, we worry about the goal. We worry about when we will reach, where we will reach. In the process, we do not notice how we are traveling. We miss the beauty of the path.

When we torture ourselves with worrying about quarterly results, how can we enjoy work? If we do not enjoy work and work becomes a chore and a torture, how can we perform? How can results be achieved?

On the other hand, whatever needs to happen will happen if we stop worrying about the carrot or the goal, and enjoy what we do. When we enjoy our path, we will enjoy our work. Whatever destination we reach will be the right destination.

That is why people who are successful are passionate about what they do. They do not care what happens in the end as long as what they do is enjoyable. If we are passionate about what we do, we enjoy what we do. Whatever we do will be wonderful, successful and we will benefit.

However, as long as we struggle, we suffer even if we make money. The goal that we are chasing will be a mirage, an illusion. As soon as we reach that goal, we will be forced to chase another. We will not have a minute to pause, to rest and enjoy what we have achieved. Acquisition becomes the goal, not enjoyment.

We can never be happy in rajas. It drives us like a donkey until we are exhausted and collapse. We need to decide whether or not this is the way we want to live. Ask: Do I wish to be a donkey driven by a carrot dangling in front of me all my life? When we decide, 'No, this is not what I want,' it is time to break away from rajas and move towards bliss.

14.18 Those situated in the mode of goodness gradually go upward to the higher planets; those in the mode of passion live on the earthly planets; and those in the mode of ignorance go down to the worlds below.

14.19 When we see that there is nothing beyond these modes of nature in all activities and that the Supreme Lord is transcendental to all these modes, then we can know My spiritual nature.

14.20 When the embodied being is able to transcend these three modes, he can become free from birth, death, old age and their distresses and can enjoy nectar even in this life.

Krishna provides the key to liberation here. Those who go beyond the three gunas, beyond the activityproducing attributes, become free of bondages and enjoy bliss in this world. This is the assurance of the Master. This is a guarantee.

These words are a great technique. Step one is when we realize that each of our activities arises from one of the three gunas: sattva, rajas and tamas. Step two is the understanding about which guna it is and exactly what that guna is doing to us. Step three is to move out of that guna into the sattva guna. Finally we transcend out of sattva guna into nirguna or no guna.

Whatever we are doing, whatever is happening to us, we need to become aware of the attribute, the guna that is driving us. If it is a fantasy, we work out of tamas. If it is fear and greed, we work out of rajas. And if we are unattached and undisturbed by all that is happening around us, we act out of sattva.

Many psychological systems are offered as solutions to relationship problems. In one of these, people are supposed to act out of one of three modes: adult, child or parent. The adult is nonjudgmental, the parent is critical and child is defensive. The training teaches which role we act out of most of the time and shifts us into the adult frame that is considered to be the right role.

In theory this is a reasonable system and takes into account the influence of conditioning upon us. If brought up by critical parents, someone remains a child all one's life. One would constantly look for appreciation, or at the least, a lack of criticism. Just because some people express in the critical parental fashion doesn't mean they are being good parents at that time. In fact, their parent mask hides the defensive child in them. The control freak aspect of being a parent is a powerful response to being controlled as a child. So one becomes a 'parent' part of the time, trying to control those that they can control. At other times, one becomes a defensive child with those whom one fears.

Moving out of either role requires de-conditioning from samskaras, the embedded memories in our unconscious. This is difficult to do at the conscious level and dangerous to do at the unconscious level. It needs to be done at the superconscious level through meditative practices such as we do in our NSP courses.

What do I mean by this? We've talked about the samskaras that are engraved memories buried in our unconscious. They drive us through one of these attributes (gunas). We think and act out of one attribute or a mixture of attributes. These thoughts and actions when repeated again and again furrow the samskaras, or its subtler mindset, vasanas, deep into our psyche. Conscious, logical and analytical procedures cannot easily identify them, let alone remove or repair them. That is why so-called catharsis processes that aim to rid us of negative emotions give only temporary relief. The basic negativity remains buried.

Unconscious, or what is mistakenly called subconscious processes, can open up and reveal the samskaras. However, we have no control over the process, nor does the expert who supposedly helps us. It is a Pandora's box and once opened what happens is out of our control. Processes such as creative visualization, hypnotic regression and self-hypnotic suggestions can be extremely dangerous. It is not that they do not work; they do. However, we have no control over what happens. This is why the proverb: Be careful of what you wish for, you may get it; and surely, you will regret it.

We get more than what we bargained for. It is like the customer who walks into a restaurant and orders everything on the menu. When he is about to walk out, they give him the bill. Can he justify that he did not order the bill? When we order the food, we ought to know we will get the bill. Yet in the case of unconscious processes, we do not think about the bill. We go on ordering. When the bill comes, we are in for a deep, unpleasant experience.

A few devotees used these processes and even taught them. They told me how dangerous these are. They had not understood why these processes were dangerous until they went through our meditation programs. They knew bad experiences had resulted, yet did not know why. When we discussed these cases, they understood what had happened.

Visualizing consciously or unconsciously does not take us out of rajas and tamas. We can be dragged deeper into

the fantasyland of tamas. The only way to move into sattva and dissolve samskaras is to move into a superconscious state through meditation. There is no other way that we can achieve it ourselves. Superconscious visualization carried out in a systematic way can dissolve samskaras, the engraved memories, and burn out our vasanas, the mindset that is developed through these samskaras. It is the only way. All other techniques do only one thing; they make money for those who promote them and put those who are seeking help into deeper trouble.

So first become aware of your thoughts and actions. Identify which guna they come from. If it is a fantasy, rooted in tamas, drop the fantasy and move into the present reality. The problem that you face is that fantasies are more interesting than the way you lead your lives! That is why you prefer to stay in fantasy and out of touch with reality. You need to realize that you are operating out of sheer ignorance and this will not help you in any way. This realization and awareness that will help you move out of the zone of fantasies, can only come as a result of meditation, which leads to selfawareness.

Similarly, we are driven by rajas when we run after something that attracts us or run away from something that disturbs us. We need to realize that this is a vicious cycle: this cycle of attachment and aversion, of greed and fear. More and more of what we desire will give us less and less happiness. Unless we turn and face what we are afraid of, the fear remains rooted. Again, meditation is the key. It leads to the awareness of this vicious cycle and helps us stay detached.

Through repeated practice of meditation techniques, we can burn out our samskaras and shift out of the gunas that we are currently rooted in. We can move into a state of nonattachment by dropping the emotional load of our memories. We can be cleansed of negativities and unblock and energize our chakras through meditation. That is the key.

In our first level meditation programs, called Ananda Spurana Program in Bharat and LBP or Life Bliss Program overseas, we teach meditation techniques to energize the seven chakras, our energy centers. The first session focuses on the heart center, anahata chakra. The meditation used for anahata chakra, the Mahamantra, is an extremely powerful meditation. When practiced regularly, this meditation helps us radiate unconditional love through the energized anahata.

I advise those who have done this first level program to use this awakened anahata to improve relationships. Whenever anyone interacts with us and we interact with others, it is from one of the energy centers. Each chakra has its emotional basis, which is blocked or energized depending on its level of awakening. The anahata is blocked by attention need. Most of the time we desperately seek attention from others. We are unhappy without approval from others. We still behave like a child seeking approval from the parent. When the anahata is energized, we radiate love unconditionally. We are no longer dependent on others to approve us. We do not

need a smile from someone to make our day. We have our reservoir of smiles to sustain us and to give others to enhance their lives.

Irrespective of which emotional state someone approaches us with, whether anger, greed, fear, worry, attention need, jealousy, ego or discontentment, respond with an open anahata. Respond with unconditional love. That is all we need to do. We soon find others responding to us from their anahata.

This is not easy at first. It is especially difficult with those whom we really love, ones we are close to. It is easy to put on a mask and a smile and pretend to radiate love to those whom we hardly know. It is easy to love the world since the world does not have a face. It is difficult to love our neighbor who has a face. It is more difficult to open up unconditionally to our spouse. Yet that is where the payoff is.

Our muladhara chakra, the root center, is all about survival instincts. It is the root of all our fantasies, our tamas. Greed, lust, anger and guilt arise from a blocked muladhara. When the muladhara is energized and unblocked, we move out of tamas. We move into reality. When someone approaches us from a blocked muladhara, it is with greed, anger and lust. We can still respond with unconditional love from our anahata.

When the swadishthana chakra is blocked, it is the root of all our fears and insecurities. Manipuraka chakra is the seat of worries and stress. Anahata is blocked by attention need, the desperate need for approval. Vishuddhi chakra is blocked by jealousy, ajna is blocked by ego and sahasrara is blocked by discontentment. We can recognize the blocked energy center a person approaches us from, by understanding the emotions they approach us with. However, it doesn't matter. We have the choice to respond to any approach with our awakened anahata.

Someone in the Hollywood film industry told me that all movie story plots are based upon one of these chakra emotional blocks. It is not merely our real life that is affected, even our fantasy movie life revolves around the chakras! To understand the chakras and their emotional blocks is to understand our gunas. And to understand our gunas is to find the way and to open the door to bliss.

Q: How do we develop spiritually? You said we are eccentric, that we try to keep moving inwards and are dragged outwards. What is the way to keep going inwards?

This question is important. This realization that you need to go inwards and that you have a problem in moving outwards is enough to keep you going inwards. The sheer awareness that the outward journey will not fulfill you and that it will only mire you in ignorance and drag you into depression will keep you moving towards the center.

We can talk about how the move to the center can be accelerated via techniques; this is unnecessary. The realization to move to the center is more important. The

grace, guidance and influence of a Master will make the journey effective. The journey of a disciple is the safest possible journey to the center.

Man is born as a seed. The fragrance is there, although it is hidden, unmanifest. The seed must grow and become a tree. The seed must wait for spring, the awakening. One day, suddenly the seed becomes a tree and the fragrance is released.

To be a disciple means that you are falling as a seed into the soil of the Master. You are dissolving yourself in the soil. To be a disciple requires enough trust so that one is ready to die. The seed must die before it can grow into a tree. So the first need is trust in the Master, trust in Existence.

The second need is to continuously grow in every possible way. People remain stuck. They go so far and think, 'This is the end. There could be no more to life.' There is no end; life is an eternal pilgrimage. The deeper you go into it, the more you will encounter mysteries. The more you know, the more you will be wonderstruck. Much more has to be known. It is an unending process.

So the second thing to remember is: keep growing. Grow in love, bliss, and in meditation. Grow in all possible ways - in sensitivity, awareness and creativity.

The third thing is the waiting. Impatience is a hindrance. Make every effort to grow; however, let the expansion and flowering happen in its own time. Nothing happens before the right time and one never knows when the right time will come. Wait for the spring. Flowers cannot be forced to come out of the trees. They come when they come. Spiritual flowering is not a process that can be forced. It requires patience.

If these three things are fulfilled, the day when your fragrance will be released is not far away.

Let this sink deep into the heart; this is fundamental to spiritual progress. Once we feel that God cares for us, our anxieties disappear and anguish simply dissolves. The deeper we feel God's love, the more and more open we become. Fear makes us closed and love makes us open. God's love means that the whole Existence loves you: the sun, moon, stars, trees, and people. From all directions love is showered upon you.

Start seeing it and feeling it. When the sun's rays fall on your face, remember it. When the lake reflects your face, remember it. When the fragrance of the flowers reaches you, remember it. Remember it as many times as possible, in as many situations as possible so that it becomes a constant phenomenon, an undercurrent in your life. It will give you roots in the Divine. It will make you rooted, centered, and it will help to easily and effortlessly dissolve the mind with all its problems.

Entering into the path is a Divine decision. It is not yours. It is God's. There is an ancient saying: Before a man decides to seek God, God has already decided to seek him. Without His decision, our decisions are impotent.

Only when He decides, our decisions have power enough to become fulfilled. Our decisions are always wavering, always divided. Our decision is at the most a majority decision, a parliamentary decision. However, that which is in the minority may become the majority tomorrow; and that which is in the majority today may not be in the majority tomorrow. Our decisions are unreliable; they are not total.

When God decides in our innermost core, the decision and commitment are total. The involvement is irrevocable. We cannot go back. The decision is bigger than us. It possesses us and we become overwhelmed by it. Only then is true discipleship born. Without God deciding for us, our decisions are of little value.

Remember that this is God's decision on your behalf. You are a medium, a vehicle for His decision to be fulfilled in life. Then things will start happening with such intensity, depth, and speed, that one remains constantly in surprise at what is happening and why it is happening, because we don't feel ourselves worthy enough and yet it happens anyway.

Blissful effort is needed for growth. Ordinary effort won't do. It must be blissful. The moment effort becomes blissful it is almost effortless. It is effortless effort when it is blissful. When it is not blissful, it is a strain. And one can enter into the world of God only in a deep, restful mood. Hence, the seeker must fulfill a paradox. He must make efforts, certainly; he must be industrious. But his effort must be a special kind of effort. It must be effortless. There should be no strain or tension in it. It should be more like play than work.

One should enjoy it. One should not do it like a duty. One should make it a joy unto itself, as if one is unconcerned about the result. The result comes whenever we are ripe. There is no need to think about it.

It comes of its own accord. Existence is fair and just. It gives what you deserve. There is not a moment's delay. If you don't deserve it, it doesn't happen no matter how much effort you make.

Right effort is effort that is not an effort. It is joy, play, love and bliss. Then miracles start happening. We are entitled to miracles, yet we never fulfill the basic condition. This is the basic condition. Then miracles are as ordinary as everything else.

The Master appearing is a summons. It is God calling you. It is good that you heard it!

People are deaf and blind. Although they appear to have ears and eyes, they don't listen; they don't hear. And God goes on calling. To hear Him means a radical change in life. You can't live the old way. All priorities change. That which was important before becomes unimportant. That which was never important before becomes important. What was life before is no longer life and what was not even in your dreams becomes your existence.

Seeking is a call of God. And everybody is called! Sufis say that if one hundred people are called, only ten hear. Ninety never hear. Only ten percent act and respond. Nine never respond. That's why there are so few people whose existence can become a proof for God. So few people are full of the light and perfume that is beyond this worldly life.

All beauty is rooted in truth. Without truth, beauty is false. Unless it is part of truth, it is a dream, a fantasy or a projection. The poet lives in dreams. His vision of beauty is not that of truth. He creates his beauty. He is inventive. The seer does not create truth. Truth cannot be created. We can only discover it. It is already there. But the moment we discover truth, great beauty explodes within and without. The experience of truth makes us beautiful and transforms the whole experience into splendor.

That is the difference between the poet and the seer. The poet dreams about beauty. The seer experiences it. The poet remains far, far away. He speaks about beauty; however, it is only about beauty. The seer speaks beauty; it is not about beauty. He talks the truth. And truth is necessarily beautiful and good.

Meditation is a way to discover truth. Then beauty is discovered automatically. Beauty follows truth like a shadow. Existence can be lived in two ways: as prose or poetry. These are the two possible approaches. We can live it as logic. Then it is prose. Or we can live it as love. Then it is poetry. We can live it as mathematics. Then it is prose. We can live it as magic. Then it is poetry. Only if we live life as poetry, do we discover God.

You can not realize God with logic. And without God, there is no meaning or significance in life. Life becomes a burden. One lives because one must live. One lives because it doesn't feel right to commit suicide. One lives because one cannot gather courage to commit suicide.

One drags. One does not really live. One slowly dies because there isn't any thrill in the heart without poetry. There are no adventures. All is mundane. Nothing is sacred. Temples disappear from our life. There are only shopping malls. The bank balance and power and prestige are there but something in the deepest core of our being remains unfulfilled and empty. Life becomes a wound that becomes bigger and bigger everyday.

We want to drown it in work, constant worry, alcohol, shopping or sex. We want to drown the memory and feeling that something is missing. Yet we cannot drown it. It keeps knocking on our door and haunting us. It is something so essential that it must be fulfilled.

Jung used to say, 'In my whole life's practice I have observed that the patients who came to me after their fortieth year were not in need of psychological treatment. They needed some sort of religion. They needed some sort of meaning in their life.'

However, psychology cannot provide meaning. It can provide a certain adjustment to society, but society itself is neurotic. To be adjusted to society is to be neurotic. It is to be acceptably mad. Einstein has said that a genius is one who has escaped society's conditionings. So true!

Psychology can help us accept the drudgery of life, the routine and the dullness. However, it cannot help us transform it. Jung's insight is correct. In Eastern scriptures, the need for spirituality arises at age fortytwo. Just as at fourteen, the need for sex arises, at fortytwo the need for spirituality arises. If it is not fulfilled, we feel uprooted. It can only be fulfilled by spirituality.

There is no need to argue for spirituality. We don't argue for music: either we like it or not. Nobody can prove the beauty of music to anyone. You either like a rose or not. The rose either appears beautiful or not. Just because the rose isn't beautiful to someone doesn't mean the rose loses anything. But by denying the need for spirituality, a person loses a great chance to be in communion with nature, with God and their own divinity.

Ordinarily man is a slave to his unconscious instincts, a slave of his biology, a slave of his mind: it is a multidimensional slavery. This whole slavery must be destroyed from the roots. Only then will the consciousness rise in all its beauty and glory, in all its light and fragrance.

All the awakened ones followed the path of meditation. Be watchful. By being watchful, the territory of the unconscious, tamas, is reduced everyday. The more conscious we become, less territory of our being is in the unconscious zone, and less is in tamas. One day when we are one hundred per cent conscious, the unconsciousness disappears. And with that disappearance, biological, physiological and psychological slavery disappears. All kinds of slavery exist in the unconscious. By cutting the unconscious, we cut the very root. The key to selfmastery is meditation.

14.21 Arjuna inquired: O my Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature?

14.22,23,24,25 The Blessed Lord said: He who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present, nor longs for them when they disappear; who is seated like one unconcerned, being situated beyond these material reactions of the modes of nature, who remains firm, knowing that the modes alone are active;

He who regards alike pleasure and pain, and looks on a lump of earth, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike, who has abandoned all resultbased undertakings - such a man is said to have transcended the modes of nature.

With great clarity the Master tells us what to do. He uses specific terms that cannot be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Krishna explains the nature of one who has transcended the three gunas, one who has gone beyond his natural attributes. He explains what we need to do to become a trigunarahita, to become liberated from the influence of the three gunas.

One who is beyond the three gunas is unaffected by the play of the three attributes. He is beyond the play of emotions. Whatever happens is right for him. Success and failure mean the same. Friend and foe make no difference. Poverty or richness has no influence.

Such an attitude of total detachment requires one thing: complete trust. When we trust that whatever happens is what needs to happen and we accept whatever happens as it arises, we are totally detached. Then whatever happens will be right. Such trust can only come from surrender.

I tell my disciples that because I have no home, every home that I visit is my home. Anywhere and everywhere I stay, whether it is under a tree or out in the open, is my home. Four walls, a door and a lock do not create a home for me. People ask why I wear jewelry or different kind of clothing. What difference does it make? This body itself is not mine. This skin is not mine. What difference would it make if I wore this or that?

There is neither attraction nor aversion. Just as people admire the clothes or accessories on a mannequin, I admire the clothes and jewelry on this body. They have no connection with me.

Every movement I make is at the order of Existence. I cannot move a finger without the permission of that Universal Energy. That is why when people talk about God, it is a concept to them, a theory to prove or disprove. To me it is reality; it is the reality of my existence every moment. When people look at themselves, the 'I', the identity, drives them. To me, that identity is not real. 'I' do not exist.

When we are one with Existence, one with nature, nothing affects us. I walked tens of thousands of miles barefoot across the length and breadth of Bharat. People ask, 'How is it your feet are so soft, not calloused and broken as ours would be if we walked barefoot even ten miles?' If we trust nature, nature looks after us.

When I lived at Tapovan at approximately 17,000 feet in the Himalayan Mountains above the starting point of Ganga, I wore only this two-piece clothing even in freezing winter. When we trust nature, cold and heat do not bother us. There are documentaries recorded by scientists showing how Tibetan Lamas pass an initiation test. They wrap themselves in wet clothes and sit in the freezing snow. They pass their test if they are able to dry their wet clothing by the heat generated through their meditation. They use meditation techniques to accomplish this; however, that is only part of the reason. The major reason is their trust in nature.

Pain and pleasure are part of our conditioning. During my parivarajaka days, I happened to visit a village in Central Bharat. I came across a strange characteristic in the lives of women there: painless delivery. The women used to enter huts specially built for that purpose. There were no cries and no shrieks. They went in alone, needed no help and simply came out smiling with a baby. I was surprised! When I asked an elder how it was that they had no pain and did not need a doctor or midwife, he did not understand my question. 'Pain?' he asked, 'What pain? Why should women feel pain at childbirth? It is a celebration.'

We create pain and pleasure through association, through conditioning. We create greed and fear through association. Our samskaras, our conditioned memories, create pain and pleasure.

Light and darkness, good and bad, right and wrong are based on conditioning. Our conditioning, the civilized education and refinement tells us that a person dressed in a particular manner is acceptable in society and another dressed differently is not. When such a statement is made by a global figure, such as Churchill calling Gandhi, a halfnaked fakir, many people take exception. But most people

behave the same way. We may not say it as strongly or as impolitely as Churchill, but we discriminate based on our upbringing. Otherwise we would not have a system of the untouchables in Bharat. This has nothing to do with religion or Vedic culture. No scripture ever said one person is inferior to another. All scriptures affirm that every human being is a spiritual being. All of us carry the seed of divinity in us.

So how can anyone quote scriptures to justify the unfair treatment of another person? When Krishna says, vasudeva kutumbaha, 'Let the world be your family,' there is no exclusion, none at all. When He says all, He means ALL!

Our conditioning, our upbringing, should be called 'down-bringing' since it drags us down and does not raise us up. Our conditioning inculcates these negativities in us. This is how society ensures its survival through controlling us with fear and greed.

Our NSP meditations are designed to dissolve our conditioning, our embedded memories. At the end of the four-day course in Bharat, which is a two-day course overseas, people fall at each other's feet with no differentiation of age, gender, wealth or class. Their negativities disappear and, at that heightened energy occasion, all that one can see is the Divinity in others. I have seen fathers-in-law fall at the feet of their daughters-in-law, something nobody would believe in the context of Hindu culture.

paarthaaya pratibodhitaam bhagavataa naaraayanena svayam vyaasena grathitaam puraanamuninaa madhye mahaabhaaratam advaitaamrutavarshineem bhagavateem ashtaadashaadhyaayineem amba tvaamanusandadhaami bhagavadgeete bhavadveshineem

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

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

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

Vasudeva Sutam Devam Kamsa Chaanura Mardanam Devakee Paramaanandam Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum

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